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What would you have done?

NecomancerNecomancer Member Posts: 622
We complain alot on this forum, about new content, old content, about how our level 1 bard just got shanked for the fifth time in a row officially making me give up on no reload challenges.

So what would you have done different? I'd like to make a request that this not become a debate over whats good or bad. Everyone has a right to like or hate what they want and more often then not its a matter of taste. In the same spirit of posting try to keep complaints down as well unless you have a change you think would make it better. I want this to be about expressing ideas and flexing creativity or balance skills. If its about how you would have made a fight harder, balance classes, re-write certain things, completely replace large bits, please post it and if you like someone's idea please click like so they get that warm little glow inside.

That all being said let me start with one of my biggest problems in the entire series. Melissan. Putting my ideas behind spoiler boxes, cause I'm about to do a few big text walls here.

1.Change her design.

One of my biggest problems with Melissan is that she was advertised everywhere. Right on the box art. Looking like a druid with a claw fetish rather then a super evil villain. Look at Sarevok, he looks like the kind of dark lord that'd make Sauron go "Daaaamn, looking good boy!". Look at Irenecus, he looks as mad as he is and as tortured as he feels. Melissan? Druid with a claw fetish. Worse of all, her face is *right there*. You could see it from the very beginning. You knew she was the final boss and were expected to just go along with it. Nothing will ruin immersion like this.

I remember back in my days on City of Heroes(God I miss that game) we had a member of our anti-hero/vigilante group who was evil. He said how evil he was out of character *constantly*. Made no attempt to hide it and was bad at hiding it in character as well, but we couldn't call him out on it. Why? Because that'd be metagaming (using out of character knowledge in character). Never mind your excuses, you got labeled as metagaming. It was the most frustrating thing ever and its basically what you go through in ToB. You *know* shes evil but part of you spends the whole time wondering if its because shes bad at hiding it or if you've had it spoiled for you already. Its immersion breaking and frustrating at the same time.

So what would I do? Change her design considerably. Consider Sarevok, remove his helmet and tattoos and you can't tell its him. Do the same with Melissan. Heck, make her look inhuman. Shes full of Bhaal essences, right? make her take on a slightly more humanoid slayer like look. Have her claw armor extend to cover her entire arm, a good portion of her upper body and her neck and mouth. Suddenly all you can see is eyes, yellow and glowing and her breasts are hidden so gender is not so obvious. Replace the feathers with horns. There you go. I think this design would be nicer looking and wouldn't ruin the surprise of her being the big bad...Well, okay. It'd still be ruined for other reasons, wich I will move onto now.


2.Change her voice/dialogue.

Now, I want you to understand. I think her voice actoress was mostly fine. Once she revealed herself to be evil her voice was wonderful and fitting. Up til then? No. It was like Aladin trusting Jafar (I know I made a disney reference and yes I am ashamed.) Everything about the guy's voice drips of evil, as does Mellisan's. It doesn't help that she comes off as a terrible actor.

Take the whole indecent after you kill the mace wielding bhaalspawn super orc. She shouts "NOOOOO!!!" in the most horribly and ridiculously exaggerated way. Seriously. Its just screams of bad acting. What did she think would happen? We come to a gentleman's agreement and shake hands? He was a mad half-orc and we're *both* bhaalspawn. She should have simply expressed regret but not surprise, not shouted like a maniac. In this I can't blame the voice actress. Thats the sort of line that you can't do much with because its not a realistic reaction to the situation. Regardless, it doesn't end there.

When Saradash was destroyed her reaction was...underwhelming. Considering how she reacted to you killing a insane and violent orc it just came off as insincere. What they should have done was have her express deep regret, possibly even cry, but put on a brave face as there was still more work to be done. Maybe it was just me but she seemed awfully unashamed of the fact that her attempt to "help" got all those she swore to "protect" horribly murdered. Like I said, I can't blame the voice actress too much here, the writing was horrid. Regardless, moving on!


3.Change villain's reaction to her.
This is a minor one, at most, but I remember growing so frustrated that two of the game's main villains said "She was up to something" and I couldn't suspect a thing, because apparently I was captain McDumbButt. I find ToB in general has far too many cut scenes that lead to things I couldn't have possibly known. Really, I can see keeping the whole orc warlord taking her away because hes suppose to be insane and paranoid (though I'd try to give examples of him acting this way prior to him taking away Mellisan to enforce this). When Balthazar (I think I'm missing an A there) does it its just...annoying. They should have had him just mention it happened and possibly even have him be the exposition that reveals that Mellisan was up to no good the whole time. Much more natural flowing then summoning fire giants back from the dead to tell you, and then you chase her down, find her, she teleports you to your own pocket plane as a demonstration of how powerful shes become then BEGIN FINAL BATTLE! After being given the choice to ask about her motivations of course.

