Hi Development Team

I wish to ask something about Backgrounds

I'm playing a hero from Deadfire who is an Aristocrat escaping from an assassination attempt and trying to rebuild his life. Will my character meet his family in Deadfire or will he not?

Edited March 7, 20178 yr by BlackRangerXIII

You hail from Deadfire Archipelago, where you were orphaned at a young age. While the world is filled with orphans, you are that rare orphan who is parentless by choice, with both of them meeting their deaths by your hand.

My choice does not burden developers to think up a family for a my Rogue.

You hail from Deadfire Archipelago, where you were orphaned at a young age. While the world is filled with orphans, you are that rare orphan who is parentless by choice, with both of them meeting their deaths by your hand.

 

My choice does not burden developers to think up a family for a my Rogue.

 

My question to the devs is not about your choice, but mine

 

My question to the devs is not about your choice, but mine

 

Sorry man. Did not mean to offend you.

 

The background is too many options, it is very unlikely that the developers will work out each.

 

I would very much like them to comment on this situation somehow.

The developers mentioned in past Q&As that there would be unique dialogue options for characters who are from the Deadfire Archipelagos. They've also mentioned that they would work on integrating background options into dialogues as well. 

 

That said, I highly doubt your character will meet their family in Pillars 2. The Aristocrat option is open to all races, so in order for them to introduce your character's family believably, they'd not only have to come up with versions for each race but also relocate the versions to areas in which the presence of aristocrats of that race would make sense. That's a lot of work to do for one background out of dozens.

The developers mentioned in past Q&As that there would be unique dialogue options for characters who are from the Deadfire Archipelagos. They've also mentioned that they would work on integrating background options into dialogues as well. 

 

That said, I highly doubt your character will meet their family in Pillars 2. The Aristocrat option is open to all races, so in order for them to introduce your character's family believably, they'd not only have to come up with versions for each race but also relocate the versions to areas in which the presence of aristocrats of that race would make sense. That's a lot of work to do for one background out of dozens.

 

Yes, but it is that dedication and attention to detail which separate superior games from the merely mediocre. That a thing is difficult is never sufficient cause for submission, great achievement requires great effort. 

Yes, but it is that dedication and attention to detail which separate superior games from the merely mediocre. That a thing is difficult is never sufficient cause for submission, great achievement requires great effort. 

 

Let's bring your claim back down to earth and try applying it to this specific instance: Are you honestly saying that not mapping out all of the possible iterations of a Deadfire aristocrat's family reunion in-game will condemn this game to mediocrity?

 

Actually, why stop there? If all the possible Deadfire noble families that could occur for each race and sub-choice available for the background need to be put in the game because the difficulty of effective implementation can't justify abandoning the effort, then by the same reasoning, they should devote time to developing ending slides, enemies/rival families, and maybe even in-game lore and equipable/consumable heirlooms to fit your Watcher's vaunted lineage. Actually, maybe we need to make unique sidekicks, companions, and/or crew-members available to Watchers of the background as well to truly shoot for greatness here.

 

Difficulty in implementation quite often translates to increased demands of time and other resources, and as those are limited, it's obvious that prospective features will be in competition with each other when considering what can actually make it into the game. Creating npcs to accommodate this specific background is likely to be minimal enough in its returns to the subset of players who will demand them that I'd expect it to be pretty low on the list of prioritized features even before considering alternative uses for the same amount of time and money. Making a great game isn't simply a matter of being willing to expend effort; knowing when and where to do so is just as important.

 

That said, even if they had time/money to spare on this, there are still reasons not to. For one thing, doing so could cause players to resent the disparity in the amount of reactivity associated with this background as opposed to others or to feel like this region and background combination is the only one "worth" choosing. For another, the resulting characters and locations may be of questionable quality if the primary reason for their creation is simply to check them off a list of possible encounters tied to the background.

Your pessimism is rivaled only by your assumptions. 

 

To have a decision acknowledged in a game which calls itself an RPG is not an unreasonable expectation, especially for a genre which prides and defines itself upon choice and consequence.

