BG3

[Wormerine]

25 minutes ago, HoonDing said:

Well, they sure were right to dodge Skyfield

You mean Starfield? Skyfall?

21 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

The updated sales figures  are going be  the most relevant  data but  but they not out yet?

Sure. Just trying to guess how the game have sold, based on data they provided. The numbers they shared, just seem much lower than I expected considering the assumed success. Based on those @kanisatha might have been right.

[kanisatha]

2 hours ago, Wormerine said:

You mean Starfield? Skyfall?

Sure. Just trying to guess how the game have sold, based on data they provided. The numbers they shared, just seem much lower than I expected considering the assumed success. Based on those @kanisatha might have been right.

Thanks. And to note, I am quite sure BG3 will do very well in sales for the type of game that it is, if for no other reason than that it is a DnD game and can therefore draw on the support of the millions of DnD fans. I expect it will sell on the order of 10+ million eventually. But it surely isn't in the same sales league as games like Elden Ring, Zelda, and CP2077, despite being in the same league as those games with respect to the resources devoted to making the game.

I also believe that as more and more people finish playing the game they will end up finding many elements of the game, especially those elements central to a game being a good cRPG, very lacking.

[HoonDing]

Every Larian game I've played has an impressive opening part then falls apart completely as the game progresses. This is very apparent in Divinity: Original Sin but also exists in Divine Divinity and Divinity 2.

[Bartimaeus]

22 hours ago, Humanoid said:

I didn't like his intro cutscene, felt a little like they were trying too hard to be cool. Kinda similar with Lae'zel's gratuitous flip when she ambushes you. Astarion's is a bit annoying because there probably should be a third option where you're suspicious of him. Gale's, while a little silly, is charming, and Shadowheart doesn't get one.

I've now seen the introductions of all these characters, and this is pretty spot on. Wyll has the very worst introduction and I already want to kill him, Lae'zel's isn't much better but she has the advantage of being the first person you meet and you kind of are in need of her so that helps her case, Astarion's is annoying with how telegraphed and forced it is but also Shadowheart literally saw him 'sneak' up on me and put a knife up to my neck and she did absolutely nothing to help me so it made her look bad as well, Gale's is good (though I accidentally bit his hand off and killed him the first time I met him, but really that just made his introduction even better), and Shadowheart...as you said, she doesn't really have one, but that's fine. All in all, the only person I want to kill is Wyll, which is good, because we're both warlocks and there can only be one.

Edited August 12, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[Wormerine]

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

Wyll has the very worst introduction and I already want to kill him

I did find Laez intro to be a bit over the top, but I do like Wylls. The swashbuckling feel of it fits the image he tries to craft for himself. Where's I can't imagine Laez timing her jump with a dragon just to make an impression on a thrall she wants to kill.

[Hawke64]

On 8/11/2023 at 6:03 PM, InsaneCommander said:

I played a little more and noticed some problems, mostly minor stuff, but there is at least one major one:

- The formation system is really bad in this game. How do I put Lae’zel (the fighter) in the second position? My character has to be the first for dialogues (she barely speaks so if I don’t do that, she will become irrelevant) and I can’t choose the position of the others. When I can plan ahead of a fight, I can separate the party and position everyone individually, which is not that bad, but how bad will it be when the battle starts after a dialogue? Well, at least my Druid and Shadowheart have higher AC than Lae’zel.

Once I moved Lae’zel to the second position and it worked, but now she just comes last, probably because she joined the party after the others. Do I need to remove and re-add companions every time I wanna change the formation?

The Inspiration system is interesting. You can gain XP and an Inspiration point (that allows you to reroll a failed check) when doing certain actions that make sense for your background.

Yes, the formation is in order of joining the active party, so it is necessary to re-add them to to make the formation stay (it occasionally resets if done by dragging portraits).
In most battles, you can switch to the characters out of the dialogue (the button is in the lower left corner) and position them better.

Spoiler

One companion (who can't attack effectively either way) is talking, while another sends the foes into the chasm. Might also place the melee combatants around and the rogue into stealth.

It is possible to check which actions led to which inspirations. So far, I've got the most points for the Outlander and the Sage backgrounds, fewer for the Urchin and the Acolyte ones.

19 hours ago, InsaneCommander said:

Is there a way to check past reactions from the companions? Something happened and the reaction text was shown for less than a second. I have no idea who liked what I did and who didn't.

I don't think so, only the current level on the Inventory screen.

