Was it the engine or the ruleset? It’s widely accepted that D&D 5E is sorta hot garbage at higher levels so I was assuming that’s what Larian was referring to.
Epic narratives have their place, but if you follow the 5E rules they don’t work well mechanically.
Fighting actual Gods in D&D should be fairly comfortable for a party of level 20 characters, which is part of the problem. The way the scaling of character power compared to enemy power works, fighting a group of goblins on the dirt road as a level 1 party is magnitudes more challenging than fighting an actual God as a level 20 party.
Is it just me or is the whole Karlach romance EXTREMELY well done? I know I’m a big ol’ weird softie and your mileage may vary, but it had me laughing and crying and cheering!...
I would have been interested in seeing it but my save was completely hardlocked out of it. In contrast to basically every other character she never ever came on to me (middle of Act 3 currently).
I must have done something in the wrong order, I’ve heard others have had trouble with it as well.
The romances could do with a bit of an overhaul, in my opinion. Feels like several of them have weird pacing, and so many characters go from 0-100 in the blink of an eye. You say a single affirmation to Halsin and he acts like he’s been in love with you his whole life and you’re soulmates. Dude, I just offered you a drink at a celebration out of common courtesy.
With every other NPC being so horny it’s actually been refreshing to have Karlach just behave like a buddy in my playthrough, but in general for the Karlach romance to be so fiddly you need to follow a guide to not lock yourself out of it just sounds… poorly implemented.
That would explain it, though not make it any less poorly designed. I also picked her up just at the very end of Act 1 and already had plenty of the item needed.
I remember the time when I was really excited about this game. The original writer and composer were both returning, it looked so promising. But we all know what happened, and after Rik Schaffer himself said the soul of the project left when Brian Mitsoda was fired my expectations are firmly settled at the bottom.
I agree, and it comes through in the companions, too. And despite them singling out Jaheira in the article I have a hard time recognising much of her, except for the appearance. Maybe the hundred years passing is the excuse but I wish her bossy, sarcastic, witty personality was more present and recognisable.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the game and it has been monopolizing my attention but it’s still not beating the Divinity 3 allegations (though I’m only at the end of Act 2, still).
Baldur’s Gate 2 is one of my favourite games of all time, and I was extremely worried and sceptical that BG3 could live up to the hype and the name of the franchise.
To the first point, it definitely has. The game is fantastic, deep, fun and absorbing, with gorgeous environments, interesting nooks, crannies and dungeons to explore and lots of fun making custom multiclass combos for your character.
It does a good job of creating a facsimile of playing Pen-and-Paper D&D with an abundance of skill checks and visible Dice Rolls, and if you decide to roll with your failures instead of save-scumming it has lots of different permutations for events and decisions can have serious consequences.
When it comes to how it relates to the previous games, I’m at the end of Act 2 and have yet to discover a real reason for this game to be called “Baldur’s Gate 3”. So far it has been entirely standalone, narratively. There might still be connections further down the road, however.
The real difference is in the writing. If what you love about the old Baldur’s Gates were the characters and the writing and you want and expect more of that then you will be disappointed. First of all, this game takes place 100 years after BG2 so expect very few familiar faces. The one returning character I’ve encountered so far has not felt particularly recognisable, either. It’s a damn good game, but it definitely feels like an unmistakably Larian game, and not a Baldur’s Gate game, writing wise. It particularly comes through in the companions.
As someone who adores the old games, I still recommend trying it as I’m having a lot of fun with it, but you might want to pretend it’s called “Divinity: Faerun” and not Baldur’s Gate 3 to enjoy it fully.
Absolutely agreed. I asked one person if they wanted to share a drink at a celebration (that’s just social decorum, right?) and have done no flirting before or after that and now that person talks to me like they’ve been in love with me their whole life.
And I get the idea that you want to let everyone sleep with their favorite NPC regardless of who they’re playing as but it just feels weird to me that everyone is so both pansexual and horny. It makes me feel like nobody has any preferences and just falls in love with you because you’re the main character.
