Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 RELEASE THREAD

[Lady Error]

I found it tough to go into the mind flayer lair without resting after the first Ketheric fight. Since I went in blind, I simply faced all the encounters as I found them (instead of what I could do now, knowing how to rest there).

Having no-resting areas is a good way to increase the difficulty and rely more on scrolls, potions, bombs and such.

 

[abija]

Under a true evil playthrough encounters are way, way harder in act 2.

"True evil"...

Why would an evil char not save nightsong when there's something to gain after? You killed her love and are manipulating her, is that not evil?
Why would you not turn shadowheart into a subservient bitch? I've also saved jaheira at the inn to get to the harpers and killed her sometime in act3. Would "true evil" mean killing her immediately? Would true evil not save the gnomes that are dead set on blowing stuff up?

 

[MerchantKing]

Under a true evil playthrough encounters are way, way harder in act 2.

"True evil"...

Why would an evil char not save nightsong when there's something to gain after? You killed her love and are manipulating her, is that not evil?
Why would you not turn shadowheart into a subservient bitch? I've also saved jaheira at the inn to get to the harpers and killed her sometime in act3. Would "true evil" mean killing her immediately? Would true evil not save the gnomes that are dead set on blowing stuff up?

There are no Gnomes in this game. There are only halflings pretending to be Gnomes. Real Gnomes are more interested in expanding the turnip market rather than destroying personal property.

 

[Fedora Master]

Under a true evil playthrough encounters are way, way harder in act 2.

"True evil"...

Why would an evil char not save nightsong when there's something to gain after? You killed her love and are manipulating her, is that not evil?
Why would you not turn shadowheart into a subservient bitch? I've also saved jaheira at the inn to get to the harpers and killed her sometime in act3. Would "true evil" mean killing her immediately? Would true evil not save the gnomes that are dead set on blowing stuff up?

There are no Gnomes in this game. There are only halflings pretending to be Gnomes. Real Gnomes are more interested in expanding the turnip market rather than destroying personal property.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irgun

 

[Sunri]

I find shadow pussy an oddly written character on the evil path. So she's a merciless, perfect assassin of the evil goddess Shar but she also acts and sounds like a goofy teenager around you. Minthara is a lot better written, shame she has so little content.

I would argue that lacking content is exactly the reason why Minthara is better written. She is a after thouhgt, a "one note" character, she just needs to be the evil power hungry drow. The writer didn't want to add more "depth" to her and she has one and only one romance scene.

And that's what makes her great, she doesn't have a personal quest and romance storyline(sort of) so her personality stays consistent, won't be influenced by the MC or romance.

Maybe but Shadowheart's personality just doesn't match a devoted follower of Shar. I guess it's just another character they wrote with the good path in mind. Because she acts all silly and lovey dovey down the dark justicar path also. She acts like aerie the Shar follower

She was more evil and bitchy in ea, but people didnt like rude companions anyway

Well, she's freaking HOT

And Cute

Like really, really cute, so cute that I kinda wanna mating press her for hours

Of course, it'd be reaaaal rough probably, no slow passionate stuff I definitely couldn't hold back

I have a bit more but don't wanna say too much.

 

[Dadd]

I find shadow pussy an oddly written character on the evil path. So she's a merciless, perfect assassin of the evil goddess Shar but she also acts and sounds like a goofy teenager around you. Minthara is a lot better written, shame she has so little content.

I would argue that lacking content is exactly the reason why Minthara is better written. She is a after thouhgt, a "one note" character, she just needs to be the evil power hungry drow. The writer didn't want to add more "depth" to her and she has one and only one romance scene.

And that's what makes her great, she doesn't have a personal quest and romance storyline(sort of) so her personality stays consistent, won't be influenced by the MC or romance.

