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ilitarist posted:I can't see how having some question you wanted to ask but can't remember is a good justification for cross-country chase with trespassing and mass-murder. Especially when you get your own castle to rule. It's not just the question it self, it's the implication of the question: 1. You know somewhere deep down the gods are a lie and need to confirm it. 2. If you don't have this answer satisfied, even if you as a character don't care, you'll go mad. At least that's how I understood it. Answering that question is the "antidote" to a past personality rising up, taking over, and driving you insane like Maerwald. You're right in that it's not brought up that often, but the premise always seemed pretty easy to follow. I do think that between the extremes of having a narrative constantly thrown in your face (You're the Dragonborn, Inquisitor, Warden, Spectre, SAVE US!) and hardly mentioned at all it might lean too hard on the hardly mentioned part. Morrowind is, to me, the best example of a game that provides a world shattering narrative without forcing itself on the player. It's pacing is decided entirely by the player without seeming artificial (something Bethesda would never do again) and I think Pillars gets close to this, but some things aren't quite mentioned enough, linked to enough events, or shown via gameplay. But thematically I think it still works and the story is consistent and for the most part, every question or motivation has an answer or reason.
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Jun 19, 2019 17:04
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chaosapiant posted:I know i'm in the minority, but is there anyone else in the thread that found Thaos to be an actually compelling villain? I liked him quite a bit, thinking him to be a bit similar to Morrowind's Dagoth Ur. He's always presented as this sort-of background threat, even though you run across him multiple times. And I actually felt the Leaden Key's goals, while misguided, were understandable from a certain perspective. I like that Thaos himself is not a mustache twirling crazyman. Also, once you've completed the game, or at least far enough into the main quest, you get to see how much he actually affected in the Dyrwood irt Waidwan's Legacy. We even see him early in the game doing maintenance on the Legacy with the twirly machine, and don't know who he is at that point. ilitarist posted:The question itselfnis forgotten for a long time. You seek watcher to tell you about his condition and he says that you have to find leaden key. Because maybe you'll go insane one day, maybe not. Maybe leaden key know how to help you, if you need any help. And as I understand you turn out fine, no one helped you with your condition and you don't care about it after PoE1. That reminds me, with PoE2 changing the way the gods were created, I wonder how the vision at the end of 1 fits in and what exactly was going on there in relation to the apotheosis at Ukaizo
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Jun 19, 2019 17:27
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wiegieman posted:Poe1 doesn't really well your Personal Problem that well, but the crazy guy you meet under Caed Nua is supposed to be an example of what will happen to you. I got the feeling Maewald went crazy because of the "brought up to hate his past self & remembers raping his mother" thing rather than that being something that happens with awakenings in general.
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Jun 19, 2019 17:29
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morrowind definitely works pretty well, but i think it also kind of 'works' in a way that wouldn't really fly in modern games. everything is conveyed in huge exposition dumps that are kind of few and far between, very light on any vignettes or scenes, and while subtle the encroaching blight is maybe a little too subtle (enemies becomming more blighted as you level up, coming across more dreamers, etc) but its also a 20 year old game so whatever i definitely think it has the pacing down where there's some existential threat out there but you're afforded the time in-setting to just go gently caress around before getting around to it, and the game very upfront will have people tell you "hey, howabout you go do something else, maybe join some factions or something before you get back to this main story thing" which is something a lot of games kind of struggle with ive mentioned this before but POE2 kind of suffers on that point especially with the last two DLCs opening up only in act 3 after ashen maw. like after that point all the cards are on the table, the factions are vying for your direct backing and then I ...just make time to go participate in a gladiatorial contest on some island?
