Baldur's Gate III

Family_Dugout

I've been playing it a lot on Geforce Now. It responds well enough for me

johnny_ultimate

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121084190#Comment_121084190

I was doing extremely well on rolls too, though the Goblin Camp became a real test of the combat for me - even an extended tutorial on positioning and abilities. Some of those goblins aren’t so easily persuaded, let’s just put it that way :)

Just an amazing game though. The emergent, tense gameplay in combat really does feel fantastic, where everything can either go extraordinarily well or to absolute **** with a single decision.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121085476#Comment_121085476

Have had the same experience myself since that previous post. First parts of the goblin camp building went well, then they all turned on me and I'm not entirely sure why.

Even in fights against one or two enemies.... miss.... miss.... miss.... out of all spells and abilities.... miss....

I'm conscious of not long resting too often, but after some fights you just have to.

Varik

Went the wrong way and did a bunch of other missions instead of the goblins stuff in the north of the map, and then was able to enter the building part of the camp using a tiny hole and let the rest of the party in the back door. That back door took hours to get to that point before figuring out where I was and then using and coming from both sides to open it.

Used a magic cat illusion catnip (so not a spell) to lure people around, and placed a load of barrels or got them alone and sleep/sneak ganked them. Last goblin boss got them from both sides and then had a defending position in her room to fight the dozens of others who then charged into my killzone of ice and darkness. Using a glaive with extra reach to attack into the darkness or attacking from ranch from outside.

Once you get further into the game spells shouldn't really be used for the 1 hit does a bit of damage spells, they either should be nuking groups/bosses or putting some effect down or giving the rest of the party an advantage. The classes that aren't meant for a bit of hitting will have attack catnips to use, they're not as powerful as the attack level 1 spells but you should only be using them to finish off someone if you've not got any big thing to do.

Penn

Had a good bit of free time this weekend. Spent pretty much all of it playing BG3.

Penn

Oh man what a game. I've now reached two different places where I can progress to the next act of the game, and I've turned back because I want to keep finding new things where I am. Also decided to take the opportunity to switch up my party a little by swapping out Asterion for Gale. While I liked Asterion's stealth and the ranged damage he could do from it, Gale has some awesome AOE abilities which can do huge damage. I love how the members of your camp also level up with you even when they're not in your party.

The radial customisation on PS5 isn't great. I've ended up with lots of wheels for my created character filled with spells and potions, but even trying to tidy them up I've ended up with some blank wheels which won't seem to delete.

But man the game is just so addictive.

Glebee

Into Act 2 at the moment, and sort of stuck with the same party from the start. (cleric, rogue, 2 fighters). Character I made myself at start was fighter and dont think I can drop them and sort of think party will be to weak with only 1 fighter. Wish I could add one more to party so standard was 5 characters in party.. Not in any hurry to get through the game

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121099832#Comment_121099832

I'm mostly just going with one fighter, Karlach. Then Shadowheart, Gale/Asterion and I'm a sorceror. I usually cast a spell with Shadowheart to have a giant weapon appear which I use for physical damage (and enemies can target it too instead of a character), and can also summon small animals or a big ball of fire with Gale which again, does damage but enemies target it too. Have Karlach set up so she has more movement and can do two hits per turn.

I did try going two fighters with Lazael, but found I was often spending more time trying to keep both alive than doing damage as me/Shadowheart. Some fights can go on longer than I'd like though.

Iguarantee

Respected to barbarian after trying a sorcerer and not enjoying it. Using that barbarian, Asterion, a cleric and a paladin. Seems like a good mix.

Got rid of Gale; the character is made of glass and died in most engagements.

Really enjoying the game. the outdoor areas seem to stall the animations such that I’m t-posing while walking around or climbing ladders etc. this didn’t happen until a patch about a week ago.

Certainly one of the best games I’ve ever played. Level 5 at the moment and have finally figured out that a strategic approach to combat is important.

Dcully

Im playing Starfield atm but find im enjoying doing random missions and side content much more than the strict nature of go here do this etc etc of the main questline.

Can i do the same in BG3?

johnny_ultimate

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121100252#Comment_121100252

It’s a different flow of play compared to Starfield. There’s a lot of cool random stuff to find, which would be considered side quests, but the world is much more responsive and what you do somewhere may have significant consequences elsewhere further down the line. The main quests meanwhile have a lot of leeway in how you tackle them, with potentially vastly different outcomes depending on who you side with, how you approach it etc… It’s a very consequence-driven game, and based on my conversations with friends our playthroughs have varied wildly over the first 10 hours or so. It’s also open exploration but in much more contained, authored maps (which I much prefer, but your mileage may vary).

