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Party issues regarding NOT taking Yoshimo to Spellhold (SPOILERS)

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  • jasteyjastey Member Posts: 2,669
    edited March 2019
    I am sorry for the OT and I surely do not mean to offend, but seeing a post from someone called @gorgonzola and using the word "cheese" as extensive as above really made my day! :D

    gorgonzolaThacoBell
  • gorgonzolagorgonzola Member Posts: 3,864
    edited March 2019
    no offense taken.
    actually i choose the nickname gorgonzola cause i love in game cheese, i like to do research about it and i often like to use it in my gameplay. still i am not a slave of it, i don't want to depend on it, in other runs i completely avoid it. or more often i fight the same battle in many ways, reloading each time after winning, and some of them are REALLY cheesy ones. but i have to win at least one time with a not cheesing tactic.
    for me the point is to have fun with cheese, not to use it as a crutch.
    i choose gorgonzola cause is one of the most stinky cheeses, is a rotten one, filled with muff, but that is exactly what make it so tasty :)
    Post edited by gorgonzola on
  • SharGuidesMyHandSharGuidesMyHand Member Posts: 2,579

    After all, you KNOW that you're going there to rescue Imoen, and by now you've learned that (for whatever reason) you're utterly incapable of keeping a party of more than six together at one time, so it makes perfect sense that you would leave room for her to join.

    That would make sense, if not for the fact that right up until that point you had always been able to send removed party members to their default locations ...

    But up until that point, you hadn't been booking passages to isolated islands controlled by pirate colonies - you were traveling between sections of the city or overland.

    The people who returned to their locations in other instances always did so by foot, so it's perfectly reasonable that you would NOT expect them to be able to do so once you set out for Spellhold.
  • gorgonzolagorgonzola Member Posts: 3,864
    edited March 2019
    yep, people like korgan, an experienced adventurer and a very strong fighter, can not find a way, but you find a way, not only for yourself, but also for ginia and anson, without much hassle in that case, and imoen, that only few hours before you drop her was not even able to recognize you, can.
    this is very logic.
    by the way if you drop an other party member in the island before you reach the asylum the usual banter triggers and he is perfectly able to find his way, i just tested it.

    EDIT: i also tested a save game inside the planar sphere, when you are trapped there, and in that case there is no option to send back the dropped toon, and this is very logic. i don't have a save from which is easy to test what happens in the planar prison, i suppose that also there the option is not available, can someone that has a save there do a quick test? just to be sure.
    anyway in both cases we are talking of being on a completely different plane, in one of the most guarded prisons of the multiverse or inside the sphere, a planar ship on which you have no control at all.
    once you clear spellhood killing almost every live being there and open the door to the portal the way for the underdark is open, even if a one way only portal. and in the underdark the dropped companion has only to find his way to the surface, way that you open for him, has not to go trough all the battles you have to go trough, if is really so difficult to find a ship and get back to mainland.

    some things in the game has no sense at all, rp wise, are only functional to the game, and that is fine.
    it has no sense that viconia stay in the graveyard and korgan in the cc 24/24 ready for you to recruit them, with no other personal agenda, has no sense that they gain xp doing that before you find them, right the amount that matches your own one, but they stop as you have the first banter with them. if you talk with korgan the first time you enter the cc he has a certain amount of xp, if you delay it to the end of chap 2 he magically has gained a lot of xp while staying all the time there, does drinking beer give xp?
    it is so and it works, not cause is sound plot wise, but cause it make this game, that is imo one of the best games ever created, work.
    the fact that a first time player not using yoshimo and having a 6 people party has to loose forever a companion or to leave a so weakened imoen (only plot and banter wise, she is perfectly functional if you take her with you) in such a desperate situation does not work. is a bad implementation. this is why to add the chance to have the other npcs find their way home would correct a bad implementation.
    if i am not wrong there had been some changes in the plot very late, originally imoen was not even planned to be in the game. if the original developers missed this problem is is perfectly understandable, no one is perfect and they had to publish the game and start to earn money.
    they overlooked the fact that yoshimo does not break the geas if you don't take him with you, continue to be bind to it but does not break it, and made the plot work smoothly only if you have him with you. also it has no sense that irenicus imposed that geas as he had already you under control, unless he impose it on yoshi at the last moment, between the moment the shadow thieves attack his dungeon and the moment you find yoshi. but at that moment irenicus does not know that imoen would be so stupid to launch to him a magic missile and that both would be arrested and brought to the asylum. i am also quite certain. even if i don't have a save game to test it, that yoshimo tells clearly that the geas was imposed at the moment he started to work for irenicus, and that has to be before the dungeon is under attack.
    when someone does some last minute changes things like this happen. and the game is great even so.
    but we should not have the assumption that everything is perfect plot wise only cause we all invested so much time in playing this fantastic game and try to justify everything biased by that initial assumption.
    Post edited by gorgonzola on
    rollingmurray
  • rollingmurrayrollingmurray Member Posts: 19
    edited March 2019
    @SharGuidesMyHand I don't have a problem with the fact that you can't send anyone home at the point, which makes sense since you're in a deadly gauntlet where even a party of six has to work their butts off to escape. What I don't understand is why you CAN do it with Imoen and not the others. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that she's a main plot character and future events won't work without her, unlike other companions. As I said, it's my first run so I remain to confirm this.

