Lanyon

I backed Deadfire back in the day but as I am a patient gamer with a long backlog of games to play, I didn't start playing Deadfire for the first time until quite recently, which had the added bonus of not starting until all DLC and 5.0 were already released. I've been playing for a bit now and am Level 9 and I've noticed that my companion reputations seem to be unchanging. I discovered this because I was hoping to romance Xoti and upon looking stuff up online, some mention of needing a reputation level of 2 or higher with her is required for certain dialogue options to become available. I looked up the reputations tab and found I have a very large number of positive-reputation interactions with Xoti, and yet her reputation level is still only 1 (see attached screenshot). As it turns out, the same appears to be true for all my other companions as well. What's going on, and is there any way to fix this, like with a console command if nothing else? My game is pretty much vanilla, with the only mod installed being the Enhanced User Interface by Spherikal. A solution or explanation as to this issue would be much appreciated.

I don't think you quite understand the definition of the word 'nostalgia'. According to OED, nostalgia is defined as "a sentinmental longing or wistful affection for a period of the past". So yes, actually, nostalgia does disappear if you touch something again later and it's still everything you liked about it originally. Nostalgia would be if someone were to harp on about the merits of BG2 compared to PoE without ever having played BG2 again since about 2005 or something. Nostalgia does not apply to anyone that has played the game nearly once a year, every year, since its release, because there has been no time lapse required to develop a longing or wistfulness for "a period of the past". As for 'convenient handwaving', you're doing exactly what you're accusing me of... except in the opposite direction. You say I'm conveniently handwaving everything you said regarding the difference between tabletop and game design, and yet you are conveniently handwaving what I said about their similarities. However, I'm going to 'conveniently handwave' most of the rest of your reply (i.e. "BG1 and 2 actually had way more boring trash than PoE") because I simply flat out disagree. And you may say that my arguments don't prove quality, but your arguments don't refute it, either. You say a bunch of my arguments 'pander to the lowest common denominator' and then list a bunch of things that only excel or are noteworthy about a single aspect of the many I listed with regard to BG2/IE, wherein the reality is that the quality is evident in the fact that it hit ALL those aspects on the head. And yes, I do know what opinions are, and everyone's entitled to them, including me. And IMHO, Obsidian is taking PoE2 down a path that diverges too far from the 'spiritual predecessor' that the franchise was supposed to honour.

See, even just a cursory look at the community behind the IE games provides ample evidence that this statement is just ridiculously uninformed. BG/BG2 were released almost 2 decades ago now, and they are STILL relevant today, played by tons of people, modded to hell and back, and then even after all that an enhanced edition of the Vanilla (unmodded) experience was released and sold exceptionally well. There may come a day when i eat crow, but personally I don't believe for a second that PoE will ever have the same following that BG and IE titles in general did, and STILL DO. BG2 was everything it's cracked up to be.

