Mazama

It isn't as difficult as you would think, because you level up ridiculously fast when solo. My solo character reached level 20 before I completed half of quests available. And the game's difficulty is heavily front loaded. Once you're past the early game the difficulty melts away, and you'll still breeze through the game at high levels.

More loot from boarding ships, more crew exp by sinking ships. It doesn't matter much tbh.

Backstabs with 2h melee weapons mostly. My damage with FoD backstabs went from 300+ to around 240. My sneak attacks with an arquebus dropped from around 270 to 200.

Reloaded to an earlier save to complete a couple of quests that were bugged. I noticed a new high level enemy ship, hullbreaker cannon was buffed (didn't see it in the patch notes), stealth damage is greatly reduced, and high level combat is still easy. Soloed the final boss. PotD with upscaling and Galawain's bonus. Its pretty much the same fight, but you'll want high penetration. Edit: The final boss' grab attack animation glitches out sometimes causing it to get stuck. Old ruin has a few extra enemies. No changes to old ruin boss.

60 hour full playthrough and a 20 hour solo run. Good game, much better than the 1st game at launch. Not as good as a fully patched PoE with expansions. The graphics and sounds are great. Quests are a mixed bag: the side quests are good, but the main quest is too short and boring. The new companions are okay. I didn't like the characterization of the returning party members. Combat was very unbalanced and way too easy even on the highest difficulty. My playthroughs were fairly buggy: imported save issues, disposition wonkiness, and random crashes after being patched. I'll probably play it again when all the dlc is released and it's fully patched.

Eld Engrim visited my monk. 3 crew members visited my bleak walker. Rum dumb Reggire, an impulsive dwarf, and a fearless shield-sister.

"Some of us are lost to him... They'll always be a part of him." Later, you have the option to tell everyone at the palace that you can feel yourself within Eothas when they discuss finding Ukaizo. I guess it could be a bugged dialogue option and was only suppose to appear if you decided not to merge.

You got most of your soul back not all of it. Some small fragments became part of Eothas. You generally know where he is because of your connection with him, similar to a soul twin. The hazanui said the RDC were going to follow you there. Maybe it's the same for the other factions.

I doubt they would follow you onto your boat because of the implication.

Only you know where it is. You either found that bronze dial with the exact location, if not you follow your soul fragment within Eothas.

You can get the good ending to every other quest without gaining any benevolent rep. Help some huana dude solely to screw over the Vailians, while cruelly mocking him and his tribe: +1 rep rank immediately

I wasn't a fan of Obsidian's mmo-style across the board balancing in the previous game. I prefer BG2 where you have powerful characters vs. powerful enemies. It feels more epic than using slow characters with tiny bonuses and a bunch of mediocre abilities. I don't mind most of the changes, but some seem poorly thought out. Was nerfing stuff that was already bad really necessary?

Xoti originally wanted to keep the souls until Eothas returned to the Beyond. Harboring them is messing with her mind, so she eventually has to release them or go nuts. You need Xoti around if you want to collect all the lingering souls, since some of them won't follow you.

A few of these sequences don't work while solo. - can't dive for the cornett of depths - can't enter the well near the engwithan titan - can't ambush the archers near crookspur mostly unrelated: you can fire cannons at sea creatures without any cannons, costs nothing and you can kill the beasts. Used the Fonferrus.

3. You can have maxed good and bad reputations with a faction. I kinda miss the flavor titles for reputation, like merciful brute or champion. 9. I massacred the pirates after stealing their ship, wiped out the VTC headed by Alvari, and assassinated the queen. The RDC showed up to give me a pat on the back for the last one. No comments on the other factions I purged.

My bleak walker resolved the sidequest peacefully by threatening to murder everyone involved. I think handing in evidence of a plot against Bardatto would ruin any chance out a peaceful outcome. I only chased out the sailors for Valera before doing the meet up.

​Nemnok, because his boss fight was fun. Abydon took a meteor to the face for the sake of kith, so he's alright in my book. Eothas would be okay if his plans didn't involve starting wars or potentially causing the apocalypse. Woedica is my least favorite, because she's just a bitter old crone shaking fists impotently while saying nasty things. When she's not trying to devour the souls of infants to become relevant again. Rymrgand would make an interesting antagonist, because he comes across as fairly menacing and competent. The other gods are intimidated by him and he figured out Eothas' plan quickly.

It's behind a hidden wall

Where do you find all of this out? Modwyr comments when you first meet Ydwin that she feels very similar to a dargul. Ydwin tells you she severed her soul's connection to the wheel. And she needs luminous adra, which is full of essence. She nearly panics if you decline to let her join you. In the 1st game, an engwithan fampyr in Od Nua did something similar and fed off the statue to stay sane.

Ydwin is basically a fampyr. Her detached soul is "possessing" her dead body. She only looks alive because she's consuming essence to maintain her appearance.

Using smoke veil with a melee weapon for backstabbing works inconsistently and the damage isn't very impressive.

A bleak walker mercenary from the living lands, upgraded to minor noble in the Dyrwood. Became a holy slayer of Berath after Eothas stomped on everything she and her fallen comrades had fought to create.

Yeah, I picked scaling up only and had no skulls. Up scaling doesn't seem to have any real impact on difficulty tbh. I think it adds 3-4 levels to lower level encounters, so if you're level 15 and enemies were originally level 6 they would scale up to level 10. If it's even working, because it's not really noticeable.

Awakening is caused by a traumatic trigger, like Aloth and his abusive father. Becoming a watcher is caused by an event that disrupts the soul. The PC became both after surviving a biawac and encountering Thaos during a ritual. Most awakened are not watchers, but being a watcher increases your chances of awakening. Being an awakened watcher leads to insanity if you can't get your previous incarnations to not drive you nuts with their baggage. Anyway, the watcher is special. Their soul is "heavier" and more intact than others, it shines brightly enough to attract wayward spirits, and being able to commune with spirits is something very few can do. I agree that there's less opportunities to use your abilities, especially from side quests. It would be nice to have more quests that involved your gifts, like finding secrets, solving murders, etc.

An arquebus doesn't trigger combat if you kill the target and reenter stealth before you're detected. And if you reenter stealth fast enough you can skip reloading and keep firing. Basically you can instant kill several enemies without retaliation. Using dual sabres would cause enemies to enter combat mode, so I only use them against the rare enemy I can't 1-shot. So far the only things to survive an arquebus crit, aside from pierce immune enemies, were eotens and Nemnok. Most enemies in the game have maybe 100-150 hp at most on potd, and a crit from dragon's dowry does around 200-400 damage.