Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Larian dropped the ball on endings - Why and how to fix it - (SPOILERS)

The goal is to be constructive here: Larian showed they listen, so let's make it count.

Let's be real: The end of the game is a mess, and a miss. It feels like a crash just before the finishing line.
Did the writers suddenly decide to immolate themselves after a burn out like Karlach? Did they take too many tadpoles? Did the beholder eat the script and the writers had to rewrite it while commuting in nautiloid?
Who knows. What matters is: how can it be fixed to give a proper conclusion to this otherwise memorable experience?

Here is a summary of the main issues:
- Tadpoles: so what?
Using them or not has no consequences. Neither during the game, nor in your options at the end.
During the game, the decision to take 'just one more' tadpole should have been tough, each of these bringing you closer to a mindflayer, with changes to your apparences impacting NPCs reactions. More power at the cost of greater isolation and a narrowing of your options as it gets harder to move openly and get others to cooperate.
Maybe it was too hard to implement: Fine.
But at least make it count for the endings!
No tadpoles snacks? Reward this with greater ability to resist the Netherbrain and/or an alternative option to transformation.
Someone had too many tadpoles? Makes it impossible to resist transformation and/or reduce the choices about who transforms (i.e. it has to be the character whose brain is the most corrupted).
This example highlights an overarching issue which will be my next point.
- 'A la carte' ending:
Being able to see many endings just by choosing different dialogue choices in the last sprint of the game is a sure recipe to make players feel that their previous choices didn't matter.
The end of act1 felt more satisfying in that regard.
- Sacrifice: Make it count.
We get it: sacrifice is a key theme here. Then make it count! Instead we can decide to sacrifice ourselves (to avoid loosing our personality, see another point below) without even any opportunity to say goodbye.
I would have been fine letting Karlach go and then killing myself in a Romeo and Juliette style. Instead I can just kill myself without any departing word, while I know Karlach dies...
But it doesn't stop there: Where is the meaning of sacrifice without an epilogue?
- No epilogue:
We have been immersed in a world full of lively NPCs with their own personalities and we want to see what become of them after our victory (and what we sacrificed for it!). Who care about 'the people of Baldur's gate'? It's a cold shower instead of an emotional moment.
The very least would be the narrator talking on a black screen about what became of each people we saved (or fought but is still alive) during our adventure.
- Becoming a mindflayer is trivialized
The analogy Mindflayer / Alzheimer could have been made more tragic. You loose your personality, your self.
Instead we get a 'oh you might be fine, just more tentacles'. Underplaying the consequences of choices is kind of the opposite of what good writing should be. Good stories talk about universal themes of human struggles.
- Gale: 'oh damn we forgot that option'
We have to transform someone into a mindflayer no matter what, even if we intend to let Gale sacrifice himself. We don't have the option of talking to Orpheus about this plan.
A funny bug is that even if he blows-up he still show up looking for the crown. (no one tested the various endings Larian? It took me an hour...)
Feels like last minute reshuffle for an option otherwise viable as early as act 2.
Or come up with a convincing explanation why it would not work on the netherbrain.
Or even better, let us take the risk and it doesn't work... oops.
- Withers: why?
This is a major loose end that the post-credit scene does not address successfully.
Why was he helping us? Was he acting in conjunction with other gods? The guy has been hanging in our camp for the whole game...
- Ghithyanki people arc
Sounds unfinished business too: What was Vlaakith? What were the links between her, the gods and the devils from Hell? It's clear as mud.
This could be addressed both by dialogues between Laezel and Orpheus, and/or in an epilogue explaining what truth Orpheus revealed to its people and how they reacted.

These were my reflections of the day after finishing the game yesterday evening.
Nothing on the dark urge as I didn't experienced it myself but I read the endings were disappointing too.
I'll be interested to see others' take and concrete suggestions for Larian to improve the end from a sour artificial taste to an emotion rich moment (ideally before the majority of PS5 players reach this point).

Fully agree.

+1
Yeah, that about sums it up, doesn't it.

