acrimony

When you are doing Anomen's quest, there is no way to get a "good" ending from giving him advice. If you tell him to let the law handle it, his father finds proof that his enemy is to blame, and goes to get revenge, and gets killed. If you tell him to get revenge, it turns out that his father's enemy is not to blame (after Anomen murders the guy and his daughter), and Anomen's father disowns him. Either way, a female character is put in the position of begging Anomen to do the right thing, and he is pissed and blames the PC for a while. You basically have to beg for forgiveness, when he asked for your character's advice in the first place, and how was the PC supposed to have any more information than Anomen? I personally found it to be a terrible basis for a romance. Not to mention that Anomen kind of "negs" the female PC even before she is put through the impossible test and having to apologize when she's done nothing wrong. Yeah, not a fan.

It's his conflicting dispositions - Autonomy and Authoritarianism. He shouldn't have both. It's an import bug as was confirmed in the latest stream. SOB...I will have to restart yet again when the patch comes out, because I definitely have this issue. I have been pretty critical of the companions writing, but I'd really like to see whether I feel like they're more chatty and reactive when less buggy. I had finally settled down with a character, after restarting about five million times, and got fairly far...but if I can get dialogue to fire correctly, I'd really like to start over and see how it goes.

Lol meee. The male LI with a ex-wife/gf drama has become a serious pet peeve of mine thanks to Bioware. I groaned when I realized where Eder's personal quest was going. There were shades of this kind of backstory in Obsidian's Neverwinter Nights, too, in the Aarin Gend romance. To be fair, that one was on Bioware, Obsidian only did NWN2. The dead former lover thing was also present in Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, with Carth Onasi, and Jade Empire, with Sky. I guess we were supposed to be grateful that Anomen in Baldur's Gate 2 only compared the PC to his dead sister... Personally, I kind of groaned when Boone in Fallout New Vegas had the same backstory (dead wife), but I thought it was done better than any of the Bioware examples. I really don't understand why it was dredged up here. It's not done well, we all are familiar with the trope of Women in Refrigerators in 2018, and there were about a million and one better ways to go with his personal quest than this. I'm just putting it out there, if Obsidian wants to use my idea for a quest where Eder takes down the back alley puppy mills of Neketaka, they can use it for free.

I agree that Eder seems different and some of his opinions don't seem to make much sense based on what we know about him, but I think all of the companion interactions in general are more shallow in PoE2, unfortunately. I had the ending where he became mayor also, and he had the mayoral neckwear thing, but he only talked about going to see his parents when I asked what he was up to. Was that a bug, or is that the only dialogue available for "skeptic" Eder? The way he feels about Aloth now makes some sense, since I have Aloth as the leader of the Leaden Key in this game, but at the same time, they had the same adventures together that he had with the Watcher, and he seems to be okay with whatever the Watcher did. As far as the relationship with the Watcher, yeah, I don't get it. He does show concern at times, but yeah, not like in the first game, and his personal quest is kind of insulting for those who were hoping to romance him...another dead former lover? After Boone in New Vegas, and about half a dozen Bioware games? Come on, Obsidian writers. You're better than that. At least give him an original personal quest, even if you don't want him to be a romanceable character. Rehashing the dead lover storyline seemed cheap. Honestly, I'm cool with Eder being my platonic life partner, but I really wish he had a more interesting personal story, and had more to say in general, even to Aloth and Pallegina, in this game. I'm still having fun, but the lack of companion depth is disappointing.

What was the answer? I made a new character last night, and I saw the Blessings of Berath points on the screen when I was choosing difficulty level, but I didn't see an option to spend the points (I remember clicking on the name to see what would happen). Do you only get to spend them during character creation? Click on the little sphere on that screen and it opens a selection window. Should have known it would be obvious! Thanks!

What was the answer? I made a new character last night, and I saw the Blessings of Berath points on the screen when I was choosing difficulty level, but I didn't see an option to spend the points (I remember clicking on the name to see what would happen). Do you only get to spend them during character creation?

I spent twenty dollars on the Season Pass, and then found out that everyone who pledged at the Ultimate Edition level gets it anyway. Now it appears that the only character I actually wanted to go down the romance path with isn't available, even though he shows interest in another character and talks about his ex. I'm enjoying Deadfire so far, but these two things are kind of putting a damper on it. I guess if they have plans for Eder past Deadfire, having him be a romance option can be limiting for future storylines, but if they decided to troll fans, with some sort of "disappointment is a part of life" kind of lesson...um, yeah, lot of things in life are disappointing, but you don't purposely have to make fiction that way, it's not endearing in any way.

Thanks to everyone who shared the codes, and especially Ethics Gradient for creating and updating the thread so frequently!

I can't listen to audio at the moment, did they say anything specific about voiced player characters? I'm very curious about whether there will be a choice of voices, or it's one per gender.

My first thought when I heard that Caed Nua was going to be destroyed was that the poor Steward would be crushed (both literally and figuratively). I'm glad she gets to come along with us. Honestly though, she's an example of how animancy works in the setting, and she's useful. I got no problems with her being part of the team.

Sidekicks sound fine, pretty much premade hirelings with voice acting, but I don't see it as something to look forward to or incentive to add to my current pledge. If anything, I want reassurance that companions will have deeper quests than "have them in the party for x amount of time and talk to them a bunch of times" with "also take them some place and click on an object and then talk to them some more" as the more involved version. Otherwise, I'll just make my own stand in party members when I need them, at least that way they're exactly what I need at the moment.

I remember how disappointed I was in Storm of Zehir, after loving MotB and NWN2 in general, it felt so empty and lifeless in comparison. And I never really got into IWD2, even though a friend had told me that if I liked the BG games, I would like it. A great story is important to me in RPGs, but having interesting companions is extra special. I wouldn't mind the option to try generating my own party down the road, when I've played through the game a few times and don't want/need party interaction, but if the choice is either/or, I definitely fall on the side of story related companions.