Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion End-Game Feedback

So I just finished the game after 125 hours. I wouldn't say I'm disapointed but I'm not really satisfied either.

So many things happend in act 1. You had almost constantly new dialogs with your companions. There was always something happening in camp. It felt very immersive, you got to know the characters. I loved it. But as I kept playing and continuing with the story it felt like it became less and less of these kind of interactions. It didn't feel as deep and in act 3 it was basically completely gone. Almost no reactions anymore, no new dialog options other then with jaheira or minsc.

Gale:

About the ending in general:

All the characters had no depth in act 3 compared to act 1. To me that's what killed my fun for playing the game a bit sadly. In act 1 I couldn't stop playing, always wanting to know what happens next. Act 3 felt more like just get it done to see how the story ends.

+1, I am in the same camp.

I was so impressed by Act 1. I've beat the game at this point and just started a Dark Urge playthrough. So I've got a different perspective now.

And coming off Act 3 and the ending and diving into a new playthrough really REALLY shows that all the effort went into the first 2 acts.

I'm back to salivating for the next long rest just so I can see what happens next! And knowing that in Act 2 but mostly Act 3, no one has anything to say about anything and there isn't any interesting camp events anymore makes it all kind of sobering.

For context, I had Orpheus become a mindflayer instead so my ending will be slightly different than yours so spoilers:


The TLDR of all of this is the ending and the unengaging Act 3 is the worst and biggest reason this game remains in EA in my mind. It's not finished. It needs work. I love it and hate it with equal measure.

I think what did it for me was the lack of companion dialogue through act 3 there was so much to talk about with them previously, it made me feel distant to them with the lack of it.

I definitely preferred act 1 and 2 - act 3 won my over but the whole end mission did not, especially with some of the choices - which narratively did not make any sense to me. Also, if they really do decide to do a DLC they've hamstrung themselves to tying it to before the ending of act 3 which given the urgency makes no sense, unless we're going with a whole different roster of characters ?

Also,

At this point I don't think they properly play tested act 3, or the main story. Too many things are inconsistent and the acts don't gel together.

I completely agree with this 100%. Act 1 was so much fun. I enjoyed going to rest at camp as there was always something going on there, companions had things to say, some scenes played here and there, but then...they went to the Underdark and all became silent. They did say some stuff from time to time, but it wasn't in any way as engaging and interesting as it was in the Grove or the Goblin camp. Act 2 main quest was great, but for me the companions were too silent there too as well as in Act 3.

I wrote a post with suggestions about this exact problem on the Feedback section of the forum for Larian to read, but idk if they are going to add more content related to the companions. I hope they do add more scenes, reactions and interactions as the rest of the game feels empty in comparison and it's such a shame as all the companions are amazing in their own way.

I finally finished the game too. Took me a while due to illness and real life interfering.

In general, I love this game and I'm mostly ok with act 3 and the ending. I was engaged and had fun.
But I do think, some things could have been handled better:

I had the same feeling, act 1 is perfect, with interaction with the companions at all times and several unique scenes. As the game progresses they fall a lot and in act 3 there is almost no interaction with them. For me, the game's difference is the interaction with companions and the romance. I would like additional scenes in act 3, especially for the romances.

At the end of the game, I was very disappointed, I spent 125 hours on my campaign, I used Gale throughout the game from the beginning, I developed romance and in the end he barely spoke to me and left... I felt cheated by him and completely dispensable.

Apart from Halsin's very basic speech and others who only had one line of speech.


For me, this game is more about friendships, romances and adventures that we develop with our companions, but this was not reflected in the game's final scene.

I agree that they should take a page out of New Vegas ending

I theorize that they have a DLC or BG4 cooking in the background which will involve some characters from BG3, and they still brainstorm at what the story should be about, so they won't release any epilogues anytime soon, if ever!

But this does NOT excuse Larian for releasing an incomplete game!

After reading up on how it ends and the choices you have, it feels extremely underwhelming and very disappointing. After loving Act I and Act II, I really don't know if I want to finish the game.....

To be honest, I didn't understand where the boundary is between the first and second acts. But before the fight with Keteric Torm it was one game, and after that it was completely different. Before was roleplay game, but now is...
The remnants of role-playing behavior make my character go and get drunk to the state of a jellyfish

To me act 3 feels unfinished and rushed and buggy. I loved act 1 and 2, enjoyed it thoroughly with the exception of the disgusting squid, but at least he wasn't shoved on me that much in earlier acts. His story/character I can do without completely.

Although I did enjoy the exploration of the city on my first run, it becomes more of a chore after that.

The game is bugged for me and even with a LOT of metagaming some quests don't play nicely.

I don't even want to start on the companions cutscenes, no matter what I do and how much I rest, some of them just never trigger for me.

