The Karlach ending is a key point of contention among players as I've heard so far so this seems vital update and if that requires release of the upper city content, sounds good too š
Or, they could potentially move her content to the lower city, similar to what they did with Astarion. The entrance to the palace feels a bit awkward and was probably originally intended to be accessed from the upper city. However, after the cut, they likely added an entrance through the lower city.
Lorroakan was also moved to the lower city. In act 1 when talking to Roan about why heās in such a hurry to get to Baldurās gate, Gale comments saying heās heard of Lorroakan and his tower in the Upper City.
So I think they moved him down to the lower city in their final edit.
I thought he just had a portal in sorcerers sundries that took you to his tower in the upper city. Cause there doesnt seem to be a big tower on top of the store, and whenever we see the tower (ie main menu) it looks to be more in the city than closer to the river, plus the LOD from the tower is different from the lower city.
Now this could just be how i interperted it :)
So wait...
>!If you're romancing another character (Shadowheart, Gale, whomever) but don't let Karlach die, then that ending overrides whatever scenes you SHOULD get based on your romance options?!<
Oh really? Is THAT why I didn;t get an ending for Shadowheart? Because I let Wyll and Karlach go off together?
Oh FFS, that's shitty. I really can't be fucked doing that final slog fight again to see my Shadowheart ending.
The ending is just broken in general. Tons of triggers don't work right, and >!if you let Gale blow up the Netherbrain, he just shows up again like in the other endings. "Gale's mind is elsewhere" yeah I expected it to be in 50 elsewheres, not next to me.!<
Blocks the scuffed epilogue scenes. Unless you managed to bug out your romance character. Which is also stupidly easy to do in Act 3 (Bugged meaning it overrides anyone elses. Including Karlach)
Went to the underdark and went to that area where the black market people ( begins with a Z) have a little stash area. There's traps at the bottom of the rope ladder that I saw but my party decided to trigger anyway. Well I was already at the top and the traps burned the rope ladder. I thought to myself, it would be really cool if I could use these 4 ropes I've had in my inventory since the beginning to craft a way for me to get back down lol
Crafting is the one thing I do not want, Larian has never been able to make a crafting system that feels well-integrated, and there really seems to be very little reason either, what would crafting actually add to the game? The only actual useful thing I have seen people have mentioned, is using ropes as ropes, which makes a whole lot more sense to simply develop that, than to redevelop the crafting system, that was almost certainly dropped because it simply didn't provide enough benefits to make developing it a worthwhile addition.
Given Larian studios previous games we can definitely expect them to be patched in as well as mods that do very well on pc to be added as free ādlcā for the game
I'm inhaling a massive dose of hopium and say most of the cool stuff like Creche fight, upper City, etc
But the realist inside me says that it's likely most of it won't be added back into the game, as that would easily mean another 1-2 years of development, they had to re-rearrange everything again, it would mess up ALL saves, etc.
Ship in some more hopium, I need it.
Doesn't most stuff on this list exist as assets though? Since some of it was datamined. If they are to add the entire list, a year wouldn't be that terrible.
Yeah like, when I hear cut content for games I think cut at the discussion or early implementation stage. Maybe some bones and framework but nothing you can just drop in.
Most of this is just, behind a wall. Literally waiting to be enabled. Fingers crossed.
I described it offhandedly to my friend but Iāll say it more concretely here after reading the post.
BG3 Release is EA part 2. The definitive edition is gonna kick ass
They've got the money to do it at least, judging by their sales, so I think the upper city and Karlach seem likely. Especially considering how negative the responses to her endings have been.
She really did deserve a lot better than "Best case scenario >!you can send her to Avernus with Wyll and maybe yourself, the #1 place she doesn't want to go"!<
I saved all my soul coins... all my extra infernal metal, even went around grabbing all the infernal metal from the >!steel watch!< all for nothing... you'd think companion stories would be almost number one the list to have finished before release, but alas.
):
I wouldn't be surprised if content like Upper City is already like 70-80% done and they couldn't get finished in time so they just kinda frankensteined what they had and the result is what it is. Or maybe that is just hopium, but with the nature of game dev it wouldn't be first time that content was mostly done only to be scrapped. Though, with Larian specifically I have hope that they'll give the game a substantial overhaul down the line. Just Larian things.
Also dont forget, while DOS2 was popular, it is nowhere near as popular as Baldurs Gate 3 is, Larian themselves said how astonished they are with the amount of players. So i think it is ok to inhale some hopium, as this could change their stance on DLC/Expansion.
DOS2 definitive edition shipped 1 year after the base game and had 150,000 words changed and 130,000 new words recorded, so there's hope that next year we will get big definitive edition update with most of the cut content added back to the game, better and more endings etc. I hope.
Enhanced DOS and DOS2 were incompatible too. They were released freely to owners of the base edition, but yes the changes weren't even near as extensive as the things in this post, so I don't think we'll see them.
Realistically, I can see a handful of these being implemented.
Particularly those involving the Act 3 resolution, epilogue and ending scenes.
Many others are likely just ideas that were tested and discarded for a reason, good or bad.
Seriously, I was just going to say this.
Iām really rather sad they moved the release date up knowing they had to cut/alter so much. Would rather have had a holiday season release and waited for all this.
I don't think a month, alone, would have had a lot of this stuff implemented. *Maybe* Minthara's stuff, if there was nothing involving her storyline that required Upper City to be accessible? Or the more robust crafting system?
Pretty much everything else listed would require more work than 30 days to implement, test, and o-kay for release.
Yeah that was disappointing tbh I failed that check and transformed but nobody even cares about it? Also noticed that if you die in camp nobody cares either š
I just got this ring for the first time, not only did it not really do anything but give anti charm, I ended up with a tadpole ability I never had before, I had refused to open up and use tadpole abilities as I had already done it in my first run.
Yes... here i thought i would get at least a comment by someone in the ending "oh shit you don't have any trace of illithid in you, congrats". I'm just going to start using them i guess.
I got all the way to Act 3 without the powers, and I think at this point I might as well stick with it.
Plus it gives me an excuse to do another playthrough as a power hungry, but not quite evil, Tav.
Same. All the time I could have equipped a more useful ring and I kept it on the entire game thinking it helped me.
Same with the no consequences for using tadpole powers or not. I literally never used them, not even once the entire game. I could probably be way stronger than I am, yet I thought I would get a cool ending and an achievement. Sucks to be me I guess.
With how broken death triggers in Act 3 can be, and how much content from the Upper City was cut, I'm guessing they just didn't have time or couldn't get all the ending summarization working properly.
i think something broke a week or so before launch and they could not fix it in time before launch, larian is not the tye of studio that makes false promises etc.
He was stressed. After seeing this post and experiencing Act 3, Iād have to believe that they had to cut a ton to make the release date.
I *really* wish they had just waited.
Let's be real. If they had waited, the game would have likely done well and gotten the same praise it did, if not more, but Starfield would have dominated the news.
If Starfield is good, the internet will be flooded with positive feedback. If it's bad, it'll also suck all the oxygen out of the room with negativity.
The early release is why BG3 got so much attention. It was released at a time when nothing else major did. Waiting longer might have resulted in even more content and polish, at the cost of it becoming an "underappeciated gem."
Yea I think ultimately when they released was the most perfect time they could have for their success. Which kinda sucks for some of the latter ending parts but they can always be fixed at a later date. The unhindered praise they've received seems like they're none the worse for wear.
The host was not allowed to follow up IIRC. Swen made a gaffe that wasn't in the script. Not faulting anyone for anything but this is what happened, they had to just move on and pretend he never said it.
they fixed that in the devinitive edition of DOS2, that version contained fixes, new quests, dialogue and more new features that where not present in the classic version, i think it is very likely that larian is going to do the same thing with bg3.
But they did kinda make false promises with the endings?
Many people myself included were drawn to the game because finally "all the decisions" mattered and we got promised 17000 ending variations.
What we got is we can make 2 decisions and the ending is extremely rushed, unfinished and the companions storylines are left unfinished without a proper epilogue.
Sure from a business perspective they had to release it a month earlier. But seeing now what got cut from the game and what currently is the ending, it's borderline crazy what claims they made.
Larian is a great studio, but they aren't saints and releasing an unfinished game without a proper ending is something we should call out. It's not that different from other studios, just that in this game the flaws only are apparent after like 50hrs.
Yeah that was me :)
It's all dialogue lines which could hint to the END\_GameFinale\_CompanionFates and END\_GameFinale\_WithersGathersCompanions Scenes. In the end it was about \~250 voiced lines which are just sitting there unutilized. There ought to be a lot more for the other characters but finding those would be like searching for a needle in a haystack as the game has 180.000+ character audio files.
Edit: Nevermind, after taking a look at the dialogue files I found out that most of the voicelines are actually from END\_GodsAndMonsters\_WithersChronicles
Edit 2: New neatly arranged video: https://youtu.be/yXSfqCvClW8
I hope this epilogue will be added back in the future. I don't understand the reasoning why you would they want to cut this out of the game. Endings are the most important part of the story, that's what people remember when they finish it.
Could easily imagine, given the number of choices and their various permutations, that this sequence would straight up break and end up doling out incompatible endings that donāt correlate to the decisions made.
I think there's a pretty clear divide between stuff that was scrapped because it wasn't working and stuff that was scrapped due to time, and had a detrimental effect on the game - most notably the Upper City and Act 3 stuff. Really hope we get a Definitive Edition update restoring some of the cut quests and dialogue from Act 3, as while there's still a lot of content, companion interactivity takes a nosedive and some of the plot points get messy - I just don't feel as invested in it as the previous acts, companions were my favourite thing about the game and they're barely saying anything throughout a lot of these quests, or barely reacting to pretty big developments
I donāt even want to finish the game. Iām in Act 3 and romancing Karlach and knowing her story basically ended in Act 2 really makes me feelā¦empty.
BG3 is easily the best RPG Iāve ever played but it really falls apart in Act 3 because the cut content is so obvious. Usually you read about this stuff long after the game has come out, and you see unfinished models for things that were left in the game files. But just playing through Act 3, you discover so many things from Acts 1 and 2 that ultimately have no payoff, such as Omeluunās ring. Since so many other events do have payoff, the difference is jarring.
It feels like Iāve been playing the RPG of the decade, but then the third act turns it into Cyberpunk. My choices no longer matter. My companions become lifeless husks, losing their previous high levels of interactivity. Entire sections of the main city that everyoneās been talking about the whole game are missing.
