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Yeah. The update has some interesting info.

Some of the problem stuff with Minthara IS bugs.

However the 'cut content' is also overblown. Its datamined stuff that largely was removed on purpose over time because it didn't work out (which is not uncommon in game development).

It does sound like they went overboard on cutting epilogues down, however.

----
Looks like in-game appearance customization is on the menu, but not soon. (well, relative soon, anyway, their patching and hot-fixing is actually pretty rapid so far).

 Thargrim wrote:
I think Minthara was a victum of that cut content, and she's not simply bugged. After the beginning of act 2 there isn't much to her. Shart, Lae'zel and Astarion clearly got the most love from the developers. But to me the game has a strong 1st act and then starts to unravel a bit further into the game. And the fact you can't edit character appearance after creation is a big lose IMO, even Cyberpunk 2077 had that feature.

Still a good game but it's not without some issues.

Cyberpunk absolutely did not have that feature on launch or for about a year later - it was one of the many many many things that people found so annoying - especialyl given the nature of the Cyberpunk society.

My question is: can it played multiplayer? Or is it just single player RPG with well-scripted companions?
So far I’ve only seen feedback on it being a single player game. How about MP? Any feedback or anyone even tried it?

 Ghool wrote:
My question is: can it played multiplayer? Or is it just single player RPG with well-scripted companions?
So far I’ve only seen feedback on it being a single player game. How about MP? Any feedback or anyone even tried it?

Its multiplayer, though I have no idea how it plays out.

Myself and a friend were planning to start up a party, but it hasn't worked out timewise.

EDIT: Some discoveries last night :



Tonight, I think I'll finish my playthrough. I've assembled a motley crew of allies to help out in the final battle(s), so it looks to be pretty epic.

Honestly, I hate the main quest.

The companions are excellent. Karlach has by far the weakest storyline IMO. Even Minthara has a better one due to her relations with an Act 3 antagonist.

I don't like Halsin, but at least he has a major Act 2 quest.

The MQ hook is excellent, but I think they rewrote things due to Daisy being too obvious as an antagonistic force and ended up shoehorning elements in. The saving grace of the MQ is the Dark Urge.



The primary antagonist of Act 2 is fine. I wouldn't say great, but it works. The ones for Act 3 suck.



I despise the Guardian and the reveal about the Guardian feels shoehorned.
Major spoiler below:


The secondary antagonists of Act 3 are generally better even though a couple are underdeveloped.

Patch 2 is live.

That was fast.

And I got my first ever CTD in Act 1, but killed the Nautilus boss on Tactician for the first time(yay?).

trexmeyer wrote:
I despise the Guardian and the reveal about the Guardian feels shoehorned.
Major spoiler below:

Spoiler:

Not that he's an Illithid, but that he's somehow Balduran.

That one bugs me. Nothing about that makes sense. Not the timeline (its a century past the original games, , not the How Things Work for that species (either in D&D in general, 5e in specific, or FR in specific), nor even what Beings Who Would Know explicitly tell you in game).

It also severely undercuts certain choices and leaves them with zero narrative consequence.

Does anyone have some experience with split screen multiplayer on ps5 already? It's not easy for me to find detailed information on how it works and it's going to be my default mode for BG3. From what I have seen it seems to be more limited than in Divinity 2.

I beat it a few days ago:



Going to play some other games and return to do a Dark Urge run soon, with the goal to try to suppress as much of the Urge as I can while trying to be a righteous dude if its possible. I’ve been pretty disciplined about Durge spoilers + playthroughs so I’m not sure what to expect. Torn on getting Minthara to join me for that playthrough, but I hate how I’d lose other party members with solid content and such.

You only lose Halsin if you get Minthara. She literally has voice lines for commentary on every other party member other than Halsin.

Trying to compile a perfect run. Obviously you can't do 100% content in one go. The focus is to do as much content as possible while making "good" (in the D&D context) choices while also acquiring key items.

Nautiloid


Act 1 - Grove


Act 1 - Church Ruins


Act 1 - General Area


Act 1 - Owlbear Cave


Act 1 - Blighted Village


Act 1 - Goblin Camp


I'll add more later.

The focus is to do as much content as possible while making "good" (in the D&D context) choices while also acquiring key items.

Honestly, 'good' is the better option in this game. You lose out on a lot more for choosing evil or bad options.

Which feels weird, thematically. Good usually involves sacrifice, while evil is generally a quick and easy path to power. Part of the problem is D&D (where everyone is on a power up schedule regardless), but Larian did seem to feel like most players won't choose evil (which is broadly true in cRPGs) so simply did less content for it (as a rule. There are a few stand out exceptions).

