Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion My biggest problems with BG3 *Spoiler*

I'm much more upbeat on BG3s ending, because while there's barely anything to it it doesn't ruin anything in the way ME3 and GoT did. It's massively disappointing there's no narrative cost to tadpoling it up like crazy or failing to prevent a certain tragedy in act 2 but most of the rest of things that happened still happened they just aren't referenced, whereas in ME3 everything that happened happened but also they were made irrelevant.

Disagree again.

Spoilers for ME3:


There was a whole bunch of narrative problems with the ending to ME3 that we don’t have here. Your whole goal until that point was destroying the reapers, but that is suddenly presented as the worst choice. Controlling them was the plan of a space Nazi who is no longer in control of themselves, but that option now looks more reasonable. The third option was just a bit weird. All that came out of the blue, they weren’t options you were working towards during the game or even considered until then. You don’t fight to seize the power for these outcomes, there was no climatic show down. The game’s big bad, who is totally winning at this point, just turns up, gives up on what they’ve been doing for millions of years and leaves everything up to your tiny meat brain (because you’re so awesome, I guess). None of which made sense. Then there’s what was actually shown in the cutscene. Whatever you chose, the mass relay network was shown to be destroyed. That made all your decisions pointless, because galactic civilization depended on them, so whatever alliances you made or peace you brokered would be moot, whatever the ending. And if your crew survived they were likely stranded on some alien planet. Bioware tweaked some of that, but the whole thing was still very jarring. There’s good reason it got such a backlash.

BG3 is very different. The game makes it clear that taking the power for yourself would be bad news for everyone else. It’s hardly surprising if taking this option trumps decisions like whether you saved a few refugees along the way. Maybe that your plan all along, maybe you did a last minute heel turn, either way you should have an idea of what a massive deal that is.

If not, the decisions you made up until that point mattered. Some of the those decisions are reflected in the final scenes where characters talk about what’s next for them. Others aren’t shown, but that doesn’t change what you did in the game.

I’d be fully up for them expanding on how it plays out at the end, but it’s nothing like the ME3 mess. I was pretty satisfied with the end I got for my good playthrough.

The characters *are* the game, BG3 has certain companions telling you take the power or destroy it the whole game, at the end, if you control absolute, they get mind controlled by you and cease to exist. If you destroy them, roll a die if it's a 14 you'll get to hear from one of those characters, roll another die to see what about? Sorry bub RNG says its a joke about Lae'zel, you get no resolution for that character, your relationship with them or their saving the world.
It's not more important than saving refugees, its more important than your companions who have been the bulk of the content of the game. Having companions root for you to sieze control, even during the cutscene when you make the decision, be irrelevant to the conclusion of it? and the same if you destroy it.


Hopefully the rumour of a bugged out six month later epilogue is true, or Larian can do what Bioware did with ME3 and slap on a, heres what your companions did epilogue on the end, of atleast the destroy ending if not both.

I don't really think in the evil ending the main character cares what they have to say...they are there to be loyal servants. Though there are better ways to convey what those characters have become than with the silly dance and clapping. Give them each a sentence to declare their servitude...have each sound willing to do anything in your name. That kind of stuff.

Yeah I agree, act 2 felt underwhelming but now in the city, its not to enjoyable at all. Its a lot smaller than it should be and unfinished. I do hope they release a patch to fill it in.

In which case, why have characters demanding you pick that option? The implication, actually its not implication, the straight out statement of the whole game up until the actual moment is together we will rule the world. Not you will and I will die.

Probably because the character demanding it isn't too bright, and hasn't full thought of all the implications...rogues aren't typically known for high intelligence even if the game starts this one with a decent score.

It's not just him. But cool.

Haven't seen any other demand that. Minthara is the only other one I could see doing that because she has some strange disapprovals I can't fully wrap my head around. From her perspective maybe she thinks she'd have some control over the absolute as revenge without realizing she's just walking back into the role she used to have back in act 1. Or maybe she doesn't care, if she loves your character that much...people do a lot of very dumb things for love, and her intelligence score is only 10.

