No chance to play yet, how's it feel???

[inryu13]

I haven't had the chance to play yet, how's it feel in contrast to Early Access guys??? T^T

 

[Antimatter]

I haven't played much yet (lol, as I spent ~8 hours in the character creator), but it's clear the game changed quite a bit. First of all, you get new classes and races, and more choices to create your character from. I've also noticed new dialogue options even in the encounters I remember, so you get more variety in how you can handle them.

 

[O_Bruce]

I want to ask this as well. I probably won't be able to play BG3 until like 2 months or so

 

[mlnevese]

As @Antimatter said a lot of visible changes to the game. I just crash landed the ship and stopped yesterday. The UI does remind me of DOS games but it's to be expected as it is an updated and expanded version of their engine.

There are a few bugs such as the game version number showing up as a watermark on cinematics that will be addressed in a patch. Others got a bug that stops them from saving. I'd say we'll get a patch in a week or less.

 

[OrlonKronsteen]

There are a few bugs such as the game version number showing up as a watermark on cinematics that will be addressed in a patch. Others got a bug that stops them from saving. I'd say we'll get a patch in a week or less.

This, along with the fact that I don’t currently have a computer that can run it, is why I’ll be waiting a couple months to try it. New releases are too damn buggy nowadays.

 

[Cahir]

I played just a couple of hours so far, managed to explore the vicinity of prologue area just a bit, recruited 3 party members and woń couple of exciting fights.

It will be an unique adventure that's for sure, although it does take a lot from Larian's previous game, Divinity: Original Sin 2, but I also noticed couple of nice nods towards BG1/BG2 already (so far small, but it's just a beginning).

I need more time to share more educated opinion, but do far so good!

 

[Antimatter]

I have played for a few more hours (well, 4 hours), and can definitely say some things are changed, there are new items you can find/loot, and this makes exploration rewarding even if I had visited the same areas 3 years ago. Fights are very exciting on the Tactician difficulty (it wasn't present in the Early Access build), make me think hard, and remind me very much of the first meaningful encounters in BG1 where you have to use every possible spell and carefully plan whom to take down first and why.

 

[inryu13]

Ugh sooo busy (. All your replies make me want to drop everything and play it HAHAH. I've been trying to avoid any videos to preserve my novel experience.

I was going thru fextra and there's a hidden Paladin class called Oathbreaker???!?!? It's giving me Dark Knight vibes from ffxiv xD

Paladin | Baldurs Gate 3 Wiki

Paladin is a Class in Baldur's Gate 3. All BG3 Paladin Classes, Subclasses, Features, and level progression guide to make the best possible Paladin.

baldursgate3.wiki.fextralife.com

 

[alice_ashpool]

Hundreds of hours in EA, but I go on holiday for the actual release. Irony life. Will roll up a Monk when I get home in a few days.

 

[mlnevese]

Let me say this is the first computer RPG that implements Paladins the right way, as far as I could see.

So far my paladin has lied to avoid killing innocent people that were just doing their job. If I start a fight unprovoked, using subterfuge or from hiding, I'm an Oath Breaker, as far as the Oath of the Ancients is concerned.

10/10, not lawful stupid

 

[inryu13]

Let me say this is the first computer RPG that implements Paladins the right way, as far as I could see.

So far my paladin has lied to avoid killing innocent people that were just doing their job. If I start a fight unprovoked, using subterfuge or from hiding, I'm an Oath Breaker, as far as the Oath of the Ancients is concerned.

10/10, not lawful stupid

YEAA that sounds so accurate as far as lore goes that sounds so fun to rp o.o

 

[inryu13]

Hundreds of hours in EA, but I go on holiday for the actual release. Irony life. Will roll up a Monk when I get home in a few days.

aw isall good! it'll be there when u get back!

 

[Black Elk]

I had to update my hardware just to play it, so my release date isn't until day after tomorrow lol. Had to break the bank there a bit, alas, but I've been waiting like 3 years and forever before that so I guess I should have seen it coming. I spent the whole last year of EA not even really playing the new content, cause I didn't want to be too jaded on my first full outing, but yeah, kinda steep there for the ticket to ride.

