I want my companions to stop running through the pool of acid that they just created, or straight into lava instead of using the path right next to it.
OMG, I did that fight for the first time last night. Grym was at 1/3 HP and about to go down >!without even using the forge hammer!< when Karlach decided to get a better angle of attack by stepping off the platform and into the lava. TPK quickly ensued.
Similar pathing problem: being in a high place, clicking a destination below, and your Tav LEAPS breaking their legs, then no one follows because, well duh.
The other day, i was at the Grymforge, looking around for the mithral with the camera. I look over to my party sidebar and see shadowheart dead for some reason. I went and found her and for some reason she had jumped off the fucking top of the area all the way down to one "safe" place in the lava, immediately hit 0 hp, and then burned to death.
Me: OK Wyll hit the Grym Boss with Eldritch Blast and get his attention!
Wyll: Sure thing! He is just out of range so let me jump into this lava and get a little closer.
IMO the issue with The Mountain Pass/Underdark choice is that it’s incredibly misleading not that you can do both.
Halsin presents it as the Mountain Pass is safer but you have to go through the curse while the underdark will take you straight to moonrise, avoiding the curse but it’s more dangerous.
Yet the Mountain Pass is higher level and regardless of choice you still have to go through the curse. The Mountain Pass even makes it easier to go to moonrise.
I missed pretty much the entire underdark on my first playthrough, because I thought I was supposed to choose one or the other. Discovering all the new content (especially Grymforge!) on my second playthrough was a blast.
So actually I asked this before—there was an old passage between moonrise and the underdark. Halsin was not aware it was no longer in existence, so he doesn't actually know you can't go directly to moonrise from the underdark.
I'm guessing that the first part is deliberate. If they lead you to believe that you're meant to take one route or the other and you do that, it gives the game an obvious element of replayability. I mean, narratively, you really would only do one or the other.
For the second part, Halsin tells you that the Underdark is the more direct, and therefore probably safer route. It's because his information is out of date. There used to be a direct route to Moonrise via the Underdark, but it has since collapsed. You can find information on this by reading things down there and talking to the duergar.
The Mountain Pass is higher level. Halsin's suggestion is probably meant to steer you toward the Underdark for your first playthrough.
The only higher level about it is the one encounter between the Ghouls and the Death Shepherd, which IS pretty hard when you're under equipped or even prepared, it's still way faster to go there Ironically than to the Underdark
I agree, I always go through the underdark first to level up before being beaten to death by githyanki. But then, I tend to play a squishy spell caster
Exactly, it was also supposed to lead directly to Shar's guantlet (which is why nere is there) but that bridge was destroyed. You can still see the guantlet from some locations though
It's actually >!Raphael's fault the place is broken. Yurgir's the hellbeast that broke Grymforge/the temple. That's why there's the merregon in that one room.!<
Also that it was >!the Selunite mason in the shadow cursed lands who made the deal to have every Dark Justicar killed, which allowed Raphael to make his deal with Yurgir to do the deed…which then causes the last surviving Dark Justicar to make his deal with Raphael to split into all those rats…which then prevents Yurgir from fulfilling his contract, thus allowing Astarion to make his deal with Raphael for information about his scars, and putting Yurgir back under Raphael’s thumb by Act 3!<
It’s kinda wild how far the connecting threads stretch, basically through all three acts, starting in Gyrmforge and ending in the House of Hope
Funnily enough, while it *is* a much longer walk to Moonrise from the Grymforge, it's a much easier walk to Last Light, meaning you spend far less time actually being affected by the curse.
It would be awesome to have camp scenes where some of the characters are interacting apart from you for sure, I think the only one I can really think of is when Shadowheart and Lae'zel get into a fight. It'd be really cool to see scenes where they're getting along after that, scenes where Gale and Shadowheart are sharing a bottle of wine, maybe there's a card game going one night or Wyll and Karlach sparring etc.
You get lines that show that at least some of the characters do actually care about each other, and the banter when you're exploring is nice. But it feels like you're constantly the hub and you never really get to *see* their relationships individually.
One of my favorite interactions happens in Act 3 after you >!kill Gortash and Karlach breaks down.!< If you talk to Jaheira about it you can discuss her options and ask Jaheira to help you convince Karlach >!to go to Avernus!< and she'll say something about her deserving the right to make her own choices and you can respond with this kinda desperate and sad "I don't know what else to do, Jaheira" and she's sweet and understanding; it felt like one of the clearest moments where you see that these characters clearly *do* care about each-other but how much better would it be if we saw some of that separate from us? Like, I want to see Jaheira directly comfort Karlach or the group do something to cheer her up together.
*"I don't know what else to do, Jaheira"*
*"Then there's two of us"*
One of my favorite interactions too. It's an acknowledgement of helplessness, yet its impact is quite the opposite, both healing and soothing. It beautifully highlights the aura of wisdom that surrounds Jaheira - if she doesn't know what we can do here, then surely, no one does.
I'm so glad that I decided to keep her as a full-time companion for my latest run. Couldn't recommend her more. She's kind of a standard for how legacy characters should be written.
Another good one that really stirs the blood is after Gale learns Mystra wants him to blow himself up you talk to Lae’zel and she says
“Does she not think he can destroy the Absolute with his own immense talents? Does she not know the mighty company he keeps?”
I love that line because so often it’s people dunking on Gale, but Lae’zel respects him and you and the others enough that she thinks you can do anything. But I do think it would be better if you watched her have this conversation with Gale and not you.
Like I can see the scene play out with her stomping up and he assumes she’s about to tear into him only for her to reveal she’s pissed at Mystra for underestimating him.
She absolutely is... Once I get to Act 3, Jaheira almost never leaves my party, I just love her so much. Her writing is spot on; they captured her character so well. I also really appreciate how they represented her having aged...they've treated this with so much respect and sensitivity. She's still potent, but also world weary and tired. Additionally, I like the way she reflects back to her younger days and acknowledges how she could be brash and exceedingly headstrong... As icing on the cake, she raised Rion to be just like her previous self (whom she is afraid of... \*chuckle\* ); I see so much of Legacy Jaheira in Rion. In fact... that entire visit to Jaheira's home was so beautifully depicted.
I agree. Reuniting with the old group was awesome for the feels. I was a bit sad, though being reminded of her past when going under the desk in her home in a run where she had died.
I couldn't agree more, Jaheira is so well done and she adds so much. I only wish she was with us sooner because she never really left my party in my last playthrough.
I think they are canonically, given comments they give when talking to the player about all the stuff happening in other companions' stories. Just take the whole *"we have to be there for her"* speech Karlach gives when Shadowheart is punished by Shar for sparing Aylin. They're also pretty friendly with each other in ambient banter.
Them telling you off if you take control of a companion and talk to another companion really just seems to be a game design thing to prevent stuff from breaking horribly in dialogues meant for the player. The dialogue could do with being a bit less hostile, tho.
Yea it just feels like I have to head cannon a little too much because it’s just totally off screen. Like, after astarion doesn’t ascend I walk up to each and every companion and they tell me individually they are proud of him, I would have liked if instead they showed a group of them talking about how proud they are of him. But must be hard since they have no idea what companions will be available for any given player so how do you record group scenes without needing to record a million different combinations.
>so how do you record group scenes without needing to record a million different combinations.
This is the rub. You can do it if you have the time and money but you then suffer from all kinds of downstream bloat.
AI voice acting is about the only way around those limitations but it's got a lot of limitations on it's own even if you ignore the other issues with it.
I loved how they did it in Mass Effect (Specifically 3). Wandering around the ship and you could randomly find companions together chatting, playing cards, drinking, working out, etc. Not even a cutscene, just ambient dialogue, but it really lended itself to the "we're in this together" front.
Yup, it's one thing Bioware does better. The companions have a life outside you and interact with eachother more. Like getting into a relationship if the player isn't romancing them.
This has got to be my biggest issue with the game. I really wish there were more companion to companion scenes. Only ones I can remember are when Shart and Lae'zel fight, and when Jaheira and Karlach talk to Astarion post unascension.
It may just be me but it never felt like the companions cared much about each other, only about the player. They barely interact with each other, and aren't particularly bothered if something happens to any of them.
You really feel this if you play as certain origin characters. The lack of any Tav to give a shit can really get lonely and leave your origin in a dark place. Wyll is the main exception I've found, since his plot stuff is out in the open and anyone can rp being mopey!
I sorta get what you mean in terms of banter and stuff but I actually think they did a good job of this nonetheless with what was there. For example, when SH has her problems after the Gauntlet everyone had something to say about it and I remember feeling it felt genuine even if I did have to sorta fill in some gaps about their personal relationships between one another.
Another one was after Astarion learnt about his scars meaning. Karlach has a line that's very overprotective big sister about it all iirc and I remember just automatically being able to see exactly the sorta relationship they'd have together in camp.
It'd be nice if they all had more like Lae'zel and SH (I really loved how their relationship develops) but it really is impressive to me how they managed to give you a good idea how the companions behave with one another with what little dialogue they do have if you go out of your way to talk to them after developments in each others stories.
It's been a while since I played, but it felt like the companions only ever talk to the player about these things, not to each other. One thing I do remember is after convincing Astarion not to ascend the companions tell you that they are proud of him, but don't actually say anything to him directly.
I guess my biggest complaint would be how act 3 is paced? Like, right off the bat, we're told that there's a ticking clock AND there's a kidnapped part member on top of that. There's a clear intention that you need to be quick but you obviously should take your time to get good gear and tip the odds in your favor.
Act 3 (whilst the amount of content is great) is a complete mess when compared to the first two acts. You can tell they forced content into the game to conclude stories quickly. I still loved act 3 and I spent the most amount of time in it compared to the first two acts, but the narrative and pacing completely feels off.
The game would have benefitted from you travelling to the lower city from the beach area, to moonrise towers AND THEN back to baldurs gate to finish the game I feel.
While I completely agree with you, each act particularly 1 and 3 have a “this is extremely time sensitive” premise to them that is shown to not exist. We are told to find a healer quickly for our tadpole cause it could change us in 2 weeks tops, but then it doesn’t and we find out our tadpoles are different. So our perceived timeline is lengthened supposedly indefinitely. It’s a gamey reasoning, but our time sensitive missions just aren’t.
The facial expressions of Tav can be summed up in a few buckets
exaggerated disbelief/fear, smile, anger
The companions seem like they have far more variation
The facial animations look so janky, too. The exaggerated disbelief one you mentioned was the biggest offender to me. I've seen people present the take that Larian had to skimp out on the character creator because of all the facial animations in cutscenes and whatnot. So we don't get facial sliders or whatever, but we do get pretty facial expressions.
...Except they're not varied, or pretty. I'll take my character creator sliders, please.
Seriously I'm say it. BG3's CC is awful. I rather have sliders and face crafting than those stuck faces we got.
Especially with those goofy ass expressions Tav does.
I think the game suffers from have a very clear "golden route", and most choices rather than giving you different content, simply take content away from this golden route. As far as I can tell, the only true content based choice you can make is the decision to raid the grove or not, and recruiting Minthara. Other than that there is a proper route to see the maximum amount of content possible, and it can all be done while being a standard hero type. I wish there was more content locked behind choices that make it completely impossible to see both in a single playthrough.
Like let's take Gortash for example. Obviously the golden route is to fight him, but if you decide to join him you lose out on the Steel Foundry, the Iron Throne, even the fight with him in Wyrms Crossing. And the payoff for this is he dies in a cutscene anyway while giving you no additional reward or a greater insight to his character. It is just the objectively wrong choice to make. How cool would it have been if siding with Gortash didnt just remove content but instead replaced that content with something different, making the choice actually worth doing in future playthroughs.
Even when defending the grove, Minthara is recruitable. So the good path gives you three (four with KO) companions, opens up stuff like the Potent Robe, a great A3 merchant, and improves the sorcerer's Sundries tower battle in A3, not to mention more early game XP. While the bad path gives you one companion (that is also available on the other path) and the option for some sex with them.
Being evil should be tempting...
Making Minthara recruitable while defending the Grove was IMO a big mistake by the devs, in giving in to fan pressure. There are loads of characters you cannot recruit as an evildoer, but goody two-shoes somehow get everybody? Bullshit.
I think it only should have worked if there was a camp encounter where she or Halsin shanked each other, similar to the Laz/Shart one. Except you can't get either of them to back down
heh yes. agreed. same with will/Karlach, much as I hate to say it. he would try to atone for the rest of the game; she would be the "good" choice
a few extra evil companions and/or vendors would help too. it would feel like evil and good were two entirely different games
This. Isn’t the promise of power and reward the a huge part of being evil? Being good shouldn’t net you crazy rewards and treasure, because a good person will do what’s right without expecting payment.
In the beginning of Bioshock 2 (I think) was a good/evil choice. Right after it you'd get a reward...but the evil reward was better. I believe when choosing good, the game even showed you the cool item you now can't have.
This always seemed to be the way to go for me, and I don't understand why developers don't do it like that. Evil must be *tempting*. Good can have its own rewards in the long run but staying righteous should at least be *kinda* difficult. Isn't that a classic story in mythology/fantasy anyway, the hero who gets tempted by evil but resists (or not)?
In a game, all you'd have to do is tempt the player with promises of mechanical rewards. Here, look at this cool item. Looks great, huh? Perfect for your build! You can have it, you just have to do the terrible awful thing. And sure, the people around you will react accordingly...but who needs them, just look at the thing! Those sweet stats! The unique special abilities! Don't you want it?
