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Do we know how party NPCs, reputations, etc will function in Pillars?


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Suffice to say, Pillars 1's reputation system and party NPC interactions feel a bit anemic.  Ostensibly "good" characters like Kana and Eder don't seem to mind your Bleak Walker slaughtering an entire town or torturing people in front of them, other than a short "this might not be a good idea..." quip.  I chalk that up to Pillars' very limited NPC roster (as compared to BG1's large roster and even BG2's was fairly sizable in comparison) - you can't really afford to "lock out" NPCs when the player really only gets one per class and they're fairly widely spaced.

 

 

 

But that also makes NPCs kind of boring, or at times makes them seem to be behaving out of character.  But given how it sounds like Pillars 2 will feature even fewer NPCs, BG-style "you're too goodie two-shoes/evil for me" won't work.  Tyranny, however, showed us it doesn't have to be like that.  The favor/fear system (which operates on separate scales, so you're not in a tug of war - this is important!) allowed NPCs to have their own opinions and wants without the player completely alienating them unless they tried to (for example, Barik will hate you if you don't fellate Graven Ashe but can be talked into sticking with you.)

 

I feel like this also works well for player reputations.  Instead of having a tug of war system or a simple "1 this, 2 that, 1 of that other thing" system, you could have separate bars for each personality trait, with opposites loosely linked.  If you're consistently behaving Passionate, it's still to progress along the Stoic path (which seems to be the most direct opposite of Passionate), but it will be weighted against you.  You aren't tugging against Passionate... your character's history of passion won't go away... but you're slowly working towards a new pattern of behavior, which feels and seems much more natural and believable.

 

This may be how it already works in Pillars 1 (I seem to recall reading that the reputations were weighted in such a way), and it's just simply not expressed well with the game's simplistic UI.

 

 

Basically, I'm hoping that NPCs in Pillars 2 will be a lot less static and two-dimensional.  Their lack of reactivity towards player/party reputation and behavior is one of the biggest let-downs of Pillars compared to the old Infinity Engine titles, and it's one I'm hoping is a focus for correction in Pillars 2.

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Did you check out the Sawyer's relationship video?  It pretty much confirms that NPCs are going to be a lot more dynamic in this game.

 

 

The 7 (or ​8 ) normal CNPCs will be more dynamic this time, and they will leave your party if you pissed them  off.

Edited by Bill Gates' Son
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The 7 (or ​8 ) normal CNPCs will be more dynamic this time, and they will leave your party if you pissed them off.

 

I'm not so sure about that. As far as I remember, they announced the same for PoE, and the only opportunity for someone to actually leave was the grieving mother in a certain quest, or did I misremember that?

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^GM is the only one I managed to make leave - there are a few times she will.  But not the others.

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