It’s been one week since you looked at me Baldur’s Gate was released. How are you enjoying the game? What are your general thoughts, impressions, and complaints? Has the game lived up to the hype for you?
Can’t stop thinking about it every waking moment. I have put off many household chores just to eke a few more minutes of gameplay out. It’s a massive accomplishment of a game with a few bugs, but still an incredible and well deserved achievement for Larian.
I am a little worried because it felt like I had to poke into everything in Act 1 to get enough XP to get to Act 2. Hopefully the outcomes are different enough to make replaying interesting, because I know I want to do several playthroughs.
The XP is my worry too. These long CRPGs burn me out because they require almost 100% completion to get to level parity. I’m still loving BG3, but if the later acts are like Act 1 I’m not sure I’ll make it. The content is all superb, but it seems like I need to do it ALL in order to progress.
The second part there is by far my biggest issue with the game. I don’t find the outcomes THAT different.
I’ve about finished Act 1, so I started a coop playthrough with a friend. Although we’ve both been intentionally picking different options the whole time, it’s still by and large the same process. Go to the same locations, talk to the same people but have them react to you somewhat differently. There’s a large number of ways in which the game implies much more can happen than is really possible, and lots of ways you end up getting railroaded back to the same place no matter how much you try to change it up.
For myself, I will say that I have had an absolute blast so far. It’s been so long since I’ve been this obsessed with a game; I can’t remember the last time I’ve sacrificed this much sleep just to squeeze in some more game time. The combat and the different ways you can approach a fight, the different ways you can solve/skip a quest, and the different ways you can respond to companions and NPCs – all of it has lived up to my high expectations so far.
That said, I do think the game needs a bit more polish. My biggest complaint would be the current system for switching out party members. It is extremely tedious, and the fact that you have to do this just to access a person’s inventory exacerbates the issue. My second biggest complaint would be the inventory management; filter tabs and the ability to rename pouches/backpacks would go a long way in fixing this issue. In terms of bugs though, I have encountered very minimal bugs (although I am still only in Act 1).
But none of the flaws so far have dampened my love for this game. There’s been a hole in my heart since Dragon Age: Origins, and I was a bit skeptical when I saw some people saying that this game is the spiritual successor. But it’s true, and this game has indeed filled the hole that DA:O left behind. If Acts 2 and 3 maintain the quality of Act 1 (unfortunately Larian doesn’t have the best track record for this), then this will probably be one of my all time favorite games.
Have you ever been in the position where you complete some quest before you’ve actually been given it, and when you go to the quest giver they give you the quest and you immediately click back and complete the quest… well so far I’ve saved the girl at the druids grove without speaking to the mother and when I did finally speak to the parents I wasn’t handed the quest, I was rewarded for something that I wasn’t asked to do…now that has impressed me. This game is above and beyond anything I expected it to be
I don’t think that’s really a sign of being “above and beyond.” You completed a quest, even if you didn’t formally accept it. I think a better sign is that one quest in DOS2 where if you don’t accept the quest, the NPC doesn’t reward you because from their perspective, it just suddenly went away on its own.
Camera can be really dog shit at times outside of the tatical view in combat, thats my only major gripe with the game. Have had a few crashes here and there along side some minor bugs.
Games great, its the closest to a ttrpg in crpg format that I’ve experienced regarding player choice and the resulting out comes. Makes me excited for future playthroughs to see the different choices and their proceeding outcomes.
Combat is standard turn based cRPG and i enjoy it. Ledges during combat can be a bit of a buggy mess at points however. Charcater level impact feels great.
Im 58 hours in on my solo playthrough and 12hours in on a friend group playthrough. They need to flush out the coop a bit. Not being able to release custom origin PCs from the party kinda sucks when everyones not around. Same with the save file being bound to the lobby host only.
Id toss it in my top 5 games of all time list most likely. Well worth the price if you enjoy crpgs with turnbased mechanics.
Even in tactical view it can be dogshit. I’ve encountered several places where the tactical view can’t even be used because you’ll just be looking at the ceiling.
I’m really loving it. I’m about 40 hours in and just wrapping up with Act 1 in the underdark. Small spoilers for my favourite act 1 moment >!Volo had butchered my eye in camp after a series of poor decisions and when I talked to the Owlbear with speak to animals one of the tags was [one-eyed] unfortunately the Owlbear didn’t give a shit about bonding over our injury. That they connected those dots and then recorded new lines for that edge case is hilarious to me!<
I played through the entire game once as a tiefling dragon sorcerer on Balanced. Took around 80 ish hours at most. I really enjoyed the game overall on my first playthrough, though. I had many bugs and a lot of the interactivity (companions, previous characters) felt super weak in Act 3. I also noticed a lot of issues with illusion of choice in those areas. In reality there are lots of minor options you can take that effect almost nothing, and a few major options that don’t feel like they change as much as they should.
I started a new playthrough today just to mess around with being more evil. And man, it feels TERRIBLE. This game feels very based around you making a good character first because evil choices feel questionable at best, completely nonsensical at worst and lock you out of a TON of content, nearly 1/2 of the companions, and just don’t make much sense no matter how you roleplay it. It felt really terrible going back through and realizing I should have just made another mildly good character to explore other options, because there is very much not a smart evil route in this at all without just picking the good guy options.
