#Larian needs to stop showing their favouritism towards astarion

[arsene-ee]

This is literally just my opinion b4 anyone comes for me

I SWEAR ON MY BEST FRIEND, IF I SEE ANOTHER PERSON SAY THAT LARIAN DOES NOT NEED TO ADD CONTENT FOR WYLL (AND KARLACH) BECAUSE "tHe GaMe Is FiNiShEd" I WILL THROW HANDS.

Cuz like how come the character, who is the closest connected to the plot has 4 hours less content than fucking Astarion, who is the least relevant to the plot.

And I'm not even joking cuz like Shadowheart has the Artifact which makes her relevant. Lae'zel is a Githyanki and knows about the mindflayers which makes her relevant to the plot. Gale has his Orb which is basically a last resort to kill the netherbrain making him plot relevant. Karlach was Gortash's (🤢🤢🤢🤢) slave, giving you a reason to dislike him and a reason to fight him, making her plot relevant. Minthara had a thing with Orin and works under Ketheric Thorm, connecting her to the main Plot. Halsin studies the brain worms and He once attacked Ketheric Thorm which caused the shadow curse or something blah blah making him connected to the plot. Minsc and Jaheira both encountered a Baahlspawn before (probably makes more sense when you're playing Dark Urge) and know how to deal with them (they have a fun interaction with Saverok or whatever his name is when you bring them there) making them plot relevant.

AND WYLL, he is the Son of Ulder Ravengard, you know just the duke of Baldur's Gate, making Wyll also the potential Duke incase Ulder dies. Baldur's Gate itself most likely wouldn't be standing if it wasn't for him and the pact he made with Mizora. His dad gets kidnapped and Tadpoled and then he crowns Gortash (🤢🤢🤢🤢) Archduke and then gets imprisoned in the Ironthrone (where you need to go anyways if you want to destroy Gortash's (🤢🤢🤢🤢) tall robots. Wyll is then urged by his dad to find Ansur, which basically gives you one of the biggest plot twists in the history of plot twists and bad love affairs.

Meanwhile Astarion is just a dude, sure he was a corrupt judge like 200 years ago but at this point that is so irrelevant. In regards of plot relevancy you could replace Astarion with a random NPC and it wouldn't change anything. Honestly I think Larian just wanted a conventionally attractive vampire sad white boy for no real reason.

I'm not saying Astarion's personal story is Irrelevant, it's well written and I understand his motivation (altough the fantasy raceism wasn't necessary but what do I know, right?). And hell Neil did a great job voicing him and making him sound arrogant as well as breakable when needed. the fact that Astarion's arrogance is partly what makes me hate him and infuriates me pretty much show's me that Neil is a great voice actor (also on account of him portaying Kamski in DBH whom I also hate)

Certain people Baby Astarion way too much the 200 something year old dude, who already was an adult when he became a vampire, in the end what happened between him and the people he discriminated against was what he had coming.

Meanwhile people say that Wyll was old enough to know what he was doing when making his pact with Mizora and that he shouldn't have been so naive. Wyll was 17 when he made his pact. 17. Idk about you but I, as a 19 year old look at 17 year olds and think of them as Children. 17 year old is not mature enough to make such life changeing desicions, I as a 19 year old am not mature enough to make a desicion like that. Wyll lost everything he ever knew while he was still a child. He hasn't had privacy since he was 17, he spend 7 years being watched by Mizora, without an ounce of privacy.

Also before anyone comes at me for being uninformed that the response to Wyll in EA was to small to warrant more content. I KNOE THAT, I KNOW THAT THE RESPONSE TO HIM WAS LOW. Just the other day I saw a post about it. I also saw a post how, if Wyll was just a fraction as mean as astarion, he would be one of the most hated characters in the game, so yeah, think about that.

all I want is for all the characters to have an equal ammount of content, which either means giving the neglected characters more content or cutting down on content characters who already have more content have.

[lexsnotdead]

I absolutely loved BG1 and 2, Neverwinter Nights Hordes of the Underdark and Neverwinter Nights 2 too are among my most favourite RPGs. But Larians writing, particularly in D:OS2 turned me off so much :( How different is BG3?

big wall of text under the cut and before anything else i want to say that criticizing a game does not equal not liking it

i thought a lot about my response to this ask, since i must admit i have never played bg&bg2 and jumped straight into the hype train of bg3. and i'm genuinely curious what exactly about dos2 turned you off that much. here's what i personally think:

i played d:os1 and d:os2 and while i'm a big fan of the latter… dos1 couldn't keep me entertained even when playing with a friend in coop, which shows just how exhaustively boring and unmemorable it was. i really love dos2 and despite what i will say next, nothing is gonna change my love for this game. but. imma be honest, it was 3 and a half characters that kept me playing. i love sebille and lohse, i love malady — the mystery around her has its own appeal, but it's still a huge miss not to expand on such intriguing character as herself. i slightly care about ifan and fane, i couldn't give a lesser fuck about beast, i fucking hate the red prince and his writing is one of most unlikable from any rpg game i ever played (i can elaborate. but that's a post for another time). in short: lack of memorable characters, and those who are there have to make up in quality rather than quantity.

and larian is still... larian. their ambition makes them bite more than they can chew, you don't need to be nitpicking on purpose to notice just now empty act 3 of d:os2 was compared to fort joy or driftwood. in similar-ish way act 3 of bg3 feels less polished in terms of performance and content. like they even had to add an alternative ending to karlach's quest only after the game's release lol. there are quite a lot of bugs and players who are doing an "evil" playthrough like me found themselves deprived of content — sometimes you're just locking yourself out of quests, encounters, characters entirely because of decisions you made, quite literally making the game harder for yourself.

another important thing that i'd point out that dos2 felt kinda lacking in terms of the character creation because ocs always felt less immersive and shallow compared to the playable origins (i had the time of my life playing as lohse, tho). i know people who managed to have fun filling the blank spaces with their imagination, but i'm not one of those people, unfortunately. when i tried creating a drow character in bg3, however, every third npcs made sure to glare at me distrustfully and be fantasy racist towards the drow. like really? thanks for noticing! this might sound weird, but i liked that. it enhanced my feeling of immersion thus making it more satisfying to play. like yeees... yes... i indeed am a drow!

i'd rather stop focusing on its shortcomings because it feels unfair to larian when they are listening to the playerbase and trying their best to deliver patches as quick as possible. after all, what makes a good dnd adventure for me is always the story and characters — banal it may be, as long as it is fun, it is a good dnd game. and bg3 is very fun and addictive. there's this unique feeling when you're planning your next playthrough and considering what you would've done differently when still doing your first. i like it more compared to dos2, because... i'm not sure why myself? interpersonal interactions just feel a bit deeper, and i actually care about almost every companion, even the ones i did not expect to care about (like gale, astarion, shadowheart). and variety of the character creation, of course. and i can bet on bg3 being next the goty haha

to sum this all up:

if you like dos:2, you will like this game

if you like dnd e5, you will also like this game

if you like bg1 and bg2 then i genuinely don't know i'm sorry