Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback S&F. Cutscenes and Dialogues

In this thread I’m going to collect some nitpicking for cutscenes and dialogues, but only script-wise and player's options-wise. I’m not going to talk about unpolished animations and obvious bugs. Also I'm excluding cutscenes and dialogues related to the camp specifically, they are another and more complicated story.

1. General.
1.1. Please allow us to bypass all the same repeating conversations with vendors after we talked to them the first time.
A) Place some interactable object that would work as a showcase near each vendor. The click on the object should open the trade window if the vendor is in place and alive.
or
B) Make the vendors say some random trade-related greeting (“Tell me if you see something” for example) and open the trade window immediately if they have nothing new to tell us.
1.2. Not only githyanki but all races of Underdark are quite familiar with illithids so they should be able to express some knowledge in dialogues instead of being clueless as all other races.
1.3. Companions should use telepathy to tell us their opinions on situations more often. At this point, they tend to say quite dangerous things out loud. For example Astarion tells us to attack Kagha right in front of her, the same Wyll protests against giving out the Grove position right in the middle of the conversation with Minthara, Lae’zel shouts about the tadpole in front of Zorru.
1.4. The presence of all companions must be taken into account in all cutscenes. They should have their animations, reactions, comments e.t.c. NPCs should acknowledge their presence as well.
1.5. When we are under Disguise Self the NPCs that already know us should not just opt to default conversation with another racial flavour, they should talk to us as someone new and not directly related to our achievements. For example, at the moment both Aaron and Dammon thank us again for defeating the goblins, if we use Self-Disguise, they shouldn't.

2. Nautoloid.
2.1. Lae’zel should take out her weapon when she jumps down to us. She was going to attack after all.
2.2. When we free Shadowheart, she again demonstrates that she is too bad at hiding things for a cleric of Shar. This time because she picks up the Mysterious Artefact from the tank so that we can clearly see it, while she could easily block our vision with her own body. To avoid this false depiction of her and show the Artifact to the player the circumstances should be made stronger than Shadowheart. Let’s make the Artifact fall out of the tank when we open it and Shadowheart will pick it up from the floor.

3. Roadside cliffs.
3.1. The introduction cutscene for Astarion needs an overhaul. How did he get the boar in this place? Every normal living creature is supposed to run away from the crashed Nautoloid. Why does he even need a boar, when he is pretending anyway? Why does he openly attack our character even if we have other companions with us? Does he expect to win a fight against a few people alone? How insolent must he be to make our character to ask him to join us after his hostility, instead of himself begging to take him with us? So many questions and no answers. The last question even creates a problem with his recruitment. You need to be a very merciful person to willingly recruit him under such conditions, but at the same time he is the best companion for an evil PC.
A) Replace the boar with an actual Intellect Devourer (or two) at some distance. Astarion should not claim that he has it cornered. He should pretend to be too afraid of the thing to engage himself.
B) If we have companions they should immediately decide to fight doesn't matter what our personal decision is. Astarion should try to drag our character a bit away from the Intellect Devourer and our companions, if he catches us.
C) After he will realize that our character is a victim just like him, he must both apologize and offer his services as an “experienced diplomat with some sleight of hands and wits” in our quest in search for a healer. He may even mention that as a nobleman and a magistrate employee he may have connections in Baldur’s Gate that may prove helpful if we get there.
D) Give us an option to humiliate him a bit before allowing to join us.
3.2. The first conversation with Gale is quite an unpleasant experience for non-wizards. Mostly because the game assumes that our character is ignorant and a bit stupid on every stage of that conversation.
A) Allow us to propose solutions like finding a cleric or druid, instead of going through the rest of Gale's “interrogation” after his question about the wizard.
B) Add some options for our characters that would show that we are well aware about our situation and do understand our prospect.
C) Stop Gale from comparing our character with a Rashemi if we demonstrated our knowledge.
D) Stop Gale from asking our character’s class once again if we already told him our class.
3.3. Damays and Nymessa are casually walking away after semi-hostile interaction like intimidation from our side. Give them an alternative script that would make them run away.

