Baldur's Gate 3
- Thread starter Old_Hunter_77
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Ha ha, I misunderstood what was going on in the combat when her cage was on fire and actually went out of my way to attack the cage, killing her. I was hasted though so at least it wasn't an entire turn wasted.
So Cloud of Daggers is one of the best fucking spells.
Okay I gotta ask. What value is Balder’s Gate 3 bringing if the game inspires utter disinterest in me?
I like games just fine, but everything I’ve seen for Baldur’s Gate 3 - that wasn’t it getting just all the sloppy blowjobs - just isn’t interesting.
Here is a thing :
I am playing on PC and don't like multiplayer all that much. And Baldur's gate does not seem like such a huge revelation at all.
Why ? Your video is pretty good at illustrating why. I don't play any multiplayer shooters and when i touch console exclusives, then as ports, often years later and without much expectation.
And i don't really get microtransactions in my games. I do get DLCs but those are basically expansions and i am fine with that. Buggy launches happen, but happened as long as i can remember. I have only played a single live service game in the last years and that one was Genshin Impact and that one delivered exactly what i expected.
So BG3 is nice because it is the most ambitious cRPG since many years. I like the genre and having one with proper voice acting, good visuals and lots of content is not bad at all. And will likely see others chase the trend and get more cRPGs developed.
But other than that ? I am expected to praise it because it doesn't do microtransactions and lockboxes ? Nearly every game i played the last years don't have those either. (exception being GI of course and maybe some cosmetics in some atelier games which i ignored) Because it doesn't require you to be always on ? That is normal. Because it doesn't have DLCs ? I am lukewarm in regards to on-launch DLCs but those are not that common either.
State of the XBox ? Don't care. All the recent failed high-profile console launches ? Wasn't hyped for any of them. Hardly noticed.
Developers having budget problems ? Tale as old as video games no longer being something one guy codes in an afternoon. And no, it is not just the fault of some shareholders. Many many full private companies and developer led projects struggled here as well.
There is nothing particularly wrong with the state of gaming and BG3 is not that exceptional.
Now AAA gaming ... i still have no good grasp what AAA is exactly supposed to mean. And why i should care. EA is suppossedly bad ? Well, yes, Sims 4 was overpriced garbage but the Bioware games (Dragon Age, ME) were good. And looking at the list, i have not touched anything else from them. Blizzard is bad ? Not interested in Diablo. I think i haven't touched a Blizzard game since the original Warcraft 3. So why i am expected to take companies like that, who have for many many years not managed to tickle my interest as the measure for the current state of gaming ?
Games this year i bought aside from BG:
3 Atelier games (well, i like the series)
Age of Wonders (good game tough i would like a proper campaign)
IXION (meh. It does well, what it does, but that turned out to be boring )
Jagged Alliance 3 (good game)
Mechwarrior 5 (A bit repititive. Ok, a lot)
Triangle strategy (good game)
Sands of Salzaar (meh, boring)
Conquest of Eo (disappointing. Has some good ideas but doesn't come together)
Disgaea PC (had to check what this was about now that there is finally a port)
Black Geyser (not impressive but not bad)
DLCs for TW Warhammer 3, Europa Universalis and Stellaris, which i all play and enjoy.
So where is that horrible state of gaming ? Where is the stuff that BG makes different from everyone else ? Where are all those microtransactions, loot boxes, always on features ? Where are all the bugs every release has ?
Ok, that was a bit ranty. sorry for that.
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True, but for a long while a lot of big publishers (not all obviously) were doing this, and only stopped because they still screwed people over, and knew a game without micro-lootboxes wouldn't effect their bottom line. They claimed it wouldn't to their shareholders, but the consumers they played the usual "video games are expensive to make!".
Me too, but most of the games I played were indie or AA.
I don't mind DLC content, so long as the base game is already good/meaty to begin with. We've seen many get this right and wrong for over a decade now.
I wasn't hyped either, but it doesn't excuse the state Microsoft is in, and that they're going all on the games as subscription service. Remember when they actually used to try? Because they did at one point. Now they cry, moan, and biatch about how "making games is hard" and "Sony or Nintendo are too successful". They bought up all those companies with nothing to show for it, and have most games still sitting there. Microsoft keeps saying "they're coming out soon!", but we all know it's full of shit. They still have not revealed much after the first two trailers for Hellblade II. Or when they do buy up a studio, the studio in question farts out an average or mediocre game. The only good exclusive on Series X is Hi-Fi Rush; that's it. I lost interest in Microsoft since the X ONE, and I only have the console to play 360 games, and because my brother sold me his ONE X at a cheap price.
