Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Shame!!. IS IT CYBERPUNK2077 SYNDROME?

I just finished the game.

I have a lot of thoughts on the plot and the ending of the game itself, so I probably won't share them all. However, one thought for me is quite powerful, and maybe it will resonate with you as well.
Baldurs Gate 3 has caught up with Cyberpunk 2077 syndrome.

Do you also think so? The game promised to be epic. The announcements ended there.
The most annoying things for me are the inconsistencies, the lack of connected threads and !damn it! Hopeless romances! F**k, after all, the bed scene coordinators(???!!!) themselves were supposed to be hired for the bed scenes ?! Well, they didn't make any money.... At least with the scenes with Gale, Incubus, Mizora and Emperor (only those I played)

But to be more concrete, I hope (and hope is the mother of fools) that in Patch this will be fixed and possibly some..... solved/further developed with the expansion packs?
Mainly due to the fact that I'm a stulejerk (haha) my comments are mostly about story, characters, romance, not much on gameplay issues.

I'll start with the mundane stuff the further it gets and also spoilers!!! (DON'T READ IF YOU DON'T WANT SPOILERS):

1. either I'm clueless or I was unable to complete 2 quests in general. Haunted house and fireworks - these quests were impossible for me to pass. In addition, even if I killed everyone in the fireworks place, I still had the "kill everyone" marker. Haunted house-no potions or anything allowed me to go upstairs without damaging the team to the end-did you guys have this too?

2. at level 12, at the end of act 3, on medium difficulty (I think it was called differentiated) there is no chance of big failures. The brain fight is so simple, zero epicness, on top of that, WHY DO I HAVE SO MANY ALLIES? Since I've only summoned a winged ally ;-) to my aid once. On top of that, when I summoned her, she only had 1/3 life hahahha. I had to heal her with my cleric from the start of her summon....



3. my character got into a romantic scene with the Emperor. At the end, it turned out that three companions of the mind (Helsin, Shadow heart and Karlach were visible) - the best thing is that with Helsin I did not go in the team at all plus I rejected his advances. My character was in a romance with Gale. The best thing about all this is that JUST DAMN - NO, BUT NO CHARACTER reacts to this situation afterwards!!! Not even the Emperor himself! He only talks about the alliance, but nothing more and nothing about any romantic issues later in game. Even if I wouldn't want to do it out of sheer curiosity (because out of curiosity I decided to pull such a thread of Gale's betrayal) it is still a scandal to me.

4. With Gale, my character started a romance from Act 1. How many romantic scenes with him were there throughout the game? Well, probably two. One in the woods (ending with undeclared sex) and the other on the boat. Nothing else!!! And I'm not whining here about wanting to see game characters rubbing shoulders, but goddamn it, already even EA Games and Bioware were able to pull the romantic plots better and create an attachment for the player who enjoys such plots. Not even zero of some kind of conversation more serious before going to the final battle! Just about the bullet and sacrifice. Well... at the very end after all, there is one sentence from his mouth, which hooks the "concupiscence" of the romance. Bleh. Flat as a plate!!! Larian- shame on you.

5. When I killed Orin, finished positively for myself the Iron Throne thread, knocked down the Guard factory then I went towards Gortash. And what do I enter his area and immediately the fight begins. Zero reprimand, zero conversation, zero any last verbal confrontation about what he proposed and what we rejected. Nothing. Well, no words!

6. the Emperor feels so easily and quickly betrayed on the release of Orpheus. There is not even an option ( AND EVEN AFTER THE SCENE OF ROMANCE WITH HIM) to try to find a third way and let them both exist. In my case, I decided that Karlach (according to her own will) would become Ilith in order to be able to use the jewels. At the very end Orpheus respectfully refers to her and even thanks her for her sacrifice. LOL why couldn't he do that with the Emperor ?! OK- I HOPE that if we had stayed in alliance with the Emperor, he would have betrayed us- but this could have been resolved BETTER! (very please don't confirm my conjecture, because I want to check it myself)

7. I took Jaheira to meet Viconia. Between the two of them, there was only ONE MESSAGE and it was insignificant. Zero sort of pulling the theme, zero explanation for those who haven't played BG2 or met Viconia( yes, it's possible) to remember her, to explain to the player why Jaheira doesn't like her and each other. Only Minsc in the camp spoke a little, but it was so poor....