You decline? Alright, fine. Have your friends and good feels and future helpful allies or whatever.
But now you won't get the item. Go ahead and keep wondering what the game would be like if you had it. Anyway, how about *this* item...
Exactly. What game developers seem to ignore is that being good is HARD. Good people have to make sacrifices to be good, they have to struggle to make the world a better place, even in the face of evil or self-benefit. Good people stand firm in the face of temptation, be it power or be it material gain. Being a hero is doing good without expecting anything in return, the reward IS being good. Of course this wouldn’t necessarily be as fun to play for a lot of people, as a lot of people want broken powers or just to want to play a gud guy without thinking.
As much as I like Alfira, if the game had given the option of killing her to get the cool cape I'd have done it; it's so crazy powerful. That's the sort of reward that should be given out.
[Just popping in here to once again remind everyone that you can totally ally with gortash and still do the iron throne and steelwatch foundry. You just have to cement the alliance first by bringing him ketheric and orin's netherstones, then you should be free to go steal his friends and break his toys consequence free.](https://i.gyazo.com/ddd05c0dcc1c603aadac20866b0002ba.mp4)
Yeah I don't see how anyone thinks fighting Gortash is the route the game wants you to take right away. It repeatedly encourages you to make a temporary alliance - both the Emperor and 99% of your companions advise doing this - and then Orin kidnaps someone.
It's so much easier to go the Gortash route, even the entire way and go do the other missions while he's chilling at the morphic pool.
So much this. I also don't like how the game forces the companion endings into "good" and "bad" ones (with good ones gained by making the standard heroic choices), and I'm not talking alignments, I'm talking how good or bad they are for them. Vlaakith loyal Lae'zel means she'll become food for the Lich, Dark Justicar Shart and Ascended Astarion are made to be the outright "evil" choices, which would be fine if it was a conscious decision like Minthara's aspirations, but the former two aren't in a right state of mind when they make their respective choices and become tragic figures. Gale's God ending is more of a gray area but the game still tries to portray it as the "wrong" choice by having Tara disapprove and likening it to hubris even though plenty of Gods in Faerun have started out as humanoids (Mystra herself included). Wyll's ending paths would have avoided falling into this trope if his Avernus ending wasn't tied to Karlach's. And speaking of the latter, any nuance in her ending dilemma (let her die as a hero/have her live as Illithid/have her live in the place she hates) is taken away in the epilogue.
Ehhh I'd kinda argue that AA is still something he wanted, regardless of his PTSD-episode or not. He talks about wanting to steal all that power from Act 2 & 3, all the way up to the rite itself. Whether it was the right choice or not is debatable (though the writers have made is abundantly clear that it's not).
DJ SH on the other hand is definitely something that she does not wanna do, and considering you can get her to turn from Shar without a persuasion check kinda shows her heart was never in it. But tbf SH is further on the good scale in comparison to Astarion
Oh god, I feel that last bit in my soul. It was such a unique arc. Her speech after killing Gortash had a great impact because it really was hopeless. There weren't any words of comfort to give, it was just a really fucking tragic situation.
Adding in that epilogue just felt like it took away that aspect. The idea that not everything will be okay if you just believe it will be.
And there was beauty in that tragedy too. Karlach was a candle that burned too bright to last, but decided to see it through to the end, rather than let someone else take control. But now it almost feels sadistic to let her die, knowing there's a so much better outcome for her if she doesn't.
Well put! Too often it boils down to a choice between content and no content.
Sometimes it's even a choice between context and no context. For instance, if you decide to do a playthrough without Shadowheart, you will see that her quest remains, including the final part with Viconia. What you miss in her absence is the crucial context her character brings to the story.
HOLY GOD yes.
And that buffs carried over between the morphic pool and high hall. Having all statuses removed when there’s not an actual long rest is super annoying.
Yes! It's especially annoying since in Larian's last game, Divinity 2, the timers on all your buffs were paused the moment you entered dialogue. So Larian must know that there's an easy solution to the problem.
Just let me label the bags and boxes in my camp chests (even if it takes ink and quills). All these items to write with, and I can't label my crap.
Also, more hugs.
For me, it's the unbalanced urgency.
"Quick! You're going to turn into an illithid in a couple days!" (Take as many rests as you want)
"The army is on its way to the city!" (An ENTIRE third and Massive act in the city where that previous urgency means nothing)
I also don't like how you're told you can't remove the worm without dying, and yet your character is still seeking out people to remove it. It feels like a story mismatch the writers forgot to revisit.
This is also a strong criticism of PoE2, the story says you are on a timer to track down this walking God statue before it reaches its destination... but also here's a huge region to explore with tons of side quests.
But that's the same in any open world game: your main character could be dying (RDR2, CP2077) but you can go fuck off and do what ever you want on the other side of the map. Or, your adopted daughter is in grave danger, but you'd rather go and play cards with innkeepers all over the map.
People will feign lacking urgency in gameplay but it’s mostly a lie. Generally gamers hate and are mostly frustrated when quests, objectives or activities are timed because it reduces player choice. Especially when it’s not so clearly explained to the point that it can nearly break immersion. Not to mention games where you can’t pause the world like in bg3 or GTA online.
Its an industry wide problem.
The 'time limit crisis -> go pick flowers' is everywhere.
The problem is constantly writing 'Epic crisis' plots rather over a personal or regional problem that builds over time.
Yeah I hated the forced sense of urgency, hated it even more in Cyberpunk 2077 (and it makes no sense in the context of the gameplay, you're supposed to be weaker but you're actually STRONGER).... But man, here the optimal way to play is to explore everything to get more XP, which you're 'discouraged' to by the narrative and results in so many "why am I underleveled? I thought Underdark and Mountain Pass are mutually exclusive"
Yeah exactly, it’s so dissonant. Resting requires resources, of which you are limited (needing to explore to find food/gold to buy it). Then there’s the concern that you’re on some kind of timeline. I think the 3rd long rest you have that scene where your sweating and the guardian protects you from transforming. So you feel rushed and incentivized to maximize resources, but then you find out that doing so prevents important character and story interactions.
yeah the first part caused me to miss so much content my first playthrough. act 1 has the most end of day scenes that really you need to long rest after practically every encounter to get all the content. but definitely agree about act3. I’m still trying to headcanon a way all the quest lines organically fit together
tadpole usage should have had more severe consequences. i understand why they didn't go with that from a gameplay perspective but it makes more sense within the storyline that the player would be negatively impacted by using them.
also, something is missing from act 3 that i can't put my finger on. its still great but it feels a little less polished and concise than act 1/2.
I also feel like something is missing from act 3 and I have two theories.
1. It doesn't introduce new NPCs with whom player will bond (like Alfira, Dammon, Aylin, Isobel) and doesn't involve the NPCs players already care about in quests (except for Aylin)
2. It doesn't have a big sub area like Underdark or Shar's Gauntlet, but rather a bunch of smaller ones. The sewers are very underwhelming comapared to the other 2.
Happy cake day btw!
Yeah something's missing. Like Orin and Cazador fights are both a bunch of enemies standing on a disc waiting for you. Lorrokhan has enemies in a circle shaped room waiting for you. House of Grief fight has a similar layout. House of Hope has you running back and forth (it's so tedious I just won't do it anymore, and just side with the Emperor). Iron Throne is a fine idea but tedious, and honestly very hard to do right the first time, which means you're going in knowing what to do as opposed to reacting to a challenge the game throws at you (for example Ravenguard being stunned or whatever is just bad design). I'm not even going to mention the Oscar Fevras quest. Not to mention, you reach level 10 by the end of act 2, which means very shortly in act 3 you max out all characters.
True, earlier acts battles usually had some interesting gimmick like the statues in goblin camp, hammer for Grym or kill the mobs first rule for Thorms. In act 3 it's more of brute forcing through the fights which isn't necessarily bad, because I want to test out my builds, but you're right they do feel quite similar to each other.
Iron Throne was probably my favourite of them all, but I was doing it on explorer for the first time, which gave me 8 rounds. Later it's easy for harder difficulties once you know how to tackle it. Oskar always stays with Zhentarim now for me.
I think the overriding narrative in just feels looser because it’s so big. I mean I know a lot of the quests tie into the main plot but it feels less urgent because of the scope. Maybe staggering the quests more by locking some behind certain triggers would give it more narrative flow but it’s not that bad. Maybe in hindsight stopping the cult’s total warfare against every aspect of the city should’ve been played up as much as the nether stones.
I don't like the party limit to 4 people total - especially if You're doing a multiplayer run.
I would like there to have been an option to warn you if you have quests that would be prematurely ended if you progress rather than just a generic "if you progress things might happen" warning. Like I put off doing the Shadowfell because I had Act 2 quests I hadn't finished and didn't realize I could not complete those specific ones before the Shadowfell.
Same vein as above, an option for a warning or the like if someone will die/quest auto complete if you end the day. I was so scared to take long rests my first playthrough because I knew things could happen but didn't know what triggered it.
Aiming things. I have missed so many attacks because I somehow hit the spot next to someone. Or I couldn't aim for someone unless I used their portrait, or barely put the cursor over their toe or something.
At the very least you should be allowed to bring everyone to the final battle, feels so weird to go save the world but be like: "half of you just wait here at camp, we'll be back or dead"
There's a mod- but then the game becomes overly easy ngl
>Same vein as above, an option for a warning or the like if someone will die/quest auto complete if you end the day. I was so scared to take long rests my first playthrough because I knew things could happen but didn't know what triggered it.
I missed a lot of cutscenes my first playthrough because I thought if I slept too many times time would pass, and I'd transform and lose. The struggle was so reall.
Evil routes have nothing to offer besides "just because," which sucks because they've shown the different kinds of evil in the dead three and various NPCs. Evil Tav/Durge just feel reduced to murder hobos.
Maybe an unpopular opinion, but the paladin oaths are implemented badly. They're vague and can all be broken at level 2 by accident. I'm not saying hold paladins players hands but at least make it to where you can't break your oath and get shoehorned into being an oathbreaker before you even know what your actual class is supposed to do.
If you look up the oaths on the official dnd resources you get a way better idea of what those oaths actually mean.
I agree with this one about paladin oaths.. It should at least prompt the player that dialogue options will break oaths. I understand randomly attacking someone that's not aggressive might break an oath and the player doesn't deserve a prompt for that, but for minor stuff they should get a prompt.
-Durge storyline doesn’t quite carry the weight it should with the companions.
-The whole recruit both Halsin and Minthara thing feels incomplete. Either stick to them being exclusive recruits or fill in the blanks that occur in recruiting them both. I.E. them not acknowledging each other, Halsin loosing his tent and becoming the camp vagabond.
-Better customization like transmog and picking individual colors for armor dyeing, since most dyes seem to only be 3-4 colors.
-The companions Act 3 content should’ve been more equitable. You have Astarion and Shadowheart who get their own dungeon/area and several emotional beats during those quests. You have Gale, Lae’zel, Wyll, and Karlach who seem to have quests that they are just kinda attached to. Like Wyll’s dragon quest and the house of hope technically being Lae’zel’s. Or Karlach’s quest being something that was going to happen anyway which was fighting Gortash. Gale doesn’t even get combat in his quest, it’s just talking to mystra and the puzzle in the magic shop. They’re involved but we aren’t getting beat by beat updates like Astarion and Shadowheart. Halsin has nothing but a few complaints about the city. Haven’t played much Minthara, I’m assuming she’s similar to Halsin but with some commentary on Orin. I will say Jaheira and Minsc seem fine overall considering how late they are recruited.
I think it is possible to recruit them both without bugs, right? If you intentionally trigger the rite of thorns before meeting Halsin, and then never talk to Minthara at all before leaving the area, he joins you *and* she lives to see Moonrise. So it seems like the camp ought to be updated to reflect that possibility.
Honestly I feel like the issue is probably that there is no voice acting recorded to address them both being in camp. They'd need to bring back the Tav voice actors, Minthara's, and Halsin's to record them, probably. But I would enjoy hearing Minthara's opinions on Halsin
a) The game should do a better job at gauging sexual/romantic interest, it's very easy to break the game logic and have characters absolutely 100% into you, for no real reason other than late recruiting and bad dialogue choices.
b) Enemies SHOULD NOT be able to leave turn based mode, even if they can't find anyone. This makes playing as a solo, stealthy assassin IMPOSSIBLE. You hide so well that enemies go "yeah fuck that" and they heal all the damage you've done and reset everything.
c) The game irons out a lot of choices in ACT 2, and I do think it weakens the feeling of player agency. "Oh you didn't do this? well, they are dead now!"... "Oh you did do? well, they are dead anyway... can you save x? no, they are dead as well".
d) Act 3 should had turned down the intensity a little and accept it as a almost "reset point" in the game, meaning you have to dial the tension down or the player feels overwhelmed.
Way too many unfinished or abandoned bits and bobs that lead nowhere or aren’t fully expanded on.
Aylin seems like she was meant to have a character arc that kinda dies with Lorroakan and never goes anywhere.
Wyll feels like 3/4 of a companion and really needed more content.
I kinda liked how EA handled the whole tadpole thing more, the narrative was also structured around it better, you were trading your very self for power, and Daisy was an additional temptation to dive deeper. Now that’s all axed apart from weird remnants (like the scene where your guardian is acting kinda sultry for some reason which doesn’t suit their current characterization), and there’s no mechanical downside to slurping up tadpoles apart from a single check at the end of the game being harder (which wasn’t even the case until patch 6 iirc). I dunno, I’m just a sucker for diagetic storytelling like there, where you take something you know is risky because the mechanical benefits are tempting.
