Writs and Mandates

[IchigoMait]

The game states in Writs that Mandates will overwrite Writs, but you can do that only when you haven't maxed out the reputation, but you can only buy them when you've maxed out the reputation. Mostly you don't need Mandates when you've maxed a reputation, but sometimes you're doing some faction quests that lower the other faction reputation, so you have to gain their reputation again, also with some factions you can make them an enemy.

[Anathema]

Why do you believe that you can't overwrite Writs with Mandates? Because you totally can.

[IchigoMait]

Originally posted by Anathema:

Why do you believe that you can't overwrite Writs with Mandates? Because you totally can.

Yeah finally got to try it, when I had a Black Legion mandate on me and lost some reputation with them when doing Outcast stuff. Otherwise at max reputation, Mandate will not overwrite a Writ.
Guess it's a fail safe in terms of money loss, if you can't loose reputation with them, then you don't need Mandate at max reputation, prolly you can't even use a Writ, if the reputation is maxed out, or even a Mandate if you haven't even used a Writ on it with max rep, as it will say it has already a faction ward applied or something like that.

[DeadByDefault]

The mandates are for new characters after reaching maximum reputation with any given friendly faction. The same applies to warrants with any given hostile faction. So basically, you will only need writs for your first character, perhaps your second as well to maximize reputation with those factions with which you decided to be hostile with your first character, and from then on can use mandates and warrants on your new characters.

[IchigoMait]

Originally posted by DeadByDefault:

The mandates are for new characters after reaching maximum reputation with any given friendly faction. The same applies to warrants with any given hostile faction. So basically, you will only need writs for your first character, perhaps your second as well to maximize reputation with those factions with which you decided to be hostile with your first character, and from then on can use mandates and warrants on your new characters.

You can always change faction friendliness or hostileness when you start a new difficulty, on your first play through on normal/veteran you can get your mandates easily for the factions you gonna turn hostile on the next difficulty, then on Elite difficulty you can do the same again for the other factions that were hostile in normal/veteran, so by the time you get to Ultimate, you have all factions at 100% on your first character, just the warrants for enemy only factions are only for new characters or for trading (mind that writs and mandates can't be traded).

I've also basically done Veteran 3 times by now, once the expansion area, even if I've completed Elite and done some Ultimate(mostly just rushed through for the last vanilla ~5 Devotions, while same with veteran malmouth for last 5). Fully exploring everything, and done every quest, via deleting quest info in save files, nice surprise was that I was able to get the last quest garanteed legendary that way mutliple times.

[caelcyndar5]

On a brand new char using a mandate, you can reach Honored at the end of Normal/Veteran and Revered at the end of Elite just by doing all the quests for each faction.

[DeadByDefault]

Originally posted by IchigoMait:

Originally posted by DeadByDefault:

The mandates are for new characters after reaching maximum reputation with any given friendly faction. The same applies to warrants with any given hostile faction. So basically, you will only need writs for your first character, perhaps your second as well to maximize reputation with those factions with which you decided to be hostile with your first character, and from then on can use mandates and warrants on your new characters.

You can always change faction friendliness or hostileness when you start a new difficulty, on your first play through on normal/veteran you can get your mandates easily for the factions you gonna turn hostile on the next difficulty, then on Elite difficulty you can do the same again for the other factions that were hostile in normal/veteran, so by the time you get to Ultimate, you have all factions at 100% on your first character, just the warrants for enemy only factions are only for new characters or for trading (mind that writs and mandates can't be traded).

I've also basically done Veteran 3 times by now, once the expansion area, even if I've completed Elite and done some Ultimate(mostly just rushed through for the last vanilla ~5 Devotions, while same with veteran malmouth for last 5). Fully exploring everything, and done every quest, via deleting quest info in save files, nice surprise was that I was able to get the last quest garanteed legendary that way mutliple times.

I am aware of this, I just never do it. Once I have made my decision with whom to side, I never change it on the next difficulty. I am actually a bit unhappy that this option even exists, as it counters the choice-and-consequences part of the game. Needless to say, this part is quite negligible overall, but still.

[IchigoMait]

Originally posted by DeadByDefault:

Originally posted by IchigoMait:

You can always change faction friendliness or hostileness when you start a new difficulty, on your first play through on normal/veteran you can get your mandates easily for the factions you gonna turn hostile on the next difficulty, then on Elite difficulty you can do the same again for the other factions that were hostile in normal/veteran, so by the time you get to Ultimate, you have all factions at 100% on your first character, just the warrants for enemy only factions are only for new characters or for trading (mind that writs and mandates can't be traded).

I've also basically done Veteran 3 times by now, once the expansion area, even if I've completed Elite and done some Ultimate(mostly just rushed through for the last vanilla ~5 Devotions, while same with veteran malmouth for last 5). Fully exploring everything, and done every quest, via deleting quest info in save files, nice surprise was that I was able to get the last quest garanteed legendary that way mutliple times.

I am aware of this, I just never do it. Once I have made my decision with whom to side, I never change it on the next difficulty. I am actually a bit unhappy that this option even exists, as it counters the choice-and-consequences part of the game. Needless to say, this part is quite negligible overall, but still.

You can change it because you're starting a new story, on a new difficulty your life starts from 0 again from quest point of view, except for the Outcast as they for some reason have some meta 6th sense about you.
It would be better if the choices would stick to the difficulty you chose, so if you make a different choice in another difficulty it won't change the other diffuclties choices. So at first try I just do everything I wanna do, if I don't like the result I try something different on the next difficulty, though there are just two choices, and then on last difficulty I settle on what was more useful for me or if both weren't useful then story choice will matter more, unless I got my stuff on elite made multiple purchases what I really need and then just forget about them on the next difficulty because their story deserves to be buried in of terms how their ideals irk me.