Like I said, this is minor, but still annoying.


4.Change her "past"
If I remember right Mellisan's whole deal was "I help the bhaalspawn and protect them because reasons and yes." She had no motivation in her fake story and that got me suspicious ASAP. It wouldn't have been hard to change this either. Say shes a cleric of Illmator, who knows how the bhaalspawn suffer and wishes to help them through it.

Better yet, have her say her child was a bhaalspawn who was killed for what he was. After that she became dedicated to making sure no other bhaalspawn suffered the way her son did, at the hands of an angry mob, riping him apart as he was set aflame and she was held back, helpless and unheeded.

Also, make the story partly true. She did have a son with Bhaal (seriously. Look at her. If I was Bhaal I'd hit that so hard she'd have twins). Her son was murdered by another spawn of Bhaal and in her grief she may have beseeched what little of Bhaal remained in this world and asked how to bring her son back, the one who was destined to be the new lord of murder, and Bhaal? He just laughed. His time was coming closer and he cared not whom his vessel was nor for his priestess's pitiful whining.

And so she hunting down the bhaalspawn who murdered her son, killed him herself, took upon her bhaal's essence and felt her son had, in some way, returned to her. She knew then what she had to do. Become the new lord of murder, forsake Bhaal for how he threw her away, and then perhaps she could even bring back her son.

After all, even chaotic evil is capable of loving their children. Mind you, at the end battle you could point out how just a bit of Bhaal's essence brought back Sarevok, that Mellisan may have been able to bring her child back the whole time but did not, that perhaps her child was not the reason, but the excuse. She used his death to make a grab for power she always wanted regardless. Such an argument would make her wroth and angry, I mean, foam at the mouth angry...And god damn would that be satisfying to say. You might even be able to offer to bring her child back yourself, something wich would only anger her more. Possibly because she never wanted to bring him back, only the power to do so, or she never thought to try. Either way, she would have to kill you now for being a smartass.

Regardless, this might turn Mellisan from a MWAHAHAHA I AM EVIL villain to a somewhat sympathetic villain. Her motivation is love, or at least her excuse is.


I don't claim to be the best writer, or super awesome, but I think these few changes would greatly enhance Mellisan in terms of character and story. If you disagree, please, post your own ideas. Be it for Mellisan, an NPC, gameplay, a kit change, or whatever. Tell us what you would do different if you had the power to do so.
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Comments

  • shawneshawne Member Posts: 3,239
    Do you mean for the EEs specifically or BG in general?

    For the original games, I would have preferred a more "grounded" reveal of the central twist in the first game - the discovery that the PC is a Bhaalspawn is relegated to a letter from Gorion that you might not ever find, let alone read. And it's not entirely clear until the very last area in the game what's actually going on, why Sarevok is hunting you, etc. These things could have been foreshadowed earlier, in a more appropriately dramatic fashion.

    While Durlag's Tower and Werewolf Island were entertaining areas, I would have liked a more permanent reward other than loot - it would have been nice to take Delany/Durlyle along as a party member at the end of that adventure. Looking at later games, some of my favorite NPCs hail from expanded content (Shale, One of Many, Kasumi Goto and Deekin, to name just a few), and a werewolf companion would have been an interesting addition to the roster.

    BG2's biggest flaw right out the gate was its preferred treatment of Good/Neutral players, from assuming the canonical party in BG1 was Imoen, Khalid, Jaheira, Dynaheir and Minsc, to not providing enough NPCs to sustain a full Evil party - though thankfully, that last oversight has been addressed with the addition of Dorn and Hexxat.

    As a personal gripe, I would have preferred at least one more female NPC with combat capabilities: every single woman in the game other than Mazzy is a caster of some sort.

    The whole notion of "soft deadlines" was problematic: the objective of saving Imoen, and then retrieving your soul before you died, establishes a countdown clock that isn't enforced in any way. "Mass Effect" did this better: the longer you wait to complete certain events (rescuing Liara in the first game, pursuing your abducted crew in the second; the Grissom Academy and Tuchanka Bomb missions in the third), the worse things got. Either Imoen should have been damaged somehow the longer you waited (maybe even turned Evil/insane if you wait too long?) or move the theft of the player's soul to the end of chapter 5 (after the escape from the Underdark) and then give them a version of Jaheira's stat-draining curse: this compels you on to Suldanessellar and defeating Irenicus immediately.

