The thing that angers me the most about what was cut was the entire dynamic with Daisy and ultimately there being consequences for your actions. Act 1 is solid, but Act 3 feels like a trainwreck, especially with knowledge of what was supposed to take place in it. Especially with how not only is this game easy but there's just no consequences for choices that originally were supposed to be dire, especially for the tadpoles. It feels far too casual of a game wherein you can have half of your brain eaten by illithid worms yet somehow this causes no negative penalty whatsoever in the ending, when the original alternative of potentially getting a game over made far more sense. Instead there's objectively no gameplay reason to turn down any illithid powers since they're just flat buffs to your character without any downside. Cut plotlines hurt but what really stinks is that the offerings of incredible power have no cost to them, trivializing the game on a whole.
The thing that angers me the most about what was cut was the entire dynamic with Daisy and ultimately there being consequences for your actions. Act 1 is solid, but Act 3 feels like a trainwreck, especially with knowledge of what was supposed to take place in it. Especially with how not only is this game easy but there's just no consequences for choices that originally were supposed to be dire, especially for the tadpoles. It feels far too casual of a game wherein you can have half of your brain eaten by illithid worms yet somehow this causes no negative penalty whatsoever in the ending, when the original alternative of potentially getting a game over made far more sense. Instead there's objectively no gameplay reason to turn down any illithid powers since they're just flat buffs to your character without any downside. Cut plotlines hurt but what really stinks is that the offerings of incredible power have no cost to them, trivializing the game on a whole.
I believed from what my Party NPCs said and from the visuals of more worms eating my brain if I consume more tadpoles that FOR SURE I would lose my personality at some point and that that would somehow influence the story.
Wouldn't it be great if, for example, the Emperor would have different dialogue or a different appearance depending on how many tadpoles you eat? Maybe characters who refuse any and all tadpoles and powers, would see through the Emperor's disguise much earlier in the story and the Emperor would be much more hostile towards such characters.
On the other hand, characters who consume more tadpoles fall for the Emperor's disguise, the Emperor's dialogue would be more friendly and Tav would even romance it and find out only later that the Emperor is a Mindflayer with an own agenda.
And characters who consume too many tadpoles don't have a choice but to become a mindflayer by the end of the story. A grim price for gullible characters, but an opportunity for power hungy ones.
CohhCarnage praise the game for being one of the best he's ever played but he did note that act 3 made the game feel unfinished and that the quality dropped significantly compared to act 1.
I'm hoping they'll address the missing content but realistically we shouldn't expect everything to be restored. I'm personally hoping for
Avernus Upper City Ethel's Coven - We were told they were going to come for us yet they never did. Better resolutions for Karlach Minthara actually having content in act 3 and bug fixes for her if she's still bugged. More companion dialogue restored for act 3 Epilogues Consequences for using the tadpole
Let's all hope for restoring the removed content to update act 3 quality dramatically. Missing final parts of companion quests and missing proper endings really hurts.
I don't use Illithid Powers to this Day because of how easy is to trivialize the Class System and D&D Implementation even in Tactician but that is another entirely different issue. A lot of Stuff doesn't feel finished. I'm not that crazy bothered by Shoving and other Gimmicks because i just don't use them but Combat still bugs me a lot in this Game. If i have to Cripple my Char to no End and refrain from Playing Martial Classes to get some challenge out of it then i would say that is not a Good Combat System. Having all those Actions as Martial Class is indeed broken as all Hells when the Enemy dies from 1 Hit Opportunist. But then i look at Concentration and All the Half Assed Spell Implementation and Crippling Spellcasters have ( Specially the CC Spells )...... And yeah the Low Level Cap will always bug me, specially when the Game sells you so much the whole "We are going against the Gods Designs" thing throwing you all manners of Larianized Legendary D&D Beings. Ends up feeling like a Super Elder Brain is just another meaningless 1 Hp Kobold waiting for that Sledgehammer to drop.
CohhCarnage praise the game for being one of the best he's ever played but he did note that act 3 made the game feel unfinished and that the quality dropped significantly compared to act 1.
I'm hoping they'll address the missing content but realistically we shouldn't expect everything to be restored. I'm personally hoping for
Avernus Upper City Ethel's Coven - We were told they were going to come for us yet they never did. Better resolutions for Karlach Minthara actually having content in act 3 and bug fixes for her if she's still bugged. More companion dialogue restored for act 3 Epilogues Consequences for using the tadpole
The Avernus claim is the one I’m most sceptical of. It’s one thing to dredge up recorded audio files for an epilogue or something, quite another to claim entire regions were just cut from the game. That would mean maps, assets, characters, quest lines, encounters, etc. If someone really has found all that, I want to see evidence of it, not just someone posting their claims on multiple forums. You might well be talking about restoring something that was never really developed in the first place.
