Sidekicks will have no banter

[Boeroer]

I'll just tell them they get nothing of my "Captain's Banquet x5" but only hardtack if they don't shut up and do what I say.

[Guest]

I'll just tell them they get nothing of my "Captain's Banquet x5" but only hardtack if they don't shut up and do what I say.

Yeah, definitely saving those for when I find out who my friends are.

[HAWmaro]

I'll just tell them they get nothing of my "Captain's Banquet x5" but only hardtack if they don't shut up and do what I say.

Nope those are only for me, my pets and "escorts".

Edited April 27, 2018 by HAWmaro

[molotov.]

lol this is going five pages strong. Basically people are upset because they got themselves worked up over waifu Ydwin and convinced themselves that sidekicks would be full companions, even with sidekicks clearly being advertised as not comparable to fully fledged companions. They always said they would be somewhere between a companion and a custom built character and that they'd just join you as like a reward for some quests.  Is it a pointless feature that could have gone towards creating an eighth full companion? Yes. I don't see story folks using them over companions and I don't see gameplay minmaxers using them over custom built. Was it deceptively advertised? No.

No, you basically didn't read a thing on this thread.

 

I didn't convince myself that the sidekicks would be full companions, It was very clear that they would not have a personal quest and that they would not be part of the relationship system, like I said - 5 times by now, I even stated that on my first comment, you should read at least the first comment... - it's understandable, but banter is such a basic thing that I though it was clear that they would have some.

 

Although I liked animancy I don't give a **** about Ydwin but I did use some memes. I want to know the story of Rekke and I have... had... high hopes for Konstanten, because we didn't get any good dwarf companions on Pillars of Eternity 1.

 

It wasn't deceptively advertised? Well... on the FIG page they nerver told us that they would not have any banter... Josh said that on his last stream 2 weeks before the release, and there was this interview:

 

"MM: One of the things we got a first look at for our magazine feature for the first time is this new character, Tekehu. He is one of how many playable party members that join up with you?

 

JS: There are seven companions and there are four sidekicks. The difference between companions and sidekicks is that sidekicks don’t have their own personal questline. Writing companions is a huge amount of work, but we know people love variety in terms of visuals and mechanics. Some wish we could have more companions or more colorful companions that don’t need quests, like Minsc. Minsc didn’t have a personal quest in Baldur’s Gate 2. He was just a cool guy and had funny lines and people thought that was cool and wanted him in their party. So that’s what a sidekick is. So, we have seven full companions with their own quests and relationships and then we have four sidekicks."

 

If I recall correctly Minsc had banter on BG 2. So... there you have it.

[Vengeful_Divine]

I don't really think there's enough evidence present yet to tell just how interactive sidekicks will be... And the term 'banter' may mean something more specific to Josh than what it means to players.

 

Personally I see banter as very specific scripted/responsive interactions between characters within the party while traveling - not necessarily things like responding to the situation or surroundings etc, and completely separate from actual dialogue. For example, the conversation between Tekehu and Maia(?) near the beginning of the stream.

Adding any noticeable number of those for each sidekick (in addition to whatever they likely currently have) would actually be quite a large undertaking. Because it would be expected between them and every other companion and sidekick - so very specific personal interactions with 10* other characters. That kind of work grows exponentially with each additional point of contact.

 

Like I said, it's not really an assumption we can make at this point, but I believe the sidekicks will do just what he said - be colorful, have some fun lines here and there (maybe some both in and out of dialogue), probably have some personal dialogue trees that the Watcher can delve into, and generally be fun but without much story impact.

 

Based purely on what he said, the only thing I won't expect much of is specific interaction with/responses to other companions while traveling. Which I see as more of a bonus than a requirement in most games, so I wouldn't expect that as part of this stretch goal personally hehe. I guess we'll just have to see what their true scope is

 

*Edit: I swear I can math...

Edited April 27, 2018 by Vengeful_Divine

[CottonWolf]

Although I liked animancy I don't give a **** about Ydwin but I did use some memes. I want to know the story of Rekke and I have... had... high hopes for Konstanten, because we didn't get any good dwarf companions on Pillars of Eternity 1.

 

Poor Sagani. Top three companion right there, along with Eder and Durance.

[illathid]

 

 

P but I never saw any decent reviewer compare them in anything more than the most basic way. 

