Baldur's Gate 3: developed by Larian Studios

[Sly Boots]

Got to the final fight in ToB - Melissan - and after half an hour of banging my head against it ended up rage-quitting

Don't know what else I can be doing. First of all, it's a three phase fight with the main baddie getting stronger each time, with secondary quite tough fights in-between, and no ability to rest.

My -20 AC, mega-weapon dual-wielding main character with 150hp and resistances to just about everything gets three-shotted in the first fight, while the rest of my party gets thrown about like ragdolls. After half a dozen attempts, the only way I could beat that first phase was to cast all my biggest spells and summon all my big dudes including a juggernaut golem and planetar. Which means by the second - tougher - fight, my guys are already half-dead and I've got no more good spells or summons.

I know I've beaten it in the past, but no idea how. So I think I'm going to call it there.

Icewind Dale 2 next!

[Wrathbone]

The final battle is definitely one of the (if not the) hardest fights in the game. The trick is to make the most of the respite after each secondary fight, as you can heal as required and prepare for the next stage before activating the beacon thing which summons Melissan again. As a minimum I'd go in with resurrection spells/scrolls/rods and a tonne of healing potions. Or just do what I did with the final fight in Legend of Grimrock 2 and youtube the ending. There comes a point where the stress of beating a game isn't worth it (I'm looking at you, Dark Souls ¬_¬).

Out of interest, what level is your party roughly at?

[Sly Boots]

This is pretty funny - it's possible to play a particular character that it's possible to accidentally kill in the first 15 seconds of the game:

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2020/0 ... rs-gate-3/

Oh, and sorry WB, I didn't see that question before. I can't remember now, pretty high level I think.

[Raid]

I fail to see how throwing a vampire into a river could possibly cause a problem.

¬_¬

[Sly Boots]

I fail to see how throwing a vampire into a river could possibly cause a problem.

¬_¬

[Wrathbone]

That remains one of my highlights of the campaign so far.

[Lee]

[Animalmother]

That intro is really swish

[Raid]

I think I may actually be more excited for this than I am for Cyberpunk. It looks like the developers are having a lot of fun with it (indeed they look like a bunch of mad bastards) and they're really putting in the effort. The wealth of options looks dizzying, and I can't imagine how much work it takes to make sure it all works together.

...and therein lies one of my main worries I suppose. They make it pretty clear in that livestream that they don't want to limit abilities in such a way so as to not break the game through their use, and while they're obviously doing their best to make that possible, there are so many examples of games where scripts don't trigger correctly if you do something the developers didn't expect. I don't want to ruin a playthrough by making the game unwinnable. D&D has so many player abilities that can catch even hardened DMs out, and software doesn't tend to adapt as well to....creative choices.

[Sly Boots]

So the Early Access price will be... $60!

https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/this-is-why- ... ly-access/

Not sure if the pricing will be a straight conversion, but if so that's a hair over £45 at current exchange rates.

Yeah, I think that's going to be a bit pricey for me for an EA game.

[DjchunKfunK]

So the Early Access price will be... $60!

https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/this-is-why- ... ly-access/

Not sure if the pricing will be a straight conversion, but if so that's a hair over £45 at current exchange rates.

Yeah, I think that's going to be a bit pricey for me for an EA game.

Yeah that's way too pricey for an EA game and I don't think EA is for this kind of thing. I'm starting to think that despite how much OS2 benefited from EA that they shouldn't have gone down the route for BG3. They have publisher backing now that can help out financially and you can get feedback from the community in other ways, you don't need EA for that.

[Raid]

Eurogamer have published the first report from beta access that I've seen:


Video spoilers: She loved it. A lot. The voice acting is fantastic, the quests are varied and entertaining, and she really liked the evolving story. The one thing she didn't like was the amount of glitches, from game breaking bugs to tons of strange little animation errors. I have ummed and ahhed about buying into the beta, but stuff like that would spoil the experience for me, so I'm probably just going to have to wait.

[Sly Boots]

Still downloading here, and won't get the chance to play it tonight it looks like, but my day tomorrow is pretty clear so will report back then

[Maturin]

Yeah, I'm in the group who don't touch betas/early access, so I'll be waiting till the game's finished before buying it, however long that may be! I feel it's the sort of game where you want your first experience to be the defining one - at least that's how I look at it.

[Wrathbone]

Managed to get an hour in and I've got through the tutorial area. Really good so far, and the implementation of the D&D 5e rules is impressive. I've gone for an elven wizard, mainly because I want to see how they handle some of the less straightforward spells (i.e. ones that aren't just damage dealers). I've already had several environment interactions where my specific skill choices and class came in handy, which is great as it molds the experience around your character. The only very minor issue I've had so far is that the Firebolt cantrip only does 1d6 damage rather than the 1d10 it's supposed to in the core rules, but I'm guessing that's by design rather than an oversight.

Combat is challenging but fair, and I get the definite sense that the more I play, the more I'll get my head around what is actually possible above and beyond the basics of movement, attacking, spells, etc. It feels thorough in terms of options and certainly rewards ingenuity.

Haven't noticed any bugs yet, so that's a big positive.

I still have a million questions about the game, but overall I get the impression it's going to be a corker.