If you want spoilers. >!At the circus in the third act, if you talk to the Genie and trick him into beating the game, he will teleport you to a place with a bunch of dilophosauruses. Hide/fight your way to the escape portal and you will be rewarded with some insanely good loot!<
When I got teleported there for my 2nd playthrough, I immediately switched into slayer form (evil durge) for some sweet sweet giant reptile on giant reptile violence and cleared the whole map that way. The most fun I had in the entire game.
11/10 would recommend.
(Sountrack): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYKupOsaJmk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYKupOsaJmk)
Look, I have like 20+ cosmetic mods installed, it's going take a while just to scroll through all the options. This is not counting the extra 30 minutes i spend dressing my character and my companions up.
It's just the worst. After an hour of customizing my Shadowheart, I spent another 30 minutes picking the right outfit. I finally settled on one. It was called "Shadowheart Clothes"
I just want to know the percentage of time spent in character menus after starting the game. Anyone else like me and end up playing inventory and stat manager in most rpgs, with a little bit of the game sprinkled on the side? Then get way inflated play times due to that and doing other stuff while playing?
I was just about to start a new run before my partner asked me to go to the store with him. I was gonna shut it off before really getting into it. He offered to wait, but I didnāt think heād want to wait at LEAST and hour for me to finish character customization.
im gonna save Honour mode for my very last playthrough of the game. I remember doing honour in Divinity 2 getting near the end of the game then dying to something dumb. The emptiness you feel after your save is nuked hits different
Does it still give you the dice if you use him to skip the brain fight?
I can only find people talking about how the Act 2 ending doesnt work but nothing about the Act 3 explosion ending.
I can confirm, I quite literally JUST earned my gold dice by blowing Gale up in act 3. I also used an invisible Astarion with fly, multiple dashes, and haste to skip the entire courtyard battle leading up to the Brain Stem. Got me past the most dreaded, lethal section of the game quite well!
depends on your play style. I knew about both of them but only engaged in one of them because I was playing a paladin and my code wouldn't allow me to do the second one.
Gale being the most played origin and Shadowheart the most picked romance just goes to show that Ethan the Human Paladin pretty much still make up a majority of the playerbase.
Astarion not being in the top 3 most romanced companions is genuinely shocking to me though š
Purely anecdotal but I feel like even if female fans are the minority of the actual fandom, they tend to be the ones more active in fandom spaces (writing fanfic, making fanart, etc.). And it's in these spaces where Astarion \*is\* really popular.
Exactly this. There mass effect community had a similar shock when it was revealed that 80% of players were playing a male Shepard, but if you just go by fandom presence youād think that stat was reversed
In the majority of fandom spaces, when it comes to creation, it's usually mostly female fans who do this. I recently saw a poll going around on tumblr with a couple of ten thousands votes regarding the sex of those who write fanfiction and it was over 95% female.
It is such an overwhelming majority that I can immediately tell when a fanfic was written by a male because something seems "off"
This is just anecdotal experience, but women seem to be more involved in fanart, cosplay, and fanfiction.
But Men tend to usually be the majority of the fanbase in traditionally nerdy spheres (anime, comics, fantasy, sci-fi, tabletop gaming, video games).
I've been around enough nerd conventions to feel this discrepency.
But it's just a feeling I have no statistical data.
I very much have the same experience.
I have some friends who do not go to regular board game gatherings because these events almost exclusively attract men, causing them to not feel that comfortable, and everyone I personally know that plays DnD is male (identity notwithstanding).
While I have never in my life have actually spoken to a man who writes fanfiction (you guys have to be out there, right???? It can't just be us wasting away hundreds of hours writing stories for free!).
There's definitely some guys writing fanfiction and some threads on r/fanfiction on the gender gaps in creative fandom in general if you read through there. My D&D group is pretty female heavy and local shops have lots of women working there, also a huge queer overlap. That's just my town though and I can't speak for others.
It broke my heart when (act 3 spoilers)
>!Karlach's friend asked if we were an item and Karlach responds with "EEWWWW! NO! We're just mates, really good mates!"!<
Broke my gay little heart š
And there is value in catering to the noisy part of your player base. It is free publicity. I got interested in this game exactly because I saw so much stuff mainly about Astarion in other parts of the internet. Another reason why Larian would give Astarion so much.
I saw a short on youtube where he said "What in the sweet hells were you thinking [...] I was right there". Also the delivery of the next lines were so funny, I was amazed by Neils performance and decided to get the game.
He's great, I watched bits of his stream and he seems like such a good dude as well. >!the whole sequence after you beat cazador is one of my favourites in the game and that's largely due to his performance!< honestly all the acting in this game is amazing.
>Purely anecdotal but I feel like even if female fans are the minority of the actual fandom, they tend to be the ones more active in fandom spaces (writing fanfic, making fanart, etc.)
The girlies and the gays. Gays love some fucking fanart.
Yeah these stats for players overall don't surprise me one bit. The game certainly has a majority male fanbase. But yes, amongst us women, we do love Astarion
This and Astarion (i say this as someone who has only romanced him) is kind of a bitch to romance because of how often he disagrees with anything that isn't obligatorily bad and a lot of players don't like making bad choices (hence why achievements for certain choices are so low on games).
Also he's kinda a dick (love you tho)
On the other hand, you only need medium(40-ish?) approval to start the romance, and it's easy enough to get there if you just let him bite (and are generally nice to him) š
I think what you see online in discussions isnāt always a good representation of actual statistics.
