What would you have done?
Necomancer
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.
2.Change her voice/dialogue.
3.Change villain's reaction to her.
4.Change her "past"
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
13
Comments
1.) Put a little bit more focus on the dukes of Baldur's Gate. It's a shame that you only ever really run into them at the end and then you have to leave to chase Sarevok. I would like to have known a little bit more about the dukes and perhaps even done a quest or two for them.
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.
3.) I really liked that you could 'join' the bandits to get into the bandit camp. I just wish they had added some more content there? Perhaps a quest or two that you could do?
4.) The druids in cloakwood felt a little bit left out? You can talk to them and even have Faldorn join you, but it would have been nice if they added some quests that you could do around cloakwood? Would be wonderful to be able to help out as a druid in the cloakwood area.
5.) The werewolf island was AWESOME. I loved the graphics, scenery and everything that came with it. I wish they had added a bit more stuff like this. The mages prison felt a bit empty and i feel that they could have improved it a little bit.
Baldur's gate 2.
1.) Improved some of the strongholds. You have amazing strongholds like the bard one and De'arnise, and then you have stuff like the Thief and ranger stronghold.
2.) Very many things were left unfinished that still haven't been taken care of. The twisted rune, several buildings and other things.
3.) Certain kits like the shapeshifter weren't updated to follow ToB.
4.) Add some dialogues for Imoen if you get her early. Getting her early and then doing quests feels a bit like having a multiplayer character.
5.) Yoshimo, so much potentional here.
6.) Should have given Nalia a romance. Taking care of her keep and saving her could make up for a great romance. It could end up with the two of you actually getting married.
7.) ToB as an expansion. They could have done SO much here that it makes me sad just thinking about it. I love watchers keep, but that's pretty much the only thing i enjoy about ToB.
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)
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.
It would have been nice to at least have seen them.
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.
Also.. when I first heard the devs originally planned to kill Imoen in BG2, I wished they stuck with that. Still do. *hides*
1) Bring Dorn Il-Khan's epilogues towards the theme of whether or not he chooses another master than his demonic patron (Ur-Gothoz/Azothet) and becomes even worse or abandons being an active malefactor in favour of being a warrior again, or a similar theme of his choices actually making a difference, and if he dies, let there be a damn good reason for it. The idea that he can defy high-ranking paladins of Helm and Tyr with and without Charname's help, take on demons of the Abyss and even face down Solars, crusaders and *Silver Dragons* as a member of a decent adventuring party only to suddenly get captured by one human woman with a stubborn streak? I could understand that happening if Dorn was relying on raw strength and constitution by losing his Blackguard powers, but it's more than a little jarring if I agreed to make Dorn an avatar of my power in the realms while ascending to a higher plane of existance. Also, WHAT TEMPESTUOUS RELATIONSHIP WHERE CHARNAME AND DORN ARE TRYING TO VIE FOR CONTROL OF EACH OTHER?! At what point exactly does either one give any indication of this? How did things so quickly deteriorate to the point where a few prison breaks result in Charname fighting and killing Dorn in battle? Explain that to me somebody.
2) Give Dorn a few more topics of conversation and 1 or 2 more romance dialogues. I mean, he's a half-orc. Companion banter beats us into submission with the fact. Everyone except Charname, Sarevok and Viconia calls him half-orc, as if blackguard is a forbidden word or they don't know his real name. Are you trying to suggest that the people in question are prejudiced against half-orcs and taking their bigotry out on the only half-orc in sight because he's evil? Then *expand* on that. Make Dorn call them out on the fact they're bringing up his race instead of his class kit. Hell, you've even brought up his bisexuality in dialogue with Korgan, so have someone else comment on it. It would be nice for Dorn to have a conversation with someone, just one, that didn't mention the words kill, blood, darkness or some flavour of the three.
3) Address the druid problems; fix the shapeshifting issues that put druids at the bottom of the pile, give them better levelling stats and make Cernd not suck. I would do this by giving him better distributed stats and more in the wisdom, intelligence and charisma stats, which are where he would shine as an offensive/defensive caster instead of... what he is. Instead of Shapeshifter, which makes little sense, I'd make him an Avenger, I think. A more useful class kit than the others, with some mage spells and versatile shapeshifting. And most importantly, I'd make him *not* forget the miniscule character development they gave him in Shadows of Amn. I'd give the player the chance to convince him to either, a) tell him to give up being a druid to focus on caring for his son while travelling on the road, b) encourage him to raise him concurrently with duty, remembering what he should be prioritising considering his domestic bunbling or c) tell him to go home to Athkatla with Ahsdale (who should really be called Ashdale) and leave the druid stuff to others. Each would, as Cernd tells us, have the lad choose his own path that is decisively *not* to be a druid, but is nonetheless an admirable move. I mean, for Talos' adoration, what were they thinking by making him screw up his choice between the job and his family AGAIN?! Why didn't he get any dialogues in Throne of Bhaal? Auril's frozen teats, were they really that unclear about what to do with him?
4) Shake Rasaad's epilogues up a little. If they couldn't kill off that arsehole Alorgoth at least once, they could at least not screw him over so royally. Of all the good characters he's probably the nicest and one of the least, if not THE least, flawed characters in the game, but for some reason he just can't catch a break. At all. Let the monk get his man, if only once.
5) Make romances consistant. You know what I liked about Dorn and Rasaad's romances? They didn't have sudden outbursts of rage for imagined slights at the end of a conversation. There's nothing interesting about Viconia or Anomen establishing their tempers by shouting in our faces and apologising days later, with us having no choice but to forgive them no matter how often they lose their temper, lest we abandon our romances in the dirt. And Jaheira's constant moments of stopping mid-sentence feel an awful lot like padding the length of the romance. Rasaad managed to be genuine and touching without temper tantrums or half-sentences simply by showing concern about Charname and helping out with massages and meditation techniques, as well as adorably unused to the art of having a sense of humour, and Dorn was a pitch-perfect evil love interest, displaying what was probably genuine affection while making moves to corrupt Charname and look towards getting something out of our Bhaalspawn status. Neither has the grand scope of Jaheira's romance, or the poignancy and alignment shift of Viconia's (except for Rasaad's status as a woobie) but the newest romances affected me more for the reasons listed above.
6) And finally, I'd base the timer for conversations on actual hour by hour passage in-game. Give players a few days to wander around in game-time so they weren't stuck doing what I did and leaving my poor characters to stand around doing nothing for legitimate hours of real-life time while waiting for the next convo. Not all of us have the patience necessary to wait for a reply several days later - or the spare time, for that matter.
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.
If you make Mellisan a priest of Illmater, then you're getting a little too close to the Icewind Dale story with Brother Polequin.
I would have also given ferrets their own avatar, instead of making them borrow from groundhogs.
2.Different VA and frankly better writing for Neera
3.MOAR KITS
4.More new, unrelated to companions content
5.More externalization
6.Move the homo-eroticism to Rassaad instead of Dorn
off the top of my head
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.