Baldurs Gate 3

[p0ke]

This game's kinda buggy! I haven't played much yet but I've already had it crash a couple of times. Not in the middle of anything, luckily, and I didn't loose any progress, but still kinda annoying. One time it also just kinda froze, all the amimations kept running etc but just wouldn't respond to any input. It wasn't a controller problem either, as I was able to go back to the xbox home screen and restart the game.

But other than that it's definitely a great game.

 

[MFB]

Finished my replay of Arkham Asylum, that game feels longer than it is with the way that areas get blocked off from you, even though it's a small island. The last fight is also, not really much of a fight against Joker as it is just his henchmen and then you yank him back down; which is a bit odd since you fight Titan henchmen throughout the game, so what would one more be?

I solved a good chunk of riddler stuff too, over the 50% mark, some I just didn't really care to go out of my way for so I can go back thru and solve the others.

Trying to decide if I want to go right to City and Knight, but might play something in between.

 

[p0ke]

Looks like the crashing/unresponsiveness is not entirely the games' fault, it just really doesn't like the quick resume system on the Xbox. Everything is OK as long as I quit the game by saving and closing the game so it fully loads again the next time I start it. I hope they get that fixed because without it tbh I don't get that many chances to play the game ...

 

[BlackMastodon]

Finished my replay of Arkham Asylum, that game feels longer than it is with the way that areas get blocked off from you, even though it's a small island. The last fight is also, not really much of a fight against Joker as it is just his henchmen and then you yank him back down; which is a bit odd since you fight Titan henchmen throughout the game, so what would one more be?

I solved a good chunk of riddler stuff too, over the 50% mark, some I just didn't really care to go out of my way for so I can go back thru and solve the others.

Trying to decide if I want to go right to City and Knight, but might play something in between.

But which class did you play as?

 

[MFB]

But which class did you play as?

Ugh, this is what I get for having two tabs from the same sub-forum open, closed one thinking it was the other and then 10 years later when the slow ass servers finally decided to load the other one - nope! I had the right one in the first place!

Spoiler

I'd consider Batman a rogue considering he hits from the shadows, and has multiple means of taking down enemies instead of a frontal assault though.

 

[BlackMastodon]

Batman is definitely a Rogue with that edgy tragic background. Maybe a couple levels of Paladin for the self-righteous hero complex and no killing (plus beef)? All stats at least 18 because he has the rare character background that grants no weaknesses: money.

 

[Werecow]

Batman is definitely a Rogue with that edgy tragic background. Maybe a couple levels of Paladin for the self-righteous hero complex and no killing (plus beef)? All stats at least 18 because he has the rare character background that grants no weaknesses: money.

Maybe a level or two of Monk for the hand-to-hand fighting?

His only weakness in BG3 would be that Morningstar that does extra damage per 300 gold the victim is carrying People have one-shot bosses with that thing.

 

[KnightBrolaire]

Batman is definitely a Rogue with that edgy tragic background. Maybe a couple levels of Paladin for the self-righteous hero complex and no killing (plus beef)? All stats at least 18 because he has the rare character background that grants no weaknesses: money.

Nah, I'd say he's more of a Rogue/Shadow Monk at his core with Tavern brawler.

Extreme focus on hand to hand and cqc- check
Utilizes stealth attacks and distraction techniques-check
Literally strikes from the shadows- check
High wisdom and dexterity- check
Ability to utilize environment and objects in it to advantage - check
Borderline unstoppable when he has advantage- check

 

[KnightBrolaire]

Batman is definitely a Rogue with that edgy tragic background. Maybe a couple levels of Paladin for the self-righteous hero complex and no killing (plus beef)? All stats at least 18 because he has the rare character background that grants no weaknesses: money.

Nah, I'd say he's more of a Rogue/Shadow Monk at his core with Tavern brawler.

Extreme focus on hand to hand and cqc- check

Utilizes stealth attacks and distraction techniques-check

Literally strikes from the shadows- check

High wisdom and dexterity- check

Ability to utilize environment and objects in it to advantage - check

Borderline unstoppable when he has advantage- check

 

[BlackMastodon]

Yeah that makes a lot more sense, I always forget about Monks until they punch my characters 400 times in one round.

 

[wankerness]

Well, Baldur's Gate got a HUGE discount on the PS Store, to 62.99. A whole 10%!!!

I got a $20 store credit from the "PS Stars" thing so maybe I'll buy it now and pretend that I got it for $42.99. I could live with that.