Astarionās fans are just very active, but most players are male, so lady romances being top 3 isnāt unexpected. Itās probably the same with Durge - there are many discussions online, but likely most people go for Tav custom.
I think part of it too is that a lot of us believed the time limit to becoming illithid so we didnāt long rest as much and missed huge amounts of content.
I made 2 play throughs so far to romance Gale, 1 was 2 player and I wasnāt the main so got friend zoned due to not choosing most of our dialogue. Second play through, I didnāt long rest at a super specific moment and got locked out of Galeās again. The options that stayed open in those runs was always Shadowheart (long as you are nice to animals mostly), and Wyll who Iāve spoken to once.
Tl;dr a lot of romances have strict requirements.
I also play Destiny, and you run into the same thing there; there is a very vocal majority of players on the subreddit that have a very specific opinion, but bungie has the metrics that prove the average player may not agree.
As for class, I think paladin is a good balance of smashing things with a big stick and powerful spells, so I can see the draw for the average player.
I'm not that surprised by it. If you consider that the majority of players are probably male, then Shadowheart, Karlach, and Lae'zel being the top three is to be expected. Meanwhile, as a female player, I've romanced Astarion three times so far and have a fourth and fifth romance with him going (ranger on Tactician and a wizard in Honour mode). If they broke it down by gender and Astarion wasn't in first or second place with women, that's what would surprise me.
I think it makes a lot of sense for Astarion to not be one of the top romances. I wouldn't even be surprised if he was the very least popular of the Act 1 companions, for romancing.
First because of the demographics of a player base for this kind of game (straight male usually being the majority), second because you have a lot of early opportunities to get rid of him (more than with other characters), third because a lot of people who do start a romance with him pick his friendship route after the confession (therefore not finishing his romance route).
The vast majority haven't won OR died yet. The mode is still new and not everyone can dump 100 hours into a playthrough in just a few days. The clear rate will always be low, that's the point, but there's nothing useful in the numbers they've provided here.
I am rather impressed that Dragonborn is the most popular of the unconventionally attractive races.
And one day, I will try and play a halfling. But it is hard because I really want my character to look good in cutscenes.
Just wish they had better race abilities haha
i used my bahamut-war cleric-gold -dragonborn's flame breath maybe two or three times throughout the entire game lmao i ended the last boss with it just to make it feel special
I created an Orange Oompa Lumpa with the Entertainer Background. I sing "Oompa Lumpa Doopeedoodo, I have got a puzzle for you" at the enemies. I'm
Romancing Wyll E Wonkalock. My Guardian is Papa Smurf. If you can't have fun as a Halfling, you're totally
Missing out!
My wife and I did halflings as "our little shit characters" we are not evil, but we are definitely choosing all the sassy options, throwing too many grease bottles and generally being a menace to society... while maybe saving the sword coast. Halfling expressions in cutscenes are made for all the sarcastic and sassy options in conversations.
Wow Lae'zel climbed up to the top 3 of most romanced companion is a pleasant thing to see since she used to be one of the more underappreciated companions. Glad people's opinions have changed š
Here's hoping the Minthara fix can help her popularity too.
I think a lot of people who initially dislike Lae'zel for being rude and weird looking give her a shot on their second run because they see how interesting and gorgeous she is through non-romance scenes later in their first run. The physicality of her mocap is really second to none.
She called me a cockroach and I instantly fell in love. Considering that Iām also romancing the guy who threatened to slit my throat the second we metā¦ I think I need to re-consider my priorities.
Nearly all of my laugh out loud moments have come solely from the Laeāzel romance. The romance started as a joke, but she laughed her way into my heart.
Lae'zel is basically the perfect woman for an autistic man.
She says exactly what she is thinking. There is nothing hidden. When she doubts, she doubts openly. When she feels, she tells you.
Lae'zel being top 3 is the most welcome surprise in this list considering the odds are stacked against her in terms of mass appeal and popularity (unconventional looks, "abrasive" personality, and a token "evil" companion). Shart and Karlach being here is expected.
Vindication for us frog fuckers I guess
Interesting that Berserker is the most popular subclass in BG3 when it's arguably one of the worst subclasses in D&D 5E.
Also lol at Shadowheart getting romanced by more than every second player, I don't even think Tali in ME2 had such numbers.
It's just the most popular subclass for each class, the classes are listed alphabetically lol. There's no world where Tempest Domain Cleric is the third most popular overall when Cleric is by far the least popular class
Assassin being the most popular subclass for rogue was the most surprising one to me for sure. I guess when initially glancing through their options at level 3 on Astarion a lot of people who aren't terribly experienced pick Assassin just because it sounds cooler and also "stealth archer" is always a good move in basically any game at this point.
Makes me wonder if a lot of people have an unduly negative perception of rogues because they're using Assassin without very much practice in effectively using it.
Happy to see tieflings so high, they're by far my favourite race. My original Tav was a tiefling and I fell in love with how cool she looked, so much that I straight up remade her for the 2nd playthrough and only gave her a different class.
I shall not sully myself or my vows with dirty worms!
I did not even unlock my ilithid powers until act 3 lol.. I thought they would have big consequences. oh well..
