aksrasjel

Not dutiful perhaps, but definitely more serious than most male companions. I don't see these two goofing around much either. I dunno if I'd call Ydwin "dutiful" or "overly serious" myself . She's more of an rogue "wild card" animancer hell-bent on survival, given her backstory. She's "dutiful" only beacuse she doesn't wish to hurt anyone with her research. Hurting herself is a different matter. And she can definately take a joke and dish one out too. Her sense of humour is rather subdued, but she's definately not a humorless stick-in-the-mud like for instance Pallegina. Literally first thing she does when she meets you is to gush about Old Vailian fashion and her tailoring hobby like an overexcited schoolgirl. She also likes to sing aloud for no reason when no-one is looking, although she has no singing voice - at least according to Mordwyr. I really wish she was a full companion - she would have been a excellent foil to Aloth. As for no "goofy female companions" - where does Xoti fit into that? She is at times one step removed from a Looney Tunes cartoon with her childish behaviour. And she clearly doesn't realize the consequences of her soul harvesting due to her blind zealotry - so there goes the "dutiful" aspect. But I get what you're saying. There is a running trend of "strong female characters" in various media that usually translates into "humorless, stuck-up woman with no strong personality traits or actual flaws - beacuse by God we cannot portray a woman as flawed", while men can be portrayed as flawed and incompetent without a bigger problem. It's a certain double standard that I wish went away and never came back - beacuse good, complex characters should be just that - good characters, no matter the gender. ...I am going to get yelled at for this post, aren't I?

Might as well give my opinion, as much as I will regret it later... To be honest, most of the companions in the game were somewhat on the underwhelming side for me. In whole honesty - and I'm not trying to be mean or edgy or anything like that - I found it hard to find this mainstay character in my group that I love, this one charismatic character I want to hang out with till the end of time, like Alistair/Sten from DA:O or Viconia from BG2, or HK47 from KotOR. I liked most of them just fine, but I won't especially miss them. Eder: He's still an everyman, but in Deadfire his "laid-back snarker" shtick is starting to get slighty old. He lost some of his charm for me. Still like him, but won't notice when his gone. Aloth: He was kinda... there. Still socially awkward and grumpy as always, but he lacked presence for me. And by god, I did not care about his Leaden Key business. Pallegina: Kill it with fire. I can't stand the hen. We immediately started off on the wrong foot on our first meeting, when she blamed me for every bad thing that happened in her life since her exile from Republics and I was unable to remind her that I only told her to do what she thinks is best for her. I guess she was always a bit of a b*tch back in PoE 1, but here her unlikeable traits go into overdrive. She's one of those edgy atheist people, that simply cannot stand any mention of faith or relligion. I guess she was supposed to be sympathetic, with her godlike heritage and all, but something went wrong with her writing and she comes of as whiny and self-absorbed for me. And that's a no-no for me. Xoti: She's... random. I'm sorry to say this, but I cannot take this character seriously to save my life. I honestly don't know is she supposed to be cute and endearing or emotionally unstable. Or both. And yes, I know that is deliberate. Still, I literally felt that I'm talking to a child and not a mature woman she apparently was. I guess they were trying to go for Leliana 2.0 route - wide-eyed idealist with strong faith - but forgot what made Leliana click. Behind her bubbly demenour Leliana was a very clever young woman who's seen a lot of misery and decided enough is enough. Xoti is a big womanchild, so that every time she opened her mouth I wanted to dopeslap her across the head and tell her to shut up, beacuse adults are talking. Maia: Big, tough, stoic, no-nonsense female soldier, loyal to RDC. Has a bird. Likes to sleep with random strangers she just met. That's all there is to her. She's non-intrusive and alright in my book, but by God, I've seen this female archetype a million times already. It's starting to get old. Serafen: To my surprise, he's quite cool. I legitimately liked the bugger. It can be Liam O'Brien's delivery, but this guy is really suave and likeable daddy figure. Reminded me kinda of more laid back pirate Keldorn. I honestly can't tell you why. Tekehu: Wasn't in my party long enough to form an opinion on him. Seemingly an archetypical "sheltered special snowflake prince" - trope that I don't care for - and his over-the-top libido is already becoming memetic, but again I won't judge him just yet. He was in my party for maybe 2-3 hours tops and was scrubbing decks for majority of the game, so there might be more to him that I missed. Ydwin: Can't help it. I really liked everything about her. She's likeable, interesting - with some legitimately unique an fun backstory and has a certain 'snarky nerd' charm to her. And that was just one 5 minute conversation. There is clearly huge story potential to her, with some nice character development to boot - those high-up who decided for her to be a mere sidekick should be shot. Expanded in DLC or bust. Rekke: Another guy I really liked. And another interesting addition. Seriously, why are all cool party members sidekicks? Compared to Ydwin, he's interesting less as a *character* per se for me, but his entire unique culture is ripe for exploring. Not to mention it has some big implications for future installments. Wouldn't mind seeing more of him - or his people in the sequel. Konstanten: A dwarf. Masseur. Bored with his life. Has pleasant "soul brotha" voice. Have I missed anything? Fassina: Honestly, didn't like her. She's this smug, know-it-all scholar - poor man's Ydwin, minus her quirky charm. If you're desperate for a Wizard, maybe? Mirke: Haven't got her, unable to download the DLC for some reason. Thanks GOG.

