Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Why even have "evil" path?

Just an FYI but modern DnD and WotC are moving away from the strict alignment system.

BG3 very much feels like it was made with more complex morals in mind and the simple evil vs good play-through isn't the most ideal way of playing the game. It has a lot of flexibility to be able come to terms with different play styles and decision making processes.

The interesting thing is that during EA, a lot of people seemed disattisfied with the good path and felt the good side of things was going underserved - I was one of them in fact. Larian also said that they were presenting the evil companions first because they knew people tend to play the good path in games so they wanted players to try out evil content. They said that explicitly. Apparently whatever they learned from that directed them this way. I also don't think this is the result of them being rushed, at least not rushed in the sense that they absolutely needed more time to finish it. They completely changed Wyll's story and character from Early Access, including I believe hiring a new voice actor. And despite having Karlach apparently planned as part of the game for a good while, they didn't apparently have a handle on her character until they cast her actress (I will say that I adore Karlach, she's my favorite character and I would genuienly have enjoyed the game a lot less if she had remained as she'd been in EA, that's a character I'd have found boring and I think her positivity is exactly what makes her interesting and she's the type of character the story very much needed). They released about three months early, at most? And this is after Covid caused them to have to delay by at minimum a year, maybe two. The problems we see aren't because Larian rushed anything, it's because they used their writing time irresponsibly. They made massive structural changes to the game's story pretty last minute. They should have had the story locked down far sooner than they apparently did. It's not just the lack of evil content that's apparent, I stand by my belief that the entire main plot of the story is a complete mess that's entirely non-functional from the opening cutscene right until the end. They constantly wanted to keep tweaking and adding things when really they should have just accepted what they had for good or for ill and focused on polishing that.

I don't think Larian is trying to punish players for playing evil, at least that's not their driving idea behind evil choices. I just think that they wrote themselves into a corner and couldn't actually manage to pull off what they were trying to do. This game has a lot of little stuff that gets reacted to, and they also wanted to stuff it full of things they thought were cool. They had to include the stuff that was the backbone of the story, and then they had to deal with the heroic path because that's still the path most people take, and then they had to address problems, then they changed things, then they had to actually WRITE Karlach and rewrite Wyll (notice how Karlach especially doesn't even really have a quest, just picking up tow peieces of metal, talk to an npc, then do a thing you were probably already going to do with her in your party and then boom, they're out of time. Oh yeah, and they had to actually ADD content for Halsin and Minthara to make them companions when they were never meant to be that.

So no it's nothing to do with moralizing or teaching anyone a lesson. It's just plain incompetence and poor planning. Nothing more complex than that.

Wrong. You can play a "neutral" path and you're still gonna end up on a loosing side when it comes to companions. Wyll and Karlach will leave no matter what if you won't HELP the grove. The game doesn't offer any sort of meaningful content for evil or neutral alignments.

I'm always confused by the people who say "well that's evil for you, no one plays evil characters so there's no point to make content for evil path. also evil shouldn't be rewarded"

Yet if you look around - everyone parades their edgy dark heroes, people love broody and dark themes, people praise grey morality and ambiguous storytelling left and right. It's so strange to me, that I hear this point being made over and over "it makes no sense to develop part of the game people won't see".

Well my counter point to it - if it were well developed, and nuanced and interesting, people would want to see it, and play through it.
As it is, story feels incredibly linear, and certain choices are obviously meant to be made over others, which is like... why even have them then. I don't understand, why offering player options, which developers didn't want players to pick, so they didn't develop them? It's not freedom, at this point, it's just confusing and depressing.

I'm not gonna argue for alignments, which is why i chose to put "evil" in quotation.

But there's no flexibility. You're either a hero who is friend to everyone, or you are a pariah loner who barely gets content. It's not complex morals. It's "be a good boy and get friends, be a bad boy and get nothing".
True evil character should be able to scheme, coerce, to become a cult leader, to side with absolute, to be something other than a murderous pawn.

I saw complex stories, and this one is as simple as it gets.

Personally I wasn't even playing "evil" character, not per se. I played neutral one. Decided to ignore the grove, because hey, that's not my problem. The next thing I knew, Wyll left and Karlach was pissed at me because I was somehow responsible for the slaughter of the grove. That was just... bad. And I decided to recruit her AFTER everything that's happened, but somehow I was still blamed for something I didn't do. And she knew everything even though she was stuck at the river injured. Yikes.

Right, I never understood how people can come up with their 6th, 10th or even 15th playthrough, even with different classes I would be so bored. It's not like you can come up with a plethora of different characters to take with you. Maybe it's just me, but the story is the same and I don't like each companion at the same level, so I don't need to see everything of them.

On a side note: If the game forces us to be morally good, then where is the morality in accepting or even glorifying cheating on your LI?

Oh, don't even get me started on that thing. People are so happy with the romances, but I absolutely hate how some things were made. And how... "some" are totally okay with cheating and even encourage you to do it. If this is a norm for our society now and games, then I guess I'm too old for games and I'm only in my 30s.

