Act 1 is tremendous. Act 2 is more narrow but just as good in my opinion.
But Act 3 I just lose all drive.
It feels as though I am fighting against the game with meta knowledge rather than playing the curated path (with many branches) up to End of act 2.
The story just becomes more fragmented and wonky and the plot holes really start.
Ally with Orin. Ally with Gortash.
But careful one option cuts out major stories so really you need to ally with gortash... How do I know this? Because I finished the game already and I know the consequences of the first time I had to resort to reloading things because things weren't explained to me clearly.
I am warned somebody is an imposter in my camp but no way to find them, I just have to ignore it until I do the trigger with long rests or the sewers. Which again I know with meta knowledge.
Much agreed, especially on my second playthrough.
When I first started the game, I thought that the choice to use the tadpoles or not was going to be a big deal. I chose to abstain on my first go because it's what my character would do, and then started a whole second playthrough based on the idea that I was going to gobble every tadpole. I was also vaguely aware of some of the companion ending choices and was looking forward to mixing it up, even if I knew I wasn't going to be here for a fully "evil" run. (e.g. I was basically planning to go "Team Power-hungry" and get ascended Astarion, god Gale, maybe make a different choice regarding Wyll's pact, Shadowheart's parents, etc.)
But then it just felt like some things didn't matter as much as I thought. I could also rant about Orpheus vs Emperor for a while and how weightless and forced it seems. (I spent so long in my first playthrough assuming he was going to try to force me to be a mindflayer, or finally reveal his plans to take over the brain, and that would be the moment my first character finally had to oppose him... But no. He's chill. Almost all of his threats and rants are hollow, and he was never going to double-cross you in the end.) And despite the Emperor's insistence that Orpheus would never work with a mindflayer... that is literally the exact thing Orpheus has to do and he knows it. I feel like a simple conversation could have sorted this out, even if they both spent the finale glaring at each other.
Now, that's not to say I had an entirely bad time with it. On a single playthrough, there were things I loved. Jaheira's quest, for one. I think her Act 3 quest might be one of my favorite storylines in the game, but I may also be a bit nostalgic since I've known her since BG1. I admit to also having a fun time when doing the Open Hand temple murder mystery, although I was rather disappointed when the Duke Stelmane murder was just "Yeah, her name was on a murder cult list. Case closed." I was hoping to uncover something a bit deeper than that when this thread began.
And same feelings about the imposter in camp. I was so ready to quiz my companions and watch for signs of an imposter. I even had some weird questions forming in the back of my mind like "If Orin pretends to be Astarion, will she have a reflection?" and the kind of nonsense that might come up in an actual tabletop game if you were trying to suss out a shapeshifter. I was very disappointed to learn there was no option to be proactive at all.
I feel like Act 2 was also a little bit too narrow. I'd love to see a bit more going on with the town of Reithwin, in particular, where it feels like we have some interesting, quirky miniboss NPCs... and hardly any reason to even cross paths with them. Or perhaps something else going on with the devil characters, Raphael and Mizora, who are in this act but have very little going on. Just, something. Something with a similar feeling to having the githyanki creche that Lae'zel was determined to reach in Act 1, but for a different companion / faction, perhaps.
There are a bunch of little things I'm sure they can clean up that would help smooth out the experience, but I hope it's not too late for them to make some larger changes, too. I personally think Wyll's Act2-3 quests could use a revamp, and while pockets of Act 3 stuff are good, I'd really like to see some sprucing up of basically all the core plots with Gortash, Orin, and the Emperor.
