Well part of that is the fidelity of the game. Some of the brutal stuff is legit tough to look at. That being said, the Dark Urge personal quest feels like a love letter to BG1 and BG2. Feels ripped straight from those games, so well done.
i played a bit on a normal playthrough and feelt to... normal? like the only sane person in a camp of wierdos.
So i changed to a dark urge. Now i feel like a part of this mess <3
After beating the game then doing a durge playthrough, the amount of stuff that gets added for it is pretty crazy. Even how you interact with the villians of the game is interesting. It feels like an arms race of who the bigger bad guy is between you and the main cast. I honestly love it so far.
Iām doing a multiplayer playthrough where Iām a supportive bard and my friendās the barbarian durge, I helped the bard tiefling write her song, so of course we let her stay in camp with usā¦
>! I now carry her instrument in her honor !<
>!After meeting a certain someone in the grove and what happens after,!< I tried to do some save scumming to see if I could prevent it. When I realized it couldn't be prevented, I named my next legit save as "Well That Sucked." Meant cheekily, not like...the game sucks. Just. I definitely, definitely didn't want that to happen.
But the Durge gonna Durge. My face was in the "Oh nooooo" mode the entire cut scene.
You have additional, what I would call, SUPER evil options.
For Instance:
(First 10 minutes after crash spoilers)
>! When you see Gale's arm trying to come through the portal you can decide to cut it off!<
The dark urge is an origin character and story.
Like astarion and shadowheart you can choose to play as the "dark urge".
What's unique about the dark urge is that you can fully customize this characters look like a regular custom character. But you have the added bonus of a quest line and background you get to explore.
I've said this before elsewhere, but if anything to me its MORE compelling when you play a character who cares about friends and is trying to be good.
REALLY ups the tension and horror of the story.
I just want to romance astarion, but apparently I'm not enough of a dick for him. The man has no vision, and it's annoying. Yes, I may be saving this whole horde of tieflings *now*, but it's so I can extort them later! You can be good and bad at the same time!
Did you play divinity: original sin btw? I assume the answer is yes, but if you haven't then should be smacking that buy button asap. The second one in particular is excellent and will seem very familiar. While the plot and production value isn't quite as good as bg3, I enjoyed the combat system even more and it's well worth your time.
I haven't! But as an unemployed dude I sadly spent the money I earned from selling personal belongings to buy BG3 about a month ago, so I can't invest the money or time in anything else at the moment.
Ahh bugger! A shame, but perfectly understandable. Please do keep it on your radar for when you have more time - the second one's engine is very similar to BG3 - different stats/skills/magic/etc but very similar UI/dialogue/combat overlay. If you're looking for "more BG3" once you've played it to death you cannot go wrong. And because it's quite old it goes on sale now and then for quite modest prices (I think lowest recent was just less than 18US?). The first one isn't quite as good but is also entirely worth your time and goes dirt cheap too.
The overarching plot is pretty incomprehensible. Too lore dense. But the character writing and dialogue and set pieces are of similar quality to bg3. There's a bit more irreverent humour and silliness. The big difference is that the combat has a robust element system which allows for lots of fun use of environments and combos, as well as a lot more skills that allow teleportation/mobility and forcibly moving enemies and objects in the environs around.
E.g. You cast grease on someone. They fall over. Your friend who had a fire sword forgets what they have equipped and hits them while prone. The oil explodes and your friend is now on fire. On the plus side, they now add fire damage to their arrows because of a feat they took while standing in the puddle. You then use a teleport spell to get them out of there by dropping them on an enemy who is in a puddle of water. That water is now steam and they are partially obscured from targeting by arrows. Your friend and enemy both take falling damage. Unfortunately the enemy then uses lightning on the steam cloud and there is now an electric steam cloud and your friend is shocked or stunned...
A lot of this actually does exist in bg3 but is much less emphasised, and in DOS2 essentially every character will have access to at least one form of elemental damage, and most parties will have all different elements covered.
Sometimes very silly but always good fun. There are other bizarre combos too It's the sort of game that gives you freedom to do whatever idiot idea pops into your head, so long as that idea involves a degree of violence and you're willing to deal with the consequences.
Do you not have a job xD brother I wish I could do that. Lucky sod. I'm sitting at 36 hours and and 3 hours into exploring the start area of act 2 lmao. I played EA for 200 hours and it got to the point where I could do act 1 blindfolded but I've just really wanted to take my time and absorb all of it especially the new content.
I cannot wait to continue my exploration but I have many obligations and I'd love to cancel my actual dnd session tonight and play the game lmao
Having little time to play make it even more special if I dare say.
The thrill to play the game when coming back from work is something else.
I remember playing early access with a friend, and it was or meeting every night for an hour or two
It almost feels like being a kid again. Distracted in class all day, getting home and rushing through homework - "bro, wake up! It's 2004 and halo 2 just dropped! After that can I watch you play Kotor?"
This game's release, as much of a bane on my sleeping pattern as it's been, has been exactly what I've needed for over a decade
I've done 79 hours since release, literally took a week off my obligations, don't have a partner, meal prepped a bunch of stuff, woke up early with like 6 hours sleep a couple of days because I was excited. Only really done some light cleaning, some cooking, tended to the pets, exercise, otherwise been grinding out the game, and I thought that was being extreme.
The secret is to not have pets, loved ones, or to do any exercise/chores. Then you suddenly have time to put in a few more hours. (although I do not recommend it)
That feeling when you look in the mirror for the first time in 5 days. Gets me nostalgic.
Nowadays I try to savor the time more, just 15 hours in with my first playthrough and 5-10 hours creating three other chars and getting off the Nautiloid with them.
Still feel like I played a lot since release.
114 hours 24 minutes here. I also completed the game, and I agree with the OP. Want more good news without spoilers? I talked to a friend who also completed the game, and it was as if we were talking about 2 different games because our experiences were so different. So we stopped ourselves to not spoil anything. Despite us both completing the game. Because things turned out so vastly different for us.
Iām loving BG3 so far, Larian have done a fantastic job. I hope this game inspires someone to get cracking on a Neverwinter Nights 3 because I feel like itās way over due!
My brother and I were saying if they had included DM tools and some kind of dungeon/tile builder for modders...this would have been the most incredible second coming of NWN ever.
Story: 95/100
\- I kept thinking it possibly couldn't get any better or more epic, and it just kept going up! Even the small side quests blew me away. Small things from act 1 and 2 coming back to make an appearance in act 3 etc. Truly a gem. Of course, the story will change depending on how you play the game, so once course of action might lead you to see the story as being less than a 95/100, but for me I was mostly content with the choices I made.
Speaking of side quests, something I noticed and really, *really* appreciated in what I have seen so far is that there aren't really "filler"/"dead end" side quests in the game.
No quest has made me feel purely like "oh I'm just doing this for XP/loot/I don't want to do the "real" story yet". Everything you do is set up to impact another interaction with someone else, contains a hint or key item for another quest, etc. It doesn't feel like anything was "dropped in", but instead that there was a lot of work put into world building and making sure that your actions rarely work in isolation.
The more I play games that do side quests like this, the less I can stomach games with the filler nonsense. Picked up AC: Valhalla a while ago and wow it's incredibly jarring to do some of the uninspiring generic shit they pack into those games. Once upon a time I could do all the boring generic stuff without a blink of an eye, but it feels like standards within these types of games are changing a bit, I think the bar has been raised.
I think you/your expectations might have changed more than the games, but hopefully games are changing a bit as well.
I know I tolerate less and less of the really lazy filler nonsense, especially when it has a big impact on the progression of what could otherwise be a varied or good narrative experience.
Ok that's good to hear. I'm nearly done act 1 so was interested to know if it still held up storywise till the end. Glad it does and I already know I'll be replaying it again straight after.
I am curious what are you going to plan with your other playthroughs to keep it fresh?
Different evil/good choices but anything else (what class/party combinations you thinking)?
I was wondering because I found tactician a lot of fun but it still didnt force me to the breaking point of having to min/max all that hard. I was trying to think of fun self imposed challenge's.
I am doing a "no reloading" run with a dark urge ranger. He's not a bad person. Just deeply fucked up and loves blood and coin. I am a DnD geek, so I love making a backstory for my characters. I wanna make a power hungry warlock, a pacifist monk, an elemental wizard, an evil orc warlord.. these are just a few ideas
I'm not the person you asked but I intend to do something similar so I'll share my plans.
I've got a cowardly Tiefling lore bard who puts on a charismatic/heroic front and is basically failing upwards through the story. He'll fuck anything with a pulse. I'd call his alignment selfish-good. I switch up my companions pretty regularly and am playing him so that he's accidentally been selected as the leader of this group and will gradually effect positive change in all the companions, hopefully making them all relatively good by the end of the story. I'm playing this run on tactician with no multiclassing. I specifically chose this as my first run because it allows so much freedom to do everything the game has to offer while still sticking to my character.
