BG3’s Biggest Problem is Impacting 70% of Players

balers Gate 3 is an incredible game that provides players with seemingly infinite choices with sometimes devastating consequences why need the it's a game that's okay with you missing content that took them years to make and has quickly become my one of my favorite RPGs perhaps favorite game of all time in just a few months unseating legendary titles that had been up on that pedestal for over a decade and yet there's an issue an issue that feels almost like an oversight or a mistake something that feels like it is just kind of out of sync with the with the RPG and how how it was lovingly crafted and it's tied very very much to like the core story of the game as reported by screen rent this issue is apparently impacting 70% of players who've been playing the game so far it's far reaching and it feels so silly that for a while after discovering the issue I kept looking over patch notes to see if this was going to be rectified perhaps it's a bug and not a feature and quick spoiler warning here if you have not played balers Gate 3 and you want to stay completely spoiler free this is your little offramp this is the the opportunity for you to to leave this video as much as I want you to stay and watch it because I don't want you to be spoiled for balers Gate 3 oh are we are we good okay let's move on the issue is about ilth powers and they they're like power and the complete and utter lack of any kind of negative to using them five massive patches later that brought us everything from appearance changes to an entirely new playable epilog with thousands of new dialogue lines and there's been nothing mentioned about any form of consequence for the extensive use of illithid powers what boggles the mind so much about it's just about how Central to the game choice and consequences are seemingly simple decisions often lead to unexpected outcomes you can cause a massacre by failing a timer your party can wipe if you say the wrong thing in the wrong dialogue yet here we are with the central main plot having next to no impact on your character in a game that is to be fair more often than not defined by its exceptional B plots in this the main plot of balers Gate 3 that is the choice of whether or not to use the the tadpole the tadpole that is inside your mind that is constantly being hinted at as being a bad thing and really the entire driving purpose of the start of the game is to get that [ __ ] the hell out of your head it kind of gives you the illusion of choice the illusion that whatever you choose is going to have some kind of consequence take for example a line talking about elod powers from Larry and themselves eles posted on Monday July 31st of 2023 in a community post while these creatures may be a source of great power all they offer comes with a cost as the parasites host you must make a choice will you resist the powers and the corruption that comes with them or will you embrace them risking your body mind and soul to save the Realms or destroy them if your desire for power outweighs your concern for the well-being of anyone else or if you simply think cionic levitation would be a really neat party trick then ilth Powers may be for you and to me it is the biggest swing and a miss in a game that has done a tremendous job pretty much everywhere else especially because it was kind of hinted at in the leadup to launch that it was something that would be have consequences this is highlighted in the article from Screen Rant titled 70% of balers Gate 3 players are being cowards for no reason the data was pulled from Larry and themselves who posted in an infographic that by act two only 30.4% of the players had given into their ilith side and flex their powers to put that into perspective with a higher percentage though of course lower total numbers a higher percentage of players have actually engaged with Hon's other side at 34% the first question here has to be why why are so many players not actually using these Powers because these Powers immediately make the game in a lot of ways easier easier to play you have more Tools in your toolbox in a game that really likes you to have as many tools as possible and one of the things you can think of is just the the roleplay aspect of well my character wouldn't want to engage with more little squirmy worms in my brain but there's another thing to it I think and I think that is really just like a perception that there would be a negative consequence to this something that is highlighted in the article while it would be easy to dismiss Lan's statistics as people simply not understanding the ithd parasites it instead reveals just how good a job the writing team did at conveying the consequences of using the within the context of bg3 story over and over characters like Lazelle and will warn against giving in to the Mind flare hitchhikers currently nestled in the party's heads the other side of this argument is presented by Gail and aerion who want to learn how to use them and control them although they have differing reasons for doing so the choice is presented to the player as not only a moral one but one that will have grave consequences for their lives however when it comes to actual game mechanics it doesn't actually matter if the tadpoles are used or not no NPCs will comment on the ilod powers or refuse to Ally with the party because of their use and the story itself remains unchanged the story itself remains unchanged there's no mechanical change there's no mechanical benefit for not using them there's no story change for not using them there's no story change for using them it becomes an illusion there's there's really no impact whatsoever except literally making the game easier for you it's just it's one of those things that just feels so out of place in an RPG that does everything else with choice so well but perhaps this isn't just a missed opportunity or an oversight or a mistake on Lan's part Perhaps it is something deliberate Perhaps it is a decision to change something that laryan believed the player base would react badly to there's precedent for this as delarian recently acknowledged in an interview with IGN that when Orin captures one of your party in act three it was originally supposed to be your romantic partner but that wasn't always popular from a story standpoint there is a definite impact from your romantic partner in the game being the one kidnapped and by romantic partner this could also just be the character you have I think the highest approval rating with not necessarily you can play the game without having a romantic partner but regardless it raises the stakes of the game having having this this character with a high approval rating being the one who gets kidnapped but from a gameplay standpoint it's probably frustrating because your your higher approval characters are probably going to be the ones that you are using the most so losing a key part of your party while it sounds good on on paper it sounds impactful and and and and important but the way way that act three works and how sprawling it is and how how there's so many different side quests and things like that it doesn't it it's one of those things where I can see how larion made the decision to move away from this because it could be negatively taken by the player base especially with how the ACT is constructed and how it may kind of force you to maybe you have to go to Orin first in other words kind of thing because it's a partner that you really need to go get this might have been part of the consideration for the ilod powers not having an impact on your character as well the trade-off of fun versus frustration in the game I can see the argument made against a decision like this that bids Temptation against negative impacts over long term but I can also see why this is a kind of a weird decisions to make because it's so key to what made balers Gate 3 so great in the first place consequence and and long-term decisions consequential decisions difficult decisions moral decisions why skip it here gradual decay of relationships with their Companions and the encouragement of others modifiers to saving throws which already exist for other decisions like how you deal with the hag physical alterations again how you deal with the hag I can't help but feel this core feature was left incomplete and then replaced with a singular choice later the astral tadpole what do you think though do let let me let us know in the comment section below if you have an issue with this or are you glad that you can just kind of engage with it however you want you know speaking of decisions and consequences I I had to make some decisions on this video that I made right here it's it's downright scandalous and I'm shocked that it's not demonetized yet I mean I'm sure it's just a manag like a matter of time my name is rber Flyn thank you so much for watching and I hope you have a wonderful day

Channel: Redbeardflynn Rolls A One

Views: 56,262

Keywords: rpg, rpgs, roleplaying games, crpg, action rpg, arpg

Id: 4Vi3dn_cwGI

Length: 9min 53sec (593 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 29 2023