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

[rojay]

I'm not entirely certain what you mean. I am pretty certain I have more than 20k hours in the BG saga at this point and I'm *pretty sure* that as far as real choice goes, the only path that offers it is the evil one.

I've played the game all good, all neutral, all lawful, all chaotic, all female, all male, just bhallspawns, just bhallspawns and the gf/bf parties, from Candlekeep to Godhood, and the most nuanced playthrough is the evil one. (i.e. Trademeet where you actually have the option to poison the druid grove)
I've played with all the classes too, from A to Z, in case you're going to make that point. Same conclusion.


That being said, I still think it's wonderfully mediocre. And it's not because it was RtwP. In fact, that argument seems pretty shallow to me. It did back then too.

There are things, however, that the BG games did which is absolutely amazing that most developers have a hard time replicating today, even though we live "in the future":

1. point on map -> double click on map -> snap that area to game screen - hasn't been replicated 'till this day
2. accurate field of vision, and type of vision for multiple races - only indie
3. allowing the player to place traps, and stack them - some RPGs. no triple A
4. exploratory spells/ gather information spells (like Far Sight/ Know Alignment) - maybe indie, no triple A
5. 2 timers: 1 for the real passage of time, and 1 for companions spent in party/ in-between party banter timer - alien concept for most developers
6. allowing the player to KILL literally everything - remember law enforcement? remember cowled wizards teleporting out of thin air trying to destroy you at value 1 reputation?

I can't tell if you're trolling me or not, but it seems we're having a double standard on that walk we're having down on memory lane.

I'm not trolling you, but I'm not sure we're talking about the same things. I was responding to the idea that "back in the day" there was some sort of consensus here that the BG series was mediocre. I don't remember it that way, but then again I was only active here for a few years in that time frame. No memory of my username at the time and I no longer have access to either of the email accounts I would have used to register.

I have way too many hours in the BG games, but nothing like 20k. I defer to people like you who know the game inside and out. I never completed the first game with Xan, for example. Hell, I think I've only used Edwin a couple of times, which I suspect disqualifies me from having an opinion about the game to many people.

 

[Delterius]

Well, the afterlife for evil characters in Pathfinder is rather gruesome. So much so that becoming undead is probably better.

Wrathfinder teaches us that if you're a good guy you'll be reincarnated in the plains of elysium as a beautiful fuckboy surrounded by equally hot good girls and you're all having sex every day.

And in DnD cosmology Asmodeus' whole selling point is that 'hey you remember that one time you ate the last cookie in the jar? thats right you have a criminal file already. why fight it? join the moonies and you might just be the 3 dicked devilman instead of being thrown to the lake of fire and damnation'.

Even the neutrals get sent to Axis and Maelstrom, where the lawfuls enjoy post scarcity living and fight the Eternal Autism Laser Beam Wars between law and chaos. The chaotics are a more varied bunch but quite a few become 7 foot tall giga chads who try to vikingfy the city of Axis the way ancient germanics exported de-civilization to the roman world.

I guess the divergence between Pathfinder and DnD is atheists. And in Pathfinder the atheists just chill in the graveyard, eventually come to terms that they died and join one of the many communities of ETERNAL IMPROOOOOOOOOOVERS (arts and crafts) at the edges, waiting for the world to end. Or for Groetus to eat a handful of them which is the same. Of course that's assuming you don't believe in or acted in such a way that furthers any causes which has a special domain under some God's protection. Pharasma might throw you at Nethys just because you're a wizard who's also an atheist and you to enjoy eternal tenure in heavenly university.

To be quite honest when you reach DnD/Pathfinder levels of Marvel Cinematic Universification of the afterlife its hard not to see religion as a shopping mall for retirement plans.

 

[Xamenos]

I guess the divergence between Pathfinder and DnD is atheists. And in Pathfinder the atheists just chill in the graveyard, eventually come to terms that they died and join one of the many communities of ETERNAL IMPROOOOOOOOOOVERS (arts and crafts) at the edges, waiting for the world to end.

Generally yes, but this is very much not the case. Kelemvor turns atheists into bricks. Pharasma turns atheists into pearls and puts them in her vault so their atheism will continue to repel Groetus. There's even an adventure where some of those pearls go missing, Groetus starts descending and the players have to track down the missing jewellery fast.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Pharasma turns atheists into pearls and puts them in her vault

 

[Delterius]

I guess the divergence between Pathfinder and DnD is atheists. And in Pathfinder the atheists just chill in the graveyard, eventually come to terms that they died and join one of the many communities of ETERNAL IMPROOOOOOOOOOVERS (arts and crafts) at the edges, waiting for the world to end.

