Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 RELEASE THREAD

[turkishronin]

I'm afraid the 800k peak player count will cause future RPGs to pick the worse traits of BG3 because emulating the good traits will be too much effort

 

[Vic]

I'm afraid the 800k peak player count will cause future RPGs to pick the worse traits of BG3 because emulating the good traits will be too much effort

Game was 6 years in development. But I see your point. Wonder what low effort devs will try to rip into their shitty low effort games.

 

[Fedora Master]

I'm afraid the 800k peak player count will cause future RPGs to pick the worse traits of BG3 because emulating the good traits will be too much effort

The only thing we'll see as a result will be even more casualized systems and gayer romances, yes

 

[Vic]

Witcher 4 will be turn based maybe

 

[Reinhardt]

Witcher 4 will be turn based maybe

and will have genital selecting. oh, wait, potatos already did this....

 

[AwesomeButton]

Holy sweet Jesus, give me strength. The camera is worse than Neverwinter Nights 2. I swear.

The camera is fine and nowhere near as bad as the utter fucking shitshow that was NWN2.

While true, that bar is set so low it has its own layer in the abyss.

just use Q and E to rotate and WASD to move, double click on a character’s portrait to lock on to him.

seems pretty straightforward to me. I’ve also seen the ability to activate edge panning in the settings.

The [ and ] keys cycle, the F1-F4 select directly. By the way they are not affected by the "second click to select" bug.

The bigger issue than selection is the fact that the camera always auto-centers on the selected character, when you don't necessarily want it to. Maybe I want to move my view to the target location, then select each character and give each an exact position. With the auto-centering this is extra work to returning the view where I want it, and that's at least 3 times. It's really UI/UX 101. I don't understand how they themselves play their games like that at Larian.

Or the purely moronic habit of everyone rushing to gather around the currently selected character, when you have them in a hooked state.

 

[MasPingon]

Is there any companion that isn't faggot?

 

[Haplo]

Haven't played much. Only dicked around the crash site a bit, recruited Laezal, Astarion, explored the Sanctuary on that island.
Still, the game is much better then expected. I mean it won't deliver the character building porn of the Pathfinder games or Deadfire. On the other hand its reactiveness to builds seems sick so far and shaving some bloat off stats, de-mythifying characters and items might be a good thing... at least sometimes.

Thing is, I'm not sure what character I want to dedicate my time to play.
Mostly narrowed it down to:
- Two-handed melee Blade Pact Warlock, after level 5 multiclassed to 3 Battlemaster for Action Surge, Second Wind, armor proficiency, combat techniques. Using Fiendish Sight to fight in Darkness sometimes. Also made him a Half-orc and picked Great Old One as a Patron to make the rare crits extra punishing (x3 damage and aoe Fear on crit). After level 8 not sure, either also get some Pally levels or continue Warlock. Or maybe continue Fighter, if the bonus attacks would stack, like Yosh suggests.
- Some Sorcerer - Twin Spells, Heightened Spells, Quickened Spells are pretty tempting...
- A Bard is also in the cards - probably the least likely to pick it though.

So, I'd appreciate the thoughts / comments / advice of the respected members of the Codex...
Does the melee Warlock make sense / can it be reasonably strong? Do the Patron and race choices make sense? I guess the Fiendish Patron would make him a bit more durable with temp HPs on kills.
Perhaps the sorc or even bard would be better picks (most online rankings seem the give the warlocks a lower tier grade)?

Edit: Also greatswords or polearms?

 

[Yosharian]

rare crits extra punishing

There are some magic items that are effectively +1 to your crit range. I'm going to be making a video soon on all the super rare/legendary items I've found trawling through the game files.

Oh and BTW currently the level 5 Pact of the Blade feature stacks with other sources of Extra Attack

 

[Tyranicon]

The big name hollywood actors for the main three villains are super disappointing.

It's like they're just lazily mumbling into the mic, meanwhile you have these one-scene characters who are really into it and fun to listen to.

 

[Baron Dupek]

https://clips.twitch.tv/SuccessfulEndearingPidgeonPunchTrees-46KXLAMeuS9kpp5Q

they took lesson from Voliton's ideas in 2008
It was a mighty fine day when developers found out they could do LESS work by not programming in any gender restrictions for outfits/voices/questlines and they would get roaring praise for lines of code the did not include.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Also, about githyanki. Remembering my bro Dak'kon's teachings, I always thought that githyanki are supposed to be chaotic, yet Lae'zel is lawful to her core. What's more, I found some weird story about gith schism. Apparently, the splinter faction leader was called Orpheus and he's Gith's son. What happened with Zerthimon and githzerai?

