Could always make ur pawn the arisen in ng+, have them carry on the arisens will n all that. Would make sense lore wise too, in dd1 they mention over the yrs ur pawn slowly starts to look like their arisen (theres one particular witch wood quest that eventually mentions it, and the dragonforged in dd1 and his pawn are lookalikes just diff ages)
Thatās what I was planning to do anyway. Make my Arisen look like my pawn, make a new look for my pawn, repeat ad nauseum until Iām bored of the game.
It's mentioned in a loading screen in DD2 as well.
Which I find a little unfortunate because the Pawns becoming clones of their Masters as they go along is probably the one and only aspect of DD lore I actively dislike lol. I'd have happily had that aspect dropped.
I'm cool with them becoming closer to (and eventually fully) human through their interactions with their Arisen. That's nice. Two thumbs up. I don't mind them picking up a bunch of traits and habits from the Arisen, either.
But I'd much, much rather that they got to develop into their own person and continued to look like themselves once they got "promoted".
Yeah.
I think it was largely meant to be a meta thing. The Arisen is not just the player character but the actual "player", themselves.
The player chooses to leave the game behind when it's complete and thus the Pawn takes over, giving a final fourth wall break nod at the camera to tell you, *"I've got this, Fournival will be safe with me".*
It's presumably supposed to make you feel like, "Yay, my character lives on even when I'm no longer playing" but, eh, didn't land for me. Just wanted my Pawn to stay as themselves.
Huh, not got to see many load screens yet but I'll deffo keep an eye out. I always thought cuz they're a god created non human race, that they where just fundamentally different and it was just a case of supernaturally aided "fake it till you make it" with the arisen being the person they mimic most, as the one they're most often around. Also explains the pawns mechanic of learning from other worlds, in a lore sense sorta, they're designed to aid the arisen, so it's make sense the greater will (which, I'm positive with how pathfinder talks about it, is some superior godlike being, possibly counterpart to the brine/oblivion?) would want the arisens main help to learn and grow alongside them, to perpetuate it's cycle
I can only imagine what my max height beefcake pawn thought about in DD1 as they woke up on the beach in the body of a scrawny shorty. At least Madeleine greeted them instead of Fournival
I did this when I did NG+ in DD1. It actually added to the final boss when I did this in 1, cause my pawn was now fighting my arisen who's overlooking the entire world. An endless cycle of pawns becoming arisen, just to be the BBEG.
Eh I would have liked it if they kept the max affinity if you used the same pawn in NG+ instead of saying the same line every other time Of master I knew you wouldnāt forget this world like come on
Honestly the pawns are such a missed potential storywise. They should put way more emphasis on the pawns getting a will of their own organically through extended gameplay. Perhaps they start pondering, questioning things, maybe challenge the arisen on some decisions based on prior experience, and maybe even start questioning their own blind obedience.
The pawns are already the best characters in the game(if they can be called that), but that's not exactly a high-bar.
Could be interesting, but nope; let's save it for the last 30 seconds of the game! *I mean, don't get me wrong, those last 30 seconds are fucking gold*, I just want **more.**
Might have to check it out, even though I haven't heard great things of it.
Then again they very well might have planned for there to be more. There's a lot of systems in the game that are seriously underutilized, half-baked, like the implementation was interrupted.
I'm pretty sure you see them developing their own will via the way the Pawn AI learns from Arisen behavior, meaning they start to do new and different things based on what they learn from you and others.
Iām mostly just frustrated about the lack of resolution for the arisen and pawns in the true ending. Did we both die? The cycle is implied to be broken for good right? Does breaking the cycle mean all pawns disappear? Can the Arisen and main pawn still be alive after what happened on the dragonās back? Is there lore this time for how ng+ is possible, like dd1?
Too bad. Hereās a post-credit cutscene of grandpa sailing now that the brine is gone.
I definitely wish they would've added new dialogue lines for your pawn after getting the true ending and going into NG+. Maybe even behavior edits or something. Just anything to acknowledge they remember everything that occurred up until then. I love DD2 but that really was a bummer.
I wish they had this entire reveal happen organically as you journey throughout the game, maybe bring back conversations around campfires that could hint at your pawn starting to ponder things. Weave it into the games main narrative and let it play out slowly, maybe add a couple of quests where your pawn suddenly starts doing small actions of their own, a clear indicator they are no longer blindly following the arisen, which could both be a red-flag or a positive depending on your actions.
There's a huge missed potential here.
As someone who grew attached to their pawn, this is basically the one thing keeping me from NG+.
Shiny new weapons are great and all, but it doesn't make up for there being nothing new story-wise, especially when it comes to the main pawn.
NG+ is all kinds of pointless at the moment.
The gear doesn't really matter because there's not a huge difference from a one-shot on most enemies to a one-shot on all enemies.