I agree with everything especially How I hated the tadpoles part. In my first game, I used them, got to the emperor the first time, and was forced to pass a test to not get worse makeup. Then my second run had exactly the same dialogues as if I was using them, the only difference, I didn't need a test to not get the new makeup. Not to mention the whole emperor sucks. Personally, I find Nothing about him interesting, at all. Just an excuse to shove a horny tentacle our way it seems.

I hate the Emperor, so disgusting, and I just wish I could tell him of f**k off from the start. First play through I made this handsome lady (because it felt right and I sort of had vague memories of Daisy from EA and liked that storyline). Then this manipulative ass game up and I had no choice but to play along with him even though I just wanted to knock him out from day one. Second play through I made him a face to match what I thought about him so I wouldn't feel bad telling him how much I despised him.

I feel like Larian really dropped the ball in regards to the Emperor and how there's really no choice but to work with him until the very end. To be fair, he's not the one protecting us, Orpheus is (or at least his powers), so I feel like there should be a way to off the emperor sooner and have Orpheus help instead. That shouldn't have to be an end-game choice. And if it has to be, built it up better, make it clearer that we have to deal with this dude. Make the emperor remove his protection, make player feel how they are turning into mind flayers, have them writhe on the ground in pain, feeling the tadpole, give them the choice to beg for mercy, have them partially turn to mind flayer if they wait long enough to beg for mercy (in other words, make saying no to him a permanent consequence like having Ethel take your eye). Basically have the emperor straight out threaten you, "Now you can see that I'm telling the truth. Help me or I'll turn you."
Now, he sort of just tells you that it will happen, but you can't really see it for yourself, you don't know if he's telling the truth or just tried to manipulate you. If you off him you die, but that's it.

I want the clear option to tell him "I hate you, I don't want to work with you, but as long as you're threatening me and I don't have a better solution, I'll do as you say, but don't think for a moment I won't stab you in the back, asshole."

The lack of consequences really kills the game. It starts with there not being a cost anymore for letting Volo do brain surgery with an ice pick and culminates with there not being consequences for snorting and using tadpoles despite everything the game and common sense tells you (having to roll once to prevent a appearance change does not count).
The entire premise of the game is that the tadpole is a danger and you need to get it out, bzt in the end you should do the opposite because they are no danger at all and purely benefitial.

I blame it on the Emperor and his last minute addition to replace Daisy (Emperor is not in the artbook, the description your companions give you sound more like Daisy instead Guardian, Omellums quest makes 0 sense now) which likely also included the consequence free tadpoles.

The Emperor either needs to be removed or completely rewritten to add more Daisy content (danger of succumbing to the tadpole, consequences of tadpole use, a battle for your trust and your mind between different actors)

This is one area where I feel like Larian really dropped the ball. Using the Lore of the Forgotten Realms, a Cleric or Paladin that "embraced" their tadpole would risk losing access to their God. I am doing a Paladin playthrough, a warrior of Tyr, and not only will he not "eat" the Tadpole, he will not use the limited power it offers as that power comes from an Unholy source. I honestly cannot see a Cleric making use of it either, especially with how early they learn that these are tied to a cult trying to create a "new" God. Since this cult is tied directly to the Dead Three, any Paladin or Cleric should be able to sense something is wrong right away and be working to stay away from it, even seeking to destroy it, not embracing it.

They had the potential to take this amazing storyline in so many directions and they dropped the ball on the potential options. What is saddest to me about this is they completely ignored a lot of base lore to justify this approach.

[quote=Cpagrav]
- Gale: 'oh damn we forgot that option'
We have to transform someone into a mindflayer no matter what, even if we intend to let Gale sacrifice himself. We don't have the option of talking to Orpheus about this plan.
A funny bug is that even if he blows-up he still show up looking for the crown. (no one tested the various endings Larian? It took me an hour...)
Feels like last minute reshuffle for an option otherwise viable as early as act 2.
Or come up with a convincing explanation why it would not work on the netherbrain.
Or even better, let us take the risk and it doesn't work... oops.[/quote[

Yeah another area where we see a story hole that was missed and should have been easy to fill. Plus why can he not explode at the very end? Why only in Act 2? People also, again ignoring the lore, look on his sacrifice as a bad thing. In death his would would be reunited Mystra and he would have her forgiveness, something he craves.

