• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Baldur's Gate III |OT| Three times as awesome

DJT123

Member
It's not like there's a whole lot about them in the first act. I definitely would prefer to see them interjecting MORE in dialogues.
But what's there is not half bad and I can definitely see them growing on me. They all seem to have a less obvious angle.
For instance I've seen a lot of people dismiss Shadowheart as "bitchy and angry". She's neither. She's a bit a guarded and on the "sassy" side of thing, but you can already see her warming a bit to you after few hours.
Lez'something (the grinch lady) is a ball of rage and pride at first. Like may of her race she's single minded about ONE goal and everything else is worthless in her eyes, but a wake up call is on the way.
Gale seems like the typical airhead blabbermouth scholar. You know, the chatty, awkward nerdy type that always says a line too much. At time hilarious, at time slightly annoying. But you quickly start to get the sense that there's a lot more he's not saying upfront.
Wyll (which turns out is not just called "Will" because his father couldn't spell properly) is a likeable wannabe hero that always inflates the tales of his past achievements. He too will shortly turn out to have a big secret he's trying to hide from the parrty.
Astarion is a Dorian Grey/Lestat wannabe that at least so far seems to just love flaunting his sadism, his sexual degeneracy and his overall smugness. My least favorite so far as an archetype but I can't exclude a good arc ahead, yet.

What is impressing me on the other hand is a lot of random NPCs you cross in your questing around. There are plenty that are wonderfully expressive in facial features, gestures and voice acting and their writing seems to be pretty goddamn solid.
Auntie Ethiel comes immediately to mind, but she's not alone.

Nostalgia is a hell of a drug, but if people were a bit more honest about it you'd hear around more admission that some of these characters in BG3 are already topping by a wide margin most of the performances in the old BG1 and 2 (which to be honest were never anything special, anyway).
Holy crap you are starting to sell me on this game. Go, Larian. They seem to be going above & beyond on everything from production value to music & everything in-between.

What made me most excited was seeing zoomed-out footage & how expertly "directed" or framed every scene was. There was just a level of care & handcrafted deliberation regarding art direction with every step the player character took.
 
Last edited:
Oh yeah, once the animation bugs are fixed its gonnah look so good.

The subtle way people move their heads and faces it shows that every scene has been individually cared for and I LOVE it.

I hope they dont take away the zoom in for every convo, or atleast make it an option
 
Yo this game starts off on a freakin Nautiloid. I wasn't even aware Spelljammer was still a thing in current dnd, i havent seen the setting since high school.
 

Sakura

Member
I've played it about 10 hours so far. Ignoring the obvious roughness because it is early access, I am enjoying it more than I did Divinity 2.
One thing I really didn't like about Divinity was the fact that your party members never interact with each other or even seem to acknowledge each other's existence, which they do in BG3. Though there could be more interjection in dialogue and stuff.
It also makes more sense to me why the party is travelling together, and feels like you really are on an adventure. It never really felt very good to me in Divinity.
The character models are great.
Gameplay wise, not really sure how I feel. I get that it is supposed to be like DND, but I feel like most people who will end up playing this game will probably have never actually played DND, like myself. Just because something works for a tabletop pen and paper game, doesn't mean it is good for a video game. A lot of it is difficult to understand, for example, I have an enemy lying prone on the ground because he slipped on the ice I cast, yet my archer only has a 25% chance to hit him? How does it make any logical sense? I'm just really not a fan of RNG, and literally everything is RNG.
 

Irobot82

Member
I've played it about 10 hours so far. Ignoring the obvious roughness because it is early access, I am enjoying it more than I did Divinity 2.
One thing I really didn't like about Divinity was the fact that your party members never interact with each other or even seem to acknowledge each other's existence, which they do in BG3. Though there could be more interjection in dialogue and stuff.
It also makes more sense to me why the party is travelling together, and feels like you really are on an adventure. It never really felt very good to me in Divinity.
The character models are great.
Gameplay wise, not really sure how I feel. I get that it is supposed to be like DND, but I feel like most people who will end up playing this game will probably have never actually played DND, like myself. Just because something works for a tabletop pen and paper game, doesn't mean it is good for a video game. A lot of it is difficult to understand, for example, I have an enemy lying prone on the ground because he slipped on the ice I cast, yet my archer only has a 25% chance to hit him? How does it make any logical sense? I'm just really not a fan of RNG, and literally everything is RNG.
The percentages are stupid and should be avoided because it's still a roll of the dice. I believe when a character is prone range attacks are at a disadvantage. This means you roll 2 D20 dice and take the smallest number.

I think if your character is within 5ft of the prone one your melee attack had advantage.

BG3 has isssues and most of it stems from clearly defining how things work. I have huge issues with the game mostly their spells but other things like when advantage/disadvantage is in affect. They need to take a good hard look at games like Solasta: Crown of the Magister because they knock it out of the park currently!

Edit: Is is a great video from Solasta on their action economy. Check out their UI and how everything is clearly displayed. It's been improved upon too.
 
Last edited:

Sentenza

Member
This is the most interesting thing going down in gaming RN, but it's *crickets* from most people on this site. Too bad. Going to pick this up from GOG for the weekend.
Well, speaking for myself I'm busy playing the game over and over rather than talking about it.
AND in my specific case I also wasted a lot of free time posting to give feedback on the official forum.
 