I've heard a lot of loud complainers about the latest playstation updates causing sporadic issues with saves being completely deleted. That has me a bit worried. Also apparently there are tons of issues with "act iii" in terms of performance, bugs, etc but that's probably because it's really far in and the devs just have been working on the first two acts cause few players are that far yet? Is anyone here playing it on PS and have you experienced any of these issues?

 

[BlackMastodon]

No saves being deleted on PS for me, and I'm in Act III. I've mentioned the bugs/performance issues I've come across in this thread and nothing has been super egregious. I think I had 1 crash in Act II but it didn't set me back too far. It also seems like there are pretty regular hotfixes coming through, maybe once a week when I fire it up I see a message saying it was updated, so it's regularly being taken care of by Larian.

The save delete thing is pretty concerning, though, and hopefully it's not the entire save history for that character and just the last manual save or something. I can't imagine losing out on 130 hours of progress on this playthrough, being this close to beating the game, only to have to start over.

 

[wankerness]

No saves being deleted on PS for me, and I'm in Act III. I've mentioned the bugs/performance issues I've come across in this thread and nothing has been super egregious. I think I had 1 crash in Act II but it didn't set me back too far. It also seems like there are pretty regular hotfixes coming through, maybe once a week when I fire it up I see a message saying it was updated, so it's regularly being taken care of by Larian.

The save delete thing is pretty concerning, though, and hopefully it's not the entire save history for that character and just the last manual save or something. I can't imagine losing out on 130 hours of progress on this playthrough, being this close to beating the game, only to have to start over.

I read a bunch more about it. Apparently it primarily affects xbox. And frequently it erases both the "campaign" and the "saves," whatever that means.

PS5 sounds like it has some random bugs that are mainly performance related but save deletion is mostly nonexistant, the current advice seemed to be get it on PC if you can run it (I don't think I could), get it on PS5 if you can't, avoid xbox at all costs until they fix that issue.

So yeah, going to start it today! Unless someone makes me do something in real life. We'll hope not. I haven't read enough about this game to have a clue what to play as or anything so I'll probably just make whatever sounds cool.

 

[Werecow]

I haven't read enough about this game to have a clue what to play as or anything so I'll probably just make whatever sounds cool.

Larian made a big effort to make sure whatever you choose will be a good time, with even some interesting story or options specific to that class. There is obviously a lot of min-maxing to do if you desire, but always within a personal preference in what style of play you want. Like, it's perfectly doable to just talk your way through a lot of the game if you desire.

 

[wankerness]

Larian made a big effort to make sure whatever you choose will be a good time, with even some interesting story or options specific to that class. There is obviously a lot of min-maxing to do if you desire, but always within a personal preference in what style of play you want. Like, it's perfectly doable to just talk your way through a lot of the game if you desire.

Yeah, I've decided I'm going to go as bard cause in RPGs I like being able to succeed at dialogue checks, plus I do like having a buffing class in parties in RPGs. Also, musician, c'mon. And I remember friends talking about some old game where someone used "Spoony Bard" as an insult and that stuck with me. I'll probably be very confused by the entire combat system for a while (cause what little I know about D&D is entirely from other things that ripped it off), but eh. From what I quickly read it sounded like Berserker Barbarian is what I should choose if I want the easiest/dumbest experience possible in terms of combat, so maybe if I get too frustrated with Bard I'll switch to that. I'm hoping I'll just like it enough to stick with it. I'm guessing that you probably get NPC versions of all the classes anyway.

 

[Werecow]

Yeah, I've decided I'm going to go as bard cause in RPGs I like being able to succeed at dialogue checks, plus I do like having a buffing class in parties in RPGs. Also, musician, c'mon. And I remember friends talking about some old game where someone used "Spoony Bard" as an insult and that stuck with me. I'll probably be very confused by the entire combat system for a while (cause what little I know about D&D is entirely from other things that ripped it off), but eh. From what I quickly read it sounded like Berserker Barbarian is what I should choose if I want the easiest/dumbest experience possible in terms of combat, so maybe if I get too frustrated with Bard I'll switch to that. I'm hoping I'll just like it enough to stick with it. I'm guessing that you probably get NPC versions of all the classes anyway.

Bard gives you quite a lot of pretty funny options as well. There's tons of Bard specific dialogue over and above just persuasion checks. I watched a bit of a Bard run on youtube, and it was such a different game from mine.

I've played D&D for a long time, but this was my first 5E rules game, and was confusing to me for a while. Yeh, just remember you'll have party members to fill in the gaps (there's a particularly great Barbarian amongst them).

