Sure, my character's responses will be all over the place. As a player, I feel let down by how hard they sell the danger and the urgency (most of the companions make a point about how important speed is) and then how quickly they back off of it.
There is no way to make it more of an urgency, unless you say make it like XCOM where there is an actual time limit and your days mattered. This is not that type of game, of course they are going to slow down the urgency and then project a new goal to "stop" the tadpole. Otherwise you would have a 2 hour game. You are trying to project real world logic onto game theory and there is only so much that will line up that way. I mean that is at least one thing that CP2077 did, is their progression of the invasive "virus".
Not to mention, we have no idea what it is going to happen after the first chapter. We haven't even been able to see the closing of that chapter.
The whiplash of going from "this is the only thing that matters" to "there is no urgency at all" is what I'm hoping they will tone down. Maybe they shouldn't sell the urgency so hard up front. Don't have Gale and Lae'zel know (or tell you) what ceremorphosis is. So you know there's a tadpole in your head and that you want to do something about it, but you don't know that you should only have a few days to live. That could change the tone from a desperate race against the clock into a mystery to be unraveled.
I personally think this is a valid opinion. After all it isn't till Omeleum that you get concrete fact that something is inhibiting the tadpole's growth. If some people think that not enough has been made to reduce the haste, that's fair enough, because it's their particular experience of the storyline which is subjective.
I can see quite an easy out for this if the developers took notice. You know the drow was infected, but the tadpole was seemingly altered according to Halsim's notes. You meet a true soul who thinks you are one as well. You can speak to both of these after death. Surely one of the most important questions you could ask is HOW LONG AGO WERE YOU INFECTED/INIATIATED/MADE A TRUE SOUL? Then you have at least an idea of your timeframe, plus really big motivation to explore the mystery. To hammer this point home one of your companions could surmise that you too have this amount of time left too. A really easy fix to an issue that some players seem to have with the game's narrative.
As Gray Ghost said it is insane that they have gated the Ethel information behind those choices and the willingness to accept a really crippling penalty. The information adds so much to the game, pushes you as a player AND character to dig deeper. I would really change that scene and reduce the penalty.
I'm also not arguing that you shouldn't be able to ignore this and play the game as if you still have that sense of urgency. I think a good crpg gives you choice and it does seem to penalise those who don't want to rest as much as the game is currently prompting them.
I just think it should be playable at whatever pace you the player choose and you should be given a decent story reason to do so.
ps the point about BG2 is true, there really is no good rp reason to experience a large portion of the game