I’m certainly not going to get my hopes up based on this list that keeps popping up everywhere.
CohhCarnage praise the game for being one of the best he's ever played but he did note that act 3 made the game feel unfinished and that the quality dropped significantly compared to act 1.
I'm hoping they'll address the missing content but realistically we shouldn't expect everything to be restored. I'm personally hoping for
Avernus Upper City Ethel's Coven - We were told they were going to come for us yet they never did. Better resolutions for Karlach Minthara actually having content in act 3 and bug fixes for her if she's still bugged. More companion dialogue restored for act 3 Epilogues Consequences for using the tadpole
The Avernus claim is the one I’m most sceptical of. It’s one thing to dredge up recorded audio files for an epilogue or something, quite another to claim entire regions were just cut from the game. That would mean maps, assets, characters, quest lines, encounters, etc. If someone really has found all that, I want to see evidence of it, not just someone posting their claims on multiple forums. You might well be talking about restoring something that was never really developed in the first place.
I’m certainly not going to get my hopes up based on this list that keeps popping up everywhere.
Did you even read my post or did you just rush in here on your shining steed to try and talk down another person who doesn't think the game is perfect? Please read " I'm personally hoping for "
You want evidence of upper city though? Community update 19 they promoted it as playable, I won't quote the " two weeks before launch " claim some people are making as I can't find a source but it's definetly in community update 19 regarding upper city and if you want to sit there being smug and thinking this game is perfect then all the power to you honestly you're entitled to have that opinion but I on the other hand don't think the game is perfect and like many more who are noticing, act 3 is the problem child, avernus certainly won't help that but the rest most definetly will.
Huhh... So I am really curious as to what happened to act3. I am still pretty early on (didn't even reach lower city), but the thing that popped out to me is that the city is not seemless, as it was advertised during city showcase two months ago:
Or is the outside of Baldur's Gate area, seperate from city itself?
[ Did you even read my post or did you just rush in here on your shining steed to try and talk down another person who doesn't think the game is perfect? Please read " I'm personally hoping for "
You want evidence of upper city though? Community update 19 they promoted it as playable, I won't quote the " two weeks before launch " claim some people are making as I can't find a source but it's definetly in community update 19 regarding upper city and if you want to sit there being smug and thinking this game is perfect then all the power to you honestly you're entitled to have that opinion but I on the other hand don't think the game is perfect and like many more who are noticing, act 3 is the problem child, avernus certainly won't help that but the rest most definetly will.
You might want to follow your own advice about reading what people say.
I didn’t say the game is perfect and I’m not trying to talk you down. I’m aware of what was said about the upper city, I know there are issues around some of the companion story arcs, tadpole use and all that.
All I’m saying is that I’m sceptical of claims posted around the internet by some random about “cut content” that was “meant” to be in the game. When I’ve searched for datamined content on Avernus for example, this list and references to it is all I’ve ever found. If you or anyone else has had more luck, I’d be genuinely interested in seeing the details.
So personally, I’m being cautious about a lot of these claims, and I only singled out your post because you mentioned a bit I actually tried looking into and came up empty.
The game was in Early Access for 3 years and there are some of us who waited specifically for 3 years with the intent of playing a finished product. The game is undoubtedly very good in many ways, but there are a lot of baffling design choices throughout, ingame, in content and even in UI.
Aside from all the Act 3 issues. Why was a massive chunk of the Nautiloid removed? Why were the people near the dying mindflayer removed? Just hearing about stuff that was in EA and is now just gone.
Even the campaign name when looking to join games is some random placeholder name. I don't like that I now feel like I've made a mistake buying the game and playing it now after EA, when I can probably get a much more complete experience in a year, that feels awful as an RPG fan and as a consumer.
I actually feel a bit hoodwinked because I thought the point of EA was to avoid massive glaring issues like this.
Now that I think about it, DoS2 suffered from this exact same issue, where Act 3 felt like a mess that needed much more setup and then the game just ends with a bunch of unaddressed plot threads, a friend and I finished DoS2 the other month because we were excited for BG3 and the back half of DoS2 really left a sour taste in our mouth.
