Shadowhart has an interesting little crisis of conscious if you go the evil route with the Emerald Grove. Been busy and haven’t gone beyond that on my evil run yet, but I love the depth put into the characters when you do crazy shit and can’t wait to see how this turns out in the long run.
There are two battles before the final boss. One is the courtyard you are at. The other isn’t so much a battle as a harried sprint to your objective. There’s another restoration pod at the door to the boss. Go ham.
Edit: The final boss fight is not a gimme, though, so don’t use up all your consumables on the way there! I went into part of it expecting a victory lap and got my shit packed.
This is an interesting take. I adore Skyrim and just yesterday started playing BG3. I am enjoying it, but I never did anything else with DND (parents thought it would make Jesus sad or whatever) and so I am finding it more complex from the get-go than I would like, but I’m trying to learn. I still do feel like I’m missing out on a lot by just going with “whatever” and not putting enough thought into character creation, spells, etc, but it’s a lot to learn and I’m only 1 day in :)
Skyrim, on the other hand, was very easy to pick up, start playing, and just…explore and discover. Because of that, I was eagerly anticipating Starfield but sadly I do not possess the platform required to play it so I am reading the reviews to see if it’s worth buying an entire XBox for. If it’s as great as Skyrim, yes. If it’s meh, no.
So, reviews like this make me wonder if the author enjoys and/or is already familiar enough with the steep learning curve for it not to get in the way and by extension the game itself. Would they have been fine with Starfield had they never played BG3? And is Starfield “simple” enough for me to have a great time, or is it too much of what the author complains about here? - Repetitive quests, limited choices, etc?
It’s a hard question to answer, and the stakes are higher for me because of the console thing. I guess I could send the console back at least if the game isn’t for me? Idk.
I feel you. I spent a several hours learning about D&D character creation when I picked up BG3. And I spent a couple more hours crafting a back story that I used to influence my character traits. I’ve never played D&D before, but BG3 is the most fun I’ve had with a game in several years.
I still do feel like I’m missing out on a lot by just going with “whatever” and not putting enough thought into character creation, spells, etc, but it’s a lot to learn and I’m only 1 day in :)
As someone who has run tabletop games including DnD for a few decades, your approach is perfectly valid. While any complex system can be gamed for optimal outcomes, it was designed to be roughly even enough that there are not a lot of choices that penalize you too much as long as you pay attention to vulnerabilities/resistances/immunities which can often be overcome with potions and other magic items.
Do what sounds fun and then have fun is not missing out on anything other than spending time not playing the game just to squeeze out edge cases. Some people enjoy that and thankfully the game caters to both casual players and optimizers.
Thanks for this comment. I seem to have made all the wrong choices. Which can be seen by the fact that every conversation has basically led to me fighting entire towns to such extent that I can no longer find vendors to sell to :p
I was considering just re-rolling and trying harder to please the NPCs. But if the playthrough is salvageable, I will stick it out.
Currently on my first playthrough as a team player, but strongly considering going full on antagonist on a subsequent playthrough. Heck, on the first goblin base at the beginning I even saved before entering and after getting buddy buddy with them I saved and then loaded the prior save and just went in crossbows blazing for the fun of it to see how different the outcomes were.
This game is going to be very fun to replay with different approaches!
If you’re interested in politics, existentialism, the human condition, coping with depression, addiction, trauma and loss and want to read a novel about these themes told through the story-telling medium of an isometric RPG then it is the game for you.
Despite claiming to be an “isometric CRPG detective game about solving a murder mystery” on its About page Disco Elysium is actually none of those things at the end of the day, and if those things are what you want you’ll probably end up disappointed.
I mean. Disco Elysium is only an RPG in the sense that you get to choose which version of Harry you play. It’s not a blank slate situation where you can be whatever you want, you’re always just Harry. And it is barely even a game, at the end of the day. It’s a novel pretending to be a game.
In terms of RPG design, though, the one thing it truly did put into the forefront was the “fail-forward” ideas present in many interactions, which is something more games should take inspiration from.
Making failure interesting makes the story much more engaging regardless of your choices and your luck by discouraging save scumming and instead letting you feel good about rolling with whatever outcome happens.
Evidently no one warned you how this game plays and what it’s about, and you walked in expecting Mass Effect or something.
That is not the experience Disco Elysium delivers, or attempts to deliver. If you want a game about being the savior of the Eight Kingdoms and immediately bringing your combat might and razor-sharp wit to bear on the scene a moment after you arrive, you can play approximately every other RPG ever.
The ambiguity of dialogue choices evens out as Harry recovers from his hangover but never completely goes away which honestly is part of the magic for me. Never being 100 percent certain what he's gonna do and sort of trying to nudge him along in the right direction is the game. But it's not a traditional RPG and nowhere near as deep mechanicall as BG3. It's just really good in it's own way. I also had a lot of interest in the politics of the game and a personal battle with drugs and alcohol in my life so it may have resonated more with me as well.