Though in my case she probably wouldn't be entirely wrong. I'd let her keep her mind if she's loyal, I'd do my best to make sure she's happy, and would bring unimaginable ruin to anyone who harmed her. While my character wouldn't be an actual deity she would be as protected as a god's chosen...maybe more so.

I agree with most of that. There’s definitely room for improvement, especially on the evil side by all accounts. I’ve not done an “evil” playthrough yet, and I admit it’s a bit off putting to discover there aren’t variations allowing to be just an arsehole dictator for instance with the brain under your control.

I also agree with people saying that rejecting or using the parasites (certainly the special one, if not the regular) should make a significant difference. An easy change that would actually make more sense is if you needed to give the special tadpole to Orpheus for him to make the sacrifice instead of you. It could just be a unique item you can’t remove from inventory. Then maybe if you’ve embraced the powers of the regular ones, Lae’zel decides you are already too far gone to allow her prince to take your place and turns hostile or something?

So, yeah. It could be better and it would be good if Larian are willing to take another look at some of it, but I don’t think it irredeemably shit. I certainly don’t think it’s as bad as many are saying. Nor should it require an enormous overhaul to address, just a few tweaks here and there.

What is the story of Baldur's Gate 3 about then?

The premise of the game is being abducted and infected with a mindflayer tadpole that is supposed to turn you into a monster but gives you the temptation of dark powers instead. More fundamentally, it is a personal journey about taking back control over your fate after having it snatched away by external forces which is basically mirrored in every companion story arc.

Wyll's central struggle is getting out of the deal that makes him a slave to a devil and becoming his own man again.
Lae'zel's struggle is about shaking off her indoctrination and discovering that her sense of self can be conceptualised outside of the tyrannical society that demands her unconditional self-sacrifice.
Gale's story is about overcoming the inadequacies instilled into him by the skewed power dynamic of his relationship with Mystra.
Shadowheart's struggle is about taking back her stolen sense of identity by either rediscovering her past or fully embracing her false identity and taking over the cult that indoctrinated her.
Astarion's arc is about emancipating himself from his abuser by either killing the influence hes had over him or by taking his position.
Karlach... I don't really know since I took her head at Wyll's behest but I'm sure it's something about escaping Zariel.

The overarching struggle that unites all the origin characters with the player character is getting rid of the tadpole or turning it into your strength. In fact, if you play an original character that is your only personal story and your sole motivation. That means how you approach the tadpoles and how you indulge in your stolen power should absolutely be central to the story. Destroying the brain is sort of the obvious goal the moment you discover it at the end of act 2 and understand how it relates to your predicament. Then, when you finally have gathered the infinity stones and stand in front of the brain, and you maybe even pass the ridiculous 99 skill check by using advantage and inspiration points - the game simply tells you that the central choice that runs like a golden thread throughout all the game's acts was a red herring and all that really matters is the last minute plot contrivance you're presented with. The game once again takes your hard earned agency out of your hands and tells you that you need some external power to solve your problems rather than being able to rely on the intrinsic qualities you have gained on your journey.

In that vein, the whole "the brain was controlled by non-illithids before but It's a netherbrain now so you have to sacrifice a soul or condemn an entire species" plot beat is actually fairly similar to Mass Effect 3's ending (you just condemn the Gith instead of the Geth). Some last minute revelation, an artificial fateful decision that has next to nothing to do with your previous choices (i.e. the journey that led you to that point) but adds a bittersweet note to the ending for the sake of drama. Roll credits.

Also I don't get why you think controlling the Absolute is supposed to be a shitty, unfinished ending. They MADE IT into a last minute choice. It didn't have to be this way. They could have added genuine build up for this ending, tied it into mastering your tadpole's powers etc. but they CHOSE not to. They could have given us different options of what we're going to do with that power (like they did in Divinity) but they CHOSE not to. Why you think this is somehow a defence of the ending is beyond me.

None of that contradicts what I said.

You can resolve all of your companion story arcs one way or another. And I’ve already said that some of the ending issues, particularly the evil route and tadpole use could be improved. I made a couple of suggestions for relatively easy changes to address some of this above.
If people want Larian to change the endings, maybe a bit of constructive feedback would be more helpful than just saying it’s shit and I hate it.

