Baldur's Gate 3 | Revenge of the bad dragon (NO SPOILER)

Baldur's Gate 3 | Revenge of the bad dragon
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"Backbay Lounge", "Bass Vibes", "Cool Vibes", "Deadly Roulette", "Hard Boiled", "I Knew a Guy", "Night in Venice", "Night of Chaos", "Pixelland", "Spy Glass", "Study And Relax", "Walking Along"
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
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[@Rawrshuga]

"You haven't seen a real game in so long that you've forgotten what they look like..." I concur.

[@grigger7000]

Yeah seriously, this is incredible. I started gaming in 2013 and this- THIS is my most favorite game of all time.

[@sparkyspinz9897]

​@@grigger7000its in my top 10 easily. Maybe 5

[@petri2767]

@@grigger7000 I started gaming in 1991 and BG3 is in my top-5, it beat BG2 for example.

[@coolnamebro7363]

It hurts to know it's the truth.

[@lipayy9852]

​@@petri2767for me bg1 beats bg2. Bg2 just didn't hit for me, I hated not having the low level part of an RPG

[@SwineofWar]

"This isn't a milestone, you've just gone so long without seeing a real game you've forgotten what they look like" Well said. I see a lot of people acting like the style of game bg3 is is somehow new and fresh? But these are also the people who think fallout 4 is the best rpg ever

[@madassassin5465]

What other game, has the same quality of voice acting, animation, scripting, freedom of choice?

[@simonhamelink3590]

Disco elysium is one of those

[@HexadecimalDump]

​@@madassassin5465animations and scripts are very janky in this game

[@Skinnypete38]

​@@madassassin5465 a number of CRPG's come to mind. They just aren't AAA.

[@MrWowwow2211]

I personally loved the difficulty spike in act 2. Along with the atmosphere it really played up the feeling of overwhelming hopelessness (since essentially we haven’t gotten any help with our head friend in act1). Really drives home the part in dnd campaigns where your easy going happy go lucky group actually run into the overarching plot and realize just how I’ll prepared they usually are for it.

[@helgenlane]

Or... You can explore the map, find one legendary item in one of the important locations (which is actually very easy to get) and second act suddenly becomes extremely easy.

[@teecee1827]

​@@helgenlaneyeah, Blood of Lathender makes act 2 a cakewalk.

[@benhramiak8781]

​@@teecee1827good to know, picked it up

[@leopard2690]

What difficulty Spike?

[@Nutellafuerst]

@@helgenlane I found it, decided I didnt like to have a glowing orb on my back, and sold it immediatly.

[@Sapient_Pearwood]

I agree completely with you about the city. Baldur's Gate definitely needed split into districts. It took me until the very end of my first playthrough, 165.5 hours, to finally feel like i was getting a grasp on the city. Im hoping next playthrough i become more familiar with it because i am still super lost in certain areas. Breaking it up would've helped me remember where certain locations were along with helping to navigate.

[@jacobrunnels2719]

In act 2 the best way to avoid all of the issues is to have the daylight spell applied to an item by a cleric. You won't receive damage in the first portion of the act and many of the enemies gain debuffs because of it.

[@ardenorcrush649]

You don't even need Daylight, you can just use the Light cantrip.

[@helgenlane]

Or light cantrip. Or find a legendary item which is very easy to find.

[@benhramiak8781]

Does the lathander mace help?

[@SleepyMatt-zzz]

Just use torches until you get the moonlantern shortly after arriving at the light-inn

[@helgenlane]

@@SleepyMatt-zzz moonlantern is not better than torches. It doesn't protect from the "deep" stuff.

[@mattBLACKpunk]

The absolute worst part of this game is being unable to remove a split screen coop character from your party when you're playing alone again

[@leopard2690]

Glad they patched that now

[@ganjiblobflankis6581]

For solo stealth, press G and each character stands still. For selecting members press F1-4 because they decided that if you move your mouse one micron in the millisecond that you click the portrait then you must want to drag the portrait.

[@alexhunt6034]

Yeah I love Strat, but I thought that was a weird thing not to know about. You can group and ungroup before stealthing, and even more importantly, before conversations, to move the others into position for combat, or pickpocket, or steal things. Not only can you just press 'G', there's a button on the UI below the character portraits. Like, it's right there.