I don't have time to respond to everything you wrote and i have no desire to write a novella, but I'll respond to a couple things that stuck out. First, your statement that a tabletop game isn't comparable to a cRPG is flat out false. Just because you don't feel like the comparison is valid, does not automatically make it so. My personal opinion on the matter still stands: even in the cRPG medium, encounter design can be tailored to rectify pretty much all of the "issues" that have been quoted as the reasons for reducing the party size from 6 to 5. Just look at the IE games... there are no shortage of encounters where a bunch of trash mobs weren't required to make a challenging encounter (i.e. dragon fights, demilich, Irenicus, to name a few). Maybe I'm alone in this, but I'm getting tired of 'micromanaging' being brought up as a NEGATIVE all the time and used as justification to introduce simplification in games where there's already much too rampant oversimplification already (look no further than The Elder Scrolls franchise). I actually happen to LIKE micromanaging. I loved combat in the IE games and still do. Given the choice between another playthrough of BG2 or PoE, I would choose BG2 any day. Which leads me to comment on the statement: What better content? I liked PoE, don't get me wrong, but an actually worthy successor to BG2? I think not (in my opinion). BG2 is the superior game, by far. After all this time and getting back to the genre, there were high hopes that Deadfire would be to PoE what BG2/ToB was to BG/ToTSC. Personally, for my own taste in games, I don't see that happening now because they're departing too far from the formula that won them their initial KS success in the first place, by appealing to fans of the IE games. Last but not least, I have to comment on the 'nostalgia and memory' comment. It's a tired, old argument and it needs to stop. I've heard it way too often when attempting to discuss the merits of the IE titles compared to what's on offer today. The thing with nostalgia and rose-coloured-glasses is that they don't stand up to modern/recent exposure. Nostalgia is when someone claims 'those were the good old days' without being able to remember the flaws and negatives of the thing. This isn't at play, though (for me, anyway) since I still play the IE titles all the time. There's no 'nostalgia' when I can say, unequivocally, that I'll be playing through BG2 again in the next few months for probably about the dozenth time in my life, if not more than that. BG2 set the bar high, and it hasn't been met yet. I was hoping Deadfire would aspire to. But, for me, it never will because of these fundamental changes to the gameplay mechanics.

This is one of the stupidest excuses for justifying less than 6 party member I've seen. Party size has literally ZERO effect on encounter mob composition unless you're a lazy sack of garbage. ENCOUNTER DESIGN is the primary determinant of encounter composition. This is true for tabletop as much as for gaming. I've DM'd for many a year, and the hallmark of lazy encounter design is "oh, the party CR is higher than expected? Better toss in a couple extra mobs!" rather than redesigning the encounter to properly fit the party CR.

I'm of the same mindset LordCrash, I remember being SO stoked about DA:O because it was touted as the spiritual successor to BG while being marketed. I've never been so disappointed by a game. I don't find it even enjoyable, let alone anything compared to BG2. I still have DA:O installed, and I've never finished it.

I despise this mentality. Whatever happened to the old mantra "If it isn't broken, don't fix it" ? Speaking in general terms (not just the games industry) I can't begin to count the number of things that have been essentially ruined over the years in the name of 'progress'. If something is working, stop trying to reiterate it. PoE was decent, don't get me wrong, and it did somewhat revive the IE feel. I say somewhat, though, because I can unequivocally declare without hesitation, and I'm sure many would agree with me, that PoE was no BG2. IMHO it wasn't even BG1... given the choice to start up yet another playthrough of either game, I'd still pick BG1 over PoE even though I've done MULTIPLE playthroughs of BG1 and only 2 of PoE. BG2 is considered by many to be the pinnacle of cRPG experiences (I for one am in the camp that BG2 was the better experience between it and PS:T, although the story in PS:T is what makes it considered 'the best cRPG of all time' according to many). Here we are nearing 2 decades since the release of BG2, and nothing has come close to how awesome it is.... this is REGRESS, not progress.

Neither would I, if a game could be released on consoles without changing a single thing about what makes it great on PC. Unfortunately, past precedent has ALWAYS shown that as soon as a title is going to be released on consoles as well as PC, something has to be sacrificed that wouldn't have had to be if the title was PC only.

Goddamnit. I didn't see the Twitch stream, but if this is the case I'm canceling my pledge. PoE was supposed to be about reviving the IE style of game for hardcore cRPG fans, a NICHE MARKET. This news sounds like they're trying to eventually go down the old dumb down/simplify road in order to pander to the masses and *shudder* attempt to release to consoles. Do I go too far in saying that I'm starting to have doubts, to thinking that maybe Obsidian has capitalized on their fanbase and is gearing towards abandoning them for the sake of the almighty dollar? I'm beyond disappointed. Looks like Beamdog (the creators of the Enhanced Editions) are my only hope now.

