Not a single loyal hand in Avadon [SPOILERS]

[Lightzy]

What is it with every single hand of Avadon being completely disloyal?

 

Can't there ever be a hand that actually believes in the damn thing? That puts duty above personal [censored]? That's the type of people Avadon hires? no wonder it fell.

 

I feel disgusted doing the companion quests They're all such assholes, thieveing plotting betraying or just outright murdering for sport, 2 games in a row now (yes I know it's explained in the first one)

 

Honestly I'm only doing them in case there's one of those endings where they stick with you or abandon you in the end, and on the slightest chance that a single one of them would prove him/herself to be worthy of the title

 

So far haven't found one

 

 

Awesome game btw

[eaintree]

Khalida had chunks of her mind irreparably ripped out, Dedrick was disowned by his country, Yoshira was doing her job and took out the wrong assassin. It's called making hard choices.

[Serene Tempest]

I also felt a little frustrated that playing as a loyal and pragmatic hand who kept Avadon's best interests at heart meant alienating all of my companions. But perhaps that's part of the choice the game forces on you: how much are you willing to sacrifice, and how much personal sacrifice are you willing to demand from others, for the greater good of the Pact?

[Davies]

Or alternatively, how much are you willing to do to earn the loyalty of those around you, and what will you do with that once you have it?

[Hawat]

And a couple of them were conscripted against their will... they seriously can not be expected, practically or ethically, to support Avadon or care about the job they never wanted.

[*i]

I think the complaint is more that Jeff should have a little more political diversity amongst your companions. It would be nice had one of them played the Alwan-type role as opposed to having a party of Gretas.

[eaintree]

Who are Alwan and Greta?

[Randomizer]

Who are Alwan and Greta?

They appear in Geneforge 3 as NPCs that can join you.

[Serene Tempest]

They're from the Geneforge series, first appearing in Geneforge 3 and staying through the end. Broadly speaking, they represented the two main camps of the conflict (there were many more than two factions by the end).

Alwan was the one who believed in the establishment and stayed loyal to it, and Greta had many qualms with it and eventually joined the rebellion.

[mouton]

"Oh great, another band of maniacs and traitors" - my first thought after getting acquainted with the team

 

I don't mind, though, both Avadon 1 and 2 hands are fun. Boy, was Nathalie crazy.

[Sudanna]

It's not fair to say that all of your companions are traitorous. Everyone except for Alcander has a complicated relationship with Avadon. They all (except Alcander) believe, at least tenuously, in the Pact and willingly serve Avadon. But. . . they all have a but. Khalida has been deeply, personally, unjustly damaged by Avadon. Yoshiria disagrees with the idea of Avadon on political grounds. Dedrik is called on to fight against people whose grievances he deeply empathizes with. And Avadon demands more from Yannick than he is really capable of giving without eventually breaking down. They all can put their duty above these personal grievances and serve alongside you as loyal Hands. But they are people too, and people need more than duty. It's easy to dismiss their grievances as personal or petty, but what else is a person supposed to value? Khalida's brain doesn't work right, because of Avadon. Yannick is forced to murder, and it tears him up constantly. And these are probably the two most supportive Hands in the group. They absolutely put their duty above their personal feelings.

 

And then Alcander's just a self-centered jackass that doesn't care about anything beyond him and his.

 

Anyways, that their personal quests directly involve the interaction between Avadon and their personal desires is entirely appropriate and in keeping with the theme of the game. That their quests require the player to either help them get what they want or sacrifice your relationship with them for the good of the Pact is even more so. (I've only done Alcander's, Dedrik's and Khalida's quests so far, so maybe that's different for the other two)

[Lilith]

And then Alcander's just a self-centered jackass that doesn't care about anything beyond him and his.

 

Alcander does have stuff going on, it's just less Avadon's fault than everyone else's (well, he's understandably unhappy about being conscripted, but). If you talk to him after doing his quest, he hints that he's actually the black sheep of his family despite his skills, and making a bunch of money for them is the only way he knows to earn their respect.

[mouton]

It's not fair to say that all of your companions are traitorous.

