Baldur's Gate 3

[Holman]

I've studiously avoided early-access and even discussion of BG3. I'm waiting for the full release.

Without any spoilers, do you players have a sense that it might live up to the originals in terms of story, character, and writing?

[Max Peck]

A little something-something to tide you over while you wait for the main event.

15 years before the events of Baldur's Gate 3, the streets of the city ran red with blood.

Tavs, we need your help. Will your sharp analytical minds unravel these heinous killings before the murderer strikes again?

http://bloodinbaldursgate.com

[hepcat]

. So I’m going to hold out this time.

I did not, in fact, hold out.

[Jaymann]

I've studiously avoided early-access and even discussion of BG3. I'm waiting for the full release.

Without any spoilers, do you players have a sense that it might live up to the originals in terms of story, character, and writing?

It is very different from the original, more a sequel in spirit. I have played through BG1, BG2, IWD1 and IWD2 and all expansions, and I like this more.

[Carpet_pissr]

I've studiously avoided early-access and even discussion of BG3. I'm waiting for the full release.

Without any spoilers, do you players have a sense that it might live up to the originals in terms of story, character, and writing?

It is very different from the original, more a sequel in spirit. I have played through BG1, BG2, IWD1 and IWD2 and all expansions, and I like this more.

Jesus. Bold words, sir. Very bold.

[Max Peck]

I've seen the same sentiment elsewhere, that as the game approaches launch it has been shaping up to be possibly better than BG2.

I bought it as soon as it went into EA and played for about 25 hours in total, but Steam says that I haven't touched it since February 2021 so I don't have first hand knowledge of the current state of the game.

[Jaymann]

Release date for BG3 moved up to August 3! PS5 release moved back to Sep. 6 (they are trying for 60 FPS).

[Smoove_B]

Trying to stay the hell away from Starfield.

[Jaymann]

Trying to stay the hell away from Starfield.

Yep.

[Madmarcus]

I've seen many people saying BG3 is great in early release. It's tempting enough that I went and looked at the BG3 wiki to see how their version of 5e varied from the Solasta version of 5e. The problem is that reading about the races and classes available makes me tired and bored. With a standard array and fixed racial stat boosts it feels like everyone is typecast. Tack on the idea that your primary stat must be 16 at 1st, 18 at 4th, and 20th at 8th level plus boring feats and it all feels generic.

Nothing really novel in what I'm saying. I hadn't realized quite how spoiled I am by the ability to mod Solasta to allow picking racial stat boosts, interesting +1 ability point feats, and multiclassing.

[Zenn7]

II hadn't realized quite how spoiled I am by the ability to mod Solasta to allow picking racial stat boosts, interesting +1 ability point feats, and multiclassing.

Multi-classing and the variant human. Get's me my preferred Rogue Ranger

[Madmarcus]

I'm not really up on the terminology so I didn't want to call it variant human since I like the flexibility in all races!

For whatever reason BG3, or at least reading about character creation and some reviews, is bringing out the disconnect that has always been in the back of my mind between D&D and the requirements of crpgs. Other games can get around it because I don't have the expectations built up from 40+ years of Dungeons and Dragons. Putting the name on it makes me want the freedom that comes with having a human DM, many fewer ideas about forcing specific balance or CR, and a less finely tuned system overall. Perils of being old I guess.

[Blackhawk]

To be fair,

With a standard array and fixed racial stat boosts it feels like everyone is typecast.

To be fair, it's set in The Forgotten Realms, which is about the most standard, vanilla, by-the-book D&D world out there. In fact, the 5e rules are written with it in mind as the default setting. The races and stats in the rulebook are written as the canon rules and stats of that world.

Not that it invalidates your comments about a human GM.

[gbasden]

I've seen many people saying BG3 is great in early release. It's tempting enough that I went and looked at the BG3 wiki to see how their version of 5e varied from the Solasta version of 5e. The problem is that reading about the races and classes available makes me tired and bored. With a standard array and fixed racial stat boosts it feels like everyone is typecast. Tack on the idea that your primary stat must be 16 at 1st, 18 at 4th, and 20th at 8th level plus boring feats and it all feels generic.