I can certainly try as you will bear witness. So the options for the party size are: 4,5 and 6. And given those choices I am asked what size I would prefer. And being obtuse the way I am I answer: I do not have any preference given the above choices. Now, where is that option in the poll? Sorry to mix you up in this Fluffle, my obtuse comment was not directed at you. But since you've explained that given the choice between 4, 5, and 6, you truly have no preference between the 3, I've added the option to the poll for you. Thanks for participating!

There's no such an option 'cause the thread's purpose it show the developers that "the people" demand a 6-character party because yeah! Can you be any more obtuse? Once again, I'll reiterate. The poll question was simple as I gave it, but seeing as how you seem to be having difficulty figuring it out, I'll put it in different words. Here we go: what size party do you prefer, given the choice between 4, 5, and 6? At no point was the poll written to suggest "I DEMAND 6 MEMBER PARTIES!!" or any such nonsense. I expressed my opinion/preference in my POST (separate from the poll, in case that eluded you). As for the lack of the option for "I don't mind the party size", it's not an option because that's not what the question was! The question was what number a voter PREFERS. And seeing as how 5 is the number they've announced for PoE II, and 5 happens to be an option in the poll, there IS an "I don't mind the party size" option: it's called "5"! I apologize for coming across as condescending and/or confrontational, but my original reasons for posting the poll had no agenda other than trying to see what sizes others prefer. I expressed my opinions for preferring 6 in my post. I don't appreciate the insinuation that I submitted the poll/post as some kind of attack on Obsidian.

I'm actually really interested to hear how you justify that belief.

What part of the poll question "What party size would you prefer?" did you not understand when you voted for '5'?

You do realize that the entire campaign for PoE was based on appealing to Infinity Engine "purists" and "nostalgia zombies", right? I could be totally off here, but I was under the impression that PoE was created to scratch that IE CRPG itch a lot of people have had for over a decade. The point was to provide us with more of that same style of game, not to break entirely new ground and change up the formulae.

What's pointless is your entire comment. Obsidian have always been one of the best developers when it comes to listening to fans and taking popular/controversial forum posts seriously. And it doesn't remind the devs why they shouldn't bother to post here (what an asinine thing to say). They encourage fans to speak their minds.

This is not true in the slightest. As someone posted in a different thread, in PoE it was relatively easy to create a balanced and powerful party of FOUR if you so desired, let alone a party of FIVE. With that being the case, it seems nuts to me to potentially alienate a significant number of fans by taking away the traditional party size of 6 members when every game out to date (including the old IE titles) could be played with fewer numbers IF YOU WANTED TO. Hell, most of the titles have even been solo'd by people. All the change to 5 members is doing is creating a situation where people that would prefer to play the game in the traditional IE fashion (with 6 members) WON'T HAVE THAT OPTION. Not cool.

We can't and I'll happily concede that... but I'm still entitled to my opinion, as everyone else is. And my opinion is that the 6-member party size should be left as-is. Because those aren't really serious options, whereas 4/5/6 are due to past precedent and what's been announced.

We're going to have to agree to disagree, but I somewhat understand where you're coming from. But even if I completely agreed with you, you've pretty much illustrated a gold-standard reason why things should be kept as they are: If this is indeed the case, then why take away the 6-party option from those who prefer it? It's needlessly alienating at least this firm supporter of PoE. I haven't pledged yet because I'm waiting for a new credit card to arrive in the mail... otherwise I would've pledged as soon as the campaign started. This 5-member party business is seriously making me consider not pledging at all, and just waiting to get PoE II some time down the line when it goes on sale.

