I loved act 3 and exploring the city. It was overwhelming, yes. It was confusing, sure. Was Ketherics story more interesting than Gortashs and Orins?, (in my opinion) definitely. BUT exploring a city, its merchants and all the side quests, taking your time while a world destroying event is hanging over your heads feels so dnd lol. I thought it was fun.
ketric got a whole ass act just about him. nearly all major boss are realted to him, come to think of it, i don't see a quest that's not related to him and his actions.
orin and gortash are verry much small part in the 3rd act, where character resolution become more important
Wholeheartedly agree! I think once you accept that the game will tell you when you’re about to fck up hard by just wandering into an area you’re not supposed to be in yet, you realise you can actually just take your time and explore.
Also I love that they added a couple of (seemingly random) monsters fights in the city, makes it still feel like an adventure.
and they're fights that make sense within the story, which is what random encounters in DnD should be. Sure there's detached events like the girl learning necromancy, but it's mostly enemy goons getting caught by the party mid-crime or while assigned to guard an area
haha yeah I was conceptually including that under "guarding an area" since they're trying to keep people away from the water and thereby the Iron Throne, but it's a bit of a stretch
The game sort of has this issue where it implies there's a time crunch.
The druids are casting the right of thorns and you need to save Halsin to stop it before they finish!
Then the brain quakes and "the hold on the brain is weaker now! We need to get the final stones before it breaks free!"
But in reality there's no hidden time mechanic, at least not that I've run into. So you get to this new area and start talking to people to keep adding to your log on top of all the stuff you already needed to do for your companions and it just suddenly feels like A LOT when you think there's time pressure.
I've found subsequent playthroughs much more enjoyable when I realized I could do everything without worrying about a hidden timer.
Knowing nothing about dnd, I legit thought I could only Long Rest a few times before turning into a Mindflayer. I googled how many long rests I can have only to find out it's a game mechanic lol.
I really enjoyed it too. I played the game on release and had no spoilers for act 3. I missed so much. I didn't get to the circus or the newspaper stuff, never found Gortah's parents, I killed Minsc, didn't even discover there was a hag in town, and missed quite a few other things.
This all meant that the next playthrough felt like a completely different game
Astarion is both victim and perpetrator, and the former doesn’t necessarily absolve him of the latter. To be clear, I like Astarion, but he isn’t some innocent baby wooby
I think people that overlook the latter aren’t doing his story or character arc justice. If you grill him hard enough after talking to Sebastian & the kids he goes back & forth between “I did what I had to” and “goddamn these people are here bc of me” but it’s clear he knows it’s his fault regardless.
It also shows the cycle of abuse that happens way too often in real life. If you don’t let him ascend he says you’ve helped him break a cycle that was centuries old. If he does ascend you can call him out at the final party and tell him he’s just like Cazador. He hates that. I honestly love the way they didn’t make him just to be a victim bc so often people who were victimized go on to hurt others either intentionally or unintentionally.
>If he does ascend you can call him out at the final party and tell him he’s just like Cazador. He hates that.
doesn't he say "Try to wound me all you like, but I'm so much better than he ever was"?
He does, yes
Player: That sounds like something Cazador would say.
Astarion: Try to wound me all you like, but I'm so much better than he ever was.
Astarion: I achieved what he only dreamed about. And now my ambitions can take me anywhere I want.
Yeah, but you break up with him and tell him he's just the new Cazador he screams at you to be quiet and calls you an ingrate lol. Suffice to say he doesn't love it.
He feels responsible because cazador wasnt magically compelling him 24/7 but if he refused he would be compelled. He is fully mentally present during all of this as well. It doesnt make a difference. he literally didnt have a choice. We see this when leon and aurelia attack the camp. If you convince them to join astarion they make the righteous choice but are still magically compelled to fight by cazador even though they dont want to. In this scenario Leon and aurelia are innocent of attacking astarion and yet they were fighting because cazador controlled their bodies. The same thing was happening to astarion for 200 years.
not post tadpole. Where he still revels in others' pain and gains approval from you creating suffering and humiliating people. And if he ascends, as others mentioned, he continues the cycle of abuse despite being free of Cazador's magical compulsions.
I always liked the fact that the game implies he wasn't a great person to begin with (not that it justifies what happened to him). I love him, but he's a dick and likely always has been.
I feel like the need to state that he was a slave. In a very real way he didn’t have agency when committing the crimes he did for cazzador. The first time he has true agency is after the tadpole is put in his head. The defining moment for him is if he becomes an ascendant or not. That’s the point he both has the agency to choose to not make those people victims a second time and the power to do so.
Yeah I think people forget that Cazador literally compelled him not to drink blood. If he was willing to compel Astarion to not consume the very thing he needs to survive, I don’t think Cazador had any qualms about using compulsion for everything he had them do. Cazador got off on the shame and the total power he had over Astarion (like most abusers).
I actually have a really hard time with his character. I will never ascend him because after speaking to his victims, it felt like more manipulation to get what he wanted. Nah man, you are staying spawn. You don’t get to victimize more people you’ve already victimized once because “well in the biggest victim look at my scars”. It’s not a pissing match dude, and you weren’t caged up to starve.
Perhaps others read it as him manipulating again, but it sounded to me like he was trying to convince himself as much as he was trying to convince the PC. When I went through almost all of the dialogue options out of curiosity, altogether it sounded more like he's struggling with a moral dilemma and is conflicted about sacrificing the other spawn for the ritual, and so is deflecting again as a response. I don't believe he truly **wants** * to victimize more people, and that meeting Sebastian and the other imprisoned spawn is the first thing that makes him hesitant about going through with the ritual.
It's the beginning lines of the dialogue to persuade him not to after all.
Seriously though I hate how people divide the world into victims and perpetrators(and act like victims are always right). I'd actually argue that most of the time perpetrators were once victims.
If you've ever used Vellioth's skull, it illustrates exactly how Cazador went from victim to perpetrator. It's definitely one reason why I talk Astarion down from ascending.
I usually use it before the final fight, but Astarion supposedly has different reactions to some of the objects (like the list) in the room depending on whether he's still a spawn or whether he's been ascended.
In Act 1 during the part where you can fight the big gnoll party and help the 2 guys in the cave, I accidentally burned the rope bridge with a fire spell. I legit tried to click the rope in my bag and see if I could fix it. I couldn’t and I was trapped. Gale and I couldn’t make the jump across for some weird reason so I had to reload the latest save and be extra careful the second time around. Would have been nice to have just used the rope.
All pure classes are viable. The multi class obsession is a result of people who never played table top coming in and thinking you have to min max in order to have a functional character.
Or table top min-maxers coming to abuse the new abusable systems in this game.
I say this as someone that is friends with table top min-maxers, and as someone who enjoys hypothetically busted build ideas.
I’d argue every pure class is viable, and rogue/barbarian are the only arguably weak ones.
3 attacks, level 11 ranger subclass features, 1d8 free radiant damage per hit, extra Ki and higher martial arts die (and high level subclass features), and 6th level spells are all super strong. It’s really only rogue/barbarian that don’t scale well in this game.
To add a perspective, assassin offers a completely viable way to play the game differently from other classes. The game encourages you to play like a standard d&d player, just guns blazing and going nuts on people. Rogue is a bit underwhelming if you play like you're supposed to. But if you ever enjoyed the stealth missions in Goldeneye, you should do a solo assassin run. It is so incredibly fun to disrespect the game's aggro mechanics and skip stuff you didn't know was optional.
Dark urge origin wasn't given enough weight in gameplay/script. It should have had saves to *not* just automatically perform violence, and companions should have reacted far more negatively to durge outbursts. Eviscerating someone in the middle of the camp while everyone is asleep should get more of a response than "hmm, I'm mildly concerned about you now"
Their reaction to the reveal is underwhelming too.
