WARNING: Dont Skip Gortash Coronation

[[unassigned]]

to be fair its pretty obvious the game wants you to go up to it. the path is hard to miss and giant robot guards shout at you to go. but i thought "why would i go see this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ get praised by a bunch of snooty elites?"

so i walked on by killed orin, blew up his factory THEN went to the coronation.

the game was not ready for this.

the demon woman is still there saying "go on in to the fun party" but the second i step onto the bridge everyone starts trying to kill me. so i bottle neck them at the doors to the room all the elite's guards are waiting in and melt them with AoE, while Gortash slowly makes his way down. (though, weirdly, Wyll's dad Ravenguard doesnt come down the stairs and just waited at the upper floor).

Eventually i kill Gortash and immediately it plays a cutscene of his coronation like nothing happened. his is coronated,then it just returns me to him with 1HP, still hostile, but also dancing because of a spell i used that still had turns left. i can however loot him, but upon doing so played a cutscene for Karlach's quest conclusion (ending in her leaving the party and returning to camp).

tldr: game doesnt expect you to skip it, so dont probably

pic: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3025939366

EDIT: Wyll's dad died but there was no body and i never touched him and he was in a different room when i killed gortash. Also i killed gortash with Karlach in my party but she thinks i killed him without her and it annoyed her. Also it triggered some major point of no return event in the city...

[Madlark]

Originally posted by unassigned:

Originally posted by Madlark:

Thank you for the heads-up. I am literally standing before the submersible, without having been to the coronation. I think I'm going to save and try it anyway, but without killing Orin if at all possible. My plan was basically to disable all the bots then go to the coronation with a smug face...

that was my plan, better to just go to coronation first i think. like i understand your thinking but i dont think the devs did

You mentioned you also killed Orin. I don't intend to do this - unless she's going to pop up during the "disable bots" quest (this is my first playthrough) - in which case I'm screwed, of course.

I do have a strategically placed savegame to go back to, of course.

UPD: Yes, just disabling the robots also breaks the game. Oh well, back to that backup save.

[[unassigned]]

Originally posted by Madlark:

Originally posted by unassigned:

that was my plan, better to just go to coronation first i think. like i understand your thinking but i dont think the devs did

You mentioned you also killed Orin. I don't intend to do this - unless she's going to pop up during the "disable bots" quest (this is my first playthrough) - in which case I'm screwed, of course.

I do have a strategically placed savegame to go back to, of course.

UPD: Yes, just disabling the robots also breaks the game. Oh well, back to that backup save.

dont kill orin, that added a whole extra layer of screwing things up. i was hit with so many story progression events it was crazy (since i didnt think i'd actually be fighting gortash proper, assuming i'd have to chase him somewhere to get the gem) so ended up progressing that part of the story quest too

like obviously kill orin or him or both or whatever, just personally, i would not kill orin before going to the coronation if i could do it over

[crzycespy]

Every time I went on the bridge it said I was in too much pain to continue and sent me back to the bottom of the bridge. I had not killed Orin but *had* taken care of the factory, which I did after the sub mission to the prison. When I left that it said Wyll's father had been killed and I had no idea he was even in that prison. Anyway...

After being level 12 for a good 50+ hours I finally decide to go to the coronation. I went to Wyrm's crossing in Rivington. Jumped across the river taking like 45 h.p. of damage bc I'm an idiot, Ei I should have just flew, Misty stepped, Dimension Door'd etc... Went back to camp, rested, broke into the regular prison, freed a council woman from Act 1 I believe, then when I left the prison into the city proper everyone was aggro'd but the fights were absurdly easy because of the way they were set up. After a couple of fights I found Gortash on the top floor, no cut scenes, zero dialogue at any point, even after I knocked him out using non-lethal damage. I did get Karlach to express her upset'ness after taking control of her and having her attempt to loot him a few times. After that I just killed him. Wyll's quest still says I need to go to the coronation even though Gortash is now dead; ei no more 1 h.p.. There are also two contradictory journal entries, one saying Duke Ravenguard is dead and another saying I need to try to rescue him...

The game absolutely does not expect you to put off the coronation. I'm glad I did not do Orin first, but man, what a mess regardless. It was fun though. It would have been way more fun if after the prison he had his guards put an end to the fighting and escorted us to his inauguration. Ahh well, at least I know for another playthrough.

I am quite surprised the devs missed this as I can see a ton of veteran CRPG players and newbs alike not doing the quest immediately. I stumbled into the Iron Throne portion just exploring the city, so yeah, a little headache on the bridge is not going to keep people out, nor should it. Not when the journal entry for the inauguration is still in people's journals.

