The Sharmat

Does anyone actually expect these to have more but the most shallow of impacts on the actual characters and story of PoE2? I wouldn't be too worried about it.

I'd argue the Witcher 2 and 3 are pretty much the pinnacle of the fully voiced movie like RPG. Mediocre or bad voice acting is worse than no voice acting at all though, and most games won't reach that point. Plus Pillars is too expansive and low budget to put that much into a pure presentation issue. A game like Witcher 2 is basically a political thriller/fantasy film, where as Pillars is a novel. There's no right answer there, they're simply different products with different aims and requirements. Oblivion, meanwhile, is a game that was hurt by voice acting. the low quality and lack of range added to the blandness of the whole thing. Personally what I most want out of Pillars 2 sound is a more expansive soundtrack. The only tracks i remember in a positive way from Pillars 1 are Shadow of the Sun (or the "Gods are doing something dickish in the past" theme) and Thaos' theme. I'd like for each kind of location to very clearly have its own sound, and for pivotal conflicts to actually have their own music. The fact that Thaos's fight has the same track as any other big boss battle is a disappointment. I would have expected some intimidating yet resigned and melancholy combat music using Shadow of the Sun as a leitmotif or something, there.

Well Iselmyr is a bit one note so if you don't like that note you won't like her. What about Edér though? Just a bit too non-fantastical for you? I could see how his appeal for me might actually be a negative to someone else. I like some pretty out there companions too like G0-T0 or One of Many or ME2's version of the Geth, but I can also appreciate the opposite.

Good voice acting can add a lot to a game but full voice acting for a game like this is a waste of resources. I'd rather they focus on very high quality voice acting for the core companions and any especially plot critical moments and leave most everything else unvoiced.

I've finished the game multiple times. With my first character I did the Hylea ending, but that was because it suited the character. If I were in that position, I'd have sided with Galawain/Magran/Abydon. In most cases the damage is done. I've never seen why anyone would side with Rymrygand/Ondra/Skaen besides the crazy radical fanatic types, personally. I guess the writers needed to cover every base.

Thaos has been doing this for what, 2,000 years? More? If he had any moments of weakness they're long gone and resolved. I don't think talking your way out of it would make sense for this character.

I never considered that about the Devil, or knew that about Zahua. Very informative.

