Octopus Overlords

I found the exit to the EA, but it warns you that it is, so I avoided it for more exploration.

One disappointment: By the time you get some decent scratch, there doesn't seem to be any merchants to use. There are other items you can loot though.

Yes! It is possible to create your own custom party of 4:

Take Steam offline.
Create a multiplayer Lan game, but don't venture forth.
Without exiting, start 3 more multiplayer games NOT using the desktop shortcut, run the executable on your C drive.
Join the Lan multiplayer game on each instance.
Roll your 4 characters then venture forth in all 4 games.
Save the game, then exit all 4 instances.
Restart the game and load your saved game - you now control all 4 characters.

This will be ultra sweet once you can roll your own stats. I imagine you can still invite NPC's to your party, but you would need to make room for them by leaving someone at the camp.

Edit to add: If you create a custom party of 4, you cannot have any NPC's join your party, because you can't dismiss any party members. At this point a custom party of 3 is probably the way to go so you can swap NPC's in and out.

Patch 4 came out this week. As I understand it, this should be the last patch during early access that will require a huge (~38G) download.

Among other things, it brings a new character class:

Max Peck wrote: ↑Sat Feb 27, 2021 10:08 am Patch 4 came out this week. As I understand it, this should be the last patch during early access that will require a huge (~38G) download.

Among other things, it brings a new character class:

I watched a couple vids on this and I'm actually very interested in this class. Never once played a druid, but they piqued my attention. I actually Uninstaller the game for now as I just wanted to see how it looked, but I haven't played since it was only a few weeks into early release. Looking forward to the other classes...hope they have a badass monk.

Speaking mostly from tabletop experience (which nonetheless influences how I play CRPGs) I've always found druids cool mechanically, but a pain in the ass to get into unless you're playing a campaign designed with them in mind. Political trouble in town! My rogue sees an opportunity to profit. My paladin sees an opportunity to ensure that justice is done. My fighter sees a chance to make connections. My cleric sees a chance to push his goddess's agenda. My druid cares... why?

Since Im not interested in the turn based style of this one I just bought Icewind Dale Enhanced Edition for $4 on fanatical.

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Mon Mar 01, 2021 5:57 pm Speaking mostly from tabletop experience (which nonetheless influences how I play CRPGs) I've always found druids cool mechanically, but a pain in the ass to get into unless you're playing a campaign designed with them in mind. Political trouble in town! My rogue sees an opportunity to profit. My paladin sees an opportunity to ensure that justice is done. My fighter sees a chance to make connections. My cleric sees a chance to push his goddess's agenda. My druid cares... why?

Climate change, natch.

Anonymous Bosch wrote: ↑Tue Mar 02, 2021 6:59 pm

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Mon Mar 01, 2021 5:57 pm Speaking mostly from tabletop experience (which nonetheless influences how I play CRPGs) I've always found druids cool mechanically, but a pain in the ass to get into unless you're playing a campaign designed with them in mind. Political trouble in town! My rogue sees an opportunity to profit. My paladin sees an opportunity to ensure that justice is done. My fighter sees a chance to make connections. My cleric sees a chance to push his goddess's agenda. My druid cares... why?

Climate change, natch.

Because inevitably, whatever those short-sighted city dwellers are up to, they are going to cause bad things to happen to the natural surroundings around the town. Such as climate change, species extinction, pollution, keep dumping their poisoned politicians/problem people in the woods where animals are eating them and in turn getting poisoned, etc.

But they are often very mechanically cool! Liked them in 3rd and liking them (Circle of the Moon) in 5th ed. Wasn't so crazy about them in 4th though. There I rather liked the Warden.

For some reason, I'm obsessed with a 5th ed Rogue/Ranger mechanically. Just feels like the potential to roll a LOT of dice for damage - backstab, Hunter's mark, Colossal slayer, get to 5th level as Ranger for 2 attacks. I'm sure there are more optimal damage builds out there, but seriously, how many can roll more dice than that every round they hit in combat?

If I wasn't tanking in both campaigns I'm in (playing the same Hill Dwarf Druid in both, just different levels), I'd go for the Ranger/Rogue again.

