I had no idea that Larian did this but learning it didn't even remotely surprise me https://twitter.com/megablandfox/status/1315634969302241283

Other famous Larian takes:

- "It was moral for us to enslave this race and then commit genocide upon them because it turns out they were planning to do the same to us"

- "Either commit a genocide or face a fight that is unfair even by our terrible encounter design"

Larian really, REALLY likes genocide and I genuinely, unironically think people should be concerned about this.

Like they unironically do the "members of a tribal culture were secretly planning to rise up and destroy the (mostly white, western) 'civilized' culture, thus retroactively justifying the atrocities committed against them" trope

(Bonus points: the tribal culture are cannibals)

(OH YEAH AND THE INTERFACE SYMBOL FOR THE ELVEN RACIAL ABILITY THAT ALLOWS THEM TO RELIVE THE MEMORIES OF THE PEOPLE THEY EAT IS A **DREAMCATCHER**

YEAH THEY STRAIGHT UP DID THAT)

The reason that the dialogue choices that hurt you in Baldur's Gate 3 don't surprise me is that there's a witch in Reaper's Coast who will attack you if you fail a Persuasion check.

Alternatively, you can succeed on a Persuasion check... upon which she will attack you.

There's a mission in DSO2 that requires you to find a very specific brick on a very specific corpse to proceed.

Most people will only discover that they need this brick after traversing a large trap-filled corridor which they will then need to backtrack through.

The game doesn't explain to you in any way whatsoever that this corpse is where you find the brick, the corpse is nowhere near the place where you need to put the brick and if you pass through that sewer section a second time you have to fight Deathfog Spiders.

I would dearly like to pretend that "Deathfog Spiders" are the most bullshit encounter this game throws at you but that would be ignoring the time a scarecrow talks to you for five minutes then spawns eight other scarecrows and hardlocks one of your party members out of the fight

The aforementioned fight with the witch who attacks you no matter how high your Persuasion score is (why am I even levelling this skill if it doesn't change the outcome?) starts with a debuff that does about 1000 fire damage on the first turn, and you are not warned in advance.

There's a fight on a high platform in an oilfield that - because only three enemies are visible - you would be forgiven for assuming is a battle against three enemies, but on the very first turn, a wave of twelve Voidwoken spawn in, followed two turns later by another twelve.

Many have reminded me that a lot of the encounters in the game are optional.

However, creatures do not respawn, and thus there is a limited number of sources from which to gain experience, so a lot of the fights have to be done at some point or you end up underlevelled.

A lot of these encounters also don't give any forewarning that they're going to escalate in the ways I've described (or that they're going to be combat encounters at all) and so you find yourself facing down twelve enemies thinking "well how was I supposed to know that?!"

Like I think the game was already irritating me severely before the fight with the Witch, but that was the fight where I began to feel as if Larian held its own players in contempt.

You usually find her by talking to two cows who are actually polymorphed humans.

You're led to expect, from their dialogue, a witch in the traditional sense of "wizened crone with a pointy hat."

What you find, out in the forest, is the corpse of a woman nailed to a cross, endlessly tracing out a giant pentagram made of fire.

If you get close enough to see her, she will immediately float over and talk to you. You will almost certainly see the option to attempt a Persuasion check, but you may not be using a character with a high enough skill level to succeed.

Combat ensues.

Given that she applies a debuff to your group that deals a huge amount of damage when they start their turn, you probably wipe.

Hope you made a save, by the way! This game doesn't autosave anywhere close to enough for how often you wipe.

So you reload a save, and switch to the party character who has a high Persuasion, which is the Red Prince, because it's always the Red Prince, everyone picks the Red Prince.

You succeed the Persuasion check.

... combat ensures, debuff, you wipe.