Idk if this was in the last patch or this one. But Shadowheart now has 10 strength and 15 dexterity (changed from 15 and 9).
They also adjusted Astarion's stats so that he now went from having 12 strength to 8.
But this significantly affects his ability (and the parties ability) to carry things. Especially with Shadowheart also receiving a large drop in her strength.
Is this a good "Make hard decisions to decide what to carry" kind of change for you? Or just tedious?
Inventory weight systems are usually pretty hard to pull off.
All of the changes above sound pretty great. To be honest - I'm a bit surprised they're able to make significant changes to the companions. I guess I assumed the dialogue/voice acting part was either finished or hard to change. Maybe that's something that can continually evolve over the length of the project?
Just tedious in my opinion. If they were going to change either of these the only one that really needed it was Shadowheart. Even then, they could have adjusted her stats to be
14 str
12 dex
14 con
10 int
16 wis
10 charisma
from
15 str
9 dex
13 con
10 int
16 wis
14 chr
That would have largely kept her carrying capacity being good while still using the standard array (which is how they have been giving NPCs stats) and allowing her to use strength based melee weapons. With 10 strength she is quite a bit less effective with them now.
Not a fan of min-maxed characters to be honest, but I see your point (still four wasted points in charisma).
A dex character suits better a trickery cleric in terms of skillset ( sleight of hand/thieves tools always go with dex in this game. She´s the only companion besides Asterion trained in it). A distribution of 10str 15dex 13Con 8int 16Wis 14CH is not optimal, but better than before.
Dex clerics are still playable in 5e, thank god ( Zhjaeve, I´m looking at you).
The star feature of the new patch is that the companions are not nagging about everything like before IMHO; unless provoked. It was like travelling with four unromanced Jaheiras and Gale before.
I´m pleasantly surprised they changed the dialogues of the game, provided they´re already dubbed.I´m looking forward to a playthrough with a companion approval that does not seem to be measured in Kelvin degrees.
I´m also surprised no one mentioned that companions and pets now jump to follow you across cliffs and other elevations.
May I hear a hallelujah? Life was too short to pass the time making the crab manually jump after you...
Regardless of how I feel about Infinity vs Divinity, there's just too much in the patch notes and what I'm seeing playing Patch 3 to suggest to me that Larian is acting in good faith to make the best Baldur's Gate game to the best of their specific abilities. "To the best of their specific abilities" is not what everybody wants tho, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. Hasbro no doubt wanted sales and that's what they got and are getting.
I might be wrong, who knows, but I definitely went from cynical fan of both series to about 70%-80% optimistic with the direction they're headed comparing Patch 2 to Patch 3.
I'm super curious what the changes were that you liked the most. Of the non-spoiler, non-plot variety anyways.
- Tone. This is most evidenced by the companions. They are faaar less hostile. Just a lil bit more spirit of, "Yoho! Adventure!" Overall, just more of an emotional connection between game and player.
- Surfaces. Level 1 Goblins no longer pelt and bombard me with oil and ice and fire and acid all at the same time while I get stunlocked and die horribly and I'm sad.
- Die rolls in dialog. The numbers to hit are fairer and I'm making less of a fool of myself in dialog despite specialized into certain skills. RNG is RNG, but in general, party face shouldn't feel like he is blundering Persuasion checks.
- Tweaks to 5e. Various QOL improvements that make it more in line with 5e abstracted in video game form vs a poor representation of 5e. (BG1+2 being abstracted 2e.) More video gamey in general.
- UI tweaks that present more information and flavor text and is more clear about it. Still totally lacking in personality and idiosyncrasy, but what can you do? It's Larian. This'll probably stick with me. Bring me back something wild like big blue rocks and gold gauntlets.
These are all outlined in the patch notes, and you know what? This has been more or less my experience. The fact that they lay this all out like this AND having played about the same amount of Patch 2 and Patch 3 now seeing it in action, this suggests to me that BG3 is headed... somewhere? It's headed somewhere. But I will say this: I hope they start pandering to me more as a fan from the beginning. Give me those dumb references.
Is it worth $60 now? Nooooo. Will it be when it is release? I am reasonably certain now that they're implementing feedback in a highly positive, thoughtful way and will result in at least a satisfactory final product, as a fan of BG1, BG2, Beamdog's work with the EE's and Siege and DOS2. If you're stuck on Infinity vs Divinity, there's no helping it though. That's just where the chips landed and everybody involved got a huge jackpot.
Like I said, it's now in "Soft Pass" territory for me. I've made it clear in private that I HATED Patch 2 and am now telling the same people that based on my experiences with Patch 3, BG3 is at least being developed positively and in good faith. I was never a BG3 hater, actually! I'm just overly critical/emotional/impatient but my mind and heart changes very rapidly when presented with new information. That's what Patch 3 was for me. Proof that they're actually leading and directing vs just navel gazing, which it seemed they had fallen back on.
I will say this though. The reviews that are (hyperbolically) like:
500 Hours Played, Recommended
"Thank you, Larian. This shining, brilliant, noble, pure and beautiful 1/4th of a Beta Test has finally given me a life full of true purpose and meaning."
spook me out and I never want to meet these people.
It seems they also changed Shadowheart´s armour to a Chainshirt that does not give disadvantage in stealth checks, unlike her previous armour. And a few new weapon types that not were before, like javelins and warhammers.