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Jun 19, 2019 17:29
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I get the sense that in some original draft of PoE1 the whole "you are a new settler" aspect was much stronger and was meant to bridge the gap between the initial Thaos encounter and eventually being forced after him. Sorta like how in BG1 Candlekeep is closed off to you - so your father figure is dead, assassins are after you, and you can't even go back home... good reasons to care about the plot no matter your RP In PoE1 it takes like an hour to go from "you are a new settler" -> "oh whoops guess not" -> "you own a castle now i guess" which leaves your own personal motivation pretty confused
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Jun 19, 2019 17:32
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to be fair its a really lovely haunted castle i do love reminding everyone in POE2 I'm the lady of caed nua and them just being like yeah....how's that going for ya
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Jun 19, 2019 17:35
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All this talk of motivation got me wondering... why exactly did Eder and co spend the watchers last remaining resources on a ship and drag his comatose body after Eothas? They didn't know about the stolen soul business or Berath's task before he wakes and tells them. 
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Jun 19, 2019 17:39
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I do think that maybe the keep is earned a bit too easily, but I supposed it also makes sense in the context that it's haunted and no one else wants to claim it. I think White March rectified this a bit by having another claimant force your hand in having to defend your right to the keep.
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Jun 19, 2019 17:39
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UrbicaMortis posted:Maybe I'm misunderstanding this post but it seems a bit odd to suggest we can't make moral judgements on the past. Obviously it's important to take the historical context into consideration but you can still think the Belgian Congo or whatever was bad. if a 'historical judgment' denotes a committed subjective account to a certain objective state of affairs in the world, with special emphasis on long-term aggregate processes of human interaction, then it possesses a combination of postures towards present and past: diagnostic and normative; descriptive and prescriptive. the complexity of the judgment varies with the objects under consideration. if the 'imperialism' of the belgian congo is easy to both understand and condemn (as a discrete atrocity proximate to our own world), then the 'imperialism' of the atlantic world from 1500-1800 (an immense complex of events, including but not delimited to atrocities, without which everything about the modern world would be different) is monumentally more difficult. this in spite of 'imperialism' being the same surface descriptor.
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Jun 19, 2019 17:40
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Avalerion posted:All this talk of motivation got me wondering... why exactly did Eder and co spend the watchers last remaining resources on a ship and drag his comatose body after Eothas? They didn't know about the stolen soul business or Berath's task before he wakes and tells them. Eder knows the Watcher well enough to understand that she refuses to die until she has a fun pirate adventure.
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Jun 19, 2019 17:46
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Avalerion posted:All this talk of motivation got me wondering... why exactly did Eder and co spend the watchers last remaining resources on a ship and drag his comatose body after Eothas? They didn't know about the stolen soul business or Berath's task before he wakes and tells them. Eder says they noticed the closer you got to Eothas the less dead you seemed. It doesn't really make a lot of sense but also I'm a lot more ok with handwaving issues of logistics vs. issues of motivation, and I would totally buy Eder would rush back to help you
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Jun 19, 2019 17:47
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i hope eder sorts his poo poo out by poe3 so we can finally get married
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Jun 19, 2019 18:04
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Might seem fan-servicey, but I'd dig a 3rd game where Eder's brother comes back. If I remember rightly, Eder never find any evidence of his death, he just kinda vanished and was assumed dead. It'd be cool to think his brother went into some sort of self-imposed exile to find answers related to Waidwen's sudden god hood, or that Eothas himself told Eder's bro what's up and charged him with a task that he could tell no one about.
