I am totally confused as to how to proceed in Act 2

[Gregorovitch]

Sometime ago I found the Temple of Shah/Gauntlet and completed the trials, got the orbs etc. My journal status at that point is:

Infiltrate Moonrise Towers -> Find Ketheric Thorm's Relic -> Open the door to the inner sactum.

So I did that and got a point of no return message to the effect "Are you sure you want to continue, stuff may no longer be available to do etc. Freaking out about this I posted a question here and was advised I should complete everything else in Act 2 first.

So I proceeded to do so eventually making my way to Moonrise Towers and have got to the point of freeing the Tieflings/Gnomes etc.

So now I don't understand what to do. It says Find Ketheric Thorm's Relic is sub-quest of Infiltrate Moonrise Towers but if I enter the final part of the Temple of Shah then that triggers and end to Act 2(?) and how then can I possibly infiltrate Moonrise Towers? This seems a contradiction.

I can't figure out what to do first, very confused over the sequence here.

[Ironwu]

Some missions span over the Acts. If you want to know about this one for sure, look it up in a guide.

Good Luck

[nc1701dpgb]

You've got to do Moonrise Towers first.

[Non-binary Tiddies]

Infiltrating Moonrise is just walking up to them and being accepted in. The main goal was to give you the quest and traders of Moonrise before guiding you to go find Thorm's relic. It's not contradictory, you just did it in the opposite order which is fine. You have to release the tieflings/gnomes before you finish the Temple of Shar because that triggers the endstate of Act 2.

[Estevan Valladares]

Originally posted by Gregorovitch:

Sometime ago I found the Temple of Shah/Gauntlet and completed the trials, got the orbs etc. My journal status at that point is:

Infiltrate Moonrise Towers -> Find Ketheric Thorm's Relic -> Open the door to the inner sactum.

So I did that and got a point of no return message to the effect "Are you sure you want to continue, stuff may no longer be available to do etc. Freaking out about this I posted a question here and was advised I should complete everything else in Act 2 first.

So I proceeded to do so eventually making my way to Moonrise Towers and have got to the point of freeing the Tieflings/Gnomes etc.

So now I don't understand what to do. It says Find Ketheric Thorm's Relic is sub-quest of Infiltrate Moonrise Towers but if I enter the final part of the Temple of Shah then that triggers and end to Act 2(?) and how then can I possibly infiltrate Moonrise Towers? This seems a contradiction.

I can't figure out what to do first, very confused over the sequence here.

You probably needed more attention to act 1.
The game does not hold you back behind "skill wall", but if you are not already experienced in what to do, it is really interesting to follow its advice.

[Dr.Fumetastic]

Finding the relic is part of the infiltration. Talk to Z'rell if you haven't yet. If you find it then the main story proceeds and will lock you out of (certain if not most) side quests. You also won't be able to go back to the Act 1 areas.

[Gregorovitch]

Originally posted by Non-binary Tiddies:

The main goal was to give you the quest and traders of Moonrise before guiding you to go find Thorm's relic. It's not contradictory, you just did it in the opposite order which is fine.

I don't agree with you about that because the journal hierarchy is

Infiltrate Moonrise Towers -> Find Ketheric Thorm's Relic -> Open the door to the inner sactum

which clearly implies finding the relic is a sub-quest precursor to infiltrating Moonrise Towers. So the journal is telling me to do things in the opposite order to what you are saying.

[Gregorovitch]

Originally posted by Estevan Valladares:

You probably needed more attention to act 1.
The game does not hold you back behind "skill wall", but if you are not already experienced in what to do, it is really interesting to follow its advice.

That's supposed to help me how, exactly?

[Non-binary Tiddies]

Originally posted by Gregorovitch:

Originally posted by Non-binary Tiddies:

The main goal was to give you the quest and traders of Moonrise before guiding you to go find Thorm's relic. It's not contradictory, you just did it in the opposite order which is fine.

