Katarack21

It seems like you are operating under certain assumptions that I don't agree with. I don't agree that gods or magic make a story less dark or gritty. Less grounded, sure, but you can have dark or light, mature or immature, stories with magic. I also don't think that so-called "adult" content e.g. sex, cursing, violence, drug use is diametrically opposed to progressive values. It's about how those things are presented within the story. You can write a progressive story that takes place in a very bigoted world, it depends on whether that content is presented critically or uncritically, and whether it is gratuitous or purposeful, and if it is purposeful, then what message it's conveying. A good example might be game of thrones. They have gods, the gods do things. Well...various people do various magical things and then claim it was some god or other working through them. Whether it really actually is a god working their will or not is considerably less clear.

Most Roparu are content with their lot in life, because like in real world Indian culture, they believe that the gods will reincarnate them into higher caste in the next life (which, unlike the real world, is actually quite possible). Um...have you been to the Gullet yet? There's quite a *lot* of discontent and even outright *anger* brewing...because they're *literally starving to death* and *NOBODY* is "fine" with that. It's made very clear.

What's really disgusting me is how freaking *many* of these "There are women doing things that I don't like women doing in this game!" so-called reviews have been showing up lately.Really makes me question my self-identity as a "gamer" when I see what's up with parts of gamer culture these days. I just don't understand why of all games it's this one that's getting ragged on for these reasons. So far this is like the least "political" game I've played all year.RPGs seem to be particularly vulnerable to this stuff for some reason. The worst I've seen was the Beamdog forums during the release of Siege of Dragonspear a few years ago. The devs included a minor NPC with two lines of dialogue about gender fluidity and gamergate launched a weeks-long review bombing campaign knocking the metacritic and GoG scores down to 3 (meanwhile: 7.5 among verified Steam purchases). The developer downsized and hasn't released any OC since.Yet it's somehow the "SJWs" who are still charicatured in the gaming community as the unreasonable value crusaders. Goes to show that gamergate was never really about combating censorship in gaming so much as fighting cultural change and representational diversity. I mean, I get it. When games have been made with no care for any demographic but yours for the past thirty years, it's hard to adapt when the industry *finally* notices that other people want to play too. Same thing is happening with comic books – a female Thor and a black Spiderman are always going to cause some people's heads to just explode. I was actually one of the people that had a problem with SoD. Now THAT was just virtue signaling garbage. It was embarassing. Don't get me started on the state of Marvel comics. It was two lines of dialogue + a cheeky Minsc bark. The rest was imagined by gamergate conspiracy theorists and has since been roundly debunked – I won't sift through it again here. Regardless, no team of developers should have to go through something like that over something so minimal. Go back sometime, read the **** that was said to and about Amber Scott, read the metacritic review spam, and honestly defend that reaction as proportional to the "offending" content. Gamergate has become everything that it claimed to hate about so-called "SJW's" — driven by victim/outrage politics, unreasonably prosecutorial, and finding cause for offense under every rock and behind every corner. OP practically wrote a manifesto on how a game that features cosmic space pigs and drug-addled monks is on a mission to emasculate him, FFS. That's not normal. Gamers should be able to criticize content they don't like without assuming a pervasive and malicious agenda behind every creative decision. This culturally aggrieved conspiracy mongering has been out of hand for a while now. "Hitler did nothing wrong" is one sentence but I imagine you'd have a problem if an NPC said that. Your logic doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Here's what one person said about Mizhena: Hey, if we're gonna post statements from random people on the Internet to prove what the SoD fiasco was about, here's one for you.

Yeah, that's a severe problem with romance pacing. Five minutes of Maia in my party and she's already asking if I'm banging anyone. There are times when I wonder if my watcher has Aloth, Eder and Pally rotating shifts outside his door to keep the horndogs away. Gee it's almost like people sometimes act, swiftly, on impulse when they're physically attracted to someone. Also, anecdotal, but yours was too: Maia had been in my party for many hours of gametime before she asked me about that. Also also, because it's actually kind of important: the way in which that conversation plays out is actually quite witty, even if it's quite blunt. Anyway, I don't agree that anything described in these two posts is 'a problem'. If it was just one character, it'd actually be fine - Viconia in BG2, for example, will bang CHARNAME very, very easily because it suits her character design (she's a Drow priestess, basically top dog in Drow culture even if she's kind of a rebel and worships Shar instead of Lloth.) Her entire character arc, especially with Throne of Bhaal included, is about her learning how to be "normal," in the context of non-Drow races. If you have a whole boat full of randy omnisexuals that come onto the PC basically automatically (as opposed to there needing to be a spark struck first)... then, yeah, you have an issue. That "jumping into your pants immediately" thing is a bug. Like a real, actual bug. That doesn't reflect character design, writing, etc. It's a bug.

