Pillars of Eternity 3 Companions

[Boeroer]

1 hour ago, Elric Galad said:

Godlikes are strongly suggested to be created by gods.

It is confirmed by the gods themselves that godlikes are mere batteries for them in times of need. They will put some of their essence into godlikes and if they need it back they will just drain them and they will die (body and soul). 

1 hour ago, Elric Galad said:

At this point in her life, she even doesn't have many problems, apart for being sterile and not being able to wear helmet. Some may find her weird, but some others will basically look up to her special status.

That is a very shortsighted assessment and also lacks empathy. Most children that were victims of abuse, neglect (Pallegina) or extensive mobbing (Pallegina) don't have physical problems when they grow up. Nearly all of them will be able to wear a helmet (yeah, that cheers them up no doubt, I mean imagine they couldn't wear party hats...). Yet most of them will deal with massive psychological problems. Pallegina now was even a lot more "deformed" than nowadays and her society and surroundings didn't make it easy for her. She had a beak and all around a more "birdish" apprearance. Only Giacolo could revert those features to the form she now has. Imagine a child with a bird face growing up nowadys, hurt her mother at birth, father like "Eh, begone ugly harpy!". On top of that she never can bear children. Would such a person have issues as a grown up? I mean the fact alone that some people can't conceive can break up marriages and make people extremely bitter. How on Eora can anyone cast a stone at her? At least she's not hurting other people (which would be common behavior - most of those children end up in "facilities" or even in jail - or end up like Durance). Being sarcastic and hating the ones who did this to her: absolutely understandable. Hating her own appearance: understandable.

1 hour ago, Elric Galad said:

It's not like she was a Godlike of Ryrmgand for example.

That doesn't help. Like telling sombody who lost his leg: "Now look, you could have met it even worse - like you could have lost BOTH legs. So cheer up!". When I was young my grandma always told me: "What do you complain? The poor kids in Africa have it so much worse!". Yeah sure, they do no doubt, but it still never works...
 

1 hour ago, Elric Galad said:

And Vatnir clearly doesn't complain as much. In spite of his cowardice, he seems better at looking at the bright side and coping with his condition...

Everybody copes differently. Besides that, Vatnir was said to have been seen as a messenger and phrophet of sorts ("To make things worse, Vatnir was considered a messenger from the gods, due to his appearance, and many looked to him for guidance and wisdom."). So maybe his childhood wasn't as bad as Palleginas. No neglect, no rejection it seems. A deeply hurt soul - especially in childhood - is much more likely to cause you troubles than a hurt body. Vatnir also hates that he is an Endings Godlike. When he talks to Rymrgand about "why all this suffering?" he's really, really pissed. Much more than Pallegina ever showed. 

1 hour ago, Elric Galad said:

Durance has a least a style.

The style of a filthy, lewd, pyromaniac and misantrophic hobo. He takes all his insecurity, grudge and anger and projects it outside, hurting people (at first not even really questioning his goddess) - while Pallegina mostly projects her anger on herself and the gods while finding purpuse with her order and most importantly the Republics. What has more style now?
 

1 hour ago, AeonsLegend said:

Pallegina basically hints that she wants to do this as well. She wants to not follow the Ducs orders. Then in Deadfire she's like: "I got ousted and you did this to me!".

To that I agree. It's a stretch and not really understandable. As if I had foced her to do so (which I did not). It's confusing and scathing and a big reason to not like (and dismiss) her her right from the start. That should have been introduced and explained better (if she even had to be mad at you in the first place).

Anyway - I really like Durance as a companion (would not in real life though) and am not overly invested in Pallegina in general, just playing advocatus palleginae (and also advocatus sawyeri ;)) here.