What's with all the hate for southern accents in this thread? It suits the setting. Fantasy games don't all have to be voiced by Canadians badly faking an RP accent y'know. Anyway, I'll do one. Aloth Corfiser Story: Actually quite integral to the main plot, and the world building around awakenings. However the twist of his character and his leaden key associations takes way too long to be relevant, and some important conversations with him in the late game have bizarre and easily missed triggers which can make his endings seem strange. 5/10 Mechanics: He's a wizard, and he's built fairly well for the debuff and status anomaly stuff. He also excels at AOE implement based builds. 9/10 Voice acting: It's the same guy that does Edér, doing three characters. The guy is good. Aloth and Iselmyr sound quite distinct despite being the same person, and both have a lot of personality with not much dialogue. 9/10 Banter: Aloth being the party butt monkey gets a bit old but Iselmyr is fun. There's a woman can do some damage when she squeezes her legs together. 7/10 Overall: 7/10, would have in party. Glad he comes back. Hope to see a lot more out of him in Deadfire, in particular if Obsidian can do what no one else has ever done and make save imports meaningful. Edér Teylecg (Where the hell did you find his last name?) Story: Edér is a down to Earth farmboy at heart, and so his story is a very human one you don't often see in these bombastic fantasy epic scenarios. He's not directly relevant to the plot, but intimately entangled with the themes the plot is used to present. What do you do, when the most important questions have no readily apparent answers? Edér just gets up and moves on. He's also the relatively rare deeply religious character that's not presented as a close minded bigot or insane fanatic, which is refreshing. 10/10 Mechanics: He's a decent but not spectacular fighter, particularly if you don't fall into the tank trap and actually make him a damage dealer. Where he really shines early game is the fact that with his unique Saint's War armor he simply will not stay down. Otherwise, he's unremarkable. 6/10 Voice acting: See above. The voice work has range and heart. His reaction upon finding his quest is a dead end is moving. 10/10 Banter: Edér always lightens the mood even in fairly dark periods of the story, and his interactions with other companions nonetheless never cross the line into pure comedy. It's always grounded with something relevant to the characters and situations. 10/10 Overall: 9.5/10. A standout NPC for RPGs and video games in general. If you want a deep character without resorting to the very alien in a fantasy setting, Edér is how you do it. Kana Rua Story: Secretly quite relevant to the plot, since the Endless Paths stuff is linked to all the shenanigans the Engwithans got up to that set up the game's scenario. However the developers seem to have been afraid to make an optional dungeon tie into the main plot too much. His central conflict is interesting enough, but little is done with it due to lack of interaction with other NPCs, or with anyone he'd recognize from back home. That said the player's influence on his endings is very subtle, complex, and well done. 7/10 Mechanics: He's a decent damage dealing chanter with Dragon Thrash but man his opening picks suck. Those skeletons are useless even if you pick him up as early as possible on hard, much less Path of the Damned. 5/10 Voice acting: A jolly fellow, with a distinctive and pleasing voice. Sadly he's a bit one note. The only emotions you get to see besides jovial curiosity are when he discovers Gabrannos, and it's over all too quickly. 7/10 Banter: More of the same. It's not bad, but it's not fantastic either. 5/10 Overall: 7/10 Durance Story: Along with Aloth, Edér, and the Grieving Mother, he is one of the companions that feels like they belong. Again, he is absolutely core to the heart of the game's plot and the theme's being presented. He covers a lot of the same ground Edér does, but showcases the absolute opposite reaction. His plot line is a lesson on how to have a character influenced by a PC without being pure power fantasy. The choices leading to his endings are well executed and logical. Mechanics: Nothing special here but he's a priest. In this game that's an automatic 10/10 Voice acting: Tied with Edér for the best acted companion in the game. The blustering crazed street preacher act works, but it also clearly conceals something deeper. The voice actor excels at the duality. 10/10 Banter: FIERY WHORE/10 Overall: 10/10 Sagani Story: Honestly has a lot of overlap with Edérs. It's nice and touching in its own way, and the "you can't go home again" theme is handled well enough. But it just doesn't shine in comparison with the others. However it is at least another example of how to show a player's impact on a companion subtly without a forced influence system or obvious binary choices. 6/10 Mechanics: Good DPS if you build her right but I'll be damned if I can ever keep Itumaak alive. 7/10 Voice acting: I like her voice. Lots of character. But she doesn't get a chance to show a lot of range. She's too often the straight man for other NPCs. 6/10 Banter: See above. 6/10 Overall: 6/10 Pallegina mes Rèi Story: You can really tell Sawyer was more focused on the game design than the writing. The core of Pallegina's story is fine, but what's in the game feels like a hurriedly implemented outline. Her reasons for joining the party are nonexistent, and her Godlike heritage rarely gets any play at all. Her personal character quest is short and hinges on a couple of conversation choices. I can only hope Deadfire salvages her. 3/10 Mechanics: Meh until recent patches. Now Wrath of the Five Suns/10 Voice acting: Fun accent. The actress does a good job of injecting range into what little she's given, and pronounces her fake language expertly. Still sounds a bit too much like the Adra Dragon. 