The Githzerai, descended from the followers of Zerthimon, are chaotic neutral in alignment and reside on the CN plane of Limbo. The Githyanki, who remained loyal to the rebel leader Gith and then her successors, are evil in alignment but can be any of lawful evil, neutral evil, or chaotic evil. That nonsense about a son of Gith named "Orpheus" must be a later retcon, whether by WotC or Larian.

I've changed my mind arround level 5 when i got 2 attacks per turn. I like the game now and weirdly enough i like the writing.
That said is there a way to make Shadownerd not suck? I mean all of her spells are useless and she never hits anything with her noodle arms.

As with Solasta, the 3rd level cleric spell Spirit Guardians exists and is extremely powerful, dealing considerable damage to every adjacent enemy in every round while concentration is maintained. The 2nd level spell Spiritual Weapon can be cast as a bonus action, doesn't require concentration, and the weapon it summons might be even more useful for distracting enemies from your party members than for its own attacks. The 2nd level spell Prayer of Healing, the 3rd level spell Mass Healing Word, and the 1st level spells Cure Wounds and Healing Words are all useful for keeping up your party members' hit points. Speak with Dead is a 3rd level spell that could be useful if the once-per-long-rest Speak with Dead magic item isn't sufficient. Guiding Bolt and Inflict Wounds, which are both 1st level spells, are the best damage-dealing ones she has (along with the Sacred Flame and Firebolt cantrips); she's never going to be as effective a damage-dealer as a barbarian, paladin et cetera.

 

[DemonKing]

Is there any companion that isn't faggot?

My impression is they swing anyway you want because nothing says well-developed character more than a willingness to screw any man, woman, demi-human, half-breed or beast in existence.

 

[Lemming42]

I like the writing for what it is but the villains mostly being so one-dimensional (so far, at least) puts me off a bit.

Everywhere you go, you meet people who are like "a hero, eh? Seize her, and take her to our DUNGEONS OF AGONY! Don't kill her right away, though - we wouldn't want her suffering to end too quickly! Muahaha! Guards! Take me to my private deathship, the Shadow of Despair! We sail for the Village of Orphans, where I shall test the capabiltiies of my new DOOM-CLOUD GENERATOR!"

I can't take any characters or anything that happens seriously. The writing's a lot of fun in the context of it being a high-spirited adventure story but the "choices" you're offered are consistently between "be a psychopathic lunatic" and "be normal".

Loathe as I am to admit it, I'm also warming up to Gay Vampire Man. Him and Frog Lady are both the old "arsehole teammate" trope done right, given that their pissing and moaning is typically just funny rather than annoying.

 

[Reinhardt]

i dunno what you niggers talking about. every woman companion is heterosexual and strictly into human males in my game.

 

[Lemming42]

The companions are like that because people get mad if they're locked out of "romancing" their favourite one because they turn out to be the wrong sex. Bethesda was praised for the way they handled it in Fo4 and Skyrim, which I think other devs probably took note of.

In actuality of course the reason everyone is bisexual in Fo4/Skyrim is because Bethesda just fundamentally could not be bothered putting any degree of effort into the whole thing (and probably only had romance stuff to appease people who kept asking for it), so rather than come up with any kind of interesting character work or some kind of procgen-y system to assign orientations to Skyrim's 99999 generic NPCs, they just did the most hack-job solution possible and game journos took it to be a highly exciting and progressive statement, rather than the result of Todd's typical slapdash "that'll be fine" approach to implementing new mechanics.

I don't really care w/r/t Baldurs Gate 3, especially because there's not necessarily any narrative value in writing specifically straight/gay characters in a setting where nobody seems to attach any connotation to sexual orientation, but what is annoying is how all the companions are so quick to force themselves on you, which makes the absurdity of everyone being completely sexually cosmopolitan stand out. If you had to actively go searching for the romance options then the "everyone's into you" approach wouldn't really matter since you'd get to personally pick the story you want, but instead everyone ambushes you at the Tiefling party and it just looks utterly peculiar, especially if you're playing as some ugly-ass idiot. I'm a hulking half-orc and I'm meant to believe that everyone in the camp is hot for me? Like, everyone? This vampire twink boy and this abrasive frog lady both want me? This fucking mage guy who I hate and talk down to? All of them?

