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Gamesradarès Baldur's Gate 3 preview is pure hype

I think Normal is ok if you are used to CRPGs/D&D. Otherwise yeah, Easy may not be a bad idea till at least you get a handle on the gameplay/abilities.
My only issue with WOTR is that it seems all combat is balanced around needing to have all buffs on, many of which are the ones that last for a very short time, and it's a hassle to keep them all up for multiple encounters. There is a mod that allows you pre-store you buff list, and pop them all with one button. I don't know why they didn't just have it in the game, because that game is unplayable for me without it in the mid to late game.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
Oh no. Do I need to be looking into this?
326-3269436_haha-yes-really-really-like-this-image-hedgehog.png
 


Nice.

Tossing the dwarf is in!

Wait, Monks are in? I heard they wouldn't be at launch, or maybe I'm just thinking of early access. Consider this game bought, I'm off from work for the first two weeks of August and I'm pretty sure I'll be done with TotK by then so I'll need a new game...

As someone who spent more than half his hundreds of hours in BG2 as a Monk (often solo, usually modded), mostly played one in DDO as well (what can I say, I just love punching dragons to death), but who knows nothing of 5e and never played any of the Divinity games, what should I expect? Do they have any sublasses? What kind of weapons can they use? Are they still locked to humans? Boy, I need to actually read up on the game itself now...
 

amigastar

Member
Wait, Monks are in? I heard they wouldn't be at launch, or maybe I'm just thinking of early access. Consider this game bought, I'm off from work for the first two weeks of August and I'm pretty sure I'll be done with TotK by then so I'll need a new game...

As someone who spent more than half his hundreds of hours in BG2 as a Monk (often solo, usually modded), mostly played one in DDO as well (what can I say, I just love punching dragons to death), but who knows nothing of 5e and never played any of the Divinity games, what should I expect? Do they have any sublasses? What kind of weapons can they use? Are they still locked to humans? Boy, I need to actually read up on the game itself now...
Larian remade the monk class as they thought it was a little weak in DnD 5e. Now they are up to par with the other classes. I have to admit i want a monk in my party.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
Wait, Monks are in? I heard they wouldn't be at launch, or maybe I'm just thinking of early access. Consider this game bought, I'm off from work for the first two weeks of August and I'm pretty sure I'll be done with TotK by then so I'll need a new game...

As someone who spent more than half his hundreds of hours in BG2 as a Monk (often solo, usually modded), mostly played one in DDO as well (what can I say, I just love punching dragons to death), but who knows nothing of 5e and never played any of the Divinity games, what should I expect? Do they have any sublasses? What kind of weapons can they use? Are they still locked to humans? Boy, I need to actually read up on the game itself now...
 

StereoVsn

Member
My only issue with WOTR is that it seems all combat is balanced around needing to have all buffs on, many of which are the ones that last for a very short time, and it's a hassle to keep them all up for multiple encounters. There is a mod that allows you pre-store you buff list, and pop them all with one button. I don't know why they didn't just have it in the game, because that game is unplayable for me without it in the mid to late game.
Oh yeah, there are couple of mods for buffs and they are a must have. To be fair you can build characters that are geared toward more survivability and longer term buffs, but it's kind of satisfying to buff up to all colors of rainbow for pure overkill.
 
Thanks, sounds interesting.

Apparently Ki only recovers during "short rests", whatever that is, and Avatar Monks (or "way of the four elements" as they are called here?) seem to depend a lot on it; might go with a Shadow Monk instead, as they sound like how I built mine in DDO. Will also depend on what the rest of my group plans on rolling, obviously.
No Kensei Monk at launch makes me a bit sad though...
 

Guilty_AI

Member
Thanks, sounds interesting.

Apparently Ki only recovers during "short rests", whatever that is, and Avatar Monks (or "way of the four elements" as they are called here?) seem to depend a lot on it; might go with a Shadow Monk instead, as they sound like how I built mine in DDO. Will also depend on what the rest of my group plans on rolling, obviously.
No Kensei Monk at launch makes me a bit sad though...
In DnD, some things like spells (and ki in this case) recover through rest, as well as healing up. And its exactly what it sounds like, you literally set up camp (or find some lodging) where you rest with your party, there being different kinds of rest depending on the quality of it - you'll rest much better in a expensive lodging than you would camping in the middle of the wild while low on supplies for example. The specific rules in BG3 aren't exactly those, but you get the idea.
 
