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It was honestly already a problem in primarily text-based games like even BG1/2, but it gets even worse when you throw in fully voiced dialogue*: there are going to be significantly less options to choose from due to the expense of having to voice what NPCs say back. So you get a lot of bland and/or mildly window dressed dialogue options that will work to get the same responses. There's definitely a lot of dissonance for me as well, as I'm playing a baby-faced Dark Urge Cthulhu-warlock, who I kind of imagine as being Elizabeth Bathory, and trying to navigate between "I'm fantasizing about tearing off and eating that person's face right now", "hello, I'm Mr. Krabs, and I like money", and "oh, the poor widdle bardy bard needs some help writing her sad little song about her dead master :'(" can be a lot of whiplash. I want to try to roleplay as my character, but I don't necessarily want to play Stupid Evil and murder everyone she meets. I feel like you almost have to imagine your own responses that at least sound more suitable for whatever you're trying to play, rather than what's literally written...but that basically takes you down the path of a kind of meta-gaming, as now you're thinking about dialogue options as "what do I want to happen" instead of "what should I say", and that's not great. Of course, I know how it would take an utterly ridiculous amount of just writing (never mind voice-acting!) to really cover all one's bases, which is probably a point in favor of always playing a very generic main character that you view simply as a narrative tool rather than a real character. I mentioned a while back about it being very difficult to take roleplaying seriously in these kinds of games, and this has always definitely been one of the big problems with it. *Mind you, I'm still of the opinion that semi-voiced is much better than fully voiced. I like characters having voiced lines to give them their unique flavor while also indicating their particular style and tone, as well as using voiced lines for dramatic punctuation and whatnot, but I prefer being able to go through dialogue at my own speed, which having everything be fully voiced is a huge impediment to. And I'm not going to sit through and listen to all of this idiot bard's entire dialogue tree, but constantly skipping all of their lines feels pretty disruptive and dissatisfying as well: semi-voiced a la the Infinity Engine games made for a delicate bridge between those two competing issues rather effectively.

I will agree - and I find it problematic in BG3 due to how much the game defines for you. I had to work really hard to create a character I want to play with what the game gives me. Even so, it’s rather bland as quite often bard specific lines the game gives me don’t line up with how I want to roleplay. That isn’t issue that’s limited to bards - each class comes with pre-selected personality. I found sorcerers lines to be really insufferable in EA. I much prefers PoE1&2’s chanters to bards (as well as its implementation of race/class reactivity).

I got stuck on a web and she teleported away after noticing a character. Maybe I'll give that a shot next year when the Enhanced Edition drops. It's not an item, it's supposed to be a permanent buff. No Gale in the party and no scrolls. Didn't want to give up Astarion or Karlach whose combined single target damage clinched the deal, and Shadowheart's Guiding Bolts were useful to mark the real one.

ad&d bards were idiotic with the triple class nonsense. 2e bards were suck. we actual liked d20 bards, but only if we had a dm who made skill checks meaningful. 4e skalds made decent leaders, but almost nobody liked 4e, so... 5e bards? the most obvious criticism we got o' d&d 5e bards is that they is too good at too many different things. parental marital status aside, am observing just how stacked is 5e bards. as charisma characters with skill bonus abilities which makes 'em a good choice as a face character, bards is an excellent choice for a single-player crpg such as bg3. bards are also full casters who are able to cherry pick the best spells from other classes. with one level o' life cleric, bards is elite healers if you wanna go that route and regardless they may provide a party a few o' the best buffs available in 5e. no, bards ain't as good as fighters in weapon combat, but they is solid and may be built better than solid if you need to be an elite weapon-haver. the bard class has many pros and few cons. am not planning on playing bg3 anytime soon, but if/when we do decide to give bg3 a chance, our likely first character will be a valor bard. sure, a halfling valor bard dual-wielding hand crossbows is ridiculous, but ridiculous is a selling point from our pov. we will note how the luck quality o' halflings is serious underappreciated. sure, hobbits don't fit the power fantasy image many players is trying to create with their bg3 avatar, but from a numbers pov, halfling luck is win. make intelligence a dump stat and choose drums. name animal. if it makes you feel better, chances are we go dark urge which in a sense is bastard territory given the requisite dubious parentage. HA! Good Fun!

