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I find Astarion severely overrated
I leave him out entirely. Can’t stand him
Happy cake day!
I killed him after he tried to bite me. I felt a little bit guilty and replayed that part but letting him draw a little blood from me. He killed me and the next day acted like nothing had happened, like he didn’t know why I was dead. Fuck that guy, reloaded the save where I killed him.
Act 3 destroys the pacing
They should have just let you dye equipment at will from the character screen
The Emperor isn’t even that hot
It’s weird, but I suspect that Act 2 and Act 3 were swapped originally. It makes more sense to have Act 2 be where you go to Baldur’s Gate, learn more about your companions, resolve their personal stories, explore a large open map, and THEN move on to the big confrontation against the Absolute at the tower.
From a story perspective it’s really weird how you confront the Absolute and then go on to sort of aimlessly do all that other stuff in Baldur’s Gate. It makes more sense if the story acts are swapped, imo.
You can tell Act 3 had the least amount of polish put into it. Act 1 and 2 feel very carefully and intentionally designed. You can tell they planned everything out. Act 3 feels like it was rushed and they had to make a lot of compromises.
The pacing is the most obvious thing but there’s also stuff like why is Gortash, the literal ruler of the city, being sworn into power in a random fort in the lower city instead of you know… the actual castle?
I always describe it like this:
Act 1 is a great sandbox and the most D&D like experience as a result.
Act 2 is the strongest story and writing, much more focused and tightly built. Some cool D&D like dungeoneering/puzzles to boot.
Act 3 is what happens when you don’t leave enough time and energy to wrap it all up. It tried to be as expansive (more even) as Act 1 and they couldn’t keep up with the writing. They also should’ve done away with the entire section before you actually enter the city. Talk about a momentum killer.
I don’t think your act 3 take is particularly controversial tbh
The game is good despite DND 5e’s rules, not because of them.
Unfortunately, DND is mega popular. Many people have never played anything else. Many people have never even played it. So any discussion about it has a “of course 15 strength is +2, isn’t that just how RPGs work?” segment where you have to establish that DND is in fact weird.
Hard agree the ruleset is the mayor shackle to the game. I think the DnD part also includes the whole lore of the forgotten realms which is the incredible foundation in which the game could bloom tho. I’m not saying larian can’t create fantastic worlds and I’m looking forward to the next games, but the lore aspect of the DnD license is mayorly beneficial to the game
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4 max party size was a mistake
If they went any higher they’d have to make some encounters even larger and lengthier for balance, and some of those encounters already feel like they go on forever 💀
I installed the 16-member party Mod and took all the origin characters (except urge) around for a while. Combat became a chore. Probably the biggest grievance is they’d block each other’s movement, but it just took REALLY long to do combat with them all present.
Isn’t it laughably easy to mod? I’m okay with them saying “this is what we balanced for, anything else is on you”, though it should be like those divinity “prepackaged mods” like the zoomy boots
by the end game I was running around with two druids, Gale and a Karlach. It was enough to create an army
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x3 fire elemental lv 6
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x2 woodland being lv 5
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x6 ice elemental lv 4
spamming through “end turn” because moving them all will take longer than finishing the fight next turn was very annoying
though it did feel good to have a whole army at my command, the encounters took forever
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I dont care for the lengthy skill checks with the dice roll animation
You are able to click again to skip the animation. The rest of the setup though is important to be able to apply bonuses.
Is it though? Surely it can be made less obtrusive
I find all the party members insufferable. I change their classes almost immediately for better synergy or I switch them out for the soulless NPC’s Withers has. Ironically, I’ve been D&D 5E Dungeon Master numerous times and I find the party members to be absolutely authentic characters real people would play. Good work Larian, ya made the characters so table top believable that I want to find a new group to play with.
I loved the character design because I hated the characters too: Lae’zel was a close minded warrior, Shadowheart a smartass, Gael Mr nice guy not so nice when you do something he doesn’t approve, Astarion the vampire rapist… Etc.
But then I kept on playing and I realized they were really deep characters. Lae’zel was indoctrinated super hard, but she’s smart and can recognize when things don’t make sense, even if she totally believes those things. Shadowheart has been lying to everyone, including herself, and putting a mask on; but she’s a really sweet woman. Astarion was abused in every possible way for centuries, and being a total asshole is his way to cope.
