Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Larian dropped the ball on endings - Why and how to fix it - (SPOILERS)

On Gortash and Orin's deals in Act 3:

I really loved the beginning of Act 3, where all these different factions were vying for who would ultimately control the Crown of Karsus. It's really a shame it comes down to Dialogue Option 1 or Dialogue Option 2.

Thanks for the info, Thebazilly!

Another plot that I feel seems just forgotten, is the one at the end of Act 2.

They probably just rushed it all tbh. It all just feels unfinished once you pass into act 3. Plot threads that are hinted at that never get picked up, things that end too abruptly. Dissapointing.

You do realize if we let them get away with the current state of the game, we will just get an unfinished mess with bg4 as well? If they don't fix this game then we might as well jump ship on Larian forever.

Well, first, I think we need to take a step back. BG4 is nowhere near on the horizon, and we don't even know if Larian would be interested in making it to begin with.

However, this kind of gets at something I've been thinking about myself. I've said before that while BG3 is the game that I think has some of of the best gameplay Larian has ever made, it is also the game that convinced me to never buy Larian games on release ever again.

But I said that ASSUMING they'd eventually do work to fix up the final act. But like, what if they just don't? What if the final act just remains bad...? What if the fixes are all performance issues and bugfixes, etc. but it remains for the most part as it is?

Seriously, a bunch of us want more Emporer-ending content for those of us who choose that path. He is a well-written manipulative character. We want more.

IMO if they fix it, fix all of it, including narrative problems. I could not careless if I have to pay another 50 euro( or whatever currency you use). Because that would be a true masterpiece.

If it remains this way well, this is my first and last Larian game. I don't have time to play RPGs for weeks anymore, and I would rather spend it on a finished product. I want to start another playthrough so bad. But the way the plot is forcing you to have a tadpole in your head for the entire game is ridiculous and annoying(any sane humanoid would not rest a second until that thing is gone), and I cannot sit through another 80 hours of the Emperor pulling the strings without me having a say in what happens. You have Mystra, Elminster, Raphael, creches, even Mizora and a million other solutions and you are FORCED to just nod along like an idiot until you end up at choose X squid. At the very least give us a logical sequence of events.

Let me be clear, the game is brilliant in many regards, otherwise I would not be here caring so much about giving feedback. I would pay another 100 euro for what this game will be if they fix the problems. I would have to wait at least 10 years for another RPG game to come close to this. The genre has been lacking in options for a long time. Can't even say we have had a proper next gen RPG until this game came along.

*Edit* And who is going to by an entire definitive edition for an unfinished game with some bug fixes?

See, I was kind of curious. Because so many people think of BG3 as some sort of humongous triumph for Larian.

But...I mean, at least in my personal opinion....they're kind of in peril. I have experienced Larian dropping the ball in the second half before. I'm tired of watching it happen. So to me, BG3 means:

1. If they FIX it: I will never buy Larian games on release again, but I will consider buying them once I have heard the ending is solid.
2. If they DON'T fix it....for the moments of brilliance, I will buy Larian games at steep discount....but after seeing the same pattern so many times, I'd never take them seriously again.

And reflecting on the fact that this was my personal opinion, I was like, huh, this doesn't seem very triumphal. And I started to wonder, how many other people felt this way too? I wonder to the extent BG3 actually WILL be considered a triumph for Larian in the long term. Or maybe it will be the game that make people in general aware of their shortcomings.

I think most games, especially role-playing games, fall short in the final act. Despite that BG3 is still well worth the price of admission, though I'll think twice before joining another early access.


I hope Larian consider keeping up with the game now that it's launched, but I've gotten the impression from interviews with Swen that he's a bit 'over' it. The amount of work it would take to rejigger the main plot in BG, might just not be worth it for the number of people who think the problems with the narrative are serious enough to even warrant it.

Thank (insert god) someone here replies quickly.

I do believe the game is an accomplishment in the making, it is just not finished, not properly playtested. I mean what kind playtester that likes RP would enjoy being stuck with a tadpole in their head for 90 hours?

It is so close to being a masterpiece but like we discussed it needs some proper touching up in regards to story and in particular act 3 to be what it could be. It is definitely not worthy of all the praise it gets in its current form(most reviewers probably played half the game). I think like me, many of us were bewitched by the fantastic start, and to be honest it took some time for me to be free from the spell that act 1-2 cast on me. With act 3 other short-comings became more apparent.

Maybe most people haven`t reached act 3 yet? Who knows? Still blinded by act 1-2 ? I too am a bit surprised that these simp-threads seem to be the main focus in this forum. I like Karlach too, but the issue is way deeper.

You seem to have a deeper history with Larian than I. This is the first RPG I have played in years, I missed DnD setting/lore so bad tbh.

Well, who knows how much work that would take? This entire game is 6 years in the making. Taking into account that there are already plenty of datamined content/ideas to be re-purposed, you could definetly fix this game in one and a half year, and resell it as a definitive edition imo. People like me would buy it. Ofc they can just not do it, and people like me will never come back. Their choice.

There is also plenty of really good ideas on this forum that they can implement.

Yeah it's been my worry, too. Ever since Swen said he's pretty much moving on to a new 'secret' project and that he's pretty much done with BG3 (of course that doesn't mean his team isn't done with it, but yeah, there is that).

On the topic and I know it's been said a lot, but I really hate the way the game took away all the consequences of using tadpoles. I remember in EA I loved testing both scenarios - a purist "Daisy is evil, we shouldn't trust them approach" and "Give me all the power" and how very different those 2 were from the get go.