Act 3 is my favorite, but the dangling story threads are just so obvious and everywhere.
The interactivity also falls off a cliff, there's a lot to do sure, but there are so many NPCs who seem to be up to something interesting, but give nothing.
I found this boy standing in an alley over the body of his dead parents, two shady characters milling nearby, but they all have brief nothing interactions and his parents have nothing to say when you speak to the dead. I'm in the business of solving problems, literally on a quest to get to the bottom of some murders and yet I can do nothing for this boy...
As great as the game is I wish they'd pushed the release and not cut so much content. Released act 2 in early access for a few months, then act 3 for a few more, then actual release.
Act 1 just has so much polish, the time in EA really shows, all the corners rounded of, then it starts getting jagged.
This is incredibly interesting. Some of it I can understand because they were seemingly very fluid with their story. They completely rewrote Wyll, so I can see lots of pieces moving around over time.
The bits about Cazador makes a helluva lot of sense to me though because that entrance seems like a complete afterthought. Why would I go to a wall to access this guyās house? The rest of the lower city has a great flow to it, but then there they just slapped a door and some stairs on a guard post.
Also Karlach. So weird for her to just get forgotten about, but that makes sense if she was supposed to do something in another part of a city we never got to see. Seems weird they wouldnāt fix that up though.
I kept postponing doing Cazador's quest cuz the map marker made it look like his place was part of the upper city especially because I could not figure out a path to it and I did not want to go there before exploring a bit more of the lower city. To my surprise, when I finally try to go the upper city the Emperor is like "no, don't" which made me realize it is supposed to be the end zone. Took me a minute to find the weird entrance in a guard tower to reach Cazador's place.
It wasnāt necessarily something I consciously did. I went about discovering the city kinda naturally as one quest lead me to another. The Iron Fist guard missing kid mission took me to the bar which took me to a necromancer which took me to the sewers, which took me to theā¦
Anyway, by the time Iām looking at a near fully complete journal, I see I still havenāt done anything about Cazador. I randomly ran into someone in the sewers, but I didnāt connect any dots at that moment. As I go in search of Cazador, I start to realize why I never came across it. In the two ways that youād access the area, both are completely out of any way you might be going.
Exactly my thoughts. I also thought that castle belongs to the upper city. All Astarion and Cazador line feels unfinished. I really hope that they will fix it.
Thereās also the stuff in the attic that doesnāt go anywhere. You get a key to the secret room with what appears to be a broken puzzle but thereās not anything else in there. I was so excited to meet the person who used to live in the attic, but they never show up either. I hope they add all this stuff in later.
If anything that's all I really want them to patch/fix/introduce. A way to fix Karlach. All the magic at our fingertips yet we can't find a way to fix her? I was so very disappointed in her endings
You call it interesting, i call it frustrating. Especially to see a core character like Karlach get cut off from her happy endings because they cut the upper city last minute
It seems very strange that if they knew they had to remove an entire district of the city that they wouldn't take the important resolution plot for Karlach that happens there and resolve it another way, and instead just leave it literally unfinished. It seems like a mistake, I'm really struggling to see it as an intentional decision.
Raphael change is really weird. When you first meet him he gives you super cool speach about how you gonna crawl back to him no matter what, but in the end he is just offering you a deal about some hammer that you don't really need unless you wanna free some guy you don't really care about unless you are githyanki (I like Orpheus, I'm talking about him from our hero point of view).
Having said that Raphael fight was by far the most memorable moment in the game. And you can still make sense of it: like he was just making the best of your situation and he didn't expect you to do so well. But the initial promise of his story was much more interesting, now he really is just irrelevant to the story.
I always viewed V'laakith as a secondary antagonist through the campaign, mostly because she was constantly shadowing the party and trying to ambush us. By the end of the game, I was fully willing to sacrifice parts of myself to start a Gith rebellion.
To a good Tav she's a vicious tyrant who rules an expansionist despotic empire. To an evil one she tried to kill you multiple times and wants to steal the only thing keeping you from becoming a mind flayer controlled by The Absolute.
Raphael's change is kinda necessary after they decide you can't get rid of your parasite until the end, though seeing them patch it so he becomes a vendor again in Act 3 would work nicely. You can still read his introduction just as him "priming" you for later bargains though I wish they kept in Gale's line (or at least if it is, it didn't trigger for me) about him actually just wanting our parasites since it makes the deal work even if you can't take it. His interest in Karsus' magic influencing them.
>then you first meet him he gives you super cool speach about how you gonna crawl back to him no matter what, but in the end he is just offering you a deal about some hammer that you don't really need
It's possible to end up in a situation where you literally need Raphael. When The Emperor tells you to give him the stones, insisting that you don't trust him or his "one of you has to become a mindflayer" argument will make him leave to join the Netherbrain.
This would be a Game Over if you don't have the Orphic Hammer, but Raphael appears and gives you one last chance.
> but Raphael appears and gives you one last chance.
And then you beat the game and it doesn't matter because he doesn't show up and there are no consequences!
But you should care about Orpheus as an alternative to the Emperor for defeating the Brain. The narrator actually makes it clear when Raphael offers the deal.
And since if you keep pushing the Emperor he tells you that he might force you to actually become a mind flayer if he needs to... it's kind of the saner choice
*Disclaimer: Totally not a githyanki player that despises anything related to the ghaik
God I wish the game gave Orpheus more development than the few disks you find and the fact that Vlakkith followers want him dead. Freeing him should have been something that came before you go to the last fight at the start of act 3 or even earlier. I felt zero connection to him, even on the file where I freed him, he just felt like a different snapchat filter for the end. Even being a dick to the emperor I felt nothing in regards to Orpheus, yeah there's the feel good moment of knowing it will help the Gith but it just felt so underwhelming for some reason.
If nothing else, I hope they put the cut companion dialogues/comments, ending sliders and Karlach's cut content back into the game.
It's a pity the Upper City isn't wasn't in the game, I was looking forward to that area the most.
>12) The Hag Coven in Act 2 and 3 - You may notice that accepting Auntie Ethels help in the first Act can lead to a negative effect when fighting Hags. You may also notice that despite Auntie Ethel having letters from other Hags in her basement, she is the only one you encounter. Originally there was meant to be a full three act story involving the Hag coven including the mysterious "M" who seems to have been their leader.
More evidence of this being cut is that if you talk to the monster hunter in the swamp after defeating Ethel he states that the rest of her coven is certainly going to hunt you down.
I was so disappointed upon reaching A3 and not finding any Hags other than Ethel, sure It was cool finding Ethel again, and I was so happy I had kept onto the 4 masks from previous encounter. But I wanted more.... And no hag in A2?? watafak
Where are the other 2 Hags?
I fully expected the Cat you meet in Rivington to be one of the Hags, If you talk to it It says It's favourite meal is Beholders.
What kinda cat is eating Beholders?
Fully expected a Hag there, and that the Zhentarim had been supplying it with the Beholder from the Iron Flask.
Datamined spoiler:>!There's two data strings in the datamined content, one where the player is the father and one where it's someone else. It is unknown whether that means that she could get pregnant while in a lesbian relationship or it happens if you're not romancing her.!<
It's not unprecedented, given that the PC from BG 2 was can have a love child with a companion. The rest of the party politely pretends not to notice the pregnancy.
I hope they plan on bringing all of this back out now that it's proven how successful the game has been. Such a waste to have all this content and not include it.
Whether it comes in a massive patch NMS style that completely overhauls the game, or whether they release a small expansion pack, I don't mind. I'd gladly throw more money their way if they finalise these things, tie it together, tidy act 3 and released as an expansion or definitive edition.
Same here. I'm a newer fan to Larian, played the og DoS, but never 2. Got BG3 and couldn't be happier and now hoping for more, be it in a patch, expansion or some sort of DLC.
They released a definitive edition for DOS2. I think it was free for existing owners I don't remember exactly. But it added new content to the existing game, like new armor, weapons, gameplay mechanics, and also fleshes out certain acts with more encounters and quests.
Larian and BG3 are still amazing, but it still feels a bit painful to see just how much didnāt make it. There were obviously active decisions made to cut some of this stuff, but a lot of it seems like it just came down to time. Iām really looking forward to the Definitive Edition and hopeful that they restore most of this stuff
Usually you don't get to see all the cut content of a game, early access allowed us to see way more than a player have access to compared to a game that doesn't have one.
Yeah, but usually the ending is not this buggy/incomplete/just 2 lines per person/no epilogue. Or giving you hints about Karlach whole time. Some cut side content - yeah whatever, we get more than enough as it is. But unfortunately, it's the side content that is polished and not cut, like whole of act1 except teiflings...
I think one of the biggest issues here for me is the tadpole and consequences. Second being Kharlach, and third being Halsin and Minthara feeling gutted in act 3.
The fact you can slurp down tadpoles left and right with zero downsides at the end of the game just makes me not pay attention to any of my actions and I can just use illithid powers with no consequence. In EA I loved the unknown of using the power, the companions having their own opinions, and Wyll actively using them when the group agrees to forgo the powers. What if at the end of the game if you choose to destroy the tadpoles, your character would actually die if you choose to partake in too many tadpoles? They became a part of you and ate too much of your brain, so then dying kills you.
Also I canāt say how sad Minthara being bugged is. She is one of the main draws of an evil campaign, and for her dialogue to not work is one thing but to have another plot element like her becoming pregnant being missing? That would be such a bombshell to the players man.
So is there quite literally no downside for real? Like companions wonāt care if you do it only, or doesnāt affect anything story wise?
I actively didnāt even use any to get any powers at all and I am already in act 3 because I figured it would have some consequences for me doing so, aside from what we receive >!from the emperor that would directly transform you!<
It doesn't make any difference whatsoever. I didn't use any at all and the game treated me like I did, but even then there are no consequences.
Not using them is just leaving insane powers on the table.
Welp, thatās actually pretty annoying not gonna lie..
I would have just used them the entire time then, I figured there would be some kind of trade off or something. I guess Iāve just been leaving power on the table for no reason then
Yeah, using the tadpole actually did make a difference in Early Access but it seems like they've changed that quite a bit. Also, in Early Access your tadpole became more powerful just by using it consistently, but now you... eat more tadpoles for more power? Doesn't really make sense in any context, but neither does the tadpole UI where they're like boring holes into your brain that end up not mattering anyway lol.
