abelhabel

I would disagree with your conclusion. The game, in my opinion, does a pretty good job of Not telling you what man should and shouldn't do. You have many possibilities of supporting animancy and the ending is all about you performing a godlike act but you get to decide what that act is. The discussion, to me, seems to be more about Iovara's place in the story and the artistic implementation of her, rather than being about allegories. Anyway, this is too meta for me so I better stop.

And again, she doesn't say gods do not exist. She says these 11 are fake, manmade. The difference is that these gods are patently real with a number of divine attributes, capable and willing to manifest themselves among mortals. Hence the room for doubt - so what are you to do about it under the circumstances. A proper analogy with a Christian god would've been something like: "Hey, your God is actually a mind-controlling spirit residing in a cave somewhere under Sinai. Being a first-hand witness and a victim of the barbarous ancient Mediterranean society he decided enough was enough and brainwashed a number of people to deliver his message of a new gentler deity, and tricked a bunch of villagers into seeing miracles where there were none. You can actually go, see and even vanquish this spirit for yourself - just wear Magneto's helmet." I understand what you are saying and that Iovara is saying the same. What I am trying to argue is that it makes no difference. What is a god? It is the same question as: what is infinity? Both are something that goes outside our logical comprehension. You believe or you don't. So, whether or not the gods in Eora are entities in the sky or machines on the earth makes no difference. This is also why it is the same as the atheist-christian argument. Aloth (the christian) also react to Iovara (the atheist) as if what she said mattered, which is naive. In your example, I could go down and kill that spirit and feel great about it. Two weeks later the doubt, thoughts and feelings of what made me believe in the first place would come back. You get into the same unsolvable problem when you discuss if god created the earth. The inevitable question is always: who made god? Who made the god who made god etc etc. The same dilemma applies for the big bang. What caused the big bang? What caused the cause of the big bang. Questions ad infinitum that adds nothing to the point of either the concept of god or the big bang. This is important because it questions Iovara place in the fiction. If her voice adds nothing, then why is she there? Obviously, someone thought she mattered, but for the story she adds nothing. As a character, Iovara would work if she would be a small dialogue of peripheral NPC, someone who just felt like speaking their mind. You could shuckle at it and move on. But because she is introduced in the climax of the story she falls flat and brings the ending with her.

It seems we are on the same page then. I remember reading that a while ago too but I wouldn't take his word for it=). Isn't Ravel a midwife in Torment, by the way?

Defiance Bay has a slew of its own issues though. From the way the Dozens/Knights rivalry is implemented (consider the amount of people that unwittingly end up "supporting" the Dozens and realize it all too late) to the way post-riot city looks like. Twin Elms offered a thorough Glanfathan exposition with its denizens being responsive to almost everything you do (with the exception of Ethik Nol massacre ), whereas divine quests offered interesting dilemmas to solve. As for Iovara, she gives the Watcher the story of how these particular eleven gods were manmade, manufactured in a very obvious fashion. Not sure how that is comparable to Christians and atheists. The only memory I have of the Dozens is that they killed people in Ondra's gift, so I didn't really pick up on their involvement in the story. I ended up being on very good terms with the Knights so have will have a look on what the Dozens can offer in my next play through. I didn't see any responsiveness in Twin Elms. I murdered everyone in the hunter's lodge and in Ethik Nol but there were no ramifications of it. The divine quests were indeed interesting but the fact that their resolution were just in the next area and took 15 minutes each made them less meaningful to me. They could had given these quest more attention and content to make it feel like you are dealing with more powerful entities. I am not really complaining on this, rather I just want to bring up the point. They had a low budget for this game and the things they managed to do with it has impressed me from the start of the game. The problem of Iovara is the fact that she Says it, which makes it exactly like an atheist telling a christian that god does not exist. it is just her perspective on things. Who is she? Why didn't we meet her much earlier? Why is she appearing now all of a sudden? What does she want? How do we know that she witnessed the creation of the machines? As it is now it is only a second hand opinion she gives which is completely irrelevant for the story. It would be different if she was there when the machines were built and you as a watcher could take a look on her soul and get some idea of what actually happened back then. That would at least give the ending a twist in that it would give you some uncertainty (we don't know how accurate soul reading is apart from the dialogues with Grieving Mother) as to what powers you are dealing with.

I don't know how far you are in the game or what Chris Avellone's intentions are, but I would say yes.

The watcher could be skipped and instead given special treat to Ciphers who already have a similar function. It would mean, though, that they would had to give special treats to all classes which would had taken a lot of development time. Treats such as druids getting the same information but from different means and a different perspective. So, my guess is that you being a watcher is a compromise between content and development time. I must say that they did it well. It is not too much and it is a fitting mechanic to tell the main story through.

I did the first 8 bounties and then all party members were level 12. This was in act two I think. I didn't really mind that I didn't get more experience because it was so fun to do combat and quests, but there are definitely room for balance here. I think the xp system is fantastic and that it ties into learning about the monsters is genial so I would rather see that quest experience get balanced rather xp you get for killing monsters. The bounties probably gives too much experience and they could change that to give you gear or information instead.