They are all wavering to some extent. Not very good in times of crisis, really.

 

But the Avadon 2 crew is much less traitorous than in the first game. But, of course, there are excellent reasons for that.

[Ceiling Durkheim]

I'm with Stareye on this. I think it's entirely appropriate to have some, perhaps even most, of your companions fall somewhere in the range from 'has serious qualms about Avadon' to 'actively hates Avadon,' but it would be nice to have one or two people who were genuinely loyal, for sake of contrast if nothing else. Especially since your direct superior this time around, while not especially loyal to Redbeard in particular, is very much loyal to Avadon and the Pact.

[Davies]

Has it occurred to anyone that Hands aren't really selected for loyalty? They're selected for competence in their fields, and achieve success in their endeavors through being ruthless. Loyalty is not really part of the package. Overt treachery is punished, sure, but in Avadon anything's legal, as long as you don't get caught.

[Necris Omega]

This was a really major problem in the original game as well. Really, all the companions there also had a severe beef with Avadon/Redbeard in one way or another, making offing him the natural choice. There was really no "yay Avadon!" voice among them giving really no real personal insentive NOT to at least try to off Redbeard. Heck, even the loading tooltips pushed you in that direction.

 

Yet, come the sequel, that's canonically not what happened. It causes a real dissonance between the games, and, well... just doesn't look good.

[eaintree]

There ARE loyal Avadon officers, of course - Callan, Leila in the first game, Eye Marmora, Proteus was loyal for many years, until he came to believe that Redbeard simply had to go. I can grant the games a certain amount of latitude for making your party members the morally ambiguous types, for a couple reasons: A: moral ambiguity tends to make for good storytelling, so points to Jeff there. B: Hands, who are out in the field all the time, (unlike Eyes or Hearts) confronting the reality of the situation around Lynaeus, will of course run up against the places where principle fails, where "Open Arms Within; The Stone Wall Beyond" seems inadequate to address the scope of, say, the total destruction of Dhoral Stead in A1, or the problem of Dheless. In A1 the disparity between your party's views and the oath to Avadon that you all took does redress itself, when Miranda tells you that you were given all the dissatisfied ones in order to provoke you into seeing things the way she sees them (and killing Redbeard), and so I ultimately felt that the storytelling was contiguous, viewing the game as a stand-alone. In A2, yes, there's a dissonance. And the blindness that Redbeard presents you with when you finally confront him beneath Fort Foresight ("could I have done more to prevent the bloody apocalypse now unfolding upstairs? Sheesh, I guess I could've, totally my bad there...") really doesn't help.

 

We need a reason to believe in Redbeard *throughout* the game, as a leader; we need more than the default of, "well, no one's assassinated him yet." In A1, the reasons are axiomatic: he's strong, he's a leader. In A2, we see his vulnerabilities, but we don't ultimately see him rise above them. And that's the crux of what we're discussing in this thread, I think.

[txmimi]

So does all this mean that if your main character stays true and loyal to the Pact and declines these self-serving side quests, they will all desert you at the end?

[eaintree]

Haven't played that path, but my guess is that they do what the A1 characters did: "I will still fight by your side, but we're no longer friends."

[Serene Tempest]

They'll stay with you for 99% of the game either way.

[Ceiling Durkheim]

I don't think moral ambiguity is what people are objecting to, per se. Coming back to Alwan, he made plenty of morally dubious calls, they were just on the side of law and stability rather than freedom and instability. I don't want loyalist hands of Avadon to be perfect angels: after all, Avadon is hardly perfect or angelic. I just think the story would be more interesting if there was at least one character who, when everybody else chimed in with "but the Wyldrylm would be nothing without its traditions!/but justice for the Threespears!/but think of all the cash moneys I could send back to Dharam!/" would reply with some variant on "no. The safety of the Pact is paramount, and Avadon is the Pact's guardian." For a game that's supposed to be all about choosing the lesser of two evils, one's party members are oddly univocal. This makes sense for story reasons in the first game, in the second not so much.