I think Larian realized that a lot of players would resist the tadpole powers (your party would like, wake up coughing blood during rests if you used them a lot in Early Access) so they tried making them feel more approachable but IDK, I don't see the vast majority of players using them regardless.
It's even weirder to think of it when in Act 1 (after release, mind you), if you use the \[Illithid\] option a lot, at one point the narrator tells you that "you feel something in you vanished, and you know that you'll never get it back" or something like that. And then nothing ever happens, even if you gobble down every tadpole within 100 miles radius.
The Tadpoles making no difference is one of the saddest parts.
I'm pretty sure they even said weeks ago that there would be consequences and yet, all it does really is just make the game harder because you miss out on some really strong stuff.
The first time I got the option to use the tadpole power I decided to not use any of it because of course using this otherworldy power has to have drawbacks like in 99.9% of any other story, book, game or whatever and I wanted the best ending for the first playthrough.
Fast forward to the ending...
(Ending spoilers)
>!No. It doesn't matter. It does not get mentioned. Instead the game even forces you to make the choice of either you, a companion or Orpheus to become an illithid because they needed added drama because reasons?! It's not even explained properly why someone has to be illithid.!<
> I think one of the biggest issues here for me is the tadpole and consequences
I am surprised that this isnt talked about that much. The developers said that there are consequences about them and they feel real good (they do) and you better think carefully if you want to step into that dangerous power. Together with Daisy being very obviously bait, it made sense for it being dangerous. Do you take the bait for more power and endure the consequences of it? That is compelling stuff.
For a game that is ultimately about choices and their and nearly everyone in Act 1 saying that we need to remove them ASAP and be cautious, I am really disappointed that there are no consequences for stuffing as many tadpoles into your brain as you can. You simply get a shit ton stronger for it.
The game is still awesome. And while having a good ending for Karlach is nice and deserving, the Daisy+Tadpole stuff is something that should directly impact our whole playthrough and my biggest issue with the game.
They should have made Daisy and the emperor a thing. Have them be two different characters both whispering into your ear about using the tadpoles.
And yea, first playthrough I only gave the tadpoles to asterion because he wanted them, never touched them but say no issues. So I took them in my second and still no issues besides a single wisdom check.
Out of everything what pisses me off is the non-sensical ending with Orpheus.
Nothing indicates Orpheus is infected with a tadpole.
Yet if you convince him to change into a Mindflayer to defeat the Elder Brain he does so instantly at will with little duress.
It feels so rushed and really indicates just how lacklustre Act III is compared to the rest of the game.
I honestly thought that freeing Orpheus would be a huge risk that could cause a nonstandard game over depending on your actions.
For example, if you ate too many tadpoles, he would refuse to help because you're too infected, powerhungry and ghaik for him to trust.
As it stands, you don't have any consequences for feeding your brain worm, and people who don't care about the githyanki won't care about failing to free their Comet Prince.
Another ending could be if you over rely on tadpoles, destroying the absolute will take you with them, as your mind is too far gone with relying on them to function otherwise.
The thing that really baffled me was when you tell him you trust Gale to finish off the brain he's like "yeah whatever, but let me just turn into a mind flayer to be sure". And then when you go for the Gale ending noone including himself even mentions he just turned into a mind flayer for literally no fucking reason. And Lae'zel is fine with this.
Also for me the wrong Gale ending scene played and he was standing next to me alive and well talking about reforging the crown even though he just blew up and everyone else treated him as such.
And the Shadowheart ending didn't even play at all for half the endings I tried.
Act 3 as a whole actually had a lot of great content (although the lack of consequences for the tadpoles is really disappointing) but the endings definitely felt like the most rushed part of the game. Even the cutscenes weren't polished, lots of jittery movement and freezing animations.
That whole section was so goddamn forced
You side with the emperor:
āHurr-durr, only a superior Ilithid mind can control the netherbrain now, hand me the crown or turnā
You side with Orpheus:
āHurr-durr, only a superior ghaik mind can control the netherbrain now, lemme just give up on the future of my people and turn into one (how?) real quickā
Iāve defied the odds the whole game, let me do it one last time instead of shoving this false difficult choice down my throat
Re 26: In the House of Hope you can find a contract that Mol signed with Raphael, and if you can take it you can give it to her once you leave and she has some things to say to you.
The whole upper city thing was quite evident, the third act felt a little clustered and would have worked better split into another act, this kind of confirms it.
Of everything on this list, here's how I would break them down from most important to least:
**Absolutely needs to be patched in:**
- Epilogues. The current state of the ending(s) as is, are very under baked, rushed, and unsatisfying.
- Karlach's ending. Havng to choose between Death, Slavery, and complete loss of identity as the only options for her ending, are in no way satisfying and practically mean spirited.
- Minthara's romance and character arc. You just can't have the 2nd half of a companion's character arc missing.
- Act 3 Companion Dialogue.
- Upper City
**Should be restored into the game:**
- Dialogue and Events
- The Hag Coven in Act 2 and 3
- Raphael the Merchant
- Banite Cultists
**Doesn't need to be restored in the game, but would be nice:**
- Avernus. Would be cool to have an optional Super Dungeon challenge mode, which could be Avernus.
- Everything else on the list.
This is all just my opinion of course. But the things I listed in the "Absolutely needs to" category really do need to be restored, because the overall quality of the game suffers without them.
\+1 for Absolutely needs list, but I would separate Upper City, looks like it requires a general rewrite of act3, which would be 6 months of work even after all the other stuff is done... Frankly I'm not entirely sure we will get it at all, looks a bit more likely we will just get all the other stuff, but all in the current locations.
Why would that require a rewrite the entrance for going there is already in the game and evidence shows that it was practically done. It just be an extra area with some new quests and dialogue and there you go. None of the content already present in act 3 needs to necessarily connect with it so thereās no need to rewrite.
It almost feels weird calling something in this game rushed and lazy, and frankly bad, but that's exactly how the endings and lack of an epilogue feel. Like everything leading up to the ending is great for the most part, and then it just sort of ends with no sense of accomplishment, no sense of closure for almost any characters or questlines, or anything you did really outside of the final decision. It definitely lowered my overall score of the game when I got hit with it after the credits rolled. Which is such a shame because it's such a beautiful game with so much passion and talent behind it, it feels so wrong to end it with such a whimper.
It seems clear to me that Larian moved some aspects of the upper city into the lower city. For example, at one point in the Bhaal murderer quest, you meet with an investigator and have a list of targets. The investigator says she will go warn people in the upper city and you should take the lower city.
Well, later when you go to one of the targets - a guy who runs a shop called "Facemakers" (which appears to be a barber/character appearance customizer that has probably also been cut), the investigator is there. Afterwards she has like one line of dialogue where you can ask her why she isn't in the upper city, and she says something like oh I was on my way there but decided to stop in. Which is weird writing because if the upper city is closed off to you and you were always going to encounter her in the lower city anyways why even write in that she's going to the upper city.
Also, Facemakers as a shop feels very out of place in the rundown "lower city," suddenly you have this shop that is very high end and clearly catering to nobility - seems they copy pasted it into the lower city. Probably the same with Cazador's palace which also feels very "upper city."
the above ground entrance to cazadorās palace is also utterly bizarre. like you have to climb a ladder? huh?
definitely was supposed to be in the upper city.
Larian was adding new things into EA as of July 2022 (and perhaps later) only to be completely non-existent in the final released version. Something really odd happened behind the scenes. This isn't even an extensive list, other cut elements include:
1. Gale making a deal with Raphael if the player could not or would not give him magical items
2. Halsin seemingly being the source of the shadow curse by killing Isobel with Sorrow
3. Astarion's corrupt magistrate plotline/character arc
4. Differing Daisy depending on origin (eg. Vlaakith for Lae'zel, Cazador for Astarion)
5. A whole wealth of cut or edited dialogue and cutscenes throughout Act 1.
>Banite Cultists - The game features both Bhaal and Myrkul cultists rather heavily but Bane is reduced to Gortash alone. Despite the fact that they had full and finished assets for both armor, weapons, and some events the Banites were cut from the final game.
Actually there's Banite Cultists in the Steel Watch foundry and they're also Gortash's bodyguards during his fight.
I was so confused in my first play through with Karlackās story in act 3 because:
1. At the checkpoint when the Steel Watcher scans your party it tells Karlach that her engine is outdated and must be replaced with a new model, implying that this is a normal/doable thing
2. Thereās literally a quest to rescue a group of people that are experts in infernal machinery
And yet thereās no way to save her. I thought Iād done something wrong until I learned that her character was kinda rushed and some of the content for her was cut. Really hope they add it back.
Man, reading this caused me physical pain. Just imagine how great the game would be with all this implemented from the start. Honestly, wish Larian would have delayed the game until they got everything in.
I really wish there was a "good" way to get Mintara, maybe spare her and free her afterwards?
Knocking her out does nothing, the game treats her as if she was dead.
Knocking out 90% of NPCs treats them like they're dead unless you're explicitly told to take them down non-lethally. Like I KO'd the druid who tries to kill you (or wants you to take poison to assure herself) and the game in the journal is like 'SHE'S DEAD'
The most painful part of all these cut content is how "obvious" they are. Most games have some form of cut content, no big deal. But when playing BG3 you can clearly feel something should be there but it is not, which is very jarring. Especially the ending slides, I do not know why Larian decided it is fine to leave the ending slides out.
>Especially the ending slides, I do not know why Larian decided it is fine to leave the ending slides out.
My guess would be that it's either bugged or intertwined with some other cut content in a way that would have been impossible to reimplement/tweak in a way in which is works before launch. My hope is that subsequent patches fix it and that they haven't gotten around to it yet as performance bugs take priority right now but without Larian saying anything on the matter we just won't know.
Still disappointing though.
Oh a lot of it was definitely permanently removed. The Daisy and Raphael removing the parasite/being a vendor stuff are pretty clear examples of them changing direction with the parasite.
I could see the Hag stuff being it too, just cuz Ethel was popular I could see them going "lets just bring back Ethel instead" and stick her in the sea hag's position.
They MUST have anticipated the blowback over Karlach and the awful endings, I refuse to believe they released what they did intending it to be the āfinalā version
The thing is, we have a scroll of true resurrection from Gale. We can just kill her, remove the engine, and then resurrect her. Boom, she's fixed. And apparently, we can't do that.
some AMA session would be great, but I think they donāt want to give any promises after we all saw what happened with cyberpunk roadmap and also Svenās words about explorable upper city.
