BG3

[MrBrown]

  On 8/8/2023 at 10:11 AM, Hawke64 said:

Context Menu (RMB by default) => Examine. The one Sturdy object I needed to destroy had 22DR to piercing damage and immunities to everything else. Went down from a grenade detonated by a fire arrow (for some reason, the Fire Bolt spell resulted in lower damage).

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Been using that, still often unclear.

[Hawke64]

  On 8/8/2023 at 5:30 PM, Bartimaeus said:

I figured the game would be a lot smaller after being installed - usually, different languages take up a pretty good portion of the installer size. But, um, the 109 GB multi-language GOG installer instead became 125 GB after being installed. So...I guess not.

Made my guardian, got through the first cutscene, tried to figure out the camera controls, saved my game and quit. No static camera makes me wanna cry. Not that I quit because of that, just can't play right now, .

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Just in case, it is possible to reset the camera to face north, Home by default (rebindable and might be more comfortable if closer to WASD).

 

  On 8/8/2023 at 11:51 PM, Wormerine said:

Hmm, I am starting to see instances of game’s reactivity not catching up. So far minor stuff:

 

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So far I am keeping everyone on tandpole-less diet. I don’t use tadpoles I find, and I don’t use tadpole power. That is true of my PC and companions. As such, I haven’t unlocked a single tadpole power so far (or even the tadpole menu). In spite of them two of the companions (Wyll/Astarion) claimed that the dream visitor granted them powers twice. They are either holding out on me, or are confused.

The 2nd instance had to do with the weapon. Shadowheart has been a constant presence in my party, so as such she holds on to the box. When engaging Gith party I sent my PC after Laez, while Shadowheart and Wyll stayed behind for an ambush. Without S. present the game acted as if PC was in possession of the box.

 

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Could be that the box teleported to you or the inventory is shared? I think, you should be able to ask Shadowheart about it.

I think my companions mentioned gaining powers too, which, I agree, is odd unless they found more tadpoles when I wasn't looking.

 

  On 8/9/2023 at 2:39 AM, PK htiw klaw eriF said:

Going through the character creator and the companion origins seem interesting but I'm going with Dark Urge, which I am absolutely convinced is 

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a Bhaalspawn. I will bet real money on this.

If that's true that maybe the title is more of a sequel than I thought.

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Shouldn't be a Bhaalspawn, since Bhaal's soul pieces are back together, but certainly is related to the God of Murder - the thing under the PC's feet reminds of his mark and I think the Slayer was shown in one of the trailers.

Sort of a spoiler:

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The Dark Urge almost unavoidably (requires meta-knowledge) murders some of the NPCs. No warning, no skill check, just a corpse in the morning.

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Still in Act 2. Got the first and probably the only non-Origin companion. Visited an optional area called the House of Healing. Would like to know the opinions if anyone has seen it.

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Can't quite explain why but it was somehow very Larian. Fortunately, short.

Regarding the guardian (spoilers for D:OS2):

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I suspect that the thing will do the same as the gods in D:OS2 - laugh villainously and attack, with the Absolute being the God-King v2. Might be mistaken, of course. 

 

[Bartimaeus]

  On 8/9/2023 at 9:45 AM, Hawke64 said:

Regarding the guardian (spoilers for D:OS2):

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Better not be the case, I didn't give them my prettiest high class goth girl design just for that crap.

  On 8/9/2023 at 9:45 AM, Hawke64 said:

Just in case, it is possible to reset the camera to face north, Home by default (rebindable and might be more comfortable if closer to WASD).

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Yeah, and I fixed the mini-map to always be statically oriented while I was at it. Still, I hated fussing around with the camera in the NWN games, it was somehow even more intolerable in the half or so that I played of Dragon Age: Origins before I quit, and I'm certain that I will be annoyed with it here as well.

Edited August 9, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[kanisatha]

The hype isn't doing anything for me. I'm resisting it just fine.

Besides, a lot of what I feared about this game appear to be coming true, for example my concerns about the main story not being compelling, the quality of the writing, the uninteresting and aggravating cast of companions, and that

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*not* using the tadpole would have no meaningful consequences or benefits.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

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.

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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

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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.

 

[Humanoid]

  On 8/9/2023 at 2:28 PM, PK htiw klaw eriF said:

Made all the worse in that all of the options are just the state of the carpet

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Yeah, I was shocked you couldn't pick the colour of the carpet.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

  On 8/9/2023 at 2:50 PM, Humanoid said:

Yeah, I was shocked you couldn't pick the colour of the carpet.

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Personally I'd be fine without that but I wish there was more options for face customization, body weight, height, and body hair stuff. It's kind of weird to me what's lacking and what has a ton of options.

[InsaneCommander]

  On 8/9/2023 at 3:00 PM, PK htiw klaw eriF said:

Personally I'd be fine without that but I wish there was more options for face customization, body weight, height, and body hair stuff. It's kind of weird to me what's lacking and what has a ton of options.

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Would it be that hard to add some sliders for body/face?

