Evil vs Good - why is one so much less rewarding in content?

[Sad Yak]

I have tried both good and evil runs now, and trying to be evil, or anything close to it, just locks you out of everything - vendors, quests, dialogues, content in general - seldom are there rewards, and if so, rarely are they any better than what you would get as a good guy.

The idea of justifying turning to evil, such as crime, is usually that the result is pragmatically beneficial - easier progression, better reward, gold, enrichment etc.

Not to mention moral ambiguity and 'greyness' which isnt present here at all. Just cartoonishly evil, or heroically good.

[Xanshi]

I disagree to certain degree.

The only i do not like for going evil route is you have less companions in your party. As for the other stuff like losing items or vendors. Evil route have access to vendor like the one from murder tribunal. Items like the ones looting from isobel or for defeating karlach are not accessible in the good route. Stuff like Mol's quest to steal the idol aren't exactly for good route.

[Dank Sidious]

The real reason is because the evil path is incredibly stupidly designed.

People give some sanctimonious bull♥♥♥♥ about how evil should have consequences. That's all just nonsense.

Reality is Larian was very unimaginative and lazy when designing evil path so most of the major evil choices just lead to bunch of people dying. That's the thing they couldn't come up without any really interesting alternative like some other games do, they just outright went with the everybody dies which includes a ton of quest giver NPCs that show up later in the game, so that's that.

[Dank Sidious]

Originally posted by Xanshi:

I disagree to certain degree.

The only i do not like for going evil route is you have less companions in your party. As for the other stuff like losing items or vendors. Evil route have access to vendor like the one from murder tribunal. Items like the ones looting from isobel or for defeating karlach are not accessible in the good route. Stuff like Mol's quest to steal the idol aren't exactly for good route.

I disagree about stealing the idol not being for good. Stealing is not a good act, but your intentions can be good. The reason Mol wants to steal the statue is to stop the ritual, which is about to doom the Tieflings. Stealing might be considered immoral, but we have so much fiction with good natured gentlemen thieves or characters like Robin Hood who are treated as heroic figures, despite their methods to achieve something that is perceived as good.

[Grumpy]

Originally posted by dolby:

Originally posted by BigJ:

Odd, outside of the occasional bug nothing went wrong for me, nothing game breaking or sequence breakint like current act 3 on bg3.

yeah cos you're one of the those players i guess that doesn't care if DC is wrong in a spell or if a spell doesn't work properly in some way ect or if quest is busted. weird.

I just can't play like that, half working game so i start to mod it, fix it and look and behold 1 week passes and i'm modding more then playing. Due to gazzilion bugs. Sucks the whole fun of the game meaning i stop playing and then i never get back into iT. Hence why it's unplayable. Looks like the same thing will happen with bg 3 for me. Last patch almost broke more than in fixed lol. Got to love devs nowadays.

It would be interesting to know how many engineers (whatever they're called) are working on this. Because Larian has 300 people but they're not all working on this, they can't. Graphic design, sound design, 3 design etc etc don't take part in all of this. So you have an handful of programmers and a wall of code for each player. Fun times i guess.

[Immortalis]

Originally posted by Dank Sidious:

The real reason is because the evil path is incredibly stupidly designed.

People give some sanctimonious bull♥♥♥♥ about how evil should have consequences. That's all just nonsense.

Reality is Larian was very unimaginative and lazy when designing evil path so most of the major evil choices just lead to bunch of people dying. That's the thing they couldn't come up without any really interesting alternative like some other games do, they just outright went with the everybody dies which includes a ton of quest giver NPCs that show up later in the game, so that's that.

So how would you design an evil “path” that would keep more or less on track with the broad campaign/story of the game?

[Grumpy]

Originally posted by Immortalis:

Originally posted by Dank Sidious:

The real reason is because the evil path is incredibly stupidly designed.

People give some sanctimonious bull♥♥♥♥ about how evil should have consequences. That's all just nonsense.

Reality is Larian was very unimaginative and lazy when designing evil path so most of the major evil choices just lead to bunch of people dying. That's the thing they couldn't come up without any really interesting alternative like some other games do, they just outright went with the everybody dies which includes a ton of quest giver NPCs that show up later in the game, so that's that.

So how would you design an evil “path” that would keep more or less on track with the broad campaign/story of the game?

You become illithid right from the start and you help the chosen. But oh boy i can't imagine the work.

[Xanshi]

Originally posted by Dank Sidious:

I disagree about stealing the idol not being for good. Stealing is not a good act, but your intentions can be good. The reason Mol wants to steal the statue is to stop the ritual, which is about to doom the Tieflings. Stealing might be considered immoral, but we have so much fiction with good natured gentlemen thieves or characters like Robin Hood who are treated as heroic figures, despite their methods to achieve something that is perceived as good.

I disagree because completing mol quest will incite hostility with the druids. Sure there is a work around to avoid this, depending how you complete certain quest. But if you believe mol quest intention is to stop the ritual then story wise the work around is not the normal way in completing mol quest. Why would mol want the idol if you already stop Kagha intentions for the ritual.

For me Mol quest is for the evil route because the consequences of it is hostility. I do not consider the work around of gaining the infernal robe by killing Karlach and reviving her to be the natural progression of the story as well.

[dolby]

Originally posted by Grumpy:

Originally posted by dolby:

yeah cos you're one of the those players i guess that doesn't care if DC is wrong in a spell or if a spell doesn't work properly in some way ect or if quest is busted. weird.