AAA used to mean something, but these "premium games" are unnecessarily broken at launch, or expect you to fork over more than $60/70 to have any worthwhile content in the game.
Yes, EA is bad. They've gotten better with some things, but it still doesn't excuse the shit they pulled for over the past decade. Crunch, impossible deadlines, overly high expectations, a monopoly on the NFL licenses with a shitty/lazy Madden or FIFA every year (both of which sold gambling to kids and those with addictive tendencies), and that the latest Dragon Age and ME are underwhelming at best. I am more so referring to ME: Andromeda. Dead Space Remake is cool, but EA is still responsible for fucking up DS3, and shutting down Visceral for the dumbest of reasons. Not to mention, EA bought up so many studios only to shut them down for shit reasons. So EA is still bad thank you very much.
The same applies to Activision and Ubisoft as well in all these categories. The only difference is that these two really love protecting racists and sexual abusers, so I don't want their shit. Even if those weren't the case, neither have tried in years, nor have anything worth playing. The only exceptions are games Activision either had a contract developer do back in the early 2010s with certain licensed games, or Crash Trilogy Remake and Crash 4. Ubisoft have been making the same shit since 2012-13. Barring one or two exceptions. They cancelled a sequel to one of their newer IPs, because it didn't do "well enough". They have more than enough money to make a sequel to Immortals 5 times over, and they know it. I have no interests, but plenty of others did.
I may not be interested in neither of these companies, but it doesn't mean I hold a "not my problem" attitude about it. These assholes have been poisoning the well for years on end.
It was and is already here, if you bothered to notice and look. Somethings have gotten better, but at the same time it's either worse or the same as it was before. Halo Infinite mean anything you? I know you said, you don't care for Microsoft and neither do I, but 343i and Big M fucked up hard.
Because they're one of the few to actually try and succeed. I have no interests in the game, and I know it got buggy in the last act, but at least it didn't take them long to fix it.
FIFA, NBA2K, and Madden says hi. The era of lootboxes have mostly ended, but most these companies still feed off of FOMO with the use of "limited time" Season Passes for their "live-service" games. Ironic, because most of these companies, including Epic themselves, shut down most of their "games as a service" titles, because they weren't making all of the money in the universe, nor was big as Fortnite. There goes those unrealistic and nigh impossible expectations again!
Not every release, but good amount do. You have not been looking hard enough. Granted, it shouldn't be that hard to find.
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To me, a person who has never played tabletop, it feels like the closest computer games have gotten to (my image of) tabletop: there's variation and options and different ways to play or do things that seem to not be present in other games, where the 'options' are the more binary sneak or kill. I mean, I did for the most part just do kill anyway, but there were other options. It felt more like a world where player interactions had been considered and affected the world and the rest of the adventure.
I do think much of the praise is overblown, and part of that i's a response to kinda feeling like gaming has gotten a little nickel-and-dimey, like we're being taken advantage of. I had a subscription to the PlayStation Catalog last month while I was restricted from my desk chair, and I was honestly blown away by how many of the games that were supposedly free were actually just vehicles for DLC. Pretty much all sports, fighting, or driving games were just barebones if you didn't pay for the DLC (characters, players, vehicles, levels, whatever) for a game you were renting. The way BG3 was released felt more genuine.
But, like, no one is obliged to like all games. I don't for a moment understand the appeal of Souls games. They could be ethically produced by socialist vegan programmers and donate all their profits to homeless shelters, but I still don't want to play games that are really difficult and crucify you for little mistakes. Sounds shit.
I do think much of the praise is overblown, and part of that i's a response to kinda feeling like gaming has gotten a little nickel-and-dimey, like we're being taken advantage of. I had a subscription to the PlayStation Catalog last month while I was restricted from my desk chair, and I was honestly blown away by how many of the games that were supposedly free were actually just vehicles for DLC. Pretty much all sports, fighting, or driving games were just barebones if you didn't pay for the DLC (characters, players, vehicles, levels, whatever) for a game you were renting. The way BG3 was released felt more genuine.
But, like, no one is obliged to like all games. I don't for a moment understand the appeal of Souls games. They could be ethically produced by socialist vegan programmers and donate all their profits to homeless shelters, but I still don't want to play games that are really difficult and crucify you for little mistakes. Sounds shit.
Precisely. Gaming always had proto micro transactions or pay to win during the arcade days. A lot of people from the old school don't want to admit this problem, but it's true. Most arcade games are called quarter munchers for a reason. It was literally gambling in a way, but you didn't get any money in return when you won. In fact, Double Dragon 3 Arcade was one of the first games to have intentional pay to win mechanics. It was a spiraling down slope the series. It was one of the reasons why it didn't do so well.