Well, speaking for myself I'm busy playing the game over and over rather than talking about it.
AND in my specific case I also wasted a lot of free time posting to give feedback on the official forum.

Same just finished my first playthrough as a "good" fighter and it was awesome. Started evil lolth cleric but it's almost 3 am...

Next bugfix up
 
Last edited:

Lanrutcon

Member
This is the most interesting thing going down in gaming RN, but it's *crickets* from most people on this site. Too bad. Going to pick this up from GOG for the weekend.

I don't want to play it until it's more content (the array of classes and specialisations atm is beyond poor). I play enough tabletop. Besides, I made the mistake of playing D:OS Early Access and I thought the game sucked then and didn't touch it for months. Now it's one of my favorite games of all time. I appreciate everyone beta testing stuff for me.
 

Croatoan

They/Them A-10 Warthog
Okay, I have made it pretty far into the game, so here are my thoughts for those of you on the fence, or just interested in the game. First some background.

From MMORPGs to CRPGs to JRPGS, I have played just about every kind of traditional RPG out there, and during that time I have developed a bias against turn based combat. That doesn't mean I wont play TB games, it just means that I enjoy Real Time, and Real Time with pause much more. So I started this game knowing I would have issues with the combat but hopeful that it would still be fun. Alright, with that out of the way lets get to the game.

Characters
If you are looking for interesting, or "new", character types then this game isn't for you. Just about every character currently in the game is a stereotype of something that has come before. Its almost blatantly done that way so maybe that was Larian's intention. That doesn't mean the characters are all bad though, just a little predictable and kinda boring. I am not going to elaborate much here as I don't want to spoil things.

The good:
Wyll, Astarion and Gale are all pretty good characters so far. I particularly like Gale as he is extremely well voice acted, and his facial expression and mannerism are pretty well done for an AA game. Wyll's backstory is compelling enough that I want to know more, even though the loading screens sorta give away his story (which I find dumb). Astarion is the most stereotypical of the bunch but he is entertaining to converse with and probably the best in combat (more about this later).

The bad:
Lae'zel and Shadowheart are just plain bad. Is there some rule out there that "Stronk-indipendent-Wymen" have to be so unlikable to be strong independent women? Why do writers always do this? Its so annoying. Lae'zel is the worst of the two as she is just a stereotypical "Barbarian" type character that doesn't give a shit about you and makes sure you know it. This female character trope is so done to death that its an instant turn off to me the moment she started to speak (I dig her design though). For those wondering about Shadowheart just imagine Morrigan from Dragon Age but with 0 charm and the bitchiness turned up to 11. Lae'zel does better in combat as Shadowheart just seems to get wrecked constantly (and I use her all the time).

Combat
Ohh boy Larian...This is a goddamned mess. Do you want to know how to beat this game with 200% less frustration? Cheese the shit out of it. If you don't you will want to punch your monitor at some point in the first 5 - 10 hours. There are a couple of encounters in this game where the only way for me to win was to cast invisible on my MC pre-fight and run solo up to mobs and repeatedly push them off ledges to kill them. The invisibility never drops, and the idiotic AI will just walk back to the spot and you can do it again.

Why cheese? Well that is because I couldn't progress due to the completely unbalanced combat system. Most of the time your character (if its not a rogue) will only get one attack per turn, but some of the monsters and bosses will get 3 or 4 attacks per turn. Which means a single monster can wipe out your entire party in one turn with good dice rolls. Get good right? Well I tried to get good. I tried every spell, every character combination, and every goddamned strategy I could think of and failed miserably every time. In the end the only way for me to win was to cheese the big fights, so I pushed things off ledges while invisible, and stacked up explosive/fire barrels (a completely ridiculous mechanic) on enemies before they could agro me so I could fuck them with aoe easily in my first turn.

So no, the combat isn't good, and its made worse by your characters' constantly missing (even when buffed). The dice must be waited in this game or something because a 70% chance to hit feels more like a 0% chance to hit, and all those fancy spell effects look pretty dumb when you miss. I have played A LOT of rpgs that had miss chances, and I don't think I have ever been as cursed as I am in this game. It fucking sucks. Adding to that is Larian's encounter design where most fights involve multiple characters above you, that have an advantage on you, and likely get to go first, and you have something that simply isn't that fun.

Also, you know what is infuriating? When half way through a big battle one of your characters just stops responding to input. Yeah, it has happened 4 or 5 times with me and each time I was already 10 minutes into an intense, long, fight. Add to that enemy turns that can last up to 10 minutes (yes you read that right) and this game has some MAJOR issues to address during early access. I had a fight against around 10 or so enemies and their system just couldn't handle it. Kept bugging out and I kept having to reload the save and try again. It.was.not.fun.

Lastly, the most powerful characters in this game are rogues and rangers. They fuck everything up. Mages pretty much suck, and melee fighters feel bad to play because they miss too much and their attacks with swords feel...not powerful at all (compared to the rogue, ranger and magic attacks). My MC is an Eldritch Fighter and while its cool to mix magic and Melee (my fav way to play fantasy), it feels massively gimped mostly due to magic being so weak compared to stealth/stabbing.