3.2—if you are a fellow wizard, it is actually *more* insulting, tbh. He basically thinks you are a dullard AND a weakling wizard. I do not feel it is the *game* treating us like idiots. It is Gale’s personality. He is an intellectual who assumes everyone around him is an idiot. So I don’t have a problem with him assuming I am a dipshit. Lol

However, I totally agree that we should have more agency to respond and demonstrate our own knowledge to him. I have the same annoyance with the Mirror scene dialogue, where he again assumes u r a moron and you cannot really defend against it. Would also add a fun layer to make some of those responses Intelligence rolls too. His snark would be funnier if you fail the role, etc.

I wrote that it's the game's assumption, because we do not have those options first of all. And because of that comparison to Rashemi which should have some reason, at the moment it's the game decides for us how our character is looking at Gale.

A lot of these stem from the fact that, right now, the Player Character is set up to be the spring board for the Orign Characters to show off: the player character is painted as an irrecoverable dullard when an Origan cahracter needs to demonstrate that they are smart, to be clumsy when an origin needs to show off that they're quick, and to generally be the fall-person agiasnt which the origin characters lord their personal traits over. Nearly every interraction withthe Origin characters is set up this way, with virtually no opportunities for the player chracter to correct them, stop them, or otherwise stand up for themselves in any way.

It happens a lot with important NPCs as well - our player character exists in order to be the ignorant stupid lump that others can extol their superiority at in whatever flavour they are doing so for a aprticular interraction. It's not as universal with other NPCs as it is with Origins, and there are several places with NPCs where we can take the upper hand or get the better of the interraction, but not many.

Gale's introduction is by far the worst interraction with him, and I feel it has coloured a lot of people's overall impressiosn of him, as first impressions do.

I do agree that Astarion's introduction is very sloppy regardless.

+1 to skipping vendor cutscenes. Yes, they're relatively short cutscenes, but over time they really add up. There should be some way to just skip straight to the vendor screen without having to enter the cutscene.

Concerning Astarion:

There are really a lot of things here that are disturbing.
Of course, the Origin characters are supposed to come across as superior (they are, after all, the main actors in Larian's games, not the player character), but as Niara wrote, it's too much to the detriment of the PC.

I've often thought that in the dialogue with Astarion, you should be able to attack him after he attacks first. For example, if I play a half-orc barbarian, I'm sure he/she won't put up with that, and he's/she's sure to strike first with his/her greataxe before any further dialogue takes place.

And with regard to what Zellin wrote in point 1 General: full agreement.
Particularly noteworthy from my point of view: point 1.4. It doesn't feel like you're travelling in a party in BG 3.

E) Allow us to kill him, right there, right now.
(And others too, btw ... why Gale is the only one who give us option to Draw our weapon and attack? :-/ )

This. Oh god, this so much. I know it's nice to have companions reacting or giving their opinions, but is so stupid to have them talk to you out loud in front of certain npcs. At least in DOS 2 they would whisper their opinion to you, so, if not the telepathic, at least the whisper.

This. So much this.

We have very little agency as a custom character when dealing with npcs and origin chars. And very little *personality” overall. It’s just so weird to not have more options…especially when we are, for the most part, unvoiced.

that was mildly infuriating

My player character: "drrrr, herp derp, im an idiot. im not a mage".

Gale: "aw, isn't that precious" (looks so smart)

edit: or better yet

smart origin character: "we need to get this looked at immediately. im not sure if we have time to rest"

my ELF player character: (ELF dialogue option) : "you mean it'll continue to grow while we sleep???"

what?

I don't care if companions are annoying, arrogant smartasses and stars of their own show. What I want is my CC being as free as possible from assumptions about his/her personality and be able to roleplay whatever, even an annoying, arrogant smartass.

A way to make a custom character better in my opinion is that, instead of race dialogues, add personality dialogues, let us have choices that change our character morality to more evil or good, and with that unlocking different dialogues based on choices.
Like I play as a good drow follower of Eilistraee, and it's weird that I'm supposed to have many of the dialogues that are from the basic Drow race, and on them it makes my Drow seems rather evil, unpleasant, etc.

This wouldn't just fix the, oh, such race is evil, or that race is good, so they can't have X dialogues, etc. Take Tieflings, I know ppl who want to play evil, but the Racial dialogues are basically a really good alignment, so it kills the immersion to anyone wanting to play with more freedom in this regard.

