Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Dank Crypt(Overgrown Ruins) vs. Fort Joy Prison

"If the beetles didn't exist, what would you think about Metallica?"

"If Rome hadn't existed, would you like French Fries?"

All three of these questions have the same end result, nothing. Because DOS and DOS2 DO exist.

What do you mean by standalone project? No D:OS1&2? No BG1&2? No D&D?

For my response below I would assume D:OS1&2.Though it's a bit pointless argument. I didn't find chaining system as infuriating during my first playthrough of D:OS1, but after three games I can't bloody stand it. Shortcoming become aparent overtime, and repeating a shortcoming isn't equal to making it for a first time.

(...)

I just cut a long laundry list of issues I have, but I don't think I have to. There is one thing, that BG3 does abysmally bad, and that is the main issue I have with the game. Worldbuilding in BG3 is abysmal.
I don't buy into anything in BG3 - that tadpole is anything more then a convenient McGuffin that will do whatever game devs need it to do. That Grove is a place people would live in. That Goblins can't locate grove to which they have a paved straight row. The whole map feels like disjointed content. NPC seem to be unaware of what happened outside their little zones, and don't seem to have lives outside the lines they deliver. Our companions don't feel like well rounded characters, but they revolve around the little plot they have, with little texture around it. I don't buy into tedpole being a credible threat or temptation. Content and characters feel so artificial that it's difficult to care about anything. I generally have trouble slaughtering NPCs, and I felt nothing doing evil path and slaugthering tieflings and grove. No one in BG3 feels alive to begin with.


And to be clear mediocre would be very generous in my book. Just finished Cyberpunk and that was mediocre - generally coherent story with some bad pacing, but promising but underdeveloped characters but generally clear direction, motivation and logic. I wouldn't call BG1&2 amazing, but they were fine. BG3 narrative side is poor. There are definitely cRPGs I enjoyed playing less then BG3, but I would never ever recommend anyone to play BG3 for story.

Edit. This conversation is a bit of a mess as there are posters with different stances that get mixed up. I really don't have that much problem with BG3 starting as a prisoner on the ship - outside the fact that I don't think the sequence works well in either of games. What worries is not that BG3 seems to be like another game, it worries me that BG3 seems like another game that I thought was narratively poor. If I watch a movie and think "Ok, it reminds me a lot of Lord of the Rings" it doesn't necessarily need to be a bad thing, but if I watch a movie and think "ok, it reminds me a lot of Mortal Engines" then it's probably not a good sign.

We are playing hypothetical games now?

The most i would be concerned about story is, how can a lvl 1(!) cleric of shar have such an important mission that they took her memory away until a specific spot? She won't get any levels back(assuming she lost levels as well, which she didn't).

How do you even trust a nobody to do that? There is only one answer, she's not a nobody.

There is something about all the npcs-origin characters, something that overshadows your own custom origin character, which is actually a nobody.

So you're asking me to be excited about playing a game, where i know for example Astarion will always be a better rogue than you(bite-buff), Where Gale is gonna be a better Wizard than you, etc etc.

So there is your one thing that makes not excited for example. Origin characters, and protagonists as well, in a game where there used to be only one protagonist.

There are several other problems as well. It doesn't mean the story is gonna be bad. But the origin system alone means one thing. If origin characters can be protagonists as well, they can live through a protagonist's eyes. Which means they will always have something more from their backrounds compared to Tav. I eagerly await to see how are they going to avoid the same problem they created themselves in DOS2.

I am gonna chime in and give my agreement to Wormerine for this question. I agree with most of what he said, but especially the worldbuilding. The whole area where we are doesn't actually feel like anyplace. I'm actually convinced that Larian is actively trying to keep us from caring about the place. Every plot point is being tied up in a way that either promises to be concluded somewhere else, or is concluded in a way where we're not supposed to want to come back and check in on anybody. I also have played through early access a couple times and don't feel like I know anything meaningful about the wider world and what anything is like. I'm not invested in the world at all, because the story feels alergic to telling me about the world.

And the tadpole is a definite narrative failing. It's like Larian couldn't pick a lane with it. It's presented as an urgent threat, but the game undermines that immediately, but without actually giving a proper conclusion to that initial, visceral promise of threat. Or if there is a conclusion coming, then it's coming long after any impact or satisfaction can be had. Also, if players take that initial threat seriously, then they lose out on a lot of character story. I'm no crpg expert, honestly I don't even think I have very high standards at all, but I think BG3 is the most disappointing crpg I've personally experienced as far as story is concerned.

