Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Companions - Things Just Don't Make Sense

If that's their aim, then I accept that, but in that case, I don't think they're really getting that across very well. Personally, I feel like these characters wouldn't be coming together at all if the players didn't know this was a game and we needed a full party. I feel as though the characters have too much freedom for your idea of things to really work neatly. I find that for the "ragtag, conflict-filled group thrown together by circumstance" dynamic to really work, then they have to realy be pushed. But the situation as it stands allows everyone to go in their own way and pursue their own routes to a solution. But they don't, and they follow Tav because Tav is the protagonist.

Also, once they're in the party, we get plenty of opportunities to bond with them and get to know them more deeply, which goes against the idea that Larian doesn't want us to care when we're divided.

He's definitely the worst person, but at least as a character he's broadly consistent. He's a cruel, entitled asshole. Genuinely evil in that small, petty way that keeps him from being a villain, but allows him to be eminently hateable. He's a character I buy entirely as evil. How well that really matches up with his backstory I'm not entirely sold on, but overall it works.

It is ...
In described case Shadowheart was used more as an example, since she it "the most probably present one".

Personaly i believe that forgiving Astarion for his actions is perfectly valid approach ... aswell as killing him right there.
And if Larian indeed want to create something that (paraphrasing their words) "give us same feeling as playing tabletop" we should be provided by the most basic options in every conversation.

The most basic options are:
Acceptance, refusal, question and ridicule. (based on most BioWare games)

In situation with Astarion we can either accept the situation, or accept the situation, or accept the situation ... and that sucks.

If this bothers you, i dont understand how can you stand Shadowheart. O_o

Not that I'm EXCEEDINGLY fond of Shadowheart to start with, but I can't even begin to imagine why you are saying it as if you scored a gotcha. They are not even remotely comparable?
Shadowheart doesn't enjoy when you are gratuitous mean to others, she actively endorses when you avoid gratuitous conflicts (it doesn't matter if it's by diplomacy, intimidation or deception), she's consistently against being cruel toward animal and she reacts positively to protecting children.

What parts of this make her worse than Astarion "let's fuck up people for the evlulz" , exactly?

Nah i dont ... if we get there you will find out tho, either by explicit: "A-HA!" ... or by much more subtle and frequently used: " :P "

Anyway ...
I didnt say she is in any way "worse" ... especialy not in context of being bad person, but she is also hypocrite as fuck, actualy in my opinion she may be even more hypocritic than Astarion.
And therefore i concider her yet another unbearable companion, nothing more there.

I don't think he really saw us killing intellect devourers, I think he might say this to flatter our Tav. I think he pretends to be some helpless noble, who can't defend himself, and our mighty Tav has to save him. So to me, luring us into making a kind gesture for him is exactly what he does.


As a player, I must admit I like the emotional rollercoaster my poor Tavs (generally kind and helpful) must be on, between being angry at him for his selfish/arrogant and sometimes spiteful behaviour, feeling sorry for him when they learn about Cazador, and being charmed by him.
I always have him join the party, because I really want to know where this is going. It is strongly implied that he was not even a nice guy before he became a vampire spawn, but I wonder if we can have a bit of a positive influence on him. I'm always up for character development.

But I don’t care about her “being a hypocrite” as a general character flaw.

Wyll is a hypocrite too, in some way, but he’s not the kind of hypocrite that laughs gleefully when someone else suffers or dies without need or reason, only to throw a temper tantrum if seconds later someone says a word about him being a slave, feeding on rats, etc.

It’s the SPECIFIC context of Astarion’s hypocrisy that makes him genuinely dislikable to me. Ita matter of basic human decency rather than being the Honorary President of the “Coherence at all costs” Club.

You've again touched on my point. I would LOVE for the origin characters to give me good reasons for us to adventure together. Thus far, SH does, but this is negated if she lies and people suspect her of being a backstabbing Sharran. I'd take my chances without her if I wasn't honestly metagaming. At the very least, I'd travel with her only to the grove and then BYE.

Astarion is the same. Gale... Yeah. Okay. I'd kinda feel more comfortable, but I still expect him to stab me in the back at any moment. Same with Wyll and Lae.

In short. I would LOVE the opportunity to question SH, and find out she's a Sharran right up front - if I succeed in Religion and/or Insight checks to see through her lies. But then have her say something like how we need each other. Can't I look past my prejudices. There's something weird going on. We're connected. Let's try to work together at least for now until we figure out what's happening. Basically, ha e her and/or others give me solid reasons to put up with them and at least work with them for necessity sake.

I see ...

To me this kinda makes sense.
I admit its twisted and bisare sense ... but it is there ... Astarion being and Elf allready shouldnt have strong feeling towards other races, at least as far as i know, you cant really concider people who lives 1/10 of your lifetime at best to be equal to you ... or in better words, you are asking for some serious trauma if you do.
That is even strenghtened by his Vampirism, since now he is practicaly imortal ...

Now aplify that even futher by the fact that he was tortured and humiliated by his master for several centuries ...

