I finished Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition, it was ok. I kinda brute-forced my way through the game, basically only doing physical damage, only using one or two healers (who were shooting at range most of the time). The game had a bunch of really unfun mechanics, that I didn’t like at all, so I’m not sure if I’ll play any of the other Infinity Engine games.
I also finished the Quake 2 base game and started with the first expansion. Like I said last week, I definitely like the sci-fi environment more than the medieval one in Quake 1 and the weapons are better as well.
Despite being a bit disappointed with BGEE, I still want to play a CRPG right now, so I was going back and forth between a few different ones. In the end I started Pillars of Eternity again, hoping to finally finish it, at least the base story. This was actually my first RTwP game, and I played it years ago, the last time in 2018, when I actually made it to the final dungeon and I think the actual last boss fight of the (base) game, but stopped for some reason. Anyway, I’ll give it another shot, and so far I like the gameplay a lot more than Baldur’s Gate 1. The game is much more recent of course, although it was only released three years after the Enhanced Edition. Everything feels just much smoother. For a change, I’m playing a wizard this time (BG3 and BGEE I mainly used physical damage, either melee or ranged, 80% of the time).
I just played through Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, and the game is incredibly straight forward until you come across some weird thing that nullifies all of your damage; or AoE stuns your entire party; or requires a +3 weapon in order to land a hit; or de-levels your characters; etc. I don't think it's the Infinity Engine to blame so much as the encounter design. It's been about ten years, but I remember having a much better time with Planescape: Torment.
I’m not blaming the Infinity Engine, just the systems that are used in BG, although I have no idea how much comes from the D&D rules, and how much was Bioware. I would have thought all those games use very similar rules, but I don’t really know.
At least in the first game, I didn’t encounter too many problems. Of course there are a bunch of mages, that just regularly cast Feeblemind or another “stun” on my whole party, but that’s where the brute forcing came into play. I’d either reload a bunch of times, until I got lucky with the rolls, or occasionally split up the party, so just the unimportant characters would get hit, and my main character would clean up the fight. Three fights were a bit harder, so I chugged potions and used buffs (the two demons from the Durlag’s Tower story and the final boss).
In the mid 2000s I played the beginning of Neverwinter Nights, and remember liking it, but not really anything else about the game. Back then, I definitely didn’t know what D&D was. I always wanted to try it again, but now, after BG, I’d read up about it a bit before I give it a shot.
Planescape Torment was also something I regularly thought about playing, mainly because I read so much about how you can just talk yourself through most conflicts, so if you play your cards right, you can get away with little fighting. But just like Neverwinter, I’d have to read up on the systems they use before I decide.
I have less experience with BG1 than BG2 since I don’t find myself itching to replay it as often. I did do a full playthrough of it five or so years ago, though. Not Enhanced Edition, though.
The encounter design really does feel aged and it can often be a case of the developers unfun/poor encounter design versus your attempts to cheese it. Line of sight/Fog of War abuse, stacking Skull Traps etc. There is also the tried and true method of blocking physical access to your team by a horde of summons and pelting away with arrows. Arrow of Dispelling is particularly powerful.
I would have thought all those games use very similar rules
They actually don’t! Because each of the D&D games used whichever edition of D&D was current at the time, and the rules of D&D varied a lot between editions. So Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2 used 2nd edition, while Neverwinter Nights uses 3rd edition, and Baldur’s Gate 3 uses 5th edition. So it’s not so much an issue with Bioware or the Infinity Engine, as much as 2nd edition D&D is… not as intuitive as some of the later ones. Just as an example, in 2nd edition a lower armour class (AC) score is better than a higher one: without that knowledge, it’s very easy to use the wrong gear.
That said, a lot of BG/BG2’s encounters are really, really tough if you’re relying primarily on physical attacks. Having a wizard in the party with the right spells makes a huge difference. While there’s a lot of party configurations that can work, a solid mix would be 3 fighter/ranger/paladin/etc, 1 wizard/arcane spellcaster, 1 cleric/divine spellcaster, and 1 thief.
With Neverwinter Nights, because it’s based on 3rd edition, if you’ve played either of the Pathfinder games, you’ll find the ruleset pretty similar. Pathfinder as a system forked from D&D 3.5, so while there’s some differences in the finer details, most of it will be very familiar and will largely do what you expect it to.
NWN being based on a different D&D edition definitely makes it more appealing, so I’ll try to check it out someday.