 

 

Edited April 20, 2020 by Boeroer

[Elric Galad]

6 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

That is a very shortsighted assessment and also lacks empathy. Most children that were victims of abuse, neglect (Pallegina) or extensive mobbing (Pallegina) don't have physical problems when they grow up. Nearly all of them will be able to wear a helmet (yeah, that cheers them up no doubt, I mean imagine they couldn't wear party hats...). Yet most of them will deal with massive psychological problems. Pallegina now was even a lot more "deformed" than nowadays and her society and surroundings didn't make it easy for her. She had a beak and all around a more "birdish" apprearance. Only Giacolo could revert those features to the form she now has. Imagine a child with a bird face growing up nowadys, hurt her mother at birth, father like "Eh, begone ugly harpy!". On top of that she never can bear children. Would such a person have issues as a grown up? I mean the fact alone that some people can't conceive can break up marriages and make people extremely bitter. How on Eora can anyone cast a stone at her? At least she's not hurting other people (which would be common behavior - most of those children end up in "facilities" or even in jail - or end up like Durance). Being sarcastic and hating the ones who did this to her: absolutely understandable. Hating her own appearance: understandable.

That doesn't help. Like telling sombody who lost his leg: "Now look, you could have met it even worse - like you could have lost BOTH legs. So cheer up!". When I was young my grandma always told me: "What do you complain? The poor kids in Africa have it so much worse!". Yeah sure, they do no doubt, but it still never works...
 

Everybody copes differently. Besides that, Vatnir was said to have been seen as a messenger and phrophet of sorts ("To make things worse, Vatnir was considered a messenger from the gods, due to his appearance, and many looked to him for guidance and wisdom."). So maybe his childhood wasn't as bad as Palleginas. No neglect, no rejection it seems. A deeply hurt soul - especially in childhood - is much more likely to cause you troubles than a hurt body. Vatnir also hates that he is an Endings Godlike. When he talks to Rymrgand about "why all this suffering?" he's really, really pissed. Much more than Pallegina ever showed. 

Well, I'm not judging a person here, but a fantasy game character. My main grudge is about why they made her so bitter in PoE2, while she looked prouder in PoE1 even if she was already distant and unhappy about her condition.

Vatnir seems to carry more nuances, even if he is even angrier.

[uuuhhii]

2 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

Well, I'm not judging a person here, but a fantasy game character. My main grudge is about why they made her so bitter in PoE2, while she looked prouder in PoE1 even if she was already distant and unhappy about her condition.

Vatnir seems to carry more nuances, even if he is even angrier.

bitter was not the problem

pellagina should become a bitter middle age drunk type of character even if she got herself kick out of the republics because of her own decision

the problem in deadfire was how she blindly support the vtc

[Boeroer]

Well Maia also blindly supports the RDC, even assassinates some random people and nobody said that's a problem (so far).

[AeonsLegend]

58 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Well Maia also blindly supports the RDC, even assassinates some random people and nobody said that's a problem (so far).

Yea that whole plot with her made no sense to me. She's much to nice for the way she lives.

I mean RDC:

me: so you're conquering the deadfire?

RDC: that's a naive way of looking at it.

me: But you're doing it?

RDC: yep go kill the queen

[Boeroer]

Lol - yeah kind of.  

[Guest Ontarah]

On 1/20/2019 at 2:33 PM, Saito Hikari said:

I would imagine the vast majority of people that join you on your quest that are clearly capable of fighting would be too invested in what's happening to merely sit around at base camp. And of the companions/sidekicks that I see possibly returning from PoE2...

 

- Eder and Rekke: Eder is probably returning, since he's a series staple at this point. But I see Rekke potentially taking his position as well, since he doesn't have anywhere to go besides following the Watcher. Of course, you could simply have both joining you on your quest.
- Aloth and Fassina: Another series staple at this point, although his arc might have already ended. I potentially see Fassina taking his position since the Archmagi would have a vested interest in finding a solution to the Wheel being broken, or both joining the quest.
- Xoti: Her arc hasn't ended at all. Now she's going to have to come to terms with the consequences of what her god decided to do.
- Ydwin: Massive demand for her to become a proper companion, not to mention her existence holding some major relevance to the situation at hand (she removed herself from the cycle before crap hit the wheel).