I would just make it so that you had some real influence with the faction you sided with and be able to steer them to some extent to the path that your character would take. Being able to pick who to install as chief isn't all it's made out to be considering how things were implemented in the game. Not only are you a lapdog to the gods, but if you choose to side with a faction and have that come up in the ending, you also end up as a lapdog to a faction. What a useless guy this Watcher character is. The battle between 4 factions is a battle of ideology, what each of them view as the rightful state of the Deadfire. Considering how long and intense they have been fighting each other, persuasion should stay off the table because there's really no reason for them to cooperate as none of them are in any real immediate danger with a common enemy. Even Eothas doesn't really care about them so unless he stomp all over Neketaka, there's no reason for them to view him as an immediate threat. Has there been this long intense war? And don't they know he is trying to break the wheel to end life as we know it? Not saying them bickering regardless is poor writing but I think that claim is inaccurate that he doesn't represent an immediate threat. About 65 years ago the RDC launched a full-scale actual invasion of the Deadfire. They *massaccred* the Wahaki tribe--the most-dominant tribe at the time--at the Battle of Nakaro Atoll. In response, the Kahanga tribe sent a group of Watershapers at the RDC's flagship and sank the **** out of it, and the RDC proceeded to back off basically out of fear. The VTC ramped up their presence in response to all of this. So the RDC is literally just waiting. It's not a "they might want to conquer us through military force" thing; it's a "they're waiting for the right moment to ****ing conquer us through military force" sort of thing.

Right, and that's fair, but it doesn't mean that the game system wasn't designed around a particular play-style being expected. They've mentioned repeatedly that they also expected (and expect) people to switch out their weapons depending on enemy vulnerabilities; in fact people not doing this in PoE 1 nearly as much as expected is part of the reason they redesigned the system (it indicated that there was a disconnect between their design goals and the way people actually played the game, so they changed things around some what).

Already playing a Corpse-Eater, but I think it's important to note that the description of "corpse eater" makes it clear they aren't just eating corpses for fun and profit; it's an almost religious rite.

Is there anything to indicate that 'picking one with good spells and keeping it forever' isn't intended behaviour? Just because you can switch grimoires doesn't mean the devs didn't imagine players would stick with one the really liked. Yes, Josh Sawyer repeatedly discussed this intent, although I can't seem to find the quotes right now. Also the description of grimoires includes the line "Though all grimoires are limited by a finite set of pages, many accomplished wizards are known to carry several grimoires at once to handle a variety of situations."

Yeah, that's a severe problem with romance pacing. Five minutes of Maia in my party and she's already asking if I'm banging anyone. There are times when I wonder if my watcher has Aloth, Eder and Pally rotating shifts outside his door to keep the horndogs away. Yup, that's a confirmed bug. The relationship pacing is *all* off.

