The Co-Op in Baldur’s Gate 3 allows players to experience the title from start to finish together with friends. This can foster a strong team spirit, wild experiences, and funny moments. However, one player had to realize that the joint run with a friend was not the best idea for their friendship.
What is he upset about? The player Ancient_Elk532 reports on Reddit about a rather sobering gaming experience he had with a friend in Baldur’s Gate 3: “Playing Baldur’s Gate 3 with a competitive amateur friend is a DISASTER.”
What initially sounds like a jab at his friend’s skills is completely turned around with each line of his experience report. The player (abbreviated as “Elk” in this article) describes that he started the game for the fifth time, while it was his friend’s first time. Elk explained to him that it was a story-oriented RPG, where you don’t have to min-max everything to finish. However, his friend apparently had a different idea of fun in gaming.
Here you see the trailer for Baldur’s Gate 3:
The min-max craze nearly ruined the friendship
What ruined the friends’ co-op experience? Elk reports that his friend, who played a ranger himself, constantly complained about his wizard, stating that the class was “useless” and generally a “shit class”. He should have chosen a barbarian or fighter instead.
When Elk’s wizard became significantly stronger in the second act of the game, his friend calmed down a bit, but as soon as something went wrong, Elk was the problem. Elk reminded him that it was a PvE game and that there was no reason to act that way, but the behavior persisted until the third act of the game, where they ultimately had to quit the run.
How did the player handle his friend’s behavior? “It wasn’t even about min-maxing or playstyle, but that he seemed to desperately need to prove something,” Elk explains in his post, “He unfairly berated me and acted as if he, as a newbie, knew the game better than I, the experienced player.”
Elk was shocked by the sudden change in his friend’s behavior, who is otherwise a really nice guy in real life. He doesn’t know if his friend’s selfish attitude has deeper reasons, but he cannot tolerate such toxic gaming behavior.
“Of course, no one is perfect,” Elk adds, “but that almost made me question his ‘character.'”
How is the community reacting to this experience? Other players expressed their own opinions under the post:
- joe-re says: “You can still be friends, you can still have fun together, but don’t do anything together where you both have different ideas of fun. And don’t think too much about it.”
- WakeoftheStorm comments: “I can’t play Monopoly with my wife. But that doesn’t stop us from being married. Playing Monopoly, however, does.”
- The_Derpy_Rogue has a potential explanation for this experience: “Sounds like you’re playing with Minthara…” – Elk compares his friend more to Wulbren Bongle.
The group of a MeinMMO author plays Baldur’s Gate 3 as co-op in Honor mode, and so far without disputes or (too) bad decisions. They have also made it to the third act of the game, but an initially inconspicuous opponent caused a lot of stress: A cursed imp punished my greed in Baldur’s Gate 3
