D&D: New Baldur’s Gate 3 Data Reveals The Dreamiest NPC, And That Good Beats Evil
From an extremely good dog to the dreamiest NPC, Baldur’s Gate 3’s new data reveals quite a bit about what its players are choosing…
Baldur’s Gate 3 is in full Early Access swing now, with another major update that smooths out the cinematic sequences–seriously it’s night and day, the transitions and NPC actions are a whole lot more fluid. But along with this update, which includes “re-shot” cutscenes, gameplay tweaks, and a whole lot of optimization, developers Larian Studios have extracted a healthy dose of data about how folks are playing the game.
For starters, we get to learn just how good of a boy you think Scratch, the dog, really is. In these first few weeks, Scratch has been pet more than 400,000 times. Proving that a dog really is man’s best friend. Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.
It’s not hard to see why Scratch is so beloved though. You can take time out of your busy adventuring schedule, where you’re trying to save yourself (and I guess the rest of the party) from being devoured by the mind flayer parasite implanted in your brain to stop and play fetch with the dog.
You can play fetch with the dog in Baldur's Gate 3 pic.twitter.com/S98U47fJic
— Can You Pet the Dog? (@CanYouPetTheDog) October 23, 2020
It’s very good.
Speaking of good boys, though. The data also revealed some spicier facts! Notably, the “most romanced” NPC. It’s an interesting position that BG3 players find themselves in because it turns out that Gale, who turns out to be one of the deadliest encounters (and the most attacked NPC) is also the most romanced of the party? A full third of players have found love with Gale, the happy-go-lucky wizard from Baldur’s Gate.
It seems that Gale has a knack for provoking players into action of one kind or another. But Gale only ekes out a minor victory in the field of romance. Love, it seems, isn’t as easy as destruction–while Gale is the undisputed king of player-killing, he only manages to win 33% of the playerbase’s heart, with Shadowheart coming in a close second, stealing the hearts of 31% of players.
Going by this, the only logical conclusion we can come to is that the best way to find love in the Forgotten Realms is to be a spellcaster of some kind. Have magic and a troubled backstory/a hint of a secret going on, and it seems that hearts will melt for you, either metaphorically or literally, depending on what spells you choose. Still, love isn’t all its cracked up to be. It seems that given the opportunity 1.37% of the players chose no companion, preferring to sleep alone.
No word on how many chose to find love with Astarion, the brooding vampire who will, if you let him, suck just a little bit of blood. You know, as a treat. But for the real disturbing suck-stats, we turn to the goblins.
As you might have seen in the playthroughs, there comes a point where you encounter goblins and one of them demands you kiss their foot. Depending on how well you roll, you might be able to talk your way out of it. But fail, and you’ll be pressed to try and kneel down and kiss the goblin’s foot. You can, of course, choose to fight it. But it seems that 5.87% of all players tried to turn the situation to their advantage by trying to steal the goblin’s toe ring…
…however, more than a fourth of them, 26.3% to be precise, merely ended up sucking on a goblin toe instead. So there’s that. As long as we’re on the subject of failure… it seems that almost half of the playerbase, 40.79%, found an untimely end upon trying to enter the Underdark. You get those Feather Fall scrolls for a reason, you just gotta use them.
For the final statistic, we turn to one of the major story decisions in the game. Spoiler alert, for the name of a few competing factions.
At one point have the opportunity to side with a group of Tieflings taking shelter in a druid’s grove, or with the leader of a band of goblins, Minthara, who demands that you let her forces sack everyone and everything in the Druid’s Grove. When given the choice, it seems like the majority of players chose to be a force for good, or at least for Tieflings:
74.85% of you stood with the Tieflings, and 25.15% of you sided with Minthara. Good outweighs evil, it seems.
How do these line up with the choices you’ve been making? Let us know in the comments, and happy adventuring!
