Baldur's Gate III?

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Impressions were reported as good from seasoned role-playing game user. Seeing quite the reports of bug encounters by first-hand users. Story appears to be entirely new with references to the previous entries.
I understood combat is initiated in the world and transitions to turn based. In DoS2 was the same. Not sure about "instancing" - the world used to "stop" - you couldn't "pull" enemies from "world" into combat - combatants going off too far would leave combat. Anyway, there is suggestion to not enter combat with too many enemies - the AI seems to have difficulties to handle 20 gobbos. Apart from that it takes long to do the combat. The latter was my worry - I stopped playing DoS2 half way because it just took so long. 1.5 months and I had only finished half the game. Maybe some less even. I did like it for the most part but motivation went really down in some temple on 3rd island. Expected to advance story with getting named divine when I entered temple. Got a load of ghosts and puzzles instead.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

and heightmaps are terrifying when you don't know anything about 'em!)

Heightmaps are not an issue per se. The baking process handles it for you. Its the walkmeshes that were the killer. We had a blank walkable block we used extensively to get around issues with the walkmesh when you wanted to do something slightly fancy or if, for example, you had an object that wasn't walkable but you wanted characters to be able to walk on it.

The latter was my worry - I stopped playing DoS2 half way because it just took so long.

I've hit a motivational wall in Act 4. I'll finish, but not sure when. Story is great, but combat is slow even with powerful builds.

 

[milligna]

Explains why not many modules were created!

I think I abandoned ship around Act IV in D:OS2 as well. I notice they've speeded up the combat for BG3, hopefully that helps. And I'm a sucker for low-level D&D combat if I can crank up the difficulty a little.

I wouldn't mind them pruning some of the environmental effect things tho. No need to stuff those things EVERYWHERE. Maybe they ease up on it later on once folks understand how it works? I hope so.

Playing a bit today, mostly the cutscenes and dialogue are very buggy for me. Characters replaced with random other characters... superimposed character models, with one staying in place and the other animating and moving. Itemization and magic items needs some pruning.... love the art dept assets, could use some more inventive music and more cues.

 

[Caramel Clown]

I'll wait till full story is released. Those kinds of games I prefer to experience in full.

 

[milligna]

Yeah, terrific times! I haven't even touched the Wrath of the Righteous alphas, that one I'll wait till full release to savor. I know that will tick all my boxes, whereas BG3 I figured I'd give it a quick spin to see if it's worth getting hopped up about.

Kingmaker was my favorite CRPG in a while. It totally nailed meat-and-potatoes, unpretentious tabletop style pulp RPG in a way that the elegantly and excruciatingly constructed Pillars games didn't quite manage. Even tho there's a lot to admire there, the maps in Deadfire are just some of the most attractive things ever in isometric.

Whereas the cut and paste tilesets of Kingmaker go a different direction to make things easier for the devs to whip up piles of stuff - but damn, love the build variety and the sheer amount of content, even if the last few bits can be pretty irritating if you aren't set up to slice and dice through those repetitive jerks. The way the cookie cutter graphics are constructed remind of NWN1 and makes me wish they gave us a toolkit to build content!

I'm glad this stuff is back in niche semi-fashion these days, especially with TB tactical combat. I abuse the VR headsets too much and need these things as a relaxing alternative that breaks less furniture.

 

[Asp Explorer]

Latest update leaves the game in an endless cycle of turning the display adapter on and off, wether I use Vulkan or DX11.

No way out of it apart from hard reset of the poor pooter

 

[Asp Explorer]

My dear Pi - it doesn't get as far a loading a save

It'll progress from the Start / API selection screen, launch, Larian and Nvidia splash screens, a red loading bar briefly appears and then the monitors turn off, and then on to a blank display, and then off, and that's it stuck in an endless cycle til power off. Alt-tab, ctrl-alt-del, ctrl-shift-esc all unresponsive.

It's a bit of a strange one - it worked perfectly last night

Rolling back the Nvidia driver fixed it - just in case anyone else has the same problem, so it probably wasn't a problem with the BG3 update itself.

 

[Mole HD]

Bummer!
I'm using the latest version 456.71 for my GTX 1060 6GB, according to NVIDIA control panel. I had to look up on Windows device manager to realize that I actually seem to use the same as yours: 27.21.14.5671.
But if you happen to be one of the lucky RTX 3080 owners (I don't even own a crystal ball, sorry ), this article might be of interest to you:

Baldur's Gate 3 devs would like an RTX 3080 already, thanks

The second hotfix for Larian's early access RPG fixes more multiplayer issues and crashes, including some GPU-specific quirks the devs reckon could've been avoi

www.rockpapershotgun.com

Other than that, don't expect much help from me. I would very much like to help but I'm really no hardware wizard...

