Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 RELEASE THREAD

[Konjad]

 

[Grauken]

If you were mentally rewriting all the dialogue in your head and imagining some amazing blossoming friendships then I imagine the story works a lot better, but I'm going by what's on the actual screen.

I'm just going with what the game gives me, which is enough.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

Guess I'm world first?

I started the game in normal but I think it is too easy actually so think I will switch to tactician-- if I switch to 'Tactician' do I need to start all the way over to get that achievement though? Because fuck that, it has taken me 40 hours to get to where I am, I am not doing that all over to get a little symbol.

 

[gurugeorge]

The real question is: Why are all the goblins Bri'ish? What did Larian mean by this?

All the characters in the game are Bri'ish, they're all regional British accents - Scottish, Irish, Yorkshire, Surrey, Sarf London, Cockerney, Received Pronunciation (wot actors used to have to learn), etc.

That's why I said this reminds me of Game of Thrones in the sense that that, too, was an introduction to the world, of many glorious regional British accents via great British character acting.

That said, they do tend to associate the plebeian London accents (Cockney, South London) with criminality. Which, to be fair, isn't that far off the mark The great irony is that there are hardly any Cockneys left in East London, they've all moved out to Essex, displaced by mass immigration.

 

[Konjad]

Spoiler

 

[Arkeus]

Again, mentioned it ages ago, but Lae'zel and Karlach were both permanent members of my party. Neither had anything to say to me at camp. Lae'zel just hisses and basically tells you to piss off, while Karlach has the same single dialogue option about her shitty busted engine, which only changes when you do that minor sidequest to get the infernal metal for her. No sense of developing friendship as you might get in a BioWare game with similar camp/party elements.

I wonder what happened there. I know some people experience bugs with triggers not working or so on, so you aren't the first I've seen who just doesn't get the scenes. However basically every characters have some pretty insane development and talk as it goes through, speaking as someone who gets constant videos and screenshots of conversation logs on different potential character growth for different characters.

I think you also mentioned Raphael being lacking in presence, which does make me think something was wonky with your companion trigger, given Raphael is a major part of Astarion's sidequests.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

The romances were too invasive with some characters, also all that talk OH YOUR CHARACTER MUST BUILD A PROPER RELATIONSHIP. That was bollocks just choose the option I want to stick my pee pee in you and you shall receive.

Not only that, you can't even rejected the NPC and be done with it. Gale tried to hit on my MC and I said fuck off not interested. He said he won't try again, and later he tries again. For fuck sake.

Also I thought devs have learned that playersexual was a extremely dumb deisgn after DA 2, but apparently not.

maybe some people can feign being 'rape' victims or of being put in highly pressurized sexual situations as woman, or workers with their bosses to their superiors or whatever and ask for a toggle to this shit, because it does sort of feel like being a girl at a drunken frat party, shit is fucking insane, why do they think this is okay? lol...

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

-Too few combats that take too long. Larian seems to take heed of the common (bad) Codex advice of "no trash fights!" The result is every combat has to be a 'puzzle' that often requires reloads or heavy resource use just to get by. Even the goblins are like this, basically no straightforward battles where you and some enemies square off; everyone is spread way out, everyone has consumables and bombs to throw at you, forced ambushes (beholder), etc. The rest of the time you wander through the empty areas bored to death while picking through 1000 empty boxes. Not everything has to be a miniboss, sometimes you just encounter some orcs to wail on as a warm up and there's nothing wrong with that.

I got second hand embarassement reading that. If I want to read such peasant opinions about the combat, I can always go to the Larian forums or Larians twitter. Git gud.

not only time your hand has been embarrassed today, its okay..

 

[Lemming42]

I wonder what happened there. I know some people experience bugs with triggers not working or so on, so you aren't the first I've seen who just doesn't get the scenes. However basically every characters have some pretty insane development and talk as it goes through, speaking as someone who gets constant videos and screenshots of conversation logs on different potential character growth for different characters.

I did wonder if something might be up bug-wise with regards to the almost total non-presence of some of the party members but seeing so many other people say the same thing makes me think it's just the game. My friend has the same experience with Karlach on her game, the character has almost nothing to say.

There are some other party members who have more dialogue options and more frequent new things to say - though regrettably, one of the foremost is Gale.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Combat and balancing is... more or less good for a casual audience but will be completely broken by someone with a brain.

You are catching on the tryhard language of resident edgelords. Someone with a brain would first understand the designer's intent, and then play this as a PnP with maximum RP his choices. Minmaxing and munchkinning this game is a path to sorrow, unless undertaken out of pure curiosity how far you can push it.

Expecting a game which strongly signals its design intent to adapt to your expectations is not a sign of "someone with a brain", it's a sign of a burnt-out retard. The game is already coded and designed, no it will not adapt to you.

