Discussion Baldur's Gate 3

[Stuka87]

Today is the day that Baldur's Gate 3 is supposed to be available for early access! Who else is excited about spending hours in the characters creator Its literally one of my favorite parts of RPG's that have character creation. But excited for the game in general as well.

Baldur's Gate 3 on Steam

Gather your party, and return to the Forgotten Realms in a tale of fellowship and betrayal, sacrifice and survival, and the lure of absolute power.

store.steampowered.com

 

[rivethead]

I'm cautiously optimistic. The other Larian titles I've played have been enjoyable.

But.....I'll wait for the dust to settle before getting this. Seems like RPGs these days are so full of depth that it's impossible to QA thoroughly before release.

 

[Stuka87]

I'm cautiously optimistic. The other Larian titles I've played have been enjoyable.

But.....I'll wait for the dust to settle before getting this. Seems like RPGs these days are so full of depth that it's impossible to QA thoroughly before release.

Yeah, which is why I like that they are going the early access route. Having thousands of early access players test it out will find a lot of things the QA people they have on staff would not. Different machine configurations, and different play styles.

People that want to wait for the finished game can, and then get a much more polished experience.

 

[bfun_x1]

Today is the day that Baldur's Gate 3 is supposed to be available for early access! Who else is excited about spending hours in the characters creator Its literally one of my favorite parts of RPG's that have character creation. But excited for the game in general as well.

Baldur's Gate 3 on Steam

Gather your party, and return to the Forgotten Realms in a tale of fellowship and betrayal, sacrifice and survival, and the lure of absolute power.

store.steampowered.com

I might also spend hours in the character creator, but I'm not sure I'd want to start the story until the game is 100% complete.

 

[KMFJD]

can't wait , they are only releasing chapter 1 today but it's still around 80gb (150gb was mentioned for the complete game)

 

[Stuka87]

I might also spend hours in the character creator, but I'm not sure I'd want to start the story until the game is 100% complete.

I figure its a good chance to test out different classes and see which one I like for a full story run.

 

[sactoking]

I don't even have a drive that can install a 150gb game right now. My game SSD is only 111gb total and my main SSD doesn't have that much open space.

 

[KMFJD]

I don't even have a drive that can install a 150gb game right now. My game SSD is only 111gb total and my main SSD doesn't have that much open space.

Download is 66gb right now, but that's only the 1st chapter i believe

 

[Stuka87]

Download is 66gb right now, but that's only the 1st chapter i believe

Correct, early access is just the first chapter. And roughly 66GB.

 

[sactoking]

Yes, I get that. But if it eventually needs 150gb I don't want to spend $60 on an early access game that I can't install the full version of.

May not matter anyway. I've been avoiding the twitch streamers due to spoilers but some of the written reviews I've seen so far... woof. Not good.

 

[Stuka87]

Yes, I get that. But if it eventually needs 150gb I don't want to spend $60 on an early access game that I can't install the full version of.

May not matter anyway. I've been avoiding the twitch streamers due to spoilers but some of the written reviews I've seen so far... woof. Not good.

I am downloading it now, will have a mini review in a few days or so.

I honestly don't understand some of these full blown reviews for an early access game. The game clearly isn't finished. There will be issues.

And I was annoyed at the "review" that Arstechnica did. He kept going on about how the characters "hate you". And maybe, at the start of the game, they do. Doesn't mean they will for the entire game once its released. Only chaper 1 is available. And then he went on to complain about the mechanics, which stick pretty close to how D&D 5E should be handled. But, whatever. Will see if I enjoy, chance are, I will.

 

[nakedfrog]

I'm really looking forward to this one, but also have no problem waiting until we finish our current play-through of Divinity: OS2 before starting it up.

 

[WelshBloke]

I so want this to be good! The Baldurs Gate series are my favourite games.

I just know that I'll never have the time to play it properly though.

 

[Stuka87]

1.5 hours in, so very early thoughts. Most of it is as I expected. The only surprising thing is how demanding it is. It pegs out my 5700 XT at 1440P on ultra settings (which the game chose). It does run at a solid 60fps, but at 95% utilization. At the start of the game it used around 4GB of VRAM, by the end it was at 7.7GB. Dropped a few settings down, but did not have much of an impact, so I need to see where all the utilization is coming from.

