How Baldur's Gate 3 Tricks the Player

[@XPtoLevel3]

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[@overdrive7349]

This was a great analysis video. Just found out the new rulebooks are going to come in September. What are your plans for it?

[@grbe22]

i gotta say the meals you showcased looked more edible than the last time i saw you with a factor sponsor

[@Purple_Lilith]

Starts doing the math. Eh, I think I stay with the stores in walking distance.

[@snowvix8902]

@@Purple_Lilith for me, the money is worth not having to invest extra time into cooking on my work days.

[@andyv8624]

Alternatively, I died very quickly in Fallout New Vegas because literally everyone told me not to go north.

[@crulius.pontanian]

Yep... and I was like oh look at those small bugs, alright vermin rifle do your thing. *0.9 seconds later* My character is dead and I have no clue what happened.

[@crayondevourer2267]

"You feel a little woozy"

[@glassphoenix9095]

sounds like someone wasn't the meanest, roughest, toughest sonuvabitch in the mojave

[@Flufferpup]

This also has merit I feel. It's not a hard progression blocker, you can figure out a way around it with determination or a stealth boy. But if you do end up dying, you learn that the wasteland is a harsh place and that simply returning later is a valid option.

[@adfdasdfadfadsfareae]

​@@Flufferpupit's perfect. no invisible wall blocking you, no impossible challenge, just a really irritating deterrent to make you say "fine, I'll go around and do it the 'proper' way"

[@nickeel8401]

For a good chunk of act 1 I didn't long rest at all cus all the characters were stressing the urgency of finding a healer in 3-5 days. So i bum rushed everything

[@quiestinliteris]

Yeah, I also had an issue with missing content because they kept telling me not to long rest. When I downloaded the Camp Event Alert mod, I was FLOORED by how much I hadn't seen. That damn notification was popping up like every half hour of gameplay in Act 1. Turned out my first three playthroughs I had missed roughly 70% of camp events. @_@

[@courier6960]

Yeah for me it was because Kagha says that they’ll complete the ritual to block out the teiflings by tomorrow, when it turns out there is no time sensitivity on this quest. It’s just another weird relationship this game has with time, and as such it makes it way more awkward, random, and annoying when something random DOES have time sensitive aspects.

[@quiestinliteris]

@@courier6960 Basically it simply won't happen unless you either specifically work to make it happen or ignore most of Act 1 completely and enter Act 2 without killing all the goblin leaders, investigating Kagha, freeing Halsin so he'll give her the third degree, stealing the idol... Basically just ignore the goblins and the Grove, and when you travel back out of Act 2, the Grove will be sealed. Also if you murder all the tieflings for Kagha, but I think most people on an evil run are more likely to attack everyone in the Grove with Minthara. Either way, I'm pretty sure it only triggers once you enter Act 2, not during an Act 1 long rest, but I'll have to test that.

[@benja1378]

Same, but it's honestly amazing for your next playthroughs ❤ I literally got to kinda play the game again for the first (actual second) time as I didn't even find the whole area with Karlach or the Mountain pass before :))

[@64bitrobot]

I also missed a ton of camp event content, not because I felt like I was in a time sensitivity, but just because I was trying my best to push my adventuring day as hard as possible. I wanted to do as much as I could between long rests as a challenge to myself. Unfortunate that I probably missed out on a *lot* because of that. It's probably better to just rest like a wizard; blow all your slots in one fight, long rest, and continue.

[@ethanbowman4748]

damn, the i just realized the real reason why I go to raphaels home in act 3, is because the dream companion tells me not to

[@ultrabigfella]

Fr, once we found out who Empy is I started doing anything he dissuades against.

[@symbiotesoda1148]

Oh I just did it because I had been wanting to kill him since I first met him.

[@FirekingBarong]

I just wanted a hard fight, nothing before him was a challenge on regular difficulty ^^ On honor i thought more than thrice about that decision now xD

[@TheKillaShow]

I went because I wasnt missing content just cause the very suspicious guy said it would be a bad idea.

[@helixmoss9957]

[SPOILERS] It's very strange, I got into The House of Hope all by myself with no hints, I had no idea about the hammer being kept there because I sided with the emperor and if there were hints about it I did some series of events that avoided them. I found the magic store with the golden fiends inside just by chance wandering around Baldur's Gate and picked up on the clues from the note you find on the shopkeepers corpse (I fought her because I tried to steal from her and then got caught). Upon getting the hammer, the Emperor told me "I broke his trust" for goingt here and getting the hammer even though I had no idea what it was even for. The whole reason I went to The House of Hope was because I wanted to kill Raphael for being a bastard

[@Spectingthemvoid]

"So, how did you find withers" "I don't know I didn't find him" "Yo the baby owlbear was so cool right?" "I don't know I didn't find it" "Man the creche blowing up was cool wasn't it?" "I DONT KNOW, I DIDNT FIGURE OUT HOW TO DO THAT"

[@DefaultSeaTurtle]

I missed the area with Withers, so he just appeared in camp with no explanation. I was like "Who is this man!?"

[@Spectingthemvoid]

@DefaultSeaTurtle same I was like "ah so this is the games way of bringing back dead guys. Alright" DUDE HAD SO MUCH MORE STORY THEN I THOUGHT

[@tobiasbayer4866]

​@@DefaultSeaTurtle I first found Withers in his little side room while camping in the goblin camp. And even at other campsites hes usually a bit off to the side so I literally questioned myself If he had just always been there and I just hadnt noticed.

[@mentalkitty789]

I actually completely missed the underdark (like I didn't even find the entrance) on my playthrough and went into the mountain pass. It is hilarious to me how I missed a massive zone.

[@numnutsforever4115]

Meaning you figured out how to not blow it up actually

[@jaffarebellion292]

"Don't go there. It's dangerous" "I SEE THROUGH THE LIES OF THE JEDI!"

[@Darth_Sheepus_the_wise]

“I DON’T FEAR THE DARK SIDE AS YOU DO!”

[@jaffarebellion292]

@Darth_Sheepus_the_wise "I HAVE BROUGHT PEACE, FREEDOM, JUSTICE, AND SECURITY TO MY NEW EMPIRE!"

[@DannyMakesVideosIGuess]

@@jaffarebellion292 Your new Empire?!

[@AdamLindgrenComposer]

@@DannyMakesVideosIGuess Anakin, your allegiance is to the Republic; To DEMOCRASAAAY!!!

[@darklone999]

​@@AdamLindgrenComposer If you're not with me... then you are my enemy.

[@dezdanna9297]

While I agree with the reverse psychology aspect, I don't understand the idea that players would be trying to "outsmart" the game, if a character that's giving me conflicting information tells me not to do something I personally don't think "hee hee the devs don't want me to do this" I think "So they're probably lying to me and I should check that out just in case."

[@ryanstewart2289]

People trying to outsmart the game is actually a vital component of game design. It's called QA testing.

[@kangazoos2083]

I mean, the end result is the same, it's just perspective that you're describing.

[@tinycatfriend]

oh yeah i think this too, but going against what that specific character wants me to do is just as fun, which is great game design. like yeah the game obviously wanted me to go to the house of hope, but yknow what i enjoyed most about it? going "FUCK YOU EMPEROR I DO WHAT I WANT!!!!!"

[@garjian0]

For me it's just that it's simple curiousity. There's content, so let's go and see what it is.

[@KaitouKaiju]

There are people who do nothing but look for ways to exploit or sequence break games

[@GerbyMcGerbs]

I nearly missed going that way because the message for the Underdark and the mountain pass are the same. Implying that I can not come back.

[@Tuskbumper]

YES this happened to me too lol

[@inmanis2924]

yup, same. i thought it was the way to the entire next Act and didn’t want to miss stuff. turns out i missed lots by not taking the pass LMAO. very badly worded and designed there

[@FirekingBarong]

Thats the neat part, would it have made the playthrough worse? If you would miss build specific items, maaaaybe, but missing something in BG3 often means you didnt even know it existed beforehand. There is a reason why we say Dumb but happy, what you dont know cant make you break your head over it ^^ This also gives you the chance to experience multiple playthroughs who are never the same, wich for such a huge game as BG3 is something very,very positiv ^^

[@inmanis2924]

@gedox6523 … yes, yes it does make your playthrough actively worse. you miss an entire section of content, including storyline that is KEY to lae’zel’s backstory and motivations. missing it ACTIVELY detracts from your understanding and experience of the game.

