aksrasjel

I think the biggest reason why Baldur's Gate series works for me (and for instance PoE series doesn't) is beacuse those games know *precisely* what they are and where their strenghts lie. They are your charming high fantasy romps thoughout Toril that are supposed to be lighthearted and fun, with archetypical, yet still varied and memorable individuals (with surprising amount of depth when you look closely enough) and plotlines - that's it. The series unashamedly embraces every fantasy cliche in the book with an absolutely straight face (dead mentor, call to adventure, kid sidekick Imoen, Darth Vader wannabe in spiky armor - with a redemption arc to boot, plethora of damsels in distress, archetypical love interests etc.). Compare that to NWN 2 OC - where most of the time companions were snickering at genre cliches, as if they are ashamed of them. There is a certain refreshing charm in simplicity when pulled off correctly- especially nowadays, where everything is vomittingly "dark", "deconstructive", "mature" and "political". There is a reason people love original Star Wars so much. IMO game also struck a good balance between gameplay and story (although your milage may of course vary). It had interesting enough story to keep me interested and engaged with good enough gameplay to make for a fun fleshed out experience. Both Torment and IWD went too much into extremes for me - PST "too wordy" with so-so gameplay, IWD "too much hack&slash" with barebones story. Pillars of Eternity - and Deadfire in particular - in my opinion doesn't know what it wants to be. PoE 1 desperately tried to be "mature" and "about something" just to avoid being labeled as a "cliche fantasy" for some reason. I think this is also why we went with "pirate setting" for Deadfire - and that game is an unfortunate mess storywise - with themes and ideas thrown around seemingly randomly. I don't see a unified thought and a sense of focus in this franchise. In Deadfire we have themes of: reincarnation cycle and consequences thereof, souls and their mystical powers, atheism/deism argument with gods being artificial and all, political commentary with historical parallels, technological progress and their dangers with animancy, obligatory racism commentary with orlans/godlikes, exploration, colonialism and subjugation of native cultures and obviously capitalism. Also MC can see dead people. Deadfire tries to talk about all of those things but usually it just skims the surface. Compare that to BG series - I'm the heir of Bhaal, the Lord of Murder, I am good at killing stuff and most people are scared sh*tless of me. Bad guys (and some of the good guys) want to kill me/screw me over/steal my powers beacuse of that. And this one douchebag just killed my mentor/kidnapped my childhood friend. And you do actually kill a lot of stuff in the process. Simple and sufficient. TLDR - Baldur's Gate tells a simple (but not *stupid*), fairytalesque, focused story that works for what it tries to be. Pillars of Eternity desperately tries to find it's own identity and lacks focus in comparison. Just like this post. And, yes, I do realise I am horribly biased towards Baldur's Gate, with it being my all time favourite and all.

As a story person first and a gameplay person second (busy life schedules might do that for you) I would love to see the lore about Pale Elves and White that Wends finally expanded in Beast of Winter. There is a mystery to them and I really want to see how those guys work on a daily basis. As a big fan of Lovecraft and cosmic horror stories I already have some ideas of how the White that Wends might look like (imagine a postapocalyptic frozen wasteland of a lost elven civilization, where eldritch horrors roam, laws of nature stop working and entropy-worshipping elves are fighing for survival - something similar to At the Mountains of Madness mixed with Roadside Picnic by Strugacki brothers). But I suspect it'll probably end up just a boring fantasy Antarctica with Pale Elves being a blatant rip-off of Norse people given how this franchise rolls - still I can always hope. Also - finally a Pale Elf companion. I (and apparently a lot of people out there) wanted one since Pillars 1. I also really wanted an animancer companion for PoE 2 by the way, so I definately wouldn't despair if they upgraded Ydwin to a full companion. As for "companions are a lot of work" argument - I used to think the same thing. but after seeing the companion content/relationship system in Deadfire I take this argument with a grain of salt. They might be time-consuming depending on level of content and relationship system can be *very* wonky, but it's far from impossible. As for the voice acting being expensive issue - Obsidian essentially assured everyone that they knew what they were doing when they went full VO. I expect that they can afford it now going forward. On the edge of sounding entitled - I for one won't accept the excuse "we had to reduce content from DLC, cause full voice acting". Also - for the love of God - no more sidekicks. I know they are easy to make, but I don't think people took too kindly to them. I personally consider them a half-measure and failed experiment at best and a complete waste of good characters and a constant source of blueballing at worst. They were a flawed idea from the start. I also wouldn't mind seeing the relationship system being reworked into something less arbitrary. Although, that may be in fact a lot of work.