Generally yes, but this is very much not the case. Kelemvor turns atheists into bricks. Pharasma turns atheists into pearls and puts them in her vault so their atheism will continue to repel Groetus. There's even an adventure where some of those pearls go missing, Groetus starts descending and the players have to track down the missing jewellery fast.

What adventure is that? Strangely enough Inner Sea describes my version and according to Concordance of Rivals there's this:

Phlegyas is a psychopomp usher, patron of atheists, parents (especially those who died in childbirth), and creations outlasting creators. She embodies resonance, and the works inspired by her are both beautiful, yet horrifying or painful. She offers respite to atheists who arrive in the Boneyard, and trains those with potential into psychopomps.

So I'm assuming the pearls have to be made of very SPECIAL atheists?

 

[Gradenmayer]

Oh no, they do. They sure do.

LOL...

Anyway, there are larian employees who read the Codex? Probably.
There are larian employees who take advice from Codex users? Probably no.

I maintain that codex is the reason the d3 dmg on boot throw got removed (yes there are 20 pages dedicated to arguing about boot throw in this thread).

 

[Xamenos]

What adventure is that? Strangely enough Inner Sea describes my version and according to Concordance of Rivals there's this:

Phlegyas is a psychopomp usher, patron of atheists, parents (especially those who died in childbirth), and creations outlasting creators. She embodies resonance, and the works inspired by her are both beautiful, yet horrifying or painful. She offers respite to atheists who arrive in the Boneyard, and trains those with potential into psychopomps.

So I'm assuming the pearls have to be made of very SPECIAL atheists?

It's possible they quietly retconned it relatively recently as twitter atheists got more power in the company. I'll try to remember to check for that adventure when I wake up, but it was definitely one of the older ones.

 

[Larianshill]

They very recently removed the mention of the Wall of Faithless from SCAG in an errata. Which, in my opinion, is a good thing no matter their intentions, because the Wall is awful and should have come down in MOTB.

 

[Harthwain]

To be quite honest when you reach DnD/Pathfinder levels of Marvel Cinematic Universification of the afterlife its hard not to see religion as a shopping mall for retirement plans.

You reminded me of Discworld. Discworld Noir (a video game) in particular.

 

[Xamenos]

So I'm assuming the pearls have to be made of very SPECIAL atheists?

Found it. "Beyond the Vault of Souls" is the name. And I remembered wrong, it's soul GEMS not soul PEARLS.

 

[BarbequeMasta]

you'd have to be stupid to be evil in any major D&D setting, there's basically no upside

Yeah but on the other hand it's more fun and in recent products less faggy.

 

[Storyfag]

So I'm assuming the pearls have to be made of very SPECIAL atheists?

Found it. "Beyond the Vault of Souls" is the name. And I remembered wrong, it's soul GEMS not soul PEARLS.

It is always a soul gem. In any 'verse.

 

[hell bovine]

allowing the player to KILL literally everything - remember law enforcement? remember cowled wizards teleporting out of thin air trying to destroy you at value 1 reputation?

Not quite. The reason why people came up with the shapechange > mind flayer > brain drain trick was to kill npcs protected by the equivalent of Imoen's belt. And afaik shapechange was added with ToB, so in SoA you need a sorcerer or console the scroll in.

 

[Fedora Master]

So I'm assuming the pearls have to be made of very SPECIAL atheists?

Found it. "Beyond the Vault of Souls" is the name. And I remembered wrong, it's soul GEMS not soul PEARLS.

View attachment 18394

So what exactly is the point?
At least with the Wall of the Faithless you know it exists to browbeat mortals into giving their worship to the Gods.
This just turns atheists into grenades.

e: Also...

In life, Phlegyas was a man and an arrogant genius and follower of Shelyn, who was excommunicated due to his blasphemy and pride. However, his legacy endured among admirers and detractors alike. Pharasma, seeing this as a fundamental part of mortal experience, transformed Phlegyas into a female psychopomp usher.[1]

Fucking Pathfinder man.

 

[Xamenos]

So what exactly is the point?
At least with the Wall of the Faithless you know it exists to browbeat mortals into giving their worship to the Gods.
This just turns atheists into grenades.

They are unstable only because they've been removed from the Vault.

 

[Gargaune]

Worshiping evil deities is like smoking - a terrible idea, but you look cool doing it.

Whatever shit I posted didn't load:

 

[The_Mask]

allowing the player to KILL literally everything - remember law enforcement? remember cowled wizards teleporting out of thin air trying to destroy you at value 1 reputation?