I have the two Owlcat Pathfinder games, but haven’t played them yet, but I’ve heard good things about them (also they have a turn-based mode I think, which is nice).
I’m going on a rant here, but my biggest gripe with D&D video games, and part of the reason I didn’t really use them in my BGEE playthrough, are the limited spell slots for casters (especially since you fight constantly). In theory (I think) the best way would be to just go all out, each and every fight and just rest afterward to recharge. I think that’s just really dumb. Why even have the limited slots in the first place? BGEE definitely felt like this, since resting is free, only coming with a chance to get ambushed (which you can just save scum, but these small fights aren’t difficult anyway). It’s probably more fun that way as well, since you can actually do stuff, and not just play a really slow hack-and-slash game. BG3 was a bit better, since you get the cantrips, that you can freely use. It incentivized Long Rests anyway because of all the events, but that’s another story. Pillars of Eternity is pretty nice, since it has a bunch of Spells and Abilities, that you can use per Encounter, so you get the fun of actually doing things, but don’t have to constantly worry about the limited slots.
In theory, yes, but maybe not all cantrips are created equal.
For some reason, in my playthrough I ignored Wyll for the most part, so I didn’t really play as a Warlock, and didn’t experience Eldritch Blast. I only took him with me for the resolution of his quest at the very end, and was very pleasantly surprised how potent it can become (when you buff it during level ups).
Compared to that, stuff like Sacred Flame and Fire Bolt can feel a bit lacking and boring, although they can work for mopping up the goons everywhere and saving spell slots for the bigger fights.
Yeah, the limited spell slots are straight up just a mechanic from D&D, so that’s something you’ll find in all CRPGs using 2nd and 3rd edition. It gets easier at higher levels, as you have more spell slots, but in BG at low levels, you do just have to rest often. It is fine to have wizards using, say, a sling for the easy fights and save their spells for when they really need them. If it helps, though, with most quests there’s no actual time pressure, so you can’t fail it if you do have to do one fight, then rest, then the next fight, and rest again. If you like turn-based, BG and BG2 have settings for auto-pausing with each turn, which replicates a turn-based system by allowing you more time to plan out your next move.
I'm mostly chalking the dated design of BG1 and 2 to the designers at BioWare rather than the D&D rules, but there are definitely things about the old rules that are just horrific. AoE stuns that last for 10 rounds may as well be instant death when they hit your party (5e versions of the same spells only target 1-4 opponents), and then you get to things like Energy Drain that semi-permanently drain entire levels in 2e but only temporarily drain one stat in 5e; the things that remedy or counter those spells basically require you to know what's around the corner, and the game doesn't foreshadow them.
Agreed with the lack of foreshadowing in BG1 and BG2! While sometimes fights are foreshadowed, either by the details of the quest or the terrain (hmmm, it’s a long, wide staircase with a long, wide hall at the bottom - is there a dragon at the end? Yes, yes there is), there are definitely some really tough fights without much warning about what’s coming. I probably underestimate this in my own playthroughs, because I’ve played it enough that I know from experience what enemies each fight has, but it’s definitely a lot harder for new players.
The controllers connect to the Shield. You can also connect keyboard and mouse to it.
I find Steam Link to be slow and low framerate though. Sunshine running on the PC and Moonlight running on the Shield seen to do the trick. I also disabled the image sharpening on the Shield because it looks really odd.
Nvidia GameStream being disabled now is a really fucking shitty thing for them to do. Sunshine lacks the ability to change the PC resolution to match the streaming resolution.
Has anyone figured an easy way out to be able to play other launchers games through this fashion? Xbox game pass games and other launchers won’t accept the controller input.
For broad compatibility and good quality+compression, h265. I use Handbrake’s Nvidia encoder and it works great. I’m not sure about the differences between AAC and AC3.
AAC is generally more modern and better for lower bitrates, but AC3 (also known as Dolby Digital) has the advantage of being able to be transmitted in 5.1 over SPIDF optical connections, so it can allow for surround sound in older setups that may not otherwise be able to recieve digital surround sound.
Opus is slightly better than AAC at matched bitrates, slightly less commonly supported, and totally open-source. It’s a fine choice as well.
Also of note because of its use for anime encodes is FLAC, which is lossless and therefore results in much larger files, but will always have the exact same quality as the original audio it encoded, so it’s excellent for archival quality.
