Mari

I have no data on this, but I get the feeling that most people want to do the "good" or "right" thing and there is no faction that complies with that. So I think that is why the loner ending got big numbers this time around really. Just speculation though. I went with the loner ending, and it definitely was not because of inertia or cuz I didn't care about what happened to the people there. I think the game just did a really bad job of convincing people that we should side with one of the factions. Without meta knowledge, how would my character know that going alone will descend the entire region into chaos? And without that knowledge, how can I justify my neutral good character becoming an assassin/terrorist for factions I think are bad? VTC wants to strip mine natural resources and snort souls, the RDC are imperialists who want to assimilate everyone, and the Huana treat their people like ****. I cant diplomatically come up with a peaceful solution between the three, and I cant butcher all of VTC/RDC and change the entire Huana culture either. The game basically forced me into the lone path because it gave me zero reason to hand over the lost city to any of the three factions*. As far as my Watcher is concerned, she is only going to talk to Eothas. What happens after is on them, not me. (*I admit that this could be just cuz of the broken quest lines. From the comments in the forums, it seems like I missed a bunch of stuff due to doing things out of order.

Yes! I love this exploit! Me and Serafen have a routine going. My Watcher distracts them while he pickpockets and steals everything not nailed down.

Thanks for making this post. Its something I was wondering about as well. From my experience, I would also suggest not visiting any of the islands until you finish going through Neketaka or get a specific quest to go there. I made the mistake of exploring first and finished so many quests before I even got them. It completely ruined the story and absolutely nothing made sense. This is how I plan to do it next playthrough. Port Maje > Deadlight > Dunnage > Go back to Deadlight when pirate lady sends you the letter > beeline straight for Palace > Talk to prince > Teheku > Explore Nekataka > Explore islands but only after receiving a quest for them (or they are empty loot islands) > DLC? > Hold off on Hosongo as long as I can > Ashen Maw > Finish loose ends > Go to Ukaizo

What a cop out! They should have had her attack you no matter what excuse you gave.

I ended up going my own way. I was a bit conflicted at first since I knew going solo was the chaotic ****ty ending, so I did consider maybe just joining one of the factions. In the end, I disliked all of them, and the choice was kinda made for me because all the ending quests require you to become a terrorist who blows up buildings and/or kills major political figures! I really couldn't come up with a in-game reason my character would agree to any of this. I'm just here to help the poor, make some money, and to stop a God, not play terrorist for some **** who cant even cooperate long enough to deal with a common crisis. I know everyone likes the VTC cuz of the animancy, but I found them to be the worst of the bunch. They sound like the personification of every real world corporation willing to kill us all so they could strip mine natural resources for profit. Like, luminous adra seems pretty vital, what with housing souls and all that, and these people wanna mine it all up and snort it???? Not to mention that they have no issue with slavery and Castor himself was dealing in slaves. I think their "profit over anything else" mentality is dangerous and it wouldn't take very much before they depleted all natural adra and started trying to make their own by killing slaves (which, as indicated by the letter you find, one of their research team was already contemplating). I had Eothas inspire mortals so I feel like the animancers will be able to figure out the Wheel even without these crazy bastards. Out of all of them, I thought the RDC where the least of the evils and the most "gray" faction. I still cant make up my mind about it. On one hand, colonialism is undeniably bad and the RDC are arrogant imperialists who think they know best. On the other, if your culture involves oppressing people and intentionally keeping them in abject poverty where they starve, am I really gonna shed a tear if another group shows up and assimilates you? Buuuuut the RDC attacked me when I said I wasn't going to assassinate the Queen for them so I had to kill them all. Oh well. The Huana have an abhorrent caste system, but I feel the most sympathetic for them cuz they are the only faction where we got to meet civilians/regular people. The RDC is military, VTC is a corporation, but a lot of the Huana we meet are just villagers who are getting screwed over on all sides. I tried to help the villagers as much as I could, but again, no way am I doing the dirty work for a society that thinks its fine to intentionally keep a whole group of people in poverty. As for the principi, they are a bunch of loosely organized pirates so I didn't even consider them. I killed the old man and replaced him with Aedlys cuz she was anti-slavery and I liked her. Plus, she was helping me smuggle food to the Roparu.

I went from the starter ship straight to the Junk. I just made no sense to spend money on the middle ships when I could just save for a little bit longer and get the biggest one. Although, at the end of the game I had so much money I went and bough the other ships just to have them and see what they looked like. I wanted to switch to the galleon since I liked the way it looks, but I couldn't decide which of my crew to fire so I just ended up staying on the Junk.

I completely agree. I really screwed myself by, you know, exploring the open world they gave us. I can only assume I missed a lot of dialogue by doing quests out of order because lots of things made no sense. Like, during the trial of Castol, Governor Alvari acts like I will support her when I only talked to her once? Also the whole thing with Alkemyr. The whole convo with him if you kill Concelhaut first is so bad. Why even create an open world if players are forced to do a linear path in order to not break the quests???

I also had Ralia Blackblosson "die", but when i went back to my ship she was still there. I guess that was a bug? My watcher was a wood elf tho, and strengthened the souls in PoE1

He turned down my elf- Did he turn you down for sex or for a romance? Cuz I think he says he isnt interested in a relationship so if you chose that option he will turn you down, but if you say you only want some fun you can sleep with him any time you are on the ship.