Surprisingly I don't have any performance problems, no crushes, no freezes, no drastic fps drops.

There is NO real choice to be made besides who becomes a squid or who blows up the brain. The only thing I'm happy about is that I can finally slice the Emperor (that slimy squid has been forced into my throat through the whole game). IMHO the ending as a whole is a slap in the face. If I chose to dominate the brain then why can't I be selective as to not to enslave my companions? I'm forced to destroy it or enslave my beloved? The epilogue is even worse, you get 2-3 lines from your romance (in my case Astarion) if you're lucky for the after battle scene to trigger.

Surprisingly companions have very little to say in act 3 with all the life changing decisions going on. They were very opinionated in act 1.

I'm to the point that I just stop playing before the end battle, there is no enticement for me to proceed knowing the end result.

We'll see what patch 3 brings, fingers crossed.

I don't know if someone already mentioned my following sentences... But this was the most annoying thing regarding in game decisions for me

You're not alone, a good number of people seem to feel the same way. If only we could ask Omeluum for help.

Having completed the game very recently, my thoughts about the endgame are:

Act 3 is easily the weakest part. Jumping right off the bat with the appearance of Orin and the murder quest felt a bit flat. I didn't spend enough time with any of the NPCs inside Baldur's Gate to care about whether or not saving them was important so I did everything else and Orin's appearances neither surprised me or shocked me at all. It's just too in your face.

Orin in my mind should have only made an appearance in Baldur's Gate once you've spent some time in there talking to people getting to know the city. You do a few quests and THEN it turns out you were talking to Orin at some point. You have no idea when. Was that guard who asked you to take care of a thug Orin the entire time?

Don't get me started on Gortash. People have already talked about his appearance so I won't go into that. His introduction was completely meh. The plot involving Gortash was underwhelming.
I'll probably think of more things that annoy me about the end game but this is what I have for the moment.

"We desperately need a friendly mind flayer! If only there was a mind flayer around who owed me a pretty huge favor! And if only he were still in this city, just a few blocks away! And if only mind flayers like him were telepaths that could easily communicate with me from this distance because of the mind flayer larva that's eating my brain!"

This is another thing, like with , where it's just baffling. Why would you go to all the trouble of orchestrating your plot to have an insoluble problem and then also go out of your way to put an obvious win-win solution literally right down the street? It's like if someone gave you the trolley problem but went out of their way to explain that the trolley's brakes are actually very effective and you could use them to stop the trolley from running over anyone, but they still only give you the two options where you run over people.

It's all the more frustrating because in most of their opportunities to make this mistake, they didn't! (Which isn't praise, because this should be an extremely easy mistake to not make.) In fact, they often did the opposite: allowing you to discover a win-win solution when it seemed like there wasn't one. (That is praise, because a game like this should reward player choice, player exploration, and build diversity.) In fact most of the companions seem built around just this exact narrative mechanism! They involve some sacrifice, but you are allowed to find a better way by exploring the world around you and the world within your companions. But with and not being able to ask Omeluum for help, the win-win solution is glaringly obviously signposted and seems to be telegraphed by the game itself, and yet you can't do it.

All this passion, hard work, time, dedication, sweat, tears and time lost laboring on this beautiful masterpiece only to just squat over all that sacrifice and work and defecate over the final moments with such a shallow and empty epilogue blows my mind. Why would they work so hard to in the end not finish the job??

I didn't think this was going to be game of the decade, or game of the year even. No.... I truly thought this was going to be arguably one of the best video games _ever_.

This f' game already sucked 150+ hours out of me, I'm not gonna let it get another hour of me rambling about how the lack of an appropriate epilogue essentially makes the "17,000" different endings is hyperbolic sales bull.s'

The epilogue is a few vague comments on your adventure, nothing unique to what is likely a very unique playthrough. Everything the first 4/5ths of the game has little impact on the ending and you get no closure on any of that stuff that led you to the end of your adventure.

You could skip 4/5ths of the game essentially and it wouldn't matter.

I work 12hrs a day, I got a family I actually enjoy being around, I got stuff to do and so much going on. I'm so angry at myself for wasting my very very very limited free time playing this game and waking up early or staying up late just to make time to finish this!

Ugh!


Final review:

8/10,

Good game but a bit long and choices don't matter that much, but the illusion they do matter significantly is impressive and should be commended esp considering choices mostly don't matter except the last few hours worth of choices.

Decent story, but a bit convoluted and erratic the further you get in the game and the closer you get to its conclusion.

Unrelated to story, game play and game mechanics are fun IMHO.

Don't make the mistake I did, just push through and don't overthink your choices, they don't f' matter.

It could be nice to actually have a party with everybody at the end where you get to hang out and have fun. I'm thinking something like the party on the Citadel in Mass Effect 3 would be fun.