Voss wrote:

The focus is to do as much content as possible while making "good" (in the D&D context) choices while also acquiring key items.

Honestly, 'good' is the better option in this game. You lose out on a lot more for choosing evil or bad options.

Which feels weird, thematically. Good usually involves sacrifice, while evil is generally a quick and easy path to power. Part of the problem is D&D (where everyone is on a power up schedule regardless), but Larian did seem to feel like most players won't choose evil (which is broadly true in cRPGs) so simply did less content for it (as a rule. There are a few stand out exceptions).

Disagree - strongly - there are so many "evil" options that boost your power and you can choose not to do them - which I think is a theme in the game - you can choose evil and get power but at what cost.

 Mr Morden wrote:

Voss wrote:

The focus is to do as much content as possible while making "good" (in the D&D context) choices while also acquiring key items.

Honestly, 'good' is the better option in this game. You lose out on a lot more for choosing evil or bad options.

Which feels weird, thematically. Good usually involves sacrifice, while evil is generally a quick and easy path to power. Part of the problem is D&D (where everyone is on a power up schedule regardless), but Larian did seem to feel like most players won't choose evil (which is broadly true in cRPGs) so simply did less content for it (as a rule. There are a few stand out exceptions).

Disagree - strongly - there are so many "evil" options that boost your power and you can choose not to do them - which I think is a theme in the game - you can choose evil and get power but at what cost.

Spoiler:

keeping the Hag alive, being branded by the absolute, using the mind control powers, etc

um... the first one is debatable, but the next two aren't 'evil' in any sense, just a little squicky (in a 'ew, gross' way).

The Brand is borderline worthless, the items that it boosts aren't particularly good.
The +1 item seems meaningless to me unless you want to min-max every party member.
You can a +2 strength boost in Act 2.
You can get a +2 stat boost in Act 3 for -2 to another stat.
You can get a +2 Charisma hat in Act 3 that caps at 22 (so ASFAIK Charisma caps at 22).
You can get a 23 Strength set of gloves in Act 3 that doesn't stack with other boosts. Strength caps at 22.
You can get a 23 Constitution necklace in Act 3 that doesn't stack with other boosts. Con caps at 22.
You can get a 18 Dexterity set of gloves in Act 1 that doesn't stack.
You can get a +2 Dexterity chest in Act 1 that caps at 20.
You can get a 23/27 Strength Elixir and there are enough of these/items to craft them that you can have them up permamently or for every major fight.

If you go evil you lose the Tieflings. This costs you one of the best merchants in the game and he also crafts free items for you worth at least 5k in gold. It also costs you Karlach's Romance/sub quest. It also costs you the best warlock chest piece in the game, Potent Robe. It also costs you Halsin's questline in the Shadow Cursed Lands, Arabella's questline and aid in final battle (along with a minor power), Rolan's questline which comes to fruition in Act 3, and possibly some other things I'm overlooking.

Going Dark Urge also costs you the Potent Robe unless you cheese the scripted encounter. The Dark Urge "reward" for going evil is not good and IIRC actually makes you weaker if you build your character correctly.

The evil companion options aren't notably stronger than their good options.

My thoughts

 Mr Morden wrote:
My thoughts

Spoiler:

Using the mind control on your companions on others - well its not good is it?
I killed the Hag unless she comes back - still on Act 1
The Brands boosts maybe minor overall but they are boosts.

What...

Most 'power' options in BG3 come from being good (or have zero moral weight). There's very little that you lose by deliberately choosing good, and a LOT that you lose by making evil decisions.

If you're still on Act 1... this really isn't a debate you can have. You just don't have the information required.

I saw a comment somewhere that Lae'zel looks like a genderswapped R34 Grinch and now I can't unsee it.

If you're in Act 1.
You need to do the Mountain Pass and the Underdark. You can do both. I see people skipping one or the other. Both areas are important.
Make sure you resolve the Grove-Goblins scenario before going to the Mountain Pass. I'm not 100% sure, but I swear it triggers things that you may not want.

The absolute number one issue in BG3 is sequence breaking. It makes sense in Act 2 and 3 (it still sucks), but not in Act 1.

If you want to avoid sequence breaking in Act 2:

I feel like an evil playthrough needs 2-3 new evil characters with their own baggage and quests along the way to join the party to offset the loss of certain characters. Sure I can skip content (goblin camp/druid grove) and keep some of the good party members, but I’d rather not as that seems like a railroad in a game with so much choice.

