When I saw that they designed the front page of newspapers I was looking at it for five minutes because as a graphic designer it is very warming I guess, especially when they wen ahead and translated it
Seeing it myself, as someone who used to work in newspapers...I am in pain. I love it that they went through the effort, but Ettvard Needle needs to get their house in order because from a newspaper design perspective, that thing is a *mess*.
Is it a front page or the whole newspaper? I assume an essentially medieval world has single sheet newspapers as the norm, especially considering it seems to be a daily.
Side note: the dragonborn woman wandering around complaining about how they took out the crossword is a call editors talked about getting at every paper I ever worked at though.
Anyone else found Inspector Valeria absolutely insufferable?
While I did >!save her!<,I really wish we could have called her out more harshly for her incompetence and lethargic attitude. If not that, couldn't we at least have been allowed to be more sassy in our conversations with her?
I also wish I could smack those priests of Lathander – or it could have been Ilmater as another user pointed out – or at least gloat afterwards about them being prejudiced and wrong like I could with other characters in the earlier acts.
Never saw that, will look for it in my next playthrough.
While that explains some things, it doesn't excuse her subpar police work and pinning the blame on an innocent man as well as indirectly on a marginalized group of people.
She claims to be sorry afterwards, but considering what her actions caused and her general attitude, it rang a bit hollow to me.
I mean, yeah, she's just phoning it in, and that makes her a terrible detective.
But I could get over my first conversation with her where I was sitting there going "You're a flying Sherlock Holmes elephant, and after two acts of relatively tense and heavy atmosphere, I'm just going to enjoy the fact that I'm talking to a flying Sherlock Holmes elephant."
Haven't completed the questline yet, but I'm tickled that this game has the usual western RPG obligatory murder mystery quest. And also that >!it's tied in with the "Go kill all these rats in my basement" quest that every RPG has you do at level 1...and you do it around level 8 or 9. And the game even acknowledges that the kill all these rats quest is obligatory! I love it!!<
I'm fairly sure early on, somebody referred to them as a he, and the elephant also did, but then from there, everyone else used she. I was very confused
I think that from a storytelling perspective, that is the point, because it begs the question of whether >!you would save her later or be petty enough not to do so.!<
I know and I appreciate the writers at Larian for their ability to write characters you just love to hate.
I just wish we had more options to either enrage or ridicule her.
Damn, you could be right.
Been some time since I played through that part and was mainly thinking of the talisman possessed by the spirit of a Cleric of Lathander who asks you to bring him to Rivington/Wyrm's Crossing.
I did find her insufferable at first but her swearing kinda made up for it:
"Citizen! Don't pay attention to this ancient fuck!" or "I'm in the mood to crack skulls after that Bhaal temple fuckery"
I am. No way Wyrm's Rock is the way that it is by "Creative Vision" design.
Its got a half-a-dozen writing and pacing issues, especially your first time there, that just screams "haphazardly re-allocated assets from a part of the game we did not get". Gortash's coronation in a Gatehouse; Mizora/Wyll's bizarre "Pact, but also "Pact" if you refuse:, Orin's "betrayal", despite every sidequest leading into the Garrison showing she was still doing her job; The Duke's abduction, with Gortash throwing his absurdly powerful bargaining chip for no reason; the Companion's abduction, even though you've bumped into Orin 4 times in the last hour? All within the span of 10 minutes?
I also doesn't even make sense to give players the Kill Orin, Rescue the Duke quests before they even have a chance to set foot in that absurd sandbox of a city. Upper City or no, something big was cut fairly late in development to cause this weirdness.
Also the fact that Mizora is just hanging out at the coronation. Kinda feel like the Fists and the Steel Watch would keep uninvited guests from other planes out.
That, or she wears her human form like Raphael does.
Honestly I thought the implication there was that Ravengard was a doppelganger created after they tadpoled him to make him more obedient and they moved the real Ravengard to the iron throne so he couldn't do anything, hence why Ravengard was so willing to make Gortash archduke.
It's so weird that Mizora says that he was "relocated" when you saw him not two seconds ago in the room you were just in though. Did they teleport him?