I see the tadpole thing as a compromise more than a failure. Players have shown that they hate timed constrains in CRPG with Kingmaker, so I am ok with having this urgency in the background.

My issue is that it seems like it's actually a plot point that the tadpole isn't truly a timed constraint. Part of the mystery of the story is that we aren't changing the way we should. The game wants us to explore and take our time, but the tadpole as presented now is implicitly encouraging us to hurry through. But if you hurry through-and I guarantee you that plenty of first time players will, at least at first (I know I did) then you're just losing out on the story. The game tries to have it both ways and it's unsatisfying as a result. The tadpole is a central part of the game, but the big point of tension-how long until we change-is left to just peter out. That's why I think it's a failure. Even the systems ofthe game undermine the urgency of the tadpole, but we as the audience are never given a cathartic moment where the tension truly breaks.

Imo, if the tadpole was a timed thing that could get us turn into a mind flayer and game over past a certain point, then it wouldn't give abilities and it wouldn't allow Astarion to walk under the sun. It's probably the equivalent bhaalspawn powers of this game, although i could be proven wrong along the way.

If i'm right, it's goona revealed to us at some point that. "you were running for nothing, it's not gonna kill you"

I think you're right that the tadpole isn't timed. I'm quite certain of that in fact. The problem is that in order to get the most out of the game the characters have to behave like it's not. We get a number of hints about it, but the problem is that based on how the game wants us to behave, the reveal you describe should come way sooner, or it should be established as near to the beginning as possible. The fact is, the process of getting camp scenes requires us to ignore the threat of the tadpole and any possibility that it's timed. And I think that means that by the time a true reveal does show up, it will be long after such a reveal would feel satisfying. It'll just be telling the player something they've already figured out.

Maybe in the official release we can discover it in act 1, but they don't want to spoil anything in EA. I don't know.

Akin to how we got rid of the collars in act 1 of DOS2. Which will give ptsd to some i'm sure :PP because of the comparison.

The thing is, I think we've already discovered it. It's just that we discovered it by playing the game and realizing that resting didn't advance the tadpole. If the fact that we're not truly on a timer was meant to be a secret, then the game would probably be structured differently. This opening area wouldn't have so much STUFF to do, stuff that you'd need to rest repeatedly for. And companion scenes wouldn't be tied to long rests.

That is true. I can't know exactly why things are like that, not before i see the actual release, and the actual story unfold.

It does make sense in the beginning to feel rushed, because everyone knows that you have at best days before you turn. Then you have these weird dreams, then you find out it's "not advancing as per usual". I even wonder if the people you talk with have any knowledge on ceremorphosis, besides the mind flayer.

I do agree with most of what others here have brought up - poor world building, poor story-telling and structure, lazy writing, leading to a lacklustre world feeling that hopes to sell itself on pretty graphics and flashy, 'epicness'; the writing itself wouldn't even make publication in train stop paperback pulp (well, it might, but only just at that level), and other have brought up many reasons why in this thread and others.

The issue of timing with the tadpole is that it relies on us breaking immersion in space to make a meta-game acknowledgement, in order to drive itself. We must come out of the game space and say: "Okay, we can see that the tadpole isn't actually on a time limit and we're safe from that, so we can explore." - and we must step out of game to do that, because no actual person in real life, finding themselves in this situation would simply "Trust" that they were not going to be transformed body and soul by this thing that annihilates a person's entire existence, just because ours isn't behaving in the traditional way exactly. No-one would accept that a something to wager their life and immortal soul upon, just on anecdotal information and statements of oddities.

We need to be rushed- and that means not having missable quest lines or side objectives to slow us down - to a point where we, as characters in the world, get confirmed proof from an authority information source that we can reasonably rely on as being an authority on this information (no, Halsin does not work for this; it needs to be an authority on our specific, personal situation), that we are not going to turn by passage of time alone. Once the in-universe characters have been given that information in a mode they can an would be able to rely on, to the magnitude of trusting their entire ongoing existence to that information, THEN we can explore, gain power and experience, gather allies and artefacts, and generally go about our adventure in the way we individually see fit.

You don't rush the players by giving them a hard time limit or a ticking clock - you create the sensation of rushing by swift progression, and you encourage that by presenting, during the rushing section, a lack of branches and other diverting side elements; they should not be available while the rush is on, and they should not be missable as part of that. The information which alleviates the rushing needs to be presented to the characters in-universe, before the world opens up and offers the myriad of possibilities and options it wants to.

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The thread has moved on quickly, but in brief, if you wish:

Must we tho?