Shadowheart seems more Trickery-y than before. With the previous build with 9 dex (that´s a minus one to all the classic thievery checks) and a noisy armour for a trickery cleric of Shar, I remember thinking that Larian was just trolling.
Now the trolling of Shadowheart is limited to her name only. I remember going ROFL when I saw you can actually comment about her name in the first dialogue with her.
I will say this though. The reviews that are (hyperbolically) like:
500 Hours Played, Recommended
"Thank you, Larian. This shining, brilliant, noble, pure and beautiful 1/4th of a Beta Test has finally given me a life full of true purpose and meaning."
spook me out and I never want to meet these people.
Some of the Steam reviews, not only of BG 3, could be fuel to a PhD in psychology.
@BallpointMan "Second - Plenty of those points are roughly true, minus any snark injected on your part."
Wow, just wow. Saying that BG3 cannot be criticized is true? You can't even see what you're doing anymore, can you?
Before you come back and say, "That's not what I was referring to and you know it." That was my entire post. Everything I said was pointing out that the Larian camp here is constantly telling us that we cannot judge the game, and keep changing the reasons as to why. There's no other meaning in my post to say "roughly true".
@BallpointMan "Second - Plenty of those points are roughly true, minus any snark injected on your part."
Wow, just wow. Saying that BG3 cannot be criticized is true? You can't even see what you're doing anymore, can you?
Before you come back and say, "That's not what I was referring to and you know it." That was my entire post. Everything I said was pointing out that the Larian camp here is constantly telling us that we cannot judge the game, and keep changing the reasons as to why. There's no other meaning in my post to say "roughly true".
First - You're still being snarky. It's impolite and unnecessary. If you want people to take you seriously, maybe stop?
Second - I wasnt making that argument, and evidentially even you know I wasnt saying that. The fact that you had to speak for me, make a pre-defense for your argument and then explain your previous post speaks to that. All this amounts to is you putting words in my mouth and trying to argue with them.
Lastly - I was clearly arguing against the facetious position that your post represented moving goalposts with respect to BG3. You attempted to make the argument seem laughable by injecting snark into each point (which was super disingenuous) - but at least part of the core message was roughly true. I even noted that, I'll bullet point them out for you (so you can argue against my actual words).
Larian do profess to be big D&D fans. Who are we to judge someone else's fandom?
The saying "Dont Judge a Book by its Cover" exists for a reason.
DOS2 was the reason that Larian was asked to do BG3. It makes sense that they'd probably stick to the combat system they preferred to work with.
Larian was very upfront that the entire reason for Early Access being available for BG3 was so that user feedback could be incorporated into the game. They're just following through with what they said.
@BallpointMan I notice that you are leaving out every instance of "You aren't allowed to criticize the game."
The goalposts have absolutely been moving since the first announcement. Its always "You can't criticize the game because of x", and when we try to find a different aspect to point out, nope, can't criticize THAT either. And everytime a new announcement comes out, it shifts again. "No gameplay has come out yet, its not gonna be a DoS clone." "Oh, of COURSE its heavily inspired by DoS, DoS was successful!" on and on and on, with no end.
Its so blatant, that it becomes increasingly difficult to believe its not intentional.
Do you even realize there is a big difference between shouting "its gonna be a DoS clone" and claiming "its heavily inspired by DoS". Lo and behold, BG3 is not a DoS clone. So that part can be hardly recognized as valid criticism, and the more time the game is in Early Access, the more it's evident.
There should be a line somewhere between what you criticize and what you can try to find as an aspect to ridicule without any real evidence. This line becomes more apparent when the search for that aspect is being done by someone who hasn't played the game, and the "opposite" point of view is formed by those who have played it.
@BallpointMan I notice that you are leaving out every instance of "You aren't allowed to criticize the game."
The goalposts have absolutely been moving since the first announcement. Its always "You can't criticize the game because of x", and when we try to find a different aspect to point out, nope, can't criticize THAT either. And everytime a new announcement comes out, it shifts again. "No gameplay has come out yet, its not gonna be a DoS clone." "Oh, of COURSE its heavily inspired by DoS, DoS was successful!" on and on and on, with no end.
Its so blatant, that it becomes increasingly difficult to believe its not intentional.
You're right. I left that part out because it isnt true. I bet you I can find a half dozen examples of myself saying "X criticism is totally fair" in only a few minutes of reviewing my posts on this subforum - or suggesting criticism is perfectly fine. in fact, the idea that anyone thinks all criticism is unacceptable is so far beyond the pale that it only speaks to a victim complex rather than reality.
Let's try this again. For the hundredth time.
I do not, and never have had, any issue with people offering criticism of the game. I do take the time to point out disingenuous arguments, and people who offer criticism that is false or not backed up whatsoever by evidence. Things like "The game is multiplayer first" is a canard that is not substantiated in evidence. The idea that there will be no good aligned character is also not substantiated. These are just two examples, much like the "There will be no To Hit rolls" debacle was unsubstantiated.
Not liking tons of DOS2-like surface effects? Great. Good for you and everyone else who feels that way.
PS - People in glass houses should not throw stones. Attempting to call me out for not responding to a particular part of your post when you havent addressed your snarkiness/putting words in my mouth, nor the fact that you misattributed the "camps" point earlier is bad form.