I completed King Arthur Wargame after 100 hours and it was an excellent RTS\ RPG experience I was pleasantly surprised I did complete it because I read several comments on Steam about it being too hard or the mechanics being unbalanced. Overall I played the game with the following approach I played on beginner I chose Rightful, Old Faith and I aligned with the Seelie I used my knights and there spells effectively and I included Lancelot, Green Knight and Merlin in my group I learnt how the economy mechanics work because that makes a huge difference to stability and revenue generation in your provinces which is critical for having a well resourced army But once you understand the combat mechanics its really makes sense and the game is incredibly fun. It gets a solid 70/100 on the globally respected " BruceVC game rating system " I enjoyed it so much I started playing KA2 yesterday, its different in some ways and I will do an update later once I have completed more of the narrative

The popularity of this game continues to baffle me. https://wccftech.com/baldurs-gate-3-topped-5-2-million-units-sold-on-steam-says-belgian-embassy/

It was for the greater good. All bards are bastards.

Just got to Act3 and kinda getting bored by this game.

Is that war paint or a really horrible skin condition?

Apparently she's into bondage.

Maybe it's because I'm rolling a Dark Urge, but I haven't noticed that. Unless you're talking about the class specific dialogue options and not comments the character makes. Haven't played it since last night, but I forgot to mention Astarion and Karlach both came onto my Bard. Karlach needed to cool down so I threw some water at her.

The PvP looks hectic. If they have a halfway decent spectator mode this could have a shot to make it as an eSport.

That sucks, doubt they will have the funding for another try.

Finished There Is No Game. Was okay, even if the humour does get rather worn in many cases. I did not like the act riffing on how terrible free to play games, was annoying as it stayed too long, I get F2P games suck, hence why I wasn't playing one. Also unskippable dialogues where the narrator summarizes what I did with surprise or other lines I can read rather than listen to are a negative.

My hatred for bards has expanded well beyond the simple confines of gameplay at this point: I despise the general concept of a bard and the type of character that plays them in of itself. When I clicked on the class during character creation and saw my character play the ridiculous animation in their foppish clothing, it instantly rekindled my forgotten loathing. It surely doesn't help that every time you run into one in these games, they're the absolute most annoying people that you naturally want to shove off the nearest cliff. Well, a little more than "want" in my case, considering I actually do it. There should be some kind of satisfying crunch sound for if someone dies from fall damage: what better music indeed than the succulent symphony of a bard's spine imploding into dust?

https://pillarsofeternity.fandom.com/wiki/Vendors?so=search#In_Pillars_of_Eternity_2 In the table linked above you can find vendors who sells scrolls

Hi, you can see in this page who sells scrolls and where they are located: https://pillarsofeternity.fandom.com/wiki/Vendors?so=search#In_Pillars_of_Eternity_2

Magic Missile.

I would say it is a fair representation of being an artist - they should balance it as it is balanced in real life - underpay bards for everything. “Well, I would pay you with this artefact if you were a worrier, but why won’t you do this quest for me for an exposure? No? Well, you clearly aren’t passionate enough about your job”. I do think bard is good to the point of being boring. I haven’t lost many checks and those that I did and cared about, could easily reroll using inspiration. I am out of inspiration - I burned all of it to convince

Don't forget to play the prologue.

So I've finally found a major bug, and it's connected to a hard (for me) fight

Thanks for feedback, Boeroer!

I had that feeling of not getting things done in the beginning. But after leaving the Druid grove, there is a lot more going on. I tried to pickpocket a guy, failed miserably and still went unnoticed when the woman that was speaking to him vanished in thin air. This game does a bad job hiding things. You are warned when a perception check fails, which is basically the same as succeeding when it comes to traps with obvious mechanisms on the map. I'm trying to be a good character, but the game won't cooperate. Unlike in other cases, I succeed at every check to avoid combat and have to come up with excuses to do it anyway. I think I'll start behaving as an intelligence 8 character and stop with the persuasion. Backstabbing globins is ok, but the Owlbear was not since it ended up causing In another case, I blocked the doors of a house with barrels and forced the enemies to fight me one at a time. Where is my "Barrel's Gate" Achievement?

I had to reload several times after stumbling across a phase spider queen who shoots venom. Ended up killing all the minions and luring her into a place she couldn't snipe from high up, and it only took all of my Bard's and Shadowhearts spell slots along with Wyll's warlock short rest slots. 10/10 encounter. Now to explore the cellar and then explore more of the west side of the map. Maybe I'll go beat Auntie Ethel's ass first though. I'm rolling a Hu-mon DU Bard and have done almost exactly the opposite of what you're doing, going for more of a(n anti-)heroic swashbuckler instead of an outright villain. All the companions seem to like me but Astarion and Lae'zel consistently get the most disapproval. Though Lae'zel was the first companion to come onto me, unless you count Astarion calling you "Darling". I'm enjoying it a lot so far, but I was also a fan of both DOS games. I played for 2 hours last night and I feel like I didn't do ****. Act 1 is very dense so far. About your irrational hatred for innocent bards...