    @gorgonzola It makes perfect sense for Viconia to hang out at the Graveyard District and not the CC. As a drow, she's in constant risk of being attacked by the general population, especially if she's all by herself. Heck, when you first meet her in the game she's even about to be burned alive just for taking a walk in the city, so it's an intelligent move from her part to wait for you in a less populated area of the Athkatla.
    By the way, the same happened for fellow drow Baeloth in BG1 - he waited for you OUTSIDE the Friendly Arm Inn's limits, unlike other EE companions like Neera and Dorn.

    EDIT: But not Rasaad. That bald jerk made me walk all the way to Nashkel just to get his sorry a$$. ;)
  • gorgonzolagorgonzola Member Posts: 3,864
    edited March 2019
    @rollingmurray
    my point was that staying there viconia gains xp and the ones in the cc also, but only if you don't talk to them for the first time. and she probably has to feed herself with corpses as she never moves from there :)
    this is true for every npc, the xp he/she has when you meet him depends on your one. and this is fine as so you can meet a npc later and don't have to take him underleveled. makes sense from a game mechanics view, but not from a rp one.
    the same is true for imoen being able to find her way, has no sense rp wise but is needed for the game plot. thing that is not completely true, you can drop her, never take her back again and finish the game, loosing only some xp. and also the other npcs can find their way if dropped before entering the asylum. after they magically loose it, even in the island and not in spellhod. is true that they are in a tough dungeon, but you could tell them "wait me here", clear the dungeon, go to brinnlaw, drop temporarily some other guy and come back to rescue the npc left behind. you actually can do it, but he has "magically" lost the ability to go back in town by himself, ability that before going to the asylum he had.
    this fact is not needed for the game mechanics and plot, and does not make also sense rp wise, if he was able before he should also be able after spellhood. is a totally arbitrary decision from the developers, that has no rp sense and give problems only to the players willing to save imoen and not having yoshimo in the party.
    and a thief charname or jan, to some extent also nalia, are very good reason for not having yoshi with you (hexxat did not exist at the time the plot was created, but now is also a reason).
    introducing the choice to send home from spellhood or from brinnlaw after spellhood the npcs the problem would be completely avoided, now a new player can face the choice to loose forever a key npc or tell to immy to find her way alone, thing that has no sense if charname is not so evil that wants to put in utter peril his childhood friend and newly found sister.
  • Humanoid_TaifunHumanoid_Taifun Member Posts: 1,055
    You can easily send Jaheira or Minsc out by themselves from Chez Irenicus when they have no equipment at all.
    Using the danger level of Spellhold is not really a good argument. If they find themselves outmatched, roleplaying wise they could just wait for your party to smash everything to pieces and then take the easy way out.
    But even then, the one thing that I really take offense with, time and time again, is the fact that I am forced to leave somebody behind at all.
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,714
    gorgonzola wrote: »
    by the way i know that the ee developers are not allowed to change the original plot in any way, but probably, even if i don't know exactly the conditions in the licence contract, to add the choice to send back npcs to their usual places also in the maze under spellhood probably would not break the contract conditions. and if a soul drained imoen make it why a full health npc should not?
    this would partially fix the things for first time players that don't use yoshimo, as using him the whole plot is smooth and nice.
    can you @JuliusBorisov or an other moderator please suggest it to the game developers, if you agree with me?

