I don't mind unhappy endings. If you know thats what happens on one route then on subsequent playthroughs if you want to avoid it you take things down a different path. Or you just live with it.
However it should be an even playing field.
Most of the companions have a bad ending, a good or at least good ish ending and something in between.
Except for Karlach who has three bad endings (overkill or what Larian?) and Astarion who either has an evil vampire trope ending or has a redemption arc but is made the butt of a tasteless joke and thus has one evil ending and one bad ish ending.
What I object to is Larian disrespecting their own character arcs.
One issue Larian seem to have not given any thought to is if you play as Astarion and have romanced Karlach or vice versa, the dock scene becomes a miserable mess as nothing plays out as it should.
For Karlach they dropped a ton of hints that there was a way to cure her in Act 1 and a lot of Act2. Ok so they didn't want to implement a fix in this game for whatever reason but something else could easily have been implemented, a convo with an Iron Hand or Gondian "We think we're onto something but it won't be ready for while. Go to Avernus and we'll carry on working on it".
Then don't do her moving back as a panicked thing on the docks but have it later allowing breathing room and proper farewells to her friends, allowing a romanced Astarion to actually talk to her and decide (or not) to go with her, tears etc but generally more upbeat and hopeful even though sad. The existing dock scenes for her are just dramatic BS for the sake of it, and did nothing for her character arc.
For Unascended Astarions awful dock scene, just cut it completely, it's evening, he can find out tomorrow than the sun won't be shining on him anymore. Snide mockery of a character that the other companions have fought alongside for the entirety of the game, and have come to respect due to his redemption arc, is terribly tone deaf. OK under other circumstances, he can dish it out himself let's be honest, but not when someone is in fear and pain.
Upside of this is more time for other scenes with Lae'zel, Gale etc play out properly.
One conversation amd a small delay, and one 'cut a bit of a scene out' and two companions fans would have been a whole lot happier.
I'm sure a few of the other endings only need minor tweeks such as this to be more acceptable. I am less familiar with them so hesitate to suggest anything.
The main issue I feel is that they cut too much out of Act 3 (and quite badly in the case of the endings), and yet we still have a ridiculous amount of things to do. It could easily have gone to an Act 4 and kept some of what was originally envisaged, including decent crafted endings. The endings we get are badly written in general and seem to have been cobbled toggether by a writer with little knowledge of the character he was writing for, and with frankly appalling implementation.
Rushing a game out the door to compete with another games release has done them well from the point of view of accolades and awards - don't think the same can be said for pleasing their fans
