Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion [END SPOILS WARNING] Addressing Karlach (PLEASE PUT SPOILERS IN TAGS)

Thank you kindly! And I appreciate your datamining efforts very much, it's fantastic and looks like black magic to me haha. We all contribute to Justice for Karlach movement in different ways and I love it!

To be fair i've found the " X approves/disapproves" popups to be very fickle in some specific conversations, you still get the approval/disapproval but the popup sometimes just doesn't show up/shows for a split second/shows without the correlated character portrait, at least in my experience

Ditto! Glad we are all in it together

Im still of the mind the changes weve seen to dialogue and the cinematic is strictly to address the abruptness oc karlachs current situation. Like ppl have said the whole thing seemed like hope baiting through out. ( because i think it was intended fir her to be fixed in upper city/ avernus)
I am still of the mind they will be adding things in to flesh her quest out and give her a happy ending but if they are giving us a path like an avernus section to get her heart fixed then that will take time.
This can be seen as hopium giving the slight changes they made for patch 2
But it is also completely reasonable considering Larians track record. But one things for sure, this thread is on fire, so we keep it going and larian will see that this is a pretty big deal for a good chunk of their fanbase

Patch 3 live, there are many small fixes for Karlach as I quickly went throught the patch notes (https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=901393&gonew=1#UNREAD), I hope I didnt miss something really important about the story. For me it is good sign, because I do hope that means, that they want bigger changes and they need more time. Upper city, Avernus, new engine, new good enging, see u soon in definitive edition.

There is literally nothing for Karlach except for few bug fixes, that doesn't mean crap. If anything, I'd say they are actually happy with what we got and won't change a thing

Patch 3 is indeed live!

I know after Patch 2 it is really easy to fall down a spiral of shouting "LARIAN ISN'T LISTENING!!!". But this patch is HEFTY with bug fixes, dialogue, cutscene edits, clarification, and the magic mirror feature.

They've made it clear in the past that they want to add epilogues/endings for all the characters and Karlach happened to get the first of these. More is definitely on the way so I think the other party members will be the focus. Maybe we'll see something in later patches, but there's a plenty to go through for the other characters as well. They're doing a lot of work, just give them more time. There's a lot of game to work on besides Karlach, despite how much we want it. Keep up the talks and ideas!

Justice for Karlach!

(EDIT - tarraxahum in the post below is right and I don't want to suggest that we should be hoping for any given patch to give us what we want, and changed the post to reflect that.)

I'd say patches like this and likely a good chunk of patches going forward will be mainly fixing and polishing existing stuff (and adding general gameplay things like the mirror, which is cool) and won't reflect anything about their intentions on adding/not adding story content for the characters*. For QUITE some time.

And we seriously need to stop expecting foreseeable patches to indicate (or outright fix) anything, the only thing that does is make us disappointed.

EDIT: * - apart from the epilogues they already promised, yes, but for the story content that there is - we already got that.

Maybe I'm DEEP in the doomer pit but I was actually expecting them to remove the Enhanced Infernal Iron and some of the hopeful dialog options.

They didn't so that... cool I think?

I just can't agree more with tarraxahum! 100% my thoughts on the patch situation. Adding "missing" or "new" content now, chunk by chunk will look like they are trying hard to "finish the game that is not finished". I think that IF they will add new story content, it will be in one big chunk (i.e Definitive Edition)

Exactly, if we will see some Karlachs questline (I mean whole Karlach story with everything) improvements in the future, it will not be in a form of a patch, but in DE. We need give them time.