Progression
I hate the progression in this game. I don't know if its a DnD thing, or just this game, but leveling up is kind of uninteresting. Add a point into something, pick from a list of spells that are already weak, and grab a little more health...snooze. You never actually feel more powerful after it either. IDK, the fact that your character starts with its stats so high to begin with is something I dislike about DnD in general. I prefer games were you start as a scrub, and become a god, with levels that come more frequently. Maybe I am just more of a casual or something but I am not exited to level any of the characters in this game.

Equipment and loot
If you want cool armor and lots of neat loot this game is not for you. The best armors I have found in the game (design-wise) are the ones worn by Lae'Zel and Shadowheart. Everything else is boring, drab, overly realistic medieval crap. There is a cool looking druid armor that one of the NPCs wears, but I am not sure you can get it. The Witcher 3 and Dragon Age have better armor designs than this game, and both of them are pretty drab as well. Don't expect much armor progression either. You rarely loot anything worth a damn, and when you do its usually not as good as the starting armor the companion characters already have. Loot in general is pretty damn boring. Lots of books, plates, forks, and other garbage, and tons of basic bitch weapons. I have found a couple of neat epic weapons that have cool designs but for the most part you will be sifting through crap and selling everything for 30% of its actual worth (I HATE THIS SHIT).

Skill Checks
This gets its own section because I can't stand it. The constant DnD dice rolls in this game remind you that everything is fucking random and based on luck. If you have bad luck, like me, it doesn't matter if your intelligence is 18, or strength is 18 because you will still roll a 2 when all you need is a 3. This leads to constant save scuming and annoying sections of the game. You know what games do skill checks right? Fallout and Skyrim. If your Charisma is 18, and the dialogue option needs it to be 15, then yay you have succeeded! You don't need dice rolls for everything. Leave that shit to PnP.

There are also multiple skill checks in dialogues in this game where if you fail you die (either immediately, or due to the enemy being so overpowered you have no chance). Save constantly because sometimes these "just happen" out of the blue.

Story and World
The story seems kind of interesting and I like the Cthulu stuff but my god this is some of the most generic, bog standard, fantasy in existence. Yeah, I know its DnD but man, without the cthulu like stuff this game is identical to every other fantasy RPG ever made. The coolest thing about DnD is the Underdark and I was happy to see it is in the game. Unfortunately, the devs put some really annoying unfun, and completely unbalanced, enemies to fight down there though that ruin the experience.


Dialogue
This is probably the best part of the game. The conversations with the good characters, and other characters in the world, are actually pretty good. The dialogue system bugs out constantly though, and the mind flayers tentacles are a complete liability during cutscenes, so much so that their physics screw up breaking the immersion completely. Also, its really annoying that they don't use cloth physics in this game, in dialogues Lae'zels leather skirts stretch horribly and just look completely terrible for a 2020 game.

Graphics and Performance
Pretty good from the isometric view but the textures are really low res and its obvious and immersion breaking during dialogues. I get horrible performance with a 2080ti at 1440p maxed (vulcan). In "towns", or when lots of enemies are on the screen, it drops down to 30fps.

Bugs
The list is endless. The dialogue bugs are the most distracting as often times characters will invert, disappear, or pose in unnatural ways. Its early access though so I expected the bugs. The only game breaking ones currently are the massive enemy turn pauses and the characters that just completely leave combat in the middle of fights and don't respond to commands.

Overall
In its current state this game isn't worth $60 unless you love DnD (5e), or are just so bored out of your mind (like me) that you need and RPG to play. I will keep playing it, hoping that Larian fixes the bugs and balance issues but I don't have a lot of hope. I believe this games problems are due to the 5e DnD rules, and just the dated DnD system in general. The rules and systems of video game RPGs are just far superior to PnP and attempting to bring over PnP to video games in 2020 doesn't work as well as it did for BG1 and 2. This game needs a custom ruleset and progression system that matches what other modern RPGs do. It needs characters that feel powerful, and encounters that feel balanced. I just don't know if Larian can get it there when hamstrung by DnD.
 
Last edited:

Lanrutcon

Member
Most of the time your character (if its not a rogue) will only get one attack per turn, but some of the monsters and bosses will get 3 or 4 attacks per turn.
Yes, that's how the ruleset the game is based on works. You can't fault a FIFA game for not allowing characters to use their hands. The invisibility thing is a bug and will be fixed, only Improved Invisibility should allow you to do that, and only once because then the enemies get Perception checks on your ass.

So no, the combat isn't good, and its made worse by your characters' constantly missing (even when buffed).
RNG is RNG. Let's call this Xcom syndrome.

Lastly, the most powerful characters in this game are rogues and rangers.
This made me smile a bit. Rogues are lightweights compared to pretty much every other melee class barring Monks, and Rangers are widely regarded as the shittiest class in the system. Right now the game doesn't feature the entire ecosystem though, so I'd hold out on class balance criticisms until you see what's coming.

I hate the progression in this game. I don't know if its a DnD thing, or just this game, but leveling up is kind of uninteresting.
It's 5th edition. It's streamlined as fuck. You don't get interesting shit every level. You get it every 2 or 3 levels. This is not going to change.

If you want cool armor and lots of neat loot this game is not for you.
The setting is light on magic items. A +1 weapon is a rarity. A +2 weapon is for high level adventures. A +3 weapon is something so legendary people write stories about it and is worth an infinite amount of money. Again, 5e.