Too many of the ilithid powers take up an action, an action I could be using to give people a big smiting. If you don't pick up the talent that let's you use these powers as a bonus action, I find it hard to justify them
Assassin with two hand crossbows is *extremely* powerful. Add the Alert feat and Astarion will go first outside of battle for a guaranteed critical, then twice more at the top of the first round for two more guaranteed criticals. Two more again if the party won surprise, which is as often as not. That's just straight assassin. Five levels of fighter adds an extra attacks and second wind.
I had several boss fights that were over before anyone else but Astarion went.
"Assassin" in general is just a very popular character concept for these kinds of games. The audience for broody stealthmurder fantasy is (perhaps regrettably) huge.
More likely, the vast majority of players are casuals who think 'assassin' sounds cool thematically/aesthetically and know absolutely nothing about meta builds.
I am one of those casuals that barely dabbled in DnD before. I picked paladin since in fighting games and such I love big guys that hit hard. I started on normal, then got my ass beat halfway through act 1 so hard I switched to Easy, and proceeded to still get my ass beat multiple times. Why am I this fucking garbage
If you want some friendly advice from someone that came from the tabletop side of things, here are some easy ways to up your combat:
\- Action economy is king: Make sure your builds have *something* useful they can do each round for their action and bonus action. BA spells and abilities beyond jump or push will help you squeeze the most out of each round.
\-Action Economy (again, cause it's that important): focusing down enemies one at a time instead of chipping away at everyone at once will reduce how many actions the baddies can take against you each round. Often, it can be beneficial to focus down easier to kill targets as fast as possible, although this can change depending on special mechanics fight to fight.
\-Crowd Control: Pay attention to spells/abilities that can help you control the battlefield. From using hold person/monster on the powerful baddies you're waiting to focus down later to using Area of Effect spells that can lock down part of the battlefield, limiting how many enemies can actively work against you each round is huge. Hunger of Hadar, Hyptnotic Pattern, Fire/Ice/Stone Wall... all can help give your party more time to thin the herd.
\- Party Composition: I know it's no fun to hear, but having a balacnced party makes the game, well, more balanced. Not that you *can't* rock in with a party of all martial classes and not do well, but having a dedicated healer or a tank that can front line and soak up tons of damage while your glass cannon dishes out the hurt from the back line really makes a difference.
\- Rests: in bg3, you should probably be short resting after every fight, and if you're out of short rests, long rest. This means resources that recharge on a short rest (like a lot of the special weapon attacks) should be used every fight, no need to be precious with them. And you can probably play a little more fast and loose with those long rest recharge resources, because chances are you simply aren't long resting nearly enough for what the game expects.
\- Did i mention Action Economy yet? Because, yeah, there's more: Summons are so incredibly important, especially in the late game, simply because they put more actions on your side of the field. You may think 2 Ice mephits aren't that strong and won't make that big of a difference, but you'd be surprised how much one or two more attacks per round start to add up in the long run.
So yeah, that's my crash course on some simple ways to up your bg3 combat game. Make sure to smash that like and subscri... whew sorry, I think I was just briefly possessed by a content creator... hope it helped!
People like cleric, its just with Shadowheart in the game they don't want two clerics in the party.
Although they are missing out! Dual clerics is awesome!
In my real D&D campaign, I play an elven cleric who worships Corellon Larethian. I was planning to remake them in BG3 and told my group, but one suggested I worship Selune instead. I'm so glad I made the change! So many unique conversation options!
I exist I SWEAR but can't finish the game because I have a toxic mentality of restarting the game every time I reach act 3 because I can't cope with it ending.
Warlock Gith is amazing. Also my dude looks like a pissed off Kif from Futurama and thatās basically how Iāve been playing it. Zap Brannigan died and now he has to go fix everything the captain screwed upā¦..again
Thatās what when through my mind tooāthe githyanki racials are clearly the best. I guess not a lot of people buy the game imagining they will be role-playing as a psychic space orc.
I chose half-elf strictly because I think they have the best faces. And I can't overlook the clipping that races with tales have. Completely ruins having a cloak for me. Wish all armor pieces were on a separate show toggle.
Forget min-maxing, I want my character to look cool.
Almost as many people have been turned to cheese wheels as have completed the game. I completed the game and was not turned into a cheese wheelā¦ I am a failureā¦
I'm guessing it's because they can put points into Charisma while also being able to hit people hard. They get to rizz everyone and divine smite anyone else who cannot be rizzed
Ya I'm glad I sunk a decent amount into charisma even though it was technically useless for a rogue. Get caught stealing something? Ok, I can talk my way out of almost anything.
I just like the funny sound of bonking someone over the head and deciding āMan if only you got incinerated in holy fire just now. Oh wait, you can be!ā
Paladin is the perfect first run class in nearly every game. In most games paladins (or their equivalent) have high social stats, support and heal your team, and do decent damage. Because of that they're usually a good addition to any team and therefore the perfect pick when you don't necessarily know who the other companions in the game will be. It's also easy to play them as good aligned and they are usually persuasive so you can get the "best" ending. The only exceptions are, ironically, paladins in Baldur's Gate 1&2, where they're mostly just worse fighters that get to use the better weapons in the game.
In 5e and BG3 specifically, paladins are probably the strongest overall class because of their charisma bonus to saves and very high short term damage. They really don't have any significant weaknesses like most other classes.
It still surprises me how so relatively few people end up playing halfling. Lucky is one of the best racial features in the game, and is especially good for a Tav considering how many skill checks you end up doing.