Nothing really novel in what I'm saying. I hadn't realized quite how spoiled I am by the ability to mod Solasta to allow picking racial stat boosts, interesting +1 ability point feats, and multiclassing.

Unfortunately, IMO, 5th ed is boring and generic compared to Pathfinder. I wish there were more CRPGs of the latter.

[Blackhawk]

Unfortunately, IMO, 5th ed is boring and generic compared to Pathfinder. I wish there were more CRPGs of the latter.

I agree. 5e was a huge step up from 4e (and 3.5), but there were some design decisions that just don't hold up with long-term play. PF2 is a much more interesting game to play (and the characters are much more interesting to build as you go.)

[hepcat]

I preferred the 3rd edition rules set for Bunnies and Burrows.

[Blackhawk]

We need a Toon game.

[hepcat]

[Isgrimnur]

BESM?

[Max Peck]

PC Gamer asks the big questions.

What if Baldur's Gate 3 isn't just getting out of Starfield's way by launching a month early—what if it's better?

On October 25, 2019, a clever, funny game developed by the veterans behind some of the PC's best-ever RPGs arrived to much anticipation and positive reviews. In most other months or years, we might've been smitten with it. But The Outer Worlds had the bad luck of launching exactly 10 days after Disco Elysium, a game that fundamentally reshaped our expectations for RPGs overnight.

"The Outer Worlds is a fun romp around a solar system infested with capitalism and space cowboys," Fraser wrote at the time in an editorial about how Disco Elysium ruined The Outer Worlds for him. "It lets me shoot stuff with my laser pistol and also loudly tell people that corporations are shit. Sometimes I do this while wearing a stetson that makes me good at dodging. This is all good stuff, but my heart isn't in it. It's been stolen by an alcoholic detective."

I don't know if there are any alcoholic detectives in Baldur's Gate 3, but I wonder if its new release date—moved up to August 3, from its initially planned August 31—might end up giving some players flashbacks to the great Disco coup of 2019. With a full month's lead ahead of Bethesda's Starfield, is there any world, any galaxy, in which Baldur's Gate 3 kinda eats Starfield's lunch? I think there might be.

If you're looking forward to Starfield enough to consider putting yourself in a deep freezer for the next two months, please don't take the mere suggestion of this idea as a personal attack. If you're psyched for both: Great! It'll be an absolutely blessed RPG harvest. But in thinking about the kinds of RPGs Larian and Bethesda have made over the last few years, I'm already getting whiffs of 2019's Disco vs Outer Wilds comparison.

[Jaymann]

It has 3 Acts, and Larian is estimating 75 - 100 hours of gameplay, double that for completionists. I figure that means 600 - 1,000 hours for me.

[Carpet_pissr]

I’m personally about 80% more interested in BG3 than Starfield.

[hepcat]

It has 3 Acts, and Larian is estimating 75 - 100 hours of gameplay, double that for completionists. I figure that means 600 - 1,000 hours for me.

You and me both, brother.

[Alefroth]

It has 3 Acts, and Larian is estimating 75 - 100 hours of gameplay, double that for completionists. I figure that means 600 - 1,000 hours for me.

If it's anything like BG2 that's 20+ years for me.

[YellowKing]

Just to pile on - I was talking to a friend today who is a diehard D&D fan. He was absolutely blown away by early access BG3. I haven't seen him this excited for a game in ages, and the dude knows his RPGs. He's played Solasta and all the DLC, all the Divinities, Pillars of Eternity, etc. He said this blows all of them out of the water.

I've intentionally been avoiding pretty much everything BG3 related, but he's got me super intrigued.

[The Meal]

Granted I haven’t tried BG3 in a long while (2021?), but Solasta’s UI blew BG3 out of the water.

[Skinypupy]

It has 3 Acts, and Larian is estimating 75 - 100 hours of gameplay, double that for completionists. I figure that means 600 - 1,000 hours for me.

So then it’ll be like all the other Larian RPGs that I start, get a decent way into (30-40 hours), then get distracted and/or annoyed and wander off without finishing.

Cool, cool.

