Leaderboard

am ok with a single letter designation for the platform formerly known as twitter, but am thinking elon stopped just shy o' the appropriate identifier when progressing through the alphabetic sequence. "Y" would be a spot on name choice for not-twitter. HA! Good Fun!

“…and then you don’t have to play through hours and hours of an RPG selecting the right dialogue options to see it.” Tell that to the “Lae’zel sex speedrun” in eight three minutes.

nizo yamamoto cancer

It happened again yesterday. I was asked to rescue someone in the west and one of the dialogue options was a specific description of the location, that I never heard about. I wonder if the fixes will still allow me to learn about these things naturally.

I think one of the better ways to implement CRPG romance would be via the origins we see in this game, as it creates a degree of separation between the player and the character that isn't there with a custom character. That could provide the room to shift it more character oriented story arc the player is in the driver's seat for as opposed to providing a waifu for the player's avatar. Like I think I can more easily appreciate Karlach developing a toxic sexual relationship with Lae'zel than making them the player's potential hot githyanki girlfriend or devilish muscle girl waifu regardless of what kind of character the player is. This probably wouldn't please some of the romance fans, both in terms of access and by the possibility of getting rejected in favor of a npc, but I think it'd make it better for my tastes.

you can have mine mugshot

Every news anchor, every article: "(name) posted on X, formerly known as Twitter." "on the social media site formally known as Twitter." "the app formally known as Twitter." ^sorta reminds me of something.

This is why I don't tell anyone that I'm playing video games.

CRPG romance has been off-putting and kind of downright pathetic since basically forever. Seeing friendships and even romances develop between characters that are not your own would be waaay better IMO, and it'd more similar to watching characters develop like you would with a movie or TV show. I think player-to-character friendships can feel more organic, because it's usually less characters being boiled down to "you click da right buttons in order to unzip their pants" vs. "you did not click da right buttons to unzip their pants" and more "hey, the player is actually taking the time to talk to and seemingly care about the characters around them". Maybe I'm wrong and it's just rose-tinted glasses to think that, e.g., the PST party characters feel way more cohesive/grounded and less artificial in how they're presented and developed over the course of the game, I don't know. But I do know that seeing characters rubberband up and down with their "I LOVE/HATE YOU" meters as a result of usually minute decisions about (what are supposed to feel like) spontaneous situations and conversations seems farcical. That sort of thing should really be reserved for decisions with major value implications (...maybe like, um, violently stomping squirrels to death or tossing bards off cliffs for no reason, both of which everyone in your group just gives a thumbs up to and blissfully ignores), as I just don't think that's how these things usually work out in reality. Though actually unresolvable incompatibilities between characters should probably lead to conflict, and yet they inexplicably hardly ever do in these types of games as well! It's a "you can have your cake and eat it too" situation, except the cake tastes kind of bad. Never mind that only characters mirroring one another liking and/or falling in love with each other is super boring. Most works of fiction with an ensemble team of characters are about people with all sorts of different backgrounds, beliefs, ambitions, values et al. growing to respect and like each other as they learn to appreciate those different qualities, particularly as those qualities come to use in a variety of ways in different kinds of situations. Imagine if Star Trek was just 10 of the same characters running around agreeing with each other: it'd be absolutely terrible. If Lae'zel and Shadowheart magically grow to respect and/or outright fall in love (uh...well, maybe not) with one another by the end of Baldur's Gate 3 instead of keeping on with same old same old, I will happily eat at least some of my words here.

Thank you Yahztee edit. Very interesting point about choices we get as a player being already an expression of our character. Perhaps that a reason why I don't get along with class specific lines that don't align with my character - I made a decision regarding my player's profession, dont make a decision for me regarding his personality. It also might be why I love PoE1&2 disposition system so much. We get to make smaller choices, therefore expressing out willingless to roleplay the character a certain why, so when we get those more extreme benevolent/cruel options, they feel rewarding and appropriate - like the game noticing what I am trying to do and supporting it. I feel quite often at odds with BG3, however.

I remember watching some long-form essay video on someone playing Shadows of Amn for the first time and them marvelling at how dark, dirty, and chaotic Athkatla is, and how it made it really feel like this wonderfully lived-in and organically constructed city, especially relative to most other games' cities - even much more modern games. Environmental audio and visuals alike definitely play into that, and I sometimes think about that video when I consider how attentive and perfectly at home I feel with certain games' environments while feeling completely out of sorts and not thinking anything of or even really paying attention to those of other games. Some games just do a much better job of creating a believable illusion, and it can be difficult to quantify. From what I've played of BG3, I can't say that the game really quite gets me in this way even to the standard of BG1, and note that I love and obviously think a lot more of Shadows of Amn.