Which is clearly incorrect, because "soul power" explains how... muscle fibers are more dense or whatever practical application of it you'd like to use. I didn't get the guidebook backer tier, so there's clearly stuff that I don't know because it's not explained anywhere in-game. Does it explain how "soul power" can violate the laws of physics? Or does it explain that Eora's physical laws are substantially different from our own, despite the setting being presented in a way that makes it appear to be pretty similar to our own aside from obvious things like souls? Umm.....have you seen what ciphers and wizards do? That's all soul-power, too. *NOTHING* about souls follows anything even vaguely resembling the laws of physics in our world. It's like the Force in Star Wars, or dilithium crystals in Star Trek, or how the **** the X-Gene works in Marvel. It's the bull**** that establishes all the crazy **** that separates Eora from the real world. Except fighters and other martials are explicitly said to be just "moving really fast" or "hitting really hard." They aren't creating energy or matter or using telepathy or other overtly supernatural powers, so their actions still must logically follow physical laws. A vampire in a White Wolf game can move at superhuman speeds and possess the physical strength to throw cars like they're linkin logs, but they still have to obey the physical laws of that world's universe. Unless you've got more of that guidebook that you aren't sharing, the same must then apply to fighters, barbarians, etc here. We could explore the physics of that fireball the mage is throwing, but trying to tie overtly supernatural things to real-life physics is usually a bad idea - SO PEOPLE USUALLY JUST ACCEPT IT'S ALL AN ABSTRACTION. But the fighters abilities are overtly supernatural. *SUPERHUMAN* speed, *SUPERHUMAN* strength, etc. They're using an explicitly supernatural ability--soul-power--to enhance their physical capabilities to an extent that is *beyond natural limits*. When that charge takes you across half the room in the blink of an eye--that's because soul-power allowed you to move halfway across the room in the blink of an eye, and that's *overtly supernatural*. It's physical, but still supernatural--like a werewolfs transformation, or that vampire throwing a car (which will get you a Masquerade violate if done in public because it's a blatant supernatural act). They *don't* have to follow physical laws at all; they don't have to grow muscle fibers or anything, because it's not their muscles doing it--it's the explicitly supernatural soul-power allowing them to do something that is *blatantly* impossible, as you keep pointing out. The orlan using their soul-power to knock down an ogre depends as much on their muscles as Aloth's casting a spell depends on *his* muscles. That's what you're not getting; Knock Down is *every bit as much a supernatural ability as Fireball*. And the effect is has is just as impossible--a fireball conjures heat and crushing power from mid-air, and Knock Down let's a three foot tall orlan knock down an ogre. Both equally impossible, both accomplished supernaturally.

Yes. In fact, there is proof of the reverse - you can make both male and female characters with any combination of attributes and background. That's a gameplay abstraction to avoid the old "-4 Str" arguments. Men are quite clearly stronger than women for all of the kith races we've seen because sexual dimorphism is on full display and the males are noticeably larger than the females - this would directly translate to increased physical strength, longer reach, etc. It's silly to assume that the two sexes possess equal physical strength, on average, unless there's fluff somewhere that states that females have increased muscle fiber density or something. And even then, they'd still be at a practical disadvantage because shorter limbs would result in reduced leverage, even if their muscles were just as strong despite being smaller. Gameplay abstractions are just that - abstractions. Attributes themselves in Pillars are explicitly abstractions. Supposedly a Wizard with 18 Might is just really, like... mentally powerful or whatever, not a Duke of Swoletown. Unfortunately, in-game crunch doesn't line up with established fluff, because every single Might check I have ever seen in either game has been a straight up "use your muscles to do things" check. It results in unintentionally absurd interactions where a three foot tall Orlan can lift a presumably ~6 foot tall human off the ground, by their throat, and shake them like a rag doll in a dialogue option. Well which is it? You said one gender is clearly stronger than the other in spite of the abstractions and then you pointed out that the in-game might checks that contradicted what you just said. It's fine that you think it's absurd, but that's how the game world works. lol, what? No, I didn't. I specifically explained how gameplay does not line up with fluff and provided a concrete example of exactly why - I don't care how much "soul power" affects a person's physical strength, it is quite literally impossible for a three foot Orlan to lift a six foot human off the ground by their throat. You can be the strongest soul on Eora and you still cannot open a door if you need to have arms that are 3'6" in length and they are only 3'3", and so on. The point, then, is that gameplay cannot be used to support fluff because it's quite clear that gameplay regularly ignores or even violates fluff. I have no clue how you got "You said one gender is clearly stronger than the other" out of that. Yes, the in-game writing screwed up with it's use of the "Might" skill. This has been acknowledged as an *error* and apologized for by Obsidian. The "Might" interactions are not to be taken as reflective of the actual gameworld; they are mistakes. As for how soul-power and fighters work, this is what Obsidian said: "Though it may not look like it to see them in battle next to wizards and priests, fighters are just as able to tap into the power of their souls to devastating effect: accelerating their attacks to a superhuman speed, striking foes with such power that nearby opponents are knocked off their feet, and maintaining a phenomenal endurance that allows them to rapidly bounce back from even terrible wounds." That orlan is *actually* knocking down that ogre. It's not an abstraction; the orlan is *actually hitting that ogre* and *actually knocking it down*. When a fighter uses Knock Down, it's as much a soul-powered effect as Ningauths Shadowflame, and as such it has to obey the laws of physics about as much as Ningauths Shadowflame does. That Orlan is not knocking down that ogre because that would be PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE without getting into the realm of ****ing superheroes. Not "channeling soul energy to be faster and stronger," but "Superman utterly ignoring physical laws" superhero stuff. If this is a superhero setting, it doesn't do an effective job of selling it. And if Obsidian admits that Might interactions were used in error, why did they REPEAT that error for Deadfire? There are even more interactions, and they're all still "get swole" interactions. ...it's also physically impossible to wave your hands and say some words and make a giant ball of fire appear out of midair, zoom 15 feet across the room, and explode like a small grenade, but oh, well.

