SPOILERS - Nameless Isle question

[Oahkery]

So do the characters who leave your party when you go into the Lunar Gate stay gone for good? I managed to get the Red Prince and Sebile to stay, but Fane, my mage and loremaster, left. I kept playing hoping there would be a time when I could get him to come back, but after the whole Arena of the One thing and the Wellspring getting destroyed, he's lying on the ground and appears to be dead. I simply quit then because if one of the characters in my party is gone permanently, I'm done playing. That would be really dumb. I'm hoping that's not the case, but it's sort of killed any desire for me to keep playing. Anyone want to enlighten me so that I can choose to push through until I get him back or decide "Screw this" and stop playing completely if he's just gone?

[Rausch im Land der Raketenwürmer]

well the problem arises when you realize that they are bound to one player and the other player talking to them/doing quests apparently does nothing for them.

[obz]

Agree with OP. First time in the game I questioned Larian's design... Finishing the game without characters you have developed for *100hrs+* will suddenly bail after a few lines of weak dialogue? That seemed cheap and disappointing.

[Oahkery]

Originally posted by obz:

Agree with OP. First time in the game I questioned Larian's design... Finishing the game without characters you have developed for *100hrs+* will suddenly bail after a few lines of weak dialogue? That seemed cheap and disappointing.

Yeah, I ended up finishing the game and started a second playthrough to explore different builds I didn't get to try the first time (as you can probably tell, I enjoy more the mechanical/combat/build/gear aspects of RPGs more than the conversations and companion stuff), and, knowing what I do now, I decided to just not deal with that junk and built my player character as full persuasion. And it's actually been sort of frustrating, because I've found myself save scumming a bit not because I fail some persuasion check or something, but because I SUCCEED at one and something I completely wasn't expecting happens, like I'm suddenly best friends with a character I hate or a fight I wanted to do doesn't happen, or even just because suddenly my charactrer is acting in a way that's completely different from how I've been playing him.

I really don't care for that system in this game in general, where it's sort of an on/off switch of if you have enough persuasion, you can get people to do whatever the hell you want them to, but if you don't, it doesn't matter how good your argument is or if it's better for everyone or whatever, they're just not going to listen to a thing you say. And that crap with companions leaving makes it even worse. It feels like Larian's weak points in these games has always been the conversations (remember rock, paper, scissors?). It's like, yeah, you supposedly have all this "chocie," but no matter how many dialogue options, there are only ever three outcomes: a fight, they do exactly what you want, or they shut down and refuse to give you the time of day or just ignore that entire part of the conversation. No nuance whatsoever.

[obz]

Exactly... the moment of truth is when your *game long companions* **ALL** decide to show their true colours?! By then the companions should be their *most* dedicated and loyal, not the most flippant and leave you.

Ha, that rock, paper, reload mechanic was the worst.

There is so much that is exceptional about this game this still bugs me. At least they had the mirror so you can lopside your stats at any time to fix it.

That said, still GOTY for me. :D

[Oahkery]

Oh, it's definitely still an amazing game. It's one of my favorites of definitely the last several years, if not of all time. That sort of makes things like this that are, at least imo, not good at all really stand out and feel even worse. The conversation system is one, and then a couple points where you can instantly die out of nowhere is another.

In the first game, the one that stands out is if you dig up a specific grave in the first town you get to. The game gives you warnings that it's a bad thing and asks if you really want to do it, but I just assumed that was the game trying to impress upon you that your choices have consequences and some NPCs might get mad at me or even attack me, since it was at the beginning of the game. Nope! There's a trap that explodes and kills your entire party instantly if they're close enough. When I encountered that, I hadn't saved for a while since I had just been running around town and hadn't been thinking to quicksave, not expecting fights without some warning or something, so I lost a ton of progress and ended up quitting for probably a year or two, if not more -- I didn't play through the first game until I think after the KS for the second had started because of that.

And then in this game, there's a spot that's not as bad, but in the Driftwood area when you find the undead scarecrows, if you start a conversation with the main scarecrow, if you pick the succumb option or fail a persuasion check ... it just kills your character instantly and then puts you in that ridiculously-hard-for-the-level fight! I mean, seriously? I had a save right before then, so it didn't really ruin anything for me (and this was my second playthough anyway), but I stopped playing for a few days because it simply left a bad taste in my mouth that it did that. Picking the wrong choice in a dialogue and instantly having a character killed before a fight? That really, really annoyed me.