@BallpointMan I notice that you are leaving out every instance of "You aren't allowed to criticize the game."
The goalposts have absolutely been moving since the first announcement. Its always "You can't criticize the game because of x", and when we try to find a different aspect to point out, nope, can't criticize THAT either. And everytime a new announcement comes out, it shifts again. "No gameplay has come out yet, its not gonna be a DoS clone." "Oh, of COURSE its heavily inspired by DoS, DoS was successful!" on and on and on, with no end.
Its so blatant, that it becomes increasingly difficult to believe its not intentional.
I know the mods here don't like folks being singled out, but I think it's warranted here.
What's your goal here? You seem to have zero interest in buying the game. Unlike some of the other critics here you seem completely close minded about possibly liking the game.
Instead you seem to be trying to convince as many people that the game is an utter failure, a betrayal of the franchise and something that should earn Larian tons of widespread opprobrium. And this seems to be a crusade that's been going on since at least February.
Again, I'm going to reiterate the arguments I've made earlier. No one would do this in the Kingmaker thread, or the Pillars threads, etc. Heck, I don't even think any sensible regular would do this for Siege of Dragonspear, and that game had plenty of criticism.
I feel like you've made your points, more than sufficiently on here. And I'm asking you (not telling you) to be courteous. And maybe consider leaving this small subsection of the forum for people who have an actual interest in the game. I know you're likely to take offense at this suggestion, but I have to say, your contributions have not been productive here, going on several months imo.
If you don't like the game -- fine. I sincerely do not care what games you like or don't. But there's no reason to sit around in a group of people who do like a game reminding us of the same dozen reasons why we're all missing the real truth for months on end. I think it's fine to make criticisms of some games and even voice publicly why you're writing a game off. But there's also a limit to this. When I hate a game, I move on to other games.
Changelist:
fixed a crash related to objects fading in and out
fixed a crash related to re-arranging party members
fixed not being able to scroll in an inventory with a lot of items
@ThacoBell we were on the same page more or less but I want to stress that the changelog as of Patch 3 was written in a way that backed up what I had experienced first hand. Larian really is making good faith efforts to improve a roughhewn base of a game in the face of harsh but fair criticism. They aren't taking the easy route out of playing up to their base forever for cheap accolades.
I haven't tried the newer patches yet, i'm gonna wait until the game is complete at this point, but I like what i'm hearing. It seems like they are really listening to the community. I don't have faith that it is going to be a true great by any means, I just don't feel the BG atmosphere, I do think it will end up being a solid title that, for better or worse, probably attracts a new crowd to DnD.
I haven't tried the newer patches yet, i'm gonna wait until the game is complete at this point, but I like what i'm hearing. It seems like they are really listening to the community. I don't have faith that it is going to be a true great by any means, I just don't feel the BG atmosphere, I do think it will end up being a solid title that, for better or worse, probably attracts a new crowd to DnD.
I'm disappointed in their communication, but most of the changes are directly in line with what their own community seemed to want (I can't speak of reddit or any other places they might get feedback from) so it seems that even if they keep quiet they've got their ear to the ground.
"You’ve opted for Early Access, which has served you well in the past – what’s EA’s appeal?
There are several. The feedback is superimportant – we learned that when we released the first Original Sin. We released via Early Access on that partially to get money right in the middle of production. [And it’s not even like] we didn’t say this in public. You do Early Access to get another boost of money – it’s not a lot, but it will help. Then, instead of your QA team and designers, you have thousands of people playing your game and they have a lot of opinions. If two people give you a certain opinion, that’s OK, but if thousands of people have the same opinion then you probably need to listen to them and you probably need to change it around.
During Early Access, we also get a lot of anonymous data – it tells us where people are dying, or where they’re levelling up, or what weapon they picked up and equipped, and so on, so we gain a lot of insight into what people are experiencing, and we learn from that and change the game, the rules, the balancing. It allows us to make the game a lot better by the time it releases because you have thousands of people playing it, and that gives you a lot of statistics to work with.
This also goes back to when we first worked on Divine Divinity and Beyond Divinity – we had a very active forum on Larian. com, and we had a small, vocal fan base. They were constantly giving us feedback and ideas, and when I think back on those days, what we’re now doing in Early Access is similar, only a thousand times bigger. We’re getting a lot of feedback and a lot of ideas now.
One thing that we learned from the statistics is that people are completely uninterested in a lot of buffing and debuffing spells – we have stats where you can see how many people are using what spell and how often they’re using it, and that made us realise every magic spell that we put in an RPG needs to have this ‘oomph’ factor.
You have to want to click it, or you’ll never click it. You cannot sell a bless spell to people. It’s boring. They don’t care – they want to see fireworks, they want to see damage. If you talk to someone about balancing in the Original Sin games, they’ll say the buffing and debuffing is overpowered, but we make it overpowered on purpose because otherwise people are not going to click it.
We make them want to click it. We keep on changing the description and the balance until we see in the statistics that usage of that particular spell is going up. So yeah, we really learn a lot of our own game by
putting it in Early Access.
Does this feedback change things significantly, or is development largely set in stone?