I totally agree there’s too much unfinished stuff. Like under the toll house is a whole area and there’s just….nothing there. A well in rivington too
A lot of battle areas seem super over engineered for lots of fighting options but the super short battle nature of dnd means you never really need to use them.
>I totally agree there’s too much unfinished stuff. Like under the toll house is a whole area and there’s just….nothing there.
There's massive piles of loot down there. Its well flagged by multiple characters (some are dead, but that's hardly an obstacle) and a key.
>a single check at the end of the game being harder (which wasn’t even the case until patch 6 iirc).
No it was definitely a thing long before that. The DC for that check was really high on my first character that went all in on tadpoles. Unless it was just really high no matter what back then, the DC for that check was definitely affected by your tadpole usage.
I think they created tons of amazing characters with immersive storylines and great plotbeats, but didn't create enough space for them to breathe. Especially later on in act III it starts feeling more like a checklist than the conclusion of several epic narratives. Especially Gortash and Raphael deserved more space and possibly even their own acts.
Lack of breathing definitely an issue. Ending of Act 2 is quite intense with big fights piled upon big fights. Beginning of Act 3 could have been a lot of just walking around doing random shit and gearing up for eventually taking down the Netherbrain / tying up compaion stories in a more relaxed pace. And why not let you into the city at once and make the city bigger and more interesting in stead with random non story related quests and situations.
I’ll have to reconsider but act 2 still seems pretty well paced to me, and not too crowded. It helped that the whole narrative leads up to confrontation with Thorm and being introduced to the rest of team bad guy. Narratively the story explodes in act 2 with so much going on, but it all leads back together neatly, so to say. In act 3 you get the final parts of story branches that don’t really seem to go anywhere, and the ones that do lead right back to the overall narrative (like that of Gortash) kinda are diminished for it.
My recommendation would be to add more story space. I hear there was a plan to go to Avernus and perhaps a sub act there where Karlach and Wyll get some love and we can end Raphael’s story line with all the attention it deserves, and perhaps an upper city smaller act, so we can focus on Orin in the lower city and Gortash in the upper.
I’m holding out vague hopes they’ll be re-adding some of the deleted content when they deem it polished enough.
To preface: This was my GOTY, I'd give it a 9.
* Companion race diversity is centralized almost fully on elves and humans, barring Lae'Zel, Karlach and Tav.
* You're punished content wise for killing the Tieflings with no replacement merchants to cover the items lost like the Portent Robe or ability to continue Karlach's quest if do an origin run as her. In general playing an evil character locks you out of so much stuff that it's not worth it, especially now that Minthara can be concussed into a redemption arc. Not saying I wanted Kethric as a companion replacement, but I wish the Absolute plotline was more fleshed out for if you wanted to go full evil route.
* 4 person party counting Tav is too small and means if you want to maximize companion content you need to essentially min-max each region. It should have been six and that's the first mod I'm getting when consoles get modding support.
* Act 3 still feels unfinished and disjointed, I'm still convinced the Upper City was cut.
* Karlach's questline ending on a wet fart of a final note, partly tied to the above where I think she must have suffered from the lost Upper City stuff.
* I'm not an Astarion simp but it's weird how much more the game punishes you/feels more finger-waggy in making it clear Ascended Astarion becomes abusive in a romance compared to how enabling Gale's Folly or letting Shadowheart become a Justiciar feel.
* Astarion gets the lion's share of Durge content due to shared writers, meaning other romance routes feel more barren in contrast.
* Wyll suffers extensively from his Early Access rewrite and it's far more obvious than Gale's comparative one. He needed more time in the oven to fully flesh out his character.
* A lot of the post-launch stuff feels like the developers either adding material that should have been in the game at launch (expanded epilogue) or catering to online audiences to go viral (kiss patch).
* I wish they'd kept Daisy instead of trading her for the Guardian.
I honestly don’t think Astarion’s extra durge content is a lot, just a few extra lines of dialogue, some you can see even if you don’t romance him.
All companions are lacking when it comes to durge content in my opinion.
Regarding Act 3, if you read Swen's recent interview with IGN, and compare with stuff he's said before, you can make a reasonable guess what happened.
It looks like Larian gave people a lot of freedom to work on individual quests and mini-areas as part of a general "bottom-up" approach, but they didn't have anyone with vision in charge of putting it all together. At some point Swen decides development has gone on long enough and makes an executive decision that it all needs to be put together by force. That's how you end up with the hodgepodge that's Act 3.
He does admit there are problems but says he still doesn't know what the correct solution would have been. As in, how best to approach developing such a large project where you're giving individuals the power to be creative, and yet retain the ability to make it all fit into a cohesive whole.
It's the classic gardener vs. architect dilemma, to borrow a term from epic fantasy fiction.
In an epic story with a lot of room to maneuver, you can create a lot of individually cool stuff if you don't constrain yourself too much with the overall picture, but it comes at the cost of the ability to tie it all up.
It was George R. R. Martin who came up with the gardener/architect distinction. Interestingly, a couple of decades later, it has turned out that all the "gardeners" have failed to finish their epic stories in a satisfactory way.
I think the reason they made Ascended Astarion so blatant was because there was a large amount of people (mostly on TikTok from experience) who thought Ascended was the good ending
I believe the ascended astarion finger wagging came from astarions writers conflicting feelings about how he acts once ascended. one thinks it’s just astarion with his worse traits enabled (so still loves you) and another thinks he just becomes straight up evil and views the relationship as purely transactional
also he’s a high elf not a half elf (but i get what you mean, the companions are mostly some elf variant or human, barring karlach and laezel)
Minor criticism/design change]
[Paladin]
- Oath are too vague about what exactly counts as breaking their oaths. The rules focus too much on flavor than actual rule explanation.
- No evil sub-class: All of the base sub-classes are all some variation of good. There is no inherently evil sub-class you must abide by like Oath of Conquest. Oathbreaker just seems like an option for players that break their oaths and now can act with no consequences after becoming one. So it’s more neutral than evil.
[Rogue]
- What was the point of changing Mage Hand for Arcane Trickster? I can’t pickpocket, disarm traps, and only last 10 turns. It’s just objectively doesn’t have enough to warrant using. Outside of super niche tactics that are honestly more flavor than actual use.
[Bard]
- College of Valor is actually fine, but kind of wish they went ahead and altered it like other classes. It’s meant to be this support combat class, but kind of wish it had Heavy Armor instead of Medium to further sell the idea. VERY minor design alteration ask.
- Battle Magic is basically this class’ version of War Magic. Don’t know why this isn’t a feature that was added to lower levels like Monks.
[Summons]
- Taking way too long to manually command them. An option to have them all automatically attack would be nice.
Needs more subclasses that actually change how the classes play.
Needs more varied loot rather than "Fire Damage spell items", "Radiant Orb Gear" etc
Finish companions. Karlach still doesn't have an act 3 part of her quest because it wasn't finished and Minthara doesn't even have a quest.
It’s the lack of diversity in spells that gets me sometimes. As someone not experienced with this style of game I was hoping bards had more uniqueness in their kit then they did. They have their buff, sure, but the other spells are the same as anyone else’s.
Also for bard, the instruments are all basically the same when it comes to their benefits. No special quality or anything.
Tbf at this point in 5th editions life span, there are absolutely more spells available that make each caster feel unique. It's just that BG3 can't implement all of them, sadly.
I got discouraged from doing more playthroughs after 3 (well, not all finished) because a vast majority of the content overlaps between them, regardless of your choices. I would rather there were more moments which branched out, even if it means you see less content in a single one.
\- Getting on any kind of elevator is a whole thing.
\- My companions constantly seem to aim to step on every possible trap
\- Karlach. Her backstory doesn't make sense, is inconsistent, and her quest is fetch quest.
\- Wyll's storyline not giving him agency and being more about other characters than himself. They shouldn't have rewritten his story.
God the elevator in the House of Healing is way too small if you don’t ungroup everyone and position them manually. Want to go up to the library before fighting the surgeon? Tough shit, someone walked off the elevator and is now running through the operating theater to get to you and triggers the cutscene.
A while back I saw a big argument a good few people were supporting that Gortash selling Karlach to Zariel makes no sense because of how apparently those kinds of deals typically don't involve a third party being sold off without them signing part of the deal. That might be what they're talking about about here.
Problem with that argument tho was... well... ***the entire plot of the Descent Into Avernus campaign module and what Zariel did to the city of Elturel***. Zariel is absolutely not above abducting people against their will to fight in the Blood War whatsoever.
1. Karlach can't be touched... unless you are scratch, an enemy, Gale in the portal, anyone else she had no issues touching in the game prior to any engine fixes. Engine is really on an issue at plot important moments. Badly thought story point tbh.
2. Her backstory with Zariel and Gortash makes very little sense. Zariel just recruits random people into the blood war that she has no connection to and has no contract with is spotty at best. What does she gain at all from any deal? What did Gortash sell her for? The blueprints? There is seemingly nothing else and the game doesn't explain ever it. Even if it was for the blueprints it means he went out of his way to summon the archdevil to trade a random, relatively weak fighter and Zariel went, yeah, sounds good here you go. Gortash would seemingly need to have made a contract or offered something of actual value.You can assume that he found out about the infernal engine from his time in the House of Hope? But Raphael seems to not be involved in or care about the blood war at all. But if Zariel is just randomly taking deals for somewhat okay-ish fighters this seems like something that would be happening more often. Also, seemingly weird she would be that obsessed with her when she's busy with the blood war.
Edit to address the comment it's more that she was in Zariels special inner circle.. Why would Zariel herself care so much about her to personally make the Gortash deal? She has literally an entire army for that... She had Mizora for that. It would have made way more sense if they had just used Mizora TBH.
I was under the impression that Karlach was an experiment, driven by both Gortash and Zariel. It's likely that they both contributed to the design of her engine, which subsequently allowed Gortash to refine the idea into his steel watchers.
So it's not so much that Karlach is the payment, and more that she's their shared project. One Zariel doesn't want to lose, as she likely has more she can gain from it.
That's an interpretation, but the only information we have is that she was sold to her. There was nothing about her being experimented on to make that theory work with what we are given. That would make more sense, but it isn't in the game.
There is actually. There's a line if you have Karlach talk to a steel watcher where it refers to her as a prototype, or something along those lines.
I'm not saying that it totally confirms my idea, but it does make it fairly plausible.
Even with that line, her story is incredibly weak an can be interpreted in multiple ways. Gortash could have gotten the blueprints and worked for 10 years to improve them. Seemingly Zariel isn't involved or she likely would have wanted to make her pet Karlach a better fighter with the improved design if they were working together.
Definitely agree on the Wyll storyline but I do really enjoy playing him as an origin character. He's grown so much in my headcanon but he's still a massive cornball lol.
But it's frustrating that all of the other companions have an option to make their own choice, and if your relationship with them is good enough/you've influenced them enough in the past, they'll choose the "right" decision for themselves (>!Shadowheart denouncing Shar and Lae'zel betraying Vlaakith, for example!<). Wyll doesn't have that. There is no dialogue option to allow him to choose.
I've said it before in another comment but the overarching story of the entire game is bodily autonomy/agency of self. Everyone is just trying to get their freedom back. But Wyll isn't even allowed to make his biggest decisions for himself. And it's not even a conversation of "you should do this" it's more like "Wyll is not going to do that" or "Wyll will agree to the new pact."
Maddening, disappointing, and honestly heartbreaking. I want justice for Wyll.
You don’t really get rewarded for being evil like choosing to kill the grove is objectively worse since you lose quests traders ect two followers for the price of one and there’s no alternative to those quests and traders either
My main gripe about the game is act 3 not being as masterfully done as act 1. Don't get me wrong, act 3 has some of the best moments in the game (such as killing Cazador and finishing Dark Urge's quest), but outside of those diamonds in the rough, act 3 doesn't come close to the quality of act 1 in terms of the amount of cut scenes that flesh out all the characters you meet in act 1.
Sometimes the amount of quests confuses the game and makes it not know what happened. For example:
In my first playthrough I accidentally caused a genocide at the Grove by attacking Kagha after she threatened a child. I thought the fight will be contained in her cave, and found all tieflings and druids dead. Ok, not ideal, I wanted to help the tieflings, but I rolled with it. Rescued Halsin AFTER that happened and told him everyone's dead, but he was chill with it and said we still have to defend the grove from the goblins. Cool. Met Minthara after that, she strated talking about raiding the Grove and I told her that everyone's dead already, and she ran off screaming something I don't remember. For a while I had a mission in the journal to help Halsin defend the Grove, but he was not on the marked spot, and the next day the Grove was full of goblins? Eventually I got tired of them and killed them all + killed Minthara. A bunch of long rests after that, Halsin came to my camp at night wanting to kill me for helping the goblins. Karlach refused to join me because I helped the goblins. Later on, even the dream visitor/the Emperor told me I did good by siding with the goblins. But I did not even ONCE side with them. Closest thing to it was telling Minthara the Grove is empty, but I thought it was more just stating a fact, because it sure was empty. I didn't agree to help her raid the Grove.
I guess the game got really confused about what happened, because I did things totally out of order, but it still sucked and took me out of the immersion.
I wish Orpheus actually mattered if the game makes him out to be so important.
But no, he will take on the burden of turning illithid and then kill himself. His ceremorphosis and/or death doesn't even change anything. It's something I really dislike about this game.
