Yosharian

> am not certain why we always need be the grownup in these situations Lmao

Oh that's true, I'd forgotten about tactics. I guess it's bearable with them.

> throw a tantrum Yet more quality discussion from Achilles ladies and gentlemen! Tune in tomorrow to see more passive-aggressive abuse hurled at reasonable forumgoers attempting reasoned debate

I'm pretty sure that's what they meant. :D As far as I know, Sidekicks only have that 1 quest to get them. Ok then, now I'm confused. If this is the case then.. well.. *to me* sidekicks are a complete waste of a more valuable slot that could go to either a pre-made character offering optimised class combination and stats or companion offering story line, roleplaying, relationships and dedicated quest lines...I can’t wrap my head around the “all or nothing” attitude. Better to have no integration into the story than some because unnecessary min/maxing? I don't think the position that Koth and I have on the game is one that is hard to understand. We both take great pleasure in creating excellent characters. Having a character that's 'only just good enough' or non-optimized, is displeasing. It's not a particularly hard position to comprehend, in my opinion. Hundreds of millions of players all around the world play all kinds of games, even non-videogame ones, in this manner.

I'm pretty sure that's what they meant. :D As far as I know, Sidekicks only have that 1 quest to get them. Ok then, now I'm confused. If this is the case then.. well.. *to me* sidekicks are a complete waste of a more valuable slot that could go to either a pre-made character offering optimised class combination and stats or companion offering story line, roleplaying, relationships and dedicated quest lines... Exactly. But Ydwin... <3 I guess one option is to recruit the NPC in-game, then replace them with a hireling with the same name and the same portrait, then replace them with the NPC just before you finish the game? Or Obsi could just allow us to modify sidekicks... oh no, can't allow that, it's forbidden

This is the main problem I have with tank wizards. Sooo much casting to be effective. No, I don't wanna cast 10 spells everytime I begin a fight. Right now I'm going through Pillars POTD (to prepare a save for Deadfire where I haven't sacrificed Eder.. woops!) with a party that has no buffing, well except for a Priest of course.

Haha cute meme too bad he's absolutely right Durance spouts the most nonsensical **** ever [non-sens, -suh ns] noun 1.words or language having little or no sense or meaning. 2.conduct, action, etc., that is senseless, foolish, or absurd No, stop assigning traits to PoE companions which are not true. If you gonna criticize, please do so, but at least put a tiny bit of effort to recognize why you don't like them, instead of writing easily debunkable accusations. Yes, they are not likable. Yes, they are not fully formed until their conflict is fully revealed near the end of the game. But they are neither shallow, poorly developed and all banter and conversation their provide has content, reason, logic and consistency. Jan Jensen talks nonsense. Its fun nonsense but its nonsense notheless - "He loves to chat, but his stories are rarely coherent and make little logical sense. His stories usually revolve around made-up relatives that he makes up just for the given case and serve the sole purpose of amusing himself and/or his companions. Thus, he avoids giving out any information about his true beliefs and goals (if there are any)." Everything that Durance says is consistant with his character, history, world viewpoints, fears and goals. You learn about him, he learns about you, he is a horrible being but everything he says makes sense. Yes, it's nonsensical. The only thing worse than the utter tripe Durance spouts is that he actually thinks he's being smart when he says it. He is a self-important fool.

Haha cute meme too bad he's absolutely right Durance spouts the most nonsensical **** ever

The reason why my watercolored versions have small definition is because the game doesn't scale well watercolored portraits of bigger than standard size. Your hi-res watercolored portraits may look worse, blurrier there and you'll have to resize them anyway. Also, my portraits are checked against other portraits in the game - those made by other user may have more color/contrast or whatever but they look like they will stand out too much from the rest of the NPCs portraits in the game. But suit yourself. > The reason why my watercolored versions have small definition is because the game doesn't scale well watercolored portraits of bigger than standard size. Your hi-res watercolored portraits may look worse, blurrier there and you'll have to resize them anyway. I didn't really understand what you were trying to say there, sorry. I just compared these two: and decided I liked the 4chan version better, that's all. It wasn't meant to be personal. Please don't take offence! Thanks for doing the Aloth one, also!

Do you think the Beckoner is a better fit for the Paladin than the Skald, or did you just happen to be testing the Beckoner at the time?

Ok so I thought I'd upload these images as I found them because the collated one that is floating around is actually the wrong dimensions (one pixel short, which completely messes up the image if you try to stretch it). The standard portraits are 210x330 which is the standard portrait size from Pillars 1. The watercoloureds are 90x141; I have no idea if that's the right size or not, that's just what Rammstein posted - I wasn't able to find the images myself. The small watercoloureds are 76x96, same size from Pillars 1. I used the watercoloureds that Aramintai made for Aloth, since I can't find the 4chan versions for those. Edit: I put Aramintai's watercoloureds next to the 4chan ones in case anyone prefers them.

