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

[Swen]

Look I am going to enjoy BG3 no matter what, but denying that the absence of day/night cycle won’t hurt is plain retarded.

But funnily enough it’s not the day/night cycle per se that is the problem, it’s the basic design the world is crafted with which tends to be more of a railroaded theme park, rather than an open world experience rewarding an exploration. In other words judging by what is currently available in EA I see little to no value in adding a day/night cycle (except probably for some stealth capabilities). For it to be valuable the game should offer an open world where the said feature will make sense rather than being a visual fluff. Current design just won’t support it.

Semi linear game >>>> open world trash.

 

[Mazisky]

I am just playing Kingmaker now and I had that very immersive Baldur's Gate feel when you travel the wilderness at night with a huge foggy rainstorm, so atmospheric.

All that will be missed in Baldur's Gate 3 because Larian art designers are cold and soulless.

You must be extremely barren inside to not push a day\night cycle for your rpg when even the notoriusly cold Germans had beautiful cycles in their Gothic.

 

[NJClaw]

As much as I love Kingmaker, I think I've never played an uglier game. It isn't entirely their fault (most of it is on Paizo), but the combination of generic, cartoony art style and foggy effects makes everything look like shit. I'd save only monsters' models, which look great.

Maybe I'm a simple mind, but I can't enjoy the atmosphere when everything looks like vomit.

 

[Salvo]

As much as I love Kingmaker, I think I've never played an uglier game. It isn't entirely their fault (most of it is on Paizo), but the combination of generic, cartoony art style and foggy effects makes everything look like shit. I'd save only monsters' models, which look great.

Maybe I'm a simple mind, but I can't enjoy the atmosphere when everything looks like vomit.

Ever tried Kenshi

 

[underground nymph]

As much as I love Kingmaker, I think I've never played an uglier game. It isn't entirely their fault (most of it is on Paizo), but the combination of generic, cartoony art style and foggy effects makes everything look like shit. I'd save only monsters' models, which look great.

Maybe I'm a simple mind, but I can't enjoy the atmosphere when everything looks like vomit.

To be honest there are some locations in the PFK when you can really say they’ve been worked on with passion. But they are very few. The farther you go the uglier it becomes. Wilderness on the other hand is an ugly copy paste 100%

 

[Cryomancer]

>>>> open world trash.

Disagreed. If you look into BG2, the most popular chapters are Chapter 2 and 5. Both are very open(one in Amn and other in Underdark). Throne of Bhaal which is the most linear part of Bhaalspawn saga is the most hated. Many people blame the extremely high/epic level of ToB for its badness but IMO the greatest problem of ToB is that it is a mindless corridor of boss fights.

A question : There is ANY P&P module or CRPG with a worst depiction of the underdark than BG3? The best IMO is from Menzoberranzan from the DreamForge Intertainment, the same who made Dungeon Hack and Ravenloft : Strahd Possession + Stone Prophet. What is interesting is that if you look into reviews of Menzoberranzan, a lot of prople complain that the game is not turn based. I think that all Dreamforge games would be better in TB or at least like M&M VI where you can chose between TB and RT.

 

[Reinhardt]

Nigga, Underdark is yuge. it's not some cave where drows, liches, beholders and mindfuckers live right next to each other. Look at DDO - it's just one smol area near one drow city and it's already big and diverse. Not every exit leads to your EPUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUK!!!1 advencha.

 

[Reinhardt]

In my opinion best depiction of what something like Underdark would look was made by japanese from Eushully.

you enter huge dungeon and then it's not just hundreds of floors down, but also sideways and often up, to different exits to surface. And no - there are no 40000 epic liches on every floor.

 

[Cryomancer]

Underdark is yuge. it's not some cave where drows, liches, beholders and mindfuckers live right next to each other. Look at DDO - it's just one smol area near one drow city and it's already big and diverse. Not every exit leads to your EPUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUK!!!1 advencha.

No one said that. I know that underdark is extremely large. There are no tier 7/8/9 spells in Menzoberranzan CRPG(True seeing and Disintegrate are end game spells), nor there are epic level dragonliches there, the enemies which you face in the game are mostly akin to umber hulks and Aboleths in strength. What makes underdark interesting there is all interactions with drow and complete alien culture that you meet there + the crazy dungeon design where you need to use spells like fly and levitate + the complete alien city design and atmosphere.

In BG3 it is merely low level spider cave.

 

[Reinhardt]

y there iz spiders in underdark?!
No, seriously, Victor - make your mind already. "Why there are dragons and mind flayers in prologue?! To many epic for lvl 1 characters!" "Why there are only some spiders in this cave?! Not enough epic for lvl 1 characters!"

 

[Saravan]

Underdark is yuge. it's not some cave where drows, liches, beholders and mindfuckers live right next to each other. Look at DDO - it's just one smol area near one drow city and it's already big and diverse. Not every exit leads to your EPUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUK!!!1 advencha.

No one said that. I know that underdark is extremely large. There are no tier 7/8/9 spells in Menzoberranzan CRPG(True seeing and Disintegrate are end game spells), nor there are epic level dragonliches there, the enemies which you face in the game are mostly akin to umber hulks and Aboleths in strength. What makes underdark interesting there is all interactions with drow and complete alien culture that you meet there + the crazy dungeon design where you need to use spells like fly and levitate + the complete alien city design and atmosphere.