[HermitJay]

I did this in my 3rd playthrough as Gortash is way too smug that you can't beat him surrounded by steal watch. So I eliminated steal watch first to see if I'd get last laugh. Which I did but not via new dialog... in hindsight I shoulda just raced to blow up foundry to test instead of saving gondiains first which combined is too much hassle to undo. Anyway, this caused 2 problems.

1. Wyll's dad won't be in the undersea fortress and you will instead have to kill him along side Gortash.

2. Gortash won't warn you about orin so you're wide open to get someone kidnapped if you go poking around the sewers. I don't know if it's possible to prevent the kidnapping, but if it is, you need Gortash's warning.

[Ranpo]

You shouldn't do the Iron Throne before Gortash's ceremony, if you did, it will trigger him killing everyone in Wyrm's Keep including Wyll's dad. If you wanted to save the patriars for no reason other than RP, you have to kill him during the coronation.

There is a way to kill him during the ceremony, you have to stealth in using fog and blindness immunity, basically pop out, shoot, hide back.

[Grumpy]

Well some stories need the player to "read the mood", we arrive in Baldur gate and one of the main bad guy is placed on our way (litterally you see him before entering Baldur gate).

Multiples npc talking about it? A demon telling you to go ? You also need to know what happens to Will's dad since it's his fortress.

Larian just hoped it was enough so they didn't have to do it the hard way with an enormous pop up saying you can't go until you see Gortash flamboyance.

Even if they put guards to stop you, people would have tried to passed them so those guards would need to be invulnerable. And then people would say it's unfair and "muh immersion" threads would pop up.

Storywise it's well put, you on the other end...you were a doofus :) (/joking)

[Ranpo]

Originally posted by The Pope:

Originally posted by |wilb|:

Okay that's somehow awesome and sad ofc too, hope you reported it.

Tons of stuff like this btw, Larion didn't expect DND players to DND properly.

This is a linear RPG game with some choices they should have just forced instead of "freedom" that comes with bugs and the choices are forced anyway.

You'll need exhaustive testing to account for most if not all the possibilities. Eventually they'll run into a wall where they don't have a specific response for a certain permutation so it just uses a default response.

Like talking to one of the Sharrans in Rivington after you basically wiped the cloister.

[PixxGokou]

Originally posted by The Pope:

Originally posted by |wilb|:

Okay that's somehow awesome and sad ofc too, hope you reported it.

Tons of stuff like this btw, Larion didn't expect DND players to DND properly.

This is a linear RPG game with some choices they should have just forced instead of "freedom" that comes with bugs and the choices are forced anyway.

Nah bro that's unfair, in Act 2 you can pretty much do everything in any order you like and it seems to work without major issues (except a skip into the last dungeon which I'm pretty sure is not supposed to be there, but my friends and I found it by accident).

But Act 3 is a big mess altogether so for that it's probably true, I'm positive they'll try to improve on that tho.

And to add my part to the conversation, I killed Gortash before the coronation and ton's of stuff got f*cked up, so yeah I can also just advise everyone to do the "intended" order on this part until they fix Act 3

[Moonbane]

Will be skipping the coronation too, and blowing up the factory before I deign to show up.

[microgirl]

Originally posted by Grumpy:

Well some stories need the player to "read the mood", we arrive in Baldur gate and one of the main bad guy is placed on our way (litterally you see him before entering Baldur gate).

Multiples npc talking about it? A demon telling you to go ? You also need to know what happens to Will's dad since it's his fortress.

Larian just hoped it was enough so they didn't have to do it the hard way with an enormous pop up saying you can't go until you see Gortash flamboyance.

Even if they put guards to stop you, people would have tried to passed them so those guards would need to be invulnerable. And then people would say it's unfair and "muh immersion" threads would pop up.

Storywise it's well put, you on the other end...you were a doofus :) (/joking)

All they bloody needed was to not have it titled "Confront Gortash". Because I was expecting this to be a seriously big fight - like the main "putting Gortash down" fight, with no chance of escape unless you were planning on siding with him - so went and did as much else throughout the Lower City as I good, to level up and get as much equipment and story progression etc. Eventually realised through some other way that this probably *wasn't* the Big Boss fight, considering the Duke etc (I'd forgotten about Mizora's quest) so went up not sure if I was getting a fight or not.

And of course, it ISN'T a big fight unless you make it so by (stupidly) deciding to kill him then and there, with the Duke in the crossfire and Steel Watch all over the place. It's just a chat, and a "I'll think about it, but I'm not promising anything" re siding with him vs Orin (who has, of course, already taken one of my companions, but I've been slow about rescuing her because I know the fight will be huge). Just some chit chat, flavour, and companion quest progression.