BlackAdderBG , why do you disagree?

 

[Dishonoredbr]

Is Astarion just Vampire Daeran?

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Man, if you are bored, by all means don't play.

Trust me, I have very little time for gaming these days, so if a game isn't pulling me in it goes into the DNF pile.

Again, feeling urgency is up to the player.

Disagree. I just played Jagged Alliance 3 and that game sucked me in from playing anything else until I finished it. Consistent rewards, urgent quests, every time I was about to get a ahead on the game it throws another base assault or story event that can't be ignored. Different type of game, sure, but even with BG2 you had side quests that pulled you into an area and forced you to work your way through it, then found great items and rewards at the end. Once you start the Planar Sphere quest, the defense of the castle, Firkraag's lair, the Shadow Temple, etc, even the Circus Tent, you're in it for the haul.

BG3 is like if all those quests were crammed into a single, tiny map, made half as long, had crap rewards, and no push to solve any of them. It's like doing 1/4 of 12 side quests at the same time.

 

[Konjad]

Spoiler

More Shadowcooch and also something for frog coomers:

Spoiler

 

[BlackAdderBG]

I think me and Dishonoredbr are saying a pretty similar thing - companions in DA had their own clear agendas for joining you and had stories that usually ended up intertwining with and enhancing the main plot in some way, while in BG3 the only reason for you all to be together is that most of you have brain slugs, which could well be partly a side effect of the "origin" system Larian keep using.

"You'll all have to team up because you're searching for a cure together" works well as a reason to get everyone together, but then the slugs take such a backseat and everyone just follows you around as you piss days and weeks away on trivial stuff that it becomes increasingly difficult to figure out why these people are sticking together, and why they've agreed to follow you as a commander as you completely ignore the slug situation that ostensibly unites you all.

On top of that the reason you are all traveling together is contradicted half a hour into the game where you consume more of the same power slugs you try to remove just coz of a dream you all had. Then you can convince characters to go completely opposite rout from what was established as their motivation with average Charisma check. The frog chugging worms into her brain is even more ridiculous later

Spoiler

when she is on The Matrix chair ready to die just to remove them?!??!

 

[koyota]

It felt like the game presented the gnomes, and to a lesser extent the myconids (where some degree of disgust reflex is clearly meant to be invoked),

Yep.
First introduction: I was taking a ton of damage via spores / they were standing at the top laughing at me, so assumed they were hostile and fireballed them all into instant death.

Was a bit befuddled that none of the other myconids seem to care and invited me on adventuring.

Took me 37 hours to reach act 2. But I'm a grognard, and looked in every nook and cranny for stuff.

48-49 Hours here, killing anything evil or hostile, looking in every single container. Both mountain pass + Underdark. and not realizing you can warp from anywhere until the end of Act 1.

What is the point of knock out?

Threw the ball at Scratch in my camp and the darn thing went Cujo attacking not in my party Halsin.
Halsin had no idea how to handle the situation, as each of his turn turns took 15+ secs ending with no action.
Tried sleep, tried animal friendship, flee from camp impossible... Scratch would not stop until Halsin was buried in the ground.
Was about to re-load my hour old save, until remembered, yes knock-out does exist.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

I've realized the thing I hate the most about BG3. I can't stand the fact that the game never allows me to set and complete my own goals without throwing me into sixteen other directions before I can take one step forward.

It's being praised for so much interaction and freedom, yet it doesn't even let me walk down the road for a few steps without forcing me into some new bullshit side plot.

I never feel comfortable in this game. I never feel like I can set goals, set up a base of operations, and complete missions on my own schedule because I'm too frazzled with drama from every direction.

Maybe this sort of thing really appeals to younger people with ADHD who need the constant pull of "stuff to do" because they can't stand simply going from point A to point B and back to point A again without interruption.

Anyone else feel the same?

all modern 'open world games' are like this, hate that type of design, it also goes along with the pick up every root and potato and rotten piece of cheese and string and clay and broken pottery and shit and shove in your bag type of 'adventuring' that games think is needed because 'crafting' and 'alchemy'. Fucking tiresome and tedious crap, and not at all like AD&D. Sure BG 2 had very small amount of PROPER crafting that meant defeating some big monster or whatever and getting some part to craft an epic weapon. It did not mean hoovering up pieces of string and birds nests and shit..shit means you go all over the map picking up literal trash. Fucking dumb as fuck.

 

[Grauken]

just because you're an obsessive hoarder doesn't mean its the game's fault. just don't pick up trash

 

[AwesomeButton]

I just played Jagged Alliance 3 and that game sucked me in from playing anything else until I finished it. Consistent rewards, urgent quests, every time I was about to get a ahead on the game it throws another base assault or story event that can't be ignored

My point is it's subjective. I'm not arguing your feelings are somehow wrong, about either game. But I bet there are players feeling exactly the opposite way towards both games.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

And this is how yugo wars started.