Just finished the game after 60 hours, so this is a pretty much on-the-fly opinion of the game. Sorry for rambling. For me game itself was... fine. Nothing too horrible, but nothing that really stands out in the long run - with the story being an underwritten mess. It was a decent enough 60 hour prelude/prologue to a much better story ie. breaking the Wheel and it's consequences. It seems to be a running theme with Pillars of Eternity stories to be honest - those seem to miss the mark on what is more interesting event. In PoE 1 we dealt with the rather dull aftermath of an IMO much more interesting Saint's War conflict and the creation of Godhammer. Also, the game is woefully unfocused story-wise. The combination of a low-key colonial conflict and epic fantasy hunt for rogue deity seems really forced and mismatched. I am literally an agent of Gods on with the hotline with the entire pantheon and somehow I am stuck playing a lapdog for some local VTC merchant guild. Apparently a Godzilla-sized deity that's killing everone in his path is not a reason enough for those yahoos to put aside their politics and help me out on my divine quest, beacuse time is of the essence and people are dying. And you can't even succeed in one task you had anyway, beacuse Eothas will destroy the Wheel regardless. It also doesn't help that the game failed to give my Watcher a proper motivation for either dealing with factions (as if my Pale Elf Mystic for White that Wends really cares about and/or understands the politics of some faraway island to help them out of her own violition), or going after Eothas himself. Berath presented me with a false choice - hunt down Eothas or die - and kept me tighly on a leash throughout the entire game, but my character wasn't really hunting Eothas out of any personal reason - be it a revenge plot (seriously, did people REALLY cared that much about Caed Nua?) or some search for answers, or anything in-between. I guess, that Eothas stealing your soul might serve as a decent enough hook, but for me it felt rather underplayed - you don't suffer any ill effects from that and the game kind of forgets about it anyway. So, halfway through the game, my Watcher was dead-set on grabbing Serafen, Ydwin and Rekke (i.e three NPCs in the game I actually gave a semblence of a crap about, which is sad when you think about it), packing them onto a ship and sailing into a sunset - beacuse what was stopping me anyway? Eothas will succeed in his goals regardless of what I do and I don't see my Watcher being tangled in pointless politics, so why am I here? Maybe the New Vegas Yes Man-style approach - with the Watcher being a literal master of their own fate on a giant powertrip - would make the story more personal and motivating? I have no idea.

