Don't understand why people hate act 3

[Gamer de esquerda]

I personally LOVED it in terms of story and character development (especially Karlach, I felt so emotionally attached to her after her quests and her ending)

I also don't feel in any way the ending is rushed, you get a huge battle like in Dragon Age: Origins where you can literally call every single ally you made during the game as you fight your way into the elder brain

Also, the difficulty on the last fight surprised me. I finished with only Lae'zel (proned outside) and finished the fight only with Orpheus, everybody else was dead because the floor collapsed I think.

I think what people missed the most where the "slides" that are usual in all CRPGs that tell in detail what happened to everyone and everything, but, sincerely, I didn't miss it. The final scenes were enough to satisfy me.
The final battle was absolutely epic. The choices I had to made during act 3 broke my heart and involved me emotionally with the game in ways I didn't think it would happen

Even when you think you know everything that is going on, you still get plot twists near the ending. And some absolutely epic fights and quests.

The only BIG problem I have with act 3 is technical: it runs absurdely poorly compared to the rest of the game (especially because you're in a crowded city), and that still hasn't been fixed. Even playing with everything on low and limiting it to 30 fps, I still got stuttering and constant frame drops. I didn't explore fully the city because of that, and I may have missed quests and characters because of that, which is a shame

Also, The House of Hope is the best place in the game, the best boss and the best boss music.

I was wholly sactisfied with the whole game. It's definitely one of the best games and RPGs of all time. It has its' problems (no game is perfect), maybe some poor choices on quest/puzzle/level design, but the amount of quality Larian provides is abysmal.

To me, it should win GOTY in the following categories
- Game of The Year
- Best Direction
- Best RPG
- Best narrative
- Best soundtrack and music
- Best performance (Matthew Mercer - Minsc)
- Best audio design

And at least be nominated (if not winning, depending on how Starfield turns out) best art direction.

[Zorn]

Originally posted by Gamer de esquerda:

Like I said, I understand people expected the traditional "power point" of what happened with each character afterwards and what happened to everyone, but honestly? I didn't miss it, the final scenes were enough to satisfy me
And yeah, it's a pity they cutted a lot of content, but I don't think you can blame them for that, the game was already huge. I mean, I finished it in 150 hours and would have taken more if not for some things that happened pretty quick in act 2 (I took a long rest on Grymforge) and not fully exploring the city because of the performance problems you mentioned

I would agree with you here were it not for the fact that the devs promised 17,000 different ending variations TWO WEEKS before the game got released.
And i totally understand that people are a bit iffy when you compare 17k to what amounts to like...lets say 12 Also the overall satisfaction about the "endings" totally depends on wich characters were your main crew, and who you like the most.

Also Gale showing up talking to me after blowing himself up kinda ruined the immersion for me as well

Karlach being the most frustrating ending because a ton of story elements heavily imply a way to save her, and then its basically just cut content. ( the fact that you find infernal steel all over the place, the fact that a steel guardian basically sends her to the factory because it senses her faulty heart, that someone states that the gnomes in the factory know how to repair the steel guardians that use the same tech as her heart etc.)
So investing time into a Story Element that turns out to be a waste of time just to have her have 3 ♥♥♥♥ choices ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sucks.
Same goes for Lae Zels ending having no option to just say " yo, let me jump on that dragon as well " if you aint playing a gith

As far as the other companions go, they got the footnote treatment and their "endings" are what amounts to 2 or 3 voicelines, wich can be utterly frustrating if you invested time into them and ignored the "Main cast" that got full endings.

so i get why people are annoyed

[Subnero]

Originally posted by Gamer de esquerda:

Agree with that. Although in terms of BUGS the only bug I encountered was in the "rescue the girl" quest because I had killed Auntie Ethel by pushing her into the abyss in the first act, then when she transforms she has 0 life and won't talk anymore lol. Fortunately I managed to fix it myself. Healed her then threw Hag's Bane on her and the quest continued normally.

Everyones experience is gonna be different in terms of bugs, some are more prevalent than others.

