|OT| Baldur's Gate 3 |OT| A bearly exciting adventure

[kio]

I know I have a potato PC but act 3 runs really badly right?
The outdoor city is bringing it to it's knees, low 20's sometimes... I could lower settings a bit but the truth is they're already almost at minimum at this point.

 

[Arc]

I have an old PC as well and yeah it's real bad. Turning off dynamic crowds helped somewhat, but it's simply too much for my PC. I have to wonder how in god's name it would run on Steam Deck.

 

[Joe Spangle]

At a glance you are only missing Lae'Zel. Though I fucking hope your bard guy is

Spoiler

Volo

and I didn't miss a bard !

Do you use the barbarian ? She is so nice, her argumentative skills with a two handed sword is always warming my heart.

yeah i think that was his name. Hes left my camp.

Do you mean the devil woman with the heart thing? i use her, great character.

 

[Panda Pedinte]

the video should be timestamped to the best part.

 

[kio]

Goddamit Lae'zel...... Is it possible to leave you alone for 5min without you screwing everything?

Early-ish act 3 spoiler

I wonder if the abducted party member is random...

 

[didamangi]

Goddamit Lae'zel...... Is it possible to leave you alone for 5min without you screwing everything?

Early-ish act 3 spoiler

I wonder if the abducted party member is random...

I would guess it's random. If she's in your active party, it would have to be somebody else.

But it's her for me as well.

 

[Panda Pedinte]

Goddamit Lae'zel...... Is it possible to leave you alone for 5min without you screwing everything?

Early-ish act 3 spoiler

I wonder if the abducted party member is random...

She also 2as abducted in my playtrough though I reloaded the save and I'm doing other quests before venturing into the sewers as that was the trigger that made Orin appear as her

 

[LEANIJA]

I havent played much at all yet, and to be honest, the camera and movement method kinda annoys me. Direct control is possible with a controller, so why not with M+KB? Thankfully I noticed there is a mod (or rather: a combination of 3 mods are necessary) for this already I havent tried it out yet, but this is what it looks like in action .. I will try these out tomorrow



and these are the mods in question:

WASD Character Movement

Explore Faerûn in an immersive Third-Person-View and use WASD to move your Heroes.

www.nexusmods.com

Native Camera Tweaks

they depend on this:

Native Mod Loader

This is NativeModLoader, used to load any native dll plugins within bin\NativeMods\ folder.

www.nexusmods.com

---

Meanwhile, here's my character:

 

[MonthOLDpickle]

Barely playing this (family share plus the movement sucks ass) and wondering if one would multi class and if so when?

I just got level two on my warlock. I played some sorcerer and got those spell points which is niicce. I would gain them in my warlock if I get sorcerer to level 2 I think but then what do I more out on for late end warlock?

 

[Panda Pedinte]

Shadowheart act 3 quest spoilers

the fight against Viconia and the Shar's followers was the hardest fight in the game so far. Tried it a lot of time until i finally managed to beat it.

In the end I said the choice between killing or freeing her parents was on her to decide.

 

[Li Kao]

Yeah the worst part of the game is probably the UI, not a trashfire but weak.
On a secondary level, I’m really not convinced by Larian translation of d&d rules into the interface. To be fair it works, but it takes time getting used to the shit ton of tiny icons and the shortcuts with a live of their own.
On a primary wtf burn it with fire for the love of god, why do I always have to click 2-3 times on a portrait to effectively select it ?

And party management. I don’t want to talk about party management. I might have an aneurysm.

 

[Joe Spangle]

For me inventory management is ridiculous with a controller. Find it difficult to sort, difficult to compare items, lots of little bugs like pop ups displaying over other pop ups, the sort by option doesnt always work for some categories. What things do i need to keep and what can i get rid of, its not very clear. I'm sure that the second ring slot isn't working, i go to put one in there and it swaps out the first. Also the fans in my pc seem to ramp up to top level when in the inventory screen so i tend to try and get out of it asap. The whole party system doesnt really do it for me, they are walking into traps and being stupid. Also dont like that it doesnt pause when i press......pause. Im playing offline or single player, i want it to pause.

Non of this makes me want to stop playing though. Its a great enjoyable story game.