I won’t speak too many spoilers here but this lack of variability really killed most of my interest in replaying the game (I played 125 hours of early access with friends and was very excited for the game). There is very little in this game that makes me go “what if?” As many of the best CRPGs and choice-based RPGs of the past did. That kind of feeling is what gets you to replay the game, and it’s a feeling I felt with Wrath of the Righteous recently, but I don’t feel it at all with this game. The most satisfying part of replay would honestly be playing new classes, since magic items are good and combat is fun.
I’m mid Act 3 and I’m starting to think my next playthrough will be all hirelings. I want to play my way without “Someone other than Astorion disapproves”
I need him as my lockpicking guy but cant wait to dump his ass in my second playthrough.
Knock. I can’t believe how much I love that spell. No more rolling for lockpicking. Still have to roll for disarm but my wizard replaced my rogue for the most part
Oh shit. Thanks for the tip!
GOG launcher says I have clocked 34 hours in the game so far, I’d say that counts as a yes ;)
I’m really enjoying it, though my sleep schedule is not. The story thus far seems pretty good (I’m still super early in the game), and I’m enjoying the chess-like nature of the battles and the ways you can interact with the environment. All in all I’m happy I bought it, and there is tons of replay potential.
As a single player crpg it’s great, however there’s plenty of room for improvement in co-op, especially if you’re the kind of people to enjoy the rp parts of ttrpg. For us it’s been a bit disappointing that it’s so obviously advantageous to have one character (the one with high persuasion/deception/intimidation) initiate all dialogues with NPCs, while the other players are locked into the roles of spectators. Other skill checks appear so randomly in conversations that it’s usually impossible to strategize around them without save scumming. Contrary to real D&D sessions where any present player is allowed to interject if they have something to say, or contribute by using their abilities. E.g. letting the cleric do the medicine check instead of forcing the sorcerer to do it just because they started the conversation that led to the event…
I never played DnD even though we planned to start a group but you know how it is. So far we had three sessions of BG3 and it’s a bit chaotic. Different people starting dialogues at the same time, people starting dialogues and no one else is noticing it stuff like that. I enjoy to play just one character and learning it’s abilities inside-out but the level of control I have in single player suits me more. That is, if the npcs aren’t too stupid to follow me again.
About OT: I’m 12 hours into the co-op campaign and 55 hours into my solo campaign. So far I had some issues where quest markers didn’t vanish after the quest was finished, some quest log entries didn’t get set to “done” once the quest was finished and at one point a item I needed to progress wasn’t where it’s supposed to be. Most of the things could be fixed by just reloading or restarting the game. Same goes for HUD Infos that I am silenced, even though I’m not even in combat anymore. Once reloaded it was gone. Sometimes the camera does weird stuff which can make it tricky to go where you want to go, especially if there are multiple floors in a building. All in all it just needs some polishing. Story wise I was just at a point where I thought I really understand what’s going on just for the story to broaden so widely that it would’ve been enough content for three games. Even the companion quests are well written, interesting and unique. Sometimes even intertwined with each other.
Running a single player campaign and playing a multi-player campaign with friends. Enjoying the shit out of this game. The 1st act I was going into every nook and cranny to find everything I could. After I started the multi-player campaign I realized this is a game I’m going to want to play multiple times (can’t wait for an evil run), so if I miss something, I’ll probably catch it on the next playthrough. I’ve done a big chunk of act 2 I feel though and still haven’t made it to the city which kinda sucks. The inventory system is a little clunky. Those are my only two complaints though. Fucking hell of a game.
I love it and am losing sleep to play. I think I’m mid act 2, but who knows; you go a little and then a whole new area opens up for you. I have run into more bugs in the second act than the first. I had an undead bug out, T Pose, and unload a ton of textures whenever it was his turn in combat, which was fun. I also had a fight where the game triggered my Polearm Master when I moved into range of enemies with Halbreds, but if I used it, they’d hit me. Which meant they didn’t use that for the whole fight once I figured out I could just say no. Enemies also took actions while it was my turn and I couldn’t end my turn in that fight, so it was kinda borked. Might be because I joined from timed mode to haste people up.
Regardless, I’m going to sing the praises of this game and hope I don’t hit a game breaking bug. I have the same gripes about camp inventory and party management, but ideally that gets fixed or modded soon.
I’m like 60 hours in and can’t wait for a second run. I’m a goody two shoes this run, gotta get some evil durge in the next. And being able to respec your party means I can have a fresh set of combat mechanics next time no matter who I take.
Ah I had that same Polearm Master big and figured I was just overlooking some some of enemy reaction.
I have been a bit skeptic to begin with. Didn’t know if I still would like round based fighting and stuff.
Didn’t take long until I had a blast.i really like the game and looking forward into continuing the journey. I don’t have this feeling so often with games anymore. Maybe it’s because it’s something different what we’re used to today.
I’m only like 3 hours into the game because I keep restarting as I don’t like some small part of the character I created. I think I’m done with that now though.
Much better than I hoped for. I played the EA early, and the changes in both gameplay and character details since then was surprising, even though its basically the same game.
The only reason I’m not playing now is because the latest patch broke the house of hope portal in act 3 and I just got there.
Otherwise it’s the best game I have played 105 hours of since Disco Elysium and I can’t think of anything else even close to it.
I just wished failed rolls were as fun as disco elysium. Here it’s just about always a failed roll is a failed roll, with no failing forward just lock out of content.