I'm personally of the opinion that returning companions don't necessarily need an arc reason to justify returning.  At a point where a companion has achieved best friend, LI, vassal, apprentice, boon comrade in arms, or whatever status to you it seems that simply wanting to keep being on your team would be sufficient reason unto itself.  I like companion quests and such when they are done right, but at a point, I don't really care why, say, Garrus or Minsc is still around.  They are around because they want to be wherever you are and because they are invested in seeing *the big thing* whatever it is get done.  For these companions, I'm perfectly happy for them to be around and just provide their opinions on things and not really develop or change in some deep, meaningful way.  

To be sure, it doesn't make sense for all companions to be this way.  And certainly I don't like slavish companions whose opinion of you never changes no matter what you do.  And you want new people with new arcs and quests to keep things interesting.  But at a point in direct sequel party based games, I get invested in a given crew and I want to keep them around for no other reason than liking them and them being my team. 

Sometimes awkwardness gets introduced for these companions because the devs feel the weird need to explain why everybody independently ended up wherever you happened to go next.  BG2 did it well.  Imoen, Jaheira, and Minsc are around in BG2 because they are literally your team and were captured with you.  This makes less sense if they *weren't* your team, but considering there's no reason you can't recruit everyone in POE and Deadfire, it's less of an issue if there was a mechanic like this. 

Edited April 22, 2020 by Ontarah
extra thought

[Guest Ontarah]

On 4/20/2020 at 11:40 AM, Boeroer said:

Well Maia also blindly supports the RDC, even assassinates some random people and nobody said that's a problem (so far).

Maia is so obviously shady that I did not finish her missions in playthrough 1 and then just left her on the ship the rest of the game.  In playthrough 2 I tried to go through with the mission by roleplaying willful ignorance, but I just couldn't do.  It's too obvious.  Unless you are very pro Rauatai or very anti Valian Trading Company, there is *no* reason to trust her or do her missions.

Pallegina's a bit different because her quest doesn't involve her asking you to do obviously shady spy/assassin junk for her and you know from the first game that she's at least *capable* of questioning crappy orders. 

I wish there was another way to talk Maia down other than let her obviously kill a bunch of people and then wait for her to maybe second guess it. 

She retroactively changed my opinion of Kana.  In general, I'm not against people being explicitly "pro homeland" and generally being skeptical about what's going on outside.  So I pushed back on him, but he never really explained that the issue isn't that Rautai is a bit too traditional and isolationist, which is how he made out.  If he had mentioned that it's a crazily expansionist militarized Sparta wannabe willing to murder and assassinate it's way into dominance everywhere, yeah, I'd have totally agreed he needed to push back for everything he's got.   

Edited April 22, 2020 by Ontarah
extra thought

[Haljamar]

5 hours ago, Ontarah said:

Maia is so obviously shady that I did not finish her missions in playthrough 1 and then just left her on the ship the rest of the game.  In playthrough 2 I tried to go through with the mission by roleplaying willful ignorance, but I just couldn't do.  It's too obvious.  Unless you are very pro Rauatai or very anti Valian Trading Company, there is *no* reason to trust her or do her missions.

Pallegina's a bit different because her quest doesn't involve her asking you to do obviously shady spy/assassin junk for her and you know from the first game that she's at least *capable* of questioning crappy orders. 

I wish there was another way to talk Maia down other than let her obviously kill a bunch of people and then wait for her to maybe second guess it. 

She retroactively changed my opinion of Kana.  In general, I'm not against people being explicitly "pro homeland" and generally being skeptical about what's going on outside.  So I pushed back on him, but he never really explained that the issue isn't that Rautai is a bit too traditional and isolationist, which is how he made out.  If he had mentioned that it's a crazily expansionist militarized Sparta wannabe willing to murder and assassinate it's way into dominance everywhere, yeah, I'd have totally agreed he needed to push back for everything he's got.   