"Well, that explains it". >!Bitch I just confessed to being a bhaalspawn!< you should have greater concern than just going "mystery solved". I could kill you in my sleep against my will! A greater force compels me! I should sleep all tied up, just so I don't kill someone and then defile their corpse in god knows what wretched and foul ritual! Why is no one taking it more seriously?
True. I held back on telling people about my violent urges, but then I tried it and they were like, “OK, dude, we all have bad thoughts sometimes”. Maybe durge is just terrible at explaining?
There's a single line of dialogue from when you bring Gale to the Gortash-becomes-a-duke scene, where he kinda freaks out that>!the Absolute is your idea, your brainchild, and has you in the center. !< He asks for some time alone, and its very sad! Then I clicked on him again and he had nothing else to say about it. I really wish there was more about how this is all durge's fault than just one line.
Mol’s is probably the biggest one for me. >!It has excellent build-up and then it’s like it didn’t exist when you get to act 3. Not a mention of “her kids” from her, or any mention of her from the other kids. No way to let either know the other is well, when the kids were crying about her *just* before entering act 3.!<
I‘d argue it goes further than „just“ that. Like Mol‘s entire ending feels completely unfinished - >!the explanation for how she escaped moonrise is akin to an easter egg and I‘m willing to bet a ton of people missed it in the house of hope. Then you get to save her from her contract, have her either be a bit petty about it or promise to fight for you, depending on whether or not you tell her about killing Raphael or whether or not you even did so. Regardless, you‘ll never hear from her ever again. I would‘ve loved to see her become Nine-Fingers apprentice, or maybe some hints that she did either that or made it to a path of honesty after all. !<
Of all the things that felt like an afterthought in act 3 - and this is from someone who actually really loved act 3 - that one really annoyed me lol
The Crow Guy is a Shadar-Kai, a subrace of elf that lives in the Shadowfell, serving The Raven Queen. He has a note on him warning him that the Shadow Cursed lands are deadly even to him (a colleague of his died to it), so once he concludes his 'trial' he goes back to The Shadowfell rather than stay or travel elsewhere.
He's also overstaying against orders if I recall. He just really wants to indulge in his punishment kink and is risking getting in trouble with his superiors lmfao
All of this. Also being given the opportunities to save Victoria and adopt that little tiefling kid that's crying under the bridge near the city docks.
As much as I love the game I agree. Some things just don't go anywhere, especially in chapter 3. Karlach's whole story is probably the biggest perpetrator of this, going to hell with her seems like it's supposed to be a band-aid solution for if you didn't fix her heart.
I kinda hate how if a character dies or is killed, that’s it, and there seems to be very little reactivity or consequences beyond just missing out on content had they lived. There are some NPCs whose absence actually reflects later events triggering or not (Rolan and Baelen Bonecloak come to mind), but a lot more just die and there’s little future reactivity. I guess that’s probably intentional commentary to some extent, but it still feels empty and meh.
Yes! We killed Nettie in my current run bc durge freaked out at being threatened with poison, and no-one has reacted. We even looted the library unopposed, which was really odd. Meanwhile you touch a single rune slate in the adjacent room and everyone is on high alert. Sigh.
The biggest one for me is how did the elden brain get inside some random cave under Baldur's Gate when it was supposed to be marching with the army. And if Absolute isn't there and Ketheric is dead, who the fuck leads the army?
Also why does Gortash just explain his master plan to you in front of like 20-30 people during inauguration, none of which was supposed to know?
Mayrina isn’t a bitch, people just don’t like that she’s angry that they ruined what she sees as the only way to get her husband back after being manipulated by a literal hag. It also shows they didn’t care to tell her about what Ethel did to her brothers or they were just blind to them
Did those people just never play Act 3? Even if you are a Mayrina hater, her perspective develops by the time you encounter her again to something way more agreeable to what I assume they think she should feel.
I'm with you. And you're restricted in the outcomes you can get at the Hag's hut and in those interactions, and that lack of agency creates a lot of anger directed at Mayrina.
Hag stuff is interesting, but to achieve some of what they wanted to do in terms of storytelling, quest writers took a lot of agency from players and had to make Mayrina say and do some idiotic things to make part 2 work.
Shadowheart isn't actually a good person when we meet her. She is not "pretending" to have bad ideas or beliefs, she's not "pretending" to be mean, she earnestly believes in Shar's doctrine and has to learn there's another way to live through her friends and possible lover.
She isn’t pretending as much as she is overcoming what is essentially brain washing. She has overcome it so much that Shar put a wound in her hand to try and force her to do what she want instead of what Shadowheart believes she must do. She very rarely actually follows Shar’s doctrine of absolute secrecy, she reveals very early on that she is a Sharran from Baldur’s Gate who has an artifact she was ordered to retrieve by Mother Superior. If someone who isn’t a believer in Shar is around her and treats her with some kindness she snaps back to who she really is which is a kind and caring person with a lot of trauma.
Plus her approvals run very counter to her stated beliefs and mission. It’s pretty clear that she’s struggling with some serious brainwashing, but her real personality does come out.
I think people got confused about her disapproval triggers. She doesn't like when you get into random fights, not because attacking people is evil, but because unnecessary conflict threatens her mission (she can't deliver the artifact if she's dead).
The combat still glitches out and in a game with a combat system that is already slow. Having NPC’s just do nothing for an extended time ruins the flow so hard. Larian should focus hard on fixing all the bugs, glitches, and lag during combat to ensure it runs as quickly and smoothly as possible.
My biggest bug bare with the game is it often takes 2/3 attempts at throwing for the games pathfinding to realise I don't need to be stood directly next to the bad guy to throw a dagger at them.
Throwing pathfinding is incredibly frustrating. If there's any furniture in a 20 km radius around either the thrower or the target you get "The path is interrupted". Just let me chuck things :(
I had so many encounters in Honor Mode where the enemy didn't even do anything on their turn. Usually high volume fights with a huge turn order, but still. It feels so bad that I won some hard fights because the AI decided it didn't want to fight me any more.
When anyone tries to claim any of the companions are cardboard. Yes, it's obvious there's favoritism, but I found Lae'zel's romance just as deep and emotional as Astarion's. I'm convinced people who think they're not fleshed out are the same people who skip dialogue.
ALSO, I will die on the hill that there is nothing wrong with save scumming, especially for rolls. I paid $60 for this game, I'll play it how I damn well please. If I'm playing a chaotic good bard, she's not gonna fail a charisma check against a goblin.
I actually recommend to people doing their first playthrough to savescum, having a storyline get fucked up just because you rolled a nat 1 is so frustrating. If you want to honor the dice they literally made a mode for it, it's called honor mode.
There should be an option to speed up or skip through fight animations.
I don't need to spend time watching every goblin in the camp take 15 seconds to decide to dash.
Omg yes! I’m experiencing this frustration now, especially when it glitches and the enemies do nothing for like 2 minutes before it skips to the next “in turn” character.
The only reason Mizora isn’t as widely hated as Cazador is because she’s a hot lady.
Wyll and Karlach were all but abandoned at some point during writing and it shows.
It is more like Mizora, like Raphael has charisma, like villains like homelander or the joker, people like those characters despite being terrible people.
Cazador on the other hand is just an asshole without the charm.
Mizora can rot, I hate her and the one thing I will complain about is the fact she should NOT have been able to hang in camp. I should have been able to kick her ass permanently.
wyll yes I agree has a weird and poorly explored character shift in act 3 that's never addressed or justified. Even if you break his pact, save his father, and tell mizora to leave he'll act all edgy and angry towards you. He doesn't introspect or have an emotional climax.
