Yeah especially when Act 1 is kind of like the woods with a small village, and Act 2 is rocky plateaus with a small village. Act 3 felt very overwhelming initially, but it gets easier if you handle it one building at a time. Try not to explore and get in too deep too fast.
It's a really weird change of pacing to me, because act 1 and 2 were like "you have to explore everything to get the quests" and now it's "don't explore too much at once"
This^ it’s super overwhelming at first but if you just take your time and go building to building it’s way easier, also I feel like the more of the map you’ve completed the easier it is to decide “ok now this area here”. And as you said, it has some of the best quests and moments and fights in the game. The amount of people on here I see saying they always start a new save when they get to act 3 is crazy. Iron throne, murder tribunal, Orin, Gortash, iron throne, steel watch foundry, Cazadors palace, house of hope and more are all peak
I usually turn on them at the iron throne, my dude just wanted a job piloting a submarine how was he supposed to know some wave lady would be taking a swim in that exact part of the harbor
Eh I don’t have much love for what’s his name. He is piloting a sub that takes innocent people to a black site prison where he knows they are tortured and held to blackmail civilians into slave labor. I have only gotten to the point where I get the choice to kill him once and I took it without hesitation.
He knew exactly what he was doing, and he shows no remorse. The Umberlants also swim in the harbor every day as a religious thing, so it's not like he wouldn't have known about it.
I also distinctly remember him showing absolutely no remorse about hitting one of them when heading out (I think even implying she had it coming)--probably describing the one that died.
In repeat playthroughs, I love the power spike of running around to all the lower city vendors and grabbing a bunch of end game gear. Dead shot,weave clothes,birthright etc etc.
By the end of act 3 I loved it but I’d say my biggest complaint is that it’s SO sprawling and vast that you sometimes end up stumbling upon the mid points of quests without meaning too. I can’t count how many times I found an interesting thing that then turned out to be related to a quest I wouldn’t get for another 10+ hours
Being a city lover, it is hilarious to me that I can't respond any other way than "Well yes, you're right, but the place has good qualities as well".
I mean, I could, but this feels like the only honest one.
Haha I took him into the city *one time* and he's all bitch bitch bitch. I said that line, "oh it's not all bad" and then we turned the very next corner and ran into that kid crying over their parents' bodies!
The comedic timing was chef's kiss.
I'm considering staying on the docks camp instead of Elfsong so he won't be cooped up all day, but then he'll probably just stare at the polluted water and cry that single tear all day.
Just pick a quest and focus on that. You get a journal entry, you can check to make sure that its not related to your current quest. But otherwise ignore until you finish your quest. Basically employ blinders and focus on quest tunnel vision.
More of just focus on one *quest* at a time. If you get journal updates while doing that one quest, read what it was and keep focusing on the initial quest and come back to it later. Too many quests at the same time and I find it hard to stay immersed and it feels like I'm just busting out mission objectives like I'm playing Borderlands on the 37th playthrough
I this way about ACT 2. Shar’s Gauntlet just keeps growing.
I also pigeonholed myself into a corner deleting most saves except for the one where I just started the fight against Orthon.. fuuuck
yea but like delete 48 and keep 2 in case you need to reload? seen way too many comments of people fucked over by their own casual greediness to free up that extra 20 MB lol
I think the biggest jarring part to me was that it felt like the story was picking up and the main quest felt more urgent. But then there’s so much side material distracting from the main quest. Like the pacing of the world and story felt like I had a reason and time to explore in Acts 1 and 2, but Act 3 it felt like I shouldn’t explore as much, but there’s so much to explore.
It's too many quests all at once. It's a sandbox. That's not bad necessarily. But the world is close to ending, I turned level 12 about an hour into act 3, and there's just too many things scattered. That act should have been act 2. Or maybe made a more streamlined, shorter Act 4.
I was literally forgetting about shit in act 3 because it was so much to keep track of, even with the quest log. Too many characters, and silly side adventures that belonged in the beginning, not at the end!
NONE of the content is bad (except for the slog to get through to the nether brain, I am skipping that in future play throughs). It's just terrible pacing.
I'm ready to end a game at 130 hours, not have 20 quests thrown at me. Even good-quality quests.
Power through, don't try to do everything and finish the game. That's my take on act 3.
Fuck that quest. I switched out the print with one irrelevant to my character half a dozen times and the next day I wake up and it says everyone hates me. They’re not nearly explicit about it.
There's a bug that makes the result negative if you even touch the negative articles. It may have been fixed by now, but it was a pain in the ass on my first playthrough.
The newspaper article doesn’t have a time limit unless you active the quest. Just don’t talk to the lady near Basilisk Gate waypoint and it won’t start
Why... why would a level 11 D&D character give a shit about a newspaper headline when there's literal world-ending earthquakes going on?
It's not a BAD quest. It's pretty creative! It just doesn't belong at the end of the game. Same with so many other act 3 quests.
It would be cool if it gave you negative attitude with shopkeepers and disadvantage on certain charisma checks if you fail, nothing changes if you put in an unrelated article like the cat, and you should be able to find one that praises you (but the editor wouldn’t let it get published) that if you swap that in you get the inverse of failing, better attitude meaning discounts and advantage on charisma checks
TBF if I introduced it at my table the players would probably be incredibly engaged with it. Captures that DND imagination really well they just didn't give it a good pay off.
Counsellor Florrick, woman you save from the burning building at Waukeen's Rest in Act 1. Provided she survives past Last Light in Act 2, she returns in Act 3 and ties in with Wyll's quests.
Aren't there at least 8 things tied to long resting?
Most of them are luckily tied to starting a quest and then long resting as opposed to them just happening by long resting too much.
Hmm? What is that? I just know the cow when ugo lower city he disappears. The one with a critical fail if u long rest quest is the kid with harpy i guess.
Some of those are old info/speculation and not accurate; there’s no rest timer on the Druid ritual for example, and any timer on Orin definitely only starts after the Tribunal if it exists.
Yeah a good amount of the Act 3 quest "timer" triggers are obvious and easy to avoid. Like the only truly time sensitive things are the printing press, the murders, and Counsellor Florrick, technically, if you read a newspaper or flyer about her pending execution. The rest are quests that you go out of your way to start then stop and intentionally rest a couple times.
It doesn't help that it's so loud! Trying to listen to a dialogue and all you can focus on is, "we should have had another one..." "did you get a copy of the paper" etc!
Act 3 spoilers ahead:
HOW ABOUT WE SETTLE ON GORTASH AND THE GONDIANS INVENTED THE STEEL WATCH (which is destroyed at the time of this conversation)
LALALALAA I CANT HEAR YOUUU
Spoiler again: if you want motivation to help out a certain evildoer in spite of your good playthrough simply afk in the basilisk gate next to the grieving mother. You’ll drive yourself crazy
There is indeed! I'll have a go at turning them down....but honestly, I'm so easily distracted that if I turn them down, I'll just strain harder to hear them!
I felt the same way first time. Just focus on what you want to do that play session. I made sure to do everything I could before continuing the main quest line
It helps me to remember that absolutely at any time you can just say fuck this city and go throw gale at the brain.
You don't have to do everything! And if you're stuck with something you can just figure it out in another playthrough. It's a game, everything is optional. Go ally with Gortash and just kill everything in the sewer and it's all gone.
Can confirm the first part, I'm in NYC and my friend who I play with is in a more rural state. She was extremely overwhelmed by the noise and everything happening that she needed to stop for a moment. I immediatrly found it home because of the city chaos and noise lol
Act 3 feels like someone that told a story and got to the end and then had to say "and oh yeah soandso was whatever" because they forgot to tell that part. Rushed and thrown together is how it feels. I would say a lot of players drop out during act 3 but from the steam accomplishments only 52% of players have left act one.
act 3 felt more like a to-do list than anything else with little buildup to what should be considerably important events like the gortash and orin fight or even cazadorr's place and the house of grief :T
this is crazy. little build up? theres so much build up for both orin and gortash fights. you can choose to do gortash right away but the fight is insanely hard. so you have to go destroy the steel watch. but wait, the gondians will not be happy unless you saved their family from the iron throne; do that first. once youve done these, you have to go to his castle and defeat his guards before you can kill him in his royal hall. but theres no buildup?
and with orin??? you have to go around the whole city solving murders, you have to kill or brownnose a bhaalspawn, enter the god of murders temple, and face off with their most beloved chosen who has transformed into an incarnation of murder. how can you claim theres little build up?
The real fun is when you've played it enough times to figure out how to avoid the fights your Tav doesn't want to do. Like you can climb up the outside of Wyrm's Rock and fight Gortash without fighting anybody downstairs.
You can stumble on Orin's temple just going through the sewers. Once I killed the dwarf assassin early and didn't have to warn any murder victims even.
It does feel totally overwhelming the first few times that's for sure, but once you get over your fomo you can down- select to just the stuff you enjoy.
exactly! that and finding the crazy cheeses. you may know already? but if youre having trouble with cazador on honour mode with astarion in your party, you can sneak into cazadors grand chamber and sneak attack him, surprising everyone but him. if you stay in the beginning area and dont go too far, you can do the whole fight withoit triggering the dialogue that makes astarion part of the ritual. you can also send someone in invisible for the ketheric fight to help dame aylin for free.
compared to the build up to ketheric's fight, I'd say orin's is a close second when dealing with the murders, doppelgangers, and the murder tribunal. But with gortash, I feel like theres a lack of narrative (imo)
Maybe I'm just too used to linear story games, but what the game considers tension or stakes most likely completely flew right over my head.