I hope you didn't have her banished from Republics in your PoE 1 playthrough. Otherwise prepare to be yelled at. Constantly. I guess some people see the appeal of such highly-confrontational character. I myself kicked her out of my group after she started picking fights with Xoti and Tekehu. As for Ydwin - she's fine. She looks and behaves the way she does for a reason. I'm not going to pretend that the rest of Deadfire companions are somehow super-deep, original and thought-provoking characters, beacuse most of them are - at least for me - pretty basic, if enjoyable stuff. Ydwin's more of a lorebait for me rather than a waifubait. Her backstory is legitimately interesting and unique, her character quirks are fun - she's a quite developed personality-wise for a sidekick. She drops a whole bunch of pretty interesting plot hooks , especially if you pass all her skill checks. All of this ultimately goes nowhere beacuse sidekicks literally have zero content after you recruit them, which I find infuriating. Which is why I would like to see her expanded in some way in DLCs. Also, for those interested - at this point I think it can be safely assumed that any potential future romance with her is off the table - unless the writers are very creative and/or open-minded to a shameful degree.

TBH, Bastilla was just an example. But You got me there. I totally blanked out on DA:O and romances there were quite enjoyable. It's simply been ages since I last played it. Alistair is also a decent - and most would say a better - example of romance working together with the story, while at the same time being a fun, likeable character to boot (although my favourite from that game will always be Leliana and I won't bugde on that). I'm not so keen on Morrigan though - I think they were trying to capture this magic that was Viconia, but kind of missed the mark - but that's an entirely different topic altogether. As to why for me BG 2 romances worked - beacuse I do definately agree that they worked - is beacuse of vast timespan of those romances, especially with Viconia. The relationship had time to breathe and develop thoughout the game - we're talking 35-40 convos with a companion here. Romancing a companion also took some effort - your responses mattered and it was deceptively easy to screw up a relationship if you said wrong thing at the wrong time and not all races were eligible. Good luck romancing Viconia with an elf. It all made romancing a fun and rewarding experience. Compare that to modern Bioware approach of "5-7 conversations, keep hitting the obvious flirtatious response, bam - we're in love, let's go to bed" that post-Mass Effect 2 games seemed to adopt. That's what I meant about picking a romance from a buffet - player is no longer putting actual effort into romancing a companion. Screw ups and turn-downs are almost impossible, player is 100% in charge of the situation and just needs to pick the character they wish to romance and that's it. I hope that cleared matters a bit. And if I'm going off-topic, I apologize.

That's nothing actually. In my playthrough Xoti was hitting on my female Watcher, Eder and Maia simultainously, Eder was hitting on Iselmyr, while my Watcher was trying unsuccesfuly to "romance" Aloth, while trying to turn down Tekehu's advances - it was quite amusing to watch actually. I legitimately don't know if it's supposed to work like that, but I'm quite certain that the affinity system is quite buggy in more than few places. Seriously, though - 25 hours in, I am rather disappointed in the quality of romances in Deadfire. I am not against romances in any way, shape or form. Done well, they can be very fun to roleplay and experience. It's just apparently most writers eqate "romance" with "sex and kissy stuff" (which is rather incidental to the entire idea of romance, at least for me) rather than "deep, intimate connection between two characters". I always wanted to see more quality romances that flow naturally from story and reinforce it in a way, even at the expense of LI available. Example that I always give (and you're quite welcome to disagree) is a romance between Revan and Bastila in KoTOR 1. Some spotty Bioware writing notwithstanding, the romance between those two felt apropos the story the game was trying to tell. I also enjoyed romancing Fall-From-Grace in Planescape: Torment (beacuse there was a romance there - subtle and subtextual, but romance in full meaning of the word). Deadfire just went with Bioware approach of "pick a character to sleep with from a buffet" that does nothing for a story they are trying to tell. And I was hoping for more - especially from Obsidian. TLDR; at max one or two LI with decent connection to the plot and the player, instead of army of shallow waifus to choose from - that's what I would like to see going forward.

Well... is pretty non-standard, don't you think ? Having said that, I don't believe that Ydwin or any sidekick will be upgraded to full companions with all bells and whistles - there are just too many new variables and writing to consider with the relationship system. There is also a matter of full voice acting that is also resource-heavy. I personally would be happy with Obsidian giving Ydwin some fairly limited player-only interactions and banters (similar to those in BG2) and maybe some small personal quest dealing with in the upcoming DLCs. I think she's too interesting of a concept to leave her completely without content.