Considering the locals of the Deadfire don't have properly built homes that can withstand storms, don't have proper plumbing in their villages even though in our history Indians developed proper plumbing in 2,700 BC, only have rinky dink canoes to go between islands except for their capital, and can't even get off their asses to wipe out the pirates that have harassed them for GENERATIONS it's clear that Rauatai is a good option for them.

[Boeroer]

Well, they have Stormspeakers (Storm pose no threat as long as a tribe has one), plumbing wasn't a thing in most western civilizations until fairly recently, Huana invented the Voyager which is not a canoe (and it is said that the war canoes of the Wahaki are a frightening and impressive thing to behold) and are scattered around the Archipelago since some foreign dudes came, build some wheel and annihilated their ancestors who build the largest and most advanced empire on Eora and fed them to soul constructs they now call "gods". 

Also that's the same argumentation that was used by colonisation forces in Earth's history - and look how well that turned out.

If other people have it worse than you (in your opinion first of all) it's a reason to offer help (not to force it on) - it's not a justification to dominiate. 

Of course this is a rather progressive viewpoint in the scope of the history of man. Surely you made that statement from the perspective of the RDC.

 

[AeonsLegend]

5 hours ago, Haljamar said:

Considering the locals of the Deadfire don't have properly built homes that can withstand storms, don't have proper plumbing in their villages even though in our history Indians developed proper plumbing in 2,700 BC, only have rinky dink canoes to go between islands except for their capital, and can't even get off their asses to wipe out the pirates that have harassed them for GENERATIONS it's clear that Rauatai is a good option for them.

Hi Thanos.

[Haljamar]

3 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Well, they have Stormspeakers (Storm pose no threat as long as a tribe has one), plumbing wasn't a thing in most western civilizations until fairly recently, Huana invented the Voyager which is not a canoe (and it is said that the war canoes of the Wahaki are a frightening and impressive thing to behold) and are scattered around the Archipelago since some foreign dudes came, build some wheel and annihilated their ancestors who build the largest and most advanced empire on Eora and fed them to soul constructs they now call "gods". 

Also that's the same argumentation that was used by colonisation forces in Earth's history - and look how well that turned out.

If other people have it worse than you (in your opinion first of all) it's a reason to offer help (not to force it on) - it's not a justification to dominiate. 

Of course this is a rather progressive viewpoint in the scope of the history of man. Surely you made that statement from the perspective of the RDC.

 

The Huana made the same mistake Romans did: welcoming foreigners into their city to learn their strategies, and the foreigners used their naivety against them to screw them over. I absolutely chose RDC though, and I even went in to slaughter the Principi so I wouldn't be pestered by these bastards going around terrorizing people.

1 hour ago, AeonsLegend said:

Hi Thanos.

Last time I checked I wasn't trying to get into Lady Death's pants.

Edited April 23, 2020 by Haljamar
meh felt like it

[AeonsLegend]

8 minutes ago, Haljamar said:

The Huana made the same mistake Romans did: welcoming foreigners into their city to learn their strategies, and the foreigners used their naivety against them to screw them over. I absolutely chose RDC though, and I even went in to slaughter the Principi so I wouldn't be pestered by these bastards going around terrorizing people.

Last time I checked I wasn't trying to get into Lady Death's pants.

Ok you're going for that reference, but I was more implying that you decide for other people what's best for them. You'd normally call that a tyrant no matter how benevolent you think you are.

[Guest Ontarah]

17 hours ago, Haljamar said:

Considering the locals of the Deadfire don't have properly built homes that can withstand storms, don't have proper plumbing in their villages even though in our history Indians developed proper plumbing in 2,700 BC, only have rinky dink canoes to go between islands except for their capital, and can't even get off their asses to wipe out the pirates that have harassed them for GENERATIONS it's clear that Rauatai is a good option for them.