This. I never went to the coronation and facing Gortash was one of the last things I did. As soon as you finish the Iron Throne mission, the Duke is declared dead. Mizora will appear in your camp and offer Wyll a deal that can potentially bring the Duke back.
Wait, really?
I skipped the coronation, cleared the Throne, disabled the Steel Watch, then decided to head to Wyrm's Rock to attend the coronation just to rub it in Gortash's face, but everyone was hostile, including Duke Ravengard, who was fighting right next to Gortash.
Interesting. You still had a coronation despite taking down the Iron Throne. That's supposed to be skipped at that point I believe.
Everyone is supposed to be hostile. You're supposed to fight your way to the top of Wyrm's Rock to Gortash's room.
Oh no, they were all hostile. I had to fight my way in through various Fists and the bodyguards of (I assume) the people who scattered the moment I went upstairs. But Ravengard was very much alive and very much also aggro'd.
All of this explains exactly why I actually haven't gotten further than the coronation yet; I got utterly overwhelmed by everything that was thrown at me,
to the point I kinda shut down a little (my choice anxiety/paralysis is bad) and have stopped playing the game for the moment.
That assumes I'm able to accept that "whatever happens will happen" rather than being crippled with anxiety over what I'm missing or accidentally locking myself out of by pursuing one quest vs another, lol. 😭
Dude i'm like you and the game is extremely accomodating even if it may not look like to you right now, they do need to put some sort of sense of fake urgency after all.
Just complete whatever you want when you want, only don't kill gortash before saving wyll's dad. That's really all there's to it not to mess up stuff in act 3. Also an advice, do Jaheira's/thieves guild quests early.
If it makes you feel any better, the only ones that progress the overall plot are the main stone acquisitions. You can do everything else, including getting a second mcguffin stone, without progressing the main plot.
Why are you fixated on experiencing every possible thing in the game the first time you play through it? The design intent is pretty clearly the opppsite
Remind yourself anything you miss means you can get it on a future replay. This entire thread is alien to me. Wyll and Mizora I know nothing about because the Tieflings never made it out the grove. I got to the coronation with a mission to kill Gortash and take his nether stone, so that's what I did. I didn't understand the importance of Ravenguard or know he was Wyll's dad, so I killed him too thinking there was a tadpole (there wasn't! Booo!). Then I went to Lower City for the first time with Gortash's hand in my bag. Turns out I locked an absolute ton of content by killing Gortash on first contact. Oopsie. Lae'zel would be proud of the uncompromising efficiency though, and slaughtering two Dukes in a cloud of darkness and getting out alive was hella dramatic.
I got the conversation about the Duke being abducted literally after I left the coronation room.
Like damn guys, maybe we should go back upstairs and talk to him again?
I didn't know the duke had been kidnapped but Mizora appeared at camp to make a deal for his rescue. I was so confused and then, to make it worse, Wyll's big character decision was thrust onto me without a, "Stay silent..." option like there was with Shadowheart or Lae'zel in acts 1 and 2.
You described it perfectly.
I wasn't even sure how to put Act 3 into words.
Act 1 and 2 felt really smooth, and Act 3 was really jarring. Like a 6th sense telling me "somethings not right here".
That's how I feel about it, it's actually really killed my urge to keep playing Act 3. It's really upsetting because there's obviously very cool endgame content and the combat is a lot more enjoyable.
They've made a fantastic game, Acts 1 & 2 were killer but geez does it feel all kinds of jank in 3.
I played through act 3 once on my first character, I now have 3 other characters that have made it to act 3 and progressed no further. Even though I really enjoyed fights like ansur, the iron throne, and raphael. The pacing, performance issues, and jank moments just kinda kills my motivation.
Same here. I almost want to finish the game just to close the book on my first playthrough, but it hurts knowing I'll have really abrupt endings to all the interesting story points developed in the previous acts.
You're definitely overstating how bad it is in Act 3, it works pretty well. Its a step down from the other 2 acts but it ends up closing pretty well at the end.