 

[perfectslumbers]

maybe some people can feign being 'rape' victims or of being put in highly pressurized sexual situations as woman, or workers with their bosses to their superiors or whatever and ask for a toggle to this shit, because it does sort of feel like being a girl at a drunken frat party, shit is fucking insane, why do they think this is okay? lol...

Maybe we can cause a controversy using the rapey mindflayer once everyone gets that far.

 

[Shaki]

these two posts are about the same game in the same thread on the same page

I think me and Dishonoredbr are saying a pretty similar thing - companions in DA had their own clear agendas for joining you and had stories that usually ended up intertwining with and enhancing the main plot in some way, while in BG3 the only reason for you all to be together is that most of you have brain slugs, which could well be partly a side effect of the "origin" system Larian keep using.

"You'll all have to team up because you're searching for a cure together" works well as a reason to get everyone together, but then the slugs take such a backseat and everyone just follows you around as you piss days and weeks away on trivial stuff that it becomes increasingly difficult to figure out why these people are sticking together, and why they've agreed to follow you as a commander as you completely ignore the slug situation that ostensibly unites you all.

Obviously a lot of RPG stories struggle with the question of "why are these disparate people hanging out together" but in BG3 I really couldn't tell you why almost anyone is following me around, especially in cases where I outright ignore the reason they joined in the first place (Lae'zel doesn't massively care if you skip the creche, for example).

(and again, not that DA:O is some kind of high watermark of quality - I bring it up only because BG3 takes such obvious cues from DA)

Yeah, it's also interesting when comparing other aspects to DA:O, like the best thing about BG3 was supposed to be reactivity/C&C, but it turned out to be EXTREMELY overhyped and actually DA:O was better in both aspects too. It had a little less "reactive" lines maybe, but still a shitload and they had far more impact, could lead to different outcomes and quests, while in BG3 it's purely cosmetic "Oh heyooo I see you a fellow elf, very cool" lines, or a way to make a skillcheck have a little lower DC, like "[ARCANA] try to connect with the magic inside the object DC15" being replaced by "[WIZARD][ARCANA] Use your wizard powah to connect with the magic inside the object DC10"

In terms of C&C Dragon Age absolutely destroys BG3 and it's not close, so far it seems Larian basically lied about the whole thing, since nothing actually changes depending on your choices, all decisions are fake and lead to the exactly the same outcomes and endings - it does great with illusion of choice, but when doing some save scumming or multiple playthroughs, you quickly realize it's all fake. Githyanki Creche is a very good example of this, as it seems to give you multiple extremely important choices to make, looking at dialogue choices gives the illusion that whole thing is very complicated and can go multiple ways, I saw posts on reddit from people legit being afraid to make choices there and asking for help, since it looks like it can have major impact on your campaign and companions and lock you into some specific "routes", but if you savescum through it, there is literally ONLY ONE OUTCOME for the thing, all your "super important and tough" choices are completely irrelevant and fake. More you play, more you realize whole game is like this.

Even when not comparing to DA:O, which was also AAA game, but instead looking at some low budget nuRPGs like POE 1/2 and Pathfinders, BG3 doesn't really do anything more than them with reactivity/C&C. As I expected pre-release, it was purely PR talk.

Now, it's not a bad game by any means, I have already 100+ hours in and still having fun, it's great and as a full package easily beats majority of RPGs, but it's also legit nothing revolutionary in terms of actual RPG qualities, and its insane success seems to have come entirely from the super high production value (insane amount of cinematics/cutscenes/animations/voice acting etc.) + the perfect storm of marketing, and it doesn't have actually much to do with how good the game is as an RPG game.

Without the bear and squirrel and horny companions shit bringing a ton of attention and making big streamers play the game. + other devs getting scared of the "174 hours of cinematics, 17000 endings, every playthrough is completely different, blahblahblah" stuff being thrown around, and providing insane marketing with their whiny "don't make BG3 a new standard" posts, it would probably peak at 100-150k rather than 800k.

 

[Arkeus]

I think me and Dishonoredbr are saying a pretty similar thing - companions in DA had their own clear agendas for joining you and had stories that usually ended up intertwining with and enhancing the main plot in some way, while in BG3 the only reason for you all to be together is that most of you have brain slugs, which could well be partly a side effect of the "origin" system Larian keep using.

"You'll all have to team up because you're searching for a cure together" works well as a reason to get everyone together, but then the slugs take such a backseat and everyone just follows you around as you piss days and weeks away on trivial stuff that it becomes increasingly difficult to figure out why these people are sticking together, and why they've agreed to follow you as a commander as you completely ignore the slug situation that ostensibly unites you all.