Zenn7 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 02, 2021 10:15 pm

Anonymous Bosch wrote: ↑Tue Mar 02, 2021 6:59 pm

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Mon Mar 01, 2021 5:57 pm Speaking mostly from tabletop experience (which nonetheless influences how I play CRPGs) I've always found druids cool mechanically, but a pain in the ass to get into unless you're playing a campaign designed with them in mind. Political trouble in town! My rogue sees an opportunity to profit. My paladin sees an opportunity to ensure that justice is done. My fighter sees a chance to make connections. My cleric sees a chance to push his goddess's agenda. My druid cares... why?

Climate change, natch.

Because inevitably, whatever those short-sighted city dwellers are up to, they are going to cause bad things to happen to the natural surroundings around the town. Such as climate change, species extinction, pollution, keep dumping their poisoned politicians/problem people in the woods where animals are eating them and in turn getting poisoned, etc.

But they are often very mechanically cool! Liked them in 3rd and liking them (Circle of the Moon) in 5th ed. Wasn't so crazy about them in 4th though. There I rather liked the Warden.

For some reason, I'm obsessed with a 5th ed Rogue/Ranger mechanically. Just feels like the potential to roll a LOT of dice for damage - backstab, Hunter's mark, Colossal slayer, get to 5th level as Ranger for 2 attacks. I'm sure there are more optimal damage builds out there, but seriously, how many can roll more dice than that every round they hit in combat?

If I wasn't tanking in both campaigns I'm in (playing the same Hill Dwarf Druid in both, just different levels), I'd go for the Ranger/Rogue again.

One of my favorite characters (disclaimer, I've really only played original--->3rd edition) was a monk. High wisdom and dex gives them the same armor class as half plate while wearing nothing at all, they always have their weapons with them, they gain benefits almost on par with a prestige class damn near every level, and they can double as a scout or even a tank if you plan them out.

So, I did something I almost never do and picked up the Early Access version of BG3 yesterday. I was immediately reminded of why I never do that.

So far:
- I've been hit with a gamebreaking bug where the physics engine went completely bonkers as I was looting a corpse, causing it to spin and stretch out across the passage I had to go down to exit the area.
- I zoomed out to get a better view of combat then was completely unable to zoom back in.
- Enabling edge scrolling in the options wouldn't apply.
- The game wouldn't register my hits on one of the Imps in the very first battle (I kept hitting it and it was showing damage, but it's HP bar never moved).
- The frame rate drops to single digits anytime there was a scripted action that initiated a dialog, such as when I interacted with the Intellect Devourer or I meet the other party member.

This all happened within the first 30 minutes, mind you. I think I'll just put this one back on the shelf until it's done.

Wow, that's unfortunate. I have been playing virtually bug-free since early access started.

Two of my IRL friends have been playing with no issues as well. My issues seem to be the exception, but the problems all appear to be issues with the game itself, not with my system.

I may restart and give it one more try. Maybe a specific combination of things on that toon was causing issues...I dunno.

Stop running Chaos Mage.

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Mon Apr 26, 2021 2:33 pm Stop running Chaos Mage.

EDIT: Rerolled another toon and gave it another 30 minutes. Still heaps of bugs, so I refunded.

Will give it another look when it's actually released.

I have restarted many times, and my first order of business is to get some decent gear, so it somewhat devolves into a pickpocket sim. I hope they don't nerf that in the final release. Some merchant pockets can't be picked, so I just loot the vulnerable ones, and sell their stuff back to them.

Minimum required specs have dropped since I last checked.

MINIMUM:
Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: Windows 7 SP1 64-bit
Processor: Intel i5-4690 / AMD FX 4350
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: Nvidia GTX 780 / AMD Radeon R9 280X
DirectX: Version 11
Storage: 150 GB available space
Additional Notes: Default API is Vulkan 1.1. Directx11 API also provided. The minimum requirements might decrease over the course of Early Access, as performance improves.

They lured me back in with a new area and and new class (scorcerer). They are up to patch 19 now. The new area is very deep into the game (where the early access previously ended), but there may be a shortcut IIRC. I like how they re-did the dice roll animation with a sweet 20 sided die and your modifiers below it. This is a slow roll out if there ever was one.

Jolor wrote: ↑Wed Apr 28, 2021 1:52 pm Minimum required specs have dropped since I last checked.

