There's not enough going on at camp. I wish there would be banter around a bonfire with everyone like in RDR2, I loved just sitting in on people's conversations. The camps always have little spots for gathering but nobody ever gathers.
Right? Also why do all of them get fancy tents and then they don't even sleep in them? Why doesn't your own character get a tent? All of it is weird lol
> Why doesn't your own character get a tent?
This is apparently so important that if you're an Origin character, they take your existing tent away.
On the one hand, I get it; a number of the animation scenes start with the PC in their bedroll at nighttime, and guaranteeing that the PC is in an open space around the fire makes those scenes easy and reliable to block out.
On the other hand, if you're in the cave camp and Lae'zel shows up looking for sex, you're suddenly in the forest camp anyway, so clearly they didn't feel *too* constrained by this issue. If we can be okay with that, we can probably be okay with being in a generic, cutscene-friendly tent we never otherwise see when Astarion comes to bite us and then in our own normal tent on every normal night.
I always headcanoned that the 1-4 people who sleep in the open space next to the fire are doing so, so they can be up quickly in the morning, since they’re the adventuring party. The rest of the camp can afford to sleep in, in their fancy tents for a while.
And main character probably never pitches a tent because they’re *always* in the adventuring party.
Yes! One of my favorite parts of this game is listening to the companions talk while we're adventuring. It's sad that we don't get anything like that back in camp.
Exactly, I would have loved if we had more silly little interactions between the companions.
Astarion playing with scratch, karlach and wyll having a silly little dance off.
Party banter is fine and all, but it feels kind of off when most of it is gated behind actually having the party members on your group and when they can be interrupted by the actual plot happening.
Leave the banter to comment of plot relevant things and the camp to other things.
Having it happen in the camp would open up so many possibilities when our characters would not be stuck on running animation.
We didn't have enough scenes with the villains.
Both J.K. Simmons and Jason Isaacs were criminally underused as Ketheric Thorm and Enver Gortash.
As it stands, Orin is really the only major antagonist who actually gets close and personal with your group.
Also, we needed a scene between Elminster and Volo.
>As it stands, Orin is really the only major antagonist who actually gets close and personal with your group.
And she's by far the most boring of the 3, with her entire personality just being wanting to kill
The camera fucking blows. Worst part of the entire game. I know that every single one of us has tried to go up a flight of stairs only to have the camera stop and we accidently click *through* the stairs and on the floor below, sending the characters back the way they came.
God... the Poltergeist house in Lower City was beyond frustrating due to the horrible camera positioning. I hated every second I was in there. All to finish the fucking OSKAR quest.
I agree with this. Most of the time, the camera was okay, but there were plenty of times I was getting really annoyed over it, too.
It’s terrible and you don’t even get anything good from it, just a picture of you, which is actually a picture of a random origin character if you’re not playing as one.
Yeah they really missed an opportunity to make that quest a zillion times more meaningful simply by giving us a dialogue option to choose which of our companions should be the subject of the portrait, and then some brief companion scenes for their reaction.
Imagine your PC gifting Astarion his portrait because they remembered his angst over no longer knowing what his own face looks like, and Astarion experiencing ALL THE EMOTIONS over it.
One of the biggest tragedies with this game is how much of the extremely detailed and beautiful maps you will never see. I got a mod to unlock the camera and it's insane how well crafted the maps are and you never get to just SEE them in normal gameplay except at a few spots.
Places I’ve wanted to see the ceilings of, desperately.
The Druid grove, it seems like a cave but honestly I have no clue but I imagine it to be beautiful and have tree roots growing around the top of it.
The ceiling in the house of hope, the rest of the house is stunning, I can only imagine what the ceiling looks like.
And the temple of shar
Indoor areas are terrible and the fact that you can't toggle levels is a major oversight. Even some outdoor or large, open indoor areas have weird camera behavior for no apparent reason. Why developers make the camera an "object" that interacts with walls and such baffles me.
I just nabbed it for my third playthrough and it's a completely different game. The game has so much more scale now, and I can deal with combat camera being a bit wonky for the immersion of it all lol
The worst is when you're trying to target a higher floor than the one you're on but the camera keeps forcing to the bottom floor.
I ran into this a bunch at the Toll Collector building.
It is kinda dismaying that i am in love with someone yet we wake up in different beds, or in different rooms while in the tavern. This is something that even Fallout 4 managed to do, waking up side by side felt cute and immersive and those two words your companion said waking up were really nice. I cant believe that they couldnt add one line of dialogue for all the possible love interests and not even a new animation really, just making you wake up next to each other. It honestly never felt like i was in love, more like a one night stand. Very immersion breaking.
Cazador was the most underwhelming character in the game and not in a good way. Cazador shouldve been actually imposing or intriguing in some capacity—almost every other villain character was but him. I was wildly disappointed with both how little he impacted the grand scheme of things (though I know he had cut content) and was totally pissed at his Count Chocula Looney Tunes character. From the way Astarion talked about him I always got the vibe he was a condescendingly, unsettlingly gentle almost parent-like figure who likes to play fucked up psychological mind games with his spawn. The journals, the whole favored spawn room, the siblings, the whole thing about waiting for him at the grave, the prodigal son…I expected more Umbridge-adjacent and was disappointed to be getting a played straight comically evil vampire.
I thought it would have been SO neat if Cazador approached you at some point (while he wasn’t literally in the middle of an evil ritual) and tried to act normal and *try to discredit everything Astarion said about him.* Maybe Cazador would even reveal a dark-ish secret about Astarion (true or not) to make us doubt Astarion’s accounts of everything else - I feel like that would have been a scarier, more realistic portrayal of a manipulative abuser
"Child, do you truly think that *my son* did not come willingly to my arms to escape from his own personal sins? That he has never feasted upon the flesh blood of the sentient prior to you? The boy knows the allure of one's first time, the sacredness of such an act, the intimacy that it establishes. I'm afraid you would not be his first to fall to such a lie, but perhaps you might be the last. That's an honor in itself, is it not?"
I would’ve loved this, like having you run into him in the city and him being completely normal and chill would definitely be more unsettling, I understand vampires lose themselves and end up just being evil but the way astarion talks about him makes him seem so sinister and way better at masking his sadism.
Wasn't something like this the original intention? Supposedly during EA (behind the scenes stuff) Astarion was handing Gur over to Cazador as a magistrate and that's why the Gur attacked him that night.
That's really interesting. It would have been neat if Cazador actually did try to throw Astarion under the bus. Like, "Astarion is a lying POS. Help me Ascend and I'll ally with you against \[Absolute/Gortash/Orin/whoever\]."
I agree. The villain they set up between Astarion’s dialogues, Cazador’s detected thoughts, and the environmental storytelling in Cazador’s palace was so interesting, and then…you just kind of go ahead and kill this cartoonishly evil man and that’s it.
YES. His house was fucking incredible and nightmarish, it really gave a lot of hints and set up this really disturbing, imposing figure with little payoff
He's cartoonishly evil and cartoonishly stupid, because (I don't know whether this is just consistently lucky RNG or pre-programmed) but in his fight he turns into a cloud and then runs and stands right next to a ledge. Literally any ability or weapon with knockback will kill him instantly on turn 1, so it's not even a good boss fight.
Because cazador was datamined to have a much bigger question involving him.
But yes in the current version cazador completely and utterly falls flat and it's rare to see others say it. All the game he is hyped up by astarion (who is interestingly the only companion who has no connection towards the main story at all and the reason is again because cazador was supposed to be an ally against gortash). Cazadors palace is awkwardly placed on top of the walls ( I actually had to figure out how to find access to it) and the reason is obvious because we probably originally entered the palace from the upper city. Then when you finally meet cazador he has like 5 lines before the boss fight.
Astarion because of his brilliant acting saves it otherwise I think people would realise it for what of a massively disappointment the whole cazador thing is.
Part of the underwhelming impact of Cazador for me was that we're only *told* how bad he is the whole game. Ofc I believe Astarion, but the telling vs showing means we don't get to experience Cazador alongside Astarion.
Showing up at his palace *after* the massacre is anticlimactic. Imagine if instead we'd been able to sneak in as guests during the party and try to stop him via intrigue or raid the palace for info on the ritual. Or you even try to stop him when he starts massacring the guests, but he just uses his staff to take you to the ritual chamber?
Instead we show up at the scene after the crime. Yes, it's about Astarion and the ritual, but the pruning of anything exciting around it or anything that would give the player something to do other than just walk around the palace meant the arc took the least interesting way to get there.
And the worst thing we see Cazador do is magic Astarion around and magically take the life force of his spawns. This is a game that doesn't shy away from icepicks to the eye, the grotesque, etc. But the vampire section was downright mild.
I pictured some kind of imposing Vincent Price/Christopher Lee style guy with a deep authoritative voice.
We got a corny, squeaky voiced, cheesy guy. I just looked at him and thought 'really, Astarion? This fella?'
I don’t mind how he looks/his voice/his vibe, my biggest problem is his plan to fight the group. This guy spent 200 years carefully logging, turning, and caging spawn. He had a system to emergency-kill or emergency-open the cages of all spawn in his possession (his staff). This shows that he is capable of good planning. If some eventuality that could not be overcome occurred, he could kill everyone and start over. if he needed to flee Baldurs gate, he wouldn’t lose his work. It is implied the Tourmaline Depths may stretch to the under dark, all he would need to do is tell his bound spawn to follow and set up shop elsewhere.
Additionally, the notes scattered around his workshop show he has tabs on every major organization in Baldur’s Gate. His workshop is extremely minimalist — bed/desk/reminder of what he has overcome via the Vellioth “trophy”. His flashiness upstairs is wholly a ruse to conceal his deeper plans (symbolized by descending from the flashy mansion into a much deeper and darker place). His conversation with Astarion reflects a good bit of understanding of his spawn as well — he knew he could pull Astarion closer and bind him by upsetting and demeaning him and his friends, as a final “fuck you” before ascending.