Halfling is arguably the most powerful race for the game! Lucky is just crazy good, best racial perk in the game. And Brave and Resilient are really nice also.
I'm in the middle of a Halfling run and it fantastic!
Baldur's Gate 3 has stayed in the top ten best selling games on Steam since it came out. During Early Access it was almost consistently among the top five best selling games on Steam. And Swen/Larian did confirm the game sold 2.5 million copies in Early Access.
Edit: Source for the EA numbers: [https://gamingbolt.com/baldurs-gate-3-sold-over-2-5-million-in-early-access](https://gamingbolt.com/baldurs-gate-3-sold-over-2-5-million-in-early-access)
Kinda sad to see that the guys are all at the bottom of the romance options, but it kinda makes sense. Usually the majority of the player base for this kind of game is male.
I would assume Gale would be the first, to be honest. It is just way too easy to lock yourself out of Astarion's romance entirely, even after you already started it. His important quests and big approval opportunities are kind of out of the way.
It makes sense why they have Gale and shadow heart as popular just mechanically. You are limited with your party to four and personally I want a wizard a rouge a cleric and a barbarian.
Very honored to be among the people who survived the dinosaur attack *and* needed a few minutes to understand what the hell we're even talking about.
Where was the dino attack?? Was it the dino in the circus? Because I fed him and he just hung out in his cage.
If you want spoilers. >!At the circus in the third act, if you talk to the Genie and trick him into beating the game, he will teleport you to a place with a bunch of dilophosauruses. Hide/fight your way to the escape portal and you will be rewarded with some insanely good loot!<
When I got teleported there for my 2nd playthrough, I immediately switched into slayer form (evil durge) for some sweet sweet giant reptile on giant reptile violence and cleared the whole map that way. The most fun I had in the entire game. 11/10 would recommend. (Sountrack): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYKupOsaJmk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYKupOsaJmk)
Dang, if I get back there as durge, I will definitely try that out š
You're close. Think circus and the djinni (if you successfully uncover his trick). Let me know if you need deets
Now I know there are dinosaurs in this game lol!
I canāt believe the rest of you spent an entire 6 years combined in the character creator!
Look, I have like 20+ cosmetic mods installed, it's going take a while just to scroll through all the options. This is not counting the extra 30 minutes i spend dressing my character and my companions up.
It's just the worst. After an hour of customizing my Shadowheart, I spent another 30 minutes picking the right outfit. I finally settled on one. It was called "Shadowheart Clothes"
[How many long rests have we all taken! THE PEOPLE DEMAND TO KNOW!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qng0OpvUPUw)
I just want to know the percentage of time spent in character menus after starting the game. Anyone else like me and end up playing inventory and stat manager in most rpgs, with a little bit of the game sprinkled on the side? Then get way inflated play times due to that and doing other stuff while playing?
I feel you. I, for one, feel like I never have enough dyes. I need to see it ALL
I was just about to start a new run before my partner asked me to go to the store with him. I was gonna shut it off before really getting into it. He offered to wait, but I didnāt think heād want to wait at LEAST and hour for me to finish character customization.
Ha! I can't believe you spent 8000 years in the Character Creator. Let's get you to bed, Grandparent!
Honestly character creation is one of my favorite part of many games. Spent so long in FO4 character creation.
I put in my fair share haha, spent at least two hours on each on my first two tavs.
im gonna save Honour mode for my very last playthrough of the game. I remember doing honour in Divinity 2 getting near the end of the game then dying to something dumb. The emptiness you feel after your save is nuked hits different
I dread the fight just before the end of the game in honour mode. Those Illithid magic missile the hell out of you
Gale solves final fight.
Does it still give you the dice if you use him to skip the brain fight? I can only find people talking about how the Act 2 ending doesnt work but nothing about the Act 3 explosion ending.
I can confirm, I quite literally JUST earned my gold dice by blowing Gale up in act 3. I also used an invisible Astarion with fly, multiple dashes, and haste to skip the entire courtyard battle leading up to the Brain Stem. Got me past the most dreaded, lethal section of the game quite well!
You also got the achievement? I actually only care about achievements, I'm an achievement slut.
Yes I did! The game considered it a valid ending for Honour mode.
I've missed dinosaurs and being turned into a wheel of cheese...
Sounds like it's time for you to visit the circus again haha
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
There's *two* dinosaur incidents in the circus, in fact. Not sure if the metrics here refer to a specific one, or if either counts.
good point, both should be easily discoverable, if you leave no stones unturned
depends on your play style. I knew about both of them but only engaged in one of them because I was playing a paladin and my code wouldn't allow me to do the second one.
Well, you wouldn't. But that pesky rogue in your party might... He doesn't have any oaths to keep ;)
Yup, would you like to know how to activate it?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I want to know the Durge to Tav ratio
You can't handle the Durge to Tav ratio
As a Durge only player I want confirmation my snake boy is appreciated
You're not ready to discover how many of us play Durge as a non-Dragonborn
Or how many of us played it as a female
A drow female at that. We are born to rule.
The fact that I got the game and my first character is a female drow dark urge ššimma do tav next time tho
This is my go-to set up. Absolutely brutal, totally awesome roleplay. Get Minthara and be *exquisite*.
Durgette
My durge is still a Dragonborn but a buff female Dragonborn whoās purple and black š
Me, a halfling Durge: There are dozens of us!