[@FirekingBarong]

@@inmanis2924 I disagree, since you wouldnt even know that without Laezel in your party. You wouldnt know you missed it entirely, and without knowledge there is nothing to worry about. Did i knew you can de-stone the guy in the hags room without him dying instantly on my first playthrough? No. Was i mad i missed the dialogue? No, since i didnt even know he could survive.. ^^ Edit: My first group didnt ascend Astarion since he was at camp 24/7 and i ignored him, missing his story made nothing worse, it made my 2nd and 3rd and 4th playthrough better even, since you can experience an entirely different story now.

[@jacka7275]

When the dream companion said “do not go to the githyanki” my first thoughthought was: why are you biased? Compelling narrative!

[@quiestinliteris]

They are canonically authoritarian, militaristic, imperialist lawful evil, so the assumption was fair. However, Lae'zel had already bucked tradition by being willing to work with a non-gith Tav at all, even to get out of an impossible situation, so I was working with the mindset of "Clearly not all of them are like that, but I only know that because of my extremely rare experience, so maybe the Dream Visitor will come around as they see more of me and Lae'zel working together." And then there was the reveal, and I was like "...oh. Guess that explains that."

[@drizzmatec]

​@@quiestinliterisSee knowing what I know about Githyanki lore from older editions I immediately trusted Lae'zel when it came to mind flayers because if there is a anyone in this ragtag band of misfits (and Asterions dead corpse because he keeps mysteriously falling onto my weapons after pulling a knife on me) who may have access to a possible cure to transforming into a illithid it's probably the lady whose entire species and culture has devoted itself to wiping out the mind flayers.

[@demnwarrior7]

​@@drizzmatec knowing that their entire culture is built around the killing of ilithids lead me to believe the cure they offer is in fact just them deciding to kill you, which circles back to me not trusting lae'zel.

[@KasumiRINA]

Nah, my first thought was that githyanki, an always evil faction of mass murdering imperialists that attack everyone on sight, will try to kill me - and they did. Everyone saying that going through Underdark would be easier is right. There isn't even a hard forced fight like the Inquisitor there.

[@KasumiRINA]

​@@quiestinliteris but githyanki in creche absolutely confirm that they are exactly how Dak'kon explained them: a group of gith who decided to roleplay as astral Hitler. There's ONE, literally just a single guy there who isn't a murder hobo as even githyanki kids get off on torturing animals. He clues on another faction within them and Voss (carefully protected by the game when he was working undercover) is leading it. But emperor was absoluty right, they WILL try to kill you if you show them the prism. What he doesn't tell you is that the protection in it is from Orpheus, until later.

[@Slowpoke3x]

the most clever shit Larian studios does was let you design your "Guardian" your secretly giving the game a great tool. A face that you trust and appeals to you specifically. It uses that against you , made it really hard to doubt your guardian. And turns out that was the master plan all along , to gain your trust and support. I thought i was creating a wifu, bbut how wrong I was.

[@cyberninjazero5659]

The first time a game makes you Catfish yourself

[@demnwarrior7]

Doesn't work so well when everyone I know who plays the game tells me the guardian creation doesn't matter.

[@himedo1512]

Doesn't really work when its just like "who tf is this" and don't really bother customizing. Which, is the majority of experience with the guardian.

[@dennishallada890]

​@@himedo1512As a serial randomizer, I can confirm it doesn't really work like that for me

[@vexfidel4127]

Perhaps not a waifu to you, but-

[@erykjankowski6152]

Jacob: It's reverse psychology Me: There's a ton of XP there. I have no other reason

[@SuperUnnamedplayer]

The old saying about videogames "If you're facing enemies, you're going the right way" is all too true in BG3

[@travisdacon9480]

My favorite example of this is when Raphael offers you a deal in act three for a magic item, and everyone tells you to sign his evil contract cause you have no other choice, but you can just pull a Davy Jones key stealing maneuver and break into his house once he tells you where it’s hidden.

[@r0gueb3th]

Karlach gave me the idea to break in!! She mentioned something about us knowing where it is now because Ralphy got loose lips!! I literally love this game so much lol

[@Slowpoke3x]

I actually don't get why they put so much emphasis on Raphael. Your only forced to deal with him if your throwing every opportunity away because of paranoia. Like its incredibly easy to just not deal with him and be fine. Hell I didn't even really need to Hammer but I stole it just to make Lazeal feel good.

[@travisdacon9480]

@@r0gueb3th I never had Wyll or Karlach on my first playthrough :( I ended up with Laezel, Astarion, Gale, and my Character. I sided with Laezel after failing the check to stop her and shadowheart fighting, and I accidentally went to the githyanki area before saving halsin, so the grove got locked up, and I couldn't recruit halsin, wyll, or karlach. Still ended up being okay, cause I had a full party, but I missed quite a bit of stuff.

[@MsCrickBG3]

I've logged 1200 hours in this game and still haven't signed that contract yet. Someday... 😂

[@SebasTian58323]

​@@MsCrickBG3I signed it in my evil playthrough just to do and steal it back just to kill Raphael and ensure I was the only power in the sword Coast that mattered after I dominated the nether brain

[@FirekingBarong]

I myself played BG3 for 600 hours now, finished 2 honor runs (both solo&grouped) and i am astonished about how my best friend tends to ignore so many things, since his character wouldnt interact with it. Like, once he started playing for 10 minutes, he gets completly involved and basicly gets warped into his character. He literally, reads every book,note,talks to nps 3X just for smalltalk reasons and even picks his longrest food. I adore him for this, he still sees this as something more than a game, he still sees this as an EXPERIENCE! (to lvl3) If u ever feel exactly the same, you do something right. I sadly lost this way of experiencing BG3, its the same when you look behind the DM's screen, you will lose the integrety on the experience. Dont do the same mistake as me, experience BG3 and get involved in it.. ^^

[@quiestinliteris]

He sounds like a fun guy to play with.

[@craigsutherlin5264]

😢😮😮😅😮😮😮😅😅

[@KasumiRINA]

I don't read EVERY book but I skim them and check them off, small talk dialogue depends on how I am interested in NPC: every guard? No. But the tomboy who's out of breath and acting funny in vault? Absolutely.

[@AirLancer]

I mean any game's going to lose that initial magic after you play it several times and know what's coming up. Nothing's ever gonna match that first blind playthrough. The worst experience, I think, is when people ruin their first runs for themselves by looking things up.

[@quiestinliteris]

@@AirLancer My experience is probably the exception that proves the rule. It was literally the first video game I'd ever played, so my first run was largely wasted with *learning how to play a video game*. My second was so much better, but not as great as my first should have been if I'd been able to focus on exploration instead of basic functions.

[@ColonelMustache]

I never personally interpreted it as a game of the developers and players trying to outsmart each other. When characters tell me that one path is preferable and the other is dangerous, I interpret that as the game telling me “you have two paths, and one of them will probably be harder than the other.” Of course characters can lie or unexpected things can happen, but I never really felt like I was pulling one over on the devs or whatever. It’s a game with a bunch of choices, of course they expect some players to pick A and others to pick B.

[@TheSleepyGrove]

I‘m guilty of watching them but I absolutely hate these Baldur‘s Gate 3 related videos with meme music in the background and a title like “The devs thought we wouldn’t try this”. Yes… yes they did and that’s why your little maneuver worked, my guy…

[@KasumiRINA]

​@@TheSleepyGrove not only that, entire first act everyone is telling you go to the Moonrise, but the path to Shadow Cursed lands is full with signs that it's dangerous and that's RIGHT. They're not trucking you, and neither is Halsin who says the Underdark path is easier.

[@jonathanenciso]

Yeah i feel this more than what the video was talking about. Two paths to choice from? Well i have shadowheart in my company and i didnt care for lazeal story. So i went underdark. Once i was there though i didnt back track cause i did firmly believe it was an exclusive choice. In fact back tracking didn't even occur to me cause the game felt like it was telling me i could only pick one path. Which didnt even really bother me in the end. So i completely missed out on the mountain path content. In fact i missed out on a whole bunch of content. Mainly because its totally possible to just skip or back out of doing stuff.

[@tadferd4340]

My only issue with the camera is that I can't change elevation. I can fly! Let my fly up to that ledge!

