Note that is a rant and is not very coherent and I've not finished it yet. I'm forcing myself to complete it as I'm a fan of BG1 and 2 but is a chore to play.
There are people, including on this site, that are praising BG3 for role-playing along the lines "sure is woke but I can role-play how ever I want".
My experience is exactly the opposite. Just few things I noticed.
1.The dialogue options are not satisfactory.
I've showed no interest in the druid elf dude but he offers you sex despite barely speaking with him and you can't get mad at and say "you degenerate either leave my camp or die". In fact you can't tell any companion to leave the camp permanent. You can't even tell that to other people that show up in your camp.
There are a bunch of abrasive NPCs that you can't tell them, bitch either tone it down or there is going to be violence. Sometimes you get intimidation checks but this is not what I'm aiming at, but the proper response to a bitch that treats you like shit despite being a group of heavily armed individuals that should be known at one point.
There is no nuance to refugees, either you support it or you are evil. You have no reasonable path for them. The game also pushes "the poor refugees" angle like crazy. Even the druid dude says something along the lines of baldurs gate people deserve death for being reluctant to take in the refugees.
As an example, there are some refugees squatting in someone's house and you can't use money to buy them accommodations elsewhere or better yet, give them money and supplies and get the frell out of there, there is a freaking army heading their way. And of course they treat you like a monster if you chose to evict them.
I understand there are some shady things with the dude who owns the house but that is just further manipulation from the writers to make it reasonable for refugees to take over ones house without the owners permission.
The lesbo priestess of Selune and her lover are bitches in how they act towards the priestesses father sacrificing himself to save her from death. The avatar of female frequency smashes his head several times in anger, sure he kept her locked up but it was towards saving the one she supposedly loves. I should be able to point that out to them.
- Sometimes ignores your choices or tries to force "the right choice". I told the lesbos to not come to my camp but they came anyway. Why is my character ok with having them there against his will and no dialogue option later to talk about it?
There was another scene with Wyll trying to sneak in the camp to kill Karlach, I told him to leave and never return, frankly he should have died there but I was merciful. The game tries over and over to make you take him in your party despite not making any sense.
- Several times my character is acting gay against my will. I've never gave any indication of being interested in Gale but suddenly I can see my character throwing seductive looks towards him and then sitting right next to him. I would expect the gay action to happen only if you show interest.
The same with the emperor. I was 100% against him from the start but it does not stop my character to sit down and throw glances like we are best buds, including a strange scene with him with his shirt off. Again I told him he was a monster from the start, why is the monster flirting with me.
- Evil choices are not well thought off. For example, if you choose to give Nightsong to Lorroakan you get no reward despite being a contract and he mentions a huge reward. You can call on them later but that made 0 sense. And this happens in several quests.
In previous games the evil choice was designed to be tempting. Better rewards to test you as a player, was an interesting idea.
- The role-playing of some NPCs is just over the top. You get the 3 bad guys do a captain-planet summon and one of them is an edgy emo dude. You also get some over the top evil guys that are cartoonish evil with no depth or anything that would make them interesting.
I've seen NWN2 mods that had better NPC role playing then this game.
There are some nice one, Lae'zel and Shadowheart are surprisingly interesting and their reactions seem more natural for their personalities. I understand that Lae'zel wants to have sex with you but I must have missed that part.
I admit you made me laugh a bit.
For number 4 it is my fault, I was trying to make good with Shadowheart and it felt like the good option for her.
Just a small on number 5, Jon Irenicus was also tormented by his love for the elven queen and hunted by the lose of his immortality, like his sister. I found that much more appealing then BG3 story.
I disagree about the moral options, there are not well thought out in my opinion. At least not for secondary quests, I think it stems from the leftist morality problem, they have none so either something is cartoonish evil or not evil. They can't understand that an action can be evil or not regardless of motivation.
I'm playing Dark Urge, and really enjoying it. For morality, it's not that the choices aren't evil, but they all make sense. It's not like the old games where good always gave you the best gameplay result and evil was just stupid. Evil choices here are sometimes just better (and sometimes worse).
Eg, I'm contemplating a second play through as good side, and I still think I might side with the emperor a little bit because at-will Fly for no action cost is that amazing as a power.
This is the first big RPG where I've actually enjoyed the evil options because they fit in with the character instead of being chaotic stupid. Other games have evil options and they lock you out and are self destructive, but I don't feel that way here. If you ever give the game another shot, I'd recommend just going in and playing like a role playing game as a person you want to be. You can be a badass who does what they want and doesn't take any shit. It's enjoyable and actually feels like a fully fleshed out path instead of an afterthought so they can claim there's 'morality options'.
The renegade option in the first ME was good and playing evil in NWN2: MOTB is interesting, if you've not played that one I encourage you to do so.
I'll think about giving it another shot, once I mod it to get all the woke stuff out but I need to first forget the first run.
MOTB is fantastic, if a bit short. The other two expansions really couldn't follow it up, but it'll stay as one of the best high level campaigns for CRPGs.