[@alexhunt6034]

Or you can drag the character's portrait until it's separate to ungroup just that character.

[@SurroundedSita]

you can also just right-click then click "ungroup" *edit* right-click the character portrait you want to stealth with

[@lipayy9852]

I've seen multiple reviewers not know this, it's baffling

[@jediplop3563]

Yeah just got to the gripes bit of the video and this first one is just user error. edit: just finished the vid, rest seem fair just that first one and the levelling one I felt were more user error than the game.

[@mikeuniturtle3722]

one of my biggest complaints is that when a crafting or interactive menu is opened they don't snap to each other. They are literally just 2 different windows that overlap each other.

[@lucienderthel338]

gotta open one, drag it out of the way then the other

[@mikeuniturtle3722]

@@lucienderthel338 yeah, I know that but it still doesnt excuse it.

[@helgenlane]

Yeah, you click something where you need to place an object, it opens in the middle of the screen. Then you open inventory... it overlaps the previous window so you have to move them out of the way. You'd think they can simply move it aside when you open inventory UI.

[@iiequinox8044]

@@mikeuniturtle3722 Would be completely fixed if they just let you pin the submenus to places so they automatically go to that screen position when opened.

[@fairtoki1685]

18:18 your path is interrupt with darkness spell, that's work as intend. you can use F1-F4 for select character, G to split group and Shift-C for easy party stealth. It's really not that hard to push Shift+C button imo.

[@mags0nline]

glad someone pointed this out lol it was right here when i was like "this is an old man yelling at a cloud (of darkness) right now"

[@dervogalfanger3097]

First time i played this game i was listening to the nature sounds. They were beautiful. In the overlaping sounds of the Forest what i thought was cicada cherps turned out to be my GPU fan sputering and dying as my computer melted into Avernus. 10/10

[@CrazyxEnigma]

I think a lot of the problems will be ironed out in patches and an eventual Enhanced Edition. Larian should really consider letting players test out later acts if they do early access again, I can see why they don't but still it would really help when the player base can give them feedback on it before release.

[@mediumvillain]

Big ambitious narrative-driven RPGs are basically cursed to have weaker third acts that railroad the player bc of cut content & essentially unfinished, or hastily finished, secondary story arcs. They can just never fit everything in and the endgame always suffers. It's been this way for decades. Most of the best CRPGs I've ever played have had relatively trash final acts compared to the expanse, exploration & choices of the early game, including many Larian games.

[@qaztim11]

@@mediumvillain Its a problem with no solution, the obvious one is giving the devs more time, but publishers wont want to give more time to a project that has already been developed for half a decade and looks finished from the outside, the only real solutions are mods or developers supporting the game post launch. You either remove a lot of choice from early acts to make the final stretch a lot more polished and expand the few questlines that are going to be available. Or you do as much work as you can while trying to avoid burnout from working on the same project for years, trying to support dozens of questlines that stretch back to the begnning of the game, all while the release date is getting closer and you know that the climax of the game and a hefty chunk of game will have to be cut because it is either extremely buggy or unfinished.

[@HandsomeMartyrdom]

I love how thorough you are with the reviews, most other reviews I've seen hadn't even made it past act 1, and here you've beaten it twice already.

[@arenkai]

That's both great and terrible since given their level at the end of Act 2 (lv6), it seems like they went through the game very quickly. That won't be most player's experience since people tend to explore and get distracted. So, yes, it's cool that they went through it twice, but not great that they glanced over so much of the story content that they finished 2 full playthroughs in under 180h. If you go on the "how long to beat" page of BG3, you can see that people report having beat it in 60h doing only the main quest, while people doing a bit of everything beat it in closer to 100h. For my part I'm 70h in and only just finished act 2, and that's still knowing I missed a lot of content in Act 1 and 2. Act 3 will probably take me 20-30h more which would put me around the 100h mark like the average player. So to me, someone that beat the game twice as quickly as Strat-Edgy isn't really talking about the average person's experience with the game.

[@Stealth86651]

I want to play a game where everyone outright hates you. Any time you come upon a town or mission, they just tell you to go away the first 5 or so times. Guards will harass you, shops will outright scam you, etc. Have the dogs even run from you.

