Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 RELEASE THREAD

[Fedora Master]

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

View attachment 40823

Same here -- it's the rpg of the decade and it changed the gaming landscape. And it's been out for a month. Larian won. We got the good ending!

 

[AwesomeButton]

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.

Conclusion: game developers today don't have the resources and the organization to produce a full good game of the scope they are required to work at.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

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.

Deus Ex had the same problems and it's from 2000 or so. It's a game development thing, period.

 

[volklore]

What was your biggest issue

I think I talked about what my issue is at length, it's the utter lack of content. At the last panel from Hell, Swen claimed that they poured a lot of love into the evil playthrough. Where is it?
Goblins have no content. Mintharra has no content. The less is said about the evil path in act 2, the better. Act 3 is nearly indistinguishable from the act 3 I've played as the lawful good paladin, except the way I resolved the mummy quest. The slayer form is very, very subpar. And then we have the ending. For the entirety of act 3 Mintharra is pushing you towards taking control of the cult, Astarion does it too. When you do that, it's a 30 second long cutscene that ends with all your companions (including Mintharra) brainwashed by you, and then roll credits. Compare it to destroying the elder brain, which offers you a significant amount of closure about your fate and the fates of everyone else, even without the endling sliders.
I'll give credit where credit is due - the duel with Orin and the murder tribunal were pretty good. So was making Astarion into a super vampire. But those were the sole bright spots in an otherwise very boring and uninteresting playthrough.

This does not relate to the evil playthrough at all, but the mandatory illithid bullshit in the final quest really grinds my gears. The story is pushing the necessity of this sacrifice on you, but there's perfectly good Gale with a perfectly good nuke in his chest. But when you attempt to use him to bypass squidding out, the game tells you "No, fuck you, we wrote this tragic choice where you sacriifce either Orpheus or yourself, and you don't get to bypass it". Then why give Gale the bomb at all? So that the speedrunners and game journalists can skip the final boss?

Actually, there is a way to prevent all this from happening and get gale to blow up but it is very stupid and convoluted. You need lae'zel and gale in final party. In fact The whole convo with emperor/orpheus has tons of hidden variations and some triggers are bugged :

Spoiler

1. You only need to have the option to turn into Illithid to progress so first you need to get the tadpole from the emperor. If you have gale on the ''your lust for power is your doom path'' and tell the emperor you don't believe him, he proposses the bomb as alternative which the emperor refuses (I don't think this is a mandatory step). Then you say that you want to be illithid. Emperor will give you the tadpole after which you are presented with the choice to wait to use it until you are close to facing the brain. Pick that choice. You might need to have accepted to be half-illithid in a previous choice for the emperor to accept this.
2. If you have Lae'zel in your party she will interject and say she'll fight if we don't free orpheus and the game gives you opportunity to change your mind (though you already have been given the tadpole by the emperor). Emperor leaves and you can free orpheus.
3. The convo with orpheus goes the same, chose to be the one to become Illithid and Orpheus won't transform you, the game expects you to use the tadpole as normal. There is an hilarious bug that larian forgot this variation and the next screen right after picking the option that you will be the one to turn, you character will appear as a minflayer although Orpheus does not actually transform you (the sequence where he lowers the mental barrier for you does not actually play, and your character does not undergo ceromorphosis, you are still your regular self and every character treats you as your regular self). Looks like Larian forgot to add a variant for this particular cutscene.
4. Proceed as usual, and convince gale to use the orb when at the brain stem

But I agree that whole ending dilemna is extremely stupid. In fact there is no reason for orpheus to not propose an alternate solution. Because as it is, his plan is litterally the same as the emperors so what was the point of the choice really.

Regarding Dark urge

Spoiler

you get the murder tribunal scene as good dark urge too, because orin wants to murder you. And you get access to the temple of bhaal by killing the murder tribunal (door say : ''unorthodox, but heh, impressive'')

 

[Fedora Master]

 

[whydoibother]

the evil playthrough

Less than promised, more than the competition. I also am disappointed, but I definitely wouldn't write off the game because of that.

