It’s been a long time since we’ve been this excited by a new PC release.
It’s so refreshing to see an RPG that isn’t afraid to be an RPG. It’s not trying to twist and contort D&D into Call of Duty, it knows what it is and is proud of that. Games don’t have to be dead simple and text free to be successful. Games don’t have to have big in game stores or battle passes to be successful. They just have to be complete, an earnest attempt at a creative vision. I would take a game that tries something ambitious and very occasionally stumbles like this one over the most competent trend chaser any day.
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Yes, I think that’s one of this game’s biggest strengths; it allows for a broad spectrum of player actions, and actually shapes the narrative (to a degree) around those actions. I do think there ought to be a way to avoid the >!boss fight at the end of Act 2,!< but overall the freedom you have is really impressive. I’m in Act 3 of my first playthrough (total dark urge murderhobo) and I’m constantly impressed both by the scope and depth of the bad guy route, as well as the sheer amount of content I’m completely missing by telling lost kids to kick rocks, and casually slaughtering dozens of fully-voiced, potentially quest-giving NPC’s. It’s a glorious game. Definitely in the top 5 of the last decade, along with Witcher 3 and Disco Elysium.
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I was shocked when I found out astarion was a party character. I told him to take a hike because he just tried to kill me. Haven’t heard a thing from him. It just let me do that.
You can kill basically anyone, and the game just goes on fine. You face consequences for that, but you aren’t railroaded at all.
In addition this game is MASSIVE in terms of content. I was ready to wrap it up at the start of act 3 but man, if there’s content to experience still
I haven’t wrapped act 1 yet and I’ve been playing what seems like forever. So much to explore and do, and so many people to meet. I already have plans for a replay, but at this rate it will be 2024 before that kicks off…
I’m like 60 hours in and I’m still not passed act 1.
It’s insane how many hours you can put into this game.
I will say that act 1 is better than the rest of the game. DoS 2 had a similar problem: incredible sandbox in act 1, linear act 2, small act 3…
I’m hoping that we get a bit of definitive edition and/or custom content options, as the game does thin out in content so much. I’m sure that I didn’t hit every quest in the game, but it was probably 40/20/15 in terms of hours per act, and I think I got most of the legendaries.
Haven’t played yet (eagerly waiting for September 2nd to play it on PS5), but it makes sense that act 1 is the best since it’s the one that was in public access and they could polish it most from player feedback, right?
It’s not trying to twist and contort D&D into Call of Duty
Uh… That actually sounds like it might be kinda cool. Are there actually games that have done that? I’d check 'em out if there are.
I feel like that refers to Fallout 4
Aw… I was thinking a little more literally. A real-time, first person D&D game set in Forgotten Realms? Yes please. I know the rules couldn’t work and thus would need to be tweaked, but am I the only one who thinks that does sound fun?
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I suppose Dungeons and Dragons Online kinda resembles that concept, if you squint. Honestly though that would be amazing, I reckon I’d appreciate Faerun done in the style of a far bigger Elder Scrolls game, simply because of how much I love that world. That said, there’s no way that’d be feasible with current tech whilst still maintaining the scope and depth of BG3, which is phenomenal.
Closest I can think of is the Dark Messiah of Might and Magic game from 2006, from Arkane (who later went on to make Dishonored and more recently Prey and Deathloop). First person, you pick your class between Fighter, Wizard, and Rogue, and most of the combat involves figuring out how to use traps, physic, and magic to kill your targets. Lots of ledges to kick monsters off of or spikes to knock monsters into, or creating ice on the floor as a wizard to make enemies slip to their deaths. Holds up pretty well for a 15+ year old game.
I love that game. Probably the best Source engine game to exist that isn’t made by Valve.
Dark Messiah was fuckin cool man.
Closest you can get is probably Avowed, coming out soon, but it’s set in the Pillars of Eternity universe rather than DnD.
I will be playing this game for years and years to come. So funny to see all of the other developers and publishers crying that this will set a higher standard for games, they’re just constant reminders that I shouldn’t buy their micro transaction filled garbage.
For me, it’s the lack of micro transactions, no online only nonsense, challenging but fair combat even on lowest difficulty. Are there things that can improve? Absolutely. As someone that played a ton of Pillars of Eternity, this has been a good experience overall.
I’d like to see a barber shop in the camp, by you-know-who. If they can let you change classes/respec, why can’t we change appearance as well? I’d even go as far as race changing too. The qol not having to reroll would be very handy.
I also wish there was a pop-up for casting concentration spells while already concentrating on one. I’ve gotten better about it, but I still overlook that detail in the heat of battle.
“I see you have no romantic partner. Maybe some new drip will help with that.”
Larian is working on a way to change your appearance during the game I think I’ve heard. But they seem ambitious about it. Like people would react to your new look. Not sure what’s official about that though.
It’s a great game but there is still a lot of tiny things to fix. It’s got very strong bones though. The sort of things I have problems with are easily fixed.
Also, just make rerolling free. Seriously, I’m just starting dnd, I want to be some kinda spellcasring warrior, and the options are: paladin, warlock, paladin/warlock, paladin/sorcerer, eldritch knight.
Just being able to try out all the different options would help a lot. Not to mention, I’m oathbreaker paladin and you have to pay to fix your oath (1000g), pay to respec, and then break your oath again. It’s too much! I accidentally put 2 points in my DEX during character creation but the cost to fix it is just too high right now.