23 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

When I was making my character, I was choosing between half-elf and tiefling, and the only hair that I felt worked well with a tiefling's horns was Shadowheart's hair style, which is what eventually made me go with the half-elf, as I didn't want two characters with the same hair style. Well, Shadowheart has the big braid or whatever the heck thing it is as well, which isn't usable by the player, but I mean the rest of it. I think I found a couple of zero effect hats from random loot and tried them on her and her hair became ridiculous and terrible with them, so they get yoinked off immediately. She can wear her circlet for the entire game if it means not having to see her hair spontaneously get longer and flattened out ever again.

There should be some helmets available a bit later.

---

Reached the city and Act 3. The final battle of Act 2 was curious. I think, most of the plot twists took place between the battle and the city.
Regarding Bhaal,

Spoiler

One of the Chosen, Orin the Red, who was shown in the trailer, is a follower of Bhaal.

Somehow all main antagonists seem too talkative and boring. The former is possible to minimise, which I appreciate, though not to avoid completely. The sandbox/immersive sim-like design does not mix well with the cut-scenes.

Also, there have been 2 unique and unexpected endings where the PC died (under the spoiler tag). I am curious how many more are there.

Spoiler

A large explosion and turning into an illithid.

 

Edited August 12, 2023 by Hawke64

[InsaneCommander]

55 minutes ago, Wormerine said:

Where's I can't imagine Laez timing her jump with a dragon just to make an impression on a thrall she wants to kill.

That made no sense. And she is always complaining we have to hurry.

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Shadowheart literally saw him 'sneak' up on me and put a knife up to my neck and she did absolutely nothing to help me

Imagine if she didn't own you her life.

3 minutes ago, Hawke64 said:

In most battles, you can switch to the characters out of the dialogue (the button is in the lower left corner) and position them better.

That is a good idea. So far I've only used it to distract npcs and rob them, but it doesn't work very well. Not sure if they hear me opening containers and I suck at pickpocketing or maybe Thiefling criminals can't be robbed, but I usually get caught and lose reputation. Anyway, I'm leaving that task to Lae'zel since she doesn't care if people hate her.

The Companions' reactions show for less than a second. It's really annoying. I even tried to increase the font size, but it only affects dialogues, not these notifications.

[Hawke64]

Forgot to mention - several quest lines span through the whole game and it is possible to meet some random NPCs from Act 1 in the city (as everyone tells the PC within seconds after meeting that they are going to Baldur's Gate). On a negative note, there are no quest markers* on the city area map, but the buildings are marked, so it is possible to remember where to find the NPCs.
*1 marker for a companion quest.

[majestic]

Well, with the D4 season almost finished for me (just need to kill one more world boss to get the final season journey rewards), I'll be joining you guys soon.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

34 minutes ago, majestic said:

Well, with the D4 season almost finished for me (just need to kill one more world boss to get the final season journey rewards), I'll be joining you guys soon.

Embrace the Dark Urge with us brother.

[InsaneCommander]

The companions’ reactions have normalized for some reason. Funny how Lae’zel and Shadowheart are suddenly approving everything I do. They were dangerously close to the red side of the bar.

I did some tests and gathered some information on robbing:

- The cat form can’t pickpocket.

- If you are not in the npcs’ field of view, but close to them, they can hear you taking items from containers and will notice the robbery. I’ll have to test using the silence spell and see if it helps.

- If you steal/pickpocket too much (sometimes as little as two times), people will notice and demand answers from a party member. For some reason, they always assumed Shadowheart was the culprit.

- Taking items from a container caused the suspicion when an npc entered the room. They talked with a party member that was innocent and gave up after I passed a persuasion check.

- When pickpocketing, the npc noticed after I took the second item, despite my success in both sleight of hand checks. They went to question Shadowheart and let her go after she claimed to be innocent (no dice roll required). But then they came to talk to my pc (ignoring the others, who were closer) and I had to choose between going to jail, bribing or attacking them. Bribing never worked for me.

- Putting the pickpocketed goods in a container and moving away didn’t work. It’s an improvement on D:OS2, where this would be enough to avoid getting caught. But it could be that they found other items, that I took from the containers before, I’m not sure.

So it doesn’t seem to be worth the trouble, except for specific or truly valuable items.

- Not exactly about robbing, but thieves' tools are spent even if you succeed when lockpicking.

- Apparently it’s a crime to steal from some of the dead bodies of the goblins who attacked the area. Go figure.

Edit: there is also an option to return the stolen goods. I ddin't pick it so I don't know what happens later.

Edited August 13, 2023 by InsaneCommander

[Bartimaeus]

15 hours ago, InsaneCommander said:

Imagine if she didn't own you her life.

I kind of just forced myself to believe that she happened to get distracted by a butterfly at that particular moment. Her default INT score is 10, but I haven't really seen anything to suggest it should be past something more like 6-8. She doesn't even seem like a good liar, and she's a priestess of Shar for goodness sake, deception's kind of supposed to be her thing. Well, maybe she's several layers deep - being a patently bad liar about some things to hide being a good liar about other things. But then that would mean her intelligence isn't high enough, so I don't think so.