MINIMUM:
Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: Windows 7 SP1 64-bit
Processor: Intel i5-4690 / AMD FX 4350
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: Nvidia GTX 780 / AMD Radeon R9 280X
DirectX: Version 11
Storage: 150 GB available space
Additional Notes: Default API is Vulkan 1.1. Directx11 API also provided. The minimum requirements might decrease over the course of Early Access, as performance improves.

Doh! I wonder what will happen if I try to play it with my GTX 760? I do have 16GB of RAM, FWIW, and a much newer CPU (relative to my GPU): i5-8400 2.8GHz

Im using a 760 at the moment too. Thought about a replay of the first two. Wouldn't even consider a stab at 3.

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Fri Jan 21, 2022 3:30 pm

Jolor wrote: ↑Wed Apr 28, 2021 1:52 pm Minimum required specs have dropped since I last checked.

MINIMUM:
Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: Windows 7 SP1 64-bit
Processor: Intel i5-4690 / AMD FX 4350
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: Nvidia GTX 780 / AMD Radeon R9 280X
DirectX: Version 11
Storage: 150 GB available space
Additional Notes: Default API is Vulkan 1.1. Directx11 API also provided. The minimum requirements might decrease over the course of Early Access, as performance improves.

Doh! I wonder what will happen if I try to play it with my GTX 760? I do have 16GB of RAM, FWIW, and a much newer CPU (relative to my GPU): i5-8400 2.8GHz

Usually, CPU requirements are way harder to dodge than GPU ones, so you should be fine. "Minimum" means something different to each studio.

Not that impressed with the scorcerer class, but maybe I just don't know how to play them. I just play like a wizard and rarely something wild, good or bad, happens. I do have one big disappointment though. I gathered up a lot of the best equipment at level 4, but I wanted to ding 5 before going to Grymforge. I killed everything in the world but couldn't level up. Finally I looked it up and there is a level cap of 4 in early access.

So this will definitely be my last playthrough until full release.

Jaymann wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 1:53 am Not that impressed with the scorcerer class, but maybe I just don't know how to play them. I just play like a wizard and rarely something wild, good or bad, happens. I do have one big disappointment though. I gathered up a lot of the best equipment at level 4, but I wanted to ding 5 before going to Grymforge. I killed everything in the world but couldn't level up. Finally I looked it up and there is a level cap of 4 in early access.

So this will definitely be my last playthrough until full release.

I'm avoiding the pre-release, but I can give you some tabletop perspective.

It sounds like their sorcerer has the Wild Mage bloodline. That means that they lack control for some reason. Maybe they're the classic 'untrained' caster and a burst of emotion results in something unexpected, or maybe there's something 'wrong' with them that causes their magic to be uncontrollable.

There are three full arcane casters in D&D 5e. Warlock, Wizard, and Sorcerer. Warlocks are their own thing, and very dependent on their patron, so I'm skipping them.

Wizards everyone knows - carefully trained, Vancian 'cast and forget' magic memorized each day, etc. Their strength is in the huge range of spells they have access to - they can end up with hundreds - but they have to prepare them in advance, long before they're needed. In the tabletop version they also have access to a special way to cast spells that don't need to be prepared and don't count against their limit, but take a long time to cast such that they're useless in combat (rituals - think Detect Magic or Comprehend Languages for free, but it takes ten-plus minutes to cast.)

Sorcerers are natural casters, usually without any training. They have far fewer spells (10th lever sorcerer knows 11 spells, 10th level wiz knows 24 plus any he's been able to buy, borrow, or loot up to that point), but their strength is that 1) they can cast any spell they know without preparing them, and don't forget them (where a level 10 wizard can, if prepared to do so in advance, cast 1st level Grease 4 times, a 10th level sorcerer could cast it 20 times without having to plan that in advance), and 2) they can manipulate the spells they have on the fly. They can take that attack spell and double its range, or increase the damage, or drop an explosion into a group of combatants that leaves 'gaps' where all of their friends are, cast two spells at in one turn, or double-cast the same spell (you get to affect two targets), make a spell last longer, change damage types (so that lightning bolt causes fire damage to the troll), etc.

In practice they play very, very differently. Sorcerers have a lot of depth, wizards a lot of breadth. Sorcerers can adapt to any situation on the fly, but have fewer choices in how they handle it. Wizards have far more choices, but have to be prepared for what they'll face in advance, and aren't very versatile beyond that.

