Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 RELEASE THREAD

[Desiderius]

how raiding the druids (aka the actual evil path split) will help you at all

There's more of then, and they are more likely to win. So just siding with the winning side. Not like the thieflings are offering any help to you. They are weaker, and less useful to you personally.
Druids sit it out, they lock themselves in their grove. They were offering help, but they also want the thieflings out anyways. Really, helping the thieflings isn't even neutral, its straight up a "good" coded decision. Its altruistic, you don't benefit from it.
The neutral decision would've been to wait for the druids to finish their ritual, wait for the thieflings to get on the road (and probably get massacred), and then negotiate passage into the Underdark or seek help from druids or whatever. But this isn't an option here, as far as I know.

No, that is meta knowledge and not pointed in the game dialog or quests on top

You feel forbidden to assume, or to think any thought not explicitly spelled out for you by the game "content"?

This actually is spelled out by the game, but I think its in Act II, when the guardian straight up says "its in our benefit to join and infiltrate the Absolute cult". Not sure if there's any such line in Act I. But also, its obvious.

Not like the thieflings are offering any help to you.

They offer you all their money, your own point for been "evil" aka greed just couple of posts ago. On top of promising to help you later in Baldur's Gate and if you have Karlach the blacksmith will upgrade her power. The cult doesn't offer you anything, everthing is assumed or meta knowledge. The game doesn't make a single hint that you can ally with the goblins (or any reason to do it) until you stumble randomly on Minthara and she talks to you as you know her. At that time you are encouraged by the game on two occasions to attack the bosses and she is the 3rd one(on top of been the main quest), not only in the journal, but ingame tadpole talking. You have to know thru meta gaming that you can ally with them so you either beeline to her and talk, skipping the shaman and the leader so you are not hostile when meeting Minthara. The whole area is terribly designed, placing dozens of quests that can turn all goblins hostile and you are going only by a random journal text that appears out of nowhere that you can raid the grove from where you had to assume you can ally with the cult e.g. another meta gaming.

One thing I will give credit is that you can on paper ignore all this shit and just go to underdark or mountain to do your thing. Ofc tons of problems come from that as quest chains get mixed up and NPCs dialog become fucked up talking to you as you did things you didn't or never even met them.

Saving Sazza vectors you directly to Minthara.

and why would someone save little loud and angry shaneekwa?

Reading, how does it work?

They give you dialogue options to either act honorably or to keep her alive for her information/ability to get you into the heart of the Camp (which she does, leading you right to Minthara) but you're too busy LARPing as a gob playing GTA yourself to think it through. Minthara considers the service she provides you she orders Sazza put to death for it, but you can Persuade her otherwise, for which Sazza gives you a decent Assassin's Dagger. Then if you find her again she tells you where some treasure is (Greataxe +1). Main benefit of not murderhoboing the whole Gob area is two extra vendors and I guess the torture guy.

 

[Reinhardt]

how raiding the druids (aka the actual evil path split) will help you at all

There's more of then, and they are more likely to win. So just siding with the winning side. Not like the thieflings are offering any help to you. They are weaker, and less useful to you personally.
Druids sit it out, they lock themselves in their grove. They were offering help, but they also want the thieflings out anyways. Really, helping the thieflings isn't even neutral, its straight up a "good" coded decision. Its altruistic, you don't benefit from it.
The neutral decision would've been to wait for the druids to finish their ritual, wait for the thieflings to get on the road (and probably get massacred), and then negotiate passage into the Underdark or seek help from druids or whatever. But this isn't an option here, as far as I know.

No, that is meta knowledge and not pointed in the game dialog or quests on top

You feel forbidden to assume, or to think any thought not explicitly spelled out for you by the game "content"?

This actually is spelled out by the game, but I think its in Act II, when the guardian straight up says "its in our benefit to join and infiltrate the Absolute cult". Not sure if there's any such line in Act I. But also, its obvious.

Not like the thieflings are offering any help to you.

