Minthara Recruitment Request - Not just temporary hostile

[Drakster]

Could you fix/adjust Minthara's recruitment, please Larian? As in that she will still appear at Moonrise Tower under any kind of knocked-out tag and not just the temporary-hostile one? Like, when you either fight them all full hostile at Goblin Camp or if one decides to knock her out during the Raid.

I would appreciate that very much because to me it's a difference of either going 12 or just 6 hours back in my save files.

[Anima Mundi]

Is it confirmed that she only is recruitable if you flag temporarily hostile ?

[Pepsu]

They should just give us an option to recruit her with a dialogue option with the prism like a Minsc

[Drakster]

Originally posted by Anima Mundi:

Is it confirmed that she only is recruitable if you flag temporarily hostile ?

Yep, you just need to google. You can find out about people trying and confirming both here and on reddit.

[Malidictus]

Honestly, the way Larian handled it is genuinely worse than the Daughter or Lolth mod. It has all the same technical issues as the mod, such as both Halsin and Minthara bunking in the same tent, and Halsin dying if you travel back to Act 1, but with the added downside of a much worse means of recruiting her. The mod just makes her insta-flee when her health gets low, vs. Larian's approach of requiring a special version of hostility.

Honestly, for how popular this change is, it seems like the development team seem to have really half-assed it.

[Drakster]

Originally posted by Malidictus:

Honestly, the way Larian handled it is genuinely worse than the Daughter or Lolth mod. It has all the same technical issues as the mod, such as both Halsin and Minthara bunking in the same tent, and Halsin dying if you travel back to Act 1, but with the added downside of a much worse means of recruiting her. The mod just makes her insta-flee when her health gets low, vs. Larian's approach of requiring a special version of hostility.

Honestly, for how popular this change is, it seems like the development team seem to have really half-assed it.

Yeah, I totally agree. I would use the mod but I'm worried about future updates making them not compatible.

[Malidictus]

Originally posted by Drakster:

Yeah, I totally agree. I would use the mod but I'm worried about future updates making them not compatible.

True. Update 5 seems to brick your save file if you disable any mods, though there are apparently workarounds. And there has been mixed feedback on how the mod works in Update 5. But even so, that mod maker put more effort into hacking that recruitment method into the game than the developers did with full-on developer tools.

Could we at least get an update where EVERY means of knocking her out works, rather than just one specific edge case?

[Anima Mundi]

If I am being honest I think she should have never been recruitable for pacifist do-gooders. Yea I know she's a cool companion, but now there's 1 less reason to go evil routes.
Giving everyone options is cool, but when yous strip the exclusivity tr options become less meaningful.

It's cool that Larian listens to player feedback though, can appreciate that.
I'll personally still only recruit her when I'm doing an evil run, no harm no foul

[Malidictus]

Originally posted by Anima Mundi:

If I am being honest I think she should have never been recruitable for pacifist do-gooders. Yea I know she's a cool companion, but now there's 1 less reason to go evil routes.

Why do you need incentive to go for evil routes, though? This is not a trap, it's a genuine question. The only reason I can see for people to go for evil deeds is to roleplay as a bad person, in which case that's its own reward. If one didn't want to do an evil playthrough but were coerced with rewards, that sounds like a terrible experience for the player. Evil playthroughs are not for everyone, and I don't believe there should be exclusive incentive for it.

And just for the record - my opinion on the matter is not restricted to evil. I'm equally not a fan of offering exclusive rewards for super high difficulty settings or super rare achievements. Bragging rights, sure, but not actual practical rewards. The game benefits nothing from pushing players into playing in ways they don't enjoy. That virtually guarantees dissatisfied customers.

[MeltingPotOfFriendship]

Originally posted by Anima Mundi:

Is it confirmed that she only is recruitable if you flag temporarily hostile ?

I tried using NLF on her. And when I transitioned to an area, and then back to look for her, she was gone. The blood was still there though. So not sure if the game had her flagged as "killed". Then again, wasn't sure if she was marked "temporarily hostile".

[Anima Mundi]

Originally posted by Malidictus:

Originally posted by Anima Mundi:

If I am being honest I think she should have never been recruitable for pacifist do-gooders. Yea I know she's a cool companion, but now there's 1 less reason to go evil routes.

Why do you need incentive to go for evil routes, though? This is not a trap, it's a genuine question. The only reason I can see for people to go for evil deeds is to roleplay as a bad person, in which case that's its own reward. If one didn't want to do an evil playthrough but were coerced with rewards, that sounds like a terrible experience for the player. Evil playthroughs are not for everyone, and I don't believe there should be exclusive incentive for it.

And just for the record - my opinion on the matter is not restricted to evil. I'm equally not a fan of offering exclusive rewards for super high difficulty settings or super rare achievements. Bragging rights, sure, but not actual practical rewards. The game benefits nothing from pushing players into playing in ways they don't enjoy. That virtually guarantees dissatisfied customers.

I don't think it's a matter of rewards here. I don't see her as a "reward"?
I am talki about different moral choices the player makes having a more exclusive impact overall in their playthrough mate.
If all you get for evil choices is a short term different dialogue or cutscene, that's a pretty badly designed "choices matter" system.
This is the issue with starfield for example, everything still pans out the same and all you get is meaningless extra dialogue options and responses.