In Original Sin 2, the opening island, Fort Joy, we rewrote it three times, because of feedback about the story, the flow, the logic behind the story. I know this because I was working with translating teams that were working on the game, and after translating Fort Joy three times, they were asking when they were going to see the rest of the game. We’re not afraid to drastically change things around. Even right now we’re thinking about changes to Baldur’s Gate III that would be pretty drastic for any other game development company, but we’ve always revolved around iteration. We’ve made sure that our systems, our pipelines, our workflows, and our teams are very much aware of the fact that we iterate.
Everything that we build needs to be flexible because it can change. We should be able to react to a good idea; we should be able to react to Early Access. We invited playtesters over to the studios – which was
very difficult with Covid, but we managed to – a month before releasing into Early Access, and what we learned from those people was also implemented during that one month we had.
Baldur’s Gate III is a lot bigger than anything we’ve built before, with a lot more dependencies; tweaking something or changing something is just one drop of water. For instance, if you change one word in the dialogue it needs to be translated, but it also has to be voiced again, then also the cinematics team needs to take it into account again – all of these small changes we used to be able to do on the fly. Our company is now four or five times bigger and so is everything about the game, so it’s become more difficult to do, but we identified it as one of the core reasons why Larian Studios’ games are different and why they are successful. Because we’re not afraid to actually do something completely different or make a drastic change or listen to people saying ‘This doesn’t work’, or ‘This is unclear’.
You’re a studio notable for having an actual sense of humour, but Baldur’s Gate is serious business. How do you marry these two concepts?
Even with Original Sin II, when we went on the first press tour we were telling people it was a much more serious game, it was gritty and dark. I really think we tried to tell a really dark story in the game – it was a really dark story – but people still laugh out loud at the dialogue we write. It doesn’t mean that because the world is serious and there’s serious stuff going on that you can’t write a funny skeleton or a rat prince who is so stuck up that he’s funny in everything he says.
For Baldur’s Gate III, we also have characters that… I don’t think that they’re ‘funny’, but the way they react to the world or the way that they are makes them funny without them being funny.
I also think that people play games for fun, so I don’t see any problem with us being funny once in a while. We’re not the type of company that’s going to change this into a horror game where everything is dark
and serious all the time. We tried, but then all the writers were hiding little jokes here and there until we realised it’s just not us. We have to [have a sense of humour]".
"You have to want to click it, or you’ll never click it. You cannot sell a bless spell to people. It’s boring. They don’t care – they want to see fireworks, they want to see damage. If you talk to someone about balancing in the Original Sin games, they’ll say the buffing and debuffing is overpowered, but we make it overpowered on purpose because otherwise people are not going to click it."
This was very, very interesting. I have only bought and played one EA ever, so haven't really thought about what data they could collect other than actual input from ie forum posts etc.
Also, it makes me wonder if Goodberry will make it into the game
"You have to want to click it, or you’ll never click it. You cannot sell a bless spell to people. It’s boring. They don’t care – they want to see fireworks, they want to see damage. If you talk to someone about balancing in the Original Sin games, they’ll say the buffing and debuffing is overpowered, but we make it overpowered on purpose because otherwise people are not going to click it."
This was very, very interesting. I have only bought and played one EA ever, so haven't really thought about what data they could collect other than actual input from ie forum posts etc.
Also, it makes me wonder if Goodberry will make it into the game
Yeah, me too...
You have free "goodberries" as ham, apples, bread,water, etc that you find exploring and allows you to heal your party outside combat so maybe the spell would be in the game for tradition and fun, but nothing else. There´s food already in the game so mod the spell should not be that difficult (when Larian finally provide the tools after the EA) if the spell does not make the cut.
It makes more sense in games like "Solasta": you have to eat or you starve and you need food supplies to make camp so goodberries and "create food and water" are more useful mechanically.
The Bless one is kind of funny because I think it's much less that it's not flashy enough and more that they've made it harder to select those you want to be blessed than it needed to be as well as made the spell kind of redundant since the backstab and height advantages mean that all characters can get a +5 attack bonus at all times and it's better to just attack than to waste time buffing.
It's what I said, they were ultimately tasked with making Baldur's Gate 3 and they are developing the game in good faith to the best of their abilities. It's not what I'd ever envision for Baldur's Gate 3, but I am impressed at just how much they're doing with the insane amounts of telemetry they have on this Early Access.
Also, regarding the humor, I've said this before but Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 (1 especially) are fundamentally Canadian video games. There's just NO replicating that so I've already come to terms with this.
The Bless one is kind of funny because I think it's much less that it's not flashy enough and more that they've made it harder to select those you want to be blessed than it needed to be as well as made the spell kind of redundant since the backstab and height advantages mean that all characters can get a +5 attack bonus at all times and it's better to just attack than to waste time buffing.
Is this an interaction of the Divinity engine and 5th Edition rules? I'm not 100% familiar. Bless is like... mandatory for me in higher difficulty BG1 and 2.
The Bless one is kind of funny because I think it's much less that it's not flashy enough and more that they've made it harder to select those you want to be blessed than it needed to be as well as made the spell kind of redundant since the backstab and height advantages mean that all characters can get a +5 attack bonus at all times and it's better to just attack than to waste time buffing.
Is this an interaction of the Divinity engine and 5th Edition rules? I'm not 100% familiar. Bless is like... mandatory for me in higher difficulty BG1 and 2.
Bless is actually something of a superfluous spell in the BG games, though it took me awhile to come to this realization. First of all, the morale bonus is a complete waste if you're using the longer-lasting remove fear spell, also level one.