And here you have it.
Of course we can disagree, but to me this is perfect explanation for him being ... well, the way he is.
There arent much "long-lived" creatures made well in curent fantasy, so i must admit that i welcome this change.

//Edit:
Yeah, me too.

^This. It truly would be shocking to me if none of this were possible in the final version of the game.

Why I will never be able to enjoy this game. Not having time makes everything pointless; no urgency, no risks, not immersive. Boggles the mind to craft this amazing detailed world and not tie it to a basic calendar or even just simple day/night mood.
But hey, we have super detailed instrument playing bard concerts....I dont understand Larian's hate for world <time> immersion. Not having this in a D&D game? really?!?

Ugh... Alfira. She's out of touch with reality and her song lyrics are terrible. She sneers at Tav & team, tells them not every problem can be solved with swords, then invades their camp and drinks their booze after they used *gasp* swords to save all their asses from goblins or *gasp* swords to save all their asses from Kagha's shadow druids.

And on the topic of time... I think Larian wrote themselves into a corner with the camp nighttime events and they don't want to admit it. They can't really implement day/night cycles if all long rests are night-specific. If they were willing to adjust camp events and their asociated quests, it wouldn't be hard to go from there, because there is already pseudo-time tracking for spells.

Most of the changes the players asked for only happened after media reviews pointed out the same issue that had been debated 50 times on the forums, so unless a bigger fuss is made over the lack of time passing... I don't think we'll see a change.

You dont even need to go to "then" ...
Alfira herself tells you story about her master playing the lute and singing, so they didnt hear Gnolls that were attacking them until it was too late ... that alone is awesome story for case when "stupid swords" would be thousand times more usefull than "important music" ...

Im so sad Larian dont allow us to smash it over her face.

Aswell as players are unwilling to admit that beyond aestetic it would add nothing.

There is plently of seemingly timeless RPGs ... none of them suffered for it.
People here just have to stop living in the past, this isnt Baldur's Gate, nor Baldur's Gate II. i understand you would like it, but it isnt and it was never ment do be.

Both claims wrong, incidentally.

Wrong.

Time tracking would be useful for a lot of the existing quests: the grove ritual, the goblin attack, the burning building, the Zhentarim leaving their hideout, the poisoned gnome, the toxic fumes in the collapsed cave, etc.

Some of these quests give warnings before failure, some fail automatically, some aren't even implemented properly and the *actual event* never occurs.

It's not (only) nostalgia, it's asking for quest/narrative consistency as it relates to time. And while implementing the passage of time, they could add a fatigue system which would be a neat way of encouraging long rests (which would then offer all these cool cinematics they spent so much time working on).

The claim that it would be "nostalgia" is also hilarious in light of the fact that several recent notable releases had it.

What you are describing here are timed events ...
They can easily be implemented in curent system by simply adding number of Long Rests (aka Days) into quest log ... and implementing apropriate effects, once their timer reach 0.

Day/Night cicle is something (not-so-entirely, but still) different ...
People required option to move around the map "in the night" ... there was even some suggestion around here so we can simply skip rest of the day, so we can move around in the night ...
Purely for aestetic purposes, since people were talking how odd it seems that "Drow attack the Grove during daylight" ...
Therefore they obviously wanted to let the event exactly as it is, just move it half day later.

Yes, there was even more complex suggestions, where people demanded ingame clock that would represent REAL time flow ...
But if that would include day/night guard/shop shifts ... different creatures you could meet ... spells actualy lasting "one day" if they are suppose to ... and timed events mentioned earlier ...
I agree it would be freaking awesome ... but it would also require lots of additional time and resources. :-/

I aree tho, that it would be most polite from Larian to ask their new Comunity Manager (since we finaly have one) to tell us if they were even thinking about this, and if so what (and why) was their decision ... this one-sided comunication is indeed frustrating as fuck.

I presume it depends on poster.
For some (and i could name, but moderators wouldnt like it), it most definietly is.

Maybe im naive ... i mean, in this aswell as other topics ...
But i still believe that some kind of fatigue is planned, and they just want to have as much data about people resting as possible to not make it too loose, or too restrictive ... otherwise, what for would be those potions against exhaustion ... since Berserker Barbarian dont get any?

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Lets trade quality for quality in this argue:
Nope.

"Timed Events" don't have to be harsh. Using a Time Trigger is exactly what I mean about meeting the origin companions where we do if you long rest before meeting Astarion and/or Gale. In particular Astarion.

You don't long rest and meet them where they are currently.

You long rest before Astarion encounter and maybe meet him by the crypt or something like that. You can ask him What's he been doing since the crash? He says he's been exploring the region. Spotted lots of enemies lurking about and is scared. Decided the crypt area at least looked more safe, but then spotted mercenaries. Thank goodness MC came along.

Gale. Maybe something similar to now. He pops out of the portal. You can ask what he's been doing for a day? Trying to find a healer, but enemies everywhere. Then he launches into his mirror image talk about how weird it is that we haven't started turning. He says you should team up and figure it out together.

Couple quick new dialogues and maybe different locations based on time would make all the difference.