[@nickrubin7312]

it is weird, because you can with "O" (going completely vertical) and then scrolling through levels on Y axis, but you can't with the pseudo-isometric view

[@tadferd4340]

@@nickrubin7312 Even the O view doesn't work in some places.

[@Pingviinimursu]

I died once because I couldn't move the camera up. Had a time limit to leave, needed to go up blocked stairs. Could have flown up there, but had no way to click on the higher floor 😂 turns out it was still cool even if I died there

[@KasumiRINA]

I installed WASD mod and free camera on my second launch of the game. Took a while to learn you can switch between panning and moving modes with Caps Lock.

[@ZacharyBelli]

@@tadferd4340you know what I’m about to say…that’s what she said

[@grudgebearer1404]

Nah, when i got to the mountain pass and saw the dragon i said "fuck it" and took the underdark. Reverse psychology isn't as effective with me

[@peachypet808]

That technically is also a wanted outcome. It all shapes your first playthrough and by extension the next

[@clothar23]

​@@peachypet808 Yeah OP sorely needs to realise these sort of things work no matter your choices.

[@jakob3044]

@@clothar23 Yes, they *sorely* need to realize that. That is quite vital. A really important step to a more fulfilling existence, for sure.

[@comyuse9103]

theres 'reverse psychology' and then there is 'putting a solid wall in the way.' dragon fights are a no no.

[@Doubleranged1]

@@peachypet808 but the game didnt steer you there. You can't ask head or tails and if someone picks something say: Haha! It was my intention for you to pick that! I disagree with Jacob in this video. Reverse psychology is not what made this game great. it is the opportunity to exercise your own creative freedom. The tag of reverse psychology is irrelevant.

[@andiesmiley]

What I appreciate is that, as a player who sees a "Do not enter" sign and goes "okay, best not to enter" (and almost missed Gale completely because of it), Larian accounts for us by adding a good narrative reason to do the creche instead of it just being this big lure for players who want to see how powerful they are or see what's so big and scary. Lae'zel isn't beloved to your companions, but they counter the emotional issue by making what she's suggesting a very reasonable and informed solution to your problem - so instead of it just being "The game's telling me not to go, so there's no real reason for my character to want to go except to see what's over there, which will probably kill us if we try" it's a much more compelling "There seem to be a lot of reasons not to go, but Lae'zel has been more informed on this issue than anyone else we've met, and she's had a consistent plan that hasn't changed right from the very beginning" and you have to decide if you trust her more than the Dream Visitor and why. There's very few of those choices that aren't double-led in some way - the circus gets players who want the reverse psychology with the ghoul, and then everyone else by making your companions excited to see the fun. One of the only things I couldn't justify at all was my lvl 1 character with 0 skill in magic approaching a malfunctioning waypoint that looked like it would blow up any second!!

[@sephikong8323]

The thing with the waypoint is something that is changed from EA that I don't understand why. In early access, the cutscene with Gale triggered if you got close to the waypoint, not if you interacted with it, which meant that it was way less likely that you would miss him. I was actually a bit befuddled on release day when I approached where he was and the cutscene didn't automatically trigger

[@CaseyShontz]

Yeah I totally missed him on my first playthrough and near the end of act 2 I was like “shouldn’t I have found gale by now?” so I had to look it up, and the malfunctioning waypoint was still there 😂

[@KasumiRINA]

I just see that her personal quest points there AND game's main quest (heal thyself and remove the tadpole) also does. Originally, you have two leads: druid and gith. There's also goblin priestess and other guys like Volo (later, Omeluum), who offer to remove tadpole but at the start, you're directed to grove and creche, I was surprised it took that long to get to the machine that (doesn't) remove it.

[@Necro_fury]

Ah yeah, was basically my first time playing a crpg/dnd and it told me the portal crackling with dangerous energy or something and i just said nop. Till i looked up how to get gale

[@valkyrie-randgris]

Glad to hear I wasn't the only one who, when faced with a "dangerous portal" in a brand new game, who's cruelty potential and cheap tricks level I don't yet know, opted NOT to fuck around with it before I even had the buttons memorized. (Now, the forgetting about it the instant it was out of my line of sight until Act 2 when I realized it was strange that I hadn't yet met this "Gale" guy I'd heard people mention? THAT was on me. >.>)

[@Canadian_Zac]

Something I love, is that you see a lot of examples of NPC's lying to you, or simply being wrong. A lot of people can fall into a trap of just believing everything NPC's say because 'well its the DM saying it so it must be true' But Larian made sure you find examples of NPC's being wrong, or giving bad advise. Right off the bat on the Nautiloid. Lae'Zel telling you to ignore Shadowheart. But you KNOW she's a companion. She's on the box. You MUST be able to recruit her. So it sets the bar early that NPC's wont always be telling you the truth, or even the best thing to do. So when you encounter things like the Dream Visitor, you aren't immediately trusting everything they say. When people tell you to go somewhere, you don't immediately assume that's a lead to interesting loot NPC's can and DO lie to you repeatedly throughout the game. Encouraging you to think things through on your own. Hell even the Narrator lies to you when you fail checks. So you can't even trust everything she says

[@quiestinliteris]

Lol, every human-people campaign I've ever participated in has established thoroughly that anyone who can appear in your dreams without your permission is Potentially Very Bad News, so the Dream Visitor already had their work cut out with me. I do wish, though, that my very first playthrough hadn't been with a very specific bug I've never seen anyone else mention - I couldn't turn off the option to show the DC for checks. I would much rather not always KNOW whether I succeeded or failed, especially things like insight or history. Of course, the narrator being like "You have no idea" would make it obvious, but I'd love for there to be occasions when you just wildly misread a situation or remember something completely wrong about an organization or artifact. Like IRL. If I fail an IRL insight check on my extremely hungry friend, I'm more likely to be like "Oh, damn, she's really pissed and it's probably my fault" rather than just being unaware there's even a problem. I wish the narrator lied to us MORE.

[@tinycatfriend]

@@quiestinliteris this wasn't an option until custom mode in patch 5, which was last november-ish. what a missed opportunity though, yeah

[@quiestinliteris]

@@tinycatfriend I first downloaded the game sometime mid-December, so it SHOULD have been something that worked if it was introduced in a patch. XP It did not work yet. I haven't actually tried to turn it off since; guess I was just cranky. I'm about to start Karlach origin run, though, so I should give it another shot.

[@brytheguy4515]

granted, the game still says when you fail a check. So technically you can have a meta-take that since you failed you're probably not getting important info. Similar to when you walk into a room and get 4 popups for failed perception checks, and you're like "hmm, I wonder if there's traps in here..."

[@elenalizabeth]

@@brytheguy4515 lmao that room at Withers temple where you go in with your team and you just hear 1000 dice rolls for the 20 or so traps in there. Like ummm… I’m beginning to think maybe this is a room we shouldn’t explore 😂😂

[@vintagedoctor7128]

i love how larian did raphael. the entire game hes been teasing u and reminding u of ur inevitable doom. he toys with u, sometimes saving u from danger and other times ignoring ur pleas completely. but in act 3, when u meet with him in sharess caress, he finally gives u the contract. at that point, players either r annoyed at the emperor for tricking them or maybe want to explore other possibilities before deciding who to save and who to kill. when raphael drops that the hammer is in his house of hope, the player feels like a million bucks with a plan in mind. u think a devil wouldnt dumb enough to drop where the most important maguffin would be but raphael is so egotistical that he does. players already skeptical of the emperor would want to explore other possibilities. now the player is hunting down ways to get into the hells bc damn it they want to outsmart fox finally. (if im remembering the quote correctly). once they finally get into the house of hope, everyone tells them not to touch the big glowy orb with the hammer inside but the player goes nuh uh and now u have best fight in the entire game to witness. u can even tell raph straight to his face he doesnt last long in bed, which finally makes him tick all this was bc u, the player, were frustrated at this devil always being one step ahead and were frustrated at being pawns in these otherworldly beings games. the game put u in this position but dressed it up as u coming to this conclusion. u were the one to talk to raphael in sharess caress, u were the one to spot his freudian slip, u were the one to hunt him down and steal the hammer. the game only gave u the tools to come to that conclusion. it laid the foundation and was confident enough to hide one of its best encounters in mystery and struggle. other rpgs would have made a big deal out of going to the hells and outsmarting a devil. but larian was confident that the players would find it themselves. they were confident that player motivation is stronger than any outward motivation any game could give. larian makes it personal and that is the best type of motivation. uh yeah anyways great video. i agreed with everything. larian is just so good at making games

[@quiestinliteris]

Not to mention the best damn boss score track. Plus, DID YOU KNOW that if you cast Silence during that fight, as long as Raphael is inside its radius, his vocals will be absent from the soundtrack? THAT is some galaxy-brain shit from the devs, right there.