I I seem to recall there was talk about Ydwin, that she might get full companion status in an expansion, but I don't know if that was based on something that was said or if it was based on hope. I honestly cannot find a link to the conversation now, but from what I remember there was a question asked on Sawyer's tumblr page just before the extended fig campaign ended. Someone asked about possibility of Ydwin being expanded and Sawyer was positive. But that was a year ago, so a lot might have changed. Edit: Found the link: https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/160089704591/greetings-mr-sawyer-my-username-in-the-forums-is

Companions also don't have their own watercolor convo pictures in the Beta files at the moment; going by your flawless logic that means no companion will ever say anything in any conversation. Might it be the case that the portraits folders are not yet complete? How could that possibly be!? Yeah, I do know that companion folder is empty in this version of beta. I should have been more specific - I meant the previous version. And I also didn't apply any logic to that - beacuse I actually know there are a lot of reasons why sidekicks don't have their watercolor portraits in the beta. It's a beta after all. This was just a joke - if I have offended you, apologies.

Dissapointed, but not surprised actually - i kinda figured that will be the case when I noticed lack of sidekick watercolor "convo" pictures in beta files. Which is funny by the way - Maia's bird has a convo picture (and thus conversations) and sidekicks don't. I'm just bummed that potentially interesting companion concepts go completely to waste. I would love to know more about Ydwin, her stance on animancy, her past in White that Wends - I legitimately enjoy that kind of "brainy, witty and quirky" type of characters. So letdown for me I guess. And no, I don't believe that Obsidian will actually expand sidekicks in DLCs. That's "a lot of work".

Wait and see I guess. The "Beast of Winter" one sounds fun - but I'll hold my judgement until I hear more details.

The thing with unflexible path is that your relationship with character would get heavily defined for a get go. I feel like doing a weak relationship would be worse than not doing it at all, when compared to companions with the relationship system. There is nothing cheap about companions. Josh said that creating character arc is the big, time consuming part of writing the companion. I would also have little ingame interaction than have a poor quiality content aka. BB:EE or mods. In past he compared sidekicks to Minsc - cool characters to tag along but dont develop and dont have character arc. Agree to disagree. I find no companions preferable to half-baked ones - at least I won't be annoyed that entire character concepts go to waste, I guess. But since Obsidian decided that sidekicks are here to stay - at least give them something. That's why I gave an example of Viconia - her content was linear, but of high quality. It doesn't necessarily have to be comparable in amount. Just make some use - any use out of this character. Also, Minsc and arguably Korgan were exceptions that worked - they were literal caricatures that you can't do much with even if you tried. But I distinctly remember people complaining about Mazzy, who had much more going for her about being underdeveloped. And I don't want sidekicks to be just "wacky caricatures", who may turn out to be unfunny in the end - but that may be the only route to take if you want those characters to work as they are now. There is legitimate story potential in Ydwin and Rekke. But that whole rant of mine was just wishful thinking on my part. I find this whole general idea of sidekicks totally backwards - story characters with no story attached to them, that you'll get as a reward for completing a quest - so I was desperately hoping for something that justifies their existence. Sorry for being unnecessarily confrontational and derailing a thread onto unpleasant routes. I know people are already sick of sidekick debate.