[MaxCarryWeight]

you can do the ship teleport/respec thing, OR just lightning snipe the voidwoken into a fight, kill it, no convo, fane stays.

[NOWAY!]

I kind of doubt the attitude mechanics. I have 1 persuasion point spent and did every companion quest possible so far. Ifan got his revenge on Alexandar, Red Prince killed Shadow Prince -> still attitude at "examine" is exactly 25 for BOTH characters. I read somewhere else that you need at least 75, even 50 is considered very low. It is hard to believe that having both at 25 is just a coincidence, it merely suggests that attitude was not accumulated correctly during the game...

Whereas beast is at whooping 100 attitude but doesn't matter: he still leaves me in front of the academy.

Even stranger: If i respec only 1 point to persuasion, suddenly red prince and ifan have 100 attitude towards my character. Beast still has. Beast abandons me if choose the persuasion option in the dialog but agrees to stay when asked "normally".

[The Rain King]

It bears pointing out that the mechanic of disgruntled party members leaving is not, by any means, unique to DO2. Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Neverwinter Nights 2, all had a similar dynamic.

Further, DO2 warns you, time and time again, that a Highlander time is coming where there can be only one.

Compared to other games, Neverwinter Nights 2 in particular, it is real easy to keep your party members happy. You don't even really have to chat them up. Just do their quests. Bioware games, for instance, have companions that demand more of your attention.

[The Rain King]

Most games don't have a respect fail-safe button either.

[Lampros]

There are a lot of unexpected ♥♥♥♥ in this game that should be explained better beforehand. Other than some aspects of tactical combat, a lot of this game makes no sense.

[Hobocop]

I thought it was pretty obvious from the beginning that each of the origin characters you recruit are individuals with their own goals and motivations and if you don't help them solve their personal dilemmas by finishing their personal quests, why the hell would they trust you with being Divine over themselves? That's where the Persuasion save comes in to convince them to go along with you if your actions haven't already convinced them.

[Ryzor]

I want to know how exactly one gets friendly enough with party members to stay without persuasion. I did my best with my three companions (Sebille, Fane and Lohse). I did all the dialogue choices at each stage of the game, answering in the best way I thought possible, and completed all of their personal quests up until that point.

My attitude with each of them was extremely high, yet Sebille was the only one I didn't have to persuade. Fane actually had a higher attitude with me than Sebille, so I am unsure if its the attitude numbers that matter or not (or perhaps the attitude threshold for each character is different?) I am fairly certain I did not miss any personal quest stuff.

If anyone can shed some light on this that would be great :D

EDIT: The wiki says it is only your love interest that does not need to be persuaded. That makes sense why Sebille did not need to be persuaded for me, but unsure if this is always the case.

[Lampros]

Originally posted by Overlord Ryzor:

I want to know how exactly one gets friendly enough with party members to stay without persuasion. I did my best with my three companions (Sebille, Fane and Lohse). I did all the dialogue choices at each stage of the game, answering in the best way I thought possible, and completed all of their personal quests up until that point.

My attitude with each of them was extremely high, yet Sebille was the only one I didn't have to persuade. Fane actually had a higher attitude with me than Sebille, so I am unsure if its the attitude numbers that matter or not (or perhaps the attitude threshold for each character is different?) I am fairly certain I did not miss any personal quest stuff.

If anyone can shed some light on this that would be great :D

EDIT: The wiki says it is only your love interest that does not need to be persuaded. That makes sense why Sebille did not need to be persuaded for me, but unsure if this is always the case.

Just curious: What exactly were your Persuasion score, and your attitude with each party member?

I always run with very high Persuasion score on my main, and I am wondering if this will prevent these type of problems emerging in the first place.

[Ryzor]

I can't remember the exact attitude, but they were all easily over 70. I believe Fane was in the 90's.

My persuasion was 6 or 7, I never failed a single persuasion check the entire game. I actually just finished it then, and I half expected Fane to try and fight me over Divinity at the last moment but instead he sided with me.

[Sultryhag]

I had 95 over attitude with each companion and 100 with Ifan by the time I reached this part. I think if you are diligent with talking with them and completely their quests and allowing them to speak to who they want to, you will have no issues. Also making the moral dicisions are also important because you can lose attitude if you are cruel.