RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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they probably changed the story over the years, similar to how they rewrote the companions, cause when I played early access at the beggining it did not seem to fit that well with the lore
as for ceremorphosis, I hope the implemented things like gnome resistance
They can easily implement that simply by not having gnomes in the game. :)
Gnomes are in the game. You've been able to play them in Early Access since a patch update last year, and they'll be in the game at launch.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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Gnomes are in the game. You've been able to play them in Early Access since a patch update last year, and they'll be in the game at launch.
I figured, but it was a (apparently too subtle) reference to 4th edition not including gnomes in the Player's Handbook, but in this case it actually could have had a reason that made roundabout sense.
not all are that forgettable, like Regill from Wrath of the Righteous or Arcanum gnomes
they also nerfed humans, I'll wait for a modded variant version
150 gb download? Yesh.
3 hours in, pretty good so far. I've basically just done the opening sequence and into the first open world bit and, er, the map is huge and there's a ton going on and this is like the opening 3% of the game. Some really good, morally murky decisions, and contrary to my usual preference, the game does a good job of giving you interesting outcomes for failing checks, rather than just some kind of screaming awful outcome that makes you reload instantly.
In 4K with everything on Ultra, the game is almost ludicrously pretty. There's barely a discernible difference between in-engine and cutscene (if anything, the cutscenes are a touch lower in quality because they put on a film filter thing).
I would say, apart from the AAA+ presentation and thankfully massively-better writing, the actual moment-to-moment gameplay is not massively different to Divinity: Original Sin II. I do like the dramatic "STUFF'S GOTTEN REAL, WE'RE ROLLING A DICE!" moments, although they might get wearying over the long term.
There's some very nice callbacks to BG1+2, including the exact same icons for spells and many of the same books can be found (some updated for post-Spellplague Faerun, some not, and some new books, including an awful pop history of the Bhaalspawn).
I did pick up several useful pieces of basic advice:
*At the very start of the game, when selecting your MC, you can bring up each of the main NPC companions and hit "Play Introduction." Each character then gives you a 60-ish second monologue on their backstory, motivation and ethos. Good way of getting a sneak preview of what they're about before committing to the full game.
*High-strength characters can jump further than they can move in combat. More than once, jumping instead of walking/running was the difference between being able to hit an enemy or not. For lower-strength characters, jumping is either equal or worse than standard movement. But! Jumping is great for evading Web or Grease.
*Shove is also an easy action to forget about, but very useful for controlling the battlefield or just doing a little more damage (or even outright kills) by pushing an enemy over a ledge.
*Chokepoints are a very viable strategy. Particularly good is being able to stand next to a door and keep closing it, preventing enemies from hitting you or forcing them to smash the door down before they can attack, wasting actions.
*Remember that special moves are only recoverable via short or long-rest actions, so don't waste them on low-level minions. Save them for the tougher engagements.
*Similarly, spells can only be regained through rests, but cantrips are once-per-round actions and can deal out reasonable damage.
The old "give everyone a missile weapon" tactic remains viable, and there's even a nice button you can hit to automatically switch between a ranged set up and a melee one.
*In a pinch, you can lob healing potions at wounded allies to heal them. Amusingly, although normal heal spells are not area of effect, smashing a healing bottle generates a small AoE and you can heal several allies at once that way.
*As usual with Larian games, Talk with Animals/Dead makes the game far more entertaining.
*As far as I can tell, the game always goes with the person you've selected to talk to NPCs. Make sure you have your most Charismatic/Persuasive or Main character selected before talking to someone you need to rally to your cause, not the a%+!!*** githyanki (GRRM's lawyers stirring) who treats absolutely everyone like a piece of dirt. Although that can be quite funny.
I must ask; Do Minsc and Boo show up at all?!!
Create a monk that just does shove, pull and other manipulations. Kick the BBEG off a ledge!
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I must ask; Do Minsc and Boo show up at all?!!
It'll probably take folks awhile on the play through but in case you didn't notice it in the trailer, you might want to take note of one moment...
Create a monk that just does shove, pull and other manipulations. Kick the BBEG off a ledge!
This worked well for me in Solasta. Stupid bosses and their stupid legendary resistances, that didn't help you on that edge, did it?
I also enjoy knocking monsters off cliffs in Tears of the Kingdom. Good two hander or Tulin does the trick.
Except for the gloom hands who cling to cliff edges. F%~%ing gloom hands...
Thank you DQ for that! :)
There isn't a handy ledge available in every fight, so it's not always an option. Oddly, if you try to kick someone next to a wall, they'll fall over, but it's just an animation and they'll get up again rather than triggering an Attack of Opportunity or staying prone until their turn, allowing easier hits.