Originally posted by Gamer de esquerda:

None of these happened to me. What bug is in Investigate the fireworks? Maybe it didn't bug to me because, well, I didn't know how I was supposed to get to the 3rd floor so I just went killing everyone and the quest completed.

Well i can tell you those are definitely bugs that are in the game. The Zentherin quest you get in act 1 to deliver shipment to BG in act 3 literally just disappears from your quest log. If you show me anyone finishing that quest i will send you 100 dollars. It's a straight up unfinished quest.
The Investigate suspicious toys is the fireworks one, again an unfinished quest as you are suppose to investigate a building but you can't do it. The only way to finish the quest is just to go murderhobo on everyone involved in it, which forces the quest to end. And can be clunky because it aggros the guards just outside.

Originally posted by Gamer de esquerda:

And how much screen time the enemies of act 1 and 2 had? I bet Gortash got more screen time than Thorm, since the only scene where Thorm appears is when he kills that goblin. Gortash at least appears more than once. And Orin, DAMN, she was AWESOME as an enemy, tricking you all the time and daring to kidnap one of your companions?! I got desperate, went full "Taken" on her

I thought they had enough time given that they were minor bosses, although i would say even Ketheric had little screen time in act 2. I also have problems with act 2 but not nearly as much as act 3.
I dunno if Gortash got more screen time than Ketheric, if he did it's surprisingly little. We meet him once face to face then after that we dont see him except on a screen for one brief mission and after that it's to kill him. He is meant to be a major villain at least that's how he was promoted but he was extremely underwhelming in terms of presence and as a boss fight. Not to mention after you kill him and cast dead speak on him there is no audio either because it's bugged or they forgot to add it.
Orin was good i liked her but that's because she suffered far less from the cut content. As she was meant to be the boss of the lower city while Gortash was suppose to be more involved in the upper city, after that got cut he lost a lot of screen time. They even crowned him as a ruler in a prison instead of the Ducal palace, which is in upper city.

Originally posted by Gamer de esquerda:

I really didn't feel that. I didn't feel there were a "order of things to do", you do the things on your own pace. I obviously went after Orin as soon as she kidnapped one of my companions, did the companions quests, some side quests (The artist, the missing child, the clown, the guy who wanted Dame Aylin [which leads to another epic scene, damn, that woman steals the scene whenever she is on], etc) and then took the last jewel which was, of course, the last "main quest"
The characters didn't grow quieter to me, since in Act 3 is where their side quests come to a closure, many times with bittersweet endings (which is why I wasn't disappointed with Karlach's ending), absolutely NO character gets a "disney happy ending", so there's a lot of dialogue with them about that

Well i did, very much so which makes sense since they had thousands of lines of dialogue removed in the cut. Here is the thing there is not suppose to be an order of things that you have to do, the problem is the game doesn't treat it like that and there is pleanty of playthroughs on youtube that show this, Cohhcarnage a streamer recently highlighted these problems live, as your companions would not react to some major events, for instance if you kill Raphael none of the companions except for Karlach have anything to say and also at other times his companions kept saying they felt sorry Astarion is dead despite him still being alive lol, stuff like that. Karlach is also the only character in act 3 without a quest.
In my playthrough i had weird stuff happening like i freed Minsc and took him to Jaheiras house with Jaheira but then her kids did not react to him only to her and kept asking her when does she plan to save him despite him standing right next to them lol, a lot of immersion breaking stuff like that.

Originally posted by Gamer de esquerda:

Like I said, I understand people expected the traditional "power point" of what happened with each character afterwards and what happened to everyone, but honestly? I didn't miss it, the final scenes were enough to satisfy me
And yeah, it's a pity they cutted a lot of content, but I don't think you can blame them for that, the game was already huge. I mean, I finished it in 150 hours and would have taken more if not for some things that happened pretty quick in act 2 (I took a long rest on Grymforge) and not fully exploring the city because of the performance problems you mentioned

That's your personal stance on it but i very much did miss it, especially since Swen did a youtube interview 5 days prior to release where he talked about the game having 15+min epilogues.
i love those things, they bring a perfect closure to the game and narrate all the stuff you did in the 100+ hours of the game you played. Instead my ending was we beat the Netherbrain finished stuff with Orpheus, Karlach went to Avernus half my companions said a line or two while others said nothing, the game faded to black Shadowheart which was my romance option didn't say a word to me and that was it. Extremely underwhelming to say the least.