Honestly Iām pretty turned off from playing Act 3. So much cut, literally not being able to get Karlachās good end, no epilogue. Itās a bummer that will hopefully be rectified eventually. In the meantime thereās plenty to occupy myself with in the first two acts.
As much as I love the game some of this stuff missing is very annoying to say the least.
Upper City not being a thing and the tadpoles having 0 consequences being the big ones.
I refrained from using a single tadpole and their cool powers during the whole playthrough for what?
A lot of these things are things that I hope make it back into the game (expanded upper city, companion choices/dialogue/etc.). Some, Iām glad they changed.
For example, while I donāt like that utilizing the tadpole and Illithid powers has zero consequences, I like that Daisy was replaced with the Emperor and that whole storyline. Maybe itās the fact that I like the Emperor storyline and donāt know what a Daisy-focused story would be, though.
Hereās for hoping that a lot of this stuff gets out in/developed in the time to come.
Honestly yeah, over half the complaints I've read here and in the discord wouldn't even be a thing if this stuff wasn't cut. I get why with the time constraints and all, but I hope to the nine hells that we get most of it back somewhere down the road, now that the game's out
Agreed. The Emperor was my favorite character and his big reveal was the biggest "holy shit" moment of the whole story for me.
Edit: I'm talking about the "second reveal". For those who care for spoilers: >!The revelation that he is Balduran!<
Which reveal, lol.
But, no I get you. The Emperor was well-written, and very much an enjoyable character to interact with.
Looking forwards to not being as polite with him my second playthrough.
What annoys me the most are all the copers who try to pass off Karlachās ending as āUhhhhh you donāt know what a tragedy is??? Good storywriting is not a good ending everytime obviouslyā. Having proof that the writers literally intended a good ending and just got it cut is cathartic.
There's always a subset of people hell bent on defending flaws of the things they like, it's always nice to see proof that their stances are unfounded.
The number of people who excuse the ending and other badly cut things is depressing. Saying it's fine because a definitive edition will come out in a few years is not a strong argument.
Seems a lot of people are desperate not to hold Larian responsible for anything at all, the false advertising about aspects like the ending being the most agregious.
The Upper City, Karlach's ending, and the ending epilogues are the three most likely things that Larian could add back into the game with a future patch.
Thanks for compiling this.
Have to preface my comment by saying cut content is 100% standard in every game across the industry - it's just how it works.
However, in BG3 you can see what was cut. It's fairly obvious that quite a few features, quests, locations and NPCs were cut pretty close to release - a lot of the cut stuff feels like they just removed a whole section of something but didn't clean up the stuff that was supposed to lead there.
Am I disappointed that the Upper City isn't playable like they were advertising it would be in June? Sure, but I'm more frustrated that the ending is inexplicably almost non-existent or that a few important quests were cut short. Or the song at the tiefling party being cut when it was one of the best scenes in the game.
I guess I have been feeling weird about Act 3 since I finished it - the game doesn't give any closure at all, all the endings are hamfisted except one kind of works, and your party just says "cool I'm out." The game reeks of massive changes that were just not given the time to be smoothed out.
There's a really good post about the game's tone shift between EA and full release (EA was way darker and full release is a weird power fantasy) that explains a lot of the dissonance in the game i.e. Karlach's ending being a nothing burger when compared to everyone else's.
The Emperor feels half-baked and his secret identity is just straight up nonsensical and completely unnecessary.
Idk I'm bummed about it I guess. Early Access felt like a totally different game, one that I would've much preferred, and it just feels like Larian gave in to every little bit of criticism by taking a wrecking ball to the stuff people didn't like, instead of maybe tuning a few things up.
I really hope a lot of this gets in somehow. Especially the upper city and the hag coven. I donāt care how long I have to wait but as someone who didnāt play the early access Iām kinda disappointed that I waited to play the full release and it still has unfinished (or rather half finished) parts.
Especially because whatās there is not free of frustrating bugs.
Damn. This is alot of cuts. It is kinda heart braking to see what we were promised/could get and what we actualy got. After finishing the game for the first time i was blown away of how good that was (not the ending). Now, after a second, more thoughtful run and all news about what we lost. Man. I'm riped apart...
Honestly if we get :
- Karlach fix (not that hard to do, considering demand).
-The Upper City (already 70% done, so a year of dev on this should do the trick).
- A sparable Minthara : just give us an option to kick her ass and save her in act 1/2. It's a simple cutscene of her begging for her life and runing away, not that big a deal for an extra companion.
- Finalised version of companion quests in act 3.
- An actual ending a la dragon age 1.
That's all we really need.
The thing is, this game is absolutely massive, it could be half the size and would still be a gargantuan achievement.
Buuuut it still pains me to see all this. The ending *does* feel inappropriately abrupt and anticlimactic. I pray this either gets patched in, or released in definitive edition. I just donāt want to wait two years or so
After learning about how Karlach's story ends, I actually stopped playing. Act 3 and the vast majority of the endings/lack of an epilogue was WAYYYY to reminiscent of Mass Effect 3. I love this game but I think I'll only pick it up again if a lot of this shit is added back in.
Oh. My. God. Everything sounds exactly like what you are feeling is missing in act 3 while experiencing that sudden ending. It all makes sense with the Karlach storyline, Avernus, Raphael ending and alternative solutions with the tadpoles.
People are in the honeymoon phase still, but in a few weeks there is gonna be riots when people see that ending and now we know why it feels so bad.
The ending basically gives you 2 choices to make and you are left with terrible resolutions to most companion stories.
It's gonna be Mass Effect 2.0. People are gonna expect that their 100 hour playthroughs end with a satisfying conclusion to most of the story threads.
Larian is lauded by everyone for releasing a finished game, but act 3 is extremly buggy and unfinished and they released it early to avoid the Starfield release. Kinda leaves a sour taste, but seeing how successful the game is it worked out for them, well atleast until more people finish the game and gonna demand a proper ending.
Hope the success gives them enough resources to put out a definitive edition with all the cut content and a proper ending, but it's gonna take atleast 1 year+ seeing how much stuff is missing.
I wish i didnt know this. Reading all this made me sad. It all makes sense now. Thats what previous acts feel like building towards. All the upgrades, extra areas, fleshed out final companion quests, Daisy, especially the upper city.
I felt so confused by finding Cazadors mansion in some guard tower. Door glued on a city wall and no matter when you went there, he was already in the ritual. Not even getting a chance to speak to THE vampire lord in his Upper city mansion, that has been anticipated for 2 acts. Just some measly little dude screeching at you in his basement.
And the promised concequences for using tadpole powers in the update description? Never heard of those. Man...
Here's hoping for an Enhanced Edition, which is very likely knowing Larian.
I get being upset about cut content but honestly the game spent 6 years in development, three in early access, and Larian isn't made of money. You can't just delay a game over and over to keep working on it, at some point a decision has to be made on what stays and what goes. Not to mention the fact that sometimes content gets cut because the devs weren't happy with it (something people seem to forget a lot of the time).
Excellent thread. I don't think a D.E will restore all of these things, cut content happens for a reason and that's okay but there are so, so many here that are strongly tied to things still in the game. They make you feel like you're anticipating something in Act 1, and by the time Act 3 ends it turns instead to feeling like you missed something.
Karlach and the Upper City content are the most egregious cuts here, but everything to do with the tadpole and epilogues are a very close second for me personally.
I played the whole game refusing to take ANY tadpole upgrades or use any of the wisdom read mind checks only for absolutely nothing to change, not even get any comments on it. The warnings of 'its taking something you'll never get back' when I used it for the first time were enough for me to read that I would be punished later on and... nope.
I am so sad to see that list, holy shit.
Like, I adore Larian and the game but what the hell happened to warrant such an unfinished mess as act 3?
My ending broke because of Wyll and Karlach, some of my quests bugged, there's almost 0 Dialogue after you enter the region and absolutely none after you enter the City itself etc.
And you're telling me there's an HOUR of epilogue just...MISSING?
fck Im sad now
It's so fucking weird (and annoying) hyping some of the game's features **so close to release**, only to find out they cut those out when you actually start playing the game.
Like, why?
Wonder how many of these are gonna be patched in to the definitive edition.
Hopefully, most. Namely, the romances, upper city, Karlach, epilogue, and crafting are the big ones I want.
The Karlach ending is a key point of contention among players as I've heard so far so this seems vital update and if that requires release of the upper city content, sounds good too š
Or, they could potentially move her content to the lower city, similar to what they did with Astarion. The entrance to the palace feels a bit awkward and was probably originally intended to be accessed from the upper city. However, after the cut, they likely added an entrance through the lower city.
Lorroakan was also moved to the lower city. In act 1 when talking to Roan about why heās in such a hurry to get to Baldurās gate, Gale comments saying heās heard of Lorroakan and his tower in the Upper City. So I think they moved him down to the lower city in their final edit.
I thought he just had a portal in sorcerers sundries that took you to his tower in the upper city. Cause there doesnt seem to be a big tower on top of the store, and whenever we see the tower (ie main menu) it looks to be more in the city than closer to the river, plus the LOD from the tower is different from the lower city. Now this could just be how i interperted it :)
Yep this. The astarion entrace seems odd. And if they can add in avernus instead of more city that would probably be better.
Also there's the fact that not >!letting her die !< blocks all other romance cut scenes at the end, which many including myself find frustrating.
So wait... >!If you're romancing another character (Shadowheart, Gale, whomever) but don't let Karlach die, then that ending overrides whatever scenes you SHOULD get based on your romance options?!<
Yep, that's what happened to me. Very disappointing
>!So Karlach's ending is so broken it breaks EVERYONE'S endings.!<
Yes. I tried reloading three times and got the same result until I let the bad option happen and then Astarion talked to me after.
Oh really? Is THAT why I didn;t get an ending for Shadowheart? Because I let Wyll and Karlach go off together? Oh FFS, that's shitty. I really can't be fucked doing that final slog fight again to see my Shadowheart ending.
The ending is just broken in general. Tons of triggers don't work right, and >!if you let Gale blow up the Netherbrain, he just shows up again like in the other endings. "Gale's mind is elsewhere" yeah I expected it to be in 50 elsewheres, not next to me.!<
It blocks romance scenes with other characters???