As much as I like fighting games, it's why I don't buy too many of them because on top of paying $60, you're paying 20 or more for season passes. Back then it just would have been a sequel or updated game at a discount price. The only DLC I'm bothering with a fighting game right now is SF6's, but I already have the season pass when I pre-order the game. I still have to pay for DLC to get all the alternate colors, but I'm waiting for a sale on that. And that still doesn't change the fact that at some point anyone who wants to play the game will have to buy season 2 passes and a possible season 3 whenever those comes out. Killer Instinct (2013) got season passes right, because it was launched at a cheap/affordable price, and not a full $60 or $70.
There are some fair points in here on the specifics but honestly the more I hear and see about how this is one of the greatest gaming years of all time and there are too many good games, the harder it is to hear BG3 fanboys go on about how this game is some reckoning and proof of some point.
And also, there are countless reports of the damn thing just being broken in the last third of the whole game. It's just a blatant lie at this point that it released with "no issues" as he says.
I really don't know where to draw the line between AA and AAA. I played a couple of very high budget games recently : Cyberpunk, Gensin Impact, Warhammer III, EU4. Are those not typical AAA games ? And aside from the Gacha game none of them has loot boxes or microtransactions or FOMO nonsense.
Oh, even someone as disinterested in Xbox as me has noticed that Microsoft and their system has problems. But isn't that a Microsoft problem instead of a gaming problem ?
Ah yes, forgot about Ubi. The video game space outside of these three companies is huge. If a couple of developers and publishers don't deliver... who cares as long as so many other games enter the space ?
But those companies not actually releasing something noteworthy for years should make them unimportant, shouldn't it ? You are already using your money elsewhere and so am i. Personally not out of protest, just because they don't have anything i want. So what ? The competition is thriving.
I never owned a console and never played any Halo game. I heard that Halo Infinite got complaints but it being a multiplayer shooter made me not pay any attention.
Just before BG3, Jagged Alliance 3 released and tried an succeeded. Before that, AoW4 did the same. Soon Colony Ship will go out of a very successful Early Access phase. We also get Rogue Trader this year and it is already in open beta with favourable impressions.
BG3 had an uncommonly high budget for a cRPG. But not having buggy launches and not having predatory business practices is not special.
That is basically Western Gacha. With all the same problems. Gacha gaming won't go away unless gouvernment takes action and forbids it, but it won't expand and take over the gaming industry either.
I didn't like the "games as a service" trend either. I mostly skipped it. It also came and went without effecting most of the genres i care for.
But i never believed it yould work. It is basically the idea behind MMOs with a new name. And as all the people trying to make the new WoW and get rich failed, so did all the people trying to make the new Fortnite.
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Second post because I wanted to talk about my experience with the game after day 1 because, yes, despite my wariness about the fans and the media and my complete discomfort with the D&D stuff, I was in the mood for some serious challenge to indulge in this sort of thing now.
I made it as far as the druid camp and now I'm off to seek the goblin camp, and I found a bunch of friends to adventure with: the lizard warrior lady, the vampire, the friendly wizard dude, the goody two-shoes cleric lady, and the vigilante with the cornrows. I made my X-Men Storm inspired character so I figured since I'm a sorceress I'll take the lizard lady, the vampire rogue and the cleric on adventures for now.
What I like the most so far is that I kind of like all the characters but I don't love any of them. Adventuring with a party and encountering factions is the main draw for me and that is really great, I can't imagine being disappointed with any of this. Making the two first ladies you encounter antagonists is a neat trick. In terms of role playing, my sorceress uses intimidation and bluntness so I love when I make a decision and one of them approves and the other disapproves. I'm totally cool with whatever happens, like if either of them hate me or jump my bones or whatever, I like just making my decisions and letting the cards fall where they may.
As expected, I am completely befuddled by all the gameplay mechanics and especially combat. With combat, I have really not figured out how to do anything other then attack, get attacked, and just hope I get lucky enough to win. I have tried moving around, using the space, and it just does no good. I have options to 'hide" and sneak attack but I don't know how to get them to work, how to get advantage or whatever, at all. I tried blowing up a barrel near an enemy and it didn't do anything. I don't understand why sometimes a character can use grease and sometimes they can't. My sorceress has a witch bolt that links to an enemy but then asks me to confirm and I confirm and nothing happens. There's a metamagic but all it does is make all my options grey. I'm so confused.
I also had to restart the game like 5 times because the UI was a freaking nightmare. I couldn't record my name, choose my voice, etc... lots of fiddling. Fortunately you can skip any cut scene so I was able to push through that.
