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

[Gargaune]

Rubbish, how will Larian track it? Interestingly, we know that BG3 still has some manner of alignment metric under the hood since Swen specifically mentioned that companions like Gale may leave if you keep doing "evil" things, but without a formal feedback system they won't be able to aggregate the PC's more general behaviour. They could hypothetically build individual triggers into some of the larger C&C setpieces to cause a Paladin to fall, but by and large BG3 won't have any infrastructure to prevent a Devotion Paladin from breaking into granny's house and stealing her pension.

And having an alignment would change things how, exactly?

Are you fucking serious right now? Baldur's Gate had reactive Reputation to fill that gap, and you got hit if you murdered civilians. It didn't track theft in the same way, but the mechanism was available. NWN used reactive Alignment and it was scripted to dispense shifts when murdering or stealing from NPCs. The latter was usually hanwdwaved, but not always, I distinctly remember laying a brick in SoU when I noticed that robbing the knife-ears' tombs was slapping me with Chaotic points. The systems were there to handle this kind of scenarios, now they're not.

 

[Yosharian]

Paladins are fucking awesome in 5E. At least up to around level 12, they drop off a bit after that

 

[NJClaw]

Rubbish, how will Larian track it? Interestingly, we know that BG3 still has some manner of alignment metric under the hood since Swen specifically mentioned that companions like Gale may leave if you keep doing "evil" things, but without a formal feedback system they won't be able to aggregate the PC's more general behaviour. They could hypothetically build individual triggers into some of the larger C&C setpieces to cause a Paladin to fall, but by and large BG3 won't have any infrastructure to prevent a Devotion Paladin from breaking into granny's house and stealing her pension.

And having an alignment would change things how, exactly?

Are you fucking serious right now? Baldur's Gate had reactive Reputation to fill that gap, and you got hit if you murdered civilians. It didn't track theft in the same way, but the mechanism was available. NWN used reactive Alignment and it was scripted to dispense shifts when murdering or stealing from NPCs. The latter was usually hanwdwaved, but not always, I distinctly remember laying a brick in SoU when I noticed that robbing the knife-ears' tombs was slapping me with Chaotic points. The systems were there to handle this kind of scenarios, now they're not.

What the fuck does that have anything to do with what I said? I just said that you can do with oaths whatever you did with alignments before. I said nothing about how Larian decided to handle things.

Everything you quoted can be done with oaths just as well as it was done with alignments. Larian not doing it has nothing to do with the inherent value of one mechanic or the other.

 

[vmar]

It's a mandatory pause that makes no sense. A whole room of people are not going to just stand around waiting for you to shank them all with your super agile 20+AP ranger, but with turn based, it's not only possible but also optimal.

Nice I remember having this opinion when I was 10 years old playing fps

 

[Varnaan]

Influenced? That's putting it strongly. The Japanese love Western culture but only as tourists, they steal the parts they think are cool and appropriate them, but their core ideals haven't changed that much.

Japan is very heavily americanized, especially in the younger generation, and even their modern language is like 45% english loanwords.

 

[Lacrymas]

Japan is very heavily americanized

Most of the world is heavily americanized and nobody can really escape it anymore if living in a big city. And it's not only about aesthetics, it's the style of expression (incl. speech patterns) and humor, certain behaviors, extensive loaning of words, ideas of morality and spirituality/theology, and even up to entire lifestyles. I blame the excessive consumption of American media (which has an effect on media from other countries too). I wouldn't say it's all bad all the time since a lot of rational and non-psychotic social ideas get passed down to the younger generations, but it's mostly bad.

 

[Gyor]

Fuark lads, no brakes on this train.

Nr. 1 on best selling.

That means nothing when you are competing with a remaster of hater rts and preorder for a game that was on the market for two years now.

Also i wouldn't mind you as brother in law,you are an edgy bastard,we will have good drinking nights yo.

Not much competitiion admittedly, only Cyberspunk is any challenge, that doesn't mean its not selling well, especially for EA. How many games can claim to break steam.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Edit: Another demonstration. Casting a fireball:
In turn-based: You choose an area, and it's going to hit everyone in that area.
In phase-based: You choose an area, and if you win the initiative roll, you hit who's in that area. If you lose, you hit no one or some of them.
In real time with pause: lol those people are going to move out of the way long before your wizard stops ineffectively waving his/her hands around unless the one casting it is a cheating AI with a homing fireball

This isn't how 2E initiative works at all RAW fyi

 

[Yosharian]

Influenced? That's putting it strongly. The Japanese love Western culture but only as tourists, they steal the parts they think are cool and appropriate them, but their core ideals haven't changed that much.

