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No problem! Just as a note, be sure to have a back up save in case updates or hot fixes changed how things work. I think the way I did it was kind of a loophole they might have gotten or will get rid od of.

It might be the faction you make the most mad. The Rauatai went after me when I went hauana

Wait really? Well, that's probably good. Sucks in game, but it make more sense.

Yeah the awkward bugs like that are extremely unsatisfying. I would say if you want the peaceful route, don't tell them about the plot. Maybe make sure the plot never happens by dealing with them yourself. I ha a high diplomacy character, so that's how I got through it

After I killed the Rauatai in self defense, I went to the Onekaza to ally with her. Because I already indirectly ****ed up the Rauatai, she didn't make me do her nasty quest and we went to Ondras Mortar. Pallegina and Maia didn't seem to care /mind. It also prevented me from having to ruin Castol's life by doing the Huana route proper, which was important to me. I was pretty happy with going the Huana route while making sure Castol was in good standing. I don't hate the Rauatai but I also am okay with the hit they take because the Huana become more strongly independent. And Castol gets to keep doing animancy on the region, even if on a smaller scale or in a smaller role, and saves Pallegina. On a side note, you should be able to side with the Valians after the Rauatai incident with a similar lack of repercussions from Maia and Pallegina

I actually agree with your frustrations! It's really weird. The quest line adapts to what you did and what happened but Maia and Pallegina don't react at all. Even if you side with a different faction or against theirs. I did what you did, and then at Ondras Mortar, Maia was worried about the (Huana?) fleet being attacked by the water monster, but didn't care that we were fighting Rauatai. It was bizarre.

Samoftheuels, you can restore the adra and not lose rep with Rauatai. Just make sure you tell Atsura about how the storms work. Then you will neither gain nor lose rep

Castrol actually does have loftier goals for progress and whatnot. I don't think he's an entirely bad person and some of his goals are amiable. Additionally, the VTC is often kinder /less awful to the hauana than the RDC. The problem is that it's almost completely dependent on who's in charge from the VTC, because the VTC itself mostly just cares about reputation and money and doesn't inherently have issues with morally horrifying things.

That's weird.. Did you do that quest where you check out if the one family is trying to kill the other? You have to find them in Delvers Row. Maybe if you do that quest there won't be a fight at the end of the negotiations.

She didn't leave when I sided with the hauana, but Maia didn't either. However, I didn't do the sneaky horrible faction quest for any of them at the end. I just backed out of the Rauatai quest and then had to kill them in self defense, which apparently everyone is fine with me doing and then the game lets me pick a side without the faction people hating me

Also yeah, the Maia quest is messed up. You have to choose to help a friend do something horrible, commit counter sabotage and ruin some other person's life, or not do it at all. It's kind of interesting that a companion quest is so actively destructive. I also would love for someone to shed light on what you say to /do around Maia that makes her quit, stay but question the navy, or think the ends justify the means. I got the middle one which I think I prefer, but I was surprised when I read she actually questioned anything from the RDC.

It's cool reading what you thought of some of the little things! There is a way to save Pallegina, sort of, and not go VTC. If you make sure Castol was in good standing, he'll step in and save her. You might also have to make sure that VTC isn't the one that fights you at Ondras Mortar. Also might not be able to do this if you side with RDC. I did a "trick" someone else mentioned, which was try to side with the RDC and then back out when the Hazanui told me doing that meant assassination. That makes the RDC attack you and keeps Castol from getting ****ed over.

That's amazing hahaha. What a trolly thing to say. Could someone translate what that says? I never saw this before.

I just want more Eothas and Iovanna and Engwithins and souls influencing the way the world works. I liked what was there, but I do miss it a little compared to how much was in poe 1. Though it'd probably be hard to completely match it. But like, the mechanics of what blights and specters are and how that other watcher guy essentially had multiple personality disorder or how Aloth has a different personality /person as a survival mechanic, but it's all through the way souls work. I miss that stuff.

I don't feel like Eder was that different. When he was *there, * he was the same mostly sweet, strongly protective, cheerful dude. I think the issue was more: 1) You don't see him/his writing enough throughout the total play time you have. The concentration of content isn't enough. Then companion bugs make it worse. 2) The things that trigger content/dialogue the most for him are linked to the cool but wonky character disposition system, and for *most* of the side content the disposition you get the most is his animal lover stuff. There's not a disposition for him that's "protective of his friends" that fires constantly.

What happens if you don't hide the scroll?

Why do you say that?