I talked about this on Reddit, the ending of the game feels like the wind down of a long running DnD campaign. The players are fatigued as they are now how level and the fights need to be over the top to challenge them. The DM is scrambling to figure out how to tie up loose ends and draw the campaign to a close. The end result is in many ways anti-climactic and muddy.

This is an amazing RPG but the game processes from a master piece of story telling and plot development, to progressively go down hill with the last bit being a mad rush to the bottom.

My issue is , you should not have to rely on someone protecting you for 90% of the game. Where is the power fantasy in that ?

And Larian, I love the amount of love and effort you showed, but this game is unfinished. Parts of the main story and act 3 is laughably bad.

- Like OP says, Gale blows himself up then shows up talking about the crown anyway.
- In my case, the game told me I had killed Shadowheart, then she shows up talking literally the very next dialogue (within 2 seconds).

Really? I am going to put this game away until next year and hope it has changed.

Agree greatly with 5-6 of your points


For this one, I'm 100% sure you get a very small dialogue option with Orpheus, who will dismiss it because he doesn't trust you, and doesn't know what the Netherese Orb is. I think you need Gale in the party, talking with Gale within the Astral Prism isn't necessary

Should this have been a completely viable option? Probably, yes. Its one of the moments where a high difficulty persuasion check would have been highly appropriate, but Larian really didn't want it to be a true option.


Both of these are likely to create hype for a definitive edition, or a sequel.

I feel the same about Lae'zel. It's almost like it's cool to have options for different players

Is this really true though?

I've watched Larian drop the ball on endings in multiple games now. My diagnosis is actually a bit different. From where I'm standing, problems with the main plot begin *right away.* I don't actually think that starting the game off with an epic chase on an alien spaceship, multiple dragons, teleporting to hell, etc. is a very good way to start the game, in fact I think it is very bad. It's a longstanding Larian tendency in writing where they apparently think that rushing as many "epic" things into the plot as quickly as possible makes it better, whereas it in fact just cheapens them imo. BG3 is never at any point a "masterpiece of storytelling and plot development." What it does have is some pretty good *sidequest* writing, and really fun gameplay early on, and that fun gameplay helps to gloss over the weakness in the writing. It's later on, where the gameplay begins to unravel, that people begin noticing the lackluster plot more. This is compounded by the fact that the writing itself does genuinely decrease in quality as the game goes on.

Unfortunately in the case of BG3 I don't actually know if it will EVER be fixed. They've "fixed" things to a degree with definitive editions before. But BG3, of all their games, would probably require the most modifications to truly patch up and more importantly, making those modifications will be *more expensive and time consuming* than making modifications to any of their previous games.

Ultimately I think the tadpole powers were a curse, both from a narrative standpoint and a gameplay standpoint. They really, direly need to add some bad consequences for using tadpole powers. Narratively, though, they probably didn't want to give you a reason to distrust the guardian until THE BIG REVEAL. I think this is part of them WAYYYYYY overcorrecting to people not trusting Daisy during EA (who was an entirely much more interesting concept imo.)

Maybe the tadpole powers should have never been presented as tadpole powers. Like, maybe whoever is in your head, Guardian or Daisy, should have just presented them as "Divine gifts from a protector who is actually SHIELDING you from the tadpole." You could have even been manipulative with the icons: give the abilities pleasant-sounding names and nice-looking icons. But then maybe things start to feel a bit off the more "gifts" you accept. Maybe you use some of the abilities in conversation and people react with horror. Maybe later on you notice that some of the abilities you have seem weirdly similar to the abilities that the Absolute's servants have, they're just called different things. You would have to get rid of the whole "jam more tadpoles into your head for more powers" aspect, but that always seemed really silly to me to begin with.

My take is this.

Act 1 and 2 are really well done. Then Act 3 shows up and you are just smacked in the face with the most unfinished part of a game I can remember.

Once you reach Act 3 and the illusion of the "masterpiece" is lifted, you start seeing that:
- The choice in this game boils down to 3 options
- Consequences are non-existent outside of X companion dies.
- Replayability, does not exist.

