Homer Morisson

And still no word from the devs on this, or at least from the QA guys... this is a major bug pretty much ruining the game for me at this point, I have stopped my playthrough completely at 50+ hours because of mainly this bug that ruins companion interactions. I was asked yesterday by someone if I could recommend PoE2 to them -- my answer, sadly, was forced to be "No, wait for a sale -- Obsidian is back to their worst days, releasing games with several major bugs in them, one of which is an almost entirely broken companion interaction/reputation system". They agreed with me that this is one of the most important systems in any RPG, the interaction with your companions being a make-or-break-factor for them as well as for me... so there, majorly disappointed one customer, lost (at least) one other potential customer.

Being about 50 hours in, I sadly have to agree -- multiple companions/reputations are completely broken and thus love interests or negative results are impossible to achieve with those comps, some quests are impossible to turn in and should have auto-cancelled, items and skills are going missing, or didn't show up in the first place from the imported/created PoE1 states. It is a huge game and a daunting task to do proper QA and bughunting, but I agree completely with the OP... I'd rather have waited longer for release than now, in the middle of an exhaustive playthrough, to lose all motivation to continue because the bugs are just piling up and the one companion I find truly interesting is completely broken because of it. -.-

Fishboy left me, leaving only a note... just because I killed his Queen... way too touchy, that one.

*push* Prince is still missing, no sign of where he might have gone if he was really in exile either.

Title pretty much says it all... I freed the dragon during the Watershaper questline, the Queen didn't like it and publically insulted me, so I publically killed her, as befits her crime of insulting Death's Herald. Anyhow, killing the Queen apparently triggered the Prince going into exile or somesuch thing, but it didn't auto-fail the "The Last Sanctuary" quest, which I completed after killing the Queen and which now tells me to turn it in at the Palace, since that's where I would find the Prince. I've checked (and thus was forced to kill all guards at the palace, since they attacked me even though it was all in the past, and after slaughtering every single hostile, I can safely say that the Prince was nowhere around. I also checked the Watershaper Guild, as some NPC banter said the Prince were meeting with them to avenge the death of his sister, but he wasn't there either -- so this has effectly stopped the plot for the princly questline completely, but even if that was intentional as a result for killing the Queen, then this should have auto-failed the quest.

Interesting... none of my companions have so far ever gotten past either -2 or +2, I've not seen any higher number on any of them, not even on the archer girl that wanted to start a relationship with me. Apparently this side of the companion system is pretty much completely broken... shame they released it in this state.

'tis possible, though I cannot say for sure; as I've stated in the OP already, I never take him along.

The game doesn't explain this properly when an injury happens for the first time, so just to be sure: Did you guys remember to put all injured crew in the "Resting Crew"-slots of your ship? Only there will they receive healing! So it really doesn't matter how good your surgeon is, or if you even have a surgeon at all, if you don't allow the injured crew member to rest, they will never recover and constantly be draining morale.

Thanks for your input, maybe this'll help get the devs attention... shame that such things for the main companions haven't been better QA'd before release, it is frankly putting quite a big damper on my first playthrough, as Xoti is the most intriguing new companion in my opinion... but sadly she's completely broken apparently. Ever since the Adra Pillar, and her turning to the darker side of things, her character portrait showed the "I want to talk to you"-icon a number of times, but every time that happened and I then talked to her, it was just her standard dialogue and not an actual conversation, probably also related to this reputation bug.

You are correct, this is the PoE 1 loyalty/owner bonus, i.e. it is only available to accounts that have both PoE 1 and 2 registered to them. It's shown as installed for me, btw.