[@InvadeNormandy]

Gothic, you're literally describing gothic. Lol

[@Crootcovitz]

Well, another video for the 'Watch after you played the game' pile. See you in a few months.

[@StratEdgyProductions]

I keep it spoiler free

[@Crootcovitz]

​@@StratEdgyProductionsOh, then see you later today. :)

[@croncastle3028]

Homie couldn't read

[@Crootcovitz]

@@croncastle3028 Right now I'm not sure whether I'm just blind or the 'NO SPOILER' appeared later.

[@Argonnosi]

@@Crootcovitz You are slipping between alternate timelines. We've been trying to pull you out into your real timeline, but the attempts have not been going well.

[@thetruthinthegate]

The instance you speak of in Act 2 with the cleric is what I like to call the NPC trap. The game points out that there is a cleric you can talk to and if you do - spoilers- that fight happens. If you don’t talk to her and do other stuff first that fight never happens. No way of knowing either until you do it which can be frustrating

[@spicey4522]

What’s funny is my two playthroughs I rolled pretty high initiative, so the Cleric dying never became an issue. I killed the Cleric afterwards in my second playthrough just to see what would happen lol.

[@PythonPlusPlus]

Either way it should be so easy for them to defeat the cleric in the first round. They should give her something like second wind so in the worst case scenario she is left at 1hp.

[@spicey4522]

@@PythonPlusPlus there is actually a mace you can find that revives them once per fight

[@helgenlane]

It also kinda feels mandatory to speak to her because she gives a helpful buff. Also, as far as I know, she has more HP on a higher difficulty, so she doesn't get one-shot

[@LadyDeutza]

​@@PythonPlusPlusyou'll be happy to hear they gave her more hp and she now actually tries to run away (which I found annoying as I had set up everything expecting a similar fight as my first playthrough where she stood there trying to fight Marcus like an idiot).

[@BunnyWitchcraft]

I loved act 2 personally. There's a lot of ways around the darkness. It has a lot of tense combats that reward you for investing in aoe.

[@cyrthurix]

Hey thanks for a no spoiler version. I know that it's a courtesy done by most but I really like your channel and after a few hours, Baldur's Gate, and was almost bummed out I couldn't watch the new one until I saw the release and noticed the big "no spoiler". So I figured I'd repay your courtesy with a thank you nonetheless.

[@deptusmechanikus7362]

The only thing missing from this game is the ending slideshow showing off all the consequences of our heroically despicable actions. The ending scene is pretty good. I’m not disappointed. But more would definitely be welcome

[@diomed96]

Agreed. An epilogue is something I can appreciate in every rpg. There are videos of cut epilogues narrated by Withers floating around youtube, I have hope they will add them in the definitive edition

[@rotisserieprotocol3582]

I was waiting to hear your thoughts on this game. I agree with most of what you said, especially in the Bad section. No game is perfect but this one is damn close. But I still think it's important and productive to talk about flaws in incredible games, even if some are nitpicks, they still count.

[@Nard2ndG]

Hey Strat, I was just running back some of your older videos and came across a few where you were talking about your surgeries. I'm glad you're still here man.

[@baryony]

Read the control keys, and you'll see that you can control one guy in stealth, and have a lot of ways to have more control over your party (you can even split the party and have half of it wait in another zone, in which case you'll get loading screens when you switch party members). Shortcut keys are very important, they change the whole experience.

[@devinmoore9188]

In my co op playthrough me and my friend were able to reach lvl 7 in act 1 alone. I went through it again solo and was able to find quite a bit more things that we had missed (a quest line or 2, a few boss fights , lots of loot), so to be a ways into act 2 and only lvl 6, you must have missed a LOT of content, and in that sense it's completely understandable to hit a spike in difficulty then

[@IIIGioGioStarIII]

Yeah, I’m doing a solo run and a run with friends. So far, we are level 5 in the friends run. We’ve done things that I didn’t do in my solo run. And we’re still not done with act 1. I’m the party leader because I bought the game during early access and played the mess out of act 1 (we haven’t even felt with the hag, or goblins yet). So I’m trying to get all the good stuff and level us up for act 2. Hoping that we can get the good armor and weapons for the act 2 BBEG because he’s hard to fight if you aren’t prepared for it

[@marlow7376]