 

That said, I do think Davies makes a good point. It's not like Avadon uses its dungeons as a vetting process for potential hands. Plenty of people who are subtly disloyal will make it through. Still, I would think by sheer dint of numbers some genuinely loyal people would become hands.

[boladefuego]

If any, Khalida is too loyal because she continues to serve Avadon even after finding out what happened to her. Her whole story is kind of... weak IMO with its inconsistencies. Xenophon says "They threatened me with punishment", I'm assuming for bribery and that he means Avadon, but then after Khalida is proven innocent instead of getting punished Avadon actually takes Xenophon's side and covers up for him. Khalida then, instead of getting agry at whoever in Avadon made the decision to break her, instead seeks vengeance on Xenophon. And why did he have to die? He didn't kill anyone. If we couldn't get a mechanically creative solution to the quest, he could've been given a more creative text punishment at least, wouldve been more satisfying.

 

Dedrik's quest is similarly, unreasonably forced. There wasn't any sign that the mercenaries needed to be evicted ASAP, should be able ask around Avadon about laws governing such actions for a compelling diplomatic approach but no, can't even ask to speak to their leader. Then when you get to her she acts all surprised that you're Pact. I wanted my character to say "Seriously? You asshats attack anyone who tries to come in, I just wanted to talk, instead I had to defend myself and you're the one calling me a murderer?". All that because we're supposed to make 'hard' decisions. I wanted my character to slap Dedrik then say "FU, you want me to murder 20 or so people just so you could see your family? What about the families of those people?" but I guess making the player character say something sensible once in a while is too much to ask.

[Vee]

Are there any repercussions for reporting your fellow Hands' actions in their sidequests to Hand Callan?

 

(Though I feel like, with only a few exceptions, the moral agency in these quests always falls to the player, but when you try to exercise that will, the choice is yanked away. See Dedrik's quest: I had to slaughter my way into the Kva mercenary compound, and the flavor text made it seem like I'm wading in the blood of non-combatants [even though as far as I can tell, as a Hand of Avadon, I had the right to come in to speak to the Monitor in charge, and yes, they were trying to take advantage of civil war and likely did not have the right to be on those claimed lands]. When I reach the Monitor, I decide on letting them relocate peacefully, and suddenly Dedrik tweaks out and decides EVERYONE MUST DIE in order to conceal our "crime," thereby really committing us to a massacre.)

[eaintree]

If any, Khalida is too loyal because she continues to serve Avadon even after finding out what happened to her. Her whole story is kind of... weak IMO with its inconsistencies. Xenophon says "They threatened me with punishment", I'm assuming for bribery and that he means Avadon, but then after Khalida is proven innocent instead of getting punished Avadon actually takes Xenophon's side and covers up for him. Khalida then, instead of getting agry at whoever in Avadon made the decision to break her, instead seeks vengeance on Xenophon. And why did he have to die? He didn't kill anyone. If we couldn't get a mechanically creative solution to the quest, he could've been given a more creative text punishment at least, wouldve been more satisfying.

 

Disagree. Avadon covers up for Xenophon because's Avadon's interest is in maintaining the status quo, not in justice -- as we learn very well throughout both games. This denial of justice is of course is leading to the tragedy of full-scale rebellion, but that's how the story works. Then Xenophon has to die because Khalida knows full well that getting angry at whatever Avadon officials made the decision to put her under the mental probe-knife would be pointless: it happened, she has to live with it for the rest of her life. Her character takes shape from the fact that she IS loyal to Avaon, even though they've done what they've done to her. All that's left to her is vengeance on the man who made it all happen in the first place.

 

Dedrik's quest is similarly, unreasonably forced. There wasn't any sign that the mercenaries needed to be evicted ASAP, should be able ask around Avadon about laws governing such actions for a compelling diplomatic approach but no, can't even ask to speak to their leader. Then when you get to her she acts all surprised that you're Pact. I wanted my character to say "Seriously? You asshats attack anyone who tries to come in, I just wanted to talk, instead I had to defend myself and you're the one calling me a murderer?". All that because we're supposed to make 'hard' decisions. I wanted my character to slap Dedrik then say "FU, you want me to murder 20 or so people just so you could see your family? What about the families of those people?" but I guess making the player character say something sensible once in a while is too much to ask.