The ending was frustrating for two reasons for me. First, the whole Elmtree area lacked quests and depth. The towns did not feel alive and it felt very rushed compared to Defiance bay, which was overall brilliantly designed. The gods quests were just way to convenient to be meaningful. I mean, you are in direct communication with the gods of the world and you just have to go to the next area to complete all of them. I really liked the fact that you spoke to the gods and that you needed to gain their favor but It should had given you several hours of content just to finish one of those quests. Secondly, the Iovara character failed miserably. She comes out of nowhere, you have no connection to here and you have no reason for caring for her or what she says but she gives you the supposed punchline of the whole story. The punchline she gives you is even worse than the fact the she is so suddenly introduced. It is like an atheist telling a christian that god does not exist. Would the christian reply "Oh, really! I have never thought of that. I stop believing right away!!!"? It is not only moronic for her to say that but it is also missing the whole point. She really cheapened the whole ending for me. What did make a nice ending for me, though, was that I went to Hylea to help me and thought I would be loyal to her. But then I met Wael, who I sincerely agreed with, who not only gave me a different way to end my journey but also the possibility to betray a god. I felt Hylea's anger when I chose Wael's option and it was later shown in the ending screens what the consequences were of that betrayal.

Wizards have an amazing level 3 spell called Arcane Dampener which puts all beneficial effects on hold for the enemey. Cast that spell until you get a successful hit on Thaos. At that point, use Cipher's Amplified Wave power which knocks down and do damage and the level 1 Blinding power, Priests Shining Beacon and Devotions for the Faithful spells and Wizards Expose Vulnerabilities. At this point you should reliably be doing damage to Thaos with melee and ranged. Thaos goes from 150 deflection to 50 deflection which should give you a good chance to land crits. The two statues have to be dealt with as well. You can either send a tank to block them from your other characters or you use scarabs to summon help to take on the statues. In this way you can deal with Thaos first so that he does not debuff you and buff the statues.

On level 5 there is a master stair case which takes you to the beginning. It is located to the east south-east. I don't think you can go past levels 4 and 3 if you are low on life so the master stair case is probably your only option, unless you go the console route.

Some points that will help, if anyone else have troubles. - Have a tank with high deflection, usually from shield with the shield talent. Make that guy engage as many ogres as needed/possible. - Have a spare Brigandine in your inventory that you equip on the tank before fighting ogres. Brigandine's have the highest Crush damage reduction. However, Ogres do either Crush or Pierce damage so there might be a better option than Brigandine. - Use any choke points you can find. This has two benefits. First it lets your tank not get surrounded by too many ogres and secondly it let's you do ranged damage on the Ogre shaman. The ogre shaman makes the other ogres stronger with buffs but most importantly they cast the insect swarm which cannot be resisted. - Use high attack speed ranged weapons. Chanter's has a chant that increases attack speed with ranged weapons which helps you with landing interrupts more frequently. - Use both priest debuffs on the ogres and buffs on your party. It makes all the difference if you can time this right. - Use summons to distract.

Does Thaos ever explain what connection he had with the protagonist? I tried to disregard everything that woman (Iselda?) in the end said so I could had missed something. I didn't buy the whole "the gods are fake" thing so I expect there are more to it than that.

I couldn't find any other way either.

I had the opposite experience. I finished the game yesterday and I thought it was way too easy to make money and so I stopped picking up loot around defiance bay. I built constructions from the point that I got the stronghold until the end. I played on hard so there are more monsters to kill (less loot) than lower difficulties. Could this had been the problem for people who had too little money?

But you don't die. The slides actually talk about PC using the alternative path up to the surface and making it out eventually after days of wondering. I see now. I thought the "sleep" meant that the PC died but I guess it meant that as a watcher you finally got some sleep. But the PC didn't stop being a watcher, as far as I understand, so what in the end changed the "no sleep for the watcher"?

It's funny. As soon as I met Durance I thought "this is written by Chris Avellone" and the same thing when i met Grieving Mother. I loved both of them and they both broke my heart. They are both incredibly tender characters. Eder I liked but I didn't really feel like I got past his surface. Even his story, which was quite sad, didn't really open up to what he was feeling. I thought it fit him quite well. Aloth, was very useful but I thought he was quite daft and naive. The uncertainty of him being schizophrenic or having a split soul was really fun and well made. As a character with weak character, Aloth was spot on. Kana Rua was great. He was like a giant child. Always in good spirits and if things were going bad he looked at the bright side. It was just great having him around, he gave comfort in a way. I didn't play with the other companions so I will try to do so in my next play-throughs. I will probably still play this in ten years from now=) I must say, that the philosophy of all characters have to be useful really worked. I would probably had kept Grieving Mother even if she had sucked but she was really useful to have in combat, which made her even better.

As far as I understand, Waidwen was known as a saint (or avatar of Eothas) and the hollowborn epidemic started at the same (or after) time Waidwen was killed by the godhammer, so it was assumed that the godhammer caused the hollowborn epidemic and the whole thing got the name "Waidwen's Legacy". This, I think, is there as a means to strengthen a theme of the game, which seems to be about "people believe what they want to believe". I think the same goes for animancy, in that animancy became the scape goat to deal with something as confusing as babies being born without souls. In the same way, I also understand the plot about the gods not really being gods but 'created' by Engwithans to be a reinforcement of the aforementioned theme. For example, all companions, in the end, draw conclusions based on their individual biases. . To me, the central story was about Woedica and godhood. She, even though we only know this second hand, takes souls from new borns , also only second hand, to get back into her rightful seat as the Queen. You, at the end get to compete with Woedica and decide what happens to all the souls she has collected. In this way you become a god. The legacy you leave after yourself will become your "portfolio", for lack of a better word. In the end, you die so you should have no means of knowing what the consequences of your actions are. But we do get to see all the consequences with a narrator speaking to you - the character - which should mean that you have a means to witness the consequences. I can't see this meaning anything else than you being a god. So, the story leaves you (or me at least) with a question: What is a god? (In the context of Pillars of Eternity, not our world), and it seemed to me that everything in the game was centered around this question.

Happens to me to. When you play on expert or hard (don't remember which) you can't be maimed. Saving and reloading while you are affected by the spell does work, so thanks for that! I also noticed that the character sheet still lists the plague of insects as an effect.