Orin and (to a lesser extent) Gortash have a lot more connection to Tav if you play as Dark Urge, which I suspect was how the game was originally designed to be played, but they made normal Tavs an option because they knew a lot of people wouldn't enjoy the gory, evil route.
@@MrVictor1227 If Karlach is present when Gortash is killed there is a very powerful reaction cut-scene with Karlach. maybe also if you being her to Gortash’s body buy maybe no exactly the same.
The broken or otherwise unrewarding quests in act 3 was probably my main complaint. In particular was one that you didn’t get due to an act 1 decision, but that should have rewarded me with a portrait of my character. Instead I ended up with a portrait of Minsc, and while I am a fervent supporter of his “swords for everyone” philosophy, my half-elf bard has the edge aesthetically speaking and in any case Minsc spent the entire time at camp.
This bothered me too but I reloaded till I got one of my avatar randomly. The player should get to choose the painting's subject and furthermore if Romancing Astarion they should get the option for special dialogue if having him painted so he can see himself again.
Yeah, Wyll suffers from a pretty last minute total rewrite that complete changes his character & motivations. He's almost played better as an origin character instead of a party member.
Yeah, I haven't played his origin yet but he's so tied into the main storyline and has such strong protagonist energy that I feel that he's a really natural fit to play as for an origin run
I started a Tav rogue for my first playthrough and wasn’t vibing with it in the first few hours. Restarted the game as Origin Wyll and loved it (and him). His “lack of story” really makes him an ideal main character since he does tie into the main story so well, like others have said.
Its not the rewrite particularly, you can have superhero in the story that works perfecty well and Wyll is not bad as one, its just that the story is not fleshed out. The issue is that they had to heavily scale down the game (act2 and3 especially; Upper City; House of Wonders, more political power plays including Mizora and Cazador, also full Avernus map not only Raphael's house, more Vlaakith stuff etc). Actually Karlach had been last in development and had the most changes and rewrites, her original questline included some kind of engine fix with Dammon or Gondians, but for that you needed Upper City's House of Wonders. Since her questline had been cut in half then shoehorned into a tragedy and Wyll's also had been underdeveloped (while other companions had devs priority), their stories got interconnected under time pressure. It was a risky move but it makes for poignant story; meeting Karlach that changes Wyll's life one way or another then their growing bond in the end is enough to convince Karlach to return together to Avernus and stay alive. It's a great story it's just not fleshed out as other 4 Origin companions.
The only reason to visit the circus is to meet the absolute gigachad of the entire game: Popper. I don't know why he isn't the main character, to be honest. I guess it'd just be too easy. You'd just rock up to the elder brain, offer it a treato, the brain refuses so Popper just casually one-shots it and then everyone gets a treato. I really liked Baldur's Gate's scale - I'm extremely tired of game cities just being 'a hub location with some vendors and a pub, where you get the quests and then fuck off back into the fields' - but for a bunch of Act III I wasn't actually sure what the main quest was. Squidward shows up to yammer at you about tadpoles (again) and then seems to want to shag? I like that the character stories all wrap up in act 3, it's cool, and how some of them are tied into the main plot - Lae'zel's most notably - there's a huge sense that you're making some significant decisions. But they're also huge bits of content that require a whole bunch of time and effort to figure out. I was just doing things that seemed to be related to other things - you just start weedwhacking in order to figure out where the actual path is. After 150 hours, I just wanted to finish the fucking thing and it seemed like there was another 50+ hours to go. It gets exhausting.
yeah i definitely agree that i like the city actually has a large scale and feels like a city. i liked Act 3 a lot though. i understand the burnout (i took like a week off before continuing as well) but i hope Larian doesn't take the infamous Act 3 burnout phenomenon, to mean that players want the tiny little "fake city" maps.
I like Wyll, I really do, but I agree with you. This might be unpopular, but maybe they should have left Halsin as an ally and focus more on Wylls story. There was a promise, that he gets more content and decisionmaking in patch 7, so there is hope. And the three chosen could have been really interesting, but Orin and Gortash don't get enough time. Gortash, the mind behind the Absolute plot, even can be bypassed completely, if you attack teh steelwatch factory before going to his coronation. I'm a big BG3 fan and love a lot about this game, but I wish, some of the storylines had gotten a bit more love. Like the Hearthflame sisters in the House of Hope: we never really find out, what happened, that overprotective Korrilla turned on her sister Hope. Those two are my personal pet peeves, because I like them and had wished to learn more about them.
yeah, it's good to have some more normal and likable characters in the case when you are first surrounded by a holes like Shadowheart, Astarion, and Laezel
My biggest issue with act 3 is that the first two felt really well paced but then you get to three and it felt like everything was just thrown at you and you gotta just figure it out
I kinda felt like the story hit the breaks or a wall all of a sudden. It felt like the tension was really rising, slowly reaching it's peak after killing Ketheric. Act 3 just kinda stops, gives you a couple new open sections to explore, bunch of quests that felt somewhat out of place for that part of the story. Like, you just learned that an Elder Brain was in the city, and yet you kinda run around doing comparatively unimportant stuff.
In early access; Wyll originally had his eye taken out by the goblin, Spike, and made his pact with Mizora after that. And his quest was to rescue Mizora from start Act 1, they were together when they got abducted by the mindflayers. And in order to find out where they took her, Spike makes Wyll torture the prisoner. But apparently people complained, so they rewrote to the Wyll we have today. Who by the way, according to this post i read, only has about 6 hours of stuff vs Astarian who has about 12 hours vs the rest of the origin characters have about 8 hours. I am going off memory with that, but the person had added up all the content each of the origin characters get as party members, and Wyll got the least, while Astarian is the favourite. And no, despite being able to find out about the missing gur children in act 1 (yes, you can find out about them in act 1, as well as, astarian's role), none of that extra content Astarian gets, involved confronting him about this fact when you go and tell him about the monster hunter. It bothers me and I wanted complain. Edit; I do like Astarian. He's a great character. I just also think his favouritism is an issue when it comes to the game.
@@ProperBird I believe, they did mentioned adding more romance greetings for Wyll in the next patch. I also hope that means they fix his act 3 romance scene. I just did a Wyll romance playthrough, and there is no in camp dialouge before it so basically no set up, and while the cutscene itself is sweet it, the way it ends feels like it should be a long rest, but it isnt, and it just throws you out of the moment. That said, as someone who has romanced all of the men since the kissing patch shipped, they did give him a leg up with that. Astarian only has two if you didnt ascend him, and they are kinda basic. I have no comment on the ladies yet. I have only done Karlach and Shadowheart, and both were pre-kissing patch.
People didn't complain about the story Wyll had in Early Access in the way your post describes it or implies. He was just called straight vanilla boring and that his willingness to torture the adventurerer over Mizora made no sense if he is supposed to be their Blade of Frontiers.
It's not really that "people complained" about anything specific (people complained about basically everything companion-related in EA, so that would mean very little). They changed the character because (by their own words) they decided he wasn't conveying the type of stor y/character arc they wanted. Personally I wasn't his biggest fan before, but I like the revised version even less. Also, I fucking hate his stupid horns from an aesthetic standpoint, which makes him often the first to end benched (I basically stroll around with Wyll only when I know I'm going for some part of his personal quest).
@@RazielTheUnborn Yeah, it was especially stupid when the alternative was simply to beat the crap out of Spike, anyway. Not exactly the hardest moral dilemma.
I feel like I’m in the minority, but I loved the chaotic mess of Act 3. Act 1 and 2 had pretty clear linear paths (granted you could easily get sidetracked) but Act 3 just opened up this whole world, busy with interesting people to talk to and tons of hidden nooks to explore. I loved getting lost in all of it, and I had only one bug that made me reload a save. Although, I did play the dark urge on my first playthrough and the connections to the main story line (particularly to Gortash and Orin) might have kept my character a little more grounded in the story context. My main complaint about the game is that no matter which character you select (Tav, Durge, Origin) you have to start the same way every single time. I wish there was some variety in how the tutorial/starting scenes played out that was based on the character or your background or something.
Exploring the city is exhausting and overwhelming but I agree the chaos is fun. But I can only but feel that this act was significantly rushed compared to other acts. Which is fine'ish considering the game is already ridiculously massive.
Koalas also have smooth brains preventing them from developing high cognitive functions, like spatial awareness or object recognition, that many other similar animals have. For example: a koala cannot discerns eucalyptus leaves, its primary food source, unless it is on a tree branch. Meaning if you took a pile of eucalyptus leaves and gave it to the koala and it had no other food sources it would literally starve to death despite having a pile of its favourite food.
I think the issue with act 3 steams from the fact that it was supposed to be split into actual two separate acts - lower and upper city! Cazador's palace was actually meant to be in said upper city area, which is why it's placement is currently so weird and just looks like a door in a wall. Because it wasn't planned. And the moment u get to the upper city its bc of the final fight and thats it.
You are really good at weaving together these stories. and your one liner explanations of things... overactive pizza oven, undead wanting working conditions... lol never lose that flair & flourish you have. also appreciate the badger. very nice.
The issue with Act 3 (and partly Act 2) is that the game would have needed another year of polishing. Obviously, that wasn't an option because at one point Larian had to make money with it. However, to be fair, Act 3 is like any other game out there with tons of completely irrelevant and confusing side-quests that we shouldn't be bothering with given the urgency of the overall (main) situation. The problem is that, in Act 1, BG3 has shown that it can do better than the other standard RPGs out there. So Act 3 comes a bit as a cold shower.
Mmmmhh is it though? I do also have a lot of things that kinda bothered me in act 3 but I still don't think it can be called disapointing. It's still really great
Far and away the funniest review of BG3. What's even better is that it's a funny review that hits the nail on the head. I loved listening to your telling of the searching for a "vet." I've been following your Twitch channel for more than 3.5 years. If I wasn't already following, this video would have made me want to. Wonderful video.
Love BG3 and Act 3 my favorite part of the game. I also got lost and overwhelmed and remember just standing there and saying "Where do I start? What do I do?" I just started exploring and had so much fun. First two acts set the stage and act 3 the grand finale. I do agree there issues from a story stand point in act 3 but it never soured my enjoyment of the game. Anyways. Great video and points. Love your sense of humor and always look forward to a new video.