Varik

Used Wylls pack spell to bind the singing sword to him as I thought that fitted, he's not proficient in longswords but making it a pack weapon ignores that and makes it that it uses his charisma rather than strength or dexterity.

Penn

Think I'm near ready to move on to Act 2. Finished off most of the last I could think of in Act 1 (the Forge was a bit of an annoyance last night, couldn't get the thing to work properly. Partly my fault but also kind of unintuitive). Also got my party to Level 6 so they're fairly strong at this stage. Have also figured out a way to better organise inventory too which is a big help.

Vicxas

Im near the end of Act III and i dont wanna finish the game, but then again i know ive missed SO much on my first run so it'll be like a new run regardless.

Varik

Didn't find this out for a while but on console/controller

If you hold down on the d pad it makes everyone go stealth, I've been having to do it on each character when I needed it.

Holding up on D pad make you change to the torch/lightsource and back to normal weapons.

johnny_ultimate

Played through

Spoiler Warning

the Auntie Ethel quest

in the wetlands yesterday and it's my favourite one so far. It felt a lot like a Witcher 3 side quest, but with a richer sense of humour to it given the outrageously bleak potential outcomes.

I seem to have investigated the vast majority of the stuff above ground in Act 1 now so think just some more thorough investigation of the Underdark is needed now before progressing to Act 2.

Penn

Yeah I took the plunge and moved on to Act 2 yesterday. Opens up some good story and character developments. Fights get a good bit tougher too. Had one fight that really went against me because of a weapon I'd given La'zael where if she doesn't melee an enemy she goes mad on her next turn. I didn't know what that meant. Thanks to an enemy using misty step, I found out.

Back to camp with you, La'zael. Keep an eye on the fire ya mad b*tch.

Varik

I took 1 level in Wizard recently for my tempest cleric, having the lighting melee catnip was useful as cleric level 7 didn't give much but I respected out of it to get a new feat with cleric level 8 but might go back for character level 9.

That 1 level of wizard got me an additional persuasion option where I got a boss to get themselves killed instead of fighting, there's a trophy tied to the fight so reloaded a save to get that but will going back to other save to continue from there.

Got another bit where as I'd picked up a random musical instrument off someone (I've no bard in party so it's no use) I got another options too, could have easily not picked it up or lost it or sold it or not get it off the person.

People should try to avoid reloading saves if a roll doesn't go how they want it as the alternative might be just as good or better in either gameplay or story.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121109381#Comment_121109381

Yeah I'm trying my damnest not to abuse reloading saves. I never do it for dice rolls or picking a bad dialogue option or anything. The main time I've done it was I got kind of stuck somewhere and had one Fly spell that would get me out of it. Unfortunately as soon as I used it, my Tides Of Chaos kicked in where a random effect can happen when I use some spells, it summoned a bat-type creature who instantly attacked me and made me lose concentration on the spell. I was already low on health and spells so just reloaded and eventually figured out the correct way to get out of where I was.

Last night though, I ended up in a position where I could progress with a certain mission, but numerous factors in the game were kind of hinting at me not to proceed. Eventually I got to a point where curiosity got the better of me so I decided to save, see what would happen, and then I could just reload (because even though the game was kind of telling me not to do it, it felt like what my character would do). Ended up working out kind of brilliantly (well, good and bad) and interesting in such a way that I decided to stick with my decisions and keep going.

There are definitely things in the game where if I had the option I'd do again differently, but I'll hopefully save those decisions for another playthrough.

johnny_ultimate

Oh man, the sense of discovery and exploration in this is so good. Been venturing down in The Underdark - which I didn’t expect to effectively double the length of Act 1 😅 - and there’s so much weird, cool, unexpected stuff down there.

Spoiler Warning

Had an epic fight against the big robot in the mithril forge. Figured out the ‘puzzle’ and had a few attempts, but kept struggling with hitting him a final time as he moves much faster and is harder to ‘lure’. Had one more go and ran into the same issue, and my characters were slowly getting picked off. But then realised I could actually just plant Lae’zel right in the middle as bait. Worked a treat - well worth the cost of a revive 😂

Dave_The_Sheep

I also had a sacraficial lamb in that fight, though in my case it was Astarion.

