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My ongoing peeve with Reputation gain (i.e. the pre-defined meaning and intention of conversation options) vs what I actually intended the option to mean. Currently, in PoE(2), the reputation system is, as in most (all?) other games, static. You choose Conversation Option A, and it has already been given a meaning by the writers/devs, no matter what meaning you and your PC may put in it. Example: In BoW, I convinced Neriscyrlas to find respite and release herself to the Void. My PC (paladin, dimplomatic, good) took this direction with the best intentions, since there's no option to release Neris to the Wheel (that I could find). But after playing the same dialogue sequence with Reptutations in conversations turned on, I found that this was in fact the "Cruel" option! Why? Why would this me more cruel than killing her? Well, sure, you're telling her that she's already dead and have been living an utter pointless existence for centuries, but is that really cruel? It wasn't for me, until I played it with the pre-set meaning of conversation options releaved. What I think would solve this problem, is a way to change the Reputation, i.e. the intention of conversation opotions. The example I just gave could just as well have been Honest, or even Benevolent (a peaceful solution), which was the way "I" meant it. These static "choices" breaks the immersion, restricts your ability to RP the character the way you envisioned it. You want to RP? Well, I as my character would have said this, but according to the rep-gain my character must say that in order to be aligned with the reputation-mechanic-RP aspect, if you catch my drift. You'll end up with having to pick choices just to align with the "correct" rep gains, or choose the "wrong" convo/rep options to align with what you would say, thus ending up with an ingame-personality that does not reflect your RP. Am I making sense? So, please, in PoE3, look into the possibility of being able to change the Reputation, i.e. intention/meaning of certain conversation options. E.g. dropdown for [chose your intention], where it makes sense, where you can select between a few options. I think that this would make the RP aspects of the game a whole lot more rewarding, since you can be much more dynamic in the way you approach conversations. Again, this is not something particular to PoE2, but PoE 1 and 2 are the RPGs I've spent the most time playing and enjoyed. Also, I do think that the PoE devs are more receptible to suggestions than, say, Dragon Age devs would be (simply due to the more corporate, top-down nature of how Bioware/DA is managed).

- OUTER WORLDS - First off I would like to thank and congratulate the Outer Worlds Team from Obsidian and its affiliates, this game is wonderful and I havent enjoyed a game like this in awhile. THANK YOU! A few Subjects that I thought I would share with the team and fellow Captains. I use (need) loosely, more of agreeable additions. • Companions: Companions need a story buff, I would personally like to see more immersive content regarding companions, I think an expansion on content related to certain members of your crew would definitely bring some extra life and backstory to them while providing wholesome content for players that are here for the story. • Factions: More Immersive Faction quests and more faction content with varying Ranks and missions, allowing allegiances, a fluid Story based off your decisions on what Factions to bring together and what Factions you outcast from the fold. (Your endgame cutscene gave me the idea) •Factions & Reputation: There should be a way to increase your reputation based on actions displayed, a Kill on Sight Faction is basically done for the game, there should be a way to continue to obtain missions and content from KOS Factions via on-ship comms. Possibly an Emissary alerting you that “[Faction] has heard of your [ _] and is willing to come to an agreement if you help us on this task. Varying difficulty for increased or decreased amounts of Faction respect gained. This just provides a resolution to “accidental” situations. • Homesteading In regards with rallying behind a particular Faction, able to build your faction headquarters and bases (included with this is internal ship customization.) Something parallel to what Fallout 76 and The Elder Scrolls series have. This was a nice option to have when you want a break from shooting and blowing up NPC’s. • Relationships I understand this is considered not exactly a key aspect, but developing character relationships with NPCs in game heavily increase your sense of story immersion. Whether it be friends or romance, which can lead to additionally unlocked quests adding additional content. • Ammunition I found it difficult to keep up with my heavy ammunition consumption. Eventually as I progressed I gained enough bits to always buy what I needed, but increasing world spawns of ammo and increasing the amount sold per vending machine may resolve that. • Wild creatures As of currently, looting wild creatures is near useless as they drop an item worth <10 bits, maybe adding in random items on occasion could fix that. • Free Roam One thing that irked me is upon finishing your final mission(trying not to spoil) is that I am now unable to play until a DLC is dropped. Unless I want to start a fresh character. It would be wonderful to see this resolved after the DLC drop(hoping there is plenty of DLC to come.) I greatly appreciate your time and I hope the Development team checks some of this out, it would be a treat to have some of my ideas used to better this game! [XBOX]