[@Sina-dv1eg]

Well, unless Karlach is the one who tells you to hunt down the hammer, and unless Yurgir is the one to tell you about the diabolist

[@KasumiRINA]

At what point Raphael saved you from danger? Game just forces him on you and makes him unavoidable. (First cutscene is automatic). I literally did EVERYTHING to ignore the guy as I played enough D&D to know you never win with devils (there's examples of how they always lie in BG3 too): I told Rafa to sod off at the start, then in Last Light warned Mol to not sign anything, then in Shar's gauntlet I outright had to persuade Astarion to not leave the party, as I helped Yurgir kill the last Justiciar JUST so I can avoid even accidentally helping the devil. Which shown that you can't trust him further as he tricks the cambion. Then in act 3, I went to see Voss for another quest and lo and behold, Raphael is here trying to get me to talk... Voss and Lae'Zel are pleading for me to take a deal with the devil, but I refuse to even listen to him. Voss if furious and tells me about the hammer to free the comet frog guy, Lae'Zel threatens to leave because I didn't even bother listening to Rafa's offer. It's still in your journal. Forcing its way in. There is NO way to avoid Raphael's quest even if you do everything you can to avoid it. Now EVERYTHING in-game is pointing to the girl who opens the portal to hell even though I AM NOT EVEN SUPPOSED TO KNOW ABOUT HAMMER OR GOING THERE, it's just a very forced quest chain, one of very few who appear on their own and can't be avoided. I want to rest? Yurgir gives a quest to go to the House of Hope. I want to recruit Minsc? Mol is there having obviously made a deal with the devil. Walk a few meters? A random house has a book that talks how that Halda or whatever opens a portal. Out of all the forced quests in the game, only thing even more forced was "go to the Moonrise towers".

[@Rokreder]

​@@KasumiRINA obviously he's kinda important for the Gith quests, if you follow those you'll necessarily run into him. In our first play through we encountered him 3 times - standard first encounter in act one, outside the gauntlet in act two (thanks for the warning but we're going in,) and when he offers the contract in act 3 (no thanks, we'll take our chances with the mindflayer)

[@asbest2092]

when I met raphael, after his first lines I just thought "phe, some douche, go away, don't waste my time" and I thought it all the time. He is just some douche that tries to get your attention when all you want is not to see him. And since when you don't trust the emperor? Where did he give you any reason for this? I always though the emperor was a good guy and he was. He doesn't even give you any reason not to trust him.

[@MLucaj]

For me, whenever I hear, or read, "Don't go this way!", I think, "I bet they're hiding all the sweet loot back there those bastards, well not on my playthrough you don't!" Never underestimate the drive to get the shinies.

[@KiithnarasAshaa]

10:50 "I'm so smart!" [Literally misses a lever to open the gate right next to it, and the fact that sneaking doesn't trigger the light blasts]

[@MsCrickBG3]

Oh my first playthrough, I went in blind as a D&D player who doesn't play many video games. I was low key panicked the entire game, missed several companions, and didn't even see half of Act 1 because every NPC told me I was going to perish at any moment. I learned those were dirty lies. Now, 1200 hours later, I'm still able to find things I haven't seen yet. It's the best :D

[@emeraldjaco7357]

totally true but also there is nothing more cathartic than having all the NPCs saying "you cant do this" and then seeing them realize you can in fact do it. having a boss be all intimidating and confident only to realize you payed withers to respec your entire party into monks so you can hit him with 50 collective unarmed strikes before his turn is peak story telling.

[@quiestinliteris]

10/10, would pay extra for addition of "Oh... shit." facedrop animations inserted mid-combat if you're beating an encounter in less than the average number of rounds.

[@kylekonop4801]

"I want to play in first person so I can investigate and interact with everything." "Do you want Skyrim? Because this is how you get Skyrim."

[@ZacharyBelli]

What’s wrong with Skyrim? I’ve got like 5k+ hours in that game because it’s so interactive. Everything in your face, so it’s hard to miss out…but as you explore more you learn there’s deep secret to the world, and Bethesda didn’t even fill all of them out, unfortunately. (Rorikstead) The game is constantly throwing things in your face, but it’s up to you to do the things. For instance, the very instance you enter markarth there’s some random guy killing people for the “forsworn” at this point you really have no idea who the hell the “forsworn” besides maybe killing some on the way there. Then, whether you save the victim or not, the guards close in tell you there’s nothing to see here. And a guy comes up and gives you a note “hey you dropped this note” the whole time you’re just going “wtf”. Okay, well at this point we can completely ignore that (and miss an epic quest) and continue on as normal…but the game will always scream at you, there’s something happening here! And very rarely does not doing it lock you out of that thing later, unlike bg3 where, it’s very easy to easy to miss something, and then get locked out of that thing later. Ya didn’t take the mountain pass? You missed laezel? That’s all gone now, sorry :/. Instead Skyrim puts you on the path, but is always hinting “hey there’s more here.” So in the end of bg3 you miss a ton. And you’re always scrambling to complete everything because you know once you don’t, it’s lost forever. Whereas Skyrim you can “complete” the game (the main quest) but then your not done by any means, the more you explore, the more you level, things will steadily unlock more and more and more. That statue which did nothing 10 levels ago is suddenly now…whispering to you…that cave you ignored hours ago is still there…and now your like “huh” and you go in and it’s a whole quest. That door with a weird aura and giant skull is impassable until you find this weird little boy doing some strange ritual, but it’s always there, it’s always been there, and it always will. There’s a security in that. It’s just waiting for you, up until this moment, right now. To me that’s more expansive. Because it takes out the fomo, you can discover at your own pace.

[@DustinDustin00]

"Your dream companion is telling you..." -- for a second there, I thought you were referring to Gale.

[@thefrank2364]

For me, it also baits me into exploring and interacting by inserting the dumbest dialogues "Sad-is-tic? What's a tic got to be sad about?"

[@_red_crewmate]

"If I wanted a tail, I would rather kill a cat." - "You would kill a cat?"

[@99sonder]

10 IQ: outsmarting your players into a TPK 1000 IQ: outsmarting your players into feeling smart

[@asbest2092]

but the game always outsmarts itself. If you make even a tiny step not the way the game wants it breaks. The game wants you to make laezel hate her queen and if you don't, the game breaks. You talk to the devil and laezel tell you you must give your soul and you must take the hammer so you could.... free orpheus... in order to kill him... Wtf? Why would you need to free him in order to kill? No one elaborates. The game just wants you to want the hammer but you do not and the game breaks. It doesn't know how to force you to get the hammer so it makes laezel to tell you she needs the hammer when she absolutely does not. Or you get the hammer(just in order to summor raphael so you could get his armor) then stupid hope tells you you must free her(though she said she can not be freed and she doesn't want you to try) and if you just act "lol ok I won't) the game break, it wants you to free her but you simply don't care and the game breaks, the game closes the gates toward the exist in front of you because you don't what to do what the game said you shouldn't. It doesn't even care that the moment I took the hammer I sent it to my camp, I didn't even have it with me, I couldn't have it and I never intended to use it. Or like in my first playthrough you tell the demonist to open the portal, you tell her you will pay her with one of the things from the raphael's collection, you get everything from there except the hammer because you don't care about it, and the girl can not even take the item she asked for. We had a deal a portal for gauntlets, I took the gauntlets but I couldn't give them to her because the game wanted me to start a fight with raphael for the hammer but I wanted neither, I took all the useful items from there I needed and left and the game just broke, I didn't do what it wanted, again, and it just broke because of it. Or when you save mayrina, you don't want to give her a zombie, you just want her to burry the corpse and that's all. But the game just neverendlessly keeps the quest marker on her like you must help mayrina, but I already did. The game just breaks because you don't want to do the only way it wants from you. The game has just one way of playing and when you don't act the way it wants from you it breaks. It either ignores your decisions, or gives you the lines as if you did the opposite (yes like that ridiculous way when the hag tells you she hoped to trick you to get the blood of an innocent on your hands when you are a freaking dark urge or when before it you just started a massacre on the streets because someone insulted you. The game just ignores you do such thing and continues to call you a "big hearted optimist"). Shadowheart says "Ideally I wanted you to never find our I worship shar" and in the playthrough when you turn a blind eye on her signs she acts *offended* because you didn't find it out. You skip the creche, and the gith queen calls laezel a traitor anyway though she betrayed no one. The game wants laezel to be a traitor so it calls her one even despite the fact she betrayed no one and she killed no one of her kind as our whole team and her race doesn't even know she is infected. The game is just broken because you didn't go the way it wanted.