As I said, though, I don't know how any of this was implemented in the game.

Yeah, I chose the wild mage bloodline because it sounded interesting. There is also a "cold" dragon option. There is a helm that doubles your magic missile damage, that is my go to since it never misses. I think for my eventual playthrough I will be going with Warlock.

Played it for about a week or so at the start, but I didn't get very far by design. I love me some monk class, but I'm seeing mixed messages about BG3. Is there a monk class, it's just not in the early release? When I played it last there wasn't one, but like I said, I only played it when it was first early released before I shut it down.

I would assume that there will be a monk class. There is also currently no paladin option (my usual goody-two-shoes silver tongued main character choice).

Hamlet3145 wrote: ↑Thu Jan 27, 2022 1:20 pm I would assume that there will be a monk class. There is also currently no paladin option (my usual goody-two-shoes silver tongued main character choice).

Nice. I used to play every game with a paladin, as well. It used to appeal to my better nature. Now that I've had kids, I've had a slight change of heart...now I just want to either punch things to death or hide in the shadows and just shoot things with a bow and arrow...

So, is this game is going to have a firm 1.0 release date? Or will it be a rolling series of improvements forever and ever?

I typically steer clear of EA games, especially big "epic" RPG's. Since story, characters, and worldbuilding are the most important parts of an RPG for me, I don't want to start a story that is either unfinished or buggy. I also don't typically enjoy playing large sections of games over and over again.

I haven't paid a ton of attention to the myriad incremental updates, and am curious if there has been any sort of stake put in the ground for a full release. TIA

Hyena wrote: ↑Thu Jan 27, 2022 1:29 pm

Now that I've had kids, I've had a slight change of heart...now I just want to either punch things to death or hide in the shadows and just shoot things with a bow and arrow...


[/quote]

With the changes to spellcasting in 5e, with everyone casting like an Arcanist, the sorcerer was really done dirty in comparison to the wizard, especially the non-Tasha's bloodline.

I have determined what I think is the best party for me (you can start a multiplayer game then start another instance and join your own game to create multiple characters):

2 Rangers, both with heavy armor, one with dual wield, one with 2-hander expertise. Both take healing so you don't need a cleric.

Pick up Astarion for a Rogue.

Pick up Wyll for a Warlock.

The quickest way to the Underdark:

For those interested, Larian is presenting a Panel from Hell in a little over an hour, presumably to announce Patch 7. Speculation is there will be new class(s). Barbarian? Monk? And possibly increasing the level cap to 5.

Jaymann wrote: ↑Tue Feb 15, 2022 12:44 pm For those interested, Larian is presenting a Panel from Hell in a little over an hour, presumably to announce Patch 7. Speculation is there will be new class(s). Barbarian? Monk? And possibly increasing the level cap to 5.

Watching this now. Reminds me what Richard Garriott used to do and would be dong today if he was still into games. Fun and sad at the same time to me. Wish more devs were so into their games. At the same time I miss Origin Systems and Lord British and his games.

EDIT: hahaha the first barbarian was great.

EDIT2: The devs know what they're doing as stuff like this makes even me want to play their game.

It's funny when I know how to play the game better than the developers. Looks like the new patch has Barbarian class, some new items including set items, and some UI improvements. I am still watching the video for an announcement of when patch 7 goes live.

It is live now - well done!

For some reason I thought this game came out months ago. But he is saying 2023 now. So a 4 year development cycle.

You might be thinking of Solasta. It's the other D&D 5E game that was announced at about the same time as BG3, and it's full release was back in May 2021.

Got the patch. Unsurprisingly I got a "no servers available" message. So I turned Steam to offline mode and it fired right up.

I finally got some of the new items. I can tall they are new because they are not listed on the wiki. However I have a hunch it will be like DOS II where you strive to get all the best items in Act 1 only to find they get eclipsed in Act 2.

The Barbarian is sweet, but not earth shattering. Plus the level cap is still 4.

So giving some thought to picking up Baldur's Gate 3. I had been waiting for the full game to launch, but Google tells me that probably won't happen until 2023.

So what's the current state of the game? If I buy it, roughly how much game time is there before I hit the end of the Early Access version? Would there be any issues with going from that to the full version once it is ready, or might I need to start over at that point?