 

[Riddler]

i dunno what you niggers talking about. every woman companion is heterosexual and strictly into human males in my game.

Every dude is homosexual in into human males as well though

 

[Gradenmayer]

The companions are like that because people get mad if they're locked out of "romancing" their favourite one because they turn out to be the wrong sex. Bethesda was praised for the way they handled it in Fo4 and Skyrim, which I think other devs probably took note of.

In actuality of course the reason everyone is bisexual in Fo4/Skyrim is because Bethesda just fundamentally could not be bothered putting any degree of effort into the whole thing (and probably only had romance stuff to appease people who kept asking for it), so rather than come up with any kind of interesting character work or some kind of procgen-y system to assign orientations to Skyrim's 99999 generic NPCs, they just did the most hack-job solution possible and game journos took it to be a highly exciting and progressive statement, rather than the result of Todd's typical slapdash "that'll be fine" approach to implementing new mechanics.

I don't really care w/r/t Baldurs Gate 3, especially because there's not necessarily any narrative value in writing specifically straight/gay characters in a setting where nobody seems to attach any connotation to sexual orientation, but what is annoying is how all the companions are so quick to force themselves on you, which makes the absurdity of everyone being completely sexually cosmopolitan stand out. If you had to actively go searching for the romance options then the "everyone's into you" approach wouldn't really matter since you'd get to personally pick the story you want, but instead everyone ambushes you at the Tiefling party and it just looks utterly peculiar, especially if you're playing as some ugly-ass idiot. I'm a hulking half-orc and I'm meant to believe that everyone in the camp is hot for me? Like, everyone? This vampire twink boy and this abrasive frog lady both want me? This fucking mage guy who I hate and talk down to? All of them?

It’s based on Approval rating with them. Most of my dark urge’s teammates said I was a disgusting freak (outside of Astarion and Lae’Zel).

But yeah, they should have moved those scenes to like mid/end of act 2.

 

[Lemming42]

Oh wow, really? I was set upon by quite literally everyone at the party, with the exception of Yorkshire Wood Elf Man (who the dialogue options seemed to really want me to pursue). Maybe because I got to that part relatively early so everyone was still at neutral disposition and I hadn't massively pissed anyone off yet. I interpreted the goblin-vs-grove thing as being basically a beginner's quest so I didn't hesitate to complete it, maybe you're meant to leave it til way later.

Yeah, it wouldn't be too bad if it was spaced out in various Long Rest cutscenes, and you had to attain significant approval first. It just all came at once in one scene very early on and left me thinking "what the fuck".

 

[gurugeorge]

Loathe as I am to admit it, I'm also warming up to Gay Vampire Man.

Funnily enough, I just had a moment of being impressed by Astarion just there. I'd kind of forgotten about him for a while, with my (me Paladin) team atm being Karlach, Shadowtits and Gale (or Wyl sometimes, it's quite fun to play around with his Warlock's tricks and his versatility between quite hefty ranged and melee). Then on a whim I decided to see if any of Astarion's dialogue had changed (the dialogues at camp do reflect on notable events sometimes, even if they're not flagged with the blue exclamation mark icon), and I was quite impressed to find that his "tone" had changed substantially after my refusal of his vampire shenanigans.

He's much more bitter about his fate now, and it's well-acted. It's just a subtle shift in the actor's tone really, but it's very well done, and the animations seem to have shifted subtly too, along with the change in tone (though I can't be certain about that, might just be an illusion from the acting).

 

[gurugeorge]

In actuality of course the reason everyone is bisexual in Fo4/Skyrim is because Bethesda just fundamentally could not be bothered putting any degree of effort into the whole thing (and probably only had romance stuff to appease people who kept asking for it), so rather than come up with any kind of interesting character work or some kind of procgen-y system to assign orientations to Skyrim's 99999 generic NPCs, they just did the most hack-job solution possible and game journos took it to be a highly exciting and progressive statement, rather than the result of Todd's typical slapdash "that'll be fine" approach to implementing new mechanics.

I just twigged to this recently myself (that this is what's going on with BG3 too). It's the tail that's wagging the dog with all the degeneracy, and it's the great boon of woketardism for them. Half the work, twice the praise and publicity.

Mind you, you can hardly blame them, the game is really dense with dialogue reactivity and animation, I'm sure they were relieved not to have to do separate reactions for male and female characters.

What a swizz lol.