8/10 Banter: At least she actually gets some characterization here, but it's too little too late. 5/10 Overall: 4/10 Hiravias Story: Honestly I still don't "get" the whole Autumn stelgaer thing. Maybe I'm just dumb or didn't pay much attention. Anyway, he joins for no real reason, barely raises any objections to the party regularly breaking his most intense taboo, and mostly just exists as a lore dump from the Glanfathan's perspective. 2/10 Mechanics: He's a druid. 'Nuff said. 9/10 Voice acting: Good voice, barely any range. But that may be the script's fault. 5/10. Banter: The cloaca bit automatically ending the conversation is funny. Otherwise, a bit too random monkey chease for my tastes. 3/10 Overall: 4/10, because he's a ****ing druid. Grieving Mother (Because Avellone simply cannot give anyone a real name) Story: Seemingly the most connected to the main plot of all companions, but perhaps due to cut content doesn't have as much to say about any of it despite the hefty word count in her interactions. The philosophical query over the value of memory and self is interesting I suppose, but I think it's probably been done better elsewhere. 4/10 Mechanics: Bog standard cipher. Kind of frail without power gaming. Alright at crowd control. 5/10 Voice acting: Not to be harsh, but it sounds like they told the actress to do the hokeyist TV psychic voice she could and gave her no further direction. I half expected little "OOOoooOOOOOs" to be interjected at random in between her floaty weird rants about cauls and wombs. Script as much at fault here as the actress. The imagery encases it wet, red and dripping, like a newborn, and I just want to cut the cord. 2/10 Banter: N/A. I get the excuse but ****, it just feels lazy. Even Thaos doesn't notice her. 0/10 Overall: 2/10. My least favorite vanilla companion. Devil of Caroc Story: Like the other two White March companions, she represents one way of dealing with the past. Like Maneha and unlike Zahua, her story basically feels rushed and unfinished. She does give us a new perspective on existing backstory with the Cold Morn stuff, which is nice. The basic concept of a soul stuck in a golem is interesting, but barely touched on. Her motives are believable enough, i suppose, but she lacks any reactivity to anything outside her (very short) personal quest.. I also liked that this is one of the few things in media where persuading her NOT to get revenge actually leads to a less fulfilling ending. But overall, sadly wasted potential. I kept waiting for patch notes that said "Devil's story finally actually in the game". But it was not to be. 2/10 Mechanics: She's not as bad as everyone says, especially if you give her that item that lowers cooldown times between actions and upgrade her chassis with Durgan steel. But that's about the best I can say about her. I still bring her with me all the time anyway because I just like her. 2/10 Voice acting: I absolutely love her voice. It's unique, cool, and has the right emotion whether she's giggling madly at a critical strike or breaking and describing the horrors in her backstory. 9/10, because I think objectively Edér and Durance are better, but for me, she's a 10/10 Banter: Her saving grace. Her interactions with other characters, when they come up, are always great fun. "Just a little closer, Durance..." Have I mentioned I like her voice acting? 9/10 Overall: 4/10. She's actually one of my top three companions, but looking at it objectively, she's pretty bad. Zahua Story: Represents the ideal we're supposed to take of how to deal with the past from the White March. He doesn't run from it, but neither does he cling to it obsessively. He learns what he must from it, accepts what can't be changed, and does what he can to make the future better. The story is presented well, if a bit all at once with the vision quest. He's the only White March companion that feels like Obsidian actually got what they wanted out of him. 9/10. Mechanics: I personally never quite got the hang of monks but I know he can be a real beast if you do it right, and it's fun sending him to wreak havoc in the back lines. A shame being the Anit-lei is such a crap bonus. Still, 8/10 Voice Acting: This guy's great at both the humor, the tragedy, and the philosophizing. A pleasure to listen to. One of the only times I've actually liked the wise old monk archetype. 10/10. Banter: Manages to be funny without succumbing to lol monkey chease or the temptation of lmao 420 smoke weed every day,and usually brings out something about the other characters. Pretty good. 8/10 Overall: 9/10 Maneha Story: I mean, I guess she's more fleshed out than the Devil of Caroc. Barely. Her reasons for joining are among the most nonsensical of the group. Her theme is interesting but even the Grieving Mother did the memory stuff better, and Ondra herself overshadows basically everything Maneha brings to the table thematically. She's also pretty damn easy to influence away from core tenets of her faith for an Ondrite priestess. 3/10 Mechanics: There are worse barbarian builds, but ****, she doesn't even start with frenzy. 4/10 Voice acting: This is very subjective and I have trouble judging because frankly, I absolutely despise her accent. It's like nails on a chalkboard for me. I guess she does an ok job besides that, but nothing special. 4/10 Banter: She brought the terrible black shadow of shipping to PoE. May she be cast into the fiery pit of the Bioware Social Network for eternity. 0/10 Overall 2/10. By far my least favorite companion. Weird she was written by the same person that wrote one of my favs, but that's how things go sometimes.