And in general it also lessens the sense of camaraderie a bit for me when it comes down to sex so much. I wish some companions had other interests and had no desire to get in your pants.
It’s made worse by Larians decision to absolutely juice the approval gains when going from Early Access to Full Release, apparently. Makes everything move way too fast and really exacerbates the issue.
I think there is already a mod that turns off all approval gains, but beware that I think this also blocks off several companions’ personal quests, since they’re related to the relationship. At least that’s what I heard.
The mod I’m using tweaks approval so the gains are smaller for little stuff, losses are bigger and important story decisions etc become more significant (in both directions). I unfortunately didn’t find it until I was already near-max with several companions but it should in theory make it more difficult to end up with everyone being in love with you before the third long rest.
This is not a criticism - I love how much attention this game has been getting. I’m just not understanding why BG3 has been blowing up so much. It seems like BG3 is getting more attention than all of Larian’s previous games combined (and maybe all of Obsidian’s recent crpgs as well). Traditionally crpgs have not lit the...
I feel like there might be room for an old school PC gaming community here on Lemmy. There is usually a console/arcade game focus on the retro gaming communities, but it would be great to have a place to discuss releases from that 1990-2009 or so era.
WallSoGB really just burst onto the scene last year and established himself as one of the absolute top tier FNV modders alongside lStewieAl, Xilandro et al.
Incredible the things people are doing with this game. We got true picture-in-picture scopes earlier this year, now real time reflections. What’s next?
That hasn’t really been my experience. If you just want to play the game you can stick to the performance, anti-crash, stability and bug fix mods and have a very stable game.
Learning to expand your load order beyond that can be exhausting (and probably takes some work in Wrye Flash and xEdit), but I played through the entire campaign and all DLCs last year with like 400+ mods and had no crashes and only one real bug.
It depends on what types of mods you have installed, and when they came out. Leveled lists used to be a reason, but many modern F:NV mods instead add entries to leveled lists via scripts on startup (thanks JIP!) and so are all compatible with each other.
I needed Bash for Cell edits primarily, because I wanted to use the old Interior Lighting Overhaul since I think it looks better than the newer scripted ones.
Wrye Flash is also great to combine patches into a single file to keep the load order down. Even with the mod limit remover, F:NV gets unstable if it has too many .esp’s loaded. The patch combining feature is automatic and easy to use.
I did spend a huge amount of time creating a personal compatibility patch in xEdit. It’s extremely simple to do manually once you learn it, but can take time. I had several overhauls like CCO and Vicious Wastes that I wanted to combine, with overlaps where I wanted to use the CCO version for some things and the VW for others, for example. I also had to do some manual edits to make sure I got the Brave New World faces and voices working with New Vegas Redesigned 3, the auto-patch missed some.
Even BG2 had more interjections from your party members than BG3 I think, and I get that it was mostly text but still, that was 23 years ago. In BG3 someone sometimes adds a comment at the beginning or end of a conversation, but it seems like they rarely if ever butt in in the middle.
The whole “X Approves/Y Disapproves” definitely feels a little telling, not showing and I wish they would comment on what’s going on instead, even if it was only recycling a handful of general comments from a pool.
Oh it was definitely rare that an interjection would actually change the outcome of the dialogues, but that color and flavor you mentioned does a lot to make characters feel more alive. Same goes for the way party members just randomly start conversations when walking around in BG2.
Worth noting I always play with the Gibberlings Fixpack installed. IIRC the vanilla game is really sensitive about party members having to be physically close to the talking NPC to interject into dialogues.
So, yesterday I broke my dominant arm. Yay! For the next 6 weeks, I have a cast, and at least for now, I can’t use my right hand or arm at all (I am typing this with my left hand)....
