Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 RELEASE THREAD

[MerchantKing]

Then you slaughter many innocent people with these cultists for no promised reward, just so you can infiltrate them.

They're literally demons with horns, red skin, a demonic tail, and sodomy. Killing them is the good option. They're also squatting on private property. But then again the owners of that property are communistic hippies so killing them is also a good thing.

After infiltrating them, you have another episode of retardation and venture down to Grymforge. There you save a brainwashed cultist Nere for (again) no promised reward, and get nothing for it. By the way, Nere dies off-screen later. Didn't have the money to pay the voice actor, I guess.

You're supposed to kill him in order to make sure he doesn't steal your loot in the forge.

In Moonrise towers you find out that your evil companion, Mintharra, has actually fallen from grace now, and is no longer in good standing with the cult. You rescue her and finally recruit her. Mintharra's motivations are no longer aligned with the cult, and she explicitly wants Ketheric dead for mistreating her. That probably should be your new motivation too.

Where is the rest of "her" dialogue? Isn't it still all "bugged?" Even with "her" bugs, "she" is still a better character than the bestiality bear, the roidtranny demon, and the Hamite paypig.

Despite that, the game continuously gives you the options to keep doing that errand for the cult. And here's where things get really weird.

You can
1) Continue doing this stupid errand for the cult for the nonsensical reward of meeting the Absolute. Despite it being a very stupid thing to do, some effort is actually put into that path - there's voice lines, there's several well-animated unique cutscenes that you won't get on the good playthrough.

This is the retard mode moment. The evil part is conspiring with a necromancer which is forbidden by the Torah.

2) Destroy Ketheric's source of immortality by killing or freeing Nightsong. Both of these are identical to the good path, but with less voice lines and cutscenes, and absolutely no unique ones.

The good option is to kill the dyke.

If you pick the path number 2, you're either back on the good path, or back on the "good path, but with no good content". You go to the tower, have a very short conversation with Z'rell

A good player would've attacked her on sight and cleared out the tower before getting to this point. However, waiting until later is more convenient and a good player will not even talk to her and simply exploit the chokepoint which is the tower's entrance, turning the AI's defenses against them while opening up the fight with cloudkill. Also you have the high ground.

kill everyone on the way to the top same as you do on the good path, but with no harpers or Jaheira

Killing the Harpers and "Jaheira" is the good route. The real Jaheira is not found in this game.

Now, this was a lot of text, but let me sum it up. Larian devoted a lot of time, money and attention to making an evil path that is actually the retard path, where you keep infiltrating the bad guys for no reason and no reward. At no point you learn some information, find some weaknesses, subvert their organization from within or get the opportunity to do anything clever. You insert yourself into a dangerous situation for no reason (like a retard), and then you get captured (like a retard), and then you get nothing out of it (like a retard).

Too bad the other path is just as retarded. Literally siding with demons, trannies, and a variety of sexual degenerates.

Now, Larian actually broke new ground. There are very few RPGs where this amount of effort is dedicated to opportunities to make a fool out of yourself. And I dare say, that all this effort could be diverted into something else. Like an evil path that's actually cleverly written, or maybe just scrap the evil path altogether and make... I don't know, the Upper City or something.

Usually the "evil" path in most rpgs is retarded. However, rather than cutting the "evil" options and making the upper city, it would have been better if they simply cut Act 3 and refined everything in the first two acts and ended the game with killing the avatar of Myrkul. Everything I saw in Act 3 was an absolute shitshow.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

The "evil motivation" in act 1 and 2 is that you're a retard.

No?
The "good" motivation is that the cult is evil, so you fight against it.
The "evil" motivation is that the cult might hold the means to cure yourself/empower yourself, so you try to infiltrate it and gain power over it.
If your main personal concern is the tadpole, its not retarded to look up and make deals with the devil, the hag, and the goblin shaman. Its almost common sense to try everything. And once you are there and trying shit, infiltrating the cult to find out more information isn't retarded either.

No, that is meta knowledge and not pointed in the game dialog or quests on top of not making any sense how raiding the druids (aka the actual evil path split) will help you at all, even Minthara been recruited for a companion for siding with her is 100% meta gaming. You can infiltrate and do everything on a "good" path, it doesn't change at all. The writing in Original Sin 3 is so disjointed that it's embarrassing. After 3 years in EA for act 1 and still the motivations, story progression, character introductions and their reasons to fallow you are on the level of a bad sitcom- "lol random".

 

[Larianshill]

I don't think act 3 was nearly as bad as many put it. It could use some refinements, sure, but it's not worse than act 2 in any way.

