Aloth's Approval

[Aramintai]

I have 0 approval from Aloth and Eder, while Tekehu and Serafen are at 1. My character is a kindly but chaotic rogue, and I tend to play games blindly bumbling my first time, so I put it down to that. It's a bit sad considering the Watcher knew the other two already. And you can romance Aloth? I'm a bit irritated at his judgemental attitude too. He was my favourite character in 1 and considering his past, he needs ta chill

Are you far into the game? If not then it's still possible to get them to 2. Except Aloth, cuz he's bugging out on many people. Also you must do their quests.

And yea, there's an option to romance Aloth, just be careful what you say to him if you don't want a break up in the ending slide.

[yoyolll]

Just here to say this is happening in my game as well.  And I'm not certain yet, but I think I'm having a similar issue with Xoti now.  She seems to have started off normally, but now doesn't react.  I desecrated a temple to try to piss her off, but she's stuck at +2.  However, worth mentioning that I did get the burning bridges achievement for doing that.  Is it possible it's just a visual bug?

Edited May 11, 2018 by yoyolll

[Celbess]

I’m not that far yet, since work keeps getting in the way, but I wanted some clarification: is the issue that Aloth doesn’t react at all to your choices/dialogue, or that the dialogue box says that he likes something you did but his character page stays firmly at zero? Cause I could have sworn that he approved of something in the first conversation I had with him. He’s still a zero, but again, I’m like eight hours into the game. I just wanted to know what to look out for

 

In my game, he approves / disapproves in conversations occasionally but his approval rating is stuck at zero (after playing for about 20 hours). It might be possible that his approval is just building up extremely slowly but others who somehow managed to get it to 1 or 2 have reported sudden drops to zero. So sth seems to be off one way or the other. Unfortunately, there's no official info or acknowledgement about this issue yet.

[andream2g]

I thought it might be bugged as well but once I got closer to the islands to the North (A distant Light) he piped up about updating the Painted mask quest and had ton's to say about my character. He seems to be a slow burner.

[Eurhetemec]

 

I’m not that far yet, since work keeps getting in the way, but I wanted some clarification: is the issue that Aloth doesn’t react at all to your choices/dialogue, or that the dialogue box says that he likes something you did but his character page stays firmly at zero? Cause I could have sworn that he approved of something in the first conversation I had with him. He’s still a zero, but again, I’m like eight hours into the game. I just wanted to know what to look out for

 

In my game, he approves / disapproves in conversations occasionally but his approval rating is stuck at zero (after playing for about 20 hours). It might be possible that his approval is just building up extremely slowly but others who somehow managed to get it to 1 or 2 have reported sudden drops to zero. So sth seems to be off one way or the other. Unfortunately, there's no official info or acknowledgement about this issue yet.

 

 

I suspect this might actually be that Aloth gets both positive and negative stuff a lot and thus hovers around zero. For me at 14 or so hours in he was still dead neutral, but then I cracked a ton of jokes with a couple of NPCs, and suddenly by about 18 hours Aloth went to -1 and had to have a talk with me about not taking things seriously enough (!!!). My feeling is that this is a lot of what people are seeing. Many players will be drawn to a lot of the (often very funny) joke-y options, which are often quite reasonable responses to ludicrous situations, and Aloth may be being impressed by how nice you are, then mad with you for making a joke, and seem completely stuck.

 

The sudden drops to zero would also make sense here. Like when you meet a certain other party member for the first time, it is kind of hard for your entire conversation to not be that guy boasting, preening and joking, and the PC joking a lot, and MAN does Aloth not like that. He pulled so many pained faces in that convo. I felt like he should have been sent to sit on the naughty step.

 

Also the Watcher's "duty" is something that most PCs will not be terribly happy about, and may oppose, so you are unlikely to pick up point for him there, where he gives them very freely to other NPCs.

Edited May 12, 2018 by Eurhetemec

[Slotharingia]

 

I have 0 approval from Aloth and Eder, while Tekehu and Serafen are at 1. My character is a kindly but chaotic rogue, and I tend to play games blindly bumbling my first time, so I put it down to that. It's a bit sad considering the Watcher knew the other two already. And you can romance Aloth? I'm a bit irritated at his judgemental attitude too. He was my favourite character in 1 and considering his past, he needs ta chill

Are you far into the game? If not then it's still possible to get them to 2. Except Aloth, cuz he's bugging out on many people. Also you must do their quests.

And yea, there's an option to romance Aloth, just be careful what you say to him if you don't want a break up in the ending slide.

 

Yeah not far into the game. I've been hanging in Neketaka for 3 days now. Eder is at 1 and the other two at 2; Aloth is still at 0. I even had him at -1 and reloaded, although I prefer to not do that on my first playthroughs and just let **** happen so to speak. I don't want to end up hating him though. I seem to be in a romance with Tekehu, and it suggests I end it with every interaction  - which annoys me haha.

[Tamyn]

It took me a bit to realize "traditional" meant pretty much anything having to do with cultural behaviors, so me asking Tekehu to teach me a folk song (while joking around) made Aloth immediately lecture me about being too traditional. Don't ever endorse classes, roles, rules, historical practices, or anything of that nature if you don't want to trigger him.

[Eurhetemec]

It took me a bit to realize "traditional" meant pretty much anything having to do with cultural behaviors, so me asking Tekehu to teach me a folk song (while joking around) made Aloth immediately lecture me about being too traditional. Don't ever endorse classes, roles, rules, historical practices, or anything of that nature if you don't want to trigger him.