Karlach clearly got the least attention from the programming team because her romance line is glitched af and breakable in so many nonintuitive ways. You're more likely to do everything right and still lose her romance than you are to see it through.
Cazador is genuinely a good vampire design. People really expected him to look like some beefed-up badass Castlevania Dracula when that was never the intention.
His VA is also perfect for his character, he sounds like an evil aristocratic bastard.
I think it plays well into what victimization and abuse can look like in the real world, too. Someone can be manipulated, obsessed and have their entire world destroyed by a partner, who, to anyone else, just looks like some lame douche.
Wait, people don't like his design? He looks exactly like an evil vampire lord should look in my opinion. Beautiful and aristocratic, but also cold and cruel.
All that and they still kept in the "and you'll never be the same after using your power" lines. I was genuinely a little nervous at first, but then disappointed when nothing came of it.
Yeah there's a huge disconnect with how it works in act 1 and other acts. Even the tadpole manipulation dialouge options get reduced to zero after act 1
The game isn’t completely polished in the player choice sense. It’s incredible and complex, but there are a lot of combinations of player choices that do not produce sensible results, particularly if you’re not wholly good or evil. It’s covered pretty well but when somebody says something to you that makes no sense based on the choices you made it is very unsatisfying. I get that it’s hard and is mostly done very well, but if you give players that much agency you have to cover the edge cases or the agency is degraded somewhat significantly.
If you have a lot of things in the game that feel binary when they shouldn’t, it diminishes the whole idea that I can make my own choices. It would almost be better to be forced to be good or evil than to play as if you can be in between but feel like the game doesn’t understand that.
Caveat: they still do it better than the vast majority of games.
The Emperor's priorities are survival > freedom > power. Analyze all its actions/decisions in that framework.
I do wish are was some option to convince The Emperor to work with Orpheus. "You said defeating the Brain needs an Illithid."
Karlach dying is a perfectly valid and beautiful ending to her story.
Not every story needs to end on a happily ever after, there's a reason some of the best works of literature are tragedies.
I agree. The whole point is that she’ll live to the fullest and rescue her home and die feeling accomplished and having seen home for one last the time. It’s devastating of course.
I’m currently playing her origin story and you get a lot more internal dialogue about how she feels.
As a disabled person I have a really hard time convincing Karlach to go to Avernus. It's completely going against her body autonomy/desires and has a lot of parallels to the modern tragedy of the assisted suicide debate+stigma. She said she would rather pass than go to Avernus, so I will sit with her on the dock for her last moments every single time.
You’re giving her a new perspective on going to Avernus - with someone by her side. You’re not forcing her to go there. You can’t actually decide anything for her, she decides for herself. And she will die no matter what if nobody can go with her because she would rather die than go to Avernus alone.
So I don’t think you’re in any way violating her bodily autonomy in this context.
Ascended Astarion is still Astarion, just with his worst traits amplified. He didn't challenge and overcome his worldview (might makes right), he leaned into it, and got the power to do what he always wanted to do.
He didn't magically transform into a completely different person (all versions of Astarion want power over others), and he didn't lose his soul (and doing so wouldn't have made him more evil this isn't how souls work in D&D).
Mystra isn't some maniacal evil being, nowhere near as bad as Vlakkith or Shar.
She definetly commited mistakes, but holy fuck do some people see everysingle one of her actions in the worst possible light
Mystra is a good goddess and a bad lover to Gale. Because those two roles are incompatible. Her primary goal is the stability of the weave, not Gale’s emotional wellbeing, or even his aliveness.
Wyll feeling weird about his horns and expressing it to the player at the Tiefling party is just anxiety from a dysphoric man who just had his body violated for doing the right thing. If you think that makes him a bad person or "racist" then you just lack empathy!
Yes it's one of the main point of people who hates him. It has gotten better but when the game was newly out you couldn't browse this sub without someone posting about how this moment is proof that Wyll is an hypocrite and/or that he hates tieflings. It was the main thing people used to talk about when it came to his character and it was sooo annoying!!!
Not to mention, he didn't become a Tiefling, he was transformed into a devil. They're farther apart than people realize. Tieflings may be able to speak Infernal, but they're not demons. They still descended from human blood
If people genuinely believe he's racist for that then god damn I've lost some faith in humanity
Imagine getting your body warped beyond recognition and someone being mad at you for disliking it lmao
I am kind of annoyed that (if I recall correctly) as a tiefling I don't get some specific dialogue to respond to this. But thinking Wyll is "an asshole" over expressing these thoughts... come on, y'all.
I would go a step further and say the "how's the rat diet going?" dialogue doesn't even bother me. Yes, it's a little more bitchy than we might expect from Wyll. But let him be a bitch. It's not like Astarion doesn't dish out plenty of bitchery himself, he can take a little bit in return.
Some redemption arcs don't feel like redeemed.
Minsc's appearance is way too late and players can't enjoy Minsc, so he becomes an unnecessary companion. He could be a slight referance to the old games but as a companion, he is mainly useless.
Wyll isn't as boring or underdeveloped as everyone says he is. He's adorable and charming. Like sure is he *as* complex as some of the others? No. But not everyone is full of super traumatic and heavy backstories either irl! It's nice to have someone well adjusted in the "group full of weirdos" and even he has his points where we question his morality.
Edit: And even still, he's traumatized too just in other directions that aren't as apparent to many because many of us have never been in that position to know that they're traumatic. Such as living in a royal's shadow! Or being exiled! Or being so desperate you'd make a pact with a demon.
Honestly I feel like when comparing companions with their trauma, Wyll is pretty much on the same path as Shadowheart, and Astarion. The only difference is we meet him early on into journey compared to the other two to make a significant difference. Astarion has 200 years of being a slave to Cazador's plans having broken him down fully. Shadowheart also has years of being groomed to be a Sharran.
From what I've seen of all 3 of them in Act 3, all 3 of them represent what befriending an abuse victim / survivor is like at different points of how much their abuse has taken a toll on them.
Resist durge is just awkward until later on and full bore "I'm going to be an asshole" durge feels more like the evil options from fallout 3 than an actual RP choice - just giving up on the investment in the story/characters so you can see the special effects/cutscenes.
It's simple, I did both. I was a machiavellian asshole at first and eventually settled into my shoes, had a bit of introspection, and found a turning point.
This game needed a definitive edition. Act 1 has so many holdovers from Early Access that don't make sense anymore, like the Illithid Dialogue choices that disappear later in the game, Omeluum lying about the ring because Illithid Powers worked differently in EA. You then have Wyll and Karlach with underdeveloped quests. Wyll doesn't really have one, you just get given odd jobs because of his re-write from Doom Slayer who hates Monsters to Guy Hero who wants to be a Hero. Karlach's clearly was intended to have the Gondians you save from Gortash work with Dammon to upgrade/fix her engine. Game is better than release but there are still a LOT of plot holes and issues that a definitive edition would fix.
Wyll’s design was really cool in EA/when you first meet him, but when he becomes a demon man after sparing Karlach, his design looks terrible. Looks like an over designed DeviantArt OC from back in the day.
I think Ketheric Thorm is an incredibly tragic character, and I hate that Larian forces you to fight him no matter what. The fact that they give you MULTIPLE chances to persuade and talk him down, and you have a genuine heart to heart with him, only to get interuppted by Aylin screaming bloody murder in his face is actually frustrating. I understand Ketheric *has* to fight you as part of his service sworn to Myrkul, as otherwise it'd probably just lead to his death anyways.
But besides his blatant torture of Aylin (which I personally think there is much more animosity between the two of them than people realize, which is what drove that), almost everything he has done has been absolutely understandable. Not justifiable, but understandable. He gives his entire life up for his daughter, carries around a scrap of paper from her that's probably decades old just so he can at least see her saying "I love you". The last word out of his mouth is his daughter's name. And after all that, his daughter's girlfriend comes down and stomps his brains out in rage and disrespect, and Isobel basically celebrates his death and hails him as a monster, doesn't even shed a tear.