I'm going to babble because I think I'm sort of still organizing my thoughts after playing the whole thing. I adored this game. It's flawed, but it's so well done otherwise, and I was also really glad to get back into the PoE universe. There's not really another game like it. It's so rare to see a fantasy genre that questions ethics and thinks about human/not-human systems. I loved that they tried to make the companions more dynamic with each other and the player character, I thought the returning characters were on point (Pallegina was an improvement actually, to me), I loved the funny, smart, sometimes surprising writing throughout the whole game. I loved that Eothas was kind and well meaning and actually trying to go in a similar direction that an Anti-Leaden Key Watcher might, but also kind of arguably just as bad as the other gods, because I like how that twisted expectations and made him a flawed individual. I thought the main story was really interesting and cool and well done (when it was there), but I really wish there had been more focus on it or it had been fleshed out more. To be fair, I'm not sure how they would have done it. But one of the things I love about Pillars of Eternity is the way the souls "mechanic" of the entire universe works in tons of little and big ways, and the history of its universe - the Engwithins messing with how the universe works, the (not gods) gods, the several existentialist nightmare-y elements of the game and the sort of positive/optimistic nihilism philosophy. That said, everything with Eothas was well done, and the additional information about how the Engwithins had changed the wheel and how that was linked to Ukaizo was great. I'll probably have to post later with little categories and sentences under those categories. I actually do have big complaints, but I love the game anyways.

i figured it was just a punishment for being rude, as gods don't typically like that. Oh! I could see that too. I went with the first conclusion because of Wael's general interest in making the mystery itself and not actually giving away an answer.

As Celan said, it's not bad dialogue. The dialogue itself is well written, smart, usually pretty reactive and usually allows you to make a variety of different responses/interactions based on temperament. It is kind of messy continuity. One of the bigger issues with the game mechanically. I love that they tried to make the game let you do anything, no matter where you go first, but the implementation needs some fixing, and the quests might need some more reactivity based on what you've done around them.

I don't know. I haven't ever imported a save yet (I plan to redo the whole series...at some point), and I haven't seen a lot of info on any of that stuff.

I didn't realize you could custom-make a background. A picked a pre-made save because I had messed up the hollowborn choice and also couldn't remember all my choices in POE 1 to feel comfortable going with the imported save. The pre-made definition gives you some idea of what they are, but I don't know if there's a checklist you can see. In my game, though, I picked benevolent pre-made (because that mostly matches my original character) and: -Eder was skeptic -Aloth was anti-leaden key -Pallegina had taken the loyalist route in the trade deal, which is good for her but bad for some people in Dyrwood -I pledged to do what Hylea wanted with the hollowborn (return the souls to their original bodies) and got rewarded -I got Vela -I killed Concelhaut -I helped that one poor lady that was messed up by Skaen to kill everyone, forget her horrible memories/not kill everyone -I hid something that Wael asked me to hide? I can't remember what the details of this was, even though they were familiar -I made Thaos forget his past life memories so he could live without them I can't remember anything else off the bat.

I loved the companions in this game! I think overall there was an improvement, or an improvement when the improvement is less buggy. The writing for them was wonderful and well done, and I love the idea of them having little "arcs" with other characters and being semi-dynamic with said other characters and the player character. My biggest complaints are: 1) There are not enough proper conversations with the player or interjections during other dialogue. Though maybe this is in part because of 2. 2) The dynamics with the other team members and player character are kind of buggy or wonky. I didn't get Xoti's conversation about Eder being cute and not liking her until the very last second, but the ending and their behavior with each other was buddy-buddy otherwise. Also, I think they took some of the team member to team member arcs out, like Aloth and Eder, and that bums me out a bit. 3) You often can't question their opinions or inform them of things that would make them think about those opinions (unless it's part of their quest). You can question/change companion minds like Pallegina and Aloth on their personal quests, but not outside of that. The biggest offender on this was Xoti. I don't mind if I tell her, "Hey, the gods aren't really 'gods'" and she doesn't believe me, but it's so weird that I can't tell her that at all. And it makes all the conversations with Eder, Pallegina, and Aloth (who know better) kind of awkward and frustrating when she's in the party. Because the way they talk about the gods is as if they're man-made. Because they are.

This has happened a few times in the game. This one was especially notable because it happened with three companions at once toward the end game, where I would expect new dialogue to pop up. Companions will get the speech bubble, suggesting they have new dialogue/want to talk to you about something, but when you click on it or talk to them, you only see the preexisting dialogue choices. In this case, I: Arrived at Ukaizo, exhausted dialogue with the Guardian of Ukaizo, defeated him, then went to Grand Promenade. When I got there, Xoti, Eder, and Aloth had speech bubbles pop up, but when I talked to any of them, it only showed dialogue I had already seen. Imgur link goes to a couple pictures showing the issue: https://imgur.com/a/XAQqLZQ I have attached the system specs from dxdiag.exe, the output log, and what should be a save from right after I beat the Guardian of Ukaizo - in the harbor. If you go to Grand Promenade after you load the file, this issue should happen for you too. I had to compress it in to a zip file and put it on Dropbox because of the total size. Please let me know if there's any issue with opening/extracting them! Or if I'm supposed to do something else. https://www.dropbox.com/s/mecg4vagz0lqsrl/Error%20Zip.zip?dl=0 Thank you!!

I like the idea of naming your own character via the other in-game languages! Especially if the character has a name that matches the culture. E.g. a Valian word for a Valian character.