 

Agree -- the PC in both Avadon games is like the PC in the original Knights of the Old Republic; all they can do is ask questions and make either/or choices. But this is only the second game Jeff's written where you get party characters who are NOT just stats you punched up; who are individuals, and their character lends meaning to what class they are -- in Avernum class was meaningless, I never played anything but custom-built characters. He'll probably learn to make your convo options more like a real person's options would be in future games.

 

(Oh yeah, I forgot about the Geneforge NPCs you get who matter. Still, it's only in the Avadon series that everyone you fight alongside has a personality.)

Edited November 10, 2013 by eaintree

[eaintree]

Are there any repercussions for reporting your fellow Hands' actions in their sidequests to Hand Callan?

 

No. And there really should be in A2; your party should start to mistrust you if you tell her that you went to find gold for Alcander, that you slaughtered mercenaries who were nominally loyal to Avadon for Dedrick's sake, that you SET THE FIRE in Avadon's basement -- for that last one they'd obvs. send you to the dungeons yourself -- you AND Yoshira -- as soon as they even suspected that you did it, in the reality of that situation; there are points at which the seams in the story Jeff scripted really show, and that's one of them.

 

(Though I feel like, with only a few exceptions, the moral agency in these quests always falls to the player, but when you try to exercise that will, the choice is yanked away. See Dedrik's quest: I had to slaughter my way into the Kva mercenary compound, and the flavor text made it seem like I'm wading in the blood of non-combatants [even though as far as I can tell, as a Hand of Avadon, I had the right to come in to speak to the Monitor in charge, and yes, they were trying to take advantage of civil war and likely did not have the right to be on those claimed lands]. When I reach the Monitor, I decide on letting them relocate peacefully, and suddenly Dedrik tweaks out and decides EVERYONE MUST DIE in order to conceal our "crime," thereby really committing us to a massacre.)

 

Yep. See above.

Edited November 10, 2013 by eaintree

[Lightzy]

After doing some more follower quests I can say without any doubt:

 

All of your companions are disgusting, murderous, thieving assholes, and I hate each and every one of them. I only did their quests because the game forces me to, so that they don't 'betray' me in the end like I suspect they might if I don't murder and steal for them.

It's a gamey mechanic and one that I hate as well.

 

That one of your partners just has to go murder someone and if you don't MURDER him in cold blood for doing nothing that horrible really, she's 'no longer your friend',. and not only murder him, but basically it's a political assassination that makes a whole city hate you and avadon

 

And another follower that has you murder a whole BUNCH of people in what I can only describe as an act of terrorism driven by nationalistic motives ?!

 

WTF?

 

And the only solution in which they're still on your side is the one that is the most disgusting and horrible? wtf? it doesn't even have anything to do with avadon anymore, it's me personally (and/or my character) that is disgusted with them

 

 

 

 

 

Question: Will they betray you in the end if you don't go along with their nefarious murder, assassination, whole sale slaughter and petty thievery like I suspect?

[Sudanna]

Then don't do them.

[Edgwyn]

The companion quests are all optional

[Lightzy]

I know the're optional. The question is whether they betray you in the end like they did in the previous game if you don't go along with them, making the end fight very difficult and thus putting a gamey element in the mix

[Edgwyn]

In the last game, I am pretty sure that their loyalty only mattered if you were doing the ending where you betrayed Redbeard. Otherwise I do not think that they betrayed you.

[eaintree]

After doing some more follower quests I can say without any doubt:

 

All of your companions are disgusting, murderous, thieving assholes, and I hate each and every one of them. I only did their quests because the game forces me to, so that they don't 'betray' me in the end like I suspect they might if I don't murder and steal for them.

It's a gamey mechanic and one that I hate as well.

 

That one of your partners just has to go murder someone and if you don't MURDER him in cold blood for doing nothing that horrible really, she's 'no longer your friend',. and not only murder him, but basically it's a political assassination that makes a whole city hate you and avadon

 

And another follower that has you murder a whole BUNCH of people in what I can only describe as an act of terrorism driven by nationalistic motives ?!