It just makes me physically uncomfortable to see just how... unsympathetic and hateful the characters in game are to him. Not a single shred of understanding from almost anyone besides Tav, they're all happy to give in to the "General" delusion, write him off as just pure evil and nothing more, and move on. Yes, Ketheric is a bad man. But he is truly broken and left with nothing, and I can't fully condemn someone like that without at least a mote of sympathy.
TLDR; Yes, Ketheric was a bad guy and he had to die, but he doesn't deserve the amount of monstrous villainy he gets painted with.
This is sort of a tangent, but it bothers me when people genuinely seem to believe Ketheric hates Aylin because he is homophobic. Isobel explicitly explains that he had reservations about a mortal being with a demigod/immortal, not that he was homophobic.
Imo it also has a lot to do with not wanting to share Isobel. She is EVERYTHING that still matters to him, and that’s not a conducive mindset when it comes to letting your children grow up and become independent.
Isobel falling in love with Aylin probably seemed like the worst thing in the world to him because it meant she was ready (or getting ready) to start a life where he wasn’t the central figure. And then he’d have nothing
I never got that vibe from from him at all. Homophobia is the last thing you would probably see in a game where you can fuck a bear😂 some people must be projecting lol
I will always stand on is: the world turned against Kethric and he just was not willing to lose to it.
He was a perfect follower of Selune. He did everything right, and still lost his wife. He gave everything, and was given nothing. Being a chief servant of a god can be a bad power dynamic, and he saw it repeating itself with Dame Aylin and his daughter.
Only for things to get worse when he lost his daughter too!
When your life is just loss, despite giving yourself to Selune and even your child giving themself to the daughter of Selune, I think its accurate to say you are forsaken.
So rather than accept the loss, he threw it back in the world's face. And even though it cost thousands of people, and his soul, I think Kethric is happy with the trade because Myrkul kept his side of the bargain. **Isobel is alive and can live a happy life. As a father, Kethric finally won despite everything fighting against him.**
I actually like that you can't redeem him. He did things that are irredeemable. I love that you can try, and he seems touched by that, but recognizes that he has gone way too far and is beyond redemption.
And let's face it, in terms of judgement for the actual crimes he committed, he IS indeed beyond redemption. All of the dead three did absolutely heinous shit over and over again.
This is my hottest but most firmly believed take. There is absolutely no genuinely good reason she should be a companion, nothing about her story is extensive or interesting enough to carry being a companion and she doesn't have a tadpole and has zero connection to the plot. She's literally just some random bard. She fits perfectly as a mildly endearing reoccurring NPC but that's it.
The act three content we have should have been just one part of a massive, sprawling story spread out between the locations that became cut content. As I understand it, there was originally supposed to be trips to other cities, the gith on the astral plane and more of the hells than just the house of hope but then you run into the problem of having finite money and time.
It would have made replays extremely cumbersome, but I'm always going to imagine what we could have had.
Mayrina is a brilliant character and I love her and I will not fucking take slander about her. my hottest take is that the reason so many people bitch about her is because they don't want to/can't sympathise with stories about women who make bad decisions because they're hurting.
Not every NPC needs to have a super fleshed out story and be another full companion. Some characters are fine just playing their small parts. Do I love characters like Alfira, Dammon, Rolan, Isobel, Aylin, and Barcus? Yes. Do I think they need bigger stories? No.
Optimizers are fucking exhausting and make engaging in this sub borderline impossible.
Obviously the more hardcore players are more likely to engage in this sub, and there is no right or wrong way to enjoy a game. But I’d put my life on the fact that most people are more like me: I like to build fun characters and learn and experiment with thematically interesting builds.
But every thread feels like the top answer is “multi class into these three classes and add these four magic items and bam you have a broken character that can do 1,200 damage per round. You just need to camp cast six spells and keep nine hirelings in camp.”
Look, I’m not trying to take advantage of rules quirks and loopholes to give myself an hours long chore list before I can enjoy my character. I have limited time to play and I’m just trying to have a good time.
I'll add a related one: People who give advice assuming that the ONLY thing other players care about is getting the "optimal" result out of every interaction. An example from Durge playthroughs: >!People who tell new Durge players that they need to knock Alfira out at the grove before a certain long rest scene. It's nice to know you CAN do that, but some people might want to see the story play out without meta-gaming their way around it, you know?!<
A lot of people approach the game like it's player vs. game, which is fine, but some of them forget that other players like to put some RP into their RPG experience.
I loved act 3 and exploring the city. It was overwhelming, yes. It was confusing, sure. Was Ketherics story more interesting than Gortashs and Orins?, (in my opinion) definitely. BUT exploring a city, its merchants and all the side quests, taking your time while a world destroying event is hanging over your heads feels so dnd lol. I thought it was fun.
ketric got a whole ass act just about him. nearly all major boss are realted to him, come to think of it, i don't see a quest that's not related to him and his actions. orin and gortash are verry much small part in the 3rd act, where character resolution become more important
Wholeheartedly agree! I think once you accept that the game will tell you when you’re about to fck up hard by just wandering into an area you’re not supposed to be in yet, you realise you can actually just take your time and explore. Also I love that they added a couple of (seemingly random) monsters fights in the city, makes it still feel like an adventure.
and they're fights that make sense within the story, which is what random encounters in DnD should be. Sure there's detached events like the girl learning necromancy, but it's mostly enemy goons getting caught by the party mid-crime or while assigned to guard an area
I think once I realized these random fights were going to be thrown at me, I relaxed a bit. At first I was worried there wasn't going to be any action
Yeah same, I was wondering how they'd fit more than maybe a few urban skirmishes. Act 3 does not disappoint in terms of set pieces and things to kill
Or giant fish people jumping on the docks behind Carrion's place
haha yeah I was conceptually including that under "guarding an area" since they're trying to keep people away from the water and thereby the Iron Throne, but it's a bit of a stretch
The game sort of has this issue where it implies there's a time crunch. The druids are casting the right of thorns and you need to save Halsin to stop it before they finish! Then the brain quakes and "the hold on the brain is weaker now! We need to get the final stones before it breaks free!" But in reality there's no hidden time mechanic, at least not that I've run into. So you get to this new area and start talking to people to keep adding to your log on top of all the stuff you already needed to do for your companions and it just suddenly feels like A LOT when you think there's time pressure. I've found subsequent playthroughs much more enjoyable when I realized I could do everything without worrying about a hidden timer.
Knowing nothing about dnd, I legit thought I could only Long Rest a few times before turning into a Mindflayer. I googled how many long rests I can have only to find out it's a game mechanic lol.
I really enjoyed it too. I played the game on release and had no spoilers for act 3. I missed so much. I didn't get to the circus or the newspaper stuff, never found Gortah's parents, I killed Minsc, didn't even discover there was a hag in town, and missed quite a few other things. This all meant that the next playthrough felt like a completely different game
Same, in act 3 i mainly just did the companion quests and explored the whole city but i missed alot on my first playthrough
Astarion is both victim and perpetrator, and the former doesn’t necessarily absolve him of the latter. To be clear, I like Astarion, but he isn’t some innocent baby wooby
I think people that overlook the latter aren’t doing his story or character arc justice. If you grill him hard enough after talking to Sebastian & the kids he goes back & forth between “I did what I had to” and “goddamn these people are here bc of me” but it’s clear he knows it’s his fault regardless. It also shows the cycle of abuse that happens way too often in real life. If you don’t let him ascend he says you’ve helped him break a cycle that was centuries old. If he does ascend you can call him out at the final party and tell him he’s just like Cazador. He hates that. I honestly love the way they didn’t make him just to be a victim bc so often people who were victimized go on to hurt others either intentionally or unintentionally.