Minthara isn't a reward, but rather she made the playthrough feel different. It made that initial choice on te grove attack have consequences.
Next I could see people asking for Wyll and Karlach to sill stay in your camp even if you decide to murder the grove.
All I expect is for consequences to your choices to be exclusive, even though I dont have an issue with some rewards too (I mean the game has several instances where rewards are dependent on choices already).
But my point was keepi it feeling unique, instead of streamlining everything :/

[Just A Guy]

This. I feel like the intention was for if you knocked her out in any way she should show up again in moonrise towers, even after talking to her and turning her hostile. Especially from how it was written in the patch notes. Which if that is the case then that means how it is now is a bug which needs to be fixed asap.
It doesn't make sense for her to only be able to be gotten if you make her temporarily hostile by stealing or just attacking her without talking to her. Or whatever other work around people are doing right now.

[glenn3e]

Originally posted by Venom Chris:

Originally posted by Anima Mundi:

Is it confirmed that she only is recruitable if you flag temporarily hostile ?

I tried using NLF on her. And when I transitioned to an area, and then back to look for her, she was gone. The blood was still there though. So not sure if the game had her flagged as "killed". Then again, wasn't sure if she was marked "temporarily hostile".

If there’s blood, it means she’s dead.

[Drakster]

Originally posted by Malidictus:

Originally posted by Anima Mundi:

If I am being honest I think she should have never been recruitable for pacifist do-gooders. Yea I know she's a cool companion, but now there's 1 less reason to go evil routes.

Why do you need incentive to go for evil routes, though? This is not a trap, it's a genuine question. The only reason I can see for people to go for evil deeds is to roleplay as a bad person, in which case that's its own reward. If one didn't want to do an evil playthrough but were coerced with rewards, that sounds like a terrible experience for the player. Evil playthroughs are not for everyone, and I don't believe there should be exclusive incentive for it.

And just for the record - my opinion on the matter is not restricted to evil. I'm equally not a fan of offering exclusive rewards for super high difficulty settings or super rare achievements. Bragging rights, sure, but not actual practical rewards. The game benefits nothing from pushing players into playing in ways they don't enjoy. That virtually guarantees dissatisfied customers.

I just wanna say.. Preach! Thank you for wording that sentiment better than I could have.

I am fine with living with my choices and consequences there of but missing out an entire companion or losing three others to gain a single one.. That feels like I'm missing out either way. (Yes, yes, replayability and all that.. But that is also not everyone's cup of tea) Not too mention that storywise Minthara is primed for a redemption arc.

In an ideal world an RPG would be tailored in a way that you can have evil companions in a good playthrough by changing & redeeming them and on an evil playthrough you have those same companions be all jolly right next to you while committing atrocities.

[Malidictus]

Originally posted by Anima Mundi:

If all you get for evil choices is a short term different dialogue or cutscene, that's a pretty badly designed "choices matter" system.

I suspect we fundamentally disagree on how much choices need to matter. Personally, I'd rather choices were purely cosmetic. Adding gameplay and content-access consequences adds extrinsic considerations to those choices. It means I have to go look up quest spoilers on the Wiki to figure out what effect each choice has, and usually pick whatever one matches the effect I want.

When choices are consequence-free, on the other hand, I can pick whatever seems "right" at the time without any other considerations. "Right" doesn't have to mean "good", just the correct answer for whatever type of person I want my Avatar to be. It's like cosmetic choices. Let's say I want to play a Dragonborne with an ice dragon lineage. Normally, that would have to be a Silver Dragon or a White Dragon, which limits skin/scale colour. However, the game lets me optionally disregard this, pick a White Dragon and just use a skin/scale colour from another lineage. I get to look how I want AND get the gameplay consequences I want.

With Minthara, this wasn't the case. The only way to get her was to be evil (well, "not good") which I don't want. For me, that was missing content which I was never going to experience. I don't think the value added in making the Evil Playthrough unique is worth the value lost in all other playthroughs. Companions are simply too valuable for this.

Originally posted by Anima Mundi:

Minthara isn't a reward, but rather she made the playthrough feel different. It made that initial choice on te grove attack have consequences.

Yes, but I'm not convinced any of that is a good thing. I get the value of individual playthroughs not being identical. Remnant does this by randomly rolling only SOME of its full body of content with each campaign. I'm just not convinced that consquences on this scale are a good thing. I would prefer to have one enjoyable playthrough over two sub-par ones.

To go back to Remnant for a second - that game gets around that issue via persistence. The player is expected to go through dozens of full runs, but retains all items acquired. I could help the Custodian pilot N'erud, or I can destroy the entire world. One is good, one is bad, but I get to keep the rewards for each in subsequent playthroughs. I don't get to keep Minthara on my second run of Baldur's Gate just because I helped her raid the Grove in the first, for example.

Originally posted by Anima Mundi:

Next I could see people asking for Wyll and Karlach to sill stay in your camp even if you decide to murder the grove.

And I would support that, for the exact same reason. Again - I can convince Leizel to become a Mindflayer, but I can't convince Kharlak to stick around with me in an evil run? I'm not opposed to companions leaving the party when the player does something they find reprehensible, but I would like for the player to be given a skill-check to prevent that.

[Drakster]

I just wanna quickly add that there is still a "reward" for being evil and raiding the groove.., only then 'that' sex scene with Minthara is possible afaik.