Baldur's Gate 3 was a delectable full course meal where I got served charcoal for dessert. When all is said and done, the main thing I will remember from it is the bitter taste I was left with in the end.
I think that's what I'm most bitter about. The badness of the ending (and not just Karlach's) has completely papered over how I felt for the first 85-90% of the game. All those good feelings, I know I felt them, but I have no memory of them. What I remember is suddenly noticing that the game was falling apart, going silent, pieces were falling off, and I wasn't going to get anything approaching an ending.
I know it's a new world from when I was a kid, and everything's more expensive now, but I remember when Blizzard was famous for delaying every game they released multiple times, but when the game finally dropped it was always flawless. Larian couldn't have kept this thing in the oven for another few months and finished Act 3?
Not a single developer is happy when they have to ship a product they haven't finished working on or haven't been able to give it proper polish, i'm sure it was internally discussed and they figured they had to one up starfield by anticipating the release date. They didn't anticipate the massive success they had though, i assure you that if they KNEW the amount of attention they were going to get + the sales figure they are currently looking at, they would've waited way more time no questions asked. But those things are impossible to know beforehand, especially for a game like baldur's gate, it was a gamble (and it paid off for them). That unfortunately means that we got what we got, but it's also the reason why most of us are hopeful and still posting: since they never had a release this big on their hands, there's a higher chance that they will not outright drop the game and call it a day. Taking a break from development? Sure thing, it makes sense. But dropping your golden goose? Doesn't make a speck of sense from a financial standpoint.
Not saying this applies to Larian, but there are devs out there who do not care about the product they do and only for their paycheck.
Also, about this golden goose, we don't really know how long they can use the DnD license. One would assume it's a long deal, but you never know.
That ending for her is literally perfect in my opinion lol. Seems like Larian forgot to ask Sam about the endings, maybe if they asked Sam and gave Karlach that ending, we wouldnt even have to fight for Justice ( Justice 4 Karlach )
The part of the interview where "if a fight breaks out, she'd join in" is SO TRUE hahaha. And I guess she'd secretly hope for it, so she could get to smashing something every once in a while.
I wonder if everyone here is content with her engine possibly exploding trope at all, personally I found it utterly boring to begin with. Do you guys want her story to be about saving the damsel from unstable heart to be fleshed out or something else entirely? I think it would lack nuance in the matter, you either help her if you like her or not, there is no room for debate or moral dilemma. They can introduce it of course that in order to save her you have to sacrifice someone else, we'll see.
I already made a point that I would like them to redo her questline from scratch from act 2 onward (there isn't much to scrap tbh), based on what is known about her and her engine:
- The engine gives power and martial prowess to the user and modifies their body (fire resistance, fiery skin) and personality a bit (makes her rage more) - The engine can be modified by an infernal smith with infernal iron and maybe something else - Zariel is very offended that her asset escaped Avernus and wants her back dead or alive - Karlach experience in Avernus is very traumatic due to almost constant warfare for a span of 10 years and initial betrayal of the person she trusted who sold her to Zariel
This are enough pointers to evolve her character on a basis of Revenge vs Freedom. In act 2 Dammon comes to her with a project of further improving her engine, pushing it beyond its limits. Some rare creatures or elementals must be hunted for the materials, but in result she gains more power and some unique abilities. Zariel lackeys then attack, but Karlach disposes of them alone and without much effort. However it becomes clear that overclocking the engine had an effect on her personality, she suddenly becomes more violent and irritable. She notices it too and makes an apology to the MC, but time is of the essence and we move forward to act 3.
In act 3 we travel to Baldur's gate so here we can find several unique opportunities to tune her engine. Untimately she can take one of three paths: - become a paladin of Torm (oath to fight demons in Faerun and defend people), her engine is cleansed from demonic corruption and retains some of its abilities, but she must follow the law of Torm who now powers her engine and should she step from it she dies. Her personality restores. - make the engine overpowered. Filled with rage and demonic might, Karlach leaves to Avernus to kill and overthrow Zariel and make the most of her newfound strength. Her personality takes a violent turn, influenced by the engine. But she would possibly rule Avernus. - restore the heart. Her personality restores, but she loses her awesome powers from the engine and must fend off Zariels killers by herself or with the help of friends
Yea karlachs quest line only revolving around her engine needing to be fixed was a mistake, especially since it really only is a fetch quest. Completely reworking her questline to be something different would be a massive undertaking though, for one they'd have to remove/add so much more dialogue not only for karlach but the companions as well. Theyd have to bring back so many new and old actors, do all the voice acting AND mocapping, plan a new script for her questline, new endings - its a lot of work for just fixing one character, even if the players have been super vocal about her questline.