I'm assuming the "rinky dink" canoes they have are based on what Polynesians had.  In fact the Voyager look just like Polynesian catamarans.  If so, we know for a fact that those guys sailed all the way to Hawaii in them and there's some controversial evidence that they may have made it to South America.  They are among the greatest sailing cultures in history along with the Danes and ancient Norse. 

And I'm not really making an argument about what faction you *should* choose anyway.  I'm saying if you aren't pro-Rauatai or anti-Valian trading company, I can't come up with a roleplaying reason to help Maia.   

I didn't help anybody.  I thought they all sucked.  I carried each faction until they started asking me to do shady stuff and then noped out.  If I had to chose I'd probably have picked the Valians.  

Edited April 23, 2020 by Ontarah
extra thought

[Guest Ontarah]

10 hours ago, Haljamar said:

The Huana made the same mistake Romans did: welcoming foreigners into their city to learn their strategies, and the foreigners used their naivety against them to screw them over. I absolutely chose RDC though, and I even went in to slaughter the Principi so I wouldn't be pestered by these bastards going around terrorizing people.

Last time I checked I wasn't trying to get into Lady Death's pants.

Well, "why the Romans fell" might be the mostly overly picked thing in history.  But another completely plausible explanation is that they ran what amounted to a giant military Ponzi scheme.  Their entire model was based on having extremely high rates of military mobilization and rewarding soldiers with land they took from their opponents.  This meant they needed every larger numbers of soldiers to keep fighting on ever expanding borders while also having more and more soldiers they constantly needed to reward with land. 

That's not a sustainable model and it's actually quite impressive they managed to keep it going as long as they did.  But one way they did it was by being in a constant state of warfare at their borders and the problems they had with succession and consistently sane leadership from generals constantly seizing power are of course notorious.   

*Edit* Also, pretty OT so I'll try to leave off the historical rabbit holes at least in this thread. 

Edited April 23, 2020 by Ontarah
extra thought

[Crucis]

16 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Well, they have Stormspeakers (Storm pose no threat as long as a tribe has one), plumbing wasn't a thing in most western civilizations until fairly recently, Huana invented the Voyager which is not a canoe (and it is said that the war canoes of the Wahaki are a frightening and impressive thing to behold) and are scattered around the Archipelago since some foreign dudes came, build some wheel and annihilated their ancestors who build the largest and most advanced empire on Eora and fed them to soul constructs they now call "gods". 

Also that's the same argumentation that was used by colonisation forces in Earth's history - and look how well that turned out.

If other people have it worse than you (in your opinion first of all) it's a reason to offer help (not to force it on) - it's not a justification to dominiate. 

Of course this is a rather progressive viewpoint in the scope of the history of man. Surely you made that statement from the perspective of the RDC.

 

Boeroer, this is modern reasoning, not the sort of reasoning one should expect out of civilizations from around the 1400's to 1700's.

[Boeroer]

But... that's what I said right below the sentence you highlighted.

[Taevyr]

On 4/20/2020 at 6:40 PM, Boeroer said:

Well Maia also blindly supports the RDC, even assassinates some random people and nobody said that's a problem (so far).

Considering Maia, I'm fairly certain the only civilian assassination she carries out is when she eliminates that Huana chieftain at the end of her companion quest, and the whole point of that part is that she starts questioning Atsura's orders: I doubt she'd have that reaction if she'd been used to kill civilian targets all along. The line between "military" and "civilian" targets is pretty damn thin in that period/region, but it certainly seems to matter to her.