    This sounds like a good suggestion. You can file it at support.baldursgate.com under Feature Requests.
    gorgonzola
  • rollingmurrayrollingmurray Member Posts: 19
    @gorgonzola I have a question about what you've said regarding companions auto-levelling when you recruit them. Does that happen only when you ACTUALLY add them to the party, or all it takes is for you to speak to them for the first time?
    For example, I added Imoen to the party at the beginning of Bodhi's gauntlet and she had 1,200,000 XP by then (charname had around 2,000,000 XP). If I had sent her home directly, without adding her to the party first, would Imoen's XP be higher if I only added her to the party when I got to Athkatla? That would've somehow solved my "Imoen misses out on all the XP from the Underdark" problem… although it's too late for me by now.
  • gorgonzolagorgonzola Member Posts: 3,864
    i am not an expert about the level the npc's get depending on your own xp.
    what i know for sure is that imoen is a special case. the other noc get a certain level of xp the first time you get them or maybe the first time you talk to them, i am not sure which one, then don't get any free boost, their xp is set and can improve only by having them in the party and doing quests and killing stuff. and there is a cap, if you solo then recruit a npc when you have 5M xp he will hit the cap and will be well behind you. i believe that the cap is around 1.2-1.5M xp and that they improve every 0.5Mxp you have, so recruiting nalia when you have 999999xp or 1000001xp is different but then her level don't change until you have 1.5+1xp.
    imoen gets an xp boost in the gauntlet even if you had her with you in the starting dungeon, and this make her special. this is done to don't have her too behind you at the moment you find her, as she loose completely the chance to gain xp in a regular way from the moment she is arrested to the one you save her.
    but then, like every npc when dismissed, even if technically you don't dismiss her but refuse to recruit her, her xp is set.
    so you will find a 1.2M imoen at home.

    maybe someone with more knowledge then me, i learn things by trial and error, not analyzing the game files, can tell you more about the level of xp of imoen and of the other npcs depending on charname xp.
  • gorgonzolagorgonzola Member Posts: 3,864
    edited March 2019

    This sounds like a good suggestion. You can file it at support.baldursgate.com under Feature Requests.
    i will try to do it, but i am not completely sure that i will succeed, i and the computers live on completey different planets. i am the complete and perfect antithesis of a computer geek :D
    edit: i am not able to do it...
    i registered to the site, but now i am not able to find the feature request section :s
    i have 4 tabs, home, my page, projects and help.
    going to projects i get only some bug related stuff, nothing about new feature request, also in the help tab i can not find how to do a feature request.
    i try many things and i did ever end outside the site and into the redmine.org one, that asked me for a new registration. but i am completely not capable of finding how to do a feature request.
    can please someone help me or do the request in my place? i don't want credits if the request will be accepted so any one can do it in my place.
    or i can do it, but only if instructed about how to do it.
    i apologize for my utter lack in ability in those modern internet things, even if i use a computer for some basic things i am a man born in an other age, one of those that without an instruction sheet is not able to operate any electronic stuff. :)
    edit 2, i have done it!!!!
    Post edited by gorgonzola on
    JuliusBorisov
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,714
    Yay!
    gorgonzola
  • gorgonzolagorgonzola Member Posts: 3,864
    it was probably harder then beating for the first time the tactics mod irenicus, but gorgonzola never surrender :)
    i am obviously joking, that other battle took me a lot more reloads and when i finally won, after trying for a couple of evenings and without using any of the tactics i found on other players videos or hints, but with my own ones, i could not even believe it. i remember that after that i was in a state of permanent bliss for a couple of days, and this time i am not joking :D
  • SirBaldurSirBaldur Member Posts: 80
    resurrecting this thread... i'm hitting the 6 person cap limit in spellhold right now... and it is quite disturbing to me. The only other time I played, i did in fact have yoshimo, and it was a great storyline and worked out great with getting imoen to fill in.

    from an role-playing view, it feels terrible to kick imoen away after all her suffering, jaheira is outraged to me which endangers our fledgling romance (possibly not from a game mechanics view but again from rp view), and I really hate the idea of leaving jan or someone else to be stuck forever in the insane asylum. definitely takes you right out of the game mentally (esp with the clunky dialogue about my "party balance").