I've made 20+ characters since BG3 came out. Only one of them has made it past Rivington. Only 3 of them have made it TO Rivington. The game definitely loses something in that act . . . Act 1 feels like a bespoke national treasure, to be spoken of in hushed tones of reverence. Act 2 is . . . fine . . . basically a spooky DND campaign of ghosts and shadows and one evil lord. The Nightsong saga is an exception here, being a deeply moving romantic tragedy. Act 3 is like . . . here's 36 quests we came up with last night go go go go go
There's an NPC with a child in act 3 that you can speak to that is begging for money.... There was no option to give them money... I felt bad for the rest of that session 😔
There are some tableaus like that in the lower city that seem like you should be able to help - the citizen KO's by a steel watcher, the kid crying over his murdered parents. As far as I can tell they exist solely so that Halsin can QQ about the deplorable, rotten city and then walk on by.
@@Misharr86 They were going to make quests for these things, but they were worried that random people and RUclipsrs would say that it was too much and that they should have been focusing on the main story since it's so urgent.
For statistics: I didn't read the thumbnail, but because I think I need glasses I liked to watch the playthrough-we-don't-talk-about-act-2. Even with the amount of bugs and issues you faced during the game, it was a complementary experience to mine. Let's see if the durge playthrough will have less howevers
i have done 3 playthroughs and i have never seen or gotten the Wavemother quest because the game makes you feel like if you don't go there immediately the duke will die. And thats also weird you go to speak to gortash and the duke is next to him but as soon as you leave the room the duke is in the prison
I beat BG3 recently and Act 3 issue is how fast you get to Level 12 and how fast you get the best gear for each class. By the start of the lower city you get to 12 and no soon later you get to Raphael's place to get insane gear. Then all non companion quests become kinda pointless. Unless you really care about being a complenist or care to close some side characters arc, act 3 can be insanely short yet so big. Also Gortash, Karlach and Wyll suffer from have very little time to shine. Despite act3 being so big..
To be fair, I think the number of quests in Act 3 is a safe option for players to level up their characters. Remember, you can go to Act 2 through Mountain Pass (and even by completely ignoring creshe!) or Underdark without visiting them both, so you could arrive at Act 3 underleveled and barely get 12 level after obtaining one of the Netherstones.
I think the whole Szarr palace was unfinished and they pushed together a bunch of pieces. Like the spawn level felt like a lot of empty space around the rooms, and somehow I could hear the werewolves in the ballroom from down there? And is that the real Victoria or not? But the main rooms felt disjointed like how we enter feels like a back doorway like the real walkways around Moonrise and Last Light, but no front entryway? No grand opening to the Super Mysterious and Important ballroom up some sweeping flight of stairs with a dramatic chandelier? We just trot in through the servant's hallway and bam there we are. One doorway and we're in the study? It felt idk like a dollhouse, where only a few rooms actually work. And yeah the Lady Incognita stuff was apparently cut third act upper city content because the last hint where she could be is the scroll down in the crypt but even then there's nothing you can do on it. It really felt like they needed one more act, or to simplify the side quests so the main companion stories could be focused on, leading up to the final battle. (I'm also just salty that for how well Astarion's story was written the actual lead up to his fight felt a little shallow, going through the palace like give me one more fight please)
I just hit 1k hours and I agree with pretty much everything you said, I usually start struggling in act3, I abandoned around 2 playthroughs as soon as I hit it because of the issues you mentioned. I love the fights there but getting to them can be really painful. Don't worry about criticizing this beloved game, we do it cause we care :) And good luck with the durge, without spoiling anything, it really feels like that's the canon Tav.
BG3, and a lot of modern games like it, have a huge problem with urgency in their narratives. If you're actually _role-playing_ in this role-playing game, then what character with the slightest amount of common sense would ignore the dire, _universe-threatening_ stakes to go bother with some missing pigeons or a funny talking amulet? Surely any character, no matter how lol quirky they are, would understand the immediate need to take action if only to preserve their own life. I know its a thing we've come to expect from fantasy, but the ticking clock which the story _immediately_ sets up with the tadpole just kneecaps the roleplaying experience.
I did know that Koalas all had unique prints very similar to humans. Idk if people read the thumbnails though. Prolly not if they are on their phone, most likely if they are over 35 and on a monitor? This game was great. top 10 of my lifetime at least, and I've been an avid CRPG since the original Gold Box Pool of Radiance made my C64 floppy drive sing like a helicopter. The biggest flaw for me was the level cap of 12. Normally I would think that would be more than fine, but there is just so much bloody content in this game that hitting level 12 right after Act 2 with another 100 hours left to play is more than possible. 15 or 16 would have made a lot more sense to me, but I assume they just did not have time to balance level 7 and 8 spells into the game. Even if I would have been 100% fine with only having 5 or 6 spells from levels 7 and 8 to pick from...heck, I'd have been fine with additional lower level spells, more skills/feats and a stat raise, but I also know a ton of people would have been livid that they couldn't cast _"Limited Wish"_ on every boss thereafter. Still, with so much content you end up with people like myself putting 200+ hours into numerous starts, totaling over 700 hours who never end up finishing the game bc the lack of progression at the end gets too tedious as you don't just feel like you aren't progressing. You literally aren't. Yeah yeah, i could install a multi-class to level 20 mod but that's not the same and simply didn't fit the characters I tried to play. Hopefully that will be fixed once the official mod tools are released and I'll finally be able to finish what I started...3 times...starting 2 years before the game's official release date...stupid game. And darn Larian deciding that expansion packs are not worth their time bc they make the total package off the rip. Except with the level cap at 60% or so of the content XP available it kinda wasn't a _"whole package"_ for people like myself who do as much as they can. Still, though I may sound mad at what could be considered a waste of time, I really did love the time I spent with the game and do assume that I will do a full run at some point. When the stupid level cap is raised.
this video was exactly what i feel most modern gaming analysis videos lack. Which is a great balance of humor and criticism, really enjoyed this and it inspired me to be a better creator
I love your channel and I never finished act 3, I just got choice paralysis and never moved forward haha. I'll finish it one day. I don't know, just commenting for engagement because you deserve it.
"angry frog" "latent dommy mommy" "dracula's therapy starved cousin" "used car salesman" "vanilla flavour with a hero complex" "buff golden retriever who doubles as the love of my life" That alone deserves a like
One of my biggest problems with Act three is that it's easy to get dumped the whole backstory of the emperor (and the Dark Urge) almost immediately. You walk into act three, learn the whole truth about Lae'zel, your 'dream guardian' is a mindflayer who ran knights of the shield, and the brain is a big bad elder brain you gotta kill or it subjugates the world. The opening thing where the Gith invade your camp/the astral prism feels a lot like an info-dump. Especially if you take the time crunch messages seriously, and immediately run into Orin who is impersonating people and immediately kidnaps someone you know, and then you meet Gortash who info-dumps more on you and sends Wyll's dad to death row. Those could have been spaced out more. Or made me feel less of an immediate time-crunch to save the world from the Elder Brain, instead a gradually mounting sense of pressure. (Maybe RIvington doesn't make you feel hurried, but Wyrm's rock does and the city is more frantic. Or have it tied to the rocks somehow.)
Act 1 is amazing, no notes. Act 2 is alright, just a bit fractured. Act 3 is a complete overloaded mess and also the reason so many players don't finish the game. This is a pattern that was also present in older Larian games.
Jinzee is so damn superb in these videos. Their content is absolutely, incredibly captivating. This was a fantastic video, I needed a good laugh, and this gave me a hundred reasons to smile. Thank you, PB
As well as your very valid points my 2 main gripes with Act 3 were the entire Upper City being cut except for the run up to final battle. I think this caused way too much content to be crammed into Lower City. Also the boss battles with Gortash and Orin were massively underwhelming, both should have had an avatar of Bane and Bhaal phase like Myrkul.
@@ProperBird they had to patch in the ability to "speak with the dead" on Gortash just so we could finally hear Bane's voice, like how did this happen 😓
You’re the reason I got into more fantasy games because of your Witcher lore series. Baldur’s Gate 3 has been one of my favorite game since Witcher 3. Keep making these amazing videos! ❤
I completely agree. I played through BG3 five times (actually 4.9 times, my one honour mode save file bugged out just before I went to fight the elder brain, so no gold dice for me) and every time I got to act 3 I did less and less stuff and for most of those playthroughs the technical performance was abysmal. I, like many others, was hoping for an act 3 expansion/refinement dlc one day, but that's almost certainly not happening. I am really going to try to be there for some of your dark urge streams, as I think playing that origin adds so much to the experience, but I'd also love to see a video on your thoughts of playing that character. And yes, I read the thumbnail text. Great video as always, Jinzee.
act 3 man, I gotta agree, especially if you are a compulsive "do everything"-er and therefore have to enter every single damn house. I actually just put the game down for a month or so at some point before going back and finishing. of course it was all fun, mostly, just so much of it without much plot progression, and reaching level 12 early into act 3 also meant little gameplay variety
Agree with most/all the video. Ironic his name is Wyll and you can choose to free him of his contract. Ironic because he definitely lacks in the whole concept of "free will." My largest gripe with the game was the unfinished content for Karlach. Its painfully obvious she was meant to have a possible final upgrade in act 3 if you manage to keep Dammon alive and he shows up in the city. We even get a special "enriched infernal iron" in act 3, hints of Karlach's engine being a prototype for the Steelwatch, etc. Some combination of those efforts should have resulted in a heroic solution for her. My secondary issue with the game is I felt there weren't enough options to give platonic hugs or aid to all the people suffering through... *gestures to everything* Okay, Shadowheart and Astarion may not have accepted hugs when they needed them most but Gale could have used one when Elminster first showed his mug. I hated I couldn't give food to the starving kid and his mom, I have 6k+ camp supplies but I can't share? And why couldn't I adopt a cat of my own to be in camp? Grub doesn't count, Grub is Yenna's and doesn't want to be pet. Malta would have been a good option. In conclusion... hugs... needed more options for hugs.