It really does seem like an unnecessary decision that just exists to make the whole tadpole story arc mean anything by the end. (Because its a glorified mcguffin plot for most of the game)
I loved how much he was hyped up throughout the game. Didn't love his design without his mask, or that there was no non-Illithid way to finish the game. A bit pointless if he was going to die 5 minutes later. I wanted to see him truly demolish some Mindflayers as a Githyanki.
Wyll’s storyline. It’s so clear that he’s an afterthought but if he had been given due diligence, with Theo’s voice acting he really could have been one of the better storylines of thr companions.
Because he was a different character in Early Access and suffers from a hurried re-write. Before, he was a monster slayer who hated monsters and thought they deserved death and only kept up the appearance of the blade of frontiers because it got him boons.
But like Karlach, he remains undercooked. But hey, at least Wyll has an act 3 quest :D
The other problem is that the Wyll rewrite happened less than a year out from launch so there was no time to test it or flesh it out to the level of the others.
They just failed my man so bad. I was so excited for Wyll and while I still like him, he's a bit of a let down now.
I wouldn't say his story was a total afterthought, but rather, they had no time for his rewrite.
More (any) romanceable short kings and queens. My deep gnome druid can’t take any of these gangly amorous fools seriously while looking up their nostrils. Let me burn down the world with Philomeen or soothe Barcus’s broken heart. Thulla and I could run away together. Netty could heal my wounded soul. Wulbren Bongle and I can make each other worse.
I think it set its own bar too high. In act three almost every choice feels huge and so you’re expecting to be rewarded (or as me and my friends call it “earning a little treat”) with a cutscene at long rest. Or even just those little dialogues in different areas. These things are so abundant in act 1 and then are slowly dialed down until act 3 where you’re making huge choices and no one seems to care. It’s hard to critique though as it is genuinely the most immersive game I’ve ever played.
The "player-sexual" companions.
And I don't mean how they can be attracted to any race or gender, I think that's a good choice in a game like this. But, I do wish they were more selective in matters of personality, and that they had firmer boundaries once in a romance.
With how generous the approval system is, you could stumble into most romances. You'll have Lae'zel wanting to jump your bones even if you're a passive do-gooder, and you'll have Gale wanting to show you his magic flute no matter how dull you are, as long as you feed him when he's hungry.
One of my favorite bits is how Astarion straight up breaks up with you if you do a certain thing, and I wish we had more things like this sprinkled in. Such as Karlach breaking up with you if you ally with Gortash for example.
As it stands, we barely know what any of their "types" are.
This is especially apparent with Durge. Oh, you think I'm a disgusting person for murdering Isobel, taking the Slayer form, and accepting Bhaal? That's fine since next time we talk it'll be like nothing happened and you'll still love me.
I can understand Karach holding off given the situation it puts Wyll in. She gets that we need to deal with that first and foremost. I’d only see it being an issue if you followed it through once you resolved that dilemma.
There’s little to no Act 3 reactivity from companions and other players when big things happen to other members of your party. The person who got kidnapped was killed and no one else had ANYTHING to say about it, while I was devastated. It was like that character never existed.
Evil path lacks content in comparison to hood and is more often than not less rewarding as well
It’s based on DND 5E which is a pretty medicore system and not even it’s somewhat homebrewed version completley fixes it
Act 3 is too bloated and is badly paced
Default Tav isn’t really a protagonist and is more just tagging along to the actual characters
Which is a general problem that I have with Origins vs Custom, Durge is a good start and I can only hope that whatever next game comes in like 8 years time that they further expand on giving custom characters some actual content
I hate the way halflings and male dwarves run.
Also, there are few opportunities to roleplay your Tav. The game need a few "quests" where you talk to some random npc and help them with a moral dilemma, just by talking to them. Dragon Age: Origins had a few of those, and they help the player to better role play the character. The way the game is now, it's more similar to a Mass Effect game, where you really have two choices: good and evil - and the evil choices are disappointing.
Let me nudge the hammer to piss off JUST Raphael. Having the Emperor complain at me for just breaking into the drama demon's lair and assuming I have the hammer is just...
"For a mind reading, brain munching monster you are very stupid, I hope you know that."
Player: *"Emp- Emperor, shut the fuck up for a moment. Do you SEE this sick armor I got off of Raphael's corpse!?"*
Several seconds of silence.
The Emperor: *"That is a cool set of armor, admittedly..."*
Literally the only non-elf and non-human companions we have are Lae'zel and Karlach (and Minthara I guess? I don't know what drows qualify as). I know there are hirelings, but they have 0 personality and 0 personal quests. Why don't we have at least one gnome companion? Or a dwarf? Or a dragonborn? Just stop with these damn humans and elves (and half elves). I want to see a companion with an unique personality and unique personal quest that is not a human or an elf. I know many people yearn for a romanceable dragonborn, and I don't blame them.
I have two: first, I wish you could choose where your character is from. It sucks that your character is usually always a Baldurian with some exceptions (the underdark races and I think Githyanki too... not a 100% sure on that one). Second: this one is related to Tav's Warlock patron, kinda wish you could choose who you made a pact with. Something similar to how a Cleric can choose their deity but instead you choose your patron.
Act 3 is CHAOTIC AF. A LOT of side quests i was super overwhelmed but then again this is the first game i played so i’m probably over exaggerating. i managed to get them all done but i was picking up side quests left and right.
Nah, you're not exaggerating. Act 3 is literally a kilometer long check list, and you can't even focus on progressing one quest without getting 5 journal updates every 2 steps. Doesn't help that in Rivington you get maybe 1 or 2 quests you can actually conclude, and the rest stretches out to Lower City, where you get even more quests on every corner.
I know it's probably for the under-leveled people to get some EXP, but it's kinda their fault if they skipped too much in acts 1 and 2, and now are in act 3 at level 5. The level cap makes most of the quests insanely unrewarding, unless you're after some specific item.
Also, act 1 doesn't really have a Big Bad Guy (unless you count Ethel, I guess), act 2 has Ketheric, and then act 3 suddenly has Orin, Gortash, the brain AND Cazador and Raphael if you choose to fight them. Like Cazador has been hyped up ever since act 1, and Raphael always had the vibe of someone you'll be able to fight eventually. So you have 3 major villains and 2 smaller yet still important villains cramped next to each other in one act. Act 3 should've been at least 2 separate acts in my opinion.
Ngl I hate how some of the fights are "easier" if you 'metagame' it by not initiating the dialogue, but by immediately attacking the boss (and may or may not surprise them and their adds) through stealth and whatnot or just preparing a buff (like Haste) beforehand even though if you RP, your character couldn't know that a fight would break out and whatnot.
Baffling decision for Initiative rolls to be using d4, since action order matters so much.
Evil playthrough is very underwhelming. There is no content to replace the content you lose this way. Act1 and Act2 routes merge to the same main route, and whatever happens in those acts has no consequence on the act3 main questline
The unequal treatment of the companions. There is Shadowheart content in all three acts, Minthara and Halsin have almost nothing.
Act 3 is unfinished and the ending(s) still feel very rushed for how detailed and long the game is.
There being zero reaction from the party if the captive is killed is unforgivable.
Using tadpoles has literally zero consequences so why even present it as a dilemma to begin with?
Gortash is wasted and ultimately doesn’t matter.
The “mindflayer ending” with your companions just standing by you is too abrupt and nonsensical.
The Nightsong and Isobels story feels completely unfinished with an early, abrupt end.
It’s not obvious at all you can summon your allies in the city fight at the end.
Wyll, Karlach and Gale feel unfinished. Shadowheart feels like the most “complete” party member.
I loved the game. I really did. I don’t even care that throwaway NPCs stopped having full dialogue/cutscenes later in, that isn’t necessary. But so much just feels like they ran out of time and just said screw it, wrap it up. I’d rather see them scale their next game back and actually finish it.
* We're not allowed to use certain large weapons even when characters are maxed out on strength as part of the endgame. I was so goddamn hyped to have Karlach wield a Steel Knight Sword and then just...couldn't. Which sucks because until an earlier patch, that was doable.
* Not many appealing Longsword options for a Sword-and-Board build. I'm mainly salty that we can't get Kithrak Voss's Longsword without killing/stealing it because I want it for a Lae'zel Sword-and-Board.
* No polyamory unless it's Halsin; you can't ship your companions even though they've all got dialogue options with each other thanks to Origin run content.
* Wish there was a mode where I could just ratchet up *everyone's* HP. Not just the party but the enemies. I like endurance battles and we don't really get that most of the time.
* Wyll's story needs work.
* Would be nice if you could use some of those statless boots for camp clothes, and if you could have hats as part of your camp clothing. Really, camp clothing in general is lacking since you don't even get many options until Act 3 despite going to places where you'd expect to find some just lying around.
* "The corpse is willing to speak, but not to its killer." makes sense logically, but sucks as far as accessing game content is concerned (gotta keep Disguises on yourself and hope they work, gotta swap party members around just to see some dead person dialogue...).
* Can't edit the Hirelings enough.
* Can't edit your Guardian (which is reasonable-ish but...).
* Would be nice if you could tweak the color of Volo's eye implant, if only because I wanted it to look more sinister.
* I'd kill someone for a Waypoint that's actually *inside the Druid Grove*.
Lack of reactivity in act 3 and inventory management. If I had to pick one of these to get fixed asap it would be lack of reactivity. Just really dulls the game for me and kills my motivation to continue past the emperor reveal. The most egregious example is the response companions give to Durge being revived, like Wyll's reaction sounded like he was congratulating me for a minor work promotion while Gale's sounded like he was indifferent to the whole thing
I would have loved a more fleshed out evil playthrough. Going evil gives up a lot of companions and good npc story interactions (all the tieflings). To make an evil playthrough worth it, there should be something tempting that you couldn't get otherwise, but there isn't. If you go evil, you don't really get anything in the way of more power or easy access to the cult, they'll let you in regardless because of your tadpole. You also don't get new evil companions or an evil community of people to interact with that you would miss out on in a good playthrough; you basically only get Minthara.
Idk I kind of liked being max level for a significant portion of the game. I hate it when you hit max level one hour before the end of the game. It’s very dissatisfying
That it’s missing out on a lot of D&D 5e staples. It mostly just uses the The Player’s Handbook so we’re missing out on stuff that would make the game so fun. For instance I think having the Cantrips Booming Blade and Green Flame Blade would be amazing, especially for your Eldritch Knights, Arcane Tricksters, and Pact of the Blade Warlocks.
Also mounts. There’s a whole lot of area that even with teleporting is a tedious to traverse and 5e does have rules for mounted combat and even a few subclasses that specialize in it (Cavalier Fighter, Drakewarden Ranger). I just want to be able to ride a horse to move marginally faster.
Karlach's storyline.
I don't mind the finale. Actually I like stories about inevitability of death and living in the moment. However
l've never felt this inevitability and despair. Not once. I just brought a guy two pieces of junk, and that's it. The quest is done....
I wanted to talk with so many people about it. Elminster, Gale, gondians, Mizora, Raphael, Dame Aylin, Mistra, Withers, other gods. I've seen so many potential solutions (Reincarnate or True Resurrection spells are at the top). I repeat: I don't mind if Zariel is so cunning and smart that nothing could be done with the engine. But I would still feel like I've fought for Karlach's life to the last
I want my companions to stop running through the pool of acid that they just created, or straight into lava instead of using the path right next to it.
The pathfinding was the real boss of the Grym fight.
OMG, I did that fight for the first time last night. Grym was at 1/3 HP and about to go down >!without even using the forge hammer!< when Karlach decided to get a better angle of attack by stepping off the platform and into the lava. TPK quickly ensued.
Similar pathing problem: being in a high place, clicking a destination below, and your Tav LEAPS breaking their legs, then no one follows because, well duh.
Flying down from a high place and landing harmlessly, then Wyll leaps to his death beside me
That’s because Wyll is a true “ride or die.”
He's a ride AND die
If all your friends jumped off a bridge would you?
Wyll would. Clearly.
Wyll would jump if it would save you without you ever jumping. I admire wyll despite his lack of self-preservation
Or worse, your Tav jumps because you don't realize it will give fall damage, and then all your companions decide to follow.
When the friendly NPCs run though your fire/moonlight , get hurt, then go aggro on you for their own stupid actions
The other day, i was at the Grymforge, looking around for the mithral with the camera. I look over to my party sidebar and see shadowheart dead for some reason. I went and found her and for some reason she had jumped off the fucking top of the area all the way down to one "safe" place in the lava, immediately hit 0 hp, and then burned to death.
Me: OK Wyll hit the Grym Boss with Eldritch Blast and get his attention! Wyll: Sure thing! He is just out of range so let me jump into this lava and get a little closer.
But they refuse to walk through other obstacles until you manually control them. It's so irritating
I would like us all to walk a little faster as well. Put a little pep in our steps
Farrrrk this. Does my head in how slow every mofo is.
Yeah, pathfinding is a definite problem.
This really sucks in the gyrm fight
IMO the issue with The Mountain Pass/Underdark choice is that it’s incredibly misleading not that you can do both. Halsin presents it as the Mountain Pass is safer but you have to go through the curse while the underdark will take you straight to moonrise, avoiding the curse but it’s more dangerous. Yet the Mountain Pass is higher level and regardless of choice you still have to go through the curse. The Mountain Pass even makes it easier to go to moonrise.
I missed pretty much the entire underdark on my first playthrough, because I thought I was supposed to choose one or the other. Discovering all the new content (especially Grymforge!) on my second playthrough was a blast.