[Chraolic]

So then it’ll be like all the other Larian RPGs that I start, get a decent way into (30-40 hours), then get distracted and/or annoyed and wander off without finishing.

Cool, cool.

Seems pretty standard length for an RPG, to be honest. Baldur's Gate II's main story was about 70 hours. Of course, that was also back when I had time to finish 70-hour-plus games.

[Skinypupy]

So then it’ll be like all the other Larian RPGs that I start, get a decent way into (30-40 hours), then get distracted and/or annoyed and wander off without finishing.

Cool, cool.

Seems pretty standard length for an RPG, to be honest. Baldur's Gate II's main story was about 70 hours. Of course, that was also back when I had time to finish 70-hour-plus games.

That wasn’t intended as a negative comment on the game. More a realization of my own gaming habits these days. A 70-hour game would take me months to finish.

[Madmarcus]

I caved in and bought it. After a couple of hours testing I like it but I'm not blown away.

* The UI is bad. Solasta and turn based PoE2 both feel better
* I've only gone as far as the crash area but the map feels like it is intentionally set up to make it easy to miss things. Too many branching and interconnecting ways to get around combined with the free map rotation makes it feel like I might have missed some side path.
* It looks good and runs well on my potato. Yet another reason to love turn based games!
* As I said in the other thread I wasn't sure how I would like character creation. I'm still chafing against some of the restrictions built in to 5e's flat math but knowing that multclassing is coming helps. Plus I really like how they are doing lockpicking and removing the need for a rogue while still giving rogues some neat tricks

[Carpet_pissr]

So then it’ll be like all the other Larian RPGs that I start, get a decent way into (30-40 hours), then get distracted and/or annoyed and wander off without finishing.

Cool, cool.

Seems pretty standard length for an RPG, to be honest. Baldur's Gate II's main story was about 70 hours. Of course, that was also back when I had time to finish 70-hour-plus games.

That wasn’t intended as a negative comment on the game. More a realization of my own gaming habits these days. A 70-hour game would take me months to finish.

Same. I just finished realRTCW (Return to Castle Wolfenstein overhaul mod) and it was probably around 15 hours max. Felt like 50 even though I enjoyed every minute.

Even games like Black Mesa (Half Life) and Fallout 2 (Restoration) - from franchises that I love - had me wondering when they would end when played in the past few years.

Again, loved every minute of those games while playing, just felt loooong (and they aren’t when compared to 50-70+ hour games).

Can’t even imagine trying to play something like a Baldur’s Gate these days, but I will try, dammit!

Same for JA3. No idea how long that’s supposed to be. JA2 was easily 50h I’m sure.

Funny thing is games like Civ where there’s no story arc don’t seem to have that effect on me. But then one of my typical Civ games is also not 50h, probably more like 10-12.

[Carpet_pissr]

After a couple of hours testing I like it but I'm not blown away.

* The UI is bad. Solasta and turn based PoE2 both feel better.

Well that sucks. How does it compare to BGII in your opinion?

[Madmarcus]

After a couple of hours testing I like it but I'm not blown away.

* The UI is bad. Solasta and turn based PoE2 both feel better.

Well that sucks. How does it compare to BGII in your opinion?

It has been too long since I played BG2. Mostly BG3 feels messy, cluttered and not very intuitive. Too many small icons clustered together. Plus some wonkyness when you are having one character scout. Sometimes the other party members follow but sometimes they don't. Made for an interesting situation when I got too close to some NPCs early on but the game decided my party was too far behind and didn't even get involved in the combat!

In it's defense I'm sure that there are other people who hate the Solasta ribbon of possible actions because they feel it is too big.

[Blackhawk]

All I remember was was liking the Solasta interface, but hating parts of the design - the team seemed to like 'gotchas' and moving your team around for you.

[Skinypupy]

Funny thing is games like Civ where there’s no story arc don’t seem to have that effect on me. But then one of my typical Civ games is also not 50h, probably more like 10-12.

That happens to me in MMOs. I can play 50 hours of an MMO without thinking twice, but I struggle to keep interested in single player games. It’s an odd phenomenon.