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Jun 19, 2019 18:07
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Zane posted:history is a complex and autonomous way of thinking. it is perfectly proper, even necessary, for historical thinking to be morally laden: for it to facilitate moral judgments of the past from the position of the present--even to sharpen these moral judgments--through a reconstruction of the totality of interactions that these moments were constituents parts. but this is itself one part of a larger enterprise that entails the contextualization of all judgments - including moral judgments. to understand every universal ideological claim as being particularly situated within the world. if this broader enterprise falters then history becomes an ideology itself rather than a diagnosis of ideology. To put this in the context of PoE2: this thread's seen an enormous amount of hand-wringing over the Huana caste system that has tended to ignore or significantly downplay the contingent historical circumstances behind the development of the caste system (scattered hunter-gatherer groups with limited agricultural production facing unpredictable inflows of resources). The point, rather obviously, isn't to step forwards and say, "Actually, caste systems are good," but rather that all systems of social organization are historically contingent systems that grow to fulfill the needs of a group of people in a specific time and place, and that responses to those systems at the time - and our own responses to those systems, in turn - are also mediated by our own specific historical circumstances. I think this makes people uncomfortable because it smells of moral relativity. Cultivating a proper understanding of history, however, isn't an attempt to make morality and ethics meaningless; rather, it's to understand and accept that morality and ethics are ultimately human constructs, mediated by circumstances, rather than intrinsic properties that have been gradually discovered over time. Proper ethical and moral conduct should be something personally understood and adhered to, instead of being mere dogmatic deferral to the big Other.
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Jun 19, 2019 18:38
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Woden coming back via reincarnation or just literally having not died could be cool, eder kinda has little brother syndrome when he mentions him going constantly on about how he is cool and smart and wears a leather jacket and carries a pocket knife around and owns a motorcycle. So if nothing else it would be really neat seeing older more wise Eder meet him again just to see how he reacts to the reality of it rather than his rose tinted glasses about him. Also you know, finally getting the answer he was seaching for in his poe1 questline
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Jun 19, 2019 18:48
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if i had to guess we have a pretty good idea what waidwen told woden
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Jun 19, 2019 18:56
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Share your guess with the class? 
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Jun 19, 2019 19:02
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the gods are bullshit and im here to end it
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Jun 19, 2019 19:39
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There's two things I think it could have been based on P1 alone: 1) the guy who wrote Eder also wrote the main plot, so it could have been intended that the big reveal would function as one answer for both- Waidwen told Woden the gods were fake 2) the guy who wrote Eder also wrote (some of) Durance, and at one point Durance wonders if Eothas invaded because he knew what Thaos was planning and wanted to prevent it. It's possible this may have been intended as an indirect answer to Eder's question- Waidwen told Woden he was trying to stop something terrible happening I like the second one better, since I'm not sure how the first one would convince Woden to sign up with the other side. You find out more about why Eothas invaded in PoE2, which introduces possibility 3) Waidwen told Woden he was going to expose the truth of the gods and bring a new dawn to mankind Edited to make liberal use of spoilers slightly less liberal 2house2fly fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Jun 19, 2019 |
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Jun 19, 2019 19:40
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My issue with Poe1's plot is the whole Woedica power up versus not power up is a huge plot point but one which does not matter at all in Poe2 regardless of how you resolved it. It would have been interesting if Woedica's involvement in Poe2 was larger or smaller depending on what choice you made there but I understand why they wouldn't want to write divergent paths for a choice probably 2% (if that) of the player base made in Poe1.
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Jun 19, 2019 20:38
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Ginette Reno posted:My issue with Poe1's plot is the whole Woedica power up versus not power up is a huge plot point but one which does not matter at all in Poe2 regardless of how you resolved it. With patch 5.0, Woedica won't shut up now when you use the book, there's probably a lot of different dialogue there depending on POE1's resolution.
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Jun 19, 2019 20:41
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She has a couple of lines about it, and also she calls you Beloved if you're her priest or a Steel Garrote
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Jun 19, 2019 20:46
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I need to try a Steel Garrote at some point. So many builds to try, so little time..