Which is clearly incorrect, because "soul power" explains how... muscle fibers are more dense or whatever practical application of it you'd like to use. I didn't get the guidebook backer tier, so there's clearly stuff that I don't know because it's not explained anywhere in-game. Does it explain how "soul power" can violate the laws of physics? Or does it explain that Eora's physical laws are substantially different from our own, despite the setting being presented in a way that makes it appear to be pretty similar to our own aside from obvious things like souls? Umm.....have you seen what ciphers and wizards do? That's all soul-power, too. *NOTHING* about souls follows anything even vaguely resembling the laws of physics in our world. It's like the Force in Star Wars, or dilithium crystals in Star Trek, or how the **** the X-Gene works in Marvel. It's the bull**** that establishes all the crazy **** that separates Eora from the real world.

What's really disgusting me is how freaking *many* of these "There are women doing things that I don't like women doing in this game!" so-called reviews have been showing up lately.Really makes me question my self-identity as a "gamer" when I see what's up with parts of gamer culture these days. I just don't understand why of all games it's this one that's getting ragged on for these reasons. So far this is like the least "political" game I've played all year.RPGs seem to be particularly vulnerable to this stuff for some reason. The worst I've seen was the Beamdog forums during the release of Siege of Dragonspear a few years ago. The devs included a minor NPC with two lines of dialogue about gender fluidity and gamergate launched a weeks-long review bombing campaign knocking the metacritic and GoG scores down to 3 (meanwhile: 7.5 among verified Steam purchases). The developer downsized and hasn't released any OC since.Yet it's somehow the "SJWs" who are still charicatured in the gaming community as the unreasonable value crusaders. Goes to show that gamergate was never really about combating censorship in gaming so much as fighting cultural change and representational diversity. I mean, I get it. When games have been made with no care for any demographic but yours for the past thirty years, it's hard to adapt when the industry *finally* notices that other people want to play too. Same thing is happening with comic books – a female Thor and a black Spiderman are always going to cause some people's heads to just explode. I was actually one of the people that had a problem with SoD. Now THAT was just virtue signaling garbage. It was embarassing. Don't get me started on the state of Marvel comics. It was two lines of dialogue + a cheeky Minsc bark. The rest was imagined by gamergate conspiracy theorists and has since been roundly debunked – I won't sift through it again here. Regardless, no team of developers should have to go through something like that over something so minimal. Go back sometime, read the **** that was said to and about Amber Scott, read the metacritic review spam, and honestly defend that reaction as proportional to the "offending" content. Gamergate has become everything that it claimed to hate about so-called "SJW's" — driven by victim/outrage politics, unreasonably prosecutorial, and finding cause for offense under every rock and behind every corner. OP practically wrote a manifesto on how a game that features cosmic space pigs and drug-addled monks is on a mission to emasculate him, FFS. That's not normal. Gamers should be able to criticize content they don't like without assuming a pervasive and malicious agenda behind every creative decision. This culturally aggrieved conspiracy mongering has been out of hand for a while now. "Hitler did nothing wrong" is one sentence but I imagine you'd have a problem if an NPC said that. That depends on the character. It's not a statement I would agree with, but if it was said in-game by a neo-nazi skinhead, then hell no I wouldn't have a problem with it--it's an accurate reflection of the character, even if all we know about that character is "neo-nazi skinhead that we meet for two seconds and says one line".

