The Iron Throne - RANT

[♠.brT]

What a horrible level. Seriously, this was the most annoying level of the entire game.

I'm not talking about difficulty, i thought the difficulty was "fine" meaning that with a few save and reloads i was able to work out a strategy to do it.
The issue that i have with it is that it's basically the most broken part of ACT3. It generally felt as if the game was barely holding itself together throughout that level.

First of all, performance. Before i talk about this let me just mention that my pc actually meets and in some aspects exceeds the recomended hardware for BG3. And my performance throughout 90% of the game has been nearly perfect, 60+ fps in majority of the game. ACT3 is a bit different, the city of baldur's gate definitely tank performance for me, going below 50 in some areas, but for the most part, it's fine. But the Iron throne, that small level, once the fighting starts the framerate for me anyways goes mid 20s. Framerate in this game generally speaking doesn't matter that much, but below 30 it starts to matter, it's just painful to even look at it.

But if that wasn't enough i encounter so many bugs while doing this level. One of the first bugs i encounter was when i tried to use the banishment spell against two monsters. Both monsters were banished (for 2 turns) great right? imagine my surprise that while was planning my next action - meaning that i hadn't even passed the turn of my character who had just used that spell - meaning that my character could not have lose concentration since nothing had happened yet - all of the sudden, the two monsters that i had banished just a few seconds ago, come back as if nothing had happened. No explanation, nothing. They were back and i had lost a move - and in this case it pretty much forced a reload.

Funnily enough i encounter a lot of bugs that were actually quite helpful, like for instances characters being able to move way further then they should, or sometimes recovering a bonus action for no reason allowing me to help one of the prisioners. These bugs were small bits of mercy in a otherwise hellish level. But they are still an example of the game barely holding itself together.

I encounter one where i decided to close one of the doors - since only bad guys were left in the room that i was closing and all the prisioners at least based on the character models appear to be on the correct side of the door, so i close the door, and one of the prisioners who was on the correct side of the door, appears to have gotten stucked to the door when trying to dash.

But perhaps the most frustrating issue that i encounter, may not have been a bug, but definitely a problem with the game, but more specifically that level.
After several restarts to nail down the strategy i would use to try and save everyone.
I finally had a run that looked like i was going to get everyone out. Finally i would have been done with this level - that i was suffering with 25fps - finally i would be done with this. But then just as my last character turn started, my horror. My last character could not make it. But it wasn't for a lack of movement, no, my last character had plenty of movement. It was because one of the prisioners was standing in front of the ladder making it impossible for my last character to climb it. This was in the very last turn available, And because this game doesn't have the option for characters to delay their turn - like DOS2 if i'm not mistaken-that's it, i failed, and i failed for the stupidest thing ever, which is that my character HAS to take their turn BEFORE that specific prisioner, and because that prisioner is blocking the only escape route, my character is dead. This issue honetly broke me, i was so upset that i rage quit and went on to watch a movie. I later came back and managed to do it, suffering through the same framerate issue and general glitchness issues, but i was able to force my way through this level and save everyone - or at least i think i did, there were people behind me when my last character climbed the ladder, but since their turn would come after mine and they were so close i assume they made it...

Anyway this is my rant for today. I absolutely hated the Iron Throne level. It wasn't hard because it was a challenging level that required great planning and execution from the player, it does require good strategy and execution from the player, but that wasn't what anger me about this level. It was a challenging level because it tested my patience with the game's state, and turns out my patience has limits.

[Ashe]

I think one of the worst things about the Iron Throne is that there's basically only one way to tackle it. You're funnelled into the 'Gortash knows you're coming so the place is coming down' mission, there's no other route. You can't convince him to take you down, you can't get down with the help of the Umberlee devotees, you can't get down any other way.

Which means you have to do the timed extraction no matter what.

It also doesn't help that the flags with Duke Redmane are scuffed so you have to do things in a specific order or else he's dead down there.

[cheetah1546]

i find the very final battle to be worse but i hear you

[Moonbane]

Never had any issues with it.

[♠.brT]

Originally posted by cheetah1546:

i find the very final battle to be worse but i hear you

i haven't even reached the ending man. But I'll be utterly shocked if it's worst then the Iron Throne. It migth be, i guess i'll see it when i get to it.