I agree with a lot of your points. - Act 1 does feel the longest, with a lot of different places to go, especially with the entire Underdark biome. - I really expected Act 2 to be longer and have a lot more places to go but it ended up feeling too "samey" and gloomy (which is fitting but still). - I felt overwhelmed by Act 3 too; the city is so massive that is hard to know where to go first. I honestly can't help but to feel that, despite being massive and having a lot of stuff in it, that Act 3 was somewhat rushed. The chaotic mess of the act is actually funny, and the kind of thing you see in JRPGs: "The world is about to be stuck by a meteor but let's breed and race chocobos." Still, the whole experience was amazing; I only wish there was a way to free Orpheus while still keeping The Emperor at our side.
Totally agree with this video and I say that as someone who's played this game for well over a thousand hours and who's favorite act is act 3. I love the act for the finality of the long experience that is this giant game, one that I think blesses us the ability to play with up to three friends. I've bought the game for almost half a dozen friends at this point just to show them the game through multiplayer. While I love act 3, it is also the most flawed and bloated part of a videogame in comparison to the rest of the game I think I've ever seen in a major AAA game release. The point you brought up about this not being an MMO was very cogent and act 3 definitely feels to this day unfinished in many ways. As a videogame however, I think the gameplay encounters in act 3 are some of the most fun and challenging in the game, which is why I tend to forgive things like Wyll being so underdeveloped and coming across as an afterthought in act 3.
act 3 gets a lot of hate but i was genuinely so unfathomably disappointed by the ending, i had 700 hours in bg3 EA and thought it had the potential to easily be the best rpg of all time but the ending just soured and ruined all of that in such an instant the fact the game was advertised as choices mattering only for the ending to throw literally every choice youve made in the trash to present you with the binary choice of destroy or dont destroy the brain and have that pick between one of two endings was a mix of both seething rage and endless laughter at the undeniable hilariousness of it, YOU CAN KILL EVERY CHILD IN THE GAME AND STILL BE HERO OF BALDURS GATE.
You know what annoy me the most in act 3? The useless npcs the one that are there just to create the illusion of a population and you can't get rid of them, they pass through your companion during dialogues, and they for sure eat some of those sweet graphics that could be used, idk, to render the ENTIRE CITY. It really one of those thing that should be a button you can turn on and off and I don't understand how this is not already a thing.
It seems like act 3 has a lot more going on that connects back to you when you play as The Dark Urge; the relationships with Gortash and Orin are much more personal, and meeting Gortash without Karlach (evil playthroughs won't usually have her) probably feels profoundly different.
Act 3 isn't meant to be 100%'d Skipping content is a powerful decision in a game. Being able to do it without cheapening your experience empowers player choice.
Tbh i think every Larian game I've played has an undercooked Act 3, at least compared to the rest of the game. Games like Wasteland 2 fair better in mind because of the open world design it has and being able to access most quests in whatever order. Id argue BG3 isnt open world even if there is a lot of freedom in each acts' area.
Why would you say that the Emperor placed the tadpole into Tav's brain? I've never found anything proving that. There is a book or something that says that the emperor should lead the Nautiloids that were searching for the artifact, but I always assumed they found the artifact, the Emperor entered it and got his free will back, then Shadowheart's group snatched it from the rest of the group, but got captured by another Nautiloid. I guess there could also be a timeline where the Emperor found it, entered it, found his free will returning, then Shadowheart's group tried to snatch it, got caught in the nautiloid, then the emperor left the prism, came up all the way to Lae'Zel and Tav, tadpoled them (as seen in the intro sequence) and went back to trapped Shadowheart to enter the prism (and give it to her), BUT 1. How would Shadowheart not know about the mindflayer in the prism then? (and why did she say she found it, rather than saying it was placed with her?) 2. Why did only Shadowheart survive and be put in the pod? If the group was attacking that Nautiloid I'd assume they'd put everybody in the pods. So I'd argue that Shadowheart's group fought, got decimated, fled (only Shadowheart survived) and then Shadowheart got abducted. 3. Why does the dead mindflayer in the Goblin Camp recognize you? I assumed the dead mindflayer in the Goblin Camp was the one who tadpoled you, as it has a memory of reaching into your pod. I guess there could also be the option that Shadowheart's group snatched it from the Githyanki, but then why do Gortash's notes say that they have to steal it from Queen Vlaakith and never mention Sharran agents? (at least I can't remember reading anything about the Absolute's forces wanting to steal it from the Sharrans) but even if this was how it went, then still some questions remain: 1. Did the emperor only find the prism after tadpoling Shadowheart? Did he then enter it without Shadowheart noticing? If yes, how? 2. Again, why does the dead Mindflayer in the Goblin Camp have a memory of opening your pod?
Agree with everything but the houses; every one is different and even have their own unique cellar. Given that every single building (except Janneth's house?) has an underground component I would have liked them to be more linked up, like an urban underdark. Three big changes I would have made if there could be a "definitive edition": • Add the Upper City zone to the game and shift a lot of the stuff up there, especially Gortash and the coronation. • Make it so Gortash and Orin don't know you're coming. You'd get to sneak up on them instead of them goading you along. • Both Ravengards seem like they belong in another game. In addition giving Wyll more flaws and internal conflict his dad should be actually corrupt and willing to do most things for money (he's literally already a mercenary captain!)
@@ProperBirdIt does a really good job at actually tying your character into the storyline, as opposed to Tav who obviously has only very generic and tenuous ties to the world so you can give them whatever backstory you feel like
I've finished the game with a custom Tav and have yet to start a Dark Urge run. I admit that I rushed through Act 3 and missed a lot of side quests (though the circus did get all of Dribbles' body parts back), but I plan to take my time in the next playthrough and enter every house!
Holy shit. I thought I recognized the channel name, then came the realization that I used to watch your The Witcher 3 content 8 YEARS AGO… absolutely wild
I think it's absolutely ridiculous when people complain that the game doesn't railroad them into finishing the main quest and allows them to do side quests with less meaning than the main quest. If you want to go straight through and just do the main quest, you can do that! You don't have to do side quests if you don't want to. Some of us like doing the side quests. Stop whining.
what aggravates me about the game’s lack of attention to wyll is the lack of allowance towards showing vulnerability. he is a character that goes through A LOT, and a key part of his reception to certain events is not dwelling on his own feelings and instead disregarding how he feels just to focus on his goal. that in of itself is not bad, because it gives a lot of insight to how he’s been coping with the events of his life (since he was SEVENTEEN mind you). but when you consider just how much he goes through, there should be that moment where he can just air everything out, at least once. every character at some point in the story has their moment of vulnerability - even jahiera, minthara, and minsc are able to reflect and show an emotional side to them. the closest you get to wyll really feeling what has happened to him is wyll trying not to let his voice waver while talking about his father. this, alongside really questionable aspects of the game, make his lack of reactivity all the more reason as to why bad things happen and continue happening to wyll, because if he isn’t allowed to dwell on it and pushed to move on, it teaches the player to as well. it’s so frustrating. this and the fact that you technically don’t even need wyll to find ansur and complete that quest. even though it’s test MADE for someone like wyll, you can honestly just do it without him and there aren’t any consequences for that??? LIKE HUH???
Yeah it honestly felt like Wyll was just along for the ride and not much else. I would LOVE to have a more vulnerable moment with him where he can finally just yell about the injustice of it all. He was just trying to do the right thing. 😭
My biggest point of frustration is Karlach's storyline: there's no opportunity to even try to find solution to her engine.I mean it's not like there's a community of formerly enslaved gnome engineers who have experience in working on hellengines and who must be very grateful to us for saving them despite their obvious prepatch tendency to share singular suicidal brain cell. FUCKING GONDIANS. And meanwhile we have Gale who is handed the solution for his bomb in the chest via literal deus ex machina.
24:05 For that part in Cazador's mansion it's a Romeo and Juliette reference Basically Romeo drank fake poison to make people believe he died and then leave with Juliet. But he forgot to tell Juliette. When she finds Romeo's supposed dead body she decides to poison herself because she can't live without him. And then after waking up Romeo sees Juliette's corpse and drinks actual poison as well.
the emperor is undoubtedly my least favorite aspect of act 3. it kinda throws away the customizing your dream visitor, the twist that he's actually balduran doesnt feel earned or even interesting enough to be worth the retcon, and generally i dont think hes very well written.
While it's not an excuse, by any means, I half wonder how much of the... Act 3-ness of Act 3 was a D&D-ism. By that I mean imagine doing what's possible to do in Baldur's Gate in actual tabletop; the DM will literally never be able to make every house or every quest interesting, and some of those quests will be unconnected or weird (largely because the DM had to make something up on the fly and got carried away, maybe; no I've never ever done that, nobody can prove anything). ALL THAT SAID, I don't disagree with you, and it's a video game -not- D&D so the same excuses don't hold the same weight, but ...in a strange way, as a forever DM, I kind of appreciate that? Is that weird? Maybe. Anyway, wonderful vid as ever, excellent points, keep 'em comin'!
Did you know that koalas have completely smooth brains and have been found dead surrounded by eucalyptus (the only food they can eat) because they don't recognize it unless it's on a branch?
I had pretty similar problems with act 3. The most problematic in feeling unfinished was the toy quest for me, since for a game that normally has like four different ways to end quests and a lot of them are dialogue based this one just confused be for like half an hour. I had to look up multiple guides and Reddit posts online to make sure I wasn’t missing anything and there really just was nothing one could do. Also the feeling of being a lot got worse for me because so many quests send you from location to location to location. It made the side quests feel bloated to me espacially compared to Astarions and Shadowhearts arc conclusions. I don’t think those two quests needed to be longer since they were great on their own but it kinda lessened their impact being the short breaks between the endless artist quest and saving the future cult victims. In my first run I played like the perfect hero paladin who tried to save everyone and make everyone happy so I did all the quests and I’m happy I did for that run, but I’m just looking forward to cutting a lot of those quests short.
