Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Narrative Motivation to Enter Temple

There should be some minor narrative motivation added to funnel players towards the temple/crypt. It used to be where you recruited Shadowheart, who was trying to gain entry and insisted there might be something useful inside, and that was good enough.

But now, if you rescue Shadowheart on the ship - probably the most common path - she's there on the beach with you right at the start, and the only reason to ever go there is metagame knowledge about the amulet and other loot. It would be nice to have something in-story pushing our characters that way, maybe something with Gale since he emerges from the portal nearby.

Many places in the game lack story reasons to explore.
The entire swamp and the risen road are not even mentionned if you don't meet Ethel at the grove or does not pick Lae'zel in your group.

The game totaly lack of (side) quests or story elements that gives us goal to explore most of the map.

I can forgive the swamp because I can usually hear their argument as I pass, and at least have that as my reason for heading that way. I wouldn't say no to a more robust reason though, and would also like more of a reason to check out the Risen Road. Doesn't have to be anything major, obviously too late in development for anything like that, but something as simple as a note that mindflayer infectees good reason to check it out would be good.

I think I made that very same point about the change in Shadowheart’s location/dialogue undermining the reason to check out the temple a while back! Especially as it’s not clear why to me why the scene on the beach couldn’t be pretty much the same, saving some acknowledgement of our help.

I wouldn’t mind her saying something more about the ruins even if we freed her from the pod (I think she’ll still comment that we may need to find another way in if we interact with the door, but that’s it). But, that said, if she can think that they might be worth checking out given we’ve washed up with few resources, then I guess Tav (ie we) could just as easily come to the same conclusion independently. Especially if we happen to bump into to looters up top, who seem to have found something interesting.

And personally I don’t mind there not being a motivation to visit every part of the map every playthrough. Perhaps because I’ve now played enough of EA to more than satisfy my inner completionist, I actually quite enjoy just seeing where my travels take me if I just do what would make most sense to my character.

So, if I don’t rescue Shadowheart but don’t alienate her, then I’ll probably explore the crypt early as she’ll make a case for doing so, but if not then I might go in if my Tav is the kind of curious person who’d decide to check it out themselves, but otherwise walk past and only decide to investigate after bumping into Gimblebock and gang. I keep meaning not to go there at all, but in the runs when I’ve taken this approach I’ve always found it natural to visit at some point.

Similarly, if we meet with Ethel and ask for her help, or if we want to discredit Kagha, or get suspicious about Ethel if we discover the dodgy potion she gave Pandirna(?) and feel we should check that out, or overhear Ethel arguing with Mayrina’s brothers, or just get lost looking for the goblin camp (eg if we don’t have Sazza) then we have reason to head into the swamp, but otherwise we might not bother, at least right now. (I wonder, if we don’t deal with Ethel in act one, might we meet one of her sisters in Baldur’s Gate and, assuming that’s a quest we want to follow, end up revisiting this area and Ethel later on?)

And if we recruit Lae’zel then we might head off to the Risen Road early on the way to the crèche, and so discover the flaming inn. Or even if we don’t recruit Lae’zel we can find out about githyanki on the Risen Road, eg from the corpse in the Ogre building, and decide that they might be worth checking out if we know about their enmity with mindflayers, or because we saw them chasing the nautiloid so think they may know more about what’s going on. Or we can find out about the raid on the inn at the goblin camp, or see it burning through the telescope in the druid grove, and if we’re helpful souls might go check it out to see if we can help. Or finish cleaning the place out. Or, given I think we can find out at the camp that the purpose of the raid was to kidnap some Baldur’s Gate higher up (from the trader maybe? not 100% sure about that), who presumably was wanted by the cult for a reason, we might decide to go see if there’s anyone left there who knows anything about the cult or the tadpoles, or can help us get back to Baldur’s Gate. I think that the road to where we find the githyanki might also be the route we’d take if we decided to risk the overland route to Moonrise Towers in the full game, or if we side with Minthara and take her directions.

And once we head over the bridge to the road we find the hyenas and evidence of survivors of the gnoll raid on the caravan, and so might decide to seek them out, and depending on how that goes, we might also get directed to Waukeen’s Rest.

I can’t recall if there’s anything pushing us to investigate the toll house on the Risen Road, other than investigating the gnoll attacks (which we may or not decide to do, but may be more likely to do so once we realise the tadpole connection from the Flind Warlord). I have a feeling the toll house might be one of the targets for raids by the Absolute’s forces on Minthara’s map, which would indicate it as a possible area of interest, but am not sure about that. There’s a blocked exit from the map due to a rockfall near it, but I don’t know that anything is yet pushing us to head off in that direction.

But in general, I’m actually pretty happy that there are a number of things that might encourage us to explore different areas without this being shoved in our faces, though as always I’m sure improvements could be made.