I guess I'm not alone in having to wait haha. The Larian boards have also had an embarrassing number of outages this week. Like I'm getting the 504 right now still, even though I thought they fixed it yesterday. I'm sure they're getting crashed with traffic, sure but I mean we kinda told em they should tend to their forums and feedback and make like an EA clearing house spot that gets the job done there, instead of the maelstrom of steam boards or the warp speed of discord channels. Instead it's like blank spinning wheels during launch week. They should have rolled that out a year ago hehe.

Been lurking the boards pretty hard the past couple days, just to see what they actually delivered for us here in the end. Especially for the character creation process. From what I've seen feels like they still off-loaded a lot onto modders for the replay shelf-life on that front. Like it's probably going to take a year before people make enough heads using edits in Blender or whatever to make me happy. It seems some stuff is gated by Race there, which makes me shrug. What's the point of having faces if you're not going to let us use them right? lol Sour grapes. I have too many probably. I do like how they gave it some more attention in the iconography of the menus there, but it seems like things are still missing that I was almost certain would be included for the full launch. I don't know a new wizards robe here and there ya know was low bar for me, but a lot is just so similar from what I saw in EA. Same faces, same voices, same clothing etc. I mean during those first moments/menus that the player interacts with initially. It's just hard to step into the old magic of trying to bring your own custom character into the game with that charming lvl into the latest iteration. It does annoy me they really never got away from their initial offering of the fab 5 in the first week of EA. I mean for the promotional angle, and just kind spelling out what the game is meant to be. All the new banner art, everything about the re-pitch during this final stop on the hype train, it's all still so reliant on their Origin characters and pre-sets to sell the thing. I guess it's fine, I mean had the character creator been so nuts that you could just lose yourself in that entirely with the custom PCs, but unlike BG1/2 mp mode seems you can't do that here from what I'm hearing about hirelings being lackluster. I feel like in order to play the game I want, I will need to have mods installed. My desire to play the vanilla game after the EA experience is sorta just not really there anymore, cause I feel like they missed a lot of low hanging fruit. But whatever, I'm still eating it I guess. I'm way too hungry! lol



Have fun out there gang!

ps. to the different feel from EA, it does help that they switched out the load screens finally and did the little things like that to give it more polish. For Char creation if you haven't checked it out yet, you can launch all that even not meeting the recommended specs like in EA. You'll get the menus showing the new mini portraits of their companions and such, and the different tabs with previews showing tiny heads/haircuts and the like. For me though when I launch into it, frames dropped off a cliff. I get audio crackle and it stutters and some other stuff like that, pretty rough. Not like EA where could basically run it on low settings and not be too bummed. This one was like, 'oh I guess time to sping for real eh? damn' heheh

 

[Antimatter]

@Black Elk That's so great to hear from you. I also have to play it on a PC that is lower than recommended specs and doesn't have an SSD. Loading takes a lot of time, I guess me not reloading that often helps a bit lol. I agree with the criticism of the character creator you've shared. I think we need to play a game a bit longer but some criticism thread is in order. But the game is overall fun, and I can recommend it.

 

[Cahir]

Ok, here are my (very early) initial expressions after playing some of Act1 (I'm still level 3 with my main character.

PROS:

• The scale: this game is so massive and overwhelming, with so many places to go, so many secrets to uncover, it's just mindblowing. DOS2 already felt big, but this feels like something much more.
• Companions: it's still to early to judge them fully, but the fact that I like all of them more than the cast from DOS2 is enough for me. One could say it's not the level of NPC connection than in old Bioware (Dragon Age series, Mass Effect) or CDPR (CP2077, The Witcher 3), but personally, I see a significant progress since DOS2.
• World and setting: this is subjective and a bit biased, but FR is one of my favorite settings, and I see this magic in BG3, even if 5 edition timeline is a new territory for me.
• Reactivity: there are insane amount of ways you can handle things, there is really no bad way of doing things, from what I see. You can fight your way pit, persuade or intimidate others to back out, or force them to do so using your fancy tadpole powers. There are some places it's better to leave some of your party members behind, because there are some things to do there, they would disapprove. There is insane mount od class, race and background specific dialogue responses. It's fantastic.
• Combat: I was worried about combat, because playing DOS2 on Tactician was a painful experience for me, but in my opinion Larian nailed difficulty in BG3. It's challenging, but not in a frustrating way. The experience is more similar to WoTR, but even better.