    As an aside, not really here for Melissan fan fiction, since it's very difficult for people who've played the game many times to perceive the twist objectively - this is a 15-year-old game, we can just as easily criticize Darth Vader's "I Am Your Father" for not holding up under scrutiny. The only real difference between her and Irenicus is that she actually has a connection to the overall story: Bhaal was a god, and she was his high priestess. Not sure why she needs to be motivated by the love of a child (as if that's not enough of a cliche when it comes to female villains)
  • the_spyderthe_spyder Member Posts: 5,018
    SionIV said:

    Baldur's gate 1.
    2.) Would have liked there to be something more when it came to the whole fight against Amn. We meet a couple of merchant bands from Amn but that's pretty much it, would be nice if they had explored this a bit more. They could also have let you meet one or two of these NPC's in Baldur's Gate 2.

    At least one of the merc bands that you fight towards the lower end of the board is from Amn. Also, Xzar and Monty are agents of the Zentarim. But yeah, it does seem like somewhat of a missed opportunity.

    I personally liked the fact that the Dukes don't come into play until late in the game. After all, for all of your heritage, you are still a lowbie that only Saravok cares about.

  • SionIVSionIV Member Posts: 2,689

    SionIV said:

    Baldur's gate 1.
    2.) Would have liked there to be something more when it came to the whole fight against Amn. We meet a couple of merchant bands from Amn but that's pretty much it, would be nice if they had explored this a bit more. They could also have let you meet one or two of these NPC's in Baldur's Gate 2.

    At least one of the merc bands that you fight towards the lower end of the board is from Amn. Also, Xzar and Monty are agents of the Zentarim. But yeah, it does seem like somewhat of a missed opportunity.

    I personally liked the fact that the Dukes don't come into play until late in the game. After all, for all of your heritage, you are still a lowbie that only Saravok cares about.

    The thing that frustrates me is that my character have a connection to Eltan and i actually care about saving him. But when i have to fight to save Belt and Jannath (?) i have absolutely no connection to them, so i don't really care if they die or not.

    It would have been nice to at least have seen them.
  • NecomancerNecomancer Member Posts: 622
    shawne said:

    As an aside, not really here for Melissan fan fiction, since it's very difficult for people who've played the game many times to perceive the twist objectively - this is a 15-year-old game, we can just as easily criticize Darth Vader's "I Am Your Father" for not holding up under scrutiny. The only real difference between her and Irenicus is that she actually has a connection to the overall story: Bhaal was a god, and she was his high priestess. Not sure why she needs to be motivated by the love of a child (as if that's not enough of a cliche when it comes to female villains)

    This first point baffles me a bit. You say you're not here to read the thing I typed and thats fine, but then you go ahead and read what I did regardless. I can only assume you're looking for something to criticize since you think Mellisan is fine as is.

    Regardless, I don't really think comparing Mellisan to Darth Vader or Irenicus is a good way of saying shes just as good. Irenicus was ment to be a looming figure, a malevolent force always in the background and only directly confronting you a few times when it has meaning. This is fine and works as intended.

    Mellisan is not working as intended. Shes there to manipulate and trick you into doing the dirty work for her, something I admit is very hard to pull off properly in a video game for reasons mentioned above. She would actually be a harder villain to write for then Irenicus because you'd need to make her manipulations believable. For me, at least, they did not achieve this goal.

    Perhaps shes fine for you, like I said in my original post its all a matter of tastes and I'll not say that you're wrong if you think shes a good or acceptable villain, but to me shes not. Perhaps because of some personal biased or standard. Regardless, the thing I believe hurts her the most is lack of motivation, not for her evil deeds but for her "good" ones. One could say she supposedly did what she did because it was the right thing to do, but there is a difference between going to save a woman from gnolls because its the right thing to do and going out of your way and dedicating your life to gathering people with a strong biased towards serial murder in order to guide and protect them. She lacks proper motivation for doing this and it ruins the illusion of her being a manipulative and clever villain for me. Perhaps she wasn't intended to be clever, but this annoys the part of me who wants to be a 18 int elf who is quite capable of picking up on obvious signs of untrustworthyness when they show themselves.

    You're right that what I said was a bit cliche, but I've found purposely avoiding cliches is as bad as purposely resorting to them. This is why every serious writer needs good editors. In my case it'd also be because of terrible grammar and spelling. Luckily I'm not a serious writer and more a random sharer of ideas I think are neat at the time.