Front loading a game makes it seem like the player is being deliberately tricked.
Last edited by Caffeinated King; 27/08/2303:00 AM.
The game was in Early Access for 3 years and there are some of us who waited specifically for 3 years with the intent of playing a finished product. The game is undoubtedly very good in many ways, but there are a lot of baffling design choices throughout, ingame, in content and even in UI.
Aside from all the Act 3 issues. Why was a massive chunk of the Nautiloid removed? Why were the people near the dying mindflayer removed? Just hearing about stuff that was in EA and is now just gone.
Even the campaign name when looking to join games is some random placeholder name. I don't like that I now feel like I've made a mistake buying the game and playing it now after EA, when I can probably get a much more complete experience in a year, that feels awful as an RPG fan and as a consumer.
I actually feel a bit hoodwinked because I thought the point of EA was to avoid massive glaring issues like this.
Now that I think about it, DoS2 suffered from this exact same issue, where Act 3 felt like a mess that needed much more setup and then the game just ends with a bunch of unaddressed plot threads, a friend and I finished DoS2 the other month because we were excited for BG3 and the back half of DoS2 really left a sour taste in our mouth.
Front loading a game makes it seem like the player is being deliberately tricked.
Removal of parts of the Nautiloid is basically the only content I'm ok with having been cut. The tutorial section was overly long (especially as you have to redo it every time you create a character) and it feels much better to me now. The fishermen were removed during EA for no apparent reason. It used to be a nice little encounter I hope we'll see restored eventually.
But the part I'm really angry about is the whole upper city/Act 3 affair. That has basically killed my desire to finish the game (I'm in the middle of Act 3 now with no motivation to continue and have started another character instead).
The thing that angers me the most about what was cut was the entire dynamic with Daisy and ultimately there being consequences for your actions. Act 1 is solid, but Act 3 feels like a trainwreck, especially with knowledge of what was supposed to take place in it. Especially with how not only is this game easy but there's just no consequences for choices that originally were supposed to be dire, especially for the tadpoles. It feels far too casual of a game wherein you can have half of your brain eaten by illithid worms yet somehow this causes no negative penalty whatsoever in the ending, when the original alternative of potentially getting a game over made far more sense. Instead there's objectively no gameplay reason to turn down any illithid powers since they're just flat buffs to your character without any downside. Cut plotlines hurt but what really stinks is that the offerings of incredible power have no cost to them, trivializing the game on a whole.
Realistically, I wish they had kept "Daisy" but also implemented "The Guardian"; use the same character creator for "Daisy" (I would make it so this character never mentions their name so it can be Male or Female). Then had it be "Daisy" is the tadpole trying to trick us into setting it free. While "The Guardian" is some Deity trying to 'help us' (lets be honest...they rarely do us a solid; it's always done to benefit them).
This way it would be a player choice.
---
With regards to the above.
I really wish Larian had gone with an Episodic release. Like BG3 would have "Chapter 1", which would have three Acts. That largely only span the current Act I and Act II. Then shift Act III's content and all the cut content to "Chapter 2". And release that as DLC either towards the end of 2023 or Q1 of 2024.
This would hopefully give them enough time to polish up, and fill out Acts I and II. While giving them plenty of time to "finish the game".
As it stands now, I don't see them redoing any of the Acts for a "Definitive Edition"...as in:
They'd make it so Karlach was less adverse to going back to Avernus so the "good ending" is her going back to Hell. Even though she said she'd rather die than go back there. I highly doubt they'd redo Act III (???) to allow for the "true good ending" of her heart being fixed, and getting to stay on Faerun.
-- They'd essentially have to 'reboot' the story with as big of a change as would be required to fit in all the cut content. Especially the cut content that wasn't finished (ie missing VAs of character lines). That'd be hecka expensive and most probably won't buy a 'Definitive Edition'-anything at full price.
You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.
The thing that angers me the most about what was cut was the entire dynamic with Daisy and ultimately there being consequences for your actions. Act 1 is solid, but Act 3 feels like a trainwreck, especially with knowledge of what was supposed to take place in it. Especially with how not only is this game easy but there's just no consequences for choices that originally were supposed to be dire, especially for the tadpoles. It feels far too casual of a game wherein you can have half of your brain eaten by illithid worms yet somehow this causes no negative penalty whatsoever in the ending, when the original alternative of potentially getting a game over made far more sense. Instead there's objectively no gameplay reason to turn down any illithid powers since they're just flat buffs to your character without any downside. Cut plotlines hurt but what really stinks is that the offerings of incredible power have no cost to them, trivializing the game on a whole.
