Not me.  I've been waiting for the full release.  I've kinda lost my taste for "early access" games.

I didn't like Divinity Original Sin 2 (after 40+ hours?), but I loved the first one (80+ hours). I'll probably play Baldur's Gate 3 in 10 years when it is on sale for 10 bucks on steam.

I played Pathfinder: Kingmaker and went for about 40 hours.

Systems-wise and combat-wise I enjoyed all these games. My big problem with these D and D inspired games is well... ...how dogshit the writing is. I'm sorry but the amount of good writers has decreased by 1000% since the mid 2000s.

Storytelling is a primary artform and is seperate from combat/system design. I would prefer for gaming companies to faithfully adapt beloved stories than try and write their own.

You don't hire writers and give them a 10 month deadline on their magnum opus of a story. That is just a way to destroy the story.

Stories have to come first.

Open world games still need good writers. The story of Morrowind is a retelling of the "reincarnation of Nero" an old Roman myth about saving the Roman empire.

The 80s and 90s were a story-rich period that has since waned.

Nintendo solves this by relying very heavily on reusing the same stories ad nausem, and keeping the overall story incredibly light. It has always been more about the 3D exploration. The princess is just an excuse. The problem with these D and D games is that they are systems heavy but story crap, when the systems require a very good story. We can only do the same thing over and over again before it gets depressingly boring.

The systems are all "so so" as well. Like the puzzles in Ocarina of Time are way more fucking fun than DOS 2.

noamineo wrote on May 5^th, 2023 at 3:28pm:


Good prediction.

Asheras wrote on May 9^th, 2023 at 5:43pm:

pffft. That's nothing. I used to play a game that's been in early access for 17 years.

Strake wrote on May 10^th, 2023 at 1:53am:


Soon^tm.

Yes I played and here is my 2$ opinion:

1. It is based on divinity sin engine, so you will be playing D:OS3 instead of BG real time with pause (RTWP).

2. Turn based combat similar to D:OS. Not my style of play. Fell asleep rather soon.

3.  Cutscenes break the immersion of playing a d&d game.

Uninstalled and re-funded.

Am 30 hours in.

~

Story and World-building: 10/10 for me so far. (End of act1.)
Voice acting is perfect. Game is a bit gay but all the gay options are optional and there are plenty of edgelord decisions to be made. They did the Githyanki bitch really well. Want to play with Hitler? Here you go! This is the first game since I'd say Dragon Age: Origins where I've been really impressed with the storytelling.

Music: 7/10.
Standard pentatonic noodling with orchestral support and variety. It is functional and has nice moments but it isn't interesting or memorable besides the main theme and the character creation theme. The sound-team did an excellent job with the bards in game though---if you have different bards play instruments near each other it adds the melody or the drums from that particular theme. Sound design is an 8 and music is a 6. 

Combat: 7/10.
I'm a fan of hybrid action turn based systems (e.x., KOTOR 1/2). That said, this game hasn't improved on the novel environmental effects in Divinity 1. It has just converted it to a Dungeons and dragons rule set. I prefer BG3's combat to DOS2's annoying armour system (where they made magic armor and physical armor separate). The spells feel punchy and the 4E/5E changes to melee combat are much better.

Loot: 5/10.
Inventory management is fucking awful. So much garbage loot in the game. They fail completely on the random generation front. Loot does not feel impactful. Where loot is tied to the story they occasionally do an excellent job (e.x., Sentient items exist and are fun!) but sometimes they just drop the ball (e.x., +1 dagger of silencing for a quest involving some special anti-magic bark). Pen and paper (without a sharp DM) has always struggled with loot compared to games like Diablo because the loot doesn't have stat flexibility that makes randomness work. You need so much base complexity that doesn't completely overpower the balance of combat encounters. That said, I appreciate that some loot just gives you spells or abilities. That's a nice touch. (E.x., Magic missile necklace that gives you one extra bolt.) The loot here is worse than Divinity Original Sin 1.

~~~

Honestly the first act is worth 40 bucks alone given the quality of the game. I have only done three of the companions in any depth and I can see this game having huge replayability if you can get by how slow it is. This is a game where if you put in energy you will get it back.

TLDR

Baldur's Gate 3 is some rich story-telling, but like a thick slice of New York Cheesecake it can exhaust the pallet. The combat is so-so, the music is serviceable, and the loot is bad. If you like the medium of story-telling in games though... ...I'm not sure which games have done it better. Incredibly beautiful and engaging game.

I'm nearing the end of act 2 and i'd say it's the best D&D pc game I've played, and I think I've played them all.

It's more like playing for real than previous PC games, took me an hour to work out why everyone in a town was running away from me when I'd been careful not to upset anyone. Turns out if you wander around with a summoned fire elemental people will react to that and not like it. There is a lot of attention to detail like that.

It really is a builders paradise, you can respec yourself and companions at any time, multiclass and pure both work well, I try out new teams every time I level. Favourite characters right now are my barbarian that throws enemies at each other and my owlbear shifting moon druid. Most classes feel powerful and are are fun in combat.

Loot I disagree with foppybint, yes a lot of the items so far have a really minor impact on play, with the occasional much better item that you have to work for. That feels more like D&D and less like an incremental +x% better weapon every level or 2. Getting a single powerful weapon a few hours in that in other games would be level gated till further through and trying to find uses for a variety of minor stuff is refreshingly different.

The looting process and inventory management is however pretty annoying. You can't ignore the 100 boxes with a rotten carrot in them, because occasionally one will have a placed magic item in it. In one area there were dozens of old skeletons across the level and one of them (the only one I hadn't looted) had a quest item on it - fortunately because of early access the wiki's are useful already.

That's my only complaint though. I can see myself playing this right to the finish before picking up anything else.

Binkey wrote on Aug 26^th, 2023 at 7:29am:


I have mixed feelings on this. When casting a spell it should feel impactful enough that casting it again---when it runs out---will also feel good. When the harbor was new casting longstrider on someone felt great. Nowadays though it feels bad... ...why? Simply that so many people have gotten the effect elsewhere---that we are now at the point that not having an abbott quiver is annoying. I still remember collecting longstrider boots from Korthos on my first few playthroughs. I would still wait for people after shining if "protection against magical energy" gave a 30% stacking reduction of elemental damage, but then you'd have everyone and their mother self-casting it.

The only relevant buffs nowadays happen while you are leveling. At endgame everyone has their own FOM and Deathward now anyway. The devs have essentially powercrept their way through all the team-benefits rather than leaving them as unique to a particular playstyle. The biggest offender here is haste in my opinion. I mean there's no going back now but I still think the game would be better if it was a morale bonus that came with the morale debuff after the duration expires. Group buffs are a part of class identity and DDO has gone too far in the "every class gets everything."