Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 Pre-Release Thread [EARLY ACCESS RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Gargaune]

I guess it refers to the talent "Lone Wolf" from Divinity Original Sin 1 and 2, which increased the "power" of your characters (doubling stat and skill points gain) as long as the party had 2 or less members, so you could play with small party or solo while still retaining a similar level of difficulty as a full party in theory. In practice it was totally broken, specially in 2, with characters being able to broke any combat encounter mid-game, so much so it got nerfed, and is still considered easier than playing with a full party.

Oh, I see. Only played a few hours of the original D:OS so I'm out of the loop. Sounds pretty dumb, just do party-wide XP and let the players deal with it like in, you know... Baldur's Gate...

 

[Infinitron]

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with Early Access, it's just that it seems to have a "cheap" image, mostly associated with smaller projects and underdog developers who need outsourced QA and midway cash injections.

It's also associated with often extremely successful multiplayer sandbox-type games. (Many Codexers don't pay attention to these titles and thus were puzzled when Grounded entered Early Access recently)

 

[Gargaune]

It's also associated with often extremely successful multiplayer sandbox-type games. (Many Codexers don't pay attention to these titles and thus were puzzled when Grounded entered Early Access recently)

Guilty as charged, and it's why I mentioned MMOs (was thiking of Conan Exiles, for instance), the benefits of a public beta are much clearer when the developer is under pressure to balance for competitive play. At the end of the day, Early Access is just a public test and a pre-order rolled into one. But when dealing with a story-driven, presumably AAA single-player RPG (co-op notwithstanding), it's not as common and can raise the odd eyebrow.

 

[Infinitron]

For some reason:

Rescheduled and broadcast this week:

 

[cpmartins]

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with Early Access, it's just that it seems to have a "cheap" image, mostly associated with smaller projects and underdog developers who need outsourced QA and midway cash injections. Outside of the realm of MMOs, you'd expect this sort of public betas for something like Pathfinder: Kingmaker, but you'd be shocked if Cyberpunk 2077 went for it. When it comes to WotC, I seem to recall they were opposed to Kickstarter for the same reason, not wanting to give investors and the public the impression that they couldn't fund their videogame projects.

In other news, I don't know if this got covered, but I got a random video popping up in my YouTube feed where some guy is summarising a Twitch interview Swen did with some other guy:



The bits that stuck out to me:

- Level range previously expected 1 - 10, now supposed to be somewhat "higher": I like the idea of a middling level cap, having a more patient and significant progression curve smells like oldschool incline. On the other hand, it does also bring an even sharper contrast to the epic material being shown in the game's introduction, something I've already bitched about at length. It also makes me suspect that an expansion or sequel featuring the same protagonist PC is very likely.

- Whenever I start warming up to this game, I'm inevitably reminded that it's a Stadia flagship and gastric discomfort returns with a vengeance. I guess in an ideal world, BG3 would be a good RPG and commercially successful, just not on Stadia. But this world's far from ideal and I'd genuinely rather BG3 fail miserably than Google score a massive hit with their cloud shit. Because if the former happens it'll merely bury D&D videogames for another five to eight years, but the latter case would help Stadia spread its decline to the long term ruin of gaming entirely.

- BG3 "will eventually be mod friendly": it's completely reasonable Larian wouldn't want any modding during EA, and it's reassuring to hear it'll happen eventually. Hopefully, they can spare a couple of developers to have some mod support by the time they go gold, rather than have them all working on Stadia "likes" or what the fuck ever that shit has, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

- "Lone wolf mode..." Is this some new millenial-speak for soloing a game? I'm not even sure what it means, apparently the response was that Larian was focusing on the 4-man party plus occasional followers for now, but surely you can just elect not to take them with you, right? I mean, I was hoping to kill some of these fuckers at first sight, or at least tell them to fuck off forever and make my own custom meat puppets...

- Apparently combat will be more frequent than in tabletop (duh!) and CRs will differ from the Monster Manual (just in case the intro movie didn't clue you in). I'm just eager to see how Owlcat haters will react to this one.

- Oh, and EA won't have the full suite of Reactions. Well, it's not a complete game yet.

