Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Did anyone genuinely enjoy the "Evil" Route?

I only have conjecture to back this up with, but; Of course, all of our feedback on the evil path is still valuable, but it is worth keeping this in mind should we eventually see it proven to be true.

Triss is quite the uhhh reward too!!

I'm pretty sure none of what we do in act 1 would have any influence on act 2. In dos2 even killing Alexander (which is an unavoidable fight mind you) doesn't affect anything lol

I totally agree that there may well be aspects to the story we just don't know at this juncture that make our feedback "less useful", but I would still argue that given most players only play a game through once (unlike the likes of us), the options could do with being more "enticing" or overtly diverse.

I disagree. Most of the criticism is not about rewards (come guys evil path has the best reward right now) per se, but about incentives. Some reason to get up of our lazy evil ass and lift a finger for the evil team.

Oh yeah.
No argument there, just trying to make an educated guess as to what cards Larian has up their sleeve. It seems like bad practice to me that they would let players partake in an early access program while witholding all relevant story details so their plot feedback is useless, but I suppose there was no way to predict that. It does not render the smaller points such as the "evil" path being cartoonish and unrewarding useless either.
Well, you see, if I am right about what I said in my previous post there won't be such a thing as an "evil team" lol.

WHo are you disagreeing with, because we seem to entirely AGREE?!

I Disagreeeeee

Yup, this is why I think something different is going on with the story. We don't really get any sort of help from anyone, potentially making the tadpole even more powerful with our actions and who knows what else.
I am definitely wrong with a lot of my theories though. I see how some could be implemented and could work with the story, but I might be wrong with all the symbolism¬

Just to make sure I understand, your theory is that a lot of the story is some sort of an illusion?

Yup; based on my limited knowledge of Forgotten Realms I think it's most likely related to Shadowfell (there is plenty of gods that would love for Shadows to take over), but considering there is also a Phase Spider Matriarch aka Predator of the Ethereal plane, it could be something else entirely. Demons could still fit in the story, as it seems there is something off going on with the souls once they enter Shadowfell. Larian can basically take this anywhere. I really think it's intended to be as some sort of the playground, alas not a complete one right now.


It would also explain some of the 'factions' so far. It also explains why Omeluum is convinced, that the nautiloid templates were lost in the war against Gith and honestly there is so many other breadcrumbs like that.. We might have been time warping through the planes. Honestly I can go on about the crazy possibilities... Lore has grown so much and it keeps growing not to mention it's clear Larian did get some creative approval and this is not just your typical 5e homebrew. This looks like it will be a rather epic adventure in the end. At least I definitely want to see Astarion as a master vampire!
WotC seems to want to have more multiverse as well, more inclusivity, etc... so I really wouldn't be surprised, if we did see Illithid Sthrad mastermind. Cheesy, but ok.

That's what I thought you suggested. Sounds interesting, but the first thing I thought of was the Indoctrination Theory of Mass Effect 3. And it's not a good thing for one big reason:

The indoctrination theory was some sort of alternative explanation for the bad writing bits of Mass Effect 3 (I doubt anyone would have thought of this theory if the game's story was able to deliver a satisfying conclusion). I just don't think Larian are clever enough to pull off something like that. The good news is that we don't know yet either way.

I’ve said all along incentives are missing, so how do we disagree?? I’m confuuuuuuuuuuuused... it happens too regularly. :-(

Well my theory is obviously not datamined, I went through lore and the evidence of illusions we have in game.
But yes, I am purely speculating and we don't have evidence that Larian is going to attempt something as crazy as this.

Ofc.
Loot is one thing ... Reward as another thing ... and Outcome as another thing ... there we kinda agree as it seems.

Ofc, "rewarding experience" is just another words for "satisfying experience" ... sadly, if you actualy read trough those 14 paiges, most people are simply talking about "need better reward" ... i dont see much space for missunderstanding, even if some will for sure tell me that they meaned it as satisfaction with story. -_-
Funny enough, if you really actualy read trough those 14 paiges, you will find out that many people are actualy comparing Mynthara's neck and mace ... and loot from Zevlor and Kagha ... if anyone here wants to tell me that those people are talking about "writing" i have nothing but laugh for them. :-/


And are you sure, you have seen them all?
Burning Baldur's Gate, and your "dream mate" telling you: "Your enemies will fall, the world will bow, you'll have everything you could ever desire."
That seem not enough suggesting? In that case i kinda cannot imagine what more do you want.


