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Baldur's Gate 3: The illithid conspiracy
- Thread starter Nich
- Start date
I can't speak to that specific port, but Larian has a strong track record with console ports.
I can answer this, though, because I'm playing with a controller:
Definitely not! This game is built on top of the systems created for Divinity:Original Sin 1 & 2, and both of those games featured great controller support to enable local split screen co-op. This is their third time iterating on how to do a huge CRPG with a controller, and I think is better than the already great controller support in D:OS 1&2.
The biggest change is the introduction of radial menus. The Divinity:OS games had you use a controller to navigate a traditional CRPG bottom of the screen hotbar of actions. It worked fine, but it was a lot cumbersome. Now, you can use fully customizable radial menus for your actions, so actions are more instantaneous.
Also, in one significant way, I honestly think Larian games play better with a controller. If you play with mouse and keyboard, there is no way to highlight all interactable objects. Yes, you can tab ALT to highlight some interactable objects, and most signiciant objects will show up. However, when you played D:OS 1&2 with a mouse and keyboard, there was also some degree of pixel hunt gameplay to solve a handful of puzzles. I played those games first in Co-Op with a controller and second with a mouse and keyboard, and honestly I felt like the M&K controls were a huge downgrade for that reason, because I don't like pixel hunts at all. However, if you play with a controller, you can hold down a button and your character will "inspect" a large circle around them. When you do this, every single interactable object pops up on a list. As a result, there are no more pixel hunts. If you need to find a tiny button or key, or if you want to find every last piece of silverware to sell later, a controller is the way to go. If you play with a controller, you got both the equivalent of holding ALT to highlight most objects, and you can also inspect to see everything interactable nearby. With a mouse and keyboard, you only have one option.
Honestly I think they should just allow mouse and keyboard players to use the "inspect" action and was kind of surprised to hear that's still controller exclusive.
I can answer this, though, because I'm playing with a controller:
Definitely not! This game is built on top of the systems created for Divinity:Original Sin 1 & 2, and both of those games featured great controller support to enable local split screen co-op. This is their third time iterating on how to do a huge CRPG with a controller, and I think is better than the already great controller support in D:OS 1&2.
The biggest change is the introduction of radial menus. The Divinity:OS games had you use a controller to navigate a traditional CRPG bottom of the screen hotbar of actions. It worked fine, but it was a lot cumbersome. Now, you can use fully customizable radial menus for your actions, so actions are more instantaneous.
Also, in one significant way, I honestly think Larian games play better with a controller. If you play with mouse and keyboard, there is no way to highlight all interactable objects. Yes, you can tab ALT to highlight some interactable objects, and most signiciant objects will show up. However, when you played D:OS 1&2 with a mouse and keyboard, there was also some degree of pixel hunt gameplay to solve a handful of puzzles. I played those games first in Co-Op with a controller and second with a mouse and keyboard, and honestly I felt like the M&K controls were a huge downgrade for that reason, because I don't like pixel hunts at all. However, if you play with a controller, you can hold down a button and your character will "inspect" a large circle around them. When you do this, every single interactable object pops up on a list. As a result, there are no more pixel hunts. If you need to find a tiny button or key, or if you want to find every last piece of silverware to sell later, a controller is the way to go. If you play with a controller, you got both the equivalent of holding ALT to highlight most objects, and you can also inspect to see everything interactable nearby. With a mouse and keyboard, you only have one option.
Honestly I think they should just allow mouse and keyboard players to use the "inspect" action and was kind of surprised to hear that's still controller exclusive.
oh god, that sounds amazing. I may have to try controller just for that.
Not only do some items not highlight with Alt, but those that do, you still have to hunt down the actual pixels if you want to do anything other than the default action with them. Want to read a lorebook lying in a pile of books? Cool, hold Alt and click its name. Want to pick it up and mark it as sale goods? lol, good luck finding the one interactable book in that smudge of noninteractive background books.
Not only do some items not highlight with Alt, but those that do, you still have to hunt down the actual pixels if you want to do anything other than the default action with them. Want to read a lorebook lying in a pile of books? Cool, hold Alt and click its name. Want to pick it up and mark it as sale goods? lol, good luck finding the one interactable book in that smudge of noninteractive background books.
Controller also has exclusive access to a closer up camera like Dragon Age if you wanna feel closer to the ground while exploring and fightin stuff.
How close? You can use the scroll wheel to get pretty close with a mouse.
I think it's probably technically less that the controller gets closer and more that since you're moving the character directly (push the analog stick in a direction, the character moves in that direction) as opposed to indirectly (click a destination and the character pathfinds their way there) that it's a little easier to adjust the camera to various ends while the character is in motion. Since movement and positioning has always affected potential camera angles in a kind of janky way ever since D:OS1, having direct control of both movement and camera does a lot to make it easier to see what you want to see because it's more fluid/seamless to do minor repositioning or minor shifts in route that affect the camera in significant ways, even if camera control itself isn't any worse with keyboard and mouse controls. This has always been my experience, anyway.