8. ZERO, ZERO of any ending conversations with allies, other comrades, nothing. (Aside from just a minor ending after the brains fell into the lake.) Just such a pouty topic that it couldn't get any worse. Karlach praised for her sacrifice, Astarion escaped because he was burned by the sun (yes, I didn't give him power), Lazel killed (I stabbed her because she wanted to kill Orpheus) and Gale who will give the Crown to Mystra. Nothing else. And something there Jaheira commented on Astarion... SHAME

and so I wrote, and there would have been more. Damn, Larian!

But you guys messed up. I feel so disappointed.... probably even worse than after Cyberpunk2077 !!!

And note, maybe I'm the only one- I think Early Access did a better job of creating certain plots than what they did in the final version (if only in terms of the Dream guardian- is that right name in English?).

Larian, I will never trust you again, especially not to buy EA.
Greetings to all readers of this lament!

I agree only partially:

- bed scene coordinators - I didn't understand what they were doing at all. That is, there are no super explicit sex scenes in the game, but there are many scenes of cruelty (why is sex something worse?). The opportunity for Gale to have sex with Mystra is especially missing after he passes the crown to her.
In general, a unique romance with Mystra is exactly what is missing for the passage for Gale.
Also, Dark Urge definitely lacks Orin's unique romance

- The ability to save both the Emperor and Orpheus - this is really not enough, it makes me sad

- We definitely need an extended ending dlc, and something like a party dlc since it was in mass effect 3

- Gathering allies for the final battle - this shows the influence of Dragon Age Origin, but this is a turn-based RPG, not a real time RPG game ... a flying ally is ok, but I just saved the battle time and did not call anyone else

But with all this, this game deserves the Game of the Year, and is a new benchmark for RPG quality.

I'm pretty sure that if this game has any syndrome or disorder, it's mass effect 3 disease. The association with sex. The big press. The outrage. Shaping gaming history. The ending

let's call it what it is- it was just a sensation! on the principle that there will be sex scenes in the game like from HBO series (here e.g. Spartacus). however, no one really wanted to do it, and providing the ability to edit the penis in the character creator makes as much sense as in Cyberpunk. zero. because if it doesn't apply, then why add it at all? on not the easiest level of the game my Gale was destroying a whole group of enemies with a fireball... it shouldn't look like this in the final fight for survival and with "the whole army of the Absolute"? If DLC were to appear, it's damn not for money! Larian got a lot of trust anyway, and they screwed up a lot anyway. I didn't expect it, but my conclusion makes me think that damn Dragon Age had more epic than BG3...

There's roughly an equal amount of people complaining that the game is too easy and too hard, you know. Just putting that info out there

but Cyberpunk 2077 was supposed to be something even bigger than ME3 of its time.

By the way, ME3 needed a lot of time to fix some shortcomings. but I'm afraid that the shortcomings in the very course of the story will not be able to be corrected by Larian.
The ending isn't the only thing I personally don't like here. And to be honest, when playing BG1, BG2, The Witcher all parts, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, I didn't have such unpleasant disappointments as here.. im so sad

I found Mass Effect always too hard to get into as someone who doesn't player shooters. *Until* it becomes way too easy. Not much time between A and B here. Andromeda was fully guilty of this as well.

I am a fan of all DA games except Inquisition. However, admittedly every single one has weak points. Bg3 will always have a very similar spot to DA in my heart, "overall good, but..."

Hopefully not counting as spam on this forum, but a different point:

Bg3's release sabotaged D4. This is a double blow to AAA gaming. Even if I feel like a score of above 90% isn't fully deserved in Bg3 case, because of how it left me hanging... and somewhat trolled... who am I kidding, *thoroughly* trolled... It's not all bad. It will positively influence the direction of gaming as a whole. A game with turn based combat being this successful is something few expected. You can bet this is part of why critics are hyping it up. More Bg3s (if at a smaller scope) and fewer D4s would not hurt

As a fun experience, I enjoyed playing each of the titles mentioned.
BUT as stories, in the sense of keeping in check the meaning of what is happening in the game world and the companions who are its inseparable part, unfortunately, in my hierarchy, BG3 falls on a lower level than, for example (horror!) Dragon Age 2.

