SPOILERS: Goblin vs Tiefling - Critique

[Grimm Carrolls]

Lot of great things to like about BG3. My personal favorite is the strength of the writing and the dedication Larian has put into fleshing out the races, Goblins in particular. My biggest issue, however, is how... odd the ways to resolve the Goblin vs Tiefling conflict is.

First of all is the motivation. Fact of the matter is there's a clear goal in helping the Tieflings win - to get Halsin's help in getting rid of the parasite. The goal for helping the goblins win is... nothing. Or at least nothing as far as you know. Hell, the Priestess will try to kill you if you ask for help. So why would you think Minthara would be any different? Therefore, it makes little sense to want to help them. Bear in mind that the siege will result in a massacre too. Add to this that by helping the Tieflings they promise to help you if you seek them out in Baldur's Gate, why would you ever choose the goblins? If you play a murder hobo, and care nothing for your own survival, I guess. Or if you really, really, like goblins/hate tieflings. Which I do btw. But I'm too committed to roleplaying to choose the Gobbos.

Then comes the winner, and how we go about achieving victory. No matter what you actually do during the conflict, you get one of two endings that are not modified by any number of small or large choices along the way. Then again, what choices do you actually make during the conflict?
If you side with the tieflings, you have to kill the Goblin leaders. But what this essentially means is that you have to aggro every goblin within the camp and kill a horde of them. There is no way to hitman your way to victory for people who do not want to kill everthing in sight. For example, Minthara still likes spiders. Maybe you can gift her a big nice spider. Maybe you can make a deal with said spider to eat her when she comes to inspect it. Or maybe, when she's looking down into the hole to marvel at its beauty, nudge her inside. Instead, you gotta have a boring sludge of a battle, where every five steps you take aggroes another group of goblins, and god help you if you missed anything and want to go back to the goblin camp. There's no build up, no narrative tension, nothing. Just walk up to leaders and initiate combat, then teleport back and see that everyone's having a celebration for an act they had nothing to do with despite being armed and ready. I'm not saying you shouldn't be able to just straight up attack the leaders, I'm saying that there should be options that divide them, make it easier, gameplay that makes you feel like you've EARNED stuff.
The Goblin route is actually a great deal better when it comes to the climax. You tell Minthara you're ready to join them in a siege. She gathers the gobbos, heads out, then all of a sudden you've got a massive fight on your hands. First comes the cutscenes where both leaders see one another, one gives a speech, and then you have a moment to make a decision, open the gate or not. Not opening the gate leads to a huge fight with spiders scaling the walls and goblins being thrown onto the battlements, and a mad drow wanting to kill you. The other leads to a moment between you and the tiefling leader where he realizes he's just been utterly betrayed, and a slaughter ensues. This is cool as hell. But I still got a little issue, nowhere near as large as the first. There's no middle. You meet Minthara, and immediately she's ready to trust you and head out. There's no mission to earn tiefling trust or to sabotage. It's just 'hey, how you doing, lets end the act'.
So the Gobbo route is cinematic and awesome whilst the Tiefling route is seriously lame. I think the Minthara siege should be mandatory for both routes.

Overall, I enjoyed the game. I just feel like this section is... wonky.

Tl;dr - I don't think there's enough motivation to join the goblins, not many choices that modify how easy/clean your goals are and generally want a better climax for the Tiefling route.

[Foolswalkin]

I don’t think of it as the goblins, but the Absolute. I think it points to the broader paths of “get this damn thing out of my head” or “try to control tadpole and maximize power gain from it without undergoing ceremorphosis (sp?)”. I dunno if that will pan out, but it seems like why someone could argue for picking the goblins.

[Indure]

I feel like there might be a way to assassinate all the goblin leaders without triggering the whole camp, but it might be bugged. I successfully killed everyone except for the hobgoblin without alerting the rest of the camp. There might be a way to kill him as well, I didn't really try. Either way you can teleport or sneak out of the camp without further blooshed.

[Grimm Carrolls]

Originally posted by Foolswalkin:

I don’t think of it as the goblins, but the Absolute. I think it points to the broader paths of “get this damn thing out of my head” or “try to control tadpole and maximize power gain from it without undergoing ceremorphosis (sp?)”. I dunno if that will pan out, but it seems like why someone could argue for picking the goblins.

