I wonder how that happened? It's a part of his storry to prevent that from happening.
Kaamos_Llama
Moderator
After he died his apparition never appeared to give instructions, I got his bag but nothing else. Tried resurrecting via Withers but it took the money and nothing happened. Tried opening the bag but it gets destroyed if you dont have any instructions. His corpse had just been led in the campsite over several long rests so I assumed whatever bugged out had bugged out the explodey part too. Apparently not.
I should have just loaded a save straight away but I didnt feel like doing the fights again and Wyl was really fun to use so I just carried on. Luckily I went back and made a permanent save of the quick save while he was still alive.
Also just had my first CTD, and I've had minor niggles with combat freezing between turns. I dont mind really, but I'm not so sure this game is quite the bug free paradise its been made out to be. My system is stable in everything else.
Really fun game though, havent been this taken by a new CRPG probably since Divinity OS2, and this is better than that in every way for me.
Not sure anyone has claimed it to be bugfree though. Many have praised it for being well polished (more so compared to most AAA titles today on release) but as far as i know most people have taken note on bugs, some major, some minor. Atleast Larian is patching the game
Kaamos_Llama
Moderator
Not sure anyone has claimed it to be bugfree though. Many have praised it for being well polished (more so compared to most AAA titles today on release) but as far as i know most people have taken note on bugs, some major, some minor. Atleast Larian is patching the game
Yea no doubt theyre patching it as fast as they can, and they did bring the whole thing forwards to get out of Starfields way which cant have helped.
The amount of stuff you can do in and out of combat is amazing, so its no surprise there are situations that havent turned up in testing even if act one was in EA for 3 years.
I have been relativley lucky so far, only a few minor bugs and only once did i have to reload a save because of abug but i have noticed some glitches here and there but nothing gamebreaking.
Kaamos_Llama
Moderator
Its a bit janky around the dialogue in places too, when you dont do things in the expected order its gets thrown out here and there, but nothing too serious. The writing and voice acting has been great, I'm reading the majority of the journals, and I never do that in anything anymore.
Game is really picking up for me, and I liked it a lot before. Act One Gyrmforge and some mechanical spoilers.
So yea, I got pretty into it today.
Game is really picking up for me, and I liked it a lot before. Act One Gyrmforge and some mechanical spoilers.
Man the Gyrmforge is amazing! Had a real tough time fighting the Duergar at the cave-in as I didnt want to let any Gnomes get smoked, but managed to get through it with the Ogre horn and creative positioning for shoves at the start.
The verticality of the whole place causes the camera some serious issues at times in combat even with the tactical cam in combat, but its really worth it for the feeling of exploration and discovery of finding those hidden areas. Took me a while to get used to the idea of jumping to ledges but its really coming together now. Really smart how they limited the range of the camera (mostly) just the right amount. Still have the Mountain pass as well to check out after I finish up, Githyanki creche and whatever else is there, good times.
Karlach at level 5 having two attacks in one turn is such a power boost and her melee AOE's with a Great Sword are great. Took Longstrider on Astarion as an Arkan Trickster class spell at lvl 5 and now keep everyone with the 3m movement boost permanently, it makes a huge difference in combat. Looking out for other spells that last until long rest without concentration required. Astarion is dual wielding Short Sword and Dagger and also has Misty Step, his damage is good but his mobility is amazing! Shadowheart is hot and she heals, she does also have a decent mix of range and melee, and is fairly tanky. Using Arcane Weapon a lot, because extra party members are always good, and its damage is pretty decent for what it is, easily makes up for Shadowhearts slightly below par hit chance and damage.
I'm not convinced Gale is very good in combat, he gets picked off easily in any tougher battle and his spells arent that much better than Wyls, maybe I just need to find some better spells. Fireball is a good one as usual, and I have Slow but no Haste yet.
The verticality of the whole place causes the camera some serious issues at times in combat even with the tactical cam in combat, but its really worth it for the feeling of exploration and discovery of finding those hidden areas. Took me a while to get used to the idea of jumping to ledges but its really coming together now. Really smart how they limited the range of the camera (mostly) just the right amount. Still have the Mountain pass as well to check out after I finish up, Githyanki creche and whatever else is there, good times.