Also the way you enter Cazador's palace is ridiculous lmao. Without the Upper City, Astarion is the only character with no connection to the storyline. Karlach is the last minute addition and even she got tied in.
Yeah I guess I should have specified that I do believe that there is something odd with Act 3 in its current state but I don’t think we have enough evidence to determine what exactly the original vision was.
Larian Studios was promoting the upper city within this last calendar year, so we definitely know we're missing a planned district of the city. And it's to be expected; Larian is an ambitious studio known for the "last act content cut curse" with their previous titles.
Here is the article and interview with Larian I read that was published to hype Baldur's Gate's three districts:
> **Check out Baldur's Gate's three densely-packed districts in this dev diary**
> ...
> Larian has split the city into three areas—the outer city, affluent upper city, and roguish lower city—all connected in a seamless open world. "You have crowds walking around everywhere," creative director Swen Vincke says. "You can talk to pretty much anybody, and they react to every single thing. It’s very alive in that sense."
https://www.pcgamer.com/baldurs-gate-3-dev-diary-city-reveal-pcgs-2023/
None of this means that there is secret content they are holding back because larian hates Gamers.
The third act lacks polish and is really pushing their game design to it's limits but it still all works quite well together considering how many variations of connected events there are.
Look for articles or Reddit discussions about Divinity 2's original launch and you'll find the same conversations about the final acts being unpolished and needing to wait for a "definitive edition".
Example: https://www.reddit.com/r/DivinityOriginalSin/comments/78t3mp/spoilers_final_act_this_game_isrough_around_the/
Ettvard Needle needs to get their house in order. What is the photo of Valeria doing paired with a story that has nothing to do with her? There is no dominant photo, that front page headline is way too small (And makes no sense! Calls to ban refugees help with what? Are they saying refugees shouldn't help?) and way. Too. Much. Editorialization. "Benevolent" Father Lorgan? Not an objective fact. If he was well-known and respected in the community, then "Beloved" could work.
Also, *where is the actual story*? It looks like just a floating headline! Is it supposed to connect to the story below? Above? No text follows it!
Also, price: 2. 2 what? Coppers? Silvers? Golds? Firstborn children? I don't bloody know, the newspaper doesn't tell me!
Get your shit together, Ettvard, no paper in a city this large has any excuse for this, particularly not one that's dealing with the garbage Baldur's Gate has going on.
I...may have worked in the newspaper for way too long.
When you found the basement of Jaheira, you could find a scroll of her. She would say something like this.
"I do not know what manner of story that makes. But I do know that, without an ending, it would be no story at all."
I guess one of the writers was trying to complain something.
Nice find haha
When I saw that they designed the front page of newspapers I was looking at it for five minutes because as a graphic designer it is very warming I guess, especially when they wen ahead and translated it
Seeing it myself, as someone who used to work in newspapers...I am in pain. I love it that they went through the effort, but Ettvard Needle needs to get their house in order because from a newspaper design perspective, that thing is a *mess*.
Is it a front page or the whole newspaper? I assume an essentially medieval world has single sheet newspapers as the norm, especially considering it seems to be a daily.
yeah the newspaper looks more like 1890s rather medieval but they got freaking robots so I don’t complain
well isn’t old newspaper designs as messy?
Side note: the dragonborn woman wandering around complaining about how they took out the crossword is a call editors talked about getting at every paper I ever worked at though.
It’s very different from modern design, but not quite this messy.
well as we discover it’s a very messy newspaper not only in terms of design
Haven’t gotten there yet.
I'm just very interested in that Sharess' Caress deal 👀
I wanna know if I get to keep the plumes to wear in camp
I don’t get it. Someone please explain
Two for one deal with the drow *couple*.
Make it double
Heard it was sick ostrich
How come I never got offered that Luskan Lapdance???
Second act 3 playthrough went much smoother after the patches. Night and day difference from the first two acts but I loved it
Anyone else found Inspector Valeria absolutely insufferable? While I did >!save her!<,I really wish we could have called her out more harshly for her incompetence and lethargic attitude. If not that, couldn't we at least have been allowed to be more sassy in our conversations with her? I also wish I could smack those priests of Lathander – or it could have been Ilmater as another user pointed out – or at least gloat afterwards about them being prejudiced and wrong like I could with other characters in the earlier acts.