 

Real reviewers, review games based on that game.  Not on what that game did or did not do, that some other game did or did not do differently.

 

 

 

 

And yet it is constantly compared. The last 10 articles I read on gaming sites about Pillars 2, had Divinity mentioned in it. Which is also the only reason why I brought it up. I'm not here often enough/read enough to know what people usually do here.

 

Real reviewers? Reviewers shape opinions whether you consider them real or not. Trust me on this.

 

 

Not to mention this https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/911663832732278784

 

DOS2 is currently the best selling modern CRPG. To say that DOS2 didn't have any influence at all for the full voice acting decision is a bit asinine.  

 

 

Everyday we stray further from the light of Eothas

[HAWmaro]

 

 

 

P but I never saw any decent reviewer compare them in anything more than the most basic way. 

 

Real reviewers, review games based on that game.  Not on what that game did or did not do, that some other game did or did not do differently.

 

 

 

 

And yet it is constantly compared. The last 10 articles I read on gaming sites about Pillars 2, had Divinity mentioned in it. Which is also the only reason why I brought it up. I'm not here often enough/read enough to know what people usually do here.

 

Real reviewers? Reviewers shape opinions whether you consider them real or not. Trust me on this.

 

 

Not to mention this https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/911663832732278784

 

DOS2 is currently the best selling modern CRPG. To say that DOS2 didn't have any influence at all for the full voice acting decision is a bit asinine.  

 

 

Everyday we stray further from the light of Eothas

 

The price of crossing a god....

[molotov.]

 

Although I liked animancy I don't give a **** about Ydwin but I did use some memes. I want to know the story of Rekke and I have... had... high hopes for Konstanten, because we didn't get any good dwarf companions on Pillars of Eternity 1.

 

Poor Sagani. Top three companion right there, along with Eder and Durance.

 

Sagain was terrible. At least her attributes were amazing.

[Guest]

 

 

Although I liked animancy I don't give a **** about Ydwin but I did use some memes. I want to know the story of Rekke and I have... had... high hopes for Konstanten, because we didn't get any good dwarf companions on Pillars of Eternity 1.

Poor Sagani. Top three companion right there, along with Eder and Durance.

Sagain was terrible. At least her attributes were amazing.

That Itumaak is a DPS beast tho

[molotov.]

 

 

 

Although I liked animancy I don't give a **** about Ydwin but I did use some memes. I want to know the story of Rekke and I have... had... high hopes for Konstanten, because we didn't get any good dwarf companions on Pillars of Eternity 1.

Poor Sagani. Top three companion right there, along with Eder and Durance.

Sagain was terrible. At least her attributes were amazing.

That Itumaak is a DPS beast tho

 

Yep, 70-80 damage crits that is just insane.

[Silent Winter]

 

Although in context , I have a job, wife and kids.

 

Do they have any banter though

 

Well, my nearly-8-year-old son has far too much banter, and my 4-month-old daughter is a little like Rekke (she's definitely saying something, but nobody seems to understand her language yet).

My wife manages to find a good balance of banter.

My job contains repetitive barks but not much in the way of a quest. <- planning to upgrade that with a stretch-goal.

Edited April 28, 2018 by Silent Winter

[Karkarov]

Not to mention this https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/911663832732278784

 

DOS2 is currently the best selling modern CRPG. To say that DOS2 didn't have any influence at all for the full voice acting decision is a bit asinine. 

Actually the people who constantly compare two wildly different games over and over are the ones who seem pretty asinine from my perspective.

 

If you guys want to live in a deluded fantasy realm where you think Obsidian makes major budget choices based on nothing other than "but Larian did it!!!!?!?!?!!" then go ahead.  Fortunately I know Obsidian is not run by morons, and actually thinks before they make decisions.  Now I am sure they noticed Larian had full VO in their last game, but they probably noticed that so did Skyrim, so did the Mass Effect series, so did the Witcher games, so did etc etc etc.

 

Full VO is not exactly a controversial or rare feature in modern games.

[Guest 4ward]

 

Not to mention this https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/911663832732278784

 

DOS2 is currently the best selling modern CRPG. To say that DOS2 didn't have any influence at all for the full voice acting decision is a bit asinine. 

<snip>

Full VO is not exactly a controversial or rare feature in modern games.

