Achilles

Most people who are raised to believe in deities never think to challenge those assumptions. I suspect breaking the Wheel is a larger problem for the gods than kith. Eothas knows that kith can rebuild the Wheel; he saw them do it the first time. And Josh has indicated that modern kith are technically more advanced at animancy than the Engwithans were (Engwithans were great at moving/transferring souls whereas modern animancers have a broader range of abilities). So I don’t think Eothas is that concerned about them rebuilding the Wheel so much as he’s curious to see what they do with it. My 2 cents

There's a giant serpent skeleton in the Temple of Berath in Sacred Stair. Is it possible that not all of the giant bodies the gods inhabited were humanoid?

I can’t disagree with you until you actually make an argument. What I have repeatedly said is that you’re confused about what the plot is. You’ve said nothing to disabuse me of this.

As others have pointed out, the Watcher does have a great deal of relevance...just not when it comes to stopping a god. Which is fine with me because the objective of the game was never to stop a god. “Fail” assumes that there was an objective. There wasn’t. *You* seem to think there was and I can’t figure out where that comes from other than expectations you created.Let's just agree that you disagree with most people then. What you and a few others have mentioned as being relevant many others including myself have discarded as actually being relevant. Well, at least you felt important doing things that would have also happened without you there. I rather be doing something that was actually important. But hey, we all have different things we enjoy. You’ve had numerous opportunities to plead your case and have refused at every turn. So far as I can tell, you just want me to roll over and accept that the plot is something other than what it is just because you say so. If you’re done, that’s fine with me. If you want to persuade me that your argument has merit, I’m happy to hear you out, but handwaving isn’t going to cut it.

Eothas was more or less predictable since the first game. Eder talks about Eothas’ love of kith at every opportunity. The Great Western Stag (in-game book) should have had a spoiler tag on it. The fact that he’s here to cut the cord between kith and the gods is not a surprise; the fact that he’s going to destroy the Wheel to accomplish this is. He loves kith and believes that they are capable of more than the Engwithans believed, just as Iovara did. This isn’t an esoteric philosophical disagreement that has no bearing on anything of consequence; this is the difference between being a slave and being free.

Unintended consequences. The people of Ukaizo trying to enrich their culture but ultimately causing its destruction instead. Eothas adopting drastic measures to reveal the nature of the gods because his first attempt didn’t go as planned. It’s all over the companion quests, the conversations they start with you, etc

I did not expect that the player would fight the statue directly, that was obviously not intended by the game and conveyed properly. But a dialogue choice or an indirect way to stop Eothas is not that much of an stretch of an idea, afterall he listens to you words at times. Furthermore he was defeated by the Godhammer prior to PoE1, showing that there are means to stop a god. For example, the animancy experiments with the glowing Adra could have been used to faciliate an option of diverting Eothas. It is a fantasy RPG after all, so doing something seemingly impossible is not unheard of. I was rather taken aback that eventually not a single option was provided. To make it clear, these options do not require a fight with Eothas or his destruction or conflict at all, and i am sure the writers could have devised a thought-provoking alternative. The lack of such an alternative and therefor your inability to influence the outcome regarding the destruction of the wheel is the source of my criticism of the main quest line. For me it was not clear that this was never supposed to be an option at all. And what if the Wheel needs to be destroyed for the Pillars 3 plot? Is it better to give you a choice now that will be retconned at the beginning of the next game or make the plot about something else and never have it come up in the first place?

...which doesn’t matter because the point of the game isn’t to stop him.Yea I get that. I didn't say I wanted to. I'm saying whatever you do has no impact on what unfolds. So there is no point to you being there. That's my gripe. My gripe isn't with not being able to kill or stop Eothas, my gripe is that the only way to have impact is to stop him and you don't.I guess I’m trying to understand why you think it should. There are lots of things that you have no impact on in the game. In any game. Yet you keep coming back to this one.You're trying to think why it should matter that you were there? That whether you were there or not has no significance? So you're basically saying it's ok to be the main character in the story and have no relevance? Like not even trying to be relevant? Because that's basically what this game forces you to do. They don't even allow you to fail, you fail by default. As others have pointed out, the Watcher does have a great deal of relevance...just not when it comes to stopping a god. Which is fine with me because the objective of the game was never to stop a god. “Fail” assumes that there was an objective. There wasn’t. *You* seem to think there was and I can’t figure out where that comes from other than expectations you created.

...which doesn’t matter because the point of the game isn’t to stop him. You keep saying that, but it seems to me that there's a whole slate of people who felt otherwise. It could be that they're all just unequivocally wrong, or it could be that the point is not as unambiguously, obviously presented as you seem to insist. Yeah, there definitely are some people who manufactured expectations not based on what the game said it was, but rather what they think it should have been. They are free to do so (and thus produce their own disappointment). Doesn’t mean the game didn’t do what it did said it was going to do (and arguably, do it well)

...which doesn’t matter because the point of the game isn’t to stop him.Yea I get that. I didn't say I wanted to. I'm saying whatever you do has no impact on what unfolds. So there is no point to you being there. That's my gripe. My gripe isn't with not being able to kill or stop Eothas, my gripe is that the only way to have impact is to stop him and you don't. I guess I’m trying to understand why you think it should. There are lots of things that you have no impact on in the game. In any game. Yet you keep coming back to this one.