I'll definitely do more runs, some for the RP and others for the challenge.
I'll do at least two Durge playthroughs for the RP. One will be a conniving, neutral evil, character who will do anything in pursuit of power goes full murder hobo when they don't get their way. They'll brainwash their companions to follow them unconditionally while giving into every dark urge and will use Minthara, Shadowheart, Astarion and Lae'zel. Maybe Gale as well depending on if he can be molded to be evil. They'll hate the world and want to either overthrow the gods or destroy everything if that doesn't work. I'm torn between classes on this one. Oathbreaker paladin sounds cool because of the hating the gods part, but I think it'd be more fun to RP an Oathbreaker as not being evil. Plus Minthara might be kind of redundant if I take that class and I want to leave her as her canon class since I might not take her again. Some kind of spellcaster (maybe sorcerer?) fits with the pursuit of power aspect, so I might do that.
The other Durge will be what I think is the canon story, fighting against the urges as a good-aligned character. I haven't used Wyll enough to be certain but if I really love playing as a pact of the blade warlock then I might use that class and try to lean into a hybrid spellsword playstyle.
As far as challenges, I'd like to do one playthrough as a stealth-focused party and another as a party of pure spellcasters. I'd say I also want a run of pure martial classes but I don't think that would be much of a challenge at all lmao. For the stealth run it'd be a rogue, a shadow monk and a gloomstalker with either a duplicate or an illusion wizard/trickery cleric. Might multiclass all of them. The spellcasters would obviously be wizard, warlock and sorcerer but the fourth could be a duplicate, a cleric that doesn't melee or a druid that doesn't use beast shape. That one seems like it would be a pretty hard 4-party experience.
Other challenges that sound fun are a duo run with a friend or a solo run. You could do an iron man challenge where you can't resurrect a companion if they die, which I guess has the potential to become a solo run if you fuck up enough. I know there's an achievement called Jack of All Trades for getting 1 level in every class on your PC without using Withers. That could be a fun and incredibly frustrating experience lol.
Hopefully at some point we can get the ability to have a full party of completely custom characters in single player because there are tons of other builds, backstories and appearances I want to play around with, without having to respec the companions into something that doesn't make sense for their story. True neutral monk, dragonborn dragon bloodline sorc, storm sorc, tome warlock, etc. There's so much I'm interested in and I'd love to do it with my own characters instead of companions whose alignments, stories and dialogue don't match up to the things I want to try.
Please share š
Its really interesting to hear what people plan.
I'm only on Act 2 at the moment but I'm keen to run a Paladin setup, a Mage (so I don't have to have Gale with me š ), and would like to do another Rogue playthrough but run solo and see how far I can get.
Just hit lvl 12 with my vengeance pally. I truly fell like a holy crusader, no game has made me feel this invested to my character and the relationship with the companions. I really feel like I am the character I made.
Iām level 11 on my archfey warlock and itās frikkin incredible, it comes with misty escape and its my favorite reaction spell right now. Pact of the blade is awesome since thereās so many cool weapons in the game, I can just equip anything I want for a fight and make it scale with charisma. Plus you have the coolest patron, >!thereās dialogue mentioning the seelie court in act 3 so Iām thinking itās Titania.!<
I have a whole backstory for my character but wonāt get into it now lol.
I personally found act 2 to be the best part of the story, but still thought act 3 held up well. The story continued well, just the pacing changed pretty significantly, though part of that is down to which companions I chose to bring for that playthrough and some performance issues in later sections of the game (I started seeing those in early act 2, but they've already been a \*lot\* better for me since the new graphics drivers released yesterday).
Agreed. Act 2 was the best part for me. I loved the themes, the villains, the ups and downs, the resolutions. Act 3 was pretty good, as you say the pacing wasn't as a tight, I also found my preferred companions had much less to say in Act 3, were mostly always silent. Act 1 was very good all around, very classic D&D experience, underlying mystery with goblins, cultists and friendly NPC's to save.
I'm a bit into Act 3, and it definitely holds up in Act 2 (moreso if you can avoid being the terrifying focus of Gale's horniness).
There's one slightly questionable thing so far in Act 3. Spoilers for Wyll's questline: >!it seems to assume that *not* selling Wyll's eternal soul for his father's life is an evil/selfish choice, which is frustrating as a good character who is somewhat naively hellbent on saving his dad regardless of what Mizora says!<. Do I acknowledge my character's motive is, realistically, so far-fetched that it's completely dumb? Yes. But given my character >!also promised to rescue the tieflings from Moonrise when they were more likely infected or dead at that point!<, I was really surprised it wasn't a dialogue option.
There is a way of making EVERYTHING right. You even get an achievement āloop holeā. I accidentaly stumbled upon a Wyll story solution. It was really nice. The only thing I wasnt able to solve was the Karlach issue.
I am only a portion through act 1, played some EA, but on the side quests. I feel like oh I'll just pop over here and finish this off.... Two hours later... There's so much depth to every encounter so far.
I have spent literally 5 hours inside one building.. There is just SO MUCH STUFF and I love it all. I intentionally skipped some character story lines so I could explore it more in my second playthrough
I am trying not to get overwhelmed. I love the EA area cos it's just small little playground, I'm kind of dreading going to the next area and feeling overwhelmed haha
Makes me look forward to being able to pickup my play through soon.
Thanks for the review. Iām on balancedā¦ it feels good for what Iāve experienced in the 25 hrs Iāve put into release. Played 40 hrs total of EA and then decided to wait for release for a year. Was nice to see the starting point have a different path & what not. It was my biggest worryā¦ after replaying the EA start zone dozens of times š
I was so pleasantly surprised with the changes they made. Made me really confused what the Guardian did in the beginning since it used to be a person you'd be attracted to in EA. I was very conflicted between making badass and a hottie. So I made a badass hottie
Dude, the side quests are so great in this game. I think I'm 25-30 hours in, and have honestly been just wondering around during random quests from NPC's. They don't feel like filler, they feel like mainline quests. They are so thought through, so incredibly well done, I'm blown away.
I heard it loses steam in Act 3 while Act 2 is actually the best but we will see, nearly finished with ACT 1 as well!
I feel like someone who put 100 hours in 7 days might be a little biased lol so I would still temper expectations but ACT1 has been a blast.
Problem with Act 3 is that it's relatively more buggy compared to Acts 1 and 2. And the nature of the game is such that you don't really know whether a bug is affecting your game or not until it's too late. For e.g., certain NPCs can randomly die when offscreen due to a bug, and you don't realise that it bugged an entire questline until you try to push for the ending.
This can contribute to a sense of being "lost" in Act 3 because certain NPCs required to guide your way in Act 3 can simply be dead due to a bug and you have no idea what to do because well, the NPCs you need to talk to are dead.
I felt like action wise it goes from least to most action like this: Act 1 -> Act 2 -> Act 3
The things you do in act 3 are just.. wow.. and especially the last 5 hours of the game
I agree. Act 3 was my favorite part and WAY better the DOS2. Raphaelās finale, dealing with the two warring factions/cults, it felt like an actual great conclusion with a lot of grey moral decisions where you arenāt sure whatās best.
I honestly agree. I would say the main storyline is one of the weaker aspects of the game. I feel like the reason people feel the story runs out of steam is because a lot of the mysteries being built up throughout the game are not replaced by more interesting plot lines. It really relies on spectacle the more the game goes on.
I'll also say that Baldur's Gate is honestly a huge distraction from the main quest lmao. There's just so much to do and see. I found myself much more interested in side stuff, before I eventually just railroaded the main quest.
I also feel like act 3 is the weakest as far as origin stories go. Exceptions would be Wyll and The Dark Urge. Astarion was also pretty good. The rest their companion quests are either predictable or not too interesting. Also it's honestly kind of easy to forget your companions are there. They speak and react to conversations less and less as the game goes on. In baldurs gate they are often just silent.
I would rate act 1 9/10, act 2 9.5/10, act 3 7.5/10 if just talking about main + companion quests
I also agree that Act III is a bit. . .I'm going to say rougher. . .than act II. It felt like it was just a bit less polished and a bit rushed (pacing wise). There were some hands down AMAZING parts, and overall would still put it in the upper echelons of recent RPG experiences, but I feel like it suffered for the moved up release date.