    it reminded me of something that greatly bothered me in my first run many years ago - it still bothers me even to this day, as it's probably one of my most vivid memories of the game - when i had to leave someone in hell so i could take someone else. korgan is an evil npc, but he'd been with me since nearly the beginning and i was quite fond of him, and i HATED that he had to stay in hell. he was basically punished for helping me out. i dont think any charname can be considered Good aligned or even neutral if they are literally condemning someone to hell just for reasons that are entirely selfish to charname.

    it's funny how something "meaningless" like this can be disturbing, but the hell thing is the #1 thing i remember disliking about bg2. spellhold is not quite as bad since imoen goes to the inn - but if imoen in her unequipped, bedraggled, and beaten down condition, can get there, why can't one of my loaded up and powerful party members? booooooooooooo, major thumbs down.
    Isewein
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    @SirBaldur When do ever have to leave someone in hell? I don't remember that being a thing.
  • MaurvirMaurvir Member Posts: 1,090
    edited October 2019
    It is fairly common knowledge that Imoen wasn't originally intended to survive past the first chapter, which is likely why there was no accommodation made to send another NPC back. When that didn't fly due to everyone losing it over Imoen's demise, Bioware backtracked - but it's obvious from her lack of development that this was a late-stage decision probably made after play testing resulted in street rioting.

    Where this gets interesting is that Yoshimo was seemingly intended to betray you from the start, even BEFORE this happened. Now, it's possible he was added later to fill in the gap, but his character arc is fairly well defined compared to Imoen's. Which means the devs had a very, very nasty surprise for anyone who kept him in the party that long. (In fairness, there are more than enough clues in the game)

    I still think it was a mistake, particularly from a RP standpoint, but it was in the original vanilla game. Worse, even if you practically race to Spellhold, she is still likely going to be pretty far behind the rest of the party. If, like most people, you prep for the trip by leveling up, she can become almost useless by the time you get her back because there are too few opportunities to get her leveled up naturally afterwards. I suggest most people save Watcher's Keep until chapter 6 purely for this reason. (Maybe do the first couple of levels for the weapons, though - some of that stuff is extremely useful early on)

    If you send her back to Athkatla in chapter 4, it gets even worse. You only get one shot at entering the shark city, which is awfully hard to pass up (not only is it worth a lot of XP, but wow - an underwater city?) Then, at a minimum, you have to get through the drow city and its quests and take out at least one of the other enclaves*. Metagaming to the max, you can opt to do the "easiest" enclave (which also happens to stand in the way of the exit), leaving everything else for later.

    All of which means that Imoen will be REALLY, REALLY far behind by the time you have a chance to get back to the Copper Coronet. In my last run, she was 5 levels behind my MC. Jan, on the other hand, was a powerhouse. Were it not for the fact that I figured Imoen deserved a shot at the person who took her soul, and his interminable turnip breath, I would have kept Jan through ToB.

    *Technically you can skip Ust Natha as well, but it would be silly to do so since you would be giving up a huge amount of experience permanently.

    In short, your MC really has to love their half-sister a lot to make Imoen worth it in BG2.
  • ilduderinoilduderino Member Posts: 773
    I wonder if the original plan was for Yoshimo to somehow be redeemed and rejoin but when they decided to leave Imoen alive they killed off Yoshi instead. Otherwise I agree that many people would have been a team member down for a large chunk of the game
    ThacoBell
  • SirBaldurSirBaldur Member Posts: 80
    ThacoBell wrote: »
    @SirBaldur When do ever have to leave someone in hell? I don't remember that being a thing.

    i recall sarevok is in the hell pocket plane, so if you go in there with 6 and decide to have him join, someone gets stuck there. in hell. forever.
    gorgonzola
  • ilduderinoilduderino Member Posts: 773
    That’s your personal pocket plane from the start of ToB. They can kick back there and play table football with Cespenae until your Ascension. Guess it’s bad news for them if you die though
    ThacoBell
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    SirBaldur wrote: »
    ThacoBell wrote: »
    @SirBaldur When do ever have to leave someone in hell? I don't remember that being a thing.

    i recall sarevok is in the hell pocket plane, so if you go in there with 6 and decide to have him join, someone gets stuck there. in hell. forever.