Karlach at level 5 having two attacks in one turn is such a power boost and her melee AOE's with a Great Sword are great. Took Longstrider on Astarion as an Arkan Trickster class spell at lvl 5 and now keep everyone with the 3m movement boost permanently, it makes a huge difference in combat. Looking out for other spells that last until long rest without concentration required. Astarion is dual wielding Short Sword and Dagger and also has Misty Step, his damage is good but his mobility is amazing! Shadowheart is hot and she heals, she does also have a decent mix of range and melee, and is fairly tanky. Using Arcane Weapon a lot, because extra party members are always good, and its damage is pretty decent for what it is, easily makes up for Shadowhearts slightly below par hit chance and damage.
I'm not convinced Gale is very good in combat, he gets picked off easily in any tougher battle and his spells arent that much better than Wyls, maybe I just need to find some better spells. Fireball is a good one as usual, and I have Slow but no Haste yet.
So yea, I got pretty into it today.
OsaX Nymloth
Community Contributor
170h and done with first playthrough. All praises are deserved, this is one of the most important cRPG releases of the decade.
BUT
I wouldn't be me if I didn't decide to whine about certain stuff.
Take the below with a grain of salt, as I enjoyed most of my time with the game. But certain mechanics and design decision left a sour aftertaste in my mouth and some logic (or lack of it) in some other aspects also made me think. Of course, I could be wrong about certain logics, but hey, that's what I felt when I played the game.
BUT
I wouldn't be me if I didn't decide to whine about certain stuff.
Take the below with a grain of salt, as I enjoyed most of my time with the game. But certain mechanics and design decision left a sour aftertaste in my mouth and some logic (or lack of it) in some other aspects also made me think. Of course, I could be wrong about certain logics, but hey, that's what I felt when I played the game.
- Level numbers and attributes inaccuracies. Like, I see a level 7 NPC having somehow 6 HP. Excuse me sir, is your Constitution negative or something? Are you cursed?
- World seems to be “leveling up” in accordance to the player. It feels it’s impossible to meet someone really powerful unless the player is as powerful. Orpheus barely level 12? What’s next, Elminster level 1? Oh wait, that actually happened. And I killed him. Hm…. I hope Mystra isn’t too mad about that. I mean, he always comes back, right? Anyway, this ruins world building and immersion. Look how Drizzt was introducted in the first Baldur’s Gate – way out of the player’s league and killable only by being creative with the systems (aka, cheesing), because in any fair fight, he would wreck any party.
- Let me meet a level 10 character early on, maybe even let me try taking him on and getting wrecked and thus learning my lesson to not mess with such powerful characters. Instead, I feel babysitted all the time to make sure I don’t do stupid thing. In a game, that…. actually quite often hints on doing stupid stuff for fun.
- instead I feel like in a Bethesda’s game where bandits will always be around my level no matter what
- All characters having names and no way to distinguish who is or may be important. With all those names, you forget 90% of them within a minute. Not every damn peasant needs a name imho. In the end when I got to the actual city, I literally ignored 99% of people because I couldn’t be arsed to talk to them in dire hopes of figuring out if they are important or not.
- Closing access to previous levels/maps is not very Baldur’s Gate-like. Why I can’t go back to the druid grove after I’ve access to the city proper? Why the draw bridge is lowered at some point, making fast travel and its “teleportation” a necessity instead of convenience?
- Journal is really very basic. No option to search or highlight anything, no “metalinks”. Interacting with it was one of the weakest points of the whole game. Look how Pathfinder games did it.
- Speaking of Pathfinder games, take note on how their inventory systems works. The way they improved the UI for inventory management from 1st to 2nd game and then made it even better with patches is AMAZING.
- Underdark was a disappointing theme park. It should be deadly place for any low level party, even if it was just Upperdark. It came too early in the game and because of that it could never be an actually dangerous place that people should be terrified of.
- On the topic of Underdark, I’ve checked known to me maps and can’t see anything known in the direct vicinity of Baldur’s Gate, but hey, I probably looked at wrong maps.
- The Mind Flayers colony. If not for one optional fight, the amount of Mind Flayers player can meet equals….1? In their colony? Are you sure? Remember how many Illithid were even in ONE of their “colonies” in BG2? Together with thralls and all? This is laughable.
