Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Panel From Hell Release Showcase Feedback

Well, this PFH finally made it explicit for me that the core theme of this game is: evil is cool; good is boring. And that is the exact opposite of the original BG games. Dark Urge is the final awful piece of the game. What a disgusting psychopath monster! That Swen and co. would see Dark Urge as some cool, awesome, interesting, fun character to play says a lot.

It's a huge blow that there is no truly good party to play with, a first for a D&D-style party-based RPG.

If only we could make that hypothetical jump to "videogames that handle this stuff better"...
Which is most of them past 2010.

I think the issue is actually communication... don't get me wrong, I definitely won't be using most of these companions at all as they made a quite bad and un-interesting impression in EA, but I think as a theme having a non-good party to start out actually works. See the idea of Tyranny. Yet BG3 raised in us the expectation for a more balanced approach to parties. Maybe once playing I will be convinced to stick to some combination of Karlach, Shadowheart... and Wyll I guess... and play into the the theme of good but flawed to the point of best candidate to be the next Bhaal champion... yet... again... if this is what they wanted the game to be about they should have presented it explicitly that way, not having us sitting here waiting for the morally not too questionable party memebers (which actually seem to be available as NPCs and not origin characters - but they are 2 druids and a ranger... which might be a fan service, but also monotone).

Nevermind you such details as weapons having sheathes. Ensuring proper placement during animations for a such a variety of weapons and races of different builds and heights is a lot of effort, you see. Fortunately all that effort was put towards more important things, such as synchronizing sex animations whether you're a halfling or a dragonborn.

They put a custom character driven to murder (probably because of Bhaal) in a series about a character being driven to murder because they are a child of Bhaal, the Lord of Murder. But where BG1 and 2 really only ever told you that you were experiencing dark impulses based on your heritage, the Dark Urge makes it part of the gameplay, and a part of the gameplay you can resist. This is totally on brand.

Yeah im up to bear sex now everything is making me cringe lol

I get where you are coming from - but I also get a sense of where Larian is going with this. A lot of people are not good at evil playthroughs because they don't know how to roleplay that. The original games were very good heavy, and unnecessarily penalized you for having evil companions. To that end this may feel like an overcorrection.

However, another way to look at it is there is plenty available for good playthroughs or even neutral playthroughs - the broadness of the games content is an invitation to explore. Can you play Dark Urge and push it towards a more "good" playthrough? Can such a creature be redeemed? or do you prefer to wallow in horror and bloodshed?

We know that your choices in the game will strongly influence your companions in regards to their own outlook/alignment. Gale can be brought down a dark path or up to a good one, and I think the same is true for *most* of the others with some exceptions.

I honestly think there is enough diversity in every category to satisfy just about any playthrough.

After seeing the Dark Urge, and Larian's mentioning of redemption, I had a similar thought. I think if you can get past the initial snarkiness of the companions, there could be a lot of potential for a variety of playthroughs. I'm personally going to try Dark Urge, simply because it adds more dialogue compared to default Tav (as far as I know at least), hopefully it'll make for a more complete custom character and have a connection to BG 1 and 2.

It actually might be a clever way of giving the custom PC have some business in the game.

The guy during the "AMA" was right too, I think a vast majority of people who play games never choose the 'evil' path, despite it usually being 50% of the 'choice' in a game, so more than some lame answer about the temptation of power, having a character with a schizophrenic need to do murder is a bit more of an actionable route into roleplaying evil. Plus we know there's a evil top hat wearing goblin involved...or something.

I'm absolutely baffled by this attitude.

Wyll? Wants to be a hero, but has a dark side
Gale? Wants to see good things happen rather than bad, but has a dark side.
Shaddowheart? Self interested with a dark side, but doesn't want to get involved at all if it can be helped.

To work with these folks in the interest of doing good makes for an interesting experience.

What are you looking for in companions? A bunch of gung-ho do-gooders who are free from character flaws?

I mean, fair point, but another way to look at it is they made an entire origin about being a normal person with a dark and sinister inner voice which they can either resist or give in to in a game about being a normal person with a dark and sinister inner voice which they can either resist or give in to. You now have the tadpole/Absolute/dream person(?) and whatever is the Urge's inner voice serving a very similar purpose and following a very similar pattern (resist the 'evil' urges or give in to them).

You will likely be able to explore all of the area - as you could se Harper and Goblin paths intersected - so they run in parrarrels. You could potentially dip into one and the other with some meta knowledge. You can join harpers after murdering grove so act1 big choice doesn’t seem to determine the act2 path fully.

I hope you didn't read any of those 'occult' Harry Potter books?

so they confirmed we would be able to respec companions as well right?

Also do we still have to select party after act 1, or we can keep everyone?

Astarion, a vampire with a dark side..
Lae'zel, a gith with a dark side (okay, that was redundant)
Karlach, a warrior with a heart of gold but a dark side

When literally every origin has a dark side/haunted past/some sort of crazy dark backstory, it can start to feel a bit samey especially if you enjoy more traditionally heroic characters.

Oh, and the single Tav origin? A literal serial killer. dark side and all.

Character flaws are great, it's just that personality flaws don't necessarily equal moral flaws. It seems impossible for Larian to give their good characters believable flaws without compromising their morality. Larian writers seem to think good characters are boring if they aren't hiding some sinister skeletons in their closet, which is very sad because there's so many examples of such characters in games and other media that are very entertaining and likeable.

While I see your point, I don’t bump into that. The Absolute cult wear Dead Three pendants, and the goblin from the DU teaser is shown as being connected to Bhaal in the new PFH trailer, so these elements (the Dark Urge and the Cult of the Absolute) are connected. And where the Absolute is promising you power if you submit, the DU is just being driven to kill. The goblin says “you are the chosen one,” so the connection to Bhaal is quite apparent. Maybe a new Bhaalspawn or new Avatar for the Slayer?

A quick (and maybe stupid) question: would it be ok if I'll write my personal feedback for this panel in an own thread and not this one?

I realized in the last couple of days that it's very hard for me to keep up with the course of discussions, and that it's also quite difficult for me to truly express my own thoughts on something while being in the midst of (sometimes heated) debates.

Right.

I think Larian is going to make it so you can influence them down one path or another.

But there is a big difference between characters who have some personality flaws, but are generally good hearted and want to do what is best as opposed to their primary attribute being that they worship an evil god, made a pact with an evil demon for selfish reasons, have been a serial killer for years upon years, etc. Redemption arcs are great. I even like some of the companions we are presented with. I just wish there was more of a variety in the origin companions.

Because right now they all seem like the "I have made a ton of horrible choices in the past and I can either be redeemed or become super evil" types. And yes, I agree no one is perfect and everyone has skeletons in their closet. But there is a big difference between making some mistakes and having literal skeletons in your closet.

Other posters have made their own threads for in depth feedback on PFHs before and it was fine. If you have a lot to write that is probably better than posting it here.