As for female companions, we already have yandere and tsundere covered (Xoti and Pallegina respectively), Maia can actually be assumed to be a party girl (she sleeps with everything that moves no strings attached, so I'd say she fits). We are very much lacking in a kuudere bookworm departement. (And for those a bit too open-minded - no, Aloth does not count). Seriously though, Obsidian really played into their own net with this whole sidekicks idea. No matter what they do, *someone* will be really salty. Either the fans of a sidekick that was not picked to be expanded, or the fanbase as a whole, if they decide not to expand them at all.

Sadly, no - apart from very limited number of interjections (Rekke has most of them - 11, Ydwin has 8, Fassina has 3, by comparison, Aloth has about 250 and Pallegina about 300) they are completely silent throughout the whole game. I think only Rekke has some limited dialogue options after 30 days of playtime. In Ydwin's case, she does have a quite extensive recruitment dialogue, that paints an interesting picture. She's a great character idea that goes absolutely nowhere. It's a no-spoiler forum, so forgive me for not going into more detail. She has a lot of character quirks (there is a reason she looks and dresses the way she does), she's very mysterious and her backstory is ripe for story possibilites. There is a huge amount of story hooks and forshadowing that she throws at you, to the point that you can easily be fooled that she's supposed to be a full companion. So no wonder, that people want to know what is going on with her, and feel cheated when she's revealed to be a mere sidekick with no content. Or at very least I was.

I recall that when first announced, some people immediately condemned Ydwin to be "a shallow pandering anime yandere waifubait, created to appeal to lowest common denominator" for commiting a capital offense of being a good-looking elven female - and that opinion kinda stuck with her for a LONG time. Despite, y'know, us not knowing anything about her and her story hook (rogue animancer from White that Wends) being quite cool and interesting. Hey, I wasn't a big fan of Maia and Xoti when they were first announced, but I actually kept my mouth shut and my mind open. Ironic, given how Xoti herself actually turned out. But I think Ydwin was always popular with the fans at large - her backstory was interesting, her paraphernalia were memorable (or at least striking) and, yes I won't lie - a lot of people actually wanted a good-looking elven female companion. Don't understand what's so wrong with that. I have a feeling I accidentally opened a can of worms with that post. Apologies, if so.

More and better story content, maybe? Expanded sidekicks (there must be a reason those guys exist and Obsidian's been teasing Ydwin for far too long)? New companions? Fixed affinity system?

I know it boils down to personal experience and all that, but strangely enough, I also felt emotionally disconnected from most what was going on in the game. Don't get me wrong - the game is definately fun "in the moment" - gameplay is pretty solid, with mutliclassing giving a lot of mileage out of character creation, with only combat being too easy (although I deliberately played on Normal, so I'm not holding it against the game too much). I don't agree with all design decisions (penetration, per-encounter ability regen, regenerating health), but overall the game was mechanically servicable. But I don't think I will be replaying it any time soon - and this comes from the guy that replays Baldur's Gate 2 on yearly basis. The story and writing failed to have any emotional impact that made me care about anything that was going on. The main plot seemed like an afterthought, with faction subplot being given much more love and attention, companions were fun if rather unremarkable and bland (I probably won't be remembering Maia or Aloth existing 2 months from now) and the reason the Watcher hunts down Eothas and/or joins the faction conflict felt a bit contrived for me, with nothing really adding up to the big picture. Still, I am not writing off this game just yet, beacuse I think it can be salvaged for me. I remember Dragon Age Origins having the most bland and cliched story in the recent memory, yet I really liked this game. I didn't care about the "kill giant dragon god" plot at all, but I cared about Alistair, Leliana, Sten and co. and it kept me going. And in the end I had genuine fun. Maybe if Obsidian were to add new interesting storylines (explore the Beyond? fight Dagon in some underwater ancient city ? have some grand murder-mystery noir storyline, so that Watcher can use their abilities to full extent?) and unique and charismatic companions in upcoming DLCs (Ydwin and Rekke are still desperately and sharply nodding their heads, begging to be noticed) you might get something out of that. I am quite critical of this game for sure - but the reason is I really *want* to like this franchise. It's just really difficult for me to get invested in it.