This gets its own section because I can't stand it. The constant DnD dice rolls in this game remind you that everything is fucking random and based on luck. Leave that shit to PnP.
Holy shit. This is a DnD game, you turnip. What the fuck did you expect?

I just don't know if Larian can get it there when hamstrung by DnD.

I am going to go out on a limb here and make a crazy, crazy guess: you never played any of the BG games.
 
Last edited:

Croatoan

They/Them A-10 Warthog
Yes, that's how the ruleset the game is based on works. You can't fault a FIFA game for not allowing characters to use their hands. The invisibility thing is a bug and will be fixed, only Improved Invisibility should allow you to do that, and only once because then the enemies get Perception checks on your ass.


RNG is RNG. Let's call this Xcom syndrome.


This made me smile a bit. Rogues are lightweights compared to pretty much every other melee class barring Monks, and Rangers are widely regarded as the shittiest class in the system. Right now the game doesn't feature the entire ecosystem though, so I'd hold out on class balance criticisms until you see what's coming.


It's 5th edition. It's streamlined as fuck. You don't get interesting shit every level. You get it every 2 or 3 levels. This is not going to change.


The setting is light on magic items. A +1 weapon is a rarity. A +2 weapon is for high level adventures. A +3 weapon is something so legendary people write stories about it and is worth an infinite amount of money. Again, 5e.


Holy shit. This is a DnD game, you turnip. What the fuck did you expect?



I am going to go out on a limb here and make a crazy, crazy guess: you never played any of the BG games.
I played BG1 and 2 what feels like a million years ago, and modern RPG systems are just better. I expected a modern RPG with DnD trappings. Not literally the PnP game in video game form. The PnP formula doesn't work in a video game in 2020 IMO. It did back when BG1 and BG2 released though.

Also, its just my opinion bro and I even said to begin with I like RT and RT with P better. Pillars of eternity and even dragon age are better than this IMO.

Also, if they remove the cheesing there is absolutely no way to get passed the
menotaurs in the underdark
. They two shot my entire group in one or two turns and my characters miss them 90% of the time (or get horrible rolls) even with the bless, and light buffs. I tried using spells to knock them off but they don't work. I simply cannot burn them down fast enough when they get 3 attacks per turn that take up 75% of my characters health bars.
 
Last edited:

Lanrutcon

Member
I played BG1 and 2 what feels like a million years ago, and modern RPG systems are just better. I expected a modern RPG with DnD trappings. Not literally the PnP game in video game form. The PnP formula doesn't work in a video game in 2020 IMO. It did back when BG1 and BG2 released though.

Also, its just my opinion bro and I even said to begin with I like RT and RT with P better. Pillars of eternity and even dragon age are better than this IMO.

I don't like 5e much, so I don't really have the spirit to tell you you're wrong. Have you given Pathfinder: Kingmaker a go? It's also PnP based (very faithful), but the ruleset is more along what you want I think.
 

Croatoan

They/Them A-10 Warthog
I don't like 5e much, so I don't really have the spirit to tell you you're wrong. Have you given Pathfinder: Kingmaker a go? It's also PnP based (very faithful), but the ruleset is more along what you want I think.
I haven't, though I have watched CohhCarnage play it a bit and it seems fun.
 

Sentenza

Member
Man, I disagree on almost everything you said. It's somewhat impressive, really.
And now that I'm done working I'm going to take few minutes to explain why.
Okay, I have made it pretty far into the game, so here are my thoughts for those of you on the fence, or just interested in the game. First some background.

From MMORPGs to CRPGs to JRPGS, I have played just about every kind of traditional RPG out there, and during that time I have developed a bias against turn based combat.
Holy fucking Batman, a weeb that puts JRPGs on the same field of CRPGs and has a bias against turn-based combat. You couldn't start on a worst foot if you tried.

Characters
If you are looking for interesting, or "new", character types then this game isn't for you. Just about every character currently in the game is a stereotype of something that has come before
Sounds like a blanket statement.

The good:
Wyll, Astarion and Gale are all pretty good characters so far. I particularly like Gale as he is extremely well voice acted, and his facial expression and mannerism are pretty well done for an AA game. Wyll's backstory is compelling enough that I want to know more, even though the loading screens sorta give away his story (which I find dumb). Astarion is the most stereotypical of the bunch but he is entertaining to converse with and probably the best in combat (more about this later).

The bad:
Lae'zel and Shadowheart are just plain bad. Is there some rule out there that "Stronk-indipendent-Wymen" have to be so unlikable to be strong independent women? Why do writers always do this? Its so annoying. Lae'zel is the worst of the two as she is just a stereotypical "Barbarian" type character that doesn't give a shit about you and makes sure you know it. This female character trope is so done to death that its an instant turn off to me the moment she started to speak (I dig her design though). For those wondering about Shadowheart just imagine Morrigan from Dragon Age but with 0 charm and the bitchiness turned up to 11. Lae'zel does better in combat as Shadowheart just seems to get wrecked constantly (and I use her all the time).
Shadowheart is by far my favorite so far and I don't even find her particularly bitchy, if a bit diffident at first, nor someone who tries to flaunt her strength at all, so the "strong independent woman" thing sounds more like your personal bias, but I'm not going to discuss tastes on character writing because usually reconciliating diverging opinions is a waste of time.