They never got Wyll right IMO, and its' a crying shame. There was the basis for a really interesting character there, but they never managed to develop it coherently. My guess is that too many people got involved in the creative process. Too many cooks spoiling the proverbial broth. Probably someone higher up the chain dictating that Wyll had to be a "good" character because the game needed some "good" characters. And so the original creative inspiration was blocked. And eventually lost. Wyll is a bundle of contradictions. The game introduces him as this dashing, charismatic folk hero with a dark secret - but that isn't how Wyll presents. We discover that he has all sorts of baggage from the past - but none of that baggage leads to any complexity or layering in his character. He's a warlock, but he doesn't experience the pull of the dark side - despite the fact that everything is set up perfectly for it.We have the resentment against his father, the lure of power... we could even have had some sexual tension with Mizora... but none of this is explored. Wyll is just good and noble. I can't see the coherence of the creative thought process here. What is the point of establishing all the elements for a really interesting character arc only to make nothing out of them?
Odd, Act 3 is my favorite act. The performance doesn't always hold up andit's definitely unfinished but I love it specifically because there is so much to do.
Small correction: we don't know if the mind flayer in the first cutscene is The Emperor, they have a buncha similarities design wise, but also some differences, and the timeline gets (even more) wacky if they end up being the same. About Orin and Gortash, I played BG3 last may for the first time (twice already with the same character) and immediately chose to make a durge bcuz I knew they have some cool stuff on their backstory (and also I'll always choose the non-human looking species), and that made me care about Orin and Gortash (especially Orin for obvs reasons) a lot. It's a shame that if you don't play as one, they feel so meh in comparison. And yeah, apparently Act 3 would've have the Upper City but it was scrapped, it was were Cazador's Palace would've supposed to be, and I can also say as someone who's Very Normal about The Emperor, a bunch of stuff about it, Stelmane and The Knights of the Shield seem unfinished/underdeveloped and if I had to guess it would also take place in the Upper City. The game is amazing, I've been brainrotting about it ever since but somehow some stuff still could've been cooked a bit further, and it makes me sad that Larian won't do any big extra content of it :(
Omg I missed you so much @proper bird! I hope you are doing okay and that life is being good to you. Please continue to keep us company when you can. Big love from the uk ❤️❤️❤️
Absolutely love the game, and do feel that Act 3 felt incomplete. However, the exploring all around was kind of hinted at by your Guardian after killing Kethric: You need to recruit more allies in Baldur's Gate in order to fight the Netherbrain. The playtesting really helped fully flesh out Act 1 which is amazing but left the other 2 acts in that shadow. BG3 is not a perfect game, but it is a great game. I wish they could (and would) do more with it but I am happy with what Larian gave us. I agree with your critiques and to add that the best Boss fight in Act3 was just a side quest: Raphael.
Act 3 is incomplete due to the release of Starfield! They really should have let the game sit in the oven instead of trying to release it ahead of Starfield. Data miners found missing quests for Karlach, wyll and Minthara in the upper city as well as a map of Avernus. Swen openly said that the developers ran out of time when trying to make Jaheira romanceable. In reality, Balders Gate 3 needed to be released in December 2023 not August. Those 4 months could of helped Act 3 be what it needed to be.
That's honestly a pity. But I do understand that they have to cut the cord at some point, especially if they don't know whether it's going to be a hit or not.
that is such an incredible misrepresentation of the issue. i hope you were being facetious when you said starfield is *literally* to blame for act 3 being bad because that is simply not the case. i believe that larian running out of time is not the problem, it is a symptom. every issue with act 3 comes down to their poor decision making and lack of focus. WHY did they even try making jaheira romancable? shes a borderline elderly widow and its not like the game is lacking in romancable characters. WHY make an entire map of avernus? youve already had to abandon the upper city, a far more important area. WHY stuff the lower city with unrelated sidequests? you havent even fleshed out 2 main companions and the literal actual final bosses. larian has a pattern of trying to fit too many things into the game. the mark of a good artist is knowing when to stop. a game (or any piece of art) is NEVER going to be perfect and as an artist you need to know when enough is enough. larian is an amazing, creative studio, but they do not know when to stop. they completely lost the plot in act 3 and its nobody's fault but their own
Well, as far as I am aware, I heard people say that there is cut content for Karlach, Wyll, and Upper City, but for some strange and bizarre reason, no one provided what those datamines found. No dialogue, no voicelines, no info at all. I wonder why...
Speaking of D&D related things, I've never personally played it but plan on getting the revised core rule books later this year and wanted to ask if you had any advice for a newbie like me.
I really enjoyed act 3 but I can see it's weaknesses, people said it was rushed and even after further development it wasn't fully fleshed out. Either way it's still a 10/10 for me
I was so invested in getting the Tieflings to Baldur's gate, you can only image my frustration when I realized that going into the crypt auto kills the tieflings. Like there really needs to be a prompt in the game that warns you. I thought I was just exploring a really cool side dungeon. Not advancing the plot. And I missed some really cool Ketheric cutscenes....
There's a prompt that says "depending on your choices, the state of the region could change and some active quests may become unavailable". But on my first playthrough I definitely thought that entering the Moonrise Towers was pure endgame for that zone. At least it's another reason to do a second run. 🥹
@@ProperBird I dont remember there being a prompt? Or maybe I didnt think nothing of it because to me Moonrise was the point of no return. They do something similar before you go to the Mountain pass in Act 1. But nothing really happens.
must be one of those rare act 3 is the best and its not close people. best encounters ✅best exploration ✅ best side quests and the best gear ✅ sure at max level the game becomes bordeline childsplay and especially easy with fireworks to even oneshot the endboss on honour mode or how big and massive filled to the brim with content the act is....
17:36 the problem with Wyll is that they re-wrote the entire character after fans who played early access complained he wasn't likeable enough. He was a very flawed but multi-faceted character, but Larian re-wrote him to be a generic good guy. I love the fact they listen to fan feedback, but sometimes I feel you need to stick to your creative vision and trust people will appreciate it when they experience the finished article (I understand this is an incredibly hard tightrope to walk). Wyll may not have been likeable (to some people), but the original version of Wyll was a much more interesting, complex and charismatic character.
I loved act 3 because of the companion quests, and playing dark urge. And getting to complete quests and figure out wtf is wrong with my player character. I have a lot of complaints about act 3, but i was busy crying every other hour as i got "complete"s on companion quests.
I missed your content. So much. But i'd rather have this over you being burnt out and unwell every week/month. Had a load of fun for 20 or so minutes. Thank you. Have a great day.
I discovered that if dragging my feet (i think it was 2 long rests) after telling Aldrin that Nightsong is a person, and not telling Nightsong about Lorokan's plan, Aldrin's party rolls into the camp at night. Andd then, at least for me, both Minsc and Karlah got stuck in the night dialogue setting, so it was impossible to talk to them properly (both just telling me that we should rest) and without option to ask them join the party. I'm mostly frustrated by Balduran thing. They fucked up Moonrise Towers timeline, on top of sheer size of middle finger to existing setting they pulled with "Balduran" (and Zenith presence in hireling section. If you *refer* to presence of someone from the first Baldur's Gate, who is, according to current DnD is still alive... but person won't appear? maybe better to NOT)
![The Definitive Yennefer vs. Triss Video - Toxic Relationships [Witcher Lore]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/dsMR1-lDCLE/mqdefault.jpg)
![The Definitive Yennefer vs. Triss Video - Toxic Relationships [Witcher Lore]](/img/tr.png)
I didn't know koalas had fingerprints similar to humans.
Right? It's SO weird!
ngl: I didn't watch the video, I just read the thumbnail.
@@ProperBirddon't underestimate us lol
Dammit, I came here to comment that as well :D
I'm telling you, it was the koala, officer! You have to believe me!
Orin and (to a lesser extent) Gortash have a lot more connection to Tav if you play as Dark Urge, which I suspect was how the game was originally designed to be played, but they made normal Tavs an option because they knew a lot of people wouldn't enjoy the gory, evil route.
This, 100%
also Gortash can get you a great performance from Karlach
Except Tav was the only option in beta. I think they only wrote Durge because they got shit for how blank slate MC is.
@@doloresabernathy9809 what do you mean
@@MrVictor1227 If Karlach is present when Gortash is killed there is a very powerful reaction cut-scene with Karlach. maybe also if you being her to Gortash’s body buy maybe no exactly the same.
The broken or otherwise unrewarding quests in act 3 was probably my main complaint. In particular was one that you didn’t get due to an act 1 decision, but that should have rewarded me with a portrait of my character. Instead I ended up with a portrait of Minsc, and while I am a fervent supporter of his “swords for everyone” philosophy, my half-elf bard has the edge aesthetically speaking and in any case Minsc spent the entire time at camp.
Was Boo included at least?
@@ProperBird Sadly not, it was a travesty all round.
This bothered me too but I reloaded till I got one of my avatar randomly. The player should get to choose the painting's subject and furthermore if Romancing Astarion they should get the option for special dialogue if having him painted so he can see himself again.
@@Aelonwy I did this! I was kinda sad Astarion had nothing to say about it...
Letting that dude get offed had a better reward tbh
''a buff golden retriever that doubles as the love of life'' aint that the truth
She's perfect and literally hot
How can men be gay and women straight when Karlach exists?
@@spacecowboy5486 She's too hype for my taste ._.
"Vanilla flavour with a hero complex" is also the most brutally true description of Wyll I've ever heard.
Perfect Karlach description is perfect
Yeah, Wyll suffers from a pretty last minute total rewrite that complete changes his character & motivations. He's almost played better as an origin character instead of a party member.
I definitely intend to play through every single origin character's story too!
Yeah, I haven't played his origin yet but he's so tied into the main storyline and has such strong protagonist energy that I feel that he's a really natural fit to play as for an origin run
I started a Tav rogue for my first playthrough and wasn’t vibing with it in the first few hours. Restarted the game as Origin Wyll and loved it (and him). His “lack of story” really makes him an ideal main character since he does tie into the main story so well, like others have said.
@@crptpyrhe is both the most main character character and the companion with the LEAST amount of content. Absolutely criminal
Its not the rewrite particularly, you can have superhero in the story that works perfecty well and Wyll is not bad as one, its just that the story is not fleshed out. The issue is that they had to heavily scale down the game (act2 and3 especially; Upper City; House of Wonders, more political power plays including Mizora and Cazador, also full Avernus map not only Raphael's house, more Vlaakith stuff etc).
