Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Justice for Minthara

Sometimes I really do feel like we're being punished for liking Minthara so much and Larian is being petty with their inconsistent writing like the one with her breaking up with good Durge.

Honestly, I don't know what else to think after that + Minthy being broken for MONTHS. MONTHS. It's unexcusable.

Not only that, it's also pretty inconsistent since she's all about freeing yourself from any god's or master's whims. And yet wants us to be slaves to Bhaal? For what, power? What power exactly, other than having the urges to desecrate bodies because daddy wants it? And possibly killing Minthara in the future?

Larian, I am begging you to stop changing things and just fix that poor woman so I can romance her in peace.

The timing of it all when I was doing a good durge run and romanced Minthara, as I was about to do the Orin quest this hotfix happens. And the repeating lines.

Rip to my second try at romancing her I guess since my first one was so bugged to the point I couldn't up her relationship status.

I can't believe that Larian rewards Minthara's fans with this, after months of waiting for them to fix it and give it more content, what do they do? well make it impossible to have a romance with her in a good run with durge, it really seems like they love doing the opposite of what people ask of them, super nice

This is usually the effect I see a topic driven by passion tends to do, least has done in the past on a different forum for a different game by a different company, where the more fans express a desire of something and topic gives the total opposite effect out of it, like harder you push more likely eyes will divert away from it.

I just genuinly hope this topic won't have a similar such butterfly effect for this game, I don't honestly expect Larian dev team to come on the forums and read as much into forums for how consistently inaccessible it tends to be as of late with these forums, I always send bug reports and feedbacks by e-mail directly to Larian myself and have done so for 5 months by now while always being constructive and appreciative and not cause any disservice unfairly with what has been achieved.

I think what I found so funny from the breakup with Durge is that it's not even a breakup, Minthara would go back to saying "I am yours. Come to me." and literally making out with Durge on the altar right after saying "If you have any strength left, bring it to the battlefield. You certainly do not have enough to share my bed anymore." and storming away. Barring obviously flawed and inconsistent characterization, they didn't even bother getting the breakup flag to work regardless of what their intention may be XD

I admire the patience, really. There are only few who can stay positive about this, and it's usually people who have never experienced Minthara for themselves but still somewhat care for her. Among those who have and dearly love her character, the frustration has truly reached its peak that sometimes we don't bother anymore and just go on to enjoy fanwork.

????????

I'm personally not at all mad at Larian for this, I just pity them because they seem incompetent, or rather ignorant, when it comes to fixing bugs with Minthara specifically. Everyone else seems to be lightyears ahead in being developed, at least in terms of just functioning like a normal companion and having coherent progression, while Minthara has been staying in the Early Access section since the very release of the game. She is quite literally being developed as we speak, and we have no choice but to witness this because they've chosen to give us constant updates. Larian is inviting us to watch over their shoulders and witness the disappointment that is their subpar priority management and decision-making.

Regarding bug reports, a friend of a friend dug deep into the bug where Minthara's dialogue options with Durge are erased after having a scene with Sceleritas, even sending the instructions to fix this in the form of a long list of code - marked and explained. That was in Early January. Thanks to Hotfix #21, it is now clear there have been zero improvements in how they're handling Minthara and said bug (and many others) have remained unfixed after 7 months. Instead new ones have sprouted, and they're not unlike her older ones. Press F for all the Minthara fans.

I just came across Minthara breaking up with me as a redeemed Dark Urge in my playthrough. Anyone care to explain what in the hell did I just witness?

After everything we've been through as an incredibly loyal, devoted, supportive and loving couple, even telling me 2 minutes prior to my duel with Orin all about our alurlssrin bond and hoping we'd always be together... she starts scolding me, insulting me and treating me like a useless piece of trash, a mere weapon, an object, a Bhaal's BITCH!!! Abandoning me in an instant like I'm nothing to her, all because I refused to be a slave to a psychopathic lunatic of a god?!

• Did Larian forget she hates the gods with passion?!
• Did Larian forget she sees followers of these gods as victims whose devotions are rewarded with death?!
• Did Larian forget she considers all gods evil pricks?!
• Did Larian forget she would NEVER EVER serve anyone again, let alone have her lover fall into the same trap?!