 

 

you may be right and i for one won‘t argue with that. I just think it‘s a pity. I for one would rather have the choice of the 16 BG2 chars and partial VO for all localized versions as it was in BG2 than 7 Kotor chars and full VO English only. That‘s really all there is to it.

[CAlmond]

From the info I know about PoE2, we have 7 companions and 4(?) sidekicks. Somebody earlier in this thread mentioned that you can think of sidekicks as Cernd from BG2, and I agree that sounds like a fair assumption. They have a quest where we can recruit them, custom portraits, custom voiceset and they might have minor interjections here and there, but no full banters with anyone.

 

Somebody mentioned 250k for 4 of these sidekicks is too expensive. I actually disagree, things cost a lot of money to make, especially with full voice acting for every line. Logically speaking very few VAs will get every single line right the very first time. First they will need some time to read the script and familiarise themselves with it, then they likely need to practice to themselves until they're reasonable happy with it. Once they're somewhat happy and recording starts, the director might ask them to change certain things here and there. Put the emphasis on another word, say it with a different emotion, accent, faster, slower, crazier etc. All together, I expect every hour of voice work that gets into the game likely needs around 5 hours worth of work between recording, editing and overhead. That's one hour of voiced lines for a single VA, when you have lines from different characters that require different VA, the work likely needs to be spread over multiple days and weeks, which adds more overhead on top of the base costs. Each hour of work involves more than just one person, so multiple salaries need to be paid. And that's just the voice work, now you add the time spent on writing, design, scripting, modeling, animating, portrait, programming, QA, potentially new ambient noise etc. The costs will add up very quickly.

[Archaven]

On full VO i think that's really not necessary and it wasn't part of the stretch goals. I appreciate double the VOs on the main conversation and important side quests. Full VO only be great if you were to play the game once or twice. I find myself skipping all the VOs on subsequent playthroughs. On the other hand, OP concerns perhaps not really unfounded. It seems that the stretch goals for sidekicks were just only adding character portraits, some voice lines and introductory quest (not sure how comprehensive it would be, but i doubt it will be anything big comparing to companions). Not to mention on Rekke? Where he was introduced as mute (which basically means he probably dont speak at all). I love banters and adding few lines of banters for sidekicks wouldn't hurt i guess? Probably some of the budget were used and allocated to the full VOs perhaps triggered many post regarding the full VOs.

[Wormerine]

What i dont get is the idea that If money wasn’t spent on full VO, another feature would complete itself. I would certainly prefer more fleshed out sidekicks or even one full companion instead of full VO. I would even prefer a more nuanced ship2ship combat, or more subclasses, better resolution to the resolve problem. But money won’t solve all those things. If writers couldn’t fit figuring out what interactions would various companions and sidekick have into their schedule throwing money at them wouldn’t make this time appear. Same with design. Hiring extra workforce might not work out, as i doubt anyone would like to see an outsider write a banter to existing companions, or slap/modify existing systems.

 

Being upset that sidekicks don’t have banter because devs specifically didn’t say they won’t is absurd. You really can’t hold people responsible for not disproving idea someone made in their own mind. Sure, it wasn’t clear how much content sidekicks will have but I imagine at that time even Obsidian didn’t exactly know - they knew what role they were to fil. Keep in mind that as Josh said, companions are one of the last things to be written in the game, my guess is that sidekicks got as much content as they could fit in. It’s no surprising that quest writing and companion writing took priority.

[CottonWolf]

On full VO i think that's really not necessary and it wasn't part of the stretch goals. I appreciate double the VOs on the main conversation and important side quests. Full VO only be great if you were to play the game once or twice. I find myself skipping all the VOs on subsequent playthroughs. On the other hand, OP concerns perhaps not really unfounded. It seems that the stretch goals for sidekicks were just only adding character portraits, some voice lines and introductory quest (not sure how comprehensive it would be, but i doubt it will be anything big comparing to companions). Not to mention on Rekke? Where he was introduced as mute (which basically means he probably dont speak at all). I love banters and adding few lines of banters for sidekicks wouldn't hurt i guess? Probably some of the budget were used and allocated to the full VOs perhaps triggered many post regarding the full VOs.

 

Rekke speaks, he just doesn't speak Aedyren, or any other language people have heard before. I guess the implication is that he probably came from beyond Ondra's mortar.