I think that in particular being directed to the temple is a good idea because not only do we meet Withers there, and that's the area where meeting him makes the most sense, rather than him just randomly finding us, but it's also, structurally, a good extended tutorial area. It gives us the chance to interact with traps and people, it's an opportunity to explore, and it serves as a place where we get to see in small part the kind of flexibility that the game expects of us, ie, the multiple ways to enter the temple and deal with the stuff going on within. Good games are all about subtly guiding player experience. Even Breath of the Wild, a quintissential open world game that people praise for how open it is, uses its design to subtly funnel players to the easiest divine beast first. Sure Tav could think that investigating the temple for supplies is a good idea, but we the player might not, even assuming we find it. It's the job of the dev to help direct player's sightlines to interesting stuff. I think the game is bad in general at providing rationales to explore, but in a let's play I'm watching, the player really just missed out on not only the ruin, but Gale himself until the 12th episode.

well i'm fine myself. A locked door is all the Motivation i need in my rpg but that's just me :))

But i can at least acknowledge that shadowheart did call for players attention more if you are not like me and have obssesion with locked doors.

Normally, yes. That's the proper adventuring spirit! But in this case, we are in a frantic hurry to get rid of tadpoles that could end our lives any moment. Any activity not directed at tadpole removal counters the plot and counters role playing.

Personaly i dont think that Crypt (or any other place as the matter of fact) needs any narative reason go there ...
Not everything in the world exist for our party, some things just "are there" ...
Then its up to you if you feel like there could be some valuable or not, or if that is motivation enough to explore it, or not.

I like it this way, the world feels more believable, than in games where in front of (or in nearby town) every ruin/crypt/dungeon/cave/town stands some quest giver that begs us to go do something there. :-/

Is this even fair to say, since you have that situation conditioned by ignoring one companion, and one vendor? O_o

I mean ...
The game totaly have quest and story elements that sends you this way, you just avoided them ... somehow.
That dont seems to me like lack of narative, but like consequences of your choice ... and personaly i like consequences, they make replay more different. :-/

i think its great that they fixed Shadowheart because having her bang away at the door like some mindless thug when she is in fact a cleric of tricks with solid lock picking skills was just stupid lazy plot... your reason for going there is loot and if you can't work that out without Larian putting some morion there to bang away at the door then just walk past

I think it showed perfectly that skills are useless, unless you have tools.

she says been bashing this door for hours [something like that]
i can see a thief give the door a quick shub but not bash away at it... now Lae'zel on the other hand, which makes me think she was who the writer had in mind but then someone said no put Shadowheart there instead

this is EA so they pushed a few things together to give us a look, in the release we may have to actually go find Gale without him just stepping out of no where?

If only 2 characters gives narrative reasons to explore 25% of the map, yes I think it is fair to say.

It would not hard to add story reasons and quests as there are already great content in these parts of the map arround which new short stories could be created / reworked a bit to make them a lot less hidden (shadow druid, burning inn, gnolls on the road,...).

Not saying that there should be reasons for every small areas though. In exemple I personnally don't have big issues with the lost chapel as we can't really miss the locked door down and the looters on the top...
A dungeon and people fighting to keep the loot is a good enough reasons to me... but yes I'd also like to have narrative purpose to explore what could be considered as "side parts of the map" no matter my companion and main story choices.

You know, now when you mention it ...

There is only single narative reason to step inside that tomb ... and that is fact that those looters, or explorer, or graverobbers, or whatever you wish to call them ... are searching there for something valuable ... that, or general curiocity.
But we agreed on that being enough.

Now if you concider Swamp:
Either Ethel will invite you there, if you talk to her in Tiefling part of Groove ...
Or you meet her again arguing with those two peasants as you explore around Blighted Village ...
Or you went there to find out what is Kagha up to ...
Or you can appear there by pure coincidence, as you were exploring Underdark searching for the way to Moonrise tower ...
Or you can get there by even purer accident, when you try to sneak in Goblin camp around that casm, and rotten log will crack as you get over it.

If you take Risen Road:
Lae'zel is urging you to get there to find her kin ...
Or, you find out burning inn from Grove, if you use that Telescope ...
Or, im not quite sure about this one, but i would swear that nobody give you exactly best description about where to find Goblin camp, so i would dare to say that is quite possible to end up there while you are searching for it ...
Also, that road leads straight towards Baldur's Gate ... so if that is where you go, it would be quite logical for you to take this way ...

Sounds like we have enough opourtunities to me.

The only place on surface to explore that (i believe) was mentioned nowhere, is Tollhouse ...
The only reason i can think about, for coming there is either mission from Zhentarims (searching for missing cargo) and during that accidentaly discover this place aswell ... or being send there by Karlach, wich on the other hand is also in middle of nowhere, where nothing leads you, unless you are trying to explore everything, or you know where to look for her. :-/
One could teoreticaly argue that if you dont convince Aradin to stay inside the Grove, and meet with his group outside the Blighted Village ... they leave this way ... only to despawn in the woods few steppes ahead.

And maybe spider caves ... but since they are acessible only for explorers curious enough to either check well, or look inside houses ... i gues that is quite fine as it is ... as i said, not all locations need some quests to send us there, some can just exist for us to find out accidentaly.

The underdark is different story tho ...