CONS (a minor ones):

• Character creation: The main issue I have with it, is that you cannot finetune details like the shape and size of nose, chin, ears and other face elements. I am not opposed to preset-style, but some more finetuning would be preferable. The second issue is that the whole process of character creation is a bit chaotic and poorly explained. I prefer to set things in order and here you can just jump into different tabs in any order.
• DOS2 vibes: There is a lot of things borrowed from DOS2, some I don't like. The looting system is not my favorite and I also miss some more lore descriptive books and items. I miss those fantastic item descriptions from BG1/2.
• Inspect item option: I find it completely redundant. It doesn't add anything and it's UI design is interior to other screens. This would be a perfect place to add those fancy item lore descriptions, I mentioned in previous point.

Overall, 9/10 so far with the potential to go a bit higher.

 

[Black Elk]

Right on! Good to catch ya too!

Also, same! haha

I have similar pros and cons too. My view of the game itself is sort of different from my view of the EA experience. Generally I find myself more stoked off the game. I mean I guess I'd better be now lol.

One thing they did which I enjoyed was to give the whole prologue a bit more verve and the little touches like with the decorative elements of the UI. That was nice to see. I was hoping thye'd put more into that stuff and have it feeling a little different than the EA start. They still didn't do what I thought would be funny, which would be some sort of super mundane opening, in say a tavern in Baldur's Gate, before the big opening Gith chase cinematic. Like where the player could have been anyone doing anything, and then this crazy ass planar space chase cracks off and you're just caught up cause you got blipped by those Nautiloid tentacles. But anyway, they did do some stuff to change the sequences and some of the pacing in the opener. They still kept that random onyx stone as the literal first thing you can grab which I also enjoyed haha. I think a lot of it will come down to how much players vibe Lae'zel and Shadowheart and the crew. I'm on team Lae'zel. I was happy they reworked her introductory cinematic, since I feel like she's got some of that grit back that she had in the very first iteration. Anyway, she's good for me, so I got that level of buy-in. She hold's her sword like a boss again. I like the class icons and the updated animations during char creations, the update they gave to the mini-portraits, which are probably my favorite thing they added actually in terms of the look. I'd say the full release has a somewhat more cohesive and satisfying designs aesthetic for some of that stuff. Or I don't know, like they made the flourishes better, even if functionally a lot is pretty similar there. But yeah those portraits are definitely more BG, if that makes sense



Even though it's so minor, like such a little thing there, but they at least don't feel like lifeless mannequins on that little portraits that we interact with constantly. I wish we had more control over what sort of image is produced there though. Like changing the angles and the lighting and the emotes on it, cause for me that would almost be enough out of a "portrait maker". Anyhow, they nailed her for that I thought. I tend to lead Villainous so fits for my play pattern, and the Gith are fun, but I just wish there were more companions all around. Cause it's a lot down to whether you can get into who's rolling with you.

ps. all of the mains got a little bit of a new spin on how they're introduced, and a few new idling animations. It's subtle but that's another tweak from the EA that I noticed early and enjoyed. I made it to the druid camp without to much weirdness but the stalls in performance tell me to just wait until I'm spec'd out so I can enjoy it without those hiccups. I grabbed a save and bowed out till mid week. I haven't camped Nexus this hard in a while, just to see what the mods are cooking lol, but it was fun to spin out with the prologue redux for an hour.

 

[Nimran]

In all honesty, the game just makes me want to play BG1 and 2 again… but that’s just me. Larian’s style just doesn’t work for me. I couldn’t get past Act 1 in both of the Original Sin games, either, but I was hoping the DnD aspect would make this one better. I was wrong. It’s still very hard for me to play this game for longer than a couple of hours a day.

 

[inryu13]

Ok, here are my (very early) initial expressions after playing some of Act1 (I'm still level 3 with my main character.

PROS:

• The scale: this game is so massive and overwhelming, with so many places to go, so many secrets to uncover, it's just mindblowing. DOS2 already felt big, but this feels like something much more.
• Companions: it's still to early to judge them fully, but the fact that I like all of them more than the cast from DOS2 is enough for me. One could say it's not the level of NPC connection than in old Bioware (Dragon Age series, Mass Effect) or CDPR (CP2077, The Witcher 3), but personally, I see a significant progress since DOS2.
• World and setting: this is subjective and a bit biased, but FR is one of my favorite settings, and I see this magic in BG3, even if 5 edition timeline is a new territory for me.
• Reactivity: there are insane amount of ways you can handle things, there is really no bad way of doing things, from what I see. You can fight your way pit, persuade or intimidate others to back out, or force them to do so using your fancy tadpole powers. There are some places it's better to leave some of your party members behind, because there are some things to do there, they would disapprove. There is insane mount od class, race and background specific dialogue responses. It's fantastic.
• Combat: I was worried about combat, because playing DOS2 on Tactician was a painful experience for me, but in my opinion Larian nailed difficulty in BG3. It's challenging, but not in a frustrating way. The experience is more similar to WoTR, but even better.