Ohh boy Larian...This is a goddamned mess. Do you want to know how to beat this game with 200% less frustration? Cheese the shit out of it. If you don't you will want to punch your monitor at some point in the first 5 - 10 hours. There are a couple of encounters in this game where the only way for me to win was to cast invisible on my MC pre-fight and run solo up to mobs and repeatedly push them off ledges to kill them. The invisibility never drops, and the idiotic AI will just walk back to the spot and you can do it again.

Why cheese? Well that is because I couldn't progress due to the completely unbalanced combat system. Most of the time your character (if its not a rogue) will only get one attack per turn, but some of the monsters and bosses will get 3 or 4 attacks per turn. Which means a single monster can wipe out your entire party in one turn with good dice rolls.
?
The enemies follow the same exact "action economy" of the player: 1 Movement, one action, one Bonus action. They make more than an attack only when they use a appropriate consumable (i.e. haste potion or scroll) or in a rare case it's one of their talents/buffs, which is not often at all.
And more often than not players are the ones in numeric inferiority downing several targets each.

The combat is also by far the absolute highlight of the current build. There are moments where (despise Larian taking few minor liberties on what to count as a bonus action) a D&D player will find himself wiping off a tear of joy thinking "This feels like a scene out of a pen an paper".
I.e. Your warrior has just be downed, your mage towering on the walls just above (from where he was shooting down goblins with firebolts) decides to come to rescue, casts Slowfall on himself, jumps down twenty meters, helps the warrior standing on his feet again and quickly runs away in cover.

Lastly, the most powerful characters in this game are rogues and rangers.
This is comedy gold. There is currently ONE build of ranger that is barely considered competitive thanks to a bug on a talent, everything else but both are more or less at the bottom of the power hierarchy.


They fuck everything up. Mages pretty much suck, and melee fighters feel bad to play because they miss too much and their attacks with swords feel...not powerful at all (compared to the rogue, ranger and magic attacks). My MC is an Eldritch Fighter and while its cool to mix magic and Melee (my fav way to play fantasy), it feels massively gimped mostly due to magic being so weak compared to stealth/stabbing.
Almost everything you are complaining about, aside for being greatly exaggerated by your hyperbolic retelling, is literally how D&D always worked, and if anything the 5th edition is more forgiving than in the past with low level characters.

Progression
I hate the progression in this game. I don't know if its a DnD thing, or just this game, but leveling up is kind of uninteresting. Add a point into something, pick from a list of spells that are already weak, and grab a little more health...snooze. You never actually feel more powerful after it either. IDK, the fact that your character starts with its stats so high to begin with is something I dislike about DnD in general. I prefer games were you start as a scrub, and become a god, with levels that come more frequently. Maybe I am just more of a casual or something but I am not exited to level any of the characters in this game.
I LOVE the progression in this game (bar the fact that there are several options still missing, of course): leveling up is sparse as it should be, every level is sort of a big a deal, and some key levels/talents alone can literally make a character making a build finally click. It's incredibly gratifying.

Equipment and loot
If you want cool armor and lots of neat loot this game is not for you. The best armors I have found in the game (design-wise) are the ones worn by Lae'Zel and Shadowheart. Everything else is boring, drab, overly realistic medieval crap. There is a cool looking druid armor that one of the NPCs wears, but I am not sure you can get it. The Witcher 3 and Dragon Age have better armor designs than this game, and both of them are pretty drab as well. Don't expect much armor progression either. You rarely loot anything worth a damn, and when you do its usually not as good as the starting armor the companion characters already have. Loot in general is pretty damn boring. Lots of books, plates, forks, and other garbage, and tons of basic bitch weapons. I have found a couple of neat epic weapons that have cool designs but for the most part you will be sifting through crap and selling everything for 30% of its actual worth (I HATE THIS SHIT).
Once again I absolutely LOVE how loot is relatively sparse and finding any single magic item is a big fucking deal in D&D, with chance to carry it with yourself for hours before a proper upgrade. One of my most despised things in DOS 2 was precisely its idiotic randomized itemization. You were dropping magic items at every corner, to the point it was borderline annoying to keep up with checking them constantly in the inventory and they lost any meaning in minutes, since one single level up was enough to make them trash and something better was constantly around the corner.
Skill Checks
This gets its own section because I can't stand it. The constant DnD dice rolls in this game remind you that everything is fucking random and based on luck. If you have bad luck, like me, it doesn't matter if your intelligence is 18, or strength is 18 because you will still roll a 2 when all you need is a 3. This leads to constant save scuming and annoying sections of the game. You know what games do skill checks right? Fallout and Skyrim. If your Charisma is 18, and the dialogue option needs it to be 15, then yay you have succeeded! You don't need dice rolls for everything. Leave that shit to PnP.

There are also multiple skill checks in dialogues in this game where if you fail you die (either immediately, or due to the enemy being so overpowered you have no chance). Save constantly because sometimes these "just happen" out of the blue.
This is another paragraph of "I don't like anything D&D", in short.


The list is endless. The dialogue bugs are the most distracting as often times characters will invert, disappear, or pose in unnatural ways. Its early access though so I expected the bugs. The only game breaking ones currently are the massive enemy turn pauses and the characters that just completely leave combat in the middle of fights and don't respond to commands.
There are bugs aplenty, sure. But if anything considering how far we are from the end I'd say it's been surprisingly solid so far. In spots it looks already leagues better than what Larian showed us in February and I can only see it improving even more over time.
 

martino

Member
The percentages are stupid and should be avoided because it's still a roll of the dice. I believe when a character is prone range attacks are at a disadvantage. This means you roll 2 D20 dice and take the smallest number.