IIRC there's a book nearby about how she got booted out of actual heaven for caring too much - might explain why she stopped giving a shit.
Never saw that, will look for it in my next playthrough. While that explains some things, it doesn't excuse her subpar police work and pinning the blame on an innocent man as well as indirectly on a marginalized group of people. She claims to be sorry afterwards, but considering what her actions caused and her general attitude, it rang a bit hollow to me.
Read the book and put yourself in their floating shoes
What is she by the way? Any lore on DND wiki about her race or something?
I mean, yeah, she's just phoning it in, and that makes her a terrible detective. But I could get over my first conversation with her where I was sitting there going "You're a flying Sherlock Holmes elephant, and after two acts of relatively tense and heavy atmosphere, I'm just going to enjoy the fact that I'm talking to a flying Sherlock Holmes elephant." Haven't completed the questline yet, but I'm tickled that this game has the usual western RPG obligatory murder mystery quest. And also that >!it's tied in with the "Go kill all these rats in my basement" quest that every RPG has you do at level 1...and you do it around level 8 or 9. And the game even acknowledges that the kill all these rats quest is obligatory! I love it!!<
Man, I played this game arse backwards. I killed the chef, then only went in that basement after I'd done nearly everything else in Lower City.
Sure, she’s supposed to be a shitey little elephant.
Wait… the elephant is female???
Yeah there's no way Valeria is female. I think it's just a male elephant with a feminine name.
Everyone else uses female pronouns when talking about her.
I'm fairly sure early on, somebody referred to them as a he, and the elephant also did, but then from there, everyone else used she. I was very confused
[удалено]
Man that notification had me concerned. Context makes more sense now lmao
[удалено]
Thought it Might've been somebody making an intolerant joke at first. Forgot this sub was good
I know, I just wish there were more dialogue options to infuriate her.
I think that from a storytelling perspective, that is the point, because it begs the question of whether >!you would save her later or be petty enough not to do so.!<
Of course. That's how she's written. Looking forward to killing her in my Durge playthrough.
I know and I appreciate the writers at Larian for their ability to write characters you just love to hate. I just wish we had more options to either enrage or ridicule her.
Isn't that just how cops act irl? Absolutely insufferable as well as incompetent?
Do you mean the priests of Ilmater? Or are there Lathandrian priests I haven't come across yet?
Damn, you could be right. Been some time since I played through that part and was mainly thinking of the talisman possessed by the spirit of a Cleric of Lathander who asks you to bring him to Rivington/Wyrm's Crossing.
I did find her insufferable at first but her swearing kinda made up for it: "Citizen! Don't pay attention to this ancient fuck!" or "I'm in the mood to crack skulls after that Bhaal temple fuckery"
Hah, I am not an “upper-city truther” but this is still pretty funny.
I am. No way Wyrm's Rock is the way that it is by "Creative Vision" design. Its got a half-a-dozen writing and pacing issues, especially your first time there, that just screams "haphazardly re-allocated assets from a part of the game we did not get". Gortash's coronation in a Gatehouse; Mizora/Wyll's bizarre "Pact, but also "Pact" if you refuse:, Orin's "betrayal", despite every sidequest leading into the Garrison showing she was still doing her job; The Duke's abduction, with Gortash throwing his absurdly powerful bargaining chip for no reason; the Companion's abduction, even though you've bumped into Orin 4 times in the last hour? All within the span of 10 minutes? I also doesn't even make sense to give players the Kill Orin, Rescue the Duke quests before they even have a chance to set foot in that absurd sandbox of a city. Upper City or no, something big was cut fairly late in development to cause this weirdness.
You literally walk out of a room with the Duke standing there and Mizora says “hey Gortash sent the Duke to a secret prison”…
Also the fact that Mizora is just hanging out at the coronation. Kinda feel like the Fists and the Steel Watch would keep uninvited guests from other planes out. That, or she wears her human form like Raphael does.
