Yeah I'd like for there to be less kill ledge shit but thunderwave is neat when you use it in less degenerate ways like pushing enemies back into hunger of hadar once they leave or pushing them into a corner and then fireballing them, which is what I'd like to see enemies do.
The imps in questions cast Eldrich Blast every turn, with pushback. With 2 targets per blast. And the fight is on 3 platforms above an endless pit. And there's several of them spread around. And the encounter mechanic requires that a party member wielding a certain weapon goes from the far left platform to the far right platform. And there's 2 beholders flying paralyzing people.
Baldurs Gate 3's/Nu-Forgotten Realms worldbuilding is woke, objectively and undeniably. You can choose to not be bothered by it, but it does not offer a "non-woke" pathway - an "anti-woke" pathway at best if you choose to go full murderhobo.
Yup. The player barely has a reason to betray the tieflings, for example. And you are most certainly judged for it.
I agree for the most part, but stuff like shoving Dror Ragzlin into the conveniently placed chasm next to his throne while he's preaching about the absolute is pretty fun. Those sort of set ups should be used sparingly of course.
Uh, good? Nice. I like that. That's what I want, actually.
The Dark Urge is much worse in many of these moments, i.e. tearing the wings off of the bird Nettie nurtures back to health, or dismembering Gale the moment you meet him. It's just pure sociopathic behavior, there's no proper "evil" path that has semi-understandable justifications. The lore explanation for it also makes no sense, as
I guess this is where our opinions differ a lot and explains why we think so differently on the matter. There's no goblin foot kissing scene that is in any way sexual. It's just a "kiss my ring to submit" scene, but, like, kiss my boots instead. Very trope~y, not at all sexual or "woke". There's no BDSM priest either. Loviatar's teaching aren't sexual in nature, they're about physical pain leading to spiritualty. It seems to me like you're projecting a fair amount of sexual undertones into these scenes, even though there aren't any. You're not even expected to get naked for the Loviatar scene.
There are very, very, very few people that want an actual evil path. Most people want a dark, edgy and sexy path where they don't butcher children, animals, 'good' people or severely fuck up the world not for the better of anyone else.
I think concepts such as good and evil don't really exist within fantasy realms with active and living gods anyway. Morality is what you make of it, and while there might be societal pressure and norms that could define concepts such as good or evil within the forgotten realms at any given point... You could also just simply change those at a whim. Concepts of evil in Menzoberranzan are quite different to the concepts of evil in Waterdeep for example, so any action needs to be contextualized before you can even call something evil. I think this is one of the main reasons why the alignment chart stopped making sense when more and more content was released that didn't just play in Faerun.
Mask of the Betrayer did a decent job at justifying "evil" actions, so did KOTOR 2. At the end of the day it's all in the eye of the beholder. Many people would not consider the happenings of a game like Nier to be evil, even though the game can end with a selfish choice leading to the extinction of the human race -- but you, as the character, have a reason and justification to make that choice, and that's what a good story about good/evil should be about. It's just like reading a history book and saying "oh wow, thank god the good guys always won". It's more complicated than that, and getting rid of the alignment chart was a good step in that direction -- the problem is that you need capable writers to do something with this freedom, and Larian just ain't that kind of company.
Funnily enough about the woke themes, the lae'zel romance is really not following this at all. It starts with her being all bossy, i dominate you type stuff, progresses with her pretending the mc is more into her than she is, then locks you in the romance proper when she litterally asks you to dominate her. In game it being a duel where if you win, she submits. I wonder if the woke squadron is already complaining the Lae'zel romance destroys her strong wamen archetype.
In fact, it is said in the game that this army was never really intended to attack the city, only to give the opportunity to take control over bg.
I'd reckon the Minthara scene after annihilating the Grove would receive even more attention than that. She straightup tells you she's gonna sleep with you, whether you want her to or not. Rejecting her in the camp, no matter how I tried, ended up with her fighting/killing me. So yeah, she essentially rapes you, but I have yet to hear complaints over that. It just goes to show that at the end of the day, no one really cares if its a one-off, especially if it makes sense within the setting. Having this many bisexual companions doesn't really make sense, but it's just one small blip in the entire thing, and I can see it for the cheap marketing ploy that it is, without it letting affect my enjoyment of the game. The game is overtly sexual, especially in Act 1, but that seems to be more for shock factor than them trying to please a certain type of consumer or push a specific agenda. It dies down hard anyway by the time you finish act 1.
You can't have one without the other, you need both outcomes for it to be truly evil. If you have your suggested dark road without any of the aspects I brought up, it becomes just as childish/edgy as just meaningless slaughter.
It would still have to create some sense of military pressure, but all it did was a small skirmish attack on the gate next to the refugee camp. It's so laughable, that they only stationed two whole guards at that gate and called it a day.
Ehh, I'd rather take counterspell from players.
I think the True/Renegade Aeon paths in WotR did a fairly decent job at it as well, where "maintaining the timeline" could easily be considered evil, but you did it to remain impartial in your task. Letting selfish constructs like morality affect your choice in order to act kind or good, ultimately made you a renegade and even limited your ability to advance in the mythic path. While this is more of a Lawful vs Chaotic dilemma, it heavily ties into the good vs evil one as well, and there's certainly ways to explore these concepts that aren't going to lead to people picking one choice over the other 9/10 times.