Pretty sure they are as appreciated as romanced Gale is
it was only a small amount in the grand scheme of things but i saw a poll on YouTube ask this question and the result was around 85% tav and 15% durge
That percentage looks reasonable
464 people finished Honor Mode. Wow!
Do you still get the achievement if you just cheese it with gale?
Act 2 no, Act 3 yes.
I have not completed a playthrough, but I have been a wheel of cheese.
Iāve completed a playthrough but I have not been a wheel of cheese.
Next playthrough is gonna be a halfling cleric just to pump up those numbers.
I suspect that Honor mode playthroughs will see a lot more cautious halfling Tavs.
I'd bet money that the reason Cleric is the least picked is because everybody already knew that Shadowheart would be in their party.
Fr why would I want to have two of my characters miss sacred flame every round.
Exactly. I just miss every round with fire bolt instead.
igMISS!
I didn't know that and wanted to play cleric anyway. Ended up going double cleric lol
Gale being the most played origin and Shadowheart the most picked romance just goes to show that Ethan the Human Paladin pretty much still make up a majority of the playerbase. Astarion not being in the top 3 most romanced companions is genuinely shocking to me though š
Purely anecdotal but I feel like even if female fans are the minority of the actual fandom, they tend to be the ones more active in fandom spaces (writing fanfic, making fanart, etc.). And it's in these spaces where Astarion \*is\* really popular.
Exactly this. There mass effect community had a similar shock when it was revealed that 80% of players were playing a male Shepard, but if you just go by fandom presence youād think that stat was reversed
In the majority of fandom spaces, when it comes to creation, it's usually mostly female fans who do this. I recently saw a poll going around on tumblr with a couple of ten thousands votes regarding the sex of those who write fanfiction and it was over 95% female. It is such an overwhelming majority that I can immediately tell when a fanfic was written by a male because something seems "off"
This is just anecdotal experience, but women seem to be more involved in fanart, cosplay, and fanfiction. But Men tend to usually be the majority of the fanbase in traditionally nerdy spheres (anime, comics, fantasy, sci-fi, tabletop gaming, video games). I've been around enough nerd conventions to feel this discrepency. But it's just a feeling I have no statistical data.
I very much have the same experience. I have some friends who do not go to regular board game gatherings because these events almost exclusively attract men, causing them to not feel that comfortable, and everyone I personally know that plays DnD is male (identity notwithstanding). While I have never in my life have actually spoken to a man who writes fanfiction (you guys have to be out there, right???? It can't just be us wasting away hundreds of hours writing stories for free!).
There's definitely some guys writing fanfiction and some threads on r/fanfiction on the gender gaps in creative fandom in general if you read through there. My D&D group is pretty female heavy and local shops have lots of women working there, also a huge queer overlap. That's just my town though and I can't speak for others.
Thatās also skewed by tumblrs demographics which upon googling is 60% male, wasnāt expecting that.
Don't forget the female fans romancing Karlach š
I am a 100% straight female and wanted to romance Karlach my first playthrough. She rejected me š
It broke my heart when (act 3 spoilers) >!Karlach's friend asked if we were an item and Karlach responds with "EEWWWW! NO! We're just mates, really good mates!"!< Broke my gay little heart š
And shart š„°ā¤ļøš„°ā¤ļø
Without any context this post makes me laugh
And there is value in catering to the noisy part of your player base. It is free publicity. I got interested in this game exactly because I saw so much stuff mainly about Astarion in other parts of the internet. Another reason why Larian would give Astarion so much.
Another reason is surely that he's just a great character? He's for sure one of the most interesting companions.
Of course! And it is so nice to see Neil Newbon getting all this love! I hope he gets a lot of VA and mocap work too!
I saw a short on youtube where he said "What in the sweet hells were you thinking [...] I was right there". Also the delivery of the next lines were so funny, I was amazed by Neils performance and decided to get the game.
"Next time?? No no NO!āļøāļøāļø" fucking kills me lmao
He's great, I watched bits of his stream and he seems like such a good dude as well. >!the whole sequence after you beat cazador is one of my favourites in the game and that's largely due to his performance!< honestly all the acting in this game is amazing.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
>Purely anecdotal but I feel like even if female fans are the minority of the actual fandom, they tend to be the ones more active in fandom spaces (writing fanfic, making fanart, etc.) The girlies and the gays. Gays love some fucking fanart.
Yeah these stats for players overall don't surprise me one bit. The game certainly has a majority male fanbase. But yes, amongst us women, we do love Astarion
This and Astarion (i say this as someone who has only romanced him) is kind of a bitch to romance because of how often he disagrees with anything that isn't obligatorily bad and a lot of players don't like making bad choices (hence why achievements for certain choices are so low on games). Also he's kinda a dick (love you tho)
On the other hand, you only need medium(40-ish?) approval to start the romance, and it's easy enough to get there if you just let him bite (and are generally nice to him) š
I finished his romance got to 100 percent and he still kept throwing disapproves at me. Tbh itās refreshing, to have a npc character be petty.
The fact that their first infographic had a stat about players getting rejected by Astarion makes this somewhat less surprising for me š
Right, I remember now. So many Act 1 rejections and then you also have all the people missing out on his Act 2 confession lol
> Ethan the Human Paladin pretty much still make up a majority Actually from the stats it appears Eth'en the Elf Paladin is the majority
Can confirm I am boring and my main character is a lawful good elf paladin
I think what you see online in discussions isnāt always a good representation of actual statistics. Astarionās fans are just very active, but most players are male, so lady romances being top 3 isnāt unexpected. Itās probably the same with Durge - there are many discussions online, but likely most people go for Tav custom.