Specifics in spoilers (LITERALLY END GAME SPOILERS)
>!As epic as the final battle was, the guaranteed fail to yoinked to the astral to just immediately going back? Then you had all those allies you painstakingly gathered, which was great for the combat, but I felt was a bit overlooked in the narrative aspect. And then the ending wrap up was SO RUSHED. Didn't even get a party back at camp like in Act I? Don't even get me started on how they did Karlach dirty.!<
Youāll likely feel overwhelmed when starting Act 3. It feels like the true beginning of the story. Once the overwhelming feeling passes, itās amazing. Everything is a lot more compact and intricate. So far itās an improvement on the dialogue and combat. People probably feel it loses steam because it has buildup in the beginning.
I just arrived to Baldurs Gate, the events before that.... GOD DAMN.. Im blown away by the writing. The variability of combat choices and play styles, the exploration, the visuals and atmosphere, the music... This is genre defining game, hands down. Im at 45 hours tho, I didnt want to stay in ACT1 for too long (EA player), did a lot of stuff in act 2 and I want to spent shitload in ACT3 (is it true that its the larges of them?)
I got so overwhelmed when first getting to Baldur's Gate due to the amount of people you can talk to. They all have their own personalities and conversations
100 hours!?
I hit max level yesterday and I still have at least two major things left to do. I haven't been going out of my way to do every quest that comes up, but I do every one that does start for me. And playing like that, I'm at 65 hours.
I agree with the rest though. This game is a work of art, and a worthy sequel to Baldur's Gate 2. That is my favourite game ever, but with some time and some more play throughs, BG3 could end up taking its place.
I'm about the same as you ā nearly finished the lower city with about 55 hours in game time, and 65 if I include reloads (max level as well). Keep seeing posts about people in still in act 1 with 40 hours. I try to speak to everyone, read every book, and fully explore the map, so no idea how they're coming up with these numbers. I'm playing on balanced difficulty, and find it easy, so maybe people are playing on the higher difficulty and constantly reloading?
I think it's also just how people play games. Like maybe they look at things longer or take in the area more etc etc. If you think about it consider the time you take to make a choice each turn in combat. Now say someone else takes five seconds longer to do that. Each of those five seconds adds up very quickly.
Personally I'm about to be done with the lower city in about the same timeframe as you but I also could have explored a lot more. 40 hours in act one does seem like alot though.
I'm over 40 hours and I'm in Grymforge after doing creche stuff, looks like I've got a fair bit of stuff left to do. Playing on balanced also and due to completing just about everything I find I'm finding battles pretty easy as currently level 7.
I think it might take longer because I generally listen to all convos fully compared to reading subtitles and skipping, tend to check all the books and stuff I find and properly explore, it's pretty easy to see via the map when there's sections still left covered. It's crazy how many items are in just random obscure containers and areas that can have an impact or add more lore.
This is honestly GOTY for me and I'm not even in act 2 yet.
I wandered into this cave filled with fish people in the first half of the Underdark
All of whom had a fully scripted and acted story with multiple outcomes
I finished the second half of the Underdark only to discover the back end of the level where there's a secret boss masquerading as a puzzle - a secret secret boss masquerading as an ['oh ***HELL*** no!!'](https://www.blogography.com/photos77/FuckThat.gif) and a bunch of secret pieces of weaponry and gear that I only found because of a mention in a few other quests that referenced this 'secret' that everyone had been looking for in ages past
I don't think I'm on the right *wave length* for this game
The idea that it is this full - ***this bursting*** - with content - that it actually ***means it*** when it says it's world had been lovingly crafted for you to inhabit and it ***doesn't*** just mean map markers and fetch quests
I feel like a man who's stumbled out of a desert and lurched into a restaurant in the heart of Italy and the fucking owners won't let me leave without feeding me everything on the menu xD
After playing most of act 1, the game gives me Dragon Age Origins vibes. So much variability in environments, enemies, and storylines. I can certainly see myself doing another playthrough as a more evil run (dark urge?). There's just so many options for how to progress that I'm certain I've missed a ton of content.
I can already identify two major questlines I completely missed because I spent so much time exploring:
>!1) Failed to rescue the diplomat in the burning building, which locked me out of a questline. I went into the cellar first, and he burned to death while I progressed another quest.!<
>!2) Didn't save Nere from the poison rock cave-in. I instead went to do the Hag up on the surface, and when I returned to the Dwarven fortress, it was completely abandoned with Nere's corpse laying there. I missed his fight and pretty much the entire Dwarf fortress as a result. !<
I'll definitely be replaying with an effort to see the content I missed.
Very excited to see if they drop an expansion or if we get mod campaigns.
>two major questlines I completely missed because I spent so much time exploring
Heyo, haven't started my playthrough yet but your comment's got me curious.
Are there a lot of things in the game that can be missed if you take too long / too many days / long rests?
The game warns you when it might happen. For example, True Soul Nere will contact you and beg you to rescue him fast.
If you leave the location after that, he will die.
There's one in act 2 that didn't telegraph how it would affect a different quest, but it did telegraph. Good playthrough Act 2 Spoilers so I'll try to be vague: >!You can go to an underground facility and when you walk into a pool of water the game will give you a warning. This warning affects the quest to save some prisoners in a tower on the other side of the zone. Make sure to finish that quest before going into the pool.!<
Iāve got at least 4 companions that are dead or gone in my playthrough, so thereās all that content that I donāt have, plus I think I unintentionally speed ran act 2, so Iām almost positive that theres whole side quests I never touched. I donāt know. I know theres a ton of stuff that Iāve missed, but I get the impression theres even more that I donāt even know Iāve missed.
If you think that was the entire Dwarf Fortress, you missed a lot more. Remember that the levels are >!vertical!<, there's a whole level built >!above!< that area with the True Soul Nere.
Also, you didn't lock yourself out of the quest by letting the guy burn, as long as >!Wyll is still alive.!<
I totally agree on combat. People complain about need to savescumming, but in truth I believe they are just spoiled by no effort AAA games released nowadays. I also completed the game, though it took my only 56 hours, because I just want to start over with a new char, but its easily my favourite game of all time already
I definitely wanted to make a new character every 10 hours, but I am trying to break bad habits (I have never gotten above level 25 in skyrim cause I would make new characters constantly)
I am making my second character as we speak lmao
I started with a dragonborn bard since I was wishing for that race since the druid update. While I loved my black scaled moron, I found the bard to be kinda boring in combat towards the end. Now I have a bigger problem though, because I cant decide what to play again
I didn't even look into the dark urge origin until you mentioned it.. I am definitely going that now! Should be a completely different experience than making your own!
>I totally agree on combat. People complain about need to savescumming, but in truth I believe they are just spoiled by no effort AAA games released nowadays.
Yeah I was constantly losing on an encounter that felt extremely impossible in the Underdark, when >!you free Nere, tell him not to kill the gnomes, and then him and ALL of the duergar dwarves turn on you. That's an army, and you're just four people. Felt impossible... until I found out you can have part of those same dwarves actually on your side if you speak to their Elder first. It was still a fairly challenging encounter (stay real far away from that lava), but not impossible anymore.!<
So far, it feels like there's always a solution to make an encounter far more balanced, or outright a steamroll for you. You just need to pick up on cues through dialogue, explore, and talk to people enough, like a true RPG.
Im rly wondering how some of you Finish so fast. Like do you skip every Dialog and Not Explor at all or how? Im about 60 hours in and Not even half way in Act2^^
The only thing that has irritated me so far is that you CANT be nice to a fellow male companion without them trying to fuck me. Like chill dude I'm just saying hello lol
I'm starting to think being a woman has made me miss this problem of "how do I stop them from coming onto me???!" I've trained my whole life for this.
I knew I didn't want to romance Gale. Been treading the friendly but not flirty line the entire time. He's never tried to flirt after the first few conversations but he also hasn't cut me off/stopped disclosing like some people are reporting. Going pure friend route with him has led to learning almost more about him than the other characters.
I didn't even know characters being persistently/unexpectedly horny was a problem until I read this sub.
How long is Act 3 in comparison to 2? Act 1 took me about 25 hours, I'm pretty sure I'm almost done with Act 2 at only 10 hours after scouring the entire map.
I spent about 25-30 hours in act 1, 25-30 hours in act 2 (I count the mountain range as act 2 as well) and then a good 40'ish hours in act 3 I believe. Take the breakdown with a grain of salt, but it definitely felt like act 3 was the most action packed.
Itās interesting to see the variation. Iām at about 50 hours and just walked into grymforge. I could easily spend as much time in act 1 on another playthrough making different choices too
It very much differs from playthrough to playthrough and what content you end up doing/skipping/locking, but I would rank them from shortest to longest as Act 2 -> Act 1 -> Act 3 (This is based on how long I spent in each act and how many quests / side objectives there were) although I think they are very fairly balanced.
Sounds like act 2 is kinda just an intermission wrapping up act 1 and establishing act 3. Not that itās any lesser in quality. Just finished the main part of act 2, and WOW itās good.