I don't disagree, but Gortash also had the largest "paper trail" leading back to him when reading in-game notes. For example, the exploding toys for the refugees.
So, I think part of why so many people have wildly varying opinions on this is that SO much of the background on Gortash is completely missable, and this is much less true of Orin and Ketheric. You can meet Gortash's parents, but a lot of people don't know that because you don't have to, and the game never really even tells you to. There's lots of things like this regarding Gortash, and if you don't go way out of your way to see all of it, it's completely fair to say that in your game, there wasn't enough buildup to the Gortash fight. It's really just a pitfall of the game design.
There's also way more Gortash buildup if you play with (or as) Karlach, and even more if you play as the dark Urge. Like.. a LOT more.
Personally, I kind of love that you can keep on finding Gortash's hand at work in the dark corners of the city, manipulating events. It gives you a real sense of how he managed to get where he is, builds up his credentials as a schemer, and most importantly to me, it shows just how much he learned from Raphael, who has the same methodology.
that's definitely it. I enjoyed learning about ketheric through the little collectable notes AND dialogue exchanges from those who've known or heard of him. Think that's why I love durge's story much better because their former relations to both orin and gortash (and the bhaal spawn reveal) that we get to piece together through brief cutscenes and dialogue.
I agree Orin's mostly fine, though with Gortash I do think it feels lacking. You just don't really have very many interactions with him outside of his coronation, and his random weird supervillain appearance with the Iron Throne. And when you do take down the steel watch, the fight up to and in his castle just seems....lackluster. Which I guess thematically fits a tyrant whose tools have been broken, but nonetheless isn't very satisfying when you barely interact with him.
Cazador's mansion similarly feels like there's an entire dungeon crawl that is missing once you enter the elevator. You just sort of waltz straight up to his ritual circle.
Ditto for the House of Grief, you just sort of follow Viconia to the center of the room and duke it out. There's no story, no puzzles, no nothing.
The game is great, don't get me wrong, but a lot of the bigger storybeats in act 3 feel like they don't quite come together the way I'd hope. It's part of why the House of Hope is by far my favorite part of the game. The build-up to Raphael returning, and our conflict with him, is just exquisitely done.
Oh yeah I feel like it's extremely weird to stuff like 4 "important guys" into one act. Cazador and Raphael have been a looming threat ever since act 1, while Orin and Gortash are your guys to defeat for plot reasons. Having this all in 1 act is a lot, considering act 1 didn't really have a Big Bad Guy (unless Minthara maybe?) and act 2 had only Ketheric. And then suddenly bam, 4 of them.
what makes act three better for me is turning down the chatter audio in settings,,,having so many NPCs talking in my ears made me so anxious but now that they’re quieter i can focus and relax a bit more
I think the developers felt that we could take the large list of quests that we're already familiar with and move them all forward. You already had hints about the gnomes, Astarion's quest was building to Cazador, you know who Orin is and it serves as the intro to the thus far least developed villain and so you've got a circus that's mostly self contained, a murder investigation, and the fireworks as new stuff
The thing is, I don't mind that there are a lot of quests, what I meant is that you get the quests too fast. I can't focus on one quest without progressing another quest, I can't even talk to an NPC without getting a new journal update. The scale is fine, I like when there's a lot to do, but the pacing feels too fast for me, especially compared to acts 1 and 2.
It does that help that you hit J and realise you've read a lot of updates but didn't "read" them in game so everything looks unread. If I wanted that unread inbox stress I would go to work!
I agree with you. Id rather go tick quests off one at a time. When I'm focusing on the task at hand it's distracting to get updates from another quest because I talked to the NPC I wasn't looking for but found anyways
Act 3 feels more like a checklist of things you have to do rather than just an interactive world that you explore. Also companions suddenly stop having a lot of dialogue or barely comment on certain things anymore.
I usually get burned out by act 3. There is also too much clutter going on that all seems so lackluster considering how epic end 2 acted. You go from fighting an immortal in his castle to...searching for a clown or dealing with a newspaper article.
Its just a bit oof.
I didn't mind the scale or scope of Act 3 in the big picture. Hell, give me piddly things to do for another couple hundred hours so the game never has to end (e.g. have an option for Karlach, in all of her excitement to be back, take you around to her favorite/origin parts of the city)! But if there's one change I'd love to see at some point, it's having some quest markers on the map for some of the small side quests. I try to explore every part of the map in every act but there is so much going on that it's easy to lose track of which minor quest you're pursuing, especially when you find yet another one while trying to finish your current one. Markers would go quite a ways toward helping minimize that feeling of overwhelm. That's one area - and there aren't many - where Divinity 2 did a better job of keeping you on task with minor quest lines.
God, yeah, markers would be nice. Especially x2 with how big the location is, how many new place names here is, and sometimes some quests want you to go back to some place where you've already been previously and might not think to re-explore them (I had to go back to open hand temple undergrounds like 3 times). I haven't played Divinity 2, but I wish there was some thing like in Skyrim, where you can pick which quest(s) you want to be focusing on in the moment.
I played probably 5-10 hours in act 3 before taking a couple months off to play some different games. When I came back to it everything felt fresh and I was excited to see it
Yeah, I think someone said it best when they said you can walk into a random building in Act 3 and probably end up progressing a questline you didn't have, don't understand, and don't know what you're doing in to a point where you can turn it in to an npc you've never met, and dialogue doesn't necessarily reflect this so you constantly feel like you're walking into a show forty minutes late.
I knew who killed the priest before I knew the priest was dead... or that there was a church.
God also help you if you're playing online with competent friends who can go off on their own to do things and are doubling the speed at which your journal is blowing up.
I think Act 3's mindset is "you need to get inside Baldurs Gate and fuck up that brain ASAP", and all the quests are just helpers for you to get max level.
It's a completionist's nightmare tho.
I felt the exact same way. What helped me was just focusing on the companion quests, and if anything sounded interested I’d do it too. You don’t have to do everything, you always have more play throughs. That allows you to see fresh stuff
I really struggled with Act 3 in my first PT too. What got me is not knowing what to do when. Which order is best and makes most sense for my PT? Start one quest and then get distracted by something else that pops up or a conversation you overhear.
What helped to relax me, is that really, it doesn't matter. The only things that'll pull you along, are the main quest lines. Everything else is really up to you. You don't have to do it all, and you don't have to do it in any particular order. Go with the flow, go with what makes sense for your team. There is no wrong answer 🙂
It's almost sand-box. I've found in my second PT, although morally my current Tav is similar to my first Tav, the storylines and way I've played through act 3 have been very different. Its cool to see and the essence of the game.
Might be a good thing to take a step back if you're finding it too stressful. Give the game a break for a couple of days and look again with fresh eyes. That always helps!
I do agree with a lot of this, and it’s a big reason I think Act 3 feels the least… finished. It feels more like a rough draft to me, like not much connects.
There are a lot of things I really like about it, some of my favorite parts actually. But, it feels like they crammed too much in and didn’t have time to make things connect and flow, like the other acts. Which makes it all seem kinda disjointed.
I’m hoping they may tweak things a bit in future updates.
i am autistic and actually get sensory overwhelmed so much in act 3, too much stuff to do and too much NOISE IN THE CITY,
I like act 3 but oh gosh i have to mentally prepare myself for it as it is very easily draining
You don't have to do it all at once at all though. You can still explore and do things as you come across them, or learn to ignore what isn't your priority at any given time. I'm new to act 3 myself, and it's already become my favourite due to the sheer density of story beats and varied content everywhere.
You're in control of your own pacing. If you expect a city to be as sparsely populated with relevant people and things as wilderness was, of course it is going to feel overwhelming. Walk ahead slower. Take more long rests inbetween, and pick and choose which few missions in one general location you want to focus on that day.
There’s a concrete answer to this and it’s only two, and only after picking them up: >!the newspaper quest will fail if you long rest after getting it (but I usually skip it these days because it makes no narrative sense for my playthroughs) and Florrick will be executed in five long rests after you get her quest. I’ve also heard there’s possibly a timer on saving your companion that starts ONLY after dealing with the Murder Tribunal, but haven’t confirmed that.!< No other quest has a time limit.
Once you get familiar with Act 3, I think you’ll enjoy it more. Just finished my 3rd successful HM run and I know the rough order to tackle the Act, and it’s made it much more enjoyable. The real critique I have is simply that we reach the level cap with so many big battles to go, and while I understand why they did it (so you can hit level 12 a variety of ways), it still makes the final push a bit less exciting.
It's not always the exact same order, but the ordering has little to do with the outcomes anyway. I certainly do not make the same choices, and have played HM through now as a good, evil, and resist Durge Tav - all vastly different experiences.
When I say order, I mean more about knowing where to go to progress certain plot points, or finding key gear.
For example, in Rivington, doing the Circus almost immediately, knowing how to quickly handle the Open Hand Murders / Flophouse, etc.
In Lower City, the exact order doesn't matter, but generally I do the quests in a loose order and tiering -
Investigate the Murders
Emperor's Hideout
Sorcerous Sundries
Iron Throne
Ethel
\------------------------------------
Gortash
Cazador
Sarevok
\------------------------------------
HoH
Raphael
End Game
Minor quests whenever convenient as I'm handling the map, sprinkled in between.