I actually think BG 1&2 might be harder because of Real Time with Pause, come to think of it. Though if you have a mouse with rebind-able extra buttons it’d be alright, just set pause to a thumb button and you’re good to go.
Hey everyone! I’ve been diving into RPGs lately and wanted to share my thoughts and seek recommendations from fellow gamers. I’ve found myself resonating with Scott the Woz’s viewpoint on random encounters and grinding, but I do make an exception when the combat system is truly exceptional, like in the case of...
I love Disco Elysium with all my heart, but suggesting it to a person who talks with emphasis about combat systems and strategic depth is sort of dangerous.
Disco Elysium is a novel masquerading as a game. If you like that and approach it as such, it can be extremely rewarding, but there isn’t much gameplay to be had.
They are absolutely lovely, though undeniably very old school. BG1 is more action-adventurey with a bigger emphasis on exploration, BG2 is very story-heavy. They have aged remarkably well, considering they’re over 20 years old. The handpainted backgrounds still look pretty.
With potential increased interest due to BG3, I wonder if it would be an idea to create a community for the classic Baldur’s Gates 🤔
THAC0 is… yeah. I guess the systems take some getting used to. And it gets a little more complicated at higher levels with different layers of protective spells and counter-spells.
Yeah, these old games were kind of a wild west when it comes to design. I also love Fallout 2 to bits for example, but god damn can it feel cheap and frustrating at times. On the other hand there are loads of ways to cheese encounters, too, if you’re interested in making things easier. Backstabs, Snares, Cloudkill (and similar effects), abusing Fog of War. Almost all of BG1 can be cheesed with Skull Trap. And almost all of BG2 can be cheesed with Set Snare.
I’ve only started playing BG3, but so far it’s been a lot easier and simpler than both the old games and Divinity, which maybe is to be expected with it being based on D&D 5E rules. Compared to D:OS 2 combat has been a lot less complex and challenging. Granted I’m playing on medium difficulty. I didn’t want to start off on Tactician after the Divinity games, but maybe I need to here.
Anyway, I hope you’ll enjoy BG2. It’s one of my all-time favorite games still, and I replay it every now and again. There are so many ways to set up fun parties with loads of interactions, especially if you use the Tweak that prevents companions from killing each other even if they hate each other. Some of the best interactions are from mixed-alignment parties.
narrow passageways that the AI pathfinding was not really able to adequately handle
I must confess that these days I always play with DebugMode=1 and one of the primary reasons is to be able to use Ctrl+J to teleport the whole squad when pathfinding acts up.
I love Disco Elysium but I’d never try to sell someone on it by saying it’s a CRPG. It’s literally an interactive novel, and it’s really only rewarding if you want that and approach it as such.
It rewards you for being weird and wacky, for failing checks and for clicking every dialogue option (as opposed to thinking certain ones are “traps”).
It’s a weird product that claims to be a CRPG detective game about a murder case, when in the end it’s really neither.
Summons are a really powerful way to deplete enemy spells, just send them in one by one. Summon Skeletons is good for this.
As you move onto BG2, using spells to counter enemy protections becomes more important, like using Breach to deal with Stoneskin etc. Though as a caveat, I’ve been using Sword Coast Stratagems so long I barely remember what combat is like without it.
I have actually pondered a “classic gaming” or “old school games” type community for these types of (primarily) PC games from the era up to maybe 2010.
Retro Gaming communities typically focus more on old console and/or arcade type stuff.
I agree. I also think 2 of the 3 endings to B&W are sort of terrible, which soured me on it a little. And the one ending I liked is kind of hidden and obnoxious to get.
B&W was like a nice vacation as Geralt headed into retirement. Pretty landscapes and some fun new skills to play with (loved that you could finally make a crossbow build work).
HoS was just pure, spooky, tragic Witcher goodness. And like you say, the fact that it’s shorter and more focused lead to the writing being tighter and the storytelling working much better.