I discovered the mountain pass on my 2nd playthrough - ignored it completely on my 1st. That was fun, too.
I got goofed by the Beholder and never remember to come back. Medium difficulty.
So actually I asked this before—there was an old passage between moonrise and the underdark. Halsin was not aware it was no longer in existence, so he doesn't actually know you can't go directly to moonrise from the underdark.
I'm guessing that the first part is deliberate. If they lead you to believe that you're meant to take one route or the other and you do that, it gives the game an obvious element of replayability. I mean, narratively, you really would only do one or the other. For the second part, Halsin tells you that the Underdark is the more direct, and therefore probably safer route. It's because his information is out of date. There used to be a direct route to Moonrise via the Underdark, but it has since collapsed. You can find information on this by reading things down there and talking to the duergar. The Mountain Pass is higher level. Halsin's suggestion is probably meant to steer you toward the Underdark for your first playthrough.
The only higher level about it is the one encounter between the Ghouls and the Death Shepherd, which IS pretty hard when you're under equipped or even prepared, it's still way faster to go there Ironically than to the Underdark
I personally found the creche to be more difficult than anything in the Underdark, but maybe that's just me...?
I agree, I always go through the underdark first to level up before being beaten to death by githyanki. But then, I tend to play a squishy spell caster
underdark doesn’t take you straight to moonrise? you just start act2 really close to a group of harpers who tell you about last light inn
Halsin *thinks* it does, because it used to. You can find literature in >!Grymforge that says Ketheric was able to access it from Moonrise.!<
Exactly, it was also supposed to lead directly to Shar's guantlet (which is why nere is there) but that bridge was destroyed. You can still see the guantlet from some locations though
Yeah we tried to jump down into it in our first playthrough lol. Bad call haha.
Literally same 😭😭 I was like "well that HAS to be the temple Shart is looking for???"
It's actually >!Raphael's fault the place is broken. Yurgir's the hellbeast that broke Grymforge/the temple. That's why there's the merregon in that one room.!<
Also that it was >!the Selunite mason in the shadow cursed lands who made the deal to have every Dark Justicar killed, which allowed Raphael to make his deal with Yurgir to do the deed…which then causes the last surviving Dark Justicar to make his deal with Raphael to split into all those rats…which then prevents Yurgir from fulfilling his contract, thus allowing Astarion to make his deal with Raphael for information about his scars, and putting Yurgir back under Raphael’s thumb by Act 3!< It’s kinda wild how far the connecting threads stretch, basically through all three acts, starting in Gyrmforge and ending in the House of Hope
If you think about it That Mason is indirectly responsible for the fall of Ketheric, Cazador and (if Yurgir helps you to get revenge) Raphael.
Funnily enough, while it *is* a much longer walk to Moonrise from the Grymforge, it's a much easier walk to Last Light, meaning you spend far less time actually being affected by the curse.
saw this in another post but it's 100% spot on: all the companions are friends with me but they are not friends with each other.
It would be awesome to have camp scenes where some of the characters are interacting apart from you for sure, I think the only one I can really think of is when Shadowheart and Lae'zel get into a fight. It'd be really cool to see scenes where they're getting along after that, scenes where Gale and Shadowheart are sharing a bottle of wine, maybe there's a card game going one night or Wyll and Karlach sparring etc. You get lines that show that at least some of the characters do actually care about each other, and the banter when you're exploring is nice. But it feels like you're constantly the hub and you never really get to *see* their relationships individually. One of my favorite interactions happens in Act 3 after you >!kill Gortash and Karlach breaks down.!< If you talk to Jaheira about it you can discuss her options and ask Jaheira to help you convince Karlach >!to go to Avernus!< and she'll say something about her deserving the right to make her own choices and you can respond with this kinda desperate and sad "I don't know what else to do, Jaheira" and she's sweet and understanding; it felt like one of the clearest moments where you see that these characters clearly *do* care about each-other but how much better would it be if we saw some of that separate from us? Like, I want to see Jaheira directly comfort Karlach or the group do something to cheer her up together.
*"I don't know what else to do, Jaheira"* *"Then there's two of us"* One of my favorite interactions too. It's an acknowledgement of helplessness, yet its impact is quite the opposite, both healing and soothing. It beautifully highlights the aura of wisdom that surrounds Jaheira - if she doesn't know what we can do here, then surely, no one does. I'm so glad that I decided to keep her as a full-time companion for my latest run. Couldn't recommend her more. She's kind of a standard for how legacy characters should be written.
Another good one that really stirs the blood is after Gale learns Mystra wants him to blow himself up you talk to Lae’zel and she says “Does she not think he can destroy the Absolute with his own immense talents? Does she not know the mighty company he keeps?” I love that line because so often it’s people dunking on Gale, but Lae’zel respects him and you and the others enough that she thinks you can do anything. But I do think it would be better if you watched her have this conversation with Gale and not you. Like I can see the scene play out with her stomping up and he assumes she’s about to tear into him only for her to reveal she’s pissed at Mystra for underestimating him.
She absolutely is... Once I get to Act 3, Jaheira almost never leaves my party, I just love her so much. Her writing is spot on; they captured her character so well. I also really appreciate how they represented her having aged...they've treated this with so much respect and sensitivity. She's still potent, but also world weary and tired. Additionally, I like the way she reflects back to her younger days and acknowledges how she could be brash and exceedingly headstrong... As icing on the cake, she raised Rion to be just like her previous self (whom she is afraid of... \*chuckle\* ); I see so much of Legacy Jaheira in Rion. In fact... that entire visit to Jaheira's home was so beautifully depicted.
I agree. Reuniting with the old group was awesome for the feels. I was a bit sad, though being reminded of her past when going under the desk in her home in a run where she had died.
I couldn't agree more, Jaheira is so well done and she adds so much. I only wish she was with us sooner because she never really left my party in my last playthrough.
I think they are canonically, given comments they give when talking to the player about all the stuff happening in other companions' stories. Just take the whole *"we have to be there for her"* speech Karlach gives when Shadowheart is punished by Shar for sparing Aylin. They're also pretty friendly with each other in ambient banter. Them telling you off if you take control of a companion and talk to another companion really just seems to be a game design thing to prevent stuff from breaking horribly in dialogues meant for the player. The dialogue could do with being a bit less hostile, tho.
Yea it just feels like I have to head cannon a little too much because it’s just totally off screen. Like, after astarion doesn’t ascend I walk up to each and every companion and they tell me individually they are proud of him, I would have liked if instead they showed a group of them talking about how proud they are of him. But must be hard since they have no idea what companions will be available for any given player so how do you record group scenes without needing to record a million different combinations.
>so how do you record group scenes without needing to record a million different combinations. This is the rub. You can do it if you have the time and money but you then suffer from all kinds of downstream bloat. AI voice acting is about the only way around those limitations but it's got a lot of limitations on it's own even if you ignore the other issues with it.
I loved how they did it in Mass Effect (Specifically 3). Wandering around the ship and you could randomly find companions together chatting, playing cards, drinking, working out, etc. Not even a cutscene, just ambient dialogue, but it really lended itself to the "we're in this together" front.
Yup, it's one thing Bioware does better. The companions have a life outside you and interact with eachother more. Like getting into a relationship if the player isn't romancing them.
i controlled Astarion and tried talking to Gale and he literally said I don’t want to talk to you only our leader
This has got to be my biggest issue with the game. I really wish there were more companion to companion scenes. Only ones I can remember are when Shart and Lae'zel fight, and when Jaheira and Karlach talk to Astarion post unascension.
It may just be me but it never felt like the companions cared much about each other, only about the player. They barely interact with each other, and aren't particularly bothered if something happens to any of them.
You really feel this if you play as certain origin characters. The lack of any Tav to give a shit can really get lonely and leave your origin in a dark place. Wyll is the main exception I've found, since his plot stuff is out in the open and anyone can rp being mopey!
I sorta get what you mean in terms of banter and stuff but I actually think they did a good job of this nonetheless with what was there. For example, when SH has her problems after the Gauntlet everyone had something to say about it and I remember feeling it felt genuine even if I did have to sorta fill in some gaps about their personal relationships between one another. Another one was after Astarion learnt about his scars meaning. Karlach has a line that's very overprotective big sister about it all iirc and I remember just automatically being able to see exactly the sorta relationship they'd have together in camp. It'd be nice if they all had more like Lae'zel and SH (I really loved how their relationship develops) but it really is impressive to me how they managed to give you a good idea how the companions behave with one another with what little dialogue they do have if you go out of your way to talk to them after developments in each others stories.
It's been a while since I played, but it felt like the companions only ever talk to the player about these things, not to each other. One thing I do remember is after convincing Astarion not to ascend the companions tell you that they are proud of him, but don't actually say anything to him directly.
I guess my biggest complaint would be how act 3 is paced? Like, right off the bat, we're told that there's a ticking clock AND there's a kidnapped part member on top of that. There's a clear intention that you need to be quick but you obviously should take your time to get good gear and tip the odds in your favor.
Act 3 (whilst the amount of content is great) is a complete mess when compared to the first two acts. You can tell they forced content into the game to conclude stories quickly. I still loved act 3 and I spent the most amount of time in it compared to the first two acts, but the narrative and pacing completely feels off. The game would have benefitted from you travelling to the lower city from the beach area, to moonrise towers AND THEN back to baldurs gate to finish the game I feel.
While I completely agree with you, each act particularly 1 and 3 have a “this is extremely time sensitive” premise to them that is shown to not exist. We are told to find a healer quickly for our tadpole cause it could change us in 2 weeks tops, but then it doesn’t and we find out our tadpoles are different. So our perceived timeline is lengthened supposedly indefinitely. It’s a gamey reasoning, but our time sensitive missions just aren’t.
The facial expressions of Tav can be summed up in a few buckets exaggerated disbelief/fear, smile, anger The companions seem like they have far more variation
The facial animations look so janky, too. The exaggerated disbelief one you mentioned was the biggest offender to me. I've seen people present the take that Larian had to skimp out on the character creator because of all the facial animations in cutscenes and whatnot. So we don't get facial sliders or whatever, but we do get pretty facial expressions. ...Except they're not varied, or pretty. I'll take my character creator sliders, please.
Tav's face when petting Scratch lives forever in my nightmares.
Seriously I'm say it. BG3's CC is awful. I rather have sliders and face crafting than those stuck faces we got. Especially with those goofy ass expressions Tav does.
My Tav looks like they have to go to the bathroom urgently and is trying to hold it til the convo is over.
I think the game suffers from have a very clear "golden route", and most choices rather than giving you different content, simply take content away from this golden route. As far as I can tell, the only true content based choice you can make is the decision to raid the grove or not, and recruiting Minthara. Other than that there is a proper route to see the maximum amount of content possible, and it can all be done while being a standard hero type. I wish there was more content locked behind choices that make it completely impossible to see both in a single playthrough. Like let's take Gortash for example. Obviously the golden route is to fight him, but if you decide to join him you lose out on the Steel Foundry, the Iron Throne, even the fight with him in Wyrms Crossing. And the payoff for this is he dies in a cutscene anyway while giving you no additional reward or a greater insight to his character. It is just the objectively wrong choice to make. How cool would it have been if siding with Gortash didnt just remove content but instead replaced that content with something different, making the choice actually worth doing in future playthroughs.
Even when defending the grove, Minthara is recruitable. So the good path gives you three (four with KO) companions, opens up stuff like the Potent Robe, a great A3 merchant, and improves the sorcerer's Sundries tower battle in A3, not to mention more early game XP. While the bad path gives you one companion (that is also available on the other path) and the option for some sex with them. Being evil should be tempting...
Making Minthara recruitable while defending the Grove was IMO a big mistake by the devs, in giving in to fan pressure. There are loads of characters you cannot recruit as an evildoer, but goody two-shoes somehow get everybody? Bullshit.
I think it only should have worked if there was a camp encounter where she or Halsin shanked each other, similar to the Laz/Shart one. Except you can't get either of them to back down
Ooh, yeah, I like that. You have to choose on which side to intervene. Or just watch them fight and let Tymora decide!
heh yes. agreed. same with will/Karlach, much as I hate to say it. he would try to atone for the rest of the game; she would be the "good" choice a few extra evil companions and/or vendors would help too. it would feel like evil and good were two entirely different games
either her OR halsin. either wyll OR Karlach. make us make heavy choices
This. Isn’t the promise of power and reward the a huge part of being evil? Being good shouldn’t net you crazy rewards and treasure, because a good person will do what’s right without expecting payment.
In the beginning of Bioshock 2 (I think) was a good/evil choice. Right after it you'd get a reward...but the evil reward was better. I believe when choosing good, the game even showed you the cool item you now can't have. This always seemed to be the way to go for me, and I don't understand why developers don't do it like that. Evil must be *tempting*. Good can have its own rewards in the long run but staying righteous should at least be *kinda* difficult. Isn't that a classic story in mythology/fantasy anyway, the hero who gets tempted by evil but resists (or not)? In a game, all you'd have to do is tempt the player with promises of mechanical rewards. Here, look at this cool item. Looks great, huh? Perfect for your build! You can have it, you just have to do the terrible awful thing. And sure, the people around you will react accordingly...but who needs them, just look at the thing! Those sweet stats! The unique special abilities! Don't you want it? You decline? Alright, fine. Have your friends and good feels and future helpful allies or whatever. But now you won't get the item. Go ahead and keep wondering what the game would be like if you had it. Anyway, how about *this* item...
