Gaming Baldur's Gate III by Larian Studios (PS5, PC, Mac, Xbox Series X|S)

Massive Spanner said:
This came out at the worst possible time for me with a new baby :lol: feels like I get an hour here or there and accomplish nothing. This is genuinely the sort of game I’d love to sit down and sink a full day into.

talked to a frog earlier and it completely annihilated my party. That was fun.

Happy with my choice of Bard for my main anyway, really good jack of all trades with good skill checks.
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My first choice was a dumbass barbarian. I'm going to embrace the failure and use him for everything even if Astarian or Wyll would be much, much better at it. But yeah i can definitely see myself going for a second playthrough at some point as a rogue or bard.

weetee said:
Alright, thanks anyway. Giving those rafters "a shot" once more then.
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Could try pulling them into the room with the drow. I got good use out of pushing people into the abyss there. I tried throwing them into the pit for the spider to kill but that set off the entire base so i gave up on that pretty quickly. If you've cleared out the base then thats probably a good option.
 
weetee said:
That was it indeed. Pretty proud of myself as I had to get that fight done with 2 members lost in the first turn :lol: Epic. + weebit save scumming too

I'm probably the only one but I actually dig the camp mechanic aka slow down / break the loop. It is odd but in a good way for me - brings it closer to the tabletop experience and I do like the fact that you really have to set up strategies when to use certain spells etc pp.
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Oh you got past! Good.
Yeah camp is growing on me. Normally in this kind of game you'd need a healer at all times and you'd have a pretty set group. I find healing useful at times in this but i can live without it and it means random groups like 2 barbarians, a fighter and rogue works strangely well.
Short rest after short fight. Long rest after tougher fight. And the way the story is delivered kind of necessitates you going to sleep semi often. Maybe they fit the writing around the mechanic maybe not but I'm just inclined to work with it. I dont want to prejudge it just because its different and a bit awkward when it already feels like theres a purpose to it in terms of making it open to any group set up.
 
caid said:
Oh you got past! Good.
Yeah camp is growing on me. Normally in this kind of game you'd need a healer at all times and you'd have a pretty set group. I find healing useful at times in this but i can live without it and it means random groups like 2 barbarians, a fighter and rogue works strangely well.
Short rest after short fight. Long rest after tougher fight. And the way the story is delivered kind of necessitates you going to sleep semi often. Maybe they fit the writing around the mechanic maybe not but I'm just inclined to work with it. I dont want to prejudge it just because its different and a bit awkward when it already feels like theres a purpose to it in terms of making it open to any group set up.
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Yes, true. It helps massively that the narrative is (at least at the beginning lvl 4-5 only atm) also presented during the camp scenes and mucks up the repetitiveness there. Guess that'll stay till the end at least it looks deliberately so. Maybe gets old on multiple replays though.

edit: I like a good shove into the abyss but I'm wary of overusing it. Already a bit bummed about not being able to loot the drow.
 
weetee said:
Yes, true. It helps massively that the narrative is (at least at the beginning lvl 4-5 only atm) also presented during the camp scenes and mucks up the repetitiveness there. Guess that'll stay till the end at least it looks deliberately so. Maybe gets old on multiple replays though.

edit: I like a good shove into the abyss but I'm wary of overusing it. Already a bit bummed about not being able to loot the drow.
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I killed her the regular way. I did use the same break bridge trick as you on a guard though which was pretty funny - they had a Wile E. Coyote moment suspended in the air while they gave out to me for vandalising the base. People were surprisingly ok with her falling to her death right after.
 
weetee said:
edit: I like a good shove into the abyss but I'm wary of overusing it. Already a bit bummed about not being able to loot the drow.
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After looting the drow, I gave her underwear to Shadowheart and damn it was definitely worth the time fighting her the normal way :drool:
I already know, in my second playthrough, I'll help her raid the grove, so I can bang her in my camp. Poor tieflings and druids have to be sacrificed for horny :lol:
 
KirkDuyt said:
So far it seems like a good successor to 2. Think your latter worry would be more probable.
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That’s my real worry. I had a random thought about a year ago about BG2, ended up downloading it on steam. Did a full play through of 2 and ToB as a Fighter, then another as a F/M/T, then another as a F/M within a couple of weeks
 
Well this devoured my weekend. Definitely takes some getting used to, for me at least, been a lifetime since I played a D&D style game. I'm too used to just rushing through other games and getting frustrated by constant useless/boring sidetrack quests to pad out their 'content'. This thing however... this thing can sidetrack me all it wants. Starting to appreciate the rest/camp mechanics too.

I'd be tempted to call it slow paced, but I'm not sure that's the right description, as there's always plenty going on. Everything that happens is interesting/relevant and actually has a point to it. Not even left act 1 yet.
 