Where is the rest of "her" dialogue? Isn't it still all "bugged?" Even with "her" bugs, "she" is still a better character than the bestiality bear, the roidtranny demon, and the Hamite paypig.

Still bugged. She was nearly mute for the entire act 2, and then became very chatty in act 3. Honestly, I have no idea what those 1500 lines of dialogue could possibly be about outside of romance, outside of her interacting with Balthazar (who never acknowledges her presence, even though he explicitly knows her personally), or maybe the Harpers and Jaheira.

 

[AwesomeButton]

You retardedly side with cultists, who are seeking you out and trying to steal the artifact, the only thing that's keeping you from brainwashing. Then you slaughter many innocent people with these cultists for no promised reward, just so you can infiltrate them.
After infiltrating them, you have another episode of retardation and venture down to Grymforge. There you save a brainwashed cultist Nere for (again) no promised reward, and get nothing for it. By the way, Nere dies off-screen later. Didn't have the money to pay the voice actor, I guess.
After that, you enter the Shadowlands, where you head into the Moonrise Towers to learn about your condition and find out who is the Absolute. You effortlessly infiltrate the cult, and then you are told to do yet another errand for them, but this time there's an actual promise of a reward - meeting the Absolute. Why would you want that? Well, there's no actually good reason for it.
In Moonrise towers you find out that your evil companion, Mintharra, has actually fallen from grace now, and is no longer in good standing with the cult. You rescue her and finally recruit her. Mintharra's motivations are no longer aligned with the cult, and she explicitly wants Ketheric dead for mistreating her. That probably should be your new motivation too.
Despite that, the game continuously gives you the options to keep doing that errand for the cult. And here's where things get really weird.

Hmm, I think I see where your problem is. You are unwilling to roleplay your character. You need uncle Swen to descend from the heavens and spell out your evil motivation to you? Here you go, baby:

You retardedly side with cultists

No, that's what you would settle for as motivation. Here is another one:
"I sided with the cultists as a double agent. These morons think I'm working for them. I'm looking for more information and a means to hijack the leadership of their organization."

Then you slaughter many innocent people with these cultists for no promised reward, just so you can infiltrate them.

"They want me to prove my loyalty by clearing out some druid grove who took in a bunch of tieflings. So be it."

meeting the Absolute. Why would you want that? Well, there's no actually good reason for it.

Information.

If you pick the path number 1, you meet Ketheric, sort of meet the Absolute, they finally find out that you're an infiltrator, and you get captured like a retard. Then you have to kill Ketheric. At no point your genius plan of infiltrating the cult pays off.
If you pick the path number 2, you're either back on the good path, or back on the "good path, but with no good content". You go to the tower, have a very short conversation with Z'rell, kill everyone on the way to the top same as you do on the good path, but with no harpers or Jaheira, and then you fight Ketheric as you would on the good path. Again, at no point your genius plan of infiltrating the cult pays off.

I guess the elder brain reads your thoughs because you have a tadpole, which you may or may have not known gives the elder brain a means to see through you. Actually that's not too bad a way to weaving the two threads back together. What would you have done instead?

 

[AwesomeButton]

No, that is meta knowledge and not pointed in the game dialog or quests on top

You feel forbidden to assume, or to think any thought not explicitly spelled out for you by the game "content"? How do you reach work without a quest compass?

Such "RPG players" are part of why RPGs today look like they do.

 

[whydoibother]

how raiding the druids (aka the actual evil path split) will help you at all

There's more of then, and they are more likely to win. So just siding with the winning side. Not like the thieflings are offering any help to you. They are weaker, and less useful to you personally.
Druids sit it out, they lock themselves in their grove. They were offering help, but they also want the thieflings out anyways. Really, helping the thieflings isn't even neutral, its straight up a "good" coded decision. Its altruistic, you don't benefit from it.
The neutral decision would've been to wait for the druids to finish their ritual, wait for the thieflings to get on the road (and probably get massacred), and then negotiate passage into the Underdark or seek help from druids or whatever. But this isn't an option here, as far as I know.

No, that is meta knowledge and not pointed in the game dialog or quests on top

You feel forbidden to assume, or to think any thought not explicitly spelled out for you by the game "content"?

This actually is spelled out by the game, but I think its in Act II, when the guardian straight up says "its in our benefit to join and infiltrate the Absolute cult". Not sure if there's any such line in Act I. But also, its obvious.

 

[S.H.O.D.A.N.]

You need uncle Swen to descend from the heavens and spell out your evil motivation to you?

That's his fucking job.