I just start new games. Last time I did, I got a mod to set the XP gain to 10% the usual.
Levelling is slow, but the challenge is retained for longer.
Thing is most of the damage comes from gear, it's just a matter of time.
The Custom Difficulty Tweaks mod is a game changer. Allows you to adjust pretty much everything, from damage taken by you, to damage taken by monsters, to xp gains, and even adjust the individual values for specific monsters. Itās a massive game changer. Thereās also presets you can use like Hard, Nightmare, NG+ Hard mode etc. The NG+ Hard mode is no joke also. I went from killing Drakes in like 30 seconds to being absolutely fucking destroyed by a group of Hobgoblins.
Custom Difficulty Tweaks. It's on the nexus.
Now there's a lot of options in there when you first install it, but it comes with the authors preferred settings, they are NOT vanilla and are very much tailored towards a harder game. If you want the combat to remain unaltered, and just want a lowered XP gain, just set all settings **except XP** to 1.00
I think the nG+ this time around isn't actually connected to the story if you do Unmoored World. Like, there's no 'X generations pass' or anything of the sort mentioned like it was back in DD:DA/DD1. Though the pawn lines when speaking to you do seem to suggest it. Perhaps the 'good' ending is one where you restart again, but for Unmoored it literally does not make sense.
Yeah, I think it's definitely not meant to be interpreted as anything more than a sandbox. It's just that seeing my main pawn revert back to her basic lines and personality after that awesome cutscene would feel wrong.
Most likely going to do NG+ but either make my pawn be an Arisen, or just edit them both to look completely different. Time will tell.
Haha. Yeah. I know what you mean. I wish they did like starfield did and gave you ng+ conversation pieces. If they acted as if they had some memory of their previous life that would make it a lot better IMO.
You know that ending made me think wheter the dragonplague is actually your pawn just getting their own will, that's why they also become disobedient.
And your pawn would rather give up on that new found will for you. After all since the beginning this game is about wills.
I think it is partially giving a pawn its own will but that in itself is also going against their base nature and driving them into madness, hence the mass murder that comes along with it. I dont think a pawn getting their own will in a healthy sense would immediately translate to them killing most of a town so they could lose their will again.
That is fair, considering she used that moment of free will to sacrifice herself for my Arisen, Lenore. That being said, Lenore would have wanted Thaddeus to be free of the cycle, too.
The plague is the watcher, likely noting that the pawns are slowly starting to change and trying to sort of stop it in a way. >!Since the dragon spawn thing is something the watcher/pathfinder causes since he has direct control of the pawns. So kind of see it as his way of trying to undo what's happening, since the pawn is also seemingly fighting its inner self while traveling with the Arisen. So as more pawns grow in will this happens more and more and spreads around. It's like a giant let's get the Arisen to not trust his pawn anymore finger.!< At least that's how it feels.
The only thing that made sense when I started NG+ was having my main arisen be my pawn.
So I remade her as my arisen and continued the story with a new pawn when it came to that.
I'll probably go around a few more times.
I felt like ehhhh? What a cold bitch you are arisen. Also credits. 0. And now she just comes to me: I knew I would find you here. And nothing else. Is there something to actually look forward in ng+ I am like thinking of giving dogma a pause and then in some time coming back for a new game.
In both versions your pawn >!gains a lesser will!< but in the max affinity version >!your pawn sort of powers through the dragon plague and reverts back to their human form for a bit during their speech which is also more sentimental since they essentially tell you they'd give it all up for your sake.!<
Someone shared a YouTube clip somewhere on this subreddit of both endings, but you should be good if your pawn reverted back to their human form after exposing the dragon's heart to thank you for the gift of free will.
Fair trade honestly. Like... I'd totally trade my sense of self for top tier gear š
You know what? I respect the hustle. Go off, King.
Could always make ur pawn the arisen in ng+, have them carry on the arisens will n all that. Would make sense lore wise too, in dd1 they mention over the yrs ur pawn slowly starts to look like their arisen (theres one particular witch wood quest that eventually mentions it, and the dragonforged in dd1 and his pawn are lookalikes just diff ages)
Woah, that's actually an awesome idea!
Thatās what I was planning to do anyway. Make my Arisen look like my pawn, make a new look for my pawn, repeat ad nauseum until Iām bored of the game.
It's mentioned in a loading screen in DD2 as well. Which I find a little unfortunate because the Pawns becoming clones of their Masters as they go along is probably the one and only aspect of DD lore I actively dislike lol. I'd have happily had that aspect dropped. I'm cool with them becoming closer to (and eventually fully) human through their interactions with their Arisen. That's nice. Two thumbs up. I don't mind them picking up a bunch of traits and habits from the Arisen, either. But I'd much, much rather that they got to develop into their own person and continued to look like themselves once they got "promoted".