They offer you all their money, your own point for been "evil" aka greed just couple of posts ago. On top of promising to help you later in Baldur's Gate and if you have Karlach the blacksmith will upgrade her power. The cult doesn't offer you anything, everthing is assumed or meta knowledge. The game doesn't make a single hint that you can ally with the goblins (or any reason to do it) until you stumble randomly on Minthara and she talks to you as you know her. At that time you are encouraged by the game on two occasions to attack the bosses and she is the 3rd one(on top of been the main quest), not only in the journal, but ingame tadpole talking. You have to know thru meta gaming that you can ally with them so you either beeline to her and talk, skipping the shaman and the leader so you are not hostile when meeting Minthara. The whole area is terribly designed, placing dozens of quests that can turn all goblins hostile and you are going only by a random journal text that appears out of nowhere that you can raid the grove from where you had to assume you can ally with the cult e.g. another meta gaming.

One thing I will give credit is that you can on paper ignore all this shit and just go to underdark or mountain to do your thing. Ofc tons of problems come from that as quest chains get mixed up and NPCs dialog become fucked up talking to you as you did things you didn't or never even met them.

Saving Sazza vectors you directly to Minthara.

and why would someone save little loud and angry shaneekwa?

Reading, how does it work?

They give you dialogue options to either act honorably or to keep her alive for her information/ability to get you into the heart of the Camp (which she does, leading you right to Minthara) but you're too busy LARPing as a gob playing GTA yourself to think it through. Minthara considers the service she provides you she orders Sazza put to death for it, but you can Persuade her otherwise, for which Sazza gives you a decent Assassin's Dagger. Then if you find her again she tells you where some treasure is (Greataxe +1). Main benefit of not murderhoboing the whole Gob area is two extra vendors and I guess the torture guy.

literally "save dirty gobbo because muh meta knowledge!" post. nigger, it's you who can't read.

 

[Desiderius]

non-retarded "evil" person would side with druids against rapefugees and gobbos, not "please, let me go, gobbo masterrace person! here - i will lick your feet!"
larian was right treating evil alighnment as "retarded evil" - that's exactly sort of people who play evil path.

You can lick his feet to swipe his (very good extra movement) ring, or you can just not suck at skills, make him lick yours, then have Asterion off him while he's taking a piss at the bridge, which also gets the ring but not the Inspiration.

 

[Orion]

30 fps is good enough

 

[Desiderius]

how raiding the druids (aka the actual evil path split) will help you at all

There's more of then, and they are more likely to win. So just siding with the winning side. Not like the thieflings are offering any help to you. They are weaker, and less useful to you personally.
Druids sit it out, they lock themselves in their grove. They were offering help, but they also want the thieflings out anyways. Really, helping the thieflings isn't even neutral, its straight up a "good" coded decision. Its altruistic, you don't benefit from it.
The neutral decision would've been to wait for the druids to finish their ritual, wait for the thieflings to get on the road (and probably get massacred), and then negotiate passage into the Underdark or seek help from druids or whatever. But this isn't an option here, as far as I know.

No, that is meta knowledge and not pointed in the game dialog or quests on top

You feel forbidden to assume, or to think any thought not explicitly spelled out for you by the game "content"?

This actually is spelled out by the game, but I think its in Act II, when the guardian straight up says "its in our benefit to join and infiltrate the Absolute cult". Not sure if there's any such line in Act I. But also, its obvious.

Not like the thieflings are offering any help to you.

They offer you all their money, your own point for been "evil" aka greed just couple of posts ago. On top of promising to help you later in Baldur's Gate and if you have Karlach the blacksmith will upgrade her power. The cult doesn't offer you anything, everthing is assumed or meta knowledge. The game doesn't make a single hint that you can ally with the goblins (or any reason to do it) until you stumble randomly on Minthara and she talks to you as you know her. At that time you are encouraged by the game on two occasions to attack the bosses and she is the 3rd one(on top of been the main quest), not only in the journal, but ingame tadpole talking. You have to know thru meta gaming that you can ally with them so you either beeline to her and talk, skipping the shaman and the leader so you are not hostile when meeting Minthara. The whole area is terribly designed, placing dozens of quests that can turn all goblins hostile and you are going only by a random journal text that appears out of nowhere that you can raid the grove from where you had to assume you can ally with the cult e.g. another meta gaming.

One thing I will give credit is that you can on paper ignore all this shit and just go to underdark or mountain to do your thing. Ofc tons of problems come from that as quest chains get mixed up and NPCs dialog become fucked up talking to you as you did things you didn't or never even met them.

Saving Sazza vectors you directly to Minthara.

and why would someone save little loud and angry shaneekwa?