100g ends up being a negligible amount of gold around, like, level 6. I don’t disagree it should be free, but the price is extremely low once things start dropping magic items and shit constantly.
Also, don’t sweat your build too much. Tactician is 100% beatable with a bog-standard single-class party of companions and a non-min/maxed main character. I didn’t respec anyone at any time, and played a Swords bard with fairly bad stat allocation at the start.
My first playthrough was totally blind on Tactician, and I’ve had 0 experience with 5th edition DnD, and it wasn’t too painful. I’ve played Larian games a lot, so that was in my favor, but even that experience is only really necessary on the hardest fights at the highest difficulty.
100g is nothing, pick up some trash gear off foes and strip their homes clean of anything not nailed down then sell it to the first vendor you find
It’s 1100g if you’re oathbreaker. 11x more expensive.
Whaaat? That’s ridiculous. What the hell is ol’ “Withers” even doing with the money? It would be great if he kept upgrading his tent and whatnot with the money you give him for respecs.
You got it wrong. Withers doesn’t need the money. He flat out refuses to touch me until I fix my oath (1000g), as if I’m some kinda leper…
It’s well deserved. I’m not a huge fan of turn-based combat but BG3 is phenomenally executed as an overall package. I’d play a non-combat dialogue and exploration version if I could!
Playing a bard can get pretty close 🤔
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Lol my bard was built around the Charlatan background with the idea that he’s basically that dude from Harry Potter Gilderoy Lockhart.
Over the course of the game he started to believe his own bullshit, moving first toward more Intimidation and then finally outright combat.
I fucking love this game man.
I have an actual D&D campaign going where my I play a sorcerer that’s heavily inspired from Gilderoy Lockhart. It’s been such a fun thing to play!
I’m really trying to do more of this. When I first started BG3 I just attacked first out of habit, but I’ve now switched to an approach where - when I see something that may involve a fight - I move my party quietly into advantageous spots, then stroll in casually with my bard to strike up a conversation. Worst case scenario, I’m covered by the party, best case they emerge after the conversation wraps up.
Genuine question as someone new to the DnD rulesets… can you complete a battle sequence without combat?
At the living room table with your friends and a good human DM who is open minded? Absolutely.
In BG3? I have actually come across a fair few boss encounters you can talk your way out of, but certain fights are unavoidable.
Do you mean in the tabletop DnD game? That’s going to be a big “depends.” Varies depending on what the GM (Gamemaster) is like and the party’s capabilities.
It’s possible. You could charm or put the enemy to sleep and flee
I have not seen a fight you can stop in the fight without using fighting. You can flee but the enemies are still there when you return.
The cut-scenes are what pushes this game over the top. Very well acted and generated. I believe they used real people to help make them. And I really love when I see the game start to play a cut-scene because I know I’m about to have fun interacting with the characters.
Are you referring to motion capture?
Let me guess, its been 16 years since Skyrim was released and I’m still playing that fucking game.
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I’m currently sitting about 7/10, personally.
While not the sole reason for the lower-than-most’s score, one critique at the forefront of my mind right now is that the animations are atrociously janky. I am constantly pulled out of my immersion during dialogues by character animations that are robotic, glitchy, or just downright counter to what I’d expect my character to do.
The animation may be not the smoothest but I think the facial expressions are great
Eehhh I don’t know, some of the facial expressions are the worst. The camera often cuts to my character with a brain dead stare or some over the top weird smirk.
Be like me and go Dark Urge backstory. I can’t tell if the animation I just saw was jank or intentionally creepy. Really elevates the immersion.
Yeah I get what you mean, IMO there’s a mix of well captured body language and sometimes wonky facial animations, they probably acted some dialogues and just used some other standard animations for some other characters
Agree about the player custom character during dialogue. The facial animations are terrible considering the face options are predefined. Other characters though look great IMO. Not TLOU2 level face capture but fantastic for an isometric RPG
I do wish our characters felt more alive. The NPCs are phenomenal and it feels weird seeing ours with a blank stare.
Kinda works better with the less-humanoid models like Dragonborn, not as immersion-breaking since you don’t expect human in the first place.
I love the expressions of my self-indulgent gith bard. A bit exaggerated at times but she is a bard and it works so well.
My character is a ranger who basically lives in the woods far away from people and is horribly socially awkward, so the slightly wonky facial animations have actually been perfect for her.
I can’t make the spoiley thing work.
But I had an NPC in act 3 whose eyes kept doing weird spinny things. Both eyes would suddenly snap to me, then one would spin off again. And another NPC who kept … flipping inside out.
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Yeah, that’s what I’m suggesting. It’s almost like review scores are subjective. I think the game is good, but not great. I have a lot of QoL nitpicks, my partner and I have run into many multiplayer bugs, the dialogue choices are often 0 or 100 with no in between, I find that animations during cut scenes very subpar, and the combat is good but not great for me.
I think, even if you deeply love that specific jank, this game is only an 8/10 currently. As more people get farther in the game, they realize that what was amazing at first kind of falls apart in the later acts, with a truly atrocious ending and tons of cut content. Maybe with definitive edition it will hit a 9/10 but the increasing illusion of choice as the game wears kind of prevents it from being a 10/10. Still a great game but it definitely suffers and is a shell of what it could have been late game.
Larian: Seven? Silly Lemmite, you just don’t understand what I’m doing, do you? The downvotes will only be passing, you should survive the process.
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Nope!
Read it yourself and find out why!
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