Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General shadowheart in patch 5

Anyone else getting the distinct vibe they're really trying to push the whole "she's actually a nice person" vibe? I mean, on the beach she made a point of saying "wait, before we go, i wanted to thank you for helping me". she's down right pleasant now lol. They definitely seem to be trying to tone down the initial issues a lot of people had with some of the characters.

I'm getting slightly different vibe. She seems to be designed as not nice but reasonable person. She likes you when she has reasons to and she doesn't like you when all you provide is unimportant questions.

Good! Maybe on official release I'll have a group of companions I wouldn't rather let turn and die.

I don't need them all to love the PC or like all their choices, but hostility and crap attitude for the sake of it was disappointing the last time I bothered to play (a few updates ago).

Even in previous versions when you can't free her, she still shows a bit of appreciation when you've tried. In general, from what I've seen, outside of her deep hatred of Giths and Selunites, Shadowheart can be somewhat pleasant.

she did show 'some' gratitude before, but now she stops you and makes sure you know she's grateful. not just a vague 'you sense gratefulness' or "well, at least you tried, i guess" (with a snarky tone)

I dunno, I stopped playing before they made the initial companion changes (second or third patch) because they haven't added anything substantial for me to keep replaying.

I remember every now and then a vague sense that she was alright with the PC (had plenty of positive rep), but every time it was contrasted immediately afterwards. All the way down to the ending camp scene. Maybe I'm misremembering, but I remember hating her character for it and questioning if I was experiencing bugs or incomplete content that made her seem insufferable.

Edit: In any case, it's welcome for me. Hope the rest of the Act 1 writing and dialogue is filled in.

Is she by chance a little better at hiding what god she worships? That is my only gripe with her rn. NGL, I am ok with her being standoffish, and I am ok with her being judgy and nigh bitchy, but the fact that as a worshiper of Shar she does a terrible job hiding it even when one doesn't know the lore of Shar kinda irks me.

i take it back, she's back to the old snarky teen vibe immediately after. it's such a weird contrast. I get the feeling they're trying to change her attitude but so many of the voice lines are just so condescending, even when she's saying something sort of nice to you. I was hoping the intro would change that, but it's like a single ray of sunshine and then back to snarky-ville

I don't see any particular changes regarding her secrecy. It still annoys me that she steals all Astarion and Lae dialogues. She talks too much, with Astarion+Lae+Shadow last one does not stop talking. I would like Larian to start paying less attention to her, only Shadow has received so many changes in all this time. I'm tired of her and I don't want to take her into the group anymore.

Talk to her more, she reverted to some of the rude early comments same as you, but as I talked to her some more her dialogue seems more or less revamped further in, not nearly as rude.

I am really iffy about all of this. I feel like even though she was a little annoying at times when they released the EA, she was at least consistent as a character. now they are just adding stuff that makes her very strange

How is Shadowheart edgy?

I mean, her name is Shadowheart for starters lol. She acts like a teenager who's convinced she's NOT going through a phase. She has tsundere goth emo girl written all over her.

That said, she's improving and it's clear Larian wants her to be liked. I'm assuming the fact that her little toy is now bound to her means she has a larger part in the story.

Fair. I don't understand why people don't like the heart of the shadow. yes, she's sharp, but so sweet and defenseless under all those thorns. in my opinion, she behaves quite naturally. for a character who has his own secret and a very important task. who also found himself in a stressful situation. and is also afraid that others will find out about her religion

by wearing her God's symbol all over her outfit and sitting on her forehead?

Okay. this is already a question for character design. the secrets of Astarion and Gale are revealed to us in the same way. already on the game loading screen

I've played patch 5. I warned you to be careful what you wish for, and congratulations, they completely ruined her as a character. It is not the only place where they made some very populist decisions that just make their narrative weaker.

Since Larian cares about gameplay much more than story I guess it was predictable they'll budge on the story much more than the gameplay, but man this is lame what's going on in this game right now. I'm more convinced than ever they really lack any vision from a narrative standpoint.

it's EA so let's relax a bit on the apocalyptic language but i will agree that something is definitely up with their narrative vision for her in particular. I've said it before, but i'm getting the feeling she's supposed to be more important than just a normal companion. Unless this is all just a reaction to the "companions are assholes" criticisms and the whole "we released the evil companions first" was total nonsense and she was meant to be a "good" companion. Right now we're in a weird in-between where she switches almost instantly from friendly to snarky teenager to friendly and it's very jarring. Now that i see they're willing to change companions, I'm not too worried.

It's the other way around man. I would hope they would either stick to their guns and say "this is the narrative we are building, you have a very limited understanding of what's going on and you'll have to be patient" or do try to change her in a way that won't change who she is as a character, specifically just write her a better dialogue. But they chose to go the easiest ( in the short term) route and did what Larian does best - eating the pie and leaving it whole - change some of her dialogue while trying to keep as much as the old dialogue as possible. To me it says they are either don't feel confident about the story and characters they built, they don't really understand the characters and story they built, or they don't really care.

Another option they could have taken is to change her character in a big and meaningful way - while I might have looked at it with a bit of contempt, it would have been much better than what they did.

By the way, I didn't finish my patch 5 playthrough but I already saw another place where they just made things worse, it isn't as bad as shadowheart, but it is pretty lame - your first talk with Kagha and the tieffling girl situation

Kagha? interesting, I'm almost there. I'm curious to see how they changed that

edit: interesting, they basically took almost all of her insane 'im an evil druid" tone out of the conversation. I wonder if they're trying to make her obvious "she's a bad guy" vibe a little less obvious with that change.