Recalling actors, recording, mocap, fleshing out stuff, programming, making everything consistent under a narrative and gameplay perspective... these things take an enormous amount of time, money and planning. even more so if the content is to actually be good instead of put together at the last second. It's pretty obvious that we won't see anything in the following patches that addresses the situation in a way that we would love, and that's completely fine. The fact that the glaring issues we all brought up aren't mentioned in the patch 3 notes is actually a good sign (imho), i see it as not outright committing to the doomed narrative. Removing existing threads (erasing enriched infernal iron, cutting dialogue referencing a possible fix etc. etc.) is infinitely easier than creating new specific content (still a big undertaking under a technical point of view but doesn't even come close to actually creating new content and implementing it in an already established framework). The stuff we are hoping for is stuff that can be brought to life only with time and patience, the only thing that we can do is to keep the flame alive, for now. ^^

You and Enerif are right of course, but is a little official acknowledgement too much to ask?

If anything, we should be happy that the crumbs of possibility are still ingame (items, convos, possible engine solutions) as they do fix A Ton of icks with every patch that releases. This one is hefty on loads of seemingly minor things but a ton of those havw made their appearence in feedback forums and Discord.

Same goes for the Mirror. Changing/editing your character mid-game has been very often requested and it only goes to tell that Larian IS taking in the feedback. After all, the feedback of EA is what gave them such an amazing and solid Act 1 and mostly Act 2. They are aware of our love for Karlach and I think that, as many have pointed out above me here, the next step will be other companion epilogues, potentially some more Minthara adjustments, and whatever big changes that are highly requested re: plot options, choices and OUR GIRL KARLACH, will happen at a later date. There's gotta be teams assigned for that stuff and whatever lines that haven't been recorded or mocap that's yet to be captured, will take extra time to implement.

We will save our girl yet. Keep the flame alive, Soldiers!

I mean, no, it's not too much to ask and it would be nice to see indeed!

But going off of Larian's given tradition of not mentioning big stuff until it's already incoming it might just be a mute point to waste energy on. Y'know, for our sake more than theirs.

By "it" I mean despairing for an acknowledgment, of course, not the movement itself. There's no way in hell (heh) they aren't aware of us, and so far I believe we're good at keeping it that way.

I am beginning to feel like this movement is the REAL final Karlach questline...

We never got closure and we're all comforting one another by the campfire, so in a way you're right ahah

I guess they don't want to put themselves in a position where they overpromise and underdeliver. That's how it's always been with Larian. But hell yeah, a small simple reassurance that Karlach's quest/ending will be fixed some time down the line (or even if them saying they will look into it) would've been just magical. But then again, I believe it was tarraxahum who said that despite all of us here wanting the same thing, we imagine it differently or want it done through different means. I guess it's just really tricky with announcements that can be twisted and later used against them

Played through Cyberpunk again to prep me for Phantom Libery:

CYBERPUNK SPOILERS!!!




It got me comparing V's story to Karlach.
I know a lot of people wanted a happy ending for V; I did as well. But CDPR could not have told a more perfect tragedy.

Every single ending holds significance in what it means to live a life. The ending where you let Johnny take over your body legit had me tearing up. You gave your life for someone else to have a shot at redemption. Every ending tells you something about yourself and what it means to be a person. Do you want glory? Do you want to just end the pain? Do you want to live the little time you have left with your loved ones or betray them all and claw at the small chance you have to live?

It's an incredible story of a doomed character.

Again, I WANTED V to live, but I could walk away from the game knowing the developers had a true vision and one they told incredibly well.


But Karlach? What is the lesson?

Good people die? I watch the news, I understand that already.
Bad shit happens to kind people? I'm a 33 year old man, I learned that a long time ago.

For a character like Karlach, she would need to be the center of the ENTIRE game for her story to bare weight. And even her origin character just feels like a giant circle with no closure. Instead we get 2 fetch quests and are expected to think her story has lasting meaning. But it just frustrates the players, leaving questions of why there are so many loose ends and unexplored options.

I respect what Larian was trying to do with her. But her story isn't something that can be told well by a companion. There isn't enough there to have any lasting meaning. Especially in a game that puts choices and consequences at the forefront.

There is a chance we won't get definitive edition. Act 3 barely works on PC, so in few days we'll see how poorly it looks on Macs. How do you expect more things to be added? Now add the new voicelines for Karlach from patch 2 and you see that it's very not likely