And after all, it's the stories that make people prefer RPGs and not, for example, strategic board games!

Bearing in mind the romances I commented on, in Dragon Age they always had meaning and "depth". It was believed in my opinion!

ba! even the companion with whom the bond would be declared on both sides may turn away from us, because we are not able to convince him to change his mentality so drastically (of course it is solved with respect points but I hope you know what I am comparing)

Here Gale simply crows with love after a few nice sentences and already at the beginning of act 2! lol. //Ok not beginning but at middle//
and Larian touted romance as something that had never been done before in RPG history.

let me go back to BG3 when I have more time, and above all to introduce the announced patches, which, as I mentioned, I Hope ( wink wink ;-) )they will fix at least a fraction of what I'm talking about.

DA 2 is the first (single player) game I fell in love with, though I was young

Not fair to compare. But yeah, like mass effect's legendary misshap, I expect the game to be fixed in... a year. I fully consider this a moderate disaster release. In future hindsight. This is yet seemingly a minority opinion. It got the full check list from corrupted files, to game systems, to story moments that caused backlash. Not fully disastrous as most gameplay hindering bugs were niche. A self made list, of course, but also non-negotiable since this is the realm of personal opinion.

Half of the content was just cut, what we see really smacks of cyberpunk 2077 ... How sad to say this. But you can’t praise for shortcomings ...

Cyberpunk was considered a "failure" due to bugs not the story.

It was considered a failure because it was buggy and it was missing a ton of stuff they advertised on.

And yes, the story of CP2077 was garbage as well, but it wasn't why the overall product sucked.

I don't know if I'd call it Cyberpunk 2077 syndrome, although I definitely think Larian is very lucky that people haven't noticed what happened between early access and release because Baldur's Gate 3 got gutted.

Cyberpunk 2077 had the issues it did because it appears CDProjekt Red didn't know what kind of game they were making, spent too much time on art and ideas over actually implementing them, and the first thing they debuted (the quest with all the various paths and features) was basically an extremely 'pie in the sky' implementation of what they thought was possible to make. I think the issue with CP2077 was that they basically built the game we got only two years out from release, if I'm remembering some of the articles that came out from it.

Where Baldur's Gate 3 differs is that a lot of the content that is now missing, cut, altered, or stripped down was in the game and functioned as it should during Early Access. For whatever reason, it appears that very late in the process, Baldur's Gate 3 underwent a significant change in tone and plot, leading to a wholesale removal of pretty vast quantities of content, to the extent that it weakened core pillars of the game both in story (Daisy) and in features (the origins.) We don't know why Larian did this, and I'd suspect it was either an overreaction to audience feedback, reach exceeding grasp when it came to reactivity later in the game, or mechanical failure with the long rest system and reactivity tied to it.

Early Access is Early Access, sure. It's Larian's perogetive to make such sweeping changes if they want. But I don't think anyone counted on them changing everything, upending the plot that was obviously well along in production, changing the tone entirely, and removing a lot of the more interesting choices and consequences. It's especially odd given how much Larian talked up how many replays the game had an how much content players may never see -- I hate to say it but, as I've been beginning a second playthrough, if you went through the first one thoroughly, there's very little stuff you didn't see. And what you didn't see was probably telegraphed, such as siding with the goblins over the druids.

Why did Larian cut so much? We have no idea. It's especially odd because it appears to have happened so late in the process. Did Wizards of the Coast decide they didn't like certain things? Did the long rest system being just about as buggy as it was in early access mean that certain things that fired only in camp (such as Daisy) had to be curtailed? Notably, Raphael no longer finds you in camp, and instead abruptly shows up at various locations around the grove, for example. The Guardian is a much simpler character who basically establishes that you can trust them, they're good for you, and you can use powers -- this would result in a lot less variables to track than the more complex Daisy, but also meant the loss of a 'no powers' path. It appears that Daisy was the Absolute and possibly Orpheus -- altering this would be a massive problem. It's telling that a lot of the cut content appears to relate to things connected to Orpheus and the Absolute, such as the antagonists having more appearances and presence, because greater involvement from those two characters would obviously complicate every part of the story they're connected to.