Well ... i think you didnt listen so carefully ...
Wyll is kinda pasive about tadpole, he have his own problems and tadpole seem dormant, so he dont seem to care that much.
Astarion even wanted to control that thing, so he can exploit it as much as possible.
Gale wants to do the same with Raphael, outsmart him in his own game.
Shadowheart seem to be desperate ... if you talk to her, she is only one willing to give herself to Gut, or the Hag ... just to get rid of that thing.
And Lae'zel was even in EA proven to be wrong about her people ... what if even other of their teachings are wrong? :P

And if you want to count NPC aswell ... most of them wants to get rid of your tadpole, or yourself, just to be sure ... bcs tadpole in general means potential trouble (big one, i admit that), but many of them are confess with same breath that your parasite is unusual and they have litteraly no idea what will be going in the future.
Hells, even Halsin himself (wich is for some reason concidered around here as best expert ... odd since, you have even mind flayer in Underdark, wich i presume should know more about his own kind than some Elf that was watching tadpole crawling out of dead Drow) tells you: "Good news is, you have time. Bad news, i dont know how many."


I like our insignificence ... we are suppose to be random nobody who was abducked by Nautiloid.

I kinda have feeling that i was sended to Minthara ...
When i played my first evil playthrough, i released Sazza ... and she was leading me straight to Minthara ... and since i did that i was automaticly concidered as ally by Minthara ...
In my second evil, tadpole using, playthrough (as Wood Elf) ...

It seem pretty selling to me. Ofc. she is this whole time still arogant and haughty b***h ... but that is just what she is, and i like it.
You ofc, need to keep in mind that you are this whole time talking to someone, who as you know DO have tadpole (even if not knowingly) and dont seem to have any problems with that. So there obviously is a way to get all pros, but none cons.


You certainly might ... that ofc seem like perfect example of those "stupid" choices you were talking about ...
Especialy since main goblin camp is not hostile to you, even if you kill all goblins at first gate, and they manage to play their alert drum (kinda odd to me, probably bug).
For myself i presume that every character, no matter if neutral or evil ... should at least first explore his options, before he starts to kill anyone ... ofc. if you wish to play chaotic evil homicidal maniac and attack litteraly everyone on sight ... that is kinda different story. But i presume we arent talking about that right now.

I hear you, but cant imagine any situation how you could find out about that option sooner ...
No one but Minthara can offer you place on raid, since they dont even know where groove is ... that information is delivered by yourself, in that second plans for raid starts to exist, and you are instantly given opourtunity to join them ... and there is even few options to avoid it! Goblins can do all dirty work for you!

Do you have anything in mind about how do you wish to find out sooner?
I know that some people here are convinced that we are not suppose to tell Larian how they should to their story ... but i cant help the feeling that "this story seem dull, improve it" isnt even half as helpfull, as "here i would like to be sugested to join goblins at their camp and listen to their counter-proposal".


I cant help the feeling that this is old way ... and that Larian are geting this new much more nuanced, and thereofre much better route.
I see it as simple two sides conflict ... you dont even need to join one, and there will be hard choices on every path ... i dont think any should be easier, or more challenging ... they are just different and that is more than enough.

Honestly im not even sure if we can talk about some good route, and evil route ... what is good for tiefling is just as bad for goblins as the other side around.
Sure, we can talk about good and evil characters, but that is simply theme about motivations of our protagonist.



Read those quotes ...
Or even better, read those Reply, from where i quoted ...


Gut dont want to kill you, she is more like Hag, or Raphael and wants to exploit you as much as possible ...
Same with Minthara ... she also wants to use you, then she wants to kill you ... unless she will find pleasure in you.
And Razglin wants to kill you only if you reveal yourself as enemy of their cult.

Anyway its coresponding their characters ... therefore i dont see any problem.

Laezel wants to do that too ... multiple times ...
Astarion wants to do that too ... multiple times ...
That Dwarf druid wants to do that too ...
And i bet that only reason Zevlor, or Kagha dont turn hostile toward you for the same reason is that there isnt any dialogue choice to tell him that you were infected with tadpole and may turn to Mind Flayer. Nobody know how they would react ... but concidering litteraly everyone else? I think we can gues.

No, Evil route dont offer you a way to get rid of tadpole, it offer you a way to conquer it, get all its benefits and minimalize the risk.
You will find out by the end, when you are talking to Minthara, if you convince her to not kill you.


Maybe ... i however dont make decisions as player, but as character.
Its called roleplaying.


What do you mean would ... she allready is there as option, im honestly not exactly sure how i managed it, maybe its some certain amount of long rests after telling Zevlor that they have to get out imediatly (and kill him ofc.)
But then Ritual of thorns is done, and you dont help no one ... since Tieflings are dead in groove (there is still way to get inside and check), and since you cant attack the groove Minthara gets pissed off, and attack you ...
So both sides dead.

