The Weekly/Yearly LOL Baldur's Gate sucks thread!

[Dreaad]

I usually have all 6 but only really use 2 or 3 to clear a map or dungeon, the mage, cleric/druid and thief are just left at entrance until I need something from them. Mostly, cause yeah, the path finding for having 6 characters running around in dungeon with vampires or shadows or something is pretty bad AND half the time your mage or whatever somehow ends up right at the front cock blocking everyone else in the doorway.

 

[octavius]

I always play with a full party to experience as much of the game as possible and to be able to use as much as possible of the fat loot.

 

[bloodlover]

Why would you purposely miss up on using good gear and making encounters easier?

 

[laclongquan]

PLus, full party allow you the choice of tactics.

 

[Transfiguring Roar]

yes, these are obvious. it's managable but it's still fucking horrendous, tedious and frustratingly stupid having to do all this stupid shit all the time

Or maybe it's so easy to do it's not "fucking horrendous, tedious and frustratingly stupid"... As for doing it all the time, yeah, the game requires some micromanagement. Sounds like you're breaking a sweat playing the game as if you were running a marathon.

Edit: But if you don't like it, fair enough. I'm not real crazy about it either.

 

[MrMarbles]

Why would you purposely miss up on using good gear and making encounters easier?

Sarcasm sign? This is for the 3rd, 4th etc playthrough anyway, so insisting on using all the gear would be p. ocd. As for making encounters easier, you are absolutely right. In fact, to make things really easy let's skip BG and go back to Skyrimming

PLus, full party allow you the choice of tactics.

Wut? A full party allows you a choice of tactics. A smaller party allows you a different choice of tactics. Besides, in practice having fewer party members means you usually have to do more planning.

 

[Dreaad]

Why would you purposely miss up on using good gear and making encounters easier?

Basically you very rarely need a full party, two specialized melee char's with a few buffs like haste and bless can rip through almost anything faster than some mage or cleric who will maybe get 1 or 2 spells of before fight ends. By only using two they can also move around a hell of a lot easier and because of AI can easily manipulate the enemies targets. As for the good gear, there is so much good gear in the game that you end up selling 90% anyway and have 500,000 k gold or more depending on gem collecting ocd.

Aside from dragons and a few mages I don't think I've ever felt I needed anything more than two fighters. Then again I've never tried those difficulty mods, maybe then I would change my mind.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Oh yes.

Install BGT and SCS I & II. Throw in the Widescreen mod and go to town.

 

[laclongquan]

PLus, full party allow you the choice of tactics.

Wut? A full party allows you a choice of tactics. A smaller party allows you a different choice of tactics. Besides, in practice having fewer party members means you usually have to do more planning.

You are not playing with your full marbles. A smaller party has less option than a full party at least in one aspect: Frontal Assault. The other aspect is a formation, in which case you can create a wall of warriors with ranged and magicians safely behind

 

[MrMarbles]

PLus, full party allow you the choice of tactics.

Wut? A full party allows you a choice of tactics. A smaller party allows you a different choice of tactics. Besides, in practice having fewer party members means you usually have to do more planning.

You are not playing with your full marbles. A smaller party has less option than a full party at least in one aspect: Frontal Assault. The other aspect is a formation, in which case you can create a wall of warriors with ranged and magicians safely behind

Agreed that the balls to the wall frontal assault is a rare option with a small party. At least an unplanned one. But like others have pointed out, fewer chars mean that the ones you have will close with their target faster, which is pretty cool. Any shield/wall for your squishy chars will also have to be planned and executed before battles, but it isn't hard to make an effective screen with a wand in BG1 or with animate dead/mordenkainens etc later. With fewer chars you will also be able to use devas/planetars earlier.

 

[laclongquan]

You mean with BG2, because I dont think BG1 has mordekainen and stuff like that unless you do the trilogy thing.

BG1's summons are insufficient as proper meatshields and and distractions. They are not strong enough, not with original configuration (level 7 limit?)

There is some merit to a frontal assault of 3-4 meatshield and 2-3 summons, under the cover of ranged shooters and magicians, to fully engage all the small fries, open the way for your single backstabber toward enemies' commander just in time to interrupt his big spell with a paralyzing strike.

BG1 doesnt have that. Not in the way my description mean it.

 

[Lilura]

No summon cap in original BG1 engine, want hordes of bears and skeletons raping everything, go for it.

Summons are capped at max5 in BG2.

 

[SwiftCrack]

Summons in the BG1 engine were the iWin button for Sarevok.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Luckily there is a mod for BGT/TuTu that removes the summoning cap.

 

[Jaesun]

Still wishing SOMEONE could finally decipher the encounter tables in Baldur's Gate's ARE files. Then the shitty encounters in BGT/TuTu could go away.

