Many players have completely missed the option to join forces with the absolute. If they do side with it the goblins turn hostile anyway.

Make Edowin or a dream point the player towards a contact person to the absolute
Make that absolute priest explain what matters to the player
You will not turn into a mindflayer, that does not happen to true souls. Keep all the benefits of the tadpole.
You will be rewarded for helping the absolute
You are on the stronger side that will aquire dominance over all of faerun. Explain why this is a likely scenario.
You have nothing to gain from siding with the druids. They can't help you and you would be defeated along with them.

Right now the absolute route is disjointed.
Manage to not turn the goblins hostile.
Have really good rolls in dialogue with Minthara.
Butcher the druids and tieflings for no apparent benefit.
Goblins hate you anyway.

The absolute is a new cult trying to expand its ranks. They have no reason to scare potential recruits away.

I completely agree with you, Larian wanted us to play as an evil character, but I did not see this in the game at all. The evil line is poorly worked out (now), but has a lot of potential

Do not repeat the mistakes of the third Fallout, where being evil means do not play for dark side of power, but being a dumb maniac. They are different things

It's not disjointed, it's incomplete. Because, you know, it's act 1 in early access. Why people always ask everything of a game even though they know they are only presented with a third of its actual content? That's beyond me.

I still have yet to determine what the Absolute intentions are? I mean I know that the mindflayers injected me with the tabpole but not sure if the mindflayers are the ones responsible for me not turning into a mindflayer by ceremosis.

Because Sven and Larian have encouraged people to try an evil playthrough. If you want to test something specific start by making sure that it is in a state somewhat representative of what you want to test.

I strongly agree there is no reason to join the Cult.

The main predicament you are in is the tadpole and the threat of dying due to ceremorphosis. It is never mentioned or even hinted that joining the cult would prevent or forestall this condition.

There are also no other motivators, some of which could be:

• Monetary reward
• Mention that joinging the cult would give you power
• Some of the people at the grove have slighted you

https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=701780

Some of this has been discussed in the Minthara nature of evil thread. I wanted something more focused on the absolute plot and a thread title that made it easy for Larian to see what it is about.

I agree with you that this needs to be added, but currently this is simply not true. Everyone in the goblin camp thinks you are going to turn into a mindflayer. Gut imprisons you for it, Minthara does not reference it but has tons of other reasons to kill you anyway. Everyone is so hostile against their fellow "true soul", it makes the two novices that were with Eodwin showing up in the party a little ridiculous. "The Absolute brings people together" my ass, the Absolute just wants me dead apparently.

Thats fair, was just adding it in case some people hadn't seen it, its adjacent

This is a lot more practical steps haha

I agree...

Join the Absolute Cult only to become friends with goblins instead of druids/refugees because they're evil and you're playing an evil character just suck...

They said they won't introduce a classic alignement system but that's worse because you just have the choice of black or white, and you don't know why except that "they are bad guys / they are good guys".

You don't really join the cult. They brand you and talk to you but then they are enemies again. To quote Priestess Gut "We true souls ought to care for one another". The cults way of showing their care is a bit lacking.

The best reason to try join the absolute in act 1 is drow waifu

Love Is… - when you ready to commit genocide to be with her

Bit of a problem that, since I'm a straight female and female drow LI are not my thing ><

Then, this is the way to find a good friend. More precisely, an evil friend, but good for you.. in the release version of the game

I think the evil path needs be far more enticing.

Right now it just feels both suicidal and nonsensical unless you're just out for blood.

Pragmatic evil path to power needs to be introduced - there is some, but it feels somewhat disconnected from the actual Act 1 story (as in Raphael (who really does a bad job, IMO, coming so negative from the get go) and dreams just sort of appear here and there and then just seemingly go away.

There also need to be some far more charismatic agents of evil, yes like that one self-declared agent of evil we all love from D:OS2 who happens to narrate now.

Raphaels intentions are not clear yet. He wants to sow doubt and clearly does not like the absolute but his final proposal remains unknow.
I can understand why the absolute does not like the druids (they tried to remove a tadpole and are attached to god) but why do they attack the tieflings. They don't have a lot of valuables but some of them could be lured away in their desperate situation.
Its as if *insert your favourite dictator* would have risen to power by scaring potential allys away and being utterly rude and uncharismatic. Even ruthless tyrants usually offer something. Be it protection, wealth or religious freedom. The absolute offers, well if it has something to offer its priests certainly don't like to talk about it

Who knows, Icewind Dale

The whole "they are just religious zealots and crazy people join up with them because they are crazy" does not work when the PC is a rational being 99% of the time. The Absolute really needs a few missionaries to entice you with.