Actually Karlach had been last in development and had the most changes and rewrites, her original questline included some kind of engine fix with Dammon or Gondians, but for that you needed Upper City's House of Wonders. Since her questline had been cut in half then shoehorned into a tragedy and Wyll's also had been underdeveloped (while other companions had devs priority), their stories got interconnected under time pressure. It was a risky move but it makes for poignant story; meeting Karlach that changes Wyll's life one way or another then their growing bond in the end is enough to convince Karlach to return together to Avernus and stay alive. It's a great story it's just not fleshed out as other 4 Origin companions.
I really enjoyed act 3, mostly because I was really invested in my companions and loved getting to complete their story lines
Astarion's questline was a banger honestly.
same. i definitely see the flaws though but the companions’ stories completion is everything
The only reason to visit the circus is to meet the absolute gigachad of the entire game: Popper. I don't know why he isn't the main character, to be honest. I guess it'd just be too easy. You'd just rock up to the elder brain, offer it a treato, the brain refuses so Popper just casually one-shots it and then everyone gets a treato.
I really liked Baldur's Gate's scale - I'm extremely tired of game cities just being 'a hub location with some vendors and a pub, where you get the quests and then fuck off back into the fields' - but for a bunch of Act III I wasn't actually sure what the main quest was. Squidward shows up to yammer at you about tadpoles (again) and then seems to want to shag? I like that the character stories all wrap up in act 3, it's cool, and how some of them are tied into the main plot - Lae'zel's most notably - there's a huge sense that you're making some significant decisions. But they're also huge bits of content that require a whole bunch of time and effort to figure out. I was just doing things that seemed to be related to other things - you just start weedwhacking in order to figure out where the actual path is. After 150 hours, I just wanted to finish the fucking thing and it seemed like there was another 50+ hours to go. It gets exhausting.
Ending the game by getting a treato sounds perfect and I need a mod for it right this minute.
Gigachad #2 is Boney, who ADORES his voluptuous wife
yeah i definitely agree that i like the city actually has a large scale and feels like a city. i liked Act 3 a lot though. i understand the burnout (i took like a week off before continuing as well) but i hope Larian doesn't take the infamous Act 3 burnout phenomenon, to mean that players want the tiny little "fake city" maps.
I want popper as a companion so i can rock up to the final boss with my dragonborne and popper
I like Wyll, I really do, but I agree with you. This might be unpopular, but maybe they should have left Halsin as an ally and focus more on Wylls story. There was a promise, that he gets more content and decisionmaking in patch 7, so there is hope. And the three chosen could have been really interesting, but Orin and Gortash don't get enough time. Gortash, the mind behind the Absolute plot, even can be bypassed completely, if you attack teh steelwatch factory before going to his coronation. I'm a big BG3 fan and love a lot about this game, but I wish, some of the storylines had gotten a bit more love. Like the Hearthflame sisters in the House of Hope: we never really find out, what happened, that overprotective Korrilla turned on her sister Hope. Those two are my personal pet peeves, because I like them and had wished to learn more about them.
I personally like Wyll. He's the guy that puts all his problems on hold to help out others, and is one of the less "quirky" party members.
yeah, it's good to have some more normal and likable characters in the case when you are first surrounded by a holes like Shadowheart, Astarion, and Laezel
Don't you dare disappear, love your game/fantasy analysis!
Can't get rid of me, I'm like very determined mold
My biggest issue with act 3 is that the first two felt really well paced but then you get to three and it felt like everything was just thrown at you and you gotta just figure it out
I kinda felt like the story hit the breaks or a wall all of a sudden. It felt like the tension was really rising, slowly reaching it's peak after killing Ketheric. Act 3 just kinda stops, gives you a couple new open sections to explore, bunch of quests that felt somewhat out of place for that part of the story.
Like, you just learned that an Elder Brain was in the city, and yet you kinda run around doing comparatively unimportant stuff.
In early access; Wyll originally had his eye taken out by the goblin, Spike, and made his pact with Mizora after that. And his quest was to rescue Mizora from start Act 1, they were together when they got abducted by the mindflayers. And in order to find out where they took her, Spike makes Wyll torture the prisoner. But apparently people complained, so they rewrote to the Wyll we have today.
Who by the way, according to this post i read, only has about 6 hours of stuff vs Astarian who has about 12 hours vs the rest of the origin characters have about 8 hours. I am going off memory with that, but the person had added up all the content each of the origin characters get as party members, and Wyll got the least, while Astarian is the favourite.
And no, despite being able to find out about the missing gur children in act 1 (yes, you can find out about them in act 1, as well as, astarian's role), none of that extra content Astarian gets, involved confronting him about this fact when you go and tell him about the monster hunter. It bothers me and I wanted complain.
Edit; I do like Astarian. He's a great character. I just also think his favouritism is an issue when it comes to the game.
Wyll really didn't get enough love, maybe a future patch will give him a little something more.
@@ProperBird I believe, they did mentioned adding more romance greetings for Wyll in the next patch. I also hope that means they fix his act 3 romance scene.
I just did a Wyll romance playthrough, and there is no in camp dialouge before it so basically no set up, and while the cutscene itself is sweet it, the way it ends feels like it should be a long rest, but it isnt, and it just throws you out of the moment.
That said, as someone who has romanced all of the men since the kissing patch shipped, they did give him a leg up with that. Astarian only has two if you didnt ascend him, and they are kinda basic. I have no comment on the ladies yet. I have only done Karlach and Shadowheart, and both were pre-kissing patch.
People didn't complain about the story Wyll had in Early Access in the way your post describes it or implies. He was just called straight vanilla boring and that his willingness to torture the adventurerer over Mizora made no sense if he is supposed to be their Blade of Frontiers.
It's not really that "people complained" about anything specific (people complained about basically everything companion-related in EA, so that would mean very little).
They changed the character because (by their own words) they decided he wasn't conveying the type of stor y/character arc they wanted.
Personally I wasn't his biggest fan before, but I like the revised version even less. Also, I fucking hate his stupid horns from an aesthetic standpoint, which makes him often the first to end benched (I basically stroll around with Wyll only when I know I'm going for some part of his personal quest).
@@RazielTheUnborn Yeah, it was especially stupid when the alternative was simply to beat the crap out of Spike, anyway.
Not exactly the hardest moral dilemma.
I feel like I’m in the minority, but I loved the chaotic mess of Act 3. Act 1 and 2 had pretty clear linear paths (granted you could easily get sidetracked) but Act 3 just opened up this whole world, busy with interesting people to talk to and tons of hidden nooks to explore. I loved getting lost in all of it, and I had only one bug that made me reload a save. Although, I did play the dark urge on my first playthrough and the connections to the main story line (particularly to Gortash and Orin) might have kept my character a little more grounded in the story context. My main complaint about the game is that no matter which character you select (Tav, Durge, Origin) you have to start the same way every single time. I wish there was some variety in how the tutorial/starting scenes played out that was based on the character or your background or something.
Exploring the city is exhausting and overwhelming but I agree the chaos is fun. But I can only but feel that this act was significantly rushed compared to other acts. Which is fine'ish considering the game is already ridiculously massive.
Koalas also have smooth brains preventing them from developing high cognitive functions, like spatial awareness or object recognition, that many other similar animals have. For example: a koala cannot discerns eucalyptus leaves, its primary food source, unless it is on a tree branch. Meaning if you took a pile of eucalyptus leaves and gave it to the koala and it had no other food sources it would literally starve to death despite having a pile of its favourite food.
Relatable little smoothbrained bears.
I hate this copypasta. It hurts the opinion people have of koalas, when an animals right to survive isn’t about traits we think are good or bad.
@@realdaggerman105but they have smooth brain
@@jebus42069
Nvm u right
I think the issue with act 3 steams from the fact that it was supposed to be split into actual two separate acts - lower and upper city! Cazador's palace was actually meant to be in said upper city area, which is why it's placement is currently so weird and just looks like a door in a wall. Because it wasn't planned. And the moment u get to the upper city its bc of the final fight and thats it.
You are really good at weaving together these stories. and your one liner explanations of things... overactive pizza oven, undead wanting working conditions... lol never lose that flair & flourish you have. also appreciate the badger. very nice.
The issue with Act 3 (and partly Act 2) is that the game would have needed another year of polishing. Obviously, that wasn't an option because at one point Larian had to make money with it. However, to be fair, Act 3 is like any other game out there with tons of completely irrelevant and confusing side-quests that we shouldn't be bothering with given the urgency of the overall (main) situation. The problem is that, in Act 1, BG3 has shown that it can do better than the other standard RPGs out there. So Act 3 comes a bit as a cold shower.
Act 3 definitely wasn't playtested as thoroughly as Act 1 so I'm sure that didn't help but man it does show.
You don't have to do side quests if you don't want to. Just finish the main story if it's so urgent that doing side quests breaks your immersion.
@@JBrandonMercer123 You totally missed the point.
Name a more memorable duo than Larian and disappointing final acts
Taking the "it's about the journey not the destination" quote literally
Game of Thrones.
Mmmmhh is it though? I do also have a lot of things that kinda bothered me in act 3 but I still don't think it can be called disapointing. It's still really great
@@topblokehere6579 ok, you won
@@walk-in sick.
I’ve played through acts 1 and 2 8 different times. ACT 3 twice. Says a lot.
That you play a lot of Baldurs Gate 3
Far and away the funniest review of BG3. What's even better is that it's a funny review that hits the nail on the head. I loved listening to your telling of the searching for a "vet." I've been following your Twitch channel for more than 3.5 years. If I wasn't already following, this video would have made me want to. Wonderful video.
Love BG3 and Act 3 my favorite part of the game. I also got lost and overwhelmed and remember just standing there and saying "Where do I start? What do I do?" I just started exploring and had so much fun. First two acts set the stage and act 3 the grand finale.
I do agree there issues from a story stand point in act 3 but it never soured my enjoyment of the game.
Anyways. Great video and points. Love your sense of humor and always look forward to a new video.