 

[Li Kao]

Oh totally, I have a long list of issues with the game, but it's still incredible.

Now one fucking monkey paw for the modern age 'we dub everything'. I'm sorry Larian but your characters talk... normally. It's cool until you have to follow the subs, which are dubiously timed. My solution, give me an option to confirm every dialog. I know, it would be a slog. But I also know it would be a QOL improvement in my house.
Me, I obviously don't suffer too much, but my mother who loves to look at crpg alongside me has insta dropped the game. She never has time to finish reading a line before the new one. It's fucking sad to have someone give up for a reason like that.

 

[Arc]

Took ~81 hours and I by no means saw everything. While I had some issues, even outside of technical stuff, it's a top tier experience and one of the best games of the year in one filled with bangers. Gonna put it on the back burner for a good long while and replay it at some point.

 

[bobnowhere]

Goddamit Lae'zel...... Is it possible to leave you alone for 5min without you screwing everything?

Early-ish act 3 spoiler

I wonder if the abducted party member is random...

I think it is, it was Halsin for me.

 

[Durante]

Yeah the worst part of the game is probably the UI, not a trashfire but weak.

Lol.

I think I'm just completely out of touch with what people want in a CRPG interface. Further up in the thread someone posted about how to get WASD movement, and now this, and it's just the exact opposite of my experience.

In fact, I was playing the game up until 20 minutes ago, and in that co-op session I specifically talked about just how good the UI of the game is with my friend. (This is why I laughed when right after that session I read this comment)

It's the first "AAA" RPG game I've played in a long while which actually has what I'd consider a really good MKB controls. Lot's of information on screen, good filtering and sorting support, multi- and range-select in the inventory, a way to look at your entire party character sheets at one glance, customizable and sufficently large hotbar, ...
My only issues with the interface is that it doesn't show the camera frustum in the minimap, and in some battles with very large vertical distances you don't get enough camera control over the Y position.

 

[Li Kao]

Here is what comes to mind, I can doubtlessly think about many more. You are obviously not forced to read through my shit.

No way that I know how to access your character sheet when leveling, leading to canceling the process to check this or that.
You use an object with a special windows to put something in, the inventory cover 3/4 of said windows when opened.
Those secondary windows can be fiddly to move in the case of the camp chest, as the title bar where you click to move a windows is used to rename it.
Most windows don’t remember resizing.
Keys go into the keyring, unless when they don’t.
Orders are strangely handled. If you tell the team to go somewhere and change selected character, everyone stop. On the other hand I already had several occurrences of changing my mind but god in heaven the characters won’t stop.
The camera only generally follows the action, I’m used to move it around when an enemy plays by now.
No way to adjust the camera‘s height, the little thing does her best but sometimes she clearly can’t do enough.
Having to talk to the teammate you don’t want in the team anymore is clownshoes.
As a result, do not, I repeat, do not find yourself in a situation where you have to sort through the inventories of multiple non active characters.
Having the ability to lock your shortcut bar is nice, now if only the game wasn’t perpetually adding shit to it I don’t need, like every potion I loot.
Would be cool if the icons in the bar had an order that makes sense and not be the far west with sudden holes in it when you lose an ability.
The touch to highlight objects is great, until you realize it doesn’t highlight all objects.

No idea if I should have wrote UI like I did, maybe UX, I don’t know, but we clearly are not using the same one.

 

[Dandy]

I'm finally back to Act III! Not quite caught up to where I was, but close.

 

[Durante]

I mean, I see all the issues you have (I even specifically wrote about the Y axis adjustment of the camera as well), I just feel like most of them are really minor and due to its strengths the overall interface is still significantly better than pretty much any other big budget RPG I've played recently.

The facts that I can conveniently and quickly sort, filter and multi-select in the inventory, and easily look at all the information, character sheets, spellbooks and inventories of my entire party in one screen is just so much better than most other systems. I also really like that they have a consistent method for making tooltips/hovers "sticky" so you can transitively follow links in them to other tooltips.