Personally I like the combat, although I did just get a TPK because of a dumb mistake.

 

[Aikouka]

I've never played a Baldur's Gate game, but I did check out the preview on Ars today, which was... well, a bit scathing. It would be interesting to hear some remarks from those that play these games often.

 

[Stuka87]

So the game defaults to Vulcan for rendering. I switched to Direct X 11, and it lowered utilization a noticeable amount.

 

[simas]

Very looking forward to it however I would love for it to be patched first so my eager expectations are not shuttered.. would love to buy full game and will keep an eye on readiness level of this (i.e. bannerlord also launched as 'early access' as it actually very playable with massive amount of patches and improvements that came very soon after initial release).

 

[Fanatical Meat]

1.5 hours in, so very early thoughts. Most of it is as I expected. The only surprising thing is how demanding it is. It pegs out my 5700 XT at 1440P on ultra settings (which the game chose). It does run at a solid 60fps, but at 95% utilization. At the start of the game it used around 4GB of VRAM, by the end it was at 7.7GB. Dropped a few settings down, but did not have much of an impact, so I need to see where all the utilization is coming from.

Personally I like the combat, although I did just get a TPK because of a dumb mistake.

What is the multiplayer like?

 

[rivethead]

1.5 hours in, so very early thoughts. Most of it is as I expected. The only surprising thing is how demanding it is. It pegs out my 5700 XT at 1440P on ultra settings (which the game chose). It does run at a solid 60fps, but at 95% utilization. At the start of the game it used around 4GB of VRAM, by the end it was at 7.7GB. Dropped a few settings down, but did not have much of an impact, so I need to see where all the utilization is coming from.

Personally I like the combat, although I did just get a TPK because of a dumb mistake.

With early access, is it safe to assume little optimization has been done (and will come later)?

Out of curiosity, complete laziness, and no research, what level do your characters start at?

Thanks for posting your early thoughts!

 

[Stuka87]

What is the multiplayer like?

I have not yet tried it.

With early access, is it safe to assume little optimization has been done (and will come later)?

Out of curiosity, complete laziness, and no research, what level do your characters start at?

Thanks for posting your early thoughts!

Larian has stated that the game will get more optimized as it goes on. That seams especially true for the Vulcan mode as DX11 ran a lot better for me.

Your character starts at level 1. You get your first level up not long after the first opening area.

Last night I actually got stuck. One of my party members was down (not dead), and an NPC came up to talk to me. Which you cannot escape in this case. By the time I got out, my party member was dead. And I have no scrolls of revivify. This also means I cannot take a long rest for some reason. Which brings up the absolute requirement that you save often. I had to replay several areas because I forgot to save and got TPK'ed.

Outside of game play, there is some typically early access issues. Some characters movements that aren't very smooth. Sometimes the CC text will be doubled, or the camera angle will be underground during a conversation. But these don't bother me right now because the game truly is not finished.

 

[rivethead]

Level 1 is good news for me. My favorite part of Baldurs Gate 1 was starting as nothing and being forced out into the wilderness where a frickin' bear can end your life with one hit. Progressing from that just felt satisfying.

 

[sactoking]

I caved and spent the money. I'll let you know after I get into it a bit more, I'm about 3 hours in right now.

I'm coming at this from never having played a Larian game before. I bought the original BG when it was on 5 CDs back in the day, then Tales of the Sword Coast. Also got the original 4 CD BG2 and extra Throne of Bhaal. Played them all a TON. I started on pen & paper 2e, disliked 3/3.5 and it's related games (didn't care for Neverwinter Nights), never tried 4e and have quite a bit of experience with tabletop 5e. It will be interesting to see how this shakes out in relation to prior BG games and "true" 5e tabletop games.

 

[CP5670]

I never played the original BG games, but loved PS:T and many of the other classic cRPGs. I'll probably wait on this until it's been out for a while and the issues are ironed out though.

 

[Fenixgoon]

Arstechnica had a scathing review, while other sites seemed more positive. YMMV I guess?

 

[bguile]

Arstechnica had a scathing review, while other sites seemed more positive. YMMV I guess?

Haven't played it, but from what I have read about it, it doesn't always fit with the style of the old baldurs gate games. It sounds like a fine game on it's own, but it should maybe have been not tied to the baldurs gate series. More like it should have been a stand alone game set in Faerun.