Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Is the Story Really All That?

I think the first issue was trying to break things into 3 Acts, and then having Early Access be only the first Act. I wish they wouldn't have framed it like that initially, cause now we are stuck with this stage-play language, which is really insufficient for describing what cracks off in this game. I'm not sure there's even broad agreement about where one act ends and another begins hehe.

"Chapters" titled but left unnumbered, would have been better for an EA, and then there might have been more opportunities to preview and shuffle stuff around to make sure it would click. Since mostly the kinks are in the transitions, and the through lines, perhaps what they needed was to insert a couple chapters, or the copy/paste reorder some of the slides.

I have no clue how one even begins to approach this kind of story writing, how they would workshop it internally, or manage to respond (or even review) the feedback they've received on it over the past 3 years.

The DOS2 feedback section has what, like 11,000 posts? BG3's has 88,000 lol.

This section already has 6,000 posts since it was created, a little over a month ago.

They'd probably need to hire an entire team of people, whose whole job it was simply to summarize what other people were saying here and distill that into something usable. I can't imagine what that would feel like for their writers. Like 'OK we got some notes, please clear your schedule for the next 19 weeks so we can discuss them' hehe. And that's just here. Feedback on Steam, add another zero, and they'd probably have to give pay raises to the team on that one, just to compensate for the mental trauma they're likely to endure sifting through it all.

EA was a bit of a double edged sword here in my view. It probably invited too much input and critical feedback into the process at a point when the developers would have had a hard time incorperating or even reading most of it. Would also be easy to dismiss, since feedback was only sought for the first portion of the game, like a film review that only covers the first 35 minutes of a movie. Now though, because it was done that way, I think the game has Early Access sorta baked in. Meaning that the EA will just never end, even though the game is ostensibly complete, people will still be looking for the director's cut or the fan edit, or the missing act. I guess that's alright, if they just keep chipping away at it. I think EA continues now, so it'd be cool if they put out an expansion that could sort of revisit the whole thing. Ideally with some new boards here! That would be cool!

Ps. When I picture what things must have been like launching EA in 2020, with everyone working from home for like 2 years, this game seems like a total triumph. Frankly I'm amazed that they pulled this off. Now I think, just keep it going, right... EA remastered? I mean why not?

The story is... fine, really, for something they gutted and rewrote maybe a year out from release. There was a great story in BG3, I think, one that built on the ideas and themes of the other two games in the series, but Larian scrapped it so they could give people tumblr memes, Twitter stuff, and thirstposting. It's a shame.

Just guessing here, but I think, the game was planned to have more acts and to be released a lot later, maybe x-mas 2025. But than reality hit Larian, maybe running out of money and everything that was somewhat working and was of good quality on its own (as I can't say there is bad or dumb quest in the game) was cramped into act 3 and the game was released as fast as possible. Now we have the situation that act 1 is very polished, especially as they were able to gather a lot of feedback and data from early access, act 2 is quite good, but more or less self contained with first story problems showing (like how does everything in it fit into the overall story) and act 3 is incoherent and unsatisfying.

Now they are trying to fix stuff on the fly, bug fix count should be way over 2.000 by now, they are restoring stuff they couldn't get working but would have been easy to detect during testing e.g. dialogues not triggering at all.

That doesn't explain dumbing down stuff e.g. Daisy vs. Emperor and kinda forgetting about what the game startet in the first place though. As the game is a huge success I have high hopes for definitive edition that is closer to what was envisioned in the first place and if they are scanning these forums they have probably a good idea what people want, kinda early access again, just on a much grander scale.

I cannot imagine them having left the game in EA for another year and a half. Firstly, before covid hit they had actually been aiming for a release even sooner than they have now, but the pandemic threw their plans into chaos and that changed. Secondly, releasing a game like this into early access five years before intended release seems like a really bad idea. Honestly, I think people were always overestimating Larian and their ability to tell stories. Is this the best they could have given us? I don't think so, I think a few months more would have given a more polished outcome. But wouldthat morepolished outcome have been significantly better? I don't think so. As I said, I think that you can see the cracks as earlyas act one and I think that many of those cracks were either present or at least signalled as far back as Early Access. I don't believe Larian could have given us the masterpiece story everyone was hoping for, I don't think they were ever capable of that. I think their idea of what that looks like just doesn't translate into a masterpiece. The things I think they could have done to really make a masterpiece would require them to go against a lot of their apparent instincts and preferences. Or maybe I'm just biased against Larian and their style. That's probably it.

Or maybe it is just as simple as Larian not being anywhere near as good as they think or as they have been telling everyone.

Yup.

