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Hexxat's quest writing is so bad...?

johntyljohntyl Member Posts: 397
edited June 2016 in Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition
I'm just starting Hexxat's quest in BG2 and I realised all of a sudden my mainCHAR has become a wry, witty and babbling character given his dialogue options, which is so contradictory to his usual conversation exchanges with the other original characters in pre-EE BG. Does any of you feel this way too?
Post edited by johntyl on

Comments

  • FinnTheHumanFinnTheHuman Member Posts: 404
    I just had this expierence with the Dorn quest. It seems like way too many dialogue choices are non serious. Just over the top silly. Not quite breaking the fourth wall ridiculous, but near that. It really gives the feel like the character has no vested interest of his game world. Like the writers expected us to not take the choices presented by the story at all seriously. The dialogue options are: Good, Evil, ridiculous. Half of them have to do with wanting to run away from this spooky place.

    iirc ToB suffered from this to a lesser degree as well. Probably plenty of irreverence in the other non-beamdog content as well... but not so bad. Here it becomes more formulaic.
  • Lord_TansheronLord_Tansheron Member Posts: 4,211
    Hexxat is notorious for having both poor writing AND bugged quests. Just stay away from her.
  • VbibbiVbibbi Member Posts: 229
    Yeah I've noticed this in a lot of the EE content. I haven't played a game using Hexxat or Dorn, but Rasaad felt like this, too. It was really jarring since his story is fairly serious and heavy and most of the dialogue options were cheeky and light hearted.
  • johntyljohntyl Member Posts: 397
    It's almost off-putting, to be honest. It's like they brought the writers from Monkey Island or something. It kind of destroys the BG experience for me.

    Is SoD's writing like this as well?
  • killerrabbitkillerrabbit Member Posts: 402
    johntyl said:


    Is SoD's writing like this as well?

    Hexxat is sooo bad. Can't find it now but there is a critique of the romance dialogues that is so much more entertaining than the real thing. @Mortianna probably knows where it is.



    No, they redeemed themselves with SoD.

    Corwin is great, Minsc is Minsc, the Shaman is well done, Safana is meh, not too bad. Check out SoD.
  • magisenseimagisensei Member Posts: 316
    Hexxat's quest could have been done so much better - it was rather disappointing in general and the total lack of any real loot in tombs only made it worse. I probably said it before but those are some of the worse guardians spirits that I have ever had the chance to encounter - what kind of guardian either ignores you, makes a deal with you and in the end lets you loot the place - not that there was a whole lot worth getting.

    Hexxat's romance - sigh - so odd I was certainly expecting more but sadly it was a lot less. The latest patches probably hasn't done anything to the story/quest content itself - maybe a later patch will make it better - but not likely.

    Rassad quests - very serious but some oddities - but at least I thought it was better than Hexxat's by miles at least - and I like the different possibilities that it gave in the quest itself.

    Dorn's quest - although interesting certainly lacked something - the choices were rather limited - either you got a new patron, kept the old, or freed him leaving you with a severely weakened Dorn - so either remain evil or redeem and get a weakened Dorn - and Dorn himself doesn't seem to care which way it goes either. I'd have liked more input into what he wanted for himself in the long run - is being tied to another demon worth it? is power that important? what about freedom and free will? After all his quests in BG2 were all really quiet evil.

    On a side note - I enjoyed the more humorous dialogue during the wedding especially if you play a male PC and say things like the groom is your lover etc - how quickly everyone turned on him and his protest was hilarious.

    Maybe now with more time and less pressure to release the game on time or whatever, beamdog will find some time to fix or patch some of the new EE npcs quests - although I won't hold my breath - but anything is possible maybe.

    Maybe beamdog can add the Skie story ending somewhere in a future patch as well - with the shaman class added to BG2 maybe we can finally get to the end of the Skie story line since it would fit nicely with a side quest for a shaman PC.
  • johntyljohntyl Member Posts: 397
    edited June 2016
    Lord_Tansheron said:

    Hexxat is notorious for having both poor writing AND bugged quests. Just stay away from her.

    You are absolutely right with Hexxat's quest being bugged like hell.

    Look, for some reason, I have both Hexxat in my team right now. What a joke!




    Not to mention the other bugs I have encountered along the way. I have to reload several times just to circumvent them.

    Is Beamdog not planning rectify these bugs?
  • OlvynChuruOlvynChuru Member Posts: 3,075
    Huh? Hasn't Baldur's Gate always had a lot of silly dialogue choices? I don't really see how the new dialogue is any different.
  • mf2112mf2112 Member, Moderator Posts: 1,919
    johntyl said:

    Lord_Tansheron said:

    Hexxat is notorious for having both poor writing AND bugged quests. Just stay away from her.