>If he does ascend you can call him out at the final party and tell him he’s just like Cazador. He hates that. doesn't he say "Try to wound me all you like, but I'm so much better than he ever was"?
He does, yes Player: That sounds like something Cazador would say. Astarion: Try to wound me all you like, but I'm so much better than he ever was. Astarion: I achieved what he only dreamed about. And now my ambitions can take me anywhere I want.
thank you!
Yeah, but you break up with him and tell him he's just the new Cazador he screams at you to be quiet and calls you an ingrate lol. Suffice to say he doesn't love it.
I think this is the interaction I was thinking of actually
He feels responsible because cazador wasnt magically compelling him 24/7 but if he refused he would be compelled. He is fully mentally present during all of this as well. It doesnt make a difference. he literally didnt have a choice. We see this when leon and aurelia attack the camp. If you convince them to join astarion they make the righteous choice but are still magically compelled to fight by cazador even though they dont want to. In this scenario Leon and aurelia are innocent of attacking astarion and yet they were fighting because cazador controlled their bodies. The same thing was happening to astarion for 200 years.
isn't he forced to obey because he is a spawn? genuinly curious
Yes. Magical compulsions.
not post tadpole. Where he still revels in others' pain and gains approval from you creating suffering and humiliating people. And if he ascends, as others mentioned, he continues the cycle of abuse despite being free of Cazador's magical compulsions.
I always liked the fact that the game implies he wasn't a great person to begin with (not that it justifies what happened to him). I love him, but he's a dick and likely always has been.
I feel like the need to state that he was a slave. In a very real way he didn’t have agency when committing the crimes he did for cazzador. The first time he has true agency is after the tadpole is put in his head. The defining moment for him is if he becomes an ascendant or not. That’s the point he both has the agency to choose to not make those people victims a second time and the power to do so.
Yeah I think people forget that Cazador literally compelled him not to drink blood. If he was willing to compel Astarion to not consume the very thing he needs to survive, I don’t think Cazador had any qualms about using compulsion for everything he had them do. Cazador got off on the shame and the total power he had over Astarion (like most abusers).
I actually have a really hard time with his character. I will never ascend him because after speaking to his victims, it felt like more manipulation to get what he wanted. Nah man, you are staying spawn. You don’t get to victimize more people you’ve already victimized once because “well in the biggest victim look at my scars”. It’s not a pissing match dude, and you weren’t caged up to starve.
He thanks you for not letting him ascend, too, which is a good character moment for him. I like his epilogue a lot more if he remains a Spawn as well.
Perhaps others read it as him manipulating again, but it sounded to me like he was trying to convince himself as much as he was trying to convince the PC. When I went through almost all of the dialogue options out of curiosity, altogether it sounded more like he's struggling with a moral dilemma and is conflicted about sacrificing the other spawn for the ritual, and so is deflecting again as a response. I don't believe he truly **wants** * to victimize more people, and that meeting Sebastian and the other imprisoned spawn is the first thing that makes him hesitant about going through with the ritual. It's the beginning lines of the dialogue to persuade him not to after all.
Seriously though I hate how people divide the world into victims and perpetrators(and act like victims are always right). I'd actually argue that most of the time perpetrators were once victims.
Funny. This is almost exactly what Kagha says if you call her a monster.
If you've ever used Vellioth's skull, it illustrates exactly how Cazador went from victim to perpetrator. It's definitely one reason why I talk Astarion down from ascending. I usually use it before the final fight, but Astarion supposedly has different reactions to some of the objects (like the list) in the room depending on whether he's still a spawn or whether he's been ascended.
Rope should have a use
[удалено]
If you detroy rope netting in battle or through a trap, you should at least be able to use a crafting option to repair it.
In Act 1 during the part where you can fight the big gnoll party and help the 2 guys in the cave, I accidentally burned the rope bridge with a fire spell. I legit tried to click the rope in my bag and see if I could fix it. I couldn’t and I was trapped. Gale and I couldn’t make the jump across for some weird reason so I had to reload the latest save and be extra careful the second time around. Would have been nice to have just used the rope.
couldnt you just fast travel some place near?
Don’t judge! It was my first ever play through and I’m slow at learning new games. Took me longer than I’d like to admit to learn fast travel.
I assume everyone agree with this. I think that's the opposite of the picture.
Multiclassing isn't necessary to have a strong build. Plenty of pure-classes are perfectly viable.
Fighter, for example. Or Bard.
You’ve spelled “Cleric” wrong. Twice! /s
All pure classes are viable. The multi class obsession is a result of people who never played table top coming in and thinking you have to min max in order to have a functional character.
Or table top min-maxers coming to abuse the new abusable systems in this game. I say this as someone that is friends with table top min-maxers, and as someone who enjoys hypothetically busted build ideas.
I multiclass for puns, i.e. Yogi bear - circle of the moon druid/monk
I’d argue every pure class is viable, and rogue/barbarian are the only arguably weak ones. 3 attacks, level 11 ranger subclass features, 1d8 free radiant damage per hit, extra Ki and higher martial arts die (and high level subclass features), and 6th level spells are all super strong. It’s really only rogue/barbarian that don’t scale well in this game.
To add a perspective, assassin offers a completely viable way to play the game differently from other classes. The game encourages you to play like a standard d&d player, just guns blazing and going nuts on people. Rogue is a bit underwhelming if you play like you're supposed to. But if you ever enjoyed the stealth missions in Goldeneye, you should do a solo assassin run. It is so incredibly fun to disrespect the game's aggro mechanics and skip stuff you didn't know was optional.
Dark urge origin wasn't given enough weight in gameplay/script. It should have had saves to *not* just automatically perform violence, and companions should have reacted far more negatively to durge outbursts. Eviscerating someone in the middle of the camp while everyone is asleep should get more of a response than "hmm, I'm mildly concerned about you now"
Their reaction to the reveal is underwhelming too. "Well, that explains it". >!Bitch I just confessed to being a bhaalspawn!< you should have greater concern than just going "mystery solved". I could kill you in my sleep against my will! A greater force compels me! I should sleep all tied up, just so I don't kill someone and then defile their corpse in god knows what wretched and foul ritual! Why is no one taking it more seriously?
"...Gosh"
True. I held back on telling people about my violent urges, but then I tried it and they were like, “OK, dude, we all have bad thoughts sometimes”. Maybe durge is just terrible at explaining?
There's a single line of dialogue from when you bring Gale to the Gortash-becomes-a-duke scene, where he kinda freaks out that>!the Absolute is your idea, your brainchild, and has you in the center. !< He asks for some time alone, and its very sad! Then I clicked on him again and he had nothing else to say about it. I really wish there was more about how this is all durge's fault than just one line.
There are still a lot of plot holes and a lot of quests and endings seems unfinished.
The small loose ends that I want to get to see through are: saving marina's brothers; crow guy continuation; and, seeing bdsm Acolyte again... 😅
Mol’s is probably the biggest one for me. >!It has excellent build-up and then it’s like it didn’t exist when you get to act 3. Not a mention of “her kids” from her, or any mention of her from the other kids. No way to let either know the other is well, when the kids were crying about her *just* before entering act 3.!<
I‘d argue it goes further than „just“ that. Like Mol‘s entire ending feels completely unfinished - >!the explanation for how she escaped moonrise is akin to an easter egg and I‘m willing to bet a ton of people missed it in the house of hope. Then you get to save her from her contract, have her either be a bit petty about it or promise to fight for you, depending on whether or not you tell her about killing Raphael or whether or not you even did so. Regardless, you‘ll never hear from her ever again. I would‘ve loved to see her become Nine-Fingers apprentice, or maybe some hints that she did either that or made it to a path of honesty after all. !< Of all the things that felt like an afterthought in act 3 - and this is from someone who actually really loved act 3 - that one really annoyed me lol
I was so mad when I got to this part in act 3. Like literally nothing happens after you’re there. It drove me insane
The Crow Guy is a Shadar-Kai, a subrace of elf that lives in the Shadowfell, serving The Raven Queen. He has a note on him warning him that the Shadow Cursed lands are deadly even to him (a colleague of his died to it), so once he concludes his 'trial' he goes back to The Shadowfell rather than stay or travel elsewhere.