Act 3 is just pure QA hell. But the threads of where the plot goes wrong harken all the way back to the first time you meet the Emperor. And so I must echo what others have said regarding this. The late addition of the Emperor and the rewrite of the story around him dooms what would otherwise have been an amazing plot. The way it is though?
- Why would I care about creating my guardian when the character I create simply does not exist?
- I am honestly conditioned into hating the Emperor by the way the game is forcing him on me.
- I am not even sure where I am going with all this anymore, it is just frustrating to see.
*It is clear that the fix is to properly QA act 3, do a repass on the story and reintroduce daisy and consequences. If they do that, the game can indeed be a masterpiece. If they are going to reintroduce cut content (which I support), they also need to increase the level cap to 14. I was already running around lvl 12 for the entirety of the BG storyline. And I even skipped the creche entirely.

And FFS do not force me to have my fate in someone elses hand the entire game.

Hi. I'm new here but I just had to create an account to asked: What reason will they have to keep working on the game after if already 'finished'? They already got their money and as far as I know, they don't plan on a DLC. Not to be disrespectful but simply curious. I wasn't here by the EA days, but I did play the Early Access on Stadia (Yes, I was one of those lunatics that actually used Stadia ).

My point is, from a real world perspective, why would they do something like that. They willingly polished the first act of the game to hook you (as many games do) then as I read on here and lot of other forums; Companions, romance, and plot start to fall apart afterwards.

Mainly because Larian has a history of releasing a definitive edition of X game they make. Which no one will buy if it is not improved in any way.

And also they have to give customers a reason to return.

Interesting I didn't play the early access so I had no idea about this Daisy. I read stuff online about it now and yes that seems like a big change in story that should have been tested in a narrative way with a sample of people much earlier rather than through in-game modifications.
Too late for that now and so out of topic for this thread but yes Larian process to test the main story should be improved for their next game.

Interesting, I like your ideas. 100% agree that they won't be able to fix the shaky foundations of the story at this point, and that they should test their main story arcs with a panel of players before game implementation.
That being said, the endings in their current forms are so ridiculously sloppy that I still think they could make some 'cheap' improvements to mitigate the sensation of the game falling flat!

Yes that's the problem: Mindflayer or mindflayer?


I am not that optimistic to be honest: They have too much to fix to add a lot of new content, while a sequel... well by the time they make it everyone would have forgotten this forgettable main story so any BG4 would probably start fresh.

Agreed, but that wasn't always the case for Larian. Divine Divinity had proper pacing, though obviously an old and low budget game with far lower production quality. Those particualar issue only started with Divinity Original Sin and it's sequal.

I think you just missed the biggest flaw though. The MC should be meaningfully and uniquely tied into the story. There must be a reason why YOU go out and try fix things, and why your companions look to you as the leader and defer to your descisions. And you only have to look at the classics with good and memorable stories to see that in use. BG1, BG2, DA1 (sort of), DA2, ME123, PS:T, NWN2 MotB, all had that and it's why their stories worked so well without ever feeling contrived. The origin character mechanic completely undermines that. It reduces "tav's" role to a subset of an origin character, and an irrelevant part of the story.

Oh no, I mean, I have other criticisms of how Larian does things that I didn't mention here, and the Origins system they use is one of them. They contort the plot to fit with their "Any one of these origins characters could feel like the MAIN character!" philosophy and it's all for naught, because they KNOW the stats and they KNOW the overwhelming majority of people go for custom characters. And you are right - it actually makes a generic "custom character" feel less involved in the plotline than their origin characters. I actually found this to be worse in BG3 than in any other game so far, at least on my first playthrough - because I played as a generic wizard, and then watched as the game treated Gale more like he was the MC wizard than I was. It is actually almost absurd how much the game seems to say "Shut up, the REAL wizard is talking" to a MC wizard when Gale is around. That being said, I think in BG3 the "Dark Urge" customizable option is actually intended to be the "canon" main character playthrough, and that one actually does nail you to the plot more than a generic character does.

But you're right - I am only familiar with Larian from DOS1 onwards; I never played the older games. I was considering doing so out of historical interest at some point.

+1! Well said! Here are a few changes that I'd wish to see.

Other solutions

Emperor