- Drows, duergars, deep gnomes – hell, only illithids are missing from walking around the surface freely, be it in the city or rural area. What happened? In the past, just a sight of a drow would be a reason to panic and call guards while running away for one’s life. Remember how Viconia was constantly on the run? Now it’s “ok for drow to walk around in full sunlight in the middle of a big city”. Smells of certain thing I shall not name here, but I was wrinkling my nose a lot at this.
- With all the dungeons, underground temples, basements etc. under the whole city I am surprised it didn’t just…collapse. Or that all those tunnels don’t intertwine with one another creating a Ultimate Maze of Chaotic Undercity Where People Go Die In Mysterious And Possibly Painful Ways.
- You know what is not very much BG-like? No ability to travel almost anywhere. I can’t go back to previous locations or explore random wilderness. The amount of locations is also low. We’ve starting “forest” area, passage, underdark theme park, shadow cursed land aaaand it’s city already. That’s it. Oh and more underground areas.
- Books that inside have only “book detailing of a certain event” text inside. Why? What’s the damn point of them being there? Only as little nods to nerds who may know of a certain event, person or place? These books are effectively empty of actual content, all they do is add to the immense clutter of THINGS EVERYWHERE.
- Losing friendly NPCs because enemy has pushed them into a chasm is AWFUL. The amount of times I wanted to reload just because somebody was pushed off a cliff is too damn high.
- In general I am not a fan of the whole “shove into a chasm” mechanic. At best, it’s a cheese fest. At worst, I am loosing people because enemy made a lucky throw of used an ability to instakill some party member. And before you say “just place your people better”, some areas are designed especially with chasms in mind.
- Turn based battles vs hordes of weak enemies last FOREVER. Yes, the battles are taking too long.
- Did I mention I miss active pause? Or at least the option to pause the game when I notice a trap, an enemy or see some companion is about to walk into a visible trap just because they apparently love doing so.
- 12 level cap is too low, as I achieved it even before exploring the whole city and after that I got enough experience at least for 3-4 more levels. Update: Out of 170h, 30-40h was level cap. It kills the urge to do remaining sidequests somehow, knowing at the best I will get 1-2 useful items, at worst, nothing at all.
- Also, the amount of EXP given in fighting even super weak enemies in chapter 3 is…. kinda hilarious when compared to previous chapters. It seems to me like it was made this way to ensure every party will max out on level, even without doing side quests.
- What’s the damn point that after I talk to someone and fail a check, I can go talk to the same NPC with other of my squad member and attempt the same check? They even open with the same line, like that party member wasn’t there this whole time.
- Some guards were angry I was curious about a locked chest and attacked me. Killed them. Inside chest was nothing but fish. Ok, killed bunch of guys for fish, happens. Then I go to the Counting house, guards attack me on sight. I loot them during fight. After it, one of the civilians is like “i saw you stealing!”. I kill that one too. Yes I will damn loot enemies I’ve killed and no damn random civilian will meddle in that. Also, no one cared about that as well. In the end I left the whole area devoid of life.
- Also, killing all the civilians and no penalty, no problems with reputation. Nothing. And reputation WAS rather important in BG games. Have low enough reputation and literal strike teams will be after you in BG1/2.
- I still believe strongly that 50% or more of the dice rolling could be relegated to the background checks. Leave the in-dialogues ones, hide all the others. You already do that for some checks.
- Waiting for the damn animations of dice rolling to finish…. especially on “failure/success” phase, that can’t be skipped over. I was rolling my eyes sooo much because of this.
- I find barter function meaningless.
- Same with each NPC’s standings with any of my party members. It just doesn’t come into play unless you really really try, I guess.
- Autosaves are so rare…. if I forget to quick save, there’s a good chance I will loose another 30+ minutes of my progress due to how slow the fights are and then realize I need to reload just because either a bug occurred, I sequence broke another quest or that I needed to do non-lethal damage to someone to save his ass.
- “the poor creature reached for the key to lock her homestead, secure himself… and sealed her fate” – either my comprehension here is hitting rock bottom (possible) or somebody is changing sex way too often 😛
- Myrmidons selection box is way too huge. HUUUUGE.
- The underwear feature is useless and you can’t change my mind
- There’s a funny glitch in LOD for helmets, that makes them hover in the air at certain distance and “snap” back to the head of a character when camera is close
- Total number of companions is much smaller than previous games, obviously. While it’s easy to understand why, it still felt like I met 90% of possible companions early and after than nobody new appeared. Hirelings are a must it seems when player wants a warrior who is not a Gith for example.