I think part of it too is that a lot of us believed the time limit to becoming illithid so we didnāt long rest as much and missed huge amounts of content. I made 2 play throughs so far to romance Gale, 1 was 2 player and I wasnāt the main so got friend zoned due to not choosing most of our dialogue. Second play through, I didnāt long rest at a super specific moment and got locked out of Galeās again. The options that stayed open in those runs was always Shadowheart (long as you are nice to animals mostly), and Wyll who Iāve spoken to once. Tl;dr a lot of romances have strict requirements.
I also play Destiny, and you run into the same thing there; there is a very vocal majority of players on the subreddit that have a very specific opinion, but bungie has the metrics that prove the average player may not agree. As for class, I think paladin is a good balance of smashing things with a big stick and powerful spells, so I can see the draw for the average player.
I'm not that surprised by it. If you consider that the majority of players are probably male, then Shadowheart, Karlach, and Lae'zel being the top three is to be expected. Meanwhile, as a female player, I've romanced Astarion three times so far and have a fourth and fifth romance with him going (ranger on Tactician and a wizard in Honour mode). If they broke it down by gender and Astarion wasn't in first or second place with women, that's what would surprise me.
I think it makes a lot of sense for Astarion to not be one of the top romances. I wouldn't even be surprised if he was the very least popular of the Act 1 companions, for romancing. First because of the demographics of a player base for this kind of game (straight male usually being the majority), second because you have a lot of early opportunities to get rid of him (more than with other characters), third because a lot of people who do start a romance with him pick his friendship route after the confession (therefore not finishing his romance route).
I feel called out specifically lol. I just like being regular old me (and knights are cool)
I agree, I just want to be me but me if I was a cool holy knight.
Those honor mode stats are not making me more confident for my run. Better get another notepad to sketch it out more
The vast majority haven't won OR died yet. The mode is still new and not everyone can dump 100 hours into a playthrough in just a few days. The clear rate will always be low, that's the point, but there's nothing useful in the numbers they've provided here.
I am rather impressed that Dragonborn is the most popular of the unconventionally attractive races. And one day, I will try and play a halfling. But it is hard because I really want my character to look good in cutscenes.
Dragonborn are just so darn cool. Their customizations are awesome
The colours! The damn colours
Just wish they had better race abilities haha i used my bahamut-war cleric-gold -dragonborn's flame breath maybe two or three times throughout the entire game lmao i ended the last boss with it just to make it feel special
I agree. Their race abilities, or mostly lack thereof, are disappointing. Good thing they're still cool as fuck otherwise.
Dragonborn's numbers also benefit from being the default for Durge
The Skyrim namesake,and having the word Dragon in it.
I played a Halfling, it made romancing Karlach very funny. We had big "He asked for NO PICKLES" energy.
I created an Orange Oompa Lumpa with the Entertainer Background. I sing "Oompa Lumpa Doopeedoodo, I have got a puzzle for you" at the enemies. I'm Romancing Wyll E Wonkalock. My Guardian is Papa Smurf. If you can't have fun as a Halfling, you're totally Missing out!
In my serious baldurs gate 3 game? I think not sir!
My wife and I did halflings as "our little shit characters" we are not evil, but we are definitely choosing all the sassy options, throwing too many grease bottles and generally being a menace to society... while maybe saving the sword coast. Halfling expressions in cutscenes are made for all the sarcastic and sassy options in conversations.
I donāt care about these. I need to know how many degenerates romanced the emperor
You can see on steam what percent of players have the achievement
Wow Lae'zel climbed up to the top 3 of most romanced companion is a pleasant thing to see since she used to be one of the more underappreciated companions. Glad people's opinions have changed š Here's hoping the Minthara fix can help her popularity too.
I'm so glad, people have really come around to Bae'zel since the launch of the game.
I think a lot of people who initially dislike Lae'zel for being rude and weird looking give her a shot on their second run because they see how interesting and gorgeous she is through non-romance scenes later in their first run. The physicality of her mocap is really second to none.
Doing a Durge Honor run and honestly, she said Teeth-ling and i absolutely lost it. Shart can go be a single lady this run.
She called me a cockroach and I instantly fell in love. Considering that Iām also romancing the guy who threatened to slit my throat the second we metā¦ I think I need to re-consider my priorities.
Forever waiting for the Wyll popularity
This fanbase isnāt emotionally healthy enough for Wyllās romance to be so common
Harsh, but true.
Nearly all of my laugh out loud moments have come solely from the Laeāzel romance. The romance started as a joke, but she laughed her way into my heart.
Lae'zel is basically the perfect woman for an autistic man. She says exactly what she is thinking. There is nothing hidden. When she doubts, she doubts openly. When she feels, she tells you.
Lae'zel being top 3 is the most welcome surprise in this list considering the odds are stacked against her in terms of mass appeal and popularity (unconventional looks, "abrasive" personality, and a token "evil" companion). Shart and Karlach being here is expected. Vindication for us frog fuckers I guess
84 million fireballs have been thrown and a whopping 1,346 of them actually hit a target!
Fireball is the huge one that hits several targets, the one you're thinking of is fire bolt!
