Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 Early Access Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Pink Eye]

FriendlyMerchant anon! You should go play Darklands instead! Such a kewl game.

Wow. So this really isn't a game that I can just jump into blindly and haggle goyim out of their money

I haven't found party optimization to be all that important - only for starting out. Just make sure you have someone good in Religion, Healing, and Alchemy; will come in handy later. For the first few weeks. You will want to grind out your combat skills first. It doesn't matter which city you start in. Wait till night time. Then travel around the city looking for thieves to kill. Best way to get your combat skills up. Can get up to five battles per night if you're good. Once you're semi competent in battle. Start looking for quests to kill robber knights. Avoid shit where they ask you to retrieve relics. Not worth at all. Anyways. It's pretty fun. See:

Oh yeah. Check this site out: https://wendigo.online-siesta.com/darklands/
You will want to get Darker Backgrounds, Better Fonts, Alchemy copy protection symbols with subtitles. Make sure you read the manual too. Contains pretty much everything you need to know.

Last thing. Keep the map open. You'll need it for general navigation on the world map.

 

[Bhaalspawn]

I really never appreciated how shit divinity 2 was until playing this broken mess. I really wish I never played it at all.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

I'd pay an outrageous amount of money for a competent Darklands remake.

 

[Atchodas]

I really never appreciated how shit divinity 2 was until playing this broken mess. I really wish I never played it at all.

Imagine paying for Early Access game couple years before its released and then complaining its broken mess, how stupid are you?

 

[Pink Eye]

competent Darklands remake.

Just play the original. It's not *that* dated. Works fine. Controls fine. Save for a few bugs. It's great. Hell, last I checked Baldur's Gate 3 isn't due for some time. Now's the perfect opportunity to play some Darklands!

 

[FriendlyMerchant]

I really never appreciated how shit divinity 2 was until playing this broken mess. I really wish I never played it at all.

Imagine paying for Early Access game couple years before its released and then complaining its broken mess, how stupid are you?

This game is Divinity 2 in gameplay. That's why it's a broken mess. Because it's a reskin of divinity 2 with some minor mechanical changes. Not because it's early access.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

competent Darklands remake.

Just play the original. It's not *that* dated. Works fine. Controls fine. Save for a few bugs. It's great. Hell, last I checked Baldur's Gate 3 isn't due for some time. Now's the perfect opportunity to play some Darklands!

I played the original since 1992. Last time probably less than three years ago. You don't have to tell me what it did well and what aged poorly.
It's up there with Ultima VII as one of my favorite RPGs of all times. It's also up there with Ultima VII for having one of the shittiest combat systems. That's thing I'd surely look to revamp (in a fictional universe where the remake had a chance to exist).
Also the UI wouldn't really suffer from being made a bit more mouse-friendly.

And while the minimalist art is charming most of the times, there are also parts of it that are basically a blurb of barely intelligible pixels (see the world map as an example) and would benefit a revamp.

Interestingly enough my imaginary ideal remake wouldn't really change much in terms of vibe/style. For instance I'd keep a very minimalist style for characters and scenarios during combat encounters etc.
I'd probably go for something like Another World:



Low-poly "stick figures" with clean, neat animations.

...
Well, frankly pipe dreams aside I'd be happy just with getting the same exact game in hi-res.

 

[DeepOcean]

I came here to see if D:OS 3 was reaching playable state. Hoping to see the thread full of min/maxers at this point, generally that is a good sign.

I discovered Solasta sucks, Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous has a tranny and they may add a Tranny gender neutral option to D:OS3 on the next patches instead.

No, D:OS 3 isnt on a playable state yet.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

No, D:OS 3 isnt on a playable state yet.

Indeed.

Spoiler

It hasn't added playable Duergar yet.

 

[DeepOcean]

There is only a point to play Duergar if you can practice extreme xenophobia, specially against elves, dunno if the 40 years old Bioware rejects that make 90% of Larian audience would be confortable with that.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Nevertheless, no Duergar - no play.

 

[Ontopoly]

Everyone here is going to have to stop complaining and boycotting games for including trans options soon because it just won't be viable. Time to find the next thing they want to start adding and complain about that early.

 

[Cryomancer]

This game is Divinity 2 in gameplay.

Nope. Is vastly superior; despite all critiques which I made towards BG3, there is no retarded secondary hp bar armor system, no cooldowns, nor other BS. Is great as any other D&D game? No. Except by complete console bastardizations like SCL and mobile cashgrabs, BG3 is the worst D&D adaptation into a CRPG.

