Baldur's Gate III

True, I find the whole inventorising UI fairly hard to manage. Wish there were a faster way for me to quick-find certain items in the PS5 version, like marking them as faves or something.

Plus I swear some objects I know I have don't show up among the myriad odds and ends I seem to have collected. The filters are either bugged or just not very reliable. I want to filter all my junk items so I can add them to Wares, but there's no satisfactory way to do this. And just trying to find my healing potions in a hurry can be a tricky one. Witcher 3 had a similar system, but it felt a lot easier to manage than this.

FGTI, I think exactly the same thing happened to me last night - I was fighting enemies on one floor of a dungeon and one of my characters got pushed down to the crypty basement. Admittedly I was level 4 by then, but it's still a really tough battle so you must have struggled!

Think I'm doing this all in the wrong intended order though as I already did a bunch of other stuff (that was also pretty challenging). I didn't meet Karlach till quite late on and it took me AGES to work out how to get to the Goblin camp and the North East part of the map - must have just missed the turning.

Regarding romances:
I haven't really used Lae'zel much so far. But she very suddenly decided last night that she was in lust with me and didn't mince her words in propositioning me. After a bit of consideration I conceded (it's just a game, right?) but quickly found the whole experience low-key triggering in its reminiscence of past relationships that I called it off. It is JUST a game

FGTI, I think I still managed to do a long rest though, even though my party was split up. Was your cleric conscious? And was your party "grouped" (L2 menu on PS5)?

I'm in act 3 and I think that first dungeon fight that you're talking about was prob the hardest in the game for me: cramped space with a bunch of enemies with different powers, I still hadn't figured out how to control the group or use everyone in conjunction, everyone in my party was a super low level

I am playing The Dark Urge and it is WILD.

I started this game! I find it so overwhelming, my god. I haven’t played party-based RPGs since Ultima, in my teens. Keeping everyone outfitted and dressed is such a job!!

I thought I was cruising through, and assembled a party of four, got them to level 2, but then my cleric fell through a pit into “the crypt” at a time when I was down to one healing potion and all my characters needed a rest… and now couldn’t, because the party was separated

And the first dungeon battle was so, so challenging for me. I had to text a friend for help. I only won by setting the difficulty on easy, enticing the ragey dude into the candle room and finishing him off with the door closed

Sometime later I realized that I have an inventory full of items I can use. This game is a lot of information

― my best wishes to all (flamboyant goon tie included), Thursday, September 14, 2023 11:08 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

The combat truly is D&D so my best tip is: CHEESE, CHEESE, CHEESE. E.g., in the crypt, use the environment, run out to rest, etc.

https://acoup.blog/2023/09/15/collections-the-gap-in-the-armor-of-baldurs-gate-and-5e/

If you realllly want to nerd out about armor (also a good history blog in general.)

Fascinating article!

When I saw the link I thought "the gap" they were referring to was the clothing chain, as in "fall into the"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obAPAq4BnjE

The prison level in Act 2 is irritating as hell. Honestly Act 2 in general kinda sucks so far. Like they just stacked annoying things on top of each other.

update on my precious baby owlbear it finally found my camp after several long rests, then I tried to feed it and astarion scared it off ugh now I am definitely not going to have sex with that guy

also regarding romances in general
after suffering through a really awkward make out sesh with shadowheart and an excruciating "love scene" with laezel I think videogame romance is not for me, is this stuff pretty common in gaming these days?

this is the first new game I've played in 20 odd years, back in my day yadda yadda anyways I get that there are lots of horndogs in the world but yikes, yikes everybody, was hoping at least for like a special "power of love" cantrip where we can heal/revive each other or something

also yeah that first real dungeon fight kicked my ass so hard, and indeed most battles even at lvl 5 now I seem to be clearing just by the skin of my worgs teeth, what has helped enormously is summoning the invisible flying imp to scope out the scene in advance, invisible imp MVP

Well I have definitely brown a few quests and killed potential party members I know that. It's all a part of it I guess

*broken

One of the reasons that multiple runthroughs is the norm

Yup. I need to get used to the idea that you don't (and can't) do everything in the first run. I'm so Souls-pilled though that I insist on thoroughly exploring all areas before leaving them. No stone unturned

Found Karlach and she is already great, except for the part where she goes HAM after the fight with the fake paladins; I barely made it out alive after my third try against them, and of course she proceeds to wreck the place and set everything on fire, which kills Astarion outright and nearly my character and Shadowheart. Eventually she calms down by accidentally killing herself.

Who decided the Gauntlet of Shar dungeon in Act 2 was a good idea? Like cool, let’s have a labyrinthine, 4 layer dungeon with a map that will show you exactly one layer.

I honestly can’t tell if my game is broken or what. I’m watching walkthroughs and none of them are matching up with what I’m seeing. Good job, Larian. Glad I put like 50 hours into this.

Also it’s cool how your PS5 directional pad randomly stops working in conversations. I’ve accidentally started fights like a dozen fights because of it.

Why is nobody mentioning how borked this game is on PS5 in reviews?

Yeah all that stuff happens to me too. The dialogue thing is super annoying - I think it happens when you enter dialogue in turn-based mode, so try fiddling with that and seeing if it works.

I'm still having the thing where poison mist isn't visible.