Maybe but Shadowheart's personality just doesn't match a devoted follower of Shar. I guess it's just another character they wrote with the good path in mind. Because she acts all silly and lovey dovey down the dark justicar path also. She acts like aerie the Shar follower

She was more evil and bitchy in ea, but people didnt like rude companions anyway

Well, she's freaking HOT

And Cute

Like really, really cute, so cute that I kinda wanna mating press her for hours

Of course, it'd be reaaaal rough probably, no slow passionate stuff I definitely couldn't hold back

I have a bit more but don't wanna say too much.

mid

 

[processdaemon]

Having played the game through on Balanced and Tactician now I think in some ways the AI in Tactician makes the game easier in a lot of fights. Enemies seem more predictable and they also focus on killing your downed characters when really in a lot of cases it's worse to have two downed characters than a dead one. The extra abilities are cool, especially stuff like some of the early game enemies having ranged attacks when they don't on balanced since that actually changes how you might approach the fight, but I don't think that overall it's actually any harder than Balanced.

 

[BruceVC]

Heres a brief and well made BG3 fan video

 

[VerSacrum]

I found it tough to go into the mind flayer lair without resting after the first Ketheric fight. Since I went in blind, I simply faced all the encounters as I found them (instead of what I could do now, knowing how to rest there).

Having no-resting areas is a good way to increase the difficulty and rely more on scrolls, potions, bombs and such.

There are healing pods in mindflayer areas, they function as long rest.

 

[Black]

Also Woke is like the least of the problem when it comes to BG3's writing. You can change all the gays and lesbians into straight people, make all the romances straight only and make everyone white, the writing is still shit, especially in act 3.

That's never how it works, the writing isn't shit because it has woke in it, the writing is shit because it's written by wokes. Those things go hand in hand, always, it's like claiming that new Saints Row was just a bad game because of [reasons], not because the devs were woke. They're the same reason.

 

[Sunri]

 

[0wca]

 

[MerchantKing]

Under a true evil playthrough encounters are way, way harder in act 2.

"True evil"...

Why would an evil char not save nightsong when there's something to gain after? You killed her love and are manipulating her, is that not evil?
Why would you not turn shadowheart into a subservient bitch? I've also saved jaheira at the inn to get to the harpers and killed her sometime in act3. Would "true evil" mean killing her immediately? Would true evil not save the gnomes that are dead set on blowing stuff up?

There are no Gnomes in this game. There are only halflings pretending to be Gnomes. Real Gnomes are more interested in expanding the turnip market rather than destroying personal property.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irgun

The arabs do not belong in Israel. This was simply pest removal like when a gnome hunts griffins to protect his turnip fields. The dark skinned halflings pretending to be Gnomes (and failing at that) are just blowing up a random factory that's owned by other halflings who are pretending to be gnomes. A real gnome would not attack his brother gnome but rather try to help him out with good networking and marketing practices.

 

[Lady Error]

I found it tough to go into the mind flayer lair without resting after the first Ketheric fight. Since I went in blind, I simply faced all the encounters as I found them (instead of what I could do now, knowing how to rest there).

Having no-resting areas is a good way to increase the difficulty and rely more on scrolls, potions, bombs and such.

There are healing pods in mindflayer areas, they function as long rest.

That's what I meant. But when you first go in, you don't know where it is.

 

[Sarathiour]

Heres a brief and well made BG3 fan video

Timestamping it yourself at the end of the video so we don't have to suffer to the cringe your yourself post ?

Schizophrenicly based.

 

[Ryzer]

Heres a brief and well made BG3 fan video

Timestamping it yourself at the end of the video so we don't have to suffer to the cringe your yourself post ?

Schizophrenicly based.

Can confirm, it's cringe.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Alienman]

The sex life comment makes it perfect.

 

[dukeofwoodberry]

Under a true evil playthrough encounters are way, way harder in act 2.

"True evil"...

Why would an evil char not save nightsong when there's something to gain after? You killed her love and are manipulating her, is that not evil?
Why would you not turn shadowheart into a subservient bitch? I've also saved jaheira at the inn to get to the harpers and killed her sometime in act3. Would "true evil" mean killing her immediately? Would true evil not save the gnomes that are dead set on blowing stuff up?

How is pushing shadow heart to be a selunite not good? You're turning her into someone who follows the light and probably will go out of her way to help others. She won't be subservient to an evil, selfish MC after becoming a selunite.