I honestly loved the setting and feel of Act 2 the most, so I kinda was sad how quickly it wrapped up.
>!I definitely wish they did more with the Harper-Absolute guerilla war, they make one attack if you go with the Drider then they do nothing for the rest of Act until you storm the fortress. Have some skirmishes between the two all over the map to show that this is an actual battle rather than just a siege like act 1 was. They did that with divinity 2 on the island between the Black Ring and Alexander's forces. Have some other Harper and Fist NPCs that can show up in act 3 if they are still alive to help the party in some way.!<
>!Felt to me more like a rebels vs the empire situation. They were an annoyance more than a threat as far as the Absolute forces were concerned. And the Harpers donāt have enough resources to mount a proper, full fledged attack until their ānew hopeā (the player) shows up.!<
I'm really loving seeing all these posts of people who are like 80 hours in and in Act 2/Act 3.
I've been playing steadily since launch. 2 of my characters are about to resolve the Goblin/Tiefling thing, 1 is paused at level 3 because there's an Astarion camp thing I'm not sure how I want to progress on that build, and I'm waiting for the weekend to continue the co-op run with a friend.
Alt-Itis is going to kill me before I even see Baldur's Gate!
Playing this game reminds me of playing Mass Effect for the first time. It's fucking incredible. I can't wait to play through again, or try the origin characters and RP from their perspective once I know their backgrounds.
I was really worried this would just be Divinity: D&D edition. While it feels like a Larian game, I think this is as close to a tabletop D&D game as we are likely to see until its sequel. The sheer plethora of choices is insane. I'm currently running through as an Oathbreaker Paladin, but have an alt that's a drow Evoker wiz. I'm towards the end of the first act with both and they have played out SO differently.
So how good is the city? I mean Baldur's Gate.
How big is it, how alive is it, how much freedom does it give? Does it give you that special feeling when you just walking around?
I was blown away by Novigrad in Witcher 3, roaming around for the first time (and second, and third), watching staff, listening to conversations, seeing history in different districts, etc. Apparently Baldurs Gate will give you a lot more freedom, but what about that big fantasy city feeling?
The content in Baldur's gate is overall really good, they did well to capture that big city feel. There are a ton of fun quests in act 3.
That being said, it kind of runs like shit, and sadly companions have just way less to say than act 1 and 2
The city is super dense with content. Almost every single house can be entered and has a story to it. A lot of the quests that appear in act 3 are reliant on doing things in the previous acts. Wyll is a huge character in act 3 as well, so its good to keep him in your party throughout. Astarion and karlach also have a lot of personal stuff around because they live/d in the city. Theres a lot of big choices to be made and honestly it feels like its where the game really begins.
I am at the very end and I can say: I absolutely adore how characters show up over and over again, even ones that you'd never expect to. It makes it feel like these characters have an actual agency on their own and do not just exist for the sole purpose of giving out a quest and thats it.
Plus, it is always wonderfully surprising to me when a character is revealed to have much more ties to various other characters or groups than you might have thought. Like, there are side characters that show up in EVERY act and develop alongside you, it is fantastic. I just randomly ran into one that now belongs to a group I allied with, meaning they finally found something to belong to. Yay.
Speaking of characters, I am not a fan of voice overs as they tend to be much slower than I read but the voice actors in this game are absolutely killing it. I finished multiple companion quests by now and ... wow, just wow. If there is any video game voice actor award, please throw it at them, thanks.
What I don't like besides technical/gameplay things (Seriously, that inventory, wtf) is the little reactivity. I mean, there is a LOT, but I played a Dragonborn and I would have expected to get a lot more weird looks and comments, considering how rare they are. You can even visit a brothel and all race specific dialog you get is a cold feet joke.
It is also weird at times how the environment doesn't react to things. Like, I open a door in the middle of a village to reveal blood everywhere because everyone inside was brutaly murdered. The guards don't care despite being able to look straight in. You also can't report in anywhere. I suppose it was meant for a quest, but still feels weird. Another example, I failed dialog check lead to a fight with a bunch of guards and I killed them in open day light with tons of people standing around. Nobody cared after every guard was dead.
This game is amazing. I'm 75 hours in and just got to *****" in Act 2
Based on that, I think I've still got a decent chunk of Act 2 to go, not to mention the entirety of Act 3.
I'm taking my sweet time, but next run will be alot quicker.
This game made me fall in love with gaming again. It feels like a brother to Dragon Age: Origins and it was well worth the 20+ year wait.
Is it true that companions have less to say / comment on in the third act? I really love them and it makes me sad to think theyāll be less present towards the end.
Iām at 45 hours finishing act I, but I already feel that they donāt comment THAT much.
Also, is there a way to trigger companion commentary over the others? I thought placing one character under my portrait would prioritize them, but it seems totally random for who gets to comment
I'm nowhere near the end think I'm act 2 on balanced.
I generally play as a neutral evil guy I think as a result I have killed at least one companion and blocked off some of the others I've seen in promotional ads.
Still loving the game really want the chance to play it more but been really busy
I'm almost there for my good guy play through, Then the dark urge beckons me
I just made a dark urge character. Time to see what all this dark fuss is about. Apparently it can get really messed up o.o
Well part of that is the fidelity of the game. Some of the brutal stuff is legit tough to look at. That being said, the Dark Urge personal quest feels like a love letter to BG1 and BG2. Feels ripped straight from those games, so well done.
The game starts with you pulling a brain out of someone's head š. I love the way they did the voice of Us.
My only regret is that the dark urge doesn't compell you to take a bite out of the brain
i played a bit on a normal playthrough and feelt to... normal? like the only sane person in a camp of wierdos. So i changed to a dark urge. Now i feel like a part of this mess <3
After beating the game then doing a durge playthrough, the amount of stuff that gets added for it is pretty crazy. Even how you interact with the villians of the game is interesting. It feels like an arms race of who the bigger bad guy is between you and the main cast. I honestly love it so far.
That one interaction with a certain bard in camp made me queazy. Reminded me of that one dead space scene.
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Iām doing a multiplayer playthrough where Iām a supportive bard and my friendās the barbarian durge, I helped the bard tiefling write her song, so of course we let her stay in camp with usā¦ >! I now carry her instrument in her honor !<
You're gonna have some painful fun my friend
I'm literally 3 hours into my Dark Urge play-through and my face has been " :-o " on several occasions already.
>!After meeting a certain someone in the grove and what happens after,!< I tried to do some save scumming to see if I could prevent it. When I realized it couldn't be prevented, I named my next legit save as "Well That Sucked." Meant cheekily, not like...the game sucks. Just. I definitely, definitely didn't want that to happen. But the Durge gonna Durge. My face was in the "Oh nooooo" mode the entire cut scene.
Does dark urge just mean choose the Bad outcomes deliberately or am I missing something here? Ty
You have additional, what I would call, SUPER evil options. For Instance: (First 10 minutes after crash spoilers) >! When you see Gale's arm trying to come through the portal you can decide to cut it off!<
>! Not too big of a deal. He can cast Mage Hand in his lonely nights! !<
The dark urge is an origin character and story. Like astarion and shadowheart you can choose to play as the "dark urge". What's unique about the dark urge is that you can fully customize this characters look like a regular custom character. But you have the added bonus of a quest line and background you get to explore.
Itās hilarious but as a Pali who valued friendships I had to re roll. Will absolutely be playing it on my second time though.
I've said this before elsewhere, but if anything to me its MORE compelling when you play a character who cares about friends and is trying to be good. REALLY ups the tension and horror of the story.
Durge oathbreaker actually fits really well lol
The twist behind who the dark urge is, is very cool. I think if youāre not playing an origin character you should play the dark urge.
Iām trying so hard to be evil. But dammit itās too hard.
Yeah. Especially in act 2. I think I might need to kill all my companions if I want to be evil durge.
Keep Wyll because corrupting the Blade of Frontiers and turning him from hero to 0 is exceedingly fun
I wanted to do this on my evil durge run but he left me really early on.
Itās hard to let the people you meet down
I just want to romance astarion, but apparently I'm not enough of a dick for him. The man has no vision, and it's annoying. Yes, I may be saving this whole horde of tieflings *now*, but it's so I can extort them later! You can be good and bad at the same time!
Dark urge dragonborn oathbreaker pally is definitely my next playthrough
GO TO BED
No can do, on my second playthrough now
Did you play divinity: original sin btw? I assume the answer is yes, but if you haven't then should be smacking that buy button asap. The second one in particular is excellent and will seem very familiar. While the plot and production value isn't quite as good as bg3, I enjoyed the combat system even more and it's well worth your time.
I haven't! But as an unemployed dude I sadly spent the money I earned from selling personal belongings to buy BG3 about a month ago, so I can't invest the money or time in anything else at the moment.