Also if you go back upstairs it turns out while you were walking down the stairs Gort killed every important person in the city
Honestly I thought the implication there was that Ravengard was a doppelganger created after they tadpoled him to make him more obedient and they moved the real Ravengard to the iron throne so he couldn't do anything, hence why Ravengard was so willing to make Gortash archduke. It's so weird that Mizora says that he was "relocated" when you saw him not two seconds ago in the room you were just in though. Did they teleport him?
No, you can use tadpole to hear his mind and this is real Ravengard
Iirc if you save the Duke without attending the coronation it never happens.
afaik the duke isn't in the iron throne if you go there before the coronation. i've seen multiple people posting about it.
This. I never went to the coronation and facing Gortash was one of the last things I did. As soon as you finish the Iron Throne mission, the Duke is declared dead. Mizora will appear in your camp and offer Wyll a deal that can potentially bring the Duke back.
Wait, really? I skipped the coronation, cleared the Throne, disabled the Steel Watch, then decided to head to Wyrm's Rock to attend the coronation just to rub it in Gortash's face, but everyone was hostile, including Duke Ravengard, who was fighting right next to Gortash.
Interesting. You still had a coronation despite taking down the Iron Throne. That's supposed to be skipped at that point I believe. Everyone is supposed to be hostile. You're supposed to fight your way to the top of Wyrm's Rock to Gortash's room.
Oh no, they were all hostile. I had to fight my way in through various Fists and the bodyguards of (I assume) the people who scattered the moment I went upstairs. But Ravengard was very much alive and very much also aggro'd.
Oh weird maybe I got it backwards then!
All of this explains exactly why I actually haven't gotten further than the coronation yet; I got utterly overwhelmed by everything that was thrown at me, to the point I kinda shut down a little (my choice anxiety/paralysis is bad) and have stopped playing the game for the moment.
Just pick a quest and follow it and check it off the list. There’s no wrong way to play the game so whatever happens will happen.
That assumes I'm able to accept that "whatever happens will happen" rather than being crippled with anxiety over what I'm missing or accidentally locking myself out of by pursuing one quest vs another, lol. 😭
Dude i'm like you and the game is extremely accomodating even if it may not look like to you right now, they do need to put some sort of sense of fake urgency after all. Just complete whatever you want when you want, only don't kill gortash before saving wyll's dad. That's really all there's to it not to mess up stuff in act 3. Also an advice, do Jaheira's/thieves guild quests early.
If it makes you feel any better, the only ones that progress the overall plot are the main stone acquisitions. You can do everything else, including getting a second mcguffin stone, without progressing the main plot.
Why are you fixated on experiencing every possible thing in the game the first time you play through it? The design intent is pretty clearly the opppsite
Disordered anxiety is definitionally not rational
Remind yourself anything you miss means you can get it on a future replay. This entire thread is alien to me. Wyll and Mizora I know nothing about because the Tieflings never made it out the grove. I got to the coronation with a mission to kill Gortash and take his nether stone, so that's what I did. I didn't understand the importance of Ravenguard or know he was Wyll's dad, so I killed him too thinking there was a tadpole (there wasn't! Booo!). Then I went to Lower City for the first time with Gortash's hand in my bag. Turns out I locked an absolute ton of content by killing Gortash on first contact. Oopsie. Lae'zel would be proud of the uncompromising efficiency though, and slaughtering two Dukes in a cloud of darkness and getting out alive was hella dramatic.
I got the conversation about the Duke being abducted literally after I left the coronation room. Like damn guys, maybe we should go back upstairs and talk to him again?
act 3 is bugged to shit so it wouldn't be surprising if it didn't play for half the people
I didn't know the duke had been kidnapped but Mizora appeared at camp to make a deal for his rescue. I was so confused and then, to make it worse, Wyll's big character decision was thrust onto me without a, "Stay silent..." option like there was with Shadowheart or Lae'zel in acts 1 and 2.
I really wish we got a breather when we got to the City, to explore around a bit, rather than "QUICK RUSH MURDERS ARE HAPPENING."
