What is mean by this is that are several items in the game that only "enter" the game world upon quest completion. For example the 3 Sparky weapons after the rescue at Waukeen's Rest, Ring of Protection from Mol, Return the Boots of Speed quest rewards, Rescue Sazza, etc...
With the latest patch, Hellrider's Pride (the gloves from Zevlor) have become such an item.

This made me remember how during Early Access I thought it was really cool/immersive to be able to acquire the item via multiple means:

- have Zevlor give it to you willingly after helping him
- buy it from him via trade menu
- pickpocket it if you were going for a more morally ambiguous playthrough
- if you wanted to go for some kind of evil/murderhobo playthrough you'd be able to straight up loot them from his corpse

It made it feel like the object actually existed in the game world and you didn't need to worry about completing the optimal sequence of events in order to gain access to it.

Because BG3 features so many items that synergize as part of a set/theme (lightning charges, momentum, wrath, heat, obscured, healing steroids, unnarmed attacks, throws, etc...) it feels like there is one optimal way to play the game and you are penalized for straying from it by being locked out of access to an item.

The problem is not necessarily the fact that you're missing out on a single item, but it indirectly diminishes the value of all the other pieces from the same set/theme, as there is one less element to synergize with.

It ruins any incentive for players to roleplay via their own dialogue choices when they become aware than one option is objectively better than the rest.

I know it is too late for Baldur's Gate 3, but what I would like to see as a design element in future Larian titles is a more immersive system for acquiring loot.

Let's say you turn in a quest and get the quest reward. Alternatively, you could select a dialogue option that leads to a dispute with the quest giver. (call him out cause he was deceiving you or whatever reason,etc...). Instead of giving you the quest reward, the NPC turns hostile. After killing/KOing him you can find a key/note/some other hint that allows you to access the quest reward in some hidden area. (or perhaps just loot the reward from the NPC's body). Basically just move away from "Requirements met? Check. Right dialogue option? Check. <poof!> Item enters game universe."


One thing I'm glad about is that I haven't encountered that many mutually exclusive quest rewards so far, but that's a can of worms for another time.