- Having to go through all the pains of unlocking full potential of Necromancy of Thay only to get… a mediocre spell felt weak. It’s supposed to be a very dangerous and powerful tome – my mind instantly went to the direction of the likes of Szass Tam. And instead of power, maybe lichdom or similar secrets all I got was…. being able to cast useful spell of talking to dead aaaand a weak summon that at best can serve as a distraction as they get one shotted by a lot of enemies in chapter 3 anyway.
- Did I mention I miss the ending slides? Here the ending felt weak and very limited in numbers.
- Overall, the spell selection felt….weak in comparison to both Infinity Engine games and Pathfinder games. Some levels were so restricting, I almost ended up not using a single spell from such level because all available options were meh at best.
- Z’real (or whatever her name was, the half-orc in Moonrise Towers) was able to effortlessly scan my character’s mind for memories, picking the one that pleased her while ignoring all others including the freshest one where I killed Balthazar. And every single other Absolute soldier I’ve met. She then scans me AGAIN and still has no clue I am an enemy while I barely even try to fake it my “faith”. Very “gameplay reasons”.
- Ketheric just sees me and is like “fresh face I’ve never seen, let’s ask you what to do” and then promptly ignores me instead of even asking when I was initiated or what was my mission and its result since apparently I came back to the base. No suspicion from him at all, which felt off.
- On the topic of first meeting Ketheric, I know what was the aim of that whole “goblin throws stuff at the immortal general” but it came out as funny. That was one really strong goblin, eh?
- Ketheric during first fight basically surrenders to me, then out of nowhere he changes his whole behavior and acts all mighty and asks me to kneel. You wot mate, you must be drunk!
- Damn Myrkul has fallen on tough times, didn’t he? His avatar being such low level? Poor guy.
- Viconia, that character in Shar’s temple? I refuse to acknowledge it was her. There was nothing, not a trace of old Viconia in anything, way of speech, her whole personality felt totally different.
- The press printed a “bad paper” about me and my party. No one cared. Nothing happened. Disappointed. Update: got ONE one-liner about this from some random citizen. That’s all.
- Volo says the chosen of Bhaal can turn into a Slayer. Yeah, correct. He then mentions “just like Sarevok”. Ummm? Sarevok could never shapeshift into Slayer. I am not sure if it’s either Volo talking gibberish or writer’s mistake.
- Elmister forever waiting in my camp was apparently waiting for Gale. Why in this ONE instance in the whole game, he couldn’t just…. appear when I talked to him? Wyll does that all the damn time. Kalrach too. Minsc just teleports to conversations just because he wants to be in the frame. Hell the first time, Gale also wasn’t in my party and he talked to Elminster without issue. So, what’s up with this?
- Did Shadowheart really randomly decided to visit that temple of Selune that we saw in chapter 1? While we were resting in an inn in Baldur’s Gate? This is like character in real world decided to go to sleep but also visit one specific village. While being in a city that is like few days of travel away from said village. And then still came back and slept the same night and even rested. Suspension of disbelief won’t work here, friends.
- The whole army thing seems undercooked. Remember the armies of Yaga-shura besieging city of Saradush? Enemies outside the walls, defenders shooting back, fire balls crashing down into the city itself. Remember how you had to fight through them to get to their leader? Here, there’s nothing like that. You see a camp, you seem them move out once aaaand it’s gone. Even first Neverwinter Nights did better job of showing a city under siege.
- So in a few minutes my character learned how to control a submersible. Damn, I knew I was talented after all! What was the dwarf for anyway?
- Iron Throne area was such a waste. Was never a fan of turn limit, here it felt awful from the get-go. I won’t be save-loading just to explore the thing and see if there’s anything worthwhile.
- The Ironhands’s end quest was a mess. The Gondian guy disappeared in my game after I freed some hostages from Iron Throne. then I just walked around he foundry, no one talked to me or attacked so I placed the bomb. Bomb goes boom. Suddenly the Gondian appears, apparently not worried about anything and Ironhands also show up like they own the streets. You woot mate? You are constantly hiding and without me you would be dead long time ago, but now you act like big bad boss? Come on…. this whole questline is weak and next time I will simply kill every deep gnome I see.
