Oh I liked the idea of that purity system Crimsomrider came up with. Ofc, I wouldn't call that purity, more like 'willpower' or something. 'Psionic shielding' or 'Psionic barrier' akin to the 'Githzerai Mind Barrier' that can be received in the mind flayer colony.
I have been pretty vocal about some types of consequences to using tadpoles and illithid dialogue options since EA really... I would love different ending options, but like with ME3 I don't think Larian will buckle much from their original vision. I hope they will prove me wrong, but I have said it and it's been stated many many times that
the Emperor just dipping out only because he thinks Orpheus is beyond reason is a rather weak story moment and paints the Emperor as a true hypocrite - he wants us to trust him, but when it comes to trusting us, or our ability to sway Orpheus, nah, fam, that's too much. Classic example of "One rule for thee, another one for me."
I also love how people have already mentioned one of my favortie D&D stories ever told (next to BG2) - NWN2:MotB. I genuinelly thought that Larian would go more that route with BG3. In both games you have something monstrous within you that threatens to consume you from the inside if left unchecked. In both games you wanna get rid of it... except you can't and you can gain different perks by either trying to remove it or satiating it. And this is where similarities end: in MotB you DIE if spirit meter reaches 0. In MotB you sure gain power ups, but they are differently flavored. MotB actually tracks your morality, more or less, and what you've done so far: you can become the walking, ever consuming black hole for souls, or you can partially disentangle the spirit eater from yourself, or fully do it. There are so many different endings. Heck, you can kill Okku, devour him and recruit One-Of=Many in his stead. The game very smartly tracks all your decisions and opens or locks some options as consequences of said decisions. And this is something BG3 sorely lacks in act 3. Act 1 tracks everything nicely, many different ways to finish quests, act 2 still tracks SOME decisions, but not to the same extent as act 1, and act 3 becomes a mess... Whatever you've done in act 1/2 is barely ever mentioned again. And then come the dreaded tadpoles.
If I was Larian, I wouldn't try to reinvent the wheel and stick to their original idea from the EA. Make Daisy less gropey, and make it so you get dreams regardless of tadpole use (like you do now), and make it so if the player is not using these powers, Daisy tries different tactics to entice us. Bring the consequences back like we had them (or they were implied) in EA. Like Nere mind dominating us when we've gotten the true soul tag by constantly relying on tadpoles. Like some people suggested, make it so you can only get so far into Moonrise if you aren't illithid enough (make Ketheric instantly notice us, other than being a Durge, make it so Z'rell will very likely attack us in that scenario) and make it nearly impossible to move around in Last Light if you suffer a full brain necrosis.
There are so many different cool things Larian could do. Sure, in patch 4 they made it so you can't stomp the Astral Tadpole anymore and you have to succeed a check to not evolve, but imho there should be more. Imho, the more taddies you dump in your brain prior to the Astral one, your looks should change regardless. It should be gradual, black veins here and there. not the: here, you got black eyes, veins and your teeth rot and fall out all at once... Imho, it should be gradual and NPCs should notice, aside from our romantic interests and the party. Just like in MotB you didn't suddenly develop black swirls around your character and the ability to continuously feed from nearby spirits. It's not about the destination, but the journey, no?
Anyway, I will rest my case for now... until I can think of something else.
