Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 RELEASE THREAD

[Eisenheinrich]

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.

Which of the three published campaigns is worth checking out?

 

[ColonelMace]

I haven't played the dlcs but I believe Grunker can fill you in on these.
Main campaign is alright. It gets easy towards the end, unfortunately, but the pacing is good enough. You'll quickly see how formulaic the game is, but it's not a bad thing in my book.

 

[Eisenheinrich]

I haven't played the dlcs but I believe Grunker can fill you in on these.
Main campaign is alright. It gets easy towards the end, unfortunately, but the pacing is good enough. You'll quickly see how formulaic the game is, but it's not a bad thing in my book.

I'll check it out anyway. I love Ice settings, so I probably go for the Palace of Ice DLC. Gotta say BG3 hooked me on turn based D&D combat, so it's good that there are other developers sailing that pond too.
Also got the feeling Solasta devs are passionate about their smaller scope project.

 

[Larianshill]

What can I expect, and which of the three published campaigns is worth checking out?

You can expect laughably bad story, devs repeatedly going for cinematic cutscenes when the graphics and voiceovers don't lend to it, a few interesting encounters here and there, but also a lot of the samey ones. During the end of the Lost Valley, I was given a quest to capture 4 identical fortresses full of completely identical elves, and it nearly made me quit the game because of how much of a slog it was. Solasta's homebrew subclasses generally suck, and there's very little official content they were actually allowed to use, so there's a lot of homebrew. But as an adaption of 5e's ruleset it's very good, I like how faithful it is, and there is at least one genuinely funny and likable NPC in the original campaign.

 

[BrotherFrank]

As for personality he's the blowhard who talks big about himself a lot to make up for his gnawing insecurity. Like Trump. Let him wear himself out with it and he ends up ok to have around.

Well this is what i mean when i say it feels like i'm the only codexer who seems to like Wyll. His personality doesn't bother me, i actually like the whole "i want to be a hero! Tremble villains for the great saiyaman is here!" energy and it's not a gary stuish because more often then not this impulse gets manipulated or he eats bad consequences for his actions.

I swear, if he was a cute girl wearing a panda shirt he would be way more popular.

Dunno, maybe i just have a soft spot for this archetype of theatric overeager dogooder who gets way over his/her head.

The fact that he complements my martial oriented party is just a bonus.

 

[Eisenheinrich]

Thanks guys, see you in the Solaste thread.

 

[Larianshill]

I swear, if he was a cute girl wearing a panda shirt he would be way more popular.

There is not a single male companion in this game, who wouldn't be better received if he was a girl.

 

[VerSacrum]

i'm the only codexer who seems to like Wyll.

Nah I liked him too. There's plenty of edgy retards in the camp already so I'm fine with just a genuine good guy without any psychological problems.

 

[Shaki]

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?

First two vanilla campaigns I've played were dogshit, idk about third but I guess it's the same. Devs absolutely suck at writing and have 0 creativity, it's all pathetically bad. Combat could be good, but it's far too easy. They created a really amazing framework, shitload of cool systems and imho the adaptation of 5E rules is better than BG3 - instead of everything being simplified because Larian was still using DOS2 engine, Solasta has everything built from scratch to work with 5E, you can have characters crawling on walls, actually fly, etc. - but the devs fail to use all the systems they created in any interesting way, overall the game feels like a D-tier MMO outside of combat, and combat while being filled with amazing possibilities, around halfway through the game becomes much easier than even BG3, and it's really hard to find motivation to keep going. Apparently they have really nice tools for building your own campaigns tho, and I heard multiple people I respect say some fanmade campaigns are much better than vanilla, but didn't test any myself yet.

 

[Shaki]

As for personality he's the blowhard who talks big about himself a lot to make up for his gnawing insecurity. Like Trump. Let him wear himself out with it and he ends up ok to have around.

Well this is what i mean when i say it feels like i'm the only codexer who seems to like Wyll. His personality doesn't bother me, i actually like the whole "i want to be a hero! Tremble villains for the great saiyaman is here!" energy and it's not a gary stuish because more often then not this impulse gets manipulated or he eats bad consequences for his actions.

I swear, if he was a cute girl wearing a panda shirt he would be way more popular.

Dunno, maybe i just have a soft spot for this archetype of theatric overeager dogooder who gets way over his/her head.

The fact that he complements my martial oriented party is just a bonus.

If he was "just a dude who wants to be a hero", like Irene, he probably would be really cool, I like simple heroic characters. But "just a dude who wants to be a hero (but also sold his soul to the devil)(but also he's the son of the duke)" doesn't really work for me.

He feels like one of the writers just wanted to make a simple heroic dude character, but then Swen came along and said "Ok but where is his super snowflake backstory, and muh moral dilemmas and twists in the plot??? Also why he looks so vanilla, make him black or give him horns or at least make him blind in one eye, or wait, genius idea, do all of these actually."

 

[BrotherFrank]

He feels like one of the writers just wanted to make a simple heroic dude character, but then Swen came along and said "Ok but where is his super snowflake backstory, and muh moral dilemmas and twists in the plot??? Also why he looks so vanilla, make him black or give him horns or at least make him blind in one eye, or wait, genius idea, do all of these actually."

That's fair, and if there really needed to have a snowflake plot then the devil's contract could have worked fine on it's own as an ongoing hook as you struggled to weasle Wyll out of the contract whilst the devils kept cucking you all the way until you finally outfoxed them as opposed to the whole drama being resolved in a single act 2 quest where the means of escape comes not from your own ingenuity but from a really lucky break that had 0 to do with you.

Spoiler

How did Mizora get kidnapped for tadpole shenanigans anyways? You'd think an important devil like her would be well protected.

The whole son of duke bs was 100% unecessary.