 

The query which launched this conversation did not ask for quests or elaborate detail, merely acknowledgment. Elegant solutions could be found which did not necessitate unnecessary complication. They could use NPCs in any home who meet the appropriate racial requisite, if the home is modest, perhaps they have fallen on hard times and the reunion and ensuing dialogue could just be catching up. Perhaps they'd been murdered by a rival and a small quest could be introduced to investigate it, a quest available to all but intensely personal for a select few, or maybe all that remains is their name etched upon a mausoleum. Perhaps they departed for the Dyrwood, in search of their child, leaving one with the unanswered question as to whether they had been lost in Eothas' wake. . .And that is literally a few thoughts just off the top of my head without any previous consideration.

 

The possibilities are endless really. There is no reason a satisfactory solution could not be found, and even less reason why it should not be attempted.

Edited February 14, 20187 yr by Elkor_Alish

To have a decision acknowledged in a game with calls itself an RPG is not an unreasonable expectation, especially for a genre which prides and defines itself upon choice and consequence.

The decision of background can be acknowledged without generating a variable set of NPCs that you can interact with (and yes, to cover the different families possible, it's almost unavoidable that NPCs would have to be specifically created in various locations for the purpose of representing them rather than just repurposing those already made to fit). Players will have dialogue options tied to their backgrounds, the aristocrat background included, but beyond that, this is another blanket statement on your part that becomes questionable when subjected to detail and context. Obviously, not all decisions from the first game can or will be acknowledged even when you're dealing with rpgs, and thus it's obviously not reasonable to expect reactivity for any given choice simply because you could make it in an earlier game, let alone to expect a specific form of reactivity such as the one being discussed here.

 

The query which launched his conversation did not ask for quests or elaborate detail, merely acknowledgment.

 

My response was primarily directed to the statement I quoted, in which you categorically claim that difficulty fails to suffice as a reason not to implement something.

 

But as for the poster's original request, they actually didn't ask for mere acknowledgment of the background: they asked to meet their character's family in the game. That obviously requires that there be a family present to meet, and using any "NPCs in any home who meet the appropriate racial requisite" is such a sloppy and haphazard approach to implementing this that it would likely be worse than no attempt at all for many, myself included.

 

The fact that you actually think that plopping them down wherever would be sufficient indicates that you aren't even aware of the extent to which the details of this background can vary to begin with. You can check here for details on the available choices for this background as well as others, but I'll quickly summarize some of the basic ones here as well:

1. You can be descended from royalty.
2. You can be from an "influential" family.
3. Your family could have recently purchased its status and be considered pretenders to nobility by those who claim it by lineage.

What makes sense in terms of the portrayed history of one and its subsequent developments in the game doesn't fit for others, and for each of these choices further variations are possible that can influence not only the tone of interactions with the family, if they were to be created, but also where it would even make sense for them to end up. The proposition of simply integrating them within locations that are already planned further assumes that such places will necessarily fit the background, and that's far from guaranteed: for example, have you heard anything about a kingdom where wood elf royalty exists in the Deadfire in any of the lore tidbits or interviews for the game? I sure haven't.

 

For all your talk of acknowledging background decisions, the supposedly elegant solutions of having the families automatically lose power, emigrate elsewhere, or end up deposed, murdered, or otherwise deceased regardless of the player's earlier background specifications obviously contradict this goal. What's more, many of these proposed "solutions" of yours don't even accommodate the original poster's request to actually meet the Watcher's family in the first place, despite the fact that you're supposedly arguing in favor of it.

Edited February 14, 20187 yr by blotter

I am familiar with the background, I chose it myself, though I opted for the White That Wends since it seemed more analogous with being a Pale Elf.

 

I never intended to suggest mine were solutions elegant, only that elegant solutions were possible, my point was to contrast economy against extravagance. 

 

As to my prior statements, I stand by them. Difficulty should never be a deterrent, pity the species which believes otherwise.

Edited February 14, 20187 yr by Elkor_Alish

Will my character meet his family in Deadfire or will he not?

 

Sure.

 

Thank you guys for necroing a question from months ago

Can a moderrator close this thread?

Closed at OP request.