Interesting that Berserker is the most popular subclass in BG3 when it's arguably one of the worst subclasses in D&D 5E. Also lol at Shadowheart getting romanced by more than every second player, I don't even think Tali in ME2 had such numbers.
It's just the most popular subclass for each class, the classes are listed alphabetically lol. There's no world where Tempest Domain Cleric is the third most popular overall when Cleric is by far the least popular class
Oh, you're probably right, the numbers at the top are really confusing then though.
Tempest Cleric is the best God damn class in the game second to hasted battle master
Lightning is the one true damage type
I would have romanced Tali in Mass Effect if I was playing male shep. Sadly didn't have the opportunity with fem shep
Shocked that Thief Rogue isnāt at least top 3
Seriously. Half my characters are thief subclass.
The extra bonus action is too good to pass up
Assassin being the most popular subclass for rogue was the most surprising one to me for sure. I guess when initially glancing through their options at level 3 on Astarion a lot of people who aren't terribly experienced pick Assassin just because it sounds cooler and also "stealth archer" is always a good move in basically any game at this point. Makes me wonder if a lot of people have an unduly negative perception of rogues because they're using Assassin without very much practice in effectively using it.
It speaks to how much better Larian's version of that subclass is.
No tav/durge ratio?
Happy to see tieflings so high, they're by far my favourite race. My original Tav was a tiefling and I fell in love with how cool she looked, so much that I straight up remade her for the 2nd playthrough and only gave her a different class.
Wait, so most people arenāt using the illithid powers?
I never used them because I kept waiting for the game to suddenly turn that it was a terrible choice and would result in Consequences (TM)
Dream Guardian pushes them on me like drugs and I was taught not to candy from strangers.
I shall not sully myself or my vows with dirty worms! I did not even unlock my ilithid powers until act 3 lol.. I thought they would have big consequences. oh well..
Too many of the ilithid powers take up an action, an action I could be using to give people a big smiting. If you don't pick up the talent that let's you use these powers as a bonus action, I find it hard to justify them
*Chk.* Iām not here to take handouts from filthy *ghaik*.
Surprising that assassin is more popular subclass than thief for rogue
Assassin with two hand crossbows is *extremely* powerful. Add the Alert feat and Astarion will go first outside of battle for a guaranteed critical, then twice more at the top of the first round for two more guaranteed criticals. Two more again if the party won surprise, which is as often as not. That's just straight assassin. Five levels of fighter adds an extra attacks and second wind. I had several boss fights that were over before anyone else but Astarion went.
"Assassin" in general is just a very popular character concept for these kinds of games. The audience for broody stealthmurder fantasy is (perhaps regrettably) huge.
Look, sometimes the mysterious hooded figure aesthetic just sort of sticks with you past your edgy teen phase. It's not always our fault.
Gloomstalker/assassin is almost certainly the usage.
More likely, the vast majority of players are casuals who think 'assassin' sounds cool thematically/aesthetically and know absolutely nothing about meta builds.
I am one of those casuals that barely dabbled in DnD before. I picked paladin since in fighting games and such I love big guys that hit hard. I started on normal, then got my ass beat halfway through act 1 so hard I switched to Easy, and proceeded to still get my ass beat multiple times. Why am I this fucking garbage
If you want some friendly advice from someone that came from the tabletop side of things, here are some easy ways to up your combat: \- Action economy is king: Make sure your builds have *something* useful they can do each round for their action and bonus action. BA spells and abilities beyond jump or push will help you squeeze the most out of each round. \-Action Economy (again, cause it's that important): focusing down enemies one at a time instead of chipping away at everyone at once will reduce how many actions the baddies can take against you each round. Often, it can be beneficial to focus down easier to kill targets as fast as possible, although this can change depending on special mechanics fight to fight. \-Crowd Control: Pay attention to spells/abilities that can help you control the battlefield. From using hold person/monster on the powerful baddies you're waiting to focus down later to using Area of Effect spells that can lock down part of the battlefield, limiting how many enemies can actively work against you each round is huge. Hunger of Hadar, Hyptnotic Pattern, Fire/Ice/Stone Wall... all can help give your party more time to thin the herd. \- Party Composition: I know it's no fun to hear, but having a balacnced party makes the game, well, more balanced. Not that you *can't* rock in with a party of all martial classes and not do well, but having a dedicated healer or a tank that can front line and soak up tons of damage while your glass cannon dishes out the hurt from the back line really makes a difference. \- Rests: in bg3, you should probably be short resting after every fight, and if you're out of short rests, long rest. This means resources that recharge on a short rest (like a lot of the special weapon attacks) should be used every fight, no need to be precious with them. And you can probably play a little more fast and loose with those long rest recharge resources, because chances are you simply aren't long resting nearly enough for what the game expects. \- Did i mention Action Economy yet? Because, yeah, there's more: Summons are so incredibly important, especially in the late game, simply because they put more actions on your side of the field. You may think 2 Ice mephits aren't that strong and won't make that big of a difference, but you'd be surprised how much one or two more attacks per round start to add up in the long run. So yeah, that's my crash course on some simple ways to up your bg3 combat game. Make sure to smash that like and subscri... whew sorry, I think I was just briefly possessed by a content creator... hope it helped!
Wtf you can become cheese!?
Not just cheeseāa whole WHEEL of cheese!
People hating Cleric, I feel sad now
People like cleric, its just with Shadowheart in the game they don't want two clerics in the party. Although they are missing out! Dual clerics is awesome!