El Guapo wrote: ↑Tue Apr 26, 2022 9:59 am So giving some thought to picking up Baldur's Gate 3. I had been waiting for the full game to launch, but Google tells me that probably won't happen until 2023.

So what's the current state of the game? If I buy it, roughly how much game time is there before I hit the end of the Early Access version? Would there be any issues with going from that to the full version once it is ready, or might I need to start over at that point?

There is a lot of content available, though it is all considered Act 1. If you exhaust everything there is as much play time as some shorter games. There are several different approaches, for example going evil or: but those did not much appeal to me. I think it is worth it at this point, but you can probably be assured you will have to start from scratch at full release, inasmuch as major patches have not been compatible with previous versions.

Community Update #16: Of Valour and Lore

The next time someone quotes to you from that famous old adage, "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me," grab hold of their lapels and ask:
“But what if those words were spoken by a Bard?”

Hello again, friends! I come to you today with a fresh Community Update to ring in the release of our latest patch, Patch #8: Of Valour and Lore. As you may have already gleaned from the title, today’s update introduces a playable class: Bards!

Whether they’re spitting pithy one-liners on the frontlines of combat, or inspiring your party with instrumental buffs from the sidelines, Bards are a powerful class to have in your party - a jack-of-all-trades who can cast powerful spells with just a melody, wield cutting insults as if they were weapons, and potentially kill a man with a pun about his scrotum.

But a new class isn’t all you have to look forward to in this update. Today’s patch notes are an eye-watering 19 pages-long, and features countless improvements and fixes alongside a new playable Gnome race, a major upgrade to the pace of combat, musical instruments, fresh hairstyles and colours, and much more.

Patch Notes

HIGHLIGHTS

• Bard class with College of Lore and College of Valour subclasses.
• Musical instruments, usable by any class with the Performer feat at Level 4.
• Playable gnomes with three subraces: rock gnomes, forest gnomes, and deep gnomes. Gnomes start with Gnome Cunning and +2 Intelligence. Added gnome reactivity to dialogues and situations.
• Ranged critical hits now have combat cameras!
• Baldur’s Gate 3 is now playable in Brazilian Portuguese - vamo nessa!
• New spells: Calm Emotions, Enthral, Heroism, Phantasmal Force, and Vicious Mockery. Bards, try out Cutting Words, Song of Rest, and a new tadpole power.
• New hair-shading model, upgraded hairstyles, and all 66 hairstyles are now available to every race and body type.*
• Added hair highlights.
• Added grey hair.
• Swarm AI, which bands together minor creatures so that they move at the same time and take quick turns to attack. Fighting numerous enemies should now be smoother and faster.*
• Rogues can access Expertise at Level 1.*
• Use a shovel to dig up treasures and secrets throughout Act 1.
• Sustained emotion acting in cinematics. New facial animations allow characters to continue emoting realistically while you make decisions in dialogue.
• Cinematic acting for background characters, who now react to the drama unfolding in dialogues.
• Elves are now a uniquely animated race.
• Detect Thoughts rework - cast it from within dialogues!
• Committing crimes now triggers a new type of cinematic dialogue.
• Sunlight through clouds has a bigger effect on shadows and lighting, and gameplay now more closely aligns with the in-game light and dark areas.
• Revamped lighting across Act 1.
• Implemented sound occlusion to simulate the behaviour of sounds coming from other rooms and behind doors.
• Introduced auditory attenuation. Dynamic audio-mixing features enhance immersion by focusing on your actions and selecting the most important elements of the soundscape.
• Added 10 new skin colours to character creation.
• Updated Gale’s face and hair.
• Displayed class passive features in the Character Sheet.*
• Redesigned the movement bar.
• Implemented the first phase of our networking improvements: players with slower and less reliable internet connections should see improvements to stability and lag in multiplayer.
• Implemented support for Nvidia DLAA as an anti-aliasing alternative.
• Extensive UI updates.
• Low-spec PCs no longer become unresponsive and fail to load assets when loading save files.
• You can now cast Mage Hand with an active summoned familiar.*
• Short Rest can now heal Ranger’s Companions and familiars.
• Creatures summoned with Ranger's Companion and Find Familiar now remain with the party after a Long Rest.*