I think if your character is within 5ft of the prone one your melee attack had advantage.

BG3 has isssues and most of it stems from clearly defining how things work. I have huge issues with the game mostly their spells but other things like when advantage/disadvantage is in affect. They need to take a good hard look at games like Solasta: Crown of the Magister because they knock it out of the park currently!

Edit: Is is a great video from Solasta on their action economy. Check out their UI and how everything is clearly displayed. It's been improved upon too.

this one got my support
 

Sentenza

Member
I'm looking forward for Solasta as well, but as much as I liked their combat demo, what I played of the game is not really in the same league with BG3 for me.
 
I played BG1 and 2 what feels like a million years ago, and modern RPG systems are just better. I expected a modern RPG with DnD trappings. Not literally the PnP game in video game form. The PnP formula doesn't work in a video game in 2020 IMO. It did back when BG1 and BG2 released though.

Also, its just my opinion bro and I even said to begin with I like RT and RT with P better. Pillars of eternity and even dragon age are better than this IMO.

Also, if they remove the cheesing there is absolutely no way to get passed the
menotaurs in the underdark
. They two shot my entire group in one or two turns and my characters miss them 90% of the time (or get horrible rolls) even with the bless, and light buffs. I tried using spells to knock them off but they don't work. I simply cannot burn them down fast enough when they get 3 attacks per turn that take up 75% of my characters health bars.

You're getting old bro. And it's okay.

10 years ago I would have been all over this like shit sticks to a blanket. But the TB + Verticality is not gelling with me... Yet.
I would have preferred RTWP considering that's what defined the IE games.

I've probably just got a calcified pineal gland from playing all the modern shit.
 

Lanrutcon

Member
Battlemasters are the Fighter spec in the tabletop. They're crazy good, and one of the few specs which really rewards you for sticking with it and not multiclassing.
 
Last edited:

Irobot82

Member
this one got my support
Have you played the demo? Currently it's UI and implementation of the 5e rules is much better than Larian. They need to study it to learn how to improve.

I'm looking forward for Solasta as well, but as much as I liked their combat demo, what I played of the game is not really in the same league with BG3 for me.

BG3 has much better graphics and animations and probably story in the end but Solastra has a much better UI and implementation of the rules.
 
Last edited:

Edgelord79

Gold Member
I took the plunge and played the early access. Looks like it's on track to be a great game once they get the difficulty ironed out. You can literally do anything in this game.

This does not feel like Baldurs Gate though from what I played. It feels like a continuation of the Divinity series. That's okay I guess. Pillars of Eternity was more Baldurs Gate than this and not just because of the engine.
 
Last edited:

Sentenza

Member
BG3 has much better graphics and animations and probably story in the end but Solastra has a much better UI and implementation of the rules.
The UI is one of my least favorite aspects of what I played.
It has that "Amplitude" style of looking more like a toolset than a contextual interface that I really dislike., plus it's nowhere near as "snappy" as its simplicity could suggest.
It also had the only control scheme for the party that could give a run for its money at the chain/unchain system used by Larian in terms of being... less than ideally comfortable/intuitive to use, to put it politely.

The day Larian ditches this shit in favor of more traditional "RTS controls" for the party is the day I will know BG3 is on its path to become a classic.
 
Last edited:

Croatoan

They/Them A-10 Warthog
And now that I'm done working I'm going to take few minutes to explain why.

Holy fucking Batman, a weeb that puts JRPGs on the same field of CRPGs and has a bias against turn-based combat. You couldn't start on a worst foot if you tried.


Sounds like a blanket statement.


Shadowheart is by far my favorite so far and I don't even find her particularly bitchy, if a bit diffident at first, nor someone who tries to flaunt her strength at all, so the "strong independent woman" thing sounds more like your personal bias, but I'm not going to discuss tastes on character writing because usually reconciliating diverging opinions is a waste of time.


?
The enemies follow the same exact "action economy" of the player: 1 Movement, one action, one Bonus action. They make more than an attack only when they use a appropriate consumable (i.e. haste potion or scroll) or in a rare case it's one of their talents/buffs, which is not often at all.
And more often than not players are the ones in numeric inferiority downing several targets each.

The combat is also by far the absolute highlight of the current build. There are moments where (despise Larian taking few minor liberties on what to count as a bonus action) a D&D player will find himself wiping off a tear of joy thinking "This feels like a scene out of a pen an paper".
I.e. Your warrior has just be downed, your mage towering on the walls just above (from where he was shooting down goblins with firebolts) decides to come to rescue, casts Slowfall on himself, jumps down twenty meters, helps the warrior standing on his feet again and quickly runs away in cover.


This is comedy gold. There is currently ONE build of ranger that is barely considered competitive thanks to a bug on a talent, everything else but both are more or less at the bottom of the power hierarchy.



Almost everything you are complaining about, aside for being greatly exaggerated by your hyperbolic retelling, is literally how D&D always worked, and if anything the 5th edition is more forgiving than in the past with low level characters.