I'm gonna try to find this goblin camp and hopefully there is a fast travel point nearby and then I can figure out how I might wanna handles this whole refugee situation. I like this scenario. I would love to somehow sneak in and kill their leader but I imagine this requires really skillful handling of mechanics which I clearly do not have. I also would rather not slaughter them all, both for roleplaying purposes but also, you know, I can't fight. I don't want to turn against the refugees and druids- my character is like neutral good, I guess. So I dunno.. we'll see. The whole thing that changed my mind from not wanting to play to trying it out is that now this kind of "how the hell am I gonna deal with this?" is interesting not annoying and I don't care if it takes me a while to figure it out.
I'm going back and forth between difficulty levels. I want to actually understand the combat and get decent at it so I'm mostly leaving it default. And the last couple times I encountered a tough battle I just save-scummed but I realized that I really didn't want to fight them anyway. Those two times were:
1- I tried freeing the goblin prison in the druid camp. I didn't know where to go with her and of course got caught. My persuasion check failed so I got into a fight with the refugees. I don't wanna fight the refugees! So I save scummed and for now I'm just leaving her in jail, I dunno if I wanna free her yet.
2- I found the owl bear in a cave and save-scummed until I got a successful performance check to prevent it from killing me just to see what would happen, but as soon as I move forward it attacks anyway so wtf. It has 91 health so I can't kill but I also don't wanna kill a creature whose lair I invaded- roleplaying-wise, why would Storm just fuck with an animal when she's helping refugees and trying to cure her brain worm thing? I know you can acquire the baby as a pet or something but I'm just going to figure if I really wanted that I'd have picked a character with more nature powers or something.
The one fight I really just gave up and dropped the difficulty to easy was coming across these ruins, talking my way inside, and getting stuck in a small room with 4 enemies including one strong one. This is where I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to do combat and gave up. Then when I dropped the difficulty to win, the secret room required some trap disarm thing I didn't have anyway so it was all a waste of time. So it goes.
I made it as far as the druid camp and now I'm off to seek the goblin camp, and I found a bunch of friends to adventure with: the lizard warrior lady, the vampire, the friendly wizard dude, the goody two-shoes cleric lady, and the vigilante with the cornrows. I made my X-Men Storm inspired character so I figured since I'm a sorceress I'll take the lizard lady, the vampire rogue and the cleric on adventures for now.
What I like the most so far is that I kind of like all the characters but I don't love any of them. Adventuring with a party and encountering factions is the main draw for me and that is really great, I can't imagine being disappointed with any of this. Making the two first ladies you encounter antagonists is a neat trick. In terms of role playing, my sorceress uses intimidation and bluntness so I love when I make a decision and one of them approves and the other disapproves. I'm totally cool with whatever happens, like if either of them hate me or jump my bones or whatever, I like just making my decisions and letting the cards fall where they may.
As expected, I am completely befuddled by all the gameplay mechanics and especially combat. With combat, I have really not figured out how to do anything other then attack, get attacked, and just hope I get lucky enough to win. I have tried moving around, using the space, and it just does no good. I have options to 'hide" and sneak attack but I don't know how to get them to work, how to get advantage or whatever, at all. I tried blowing up a barrel near an enemy and it didn't do anything. I don't understand why sometimes a character can use grease and sometimes they can't. My sorceress has a witch bolt that links to an enemy but then asks me to confirm and I confirm and nothing happens. There's a metamagic but all it does is make all my options grey. I'm so confused.
I also had to restart the game like 5 times because the UI was a freaking nightmare. I couldn't record my name, choose my voice, etc... lots of fiddling. Fortunately you can skip any cut scene so I was able to push through that.
I'm gonna try to find this goblin camp and hopefully there is a fast travel point nearby and then I can figure out how I might wanna handles this whole refugee situation. I like this scenario. I would love to somehow sneak in and kill their leader but I imagine this requires really skillful handling of mechanics which I clearly do not have. I also would rather not slaughter them all, both for roleplaying purposes but also, you know, I can't fight. I don't want to turn against the refugees and druids- my character is like neutral good, I guess. So I dunno.. we'll see. The whole thing that changed my mind from not wanting to play to trying it out is that now this kind of "how the hell am I gonna deal with this?" is interesting not annoying and I don't care if it takes me a while to figure it out.
I'm going back and forth between difficulty levels. I want to actually understand the combat and get decent at it so I'm mostly leaving it default. And the last couple times I encountered a tough battle I just save-scummed but I realized that I really didn't want to fight them anyway. Those two times were:
1- I tried freeing the goblin prison in the druid camp. I didn't know where to go with her and of course got caught. My persuasion check failed so I got into a fight with the refugees. I don't wanna fight the refugees! So I save scummed and for now I'm just leaving her in jail, I dunno if I wanna free her yet.