  On 8/9/2023 at 1:49 PM, kanisatha said:

and that

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*not* using the tadpole would have no meaningful consequences or benefits.

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I hope that is not the case. I was not playing to use it, but if it is like this, then why not? My first character would be fine either way.

[Wormerine]

  On 8/9/2023 at 9:45 AM, Hawke64 said:

 

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Could be that the box teleported to you or the inventory is shared? I think, you should be able to ask Shadowheart about it.

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Shadowheart has the box. In other instances, it is her who has been communicated telepathically fear for the box. Some trigger must have confused - perhaps because I did have Shadoheart in the party, the game triggered “box says it’s scare” line, but as she wasn’t actively participating in the conversation, it triggered as if PC had the box. Reported it to Larian, along with other inconsistencies.

[Wormerine]

  On 8/9/2023 at 4:07 PM, InsaneCommander said:

Would it be that hard to add some sliders for body/face?

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Well, yes. That would be entirely different system. Apparently those changable faces are pretty hard to pull off. Personally, I am happy with what Larian did. There is enough variation there for me to find something I like. 

[Bartimaeus]

I've always hated the slider system because of how horribly messy and inexact it is, but I went and looked at all the different female faces for each race, and I felt...being able to mix and match a few preset features would've been nice. A nose from this face, a mouth from that, eyes from here...would've gone a long way to making face customization much better. Due to a particular face feature that I'm particularly sensitive towards and which I feel the game largely got wrong, I immediately crossed out the majority of faces right off the bat based purely off of that one thing. Being able to change just that one feature by taking it from one of the few faces that I felt got it right would've gone a very long ways to making my decisions...well, less automatic. Interestingly, the lady githyanki had double the amount of faces that I would've been fine with at 4/7 compared to the next nearest, which was half-elf at 2/7; every other race was 1 or 0. Multiple races having zero choices that I think are at least acceptable might be considered a problem - but as always, I am both very sensitive and particular relative to the average person, so...

Rigging up an adjustable body system would've been a whole other thing, and I can see why they didn't really want to bother with it, especially with how quickly such systems can become weird/goofy. Luckily for me, I don't really care about that, at least not nearly as much as I do about face/hair, but that's certainly not the case for everyone.

Edited August 9, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[Wormerine]

Phew. Finally finished surface area of act1.

Throwing is still as broken as it was in EA. Since I found returning spike, the game has been laughably easy. On top of doing full attack damage to begin with, if you attack from heigh enough they also stack crush damage (comes from items falling on creatures) on top - it seems to sometimes apply twice. She melts Ogres in one go. I consider abandoning the weapons, and frankly it's been making the encounters rather dull.

 

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Now moving to underdark.

Edited August 9, 2023 by Wormerine

[InsaneCommander]

Well, this was a good start:
 

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My character is an urchin Elf Druid, so I put some brown in her hair and a subtle colored tattoo to make her look dirty, as someone who lives in the streets or the woods. I guess the create water spell doesn't make it hot enough for a bath.

Edit: the game hates me

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Edited August 9, 2023 by InsaneCommander

[MrBrown]

  On 8/9/2023 at 2:39 AM, PK htiw klaw eriF said:

Going through the character creator and the companion origins seem interesting but I'm going with Dark Urge, which I am absolutely convinced is 

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a Bhaalspawn. I will bet real money on this.

If that's true that maybe the title is more of a sequel than I thought.

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Would still be a pretty weak reason to call it a sequel. But I guess that's what we're getting.

[Hawke64]

  On 8/9/2023 at 5:53 PM, Bartimaeus said:

I've always hated the slider system because of how horribly messy and inexact it is, but I went and looked at all the different female faces for each race, and I felt...being able to mix and match a few preset features would've been nice. A nose from this face, a mouth from that, eyes from here...would've gone a long way to making face customization much better. Due to a particular face feature that I'm particularly sensitive towards and which I feel the game largely got wrong, I immediately crossed out the majority of faces right off the bat based purely off of that one thing. Being able to change just that one feature by taking it from one of the few faces that I felt got it right would've gone a very long ways to making my decisions...well, less automatic. Interestingly, the lady githyanki had double the amount of faces that I would've been fine with at 4/7 compared to the next nearest, which was half-elf at 2/7; every other race was 1 or 0. Multiple races having zero choices that I think are at least acceptable might be considered a problem - but as always, I am both very sensitive and particular relative to the average person, so...

Rigging up an adjustable body system would've been a whole other thing, and I can see why they didn't really want to bother with it, especially with how quickly such systems can become weird/goofy. Luckily for me, I don't really care about that, at least not nearly as much as I do about face/hair, but that's certainly not the case for everyone.

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The proportions of the faces seem to be somehow off (especially for the elves) and sliders would have fixed that at least. I think, Dragon's Dogma, Dark Souls, and Saints Row (which isn't even an RPG) had both body and face sliders and it was possible to make both "serious" and goofy characters, should one wanted to. SR2 also had different walking animations and layered clothing, while DD:DA had the height slider.