And as is, it’s still nowhere near the ME3 ending debacle.

Yeah, I feel like people either have forgotton how absolutely broken ME3's ending was even after, but especially before the Extended Cut DLC (TBH the extendet cut didn't fix much, since the problems ran much deeper).

SPOILERS for ME1-3

The Mass Effect series set up the Reapers as the answer to te Fermi Paradox: Why isn't our galaxy teeming with life? Answer: Well, because every 50.000 yerars the Reapers come and harvest all developed life forms.

The big mystery after the first game was: "why do they do it"? There have been many theories and there are many possible answers that both ME1 and ME2 built towards. I'm not entirely sure anymore, but it had something to do with Dark Ennergy and the harvested civilizations basically beeing a means for the Reapers to prevent the destruction of the galaxy or even the universe. I don't remember exactly.

Anyway, Shepard and crew needed to find a way to stop the Reapers from invading the galaxy, because all they know is that the Reapers are an incomprehensible force that must be stopped. So throughout the trilogy, we tried to learn more about the Reapers and build an alliance to fight against them. We cured the Genophage, brokered peace between Geth and Quarians built up our defence. Despite the Reapers telling us that there is no way of stopping them, we defied the odds and time and time again proved them wrong.

The problem with Mass Effect 3's ending was then that at the very end, the game basically stopped and said: "So yeah, none of what you fought for and what you achieved really matters, because what actually happens is the Reapers kill all organic life, so that organic life won't be killed by synthetic life (WTF??? When was THAT ever a main plot point? Also, I just brokered peace between Geth and Quarians, they are building a society together NOW!!!). So here is a god child and you can tell him if you want to destroy the Reapers, killing all synthetic life (Why would I ever want that?!), controlling the Reapers by Shepard' essence somehow being absorbed (Is this suddenly High Fantasy???) or fusing all organic and synthetic life together by Shepard also being absorbed, and now I guess the Geth have a digestive system and Joker has some USB ports (WTF!!!!!). Oh yeah, and also all Mass Relays are destroyed and all the species in the Galaxy are isolated."

Brokering peace between Geth and Quarians didn't matter, curing the Genophage didn't matter, collecting war assets didn't matter, nothing mattered. In the end, the Galaxy is f***ed, Shepard is dead (that one breath scene does NOT count,they are DEAD!), the crew is stranded somewhere with no way to get home, All the "war assets" are still orbiting Earth with no way to get home.




THIS is why we can say that the ME3 ending rendered all choices meaningless.




SPOILERS for BG3:

That said, I WISH there were a much more fleshed out epilogue with my team and I hope one will be patched in by Larian in the future, bnecause it ended rather abruptly for a game with such length and depth.

But nowhere NEAR is it as badly broken as ME3's ending. In order to make ME3 work for me, I have to install a version of MEHEM mod which bypasses the god child and then also Citadel Epilogue Mod to have colsure with my crew afte r the main game.

Most eternal souls don't have a great ending. A few turn into outsiders and can climb the ranks, but most stay as petitioners and slowly lose their memories until they become mindless food for the gods. Which is... still better than a mind flayer, I suppose.

Folks PLEASE put mention of BG3 plot elements in spoiler tags like this …

No way the ending is Mass Effect level bad, Mass Effect at least used save/destroy Collectors base decision and readiness score that showed If you rushed through the game or not to open/lock some endings to create the illusion of consequences of your actions. BG3's endings don't even have this, they're just pick & choose 'last minute' which is just... why. When I learned that there are no consequences of getting high on tadpole power I couldn't believe it. I'd say I hope they'll fix it, but after the whole ordeal with last acts in DOS2 I don't believe it's possible. I'm a fool for trusting Larian twice.

BG3 endings are like flipping to the final pages of a choose your own adventure book and just seeing how the last 3 choices play out. Everything that came before it is relatively meaningless in the context of the ending. Sure there are some different flavors...

Yeah but with minathara in your party once you take down ketheric she floats the idea of controlling the absolute together. Like cool me and my drow queen rule the world, that should have been an option for the evil character. So I was a disappointed in how they handled the evil run