And I'm worried that some sussur bark I spent ages looking for might have magically disappeared from my inventory. I sincerely hope not

I'm assuming this will all get patched but in the meantime it's very frustrating

I’m at a point where the game is just straight broken. The only save I have is rolling a 30. But I can only roll 29 with everything maxed out. I’ve never been so furious at a video game in my life.

have not encountered any bugs yet on PC, one time I "perceived" a giant clump of dirt but it wouldn't let me dig the chest up, but whatever those all seem to be little fun treats that don't matter like an extra mushroom in mario bros

mostly just agree with the polygon video Leee posted above, the options and branches and completely unnecessary detours in only the first map is tremendous

Yeah no bugs to report playing on PC. Careful with your inventory re: dog Latin. It might be a bug for you, but I’m kicking myself at accidentally selling a quest item amulet (I knew it was a quest item, just bulk sold some necklaces for cash). Have a stupid quest marker that is going to be there forever unless I can track the exact merchant I sold too but that’s long gone

Yeah no bugs to report playing on PC. Careful with your inventory re: dog Latin. It might be a bug for you, but I’m kicking myself at accidentally selling a quest item amulet (I knew it was a quest item, just bulk sold some necklaces for cash). Have a stupid quest marker that is going to be there forever unless I can track the exact merchant I sold too but that’s long gone

Woke up in the middle of the night stressing about party composition. Can't imagine not having a tank, a healer, a rogue and a wizard, but I don't want to be any of those, I want to be a secret fifth guy doing random fun bullshit.

Turns out it wasn't a bug. Sussur Tree bark wilts in daylight

So I'm at the stage where the game is asking me to get on with the next part of the quest, but there are still things like visiting the Githyanki creche I need to do. I'm not sure whether to do all that stuff first or if I'm really meant to just plough on and leave certain quests for another playthrough

You can definitely leave some quests behind. I never did the Githyanki creche stuff or the mountain pass. Shit, I never even recruited Gale (I tried, but I failed the strength check to pull him out of the portal). I could have save scummed until I succeeded, but I decided just to roll with it (no pun intended). This is absolutely a game that expects you to be comfortable with not seeing everything and not succeeding at everything. I think that is really cool and I think more game devs could stand to learn from the example.

agreed, super cool game design it's almost not even tempting to roll back to a previous save, I only do it when I stumble into a battle I was in no way prepared for and get absolutely murdered or like when I found Jaheira(!) and then minutes later huge surprise fight and she along with all the harpers are dead, could have just moved along but that sucks, do over please

I really need to get the obsessive "have to see everything, no stone unturned" thing out my head. I did it with Elden Ring on first playthrough which meant there wasn't much else left to explore on subsequent runs

I also need to get out the habit of save scumming quite so much. I don't do it that often, mind you, but sometimes I just want the thing to happen, you know.

Nobody is interested in me romantically right now.

There is something about dice-rolling that "really kinda works" in the context of irl D&D but is frustrating in the context of a video game RPG; it runs counterintuitive to the pleasure centres that are triggered by completism. I save-scummed (once) last night when Gale didn't read a scary book right the first time and the internet said that was that, the book was shut. Fuck that! I re-loaded and re-rolled and read the book and now Gale is a lich or something

There is something about dice-rolling that "really kinda works" in the context of irl D&D but is frustrating in the context of a video game RPG

This is a really interesting point and I'm not exactly sure why, I guess we want to see the real dice? but also there are rolls behind the dm screen irl, do we trust humans over computers? kind of the same question I've had playing poker online

can we trust computers to play a game of chance or is that a strictly human thing

xp haha FGTI I got to that bit last night, and I used Gale! I can't read the rest of it? It's still an open quest and hints I might be able to. Maybe another character could give it a go?

You've got that "Karmic Dice" feature that I don't completely understand

Karmic Dice is just a setting to prevent a run of consecutive low rolls, like a DM who fudges the outcome if you keep rolling poorly.

Turns out it wasn't a bug. Sussur Tree bark wilts in daylight

It's stuff like this and the gnome catapult that keep me reading this thread vicariously.

@ dl apparently if you don’t pass three consecutive dice rolls then nope the benefit is closed to you

Gale’s annoying, tho. He asks to eat and I can’t see the details of what artifact he wants, so I wave him away to contemplate what to feed him, but if you wave him thrice then he leaves, so…

I’ve spent too much of feeding him learny scrolls to dismiss him tho, I have archmage plans for him

Last night I played a couple hours and was visited by a dream visitor who I since subsequently read up on, and yes this game is insane

I think karmic dice tries to offset runs of high and low rolls, which can mean that you pass a bunch of easy checks with 17s and 18s that were way higher than the roll you actually needed, and then arbitrarily fail another easy check because the game thinks you must be due a 2

Most people seem to turn it off

These characters all seem to have:

- An addiction which makes them rather needy and dependent on some hard-to-find substance or artefact which they invariably shove into their chests
- A back story involving a cruel oppressor whom they're running away from

I'm halfway through chapter 3 and have reached the hard-capped level, all the fight encounters have been pretty easy now that everyone in the party has a million powers but the game is still fun and interesting

To satisfy your meatworld thirst: https://www.polygon.com/23879237/baldurs-gate-voice-cast-high-roller-dnd-stream

Curious to know what Shadowheart's actress's accent is -- Northernish?

Shadowheart? I'd say RP really

Ah, I thought I recognised the actor Jennifer English's name - she also is the voice of Latenna in Elden Ring. I have no idea why I looked this up previously. Maybe because it's quite distinct

Mm had a save game data crash or something… reinstalling? I hope I win it back. Dunno if I’ll start again otherwise

The servers were down last night and it wouldn't let anyone connect. I got around it by switching off 'connect to internet' on my PS5

Yeah it started working again for me. I met Karlach and decided that I’d had enough of this ineffective party and I’m gonna respec Shadowheart with that Wilson dude to make her actually useful