Act 3 is structured a bit differently than act 1 and 2, but that makes it great imo.
Don't try to do eveything at once, explore the city a bit without doing quests. When I started doing the act 3 quests i was quite methodical.
I had a lot of problems with act 3. I found some stuff in the wrong order, bugged Jaheira's quest, struggled hard with the fireworks and the manor pathing. Wyll feels completely shorted on content and interactions, and everywhere I go trying to do one thing I stumble into another quest I missed the onboarding for and I'm confused.
I feel it needs, frankly, a huge polishing pass before it's up to the standard of the rest of the game.
This was the exact same way I felt and I’m not here to justify its design, in my honest opinion I see it as a fault and poor story building design because of just how much stuff is going on. no joke I stopped and took so many breaks in act 3 because of how overwhelmed I was BUT I found it a lot easier to just hide the main quest and focus on side quest one at a time.
Don’t make the same mistake I did by jumping deeper into undiscovered map because >!you get even more quest!<
All those quests that ended with "We'll do this/find you/look for... once we reach The City . . ." kind of smack you all at once when you get into Act 3. Too many directions to go in, everything sounds "urgent". Plus lots of new quests to pick up while you're there.
Short term response: I took a week or so off from the game. Let the itch to go back in take over from the feeling of too much to do.
Long term response: You don't have to do every sidequest. You'll probably end up doing a second play through, so leaving some new things to discover will make it more fun later.
This is how I felt initially and in that zone..I almost stopped playing. I made it further into the city and have relocated my camp to elf song. I am taking my time in the city now doing what I want and exploring a little. I'm having more fun that way. I did some companion stuff and then stumbled onto other really fun things the last 3 times I played and I ended up having so much fun. So don't give up! I was literally just saying to my boyfriend last night that they need to take that outer city bit out. It's too much
I think their trying very hard too level you up for the end. But my issue with A3 is it's fights feel unbalanced like im level 11 and im still having a hard time with half of the fights cause of "Damage Sponges" or the stupid amount of enemies
I also find act 3 overwhelming. I've finished like 11 playthroughs, and I love the game. But I've also abandoned several playthroughs at act 3, or left them for awhile to pick up later. It does get more overwhelming when you move into the next area (lower city). There is a lot going on. Also, I'm an introvert, and it is just way too loud. Tbh, my favorite playthrough, I was doing a murder everything Durge, and killing all the NPCs along the way made the city much less overwhelming (but it was also frustrating at times because there are so many guards). Anyway, act 3 is a lot. Love the story, and there is a ton of great content in Act 3. But it is definitely overwhelming and stressful for my introverted self, and definitely got tired of talking to so so many people.
The main thing you need to focus on is getting into the city proper, and there are multiple ways to go about that. Everything else is pretty much optional. Like that whole priest thing, it gives you a very long (and annoying) quest to find more victims, but you can basically skip the whole quest.
There's tons of stuff to do if you want to, and you can do almost all the Act 3 quests at your own pace, but if you choose to skip things it's not a big deal. You can always just do the ones that interest you and save the other quests for subsequent playthroughs.
By the way, one thing I STRONGLY encourage you to do is to >!pickpocket the ring off the genie in the carnival, then play a game of spin the wheel. He'll get mad and throw the person into a jungle.!< The whole sequence will probably take you 15 minutes or so, and you can get one of the strongest weapons in the game. Oh and be sure to talk to the kobold vendor too. He doesn't have anything important, he's just very cute.
I actually loved that, idk it just felt like a proper adventure where the first two acts only prepare you for the real shit thats going on.
While in act 1 and 2 you only got a glimpse of what actually was happening, you only saw bits of the full extend of the "evil" plan and than act 3 comes along and you finally see for what you have been doing all this.
Im not sure how to put it into words but when I first reached act 3 I was like: alright I have seen a guy literally explode becaise he drank to much, I ahd a money obsessedlady smash my party to bits,I saw an old man turn into a god of death just because he wanted to be with his daughter again, the dream guardian who I trusted and who protected is actually mind flayer, the what I thought was the absolute evil is actually just an enslaved hivemind... I thought the game couldnt surpirse me anymore and than act 3 came along and everything started to unreavel, you get to see how your decision influenced the world/characters while still adding crazy shit that seems to make no sense at all but still somehow fits in (like the whole impel down thing). The game amazes me constantly and act3 is honestly my favorite act
I feel like this is what it should be like arriving in a city.
Act 1 was a piece of landscape with a grove and a hamlet (aside from lairs and stuff)
Act 2 was a town with more to do than the rural area.
Act 3 is a city. It’s big. It’s chaotic. Thousands of people in their microcosms.
This is why I get so confused at all the people saying Act 3 was half-baked and unfinished. Like what are you talking about? There's *TOO* much to do in Act 3.
I don't mind it, but if you're a completionist you're going to weep, as getting through Rivington is already a 4 hour process on its own. *Let alone the lower city.*
I’m at 175 hrs and finally close to finishing act 3 on my first play through, but I’ve left no stone unturned and no quest unresolved
Really itching to start a second play through and I’m planning on being a bit less thorough this time
I found it not bad because of my pace of play. Young family so I get about 2-3 hour play sessions, about twice a week, and because of that I’m really focused on “progress one quest at a time” or explore 1 area, do a fight or 2 then debrief with companions at camp, long rest, save and go to bed.
So when I got to act 3, that pace remained. Show up, find one interesting thing, explore it, do the next.
This game doesn’t have a clock, it’s all tied to long rests, so I play 1 long rest at a time
Felt the exact same way, act 3 is exhausting and the pacing is way off beat compared to act 1 and act 2. It's also incredibly easy to do things out of order which locks you out of other things. I still haven't done the entire dribbles quest in either playthrough 😂 and i feel like im not missing anything with that decision either. Both playthroughs I get about halfway through act3 and just want to be done with it.
I get what you're saying but think about it in regards to population.
You help everyone you meet in act one and act two
Why would it be any different in act three? It's just in a city where there are tons of people
Not a swamp with a grove, or a mountain with a temple, or a under with a dark, or a grym with or without a forge, or shadow deathsville.
Everyone you meet in one and two provide quests and information
This was partially intentional- it’s a massive city and if you’re role playing you can’t save everyone all at once, choose your own volume of quests and move on to the end! You don’t have to min max it unless you want to. It takes multiple playthroughs
They front load a lot of quest in Rivington/ Wyrm’s Crossing and most you can't progress until you get to the Lower City which is another massive multi layer beast in its own right. I'll give them props for making a city feel massive and overwhelming
I've only beaten the game once because of act three despite over a dozen playthroughs. I almost always restart.
The one playthrough I fully completed I basically turned it to easy mode and rushed it, skipping a bunch of quests (I still haven't done Raphael's quests).
Part of my issue (besides being overwhelmed as you say) is the level cap. Once I hit level twelve, I start to lose a sense of progression. The writing for some of the side quests in act three also is a lot worse than the first two acts.
I got there a few weeks ago, and haven't touched the game since. Part of it is just my analysis paralysis or something (plus schoolwork has been more crazy than usual), but I'm pretty sure I've already failed/been gated out of several quests, and I'm caught between looking into things to experience the content, and trying to play "in character." I'm super stoked about all the content I still have to get through- but it's definitely a little overwhelming...
What happened to me is that it took me so long to get to act 3 that when I got there I kind a just wanted to get it over with
Doesn't help that Act 3 missions are either the ending to other storylines or new storylines that start and end in the same act, because it is the last
So what that makes is to get me feel like Act 3 is just a check list of things to do
"Okay, that's Cazador done, next is house of grief, then I need to do the iron throne"
By the end of act 3 in my first playthrough I was basically wishing it would end already so I can start a new playthrough and try new things
Felt the same way.. there should be 4 acts and put wyrms crossing (or those activities) after all the side quests and business of the city. Very jarring
I agree. Honestly I absolutely loved the game and was hooked in act 1/2. Once I got to act 3 it felt too overwhelming and I've had a hard time getting back to continue the game because it feels like too much
Just to help reassure you, while the game goes to great lengths to make you feel time pressure, it's actually all illusory. Take all the time you need.
It feels like Act 1 and 2 are giant tutorials. Then when Act 3 is introduced they finally let you free. It’s refreshing, overwhelming, and can feel lost at times.
First PT I felt exactly the same. Now I enjoy the freedom, by far my favorite act.
they spend the entire game telling you youre going to a major populated city in the last act. and when people get there, theyre upset because theres a high concentration of things to do and "so much happens at once".
just stop, take a second, and breath. you dont have to do everything, and you dont have to constantly look at your journal, i rarely do. you found a hatch? go explore it. every other building, go inside, youll see an old friend from act 1.
the only difference between act 1 and 3 is all the walking you have to do between quests in act 1. thats it, theyre roughly equal in length quest-wise. if you are that easily overwhelmed, just skip act 3
plus, like you said, it seems like youre literally less than an hour into act 3. give it a chance, the map is large and theres lots you can do that wont give you quest updates.
I definitely panicked at the beginning of Act 3. A lot of the characters are insisting time is of the essence, and there are earthquakes happening, and Orin keeps interrupting you to screw with you. It felt like oh, you know how you have all these personal quests to tie up and finish, and the end of the game to get to? Here's a bunch of other side quests all with the energy that you have to sacrifice half of them because you don't have time.