Beyond that, its bonuses are +1 to attack rolls (5% greater hit chance) and +1 to damage (although not above the maximum). The second bonus is negligible at BG2 levels. And the first bonus is extremely minor. Couple this with the fact that it doesn't generally last for longer than one battle and has a somewhat longer casting time, and it's just not a spell that makes much of a difference.
To be fair, as a level one spell, it's a small commitment. However, I'd argue you're better off at low levels investing those slots into command if a priest. And at higher levels into remove fear and armor of faith. I can definitely argue for its usage with a druid or shaman as their level one options are more limited.
I'm ignorant of what changes it's undergone in 5th ed, but I can definitely see Larian's point of view that it's a boring spell that probably does need some tweaking if it's still as it was.
I'm not good at buffing in video games. Never have been, probably never will be. I can sit down and think of like 5 or 6 spells to cast for buffing purposes for any given encounter, but my mentality always reverts back to "If I can beat this battle without the buffs, why bother buffing in the first place?". It's the same reason I inevitably hoard all my consumables in most games... if I play "good enough", then I dont need to heal using that potion or other item.
Wands rarely ever get used by me, either.
That's 100% a me problem, but I suspect there are a lot of gamers who fall into this trap. As a result, I'm kind of onboard with buff spell tweaking to make them feel more significant in a CRPG. Haste has always felt really good in the BG franchise, but bless/aid/etc didnt (Stoneskin also worked - but being an 8 hour duration let me cast it as soon as I entered and area and forget about it until I need it again).
Now all that said - I'm not lobbying for the change. If the reason a mechanic doesnt work well for me is because of user error, then I'll live with it.
I used to be a hoarder in the BG games as well. Playing limited reload or no reload runs really helped change that aspect of my playstyle. And the games became far more enjoyable because of it. Hoarding gear in BG ends up making the game less fun because of the inventory system.
Alot of the buffing potions actually work akin to Stoneskin, so chug them before a dungeon or a wilderness area. Potions of strength, dexterity, constitution, heroism, invulnerability all fit this mold. Find the character they'll be most suited to and go ahead and just burn them. You'll have those buffs for several fights. Also adds some drama to dungeon exploration imo, as it ends up rewarding efficiency, thus making even your out of combat choices significant.
The wands allow you to instead fill your spellbook with the critical debuffing/buffing or emergency situation spells. Instead of stocking Fireballs in your spellbook, use slots on things that will save you in an emergency or difficult fight like Dispel Magic, Dire Charm, Slow or Spell Thrust. And then use the many wands of fire for damage. Sure, wand fireballs are going to tend to be weaker, but they cast instantly and your party is now prepared for a wider variety of situations.
Once you do a run where you use literally everything as soon as you get it, it's a true game changer with how you play these games. Also, color me surprised re: Bless. Must've been my lucky rabbit's foot charm.
The Bless one is kind of funny because I think it's much less that it's not flashy enough and more that they've made it harder to select those you want to be blessed than it needed to be as well as made the spell kind of redundant since the backstab and height advantages mean that all characters can get a +5 attack bonus at all times and it's better to just attack than to waste time buffing.
Is this an interaction of the Divinity engine and 5th Edition rules? I'm not 100% familiar. Bless is like... mandatory for me in higher difficulty BG1 and 2.
Bless in 5e gives three characters a bonus of 1d4 to every attack roll and saving throw. The problem is that they've made it cast like an area of effect spell where the AI chooses who gets blessed rather than s direct selection of three targets, which leads to a lot of fiddling with how to place the aoe circle if your party isn't in optimal positioning or has other valid targets among themselves.
The +5 bonus is the mechanical average bonus of a roll with advantage. Larian has chosen to implement being at a higher height than and behind the back of your target as giving you advantage on attack rolls. These are extremely easy to get because of how they've also implemented movement so there's never a reason to not have advantage on attacks (unless your advantages are just evening out other disadvantages).
So the 1d4 Bless gives you becomes kind of superfluous next to the constant advantage you can give yourself just by moving around. They stack, if course, so it's not useless. There's just much less of a reason to buff in the first place since you will pretty much always be able to have the most powerful buff -- advantage.
Yes a big part of what I like about the Baldur's Gate games is the role of the items in the game; they're well placed and can play a key role in many strategies and because there's a (generous) limit of them in the game except for low level scrolls than can randomly drop, it feels like you have resources you have to carefully manage. Among other things this aspect just isn't really present in most of the newer CRPGs. I feel whilst I got some enjoyment from the Pillars of Eternity games they just played themselves too much doing mostly the same thing every battle.
Comments
Not a fan of min-maxed characters to be honest, but I see your point (still four wasted points in charisma).
A dex character suits better a trickery cleric in terms of skillset ( sleight of hand/thieves tools always go with dex in this game. She´s the only companion besides Asterion trained in it). A distribution of 10str 15dex 13Con 8int 16Wis 14CH is not optimal, but better than before.
Dex clerics are still playable in 5e, thank god ( Zhjaeve, I´m looking at you).
The star feature of the new patch is that the companions are not nagging about everything like before IMHO; unless provoked. It was like travelling with four unromanced Jaheiras and Gale before.