Yeah, I think Obsidian kinda shot themselves in the foot with this grand revelation of "Gods are artificial" back in PoE 1. It was done way too quickly - they should've waited at least for the sequel, I think - and it's too big of a deal to ignore that. That is also probably a reason why we can't have a low-key, mundane story after PoE 1 and we're stuck with gods' business for a time being. Yet the writers don't seem to know how to address that, so they try to ignore that anyway, or at least try to downplay this plot point - I don't remember my Watcher ever calling Berath or the rest of the pantheon out on being "artificial", or even being able to mention that to *anyone* - and that most definately should be a thing in Deadfire.

Hell, that's actually a good point, that's been bugging me for a while. It would actually be nice for the companions to acknowledge that the Watcher is a human (or kith, anyway) being, with the Wacher being able to express their feelings and motivations to them more clearly. While playing the game I always felt that I am being talked at, rather than having an actual conversation with someone - if that makes any sense. Both PoE 1 and even more so Deadfire treat the Watcher like a vessel for the player to experience a setting through, rather than an established character rooted in the world. No matter how you roleplay them, he/she does feel like a boring blank slate that literally fell from the sky, with no connection to the world - despite having a defined background, that rarely, if ever comes into play. I would actually like to see the Watcher - or some later protagonist in a sequel slightly more predefined - similarly to the Exile in KotOR 2. But that's a different topic altogether.

For me (very) personally, I would rather see Obsidian clear the relationship system out of bugs first, so Xoti doesn't cheer and laugh when performing last rites for her friends. Then, I would rather have them add new interesting companions/expand sidekicks rather than give the old companions more content. Technically, some new content is a given with DLCs anyway, but I wouldn't want Obsidian to focus *just* on companions. I imagine it's a problem with me being slightly entitled than anything else, but the companions in Deadfire (aside from Serafen, Ydwin and Rekke - and those last two are sidekicks, for goodness sake) never did anything for me, so I'd rather see something new. I think in order to make character like Maia actually interesting you'd have to rewrite her from scratch. Not to mention adding more stuff to existing companions can mess up this relationship system even more and turn companions into inconsistent mess, if you're not careful with the added content. It also makes spreading their content evenly almost impossible without serious changes to the system - see below. But, if Obsidian ever tries to add new companions/expand sidekick content, here's my thoughts - trying to spread the companion content throughout the game makes companions feel more involved. Which is difficult to do, when conversations kick in based on a approval gain. It's extremaly easy to "binge-talk" a companion in first 2-4 hours of the game, and leave them with no content for the rest of it. Again, Baldur's Gate 2 had it (mostly) right, both in terms of content spread and romance approach. Companion "romance talks" were kicking off in hourly intervals - and there were a lot of them. Aerie was the one with the least amount of them I think - about 25 coversations (mostly due to cut content). Viconia had whooping 45 - it actually took forever to finish her romance storyline (here I am at very last leg in the Temple of Rillifane, and she STILL keeps on going about her feelings). But all those were actually huge and involved romantic story arcs. Not to mention BG 2 actually gave reason for love interests to fall in love in CHARNAME - with Viconia first being drawn to the player, beacuse CHARNAME was the only person on the surface to even show her kindness, then trying to push him away out of fear of betrayal/rejection, then coming to grips with her feelings and "trying" to be a supportive girlfriend and lastly freaking out and *very* reluctantly ending the relationship when servants of Lolth show up to kill her and CHARNAME both, ending the story on a bittersweet note. Sure, it was linear and all, and simplistic in mechanical terms, but it worked - at least for me. Compare that to let's say, Xoti romance with her 4-6 conversations. But again, those are just my post-facto observations, with the approval system being what it is. I really hope Obsidian has some plans on how to deal with our issues and suggestions in patches or DLC.