[After being a harrassed critic of the game for four years, I'm now just too exhausted by it all to write lengthy expositions of my many criticisms. But I love reading through all of you guys' excellent posts dissecting the game.]

To be fair: Has it been *Larian* misrepresenting the game and themselves? I honestly don't know because I don't pay attention to game news at all. But it seems to me that there were a lot of people declaring this game flawless and revolutionary with very little prompting from Larian.

I mean, it's not Pulitzer material by any stretch, but it's a fun dark/high fantasy romp so meh, I think it's perfectly fine for what it is. It was at least never boring like a lot of games, so...

I think the most obviously jarring thing about the narrative is how decidedly laid back the origin characters are about their imminent and painful deaths, to then be replaced by a brain eating monster which they could reasonably anticipate occurring within a matter of days. Other than Laezel, they show very little concern over this obviously horrific prospect. She is the only one with any urgency. Wyll in particular is ridiculous, with his priority being on hunting Karlach, when he has no idea how long this might take and the real possibility ceremorphosis will occur before he ever finds her.

I get that they didn't necessarily want all party interactions to essentially be "Shit, shit, shit, we are about to die" until the first dream sequence, but if so, they might have chosen another plot device.

Still, I think its important to recognise its a game, not a novel. The plot needs to be an excuse for interesting scenarios for gameplay and interesting mechanical progression. Inevitably, some compromises are going to be made in terms of narrative flow. This is a particular issue if you don't want to put the player on railroads and allow them the ability to explore, do side content and advance the game at their own pace.

Really great comments @Grey_Ghost and I largely agree - the problem with bg3 is really the main plot.

I also think the comparison to PoE2 is apt. It's a fun game if you enjoy the sidequests because the main plot isn't great. I love the city, I love the handling of the lore, I enjoyed reading the books, the way Shar and Selune were represented, the temple of Illmater was spot on and even Sharess' Caress had a cat in it! Someone on the writing staff really loved Faerun and it shows. Minsc and Jaheria are great . . .

But because the main plot is a shambles the elements forcing me to focus on it come across as an annoyance - no, I don't want to rescue a captured companion I want to fight Raphael. No, I don't want to rescue Wyll's father before Mizorra can kill him I want to follow this lead on Auntie Ethel's coven.

But Grey Ghost is right about the tadpole McGuffin. When McGuffins work you just naturally forget about them. By the time we find out who tried to kill Brandon Stark we no longer care. But I always cared about finding a cure and wasn't sure why the game expected me to forget my fear of transformation and instead opt to put parasites inside my head.

I hope some of this will be addressed in an upcoming definitive edition. At present I don't really feel compelled to replay the game until the end game is fixed.

If I had a ring of three wishes (that only worked on BG3) I would wish that the definitive edition would include multiple versions of the story that could be selected when starting a new game. Let's have a Guardian version and Daisy version. Let's see how the original plot compares to the revised one.

Overall I enjoyed the story. It has some issues and the endings are very lackluster but I think it has a good mix of high stakes, interesting characters, and a little bit of the camp that’s common in the setting. Also think they did surprisingly well tying together so many different kinds of “big bads” to fight in act 3. Dream visitor is the only thing present in all acts that I think they really messed up on, that and maybe the lack of different options to do some things like recruiting Minthara

Well… no. PoE2 has cohesion and worldbuilding to it, that BG3 could very much use. poE2 plot could have a bit more of a drive and be better integrated with faction content (which I refuse to accept as “side content” due to how much it feeds into the crit path’s narrative) and ending could have been better, but it is a good story - parts of it are just not effectively told.

Not main plot related but:

Don't, don't ask questions. Questions only lead to more confusion. XD

I agree with everything you said in regards to Orin but one thing that is interesting to me is Larians decision to cut most of her content. (Githyanki creche, Cazador) Maybe if they stuck to their original idea her involvement/story might've made more sense.

I was only comparing BG3 to Deadfire in the limited sense that I think both games are genuinely better when you don't pay attention to their main plot. Deadfire is, in general, much better written, with more unique and engaging lore. (though it might be overwhelming for people unfamiliar with it.)

Honestly, I've been going back and playing old cRPGs to compare them to BG3, because I've found myself so dissatisfied with BG3 in the end. What is it about BG3 that has people so impressed with it in comparison to the others?