Early impressions suggest it’s brilliant. One to add to my PS5 to do list. I don’t think I played the older games either - not properly at least.
 
I would love to play this but I know myself, I usually get overwhelmed by these games as early as during character creation. I end up second guessing literally every single minor decision and that quickly turns it into hard work. It's been like that in Pillars of Eternity, Divinity Original Sin and basically every other CRPG I played in the last decade or so.

I keep telling myself I should just stop worrying, do whatever I feel like and see where I end up, but I fear modern gaming has conditioned me to always try to get optimal outcomes, control each decision, be able to max out every skill tree and consume pretty much all available content in every game.
 
WI_Red said:
Man, it’s so much fun, I would be totally bummed if I could not play it right now. Must suck. Well, gotta run, need to go spend 3 hours second guessing my build while slaughtering shit.
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Managed to play for a wee bit before going to bed. Pulled a brain out of a guy's skull and turned an imprisoned human into an octopus wanker. 10/10 goty.
 
Ainu said:
I would love to play this but I know myself, I usually get overwhelmed by these games as early as during character creation. I end up second guessing literally every single minor decision and that quickly turns it into hard work. It's been like that in Pillars of Eternity, Divinity Original Sin and basically every other CRPG I played in the last decade or so.

I keep telling myself I should just stop worrying, do whatever I feel like and see where I end up, but I fear modern gaming has conditioned me to always try to get optimal outcomes, control each decision, be able to max out every skill tree and consume pretty much all available content in every game.
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I know what you mean, I think the devs have catered for you here though. There is a lot of decisions to be made at char creation, but not too far into the game you can unlock the ability to completely respec your character, party members, recruit new members. You can even change your characters' class, I think only thing you can't do is change race.

That won't stop you from being stuck for hours on dialog decisions though :lol:
 
Simbo said:
I think only thing you can't do is change race.
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Well for that you have illusion spell "Disguise Self", so you can even run around in the race you want. Especially helpful to talk to races, that would be hostile to your original one.
 
More chances to perfect every single interaction and more chances to completely change every characters build every 5 mins is definitely going to help Ainu enjoy this game
Theres a helm in camp storage that lets you change race. Dont even need a spell
 
I think this game would mentally scar Ainu, there are times when you have to scroll down in the dialogue options because there's so many to choose from. :lol:
 
RedSky said:
I think this game would mentally scar Ainu, there are times when you have to scroll down in the dialogue options because there's so many to choose from. :lol:
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Yeah, and with wildly different results too.

I think it's important to accept that the beauty of the game is that every playthrough will be so different for you and to embrace that in the next few years it can be replayed so much
 
Massive Spanner said:
Yeah, and with wildly different results too.

I think it's important to accept that the beauty of the game is that every playthrough will be so different for you and to embrace that in the next few years it can be replayed so much
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Exactly. Just accept that there is no perfect choice and just go along with your own characters story. Knowing how Larian works there will be no perfect story choice as the best case choices will most likely be spread across different races, alignments, classes etc.
 
Role played my real life wish: Took Speak with Animals, had a lovely chat with my dog, followed by a game of fetch. 150 out of 10 stars, would (will) throw ball again.
 
Think im about 16-20 hours in. Obviously parts of it is brilliant so far, but the pace is so slow. 2nd playthrough will be grand because i wont spend hours being perplexed about where to go and how to get there and i know the system. Next time i will go evil. GOTY so far. For pc at least.
 
Massive Spanner said:
Yeah, and with wildly different results too.

I think it's important to accept that the beauty of the game is that every playthrough will be so different for you and to embrace that in the next few years it can be replayed so much
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Yeah there doesn't really seem to be any bad options, just different outcomes. I pretty much let that goblin leader chick have her way with me, much to my party's dismay, but it worked out. And that bloody bard... :lol:. I dunno if he can become recruit-able or have some other use, but after what he did to me in camp, he legged it and I don't blame him.
 
I was experiencing massive graphics envy as my old laptop chugged along (still with good performance) on the lowest settings. Even went so far as to begin designing my long planned desktop build.... but Larian is awesome and the PC saves will port right over to PS5, so my cost for graphical fulfillment will be $60 instead of $1600 :)
 
Mr Pigeon said:
Managed to play for a wee bit before going to bed. Pulled a brain out of a guy's skull and turned an imprisoned human into an octopus wanker. 10/10 goty.
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Well, you can even have a wee chat with pigeons!
 
Just completed the Hag storyline. Quite awesome. Could save nobody but myself but that was quite a sidequest.
 
WI_Red said:
Hell, if you romance a druid who can wild shape into a pigeon you can likely even sex one up.
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Hell, even raise a dead pigeon from the dead if Mr.Pigeon's into that sort of stuff.
 
