Originally Posted by KillerRabbit
Originally Posted by Gray Ghost
I think that on a conceptual level hey work far better than Daisy did. Daisy was just red flags from minute one. They pushed too hard and were just so obviously sinister that you knew you couldn't trust them. They were encouraging you to give into the tadpole just as much as the guardian, even if the whole tadpole power up mechanic of consuming more is pretty dumb. But Daisy encouraged you to saying that you were becoming something greater, making it really hard for you or your character to not think she meant full transformation. Meanwhile Meanwhile guardian explicitly says they're protecting you from changing. They're supporting your efforts to defeat the absolute and want to stop it as well. Immediately more trustworthy, but still with some red flags. Just not ALL the red flags like Daisy. I think it would be far easier to make the guardian work and feel better than it would have been to make Daisy work and feel better, as evidenced by the fact they turned Daisy into the guardian to try try fix them.

Why is that a bad thing?
I just don't see distrusting Daisy as a flaw in the original plot. If if the goal of plot 1.0 was to force good players to do things the hard way and evil parties to do things the easy way then it worked. You knew that using the tadpole had consequences - you could stride into the goblin camp on "authority" and even get a few powers along the way. And if you stopped before you became a true soul all was well. You would find out the disadvantages when you met Nere and the game became "how much do I use before losing myself" Which was the same mechanism as the Slayer in BG2 - insta win any fight / open doors that only gods can open but lose that reputation and eventually face the game over screen.

You're right that we can only imagine what Daisy would be like but lack of trust doesn't seem like a fatal flaw.

Because I played EA I can't truly imagine what a new player would experience but I find it hard to believe that people are any less suspicious of the Guardian - it's only that your suspicions aren't are rewarded. I'm searching for a cure but this strange voice in my head tells me to "consume" even more tadpoles? Every time I get near a possible cure - like the Gith Creche - it tells me to go away? Uh, kinda sounds like you don't want me to be cured my dear "Guardian"

And the game assumes we trust the Guardian long after it's clear we have no reason to do so.

(paraphrasing from memory)

Guardian: If you want to take my life do so now. **Kneels and puts sword over heart**

(Tav thinks: this a projection from the tadpole, a elder brain or mind flayer - stabbing won't do anything)

*tav stabs*

Guardian is annoyed but quite alive

(Tav thinks - I was hoping your true form would reveal itself but I'm happy to have my suspicions confirmed)

Returns to material plane

Emperor: "I'm glad you've come to your senses"

(tav thinks" $@#% just you wait)
. . .

Suspicions confirmed: Finally gets to kill emperor, game over screen
. . .
reloads
. . .

Tav: "Oh hi soulless lovecraftian monster, can we be frens?"

I think the Emperor reveal was supposed to be shock but I saw it as confirmation - of course a mind flayer wanted to be come a mind flayer . . .


We did meet "Daisy" in the act 3 during the park Bhaalist attack and, truth be told, I wanted to hear what she had to say. What kind alliance was she proposing?

TL;DR I didn't find the Guardian to be any more trustworthy than Daisy but I was dismayed that the game did not support my attitude of distrust. Which, to be fair, was also a flaw of Throne of Bhaal . . .

Why is that a bad thing? Her purpose was clearly to tempt us, but her presence was always a massive deterrent.

The guardian is suspicious, but to be at least Daisy wasn't even suspicious, she was so far past suspicious that I could not imagine a context where she wasn't just plain the wrong choice. I only every played jnto the tadpole once just to see, it simply never felt natural to take the risk that Daisy's presence so brightly advertised. So I never used the tadpole and never dealt with Daisy, I don't even know what youre referring to with Nere and consequences. When I played a good character who used the powers here and there out of desperation, I could only ever justify using it once because then came another dream and a massive reminder of how bad an idea this was. The guardian lulled me into a sense of security even before I knew there were no consequences. I felt like "Okay, this is a being I can talk to negotiate with. They're not on the side of the absolute like I always assumed Daisy was, I knew their end goal wasn't my transformation so there was some capacity for managing things there. Daisy was just a constant red flag not to engage.

Originally Posted by Surge90sf
Originally Posted by Gray Ghost
Honestly I don't think anyone before thought that Daisy was a real person either. All the theories were that she was a vision constructed by the tadpole or some other party, but no one thought she was a real person. Daisy was, as far as we could tell in Act 1, fulfilling the same role as the guardian. The scene where we were saved from the fall played out the same, she said are was protecting us from... something. Daisy might have suited some people's tastes better, but I don't believe she was going to function substantively different from the guardian in terms of her role within the story.

I am not saying they did, but I am saying that is what I think would be best. Otherwise why bother creating your guardian? The character does not exist.

Something along the lines of:
- Netherbrain is attempting to manipulate you, but since a Netherbrain does not know what it is to be human, they are using a medium, perhaps mindcontrolling a dreamwalker into cohersing you to join their side or whatever plot is suitable.
- Same only with rogue mindflayer (Emperor?)

Now you have a reason to create your guardian at the start of the game, and it can easily branch into intriguing plots where you see "Daisy" trying to break free. You get to see if you feel compasionate towards her and maybe you can save her later, maybe she is evil and also has an agenda, which she will pursue once she breaks free. Who knows. But I honestly despise having to create a character who serves no purpose in the story, as a design choice.

The Emperor going on and on acting like a human makes no sense either, because he is not one.

Honestly I think even in the Daisy version, this system was ill conceived. Back then she was meant to be a seducer, meant to appeal sexually and that's why we could design them. But we had no context for what they are and the result wasn't sexy, it was creepy and invasive. Which if that was what Larian was going for, they decided it didn't work. The character could have just been pre-set like any other and it wouldn't have mattered, either with Daisy or Guardian.

Last edited by Gray Ghost; 14/09/23 06:43 PM.