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

My boyfriend and I were so disappointed with how at the end of our playthrough,
We thought surely we missed something? So in my solo playthrough,... it wasn't my first choice and I wouldn't call it satisfying, but I let her in the interest of avoiding what happened last time.

Determined to see if there was something more for her I tried a third time, thinking a Karlach Origin playthrough might be able to offer some catharsis, some hidden secret that lets things end in a satisfying or at least sensible way. (I also thought romancing Wyll as Karlach might be cute, since for some godsforsaken reason Dammon isn't an option for her even though he himself seems like he would have been interested.)

I was wrong on both accounts.

Not only did Wyll's romance feel uniquely bad and unfitting for Karlach (his beautiful words about spending forever together, to a girl who has maybe two more long rests to live after what was ironically an incredibly slow burn romance), but the ending was only marginally better than my second attempt.

Disappointments all around.

The entire time we were in the House of Hope I was hoping we'd find some hidden schematic, some hint or material unique to the hells that would help Dammon solve this head-scratcher and make things better her.

No hope there.

The desperate "Maybe if we save up enough soul coins we can trade them to a devil for something that will help?"

I can understand a character having a tragic end - I enjoy some good angst and even the "bad" Astarion romance end felt satisfying for what it was even if it isn't my character's true canon.
It doesn't need to be happy but it does need to be narratively satisfying. Trying and failing would have felt better than not even being able to try.

At no point after the first 30 minutes of Act 2 did it feel like we were allowed to even try to help her, even though so many possible avenues of hope for a solution existed.
Like why are there so many different icons for metal? I got my hopes up every time we downed a steelwatcher. In fact a steelwatcher confusing her for another steelwatcher made me think maybe the Gondians could help too.

So, so many threads we could have followed if we were allowed to even try or dare to ask.

I'm probably just repeating what's been said over and over in the past 63 pages but... I needed to vent.

Venting and repeating what has been already said by many before you is the absolute right thing to do here, it's a feedback thread! The fact that the points brought up are almost always the same solidifies them and keeps the flame alive. Welcome to the venting club!

I remember reading somewhere that Karlach was the second most played origin at some point. I wonder how many of those campaigns were people like some of us here, playing as her to try and find something - anything - more satisfying to her story.

I know it was my motivation to do it.

Do I have to remind you what happened with Bioware and CDPR? Game already sold and will likely win GOTY award, putting more resources into it is a waste

So what? Nobody is willing to do anything about it, maybe except complaining into the air, hoping Larian noticed and maybe in few months or even years they'll eventually do something about it. The game already sold well and has great reviews, the outrage is mostly contained here and even here all people do is praying that DE maybe will come and maybe it will fix the issue. They don't have to do anything and wouldn't be surprised if the didn't because why would they? They have money and most fans are happy, they can just use their current success and focus on a new project

You're right. They've the money. They've the reviews, the GOTY chances, the tabloid front pages. But you know what else they have? A huge love for their fans. Not many studios allow players to form the game like Larian did with BG3. Hell, Karlach wouldn't even be here without player feedback.

Thus far, they've crunched out THREE ginormous patches within a month of the game's PC release, all whilst working for it to release on PS5 and Mac. If you scroll through the full patch notes, they're near-fucking-endless. And no, there's no way they'll fix all epilogues and endings at once. There' more urgent matters that prevent players from playing the game altogether, and those need to be prioritized.

But they've also stated that they're working on the epilogues AND taking player feedback to update the game in the coming months. Give them time and keep talking about ut. Keep venting. Keep bringing up important points. They will see it.

Hell, there's a new Karlach Discord feedback post every few days and it always earns a shitton of ups/likes. People. Want. Better.

This type of attitude is really useless.


It has all been said, many times, but... I like to think that means they're aware of it, so by all means keep saying it

Of course, and it is not only about Karlach, don't forget Minthara, Halsin and all remaining companions and so on and so on. There is so much content to implement and all this needs time. They could release few hotfixes, stop the support and move on, but they already released 3 huge patches, called back voice actors and working on epilogs (I think this is a very good sign for the community that we can count with the support for a long time). This is about trust between Larian and their fans. They will support and update the game and fans will support Larian and gladly buy DOS3 in the future.

CDPR just released a massive patch that puts the game where everyone's visions for it originally was.

They did this AFTER they sold over 20 million copies.

I don't know why you think Larian isn't going to keep adding features and content when they already have.

Oh really? Then what would you propose to do, except for praying that maybe something will be fixed some day in far future? Because it's just happens that my attitiude is a result of the experience

Same thing could be said about BioWare and CDPR (CDPR especially), where are they now? So far they doubled down on the avernus ending and went out of their to try justify why it's the only option while trolling people on social media with hope baiting. And none of you cared

You can make a hell of a lot more money with a Definitive Edition as well as DLC. Why waste a flagship game on a one-and-done sale? Who does that these days?

And whats wrong with the CDPR? Cyberpunk had its mistakes and wasn't the best game during the release. Now they released huge update Phantom Liberty and made it Cyberpunk 2.0 and it is very different and more complex game that version 1.0. Lariand did similar thing (for free) with DOS1 and DOS2.

CDPR was a huge bummer on Cyberpunks release but they didnt stop there, they kept updating it and now it's almost as good as the early videos were. It reached the potential it should've had in the beginning because fans wanted more and the studio wanted to give the fans what they deserved.

Bioware was amazing until purchased and thus bottlenecked by EA. Tons of fantastic creations came out of that studio and the only reason Dreadwolf and ME are taking so long is because of all the shit that has to do with EA and how they wanna run things. When Mass Effect 3 released and fans were disappointed with the endings and epilogues, they put their asses to work and released the extended cut within 2 weeks of the release. I didn't even finish the game yet and the endings were patched.

Moreover, Bioware released huge DLCs for both ME2 and ME3 and Citadel remains, to this day, every fan's favorite because of how much amazing content it added to the story, but also what a love letter it was for the fans.

Developers care. Sometimes they just can't produce it all within a crunched timeframe, or get choked by their owners and economy. Nothing better than having happy fans, believe me.

I wouldn't say that none of us cared. What kind of statement is that even? This thread is whooping 64 pages long now and still going strong, new people keep coming to express their displeasure, vent and share their experience with Karlach, people datamine stuff looking for potential clues, Discord threads are going strong. If you have any suggestions on how to care more, fire them out

Because they've always done that? Because Larian cares about supporting their games?

I just don't understand what's the point in coming to a FEEDBACK thread and acting like giving feedback hoping for change is the wrong thing to do. I mean. What should we do then, arrange a protest in front of Larian's HQ?

Write a fix-it fanfic, what can I tell you.

Yeah, after their stock crashed, investors kicked them in the balls, fans lost all the trust they put in them and the game was pulled out of ps store. Now after 3 years we have something resembling an actual game with dlc that maybe will fix the whole thing or maybe not.

There are many companies that used to do that only to backstab their fans when they put most trust in them. It doesn't mean anything

My guy, with all do respect, you lately just seem to come into this thread and basicly say "you guys are being dumb larian made their monry off you, they wont change anything this thread is pointless"- like why are you here in a feedback thread thats dedicated to giving karlach a more fulfilling questline and a happy ending, if all you wanna do is keep trying to bring us down?