For all the talk of tough choices and consequences, there are very few, if there's any at all. One I think illustrates it is Gale. His magic appetite used to be a real nuisance to deal with as he only wanted particular, powerful magic items. If you picked up the Necromancy tome, for example, he'd ask you if he could eat it. If he did not get three big items by a certain time, he'd go and sign a deal with Raphael. This is seemingly absent now. And to disguise it, Larian made it so that you can give Gale any three magic items. But if you observe the dialogue, you'll see that your character still grumbles about giving up something powerful.

We know Larian was very sensitive to audience feedback. The initial unique narration for each voice and origin character was cut and replaced by an all-in-one variant, despite there being thousands and thousands of lines already implemented in the game. If you see the videos on Youtube where the first narration was presented, it's clear that it had a lot of relevance to the origins system, giving the character you chose to play as a unique voice and perspective. These days, is there really much point to playing as Lae'zel? All you really get out of it is less Lae'zel.

I understand making slight changes in response to audience feedback. I don't understand ripping out pillars that are practically load-bearing to various elements. The first dream visitor, Daisy, had a very prominent role. The songs Down by the River and The Power obviously match to that character and whatever plot the story had when they were around. I Want to Live feels like a song for a story with more difficult choices and harder outcomes. Karlach's ending feels like it was made for that story.

I really think Larian should've stood by their original vision, whatever it was. You can't just change key elements so late in production and expect to have a stronger product. It's like they had a vision and they got spooked by particular feedback and we got a product that doesn't at all meet the potential of what was there. It's really hard to stress enough how much content and material they appeared to strip out so close to release. And for what?

Cyberpunk 2077 on release was practically unplayable. If I remember correctly, it was even removed from the PlayStation store because of how unfinished it was. I delt with some crashes in BG3, but in cyberpunk I learned to save any time i was going to enter a vehicle, because driving through the city for a couple of blocks made my game crash. I had to practically fight that game to finish it when it first released.

If I had to make a parallel to something, it wouldn't be cyberpunk, but more like game of thrones, right? I mean, correct me if I'm wrong because I didn't watch the show itself, but people seemed to really like it until some part close to the end where the plot fell to pieces, and that seems to be more what people are feeling here? The endings and lack of closure seem to be the most pressing issue everyone seems to agree on, other matters aside.

Hmm... I'll explain the term Syndrome in my opinion.

To be honest, my computer digested Cyberpunk better after the premiere than BG3 haha. Seriously, I don't know what's going on, but those two games on my rig were comparably playable.

What pisses me off the most and what I will not forgive at this point (because Cyberpunk did not have EA and was not based on money from it, but on money from an outstanding Witcher):
Of course, these allegations may offend someone more or less, but I think that objectively everyone will agree with them. CP2077 suffered from these elements:

1. Especially last before the premiere, Larian started creating unnecessary hype and giving the media snacks. If only because of these stories about the ultra-advanced, realistic and immersive system of relations with companions (sex with bear), hiring coordinators of bed scenes, etc. It's all fake.
These relationships are shallow as a plate and do not draw you in.

(well, sorry, in my opinion, CP2077 had a much better development of relationships with the characters, and not EVERYONE pushed for the main character, if only because of predefined sexual orientations, but they didn't seethe with them)

2. Character Creator.
In addition to defining what is in the step, this character creator is absolutely nothing outstanding, even CP2077 had it better, and it was still complained about. Penises and pussies, of course, everyone sneered at.

3. Consequences and choices -
in CP2077 the story is linear but it has implemented choices that go to be felt, here Larian offered us a FAKE impact of consequences. Because ok, they are there and theoretically you can see them, but the reaction of the world to these consequences ends after one sentence from the companions and two sentences from the character to whom the problem concerned. I don't feel the SENSE of the consequences of my choices!