I guess I mischaracterized it a little. The exclusive part is that it doesn't feel like constant camera panning tedium to play with it at max zoom in. It's essentially console Dragon Age with better action management in general at that camera distance.
God why have I been putting off playing games like this all this time
There are some amazing ways to die in this game.
1) Submit to the wounded mindflayer when exploring the ship at the beginning. Then the rest of your party has to fight him.
2) Let Astarion drain you completely in your camp. When you resurrect, talk to him. The dialogue is fantastic.
3) Kill Gale or let him die. Later, you'll find a message from him saying he has to be resurrected within 2 days, or he'll explode and take the whole Sword Coast with him. If you wait two days... it does and the game ends.
1) Submit to the wounded mindflayer when exploring the ship at the beginning. Then the rest of your party has to fight him.
2) Let Astarion drain you completely in your camp. When you resurrect, talk to him. The dialogue is fantastic.
3) Kill Gale or let him die. Later, you'll find a message from him saying he has to be resurrected within 2 days, or he'll explode and take the whole Sword Coast with him. If you wait two days... it does and the game ends.
When I did that I seemed to get instant game over, as you'd think it would.
Might depend on whether you're in multiplayer or not. In other words, if there are two player avatars, the other player can fix this situation. If there's only one player avatar, that situation makes sense as a game over.
I wouldn't care if they didn't implement this, but it's funny that they did.
Yeah, I've only been playing multiplayer, so I can imagine it just ends if you're solo.
And yeah, amazing that they actually did that with Gale.
Started playing this even though my PC is pretty old. I bought it 3 years ago so there's no contemporary impulse purchase yet. It hasn't set my computer on fire but the graphics (hair) are rough. And I had to install it on my HDD because I can't imagine clearing enough space for it on my SSD. (did it 3 years ago but I think the Windows folder has maybe gotten a lot larger) You can export saves to the PS5 so I imagine I'll do that if I manage to play and enjoy this.
As usual, I am having difficulty getting further than the character creation screen. Too many decisions to make and I have no idea how to evaluate them, in part because I have never managed to get more than like one and a half hours into a D&D video game after character creation. Character flaw on my part! I think I would like to play a barbarian or monk but there's something so unglamorous about being both unintelligent and uncharismatic. However, there are fewer obstacles for me than normal in these games because there are no painted character portraits or race specific stat boosts.
Anyway, the first 15 minutes of this game, perhaps the only part of it I will ever play, are rly cool.
As usual, I am having difficulty getting further than the character creation screen. Too many decisions to make and I have no idea how to evaluate them, in part because I have never managed to get more than like one and a half hours into a D&D video game after character creation. Character flaw on my part! I think I would like to play a barbarian or monk but there's something so unglamorous about being both unintelligent and uncharismatic. However, there are fewer obstacles for me than normal in these games because there are no painted character portraits or race specific stat boosts.
Anyway, the first 15 minutes of this game, perhaps the only part of it I will ever play, are rly cool.
You can pay 100g to respec all class-stuff very, very close to the start of the game.
The game also can be different enough between playthroughs that it seems worthwhile to just commit to something and roll with it.
... I'm pretty bad at taking that advice though.
I would add that (while you can also respec them) there is a companion who is a barbarian already.
I would also also add that the game is balanced for players who are interested in RP as much as they are in min-max. So a sub-optimal pick isn't world ending.
... This is an oblique question, but... do you remember Tomi Undergallows?
The game also can be different enough between playthroughs that it seems worthwhile to just commit to something and roll with it.
... I'm pretty bad at taking that advice though.
I would add that (while you can also respec them) there is a companion who is a barbarian already.
I would also also add that the game is balanced for players who are interested in RP as much as they are in min-max. So a sub-optimal pick isn't world ending.
... This is an oblique question, but... do you remember Tomi Undergallows?
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fanboymaster
(He/Him)
Ran into kind of a fun game over with with Auntie Ethel in the swamp. If you put on one of the masks lying around you have to make wisdom saving throws to keep from getting controlled by her, if your avatar fails one it's a game over
Funny death yesterday:
When you visit the Githyanki creche in the mountain pass area, you can speak with the Githyanki lich-queen, who asks you to kill someone. If you doubt her divinity by saying something like, "Why do you need my help, if you're a god? Shouldn't you be able to kill anyone you want?", that's an instant full party kill game over.
I thought I was just exploring the dialogue tree for more information and it cracked me up.
On a related note, unlike most other CRPGs this game lets you quicksave during conversations and remembers exactly where you left off instead of starting the whole thing over, and it's probably a good idea to do so if it seems like a situation where things could go very badly.