I've made 20+ characters since BG3 came out. Only one of them has made it past Rivington. Only 3 of them have made it TO Rivington. The game definitely loses something in that act . . . Act 1 feels like a bespoke national treasure, to be spoken of in hushed tones of reverence. Act 2 is . . . fine . . . basically a spooky DND campaign of ghosts and shadows and one evil lord. The Nightsong saga is an exception here, being a deeply moving romantic tragedy. Act 3 is like . . . here's 36 quests we came up with last night go go go go go
There's an NPC with a child in act 3 that you can speak to that is begging for money.... There was no option to give them money... I felt bad for the rest of that session 😔
Yes. :( I reverse-pickpocketed them to give them some gold.
i swear you can give them money if i remeber i did it and she ended up taking all my gold, she toke 5k gold off me i restarted and ignored her 😂
There are some tableaus like that in the lower city that seem like you should be able to help - the citizen KO's by a steel watcher, the kid crying over his murdered parents. As far as I can tell they exist solely so that Halsin can QQ about the deplorable, rotten city and then walk on by.
@@Misharr86 They were going to make quests for these things, but they were worried that random people and RUclipsrs would say that it was too much and that they should have been focusing on the main story since it's so urgent.
@@JBrandonMercer123 That makes sense. I suppose it would also be work to remove them. it just leaves kind of a weird impression that's all.
For statistics: I didn't read the thumbnail, but because I think I need glasses
I liked to watch the playthrough-we-don't-talk-about-act-2. Even with the amount of bugs and issues you faced during the game, it was a complementary experience to mine.
Let's see if the durge playthrough will have less howevers
I did make the text remarkably small, I was just very curious to see if anyone would try. 😂
''she does not step on you'' i mean, she does wises you to die, that half way there
It's not the same thing there weren't any heels involved
i have done 3 playthroughs and i have never seen or gotten the Wavemother quest because the game makes you feel like if you don't go there immediately the duke will die. And thats also weird you go to speak to gortash and the duke is next to him but as soon as you leave the room the duke is in the prison
I beat BG3 recently and Act 3 issue is how fast you get to Level 12 and how fast you get the best gear for each class.
By the start of the lower city you get to 12 and no soon later you get to Raphael's place to get insane gear. Then all non companion quests become kinda pointless. Unless you really care about being a complenist or care to close some side characters arc, act 3 can be insanely short yet so big.
Also Gortash, Karlach and Wyll suffer from have very little time to shine. Despite act3 being so big..
I honestly wouldn't have minded if Act 3 revolved solely around the companions and the fresh big enemies and nothing else.
To be fair, I think the number of quests in Act 3 is a safe option for players to level up their characters. Remember, you can go to Act 2 through Mountain Pass (and even by completely ignoring creshe!) or Underdark without visiting them both, so you could arrive at Act 3 underleveled and barely get 12 level after obtaining one of the Netherstones.
I think the whole Szarr palace was unfinished and they pushed together a bunch of pieces. Like the spawn level felt like a lot of empty space around the rooms, and somehow I could hear the werewolves in the ballroom from down there? And is that the real Victoria or not? But the main rooms felt disjointed like how we enter feels like a back doorway like the real walkways around Moonrise and Last Light, but no front entryway? No grand opening to the Super Mysterious and Important ballroom up some sweeping flight of stairs with a dramatic chandelier? We just trot in through the servant's hallway and bam there we are. One doorway and we're in the study? It felt idk like a dollhouse, where only a few rooms actually work. And yeah the Lady Incognita stuff was apparently cut third act upper city content because the last hint where she could be is the scroll down in the crypt but even then there's nothing you can do on it. It really felt like they needed one more act, or to simplify the side quests so the main companion stories could be focused on, leading up to the final battle. (I'm also just salty that for how well Astarion's story was written the actual lead up to his fight felt a little shallow, going through the palace like give me one more fight please)
I just hit 1k hours and I agree with pretty much everything you said, I usually start struggling in act3, I abandoned around 2 playthroughs as soon as I hit it because of the issues you mentioned. I love the fights there but getting to them can be really painful.
Don't worry about criticizing this beloved game, we do it cause we care :)
And good luck with the durge, without spoiling anything, it really feels like that's the canon Tav.
BG3, and a lot of modern games like it, have a huge problem with urgency in their narratives. If you're actually _role-playing_ in this role-playing game, then what character with the slightest amount of common sense would ignore the dire, _universe-threatening_ stakes to go bother with some missing pigeons or a funny talking amulet?
Surely any character, no matter how lol quirky they are, would understand the immediate need to take action if only to preserve their own life.
I know its a thing we've come to expect from fantasy, but the ticking clock which the story _immediately_ sets up with the tadpole just kneecaps the roleplaying experience.
I did know that Koalas all had unique prints very similar to humans. Idk if people read the thumbnails though. Prolly not if they are on their phone, most likely if they are over 35 and on a monitor?
This game was great. top 10 of my lifetime at least, and I've been an avid CRPG since the original Gold Box Pool of Radiance made my C64 floppy drive sing like a helicopter.
The biggest flaw for me was the level cap of 12. Normally I would think that would be more than fine, but there is just so much bloody content in this game that hitting level 12 right after Act 2 with another 100 hours left to play is more than possible. 15 or 16 would have made a lot more sense to me, but I assume they just did not have time to balance level 7 and 8 spells into the game. Even if I would have been 100% fine with only having 5 or 6 spells from levels 7 and 8 to pick from...heck, I'd have been fine with additional lower level spells, more skills/feats and a stat raise, but I also know a ton of people would have been livid that they couldn't cast _"Limited Wish"_ on every boss thereafter. Still, with so much content you end up with people like myself putting 200+ hours into numerous starts, totaling over 700 hours who never end up finishing the game bc the lack of progression at the end gets too tedious as you don't just feel like you aren't progressing. You literally aren't.
Yeah yeah, i could install a multi-class to level 20 mod but that's not the same and simply didn't fit the characters I tried to play. Hopefully that will be fixed once the official mod tools are released and I'll finally be able to finish what I started...3 times...starting 2 years before the game's official release date...stupid game. And darn Larian deciding that expansion packs are not worth their time bc they make the total package off the rip. Except with the level cap at 60% or so of the content XP available it kinda wasn't a _"whole package"_ for people like myself who do as much as they can.
Still, though I may sound mad at what could be considered a waste of time, I really did love the time I spent with the game and do assume that I will do a full run at some point. When the stupid level cap is raised.
this video was exactly what i feel most modern gaming analysis videos lack. Which is a great balance of humor and criticism, really enjoyed this and it inspired me to be a better creator
I did know koalas have very similar thumbprints but its always nice to hear again.
Apparently they can even contaminate crime scenes it's so close, it's mind boggling!
I love your channel and I never finished act 3, I just got choice paralysis and never moved forward haha. I'll finish it one day. I don't know, just commenting for engagement because you deserve it.
"angry frog"
"latent dommy mommy"
"dracula's therapy starved cousin"
"used car salesman"
"vanilla flavour with a hero complex"
"buff golden retriever who doubles as the love of my life"
That alone deserves a like
One of my biggest problems with Act three is that it's easy to get dumped the whole backstory of the emperor (and the Dark Urge) almost immediately. You walk into act three, learn the whole truth about Lae'zel, your 'dream guardian' is a mindflayer who ran knights of the shield, and the brain is a big bad elder brain you gotta kill or it subjugates the world.
The opening thing where the Gith invade your camp/the astral prism feels a lot like an info-dump. Especially if you take the time crunch messages seriously, and immediately run into Orin who is impersonating people and immediately kidnaps someone you know, and then you meet Gortash who info-dumps more on you and sends Wyll's dad to death row.
Those could have been spaced out more.
Or made me feel less of an immediate time-crunch to save the world from the Elder Brain, instead a gradually mounting sense of pressure. (Maybe RIvington doesn't make you feel hurried, but Wyrm's rock does and the city is more frantic. Or have it tied to the rocks somehow.)
Thumbnail read, commenting for helping out with the algorithm.
Great video as always! Thank you! :)
A fellow thumbnail reader!
Act 1 is amazing, no notes. Act 2 is alright, just a bit fractured. Act 3 is a complete overloaded mess and also the reason so many players don't finish the game. This is a pattern that was also present in older Larian games.
Jinzee is so damn superb in these videos. Their content is absolutely, incredibly captivating.
This was a fantastic video, I needed a good laugh, and this gave me a hundred reasons to smile.
Thank you, PB
I know what you are saying, the characters felt disconnected, there is no long story
You explained all of my complaints PERFECTLY. Great video, excited to see more!
Went from 90 fps in act 1 and 2 to barely 30 in act 3 its crazy
As well as your very valid points my 2 main gripes with Act 3 were the entire Upper City being cut except for the run up to final battle. I think this caused way too much content to be crammed into Lower City. Also the boss battles with Gortash and Orin were massively underwhelming, both should have had an avatar of Bane and Bhaal phase like Myrkul.
Orin had half an avatar and Gortash just grew a few sizes, embarrassing. 🥲
@@ProperBird they had to patch in the ability to "speak with the dead" on Gortash just so we could finally hear Bane's voice, like how did this happen 😓
Your humour is magnificent. I love your honest analysis.
Thank you!
You’re the reason I got into more fantasy games because of your Witcher lore series. Baldur’s Gate 3 has been one of my favorite game since Witcher 3. Keep making these amazing videos! ❤
I'm really glad to hear that!
i can never side with nere because he sounds like the teenager krusty burger employee in simpsons
I completely agree. I played through BG3 five times (actually 4.9 times, my one honour mode save file bugged out just before I went to fight the elder brain, so no gold dice for me) and every time I got to act 3 I did less and less stuff and for most of those playthroughs the technical performance was abysmal. I, like many others, was hoping for an act 3 expansion/refinement dlc one day, but that's almost certainly not happening. I am really going to try to be there for some of your dark urge streams, as I think playing that origin adds so much to the experience, but I'd also love to see a video on your thoughts of playing that character. And yes, I read the thumbnail text. Great video as always, Jinzee.
act 3 man, I gotta agree, especially if you are a compulsive "do everything"-er and therefore have to enter every single damn house.