[Gamer de esquerda]

Originally posted by Subnero:

Well i can tell you those are definitely bugs that are in the game. The Zentherin quest you get in act 1 to deliver shipment to BG in act 3 literally just disappears from your quest log. If you show me anyone finishing that quest i will send you 100 dollars. It's straight uo unfinished quest.

I'll answer only this, because it's a bit ridiculous, I'm not sure we are talking about the same quest
You do know that quest IS SUPPOSED TO BE COMPLETED IN ACT 1, right? Where you find the missing chest and take it back to the Zentharim hideout? Or let the Zentharim guys (if they survive) do it?

Because "The missing shipment" is the only "shipment mission" I recall from the Zentharim in act 1

[Ghost]

Originally posted by Gamer de esquerda:

I'll answer only this, because it's a bit ridiculous, I'm not sure we are talking about the same quest
You do know that quest IS SUPPOSED TO BE COMPLETED IN ACT 1, right? Where you find the missing chest and take it back to the Zentharim hideout? Or let the Zentharim guys (if they survive) do it?

Because "The missing shipment" is the only "shipment mission" I recall from the Zentharim in act 1

It can continue into Act 3 - they tell you to deliver the shipment to their people in Baldur's Gate yourself, who you can find in the Guild. Wasn't really worth it though.

[Subnero]

Originally posted by Gamer de esquerda:

Originally posted by Subnero:

Well i can tell you those are definitely bugs that are in the game. The Zentherin quest you get in act 1 to deliver shipment to BG in act 3 literally just disappears from your quest log. If you show me anyone finishing that quest i will send you 100 dollars. It's straight uo unfinished quest.

I'll answer only this, because it's a bit ridiculous, I'm not sure we are talking about the same quest
You do know that quest IS SUPPOSED TO BE COMPLETED IN ACT 1, right? Where you find the missing chest and take it back to the Zentharim hideout? Or let the Zentharim guys (if they survive) do it?

Because "The missing shipment" is the only "shipment mission" I recall from the Zentharim in act 1

There is an option where Zarys tasks you with taking the shipment to Baldurs Gate, thats what i am referring to. But that is either bugged or unfinished, because once you get to Baldurs Gate the quest disappears from your log.

[Ka-mai19]

Originally posted by Subnero:

There is an option where Zarys tasks you with taking the shipment to Baldurs Gate, thats what i am referring to. But that is either bugged or unfinished, because once you get to Baldurs Gate the quest disappears from your log.

There is a point in the game where the Zhentarim try to take out the Guildhall peeps. That may interrupt it, perhaps?

It may also be that "The Missing Shipment" is tracked as a quest that completes during Act 1 no matter what you do, but transporting the shipment isn't treated as a proper quest.

[Subnero]

Originally posted by caev79:

Originally posted by Subnero:

There is an option where Zarys tasks you with taking the shipment to Baldurs Gate, thats what i am referring to. But that is either bugged or unfinished, because once you get to Baldurs Gate the quest disappears from your log.

There is a point in the game where the Zhentarim try to take out the Guildhall peeps. That may interrupt it, perhaps?

It may also be that "The Missing Shipment" is tracked as a quest that completes during Act 1 no matter what you do, but transporting the shipment isn't treated as a proper quest.

The quest was probably meant to be a quest where you take a shipment to someone important in act 3 that ties into it's own quest. I keep wondering if the shipment was maybe meant for Lorroakan, either way it had a follow up.
And it actually stayed with me all the way through act 2 and when i got to act 3 it disappears from my quest log.