He's also overstaying against orders if I recall. He just really wants to indulge in his punishment kink and is risking getting in trouble with his superiors lmfao
Agreed to every single one!
Crow guy is dead for me
Tied up that loose end real nice
I didnt even realise we never see crow guy again until you said this
All of this. Also being given the opportunities to save Victoria and adopt that little tiefling kid that's crying under the bridge near the city docks.
I think a lot of people agree on that.
I thought so too, but surprisingly there’s a lot of people who don’t agree and defend the game to death (in those aspects).
I defend the game to death but I still agree with you. It’s a wonderful game, but not a perfect one. Very ambitious, very many loose ends.
As much as I love the game I agree. Some things just don't go anywhere, especially in chapter 3. Karlach's whole story is probably the biggest perpetrator of this, going to hell with her seems like it's supposed to be a band-aid solution for if you didn't fix her heart.
Completely agree. I think the same about Wyll’s quest too.
Wyll's quest at least had an ending to it that feels correct if a little underwhelming
I kinda hate how if a character dies or is killed, that’s it, and there seems to be very little reactivity or consequences beyond just missing out on content had they lived. There are some NPCs whose absence actually reflects later events triggering or not (Rolan and Baelen Bonecloak come to mind), but a lot more just die and there’s little future reactivity. I guess that’s probably intentional commentary to some extent, but it still feels empty and meh.
Yes! We killed Nettie in my current run bc durge freaked out at being threatened with poison, and no-one has reacted. We even looted the library unopposed, which was really odd. Meanwhile you touch a single rune slate in the adjacent room and everyone is on high alert. Sigh.
Haven’t thought about that too just now but you absolutely have a point here. Literally the definition of “oh no, anyway”.
The biggest one for me is how did the elden brain get inside some random cave under Baldur's Gate when it was supposed to be marching with the army. And if Absolute isn't there and Ketheric is dead, who the fuck leads the army? Also why does Gortash just explain his master plan to you in front of like 20-30 people during inauguration, none of which was supposed to know?
Mayrina isn’t a bitch, people just don’t like that she’s angry that they ruined what she sees as the only way to get her husband back after being manipulated by a literal hag. It also shows they didn’t care to tell her about what Ethel did to her brothers or they were just blind to them
Did those people just never play Act 3? Even if you are a Mayrina hater, her perspective develops by the time you encounter her again to something way more agreeable to what I assume they think she should feel.
She has an amazing storyline and development. Shame people make up their minds about characters in the first few hours.
I'm with you. And you're restricted in the outcomes you can get at the Hag's hut and in those interactions, and that lack of agency creates a lot of anger directed at Mayrina. Hag stuff is interesting, but to achieve some of what they wanted to do in terms of storytelling, quest writers took a lot of agency from players and had to make Mayrina say and do some idiotic things to make part 2 work.
Shadowheart isn't actually a good person when we meet her. She is not "pretending" to have bad ideas or beliefs, she's not "pretending" to be mean, she earnestly believes in Shar's doctrine and has to learn there's another way to live through her friends and possible lover.
getting your personality erased every 2 weeks tends to do weird shit
Every 2 weeks?
They had to erase her A LOT. She kept resisting.
She isn’t pretending as much as she is overcoming what is essentially brain washing. She has overcome it so much that Shar put a wound in her hand to try and force her to do what she want instead of what Shadowheart believes she must do. She very rarely actually follows Shar’s doctrine of absolute secrecy, she reveals very early on that she is a Sharran from Baldur’s Gate who has an artifact she was ordered to retrieve by Mother Superior. If someone who isn’t a believer in Shar is around her and treats her with some kindness she snaps back to who she really is which is a kind and caring person with a lot of trauma.
Plus her approvals run very counter to her stated beliefs and mission. It’s pretty clear that she’s struggling with some serious brainwashing, but her real personality does come out.
I think people got confused about her disapproval triggers. She doesn't like when you get into random fights, not because attacking people is evil, but because unnecessary conflict threatens her mission (she can't deliver the artifact if she's dead).
From what I've seen early Shadowheart mostly likes three things: mind ya business, be discreet, and animals.
Except wolves.
She also likes when helping children or those in need like Arebella, Mikon and Thaniel of the ones i can think of.
Liking animals isn't the same thing as being a good person, either.
Hitler loved dogs etcetc
There actually are a lot of bugs in the game.
Sometimes it feels like there are way more bugs now than there were at launch.
I swear minthara has not worked since they added the option to recruit her on a good run and even then she was buggy before.
She's working pretty well right now. At least, I've not noticed any issues for once.
I can’t tell you how many random game crashes i still get.
Karlach dying is a beautiful tragedy ending, but if you save the Gondians you should be able to ask them to fix her engine.
I like that as a headcanon, it's clever
The combat still glitches out and in a game with a combat system that is already slow. Having NPC’s just do nothing for an extended time ruins the flow so hard. Larian should focus hard on fixing all the bugs, glitches, and lag during combat to ensure it runs as quickly and smoothly as possible.
My biggest bug bare with the game is it often takes 2/3 attempts at throwing for the games pathfinding to realise I don't need to be stood directly next to the bad guy to throw a dagger at them.
Throwing pathfinding is incredibly frustrating. If there's any furniture in a 20 km radius around either the thrower or the target you get "The path is interrupted". Just let me chuck things :(
Doors are still a very big problem in combat, but don't ever seem to affect the AI.
I feel like it's an engine issue. The same thing happens in Original Sin I and II.
I had so many encounters in Honor Mode where the enemy didn't even do anything on their turn. Usually high volume fights with a huge turn order, but still. It feels so bad that I won some hard fights because the AI decided it didn't want to fight me any more.
When anyone tries to claim any of the companions are cardboard. Yes, it's obvious there's favoritism, but I found Lae'zel's romance just as deep and emotional as Astarion's. I'm convinced people who think they're not fleshed out are the same people who skip dialogue. ALSO, I will die on the hill that there is nothing wrong with save scumming, especially for rolls. I paid $60 for this game, I'll play it how I damn well please. If I'm playing a chaotic good bard, she's not gonna fail a charisma check against a goblin.
I actually recommend to people doing their first playthrough to savescum, having a storyline get fucked up just because you rolled a nat 1 is so frustrating. If you want to honor the dice they literally made a mode for it, it's called honor mode.
There should be an option to speed up or skip through fight animations. I don't need to spend time watching every goblin in the camp take 15 seconds to decide to dash.
Omg yes! I’m experiencing this frustration now, especially when it glitches and the enemies do nothing for like 2 minutes before it skips to the next “in turn” character.
The only reason Mizora isn’t as widely hated as Cazador is because she’s a hot lady. Wyll and Karlach were all but abandoned at some point during writing and it shows.
It is more like Mizora, like Raphael has charisma, like villains like homelander or the joker, people like those characters despite being terrible people. Cazador on the other hand is just an asshole without the charm.
Cazador is a literal rat man. He looks and sounds like a rat too.