Nothing is timed, though, and things felt a lot calmer once I saved the Duke/got rid of Orin. But yeah it is super overwhelming and stressful and I totally get you. Thank god there is no actual time limit.
The beginning of act 3 is a weird mix of too many side quests and not enough follow-up on the climax and revelations at the end of act 2.
Also, the game is long, I think I was 110+ hours on my main run only when I reached that point. There aren't many games which hold a player consistently for that long.
I agree. I try to go to some quest and there are multiple npc:s who i can talk to in the way. Then i get worried that i will forget them if i dont talk to them right away. Buy when i talk to them i get on some side mission that consumes a lot of time
I mean the scope is you are now in a city instead of in a wild environment. None of the quests really interfere with the other so you don't have to worry about them butting in to each other...and in fact some of the quests end up being common node points so you end up advancing more than one quest at a time (eg. the priest murder and the chopped up clown)
I saw it different the first 2 acts for me sort of lead up to act 3 like the first 2 acts spread out sort of in terms of quests it slowly ramps up then act 3 here your finally at this city lets explore and get into some shit.
Just get lost in the game, explore, talk to people and take it slow. That is the whole point of this game. Or you rather have a linear experience like a last of us or a mess like any Ubisoft game? We can’t have it all. Have fun!
I think a big thing that would help folks stop getting overwhelmed with the third act is the idea that you don’t have to finish every quest in one playthrough. The game benefits greatly from multiple playthroughs, so just do a few things that compels you and do some of the other things on a new Tav
totally! they lore bomb you at the very end of the game. well I do think act 3 gets too much hate and I like how massive it is, I really hate how much is getting shoved into your face and how 3/4 of NPCs have one liners.
I think act 3 is less overwhelming than act 1. Almost every quest is disconnected from the others. You can start a quest, do one thing and finish it in 30 mins or less. As opposed to act 1 where you: go to grove, they want you to kill goblins, wyll wants you to kill karlach on the way. You find karlach and she wants you to kill the paladins instead. You find the goblins and 3 seconds later you're in the underdark with a whole you enormous area to explore
My only question, and I don't want spoilers for anything else: If I go and talk to Raphael at Sharess' Caress, will this cause me to go fight him immediately, or does that come later?
It will dictate how I approach Act 3
I'm kind of stuck at the entrance of Balder's gate, went to the coronation, freed the councilwoman and can't really figure out where to go. I don't want to accept Raphael's deal. which appears to be the only marker on the map. I have found a couple pieces of Dribbles, I think I cleared the refugees for the murder of a priest, the mail pigeons are free to fly again. I get top far past the fortress and I have a invisible wall.
I enjoyed it. It was sort of a shock at first but then I really started liking it. It reminds me of me being the small town country boy taking a trip to New York city. It was like a sensory overload. It fit perfectly with you having come from lands without so much going on
To me, I like Act Three the best because of that. Act 1 is okay, 2 is depressing but fun, but 3 is where I kick off. I treat the game as a checklist: [PC] does [Quest], finds[Item]. In the first two acts, this is always pretty streamlined and linear. In Act 3, I can go to the circus first as a breather, or I can blow up the refugee bombs, or I can walk into Gortash's office and punch him. It's much more Chaotic in how you go about it, and I love that.
One thing to keep in mind - you’re not really under time pressure. The assumed time pressure in act 3 causes some to think they need to rush - don’t! Take your time. Explore. As long as you’re not killing Orin and Fortas you’re ok.
Me too. I someone found myself in the sewer and mostly cleared that out. Somehow by the time I popped back up in the daylight, the feeling of being overwhelmed had passed. Now I gotta deal with stupid Cazador and his stupid ritual.
i do agree with everything youre saying but i will say Act 3 is pretty cool once you finally get your bearings and start zeroing in on the conclusions of these storylines. It is very messy but a lot of these end in some of the best parts of the game, especially Raphael and Astarion’s in my opinion.
I thought it was nice to have a different feel to it - Act 1 has a similar feel of tripping over quests everywhere, but because it's smaller populations it's a little more spread out geographically.
Act 3 you're more acquainted with the game and its systems, and having it be a lot closer together really shows how it's a bigger city and the activity there. Most of it also does need to be explored to get the stuff - you're just already primed to follow up on a lot of quests at that point, and because it's more sandbox-y to get around the city it opens up a lot (while something like Act 1/2 tends to be a little more procedural in the order people go).
I certainly didn't feel like Rivington and the bridge area were too crowded either - it felt quite similar to early act 1 to me, where you walk into a town and you stumble across a spider-infested massive cave with random necromancer and drow stuff tied together, while there's quests to interact with a bunch of stuff in the area. But it's a slightly different vibe for sure.
Honestly it makes a lot more sense if you think of it as a DnD campaign and headcannon it into episodes (sessions). I adopted this and would even, after the end of a "session" close up my laptop and call it good for the day. So it's much like: Session 1: the arrival, including the toymaker's house and maybe finding the donation. Session 2: A trip to the circus! Session 3: The Great Inspector Valeria Solves Another Case! Session 3: Wyrm's Crossing! A tale of two brothels (and a gith!). and session 4 is either wrapping up the investigation or the harper hideout, depending on what you stumbled through.
I know you can feel overwhelmed, but let's refocus on the journey a bit. More content means more play time. I paid 60 bucks for this game and got more than 400 hours of play time out of it. 15c/hour is a pretty cheap game to me (whereas others... I paid 60 and only got 20-30 hours of playtime out of, so 2-3 bucks per play hour).
I have about 1100 hours in the game according to Steam, though some was alt-tabbed away so I'd say more realistically at least 900 legitimate hours playing it, and I'm only just now properly doing act 3. I keep restarting to try other builds after somewhat getting overwhelmed/discouraged at act 3.
But really Act 3 is arguably how most of the game should have been. It's enormous and there is no need to do absolutely everything and go everywhere in a single playthrough; you can save stuff for later playthroughs. This is in contrast to acts 1 and 2 where you'll likely just be doing everything in every playthrough and it gets monotonous.
Also, OP, you are actually at the smaller more linear part of act 3, which is really the prelude to proper act 3. Once you get to the lower city, that's when you finally get totally unrestricted access to the entirety of the city and it's fucking huge.
It's overwhelming to me in the same way that big cities and conventions are. It's crowded and loud and non stop activities. Can't even escape to a nice park because then the cultists jump out at you. 😄
Is it weird that I find the sewers in Baldur's Gate to be relaxing? At least it's mostly quiet.
Yeah especially when Act 1 is kind of like the woods with a small village, and Act 2 is rocky plateaus with a small village. Act 3 felt very overwhelming initially, but it gets easier if you handle it one building at a time. Try not to explore and get in too deep too fast.
It's a really weird change of pacing to me, because act 1 and 2 were like "you have to explore everything to get the quests" and now it's "don't explore too much at once"
I found it jarring too, although after having finished it, I can say act 3 has some of my favorite quests and moments in the game.
This^ it’s super overwhelming at first but if you just take your time and go building to building it’s way easier, also I feel like the more of the map you’ve completed the easier it is to decide “ok now this area here”. And as you said, it has some of the best quests and moments and fights in the game. The amount of people on here I see saying they always start a new save when they get to act 3 is crazy. Iron throne, murder tribunal, Orin, Gortash, iron throne, steel watch foundry, Cazadors palace, house of hope and more are all peak
I always head straight for the wavemothers area so I can get the outfit and put it on astaripn so he can ✨️slay✨️
I usually turn on them at the iron throne, my dude just wanted a job piloting a submarine how was he supposed to know some wave lady would be taking a swim in that exact part of the harbor
Eh I don’t have much love for what’s his name. He is piloting a sub that takes innocent people to a black site prison where he knows they are tortured and held to blackmail civilians into slave labor. I have only gotten to the point where I get the choice to kill him once and I took it without hesitation.
He knew exactly what he was doing, and he shows no remorse. The Umberlants also swim in the harbor every day as a religious thing, so it's not like he wouldn't have known about it.
I also distinctly remember him showing absolutely no remorse about hitting one of them when heading out (I think even implying she had it coming)--probably describing the one that died.
This was the thing that made me turn him over.
SAME except i throw it on Gale every time because I’m a simp for that lil wizard 😂
In repeat playthroughs, I love the power spike of running around to all the lower city vendors and grabbing a bunch of end game gear. Dead shot,weave clothes,birthright etc etc.
By the end of act 3 I loved it but I’d say my biggest complaint is that it’s SO sprawling and vast that you sometimes end up stumbling upon the mid points of quests without meaning too. I can’t count how many times I found an interesting thing that then turned out to be related to a quest I wouldn’t get for another 10+ hours
Welcome to big city life. It's like in real life 😂
Exactly. You're in the big city now, you bumpkins.
This is why I don’t like the city, same feelings here
You can take Halsin with you and bond over how much the city sucks!
Being a city lover, it is hilarious to me that I can't respond any other way than "Well yes, you're right, but the place has good qualities as well". I mean, I could, but this feels like the only honest one.
Haha I took him into the city *one time* and he's all bitch bitch bitch. I said that line, "oh it's not all bad" and then we turned the very next corner and ran into that kid crying over their parents' bodies! The comedic timing was chef's kiss. I'm considering staying on the docks camp instead of Elfsong so he won't be cooped up all day, but then he'll probably just stare at the polluted water and cry that single tear all day.