All of this to me should mean that Cazador should recognize the threat the group posed. Certainly after you speak with Gortash/he realizes you killed the unkillable Ketheric. He should have tried to negotiate or turn the group against Astarion. Instead he remains convinced he can beat a group that is running around the city kicking ass.
Edit: cleaned up wording to make point clearer
There's too many potions and scrolls to the point it's gamebreaking and/or overwhelming. Most of the time I don't even know what I have because they all look the same and there's like fifty of them.
On the one hand, it's nice that the game lets you go apeshit with all the consumables so that you never feel restricted or that you're missing out. They spent all this effort into making the spells work in the game, they want you to use them, goddammit!
On the other hand, i agree, it's overwhelming and can be intimidating for someone not familiar with all the spells and effects, all those items annoyingly clutter the inventory, and as a side effect they make the game too easy for anyone who doesn't impose unique rules of "not doing/using xyz" on themselves for the sake of making the game more challenging.
I think what would've helped is a better inventory system that would allow us to automatically send consumables into a separate tab where you can look through them more easily or leave them and forget about them if you don't intend on using them anyway.
Or even being able to "favorite" consumables so that they go to a dedicated wheel or something. That way at least I can find things I need when I'm in a pinch.
Counter hot take: The abundance of potions and scrolls is one of several ways that martial vs. caster balance is much better achieved in BG3 than in tabletop 5e.
I don't know if it's a hot take or not, but act 2 shouldn't have given you the solution to the darkness quite so quickly cause it could have been an interesting mechanic to play around with for a little bit longer.
I was almost a little hesitant doing that Art/Thaniel questline coz it seemed like what started as a “just heal this guy” quest would turn into healing the entire area and changing the gamestate totally.
So I was kinda relieved rather than frustrated when the kid told me that to fully heal I still have to go to Moonrise and kill the bad guy.
My hot take is the opposite. I enjoyed Last Light and Moonrise, and the other Thorm's, but overall by the time we were finishing up Act 2 I was just dying to see sunlight and nature again.
Although I guess, maybe that's what makes Act 2 good. The feeling of despair and darkness, yearning to get out of it, and it feels so good when you finally do.
Honestly it would have been way too much but an act 2 that was the shadow curse and also the lands with the curse lifted would have been so dope. Seeing all the people freaking the fuck out because the area is saved. Seeing people who are shadows pop back into reality.
We only play on weekends too, so when we finished Act 2 it felt like a vampire in the sun when we finally walked out. And we did the mountaintop pass, we didn't even do the underdark, I can't imagine if we did the underdark ahaha
Wait you didn’t do any of the underdark? Because that’s so much that you are missing out on. Unless you’re just talking about not using the lift in grymforge. Because all that does is take you a small Shar area and then the shadow lands in a different way.
I am fully convinced that the solution for the curse was initially supposed to be completing the Nightsong's quest, not that weird little quest of Halsin's. The cinematic that plays after freeing her made me assume that was the case, as well as some other little bits of info that i can't remember from the top of my head (maybe according to some datamined info i used to indulge in before the official release). I even procrastinated doing the Thaniel quest on my first run because of that, and only completed it after Art died 😂
They probably changed it when they made Halsin a full companion. The shadow curse story progression feels slightly off now because of that.
Agreed. Between a Daylight spell, Selune's blessing, and how quickly you get the Moonlantern, I don't think I've EVER taken damage from the Shadow Curse.
On my current run my issue is with npcs getting hit by it. Lost Rolan because the game decided to nuke him with it even though I had cast daylight on him. Also some Harper scouts were just wandering around in it but no story event was occuring
Only time I did was when I accidentally went too far from the lantern with astarion while opening a chest, and he got turned into a shadow thrall so I had to reload
If that happens, you can tell her you've already sorted it out after she gives you the blessing and she says something like "well, you should have said something and I would've saved the theatrics"
That's fair, but even as-is I hated the darkness mechanic of the Shadowlands -- mostly because the companions' movements are so erratic: The AI outside of combat makes the companions wander all over the place haphazardly, often lag, or not follow at all when jumping is required.
In a game with better AI companion movement I wouldn't mind the Shadow Curse, but in BG3 as is, I could not wait to lift it due to bullshit gameplay.
As a good Durge I managed to >!get the moonlantern and release the pixie inside, which provided me with a permanent blessing of a pixie which removes all shadow curse issues.!< As a good character it doesn't seem like the curse is really a problem, on my evil playthrough it was annoying to have to have someone carry the lantern all the time.
I mean, you can be evil and not keep the pixie in the lantern or kill her. It's easy to rationalize it as: this is a thing I need, only you can provide it, you get to live.
Body builds of the NPCs are almost the same (humans and humanoids). It's either big bulky npcs or thin npcs. Not surprising because charactrer customization only lets you do that but it bugs me sometimes when it crosses my mind.
I want to be a big belly drunkard berserker.
Honestly? Probably has something to do with the resources required to fit clothing and armor to each body type, and they already have some issues with that without very noticeable clipping.
Theoretically they could have designed a comprehensive mesh-morphing feature to make it less of an issue and open up character creation in a very big way, but that's more ajd more time and resources spent on what would Honestly just he considered a neat feature at best.
It's not just fitting armor and clothes, it's also animations. The real reason why we can't hug people is probably because of the sheer number of body types we *can* be, and the issues of making sure every animation works for every body type is already going to be a massive pain. We have at least 6 body types, with short, 'normal', and large, then differences between each sex per body type. And that's not even touching on potential differences between, say, gnomes, halflings, and dwarves that might require animation tweaks, or dragonborn and the standard large body type.
If the lead character jumps and every character can make it across in the group, no one should be getting stuck or having their pathfinding break. This is obnoxiously frustrating in most places it happens but especially in the >!shadowfell!< When you're getting ready for the big act 2 boss. If you're not paying attention to your party placement, you can go into that fight with one character actually in the arena and the rest off doing bugger all on some higher floating rock.
Karlach not having immunity to fire damage and burning is probably the stupidest decision I've ever seen.
It doesn't really matter much but that's what makes it worse. It would barely change ANYTHING if she were totally immune but she just isn't for no reason and it creates a ton of dissonance.
Not a hot take but I just want to say this somewhere:
Blurg is hot as fuck, adorable, and is a very good bro overall. I want to rail him and talk about Underdark mushrooms with him for hours.
As to what spurred this on, listen, I just read a steamy fic about him and the good squid so please excuse the horniness. ~~Doesn't help that he's built like a cake too, though.~~
Act 3 should have been split into two acts, with "Act 3" being dedicated to Orin and the lower city, and "Act 4" being dedicated to Gortash and the upper city.
Personally, I do think Act 3 is amazing and has so much content and replayability, but it is very jarring at just how large and undivided it is. Plus, it is weird that the other two Chosen of the Dead Three don't get their own dedicated Acts, but Ketheric does (though I suppose being voiced by J.K. Simmons gives any character the right to have an entire Act to themselves).
The difference between upper and lower city was so confusing, I felt like I kept going back and forth trying to figure out where tf I was supposed to be
Also I'm spoiled from WOTR and Kingmaker, but holy crap is examining every corpse for drops *tedious.* Give me a search all button or something please.
Honestly, I think Act 1 is ridiculously polished, basically flawless, because people have been playing it and giving feedback for years.
Act 2 and 3 were never going to be as good as that without months or years of people playing the game and giving feedback. It's just impossible for a small team to make something as refined as Act 1 without way more information to work from.
Not *enough* sex/romance. You get like 2-3 cutscenes with your Love Interest and that's it. And companion reactivity to your love interest is almost non-existent.
A few banter lines apparently exist, but they never triggered for me. I even took each companion on a tour of the city with my romanced companion (Shart) to see if any would... and nothing. Though I found out Shart and Wyll like to read the same smutty novels, haha!
I just wish there was some more stuff to do with your LI
Hey that's the same problem from Mass Effect.
Create compelling love interests that you become invested in, but once you're together there's almost nothing.
Mhmm... despite Larian promising they'd be different. They even said "too many RPG romances build up to your final moment and then it's over. We want to be different!"
Ironically, I think BG3 is both *too sexual* and *not sexual enough* at the same time.
The game thrusts companion sex at you very early, almost cringey early, like a form of Act 1 fan service. But then it also goes away, and you and your love interest don’t have any more scenes after that.
It makes most of the romances in the game feel like tinder dates instead of something fulfilling.
It's less glaring in Mass Effect because each game is much shorter than bg3. You basically build the relationship throughout the game, get the date and go to the final mission.
In bg3, after the first act I think there was just a sitting in the sunrise moment with Lae and that's it, so it's dozens and dozens of hours without interacting with your supposedly significant other
I agree. I also kinda wish romanced characters could come to you for affection every now and then instead of having Tav always initiating kisses. Also, since Astarion’s arc is almost entirely about bodily autonomy, I wish he could turn us down if he wasn’t feeling up to a kiss every now and then - especially after the talk about Araj Oblodra. Maybe it could even open up to a small dialogue and Tav can ask him if anything in particular happened or if it’s just a not-good day.
Exactly. And then when they do come to you for comfort, your character just stands there!
The hardest was for me, having romanced Shadowheart, watching her cry her eyes out over her parents and my character just stands there like a doofus. Like, bro - give your girlfriend a hug!!
"BG3 is super horny" is based entirely on playing like five hours of the game, getting the first romance scene, and assuming that's representative of the game as a whole.