 

[Naraya]

When BG2 dropped people were exicted sure

Oh man, you reminded me of the time when BG released. I got the demo on a CD sold with one of the computer magazines. It was before school (it was my first year of high school). I couldn't wait to get home to check it out. I was so nervous if my PC has enough RAM to play it (it did) and it was glorious. Oh the memories.

 

[Elthosian]

The companions are like that because people get mad if they're locked out of "romancing" their favourite one because they turn out to be the wrong sex. Bethesda was praised for the way they handled it in Fo4 and Skyrim, which I think other devs probably took note of.

In actuality of course the reason everyone is bisexual in Fo4/Skyrim is because Bethesda just fundamentally could not be bothered putting any degree of effort into the whole thing (and probably only had romance stuff to appease people who kept asking for it), so rather than come up with any kind of interesting character work or some kind of procgen-y system to assign orientations to Skyrim's 99999 generic NPCs, they just did the most hack-job solution possible and game journos took it to be a highly exciting and progressive statement, rather than the result of Todd's typical slapdash "that'll be fine" approach to implementing new mechanics.

I don't really care w/r/t Baldurs Gate 3, especially because there's not necessarily any narrative value in writing specifically straight/gay characters in a setting where nobody seems to attach any connotation to sexual orientation, but what is annoying is how all the companions are so quick to force themselves on you, which makes the absurdity of everyone being completely sexually cosmopolitan stand out. If you had to actively go searching for the romance options then the "everyone's into you" approach wouldn't really matter since you'd get to personally pick the story you want, but instead everyone ambushes you at the Tiefling party and it just looks utterly peculiar, especially if you're playing as some ugly-ass idiot. I'm a hulking half-orc and I'm meant to believe that everyone in the camp is hot for me? Like, everyone? This vampire twink boy and this abrasive frog lady both want me? This fucking mage guy who I hate and talk down to? All of them?

It’s based on Approval rating with them. Most of my dark urge’s teammates said I was a disgusting freak (outside of Astarion and Lae’Zel).

But yeah, they should have moved those scenes to like mid/end of act 2.

An issue is that a lot of people (even here, of all fucking places) were bitching about companions being mean to them during EA. Not to say this excuses Larian, but the progression was better when you didn't have the huge boost in approval from Shadowheart by pressing a button in the intro sequence, and I can imagine similar stuff might have happened with the others.

I don't go out of my way to please any of the companions, though, so they're hating me thus far. Only Astarion has tried to buttfuck me and...

camp stuff

it was after I failed a couple Insight checks which imply he had some weird vampire scheme, plus I got a cutscene of him walking around while the rest of the party slept.

The game definitely needs a mod to increase the approval thresholds for the romances. That and something to remove most of the common action preparation SFX. Swen, bro, I don't need to hear the same gust of wind that comes up when sclicking on jump 6 fucking times while climbing up a hill. The quest markers are easier to ignore for me since I just use the minimap for general orientation and by the time they show up it's pretty obvious that I'm getting to the relevant location, anyway.

When BG2 dropped people were exicted sure

Oh man, you reminded me of the time when BG released. I got the demo on a CD sold with one of the computer magazines. It was before school (it was my first year of high school). I couldn't wait to get home to check it out. I was so nervous if my PC has enough RAM to play it (it did) and it was glorious. Oh the memories.

I played BG2 a few years after it came out, but opening the big box and reading the manual was amazing. Playing BG3 reminded me I hadn't checked on my collection in a few years since it's back in my hometown; I had my bro take a picture just to make sure my dad hadn't thrown them away, and there it is, sitting right alongside Arcanum:

nsfw big boxes

Can't wait to settle down in a couple of years and put them on a nice shelf.

 

[Fedora Master]

- Two-handed melee Blade Pact Warlock, after level 5 multiclassed to 3 Battlemaster for Action Surge, Second Wind, armor proficiency, combat techniques. Using Fiendish Sight to fight in Darkness sometimes. Also made him a Half-orc and picked Great Old One as a Patron to make the rare crits extra punishing (x3 damage and aoe Fear on crit). After level 8 not sure

 

[Lemming42]

He's much more bitter about his fate now, and it's well-acted. It's really just a subtle shift in the actor's tone really, but it's very well done, and the animations seem to have shifted subtly too, along with the change in tone (though I can't be certain about that, might just be an illusion from the acting).

It's motion-captured, I think, so the actors have a lot of room to do subtle stuff like that. Whoever played Frog Lady deserves singling out for praise, she's a really excellent physical actor, all the jutting about and hissing and such.