I finished my first run (after like 70 plus hours of abandoned runs for various reasons) a little while ago now, my overall summary of the experience was: Act 1, one of the best RPGs ever made. Act 2, it was alright. It is almost there. Needs a bit of polish and maybe a full balance pass, but I can see the vision. Act 3, genuinely terrible and ends what is overall a really great experience on a sour note.
@Pizzamorg genuinely interested to hear why you feel act 3 was terrible as my experience was wildly different.
I had so much new stuff to do, wrapped up some absolutely amazing emotional story arcs, and a bunch of other stuff i'd picked up along the way, and evetually, after many, many, many hours, exploring every inch of the city, fought my way through an epic climax in the upper city.
I know there are potential ways to accidentally mainline the main quest too fast and miss out on a bunch of stuff, and also some potential for events that may upset people who like their character etc, but is it any of that, or something else?
Spoiler tag it for others if you do reply in any specifics 😄
I can recognise that Act 3 is perhaps less polished, some questlines can get a bit confused, the main one for me was the game seemed really confused about whether Wyll was now underduke or in Avernus with Karlach, and that confusion carried over into the epilogue , some fizzle out etc… but performance was rock solid the whole way through (i started Act 3 after the “Xbox” patch) and ultimately I enjoyed it just as much the whole way through and the upper city and ending were an exciting and satisfying ending. I will definitely do another playthrough but whilst I would love to jump straight back in I’m going to leave it a good while and look forward to seeing what changes Larian have made by the time I go back to it.
@Ravix I have no idea how to do spoiler tags so I hope this works (update ,it did not work but I think I fixed it? I had to spoiler tag each paragraph individually lol) for me the problem with Act 3, is how messy it all is and just how railroaded it all is, at the same time. Companion quests arc off to nowhere. All that time spent building your army for the final quest, just so you can get a bunch of one time use abilities in the final battle and that is basically just it.
What made Act 1 (and to a lesser extent 2) feel so special to me was the tangible sense of cause and effect to every choice, there were ripples you could plot from origin to the wave that crashed against the rocks on the other end. Act 3 basically doesn't have that at all. It is a bunch of fake choices (some don't even have properly built outcomes, it is just a straight game over screen), and usually one or two that do have an outcome, but rarely do they have an outcome that feels like it has any traceable ripples at all, hell half the time it doesnt feel like the world even reacts at all. Right down the Emperor's WWE style laughable heel turn at the end, because the game clearly wants to get to a fixed point, and hasn't figured out how to get there unless the player makes very specific choices.
Likewise, from a gameplay perspective, the final battle is awfully designed as are most of the encounters in Act 3. By Act 3 they know you are probably insanely powerful, and the only way they seem to have figured out how to make things harder is to just flood you with waves upon waves of enemies. This doesn't make things harder, just incredible tedious.
Also without the addition of the post game camp thing, the game basically has no ending.
@Pizzamorg I kind of get what you mean, but also disagree in nearly every way 😅
It's a weird one lol
The game has no ending: I've played a bunch of games that wrap things up with a little cutscene type thing, I'm not sure exactly what more you can do as it can't go on forever and ever. The actual ending is
the end of the battle where the narrator says something like "all the hardship was worth it in the end"
or whatever end you get, and the character bits after that are just a little epilogue anyway to tell you what they will be doing next, which they made longer with the camp epilogue. They could have made it a bit clearer that that was what was going on. I felt if they rolled credits as the narrator finished speaking then people wouldn't have had the reaction you had. Just a bit of a mistep in direction and flow.
I'd also argue that it has many endings, one for each companion throughout the game. Shadowheart and Astarion were complete game worthy stories in themselves
Shadowheart mostly wraps up a bit earlier near the end of act 2 (if I remember correctly) and beyond that is her moving on woth her life section, whilst also dealing with the main plot dilema.