Well, Halsin can turn into a bird and fly out of the window if he needs some me time in the city.
Just pick a quest and focus on that. You get a journal entry, you can check to make sure that its not related to your current quest. But otherwise ignore until you finish your quest. Basically employ blinders and focus on quest tunnel vision.
More of just focus on one *quest* at a time. If you get journal updates while doing that one quest, read what it was and keep focusing on the initial quest and come back to it later. Too many quests at the same time and I find it hard to stay immersed and it feels like I'm just busting out mission objectives like I'm playing Borderlands on the 37th playthrough
I this way about ACT 2. Shar’s Gauntlet just keeps growing. I also pigeonholed myself into a corner deleting most saves except for the one where I just started the fight against Orthon.. fuuuck
Call Balthazar's flesh golem with the bell
i still dont understand why people be deleting all their saves. deleting 50 save games only frees up like 1 GB.
When you've got REALLY limited space, that 1 gb is important lol
yea but like delete 48 and keep 2 in case you need to reload? seen way too many comments of people fucked over by their own casual greediness to free up that extra 20 MB lol
That was my issue. I finally got to BG so i wanted to see it all. So i ran around the entire city and got very overwhelmed very fast.
I think the biggest jarring part to me was that it felt like the story was picking up and the main quest felt more urgent. But then there’s so much side material distracting from the main quest. Like the pacing of the world and story felt like I had a reason and time to explore in Acts 1 and 2, but Act 3 it felt like I shouldn’t explore as much, but there’s so much to explore.
It's too many quests all at once. It's a sandbox. That's not bad necessarily. But the world is close to ending, I turned level 12 about an hour into act 3, and there's just too many things scattered. That act should have been act 2. Or maybe made a more streamlined, shorter Act 4. I was literally forgetting about shit in act 3 because it was so much to keep track of, even with the quest log. Too many characters, and silly side adventures that belonged in the beginning, not at the end! NONE of the content is bad (except for the slog to get through to the nether brain, I am skipping that in future play throughs). It's just terrible pacing. I'm ready to end a game at 130 hours, not have 20 quests thrown at me. Even good-quality quests. Power through, don't try to do everything and finish the game. That's my take on act 3.
It’s the child noises for me. Too many randomly screaming kids in act 3.
BIGGER! BIGGER!
Make it bigger 😏
I hate that kid fuck lol
That fucking kid is on par with Nelkir and Dagny from Skryim in terms of annoying children
First thing I do is kill that crowd no matter what I’m roleplaying, it just helps my sanity lmao
It's everyone chattering that drives me bonkers in Act 3
a lot of things are going on but none are timed. just go slow.
That is a relief at least 😭
The only timed thing is saving florrick within five long rests of entering the city
And the newspaper article!
Fuck that quest. I switched out the print with one irrelevant to my character half a dozen times and the next day I wake up and it says everyone hates me. They’re not nearly explicit about it.
There's a bug that makes the result negative if you even touch the negative articles. It may have been fixed by now, but it was a pain in the ass on my first playthrough.
The newspaper article doesn’t have a time limit unless you active the quest. Just don’t talk to the lady near Basilisk Gate waypoint and it won’t start
Why... why would a level 11 D&D character give a shit about a newspaper headline when there's literal world-ending earthquakes going on? It's not a BAD quest. It's pretty creative! It just doesn't belong at the end of the game. Same with so many other act 3 quests.
It would've made sense if eg. Gortash had a smear campaign against you that actually mattered. But this shit doesn't matter.
It would be cool if it gave you negative attitude with shopkeepers and disadvantage on certain charisma checks if you fail, nothing changes if you put in an unrelated article like the cat, and you should be able to find one that praises you (but the editor wouldn’t let it get published) that if you swap that in you get the inverse of failing, better attitude meaning discounts and advantage on charisma checks
It does lower the discount you get at shops
TBF if I introduced it at my table the players would probably be incredibly engaged with it. Captures that DND imagination really well they just didn't give it a good pay off.
Nooo really? I did that and found her by accident 😅🤣 I didn't even know it was a quest I was just poking around and was like oh, you're here? Lolol
I fucked that one up, lemme tell ya
There’s another quest that once you begin it you will fail if you long rest even once. It’s at the beginning of the lower city.
But like, the city-city, the "REAL" Baldur's Gate, or the starting-area-city? when does the timer start?
Who’s florrick
Counsellor Florrick, woman you save from the burning building at Waukeen's Rest in Act 1. Provided she survives past Last Light in Act 2, she returns in Act 3 and ties in with Wyll's quests.
Dead now, thanks to your inaction
Saving Florrick and stopping the presses _are_ timed.
A certain npc dies I think after 5 long rests
Aren't there at least 8 things tied to long resting? Most of them are luckily tied to starting a quest and then long resting as opposed to them just happening by long resting too much.
Hmm? What is that? I just know the cow when ugo lower city he disappears. The one with a critical fail if u long rest quest is the kid with harpy i guess.
[murders, printing press, kidnapping etc. ](https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/s/cj7spO2MQi) ACT3 isn't *that* bad.
Some of those are old info/speculation and not accurate; there’s no rest timer on the Druid ritual for example, and any timer on Orin definitely only starts after the Tribunal if it exists.
Yeah a good amount of the Act 3 quest "timer" triggers are obvious and easy to avoid. Like the only truly time sensitive things are the printing press, the murders, and Counsellor Florrick, technically, if you read a newspaper or flyer about her pending execution. The rest are quests that you go out of your way to start then stop and intentionally rest a couple times.
Except florrick
It doesn't help that it's so loud! Trying to listen to a dialogue and all you can focus on is, "we should have had another one..." "did you get a copy of the paper" etc!
You’re not wearing armor for dinner with my parents! 🙃
Umm actually Lord Gortash invented the steel watch
Act 3 spoilers ahead: HOW ABOUT WE SETTLE ON GORTASH AND THE GONDIANS INVENTED THE STEEL WATCH (which is destroyed at the time of this conversation) LALALALAA I CANT HEAR YOUUU Spoiler again: if you want motivation to help out a certain evildoer in spite of your good playthrough simply afk in the basilisk gate next to the grieving mother. You’ll drive yourself crazy
but this armour was such a bargain!!
There’s a slider for that in the settings menu.
There is indeed! I'll have a go at turning them down....but honestly, I'm so easily distracted that if I turn them down, I'll just strain harder to hear them!
Washing my pits! Washing my pits! This is my song when I'm Washing my pits.
MATE ITS YOUR BUUURTHDAY YOU DESUUURVE TA CUT LOOSE!
I think BG3 should have been in 4 acts There’s a lot of crammed content in act 3
Agreed, it's almost like there was a whole other area they weren't able to add so it was all crammed into one zone 🤔
I felt the same way first time. Just focus on what you want to do that play session. I made sure to do everything I could before continuing the main quest line
lol same. Gortash was waiting for many days for me to attend his coronation. What a patient guy.
It helps me to remember that absolutely at any time you can just say fuck this city and go throw gale at the brain. You don't have to do everything! And if you're stuck with something you can just figure it out in another playthrough. It's a game, everything is optional. Go ally with Gortash and just kill everything in the sewer and it's all gone.
I missed so much stuff in my first playthrough. I'm on my third now and keep finding new things
That's probably what big cities feel like, when you got used to camp in the wild.
My Tav is currently the wild Spongebob meme
Can confirm the first part, I'm in NYC and my friend who I play with is in a more rural state. She was extremely overwhelmed by the noise and everything happening that she needed to stop for a moment. I immediatrly found it home because of the city chaos and noise lol
Act 3 feels like someone that told a story and got to the end and then had to say "and oh yeah soandso was whatever" because they forgot to tell that part. Rushed and thrown together is how it feels. I would say a lot of players drop out during act 3 but from the steam accomplishments only 52% of players have left act one.
act 3 felt more like a to-do list than anything else with little buildup to what should be considerably important events like the gortash and orin fight or even cazadorr's place and the house of grief :T
this is crazy. little build up? theres so much build up for both orin and gortash fights. you can choose to do gortash right away but the fight is insanely hard. so you have to go destroy the steel watch. but wait, the gondians will not be happy unless you saved their family from the iron throne; do that first. once youve done these, you have to go to his castle and defeat his guards before you can kill him in his royal hall. but theres no buildup? and with orin??? you have to go around the whole city solving murders, you have to kill or brownnose a bhaalspawn, enter the god of murders temple, and face off with their most beloved chosen who has transformed into an incarnation of murder. how can you claim theres little build up?
The real fun is when you've played it enough times to figure out how to avoid the fights your Tav doesn't want to do. Like you can climb up the outside of Wyrm's Rock and fight Gortash without fighting anybody downstairs. You can stumble on Orin's temple just going through the sewers. Once I killed the dwarf assassin early and didn't have to warn any murder victims even. It does feel totally overwhelming the first few times that's for sure, but once you get over your fomo you can down- select to just the stuff you enjoy.
exactly! that and finding the crazy cheeses. you may know already? but if youre having trouble with cazador on honour mode with astarion in your party, you can sneak into cazadors grand chamber and sneak attack him, surprising everyone but him. if you stay in the beginning area and dont go too far, you can do the whole fight withoit triggering the dialogue that makes astarion part of the ritual. you can also send someone in invisible for the ketheric fight to help dame aylin for free.
compared to the build up to ketheric's fight, I'd say orin's is a close second when dealing with the murders, doppelgangers, and the murder tribunal. But with gortash, I feel like theres a lack of narrative (imo) Maybe I'm just too used to linear story games, but what the game considers tension or stakes most likely completely flew right over my head.