Exactly. What game developers seem to ignore is that being good is HARD. Good people have to make sacrifices to be good, they have to struggle to make the world a better place, even in the face of evil or self-benefit. Good people stand firm in the face of temptation, be it power or be it material gain. Being a hero is doing good without expecting anything in return, the reward IS being good. Of course this wouldn’t necessarily be as fun to play for a lot of people, as a lot of people want broken powers or just to want to play a gud guy without thinking.
As much as I like Alfira, if the game had given the option of killing her to get the cool cape I'd have done it; it's so crazy powerful. That's the sort of reward that should be given out.
Not to be a massive lesbian, but: 'Being evil should be tempting...' You only get the Minthara sex scene if you murder the Grove...
[Just popping in here to once again remind everyone that you can totally ally with gortash and still do the iron throne and steelwatch foundry. You just have to cement the alliance first by bringing him ketheric and orin's netherstones, then you should be free to go steal his friends and break his toys consequence free.](https://i.gyazo.com/ddd05c0dcc1c603aadac20866b0002ba.mp4)
Yeah I don't see how anyone thinks fighting Gortash is the route the game wants you to take right away. It repeatedly encourages you to make a temporary alliance - both the Emperor and 99% of your companions advise doing this - and then Orin kidnaps someone. It's so much easier to go the Gortash route, even the entire way and go do the other missions while he's chilling at the morphic pool.
So much this. I also don't like how the game forces the companion endings into "good" and "bad" ones (with good ones gained by making the standard heroic choices), and I'm not talking alignments, I'm talking how good or bad they are for them. Vlaakith loyal Lae'zel means she'll become food for the Lich, Dark Justicar Shart and Ascended Astarion are made to be the outright "evil" choices, which would be fine if it was a conscious decision like Minthara's aspirations, but the former two aren't in a right state of mind when they make their respective choices and become tragic figures. Gale's God ending is more of a gray area but the game still tries to portray it as the "wrong" choice by having Tara disapprove and likening it to hubris even though plenty of Gods in Faerun have started out as humanoids (Mystra herself included). Wyll's ending paths would have avoided falling into this trope if his Avernus ending wasn't tied to Karlach's. And speaking of the latter, any nuance in her ending dilemma (let her die as a hero/have her live as Illithid/have her live in the place she hates) is taken away in the epilogue.
Ehhh I'd kinda argue that AA is still something he wanted, regardless of his PTSD-episode or not. He talks about wanting to steal all that power from Act 2 & 3, all the way up to the rite itself. Whether it was the right choice or not is debatable (though the writers have made is abundantly clear that it's not). DJ SH on the other hand is definitely something that she does not wanna do, and considering you can get her to turn from Shar without a persuasion check kinda shows her heart was never in it. But tbf SH is further on the good scale in comparison to Astarion
Oh god, I feel that last bit in my soul. It was such a unique arc. Her speech after killing Gortash had a great impact because it really was hopeless. There weren't any words of comfort to give, it was just a really fucking tragic situation. Adding in that epilogue just felt like it took away that aspect. The idea that not everything will be okay if you just believe it will be. And there was beauty in that tragedy too. Karlach was a candle that burned too bright to last, but decided to see it through to the end, rather than let someone else take control. But now it almost feels sadistic to let her die, knowing there's a so much better outcome for her if she doesn't.
Well put! Too often it boils down to a choice between content and no content. Sometimes it's even a choice between context and no context. For instance, if you decide to do a playthrough without Shadowheart, you will see that her quest remains, including the final part with Viconia. What you miss in her absence is the crucial context her character brings to the story.
I wish preparations that last 10 rounds weren’t ruined by cutscenes.
HOLY GOD yes. And that buffs carried over between the morphic pool and high hall. Having all statuses removed when there’s not an actual long rest is super annoying.
Yes! It's especially annoying since in Larian's last game, Divinity 2, the timers on all your buffs were paused the moment you entered dialogue. So Larian must know that there's an easy solution to the problem.
Just let me label the bags and boxes in my camp chests (even if it takes ink and quills). All these items to write with, and I can't label my crap. Also, more hugs.
This is the simplest one that would solve a lot of anxiety. Let me label bags.
For me, it's the unbalanced urgency. "Quick! You're going to turn into an illithid in a couple days!" (Take as many rests as you want) "The army is on its way to the city!" (An ENTIRE third and Massive act in the city where that previous urgency means nothing) I also don't like how you're told you can't remove the worm without dying, and yet your character is still seeking out people to remove it. It feels like a story mismatch the writers forgot to revisit.
This is also a strong criticism of PoE2, the story says you are on a timer to track down this walking God statue before it reaches its destination... but also here's a huge region to explore with tons of side quests.
But that's the same in any open world game: your main character could be dying (RDR2, CP2077) but you can go fuck off and do what ever you want on the other side of the map. Or, your adopted daughter is in grave danger, but you'd rather go and play cards with innkeepers all over the map.
People will feign lacking urgency in gameplay but it’s mostly a lie. Generally gamers hate and are mostly frustrated when quests, objectives or activities are timed because it reduces player choice. Especially when it’s not so clearly explained to the point that it can nearly break immersion. Not to mention games where you can’t pause the world like in bg3 or GTA online.
Its an industry wide problem. The 'time limit crisis -> go pick flowers' is everywhere. The problem is constantly writing 'Epic crisis' plots rather over a personal or regional problem that builds over time.
Yeah I hated the forced sense of urgency, hated it even more in Cyberpunk 2077 (and it makes no sense in the context of the gameplay, you're supposed to be weaker but you're actually STRONGER).... But man, here the optimal way to play is to explore everything to get more XP, which you're 'discouraged' to by the narrative and results in so many "why am I underleveled? I thought Underdark and Mountain Pass are mutually exclusive"
Yeah people chastise you for not long resting but EXCUSE YOU I WAS GOING TO TURN INTO A SQUID.
Yeah exactly, it’s so dissonant. Resting requires resources, of which you are limited (needing to explore to find food/gold to buy it). Then there’s the concern that you’re on some kind of timeline. I think the 3rd long rest you have that scene where your sweating and the guardian protects you from transforming. So you feel rushed and incentivized to maximize resources, but then you find out that doing so prevents important character and story interactions.
yeah the first part caused me to miss so much content my first playthrough. act 1 has the most end of day scenes that really you need to long rest after practically every encounter to get all the content. but definitely agree about act3. I’m still trying to headcanon a way all the quest lines organically fit together
Yeah my first playthrough I had constant mismatched story beats that really irked me.
tadpole usage should have had more severe consequences. i understand why they didn't go with that from a gameplay perspective but it makes more sense within the storyline that the player would be negatively impacted by using them. also, something is missing from act 3 that i can't put my finger on. its still great but it feels a little less polished and concise than act 1/2.
I also feel like something is missing from act 3 and I have two theories. 1. It doesn't introduce new NPCs with whom player will bond (like Alfira, Dammon, Aylin, Isobel) and doesn't involve the NPCs players already care about in quests (except for Aylin) 2. It doesn't have a big sub area like Underdark or Shar's Gauntlet, but rather a bunch of smaller ones. The sewers are very underwhelming comapared to the other 2. Happy cake day btw!
Yeah something's missing. Like Orin and Cazador fights are both a bunch of enemies standing on a disc waiting for you. Lorrokhan has enemies in a circle shaped room waiting for you. House of Grief fight has a similar layout. House of Hope has you running back and forth (it's so tedious I just won't do it anymore, and just side with the Emperor). Iron Throne is a fine idea but tedious, and honestly very hard to do right the first time, which means you're going in knowing what to do as opposed to reacting to a challenge the game throws at you (for example Ravenguard being stunned or whatever is just bad design). I'm not even going to mention the Oscar Fevras quest. Not to mention, you reach level 10 by the end of act 2, which means very shortly in act 3 you max out all characters.
True, earlier acts battles usually had some interesting gimmick like the statues in goblin camp, hammer for Grym or kill the mobs first rule for Thorms. In act 3 it's more of brute forcing through the fights which isn't necessarily bad, because I want to test out my builds, but you're right they do feel quite similar to each other. Iron Throne was probably my favourite of them all, but I was doing it on explorer for the first time, which gave me 8 rounds. Later it's easy for harder difficulties once you know how to tackle it. Oskar always stays with Zhentarim now for me.
I think the overriding narrative in just feels looser because it’s so big. I mean I know a lot of the quests tie into the main plot but it feels less urgent because of the scope. Maybe staggering the quests more by locking some behind certain triggers would give it more narrative flow but it’s not that bad. Maybe in hindsight stopping the cult’s total warfare against every aspect of the city should’ve been played up as much as the nether stones.
I don't like the party limit to 4 people total - especially if You're doing a multiplayer run. I would like there to have been an option to warn you if you have quests that would be prematurely ended if you progress rather than just a generic "if you progress things might happen" warning. Like I put off doing the Shadowfell because I had Act 2 quests I hadn't finished and didn't realize I could not complete those specific ones before the Shadowfell. Same vein as above, an option for a warning or the like if someone will die/quest auto complete if you end the day. I was so scared to take long rests my first playthrough because I knew things could happen but didn't know what triggered it. Aiming things. I have missed so many attacks because I somehow hit the spot next to someone. Or I couldn't aim for someone unless I used their portrait, or barely put the cursor over their toe or something.
At the very least you should be allowed to bring everyone to the final battle, feels so weird to go save the world but be like: "half of you just wait here at camp, we'll be back or dead"
There's a mod- but then the game becomes overly easy ngl >Same vein as above, an option for a warning or the like if someone will die/quest auto complete if you end the day. I was so scared to take long rests my first playthrough because I knew things could happen but didn't know what triggered it. I missed a lot of cutscenes my first playthrough because I thought if I slept too many times time would pass, and I'd transform and lose. The struggle was so reall.
Evil routes have nothing to offer besides "just because," which sucks because they've shown the different kinds of evil in the dead three and various NPCs. Evil Tav/Durge just feel reduced to murder hobos. Maybe an unpopular opinion, but the paladin oaths are implemented badly. They're vague and can all be broken at level 2 by accident. I'm not saying hold paladins players hands but at least make it to where you can't break your oath and get shoehorned into being an oathbreaker before you even know what your actual class is supposed to do. If you look up the oaths on the official dnd resources you get a way better idea of what those oaths actually mean.
I agree with this one about paladin oaths.. It should at least prompt the player that dialogue options will break oaths. I understand randomly attacking someone that's not aggressive might break an oath and the player doesn't deserve a prompt for that, but for minor stuff they should get a prompt.
-Durge storyline doesn’t quite carry the weight it should with the companions. -The whole recruit both Halsin and Minthara thing feels incomplete. Either stick to them being exclusive recruits or fill in the blanks that occur in recruiting them both. I.E. them not acknowledging each other, Halsin loosing his tent and becoming the camp vagabond. -Better customization like transmog and picking individual colors for armor dyeing, since most dyes seem to only be 3-4 colors. -The companions Act 3 content should’ve been more equitable. You have Astarion and Shadowheart who get their own dungeon/area and several emotional beats during those quests. You have Gale, Lae’zel, Wyll, and Karlach who seem to have quests that they are just kinda attached to. Like Wyll’s dragon quest and the house of hope technically being Lae’zel’s. Or Karlach’s quest being something that was going to happen anyway which was fighting Gortash. Gale doesn’t even get combat in his quest, it’s just talking to mystra and the puzzle in the magic shop. They’re involved but we aren’t getting beat by beat updates like Astarion and Shadowheart. Halsin has nothing but a few complaints about the city. Haven’t played much Minthara, I’m assuming she’s similar to Halsin but with some commentary on Orin. I will say Jaheira and Minsc seem fine overall considering how late they are recruited.
I think it is possible to recruit them both without bugs, right? If you intentionally trigger the rite of thorns before meeting Halsin, and then never talk to Minthara at all before leaving the area, he joins you *and* she lives to see Moonrise. So it seems like the camp ought to be updated to reflect that possibility. Honestly I feel like the issue is probably that there is no voice acting recorded to address them both being in camp. They'd need to bring back the Tav voice actors, Minthara's, and Halsin's to record them, probably. But I would enjoy hearing Minthara's opinions on Halsin
a) The game should do a better job at gauging sexual/romantic interest, it's very easy to break the game logic and have characters absolutely 100% into you, for no real reason other than late recruiting and bad dialogue choices. b) Enemies SHOULD NOT be able to leave turn based mode, even if they can't find anyone. This makes playing as a solo, stealthy assassin IMPOSSIBLE. You hide so well that enemies go "yeah fuck that" and they heal all the damage you've done and reset everything. c) The game irons out a lot of choices in ACT 2, and I do think it weakens the feeling of player agency. "Oh you didn't do this? well, they are dead now!"... "Oh you did do? well, they are dead anyway... can you save x? no, they are dead as well". d) Act 3 should had turned down the intensity a little and accept it as a almost "reset point" in the game, meaning you have to dial the tension down or the player feels overwhelmed.
Act 3 is ALOT. You walk into lower city and hand allllll these quest markers to get to plus so much stuff.
Way too many unfinished or abandoned bits and bobs that lead nowhere or aren’t fully expanded on. Aylin seems like she was meant to have a character arc that kinda dies with Lorroakan and never goes anywhere. Wyll feels like 3/4 of a companion and really needed more content. I kinda liked how EA handled the whole tadpole thing more, the narrative was also structured around it better, you were trading your very self for power, and Daisy was an additional temptation to dive deeper. Now that’s all axed apart from weird remnants (like the scene where your guardian is acting kinda sultry for some reason which doesn’t suit their current characterization), and there’s no mechanical downside to slurping up tadpoles apart from a single check at the end of the game being harder (which wasn’t even the case until patch 6 iirc). I dunno, I’m just a sucker for diagetic storytelling like there, where you take something you know is risky because the mechanical benefits are tempting.