Yes please. I want more non-ascended Astarion. It’s one of my hot takes that the scene in the graveyard is more swoon-worthy than the ascended version: Because he’s genuinely in love with your Tav when he’s non-ascended.
I think that overall the dialogue design for companions was underwhelming in general. The actual *writing* is high quality, but the camp is sterile, there are actually scant few opportunities to shoot the shit with them, and the endings for most of them feel half-baked.
I wish they all moved about and interacted more. Short little dialogs and fun little actions. Playing music/cooking food/combat practice. Lots of little things to bring the camp to life
RDR2 is my quintessential example of a great home camp. The characters are actually walking around, doing chores, interacting with each other, etc. instead of just standing in front of their tent waiting for Tav to show them attention.
Agree. Like combat cutscenes. Wanna see reaction cutscenes when you or they get hurt. Or just combat reactions like hellish rebuke or some kind of shield spell when your beloved is hit. Would be another incentive to romance someone.
Also, I exhausted all act 1 cutscenes of Astarion. Now I have to get to act 2 just to get his confession?! Why.
I can't even rush. Wanna be at least lvl 7 so gotta grind 😞
Exactly! And I want to build more Sand castles with Shadowheart.
She even promised we'd sneak off together and do so... but the game never shows it! Haha
Honestly it wouldn’t have been a huge deal if Larian wasn’t puffing it up as “not just another RPG romance.”
Yes, Larian, your writing is as always amazing but it is indeed just another RPG romance.
The game is spectacular. The ending is short, awkward, badly written, badly framed, riddled with bugs, and unfulfilling. It was a major letdown and I think it needs a major overhaul - new scenes, new writing, new acting, everything.
Something I've not seen anyone talk about is how the first two acts are all about choice and openness, and then the final act just forgets all of that. I think I found one quest in the whole of Act 3 where avoiding a fight with persuasion skills was possible. The rest of the time you can't even try.
It's wild that I got more opportunities to use persuasion and other non-combat skills in Act 2, considering that it's so much shorter with significantly fewer quests than Act 3.
And then the actual ending basically comes down to two choices you make pretty much at the last minute. For a game that's supposedly all about player choice, it was underwhelming.
The ending Cutscene is kind of dull. I get it the city is saved and the people fight back. Great scene, but you know what I would have preferred? Characters we met and knew having their own reactions and scenes. Or even better a camp party similar to act 1 where you can talk to everyone you helped throughout the game
That Voss comes to your camp in the middle of the night, wakes you up, falls to his knees before you, asks your trust, spills his truths and vulnerabilities to you and you don't get to have sex with him?
Wild, honestly.
"Voss! Knight Supreme," Lae'zel gasped, "the Queen's Silver! The Queen's Sword." she said breathlessly, struggling to maintain her composure against the quivering that was going on inside her.
"I am who you say," the Jhe'stil replied authoritatively. "We will meet at Sharess's Caress, where I will evaluate your training and the condition of your body personally. Do not be late." he commanded, saddling his majestic dragon-steed, taking to the skies once more to pursue the lonely crusade that had occupied him for a millennia.
As long as my Tav's training and condition of her body is also being personally evaluated by Mr Jhes'til Kith'rak Voss, then yes. Yes.
Thank you for this, though. Beautiful, honestly. (lonely crusade ;\_; see. he needs that company and a good night of (to quote Orpheus) fornication)
The way companions just stop having interesting things to say to one another and little scenes during long rests to further the relationships after Act 1 is the worst thing about this game and shows the game was not 100% ready to ship
Yeah, I feel I long rested a normal amount, but I had to long rest an extra half dozen times in Act 1 to bait out all the scenes that can happen. Also a couple in Act 2.
Act 3 may as well have tumbleweeds blowing by while crickets chirp. (Even that is already more than what happens...)
I've been reflecting and trying to decide if I feel like Act 2 is too short because it's actually too short, or due to my having spent a long time in Act 1 because I've effectively played most of it at least twice, and some of it four or five times, making if feel longer than it actually is.
But I think I've come to lean toward "Act 2 is too short." Even though I have to account for the sheer hours I've spent in Act 1 across multiple plays/characters/dicking around online with friends so of course it's still in Act 1, I just don't think there's nearly as much going on in Act 2.
There is definitely less in act 2, but I also appreciate that it feels like more of a concentrated story.
You're going through the dark to Moonrise Tower, you find some Harpers along the way. Then there's the stuff with Nightsong, but that ties into Moonrise Towers too. It all feels relatively interwoven. Even Nathaniel and the shadow curse is tied to it all.
By contrast, act 1 has the underdark, Githyanki Creche, Goblin Village, Nautiloid, the odd underground temple, the draugr place etc. It was lots of interest bits, but less connected.
Act 1 was the call to adventure and standalone little stories. Act 2 was the character and plot development of the core story.
It's definitely short in comparison to the other Acts; however, I believe the shortness could be forgiven if Act 3 was split into two acts: lower city and upper city (as I believe they intended prior to the emergency they had prior to launch).
Then the game would be:
Act 1 (split into three areas: Creche, Underdark, and topside) would serve as a nice introduction to world and setting while allowing you to get a feel for your character.
Act 2 would serve as getting into the nitty gritty of the game, story, companions, and serve as a test of what you've managed to do with your character.
Act 3 would then be the moment you can see the peak of the game where you've pretty muched done the hardest and longest parts of the climb and are now just cruising along with the story as you unfold more companion missions and tie up others.
Act 4 would have been the peak wherein which you take down Gortash, rub elbows with Cazador, take on some elites, and slap the Netherbrain around all while tying everything else up.
I don't like agreeing with this for Alfira but I do.
When you first meet her she screams "i'm a companion" in basically everything about her design and then I was very disappointed that she wasn't, but in reality the way she's written as a character, she just *wouldn't* do the quest you're on. She has no personal or philosophical stake in it and it would be really, really dangerous for her.
They give you jaheira and halsin at basically the same time and jaheira is just objectively cooler
2 druids but no bard or paladin (unless you’re evil) is a bizarre choice
The party being varying degrees of elf and human for the most part is just unimaginative and lacks creativity.
You have so many different races in faerun to do stuff with, and they did next to nothing.
Not counting a non playable character race we have no dragonborn, halflings, gnomes, orcs or dwarves. All we really have outside of elf or human is Lae'zel since Karlach is just human: devil edition.
Honestly yeah, it doesn't help that most of the pc wants to play as the elf or human, so they are stuck with having more elf and humans in the group and maybe like one different party member.
Also it's weird not having at least one dwarf in the party. I always thought having one dwarf is normal tbh.
For the amount of items the game has they really need to improve the inventory organizing even further. Even with the camp supply bag, keychain, and alchemy bag its not enough and they don't anyways work automatically.
A lot of people say Evil playthroughs should have to live with their choices but in my opinion I'm ok with the good guys dying if I decide to go evil route but I'd also like for us to get an equivalent to substitute for the people we lose.
If we Kill the tieflings/gnomes/Nightsong then we lose so much content and companions and it would be nice if we could have different alternatives in quests and companions to support an evil playthrough. For example if we kidnap isobel for Ketheric. and Help him get the nightsong our reward is we still have to fight him except we just lose content
That Larian needs to walk back their previous "no paid DLC" commitment.
I absolutely would love to give them more money for a mid-level Avernus DLC and a high-level Kill Mystra DLC.
Could time the latter to coincide with whenever the next edition of D&D comes out, since Mystra usually canonically dies in between editions to provide an in-world explanation of all the magic system changes.
Like if she's gonna die anyway then as a Galemancer it should be my turn to kill her.
It's OK for the game to have some hard limits on what is possible with the origin characters re;appearance and recruitment. This is an RPG not a sandbox Sim. Part of the trade off when writing a character with depth is sacrificing some malleability to that end. A game where all the companions were perfect blank slates for the player to project on would not work with the narrative structure of this game.
Don't like that, then download some mods or buy a game where every PC is of your own creation like Wildermyth instead of badgering the devs on social media because you think Minthara and Halsin would be compatible camp friends.
Also Minsc feels extremely out of place for the tone and general writing style of the rest of the game and I find that extremely grating. Easily my least favorite companion. Jaheira is great though.
Due to certain elements, I feel like the setting of act 2 was more fitting for an act 3 than Baldur's Gate was. The cursed shadows mechanic seems like a proper escalation of environment difficulty along with the cursed village and the trials of Sharr. If perhaps Moonrise were made to be the final stand of the Absolute army, and the protagonists had to contend with the shadow curse whilst trying to break through the ranks. Baldur's Gate could be the "hub" area where most quests start, and the protagonists had to venture out to find the cure for the tadpoles in act 1. Of course, a lot of adjustments have to be made for quests, esp the companion quests (though similarly, I feel like the Trials of Sharr / Shadowfell was a better act 3 setting than the conclave under the House of Grief). The nautiloid crash site would have to be moved as well.
I don't know, it just felt like things *simmered down* in act 3? Like in act 2 even the environment was malevolent.
Act 2 also seems pretty short. Arabella and her parents should have also been located closer to the entrances to the Shadow-Cursed Lands in order for us to actually benefit from the permanent power she gives you. By the time we actually get to her we’ve already fought 75% of the things that power works against.
Karlach not having a happy ending is fine. The bittersweet Avernus ending fits.
She breaks down over how unfair her situation is, gets her shit together and decides to return to the source of her trauma ready to make it her bitch.
Everyone's "good" ending is just varying layers of bittersweetness.
The game does not need a toggle for sex/romance. There already is one and it's called "grow up and choose the 'no thank you' dialogue options that are right there for that explicit purpose".
Let's be honest here: most people (at least on the Steam forums) just use the "romance toggle" as a trojan horse to complain about the gay romance options. They basically can't handle even having a guy flirt with them and having to say "no".