As the titles explains certain situations in this game leaves me completely baffled, how the main character can be so retarded. In the city I get a quest with a satchel, I go and get the satchel and on the way to the other destination I am waylaid by a group, with a leader named Talfor. But the funny thing here is that I was completely surrounded, no space to get away or reposition. This is just one example of how my glorious main character got rerolled. A warrior would always leave room to retreat, otherwise he would be a **** warrior. I changed him to the retarded wizard/rogue with the voice of Grog, because it was the only way I could ever believe a Watcher would let himself get surrounded like that. (lets just build this fence around you while you stand still) So now I just don't care what the circumstances are, because I already play my character like he is borderline retarded. I get stuck in some water, BAD GROG!! I pull 3 large groups, sounds like something grog would do! Keep going even with almost full injuries. Grog dosn't get slowed down.

Hi! Don't know if this has been posted about before (did a quick search which found nothing): Having the option to make your player character non-binary/gender neutral would be a HUGE enabler for a lot of people. It wouldn't have to be a huge thing mechanics-wise - the same models as for male/female characters could be used, only with the option to have your gender registered as "none/other" and to be addressed with gender neutral pronouns ("they" worked fine for Shakespeare, and should for us) and titles. I'm playing this game with my partner, who is non-binary, and we both love it. However, having to choose one of the binary genders is always a great obstacle for my partner (as well as millions of other gamers). Accommodating non-binary player characters would allow for people like my partner to much easier become immersed in the game and its world. I think the ability to choose any voice, regardless of gender, (which I think has been a thing ever since Baldur's Gate?) is a great step along this path. And non-binary identities are already present in the lore, for example in Berath and Wael. Thanks for a great game, hoping for an even greater sequel! <3 Siri

An army of invisible and invulnerable donkeys that follows you trough the world? A bottomless bag of holding? Or are you in possesion of a magical wand capable of reducing objects to a miniature size? I'm curious... PS. I'm dissapointed with that feature... I mean, if you are trying to enhance immersion with the limited camp supplies (a great idea), you shoudn't destroy it with an inventory of infinite capacity.

Throughout the game I have options to tell people how I think the watcher thing is a curse, even though I don’t choose that option, some times it is forced upon me. It breaks my immersion every time, I created a wizard and though "hey put lore to max and this guy will be obsessed with knowledge" so being a watcher sounds awesome looking into souls learning the past and I am bossed with knowledge so the risk seems worth it. Every time my character starts a rant about how he hates the curse I am like "why??????" (I just alt+tab after this happened for the 12th time). Why can’t we have an option to like being a watcher, besides maerwald we don’t see any other evidence of people going too crazy. Anyone else felt that hate of being a watcher was a bit forced?

See the attached screenshot with the contents of a book I found. Am I the only one whose gears are ground by this kind of ineptitude?

Please discuss your thoughts, ideas, complaints, suggestions etc. on Pillars of Eternity here.

There doesn't seem to be much discussion on the elements that, in my opinion, are the most important in a role-playing game. The elements that gave the Infinity Engine games the quality that they are renowned for: Narrative, Setting, Depth, Immersion and Choice and Consequence. Here are the topics analyzed by a youtube personality called MrBtongue in a insightful, articulate and entertaining way: Narrative: TUN: The Shandification of Fallout Setting and Immersion: TUN: The Elder Scrolls VI - Youtubia Depth: Creepy, Obsessive Nerdlove: Planescape: Torment: Colons Choice and Consequence: TUN: Choice and Consequence What is your opinion on these topics? Do you agree with MrBtongue on all of them? How important are these elements to you?