Realistically, I wish they had kept "Daisy" but also implemented "The Guardian"; use the same character creator for "Daisy" (I would make it so this character never mentions their name so it can be Male or Female). Then had it be "Daisy" is the tadpole trying to trick us into setting it free. While "The Guardian" is some Deity trying to 'help us' (lets be honest...they rarely do us a solid; it's always done to benefit them).
This way it would be a player choice.
---
With regards to the above.
I really wish Larian had gone with an Episodic release. Like BG3 would have "Chapter 1", which would have three Acts. That largely only span the current Act I and Act II. Then shift Act III's content and all the cut content to "Chapter 2". And release that as DLC either towards the end of 2023 or Q1 of 2024.
This would hopefully give them enough time to polish up, and fill out Acts I and II. While giving them plenty of time to "finish the game".
As it stands now, I don't see them redoing any of the Acts for a "Definitive Edition"...as in:
They'd make it so Karlach was less adverse to going back to Avernus so the "good ending" is her going back to Hell. Even though she said she'd rather die than go back there. I highly doubt they'd redo Act III (???) to allow for the "true good ending" of her heart being fixed, and getting to stay on Faerun.
-- They'd essentially have to 'reboot' the story with as big of a change as would be required to fit in all the cut content. Especially the cut content that wasn't finished (ie missing VAs of character lines). That'd be hecka expensive and most probably won't buy a 'Definitive Edition'-anything at full price.
In what world would a Karlach cure require a reboot?
-Give enhanced infernal iron to Dammon -"OH cool, I found these Gordian schematics from the Steel Watch!" - Heart fixed
In what world would a Karlach cure require a reboot?
-Give enhanced infernal iron to Dammon -"OH cool, I found these Gordian schematics from the Steel Watch!" - Heart fixed
Where the rewrite?
That specific story-point would be fine. When I was referring to the 'reboot' it was encompassing all the cut content like the zones and their quest chains. I haven't left Act I (may never seeing how it all turns out). So I'm going by what posts are saying, and using some deductive reasoning. Namely, that if Zone content was cut. Then they probably altered quest chains to 'wrap up' sooner.
So, if that content was suddenly added. Then those quests would need to be changed back to the way they were. May never know just how much was altered to fit the 'new' Story Board. ...hence why I believe they'd essentially be 'rebooting' the story likely from the end of Act II onward. Depending on when the cutting start.
And while it's not impossible. I don't see it happening since, from what I've read, not all the cut content was done with the voicing of lines. Which means they'd need to get the VAs back in the recording booth ($$$). Then implement all that into content (Voicing, Level Design, Cutscenes, think they did MoCap too?) that is probably only partially done ($$$$). And finally, try and sell that repackage; hoping it turns a profit.
-OR-
They could leave it 'as is' and move on to the next project.
You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.
That specific story-point would be fine. When I was referring to the 'reboot' it was encompassing all the cut content like the zones and their quest chains. I haven't left Act I (may never seeing how it all turns out). So I'm going by what posts are saying, and using some deductive reasoning. Namely, that if Zone content was cut. Then they probably altered quest chains to 'wrap up' sooner.
So, if that content was suddenly added. Then those quests would need to be changed back to the way they were. May never know just how much was altered to fit the 'new' Story Board. ...hence why I believe they'd essentially be 'rebooting' the story likely from the end of Act II onward. Depending on when the cutting start.
Assuming these zones and quests were ever really made in the first place.
I think I have discovered two more pieces of cut content...
I think shadowhearts conversation with you in the tomb, the exclamation above her head, just before you get to withers crypt... was removed... for no reason... again?
And the woman talking to the bird in the druid grove, asking the bird to find halsin, was removed... for no reason, but she still talks like she was talking to a bird...
The Shadowheart conversation could definitely trigger before the patch, but it didn't always happen (it was the same during EA). If the conversation doesn't trigger at all now, it's likely a bug rather than cut content.
Probably another bug, she was talking to the bird during my first playthrough.
I knew that the DU had to be the real protagonist of the game.
It was too obvious.
Very close ties to the lore of the previous two games, a fully customizable character, whereas Tav is an anonymous custom character with almost no interaction with the story.
I've always maintained that it didn't make sense to choose Tav when you had the DU available.