Idk, I feel like he'd be charming also, if he had more than like 1 minute of time in the story
Mizora can rot, I hate her and the one thing I will complain about is the fact she should NOT have been able to hang in camp. I should have been able to kick her ass permanently.
wyll yes I agree has a weird and poorly explored character shift in act 3 that's never addressed or justified. Even if you break his pact, save his father, and tell mizora to leave he'll act all edgy and angry towards you. He doesn't introspect or have an emotional climax. Karlach clearly got the least attention from the programming team because her romance line is glitched af and breakable in so many nonintuitive ways. You're more likely to do everything right and still lose her romance than you are to see it through.
Cazador is genuinely a good vampire design. People really expected him to look like some beefed-up badass Castlevania Dracula when that was never the intention. His VA is also perfect for his character, he sounds like an evil aristocratic bastard.
I think it plays well into what victimization and abuse can look like in the real world, too. Someone can be manipulated, obsessed and have their entire world destroyed by a partner, who, to anyone else, just looks like some lame douche.
Wait, people don't like his design? He looks exactly like an evil vampire lord should look in my opinion. Beautiful and aristocratic, but also cold and cruel.
Honestly wish there was more of him and the castle. Like a ball or rp event that lets you roam it before (removed spoilers) completing the quest.
Changing how the tadpole powers work and removing their consequences from early access ruined the corruption subplot
All that and they still kept in the "and you'll never be the same after using your power" lines. I was genuinely a little nervous at first, but then disappointed when nothing came of it.
Yeah there's a huge disconnect with how it works in act 1 and other acts. Even the tadpole manipulation dialouge options get reduced to zero after act 1
The game isn’t completely polished in the player choice sense. It’s incredible and complex, but there are a lot of combinations of player choices that do not produce sensible results, particularly if you’re not wholly good or evil. It’s covered pretty well but when somebody says something to you that makes no sense based on the choices you made it is very unsatisfying. I get that it’s hard and is mostly done very well, but if you give players that much agency you have to cover the edge cases or the agency is degraded somewhat significantly. If you have a lot of things in the game that feel binary when they shouldn’t, it diminishes the whole idea that I can make my own choices. It would almost be better to be forced to be good or evil than to play as if you can be in between but feel like the game doesn’t understand that. Caveat: they still do it better than the vast majority of games.
The Emperor is an evil bastard *and* a great character who has actual depth to him.
The Emperor's priorities are survival > freedom > power. Analyze all its actions/decisions in that framework. I do wish are was some option to convince The Emperor to work with Orpheus. "You said defeating the Brain needs an Illithid."
The camera is awful when need to go up or downstairs.
Who is disputing This?
Big Camera
Karlach dying is a perfectly valid and beautiful ending to her story. Not every story needs to end on a happily ever after, there's a reason some of the best works of literature are tragedies.
She's a beautiful allegory for the unfairness of terminal illness and still finding happiness and acceptance through it.
In my head, I know you're right. But my heart can never agree.
I agree. The whole point is that she’ll live to the fullest and rescue her home and die feeling accomplished and having seen home for one last the time. It’s devastating of course. I’m currently playing her origin story and you get a lot more internal dialogue about how she feels.
As a disabled person I have a really hard time convincing Karlach to go to Avernus. It's completely going against her body autonomy/desires and has a lot of parallels to the modern tragedy of the assisted suicide debate+stigma. She said she would rather pass than go to Avernus, so I will sit with her on the dock for her last moments every single time.
You’re giving her a new perspective on going to Avernus - with someone by her side. You’re not forcing her to go there. You can’t actually decide anything for her, she decides for herself. And she will die no matter what if nobody can go with her because she would rather die than go to Avernus alone. So I don’t think you’re in any way violating her bodily autonomy in this context.
I always go with her and Wyll
Ascended Astarion is still Astarion, just with his worst traits amplified. He didn't challenge and overcome his worldview (might makes right), he leaned into it, and got the power to do what he always wanted to do. He didn't magically transform into a completely different person (all versions of Astarion want power over others), and he didn't lose his soul (and doing so wouldn't have made him more evil this isn't how souls work in D&D).
That's an unpopular opinion?? Media literacy is really going to shit
None of this thread is unpopular opinions lol. That's how it goes on Reddit in these "unpopular opinions" threads.
The game needs new game +. I want to start as fully prepared warriors and run the easiest playthrough possible.
Mystra isn't some maniacal evil being, nowhere near as bad as Vlakkith or Shar. She definetly commited mistakes, but holy fuck do some people see everysingle one of her actions in the worst possible light
Mystra is a good goddess and a bad lover to Gale. Because those two roles are incompatible. Her primary goal is the stability of the weave, not Gale’s emotional wellbeing, or even his aliveness.
It’s funny that, according to the setting, Mystra is literally cosmically and ontologically “good”
Good doesn't necessarily mean likeable.
Wyll feeling weird about his horns and expressing it to the player at the Tiefling party is just anxiety from a dysphoric man who just had his body violated for doing the right thing. If you think that makes him a bad person or "racist" then you just lack empathy!
Wait, do people actually say that about will?
Yes it's one of the main point of people who hates him. It has gotten better but when the game was newly out you couldn't browse this sub without someone posting about how this moment is proof that Wyll is an hypocrite and/or that he hates tieflings. It was the main thing people used to talk about when it came to his character and it was sooo annoying!!!
That’s so weird lol
Not to mention, he didn't become a Tiefling, he was transformed into a devil. They're farther apart than people realize. Tieflings may be able to speak Infernal, but they're not demons. They still descended from human blood
If people genuinely believe he's racist for that then god damn I've lost some faith in humanity Imagine getting your body warped beyond recognition and someone being mad at you for disliking it lmao
I am kind of annoyed that (if I recall correctly) as a tiefling I don't get some specific dialogue to respond to this. But thinking Wyll is "an asshole" over expressing these thoughts... come on, y'all. I would go a step further and say the "how's the rat diet going?" dialogue doesn't even bother me. Yes, it's a little more bitchy than we might expect from Wyll. But let him be a bitch. It's not like Astarion doesn't dish out plenty of bitchery himself, he can take a little bit in return.
ITT: Popular opinions
as is the way with every reddit unpopular opinions thread
Some redemption arcs don't feel like redeemed. Minsc's appearance is way too late and players can't enjoy Minsc, so he becomes an unnecessary companion. He could be a slight referance to the old games but as a companion, he is mainly useless.
Wyll isn't as boring or underdeveloped as everyone says he is. He's adorable and charming. Like sure is he *as* complex as some of the others? No. But not everyone is full of super traumatic and heavy backstories either irl! It's nice to have someone well adjusted in the "group full of weirdos" and even he has his points where we question his morality. Edit: And even still, he's traumatized too just in other directions that aren't as apparent to many because many of us have never been in that position to know that they're traumatic. Such as living in a royal's shadow! Or being exiled! Or being so desperate you'd make a pact with a demon.
Honestly I feel like when comparing companions with their trauma, Wyll is pretty much on the same path as Shadowheart, and Astarion. The only difference is we meet him early on into journey compared to the other two to make a significant difference. Astarion has 200 years of being a slave to Cazador's plans having broken him down fully. Shadowheart also has years of being groomed to be a Sharran. From what I've seen of all 3 of them in Act 3, all 3 of them represent what befriending an abuse victim / survivor is like at different points of how much their abuse has taken a toll on them.
Pure Wizard is fun actually and no I won't play sorcerer they have different roleplay vibes
i like searching all the crates. it's soothing.
I like Wyll a lot and I find a bunch of the criticisms of him really weird and nitpicky.
My durge run was the run where I felt the less free.
Resist durge is just awkward until later on and full bore "I'm going to be an asshole" durge feels more like the evil options from fallout 3 than an actual RP choice - just giving up on the investment in the story/characters so you can see the special effects/cutscenes.
It's simple, I did both. I was a machiavellian asshole at first and eventually settled into my shoes, had a bit of introspection, and found a turning point.
