Baldur's Gate 3: On the Highway to the Nine Hells

[dog-days]

Ok, it'll be a while before I play this game, but one important question hasn't been answered so far in this thread: 

must you gather your party before venturing forth?

[IlyaP]

3 hours ago, Arakasi said:

I think the reason this game doesn’t have real time is they don’t do it. Original sin 2 didn’t have it and it’s clear this is the same engine. 

No doubt the programmatics behind it inform a certain style of gameplay in the way that, for example, the Uniternity Engine (aka the Pillars of Eternity Engine), was designed with RTwP in mind. Or like a duck is uh, not, uh...an echidna. 

Okay, that last analogy might have stretched things a bit...

[ASOIAFrelatedusername]

More than the (regular) spells, it might be reactions and similar abilities) that make the turn-based mode preferable for a 5e DnD game. Consider the Divination Wizards special power or the Paladin's Smite: Those are pretty difficult to do in RTwP because you can only use them a limited number of times and so might want to wait for the right time to use it. In RTwP you would have to either pause the game any time such an ability could trigger, which would completely ruin the games pacing, or you would have to develop a system that allows the player to set the precise condition for when these abilities are supposed to fire a la Dragon Age Origins.

Such a system would mean much more work for the developer, would be difficult for the inexperienced player to use, and would still be imperfect. In DAO the mistakes of such a system could be easily corrected by the player and you wouldn't lose that much if something went wrong (unless you were player on the hardest difficulty I guess). In a DnD 5e game who would run the risk of losing precious spell slots in trivial encounters.

I also imagine that RTwP would make the interactions between elements and surfaces even more chaotic.

 

Edited August 6, 2023 by ASOIAFrelatedusername

[IlyaP]

1 hour ago, ASOIAFrelatedusername said:

More than the (regular) spells, it might be reactions and similar abilities) that make the turn-based mode preferable for a 5e DnD game. Consider the Divination Wizards special power or the Paladin's Smite: Those are pretty difficult to do in RTwP because you can only use them a limited number of times and so might want to wait for the right time to use it. In RTwP you would have to either pause the game any time such an ability could trigger, which would completely ruin the games pacing, or you would have to develop a system that allows the player to set the precise condition for when these abilities are supposed to fire a la Dragon Age Origins.

I've always been more of a ranger/paladin kind of class/skill selector. Spellcasting is not something that really factors all that much into my playstyle. So I'm going to disappoint you on that front, sorry. 

As far as pacing goes - I guess this is also something that is likely always going to be a subjective experience, in that, what to one player might be an interruption of a flow of things, is to me, uh...not? Like, I *completely* and totally understand the logic of what you describe above - but it just isn't something that ever arises as a point of concern or as an issue to me. Like, I don't mind pausing and thinking about tactics. I prefer that and the ability to allow my characters to continue moving around the screen and following who's where according to the circles around their feet, rather than having them be maddeningly locked into place because I've run out of momentum, or whatever term is used in X turn-based games. 

But I think, @ASOIAFrelatedusername, that you think about the gaming experience from a vastly different point of view and with a differing set of gaming needs or expectations than me. 

And at least no one is being a total nob about it, like on some forums I've seen, where fans of RTwP are treated with outright contempt and snobbery by turn-based fans, and are told that their opinions are wrong and invalid, etc etc. 

1 hour ago, ASOIAFrelatedusername said:

Such a system would mean much more work for the developer, would be difficult for the inexperienced player to use, and would still be imperfect. In DAO the mistakes of such a system could be easily corrected by the player and you wouldn't lose that much if something went wrong (unless you were player on the hardest difficulty I guess). In a DnD 5e game who would run the risk of losing precious spell slots in trivial encounters.

I confess I've not played 5E at all. I am quite enamoured with how the system worked in the Pillars games, which never felt dumb or illogical to me, and had the same (basic) tier of level 1 spells, level 2 spells, etc. 

1 hour ago, ASOIAFrelatedusername said:

I also imagine that RTwP would make the interactions between elements and surfaces even more chaotic.

Elements and surfaces? ...Not as in, like *elementals*? (Sorry, the last time I played any D&D, it was a modified version of 3.5E, which was right around the time I was going to university, which is also the last time I really did PnP in any real way. So, my apologies for my ignorance here. 

[Poobah]

25 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

Elements and surfaces? ...Not as in, like *elementals*? (Sorry, the last time I played any D&D, it was a modified version of 3.5E, which was right around the time I was going to university, which is also the last time I really did PnP in any real way. So, my apologies for my ignorance here. 

I assume they're talking about the system from DOS2, which I haven't really seen much of here but I imagine it may come more in to play over time, wherein you have oil for instance and if it's hit with something on fire then it'll all set alight, or a noxious gas may explode or a liquid can become frozen etc. in response to various interactions.