When you visit the Githyanki creche in the mountain pass area, you can speak with the Githyanki lich-queen, who asks you to kill someone. If you doubt her divinity by saying something like, "Why do you need my help, if you're a god? Shouldn't you be able to kill anyone you want?", that's an instant full party kill game over.
I thought I was just exploring the dialogue tree for more information and it cracked me up.
On a related note, unlike most other CRPGs this game lets you quicksave during conversations and remembers exactly where you left off instead of starting the whole thing over, and it's probably a good idea to do so if it seems like a situation where things could go very badly.
This is a very minor skillset spoiler:
It's easy to miss, but that magic counts as "good/evil" magic that the level 1 spell, "Protection from Evil and Good" will completely defeat.
There's so much game in this game that if you're thorough I think you'll hit the level cap pretty early. We've still only in Act 2 (Cursed Shadowlands) and have at least one more major event area that we know about (Moonrise Tower) and huge areas of unexplored overworld map and are already at Level 8, in a game with a Level 12 cap. A lot of estimates suggested that more than half of the game is left after Act 2, so I'm guessing an exhaustive playthrough spends a lot of time at the cap.
I think this is good/fine by the way, and it was also the case in my favorite CRPG of all time, Pillars of Eternity 2. It enables someone doing a fairly golden path style playthrough to get to the end at a reasonable level, while thorough exploration primarily just allows you to really tweak your build with the perfect set of equipment (in addition to exploration for its own sake, of course).
I think this is good/fine by the way, and it was also the case in my favorite CRPG of all time, Pillars of Eternity 2. It enables someone doing a fairly golden path style playthrough to get to the end at a reasonable level, while thorough exploration primarily just allows you to really tweak your build with the perfect set of equipment (in addition to exploration for its own sake, of course).
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One of those playing a CRPG at release things:
Realizing there's a quest called "Wake [Character Name]" that has been marked as Complete with the resolution, "[Character Name] is dead." probably a dozen real life hours after when I'm assuming that character died when he was presumably caught in a some AoE attack or whatever in nearby fight. The other NPCs in the room are standing around the too-manged-to-cast-speak-to-dead-on corpse unaware of what happened and talking about how the the extremely dead character will hopefully be better soon. It's kind of funny because "dog who does not understand its owner is dead" is a recurring Larian beat (that is also in this game), but here a bug is making a room full of people do basically the same thing.
Realizing there's a quest called "Wake [Character Name]" that has been marked as Complete with the resolution, "[Character Name] is dead." probably a dozen real life hours after when I'm assuming that character died when he was presumably caught in a some AoE attack or whatever in nearby fight. The other NPCs in the room are standing around the too-manged-to-cast-speak-to-dead-on corpse unaware of what happened and talking about how the the extremely dead character will hopefully be better soon. It's kind of funny because "dog who does not understand its owner is dead" is a recurring Larian beat (that is also in this game), but here a bug is making a room full of people do basically the same thing.
Re-rolled again because my wood-elf monk was simply too tall. Now I have a high half-elf sorcerer. I don't think there's a sorcerer companion but the party may be lousy with high half-elves. Game fun. I should probably turn off cross-save for now because it keeps getting stuck and the PS5 version is not out. I'm happy enough right now to be just non-committal and lose five minutes of progress. May finally be capable of pushing past 80 minutes in a single Dungeons and Dragons video game playthrough.
Can't remember something I had no awareness of! Looking into this...
Thought these stats from Larian on player choices were interesting.
Here's one graph:
I kind of wonder if Cleric is so low because Shadowheart was so heavily featured in promotional materials, and so many people who wanted to use her avoided a player-character Cleric.
Here's one graph:
I kind of wonder if Cleric is so low because Shadowheart was so heavily featured in promotional materials, and so many people who wanted to use her avoided a player-character Cleric.
Slight PSA, Hotfix 4 went live around 12:30 in the afternoon PDT, and they had to roll it back a few hours later so if you started playing and made progress before the rollback happened your new saves are currently incompatible.
I'm also finding that it's difficult to outright miss the best stuff. In my first game, the wife and I kinda blitzed through our first visit to Emerald Grove, talking to only a fraction of the NPCs there. At least two conversations we missed (Auntie Ethel and the grumpy merc who gives you the Nightsong quest) were thrown into our path while exploring outside instead. I only realized the game had done this when I replayed that section more thoroughly and was like "wait, this conversation seems familiar--oh."
Edited to add, though unrelated: The game has been praised for its polish at release, but it still lives in the general sphere of "very complex game that's going to need a lot of patches". In 35 hours of playtime all in the relatively early game, I've run into quest NPCs turning noninteractive and thus failing to advance their story, scenes getting stuck in cinematic mode requiring save and reload to regain the HUD, clipping out of bounds when I attempted to break through a damaged wall, and more. Save early, save often!
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