- Talked to the Nine Fingers. Exhausted her dialogue, told me to bring Jaheira. I came back with the Harper and Nine Fingers is like “who is this guy you’ve brought up with you, Jah?”. Excuse me? We just talked. I knew I should just kill everybody in there~~
- Jaheira, Minsc. Heroes of Baldur’s Gate. Level 12, nice, right? Well, their equipment is…. basic. Like barely from the very start of BG1.
- Killed Minsc, Jaheira was mad at me. Yeah, I guess maybe she could, you know, say ANYTHING about the current issue? She was with me since the 2nd meeting with Nine Fingers. She had all the time in the world to tell me that I need to incapacitate Minsc, or charm him or whatever. Instead, she does nothing, tells nothing and then is mad. Yeah, I guess player is expected to figure it out, somehow.
- Also, took me way too damn long to figure out how to enable the non-lethal attacks. It was not worth it. Also, this is the only opportunity in the game to use it. So why even have it in game?
- Helsik – “you were never here”. Umm, I visited your shop many times before. People saw me. A lot of people. Want me to kill’em all? Why not just say “I just bought some curious from her, that’s all, I never knew she is a diabolist, I swear!”.
- Spent like 2 weeks in Baldur’s Gate by now. Is the army going to siege us anytime soon?
- I don’t buy the whole Raphael’s arc of “if I get the crown, I am above all archdevils”. No, you would still be level 12 devil with a nice artefact. Still nowhere near to challenge Asmodeus. But the fight was a good one, not gonna lie. One of the best in the whole game.
- Speaking of Raphael. He only penned THREE diaries? In all his life, am I to believe this? Come on, don’t make everything so player-centric.
- end “slides” – no mention of half of the characters. Karlach and Wyll bravely charging…. a hill. Kinda awkward. The whole tone of this was a bit too pompous and even shallow.
- So…. apparently (by total accident) I’ve destroyed a book that tells me where the mystic carrion’s heart is…. so I am blocked from positively completing the quest. Yay. Sorry Thrumble, no happy ending for ya.
- How long ago was the Emperor “free” of the elder brain thanks the dragon? This can’t be so long ago that the dragon in the meantime became bones and skin and turned undead. This kind of things take a lot of time, don’t they? Unless the elder brain was in the Moonrise Towers for quite a long time. Then it being there couldn’t really be a work of the Chosen Three, for them it was a happy little accident that they found a vulnerable colony of mind flayers so close to the surface with an elden brain sufficient for their needs? Seems like a painting made with some broad strokes and I have hard time buying it.
- Minsc feels like a fan service and nothing more. Jaheira makes more sense being there, just older. All Minsc did in my game was getting on my nerves, standing in the camp and appearing in random cutscenes/dialogues with other characters, not saying a word. Except the ending. And then I wished he would be silent.
- Why in Sarevok’s diary it seems he was angry, resented being brought back to life when in Throne of Bhaal it was HIM basically begging Player Character to give him a little bit of essence to be resurrected. This makes NO sense. I could see that he could wander the land and decided to go back to his “roots” so to say, but this is awful change of the actual lore. Even if we are to believe his sibling resurrected him to mock Sarevok, then… why the hell he let Sarevok go? Such character would take pleasure in tormenting his fallen brother. And would probably became a new God of Murder himself, so then Sarevok trying to serve old Bhaal would not make much sense.
- Why was Myrkul the only god who directly intervened when his chosen was threatened? I can totally understand why Bhaal would have a bit of an issue sending his avatar, but when Myrkul could, why not even Bane didn’t move a finger to help Gortash? This means that the first fight sets expectations regarding future battles against the Chosen, but those turn out to be false. Not one of the gods lift a finger to help their chosen. Myrkul was the most desperate, I guess?
- Sarevok says he was surprised Helena was ready to go for such lengths to become a Bhaal’s chosen. But Helena says it was Sarevok who told her to kill Orin. Either somebody is lying or we’ve a bit of blunder here.
- Geesh I guess we’re really lucky Shadowheart learned how to swim in a record time, eh?