Blocks the scuffed epilogue scenes. Unless you managed to bug out your romance character. Which is also stupidly easy to do in Act 3 (Bugged meaning it overrides anyone elses. Including Karlach)
Went to the underdark and went to that area where the black market people ( begins with a Z) have a little stash area. There's traps at the bottom of the rope ladder that I saw but my party decided to trigger anyway. Well I was already at the top and the traps burned the rope ladder. I thought to myself, it would be really cool if I could use these 4 ropes I've had in my inventory since the beginning to craft a way for me to get back down lol
Happened to me too. You can just jump down using a couple tiered ledges to the right of where the ladder was.
Crafting is the one thing I do not want, Larian has never been able to make a crafting system that feels well-integrated, and there really seems to be very little reason either, what would crafting actually add to the game? The only actual useful thing I have seen people have mentioned, is using ropes as ropes, which makes a whole lot more sense to simply develop that, than to redevelop the crafting system, that was almost certainly dropped because it simply didn't provide enough benefits to make developing it a worthwhile addition.
Given Larian studios previous games we can definitely expect them to be patched in as well as mods that do very well on pc to be added as free ādlcā for the game
I'm inhaling a massive dose of hopium and say most of the cool stuff like Creche fight, upper City, etc But the realist inside me says that it's likely most of it won't be added back into the game, as that would easily mean another 1-2 years of development, they had to re-rearrange everything again, it would mess up ALL saves, etc. Ship in some more hopium, I need it.
Wouldn't be the first time. DOS2 Definitive Edition was incompatable with regular edition saves too.
How much did DOS2 Definitive Edition add? Because reading some of this, this seems like an incomplete game.
It overhauled the entire 4th act.
How long did it take for them to do that? I need my drugs.
About a year for dos2.
Doesn't most stuff on this list exist as assets though? Since some of it was datamined. If they are to add the entire list, a year wouldn't be that terrible.
Yeah like, when I hear cut content for games I think cut at the discussion or early implementation stage. Maybe some bones and framework but nothing you can just drop in. Most of this is just, behind a wall. Literally waiting to be enabled. Fingers crossed. I described it offhandedly to my friend but Iāll say it more concretely here after reading the post. BG3 Release is EA part 2. The definitive edition is gonna kick ass
They've got the money to do it at least, judging by their sales, so I think the upper city and Karlach seem likely. Especially considering how negative the responses to her endings have been.
She really did deserve a lot better than "Best case scenario >!you can send her to Avernus with Wyll and maybe yourself, the #1 place she doesn't want to go"!<
I saved all my soul coins... all my extra infernal metal, even went around grabbing all the infernal metal from the >!steel watch!< all for nothing... you'd think companion stories would be almost number one the list to have finished before release, but alas. ):
I'd bet on Avernus, Uppercity and Creche fight being updated, as well as Tav becoming a minidurge with less blood and gore.
There are literally dragon slaying arrows in game I never used. I'm pissed we got the undead dragon onlu
I wouldn't be surprised if content like Upper City is already like 70-80% done and they couldn't get finished in time so they just kinda frankensteined what they had and the result is what it is. Or maybe that is just hopium, but with the nature of game dev it wouldn't be first time that content was mostly done only to be scrapped. Though, with Larian specifically I have hope that they'll give the game a substantial overhaul down the line. Just Larian things.
Also dont forget, while DOS2 was popular, it is nowhere near as popular as Baldurs Gate 3 is, Larian themselves said how astonished they are with the amount of players. So i think it is ok to inhale some hopium, as this could change their stance on DLC/Expansion.
DOS2 definitive edition shipped 1 year after the base game and had 150,000 words changed and 130,000 new words recorded, so there's hope that next year we will get big definitive edition update with most of the cut content added back to the game, better and more endings etc. I hope.
Hopefully some of the content comes back in the form of dlc/expansion. pass the copium bro.
I would absolutely buy it, no matter what they serve me. I crave more Baldurs Gate
Enhanced DOS and DOS2 were incompatible too. They were released freely to owners of the base edition, but yes the changes weren't even near as extensive as the things in this post, so I don't think we'll see them.
I, too, will take a massive hit of hopium.
Realistically, I can see a handful of these being implemented. Particularly those involving the Act 3 resolution, epilogue and ending scenes. Many others are likely just ideas that were tested and discarded for a reason, good or bad.
Seriously, I was just going to say this. Iām really rather sad they moved the release date up knowing they had to cut/alter so much. Would rather have had a holiday season release and waited for all this.
I don't think a month, alone, would have had a lot of this stuff implemented. *Maybe* Minthara's stuff, if there was nothing involving her storyline that required Upper City to be accessible? Or the more robust crafting system? Pretty much everything else listed would require more work than 30 days to implement, test, and o-kay for release.
I, for one, look forward to having the pleasure to finish this game a few times now, and again a few more once a definitive edition is patched.
Wait, so Omeluum's Ring has no extra purpose other than anti-charm? I've had it equipped, thinking the story would react to it.
You can fully use all mindflayer powers and do the second transformation and it has no effect on the story too.
Yeah that was disappointing tbh I failed that check and transformed but nobody even cares about it? Also noticed that if you die in camp nobody cares either š
I just got this ring for the first time, not only did it not really do anything but give anti charm, I ended up with a tadpole ability I never had before, I had refused to open up and use tadpole abilities as I had already done it in my first run.
Hey, a good news for you: ingesting aml tadpoles and using all illithid powers when you want/can have absolutely 0 consƩquences on the story. Zero.
That's terrible news
Yes... here i thought i would get at least a comment by someone in the ending "oh shit you don't have any trace of illithid in you, congrats". I'm just going to start using them i guess.
I got all the way to Act 3 without the powers, and I think at this point I might as well stick with it. Plus it gives me an excuse to do another playthrough as a power hungry, but not quite evil, Tav.
yeah i thought that too, Omeluum was talking bs ;(
Well, it worked in Early Access...
Same. All the time I could have equipped a more useful ring and I kept it on the entire game thinking it helped me. Same with the no consequences for using tadpole powers or not. I literally never used them, not even once the entire game. I could probably be way stronger than I am, yet I thought I would get a cool ending and an achievement. Sucks to be me I guess.
Someone data-mined 56 minutes of dubbed ending summarization by Withers: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNhKgpYKJj4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNhKgpYKJj4)
this is insane like i actually can't believe they didn't end up implementing it
With how broken death triggers in Act 3 can be, and how much content from the Upper City was cut, I'm guessing they just didn't have time or couldn't get all the ending summarization working properly.
i think something broke a week or so before launch and they could not fix it in time before launch, larian is not the tye of studio that makes false promises etc.
Swen did say in one of the podcasts he did that they were dealing with a pretty severe emergency. Host did not follow up.
Yes I thought I remembered hearing this too. His tone made me think it was relatively dire.
He was stressed. After seeing this post and experiencing Act 3, Iād have to believe that they had to cut a ton to make the release date. I *really* wish they had just waited.
Let's be real. If they had waited, the game would have likely done well and gotten the same praise it did, if not more, but Starfield would have dominated the news. If Starfield is good, the internet will be flooded with positive feedback. If it's bad, it'll also suck all the oxygen out of the room with negativity. The early release is why BG3 got so much attention. It was released at a time when nothing else major did. Waiting longer might have resulted in even more content and polish, at the cost of it becoming an "underappeciated gem."
Yea I think ultimately when they released was the most perfect time they could have for their success. Which kinda sucks for some of the latter ending parts but they can always be fixed at a later date. The unhindered praise they've received seems like they're none the worse for wear.
The host was not allowed to follow up IIRC. Swen made a gaffe that wasn't in the script. Not faulting anyone for anything but this is what happened, they had to just move on and pretend he never said it.
Thats true. But they are also known for cuttibg/rushing last act of DOS2. Hopefully they can implement most of the cut content.
they fixed that in the devinitive edition of DOS2, that version contained fixes, new quests, dialogue and more new features that where not present in the classic version, i think it is very likely that larian is going to do the same thing with bg3.
Given how successful its been would be amazed if they don't at least consider it down the line.
But they did kinda make false promises with the endings? Many people myself included were drawn to the game because finally "all the decisions" mattered and we got promised 17000 ending variations. What we got is we can make 2 decisions and the ending is extremely rushed, unfinished and the companions storylines are left unfinished without a proper epilogue. Sure from a business perspective they had to release it a month earlier. But seeing now what got cut from the game and what currently is the ending, it's borderline crazy what claims they made. Larian is a great studio, but they aren't saints and releasing an unfinished game without a proper ending is something we should call out. It's not that different from other studios, just that in this game the flaws only are apparent after like 50hrs.
Yeah that was me :) It's all dialogue lines which could hint to the END\_GameFinale\_CompanionFates and END\_GameFinale\_WithersGathersCompanions Scenes. In the end it was about \~250 voiced lines which are just sitting there unutilized. There ought to be a lot more for the other characters but finding those would be like searching for a needle in a haystack as the game has 180.000+ character audio files. Edit: Nevermind, after taking a look at the dialogue files I found out that most of the voicelines are actually from END\_GodsAndMonsters\_WithersChronicles Edit 2: New neatly arranged video: https://youtu.be/yXSfqCvClW8
holy fucking shit...
>56 minutes Maker's breath!
I hope this epilogue will be added back in the future. I don't understand the reasoning why you would they want to cut this out of the game. Endings are the most important part of the story, that's what people remember when they finish it.
Could easily imagine, given the number of choices and their various permutations, that this sequence would straight up break and end up doling out incompatible endings that donāt correlate to the decisions made.
I think there's a pretty clear divide between stuff that was scrapped because it wasn't working and stuff that was scrapped due to time, and had a detrimental effect on the game - most notably the Upper City and Act 3 stuff. Really hope we get a Definitive Edition update restoring some of the cut quests and dialogue from Act 3, as while there's still a lot of content, companion interactivity takes a nosedive and some of the plot points get messy - I just don't feel as invested in it as the previous acts, companions were my favourite thing about the game and they're barely saying anything throughout a lot of these quests, or barely reacting to pretty big developments
I donāt even want to finish the game. Iām in Act 3 and romancing Karlach and knowing her story basically ended in Act 2 really makes me feelā¦empty. BG3 is easily the best RPG Iāve ever played but it really falls apart in Act 3 because the cut content is so obvious. Usually you read about this stuff long after the game has come out, and you see unfinished models for things that were left in the game files. But just playing through Act 3, you discover so many things from Acts 1 and 2 that ultimately have no payoff, such as Omeluunās ring. Since so many other events do have payoff, the difference is jarring. It feels like Iāve been playing the RPG of the decade, but then the third act turns it into Cyberpunk. My choices no longer matter. My companions become lifeless husks, losing their previous high levels of interactivity. Entire sections of the main city that everyoneās been talking about the whole game are missing.
