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Eternity Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Pre-Release Thread [BETA RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

Lahey

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Grab the Codex by the pussy

 

Ulfhednar

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Uhm, no? Where are you even getting this from, lol? They aren't superhero sidekicks from the Golden Age of comics.
They don't have to wear yellow spandex.

But I've just already had enough of Fussina the snarling grimdark Xanax-popping Pallegina 2.0. And I haven't even read a single line of her dialogue. It's okay for the companions that HAVE QUESTS TO RESOLVE to be complicated characters with real problems, because you can explore those problems in their story quests. The sidekicks, because they have no room for growth, should be fairly one dimensional - I don't consider this a bad thing. One of the easiest ways to write them is to make them entertaining caricatures/stereotypes. During the campaign, Feargus implied that the sidekicks would basically be BG1 style companions.

Minsc's motivation is adventuring. Period.
Tiax is a megalomaniac.
Xan is depressed.
Safana likes men.

These characters aren't conflicted, they just are. Not everyone has to be a try-hard. And if I'm going to be wandering around killing people's feral children and proving that the god's are artificial constructs, is it too much to ask for just a little bit of joviality along the way? Or does everything have to be a mirthless slog through gothic horror to prove how much a member of the master race I am?
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Original description of sidekicks: https://www.fig.co/campaigns/deadfire?update=273#updates

  • Radora- Ocean Folk/Vailian human wizard. She has difficulty keeping a captain's position for long. According to her, she's at her best when she's had a few to "take the edge off", though she swears she never drinks at sea.
  • Bonteru- A mountain dwarf rogue obsessed with exploring the Deadfire and cataloguing its various poisonous plants and creatures. Bonteru has memorized the effects of hundreds of different poisons and is all too happy to describe them in detail to anyone who will listen.
  • Ydwin- A strange pale elf cipher from "a lot of different places". Fascinated by animancy, Ydwin spends her free time examining fresh and not-so-fresh corpses. Though she has a charming and pleasant demeanor, new acquaintances are often shocked at her intimate familiarity with death and her dispassionate affect in the face of even the most grisly scenes.
  • Rekke- An odd-looking man that the Principi rescued from a floating piece of flotsam on the eastern edge of the Deadfire Archipelago. He doesn't speak a word of any language that anyone can understand, but he's cheery and willing to lend a hand to any company he finds himself in. He's just happy to be alive(at least, that's what everyone assumes). Storm Folk fighter.
 

Jenkem

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Make the Codex Great Again! Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. I helped put crap in Monomyth
is there a way to use that red headed sidekick's portrait for the main character? I want to be able to role play as Dave Mustaine

9qxngz.png

I know what class he would be...

 

Ulfhednar

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https%3A%2F%2Fplayfig.s3.amazonaws.com%2FUser%2Fprofile_image%2Fprofile_image%2F2017%2F06%2F15%2F7fc6b374-baff-4106-8e78-4913bde11db7

remilton


Like many others I find the idea of SIDEKICKS very confusing and don't understand their purpose.

Feb 17, 2017 | 05:34 PM

https%3A%2F%2Fd3pylr1apgoxnh.cloudfront.net%2Fusers%2Fprofile_images%2Fd4fa69cd78b5e5f5f6975cf35dce6fc8e9787f11%2Foriginal.png%3F1439917264

Feargus
DEVELOPER

What we were working on was the comments that a lot of people had where they wanted more characters we put into the world to join their party. We have the issue that full companions are very, very intensive - months and months of time to do right. We looked back at BG 1 and BG 2, and found that some of the companions don't have the bredth of content that other companions have. So, we thought why not take characters that we are putting into quests that you will have already interacted with a fair amount, and then give you the option to join your party as a different type of companion. They get their own voice set, and will react to things in the world and enter into some banter. They will absolutely have personalities that come through from their look, portrait, and their VO / dialog.
Feb 17, 2017 | 05:48 PM
 

Lacrymas

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Nothing in there says "less serious people". They just won't have as much content as the full-fledged companions and certainly won't have a quest. Maybe. 99.9% certain. I doubt they'll be as silent as BG1 companions, as Feargus says they'll be more based on the companions with less content in BG2.
 

Prime Junta

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I did not care for Baldur's Gate (1-2) companions. The only one I kinda sorta tolerated was Jan Jansen and his turnip jokes got old fast too. I'd take mirthless gothic over that kind of "fun" any day of the week.

That said, P1 companions weren't mirthless gothic. Zahua was a hoot, Edér had some great funny moments regarding his soft spot for furry animals, and even Aloth, Durance, and Grieving Mother who were a bit towards the Gothic end of the scale had their funny moments.

Unless your idea of humour is a retarded ranger stuffing a hamster up his ass of course.
 

IHaveHugeNick

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So sidekicks are quest NPCs who offer to join you when you complete the quest?

So, Pallegina?

Sidekicks won't have more quests/vision quest after the initial one.

Yeah, that's how I understand it as well. Imagine, I don't know, Kolsc offers to join you in one of solutions to his quest and becomes a sidekick. It ties sidekicks nicely to the game world and would feel much more organic than custom companions who felt like zombies, but it doesn't put much more workload on the devs.
 

