Finishing game without joining a faction

[Mannock]

 

I have a question: when you don't choose a faction, why do you have to randomly fight one of them after turning off the storm? What even selects who shows up for that?

 

Apparently it's determined by which faction you've helped the most but didn't choose to side with. I agree that it comes off as a bit silly in some cases, but, uh, gotta have end game bosses in an RPG, I guess? Besides the dragon?

 

I went alone, but had helped the RDC the most, so they showed up on Ukaizo.

 

Though I still can't really understand why they wanted me dead at that point. From a narrative standpoint it didn't make much sense to me.

[bugarup]

I think what people mean by the "bad ending" is that there's a certain amount of chaos in the Deadfire due to the Huana's decentralization and no faction getting a leg up on any other.

 

 

Something like that, yes. "And so the god Eothas destroyed the foundation of the world order as we knew it for millennia, and lo behold nobody noticed because Deadfire's factions were all busy ripping new ones to each other". 

[Teukros]

I'm playing pale elf from Ixamitl turned dyrwoodan noble. I may care about some people from Deadfire, but why should I care about their politics?

[Tick]

I'm playing pale elf from Ixamitl turned dyrwoodan noble. I may care about some people from Deadfire, but why should I care about their politics?

Because you care how the politics will affect the people.

[Answermancer]

I wasn't gonna go it alone until I realized that joining any of the factions required me to murder or blow up a bunch of people from one of the others. And that it would potentially make me lose party members and piss them off permanently. Realized that part when I tried to side with the Huana with Pallegina in my party.

 

I wasn't into any of that so I went off on my own.

 

I'm gonna have a hard time picking any of them in a followup play through either, I'll probably have to roleplay someone who's really into one of the factions to force myself to do it since assassinating heads of state and blowing up powderhouses are just not things that I can easily justify to myself.

 

It even made me consider going with the Principi since at least their quest just involved killing other pirates and potentially undead.

[Yria]

If you aren't against killing in self defence, you can go talk to the hazanui, listen to her assassination plan and refuse. RDC quarters will turn hostile, and you'll have to fight on the way out, but after that both Onekaza and VTC will agree to work with you without blowing up the powderhouse. 

[Mari]

 

Not necessarily -- it could be  a cynical character who just wants to throw in with the winners, an entrepreneurial  character looking out for profit, an indifferent character who's all "whatever if it takes me where I want to go", a diplomatic character who understands there's time for compromises, etc, etc...

 

Obsidian might have been surprised because Deadfire's "loner ending = downer ending", but that's somewhat a novelty -- usually loner endings in RPGs are pretty cool, like in New Vegas, or (my personal favorite) VtM: Bloodlines. Chances are a lot of players picked it out of inertia, expecting the cool to happen again...and then it didn't.

I have no data on this, but I get the feeling that most people want to do the "good" or "right" thing and there is no faction that complies with that. So I think that is why the loner ending got big numbers this time around really. Just speculation though.

 

I went with the loner ending, and it definitely was not because of inertia or cuz I didn't care about what happened to the people there. 

 

I think the game just did a really bad job of convincing people that we should side with one of the factions. Without meta knowledge, how would my character know that going alone will descend the entire region into chaos? And without that knowledge, how can I justify my neutral good character becoming an assassin/terrorist for factions I think are bad? VTC wants to strip mine natural resources and snort souls, the RDC are imperialists who want to assimilate everyone, and the Huana treat their people like ****. I cant diplomatically come up with a peaceful solution between the three, and I cant butcher all of VTC/RDC and change the entire Huana culture either. The game basically forced me into the lone path because it gave me zero reason to hand over the lost city to any of the three factions*. As far as my Watcher is concerned, she is only going to talk to Eothas. What happens after is on them, not me.  

 

(*I admit that this could be just cuz of the broken quest lines. From the comments in the forums, it seems like I missed a bunch of stuff due to doing things out of order.  

[uuuhhii]

 

 

Not necessarily -- it could be  a cynical character who just wants to throw in with the winners, an entrepreneurial  character looking out for profit, an indifferent character who's all "whatever if it takes me where I want to go", a diplomatic character who understands there's time for compromises, etc, etc...

 

Obsidian might have been surprised because Deadfire's "loner ending = downer ending", but that's somewhat a novelty -- usually loner endings in RPGs are pretty cool, like in New Vegas, or (my personal favorite) VtM: Bloodlines. Chances are a lot of players picked it out of inertia, expecting the cool to happen again...and then it didn't.

I have no data on this, but I get the feeling that most people want to do the "good" or "right" thing and there is no faction that complies with that. So I think that is why the loner ending got big numbers this time around really. Just speculation though.

 

I went with the loner ending, and it definitely was not because of inertia or cuz I didn't care about what happened to the people there. 

 

I think the game just did a really bad job of convincing people that we should side with one of the factions. Without meta knowledge, how would my character know that going alone will descend the entire region into chaos? And without that knowledge, how can I justify my neutral good character becoming an assassin/terrorist for factions I think are bad? VTC wants to strip mine natural resources and snort souls, the RDC are imperialists who want to assimilate everyone, and the Huana treat their people like ****. I cant diplomatically come up with a peaceful solution between the three, and I cant butcher all of VTC/RDC and change the entire Huana culture either. The game basically forced me into the lone path because it gave me zero reason to hand over the lost city to any of the three factions*. As far as my Watcher is concerned, she is only going to talk to Eothas. What happens after is on them, not me.  

 

(*I admit that this could be just cuz of the broken quest lines. From the comments in the forums, it seems like I missed a bunch of stuff due to doing things out of order.  

 

because that is the state deadfire currently in

[Vaneglorious]

 

In one of the recent interviews, one of the developers was saying that they were surprised by the large number of people that decided to get to the island without joining any faction.  So, not only that it is possible, but also it looks like an important part of the player base has decided to do so.

Yeah, though I'm surprised that Obsidian was surprised. All of the factions are unpleasant (more or less) and there is clearly not a "good" faction option. And I'm not complaining about it, but for me it's obvious that you'd have to roleplay a pretty fanatic character to stick with a given faction to the end.

 

I agree, though I went with Rautai on my 1st playthrough. I know they're kinda warmongering and soldier-like, but I liked what they stood for - progress, order, security.

 

I wanted to help out the Huana at first, but then I saw the dark side of the crown, which I hated, couldn't stand behind it. My 2nd choice would've been Aeldys, but..she's a pirate after all. And the VTC are pretty much today's big corporate, only in it for the $$$.

[1TTFFSSE]

just killz everone and take their stuffs, it's neat for you and your party members. 

[gkathellar]

and the Huana the Kahanga treat their people like ****.

 

FTFY.

 

I agree with you, to be clear. I just feel like this is a detail that the game does a decent job of emphasizing that gets overlooked.