 

[whydoibother]

The "evil" motivation is that the cult might hold the means to cure yourself/empower yourself, so you try to infiltrate it and gain power over it.

nigga, come on. it's fucking GOBBOS! who would side with GOBBOS for POWAH?

You side with the Drow commander for power. The goblins are just meat puppets.

Two questions.

1) Does infiltrating the cult ACTUALLY pay off in any sense at all?
2) Does the evil path actually help you infiltrate the cult?

No, but you don't know that. It seems like it could do that.
If you have meta knowledge, and want to roleplay as a selfish guy, you should just be skipping that entire conflict and walk away from it. Of course, you'd be missing out on experience, but if your character is thinking of xp points, I think we are waaaaaaaay past roleplaying.

 

[Larianshill]

What would you have done instead?

There's actually a lot of potential in the evil storyline, and it could be made far better with very minor adjustments. The potential lies in Mintharra.

Act 2 establishes that the artifact can extend its protection to other people, even brainwashed true souls like Mintharra. This is the way you separate her from the cult and get her on your side. The question is, why stop there? Have Mintharra or the Emperor propose that you subvert the cult and do, say, the following things:

1) One of the first things you see upon walking into Moonrise is Ketheric mistreating a bunch of goblins for failure. Wouldn't it be interesting, if you could abuse this conflict and turn the goblins against the cult? The goblins would stew on resentment for a while, and maybe when Balthazar captures you and intends to dissect you, they happen to be there, and now they're being mistreated by Balthazar. This is the boiling point, and you persuade them (or just mind control them, it's never established that's something Balthazar can do, but you certainly can) to save you from your cage. You do that instead of just breaking out, because in this version of the plot Balthazar is smart and takes your weapons, and also places you in a cage that can be broken by bare fists. Someone like Sazza could even be a companion - not someone with a deep arc, a lot of dialogue or a romance, just a little bit better than a hireling. To help you round out the team after the loss of Wyll and Karlach.
2) At another point, you can mind control a group of gnolls into eating their cultist handler. Wouldn't it be interesting if you could make them eat the other cultists too, when it's time for you to come to blows?
3) True soul Nere is someone you rescue in act 1. He's established as a rival to Balthazar. In act 2, he attacks him and gets offed off-screen. Wouldn't it be far more interesting if he survived? Amongst other errands Balthazar sends you on, he asks you to find Nere and kill him before he messes something up for the cult. Instead, you meet him and unbrainwash him. He thanks you, escapes and promises to inform the drow about the menace that is the Absolute.
4) In this version of the plot Roah Moonglow doesn't miraculously survive the slaughter of the goblin camp. She dies. She only survives and acts as a merchant on the evil path, and only offers you the act 3 deal if she's alive. If she's dead, a different Zhent takes her place and has zero intentions of having any conversations or negotiations with you, so no Zhentarim alliance.
5) In this version of the plot, Moonrise Towers staff went through a basic security training, and doesn't let a literally who, who could very well be a rogue true soul, walk around their base when there's no proof of their loyalty. A literal who is certainly not trusted enough to be given a mission that relates to Ketheric's source of immortality, that's only entrusted to someone who has helped the cult before.

In the end, Ketheric doesn't turn on you because you couldn't keep the artifact in your pants, but because he finds out that you keep poaching his staff, understands your motivation (to build a personal army) and decides to kill you before you become trouble.
And then, in the final battle in act 3, your splinter cult answers your call. The goblins charge in on your side, mind-controlled gnolls sate their hunger on the mind flayers, and hell, maybe there's even some drow involvement because some matriarch actually listened to Nere, why not.

Now, would this take some effort? Yes, I think it would. Would it take an overwhelming amount of effort? No, I somehow don't think so. But even these minor changes would make the evil playthrough immensely more satisfying.

 

[Reinhardt]

You side with the Drow commander for power. The goblins are just meat puppets.

before you meet her you have to endure gobbo camp

 

[whydoibother]

1) One of the first things you see upon walking into Moonrise is Ketheric mistreating a bunch of goblins for failure. Wouldn't it be interesting, if you could abuse this conflict and turn the goblins against the cult?

They did help me while I was assaulting the towers. You just "recruit them" early in the act, and their loyalty is revealed at the end of the act.

2) At another point, you can mind control a group of gnolls into eating their cultist handler. Wouldn't it be interesting if you could make them eat the other cultists too, when it's time for you to come to blows?

They also help you in the same way as the goblins when you assault the towers.

Someone like Sazza could even be a companion - not someone with a deep arc, a lot of dialogue or a romance, just a little bit better than a hireling.

The running gag is that you keep freeing her, and she keeps ending up in jail. You can free her 3 times. Other people have better potential to be evil path followers, like the fake paladins that are also hunting Karlach. If you lose her by helping them, why not have one of them join you later? His patron demon can send him to help Wyll about some errand.

