Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Am I the only one who finds the underdark boring?

Maybe it's just because I'm the kind of person who'd rather go backpacking than spelunking, but the underdark bores the pants off me. I find myself replaying the above ground parts of Act I over and over, trying different character builds, different goals, and that's fun. But the underdark is uninteresting.

Maybe this would be different without the level cap, if I was trying out new abilities and spells and whatnot, maybe that would make it more interesting. But right now, once you're there, you've already been level 4 for the majority of the playthrough, and every encounter, the solution feels pretty straightforward because you've probably solved the same problem the same way somewhere else three times already. It just feels repetitive, and I say to myself "why should I bother with this? I haven't played a halfling druid yet, let's go try that..."

Yes and no. For me the above ground has a plot and a resolution. The only reason the underdark is boring, is the plot hasn't been fleshed out completely yet (i hope).

The problem with the underdark in BG3 as i see it is that theres no sense of real danger , everything is nicely lit and the monsters are ridicilous underleveled, taking on minotaus and boletts as lv 4 is so far away ffrom D&D lore you can get, venturing into the underdark should make you shit your pants tbh, right now its like a visit to Disneyland where all the monsters on display is just for fun and giggles.

Underground combat is mechanically exactly the same as above ground. Vast open spaces with lots of verticality. Even underground there isn't a single closed space or hallway style combat. No small caves. Enemies jumping everywhere. Instead of exploding barrels you have exploding mushrooms. Everything is well lit and "obscured by shadows" at the same time.

And any sense of danger you might otherwise have is negated by the camp button that conveniently teleports you to safety, even if you have no idea where you are after jumping down a hole.

it's a combination of too theme-parky looking, with unfun fights, and just a lifeless, small feel to it. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it's not fun. Actually, the most fun i had was clearing out the goblin base and solving the riddle of the basement in that small village. I wish more of it was like that Fun little secrets and dungeon crawling all the way.

It's vice versa for me. Underdark is my favorite location in the game to visit. The landscape is gorgeous: giant luminescent mushrooms everywhere, vast cave expanses, the coolest settlement in game currently. I'd prefer the Underdark to stay the way it is right now. Underleveled monsers are a recurring theme throughout the game. Considering how epic-scaled some of the characters' backstories are, the level system in BG3 seems to be an abstraction. We are already incredibly powerful as of level 1, the game hints at this constantly. It might not be completely in line with the 5e rules, but I personally don't care about that, being a long time tabletop player. In 5e, rules are less important than in any of the previous editions, and it's by design.

To me it looks and feels like the Blackreach in Skyrim, but falls flat because it has none of the necessary build-up. The underdark just shouldn't be the 2nd area in the game, and if it needed to be it shouldn't be a place you nonchalantly go to for a quick trek.

But then again, within the first few hours of the game we face Illithids, fiends, drows and giths, so it's not like the underdark is alone in being stripped of its mystique by the 'cool' factor of having it early on.

The underdark just needs a few lava lamps and some black light and velvet paintings. To me it’s a bit psychedelic. I too prefer outdoors. I always try to camp outside to avoid cutscenes in the underground which aren’t as pretty in my own opinion.

I felt they have done a good job with the Underdark. It looks great to me, and they put in a variety of monsters, NPC etc. First time when I went there, it felt pretty scary, but after playing the game for a while non of the encounters are difficult anymore, but that's normal, as we only have one difficulty setting.

The whole game is underleveled...

If a lvl 5ish red dragon isn't underleveling, what is?

I personally love the underdark. But one of my favorite games of all time is Morrowind and I just love more alien world design. Not to shit on the gorgeous overworld, but something about freakishly large mushrooms brings me joy.

I also don't get the overall constant criticism of "the PCs are too low level for XY". Pick up an official campaign maybe.

Spoilers for official campaigns follow:


So maybe lets keep it cool on "where a PC should be" at a given level.

Well, underleveled or not, it is also inconsistent in enemy str/lvl. I bet that lvl 5 dragon would not be beatable.