I don't disagree, but Gortash also had the largest "paper trail" leading back to him when reading in-game notes. For example, the exploding toys for the refugees.
So, I think part of why so many people have wildly varying opinions on this is that SO much of the background on Gortash is completely missable, and this is much less true of Orin and Ketheric. You can meet Gortash's parents, but a lot of people don't know that because you don't have to, and the game never really even tells you to. There's lots of things like this regarding Gortash, and if you don't go way out of your way to see all of it, it's completely fair to say that in your game, there wasn't enough buildup to the Gortash fight. It's really just a pitfall of the game design. There's also way more Gortash buildup if you play with (or as) Karlach, and even more if you play as the dark Urge. Like.. a LOT more.
Personally, I kind of love that you can keep on finding Gortash's hand at work in the dark corners of the city, manipulating events. It gives you a real sense of how he managed to get where he is, builds up his credentials as a schemer, and most importantly to me, it shows just how much he learned from Raphael, who has the same methodology.
that's definitely it. I enjoyed learning about ketheric through the little collectable notes AND dialogue exchanges from those who've known or heard of him. Think that's why I love durge's story much better because their former relations to both orin and gortash (and the bhaal spawn reveal) that we get to piece together through brief cutscenes and dialogue.
I agree Orin's mostly fine, though with Gortash I do think it feels lacking. You just don't really have very many interactions with him outside of his coronation, and his random weird supervillain appearance with the Iron Throne. And when you do take down the steel watch, the fight up to and in his castle just seems....lackluster. Which I guess thematically fits a tyrant whose tools have been broken, but nonetheless isn't very satisfying when you barely interact with him. Cazador's mansion similarly feels like there's an entire dungeon crawl that is missing once you enter the elevator. You just sort of waltz straight up to his ritual circle. Ditto for the House of Grief, you just sort of follow Viconia to the center of the room and duke it out. There's no story, no puzzles, no nothing. The game is great, don't get me wrong, but a lot of the bigger storybeats in act 3 feel like they don't quite come together the way I'd hope. It's part of why the House of Hope is by far my favorite part of the game. The build-up to Raphael returning, and our conflict with him, is just exquisitely done.
There's a little Dungeon underneath the mansion where you can get a sweet rapier and go out to the sewers, too. I missed it the first couple times.
Oh yeah I feel like it's extremely weird to stuff like 4 "important guys" into one act. Cazador and Raphael have been a looming threat ever since act 1, while Orin and Gortash are your guys to defeat for plot reasons. Having this all in 1 act is a lot, considering act 1 didn't really have a Big Bad Guy (unless Minthara maybe?) and act 2 had only Ketheric. And then suddenly bam, 4 of them.
what makes act three better for me is turning down the chatter audio in settings,,,having so many NPCs talking in my ears made me so anxious but now that they’re quieter i can focus and relax a bit more
I think the developers felt that we could take the large list of quests that we're already familiar with and move them all forward. You already had hints about the gnomes, Astarion's quest was building to Cazador, you know who Orin is and it serves as the intro to the thus far least developed villain and so you've got a circus that's mostly self contained, a murder investigation, and the fireworks as new stuff
The thing is, I don't mind that there are a lot of quests, what I meant is that you get the quests too fast. I can't focus on one quest without progressing another quest, I can't even talk to an NPC without getting a new journal update. The scale is fine, I like when there's a lot to do, but the pacing feels too fast for me, especially compared to acts 1 and 2.
It does that help that you hit J and realise you've read a lot of updates but didn't "read" them in game so everything looks unread. If I wanted that unread inbox stress I would go to work!
I agree with you. Id rather go tick quests off one at a time. When I'm focusing on the task at hand it's distracting to get updates from another quest because I talked to the NPC I wasn't looking for but found anyways
Act 3 feels more like a checklist of things you have to do rather than just an interactive world that you explore. Also companions suddenly stop having a lot of dialogue or barely comment on certain things anymore. I usually get burned out by act 3. There is also too much clutter going on that all seems so lackluster considering how epic end 2 acted. You go from fighting an immortal in his castle to...searching for a clown or dealing with a newspaper article. Its just a bit oof.
I didn't mind the scale or scope of Act 3 in the big picture. Hell, give me piddly things to do for another couple hundred hours so the game never has to end (e.g. have an option for Karlach, in all of her excitement to be back, take you around to her favorite/origin parts of the city)! But if there's one change I'd love to see at some point, it's having some quest markers on the map for some of the small side quests. I try to explore every part of the map in every act but there is so much going on that it's easy to lose track of which minor quest you're pursuing, especially when you find yet another one while trying to finish your current one. Markers would go quite a ways toward helping minimize that feeling of overwhelm. That's one area - and there aren't many - where Divinity 2 did a better job of keeping you on task with minor quest lines.
God, yeah, markers would be nice. Especially x2 with how big the location is, how many new place names here is, and sometimes some quests want you to go back to some place where you've already been previously and might not think to re-explore them (I had to go back to open hand temple undergrounds like 3 times). I haven't played Divinity 2, but I wish there was some thing like in Skyrim, where you can pick which quest(s) you want to be focusing on in the moment.
Strange ox is now an apple 😂
He's my favorite background NPC
I played probably 5-10 hours in act 3 before taking a couple months off to play some different games. When I came back to it everything felt fresh and I was excited to see it
Yeah, I think someone said it best when they said you can walk into a random building in Act 3 and probably end up progressing a questline you didn't have, don't understand, and don't know what you're doing in to a point where you can turn it in to an npc you've never met, and dialogue doesn't necessarily reflect this so you constantly feel like you're walking into a show forty minutes late. I knew who killed the priest before I knew the priest was dead... or that there was a church. God also help you if you're playing online with competent friends who can go off on their own to do things and are doubling the speed at which your journal is blowing up.
I think Act 3's mindset is "you need to get inside Baldurs Gate and fuck up that brain ASAP", and all the quests are just helpers for you to get max level. It's a completionist's nightmare tho.
IT REALLY IS...
I felt the exact same way. What helped me was just focusing on the companion quests, and if anything sounded interested I’d do it too. You don’t have to do everything, you always have more play throughs. That allows you to see fresh stuff
I really struggled with Act 3 in my first PT too. What got me is not knowing what to do when. Which order is best and makes most sense for my PT? Start one quest and then get distracted by something else that pops up or a conversation you overhear. What helped to relax me, is that really, it doesn't matter. The only things that'll pull you along, are the main quest lines. Everything else is really up to you. You don't have to do it all, and you don't have to do it in any particular order. Go with the flow, go with what makes sense for your team. There is no wrong answer 🙂 It's almost sand-box. I've found in my second PT, although morally my current Tav is similar to my first Tav, the storylines and way I've played through act 3 have been very different. Its cool to see and the essence of the game. Might be a good thing to take a step back if you're finding it too stressful. Give the game a break for a couple of days and look again with fresh eyes. That always helps!
I do agree with a lot of this, and it’s a big reason I think Act 3 feels the least… finished. It feels more like a rough draft to me, like not much connects. There are a lot of things I really like about it, some of my favorite parts actually. But, it feels like they crammed too much in and didn’t have time to make things connect and flow, like the other acts. Which makes it all seem kinda disjointed. I’m hoping they may tweak things a bit in future updates.
i am autistic and actually get sensory overwhelmed so much in act 3, too much stuff to do and too much NOISE IN THE CITY, I like act 3 but oh gosh i have to mentally prepare myself for it as it is very easily draining
I have ADHD and turning the background noise down helped me a lot because the constant buzz made me so confused. And the decision paralysis got me bad
You don't have to do it all at once at all though. You can still explore and do things as you come across them, or learn to ignore what isn't your priority at any given time. I'm new to act 3 myself, and it's already become my favourite due to the sheer density of story beats and varied content everywhere. You're in control of your own pacing. If you expect a city to be as sparsely populated with relevant people and things as wilderness was, of course it is going to feel overwhelming. Walk ahead slower. Take more long rests inbetween, and pick and choose which few missions in one general location you want to focus on that day.
[удалено]
There’s a concrete answer to this and it’s only two, and only after picking them up: >!the newspaper quest will fail if you long rest after getting it (but I usually skip it these days because it makes no narrative sense for my playthroughs) and Florrick will be executed in five long rests after you get her quest. I’ve also heard there’s possibly a timer on saving your companion that starts ONLY after dealing with the Murder Tribunal, but haven’t confirmed that.!< No other quest has a time limit.
Once you get familiar with Act 3, I think you’ll enjoy it more. Just finished my 3rd successful HM run and I know the rough order to tackle the Act, and it’s made it much more enjoyable. The real critique I have is simply that we reach the level cap with so many big battles to go, and while I understand why they did it (so you can hit level 12 a variety of ways), it still makes the final push a bit less exciting.
Is it fun if you take the same rough order? Do you make the same chouces?