I too would have liked to see new faces instead of bringing back the old guard. Call me a loon but I almost feel that Obsidian went with the returning companions idea (and by proxy the Watcher as the protagonist), just beacuse Baldur's Gate 2 did it. The thing with returning companions is that they are usually universal fan favourites. If you look at BG2: Jaheira, Minsc, Edwin, Viconia and Imoen - all of those characters were really popular back in the day - even Imoen (hell, *especially* Imoen). The same goes for Mass Effect (Garrus, Tali) and KoTOR (HK-47 and Canderous/Mandalore). In PoE franchise, the closest thing to a universal fan-favourite is... Eder. I guess a lot of people remembered Durance, but he was definately a hard sell for many. Avellone's departure didn't help things. Pallegina was popular in some circles, but she most definately wasn't a breakout character, with majority accusing her of being bland and unlikeable. Her coming to Deadfire has narrative sense, sure, but in whole honesty, Obsidian could've created another VTC faction representative from scratch and not much would've changed - at least for me. Deadfire Pallegina is a much different beast to the Pallegina we knew from PoE 1, anyway. Aloth was always "along for the ride" for me - I liked him, but he kinda lacked presence in PoE 1. Yes, I know that's the point of his character, but still. Embarassingly enough - and a lot of people will probably want to kill me for that - I kinda kept forgetting he was supposed to be in Deadfire. Imagine my surprise on the dig site. Anyway - unlike Eder's or even Pallegina's, his story arc was done and wrapped up by the end of PoE 1. He succesfully dealt with both Iselmyr and his allegiance to Leaden Key and there was nothing more to tell. Why insistance of bringing him back? Was he really that iconic? But to be honest, aside from maybe Eder I was never particularly invested emotionally in any of the returning companions, so I kind of felt that we are wasting a companion slot that could've been used more efficiently. But that's probably a problem with me. And lastly, real talk: Obsidian - don't be afraid to create more quirky and unique companions in the future. I don't think that constantly coming up with those down-to-earth, world-weary characters makes this franchise truly stand out.

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/74557-companions-who-wrote-what/?do=findComment&comment=1622138 Thanks! What about Zahua? Wasn't Zahua Fenstermaker? I am also quite sure that both Devil and Maneha were Carrie Patel.

Heh. Beacuse romancing a vampire is definately not a thing in fiction, no sir . Also, why everybody seems to think that romance must equal sex? You can make a really good romantic storyline with a limited or no sexual content. At least I think so. I don't wish to derail a topic, so I'll be going now.

Huh. I never got that line. My bad then. I dunno, I think he should have been a bit more eye-rolling about her antics, regardless. He considered my stoic character irresponsible for cracking wise. It's a weird system.Edit: Cell phone posting is a treat. Never again.