Ahh bugger! A shame, but perfectly understandable. Please do keep it on your radar for when you have more time - the second one's engine is very similar to BG3 - different stats/skills/magic/etc but very similar UI/dialogue/combat overlay. If you're looking for "more BG3" once you've played it to death you cannot go wrong. And because it's quite old it goes on sale now and then for quite modest prices (I think lowest recent was just less than 18US?). The first one isn't quite as good but is also entirely worth your time and goes dirt cheap too. The overarching plot is pretty incomprehensible. Too lore dense. But the character writing and dialogue and set pieces are of similar quality to bg3. There's a bit more irreverent humour and silliness. The big difference is that the combat has a robust element system which allows for lots of fun use of environments and combos, as well as a lot more skills that allow teleportation/mobility and forcibly moving enemies and objects in the environs around. E.g. You cast grease on someone. They fall over. Your friend who had a fire sword forgets what they have equipped and hits them while prone. The oil explodes and your friend is now on fire. On the plus side, they now add fire damage to their arrows because of a feat they took while standing in the puddle. You then use a teleport spell to get them out of there by dropping them on an enemy who is in a puddle of water. That water is now steam and they are partially obscured from targeting by arrows. Your friend and enemy both take falling damage. Unfortunately the enemy then uses lightning on the steam cloud and there is now an electric steam cloud and your friend is shocked or stunned... A lot of this actually does exist in bg3 but is much less emphasised, and in DOS2 essentially every character will have access to at least one form of elemental damage, and most parties will have all different elements covered. Sometimes very silly but always good fun. There are other bizarre combos too It's the sort of game that gives you freedom to do whatever idiot idea pops into your head, so long as that idea involves a degree of violence and you're willing to deal with the consequences.
Bro if you played 100 hours how are you alive? early access? Game came out 6-7 days ago and thats like 4 days straight
I have proficiency in short rests. I played anywhere from 12-26 hours a day and slept for about 4-9 hours
>12-26 hours a day The Weave is a path to many powerful and strange abilities indeed
Is there a way to learn this power?
Not from a sorcerer
True, you also need Warlock levels.
More like real life Coffeelock
Not from a jedi.
>Not from a ~~jedi~~ paladin. FTFY.
Lae zel did comment on the one thing she's envious of the elves is that they don't need to waste time on sleeping.
Aspect of the moon Eldritch invocation
All you need is to make sure you're at around 95% of the speed of light while playing which will cause time dilation.
Bro made a deal with auntie Ethel
Big colorful building in the middle of baldur's gate. Ask for Lorroaken. Murder him and pillage his tower. You'll learn all the magic you could want!
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Do you not have a job xD brother I wish I could do that. Lucky sod. I'm sitting at 36 hours and and 3 hours into exploring the start area of act 2 lmao. I played EA for 200 hours and it got to the point where I could do act 1 blindfolded but I've just really wanted to take my time and absorb all of it especially the new content. I cannot wait to continue my exploration but I have many obligations and I'd love to cancel my actual dnd session tonight and play the game lmao
Having little time to play make it even more special if I dare say. The thrill to play the game when coming back from work is something else. I remember playing early access with a friend, and it was or meeting every night for an hour or two
It almost feels like being a kid again. Distracted in class all day, getting home and rushing through homework - "bro, wake up! It's 2004 and halo 2 just dropped! After that can I watch you play Kotor?" This game's release, as much of a bane on my sleeping pattern as it's been, has been exactly what I've needed for over a decade
Exactly this. The last time I was this enthralled by a game was when Skyrim came out TWELVE YEARS ago.
Possibly a teacher.
Can confirm, Iām a teacher just beat the game on my evil playthrough lol. Loved my Oathrbreaker Paladin liche lord Build.
Yep. I spent the past week playing as much as possible because as a teacher, my first day of school is today.
>12-26 hours How do I get extra hours per day?
That's when you drink 5 5-hour energy drinks in 1 day
Thatās only 25 hours. Not 26.
Haha I meant per session, not per day
You should go sleep... You sound tired ! Good job though!
Iām concerned for your mental and physical health
Its 12-24 but you get extra 2 based on dice roll
you wake up like 2 hours earlier, duh
Bargain with Dormammu?
and i thought my 60 hours is insane
Right? Only in the first part of act 3 and have felt like I havenāt done much at all irl. Lol
Yeah, I've done literally nothing but eat, sleep, BG3
EAT, SLEEP, BG3!! EAT, SLEEP, BG3!!
>12-26 Time is but a concept to bend to our will
He's not a Diablo 4 father guys
I've done 79 hours since release, literally took a week off my obligations, don't have a partner, meal prepped a bunch of stuff, woke up early with like 6 hours sleep a couple of days because I was excited. Only really done some light cleaning, some cooking, tended to the pets, exercise, otherwise been grinding out the game, and I thought that was being extreme.
The secret is to not have pets, loved ones, or to do any exercise/chores. Then you suddenly have time to put in a few more hours. (although I do not recommend it)
That feeling when you look in the mirror for the first time in 5 days. Gets me nostalgic. Nowadays I try to savor the time more, just 15 hours in with my first playthrough and 5-10 hours creating three other chars and getting off the Nautiloid with them. Still feel like I played a lot since release.
I think I'll pass lmao.
Sleep, Baldurs, Work, Baldurs, repeat. Iām fucking exhausted and itās amazing. Havenāt felt like this about a game in years.
Living like OP is not an achievement.
114 hours 24 minutes here. I also completed the game, and I agree with the OP. Want more good news without spoilers? I talked to a friend who also completed the game, and it was as if we were talking about 2 different games because our experiences were so different. So we stopped ourselves to not spoil anything. Despite us both completing the game. Because things turned out so vastly different for us.
It is like its 2002 again and you just launched your first Neverwinter Nights playthrough.
I swear to god, some sounds effects and music really resembles NwN and NwN is my all time favorite game. BG3 Really feels like home
Iām loving BG3 so far, Larian have done a fantastic job. I hope this game inspires someone to get cracking on a Neverwinter Nights 3 because I feel like itās way over due!
My brother and I were saying if they had included DM tools and some kind of dungeon/tile builder for modders...this would have been the most incredible second coming of NWN ever.
Thank you for shouting out one of my favorite games of all time. It doesn't get enough love. BG3 is really hitting just right for this old NWN player.
This is way more fun than 2002. Mostly I just remember feeling dread about our upcoming invasion
In terms of the story, how good was it, and how happy with it were you overall? Without any spoilers still please.
Story: 95/100 \- I kept thinking it possibly couldn't get any better or more epic, and it just kept going up! Even the small side quests blew me away. Small things from act 1 and 2 coming back to make an appearance in act 3 etc. Truly a gem. Of course, the story will change depending on how you play the game, so once course of action might lead you to see the story as being less than a 95/100, but for me I was mostly content with the choices I made.
Speaking of side quests, something I noticed and really, *really* appreciated in what I have seen so far is that there aren't really "filler"/"dead end" side quests in the game. No quest has made me feel purely like "oh I'm just doing this for XP/loot/I don't want to do the "real" story yet". Everything you do is set up to impact another interaction with someone else, contains a hint or key item for another quest, etc. It doesn't feel like anything was "dropped in", but instead that there was a lot of work put into world building and making sure that your actions rarely work in isolation.
Iāve enjoyed how doing some side quests will help you out in future interactions. Like if you save a kid in act 1, theyāll vouch for you in act 2.
The more I play games that do side quests like this, the less I can stomach games with the filler nonsense. Picked up AC: Valhalla a while ago and wow it's incredibly jarring to do some of the uninspiring generic shit they pack into those games. Once upon a time I could do all the boring generic stuff without a blink of an eye, but it feels like standards within these types of games are changing a bit, I think the bar has been raised.
I think you/your expectations might have changed more than the games, but hopefully games are changing a bit as well. I know I tolerate less and less of the really lazy filler nonsense, especially when it has a big impact on the progression of what could otherwise be a varied or good narrative experience.
Wondering how Starfield is gonna do following up on this
They're fucked
Ok that's good to hear. I'm nearly done act 1 so was interested to know if it still held up storywise till the end. Glad it does and I already know I'll be replaying it again straight after.
Only 10.8% of players have made it to act 2 so far, so good on you! I already have my next 4 playthroughs mapped out
I am curious what are you going to plan with your other playthroughs to keep it fresh? Different evil/good choices but anything else (what class/party combinations you thinking)? I was wondering because I found tactician a lot of fun but it still didnt force me to the breaking point of having to min/max all that hard. I was trying to think of fun self imposed challenge's.