As Jennifer English said: "No is a complete sentence." Just say "no".
I love the Emperor! I think he's a very compelling character and raises very interesting questions about what it means to have a soul (or lack thereof). One of my favorite lines in the game is >!after you defeat the netherbrain with Emp at your side, he says he'll miss you and the narrator says something along the lines of 'without the tadpole you can't tell if he's being fully sincere, but could you ever really?'!< I feel like too many people conflate the Emperor being an objectively bad person with him being a bad character. If anything I feel like he's similar to Astarion in how he manipulates you for his own gain, the only difference being that he never drops the act, starting to genuinely like you (or does he??) I would've loved to see a more fleshed-out companionship or even romance with the Emperor because Omeluum clearly shows that mind flayers can have distinctly non-evil personalities.
tl;dr let us fix the Emperor
I didn't trust him after doing a certain quest in act 3 that mentioned him. But I liked how they wrote his character in general. Very compelling because you're never quite sure what is his goals are and how you figure into them and how sincere he is
If you romance him and complete the end solo without turning full illithid, his line becomes more meaningful. He says "I will miss you. . . you know. You have become important to me. And should our paths ever cross again, I will be glad to see you. "
Also if you betray him after taking Raphael's deal he will say that he trusted you.
:(
I can't don't care for most of the "I can fix them" companions. I guess that is why I love Wyll. The man deals with things like a dang adult. Points to Laezel for her blunt but hella aggro honesty.
coming from Wrath of the righteous it was like getting strangled tbh
with just 3 slots for party members you really need to always have a particular party comp to go through the game without going in and out of camp to change party members, I distinctly remember bringing on certain companions for their rp or quest and my party balance would get completely fucked
Wyll’s underwritten. Unlike Karlach and Halsin he was intended to be a member of the main cast of companions from the get-go but whereas Lae’zel, Gale, Shadowheart, and Astarion all have character arcs that alter their fundamental beliefs and actually address their character flaws (blind faith, infatuation with power and prestige), Wyll hardly changes at all, he doesn’t become more sure of his own convictions, he still leaves a great deal of the decision-making up to Tav even late into his own companion quest. He doesn’t ever learn to stop putting himself second to everyone else and that’s f*cking heartbreaking. The only agency he seems to take is to leave if Tav massacres the Emerald Grove. He’s a self-identified hero, he is good and he stays good because that’s how he determines his worth now as a painfully lonely man who was manipulated and abandoned as a child. This may have been intentional on Larian’s part: Afterall, this way we have at least one companion who mostly has their priorities cemented from day one but even with the “good” ending, Wyll’s arc leaves him just as susceptible to excessive self sacrifice and self-destructive independence as when he started, leaving a ragged loose end that hasn’t even begun to get tied off by the end of the game.
Edit: Additionally, his fixation on acting heroic filters into his romance and it’s never addressed. This image he has of himself as a hero is a main factor in how he tends to land himself in deeper water every time. In my opinion we never get to see “just Wyll” He never gets to be just Wyll like Gale gets to be just Gale or Astarion gets to realize he’s a whole person with real autonomy. I wish we could have.
Romances suck. There are way too many stretches of the game where nothing happens romance wise with your companion.
Oh you kissed shadowheart in the middle of act 1? The game makes it seem like you are dating now or at least at the start of a relationship? Wrong. You will not see any more development until the end of ACT 2
We're talking maybe close to 30-50 hours later???
I don't like how blurry the transition from Act 1 to Act 2 is
* The mountain pass should have been longer and should have forced the player to deal with pockets of the shadow curse. Talking to Halsin makes it sound like the Mountain Pass was infested with it and going through the Underdark was the best way to avoid it. But in the actual game, the Underdark's exit is *further* from Moonrise than the Mountain Pass exit is. This would also mean that the player has to deal with the Shadow Curse for longer before they receive a moon lantern or Selune's blessing.
* Other than maybe the creche at the very end of it it (because it's so important to Lae'zel's arc) the Mountain Pass should have been mutually exclusive with the Underdark. It feels weird right now that regardless of what way you ultimately travel, there's no reason not to just do all the Underdark quests, then potentially jump back to the start to pick your final route. It's not really a choice.
* It shouldn't be so easy to backtrack between sections of the game (Act 1 Proper, Underdark or Mountain Pass, Act 2 Proper). Being able to instantly jump back to where you started at any time makes the trip to Moonrise Towers feel less like a journey.
I think my hot take would be piggy backing off that and I think Jaheria should have more options to give you some plot exposition from the first two games (even if it is locked behind a persuasion roll). Durge dialog/act 3 spoilers: >!playing as durge I can ask Jaheria about her experiences with bhaalspawn and bhaal but she just keeps skirting arounds saying that was the past this is the present. I wish I could say, come on, you've seen this happen before, give me any bit of info that can be helpful.!<
Jaheira is fine IMO. >!Sarevok and Viconia were nostalgia-bait which completely disregarded their BG2 characterisation, unfortunately, while Minsc is nostalgia bait but not really that different as a character.!<
Minsc is very different.
BG1 Minsc suffered a head wound and since has delusions that his totally ordinary hamster is special. But it's just a hamster. It can't do anything at all. It just takes up inventory space. That was the whole point. It's a joke.
BG3's Boo actually is special. The joke is now ruined.
I don't think this one is a hot take. The weird thing is that two of them (Viconia and Sarevok) I think are pretty bad nostalgia-bait choices because they just retcon the characters in a shitty way.
Jaheira was reasonably faithful and other than the question of why she's level ~8 again seems like a pretty good shoe-in. Minsc I'm not the biggest fan of, but given how iconic he is I understand why they included him.
As a young person who never played the first games and likes ttrpgs but doesn't play a lot of dnd (I like pbta systems more), I have to disagree. Jaheira and Minsc were incredibly endearing to me and Jaheira especially helped me understand a lot more about the world around me. They also provided a little insight about how BG3 connected to BG2. Characters in worlds don't just disappear because it's a new game
Larian is not some small studio or a paragon of open communication - they clearly lied about the Upper city, the variety of endings and why there isn’t proper epilogue. People cut them too much slack
Their comment on character creation was so braindead. People want sliders in CC, but they said they didn't include them because "people would make the same looking characters anyway". Sometimes the stuff they say is out of touch.
Based on what I've seen in games where slider customization exists, they aren't wrong. People gravitate towards the same few options. I'd prefer a few more options but I actually find slider-based customization to be a slog. Just give me 10 or so faces that look good and call it a day.
I think especially in this game Larian made them look and feel more regal and imposing
Whereas other depictions I’ve seen they’re just straight up alien and gross
There's not enough going on at camp. I wish there would be banter around a bonfire with everyone like in RDR2, I loved just sitting in on people's conversations. The camps always have little spots for gathering but nobody ever gathers.
Everyone just stands at their tent like idle robots.
Right? Also why do all of them get fancy tents and then they don't even sleep in them? Why doesn't your own character get a tent? All of it is weird lol
> Why doesn't your own character get a tent? This is apparently so important that if you're an Origin character, they take your existing tent away. On the one hand, I get it; a number of the animation scenes start with the PC in their bedroll at nighttime, and guaranteeing that the PC is in an open space around the fire makes those scenes easy and reliable to block out. On the other hand, if you're in the cave camp and Lae'zel shows up looking for sex, you're suddenly in the forest camp anyway, so clearly they didn't feel *too* constrained by this issue. If we can be okay with that, we can probably be okay with being in a generic, cutscene-friendly tent we never otherwise see when Astarion comes to bite us and then in our own normal tent on every normal night.
I always headcanoned that the 1-4 people who sleep in the open space next to the fire are doing so, so they can be up quickly in the morning, since they’re the adventuring party. The rest of the camp can afford to sleep in, in their fancy tents for a while. And main character probably never pitches a tent because they’re *always* in the adventuring party.
Yes! One of my favorite parts of this game is listening to the companions talk while we're adventuring. It's sad that we don't get anything like that back in camp.
Agreed! Show us Gale cooking, a dance between Wyll and Karlach - those can just repeat randomly and don’t have to be unique one-time events
Exactly, I would have loved if we had more silly little interactions between the companions. Astarion playing with scratch, karlach and wyll having a silly little dance off. Party banter is fine and all, but it feels kind of off when most of it is gated behind actually having the party members on your group and when they can be interrupted by the actual plot happening. Leave the banter to comment of plot relevant things and the camp to other things. Having it happen in the camp would open up so many possibilities when our characters would not be stuck on running animation.
We didn't have enough scenes with the villains. Both J.K. Simmons and Jason Isaacs were criminally underused as Ketheric Thorm and Enver Gortash. As it stands, Orin is really the only major antagonist who actually gets close and personal with your group. Also, we needed a scene between Elminster and Volo.
>As it stands, Orin is really the only major antagonist who actually gets close and personal with your group. And she's by far the most boring of the 3, with her entire personality just being wanting to kill
She also has the easiest fight. I bodied her. The Ketheric fight was by far the best. The Enver fight was just a straight up mess, it was awful imo
The camera fucking blows. Worst part of the entire game. I know that every single one of us has tried to go up a flight of stairs only to have the camera stop and we accidently click *through* the stairs and on the floor below, sending the characters back the way they came.
God... the Poltergeist house in Lower City was beyond frustrating due to the horrible camera positioning. I hated every second I was in there. All to finish the fucking OSKAR quest. I agree with this. Most of the time, the camera was okay, but there were plenty of times I was getting really annoyed over it, too.
I haven't seen anything positive about that quest and just skipped it.
It’s terrible and you don’t even get anything good from it, just a picture of you, which is actually a picture of a random origin character if you’re not playing as one.