I'm not liking the 5-member party decision at all. Feargus pretty much laid out exactly why I don't like it, although he was trying to make it sound like it's a good thing: The whole reason why 6 is the ideal party size is because you have that EXTRA slot to fill in with a character/class that gives your party some redundancy (i.e. Druid to fill in for Cleric or Mage if either of them go down, or Monk to fill in for Fighter or Barbarian, or Ranger for Fighter or Rogue... you get the idea). I also dislike how limiting the party size to 5 pretty much REQUIRES that, for difficult encounters, every party member has to remain on their feet for the duration of the encounter. With the limited party size, if the Cleric or Mage goes down, that's pretty much Game Over in the difficult encounters, whereas with the 6-member party there's more room for forgiveness, and ability to get your fallen characters back on their feet. I really wish/hope that a groundswell of support for keeping the party size at 6 gets them to change their minds about this decision.

The discussion of the decision to change the party size to 5 for PoE II on the other thread has me seriously bummed out, so I thought I'd see how other people feel about party size. Personally, I feel that 6 is still the best number. The success of PoE was due solely to the nostalgia a lot of CRPG gamers feel for the old IE titles, and the entire KS campaign was driven by the promise to bring back that style of game (isometric view, real-time-with-pause tactical combat, 6-member party, etc.). As Feargus stated: But it's not supposed to be about having every party member fulfill a single niche. Where's the backup? I don't know how everyone else plays, but I love how having 6 allows you to build some redundancy into your party. Cleric went down early? Or your Mage? No problem, the Druid can step up for either of those roles and fill in until we can get the Cleric or Mage back on their feet. Having 5 seems to me to be a recipe for disaster in encounters when an 'essential' character goes down, because with 5 that seems to be any one of the characters! I feel like this is going to generate less 'close call' encounters when you have a party member go down, but can fill in their role with your built in party redundancy, and squeak out a victory. With 5, I feel like difficult encounters will be dependent on making sure everyone remains alive throughout the entire encounter! I don't know about anyone else, but I don't like the idea of that... I want some tension in my battles. As an example, I literally just exited PoE about a half hour ago before coming on this forum, after finishing the battle with the Torn Bannerman commander on the Cragholdt map. My party consists of myself (Paladin), Eder, Durance, Aloth, Grieving Mother, and Hiravias. In my party, Hiravias is kind of the 'extra' character whose abilities I find myself not using often... but when I DO need him, I NEED him! In this fight, everyone was down except for my PC and Hiravias, and my PC had maybe 10% endurance left. But old Hiravias had a few scrolls of Revival on him, and between summoning things down to take the heat off of him and reviving first Eder, then Aloth, then Durance, I was able to regain the upper hand and win the battle. It's battles like this that make the game so enjoyable for me... it took some thought and preparation, and when the dust settled I felt the satisfaction of a fight well fought because of how close it was. With a 5 member party, there would have been no Hiravias to save the day. With a 5 member party, I feel like these kinds of battles will be much fewer, if at all, and the combat won't be as enjoyable as a result. Just my 2 cents. EDIT: fixed some spelling/punctuation errors

Just wanted to post my two bits to balance things out. I pledged $140 for a Collector's Edition. It hasn't arrived yet. I really don't care if it does. And if it does, and it's all banged up, scratched to ****, and the map is printed on toilet paper... again, I don't care. $140 to help get a game as fantastic as this made, which truly allows me to relive my misspent youth in the IE era, but with a NEW game, and the promise of more to come in the future? $140 well spent. I'll probably pledge as much again for their next KS.

It has driven me nuts for YEARS when someone has made a negative comment about the art style of the IE games. The art is gorgeous, and still holds up even today... just look at how well the EE editions did with all the same assets. In contrast, have you ever tried to load up NWN in the past couple years? It looks TERRIBLE, but at the time it was lauded as the "latest and greatest" because of... *gasp*... 3-effin-D!!! AAAAUUUGHRrhhsrksdrslr! I have been incensed for over a decade now at the trend of 3D = AMAZEBALLS that has taken over then industry. 3D is NOT the be-all and end-all. Personally I MUCH prefer the art style of old, and IMHO the art in PoE is nearing on perfection. THANK THE CRPG GODS that someone, somewhere, finally came to their senses.