- Finishing companions quest felt weak as well. Somehow, it never felt “good” to get them through the last hassle. Astarion got power and what he wanted next? More power. And then he didn’t even appeared in his own ending. Helped Shadowheart and all that came from it was either her parents dead or not – mind you, even after releasing her from Shar influence, she was still muttering prayers to Shar and still had the damn Shar’s altar at the camp. Lazael didn’t even comment on my last decision regarding Orpheus. I honestly have no idea what happened after the ending to some characters other than Wyll and Karlach.
Ok hi everyone,
I'm having a blast with it - the music is wonderful and the charecters are so good. The gameplay is a bit different from what I'm used to with Divinity, so I'm taking it quite slowly, but I really like it.
I'm having a blast with it - the music is wonderful and the charecters are so good. The gameplay is a bit different from what I'm used to with Divinity, so I'm taking it quite slowly, but I really like it.
Sarafan
Community Contributor
I finally reached the city. The optimization there is quite bad indeed, but with this kind of game it doesn't matter that much. My first impression is that Act 3 is better than Act 2. It definitely has a huge potential, but we'll see how it goes. The biggest downside is that I don't recognize Baldur's Gate architecture at all. There are locations that you visited in BG1, but their placement and general look doesn't remind me of the first game. I know that more than 100 years has past since BG1, but there should be some common elements.
After 75 hours I can finally objectively compere BG3 to BG2. I think that the newest installment is worse. Less side quests, less locations, more linear gameplay. However I like the turn-based combat system. I think that it's better than real-time with pause from the original series. Also, I think that D&D 5e is quite simplistic, if you compare it to Pathfinder, D&D 3e or D&D 3.5e.
After 75 hours I can finally objectively compere BG3 to BG2. I think that the newest installment is worse. Less side quests, less locations, more linear gameplay. However I like the turn-based combat system. I think that it's better than real-time with pause from the original series. Also, I think that D&D 5e is quite simplistic, if you compare it to Pathfinder, D&D 3e or D&D 3.5e.
Kaamos_Llama
Moderator
I'm forced to take it slowly as I just dont have time, but same, I'm still taking it steady and trying to explore everywhere and do as many quests as possible. 60 odd hours since release and I've just started act 2.Ok hi everyone,
I'm having a blast with it - the music is wonderful and the charecters are so good. The gameplay is a bit different from what I'm used to with Divinity, so I'm taking it quite slowly, but I really like it.
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Disappointed I didnt find my way down to some places in the Grymforge, but I dont want to look up walkthroughs first time through. Also its incentive to start another playthrough later on.
I personally find it hard to compare BG3 to the previous games since they are so vastly different, it's like comparing Comparing Skyrim to Deus EX with the difference that the BG games takes place in the same universe. That being said, I realy enjoued BG1-2 but i never considered them to be as good as many other people do. If i was to put a number on the BG games it would be around 80 for bg 1 and 2 and 95+ for BG3 so i am clearly in favor of BG3 being the better game
As a sidenote I played BG1 and 2 in preperation for BG3 and even though the storry is realy good, the games in general dosn't hold upp imo, even with the "remakes" i find them to feal realy old and klunky.
When i started Act3 i had allot of optimizaition issues but ever since Larian patched the performance I havn't realy noticed any big issues anymore. I still do find some bugs in BG3 though but they are mostly related to minor grfx glitch here and there, and the quest icons on the map not updating properly.
I didn't reload a save, just kept playing despite minor bugs. Loving the game, even better than Divinity OS2.
Kaamos_Llama
Moderator
Sure if it was a minor bug rather than one that completely ended the game I wouldnt have reloaded a save either
OsaX Nymloth
Community Contributor
Oh boy, I assume you're in for at least few reloads in that act. The most buggy of them all.
Once you're done, let's compare our opinions, I already posted my "grievances" before. And of course, since then I finished BG1 for the n-th time
Still in act 3 having a blast, patches seem to making the game better and better, last patch even fixed some qestmarker issues for me, I havn't checked all markers i have had problems with but atleast some has been fixed.
Having been lvl 12 for a while now it dosn't realy bother me that I wont level anymore, I get some cool items from time to time though items for my character specifically seems to be rare hehe.
Having been lvl 12 for a while now it dosn't realy bother me that I wont level anymore, I get some cool items from time to time though items for my character specifically seems to be rare hehe.