I LOVE the progression in this game (bar the fact that there are several options still missing, of course): leveling up is sparse as it should be, every level is sort of a big a deal, and some key levels/talents alone can literally make a character making a build finally click. It's incredibly gratifying.


Once again I absolutely LOVE how loot is relatively sparse and finding any single magic item is a big fucking deal in D&D, with chance to carry it with yourself for hours before a proper upgrade. One of my most despised things in DOS 2 was precisely its idiotic randomized itemization. You were dropping magic items at every corner, to the point it was borderline annoying to keep up with checking them constantly in the inventory and they lost any meaning in minutes, since one single level up was enough to make them trash and something better was constantly around the corner.

This is another paragraph of "I don't like anything D&D", in short.



There are bugs aplenty, sure. But if anything considering how far we are from the end I'd say it's been surprisingly solid so far. In spots it looks already leagues better than what Larian showed us in February and I can only see it improving even more over time.
How am I a weeb? I don't even like JRPGs lol. My favorite non-shooter games are Mass Effect 1, KOTOR, and Fallout 3-4. I was just being honest that I don't prefer turn based games. I was also just describing MY experience with RPGS, and MY experience with this particular one. You could probably call me DnD noob if yo uwant. I have played DnD PnP once and thought it was terribly boring and way too nerdy for me. I played BG1 and 2 eons ago and barely remember anything about them (I have a terrible memory as is). I can fully understand how someone who played the PnP game a lot would have a different viewpoint than me though.

As of right now this is how I feel about the game in 2020. And yes, my rogue routinely takes out an enemy in one turn because they can attack 3 times (or 4 if you count the second attack with a off hand weapon). Maybe I am missing something but my fighter cannot keep up with that, and my mage just misses...lol.

Lastly, I don't want to play as a battle master, I want to play as an Eldritch Knight. Mixing fighting and Magic is what I try to do in every game. For my Eldritch Knight I have high strength, good con, and the +18 headband that the trolls drop. Should be set up correctly but the spells still miss 50% of the time (Dumb).
 
Last edited:

Croatoan

They/Them A-10 Warthog

Jesus Christ you literally posted a video of the warlock cheesing the minotaurs as an example of good combat. LOLOLOLOLOL

I expected them to beat them straight up 1v1 with normal attacks...Thanks for proving my point.
 
Last edited:

Sentenza

Member
Jesus Christ you literally posted a video of the warlock cheesing the minotaurs as an example of good combat. LOLOLOLOLOL
I didn't post them as "an example" of shit. Stop making up crap.
I didn't even watch the Warlock one, to begin with.

I just posted it because someone would probably find this stuff interesting.

And "cheesing combats and finding exploits" in ALL the games he plays is basically all this guy does, anyway.
 
The UI is one of my least favorite aspects of what I played.
It has that "Amplitude" style of looking more like a toolset than a contextual interface that I really dislike., plus it's nowhere near as "snappy" as its simplicity could suggest.
It also had the only control scheme for the party that could give a run for its money at the chain/unchain system used by Larian in terms of being... less than ideally comfortable/intuitive to use, to put it politely.

The day Larian ditches this shit in favor of more traditional "RTS controls" for the party is the day I will know BG3 is on its path to become a classic.

Can we have a fixed camera as well?
 

martino

Member
Have you played the demo? Currently it's UI and implementation of the 5e rules is much better than Larian. They need to study it to learn how to improve.



BG3 has much better graphics and animations and probably story in the end but Solastra has a much better UI and implementation of the rules.
no i plan to wait for for full release
 

Sakura

Member
I played BG1 and 2 what feels like a million years ago, and modern RPG systems are just better. I expected a modern RPG with DnD trappings. Not literally the PnP game in video game form. The PnP formula doesn't work in a video game in 2020 IMO. It did back when BG1 and BG2 released though.

Also, its just my opinion bro and I even said to begin with I like RT and RT with P better. Pillars of eternity and even dragon age are better than this IMO.

Also, if they remove the cheesing there is absolutely no way to get passed the
menotaurs in the underdark
. They two shot my entire group in one or two turns and my characters miss them 90% of the time (or get horrible rolls) even with the bless, and light buffs. I tried using spells to knock them off but they don't work. I simply cannot burn them down fast enough when they get 3 attacks per turn that take up 75% of my characters health bars.
I agree with some of the stuff you said, but disagree with others (I like Shadowheart for example).
I too was having trouble with the minotaurs. My big issue was the enemy would see me, my guys would get surprised, and the enemy would go first and fuck me up.
What I ended up doing was just have all my characters sneak, have one guy move in and attack the first minotaur, so now the minotaur is surprised. All my other guys are still sneaking and not engaged in battle, so I just do a free attack with each of them, and he was already down to like 10HP before he even got to go.
Finish the battle, rest up, do the same thing for the second minotaur. I'm not sure if you would consider that cheesing, but it is not like I was pushing him off the ledge or anything. I'm not a very good player, so I'm sure DnD guys who know what they are doing could probably have an easier time.
 