I don't agree with you about that because the journal hierarchy is

Infiltrate Moonrise Towers -> Find Ketheric Thorm's Relic -> Open the door to the inner sactum

which clearly implies finding the relic is a sub-quest precursor to infiltrating Moonrise Towers. So the journal is telling me to do things in the opposite order to what you are saying.

I'm going off my own experience as I've played Act 2 three times at this point. There are various ways to get you to Moonrise BEFORE the Temple of Shar (Jaheira and Isobel's direction at Last Light Inn, joining the drider procession and being accepted as a true soul.) Completing "Find Ketheric Thorm's Relic" is going into the pool at the Temple of Shar. Which ends Act 2.

[Gregorovitch]

Originally posted by Dr.Fumetastic:

Finding the relic is part of the infiltration. Talk to Z'rell if you haven't yet.

OK, I looked up Z'rell who is apparently in the "main hall" of Moonrise Towers. I have just got to the prison so far therefore I haven't spoken to Z'rell yet.

What it's sounding like to me is that the Moonrise Towers content is actually split into two parts, the part you are expected to do before you enter the point of no return in the Shah temple (including side-quests such as freeing the prisoners etc) and then the final part triggered when you do go through that point of no return.

But if that's so you couldn't possibly figure it out from the journal.

[FoxFox]

Infiltrating Moonrise Towers includes finding a way to defeat Ketheric, which leads you on a quest to find his relic in the Inner Sanctum. Once you get to the Relic, you can go on and defeat Ketheric, which also ends Act 2. Other sub-quests of infiltrating Moonrise Towers will fail at that point. So you should free the gnomes and the tieflings first, for example. Same goes for a lot of quests in the Shadowlands. Just finish all of the quests you can before you enter the Inner Sanctum.

[CHROMONOS]

this has been said a ton already... AND I AGREE! the warnings should be more informative, i litterally had to redo an entire day (like 5-7 hours? finished the entire tower even) worth of progress because i realizes sooo late that i fcked up.

the logic of getting the powerful muggafin before facing the final boss is ingrained in gaming and inside the game itself ( having Laezel with you when you deal with the Gith for example )

[FoxFox]

Originally posted by CHROMONOS:

this has been said a ton already... AND I AGREE! the warnings should be more informative, i litterally had to redo an entire day (like 5-7 hours? finished the entire tower even) worth of progress because i realizes sooo late that i fcked up.

the logic of getting the powerful muggafin before facing the final boss is ingrained in gaming and inside the game itself ( having Laezel with you when you deal with the Gith for example )

Yeah, they could just organize the quest log to better reflect which quests need to be done before each point of no return. It wouldn't be hard and it would really help.

[MensRea]

Originally posted by Gregorovitch:

Sometime ago I found the Temple of Shah/Gauntlet and completed the trials, got the orbs etc. My journal status at that point is:

Infiltrate Moonrise Towers -> Find Ketheric Thorm's Relic -> Open the door to the inner sactum.

So I did that and got a point of no return message to the effect "Are you sure you want to continue, stuff may no longer be available to do etc. Freaking out about this I posted a question here and was advised I should complete everything else in Act 2 first.

So I proceeded to do so eventually making my way to Moonrise Towers and have got to the point of freeing the Tieflings/Gnomes etc.

So now I don't understand what to do. It says Find Ketheric Thorm's Relic is sub-quest of Infiltrate Moonrise Towers but if I enter the final part of the Temple of Shah then that triggers and end to Act 2(?) and how then can I possibly infiltrate Moonrise Towers? This seems a contradiction.

I can't figure out what to do first, very confused over the sequence here.

Everything depends on what you hope to achieve in your adventure: experience a story where decisions matter and you live with your choices, find all the best gear, completionist run, min/max exp run. Most of the advice you are getting is 'how to see the majority of things', which is fine but not ideal for a first run through. If this is your first time going through the game, make a decision, do a thing and live with the consequences and then go through again and make different choices. A lot of content is meant to be gated to second, third, fifth play-throughs. Let logic and your conscience be your guide and see where it takes you.

