Originally Posted by Niara
There are a bunch of ways they could fix the break; turning the conversations slightly differently would be all it would take, or they could indeed use the tadpole to single out the player character (origin or otherwise) as having some sort of extra nudge that inclines them to need to be the decision-maker for the party. More conversations between other characters, with the opportunity for the player character to mediate might also be a good move, and be another way in which we are conveyed as the decision-maker. With the characters defined as they are, there needs to be something to counterbalance it to make their deferring to the player character make narrative sense, or at least to have a narrative excuse until a bigger, more direct reason reveals itself.

In NWN2, the reason you lead the group is because the element of the plot that ties to you is unique to you, and it's a little bit more pressing than the objectives and needs your companions have, and you don't have the option of ignoring it - it's not relevant or related to your personal character backstory, apart from the predefined elements of it. Before that comes up, however, in the intro stages of the game, you're still the player character party leader, without everyone being aware of this bigger plot point. The game still justifies you leading, until the major reveal, with some dialogue that sets up the idea that, for whatever reason (that you're free to define), your character has sort of always been the instigator or leader in your small band of friends. It's a small extra couple of lines that ties that up in a believable way, and it's not hard for games to do, if they care. It's smoothed further by having early companions that have personalities that are supportive and friendly, and who want to help you with what you need to do - the more headstrong and difficult characters show up later, when the importance of what you're doing is enough to outweigh their independent characters without drowning them.

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(for Robert)


Originally Posted by robertthebard
You mean "some" other games? I gave you a list earlier, am I wasting just as much of my time typing this as I did that?

No, I mean what I said - 'most' do, and the ones that don't are poorly delivered and shouldn't be held up as examples to justify further poor writing from other games.

Generally speaking, when a post does not contain anything worth acknowledging or responding to, I don't acknowledge or respond to it; nothing you posted in the previous post was worth addressing or responding to, and the games you mentioned had already been examined and discredited as not serving your argument by others by the time I read the thread - so there was no value in responding or repeating what others had said.

To that end: "These other two games I can mention also do this bad thing, so that's why it's okay for this game to also do that bad thing, even when I acknowledge that other games do not do the bad thing, and it is not necessary to do the bad thing" is not a very worthwhile contention, so of course I'm not going to give it the time of day to respond to. You lose nothing if this is improved, so why are you arguing against folk who would like it improved?

You come across as extremely fractious, especially in your last post (the short, exclamatory rhetorical questions add to this impression); why are you writing with such agitated tone, trying to argue that it's okay for the game to do something badly, because other games do it badly too - why is that important to you? Why do you feel the need to resort to ridiculous hyperbole and straw-manning in your responses? Your entire last paragraph is an obvious farce - you know that no-one is suggesting that (at least I assume in good faith that you do), and you're going out of your way to ignore what has been suggested in order to ridicule the opinion you're fighting against. It makes you look intellectually dishonest at minimum, and it doesn't help you get your opinion across; if anything it makes folks less inclined to give your words fair treatment. You do not come across, to me, as though you are posting in good faith - just as though you want to argue or to condescend and act superior to others. This is the impression I get from your writing.

Because the short questions get the point across. It's really hard to justify not being a subordinate in Haven, until after you seal the breach, and give them a reason to follow you. It's hilarious given that the reason they'd follow you now is given in the cutscene after they find you, and before you head out to find Skyhold. It's even more hilarious when you take Cassandra's dialog when they're making you the Inquisitor into consideration: We need someone to lead us, someone that has already been leading us. Roughly paraphrasing there.

I'm not looking for a party full of Skyrim/Fallout level companions, that only exist to provide support and to marry. I much prefer them to have something going for them. I have run suboptimal parties more times than I care to count in party based games because I liked the companions I was using over the other choices. The first half of that last paragraph was indeed being facetious. However, the last half lays out valid reasons as to why they might want to follow you. You see, there's a reason that I haven't been here every single day since the launch of EA. I don't want other player's agendas messing up my experience with the game.

Now, what is it that I'm arguing against? The idea that Tav is replaceable, once rolled, as the main character. The idea that there's no reason this cast would follow Tav. I understand why you think this is fractious, but that doesn't mean that you're right. As I see it, the reason you believe this is that if the developers read a post that runs contrary to your agenda, they'll ignore your agenda. It's not like I have no reason to believe this either. I distinctly remember you derailing a thread about positive things that Larian has been doing because you had to be a "squeaky wheel".

Originally Posted by Niara
Answering the OP's question, with statements that back up why they are giving the answer that they are, and for which reasons, is not going off topic - it is precisely ON topic.

The OP posed a question - A very loaded and biased question, to be sure, but a question all the same. If the question was ONLY meant to be answered in the affirmative, then they should not have posed the thread as a question in the first place. By all means, make a thread that is specifically about focusing on the elements that you like and request when posting it that folks who don't like the things that you like, or don't agree, to leave the thread alone - that's fine, welcomed even. But if you pose a thread asking a question, don't get shirty at other forum members for answering it.

Most of the regular posters here, who are still here after this amount of time, and still providing feedback, are doing so because they genuinely want the game to be good, and are genuinely not satisfied with what they have seen so far, enough so that they want to do *whatever* they can to hopefully improve the things that are dissatisfying, no matter how futile the effort seems. Those who have long since discarded their rose-tinted spectacles can see that there is far more that is sub-par about this game than is good, and generally they're past the point of giving gentle, soft-spoken let-downs when asked about it.

Which you posted in response to this:

Originally Posted by robertthebard
Originally Posted by SgtSilock
Originally Posted by SaurianDruid
Man, OP tries to make a thread talking about what they enjoy about the game and almost the entire thread is nothing but people saying what they hate about it. The negativity here is suffocating sometimes.

I am keeping quiet from this point on, I didn’t expect my thread to turn into this.

Nah, don't do that. As much as negative feedback is valuable, so too is positive feedback. The people that are going off topic to what you intended believe that it is their responsibility to be a "squeaky wheel", so anything that attempts to assert some positivity must be crushed. If you're overall having a good time, and like some of what you see, by all means point it out.

Inb4 "so we can't offer up negative feedback": By all means, in one of the thousands of threads that exist for exactly that purpose, instead of going off topic in threads that aren't focused on those issues. As suggested by The Composer in another thread that followed the same pattern here.

Who's "fractious"?