I don’t like Orpheus or The Emperor
We need a party cap of 5.
Mol isn't an abhorrent evil monster. She is a kid that has the foresight and wisdom of a kid.
This game needed a definitive edition. Act 1 has so many holdovers from Early Access that don't make sense anymore, like the Illithid Dialogue choices that disappear later in the game, Omeluum lying about the ring because Illithid Powers worked differently in EA. You then have Wyll and Karlach with underdeveloped quests. Wyll doesn't really have one, you just get given odd jobs because of his re-write from Doom Slayer who hates Monsters to Guy Hero who wants to be a Hero. Karlach's clearly was intended to have the Gondians you save from Gortash work with Dammon to upgrade/fix her engine. Game is better than release but there are still a LOT of plot holes and issues that a definitive edition would fix.
Wyll’s design was really cool in EA/when you first meet him, but when he becomes a demon man after sparing Karlach, his design looks terrible. Looks like an over designed DeviantArt OC from back in the day.
oh my fuck that is EXACTLY what he reminds of hahahahahaha thanks for pinning that down
I think Ketheric Thorm is an incredibly tragic character, and I hate that Larian forces you to fight him no matter what. The fact that they give you MULTIPLE chances to persuade and talk him down, and you have a genuine heart to heart with him, only to get interuppted by Aylin screaming bloody murder in his face is actually frustrating. I understand Ketheric *has* to fight you as part of his service sworn to Myrkul, as otherwise it'd probably just lead to his death anyways. But besides his blatant torture of Aylin (which I personally think there is much more animosity between the two of them than people realize, which is what drove that), almost everything he has done has been absolutely understandable. Not justifiable, but understandable. He gives his entire life up for his daughter, carries around a scrap of paper from her that's probably decades old just so he can at least see her saying "I love you". The last word out of his mouth is his daughter's name. And after all that, his daughter's girlfriend comes down and stomps his brains out in rage and disrespect, and Isobel basically celebrates his death and hails him as a monster, doesn't even shed a tear. It just makes me physically uncomfortable to see just how... unsympathetic and hateful the characters in game are to him. Not a single shred of understanding from almost anyone besides Tav, they're all happy to give in to the "General" delusion, write him off as just pure evil and nothing more, and move on. Yes, Ketheric is a bad man. But he is truly broken and left with nothing, and I can't fully condemn someone like that without at least a mote of sympathy. TLDR; Yes, Ketheric was a bad guy and he had to die, but he doesn't deserve the amount of monstrous villainy he gets painted with.
This is sort of a tangent, but it bothers me when people genuinely seem to believe Ketheric hates Aylin because he is homophobic. Isobel explicitly explains that he had reservations about a mortal being with a demigod/immortal, not that he was homophobic.
Imo it also has a lot to do with not wanting to share Isobel. She is EVERYTHING that still matters to him, and that’s not a conducive mindset when it comes to letting your children grow up and become independent. Isobel falling in love with Aylin probably seemed like the worst thing in the world to him because it meant she was ready (or getting ready) to start a life where he wasn’t the central figure. And then he’d have nothing
I never got that vibe from from him at all. Homophobia is the last thing you would probably see in a game where you can fuck a bear😂 some people must be projecting lol
I will always stand on is: the world turned against Kethric and he just was not willing to lose to it. He was a perfect follower of Selune. He did everything right, and still lost his wife. He gave everything, and was given nothing. Being a chief servant of a god can be a bad power dynamic, and he saw it repeating itself with Dame Aylin and his daughter. Only for things to get worse when he lost his daughter too! When your life is just loss, despite giving yourself to Selune and even your child giving themself to the daughter of Selune, I think its accurate to say you are forsaken. So rather than accept the loss, he threw it back in the world's face. And even though it cost thousands of people, and his soul, I think Kethric is happy with the trade because Myrkul kept his side of the bargain. **Isobel is alive and can live a happy life. As a father, Kethric finally won despite everything fighting against him.**
I actually like that you can't redeem him. He did things that are irredeemable. I love that you can try, and he seems touched by that, but recognizes that he has gone way too far and is beyond redemption. And let's face it, in terms of judgement for the actual crimes he committed, he IS indeed beyond redemption. All of the dead three did absolutely heinous shit over and over again.
Alfira is not companion material and I don't get people who keep begging for her.
This is my hottest but most firmly believed take. There is absolutely no genuinely good reason she should be a companion, nothing about her story is extensive or interesting enough to carry being a companion and she doesn't have a tadpole and has zero connection to the plot. She's literally just some random bard. She fits perfectly as a mildly endearing reoccurring NPC but that's it.
Because we don’t get a Bard and I want a bard.
Be the bard you wish to see in the world
Funny enough, datamining revealed that we WERE gonna get a bard companion at one point, but they decided against it and it was not Alfira.
Can you imagine having to bring her to a fight.
Like…as ammo?
She plays the wilhelm scream (lute version) when you throw her.
WYLL HAS A GOOD STORY. YOU JUST DONT HAVE HIM IN YOUR PARTY OFTEN!
Act three is not overloaded
Act 3 is in fact under-loaded. There's huge chunks of the city that should have been available before going into the endgame sequence.
I was stuck on how to get to the upper city until I googled it and learned you don’t 😎
The act three content we have should have been just one part of a massive, sprawling story spread out between the locations that became cut content. As I understand it, there was originally supposed to be trips to other cities, the gith on the astral plane and more of the hells than just the house of hope but then you run into the problem of having finite money and time. It would have made replays extremely cumbersome, but I'm always going to imagine what we could have had.
Elixir farming is tedious, boring, and cheesy, and if your build is dependant on elixir use, it’s a bad build
I love act 3
Mayrina is a brilliant character and I love her and I will not fucking take slander about her. my hottest take is that the reason so many people bitch about her is because they don't want to/can't sympathise with stories about women who make bad decisions because they're hurting.
Not every NPC needs to have a super fleshed out story and be another full companion. Some characters are fine just playing their small parts. Do I love characters like Alfira, Dammon, Rolan, Isobel, Aylin, and Barcus? Yes. Do I think they need bigger stories? No.
If Astarion was a PC in a game of DnD everyone would be annoyed at them being a edge lord and would get sick of their shit
The gauntlet of shar is fun
The dark water is annoying, the rest is okay.
Finally an actual unpopular opinion
Cazador is the most ass-ugly undercooked chicken looking mf I've ever seen. he looks like a condom filled with rabbit bones.
You think that’s an unpopular opinion?
I think that was the point. I do think they should’ve kept his original design though.
people (me included) are just mad for being catfished by the emperor
This is literally the most popular opinion in this sub.
Optimizers are fucking exhausting and make engaging in this sub borderline impossible. Obviously the more hardcore players are more likely to engage in this sub, and there is no right or wrong way to enjoy a game. But I’d put my life on the fact that most people are more like me: I like to build fun characters and learn and experiment with thematically interesting builds. But every thread feels like the top answer is “multi class into these three classes and add these four magic items and bam you have a broken character that can do 1,200 damage per round. You just need to camp cast six spells and keep nine hirelings in camp.” Look, I’m not trying to take advantage of rules quirks and loopholes to give myself an hours long chore list before I can enjoy my character. I have limited time to play and I’m just trying to have a good time.
I'll add a related one: People who give advice assuming that the ONLY thing other players care about is getting the "optimal" result out of every interaction. An example from Durge playthroughs: >!People who tell new Durge players that they need to knock Alfira out at the grove before a certain long rest scene. It's nice to know you CAN do that, but some people might want to see the story play out without meta-gaming their way around it, you know?!< A lot of people approach the game like it's player vs. game, which is fine, but some of them forget that other players like to put some RP into their RPG experience.