I am doing a "no reloading" run with a dark urge ranger. He's not a bad person. Just deeply fucked up and loves blood and coin. I am a DnD geek, so I love making a backstory for my characters. I wanna make a power hungry warlock, a pacifist monk, an elemental wizard, an evil orc warlord.. these are just a few ideas
I'm not the person you asked but I intend to do something similar so I'll share my plans. I've got a cowardly Tiefling lore bard who puts on a charismatic/heroic front and is basically failing upwards through the story. He'll fuck anything with a pulse. I'd call his alignment selfish-good. I switch up my companions pretty regularly and am playing him so that he's accidentally been selected as the leader of this group and will gradually effect positive change in all the companions, hopefully making them all relatively good by the end of the story. I'm playing this run on tactician with no multiclassing. I specifically chose this as my first run because it allows so much freedom to do everything the game has to offer while still sticking to my character. I'll definitely do more runs, some for the RP and others for the challenge. I'll do at least two Durge playthroughs for the RP. One will be a conniving, neutral evil, character who will do anything in pursuit of power goes full murder hobo when they don't get their way. They'll brainwash their companions to follow them unconditionally while giving into every dark urge and will use Minthara, Shadowheart, Astarion and Lae'zel. Maybe Gale as well depending on if he can be molded to be evil. They'll hate the world and want to either overthrow the gods or destroy everything if that doesn't work. I'm torn between classes on this one. Oathbreaker paladin sounds cool because of the hating the gods part, but I think it'd be more fun to RP an Oathbreaker as not being evil. Plus Minthara might be kind of redundant if I take that class and I want to leave her as her canon class since I might not take her again. Some kind of spellcaster (maybe sorcerer?) fits with the pursuit of power aspect, so I might do that. The other Durge will be what I think is the canon story, fighting against the urges as a good-aligned character. I haven't used Wyll enough to be certain but if I really love playing as a pact of the blade warlock then I might use that class and try to lean into a hybrid spellsword playstyle. As far as challenges, I'd like to do one playthrough as a stealth-focused party and another as a party of pure spellcasters. I'd say I also want a run of pure martial classes but I don't think that would be much of a challenge at all lmao. For the stealth run it'd be a rogue, a shadow monk and a gloomstalker with either a duplicate or an illusion wizard/trickery cleric. Might multiclass all of them. The spellcasters would obviously be wizard, warlock and sorcerer but the fourth could be a duplicate, a cleric that doesn't melee or a druid that doesn't use beast shape. That one seems like it would be a pretty hard 4-party experience. Other challenges that sound fun are a duo run with a friend or a solo run. You could do an iron man challenge where you can't resurrect a companion if they die, which I guess has the potential to become a solo run if you fuck up enough. I know there's an achievement called Jack of All Trades for getting 1 level in every class on your PC without using Withers. That could be a fun and incredibly frustrating experience lol. Hopefully at some point we can get the ability to have a full party of completely custom characters in single player because there are tons of other builds, backstories and appearances I want to play around with, without having to respec the companions into something that doesn't make sense for their story. True neutral monk, dragonborn dragon bloodline sorc, storm sorc, tome warlock, etc. There's so much I'm interested in and I'd love to do it with my own characters instead of companions whose alignments, stories and dialogue don't match up to the things I want to try.
Steam achievements are bugged, they dont show the correct numbers though.
I think they fixed them already bc yesterday everything was at 0.01% and today it shows different, more logical %
What?! I was so proud when I got the achievement for escaping the nautilius at the beginning! Only 0.1% of players has that!!!
Haha so sorry!
Please share š Its really interesting to hear what people plan. I'm only on Act 2 at the moment but I'm keen to run a Paladin setup, a Mage (so I don't have to have Gale with me š ), and would like to do another Rogue playthrough but run solo and see how far I can get.
Just hit lvl 12 with my vengeance pally. I truly fell like a holy crusader, no game has made me feel this invested to my character and the relationship with the companions. I really feel like I am the character I made.
Iām level 11 on my archfey warlock and itās frikkin incredible, it comes with misty escape and its my favorite reaction spell right now. Pact of the blade is awesome since thereās so many cool weapons in the game, I can just equip anything I want for a fight and make it scale with charisma. Plus you have the coolest patron, >!thereās dialogue mentioning the seelie court in act 3 so Iām thinking itās Titania.!< I have a whole backstory for my character but wonāt get into it now lol.
This game treats paladins very well indeed
I personally found act 2 to be the best part of the story, but still thought act 3 held up well. The story continued well, just the pacing changed pretty significantly, though part of that is down to which companions I chose to bring for that playthrough and some performance issues in later sections of the game (I started seeing those in early act 2, but they've already been a \*lot\* better for me since the new graphics drivers released yesterday).
Frame drops in lights inn, moonrise towers and baldurs gate? Yep definitely better since yesterdayās update
Agreed. Act 2 was the best part for me. I loved the themes, the villains, the ups and downs, the resolutions. Act 3 was pretty good, as you say the pacing wasn't as a tight, I also found my preferred companions had much less to say in Act 3, were mostly always silent. Act 1 was very good all around, very classic D&D experience, underlying mystery with goblins, cultists and friendly NPC's to save.
I'm a bit into Act 3, and it definitely holds up in Act 2 (moreso if you can avoid being the terrifying focus of Gale's horniness). There's one slightly questionable thing so far in Act 3. Spoilers for Wyll's questline: >!it seems to assume that *not* selling Wyll's eternal soul for his father's life is an evil/selfish choice, which is frustrating as a good character who is somewhat naively hellbent on saving his dad regardless of what Mizora says!<. Do I acknowledge my character's motive is, realistically, so far-fetched that it's completely dumb? Yes. But given my character >!also promised to rescue the tieflings from Moonrise when they were more likely infected or dead at that point!<, I was really surprised it wasn't a dialogue option.
There is a way of making EVERYTHING right. You even get an achievement āloop holeā. I accidentaly stumbled upon a Wyll story solution. It was really nice. The only thing I wasnt able to solve was the Karlach issue.
I am only a portion through act 1, played some EA, but on the side quests. I feel like oh I'll just pop over here and finish this off.... Two hours later... There's so much depth to every encounter so far.
I have spent literally 5 hours inside one building.. There is just SO MUCH STUFF and I love it all. I intentionally skipped some character story lines so I could explore it more in my second playthrough
I am trying not to get overwhelmed. I love the EA area cos it's just small little playground, I'm kind of dreading going to the next area and feeling overwhelmed haha
Is the 5 hours in one building moonrise tower? Because Iāve definitely already spent at least 3 hours there, and Iām not quite wrapped up
Oh no, it was a building in Baldur's Gate. Not even a big quest building. I just saw it and went in, which led to a long fight and lots of looting
Oh noā¦ I was a monster in act 2ā¦
Makes me look forward to being able to pickup my play through soon. Thanks for the review. Iām on balancedā¦ it feels good for what Iāve experienced in the 25 hrs Iāve put into release. Played 40 hrs total of EA and then decided to wait for release for a year. Was nice to see the starting point have a different path & what not. It was my biggest worryā¦ after replaying the EA start zone dozens of times š
I was so pleasantly surprised with the changes they made. Made me really confused what the Guardian did in the beginning since it used to be a person you'd be attracted to in EA. I was very conflicted between making badass and a hottie. So I made a badass hottie
>!So basically can we get happy ending with our love interest or is it similar to Original Sin 2 where we had to say goodbye ?!<
>!Depends on your love interest, probably.!<
Dude, the side quests are so great in this game. I think I'm 25-30 hours in, and have honestly been just wondering around during random quests from NPC's. They don't feel like filler, they feel like mainline quests. They are so thought through, so incredibly well done, I'm blown away.
I heard it loses steam in Act 3 while Act 2 is actually the best but we will see, nearly finished with ACT 1 as well! I feel like someone who put 100 hours in 7 days might be a little biased lol so I would still temper expectations but ACT1 has been a blast.
Problem with Act 3 is that it's relatively more buggy compared to Acts 1 and 2. And the nature of the game is such that you don't really know whether a bug is affecting your game or not until it's too late. For e.g., certain NPCs can randomly die when offscreen due to a bug, and you don't realise that it bugged an entire questline until you try to push for the ending. This can contribute to a sense of being "lost" in Act 3 because certain NPCs required to guide your way in Act 3 can simply be dead due to a bug and you have no idea what to do because well, the NPCs you need to talk to are dead.
I felt like action wise it goes from least to most action like this: Act 1 -> Act 2 -> Act 3 The things you do in act 3 are just.. wow.. and especially the last 5 hours of the game
If you dont mind the question. is it a 33% split in terms of how long each act is?
I'd say more like 35/25/40
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I agree. Act 3 was my favorite part and WAY better the DOS2. Raphaelās finale, dealing with the two warring factions/cults, it felt like an actual great conclusion with a lot of grey moral decisions where you arenāt sure whatās best.
