Mastodawn

Kinda lost all desire to play Dark Urge after a particular forced event-SPOILERS

https://lemmy.world/post/5610395

Kinda lost all desire to play Dark Urge after a particular forced event-SPOILERS - Lemmy.world

SPOILERS- So Alfira came and visited my camp during my DU playthrough and I chased her off, as I don’t really care for the character (RPing as a no-nonsense war cleric, get that hippie music outta my camp). Somehow, sending Alfira away from my camp instead brought her to my camp and led to her dying while I was asleep, with zero input from me as the player. The sequence straight up doesn’t even make sense with how much they railroaded her death into the DU storyline; I send her away hours ago, I wake up to her dead and her blood on me, and every one of my companions blames me despite me sending her away fucking hours ago. I didn’t even believe that I killed her until my internal dialogue options all confessed to her death. I feel these sorts of events that completely remove agency from the player have no place in an rpg. I mean, they give you a completely meaningless choice in that instance (happily let her stay, angrily let her stay, or force her to leave but actually she stays). If all of my choices lead to railroaded outcomes, just don’t give me dialogue options at that point. I have no desire to play DU if I’m just going to be forced into options that I didn’t choose. Not to mention, this death completely locks you out her questline and unique gear. Come on, Larian, if you are going to force a death on the player then don’t make that character a fucking quest giver. At the absolute least, there should be a DC for this shit happening. Shit, I kinda don’t even want to start a new game either because I don’t want to have to go through the 15 or so hours of early game that I just did.

DubbelJ Sep 23, 2023

The Dark Urge is an origin character just like the others, part of their backstory is going to be fixed just like Astarion or Gale or any of the others. If you want full customisation of how you want to play your character then play an evil custom character. I don’t see any issue with how Larian handled this, at it’s how they expose The Dark Urges backstory to you.

wclinton93 Sep 23, 2023

I’m not talking about his backstory. I’m talking about his story within the game. Larian provides you with a choice of multiple speech options in this situation, including the option to send Alfira away. If you choose that option, the game essentially decides to ignore your choice and railroad this death into the story in a way that doesn’t make sense. Personally, I play an RPG to make choices within a story. If the game then discards those choices, why give them in the first place?

Adlach Sep 24, 2023

Sounds like you don’t like the concept of the Dark Urge. The Dark Urge is literally about your character’s actions being out of their control. Just play a custom character.

RedAggroBest Sep 24, 2023

Yea this seems like a complaint that the Dark Urge is an actually sometimes-difficult mechanic and not just some edgelord roleplay.

wclinton93 Sep 24, 2023

I didn’t mention difficulty or being edgy anywhere in my post. I was talking about agency. Did you not read it? Shit, I wasn’t even rping an edgy character.

wclinton93 Sep 24, 2023

Except thats apparently what happens in the rest of the DU story (according to another comment here). You have agency over those actions (like the dialogue choice that leads to Gale losing or keeping a hand) or at least have a DC to resist the urge. In this situation, the game gives you an option that, logically, should avoid this happening but decides to ignore that choice. That’s why it doesn’t seem like it fits.

Adlach Sep 24, 2023

Your loss of agency is the entire plot point. You black out and, despite all your efforts, kill this woman. If you don’t like it, custom characters are there too.

I understand what you’re saying, but I simply disagree. If you can save scum your way out of any consequence of the Dark Urge, why play the Dark Urge?

wclinton93 Sep 24, 2023

But just blacking out doesn’t explain why Alfira just ends up dead back at camp in the morning immediately after I send her away. My companions also all see me send her away and yet they all blame me for her death despite that fact. Yes I have blood on me but I also have a disemboweled corpse next to me so it would be weirder if I didn’t. Also, Alfira isn’t even physically in my camp. What, is my 8 dexterity war cleric supposed to have snuck into the grove, kidnapped her, snuck her into my camp, and killed her in a single night without anyone noticing?

I can’t even think in my own head (in character) that I didn’t do it. None of it makes sense with that “send her away” dialogue option. I’m fine with the forced story death, but this scene just makes no sense all around. Have her die after the party, when I may actually have a connection with the character, instead of it jsut being a character I told to fuck off twice.

Also, save scumming has nothing to do with this conversation, but if you can save scum out of any consequence in Baldur’s Gate then why play the game at all by your logic.

starchylemming Sep 23, 2023

isnt the whole deal with this dark urge that you have no agency about it?

reagansrottencorpse Sep 24, 2023

Yes and I was so excited when this happened to me in game.

wclinton93 Sep 24, 2023

Not up to that point. For instance, when you meet gale in the portal, you are given dialogue choices that can lead to different outcomes. Picking the fairly deranged option ends up with gale losing a hand while picking the normal option progresses the conversation normally. In the Alfira scene, you are given dialogue options (including the option to send Alfira away from camp) but none of them matter. They all lead to her appearing in camp the next morning, dead, no matter how illogical that is. At that point, just give me a cutscene showing Alfira arriving at camp at don’t give me any dialogue options to send her away. What’s the point of them?

🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 🇮 🏆Sep 23, 2023

Shit… I didn’t even get that far with her. I made her commit suicide by breaking her lute the first time I met her.

Entropy Sep 23, 2023

You monster

🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 🇮 🏆Sep 24, 2023

I am but a humble servant of Cyric, sowing seeds of discord across the land.

Entropy Sep 24, 2023

🤣

PugJesus Sep 23, 2023

Holy shit, I didn't even realize that was possible

🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 🇮 🏆Sep 24, 2023

Just to clarify: It’s only implied. You break her shit, she gets mad, and then moves to the edge of the nearby cliff to cry. Later on, she was just gone from the game. I can only assume she jumped sometime between then and when we attacked the druids, cuz she wasn’t among those that died there.

TheGreatFox Sep 24, 2023

Fun fact: There is a way to save Alfira.

Once you meet the conditions for her to show up in your camp, head back to the grove before Alfira shows up at camp, and knock her out by using a melee attack while the non-lethal passive toggle is enabled. If you can, do it in a single attack so you don’t lose approval or get the guards summoned. If she’s unable to make it to camp, there’s a rather amusing replacement that shows up instead to be slaughtered by the Durge. The replacement normally shows up if Alfira is dead, but by knocking her out, she’s fine and you can do Alfira’s later quests.

The Replacement

Quill Grootslang is a silver dragonborn bard, and her throat singing is amazing. She’s even more over the top than Alfira, in a horror movie this-character-is-so-going-to-die sort of way. Never shows up anywhere else, so no missed content with her.

Neato Sep 24, 2023

That's amazing. Durge is also great and I wish I had named mine that.

Coelacanth Sep 24, 2023

I played through the game as a good-aligned Dark Urge trying to resist the urges and thought the experience overall was great. As far as I remember the Alfira incident is the only time where you have no agency, and it’s done that way to set the tone of the story. While heavy on shock-value, I felt it worked and was effective.

From that point on, you’ll have full control over whether to succumb to your urges or try to resist them (though there are consequences for both and resisting usually had dice tolls involved).