[Karkarov]

On the other hand, OP concerns perhaps not really unfounded. It seems that the stretch goals for sidekicks were just only adding character portraits, some voice lines and introductory quest (not sure how comprehensive it would be, but i doubt it will be anything big comparing to companions).

Here is the problem, that's not an accurate statement.

 

First, there is a quest to get each sidekick, but we have no clue how comprehensive those quests are.  I somehow think it is going to be a little more complicated than wandering into them, saying hi, and asking if they want to come along.  Which is hilariously how you pick up almost all of Eternity's companions.  I doubt it will be quite this good, but I would like to think it will be something along the lines of the old Mass Effect 2 character DLC's.  Where there was an actual robust quest focused on that character, with areas/levels that existed purely for that quest.

 

So dismissing those quests as not being part of the cost without knowing their content is unwise, those quests may have cost 10+ thousands of dollars of dev money on their own per quest.

 

Second, please people, stop saying just a portrait.  Every party member in this game has no less than 4 portraits, and they are not easy to make.  Just draft one probably took a large portion of an artists work week, getting to "proposed final" probably took multiple drafts, and we all know Ywdin for example has gone through at least 3 drafts of her final portrait.  Additionally, do you guys really think they get those watercolor variants by just slapping a photoshop filter on there?  It is a little more complicated than that.  Give the portrait designers some respect.

 

Then of course there is that dreaded wasted money on whatever VO there is, and the writing of said VO.

 

Lastly, they also all have unique looks, which means unique character models, not just portraits.  I absolutely promise every unique character model in the game cost 10+ thousands again per model.  Only Rekke will look like Rekke, no one else in the game gets that character model.   

 

In the end did the sidekicks actually cost a quarter mill?  Probably not.  But I bet you they ended up taking at least 100k, maybe 200, and frankly, you need to pad stretch goals slightly.  Why?  Because you need extra funding for all those unexciting things people don't want to pay for.  Like temporary interns, or an extra week of QA, or spare funds to justify delaying release a full month so you can quash more bugs.

 

 

[Guest]

 

On the other hand, OP concerns perhaps not really unfounded. It seems that the stretch goals for sidekicks were just only adding character portraits, some voice lines and introductory quest (not sure how comprehensive it would be, but i doubt it will be anything big comparing to companions).

Here is the problem, that's not an accurate statement.

 

First, there is a quest to get each sidekick, but we have no clue how comprehensive those quests are. I somehow think it is going to be a little more complicated than wandering into them, saying hi, and asking if they want to come along. Which is hilariously how you pick up almost all of Eternity's companions. I doubt it will be quite this good, but I would like to think it will be something along the lines of the old Mass Effect 2 character DLC's. Where there was an actual robust quest focused on that character, with areas/levels that existed purely for that quest.

 

So dismissing those quests as not being part of the cost without knowing their content is unwise, those quests may have cost 10+ thousands of dollars of dev money on their own per quest.

 

Second, please people, stop saying just a portrait. Every party member in this game has no less than 4 portraits, and they are not easy to make. Just draft one probably took a large portion of an artists work week, getting to "proposed final" probably took multiple drafts, and we all know Ywdin for example has gone through at least 3 drafts of her final portrait. Additionally, do you guys really think they get those watercolor variants by just slapping a photoshop filter on there? It is a little more complicated than that. Give the portrait designers some respect.

 

Then of course there is that dreaded wasted money on whatever VO there is, and the writing of said VO.

 

Lastly, they also all have unique looks, which means unique character models, not just portraits. I absolutely promise every unique character model in the game cost 10+ thousands again per model. Only Rekke will look like Rekke, no one else in the game gets that character model.

 

In the end did the sidekicks actually cost a quarter mill? Probably not. But I bet you they ended up taking at least 100k, maybe 200, and frankly, you need to pad stretch goals slightly. Why? Because you need extra funding for all those unexciting things people don't want to pay for. Like temporary interns, or an extra week of QA, or spare funds to justify delaying release a full month so you can quash more bugs.

 

Great post

[algroth]

 

On the other hand, OP concerns perhaps not really unfounded. It seems that the stretch goals for sidekicks were just only adding character portraits, some voice lines and introductory quest (not sure how comprehensive it would be, but i doubt it will be anything big comparing to companions).