Japan is very heavily americanized, especially in the younger generation, and even their modern language is like 45% english loanwords.

Haha... no.

 

[Roguey]

This isn't how 2E initiative works at all RAW fyi

It's my understanding that everyone declares actions first and then initiative is rolled to determine whose actions go first.

 

[JohnSmith24601]

Has the codex declined enough that sales are now an argument for a game's quality?
Following this logic we should all embrace true master pieces like Fallout4, Skyrim and diablo 3.

And don't you forget Call of Duty, the undisputed master of all RPG's. One is unworthy to even think of playing it.

 

[hell bovine]

Are you fucking serious right now? Baldur's Gate had reactive Reputation to fill that gap, and you got hit if you murdered civilians.

Good riddance, that reputation system was frankly terrible. You can murder civilians all you want, my sorceress massacred the elven city (and every other city in the game) in BG2 and it changed nothing about the outcome. The elves still throw you a party, because the game doesn't really take into account the possibility of a chaotic evil Bhaalspawn actually going down the evil route.

 

[JohnSmith24601]

Thought I'll have trouble running this up, but 1440p on ultra on Ryzen 1600 + 1660 Super + 8 GB ram works just fine, at around 50 fps. And it'll only get better?

High five.

It seems the most important factors for the game are HDD vs SSD and RAM, I had issues with 8GB, upgraded to 32GB shortly after and it made the game smooth as butter, as the game in some areas ended up taking up to 10GB of RAM.
I think there are memory leaks issues if you play for a long time, reminds me of Dragon Age Origins at launch that ended up maxing my system's RAM after 6 hours of playing.

Has the codex declined enough that sales are now an argument for a game's quality?
Following this logic we should all embrace true master pieces like Fallout4, Skyrim and diablo 3.

I don't think anyone said the game is good because it sells, people are just pointing out the fact that it is selling like hot cakes.

I have 64GB of RAM, great Vid card and a brand new SSD. Game still doesn't run as well as I hoped.

 

[Gargaune]

Rubbish, how will Larian track it? Interestingly, we know that BG3 still has some manner of alignment metric under the hood since Swen specifically mentioned that companions like Gale may leave if you keep doing "evil" things, but without a formal feedback system they won't be able to aggregate the PC's more general behaviour. They could hypothetically build individual triggers into some of the larger C&C setpieces to cause a Paladin to fall, but by and large BG3 won't have any infrastructure to prevent a Devotion Paladin from breaking into granny's house and stealing her pension.

And having an alignment would change things how, exactly?

Are you fucking serious right now? Baldur's Gate had reactive Reputation to fill that gap, and you got hit if you murdered civilians. It didn't track theft in the same way, but the mechanism was available. NWN used reactive Alignment and it was scripted to dispense shifts when murdering or stealing from NPCs. The latter was usually hanwdwaved, but not always, I distinctly remember laying a brick in SoU when I noticed that robbing the knife-ears' tombs was slapping me with Chaotic points. The systems were there to handle this kind of scenarios, now they're not.

What the fuck does that have anything to do with what I said? I just said that you can do with oaths whatever you did with alignments before. I said nothing about how Larian decided to handle things.

Everything you quoted can be done with oaths just as well as it was done with alignments. Larian not doing it has nothing to do with the inherent value of one mechanic or the other.

No, you can't, not without first reducing those various Oath morals to a set of common generic tags which then you can actually script a monitoring mechanic against. You can't effectively begin scripting object triggers on such a wide and specific range as Honour, Honesty, Compassion, Law etc. and that's without even getting to that Light and Glory shit. Further, without having a feedback scale of how you rank against said values, you either make a Paladin fall at the first infraction or not at all. 5E's Paladin Oaths can work at a table with a DM, but you can't effectively leverage them in a CRPG like BG3 due to technical considerations since, outside of handcrafted narrative setpieces, they're way too granular and circumstantial for scripting purposes.

 

[JohnSmith24601]

I love RtWP, mainly for large scale combat but RtWP makes initiative pointless

Oh boy, I hope you never play POE2's turn based mode. Initiative is truly pointless there.

 

[JohnSmith24601]

you realize IE RTwP is still turn-based, right?
The entire thing is an illusion.

Even if you set it to pause at the start of combat and at the end of every character's round and only issue orders during those pauses, it doesn't play like any turn- or phase-based game anyone's ever played.