Imagine if Malady shows up in Act 2 lol.

They should send one to the Tieflings. Join us for beneftits x,y, don't join us and we attack. Some food for the travel and free passage in exchange for being branded and helping to overthrow the druids

Man, what a missed opportunity. Now we have Zevlor screaming that they are all dying for no reason on the evil path. "wE wErE jUsT aBoUt tO lEaVe!!!!"

Being evil in EA is more on the chaotic side. You really have no reason to side with the goblins as they betray you before the big fight if you are LE Okay, they throw better parties, thank you astarion.
As for the absolute? I guess power, repulsor is pretty op. She betrays you too so there is that.

I will say that siding with the other sovereign felt pretty lawful evil.

This is just act one I'm sure they'll start giving more reasons to join in the other acts.

Yup. I'll copy paste what I've said before about this. And I will keep posting about it as long as other people bring it up because I want Larian to make the changes. Pretty high priority in terms of writing changes.

I'm gonna start off by saying right off the bat, when you go back to the tieflings and go "im joining the goblins", all my companions disapproved except Astarion, and I mention this because they said we will be getting evil/neutral companions for EA and from the start of being evil the player is punished. If these so called Evil companions disagree with me, then there is a few major issues with the evil storyline, which is what I want to talk about.

Now, from the the player is abducted and had a tadpole inserted into their eye and the companions they meet are adamant about having this removed, and that's fine. But the narrative doesn't really PUSH you towards being evil and neither do these companions. Now the biggest lead you have for this is Halsin, and i would consider him to be on the "good" side, where I should side with the grove to get his help. What incentive is there for me to help the goblins? The game doesn't really do anything to push their agenda and make you want to do. A smart evil character would still help Grove and get Halsins help because they want to figure out what's going on, what the option we have now is stupid evil instead. We are never enticed with anything to go join the Absolute. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to get out of helping the goblins and Minthara kill everyone. There isn't an enticing promise of answers or rewards for going down that path vs. just helping the refugees and finding Halsin to heal you from the tadpole. Right now the only reason you would help is because "fuck all these refugees and druids". Again, stupid evil IMO.

Everything up to that point in the game (being kidnapped by Illithids, all your companions explaining what the tadpoles do, and being concerned with getting healed) reinforces that we should want nothing to do with the Absolute because they violated us and will rid us of our free will if we don't get rid of the parasite. No type of evil character would want to help the goblins because we get nothing. Hell I lost Wyll after that, which is cool, and a good consequence, but that's it. I gained nothing from this it seems like. Now, I will say I'm interested in the story still. I wanna know what happens if I follow this trail, will i see Minthara again, will she be a companion or a returning side character? There is potential but just to see what could happen, but there are no rewards. You don't get any extra powers from it, nothing about healers (the priestess Gut wants to kill me bc I took the "Drow" option with sleep potion and then she goes "oh this will hurt"). I guess it was cool I had sex with her? But I mean at that night 3 of my companions were ready to sleep with me, and I lost 1 companion and gained...nothing.

Now I think the best way to fix it would be to have Minthara or someone else meet you REALLY early on and tell you, maybe entice you about the powers you can get. Have her tell you about the true souls, she shows you the power you can get if you use the tadpole, but right now there isn't anything like it. No character storywise would want to help goblins, even an evil one (smart evil one). It's kind of funny when the tiefling "Zevlor" asked me why I was doing this and i was like "uhhh....Bc Larian told me to? Whoops!" In the end, the Evil storyline for Grove vs Goblin needs more rewards and enticing. Why should my character risk dealing with them instead of looking for a healer, especially Halsin who is the best lead. Should I be doing it bc I got to bang the drow lol?

You don't even get to keep your Goblin "allies", they all turn hostile afterwards. The whole Evil thing with Goblin vs Grove is incomplete. Right now you meet her it's like "oh a true soul, lets go kill a bunch of ppl".

+1 to everything UnderworldHades said, couldn't have said it better. The thing that bothers me most is killing Halsin.... why would I do that? I'm also sad that companions do not react AT ALL when you kill Halsin. They were all about finding Halsin no matter their alignment, because he is the only real healer who coul actually help us, we believe. And yet, they just go along with the PC randomly killing him (I say randomly because it really feels random) and don't comment on it at all.

+1 i agree with most of the other points ppl here have provided in terms of better reasons to join the absolute. i also have a hard time envisioning why any of the character concepts i have in mind would be inclined to side with the parasitic tadpole attached to my brain. i wanna say astarion is the only companion who isnt totally opposed to having the tadpole given his personal issues, but i could be wrong - the tadpole gives me big time yeerk vibes from animporhs and i just dont trust it, lol

On my first playthrough, since Swen said we should play the evil route, I was trying my hardest to join the cult of the Absolute. After talking to Dror Ragzlin and Minthara, I was all set to betray the Grove. My chraracter wanted the power that the cult offered, the control over my parasite. But then I talked to Priestess Gut who tried to kill me (I don't remember being able to do anything to change her mind??). And also I saved Halsin.