Yeah, but see how vague our motivations are at that point? A lot of 'thinking' and 'maybes', rather than a clear, direct goal like we have with the Tiefling route. We're already in a pretty cool and unique position morally where all party members except maybe Wyll is willing to do anything to avoid undergoing the change. Should be very easy to do something with it.

Originally posted by Indure:

I feel like there might be a way to assassinate all the goblin leaders without triggering the whole camp, but it might be bugged. I successfully killed everyone except for the hobgoblin without alerting the rest of the camp. There might be a way to kill him as well, I didn't really try. Either way you can teleport or sneak out of the camp without further blooshed.

I did find that you can poison some goblins in the courtyard to weaken them, which is cool. It also allows you to nab the owlbear cub. I just wish there was more of it. You're in an overwhelmingly advantageous position of being able to walk around both camps, there should be options for subterfuge to make your goals easier.

[wildnike]

Yeah there's a lot to be desired.

There's almost zero reason to pick the goblins route, even on an evil playthrough. They're crap-smearing savages who can't organize worth a damn and are only kept together by a crazy drow and her red assistant. Everyone's taking Absolute loony pills and there's nothing practical to gain from them. It makes more sense for an evil character to side with the "good" people, if only to net some items and reliable allies, perhaps after making the tieflings and druids have a civil war first.

Cinematic-wise the battle for Druid Grove is fine on both ends IMO but there needs to be a lot more prep beyond "talk to these people." For the tiefling side it's to convince people to stay and honestly that's kind of bland compared to all the problems that they have. Maybe the smith could get better supplies from a quest into the blighted town? Maybe helping the bard chick could net another Rally bonus through a song? Helping certain druids could give more potions and maybe you could decide positions. All of this naturally while maybe sabotaging the goblin camp in certain, non-violent ways. Poison the booze, free a slave for information.

Siding with the goblins can also have the same effect. Interrogate Haslin to learn about some secret passages which you wouldn't get without a very high skill check. Make the spiders stronger through finding some item or netting some special meat or whatever, perhaps from the Spider Matriarch?

There's a lot of ways you could build up both sides, but I think the tiefling/druid group really need the prep work a lot more then the goblins, who REALLY need to give players a reason to side with them outside roleplaying as an insane person.

[Grimm Carrolls]

@Wildnike Agreed, absolutely. I really like the fight against Minthara during the siege... but why even do that when you can just kill her along with other goblins within the keep itself? It also makes no sense at all that the Goblins are somehow harder to kill whilst attacking walls manned with your allies than inside their headquarters.

I'm just mostly salty about how cool and how high the stakes are for defending the keep when that's the dumbest option to go with, and the least likely to actually be chosen, considering it kinda sounds like you're committing to killing the Tieflings if you choose it when talking to her.

I don't know what happens after a successful defense, I haven't gone that route yet. But if you manage to do it with high enough numbers, it'd be so cool to launch a counter-invasion of your own. THAT would be worth celebrating. A group of four adventurers shouldn't be expected to do everything. Lot of room for moral dilemmas and confrontations there too. Like, what to do with the Zhents who were supplying, or what do to with the Goblin children now without parents.

I'm also kinda weirded out by how tepid the confrontation between Halsin and Kagba or whatever the elven snake druid's name was. Considering what she tried to do, and her zeal in doing it, I figured there'd be much more of a climax. Man, the Tiefling route sucked.

[Foolswalkin]

Do the absolute loony pills not let you use their weapons without the drawbacks?

[Grimm Carrolls]

Originally posted by THAC0:

Na Great game
*snip*
Need I go on about how amazing this game is?

Do you have nothing better to do with your time?

[Grimm Carrolls]

Originally posted by Foolswalkin:

Do the absolute loony pills not let you use their weapons without the drawbacks?

What loony pills?

[[SIN] Kryadan]

Originally posted by Indure:

I feel like there might be a way to assassinate all the goblin leaders without triggering the whole camp, but it might be bugged. I successfully killed everyone except for the hobgoblin without alerting the rest of the camp. There might be a way to kill him as well, I didn't really try. Either way you can teleport or sneak out of the camp without further blooshed.

I sided wit Goblins and got in camp. Saved Druid which means I have to kill the 3 leaders. Stealth range with 1 guy with rest of party in stealth and away from the group. I wiped the whole area doing that. Saved druid. Went to camp. Ported back and killed the groups outside.