In other news, having spent a little more time talking to him and seeing him play with very annoying children and just talk in a generally very annoying manner, I have now gone full

His hour of death shall be beautiful and perfect, and possibly tasty.

P.S. Why is my character constantly cutting off her own head while running around with a great sword? It's weird, she holds it appropriately enough with two hands while standing around, looks fine, but then she starts running with it one-handed and it cuts right into her neck. Lady, didn't your parents ever tell you not to run around with comically massive swords? At the very least, they could've instructed you how to do it safely.

(e): Okay, weird, I switched out a couple of items and suddenly my character learned how to run with a great sword without lopping her own head off. Well, at least she's learning.

7 hours ago, InsaneCommander said:

- Not exactly about robbing, but thieves' tools are spent even if you succeed when lockpicking.

Descriptions say they don't get used if you succeed, and I just tested it: I had two, I succeeded at lockpicking a door, I still had two after.

Edited August 13, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[MrBrown]

8 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

(e): Okay, weird, I switched out a couple of items and suddenly my character learned how to run with a great sword without lopping her own head off. Well, at least she's learning.

There's some kind of default "holding onto things" way they carry stuff it defaults to sometimes. My Bard sometimes swings her lute around by the neck of the thing.

8 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Descriptions say they don't get used if you succeed, and I just tested it: I had two, I succeeded at lockpicking a door, I still had two after.

The 50 lockpick kits in my inventory also say they don't get spent.

[majestic]

Uh, right. So first impressions:

• Larian jus can't make exploration not feel weird for me. I have to zoom in all the way and invert the Q/E default camera controls to make it work... somehow. By pretending that I'm playing a third person game where walking forward is boud to the left mouse button. Sigh.
• The game, for no apparent reason, has severe spikes in CPU load. I suppose that is what was mentioned as poor performance in this thread. It only lasts a second or two, with the annoying effect of making my case and radiator fans spin at maximum for all but two seconds.

That's pretty much all for now. Went Dark Urge, obviously - who wouldn't.

But... it is good to see the tried and tue cRGP approach: we're on a really urgent main quest, but also spelunking through dungeons. Because why not. Not like you're literally being consumed from the inside at the start of the game, right?

Edited August 13, 2023 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

53 minutes ago, majestic said:

Larian jus can't make exploration not feel weird for me. I have to zoom in all the way and invert the Q/E default camera controls to make it work... somehow. By pretending that I'm playing a third person game where walking forward is boud to the left mouse button. Sigh.

It is weird, and I get pretty uncomfortable at times. I can at least use the free camera tactical view in this game, unlike Dragon Age: Origins, and that is a big positive even if I still have problems with it. It was literally unusable in Dragon Age: Origins and I pretty much just let the AI play every battle for me because of how miserable I would get every time I would try to take control.

53 minutes ago, majestic said:

The game, for no apparent reason, has severe spikes in CPU load. I suppose that is what was mentioned as poor performance in this thread. It only lasts a second or two, with the annoying effect of making my case and radiator fans spin at maximum for all but two seconds.

I have not had any performance issues...but I already demonstrated that with my 10x speed Cheat Engine speedhack .gif, which is dependent on your CPU actually being able to process everything that quickly. I'm gonna blame it on Intel, because that just seems like the right and proper thing to do at this point, .

53 minutes ago, majestic said:

But... it is good to see the tried and tue cRGP approach: we're on a really urgent main quest, but also spelunking through dungeons. Because why not. Not like you're literally being consumed from the inside at the start of the game, right?

Yeah, everyone being like "WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE IN A DAY OR TWO" and me being like "but I have to explore every last inch of this beach" is your classic player behavior vs. main story dissonance. I could come back later...but characters might have moved around by then, perhaps even resolved some things by themselves without my help, so I have to do it now. And you know, there's really no reason not to talk to animals and corpses with the appropriate spells while you're at it...

Edited August 13, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

13 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

I have not had any performance issues...but I already demonstrated that with my 10x speed Cheat Engine speedhack .gif, which is dependent on your CPU actually being able to process everything that quickly. I'm gonna blame it on Intel, because that just seems like the right and proper thing to do at this point, .

I don't have performance issues at all, no slowdowns or bad load times. Just random CPU spikes causing the fans to spin up noticably.

14 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

It is weird, and I get pretty uncomfortable at times. I can at least use the free camera tactical view in this game, unlike Dragon Age: Origins, and that is a big positive even if I still have problems with it. It was literally unusable in Dragon Age: Origins and I pretty much just let the AI play every battle for me because of how miserable I would get every time I would try to take control.