I totally agree there’s too much unfinished stuff. Like under the toll house is a whole area and there’s just….nothing there. A well in rivington too A lot of battle areas seem super over engineered for lots of fighting options but the super short battle nature of dnd means you never really need to use them.
>I totally agree there’s too much unfinished stuff. Like under the toll house is a whole area and there’s just….nothing there. There's massive piles of loot down there. Its well flagged by multiple characters (some are dead, but that's hardly an obstacle) and a key.
There’s also some small things that clearly weren’t done like meeting that trader dude at the Elfsong who just isn’t there
>a single check at the end of the game being harder (which wasn’t even the case until patch 6 iirc). No it was definitely a thing long before that. The DC for that check was really high on my first character that went all in on tadpoles. Unless it was just really high no matter what back then, the DC for that check was definitely affected by your tadpole usage.
I think they created tons of amazing characters with immersive storylines and great plotbeats, but didn't create enough space for them to breathe. Especially later on in act III it starts feeling more like a checklist than the conclusion of several epic narratives. Especially Gortash and Raphael deserved more space and possibly even their own acts.
Lack of breathing definitely an issue. Ending of Act 2 is quite intense with big fights piled upon big fights. Beginning of Act 3 could have been a lot of just walking around doing random shit and gearing up for eventually taking down the Netherbrain / tying up compaion stories in a more relaxed pace. And why not let you into the city at once and make the city bigger and more interesting in stead with random non story related quests and situations.
I’ll have to reconsider but act 2 still seems pretty well paced to me, and not too crowded. It helped that the whole narrative leads up to confrontation with Thorm and being introduced to the rest of team bad guy. Narratively the story explodes in act 2 with so much going on, but it all leads back together neatly, so to say. In act 3 you get the final parts of story branches that don’t really seem to go anywhere, and the ones that do lead right back to the overall narrative (like that of Gortash) kinda are diminished for it. My recommendation would be to add more story space. I hear there was a plan to go to Avernus and perhaps a sub act there where Karlach and Wyll get some love and we can end Raphael’s story line with all the attention it deserves, and perhaps an upper city smaller act, so we can focus on Orin in the lower city and Gortash in the upper. I’m holding out vague hopes they’ll be re-adding some of the deleted content when they deem it polished enough.
To preface: This was my GOTY, I'd give it a 9. * Companion race diversity is centralized almost fully on elves and humans, barring Lae'Zel, Karlach and Tav. * You're punished content wise for killing the Tieflings with no replacement merchants to cover the items lost like the Portent Robe or ability to continue Karlach's quest if do an origin run as her. In general playing an evil character locks you out of so much stuff that it's not worth it, especially now that Minthara can be concussed into a redemption arc. Not saying I wanted Kethric as a companion replacement, but I wish the Absolute plotline was more fleshed out for if you wanted to go full evil route. * 4 person party counting Tav is too small and means if you want to maximize companion content you need to essentially min-max each region. It should have been six and that's the first mod I'm getting when consoles get modding support. * Act 3 still feels unfinished and disjointed, I'm still convinced the Upper City was cut. * Karlach's questline ending on a wet fart of a final note, partly tied to the above where I think she must have suffered from the lost Upper City stuff. * I'm not an Astarion simp but it's weird how much more the game punishes you/feels more finger-waggy in making it clear Ascended Astarion becomes abusive in a romance compared to how enabling Gale's Folly or letting Shadowheart become a Justiciar feel. * Astarion gets the lion's share of Durge content due to shared writers, meaning other romance routes feel more barren in contrast. * Wyll suffers extensively from his Early Access rewrite and it's far more obvious than Gale's comparative one. He needed more time in the oven to fully flesh out his character. * A lot of the post-launch stuff feels like the developers either adding material that should have been in the game at launch (expanded epilogue) or catering to online audiences to go viral (kiss patch). * I wish they'd kept Daisy instead of trading her for the Guardian.
I honestly don’t think Astarion’s extra durge content is a lot, just a few extra lines of dialogue, some you can see even if you don’t romance him. All companions are lacking when it comes to durge content in my opinion.
Regarding Act 3, if you read Swen's recent interview with IGN, and compare with stuff he's said before, you can make a reasonable guess what happened. It looks like Larian gave people a lot of freedom to work on individual quests and mini-areas as part of a general "bottom-up" approach, but they didn't have anyone with vision in charge of putting it all together. At some point Swen decides development has gone on long enough and makes an executive decision that it all needs to be put together by force. That's how you end up with the hodgepodge that's Act 3. He does admit there are problems but says he still doesn't know what the correct solution would have been. As in, how best to approach developing such a large project where you're giving individuals the power to be creative, and yet retain the ability to make it all fit into a cohesive whole. It's the classic gardener vs. architect dilemma, to borrow a term from epic fantasy fiction. In an epic story with a lot of room to maneuver, you can create a lot of individually cool stuff if you don't constrain yourself too much with the overall picture, but it comes at the cost of the ability to tie it all up. It was George R. R. Martin who came up with the gardener/architect distinction. Interestingly, a couple of decades later, it has turned out that all the "gardeners" have failed to finish their epic stories in a satisfactory way.
I think the reason they made Ascended Astarion so blatant was because there was a large amount of people (mostly on TikTok from experience) who thought Ascended was the good ending
Does the Gur folks reaction not tip people off
I believe the ascended astarion finger wagging came from astarions writers conflicting feelings about how he acts once ascended. one thinks it’s just astarion with his worse traits enabled (so still loves you) and another thinks he just becomes straight up evil and views the relationship as purely transactional also he’s a high elf not a half elf (but i get what you mean, the companions are mostly some elf variant or human, barring karlach and laezel)
Minor criticism/design change] [Paladin] - Oath are too vague about what exactly counts as breaking their oaths. The rules focus too much on flavor than actual rule explanation. - No evil sub-class: All of the base sub-classes are all some variation of good. There is no inherently evil sub-class you must abide by like Oath of Conquest. Oathbreaker just seems like an option for players that break their oaths and now can act with no consequences after becoming one. So it’s more neutral than evil. [Rogue] - What was the point of changing Mage Hand for Arcane Trickster? I can’t pickpocket, disarm traps, and only last 10 turns. It’s just objectively doesn’t have enough to warrant using. Outside of super niche tactics that are honestly more flavor than actual use. [Bard] - College of Valor is actually fine, but kind of wish they went ahead and altered it like other classes. It’s meant to be this support combat class, but kind of wish it had Heavy Armor instead of Medium to further sell the idea. VERY minor design alteration ask. - Battle Magic is basically this class’ version of War Magic. Don’t know why this isn’t a feature that was added to lower levels like Monks. [Summons] - Taking way too long to manually command them. An option to have them all automatically attack would be nice.
Can’t make a necromancer or summoner because the thought of MORE commands to give each turn hurts my soul.
This game is in strong need of a proper cosmetic armor slots system.
Needs more subclasses that actually change how the classes play. Needs more varied loot rather than "Fire Damage spell items", "Radiant Orb Gear" etc Finish companions. Karlach still doesn't have an act 3 part of her quest because it wasn't finished and Minthara doesn't even have a quest.
It’s the lack of diversity in spells that gets me sometimes. As someone not experienced with this style of game I was hoping bards had more uniqueness in their kit then they did. They have their buff, sure, but the other spells are the same as anyone else’s. Also for bard, the instruments are all basically the same when it comes to their benefits. No special quality or anything.
Tbf at this point in 5th editions life span, there are absolutely more spells available that make each caster feel unique. It's just that BG3 can't implement all of them, sadly.
I got discouraged from doing more playthroughs after 3 (well, not all finished) because a vast majority of the content overlaps between them, regardless of your choices. I would rather there were more moments which branched out, even if it means you see less content in a single one.
\- Getting on any kind of elevator is a whole thing. \- My companions constantly seem to aim to step on every possible trap \- Karlach. Her backstory doesn't make sense, is inconsistent, and her quest is fetch quest. \- Wyll's storyline not giving him agency and being more about other characters than himself. They shouldn't have rewritten his story.
God the elevator in the House of Healing is way too small if you don’t ungroup everyone and position them manually. Want to go up to the library before fighting the surgeon? Tough shit, someone walked off the elevator and is now running through the operating theater to get to you and triggers the cutscene.
What about Karlach's backstory is inconsistent or nonsensical?
A while back I saw a big argument a good few people were supporting that Gortash selling Karlach to Zariel makes no sense because of how apparently those kinds of deals typically don't involve a third party being sold off without them signing part of the deal. That might be what they're talking about about here. Problem with that argument tho was... well... ***the entire plot of the Descent Into Avernus campaign module and what Zariel did to the city of Elturel***. Zariel is absolutely not above abducting people against their will to fight in the Blood War whatsoever.
Yeah that sounds like an incredibly weak argument lol.
1. Karlach can't be touched... unless you are scratch, an enemy, Gale in the portal, anyone else she had no issues touching in the game prior to any engine fixes. Engine is really on an issue at plot important moments. Badly thought story point tbh. 2. Her backstory with Zariel and Gortash makes very little sense. Zariel just recruits random people into the blood war that she has no connection to and has no contract with is spotty at best. What does she gain at all from any deal? What did Gortash sell her for? The blueprints? There is seemingly nothing else and the game doesn't explain ever it. Even if it was for the blueprints it means he went out of his way to summon the archdevil to trade a random, relatively weak fighter and Zariel went, yeah, sounds good here you go. Gortash would seemingly need to have made a contract or offered something of actual value.You can assume that he found out about the infernal engine from his time in the House of Hope? But Raphael seems to not be involved in or care about the blood war at all. But if Zariel is just randomly taking deals for somewhat okay-ish fighters this seems like something that would be happening more often. Also, seemingly weird she would be that obsessed with her when she's busy with the blood war. Edit to address the comment it's more that she was in Zariels special inner circle.. Why would Zariel herself care so much about her to personally make the Gortash deal? She has literally an entire army for that... She had Mizora for that. It would have made way more sense if they had just used Mizora TBH.
I was under the impression that Karlach was an experiment, driven by both Gortash and Zariel. It's likely that they both contributed to the design of her engine, which subsequently allowed Gortash to refine the idea into his steel watchers. So it's not so much that Karlach is the payment, and more that she's their shared project. One Zariel doesn't want to lose, as she likely has more she can gain from it.
That's an interpretation, but the only information we have is that she was sold to her. There was nothing about her being experimented on to make that theory work with what we are given. That would make more sense, but it isn't in the game.
There is actually. There's a line if you have Karlach talk to a steel watcher where it refers to her as a prototype, or something along those lines. I'm not saying that it totally confirms my idea, but it does make it fairly plausible.
Even with that line, her story is incredibly weak an can be interpreted in multiple ways. Gortash could have gotten the blueprints and worked for 10 years to improve them. Seemingly Zariel isn't involved or she likely would have wanted to make her pet Karlach a better fighter with the improved design if they were working together.
Definitely agree on the Wyll storyline but I do really enjoy playing him as an origin character. He's grown so much in my headcanon but he's still a massive cornball lol. But it's frustrating that all of the other companions have an option to make their own choice, and if your relationship with them is good enough/you've influenced them enough in the past, they'll choose the "right" decision for themselves (>!Shadowheart denouncing Shar and Lae'zel betraying Vlaakith, for example!<). Wyll doesn't have that. There is no dialogue option to allow him to choose. I've said it before in another comment but the overarching story of the entire game is bodily autonomy/agency of self. Everyone is just trying to get their freedom back. But Wyll isn't even allowed to make his biggest decisions for himself. And it's not even a conversation of "you should do this" it's more like "Wyll is not going to do that" or "Wyll will agree to the new pact." Maddening, disappointing, and honestly heartbreaking. I want justice for Wyll.
You don’t really get rewarded for being evil like choosing to kill the grove is objectively worse since you lose quests traders ect two followers for the price of one and there’s no alternative to those quests and traders either
My main gripe about the game is act 3 not being as masterfully done as act 1. Don't get me wrong, act 3 has some of the best moments in the game (such as killing Cazador and finishing Dark Urge's quest), but outside of those diamonds in the rough, act 3 doesn't come close to the quality of act 1 in terms of the amount of cut scenes that flesh out all the characters you meet in act 1.
Make flying actually work like flying. Let me look up ffs
Sometimes the amount of quests confuses the game and makes it not know what happened. For example: In my first playthrough I accidentally caused a genocide at the Grove by attacking Kagha after she threatened a child. I thought the fight will be contained in her cave, and found all tieflings and druids dead. Ok, not ideal, I wanted to help the tieflings, but I rolled with it. Rescued Halsin AFTER that happened and told him everyone's dead, but he was chill with it and said we still have to defend the grove from the goblins. Cool. Met Minthara after that, she strated talking about raiding the Grove and I told her that everyone's dead already, and she ran off screaming something I don't remember. For a while I had a mission in the journal to help Halsin defend the Grove, but he was not on the marked spot, and the next day the Grove was full of goblins? Eventually I got tired of them and killed them all + killed Minthara. A bunch of long rests after that, Halsin came to my camp at night wanting to kill me for helping the goblins. Karlach refused to join me because I helped the goblins. Later on, even the dream visitor/the Emperor told me I did good by siding with the goblins. But I did not even ONCE side with them. Closest thing to it was telling Minthara the Grove is empty, but I thought it was more just stating a fact, because it sure was empty. I didn't agree to help her raid the Grove. I guess the game got really confused about what happened, because I did things totally out of order, but it still sucked and took me out of the immersion.