So the ending is definitely the weakest part of the game, kind of went out with a whimper. People are saying it's due to the cut content, but even quality wise it's very weak. As far as the story goes Bg2 main story is miles better in my opinion, but that could very well be the nostalgia talking (probably is). The music is really good. It has a more modern flavor and I liked that if for nothing else than it being different that everything else in the crpg genre, which is not to say that others games have bad music, this was just a breath of fresh air. Environmental sound is still non existent or at least very subdued. Idk why it's hard to do some background noise like in BG2 and IWD2, it makes such a big difference in making the world feel alive. Tbh I would have traded a large part of the voice acting for that. Gamplay is not as good as the rtwp game, simple as that, especially in big and drawn out fights. I'll definitely play this game when the definitive edition comes out.

That sounds like 90% of the stuff on Youtube to me, honestly.

That should be game design 101 since the mid 90ies, but it keeps creeping back into games: if any given game system is just there to gobble up inventory space and removing the player hassle results in it no longer being considered worthwhile, it is probably not worthwhile to begin with and should be removed. That includes needing food or drink outside of survival games where it is a core mechanic (this one in particular was replaced by a much better well rested or food bonus mechanic a long, long time ago), vendors having limited gold and currency having weight, all of which this game does for no reason. Quoted for truth. That is just one giant wall of text, only in spoken form. It is somewhat impressive how much he can talk without pausing, but it is just one stream of words with such a lack of inflection and (stress) pitch that it might well be read by some text-to-speech engine. Yikes.

Generally speaking two handers are best as soon as you encounter high DR foes while dual wielding is better against "softer" targets. But yes: Full Attacks cry for a dual wielding setup with heavy one handed weapons (maces, sabres and so on). Buy the Belt of the Royal Deadfire Cannoneer at Anslög's Compass and later get Forgemaster Gloves in Crucible Keep - you will have 6 uses of Firebrand per rest. Firebrand is a flaming great sword with very hig high base damage. Carnage will do a lot of damage that way, too. Use a Barbarian - as soon as you get Blood Thirst this build wrecks every encounter with mobs and ads. Tidefall is the weapon with the highest potential dps in the game because its wounding lash stacks with itself. It also scales with MIG. So use a character with very high MIG and lowish INT (Tidefalls' wounding lash just gets strechted over several ticks - the higher the INT the longer the duration of the lash - but the smaller the individual ticks. Short duration = fewer but higher ticks, longer duration = more but lower ticks). A Rogue works well but a Barbarian does as well - because Carnage will also apply the draining of Tidefall to enemies in an AoE which helps to stay alive. Another thing is to use a melee Ranger with a Wolf and use Tidefall's wounding damage (ove time) to unlock the wolf's "Predator's Sense" at all times. Add the other damaging abilites for the Animal Companion. Since the animal's base(!) damage scales with level it soon will hit like a truck. And your dps will be good too because of Swift Aim, high MIG and good DEX etc. Use Tall Grass, Hours of Saint Rumbalt or the Temperacl and give it to a Barbarian. The prone or stun on crit also works with Carnage. You can prone or stun whole groups with this. Use Half Mast and later the Blade of the Endless Paths with a Darcozzi Paladin and combine them with Coordinated Attacks and Zealous Focus. The Darcozzi can give +10 ACC to an individual (stacks with everything), then +10 ACC again (Coordinated Attacks), then +10 from the marking weapon (Half Mast or Blade of the Endless Paths) and finally the points from Zealous Focus. Any other party member he joins in a fight against an enemy and who is nearest to him can get over 30 bonus accuracy that way - which is extremely good. It's easy to even hit and crit dragons reliably with such a Paladin in the party. It's more like enabling a fellow party member, the Paladin will do okay but not tremendous damage by himself - but it's still extremely helpful. ALl those ACC bonuses stack with a Priest's Inspiring Radiance (+10) and Devotions spell (+20). So a Priest and such a Paladin can give a party member more than +60 bonus accuracy. A good two hander for a Cipher is Justice. It has a "secret" additional crushing lash that adds to any lash you put on it. Lashes generate focus, too. Ciphers don't have Full Attacks but Time Parasite which is a way to get to 0 recovery with a Two Hander. And the little additional lash gives focus faster. Often overlooked but works quite well. Also Justice comes pretty early.

https://blog.bioware.com/2023/08/23/an-update-on-the-state-of-bioware/ EDIT: This seems to include a lot of veterans. So I guess we can say RIP.