Yes. In fact, there is proof of the reverse - you can make both male and female characters with any combination of attributes and background. That's a gameplay abstraction to avoid the old "-4 Str" arguments. Men are quite clearly stronger than women for all of the kith races we've seen because sexual dimorphism is on full display and the males are noticeably larger than the females - this would directly translate to increased physical strength, longer reach, etc. It's silly to assume that the two sexes possess equal physical strength, on average, unless there's fluff somewhere that states that females have increased muscle fiber density or something. And even then, they'd still be at a practical disadvantage because shorter limbs would result in reduced leverage, even if their muscles were just as strong despite being smaller. Gameplay abstractions are just that - abstractions. Attributes themselves in Pillars are explicitly abstractions. Supposedly a Wizard with 18 Might is just really, like... mentally powerful or whatever, not a Duke of Swoletown. Unfortunately, in-game crunch doesn't line up with established fluff, because every single Might check I have ever seen in either game has been a straight up "use your muscles to do things" check. It results in unintentionally absurd interactions where a three foot tall Orlan can lift a presumably ~6 foot tall human off the ground, by their throat, and shake them like a rag doll in a dialogue option. Well which is it? You said one gender is clearly stronger than the other in spite of the abstractions and then you pointed out that the in-game might checks that contradicted what you just said. It's fine that you think it's absurd, but that's how the game world works. lol, what? No, I didn't. I specifically explained how gameplay does not line up with fluff and provided a concrete example of exactly why - I don't care how much "soul power" affects a person's physical strength, it is quite literally impossible for a three foot Orlan to lift a six foot human off the ground by their throat. You can be the strongest soul on Eora and you still cannot open a door if you need to have arms that are 3'6" in length and they are only 3'3", and so on. The point, then, is that gameplay cannot be used to support fluff because it's quite clear that gameplay regularly ignores or even violates fluff. I have no clue how you got "You said one gender is clearly stronger than the other" out of that. Yes, the in-game writing screwed up with it's use of the "Might" skill. This has been acknowledged as an *error* and apologized for by Obsidian. The "Might" interactions are not to be taken as reflective of the actual gameworld; they are mistakes. As for how soul-power and fighters work, this is what Obsidian said: "Though it may not look like it to see them in battle next to wizards and priests, fighters are just as able to tap into the power of their souls to devastating effect: accelerating their attacks to a superhuman speed, striking foes with such power that nearby opponents are knocked off their feet, and maintaining a phenomenal endurance that allows them to rapidly bounce back from even terrible wounds." That orlan is *actually* knocking down that ogre. It's not an abstraction; the orlan is *actually hitting that ogre* and *actually knocking it down*. When a fighter uses Knock Down, it's as much a soul-powered effect as Ningauths Shadowflame, and as such it has to obey the laws of physics about as much as Ningauths Shadowflame does.

Yes. In fact, there is proof of the reverse - you can make both male and female characters with any combination of attributes and background. That's a gameplay abstraction to avoid the old "-4 Str" arguments. Men are quite clearly stronger than women for all of the kith races we've seen because sexual dimorphism is on full display and the males are noticeably larger than the females - this would directly translate to increased physical strength, longer reach, etc. It's silly to assume that the two sexes possess equal physical strength, on average, unless there's fluff somewhere that states that females have increased muscle fiber density or something. No, but there *IS* fluff stating that physical strength is related to your *soul power*. That's a thing. In Eora, might--including physical strength--is more closely related to soul power than anything. If your soul is strong enough, you *WILL* be strong enough. That's how a 4 foot tall female Orlan can knock down an Ogre. That's because it's a gameplay abstraction unless you're suggesting a typical Orlan can become literally superhuman (superorlan?) by getting really angry or something. Saying that it's a concrete example would mean Obsidian needs to put a lot more effort into explaining how "soul power" literally and flagrantly violates the laws of physics, or explain how Eora's basic physical laws are markedly different from those in real-world Earth despite them never commenting on something that would be so fundamentally important to the setting. So I'm going with the simpler "it's a gameplay abstraction" explanation. Your orlan isn't punching the ogre so hard they fall over because that would require an obscene, impossible amount of leverage and energy - instead, it's probably just a way to abstract them ducking between the ogre and tripping them or something. Yes, that is *explicitly* how it works, according to the lore. That's how Fighters do their things--superhuman feats of strength, speed, etc. from training up their soul-power. It's in the guidebook and in other sources. It's not about "getting really angry", it's actually something they *train to be able to do* while they learn to be a fighter, barbarian, etc. It's the same process Wizards use to cast spells, just funneled in a different way.