Varik

There's a tab alongside the inventory tab called "reactions", It controls those popup during combat and some of the auto attack stuff.

Some of them don't use any charges or spells or anything so those are set to "on" and "don't ask" by default which normally is good as it save you time.

But if you've used a spell or anything that makes the enemy run away, like frighten or turn then you definitely don't want you characters hitting them automatically as that'll knock the spell off.

I used "turn undead" to drive off a mass of shadow creatures, and then my characters just hit them as they were near or disengaging making the effect go off instantly.

Penn

Presume I'm nearing the end of act 2. Haven't quite enjoyed it as much as Act 1. The gameplay is still great, but just the whole setting of Act 2 is so dark and dreary that it's a bit of a buzzkill. I've seen some short clips of the setting of Act 3 so looking forward to getting to that.

Varik

Found Act 2 very dark and bland. Some of the fights were interesting but just going about not so much, some of the fights and choice lead to some interesting stuff.

Restarted to try to get 2 trophies for spider queen and golem thing, and got one and approaching the other now. This time I fought the Githyanki patrol rather than talk them out and good god that fight is hard, they're all level 5 and it's 2 fighters and 2 rangers so all of them have at least 2 actions plus at least 1 bonus attack per turn with the ability for the fighters to regain an action point.

My heroic stand against them involved casting fairy fire on them to give myself advantage and then casting darkness on my group so anyone inside the black cloud was blinded and had disadvantage. For me the advantages cancelled out but for them they didn't. They couldn't shoot in and some of their melee attacks missed but they still were doing a lot of damage even blinded when they entered. Even at the end the last ranger was high up and it was about then my darkness' 10 turns wore out and I only won by the skin of my teeth.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121126126#Comment_121126126

Maybe due to my choices or Laezel not being in my party, but the Githyanki patrol didn't give me a choice to discuss anything, straight into a fight. I didn't find it too hard though. I think I managed to hit the ones on the bridge quick and hard enough that it took out some of their bigger hitters.

Still have a few small things I want to finish off in Act 2 but I imagine I'll start Act 3 tonight. But yeah I completely agree that Act 2 felt very dark and bland. Some interesting locations and enemy types, but I had to push myself to explore some of the places rather than wanting to search every nook and cranny like I wanted to in Act 1.

johnny_ultimate

Thought I had wrapped about Act 1 like a week ago, but between the Underdark and the Mountain Pass I’m still not there yet 😅 Finnnnallly think I’m done though, after close to 30 hours of play. They weren’t joking when they noted how massive that first act is!

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121128550#Comment_121128550

Made it into Act 3 and makes a world of difference. Already feels like a terrific location, so much to see and do, the side missions that I'm discovering are already engaging, tonnes of new characters and great moments already.

Have also rejigged some of my party's abilities. It's only after a while of playing that you realise there are spells or abilities you just never really use or have become superceded by new abilities, so worth changing things up a bit. Karlach doing a good bit more damage now already, and has about 20% more health too.

Still worth doing as much as you can in Act 2 rather than rushing through it, but glad to be on this side of it now though.

Varik

Some classes you can only change spells on level up, or have to learn/forget some. So it's a trip to withers.

Warlocks have to be particular.

Cleric know every spell for their level when they reach a level and can change prepared spells on the fly outside combat just spells slots used stay used.

Wizards can learn any spell from a spell scroll for gold, so you can learn a spell off a scroll and then respec and that will already be learned so you can pick ones you've not got so no need to use a level up learning some useful but limited spell spell.

Redid Act 1 to get some trophies, and must have wondered around a bit after arriving at the forge so when I went back to free the guy everyone was dead or gone. Also entirely forgot about laezel so never recruited her and didn't realize that until I wondered up to the githyanki patrol and she ran up to report to the guy with the dragon, she was level 1 so died instantly. Even if she wasn't in my party I was able to use a scroll on her.

johnny_ultimate

Into Act 2, and while I can definitely see the complaints around the darker, less distinctive wilderness, I LOVE the setup with the inn. Such a cool fantasy idea.

Glebee

Ready to leave Act 2 as well and feeling much the same as other people, did not enjoy the dark settings as much as the setting of Act 1, hopefully the city setting of Act 3 will get things going again.