I´m pleasantly surprised they changed the dialogues of the game, provided they´re already dubbed.I´m looking forward to a playthrough with a companion approval that does not seem to be measured in Kelvin degrees.
I´m also surprised no one mentioned that companions and pets now jump to follow you across cliffs and other elevations.
May I hear a hallelujah? Life was too short to pass the time making the crab manually jump after you...
I'm super curious what the changes were that you liked the most. Of the non-spoiler, non-plot variety anyways.
- Surfaces. Level 1 Goblins no longer pelt and bombard me with oil and ice and fire and acid all at the same time while I get stunlocked and die horribly and I'm sad.
- Die rolls in dialog. The numbers to hit are fairer and I'm making less of a fool of myself in dialog despite specialized into certain skills. RNG is RNG, but in general, party face shouldn't feel like he is blundering Persuasion checks.
- Tweaks to 5e. Various QOL improvements that make it more in line with 5e abstracted in video game form vs a poor representation of 5e. (BG1+2 being abstracted 2e.) More video gamey in general.
- UI tweaks that present more information and flavor text and is more clear about it. Still totally lacking in personality and idiosyncrasy, but what can you do? It's Larian. This'll probably stick with me. Bring me back something wild like big blue rocks and gold gauntlets.
These are all outlined in the patch notes, and you know what? This has been more or less my experience. The fact that they lay this all out like this AND having played about the same amount of Patch 2 and Patch 3 now seeing it in action, this suggests to me that BG3 is headed... somewhere? It's headed somewhere. But I will say this: I hope they start pandering to me more as a fan from the beginning. Give me those dumb references.
Is it worth $60 now? Nooooo. Will it be when it is release? I am reasonably certain now that they're implementing feedback in a highly positive, thoughtful way and will result in at least a satisfactory final product, as a fan of BG1, BG2, Beamdog's work with the EE's and Siege and DOS2. If you're stuck on Infinity vs Divinity, there's no helping it though. That's just where the chips landed and everybody involved got a huge jackpot.
Like I said, it's now in "Soft Pass" territory for me. I've made it clear in private that I HATED Patch 2 and am now telling the same people that based on my experiences with Patch 3, BG3 is at least being developed positively and in good faith. I was never a BG3 hater, actually! I'm just overly critical/emotional/impatient but my mind and heart changes very rapidly when presented with new information. That's what Patch 3 was for me. Proof that they're actually leading and directing vs just navel gazing, which it seemed they had fallen back on.
500 Hours Played, Recommended
"Thank you, Larian. This shining, brilliant, noble, pure and beautiful 1/4th of a Beta Test has finally given me a life full of true purpose and meaning."
spook me out and I never want to meet these people.
Shadowheart seems more Trickery-y than before. With the previous build with 9 dex (that´s a minus one to all the classic thievery checks) and a noisy armour for a trickery cleric of Shar, I remember thinking that Larian was just trolling.
Now the trolling of Shadowheart is limited to her name only. I remember going ROFL when I saw you can actually comment about her name in the first dialogue with her.
Some of the Steam reviews, not only of BG 3, could be fuel to a PhD in psychology.
Wow, just wow. Saying that BG3 cannot be criticized is true? You can't even see what you're doing anymore, can you?
Before you come back and say, "That's not what I was referring to and you know it." That was my entire post. Everything I said was pointing out that the Larian camp here is constantly telling us that we cannot judge the game, and keep changing the reasons as to why. There's no other meaning in my post to say "roughly true".
First - You're still being snarky. It's impolite and unnecessary. If you want people to take you seriously, maybe stop?
Second - I wasnt making that argument, and evidentially even you know I wasnt saying that. The fact that you had to speak for me, make a pre-defense for your argument and then explain your previous post speaks to that. All this amounts to is you putting words in my mouth and trying to argue with them.
Lastly - I was clearly arguing against the facetious position that your post represented moving goalposts with respect to BG3. You attempted to make the argument seem laughable by injecting snark into each point (which was super disingenuous) - but at least part of the core message was roughly true. I even noted that, I'll bullet point them out for you (so you can argue against my actual words).
The goalposts have absolutely been moving since the first announcement. Its always "You can't criticize the game because of x", and when we try to find a different aspect to point out, nope, can't criticize THAT either. And everytime a new announcement comes out, it shifts again. "No gameplay has come out yet, its not gonna be a DoS clone." "Oh, of COURSE its heavily inspired by DoS, DoS was successful!" on and on and on, with no end.
Its so blatant, that it becomes increasingly difficult to believe its not intentional.
There should be a line somewhere between what you criticize and what you can try to find as an aspect to ridicule without any real evidence. This line becomes more apparent when the search for that aspect is being done by someone who hasn't played the game, and the "opposite" point of view is formed by those who have played it.
You're right. I left that part out because it isnt true. I bet you I can find a half dozen examples of myself saying "X criticism is totally fair" in only a few minutes of reviewing my posts on this subforum - or suggesting criticism is perfectly fine. in fact, the idea that anyone thinks all criticism is unacceptable is so far beyond the pale that it only speaks to a victim complex rather than reality.
Let's try this again. For the hundredth time.
I do not, and never have had, any issue with people offering criticism of the game. I do take the time to point out disingenuous arguments, and people who offer criticism that is false or not backed up whatsoever by evidence. Things like "The game is multiplayer first" is a canard that is not substantiated in evidence. The idea that there will be no good aligned character is also not substantiated. These are just two examples, much like the "There will be no To Hit rolls" debacle was unsubstantiated.