I don't know if it was mentioned somewhere before - if so, apologies. For me personally, this weirdly binary tag-based relationship system is the one of the things that makes companions in this game seem much more straightforward and shallow than they realistically should have been. Not saying, thats the ONLY reason, but I don't think it helped. Every companion seems to have been reduced to a couple of easily-identifiable - and incredibly transparent - character traits in order to make their tagged personalities stand out. What you see is what you get. For instance, Pallegina has been tagged as god-hating, pro-Valian and anti-godlike - and she happily operates on those traits on a binary 0/1 basis - with little to no nuance. So, in the end she comes off as ultra-jingoistic shill for VTC, that you'd expect her to stand at attention, singing Vailian anthem everytime the Republics are mentioned and hates everyone even remotely religious with such a burning hatred that even Varg Vikernes would tell her to tone it down a bit. I think this is one of the reasons people claim that Pallegina and Eder became parodies of themselves. There is almost no nuance, no character growth - beacuse mechanically some tags must have been changed in the process and I don't know if that's even possible. Talented writers can work around this system to make their character work anyway, but technically speaking relationship system should reinforce a nuanced character and not put a writer in a proverbial straightjacket. That is the thing I was afraid was going to happen when Sawyer mentioned this tag-based approval system - and was hoping to be wrong. I also dread what would happen to sidekicks if Obsidian ever decides to add them into this system. One thing I really like about Ydwin for instance is a certain nuance to her character - and what we might get is probably "proud/wordly/pro-animancy/dislikes tradition". Work with that. The other question is: do we really need this system to be this arbitrarily complex? I guess it's ambitious, that companions check their own dispositions, but what does that achieve in the end? Yeah, Pallegina and Xoti will end up hating each other - it could have been done much easier with more linear system with identical results. It also ends up kinda immersion-breaking in the end for me. For example, Xoti should logically be a character that Aloth should at least dislike - she's rash, irresponsible, loud and flighty. Yet she performs actions that has been tagged "dutiful" and "traditional" and in my playthrough Aloth ended up adoring her beacuse he hit some arbitrary approval raitng with her with no context. Can't we stick to more linear system with "prerecorded" companion relationships - like the ones in BG2? It would at least allow the writers to tell a inter-party story with something resembling a character arc. I also think, one can even make the KotOR 2/DA:O approval system between the player and companions work in this situaltion by simply multiplying the increase/decrease of the approval points given to players for their actions in game world and keep the approval increase/decrease in conversations relatively low - so we can avoid the situation, in which I get 100% approval from both Morrigan and Leliana by telling them contradictory things that they both approve of with either of the none the wiser. Words are cheap but actions matter kinda thing. But that's just my rant - apologies to people actually trying to read that.

Which actually makes me legitimely - and absolutely unironically - wonder what makes those companions so expensive and resource-heavy. It's an isometric game, so creating 3D animations and cutscenes for companion interactions is off the table. Most of the interactions are just walls of text, which - and correct me if I'm wrong - while certainly at times time-consuming are not that expensive to create. And - unless my game bugged out horribly - companions don't have that much more content to them that would stand out of ordinary - compared to say, good, old Planescape Torment, with companion quests being short and simple "go to point A, talk to NPC B, kill monster C" most of the time. Is it a simple matter of manpower? Or is implementation of those walls of text into the game difficult later on? Is this infamous relationship system to blame? I understand it's supposed to be really reactive, but outside of Xoti randomly trying to sleep with half of my party I haven't noticed anything that much simpler system wouldn't handle. Or is it a matter of voice acting - which can actually be really expensive? I am legitemely curious.

I just don't get why they bothered with all those "stock reactions" in the first place - for bigger immersion, I guess? Beacuse honestly, why couldn't they simply go with "Xoti approves +1" stock prompt instead?

Wasn't the implied point of the relationship system and the big selling point of PoE 2 the fact that companions will have *much more* content this time around? Sawyer himself went constantly on a record saying that "character arcs and even banters are a lot of work and writing companions is time-consuming" and so on. It really sounded like we'll be getting this very robust and complex relationship system with a lot of reactivity, expansive character quests and what have you - think KotOR 2 system up to 11. I won't dare to speak for everyone here, but that's not what I've got. Apparently the relationship system is very difficult to manage - to the point that adding new companions is nearly impossible (Sawyer's words, not mine), yet the advantages from it are miniscule (little dialogue and interaction between companions, very simple character quests) - if the system works at all. I really wish they applied a much simpler, yet efficient system for the companions - even linear one like on-timer conversations from BG2 would have been fine. On the other hand we have sidekicks. It would be fine, if those buggers were some one-note characters with simple personalities that are added as an additional party option for the player - like Konstanten or Mirke. Yet here we have charaters like Ydwin and Rekke - in Ydwin's case it's quite obvious that's she's an unfinished full companion that Obsidian didn't have the budget to flesh out, yet added anyway. I have no idea if Obsidian overstretched themselves, didn't think things through, ran out of budget, is the full voice acting to blame - but I don't think this situation we are here now is intended.

