Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 RELEASE THREAD

[Ibn Sina]

I killed the nightsong and Isobel because the strong dyke semi divine feminist was too much for me.

 

[Eisenheinrich]

Definitive edition will come next year.

I literally saved gaming

You can almost see that curbstomped skull of a vatnik edgelord, crushed beneath his ironclad heel. One incel gone, so many yet to purge.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Dark Urge really should be a Bhaal worshipper, for story reasons.

It's up to the deity to decide whether to grant you powers or not. And if they dislike Bhaal, you being what you are is only an extra reason for them to do so (as happens in the game with Kelemvor by proxy of Jergal if you deny Bhaal).

 

[Eisenheinrich]

I killed the nightsong and Isobel because the strong dyke semi divine feminist was too much for me.

Good boy, well done. I can sympathize with the mentally challenged. Sure a lot of stuff is too much for you. Like breathing through your nose or meeting new people.

 

[Lagole Gon]

When was the level 12 cap announced? I imagine it must have happened on the heels of Upper City getting cut, right?

It was originally said that the game would cap at level 10. In the very first couple of EA builds gaining levels was slow as molasses, but halfway into the patches you were already at level 4-ish when you cleared most things in the first act (no Towers or Monastery yet). So it was expanded. I'm level 10, in act 3, not that far into it yet.

Larian should really consider not biting more they can chew one day.
What's the point of adding more hours of content if you can't finish and balance them properly?
And I have a feeling BG3 will have below average completion rate.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I killed the nightsong and Isobel because the strong dyke semi divine feminist was too much for me.

Aren't they a perfect match? Aasimar is a race for self-righteous woke dykes anyway.

 

[Lagole Gon]

I killed the nightsong and Isobel because the strong dyke semi divine feminist was too much for me.

That's just bad business. I think you can sell her to the pseudo-Edwin wizard.

 

[Mortmal]

Seriously, BG3 is the most important CRPG to ever release. It surpassed the old RTWP garbage and we still haven't seen an official RPG codex review?

What's going on?

Writing a Codex review about Baldur's Gate 3 proves to be an incredibly challenging task, as the game excels in every aspect, surpassing anything that came before it. Attempting to find negative points could lead to discussing the companions' awkward same-sex seduction attempts and a handful of cringe-inducing elements, potentially resulting in a review that appears to be authored by an immature and overly horny teenager. Although this could align with the current situation and population on the Codex, I doubt any reviewer would want to be associated with that image.
A truly in-depth, honest, review of the game would undoubtedly lean towards a highly positive perspective. Identifying negative points in the gameplay is challenging; one could argue that combat may eventually become too easy for those well-versed in 5E mechanics, yet even this criticism doesn't make it worse than other published games, like Solasta. It's possible to nitpick aspects such as the absence of prone actions, grapple mechanics, and destructible environments like in the old XCOM games, as well as the inclusion of some homebrew elements.The game stands out as one of the few recent tactical titles, by recent i mean the past two decades , alongside Solasta and KotC2.

 

[whydoibother]

Dark Urge really should be a Bhaal worshipper, for story reasons.

It's up to the deity to decide whether to grant you powers or not. And if they dislike Bhaal, you being what you are is only an extra reason for them to do so (as happens in the game with Kelemvor by proxy of Jergal if you deny Bhaal).

You are right, Kelemvor/Jergal are also a good fit for this story, depending on how you play it out.
And while there is a companion who, as part of their arc, literally has a god different from their official one grant them power in some moment, I still think a Shar cleric DU would be wonky to rationalize.