Unless they can change physics, off-site rendering will always be trash. Even assuming a perfect internet infrastructure, a thing that couldn't be farther from reality as it is, input lag is still quite noticeable even on nearby locations. Having said that, the majority of the population are barely functioning retards and will be trained like the little monkeys they are to treat this as a "minor nuisance", nevermind the fact that you won't own any of the software. The corporate dream: The consumer owns nothing.

 

[Incendax]

I seriously hope Larian learned its lesson with OS2 and the early access will be include the entire game. It doesn't have to be the full game at the start, but it has to be the full game before early access ends.

 

[Cryomancer]

LMFAO at the suckers paying 60 bucks to beta test my game.

Most Larian haters are included on that category.

 

[Peachcurl]

I seriously hope Larian learned its lesson with OS2 and the early access will be include the entire game. It doesn't have to be the full game at the start, but it has to be the full game before early access ends.

I honestly don't understand (but also tend to avoid early access, especially with story driven games). What's the benefit of having the full game at the end of early access?

 

[polo]

I seriously hope Larian learned its lesson with OS2 and the early access will be include the entire game. It doesn't have to be the full game at the start, but it has to be the full game before early access ends.

I honestly don't understand (but also tend to avoid early access, especially with story driven games). What's the benefit of having the full game at the end of early access?

I guess they get people to *test* all the game, and get all those analytics so they can balance it better.

 

[Lacrymas]

I honestly don't understand (but also tend to avoid early access, especially with story driven games). What's the benefit of having the full game at the end of early access?

Both D:OS1 and 2 suffer from their first areas being the best and the quality taking a noticeable nosedive after that. Some people theorize it's because the first areas are extensively tested and polished due to EA, coupled with the fact journos (and most casual players) don't finish games. In theory, the full game being available in EA would mitigate that somewhat, but I think that's hyperoptimistic, it's far more likely they won't have the time, money, and motivation to collect criticism spanning the entire game and tinkering with it to make everything like the first zone. It will just turn to goop or have middling quality throughout. The solution is shorter games, not more extensive EAs.

 

[polo]

I honestly don't understand (but also tend to avoid early access, especially with story driven games). What's the benefit of having the full game at the end of early access?

Both D:OS1 and 2 suffer from their first areas being the best and the quality taking a noticeable nosedive after that. Some people theorize it's because the first areas are extensively tested and polished due to EA, coupled with the fact journos (and most casual players) don't finish games. In theory, the full game being available in EA would mitigate that somewhat, but I think that's hyperoptimistic, it's far more likely they won't have the time, money, and motivation to collect criticism spanning the entire game and tinkering with it to make everything like the first zone. It will just turn to goop or have middling quality throughout. The solution is shorter games, not more extensive EAs.

Also probably a very low percent of players finish the game. So they wont get many data anyway.

 

[Grotesque]

As flawed systems as they are, without them RPG Codex would be subforum at Bethesda.net

what a slurping imbecile you are.

where the fuck were you when Oblivion came out?

ha! subforum at bethesda the mongoloid says...

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Was this mentioned yet?

 

[HoboForEternity]

You don't pay 60 bucks to beta test the game, you pay 60 bucks for the full game plus beta access. I don't see how that's any different than Kickstarter projects.

kickstarter is even worse, because the base game tier are usually cheaper than beta whatever. it's so dumb. early access isn't bad because even not playing, you pay the same amount or even less for a basically alpha/beta game.

beta backer tier is basically shoving more money for a job people should be getting paid to do.

 

[J1M]

Which classes are launching with Early Access?

 

[NJClaw]

Which classes are launching with Early Access?

• Fighter - Battle Master, Eldritch Knight
• Wizard - Evocation, Abjuration
• Rogue - Arcane Trickster, Thief
• Ranger - Hunter, Beast Master
• Cleric - Life, Light, Trickery
• Warlock - Fiend, Great One

They may add other classes along the way.

 

[ChildInTime]

Which classes are launching with Early Access?