[Gregorovitch]

Originally posted by MensRea:

Everything depends on what you hope to achieve in your adventure: experience a story where decisions matter and you live with your choices, find all the best gear, completionist run, min/max exp run. Most of the advice you are getting is 'how to see the majority of things', which is fine but not ideal for a first run through. If this is your first time going through the game, make a decision, do a thing and live with the consequences and then go through again and make different choices. A lot of content is meant to be gated to second, third, fifth play-throughs. Let logic and your conscience be your guide and see where it takes you.

Yeah yeah yeah, but none of that applies in this situation.

The issue here is that the journal, which should always be your guide, is totally misleading. It specifies that retrieving this relic is a precursor to infiltrating Moonrise Towers. But that is a straight lie.

In fact you are supposed to infiltrate Moonrise Towers first, then get the relic and finally defeat Thorm in the act finale.

Obviously the root of the problem is that Infiltrate Moonrise Towers is the title of main Act 2 quest and the name is indeed wholly appropriate for most of the act. However what throws the spanner in the works is the big game state transition the moment you enter the final section of the Shah temple. It is this transition, which is a purely mechanical thing, that causes the problem. If it wasn't there there wouldn't be a problem as players could easily back out of the approach to the final battle any time it became apparent they should.

Another way to understand the problem is to realise that when you get to Moonrise Tower and enter it for example to free the tiefling prisoners you obviously ARE infiltrating Moonrise Towers but the journal is telling you explicitly you should not be doing that, you should be getting the relic first instead (which as I say appears to be a straight lie).

And a final way to look at this is ask a simple question: why the hell have Larian put the Act 2->Act 3 game state transition BEFORE the end of Act 2. If the transition happened AFTER dealing with Thorm like as not this would be a non-issue.

[Dr.Fumetastic]

Originally posted by Gregorovitch:

The issue here is that the journal, which should always be your guide, is totally misleading. It specifies that retrieving this relic is a precursor to infiltrating Moonrise Towers. But that is a straight lie.

In fact you are supposed to infiltrate Moonrise Towers first, then get the relic and finally defeat Thorm in the act finale.

Obviously the root of the problem is that Infiltrate Moonrise Towers is the title of main Act 2 quest and the name is indeed wholly appropriate for most of the act. However what throws the spanner in the works is the big game state transition the moment you enter the final section of the Shah temple. It is this transition, which is a purely mechanical thing, that causes the problem. If it wasn't there there wouldn't be a problem as players could easily back out of the approach to the final battle any time it became apparent they should.

Another way to understand the problem is to realise that when you get to Moonrise Tower and enter it for example to free the tiefling prisoners you obviously ARE infiltrating Moonrise Towers but the journal is telling you explicitly you should not be doing that, you should be getting the relic first instead (which as I say appears to be a straight lie).

That's because the game assumes you go to Moonrise Towers first before finding the Gauntlet. This is an issue that only pops up if you find the Gauntlet before you enter Moonrise (as otherwise you would end up talking to Z'rell in Moonrise Towers who proceeds to send you to the Gauntlet).

I don't recall anyone telling you to go to the Gauntlet whereas it actively leads you to Moonrise Towers. I suppose the Journal could do a better job accounting for this situation however.
You ended up doing a "soft sequence break" because it is unlikely you'd even find the Gauntlet before you set foot in Moonrise Towers.

Originally posted by Gregorovitch:

And a final way to look at this is ask a simple question: why the hell have Larian put the Act 2->Act 3 game state transition BEFORE the end of Act 2. If the transition happened AFTER dealing with Thorm like as not this would be a non-issue.

The point-of-no-return being where it is makes sense once you proceed with the plot. The Shadowfell absolutely needs this warning(there have even been some threads lamenting that it wasn't clear enough). And having one point-of-no-return is a lot better mechanically than having multiple.