 

[hoverdog]

Still wishing SOMEONE could finally decipher the encounter tables in Baldur's Gate's ARE files. Then the shitty encounters in BGT/TuTu could go away.

The spawns in BGT aren't that bad, though they definitely are sick with some form of direwolfinitis. Just set them to non-respawning and you should be fine (unless you REALLY hate wolves).
TuTu spawns are horrible, though. The ones used by the BGTSpawn mod are useless too.

 

[Servo]

But is there any reason to play baldur's gate 1 or can i just skip to BG 2? It doesn't really matter for me, I've got all of the IE games anyway.

Only one way to find out:

1. Play BG1 start to finish
2. Play BG2 start to finish
3. Decide for yourself

If you can't stomach it then quit - it's just a game.

Edit: I came here for another reason that I just rememberd, and that was to do some good ol' complaining. This seems like the thread to do it in.

First, it seems like every NPC interaction in these games goes something like this:

NPC: Will you go get a McSandwich for me?

Option 1: I don't have time for your petty errands, asshole. Also I want to sell your children into slavery!
Option 2: I would love to run your errands! Also please take my money!
​

Basically it amounts to either missing some content (being a jerk) or not missing it (being a pushover). I can't think of a single interesting choice off the top of my head.

Second, I don't recall having any "romance" options in BG1 but BG2 keeps flaunting that shit in my face. And every time it catches me off guard.

Imoen: I'm so scared!! Please save me!!! ^^

Option 1: Shut the fuck up you dumb bitch. I never liked you.
Option 2: OH GAWD MY UNDYING LOVE FOR YOU IS LIKE A BURNING NEEDLE IN MY PENIS
​

Generally I pick the quickest option to end the conversation, and even then they usually prattle on for several more lines or even paragraphs. Who the fuck talks like this when in the middle of a sewer surrounded by corpses?

Don't get me wrong though I like these games and so far the second one is better in almost every way to the first (with the exception of the added romance crap).

 

[jagged-jimmy]

Generally I pick the quickest option to end the conversation, and even then they usually prattle on for several more lines or even paragraphs.

This. Key to really enjoy BG2.

 

[Abelian]

Second, I don't recall having any "romance" options in BG1 but BG2 keeps flaunting that shit in my face. And every time it catches me off guard.

BG1 was written before Gaider and his romances joined BioWare. Also,tThe Imoen conversations are not technically romances:

spoiler for those who have not finished BG2

with her being the PC's half-sister and all

and the three possible romances (Jaheira, Aerie, Viconia) all have ways of ending them after a couple of interactions.

 

[Jaesun]

Did anyone actually make an mod that removes all the shitty romance garbage?

 

[Dreaad]

Well..... you can make your own party so.... why would you need a mod?

 

[Jaesun]

Bu then you lose all of the character interactions (like commenting on an area, or task etc...) which was kinda cool.

 

[DemonKing]

I preferred BG1 to BG2 - BG2 was very good (it certainly crammed in the most D&D lore and loot of any PC adaptation) but BG for me was a magical experience. It really felt like tabletop RPGing had been transported to the PC and the graphics, interface and SFX were amazing for the time it was released. I liked the recruitable NPCs and their interactions and dialog were fun, whereas BG2 was the beginning of the end with an overemphasis on these elements and the introduction of romances which would turn out to be one of the root causes of the gradual decline in Bioware games.

IWD is better than both though - the combat was more tactical and it really felt like one long, classic D&D module. Plus the best sound and music design of any IE game. IWD2 was probably my least favourite IE game - the puzzles didn't fit the engine/gameplay and the environments and story were too disjointed and lacked coherence compared to the original IWD.

So for me then IWD>BG>BG2>IWD2.

 

[Dreaad]

Bu then you lose all of the character interactions (like commenting on an area, or task etc...) which was kinda cool.

I totally agree, except as far as I can remember 99% of Arie's, Viconia's and Jaheira's dialog is romantic (so if you cut it out, they would just be silent) at least until Throne of Balls, at which point romances are a non issue. Jaheira overall isn't that bad anyway, it's more of a friendship as far as I can tell and a pretty decent bunch of fights against groups of harpers.

 

[Lilura]

I totally agree, except as far as I can remember 99% of Arie's, Viconia's and Jaheira's dialog is romantic (so if you cut it out, they would just be silent) at least until Throne of Balls, at which point romances are a non issue.

Even if they're not being actively romanced they still have heaps to say in SoA, they still have opinions and various remarks relating to lore and each other.

But the simplest way to trim off the romance dialogue is to simply tell them you're not interested, just like in real life. A difference being, they seem to handle rejection pretty well and continue following you, quite unlike real life unless you're unfortunate enough to have a stalker.