My point is, yeah, the characters are flawed and can come across as dicks, but many real people do too until you understand their circumstances. Not saying that what they do is justified, just that they are interesting characters and redeemable from my PoV.
I feel like a lot of characters were just standard RPG archetypes with maybe a wrinkle added in. Like Wyll is the classic “Warlock that makes the deal for the right reasons” and the wrinkle is that he has dad issues.
Compare him to one of my favorite RPG companions. Classic elf wizard nerd with an abusive father that made him hit the books and hit him also… but because of his childhood trauma his soul’s past life, a foul mouthed woman from a long time ago awoke within him and sometimes he dissociates and she takes control because she wants him to be assertive… which, along with his fears of animancy, caused him to have an obsession with control, and why he accepted to join the baddies some time before you meet him.
Oh they’re great characters and well written. I just don’t like them though. I can’t justify my tastes.
I wish they had done it without Tencent.
Interesting, I didn’t even know Tencent was involved, was their influence very visible?
The amount of money that was dropped on the making of the game is a clue but unpopular opinion? Who’s a fan of tencent anyway?
For those who don’t have the context Tencent is a huge Chinese company that has many investments in games. They are the type that plays it silently usually invest and they do let the people do their thing then take their share. But the problem is two fold first of all you cannot start saying much abou the ccp tencent wouldn’t send you to jail but would pull the plung of the funding. Secondly any client info that ends in Tencent hands is potentially viewable by the ccp. There’s no need of a Snowden to tell you that, the government made it law so if you buy the game your data goes to China.but unpopular opinion?
I don’t think Tencent’s involvement is common knowledge among BG3 players. It’s hard to have an opinion about something you’re unaware of.
My thing about china getting my data is ‘so what?’ I live in the United States. Every major corporation will sell my data to the government, and no warrant is necessary. The fuck is China going to do to me? Send some of their secret police to my house? Fucking TIGHT. I can tell them to fuck off and eat my ass.
Shouldn’t they eat your ass first and then fuck off?
Every major corporation will sell my data to the government
And also to China. I don’t trust Tencent any more or less than I trust Ubisoft or 2K
That’s a good point, too; without an electronic bill of rights, what’s stopping them?
Yea you can tell them that but the more china as on you and other citizen of where you live the better they can make the propaganda and influence election and other fun thing like that sure they can do it without all the data but it will be less efficient
They don’t have a controlling share on Larian, but they don’t own an insignificant amount of it. I wouldn’t say it is noticeable. Doesn’t have MTX, which I’m sure they would’ve loved.
Isn’t Larian independent?
Edit: Official statement on shareholders (near the end of the video)
It’s a situation similar to Epic. The controlling shares are in the hands of the CEO, Swen Vincke in this case. But at least Tencent only owns 30% of Larian, which is better than 49% of Epic, even if the end result is effectively no different.
Do you have a source for that?
This article corroborates the statement that Tencent owns 30% of Larian, but they do not have voting rights. Swen Vincke and his wife control the direction of the company with their combined 70%.
I realized I was actually slightly off base on the Epic share numbers, where Tencent owns slightly less than the 49% I had initially stated. This article claims the number at 40% total capital, which works out to 48.4% issued shares. However, CEO Tim Sweeny remains the majority shareholder of the company, and Epic has apparently stated that Tencent does not have any involvement with the way they run their business (at least as of when this article was written in 2019, I don’t know if things are different now but I have not heard as such.)
Thanks!
I don’t think the writing is particularly good, and it is particularly problematic in Act 3. The pacing falls apart, all urgency disappears and there is also a big problem with the villains. Gortash and Orin are pretty bad characters and the nebulous blob that is the Nether Brain is not a compelling antagonist. The Emperor is a pretty interesting character, but he sadly doesn’t really play out as an antagonist - which I find a massive waste in itself. It also felt like some parts of the plot only make sense if you’re playing as Dark Urge.
The companions all being extremely horny and protagonist-sexual gives off a weird vibe, and the progression and design of the relationship system is extremely bad. As an example, Shadowheart can say you’re her soulmate that changed her whole life on like the second day you spend together! There is also a severe lack of bonding moments that are purely adventure party/friendship and not avenues for everyone else to hit on you.