[@emmaallard5500]

This video just reminded me how eager Davvy is to kill dogs

[@Agisek]

It literally never occurred to me for a single second that I shouldn't go somewhere... I just went to Underdark, and when I was done with it I went to the Creche as well. And on second playthrough I just went to Creche first and then the Underdark... Why would anyone ever choose just one of them when nothing stops you from doing both quests? Open the quest log, do everything, that's how an RPG works.

[@JarrekAsF]

I, maybe stupidly assumed in my first playthrough that once I chose a way through there was no way to go back. I thought it was more like a branching path than an option I could still have, especially with the linear way it seemed the story was going

[@KasumiRINA]

When trying to complete the game under 100 hours I guess? I am at 160 and JUST going to get Minsc but I clear everything (and a few hours of those are leaving the game on).

[@KasumiRINA]

​@@JarrekAsF it does tell you that but Underdark clearly expects you to backtrack with Sussur Bark, if you found the masterwork weapons quest at least. Mountain Pass does nothing like that, you can ignore Creche and beeline to Shadow Cursed lands.

[@AhkmedTheLiving]

Also assuming you are just playing a game and not "role playing" a character. DMs do this all the time to entice the players with a risk vs reward sense of agency.

[@Iroquois_Pliskin]

"why would anyone.." Because it's an RPG and the player has the freedom to do a quest or not.

[@skecchi3201]

I couldn't disagree more with this whole video. It's not about reverse psychology or any form of psychology at all. Anyone who has played any form of crpg just explores to see what there is or isn't in an area. It's just something one does, much like in any adventure game you attack barrels/urns/vases to see if there's stuff in them, it's just something one does. The game is great because there's a lot of different methods of doing things, giving it not only replay-ability but also small hidden gems/secrets that give different things meaning that may have been missed before ('shadow druids' as an example, if you know, you know). It's also fantastic because most people enjoy the 5e system as it's very easy to pick up and not learning a new system entirely like Pillars of Eternity (which has a good story, but the mechanics itself doesn't feel as good). Look at this game vs how DOS2 was, and BG3 is far superior. The world was set up the same (stuff every 50ft), the quests were about the same, and even the level of big twists were about the same. The difference is literally in the game mechanics of 5e vs DOS2's mechanics feeling a bit off.

[@Sillay-Goose]

Missed Laezel’s entire story line my first playthrough 😅 they all said “don’t go to the mountain pass” and I listened

[@josephracette5448]

I love larian, even in Divinity Original Sin 2 the whole game is spent being told what to do by authority figures and literally gods, then you realize none of them have your best interest in mind so you just start swinging whether you're told to or not

[@Ponderpine]

I like how Baldur's Gate 3 is basically one massive point and click adventure game, and I love it for that.

[@KasumiRINA]

It's actually a good point what makes a good CRPG: Look at best received Bioware game, it's Mass Effect 2. It has no stats, no loot or inventory, levels don't mean much, but the decisions matter. A good RPG doesn't feel like playing spreadsheets, it's supposed to be immersive and give you the feeling of adventure.

[@Corundrom]

3:46 time to get a new friend i guess

[@Android_ELITE]

I learned about halfway through my first run that this game is smarter than I am. It opened up the ability to just, play it like an RPg instead of an rpG. If you get what I mean. You just do what you want and take comfort in that the game has something fun in store for you no matter what decision you make. I'm most of the way through my 3rd full run. I don't even make particularly different characters, no evil runs or anything, just different flavors of hero with different builds. I am going to do a 4th run. No one can stop me. And the game is ready to continue supplying a good time.

[@reffa2858]

There is alot of "illusion of choice" in the game. With multiple dialogue options and pathways to certain places that all kind of lead to the same destination.

[@torenchao]

Larian is one of the very few games that actually made me CONFLICTED about a character. I never learned the emperor's full backstory (I only got the one he tells you outright) and by the end of the game, I still couldn't figure him out. Normally with characters like that you can just go 'oh they're morally grey/secretly good/evil etc' but he's actually complex. It feels realistic because while I can tell there's good intent in there, how much of that is kindness on the emperor's part, and how much of that is self serving? does it even matter if it turns out well in the end? DAMN IT LARIAN STOP MAKING ME THINK SO HARD tldr: the characters are stupidly well written

[@transient_moonlight]

Ok, but who the hell actually thinks that an NPC telling you to not go somewhere is the same as the game telling you to not go there? If the devs designed the area, they obviously want you to go there sooner or later

[@quiestinliteris]

Yeah, sitting here as an author, as a former kid-way-too-into-choose-your-own-adventure-novels... Creating anything is work. Unlike IRL, nothing in a fictional work exists independent of the creator's intention that the audience experience it. If it exists, it exists SOLELY because you're supposed to go check it out at some point, even if that point is that you made a poor decision and died tragically - that is still part of the story that was written, and that is one potential ending.

[@Gshadin]

Tbh i thought the mountainpass wasnt a real area you could go to until i saw it on youtube

[@transient_moonlight]

@@Gshadin then you definitely didn't think "oh, the game doesn't want me to go there, so I shall defy its expectations snd go there"

[@KaitouKaiju]

Plenty of games to do exactly that to keep you from going somewhere before you're supposed to. For example, cyberpunk 2077 has characters tell you that Watson is on lockdown to keep you there during the prologue

[@hugofontes5708]

I've heard similar complains directed at dark souls. "NPC said XYZ but actually ABC, game misleading game bad". As if it was a carnival ride instead of a interactive and dynamic narrative/environment for you to play with. Also, some people assume when things like that happen it's a gotcha moment just placed there for them to die and they choose not to go to not water time. Personally, I normally do go check but if it really is just an insurmountable gotcha then I may start to think about what the devs had in mind for better or worse

[@MizuMing]

5:50 To be clear on the Boar, it is a separate Boar than the one from where you find and interact with Astarion for the first time. He sneaks off to hunt it on like- night 2. "But" how do you know its a different Boar I hear someone ask. Simple, you can kill and loot the original Boar. 🤷 The second Boar can also appear in different locations from one playthrough to the next, but always within a set distance from the Blighted Village, not near Astarion's Pod.

[@Canadian_Zac]

With any other developer, you could think 'well they just might not have triggered the boar to not spawn if you kill it since they didn't think people would kill it for no reason' But Larian thinks of that. If you kill specific NPC's, they wont show up later. Even in Divinity 2, if you manage to kill The Hammer's pets. Then they wont be on the ship later at the end of act 1 Which is a ridiculous detail, because nobody playing normally will be able to do that. You HAVE to pull out insane cheese strats to accomplish it (like using fast travel points to get infinite turns). But they still thought of it, and made sure that they don't spawn on the ship, because you already killed them.

[@MizuMing]

@@Canadian_Zac I wouldn't say it was for no reason. It was to grab extra camp supplies. 😅

[@nickrubin7312]

I like the rarest scene when you don't longrest for a while and Astarion just reveals he is a vampire spawn during exploration, and not in camp at night sneaking on you

[@MizuMing]

@@nickrubin7312 Haven't had it yet. Sleep regularly to trigger other scenes. 😅

[@FirekingBarong]

I never, in 600 hours, even saw that boar. Either i missed a trigger point somewhere or when you are in the 3rd or more playthrough you tend to ignore/skip stuff or even entire environments ^^

[@LordBaktor]

The funniest application of reverse psychology when you are DM-ing is when you describe something quickly in passing so you don't call attention to it because you haven't prepared that content yet and the players interpret it as "he's being vague so this must actually be super important" and laser focus on it for three sessions.