The original Baldur's Gates have it beat in narrative, and (imo) romances.
Poe1 has it beat in narrative, and just general ambience (making you really feel immersed in a fantasy world), lore - actually everything to do with writing in general. PoE2 has all that plus a much more thought-out combat system. (Really Deadfire is great in so many ways, it makes me really sad that it flopped.)
Planescape: Torment and Torment: Tides of Numenera have a much more interesting setting that gets into weird, epic concepts really quickly. (These are settings where an 'Archdevil just hanging out in a bar' actually feels appropriate rather than jarring.)
Hell, going back to Larian's other titles, I think DOS2 actually has outright *better combat* than BG3. Don't get me wrong, because I think the combat system in DOS2 is highly flawed. And I'm not saying that BG3 should have had the surfaces that game had (People quite reasonably wanted a DnD game, not DOS with a DnD coat of paint on top.) But I have pointed out before that BG3 is too easy, and gotten the reply that the point of BG3 combat is just to be fun. Well, if that's the case, I think DOS2 does a much better job of that than BG3 does.

So in what ways does BG3 really stand out?

First, I think, in exploration. The BG3 environments, especially in act 1, feel at times almost like an open-world game. It is genuinely fun going through all the little nooks and crannies and secret areas in the game. Unfortunately, this has limited replay value - once you know them, you know them, and the game's maps are actually, for the length of its gameplay, fairly small.

Second, in environmental interactivity. BG3 doesn't have a full physics engine, destructible environments, etc. But it certainly comes much closer to it than most other titles.

Third, in voiced dialogue. Now, I have confession to make. I don't actually like the mocap'd models of BG3 for the most part. The elves look too human, gnomes and hobbits look weird because the mocap demands their heads be bigger than they really should be I think, Tieflings too often look like humans wearing body paint. It's just not my thing. But there is a lot to be said for these models capturing people's expressions. It allows for a level of emotional reaction to what a character is saying that is much more than what you get out of simply reading a few lines of text on a screen. Helped by the fact that the VAs are generally fantastic.

Fourth, in companions. Now, I'm a little on the fence about this. I think the companions in BG3 are some of the best companions that Larian has come out with yet, but I'm not quite sure why. There are moments of their writing that make me roll my eyes, so I am not *quite* ready to give Larian credit for better character writing yet. I think that if all I knew of Gale, for example, was just a paper doll model (like many other cRPGs) and seeing his words, unvoiced, on a screen, I might just hate his guts. Instead, despite his background writing annoying the hell out of me, I actually quite like him as a character because he has a fantastic VA and comes across as a really likable guy. So what makes the companions so good in BG3 might just be the fact that you inherently like characters more when you see their mannerisms and hear their voices, rather than just experiencing them as words written on a screen.

Can anyone else think of ways in which BG3 really stands out from other cRPGs?
Because it's no use denying that cRPGs, despite once being some of the most influential titles in western games, have been relatively niche for some time - and yet here, BG3 is pulling very impressive numbers. And it's doing that despite the fact that, when I compare it to other titles...in a lot of ways it's just *not as good of a game.* So what is it about BG3 that makes it so successful? What elements of BG3, if we added them to other cRPGs, would make them more popular? Because I would love it if the genre experienced a resurgence.

I actually think a big one is the emotional reactivity that the mocap gives, along with the VA performances. Now, this is very expensive, and maybe not every studio could do it - but it really highlighted a way in which many other cRPGs are almost *absurdly* primitive. In many other cRPGs, even modern ones, a character is represented by nothing but a portrait and a paper doll. (And for the player character, very often the portrait cannot even match the paper doll, since there are a limited number of portraits to choose from.)

A portrait. A single, unchanging portrait. Maybe you can't do a full mocap, but good lord, would it REALLY be that difficult to get a few different illustrations of the same character? So you could see a change of expression in someone's face when they were speaking a happy line vs. a sad line? So many other cRPGs, upon reflection, seem to go *out of their way* to make it more difficult to emotionally connect with their characters - it is probably the single biggest thing where BG3 utterly blows all the others away.

We'll have to agree to disagree on the quality of the story in PoE2. To my mind it cheapened the story of PoE1 (which is still the best video game story to date ) In PoE1 the tale of the saint's war was an indictment of religious extremism, a story about how the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The story was largely ripped off inspired by the story of the Dawn Cataclysm from Faerun - a story WotC promised us but never delivered. Eothas, as a 'good' god decided that the entire world needed to remade in his image. And his followers became zealots who wreaked all sorts of misery in the name of turning the world to right.

In PoE2 Eothas somehow becomes an atheist who wants to free humanity from the bonds of superstition. I never bought into the change and so I ignored the big statue plot for as long as could. Luckily there's a wiki to remind me of the names of the gods Likewise I never bought the rewrite of Woedica. For thousands of years she has fought to control the secrets of the gods and only reveals them to her chosen - and you. She goes from the taciturn control freak of PoE1 to that friend who just cannot stop calling at the wrong moment. "O hai! I thought you might like know some more super secret details about how the gods came to be. Got a minute? p.s. don't tell, these secrets are really sekrit"


I largely agree on Orin. She's forgettable. I enjoyed the moments she popped up as someone else but 'core' personality was pretty boring. Of course Bhaal is probably the least interesting of the dead three . . .