 

WTF?

 

And the only solution in which they're still on your side is the one that is the most disgusting and horrible? wtf? it doesn't even have anything to do with avadon anymore, it's me personally (and/or my character) that is disgusted with them

 

You already said all that in your first post. The hate-spewing seems like a conversational dead end for the thread. I'd rather discuss the mechanics of character and story. More interesting.

[Lightzy]

The mechanics of character and story?

[eaintree]

As we've been doing in previous posts. Many people more or less agree with you that the characters' side-quests are unreasonably bent to produce a certain effect -- the slaughter of a bunch of mercs in what could pass for a terrorist act, etc. If you hate the quests, explain why. If you hate the *gaming mechanics* that force you to go there, there's nothing to be done about that: don't play the game then.

[Lightzy]

Simple question first: Do the companions betray you in the end in avadon2 if you do not murder for them?

 

 

Secondly, I hate the quests because they seem to provide no real balance, there is only:

1) betray avadon, basic human decency and morals in order to travel with evil companions who are now content, as you let their evil whims come to fruition

 

2) travel with hateful companions

 

 

There is no option for choosing normal companions who are sane and not murderous and evil

[Davies]

The only companions in Avadon 2 who require you to murder anyone are Khalida (who has some justification for the situation) and Dedrick (who is actively horrified by what his quest leads to). Perhaps you should play something else, with less moral complexity. Tiddlywinks, perhaps.

 

And yes there is an option for choosing companions who aren't "murderous" or "evil". You can always choose to go it alone, you noble person, you.

[Lightzy]

Davies, by your reply I can see that you are one of those poor people who need to feel themselves 'above' others in order to justify their own existence. More power to you friend, you are definitely 'above' me in your complexity and definitely deserve to exist.

 

Shame, but there you go, what happens to threads eh

[Davies]

You're right, and I will cheerfully ruin any other threads you start from this point onward, too! I'm just such a jerk! TEE-HEE.

[eaintree]

Simple question first: Do the companions betray you in the end in avadon2 if you do not murder for them?

 

 

Secondly, I hate the quests because they seem to provide no real balance, there is only:

1) betray avadon, basic human decency and morals in order to travel with evil companions who are now content, as you let their evil whims come to fruition

 

2) travel with hateful companions

 

 

There is no option for choosing normal companions who are sane and not murderous and evil

 

There's nothing whimsical about any of the quests except Alcander's, and some people like his outlook because it provides contrast to the moral heaviness of everyone else, and everyone in the first game.

 

Classifying all five party characters as "evil" and "hateful" is reductive, but you seem fixed on that position. It simply isn't going to lead to any real discourse on the thread.

[Randomizer]

Yoshiria won't join you if you slaughter the Grey Raptors. *sigh* All that good loot or help from a Hand? Decisions, decisions...

[Davies]

Actually, it may be possible that you can

 

1. agree to their mission

2. complete their mission -- which gives different results depending on how much their creature destroys

3. then come back later and slaughter them

 

And still get Yoshiria's loyalty. Of course, this will get the rest of their organization mad at you with possible consequences later.

[Brocktree]

I think people are getting a bit personal with light. He's attacked fictional characters in a game, not the people in this thread. Jeez.

 

I also happen to agree with him. In Avadon 1 there was a good reason for all of your companions to have some sort of issue with Avadon. In Avadon 2, it feels rather contrived. Added to which, within the first minute of the game, when I learnt that people were getting conscripted as Hands, I could only shake my head. Loyalty was such an issue for Redbeard in Avadon 1, and he responded to that by forcing people with grievances against Avadon to serve him? He's really walking into a coup.

[boladefuego]

Disagree. Avadon covers up for Xenophon because's Avadon's interest is in maintaining the status quo, not in justice -- as we learn very well throughout both games. This denial of justice is of course is leading to the tragedy of full-scale rebellion, but that's how the story works.