I keep playing about an hour at a time and feeling like I made zero progress because there are far too many little things to do. I, too, am looking forward to less dense parts of the game. Though I am also playing the Dark Urge, I haven't done too many evil things. But true to my word, I did toss some awful bard that was torturing some squirrels(?) with her terrible music right off a cliff and she died upon impact, though she landed right in front of a bear who sniffed her and then went back to catching and eating fish. Yeah, I don't blame the bear for not wanting any part of that either. I rather appreciated that nobody else seemed to notice or care, which is just how it should be when it comes to murdering bards.

Well, my murderhobo (aptly called Murderhobo) drow bard is working his way through the first part of the game, lying, cheating, intimidating and being generally obnoxious. Stepped on a squirrel, killed a wounded bird, a lame woman and caused a venomous viper to bite a child. All with that stupid grin on the face the game does. I didn't bite Gale's hand off though. Companions are useful. Lae'zel loves me, but Shadowheart can't stand me. Some cleric of Shar she is. Pfeh. Not going to lie, kind of looking forward to the acts you guys keep complaining about. Being smaller in scope and having less to do and less to explore is certainly not going to hurt my enjoyment of the game. Far from it.

^ Thanks for clarifications/correction re: car service requirements. I guess I don't remember anything beyond the emissions smog check stuff, since it's rare any issue has cropped up. I inquired of hubby and he said don't cha remember when the smog guy told you the chk engine light (or something) was on and instructed me to start/turn off/drive in some fashion to make it go off to pass, I apparently yapped about it for some time - and I was all ... "Nope, not an inkling of recollection." So many things falling into the dead zone now. ...well, at least I can still tie my own shoes.

Eagle Rock Shorter hike than I anticipated. It felt like cheating. You shouldn't get a view this lovely for such a short hike. https://imgur.com/a/2xdzyoq

^ I still like to pull out Diablo1 once in a while. Although I also tend to play it for a few hours then go back to ignoring it. Running through the early levels with the squishy Sorcerer is always fun tho. I mean, it didn't take long (some hours) before the Sorc was an OP'd, teleporting, chain lighting, fireballing powerhouse, but those early more open MP levels. Having the Skeleton King out in the open to chase you all over the place. Good times. The fact I could play the MP levels offline/solo was appealing back then. D1's quest-campaign was fun, but I liked the MP design better. Although one couldn't leave all your gold on the ground/exit the game, like in SP. Heh.

I got the urge to play Daiblo 1. So I bought it on gog.com It's a nice nestolgia kick. The voiced lines are still seared into my mind from when i was like 12. However im playing it alone, so no one is trying to kill you, or trick you into giving them items to dupe and then just leaving. so it's missing that memory. I probably won't get too far. But it was cheap and has given me a couple hours of enjoyment.

If anyone backed Stray Gods, the keys are out (my email with the key was marked as spam at first, so should be careful). Edit. The launch trailer:

The game just randomly decided to reset back to default. I started the game as usual, got greeted by the EULA, went through gamma correction and had to rebind my keys. I hope it doesn't do that again, otherwise I might have to go Dark Urge on it. Lae'zel already told me she'll get what is hers at a time of her choosing. I can already see Bruno fawning over her.

I think, it is the only instance where the PC auto-talks with a cinematic camera. The Dark Urge Origin: Act 2, end: Act 2 (some spoilers for locations and side quests):

Tried to start another playthrough as a wood elf (higher speed) sorcerer (Enhanced Leap and Misty Step) named Dark Urgency with 17 Str (couldn't get to 18) and 8 Int (don't need it anyway). The playthrough went reasonably well until I got into a battle against a certain lvl 11 boss and his skeleton friends. The NPC ally did what she could but not enough to win. It is the only necessary combat encounter to reach Act 3, because otherwise the army of the Absolute is blocking the road and walking into them results in being thrown into the corpse pile in the Tower (even after the departure cut-scene). Not sure if the character's class affects it, but I strongly doubt it. An a positive note, I saved the tiefling bard with some help from Shadowheart. In the morning, the bard stood in a red circle for some reason and did not take the party to the Grove, but we still got a follower. On a related note, if the PC is dead when Raphael visits the camp during Long Rest and the party does not have any resurrection scrolls, it soft-locks the game - the devil does not want to talk to a companion. The butler (?) did not appear yet. I probably will try to roll back a bit or try the same with a bard. Thank you for the information (wasn't familiar with the class' implementation in the previous editions) and I agree that the ridiculousness is one of the main points of Larian's design.

Russia's Luna-25 spacecraft suffers technical glitch, space agency says | Reuters Update: Russia says its Luna-25 lunar lander has crashed into the moon | Space