My money's on Living Dead Girl. She's the most interesting one from the bunch for me - (appropriated) culture, backstory, personality, condition - all that jazz. Rekke I also really like, but as mentioned somewhere else I don't find him as interesting as a *character* compared to Ydwin. He's an exposition device - mostly interesting beacuse of his unique culture, not his personality - similarly to Kana for instance. Good sequel material, not exactly a DLC one. You may yell at me at your leisure. Konstanten is fine as a sidekick - he has simple motivations and simple personality. He works as intended. Fassina I don't like and/or don't care about, so I have no opinion on her becoming a companion in one way or another. ...And - as ashamed I am to admit that - technically, romance with Ydwin *can* work. It would require writers to be subtle and clever about it, downplay/remove the sex and kisses aspect and underline the emotional connection between her and the Watcher. "Person I care about is devolving into a mindless beast" for instance, is a theme as old as time that done well, can at least lead to some nice dramatic moments. But after what we got in terms of romance in base game - I really don't want to see the writers try to tackle her romance in any way.

To be honest, that's beside the point. I have more of a problem with the sidekicks as a concept in the first place. If the studio doesn't have money/time/resources to add a new companion - understood (although 5 million stretch goal was quite an overkill for "just" a companion). Cut the companion from the game and the problem is solved. But someone at Obsidian apparently wanted to have a cake and eat it too. So sidekicks (or at the very least Ydwin and Rekke) are half-finished companions with all the story and character hooks, that are not expanded upon. And they are somehow being called "a feature" of the game. Feature that may not work as intended, given how many people are asking for sidekicks to be expanded in DLCs (Seriously, you'd think Ydwin's last name is ExpandInDLC). Sorry for being unecessarily grumpy.

All new portraits found are most likely from incoming DLC. So companion is not out of the question. To be honest, I would be VERY surprised if he was to become a fully-fleshed out companion out of the blue. Sawyer went on and on how "much work" writing and adding a companion it is for Deadfire - although after seeing the relationship system in action, I suspect he might have been a bit overdramatic with this statement. Also there is entire conga line of sidekicks waiting to be expanded to full companion status. I would suspect that he might be at best a Joshua Graham-style temporary companion for the DLC. Or he's simply - and for me most likely - yet another sidekick. They are easy and cheap to make - and someone at Obsidian probably still thinks they are an excellent addition to the game. Again, I may be - and probably am - wrong, but that's my guess.

I am actually more interested what role is he supposed to play in a game. New companion? - very unlikely. New temporary companion maybe? Yet *another* sidekick? Beacuse he's probably not just some random NPC?

Huh. She must have lead a REALLY sheltered life then. For the record, Pallegina in PoE 1 was 26. But yeah, I'd give her no more than 19-20 at max, given how incredibly immature she is at times - or that just might be her over-the-top genki girl personality. Either way, I still don't know whether that's supposed to be deliberate, or did the writing team screw up.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it heavily implied that she actually died on the way to Deadfire? She talks about performing experiments on the boat to Nekataka and when asked for details she becomes extremely evasive and tries to technobabble herself away. That's the feel I got from that conversation.

I can confirm that you need quite high metaphysics score (in my case score of 5 was way too low) for her to admit that she's *technically* a fampyr - as a "acceptable side-effect". She was also very insistant on the *technically* part. She also won't be putting any part of your body in her mouth any time soon. Got to accept that. Which is why I find this whole "sidekicks" idea so infuriating. Here, we have a high-functioning "accidental" fampyr hanging out with our party - and the writers happily decided not to adress that in any way, shape or form and simply leave it hanging. Bizzare approach.