Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Why games can't stick to their own premises?

Well it's not like Gale could put his hypothesis to test himself, so he'd not know either way. He might believe it (and if the datamining thread is correct, seems like he does), but this doesn't need to make it true.

Now if you leave Gale in the ditch for a week or so, and then you resurrect him and can't use that as an argument that is the plothole.

I would for more examples because I don't understand what you mean. Gale is last minute addition to the early access so I imagine they didn't have much time to actually put their concepts of him into practice. I'll also add that the gale mechanics as they are now are super lame. But you know... Early access.

Yeah I mean given how important his condition is, you would assume he would make it HIS priority to get artifacts and thus either Artifacts in his inventory should dissapear, or he should leave you after a while if you don't deliver, I mean this is to him critical!!

I'm also willing to put this down to EA, but as neat as the idea could be, it definitely needs work if he is to be a companion. The concept might work better as the main character (i.e. if you pick him as an origin character), but other than the potential interesting concept, I feel it should come with some form of reward, because it's really debillitating to have to lose your magical artifacts with no reward other than not dying. Not sure I would want to hamper myself that way other than out of intruige.

Some of OP criticism could be dismissed as “it’s always like that”. There is limited amount of change that a campaign can do to accommodate players choices and that is expected. A lot of reactivity, urgency or danger is smoke & mirrors. I don’t think it is a bad thing, but it’s needs to be effective. I though D:OS2 did it really, really poorly (and to be fair I will point to PoE2 having really really bad reactivity to 1st PoE1 choices). The game doesn’t need to react to everything, but of it hints that something will have consequences and then it doesn’t, it sucks. Having a companion be a magic bomb puzzles me as an idea itself, though maybe it works better in game then on paper. Being an EA we might not know how thing will play out in 1.0, but big things like that tend to not work - would I want to have an NPC who will end the campaign if he is dead for too long?

I said this in another thread. My first instinct upon learning he was a bomb that could level waterdeep was "mmm that could prove handy". Lets stick him in the goblin camp, have him die and hide in the underdark for abit. What happened was his necrotic aura killed a bunch of goblins that pathed though him and a few more that came to investigate, he is actually quite a good AoE sucide bomber. Cast jump on him, stick him super high up with low HP and jump on the gith patrol or any other boss for that matter. Resurrect the clown and do it again, It's not easy being cheesy. Lol.

It depends whether we might see more risk vs reward going forward with Gale's character.
If it's just a throw away thing, or it's a lie or whatnot, the truth will out and no one will pick him other than for the vague interest of experiencing the story arc, UNLESS something big comes as a pay off. What if helping Gale does grant him and by proxy you, the opportunity to meet Mystra? Or or or... the point is right now in EA it makes little gaming sense to have him around as he is far more cost than his intersting persona is worth.

The key aspect though surely is CURRENTLY.

Ooh I do like the idea of being able to "use" Gale in an evil playthrough as some form of weapon of mass destruction.

I mean "evil" is generally more practical. In my opinion keeping a mobile nuke with you because of some weird moral altrusim isn't "good" it is idiotic. He also suggested to my Drow character that he would go to the underdark if he got heartburn. I was like, where is the option to stab his arse and mail him to waterdeep? You would be the most feared Drow in the history of Lolth. Nobody would have a scooby doo why Waterdeep just blew up other than "A Drow named 'me' had an amazon parcel delivered".

You can't do that, all the mail men are dying like flies in Act 1

"It's always like that" -- that doesn't mean it's good or that we should settle for it. It just means developers favour lazy writing rather than good story-telling.

If anyone is interested in a term for this phenomenon, by the way; I believe it falls under ludo-narrative dissonance.

It's best not to assume that things which NPCs say are objective facts. Lots of times, they could be wrong. Lots of times, they could be lying. If I wanted to make sure people would always resurrect me, maybe I'd say that I was a time bomb on death, too.

Yes, but we cant say whether it's true or not either way yet. So if it's true, this is still the time to bring it up and say that this isn't good writing and we want the game to be consistent with its own narrative.

I would say it's certainly better us highlighting that with "current information" it feels lacking or if you want, lazy... Hoever the devs might have a perfectly decent plan as to how this should play out, it just hasn't been implemented yet, or is but it's hidden behind the veil of Act2 and beyond.
Or they hadn't and they are reading these threads with interest and making notes. The former is the more likely, but hey, as we don't know we can only comment based on the info we have.