While we have some quest here and there (except Kuo-Toa village, wich i quite often utterly forgot to visit) ... but i would dare to say that nothing sends us, basicaly anywhere (except mage tower, and that abandonned village where we fight Duergars) ...
Yes, we know we are looking for third fragment of staff / third clue about Grymforge ... but we dont really know where to look, and while ingame world is limited, Underdark is HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE and storywise should be concidered that way, i would dare to say.
We also know that we will need Sussur Bark for our best weapon in Early Acess ... but how are we supposed to know if this tree is what we are looking for?
I dont really think this is a problem for Underdark tho, since so many sidequests (and one main quest as the matter of fact) there is basicaly just "search for something for me" ... and during that searching we just accidentaly step on something else. And i like it this way.

And then there is Grymforge ...

In this particular part of the game, its quite clear (as it is now) that Larian is counting on us being explorers, or completionist ... bcs if you concider just quests that are there, you explore half the map at best.
What leads you to that room where are remaining demons? Nothing as far as i know.
What leads you to that Duergar, who is trying to get trough cavein with his Deep Rothé? Nothing as far as i know.
As we are here, what leads you futher there, on that upper bridge full of traps where you find Shar statue and some Wizard robe? Nothing as far as i know.
How about that place where you meet Mimics? Nope. :-/
And that Lava lake with elemental, where you find amulet with soul of some Monk? Nah, nothing that i know about.

I must admit that wriging this down makes me a little worried, since it seems like futher in development we are, the less options there is. :-/
Feel free to tell me, if i forget some!

What's interesting in grymforge is that you can find the elevator very quickly.

You could easily talk your way past the goblins and get to the mountain passes, and miss most of the map.

You have to work hard to miss the grove gate fight though.

I've been into the underdark twice, both in patch 9 and never seen kua-toa, the Shar statue and wizard robe (I found the trap bridge but getting past it was so tedious I gave up, that's on me I'll admit), the lava elemental or been able to make heads or tails of the arcane tower. I thought I'd explored it thoroughly when I went there and there was nothing all that interesting about it.

My feeling about the game as a whole (and I've said this before) is that I feel as if Larian just expects us to explore because 'that's what you do' while the story itself incentivizes finding a particular path and hurrying down it unless you're playing a particular sort of character.

Are you talking about Arcane Tower? O_o

Nothing interesting there? O_o

Yeah, I missed all of that. I didn't even find all the ingredients for the new tadpole power, I don't think. I might have found the ring or the staff, I don't remember at this point. But I certainly didn't find that polearm. Hell, maybe I did find the boots and ring and just don't remember. Loot doesn't tend to be all that memorable to me on its own. I certainly never found a grave or a connection to the Bulette, or any insight into the story of the cleric.

Edit: I searched up and down both levels and just hit a dead end and couldn't figure out any way forward.

Larian isn't known for their great story and narrative prowess. I was more surprised when obsidian PoE 2 game had the same problems infact they were way worse due to the nature of island hoping itself.

Anyway, hidden off the beaten track quests, events, treasures are fine from time to time. Of course it's better if devs have narrative skills to include places in different ways for at least half of those places.

But luckily i'm not a player that just blindly follows the story.

The whole find the Doc narrative breaks really fast and it's clear that Larian doesn't have the balls to kill players off for that narrative.

You would need to be a confidant dev to pull that one off. As few players definitely woudn't like that gameover screen.
So it's clear as day we can explore and take the time. The fact that there is no time progression or night doubles down on that.

Though it's always funny to see new players come to forums and somehow miss half of companions, events, fights, map... I guess Larian narrative is to blame cos if you follow that you can miss all sorts of stuff.

Edit: Probably half of the game.:)

I just took the liberty of crossing out what had nothing to do with the narrative and/or with quests so you can stay focus on the thread.

About Khaga the quest it is a lot too hidden.
It would be a good narrative reason to me to go there though... It would just require, in exemple that Ragh tell to the player that he saw Kagha going there or something like that... You can't miss Ragh, but you can easily miss the entire quest.

About Ethel, her arguing with the brother is enough... but it is right at the entrance of the swamp. Exploration rewards the player by giving him the quest that is supposed to lead him were he went...

Dungeon are different. Dungeons (included Grymforge) are litteraly MEANT to explore.
That said, you enter most dungeons for story reasons first. That's most often what leads you there and/or gives you the urge to discover and explore them.

@Gray Ghost
Spoiler tag, since we are getting little distracted from topic


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Cant really say i agree with any of your choices there, but when did that stoped you.

Indeed ...
On the other hand, i would dare to say that is on purpose, there are allready two other conversations that lead you there.

This way, while its easy to miss, you must admit it kinda makes sense ... i mean, if i would plan a coup, i would also make damn sure that nobody will see me send secret messages.
But i dunno, maybe mentioning something vague enough, like that Kagha often vents to that forest on ... west i think? ... and then every time they tryed to follow her, she dissapeared ... that would be fine by me.

True ...
But the map is so small (even tho it dont exactly feel that way i would say) so you have to "Explore" for like 2-5 seconds ... call me harsh, but i say if you stick to your route so strictly so you would miss this, then you deserve to miss it. :-/