Not to knock on Rekke and any potential arcs that he may have, but I was under the impression that he was supposed to be Deadfire's Chewbacca. And by that, I mean that it's much easier to write extra material for a guy who literally cannot communicate with the rest of the cast. You think it's easier to write something for a character that speaks a different language? I think it's far harder to write something that can't be communicated through words, let me explain myself. His arc will have to receive more details and attention because he can't just reveal his story by speaking, he will have to find a different way to communicate that, learning our language perhaps? Or even painting? So basically I think it will be more difficult because the writer can't just dump lore on our faces with a wall of text, he will have to show that in other way... again... a lot of work for a sidekick. And hey... the team talk about Ydwin and Rekke so much that you people don't even know the name of the other two sidekicks. Don't google it. Konstanten and Fessina - very unfortunate name. I don't really understand why is has to be "either/or" - you can either have a sidekick with non-existent content or a companion with a doorstopper amount of stuff. Why can't Ydwin for example have - lets say - Viconia (or more realistically - Aerie) amount of content? From modern perspective, Viconia wasn't particurally complex mechanics-wise. Her character development/ romance was great but very linear - with a simple binary choice based on a point score from ABC test she assigned your CHARNAME that changed her alignment. Her interactions with other companions were static - she either likes them, or not - and limited to simple interjections or banter. And she had no character quest whatsoever. But she had a lot of quality conversations with a player character and that's why people found her awesome. It's a easy and cheap way to create companions, modders were creating additional BG 2 companions on a similar template for ages now, and for free, in their spare time. And, yes, PoE worked on an identical template. I don't see why Obsidian can't cook up something similar with Ydwin or Rekke - companions that have decent amount of quality but linear content limited to player character that develops throughout the game (friendship path, romance path, rivalry path) and memorable but static relationships with other companions. It would at the very least make sidekicks worth it to take into party for more than 5 minutes. And it would even make use of Ashley Johnsons' and Sam Riegels' talent. But that's just me being armchair developer. Apologies if I restate the point someone else already made.

I'm sorry for going on a tangent, but are newly-hired videogame developers really this well-off? Holy cow, have I picked a wrong field of work.

I for one am getting a bit weary of constant attempts from fiction to be "dark, serious and mature", which usually translates into "everyone's a douchebag, nothing you do matters, there is no light on the end of the tunnel and your puppy has cancer". And I think that, yes Pillars of Eternity fell hard into that trap. Some say the game lacked humor - and while that may be the case, for me it lacked... empathy? Warmth? Everything in the game was cold and cerebral to the point of off-putting. I constantly hear stories about soulless children and I don't care, beacuse the game doesn't seem to care. What I would like to see in Deadfire is maybe not so much more humor, but more... humanity, I guess. I always like to compare PoE's story with Witcher 3 story (beacuse I'm evil like that) - that game was also supposedly very dark and bleak, but it had this silver lining of optimism that despite all this nonsense that's going on around us, things might get better in the end. One minute you see people being burned alive at the stake and another you're being invited to a wedding where everyone is having a great time - and you realise, that everything will be alright and we can still have joy despite misery. I think Pillars of Eternity lacked that and I would like to see Deadfire to take more of an optimistic and empathic route. So yeah, those are my three cents - pointless as they might be.

To be fair - aside from Ashley Johnson - who we both seem to agree is quite good (and is in my opinion woefully underused as a goddamn sidekick) I wouldn't call the cast "great" or "exceptional". Mercer himself made a career out of playing "Generic White Dudes" (while also being "bargain-bin Troy Baker" - but that is just mean), but they're mostly solid "safe" choices that are getting job done where it counts - professionals rather than crazy inspired artists. So I think they will deliver emotional highs if situation calls for it and I can hazard a guess that most memorable interactions will come from companions themselves. As for other voice actors... Mela Lee still voices Pallegina - and I wasn't a big fan of neither a character nor a voice, so I'll give you that one. I expect to hear a bunch of questionable perfomances from some third grade NPC along the way, but honestly that's par of the course for every videogame. I don't believe we'll get David Werner level of performance out of the entire cast - personally I expect something along the lines of Fallout New Vegas in terms of quality - sometimes spotty, but overall engaging and getting job done.