 

[Li Kao]

Yesterday I read on another forum that BG3 was mature, and, well ok, violence and an hint of sex, sure. Not losing sleep over it.
Larian, today : let us introduce our new character,

Spoiler

Balthazar

Goddamn

 

[Amzin]

You can change what automatically gets added to hotbars in the gameplay options, to some degree. The controller UI is sort of OK but anything with the inventory or trying to get a specific thing off the ground really suffers, it's a bit misleading because the game feels fine with a controller for the first hour or two until things get complicated.

The vertical camera / camera choosing to reveal/not reveal inside buildings is a real issue for sure. I've had to do weird spinning around and clicking through walls to move to the other side of a normal ass door, or conversely to climb up some boxes onto a roof.
Also the companion pathfinding is just nothing, the fact there's no stopping or trying to move around for traps they see themselves or active fires or anything is just baffling.
Using bags or chests (in camp) with inventory management is way more annoying than it should be. Did they really think people would just not use those things except to loot from? Because that's the only way that interface seems to make sense.

The things that are annoying / problematic to interact with are the more glaring for everything else that works well, but also because it's usually something you're going to do hundreds of times.

 

[didamangi]

Welp, my 8700k struggles hard on Act 3. Stuttering all over the place. Luckily it's a CRPG, I can stomach it.

I wish in camp I can equip and see the inventory of all my party members. That would make switching equipment a whole lot easier since I do switch parties numerous times to do their respective quest.

 

[kio]

I've just reached max level and, by my estimations, there's still 50% of act 3 left to explore. Should be fun bullying fools around.

 

[Joe Spangle]

Whats the max level?

 

[LEANIJA]

Whats the max level?

12

 

[Arc]

 

[Hektor]

 

[Dandy]

So yeah... I fucked a mindflayer.

Spoiler

It just sort of... happened?

 

[didamangi]

It just sort of... happened?

 

[Paul]

Is there a way to sort actions/potions/scrolls etc in some sensical manner automatically on the controller radial menus?
I have million scrolls and potions and elixirs and what not and the radial menus are messy as hell, even something as stupid as putting healing potions next to each other automatically would help. I know I can (I guess) sort them manually one item at a time, but that sounds like 5 hours of busy work. This shit should be automatic FFS

 

[kio]

I wish I could tell my past self to steal more scrolls, I used those skills to get all the weapons and armor I wanted but having a limited spell pool in late game is kinda sucky.

Is there a way to sort actions/potions/scrolls etc in some sensical manner automatically on the controller radial menus?
I have million scrolls and potions and elixirs and what not and the radial menus are messy as hell, even something as stupid as putting healing potions next to each other automatically would help. I know I can (I guess) sort them manually one item at a time, but that sounds like 5 hours of busy work. This shit should be automatic FFS

Sorting by type in your inventory doesn't sort them in the radial menu?

 

[Joe Spangle]

I'm getting seriously bad frame rate issues now, It was terrible in the fight at the end of Act 2, drops down to single digits. I have a decent system so wasn't expecting it to get this bad. Playing today and its getting worse, so much so i might drop the game. Really frustrating.

 

[didamangi]

I'm getting seriously bad frame rate issues now, It was terrible in the fight at the end of Act 2, drops down to single digits. I have a decent system so wasn't expecting it to get this bad. Playing today and its getting worse, so much so i might drop the game. Really frustrating.

 

[Joe Spangle]

Hmmm, thats an interesting vid, cheers. It seems like my i7-12700k which i thought was a pretty decent cpu still might not be up to the task then. I still dont think i should be getting drops down to single digits.

 

[didamangi]

Hmmm, thats an interesting vid, cheers. It seems like my i7-12700k which i thought was a pretty decent cpu still might not be up to the task then. I still dont think i should be getting drops down to single digits.

Yeah, that shouldn't happened. Have you tried disabling the e-cores? Might worth a try. Or switching to Vulkan/DX11?

Even my 8700k doesnt reach single digits in Act 3.

 

[Dandy]

Act III has so much going on. It's kind of overwhelming!

 

[Panda Pedinte]

Act III has so much going on. It's kind of overwhelming!

That's how I'm feeling about it and I already completed some quests there and reached lvl 12. So far I still need to:

• Kill Orin and Gortarch
• Continue with the githyanki plot line about freeing Orpheus
• Searching for the "sea monster"
• Freeing Wyll's father
• Discover what's going on with Misnc and why he is with the Absolute
• The Nightsong plot
• Finding the rest of parts of poor Dribbles.