While it's clear from her dialogue with both the watcher and Serafen that she's generally used to eliminate specific targets, and was partially put on your crew in case you became one of those targets, to me it seems equally clear that she's only had to deal with military targets thus far: pirate captains, vailian privateers, etc. When she's ordered to assassinate that Huana Chieftain who clearly isn't a military threat, she follows orders, but is clearly shaken by it afterwards; it's your choice whether she decides to oppose Atsura's tactics or becomes the blind follower she's made out to be. I'm not saying Atsura isn't a manipulative narcissist warmonger, or that Maia's not a racist chauvinist, but she's not that different from modern snipers/spies in her duties, and she clearly doesn't want to be used against civilians unless you encourage her. In other words: she's not the blind supporter of the RDC she's often made out to be, unless you encourage her to do so in your playthrough.

I also don't see why you'd assume she carries out the Tikawara and Port Maje assassinations: both are only impacted by your choices during said subquests, and happen regardless of Maia's opinion of/membership in the RDC at the end of the game; and if they happened before that, it doesn't fit with how shaken she is by her assassination of the Huana chieftain. Not to mention that those assassinations still happen in the ending where she eventually convinces the ranga nui to oppose said tactics, which makes it rather unlikely she took part in them after coming to that conclusion. Additionally, if she had only been used to take down military targets, she'd have no reason to assume Tikiwara and Port Maje are assassination missions rather than general intelligence operations: that depends on when she read/received her own orders.

Finally, one thing I noticed is that her dialogue clashes with itself at times: her relieved "finally" when you're ordered to kill Onekaza compared to her reaction afterwards, for example. Her voice acting is rather bad, in my opinion, as I feel a less monotone/bland delivery may have been clearer on the undertone: 'cause currently, large parts of it could be either her being a blind patriot or caustic cynicism, depending on how you read it.

Edited April 24, 2020 by Taevyr

[Taevyr]

On 4/23/2020 at 11:25 AM, Haljamar said:

The Huana made the same mistake Romans did: welcoming foreigners into their city to learn their strategies, and the foreigners used their naivety against them to screw them over. I absolutely chose RDC though, and I even went in to slaughter the Principi so I wouldn't be pestered by these bastards going around terrorizing people.

 

On 4/23/2020 at 10:01 PM, Ontarah said:

Well, "why the Romans fell" might be the mostly overly picked thing in history.  But another completely plausible explanation is that they ran what amounted to a giant military Ponzi scheme.  Their entire model was based on having extremely high rates of military mobilization and rewarding soldiers with land they took from their opponents.  This meant they needed every larger numbers of soldiers to keep fighting on ever expanding borders while also having more and more soldiers they constantly needed to reward with land. 

That's not a sustainable model and it's actually quite impressive they managed to keep it going as long as they did.  But one way they did it was by being in a constant state of warfare at their borders and the problems they had with succession and consistently sane leadership from generals constantly seizing power are of course notorious.   

*Edit* Also, pretty OT so I'll try to leave off the historical rabbit holes at least in this thread. 

Staying OT, but I like talking about my field, so please forgive me: as an archaeologist who specialized in the roman mediterranean, you could write a doctorate on the subject and still not be able to pinpoint the main factor. Long story short, it started in the 3rd century with the combination of a terrible economy, a great plague and massive civil wars leading to the loss of control over the outlying provinces, each with their underlying reasons and further developments, for starters. Reliance on local powers after that century can be seen as a form of proto-feudalism: Rome collected taxes and enforced the imperial cult, local powers could rule their lands in peace, and the empire "remained whole". 476 merely cut the last piece of rope keeping largely independent parts together.

Straw-man arguments like "Rome was perfect until X" are ridiculous, both because you can't pin it on a single thing, and because Rome wasn't all that awesome in the first place. Especially when it concerns "Immigration bad" and "christianity bad", since both also became important factors helping stability.

[Guest Ontarah]

As it turns out not doing Maia's mission but also not angering the Ruataians leads to an ending slide in which she does question her orders anyway.  And the Ranga Nui does in fact listen to her criticisms and makes some kind of banal "victory at any cost is not honorable" kind of statement.

The exact series of events I got to get this were:

Maia was at 1 positive reputation towards me.