[@bigyoshi5170]

Exactly! It tries to trick me, by giving other romance options besides Karlach! *WHEN KARLACH IS CLEARLY THE RIGHT CHOICE AND CANON DAMN IT!*

[@ikarder]

You can romance Karlah? I just repaired her heart and didn't saw any signs of her willing to do something with player (except saying that she want a touch, but no dialogue options for this. Oh, stop, you said this. Jeez why they didn't make it?

[@oreledoria2537]

Wrong. It's Bae'zel, Frog Queen of my heart, mind, body, and soul and she punch so good during snoo-snoo.

[@JeoshuaCollins]

@@ikarder Dunno how you're playing the game. Karlach is normally hot to trot for my character immediately. "Gods, I wanna ride you until I see stars" is a literal line from the romance.

[@locococo8961]

@@JeoshuaCollins Its unfortunately a luck thing; I had romancing her in mind for my playthrough from the get-go, but never got the dialogue options for it. I tried. Just never happened. I think it was because I didn't take enough long rests (literally 0 for all of act 2) and got her half-way through act 1, so her approval wasn't high enough until act 2 anyways.

[@JeoshuaCollins]

@@locococo8961 ... and by that time you had almost surely triggered the romance of some other NPC. I getcha.

[@piraterubberduck6056]

One thing I really love about this game is that you get comfortable with doing the thing you are told not to do and being in control, then you try playing as The Dark Urge, and that whole idea is thrown on its head. You are not in control anymore and no matter what you do, you can't avoid bad things happening. It is so well done.

[@exantiuse497]

I must say I can't relate with the "I'm going where I'm not supposed to"/outsmarting the game attitude described in the video. On my first playthrough I only once though I wasn't supposed to be somewhere yet - in the underdark the minotaurs kicked my ass - and my reaction was the opposite of yours - I went back and leveled up before returning there because I thought I was underleveled. For the rest of the "gatekeepers" I immediately assumed that this is where I'm supposed to go, it's such an intuitive game concept to try to find a way in when the path is blocked that I didn't even consider not going there

[@shawnwolf5961]

Same, I really don't get this rhetoric. BG3 is a great game, but not because of things telling you not to do things. That's just basic conflict building, which is essential in any story and every game does this to an extent.

[@mertyldrm7299]

This reminds me of the South Park episode where Cartman buys a failing amusement park just to deny everyone entry and all of a sudden everyone wants in.

[@tinycatfriend]

i always read the game's "hey don't go in there" as the good game design that it is: to make me wanna go in there. and then i talk to other people who just listened and didn't go in there. my friend skipped getting gale for a long time because upon being told that the portal was dangerous, she went "huh, better avoid that", while i went "oh the game is screaming at me to check that out immediately". i'm not saying i'm smarter or anything, i've missed other obvious things my friends picked up on right away, i just think it's funny.

[@marekw7562]

"hey Tav, don't go there. Adventure may wait there" Nah bro I'm already going

[@quackkillerreal]

I feel like the original idea behind rpgs was “let’s try to make a ttrpg into something playable at any time” so this feels like the true evolution of early western rpgs

[@comyuse9103]

the original point of an RPG was to capture the player agency that is present in TTRPGs, yes. the west took that to mean narrative agency (and we can kinda see that as the winner now, i suppose) and the east took it to mean mechanical agency, hence the JRPG and CRPG split. although i do kinda think CRPGs do both better these days, most JRPGs i play are pretty static when compared to something like Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous.

[@roberthebert2826]

"Some people read a sign that says "Do Not Enter" and they don't" Thinking about the shockingly high number of people who never ran into Gale because the game implied that portal was dangerous so they stayed away from it.

[@theholypopechodeii4367]

I played with a Freecam mod + WASD walk and it was a straight up upgrade from the base game, I agree with the rest of the video.

[@maximilianbehrens3471]

Same, played on steamdeck and controller + free-cam was so much better for exploration

[@NicaNicu31]

9:37 Some people talk to the Ogre outside the Shattered Sanctum and interpret his dialogue a denial of entry and never try to enter the Sanctum through the main door... A friend of mine did literally this. I couldn't stop laughing when he told me.

[@Nikkidafox]

3:24 yooo don't hate on the Hingle my Dingles quest! When I hingled the hollyphant dingle, my dingles were hingled. Truly one of the hingles of all dingles.

[@ForeverTraitor]

Your first point about limitation by design kinda rings hollow when I searched through hundreds of barrels and crates that Larian covered the map with only for them to be empty, every time.

[@tobiasbayer4866]

They really need to add containers being displayed as empty before you loot them for the first time. Would save a lot of unnecessary clicking.

[@nessa-parmentier]

That one is even worse for me because I played Divinity Original Sin 2, their previous game, and there were ways to get a random chance for a magical item at *every container you open* So now it's a reflex. I see container, i open container. But in BG3 so many are empty or useless

[@commanderwyro4204]

stack them. climb them and use them to get to places that are made difficult

[@quiestinliteris]

Vases. >( Just... freaking vases. There are like three in the entire game that have something in them, but those three had decent stuff, so now I have to compulsively check hundreds of vases. I hate that stupid glorpy sound effect so much now.

[@XPtoLevel3]

Valid, but in my opinion this real accentuates my point. You don’t *always* find something good, but at the very least you know it’s deliberate. You’ve been rewarded enough to know there’s a reward somewhere and it won’t be as easily obtained by *just* walking to something. I know I made the argument that walking and finding stuff = fun. But it’s even better when there’s only menial loot, only to find something really cool after a tough encounter or lockpicking a chest. Anyways, just how I feel.

[@PierriScot]

In a nutshell: BG3 is so good because we can be reckless and make stupid choices. Like me and my friends playing D&D.

[@inducedopamine]

Fallout 4 has a much more direct version of "CHOOSE ONE. What did you pick? I don't care, you're doing this now"

[@nickrubin7312]

Finally (in Nere's creepy voice)! Someone is talking how cool are map and quest design in the game. It is like an amusement park, which was already the idea in DOS, but everywhere it is the illusion of age/height/whatever else restrictions that you're not actually restricted to bypass at all. And then hearing everyone saying "I'm not supposed to be here, hehehee, I'm breaking it, hehehee"

[@Jack_Wolfe]

11:48 that’s so cheeky. Everything is a door for blocking the way to urge exploration.

[@JRTIntervencion]

Hey cmon, I went to the mountain pass cuz I was romancing Lae'zel. No reverse psychology no Sir, just a broken heart ❤😂😂😂

[@drakematsen4978]

Wait, Withers was down there? He just showed up in my camp.

[@JoshuaEFinley]

I like how the devs have added things to the game based on people like me. I jumped from the base of the tower to the top and Ketheric was just like "Who the hell are you? Where did you come from?" The game couldn't find an instance of interaction since I snuck in there and was never spotted in the Goblin camp either so the game actually accounted for it... But it didn't originally so it gives me credence to play through the game again to see if they fixed it.

[@johndeighan2495]

You make a really good point about humility in the design of the game. It’s a very player-centric approach, where the focus is all on making the player feel cool and smart, and not on making sure he experiences all the cool and smart content you’ve made for him.

[@ultrabigfella]

6:15 This is literally Skyrim.