 

Yeah and I mean trigger is often misused but if there was ever anyone it was appropriate for, it's Aloth, man. I love that dude but holy **** does he object to an awful lot of things, like so many things. And this whole deal where he hates tradition and loves duty makes sense given his background but sure is hard to navigate around, given how often the two tend to be tied together.

[yoyolll]

This bug is now happening to me with Aloth, Xoti, Eder, and Serafen.  All of their relationship points have completely stopped responding.  I think it's only a matter of time before Pellagina and Tekehu are affected by this as well.  It seems to occur after a certain period of time spent travelling with each companion.  Aloth and Xoti are both stuck at -1 (even after desecrating a temple and getting the Burning Bridges achievement), Eder is stuck at +1 (despite getting the Steadfast Ally achievement after a conversation with him), and Serafen is stuck at +2.

 

Just FYI, there is a post on the Technical Issues forum about this issue:

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/98246-bug-reputation-xoti-player-reputation-does-not-change-no-matter-what-i-do-towith-her/

[DarthWhite]

After playing a bit with Nexus mod on I start to think that his approval is not hard to get but rather easy to lose. And the worst part is that most of the time he disapproves silently without giving you any marks. Same goes with approval and for all the companions, actually. For example I got quite alot of approval points for just a small convo with tavern keeper at Wild Mare while having Tekehu in party. So the keeper scolds Tekehu for his previous visit and if you manage to keep your mouth shut and tell the fishboy that it's his own problem in the end, Aloth approves like you've saved the world already. But no, he won't tell you. Never.

Maybe the first fix system needs is an option to show approval gains and losses? I guess it could make the game too easy, but right now it's sure hard and confusing.

Edited May 12, 2018 by DarthWhite

[Celbess]

Maybe the first fix system needs is an option to show approval gains and losses? I guess it could make the game too easy, but right now it's sure hard and confusing.

 

Yeah, I second that. If they display a value to measure approval, people expect it to be accurate and unambiguous. After 24 hours of playing I finally managed to get Aloth from zero to +1. Now I'm walking on eggshells to not trigger him in a negative way. 

[IsmAsm]

After playing a bit with Nexus mod on I start to think that his approval is not hard to get but rather easy to lose. And the worst part is that most of the time he disapproves silently without giving you any marks. Same goes with approval and for all the companions, actually. For example I got quite alot of approval points for just a small convo with tavern keeper at Wild Mare while having Tekehu in party. So the keeper scolds Tekehu for his previous visit and if you manage to keep your mouth shut and tell the fishboy that it's his own problem in the end, Aloth approves like you've saved the world already. But no, he won't tell you. Never.

 

Maybe the first fix system needs is an option to show approval gains and losses? I guess it could make the game too easy, but right now it's sure hard and confusing.

[IsmAsm]

Okay, my phone messed the heck out my reply. Oh well.

 

It doesn’t help that your entire early game party EXCEPT for Aloth loves it when you make jokes.

[Slotharingia]

After playing some more, I have come to the conclusion I actually just don't particularly like Aloth in Deadfire. He compulsively disapproves of things the companions I enjoy say and approves of the ones I am less fond of. He's also still at 0 approval when the other 3 I mostly drag around are all at 2 (I've never switched him out since having him). I'm not sure what I feel about this rn. I loved Aloth in 1 (the only character I liked more is Zahua), and was really happy he was in this one too, but I feel like they changed him into some kind of judgy, stuck up guy, who's shy yet ends up coming across as significantly more obnoxious than the loudmouths. When you meet him, you have to lie to save his face (well I know you don't have to), and then afterwards he's all uptight and does nothing but groan and make snide, bitchy remarks. He even said something that sounded like he thought the Watcher uses him as a tool at some point. *shrug* (I don't remember the exact context as it was like 3 am lmao, but I think it was in Tikawara).

[Fredward]

He really doesn't appreciate my Watcher's penchant towards irreverent dialogue.

[Androoh]

Yeah, bored with Aloth's craic in Deadfire.

He's a boring curmudgeon that practically disapproves of everything.

I have him at -1 for whatever reason and he retorts in a grumpy fashion when I select him (which is a great touch).

Hoping I can find a way to cheer him up. :D

[Aramintai]

It's funny how you can make players hate a character because of the bugs. Aloth and relationship system is bugged, guys, it's been mentioned quite often and confirmed by the devs. Check out bugs details here:

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/99004-collective-summary-of-all-the-glaring-bugs-in-the-relationship-system/

[Tagaziel]

Aloth taking aloth of effort to please makes sense. Him bugging out aloth doesn't. Especially after they nailed the reputation mechanic in Tyranny and seem to have replicated it with the faction reputations here.

Makes me want to go back to Tyranny.
 
ಠ_ಠ

I miss this too.

Edited May 20, 2018 by Tagaziel

[Aramintai]

 Especially after they nailed the reputation mechanic in Tyranny and seem to have replicated it with the faction reputations here.

Tyranny was made by another team. Not much transferred from there to POE2.

[yoyolll]

 

 Especially after they nailed the reputation mechanic in Tyranny and seem to have replicated it with the faction reputations here.

Tyranny was made by another team. Not much transferred from there to POE2.

 

That's a shame, Tyranny did a lot right.  If the quality of Act 1 of that game held out for at least 40 hours or so, it would probably be my favorite cRPG of all time.