    Anyways I'm off to post in the BG meme thread. Going to make a scumbag steve saying "Says he doesn't want his thread to become a debate" and "Replis to the first bit of criticism about this idea" in repentance for this post.
  • elminsterelminster Member, Developer Posts: 16,317
    edited March 2014
    Made a new area (in BGEE) accessible by anyone where Eldoth would get some special lines. The area in question involves you solving a mystery regarding missing monks (which was present in the original game but never implemented).
  • TheElfTheElf Member Posts: 798
    Considering I'm still playing occasionally not much that I'd change I suppose. I wish their were more evil options, and adding a bit more exploration/ weird quests that start with breaking into someone's house in BG2 would've been nice either for the original or ee.
    Also.. when I first heard the devs originally planned to kill Imoen in BG2, I wished they stuck with that. Still do. *hides*
  • KolvarKolvar Member Posts: 6
    Amelyssan should have been Charname's mother (I always thought Gorion was a kind of Obi-wan Kenobi). Or they could have let Alianna be Gorion's lover (sad enough to my taste). And more quests, more banters, more choices, etc... (though I'm not sure Beamdog had the rights to modify already existing content).

  • NecomancerNecomancer Member Posts: 622
    @Kovlar They can't, but this is just a "what if..." type thread. I don't expect any of this to actually happen.
  • JarrakulJarrakul Member Posts: 2,029
    I'm actually okay with TOB as it is, but I still like your version better. Particularly your version of Melissan's backstory. That's juicy.

    I will say, I actually like her character design, although I'd probably have done without the feathers. But I agree with you that it's another piece of a puzzle that really aught to show you fewer pieces right at the beginning.
  • SPOILER ALERT!!!!!









    If you make Mellisan a priest of Illmater, then you're getting a little too close to the Icewind Dale story with Brother Polequin.
  • Kolvar said:

    Amelyssan should have been Charname's mother (I always thought Gorion was a kind of Obi-wan Kenobi). Or they could have let Alianna be Gorion's lover (sad enough to my taste). And more quests, more banters, more choices, etc... (though I'm not sure Beamdog had the rights to modify already existing content).

    I prefer that Gorion is somewhat of a sorrowful hero, living in Candlekeep for the next 20 years to both raise the character and live with his grief/guilt.
  • meaglothmeagloth Member Posts: 3,806
    Khalid would be not-dead.
  • MeyahiMeyahi Member Posts: 143
    ???? (bright eyes) coming back mid SoA because he's just full of win.
  • elminsterelminster Member, Developer Posts: 16,317

    I'd rather Dynaheir not be killed off-screen. I said it before and I'll say it again: no one is dead unless I see a body. Plus watching her die on-screen would have left more of an impact.

    Even the Carbos and Shank show that seeing a body might not mean they can't be raised :)
  • wubblewubble Member Posts: 3,156

    Kolvar said:

    Amelyssan should have been Charname's mother (I always thought Gorion was a kind of Obi-wan Kenobi). Or they could have let Alianna be Gorion's lover (sad enough to my taste). And more quests, more banters, more choices, etc... (though I'm not sure Beamdog had the rights to modify already existing content).

    I prefer that Gorion is somewhat of a sorrowful hero, living in Candlekeep for the next 20 years to both raise the character and live with his grief/guilt.
    Gorion lied about charname's mother in the letter, he never knew her and instead rescued you from being sacrificed by your mother who was a priestess of bhaal.
  • elminsterelminster Member, Developer Posts: 16,317
    edited December 2014
    DJKajuru said:

    I know that it might be a really tough thing to do, but I would do a makeover on 50% of the game dialogues, have them count charisma, intelligence and wisdom and plenty of class based dialogue options .

    That is one thing about Arkanum I like :)
  • NimranNimran Member Posts: 4,875
    I would have added a number of various playable races, such as ferrets or slimes.
    I would have also given ferrets their own avatar, instead of making them borrow from groundhogs.
  • lunarlunar Member Posts: 3,460
    edited December 2014
    Silchas said:


    6.Move the homo-eroticism to Rassaad instead of Dorn


    off the top of my head

    Hear, hear! I really like the gentle but tortured psyche of Rasaad, but he would not romance my male pcs. It could have been a touching story of coming out of closet. Ahh..
  • wubble said:

    Kolvar said:

    Amelyssan should have been Charname's mother (I always thought Gorion was a kind of Obi-wan Kenobi). Or they could have let Alianna be Gorion's lover (sad enough to my taste). And more quests, more banters, more choices, etc... (though I'm not sure Beamdog had the rights to modify already existing content).