Also, what would be the appropriate cutoff for the timeframe? I just threw 2010 out there, but maybe even slightly later? What is a good milestone to cut off at? I was thinking starting at 1993 with the release of Doom.
I still have to finish FF8 some day. I started it and kind of liked it, but never got into it. Maybe now some of the fan made HD graphics mods for the remaster are finished.
FF6 is peak, though. I have an emulator on my phone with the Woolsey-uncensored romhack version. Love that game.
Is taking on encounters while underleveled as much of a death sentence in BG3 as it was in D:OS2?
I’m early still so only got into one such fight at this point where I got the warning message recommending me to flee. I was level 3 versus level 5s, and the encounter was perfectly doable (playing on medium, not Tactician, mind).
Party member death in BG 1&2 could be pretty rough yeah, especially in 1, and there were plenty of effects that prevented resurrection, even. Plus, characters dropped all items on Death, so picking everything up and re-equipping it after resurrection was punishment itself, haha.
Death is basically a non-threat in D&D 5E, but I haven’t looked into whether Larian has added any house rules to make it more punishing. In general I’m not a huge fan of the 5E ruleset so we’ll see how I feel about BG3 combat as I get further in. So far it seems more like death is handled like it was in Divinity, with plenty of Revivify Scrolls already.
I turned off Karmic Dice on principle, but maybe that was a mistake. So far the biggest challenge has been terrible luck. I’ve missed so many 80%+ attacks, often in a row. Feels very frustrating.
I was thinking Doom as a sort of watershed moment in gaming, and going earlier than that and you could argue those titles belong on the already-existing retro gaming communities.1993 actually had both Doom and the first FIFA, it’s got a lot going for it as a start year.
Looking at releases for 2013 though we have things like GTA V, BioShock: Infinite and The Last of Us. I definitely would hesitate to call those “old school games”. 2011 has Skyrim. Does that qualify? Otherwise I’m starting to feel more drawn to the 1990-2010 timeframe; nice round numbers and should sort of capture the era of classic gaming. 2010 has Red Dead Redemption 1, Mass Effect 2 and Civilization 5. Is it fair to say those are some of the last old school games or do we need to go older? A two decade window seems good.
I agree that an open ended timeframe would lead to lost focus over time. If it’s 10+ years old as the criteria, it would mean we’re just 2 years away from The Witcher 3 qualifying for a community meant for stuff like Fallout 1&2. That just feels… wrong.
If you don’t care about round numbers and it being exactly two decades you could also do 1993-2009, starting with Doom and ending with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. There is a different kind of symmetry to that, and I honestly kind of like it.
Very fair points as well about those games. I think maybe a looser guideline would be more appropriate than strict dates. I really like the Doom - CoD: MW2 bookending to encapsulate that golden era of gaming, but I wouldn’t delete any post about Civ 1, if I was actually running the community.
And yeah, time flies. It was equally scary earlier when I realized Witcher 3 is almost ten years old.
Just for the heads up, this thread will probably have a lot of spoilers. I’m gonna try to go vague on spoilers for anybody that hasn’t played Hotline Miami 2. If you’ve played the game, you’ll probably know what I mean, but I’m going to say some purposefully esoteric shit to keep it out of full spoiler territory....
The final dream in Disco Elysium. After picking up clues all game about your past, your broken relationship and the reasons you are the way you are, the heart wrenching emotional impact had me reeling. Not mention it’s written and voice-acted beautifully.
Suddenly everything makes sense as Harry gets constantly dressed-down, his futile attempts to cling to the past denied and his insanity laid bare. The letter in the ledger, the little Headless FALN rider figurine, the obsession with Dolores Dei, that awful phonecall on the payphone, everything comes together in a beautiful climax of absolute sadness, ending on that devastating final line:
“This is real darkness. It’s not death, or war, or child molestation. Real darkness has love for a face. The first death is in the heart, Harry.
I love hearing about unique takes on game mechanics. Someone recently convinced me that limited inventories are kind of abused currently and that unlimited inventory systems would give more player choices.