[@4ncientGu150]

I had a interesting experience with Gortash though. Me and my wife were playing a two player campaign and she in particular REALLY didn't like Gortash. So when it came time for his coronation she walked right through Wyrms Rock without talking to him. I was busy doing other stuff at the time and didn't really care. I figured the plot would wait for us, it doesn't matter, right? Well I was in the sewers trying to find where the hell Orin was and accidentally came across a strange thing. I found a submarine and a dwarf who was contemplating just leaving. So we talked to him, found out about this evil prison, and decided to raid it. Very fun, I rescued most of the prisoners while my wife saved the only important/recognized prisoner there, Omeluum and whoever was on that half of the prison. As a sidenote, using Polymorph to turn one of the enemies into a sheep and then just ignoring them is very funny. Bards rule. We felt we had done a great thing, way to go. Afterwards Omeluum told us to go by the society to recieve a reward from him. Sounds good to me, we made our way towards his marker on the map. Ended up coming across some Steel Foundry in the middle of a revolt. So we obviously interfered and helped the workers. Got deeper into the workshop and found some sort of core, destroyed that to. We ended up going back to Gortash's ceremony after we also rescued Councilor Florrick. Some notice said she was going to be executed so we snuck in some back passage to save her. I was a little surprised to see all the guards were hostile since I remembered we were invited. But then I remembered when Gortash spoke to us while we were on the way to the prison (while sitting around waiting to be coronated in the main room?) and figured he was pissed, that made sense. So me and my wife stormed Wyrms Rock, it was a pretty tough battle. Gortash had lots of allies there and there were these dispensers that kept shooting grenades at us. My job was to steal the grenades and destroy some of the dispensers near us so we had a safe zone while my wife killed everything that came near. To our frustration when we tried to Non-Lethal the Duke he was incinerated for some reason? So we had to reload and do it AGAIN. Our fight now had a time limit, we had to kill Gortash, his minions, and keep our party alive BEFORE Wyll's dad killed us. I started out with a Wall of Stone to seperate the Duke from the rest of us while we did our best against Gortash. And it totally worked! Sorta. We killed Gortash and got his stone. Duke Ravenguard didnt drop aggro, which felt kinda weird? But we outran him and were able to end turn based combat. Mizora met us outside and started blathering on about how the Duke had been taken to the Iron Throne. Which confused the hell out of us, we destroyed that place. In fact, if we looked over to the side we could literally see Duke Ravenguard just kinda (angrily) chilling on the bridge. We started to clue in then that we had kinda maybe done some things out of order and maybe broke the game. So yeah, it was a whole exciting trip.

[@houndoomdude2]

Yeah, disagree on this one. The warnings and split character preferences for choices often left me with the false sense that i had to pick one path or the other, only to discover later through third party sources or multiple playthroughs that i could have done more than the game told me. I think it’s sloppy communication on the part of the game. Like the game warning you to finish your business before going to the mountain path is clearly a way of signaling a one-way path, not a way to tempt you to do it. And I avoided it for that reason, never finding the creche in my playthrough

[@quiestinliteris]

Out of curiosity, where do you live? I think there might be some dialectical disconnects here, since I've seen a LOT of people say they avoided the Mountain Pass because they thought it would lock them out of other paths. To me, "finish your business" just means that you can't go back and complete tasks you hadn't already completed, not that you wouldn't be ABLE to complete tasks that required moving into different areas. I never got a sense that it was "either/or." I'm working from Central Texas, born 1980s, I believe most of the scripting was done by English-speaking Western Europeans... I think mostly my "generation"? Going to have to do more searching, but if there's a particular demographic that isn't understanding the writing the way it was intended, that could be useful feedback for a later patch.

[@Techn9cian123]

We’ve been hoodwinked, bamboozled, lead astray, run amok and flat out deceived

[@OrangeCat371]

Where is chat plays baldurs gate? Is the series over for good, or are you planning on creating some more narf narf violence soon?

[@kenanjabr1992]

The thing I love about BG3: 10:48 has a lever literally to your right, and the devs give you a more ingenious way of getting past besides just... pulling the lever that you missed xD

[@TexMeta]

I prefer "How Baldurs Gate 3 is a rich world full of engagement rather than a vast, empty, walking simulator hellscape just so the company can add "open world" to the game description." Because every game needs to be that for some damn reason, since so many players demand that without understanding what they're asking for.

[@hentaimage95]

Bg3 is on the opposite side of an empty open world, its an emprty corridor. But since all the content is packed into a corridor it seems to you like the game is full of stuff. Another one got tricked by larian.

[@MarquisdeL3]

There's also the gamer instinct to do progression last, because there could be missable secrets. This is how I wound up doing pretty much everything in Act 2 before Moonrise Towers, cuz I was told that was where progression was (also I didn't want my wizard boyfriend to die before we got to even kiss 😔)

[@plasmabasher]

Emperor: "Don't go to the Githyanki creche, they're dangerous! Do not negotiate with them!" Me, immediately beelining to the Blood of Lathander: "I know."

[@KasumiRINA]

Emperor: they will try to kill you. Vlaakith and Inquisitor: try to kill you. Players: Haha stupid lying game I am so smart.

[@JohnCena-fd5yw]

idk man I disagree, one of the weakest parts of BG3 for me was the discovery. it felt like you *had* to search every tiny corner of the map or else I would miss something important, and then half those quests didnt matter in the end or i had already half-completed somehow. i also missed the entirety of moonrise towers pre-nightsong because everyone said it was the enemy base and i shouldnt go there unless i was ready to fight them. Then once i would have a quest, i hated when it wouldnt tell me what it wanted me to do. because the game wants you to explore and think creatively, but its also a finite, closed loop system because its a video game, so you do actually have to do it the way the game wants you to, it just won't tell you, which is frustrating. tl;dr exploring felt like a chore, a have-to rather than a want-to. finally getting clear directions was much more fun once the quest was in my journal and told me what to do next, so that i could get back to the actual game part of the game

[@Myrathosghost]

I will say I find it strange you missed pre nightsong mooonrise....because you are actually told to go TO Moonrise...like if you get to the Inn and talk to Jahira and then talk to her again inside the Inn she literally tells you "Hey go to the Towers and see what Kethric is up too and then come back here to report since they will think you're a true soul" ..so Im gonna assume you didn't talk to Jahira a second time??

[@muatra3651]

Was playing the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC but I immediately stopped what I was doing to watch this.

[@Person-py1wy]

I want to do a playthrough where I never go somewhere i'm not told to go now lol, this video is awesome. I've been had.

[@nessa-parmentier]

I know it's not the main point but I've again seen people say 1st or 3rd person camera would be better... no ? It's a tactical, turn-based RPG where you play a party of 4. How in the world are you supposed to play that efficiently with a subjective camera ? At least without dumbing down the tactical aspects, which are so important to the game and level-design as well as the fact that... you know it's based on 5e rules, which basically lock the genre into turn-based tactical.

[@braxinIV]

Top-down only really works for the combat. Third person works better for the exploration and immersion.

[@The_Sharktocrab]

​@@braxinIV that is utter nonsense

[@braxinIV]

@@The_Sharktocrab work on your bait, mate. you can’t seriously look me in the eye and tell me a top-down camera perspective is more immersive than third, and DEF not more immersive than first person.

[@The_Sharktocrab]

@@braxinIV you don't even know what you're saying, trying to explore an environment in 1st or 3rd person that was designed for an isometric type perspective would be a chore, which is literally detailed in the contents of this video

[@braxinIV]

@@The_Sharktocrab Well it’s a good thing BG3 isn’t just an isometric game. What the hell are YOU talking about?? You can play the ENTIRE GAME (minus combat) in third person view. The whole thing. And I did just that. 200 hours of it.

[@Jack_Wolfe]

13:30 it IS really cool. Breaking games by ”being clever” or finding worm arounds has been a long standing of games in general, from breaking a game with its own mechanics using unauthadox combinations of stuff to flat out hacking the code to find stuff. One example I love is “missing no” a bugged Pokémon you can get WITHOUT cheating or doing super weird stuff, unintentionally a unique secret. Coz secrets are fun to discover, and being given a locked door is how you turn something mundane into an interesting secret.

[@ri3121]

Its a double sided thing. On my first playthrough, it was really cool that it seemed all my choiced had consequences, and when I didnt do what someone wanted, it led to something. It really made me love the game. On a second playthrough however, it really just made it dissapointing that it turns out it doesn't matter. Almost all your choices lead to the same broad outcome.

[@ecamville2928]

I love all of this, even though it wasn't necessarily reverse psychology in my first playthrough. I was a bard (...often am.) and the ghoul telling me NOT to go into the circus was like a taunt. You tell ME??? The PURPLE AND PINK TIEFLING BARD that i'm NOT ALLOWED in the CIRCUS? Excuse me????? I AM the circus.

[@Emmelmpau]

*final boss flashbacks intensifies*

[@cosmicprison9819]

10:49 Larian’s criminally underrated 3rd-person RPG, Divinity II: Developer’s Cut, already did this (“you didn’t want me to go here yet, did you?”): You can sneak into the Orobas Fjords before unlocking the Dragon Tower. Unfortunately, I didn’t realise that on my first playthrough, because the path in the river is blocked by grass - but had I just followed the regular road, I could have gone there, to face a bunch of goblins well beyond my own level, but beatable if you stay in ranged combat (bow and arrow plus magic).