 

[Dandy]

That's how I'm feeling about it and I already completed some quests there and reached lvl 12. So far I still need to:

• Kill Orin and Gortarch
• Continue with the githyanki plot line about freeing Orpheus
• Searching for the "sea monster"
• Freeing Wyll's father
• Discover what's going on with Misnc and why he is with the Absolute
• The Nightsong plot
• Finding the rest of parts of poor Dribbles.

Your to-do list lines up with mine, though I haven't got a quest to find a sea monster yet so I guess that's another thing to find. I also haven't even tried to go to the 3rd city zone yet.

Big Act III Spoiler

I just kicked Sarevok's ass. Was not expecting to run into him when I started investigating the serial killer. That was a good fight, though much easier on the second attempt when I realized how vulnerable he was to CC - Tasha's Hideous Laughter landed every time and I just kept him out of the fight while I cleared the room. Then I unleashed Karlach on him while Gale and me ran away.

I dinged level 12 off the fight too!

 

[Li Kao]

The warning screen just before the end of Shar's temple is making me hesitate. Not sure if I shouldn't pursue other quests first as it says the game world could change.

 

[didamangi]

The warning screen just before the end of Shar's temple is making me hesitate. Not sure if I shouldn't pursue other quests first as it says the game world could change.

There's a few quest that will end automatically (and badly) if you finished shar's temple before finishing them.

 

[kio]

You know what? BG3 really sets a new standard going forward!
From now on I won't accept boss themes without the boss VA also singing in it.

 

[Dandy]

Cleared out a few more sidequests in Act III today:

Astarion:

Spoiler

I really enjoyed the boss fight, and the conversations with Astarion at the end, and the cinematics were fucking amazing(Astarion getting sucked into the ritual, Astarion going nuts on his master). The rest of the quest was a bit disappointing in the story department, though the castle looked cool. I wish I could've interacted with Astarion's fellow vampire spawn to learn more about him. Instead it was like 1 normal fight + 1 boss fight, and that's it.

Shadowheart:

Spoiler

This boss fight was ROUGH. So many enemies at once, and they spammed Darkness and de-buffs and Bonechill the whole time. I used summoned Planar Allies and Elementals and Spiritual Weapons in order to keep the mob of enemies off me, while Gale did his best to stay out of the fight so he could spam Sunbeam(holy shit I love that spell!) and Karlach did her thing. I had guessed the "familiar face" before then, but it was still good to see her again... even if it was just to beat the snot out of her.

My Plan for the rest of Act III:
Now that I have most of the obvious side quests taken care of, I have to tackle the main story stuff. I really hate trying to guess how what order I do these things in is going to mess things up, but here is what I am going to do.

Spoiler

1. Take out the foundry.
2. Rescue Wyll's dad.
3. Kill Gortash, cause I assume he's going to be pissed about the first 2 items on the list.
4. Kill Orin. Hopefully Lae'zel will still be alive.

Somewhere in there I need to go after Raphael as well, I think? I have stuff to do a ritual that will take me to his base, but the Emperor freaked out when I got it, saying Raphael is too strong or something.

Edit: Oh! I also rescued Minsc, saved the Artist from Act I(wow that haunted house was a pain in the ass to move through)! and took out Auntie Ethel for the(hopefully!) final time.

 

[Li Kao]

It's too hot to sleep. Well, I can deal with it

 

[Li Kao]

7 am ! But I just played for a moment !? How ?

 

[Joe Spangle]

Had an annoying bug yesterday - Mini spoilers for early Act 3

Spoiler

karlach got arrested in part of a quest line and so i went to bust her out. Picked the lock to the cell whilst the roaming guard wasn't around and then made her invisible and just walked out but the game didn't recognise that she was free and so she wouldn't return to the camp and wasn't able to leave the area.
Googling it found other instances of it happening and the advice was to get re-arrested (stole a link of sausages in front of the guard) and then there is a way of escaping and hopefully the game will register her now free. It worked for me.