Update: I have now deliberately tried dialogues again several times that would either irk or please Xoti in different ways, i.e. via being antireligious or by making a joke, etc pp -- none of those actions, none of my story decisions, nothing so far has led to any change to that "0" reputation level. This is a major bug for me personally, as I was looking forward to a) romancing Xoti, but more importantly b) bringing her quest chain to its final (dark) end, and I'm quite worried that this won't work without the proper reputation/affection levels. So this is potentially a plot-stopping bug, albeit only a companion plot-stopper. As you can also see from the screenshot above, I even have ~1.5 levels of reputation with the Huntress and her Bird, and that's despite her having joined the party much later than Xoti, and not having been an active companion anywhere near as often -- ever since having recruited Xoti in Port Maje, I have never once not taken her with me, so it is absolutely impossible for me to still be at exactly 0, i.e. perfectly neutral, reputation levels with her. Especially not after what I put her through so far.

Were they in the crate you saved, or did you save the crate, and then it appeared in the same place as the Pieces of Yenwood? I'm also experiencing this issue. I just can't seem to find the sword. A friend told me they used a save import and managed to get both of them. Only 'fix' for this I'm afraid for the rest of us is that you have to use a console command to gain the pieces. I had only the pieces of the sword in the crate that I saved, the one with "my" banner/colors on it, i.e. Caed Nua livery. No bow parts, no entire bow, just the sword in pieces, which I then had reforged in Neketaka.

I've pushed Xoti towards darkness, I forced her to suffer at the Adra pillar for the maximum amount of time, I did not take her side in her conflict with Pallegina, and on Tikawara Island, in that scene with the Koiki Thief being tied to a pillar, when Xoti said "Do something or I might...", I told her to pipe down. All in all, I have not been nice to her, yet her reputation towards me is at an even 0 and so far has never once changed... all other companions are at varying levels, it's just Xoti that doesn't change from that 0... dialogue-wise, she just recently during resting stood above me with her sickle in hand while I was sleeping, but the reputation screen doesn't reflect any of that at all. The only other companion at 0 is Aloth, but that's accurate as I never take him with me anyways.

Cheers Logos, appreciated!

Thank you, exactly what I was looking for -- well, at least one more surprise and option coming up then. =) Main story quest, or side quest though, i.e. potentially missable?

Thanks for your reply... that would actually be a major letdown to me, both having all the highest tier ships revealed pretty much immediately, as well as having just such a small choice of ships; I feel that it then ultimately boils down to either taking the more tanky Galleon or the more glass cannon-Junk. But maybe there'll be a surprise yet, after all you yourself weren't completely sure either apparently.

Saved the crate, manual history with forging the sword, got sword parts and had it reforged in Neketaka. So it did work for me with a manual history, and with going for the crate rather than the deckhand.

I can confirm, the exact same thing happened to me, spoilers following: Xoti Quest State: Encouraged Xoti towards Darkness Been to Gaun's Temple for "cleansing", then to the Luminous Adra Pillar in that area Pushed Xoti towards Darkness, forced her to keep connected to the Adra Pillar for the maximum amount of time and suffering on her part, until an Adra shard broke free Upgraded the Lantern, Xoti Dialogue about nightmares now states she has them all the time, even waking, and that she now welcomes them and can't wait to reap as many souls as possible. With this state, I then went inside the VTC HQ for the very first time and there I recruited Pallegina also for the very first time, and talked to her subsequently. She made the mentioned antireligious comment, which the dialogue box showed Xoti did not appreciate. Immediately after finishing that dialogue with Pallegina, Xoti initiated her Rant-dialogue including the ultimatum, which indeed clearly insiunates that Xoti and Pallegina must have been travelling together for quite some time, as it alludes to Xoti having spoken to her about this issue before already, which is de-facto impossible, having just met her that second, and it also says stuff like "I cannot take it anymore/This is the last straw", etc.

Definitely works like that with the multiple ranks, on that I am sure as this is exactly what I could observe throughout a multitude of naval battles... I'm 30 hours in and story-wise have just visited the Queen for the first time in Neketaka, i.e. haven't even been to her first mission yet... have rather spent my time becoming rich(-ish) and getting a more powerful ship first, and by now I have a couple of Master level crew, they definitely had a multitude of "gained a rank"-ups, compared to only three level ups to go from 1 to 4. You as the captain btw can level up until level 5, that much at least is explained in the Tutorial section of the whole Journal menu.