Aside from getting a bunch of dreams (which you wouldn't get if you didn't use the powers at all) and those special illithid powers (which were different depending on class) what was so cool were the reactions of your companions to the dreams, new powers and getting closer and closer to becoming mind flayers. All those moral discussions you could have had with them are completely gone and therefore a lot of character building is lost. And yes, some of those conversations would pop up even on a 'no tadpole' run but it would take way longer to get there. And what's funny is the game still kept some of those conversations in the final release, companions still say they got new powers (yeah, no I checked buddies, the cake is a lie) but the overall morality discussions are gone.

Of course that meant in EA, if you truly were a purist, you would never ever get a single tadpole related dream, so I kind of understand why Larian forced that on us (on release my 1st run I was a purist until I realized that using tadpoles had no consequences whatsoever that was after my 2nd dream btw. - then I put a tadpole in my tadpole so I'd tadpole even harder). What Larian should've done is - have purists get dreams, different dreams than those who embrace the tadpole and obviously at a much slower frequency, and maybe have them closer to what we got in the final release of the game while whole unhinged tadpolers could have their dreams be closer to what we had in EA.

I also understand why they decided to take Emperor from whatever plot he was a part of in game (I doubt that they created his character out of nowhere, my suspicion is that he was one of the 'potential' allies further along the line - also, he is in the opening cinematic I believe, the mind flayer tadpoling Tav has a very striking resemblance to Emperor) and repurposed him into the guardian, at the expense of whatever interactions we would've had with Orpheus. I don't like it, but I understand why that decision was made. Daisy was suspicious as hell from the get go, while Emperor seems a lot more... benevolent? Unless you take your time to annoy and distrust him over and over again and this is also where plot holes around Emperor start to pop up. Especially when he shows you that he was basically responsible for Stelmane's comatose state... I mean: actions have consequences right? So why I can't discuss this major discovery with anyone? It's not like he told us to stay silent, just stay obedient and be a good little puppet.

Because of that massive rewrite to fit Emperor and twist the current plot around him I doubt that Larian would be brave enough to remove him and return Daisy and I am fine with that. But for the love of all that is holy, rewrite the scenes he's in to make them make more sense. Especially in act 3 every single time Emperor pops up a major plot hole is introduced.

I couldn't agree more, and that's why in my initial post I added that they should work quickly on the endings before most people reach the end of the game: I think most of them have not. (The achievements stats are a good indicator.)


The only reason I mentioned BG4 was because you seemed to think that they let some plots lines open-ended so they would make a DLC or sequel.
But my point is indeed that even making a DLC would make no sense with such a poor ending: I found myself struggling to create a character I would want to play for a second run through, because I lost all interest in the story now that I saw the "your journey to get there doesn't matter" endings.
The only reason I can find to start again are to experience some pathways I didn't before (i.e., siding with Minthara against the grove, going through the underdark instead of mountain pass...), but I know I will stop when I reach act2 because after that I have not enough left to discover to justify the time to spend.
The difficulty does not offer a big enough challenge either to push replayability btw (but that's another issue).

Yes on the topic of Swen moving on: I think he already did a long time ago and is focusing on both promotion of BG3 and future projects.
That could actually explain why the ending seems like it has not even be tested: If he is central to the studio's ambition and ethos, it would not be surprising if the quality fall as he is getting further remote from the project.

I can't get myself to start another playthrough either, which is why I am here constantly instead. Voicing my opinion hoping for a change. The main things I can not get past is how the plot forces you to spend 90 hours with a tadpole in your head (like stated before any sane humanoid would never rest a second until that thing is gone). How you are forced to be at the Emperors mercy all game (so much for heroic fantasy). And how nothing you do matters (choose X squid).

This stuff can not have been playtested.

For the last one I can't help but cackle at the guy who said: Orpheus "I hate ghaik, but now someone has to become ghaik." Too accurate, the guys existence counters the greatest power of the Netherbrain but now someone needs to be a squid? Come on.

I rather like open endings tbh, I always enjoyed the eternal adventure fantasy. Regardless of whether there is a BG4 or DLC. However this game has no ending whatsoever.

Rather disappointing that I just and it just wasn't acknowledged by the ending at all. Not mentioned even a little.

Or... the game has bugged out again when it comes to acknowledging certain events...
Like once I am done with this run I will wait for some patches before I start a 3rd, like I am legit tired of dancing around these dumb bugs that could've been easily ironed out if the game had been thoroughly play tested before release and with each big patch. It's basically ping pong of one thing gets fixed and another one breaks.

I am honestly starting to think act 3 is more EA than EA ever was. Nothing is acknowledged outside choose X squid.

Yeah, and it's just the tip of the iceberg really... I am legit impressed act 3 doesn't entirely fall apart at the seams.

Nah, but really, so many binary choices while whole spectra of choices were promised, aside from lackluster endings.

The best thing I can say is that it's not ME3 lvl of bad endings. On release ME3 was... well, atrocious is an understatement. You'd think game devs everywhere would've learned something from that failure.

I am honestly getting confused now by their choice talk.

I was not able to help Arabella find her parents, so she left a note saying she is leaving and so on. Then I read a post today, saying they found Arabellas parents, but it just ends with her leaving again.. Is every choice in this game the same conclusion just with different text? Or with/without X companion? Where is all the choice?