I like the new 456.71 drivers...Nvidia enabled the new performance overlay thing and added a performance setting to GeForce experience overlay...it works just like MSi Afterburner but overclocking your GPU and VRAM automatically after scanning. It also balances the GPU clock to the CPU throughput as you play, bringing down the system latency a bit....does for me anyway

 

[Chris Simon]

I like the new 456.71 drivers...Nvidia enabled the new performance overlay thing and added a performance setting to GeForce experience overlay...it works just like MSi Afterburner but overclocking your GPU and VRAM automatically after scanning. It also balances the GPU clock to the CPU throughput as you play, bringing down the system latency a bit....does for me anyway

Oh, do they now? That's great. Proper controls without 3rd party tools were one area where they were quite lagging behind Radeon.
I'm gonna break my rule of never using the latest drivers and try them out.

 

[Mole HD]

Oh, do they now? That's great. Proper controls without 3rd party tools were one area where they were quite lagging behind Radeon.
I'm gonna break my rule of never using the latest drivers and try them out.

Make sure you set 'enable experimental features' in GeForce Experience under the general settings tab...it then brings up the performance tab in the overlay. It looks like this...

Spoiler

once you click on the performance tab in the overlay...

The in game overlay once it's set up.....top right of the screen. Default hot keys are Alt+R to show/hide the overlay...gives temps, FPS, CPU/GPU load, render latency...yada yada

 

[Jezzah]

I agree with points made here, if you liked the Original Sin series and how that played the you'll find a welcome home in this game.

I'm enjoying it but I dont want to play "too much" as I really want to play the proper Origin stories rather than the current option of playing as a custom character.

I'm still kind of working out how the Combat works especially as it applies to magical combat, in not really sure I'm getting the idea of only having limited uses on spell casting and stuff.

 

[Jezzah]

This is a fantastic game. It takes awhile to bed in and get going, get used to how the combat works, how exploration works etc.

Great voice acting certainly well above par for the genre, the story is bubbling along nicely, there is nothing to be taken for granted in your decision making, things that appear one way can often be influenced by other actions you made earlier, Larian have done amazingly well in this respect and it will make for endless replayability. The map design is great too making you always feel that itch to "just look round the next corner", before you know it you are neck deep in a whole other area and 2 hours down the line after saying you were going to the shops after this.

They are handling the early access well also, often with these early access things you can feel a bit of a tool for going in early, not this though at least for me. It has rough edges and occasional bugs and some quest inconsistencies but all minor really. Considering what I said above about how much effort Larian have put into the choices and decisions a few inconsistencies are to be expected...though they are rare and will get picked up by people reporting them.

The main release will be a real treat for anyone that considers themselves a gamer and not just an RPG fan.

 

[Chris Simon]

This is a fantastic game. It takes awhile to bed in and get going, get used to how the combat works, how exploration works etc.

Great voice acting certainly well above par for the genre, the story is bubbling along nicely, there is nothing to be taken for granted in your decision making, things that appear one way can often be influenced by other actions you made earlier, Larian have done amazingly well in this respect and it will make for endless replayability. The map design is great too making you always feel that itch to "just look round the next corner", before you know it you are neck deep in a whole other area and 2 hours down the line after saying you were going to the shops after this.

They are handling the early access well also, often with these early access things you can feel a bit of a tool for going in early, not this though at least for me. It has rough edges and occasional bugs and some quest inconsistencies but all minor really. Considering what I said above about how much effort Larian have put into the choices and decisions a few inconsistencies are to be expected...though they are rare and will get picked up by people reporting them.

The main release will be a real treat for anyone that considers themselves a gamer and not just an RPG fan.

One complaint that I keep hearing though is kind of a deal breaker to me - the characters and their interaction. People are saying they aren't nowhere near as relatable and fleshed out as the characters in Bioware games. "Companions are one-dimensional, selfish and flat in their goals. They don't grow on a player. One doesn't care about them, their motivations and opinions and therefore doesn't feel and care about the impact of good/evil choices" is the jist of what I've heard.
I would like to know to what extent it is true and if it's caused by them simply existing in a boxed-in slice of the game/story (so it gets better over time - similarly like one can hardly judge characters of the OG Mass Effect for example just from how they behave on the Citadel at the start of the game), or if it's the core writing that's done this way on purpose.

I'm not going to find out myself, unfortunately, until full launch, but I do hope that if it's true, it's just the Chapter 1 problem and companions WILL become a central part of the story.
I don't know though, from the way it's described, they work similarly to the Divinity companion model which... isn't ideal. Companions in DOS and DOS2 are probably the weakest thing in the game, imo.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Companions in DOS and DOS2 are probably the weakest thing in the game, imo.

Wow, i feel the opposite. The companions in DOS2 were great and there was loads of really cool banter and their stories are really well done.

 

[Deleted member 110222]

Is there multiplayer in BG3, or plans for it?