It can seem like I am a hater of Larian, but I don't hate larian. Despite making bad games, Larian :

• Re popularized turn based mode. If wasn't by Larian, kingmaker and pillars 2 would't receive a optional TB mode.
• Lowered my standards. Before playing DOS2 and BG3, I wasn't able to enjoy games like DDO. Now I can enjoy it.
• Larian and larian cultists are hilarious. Mainly when they try better games.

Wanna laugh? Go to steam BG1/2 page. Click in reviews. Select negative only. Then CTRL + F and type DOS2, divinity, larian or any word like that.

 

[polo]

This game is Divinity 2 in gameplay.

Nope. Is vastly superior; despite all critiques which I made towards BG3, there is no retarded secondary hp bar armor system, no cooldowns, nor other BS. Is great as any other D&D game? No. Except by complete console bastardizations like SCL and mobile cashgrabs, BG3 is the worst D&D adaptation into a CRPG.

It can seem like I am a hater of Larian, but I don't hate larian. Despite making bad games, Larian :

• Re popularized turn based mode. If wasn't by Larian, kingmaker and pillars 2 would't receive a optional TB mode.
• Lowered my standards. Before playing DOS2 and BG3, I wasn't able to enjoy games like DDO. Now I can enjoy it.
• Larian and larian cultists are hilarious. Mainly when they try better games.

Wanna laugh? Go to steam BG1/2 page. Click in reviews. Select negative only. Then CTRL + F and type DOS2, divinity, larian or any word like that.

He aint wrong tho

 

[Reinhardt]

late epic levels(lv 26)

It's not "late", at 26 you can only chose your first destiny feat.

 

[Orud]

Uh, the problem is that DND5 is too god damn basic for CRPG. NO OPTIONS and usual limitations of CRPG, aka even fewer options! Where DM could whip out some homebrew or bend rules a bit, or add interesting interactions you're met with an extremely rigid set of rules of CRPG. And level limit + not all classes implemented ain't helping much here.

I disagree that 5E is too basic for a CRPG. If 2E was good for CRPG's, then so is 5E. The problem is that 3.5E is just so god damn better, even on tabletop, and that WoTC can't go back to 3.5 after the 4E disaster because Pathfinder hijacked it.

 

[Grunker]

I love the shit out of Darklands but the combat is ass. Even if you enjoy RTwP. As such, Darklands is one out of very few games where a remake would actually be justified: remake the game almost as is, but with better combat. And you got yourself a masterpiece.

 

[Grunker]

I disagree that 5E is too basic for a CRPG. If 2E was good for CRPG's, then so is 5E

Imagine that the same people who think "5E is too simple" worship at the altar of 2E. The cognitive incongruence of these people never ceases to amaze me

 

[Cryomancer]

It's not "late", at 26 you can only chose your first destiny feat.

Yep.. I can't even imagine how crazy the game will become once the lv cap becomes 35.

disagree that 5E is too basic for a CRPG. If 2E was good for CRPG's, then so is 5E.

2E has way more depth than 5E. Mainly using a lot of optional rules. Different classes had different xp tables, undeads could inflict a negative level making you lose the progress of a couple of sessions depending on the lvling speed of your table, there was different AC vs specific weapons optional rule, so a mace is much more likely to damage a plate armored guy than a sword, musticlass was heavily discouraged, and instead of having 3 arcane caster classes(sor/wiz/wlk) each one with hundreds of subclasses, you had the magic user class and a lot of "kits".

Imagine that the same people who think "5E is too simple" worship at the alter of 2E.

2E ""complexity"" depends on the group.

 

[Grunker]

2E has way more depth than 5E.

my favourite part of 2E depth is leveling up only to simply click "ok". never stops being exciting

 

[Zeriel]

2E has way more depth than 5E.

my favourite part of 2E depth is leveling up and clicking ok. never stops being exciting

This is a really dumb strawman. The choices lie elsewhere--in your class picks, your spellbooks, etc. It's a fair point that some classes in 2E like fighters don't have a lot of depth, but that's kind of their theme. Every class turning into wizards in later editions is arguably a demerit, not a good thing.

 

[Grunker]

Yeah, 2E-cultists never run out of places to move the goalposts to. I'm aware.

 

[Lacrymas]

5E classes are 2E classes with feats, though.