On top of that the reason you are all traveling together is contradicted half a hour into the game where you consume more of the same power slugs you try to remove just coz of a dream you all had. Then you can convince characters to go completely opposite rout from what was established as their motivation with average Charisma check. The frog chugging worms into her brain is even more ridiculous later

Spoiler

when she is on The Matrix chair ready to die just to remove them?!??!

"get more worms in the head" is actually not contradictory to getting on that chair given the lore and what you learn.

Something to note about companions following you is that Shadowheart's item get soulbound to Tav, and without that item you get mindwiped by the tadpole. So the companions have to either follow you or get it out.

I did wonder if something might be up bug-wise with regards to the almost total non-presence of some of the party members but seeing so many other people say the same thing makes me think it's just the game. My friend has the same experience with Karlach on her game, the character has almost nothing to say.

I sadly don't know many people who play with Karlach personally, so I'll check out what options she herself has. Most people talk about Shadowheart/Astarion/Gale/Lae'zel when it comes to great character development and camp talks, with Wyll and Karlach being more rarely mentioned.

In terms of C&C Dragon Age absolutely destroys BG3 and it's not close, so far it seems Larian basically lied about the whole thing, since nothing actually changes depending on your choices, all decisions are fake and lead to the exactly the same outcomes and endings - it does great with illusion of choice, but when doing some save scumming or multiple playthroughs, you quickly realize it's all fake. Githyanki Creche is a very good example of this, as it seems to give you multiple extremely important choices to make, looking at dialogue choices gives the illusion that whole thing is very complicated and can go multiple ways, I saw posts on reddit from people legit being afraid to make choices there and asking for help, since it looks like it can have major impact on your campaign and companions and lock you into some specific "routes", but if you savescum through it, there is literally ONLY ONE OUTCOME for the thing, all your "super important ant tough" choices are completely irrelevant and fake. More you play, more you realize whole game is like this.

And yet, look at the dozen of different ending you have for the grove, the 4ish ending you have for Ethel, the 4ish endings for the mushroom colony or Nere, the 6ish endings you have for Last Light Inn or Moonrise tower....

The crech also have like 4ish different endings if you care at all about companions, but heh.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

Combat and balancing is... more or less good for a casual audience but will be completely broken by someone with a brain.

You are catching on the tryhard language of resident edgelords. Someone with a brain would first understand the designer's intent, and then play this as a PnP with maximum RP his choices. Minmaxing and munchkinning this game is a path to sorrow, unless undertaken out of pure curiosity how far you can push it.

Expecting a game which strongly signals its design intent to adapt to your expectations is not a sign of "someone with a brain", it's a sign of a burnt-out retard. The game is already coded and designed, no it will not adapt to you.

BlackAdderBG , why do you disagree?

Because your premise is retarded and highly subjective. Is your point really that players shouldn't use the game mechanics designed by the devs, because that would make them a munchkin? lol Was Larian's intent to make all the systems, items, stats etc. just to fuck around or what?

 

[Desiderius]

This game is pretty powered down compared to Wrath or D:OS II tho. It's really nice all the subtle effects they've included without having to make everything +100 to hit vs 95 AC, which also ends up being a problem with MMO design and Diablo clones.

I thought that's the kind of shit you liked.

What's your point?

You've been far less autistic than usual.

Being normal saps my superpowers. Bad habit.

I think Owlcat tries to do both - the subtly powerful stuff alongside the uber one-dimensionality for the maxminners. But it doesn't really work because people have divided themselves into two camps that either follow whatever one weird trick the powergheymers are memeing or consider themselves casual or storyphags and play on lower difficulties. Can't really blame them since they grew up on glorified phone games.

With 5E bounded accuracy Larian here is ripping off the band-aid and forcing a more multi-dimensional approach. Hopefully now the journotard class can be lured back into using a braincell or two and the maxminners can stop unwittingly nerfing themselves trying to squeeze that last 1% out of DPS at the expense of everything else and enjoy finding all the other angles to attack the varied challenges good games present.

 

[Desiderius]

Someone with a brain would first understand the designer's intent, and then play this as a PnP with maximum RP his choices. Minmaxing and munchkinning this game is a path to sorrow, unless undertaken out of pure curiosity how far you can push it.

It's like they're abused children afraid to step out of their discomfort zone.

Yeah, you were right about a lot of the shortcomings of what you grew up on. You weren't the only ones who noticed. Different people work on that shit in different ways. Older dudes grew up on better games so can go back to our old habits when new games come up that hearken back to that kind of game. You guys are going to have to start somewhat from scratch. It's worth it.