 

[Jezzah]

One complaint that I keep hearing though is kind of a deal breaker to me - the characters and their interaction. People are saying they aren't nowhere near as relatable and fleshed out as the characters in Bioware games. "Companions are one-dimensional, selfish and flat in their goals. They don't grow on a player. One doesn't care about them, their motivations and opinions and therefore doesn't feel and care about the impact of good/evil choices" is the jist of what I've heard.
I would like to know to what extent it is true and if it's caused by them simply existing in a boxed-in slice of the game/story (so it gets better over time - similarly like one can hardly judge characters of the OG Mass Effect for example just from how they behave on the Citadel at the start of the game), or if it's the core writing that's done this way on purpose.

I'm not going to find out myself, unfortunately, until full launch, but I do hope that if it's true, it's just the Chapter 1 problem and companions WILL become a central part of the story.
I don't know though, from the way it's described, they work similarly to the Divinity companion model which... isn't ideal. Companions in DOS and DOS2 are probably the weakest thing in the game, imo.

I honestly havent felt that myself at all Chris. I would tell you fair and square if it were otherwise. I dont think this game is anymore guilty of something like that than any other RPG out there by any developer I could mention. I've played about 15 hours so far and Yes I suppose that I could reasonably say i dont know my party characters very well ... however I can totally see why that would be as it applies to the game world.

The games premise sets you (and your party) up as a recently "infected" captive which will eventually turn into a Mind Flayer...that is attitude motivator number 1 for the party and it initially provides conflict and suspicion and distrust amongst your party as to their motivations, it's not not immediately clear that all party members think having the flayer tadpole is a bad thing! On top of this it is obvious after a few hours that your party members all have secondary stories which again I havent delved into yet in great detail but they are varied and range widely in terms of moral and material goalposts. Suffice to say that I know enough about these secondary stories that I know they provide for some very tough decision making and great gameplay later on. I cant really say more for spoiler reasons.

In short as I said I haven't noticed any particular problem in this area and I'm not sure why others would say this.

EDIT: It is similar to how it worked in DOS and DOS2 but I'm not sure what people complain about with this, I found the party dynamics good in those games personally and its shaping to be better in BG3 imo

 

[Jezzah]

Is there multiplayer in BG3, or plans for it?

I dont know for sure myself, it's not really a factor I looked into for playing this game.

 

[Deleted member 110222]

I dont know for sure myself, it's not really a factor I looked into for playing this game.

That's fair. I play DOS2 with friends sometimes and it is really fun so I am hoping BG3 has similar.

 

[Deleted member 110222]

The option is there and should work, I didn't try though (no interest). I've heard the most heavy bugs were around multiplayer in the first days, which should be fixed by now. Meanwhile I'm playing 2 different games, one alone and the other together with my wife (both still in singleplayer mode). While it's already great fun, the early access shows once you get deeper into the game. Quite a lot of bugs and incomplete implementations. Crafting has only a greyed out placeholder button for example.

Sometimes the game also seems to mix up or corrupt quick saves (not sure if it's because I frequently switch between 2 profiles). Overall balance seems still pretty rough. Graphical glitches here and there. Lots of questionable logical coherences. I got more crashes with Vulcan, Direct X11 seems to be relative stable now for me. There are already 3 smaller patches out, I expect more over the next days...
Unfortunately already very addictive - otherwise I would wait...

Oh I am well aware of the bugs. It's exactly the same story as DOS2, made by the same people.

Larian are the one bunch that actually uses early access for the intended purpose, though, so I am not bothered at all. It will get sorted.

 

[Chris Simon]

I honestly havent felt that myself at all Chris. I would tell you fair and square if it were otherwise. I dont think this game is anymore guilty of something like that than any other RPG out there by any developer I could mention. I've played about 15 hours so far and Yes I suppose that I could reasonably say i dont know my party characters very well ... however I can totally see why that would be as it applies to the game world.

The games premise sets you (and your party) up as a recently "infected" captive which will eventually turn into a Mind Flayer...that is attitude motivator number 1 for the party and it initially provides conflict and suspicion and distrust amongst your party as to their motivations, it's not not immediately clear that all party members think having the flayer tadpole is a bad thing! On top of this it is obvious after a few hours that your party members all have secondary stories which again I havent delved into yet in great detail but they are varied and range widely in terms of moral and material goalposts. Suffice to say that I know enough about these secondary stories that I know they provide for some very tough decision making and great gameplay later on. I cant really say more for spoiler reasons.

In short as I said I haven't noticed any particular problem in this area and I'm not sure why others would say this.

EDIT: It is similar to how it worked in DOS and DOS2 but I'm not sure what people complain about with this, I found the party dynamics good in those games personally and its shaping to be better in BG3 imo

Okay, that gives me hope. Thank you.