A player has invested time, effort and many attempts to save a people in Baldur’s Gate 3. But this was anything but grateful and caused the player frustration.
On Reddit on October 18th, the user “Danica170” describes a situation from the third act in Baldur’s Gate 3. This is how he meets the NPC Barcus, whom he desperately wants to help. The player does everything he can to save the captured Gondians – including Wilbren and Barcus.
Spoiler warning: The article discusses a fight that a player experienced in the third act of Baldur’s Gate 3.
The unfortunate player wasted around two hours freeing the Gondians before they turned against him over a trivial matter. If the name Barcus doesn’t mean anything to you, it could be because you (like me) had a little mishap with the NPC relatively early in the game.
It’s not just the NPCs that sometimes give the metaphorical middle finger, but Baldur’s Gate 3 in general:
Middle finger to the AAA industry: Baldur’s Gate 3 was no coincidence
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The oil provided a twist
This is how the rescue attempt went: In the post on Reddit on October 18, “Danica170” wrote that he had read about how exhausting it was to save the Gondians in Baldur’s Gate 3. He wanted to try it on his third run. “It can’t be that hard,” he thought to himself. But then things turned out differently.
This is what “Danica170” writes about it:
I have read many posts and comments about that […] Saving them all is a huge nightmare. This is my third playthrough, and honestly I never really cared about the Gondians because I didn’t understand Barcus’ story.
But in this playthrough I tried to help Barcus because he is wonderful and deserves so much more. So I will save all Gondians. […] It’ll be fine.
Nothing was good at all. I tried this fight at least 20 times before I finally managed to save them all. 20 attempts where they teleported into explosions […]. Finally I ended the fight, everyone survived. Great! Finally. That only took me 2 hours.
And then what happens to the oil. The same oil their leader conjured up to save their poor asses. And then they all attack me.
I’ve spent the last few hours trying and failing, [sie] to save, and so they thank me. Just because they slipped and fell.
I’m sorry for questioning you all. I was not right.
At the current time (as of October 22nd, 4 p.m.) the post on Reddit already has 4,500 upvotes and over 500 comments. The comment with the most upvotes comes from “clif08”. He writes: “I really want to see patch notes fixing this. Something like ‘Gondians put themselves in less danger’ or ‘Greatly improved Gondian AI by turning off the AI.’”
Other players also seem to be annoyed by the behavior of the NPCs. User “zane_asterious” writes: “I wish they wouldn’t do such nonsense. Please, for heaven’s sake, help me help you.” Others write that the Gondians just seem to like to suffer.
A player gives a helpful tip in the comments that you can throw small NPCs out of the danger area with the help of a strong character, for example Karlach. This helped him save the Gondians.
Other players also share helpful tips for Baldur’s Gate 3 with the community. However, they only figured out many of them after hundreds of hours of play:
Baldur’s Gate 3 players share lots of useful tips they learned far too late