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Jun 19, 2019 21:09
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Anyone have good build advice for turn-based mode? Or guides they'd link to? I'm probably multiclassing a Cipher again if that makes any difference. **Does having a higher initiative feel like it matters in the long run? Does Barbarian get anything out of all their +action speed bonuses? ***Ah youtube pretty much got me Cheston fucked around with this message at 22:13 on Jun 19, 2019 |
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Jun 19, 2019 21:21
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Vermain posted:To put this in the context of PoE2: this thread's seen an enormous amount of hand-wringing over the Huana caste system that has tended to ignore or significantly downplay the contingent historical circumstances behind the development of the caste system (scattered hunter-gatherer groups with limited agricultural production facing unpredictable inflows of resources). The point, rather obviously, isn't to step forwards and say, "Actually, caste systems are good," but rather that all systems of social organization are historically contingent systems that grow to fulfill the needs of a group of people in a specific time and place, and that responses to those systems at the time - and our own responses to those systems, in turn - are also mediated by our own specific historical circumstances. Zane fucked around with this message at 22:16 on Jun 19, 2019 |
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Jun 19, 2019 22:10
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chaosapiant posted:The biggest difference between Thaos and the BG antagonists is that for the most part, Thaos is relatable. He's trying to prevent the chaos a world without gods would cause. It has the side effects of restoring power to Woedica and the Legacy. As well as other small catastrophes like the graveyard area of Defiance Bay. He does bad poo poo because he thinks the alternative is much worse. Sarevok and Irenicus both had very good characterizations and motivations, but were still ultimately Super Evil Dudes. David Warner is Super Evil Dude and Irenicus is basically the exact same character. Even uses the same spells: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmS_hMnFNVM
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Jun 20, 2019 01:49
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Beat Deadfire last night, enjoyed the game overall but mixed feelings about the last 5-10 hours. I felt like I was doing everything and just barely hit level 20 before the game ended so I didn't really get to explore my fully evolved "build" for my characters. I assume you have to do the DLC before Ukaizo and I didn't pick it up so I guess I could revert to an earlier save. I found the ship combat superfluous and boring. I don't know why they put so much work into it but I guess its just one of those things that seemed like a good idea at the time. I ended up boarding everyone to speed things up. Turn based mode in general things took a little too long but it was really cool they were able to somehow patch it in. I got a lovely ending for not supporting any of the dickhead factions in the game but oh well. I thought all of the companions were really well done except for Serafen whose story sucked and his contribution in combat was somehow even worse. I'm almost sad I went Monk first because it gets crazy powerful and I don't see what else could come close to the same durability and damage.
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Jun 21, 2019 17:17
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The Gunslinger posted:Beat Deadfire last night, enjoyed the game overall but mixed feelings about the last 5-10 hours. I felt like I was doing everything and just barely hit level 20 before the game ended so I didn't really get to explore my fully evolved "build" for my characters. I assume you have to do the DLC before Ukaizo and I didn't pick it up so I guess I could revert to an earlier save. Hm I hit level 20 and still had a lot of stuff left: - Kill Nemnok (and you bet your rear end I killed him even after he shrunk down, gently caress that fight) - Final mapping the archepelego quest - All 3 DLCs - Ashen Maw and rest of story after it - I think there's one base game side quest still locked behind Ashen Maw?
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Jun 21, 2019 17:38
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I did all that stuff except for the DLC. The only things I think I missed were 1-2 bounties. Looking at the save time (64 hrs) I can't really complain with the value, I just wish I had more endgame type content so that I didn't feel like I just hit level cap and game was over. I guess I will look at the DLC soon. Going to take a break and finish with D:OS2.
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Jun 21, 2019 18:43
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If you really wanna test your builds against high level content, the Megabosses are out there and crazy difficult.