I actually just put the game down for a month or so at some point before going back and finishing.
of course it was all fun, mostly, just so much of it without much plot progression, and reaching level 12 early into act 3 also meant little gameplay variety
Agree with most/all the video. Ironic his name is Wyll and you can choose to free him of his contract. Ironic because he definitely lacks in the whole concept of "free will." My largest gripe with the game was the unfinished content for Karlach. Its painfully obvious she was meant to have a possible final upgrade in act 3 if you manage to keep Dammon alive and he shows up in the city. We even get a special "enriched infernal iron" in act 3, hints of Karlach's engine being a prototype for the Steelwatch, etc. Some combination of those efforts should have resulted in a heroic solution for her. My secondary issue with the game is I felt there weren't enough options to give platonic hugs or aid to all the people suffering through... *gestures to everything* Okay, Shadowheart and Astarion may not have accepted hugs when they needed them most but Gale could have used one when Elminster first showed his mug. I hated I couldn't give food to the starving kid and his mom, I have 6k+ camp supplies but I can't share? And why couldn't I adopt a cat of my own to be in camp? Grub doesn't count, Grub is Yenna's and doesn't want to be pet. Malta would have been a good option. In conclusion... hugs... needed more options for hugs.
We don’t know that the Emporer infected us. It could have very well been the dying Mind Flayer in Act 1
I agree with a lot of your points.
- Act 1 does feel the longest, with a lot of different places to go, especially with the entire Underdark biome.
- I really expected Act 2 to be longer and have a lot more places to go but it ended up feeling too "samey" and gloomy (which is fitting but still).
- I felt overwhelmed by Act 3 too; the city is so massive that is hard to know where to go first. I honestly can't help but to feel that, despite being massive and having a lot of stuff in it, that Act 3 was somewhat rushed. The chaotic mess of the act is actually funny, and the kind of thing you see in JRPGs: "The world is about to be stuck by a meteor but let's breed and race chocobos."
Still, the whole experience was amazing; I only wish there was a way to free Orpheus while still keeping The Emperor at our side.
Totally agree with this video and I say that as someone who's played this game for well over a thousand hours and who's favorite act is act 3. I love the act for the finality of the long experience that is this giant game, one that I think blesses us the ability to play with up to three friends. I've bought the game for almost half a dozen friends at this point just to show them the game through multiplayer. While I love act 3, it is also the most flawed and bloated part of a videogame in comparison to the rest of the game I think I've ever seen in a major AAA game release. The point you brought up about this not being an MMO was very cogent and act 3 definitely feels to this day unfinished in many ways. As a videogame however, I think the gameplay encounters in act 3 are some of the most fun and challenging in the game, which is why I tend to forgive things like Wyll being so underdeveloped and coming across as an afterthought in act 3.
Thank you for reminding me I need to get bread at the store and start a new BG3 save to abandon after act 2!
It's good to always have some bread in the house, you know?
act 3 gets a lot of hate but i was genuinely so unfathomably disappointed by the ending, i had 700 hours in bg3 EA and thought it had the potential to easily be the best rpg of all time but the ending just soured and ruined all of that in such an instant the fact the game was advertised as choices mattering only for the ending to throw literally every choice youve made in the trash to present you with the binary choice of destroy or dont destroy the brain and have that pick between one of two endings was a mix of both seething rage and endless laughter at the undeniable hilariousness of it, YOU CAN KILL EVERY CHILD IN THE GAME AND STILL BE HERO OF BALDURS GATE.
You know what annoy me the most in act 3? The useless npcs the one that are there just to create the illusion of a population and you can't get rid of them, they pass through your companion during dialogues, and they for sure eat some of those sweet graphics that could be used, idk, to render the ENTIRE CITY. It really one of those thing that should be a button you can turn on and off and I don't understand how this is not already a thing.
It seems like act 3 has a lot more going on that connects back to you when you play as The Dark Urge; the relationships with Gortash and Orin are much more personal, and meeting Gortash without Karlach (evil playthroughs won't usually have her) probably feels profoundly different.
Act 3 isn't meant to be 100%'d
Skipping content is a powerful decision in a game. Being able to do it without cheapening your experience empowers player choice.
I really want to believe your comment is being ironic.
Tbh i think every Larian game I've played has an undercooked Act 3, at least compared to the rest of the game. Games like Wasteland 2 fair better in mind because of the open world design it has and being able to access most quests in whatever order. Id argue BG3 isnt open world even if there is a lot of freedom in each acts' area.
Why would you say that the Emperor placed the tadpole into Tav's brain? I've never found anything proving that. There is a book or something that says that the emperor should lead the Nautiloids that were searching for the artifact, but I always assumed they found the artifact, the Emperor entered it and got his free will back, then Shadowheart's group snatched it from the rest of the group, but got captured by another Nautiloid.
I guess there could also be a timeline where the Emperor found it, entered it, found his free will returning, then Shadowheart's group tried to snatch it, got caught in the nautiloid, then the emperor left the prism, came up all the way to Lae'Zel and Tav, tadpoled them (as seen in the intro sequence) and went back to trapped Shadowheart to enter the prism (and give it to her), BUT
1. How would Shadowheart not know about the mindflayer in the prism then? (and why did she say she found it, rather than saying it was placed with her?)
2. Why did only Shadowheart survive and be put in the pod? If the group was attacking that Nautiloid I'd assume they'd put everybody in the pods. So I'd argue that Shadowheart's group fought, got decimated, fled (only Shadowheart survived) and then Shadowheart got abducted.
3. Why does the dead mindflayer in the Goblin Camp recognize you? I assumed the dead mindflayer in the Goblin Camp was the one who tadpoled you, as it has a memory of reaching into your pod.
I guess there could also be the option that Shadowheart's group snatched it from the Githyanki, but then why do Gortash's notes say that they have to steal it from Queen Vlaakith and never mention Sharran agents? (at least I can't remember reading anything about the Absolute's forces wanting to steal it from the Sharrans)
but even if this was how it went, then still some questions remain:
1. Did the emperor only find the prism after tadpoling Shadowheart? Did he then enter it without Shadowheart noticing? If yes, how?
2. Again, why does the dead Mindflayer in the Goblin Camp have a memory of opening your pod?
I DID know about the koala facts. The prints are so similar that sometimes koala handprints mess with crime scene investigations in Australia
I agree with everything. Act 3 makes me rage quit so often. SO OFTEN.
Yes, I do enjoy your unhinged rants about the things you love the most. How could you tell?
Agree with everything but the houses; every one is different and even have their own unique cellar. Given that every single building (except Janneth's house?) has an underground component I would have liked them to be more linked up, like an urban underdark.
Three big changes I would have made if there could be a "definitive edition":
• Add the Upper City zone to the game and shift a lot of the stuff up there, especially Gortash and the coronation.
• Make it so Gortash and Orin don't know you're coming. You'd get to sneak up on them instead of them goading you along.
• Both Ravengards seem like they belong in another game. In addition giving Wyll more flaws and internal conflict his dad should be actually corrupt and willing to do most things for money (he's literally already a mercenary captain!)
The Drak Urge have a history with Gortash and Orin so there will be a difference in your playthrough in act 3
I hope it adds a good bit of story!
@@ProperBirdIt does a really good job at actually tying your character into the storyline, as opposed to Tav who obviously has only very generic and tenuous ties to the world so you can give them whatever backstory you feel like
@@ProperBirdFully evil Dark Urge is a ...interesting experience
I've finished the game with a custom Tav and have yet to start a Dark Urge run. I admit that I rushed through Act 3 and missed a lot of side quests (though the circus did get all of Dribbles' body parts back), but I plan to take my time in the next playthrough and enter every house!
NO! No howevers. Just purge act 3 from your memories as I did.
Holy shit. I thought I recognized the channel name, then came the realization that I used to watch your The Witcher 3 content 8 YEARS AGO… absolutely wild
I think it's absolutely ridiculous when people complain that the game doesn't railroad them into finishing the main quest and allows them to do side quests with less meaning than the main quest. If you want to go straight through and just do the main quest, you can do that! You don't have to do side quests if you don't want to. Some of us like doing the side quests. Stop whining.
what aggravates me about the game’s lack of attention to wyll is the lack of allowance towards showing vulnerability. he is a character that goes through A LOT, and a key part of his reception to certain events is not dwelling on his own feelings and instead disregarding how he feels just to focus on his goal. that in of itself is not bad, because it gives a lot of insight to how he’s been coping with the events of his life (since he was SEVENTEEN mind you). but when you consider just how much he goes through, there should be that moment where he can just air everything out, at least once.
every character at some point in the story has their moment of vulnerability - even jahiera, minthara, and minsc are able to reflect and show an emotional side to them. the closest you get to wyll really feeling what has happened to him is wyll trying not to let his voice waver while talking about his father. this, alongside really questionable aspects of the game, make his lack of reactivity all the more reason as to why bad things happen and continue happening to wyll, because if he isn’t allowed to dwell on it and pushed to move on, it teaches the player to as well. it’s so frustrating.
this and the fact that you technically don’t even need wyll to find ansur and complete that quest. even though it’s test MADE for someone like wyll, you can honestly just do it without him and there aren’t any consequences for that??? LIKE HUH???
Yeah it honestly felt like Wyll was just along for the ride and not much else. I would LOVE to have a more vulnerable moment with him where he can finally just yell about the injustice of it all. He was just trying to do the right thing. 😭
The villains problem can be solved playing as dark urge. Won't spoil, but DU clarify a lot of things
I'm not gonna watch because of spoilers but I love ya and I love your videos. I'll come back when I'm done
Enjoy the game when you play!
My biggest point of frustration is Karlach's storyline: there's no opportunity to even try to find solution to her engine.I mean it's not like there's a community of formerly enslaved gnome engineers who have experience in working on hellengines and who must be very grateful to us for saving them despite their obvious prepatch tendency to share singular suicidal brain cell. FUCKING GONDIANS. And meanwhile we have Gale who is handed the solution for his bomb in the chest via literal deus ex machina.
your descriptions of the companions are so hilarious 😭😭
24:05
For that part in Cazador's mansion it's a Romeo and Juliette reference
Basically Romeo drank fake poison to make people believe he died and then leave with Juliet. But he forgot to tell Juliette. When she finds Romeo's supposed dead body she decides to poison herself because she can't live without him. And then after waking up Romeo sees Juliette's corpse and drinks actual poison as well.
the emperor is undoubtedly my least favorite aspect of act 3. it kinda throws away the customizing your dream visitor, the twist that he's actually balduran doesnt feel earned or even interesting enough to be worth the retcon, and generally i dont think hes very well written.