The fight against Raphael was totally awesome, the music was so cool in that fight, shame the reward for completing the Hope quest was some stupid unarmed gloves
Sarafan
Community Contributor
That's a good point. However the comparisons to BG1 and BG2 are unavoidable given the title of the game. It's also the same genre, same game system brand, same setting and a similar gameplay scheme. Deus Ex and Skyrim are very different in many ways.
I understand that someone may view BG3 as a better game. The gameplay is very good. Without doubts it's the best classic RPG since at least Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer. In terms of mechanics Solasta and both Pathfinder games can compete with it, but the story and narration in these two titles is simply worse.
That's probably the main problem with Infinity Engine games. These are old titles and this may discourage a lot of modern players. BG3 is more accessible these days, but IMHO BG2 wins in many aspects. It's probably my favorite game of all times though, so I'm not objective enough.
That's interesting. On what PC are you playing? I have AMD Ryzen 7 5700X and GeForce RTX 4070 and I have periodic stutters when I enter areas with high number of NPCs and multilevel buildings. I checked the utilization of CPU and GPU. The first one is used in around 30%, the second in 40-45%. So the game clearly doesn't use the whole potential of my hardware. Of course it's installed on an SSD. I believe it's a clearly an engine issue. It's not adapted to provide such complicated locations.
No serious bugs encountered in Act 3 so far, so they probably fixed a lot of issues, but... I had to reload a few times due to gameplay mistakes.Oh boy, I assume you're in for at least few reloads in that act. The most buggy of them all.
So that's it when it comes to not reloading the game for reasons other than party wipe. I still don't reload after failed dice rolls though and will keep it this way until very end.
I run an i9900k with a 2070 super that is falling apart.That's a good point. However the comparisons to BG1 and BG2 are unavoidable given the title of the game. It's also the same genre, same game system brand, same setting and a similar gameplay scheme. Deus Ex and Skyrim are very different in many ways.
I understand that someone may view BG3 as a better game. The gameplay is very good. Without doubts it's the best classic RPG since at least Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer. In terms of mechanics Solasta and both Pathfinder games can compete with it, but the story and narration in these two titles is simply worse.
That's probably the main problem with Infinity Engine games. These are old titles and this may discourage a lot of modern players. BG3 is more accessible these days, but IMHO BG2 wins in many aspects. It's probably my favorite game of all times though, so I'm not objective enough.
That's interesting. On what PC are you playing? I have AMD Ryzen 7 5700X and GeForce RTX 4070 and I have periodic stutters when I enter areas with high number of NPCs and multilevel buildings. I checked the utilization of CPU and GPU. The first one is used in around 30%, the second in 40-45%. So the game clearly doesn't use the whole potential of my hardware. Of course it's installed on an SSD. I believe it's a clearly an engine issue. It's not adapted to provide such complicated locations.
No serious bugs encountered in Act 3 so far, so they probably fixed a lot of issues, but... I had to reload a few times due to gameplay mistakes.
My favorite game of all times, or atleast top 5 (hard to pick just one hehe) is Fallout 2. I have allot of fond memories of Baldurs gate back in the day, like how i had problems running Multiplayer in win98 but i could in Win NT 5, but in Win Nt5 i couldn't use EAX sound.. oh the desisions i had to make
Ok so I have noticed my first major bug in the game and if you don't want some stuff in act 2 and 3 spoiled, don't read any further.
So in act 2 Jahera died since she is realy squishy and i didn't realice you cant ress her. This led to a strange thing in act 3. Early act 3 i encountered som gangs and i decided to join the faction Minsc belongs to (he was not pressent btw) and when the fight was over i didn't realy hear anyhthning more for a long time, till i got to the sewers. So in the sewers i enter a guild hideout, they dont realy react to me and the guild leader mearly aknowlege my pressence while talking to some henchmen of hers. Later i go to the bank in lower city and Minsc is there with fake Jaheira robing it, they get away and i get in to a fight. Now i get a quest to find the missing gold in the sewers, at this point i head back to the guild hideout and here starts the weird part. I get a speach about how i betrayed the guild leader by not killing Minsc (i had no idea about this at all) and how i can make it up to her by killing him now. So i go to the place the stolen gold is, get in to a fight with minsc and jaheira (no way to rescue Minsc btw) and win. I go back to the guld and now the hideout is invade by another faction and i am forced to chose sides. Obv i chose the guild i allready know of but i have no idea what they are fighting about, why they are invaded and realy who i chose sides between. Fight is over, I get a reward and now th eguild swear to help me in the end fight. I have no frekkn clue what this was all about, it all came out of the blue, feals like 80% of the quest got lost because i did something in the wrong way or something. Real bummer :/
Sarafan
Community Contributor
As you know, some of us connoisseurs aren't happy with the quality of anti-aliasing implementation in BG3. TAA is blurry as hell. DLAA pretty much the same. SMAA gives a sharp image, but is poor in reducing aliasing. What the heck? The official press materials have ideal anti-aliasing and everything is sharp. I tried activating AA through NVIDIA Control Panel, but it doesn't work at all.