Path of the Damned is not so easy that stats don't matter. I have Durance in my party right now and his low Perception is a constant bane (his offensive spells always miss) while his high Resolve is almost useless. It's arguably the case that such poor stats can be negated somewhat lategame but to say that they don't matter is wrong in my opinion. Of course if you're not playing on POTD then sure, you can win with 6 potatoes. My problem is that I take great pleasure in optimizing all of my party, not just my main character, and having non-optimized characters drives me nuts. Yet, I also like having the banter and so on that companions bring. So I agree completely with Koth, sidekicks seem to be the worst of both worlds.

Is Paladin/Chanter good too?

An anonymous user on 4chan went through the trouble for most of them already already Thank you so much, but the Aloth one is missing, do you have the watercoloured Aloth from the hacker known as 4chan? I had a quick look but I am bad at the internet and could not see it (No disrespect intended towards Aramintai but I prefer the 4chan watercoloureds, they have slightly more definition) Also, if I have the normal portrait + the watercoloured ones above, is that everything I need? Aramintai posted a 3rd version too.. I guess it's just a shrunken version of the watercoloured? Oh ALSO there are two versions of Ydwin, a slightly smiley one and a bit more grumpy one, the watercoloured here appears to be for the grumpy version, do you have a watercoloured for the smiley one?

OMFG I LOVE THESE pleasepleasepleaseplease tell me how I can implement these in-game Edit: please no politics smileyface

I mean, this is my subjective opinion, but... I don't think the Pillars companions were likeable at all. Durance comes off as a terrible bore. Aloth is a whiny brat. Kana is too jolly, I feel like I'm partying with a Teletubby when he's around. Sagani is also boring. Grieving Mother was quite interesting, but too distant to really bond with. Hiravias is a lot of fun, I like him. Pallegina... I dunno, I can't remember any interesting conversations with her but I guess she's ok. Eder is pretty cool. Compared to Baldur's Gate 2, the Pillars companions are really bland and uninteresting. I can't recall anything as interesting as: Jan Jansen's constant references to turnips, bloody hilarious Edwina. End of story. Although honestly Edwin is a constant source of amusement. Korgan just generally being an ****/badass. Minsc, I mean come on, need I say more. Viconia just generally being really hard to please, and a really interesting glimpse into the Drow culture. That said, BG2 has it's fair share of boring companions too. I feel like they were all far more fleshed out than Pillars' companions, though. Again, this is just my subjective opinion.

Building more ship mechanics into Deadfire would have to come at a cost, i.e. less time spent on other things in the game. Pillars foremost is an RPG game, not a ship simulation game. Your suggestions have merit, but the developers clearly don't have the time to implement so many complex systems while simultaneously making the core game as good as it can possibly be. I don't think it is quite so stark. You always have low-hanging fruit. Making a non-essential part of the game a lot better with 8 hours of work might be superior to making an essential part of the game a tiny bit better with 8 hours of work. The key question would be how much work and how much better. Not everyone agrees the ship stuff should be easy to ignore. I know because I am one of those "not everyone." Not everyone agrees on what is essential, either. Is party banter essential? I would say it is not, but when Eder asks "Can I pet him anyway?" it was pretty awesome (for me). Party banter might not be worth as much time as storyline, graphics, and combat mechanics, but a little love went a long way (again, at least for me). 8 hours? Oh come on.

So I'm considering a Paladin/Chanter now that they removed the horrible penalties. Maybe a Shieldbearer/Skald, I can live without Cruel/Aggressive responses. I'm wondering how it compares to an Unbroken/Skald in terms of tankiness, damage-dealing potential, etc. Obviously the Paladin brings a lot more support skills to the table. But the loss of Unbroken's Armor Rating bonus, Armored Grace, disengagement bonuses, Tactical Barrage... hmm.

Oh yes, that's true.

The Priest's penalties has already been removed. Sweet!

I despised all the Paladin drawbacks. I see what you're saying about balance, though. If Pallies had a base class with no drawbacks/penalties then I'd be fine with the drawbacks being in place for the subclasses.

Define deep.

> Josh: None of the paladin orders in Deadfire should have drawbacks anymore. For real? That's amazing, I actually might make a Pala-ok no, there is no way I'm going to play a stinking Paladin =) Jokes aside, if there's no base class then the subclasses should definitely have lenient or nonexistent penalties. Are they doing something similar for the Priest subclasses I wonder? Since the same problem affects them, can't pick a base class without penalties...

Building more ship mechanics into Deadfire would have to come at a cost, i.e. less time spent on other things in the game. Pillars foremost is an RPG game, not a ship simulation game. Your suggestions have merit, but the developers clearly don't have the time to implement so many complex systems while simultaneously making the core game as good as it can possibly be.

You steal that baby from someone else. It's not your baby. Do any of your companions make a comment about the baby? Still waiting to hear about those other super deep games that put BG2 to shame