 

[Cryomancer]

2E has way more depth than 5E.

my favourite part of 2E depth is leveling up and clicking ok. never stops being exciting

Lets pick for eg, a magic user on BG2(2E video game)

• If he has a specialization, he gets a prohibited school. Necromancers can't cast good low level illusion spells which is a huge cost. There is no prohibited school on 5E.
• Specialist mages gain +2 bonus on saves and forces the enemy to make the save at -2 penalty
• Takes way more XP to level up as a mage than as a thief. You start BG2 at lv 7. A Thief on lv 10. It is a huge aspect of the Dark Sun setting, where Defilers level up as Thieves despite being arcane casters at the expense of being hated by everyone else. By homogenizing the XP per class, you kill it.
• You don't pick spells on level up and inscribe in your spellbook from tin air. Instead, you need to find a spell scroll for the spell. If you wanna cast fireball and can't find a scroll of it, you can't learn. Ohh, and you can fail at learning the spell.
• There are a lot of kits to chose from. Wild mages are chaotic, there are a lot of cool kits from 2E.
• There are racial limitations in which specialization you can follow. On 5E, you can make a dwarf necromancer despite it making zero sense. In fact, 5E is getting rid of minor negative racial modifiers.

------------------------------

With fighters :

• A lot of hydrances also exists for fighters. For example, Wizard Slayers. End the game with 84% MR and inflict casting failure after striking a wizard. But he can't use a lot of magical gear and magical gear is very good on BG2.
• Kensais was incredible fast. Barbarians could rage and get d12 hit dice which is amazing in a low hp game like BG2.
• Race specific classes still apply to fighters. Dwarf Defenders are amazing "tanks" and only manlets dwarf can be one
• Weapon specialization is very important. Which weapon to specialize matters a lot. Mainly because some enemies are almost invulnerable to certain weapons. A sword will not be effective vs a clay golem.
• On BG2, plate armor is far more likely to deflect a sword than a mace. On BG3, hitting someone in full plate armor with a longsword or a warhammer makes no difference.
• Attributes also affect much more fighters. Weapons had attribute requirement. You could't fully draw the best longbow in the game with bad strength. Your STR determines how likely you are to bash doors, locked chests and was extremely important.

Some special hydrances exists in P&P but rarely exists in video games. For example, Witches on complete wizards handbooks has a lot of social penalties. Same for Shadow Wizards on Defilers and Preservers : The Wizards of Athas. Leveling up increases the social penalty. Wu Jen on 2E had a long list of Taboos and dire consequences for breaking the taboos. And 5E? 5E got rid of downsides. You no longer has prohibited schools. In fact, the downside of some spells got removed. Evocation spells, the biggest downside of then in every D&D game except 4e was the risk of team damage. Evokers on 5E can cast meteor swarm with no concern about it damaging party members.

TL;DR - A kit like Wizard Slayer could NEVER work in 5E cuz he is too good vs magic and has too much downsides vs non mages. WoTC would consider it "unbalanced".

In RPG's, the limitations, risks and downsides are often more interesting than cool powers.

5E classes are 2E classes with feats, though.

Nope. Vastly different.

And FEATS on 5E seems worthless. At least was worthless on Solasta(except the concentration feat on end game)

 

[Swen]

This game is Divinity 2 in gameplay.

Nope. Is vastly superior; despite all critiques which I made towards BG3, there is no retarded secondary hp bar armor system, no cooldowns, nor other BS. Is great as any other D&D game? No. Except by complete console bastardizations like SCL and mobile cashgrabs, BG3 is the worst D&D adaptation into a CRPG.

It can seem like I am a hater of Larian, but I don't hate larian. Despite making bad games, Larian :

• Re popularized turn based mode. If wasn't by Larian, kingmaker and pillars 2 would't receive a optional TB mode.
• Lowered my standards. Before playing DOS2 and BG3, I wasn't able to enjoy games like DDO. Now I can enjoy it.
• Larian and larian cultists are hilarious. Mainly when they try better games.

Wanna laugh? Go to steam BG1/2 page. Click in reviews. Select negative only. Then CTRL + F and type DOS2, divinity, larian or any word like that.

Muh "bad games"

Thanks to Larian, CRPG's are popular again. Larian paved the way for Owlcuck games and all the rest. The genre was dead before DOS1.

Everyone besides codex autist neckbeards find DOS2 to be a great game, hell you mongoloids even voted it to be RPG of the year. Yet retarded contrarians want to be edgy now and hate on the now big dog, meanwhile the gopniks from owlcuck games are now the underdog.