Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion [spoilers] devs please change end story - boo says "story bad"

This post has all the spoilers. 100% spoiled content - spoilers for length and reading ease.


As a preface there are many, many parts of this game that are wonderful. The art is beautiful and some of writing is really good. The city of Baldur's Gate is just amazing - it really feels like a lovely city and devs have captured the magic feel of BG1 in their design of the city. I can and will go on and on in another post.

But that's not what I want to talk about right now.

Right now I want to talk about the crappy endgame story.

I really, really hate feeling like my efforts were wasted. I've never used a tadpole power, never absorbed a tadpole, never used illithid authority and I've taken pains to expend valuable spell slots to detect thoughts. But the game doesn't recognize those efforts or reward them. When I meet my gathered allies in the final battle they all treat me like I'm a mind flayer. Yes, I'm traveling with Karlach the mind flayer but I'm not one and there is no reason for people to remark on my transformation or for me have the option to use mind flayer domination to inspire them.

"Whatever you look like . . . " Uh. I look just like I did an hour ago when we last talked. Well, except for the fresh blood on my face.

The options available to me after using the Orphic hammer are:


Devs, please remove the need to have a mind flayer use the Crown of Karsus.


Additionally, I feel cheated because I didn't get a chance to express my scorn for the emperor while they got another chance to make me feel guilty. "I never lied to you" "Well, there was that bit about you appearing as a dream vision, you encouraging me to seek a cure, your misrepresentation of your relationship with Stellmane (sp?) . . . pretty good list of lies and half truths don't you think? "

[*] Currently bugged because Lae'zel is ranting about the war to come and how the Gith would never forget my efforts. Perhaps she missed Orpheus' "kill me when we're done" line?

I heard you can end game at the 99 skillcheck if you didn't use any tadpole power, I guess that's just bs then?

Could be - I used all my inspiration points on the checks before then. Might try again.

Edit: tried again and did even worse. My first try was a 90. Save scumming gives me 88 and 25 and 16.

Not sure how it's calculated - the game might be counting using the controls on the pods to release prisoners and the use of the "restoration" shells as parasite use.

But I'm not I want eliminate the extra content - I gathered all those allies after all - I just to see the existing content improved.

I've said before that I feel like this game is missing a whole year of development...

And I've not changed my mind.

A year at least.

You cannot. I passed that check with a natural 20 roll and it does absolutely nothing.

At this point what more can I say about this sort of thing in the game? (other than that it is just simply not that good of a game)

Worst part about Orpheus becoming a mindflayer.. he doesn't even have a tadpole in his head. How the fuck does he turn into a mindflayer? Larian just REALLY wanted someone to turn into one I guess

That's what really didn't make sense about that scene to me. The Chosen 3 also are not a single Mindflayer between the three of them, and they are able to compel the Netherbrain with the Netherstones. It's a ridiculous contrivance.

See, it wasn't a "Netherbrain" at that point, just a "normal" Elder Brain. I guess. Yes, it's a silly contrivance.

At least there's a Durge? ending where you can control the brain without becoming a mindflayer. Just makes it even weirder that Orpheus couldn't

You forgot the let the Emperor 'assimilate' Orpheus option, I don't know what happens then, but it's equally unappealing as the rest

Indeed the game feels like it needs one or two years of development act 3 is bad, endgame is bad they rushed it either they ran out of ideas or they couldn't keep the game in development so they drop it with bugs and crappy endings like most of the gaming companies nowadays that's how gaming companies work I have no idea why but it seems they won't stop anytime soon and the players? Well we can't do anything but to buy their games and complain nothing else. The biggest pain for me was seeing what have they done with Sarevok and Viconia such a waste of good characters with rich story but seeing what have they done with their own characters like Minthara for example it explains everything. Anyway I think Larian did good job with the title it fits their style and capabilities I expected more from them with bg3 but still it is good nothing more nothing less. l even think there is no other company that could do a better job than Larian with bg titles at the moment.

Edit. I doubt they will change the endings maybe add something but who knows Larian are known to surprise us after all.

As long as you buy the games this will continue.
Only when people stop buying games like that things will change.
But instead BG3 gets showered with awards, even comically nonsensical ones like for story and writing, because the masses just want to have sex and genitals with their waifus.

As for a company that could do (a bit) better, Owlcat. While they also release buggy and unfinished games, but at least what they have, story, writing and characters, are much better than what Larian does.

I never finished the game myself, I gave up somewhere in Act 3 for several reasons, one of them being the nasty feeling that I'm abused as a beta tester. Another reason is the lack of a coherent story, or a story for my custom character at all. So I'm pretty shocked reading, that storywise it gets even worse. My best guess is, they burned up all the money in Act 1 and 2 and just had to release. But the game really needs at the very least one more year in full development, not patching the hell out of it. Especially as the priorities in these patches are pretty weird, how long are they ignoring e.g. shield bash now? Or broken companion quests? I still kinda hope they made enough money to give us a DE adressing all that stuff, but it feels like they moved on.

Does anyone still see a chance for improvements on the main story? If so why?

Personally, I gave up on it after that ign interview with the writers. Iirc they said 1) storywise everything plays out as planned from early on, 2) the story is just great, 3) tiing up all loose ends in the story ending turned out to be very challenging. No matter if true or PR or something in between, they carfully avoided to raise any hopes in that regard.

The only thing I could imagine is, they have landed a hit beyond their wildest dreams with the game and now feel inclined to use their financial freedom to work on it for another one or two years (basically just finishing it) while starting development on their next thing at the same time. But as I said, I gave up on that hope after reading the interview.

Yeah we are all beta testers…. that’s why there are so many bug reports

As did I. But the Larian CEO posted this about 12 hours ago:



Chances are it's DOS3. But perhaps he really is revisiting some former drafts of B3? Because by now he should realize that some of the act revisions - looking at you Wyll - didn't make the characters more popular.

Does sound like new project, Daisy round 2 maybe?

Also, slightly confused but isn't the narrative direction the job of the lead writer?

Edit: Hopefully it isn't sci-fi, as people are speculating, otherwise I'll probably be thoroughly disappointed.

He's clearly talking about a new project. Also confused/concerned about the fact that Swen Vincke himself is doing story development.