I just can't play like that, half working game so i start to mod it, fix it and look and behold 1 week passes and i'm modding more then playing. Due to gazzilion bugs. Sucks the whole fun of the game meaning i stop playing and then i never get back into iT. Hence why it's unplayable. Looks like the same thing will happen with bg 3 for me. Last patch almost broke more than in fixed lol. Got to love devs nowadays.

It would be interesting to know how many engineers (whatever they're called) are working on this. Because Larian has 300 people but they're not all working on this, they can't. Graphic design, sound design, 3 design etc etc don't take part in all of this. So you have an handful of programmers and a wall of code for each player. Fun times i guess.

Half of those are now on vacation rotation i guess cos normally after full release most people get one to get back a bit of life into them and recuperate after release crunch. So god knows when Archer skeleton spell will get his bow back ect...

[Dank Sidious]

Originally posted by Immortalis:

Originally posted by Dank Sidious:

The real reason is because the evil path is incredibly stupidly designed.

People give some sanctimonious bull♥♥♥♥ about how evil should have consequences. That's all just nonsense.

Reality is Larian was very unimaginative and lazy when designing evil path so most of the major evil choices just lead to bunch of people dying. That's the thing they couldn't come up without any really interesting alternative like some other games do, they just outright went with the everybody dies which includes a ton of quest giver NPCs that show up later in the game, so that's that.

So how would you design an evil “path” that would keep more or less on track with the broad campaign/story of the game?

The way KOTOR games did it or Pathfinder games or Tyranny or Jade Empire or Dragon Age: Origins, Planescape: Torment Or Mass Effect Trilogy (technically renegade isn't outright evil, but it's the equivalent) and others I'm not bothering to list here.

None of those games outright screw you over and completely remove just chunks of content because you chose evil. OR when they do it's generally in the form of exclusive alternative paths

They generally give you ways to go through a scenario with different choices and those chose tend to have different outcomes for the area depending on those choices.

Yes BG3 does this too, but what the other games don't generally do is tying bunch of later game content into those choices without giving you something alternative. It's also a major missed opportunity not to allow you to work your way through your problem from the Absolute's side..

BG3 goes the Fallout 3 route of just being stupid. where the binary evil choice is to Nuke a town or not nuke a town, riveting role play.

[robilar5500]

Crime doesn't pay...

[Dank Sidious]

Originally posted by Xanshi:

Originally posted by Dank Sidious:

I disagree about stealing the idol not being for good. Stealing is not a good act, but your intentions can be good. The reason Mol wants to steal the statue is to stop the ritual, which is about to doom the Tieflings. Stealing might be considered immoral, but we have so much fiction with good natured gentlemen thieves or characters like Robin Hood who are treated as heroic figures, despite their methods to achieve something that is perceived as good.

Why would mol want the idol if you already stop Kagha intentions for the ritual.

Because this is yet another poorly thought out option in the game that doesn't really take into consideration what happened before, it's just a static quest to complete. People praise BG3 for it's reactivity because there's some attention to detail on numerous small things, but then they don't pay attention to many of the quests that should have reactivity and don't.

[BigJ]

Mol wants to sell the idol for money, Mol is Chaotic evil.

[dolby]

Originally posted by Dank Sidious:

Originally posted by Xanshi:

Why would mol want the idol if you already stop Kagha intentions for the ritual.

Because this is yet another poorly thought out option in the game that doesn't really take into consideration what happened before, it's just a static quest to complete. People praise BG3 for it's reactivity because there's some attention to detail on numerous small things, but then they don't pay attention to many of the quests that should have reactivity and don't.

Finally some one that played the same game... was starting to thinking i was the only one seeing all the shortcoming of this game hehe.

[Dagný]

Originally posted by Dank Sidious:

Originally posted by Immortalis:

So how would you design an evil “path” that would keep more or less on track with the broad campaign/story of the game?

The way KOTOR games did it or Pathfinder games or Tyranny or Jade Empire or Dragon Age: Origins, Planescape: Torment Or Mass Effect Trilogy (technically renegade isn't outright evil, but it's the equivalent) and others I'm not bothering to list here.

None of those games outright screw you over and completely remove just chunks of content because you chose evil. OR when they do it's generally in the form of exclusive alternative paths

They generally give you ways to go through a scenario with different choices and those chose tend to have different outcomes for the area depending on those choices.

Yes BG3 does this too, but what the other games don't generally do is tying bunch of later game content into those choices without giving you something alternative. It's also a major missed opportunity not to allow you to work your way through your problem from the Absolute's side..

BG3 goes the Fallout 3 route of just being stupid. where the binary evil choice is to Nuke a town or not nuke a town, riveting role play.

I can't say anything about KOTOR because I don't like Star Wars and Jade Empire but all the other games you mentioned (I don't even think mass effect applies here) have all the same issues with some people saying good things about the latest Pathfinder.

I mentioned Tyranny here before, you cannot compare a game about being evil (with an OPTION of going against it) to BG3.

Being ,,good'' in Tyranny = being bad in BG3. Trying to be the good hero in Tyranny will only result in you making questionable decisions for another faction locking you out of content which is exactly what you're complaining about.

[no_idea_for_a_name]

Originally posted by Sad Yak:

I have tried both good and evil runs now, and trying to be evil, or anything close to it, just locks you out of everything - vendors, quests, dialogues, content in general - seldom are there rewards, and if so, rarely are they any better than what you would get as a good guy.

The idea of justifying turning to evil, such as crime, is usually that the result is pragmatically beneficial - easier progression, better reward, gold, enrichment etc.

Not to mention moral ambiguity and 'greyness' which isnt present here at all. Just cartoonishly evil, or heroically good.

If you want to play a satisfying evil character, play as a Demon in "Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous".