Can you push your companions too far ?

[b0rsuk]

On my second playthrough, I'm roleplaying a really nasty and treacherous character. To my surprise, my companions (Kana, Pellegrina, Aloth, Sagani, Grieving Mother) barely care.

 

So far, I've only been able to make Grieving Mother leave. I expected her to react in this way, and wasn't disappointed.

 

 

You need to lie to the survivor girl in Heritage Hill and send her to the starving gul on the tower.

 

I'm not there yet, but I'm sure sacrificing the kid in Twin Elms will have the same effect.

 

 

 

Are there any actions which can horrify other party members ?

[omgFIREBALLS]

Are there any actions which can horrify other party members ?

Hiravias' table manners.

[b0rsuk]

 

Are there any actions which can horrify other party members ?

Hiravias' table manners.

 

 

The comment on Brighthollow fountain takes the cake.

I really like the dude as a companion, especially his battle cries.

[Sonntam]

Grieving Mother seems to be the one with the strongest moral compass. She will also leave, if you allow the Skaenites in Gilded Vale to proceed as planned. 

[b0rsuk]

Grieving Mother seems to be the one with the strongest moral compass. She will also leave, if you allow the Skaenites in Gilded Vale to proceed as planned. 

 

That's when I reloaded after luring the girl to gruesome death. I want to experience all the remaining companions on my second playthrough.

 

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I understand why they did this - why companions don't give a damn. So that player has more freedom without losing companions. But there's a middle ground. Doing something a companion despises could cause a temporary debuff to that companion, "bad mood" or similar. When I say "temporary", I mean passage of time would be measured in xp, much like it works with Stronghold. That way you couldn't trivially wait it out, you'd have to play for a while with a weakened companion. It would give you a minor reason to care about their opinions, but wouldn't punish very harshly by making the companion leave.

Edited April 16, 2015 by b0rsuk

[gkathellar]

 

Grieving Mother seems to be the one with the strongest moral compass. She will also leave, if you allow the Skaenites in Gilded Vale to proceed as planned. 

 

That's when I reloaded after luring the girl to gruesome death. I want to experience all the remaining companions on my second playthrough.

 

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I understand why they did this - why companions don't give a damn. So that player has more freedom without losing companions. But there's a middle ground. Doing something a companion despises could cause a temporary debuff to that companion, "bad mood" or similar. When I say "temporary", I mean passage of time would be measured in xp, much like it works with Stronghold. That way you couldn't trivially wait it out, you'd have to play for a while with a weakened companion. It would give you a minor reason to care about their opinions, but wouldn't punish very harshly by making the companion leave.

 

It's in line with BG, honestly. I'm pretty sure the only reason a companion will leave you there, aside from Rep, is Jaheira refusing to fight Drizizzle (which is just weird).

 

It might be nice if companions got upset about certain kinds of rep, though.

[Merany]

To do that, you would need a lot more companions though.

It made sense in BG2 cause you had both some "good" and "evil" ones that could react to how you play.

Here they made the choice of having less companions with more developed stories but also a lot more "grey" so that you're not screwed on companions if you want to be an ass.

Not sure if the trade is really worth it...

 

Actually, what I would have preferred is some way to influence your companions a lot more. A bit like when you change Viconia alignment in BG2 but that could go both ways.

 

I had no idea that the Grieving Mother would react negatively to **** moves though...

Did not play with her on my first playthrough thinking I would save her for a later, "evil" one. Kinda disappointed

[b0rsuk]

It's in line with BG, honestly. I'm pretty sure the only reason a companion will leave you there, aside from Rep, is Jaheira refusing to fight Drizizzle (which is just weird).

 

It might be nice if companions got upset about certain kinds of rep, though.

 

 

In BG1 companions had the personality of cardboard cut-outs so it didn't disappoint. Minsc stood out not just because he was crazy, but also because he was good in combat. And while BG1 companions didn't care about specific actions, they would rebel if your reputation rose or sank too much. Evil companions would eventually rebel and had to be fought.

Edited April 16, 2015 by b0rsuk

[MReed]

I've proposed in the past tracking two relationship variables per companion (instead of one):

 

Respect:  This measures the companions belief that the PC is effective -- even if they don't agree with the actual actions the PC performs, they acknowledge that they work at least as well as their preferred actions, and perhaps better.

Friendship:  This measures how often the PC resolves situations in the same way the companion would resolve them.

 

Respect would be built-up by going against the companion's wishes, and then either producing a positive outcome as measured by the companion's biases, possibly combined with conversations justifying / explaining the motivations behind the action.  Respect would go down when the player starts to perform an action, the companion complains, and the player changes the action as a result and when the outcome of the player's actions was evaluated (again, by the companions biases) as inferior.

 

Friendship is simple -- do what the companions prefers and it goes up, do something that opposes these companions wishes and it goes down.

 

If respect is high and friendship is low, then the companion (if resources permit) is ripe for a "crisis of faith", where the conflict between respecting and following the orders of someone who has a clearly different philosophy than the companion is resolved -- either by adjusting the companions philosophy, leaving the party, or similar.

 

Maybe someday...

[sparklecat]

Given that you can create new companions whenever you like, I'd rather they had made all of them more reactive and potentially able to leave under the right circumstances.

 

Just not with your equipment.

[rheingold]

It's a difficult one, mainly because the devs took a lot of flack about only having 8 companions. If companions did up and leave some people would be unhappy. So it's a lose lose situation for them. Personally I'd prefer more reactivity and even fights like what happened in BG2 but I understand why it wasn't done.

[Heijoushin]

They sometimes comment on your decisions, but I've never had a case of one leaving.

 

There are a couple of instances where you can tell them to go take a hike, but I wonder if anyone ever makes use of that?

 

As others have said, there are just too few for them to be super sensitive.