Also while I'm here I'm curious what you mean when you talk about skeuomorphic gameplay elements (new word I just learned, thanks!) the only thing I can think of that fits this description is the die rolling? I feel like it's very thematic and something that the big audience that's coming in off of all the hype for RPGs of late is going to enjoy (also you can speed it up if you just click it again it'll skip the rolling animation). Similarly I'm not sure what you're describing when you talk about gacha in the game?

[Heartofice]

I’ve only managed an hour into the game so far but I think I’m going to love it.

Cinematics we’re incredibly high quality, usually I skip but these were really good.

Turn based combat works for me, was worried initially but it allows me to take my time and think and enjoy without stress. Might be more tedious over time however.

Love the dice rolls, feels very table top and thematic

 

[IlyaP]

14 minutes ago, Poobah said:

I assume they're talking about the system from DOS2, which I haven't really seen much of here but I imagine it may come more in to play over time, wherein you have oil for instance and if it's hit with something on fire then it'll all set alight, or a noxious gas may explode or a liquid can become frozen etc. in response to various interactions.

Also while I'm here I'm curious what you mean when you talk about skeuomorphic gameplay elements (new word I just learned, thanks!) the only thing I can think of that fits this description is the die rolling? I feel like it's very thematic and something that the big audience that's coming in off of all the hype for RPGs of late is going to enjoy (also you can speed it up if you just click it again it'll skip the rolling animation). Similarly I'm not sure what you're describing when you talk about gacha in the game?

Typing this on my phone, so hopefully the formatting isn't all over the place...

1. Thanks for the elements clarification. I played DSO2 but it did not leave much of an impression beyond "meh" and "shut up, narrator!"

2. Re: the skeumorphic element, my brilliant software engineer of a wife pointed it out when I showed her BG3 gameplay. She saw the "role the dice" thing that, in our mutual agreement was: 

 - a: visually distracting

 - b: visually replicating something in the real world digitally (eg bookshelves having wooden grains in a digital library, or digital replicas of buttons, etc) is what I meant by skeumorphic.

 - c: We both found that dice rolling distracting and also a feature that padded the length of the game out. A game that is already insanely long.

- d: the gacha elements appear when levelling up. Using Icewind Dale as a comparison, as I've been replaying it lately: when you level up in IWD, a little + appears in the player character painting, and an unobtrusive sound is played to let players know they've levelled up. Clicking on the character details button then lets up update your preferred stats. 

In BG3, by comparison, upon levelling up, players are taken to a screen where multiple rectangular windows slide across the screen, with colorful flashiness and much ZING! to them, sliding in one after another, like Christmas Jenga blocks. 

This whole thing of 

1. THIS HAS LEVELLED UP! WHEEE!

2. AND THIS HAS ALSO INCREASED!!!

3. BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!!!

is very reminiscent of mobile gacha games in design (but NOT, I stress, in function). And once again, I can't skip through it, it's excessively flashy, and is obviously designed as a dopamine reward system. 

But it also pads out the length of the game by not simply getting on with it and letting me simply go to my stats screen to quickly and - without muss fuss or fanfare - update my stats. 

That's a bit more long-winded than I'd have liked, but hopefully it makes sense. 

I stress this is not me saying this is inherently bad. It simply is an aesthetic choice design choice that is for me, a huge turnoff, and contributes to my active dislike of the game. 

[IlyaP]

14 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Cinematics we’re incredibly high quality, usually I skip but these were really good

I wish I enjoyed this. Solasta does this too, and it's quite jarring as it takes me out of the game. It's one thing when it's a cutscene, but the constant flipping back and forth between the two is distracting, though I can understand the intent despite it not appealing to my gameplay sensibilities. 

[DanteGabriel]

36 minutes ago, Poobah said:

I assume they're talking about the system from DOS2, which I haven't really seen much of here but I imagine it may come more in to play over time, wherein you have oil for instance and if it's hit with something on fire then it'll all set alight, or a noxious gas may explode or a liquid can become frozen etc. in response to various interactions.

Yeah, surfaces were kind of a big deal in DoS2. Like the world was liberally scattered with barrels of oil and poison and you could blow those up on your enemies. Or maybe there's a thin layer of water on the floor in a dungeon and your ice spells are more effective, or you could freeze the surface so enemies would slip and fall, or you could lob a fire spell in there and steam people to death. I'd never seen elements used quite that much before and it was an interesting tactical dimension. It was pretty standard for my cleric type in that game to start every combat with a rain spell. So far BG3 hasn't shown me much of that mechanic.