I didn't side with anybody and didn't piss off anybody other than the Crookspur slavers.

I went to Ukaizo on my own and fought Furrante as the final confrontation.

I didn't do her quest.   

I don't know which of those matter and which don't in getting that slide. 

@ Taevyr

Sure, I got that particular thing out of "Escape From Rome" by Walter Scheidel and it struck me as one of the more plausible "macro" level reasons that I've heard.  Mostly because it doesn't really topple everything in and of itself but because it's a systemic weakness that a bunch of other factors could put pressure on thereby causing decline or collapse.

I'm not a specialist.  Just an armchair philosopher with an undergradute history degree who reads a lot. 

Edited April 24, 2020 by Ontarah
extra thought

[SchroedsCat]

Sorry for playing necromancer on this thread but it is completely out of the question that a third installment of the series should be anything other than the conclusion to the watcher's story. I mean I have some 300hrs on both games together on Steam. Of course I would want to see where this is ultimately going to culminate for this character that I honed and suffered with for so many hours.

It was mentioned in this thread, that it would be better if the game plays in the future, without the watcher as the PC. Just a reminder: Eothas said that every new life will be hollowborn in a bit more than one generation. A generation, in human terms, is about 30 years long. Eora basically doesn't have that much time to solve the Wheel problem.

 

As for characters, of course I'd want our longest standing buddies Eder and Aloth to return. Aloth especially is like a lovechild of Xan and Rincewind, what's not to like?

Rekke seems quite promising. Beyond that, it's really hit and miss. I'd like to provide Vatnir with a nice position as a steward of my crazy watcher household, he doesn't seem to like adventuring too much.

[AeonsLegend]

Point is that the watcher as a character is no longer necessary. In POE1 the watcher was pivotal to the story as you could uncover things others could not and you were story bound to Thaos with your soul. In POE2 this is no longer the case. Being a watcher is a gimmick. And it will be the same in POE3 because the watchers story was already resolved in POE1. I strongly believe that POE2 was never in anyones minds at Obsidian when they created POE1. It really feels like it was going to be a single story. Proceeding with the watcher in POE2 was a mistake I feel because the character didn't add anything to the story nor had any impact by being that character. In POE1 you have a personal stake in everything. In POE2 we just blunder around the deadfire doing what everyone else asks us to do. Basically being a mercenary. Boring.

If we proceed into the future with new characters we have the option of linking that character to what is happening post-Eothas. That would make things so much more interesting. Maybe it's a new type of watcher, maybe it's something else linked to souls that never existed before. You can be much more creative than regurgitating characters and have them plow through dungeons "just because". I mean what was the reason for Berath to revive you in the beginning of POE2? I never really understood why because there is litterally no specific point in doing so. 

[Crucis]

5 hours ago, AeonsLegend said:

Point is that the watcher as a character is no longer necessary. In POE1 the watcher was pivotal to the story as you could uncover things others could not and you were story bound to Thaos with your soul. In POE2 this is no longer the case. Being a watcher is a gimmick. And it will be the same in POE3 because the watchers story was already resolved in POE1. I strongly believe that POE2 was never in anyones minds at Obsidian when they created POE1. It really feels like it was going to be a single story. Proceeding with the watcher in POE2 was a mistake I feel because the character didn't add anything to the story nor had any impact by being that character. In POE1 you have a personal stake in everything. In POE2 we just blunder around the deadfire doing what everyone else asks us to do. Basically being a mercenary. Boring.

If we proceed into the future with new characters we have the option of linking that character to what is happening post-Eothas. That would make things so much more interesting. Maybe it's a new type of watcher, maybe it's something else linked to souls that never existed before. You can be much more creative than regurgitating characters and have them plow through dungeons "just because". I mean what was the reason for Berath to revive you in the beginning of POE2? I never really understood why because there is litterally no specific point in doing so. 