It's true that game doesn't really have a Lawful evil or selfish type of evil path. Evil in BG3 pretty much boils down to retard murder hobo and making things more difficult om yourself. Larian aren't the best writers. But good in this game is so incredibly gay (as are the good companions), so murder hobo it is. Plus it makes many encounters more fun because they're too easy otherwise.

 

[Lagole Gon]

"Half-elves are exotic" - says a game that makes human commoner look like endangered species.

 

[ferratilis]

Heres a brief and well made BG3 fan video

Not as good as the original. They killed off the main character too early, though.

 

[Heinrich]

Did anyone ever upload the 2022 talk somewhere else?

 

[MerchantKing]

Did anyone ever upload the 2022 talk somewhere else?

"The worst act in the game is the best act if we just believe it!"

 

[Raghar]

"Half-elves are exotic" - says a game that makes human commoner look like endangered species.

Because he'd look too normal.

 

[ItsChon]

Possibly yes, but I hate the double standard around here. If you criticize those games the same way BG3 is criticized here, they are all terrible, utter shit. And the Codex review will be yet another joke, further undermining the credibility of the site, if that's even possible.

Codex being contrarian is nothing new, don't take it to heart so much. If everybody else loves a thing, codex will more than likely hate it.

This is especially true if it's from a big studio, seeing how Larian is "kind of AAA" now, whatever that means.

People arguing in good faith here (lol) generally dislike BG3 because they see it committing the same mistakes that BioWare and its ilk have years ago, as well as some serious flaws with the writing, worldbuilding, C&C, etc.

Do games like KotC2 and Caves of Lore have the same issues? Undoubtedly, and plenty of other ones to boot. But those games do not have budgets in the millions and they're passion projects, so they get a certain pass.

KotC2's flaw is its engine and its limitations. It's not so much of a problem if you're just looking for a tactical dungeon crawler. But that's what it was designed for. I've never played CoL though.

It's exactly what I am speaking about. Flaws are a lot more numerous than this, much, much more so, from the plot and writing to the encounter balance and presentation. And the budget has nothing to do with that. While BG3 has some flaws, they are very minor and nitpicking in comparison.

KotC2 doesn't need a complex plot or anything like that. The Augury of Chaos campaign is a structured combat dungeon and there is no illusion from anyone here that you play it for any reason other than its superb combat. It does exactly what it's designed for. It's encounter balance is excellent since most encounters are difficult while being reasonable enough for a player who is able to figure out a strategy for the encounter. The AI is excellent, still the best AI in any tactical game to this day. Your characters going through the dungeon is the plot and there doesn't have to be anything else.

The writing is passable in KotC2 and there's little enough of it that you can ignore it.

The problem with KotC2's presentation is the 3d sprites and 2.5d map added into to Augury which clashes with the original token/grid art style of the campaign. There's absolutely nothing wrong with the presentation outside of that. Though if you ask me, the biggest mistake was not just using the soulful sprites and textures from KotC1 for everything. There is nothing wrong with the presentation outside of that.

BG3's encounter balance is non-existent since most of the encounters are extremely easy even on Tactician difficulty. This is even if you don't exploit the gimmicks that made their way into the game from DOS2. The plot itself which is retarded from the beginning is a huge flaw. Invasion of the body snatchers was a shit movie and recreating its plotline in this game was retarded. And then you get the terrible globohomo writing and gay cutscenes that happen everywhere--a major flaw in itself. The game would have been better off without those things, especially without the cutscenes.

The attempt at photorealistic 3d graphics is always a mistake. It tends to be nothing but a waste of disc space and is always ugly.

KotC II doesn't need a plot to still be an amazing game. I no-lifed the entire Augry of Chaos campaign on Archmage and it was an absolute fucking blast. If the KotC series had improved graphics and decent writing, the two games would quite literally be in contention to be some of the greatest cRPGs of all time, though I'd argue the second game is in the top ten as it is now anyway. Obviously adding these things is a massive undertaking, but the point is that the combat system is so amazing that it manages to singlehandedly carry the game to greatness. I have yet to play BG3, but I doubt it even comes close to being as good as KotCII.