Making scripts and letting battles play out mostly on their own with only making a couple of impactful decisions here and there was the only sensible way to play DA:O, regardless of whether one liked the camera controls/perspective or not. The game's combat is nothing but frustrating otherwise.

16 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Yeah, everyone being like "WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE IN A DAY OR TWO" and me being like "but I have to explore every last inch of this beach" is your classic player behavior vs. main story dissonance. I could come back later...but characters might have moved around by then, perhaps even resolved some things by themselves without my help, so I have to do it now. And you know, there's really no reason not to talk to animals and corpses with the appropriate spells while you're at it...

Indeed, and don't forget to dig up the mounds of dirt and whatnot.

[InsaneCommander]

10 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

I kind of just forced myself to believe that she happened to get distracted by a butterfly at that particular moment. Her default INT score is 10, but I haven't really seen anything to suggest it should be past something more like 6-8. She doesn't even seem like a good liar, and she's a priestess of Shar for goodness sake, deception's kind of supposed to be her thing. Well, maybe she's several layers deep - being a patently bad liar about some things to hide being a good liar about other things. But then that would mean her intelligence isn't high enough, so I don't think so.

I turned into a wolf in front of her and she didn't react. Either she is smart enough to know I'm not a real wolf or her character sheet is lying.

10 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Descriptions say they don't get used if you succeed, and I just tested it: I had two, I succeeded at lockpicking a door, I still had two after.

I always get the message they were spent, but I never checked if that was indeed the case.

[Sven_]

Still Steam no. 1 bestseller plus being at the top of PS5 preorder charts.


It's not going to be that bad.

Edited August 13, 2023 by Sven_

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, majestic said:

I don't have performance issues at all, no slowdowns or bad load times. Just random CPU spikes causing the fans to spin up noticably.

intel bad, get with the program

1 hour ago, majestic said:

Indeed, and don't forget to dig up the mounds of dirt and whatnot.

I haven't learned if there's any time-keeping in this game yet, or any kind of calendar system, or...pretty much anything, because I haven't needed to rest yet. Haven't needed anything more than cantrips so far, and I'm not even save-scumming at all. Well, okay, I save-scummed a bit to make sure I could kill the demon lieutenant guy in the mind flayer ship again, but that's a special time-limited battle that's mostly out of your control.

1 hour ago, InsaneCommander said:

I always get the message they were spent, but I never checked if that was indeed the case.

I think it says "used" each time, which for those who are used to gaming terminology, would sure sound like it means it was spent. If the game tells me I "used" a potion, I would assume that the potion is gone as a result.

Edited August 13, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[Sarex]

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

intel bad, get with the program

That's usually an AMD issue.

[Agiel]

On 8/9/2023 at 7:28 AM, PK htiw klaw eriF said:

Managed to complete the character creator, picking out genitalia for your character is indeed strange and off-putting. Made all the worse in that all of the options are just the state of the carpet, so to speak, and the blank stare that occurs. But I'm happy enough with my murdertwink melee bard (dex build) and the Guardian.

  Reveal hidden contents

Given my suspicions about the Guardian, I went for otherworldly vibes.

Murdertwink Bard looks like he could be a mass shooter, which goes well with Dark Urge

Just a bit too much hair to be a proper twink though (image has been preemptively censored)

Anyways I played just a little bit and got to mutilate an intellect devourer, so far I'm very satisfied.

@Hawke64 When I watched the character intro I noticed

  Hide contents

the blood tears pop up underneath in a circular pattern. I think Bhaalspawn is likely, but since Bhaal is back then Dark Urge is probably from a second wave of Bhaalspawn. We'll have to see.

 

From what little I've read about the plot for BG3 and how Bhaal plays a bigger role than what one might have assumed from watching the Early Access footage, however improbable it would be something if we saw a cameo from our very own @Gromnir

[Hurlshort]

1 hour ago, Agiel said:

From what little I've read about the plot for BG3 and how Bhaal plays a bigger role than what one might have assumed from watching the Early Access footage, however improbable it would be something if we saw a cameo from our very own @Gromnir

Well I can tell you Volo features prominently. 

[ShadySands]

 

 

 

4 hours ago, Sarex said:

 

 

Edited August 14, 2023 by ShadySands
I quit

[Bartimaeus]

7 hours ago, Sarex said:

8 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

intel bad

That's usually an AMD issue.

ive never heard intel being bad about amd, but maybe u right

intel's badness transcends (corporate) borders

Edited August 14, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[BruceVC]

https://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/score/metascore/all/pc/filtered

 

Its looks like BG3 has become the best reviewed game of all time or am I misunderstanding something?