Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 RELEASE THREAD

[Lagole Gon]

How to fix Karlach:
- Remove HELL from her backstory. All this Avernus shit was forced into the game (probably) because of the PnP module. It makes everything worse and more bloated. Maybe she was a zentharim slave or whatever. Don't cheapen the HELL.
- Balance out the Manic Pixie Dream Girl with something else. Maybe Karlach being a bonehead is not always presented as funny or adorable. Maybe sometimes it can be a bit off-putting or troublesome.

There. I fixed the problem. You can still enjoy your Manic Snu-Snu Barbarian Girl, but now it's not completely shallow shit.
I'm ready to sell my brilliant design tips to Larian, Swen I await your email.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

Main problem: She doesn't act like somebody who spent 10 years in, you know, LITERAL HELL. On the frontlines of fuckin' BLOOD WAR.

She was clearly written for reddit because they were whining about how none of the NPCs were likeable.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

A quick reminder that entire Planescape: Torment have been build upon companions being critically "flawed" in one significant way or another. You literally gather a party of characters with seriously fucked up lives.

All humans in real life are flawed too. It's the 'heart on their sleeves' bit that's the problem.

You never have the moment in PST where Dak'kon loredumps his backstory for you. You literally need to puzzle it out.

Same with Annah or Morte. It's got to be dug out of them.

Compare that to "use the tadpole to watch this wolf cutscene" for Shadowheart, or Karlach giving you her "I'm literally too hot to have sex with" sob story when you first talk to her in camp.

Astarion was kind of cool at first, pretending to be a mortal, but eventually he 'comes out' on his own, one way or another, and then he's loredumping his edginess like the rest of them.

The absolute last thing we need is yet another wounded bird, victim of circumstance, heart-on-the sleeve, no-responsibility or determination, entitled jerk to manipulate sympathy out of the player and a million Youtubers to point to as "important symbols of trauma recognition."

Karlach got it worse than everyone else. If anyone could make the case that they're an entitled victim, Karlach's the one. But she's not. She freed herself and despite having a literal bomb in her chest, she's determined to help herself.

Again, she is heart-on-sleeve. There's no real mystery to her from the moment you meet her. Her wounded bird issue is the fact that she can't be close to anyone due to her infernal engine.

And her not being a jerk was the manipulation. She's the character written for people who get annoyed with the other characters.

 

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

Won game awards! Totally deserved it!

 

[Reinhardt]

karlach is ugly. that's enough to never even bother with her being annoying part.

 

[Black]

Won game awards! Totally deserved it!

Yes, now it's in the same category as tlou 2 and da:i. Birds of a feather.

 

[Yosharian]

I dunno maybe she worked for a nightclub in birmingham, that would explain why she cant get any more traumatised.

You took it too far

 

[Daidre]

I understand her appeal in theory. But my brain just activates "this is some anime fanfiction writing" alert.

There is another huge turnoff for me from good ugly Karlach for me - everyone in the party instantly start fawning over her, even the companions who are characterized as distrustful or demanding you to prove yourself first, like Lae'zel or Shadowheart. Poor Wyll who is pathetic enough already is about to kiss the earth she walked on for "being everything he is not". From my on one short acquaintance with Karlach, I did not see any companion who is remotely hostile or negative with her. And I do not remember any dialogue option for MC allowing any hostility toward barbarian.

She just spreads cringy "quirky cheer" everywhere around her and it reeks of the shitty fanfiction so much stronger than 95% of writing in this game, so now I always cut off problem at the root, so to speak.

PS It is kinda amazing how one story decision - kill off the Grove, saves from the three by far worst party members - Karlach, Halsin and Wyll. From them only Wyll has something interesting going on in his ark.

 

[Reyvik]

Every male companion is very feminine and is nuanced to the point of being just too complicated.

Wyll is goody two shoes and he is more like a paladin type of character for me than anything else. Although I can see why he became warlock and it just makes sense that his zelous approach to being good led to using every means available to help others. I want to say that I like him as a character but I rarely used him. Warlocks are just too weak for me and spamming eldritch blasts reminded me of playing kinecist in pathfinder. It is boring, you just throw damage at enemies and sometimes use some shitty spells like once or twice because of class restrictions.

Gale is a fag, typical nerdy, cat owning intellectual . It wouldn't be bad if it wasn't for a fact that he supposedly fucked mystra. Like how the fuck is it possible. I was pretty sure he was delusional until act 3. And call me stupid but I do not fucking get his whole arc with crown of karsus and other shit.

Astarion is actually my favorite character because he is quite pragmatic and doesn't suck up to tav. He is very sassy and sometimes made me cringe but whatever, at least stand out from a crowd

Halsin is a fucking meme and a creep. On the one hand he is a selfless druid on the other he is bloodthirsty, horny and has strange relationship with childlike spirits. I didn't even care when he was sacrificed

And minsc is minsc, nuff said

 

[Lacrymas]

On top of everything, the cuck squad did some old characters from the BGs dirty, namely Sarevok and Viconia. Jaheira and Minsc are whatever. It isn't enough to just add your self-inserts, you also have to deface other, better characters. Also, Gale supposedly tasted that Mystra godussy, but is now infatuated with a stubby dwarf? Come on. And it turns out Mystra fucks every writer's self-insert, huh.

