on my experience, i feel the best outcome involves finding the shed and being nice to storm. so doing the shed and visiting p's house are the 2 end goals for the most optimal play on hinterlands i found.
Seconded. As nice as the extra scenes of spending all your time with Storm are, solving the salt plains not only "helps the area" (even at the cost of the salt economy, it sure was a shitshow there with the curse) and gets Storm the salt (which may be a great Chekov's Gun for something later), but the shed certainly peeks behind the curtain on the last lingering curse in the Hinterlands, which the devs have already said will come back up later in the story. This certainly gives us the best chance of solving that mystery as well.
In addition, Nini's quest to give the 12 a 'good Christian burial' feels wrong when they weren't Christian, but rather pagans who worshipped the Tapir god. Why would a burial to a god they didn't believe in help anything?
Here's the route TrinexxSlayer and I are talking about, if you want to see it for yourself. If you really want to metagame, I also recommend doing this on a character that has the Leader background, so you can try to get a certain combination of staff later that the devs have hinted at (not gonna spoil it here if you haven't heard yet, just trust 'em on this ;) )
- Visit the Tailor and have P donate his clothes. To maximize the dialogue in this chapter and the growth of sowing of future relationship seeds for these two, we want to maximize Storm's affection first. Sadly, this means that you don't get the wonderful nipple-showing overalls this way... you do get the equally tasty belly showcasing white T shirt though, mmm.
- Visit Storm's House, which was now unlocked. Increases Storm's affection.
- Visit P's family home, which also only seems to unlock after visiting Storm's. This increases Storm's affection to 3, which develops the crush. We pick this way to get to affection 3 because it really makes good narrative sense for these two characters getting to learn about each other and growing from there.
- Visit the Salt Flats and meet the angry god.
- Visit the Flooded Town to retrieve the pelt.
- Return to the Salt Flats to finish your quest and free the curse on the salt. Notably, this means all of the butterflies start dying off, as something about them seems to be very impure. This frees up the next path.
- Most locations are closed, which is why we saved this one for last: visit The Pond. You should not be attacked by a swarm of butterflies on the drive to the pond if you uncursed the salt. Then, despite the very heavy story Storm can share with you and P can lessen his burden on, you need to Investigate the path, which will have P set off on his own. With the butterflies dead, he makes it to The Shed and well, you see from there.
Indeed, and for the sake of lore, other points of interest to check out, on a non-optimal playthrough, include:
The Second Church : It hints at the darkest mystery in the hinterlands.
The Library - Non-fiction section : It's an extensive tale talking about the the history and myths on the hinterlands.
The Pond - Talk to Storm (you have to build his affinity first) : He speaks of one of his past traumas and gives the identity of his oppressor.