AL, In POE2, you're there because Berath wants you to discover what Eothas is doing, and then later to stop him from destroying The Wheel.   How you get from the start of the story to its end is entirely up to the player.  What would be more boring to me would be a game where the story was nothing more than a straight line from start to end, sort of like the IWD games.

Anyways, I think that a problem that games like this have is that if the designers make the storyline too obvious it gets boring fast.  And OTOH, if they bury it in mystery too deeply, some players may get confused easily and not know what to do next to progress the story.  And I don't think that there's any easy answer here.

[SchroedsCat]

5 hours ago, AeonsLegend said:

Point is that the watcher as a character is no longer necessary. In POE1 the watcher was pivotal to the story as you could uncover things others could not and you were story bound to Thaos with your soul. In POE2 this is no longer the case. Being a watcher is a gimmick. And it will be the same in POE3 because the watchers story was already resolved in POE1. I strongly believe that POE2 was never in anyones minds at Obsidian when they created POE1. It really feels like it was going to be a single story. Proceeding with the watcher in POE2 was a mistake I feel because the character didn't add anything to the story nor had any impact by being that character. In POE1 you have a personal stake in everything. In POE2 we just blunder around the deadfire doing what everyone else asks us to do. Basically being a mercenary. Boring.

If we proceed into the future with new characters we have the option of linking that character to what is happening post-Eothas. That would make things so much more interesting. Maybe it's a new type of watcher, maybe it's something else linked to souls that never existed before. You can be much more creative than regurgitating characters and have them plow through dungeons "just because". I mean what was the reason for Berath to revive you in the beginning of POE2? I never really understood why because there is litterally no specific point in doing so. 

But the watcher is the hero who solved the hollowborn crisis, and apparently Berath's first choice for chasing Eothas (if you deny the pallid knight at the beginning of Deadfire, you just get reborn as a furry creature and Berath will find another watcher in your place). I'd say there is even more need for the watcher to get involved after Deadfire as the whole planet is at stake. I'll be a monkey's aunt if Deadfire's ending wasn't supposed to be a sequel hook.

Whether the watcher is a boring character... well, that's entirely up to the player. With the established watcher we have connections to characters, gods and factions, all of this would have to be created new from scratch with a new character. This just takes time and resources away from a good narrative. Two games worth of build up culminated in a third big epic ending. If there ever is one that is.

[AeonsLegend]

9 hours ago, SchroedsCat said:

But the watcher is the hero who solved the hollowborn crisis, and apparently Berath's first choice for chasing Eothas (if you deny the pallid knight at the beginning of Deadfire, you just get reborn as a furry creature and Berath will find another watcher in your place). I'd say there is even more need for the watcher to get involved after Deadfire as the whole planet is at stake. I'll be a monkey's aunt if Deadfire's ending wasn't supposed to be a sequel hook.

Whether the watcher is a boring character... well, that's entirely up to the player. With the established watcher we have connections to characters, gods and factions, all of this would have to be created new from scratch with a new character. This just takes time and resources away from a good narrative. Two games worth of build up culminated in a third big epic ending. If there ever is one that is.

Well you're definitely entitled to your opinion. My opinion is that the watcher story was done in POE1 and the watcher had no point in returning for POE2. You're saying Berath revived the watcher because he was the hero of the hollowborn crisis. I call BS. What, is the watcher now an errand boy/girl to be called upon because they did something great before? I mean, what in Deadfire required the watchers presence at all? Absolutely nothing. It's nothing that any avarage ragtag band of adventurers couldn't have done. And like I myself and many others have stated before the presence of the watcher in Deadfire is inconsequential to the main story development as they have 0 impact on the story. It's not epic and it doesn't sound like it will be epic in POE3 either.

Takes away resources from a good narrative? What part of the story of the watcher is completed in POE1 and they have 0 investment in the next installments did you not understand? There is no good narrative with the watcher as an MC. Deadfire proved this. I forgot halfway through that I was actually a frikking watcher.