    I prefer that Gorion is somewhat of a sorrowful hero, living in Candlekeep for the next 20 years to both raise the character and live with his grief/guilt.
    Gorion lied about charname's mother in the letter, he never knew her and instead rescued you from being sacrificed by your mother who was a priestess of bhaal.
    He didn't neccesarily lie. She may have been his friend and one-time lover, before she became a priestess of Bhaal and went maaaaaaad, I tell you, MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD! hahaahuheeuuhuheeeeee >:3
  • NimranNimran Member Posts: 4,875

    wubble said:

    Kolvar said:

    Amelyssan should have been Charname's mother (I always thought Gorion was a kind of Obi-wan Kenobi). Or they could have let Alianna be Gorion's lover (sad enough to my taste). And more quests, more banters, more choices, etc... (though I'm not sure Beamdog had the rights to modify already existing content).

    I prefer that Gorion is somewhat of a sorrowful hero, living in Candlekeep for the next 20 years to both raise the character and live with his grief/guilt.
    Gorion lied about charname's mother in the letter, he never knew her and instead rescued you from being sacrificed by your mother who was a priestess of bhaal.
    He didn't neccesarily lie. She may have been his friend and one-time lover, before she became a priestess of Bhaal and went maaaaaaad, I tell you, MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD! hahaahuheeuuhuheeeeee >:3
    'Those the gods seek to destroy' and all that rot.
  • Nimran said:

    wubble said:

    Kolvar said:

    Amelyssan should have been Charname's mother (I always thought Gorion was a kind of Obi-wan Kenobi). Or they could have let Alianna be Gorion's lover (sad enough to my taste). And more quests, more banters, more choices, etc... (though I'm not sure Beamdog had the rights to modify already existing content).

    I prefer that Gorion is somewhat of a sorrowful hero, living in Candlekeep for the next 20 years to both raise the character and live with his grief/guilt.
    Gorion lied about charname's mother in the letter, he never knew her and instead rescued you from being sacrificed by your mother who was a priestess of bhaal.
    He didn't neccesarily lie. She may have been his friend and one-time lover, before she became a priestess of Bhaal and went maaaaaaad, I tell you, MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD! hahaahuheeuuhuheeeeee >:3
    'Those the gods seek to destroy' and all that rot.
    First they'll have to take on the dragons with rabbit's feet...'tis true I swear! :DD
  • MhamzaMhamza Member Posts: 228
    It would have been nice for barbarian and monk class to have a stronghold of their own. The De'Arnise keep doesn't make much sense for a barbarian imo, and only really does for a monk if there was an option to convert it into a monastery, though unfortunately there isn't. The Planar Sphere's nice and all for a wizard but I always thought that a good stronghold for a sorcerer would be a spelltower.
  • YannirYannir Member Posts: 595
    edited December 2014
    @Mhamza I agree with you, all classes should have separate strongholds. Although giving barbarian's a unique stronghold might prove problematic because Amn is a civilized country and probably would not tolerate any barbarian tribes living inside their borders. They would either be integrated, destroyed or sent exile. However, I can imagine a barbarian taking over a warrior company or a mercenary band.


    On another note, I would've liked to see some of the loose ends tied up.

    1st of all, in SoA there are mentions and rumors of an army of gnolls, ogres, orcs and the like led by a Bhaalspawn. You encounter that one band of deserters(Madulf and his boys) but this great possible storyline isn't utilized in any major way after that. If I recall correctly, in ToB you just find out that Illasera killed the Bhaalspawn and the army fell apart. How lame is that?

    Secondly, in ToB you encounter the military of Tethyr in the oasis and they give you no other choice than to fight your way through them. There should be some kind of follow-up! A side-quest where you go to convince the king of Tethyr that you are not his enemy, or kill him, or something like that. Instead we have a major fight where you kill one of the kings best friends, and what does he do about it? Nothing. That makes no sense whatsoever.

    It's even canonical that the Bhaalspawn-crisis leaves Tethyr without royalty and the country falls to pieces into bickering city-states and small kingdoms.


    I don't know if these have been modded but I think they should've been in the game to begin with.
  • shawneshawne Member Posts: 3,239
    It would've been nice if Beamdog had addressed some of the lazier design choices post-launch - the lack of variables in Dorn's epilogue is a sticking point, but one thing I found particularly baffling was the decision to assign blackguards to de'Arnise Keep without actually changing the scenario, so you still have to play Lawful Good to make it work.
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