Baldur’s Gate 3 is a story-rich, party-based RPG set in the universe of Dungeons & Dragons, where your choices shape a tale of fellowship and betrayal, survival and sacrifice, and the lure of absolute power. (Website)
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Played this 4 times back to back with a friend so she can stream and people still keep showing up to watch. It's wild.
That being said, there's so many dialogue options you'd never get to see without certain characters being in the party at a certain place or time with the right circumstances that we said f-it and got mods to let them all come along together.
This last run has been an absolute banger.
Because it's turn based, people are still finishing up combat. 😉 I kid because I love.
If it's anything like my 4P co-op game, progress is slooooow.
That person that takes their turn them goes "quick AFK" to pee and get a beer... Never works out fast.
I tried Divinity: Original Sin 2 with 3P and 4P separately and learnt I either need to find someone fully compatible with my gameplay or just play solo. In party I'm either stressed or bored (turn-based combat sucks in 4P if your character dies and no one can revive because the NPCs are dead set to kill you first).
I think I solved this problem with my most recent playthrough of BG3. My spouse and I each control two characters, switch difficulty to easy, and basically do separate games as individual parties of two. We come together for the big fights or story beats, but mostly she can get up whenever she needs to, go at her own pace, and I explore the parts of the game that are interesting to me.
Honestly, it was the same with me, but I feel like single player is so busted too. Unless you can get a "DnD group" together to truly play focus and get it done, you're stuck with single player. And trying to manage 4-6 characters, and their equipment, and their inventory, in D:OS2 as a single player added dozens of hours to the game in my experience.
BG3 significantly boosted the quality of life with a lot of things. The least of which was getting rid of the "physical armor vs magical armor" aspect.
D:OS2 did my head in with the armor changes from D:OS1. The number of times I'd forget about it and fuck myself in fights, hah.
Those inventories don‘t sort themselves even with a sort button.
They don't sort themselves manually either, I had like 4 stacks of each scroll because they just decide to not stack as one anymore. And potions. And arrows. And bombs.
i want to play it but … can’t really think i’ll enjoy playing more than one character; isn’t it party based? or are you you but you have npcs join here/there?
The main character is "you," and there are a group of NPCs that you can team up with, all optional. I've never tried a solo run, but the game is supposedly do-able that way, too.
thanks! i’ll try it if i find it on sale!
Fwiw completely solo is doable, but I think you miss out on a decent amount of stuff, like companion quests and dialogue options and all that.
You could always recruit them to your camp and just leave them there for most of the time, though.
You can play as one of a half-dozen pre-made characters with unique skills/voices/backstories, or create your own custom character. Throughout the game, you get the opportunity to recruit almost all of the pre-made characters to your party, as well as a few more non-starter characters, and then you adventure with squad of up to four characters at a time.
The backstories and personalities on each character are enough to keep it interesting narratively, and the branching decision trees across the game vary wildly. The depth and variety of builds is pretty solid. My first playthrough took about 100 hours while still missing a few big things. Since then, my partner and I (because it does have up to 4-person miltiplayer) have played start-to-finish a couple more times. I think she's hovering around 2,000 hours all-in, because she's done a few solo playthroughs as well.
I have about 500 hours in the game with 4 complete start to finish runs and I feel like I have barely brushed the surface of what is possible in the game. If ever there was a video game that managed to capture the essense of the table top game, particularly the lack of limits due to it being more of an improv game than a numbers game, Baldur's Gate 3 is it. If you can think you, there's a good chance you can do it.
Can you shed light on the possible variations, aside from evil runs?
Well, in general, there's eight different origins you can pick, all with unique scenes, dialogue and story choices. You can even get a unique evil ending with each one.
More specifically, there's Quil Grootslang, a dragonborn bard who only shows up in camp if you're playing as Dark Urge, and if Alfira is unavailable when her scene would usually trigger. Despite being a replacement character, you can talk about her with a dragonborn bard in the Lower City, but only if you actually met her.
There's also Honk, a half-orc bartender who is proven to exist through notes, but only shows up physically to replace his bother Henk during a Karlach romance exclusive cutscene if Henk is unavailable. Honk has his own voice actor, and is referenced by name in spoken dialogue.
Based on your last paragraph, when OP said "barely scratched the surface," you took that as "I've dove so far into baldurs gate 3 im hunting for NPCs only spoken of by the prophets."
That's just one example. There are multiple ways to approach scenarios, or skip them entirely, that so dynamically effect the story. There are several times you discover a "base" for a group and they can be an ally, an enemy, or an ally you betray. To see all the options and paths there can take 5-10 playthroughs alone. And that's not counting how you go about it, who you kill or spare, whether you pass with raw persuasion, or steal something hidden that gives you a free pass. And again, that's just one more difference that can happen in a playthrough out of many.
They clearly put a lot of effort into "the way to play is the way you play" and it shows"
I mean, that is what I like. I do the same thing in Fromsoft games but they don't have the payout (furtive pygmy, gloam eyed queen, eleonara, etc). BG3 actually pays out looking for obscure shit like that.
But I also mean you can do things like throw your buddy across a gap to reach something instead of being required to levitate or find another way around. Or if you have the time and opportunity to place explosives around a boss guy you can converse with before fighting, you can just blow them up the instant combat starts.
Basically the logic in the game is actually logical and doesn't constsntly present you with arbitrary walls preventing things you, the player, might assume you should be able to do with the info/mechanics given.
Nah, I'm fully aware most people don't know about Gerson, who exists only if you're standing in the druid grove when the goblin leaders are dealt with, just so the scene can transition without you noticing.
But someone asked for possible variations, and I provided. And what better way to show the variation the game has to offer than to show the extreme examples of it? Note that I also pointed out the eight origins, which are so surface level that it's the first choice you make in the game.
How do you guys handle those romance scenes when you're on a plane?
Usually it ends with the Deck falling to the ground and then everyone on the plane furiously masturbating.
It is the ultimate form of the classic PC single player turn based (and very good co-op) RPG.
To be honest I just don't know how people manage to play it on the Deck. Performance was not enjoyable for me. This is a desktop only game as far as I'm concerned.
I play it on the deck but ive never needed max stuff. It amazes me how good it looks. The key is to not have a desktop gaming rig to compare it to :)
Still waiting for a price drop… maybe in 3 years I’ll get to play it, meanwhile there is a big backlog to catch up with!
Tbh it's one of the few games that is worth paying full price
I know. Still one of the games I can’t afford full price.
Unfortunately can't send you mine, I played maybe 8 hours then stopped.
It's a good game, especially with mods. I don't really like DND very much, but it's still worth playing.
Wait what, 33 months? I thought that came out last year haha
They're good games Brent
im in the city finally. level 11. endgame team build will be tavernbrawler/monk/rogue, abjurerererer, bardlock, and the last one has been a cleric but at level 12 im turning her into an evocalock and see if that works.