DJT123

Member
I agree with some of the stuff you said, but disagree with others (I like Shadowheart for example).
I too was having trouble with the minotaurs. My big issue was the enemy would see me, my guys would get surprised, and the enemy would go first and fuck me up.
What I ended up doing was just have all my characters sneak, have one guy move in and attack the first minotaur, so now the minotaur is surprised. All my other guys are still sneaking and not engaged in battle, so I just do a free attack with each of them, and he was already down to like 10HP before he even got to go.
Finish the battle, rest up, do the same thing for the second minotaur. I'm not sure if you would consider that cheesing, but it is not like I was pushing him off the ledge or anything. I'm not a very good player, so I'm sure DnD guys who know what they are doing could probably have an easier time.
Excellent tips for my playthrough. I could see myself being frustrated by some encounters otherwise like I was in DOS 2.
 

VFXVeteran

Banned

Made a thread on the graphics of this game. Enjoy!
 

GHG

Gold Member
Jesus Christ you literally posted a video of the warlock cheesing the minotaurs as an example of good combat. LOLOLOLOLOL

I expected them to beat them straight up 1v1 with normal attacks...Thanks for proving my point.

You must be new to sin tee's videos.

They are all about finding ridiculous ways to do things in rpg's that you shouldn't be able to do.

It's a testament to the game that these things can still be pulled off without it seeming ridiculous because of the systems at play.
 

Sentenza

Member
Since I already wasted my time posting it on the Codex, here's a quick summary of my impression so far with the game:
_____________________________


I don't think it's better than BG2 YET, but I think it *could* be if they address a couple of glaring flaws.
There are things the game already does better than the old Baldur's Gate games, but when it stinks, the smell can be almost insufferable.

The Good:

- a lot of core mechanics are great
- The combat at its core is excellent and a very faithful adaptation of the 5th editions (bar some questionable liberties with action economy that will arguably need some fine tuning).
- visuals and production value are literally at the peak of this genre currently, with very little coming even remotely close.
- The art so far is very solid, at times even absolutely gorgeeous.
- If this EA is anything to go by, this is going to be an enormous game.

The Bad:

- The chain/unchain/auto-follow party control scheme needs to be thrown in a hellpit and forgot by the ages, just to be replaced with a more traditional RTS-like control scheme ((you know, what this genre has used successfully for the last 20 years). I hate this aspect so much that I'm bitching about it on the official forum at the point I'm starting to feel borderline autistic.
- A four-men party is disappointing and too limiting. And no "4 players is the recommended party for P&P sessions" is an apples-and-oranges comparison and not a compelling argument.
- No day/night cycle and proper passage of time is a bit disappointing, but this was confirmed months ago as no negotiable and I'm not going to waste my time crying over it.
- The idea that ANY potential companion has to be a "playable" origin story is idiotically wasteful and too limiting on their potential variety. I hope they are already realizing this on their own and reconsidering it.
- if Larian is going to confirm their current declared intent to "get rid of all companions not in your party at the end of act 1, forcing the player to COMMIT" as they did with DOS 2, that's going to suck immensely.

The Ugly (so far):
- Too many fucking containers anywhere. Most empty, but that may be just "because EA", and that's just part of the problem. Frankly filling them wouldn't solve the problem, just make it worse. They need to be massively reduced in numbers.
- Class and race selection so far feels fairly limited. I'd take as a given that a lot more is coming. How much "a lot more" is supposed to be has to be clarified, on the other hand.
Inventory management is already a nightmare by the end of Act 1 and we still have most of the game ahead. Larian NEEDS to trim down a lot of fat here and make it way more slim and practical to use. We don't need 80 fucking types of food (if you want food in the game make it an abstract resource like Lords of Xulima), 200 keys (the automatic magic keyring was already introduced with Ultima VII, for Christ's sake) and other 200 books and letters in our bags (make up a separate menu for them).
- They are taking a fair amount of liberties with rules and action economy. I'm not invested enough with playing P&P D&D to care particularly about this, but I guess they'll need to pay more attention to what they are messing with because a lot of people are pissed about it.


Anyway, overall I'm very impressed with what's there.
I can see this becoming a modern classic with the right adjustments from Larian... Or going completely to shit, if they will be stubborn once again and insist that they know better than the almost totality of their user base telling them they are doing something poorly (magic armor and randomized loot, anyone?).
 

lefty1117

Gold Member
It needs a better way to manage the toolbars. I'd like to see a nested menu system for spells and actions where you click an icon and it opens up what is available to you - for spells organize them by levels. Because right now the toolbars are a vomit mess. My main UI complaint currently. Loving the game overall
 

lefty1117

Gold Member
Also on my warlock I can't seem to find information about the eldritch invocations I chose anywhere on the character sheet or spell/skills book. Am I missing it?
 

lefty1117

Gold Member
I think the invocations are modifications to skills like "Eldritch Blast"

Yes in some cases, in other cases you can choose abilities like Devil's Sight. At any rate they don't seem to be listed anywhere after they're selected unless I'm missing it?
 

Irobot82

Member
Yes in some cases, in other cases you can choose abilities like Devil's Sight. At any rate they don't seem to be listed anywhere after they're selected unless I'm missing it?
Devil's Sight just grants you Darkvision so that's a permanent thing. Double click your character with it, in a dark cave, then click on one of the humans like Gale and you'll see a lighting difference.
 

Lanrutcon

Member
Warlock invocations are all over the place: they adjust some spells, some class abilities, add permanent stuff, add activated stuff, etc. It's really the kind of thing that's super important to planning your character.
 
Top Bottom