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Jun 21, 2019 18:56
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yeah even on classic difficulty the megabosses will likely kick you rear end without making preparations and the DLC are fairly challenging as well
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Jun 21, 2019 19:08
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Cheston posted:Anyone have good build advice for turn-based mode? Or guides they'd link to? I'm probably multiclassing a Cipher again if that makes any difference. Casting characters get something out of boosting speed since it determines how long a spell takes to cast. If you're just doing physical stuff and don't have any particular reason you want that character to move early then speed is basically meaningless yeah
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Jun 21, 2019 21:03
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The Gunslinger posted:I did all that stuff except for the DLC. The only things I think I missed were 1-2 bounties. Looking at the save time (64 hrs) I can't really complain with the value, I just wish I had more endgame type content so that I didn't feel like I just hit level cap and game was over. I guess I will look at the DLC soon. Going to take a break and finish with D:OS2. It's possible they slowed xp gain or something- the most common complaint about the xp curve I've seen since the game came out is that you gain levels too fast and hit the level cap maybe 3/4 of the way through
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Jun 21, 2019 21:45
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Heithinn Grasida posted:The true min-max setup for soul annihilation is likely a streetfighter/soul blade using sun and moon and tuotilo’s palm with a blunderbuss on switch. Streetfighter gives a huge bonus to sneak attack when it’s flanked, which applies to soul annihilation. Sun and moon is a fast weapon and hits twice. With soul annihilation, the first hit applies the raw damage, then the second hit can generate focus. That means you can use soul annihilation on every attack, which maximizes the gain from the skill’s flat damage. The palm shield gives you the increased attack speed of dual wielding, but because soul annihilation is a primary attack, it will always hit with only the main hand weapon. Since you only use soul annihilation, you completely avoid attacking with the shield, but enjoy all its defensive benefits and the increased speed of dual wielding. When you can’t get flanked, you use the blunderbuss with modal activated to distract yourself. Accuracy will be an issue early, but once you get borrowed instinct, you’ll be golden. This is almost certainly the highest sustained, single target melee dps you can get in deadfire. This is a ridiculously old post, but in case OP or anyone else knows, is above formula & post in general still true as of the current patch? Also what does OP thinks of Helwalker pairing instead? Seems all those Swift Flurries will work wonderfully to generate focus as well.
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Jun 22, 2019 14:10
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srulz posted:This is a ridiculously old post, but in case OP or anyone else knows, is above formula & post in general still true as of the current patch? Also what does OP thinks of Helwalker pairing instead? Seems all those Swift Flurries will work wonderfully to generate focus as well. I believe everything in that post still applies, but I don't really use the Soul Blade kit much. They may have fixed the second hit of the flail generating Focus when you use Soul Annihilation but I'm not sure. Fair warning, while Soul Annihilation 24/7 is pretty strong it's also gets monotonous after a bit. Helwalker is a lot harder to keep alive in melee while you're holding on to enough wounds to max the Might bonus and Ciphers don't get as many easy or early options to deal with that downside as some other combinations (Mirrored Images, for one). If you're playing on RTwP mode you'll be getting a ton of mileage out of the increased speed from being Flanked as a Streetfighter that post doesn't really touch on as well.
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Jun 22, 2019 15:07
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I really appreciate that there are multiple times in this game where your character and your pals completely ignore any dangerous situation because they fixate on some stupid poo poo instead. Like Eder imitating every animal he sees to try and make friends, telling Concelhaut how much you missed him while he's trying to monologue about killing you or asking Rymrgand why he's such a jerk.
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Jun 22, 2019 17:59
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Pwnstar posted:I really appreciate that there are multiple times in this game where your character and your pals completely ignore any dangerous situation because they fixate on some stupid poo poo instead. Like Eder imitating every animal he sees to try and make friends, telling Concelhaut how much you missed him while he's trying to monologue about killing you or asking Rymrgand why he's such a jerk. When you face death as often as the Watcher and co do you probably get numb to the danger after a while.
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Jun 22, 2019 18:14
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Introducing yourself in various insane and outlandish situations as "[name], captain of [ship]" is a personal favourite
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Jun 22, 2019 18:25
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I kickstarted PoE, and never played it more than a few minutes, and now I have POE2 with all dlc, same with POE1. Time to go on a romp!
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Jun 22, 2019 18:35
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2house2fly posted:Introducing yourself in various insane and outlandish situations as "[name], captain of [ship]" is a personal favourite I have never skipped the "[stare dramatically into the horizon] I am the Herald of Berath..." dialogue option.
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Jun 22, 2019 18:42
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