I'm enjoying the hell out of it so far. I like the turn-based style, as I'm pretty used to it from DoS2. I've done my traditional cycle of events in a big RPG, which was to roll a character, play a few hours, then get dissatisfied and roll a new one. Currently on a high elf paladin of vengeance. I have now realized how seriously paladin ethics are enforced.

I appreciate Wert's earlier tips about shoving and jumping in combat. I might never have thought to play with those on my own, but it's so satisfying to have my character leap past a choke point and cut someone down with the flaming greatsword I took from the demon early on.

[Werthead]

9 hours ago, IlyaP said:

Didn't Bioware find a way to tweak this to make it work for cRPGs when they made Baldur's Gate? I recall reading somewhere that they made certain tweaks to make this work as a game. It was that basically...all spells are recharged in one setting rather than having short vs. long rest, if memory serves? 

Never did know why they didn't just go with a mana pool idea instead - seems infinitely less annoying than having to rest to cast spells again. Though arguably, one could be seen as being as arbitrary and meaningless as the other, I suppose.

Short rest versus long rest is an awkward fudge rule that they brought in with 5E (derived from a mechanic fudged in with the mostly unloved 4E). It did not exist in any prior edition of D&D, including 2E (which is what Baldur's Gate is based on).

In 2E you had a certain number of spells and once they were fired off you had to rest, which was 8 hours period. That's not going to sleep necessarily, but meditating, reading, research etc. Both tabletop and video games based on 1-3E were pretty relaxed in letting you fight, rest, fight, rest etc (and many people houseruled the rest period down to 4 hours or 1 hour, or even suggested a system of being able to regain your currently-memorised spells fast but having to do a full 8 hour rest if you wanted to change your spell selection, which is the basis of short/long rest). BG actually tried to be logical in that if you rested halfway through a dungeon, getting your face smashed in by wandering monsters waking you up was a very real danger, so you had to ration your spells carefully. One viable tactic in BG was to instead use wizards as missile weapon platforms instead. They weren't necessarily brilliant at that, but one sling bullet or crossbow bolt hitting enemies, even if it was one out of three turns, did solid damage over time in crowd fights or even against tougher enemies (though against them was usually the time to break out Magic Missile).

The design paradigm in 4E was that all classes were mechanically identical to the point of classes not really needing to exist (wizards could cast some spells ad infinitum like they were swinging a sword, warriors got effectively supernatural fighting abilities which were mechanically identical to spells etc), which everybody loathed, but it was at least "balanced." So for 5E they attempted to carry that forwards by giving spellcasters infinitely repeatable cantrips (which actually do solid damage over time when used constantly) and warriors special badass abilities which resembled higher-level spells, with moderate ones requiring a short rest and really good ones requiring a long rest. It does a better job of distinguishing between classes whilst also trying to keep things balanced, just not identical.

This doesn't entirely feed into the turn based/realtime argument. The two Pathfinder CRPGs allow you to switch between RTWP and turn-based and they managed it extremely well. In fact, once you get over the prettiness of BG3 and the extreme granularity of detail, I'm not hugely sure that BG3 is a better game than Kingmaker, aside from not having the very-badly-explained kingdom management side-game in it.

To be honest, the whole resting thing has been a problem since D&D's inception (Gary Gygax borrowed it from Jack Vance without much thought as to the practicalities of how it would work in a game versus how it would work in a fiction context) and most other RPGs simply have saner systems of magic and regaining spells etc.

Edited August 6, 2023 by Werthead

[IlyaP]

14 minutes ago, Werthead said:

One viable tactic in BG was to instead use wizards as missile weapon platforms instead.

This is pretty much what I did. I'd also buy them staffs of magick missile or whathaveyou, which had, what, 12 uses or so? 

Whatever approach Sawyer and co took with Pillars, those two games featured a take on the Gygaxian system that I found to be a terrific middle-ground. They also seemed to have more wand and armor options. 'cause not letting wizards have armor has forever struck me as quite ridiculous and frustration-inducing. 

I did like that Obsidian acknowledged the inherently illogical notion of a master swordsman rolling a 1 and somehow missing something right in front of them with a knicking option, I think it was called? (This was, I vaguely recall, what made several people I've met in life prefer GURPS, which does something different and purportedly more reasonable/logical than what was on offer in Gygaxian table-based systems.)

[ASOIAFrelatedusername]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

This doesn't entirely feed into the turn based/realtime argument. The two Pathfinder CRPGs allow you to switch between RTWP and turn-based and they managed it extremely well. In fact, once you get over the prettiness of BG3 and the extreme granularity of detail, I'm not hugely sure that BG3 is a better game than Kingmaker, aside from not having the very-badly-explained kingdom management side-game in it.

 Well BG3 does not have endless prebuffing and you can actually use the environment to your advantage. I once tried positioning my ranged attackers on a cliff so they would not get charged down by an enemies and it turns out that they couldn't fire from there because of an invisible wall.