I’m on vacation, so I’ve returned to my default Steam Deck game: Wildermyth. I love its storytelling, particularly with carrying characters over from one campaign to another. I’ve grown particularly attached to the warrior from my first campaign, now fully fire-transformed. However, he’s moved on from his first love, who is now far too crow-like.
Just finished Rakuen not too long ago and I love(d) it. The game play is really simple, any of the puzzles are simple enough, the music is for the most part pretty solid, and the story was pretty good. Nothing to complain about besides how short it is.
Not sure what the next big game I’ll be playing is, but I have been thinking about saying screw it and playing Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters again.
I’m favoring h265 10-bit for my library recently. Whether SDR or not, it seems to provide a slightly better compression ratio and fewer banding artifacts than 8-bit. Any player that can handle 4K streaming content can decode h265 10-bit, so there’s a ton of forward compatibility for the foreseeable future
Final Fantasy VII. I love the franchise, but never got far into VII. Played through it so I could have an opinion on it, so I could see what I was missing. I ended up very disappointed.
Mass Effect Andromeda. The reviews convinced me I’d hate it, but I couldn’t stand the thought of possibly missing some lore after I loved the first 3 so much. Turns out it was actually pretty good.
No Man’s Sky. It looked slow and grindy but people kept hyping it up. I caved, and forced myself to play 20 hours trying to find the good bits. I never found them.
I think the hate for Andromeda was a little overblown. I enjoyed the heck out of the game, regardless of any weird facial expressions! It of course was never going to live up to the original trilogy but it stood out on its own in a lot of positive ways
No Man’s Sky. It looked slow and grindy but people kept hyping it up. I caved, and forced myself to play 20 hours trying to find the good bits. I never found them.
That’s a game I tried as well but I feel like I set myself up for failure by trying to see everything the beginning of the game had to offer versus exploring naturally.
I’d recommended PC part picker to determine compatibility with all your upgrades. You can tinker with different setups fairly easily and have the costs easily accessible. I believe there are also tools to determine likely bottlenecks, but I haven’t searched for many lately.
GPU will definitely be the biggest cost, but also likely the most noticeable improvement. RAM is fairly cheap, so you can bump up to 32 Gb without much expense. Not too familiar with Intel CPUs but it’s possible you might create a bottleneck with a GPU upgrade. Not the end of the world if you’re fine with upgrading that later too.
Baldur’s Gate 3 on my partner’s days off when he wants to play games, that game is That Game, so freaking good, I think about it all the time. Because I don’t want to progress the game past our co-op session’s progress, and I’ve replayed Act 1 solo a few times over by now, I am back with good ol’ Skyrim otherwise.
I know it is a meme, but I genuinely have the thing of only modding and not playing Skyrim. I am proud to say I am at a point where I just play, instead of finding more mods. I feel like I have a pretty stable modlist, seldom crash, and this is because last winter I spent a lot of time with the crashlogger thing weeding out problematic mods. It is really hard not to go to nexus, I actually don’t visit it anymore at all, it is intense FOMO when I see others’ screenshots. My main achievement is that upon returning to Skyrim after a break, I even picked up my same character instead of starting over with fresh mods–it was like, not giving up progress.
I’ve played it now for about 3 hours and it feels very much like Skyrim/Fallout in space - not more, but also not less. There is nothing revolutionary about anything, but this was also not my expectation. The NASA-Punk aesthetic works well enough and gunplay was surprisingsly good so far - but your enemies are quite spongy.
NPCs and dialogues are a bit wooden, but this is nothing new for Bethesda games as well.
The worst thing is the engine. It really shows how old this engine is. There are things which simply look terrible in my book, this becomes obvious during the first visit in New Atlantis (which is pretty early in the game).
There are people who have hungered for a new Bethesda Game^TM for almost a decade, and Starfield will ladle out another big helping, and I’m happy for them that they have many hours of enjoyment coming.
I’m just, kind of full, when it comes to that dish.
I’m shelving Baldur’s Gate 3 for now after a full run plus more. Had a great time with it, but I think I’d rather wait for more polish first before I tinker with it any more or check out the story branches/side quests in Act 3 I didn’t see.
I started playing Hardspace: Shipbreaker and I was surprised at how quickly it grabbed me. The story has a very similar vibe to Papers, Please and something about the UI and the artistic design is reminding me a lot of old space sims. Surprisingly cozy game, though I might look into seeing if I can swap out the music. Don’t know if I like what it says about me that I really like games that are work simulators, though.
