Not having fun - what am I doing wrong?

[Johan]

Hi! Would appreciate some advice from those of you who've gotten further.

This game should be absolutely perfect for me, but I'm just not having fun. Maybe Swen Vincke and I are just made differently, but every choice I make seems to be wrong. Almost every the time I go with my gut on what should be done, my companions dislike it. Any time I need to make a quest choice, it tends to end badly. I just finally rolled my eyes and alt-F4 after I pulled the brake lever on the windmilll and a deep gnome goes sailing off to his death.

I like the combat, the graphics, the voice acting. I'm winning all the fights, so difficulty is a non-issue. It's just that every single choice I make seems to be considered "wrong", either by the companions or the game or both, and I get crapped on for it. Over and over again.

I get the fact that half the tabletop experience is laughing at stupid consequences. Is that what I'm supposed to do here? Not try to win, not try to care about the outcome, just laugh at my emo companions and laugh at every single train wreck quest outcome?

I've poured some 160 hours into Divinity 2 and loved it. And I love all the old Bioware/Black Isle games. So what am I missing here?

Would appreciate something constructive rather than "play something else" "you suck" or the like.

[sevensided]

Sometimes people don't vibe with a game. There's nothing wrong with that.

If you are willing, only thing I might suggest is starting a new play through using the origin character you think you like the most (and don't be afraid to respec them to the class you want).

[6210]

If your choices with the gnome and the windmill are a hint at what you're struggling with, then I'd wager it is a difficulty in paying closer attention to details, and/or interpreting dialogue choices and how they may end in catastrophe. (The windmill itself had two options specifically stating what each one was). I'm not sure how else to help you other than to be a bit more intuitive in your decision making.

[crush eat kill repeat]

I just want to say you pulled the lever that says “release brake”

[Ackranome]

Be evil, kill everyone.

[Grimmsch]

There is always the chance that you and the game just don't click.

That said I think you should get rid of the idea of a right or wrong way on how to let the story unfold.

It is ok if you let the deep gnome fly.
I failed to save a companion and play now without him.

"Mistakes" are ok. They sometimes make for the better story. There is always a way.
The game is very flexible in that regard.

Trust the journey .Just play your own unique story.

[The Konrad]

Actually considering how horrible those Gnomes are, sending that Gnome flying is indeed somehow the right choice, although -and arguably- apparent much much later.

[Samvega]

Maybe roleplay as a character? Let your character make mistakes and get into muddles.

[zero]

Originally posted by Johan:

Hi! Would appreciate some advice from those of you who've gotten further.

This game should be absolutely perfect for me, but I'm just not having fun. Maybe Swen Vincke and I are just made differently, but every choice I make seems to be wrong. Almost every the time I go with my gut on what should be done, my companions dislike it. Any time I need to make a quest choice, it tends to end badly. I just finally rolled my eyes after I pulled the brake lever on the windmilll and a deep gnome goes sailing off to his death.

im just gonna say: this happened because you specifically pulled the one that WASN'T labeled break.

so yeah, thats kinda you making a bad choice lol.

that said: i honestly do not know what to tell you, your companions, by and large, fall under 2 catagories really:

they are either pragmatic tricksters (lae, ast, shadowheart) or vaguely good aligned (shadowheart again, karlach, gale, wyll)

if you just vaguely do good, half of them will like you, and if you vaguely act selfish or resolve issues through trickery, the other half will.

i need to ask: how are they being shown as "wrong" by the game, cause by and large just by picking good aligned options i ultimately ended up saving everyone with little to no effort or concern, ast was annoyed by my goodie 2 shoes actions, but i still did it.

[Nikubus]

Don't rush it
Don't meta game it
Go with the flow, there's not a right or wrong choice

[PlutoniumX]

well think about it this way.....its your game do whatever the hell you want cause in this game there isnt really a "wrong" way to play so unless your feeling different from what you chose to do then idk

[Hamberdler]

Not everyone in the world of Faerun knows what they are talking about, kind of like real life.

imo, pick a personality and/or set of virtues and stick with that. Being consistently evil, good or whatever you want tends to lead to a more coherent play-through.

[GreatRedPanda]

I think that might be a personal problem, and I am not saying this offensively, but i have seen people play on YouTube and make choices they think is the right one but actually is the wrong one, so you are not alone in this. I watched this person play and the NPC said she was a true soul, she ask what they was doing and the NPC said they hunting for survivors on the ship. She choose the next dialogue to be "well you found one, I survived that crash" something along those lines, and they attacked her.

Her thought process for that was, Since they think I am a true soul I can say i am a survivor of that crash and they wont hurt me, but what she didn't realize is that by saying she a survivor it cancels out the belief that she a true soul because they were order by a true soul to hunt for survivors thus knowing she lied

what I am saying is you might have a different thought processes than the one the game intends to think you have.

[Lani]

Technical point, that Gnome goes flying when you pull the "Release brake" lever in stead of the "Brake" lever. So in that instance what you did wrong depends on what your intentions were at the time.

Regarding the companions (dis)approving what you do, narrative storytelling winds around inter-relational tension. I.e. it's not a game where you have to get highest points with everyone. Some of the best dialogue with them comes from conflicting intentions.
Name one TV show where everyone always approves of what everyone else does. If you can think of one, it had a very short run I'm sure.

I had the same thing with the Witcher games series though.
On paper I should have loved those games, but I bought & tried all three of them and couldn't like them. That wasn't my fault nor was it CD Projekt's.
Sometimes something just doesn't click for you and it's no-one's fault.

[Cosgar]

You don't really beat a game like this. You survive its oppression. You're not always going to make the right choices, some battles are going to be messy and hard, and you're going to fail a lot of checks. It gives you something to do on your next play through, making different choices. If you go at it like a completionist, you're not going to have anything left.

[Johan]

Thanks all for the replies!

Yes, I think my issue is I'm misinterpreting what game is trying to tell me and it leads to bad outcomes. Misunderstanding the label on the windmill lever is the perfect silly example, but I get it all the time. Both with quests and companions.

Can't believe I figured out Elden Ring's secrets but can't get what makes BG3 tick. :-)

Anyway. I think I'll start over for the 4th time. Maybe a Minsc-type barbarian with low int, so all the stupid mistakes at least work role-playing wise.

Thanks again!