CONS (a minor ones):

• Character creation: The main issue I have with it, is that you cannot finetune details like the shape and size of nose, chin, ears and other face elements. I am not opposed to preset-style, but some more finetuning would be preferable. The second issue is that the whole process of character creation is a bit chaotic and poorly explained. I prefer to set things in order and here you can just jump into different tabs in any order.
• DOS2 vibes: There is a lot of things borrowed from DOS2, some I don't like. The looting system is not my favorite and I also miss some more lore descriptive books and items. I miss those fantastic item descriptions from BG1/2.
• Inspect item option: I find it completely redundant. It doesn't add anything and it's UI design is interior to other screens. This would be a perfect place to add those fancy item lore descriptions, I mentioned in previous point.

Overall, 9/10 so far with the potential to go a bit higher.

it IS quite large I feel like it's not something u can rush and finish fast
and I'm glad that the combat is just right for you! In general I'm pretty happy about how many people are liking the turn-based system, especially now when I feel like people kinda expect games to just be full-on action/openworld HD games or else they wont be good

 

[inryu13]

In all honesty, the game just makes me want to play BG1 and 2 again… but that’s just me. Larian’s style just doesn’t work for me. I couldn’t get past Act 1 in both of the Original Sin games, either, but I was hoping the DnD aspect would make this one better. I was wrong. It’s still very hard for me to play this game for longer than a couple of hours a day.

Interesting!!! this might be the first kinda fully-negative comment, or at least one about disliking it or not being able to play it. I didn't get to play any of the older games, what exactly makes a 'Larian' style?

 

[Butters]

Ok, here are my (very early) initial expressions after playing some of Act1 (I'm still level 3 with my main character.

PROS:

• The scale: this game is so massive and overwhelming, with so many places to go, so many secrets to uncover, it's just mindblowing. DOS2 already felt big, but this feels like something much more.
• Companions: it's still to early to judge them fully, but the fact that I like all of them more than the cast from DOS2 is enough for me. One could say it's not the level of NPC connection than in old Bioware (Dragon Age series, Mass Effect) or CDPR (CP2077, The Witcher 3), but personally, I see a significant progress since DOS2.
• World and setting: this is subjective and a bit biased, but FR is one of my favorite settings, and I see this magic in BG3, even if 5 edition timeline is a new territory for me.
• Reactivity: there are insane amount of ways you can handle things, there is really no bad way of doing things, from what I see. You can fight your way pit, persuade or intimidate others to back out, or force them to do so using your fancy tadpole powers. There are some places it's better to leave some of your party members behind, because there are some things to do there, they would disapprove. There is insane mount od class, race and background specific dialogue responses. It's fantastic.
• Combat: I was worried about combat, because playing DOS2 on Tactician was a painful experience for me, but in my opinion Larian nailed difficulty in BG3. It's challenging, but not in a frustrating way. The experience is more similar to WoTR, but even better.

CONS (a minor ones):

• Character creation: The main issue I have with it, is that you cannot finetune details like the shape and size of nose, chin, ears and other face elements. I am not opposed to preset-style, but some more finetuning would be preferable. The second issue is that the whole process of character creation is a bit chaotic and poorly explained. I prefer to set things in order and here you can just jump into different tabs in any order.
• DOS2 vibes: There is a lot of things borrowed from DOS2, some I don't like. The looting system is not my favorite and I also miss some more lore descriptive books and items. I miss those fantastic item descriptions from BG1/2.
• Inspect item option: I find it completely redundant. It doesn't add anything and it's UI design is interior to other screens. This would be a perfect place to add those fancy item lore descriptions, I mentioned in previous point.

Overall, 9/10 so far with the potential to go a bit higher.

Yes to fine-tuning character creation so we could literally make our own faces! Would also love it if there was an NPC service where we can make adjustments to our appearances after creation. Even just a barber for the hair.

Also the Hirelings need more customizability options. Please, Larian! This would be perfect