The slayer form is very, very subpar.

Must be some sort of bug, because it is indeed too weak. And it comes at a point of the game where you'd be OP if you wanted to, so why not give you something very cool?

And then we have the ending.

I think they will add some sort of postcards at the end, such-and-such happened 10 years after the events, maybe some concept art and the narrator saying 2 sentences as it goes. It is indeed abrupt if you mind control everyone, or killed enough party members. If the entire cast is with you, they each take a turn having a little dialogue at the docks, so maybe they thought it drags. Swen said as much.

The story is pushing the necessity of this sacrifice on you, but there's perfectly good Gale with a perfectly good nuke in his chest.

Like that ghoul in Fallout 3, and yes, its dumb. But I guess at that point you've already had the chance to allahu akbar Gale and chose not to. Difficult to keep accounting for that. The player can just press the button in the middle of Baldur's Gate at any point, and everyone of relevance is within a square mile.

 

[whydoibother]

But I agree that whole ending dilemna is extremely stupid.

For the "evil playthrough", as the Bhaalspawn, the obvious thing to do is wait for whoever you picked to face off against the brain, and then backstab them and take control of the brain for Bhaal. The issue is that there is then no way to share this power. If you do this, always your companions are only your slaves, and they have nothing more to say, and have no resolutions at the end. You can't decide to rule the world with vampire lord Astarion or Shar priestess Shadowheart or your drow matron Minthara. You can only rule the world while also ruling over them.

 

[Larianshill]

I've never written the game off, I think it's still good - great, even. It's just insane that they put all the polish on just one of two paths, and even on that path the polish sometimes wasn't enough.

 

[Fedora Master]

View attachment 40823

Same here -- it's the rpg of the decade and it changed the gaming landscape. And it's been out for a month. Larian won. We got the good ending!

Not everyone wants gaming to be even gayer, although Im sure you and the 7 Man Larian Cucksquad disagree.

 

[whydoibother]

I've never written the game off, I think it's still good - great, even. It's just insane that they put all the polish on just one of two paths, and even on that path the polish sometimes wasn't enough.

I think that if all the scripts triggered as they should, the game would be very good. That's the biggest problem right now.
You enter the submarine, and get 3 quests to save 3 groups of people, even though you almost certainly came for just one of those, and are unaware of the other two. What the fuck.

 

[notpl]

I keep hearing people talk about comboing Wet status with lightning or cold spells, but... why? Is there some super-convenient way to apply Wet that I'm missing? Create Water not only takes a spell slot but an action as well, even throwing a jug of water at the enemy does (and the enemy can somehow dodge the splash of water, so it's not at all guaranteed) in exchange for... doubling the damage of a spell? How badly have you optimised the rest of your party that wasting another character's turn to double the damage from a single spell is a worthwhile trade? Once Chain Lightning or Cone of Cold are in play, fine, I think having a fighter use a single one of their attacks to instead throw a jug of water is viable, but Create Water is just a trap. That could be a storm cleric casting its own maximized Shatter or Call Lightning.

 

[whydoibother]

Is there some super-convenient way to apply Wet that I'm missing?

The first magic item at the first vendor you see

But also just vendors, and bottles.

 

[notpl]

Is there some super-convenient way to apply Wet that I'm missing?

The first magic item at the first vendor you see
View attachment 40825

But also just vendors, and bottles.

So even at level 1, you're talking about taking another character's action to change witch bolt from 1d12 to 2d12. A character who could, at minimum, be attacking for 1d8+4 or so.

 

[VerSacrum]

Since Generalissimo Snake's dewoke mod is out I thought about doing another playthrough but idk...think I'll go replay Drakensang River of Time instead, or some other cosy RPG without all the gay aids bestiality bipoc aftertaste.