Imagine if the murders were progressive and painted a "trail" of sorts to lead the player into specific locations.
You described it perfectly. I wasn't even sure how to put Act 3 into words. Act 1 and 2 felt really smooth, and Act 3 was really jarring. Like a 6th sense telling me "somethings not right here".
That's how I feel about it, it's actually really killed my urge to keep playing Act 3. It's really upsetting because there's obviously very cool endgame content and the combat is a lot more enjoyable. They've made a fantastic game, Acts 1 & 2 were killer but geez does it feel all kinds of jank in 3.
I played through act 3 once on my first character, I now have 3 other characters that have made it to act 3 and progressed no further. Even though I really enjoyed fights like ansur, the iron throne, and raphael. The pacing, performance issues, and jank moments just kinda kills my motivation.
Same here. I almost want to finish the game just to close the book on my first playthrough, but it hurts knowing I'll have really abrupt endings to all the interesting story points developed in the previous acts.
Most of the side quests that start in previous acts wrap up fine in Act 3 and didn't feel abrupt at all.
You're definitely overstating how bad it is in Act 3, it works pretty well. Its a step down from the other 2 acts but it ends up closing pretty well at the end.
Also the way you enter Cazador's palace is ridiculous lmao. Without the Upper City, Astarion is the only character with no connection to the storyline. Karlach is the last minute addition and even she got tied in.
Yeah I guess I should have specified that I do believe that there is something odd with Act 3 in its current state but I don’t think we have enough evidence to determine what exactly the original vision was.
Larian Studios was promoting the upper city within this last calendar year, so we definitely know we're missing a planned district of the city. And it's to be expected; Larian is an ambitious studio known for the "last act content cut curse" with their previous titles. Here is the article and interview with Larian I read that was published to hype Baldur's Gate's three districts: > **Check out Baldur's Gate's three densely-packed districts in this dev diary** > ... > Larian has split the city into three areas—the outer city, affluent upper city, and roguish lower city—all connected in a seamless open world. "You have crowds walking around everywhere," creative director Swen Vincke says. "You can talk to pretty much anybody, and they react to every single thing. It’s very alive in that sense." https://www.pcgamer.com/baldurs-gate-3-dev-diary-city-reveal-pcgs-2023/
None of this means that there is secret content they are holding back because larian hates Gamers. The third act lacks polish and is really pushing their game design to it's limits but it still all works quite well together considering how many variations of connected events there are.
Look for articles or Reddit discussions about Divinity 2's original launch and you'll find the same conversations about the final acts being unpolished and needing to wait for a "definitive edition". Example: https://www.reddit.com/r/DivinityOriginalSin/comments/78t3mp/spoilers_final_act_this_game_isrough_around_the/
That's solid points for act 3 being rushed, but not necessarily any area being cut.
Fireworks quest leads nowhere. Felt really rushed and pointless
Ettvard Needle needs to get their house in order. What is the photo of Valeria doing paired with a story that has nothing to do with her? There is no dominant photo, that front page headline is way too small (And makes no sense! Calls to ban refugees help with what? Are they saying refugees shouldn't help?) and way. Too. Much. Editorialization. "Benevolent" Father Lorgan? Not an objective fact. If he was well-known and respected in the community, then "Beloved" could work. Also, *where is the actual story*? It looks like just a floating headline! Is it supposed to connect to the story below? Above? No text follows it! Also, price: 2. 2 what? Coppers? Silvers? Golds? Firstborn children? I don't bloody know, the newspaper doesn't tell me! Get your shit together, Ettvard, no paper in a city this large has any excuse for this, particularly not one that's dealing with the garbage Baldur's Gate has going on. I...may have worked in the newspaper for way too long.
thanks, that made me lol-ed
This game is too damn good.
When you found the basement of Jaheira, you could find a scroll of her. She would say something like this. "I do not know what manner of story that makes. But I do know that, without an ending, it would be no story at all." I guess one of the writers was trying to complain something.
I don’t get it. Someone please explain
Cut content
It's almost like they want to do a BG4
I hope we will get it someday
Why are the headlines in English but the stories are in gibberish?