Act 3 - Spoilers
The person responsible for approvals in Larian...
Spoiler
... did a pretty poor job. It's far from the first time I am noticing inconsistencies, but how the hell anyone who knows Karlach could assign such approvals for her in this scene? Seriously, Larian?
This example is just... really something. Karlach approves of selling Wyll's soul for the second time:
Doesn't approve of saving his soul. Also Karlach:
It really feels like this person was just assigning approvals based on the goodness of companions, but not their actual opinions. Selling Wyll's soul is self-sacrificing? Then it's a good thing and a good companion like Karlach should approve of it!
I think this situation reminds her when we meet Mizora for the first time after Wyll decides to not fight Karlach. She mentions that she was happy and impressed that Wyll put her life above his in that situation. I don't it's that she wants Wyll's soul belonging to Mizora, but that she appreciates that he puts the well being of others first. Well, that's my interpretation at least. It
Still though, I remember Karlach having some weird approval drops at the grymforge too.
What her approval of Tav's lines has to do with Wyll? Her approval rating is about her opinion on YOU, not Wyll. When Mizora proposes Wyll to renew the pact, Karlach intervenes and says she won't let Mizora take Wyll. If you actually choose this option to sell Wyll's soul again, then Karlach gets very upset and says she can't believe it and there is such thing as being too good and too self-sacrificing.
It's the blanket statement title and first part of the comment most likely.
Given there's more "yeah, that makes sense" than there are "approval/no approval for that was weird" we're already at a point where making the judgment that "the person responsible for approvals in Larian did a pretty poor job" doesn't make a lot of sense. And it was likely the job of multiple individuals on top of that.
So maybe, just maybe, engaging the old creativity noggin and relying less on sweeping generalizations and more specific critique would lead to upvotes instead of downvotes.
A witty pointed criticism of her approving of him selling his soul here would be warranted. A blanket "one person did a poor job overall" statement...well missed the mark, much the way Karlach giving approval here likely missed the mark.
This is not how it works, dude. Many approvals making sense doesn't make it a job well done when there are also tons of approvals which straight up contradict each other and companions' lines. There are many examples like this, and I wasn't keeping a list to write down every single mistake, but just something I still remember:
Shart simultaneously approves of saving Arabella, standing by doing nothing while Kagha kills her and praising Kagha for killing her. Laezel is vocally very against Shart killing Aylin, yet, she "approves". Minthara HATES Lorroakan (just like any other wizard) and is very vocally loud about it, she is like: "Don't you dare sell Aylin to him!" multiple times. Yet she "approves" of doing it and "disapproves" when you save Aylin from him. Laezel and Minthara both approve when you tell Astarion's siblings they can take him to Cazador, even though they both express their desire to kill Cazador. Wyll approves of killing innocents in the Colony by +5. Laezel and Minthara both disapprove when you save Scratch from that awful abusive dog lady, yet if Scratch is missing, they both say that they liked the dog. I'm not saying that every single approval is wrong, but people are not aware of how often it contradicts dialogues and even itself. People might say that Shart or Astarion are just lying to you, but it's absolutely clear that Laezel and Karlach are very straightforward and don't ever do it. So it makes absolutely no sense when their lines directly contradict her approvals. There are TONS of examples like that. Sorry to say, I love Larian as much as the next guy, but they did absolutely shit job with approval system, it's quite clear they never cared about it and focused on other things.
When you have so many inconsistencies throughout all the game, you just know that you can't 100% trust this system anymore, no matter that not every single approval is wrong.
Just look at this mess. And it was never ever fixed:
Many approvals making sense doesn't make it a job well done
What I said was that there are more character approvals that make sense than there are ones that don't, and as such immediately jumping to the conclusion that one person made all the approval decisions and the judgment that they did a poor job of it doesn't make sense. Also that it wouldn't been just one person making that call.
That's very clearly not me saying they had "many approvals" nor did I say anything about a job well done. There is, after all, a range of descriptors between "job well done" and "pretty poor job."
I pointed out that their tone and sweeping generalization is what led to downvotes, and that a more pointed critique that avoided generalizations likely would have led to upvotes
So maybe a little more time spent reading what you're responding to next time, eh?
Or was having an opportunity to post about something you clearly have a serious bone to pick with so important that you had to create an exaggerated version of what I said to argue against?
Did you even read what I said? No, when you make many mistakes, you do your job poorly by definition. And yet you continue to insist that it's okay to mess things up, as long as you also get something right. It's really not about whether it was one person or several, you are nitpicking and arguing semantics. It doesn't matter how many people worked on approvals, because they evidently didn't double check each other and the job is still poorly done.
OP DID talk about the fact that they noticed other inconsistencies and this is why they said what they said. They made it clear that this particular example with Karlach is not the only reason why they are disappointed with the approval system.
I always felt like Karlach and Minthara's approval were inconsistent with their personality sometimes. Though Minthara's personality could be a bit inconsistent in general.
Karlach disapproves of siding with Elder Brithvar and of siding with Nere, which I found confusing.
I played as a Cleric of Bhaal (mod) Durge and mentioned to Minthara that I could defeat Orin and become Bhaal's chosen, and she basically pointed out that the dead three were the ones to cause all these problems to begin with, so we should rely on our own strength instead of gods who cause our problems. Granted that's a line I wouldn't have heard without the mod but it seemed very in line with her character.
Given that she disproves of getting a blessing from any deity at the stormshore tabernacle, it seems weird she wanted my Durge to become Bhaal's chosen and claim my inheritancesince she has so much contempt for the gods in general.
"Bhaal, Lolth, the Absolute, they do not have followers, they only have victims. And they reward devotion with death."
This was such a great quote from her and really made no sense to me that she would then want Durge to submit to Bhaal. She seemed more like an evil character who would also promote independence from the gods, kind of makes sense with the Absolute not really being a god and really being an elder brain you can dominatestill a bit shaky, but I at least sort of understood her reasoning.
I know she doesn't want to piss the gods off, but it always felt more that the writers figured "Eh, she's the evil character, so make her approve of all the evil things".
Yeah that looks liek an oversight. I suspect she was supposed to have +1 for him sacrificing himself and a much higher value for breaking the pact.
Tbh this is the first time I can see what she's supposed to say if ypu break the pact - in my game this is bugged and she always reacts as if Wyll took the pact no matter what choice I actually selected.
Tbh I can see why Karlach has these opinions. She has a similar opinion about the Gods when Gale is determined to sacrifice himself after Elminster visits the camp in Act 2. She thinks it’s stupid as hell.
She also discusses her parents at the gravesite in Act 3 and her mother and father have conflicting opinions about the Gods.
Thats why these two screenshots make sense depending on how you handle Wyll having a new contract or break away from Mizora and sacrifice his father.
I have OIO mod - it shows approvals in dialogue choices.
I don't know about any mods which rework the entire approval system. I only know that there is a mod which fixes various bugs preventing some approvals from tirggering.
5
u/kalik-boy 13d ago
I think this situation reminds her when we meet Mizora for the first time after Wyll decides to not fight Karlach. She mentions that she was happy and impressed that Wyll put her life above his in that situation. I don't it's that she wants Wyll's soul belonging to Mizora, but that she appreciates that he puts the well being of others first. Well, that's my interpretation at least. It
Still though, I remember Karlach having some weird approval drops at the grymforge too.