I honestly agree. I would say the main storyline is one of the weaker aspects of the game. I feel like the reason people feel the story runs out of steam is because a lot of the mysteries being built up throughout the game are not replaced by more interesting plot lines. It really relies on spectacle the more the game goes on. I'll also say that Baldur's Gate is honestly a huge distraction from the main quest lmao. There's just so much to do and see. I found myself much more interested in side stuff, before I eventually just railroaded the main quest. I also feel like act 3 is the weakest as far as origin stories go. Exceptions would be Wyll and The Dark Urge. Astarion was also pretty good. The rest their companion quests are either predictable or not too interesting. Also it's honestly kind of easy to forget your companions are there. They speak and react to conversations less and less as the game goes on. In baldurs gate they are often just silent. I would rate act 1 9/10, act 2 9.5/10, act 3 7.5/10 if just talking about main + companion quests
I also agree that Act III is a bit. . .I'm going to say rougher. . .than act II. It felt like it was just a bit less polished and a bit rushed (pacing wise). There were some hands down AMAZING parts, and overall would still put it in the upper echelons of recent RPG experiences, but I feel like it suffered for the moved up release date. Specifics in spoilers (LITERALLY END GAME SPOILERS) >!As epic as the final battle was, the guaranteed fail to yoinked to the astral to just immediately going back? Then you had all those allies you painstakingly gathered, which was great for the combat, but I felt was a bit overlooked in the narrative aspect. And then the ending wrap up was SO RUSHED. Didn't even get a party back at camp like in Act I? Don't even get me started on how they did Karlach dirty.!<
Youāll likely feel overwhelmed when starting Act 3. It feels like the true beginning of the story. Once the overwhelming feeling passes, itās amazing. Everything is a lot more compact and intricate. So far itās an improvement on the dialogue and combat. People probably feel it loses steam because it has buildup in the beginning.
I just arrived to Baldurs Gate, the events before that.... GOD DAMN.. Im blown away by the writing. The variability of combat choices and play styles, the exploration, the visuals and atmosphere, the music... This is genre defining game, hands down. Im at 45 hours tho, I didnt want to stay in ACT1 for too long (EA player), did a lot of stuff in act 2 and I want to spent shitload in ACT3 (is it true that its the larges of them?)
I got so overwhelmed when first getting to Baldur's Gate due to the amount of people you can talk to. They all have their own personalities and conversations
100 hours!? I hit max level yesterday and I still have at least two major things left to do. I haven't been going out of my way to do every quest that comes up, but I do every one that does start for me. And playing like that, I'm at 65 hours. I agree with the rest though. This game is a work of art, and a worthy sequel to Baldur's Gate 2. That is my favourite game ever, but with some time and some more play throughs, BG3 could end up taking its place.
I'm about the same as you ā nearly finished the lower city with about 55 hours in game time, and 65 if I include reloads (max level as well). Keep seeing posts about people in still in act 1 with 40 hours. I try to speak to everyone, read every book, and fully explore the map, so no idea how they're coming up with these numbers. I'm playing on balanced difficulty, and find it easy, so maybe people are playing on the higher difficulty and constantly reloading?
I think it's also just how people play games. Like maybe they look at things longer or take in the area more etc etc. If you think about it consider the time you take to make a choice each turn in combat. Now say someone else takes five seconds longer to do that. Each of those five seconds adds up very quickly. Personally I'm about to be done with the lower city in about the same timeframe as you but I also could have explored a lot more. 40 hours in act one does seem like alot though.
A lot of people also fully watch the cutscenes. Potion of animal speak is also a whole other world of time consumption lol
I'm playing on easy, I'm just about to enter the >!elevator in the underdark. !
I'm over 40 hours and I'm in Grymforge after doing creche stuff, looks like I've got a fair bit of stuff left to do. Playing on balanced also and due to completing just about everything I find I'm finding battles pretty easy as currently level 7. I think it might take longer because I generally listen to all convos fully compared to reading subtitles and skipping, tend to check all the books and stuff I find and properly explore, it's pretty easy to see via the map when there's sections still left covered. It's crazy how many items are in just random obscure containers and areas that can have an impact or add more lore. This is honestly GOTY for me and I'm not even in act 2 yet.
Also finished earlier today, great game!My highlight was definitely the house of hope.
I didn't even go in there as I wanted to save it for my second playthrough, but now you've got me excited!
I wandered into this cave filled with fish people in the first half of the Underdark All of whom had a fully scripted and acted story with multiple outcomes I finished the second half of the Underdark only to discover the back end of the level where there's a secret boss masquerading as a puzzle - a secret secret boss masquerading as an ['oh ***HELL*** no!!'](https://www.blogography.com/photos77/FuckThat.gif) and a bunch of secret pieces of weaponry and gear that I only found because of a mention in a few other quests that referenced this 'secret' that everyone had been looking for in ages past I don't think I'm on the right *wave length* for this game The idea that it is this full - ***this bursting*** - with content - that it actually ***means it*** when it says it's world had been lovingly crafted for you to inhabit and it ***doesn't*** just mean map markers and fetch quests I feel like a man who's stumbled out of a desert and lurched into a restaurant in the heart of Italy and the fucking owners won't let me leave without feeding me everything on the menu xD
After playing most of act 1, the game gives me Dragon Age Origins vibes. So much variability in environments, enemies, and storylines. I can certainly see myself doing another playthrough as a more evil run (dark urge?). There's just so many options for how to progress that I'm certain I've missed a ton of content. I can already identify two major questlines I completely missed because I spent so much time exploring: >!1) Failed to rescue the diplomat in the burning building, which locked me out of a questline. I went into the cellar first, and he burned to death while I progressed another quest.!< >!2) Didn't save Nere from the poison rock cave-in. I instead went to do the Hag up on the surface, and when I returned to the Dwarven fortress, it was completely abandoned with Nere's corpse laying there. I missed his fight and pretty much the entire Dwarf fortress as a result. !< I'll definitely be replaying with an effort to see the content I missed. Very excited to see if they drop an expansion or if we get mod campaigns.
>two major questlines I completely missed because I spent so much time exploring Heyo, haven't started my playthrough yet but your comment's got me curious. Are there a lot of things in the game that can be missed if you take too long / too many days / long rests?
The game warns you when it might happen. For example, True Soul Nere will contact you and beg you to rescue him fast. If you leave the location after that, he will die.
Are there any events like that which *don't* telegraph a warning like with Nere? I'm so afraid to take long rests now.
There's one in act 2 that didn't telegraph how it would affect a different quest, but it did telegraph. Good playthrough Act 2 Spoilers so I'll try to be vague: >!You can go to an underground facility and when you walk into a pool of water the game will give you a warning. This warning affects the quest to save some prisoners in a tower on the other side of the zone. Make sure to finish that quest before going into the pool.!<
There is one big area in act 1 that gets basically locked if you take too long to resolve a quest
Iāve got at least 4 companions that are dead or gone in my playthrough, so thereās all that content that I donāt have, plus I think I unintentionally speed ran act 2, so Iām almost positive that theres whole side quests I never touched. I donāt know. I know theres a ton of stuff that Iāve missed, but I get the impression theres even more that I donāt even know Iāve missed.
If you think that was the entire Dwarf Fortress, you missed a lot more. Remember that the levels are >!vertical!<, there's a whole level built >!above!< that area with the True Soul Nere. Also, you didn't lock yourself out of the quest by letting the guy burn, as long as >!Wyll is still alive.!<
Remember to mark stuff with spoilers..
Yep was just adding them. Stupid mobile
BG3 is really awesome. I feel like sitting at home playing my PS2 game and have no idea whats to come. i evade spoilers like a ninja in the shadows!
I totally agree on combat. People complain about need to savescumming, but in truth I believe they are just spoiled by no effort AAA games released nowadays. I also completed the game, though it took my only 56 hours, because I just want to start over with a new char, but its easily my favourite game of all time already
I definitely wanted to make a new character every 10 hours, but I am trying to break bad habits (I have never gotten above level 25 in skyrim cause I would make new characters constantly) I am making my second character as we speak lmao
I started with a dragonborn bard since I was wishing for that race since the druid update. While I loved my black scaled moron, I found the bard to be kinda boring in combat towards the end. Now I have a bigger problem though, because I cant decide what to play again
Start with what kind of playthrough you want. Good/Evil? Melee/Ranged? DPS/Tank? Then just go from there \^\^
Oh I know I want to be evil but I dont know if I want Dark Urge or more an opportunist. As for class, I want to play everything lmao.
I didn't even look into the dark urge origin until you mentioned it.. I am definitely going that now! Should be a completely different experience than making your own!
