Baldur's Gate 3 Early Access [NO SPOILERS HERE]
modestvolta
Member Posts: 108
I thought a thread dedicated to BG3's early access would help make it easier to discuss instead of cramming everything into one mega thread.
Pre-early access thoughts:
I plan on buying early access on day one, but may not actually play it for a few days/weeks. It really depends on how long it takes me to get around to installing a new hard drive that's been sitting on my desk for a few months. Maybe that will give Larian time to address any initial bugs that seem to crop up on initial release for a lot of games.
I haven't played any of the Divinity: Original Sin games, so I feel like I'm coming into the game pretty blind as far as what to expect from a "Larian" game. What I've seen from the pre-game hype has me excited. I may try the different origin characters just to get the full sampling and see what kind of differences they make at the beginning. I also really want to try out the Ranger class to see the differences/improvements from the tabletop rules.
Some questions once we actually get into early access:
What are your first impressions? Is the game fun? How well does it convert 5E from tabletop to computer? What changes work? Don't work? What bugs are people experiencing? What are your favorite features? Least favorite features?
Pre-early access thoughts:
I plan on buying early access on day one, but may not actually play it for a few days/weeks. It really depends on how long it takes me to get around to installing a new hard drive that's been sitting on my desk for a few months. Maybe that will give Larian time to address any initial bugs that seem to crop up on initial release for a lot of games.
I haven't played any of the Divinity: Original Sin games, so I feel like I'm coming into the game pretty blind as far as what to expect from a "Larian" game. What I've seen from the pre-game hype has me excited. I may try the different origin characters just to get the full sampling and see what kind of differences they make at the beginning. I also really want to try out the Ranger class to see the differences/improvements from the tabletop rules.
Some questions once we actually get into early access:
What are your first impressions? Is the game fun? How well does it convert 5E from tabletop to computer? What changes work? Don't work? What bugs are people experiencing? What are your favorite features? Least favorite features?
Post edited by JuliusBorisov on
6
Comments
Me too, and actually it's worth being clear: Do we feel okay about making this a non-spoiler thread? Or at a minimum, strongly emphasize that spoilers should be hidden in spoiler tags?
I'm very (very) interested in generic non spoiler takes on EA. Things as simple as "Is the game fun?", "How does it play?" "How does it look", etc.
I've looked into the other thread, which seemed low in serious spoilers until then (except for the links), but that's probably going to change further into the game, and I'd rather err on the side of caution. However, all the traffic for now seems to be over there.
Spoiler-free feedback would be very much appreciated!
If I skip the performance part, the game is VERY interesting and I can't stop playing it. It gives me the same feeling the Witcher 3 did at the start, when I wait for what would happen next.
And I feel at home right away. The illithid lore, races, subraces, skills, stats, everything is familiar and was long missed.
I've shared an additional point of why the game hooked me because of its feeling of urgency here (no spoilers there, just felt I should post the first comment in that thread).
- very poor optimization. I know it's Early Access, but it seems like a Very Early Access to me. Loading times are bad, loading up textures looks even more bad.
- UI needs to be fleshed out. It looks more as a placeholder, a ground base for me. I mostly mean aesthetics here, rather than functionality.
- I had hope that item descriptions will contain more lore, like in BG1 and BG2, but it seems it will be often just one or two sentences. Sad, those little details made BG1 and BG2 great.
- I'm not sure how I feel with the overall tone. It's more dark and gruesome that I would like. But OK, this is illithid's ship, so it should be gruesome. Let's see how it will looks like while I progress the story.
- Cinematics and voice acting are great. I didn't encounter any weird camera issues so far, but as I've said, I'm only 2h into the game.
- My main character is very fragile. Two hit from an imp and he's downed. I suspect this would not be an easy game.
- I love the Dice Rolls, I feel there will be a plenty of situations where a dice roll will be triggered.
- I wish there will be more deities to chose from during character generation. I wished to pick a Vhaerun as my patron deity, but there was no Vhaerun on the list.
So, all in all, great potential, but Larian still has a tons to do during this EA.
Over all it was a good experience.
I'm not super good at giving promptless criticism but if anyone has any wonderings about the game I will try to answer them as best I can.
Oh and speaking of character creation it was actually more filled out than I would have anticipated, with roughly 6, sometimes 5, faces per race and 30-35 hair styles. Very good looking for the most part. I just came from playing Wasteland 3 (a punk-post-apocalypse themed setting) so it's nice to see such an abundance of hair that doesn't look absolutely ridiculous.
This isn't surprising at all because even the finished products of Original Sin 1 and 2 were badly optimised. It's been a consistently poor showing for Larian in that regard, and I kinda feel like BG3 will be worse because if you just can't optimise well the problem will get worse as the games get more and more demanding.
If I ever get this game it's not going to happen before a necessary PC upgrade.
I don't exactly hear excitement here, rather "Oh, it's OK game"
Is there a meaningful tie story wise to the first two games? Has there been any ties in bigger than Easter eggs?
A simple yes or no will suffice to keep it spoiler free.
I'm not holding out for any, myself, but I am also one of those who thinks that being centred around BG is enough for the title (and that BG2 is the one that was faultily titled
How is the story of BG1 changed if you don't go to Baldur's Gate? It isn't. Those events can happen in ANY big city. The setting is not the story.Taking out the nature vs. nurture themes would dramatically change the story. Taking the Bhaalspawn out would dramatically change the story. The story is made up of characters, themes, and arcs. Everything else is window dressing.
A - How much control do you have over the Companions when they level? Can you choose class? Feats?Spells? etc
B - Has anyone played an Origin character, and do you have more control over leveling them that way? Or the same.
Basically - i've read that you dont have total control over leveling your companions, but it's not clear what that means, and I'm wondering if that extends to when you make a Companion the main character.
B -- You're not allowed to play origin characters yet (unless maybe in multiplayer? I haven't tried multiplayer)
It works more or less the same as it does in 5e. You have a minor list of feats, you choose from 1 of 2 kits (in most cases) that change your abilities. A fighter/mage or thief/mage are basically kits you can choose from the start, for example.
Multiclassing isn't in game yet, but it should be, I would hope.
I've thought a lot about this
Can't deny, at first I too was very furious when my character just didn't roll enough when I wanted to learn more about my companions or decide a situation when the roll really changes the whole attitude towards a character / a scene. Compare that to Pathfinder: Kingmaker where you just have to get to a certain threshold for a check.
The conclusion I've come to and which brought me peace is that I should treat the roll check as if the person I'm talking to needs persuasion. Eg. when someone requires 16 or more (or multiple checks in a row), it means it's really difficult to make this character talk. It's a simulation of a real-life when I would have to really try and find my words in order to make someone say something to me. So this DnD mechanic can be a game design way to tell the player: you can't just learn about X easily.
Unfortunately, a lot of people don't understand that and just find these rolls excessive and just reload constantly.
5e changed this to the "Far Realm" Pact, which is entirely different in every way.
And I bet Larian will fine tune this, based on the feedback. This is exactly the feedback they want to hear, actually. Like they felt 3rd person dialogue style will be dealbreaker for many (me among others) and changed it.
FWIW, Kingmaker actually does roll frequently for dialogue checks, especially the persuasion stat. This is often represented as a dialogue choice of bluff or intimidate. Some other stats end up being rolls as well. It also uses threshold checks. Often for knowledge or lore checks. So it's employing something of a hybrid system.