Seeing that horseshit of a scene left such an awful taste in my mouth that it pretty much entirely ruined Minthara as a character for me now and lost any respect I had for Larian. Her entire character arc butchered with a single scene and thrown into the trash! It's clear to me now that Larian sitting on their lazy ass doing nothing for over two years hasn't been enough of a punishment for Minthara and us as her fans, they also gotta piss all over her character so she can't even be likeable anymore. All they're capable of is just piling up more and more horseshit bugs on top of her and pissing all over her character.

Just what in the hell is this scene that makes her an insane lunatic treating her love interest like utter trash that means nothing to her?! DISGUSTING!!!

That's why I said I feel we're honestly being punished for liking and romancing Minthara. Because "we're not supposed to". It truly feels like a big middle finger from Larian.

Dev 1: So people like Minthara
Dev 2: Not Halsin?
Dev 1: Nah
Dev 2: Lmao make her unlikable then, make her break up with good Dark Urge
Dev 1: That's sick, will do!

It's also very much contradictory which gives me major whiplash. Sad. Minthara has always been about you and everyone else being free of any god controlling you, yes, even Bhaal because being a slayer offers no power - you are still a slave to your dad.

So, what gives really? Did the writers completely forgot that part? She's so inconsistent it actually gives me physical pain.

Yeah this is kind of odd considering in Act 2 she was kind of Fuck all the gods, we will grab our own power.

So... why is she suddenly so pro-god?

Thats just...horrible...

Wouldn't be surprised at the slightest.

YES, that's EXACTLY how I felt. I was literally stun-locked for a whole minute after seeing her treat me like utter shit out of nowhere. All of this coming from Minthara who has been nothing but extremely grateful, pragmatic, devoted, faithful and supportive throughout the whole journey.

• Minthara who thanked me MULTIPLE TIMES for saving her life
• Minthara who is so grateful that she feels like she can never pay back what was done for her
• Minthara who after dealing with Orin says SHE WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO DO ANY OF THIS WITHOUT US
• Minthara who wants to spend the rest of eternity with us
• Minthara who is incredibly pragmatical and always keeps her emotions in check
• Minthara who literally uses the rarest word in her vocabulary to describe our relationship, because we're the only ones she ever truly let inside her heart

Only to then do a complete 180 out of nowhere and for the first time ever become completely irrational and emotional while scolding me, insulting me and abandoning me out of anger because I refuse to remain Bhaal's enslaved bitch?! Something she has a single line for in the ENTIRE FREAKING GAME?!

• She has ZERO INFLUENCE on Dark Urge's personal quest and provides ZERO UNIQUE CONTENT regarding it
• She is a f***ing shallow robot that just follows us around with no content of her own whatsoever
• She has ZERO INFLUENCE on anything throughout the whole game
• ZERO REACTIONS to having her in the party
• ZERO WEIGHT to having her around...

And then Larian decides they're gonna make her a problem for Dark Urge's personal quest, despite her having no influence on it whatsoever?! Who came up with this drivel?!

My feedback which I was hoping to post today literally has this as one of the bullet points for her;


I WANT HER to carry more weight in ACT III, I want her to have more impact on the story, to have something of her own or to grow together with Dark Urge as a character by making their personal quest more intertwined so she DOES have an influence on it and unique content for it.

Not this horseshit where she is out of nowhere a genocidal irrational lunatic that starts attacking her own love interest like a spoiled brat! THE REAL MINTHARA WOULD BE THE FIRST IN LINE TO RUN UP TO US AND PASSIONATELY EMBRACE US FOR TELLING BHAAL TO F*** OFF!

It's definitely leaning towards character assassination. Some people have theorized it's a bug as she doesn't really break up with Durge despite reacting so harshly to it, though we can't be sure if that specific part is a bug or if this entire exchange triggering is the bug. It makes absolutely no sense.

The kiss option is still there afterwards, and people have reported we can still get her epilogue even after triggering this. Truly disheartening to see no improvements have been made in terms of how they're treating her. It's been 7 months, we are not in EA anymore.