In BG3 it is merely low level spider cave.

It's a low level spiders cave based on what you have seen so far. If that's how it turns out in the finished product then you may have a point. Highly unlikely that Larian would be retarded enough to introduce underdark and settle for that. And don't give me that spiel about "I judge the game based on early access". The scope of the underdark is really not something you can conclude based on early access alone, that would be ridiculous. It's an entire different thing to criticize fundamental game mechanics that will be prevalent throughout the game, whether that's the toilet-chain thing or something else. Please don't go full autismo now and take this as some passionate defence for BG3, but if you are going to criticize do it right.

 

[Cryomancer]

"Why there are dragons and mind flayers in prologue?! To many epic for lvl 1 characters!" "Why there are only some spiders in this cave?! Not enough epic for lvl 1 characters!"

Both, the adventure is too epic for lv 1~4 campaign however, however the encounter design is too low level for the epic campaign. A adventure which starts with mindflayer spelljammer ship, then you meet archdruids, read the nekonomicon and can use barrelmancy to deal enough fire damage to burn a red dragon, yet you spend most of the time fighting goblins and other low level monsters.

The scope of the underdark is really not something you can conclude based on early access alone, that would be ridiculous. It's an entire different thing to criticize fundamental game mechanics that will be prevalent throughout the game, whether that's the toilet-chain thing or something else.

The way that BG3 handles story and encounter design in EA will probably be the same in the final game.

If things are ridiculous now, imagine in late game of BG3...

 

[NJClaw]

I'd like to point out that more than 2% of all the results for "barrelmancy" in the entire world wide web are in this thread:

Do what you want with this piece of information.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I'd like to point out that more than 2% of all the results for "barrelmancy" in the entire world wide web are in this thread:

Do what you want with this piece of information.

Holy shit. Victor's autism is actually quantifiable!

Congrats Cryomancer! You're a known entity on Google!

 

[Cryomancer]

Strange, I found 6k results and no mention to codex in first page

 

[ERYFKRAD]

can use barrelmancy to deal enough fire damage to burn a red dragon

Why are you so upset about this? Serves the dragon right for not having dragon safety compliant storage.

 

[Larianshill]

I'd like to point out that more than 2% of all the results for "barrelmancy" in the entire world wide web are in this thread:

Do what you want with this piece of information.

Victor is growing too powerful.

 

[sorcerian]

A video talking about the lv cap. My guess? It will be lv 12. When D&D initially launched, the maximum spell level which an arcane caster could reach was 6 and 5 for divine casters. In the past, I was disappointed due the lv cap being low but was because I was too used to 3.5E and Pathfinder games. NWN1, NWN2, IWD2, PF:KM. The unique 3.5E game that I know with low lv cap is ToEE(lv cap = 10).

I don't think any of the points made in the video are serious considerations; it is an entirely different form of media, with different inputs, demands and restrictions from its audience. Moreover, the sheer volume of content in the game requires that it be higher, rather than lower. I mean, if there was no level cap currently, you'd probably be able to get to 6, maybe 7, in just the game's opening area. They've really designed themselves between a rock and a hard place - there's all this content in the world and at some point, it will stop rewarding you - a scenario they really want to avoid. It's for this reason that I think the cap will be higher even if it leads to level bloat and stupid amounts of power.

 

[Cryomancer]

, if there was no level cap currently, you'd probably be able to get to 6, maybe 7,(...)nt, it will stop rewarding you - a scenario they really want to avoid. It's for this reason that I think the cap will be higher even if it leads to level bloat and stupid amounts of power.

First of all, welcome to Codex

But to be clear, in BG1 you could get into the XP cap far before you are close to complete the game.
Same with BG2 with a small party and completitionist style.

In the Dark Sun Games(Shattered Lands & Wake of the Ravager) even my party members multiclassing party members got into the lv cap around 2/3 of the game (NOTE : Multiclassing in 2E is vastly different than 3E and 5E) So, if BG3 has lv cap = 12, I"m sure that most of us will get to this point around 80% of the game. As its happens in most D&D games. The unique D&D style of RPG which I ended very away from the lv cap when I played was Pathfinder Kingmaker which I ended on lv 16 on my first run and skipped lots and lots of quests. And ... People kept playing and finishing the game. XP is not the unique "reward" for something. We can still experience a cool story, see the consequences of your decisions to unfold and so on after we hit lv cap.

And in 5E in particular, things don't scale well in high levels. As is too hard to challenge a high level party. Also, 2 new levels means a complete new set of spells and iterations to make. IMO if Larian will implement high level stuff like wish spell, it should be one time per game spell scroll.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Reinhardt]

GHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY!

 

[Larianshill]

I've thought there are some real news if Infintron posted here, but it's just some gay Magic reveals.

 

[Crispy]

Why is it Astarion, the Decadent and not Astarion the Decadent?

 

[luj1]

So this game failed pretty hard after all

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

Why is it Astarion, the Decadent and not Astarion the Decadent?

One is a description, the other is a proper title. I don't think "Astarion the Decadent" is something he's ever called in-game, but I could be wrong.