Stuurminator

This one's been done, actually.

If companions really do react to your dispositions (and I was under the impression they do), then part of the problem might be that her dispositions are very easy to hit. Maia likes self-sufficiency and resourcefulness, for example, but virtually everything a player character does is self-sufficient or resourceful in some way, so depending on how generous the developer that tagged the dialogue and CYOA segments was feeling that day you could rack up a ****ton of admiration in five minutes.

They're hidden in the beta to avoid spoilers and because the beta doesn't use them. They'll be easy to find and switch in the full game unless Obsidian deliberately hides them, and there's no reason to do so.

Who knows, she could be Deadfire's Calisca. Seemingly pretty cool companion that gets offed in the introduction Either that, or she'll transition into your first ship crew member. She looks like a sailor to me. In fact, she reminds me of that cut sidekick who drank a lot, but "never at sea".

This. Real-time multiplayer is fine. Turn-based multiplayer is workable. Real-time-with-pause multiplayer sounds like it would induce a stroke.

Why does Cruel not fit? Is he (it) not the merciless winter god? The Cruel dispositio really requires you to be pointlessly vindictive rather than simply ruthless.

How can you be so sure of that? I need evidence.

I generally never mod games for my first playthrough; however, when Fallout 4 first came out, I knew I had to get the mod for a full dialogue interface. This opened the door for me to download other mods to also help my immersion. This included nude mods; not for titillation, but for realism (I in fact had to go out of my way to get nude female bodies that looked like they fit in the game, or nude male bodies at all). I didn't go out of my way to expose that nude flesh either, so it only came into play on three occasions (minor spoilers for a two-and-a-half-year-old game, I suppose): When I was fighting some gunners, and one had apparently spawned with armour but no regular clothes, so he had a chestplate and greaves strapped on over his naked body. The best part was that I could tell he looked odd from a distance, but it wasn't until I got closer that I could confirm, yep, that's a **** flopping around. It was pretty cool, as a one-off occurrence - like I'd stumbled onto the post-apocalyptic General Buck Naked. When I was skulking about the basement of a raider den and stumbled upon a pile of corpses, stripped of all valuables and non-valuables. I think it was slightly more effective that the corpses were naked instead of clad in their underwear, but in the grand scheme of things it didn't make that big a difference. When I had finally entered the Institute and was exploring, I came upon the lab where they actually create their synths. In one of the game's few actually impressive setpieces, you can watch a synth being made in real time - the machine first crafting its skeleton, then muscular system, then skin, then dropping them into what I assume is some sort of vat. Once this is done, the synth strides out of the vat (with no inventory, of course) and into another inaccessible room to do off-screen NPC things. The room is full of workers, but no one even looks up or says anything to the new synth, because why would they? Hundreds, if not thousands, of synths are created in the same way every single day. The entire process is so sterile and dehumanizing that I found it very effective, but this sterility and dehumanization only worked because they were striding out completely naked, both denied privacy and the acknowledgement of such. It wouldn't have worked nearly as well, if at all, if I'd seen that synth stride out of the pool with a pair of whitey tighties. I guess what I'm saying is, characters should be naked if it makes sense of them to be naked. It helps me immerse myself in the world, even if I only see naked people once or twice throughout the game.

I thought I'd be playing the underage girl in the army jacket and engaging in ephebophilial relations with much older men, possibly even incestual. Instead it was about gays, gross

I have a more fearsome prediction: To prevent bugs, pathfinding is unchanged from the original game.

The best part about this approach is that they can make traps much more consistent than in the original game. Now, if you set a trap and an enemy triggers it, it's instant perma death for the character that set it.

Being naturally unfamiliar with the world of Eora, my first character was conservative in concept: a patient, goody-goody human tank, which I figured I couldn't get "wrong". Instead she was so boring I abandoned the game about an hour from the ending. My current character is a orlan cipher because I believed that combo would get the most class- and race-specific conversation topics. It turned out to be much fewer than I thought, but I'm still interested in the fluff I have in my head (former galley slave who sent the crew overboard, endlessly curious to the point of irresponsibility). Cipher is also a good fit for me because I'm deathly ill with the "what if I need it later" disease and frequently end up making camp with characters hovering around 0 health but their entire suite of daily spells uncast. I never create myself in RPGs. I find the thought of it stifling.

My guess is that, from a player's standpoint, they're likeable in a way that's good in small doses and doesn't wear out its welcome. More is not always better, and sometimes a superficial but charming character can provide a nice counter-balance or even be the most likeable character in their own right.

I'm using this portrait myself, so I thank you for the watercolour! But it also makes me curious: off in what way?

I honestly think that's a bit too pessimistic. While some people definitely will look for any excuse to be angry, I think most players can understand that some party members will always have more content than others. If a player takes a liking to a sidekick and spends the entire game with them in their party, I can see them being disappointed not to get a quest for them, but I doubt there'll be a meaningful outcry over it. Possibly, but I suspect sidekicks are used for concepts that work best in small doses. Some characters are legitimately more likeable as ancillary figures than they would be if they had a larger role.