 

[volklore]

I keep hearing people talk about comboing Wet status with lightning or cold spells, but... why? Is there some super-convenient way to apply Wet that I'm missing? Create Water not only takes a spell slot but an action as well, even throwing a jug of water at the enemy does (and the enemy can somehow dodge the splash of water, so it's not at all guaranteed) in exchange for... doubling the damage of a spell? How badly have you optimised the rest of your party that wasting another character's turn to double the damage from a single spell is a worthwhile trade? Once Chain Lightning or Cone of Cold are in play, fine, I think having a fighter use a single one of their attacks to instead throw a jug of water is viable, but Create Water is just a trap. That could be a storm cleric casting its own maximized Shatter or Call Lightning.

Create water + lightning bolt was massive for me on the gith patrol encounter. And a few other encounters in a3 where you are heavily outnumbered by units with very annoying abilities. But I agree generally speaking the game doesn't try to punish martial heavy strategies as much as it should do seeing how much better martials are at fighting with low resources.

 

[whydoibother]

Is there some super-convenient way to apply Wet that I'm missing?

The first magic item at the first vendor you see
View attachment 40825

But also just vendors, and bottles.

So even at level 1, you're talking about taking another character's action to change witch bolt from 1d12 to 2d12. A character who could, at minimum, be attacking for 1d8+4 or so.

There's ways to cheese it. If you drop an item into existing AOE damage, it breaks. A bottle or barrel would spill. I thin Barbarians can throw with bonus action, for extra damage?
Or, if you are that kind of person, you can wet the battlefield before starting combat.

 

[volklore]

Is there some super-convenient way to apply Wet that I'm missing?

The first magic item at the first vendor you see
View attachment 40825

But also just vendors, and bottles.

So even at level 1, you're talking about taking another character's action to change witch bolt from 1d12 to 2d12. A character who could, at minimum, be attacking for 1d8+4 or so.

Wet condition stay 3 turns I think and doesn't get consumed when hit by electricity. So it is worth it on fights that might take more rounds. Plus the surface resets the rounds of wet every turn as long as enemies stay in

 

[Shaki]

I keep hearing people talk about comboing Wet status with lightning or cold spells, but... why? Is there some super-convenient way to apply Wet that I'm missing? Create Water not only takes a spell slot but an action as well, even throwing a jug of water at the enemy does (and the enemy can somehow dodge the splash of water, so it's not at all guaranteed) in exchange for... doubling the damage of a spell? How badly have you optimised the rest of your party that wasting another character's turn to double the damage from a single spell is a worthwhile trade? Once Chain Lightning or Cone of Cold are in play, fine, I think having a fighter use a single one of their attacks to instead throw a jug of water is viable, but Create Water is just a trap. That could be a storm cleric casting its own maximized Shatter or Call Lightning.

Bottles of water are everywhere, don't need to cast a spell. But spell is also worth it. Lightning bolt is lvl 3 spell and deletes clumps of wet enemies, especially when paired with something like lvl 2 tempest cleric maximizing lightning damage. Also something like upcasted chromatic orb + the ilithid ability that lets you crit + wet basically oneshot delete every single target in the game. Not to mention wet also doubles cold damage and last multiple turns, so if you have multiple characters that deal either lightning or cold dmg, you give them insane boost to dmg for multiple turns at the price of one action, super worth.

 

[Larianshill]

So, fun fact, if you act like a dick towards the Guardian and try to stab him, he doesn't try to molest you in act 3.

 

[Larianshill]

What was your biggest issue

I think I talked about what my issue is at length, it's the utter lack of content. At the last panel from Hell, Swen claimed that they poured a lot of love into the evil playthrough. Where is it?
Goblins have no content. Mintharra has no content. The less is said about the evil path in act 2, the better. Act 3 is nearly indistinguishable from the act 3 I've played as the lawful good paladin, except the way I resolved the mummy quest. The slayer form is very, very subpar. And then we have the ending. For the entirety of act 3 Mintharra is pushing you towards taking control of the cult, Astarion does it too. When you do that, it's a 30 second long cutscene that ends with all your companions (including Mintharra) brainwashed by you, and then roll credits. Compare it to destroying the elder brain, which offers you a significant amount of closure about your fate and the fates of everyone else, even without the endling sliders.
I'll give credit where credit is due - the duel with Orin and the murder tribunal were pretty good. So was making Astarion into a super vampire. But those were the sole bright spots in an otherwise very boring and uninteresting playthrough.

