Firewine Bridge ruins is messsed up

[itsu]

WARNING: SPOILERS RELATED TO THE FIREWINE BRIDGE AREA

So as everyone knows there are two ways to do this..either begin at the Gullykin entrance or the Firewine Bridge entrance. Organically you can do either/or as you get information about a "little people village near Firewine Bridge" and obviously "Firewine ruins having lots of treasure". I have always done it via the Firewine Bridge entrance. But here it only makes sense 80 per cent. Because you enter and yes you come across the ghost knights who give you the quest for the armour etc. All well so far. But then you come across the Ogre mage and the other mage without having any idea who they are. Worse still, you enter the halfling's home kill him without really knowing why and then all becomes clear only when you poke around the village...which by that time is too late.

So this time, I decided to do it going to Gullykin first. WORSE. You poke around the village and you find out there are "organised" kobolds in the ruins and some go into the village too....which is weird because by foot Firewine Bridge is a good few hours walk. Which then gives you the inkling to poke around the houses to find out what's going on and how the kobolds get into the village. You find the house with the secret entrance...but the halfling traitor is not there??? (maybe he is and was just out..no idea). But surely the best way to do it would be: you discover the traitor halfling and his conspiracy and eliminate him. Then through his secret entrance, you descend and then discover who is behind the conspiracy and the motive via the ogre mage, and then eliminate him and his lackeys. Then progress through the ruins. Right?

But what actually happened, the halfling traitor was not there...so I entered through the winery. Then I randomly came across the mage with his lackeys, while fighting him the ogre mage decides to go into his dialogue....confusion amped up to 100....and once killed all of them you then go up through the secret entrance to the halfling home....and it all feels BACKWARD....the dialogue I mean.

Worse still...from there progressing through the ruins, you encounter the knight with the armour first, kill him and then you have the armour without the quest...which you can still complete...BUT....you never know WHY because the dead knights just take the armour and leave without the dialogue explaining why they want the armour and who the traitor is.

So to sum up:

Doing this through Firewine Bridge entrance would make sense about 80 per cent.
Doing it through Gullykin makes little sense.....

The best way is Firwine Bridge->Get armour for dead knights->exit and enter Gullykin->enter traitor's house. BUT he has to be in there...(which he was not but I think he was another time I did it..so that may or may not be broken)->kill him->descend into ruins and kill ogre mage plus lackeys->exit into Gullykin and collect reward. This is the right order to understand everything and the dialogue/story to make sense. BUT it's NOT organic.

So in other words it's a mess...I'm wondering if it's like that because at some point they added something and was too hard to square off 100 per cent....anyone know?

BTW: the fight at the end is hard on insanity because of the confined space, but what happened is I took pot for 100 per cent anti-lightning, then melee'd the mage, the ogre mage was already silenced so he approaches to melee. The other mage casts lightning against a wall and just about kills everyone including himself....BUT NO EXP for the kills. Even though it was my tactics which defeated them...oh well I took it because on insane it's a headache fight....

This is the damage you get from a kobold commando on insanity

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3253270121

28 DAMAGE....!!!!

[Wicket W. Warrick]

I usually go to Gullikin, then I don't go in the winery, but I go to Firebridge, and I enter the ruins, finishing in the halfing house. That makes much more sense.

For the distances, actually Gullikyn IS very near to Firewine, it is the travel time that is strange and can be related to a more long path due to lack of roads or clean path.

[itsu]

Actually yeah yours is better, until the end. You enter into the halfling house the opposite of that it's supposed to be according to the dialogue.

It should be like this: you enter the halfling's house through the village. He tells you "wtf you doing here....get out...I kill intruders"..then you say..."hmmm...it smells of kobold in here...why?" and he says "arrgghhh....you found me out..now i will have to kill you". He dies, you find the secret passage. You follow it down and the ogre mage is there who explains the conspiracy of how he made a deal with the halfling and why there are kobolds in the village. You kill him. Finished. See the story progression and how it makes sense?

The way you do it is opposite. You see this ogre mage, he describes something about "i send kobolds in the village so... blah blah". kill him....then you go up to the halflings house. He says "arrghhh...what u doing here" ok but then when you say it smells...he act surprised like you found him out. BUT YOU JUST CAME THROUGH THE SECRET PASSAGE...so he should already know without acting surprised. It doesn't make sense.

[Centurion]

I have always gone through Jenkal's home. And he has always been there. Never really wanted to do it another way.