 

[Swen]

So, is the honeymoon over? Can we acknowledge the fact BG3 is a necrophilic desecration of the BG series with amateurish, fan fiction-tier writing?

Cope, BG1 and BG2 were alos fanfic tier. Boomers need to drop their nostalgia glasses and stop pretending they were literary masterpieces.

 

[Fedora Master]

And call me stupid but I do not fucking get his whole arc with crown of karsus and other shit.

It's completely made up. Karsus never needed a crown to cast his spell.

 

[Lacrymas]

Cope, BG1 and BG2 were alos fanfic tier. Boomers need to drop their nostalgia glasses and stop pretending they were literary masterpieces.

They weren't literary masterpieces, so you can imagine what their desecration led to.

 

[Swen]

Cope, BG1 and BG2 were alos fanfic tier. Boomers need to drop their nostalgia glasses and stop pretending they were literary masterpieces.

They weren't literary masterpieces, so you can imagine what their desecration led to.

What games had good writing?

 

[Reyvik]

Cope, BG1 and BG2 were alos fanfic tier. Boomers need to drop their nostalgia glasses and stop pretending they were literary masterpieces.

They weren't literary masterpieces, so you can imagine what their desecration led to.

What games had good writing?

Disco Elysium

 

[Lacrymas]

What games had good writing?

The usual suspects are quite bearable and even enjoyable - Bloodlines, MotB, PlanetEscape: Tournament, Age of Decadence, Silent Hill 1/2/3, System Shock 1/2, Deus Ex, Fallout 1. I'd tentatively add Spellforce 1/3 (even if 3 butchers the lore irreparably)/Conquest of Eo, Beneath a Steel Sky, Eisenwald (primarily the legends you sometimes get), Heroes 4, The Cat Lady, Pathologic, Tomb Raider 1/2/3/5, etc. to the mix. Nothing needs to be a masterpiece for the ages, but it needs to leave some sort of impression and be tolerable/not be humiliating or insulting. BG3 does neither.

 

[Sacibengala]

BG1 and BG2 were alos fanfic tier.

So Are you assuming BG3 is fanfic tier writing as well? I can live with that.

 

[Parabalus]

PS It is kinda amazing how one story decision - kill off the Grove, saves from the three by far worst party members - Karlach, Halsin and Wyll. From them only Wyll has something interesting going on in his ark.

As DUrge you also get rid of Gale.
Later on you also get rid of the two returning NPCs.

Definitely increase the game quality, would recommend.

 

[Swen]

BG1 and BG2 were alos fanfic tier.

So Are you assuming BG3 is fanfic tier writing as well? I can live with that.

Writing was good enough but it could be better.

I'll have to talk with the "7-Man Cuck Squad" for my next game.

 

[Sibelius]

lol lmao even. Wyll and Karlach were made for each other. Two nonsense characters with nonsense backgrounds rooted in 5E idiocy.

Karlach is great.

>Checks join date.<

Yeah that explains pretty much everything I need to know.

In what way does my join date affect my opinion of Karlach, what insights did it give you into my character?

Spoiler

I actually didn't find Karlach too annoying until I didn't take her on the mission to kill Gortash. After you go back to camp she moans and bitches like the millennial insert she is, drops F bomb after F bomb that are completely out of place on the setting. It was the cringiest moment in BG3 by a long way for me.

I let her die on the pier at the end because of this. Wyl was alive and well and I could have let him take her to Avernus, but she didn't deserve it. Wyl just suggested we go back to the inn to celebrate and get hammered immediately after that, so I guess he was onboard!

 

[Lagole Gon]

The pitiful Grauken...

Rates posts but doesn't actually show up in this thread.
I assume he fears admitting to dumping the game in the unfinished act III.

 

[Lacrymas]

Karlach, ironically, had the most potential to say something. That infernal engine could've been seen as a metaphor for a degenerative heart disease like heart failure and how one copes with that, but nope, it's all performative heroics from her.

 

[Sarathiour]

Grauken is the typical counter-contrarian fag, if Kodex shit on something popular, it's because they're just bunch of stupid chud triggered by the message, despite himself not finishing the game because he deep down acknowledge he got better thing to do with his own leisure time than going trough act 3.

 

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

Grauken is the typical counter-contrarian fag, if Kodex shit on something popular, it's because they're just bunch of stupid chud triggered by the message, despite himself not finishing the game because he deep down acknowledge he got better thing to do with his own leisure time than going trough act 3.

Is it tho? I mean this thread has 616 pages alone.

 

[Grauken]

Grauken is the typical counter-contrarian fag, if Kodex shit on something popular, it's because they're just bunch of stupid chud triggered by the message, despite himself not finishing the game because he deep down acknowledge he got better thing to do with his own leisure time than going trough act 3.

Is it tho? I mean this thread has 616 pages alone.

Sarathiour is the typical contrarian codex fag who fails to imagine that most people outside of the codex actually enjoy the game, and he's retarded enough to think because I stopped posting about the game I stopped playing it. Even Act 3 was good, despite some of its issues. Definitely one of the best RPGs of recent years.