3) True soul Nere is someone you rescue in act 1. He's established as a rival to Balthazar. In act 2, he attacks him and gets offed off-screen. Wouldn't it be far more interesting if he survived? Amongst other errands Balthazar sends you on, he asks you to find Nere and kill him before he messes something up for the cult. Instead, you meet him and unbrainwash him. He thanks you, escapes and promises to inform the drow about the menace that is the Absolute.

I like this take. You could've had 2 drow, Minthara and Nere, who joined the Absolute cult for some reason of theirs, for power probably. Then they both notice shit's not going their way, but they recognize they can go further with you, so they join your party against the current leadership clique. This has potential.

Roah Moonglow

I like keeping the smuggler faction neutral, makes sense they'd be doing business with both sides, and escaping when things get hard.

You side with the Drow commander for power. The goblins are just meat puppets.

before you meet her you have to endure gobbo camp

Before you meet her you aren't siding with goblins. You are looking for a healer., or for the druid, or for the captured human mercenary, or for the "nightsong artefact" that the mercenaries were contracted to find, or whatever. You only are "siding with the goblins" after you speak with the drow.

 

[Reinhardt]

Before you meet her you aren't siding with goblins. You are looking for a healer., or for the druid, or for the captured human mercenary, or for the "nightsong artefact" that the mercenaries were contracted to find, or whatever. You only are "siding with the goblins" after you speak with the drow.

exactly. so what reason you have to endure gobbo interactions instead of simply killing them for how they treat you?

 

[Larianshill]

I didn't see the goblins or the gnolls helping me, might have been a bug. If it's actually a part of the current game, I'm pleasantly surprised, but again - it would be nice if you could take it a little further. It's also a problem that if you go all the way to help the cult and kidnap Nightsong for them, you actually skip the tower and the first battle with Ketheric, and end up in the illithid colony.

The running gag is that you keep freeing her, and she keeps ending up in jail. You can free her 3 times. Other people have better potential to be evil path followers, like the fake paladins that are also hunting Karlach. If you lose her by helping them, why not have one of them join you later? His patron demon can send him to help Wyll about some errand.

Doesn't have to be Sazza specifically, especially since there's so many opportunities for her to die, but some goblin representation would be nice.

I like this take. You could've had 2 drow, Minthara and Nere, who joined the Absolute cult for some reason of theirs, for power probably. Then they both notice shit's not going their way, but they recognize they can go further with you, so they join your party against the current leadership clique. This has potential.

Two drow companions from the cult? I don't know.

I like keeping the smuggler faction neutral, makes sense they'd be doing business with both sides, and escaping when things get hard.

I just find it very hard to justify why would Roah cover for you. I also find it hard to justify why the fuck is she alive on the good playthrough. I distinctly remember killing the Zhents.

 

[whydoibother]

I just find it very hard to justify why would Roah cover for you. I also find it hard to justify why the fuck is she alive on the good playthrough. I distinctly remember killing the Zhents.

I failed a pickpocket check on the priestess, and all the goblins attacked me. She went into the safe room, but her guards were in the fight for some reason.
When everything was done, she was the only person alive. Also she was a witness to the crime, so I had some debuff all Act I because a witness lived, and the goblins in a different place attacked me on sight for it.

 

[Larianshill]

Oh, one more thing.

In this version of the plot, Mizora is not missing from the illithid colony if Wyll happened to have quit the party. She's still imprisoned, and you can rescue her for some boons.

 

[Reinhardt]

goblin representation

nice

 

[Black]

What would you have done instead?

Take control over the cult with snarky goblins and foul mouther duergar at your side.

 

[whydoibother]

Oh, one more thing.

In this version of the plot, Mizora is not missing from the illithid colony if Wyll happened to have quit the party. She's still imprisoned, and you can rescue her for some boons.

This is actually a convenient place to insert the fake paladins from Act I, who were also hunting Karlach. Make them other Mizora pact pawns, she sent both them and Wyll to collect the barbarian. And if Wyll has abandoned you at the end of Act I, they show up at camp asking for you to help them break out Mizora, and you can have one of them join as a companion, or maybe they just show in in the Call Allies function during the final battles.

Two drow companions from the cult? I don't know.

Then just make Nere a dwarf or something. He is in the "dwarf area" anyway, and we don't have a dwarf companion.

 

[Larianshill]

Swen, I hope your eyes are on this thread right now.

 

[whydoibother]

Swen, I hope your eyes are on this thread right now.