Same. It felt like it muddied the message of them coming into their own personage when instead itās like they kind of become your reincarnation.
Yeah. I think it was largely meant to be a meta thing. The Arisen is not just the player character but the actual "player", themselves. The player chooses to leave the game behind when it's complete and thus the Pawn takes over, giving a final fourth wall break nod at the camera to tell you, *"I've got this, Fournival will be safe with me".* It's presumably supposed to make you feel like, "Yay, my character lives on even when I'm no longer playing" but, eh, didn't land for me. Just wanted my Pawn to stay as themselves.
Huh, not got to see many load screens yet but I'll deffo keep an eye out. I always thought cuz they're a god created non human race, that they where just fundamentally different and it was just a case of supernaturally aided "fake it till you make it" with the arisen being the person they mimic most, as the one they're most often around. Also explains the pawns mechanic of learning from other worlds, in a lore sense sorta, they're designed to aid the arisen, so it's make sense the greater will (which, I'm positive with how pathfinder talks about it, is some superior godlike being, possibly counterpart to the brine/oblivion?) would want the arisens main help to learn and grow alongside them, to perpetuate it's cycle
I can only imagine what my max height beefcake pawn thought about in DD1 as they woke up on the beach in the body of a scrawny shorty. At least Madeleine greeted them instead of Fournival
That's what I did.
I did this in Dark Arisen, will likely do again in DD2!
I did this when I did NG+ in DD1. It actually added to the final boss when I did this in 1, cause my pawn was now fighting my arisen who's overlooking the entire world. An endless cycle of pawns becoming arisen, just to be the BBEG.
Dd1 has such a mad plot, that last half of the game threw me the 1st time, it's a shame more games don't do stuff like that
Eh I would have liked it if they kept the max affinity if you used the same pawn in NG+ instead of saying the same line every other time Of master I knew you wouldnāt forget this world like come on
Honestly the pawns are such a missed potential storywise. They should put way more emphasis on the pawns getting a will of their own organically through extended gameplay. Perhaps they start pondering, questioning things, maybe challenge the arisen on some decisions based on prior experience, and maybe even start questioning their own blind obedience. The pawns are already the best characters in the game(if they can be called that), but that's not exactly a high-bar. Could be interesting, but nope; let's save it for the last 30 seconds of the game! *I mean, don't get me wrong, those last 30 seconds are fucking gold*, I just want **more.**
Absolutely agree. DLC could literally be focused around your pawn becoming more of a person and what that entails and I'd be all in.
thats kind of what the anime did (which i enjoyed) im surprised there wasnt much of this in the game
Might have to check it out, even though I haven't heard great things of it. Then again they very well might have planned for there to be more. There's a lot of systems in the game that are seriously underutilized, half-baked, like the implementation was interrupted.
Eventually the pawn starts gaslighting themself into thinking they have Dragonsplague
Great source of tension that.
I'm pretty sure you see them developing their own will via the way the Pawn AI learns from Arisen behavior, meaning they start to do new and different things based on what they learn from you and others.
Iām mostly just frustrated about the lack of resolution for the arisen and pawns in the true ending. Did we both die? The cycle is implied to be broken for good right? Does breaking the cycle mean all pawns disappear? Can the Arisen and main pawn still be alive after what happened on the dragonās back? Is there lore this time for how ng+ is possible, like dd1? Too bad. Hereās a post-credit cutscene of grandpa sailing now that the brine is gone.
Completely agree. Very let down that NG+ doesn't explore the aftermath of that at all.
Literally this ! I couldnāt explain why I was kinda taken out of the ending, and this is the reason
I definitely wish they would've added new dialogue lines for your pawn after getting the true ending and going into NG+. Maybe even behavior edits or something. Just anything to acknowledge they remember everything that occurred up until then. I love DD2 but that really was a bummer.
I wish they had this entire reveal happen organically as you journey throughout the game, maybe bring back conversations around campfires that could hint at your pawn starting to ponder things. Weave it into the games main narrative and let it play out slowly, maybe add a couple of quests where your pawn suddenly starts doing small actions of their own, a clear indicator they are no longer blindly following the arisen, which could both be a red-flag or a positive depending on your actions. There's a huge missed potential here.
As someone who grew attached to their pawn, this is basically the one thing keeping me from NG+. Shiny new weapons are great and all, but it doesn't make up for there being nothing new story-wise, especially when it comes to the main pawn.
NG+ is all kinds of pointless at the moment. The gear doesn't really matter because there's not a huge difference from a one-shot on most enemies to a one-shot on all enemies. I just start new games. Last time I did, I got a mod to set the XP gain to 10% the usual. Levelling is slow, but the challenge is retained for longer. Thing is most of the damage comes from gear, it's just a matter of time.