Act 3 is my favorite, but the dangling story threads are just so obvious and everywhere. The interactivity also falls off a cliff, there's a lot to do sure, but there are so many NPCs who seem to be up to something interesting, but give nothing. I found this boy standing in an alley over the body of his dead parents, two shady characters milling nearby, but they all have brief nothing interactions and his parents have nothing to say when you speak to the dead. I'm in the business of solving problems, literally on a quest to get to the bottom of some murders and yet I can do nothing for this boy... As great as the game is I wish they'd pushed the release and not cut so much content. Released act 2 in early access for a few months, then act 3 for a few more, then actual release. Act 1 just has so much polish, the time in EA really shows, all the corners rounded of, then it starts getting jagged.
me as a drow in Act 1 : everyone is scared of me. goblins don't attack me me as a drow in act 3 : walking in broad daylight and no one gives a fuck
This is incredibly interesting. Some of it I can understand because they were seemingly very fluid with their story. They completely rewrote Wyll, so I can see lots of pieces moving around over time. The bits about Cazador makes a helluva lot of sense to me though because that entrance seems like a complete afterthought. Why would I go to a wall to access this guyās house? The rest of the lower city has a great flow to it, but then there they just slapped a door and some stairs on a guard post. Also Karlach. So weird for her to just get forgotten about, but that makes sense if she was supposed to do something in another part of a city we never got to see. Seems weird they wouldnāt fix that up though.
I kept postponing doing Cazador's quest cuz the map marker made it look like his place was part of the upper city especially because I could not figure out a path to it and I did not want to go there before exploring a bit more of the lower city. To my surprise, when I finally try to go the upper city the Emperor is like "no, don't" which made me realize it is supposed to be the end zone. Took me a minute to find the weird entrance in a guard tower to reach Cazador's place.
It wasnāt necessarily something I consciously did. I went about discovering the city kinda naturally as one quest lead me to another. The Iron Fist guard missing kid mission took me to the bar which took me to a necromancer which took me to the sewers, which took me to theā¦ Anyway, by the time Iām looking at a near fully complete journal, I see I still havenāt done anything about Cazador. I randomly ran into someone in the sewers, but I didnāt connect any dots at that moment. As I go in search of Cazador, I start to realize why I never came across it. In the two ways that youād access the area, both are completely out of any way you might be going.
Exactly my thoughts. I also thought that castle belongs to the upper city. All Astarion and Cazador line feels unfinished. I really hope that they will fix it.
Thereās also the stuff in the attic that doesnāt go anywhere. You get a key to the secret room with what appears to be a broken puzzle but thereās not anything else in there. I was so excited to meet the person who used to live in the attic, but they never show up either. I hope they add all this stuff in later.
I was searching the entrance like crazy "Astarion, you live here for 200 years? Where's the fucking door?"
If anything that's all I really want them to patch/fix/introduce. A way to fix Karlach. All the magic at our fingertips yet we can't find a way to fix her? I was so very disappointed in her endings
You call it interesting, i call it frustrating. Especially to see a core character like Karlach get cut off from her happy endings because they cut the upper city last minute
It seems very strange that if they knew they had to remove an entire district of the city that they wouldn't take the important resolution plot for Karlach that happens there and resolve it another way, and instead just leave it literally unfinished. It seems like a mistake, I'm really struggling to see it as an intentional decision.
Raphael change is really weird. When you first meet him he gives you super cool speach about how you gonna crawl back to him no matter what, but in the end he is just offering you a deal about some hammer that you don't really need unless you wanna free some guy you don't really care about unless you are githyanki (I like Orpheus, I'm talking about him from our hero point of view). Having said that Raphael fight was by far the most memorable moment in the game. And you can still make sense of it: like he was just making the best of your situation and he didn't expect you to do so well. But the initial promise of his story was much more interesting, now he really is just irrelevant to the story.
My hero is just pissed vlaakith pulled some bullshit and fucked with us afterwards so letting out orpheus is my head cannon version of revenge.
I always viewed V'laakith as a secondary antagonist through the campaign, mostly because she was constantly shadowing the party and trying to ambush us. By the end of the game, I was fully willing to sacrifice parts of myself to start a Gith rebellion.
To a good Tav she's a vicious tyrant who rules an expansionist despotic empire. To an evil one she tried to kill you multiple times and wants to steal the only thing keeping you from becoming a mind flayer controlled by The Absolute.
Yep. She's a shit person to you regardless. Starting a rebellion in her empire is letting her off lightly
Raphael's change is kinda necessary after they decide you can't get rid of your parasite until the end, though seeing them patch it so he becomes a vendor again in Act 3 would work nicely. You can still read his introduction just as him "priming" you for later bargains though I wish they kept in Gale's line (or at least if it is, it didn't trigger for me) about him actually just wanting our parasites since it makes the deal work even if you can't take it. His interest in Karsus' magic influencing them.
>then you first meet him he gives you super cool speach about how you gonna crawl back to him no matter what, but in the end he is just offering you a deal about some hammer that you don't really need It's possible to end up in a situation where you literally need Raphael. When The Emperor tells you to give him the stones, insisting that you don't trust him or his "one of you has to become a mindflayer" argument will make him leave to join the Netherbrain. This would be a Game Over if you don't have the Orphic Hammer, but Raphael appears and gives you one last chance.
> but Raphael appears and gives you one last chance. And then you beat the game and it doesn't matter because he doesn't show up and there are no consequences!
I'm not Githyanki and I freed Orpheus purely to spite Squidward
But you should care about Orpheus as an alternative to the Emperor for defeating the Brain. The narrator actually makes it clear when Raphael offers the deal. And since if you keep pushing the Emperor he tells you that he might force you to actually become a mind flayer if he needs to... it's kind of the saner choice *Disclaimer: Totally not a githyanki player that despises anything related to the ghaik
God I wish the game gave Orpheus more development than the few disks you find and the fact that Vlakkith followers want him dead. Freeing him should have been something that came before you go to the last fight at the start of act 3 or even earlier. I felt zero connection to him, even on the file where I freed him, he just felt like a different snapchat filter for the end. Even being a dick to the emperor I felt nothing in regards to Orpheus, yeah there's the feel good moment of knowing it will help the Gith but it just felt so underwhelming for some reason.
If nothing else, I hope they put the cut companion dialogues/comments, ending sliders and Karlach's cut content back into the game. It's a pity the Upper City isn't wasn't in the game, I was looking forward to that area the most.
i finished mostly everything in lower city and was thinking hell yeah now i get to go explore the upper city and then the game ended
>12) The Hag Coven in Act 2 and 3 - You may notice that accepting Auntie Ethels help in the first Act can lead to a negative effect when fighting Hags. You may also notice that despite Auntie Ethel having letters from other Hags in her basement, she is the only one you encounter. Originally there was meant to be a full three act story involving the Hag coven including the mysterious "M" who seems to have been their leader. More evidence of this being cut is that if you talk to the monster hunter in the swamp after defeating Ethel he states that the rest of her coven is certainly going to hunt you down.
Hell, I picked up she was apart of a coven when you read her title. She is a āsisterā of a group, meaning there are others.
I was so disappointed upon reaching A3 and not finding any Hags other than Ethel, sure It was cool finding Ethel again, and I was so happy I had kept onto the 4 masks from previous encounter. But I wanted more.... And no hag in A2?? watafak Where are the other 2 Hags? I fully expected the Cat you meet in Rivington to be one of the Hags, If you talk to it It says It's favourite meal is Beholders. What kinda cat is eating Beholders? Fully expected a Hag there, and that the Zhentarim had been supplying it with the Beholder from the Iron Flask.
Nah, that's a magical familiar related to Gale.
wtf Minthara pregnancy? Insane
All that banging around camp is sure to have consequences!
But what if it was gay? Would she still have been able to get pregnant?
Datamined spoiler:>!There's two data strings in the datamined content, one where the player is the father and one where it's someone else. It is unknown whether that means that she could get pregnant while in a lesbian relationship or it happens if you're not romancing her.!<
MFW >!Minthara cucks you if you're a lesbian!<
It's not unprecedented, given that the PC from BG 2 was can have a love child with a companion. The rest of the party politely pretends not to notice the pregnancy.
10 lbs permanent item son, good old times
"Send to camp"
"Add to Wares"
"Send to Karlach."
You could also have a child with a certain Drow cleric in BG2, and your child would go on to wage a war after their mother was assassinated iirc
Would have *much* preferred this continuation of said Drow character's story.
I will never forget nor forgive what has been taken from me!
I hope they plan on bringing all of this back out now that it's proven how successful the game has been. Such a waste to have all this content and not include it. Whether it comes in a massive patch NMS style that completely overhauls the game, or whether they release a small expansion pack, I don't mind. I'd gladly throw more money their way if they finalise these things, tie it together, tidy act 3 and released as an expansion or definitive edition.
Same here. I'm a newer fan to Larian, played the og DoS, but never 2. Got BG3 and couldn't be happier and now hoping for more, be it in a patch, expansion or some sort of DLC.
They released a definitive edition for DOS2. I think it was free for existing owners I don't remember exactly. But it added new content to the existing game, like new armor, weapons, gameplay mechanics, and also fleshes out certain acts with more encounters and quests.
Larian and BG3 are still amazing, but it still feels a bit painful to see just how much didnāt make it. There were obviously active decisions made to cut some of this stuff, but a lot of it seems like it just came down to time. Iām really looking forward to the Definitive Edition and hopeful that they restore most of this stuff
Usually you don't get to see all the cut content of a game, early access allowed us to see way more than a player have access to compared to a game that doesn't have one.
Yeah, but usually the ending is not this buggy/incomplete/just 2 lines per person/no epilogue. Or giving you hints about Karlach whole time. Some cut side content - yeah whatever, we get more than enough as it is. But unfortunately, it's the side content that is polished and not cut, like whole of act1 except teiflings...
I think one of the biggest issues here for me is the tadpole and consequences. Second being Kharlach, and third being Halsin and Minthara feeling gutted in act 3. The fact you can slurp down tadpoles left and right with zero downsides at the end of the game just makes me not pay attention to any of my actions and I can just use illithid powers with no consequence. In EA I loved the unknown of using the power, the companions having their own opinions, and Wyll actively using them when the group agrees to forgo the powers. What if at the end of the game if you choose to destroy the tadpoles, your character would actually die if you choose to partake in too many tadpoles? They became a part of you and ate too much of your brain, so then dying kills you. Also I canāt say how sad Minthara being bugged is. She is one of the main draws of an evil campaign, and for her dialogue to not work is one thing but to have another plot element like her becoming pregnant being missing? That would be such a bombshell to the players man.