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Doom85

Member
Larian remade the monk class as they thought it was a little weak in DnD 5e. Now they are up to par with the other classes. I have to admit i want a monk in my party.

Happy Excuse Me GIF


5E monks are “weak”?

Matt Mercer, DM of the D&D hit series Critical Role, flat out told his wife Marisha at one point in their 2nd campaign: “I’m sorry if you’re unhappy with your super-movement speed and ability to stun everything I throw at you.” (he wasn’t actually mad at her, just being honest when she was frustrated there was one time difficult terrain was messing up her movement options)

Like, sure, sometimes DMs get lucky and roll high on multiple Constitution saving throws, but one fail and OOF. Like, one time Critical Role was fighting a group of pirates with the leader looking particularly tough. Marisha’s monk stunned him before he got a single attack out, and the party killed him in the first round. Matt was just like, “okay, sure, it’s not like he had a few cool, unique moves I would have liked to show off…”

Although I suppose one has to take into account BG3 will have a party of 4 max. Critical Role is generally a party of 7, so even adjusting enemy Challenge Rating, a single stunned enemy is going to get owned harder regardless.
 
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Spaceman292

Banned
I will be very very surprised if this feels polished by release. Even this late into early access i still noticed some jankyness here and there, most commonly during cutscenes with split second moments of assets loading in, some twitch animations or weird facial expressions. I think their engine probably wasn't designed to handle cinematics. That said, it could be just analytics middleware affecting the overall game stability.

If none of those issues are present by release and there are no real problems with the game mechanics and quests, the only thing that'll be left to ask is: what the fuck is the rest of the industry doing?
They haven't updated the early access version for ages because all the work is just going into the full release, so the EA version isn't very representative of where the game is right now.
 
I just recall that my monk build in BG2 was pretty OP?
Nah, I've been playing Monk for most of my BG2 career, and they were never OP. They can be "good" and are the easiest to reach 100% MR (especially with the pre-ToB amulet of power) but never were even close to the real powerhouses, like the infamous Kensai or Berserker dualed to Wizard.

I've been trying them with all sorts of mods, too.
The Oversight HLAs are nice (immunity to Time Stop, or that super-dispel are nice, although casters can't really do anything to you anyway; at least the latter helps against dragons, especially now that they're immune to Quivering Palm), but you lose GWW for 10 apr.
Refinements has some good stuff too, super fast regen always helps.
There's a mod for the EE that gives Monks fists their magical enchantment earlier - fighters can still get magical weapons at the same echantment even earlier though.

Mnoks are still super fun though, even if they're pretty weak compared to a fully-kitted, optimized character. Nothing will ever come close to punching a dragon to death.


~edit: forgot that in the EE, none of the head gear Monks can wear protect against critical hits (geez, thanks Beamdog :messenger_weary:).
 
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Ivory Samoan

Gold Member
Just had time to watch the fextralife preview

Sweating James Mcavoy GIF


Oh my

I was thinking of moving BG3 after being done with Starfield, but i think i'll flip it around. Starfield will probably be buggy as fuck anyway...
This is what I'm doing now too - this hype even kicked off another BG1+2 run, just finished off Sarevok, Into BG2 : let's go!
 

amigastar

Member
Happy Excuse Me GIF


5E monks are “weak”?

Matt Mercer, DM of the D&D hit series Critical Role, flat out told his wife Marisha at one point in their 2nd campaign: “I’m sorry if you’re unhappy with your super-movement speed and ability to stun everything I throw at you.” (he wasn’t actually mad at her, just being honest when she was frustrated there was one time difficult terrain was messing up her movement options)

Like, sure, sometimes DMs get lucky and roll high on multiple Constitution saving throws, but one fail and OOF. Like, one time Critical Role was fighting a group of pirates with the leader looking particularly tough. Marisha’s monk stunned him before he got a single attack out, and the party killed him in the first round. Matt was just like, “okay, sure, it’s not like he had a few cool, unique moves I would have liked to show off…”

Although I suppose one has to take into account BG3 will have a party of 4 max. Critical Role is generally a party of 7, so even adjusting enemy Challenge Rating, a single stunned enemy is going to get owned harder regardless.
watch 0:07. And this is just one example.


12:16 "we had to do a few tweaks for monk because it wasn't quite as exciting"
 
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This is what I'm doing now too - this hype even kicked off another BG1+2 run, just finished off Sarevok, Into BG2 : let's go!
I imported my characters from my BG run earlier this year and started 2 also. I'm about halfway through I'd guess. I've never beaten the second one so it's a new experience for me. I like that some things are expanded and the scope is "bigger" in some ways, but I kind of prefer the first game so far. Either way it's fun.
 