[Octavious]

Just to pile on - I was talking to a friend today who is a diehard D&D fan. He was absolutely blown away by early access BG3. I haven't seen him this excited for a game in ages, and the dude knows his RPGs. He's played Solasta and all the DLC, all the Divinities, Pillars of Eternity, etc. He said this blows all of them out of the water.

I've intentionally been avoiding pretty much everything BG3 related, but he's got me super intrigued.

I will probably get this day one and I have avoided everything as well. I found that if I do early access it kills the game for me usually.

[Blackhawk]

Funny thing is games like Civ where there’s no story arc don’t seem to have that effect on me. But then one of my typical Civ games is also not 50h, probably more like 10-12.

That happens to me in MMOs. I can play 50 hours of an MMO without thinking twice, but I struggle to keep interested in single player games. It’s an odd phenomenon.

LIkewise. A 15-hour game with an end? After a while, I'm constantly looking at the metaphorical clock, and after the 3/4 mark it seems to slow to a crawl. An MMO or an open-ended game (say, Satisfactory), or even a mission-based game (like Deep Rock Galactic), and I can put in ten times the hours of the start-to-end game without even noticing.

I'm guessing that it's psychological, caused by having a known end point. It's like when you're making a 30-mile drive to another town. As you drive, you think about the town that's 30 miles away, and it seems like it takes a long time to get there. But if you're making a 500-mile drive along the same route, you seem to get to that 30-mile town in a heartbeat. Open ended games don't have an end point, so we don't think, "Are we there yet?"

[Jaymann]

After a couple of hours testing I like it but I'm not blown away.

* The UI is bad. Solasta and turn based PoE2 both feel better.

Well that sucks. How does it compare to BGII in your opinion?

It has been too long since I played BG2. Mostly BG3 feels messy, cluttered and not very intuitive. Too many small icons clustered together. Plus some wonkyness when you are having one character scout. Sometimes the other party members follow but sometimes they don't. Made for an interesting situation when I got too close to some NPCs early on but the game decided my party was too far behind and didn't even get involved in the combat!

This is a feature not a bug. Since it is turn based you can select one of your party who is not in combat and have them sneak up to shoot or blast the engaged enemy.

You can toggle between selecting full group or individual party members. This comes in handy later when you can have your best sneaker progress to a distant waypoint, then the rest of the party can teleport in.

[El Guapo]

Just to pile on - I was talking to a friend today who is a diehard D&D fan. He was absolutely blown away by early access BG3. I haven't seen him this excited for a game in ages, and the dude knows his RPGs. He's played Solasta and all the DLC, all the Divinities, Pillars of Eternity, etc. He said this blows all of them out of the water.

I've intentionally been avoiding pretty much everything BG3 related, but he's got me super intrigued.

I will probably get this day one and I have avoided everything as well. I found that if I do early access it kills the game for me usually.

My understanding is that early access saves won't be usable with the full game when released. Is that right, and is that going to change at any point pre-official release? I'm definitely going to get the game, but I don't like replaying parts of games so I've been holding off on early access.

[El Guapo]

Funny thing is games like Civ where there’s no story arc don’t seem to have that effect on me. But then one of my typical Civ games is also not 50h, probably more like 10-12.

That happens to me in MMOs. I can play 50 hours of an MMO without thinking twice, but I struggle to keep interested in single player games. It’s an odd phenomenon.

LIkewise. A 15-hour game with an end? After a while, I'm constantly looking at the metaphorical clock, and after the 3/4 mark it seems to slow to a crawl. An MMO or an open-ended game (say, Satisfactory), or even a mission-based game (like Deep Rock Galactic), and I can put in ten times the hours of the start-to-end game without even noticing.

I'm guessing that it's psychological, caused by having a known end point. It's like when you're making a 30-mile drive to another town. As you drive, you think about the town that's 30 miles away, and it seems like it takes a long time to get there. But if you're making a 500-mile drive along the same route, you seem to get to that 30-mile town in a heartbeat. Open ended games don't have an end point, so we don't think, "Are we there yet?"

It's interesting, it's kind of the reverse for me. Without a main plot I lose interest in games very quickly. Sandbox and open-ended type games are a no go for me as a result.