Proceeding.

4. Overgrown ruins.
4.1. The result of the successful persuasion in conversation with Gimblebock makes no sense. We are both a bit away from the ship and he could hide in the ruins with the rest of the marauders from any monsters that would come from the ship. But he runs away in fear toward the area which is more accessible from the ship than his current position. Please, either change the option to match his reaction, or give him a different reaction to this option.

5. Druid grove. First Interactions.
5.1. The cutscene at the gate needs total overhaul. Zevlor cannot issue orders in the Druid Grove regarding their gate. This is a very stupid decision on his part to open the gate after the goblins appeared, he himself creates the danger that they would run inside and kill some of his people. Aradin and his group could run inside while the gates were slightly opened but they didn't and then they tried to lift the gate that is supposed to weight no less than a few tons with their bare hands. The rough scenario for the cutscenes at the gate:
A) Reorganize the scene for the first cutscene. In addition to 5.1. from here Zevlor and Kanon should be already at the gates eagerly waiting for Halsin return. The Druid Sentinel (Sentry) that actually can open the gates shouldn’t be there, they left for a minute.
B) Aradin and his team are running to the gate shouting “Open the gate! Goblins are on our tail!”. They do not yet see that there is no one who could open the gate.
C) Zevlor meets them with the question "Where is the druid?", because that is practically the only thing that matters to him right now.
D) Aradin may manage to answer and demand Zevlor to call the Druid Sentinel (Sentry), but it’s too late anyway and the goblins appear before anyone even tries to open the gate.
E) Zevlor calls his archers to arms.
F) Kanon makes his grave mistake by running too close to the edge and trying to shoot a goblin, while he is not particularly proficient with a bow or crossbow. Trembling hands, too much time taken to aim and Kanon gets his arrow in the belly from a Goblin Scout and falls off the cliff. Zevlor shouts “Kanon! No!” during the scene and the cutscene ends.
G) During the fight the Druid returns and helps to deal with the goblins.
H) When the fight ends, adventurers, Wyll and our party are standing right at the gate. Zevlor simply looks at the Druid. The Druid whispers something to a birdie, stares at our party as at one more potential danger and activates the gate, while the birdie flies into the grove. The birdie’s task is to tell Kagha what happened, behind the scenes of course.
5.2. The conversation with Aradin and Zevlor inside the Grove needs one more option at the very start of it. Something like "Tell me where to find a healer and then do whatever you want", this should skip dealing with their problems and allow us to actually roleplay someone who prioritises healing over everything else.
5.3. The conversation with Lia, Cal and Rolan looks as if our character has nothing better to do than interrupt some strangers' conversations. It would be better if it was shown that our character was drawn into this conversation against our character's will.
A) Start the conversation automatically when we just pass by.
B) Start it with our characters passing by, Lia, Cal and Rolan shouting their lines and one of them accidently hitting one of our characters (maybe with a dexterity roll), while gesturing too emotionally.
5.4. The animations for Arabella’s parents, Xeph, Amek and Rechel after their cutscene with druids seem to go in the wrong order. They run away first and then play scared animation as if they are scared of something in front of them. Please, change the order of these animations.
5.5. The conversation with Maggran, Jeorna and Mino needs some fixes. The main issue is that Mino acts like a total jerk who couldn’t tell Jeorna about Kagha’s will in advance.
A) The scene should start earlier. Many times they were stopping my character when I was already inside the circle.
B) Mino shouldn’t be there at first. He should run from Kagha with the news.
C) Mino shouldn’t whisper to Jeorna right in front of us something that she will tell us out loud the very next moment. They may have some short and quiet conversation a bit away from us if it was meant to show that they have their own doubts and comments about Kagha’s decisions. Thus, they do not risk that outsiders have too keen hearing and Mino wouldn't look as if he can't talk to us directly.
5.6. Thingmiaq should readdress conversation attempt to Apikusis. He doesn’t give us any information anyway.
5.7. Arabella's death or salvation scene keeps on being a bit clumsy at some points.
A) Kagha’s reaction to successful intimidation is too brief and quick. It doesn’t seem she thinks about our words at all. Even if she only needed an excuse for Oloda, she still should analyze how sufficient this excuse is before accepting it.