At this point, what reason does my character have to ally with the Cult over Halsin??? The cult literally tried to kill me, and Halsin says he has a way to help me. The only way my character would still betray the Grove is if my character was both stupid and only cares about causing pain. I don't want to play a sadistic dumb character. Sadistic or dumb, sure. But not both...

You summed it up well, there is no incentive to side with the goblins. None at all. Also you bought up a good point I missed, apparently Larian gave us the evil companions yet most of our companions disapprove on the evil route? Hmm, something wrong there I think. Anyway, what would be best is to have a npc teach us about the tadpole, because all the npcs that deal with the tadpole are there to remove it. The vampire recommends to learn if it's possible to control it, yet there isn't an npc present for that path. It could be Minthara, but Larian dropped the ball there. Unless you just decide to use the tadpole powers despite the game constantly blasting at you that you shouldn't.

Yeah, they need to make it more appealing. The character I had who sided with them only did it because the grove was already wiped out due to the sequence of events earlier. There was no reason to not give away the location and a lot of reasons to make possible new allies. I suppose there could be some argument for Minthara being persuasive but still not a good enough reason to side with them. She and the goblin leaders need more dialogue.

1. Larian said they wanted us to play this rout, because they put a lot of work into it.
2. The point of Early Access is to give feedback on what's presented, game mechanics and the plot.
3. When the aspect that Larian want's us to test doesn't live up to people's expectation, they do as Swen asks: They go to the forum and submit feeback.

The point isn't the future of the questline, but the current state of the quest line. There's never anything tempting you to go this path. The path of evil should always come with a temptation you "can't" resist.
You can say It's not done, but it does seem this was what they wanted to present, what comes later matters little, the point of Act 1 is to set you up to want to continue your path. And I want that, but I felt I had to really really push myself into being evil, when it's the other way around that should be the "hard choice" (The dark side is always tempting, the hero rejects it)

Someone also made a good point about how anti climactic killing Halsin was too. Not a single person mentioned anything that we killed our best lead to get a healer lol.

The reactions need to be extended.



The theme of temptation is tied closely to evil. It could be reflected upon in the camp-conversations. Astarion has little reason to prefer "get rid of it" to "gain control over it". He should try to convince us that the others are mistaken.

The reasons to use the Absolute's power are very compelling right now. The free success at persuasion checks is invaluable in this game. But I don't see why not just abuse this power on the one hand and tell the absolute forces to go f themselves on the other

It obviously did not expect non true-souls with psionic abilities. Some negative consequences for using the power while not a member of the cult would reduce the size of the problem

Do you think that the side with the goblins arc was intended as an alternative for players who had already destroyed the druid grove? Probably not, but it is interesting that the scenario happened to work in your playthrough.

Nonsense. Just manipulate Chim until you get the desired result.

I taste the smell of Kirkbridian heresy
Which could be the official stance of bethesda now even though todd denied that being the case. Sotha Sils speech in ESO points toward acknowledging the head canon of Kirkbride.

Back to topic:
What do we have in summary:
More dialogue needed
Someone needs to point the player toward the alternative path
Motivation and rewards for helping the absolute lacking
The goblins turning on the player does not appear to make sense

I just realized that it's very strange that you don't get a choice in the first Goblin-grove encounter. Why aren't the mercenaries, Tieflings, Wyll and the goblins all yellow after the cut-scene. What if you just want to chill out and watch it play out, or decide that helping a goblin raiding party is your new favorite idea. If the goblins had actually attacked the party or insinuated as much in the cut-scene it would, of course, be a non issue.

So there is no real "just keep out of this" option right now?

It fits theyr profile ... if you expected gratitude and friends ... you probably didnt pay much atention. :-/

I dont get it why everything must be about rewards ...
I know that capitalism rules the world now, but think bigger for a second people.

I think you actually can ignore this conflict. Technically, there is nothing stopping you from going directly to the underdark and take the boat to moonrise tower. I never tried it, But it seems possible.

And there is the whole Ghithyanki path too, you can learn the location of it "beyond the mountains". This would be a more appealing option if it wasn't for Lae'zel doing her best not to get me to like her.

Your companions also cringe at the idea of stopping to intervene in the conflict so it stands to reason that you could eventually opt out of it.

I'd say it is pretty evil: let those refugees fight their war against the army of goblins.

What have she done?