[Don Kedik]

I never got the siege because no matter which side I chose I just completely wiped out the other.

[Soft Lockpick]

Originally posted by Foolswalkin:

I don’t think of it as the goblins, but the Absolute. I think it points to the broader paths of “get this damn thing out of my head” or “try to control tadpole and maximize power gain from it without undergoing ceremorphosis (sp?)”. I dunno if that will pan out, but it seems like why someone could argue for picking the goblins.

I'd be a LITTLE more ok with this as a more evil branch if there was really any BELIEVABLE indication the path offered you that. Frankly there isn't. All signs point to you're going to lose your free will or life eventually with the thing in.

The problem with leaving things vague about what's going on is things are too vague to trust from the dream figure - they really tell you nothing - and nothing is really promised anyway. And the gobbos, drow, and hobgoblin don't really offer any info on what's happening or seem to know either.

It's a serious problem they have. You can't have tempting dreams within the context of "Brain eating parasite that will turn you into a monster and offers people access to your brain in game already." Because if someone can just mind control you no reward is a reward. We know the source of what's happening to us.

I think Larian didn't understand the reason the dreams worked in BG1 was because we had absolutely no idea why we were getting power. By knowing there's something that can eat your brain in your head, by giving us flavor text we're "losing something we'll never get back" any time we use the thing, it's being made abundantly clear it's not an evil option but a stupid option.

[NixAhmose]

Yeah, right now the only two reason I could ever see anyone joining the goblins is if A) they're drow and thus are already treated as royalty when they meet the goblins, or B) they've already used and learned enough about their tadpoles to understand what the true souls are and that the goblins' cult is a way to get closer to the Absolute as an ally. Besides that there's really isn't any reason to work with them.
They should highlight the fact that the goblins know how to control the tadpoles more in order to give you a reason to join them if you're interested in taking that power for yourself.

Also, while I somewhat disagree on the idea you have to fight all the goblins in the camp as there are ways to escape from the camp using the tunnels in the Underdark or the sneaking out of the camp, killing the goblin leaders feels very unreactive. It almost feels kinda like a mmo dungeon in how with it all feels so disconnected from the rest of the world.
I hope by the time the full game comes out there's more ways to kill each leader, like maybe challenging the hobgoblin leader to a one on one duel, maybe convincing Gut and Minthara to betray/attack each other, convincing the druids/tieflings to attack the goblin camp head on, or hell, maybe even turning down the Mycoloid's reward in favor of them aiding you in backdoor assault against the goblins.

[Shandor]

Well the Goblin Prisoner tells you that they serve a mighty Godess and the Party thinks She might cure them.
So its the same reason why you could help the Tieflings.

[nemO]

I can understand your p.o.v. but . .

This is Act 1.

Mayhap your choices now will affect Act 2, 3 or 4. After all, do you not end the first Act in the Underdark, sailing to'ards the 'home' of the Absoloute? Who knows what awaits you there given your previous actions in Act 1.

It's why I stopped playing it about 1/2 way through. I'd rather have a complete adventure, a year from now, given how promising it appears to be already, then 'spoil' it but having installments now. They may place alternatives within the scenario you described, as opposed to a simple binary choice.

I'm already a lot more impressed from seeing a number of YT videos, where for example, you can speak to the spiders, open the cage and have them help you slaughter the goblins, by luring them in piecemeal to their lair. That to me is DnD - as opposed to simple barrelmancy. Very subtle and sublime and it's not the only example.

I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and will wait expectantly for the finished article :)

[dj010a7802]

If you kill the gatekeepers in the temple, send 2 party members up high before you start, you have 6 to kill. go inside and hang a right go to volo and kill 1 goblin free him and backtrack to the 3 torturing the poor guy you get 1 add so 4 to kill. I then kill the Masochist/flagealant. Destroy the drum, not sure if necessary, sell to the trader then kill her and the 2 guards. Head to Haslin but kill the 3 in the room before you may aggro the Drow if you screw up still only 3 more to kill. Rescue Halsin. go back climb the ladder where the 3 were before Halsin and kill the Drow and her 2 friends. Now kill Gut + her now 5 cronies. Now A bit of stealth kill the 2 on the narrow wallkway, you may get a third, then kill the 2 who have the former shaman in a cell you now have Raglin and 5 no big fights all easy.