• Fighter - Battle Master, Eldritch Knight
• Wizard - Evocation, Abjuration
• Rogue - Arcane Trickster, Thief
• Ranger - Hunter, Beast Master
• Cleric - Life, Light, Trickery
• Warlock - Fiend, Great One

They may add other classes along the way.

Wizards will only have two schools? So no checking out their necromancy "talk to the dead" feature? Lame.

 

[Lacrymas]

Wizards will only have two schools? So no checking out their necromancy "talk to the dead" feature? Lame.

That's only EA, everything from the player's handbook will be in the full game. I presume they'll add more in EA too.

 

[Dodo1610]

It's only the subclass all spell schools are already in the game.

 

[LabRat]

Which classes are launching with Early Access?

• Fighter - Battle Master, Eldritch Knight
• Wizard - Evocation, Abjuration
• Rogue - Arcane Trickster, Thief
• Ranger - Hunter, Beast Master
• Cleric - Life, Light, Trickery
• Warlock - Fiend, Great One

They may add other classes along the way.

Damn, no Hexblade Warlock.

 

[Bara]

Which classes are launching with Early Access?

• Fighter - Battle Master, Eldritch Knight
• Wizard - Evocation, Abjuration
• Rogue - Arcane Trickster, Thief
• Ranger - Hunter, Beast Master
• Cleric - Life, Light, Trickery
• Warlock - Fiend, Great One

They may add other classes along the way.

Damn, no Hexblade Warlock.

Speaking of that did they say if they were using unearthed arcana for base ranger or pure core here?

 

[J1M]

Which classes are launching with Early Access?

• Fighter - Battle Master, Eldritch Knight
• Wizard - Evocation, Abjuration
• Rogue - Arcane Trickster, Thief
• Ranger - Hunter, Beast Master
• Cleric - Life, Light, Trickery
• Warlock - Fiend, Great One

They may add other classes along the way.

Damn, no Hexblade Warlock.

Speaking of that did they say if they were using unearthed arcana for base ranger or pure core here?

As with any digital game, they are going to take liberties with their implementation based on time constraints and engine limitations. And then the lead designer will make some tweaks based on his personal damage.

 

[NJClaw]

Speaking of that did they say if they were using unearthed arcana for base ranger or pure core here?

As with any digital game, they are going to take liberties with their implementation based on time constraints and engine limitations. And then the lead designer will make some tweaks based on his personal damage.

We know that "Swen" and Mike Mearls sat down and discussed how to adjust the Ranger for the game, so we know for sure that it won't be the "core" first version, but we can't say how much they will take from the unearthed arcana and how much they will improvise.

 

[Lacrymas]

The problem with Rangers is that there's nothing they can do Rogues can't or can't do even better. Rangers (and some other classes) should've been left at the cutting board.

 

[Thac0]

The problem with Rangers is that there's nothing they can do Rogues can't or can't do even better. Rangers (and some other classes) should've been left at the cutting board.

Rangers and Rogues are really different in 5e.
Rogues get odd stuff like Expertise and Sneak Attack and Cunning Action as their main class features.
Rangers get Extra Attack, Half Casting and Fighting Styles.
Why they are bad is that Fighters make much better archers than them, and Paladins make much better half casters. There are only two different half caster classes in the game, the Ranger and the Paladin. The Paladin is one of the best classes in the game, and makes the Ranger look like utter trash in comparison.

Now interesting to mind is that the default ranger archetype Hunter is not bad. They get Volley of Arrows and Collosus Slayer or Horde Breaker for making an archer that is definitly comparable to a Battlemaster fighter sniper. Their second archetype Beastmaster is however utter trash and really needs a competent player to be even moderatly successfull. The new ranger archetypes, speciifically the Gloom Stalker and the Horizon planar guy are not bad either.

While they are undoubtably already buffing the ranger in their changes, I think the easiest fix would just be to give them new unique spells. http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/spell:zephyr-strike Zephyr Strike alone from one of the expansion books in 5e took melee Rangers from utter trash to an interesting option. Perhaps rework their casting so that they get certain spells they learn for free, that do not count against their known spells limit, and put Hutners Mark, Zephyr Strike and a few other good ones in there, so you can't fuck that up.