 

[Arakasi]

I’ve not played Kingmaker but I have completed WotR and they solved the prebuffing there as well as there are plenty of fights you can use environment to your advantage. Not as extreme as what I see in BG3 though. 

[Werthead]

I did encounter some cheesy bullshit in the game.

Spoiler

With the hag who takes the woman hostage and kills her brothers, I used stealth to get past the masked guardians at the start of the area, then made my way through the gas and flower mine traps, then sneaked into the hag's lair and pre-looted it, and even found a mushroom teleport circle to go outside and do a big rest before combat.

Then when you fight the hag herself, she insta-summons all of the masked guardians at the start of the area to fight alongside her whilst you're frozen in the pre-combat spiel and can't do anything. You then have to fight all of the guardians and the hag herself, who is not a pushover.

Online guides seem to suggest trying to kill her in the house at the start when she's invisible, but you've got your hands full with the swamp goblin things. The other advice is "come back at Level 10" which seems pretty stupid. You meet the hag when you reach the second half of the first overland map, which you can reach at Level 3 easily. And the fight feels not a million miles off doable at Level 3.

I did get lucky in the fight and managed to boot two of the masked arseholes off the ledges with Shove, but but then got TPKed five seconds later. One of the masked arseholes is five times tougher than the rest and is able to personally heal himself and attack, and the others heal him as well, making him almost unkillable in the battle.

Wondering if I should reload and killed the masked dudes first and then wail on the hag with the full party later on.

 

Edited August 6, 2023 by Werthead

[Arakasi]

I just finished character creation and a lot of options there but hitting random sure makes ugly characters. Had to find the few options I liked. One thing I do notice is the device runs hot quite a bit hotter than with the other steam deck games I’ve played.

[Trebla]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

I did encounter some cheesy bullshit in the game.

  Hide contents

With the hag who takes the woman hostage and kills her brothers, I used stealth to get past the masked guardians at the start of the area, then made my way through the gas and flower mine traps, then sneaked into the hag's lair and pre-looted it, and even found a mushroom teleport circle to go outside and do a big rest before combat.

Then when you fight the hag herself, she insta-summons all of the masked guardians at the start of the area to fight alongside her whilst you're frozen in the pre-combat spiel and can't do anything. You then have to fight all of the guardians and the hag herself, who is not a pushover.

Online guides seem to suggest trying to kill her in the house at the start when she's invisible, but you've got your hands full with the swamp goblin things. The other advice is "come back at Level 10" which seems pretty stupid. You meet the hag when you reach the second half of the first overland map, which you can reach at Level 3 easily. And the fight feels not a million miles off doable at Level 3.

I did get lucky in the fight and managed to boot two of the masked arseholes off the ledges with Shove, but but then got TPKed five seconds later. One of the masked arseholes is five times tougher than the rest and is able to personally heal himself and attack, and the others heal him as well, making him almost unkillable in the battle.

Wondering if I should reload and killed the masked dudes first and then wail on the hag with the full party later on.

Spoiler

I did this part during EA and killed the masks first. When I finally got to the the hag, she split herself into multiple hags who each have an attack. The trick is to attack each hag with a strong projectile. If it is a duplicate, a hit over 10 will make it laugh and disappear. It's one of the hardest fights that I experienced in EA and took me a number of tries. Even then, I wasn't able to save the girl. IIRC, I was level 4 when I did this part. I'll probbaly wait until level 5 before going back since that is when you melee characters get double attack.

 

[Arakasi]

I woke up in the ship and walked around and twice within the first few seconds took environmental damage. Since I can’t heal yet that’s a problem. Just need to be more careful but it wasn’t completely obvious I was walking in the wrong spot.

[Relic]

58 minutes ago, Arakasi said:

I woke up in the ship and walked around and twice within the first few seconds took environmental damage. Since I can’t heal yet that’s a problem. Just need to be more careful but it wasn’t completely obvious I was walking in the wrong spot.

plenty of restoration points on the ship, pretty hard to die

[Arakasi]

I hope that isn’t a thing throughout this game. You give restoration points like that and it really throws away a lot of the tension that drives low level d&d play. Having to balance spells slots, short rests, potion/scroll use is a big part of driving play.

[Relic]

8 hours ago, IlyaP said:

 

1. THIS HAS LEVELLED UP! WHEEE!

2. AND THIS HAS ALSO INCREASED!!!

3. BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!!!

 

that's how 5e works. You lvl up and you get shit. Sometimes you pick what it is, most often you dont. Spell casters have more options. At third level you can pick a subclass, and you can multi class at any level. Not sure how else you'd like the game to tell you that you gained new abilities.