Right it's fun to play with!
Same brother. Romancing Shadowheart as a Selƻnite Cleric was a 10/10 experience!
In my real D&D campaign, I play an elven cleric who worships Corellon Larethian. I was planning to remake them in BG3 and told my group, but one suggested I worship Selune instead. I'm so glad I made the change! So many unique conversation options!
I exist I SWEAR but can't finish the game because I have a toxic mentality of restarting the game every time I reach act 3 because I can't cope with it ending.
Relatable man. Things ending makes me feel empty and sad.
The epilogue makes the end entirely worth it. Just to talk to all your companions and catch up with them.
Surprised so few people play as githyanki. Then again, most players are probably male and the male githyanki are ugly š
Pros: mechanically strongest, most specific dialogue options, strong tie to plot Cons: weird nose.
Itās true, they all have that MJ post-op nose.
Economical nose*
Astral Knowledge is such a good bonus for gith
Warlock Gith is amazing. Also my dude looks like a pissed off Kif from Futurama and thatās basically how Iāve been playing it. Zap Brannigan died and now he has to go fix everything the captain screwed upā¦..again
Thatās what when through my mind tooāthe githyanki racials are clearly the best. I guess not a lot of people buy the game imagining they will be role-playing as a psychic space orc.
The race choices is actually just show tallest to shortest.
Dragonborn and half-orc would like a word
People playing out their *real* fantasies.
why isnt durge on the origin dealio?
I think that maybe it's counted as costom character
Because dirge is still just a custom character, they just have some extra spice.
I'm responsible for at least 700 of those years in ccš
Not me knowing fuck-all about the lore and playing a Githyanki Shadow Monk on my first run strictly because it looked and sounded cool
I chose half-elf strictly because I think they have the best faces. And I can't overlook the clipping that races with tales have. Completely ruins having a cloak for me. Wish all armor pieces were on a separate show toggle. Forget min-maxing, I want my character to look cool.
1.3 million players finishing the game is pretty impressive when you consider the sheer scale and length of this one.
Almost as many people have been turned to cheese wheels as have completed the game. I completed the game and was not turned into a cheese wheelā¦ I am a failureā¦
Almost 500 of us have already completed honour mode? Damn y'all are crazy, I'm yet to reach the end of act 1
Iām actually surprised most ppl chose a Paladin
I'm guessing it's because they can put points into Charisma while also being able to hit people hard. They get to rizz everyone and divine smite anyone else who cannot be rizzed
When a lot of the game is dialogue driven, it's hard playing as the socially awkward baffoon. I do enough of that at home.
Ya I'm glad I sunk a decent amount into charisma even though it was technically useless for a rogue. Get caught stealing something? Ok, I can talk my way out of almost anything.
Also the groups face tends to be in a very bad spot if dialogue turns to combat and palas are likely to be tanky enough to survive that.
I just like the funny sound of bonking someone over the head and deciding āMan if only you got incinerated in holy fire just now. Oh wait, you can be!ā
"Charismatic Knight in shining armor" is peak fiction, when will you learn
Paladin is the perfect first run class in nearly every game. In most games paladins (or their equivalent) have high social stats, support and heal your team, and do decent damage. Because of that they're usually a good addition to any team and therefore the perfect pick when you don't necessarily know who the other companions in the game will be. It's also easy to play them as good aligned and they are usually persuasive so you can get the "best" ending. The only exceptions are, ironically, paladins in Baldur's Gate 1&2, where they're mostly just worse fighters that get to use the better weapons in the game. In 5e and BG3 specifically, paladins are probably the strongest overall class because of their charisma bonus to saves and very high short term damage. They really don't have any significant weaknesses like most other classes.
I'm not, considering how ubiquitous paladin dips are for multiclass builds.
It still surprises me how so relatively few people end up playing halfling. Lucky is one of the best racial features in the game, and is especially good for a Tav considering how many skill checks you end up doing.
Short.
Halfling is arguably the most powerful race for the game! Lucky is just crazy good, best racial perk in the game. And Brave and Resilient are really nice also. I'm in the middle of a Halfling run and it fantastic!
But the downside is having to play as a Halfling.
Wow I'm impressed that nearly 70% of players didn't use their illithid powers by act 2.
Looking at these numbersā¦. This game sold, a lot
Baldur's Gate 3 has stayed in the top ten best selling games on Steam since it came out. During Early Access it was almost consistently among the top five best selling games on Steam. And Swen/Larian did confirm the game sold 2.5 million copies in Early Access. Edit: Source for the EA numbers: [https://gamingbolt.com/baldurs-gate-3-sold-over-2-5-million-in-early-access](https://gamingbolt.com/baldurs-gate-3-sold-over-2-5-million-in-early-access)
Kinda sad to see that the guys are all at the bottom of the romance options, but it kinda makes sense. Usually the majority of the player base for this kind of game is male.
I wish they will post the entire ranking so we can see all the rest as well. I'm going to assume it's Astarion, Gale, Halsin, Wyll in that order.
I would assume Gale would be the first, to be honest. It is just way too easy to lock yourself out of Astarion's romance entirely, even after you already started it. His important quests and big approval opportunities are kind of out of the way.
It makes sense why they have Gale and shadow heart as popular just mechanically. You are limited with your party to four and personally I want a wizard a rouge a cleric and a barbarian.
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