As far as I know Maia would be alright with you rejecting Hazanui's offer, because, uhhh, I'll hide it just in case since it's a bit spoilery. Did she talk to you at all on the huana route? Confirming that she will stay and fight (unless thats been fixed in the new patch?). It was kinda hilarious since I wasn't expecting the whole building to aggro and she had no issue helping me butcher my way out. And on top of that, her ending slide said she went back to active duty and got salutes and free drinks XD

Really? Congrats on your sheltered forum experience then. The scariest thread I've ever seen is where a bunch of gamerbros threatened to dox and murder a person cuz they said the Viconia romance sucked ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I get that everyone has their own interpretation of what a "hero" in a "fantasy" game should be, I really do. But do you REALLY think a hero who runs around getting into mortal danger on a regular basis to save the world can be a good mother? Yes, yes, we have Vela. But even kidnapping adopting her was NOT framed as the best decision. And look at what she's learning from Uncle Engrim! Except ghosts don't require any physical maintenance. I agree that having hoards of pets is a bit weird lol but still wouldn't trade my cone cat for anything, or Nemnok, or Concelhaut. Taking an infant into the battlefield is wrong though as it requires you to be a full parent. Feeding a baby and changing its diapers is not feeding a cat. Its not supposed to be a toy, but we do kind of treat it as one. But then the argument goes - its a video game so everything works, I suppose, you can't argue with that. Look, my Watcher is really not interested in being a mom, but to be fair to those who want that, we did apparently spent 5 years after the end of the first game just hanging out in our keep. As far as the Watcher was concerned, they did their duty and had settled down. Why wouldn't some players see this as a good time to have babies or whatever? Not everyone played their Watcher as this big adventurer. You can play the reluctant hero just as easily. As for the second game, if everyone doesn't get their **** together this could be it. Better pop out those bbys while there are still souls to go around. Also! If cops and soldiers can be good parents, why cant the Watcher?

Yeah, one of those artists campaigning for the game is how I found out about POE1 in the first place. Years later, shes also the reason I donated to the crowdfunding. I have a policy of waiting until the bugs are patched before buying a game, but she was really passionate about Eder and the relationship goal so I thought "why not?". Companions are a big part of gaming for me so I was excited about the "deeper relationships", plus smooching Eder and Pallegina was a bonus. I guess neither of us was expecting Obsidian to be so spiteful about it. Most of it has already been hashed out, but I was listening to the companion dialogues on youtube and heard the ones if you let Bearn live (I let him die in mine. Sorry, kid). Its one thing to make Eder not a romance, but damn. After everything, did they really have to make him ditch the Watcher no matter what you say? Even if you tell him you need his help he would still rather bug off to raise the son of a woman who didn't want anything to do with him... Low blow, Obsidian.

Currently, I like POE1 better. The story at least, since obvs the graphics and some features were vastly improved. The first game just had a story that was more personal and involved. I knew why I was doing the things I was doing. In Deadfire, I had trouble justifying why my benevolent character would even bother helping any of these organizations aside from money. I don’t hate the game, but I dont love it either. I'm gonna wait for the bugs to be patched and for the final DLC to come out before I replay it and see if the experience gets better. Pros: - Sharing skills between party (God bless I’ve been crying about this since the first game) - Sea shanties - Eothas is pretty cool and I liked the dialogue with him. - If you ignore how disconnected they are from the main quest, the sidequests are interesting. - Some of the responses you can give are really funny. Cons: - Game won’t let me smooch Eder. Absolutely criminal. - Exploration is so boring and personally I don’t even count the islands. And when you take those out the world feels so tiny since all the other areas you can enter are small. - Game won’t let me smooch Pallegina. - There seems to be less quests then the first game? - Open world is ****. I spent most of the game confused about the factions since quests weren’t in any kind of order and there was no buildup. I’m pretty sure there were story building quests and convos I missed cuz I accidentally did things out of order. - Less companion conversations (bug?? Feature??) and you can only bring 4 of them with you.

When I say "fake" I don't mean that they aren't real or that people shouldn't believe they exist. I am not denying their existence, but I don't think people should be blindly worshipping something flawed just because its incredibly powerful. People should make their own choice about whether that duck is a duck or not. And it matters, at least to me and my Watcher, because their existence is a lie created to control people. All the death and suffering that was caused by them, and for what? Because a bunch of dudes had an existential crisis? Onda almost dropped a moon on Eora not because she is omniscient, but because she can only function within the confines of her programming. And now the world is overseen by constructs who embody the ideals of a bunch of arrogant **** from 2000 years ago? Of course their origins matter. And while not everyone would believe me, some people would. They believed Iovara. I also imagine a lot of the Roparu would be interested to know that their suffering was based on a lie. I'm sure the Godlike would like to know that the Gods just see them as batteries. Obviously, since its a game I cant change the world order, but I would have liked to change some small things at least. There should have been a way to start a small underground movement within the Roparu or something. Besides, if I wanted my Watcher to be the smelly hobo shouting doomsday at random people that should be my right as a player! But in seriousness, since you reminded me of the Moon thing, they could have solved this issue with an extra two lines of dialogue in that first convo with the Gods. The Gods can tell you that if you mention it to others they will drop a house on you. And it should have been another one of those End Game moments if you didnt listen to them. Again, it would have been better then the devs just acting like this info was no big deal.