4. Expanded world -
Sorry but how EXTENDED? "200 hours of gameplay for the most seeking"?! Nonsense.
The game counted me about 80 hours from start to finish and I'm sorry, but I don't feel like I missed anything at all, I even crawled all the maps everywhere, sometimes looking like a fool for places and solutions for tasks that were bugged. The second act is so short and so unengaging that it's weak. Ok, it's possible to crash there if you didn't enter the right room in the inn and unlock the story of Art Coulagh, which is crucial for healing the curse of the shadow, but it's not enough.
CP2077 at least imitated being gigantic.

5. The Ending
-he Endgame of CP2077 could be lived properly, bearing in mind that the linearity of the plot will not allow for retreats. And despite the good ending, there were lamentations about the fact that after the complete finale we still have no enought saturation, that these ways of endings arouse frustration and are also nonsense!

Theoretically, there is no such linearity here, but for two lines of dialogue you can turn the situation around 180 degrees, quickly withdraw, persuade the nonsensical behavior of characters who would never listen to us in this way, etc. and then one big emptiness. The lack of epicness of the ending is simply shocking (I'm basing this on my version of the ending, theoretically "the most good for the common good").

and the last point, which, as I mentioned, was bearable for me:

6. Optimization and bugs.

-----
Add. Some prefer Guardian, some prefer Daisy, but my opinion is one - EA built the tension, here we have everything coffee on the table.


Evidently Larian surpassed form over content.

Sorry Larian, if you're reading this, take it to the chest! You blew up a lot of potential!

I almost agree with OP.

1/ Why Emperor so easily betrey us, why can't we talk, if we were good allies, if we trust each other, why not consider other options?
2/ Why not show how after big victory everyon is celebrating, after goblin/tiefling there is some celebration, why not after major battle and great victory?
3/ Why not show in cutscenes and in conversation on final celebration what our companions is planning to do with life and freedom? Why ending feels so cut and abrupt.

Why our choices don't matter? Why there no cutscenes or slides with our choices and consequeences?
Why not show how is Driud Grove in ending, who new ArchDruid is rulling? Why not show how is 7k spawns in underdark if we released rthem, or how is brothers and sisters of Astarion if we killed 7k spawns. Why not show how Shadowland after some time, how there is Oliver and Thaniel playing together. And I can continue a long list of choices that we made a long side of game, that seams not matter at all.
Where is promised 17k endings?

I love game. Game is amazing, but last 20 minutes with final cutscenes and battle seams so empty and dissapointing, we spend so much time with our companions, we went through everything, we helped them solve their problems, and in the end there is nothing. Nothing at all, like we some straingers on a pirs.

I hope for patch, or dlc for ending, like it was for Mass Effect 3.

Yes, it is sad how Larian dropped the ball this close to the finish line. And not just dropped, they threw it on the ground and stomped on it.

The big cuts in act 3 are bad enough, but the biggest failure is the dumbing down of the story by removing any form of consequences, the biggest being the change from Daisy to Guardian and how there is no reason to not use tadpole powers and upgrades now.

Remember how Sven always danced around this subject during press releases and hinted that putting tadpoles into your head must have consequences?
All of that was fake.

Exacly mate!
The lack of sense and consistency is the disease of this game, a disease that seems to be impossible to cure, even if they add content after the finale, it won't fix the already broken story and lack of sense throughout the game. This is precisely the problem that hurts incredibly. So much broken content.... In Poland where I come from, the media was wondering if BG3 would up the ante or be as good of a story as The Witcher 3. That's how pumped the game was. In addition, it was pumped because of the huge success of Baldurs Gate 2 in particular, because in Poland the dubbing of that game was legendary and still is.

On top of that, it is still simply regrettable, because Larian was pumped with a cash security buffer since good 2020! The answer to this will be clear, we just have to wait until everyone puts their thoughts together.

same feelings, agree with everything, i thinking i can play it 3 or more runs like DOS2 but i cant play it after ending like this