There is a way to change this via mods, if you’re still interested in Cyberpunk. I just finished my first playthrough and one of the first things I did was figure out how to rebind Dodge to Alt.
The Silent Silencers mod and Stealthrunnner also makes stealth much more enjoyable.
Just finished my first playthrough of Cyberpunk last night after about 120 hours. I had 3 or so gigs left but wanted to make sure I got it done before Baldur’s Gate 3 (will need to free up some disk space…).
Overall I liked it a lot, despite its many flaws. It has some moments, characters and stories that are really engaging. Judy was a standout for me, and her voice actress really killed it. I regret not choosing Female V now, but of course I had no idea at the time. And I know it’s controversial but I kinda liked Keanu as Silverhand, even though his voice acting isn’t always “good”. The relationship between V and Johnny was the thing I enjoyed the most, and Johnny’s character development.
Not sure I’m super happy with the ending I got, though, and I might go back and play out some of the other alternatives.
Yeah, Judy made a big impression on me. I’ll wait a while after Phantom Liberty’s release until I’ll play again, but I’ll definitely play Fem V then so I can see the Judy romance.
I just played through another ending today, (Don’t) Fear the Reaper into the Temperance ending, and I much preferred that to the one I got at first (Rogue’s path into The Sun ending). I’m much more satisfied with the game now.
I have heard people like that one, and I have read roughly what it’s about, but I’m saving that one for my next playthrough.
I think which one suits best depends a lot on both how you played your V and how you felt about Johnny.
For me, V and Johnny became like best friends, and so The Sun ended up feeling mostly like a letdown and a nobody wins scenario, and it felt almost out of character for V, too.
Temperance felt perfect for the story as I had experienced it, and it was also really cool to see the final dialogues inside Mikoshi from both the perspective of playing as Johnny and playing as V. Highly recommended.
SPOILERSWhen playing as Johnny (the first time), I actually thought V would interrupt a fourth time on the bridge heading towards the light and forcibly kick Johnny back into his body and make the choice for him. At least that’s where it felt like the dialogues were going. I think that would have been a cool moment, if your relationship with Johnny is high enough.
That’s fair. Cyberpunk does have some standout moments and the immersive first person definitely makes some of them hit harder. I can imagine that ending being powerful (I haven’t seen it), and if you have that personal connection then especially so.
My favourite moment of writing in Disco Elysium was probably speaking to the boat lady who spits out some very harsh truths and for sure represents best the idea of “absords all critiques into itself” idea.
Disco Elysium is chock full of great lines and “Capital has the ability to absorb all critiques into itself…” is fantastic. For me, I just keep coming back to the ending. Specifically, the final dream.
It’s the absolute pinnacle of the game, in my opinion, at least if you’ve explored all the clues about Harry’s past. I’m trying to write in a way that won’t spoil too much for people who haven’t played, but if you’ve read the letter in the ledger, made that phonecall, bought the figurine, explored the stained glass window etc it all comes together in that dream scene.
It’s such a beautifully painful moment that just keeps building as you’re exposing the inner core of Harry, and culminates to a point on the perfect final line.
Oh I’m well aware. They were constantly downstream as Valve was developing the Source Engine at the same time as Troika was using it to make Bloodlines, and there was no documentation or devtools available. It’s a minor miracle the game even runs at all.
It was still a troubled production beyond that, though, and Bloodlines was ultimately rushed to the finish and shoved out the door before it was ready. Like I said elsewhere in this thread, it becomes very noticeable in the final third of the game, where the quality doesn’t really match the high bar that the Santa Monica section establishes.
I still absolutely love the game, though. The atmosphere still hits home, even to this day. And Rik Schaffer’s soundtrack is iconic.