As a member of the anti-chainmail bikini crowd...please don't lump us in with people with ridiculous PC agendas backed up with feel good pseudoscience.

It's fine if you can afford a sword. A lot of people can't. There's far more you can do with a spear than stand in a line and poke, if you have the training.

I'm ok with SOME concessions to style if it fits the character. A hanging tabard is a bit different from boob plate. I like that detail from the artist though. I want to know what all that black wispy stuff is flowing out of the bad guys, personally.

I find it hard to believe it'll have the same requirements as Dragon Age or Skyrim. These graphics are going to be pretty antiquated.

Lances tended to be shorter than the kind of spear you could wield on foot, actually. And pikes could be wielded in one hand if necessary.

Have you played the game in question? Though I suppose as always it's a matter of taste.

I think you guys just saw the words "level scaling" and freaked out. Which is understandable, because modern games do it horribly. But we're forgetting a number of games that had VERY unobtrusive level scaling, because it was applied logically, and not at all globally. People have mentioned Elder Scrolls games: Skyrim and Oblivion were HUGE offenders in terms of awful level scaling. But then go back to Morrowind: Level scaling was only applied in a few ways in a few areas. It didn't matter if you were level 1 or level 30, Daedric ruins were always more dangerous than bandit caves, and named NPCs were always the same no matter what your level in a manner that reflected their talents. this is because the level scaling was very limited. A cave might adjust somewhat in difficulty between levels 1 and 10 and then freeze, so a level 30 character will still cut a path through it. Try and invade a temple to Cthulhu and you're still fighting eldritch horrors that will almost certainly murder you at level 1 unless you REALLY know what you're doing; because while it would scale in level as you got higher, the minimum strength of the enemies was tailored for a character closer to level 15 or above, even if they were the first places you explored. And interspersed with all this is tons of hand crafted content so that nothing feels randomly generated. This can be done right. And I suspect this is closer to how they'll do it.

Nonetheless, the outputs are lumped together despite possibly expressing more than one opinion...which by the terms of the poll are also contradictory opinions by necessity. There were other games given independent slots on your poll that were far more similar.

People actually think socio-economic classes are rarely addressed in RPG narratives? Seems pretty common to me.

I'm not sure about the quality of this poll. As I understand it, Dragon Age 1 and Dragon Age 2 had very different combat systems, and the label (New EA-Bioware) next to them strikes me as having an agenda. I don't care for the new Bioware games or EA's policies, but lumping every game they've made since Jade Empire under one category seems rather useless for polling purposes.

You actually raise a point, but I suppose it would be more apt to compare the character designs to Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights. Planescape was already a very surreal setting before Black Isle ever got to it. Even then, these are the first two characters shown. There were some more creative party members in the games mentioned above. One-of-Many, anyone?

This. I'm ok with abstract multipliers in weapon vs. armor contests, because it's not like the game can realistically simulate material strengths; but in weapon vs. weapon? I want soft counters, not hard counters.

I'm actually ok with bikini armor if it's in a strip club or something I guess.

I personally assumed that the nature of a given soul had nothing to do with race.

Given what is generally marketed at your age demographic, I think it would be better to hope that it appeals to you. Your tastes are not typical of other 16 year olds.

Can we then assume that Cadegund is some kind of mage killer?

I think the stuff under the plate may be scale armor sewn on leather or stiff cloth.