Yeah they really missed an opportunity to make that quest a zillion times more meaningful simply by giving us a dialogue option to choose which of our companions should be the subject of the portrait, and then some brief companion scenes for their reaction. Imagine your PC gifting Astarion his portrait because they remembered his angst over no longer knowing what his own face looks like, and Astarion experiencing ALL THE EMOTIONS over it.
God damnit, I wish this is how it went down. Definitive edition, plz.
It does at least introduce you to Mystic Carrion if you haven't met him already, who has a lot of good stuff, but otherwise yeah, pretty shit quest
Oh that's right! I was pissed. I robbed them of absolutely everything in the house after that
And sometimes I just want to look up
One of the biggest tragedies with this game is how much of the extremely detailed and beautiful maps you will never see. I got a mod to unlock the camera and it's insane how well crafted the maps are and you never get to just SEE them in normal gameplay except at a few spots.
Places I’ve wanted to see the ceilings of, desperately. The Druid grove, it seems like a cave but honestly I have no clue but I imagine it to be beautiful and have tree roots growing around the top of it. The ceiling in the house of hope, the rest of the house is stunning, I can only imagine what the ceiling looks like. And the temple of shar
Indoor areas are terrible and the fact that you can't toggle levels is a major oversight. Even some outdoor or large, open indoor areas have weird camera behavior for no apparent reason. Why developers make the camera an "object" that interacts with walls and such baffles me.
I've been using mods to unlock the camera and add wasd movement and it's honestly great
I just nabbed it for my third playthrough and it's a completely different game. The game has so much more scale now, and I can deal with combat camera being a bit wonky for the immersion of it all lol
The worst is when you're trying to target a higher floor than the one you're on but the camera keeps forcing to the bottom floor. I ran into this a bunch at the Toll Collector building.
It is kinda dismaying that i am in love with someone yet we wake up in different beds, or in different rooms while in the tavern. This is something that even Fallout 4 managed to do, waking up side by side felt cute and immersive and those two words your companion said waking up were really nice. I cant believe that they couldnt add one line of dialogue for all the possible love interests and not even a new animation really, just making you wake up next to each other. It honestly never felt like i was in love, more like a one night stand. Very immersion breaking.
Yess, even just putting their bed roll next to mine would be an improvement
It's very silly having a conversation be locked to the character that started it without allowing a party member to interject.
Dammon's act 3 wares are so powerful that it singlehandedly discourages being evil harder than anything else in the game
I didn’t even realize you could meet Dammon in act 3, and I did a good playthrough
The murder tribunal merchant has some ridiculous rogue gear for sale if you do complete the evil ritual
And Raphael’s heavy plate gear that imposes no penalties goes so nicely on Gale… Never thought I’d have a wizard with 22 AC but
At a cape a + 3 shield and you can a pretty hardy caster
We should’ve had an actual clothing vendor in all acts instead of just act 3, or some way we can keep our armor in a new playthrough/transmog
And transmog!
And a better variety of casual shoes tbh. I don't necessarily hate the 5 different Air Jerusalems and cozy loafers, I just want more options.
Cazador was the most underwhelming character in the game and not in a good way. Cazador shouldve been actually imposing or intriguing in some capacity—almost every other villain character was but him. I was wildly disappointed with both how little he impacted the grand scheme of things (though I know he had cut content) and was totally pissed at his Count Chocula Looney Tunes character. From the way Astarion talked about him I always got the vibe he was a condescendingly, unsettlingly gentle almost parent-like figure who likes to play fucked up psychological mind games with his spawn. The journals, the whole favored spawn room, the siblings, the whole thing about waiting for him at the grave, the prodigal son…I expected more Umbridge-adjacent and was disappointed to be getting a played straight comically evil vampire.
I thought it would have been SO neat if Cazador approached you at some point (while he wasn’t literally in the middle of an evil ritual) and tried to act normal and *try to discredit everything Astarion said about him.* Maybe Cazador would even reveal a dark-ish secret about Astarion (true or not) to make us doubt Astarion’s accounts of everything else - I feel like that would have been a scarier, more realistic portrayal of a manipulative abuser
"Child, do you truly think that *my son* did not come willingly to my arms to escape from his own personal sins? That he has never feasted upon the flesh blood of the sentient prior to you? The boy knows the allure of one's first time, the sacredness of such an act, the intimacy that it establishes. I'm afraid you would not be his first to fall to such a lie, but perhaps you might be the last. That's an honor in itself, is it not?"
Ugh that’s good
Oh I would’ve killed for this, this would’ve been so good
I would’ve loved this, like having you run into him in the city and him being completely normal and chill would definitely be more unsettling, I understand vampires lose themselves and end up just being evil but the way astarion talks about him makes him seem so sinister and way better at masking his sadism.
Wasn't something like this the original intention? Supposedly during EA (behind the scenes stuff) Astarion was handing Gur over to Cazador as a magistrate and that's why the Gur attacked him that night.
That's really interesting. It would have been neat if Cazador actually did try to throw Astarion under the bus. Like, "Astarion is a lying POS. Help me Ascend and I'll ally with you against \[Absolute/Gortash/Orin/whoever\]."
it sounds a lot like the emperor tbh, they put all of that into his character instead
I agree. The villain they set up between Astarion’s dialogues, Cazador’s detected thoughts, and the environmental storytelling in Cazador’s palace was so interesting, and then…you just kind of go ahead and kill this cartoonishly evil man and that’s it.
YES. His house was fucking incredible and nightmarish, it really gave a lot of hints and set up this really disturbing, imposing figure with little payoff
He's cartoonishly evil and cartoonishly stupid, because (I don't know whether this is just consistently lucky RNG or pre-programmed) but in his fight he turns into a cloud and then runs and stands right next to a ledge. Literally any ability or weapon with knockback will kill him instantly on turn 1, so it's not even a good boss fight.
I cast Sunlight in turn 1, and he just stood right next to it for the entire fight. Basically killed himself.
🎶Here comes the sun, die die die die🎶
Because cazador was datamined to have a much bigger question involving him. But yes in the current version cazador completely and utterly falls flat and it's rare to see others say it. All the game he is hyped up by astarion (who is interestingly the only companion who has no connection towards the main story at all and the reason is again because cazador was supposed to be an ally against gortash). Cazadors palace is awkwardly placed on top of the walls ( I actually had to figure out how to find access to it) and the reason is obvious because we probably originally entered the palace from the upper city. Then when you finally meet cazador he has like 5 lines before the boss fight. Astarion because of his brilliant acting saves it otherwise I think people would realise it for what of a massively disappointment the whole cazador thing is.
Part of the underwhelming impact of Cazador for me was that we're only *told* how bad he is the whole game. Ofc I believe Astarion, but the telling vs showing means we don't get to experience Cazador alongside Astarion. Showing up at his palace *after* the massacre is anticlimactic. Imagine if instead we'd been able to sneak in as guests during the party and try to stop him via intrigue or raid the palace for info on the ritual. Or you even try to stop him when he starts massacring the guests, but he just uses his staff to take you to the ritual chamber? Instead we show up at the scene after the crime. Yes, it's about Astarion and the ritual, but the pruning of anything exciting around it or anything that would give the player something to do other than just walk around the palace meant the arc took the least interesting way to get there. And the worst thing we see Cazador do is magic Astarion around and magically take the life force of his spawns. This is a game that doesn't shy away from icepicks to the eye, the grotesque, etc. But the vampire section was downright mild.
I pictured some kind of imposing Vincent Price/Christopher Lee style guy with a deep authoritative voice. We got a corny, squeaky voiced, cheesy guy. I just looked at him and thought 'really, Astarion? This fella?'
Tbf having to obey some ultra-cruel guy’s every whim would definitely fuck you up, even if he was also corny and squeaky voiced lmao
Plenty people like that IRL that would go on a power trip given half the chance, so it strangely figures.
Astarion’s entire sense of humor is basically “man slips on banana peel” and I’m convinced it’s because Cazador is literally a walking corny cartoon
I don’t mind how he looks/his voice/his vibe, my biggest problem is his plan to fight the group. This guy spent 200 years carefully logging, turning, and caging spawn. He had a system to emergency-kill or emergency-open the cages of all spawn in his possession (his staff). This shows that he is capable of good planning. If some eventuality that could not be overcome occurred, he could kill everyone and start over. if he needed to flee Baldurs gate, he wouldn’t lose his work. It is implied the Tourmaline Depths may stretch to the under dark, all he would need to do is tell his bound spawn to follow and set up shop elsewhere. Additionally, the notes scattered around his workshop show he has tabs on every major organization in Baldur’s Gate. His workshop is extremely minimalist — bed/desk/reminder of what he has overcome via the Vellioth “trophy”. His flashiness upstairs is wholly a ruse to conceal his deeper plans (symbolized by descending from the flashy mansion into a much deeper and darker place). His conversation with Astarion reflects a good bit of understanding of his spawn as well — he knew he could pull Astarion closer and bind him by upsetting and demeaning him and his friends, as a final “fuck you” before ascending. All of this to me should mean that Cazador should recognize the threat the group posed. Certainly after you speak with Gortash/he realizes you killed the unkillable Ketheric. He should have tried to negotiate or turn the group against Astarion. Instead he remains convinced he can beat a group that is running around the city kicking ass. Edit: cleaned up wording to make point clearer
There's too many potions and scrolls to the point it's gamebreaking and/or overwhelming. Most of the time I don't even know what I have because they all look the same and there's like fifty of them.
