From curiosity I’ve rummaged through the game code a bit, and I didn’t expect the game to consider that the player may have 50 affection with Rhot before meeting Xeroth.
What is the intentional way to have that much in such a seemingly short time?
You can delay meeting Xeroth by avoiding the corrupted lake altogether and raise his likes past 50 what that does is change the encounter a bit like when you have one heart with Rhot. So it is possible to do that over a time but it's not really a short time.