    As mentioned below, its not Hell. Its just your pocket plane. It disappears when you enter the throne of Bhaal. Your party member is probably returned from wherever they entered the pocket plane from. At the very least, nothing indicates that anyone is ever trapped there.
    gorgonzola
  • TrauerweideTrauerweide Member Posts: 27
    @Maurvir which clues do you mean for Yoshimos betrayal? The only one which comes in my mind is Haer‘Dalis not trusting him. Did I miss something?
  • jasteyjastey Member Posts: 2,669
    @Trauerweide That crazy mage in Brynnlaw you get the ward stone from, Yoshimo speaks to him expecting that his name will cease hostility. That's what I remember.
    To be honest, I thought it rather lame that the person I meet inside ID and who I thought highly suspicious because of that was, indeed, one of I.'s minions. His story is rather tragic, though.
    TrauerweidegorgonzolaAcifer
  • TrauerweideTrauerweide Member Posts: 27
    Aah yes I forgot about this one... its been a while since I had a playthrough with Yoshimo ;)
  • megamike15megamike15 Member Posts: 2,666
    i always take yoshimo with me. bg 2 is heavily inspired by jrpgs and yoshimo to me feels like that party member in the tales series who joins you in the first act is rather likable [ the yoshimo romance/friendship mod help with that] then he betrays you during your darkest point.
    gorgonzolaThacoBell
  • megamike15megamike15 Member Posts: 2,666
    Zaxares wrote: »
    Yeah, if you play through the game again taking Yoshimo everywhere, there are subtle clues spread throughout the early chapters that hint at his hidden loyalties. Aside from the one jastey mentions, I believe there are also a couple of conversations with Bodhi's vampires and a few lines between Saemon and Yoshimo that give a few hints as well.

    the main one is the the only character he can't get along with is Haer'Dalis. as he is an actor and he sees right through what yoshimo is doing.
    gorgonzolaThacoBellZaxares
  • gorgonzolagorgonzola Member Posts: 3,864
    edited November 2019
    megamike15 wrote: »
    i always take yoshimo with me. bg 2 is heavily inspired by jrpgs and yoshimo to me feels............
    this is perfectly fine, but the topic is what happens to a player, maybe not spoiled at all about the game, that has a full party not including him.
    is very likely that a player that uses jan or that has thief in the charname class leave him in the cc.
    also other players that don't like to play thieves can have nalia, because some trap finding and door opening is still needed for a new player, and are more into magic and raw mlee power can prefer to have one more fighter type, as joshi with his 1 apr and rogue thac0 is surely not the best frontliner or ranged attacker.
    let's say a party with
    charname fighter (or paladin)
    jaheira and minsc (you find them in the beginning dungeon or had them in the previous games)
    nalia as main mage and door opener
    anomen as cleric
    mazzy as ranged attacker or valigar as frontliner and stabber, or korgan as tank and dmg dealer, they fight much better then joshi
    such party is perfectly viable and very novice friendly, with a lot of muscles and all the roles somehow covered, as with nalia you get also the ring that help to find traps, no meta game needed.
    and for that player, that don't like to use or is still not able to use ( in a fair way ) traps, joshimo in the party weaken it.

    i like the way joshimo is implemented don't get me wrong, his story imo is well written, but still there are players that find themselves in the situation of loosing forever a npc, thing that utterly sucks, or leaving a weakened (as far as a new player can know by the in game clues) imoen in a very dangerous situation, thing that is a RP nonsense for a not evil and even some evil charnames.

  • UnderstandMouseMagicUnderstandMouseMagic Member Posts: 2,147
    I always played as a thief, back in the day when the game came out. For years. Never liked Yoshimo so never took him with me anywhere after Chateau Irenicus. So I kind of ended up having a spoiler in reverse. It wasn't until my daughter played with him that I even found out he didn't survive, lol.

    As for role playing not taking Imoen in SH (another characer I really don't like), I always RP that I put her safely on a ship home.
    But is it possible to leave a companion waiting for you in SH (where you pick up Imoen), complete SH and get rid of Irenicus to the underdark (while keeping Imoen safe), then re recruit the companion and sending Imoen off to the town?
    I mean that way, you have ensured she escapes safely having killed off everything. That's if you want to or are worried about RPing strictly.
  • gorgonzolagorgonzola Member Posts: 3,864
    it is not possible as you can not enter the maze after completing it, or go to spellhood from the underdark, other way it would be possible to clear the maze then bring imoen in brinnlaw then after completing the underdark come back there trough the underdark exit, that remains opened, and the portal, but it is only one way, and save her
    also no way to find ship passages for npcs while you don't have any problem for ginia and her brother
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