I have Hard space Shipbreaker on my list. I’m hoping it’s the type of game you can pick up and play I short, relaxed bursts. Is that how you’d describe it?
It's incredible so far. I just made it out of Act 1. For the most part, you can come up with plans and ideas on your own, and they'll usually work, which makes you feel like a genius, but I have to call out two times that this specifically did not work the way I thought they would.
some light spoilers ahead
Early on, there's a target that you have to either eliminate or side with, and I choose to side with them, with the express purpose of getting them to let their guard down so that I can separate them from the group and eliminate them. The dialogue options even allude to the fact that this is a strategy they want you to use. This target wants you to sneak into another (good) faction and open a gate for a bloodbath of an assault on that faction, but the target also leaves their battle plans out in the open. So I figure I'd steal the battle plans, give them to the other faction, and just not open the gate, and then that target dies. Well, it doesn't work that way, and progressing that far along with the target invalidates the other quest entirely. Bummer.
The second is a fight right near the end of Act 1 where you've got to eliminate or side with a target again, in a room with a lot of lava, some slaves you can try to rescue, and a lot of enemies. Depending on how the dialogue goes right before the encounter, you either side with the target against the room full of enemies (but the slaves die), or you fight everyone. There are about 15 enemies in the room, which means they get a lot more turns than you, and since they're all grouped in that room, there's no real way to isolate them and take them out stealthily ahead of the encounter. I tried using a bard Performance to get them to all clump up so that I could push large groups of them into the lava, which was fairly effective, but then the slaves would join that group too, and it was very easy to aggro them. Worse still is that the slaves will happily fight you if you aggro them, but they won't join you to fight the other enemies in the room that enslaved them, let alone the target you're trying to eliminate. The only way I found through it was to reload an earlier save and to make different dialogue choices with a particular NPC so that some of those 15 enemies end up on my side in that fight when the time comes.
end of spoilers
The game usually lets me get away with whatever crazy plan I come up with, but I just wish these two points so far were a bit more flexible.
For your second fight, you can actually get above all the enemies (there’s a platform, to access some other parts of the map) and just completely break the AI, because they can’t get to you. I don’t remember if the slaves even joined the fight, but they all survived.
You can use this “tactic” in multiple locations, if you’re not above cheesing fights. If the enemy doesn’t have a ranged attack, or have no easy way to get to you, they just run in circles.
spoileryou can either jump to a small outcropping down below, near the “entrance” of the big room, where the slaves are, or on the other side of the map, are a bunch of dwarves trying to go through yet another wall (these have like two goats with them), and go from there.
For the fight in Grymforge you’re talking about, there’s also an opportunity to get some of the duergar on your side, which makes the fight a lot more manageable.
Also, the game never explains this, but you know the buttons in the bottom left of the screen during cutscenes? You can use these to trade with characters that don’t normally have an option for it, to switch party members to sneak around while the one in conversation distracts an NPC, or to attack before a cutscene finishes playing out. Doing these things can affect the outcome of game events!
Trading specifically I’m not sure if it changes anything, but you can buy things from NPCs that normally you can’t trade with. I do know that stealing from NPCs and attacking before a cutscene plays out can change the survival of some NPCs.
One thing I learned about the game fairly early on (actually in that same area, with a certain imprisoned bear) is that once you do something that makes NPCs hostile, they are going to stay hostile for good. That’s not to say there aren’t opportunities to flip allegiances a bit, but going fully subversive isn’t well-supported. And to a degree, that makes sense; a good DM’s going to make it difficult on you, because once you’re seen with the enemy, it’s going to take a lot of convincing.
For the Grymforge event, you can also just…
spoilernot excavate and let Nere die in the poison trap.
But again, my expectation is that I had other ways to go hostile against these folks, especially after the goblin camp. But that scenario is basically set up to make that combat encounter next to impossible, but I didn't know that ahead of time, because after you clear the obstruction, the state of the map changes.
Yes, there are a couple of situations in the game where one can end up in a dead end situation, and that’s probably the easiest of the bunch to stumble into. The player pretty much has to either make a deal with the chief ahead of time or just not do the battle. It’s not ideal, especially since it’s likely easy for a player to go into it when needing a rest, too.
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Aktywne