Ivory Samoan

Gold Member
I imported my characters from my BG run earlier this year and started 2 also. I'm about halfway through I'd guess. I've never beaten the second one so it's a new experience for me. I like that some things are expanded and the scope is "bigger" in some ways, but I kind of prefer the first game so far. Either way it's fun.
I like the newness of BG1 but the higher level game play of BG2 seems more fun.

I was so let down by the Sarevok fight- beat him first go on core easily, L7 all party, maybe I just got lucky (I do min max a bunch though).
 

Fools idol

Banned
I imported my characters from my BG run earlier this year and started 2 also. I'm about halfway through I'd guess. I've never beaten the second one so it's a new experience for me. I like that some things are expanded and the scope is "bigger" in some ways, but I kind of prefer the first game so far. Either way it's fun.

personally think the reason BG2 is revered so much more is the replayability and companions. Everything else including story imho was better in bg1. But that is not a popular opinion to hold.
 
I like the newness of BG1 but the higher level game play of BG2 seems more fun.

I was so let down by the Sarevok fight- beat him first go on core easily, L7 all party, maybe I just got lucky (I do min max a bunch though).
I think I was 7 or 8 also but maybe the makeup of my party wasn't as good. For one I had a Paladin that became "fallen" almost as soon as I started the game and I never figured out how to fix that. She's actually still a "Fallen Paladin" even now as I go along in BG2 😆. I was destroyed by him and it took some fancy trickery to finally take him down. I didn't have much trouble the rest of the game so it was like a sudden brick wall for me - that whole group of people out front I had to invis last because they were even harder for me!

The main thing I don't like about 2 is how often it locks you into areas with no way out for however long that segment of the story is. I maybe should have also done more exploration in the earlier acts but didn't realize I was going to lock myself out of some of it (at least so far).
 

amigastar

Member
Honestly, the wait for Baldurs Gate 3 is really killing me. I'm tempted to continue my EA playthrough but on the other hand i wanna experience the full game when it comes out.
Anyone else got the same problem, lol?
 

Gorgon

Member
personally think the reason BG2 is revered so much more is the replayability and companions. Everything else including story imho was better in bg1. But that is not a popular opinion to hold.

Well, the experience is lost in the mists of time for me, but back when the games came out I remember liking BG1 a lot more than BG2. The setup in the second one didn't grab me.
 

StereoVsn

Member
I liked BG2 quite a bit more. Higher levels allowed for better and more complex combat. There were better companion stories. A lot more side quests all over.

And I found main villain more compelling in BG2. Don't get me wrong, BG1 is amazing and I have both installed with expansions and mods. I even have both on Xbox and ony iPad, lol.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
Honestly, the wait for Baldurs Gate 3 is really killing me. I'm tempted to continue my EA playthrough but on the other hand i wanna experience the full game when it comes out.
Anyone else got the same problem, lol?
We can handle it more easily by watching the bear scene on repeat
 

Gorgon

Member
I liked BG2 quite a bit more. Higher levels allowed for better and more complex combat. There were better companion stories. A lot more side quests all over.

And I found main villain more compelling in BG2. Don't get me wrong, BG1 is amazing and I have both installed with expansions and mods. I even have both on Xbox and ony iPad, lol.

That may be one of the reasons why people gravitate more towards BG2. Personally, I've always been far more interested in setting, story, atmosphere, tone, characters, etc, and don't really care much for challenge. I'm probably gonna play BG3 on the easiest setting :messenger_tears_of_joy:
 

Guilty_AI

Member
I don’t understand anything you guys are saying, this game is going to be too much for my simple mind.
Its a crpg with AAA production value and even some immersive-sim elements. If your mind can handle crpgs and mutual love between a vampire and a bear, it can handle this.
 
Well, the experience is lost in the mists of time for me, but back when the games came out I remember liking BG1 a lot more than BG2. The setup in the second one didn't grab me.
Yeah it's abrupt and a lot different IMO. No time to "ease into" it you're just off and yeah kind of meh so far. Scope is all over the place.
 

KXVXII9X

Member
It is still wild to me that we will have some of the best RPGs ever within 6 months of each other (FFXVI, Baldur's Gate 3, and Starfield).

I haven't got to play the EA of BG3, but I played Divinity Original Sin 2 and is my favorite RPG. I feel like I talk about the game so much on here lol.