...which doesn’t matter because the point of the game isn’t to stop him. During the game i pretty much was under the impression that the whole point of the ordeal was to stop Eothas from destroying the Wheel. In hindsight i may agree with what you said but during the game it sounded like the destruction of the wheel would lead to a Catastrophe, so the thought of stopping Eothas comes naturally in my opinion. Whatever the point of the game is, it is not unambiguously clear until your finished with the game. Also, after finishing the game i wondered why the f*ck Eothas couldn't talk it out with me the first time we met. What was the goddamn point of waiting for me a bunch of times; just to drop his lines ? Like others said, the whole ordeal felt quite pointless. You don't even know what he's up to until Ashen Maw, which is nearly the end of the game. You *do* start off the game knowing that he has your soul and that you will die unless you retrieve it. "Hunt a god. Save your soul"

Paraphrase of what Obsidian said about part 2: “There was always going to be a sequel. If part 1 didn’t sell well, we would have pivoted to try to correct whatever was lacking, but having our own IP is just too valuable to *not* keep building products around” So yes, I think it’s pretty safe to assume that the events of Deadfire are a lead-up for Part 3.

...which doesn’t matter because the point of the game isn’t to stop him.

Old city overlook Save game: https://www.dropbox.com/s/z2bzolbu81m37y7/Niall%20%28OldCityOverlook%29%20%28e81ed790-3abe-4240-a3aa-802bc8f2f0fa%29%20%28LAX-ABC%29%20%28919040449%29.savegame?dl=0 Screenshot:

You're much quicker to accept this premise than I am. Eothas inhabited the giant adra statue under YOUR keep. The fact that YOU have a strong soul is the only thing that provides even a ghost of a chance for survival. Luckily, YOUR keep has a soulbound steward who was able to spring to action, using YOUR vast wealth to acquire a ship to follow Eothas. Thanks to YOUR previous interactions with the gods, YOU get tapped to track down Eothas. YOUR reputation influences factions leading to companions to help you on this journey, etc, etc. So yeah, sorry if I don't agree that ANYBODY could have done this, as SimonCharming suggests.

This posts makes perfect sense...if you think that the plot is to stop Eothas. As I have tried (for many posts now) to point out, it’s not. I have no reason to think one more attempt is going to add anything

I was pretty disappointed that it didn’t come up in the dev stream yesterday.

motivation != plot You do. You’re free to not follow Eothas. You’re free to try to stop him too. You’re just not free to have whatever ending you seem to think they should have given you (remembering that you don’t appear to care that they may have something in mind for Pillars 3) Right because no other RPG plop you into a specific setting, give you some objective to accomplish, then craft a main quest that you are dutifully expected to complete in some fashion in order to “finish the game”

Pillars 1: The Watcher is introduced and discovers the true nature of the gods. Pillars 2: The Watcher has encounters with the gods and witnesses an event which threatens their continued existence. Pillars 3: The Watcher (presumably) is instrumental in determining the future of the gods (and thus the future of Eora)

Except that many people seem to be confused about what the plot is. The plot is not to stop Eothas from destroying the Wheel. The plot is to find out what Eothas is doing and get your soul back. The impact on the overarching plot is that you succeed in doing everything you set out to do. If so many people are confused about what a story's overarching plot is, that story has a problem. Another explanation is that a lot of people don’t know how to recognize basic structures of storytelling, identify themes, etc. Which is fine. It’s also fine to say that this isn’t your cup of tea and that you’d prefer something else. It’s something else entirely to say that something fails to do X when it objectively does.

Except that many people seem to be confused about what the plot is. The plot is not to stop Eothas from destroying the Wheel. The plot is to find out what Eothas is doing and get your soul back. The impact on the overarching plot is that you succeed in doing everything you set out to do.

Unfortunately there's no Herald and no Scout replacement :-/ Filling the gaps with Eder and Konstanten gave me similar survivability, but wrecked my damage output. Yeah, definitely not one-to-one, but it felt like if you lost “this person” you could kinda sorta replace them with “this person”. For instance Ydwin could back up Cipher Serafen or Spellsword Aloth, and so on.

Reaffirms my theory that sidekicks exist only to act as proximate replacements for companions that you lose due to factions choices.

“Part 2’s” exist to move the story forward. They aren’t going to be as sexy as Part 1, where you get to meet everyone and find out what their superpowers are. Neither are they as satisfying as Part 3 where everything gets resolved and everyone gets to go home. “Epic journeys” are what we get when all the parts are put together. It's hard to reply to you since you're replying only to my superhero movies reference instead of this topic. But if you create an RPG without an epic journey then you don't understand what an RPG is supposed to deliver. Having a part 2 should have no effect on the individual representation of a story per game. Except I’m not. The Watcher becomes a Watcher and expands their powers throughout the first game (not necessarily referring to level-up here). Of course each segment in the story needs to have a plot to resolve, but each of those segments come together to tell a larger story.

Which two were those?