    You are absolutely right with Hexxat's quest being bugged like hell.

    Look, for some reason, I have both Hexxat in my team right now. What a joke!




    Not to mention the other bugs I have encountered along the way. I have to reload several times just to circumvent them.

    Is Beamdog not planning rectify these bugs?
    Do you have any mods installed? If these bugs are entered into redmine then they can addressed properly.
  • johntyljohntyl Member Posts: 397
    mf2112 said:


    Do you have any mods installed? If these bugs are entered into redmine then they can addressed properly.

    Just SCS! Redmine?

  • mf2112mf2112 Member, Moderator Posts: 1,919
    edited June 2016
    johntyl said:

    mf2112 said:


    Do you have any mods installed? If these bugs are entered into redmine then they can addressed properly.

    Just SCS! Redmine?

    Redmine.beamdog.com is the bug tracking system. There was a stickied thread with the format for bugs, let me find it....

    https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/49845/how-to-report-bugs

    I guess I am curious to know if these problems occur with a base unmodded 2.3 game. I haven't played Hexxat since the 2.x versions started so I don't know that.
  • ArthasArthas Member Posts: 1,091
    the problem is that most of the issues could be solved if they just listened to shawne, but they simply don't care to be sincere. And why would they, if the product sold anyway. Just bug fixing and they are done with it. But I was said that I'm pretentious: but why are there many people that just disable EE content via mods? Oh well
  • AyiekieAyiekie Member Posts: 975
    IMO, the dialogue choices in Hexxat are fine, the dialogue choices in Dorn are the only times in the entire series I've felt like I could play non-stupid evil, and the complaining about Hexxat here recently is very tedious. If there's bugs in her questline, report them. Beamdog fixes dozens or hundreds of bugs in each patch.
  • ArunsunArunsun Member Posts: 1,592
    The writing would not be THAT bad if only we had a decent 3rd dialogue option instead of a stupidly forced joke.
    Basically an answer list should have options which means:
    -Yes I agree/ Alright I'll do it
    - No I disagree/ I won't do it
    And a couple of more nuanced answers (e.g. when given a quest, ask for the payment etc...)

    EE dialogues usually have 3 answers:
    -Yes
    -No
    -Forced joke which goes from embarassing to totally out of place

    It is fortunate that, despite a couple of imperfections (the like of which original games would have as well), SoD is much better written
  • AyiekieAyiekie Member Posts: 975
    You are, of course, entitled to your opinion. For my part, I like snarky characters, and the original games also had a fair number of snarky answer-possibilities. I've used the sort of answers you dislike more than once, and the game would not improve for me were it rid of them.
  • johntyljohntyl Member Posts: 397
    edited June 2016
    I understand both of your perspective. My contention is actually not with the dialogue options but with the consistency of my mainCHAR dialogue options. In the original game, the dialogue options are majorly consistent throughout mainCHAR's journey (yes, fair enough, there are the occasional jests), but even so, you have other dialogue options that are STILL aligned to the overall demeanour of your mainCHAR. But in EE, as @Arunsun has pointed out, you get quite ridiculous, out-of-character options that immediately stood out. When things go pretty awry, they usually reveal the meta-ness of it. So for many who recognised it, it goes to show the narrative has failed.
  • shawneshawne Member Posts: 3,239
    edited June 2016
    At this point, I think it's safe to assume that the mediocre aspects of the EEs are just going to stand: the writers have moved on, the next project's already in the works, and there hasn't been a content/script update to BG2:EE since it launched, not even to work in back-matter references to SoD (Dennaton still calls you the "Victor of the Dragonspear Crusade" as if you were part of it). Best we can hope for is that the new team under David Gaider proves a bit more competent with future games.
  • Lord_TansheronLord_Tansheron Member Posts: 4,211
    Honestly, I agree that it's just time to move on. Criticize the writing to be sure (it deserves criticism), but don't expect it to be changed. New project, new life.

    On that note, I think we all WOULD appreciate more nuance. The vanilla game isn't entirely blameless in that either.
  • ButtercheeseButtercheese Member Posts: 3,766
    johntyl said:

    It's like they brought the writers from Monkey Island or something.

    ... that would explain why I liked it ...
  • johntyljohntyl Member Posts: 397
    Buttercheese said:

    johntyl said:

    It's like they brought the writers from Monkey Island or something.

    ... that would explain why I liked it ...
    I'm actually a fan of Monkey Island.. Just not in BG ;)
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