Then i personaly rescued Halsin, who even no longer cares if you kill goblin leaders or not.
(Note: He will tell you that without them world will be better place, and goblins keep friendly toward you until you kill Ragzlin)

So ... if we want to concider wich story is most interesting for player, where he gets best loot, and how can he get his best chances to get rid of that tadpole ... i presume that "smart evil player" will do exactly this. :P


Who is hostile to you? Goblins? They are not ... they welcome you at their celebration, they trade with you, they offer you a plae on raid, they even not attact you when you beat one of them (yup, Crusher) ... that dont seem hostile at all.

When was established that Minthara is your best option? Its common sence.
She and leaders of her cult have tadpoles in mind clearly for longer time than you, since they was not it that Nautiloid ... the godess they are praying to is the same being that is alterning your own tadpole and therfore is saving your life allready ... they are also gathering strenght around whole sword coast, allready managed to wipe out two towns, and even Tieflings are affraid of them ... and ofc. there are those dreams promising power and domination.

First of all, they dont betray you ... they may potentialy betray you ... we allready was talking about this, more than once ...
Second, Halsin studied one ... wich you will find out just after you kill goblins, so no metaknowlenge here ... you know that there is either some druid that maybe possibly able to help you, unless you thrust Lae'zel that strictly tells you that he have litteraly no chance, and all hopes holding toward his skills are empty ...
Third, Minthara and her cult, are connected direclty to godess (or some entity that is presented as godess) that is directly controling your tadpole allready ... so some elf who watched one crawling out of dead drow eye have certainly less experience than she ...
And finaly ... everyting else abowe, and possibly even under this sentence.


Yet another great example of someone who is litteraly talking about writing, and dont demand any better items, right?
Nah ... do you at least realize that you are rating quest before completing it? :-/


That sounds like a bug ... when i freed her, and take it trough village i was able to talk my way out.
It was pretty hard roll however, and since my character have -1 to charisma ... well ... we fighted.


This is exactly the question no one can answer for you ... you are the one who are making your character's personality ... therefore you are the one, who need to find answer for every "why would i". :-/
And if you dont ... i gues you would not.

Speaking for myself ... my drow was interested, since Absolute promises some races (Drow included) better life (Sazza tells you) ... im quite sure that my Drow had different image of that life in mind than for example Sazza, but that is nothing he would worry about.



If i recall it corectly in some interwiev someone from Larian (not sure if that wasnt Swen himself) was asked if this game main antagonist will be Mind Flayers ... and that one answered something like: "Oh you dont know even a tiny bit of what we prepared for you."
So honestly i wont be even surprised if we manage to either remove our tadpole after Moonrise Towers, and possibly keeps some of its power ... or make it permanently dormant.


Or we simply died falling out the Nautiloid, and this forum ... errrr i mean sword coast is our hell.
No really ... i just wanted to say that we may not even go so far to gods ... after all there was some tadpole activity just before we should smash on that beach ... maybe we are still laying there and all Act1 is just hapening inside our minds, some simualtion controlled by tadpole to make us dormant before we change.

Between this and POE2 I've had it with these motherhugging gods in these motherhugging games

I think overall more diversity to why you choose a certain route (whether it be evil or good) would make the options make sense for a larger group of players. Not every evil character is going to slaughter the tieflings because it may not make sense for their cause/purpose, despite that fact that they're evil. And I agree with the reward comments as you currently get rewarded much more by siding with the druids. I'm interested to see what Larian will be doing to make the evil route(s) more immersive and appealing in the full game

Maybe Larian is just bad at writing.

Everyone, even the characters in a game has to be greater than us ;(
I will just have to wait and see. But I like it so far.


I think I remember that from some interview with Swen as well. There is plenty of ominous remarks they made...
I kinda stopped thinking about the tadpole completely. Either we will live with it or find a way to remove it, but I still have to go help Astarion on his quest!
It's affected by netherese magic for now and there are netherese runes around us; maybe absolute does have something to do with this directly, but I don't think so.

I'd like to point out, that in the trailer intro we can see, that this looks like a rogue illithid. There are illithid corpses around us even before we have the tadpole in our heads.
So there isn't just one party of illithids here. This was someone who got on the ship - that was presumably working with the Absolute 'as there are images of goblin, human, etc history'.
This illithid, that put the tadpole in us might have been working on his own completely.
Also how do we even know to connect these slimy nerves and teleport close to Baldur's Gate?... We teleport through who knows what. The light flashes are very different, than to what we saw a nautiloid disappearing into literally nothing in the trailer. Maybe we became tied to the etheareal plane?

I could get behind us dying as well, wouldn't surprise me if this was some sort of purgatory, especially for our companions.

But we do know from the interviews that illithids will obviously be threat to the city and to us.

Always a possibility, but Astarion's voice actor will carry the game for me (and I think that almost all of the voice acting is really really good; script and options is another matter).