Reading, how does it work?

They give you dialogue options to either act honorably or to keep her alive for her information/ability to get you into the heart of the Camp (which she does, leading you right to Minthara) but you're too busy LARPing as a gob playing GTA yourself to think it through. Minthara considers the service she provides you she orders Sazza put to death for it, but you can Persuade her otherwise, for which Sazza gives you a decent Assassin's Dagger. Then if you find her again she tells you where some treasure is (Greataxe +1). Main benefit of not murderhoboing the whole Gob area is two extra vendors and I guess the torture guy.

literally "save dirty gobbo because muh meta knowledge!" post. nigger, it's you who can't read.

Meta? It describes right there in the original dialogue for retards like you who were too slow to figure it out for yourselves. I saved her to get me into the camp, which she did, at which point I proceded to fuck everything up royally as I described last week. The saving and following Sazza part was the only thing I did right. Seems pretty obvious.

Is Leeroy Jenkins supposed to be the default for taking on heavily fortified enemy camps or something?

 

[Desiderius]

If your Archer Ranger is sucking pick up Illithid Power Luck of the Far Realms since there's not much to do with your Reaction anyway. Refills spells with Spellthief too.

 

[Reinhardt]

You can lick his feet

no

 

[Vyvian]

PS5 performance is dreadful

Jesus and they said the PS5 delay was to optimize for 60FPS.
I assume that was a failed venture.

 

[Rhobar121]

PS5 performance is dreadful

Jesus and they said the PS5 delay was to optimize for 60FPS.
I assume that was a failed venture.

I don't know of any console game from this year that was able to maintain a constant 60 fps.


Maybe PS6 will be better (it won't)

 

[The_Mask]

Just gonna point out that there isn't much to stop you from filling the whole goblin camp + basement with barrels, and blowing literally all of them off, and taking 0 damage.

Also, throwing everyone under the bus: druids, refugees, goblins, and everything in between, to get rid of the tadpole in your head, is a legitimate roleplaying option. One that is not entirely evil. Just pragmatic.

 

[Reinhardt]

Just gonna point out that there isn't much to stop you from filling the whole goblin camp + basement with barrels, and blowing literally all of them off, and taking 0 damage.

Also, throwing everyone under the bus: druids, refugees, goblins, and everything in between, to get rid of the tadpole in your head, is a legitimate roleplaying option. One that is not entirely evil. Just pragmatic.

B-BUT DROW MOMMY! HOW I CAN BE EBUL WITHOUT SIMPING TO ONE?!

 

[Fedora Master]

PS5 performance is dreadful

This is what consoletards deserve.

 

[Takamori]

Consolefags deserve the rope.

And guess what this will delay the fixes in Act 3

 

[Reinhardt]

western developers can't into making working games.

 

[gurugeorge]

Just gonna point out that there isn't much to stop you from filling the whole goblin camp + basement with barrels, and blowing literally all of them off, and taking 0 damage.

Also, throwing everyone under the bus: druids, refugees, goblins, and everything in between, to get rid of the tadpole in your head, is a legitimate roleplaying option. One that is not entirely evil. Just pragmatic.

Umm, that is entirely evil. Setting others' lives as of no account compared to your own wants and desires is the very paradigm of evil as that's generally considered in polite society.

 

[volklore]

Done with the game. (Durge Good Path : Durge feels like the intended MC for the game although I think the lae'zel origin character also works very well for this purpose).
Basically it's a DoS game with 5E and an attempt at a typical feelgood fantasy story for nuBioware fans. It has that weird larian structure which has an open early game, linearize the middle and open again at the end which is very counterintuitive and hurts the final act of the game a lot (both in dev quality and player engagement).
Quality of content generally goes down as the game progresses although I think act3 content is still quite good. Act2 while a good adventure in a vaccum feels out of place in the context of the whole game. Almost like the whole moonrise tower part of the main quest got bloated out of control during dev and turned into its own act. It is too long, and obviously stole some thunder to develop Baldur's gate itself.
In fact I'd describe the game as a bunch of cool standalone adventures tied up by a very stupid main story. Though act1 does a good job hooking the player, the plot gets riddiculous at the end of act 2 with the emperor reveal and the rewrites are very obvious and jarring. The tadpoles are basically confirmed to not really be a threat at the end of act1 so any conflict with using tadpoles or not is gone and they just become free powerups.