 

[Dandy]

I've had some weird thievery bugs in Baldur's Gate... I'm hiding in an empty house and steal something, and random townspeople out on the street will warn you from like 25m away, through the walls. Another time, I was robbing a house in the Lower City -- it was totally empty, and I was in sneak mode. An entire conga line of Flaming Fist appeared on the second floor near me, then ran through the entire house at like triple speed and then left. It was bizarre.

 

[kio]

To the one's that finished Astarion's personal quest, are the rewards worth it (item-wise)? I never used him in this playthrough, saving it for an evil at a later date, so if the reward is just story moments that mandate him being in your party I'll just skip it.
I'm also not bothering with other minor side quests in act 3, looking at you collecting body parts quest.

Other than that, by my estimations, to finish the game I need to:

1. Finish Shadowheart's quest
2. Finish Lae'zel's quest
3. Explore the sewers and finish the quests there (main one and Jaheira's)
4. Final area/dungeon????

Finished Karlach's quest the other day and her dialogue after was just brutal.

Spoiler

The actress said she cried her eyes out during those scenes and I can completely understand why, as well as notice it in her voice.

 

[Dandy]

To the one's that finished Astarion's personal quest, are the rewards worth it (item-wise)? I never used him in this playthrough, saving it for an evil at a later date, so if the reward is just story moments that mandate him being in your party I'll just skip it.
I'm also not bothering with other minor side quests in act 3, looking at you collecting body parts quest.

Other than that, by my estimations, to finish the game I need to:

1. Finish Shadowheart's quest
2. Finish Lae'zel's quest
3. Explore the sewers and finish the quests there (main one and Jaheira's)
4. Final area/dungeon????

Finished Karlach's quest the other day and her dialogue after was just brutal.

Spoiler

The actress said she cried her eyes out during those scenes and I can completely understand why, as well as notice it in her voice.

Re: Asarion's quest loot - It is decent.

Spoiler

There is a staff that gives you 1-4 HP anytime someone fails a save, can't be knocked out of your hand, gives you +1 to spell saves/attack rolls, and lets you cast Blight once per long rest.

And there is a dagger that gives a stacking buff everytime you kill an enemy that give up to +3 to hit/damage/spell saves, and also causes Bleeding when you attack from Stealth/Invis.

You also don't have to take him for the quest, though I think he gets pissed if you don't.

Act 3 Karlach

I just killed Gortash, and Karlach's scene was heart-breaking. That and her scene when you first upgrade her heart in Act 2 were so well done. She may be my favorite character. I really hope I can save her in the end.

Gortash Fight

The Gortash fight was hilarious for me. The first time, he literally killed 3 of my party members in 1 turn because of his fucking bombs. On the second try I got lucky and my pack of ghouls Paralyzed him and then I tossed a grenade at him and I think one of the wall things exploded or something because everyone went flying and he was below 50 HP, prone, and paralyzed. Then Karlach stomped him into the ground. He never even got to his 2nd phase!

 

[Panda Pedinte]

I did not have much time to play in the past days but this is what I did:

Act 3 Quest Spoilers

I invaded a bank where I saw Minsc for the first time. He isn't very bright from the little interaction we had with him lol.

I found an abandoned house with a mummy, it tasked me to find one of his servant who ran off. I had already discovered him and I guess the quest bugged because he couldn't talk to me, so I just killed him and delivered the corpse to the mummy. Funny thing is, the zombie had the mummy heart so I guess he's a lich or something like that.

I tried the haunted house, knocked out the painter but there was something dealing force damage to my characters and making them all fall, so I just left that quest for later.

I found a submarine, used deception to make the guy piloting the sub to take me to the Iron Throne (was this a place in the previous games?), I tried to free all of the hostages but I wasn't able as one was killed by a Sahuagin and other two had some trouble with the pathfinding so they didn't reach the sub in time.

After finishing that quest the priestess who tasked me in finding the "sea monster" appeared and I just gave the pilot to her because he was a dick about the followers of that goddess swimming and getting hit by the sub.

While exploring the city a house exploded and to my surprise the crazy drow lady who was in the Moonrise Tower was there, she offered a suspicious potion and I guess my blood is now explosive.

 

[Paul]

What's the deal with the "faceless"

Spoiler

doppleganger

as informed by Gortash, any way to find out who it is?