So I'm new-ish to cRPG's. I played the first four-ish hours of Baldur's Gate 3 Early Access.
... and I think I'm going to be very hooked.
Spoilers for being 4ish hours into early access..
Spoilers for being 4ish hours into early access..
It reminds me of the Anakain meme. I found the druid caged disguise as a bear and I killed all the goblins...Not what I QUITE wanted, but once I found the druid he insisted his bear form what trigger combat with most goblins
And I'm fine with that. I'm trying to lean into the emergent story telling of the game and accept my choice as they roll and as they come.
I want to hear your thoughts on early access. Is it what you thought the game would be? For cRPG veterans, is it going to live up to meet your expectations for what one should be? Care to share your outcomes for the situation I engaged with (spoilered of course for players who want to go in completely fresh)? I've not played 5e, what do you think of the adaptation? And any other thoughts you have in that old noggin?
to clarify the "new-ish to cRPG's", I've played the opening hours to a handful of them including Pillars of Eternity, Pathfinder: Kingmaker, Mechajammer, Disco Elysium and Encased. I liked them all, but I have trouble committing although I did complete Disco Elysium and LOVE and ADORE it. I will return one day including games like that Fallout 1/2, Planescape: Torment, and others on my list.
Love and candy to you all
Having played both the prior Baldur's Gate games, most of the old AD&D SSI cRPGs, Neverwinter Nights, Icewind Dale, Fallout, Planescape, and a host of other cRPGs, I've been really impressed with BG3, it's really really good. Most recent cRPGs have a tendency to try to "hide" their RPG roots, they're trying to tell a story and don't really want the mechanics to get in the way. BG3 does not shy away from it and it feels the closest to playing a tabletop RPG that I've ever played, it just feels like they've added so much detail to the game and give the players quite a bit of freedom.
What I'm kind of interested in is if they'll add support for scenario creation tools for the community. I could honestly see myself trying to play through a regular gaming session using BG3 as a sort of virtual tabletop. Let the game handle most of the combat mechanics, but then give the GM controls for running through the rest of the game for social encounters or for going through the story/plot elements, I think it could be really cool.
Larian's other game, Divinity: Original Sin 2, had a creator mode where a game master could create an entire campaign with its own story and scripted story beats. It's pretty great.
Unfortunately, Larian recently confirmed that the exact same thing won't be in BG3 though it will support mods (and we'll see how far people can take those).
Was this feature cancelled? I thought it was originally a goal during development.
Happy to hear there will be mod support. The original Baldur's Gate games still have some activity in the modding scene to this day, so it just wouldn't feel right if the continuation wasn't friendly to them.
Swen Vincke, the game director of BG3, said here in this interview on Dropped Frames that they will support modding tools, but sadly there are no plans for a a full dungeon master tool.
That said, I believe you could do something like that in Solasta, since it ships with a dungeon maker.
I would kill for scenario creation tools. I bought Neverwinter Nights just so I could play with theirs. I enjoy writing and have been playing with writing for video games. If I could something like that in BG3, I'd die.
Bluntly it's very very good and possibly going to skew your views on others.
DOS2 is the previous title from this company, which has lots of promise and bunch of rough edges i hate (armor looks weird, and the combat works in a way that wasn't often satisfying, especially since half the map tends to burst into flames unless you actively avoid it).
BG3 is a WONDERFUL refinement of everything they learned, to the point i'm sad they're hampered by DnD's rather restricting rule sets in comparison to what I've seen in others. Either way, it's been great to play. The choices and story telling are so far top notch, and the amount of "oh wait I can do that" is huge.
I played several hours of DOS2 and really liked it. I will jump back in one day. The characters were all very charming. I decided to do a play through with lone wolf on whatever difficulty is right below the default. Allowed me to focus on the story while still being entertained by the combat.
The only thing I have against it is the floor effects drove me crazy. Seemed like something was always slowing me, poisoning me, lighting me on fire, etc.
Yep, that's most peoples main complaint. They still exist in BG3, but are VASTLY toned down in how much they appear. If you don't go out of your way to cast spells that create them (grease) you're not likely to see them. As opposed to DOS2's "barrels of poison" everywhere.
Yeah the interactions between elements is cool at first but become tedious at some point. Everything is just fire.
Poison should wash away with water, but once it (very easily and completely) ignites you first need to douse it with a localized rain spell, then do it again afterwards to wash it away... If nothing in between completely and fully ignites the entire pool again.
The complaint is valid and you can either lean into it or build something that entirely removes it. It can be quite funny sometimes and it allows for some creative problem solving now and then.
Nevertheless, BG3 should be improved when it comes to this.
I really tried getting into DOS2 but I kept accidentally setting me and my team on fire. I only played about 5 hours, but I’m not kidding when I say every encounter ended with someone on my team on fire.
The only other cRPG I played and enjoyed was Pillars of Eternity. Would you say BG3 is better than DOS2 so far? I want to play it, but I’m not sure if the genre is one I can get into despite being, on paper, everything I want in a game. I just feel like the mechanics are overwhelming and I have 0 experience with DND overall.
I played DOS2 with my wife and regularly set her tank on fire, sometimes even accidentally. It's just part of the experience. When you need to throw waves of fire everywhere, sometimes the tank is going to be standing where you really need fire to be.
I just turned the Red Prince into a fire based tank. Might as well embrace the chaos.
BG3 is - at least in early access so far - more character focused, whereas pillars of eternity is much more concerned with world building and grand detail.
The mechanics of BG3 are also simpler than PoE and more forgiving than DOS2.
Is BG3 a complete game right now? I’ve been holding off but currently no longer have an RPG to play…
It's officially still early access. They even say on their steam page not to start a new game and only buy it if you want to have the added Digital Deluxe edition added for free.
It'll have its full launch on the third of August.
It’s about to launch fully on august 3rd
I've been playing it over the last few days, and have had fun with it but also run into a distressing amount of bugs and glitches (phantom characters, characters freezing in combat and being unable to do anything or even end their turn, items and gold disappearing during trade, accidental stealing because I equipped am item from the store before purchasing it, sounds levels being all over the place). This is all in my first 4-6 hours!
I sincerely hope they've spent a LOT of time polishing the game for it's release.
Baldur's Gate 3 looks very pretty and with Larian at the helm, will probably end up fairly polished. D&D 5e as a system itself is pretty lacklustre even beyond WotC's corporate antics, but I think this game will be worth picking up. For me though that's going to be a couple of years down the line rather than at release.
I'm also new to CRPGS, so far I've played Baldurs Gate 1 & 2 in prep of 3 and Disco Elysium. After player 1 & 2 and the combat-less Disco I think I can safely say I don't enjoy the real time with pause gameplay and am pretty happy 3 will be turn based. I'm honestly kinda surprised I didn't like rtwp since I enjoy rts games but it just didn't click for me, I'm happy it seems a lot of modern crpgs have a pause option.
After Baldurs Gate 3 I think I'll check out pathfinder and I already picked up Rogue Trader so I might check out the beta for that.
I’m planning on picking up Rogue Trader! I want to get into Warhammer and figure Rogue Trader is a good place to start.
I prefer turn based combat as well.
I haven't played... yet. But I have been watching too many videos of other people playing and I am very into it.