Salt Bailly said:
Any bugs so far?
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plenty small graphical ones for me, but that may because my old laptop is struggling to render some cutscenes (not Larian's fault, my graphics card does not meet min specs). They dropped a hotfix on day one to fix some small shit. Overall, it's impressively stable at launch for such a massive game. Amazing how taking your time to fine tune and troubleshoot your product can improve your users experience. Also, no micortransactions. It's basically the anti-diablo IV.
 
WI_Red said:
I was experiencing massive graphics envy as my old laptop chugged along (still with good performance) on the lowest settings. Even went so far as to begin designing my long planned desktop build.... but Larian is awesome and the PC saves will port right over to PS5, so my cost for graphical fulfillment will be $60 instead of $1600 :)
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I'm surprised I can run this at ultra with 60fps on my cheapy RTX 2060. 1080p, mind, but that's ok with me.
 
WI_Red said:
plenty small graphical ones for me, but that may because my old laptop is struggling to render some cutscenes (not Larian's fault, my graphics card does not meet min specs). They dropped a hotfix on day one to fix some small shit. Overall, it's impressively stable at launch for such a massive game. Amazing how taking your time to fine tune and troubleshoot your product can improve your users experience. Also, no micortransactions. It's basically the anti-diablo IV.
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Good stuff.
 
Never played one of these properly in-depth RPGs but seeing the hype this is getting, I think I'll try it when it releases on PS5.
 
Shane88 said:
Never played one of these properly in-depth RPGs but seeing the hype this is getting, I think I'll try it when it releases on PS5.
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I think it comes down to what keeps you interested. If you are ready to dive into a deep and immersive story, where your decisions will 100% change how it goes, you will love this. No button mashing required (combat is turn based), and you absolutely need to pay attention to your environment...or don't, that's fun too.

The learning curve is steep if you have never played RPG's or table top DnD, but it's totally worth it.
 
Mr Pigeon said:
I'm surprised I can run this at ultra with 60fps on my cheapy RTX 2060. 1080p, mind, but that's ok with me.
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do your fans go mad with this? It's the only thing putting me off buying it now on PC instead of waiting for my PS5.

My PC can handle it - but not a fan of playing when the fans are on overdrive.
 
Coxy said:
do your fans go mad with this? It's the only thing putting me off buying it now on PC instead of waiting for my PS5.

My PC can handle it - but not a fan of playing when the fans are on overdrive.
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I'm not entirely sure because I wear headphones, but it didn't seem to? Plu outside of cut scenes it doesn't seem like a graphically intensive game.
 
Mr Pigeon said:
I'm not entirely sure because I wear headphones, but it didn't seem to? Plu outside of cut scenes it doesn't seem like a graphically intensive game.
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Oh look at Mr. "I have a non shit gpu" Pigeon over there showing off. You bastard. I'm over here watching the cut scenes like its 1995 and I'm trying to catch a glimpse of boob on a scrambled Spice Channel on cable.
 
WI_Red said:
Oh look at Mr. "I have a non shit gpu" Pigeon over there showing off. You bastard. I'm over here watching the cut scenes like its 1995 and I'm trying to catch a glimpse of boob on a scrambled Spice Channel on cable.
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If you ever thought about upgrading your PC though, I'd highly recommend doing it now. Things like SSDs and GPUs are at their lowest price point in years. Don't know what you have now, but you should be able to build something plenty powerful for this game for less than 1k.
 
Redplane said:
If you ever thought about upgrading your PC though, I'd highly recommend doing it now. Things like SSDs and GPUs are at their lowest price point in years. Don't know what you have now, but you should be able to build something plenty powerful for this game for less than 1k.
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It's a tough call. I have a PS5 for "pretty" games and only use my laptop for strategy games (CKII and III, EU IV, etc.). That said, there is some nostalgia for playing RPG's on PC. Thousands of hours spend on BG I and II, all the Ultima's, Icewind Dale, etc. Any suggestions on where to shop for this shit? Last time I built a PC was 2000 and I walked into Fry's Electronics on Black Friday in LA and walked out with everything.
 
WI_Red said:
It's a tough call. I have a PS5 for "pretty" games and only use my laptop for strategy games (CKII and III, EU IV, etc.). That said, there is some nostalgia for playing RPG's on PC. Thousands of hours spend on BG I and II, all the Ultima's, Icewind Dale, etc. Any suggestions on where to shop for this shit? Last time I built a PC was 2000 and I walked into Fry's Electronics on Black Friday in LA and walked out with everything.
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Do you have a Microcenter nearby? If not, I'm pretty sure BB still price matches some online retailers like Newegg and Amazon.
 
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