I think its fair to say Minthara is kind of half finished, same is true for most of the characters in Act 3 and in Act 2 there is really not a lot of content when you compare it to Act 1.

Larian may have run out of time and to be honest the further game progresses the more permutations there are so there more content possibilities they had to cover while in Act 1 everyone starts at the same page.
So if you could have all possibilities playing out in one play through the character development and presence would be a lot but not so right now because you are seeing one small tail end of a very large tree....

I hope between now and the eventual final patch/Definitive Edition there is more character content in Act 3 for all the characters and a complete overhaul for both Halsin and Minthara because they feel half finished even more so compared to the others.
Thats why these scenes feels out of character probably... its all they got?

With what we are witnessing right now she feels like an incomplete character. A scrambled mess and it's like the writers don't know where to go from there with her. Weird how they paid more attention to Halsin as a companion/being more relevant to the story than Minthara considering they're both non origin companions. (granted, Halsin has his own problems but he generally feels more complete compared to Minthy)

You'd think they'd give the same courtesy to her, but even in the 'evil' path she feels incomplete it's almost sad. She feels very shallow in this, she went from a ambiguously morally complicated character to this plain 'muh power' character in this particular scene... not sure what was the point really, writers should keep notes on each character on what they've said previously before making such drastic actions. And, in Minthy's case, the 'fuck all the gods, it's you and me against everyone. We are not going to be dictated by anyone and we will make our own life' just got thrown out the window. How is it possible?


Character assassination indeed, as rendemption put it.

First they commit character assassination on Viconia DeVir, entirely contradicting her character growth in BG2 and either of her epilogues (in both ending she pretty much switches to True Neutral alignment and in non-romance ending joins forces with Drizzt and becomes a hero ffs!):





Then they do everything in their power to ruin Minthara.

Does Larian has some anti-Drow agenda or something? WTF is this stinky pile of crap?

Lmao. 'A madwoman, butchering prey in the name of a god who would discard me without a thought once i was no longer of use. Bhaal....'


Yeah.. about that.

I felt very fortunate to have experienced MInthara as extesnively adn as bug free as was possible month or two prior to release of patch 6 the very first time I sided with Minthara, I grew very affectionate and consider Minthara as my top favorite trust me, I did not even know how long term msot of her issues have been until this topic brought my attention and motivated me to reigster up it, it feels very painful to see all of this...

.. I do feel very strongly about the characertization done to Minthara with this latest change which isn't even fucntioning properly on itself..

Here is why I consider this a bug and/or incompetence from one who did not understand why this specific dialogue was coded "IMPOSSIBLE" in the line, my theory is that when her reactivity got part way fixed, someone must have inadvertedly removed this tag from the line and for the god of Mystra, why is this not documented in the patch log if its an intentional change?

It just does not make any sense since release of patch 5 that introduced epiloque chapter, I sent a very technical and extensive bug report regarding this and hoping it gets redacted back with the "IMPOSSIBE" tag, it seriously should have been brought back to drawing table and be re-worded, this feels like content that was recorded and worked on from long time ago, like why was this piece of line not reworked to adjust with the narration changes patch 5 brought to us?

I remembered one more bug with Minthara which you need to add to your list. It's about interaction in Cazador's palace. Minthara comments about influence of this place on Astarion even she never saw him. In my playthrough I killed him when he tried to bite my tav. (almost beginning of the game)

Oh! Do you have any screenshots for this? Or a recording? I need to personally confirm this before adding anything, but I have Astarion in all my playthroughs at the moment.


100%, I'm really questioning their ability to write if this is intentional. I think the conflict (as a concept) works but they need to put in a lot more work for this to make sense.

I want this to be a bug, a sign of their sheer incompetence, but I'm reminded Minthara's poison kiss also had the "IMPOSSIBLE" tag before it was then removed and fully implemented. We've never had bugs like this, I don't think? Her bugs were always strange, she would repeat lines and suddenly break up with you at a certain approval, but it has never brought back datamined content from early release days (yeah, this is pretty old) so a part of me thinks this isn't a mistake. But this begs the question why they would release this now when it's clearly not ready?

Whatever they do, I just hope they don't leave this as it is. It's so surreal and immersion breaking since the breakup doesn't even work.