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Some relatively spoiler-free similarities to D:OS2:

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Reached the proving grounds of a ruined temple filled with corpses. 3 companions are the Chosen Ones of their respective deities.

Got through 2 DC30 locks after several reloads, which didn't lead to anything too interesting. Then watched 2 large groups of NPCs killing each other in real time, because none of my party members was in that combat encounter (the rogue looted one of the bodies before teleporting out). Reached the point-of-no-return message in Act 2 after running in circles for an hour because I didn't understand how to spawn the critical quest items in the area.

Also, some of the cut-scenes trigger only if the NPC sees the PC, thus, they are easy to avoid, but the game occasionally assumes that the PC has talked to those NPCs. A very specific example (Act 2, mid/end):

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I was able to tell some devil/demon mercenary that Raphael sent me to kill him, while I had not talked to Raphael about it at all.
Also in the same room my invisibility spell went down after I grabbed the quest object without initiating the cut-scene/dialogue. After several attempts I was able to quickly get the item and click on a fast-travel point to get out.

On another note, there have been 2 battles during the Act that triggered right after dialogues, without a way to get out or prepare.

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Isobel in the Last Light Inn and Halsin on the shore. Both are rather challenging.

 

Edited August 10, 2023 by Hawke64

[kanisatha]

  On 8/9/2023 at 4:07 PM, InsaneCommander said:

I hope that is not the case. I was not playing to use it, but if it is like this, then why not? My first character would be fine either way.

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I'm not going to say anymore (about the deal with the tadpoles, and also about game endings), even with spoiler tags, because I'm truly curious and interested to hear what you and others here have to say once you've completed the game. But yeah, sadly, there's a lot of loud discuussion about all this stuff on the Larian and Steam forums, and also some "reviews in progress" from gaming journos (though they seem to think all of this is quite fine).

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

  On 8/9/2023 at 9:54 PM, InsaneCommander said:

Well, this was a good start:
 

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My character is an urchin Elf Druid, so I put some brown in her hair and a subtle colored tattoo to make her look dirty, as someone who lives in the streets or the woods. I guess the create water spell doesn't make it hot enough for a bath.

Edit: the game hates me

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Lmao, the bad dice rolls in this game are funny. Like the RNG getting an avatar to personally say **** you to players.

  On 8/9/2023 at 10:59 PM, MrBrown said:

Would still be a pretty weak reason to call it a sequel. But I guess that's what we're getting.

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I don't necessarily disagree and it's obvious that BG3 is a very different kind of game from BG1 and BG2, but it is a nice continuity. In some ways I think it's better 

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In that Bhaal's influence on your behavior has consequences. In retrospect having the player character in the og BGs being pressured or compelled by the essence of Bhaal into violence would have been cool to see. Hopefully that's interesting here.

[Bartimaeus]

I kissed a mindflayer, and the game told me it was the very first time in Shadowheart's life that she had ever felt happy: the end. Well, game over, but a happy ending is a happy ending.

Edited August 10, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[InsaneCommander]

I turned into a cat and easily robbed some guys since they didn't even notice me. Don't ask me how a cat can grab everything in their camp and carry it away though. And they totally deserved it since, besides not petting a cat, they even attacked me later (not because of the robbery). I also ended up killing all four of them by pushing them from a higher place, two into a hole and one of the other two was shoved twice. Very satisfying.

I forgot to try to pickpocket them. I'll do it the first opportunity I have.

Btw, once the battle begun, they became hostile to the cat.

Edit: I didn't take anything marked as red, so I might still need to avoid being seen if that was the case. But at least the cat didn't trigger a conversation or reaction from them.

Edited August 10, 2023 by InsaneCommander

[Bartimaeus]

I'm pretty sure I've used a cat familiar in BG to pickpocket someone before, so I think this all checks out. Really have to watch out for those cats.

Edited August 10, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[ShadySands]

It doesn't want to download so maybe I'll get around to it next year

[HoonDing]

I still need to play DOS 2 first in a year or five.

[Wormerine]

  On 8/11/2023 at 5:43 AM, HoonDing said:

I still need to play DOS 2 first in a year or five.

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Eh, you don’t. BG3 is more or less that but better. For the combat system I still would recommend D:OS1 over D:OS2.

[HoonDing]

Wait - is there a button to speed things up

[Bartimaeus]

  On 8/11/2023 at 10:05 AM, HoonDing said:

Wait - is there a button to speed things up

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I'm always here for Cheat Engine speedhack shilling: https://www.cheatengine.org/downloads.php

150 MB GIF enclosed:

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P.S. I had to start over because Shadowheart...was just not suitable for being the main character. She's a cleric and she just fails at everything, and playing an NPC as the main character seems to pretty much eliminate any unique dialogue (...and agency) that they might have had if they were in your party, so it just doesn't seem like a great idea. So I took a page from KP and did The Dark Urge instead. I especially enjoyed my character waking up covered in a small pool of somebody else's blood.

Edited August 11, 2023 by Bartimaeus