Xenophon stated "they" threatened him with punishment. If he meant Avadon, it makes no sense that Avadon would cover up for him after committing 2 crimes, when the first was enough to get him punished. If he meant Khalida it still would not make any sense since bribing Hands is described as common practice, he didn't need to go to such measures to avoid punishment. He could've meant others, can't think of any though.

 

Then Xenophon has to die because Khalida knows full well that getting angry at whatever Avadon officials made the decision to put her under the mental probe-knife would be pointless: it happened, she has to live with it for the rest of her life. Her character takes shape from the fact that she IS loyal to Avaon, even though they've done what they've done to her. All that's left to her is vengeance on the man who made it all happen in the first place.

If the reason it's pointless to take vengeance on Avadon is because there's no turning back what happened then it's just as pointless to take vengeance on Xenophon. I just remembered this myself after making my first post - the explanation of why she stays loyal to Avadon is because her brain cannot function properly when thinking about the incident due to what Avadon did to her. She said she can't act on her vengeance and asks you in the confrontation if Xenophon's reason why he shouldn't die is right. Afterwards she asks you if what happened to her, including the coverup, was just because she cannot decide for herself. Which makes it all the more forced - why is she able to think about vengeance but not about whether it would be right or wrong? Why didn't Avadon just take her ability to think about vengeance away altogether? Why is she able to think about vengeance on Xenophon but not on Avadon? It just seems so contrived.

 

*

Edited November 11, 2013 by Triumph
Inappropriate content

[Lilith]

Davies, Lightzy, both of you calm down and play nice, please.

 

Simple question first: Do the companions betray you in the end in avadon2 if you do not murder for them?

 

They do not. The only gameplay effect of losing their loyalty is that they won't help you kill Redbeard, so refusing their requests has no serious negative consequences unless you plan to be a murderer yourself, in which case you're not really in a position to judge them.

 

No. And there really should be in A2; your party should start to mistrust you if you tell her that you went to find gold for Alcander, that you slaughtered mercenaries who were nominally loyal to Avadon for Dedrick's sake, that you SET THE FIRE in Avadon's basement -- for that last one they'd obvs. send you to the dungeons yourself -- you AND Yoshira -- as soon as they even suspected that you did it, in the reality of that situation; there are points at which the seams in the story Jeff scripted really show, and that's one of them.

 

Actually, would they? With rare exceptions, Avadon doesn't really seem to do imprisonment for crimes, only to get information out of people -- and you've just made a full confession, so what information can they usefully get out of you? Seems more like a "kill you or let you go" situation from Avadon's perspective, and you're too useful to kill.

[Lightzy]

With the companions, for example Khalida ---- There's no line where you don't murder the guy and at first Khalida is mad at you, and after a while, if you talk to her properly, she comes around to thanking you for preventing her from commiting murder, or something.

They have no arcs.

I hope the next avadon game has more character arcs for companions, and that their stories are more multi-layered

 

 

Also, it seems to my character complete insanity to do those quests because he's basically putting his life on the line for a murdering fanatics temporary agenda, just so the murdering fanatic will remain friendly. Which doesn't really seem to matter, because my character wouldn't want any of these people as friends!

 

Considering Avadons spy network, it seems pretty obvious that redbeard knows/will eventually know pretty much most of the characters avadon-sabotaging shenanigans. If it were me, personally, I'd never risk my life like that for a purpose I don't even believe in just to keep a 'friend' who doesn't mind me risking my life for his personal [censored], but the fact that the character is risking his life doesn't seem to be written in to the script or considered

 

 

 

 

 

Also, can someone please give me a straight answer? Is there a point in the game where if you don't murder and sabotage for your companions, they leave/betray you?

[Shogo]

I actually think Khalida is pretty justified in wanting Xenophon dead.

 

She refused to accept his bribes, and so he had her falsely imprisoned with the end result being that she's essentially crippled for life.

 

It doesn't necessarily make her right to do so, but I certainly don't think it makes her depraved or evil.

 

--------------

 

Honestly . . . The only companion I'd fault would probably be Dedrik. It sucks that you got banished from your homeland for essentially doing the right thing, but being homesick isn't justification for slaughtering those Kva mercenaries.

