So I've played this game since launch and have overall enjoyed it. Much has been said about the story problems of act 3 but I have a position that will probably be far more controversial. I don't think the main story of this game really works at any point.
That's not to say there aren't good stories in the game or that there aren't good moments, but I don't think the actual main plot of this game ever hangs together as a cohesive whole. There are holes and confusions at nearly every turn, and when there aren't, then it's because the "main" plot is only string to justify going around places .
Starting in act 1 we have a bombastic opening sequence. We see all the weird space stuff and immediately establish the threat of the tadpole. A threat that is hyped up to be super important but that immediately starts to slowly Peter out until you're expected to just not worry about it. What's the actual plot of this act? It's trying to find a healer. Every attempt you try fails and you're eventually funneled to Moonrise towers. Okay, fine. But that's not a plot or a story, that's a goal. You could say that the druid and goblin conflict are the main story of act 1, but they don't connect to the larger plot itself. You learn some clues about the larger plot, but the STORY doesn't really develop much. And beyond that, despite for most of act 1 having no real idea of the benefits of the tadpole we are given the ability to embrace tadpole powers that run entirely counter to the point of act 1. Bit also, probably roughly halfway through we get told that trying to remove the tadpole will kill us, so we really lose any motivation to try and remove it through the ways laid out in the act. Though maybe you don't trust who tells us so it's not the worst.
Then the druid conflict concludes one way or another (though you could just skip all that and progress if you wanted to anyway) and you have to choose a path to moonrise. Only... you don't actually have to choose, and if you care about companion stories you're going to go to both areas anyway.
Then you make it Moonrise, which is probably the strongest area in term of main plot and story. Your goal?
Infiltrate the cult to learn the nature of the tadpoles and the absolute. To do that you end up needing to go to the sharran temple and eventually deal with the Nightsong. All that is potentially tied up with a companion who may or may not be there and actually only has superficial ties to the main story that are barely if ever actually justified. Oh and the main villain of this act, whose motives are all about family and grief, has a whole bunch of supposed family around that are just never commented on.
Then we attack moonrise and we make it to the mindflayer hive, where we can just... Read papers that tell us exactly what the absolute is right before the big reveal. A baffling choice. Then we see the 3 chosen and get a better handle of what's going on... at the end of act 2. And finally we make it to act 3, where we learn about the Emperor and the wheels of the plot kind of come off entirely. We have a huge host of side quests and are told the netherbrain is unstable and we need to hurry, but also we need to gather allies. But also one of our companions might be kidnapped and threatened with death if we don't do one of the two things to progress the main story.
On top of all that, we never really get a good explanation for why the initial nautiloid did what it did, taking all these prisoners from a wide range of places, so the inciting incident of the story is a jumbled mess.
So yeah, that's wh I think the story and plot of this game never at any point comes together and works. Nothing is really cohesive, nothing is ever leading neatly into the next thing. The threads, even the individual strong ones, never seem to work together.