I am more curious as to why we should care though. I mean, I actually usually do without Gale as I find as a Ranger it was more useful to me to have Shadowheart, Laezel and then usually Astarion (though i had Wyll along for the Goblins for his story elements). As such I breezed through quite a few of the fights or even if I did die one always survived to Rez the others, given coin wasn't too hard to come by.

So why should I keep a Mage with a rather expensive upkeep in tow? For fear that If I don't save him he might detonate within my vicinity? Whatever that vicinity is? That currently at this stage is what feels off to me. Yeah I see why HE wants my help, it's easier to procure items with help than without, but for something so dangerous that is relying on the goodness and generosity of my character. Now if HE had something to offer me in return that might tip the balance. Maybe he knows something useful, or maybe he could be a level or two higher than us (which would also feel more fitting story wise) and thus he is more powerful but comes with a downside. I have to add at this point I am not a massive fan of all characters are the same level. Why? If I always party with the same team why aren't they more powerful?

Yeah It's a game and if you neglect characters for too long you wouldn't ever take them along, but still. Meh, not a big fan.

Thank god, some sense.

People, I already addressed the possibility that Gale could be lying (or just be wrong) in the very opening post of this thread. That would (disappointingly) resolve the issue, as long as the problem of the incongruence is addressed.
I also pointed in the very same opening post that I'm perfectly aware the issue is a recurring one in games like this, which in no way should also work as an implicit endorsement to keep doing it.

Also, I don't even want to hear any whine about the fact that "it's early access", because I don't think it's of any relevance. Pointing that as an excuse implies the optimist assumption that "this will surely be changed", a unfounded confidence I don't share to any degree.
In fact, I'm almost ready to take bets this will come all the way to the final game without ever being completely solved/addressed. Even AFTER the issue being pointed to the devs, let alone sitting meekly waiting for magical fixes.

You can assume all you like, but the truth is none of us know. We are all speculating on how Gale’s story will play out.

And whilst it might be poor writing to leave his body for days on end and then resurrect as if nothing happened (or telling him it’s all hocus), but that doesn’t exclude the possibility that it you I have the foggiest what will it won’t be fixed.

Not that that should mean that we shouldn’t criticise or publish our thoughts, but your negativity here is just as unfounded as my optimism. So where does that leave us?!

I guess it leaves us with a bet I'm going to win with zero effort?

Also, I wish people could stop being unnecessarily over-defensive.
Not all criticism is an attempt to shit on the game and the studio working on it, and you guys aren't doing to the production ANY favor by blindly shielding it from critics.

The entire point on giving feedback in EA is pointing NOW the things we don't like or we find unconvincing so that they could (eventually) be fixed.

Wow this is great. I mean not great that we have it in BG3, but great we some common language

Let's not derail the thread too much. "Ludo-narrative dissonance" it's an umbrella terms that includes dozens of problems, anyway, even on the thematic side (i.e. "advocating for world peace when the entire game is about combat and fights" is a common example).
It's not exactly what this topic is about.

This is strictly mechanical. It's about the game setting a very specific stake, giving you a determined and not-uncertain deadline, warning you about the risks of acting in a certain way and then... Doing absolutely nothing with it even even when you are explicitly ignoring the warnings and putting to the test the limits of the situation.

Another example could be "If you complete this ritual a demon that will destroy the entire city will appear" and then you ignore the warning, complete the ritual and the demon summoned is a level 2 complete pushover that even the local innkeeper armed with a broom is able to solo.

I don't even want to hear an excuse about how that's "a typical problem with videogames that there's no way around" because it's bullshit. The only thing it actually needs to be addressed is to be recognized as a problem to solve.

30 years ago Ultima VII had the "doom" spell that would kill any living form in the game world. And guess what? You were warned about it and it would fucking do it, if you actually had the nonsense to cast it. The only characters remaining alive were Lord British and the Big Bad. And both had a say on what you did.

Did it completely screw your playthrough, forcing you to reload a previous game? OF COURSE it did.
Was it worth it? Abso-fucking-lutely. It was great.

+1 on the world destroying spell and pwning your game.

Bit of trivia -- that spell was actually part of the original plot of the final Ultima. You find out that the only way to kill the Master is to kill yourself because he is your shadow. So you set up the circle of life, you destroy the world and then the Avatar sacrifices himself to circle of life and the world is reborn from his virtue. But this time the world is remade so that everyone has a just a bit of the avatar inside them -- (cinematic for launch of Ultima online) I think Buffy the Vampire Slayer stole the premise for the finale.

Oh and the original question has been answered in the dataming thread.