B) The nature check option for all classes except the druid is formulated as if our characters just say some nonsense hoping for luck. Saying something like “Aren’t druids supposed to be closer to nature? I don’t remember anything about animals building prisons...” would be better.
C) If we choose to attack in an attempt to protect Arabella it’s an automatically failed attempt. And that’s not good. Our characters have certain intentions, which suggest that they would first hit the snake and then fight everyone else.
5.8. If we provoke the conflict between tieflings and druids one way or another, the Druid Sentinel (Sentry) shouts “The time has come”, as if druids were waiting for this exact scenario and not the end of the ritual. I think it’s better to be something like “They are forcing our hand, so be it.”
5.9. If we take the quest to find Halsin from Rath, the conversation ends right after, even if we didn’t ask him about Nettie yet. Please, allow us to ask about Nettie right after taking the quest.
5.10. The conversation with Nettie about the cure needs some more polishing.
A) She has such animations and sound effects as if she takes the Thorn from some casket on the table, but there is no casket. Please, add the casket to the scene.
B) She waves the Thorn with the lethal venom on it as if it’s nothing special and she’s not afraid to accidentally hurt someone. And then even more, when she decides that she’s not going to kill us with the Thorn, she hides it in her pocket. That’s not the way to treat such a thing. Make her gesture less with her right hand when she is holding the thorn, and have her tuck it back into the casket.
C) When she asks our character to give her their hand, in the case of refusal the reaction and the wording of our character always look as if our character is simply afraid of “needles” and does not suspect that this is something bad.
D) One scenario contradicts others. If we tell Nettie about the telepathy, she will be surprised. If we don’t tell her, she herself mentions telepathy anyway. I suppose she shouldn’t be that surprised when we tell her about telepathy.
5.11. Murdering Zevlor leads nowhere. We should be able to expand the situation somehow, of course with proper reactivity.
A) Suggest to Kagha that we will deal with the rest of the tieflings and demand some reward through intimidation. Something like “I can deal with the rest of the tieflings, but you would need to pay me. [Intimidation] Unless you want them to stay and turn against you, after they will find out that he’s dead”.
B) Persuade tieflings in a conversation with one of them (probably Asharak) to leave the place. Something like “[Persuasion] Zevlor is dead because he didn’t want you to leave. The druids are growing more impatient with each day and may lash out on you. You’re starting to risk your lives more here than on the road”. In the case of success most of them should die on the road and very few of them may meet us again in Baldur’s Gate.
5.12. The dialogue with Lakrissa is a bit inconsistent and the sense of her wager is sometimes elusive as a result. If we go for an optimistic answer, it leads to the bet and everything is fine. But after two other answers she practically changes her mind and talks more optimistically herself, and then we still can get the wager and be accused of being too optimistic, while being not even slightly more optimistic than her.
A) Add something like “One or two of us, maybe” at the end of the second line about Baldur’s Gate for both cases. So she would sound much less optimistic.
B) Replace her line “I’ve seen what the goblins can do to a vulnerable caravan, so I’m not as confident” with something like “I’ve seen what the goblins can do to a vulnerable caravan, so I dare not hope for our survival”
5.13. The check against Harpies song in the cutscene with Mirkon and Harpies does practically nothing. The fight starts anyway, Mirkon always goes closer to the Harpy, our companions use their own separate checks and fail them behind the scenes. And if we fail we just get lured by the song for a round or two. So let’s expand the cutscene a bit.
A) If we fail we should go to the Harpy with Mirkon.
B) The failure or success of our companions should be shown in the cutscene. You may even make their results predefined as for Mirkon.
C) If we succeed we should be able to knock prone one of the lured characters of our choice, so they won’t come close to the Harpy.
5.14. Danis and Bex look at our character, talking to each other, and then act as if they just noticed our character. Please, turn them away and give them some animations as if they are packing things at the start of the dialogue.
5.15. Why can't we even try to ask Zorru about the Gith Patrol, when we don’t have Lae’zel with us? Please, allow us to question him ourselves and tell Lae’zel that we got the information.
5.16. Please, add some reaction from Alfira, when we choose to sing loudly in the conversation with squirrels.

+1 to everything from the OP