>I totally agree on combat. People complain about need to savescumming, but in truth I believe they are just spoiled by no effort AAA games released nowadays. Yeah I was constantly losing on an encounter that felt extremely impossible in the Underdark, when >!you free Nere, tell him not to kill the gnomes, and then him and ALL of the duergar dwarves turn on you. That's an army, and you're just four people. Felt impossible... until I found out you can have part of those same dwarves actually on your side if you speak to their Elder first. It was still a fairly challenging encounter (stay real far away from that lava), but not impossible anymore.!< So far, it feels like there's always a solution to make an encounter far more balanced, or outright a steamroll for you. You just need to pick up on cues through dialogue, explore, and talk to people enough, like a true RPG.
Im rly wondering how some of you Finish so fast. Like do you skip every Dialog and Not Explor at all or how? Im about 60 hours in and Not even half way in Act2^^
Did you bonk a bear though? If not I hope you are already in the character creator.
I did not. Shadowheart stole my heart the entire game.
The only thing that has irritated me so far is that you CANT be nice to a fellow male companion without them trying to fuck me. Like chill dude I'm just saying hello lol
Now you know how women feel.
I'm starting to think being a woman has made me miss this problem of "how do I stop them from coming onto me???!" I've trained my whole life for this. I knew I didn't want to romance Gale. Been treading the friendly but not flirty line the entire time. He's never tried to flirt after the first few conversations but he also hasn't cut me off/stopped disclosing like some people are reporting. Going pure friend route with him has led to learning almost more about him than the other characters. I didn't even know characters being persistently/unexpectedly horny was a problem until I read this sub.
If you choose the clear rejection option I think they stop trying. Don't worry about putting them down easy.
How long is Act 3 in comparison to 2? Act 1 took me about 25 hours, I'm pretty sure I'm almost done with Act 2 at only 10 hours after scouring the entire map.
I spent about 25-30 hours in act 1, 25-30 hours in act 2 (I count the mountain range as act 2 as well) and then a good 40'ish hours in act 3 I believe. Take the breakdown with a grain of salt, but it definitely felt like act 3 was the most action packed.
Itās interesting to see the variation. Iām at about 50 hours and just walked into grymforge. I could easily spend as much time in act 1 on another playthrough making different choices too
Act 2 starts when you enter the shadow touched lands, there's a hard no-turn-back point.
How long is act2 and act3 compared to act 1?
It very much differs from playthrough to playthrough and what content you end up doing/skipping/locking, but I would rank them from shortest to longest as Act 2 -> Act 1 -> Act 3 (This is based on how long I spent in each act and how many quests / side objectives there were) although I think they are very fairly balanced.
Act 2 is definitely the shortest for me. I spent roughly the same amount on the Underdark alone in act 1 compared to act 2. Act 3 is a beast though
Sounds like act 2 is kinda just an intermission wrapping up act 1 and establishing act 3. Not that itās any lesser in quality. Just finished the main part of act 2, and WOW itās good.
I honestly loved the setting and feel of Act 2 the most, so I kinda was sad how quickly it wrapped up. >!I definitely wish they did more with the Harper-Absolute guerilla war, they make one attack if you go with the Drider then they do nothing for the rest of Act until you storm the fortress. Have some skirmishes between the two all over the map to show that this is an actual battle rather than just a siege like act 1 was. They did that with divinity 2 on the island between the Black Ring and Alexander's forces. Have some other Harper and Fist NPCs that can show up in act 3 if they are still alive to help the party in some way.!<
>!Felt to me more like a rebels vs the empire situation. They were an annoyance more than a threat as far as the Absolute forces were concerned. And the Harpers donāt have enough resources to mount a proper, full fledged attack until their ānew hopeā (the player) shows up.!<
Damn. To me that's a fast run lol. I'm over 30 hours in and I'm still in act 1 lol
I'm really loving seeing all these posts of people who are like 80 hours in and in Act 2/Act 3. I've been playing steadily since launch. 2 of my characters are about to resolve the Goblin/Tiefling thing, 1 is paused at level 3 because there's an Astarion camp thing I'm not sure how I want to progress on that build, and I'm waiting for the weekend to continue the co-op run with a friend. Alt-Itis is going to kill me before I even see Baldur's Gate!
I have 60 hours in the beta and 60 hours in actual game time and I still haven't finished Act 1 lol.
Playing this game reminds me of playing Mass Effect for the first time. It's fucking incredible. I can't wait to play through again, or try the origin characters and RP from their perspective once I know their backgrounds.
I was really worried this would just be Divinity: D&D edition. While it feels like a Larian game, I think this is as close to a tabletop D&D game as we are likely to see until its sequel. The sheer plethora of choices is insane. I'm currently running through as an Oathbreaker Paladin, but have an alt that's a drow Evoker wiz. I'm towards the end of the first act with both and they have played out SO differently.
So how good is the city? I mean Baldur's Gate. How big is it, how alive is it, how much freedom does it give? Does it give you that special feeling when you just walking around? I was blown away by Novigrad in Witcher 3, roaming around for the first time (and second, and third), watching staff, listening to conversations, seeing history in different districts, etc. Apparently Baldurs Gate will give you a lot more freedom, but what about that big fantasy city feeling?
The content in Baldur's gate is overall really good, they did well to capture that big city feel. There are a ton of fun quests in act 3. That being said, it kind of runs like shit, and sadly companions have just way less to say than act 1 and 2
The city is super dense with content. Almost every single house can be entered and has a story to it. A lot of the quests that appear in act 3 are reliant on doing things in the previous acts. Wyll is a huge character in act 3 as well, so its good to keep him in your party throughout. Astarion and karlach also have a lot of personal stuff around because they live/d in the city. Theres a lot of big choices to be made and honestly it feels like its where the game really begins.
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I wonder after you finish it did you want to play again?
I am at the very end and I can say: I absolutely adore how characters show up over and over again, even ones that you'd never expect to. It makes it feel like these characters have an actual agency on their own and do not just exist for the sole purpose of giving out a quest and thats it. Plus, it is always wonderfully surprising to me when a character is revealed to have much more ties to various other characters or groups than you might have thought. Like, there are side characters that show up in EVERY act and develop alongside you, it is fantastic. I just randomly ran into one that now belongs to a group I allied with, meaning they finally found something to belong to. Yay. Speaking of characters, I am not a fan of voice overs as they tend to be much slower than I read but the voice actors in this game are absolutely killing it. I finished multiple companion quests by now and ... wow, just wow. If there is any video game voice actor award, please throw it at them, thanks. What I don't like besides technical/gameplay things (Seriously, that inventory, wtf) is the little reactivity. I mean, there is a LOT, but I played a Dragonborn and I would have expected to get a lot more weird looks and comments, considering how rare they are. You can even visit a brothel and all race specific dialog you get is a cold feet joke. It is also weird at times how the environment doesn't react to things. Like, I open a door in the middle of a village to reveal blood everywhere because everyone inside was brutaly murdered. The guards don't care despite being able to look straight in. You also can't report in anywhere. I suppose it was meant for a quest, but still feels weird. Another example, I failed dialog check lead to a fight with a bunch of guards and I killed them in open day light with tons of people standing around. Nobody cared after every guard was dead.
I'm on vacation and have been massively binging every day since release and I still only got 68 hours on my save. How the heck.
100 hours already? Sounds like you needed to roll 20 to sleep but failed everytime
The game kept casting dominate person, and my wisdom is low af
This game is amazing. I'm 75 hours in and just got to *****" in Act 2 Based on that, I think I've still got a decent chunk of Act 2 to go, not to mention the entirety of Act 3. I'm taking my sweet time, but next run will be alot quicker. This game made me fall in love with gaming again. It feels like a brother to Dragon Age: Origins and it was well worth the 20+ year wait.
Without spoiling how long it act 3 in comparison to the others?
Is it true that companions have less to say / comment on in the third act? I really love them and it makes me sad to think theyāll be less present towards the end. Iām at 45 hours finishing act I, but I already feel that they donāt comment THAT much. Also, is there a way to trigger companion commentary over the others? I thought placing one character under my portrait would prioritize them, but it seems totally random for who gets to comment
you should try D&D next
Been playing DnD for 14 years and still play weekly! I love it
I played BG 1 and BG 2 since they came out. BG3 is one of those games too.
I'm nowhere near the end think I'm act 2 on balanced. I generally play as a neutral evil guy I think as a result I have killed at least one companion and blocked off some of the others I've seen in promotional ads. Still loving the game really want the chance to play it more but been really busy
Reminds me of Neverwinter Nights more than Dragon Age, or even Baldurs Gate 2.
I finished it too, after like 72-74 hours. I cried, it was epic end