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Companions - how important are they?


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I haven't tried PoE yet just to not spoil myself, that means I'm patiently waiting for the final released version of the game to play it from beginning to end. However, now we're getting close to release, and there is something I'd like to know from anyone who has actually played the early access/beta to any significant degree and has valuable first-hand experience.

 

Are companions really relevant/important to the the campaign?

 

The reason I ask is because lately in this kind of multi-character RPG, I enjoy creating my own party with very diverse characters I've been developing through the years while playing both in tabletop and on-line RP communities, but I always hate the idea that because I made my whole custom party I'll be missing out on a cool of quests, narrative or game content that is locked behind specific pre-scripted companions.

 

So that's really what I'd like to know. Am I good to make my own full party, or do I miss out on much by doing so?

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No companion is required. You can choose to recruit none of them I believe, and just use your own guys hired from Inns.

 

You will miss out on their dialogue, individual quest line/story arc and some reactivity from the game world though.

 

You can also recruit them and then just leave them at the stronghold I believe, so you can probably talk to them there while taking your custom guys on adventures.

Edited by Sensuki
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No companion is required. You can choose to recruit none of them I believe, and just use your own guys hired from Inns.

 

You will miss out on their dialogue, individual quest line/story arc and some reactivity from the game world though.

 

You can also recruit them and then just leave them at the stronghold I believe, so you can probably talk to them there while taking your custom guys on adventures.

 

I am guessing OP wants to know how much of that kind of content is in the game. I don't think anyone from the beta will be able to answer that one for you though, only the devs will have an idea of that.

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No companion is required. You can choose to recruit none of them I believe, and just use your own guys hired from Inns.

 

You will miss out on their dialogue, individual quest line/story arc and some reactivity from the game world though.

 

You can also recruit them and then just leave them at the stronghold I believe, so you can probably talk to them there while taking your custom guys on adventures.

 

I am guessing OP wants to know how much of that kind of content is in the game. I don't think anyone from the beta will be able to answer that one for you though, only the devs will have an idea of that.

 

Yeah that's pretty much it. My doubt is if I'll miss really good bits of storytelling/narrative or the chance to explore certain areas or attain certain powerful items just because I chose to not bring any pre-scripted companions as regular party members.

 

If recruiting them and leaving them at the stronghold while chatting with them now and then is good enough to unlock all of the content, I'm fine with that. My main doubt is if I'm good to bring my own party of custom-made adventurers and miss relatively little or none of the game's content.

 

I imagine no player can answer that yet, but any guesstimation is welcome.

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I think companions are important and you can loose (in narrative, lore way) a lot not taking them with you. They are probably linked with various factions, recent historical events, various cultures and setting themes, but what is more with player's main conflict. Of course you can create your own adventurers (I will create one druid on the beginning of the game until I meet companion of that class), but this often cost much if you want to have whole party and you can only hire them in taverns or faction headquarters. It's not like Icewind Dale where you create whole party immediately. I believe adventurer option is more additional than core function, but it's only my opinion.

Edited by White Phoenix
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You will likely loose out on a decent bit of narrative and dialogue and of course the companions personal stories.  I would also be stunned if they all didn't have at least one or two quests associated with them.  Will there be areas you can never visit?  Extremely unlikely.  Will there be awesome gear you miss out on, maybe but I would not be surprised if the answer was no.

 

Maybe it is just me but from a design perspective if I were going to give "bad ass loot" as part off a companion quest I would make that loot designed for the companion not the PC.

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So that's really what I'd like to know. Am I good to make my own full party, or do I miss out on much by doing so?

You'd be missing out on a lot of valuable research in my opinion. Making your own Adventurer's Hall companions on a first playthrough might get a bit dull... sure, you get to be your own "author" of your characters relationships, how they met, where they are from and such.

 

But if you don't know anything about the lore or the world, you might find contradictions in your own narrative, or you might get bored with the constant silence of your mute and deaf band of adventurers (with the exception of the MC).

 

Getting the VIP companions is not crucial to finish the game, they are not a "must have" requirement, but I expect them to tell stories and fill out the lore in more ways you wouldn't discover without them. For instance, Kana Rua, a Scholar and Chanter, will most likely tell the Player tons of stuff you won't get a chance to figure out or read/hear anywhere else.

 

Though, some of the best Companions I have had in my parties have been custom made (in Baldur's Gate and the like), much better than the vanilla/VIP/original ones, but those have become better and better with each play I've made, or I've had a friend help me out write a second or third character bio and the character becomes tons more interesting. I.E. The best custom made characters are built on research/understanding of the lore.

 

Which means that, if you researched prior to your run and made your characters based on the intel you can gather you'd make the most out of your own custom made AH companions.

 

There's nothing stopping you from using a complete AH party regardless, as others have said, you're not forced to use the "VIP" companions.

Edited by Osvir
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Josh said that he wanted to tie companions with locations like it was in NWN2: Mask of Betrayer (see Gann and Skein or Okku and Ashenwood). I saw on the January Twitch stream our companions giving us automatically their quest (see Sagani) or when we went to the appropriate location connected to them (see Kana). Durance and probably Eder had their quest started before as we could see in journal. I like that idea. Because it gives me as a player possibility to know better those companions even if I don't take them everywhere. I can't stand situation when I have to take one of the companions and after some time they give me their quest and THIS IS the only way to know them better.

Edited by White Phoenix
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My advice to the OP would be to just play the game with your own party if you like that sort of thing - there's a reason they put in the option to do so! If you then still want to experience the companions, go for a 2nd run through the game and use them. If the game isn't good enough for you to go for a 2nd run through it, the companion content likely won't improve the game enough for you to suddenly start liking it a lot more :)

 

I'll do the exact opposite btw, first play with the companions and then later I'll do some runs with my own created party or a mix with only my favourite companions joining me. They've given us this freedom, so why not use it?

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Thanks everyone for chiming in with some advice. Hopefully I can just recruit the companions and leaving them at the stronghold to progress and develop their personal stories while actually adventuring with my own party, like for example in Mass Effect, where you don't have to take a character at all to exhaust all their conversation, romance them, and finish their quest-line (besides their one personal mission, where it does make sense that you are forced to bring them along).

 

If bringing the characters along for more than their own personal side-missions is required, I'll go with a first playthrough with the pre-scripted companions and then a second playthrough with a custom party. If the game is as good as I think it will be, I'll probably even try a third "Ironman" run with just the main character, considering by then I'll probably have a very good idea of the game systems and encounters.

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