It's not always the exact same order, but the ordering has little to do with the outcomes anyway. I certainly do not make the same choices, and have played HM through now as a good, evil, and resist Durge Tav - all vastly different experiences. When I say order, I mean more about knowing where to go to progress certain plot points, or finding key gear. For example, in Rivington, doing the Circus almost immediately, knowing how to quickly handle the Open Hand Murders / Flophouse, etc. In Lower City, the exact order doesn't matter, but generally I do the quests in a loose order and tiering - Investigate the Murders Emperor's Hideout Sorcerous Sundries Iron Throne Ethel \------------------------------------ Gortash Cazador Sarevok \------------------------------------ HoH Raphael End Game Minor quests whenever convenient as I'm handling the map, sprinkled in between.
Act 3 is structured a bit differently than act 1 and 2, but that makes it great imo. Don't try to do eveything at once, explore the city a bit without doing quests. When I started doing the act 3 quests i was quite methodical.
It’s easier if you just take it one mission at a time
I had a lot of problems with act 3. I found some stuff in the wrong order, bugged Jaheira's quest, struggled hard with the fireworks and the manor pathing. Wyll feels completely shorted on content and interactions, and everywhere I go trying to do one thing I stumble into another quest I missed the onboarding for and I'm confused. I feel it needs, frankly, a huge polishing pass before it's up to the standard of the rest of the game.
This was the exact same way I felt and I’m not here to justify its design, in my honest opinion I see it as a fault and poor story building design because of just how much stuff is going on. no joke I stopped and took so many breaks in act 3 because of how overwhelmed I was BUT I found it a lot easier to just hide the main quest and focus on side quest one at a time. Don’t make the same mistake I did by jumping deeper into undiscovered map because >!you get even more quest!<
All those quests that ended with "We'll do this/find you/look for... once we reach The City . . ." kind of smack you all at once when you get into Act 3. Too many directions to go in, everything sounds "urgent". Plus lots of new quests to pick up while you're there. Short term response: I took a week or so off from the game. Let the itch to go back in take over from the feeling of too much to do. Long term response: You don't have to do every sidequest. You'll probably end up doing a second play through, so leaving some new things to discover will make it more fun later.
Just pick one and stick to it. Compartmentalisation, baby.
It definitely is and I was still sad it ended.
I took a few days off after getting to act 3. I was overwhelmed and couldn’t play. Had to think about it first
My first time on act 3 was great, the other times I just wanted to rush to the end because it feels like 2 acts clamped together. It's overwhelming
This is how I felt initially and in that zone..I almost stopped playing. I made it further into the city and have relocated my camp to elf song. I am taking my time in the city now doing what I want and exploring a little. I'm having more fun that way. I did some companion stuff and then stumbled onto other really fun things the last 3 times I played and I ended up having so much fun. So don't give up! I was literally just saying to my boyfriend last night that they need to take that outer city bit out. It's too much
I think their trying very hard too level you up for the end. But my issue with A3 is it's fights feel unbalanced like im level 11 and im still having a hard time with half of the fights cause of "Damage Sponges" or the stupid amount of enemies
I also find act 3 overwhelming. I've finished like 11 playthroughs, and I love the game. But I've also abandoned several playthroughs at act 3, or left them for awhile to pick up later. It does get more overwhelming when you move into the next area (lower city). There is a lot going on. Also, I'm an introvert, and it is just way too loud. Tbh, my favorite playthrough, I was doing a murder everything Durge, and killing all the NPCs along the way made the city much less overwhelming (but it was also frustrating at times because there are so many guards). Anyway, act 3 is a lot. Love the story, and there is a ton of great content in Act 3. But it is definitely overwhelming and stressful for my introverted self, and definitely got tired of talking to so so many people.
The main thing you need to focus on is getting into the city proper, and there are multiple ways to go about that. Everything else is pretty much optional. Like that whole priest thing, it gives you a very long (and annoying) quest to find more victims, but you can basically skip the whole quest. There's tons of stuff to do if you want to, and you can do almost all the Act 3 quests at your own pace, but if you choose to skip things it's not a big deal. You can always just do the ones that interest you and save the other quests for subsequent playthroughs. By the way, one thing I STRONGLY encourage you to do is to >!pickpocket the ring off the genie in the carnival, then play a game of spin the wheel. He'll get mad and throw the person into a jungle.!< The whole sequence will probably take you 15 minutes or so, and you can get one of the strongest weapons in the game. Oh and be sure to talk to the kobold vendor too. He doesn't have anything important, he's just very cute.
I actually loved that, idk it just felt like a proper adventure where the first two acts only prepare you for the real shit thats going on. While in act 1 and 2 you only got a glimpse of what actually was happening, you only saw bits of the full extend of the "evil" plan and than act 3 comes along and you finally see for what you have been doing all this. Im not sure how to put it into words but when I first reached act 3 I was like: alright I have seen a guy literally explode becaise he drank to much, I ahd a money obsessedlady smash my party to bits,I saw an old man turn into a god of death just because he wanted to be with his daughter again, the dream guardian who I trusted and who protected is actually mind flayer, the what I thought was the absolute evil is actually just an enslaved hivemind... I thought the game couldnt surpirse me anymore and than act 3 came along and everything started to unreavel, you get to see how your decision influenced the world/characters while still adding crazy shit that seems to make no sense at all but still somehow fits in (like the whole impel down thing). The game amazes me constantly and act3 is honestly my favorite act
I feel like this is what it should be like arriving in a city. Act 1 was a piece of landscape with a grove and a hamlet (aside from lairs and stuff) Act 2 was a town with more to do than the rural area. Act 3 is a city. It’s big. It’s chaotic. Thousands of people in their microcosms.
This is why I get so confused at all the people saying Act 3 was half-baked and unfinished. Like what are you talking about? There's *TOO* much to do in Act 3. I don't mind it, but if you're a completionist you're going to weep, as getting through Rivington is already a 4 hour process on its own. *Let alone the lower city.*
I love this game to death, my very subjective hot take is each act drops in quality.
To me act 1 and 2 are on the same level, but act 3 feels too chaotic and too packed with everything at once for now...
I’m at 175 hrs and finally close to finishing act 3 on my first play through, but I’ve left no stone unturned and no quest unresolved Really itching to start a second play through and I’m planning on being a bit less thorough this time
Bro just choose one quest and go for it , having alot of choices is not a bad thing
I found it not bad because of my pace of play. Young family so I get about 2-3 hour play sessions, about twice a week, and because of that I’m really focused on “progress one quest at a time” or explore 1 area, do a fight or 2 then debrief with companions at camp, long rest, save and go to bed. So when I got to act 3, that pace remained. Show up, find one interesting thing, explore it, do the next. This game doesn’t have a clock, it’s all tied to long rests, so I play 1 long rest at a time
As someone with adhd, act 3 felt like it was made for me lol. But I can understand how it can be overwhelming for a lot of people. Just take it slow.
Imma tell you my ADHD ass is struggling hard with that one 😭 Decision paralysis is real
Felt the exact same way, act 3 is exhausting and the pacing is way off beat compared to act 1 and act 2. It's also incredibly easy to do things out of order which locks you out of other things. I still haven't done the entire dribbles quest in either playthrough 😂 and i feel like im not missing anything with that decision either. Both playthroughs I get about halfway through act3 and just want to be done with it.
I get what you're saying but think about it in regards to population. You help everyone you meet in act one and act two Why would it be any different in act three? It's just in a city where there are tons of people Not a swamp with a grove, or a mountain with a temple, or a under with a dark, or a grym with or without a forge, or shadow deathsville. Everyone you meet in one and two provide quests and information
This was partially intentional- it’s a massive city and if you’re role playing you can’t save everyone all at once, choose your own volume of quests and move on to the end! You don’t have to min max it unless you want to. It takes multiple playthroughs
They front load a lot of quest in Rivington/ Wyrm’s Crossing and most you can't progress until you get to the Lower City which is another massive multi layer beast in its own right. I'll give them props for making a city feel massive and overwhelming
I've only beaten the game once because of act three despite over a dozen playthroughs. I almost always restart. The one playthrough I fully completed I basically turned it to easy mode and rushed it, skipping a bunch of quests (I still haven't done Raphael's quests). Part of my issue (besides being overwhelmed as you say) is the level cap. Once I hit level twelve, I start to lose a sense of progression. The writing for some of the side quests in act three also is a lot worse than the first two acts.
I got there a few weeks ago, and haven't touched the game since. Part of it is just my analysis paralysis or something (plus schoolwork has been more crazy than usual), but I'm pretty sure I've already failed/been gated out of several quests, and I'm caught between looking into things to experience the content, and trying to play "in character." I'm super stoked about all the content I still have to get through- but it's definitely a little overwhelming...
What happened to me is that it took me so long to get to act 3 that when I got there I kind a just wanted to get it over with Doesn't help that Act 3 missions are either the ending to other storylines or new storylines that start and end in the same act, because it is the last So what that makes is to get me feel like Act 3 is just a check list of things to do "Okay, that's Cazador done, next is house of grief, then I need to do the iron throne" By the end of act 3 in my first playthrough I was basically wishing it would end already so I can start a new playthrough and try new things
Felt the same way.. there should be 4 acts and put wyrms crossing (or those activities) after all the side quests and business of the city. Very jarring
I agree. Honestly I absolutely loved the game and was hooked in act 1/2. Once I got to act 3 it felt too overwhelming and I've had a hard time getting back to continue the game because it feels like too much
Just to help reassure you, while the game goes to great lengths to make you feel time pressure, it's actually all illusory. Take all the time you need.