[@Rathdrgnknight]

Larian's figured out how to harness the power of *player spite, and then used it to make us play their game.*

[@vintagedoctor7128]

larians reply to "nuh uh" is "wdym nuh?" and then winks

[@mysticwizard1943]

LOL the "oh yeah, well I AM gonna enter!" is such a driving force in my taste in games. I love immersive sims, and games like Thief or Dishonored are built on that defiant, inquisitive spirit. The locked doors, patrolling guards, and maybe even some more sci-fi or paranormal barriers are all designed to challenge the player to think that way. Now Baldur's Gate isn't really an immersive sim, it has some of the criteria but is still a mostly "on rails" experience, but they do a really great job of invoking that same kind of spirit.

[@ducknosis]

I love brain-worms.

[@JohnFWitt]

7:41 I love the user experience on mobile of having to use the “rewind 10 seconds” feature, rewatching the video up to that point, and then frantically trying to press pause on the one frame of text so I don’t miss it again, but then sometimes missing it again and having to start that process all over. It really keeps the flow of the content going and isn’t a needless frustration at all for someone otherwise enjoying a video

[@mountainaccident2001]

will you be streaming any more of your narf narf playthrough? i miss it so much! 😭

[@animuswonder]

it truly encapsulates the dungeons and dragons experience where as a DM you have to be ready for all the options you present, *and some.* the most powerful motivation is spite. “i’m going to go here *because* you said not to. what are you gonna do?”

[@torenchao]

1:23 to skip the ad

[@PhotographerKuro-private]

10:49 There is a lever to open the gate... Plus inspiration if you shoot the stone.

[@eran5005]

Ah yes, the “how to meta all your immersion and enjoyment away” guide. We all know devs have tricks to funnel us into the content, but still take the game at face value, because it’s more fun.

[@matthewtompkins4338]

This is a commentary on game design for people who have already played the game. This is not a guide for people who have yet to play it

[@Axetwin]

I disagree Jacob. I didn't take all the roadblocks as the Devs saying "don't go here" but instead just part of the natural world building. It's not "don't go to the Mountain Pass" but instead "make sure to take Lae'zel because it'll make things a bit easier since you won't have to fight every step of the way". The astral companion warning you about going to the Mountain Pass is because you're literally bringing the one thing the Githyanki are looking for directly do them, OF COURSE it's telling you not to go there. Every locked door made sense because who ever locked that door clearly wanted to keep people out in general, not specifically you the player. The trickier the lock, the more closely guarded the secret is. Sure, player sees a locked door or chest they instinctively want to figure out how to open it, but that's a gaming thing in general.

[@Cjwikkedawesome]

I think you missed the entire point of the video. He’s talking about game design. If you don’t get it you just don’t get it

[@Axetwin]

@@Cjwikkedawesome The point of the video was saying Larian used reverse psychology to get the players to *think* they were fooling the devs. He almost says that in the video word for word. That's the assessment I disagree with. So believe me, I get it.

[@magicsevens5725]

i had a really great moment recently in a campaign I’ve been running for about a year. My players went into the restricted section of this magical library, and found a book about how the gods of my setting reincarnate after dying. At the very end, in a different language, there’s an authors note talking about how you could technically remove a god from the pantheon by sealing their soul, but no one knows how to do it. Literally the next two hours were spent trying to figure out how to seal a god just because my players wanted to outsmart me, and it basically railroaded them down the plot beats in that area

[@macromondo8026]

"I want you to feel special, you ARE the hero of this story, your choices MATTER" wow...great writting approach honestly, is very humble, cool and wholesome when you stop and think about it!

[@goodgulfgas]

the point about the ceiling is the same about not being able to swim. After a while you get used to it and it's a non-issue.

[@KateKirby]

Thank you! I've been baffled as to why everyone loves this game, and I, someone who loves D&D, absolutely hated it and bounced off of it hard. My brain doesn't work like this. I see a locked door and unless I have a specific motivation, I'm not going to go through it. Someone locked that for a reason! The game psychology was constantly making me feel bad and abused. And it was confusing as fuck why everyone else was addicted to it when I gave up after 10 hours. Now I get it. I have the wrong childhood trauma to play this game. That's okay! I'm gonna now stop thinking about it and just play tabletop D&D and be happy for the rest of my life.

[@quiestinliteris]

Extremely valid. ❤ For what it's worth, I played my first run as basically me - clinically anxious autistic grad student going through this whole adventure basically like 😬. I'm not someone who picks a lock just because it's locked unless I have a reason to think I have an ethical obligation to do so. Also hamstringed all my casters by trying to use nonlethal damage as much as possible, refused to steal anything from its rightful owners, and tried not to get involved in any conflict until I'd heard all sides. I probably missed out on a lot of items that way, definitely missed out on some quests that way, but it was completely possible to get through the game without breaking social rules for the sake of it. None of which is to say at all that you should give it another chance or anything, just that other people's play styles don't have to be yours. And I'll always prefer tabletop, too. BG3 just filled a bit of a gap for me when three different campaigns fell through and died without notice and I desperately needed that special-interest fix. Personally, I'm mostly hoping that the modding support expected for September will allow the creation of virtual tabletops that can be used in real-people campaigns.

[@maiteruz6279]

Larian completely understood the most important part of a DnD game: not listening at all what the DM is sayinf.

[@jwall1646]

BG3 tricked me into thinking Vampires are lame when really it’s just Cazador & Astarion. Edit: sorry Spencer.

[@ultrabigfella]

Cazador was such an underwhelming villain bro

[@Archangel144]

Astarion was unbelievably obnoxious and I killed him asap.

[@GreyAcumen]

@@ultrabigfella - I mean, Karlach's villain was a hot topic goth hipster boi. Anyone who has Astarion as their underling/whatever can't be all that impressive.

[@jiminychristmas2707]

@@ultrabigfella The villains for characters are A devil (for wyll) A main villain (gortash for karlach) A goddess (for shadowheart) A bomb and a goddess (for gale, although calling mystra a villain is iffy) Lae’zel has so much that I don’t want to write it all out (because it’s more then just a villain) Astarion has a single vampire, closest one to him in terms of power is Mizora, but she is also way more complex than just a simple villain. So yeah, I completely agree with you

[@quiestinliteris]

​@@jiminychristmas2707Yeah, Mystra is more of an antagonist than a villain. Gale's real villain is that traumatic mix of ego, perfectionism, self-doubt and anxiety from his gifted-kid upbringing. XP Mystra just took advantage of that, refused to communicate adequately, and then got mad when he did the thing she never told him she didn't want him to do. It's more of a Hallmark plot than villainy. I would like elaboration of how you see Mizora as more complex than Cazador. I read Cazador as basically "cycle of abuse personified," especially with all the backstory you get on him while crawling around the dungeons. I never was able to find any real additional characterization for Mizora, so in my playthroughs, she was just kinda evil because she's a devil. What did I miss?

[@m_moehring]

BG3 is the chill GM who gives the party a stern look as they debate visiting Unnamed Halfling Village, but actually has NPC sheets, maps, and loot tables prepared in case the party decides to visit Unnamed Halfling Village anyway.

[@apjapki]

This isn't reverse psychology. This is just allowing the player to choose the route the DM doesn't favour because the other route is easier for less experienced players. It's pretty basic. I feel like you're seeing what you want to see because you love the game to the point where everything it does is special genius and not fairly normal game design.

[@demnwarrior7]

To be fair it is well designed, but I agree it's not nearly as special as the fan base would try to have you believe.

[@oranjesus49]

yes, bg3 fans are so annoying, basic game design for them feels like amazing goty deserver mechanics, gawd.

[@guardianv5846]

I think the same goes for shadowhearts quest line. By having lae'zel throw herself at you so hard and shadowheart be so stand offish, it makes you want to learn her secrets.

[@HarryHorsemin]

I don't agree with this at all. The one and only time I thought I was being genuinely rebellious doing something the game developers weren't wanting me to do was going up by the creche via the path by the path by the goblin camp. This nearly fucked me over because when you try and go over there when too under leveled, the warning only says just that, that your under leveled and nothing else. I almost got cunked out of of the whole grove questline because they didn't say anything about the story progressing. When I hear someone say *in character* to not to go somewhere, I hear the developers say "please go there"

[@OG_Casual_Tryhard]

I laughed entirely too hard at 3:22 and I don't know how to feel about that