I agree

I don’t think it is too much a stretch. I think my issue with her is that the game touches on many potentially interesting threads that don’t add much outside references .

Yes, I have been thinking about that. I thought even low detail Deadfire’s portraits helped a lot in giving a face to each NPCs. I am also thinking to Persona5Royal and how they had different conversation portraits for key NPC for different emotional states.

I do wonder how the game would work, if instead full blown cutscenes they would created mocapped animated portraits. Something like Blizzard use to do. I did find cutscenes in BG3 to be distractingly janky, but I do agree there is benefit to seeing expressions of NPCs (Tav, not so much). The downside I think, would be that even that approach would be expensive to make (I mean look at Tyranny’s attempt at static dialogue dolls) - they require both high fidelity and variety for NPCs, and high quality animation. At this point cutscenes could be an easier sell for the wide audience.

A lot of good points have been raised in this thread.

To me one of the (many) problems with this game is that there is too much in it which doesn't need to be in it.
The main story involves the Dead Three but virtually every deity in the pantheon is featured to a greater or lesser degree.
Apart from name-dropping, what is the purpose of Volo, Elminster, Jaheira, Minsc or Viconia? I could add the Harpers and the Zhentarim. [EDIT] Forgot Sarevok.
I'm currently on my second run after I broke my first game (my fault) just before Moonrise Towers. I finished the monastery and creche last night and was left even more confused about the Dream Visitor, Vlaakith and the artefact than I was before.

Kagha epitomises the phrase 'loose ends'. After the goblin threat has been removed and Halsin freed, etc. she just stands in the Hollow staring off into space with no dialogue or anything. Why does she stand in that spot? She was never anywhere near there when she was part of the story.
There's also the goblin in the Blighted village who just patrols up and down through the village even after you have killed everything in there including the goblins outside the other entrance.

I think you've hit on something really interesting here. I think for a crpg having some extra fluff around the story is good for it, helps flesh out the world, but BG3 does include that stuff in the wrong way, though I disagree that Jaheiraand the Harpers are in that category. Having done a playthrough where Last Light falls fairly early on, without them the area feels a lot more lonely and lifeless. Not in an atmospheric way, but in a very dull way. They're a much-needed injection of life and interaction and again, they fill out the world.

A much larger offender is... well, everything that happens before the start of the game itself. The inciting incident of the game is an utter shambles with a timeline that barely makes any sense and is almost more holes than plot. A story doesn't need to answer every question, but it should answer most of them or at least leave those questions in such a place that the answer clearly isn't important.

For example let's start with a simple question; why was our party tadpoled? On the surface that seems like a simple question with a simple answer that barely needs going into. But then you learn more about the events leading up to your escape and you realize that it doesn't make any sense why any of the party were abducted. Frankly, I think the only explanation is that they said the opening cutscene, which they used as one of the earliest trailers for the game, was going to be the opening cut scene, and for whatever reason they didn't want to change it after the story got altered. And considering how far back they made that statement, it was probably always unwise to lock themselves down like that so early. One could theorize that their story problems started all the way back then even before the Guardian rewrite, settling on an opening scene that got locked in place and then any other change had to somehow work around. Honestly, if you think about it it's not so crazy a proposition. The fact that a Nautiloid attacked a major city never gets brought up. No one ever explains why the Nautiloid attacked the city, no one in the cult comments on it, almost like the event doesn't really have a place in the story and only serves to complicate things further by it's existence.

There's even precedent for this kind of decision being made by Larian. Just lookat Shadowheart's prism, which they bent themselves in knot strying to get into our possession while also making sure Shadowheart always started out having it, despite the most obvious answer being "have us start out with the box ourselves. And ironically, the prism doesn't even end up playing a role in Shadowheart's arc. It simply does not matter to her story that much.

I haven't finished the whole game yet (just finished chapter 2) so I didn't read all the posts in detail to avoid spoilers. I also think that, so far, there are some unexplainable inconsistencies in "the big picture" of the absolute. But I just wanted to propose that a completely coherent story would only be possible in a "visual novella" style game without important choices. So any choices you make are really fake and the story will proceed over 1 linear path from beginning to end.
The more branches and alternative paths that you create on the way, the more difficult it will be to avoid plotholes or inconsistencies.
Personally I'm willing to live with those storyholes to be able to walk different paths. Now of course, I 'm in my first PT, if it turns out that the different paths are illusionary and don't change much in reality (like eating lots of tadpoles and embracing the dream image, vs. rejecting her and all tadpoles) then that would be rather disappointing.