+Graphix, audio
+Some memorable areas/adventures (Goblin camp, Auntie's, Rosymoryn monastery, House of hope, most of act2)
+Combat system is well polished and fun.
+Encounter design is overall good apart from some terrible late game encounters. The game has a really wide bestiary.
+Nice class/race reactivity in dialog. My Half-orc barb got a lot of situational advantage on intimidation rolls which meant I was able to face decently in some situations even though I had dumped charisma.
+Really strong first act.

+/- Itemization hit or miss. Some items invalidate class features like talk to animals/talk to the dead which is sad. Some items are very OP. I disliked itemization that is too build defining and incentivize respeccing (like gloves of dexterity, giant hill strength)
+/- Companions are a mixed bag. Frog is the best character and has a surprisingly good romance. Wyll/Karlach/Halsin are offesnively bad. Rest is okay if a bit overwritten (they all have something that make them very speciul), grew on me. The original roster of origin characters is well integrated into the story. There is an overrarching theme with companions of fr33dom vs established rules/authority figures/expectations that's a bit heavy handed too.

- But the game is way too easy on tactician. I restarted after my first run-through of act1 with a few mods buffing HP, AB and DC of things and the game still wasn't very challenging for my party. I played with MC Barb wolfheart, EK Frog, galen, and shadowheat and very few fights had me do much more than buff heal and support my 2xGWMaster. The fights that had me more challenged were fights where you could get overwhelmed by the amount of enemy units in act 3. The AI is also not the brightest although very good at triggering concentration saves. Some late game bosses have very bad saves and lack legendary CC resistance (raphael, red dragon)
- Concentration mechanic really takes the fun out of picking spells up at level up.
- The main story has very stupid twists (did the emperor really need two ''identity'' reveals ? The second reveal doesn't even really help understand his motivations more than his regular dialog) with obvious rewrites. It doesn't help that act3 story is very rushed.
- The game teases you with a lot of potential CnC but it's all mostly illusion. This becomes particularly jarring towards the endgame where the game constantly rugpulls to put you back on the intended path. There is CnC inside the ''small adventures'' with gameplay consequences, but CnC on the whole story is basically nill.
- Woke messaging is really heavy-handed from end of act2 (much worse than the avoidable cockhungry male companions). Citizens of baldur's gate are a mix of niggers and half orcs with pink hair. Is there even races in forgotten realms anymore or is everyone a globocitizen just like in western cities? Whole setting feels like it has no real rules, just a safe space for everyone and everything. Which is why I like githyanki and lae'zel as they're the only people in there that feel like they have distinctive characteristics that make them different from other races.

EDIT : Also the level cap is mind fuckingly stingy. You will max out early act3 even without being murderhobbo.

Still had a lot of fun with the game (100hours ish playthrough) in spite of its faults and all the faggots. Might play evil path when definitive edition is out and if better difficulty mode/mods (something centered around resource attrition/rest restrictions would be nice) are added.

 

[Shaki]

In fact I'd describe the game as a bunch of cool standalone adventures tied up by a very stupid main story.

This is a very good and fair summary, I thought the same thing. Main story was dogshit, but on their own, some areas were genuinely great and it's worth playing the game just for them.

 

[gurugeorge]

In fact I'd describe the game as a bunch of cool standalone adventures tied up by a very stupid main story.

This is a very good and fair summary, I thought the same thing. Main story was dogshit, but on their own, some areas were genuinely great and it's worth playing the game just for them.

Agree, yep, I haven't quite finished yet (about halfway through Act 3) but Volklore nails it as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Eisenheinrich]

Done with the game. (Durge Good Path)
Basically it's a DoS game with 5E and an attempt at a typical feelgood fantasy story for nuBioware fans. It has that weird larian structure which has an open early game, linearize the middle and open again at the end which is very counterintuitive and hurts the final act of the game a lot (both in dev quality and player engagement).
Quality of content generally goes down as the game progresses although I think act3 content is still quite good. Act2 while a good adventure in a vaccum feels out of place in the context of the whole game. Almost like the whole moonrise tower part of the main quest got bloated out of control during dev and turned into its own act. It is too long, and obviously stole some thunder to develop Baldur's gate itself.
In fact I'd describe the game as a bunch of cool standalone adventures tied up by a very stupid main story. Though act1 does a good job hooking the player, the plot gets riddiculous at the end of act 2 with the emperor reveal and the rewrites are very obvious and jarring. The tadpoles are basically confirmed to not really be a threat at the end of act1 so any conflict with using tadpoles or not is gone and they just become free powerups.