I have previously played BG2 and Planescape Torment as good or at worst neutral main character, and the immersion was superb. I had also started playing IWD2 a while ago with a good/neutral party and immersion was ok (story too linear, but thats a different issue). A few months backed I decided to replay IWD2, because I had never finished, this time I chose to play as an evil party. And I was thoroughly disappointed, I must say. 95% of all quests were "save person x" or "save the world" (game plot). "evil" dailogue options where available, but almost never went beyond "give me more gold for it" and even then a very selfish character would never have undertaken them (children got lost in the forest... come on!?). The last chapter is absolutely stupid for an evil party, you have to actually imply to a slave that you could kill his masters to be able to complete, then you get ridiculous quests like organize more food for slaves... The first time I thought "cool" was when I got the quest to kill the stupid mage in the mage tower to earn membership in the mage school... however it is impossible to do, as the quest giving NPC betrays you immediately and trying to still attack the mage on top of the mage tower (what an annoying fellow!) immediately kills your entire party. Then you start the ritual and lo! I am actually offered allegiance with Xvim, which is what my characters had in mind all along (after all they are EVIL and a Cleric of Bane is among them, you know Bane, the Daddy of Xvim who all these folks pray to?).... BUT epic disappointment, striking a deal with Xvim has actually no effect on anything, it just forces you to start the final battle earlier (which is also a lot lot easier then many other encounters in the game)... poof the bosses are dead and instead of being able to take over the hand (which Xvim promised to me), I flee and am celebrated as the hero of Icewind Dale... what a pathetic destiny for a Cleric of Bane. ok, enough of whining, what I am getting at is: I hope this will be different in PoE. I'd rather have entire areas and side quests as well as main story *exclusive* to certain alignments, factions, races whatever, then being able to generate 5K different types of character with little to no influence on gameplay. And I hope it will be possible to be cruel and selfish and all of that, and it being worthwhile, i.e. have extra quests for this that go beyond "OK, I am going to save poor Emily from drowning, BUT ONLY IF I GET TWO COPPERS EXTRA" -- which is *not* a good answer from an evil character.

Not companions, not major enemies, maybe faction leaders. Traders, quest givers, people you meet and interact with. They can be humorous, they largely set the mood of the whole rpg. Remember any who stood out as particularly awesome? For what reason? What kind of NPC's would you like to see in PE? A few examples. Icewind Dale (and 2). Nym the Drow merchant. Now I don't remember what kind of dialogue he had, but I do remember that I do remember him. Maybe it was just that he had a good selection of items and a some kind of a good reason to have that selection. Not a good guy, not super evil either. Was there even a chance to fight him in iwd 2? Fallout 2, First Citizen Lynette. OMG what an arrogant uptight b*****. Set the tone for the whole vault city experience just perfectly. It's not an evil place and she's not evil, but... hell. And she's kind of a major NPC, so breaking my own rules straight away.. Fallout NV, Little Buster Now he's a minor NPC. Doesn't give missions, doesn't really help you at all, doesn't say much, but every single line he has is quotable comedy gold.