Except I had forking taken the aborted trip on the sub, having come across it completely by accident via climbing up some stinky roots from the sewers, and having never gone near the Steel Watch Foundry yet. And if you go on the sub, even if you turn back, you completely fork over that whole set of quests. Because while the coronation goes fine the second you cross the threshold to leave the whole place goes hostile.

All because they titled it "Confront Gortash" and dangled some other juicy quests like "Destroy the Steel Foundry" (which would make sense before taking on Gortash) rather than titling it something like "Attend ceremony". Or even having the "Confront Gortash" bit *only* în Karlach's quest, and have the title of the main quest bit be more something like "Attend the Ordination and Investigate Gortash".

I know I'm particularly bitter right now because I have 13+ hours more play done since I took the submersible trip, so I'm looking at either losing all of that progression (and there was a lot, even just of getting and organising gear and some important conversations and overall lore development) or accepting a seriously suboptimal playthough outcome. Possibly even more than just screwing Wyll's companion quest by having his father die, because as soon as I go anywhere near Wyrm's Rock again now, even to side with Gortash by bringing him Orin's Netherstone, I'm likely to get jumped by everyone because I've already triggered whatever condition in the game causes that.

So yeah, I get what you're saying about Larian making it as clear as possible, but they also didn't - in that they didn't make it clear that this was not intended or expected to be a fight, unless you started it, and so it's safe to listen to what the game is saying.

[srfrogg23]

Skipped it. Shut down the steel watch factory, killed Orin, saved dinglefritz, then went back and wiped out the flaming fist and Gortash. Back home in time for Leno.

[Caprichaun]

I also bypassed the coronation, snuck in thru the prison, killed Orin then did Iron throne, then steel watch. In fact I saved Gortash until almost the very end. Yeah he did slaughter all the guests and I had to kill a ton of flaming fist. No interaction with Gortash at all, the only cut scene was with Karlach upon looting the gauntlet. Next playthru, I will listen to the NPCs lol.

[Resolute]

It is made into a huge deal that Gortash has this Steel Watch army patrolling the city.
Skipping a meeting with the known villain in order to blow up the factory first is an obvious possibility some players will make.

There are some barriers to doing that, like the Steel watch patrols in the street seem to get more and more hostile and it is way on the other side of the city. Just teleport across city rooftops avoiding patrols until you find the factory.

Disabling the watch did turn Gortash's people hostile, but that is kind of expected.

[Kayfabed]

Well ♥♥♥♥, I UNKNOWLINGLY went into Baldurs gate, thinking the coronation was going to be, well, in the city. So I wandered around doing some stuff and things (including sub mission), finally was like, lets check out that coronation...where is it? Oh, that's something else...hmmm..Oh? back here? Oh they agro!!!

I did the same thing with Moonrise Towers in act 2, wandered around the whole area before heading to the Towers, and everyone was ready to agro me and kill me because I ♥♥♥♥♥♥ every plan up they had. Missed the cool ass cutscene with Thorn and the Goblin murder attempt.

I appreciate the freedom the game has, but I would also appreciate approaching the linear parts of the game that are 'forced' by forcing them in a linear manner. I thought approaching Moonrise towers first sounded like a horrible idea, and I didnt even think the coronation was in the same place (prob too stoned to realize it).

But I guess I'm ready to beat the game by accident like 33% of the rest of the ppl playing...

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by Kayfabed:

Well ♥♥♥♥, I UNKNOWLINGLY went into Baldurs gate, thinking the coronation was going to be, well, in the city. So I wandered around doing some stuff and things (including sub mission), finally was like, lets check out that coronation...where is it? Oh, that's something else...hmmm..Oh? back here? Oh they agro!!!

I did the same thing with Moonrise Towers in act 2, wandered around the whole area before heading to the Towers, and everyone was ready to agro me and kill me because I ♥♥♥♥♥♥ every plan up they had. Missed the cool ass cutscene with Thorn and the Goblin murder attempt.

I appreciate the freedom the game has, but I would also appreciate approaching the linear parts of the game that are 'forced' by forcing them in a linear manner. I thought approaching Moonrise towers first sounded like a horrible idea, and I didnt even think the coronation was in the same place (prob too stoned to realize it).

But I guess I'm ready to beat the game by accident like 33% of the rest of the ppl playing...

They try pretty hard to let you know the order that's intended though - and it's just up to you to skip it.

You have to walk past the coronation and be told that you must attend by pretty much everybody.

And similarly your quest is to go to Moonrise towers, and you're repeatedly directed there - besides which I don't think you can really mess that up too much unless you ignore the additional text box about how doing this may progress your other quests.