In the Witcher I was late to a windmill to meet some bitch with a bottle of wine and just uninstalled. It’s just not much fun for me. I did have fun turning the dong off and on in cyberpunk to watch the jiggle physics go ape shit, though.
Lasers and fireballs not titties and, well, balls.
No, it’s one and done. So is Turn Undead. So are all of the other Channel Divinity options except Knowledge (until long rest) and Trickery (concentration).
I finished my first playthrough yesterday as the “heroic Dark Urge” referenced in the article and I can do nothing but echo their recommendations. The story came together so well that it feels like it should be canon and it has a lot of custom content.
I honestly thought Dark Urge was just your basic psychopath murder hobo who kills or hurts everything and everyone. Knowing that you can actually resist the urge and the story still comes off as coherent and interesting is a deal-changer, I’ll probably try it in my second playthrough!
Just be aware there’s a good reason that the default Durge is a charisma-focused class, because some of the skill checks for their story can be… tough.
I’m pretty sure that if there’s ever a BG3:DLC or BG4, the redeemed Dark Urge SL will be canon. What with >!Withers intervention, the warning about your own offspring, etc.!<
I get that Fae’run has racial abilities built into its design, but ya’ll real in here trying to defend indoctrinated, active brainwashing and racism.
Lae’zel is your weak of ego, racist uncle; everything different offends her, and any evidence that she is wrong must be conspiracy. Even when faced with everything Vlaakith is doing wrong, you’re met with a series of mental gymnastics: “No, it must be the Doctor!” “Well it has to be THIS Creche, they’re lying about Vlaakith’s wishes!”
Even when you finally get through to her and she agrees to turn on Vlaakith, she spends the entire next act droning on about her new favorite religious figure/political leader. She’s functionally incapable of living for anyone other than a perceived god-king, and I’m shocked that doesn’t genuinely disgust more people.
When you frame it a certain way of course it sounds awful. Let me try the opposite.
Lae’zel has been indoctrinated since birth by a crazy religious and xenophobic culture. The second she’s told she’s being lied to she doesn’t believe anyone because people don’t change their mind about their entire belief system through one line of dialogue from a person she just met.
However after a few more hard facts being shown to her, such as said religious culture trying to kill her and being lied to by the head of said fanatics, she realizes all of her people are actually indoctrinated slaves and starts to fight for the future of her people by rallying around the one person who can actually do something to stop it all.
Not sure why her breaking away from the brainwashing and indoctrination and trying to help free her people after seeing the truth is a bad thing here? Also fun fact, if Orpheus turns into a mind flayer and dies at the end she goes to free her people anyway, it wasn’t just about him. She didn’t just become a zealot following a new person, she became dedicated to freeing her people. Orpheus has that capability so she wants to free him.
I liked her right off the bat. I don’t know if she is meant to be super likeable, but she is a gith… Having been a huge fan of Planescape Torment almost solely because of a big conversation between a githyanki and a member of a race that is the exact opposite of the gityanki that explains the ins and outs of the blood war and with an absolute torrent of lore and background to the race in question, Lae’zel is pretty fucking spot on for what I expected from such a character.
I kinda feel like people who have no history with Star Trek would have the same thoughts toward Klingons as they do Lae’zel if some Star Trek RPG came out and got a bunch of new potential fans to try it. So many people I’ve talked to about BG3 have never once played D&D and know nothing of Forgotten Realms. Such a player definitely wouldn’t understand why Lae’zel behaves the way she does, and you wouldn’t get much context unless you actually pushed through with her story.
As for mechanically playing with her in the party… She is just a fighter. Arguably the least interesting class. And with all the other good melee focused classes, I really only had her specifically for story cuz fighters are kinda lame. All they really do is swing weapons. 🤷🏻♂️
Yeah, I think the Klingon analogy is spot-on. Her writing is excellent, and completely consistent with how the githyanki have been portrayed in Planescape, BG2, and D&D in general. Also, I was surprised at how much the character resembles her voice actor. Curious to see the rest of the cast, now.
Neil Newbon has like 85% of Astarion’s face, it’s uncanny to look at him. They pretty clearly used the actors’ faces/mocap pretty heavily in the character designs.
One of the reasons to play through multiple times is just having different Origin character party member compositions. One or more characters can chime in during dialogue, and changing the combination of characters can dramatically change the whole scene. I have all the murder hobo vibe characters, and it’s like the devs knew this combo would be common and I’m getting hella scenes I never saw in 2 previous playthroughs.
The only 3 at this point in the game that, if they used the alignment system, I’m sure would be one type of evil or another. I’ve had a couple surprise moments where all 3 join in a short discussion, playing off each other’s lines. I’ve had Lae’zel before, but I’ve never really kept Astarion around (unless I needed something with a DC of 30 lockpicked) and this is my first evil run, so Minthara isn’t a smouldering pile of ash this time.
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