Baldur's Gate III

The free camera movement that lets me scout ahead, spy on enemies etc is very helpful but ... feels kinda like cheating.

I love the design of the myconid grove and the shadow-cursed lands. That they managed to get the shadow-cursed lands to feel gloomy and unsettling but still look pretty, in their own way, seems like a feat - not dissimilar to but probably better done than the underworld in Tears of the Kingdom, which I also loved until it started getting really samey.

So far we've done one delightfully creepy fight and another outright disturbing one (among more routine ones) and it's all very much up my street*, in moderation. Genuinely worried some of this stuff will give me nightmares (that whole bit with Malus Thorn!) because I am a lightweight.

* Aside from Gale getting hot and bothered and flirty with me after a battle with a zombie kid's wraith family, I mean really mate now is not the time or the place

I'm guessing that if I want to get the most out of the main story in BG3, I should start off with single-player? When I played multiplayer DOS2, my group really didn't pay much attention to dialogue.

Probably depends hugely on your gaming partners..? I don't think I'd enjoy it as much solo, but my partner and I are usually on the same page with how we want to play the game and it's helpful to have a co-strategist.

haven't gotten past the character creation screen yet, just finally installed it but this screen made me laugh out loud

https://imgur.io/EXGm01V?r

which led to a google image search for "nude minsc" and of course deviantart never disappoints

whoops

https://imgur.io/EXGm01V?r

So this is great, got it on PS5 yesterday. A more streamlined version of Divinity: OS 2. Though I think I liked the combat system more in DOS2? Too early to say. I’m glad everything isn’t constantly on fire this time around at least.

Not a fan of only being able to re-slot spells when you level up, but I guess that’s a D&D thing. Showing a d20 roll for skill checks is wonderfully satisfying 👍. Conversation trees are about as fun as combat and I can’t say that about pretty much any RPG I’ve played outside of Disco Elysium.

You can change which spells you have memorised using the spellbook menu any time out of combat; to swap the spells you have memorised you sort of have to wait for it to give you the option at certain level-ups but you can also just pay a nominal fee to [NPC met early game] to respect your character whenever you want

This game owns imo

Second sentence should say to change the spells you *know*

Anyone want to play today or tomorrow?

I’d totally pop in for some multiplayer, but the way they do this is a little weird.

Anyone can drop in and play any of your main quest character and drop out. Fun, but said drop-er doesn’t gain anything from the experience outside of having fun.

You CAN bring a custom character into a friend’s game, but apparently once you do they are locked into that friend’s party even after they leave. You can’t even leave them at camp. I understand managing that stuff is really tricky, but that particular decision seems a little insane.

I think they fixed that in Patch 2, you talk to Withers to drop your friend's character from your party.

I'd be down for some multiplayer but full version doesn't drop on Mac until the 6th, and it'll probably take me a bit to catch up.

Don’t underestimate the pull of this game….

Yeah multiplayer is weird. Playing a fun warlock/paladin run atm, just hit level 5 and some good friends were playing together last night so I jumped in with a new character but just felt no motivation due to making a completely new character, and also playing a part of the game I hadn’t before thus spoiling it for myself. Dropped out after one battle. I don’t have a solution, besides acknowledging this is not the best drop in/drop-out game, definitely begs consistency.

Astarion is a BEAST rogue/ranger. Not the most interesting character in battles, but definitely the most effective. Making this tactician play through a breeze.

Which character would you recommend replacing? Astoria is a little irritating, but I feel like I need a rogue. I’m a Warlock, have Shadowheart as a Cleric, Lar’Zel as fighter, and Gale as Wizard.

I think they fixed that in Patch 2, you talk to Withers to drop your friend's character from your party.

I’ve already made my decision and it’s Lae’zel. She’s a dick.

Trying to figure out what I want to play when the full version drops for Mac. I think I'm going with Way of the Four Elements monk - pull enemies toward you, push them away, fire/ice strikes, decent melee damage. Way of the Open Hand is higher damage but seems less fun.

Only played a couple of hours. But already encountered about 5 or 6 frustrating glitches that have caused me to have to reload the game, especially.in multiplayer. Hope they fix these

I was having difficulty last night trying to assign characters to ourselves as players in the "Session Manager" screen.
I found I was able to move characters into the right-hand column (i.e. assign a character to Player 2) but couldn't switch them back to the right.
So I'm not sure if that was just me struggling with the UI or if this was a genuine glitch. If anoyne here has the same issue, let me know.

I'm still getting used to this really.