I was ready to give up and make a statement that the press materials were manually improved as it happens with other games, but one last idea came to my mind and... it just works! Finally I found a way to make BG3 look identically as in trailers, but it involves brute force. I switched AA off completely. Then used NVIDIA DSR to render the game in 4K and downscale it to my native 1080p. The result is astonishing. It looks like Larian captured all of the materials in 4K. Almost no aliasing despite the fact that AA is turned off and image is sharp like a samurai katana. You can improve it even further by applying a subtle sharpening filter through GeForce Experience overlay.
So Larian didn't improve the press materials manually, but as you may expect, there's a huge downside of 4K rendering... Yep, performance! I can only dream about 60 FPS, but I'm really considering playing with 30 FPS cap because the game looks amazing. I just wonder what will be next in my case? A 4K native monitor?
TAA is blurry as hell. DLAA pretty much the same. SMAA gives a sharp image, but is poor in reducing aliasing. What the heck? The official press materials have ideal anti-aliasing and everything is sharp. I tried activating AA through NVIDIA Control Panel, but it doesn't work at all.I was ready to give up and make a statement that the press materials were manually improved as it happens with other games, but one last idea came to my mind and... it just works!
Finally I found a way to make BG3 look identically as in trailers, but it involves brute force. I switched AA off completely. Then used NVIDIA DSR to render the game in 4K and downscale it to my native 1080p. The result is astonishing. It looks like Larian captured all of the materials in 4K. Almost no aliasing despite the fact that AA is turned off and image is sharp like a samurai katana. You can improve it even further by applying a subtle sharpening filter through GeForce Experience overlay.So Larian didn't improve the press materials manually, but as you may expect, there's a huge downside of 4K rendering... Yep, performance! I can only dream about 60 FPS, but I'm really considering playing with 30 FPS cap because the game looks amazing. I just wonder what will be next in my case? A 4K native monitor?
Kaamos_Llama
Moderator
I'm not any kind of graphics connoisseur but I have noticed my game images not looking as sharp as a lot of the screen shots I've been seeing. Everything is set to ultra @ 1440p using TAA and its looks good but not great. Having an AMD card I tried FSR 1.0 but there's weird shimmering and it looks much worse. I'll try SMAA next time and see if I prefer a bit of aliasing and less blur, so thanks. I have it capped at 80FPS, I'm not going to supersample it and live with 20!
Sarafan
Community Contributor
Did you try the AMD sharpening filter? It’s available in the game graphics settings. It helps a bit with the TAA blurriness.
Also throwing in for you @Kaamos_Llama that you could also try to use the sharpening settings on your monitor first before you use any sharpening filter within the game. That way you'll prevent using any extra resources that could potentially be a slug for your game.
Kaamos_Llama
Moderator
I actually just tried SMAA, the game looks a massive amount sharper and the aliasing isnt too obvious so far, at the same time I noticed the sharpening setting. Maybe next time I'll play with that too.
Guess I was just impressed I could set it to ultra and it run pretty well on my GPU so I didnt think to look into it much.
That also hadn't occurred to me at all, thanks!
I've just finished up Act 2 finally, did a bit of wandering around camp admiring the improved visuals and talking to some new people in camp. Went on a bit longer than I thought it would.
Sarafan
Community Contributor
Actually at some point you're certain that the Act 2 will finish any second, but after that surprises start to appear...
Kaamos_Llama
Moderator
I killed Ketheric in the Illithid colony and left the Shadowfell on the road to Baldurs Gate. I think I'm at Wyrms Crossing, it was a forced camp. Wont get to play until later so guess I'll see where it goes from there.
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