Minsc and Boo show up and I know are at least temporary NPC party-members. Jaheira as well, I believe. Larian have hinted that other BG1/2/ToB characters may show up or be referenced (Volo and Elminster also put in cameos, and I'll be startled if Drizzt doesn't show up at least once).
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Well glad to see my favorite Rashemi Ranger out butt kicking for goodness. :)
Game is out, have people played?
Outstanding so far. I have some quibbles with poor UI and the game's multiplayer focus causing issues with how inventories work (everyone has their own gold stash rather than a shared pool, which is very annoying) and not being able to pause unless you go into turn-based mode, even in singleplayer, but the story, side-quests and characters are all excellent. There's also tremendous freedom in how you solve quests and how you resolve combat. Really tough fights become more controllable once you realise you can bring down the massive mega-chandalier hanging over the room, or you can Grease a surface and then set it on fire, or the three archers standing on a ledge firing at you can all be one-shotted by your mage casting Thunderwave at them and blasting them into the chasm.
The goblin camp turned into a comical explosion of WTFery.
Then I found my way into the Spider Pit, but managed to befriend the spiders. I couldn't leave due to the guards, so I used Mage Hand to open the gate. The spiders went around killing the goblins and I just helped heal the spiders to keep them going without aggroing the goblins myself.
I then used Speak with Animals to get the spiders' view on events and one of them screamed "FREEDOM!" in a Scottish accent and resumed their rampage whilst my entire team stood to one side and watched on, bemused.
Why would your party be bemused? Didn't you orchestrate all of that?
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There is no more quintessential TTRPG feeling than a big bad making their appearance, making some BS speech about how they're going to kill you with ease, and you make a great initiative roll and instantly just shove them into the nearby lava without a second's remorse.
A bunch of players are going through the game as four angry halfling barbarians. The results are amazing.
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Outstanding so far. I have some quibbles with poor UI and the game's multiplayer focus causing issues with how inventories work (everyone has their own gold stash rather than a shared pool, which is very annoying) and not being able to pause unless you go into turn-based mode, even in singleplayer, but the story, side-quests and characters are all excellent. There's also tremendous freedom in how you solve quests and how you resolve combat. Really tough fights become more controllable once you realise you can bring down the massive mega-chandalier hanging over the room, or you can Grease a surface and then set it on fire, or the three archers standing on a ledge firing at you can all be one-shotted by your mage casting Thunderwave at them and blasting them into the chasm.
Just curious - are you playing on a computer or console. Debating on getting the game, but if I did I’d probably need a new computer. I don’t have a console it would run on (I think).
Also, my 5E experience is lacking (though not completely). Do you think that would hurt?
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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Casting Polymorph on someone just before an important cutscene can lead to unexpected - and amazing - results.
Honestly, this kind of coverage makes me want to play the game less. I hear about all sorts of weird things that can impact cutscenes, but not as much about the game play. I'd prefer a game with little to no cutscenes and just fantastic gameplay.
Not saying the gameplay isn't good, just that the almost non-stop - "look at this weird thing I did which impacted a scene" is anti-marketing for me. I'd rather watch a movie or TV show if I want great cutscenes - 100% cutscene then!
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Just curious - are you playing on a computer or console. Debating on getting the game, but if I did I’d probably need a new computer. I don’t have a console it would run on (I think).
Also, my 5E experience is lacking (though not completely). Do you think that would hurt?
On PC. I just bought a brand-new giga-machine, so it had no problems with BG3 on maximum settings (until Act III, when it gets a bit buggy because they've haven't fully optimised the city itself). I believe it scales down well to relatively older hardware.
It's out on PlayStation 5 next week and on Xbox Series X and S before the end of the year.
The last time I played D&D tabletop was in 2009 (my group split after a couple of 4E campaigns and half the group absolutely loathing it and the rest wanting to keep on it with it over 3.5, and rejecting Pathfinder as an alternative), so I have zero experience of 5E and limited experience of 4E. I had zero problems with BG3 at all, it's pretty intuitive very quickly (the main appeal - and drawback - of tt 5E, I believe). The tighter focus of 5E versus PF1 and 2 is beneficial in a video game setting, whilst I found the attempt to put every single ttrpg mechanic from PF1 in Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous too overwhelming.
Honestly, this kind of coverage makes me want to play the game less. I hear about all sorts of weird things that can impact cutscenes, but not as much about the game play. I'd prefer a game with little to no cutscenes and just fantastic gameplay.
Not saying the gameplay isn't good, just that the almost non-stop - "look at this weird thing I did which impacted a scene" is anti-marketing for me. I'd rather watch a movie or TV show if I want great cutscenes - 100% cutscene then!
People have been talking about the gameplay, reactivity, storylines, character arcs etc nonstop for the last month. There's been very long reviews about the game going into that stuff in detail and explaining why they've made it their highest-scoring game for years (PC Gamer US just made it their highest-scoring video game of all time).