Also, we were in the middle of combat and we found during one battle that the turn-based system ostensibly went out the window and I was able to take turns (cast spells, move around, fight people) at the same time as my partner. Is that a thing? I know if two characters roll the same initiative they can do combos etc.

Yeah if you and your friends are in line to go and there’s no enemy in between you, you can go at the same time. Improves the flow.

Circa, I’m having a lot of fun playing a melee warlock/paladin (see the YouTube below) with with astarion, shadow heart, and Karlach (much better than lae’zel. Just depends if you prefer bashing things (which I do) or casting things. But the party is making tactician a relative breeze. High recommend!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oN4EQuf_ljw

was totally ready to be a curmudgeon and not be into this but no, it's great, just so much going on, chock full of little caves and secret passages and other weird detours around every corner

even the dyes, must have spent an hour experimenting with dyes once I found some

have a question, it seems like the game wants me to do something with all of these movable crates/rocks/wheelbarrows and I'm not sure what

I don’t think it does necessarily? Not yet anyway. I haven’t had any use for that in this game yet, but in the developer’s previous games you could stack crates and such to make stairs to get up to stuff.

You can stack crates for high ground or to reach places, but in general this game just has stuff like rope that looks useful but isn't really.

If the crate/rock/wheelbarrow glows blue and the character completes a check of some sort, then you want to move that sucker out the way to find some hidden treasure. But yeah 99% of rocks should stay where they are... unless you want to pick them up and throw them at goblins

i think i hate the writing and characters in this game! why can't RPGs move past this joss whedon shit. and everyone is always talking

Played this till 4am last night/today, nbd.

Mac release date pushed back?

"later this month" yeah

Gives me time to save up $ so good

Is it better to swap your party members on the regular or generally stick with the same ones? I quite like Gael's character and the voice acting is great, but I already play as a wizard so it's a bit pointless really.

also wonder about that, but I presume at least most of their individual story beats can be found if they are in "camp"

which is a whole other thing I had no idea about prior to starting, I do like it but now I am obsessed with trying to collect all of the people to hang out in my dope camping spot, love the Suikoden/Animal Crossing vibes though there are only a handful of empty bedrolls left (this colors how I interact with anyone because I want them all to be my animal crossing neighbors)

still in the first chapter/area though, was super exciting to recruit a friendly dog

The dog is great, so is the owlcub, my rarest steam achievement atm is patting both dog and owlcub at the same time; kicking goals! .
I'm sticking with the same party besides swapping Lae-zel and Karlach every now and then for them to interact with their specific story points. I just can't be bothered reconfiging my battle strat for an offensive spell caster, and I am already playing warlock sorry Wyll. Wish I had a bard in my party though! seems like a fun class to play

Haha, can't believe I havne't even met Karlach yet.

I picked up a bedroll and it's in my inventory. Is it useful?

Karlach is the best. maybe not the best story of the companions, but definitely the best vibes

Something odd has been happening in that I'm experiencing almost identical stick drift issues with both my PS5 controllers since playing this game.

It seems strange that both controllers would develop a problem where my character sometimes decides he's just gonna go a walking to the left of his own accord.

I've told PS about the issue, and I'm sure it's just a freak hardware issue, but I wonder if anyone else has had this happen and it might be another weird bug in the game.

Karlach rules. I’ve got her running as a Berserker and she can absolutely stomp through some enemies when the situation’s right.

Yeah berserker is so much fun. With great weapon master you can get 4 beefy hits in per turn, very fun.

Just took down a raiding party of level 9 Githyanki as a recent level 8'er (was close to giving up halfway through but we made it work!) and finally found the road to baldur's gate! Loving this game.

i think i hate the writing and characters in this game!

the writing seems...fine to me so far, in line with the previous two which were also just ok, basic sword & sorcery skeletons to hang a story on

I do think it is weird that every party member I've met so far (besides the dog) is super hot and wants to bang, am a lil bit afraid to encourage any of that, crossing my fingers for some weirdo ancient gnome friends or just asexual monster people to pal around with

maybe this is my fault for playing a warlock, max charisma and all how can they resist

This game is hornier than all the jrpg’s I’ve ever played, a true feat

This game is hornier than all the jrpg’s I’ve ever played, a true feat

has anyone else read the novelizations? because I have, twice and the second time just recently in anticipation of BG3, don't want to spoil them but I should because you really don't need to read them they are bad ask me anything

It really really wants you to get it on with all the characters. Gale and Astarion are especially keen. And it's not just my party who are lusting - I walked into a very compromising scene in a goblin village last night.