An evil leaning duergar party member would be pretty awesome, or any other subrace that doesn’t get a lot of screentime.

hi all,
i just dove in and had a couple of questions if you dont mind.

is money ever not an issue? im only like 3 hours in and in the druid grove but i looked at a set of armor and it was 500 gold while i had like 150... had a bit of sticker shock

i dont think that there is but can you speed up or skip the AI turn in combat? just watching the action waiting for your turn in larger fights is annoying sometimes.

 usernamesareannoying wrote:
hi all,
i just dove in and had a couple of questions if you dont mind.

is money ever not an issue? im only like 3 hours in and in the druid grove but i looked at a set of armor and it was 500 gold while i had like 150... had a bit of sticker shock

Over time it becomes not a problem. At 3 hours in its supposed to be an issue- you're a starting party on a beach.
In the very early game it helps to go 'old school' D&D and loot _everything_. Books, plates, silverware, gear, etc. You can get ~25 books out of the starter dungeon near the crash site, and they sell for about 14 gold each. So that's about 350 gold right there.

Shift click to highlight groups of items and then right click to 'add to wares' and then switch trade modes and sell everything.

i dont think that there is but can you speed up or skip the AI turn in combat? just watching the action waiting for your turn in larger fights is annoying sometimes.

No. Groups of weak enemies at the same initiative will act simultaneously, but that's about the extent.

thanks Voss,
so i haven't quite figured out the wares function yet, ill have to check it again.

so unrelated question.
is there any reason not to play an evil party?
sometimes i really want to leave people asking for help behind and just kill all of the people i come across but i figure that'll break something... lol

 usernamesareannoying wrote:

so unrelated question.
is there any reason not to play an evil party?
sometimes i really want to leave people asking for help behind and just kill all of the people i come across but i figure that'll break something... lol

There are consequences. Full murder-hobo isn't recommended, as a number of people will come back in later chapters.
Go too far and you can lose some companions and vendors.

Few things 'break,' though you will lose out on assorted rewards and interactions and some quests.

Evil in general can be fairly nuanced in this game. How, when and why can matter a lot.

Full murder-hobo


how do you guys find spell casters?
it seems pretty easy to blow through your entire compliment of spells quickly.
same reason i didnt like them playing pen and paper

i know they recover from a long rest so is long resting a ton a real detriment?

i know they recover from a long rest so is long resting a ton a real detriment?

No. In fact it pushes various story elements along.

There are a couple places where you can trigger timers that will just resolve themselves if you long rest too much, but by and large long rests are healthy.

They also have a lot of useful tools for dealing with groups and bosses. And general utility.

Voss wrote:

i know they recover from a long rest so is long resting a ton a real detriment?

No. In fact it pushes various story elements along.

There are a couple places where you can trigger timers that will just resolve themselves if you long rest too much, but by and large long rests are healthy.

They also have a lot of useful tools for dealing with groups and bosses. And general utility.

oh dang, good to know.
my party is always half dead because im afraid of wasting too much time resting... lol

 usernamesareannoying wrote:

Voss wrote:

i know they recover from a long rest so is long resting a ton a real detriment?

No. In fact it pushes various story elements along.

There are a couple places where you can trigger timers that will just resolve themselves if you long rest too much, but by and large long rests are healthy.

They also have a lot of useful tools for dealing with groups and bosses. And general utility.

oh dang, good to know.
my party is always half dead because im afraid of wasting too much time resting... lol

Pick up/buy every herbs + related stuff for potions that you can get and make as many healing potions as possible. Also, the potions that knock a character out and count as long/short rests are absolute godsends.

You can rest every 2-3 fights and never run out supplies even on Tactician where the cost is doubled from 40-80.
Vendors in Baldur's Gate sell a silly amount of supplies so you could rest every fight (pointless) if you wanted really wanted to do so.

theres a potion that lets you knock someone out and it counts as a long rest?!?

i need to find that

i rerolled asterion as a thief... having fun pickpocketing. lol

i just ran in to a quest to save a gnome tied to a windmill. i didnt realize he was actually attached to it and i flung him off... whoops

the game is getting funner as i learn more but figuring stuff out is kind of rough sometimes so thanks for the help.

i still havent tried out laezels special attack abilities, master dice attacks or whatever they are.

do you guys have issues with pets?
im running a drow ranger and summoned a wolf. it seems like he either misses turns or just stops following me for some reason.

forming the party is a tough choice too, i hate leaving guys behind... lol.

l left laezel behind for now becuase i wanted to try the warlock and he just joined my party.