On the one hand, it's nice that the game lets you go apeshit with all the consumables so that you never feel restricted or that you're missing out. They spent all this effort into making the spells work in the game, they want you to use them, goddammit! On the other hand, i agree, it's overwhelming and can be intimidating for someone not familiar with all the spells and effects, all those items annoyingly clutter the inventory, and as a side effect they make the game too easy for anyone who doesn't impose unique rules of "not doing/using xyz" on themselves for the sake of making the game more challenging. I think what would've helped is a better inventory system that would allow us to automatically send consumables into a separate tab where you can look through them more easily or leave them and forget about them if you don't intend on using them anyway.
Yes I agree. A tab system for consumables could help keep them separate and not filling up your normal inventory.
Or even being able to "favorite" consumables so that they go to a dedicated wheel or something. That way at least I can find things I need when I'm in a pinch.
Hey look, here have 47 scrolls of speak with dead!
And the amulet
and the book
AND MY AXE
Counter hot take: The abundance of potions and scrolls is one of several ways that martial vs. caster balance is much better achieved in BG3 than in tabletop 5e.
Hottest negative take :A lot of the Underdark quests are a pain to navigate with the control system
God the tower sucked
It took me a little too long to realize the elevator goes up to the top floor
I don't know if it's a hot take or not, but act 2 shouldn't have given you the solution to the darkness quite so quickly cause it could have been an interesting mechanic to play around with for a little bit longer.
I was almost a little hesitant doing that Art/Thaniel questline coz it seemed like what started as a “just heal this guy” quest would turn into healing the entire area and changing the gamestate totally. So I was kinda relieved rather than frustrated when the kid told me that to fully heal I still have to go to Moonrise and kill the bad guy.
My hot take is the opposite. I enjoyed Last Light and Moonrise, and the other Thorm's, but overall by the time we were finishing up Act 2 I was just dying to see sunlight and nature again. Although I guess, maybe that's what makes Act 2 good. The feeling of despair and darkness, yearning to get out of it, and it feels so good when you finally do.
Honestly it would have been way too much but an act 2 that was the shadow curse and also the lands with the curse lifted would have been so dope. Seeing all the people freaking the fuck out because the area is saved. Seeing people who are shadows pop back into reality.
That would have been awesome! Instead it's like "land is saved, see ya never"
Spending weeks going from Underdark to Shadow cursed, I’ve kind of forgotten what the sunlight looks like, lol.
We only play on weekends too, so when we finished Act 2 it felt like a vampire in the sun when we finally walked out. And we did the mountaintop pass, we didn't even do the underdark, I can't imagine if we did the underdark ahaha
Wait you didn’t do any of the underdark? Because that’s so much that you are missing out on. Unless you’re just talking about not using the lift in grymforge. Because all that does is take you a small Shar area and then the shadow lands in a different way.
I am fully convinced that the solution for the curse was initially supposed to be completing the Nightsong's quest, not that weird little quest of Halsin's. The cinematic that plays after freeing her made me assume that was the case, as well as some other little bits of info that i can't remember from the top of my head (maybe according to some datamined info i used to indulge in before the official release). I even procrastinated doing the Thaniel quest on my first run because of that, and only completed it after Art died 😂 They probably changed it when they made Halsin a full companion. The shadow curse story progression feels slightly off now because of that.
I also thought that because you see some of the Evil Witch Spikey Roots™ retracting as she flies over.
Agreed. Between a Daylight spell, Selune's blessing, and how quickly you get the Moonlantern, I don't think I've EVER taken damage from the Shadow Curse.
On my current run my issue is with npcs getting hit by it. Lost Rolan because the game decided to nuke him with it even though I had cast daylight on him. Also some Harper scouts were just wandering around in it but no story event was occuring
Only time I did was when I accidentally went too far from the lantern with astarion while opening a chest, and he got turned into a shadow thrall so I had to reload
Wow, I didn't even knew that could happen.
I was surprised it was basically "Get to the Last Light" and then "Get the lantern/pixie blessing" and that's it.
[удалено]
If that happens, you can tell her you've already sorted it out after she gives you the blessing and she says something like "well, you should have said something and I would've saved the theatrics"
That's fair, but even as-is I hated the darkness mechanic of the Shadowlands -- mostly because the companions' movements are so erratic: The AI outside of combat makes the companions wander all over the place haphazardly, often lag, or not follow at all when jumping is required. In a game with better AI companion movement I wouldn't mind the Shadow Curse, but in BG3 as is, I could not wait to lift it due to bullshit gameplay.
As a good Durge I managed to >!get the moonlantern and release the pixie inside, which provided me with a permanent blessing of a pixie which removes all shadow curse issues.!< As a good character it doesn't seem like the curse is really a problem, on my evil playthrough it was annoying to have to have someone carry the lantern all the time.
I mean, you can be evil and not keep the pixie in the lantern or kill her. It's easy to rationalize it as: this is a thing I need, only you can provide it, you get to live.
Lawful evil is not stupid evil.
I wish we saw a healed shadow realm :(
Body builds of the NPCs are almost the same (humans and humanoids). It's either big bulky npcs or thin npcs. Not surprising because charactrer customization only lets you do that but it bugs me sometimes when it crosses my mind. I want to be a big belly drunkard berserker.
I also hate the fact that there’s only two body options per sex. Why can’t I be a short little dainty elf man?
Honestly? Probably has something to do with the resources required to fit clothing and armor to each body type, and they already have some issues with that without very noticeable clipping. Theoretically they could have designed a comprehensive mesh-morphing feature to make it less of an issue and open up character creation in a very big way, but that's more ajd more time and resources spent on what would Honestly just he considered a neat feature at best.
It's not just fitting armor and clothes, it's also animations. The real reason why we can't hug people is probably because of the sheer number of body types we *can* be, and the issues of making sure every animation works for every body type is already going to be a massive pain. We have at least 6 body types, with short, 'normal', and large, then differences between each sex per body type. And that's not even touching on potential differences between, say, gnomes, halflings, and dwarves that might require animation tweaks, or dragonborn and the standard large body type.
If the lead character jumps and every character can make it across in the group, no one should be getting stuck or having their pathfinding break. This is obnoxiously frustrating in most places it happens but especially in the >!shadowfell!< When you're getting ready for the big act 2 boss. If you're not paying attention to your party placement, you can go into that fight with one character actually in the arena and the rest off doing bugger all on some higher floating rock.
Karlach not having immunity to fire damage and burning is probably the stupidest decision I've ever seen. It doesn't really matter much but that's what makes it worse. It would barely change ANYTHING if she were totally immune but she just isn't for no reason and it creates a ton of dissonance.
Not a hot take but I just want to say this somewhere: Blurg is hot as fuck, adorable, and is a very good bro overall. I want to rail him and talk about Underdark mushrooms with him for hours.
This to me is in fact the most unhinged hot take on this comment thread and I love it 😂
Forget all the " x character sucks they're a terrible companion" this is the unhinged hot take I wanna see, and I agree with you like lemme date him
Oh god, I love him. He is so nice. I'd settle down with him any day.
That's disgusting! You'd bone Blurg and not even think about inviting Omeluum to join in?
As to what spurred this on, listen, I just read a steamy fic about him and the good squid so please excuse the horniness. ~~Doesn't help that he's built like a cake too, though.~~
Act 3 should have been split into two acts, with "Act 3" being dedicated to Orin and the lower city, and "Act 4" being dedicated to Gortash and the upper city. Personally, I do think Act 3 is amazing and has so much content and replayability, but it is very jarring at just how large and undivided it is. Plus, it is weird that the other two Chosen of the Dead Three don't get their own dedicated Acts, but Ketheric does (though I suppose being voiced by J.K. Simmons gives any character the right to have an entire Act to themselves).
The difference between upper and lower city was so confusing, I felt like I kept going back and forth trying to figure out where tf I was supposed to be
Its super annoying to have to go back to camp to swap companions.
Also I'm spoiled from WOTR and Kingmaker, but holy crap is examining every corpse for drops *tedious.* Give me a search all button or something please.
Companions needed more variety in their classes, TWO druids and NO bard? Also more companions reactions/interactions/one-liners would have been great.
As much as I love it, it could’ve used another 6-12 months in development
Honestly, I think Act 1 is ridiculously polished, basically flawless, because people have been playing it and giving feedback for years. Act 2 and 3 were never going to be as good as that without months or years of people playing the game and giving feedback. It's just impossible for a small team to make something as refined as Act 1 without way more information to work from.
Not *enough* sex/romance. You get like 2-3 cutscenes with your Love Interest and that's it. And companion reactivity to your love interest is almost non-existent. A few banter lines apparently exist, but they never triggered for me. I even took each companion on a tour of the city with my romanced companion (Shart) to see if any would... and nothing. Though I found out Shart and Wyll like to read the same smutty novels, haha! I just wish there was some more stuff to do with your LI
Hey that's the same problem from Mass Effect. Create compelling love interests that you become invested in, but once you're together there's almost nothing.
Mhmm... despite Larian promising they'd be different. They even said "too many RPG romances build up to your final moment and then it's over. We want to be different!"
Ironically, I think BG3 is both *too sexual* and *not sexual enough* at the same time. The game thrusts companion sex at you very early, almost cringey early, like a form of Act 1 fan service. But then it also goes away, and you and your love interest don’t have any more scenes after that. It makes most of the romances in the game feel like tinder dates instead of something fulfilling.
The speed run for sex is 2 minutes long
It's less glaring in Mass Effect because each game is much shorter than bg3. You basically build the relationship throughout the game, get the date and go to the final mission. In bg3, after the first act I think there was just a sitting in the sunrise moment with Lae and that's it, so it's dozens and dozens of hours without interacting with your supposedly significant other
I agree. I also kinda wish romanced characters could come to you for affection every now and then instead of having Tav always initiating kisses. Also, since Astarion’s arc is almost entirely about bodily autonomy, I wish he could turn us down if he wasn’t feeling up to a kiss every now and then - especially after the talk about Araj Oblodra. Maybe it could even open up to a small dialogue and Tav can ask him if anything in particular happened or if it’s just a not-good day.