There being literally 0 consequences for dabbling in Mind Flayer powers felt weird and bad and generally undercut the impact of the entire main story. There is no reason not to fill out your whole tadpole tree (including becoming half illithid), and there is no reward for completely abstaining. No specific dialogue, no impact on the ending. Not even an achievement.
Lots of small attempts at fanservice for fans of BG 1&2 feel like surface level lipservice made by people who never played the originals. The Flail of Ages being a shitty rare regular flail sold in a random shop is just depressing.
I wish they left more BG 1&2 characters alone if they didn’t know exactly what to do with them. Jaheira is mostly fine, but even Minsc felt out of place and shoehorned in and the character assassinations of Viconia and Sarevok just felt terrible. Especially since the role of both of those characters in the plot could have easily been replaced with brand new NPCs.
On a similar note, it strikes me as extremely weird that they seemingly outright refused to have any voice actor reprise their role. Heidi Shannon has disappeared from the face of the earth so Jaheira needed to be recast, but Grey DeLisle (Viconia) and Kevin Michael Richardson (Sarevok) are still out there working for example and Jim Cummings (Minsc) was asking random fans at cons to remind Larian he exists.
I don’t think the writing is particularly good, and it is particularly problematic in Act 3. The pacing falls apart, all urgency disappears
Overall I disagree with you. I loved the writing in the game, and the companion back stories are rich, and full of tragedy. But I completely agree with you about act 3. We’re smack dab in the middle of literally trying to save the entire world. We just defeated a major contributor to the master plan. We finally travel to Baldur’s Gate, close to accomplishing our goal… and we stop all of that to help a little kid find their mommy, investigate dangerous toys, and go all detective mode for a missing prostitute. I couldn’t figure out how to get into Baldur’s Gate because I had rejected all of those story lines. They felt completely out of character, and not something I had time to worry about with the fate of humanity hanging in the balance. I think that they really could have used a smoother transition from act 2 to act 3.
the companion back stories are rich, and full of tragedy.
The thing is, they’re mostly exposition dumped at you. All of them already went through the worst of it and tell you about it. To me, Larian fell in the old TTRPG trap of making up those elaborate grandiose backgrounds for your characters and expecting the other players to be impressed instead of writing the story of their adventures during the actual game.
I was there when Jaheira found Khalid’s corpse. I accompanied Nalia when she came back to a ruined home and a dead father. I broke Imoen out of the wizard’s asylum.
Karlach told me how bad the hells used to be and we proceeded to make a few trips to the blacksmith together. Wyll told me of his pact and his crazy adventures, the rest just happened to us at camp. Gale told me he banged a goddess and I got to make a persuasion check at the end. Astarion told me of the torture he suffered, and the resolution was done in 2 fights after we met zero vampires before the last room (BG2’s Bodhi and her lair were so much ahead of this it’s not even funny).
Shadowheart is the only one I felt had a story that I actually experienced with her and wasn’t just politely informed of. Oh, and Minthara, but the evil play through really got the short straw in any other way.
That’s what a backstory is though, it’s what happened in their past, before you met them. If you’re experiencing it with them then it’s their current journey. I did feel like I was able to reach meaningful and entertaining conclusions to all of the companion’s personal stories after hearing their backstory. But I never played any of Larian’s other games, so I don’t have anything to compare BG3 to. For me it was a completely new style of game, and one I enjoyed so much that I consider it to be a masterpiece, and the best game I have ever played. That’s saying a lot considering I’ve lived through the entire evolution of gaming, starting out with an Atari in the early 80’s.
It was too long and had too much content.
Seriously, though. In the last act, Baldur’s Gate was so huge and took so long to explore that it destroyed the momentum of the overall story. (The evil army is invading! Oh wait, they are now hiding underground doing nothing, so that you can take your time exploring the city).
It felt like turning in quest coupons and getting your magic item/promise of aid and otherwise very low stakes.
In terms of pacing and stakes, it would have made much more sense for the PCs to have gone to Baldur’s Gate earlier in the game to do all the “adventurers faffing around” stuff, then revisited the city during the endgame. Though it would have clashed with their “each act is one set of maps” setup.
Instead, in the last act we have Gortash, supposed 5D chess player, centering all his plans on the PCs flipping to his side. Then he sits back and lets them wander all over the city, undermining him. Ultimately, when they don’t take up his offer, his backup plan is “whelp, guess I’ll die”.
