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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Aug 2020
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Honestly, the fact they're meant to provide late stage progression is what gets my hackles up. I doubt I'll be making many characters who will be power hungry enough to go in for this route, especially if it involves physically adding more tadpoles to your brain. I'm fine with not being as powerful for rejecting evil power, but if the game is just going to be less mechanically interesting, that's what I resent.
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journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: Nov 2015
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You're probably just absorbing the tadpole's life essence or something, there's no way you're going to stick 15 tadpoles in your brain, it makes no sense thematically, logically or physically xD Didn't we see an animation of a tadpole literally burrowing into your brain during the last showcase thing? I'm not 100% sure anymore and I'm trying to avoid spoilers at this point, but I think we saw that.  Personally I'm going to play as an unhinged goo warlock and embrace the cutesite.
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journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: Jul 2023
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That is a potential risk, yes. But there should be enough tadpoles around to not really need to harvest those of the companions I'm keeping, and I don't think Larian would take away agency too much even though it might have made sense. I wouldn't really assume that, if I recall correctly, Swen emphasized a lot that you might end up all alone if you focus entirely on increasing your power. That could mean that your companions leave because they disapprove of your actions, or that in order to achieve that power you'll need to sacrifice them, maybe you need all the tadpoles available for the final unlocks of the illithid skills tree.
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Aug 2021
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That is a potential risk, yes. But there should be enough tadpoles around to not really need to harvest those of the companions I'm keeping, and I don't think Larian would take away agency too much even though it might have made sense. I wouldn't really assume that, if I recall correctly, Swen emphasized a lot that you might end up all alone if you focus entirely on increasing your power. That could mean that your companions leave because they disapprove of your actions, or that in order to achieve that power you'll need to sacrifice them, maybe you need all the tadpoles available for the final unlocks of the illithid skills tree. Yeah, but that's if you focus "entirely" on power. There's a lot of wiggle room between "not at all, eek, get this worm out of my brain" and "our name is Legion, for we are... Many!", I would hope. But you are probably correct that some of the companions won't really like the idea of forming a worm collective. I guess we'll see how that goes. Could be hilarious, could be a total disaster.
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member
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member
Joined: Jul 2023
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I think, I stay the hell away from those powers. Who wants to have more of those brainworms in their head?
Maybe it is worth doing an Astarion playthrough to test that out - he likes his brainworm and I don't care about him, so don't care, if he gets a bad ending. I will do a roleplay where my Dark Urge is so terrified of her violent Urges that she will put Tadpoles into her brain in an attempt to escape this. From that perspective it can work.
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2023
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I'd like to unironically congratulate Larian for making the "fuck around" path inserting ever more tadpoles into your brain. It's so incredibly stupid, it's brilliant. I want to see Astarion stammer: "uhhh... you know, I am a fan of this, but don't you think that's enough?" while the Tav/Durge Mega hive mind cackles in the background.
I want to see the unease in camp, when your companions suspect they may be harvested during a dry spell. I want the ability to actually do so.
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Oct 2020
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Obviously you're not going to outright die or turn into a mindflayer. Are you quite sure? It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest that if you've begged, borrowed and stolen, exhausted all options, You turn into a mindflayer. That's the plot.
Fear my wrath, for it is great indeed.
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addict
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addict
Joined: Oct 2020
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The temptation seems VERY well done compared to what we have in EA. But I really hope the consequences are huge.
I also want to be rewarded for playing "good" characters and I would HATE to feel that my characters are so much weaker during an entire playthough if it is just about happy / unhappy ending.
I also hope that I'll be able to unlock the tadpole powers of specific character (rather than the entire group automatically as it is in EA).
I would love to be able to use Astarion as a laboratory rat ! But but you will gain the most awesome power of them all! The power of friendship and love! 🤢🤮
Last edited by avahZ Darkwood; 17/07/23 06:18 PM.
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Dec 2020
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Obviously you're not going to outright die or turn into a mindflayer. Are you quite sure? It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest that if you've begged, borrowed and stolen, exhausted all options, You turn into a mindflayer. That's the plot. One of the YOutubers, eitehr Fextra or WOlfHeart, said, that the more tadpoles you insert the more dead your brain tissue will look, so I'm pretty sure, putting tadpoles into your brain, is exactly, what they mean.
"We are all stories in the end. Just make it a good one."