Astarion is some of the most powerful storytelling in any game, his absolute battle with himself is gutwrenching, and when he finally accepts he can be happy as he is, after so much has happened, is just beautiful. The amount of rage, self doubt and perceived lack of worth bottled up inside him coming out in a stabby, snot bubbley, wailingly emotional realisation was so powerful. The rest aren't as powerful, but they still have that sense of never giving up despite all and not making incredibly bad choices just because things are sh** right now.
Oh sh** Karlach was powerful too, and that kept going right until the very end. Her scene with Gortash, the person she had basically been forced to trust as a father figure, was absolutely superb emotionally, and her trying to come to terms with her impending death is so beautifully portrayed as well.
The Emporor does not 'turn' the emperor is always a lying manipulative c*** and the traces of Balduran live on in him, in the sense that the mindflayer version of him believes he owns the city, as he once founded it. That is his motivation, and as a mindflayer he had the means to enact it, firstly with his manipulation of Stelamane to rule Baldur's gate from the shadows, and then manipulating the player character to initially defeat the elder brain so he can get back to ruling. But if you scupper his plans you are expendable and he seeks the only choice he has left to survive. His main tactic is to deceive and turn people into mind flayers under his influence. I think he basically wants to be an elder brain, in a way lol. He technically tadpoled us too, but that was part of the Gortash squad and under elder brain influence. I'd not consider a scummy person finally revealing how scummy they are as a turn though, he has a few moments where the mask slips before then. And I personally couldn't wait to f*** him and his plans over at any chance I got after all i'd learned throughout the game about him.
The Wyrm knew what kind of monster Balduran would become and what had to be done, but he was unable to stop it because he had his own emotions and doubts, and Balduran was clearly losing his, so the one who landed the killing blow in that situation was always going to be the one with fewer emotions tied to the action of killing their friend/love. I'd argue that the Wyrm maybe knew this beforehand, and was hoping that Balduran would find out, but also then refuse to kill him in retaliation, proving he still cared enough about people's lives
I’m having to restrain myself not to press all these spoilers as I’m still in act 3
This game though, man. I was pottering about one house that had some art exhibition going on and getting confused as to why there didn’t seem to much happening. Googled the location and the top Reddit thread was about some stupidly hard fight.
Turns out I missed a character in act 1 so that whole thing was completely locked off from me..
So much weirdness in this act though.
I found the fireworks shop and got into the back. Couldn’t go to the top flight without triggering combat so reloaded and went to the building over the road to climb to the roof to snipe people. Ended up stumbling on some undead dude with a load of monsters ambling about the house..
I did make it to the roof and used a fire arrow to blow up the explosive barrels and loads of enemies, and sniped a couple more but there’s still some guards waiting for me up there I can’t reach.
@Ravix I am not arguing the quality of the writing, my point is though is that it felt like every choice I made in Act 1 was etched into the fabric of the game, and even when that quest was done, it bled into every quest around it, and that came after it and the repercussions of those choices were felt forever more moving forwards.
You make some of the biggest choices you'll ever make in Act 3, but almost every choice feels like it is in a bubble. You make a choice in that moment, and then it is just done. It won't be referenced again, it won't alter the outcome of something further down the line. And I get that in Act 3 you are coming to the end of the runway, but the game isn't over when you make some seemingly huge choices in Act 3, so the fact those choices just kinda... disappear into the ether after they made just made Act 3 feel kinda naff to me.
The Emperor is probably the perfect example of the weaknesses in writing and mechanics as the game goes along. When I also learnt the truth about the Emperor, I tried to go against him at every turn and realised there is absolutely no way to side against the Emperor until the very end of the game (even in the actual flow of the story, when the Emperor reveals the actual truth to you, nothing alters in your dynamic after that point). And then even at the very end when you do side against him, the execution of that interaction is laughably bad.
It just all feels a million miles away from the Grove and the Goblin camp, where there are dozens of combinations of outcomes depending on who you side with, what actions you take. That is a moment that is never matched again throughout the entire game, and that shadow hung over the rest of the game for me as a result. Act 3 would be a fine RPG on its own, but in the context of what BG3 achieves elsewhere, Act 3 feels like a significant step down in all the ways which matter.