Maybe the excuse is that the Elder Brain was making him stupid…
Would have been nice to finish the game then still be able to poke around in all the acts.
The game is not that big, it’s far more linear than advertised, the maps aren’t really that big, and loot is lacking. The only reason people have 100+ hours is due to extensive conversations, dialogue, and the fact that it gives you no direction. Once you know what to do and where to go, the games shortness becomes apparent. The spell list is underwhelming, and so are the number of classes available. Not producing an expansion is going to hurt longevity, and eventually, people will stop playing because of it. The level cap sucks. Yes, I know, you dont need to be level 20, but who cares if you’re brokenly op? It’s supposed to be fun, and believe it or not, there are people (like myself) who DO enjoy grinding levels, and there are more of us than people realize. The level cap is a huge miss. The story is not that great (I’d even go so far to say it was very clearly rushed), and the only thing holding it up are the party member quests, which are far too easy to fuck up thanks to the lack of direction. Exploration is strongly discouraged due to the abysmal loot, and it feels unrewarding. There aren’t enough legendaries, and you often stick with the same weapons throughout the campaign and are rarely encouraged to try something new. Also, horny companion system makes no sense. Please, please tell me why I was a complete, total shithead to gale and halsin yet they still both “confessed their love” to me? Like, I literally went out of my way to earn their disapproval, and I chose the shittiest dialogue options with them every opportunity I could, and they still said they wanted to sleep with me. Wtf?
mic drop
Fight me.
I agree with a lot of what you said. I’m pretty sure though that I read that the level cap was in place because after level 13 wizards gain access to level 6 spells, many of which would either be impossible to program properly or, if they worked as intended, would break the game.
Could have just excluded those spells?
Well, if you did you’d have the whole D&D community after you. Some of them weren’t pleased that specific spell effects and conditions weren’t the same in game, and that was a hot topic in the community when the game first dropped. Kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don’t thing, so why break the game or disappoint players?
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I mean. There’s a balance to walk between changing things to make game play more accessible and fun in a video game setting, and making it broken and perhaps less fun to play.
I very much agree on the loot. I had thought there’d be quite a bit more? It’s one of the type of mods I kept adding, just to get me some variety. What do you mean there’s no fancy swords for a paladin??
The romance aspect is a complete waste of time and the time spent on it could have added so much more to the game.
Unpopular for sure ha ha
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It’s not super fleshed out, but it also isn’t time consuming. Like if you are talking to your companions regularly, we are talking about selecting a couple of extra dialogue options here and there.
I’m talking about the time the developer put into the whole thing. The coding, the animation, the VO… all the time could have been put to better more useful things.
The spell VFX don’t feel incredible after level 3.
Me casting Curriculum of Strategy: Artistry of War expecting the coolest shit and getting lame ass skulls that don’t even explode
Gale’s “bad” ending is actually the best ending in the game.
Who cares that he doesn’t get character growth, he disappointed a cat and an old man, HE’S A GOD! Seriously, nothing else matters. So what if Ao is going to make him earn his spot on the pantheon? He’s immortal, he has literally forever to do it. Sure professor Gale is fun and more chill, but he’s still mortal. In six months Gale does what Vlaakith has been attempting for centuries. I don’t know how you can be disappointed in someone for successfully becoming a god
fully agree, I was gunning to for that ending for all of act3
gale best boy, love him
No physical copy on release day.
Gale is a piece of shit
As a straight male, playing a halfling, when Gale tried to romance me I had an immediate visceral reaction of “I am not safe”. Really gave me perspective on what women and maybe some gay men have to deal with.
Was very happy to cut his hand off in my second run
My first playthrough, I didn’t understand that you could recruit everybody. I thought, since my party is full that’s all I get. I never met Karl, never invited Wyll to camp, never rescued Lazy. So it was just Shart, Astarion, and Creepy Wizard for the first two acts.
Everybody ran out of stuff to talk about in act 2, which really made the tone even gloomier… until the creep started talking about his suicide mission. Not only did he skeeve me the whole time, he was now an active threat.
I abandoned him at camp the instant I could grab Papa Halsin and never looked back. So of course he was abducted and murdered by Orin. Lol. Sucks to suck, Gale.
Now, it is my stupid goal to do an honor mode playthrough with Gale as my origin character, so he and Astarion can both be the worst versions of themselves and ruin the world… but he’s such a butthole and I keep dying. Oh well.