About that god's agenta thing... Apologies in advance if my rant seems out of topic or nonsensical, but I've always found this concept interesting. I always assumed that religion plays at least some part in the culture of a given nation/society. As OP mentioned, gods in Eora are universal philosophical ideas made "flesh" meant to unify the kith races. But those are philosophical ideas universal by *Engwithan* standards and may not (and will not) be compatible in a different culture. I don't expect Dyrwood and White that Wends for example, to have much cultural overlap. But - as I assume - Engwithans forcefully inflicted their cultural/moral/philosophical system upon the entire world - Holy Crusades to nth degree, supported by literal divine fire. So, does this mean, that, thousands of years later we ended up in this very homogenized world, where every race, nation and society on Eora has a very similar and narrow belief and cultural system - you know, beacuse other less compatible cultures were most likely eradicated by angry gods? You may develop your "culture", as long as in isn't too different on a conceptual level from the established norm - we have godlike beings on our side and you don't. Isn't that tad villanous no matter how you're trying to spin it? So I wonder if the "big reveal" with Iovara at the end of PoE 1 was not literally meant to be "gods are man-made, therefore there can be no absolutes", but "the entire society, entire philosophy and belief system I was raised in was artificial and forced upon my ancestors against their will for "their own good""? Just a food for thought, I guess. ...I also haven't replayed Pillars 1 in a while and a lot of details may elude me - so if I missed the mark, sorry.

I myself do not worry too much about the quailty of voice acting per se - we've seen the cast, those guys are pros. I definately assume to hear 15 Matt Mercers interacting with one another in every third scene, but that was the case in New Vegas for instance - all NCR personnel consisted of nothing but Liam O'Briens and Laura Baileys, and it worked out alright enough in the end. I definately approve of the female voice actors this time around, though. I was not a fan of female voice cast in PoE 1 - Pallegina's faux-italian accent, as well as Sagani's bland delivery was always a bit grating for me. Personally, my only weak link now would probably be Marisha Ray. She's alright, but arguably - and correct me, if I'm wrong on that - the least experienced and versatile from what I've seen and heard (in both various videogames and CR itself) - so, we'll see how she fares. That's the double-edged sword right there, I guess - fans may inevitably judge your future performance based on a goofy Twitch show your'e a part of.

Yeah, you're right. I'm an idiot - I somehow managed to convince myself that they are self-published. My bad.

Frankly, I just assumed. They're still a middle-sized "indie" (for whatever that means in this day and age - Rockstar is also technically an "indie") developer, so, I guess they have to be careful where they put their money - unfortunate happenstances happen. But if they managed to prepare a foolproof budget for both base game and DLCs - all the more power to Obsidian I guess.

As a story person, I personally definately wouldn't mind seeing additional companion or "just" an expanded existing sidekick for 10$ if Obsidian truly commits to that (I'm weird like that)- but again, story-lite content or postgame DLC - this is all just working around full voice acting rather than taking advantage of it - at least in my opinion. There are also different variables concerning voice actor availability. Example: Laura Bailey is expecting for instance, she (and I assume Travis Willingham) may not be as easily available in a few months time - but you need those voice actors up and ready if you wish to add any story content. And I still have Vietnam flashbacks to Polish version of Night of the Raven expansion for Gothic II - where NPCs kept changing their voices mid-conversation beacuse voice actor from the base game was unavailable. I realise that those are all First World Problems, so once again apologies if I'm coming down as a curmougeon, it's just something that's been bothering for a while now. Don't worry. I've been quite active on 4chan a few years back. I've seen it all. I grew out of it, but scars will forver remain.

For all that it's worth, I am legitimetely curious (and a bit concerned), how is Obsidian going to handle future Deadfire DLC given this development. Any addition to the base game (adding new midgame content, adding new companions, expanding existing sidekicks - I can always dream, right?) would require all those voice actors to rerecord entire conversations, in part thanks to this whole already robust and expensive relationship system. Now we're putting full VA on top of that and Obsidian is not exactly sleeping on money. Will they be able to afford 3 robust DLCs as promised, and what will be the content - that's what I'm curious about. I don't want to see writers working around full VA, just for the sake of having it in the game. I know that Obsidian managed to integrate content from the White March expansion with the base game back in POE 1, but from what I remember White March was only partially voiced, as well as companion relationships were much less complex? Again, those are only mine - quite silly - concerns. Didn't mean to come off as a strawman with my first post. BTW, this is literally my first post on these forums after almost 6 years of lurking. So, hello everyone?