 

[Grauken]

BG3 Act 1 (9 out of 10)

The Good
- The story is great, perfect setup and overall narrative theme
- Item descriptions are solid, lots of the books add excellent flavor to the gaming world
- I really like the narrator, I thought I would end up hating it but it became one of my favorite aspects of the game
- Companion writing is for the most part good to excellent, froggie, Shadowheart, Gale for the most part, Halsin, Astarion and Wither
- multiple ways to solve situations, combat, talking, other more clever approaches
- multiple ways to reach locations
- really good verticality in a lot of the level design
- lots and lots of secret stuff to discover and extra areas, items
- lots of reactivity
- encounter design is excellent with an insane amount of unique enemies
- combat feels great on Tactician, well-balanced even once you hit level 5 and beyond
- great itemization with lots of useful stuff

The Bad
- The romance writing (it's entertaining in a really cringe way but that is all)
- companions are super special, like Gale is the former lover of a certain goddess, it's a bit too much
- Karlach I found amusing but she's not exactly what I expected from her character and feels a bit meta
- Wyll is underwhelming
- Some encounters feel more like a puzzle, like the Grym guardian
- P&P module Descent into Avernus sets up things that aren't explained well in-game and lead to confusion, e.g. where are all the tieflings from
- timed Nere quest runs counter to what the game has taught you up to this point of what to expect
- Resting on Tactician should be more limited than just increasing food requirement from 40 to 80
- Not being able to look up is really annoying sometimes, also the camera sometimes get caught in weird angles

 

[Grauken]

And I have a feeling BG3 will have below average completion rate.

all 100 hour cRPGs have below average completion rates

 

[Strange Fellow]

- timed Nere quest runs counter to what the game has taught you up to this point of what to expect

How do you mean? We solved it within the timer, so I'm curious how else it could have turned out.

 

[Eisenheinrich]

And I have a feeling BG3 will have below average completion rate.

all 100 hour cRPGs have below average completion rates

Why taking that serious? That was clearly a "Hier ist der Wunsch Vater des Gedanken"-take.

 

[Lagole Gon]

And I have a feeling BG3 will have below average completion rate.

all 100 hour cRPGs have below average completion rates

Lower than usual for this type of game. Lots of casual people got memed into playing it.
It reminds me Witcher 2 situation, it also caught some kind of PR lightning in the bottle.

 

[Grauken]

- timed Nere quest runs counter to what the game has taught you up to this point of what to expect

How do you mean? We solved it within the timer, so I'm curious how else it could have turned out.

If you take too long the Grymforge is empty as Nere died and the Duergar left with the gnome slaves

 

[Heroic Liberator]

We

Hill deg, majestet))

 

[Eisenheinrich]

Lower than usual for this type of game. Lots of casual people got memed into playing it.

And yet, they still play it.

Welcome to the new reality of turn-based CRPGs.

 

[Strange Fellow]

- timed Nere quest runs counter to what the game has taught you up to this point of what to expect

How do you mean? We solved it within the timer, so I'm curious how else it could have turned out.

If you take too long the Grymforge is empty as Nere died and the Duergar left with the gnome slaves

Isn't that in line with the rest of the game, though? There's a time limit to the druid grove and the poisoned gnome lady in the myconid colony, to name two examples off the top of my head. I thought the Nere time limit was pretty heavily telegraphed.

 

[volklore]

When was the level 12 cap announced? I imagine it must have happened on the heels of Upper City getting cut, right?

It was originally said that the game would cap at level 10. In the very first couple of EA builds gaining levels was slow as molasses, but halfway into the patches you were already at level 4-ish when you cleared most things in the first act (no Towers or Monastery yet). So it was expanded. I'm level 10, in act 3, not that far into it yet.

Larian should really consider not biting more they can chew one day.
What's the point of adding more hours of content if you can't finish and balance them properly?
And I have a feeling BG3 will have below average completion rate.