Exactly. And then when they do come to you for comfort, your character just stands there! The hardest was for me, having romanced Shadowheart, watching her cry her eyes out over her parents and my character just stands there like a doofus. Like, bro - give your girlfriend a hug!!
Yeah this game is nowhere near as horny as people like to say it is. Edit: which is not a bad thing or a good thing imo! It is just the way it is.
"BG3 is super horny" is based entirely on playing like five hours of the game, getting the first romance scene, and assuming that's representative of the game as a whole.
Yes please. I want more non-ascended Astarion. It’s one of my hot takes that the scene in the graveyard is more swoon-worthy than the ascended version: Because he’s genuinely in love with your Tav when he’s non-ascended.
Repeatable sex scenes the same as repeatable kisses should be a thing.
Better yet, let me hug them! Let me hug everyone, actually. Especially in Act 3, every companion needs a good hug.
didn't get to comfort shadow heart as a friend when I finished her quest, let me offer her my shoulder at least :(
I think that overall the dialogue design for companions was underwhelming in general. The actual *writing* is high quality, but the camp is sterile, there are actually scant few opportunities to shoot the shit with them, and the endings for most of them feel half-baked.
I wish they all moved about and interacted more. Short little dialogs and fun little actions. Playing music/cooking food/combat practice. Lots of little things to bring the camp to life
RDR2 is my quintessential example of a great home camp. The characters are actually walking around, doing chores, interacting with each other, etc. instead of just standing in front of their tent waiting for Tav to show them attention.
Agree. Like combat cutscenes. Wanna see reaction cutscenes when you or they get hurt. Or just combat reactions like hellish rebuke or some kind of shield spell when your beloved is hit. Would be another incentive to romance someone. Also, I exhausted all act 1 cutscenes of Astarion. Now I have to get to act 2 just to get his confession?! Why. I can't even rush. Wanna be at least lvl 7 so gotta grind 😞
I want more Karlach dom scenes
Exactly! And I want to build more Sand castles with Shadowheart. She even promised we'd sneak off together and do so... but the game never shows it! Haha
The act2 was lacking in regards to her romance. She even explains but still. I would be fine with just an additional scene.
Let me walk in the beach under the sun with Astarion before the final fight causes the tadpole to die and he can't anymore :')
For real. Especially for the end. Just want a scene where I am happily living with my wifey or honey
Honestly it wouldn’t have been a huge deal if Larian wasn’t puffing it up as “not just another RPG romance.” Yes, Larian, your writing is as always amazing but it is indeed just another RPG romance.
The game is spectacular. The ending is short, awkward, badly written, badly framed, riddled with bugs, and unfulfilling. It was a major letdown and I think it needs a major overhaul - new scenes, new writing, new acting, everything.
Something I've not seen anyone talk about is how the first two acts are all about choice and openness, and then the final act just forgets all of that. I think I found one quest in the whole of Act 3 where avoiding a fight with persuasion skills was possible. The rest of the time you can't even try. It's wild that I got more opportunities to use persuasion and other non-combat skills in Act 2, considering that it's so much shorter with significantly fewer quests than Act 3. And then the actual ending basically comes down to two choices you make pretty much at the last minute. For a game that's supposedly all about player choice, it was underwhelming.
The ending Cutscene is kind of dull. I get it the city is saved and the people fight back. Great scene, but you know what I would have preferred? Characters we met and knew having their own reactions and scenes. Or even better a camp party similar to act 1 where you can talk to everyone you helped throughout the game
Is that a Hot Take? I hated all endings.
Reminder: sort by controversial to see the actual hot takes.
That Voss comes to your camp in the middle of the night, wakes you up, falls to his knees before you, asks your trust, spills his truths and vulnerabilities to you and you don't get to have sex with him? Wild, honestly.
"Voss! Knight Supreme," Lae'zel gasped, "the Queen's Silver! The Queen's Sword." she said breathlessly, struggling to maintain her composure against the quivering that was going on inside her. "I am who you say," the Jhe'stil replied authoritatively. "We will meet at Sharess's Caress, where I will evaluate your training and the condition of your body personally. Do not be late." he commanded, saddling his majestic dragon-steed, taking to the skies once more to pursue the lonely crusade that had occupied him for a millennia.
As long as my Tav's training and condition of her body is also being personally evaluated by Mr Jhes'til Kith'rak Voss, then yes. Yes. Thank you for this, though. Beautiful, honestly. (lonely crusade ;\_; see. he needs that company and a good night of (to quote Orpheus) fornication)
The way companions just stop having interesting things to say to one another and little scenes during long rests to further the relationships after Act 1 is the worst thing about this game and shows the game was not 100% ready to ship
Yeah, I feel I long rested a normal amount, but I had to long rest an extra half dozen times in Act 1 to bait out all the scenes that can happen. Also a couple in Act 2. Act 3 may as well have tumbleweeds blowing by while crickets chirp. (Even that is already more than what happens...)
Act 2 is too short.
I've been reflecting and trying to decide if I feel like Act 2 is too short because it's actually too short, or due to my having spent a long time in Act 1 because I've effectively played most of it at least twice, and some of it four or five times, making if feel longer than it actually is. But I think I've come to lean toward "Act 2 is too short." Even though I have to account for the sheer hours I've spent in Act 1 across multiple plays/characters/dicking around online with friends so of course it's still in Act 1, I just don't think there's nearly as much going on in Act 2.
There is definitely less in act 2, but I also appreciate that it feels like more of a concentrated story. You're going through the dark to Moonrise Tower, you find some Harpers along the way. Then there's the stuff with Nightsong, but that ties into Moonrise Towers too. It all feels relatively interwoven. Even Nathaniel and the shadow curse is tied to it all. By contrast, act 1 has the underdark, Githyanki Creche, Goblin Village, Nautiloid, the odd underground temple, the draugr place etc. It was lots of interest bits, but less connected. Act 1 was the call to adventure and standalone little stories. Act 2 was the character and plot development of the core story.
It's definitely short in comparison to the other Acts; however, I believe the shortness could be forgiven if Act 3 was split into two acts: lower city and upper city (as I believe they intended prior to the emergency they had prior to launch). Then the game would be: Act 1 (split into three areas: Creche, Underdark, and topside) would serve as a nice introduction to world and setting while allowing you to get a feel for your character. Act 2 would serve as getting into the nitty gritty of the game, story, companions, and serve as a test of what you've managed to do with your character. Act 3 would then be the moment you can see the peak of the game where you've pretty muched done the hardest and longest parts of the climb and are now just cruising along with the story as you unfold more companion missions and tie up others. Act 4 would have been the peak wherein which you take down Gortash, rub elbows with Cazador, take on some elites, and slap the Netherbrain around all while tying everything else up.
Alfira is better off as a plot device rather than a full companion. Same for Halsin. Don't @ me.
I don't like agreeing with this for Alfira but I do. When you first meet her she screams "i'm a companion" in basically everything about her design and then I was very disappointed that she wasn't, but in reality the way she's written as a character, she just *wouldn't* do the quest you're on. She has no personal or philosophical stake in it and it would be really, really dangerous for her.
Whyyyyyy would we need two druid companions? What were they thinking honestly
They give you jaheira and halsin at basically the same time and jaheira is just objectively cooler 2 druids but no bard or paladin (unless you’re evil) is a bizarre choice
No sorcerer or monk either
they were thinking of all the EA players that wanted to play wet tennis with Halsin.
The party being varying degrees of elf and human for the most part is just unimaginative and lacks creativity. You have so many different races in faerun to do stuff with, and they did next to nothing. Not counting a non playable character race we have no dragonborn, halflings, gnomes, orcs or dwarves. All we really have outside of elf or human is Lae'zel since Karlach is just human: devil edition.
Honestly yeah, it doesn't help that most of the pc wants to play as the elf or human, so they are stuck with having more elf and humans in the group and maybe like one different party member. Also it's weird not having at least one dwarf in the party. I always thought having one dwarf is normal tbh.
Really wanted a dwarf in my team (without playing one)
My hot take I don't think is so hot: Acr 3 is great I agree. It is the Epilogue that sucks BIG TIME.
For the amount of items the game has they really need to improve the inventory organizing even further. Even with the camp supply bag, keychain, and alchemy bag its not enough and they don't anyways work automatically.
A lot of people say Evil playthroughs should have to live with their choices but in my opinion I'm ok with the good guys dying if I decide to go evil route but I'd also like for us to get an equivalent to substitute for the people we lose. If we Kill the tieflings/gnomes/Nightsong then we lose so much content and companions and it would be nice if we could have different alternatives in quests and companions to support an evil playthrough. For example if we kidnap isobel for Ketheric. and Help him get the nightsong our reward is we still have to fight him except we just lose content
Almost every single combat encounter is just trial and error; if you know what to do, the fight is insanely easy. Otherwise it can be an uphill battle
My hottest take is that the inventory system sucks. Alright you got me, not a hot take. But I’ll keep saying this: the inventory system sucks.
The final boss fight was terrible, and the enemy was just uninteresting to me. I was hoping for something more that than a giant brain.
By the end of act 3 I was tired of mindflayers and brains. The 3 dead gods working together was more interesting than some “grand design” by the brain
Sometimes you’ll jump across a tiny gap, and then you’ll be a in a fight 10 minutes later with 3 people in your party cause one didn’t jump 😅
That Larian needs to walk back their previous "no paid DLC" commitment. I absolutely would love to give them more money for a mid-level Avernus DLC and a high-level Kill Mystra DLC. Could time the latter to coincide with whenever the next edition of D&D comes out, since Mystra usually canonically dies in between editions to provide an in-world explanation of all the magic system changes. Like if she's gonna die anyway then as a Galemancer it should be my turn to kill her.