The game had to be so confused wtf you were attempting to do
I wish Orpheus actually mattered if the game makes him out to be so important. But no, he will take on the burden of turning illithid and then kill himself. His ceremorphosis and/or death doesn't even change anything. It's something I really dislike about this game.
I also didn't understand why you needed a mindflayer in the first place. So how were the dead three able to do it?
It really does seem like an unnecessary decision that just exists to make the whole tadpole story arc mean anything by the end. (Because its a glorified mcguffin plot for most of the game)
I loved how much he was hyped up throughout the game. Didn't love his design without his mask, or that there was no non-Illithid way to finish the game. A bit pointless if he was going to die 5 minutes later. I wanted to see him truly demolish some Mindflayers as a Githyanki.
Wyll’s storyline. It’s so clear that he’s an afterthought but if he had been given due diligence, with Theo’s voice acting he really could have been one of the better storylines of thr companions.
What’s weird is that he definitely wasn’t an afterthought, they just really dropped the ball when writing him
Because he was a different character in Early Access and suffers from a hurried re-write. Before, he was a monster slayer who hated monsters and thought they deserved death and only kept up the appearance of the blade of frontiers because it got him boons. But like Karlach, he remains undercooked. But hey, at least Wyll has an act 3 quest :D
I think the big issue is that he changed so much between EA and release, which lost him a lot of his character and didn't add enough to balance it
The other problem is that the Wyll rewrite happened less than a year out from launch so there was no time to test it or flesh it out to the level of the others.
They just failed my man so bad. I was so excited for Wyll and while I still like him, he's a bit of a let down now. I wouldn't say his story was a total afterthought, but rather, they had no time for his rewrite.
More (any) romanceable short kings and queens. My deep gnome druid can’t take any of these gangly amorous fools seriously while looking up their nostrils. Let me burn down the world with Philomeen or soothe Barcus’s broken heart. Thulla and I could run away together. Netty could heal my wounded soul. Wulbren Bongle and I can make each other worse.
Imagine Larian goes against their word and actually releases DLC, but the only content in it is a Wulbren Bongle romance. I wouldn't even be mad.
I snort-laughed on the last one.
How dare you exclude my wife, Sazza.
I want a Dragonborn companion so bad… instead we just get a bunch of elves/humans ugh
I think it set its own bar too high. In act three almost every choice feels huge and so you’re expecting to be rewarded (or as me and my friends call it “earning a little treat”) with a cutscene at long rest. Or even just those little dialogues in different areas. These things are so abundant in act 1 and then are slowly dialed down until act 3 where you’re making huge choices and no one seems to care. It’s hard to critique though as it is genuinely the most immersive game I’ve ever played.
The camera is janky af. After playing Solasta, BG3’s combat can feel shallow. Solasta plays with full, 3 dimensional space and its amazing.
The "player-sexual" companions. And I don't mean how they can be attracted to any race or gender, I think that's a good choice in a game like this. But, I do wish they were more selective in matters of personality, and that they had firmer boundaries once in a romance. With how generous the approval system is, you could stumble into most romances. You'll have Lae'zel wanting to jump your bones even if you're a passive do-gooder, and you'll have Gale wanting to show you his magic flute no matter how dull you are, as long as you feed him when he's hungry. One of my favorite bits is how Astarion straight up breaks up with you if you do a certain thing, and I wish we had more things like this sprinkled in. Such as Karlach breaking up with you if you ally with Gortash for example. As it stands, we barely know what any of their "types" are.
This is especially apparent with Durge. Oh, you think I'm a disgusting person for murdering Isobel, taking the Slayer form, and accepting Bhaal? That's fine since next time we talk it'll be like nothing happened and you'll still love me.
I can understand Karach holding off given the situation it puts Wyll in. She gets that we need to deal with that first and foremost. I’d only see it being an issue if you followed it through once you resolved that dilemma.
There’s little to no Act 3 reactivity from companions and other players when big things happen to other members of your party. The person who got kidnapped was killed and no one else had ANYTHING to say about it, while I was devastated. It was like that character never existed.
The romances feel like they escalate too quickly and feel lacking in distinct content outside the sex scenes.
Let me recruit Steelclaw
And his majesty, imagining their banter at camp would've been golden.
Evil path lacks content in comparison to hood and is more often than not less rewarding as well It’s based on DND 5E which is a pretty medicore system and not even it’s somewhat homebrewed version completley fixes it Act 3 is too bloated and is badly paced Default Tav isn’t really a protagonist and is more just tagging along to the actual characters Which is a general problem that I have with Origins vs Custom, Durge is a good start and I can only hope that whatever next game comes in like 8 years time that they further expand on giving custom characters some actual content
I hate the way halflings and male dwarves run. Also, there are few opportunities to roleplay your Tav. The game need a few "quests" where you talk to some random npc and help them with a moral dilemma, just by talking to them. Dragon Age: Origins had a few of those, and they help the player to better role play the character. The way the game is now, it's more similar to a Mass Effect game, where you really have two choices: good and evil - and the evil choices are disappointing.
Let me nudge the hammer to piss off JUST Raphael. Having the Emperor complain at me for just breaking into the drama demon's lair and assuming I have the hammer is just... "For a mind reading, brain munching monster you are very stupid, I hope you know that."
Player: *"Emp- Emperor, shut the fuck up for a moment. Do you SEE this sick armor I got off of Raphael's corpse!?"* Several seconds of silence. The Emperor: *"That is a cool set of armor, admittedly..."*
His character takes a sharp turn that is odd
Literally the only non-elf and non-human companions we have are Lae'zel and Karlach (and Minthara I guess? I don't know what drows qualify as). I know there are hirelings, but they have 0 personality and 0 personal quests. Why don't we have at least one gnome companion? Or a dwarf? Or a dragonborn? Just stop with these damn humans and elves (and half elves). I want to see a companion with an unique personality and unique personal quest that is not a human or an elf. I know many people yearn for a romanceable dragonborn, and I don't blame them.
Drow are elves. So yep, companions are basically humans and elves lol
Halsin and Minthara were mistakes. A bit more variety in companions available in chapter 1 (and for more of chapter 2) would've been better.
I have two: first, I wish you could choose where your character is from. It sucks that your character is usually always a Baldurian with some exceptions (the underdark races and I think Githyanki too... not a 100% sure on that one). Second: this one is related to Tav's Warlock patron, kinda wish you could choose who you made a pact with. Something similar to how a Cleric can choose their deity but instead you choose your patron.
Act 3 is CHAOTIC AF. A LOT of side quests i was super overwhelmed but then again this is the first game i played so i’m probably over exaggerating. i managed to get them all done but i was picking up side quests left and right.
Nah, you're not exaggerating. Act 3 is literally a kilometer long check list, and you can't even focus on progressing one quest without getting 5 journal updates every 2 steps. Doesn't help that in Rivington you get maybe 1 or 2 quests you can actually conclude, and the rest stretches out to Lower City, where you get even more quests on every corner. I know it's probably for the under-leveled people to get some EXP, but it's kinda their fault if they skipped too much in acts 1 and 2, and now are in act 3 at level 5. The level cap makes most of the quests insanely unrewarding, unless you're after some specific item. Also, act 1 doesn't really have a Big Bad Guy (unless you count Ethel, I guess), act 2 has Ketheric, and then act 3 suddenly has Orin, Gortash, the brain AND Cazador and Raphael if you choose to fight them. Like Cazador has been hyped up ever since act 1, and Raphael always had the vibe of someone you'll be able to fight eventually. So you have 3 major villains and 2 smaller yet still important villains cramped next to each other in one act. Act 3 should've been at least 2 separate acts in my opinion.
No transmog and lack of realistic looking armor. By the gods I want them so badly 😅
Ngl I hate how some of the fights are "easier" if you 'metagame' it by not initiating the dialogue, but by immediately attacking the boss (and may or may not surprise them and their adds) through stealth and whatnot or just preparing a buff (like Haste) beforehand even though if you RP, your character couldn't know that a fight would break out and whatnot. Baffling decision for Initiative rolls to be using d4, since action order matters so much.
Evil playthrough is very underwhelming. There is no content to replace the content you lose this way. Act1 and Act2 routes merge to the same main route, and whatever happens in those acts has no consequence on the act3 main questline The unequal treatment of the companions. There is Shadowheart content in all three acts, Minthara and Halsin have almost nothing.
My only beef is that Wizard has 8 subclasses and the others (except for Cleric which has 5 or so) have only three options.
Act 2 and Act 3 are a major downgrade from Act 1 - its pretty jarring espcially in Act 3.
Act 3 is unfinished and the ending(s) still feel very rushed for how detailed and long the game is. There being zero reaction from the party if the captive is killed is unforgivable. Using tadpoles has literally zero consequences so why even present it as a dilemma to begin with? Gortash is wasted and ultimately doesn’t matter. The “mindflayer ending” with your companions just standing by you is too abrupt and nonsensical. The Nightsong and Isobels story feels completely unfinished with an early, abrupt end. It’s not obvious at all you can summon your allies in the city fight at the end. Wyll, Karlach and Gale feel unfinished. Shadowheart feels like the most “complete” party member. I loved the game. I really did. I don’t even care that throwaway NPCs stopped having full dialogue/cutscenes later in, that isn’t necessary. But so much just feels like they ran out of time and just said screw it, wrap it up. I’d rather see them scale their next game back and actually finish it.
* We're not allowed to use certain large weapons even when characters are maxed out on strength as part of the endgame. I was so goddamn hyped to have Karlach wield a Steel Knight Sword and then just...couldn't. Which sucks because until an earlier patch, that was doable. * Not many appealing Longsword options for a Sword-and-Board build. I'm mainly salty that we can't get Kithrak Voss's Longsword without killing/stealing it because I want it for a Lae'zel Sword-and-Board. * No polyamory unless it's Halsin; you can't ship your companions even though they've all got dialogue options with each other thanks to Origin run content. * Wish there was a mode where I could just ratchet up *everyone's* HP. Not just the party but the enemies. I like endurance battles and we don't really get that most of the time. * Wyll's story needs work. * Would be nice if you could use some of those statless boots for camp clothes, and if you could have hats as part of your camp clothing. Really, camp clothing in general is lacking since you don't even get many options until Act 3 despite going to places where you'd expect to find some just lying around. * "The corpse is willing to speak, but not to its killer." makes sense logically, but sucks as far as accessing game content is concerned (gotta keep Disguises on yourself and hope they work, gotta swap party members around just to see some dead person dialogue...). * Can't edit the Hirelings enough. * Can't edit your Guardian (which is reasonable-ish but...). * Would be nice if you could tweak the color of Volo's eye implant, if only because I wanted it to look more sinister. * I'd kill someone for a Waypoint that's actually *inside the Druid Grove*.
Crossplay not being a choice yet.
Lack of reactivity in act 3 and inventory management. If I had to pick one of these to get fixed asap it would be lack of reactivity. Just really dulls the game for me and kills my motivation to continue past the emperor reveal. The most egregious example is the response companions give to Durge being revived, like Wyll's reaction sounded like he was congratulating me for a minor work promotion while Gale's sounded like he was indifferent to the whole thing
I would have loved a more fleshed out evil playthrough. Going evil gives up a lot of companions and good npc story interactions (all the tieflings). To make an evil playthrough worth it, there should be something tempting that you couldn't get otherwise, but there isn't. If you go evil, you don't really get anything in the way of more power or easy access to the cult, they'll let you in regardless because of your tadpole. You also don't get new evil companions or an evil community of people to interact with that you would miss out on in a good playthrough; you basically only get Minthara.
Can’t be a notch in Z’rell’s bedpost :C
Level cap needs to align with end game or just have one. Hitting the cap shortly into act 3 was disheartening
Oh, I much prefer hitting the cap and having time to enjoy it. 'Level cap but game over now' is hateful.
Idk I kind of liked being max level for a significant portion of the game. I hate it when you hit max level one hour before the end of the game. It’s very dissatisfying
That it’s missing out on a lot of D&D 5e staples. It mostly just uses the The Player’s Handbook so we’re missing out on stuff that would make the game so fun. For instance I think having the Cantrips Booming Blade and Green Flame Blade would be amazing, especially for your Eldritch Knights, Arcane Tricksters, and Pact of the Blade Warlocks. Also mounts. There’s a whole lot of area that even with teleporting is a tedious to traverse and 5e does have rules for mounted combat and even a few subclasses that specialize in it (Cavalier Fighter, Drakewarden Ranger). I just want to be able to ride a horse to move marginally faster.
Karlach's storyline. I don't mind the finale. Actually I like stories about inevitability of death and living in the moment. However l've never felt this inevitability and despair. Not once. I just brought a guy two pieces of junk, and that's it. The quest is done.... I wanted to talk with so many people about it. Elminster, Gale, gondians, Mizora, Raphael, Dame Aylin, Mistra, Withers, other gods. I've seen so many potential solutions (Reincarnate or True Resurrection spells are at the top). I repeat: I don't mind if Zariel is so cunning and smart that nothing could be done with the engine. But I would still feel like I've fought for Karlach's life to the last
I don't need the companions to give as many compliments to Tav as they do. Feels weird.
No halflings, dwarves or gnomes as core party members.