2- I found the owl bear in a cave and save-scummed until I got a successful performance check to prevent it from killing me just to see what would happen, but as soon as I move forward it attacks anyway so wtf. It has 91 health so I can't kill but I also don't wanna kill a creature whose lair I invaded- roleplaying-wise, why would Storm just fuck with an animal when she's helping refugees and trying to cure her brain worm thing? I know you can acquire the baby as a pet or something but I'm just going to figure if I really wanted that I'd have picked a character with more nature powers or something.
The one fight I really just gave up and dropped the difficulty to easy was coming across these ruins, talking my way inside, and getting stuck in a small room with 4 enemies including one strong one. This is where I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to do combat and gave up. Then when I dropped the difficulty to win, the secret room required some trap disarm thing I didn't have anyway so it was all a waste of time. So it goes.
I didn't have any technical problems (crashes, unusual in-game bugs) in the last third that I recall, but it is clearly not 'finished' to the same degree as the rest, and it was far and away the place where the camera annoyed me the most.
The video is hyperbolic for sure. I've discussed this with Brawlman quite a bit. But I genuinely believe that gaming today is better than ever for the most part. Games are bigger, more expansive, more interactive, more engaging, and tell better stories than ever before. However it is hard to argue that there are also a lot of aspects about gaming that suck and mainly it is the monetization.
Here is the thing, we can all get mad about how broken games are on release these days, but that's not really anything new. Games have been releasing buggy and broke since day 1 and that's never gone away. At least today we have internet so that the games can get patches to fix issues post launch. However this buggyness does have limits and when a game launches damn near unplayable like Saints Row or most Madden's in the last 5 years, that's when you have problems.
Top that off with every publisher trying to find a place in the live service market and the monetization is definitely an issue in places.
For me when I think of "gaming has gotten worst" I think of it more in the lines of developers that used to be great and no longer can be trusted to make anything worth playing. Blizzard, Bethesda, Bioware, the list goes on and on, of companies that used to be trusted to make great shit but have completely fallen off the deep end with what they're making.
Yes. Cyberpunk didn't have any Michael transaction, but it was a buggy and broken mess at launch (and for a good while) due to the horrible crunch and management. That's still a huge problem with the industry that should not be ignored.
Depends on who you are or where you are coming from. And while that there is some truth of that, I always appreciate it when the game doesn't do that and it's still good. I value those type of games more than the ones that try to nickel and dime every step of the way.
Exactly. You can add the newest Gran Turismo to the list too.
Be grateful it didn't get to genres you do care for. I am the same. Regardless if I care for them or not, it was and is still a problem and a heavy effect on the industry.
Yep. The AAA industry continues to never learn.
That's all fine- I think everyone here who takes the time to post on a gaming site generally agrees with all this stuff.
My personal annoyance is that BG3 itself is like the spear head of this cause. The game is a VERY specific. Y'all can cite all the player stats and sales all day but there's not denying that it's a freaking D&D game. That is a very specific thing. That doesn't make it bad- in fact, it's what makes it "good," because it delivers something for people who like it.
But this year alone we've had I think every genre deliver something great? Honestly Street Fighter 6 is the most impressive niche-genre-success story of the year for me, yes even more than BG3 because fighting games are so hardcore.
And an even more important way to judge trends IMO is where the floor is, not the ceiling. Forspoken was shit on- fine. But it had no mtx, was fully functional on release, blah blah, all that stuff. The reason I roll my eyes now when I hear "we're tired of broken games with mtx" is cause I wanna say "then go play Forspoken. Oh, not that, right?" Immortals of Aveum, Atlas Fallen, Wo Long Fallen Dynasty- even the games that will be forgotten are pretty good, apparently! Arguably the biggest flop of the year, Redfall, was [hopefully] mostly just experienced as a part of Gamepass. And it got shit on deservedly.
BG3- I game, I wanna repeat- I am playing so I'm not shitting on it or Larian at all- is not some freaking cause, it's so stupid. Neither is Elden Ring, by the way, the other game video guy held up as some model. I'm just weary of this idea that "good games are the ones that make you suffer by design instead of by marketing."
The difficulty surrounding Souls games falls into the reactionary bandwagoning /overblown bs much the same way as the whole BG3 discourse. Rogue/roguelites however are truly for masochistic gamers.
Tell me about it! Double Dragon Gaiden is really addicting on the hardest setting....
Most of the time....