Doctor Who
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addict
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addict
Joined: Oct 2020
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Yeah I see it as bad. I mean look at the pic, the brain is rotting/dying….
Also, kinda reminds me of Skyrim. When you die, what daedra gets your soul when you are all their champion?
In this case, what mindflayer gets control? Unless… you’re being farmed to be the next elder brain type being…
Last edited by avahZ Darkwood; 17/07/23 06:23 PM.
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Apr 2013
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Obviously you're not going to outright die or turn into a mindflayer. Are you quite sure? It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest that if you've begged, borrowed and stolen, exhausted all options, You turn into a mindflayer. That's the plot. Ceremorphosis wouldn't actually work with multiple tadpoles in one host...most likely scenario is it would fail and in the process the host and tadpoles would die. If we go with the interpretation that we only use other tadpoles so ours can siphon power off them without actual insertion then we probably would be more susceptible to the tadpole's influence but it was inserted in stasis...clearly not intended to complete ceremorphosis until a signal is sent by whoever controls the stasis. The plan very much appears to be for a mass transformation at an intended time. Personally I wonder if by being allowed all this extra time and our tadpole having a lot more time in the host along with the opportunity to siphon power off other tadpoles might create a unique enough cisrcumstance that our character might transform not just into another mind flayer or into an ulitharid, but into the Adversary.
Last edited by Darth_Trethon; 17/07/23 06:26 PM.
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Jun 2020
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The temptation seems VERY well done compared to what we have in EA. But I really hope the consequences are huge.
I also want to be rewarded for playing "good" characters and I would HATE to feel that my characters are so much weaker during an entire playthough if it is just about happy / unhappy ending.
I also hope that I'll be able to unlock the tadpole powers of specific character (rather than the entire group automatically as it is in EA).
I would love to be able to use Astarion as a laboratory rat ! Well, I think there should be some pretty serious consequences, but I’ve never been a huge fan of when games give you equivalent rewards for being the selfless hero. Like when a character has an item you want and your options are: to screw them over to get the item, help them in exchange for the item, or help them out of the goodness of your heart and they give it to you to in gratitude anyway. Maybe being a power hungry A hole should actually give you access to more power and trying to do the right thing a bit less of a no brainer?
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Jun 2020
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I think the main Tadpole, the one that you start the game with, eats the other tadpoles. It's part of Illithid biology where the tadpoles eat each other if left to their own devices. So instead of multiple Tadpoles, you just have one very hungry one who eats the others, and since it has more nutrients is able to more easily infest the rest of your brain. This is how I think it is operating. Too many Tadpoles might just plain old kill you, the Tadpole needs the host body alive to complete the ceromorphosis, it will defend its host from other foreign parasites so it has room to grow.
Evil always finds a way.
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Sep 2020
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I would love it if the game kept track of how many times you've used the tadpole, how many tadpoles you've consumed from others, etc. And at the end of the game during the Final Fight you'd get a ST that is more difficult based on this tracker, possibly being impossible. If you fail, you turn into a mind flayer, lose all your sense of self, and join the Mind-Flayer Collective. Game End screen.
That'd be such a ballsy move from Larian. "You took the shortcut to gaining power, giving up parts of yourself and letting a stronger power gain control over you bit by bit. You took a risk and lost. Them's the breaks."
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Apr 2013
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I would love it if the game kept track of how many times you've used the tadpole, how many tadpoles you've consumed from others, etc. And at the end of the game during the Final Fight you'd get a ST that is more difficult based on this tracker, possibly being impossible. If you fail, you turn into a mind flayer, lose all your sense of self, and join the Mind-Flayer Collective. Game End screen.
That'd be such a ballsy move from Larian. "You took the shortcut to gaining power, giving up parts of yourself and letting a stronger power gain control over you bit by bit. You took a risk and lost. Them's the breaks." I think the game does track how many times you use the tadpole as well, not just how many you other tadpoles you used to strengthen yours. The early access thing where if you keep using the tadpole for wisdom checks you become marked as a "True Soul" instead is still in the final version of the game and that tracker is different from you gaining more tadpole powers.
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member
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member
Joined: Jul 2023
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The temptation seems VERY well done compared to what we have in EA. But I really hope the consequences are huge.