Not quite. The reason why people came up with the shapechange > mind flayer > brain drain trick was to kill npcs protected by the equivalent of Imoen's belt. And afaik shapechange was added with ToB, so in SoA you need a sorcerer or console the scroll in.

*large grin* I knew someone would bring this up. Love the Codex. This is true. The BG series wasn't perfect either.

This is why when I/we discovered that Feeblemind reduces sight to 0 (doesn't trigger aggro on cast) a lot of encounters became a lot easier.
It also opened the game to a fully hasted party, because you could get The Paws of the Cheetah from Renal.

 

[Empary]

I have the impression that 1/3 of NPCs are tieflings. They ain't supposed to be rare, or Larian is 2edgy4me

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I have the impression that 1/3 of NPCs are tieflings. They ain't supposed to be rare, or Larian is 2edgy4me

WotC did it, not Larian. Anyone with any tiefling blood became an Asmodeus tiefling, and they're refugees from a nearby city that was sent to hell.

D&D 4e was garbage and shat on nearly everything, even tieflings.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

I have the impression that 1/3 of NPCs are tieflings. They ain't supposed to be rare, or Larian is 2edgy4me

Well, there’s a reason for that. This is not supposed to be your average distribution of tiefling among the general population.
You are crossing a very specific group of refugees fleeing from Avernus in a follow up from an adventure module.

 

[Delterius]

poor guys i hope baldurs gate is following christian friendly principles and doing everything to help them

 

[hell bovine]

*large grin* I knew someone would bring this up. Love the Codex. This is true. The BG series wasn't perfect either.

This is why when I/we discovered that Feeblemind reduces sight to 0 (doesn't trigger aggro on cast) a lot of encounters became a lot easier.
It also opened the game to a fully hasted party, because you could get The Paws of the Cheetah from Renal.

It's not about perfection, but rather that - except for the few cases it can get your character instakilled - the spawning guards and rising shop prices is the only reaction you'll get for playing a lady or lord of murder. Storywise it plays the same. Whether BG3 will have more consequences of using the tadpole than BG2 had for using the slayer, that's the question.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

While I'm still banned from the official forum for the next week, I noticed someone on the "megathread" about party controls took their time to gather stats about people's opinions on the matter so far (well, at least for the first ten pages of the thread, but there would be 30 in total):

10 FIRST PAGES STATISTICS.

108 different players answered this thread from P1 to P10 (included)
I think I didn't forget anyone. I also include people that just discussed in the thread without giving a strong +1 or -1.

Interesting.
Maybe I'll do it for the other pages... Or not.

- 81 (75%) of them gave a feedback that you can't misunderstood : they don't like this system
- 2 (less than 2%) said that they're more or less ok to deal with the system, but they have issues with it that need to be solved.
- 1 user (less than 1%) seems to like it, but honestly it looks like a troll (with the whole "git gud" attitude)
- 24 (22%) discussed issues related to this system or gave related feedback, suggestions etc, without openly expressing like or dislike, but it's generally implied they have their share of problems with it

Honestly, if Larian is ACTUALLY under the impression that it's just a "self-selected vocal minority" and everything is fine I wonder why they couldn't take advantages of the tools EA gives to them to ask directly from people's feedback through some sort of survey.
Admittedly an even better solution would be to give people a chance to try the alternative method and see what's more popular, but that would require for them to do the work on a new control scheme to begin with.

Same would go for any argument in favor or against the six men party, incidentally. "Oh no, we think most people would be happier with four! Six is too much to deal with!". Well, why don't give it a try and look at what people ACTUALLY choose to do, then?


EDIT - Well, just as I was posting this here, the madman actually posted an update that extends to all the pages of the thread currently. Here it is:

THREAD STATISTICS

201 different players answered this thread from P1 to P29 (included)
I think I didn't forget anyone and I think no one is listed twice.
I also include people that just discussed in the thread without giving a strong +1 or -1. Usually those also have issues with the system.


RESULTS

- 147 (73%) of them give a feedback that you can't missunderstood : they don't like this system
- 6 (less than 3%) said that they're pretty ok to deal with the system but they have issues with it
- 1 (less than 1%) seems to like it, but honnestly it looks like a troll ("get good")
- 47 (23%) disccussed issues related to this system or give related feedbacks, suggestions etc...

 

[Thonius]

It's EA don't worry they will fix it....

 

[NJClaw]

I have the impression that 1/3 of NPCs are tieflings. They ain't supposed to be rare, or Larian is 2edgy4me

Well... the game starts in a tiefling refugees camp. Wouldn't it be even more strange to find no tiefling in a tiefling refugees camp?