Personally not a big fan of the new grimoire system. You're supposed to switch them out situationally as you need different spells, but I just picked one good one with spells I liked and kept it forever.

Yes. In fact, there is proof of the reverse - you can make both male and female characters with any combination of attributes and background. That's a gameplay abstraction to avoid the old "-4 Str" arguments. Men are quite clearly stronger than women for all of the kith races we've seen because sexual dimorphism is on full display and the males are noticeably larger than the females - this would directly translate to increased physical strength, longer reach, etc. It's silly to assume that the two sexes possess equal physical strength, on average, unless there's fluff somewhere that states that females have increased muscle fiber density or something. No, but there *IS* fluff stating that physical strength is related to your *soul power*. That's a thing. In Eora, might--including physical strength--is more closely related to soul power than anything. If your soul is strong enough, you *WILL* be strong enough. That's how a 4 foot tall female Orlan can knock down an Ogre.

There's always a conflict when it comes to romancable companion sexuality; if you lock it behind gender tastes you can create more nuanced characters by reflecting their personality in their romance, but you'll cut out gameplay options for segments of your players. If you make everybody willing to sleep with anybody, then you increase player opportunity and choice but cut out some nuance of story and character. It doesn't mean anything as far as SJW propaganda is concerned; it's just a gameplay choice.

Actually, Arkemyr's is not home initally. The best approach to rob him is non-violent one. And it starts with you going in through the window of the second floor of his shop (The Dark Cupboard) and stealing his robes from his room up top. After robbing his vault and giving the tablet to one of those women an imp sends a message that Arkemyr has returned and sends you an invite - that progresses into a quest about the observatory. Thanks for the tip. I was wondering if there might be some sort of way to get from the store to his house, but I forgot to go upstairs to take a look-see. While I'm on the topic (sorta), I've been very hesitant to recruit Fassina for my party (or its reserves) because she runs a useful store and I haven't yet bought everything worth buying yet. Kind of a shame, because I think that she'd be nice to have around. An imp takes her place behind the counter, so don't even worry.

i might start doing that again, however, i find the skill selections the auto-levelup system picks are fairly... stupid, and i'm not fond of wasting the coin it cost to undo it. You can turn off auto-level and level them up yourself. i've been looking for an option to do that for ages. now, i feel like an idiot myself for having to ask... but, how would i do that? In-game, not in the loading screen, hit escape and select "Difficulty" from the options. Then on the left-hand side, second option from the top.

i might start doing that again, however, i find the skill selections the auto-levelup system picks are fairly... stupid, and i'm not fond of wasting the coin it cost to undo it. You can turn off auto-level and level them up yourself.

But can you cheat death? Those guys certainly can - one is an undead lich, another has countless bodies, Arkemyr probably uses illusions of himself. We'll have to see if Akemyr shows up in the DLC after I exploded him like a balloon filled with red koolaid, won't we? I'm pretty sure he will, these guys tend to pop back up like mushrooms after rain. Btw, did he drop any good loot? Unique grimoire with a couple of unique spells and a non-unique legendary robe. That's it.

It's mystifying to me, honestly, because Obsidian games in the past have *ALWAYS* featured the exact same kind of games; deconstructing genres--fantasy, scifi, spy thriller, whatever--and their associated tropes is what Obsidian *does*.

But can you cheat death? Those guys certainly can - one is an undead lich, another has countless bodies, Arkemyr probably uses illusions of himself. We'll have to see if Akemyr shows up in the DLC after I exploded him like a balloon filled with red koolaid, won't we?

I've now killed three archmages...one of them twice. I'm clearly way more powerful than those idiots.