That fragile balance between hope and nihilism is where the game really shines for me. The communist vision quest is another instance, where a glimmer of sincerity shines through from the writers amid the bleak cynicism and satire. I always loved Steban’s soft, understated admission of why he believes in communism: “You could say we believe it because it’s impossible. It’s our way of saying we refuse to accept that the world has to remain… like this.”
Not only are there things worth finding in the world, but there are things worth fighting for, and it’s a gentle reminder that we ourselves must choose our beliefs. If we want to feel hope, we must choose to believe in it. Even when it’s impossible. We have to believe that there is a better future possible. To quote Steban again;
I actually have some opinions on the Plus Patch. I want to phrase this really carefully as Wesp5 is a hero for his work and dedication through the years, but he started taking a lot of liberties the last maybe 5-7 years, and the Plus Patch now contains stuff that is more mod than patch/restoration.
It has gotten to the point where I wish there were 3 tiers of unofficial patch, not two. The vanilla patch is only bugfixes, and lots of the stuff added back in the Plus Patch was actually good but just missing due to poor code or not being completely finished but 90% there. I wish there was a patch with just the bugfixes and those most obvious content restorations.
In the Plus Patch as it exists today, though, you have a lot of stuff that was cut for a reason shoehorned in, like unused OST tracks Wesp5 has inserted according to personal taste, or areas (and a quest) that were barely started where he himself filled in the blanks. And even complete mod content that - while they could be argued to be improvements - are alterations to the game according to Wesp5’s vision.
You still need the basic patch to even run the game, of course, otherwise it’s literally unplayable. But these days I recommend the Plus Patch for a second playthrough. Playing as Malkavian is a good enough reason for a second playthrough, anyway.
Larian says it’s discussing potential Baldur’s Gate 3 DLC | VGC (www.videogameschronicle.com) angielski
[Spoiler Warning: Baldurs Gate 3] Karlach romance angielski
Is it just me or is the whole Karlach romance EXTREMELY well done? I know I’m a big ol’ weird softie and your mileage may vary, but it had me laughing and crying and cheering!...
Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2 release date potentially leaked (www.dsogaming.com) angielski
'We owe them a huge debt': Baldur's Gate 3 lead writer hopes they did '90s BioWare proud (www.pcgamer.com) angielski
What is up with Baldur's Gate 3?
This is not a criticism - I love how much attention this game has been getting. I’m just not understanding why BG3 has been blowing up so much. It seems like BG3 is getting more attention than all of Larian’s previous games combined (and maybe all of Obsidian’s recent crpgs as well). Traditionally crpgs have not lit the...
This Fallout New Vegas Mod adds a real-time reflections system (www.dsogaming.com) angielski
Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of August 13th
Forgot to post this yesterday oops :)...
PC Game Recommendation for a Broken Arm? angielski
So, yesterday I broke my dominant arm. Yay! For the next 6 weeks, I have a cast, and at least for now, I can’t use my right hand or arm at all (I am typing this with my left hand)....
What are some RPGs for someone who doesnt like most RPGs angielski
Hey everyone! I’ve been diving into RPGs lately and wanted to share my thoughts and seek recommendations from fellow gamers. I’ve found myself resonating with Scott the Woz’s viewpoint on random encounters and grinding, but I do make an exception when the combat system is truly exceptional, like in the case of...
Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of August 6th angielski
Hey all! Another weekly thread is here....
deleted_by_author
Most emotional moments in games? (SPOILERS)
Just for the heads up, this thread will probably have a lot of spoilers. I’m gonna try to go vague on spoilers for anybody that hasn’t played Hotline Miami 2. If you’ve played the game, you’ll probably know what I mean, but I’m going to say some purposefully esoteric shit to keep it out of full spoiler territory....
What game mechanics do you love and hate? angielski
I love hearing about unique takes on game mechanics. Someone recently convinced me that limited inventories are kind of abused currently and that unlimited inventory systems would give more player choices.
Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of July 30th
Whatcha all playing!...
Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher studio CD Projekt laying off 100 staff (www.pcgamesn.com) angielski