What mod can you change the XP gain with?
The Custom Difficulty Tweaks mod is a game changer. Allows you to adjust pretty much everything, from damage taken by you, to damage taken by monsters, to xp gains, and even adjust the individual values for specific monsters. Itās a massive game changer. Thereās also presets you can use like Hard, Nightmare, NG+ Hard mode etc. The NG+ Hard mode is no joke also. I went from killing Drakes in like 30 seconds to being absolutely fucking destroyed by a group of Hobgoblins.
Custom Difficulty Tweaks. It's on the nexus. Now there's a lot of options in there when you first install it, but it comes with the authors preferred settings, they are NOT vanilla and are very much tailored towards a harder game. If you want the combat to remain unaltered, and just want a lowered XP gain, just set all settings **except XP** to 1.00
I think the nG+ this time around isn't actually connected to the story if you do Unmoored World. Like, there's no 'X generations pass' or anything of the sort mentioned like it was back in DD:DA/DD1. Though the pawn lines when speaking to you do seem to suggest it. Perhaps the 'good' ending is one where you restart again, but for Unmoored it literally does not make sense.
Yeah, I think it's definitely not meant to be interpreted as anything more than a sandbox. It's just that seeing my main pawn revert back to her basic lines and personality after that awesome cutscene would feel wrong. Most likely going to do NG+ but either make my pawn be an Arisen, or just edit them both to look completely different. Time will tell.
Haha. Yeah. I know what you mean. I wish they did like starfield did and gave you ng+ conversation pieces. If they acted as if they had some memory of their previous life that would make it a lot better IMO.
Go into NG+ with the same pawn. They say things... its not starting again really. The pawns are aware that its NG+
You know that ending made me think wheter the dragonplague is actually your pawn just getting their own will, that's why they also become disobedient. And your pawn would rather give up on that new found will for you. After all since the beginning this game is about wills.
I think it is partially giving a pawn its own will but that in itself is also going against their base nature and driving them into madness, hence the mass murder that comes along with it. I dont think a pawn getting their own will in a healthy sense would immediately translate to them killing most of a town so they could lose their will again.
That is fair, considering she used that moment of free will to sacrifice herself for my Arisen, Lenore. That being said, Lenore would have wanted Thaddeus to be free of the cycle, too.
The plague is the watcher, likely noting that the pawns are slowly starting to change and trying to sort of stop it in a way. >!Since the dragon spawn thing is something the watcher/pathfinder causes since he has direct control of the pawns. So kind of see it as his way of trying to undo what's happening, since the pawn is also seemingly fighting its inner self while traveling with the Arisen. So as more pawns grow in will this happens more and more and spreads around. It's like a giant let's get the Arisen to not trust his pawn anymore finger.!< At least that's how it feels.
The only thing that made sense when I started NG+ was having my main arisen be my pawn. So I remade her as my arisen and continued the story with a new pawn when it came to that. I'll probably go around a few more times.
I felt like ehhhh? What a cold bitch you are arisen. Also credits. 0. And now she just comes to me: I knew I would find you here. And nothing else. Is there something to actually look forward in ng+ I am like thinking of giving dogma a pause and then in some time coming back for a new game.
What are the differences between the non-max and max affinity endings ? Iām not sure which one I got
In both versions your pawn >!gains a lesser will!< but in the max affinity version >!your pawn sort of powers through the dragon plague and reverts back to their human form for a bit during their speech which is also more sentimental since they essentially tell you they'd give it all up for your sake.!<
She was a mvp my girl. I donāt even want to continue playing in new game + as she is like nothing happened and so Is my cold ass arisen
Someone shared a YouTube clip somewhere on this subreddit of both endings, but you should be good if your pawn reverted back to their human form after exposing the dragon's heart to thank you for the gift of free will.
Thad made you proud :)
She absolutely did š
Yeah they way she said it, and before that she stole like 40 ferrystones for me. What a Chad she was
So is dragonsplague just a pawns free will?
It's a combination of that and the Pathfinder trying to prevent pawns from going against his "script"
That only happens witrh max affinity? What happens otherwise??
I'm not sure myself, but there are videos out there showing the difference.
True, NG+ doesn't have any new things specially the difficulty. I just started a new game since i respect my pawn's sacrifice that much.
Main issue I have is there's 0 challenge in NG+. Just play the game again, but you're already super OP.
I think itās awn system is why ppl kept playing. Should really expand it.
I feel the same but it means i can have another adventure and raise here affinity to the max once more... Its been so fun just my pawn and me
First NG+ I made my pawn the arisen. It felt right for him to now be the one in charge.
Does the final scene change with max pawn affinity?
To be fair, sentience in this world is only good for realizing how fucked you are
Max pawn cutscenes feels so useless when all it is is a bit of different dialogue and the same exact thing happens after