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Well I just finished the game last night, well past my bedtime. It was F%*%ING AMAZING. I am obsessed with this game and its characters in a way I haven't been for a piece of media in YEARS. I think specifically the last video game I felt this way about was probably Neverwinter Nights 2, and prior indeed Planescape: Torment and Baldur's Gate 2.
There are absolutely things I can quibble with, and the UI needs some serious organizing (I played on Steamdeck so I've seen both the PC and controller interfaces and both have... issues). Fights with many enemies take too g~&$&*n long. There is one (only one that stands out) ridiculous moment of stupidly rigid railroad plot at an inopportune time just before Act III (which subsequently gets a completely unfair callback to in dialogue for a choice the game literally refuses to let you make). There's a BG2 character who deserved just slightly more justice (not the one discussed in this thread)... well, not justice, but a little more... explanation? And I'm mad there are no references to Imoen outside of a sentence in a book.
But even the moments that stand out as frustrating only do so because the rest is SO GOOD. So good. The gameplay is good. I wouldn't play it if it wasn't fun to explore and solve puzzles and find ways to beat monsters. I thought 5e rules applied to Larian's engine worked super well. But for me 90% of this game is story and it's most worth playing if what you want is the story and the characters.
I'm an English lit nerd and professional wordsmith (for other people's words, not my own, I am well aware of what my own babbling ramble looks like, thank you). Stories feed my soul. Video games allow us to interact and be part of a story in a way a book or film cannot, so I am fascinated by what you can do with the medium to build and make a story come to life. The storytelling, nitpicks aside, is some of the best I've seen in a long time. I think this game had the most character growth I've ever seen in a game like this, and that's saying something. I felt like my own custom main character grew and saw the companions I traveled with grew. The story has so many satisfying moments. I've made new pixel-friends I'll never forget, and got, to my delight, spent some time with old friends I never thought I would see again. There are scenes that made me double over in real tears of pathos and despair. There are so, so many scenes that made me laugh out loud, or punch the air in victory. And moments where I could look at a character and say, "Wow, I'm proud of you."
And I very much doubt Larian reads the Paizo boards, but I don't post in most other media sites I lurk in, so just in case, Larian, Wow, I'm proud of you. I was absolutely utterly of the belief that Baldur's Gate needed no sequel, and when I heard Larian got the job... well, I thought their stuff was fine, you know? But I'd never even gotten around to finishing DOS2. Could they really take on this franchise, so beloved by those who played it, and truly add to the existing themes and story while appealing to a new player base?
And they did. They did it. Wow. (Oh and PS, if you haven't played it yet or haven't played it in awhile, Patch 6 is out and between it and Patch 5, tons of content has been added and tweaked, and many bugs fixed and QOL improvements made.)
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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DQ, your opinion on things matters to me, I'll be checking the game out after yours and so many other rave reviews, despite thinking the demo plotline years back was dumb as a bag of bricks.
But I'll still wait to hear what if any DLC comes for it. Maybe soon the final Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous DLC will come out and I can play that waiting for BG3 DLC.
DQ, your opinion on things matters to me,
Well shucks. That's one of the nicest things anyone's ever said to me on the Internet. Thank you.
I'll be checking the game out after yours and so many other rave reviews, despite thinking the demo plotline years back was dumb as a bag of bricks.
FWIW what I saw of the early access (which is the tutorial area on the mind flayer ship) I was completely turned off too. I didn't like the body horror at all (and still don't), and it looked confusing, slow, and clunky.
The clunk on the ship is improved, and it is so, so so much better once it gets going. Also, while at first it seems like the main thing is the mind flayer plot (and it is intensely relevant/plot-related throughout the game), there are other entities and themes that appear that make this very definitely a sequel to Baldur's Gate 2.
But I'll still wait to hear what if any DLC comes for it.
While many are expecting DLC--and it's reasonable to anticipate a GOTY edition--and it would make sense for them to do it because millions of people around the world are ready to throw money at them, Larian has announced nothing, nor even hinted at DLC as of yet. So I (a) think if there is going to be any DLC it is not going to be anytime soon and (b) my guess is it is likely to be additional adventures rather than add-ons to the main storyline. This is entirely speculation on my part so obviously grains of salt, etc.
Just noting that if you "decide to wait for the DLC" it is probably at least going to be (again, my speculation/guess) not till end of this year at the very earliest, and there is a chance, no matter how some may not think it is going to be, that it may never happen.
Maybe soon the final Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous DLC will come out and I can play that waiting for BG3 DLC.
Oh wow I just got that (there was a significant sale on it recently) so nice to know there's more yet coming for it.
Man, the updates are getting wild. We'll need a special custom PC to contain it all.