Not liking tons of DOS2-like surface effects? Great. Good for you and everyone else who feels that way.
PS - People in glass houses should not throw stones. Attempting to call me out for not responding to a particular part of your post when you havent addressed your snarkiness/putting words in my mouth, nor the fact that you misattributed the "camps" point earlier is bad form.
I know the mods here don't like folks being singled out, but I think it's warranted here.
What's your goal here? You seem to have zero interest in buying the game. Unlike some of the other critics here you seem completely close minded about possibly liking the game.
Instead you seem to be trying to convince as many people that the game is an utter failure, a betrayal of the franchise and something that should earn Larian tons of widespread opprobrium. And this seems to be a crusade that's been going on since at least February.
Again, I'm going to reiterate the arguments I've made earlier. No one would do this in the Kingmaker thread, or the Pillars threads, etc. Heck, I don't even think any sensible regular would do this for Siege of Dragonspear, and that game had plenty of criticism.
I feel like you've made your points, more than sufficiently on here. And I'm asking you (not telling you) to be courteous. And maybe consider leaving this small subsection of the forum for people who have an actual interest in the game. I know you're likely to take offense at this suggestion, but I have to say, your contributions have not been productive here, going on several months imo.
If you don't like the game -- fine. I sincerely do not care what games you like or don't. But there's no reason to sit around in a group of people who do like a game reminding us of the same dozen reasons why we're all missing the real truth for months on end. I think it's fine to make criticisms of some games and even voice publicly why you're writing a game off. But there's also a limit to this. When I hate a game, I move on to other games.
Changelist:
fixed a crash related to objects fading in and out
fixed a crash related to re-arranging party members
fixed not being able to scroll in an inventory with a lot of items
https://store.steampowered.com/newshub/app/1086940?updates=true&emclan=103582791464711919&emgid=2894089457968947445
I'm disappointed in their communication, but most of the changes are directly in line with what their own community seemed to want (I can't speak of reddit or any other places they might get feedback from) so it seems that even if they keep quiet they've got their ear to the ground.
An excerpt:
"You’ve opted for Early Access, which has served you well in the past – what’s EA’s appeal?
There are several. The feedback is superimportant – we learned that when we released the first Original Sin. We released via Early Access on that partially to get money right in the middle of production. [And it’s not even like] we didn’t say this in public. You do Early Access to get another boost of money – it’s not a lot, but it will help. Then, instead of your QA team and designers, you have thousands of people playing your game and they have a lot of opinions. If two people give you a certain opinion, that’s OK, but if thousands of people have the same opinion then you probably need to listen to them and you probably need to change it around.
During Early Access, we also get a lot of anonymous data – it tells us where people are dying, or where they’re levelling up, or what weapon they picked up and equipped, and so on, so we gain a lot of insight into what people are experiencing, and we learn from that and change the game, the rules, the balancing. It allows us to make the game a lot better by the time it releases because you have thousands of people playing it, and that gives you a lot of statistics to work with.
This also goes back to when we first worked on Divine Divinity and Beyond Divinity – we had a very active forum on Larian. com, and we had a small, vocal fan base. They were constantly giving us feedback and ideas, and when I think back on those days, what we’re now doing in Early Access is similar, only a thousand times bigger. We’re getting a lot of feedback and a lot of ideas now.
One thing that we learned from the statistics is that people are completely uninterested in a lot of buffing and debuffing spells – we have stats where you can see how many people are using what spell and how often they’re using it, and that made us realise every magic spell that we put in an RPG needs to have this ‘oomph’ factor.
You have to want to click it, or you’ll never click it. You cannot sell a bless spell to people. It’s boring. They don’t care – they want to see fireworks, they want to see damage. If you talk to someone about balancing in the Original Sin games, they’ll say the buffing and debuffing is overpowered, but we make it overpowered on purpose because otherwise people are not going to click it.
We make them want to click it. We keep on changing the description and the balance until we see in the statistics that usage of that particular spell is going up. So yeah, we really learn a lot of our own game by
putting it in Early Access.
Does this feedback change things significantly, or is development largely set in stone?
In Original Sin 2, the opening island, Fort Joy, we rewrote it three times, because of feedback about the story, the flow, the logic behind the story. I know this because I was working with translating teams that were working on the game, and after translating Fort Joy three times, they were asking when they were going to see the rest of the game. We’re not afraid to drastically change things around. Even right now we’re thinking about changes to Baldur’s Gate III that would be pretty drastic for any other game development company, but we’ve always revolved around iteration. We’ve made sure that our systems, our pipelines, our workflows, and our teams are very much aware of the fact that we iterate.
Everything that we build needs to be flexible because it can change. We should be able to react to a good idea; we should be able to react to Early Access. We invited playtesters over to the studios – which was
very difficult with Covid, but we managed to – a month before releasing into Early Access, and what we learned from those people was also implemented during that one month we had.