You played Divinity OS 2, you know what will happen. Minor changes to Act I and Act II, major rework of Act III, balance changes overall. The setup is similar, the definitive edition will be similar.

 

[Larianshill]

Baldur's Gate 3 is a lot bigger and more successful than Divinity. I think there's a lot of potential for improvements. Is it optimistic? Yes. Is it out of question? Not necessarily.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Swen, I hope your eyes are on this thread right now.

You played Divinity OS 2, you know what will happen. Minor changes to Act I and Act II, major rework of Act III, balance changes overall. The setup is similar, the definitive edition will be similar.

Bookmark this post - whatever they do for Act 3 will be window dressing, and they will not add the Upper City, that's off the table.

 

[Shaki]

Honestly they should literally just do the same thing with good route, as they do with evil. Make good characters unable to "infiltrate" the cult, or make the infiltration very limited in content compared to what you'd get on evil path. And make baddies from act 1 stick through the following acts, instead of each one having a full new cast of baddies. Just replace some current baddies from act 2/3 with act 1 baddies, and if you're on good path they could just be a generic enemies to kill instead, since you wouldn't have access to their quests/content anyway.

It would still be easily 80-100+ hours game, while actually blowing your mind with new content when playing bad/good playthroughs, and it would feel good whether you went good or evil first. Also would probably solve some difficulty problems, since good playthrough gets you far too much xp and gear, which makes it super easy. I actually wouldn't be surprised if that was the plan from the beginning, but then they changed it when they realized average player will go with good path, and won't replay the game, so they wanted him to have access to all the content, which unfortunately made the experience extremely unsatisfying for people who try evil path on their second playthrough.

 

[Shaki]

Swen, I hope your eyes are on this thread right now.

You played Divinity OS 2, you know what will happen. Minor changes to Act I and Act II, major rework of Act III, balance changes overall. The setup is similar, the definitive edition will be similar.

Bookmark this post - whatever they do for Act 3 will be window dressing, and they will not add the Upper City, that's off the table.

I think you're right, but I wouldn't say I'm 100% sure. With the amount of money Swen got with this release, he might want to stay on BG3 longer than they did with DOS/DOS2, so I wouldn't be surprised with even bigger definitive edition - and previous ones already had massive changes. But yeah, that's hopium, and not very realistic.

I definitely do think they will give more love to the evil path tho, since it isn't only Codex whining about it, from what I saw it's also one of the major complaints from the normie redditor audience, eg. people that actually matter to the devs.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

how raiding the druids (aka the actual evil path split) will help you at all

There's more of then, and they are more likely to win. So just siding with the winning side. Not like the thieflings are offering any help to you. They are weaker, and less useful to you personally.
Druids sit it out, they lock themselves in their grove. They were offering help, but they also want the thieflings out anyways. Really, helping the thieflings isn't even neutral, its straight up a "good" coded decision. Its altruistic, you don't benefit from it.
The neutral decision would've been to wait for the druids to finish their ritual, wait for the thieflings to get on the road (and probably get massacred), and then negotiate passage into the Underdark or seek help from druids or whatever. But this isn't an option here, as far as I know.

No, that is meta knowledge and not pointed in the game dialog or quests on top

You feel forbidden to assume, or to think any thought not explicitly spelled out for you by the game "content"?

This actually is spelled out by the game, but I think its in Act II, when the guardian straight up says "its in our benefit to join and infiltrate the Absolute cult". Not sure if there's any such line in Act I. But also, its obvious.

Not like the thieflings are offering any help to you.

They offer you all their money, your own point for been "evil" aka greed just couple of posts ago. On top of promising to help you later in Baldur's Gate and if you have Karlach the blacksmith will upgrade her power. The cult doesn't offer you anything, everthing is assumed or meta knowledge. The game doesn't make a single hint that you can ally with the goblins (or any reason to do it) until you stumble randomly on Minthara and she talks to you as you know her. At that time you are encouraged by the game on two occasions to attack the bosses and she is the 3rd one(on top of been the main quest), not only in the journal, but ingame tadpole talking. You have to know thru meta gaming that you can ally with them so you either beeline to her and talk, skipping the shaman and the leader so you are not hostile when meeting Minthara. The whole area is terribly designed, placing dozens of quests that can turn all goblins hostile and you are going only by a random journal text that appears out of nowhere that you can raid the grove from where you had to assume you can ally with the cult e.g. another meta gaming.

One thing I will give credit is that you can on paper ignore all this shit and just go to underdark or mountain to do your thing. Ofc tons of problems come from that as quest chains get mixed up and NPCs dialog become fucked up talking to you as you did things you didn't or never even met them.