They have lots of potential but they can't really figure out what they want to do.
-They make great non-linear exploration but reward completionism too much xp wise. There was this issue with DoS2 in which if you played fort joy as intended (i.e get out of there and never look back) you'd end up under-leveled so you go back there to kill some guard or some shit. I think that problem with underleveling was already in DKSaga too. They seem to have overcorrected it like crazy in BG3 where you end up over-leveled no matter what you do past early act1, and block progression when there's still tons of content in the game.
-They have this weird counterintuitive story progression where they linearize in the middle of the game and open up again in the last act. And this is again something they've since at least DKSaga. Not saying there is no way this works, but it's funny they went for it again after DoS2 and seem to have the exact same issue with it (a rushed and buggy mess of triggers in the final act).
-I think their origin character system is a hole of dev resources and creates big restrictions on the writing. BG3 has all these ''convenient'' plotpoints where everything feel connected artificially and I attribute it all to the fact that all of the game's companions (at least the main ones) are designed to also be the ''main'' character. Like they all need to have some arc deeply tying them to the main story even though they're supposed to be randos infected with tadpoles no different from any other absolute stooges.

 

[Eisenheinrich]

There's a time limit to the druid grove and the poisoned gnome lady in the myconid colony, to name two examples off the top of my head.

Is that the case? I pretty much resolved the druid cove situation just minutes before heading to Mountain Pass. How often do you have to rest here to make it fail?

 

[Irxy]

They made Viconia ugly as sin in this game, along with her story. I like the game overall, but bringing Viconia back just to make her look bad is lame, ngl. Of all the things Larian has done, this is the worst imo.

She whas always ugly

That's not ugly, the portrait is showing her evil.

This was back in the day when characters and their portraits were designed to rapresent a particular personality.

BG1 portrait of Viconia is shit not because she is portrayed as ugly & evil, but because she doesn't look like a drow at all.
Looks like a failed ai job, if it wasn't 25 years old.

 

[whydoibother]

And I have a feeling BG3 will have below average completion rate.

all 100 hour cRPGs have below average completion rates

Lower than usual for this type of game. Lots of casual people got memed into playing it.
It reminds me Witcher 2 situation, it also caught some kind of PR lightning in the bottle.

Steam Global achievements say 15% never completed the tutorial. 40% don't have the "complete 4 long rests" achievement, which means either achievements aren't tracked, or disabled by mods or whatever, or most people just launch it, see it runs badly, and stop playing.

 

[Grauken]

- timed Nere quest runs counter to what the game has taught you up to this point of what to expect

How do you mean? We solved it within the timer, so I'm curious how else it could have turned out.

If you take too long the Grymforge is empty as Nere died and the Duergar left with the gnome slaves

Isn't that in line with the rest of the game, though? There's a time limit to the druid grove and the poisoned gnome lady in the myconid colony, to name two examples off the top of my head. I thought the Nere time limit was pretty heavily telegraphed.

I didn't know those were timed either, I had anti-poison on me already so I just healed the gnome lady and the druid grove I just solved

 

[VerSacrum]

They made Viconia ugly as sin in this game, along with her story. I like the game overall, but bringing Viconia back just to make her look bad is lame, ngl. Of all the things Larian has done, this is the worst imo.

She whas always ugly

That's not ugly, the portrait is showing her evil.

This was back in the day when characters and their portraits were designed to rapresent a particular personality.

BG1 portrait of Viconia is shit not because she is portrayed as ugly & evil, but because she doesn't look like a drow at all.
Looks like a failed ai job, if it wasn't 25 years old.

Most BG portraits are terrible. They're sloppy edits of developer photos/their wives and whatnot.

 

[whydoibother]

- timed Nere quest runs counter to what the game has taught you up to this point of what to expect

How do you mean? We solved it within the timer, so I'm curious how else it could have turned out.

If you take too long the Grymforge is empty as Nere died and the Duergar left with the gnome slaves

Isn't that in line with the rest of the game, though? There's a time limit to the druid grove and the poisoned gnome lady in the myconid colony, to name two examples off the top of my head. I thought the Nere time limit was pretty heavily telegraphed.

I didn't know those were timed either, I had anti-poison on me already so I just healed the gnome lady and the druid grove I just solved

I failed a pack of "save the prisoners" quests by long resting at an inappropriate time, I think. As time passed, all the prisoners got killed.