 

Here is the problem, that's not an accurate statement.

 

First, there is a quest to get each sidekick, but we have no clue how comprehensive those quests are.  I somehow think it is going to be a little more complicated than wandering into them, saying hi, and asking if they want to come along.  Which is hilariously how you pick up almost all of Eternity's companions.  I doubt it will be quite this good, but I would like to think it will be something along the lines of the old Mass Effect 2 character DLC's.  Where there was an actual robust quest focused on that character, with areas/levels that existed purely for that quest.

So dismissing those quests as not being part of the cost without knowing their content is unwise, those quests may have cost 10+ thousands of dollars of dev money on their own per quest.

 

Second, please people, stop saying just a portrait.  Every party member in this game has no less than 4 portraits, and they are not easy to make.  Just draft one probably took a large portion of an artists work week, getting to "proposed final" probably took multiple drafts, and we all know Ywdin for example has gone through at least 3 drafts of her final portrait.  Additionally, do you guys really think they get those watercolor variants by just slapping a photoshop filter on there?  It is a little more complicated than that.  Give the portrait designers some respect.

Then of course there is that dreaded wasted money on whatever VO there is, and the writing of said VO.

 

Lastly, they also all have unique looks, which means unique character models, not just portraits.  I absolutely promise every unique character model in the game cost 10+ thousands again per model.  Only Rekke will look like Rekke, no one else in the game gets that character model.   

In the end did the sidekicks actually cost a quarter mill?  Probably not.  But I bet you they ended up taking at least 100k, maybe 200, and frankly, you need to pad stretch goals slightly.  Why?  Because you need extra funding for all those unexciting things people don't want to pay for.  Like temporary interns, or an extra week of QA, or spare funds to justify delaying release a full month so you can quash more bugs.

Yup, and again, the fact that a stretch goal was set at $250k over the previous one doesn't mean all that's the money that will go into that specific feature - the stretch goal is merely an incentive to continue pledging to the game. The money collected goes to making the *game*, not implementing a specific feature. The studio then decides how to best use their funds.

[huang]

 

If you guys want to live in a deluded fantasy realm where you think Obsidian makes major budget choices based on nothing other than "but Larian did it!!!!?!?!?!!" then go ahead.

 

Yeah, it's truly insane to assume that a company would try to be as good (or better) as their competition.

[Karkarov]

 

 

If you guys want to live in a deluded fantasy realm where you think Obsidian makes major budget choices based on nothing other than "but Larian did it!!!!?!?!?!!" then go ahead.

 

Yeah, it's truly insane to assume that a company would try to be as good (or better) as their competition.

They have completely different gameplay, completely different class systems, completely different tone, completely different stories, the graphics are very different both in style and presentation, one of them is even multiplayer focused while the other is explicitly a single player game.

 

Other than being isometric RPG's they really aren't similar at all.  Many don't like Eternity that much, but loved Original Sin, and vice versa.  They tend to appeal for completely different reasons.  Some people may like both, but that doesn't mean they are competing.  Case in point, I won't play Original Sin unless I have a friend online who wants to play with me.  Because as a single player RPG, I think it sucks.

[huang]

 

They have completely different gameplay, completely different class systems, completely different tone, completely different stories, the graphics are very different both in style and presentation, one of them is even multiplayer focused while the other is explicitly a single player game.

Other than being isometric RPG's they really aren't similar at all.  Many don't like Eternity that much, but loved Original Sin, and vice versa.  They tend to appeal for completely different reasons.  Some people may like both, but that doesn't mean they are competing.  Case in point, I won't play Original Sin unless I have a friend online who wants to play with me.  Because as a single player RPG, I think it sucks.

 

 

That has precious little to do with "everyone" really being stunned by full VO and praising it left and right. I haven't played this game either and yet I have read about it having full VO so often, it almost sounds as if this is the game's best feature. Which is a little weird to me, but that changes nothing.

 

Overall it seems as if these RPGs have crossed a corner and a high enough margin of players just expects this now.

[Guest]

 

 

 

If you guys want to live in a deluded fantasy realm where you think Obsidian makes major budget choices based on nothing other than "but Larian did it!!!!?!?!?!!" then go ahead.

Yeah, it's truly insane to assume that a company would try to be as good (or better) as their competition.

Which assumes they are competing with Larian