Those who have played Kingmaker in turn-based have noted that it demonstrates how the AI wasn't made with turn-based in mind. IE AI certainly wasn't made with turn-based in mind either.

Edit: Another demonstration. Casting a fireball:
In turn-based: You choose an area, and it's going to hit everyone in that area.
In phase-based: You choose an area, and if you win the initiative roll, you hit who's in that area. If you lose, you hit no one or some of them.
In real time with pause: lol those people are going to move out of the way long before your wizard stops ineffectively waving his/her hands around unless the one casting it is a cheating AI with a homing fireball

I'm not sure where or when people started this myth that RTWP is just turned based in disguise, but it's obviously a very retarded point once you even apply a few brain cells to actually THINK about it.

 

[JohnSmith24601]

I'll say this again: Your attacks may be turned based, but your movements are not. Both you and your enemies move simultaneously, and the resulting attacks of opportunities are very different. This is why it's MUCH harder to block someone from reaching your mages in turn based games than in RTWP.

 

[Cryomancer]

Oh boy, I hope you never play POE2's turn based mode. Initiative is truly pointless there.

The biggest problem is that the combat is ultra slow, not initiative... And due hp bloat and fact that spells and weapons, mostly firearms are extremely lackluster and has low lethatliy...

Anyway, Played a little more of BG3 now. An lv 4 spider with 138 hp. That is enough to soak 20 heavy crossbow bolts assuming average damage. I really miss old 2e where Vecna a demigod legendary lich had 150 hp. Nothing is more boring than hp bloat, except hp bloat in a turn based game with slow animations and no concurrent turns... 5e is already a low lethality edition.

 

[NJClaw]

No, you can't, not without first reducing those various Oath morals to a set of common generic tags which then you can actually script a monitoring mechanic against. [...]

I'll stop you right there: you can't do it without first reducing those various oaths morals to a set of common generic tags? Then reduce those various oaths morals to a set of common generic tags. You still can't get a system more simplistic than the alignments' one, since there you only have the "good/bad" tags.

Further, without having a feedback scale of how you rank against said values, you either make a Paladin fall at the first infraction or not at all.

Then implement a feedback scale. Give the paladin a starting score and then modify it base on his actions.

What's your point?

 

[JohnSmith24601]

Japan is very heavily americanized

Most of the world is heavily americanized and nobody can really escape it anymore if living in a big city. And it's not only about aesthetics, it's the style of expression (incl. speech patterns) and humor, certain behaviors, extensive loaning of words, ideas of morality and spirituality/theology, and even up to entire lifestyles. I blame the excessive consumption of American media (which has an effect on media from other countries too). I wouldn't say it's all bad all the time since a lot of rational and non-psychotic social ideas get passed down to the younger generations, but it's mostly bad.

As an American, I would say that American ideals from the 40's and 50's were good, but then when you get to the 70's it's all going down hill. Like pigs, women sleeping with as many men and other women as possible. Before anyone says anything, no, men are not doing the same thing. Men, first of all, don't have the opportunity to do so. 2nd, men are A LOT more conservative than women by a large margin. (We are talking about on average here because for sure there're manwhores, but they're definitely the minority)

I would assume Japan got "Americanized" way before the decadence of the West, so some very good traditional values got passed on to the Japanese while they've all but disappeared here in the West.

 

[JohnSmith24601]

An lv 4 spider with 138 hp. .

What the fuck is this shit? lol This is still DnD, right?

 

[Ontopoly]

Thanks, still number 2 behind phasmophobia I see. Very nice

Imagine having 300+ employees and you can't even make a game better than phantasma. This is why you can't judge a game by how much it sells. It's just stupid. It's a shit game that appeals to twitch and cinematic-wanting degenerates. larian's essence is baked into anything they have a part in making, making anything they produce horrible

 

[Child of Malkav]

 

[Sòren]

so anyone here actually played the game?

any good?

 

[Varnaan]

I have 64GB of RAM, great Vid card and a brand new SSD. Game still doesn't run as well as I hoped.

You may have a bottleneck somewhere, I play on a laptop with a 1060 6GB, an i7-7700HQ and 32GB of ram.
When I had 8GB and the game was installed on an HDD it was basically unplayable in Vulkan and everything took minutes to render in DX11 with a silky smooth 5-10 FPS on the outside world map, after installing the game on an SSD and switching to 32GB the game runs at 60FPS in ultra with occasional dips in the 5X range.
Depending on your issues/hardware you may want to switch API. I read several posts about users with RTX 2XXX cards that had issues with Vulkan.