Substantial Sidequests: Your Least Favourite
recklessheart
Member Posts: 692
This is a poll purely posted for my own curiosity. BG2 is one of the best games ever, so I wouldn't go as far as to say I 'hate' any quests the game gives you, although after playing the game close to (if not more than) 10 times, there are certain quests I aaaalways put off until right before I have to go rescue Imoen.
This poll concerns the original content of BG2, not the EE areas. I have judged 'substantial sidequests' using a combination of how much time must be committed to the quest; as well as the scale of the area that the quest covers.
This poll concerns the original content of BG2, not the EE areas. I have judged 'substantial sidequests' using a combination of how much time must be committed to the quest; as well as the scale of the area that the quest covers.
- Substantial Sidequests: Your Least Favourite133 votes
- Windspear Hills (Chasing Firkraag)9.02%
- Trademeet & Druid Grove (Trouble in Trademeet)16.54%
- De'Arnise Keep (The De'Arnise Keep has been invaded)13.53%
- Umar Hills & Temple Ruins (Investigate the problems in the Umar Hills)9.77%
- The Cult of the Unseeing Eye (Investigate the Cult of the Unseeing Eye)22.56%
- The Planar Sphere (The hunt for Valygar Corthala)17.29%
- another unspecified option11.28%
4
Comments
was actually going to say watchers keep just because a couple of the floors are amongst my least favourite part of the 2nd game but WK at least has a few highlights.
(I'm not a shield-refuser, obviously ;p)
The reason I tend to leave the sphere for late is I tend to play good charnames, so I don't want to kill Valygar, but I'm also anal about taking anyone in that I don't intend to keep, no matter the duration.
The Unseeing Eye quest wins this poll for me by a wide margin though. It is a thoroughly uninteresting quest, pulled together by very unattractive areas (the sewers, the lost temple, ghoul town). No part of the quest benefits from the atmosphere that most of the game has. That said, whoever came up with the quest idea is very clever: I think it is a well-constructed idea, what with the loss of faith and the relationship between the gods and Faerunians being interesting motifs for me. It is a pity it is so tedious though; it lacks any kind of replayability.
Trademeet and De'Arnise Hold are both wonderful quests, though, if you ask me. I can't imagine they will garner very high numbers if more people start voting. I probably also should have included the Sahuagin City as an option, but it slipped my mind (the Planar Sphere nearly did too!), so apologies for that!
Yet I'm fond of Haer'Dalis, so I usually end up doing it early anyway. And dying a lot.
That's both in the hills themselves AND in the dungeon. I absolutely hate having to do things again and re-fighting those enemies is just a huge pain.
The level design annoy me alot. It is a cool premise and story, but running all the way to Lavok and then go all the way back outside to find a demon heart and THEN run to the engine room is just really frustrating. Ohh and did I mention all the golems in the machine room, Gahh!!
You can't go early, because the warden will shred you. If you go late you get multiple triple yuan-ti mage spawns.
Other than that, probably Unseeing Eye.
Prophet speech that lasts half an hour.
>Enter sewers.
>Trek all the way to other side of sewers.
>Make you way to Gaal, fight annoying mists in trapped cloudkill room. Once you hit them once they go invisible and chase your weakest character who is halfway across the map hiding, even though there's no possible way to know they're there. If you're lucky your mage doesn't get level drained.
>Backtrack through whole map to temple entrance.
>Walk another 5 miles. Get smashed by beholder/gauth pack over the bridge.
>Go to temple and listen to longwinded emo guard.
>Get rod, backtrack across whole map.
>Go all the way back to Gaal to undead cave.
>Supposed to be snuck in right near unseeing eye, instead undead cave drops you the complete opposite side of map so you have to clear the whole level.
>Uber powerful rod doesn't actually do anything except turn eyeball into regular Elder Orb. He should die instantly if the rod is so powerful that the gods themselves had to break it in two and hide it.
>Leave
>Walk another 10 miles to temple and back to give them the used up rod
>Walk back to Gaal and kill him.
>Walk back across map, back through sewers and back to temple.
I am aware of this, but it's kidna immersion breaker to send him back at this point.
The only redeeming feature I found was that after cleansing the altar you can exit to the world map on the eastern edge without going backwards through the blasted place.
The easy ones :
- Trademeet is ultra easy (invisibility in druid grove, killing the raksasha is easy, as is the tomb) and the rewards are great (tons of money, belm, good xp) -> i usually do it first
- The thieves quest line is very easy with just one semi-hard fight to do (the mage) -> i do it second
- D'arnise keep is also very easy (trolls are weak) with some nice reward (FOA). Torgal can be tough however if you are not well prepared -> i do it third
- The quests in umar are very easy, the dungeon is not that difficult (no mages, only the bone golem are semi-dangerous), but i usuallly don't do it before the end of the game (just to kill the dragon)
The medium one :
- Fierkraag dungeon is good and rather interesting with lots of different opponents (golems, werewolf, vampires, efriits, group in the tomb) but it is quite hard and the rewards are not so good. I keep it for the end game most of the time
The hard ones
- Planar sphere : very hard dungeon (3 mages fights, the tanari can be painful). Reward is not so good. I keep for the end unless i play a mage
- Astral prison : very hard : the initial fight is a killer if you are not prepared. The demon can be nasty with his paralyzing glance. The warden (even in vanilla) is probably the hardest fight in early SOA in you are unlucky (symbol stun...). The loot is very good however (boots of speed, kundane, staff of air)
The cheesy one :
- Beholder lair. I just skip that one or use shield of balduran for tons of easy xp. They should have made it completely differently with a few beholders only while completely removing the shield for the game.
This is a quest leading to a stronghold like all quests listed in this poll.
Not only the difficulty level is far below the average but it also comes with a questdepleted stronghold.
The De'Arnise Keep bores me and its only benefit is the Flail of Ages. I hate fighting trolls because their AI is still broken and keep fighting even though they should've been knocked out. The easiest way is to just ctrl+y them with a stealthed character so they just collapse right there to finish off.
Number two is Mae'Var's questline. Even though its supposed to be busy-work since you're "working" for Mar'Var, it's still tedious. The payoffs are Edwin, the Shadow Armor, and the thief stronghold so its not all bad, but I hate having to go through it anytime I want good old Eddy as a party member.