I'm playing a good, moral, pragmatic character this round so obviously I'm Team Shadowheart but she seems very unfussed. I'm looking forward to a second playthrough where I'm basically going to be a total bastard, sell out my friends to anyone who wants them, be mean to all the tielfings etc...

The horniness was a bug, apparently: https://www.polygon.com/23858507/baldurs-gate-3-horny-bug-gale

I was thinking about doing a run where I RPed as a charismatic bastard, but the writing is so effective that when I had a chance to demean an NPC, I just sort of defaulted to my usual moralistic prig.

I never go evil intentionally, but I accidentally fireballed some innocent gnomes I was supposed to save, and their friends refused to talk to me saying "you've done enough" which was pretty funny.

Is there a way to like, spare enemies or kind of just say "whoa now let's all just calm down here"?

I know you can toggle non-lethal attacks, but it might be useful to say, spare one member of the gang for questioning. Sometimes I don't feel it's fair to literally kill people for defending themselves

There are many ways to skill check out of a fight, but once a fight starts, it's either kill or non-lethal, and even non-lethal will leave them unconscious so there's no further questioning to be done.

I love when I talk my way out of a fight and then like 20 dudes I didn't realize were even nearby just pick up their shit and leave the area because there's no fight to be had.

I accidentally fireballed some innocent gnomes I was supposed to save, and their friends refused to talk to me saying "you've done enough" which was pretty funny.

― what you say is true but by no means (lukas)

When attempting to free the gnome strapped to the windmill, I saw a lever, flipped it, and watched in confusion and mounting horror as the windmill sped up and flung the poor gnome over some distant trees. Then I saw there was a second lever, presumably the 'stop' one. I still feel bad about it.

Also, don't kick the squirrel unless you are doing an evil playthrough or you viciously hate squirrels

XP haha I flung the gnome last night in exactly the same way. Sorry dude!

https://www.ign.com/articles/larian-studios-wont-make-baldurs-gate-3-dlc-expansions-or-baldurs-gate-4

Wonder what the dust up was that caused this?

I'd imagine it's at least partly related to the layoffs at Hasbro:

https://www.pcgamer.com/theres-almost-nobody-left-ceo-of-baldurs-gate-3-dev-swen-vincke-says-the-dandd-team-he-initially-worked-with-is-gone-due-to-hasbro-layoffs/

This fucking sucks

Yeah, this type of shit spells the end days. It’s happening everywhere. Enjoy the carcass of a company you have left after you “more lean, more modern” every quarter.

Optimistically I can say I'm excited for what Larian does next. But sad 2 say goodbye to all my new friends.

idk, from the ign article it's not clear if larian actually wanted to continue working on baldur's gate at all.
i reckon the layoff issue is unrelated to that decision but even then it's still a satisfying "fuck you" from them to hasbro

from where i'm sitting, this reads like good news, that they'll choose do whatever they want instead of being slaves in the d&d mines for the next decade or longer

chihuahua's take sounds like what I've been following (i.e. that it was never really in the cards to continue on with BG4 or more DND), and while understandable, I'm also sad.

The stuff about "No DLC" isn't news, Swen has said that before, but Larian has been continuing to release patches, some of which includes new content. Usually it's bug fixes, but sometimes it's new content, whether that's new voice lines around the camp or the whole epilogue. (I wouldn't expect new quests, though.)

Apparently they're still cooking up new things including epilogue cinematics.

Everything aside, I'm not really sure I need a DLC or a sequel, not for a long long time at least. My first playthrough was 350 hours. It'll be a while till I do another play through

https://www.ign.com/articles/larian-started-work-on-baldurs-gate-3-dlc-then-canceled-it-the-studio-was-elated?utm_source=twitter

LOL pay no attention to what I said.

Yeah, Larian itself will be just fine. Them potentially launching a fresh ip is more exciting than more D&D stuff. And I’d imagine after the Divinity games and BG3 they’d be itching to step outside of the trad-fantasy realm. Which would be dope.

Can’t find the post, but I’ve seen the point made that where Larian signed the original contracts, D&D was much less prominent back in 2017 or so before all the popular attention due to podcasters and Critical Role types and pandemic play making it a hit. 5e had only been out for a couple-few years by then.

Trying to renegotiate a game license now (and expansions and merch tie-ins, no doubt), with the far more massive cultural footprint and Hasbro enshittifying every it touches seems like such a headache that no wonder they said fuck it and went back to doing their own thing .

I hope they make a sci-fi property eventually