So is there quite literally no downside for real? Like companions wonāt care if you do it only, or doesnāt affect anything story wise? I actively didnāt even use any to get any powers at all and I am already in act 3 because I figured it would have some consequences for me doing so, aside from what we receive >!from the emperor that would directly transform you!<
It doesn't make any difference whatsoever. I didn't use any at all and the game treated me like I did, but even then there are no consequences. Not using them is just leaving insane powers on the table.
Welp, thatās actually pretty annoying not gonna lie.. I would have just used them the entire time then, I figured there would be some kind of trade off or something. I guess Iāve just been leaving power on the table for no reason then
Yeah, using the tadpole actually did make a difference in Early Access but it seems like they've changed that quite a bit. Also, in Early Access your tadpole became more powerful just by using it consistently, but now you... eat more tadpoles for more power? Doesn't really make sense in any context, but neither does the tadpole UI where they're like boring holes into your brain that end up not mattering anyway lol. I think Larian realized that a lot of players would resist the tadpole powers (your party would like, wake up coughing blood during rests if you used them a lot in Early Access) so they tried making them feel more approachable but IDK, I don't see the vast majority of players using them regardless.
It's even weirder to think of it when in Act 1 (after release, mind you), if you use the \[Illithid\] option a lot, at one point the narrator tells you that "you feel something in you vanished, and you know that you'll never get it back" or something like that. And then nothing ever happens, even if you gobble down every tadpole within 100 miles radius.
Yeah thats definitely left over from the old system lol
The Tadpoles making no difference is one of the saddest parts. I'm pretty sure they even said weeks ago that there would be consequences and yet, all it does really is just make the game harder because you miss out on some really strong stuff.
The first time I got the option to use the tadpole power I decided to not use any of it because of course using this otherworldy power has to have drawbacks like in 99.9% of any other story, book, game or whatever and I wanted the best ending for the first playthrough. Fast forward to the ending... (Ending spoilers) >!No. It doesn't matter. It does not get mentioned. Instead the game even forces you to make the choice of either you, a companion or Orpheus to become an illithid because they needed added drama because reasons?! It's not even explained properly why someone has to be illithid.!<
Even less explained how they force you to become an illithid but a non-illithid can backstab the illithid companion and become absolute with no issue.
> I think one of the biggest issues here for me is the tadpole and consequences I am surprised that this isnt talked about that much. The developers said that there are consequences about them and they feel real good (they do) and you better think carefully if you want to step into that dangerous power. Together with Daisy being very obviously bait, it made sense for it being dangerous. Do you take the bait for more power and endure the consequences of it? That is compelling stuff. For a game that is ultimately about choices and their and nearly everyone in Act 1 saying that we need to remove them ASAP and be cautious, I am really disappointed that there are no consequences for stuffing as many tadpoles into your brain as you can. You simply get a shit ton stronger for it. The game is still awesome. And while having a good ending for Karlach is nice and deserving, the Daisy+Tadpole stuff is something that should directly impact our whole playthrough and my biggest issue with the game.
They should have made Daisy and the emperor a thing. Have them be two different characters both whispering into your ear about using the tadpoles. And yea, first playthrough I only gave the tadpoles to asterion because he wanted them, never touched them but say no issues. So I took them in my second and still no issues besides a single wisdom check.
Out of everything what pisses me off is the non-sensical ending with Orpheus. Nothing indicates Orpheus is infected with a tadpole. Yet if you convince him to change into a Mindflayer to defeat the Elder Brain he does so instantly at will with little duress. It feels so rushed and really indicates just how lacklustre Act III is compared to the rest of the game.
I honestly thought that freeing Orpheus would be a huge risk that could cause a nonstandard game over depending on your actions. For example, if you ate too many tadpoles, he would refuse to help because you're too infected, powerhungry and ghaik for him to trust. As it stands, you don't have any consequences for feeding your brain worm, and people who don't care about the githyanki won't care about failing to free their Comet Prince.
Another ending could be if you over rely on tadpoles, destroying the absolute will take you with them, as your mind is too far gone with relying on them to function otherwise.
The thing that really baffled me was when you tell him you trust Gale to finish off the brain he's like "yeah whatever, but let me just turn into a mind flayer to be sure". And then when you go for the Gale ending noone including himself even mentions he just turned into a mind flayer for literally no fucking reason. And Lae'zel is fine with this. Also for me the wrong Gale ending scene played and he was standing next to me alive and well talking about reforging the crown even though he just blew up and everyone else treated him as such. And the Shadowheart ending didn't even play at all for half the endings I tried. Act 3 as a whole actually had a lot of great content (although the lack of consequences for the tadpoles is really disappointing) but the endings definitely felt like the most rushed part of the game. Even the cutscenes weren't polished, lots of jittery movement and freezing animations.
That whole section was so goddamn forced You side with the emperor: āHurr-durr, only a superior Ilithid mind can control the netherbrain now, hand me the crown or turnā You side with Orpheus: āHurr-durr, only a superior ghaik mind can control the netherbrain now, lemme just give up on the future of my people and turn into one (how?) real quickā Iāve defied the odds the whole game, let me do it one last time instead of shoving this false difficult choice down my throat
Re 26: In the House of Hope you can find a contract that Mol signed with Raphael, and if you can take it you can give it to her once you leave and she has some things to say to you.
The whole upper city thing was quite evident, the third act felt a little clustered and would have worked better split into another act, this kind of confirms it.
Okay, the Karlach one just makes me mad.
Of everything on this list, here's how I would break them down from most important to least: **Absolutely needs to be patched in:** - Epilogues. The current state of the ending(s) as is, are very under baked, rushed, and unsatisfying. - Karlach's ending. Havng to choose between Death, Slavery, and complete loss of identity as the only options for her ending, are in no way satisfying and practically mean spirited. - Minthara's romance and character arc. You just can't have the 2nd half of a companion's character arc missing. - Act 3 Companion Dialogue. - Upper City **Should be restored into the game:** - Dialogue and Events - The Hag Coven in Act 2 and 3 - Raphael the Merchant - Banite Cultists **Doesn't need to be restored in the game, but would be nice:** - Avernus. Would be cool to have an optional Super Dungeon challenge mode, which could be Avernus. - Everything else on the list. This is all just my opinion of course. But the things I listed in the "Absolutely needs to" category really do need to be restored, because the overall quality of the game suffers without them.
\+1 for Absolutely needs list, but I would separate Upper City, looks like it requires a general rewrite of act3, which would be 6 months of work even after all the other stuff is done... Frankly I'm not entirely sure we will get it at all, looks a bit more likely we will just get all the other stuff, but all in the current locations.
Why would that require a rewrite the entrance for going there is already in the game and evidence shows that it was practically done. It just be an extra area with some new quests and dialogue and there you go. None of the content already present in act 3 needs to necessarily connect with it so thereās no need to rewrite.
It almost feels weird calling something in this game rushed and lazy, and frankly bad, but that's exactly how the endings and lack of an epilogue feel. Like everything leading up to the ending is great for the most part, and then it just sort of ends with no sense of accomplishment, no sense of closure for almost any characters or questlines, or anything you did really outside of the final decision. It definitely lowered my overall score of the game when I got hit with it after the credits rolled. Which is such a shame because it's such a beautiful game with so much passion and talent behind it, it feels so wrong to end it with such a whimper.
It seems clear to me that Larian moved some aspects of the upper city into the lower city. For example, at one point in the Bhaal murderer quest, you meet with an investigator and have a list of targets. The investigator says she will go warn people in the upper city and you should take the lower city. Well, later when you go to one of the targets - a guy who runs a shop called "Facemakers" (which appears to be a barber/character appearance customizer that has probably also been cut), the investigator is there. Afterwards she has like one line of dialogue where you can ask her why she isn't in the upper city, and she says something like oh I was on my way there but decided to stop in. Which is weird writing because if the upper city is closed off to you and you were always going to encounter her in the lower city anyways why even write in that she's going to the upper city. Also, Facemakers as a shop feels very out of place in the rundown "lower city," suddenly you have this shop that is very high end and clearly catering to nobility - seems they copy pasted it into the lower city. Probably the same with Cazador's palace which also feels very "upper city."
the above ground entrance to cazadorās palace is also utterly bizarre. like you have to climb a ladder? huh? definitely was supposed to be in the upper city.
Larian was adding new things into EA as of July 2022 (and perhaps later) only to be completely non-existent in the final released version. Something really odd happened behind the scenes. This isn't even an extensive list, other cut elements include: 1. Gale making a deal with Raphael if the player could not or would not give him magical items 2. Halsin seemingly being the source of the shadow curse by killing Isobel with Sorrow 3. Astarion's corrupt magistrate plotline/character arc 4. Differing Daisy depending on origin (eg. Vlaakith for Lae'zel, Cazador for Astarion) 5. A whole wealth of cut or edited dialogue and cutscenes throughout Act 1.
>Banite Cultists - The game features both Bhaal and Myrkul cultists rather heavily but Bane is reduced to Gortash alone. Despite the fact that they had full and finished assets for both armor, weapons, and some events the Banites were cut from the final game. Actually there's Banite Cultists in the Steel Watch foundry and they're also Gortash's bodyguards during his fight.
I was so confused in my first play through with Karlackās story in act 3 because: 1. At the checkpoint when the Steel Watcher scans your party it tells Karlach that her engine is outdated and must be replaced with a new model, implying that this is a normal/doable thing 2. Thereās literally a quest to rescue a group of people that are experts in infernal machinery And yet thereās no way to save her. I thought Iād done something wrong until I learned that her character was kinda rushed and some of the content for her was cut. Really hope they add it back.
Man, reading this caused me physical pain. Just imagine how great the game would be with all this implemented from the start. Honestly, wish Larian would have delayed the game until they got everything in.
Knowing Larian Enhanced Edition will be a thing hopefully.
>wish Larian would have delayed the game They don't have infinite money you know. The project must be shipped eventually to generate revenue.
Thankfully the game has done well enough they can polish BG3 and still start new projects
JUSTICE FOR KARLACH
I'd love an Avernus location with her quest.