It looks like BG3 is taking the level of freedom from DoS2 and expanding upon it. Like Zelda TotK this kind of freedom makes it hard to go back to more rigid games.

The one downside is it is easy to burn out after a while but I really appreciate this amount of work being poured into these kinds of games.

I am glad Larian Studios is getting more praise and recognition! They are a group of talented and passionate Devs. They really raised my expectationsbfor games in general.
 

StereoVsn

Member
It is still wild to me that we will have some of the best RPGs ever within 6 months of each other (FFXVI, Baldur's Gate 3, and Starfield).

I haven't got to play the EA of BG3, but I played Divinity Original Sin 2 and is my favorite RPG. I feel like I talk about the game so much on here lol.

It looks like BG3 is taking the level of freedom from DoS2 and expanding upon it. Like Zelda TotK this kind of freedom makes it hard to go back to more rigid games.

The one downside is it is easy to burn out after a while but I really appreciate this amount of work being poured into these kinds of games.

I am glad Larian Studios is getting more praise and recognition! They are a group of talented and passionate Devs. They really raised my expectationsbfor games in general.
FFXVI doesnt belong in the list. It's a good game, but more character action with RPG elements vs actual RPG. IMO of course.

That said, yeah, I decided to go for BG3, meaning I will wait couple of months for Starfield post it's release. Which is good since it will hopefully get at least some patches.
 

amigastar

Member
Anyone heard anything on the collector's edition ship date, we're getting pretty close now.
From what i know it was end of August when the Collectors Edition ships. It doesn't ship on the current release date (3rd August) but the previous release date so around 31st August.
 
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I remember an enemy monk scoring a massive critical ((IIRC 200 HP dmg) and gibbing my party leader once. So ridiculous I ROTFL'd.
Wow, I wish my Monk would do that much damage lol

I don't really see how that's possible in an unmodded game though, not even Balthazar could hit that hard. Assuming that was on the highest difficulty (so you take double damage from everything) and your leader somehow didn't have protection against crits, that's still 50 damage in one hit. Highest I've seen was a 85-ish crit from my custom Paladin kit (using Carsomyr, with basically Kensai bonus to damage) and a 150 crit backstab from my Kensai/thief dual.
Highest I've heard of is another matter... something like an assassin/cleric dual, using Black Blade of Disaster (2d12 damage) with Righteous Magic (always max damage rolls), while somehow being shape-changed into an Iron Golem for 24 strength... and then backstabbing (x7 damage) one of your own party members on the highest difficulty (double damage), and save-scumming for a crit. I think the total damage exceeded 1000.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
Aaaaand the Elden Ring effect began.



I would never hold the game of a 30 person team to the same standard as whats being done here, this much is obvious. But to have people from TRIPLE A studios far larger, with far more experience and far more resources than Larian, chiming in saying they shouldn't be held by the same standards - people from Insomaniac, Obsidian and freaking Blizzard - is just ridiculous.

Yes, i will hold you to the same standards, I will compare Everwild, Starfield, The Outer Worlds 2 and whatever else is being made to BG3, why i shouldn't i? There's no reason why a studio like Obsidian, with decades more worth of experience, far more acclaimed RPGs on their backs than Larian, MICROSOFT funds alongside multiple other studios to draw experience from under the same umbrella, shouldn't able to put out something of this level.
 
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Fools idol

Banned
Aaaaand the Elden Ring effect began.



I would never hold the game of a 30 person team to the same standard as whats being done here, this much is obvious. But to have people from TRIPLE A studios far larger, with far more experience and far more resources than Larian, chiming in saying they shouldn't be held by the same standards - people from Insomaniac, Obsidian and freaking Blizzard - is just ridiculous.

Yes, i will hold you to the same standards, I will compare Everwild, Starfield, The Outer Worlds 2 and whatever else is being made to BG3, why i shouldn't i? There's no reason why a studio like Obsidian, with decades more worth of experience, far more acclaimed RPGs on their backs than Larian, MICROSOFT funds alongside multiple other studios to draw experience from under the same umbrella, shouldn't able to put out something of this level.

there is, in my opinion, some jealousy between the words.

Larian has taken the baton from them in many ways and ran with it. To be honest, Larian has the potential to be as revered as Black Isle studios was back in the days before they became Obsidian.

Reception has been lukewarm to Obsidians games of late and it is undoubtably for the drop in quality compared to what they used to put out. It's a shame, but you can see why they are salty about Larian's success.

Don't get me wrong however, Pillars was great too. I just think Larian has taken the torch.
 
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