Larian could add some avernus ''dungeon'' area where we can explore karlachs past and find a cure(same way the other companions get an area to explore their stories, like the creshe for laezel, cazadors mansion for astarion etc) and have it take place after the confrontation with gortash. That way the questline would be exactly the same as now and larian wouldnt have to change anything up until after gortashs death, the only new content would be avernus itself and a new ending. But thats probably also unlikely to happen since that would also take a lot of work. I guess they could make an avernus adventure dlc although it would feel pretty shady to have karlachs quest locked behind paid content lol
An actual fix for example. And no, the patches were mostly bug fixes outside shitty cutscene that made the whole situation much worse than it was on the release, possibility to remove afk tavs from the party and possibility to change your appearance (aka things that should be in game on the launch). And what's wrong with cyberpunk? Propably the fact that we had to wait 3 years since the release to actually get something playable, if you're fine with games being absolute mess on the release, you're part of the problem
Originally Posted by Enerif
Originally Posted by Feris
Kole knows what I'm talking about and if you'd take a head out of your ass, you'd know I used CDPR and BioWare because they were famous for good reputation among the players. I can also bring up blizzard, maybe ubisoft if you want or whatever else became crude parody of what it used to be. In this business everyone turns on the customers eventually
I don't know what part of "independent studio" isn't getting to you, but everything you used for a comparison was never an independent studio to begin with.
And how does that make any difference? Companies are created to earn money and that's what BG3 did. Once big money comes into play your friendly neighbourhood company will always turn your back on you, I just used companies that were famous for having loyal playerbase that they listened to. Look how they ended up.
Nah, changing her quest to not be about her engine is not happening nor should it, it's too tied into the game and it is the basis of her character's entire conflict. Having an Avernus DLC where we fix her engine is also very unlikely as it would require a massive amount of work just so they can fix one character.
The simplest way Larian can fix her ending is by giving us the option to talk to Zanner Toobin about her engine after we've saved the gondians and done the Steel Watch foundry quest and killed Gortash. Have Zanner tell us that he and his engineers can convert/replace her engine into the plane-stable version they've designed for the Steel Watch but he will need X amount of Enriched Infernal Iron to do it. Then go to him and have him apply this final fix and voila, Karlach's questline is complete.
The work involved for Larian in this resolution is pretty minimal. A few extra dialogue options for talking to Toobin and for talking to Karlach after her engine is fixed. A couple of extra cutscenes, one where Toobin fixes her engine and she is elated and relieved, and one for the ending where instead of the forced tragedy she is happy, grateful and looking forward to her future. Remove Karlach's doomer dialogue options after she is fixed. Finally, if on this route, disable the dialogue option which leads to Karlach volunteering to become a mindflayer - she obviously would not want to do that anymore now that her engine is properly fixed.
This turn of events preserves the whole dead-woman-walking idea right up until almost the end, allows for Karlach's post-killing-Gortash rant to still happen (and it should because that's one of the best moments in the game), allows us to use one of the very obvious in-universe solutions to Karlach's problem that anyone with two brain cells to rub together can see, gives a purpose to the Enriched Infernal Iron that we all know was meant to be used for exactly this, the bad endings are still there and there are plenty of ways you could mess up and get them, AND it requires minimal work from Larian.
Nah, changing her quest to not be about her engine is not happening nor should it, it's too tied into the game and it is the basis of her character's entire conflict. Having an Avernus DLC where we fix her engine is also very unlikely as it would require a massive amount of work just so they can fix one character.
The simplest way Larian can fix her ending is by giving us the option to talk to Zanner Toobin about her engine after we've saved the gondians and done the Steel Watch foundry quest and killed Gortash. Have Zanner tell us that he and his engineers can convert/replace her engine into the plane-stable version they've designed for the Steel Watch but he will need X amount of Enriched Infernal Iron to do it. Then go to him and have him apply this final fix and voila, Karlach's questline is complete.
The work involved for Larian in this resolution is pretty minimal. A few extra dialogue options for talking to Toobin and for talking to Karlach after her engine is fixed. A couple of extra cutscenes, one where Toobin fixes her engine and she is elated and relieved, and one for the ending where instead of the forced tragedy she is happy, grateful and looking forward to her future. Remove Karlach's doomer dialogue options after she is fixed. Finally, if on this route, disable the dialogue option which leads to Karlach volunteering to become a mindflayer - she obviously would not want to do that anymore now that her engine is properly fixed.
This turn of events preserves the whole dead-woman-walking idea right up until almost the end, allows for Karlach's post-killing-Gortash rant to still happen (and it should because that's one of the best moments in the game), allows us to use one of the very obvious in-universe solutions to Karlach's problem that anyone with two brain cells to rub together can see, gives a purpose to the Enriched Infernal Iron that we all know was meant to be used for exactly this, the bad endings are still there and there are plenty of ways you could mess up and get them, AND it requires minimal work from Larian.
This is likely the most we can expect from larian, yes. It would still leave karlachs questline to be rather dull and not give her big character moments/her own dungeon area for us to explore like the other companions get, which is disappointing. Still, id rather take a small patch that let us fix her engine rather than nothing i guess
I would very much prefer they dont take the DLC route, for karlach. It would feel very disingenuine for larian to try fixing the most requested character change. Thriugh a paid DLC. Ill pay fir a ANY dlc they come out with. Would just rather it not be directly tied to any of the origin characters.