[Wicket W. Warrick]

Originally posted by Wasabi:

The way you do it is opposite. You see this ogre mage, he describes something about "i send kobolds in the village so... blah blah". kill him....then you go up to the halflings house. He says "arrghhh...what u doing here" ok but then when you say it smells...he act surprised like you found him out. BUT YOU JUST CAME THROUGH THE SECRET PASSAGE...so he should already know without acting surprised. It doesn't make sense.

In RPG time and space can be skipped, so there could be long connections between two points of access to lower/upper floor. That is the case, because if you take the 2 access from Gullykin and Firewine there's no way to matche upper and lower map (like in Baldur's gate sewers. In a PnP campain a master would tell: "after exporing some empty tunnel you see a light and you find a sevrete passage". So you do enter from a csecret passage but it is not 3 meters above the Ogre magi, so from the NPC's perspective your charactes could have reached him without passing from the Ogre mage.

[itsu]

Originally posted by Centurion:

I have always gone through Jenkal's home. And he has always been there. Never really wanted to do it another way.

yeah I prefer this way having done it both ways now....but the problem is with this direction you wont get the quest for the dead knights before you get the armour,,so it's backwards...can still complete it though. I know many don't bother with Firewine after completing the halfling quest because there's not much in there, but I like to collect all the arrows of fire from the kobolds

[itsu]

Originally posted by Wicket W. Warrick:

Originally posted by Wasabi:

The way you do it is opposite. You see this ogre mage, he describes something about "i send kobolds in the village so... blah blah". kill him....then you go up to the halflings house. He says "arrghhh...what u doing here" ok but then when you say it smells...he act surprised like you found him out. BUT YOU JUST CAME THROUGH THE SECRET PASSAGE...so he should already know without acting surprised. It doesn't make sense.

In RPG time and space can be skipped, so there could be long connections between two points of access to lower/upper floor. That is the case, because if you take the 2 access from Gullykin and Firewine there's no way to matche upper and lower map (like in Baldur's gate sewers. In a PnP campain a master would tell: "after exporing some empty tunnel you see a light and you find a sevrete passage". So you do enter from a csecret passage but it is not 3 meters above the Ogre magi, so from the NPC's perspective your charactes could have reached him without passing from the Ogre mage.

ah ok, yeah I get what you mean yeah good thinking, it works as well. But anyway, they made it too complicated, it seems ogre mage in this game is the default "gap filler" when they run out of ideas. I would've preferred something like the halfling was letting kobolds in the village because he hates everyone there...a sociopath halfling....instead of involving an anonymous orc mage who does it so they send adventurers down and he can steal their loot....who is the other mage anyway? Pity because all the other early game quests are done really well; Brage, Prism etc...

[Wicket W. Warrick]

Originally posted by Wasabi:

ah ok, yeah I get what you mean yeah good thinking, it works as well. But anyway, they made it too complicated, it seems ogre mage in this game is the default "gap filler" when they run out of ideas. I would've preferred something like the halfling was letting kobolds in the village because he hates everyone there...a sociopath halfling....instead of involving an anonymous orc mage who does it so they send adventurers down and he can steal their loot....who is the other mage anyway? Pity because all the other early game quests are done really well; Brage, Prism etc...

BG2 has much better quests both main and side ones, but there is a taste of naive in those kind of not perfect side quests that reminds me of the old D&D.
It is very old school, you go in a village, get a mission, go in a dungeon and kill the bad ones.
Still I like BG2 much more, but also those kind of semplicity has its charme.

[itsu]

Originally posted by Wicket W. Warrick:

Originally posted by Wasabi:

ah ok, yeah I get what you mean yeah good thinking, it works as well. But anyway, they made it too complicated, it seems ogre mage in this game is the default "gap filler" when they run out of ideas. I would've preferred something like the halfling was letting kobolds in the village because he hates everyone there...a sociopath halfling....instead of involving an anonymous orc mage who does it so they send adventurers down and he can steal their loot....who is the other mage anyway? Pity because all the other early game quests are done really well; Brage, Prism etc...

BG2 has much better quests both main and side ones, but there is a taste of naive in those kind of not perfect side quests that reminds me of the old D&D.
It is very old school, you go in a village, get a mission, go in a dungeon and kill the bad ones.
Still I like BG2 much more, but also those kind of semplicity has its charme.

yeah I understand what you're saying. But overall they are good compared to other RPGs. I would say some of the worst are from Witcher 1, they are really bad. I think the best made are from the Elder Scrolls games...but they are also pretty much boring and unimaginative...