BilboBaggins

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So sidekicks are quest NPCs who offer to join you when you complete the quest?

"What's a "sidekick," exactly? Glad you asked! In Pillars II, a sidekick is a new character type that sits somewhere between a companion and a hired-adventurer in terms of depth of detail. Sidekicks give you more options as to who can join your party - though they don't expand the current party cap of five. Currently, we have seven planned companions, and with this stretch goal, we will add four sidekicks for a total of eleven Obsidian created characters that can join your ranks!

Before joining your ranks, Sidekicks start out as unique NPCs integral to specific quests, complete with their own personalities and looks, and they may offer to join your party as a reward for completing their quest. Just like companions, these new characters have a custom portrait and voice sound-set. However, unlike companions, they do not have their own vision quest and will not participate in the relationship system outlined in our last stretch goal. We know you love more choice and flexibility when creating your parties, and Sidekicks are a way for us to give you that choice by providing a larger roster of characters to choose.

Wondering about who could be a Sidekick? Here are some ideas the team has put together - these are not final and will probably change during development.

Radora- Ocean Folk/Vailian human wizard. She has difficulty keeping a captain's position for long. According to her, she's at her best when she's had a few to "take the edge off", though she swears she never drinks at sea.

Bonteru- A mountain dwarf rogue obsessed with exploring the Deadfire and cataloguing its various poisonous plants and creatures. Bonteru has memorized the effects of hundreds of different poisons and is all too happy to describe them in detail to anyone who will listen.

Ydwin- A strange pale elf cipher from "a lot of different places". Fascinated by animancy, Ydwin spends her free time examining fresh and not-so-fresh corpses. Though she has a charming and pleasant demeanor, new acquaintances are often shocked at her intimate familiarity with death and her dispassionate affect in the face of even the most grisly scenes.

Rekke- An odd-looking man that the Principi rescued from a floating piece of flotsam on the eastern edge of the Deadfire Archipelago. He doesn't speak a word of any language that anyone can understand, but he's cheery and willing to lend a hand to any company he finds himself in. He's just happy to be alive(at least, that's what everyone assumes). Storm Folk fighter."

https://www.fig.co/campaigns/deadfire?update=273#updates
 

Ulfhednar

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Nothing in there says "less serious people".
If you were going to dedicate a character to humor, I would rather it be a sidekick than a companion. And a common complaint about the first game was "why-so-serious".
That said, P1 companions weren't mirthless gothic.
Certainly not all of them... For the most part, I liked the P1 companions.
Unless your idea of humour is a retarded ranger stuffing a hamster up his ass of course.
Codexers might shun him, but Minsc was very popular. The thing about the sidekicks is that they are relatively low investment. They aren't as labor intensive for the devs, and the players don't have to feel like they are missing things by not taking them. Personally, I think they ought to up the total number of sidekicks on release to something like six or eight, and yes, some of those should be a Minsc or a Jan Jansen. Or the elusive bearded dwarf who likes to swing axes.
 

Lacrymas

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Pathfinder: Wrath
Or, hear me out here, nobody is a retarded ranger who likes stuffing a hamster up his ass? What is this obsession with "funny" or "humorous" things in games? The writing is shit on its own, it has nothing to do with it being "serious" or not. Go play Larian games if you want the most cringe-worthy "humor" ever.
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
To elaborate on my previous post, I've not seen any evidence that PoE2's sidekicks will be particularly serious. Their descriptions sound potentially amusing. Is it because their portraits look serious? So did Minsc's in the first Baldur's Gate - a sombre-looking man petting a hamster. (In fact all of BG1's portraits give the impression that they were illustrated before any character concepts were attached to them.)
 
Last edited:

Ulfhednar

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To elaborate on my previous post, I've not seen any evidence that the sidekicks will be particularly serious, and their descriptions sound potentially amusing. Is it because their portraits look "serious"? So did Minsc's in the first game - sombre-looking guy petting a hamster. (In fact many of BG1's portraits gave the impression that they were drawn before the character concepts were attached to them.)
Yeah, I could be reading more into their portraits than I should...
Or, hear me out here, nobody is a retarded ranger who likes stuffing a hamster up his ass? What is this obsession with "funny" or "humorous" things in games? The writing is shit on its own, it has nothing to do with it being "serious" or not. Go play Larian games if you want the most cringe-worthy "humor" ever.
That's why you make them sidekicks. That's why the sidekicks idea is a good one. If you don't want them, you don't take them along, and you have lost nothing. At the same time, the devs can add a lot of them to cater to a lot of different player's tastes. So that you're not stuck with Fane as one of your main characters for 80+ hours of game time if you think that undead sex humor is stupid.
 

Iznaliu

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That's why you make them sidekicks. That's why the sidekicks idea is a good one. If you don't want them, you don't take them along, and you have lost nothing. At the same time, the devs can add a lot of them to cater to a lot of different player's tastes. So that you're not stuck with Fane as one of your main characters for 80+ hours of game time if you think that undead sex humor is stupid.

That could at the same time lead to main companions being boring since no risks are taken with their design.
 

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