Sorry for Off-topic! Even if this is meant to Ametris, I just jump in to say: Thank you Crimsomrider! Finally humanity! That's empathy! I feel with Minthara fans, too.

The characters who accompany you on an evil play-through has their reasons to make bad decisions. Astarion is afraid, Gale feels inadequate, Shadowheart is brainwashed, Lae'zel has been lied to etc. I had good experiences by creating characters who had some flaw (naivety, anxiety, capitalism etc) which fit into the bigger narrative of the game and provided a good reason to make a variety of different decision, so I never ended up being a pariah.

The only decision, which cuts you off from a variety content is the grove decision. And the only thing you can't really do is to side with the absolute, but one of the main themes of the game is power and ambition, so I feel like it's fitting that the "evil" characters would go for the ultimate power.

Gale isn't evil. You have to succeed persuasion check or he leaves if you go with evil route in act 1. He's angry at us. So then you're stuck with Shadowheart, Lae'zel and Astarion, that is... if they are even alive. If not, well then... you have only generic mercenaries from Withers.

I think the problem here is that "the Absolute" as a faction... isn't really anything. The Absolutists are all mind-controlled dupes. The only side you can be on is serving the chosen. The Absolute isn't even meant to be a thing that lasts, they're a tool that if I understand correctlly, will be thrown aside once the plan is done. Being on their side means being a disposable puppet, nothing more. Being a true soul means being a disposable puppet, that's all there is to embrace. You have to be pretending to be on their side because the only real logical options are you want to stop their plan or usurp their plan. Everything the chosen promises their followers is a lie, a fabrication for a plot that has nothing to do with anything presented. And as much as people like to tout "Freedom of Choice" if you want to be a servant of the absolute, then your character would have to abandon the prism and become a mind-controlled follower and end the game.


Developers end up having them because people always say they want them so developers end up feeling obligated to include them. Developers should be free to not include an "evil route" in their rpgs if that's not their vision of the game without fear of being lambasted as "watered down" or "not a real rpg" which is absolutely what would happen. Every game sets limits somewhere, people need to deal with that.

If someone manages to lose all origin characters before the act 1 party, I don't think it's Larian's fault for having no content.

The point is - there's no variety in paths you can take. You either take good path, or no path at all. There's no options. I'm not saying there needs to be equal amount of evil content, but there's only so much saccharine saving of children and kittens you can do before you realize that no, you're not a neutral character, you're good old chaotic good, and there's no inbetweens.

Why even have the thing with the grove then? It doesn't matter, and it's the only choice like that in the game.

But they included the evil route, and they implemented it poorly.

If they said - it's a hero story, you can't be evil in it - I'd respect it more, tbh, it's valid. But as things are... I don't know.

Right. Then why is it okay to have "evil" characters on my good playthrough, but it is not okay to have "good" characters on my evil playthrough? Why the restrictions? This game just doesn't offer you anything if you don't play a morally good character to the letter.

Larian should really take some cues from Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous. The game can change drastically depending how you play - good - neutral - evil. 4 playthroughs behind me and I still haven't seen everything the game has to offer and it's way longer than BG3. Not to mention companions - there are no restrictions with recruitement. Everyone can join, but that doesn't mean they will stay till the end. Too many decisions they don't like and shit will hit the fan. Or... we can even try and change their alignment, it won't work on everyone, but there's a chance. Now, this is what I call branching RPG with choices that matter.

No no, I agree with you. They put it in so they're obligated to try and make it good. And honestly my argument was on a broader, industry-wide level, so to speak. I think Larian really did want to try and make a fleshed out evil path. But like I said before, I believe their failure here is the result of incompetence with regard to their planning and actual process of writing. Not their writing skill itself, because this game obejctively has a lot of good writing in it, it just never actually comes together in my opinion.

It's funny how supposedly morally complex story that has no alignments is much simpler than story that does, but yeah. I feel similarly on the matter. Again, not like, a huge fan of alignments as a system, but I feel like in BG3's case, lack of alignment just masks the fact that every companion you have is different shades of good, with Astarion being the only chaotic neutral one.

Meanwhile, in my experience, "evil" aligned companions in most RPGs are most fun and were always my faves T_T I'm not against good characters, but I just wish I had options - in story, in npcs...

I guess it's just a shame because hints of it that we saw in EA were so intriguing and good...
Oh well. Don't mind me, I love this game a lot regardless, but that's why I can't stop talking about ways I think it could be better <:D

I'm not a fan of set alignments myself and I've been playing DnD for 15 years. It was just never something I liked. But still, Pathfinder did a very nice job to their playerbase. Everyone can play how they want and they won't be punished, because they suddenly made one "evil" decision. And I also agree with you with evil companions. They're usually the most fun.

I still laugh at Camellia. She is helpful, is she not?
Or with Wenduag - loved her romance and how it can evolve in different paths.... Shit. Now I think this is how Shadowheart should've been with her Selunite/DJ path. Oh well, yet another wasted opportunity from Larian ¯\_(?)_/¯