I mean ... within parameters of forgotten realms (as far as i know) ongoing ceremorphosis erase your personality in matter of hours.
Source: https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Ceremorphosis

So basicaly once we lay down for the first night sleep ... IF we are still aware of oureself ... we *know* (without stepping out of our character) that our Ceremorphosis is alterned and time is not as precious as it would be with regular thing.
Also we can presume that something eating our brain alive would be quite painfull proces.

Sure ...
We can argue on if our character would even have that knowledge ... but i dont think there is deffinitive answer to that ... seems lie "depends on character" kind of thing.

But still this is something that is repeated by every single character that have any knowledge about the thing (Gale, Lae'zel, Nettie, Halsin, Ommeluum) ...

Not to mention that while time may easily seem to stand still in this game ... from "inside" perspective we should keep its flow in mind.
And since only first few hours is essential, even tho we cannot pinpoint the exact time when it would happen, what is certain is that it WOULD happen ... and since its not happening, it can mean only one thing.

So why exactly would we "need to come out of game to acnowledge that"?

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Slightly off but still related:
I dont think we can apply our (read as real) rules of time and space on this game tho.

Just think: When we travel from Beach to Waukeen's Rest ... it take us X logn rests = days.
Even if you would make it within one ... then you can travel the same distance back ... but the fun part is that you can travel that distance as many times as you want and it would STILL take you just one day! As long as you dont rest.
Travel back and forth enough times without rest and when you try to calculate your travel speed you can not just reach but extend speed of light.

So our only way to measure here are long rests ...
And while we (read as: player) practicaly have control over them, we still should keep in mind that time should flow ... so even if we "rush" there is no way we would actualy outrun that.
Unless we "step outside the game".

When I played it (the very first available iteration) I felt like long rest = defeat (and if I find myself in a situation when I have to long rest I should just load a save and try better). Even one long rest, yes.

I think many players will feel similar if the game doesn't clearly (and early!) state through some wise character that you can explore the map however you want.
Or just I dunno make the entire party captured and just chill in a cellar for a couple of days so then you would have your initial "long rests" and understanding that you're not turning into a mindflayer.

Reminds me of Pascal's wager, except in this case hell is ceremorphosis.
The odds of ceremorphosis go down with every hour of delay, but the consequences are so bad that it would make no sense to bet on everything turning out fine.

In the spirit of friendly argument, there's no in-game empirical evidence that delayed ceremorphosis "can mean only one thing". If a living creature isn't acting as expected, keep an eye on it. Erratic behaviour in the wild is rarely a good thing. Erratic behaviour in a living thing inside your brain shouldn't reassure you.

You should read an entire post, as Niara answers to your question in the post:

From my perspective the problem is enhanced by most of he content in act1 being irrelevant to the player character - very early on only Helsin is established as a credible solution. Rest is just faffing doing side adventures - which is counter intuitive if one has a potential ticking bomb in their noggins. It’s not even us being good guys and putting well-being of others ahead of our own. Us not making tadpoles our priority is bad news for everyone around us.

Even if this side content comes together narratively in later chapters, at this point in their story engaging it comes from meta knowledge (I know it is a game, and I know there is no timer, so there is no need to hurry). It is a common problem in games that offer plenty of side content and try to have an urgent film-like plot (BG2 had a similar issue) but BG3 feels to me much worse then any game I played before in that regard.

Here is an idea - what if we didn’t know we had tadpole implanted in our head (like so many other True Souls)? We would know something is off, would be experiencing side effects (generally positive, if not a bit weird), but wouldn’t know what it is. And then it would be revealed what it is through examination by one of the game’s medics - Helsin, Auntie or the Priest. Wouldn’t that work much better? Presumably by the time we learn that we have tadpole we would be on our way to the tower and presumably learning more about their nature.

In patches they expanded Nettie’s and Halsin’s dialogue to make it more clear Tav wasn’t going to change right away.

For myself in video games I am used to urgent main quests that aren’t urgent to do first, so I never thought Tav would turn into a mindflayer if not cured within a couple hours.

Yes there are some inconsistencies with the tadpole story.

I see this thread has become about the 'reason to adventure' in the first act, being counter to the 'reason to explore' There have been a few threads about this before...have some!
I believe they added a few pieces of dialogue here and there, to make it more clear to you (the player) that you don't have to take the tadpole seriously. Shadowheart, for instance, will bring it up the first time you take a long rest (if nothing else overrides it), but it still comes across as a more gamey way of playing, but that might be more that I found the race against the clock scenario, much more compelling than the mystery brainbox one.