I also want to be rewarded for playing "good" characters and I would HATE to feel that my characters are so much weaker during an entire playthough if it is just about happy / unhappy ending. There will be a disparity in personal strength between evil and good playthroughs but this is by design. You can choose to go evil and you will end up vastly more powerful but alone vs if you play good you won't be as powerful but you'll have a lot more companions, friends, and allies. It will be a very different experience to reach the city of Baldur's Gate very powerful but alone vs being surrounded by allies. This is what Swen said when answering questions about the dark urge though I think that applies to more than strictly the dark urge. So there is an intended balance there...how much will you sacrifice for power. This is very much intended to illustrate a point. If the game handed you the power anyway regardless of choice then the choice would be meaningless...you wouldn't be inconvenienced in the slightest by just pressing the "do gud" button without a second thought every time. You can be good if you want...but there is a steep price for it just as there is a steep price for going evil as well. My concern is not so much that my character will have less personal power if I choose to have a good play-through but that the game appears to be rewarding an evil play-through by providing a much richer experience to those players who go evil than to those who play a good character. For example, if taking the evil path gives you access to a cool game system that you can't use when playing the good path, I think the good path should give you access to a different cool game system even if it doesn't increase your personal power in the same way. Companions alone aren't it, because it is possible to play an evil character with companions and even allies. The last thing I want to see is a game where playing evil gives you 150 hours of content but playing good gives you 120 hours of content... Unfortunately, the kind of information that's been released lately has certainly seemed to be making that argument.
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Dec 2020
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The temptation seems VERY well done compared to what we have in EA. But I really hope the consequences are huge.
I also want to be rewarded for playing "good" characters and I would HATE to feel that my characters are so much weaker during an entire playthough if it is just about happy / unhappy ending. There will be a disparity in personal strength between evil and good playthroughs but this is by design. You can choose to go evil and you will end up vastly more powerful but alone vs if you play good you won't be as powerful but you'll have a lot more companions, friends, and allies. It will be a very different experience to reach the city of Baldur's Gate very powerful but alone vs being surrounded by allies. This is what Swen said when answering questions about the dark urge though I think that applies to more than strictly the dark urge. So there is an intended balance there...how much will you sacrifice for power. This is very much intended to illustrate a point. If the game handed you the power anyway regardless of choice then the choice would be meaningless...you wouldn't be inconvenienced in the slightest by just pressing the "do gud" button without a second thought every time. You can be good if you want...but there is a steep price for it just as there is a steep price for going evil as well. My concern is not so much that my character will have less personal power if I choose to have a good play-through but that the game appears to be rewarding an evil play-through by providing a much richer experience to those players who go evil than to those who play a good character. For example, if taking the evil path gives you access to a cool game system that you can't use when playing the good path, I think the good path should give you access to a different cool game system even if it doesn't increase your personal power in the same way. Companions alone aren't it, because it is possible to play an evil character with companions and even allies. The last thing I want to see is a game where playing evil gives you 150 hours of content but playing good gives you 120 hours of content... Unfortunately, the kind of information that's been released lately has certainly seemed to be making that argument. We don't know enough unfortunately, but Larian spoke of trying to tempt players to a more evil playstyle, and creating a unique system would indeed be tempting, as unfair as it seems.
Last edited by Boblawblah; 17/07/23 08:01 PM.
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Jhe'stil Kith'rak
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Jhe'stil Kith'rak
Joined: Oct 2021
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On the subreddit and on here, 95%+ of people don’t trust the tadpole, its powers, or the Guardian who greets you when you use them.
Remember the human (This is a forum for a video game):
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Jun 2020
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[quote=Lemurion]
We don't know enough unfortunately, but Larian spoke of trying to tempt players to a more evil playstyle, and creating a unique system would indeed be tempting, as unfair as it seems. Shouldn’t evil be tempting though? Isn’t the point of being good to resist such temptations?
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Aug 2020
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[quote=Lemurion]
We don't know enough unfortunately, but Larian spoke of trying to tempt players to a more evil playstyle, and creating a unique system would indeed be tempting, as unfair as it seems. Shouldn’t evil be tempting though? Isn’t the point of being good to resist such temptations? Very fair and true (though I can't help but remember Arueshalae musing on the temptations of goodness in Wrath of the Righteous) but I think there's a space between evil being tempting and the evil path being the actually more engaging and interesting way to play. As Boblawblah said, we just don't know enough right now.
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