 

[RegionalHobo]

came to this post to ask if this would enter people top 10 or top 25 rpgs of all time, left with a gigantic will to play troubleshooter.

which i had more fun with than bg 3 act two and three btw. build autism is ultra fun in that game

 

[processdaemon]

It's definitely in my top 25, possibly in my top 10? I'm really enjoying it right now but I usually need to wait a few months after playing a game for the first time to know exactly what I'd rate it, the excitement of something new makes me more likely to forgive flaws that become more obvious in retrospect and on replays.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

It's a good game. Good opportunity for build diversity, good encounters, turn based combat. I wish they could have some way to swap companions on the go. It's kinda bothersome to have to go back to camp.

 

[Fedora Master]

Good opportunity for build diversity

Lol no

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

fuck gale and his auto-game over. it almost completely ruined my evil run and i had to resort to a guide because i didn't give a fuck about him.

 

[Mortmal]

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.

Which of the three published campaigns is worth checking out?

It's almost as if there wasn't a megathread about Solasta discussing everything there is to discuss about it. At some point, I'll start to believe that Codexers don't really interact with each other nor read each others and are just here for some attempt at ego boosting or perhaps are desperate for an illusion of social interaction.

 

[Shaki]

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.

Which of the three published campaigns is worth checking out?

It's almost as if there wasn't a megathread about Solasta discussing everything there is to discuss about it. At some point, I'll start to believe that Codexers don't really interact with each other no read each others and are just here for some attempt at ego boosting or perhaps are desperate for an illusion of social interaction.

No one is reading your gay dead Solasta megathread nigga, this thread got 500 pages in a month, and pretty much serves as a general discussion thread now. Asking here you'll get answers for anything much faster than searching old posts - deal with it. If you want to actually talk about BG3, I think they do it in the tips&tricks thread.

 

[Mortmal]

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.

Which of the three published campaigns is worth checking out?

It's almost as if there wasn't a megathread about Solasta discussing everything there is to discuss about it. At some point, I'll start to believe that Codexers don't really interact with each other no read each others and are just here for some attempt at ego boosting or perhaps are desperate for an illusion of social interaction.

No one is reading your gay dead Solasta megathread nigga, this thread got 500 pages in a month, and pretty much serves as a general discussion thread now. Asking here you'll get answers for anything much faster than searching old posts - deal with it. If you want to actually talk about BG3, I think they do it in the tips&tricks thread.

When it comes to RPGs worth playing from the last decade, you can count them on one hand. If it's really too difficult to use the search option or read the one thread, then you're essentially proving Todd Howard right once again and justifying those games that require no effort and cause no frustration whatsoever. Ah the prestious rpgcodex is for fags motto should be replaced by rpgcodex is for ADHD kids now.

I bet that even in 600 or 700 pages, there will still be random users genuinely asking on this thread, "Is the game any good, guys?" as well.

 

[Alienman]

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?

I think they are all passable, but that's mostly because of the party interaction. I loved that shit. Try to avoid any kind of random encounters on the map. After 1-2, you will be massively outlevled, destroying any kind of challenge on the main maps.

 

[Frank Capicoli]

He feels like one of the writers just wanted to make a simple heroic dude character, but then Swen came along and said "Ok but where is his super snowflake backstory, and muh moral dilemmas and twists in the plot??? Also why he looks so vanilla, make him black or give him horns or at least make him blind in one eye, or wait, genius idea, do all of these actually."

That's fair, and if there really needed to have a snowflake plot then the devil's contract could have worked fine on it's own as an ongoing hook as you struggled to weasle Wyll out of the contract whilst the devils kept cucking you all the way until you finally outfoxed them as opposed to the whole drama being resolved in a single act 2 quest where the means of escape comes not from your own ingenuity but from a really lucky break that had 0 to do with you.

Spoiler

How did Mizora get kidnapped for tadpole shenanigans anyways? You'd think an important devil like her would be well protected.

The whole son of duke bs was 100% unecessary.

Spoiler

I believe if you ask her later in the game after rescuing her she says she was investigating moonrise tower but the shadow curse incapacitated her, where as a normal person would just die from it.

Seems pretty stupid but so is most of the plotlines.

 

[MerchantKing]

I swear, if he was a cute girl wearing a panda shirt he would be way more popular.

There is not a single male companion in this game, who wouldn't be better received if he was a girl.

The real problem is that their writers are incompetent. Especially this faggot

 

[HammyTheFat]

I swear, if he was a cute girl wearing a panda shirt he would be way more popular.

There is not a single male companion in this game, who wouldn't be better received if he was a girl.

I would probably hate Halsin even more. For the rest of them you're probably right.

 

[Crichton]

I just completed Act II with my Gale the bard and his harem party; not as good as the first act but still lots of first-rate content.

Highs:
-Artwork; the tapestries and stained glass in Moonrise Towers are excellent and they're proper fantasy world-building, not just monkey-copies of the stuff we have in our world.

While the Moonrise tapestries are indeed nice, they are quite literally copies of millefleur tapestries from our world.
I much preferred the murals in the druid grove.

I had to load an old save to go back through and look. You may be right about most of them; certainly one can see the resmeblance in the one you posted here, maybe also the crowd scene with the dog, the lone woman, and the tree. The one that really caught my eye is below here, the beholder attack. I think the villagers fighting the horned, vaguely draconian monster could go either way, it's less distinctively D&D than the beholders.

 

[HammyTheFat]

but then Swen came along and said "Ok but where is his super snowflake backstory, and muh moral dilemmas and twists in the plot??? Also why he looks so vanilla, make him black or give him horns or at least make him blind in one eye, or wait, genius idea, do all of these actually."

this is absolutely what happened.

I love larian games but swen cant help himself.