[Striderxdj]

I didn't mind act 3, and it had some of my favorite moments in the game The House of Hope fight with Raphael where he sings his own boss music like a Disney villain but I'm not happy that I still can't finish the game due to a bug. Encountered one other game breaking bug just prior to this one, but someone found a way around that one but this one I'm still stuck and its really frustrating as I've literally beat the game but just get stuck and can't do anything.

[IamOrion]

Act 3 reminds me of the end of Mass Effect 3. There are some things you just can't avoid and it feels like your lack of choice is taken away.

[Drakzen]

Its because dataminers found a load of things that Larian thought wouldn't fit into the game or just didn;t work so didn't put it in. WHich now we'll be getting and we can only hope it doesn't make things wonky.

Tbh my only real issue is........maybe lacking in more party members in specific classes or for a more evil playthrough. Oh and that you get way more exp than the games cap which I know the reason for but I'd still like a higher level cap just with no more new spell levels above 6 just more spell slots/uses, extra feat and maybe 1 more class specific feat could fit in.

[Tahl]

Originally posted by Drakzen:

---WHich now we'll be getting and we can only hope it doesn't make things wonky.
---

Did they say they are reworking act 3? Is there an official citation on that?
*Ooh fluff me, its in the community update. Doh!*

Also, some things dont really need to be datamined to see the devs removed bits. Karlach having some progress towards a cure baited by the SteelWatch and the foundry just straight up does not get paid off. Even if it was a dead end, they bait something then just drop it without a word.

Its similar to trying an 'evil' playthrough. In act 1 it works fine. Only works about half way through act 2 before the baddies effectively declare war on the player leading to you being the hero/anti-hero either way. After that you can only be a MassEffect style renegade. A douche hero, as opposed to siding with the baddies.

It feels like they had a direction then abandon it with some stuff not taking to the new direction.

Food4thought

[shevaton]

Well, i arrived on act 3 only after the Patch 2 release, so i really can't talk about the performance in this part of the game before that patch.

I really enjoyed the experience. I liked both the Chosen, especially Orin, and really considered them much fitted on their roles in the plot - the psycho assassin and the genious inventor burocrat -. I liked even more the secoundary bosses - Raphael was just incredible -, so it was very remarkable for me.

Other than some bugs i've encountered, i liked the pace and the story flow - the city is huge, and has A LOT of content, many of them are very interesting. My only complaints are in the very ending of the game:

1) The brainless attitude of Emperor when I decided to free Orpheus. I mean, a so intelligent and strategist being really thought that the better option was to simply give up and align with his greatest enemy ever? With all that stuff being said about how much he wanted to earn his freedom? I didnt think that it made much sense...

2) The "no option" ending for Karlach. I know, it was a narrative choice of the produtors, but it has been hinted during all game that you could fix her somehow, and, in the end, you just dont have this option. It was a bit anticlimactic for me, but I accepted.

3) The absence of epilogue or more post ending content. I mean, come on? That's only that?! We spent MANY hours with those well written and charismatic, each one in their own way, characters just to have absolutely nothing from them at the end? You just don't know what happens aftermatch? I mean, we have just saved the world, and nobody has nothing but two or three voice lines? That felt very empty for me, and a little sad because they made an excellent job captivating us for, in the end, just don't give nothing more about those brilliant characters.

[Ranpo]

I thought Act 3 was fine but really condensed vs Act 1 and 2, also not as much charm.

That's about it, its not that serious. Can't relate with the pettiness some of these people on Steam have.

[Popsicles]

You are really glossing over the obvious performance problems with FPS in Act 3.
-Dammon was bugged for me in Act 3
-Steel foundry quest was bugged - dude that was supposed to give you info disappeared.
-Sorceror sundry bugged and everyone started attacking my party for no reason. Just walked in and it was on.
-When alt-tabbing out of game - cannot click on anything in BG3 without it throwing me back to the previous program.
-Constant 'black screen' appearances. I'll be walking along - black screen for 1 second, then back to normal game play. It has been worse in previous patches, but still occurs.

Yes, Act 3 is buggy and unfinished. Utterly disappointing after participating in 3 years of EA.