While it's not an excuse, by any means, I half wonder how much of the... Act 3-ness of Act 3 was a D&D-ism. By that I mean imagine doing what's possible to do in Baldur's Gate in actual tabletop; the DM will literally never be able to make every house or every quest interesting, and some of those quests will be unconnected or weird (largely because the DM had to make something up on the fly and got carried away, maybe; no I've never ever done that, nobody can prove anything).
ALL THAT SAID, I don't disagree with you, and it's a video game -not- D&D so the same excuses don't hold the same weight, but ...in a strange way, as a forever DM, I kind of appreciate that? Is that weird? Maybe. Anyway, wonderful vid as ever, excellent points, keep 'em comin'!
It was super cool to recognize you in the recent skywind trailer
I was honestly very excited they put me in, I didn't know they had!
Did you know that koalas have completely smooth brains and have been found dead surrounded by eucalyptus (the only food they can eat) because they don't recognize it unless it's on a branch?
I had pretty similar problems with act 3. The most problematic in feeling unfinished was the toy quest for me, since for a game that normally has like four different ways to end quests and a lot of them are dialogue based this one just confused be for like half an hour. I had to look up multiple guides and Reddit posts online to make sure I wasn’t missing anything and there really just was nothing one could do. Also the feeling of being a lot got worse for me because so many quests send you from location to location to location. It made the side quests feel bloated to me espacially compared to Astarions and Shadowhearts arc conclusions. I don’t think those two quests needed to be longer since they were great on their own but it kinda lessened their impact being the short breaks between the endless artist quest and saving the future cult victims.
In my first run I played like the perfect hero paladin who tried to save everyone and make everyone happy so I did all the quests and I’m happy I did for that run, but I’m just looking forward to cutting a lot of those quests short.
The epiphanous moment of clarity was worth watching till the very end.
"Absolutely down to help... among other things."
Not two minutes in and I'm dead.
They never got Wyll right IMO, and its' a crying shame. There was the basis for a really interesting character there, but they never managed to develop it coherently. My guess is that too many people got involved in the creative process. Too many cooks spoiling the proverbial broth. Probably someone higher up the chain dictating that Wyll had to be a "good" character because the game needed some "good" characters. And so the original creative inspiration was blocked. And eventually lost.
Wyll is a bundle of contradictions. The game introduces him as this dashing, charismatic folk hero with a dark secret - but that isn't how Wyll presents. We discover that he has all sorts of baggage from the past - but none of that baggage leads to any complexity or layering in his character. He's a warlock, but he doesn't experience the pull of the dark side - despite the fact that everything is set up perfectly for it.We have the resentment against his father, the lure of power... we could even have had some sexual tension with Mizora... but none of this is explored. Wyll is just good and noble. I can't see the coherence of the creative thought process here. What is the point of establishing all the elements for a really interesting character arc only to make nothing out of them?
Odd, Act 3 is my favorite act. The performance doesn't always hold up andit's definitely unfinished but I love it specifically because there is so much to do.
I also like Ubisoft games
Small correction: we don't know if the mind flayer in the first cutscene is The Emperor, they have a buncha similarities design wise, but also some differences, and the timeline gets (even more) wacky if they end up being the same.
About Orin and Gortash, I played BG3 last may for the first time (twice already with the same character) and immediately chose to make a durge bcuz I knew they have some cool stuff on their backstory (and also I'll always choose the non-human looking species), and that made me care about Orin and Gortash (especially Orin for obvs reasons) a lot. It's a shame that if you don't play as one, they feel so meh in comparison.
And yeah, apparently Act 3 would've have the Upper City but it was scrapped, it was were Cazador's Palace would've supposed to be, and I can also say as someone who's Very Normal about The Emperor, a bunch of stuff about it, Stelmane and The Knights of the Shield seem unfinished/underdeveloped and if I had to guess it would also take place in the Upper City. The game is amazing, I've been brainrotting about it ever since but somehow some stuff still could've been cooked a bit further, and it makes me sad that Larian won't do any big extra content of it :(
Omg I missed you so much @proper bird! I hope you are doing okay and that life is being good to you. Please continue to keep us company when you can. Big love from the uk ❤️❤️❤️
I'm doing well thank you!
Act 1 definitely benefited from early access and player feedback
Absolutely love the game, and do feel that Act 3 felt incomplete. However, the exploring all around was kind of hinted at by your Guardian after killing Kethric: You need to recruit more allies in Baldur's Gate in order to fight the Netherbrain.
The playtesting really helped fully flesh out Act 1 which is amazing but left the other 2 acts in that shadow.
BG3 is not a perfect game, but it is a great game. I wish they could (and would) do more with it but I am happy with what Larian gave us.
I agree with your critiques and to add that the best Boss fight in Act3 was just a side quest: Raphael.
Act 3 is incomplete due to the release of Starfield! They really should have let the game sit in the oven instead of trying to release it ahead of Starfield. Data miners found missing quests for Karlach, wyll and Minthara in the upper city as well as a map of Avernus. Swen openly said that the developers ran out of time when trying to make Jaheira romanceable. In reality, Balders Gate 3 needed to be released in December 2023 not August. Those 4 months could of helped Act 3 be what it needed to be.
That's honestly a pity. But I do understand that they have to cut the cord at some point, especially if they don't know whether it's going to be a hit or not.
that is such an incredible misrepresentation of the issue. i hope you were being facetious when you said starfield is *literally* to blame for act 3 being bad because that is simply not the case. i believe that larian running out of time is not the problem, it is a symptom. every issue with act 3 comes down to their poor decision making and lack of focus. WHY did they even try making jaheira romancable? shes a borderline elderly widow and its not like the game is lacking in romancable characters. WHY make an entire map of avernus? youve already had to abandon the upper city, a far more important area. WHY stuff the lower city with unrelated sidequests? you havent even fleshed out 2 main companions and the literal actual final bosses.
larian has a pattern of trying to fit too many things into the game. the mark of a good artist is knowing when to stop. a game (or any piece of art) is NEVER going to be perfect and as an artist you need to know when enough is enough. larian is an amazing, creative studio, but they do not know when to stop. they completely lost the plot in act 3 and its nobody's fault but their own
Well, as far as I am aware, I heard people say that there is cut content for Karlach, Wyll, and Upper City, but for some strange and bizarre reason, no one provided what those datamines found. No dialogue, no voicelines, no info at all. I wonder why...
Speaking of D&D related things, I've never personally played it but plan on getting the revised core rule books later this year and wanted to ask if you had any advice for a newbie like me.
I'm honestly not a veteran myself but I can 100% recommend www.twitch.tv/theplaymatt ! He's a fantastic DM and always happy to help new players!
@@ProperBird Thank you, Jinzee!
"Shut the ever living -" joke was funny lol. Nice commentary Jinzee :)
I really enjoyed act 3 but I can see it's weaknesses, people said it was rushed and even after further development it wasn't fully fleshed out. Either way it's still a 10/10 for me
I was so invested in getting the Tieflings to Baldur's gate, you can only image my frustration when I realized that going into the crypt auto kills the tieflings. Like there really needs to be a prompt in the game that warns you.
I thought I was just exploring a really cool side dungeon. Not advancing the plot. And I missed some really cool Ketheric cutscenes....
There's a prompt that says "depending on your choices, the state of the region could change and some active quests may become unavailable". But on my first playthrough I definitely thought that entering the Moonrise Towers was pure endgame for that zone. At least it's another reason to do a second run. 🥹
@@ProperBird I dont remember there being a prompt? Or maybe I didnt think nothing of it because to me Moonrise was the point of no return. They do something similar before you go to the Mountain pass in Act 1. But nothing really happens.
must be one of those rare act 3 is the best and its not close people. best encounters ✅best exploration ✅ best side quests and the best gear ✅ sure at max level the game becomes bordeline childsplay and especially easy with fireworks to even oneshot the endboss on honour mode or how big and massive filled to the brim with content the act is....
17:36 the problem with Wyll is that they re-wrote the entire character after fans who played early access complained he wasn't likeable enough. He was a very flawed but multi-faceted character, but Larian re-wrote him to be a generic good guy. I love the fact they listen to fan feedback, but sometimes I feel you need to stick to your creative vision and trust people will appreciate it when they experience the finished article (I understand this is an incredibly hard tightrope to walk). Wyll may not have been likeable (to some people), but the original version of Wyll was a much more interesting, complex and charismatic character.
Should be remembered among the emperor's manipulation that he knew WHAT the absolute was the entire time, where to find it, etc
I loved act 3 because of the companion quests, and playing dark urge. And getting to complete quests and figure out wtf is wrong with my player character. I have a lot of complaints about act 3, but i was busy crying every other hour as i got "complete"s on companion quests.
so you're saying, if i bring a koala with me to a crime scene I may or may not have caused, I can cover up my tracks and have it look realistic?
I missed your content. So much. But i'd rather have this over you being burnt out and unwell every week/month. Had a load of fun for 20 or so minutes. Thank you. Have a great day.
I'm doing much better after my extended break!
I discovered that if dragging my feet (i think it was 2 long rests) after telling Aldrin that Nightsong is a person, and not telling Nightsong about Lorokan's plan, Aldrin's party rolls into the camp at night. Andd then, at least for me, both Minsc and Karlah got stuck in the night dialogue setting, so it was impossible to talk to them properly (both just telling me that we should rest) and without option to ask them join the party.
I'm mostly frustrated by Balduran thing. They fucked up Moonrise Towers timeline, on top of sheer size of middle finger to existing setting they pulled with "Balduran" (and Zenith presence in hireling section. If you *refer* to presence of someone from the first Baldur's Gate, who is, according to current DnD is still alive... but person won't appear? maybe better to NOT)