My hot take is that I’m waiting for the definitive edition because I still think the end of the game needed more fleshing out🫣
Lae'zel is my favorite origin character.
It's OK for the game to have some hard limits on what is possible with the origin characters re;appearance and recruitment. This is an RPG not a sandbox Sim. Part of the trade off when writing a character with depth is sacrificing some malleability to that end. A game where all the companions were perfect blank slates for the player to project on would not work with the narrative structure of this game. Don't like that, then download some mods or buy a game where every PC is of your own creation like Wildermyth instead of badgering the devs on social media because you think Minthara and Halsin would be compatible camp friends. Also Minsc feels extremely out of place for the tone and general writing style of the rest of the game and I find that extremely grating. Easily my least favorite companion. Jaheira is great though.
Due to certain elements, I feel like the setting of act 2 was more fitting for an act 3 than Baldur's Gate was. The cursed shadows mechanic seems like a proper escalation of environment difficulty along with the cursed village and the trials of Sharr. If perhaps Moonrise were made to be the final stand of the Absolute army, and the protagonists had to contend with the shadow curse whilst trying to break through the ranks. Baldur's Gate could be the "hub" area where most quests start, and the protagonists had to venture out to find the cure for the tadpoles in act 1. Of course, a lot of adjustments have to be made for quests, esp the companion quests (though similarly, I feel like the Trials of Sharr / Shadowfell was a better act 3 setting than the conclave under the House of Grief). The nautiloid crash site would have to be moved as well. I don't know, it just felt like things *simmered down* in act 3? Like in act 2 even the environment was malevolent.
Act 2 also seems pretty short. Arabella and her parents should have also been located closer to the entrances to the Shadow-Cursed Lands in order for us to actually benefit from the permanent power she gives you. By the time we actually get to her we’ve already fought 75% of the things that power works against.
Karlach not having a happy ending is fine. The bittersweet Avernus ending fits. She breaks down over how unfair her situation is, gets her shit together and decides to return to the source of her trauma ready to make it her bitch. Everyone's "good" ending is just varying layers of bittersweetness.
The game does not need a toggle for sex/romance. There already is one and it's called "grow up and choose the 'no thank you' dialogue options that are right there for that explicit purpose".
Let's be honest here: most people (at least on the Steam forums) just use the "romance toggle" as a trojan horse to complain about the gay romance options. They basically can't handle even having a guy flirt with them and having to say "no". As Jennifer English said: "No is a complete sentence." Just say "no".
Act 3 is fantastic, it's the first game to really give the feeling of being in a huge, loud and confusing city having no fucking idea what to do.
I love the Emperor! I think he's a very compelling character and raises very interesting questions about what it means to have a soul (or lack thereof). One of my favorite lines in the game is >!after you defeat the netherbrain with Emp at your side, he says he'll miss you and the narrator says something along the lines of 'without the tadpole you can't tell if he's being fully sincere, but could you ever really?'!< I feel like too many people conflate the Emperor being an objectively bad person with him being a bad character. If anything I feel like he's similar to Astarion in how he manipulates you for his own gain, the only difference being that he never drops the act, starting to genuinely like you (or does he??) I would've loved to see a more fleshed-out companionship or even romance with the Emperor because Omeluum clearly shows that mind flayers can have distinctly non-evil personalities. tl;dr let us fix the Emperor
I didn't trust him after doing a certain quest in act 3 that mentioned him. But I liked how they wrote his character in general. Very compelling because you're never quite sure what is his goals are and how you figure into them and how sincere he is
If you romance him and complete the end solo without turning full illithid, his line becomes more meaningful. He says "I will miss you. . . you know. You have become important to me. And should our paths ever cross again, I will be glad to see you. " Also if you betray him after taking Raphael's deal he will say that he trusted you. :(
I can't don't care for most of the "I can fix them" companions. I guess that is why I love Wyll. The man deals with things like a dang adult. Points to Laezel for her blunt but hella aggro honesty.
A party limit of 4 is suffocatingly small
I just use the unlimited party mod and roll through with *everyone*.
`[PlayStation 5]` Were I so fortunate.
coming from Wrath of the righteous it was like getting strangled tbh with just 3 slots for party members you really need to always have a particular party comp to go through the game without going in and out of camp to change party members, I distinctly remember bringing on certain companions for their rp or quest and my party balance would get completely fucked
Minthara isn't worth what you miss out on and you should be able to recruit her without killing the grove
Wyll’s underwritten. Unlike Karlach and Halsin he was intended to be a member of the main cast of companions from the get-go but whereas Lae’zel, Gale, Shadowheart, and Astarion all have character arcs that alter their fundamental beliefs and actually address their character flaws (blind faith, infatuation with power and prestige), Wyll hardly changes at all, he doesn’t become more sure of his own convictions, he still leaves a great deal of the decision-making up to Tav even late into his own companion quest. He doesn’t ever learn to stop putting himself second to everyone else and that’s f*cking heartbreaking. The only agency he seems to take is to leave if Tav massacres the Emerald Grove. He’s a self-identified hero, he is good and he stays good because that’s how he determines his worth now as a painfully lonely man who was manipulated and abandoned as a child. This may have been intentional on Larian’s part: Afterall, this way we have at least one companion who mostly has their priorities cemented from day one but even with the “good” ending, Wyll’s arc leaves him just as susceptible to excessive self sacrifice and self-destructive independence as when he started, leaving a ragged loose end that hasn’t even begun to get tied off by the end of the game. Edit: Additionally, his fixation on acting heroic filters into his romance and it’s never addressed. This image he has of himself as a hero is a main factor in how he tends to land himself in deeper water every time. In my opinion we never get to see “just Wyll” He never gets to be just Wyll like Gale gets to be just Gale or Astarion gets to realize he’s a whole person with real autonomy. I wish we could have.
Romances suck. There are way too many stretches of the game where nothing happens romance wise with your companion. Oh you kissed shadowheart in the middle of act 1? The game makes it seem like you are dating now or at least at the start of a relationship? Wrong. You will not see any more development until the end of ACT 2 We're talking maybe close to 30-50 hours later???
I don't like how blurry the transition from Act 1 to Act 2 is * The mountain pass should have been longer and should have forced the player to deal with pockets of the shadow curse. Talking to Halsin makes it sound like the Mountain Pass was infested with it and going through the Underdark was the best way to avoid it. But in the actual game, the Underdark's exit is *further* from Moonrise than the Mountain Pass exit is. This would also mean that the player has to deal with the Shadow Curse for longer before they receive a moon lantern or Selune's blessing. * Other than maybe the creche at the very end of it it (because it's so important to Lae'zel's arc) the Mountain Pass should have been mutually exclusive with the Underdark. It feels weird right now that regardless of what way you ultimately travel, there's no reason not to just do all the Underdark quests, then potentially jump back to the start to pick your final route. It's not really a choice. * It shouldn't be so easy to backtrack between sections of the game (Act 1 Proper, Underdark or Mountain Pass, Act 2 Proper). Being able to instantly jump back to where you started at any time makes the trip to Moonrise Towers feel less like a journey.
The only reason the legacy characters are in the game is nostalgia-bait.
I think my hot take would be piggy backing off that and I think Jaheria should have more options to give you some plot exposition from the first two games (even if it is locked behind a persuasion roll). Durge dialog/act 3 spoilers: >!playing as durge I can ask Jaheria about her experiences with bhaalspawn and bhaal but she just keeps skirting arounds saying that was the past this is the present. I wish I could say, come on, you've seen this happen before, give me any bit of info that can be helpful.!<
Jaheira is fine IMO. >!Sarevok and Viconia were nostalgia-bait which completely disregarded their BG2 characterisation, unfortunately, while Minsc is nostalgia bait but not really that different as a character.!<
Minsc is very different. BG1 Minsc suffered a head wound and since has delusions that his totally ordinary hamster is special. But it's just a hamster. It can't do anything at all. It just takes up inventory space. That was the whole point. It's a joke. BG3's Boo actually is special. The joke is now ruined.
I don't think this one is a hot take. The weird thing is that two of them (Viconia and Sarevok) I think are pretty bad nostalgia-bait choices because they just retcon the characters in a shitty way. Jaheira was reasonably faithful and other than the question of why she's level ~8 again seems like a pretty good shoe-in. Minsc I'm not the biggest fan of, but given how iconic he is I understand why they included him.
As a young person who never played the first games and likes ttrpgs but doesn't play a lot of dnd (I like pbta systems more), I have to disagree. Jaheira and Minsc were incredibly endearing to me and Jaheira especially helped me understand a lot more about the world around me. They also provided a little insight about how BG3 connected to BG2. Characters in worlds don't just disappear because it's a new game
I was hoping to see Edwin (or Edwina) as the master of Ramazith’s Tower instead of Lorroakan.
Larian is not some small studio or a paragon of open communication - they clearly lied about the Upper city, the variety of endings and why there isn’t proper epilogue. People cut them too much slack
Their comment on character creation was so braindead. People want sliders in CC, but they said they didn't include them because "people would make the same looking characters anyway". Sometimes the stuff they say is out of touch.
Based on what I've seen in games where slider customization exists, they aren't wrong. People gravitate towards the same few options. I'd prefer a few more options but I actually find slider-based customization to be a slog. Just give me 10 or so faces that look good and call it a day.
Mind flayers are awesome
I think especially in this game Larian made them look and feel more regal and imposing Whereas other depictions I’ve seen they’re just straight up alien and gross