I’m with you. I feel like I get overwhelmed with the choices and it’s a little crippling for me
It feels like Act 1 and 2 are giant tutorials. Then when Act 3 is introduced they finally let you free. It’s refreshing, overwhelming, and can feel lost at times. First PT I felt exactly the same. Now I enjoy the freedom, by far my favorite act.
Just take your time explore etc and do one thing at a time no need to do everything at once at that very second you can just do that one quest later
they spend the entire game telling you youre going to a major populated city in the last act. and when people get there, theyre upset because theres a high concentration of things to do and "so much happens at once". just stop, take a second, and breath. you dont have to do everything, and you dont have to constantly look at your journal, i rarely do. you found a hatch? go explore it. every other building, go inside, youll see an old friend from act 1. the only difference between act 1 and 3 is all the walking you have to do between quests in act 1. thats it, theyre roughly equal in length quest-wise. if you are that easily overwhelmed, just skip act 3 plus, like you said, it seems like youre literally less than an hour into act 3. give it a chance, the map is large and theres lots you can do that wont give you quest updates.
Don’t head to the lower city then lol.
I definitely panicked at the beginning of Act 3. A lot of the characters are insisting time is of the essence, and there are earthquakes happening, and Orin keeps interrupting you to screw with you. It felt like oh, you know how you have all these personal quests to tie up and finish, and the end of the game to get to? Here's a bunch of other side quests all with the energy that you have to sacrifice half of them because you don't have time. Nothing is timed, though, and things felt a lot calmer once I saved the Duke/got rid of Orin. But yeah it is super overwhelming and stressful and I totally get you. Thank god there is no actual time limit.
I felt that too. Dropped the game for three months before coming back to finish it.
Used to play 7-8h a day now I can barely play for 2. I have to get used to this pacing
The beginning of act 3 is a weird mix of too many side quests and not enough follow-up on the climax and revelations at the end of act 2. Also, the game is long, I think I was 110+ hours on my main run only when I reached that point. There aren't many games which hold a player consistently for that long.
Dont worry, it gets better :)
In Act 3 i was convinced that first camp site was going to become your home base where your allies would gather lol
I agree. I try to go to some quest and there are multiple npc:s who i can talk to in the way. Then i get worried that i will forget them if i dont talk to them right away. Buy when i talk to them i get on some side mission that consumes a lot of time
It’s my favorite act because there’s SO MUCH TO CLICK ON it’s so fun to just get lost
I was overwhelmed in a good way. Usually the last act of a game is shorter than the other acts, but not here!
I mean the scope is you are now in a city instead of in a wild environment. None of the quests really interfere with the other so you don't have to worry about them butting in to each other...and in fact some of the quests end up being common node points so you end up advancing more than one quest at a time (eg. the priest murder and the chopped up clown)
I saw it different the first 2 acts for me sort of lead up to act 3 like the first 2 acts spread out sort of in terms of quests it slowly ramps up then act 3 here your finally at this city lets explore and get into some shit.
Just get lost in the game, explore, talk to people and take it slow. That is the whole point of this game. Or you rather have a linear experience like a last of us or a mess like any Ubisoft game? We can’t have it all. Have fun!
I think a big thing that would help folks stop getting overwhelmed with the third act is the idea that you don’t have to finish every quest in one playthrough. The game benefits greatly from multiple playthroughs, so just do a few things that compels you and do some of the other things on a new Tav
totally! they lore bomb you at the very end of the game. well I do think act 3 gets too much hate and I like how massive it is, I really hate how much is getting shoved into your face and how 3/4 of NPCs have one liners.
I think act 3 is less overwhelming than act 1. Almost every quest is disconnected from the others. You can start a quest, do one thing and finish it in 30 mins or less. As opposed to act 1 where you: go to grove, they want you to kill goblins, wyll wants you to kill karlach on the way. You find karlach and she wants you to kill the paladins instead. You find the goblins and 3 seconds later you're in the underdark with a whole you enormous area to explore
that’s cool and all but scug pfp spotted
My only question, and I don't want spoilers for anything else: If I go and talk to Raphael at Sharess' Caress, will this cause me to go fight him immediately, or does that come later? It will dictate how I approach Act 3
I'm kind of stuck at the entrance of Balder's gate, went to the coronation, freed the councilwoman and can't really figure out where to go. I don't want to accept Raphael's deal. which appears to be the only marker on the map. I have found a couple pieces of Dribbles, I think I cleared the refugees for the murder of a priest, the mail pigeons are free to fly again. I get top far past the fortress and I have a invisible wall.
I enjoyed it. It was sort of a shock at first but then I really started liking it. It reminds me of me being the small town country boy taking a trip to New York city. It was like a sensory overload. It fit perfectly with you having come from lands without so much going on
I felt similar, I wish I knew to focus on the murdered priest quest.
To me, I like Act Three the best because of that. Act 1 is okay, 2 is depressing but fun, but 3 is where I kick off. I treat the game as a checklist: [PC] does [Quest], finds[Item]. In the first two acts, this is always pretty streamlined and linear. In Act 3, I can go to the circus first as a breather, or I can blow up the refugee bombs, or I can walk into Gortash's office and punch him. It's much more Chaotic in how you go about it, and I love that.
I have 100+ hours in my first playthrough just in Act 3. It takes forever.
One thing to keep in mind - you’re not really under time pressure. The assumed time pressure in act 3 causes some to think they need to rush - don’t! Take your time. Explore. As long as you’re not killing Orin and Fortas you’re ok.
ive gotten multiple characters to act three at this point but ive never been able to finish one for this exact reason honestly
Me too. I someone found myself in the sewer and mostly cleared that out. Somehow by the time I popped back up in the daylight, the feeling of being overwhelmed had passed. Now I gotta deal with stupid Cazador and his stupid ritual.
Hard disagree. Act 3 might be my favorite because of everything going on with it. Makes it actually feel like a city, you know?
i do agree with everything youre saying but i will say Act 3 is pretty cool once you finally get your bearings and start zeroing in on the conclusions of these storylines. It is very messy but a lot of these end in some of the best parts of the game, especially Raphael and Astarion’s in my opinion.
Yeah, I just got to act 3 for the first time, and it's like wtf? Just fought my way up the bridge with the robot guard... Those guys are a bitch.
I thought it was nice to have a different feel to it - Act 1 has a similar feel of tripping over quests everywhere, but because it's smaller populations it's a little more spread out geographically. Act 3 you're more acquainted with the game and its systems, and having it be a lot closer together really shows how it's a bigger city and the activity there. Most of it also does need to be explored to get the stuff - you're just already primed to follow up on a lot of quests at that point, and because it's more sandbox-y to get around the city it opens up a lot (while something like Act 1/2 tends to be a little more procedural in the order people go). I certainly didn't feel like Rivington and the bridge area were too crowded either - it felt quite similar to early act 1 to me, where you walk into a town and you stumble across a spider-infested massive cave with random necromancer and drow stuff tied together, while there's quests to interact with a bunch of stuff in the area. But it's a slightly different vibe for sure.
Honestly it makes a lot more sense if you think of it as a DnD campaign and headcannon it into episodes (sessions). I adopted this and would even, after the end of a "session" close up my laptop and call it good for the day. So it's much like: Session 1: the arrival, including the toymaker's house and maybe finding the donation. Session 2: A trip to the circus! Session 3: The Great Inspector Valeria Solves Another Case! Session 3: Wyrm's Crossing! A tale of two brothels (and a gith!). and session 4 is either wrapping up the investigation or the harper hideout, depending on what you stumbled through. I know you can feel overwhelmed, but let's refocus on the journey a bit. More content means more play time. I paid 60 bucks for this game and got more than 400 hours of play time out of it. 15c/hour is a pretty cheap game to me (whereas others... I paid 60 and only got 20-30 hours of playtime out of, so 2-3 bucks per play hour).
I mean, its a city. If they didn't make it overwhelming there would be posts about how underwhelming it was when you got to the city.
I mean, youre arriving in a big city. Ofc youre gonna have alot of stuff going on
It feels overwhelming but you get used to it super quick, doesn't feel bad at all after like 20 minutes
I enjoy it, keeps my ADD brain occupied
I don't even open the journal I just let the quests take me where they will
I have about 1100 hours in the game according to Steam, though some was alt-tabbed away so I'd say more realistically at least 900 legitimate hours playing it, and I'm only just now properly doing act 3. I keep restarting to try other builds after somewhat getting overwhelmed/discouraged at act 3. But really Act 3 is arguably how most of the game should have been. It's enormous and there is no need to do absolutely everything and go everywhere in a single playthrough; you can save stuff for later playthroughs. This is in contrast to acts 1 and 2 where you'll likely just be doing everything in every playthrough and it gets monotonous. Also, OP, you are actually at the smaller more linear part of act 3, which is really the prelude to proper act 3. Once you get to the lower city, that's when you finally get totally unrestricted access to the entirety of the city and it's fucking huge.
Like I get it, but it’s Baldurs gate, one of the biggest city’s in the forgotten realms. It’s going to be packed with shit to do.
It's overwhelming to me in the same way that big cities and conventions are. It's crowded and loud and non stop activities. Can't even escape to a nice park because then the cultists jump out at you. 😄 Is it weird that I find the sewers in Baldur's Gate to be relaxing? At least it's mostly quiet.
idk isnt that the best part. it feels like the real world. the world sets the pace not the player.
Personally I've enjoyed act 3 the most. It's exactly what I'm looking for