Yes, I've used the term before in argument, yes I've seen it mocked, ermagerd ehmersjun! But let's be honest here, immersion is a real thing, and it matters. I was hoping we could finally have an open debate on how to balance game mechanics and world immersion, but before we do that, we together could come to a workable agreement on what immersion is, other than something so intensively abstract that it loses meaning and fails to convey what is, undoubtedly a serious consideration for many. Well, the textbook definition is "the act of immersing something in liquid" (obviously not applicable) But this does point to what it is meant to convey: If you're immersed in water, you are surrounded by it, it touches you from all sides, wherever you look, there is water. And therein lies what so many mean by it. (I think) If someone is immersed in a story or a game, that person is not distracted by anything which does not contribute directly to the experience. The menus look like they could have been crafted by the craftsmen or wizards in the gameworld, the names of skills and abilities and spells sound like they could have been given by the people who inhabit this fictional world. Anything which directly reconnects a player with the real world, which breaks the veneer of the illusion of this otherworldly setting, breaks immersion. An invisible wall breaks immersion: you are confronted by an arbitrary limit with no in-game limitation. "You must gather your party before venturing forth" breaks immersion: the game narrators breaks in telling you that there is a mechanical reason why something doesn't work, it lets you know that you are playing a game. And yes, obviously, you already know that, but you should be reminded as little as possible that is immersion. "Your vast range of training and experience has made you more skilled" is less immersion breaking than "You've levelled up" or worse "Level up" The key here is balancing, of course. Sometimes conveying information to the player is best done with numbers, so they can make informed decisions. You want to know that your sword is +3, because then you know exactly how much better it is than your +1 sword. On the flip side, you could call the first the "cold forged cutting blade of sharpness" and the latter one "decent sword" But if you want to have this without the statistics showing, you need some naming conventions. All +3 swords must have the same designation (cold forged) and all +1 swords would need the same designation as well (decent) That's where the balancing choice of immersion vs gameplay comes in. I care a great deal about immersion, I think it's the difference between a functional game and one that draws me in deep (to use an appropriate metaphor) Yes, I want the menus to look like they're part of the world, yes, I want the armour to make a clank sound as I drag it around my inventory, no, I don't want to hear skrillex or deadmau5 play as I'm exploring Glanfanthan ruins. Immersion is an important part of the game, and otherwise solid arguments get ruined by bandying the term without a good definition or explanation of what you mean. Yeah?

Dear Obsidianites! For people whose first reaction would be "TL;DR": please developers, make the game sound immersive with regards to effects, environmental and positional audio. Draw us in, let us truly *feel* the world you create for us. Use IWD or PS:T as examples, or, beyond our RPG-ers' noses, Prey or Battlefield 2. For people with enough time to read: Parts of what made the IE games, most notable the Black Isle ones, so immersive and rich in atmosphere was sound. And by sound I'm not only referring to the soundtrack, voice acting and spell effects, I'm mainly talking about the environment. If your characters walk on snow, you want to hear that. If a town is quiet and friendly, you want to hear that. Dripping water and steps echoing in caves, howling winds and cracking branches, rustling leaves and barely audible breathing in a forest at night, the single candle lighting a room. Listen to Icewind Dale with EAX enabled, or to Prey, to take a different genre, with OpenAL at full level - it just sounds beautiful and sets the player right into the world. Environmental audio quality is currently on a steep decline, worst current example (not counting console ports) is Endless Space: As soon as the CPU is busy, sound stutters. There are only five or so concurrent layers of sound and as soon as there are more, there's audible popping and distortion or sound effects just not being rendered. Or compare Battlefield 3 with Battlefield 2 - worlds of difference in sound quality! The many layers and clear positioning is gone, replaced by some lackluster software solution from the shelf in the hopes that users of onboard sound will not notice that anyway and the graphics will distract from sound. Let me tell you: They don't distract sufficiently, the hearing sense is left wanting more. So my plea to the developers: Please respect the capability of current hardware, use OpenAL for example if you need to decouple things from the CPU if the gamers' hardware allows for it, I don't care for the actual technology you use but: *please* make us feel right in the game, at home and comfortable, afraid, tense, relaxed, connected to the game's individual sound signature (think Planescape's spell learining sound effect) - immersed.

Define immersive and don't forget to explain why that should be a goal of every role-playing game, then maybe I'll be able to see the logic. [above quote taken from "Obsidian why you stop?] This exchange struck a chord with me because I'd been pondering similar in my local tabletop group. It seems to me that what they are actually debated is computer-assisted immersion versus human-generated immersion. The former is unlikely to ever completely replace the latter. Game design, dialogue, plot, tropes, all of these are equally important. So that's one question: is artificial reality a chimaera? My second question is the old social one: is the drive for augmentation producing 'flabby' minds? That is, children derive a healthy benefit from using their imaginations, and heavy computer-augmentation of fantasy is weakening development?

http://www.formspring.me/GZiets/q/414930203056307948 George also talks a little bit about Woedica (click his name, to get to his Formspring account and you can see for yourself). However, found this and thought "That would be really cool". The God thing that is, and praying for survival. [Tribute to God] stuff. [Camp]-stuff as well as [Temple]-stuff? Thoughts?