+Graphix, audio
+Some memorable areas/adventures (Goblin camp, Auntie's, Rosymoryn monastery, House of hope, most of act2)
+Combat system is well polished and fun.
+Encounter design is overall good apart from some terrible late game encounters. The game has a really wide bestiary.
+Nice class/race reactivity in dialog. My Half-orc barb got a lot of situational advantage on intimidation rolls which meant I was able to face decently in some situations even though I had dumped charisma.
+Really strong first act.

+/- Itemization hit or miss. Some items invalidate class features like talk to animals/talk to the dead which is sad. Some items are very OP. I disliked itemization that is too build defining and incentivize respeccing (like gloves of dexterity, giant hill strength)
+/- Companions are a mixed bag. Frog is the best character and has a surprisingly good romance. Wyll/Karlach/Halsin are offesnively bad. Rest is okay if a bit overwritten (they all have something that make them very speciul), grew on me. The original roster of origin characters is well integrated into the story. There is an overrarching themes with companions of fr33dom vs established rules/authority figures/expectations that's a bit heavy handed too.

- But the game is way too easy on tactician. I restarted after my first run-through of act1 with a few mods buffing HP, AB and DC of things and the game still wasn't very challenging for my party. I played with MC Barb wolfheart, EK Frog, galen, and shadowheat and very few fights had me do much more than buff heal and support my 2xGWMaster. The fights that had me more challenged were fights where you could get overwhelmed by the amount of enemy units in act 3. The AI is also not the brightest although very good at triggering concentration saves.
- Concentration mechanic really takes the fun out of picking spells up at level up.
- The main story has very stupid twists (did the emperor really need two ''identity'' reveals ? The second reveal doesn't even really help understand his motivations more than his regular dialog) with obvious rewrites. It doesn't help that act3 story is very rushed.
- The game teases you with a lot of potential CnC but it's all mostly illusion. There is CnC inside the ''small adventures'' with gameplay consequences, but CnC on the whole story is basically nill.
- Woke messaging is really heavy-handed from end of act2 (much worse than the avoidable cockhungry male companions). Citizens of baldur's gate are a mix of niggers and half orcs with pink hair. Is there even races in forgotten realms anymore or is everyone a globocitizen just like in western cities? Whole setting feels like it has no real rules, just a safe space for everyone and everything. Which is why I like githyanki and lae'zel as they're the only people in there that feel like they have distinctive characteristics that make them different from other races.

Still had fun with the game (100hours ish playthrough) in spite of its faults and all the faggots. Might play evil path when definitive edition is out and if better difficulty mode/mods are added.

That's a fair and good summary. Very much on point.

 

[Zarniwoop]

As I said, typical Codexian edglord cycle

Best game eva>Meh it's OK>actually it was shit>banalshitboring

 

[Alienman]

It's how games work nowadays. Chapter 1/Act 1 is fun and polished, and after that, the game falls apart. Kinda goes in line with the Codex thing.

 

[Üstad]

 

[Eisenheinrich]

It's how games work nowadays. Chapter 1/Act 1 is fun and polished, and after that, the game falls apart. Kinda goes in line with the Codex thing.

The game barely falls apart after Act 1, that's hyperbole. Problems increase noticeably in act 3, but it's not a game breaking catastrophe. There are legions of current AAA games that are much worse in that department, some of them falling apart as early as act 1 (looking at you Cyberpunk).
How can we seriously discuss games if every stance is becoming a fucking meme?

 

[Anthedon]

Are those ubiquitous concentration checks something of Larians making or is that a feature of 5E?

 

[Alienman]

Looking back, it does fall apart. Especially after trying an "evil" playthrough. It opened my eyes to how limited the game is. The choices mean nothing. For example, the factions treat you the same, and regardless of how you play, you will end up in exactly the same spot. The only difference is a few helpers during the end. And Act 3, the less said the better. It's been cut to death, and the quests end up as a checklist you chew through a la Assassin's Creed map sidequests.