Look at True Soul Nere, he is a lvl 5 Caster. Sorcerer or Wizard and has 74 HP on lvl 5. WTF? Also, if you examine enemies, a lot of them have stats that are a little overboard. Even if they are "bosses".

In every RPG i know, lvl more or less indicates the difficulty of the enemy. Seems like this is not really working here. Mayba it just the advancement of the creature. let's say that dragon: every dragon starts at lvl 1 and levels up like everyone else but that does not mean that a lvl one party can beat a lvl one dragon.
If you know what i mean.

Personally i hate more that a lvl 5 dark elf caster has way more HP that should be possible. Haven't looked at his stats or has he like con 25? (which would also be unlikely)

I don't find the Underdark boring.

That said, it's not what I envisioned when I thought of the Underdark. I always pictured true darkness, a real absence of light except in the rarest of places. And I imagined tunnels snaking up and down through stone, occasionally dumping into large cavernous chambers, and branching off in maze like directions, with random drops that suddenly appear, going down to deep rivers that lead to dangerous underground lakes.

Instead it's this giant open area where you can see all around from the proper height, and there seems to be an abundance of light and large alien mushrooms. It's certainly creative; I won't take that away from it. It's just not what I was expecting.

There's plenty to do, so again, I don't find it boring. But it's not the same as the surface at the same time. On the surface, each area feels like a full area. There's the crypt and the grove and the blighted village and the hag and the goblin fortress and and and... Each area is engaging, and there are smaller encounters in between those areas.

I suppose that's the difference. Excepting the myconid village, a lot of the Underdark feels like those smaller encounters on the surface between locations. The hook horrors, the magical sword, the petrified drow, the kuo-toa... all of these encounters lack the fullness that's found in the grove or with the hag or in the goblin fortress or even in the Zhentarim base. So it ends up feeling a little more rushed, a little smaller in scale.

"boring" would not be the correct word. But i think i know your feeling.

What i would like to know is your feeling during the first time you ventured here. Still boring? After clearing this for the 50th time it IS really boring. Having read the novels of drizzt and the Series around Pharaun i know how the Underdark should feel. I fear reproducing this in a game is difficult. Most of the time characters without
Darkvision would be blind, making light or sound would draw monsters to you in no time. characters on our levels would be dead within minutes.

So i see this as a part of the Upper-Underdark, and a harmless, less frequented part at that. Lots of light, still a lot of noise to hide our sounds. And a little boring . I would love to find a deeper part later in the game that really makes my heart race and force me to hit F5 every minute or so out of fear to die

Didn’t play underdark in patch6, but before the Underdark felt unfinished. More so then the surface.

I don't find it "boring", but it lacks a real story line.
Find a boat is the only thing we have to do in the underdark.

Underdark is indeed sidequests zone ...
Some main story is missing there, i mean sure Halsin encourages us to find a way there ... and yes, its beautifull place and i loved every second of exploring it ... but honestly i would not mind at all, if at least Grymforge would require collecting those memory shards or something.

I don't exactly find the underdark boring, I just like green fields and blue sees much more than brown and grey.

The story mentions that you can take several ways to the moon towers and I would definitely take a path above ground. Simply because its more pretty.

My guess is that the dragon gets whatever the max level they managed to work up to in the main game version. I seem to recall it was level 10 last patch, but I didn't take screenshots, so I am not completely sure.

I like the Underdark myself, simply because I prefer more "otherworldly" environments in games, like Morrowind. As for the enemy levels, I agree they are too low, hopefully they will get bumped up in the final version, considering the party could be level 5+ by then.

Great question. I think my initial impression was "ooh, shiny! ooh, pretty!", but pretty soon it just felt ... disconnected? Like I wasn't playing the same game I'd been enjoying on the surface.

Again, I think leveling might play a role here. It's theoretically possible they could make the almost-certain outcome of tying up all loose ends on the surface to be just at the point of 5 -> 6, and getting to the underdark pushes you over the edge, and you start with a bunch of new interesting things. I don't know where my Player's Handbook is, so I can't look up if it's 5 that's a big, meaningful level up, but whatever it is, I'm sure it's theoretically possible to make entering the underdark coincide with some new toys in the toychest.