I guess my only advice would be to remember your choices can have much longer lasting effects than other games, for lots of reasons, but there's so many choices to be made that you'll go mad if you try to look up and min-max everything like maybe people do with a souls-like. So just go with the flow and have fun, it's mainly about a personal adventure for you, rather than "winning". The dice aren't overall just a success or failure type of thing, "failing" a roll is a valid choice at all points in the game as well, and often brings out great content in its own right as well.

Oh by the way... there's an option called Karmic dice that's on by default. Most people like to turn that off, as that tries to weight the dice into not giving out long runs of either high or low rolls. The trouble is that if you reload a save where the game is thinking there's been enough of either, the reloaded save can nearly always sway in one redirection. It can also stop enemies from having runs of low scoring dice as well. Have a read about that and see what you think. It can be turned on or off at will anyway.

 

[wankerness]

Yeah, I took a quick look at a trophy guide and saw like, you have different trophies for different specific choices you make in quests here and there and basically it's impossible to clear on one playthrough or even two unless you're following a guide the whole time. Also one of the trophies is for beating it on the hard difficulty, and in general if one of those trophies exists I'm not even going to try for platinum. So, this is freeing, cause now I feel like I can just play the game without having to try and follow along with any checklists or guides.

This of course was AFTER I looked around at what to do to make a bard, got like 5 different race/subrace combos that were all presented as "best," and then got all kinds of noise as to which kind of bard is the best specialization. Gah. I guess I'll decide between damage dealer or caster support as I go on in the game and not worry about it. The min-maxing here is crazy, you're right. WAYYYYYY too many options to keep track of if you're trying to play optimally, which is good cause it basically forces you to just go with what looks fun/interesting.

I made a half-elf, I didn't like how the more orcy characters looked and I remembered getting annoyed with my gnome/dwarf sorts of characters in other games due to scale in cutscenes/running around in cities. I'll start actually playing tonight!

 

[Werecow]

Yeah, I took a quick look at a trophy guide and saw like, you have different trophies for different specific choices you make in quests here and there and basically it's impossible to clear on one playthrough or even two unless you're following a guide the whole time. Also one of the trophies is for beating it on the hard difficulty, and in general if one of those trophies exists I'm not even going to try for platinum. So, this is freeing, cause now I feel like I can just play the game without having to try and follow along with any checklists or guides.

This of course was AFTER I looked around at what to do to make a bard, got like 5 different race/subrace combos that were all presented as "best," and then got all kinds of noise as to which kind of bard is the best specialization. Gah. I guess I'll decide between damage dealer or caster support as I go on in the game and not worry about it. The min-maxing here is crazy, you're right. WAYYYYYY too many options to keep track of if you're trying to play optimally, which is good cause it basically forces you to just go with what looks fun/interesting.

I made a half-elf, I didn't like how the more orcy characters looked and I remembered getting annoyed with my gnome/dwarf sorts of characters in other games due to scale in cutscenes/running around in cities. I'll start actually playing tonight!

Yeh, it's best to think of optimally as just personal taste. Just choose what you actually have fun being. There is respec in the game anyway btw.

 

[BlackMastodon]

Rule of cool makes for the best experience, and yeah the respec thing is very easy and forgiving and only costs 100 gold per character if you feel like you made a mistake somewhere.

 

[wankerness]

So far I like everything but the combat…but I hate the combat. Missing over 50% of your attacks on a boss isn’t fun, it’s just infuriating. I think I just hate the entire dice roll concept. If it did 20% damage to the boss instead of only hitting 20% of the time it would be vastly less maddening to me even if it would be functionally identical. The last mini boss fights I was in both took over an hour and were a tedious mess of enemies bugging out and sitting there for their entire turn and then me missing most of my attacks so it took FOREVER. This is like, regular melee attacks we’re talking about. I don’t know if I’m horribly underlevelled or if there’s all kinds of mechanics I should be aware of or what, I’ll stick with it to see if it gets better. But right now it has me wanting to jump ship.

There’s a lot of other mechanics I currently don’t get like how a lot of spells can only be used a couple times and then you’re just screwed until you leave the level and come back, which really sucks when a boss is a ways into a level full of resource-draining fights.

For the record I’m level 3 and in the big goblin palace where you rescue the Druid and then have to fight a bunch of minibosses and every damn goblin in the place to make him happy. Played about 7 hours I think??

I should have sided with the horrible mean paladin lady, it probably would have been less tedious!!