My first ending was not what I wanted. I ran out choices to reflect what I wanted or thought could happen and had an outcome I didn't like. My whole playthrough I didn't save scum, and lived through some decisons based on poor rolls, but now I may replay my last save. I really thought well if I keep disagreeing ill get to a choice that I want. Nope. Maybe it still can happen later, but it irks me that I have to replay a part. Still love the game though.
@Elodin elaborate in spoilers so I know what you're talking about specifically, and I'll see if I have any insight to what you are/were aiming for.
I think you are supposed to make choices based on what is happening with the knowledge you/your character has at the time, rather than what you think might happen though, but I don't know what you are referring to, so 😆
@Ravix I restarted after first elder
Dice rolls when the emp. comes . I made a hammer of a choice and it worked out. Fun battles to finish it off. The flexibility of an actual DM of course could see what you are trying to do and explain when to lean in on a choice. Games can only do so much. Excited for round 2. May go finish Avatar first and come back for an evil power run.
Re-downloading. Not sure what my intentions are, but feel like it could be my chillout "cant-be-arsed-to-play-anything-intensive" game, so want it installed just in case.
Who am I kidding, my intentions will be to be as evil as possible and to try and break the game 😁
Update: made my drow dark urge monk last night, and today we see there's added dark urge content, huzzah.
How are everyone's dark urge runs going? Seen a few mention they are currently on them. I have yet to decide what I'm going to do, but I'll probably test the mechanics of resist vs give in at some point. And I want to actively do different stuff from my first Bard character, although the urge to just play how I usually play will need to be fought off, I think.
May have gotten a bit bloody last night, but nothing evil, as yet.
I also need to change the hair, as in the world the skin tone isn't very obvious and it just looks like I'm Jaheira
Haven't found many evil doings yet, other than Gale deciding not to join the party.
But it has surprised me at how I made the start different on my own. I crashed, woke up Shadowheart and went straight into the locked door, which I can't remember being an option first time, but I'd looted some tools from somewhere. Opened another passage, surprised some thieving b*stards and picked them off, just the two of us.
Starting a game when you already understand the combat makes it a whole lot quicker early on, that's for sure 😁
Now it's just Me, SH, LZ and AS, two of which I know I can eventually lead down much darker paths. Having played all companion quests through to completion first time really does free you up for a playthrough. I will miss Gale.., his VA did a top job, but on the other hand I'm content that I've seen his tale through and he was one of the slightly more annoying companions to deal with 😅
When it seems you're out of luck.
There's just one man who gives a f*************ck
⚔️🛡🐎
Re-downloading. Not sure what my intentions are, but feel like it could be my chillout "cant-be-arsed-to-play-anything-intensive" game, so want it installed just in case.
It's definitely a good chillout game even though it might not seem like it. I think it's the slow paced nature of the game. I've been playing it constantly the last couple of weeks, too addictive.
I believe you can add a name at the mirror later on, so if inspiration does find you, a name can be applied then.
Have a skim through an Elvish or Welsh names database, or a list of DnD translations (pretty sure that's what I did)
gwaed Arian was silver blood, for example. Sin'raema may or may not be Pleasure Fist 😅 fitting for a Drow Monk who enjoys punching people, I'm sure we all agree 👀
You could look up translations for "perpetual sigh" as, to me, that's what I see in their expression 😁
Dudebro at party: [approaches Drow] “Are you tired? Because you’ve been running through my mind all night. Heh, heh” [wink, a tongue click, and a fingerpoint]
Drow: [without changing facial expression from a cold emotionless stare] “I will destroy you if you do not leave me alone immediately. You prefer incineration or decapitation? You have 3 seconds.”
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@HallowMoonshadow the level of detail is immense. I’ve clearly been out of the character creation loop that Fallout 4 was my previous benchmark 😂 Good luck with your play through Foxy.
Massive, massive quantities and a glass of water, sweetheart. My socks are on fire!
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