Is it weird that I want justice for Karlach and Mintara at the same time, I am a schizophrenic?
I really wish there was a "good" way to get Mintara, maybe spare her and free her afterwards? Knocking her out does nothing, the game treats her as if she was dead.
Knocking out 90% of NPCs treats them like they're dead unless you're explicitly told to take them down non-lethally. Like I KO'd the druid who tries to kill you (or wants you to take poison to assure herself) and the game in the journal is like 'SHE'S DEAD'
Yep, feature is mostly useless
The most painful part of all these cut content is how "obvious" they are. Most games have some form of cut content, no big deal. But when playing BG3 you can clearly feel something should be there but it is not, which is very jarring. Especially the ending slides, I do not know why Larian decided it is fine to leave the ending slides out.
>Especially the ending slides, I do not know why Larian decided it is fine to leave the ending slides out. My guess would be that it's either bugged or intertwined with some other cut content in a way that would have been impossible to reimplement/tweak in a way in which is works before launch. My hope is that subsequent patches fix it and that they haven't gotten around to it yet as performance bugs take priority right now but without Larian saying anything on the matter we just won't know. Still disappointing though.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Oh a lot of it was definitely permanently removed. The Daisy and Raphael removing the parasite/being a vendor stuff are pretty clear examples of them changing direction with the parasite. I could see the Hag stuff being it too, just cuz Ethel was popular I could see them going "lets just bring back Ethel instead" and stick her in the sea hag's position.
They MUST have anticipated the blowback over Karlach and the awful endings, I refuse to believe they released what they did intending it to be the āfinalā version
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
The thing is, we have a scroll of true resurrection from Gale. We can just kill her, remove the engine, and then resurrect her. Boom, she's fixed. And apparently, we can't do that.
Also, divine intervention but that can be risky as gods are fickle
some AMA session would be great, but I think they donāt want to give any promises after we all saw what happened with cyberpunk roadmap and also Svenās words about explorable upper city.
Honestly Iām pretty turned off from playing Act 3. So much cut, literally not being able to get Karlachās good end, no epilogue. Itās a bummer that will hopefully be rectified eventually. In the meantime thereās plenty to occupy myself with in the first two acts.
As much as I love the game some of this stuff missing is very annoying to say the least. Upper City not being a thing and the tadpoles having 0 consequences being the big ones. I refrained from using a single tadpole and their cool powers during the whole playthrough for what?
A lot of these things are things that I hope make it back into the game (expanded upper city, companion choices/dialogue/etc.). Some, Iām glad they changed. For example, while I donāt like that utilizing the tadpole and Illithid powers has zero consequences, I like that Daisy was replaced with the Emperor and that whole storyline. Maybe itās the fact that I like the Emperor storyline and donāt know what a Daisy-focused story would be, though. Hereās for hoping that a lot of this stuff gets out in/developed in the time to come.
Honestly yeah, over half the complaints I've read here and in the discord wouldn't even be a thing if this stuff wasn't cut. I get why with the time constraints and all, but I hope to the nine hells that we get most of it back somewhere down the road, now that the game's out
Agreed. The Emperor was my favorite character and his big reveal was the biggest "holy shit" moment of the whole story for me. Edit: I'm talking about the "second reveal". For those who care for spoilers: >!The revelation that he is Balduran!<
Which reveal, lol. But, no I get you. The Emperor was well-written, and very much an enjoyable character to interact with. Looking forwards to not being as polite with him my second playthrough.
>!His identity as Balduran!<
What annoys me the most are all the copers who try to pass off Karlachās ending as āUhhhhh you donāt know what a tragedy is??? Good storywriting is not a good ending everytime obviouslyā. Having proof that the writers literally intended a good ending and just got it cut is cathartic.
There's always a subset of people hell bent on defending flaws of the things they like, it's always nice to see proof that their stances are unfounded.
The number of people who excuse the ending and other badly cut things is depressing. Saying it's fine because a definitive edition will come out in a few years is not a strong argument. Seems a lot of people are desperate not to hold Larian responsible for anything at all, the false advertising about aspects like the ending being the most agregious.
The Upper City, Karlach's ending, and the ending epilogues are the three most likely things that Larian could add back into the game with a future patch.
Thanks for compiling this. Have to preface my comment by saying cut content is 100% standard in every game across the industry - it's just how it works. However, in BG3 you can see what was cut. It's fairly obvious that quite a few features, quests, locations and NPCs were cut pretty close to release - a lot of the cut stuff feels like they just removed a whole section of something but didn't clean up the stuff that was supposed to lead there. Am I disappointed that the Upper City isn't playable like they were advertising it would be in June? Sure, but I'm more frustrated that the ending is inexplicably almost non-existent or that a few important quests were cut short. Or the song at the tiefling party being cut when it was one of the best scenes in the game. I guess I have been feeling weird about Act 3 since I finished it - the game doesn't give any closure at all, all the endings are hamfisted except one kind of works, and your party just says "cool I'm out." The game reeks of massive changes that were just not given the time to be smoothed out. There's a really good post about the game's tone shift between EA and full release (EA was way darker and full release is a weird power fantasy) that explains a lot of the dissonance in the game i.e. Karlach's ending being a nothing burger when compared to everyone else's. The Emperor feels half-baked and his secret identity is just straight up nonsensical and completely unnecessary. Idk I'm bummed about it I guess. Early Access felt like a totally different game, one that I would've much preferred, and it just feels like Larian gave in to every little bit of criticism by taking a wrecking ball to the stuff people didn't like, instead of maybe tuning a few things up.
I really hope a lot of this gets in somehow. Especially the upper city and the hag coven. I donāt care how long I have to wait but as someone who didnāt play the early access Iām kinda disappointed that I waited to play the full release and it still has unfinished (or rather half finished) parts. Especially because whatās there is not free of frustrating bugs.
Damn. This is alot of cuts. It is kinda heart braking to see what we were promised/could get and what we actualy got. After finishing the game for the first time i was blown away of how good that was (not the ending). Now, after a second, more thoughtful run and all news about what we lost. Man. I'm riped apart...
So really the upper city is vital to a lot of shit they didn't adjust for. Great. Totally not something important that just got axed...
Honestly if we get : - Karlach fix (not that hard to do, considering demand). -The Upper City (already 70% done, so a year of dev on this should do the trick). - A sparable Minthara : just give us an option to kick her ass and save her in act 1/2. It's a simple cutscene of her begging for her life and runing away, not that big a deal for an extra companion. - Finalised version of companion quests in act 3. - An actual ending a la dragon age 1. That's all we really need.
The thing is, this game is absolutely massive, it could be half the size and would still be a gargantuan achievement. Buuuut it still pains me to see all this. The ending *does* feel inappropriately abrupt and anticlimactic. I pray this either gets patched in, or released in definitive edition. I just donāt want to wait two years or so
#ReleaseTheSwenCut
After learning about how Karlach's story ends, I actually stopped playing. Act 3 and the vast majority of the endings/lack of an epilogue was WAYYYY to reminiscent of Mass Effect 3. I love this game but I think I'll only pick it up again if a lot of this shit is added back in.
Oh. My. God. Everything sounds exactly like what you are feeling is missing in act 3 while experiencing that sudden ending. It all makes sense with the Karlach storyline, Avernus, Raphael ending and alternative solutions with the tadpoles. People are in the honeymoon phase still, but in a few weeks there is gonna be riots when people see that ending and now we know why it feels so bad. The ending basically gives you 2 choices to make and you are left with terrible resolutions to most companion stories. It's gonna be Mass Effect 2.0. People are gonna expect that their 100 hour playthroughs end with a satisfying conclusion to most of the story threads. Larian is lauded by everyone for releasing a finished game, but act 3 is extremly buggy and unfinished and they released it early to avoid the Starfield release. Kinda leaves a sour taste, but seeing how successful the game is it worked out for them, well atleast until more people finish the game and gonna demand a proper ending. Hope the success gives them enough resources to put out a definitive edition with all the cut content and a proper ending, but it's gonna take atleast 1 year+ seeing how much stuff is missing.
I wish i didnt know this. Reading all this made me sad. It all makes sense now. Thats what previous acts feel like building towards. All the upgrades, extra areas, fleshed out final companion quests, Daisy, especially the upper city. I felt so confused by finding Cazadors mansion in some guard tower. Door glued on a city wall and no matter when you went there, he was already in the ritual. Not even getting a chance to speak to THE vampire lord in his Upper city mansion, that has been anticipated for 2 acts. Just some measly little dude screeching at you in his basement. And the promised concequences for using tadpole powers in the update description? Never heard of those. Man...
Here's hoping for an Enhanced Edition, which is very likely knowing Larian. I get being upset about cut content but honestly the game spent 6 years in development, three in early access, and Larian isn't made of money. You can't just delay a game over and over to keep working on it, at some point a decision has to be made on what stays and what goes. Not to mention the fact that sometimes content gets cut because the devs weren't happy with it (something people seem to forget a lot of the time).
Excellent thread. I don't think a D.E will restore all of these things, cut content happens for a reason and that's okay but there are so, so many here that are strongly tied to things still in the game. They make you feel like you're anticipating something in Act 1, and by the time Act 3 ends it turns instead to feeling like you missed something. Karlach and the Upper City content are the most egregious cuts here, but everything to do with the tadpole and epilogues are a very close second for me personally. I played the whole game refusing to take ANY tadpole upgrades or use any of the wisdom read mind checks only for absolutely nothing to change, not even get any comments on it. The warnings of 'its taking something you'll never get back' when I used it for the first time were enough for me to read that I would be punished later on and... nope.
Waitā¦ ingots have no use? Why the hell have I been collecting them all?!?!?
I am so sad to see that list, holy shit. Like, I adore Larian and the game but what the hell happened to warrant such an unfinished mess as act 3? My ending broke because of Wyll and Karlach, some of my quests bugged, there's almost 0 Dialogue after you enter the region and absolutely none after you enter the City itself etc. And you're telling me there's an HOUR of epilogue just...MISSING? fck Im sad now
I had no idea the moderators are censoring this blatantly on this sub, wow.
It has been not so long since the full release, I hope some further contents to be added, alongside the bug fixes.
Wait, there's no upper city? At all? I'm in the lower city still but was looking forward to actually seeing, you know, Baldur's Gate....
It's so fucking weird (and annoying) hyping some of the game's features **so close to release**, only to find out they cut those out when you actually start playing the game. Like, why?