 

With Yoshiria . . . Well . . . She hates Avadon. The only reason she's a Hand is because it offers her some protection from the Grey Raptors. Burning those documents means she doesn't have to constantly worry about Raptor assassins jumping her.

 

Yannick . . . He just got mind raped by a petty, lingering Tawon spirit. Hardly his fault. A shame too. He actually prefers the path of least bloodshed . . . But the encounter with that spirit apparently took away that desire.

 

Alcander . . . He wants to send piles of treasure to his family. I hardly think Avadon is entitled to it. Admittedly, getting that treasure involves looting a rival family's vault, but that's hardly pure evil.

 

----------------------

 

I will agree with the sentiment that I wish at least some of the companions were committed Avadon Loyalists. In both the first and the second games, doing the companion quests was the only way to get them to agree to stay loyal to Redbeard.

 

I would have liked to have had the reverse show up at least once, with you needing to gain their absolute loyalty in order to convince them that fighting Redbeard is a good idea.

 

I will say this much though . . . At least Avadon 1 had the excuse that Miranda was trying to manipulate you into turning on Redbeard from the very beginning, right down to deciding which Hands you would be working with.

[Lilith]

I will agree with the sentiment that I wish at least some of the companions were committed Avadon Loyalists. In both the first and the second games, doing the companion quests was the only way to get them to agree to stay loyal to Redbeard.

 

I would have liked to have had the reverse show up at least once, with you needing to gain their absolute loyalty in order to convince them that fighting Redbeard is a good idea.

 

Um, that actually IS how it works already. Your companions won't help you fight Redbeard, in either Avadon 1 or Avadon 2, unless you've gained their loyalty. They may distrust Avadon, but they won't throw their lives away fighting Redbeard unless they also trust you personally.

[Edgwyn]

Also, can someone please give me a straight answer? Is there a point in the game where if you don't murder and sabotage for your companions, they leave/betray you?

 

 

They do not. The only gameplay effect of losing their loyalty is that they won't help you kill Redbeard, so refusing their requests has no serious negative consequences unless you plan to be a murderer yourself, in which case you're not really in a position to judge them.

 

There are two endgames. You either stay loyal to Redbeard or you kill him. If you stay loyal, your companions do as well, irrespective of your completion of the loyalty quests. If you choose the path of betrayal and murder (for bad or good reasons), then your companions will desert you unless you have gained their loyalty through completion of their optional loyalty quests. Completion of their loyalty quests puts their personal loyalty to you higher than their loyalty to the organization that you all are supposed to be serving.

[Serene Tempest]

One of the limitations of a game such as this is you can only have so many choices. For instance, for Yorshiria's quest, had this been a tabletop game with a live DM, I would have made a counteroffer to the Grey Falcons: give me information on the specific records you want eliminated and, if they indeed have minimal intelligence value, I will eliminate them in a much quieter manner than setting the records hall on fire. In addition to providing a middle ground, this would also help to figure out if the real goal here was simply to protect their clients or if it was to weaken Avadon. And if they tried to tow a hard line, I'd remind them that I had no problem slaughtering the whole lot of them and any other assassins they sent after me and my companions, and ask them just how many of their people they were willing to get killed out of stubborness. The problem is that this isn't a game with a live DM who can adapt to the situation and respond intelligently (form both a roleplaying and a game balance perspective) to whatever solution I'd like to come up with. And part of the game balance perspective is forcing the player to take a side.

 

Perhaps a improvement would be conversation options allowing you to try and plot a middle course, even if in the end it just leads back to choosing a side. Even if attempting to be reasonable ultimately proves futile, it at least allows you to roleplay the attempt.

[Shogo]

Huh. I've never not done their quests, so I'd always assumed "Let's kill Redbeard." would be their default position loyalty quests or not.

[Serene Tempest]

When you ask them to help you kill Redbeard, it's with the understanding that you will be the next keeper. So their decision is would they rather have you as a Keeper than Redbeard. If you haven't done their quests, they probably don't see you as being much of an improvement (or, in Alacander's case, he doesn't owe you anything).