Baldur’s Gate III is a lot bigger than anything we’ve built before, with a lot more dependencies; tweaking something or changing something is just one drop of water. For instance, if you change one word in the dialogue it needs to be translated, but it also has to be voiced again, then also the cinematics team needs to take it into account again – all of these small changes we used to be able to do on the fly. Our company is now four or five times bigger and so is everything about the game, so it’s become more difficult to do, but we identified it as one of the core reasons why Larian Studios’ games are different and why they are successful. Because we’re not afraid to actually do something completely different or make a drastic change or listen to people saying ‘This doesn’t work’, or ‘This is unclear’.
You’re a studio notable for having an actual sense of humour, but Baldur’s Gate is serious business. How do you marry these two concepts?
Even with Original Sin II, when we went on the first press tour we were telling people it was a much more serious game, it was gritty and dark. I really think we tried to tell a really dark story in the game – it was a really dark story – but people still laugh out loud at the dialogue we write. It doesn’t mean that because the world is serious and there’s serious stuff going on that you can’t write a funny skeleton or a rat prince who is so stuck up that he’s funny in everything he says.
For Baldur’s Gate III, we also have characters that… I don’t think that they’re ‘funny’, but the way they react to the world or the way that they are makes them funny without them being funny.
I also think that people play games for fun, so I don’t see any problem with us being funny once in a while. We’re not the type of company that’s going to change this into a horror game where everything is dark
and serious all the time. We tried, but then all the writers were hiding little jokes here and there until we realised it’s just not us. We have to [have a sense of humour]".
This was very, very interesting. I have only bought and played one EA ever, so haven't really thought about what data they could collect other than actual input from ie forum posts etc.
Also, it makes me wonder if Goodberry will make it into the game
You have free "goodberries" as ham, apples, bread,water, etc that you find exploring and allows you to heal your party outside combat so maybe the spell would be in the game for tradition and fun, but nothing else. There´s food already in the game so mod the spell should not be that difficult (when Larian finally provide the tools after the EA) if the spell does not make the cut.
It makes more sense in games like "Solasta": you have to eat or you starve and you need food supplies to make camp so goodberries and "create food and water" are more useful mechanically.
Also, regarding the humor, I've said this before but Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 (1 especially) are fundamentally Canadian video games. There's just NO replicating that so I've already come to terms with this.
Is this an interaction of the Divinity engine and 5th Edition rules? I'm not 100% familiar. Bless is like... mandatory for me in higher difficulty BG1 and 2.
Bless is actually something of a superfluous spell in the BG games, though it took me awhile to come to this realization. First of all, the morale bonus is a complete waste if you're using the longer-lasting remove fear spell, also level one.
Beyond that, its bonuses are +1 to attack rolls (5% greater hit chance) and +1 to damage (although not above the maximum). The second bonus is negligible at BG2 levels. And the first bonus is extremely minor. Couple this with the fact that it doesn't generally last for longer than one battle and has a somewhat longer casting time, and it's just not a spell that makes much of a difference.
To be fair, as a level one spell, it's a small commitment. However, I'd argue you're better off at low levels investing those slots into command if a priest. And at higher levels into remove fear and armor of faith. I can definitely argue for its usage with a druid or shaman as their level one options are more limited.
I'm ignorant of what changes it's undergone in 5th ed, but I can definitely see Larian's point of view that it's a boring spell that probably does need some tweaking if it's still as it was.
Wands rarely ever get used by me, either.
That's 100% a me problem, but I suspect there are a lot of gamers who fall into this trap. As a result, I'm kind of onboard with buff spell tweaking to make them feel more significant in a CRPG. Haste has always felt really good in the BG franchise, but bless/aid/etc didnt (Stoneskin also worked - but being an 8 hour duration let me cast it as soon as I entered and area and forget about it until I need it again).
Now all that said - I'm not lobbying for the change. If the reason a mechanic doesnt work well for me is because of user error, then I'll live with it.
Alot of the buffing potions actually work akin to Stoneskin, so chug them before a dungeon or a wilderness area. Potions of strength, dexterity, constitution, heroism, invulnerability all fit this mold. Find the character they'll be most suited to and go ahead and just burn them. You'll have those buffs for several fights. Also adds some drama to dungeon exploration imo, as it ends up rewarding efficiency, thus making even your out of combat choices significant.
The wands allow you to instead fill your spellbook with the critical debuffing/buffing or emergency situation spells. Instead of stocking Fireballs in your spellbook, use slots on things that will save you in an emergency or difficult fight like Dispel Magic, Dire Charm, Slow or Spell Thrust. And then use the many wands of fire for damage. Sure, wand fireballs are going to tend to be weaker, but they cast instantly and your party is now prepared for a wider variety of situations.
Bless in 5e gives three characters a bonus of 1d4 to every attack roll and saving throw. The problem is that they've made it cast like an area of effect spell where the AI chooses who gets blessed rather than s direct selection of three targets, which leads to a lot of fiddling with how to place the aoe circle if your party isn't in optimal positioning or has other valid targets among themselves.
The +5 bonus is the mechanical average bonus of a roll with advantage. Larian has chosen to implement being at a higher height than and behind the back of your target as giving you advantage on attack rolls. These are extremely easy to get because of how they've also implemented movement so there's never a reason to not have advantage on attacks (unless your advantages are just evening out other disadvantages).
So the 1d4 Bless gives you becomes kind of superfluous next to the constant advantage you can give yourself just by moving around. They stack, if course, so it's not useless. There's just much less of a reason to buff in the first place since you will pretty much always be able to have the most powerful buff -- advantage.