Thanks for the suggestion but I already used the console to get it back. I really dont like to use the console but getting back the money I made from all the goodies from that old city under Neketaka was motivation enough. You're welcome -- I hope you are okay with not unlocking achievements anymore now, especially since they unlock a currency ingame that you can use for your next playthrough to unlock some bonuses and stuff.

Here's how I understand the system: Your regular crew members have their skills, i.e. Cook, Deckhand, Surgeon, etc... they can only level up in skills they always had, they cannot learn new ones. So even if you put a sailor without Cook in the galley, they'll never learn to be a Cook... if however you put a Cook in your kitchen, here's how that levelling up works: -- In order to gain a new level, i.e. go from Level 1 Novice to Level 2 Experienced, you have to gain multiple ranks first -- after your crew mate has gotten a few rank ups, they'll eventually get a level up and become more experienced/efficient/effective at whatever their best job skill is. If they have multiple skills unlocked, they can level up in all of them, but only if they are put in the corresponding position on your ship's crew... i.e. a crew member with Cook and Surgeon that's posted to the galley will only learn to be a better cook, not surgeon. Regular crew can only gain 4 levels in total, Level 4 is Master [Whatever]... and on this I'm not sure, but for multi skill crew I believe they can only master one of those skills, but I could be wrong on that... haven't gotten anyone to two master ranks yet, so couldn't test it out myself.

Hey there, as the title says, I'd like to get as spoiler-free as possible an answer, so as not to spoil the stats etc, so if anyone that knows this for certain could just give me simple yes/no answer, that'd be grand: 1. Will there eventually be higher tier ships for the Watcher to buy than the Galleon and Junk that are available at Neketaka early on in the game? 2. If there are more powerful/different types of ships yet to be unlocked, is this tied to the progress in the main story, or side quests, or both? Thanks guys.

Check your formation setting and distance to your main character during dialogues -- I have found that there is a very, very small area around the main char only where those party assists are being registered/counted... for example when using a custom formation and having the main char 2 or 3 squares away from the rest of your party, during dialogues you would likely not get any assists. If you manually make sure that all your party members are directly next to the NPC and main char before starting the dialogue, you will however see those assists suddenly working. @Caleb: I would suggest making that area at least 25% bigger, because it really does lead to me having to manually reposition my guys from their regular formation for every single dialogue, just to make sure that the game actually knows that I want them to be involved in this discussion.

... deserves a bloody great raise, in my book -- these are among the very, very best dynamic, accurate shadows I have ever seen in any game or engine, and the very best way for me to express how impressed I was is this: It took me a while to even consciously notice how great the shadows are in this game, because I subconsciously didn't pay any attention to them at all -- they were so realistic, so close to what shadows in the real life are like, that my brain didn't recognize them anymore as something artificial, something from the uncanny valley, but as something normal, natural, completely in line with expectations of how the world behaves and what it looks like doing so. I hope this makes sense to the engineer behind this finely tuned masterpiece of a shadow/light-simulation, because to me this is actually the highest praise: to have imitated nature to the highest degree, if not possible then at the very least ever done so far, there's practically no topping that. It was only during a lenghty dialogue during which I observed a maid at the Royal Palace in Neketaka go about her duties while the room was being lit mainly by my trusty St. Drogga's Skull, that I really noticed how marvelously the shadows interact with each other, how they distort and change their shape, size, length, all depending on the distance, intensity and relative height of the light source -- it's rare to find such a level of perfection in any one aspect of an engine's graphics features, but this is one of those times. Well done!

Well there is one workaround, it's called Cheat Engine... not sure if this sort of thing is discouraged from being discussed on the forums, but at the very least the OP could get their actually bug-related missing money back this way without losing achievements. I won't post a how to, since I don't know if this might be against the rules here, but just as a temporary workaround suggestion, that would definitely work without jeopardizing the save game with regards to achievements, which the console cheats would.