I've said elsewhere on this forum that the story suffers from a lack of essential npcs able to contribute to the plot. If you thinkabout it, the emperor is the only non-optional npc we interact with with any kind of regularity. Larian is trying to tell a really big story that needs more people in it to play parts. I think if the emperor and the villains weren't the only character that major plot points could rest on, they'd have had more freedom to make things work. I also think that act 3 suffers from a lack of central point. I think that part of why act 3 feels so disjointed is that it lacks a sort of central place to return to. I don't think camp really works because it feels so seperate from the rest of the world. I'm talking about a place like Last Light inn, where a bunch of merchants and friendly npcs are gathered. As it is now, we just slowly advance through the city, which doesn't really feel natural or how you navigate a city at all. it made sense in act 1 since you were out in the wild, it even makes sense in act 2 for the same reason, but I think a place on the map that you come back to that feels like a natural sort of home base would have gone a long way towards grounding things without changing the actual progression of events.