[♠.brT]

Originally posted by Moonbane:

Never had any issues with it.

Good for you buddy. I wish i had your experience with this level because the one i had was utter garbage.

[♠.brT]

Originally posted by Ashe:

I think one of the worst things about the Iron Throne is that there's basically only one way to tackle it. You're funnelled into the 'Gortash knows you're coming so the place is coming down' mission, there's no other route. You can't convince him to take you down, you can't get down with the help of the Umberlee devotees, you can't get down any other way.

Which means you have to do the timed extraction no matter what.

It also doesn't help that the flags with Duke Redmane are scuffed so you have to do things in a specific order or else he's dead down there.

Yeah so the duke one was a little bit annoying, because i had no idea that A: he was down there, and B: there was a bit of a trick in saving him. Thankfully with him i could use Wyll to teleport himself and Wyll closer to the ladder, bit annoying that it trigger the Mizora appearance anyway, but at least this way it allowed me to move Duke before the spiders could go for him, Funnily enough in most of my attempts this resulted in what i assume to have been a bug, where after moving the Duke, when it comes time for the spiders to do their thing and presumably go after him, they just pass their turn doing nothing, despite the fact that the Duke was very much within their reach.

[Mike Garrison]

I found that simply healing the Duke was enough to let him survive the spiders, but of course you had to know to do that *before* they show up.

The entire level is basically designed as a puzzle game, where you save/reload until you finally figure out all the steps you need. Not necessarily a bad thing, but a little jarring because the rest of the game is very different.

[Enigma]

Originally posted by ♠.brT:

. But then just as my last character turn started, my horror. My last character could not make it. But it wasn't for a lack of movement, no, my last character had plenty of movement. It was because one of the prisioners was standing in front of the ladder making it impossible for my last character to climb it

Lol that's so funny, he would have gotten the last minute escape scene if he hadn't save scummt

[♠.brT]

Originally posted by Mike Garrison:

I found that simply healing the Duke was enough to let him survive the spiders, but of course you had to know to do that *before* they show up.

The entire level is basically designed as a puzzle game, where you save/reload until you finally figure out all the steps you need. Not necessarily a bad thing, but a little jarring because the rest of the game is very different.

I didn't had anybody that went for him with healing spells, and once i figured it out the teleport option plus the fact that the spider would bug out in that situation i didn't bother changing that.

Yeah and i don't mind that. I was perfectly okay with the "challenge" of the level, it is 100% doable, even if you don't have the optimized party in terms of spells and items - like the speed potion - i had none left, but that thing definitely would make this level a piece of cake. My problem with this level is that basically that all the bugs that i had the misfortune of encountering throughout act3 all come back with a vengeance in a level that only last 6 turns, with almost every turn a glitch happening. And the annoying thing is that some of these bugs were repeateable, meaning that there is a good chance that they were caught in QA, but weren't fixed. And again i had the framerate issue as well. I don't know why the framerate in this level tanked as much as it did. I have a R5 5600X, with a RX5700XT, the gpu meets the recommended requirements, and the cpu exceeds it, yet for some reason in that level the framerate tanks hard, the moment that i hit the hatch to go into the Iron throne, the framerate goes from 60 to 25. and it stays at 25 for the duration of the entire level. So imagine going through that clusterF*** at 25fps.... It's painful.

Originally posted by Enigma:

Originally posted by ♠.brT:

. But then just as my last character turn started, my horror. My last character could not make it. But it wasn't for a lack of movement, no, my last character had plenty of movement. It was because one of the prisioners was standing in front of the ladder making it impossible for my last character to climb it

Lol that's so funny, he would have gotten the last minute escape scene if he hadn't save scummt

So there was a grace period after the 6 turns were up? i had no idea, and honestly i was to annoyed at how buggy and broken the level was to indulge my curiosity to see what would happen when the 6 turns ended and my character was just outside the ladder that took her to the sub.

[Quacksalber]

My character died in one of my attempts for this. NO biggy, you can just res them. I was more annoyed when the game just killed the same character off by saying they "fell into a chasm" while walking normally xD

[Computer]

As bad as this was, it has nothing on the next part of the mission when trying to save those suicidal Gondians. You can teleport them from danger as much as you like, they will keep running back into danger. Of course, saving them all is worth for the rewards of...nothing.