This does not relate to the evil playthrough at all, but the mandatory illithid bullshit in the final quest really grinds my gears. The story is pushing the necessity of this sacrifice on you, but there's perfectly good Gale with a perfectly good nuke in his chest. But when you attempt to use him to bypass squidding out, the game tells you "No, fuck you, we wrote this tragic choice where you sacriifce either Orpheus or yourself, and you don't get to bypass it". Then why give Gale the bomb at all? So that the speedrunners and game journalists can skip the final boss?

Actually, there is a way to prevent all this from happening and get gale to blow up but it is very stupid and convoluted. You need lae'zel and gale in final party. In fact The whole convo with emperor/orpheus has tons of hidden variations and some triggers are bugged :

Spoiler

1. You only need to have the option to turn into Illithid to progress so first you need to get the tadpole from the emperor. If you have gale on the ''your lust for power is your doom path'' and tell the emperor you don't believe him, he proposses the bomb as alternative which the emperor refuses (I don't think this is a mandatory step). Then you say that you want to be illithid. Emperor will give you the tadpole after which you are presented with the choice to wait to use it until you are close to facing the brain. Pick that choice. You might need to have accepted to be half-illithid in a previous choice for the emperor to accept this.
2. If you have Lae'zel in your party she will interject and say she'll fight if we don't free orpheus and the game gives you opportunity to change your mind (though you already have been given the tadpole by the emperor). Emperor leaves and you can free orpheus.
3. The convo with orpheus goes the same, chose to be the one to become Illithid and Orpheus won't transform you, the game expects you to use the tadpole as normal. There is an hilarious bug that larian forgot this variation and the next screen right after picking the option that you will be the one to turn, you character will appear as a minflayer although Orpheus does not actually transform you (the sequence where he lowers the mental barrier for you does not actually play, and your character does not undergo ceromorphosis, you are still your regular self and every character treats you as your regular self). Looks like Larian forgot to add a variant for this particular cutscene.
4. Proceed as usual, and convince gale to use the orb when at the brain stem

But I agree that whole ending dilemna is extremely stupid. In fact there is no reason for orpheus to not propose an alternate solution. Because as it is, his plan is litterally the same as the emperors so what was the point of the choice really.

Regarding Dark urge you get the murder tribunal scene as good dark urge too, because orin wants to murder you. And you get access to the temple of bhaal by killing the murder tribunal (door say : ''unorthodox, but heh, impressive'')

Having replayed the final battle on my paladin playthrough, I can confirm

Spoiler

1) This method works, and despite a strange glitch during the conversation with Orpheus, the game properly acknowledges there are no squids involved.
2) The ending is everything I asked for, though the fact that the pathway to it is this ridiculously specific when it comes to dialogue choices is weird, and needs to be fixed.

I also confirmed another interesting thing - Yurgir is significantly more powerful on Tactician than he is on Balanced. However, Yurgir you summon to help you during the finale is that exact boss monster, and he's also far more powerful on Tactician.

 

[Abu Antar]

Spoiler that shit.

 

[Lady Error]

So I want to finally try this and saw that the Gog patches are a complete mess. Installed Gog Galaxy and it wants to download 126 Gb to update the game. :facepalm:

 

[Eisenheinrich]

Since I currently don't have the time nor the energy to do a 2nd playthrough of BG3 right out of the gate (Evil Durge run prefered this time around, might as well wait for some substantial Mithara patching, fingers crossed), I decided to tip my toes into Solasta for once for comparison. What can I expect, and which of the three published campaigns is worth checking out?

 

[ColonelMace]

Since I currently don''t have the time nor the energy do a 2nd playthrough of BG3 right out of the gate (might wait for some substantial patching, fingers crossed), I decided to tip my toes into Solasta for once for comparison. What can I expect?

Smaller scope, more humble ambitions, skeletal storytelling, solid 5e shenanigans.
Overall worth a play, especially if you like D&D.
ps. it's obviously not on par with BGIII in pretty much any department. I guess it's less cringe though ?