You shouldn’t be required to do every encounter lol

[@marlow7376]

Doing literally everything in act 1 should allow you to be stronger than u typically are not just prevent a difficulty spike

[@spicey4522]

My first playthrough I ran through the main plot line so quick in act 1. I missed 3 of the origin characters, Withers, a LOT of the side content. I barrel stomped the goblin camp and ended up in the underdark at like level 4, avoided a TON of enemies and ended up in act 2 at like barely level 6. The main plot was so engaging that I didn’t want to stop progressing it. I rested at Grymforge and the game progressed without me, so I just assumed long resting would do that for everything and I developed a sort of mental doomclock thinking I had to push forward to save the world from the big bad lol. Turns out you aren’t actually rushed constantly, and you can long rest constantly during most situations without the plot progressing. I’ve missed romance options because I refused to long rest often enough, you actually start to generate a queue for rest events, and only 1-2 can actually happen per night. Some are even location specific.

[@thesaucyprophesy2939]

@@marlow7376you don’t have to do “literally everything” my dude, like not even close. But it is a CRPG and with that, you shouldn’t be surprised that rushing through the main story will result in you being underleveled. Elden ring, cyberpunk, although aren’t crpgs, are fairly similar. These types of games are filled to the brim with side quests for a reason, you’ll find a few you like and it helps with leveling up

[@jamesguinan415]

If not a milestone, at the very least, a realigning of the tracks in the right direction.

[@Kathandros]

Been waiting for you to cover BG3 more than any other content creator I follow. Love your work, thanks for all of it, keep it up man!

[@kredonystus7768]

One thing that grinds my gears is doors. The amount of times I have opened a door and closed it again because the place you expect to click on to walk through it the top of the door... I shouldn't have to swing my camera around to walk through the door.

[@daddytito917]

Man I just got fed up with act 2 today and decided to watch this video I’m glad I’m not the only one feeling this way and that the game gets better later

[@brunovega6479]

Dropping a Comment for the Algo. Love You strat, keep em coming. Currently going through BG3 and I'll come back to this video after I'm done with my first playthrough. While I trust you won't spoil anything important to the game, I feel the need to go through it and form my own opinion on the game before returning to this video. Keep up the awesome work chief. As soon as this game released and I started playing I thought "Strat's probably blowing this games back out while I'm out here trying not to get murdered in the underdark."

[@Zerothegamer1520]

As soon as the game came out I’ve waiting for your take on it glad it’s finally here🎉

[@saschaberger3212]

I subbed like a bazillion channels and your review is the first lol

[@mintfresh6547]

Been waiting for this one by you. You're the Civvie 11 of RPGs

[@Ghostie.]

This should have more views. Finally someone comments on how epic that title screen is.

[@JamesMadisonsSpiritAnimal]

The little "yes!" She does apperently the VA said in an interview it was 100% improve she thought up lmfao They really nailed the Voice acting in this game

[@davidkelvon7936]

The most annoying part of the party following a stealthier character is that they fixed that in early access, but it somehow didn’t make it into the final build.

[@causewaybob3651]

As a helpful tip you can get a quest at the beginning of act 2 where you can free a pixie in a moon lantern that gives you a passive buff against the act2 gimmick

[@MitchJohnson0110]

The part in act 2 were you have to protect the cleric is an "NPC trap" talking to her is optional and if you don't you can complete the act without that fight.

[@landsbetweendiary1476]

The nitpicks you mentioned I also encountered yet I found them easy to overcome with proper and comfortable keybinds. I dare say the camera is one of the best I played with in a long if you are prone to use arrow keys/WASD to move it, rotate the axis using default mousewheel (M3) and poping in and out of tactical camera (default O) to fix elevation level. One thing that I would recommend everyone to do is after they played the game a bit and find it enjoyable is to change their keybinds in option menus to suit them more, it may increase your enjoyment of the game making it more comfortable to play. Overall great review and I appreciate you didn't beat on the topic that this "should be a new standard", it got really tedious.

[@justindibe8543]

It needs to be 10 a.m. on the East Coast right now, I've been waiting for this video my whole life

[@JohnnieJambo]

Another awesome review! I appreciate all the time and effort you put into this for all of us! I'll definitely be giving BG3 a go!

[@ordinarylady157]

FYI that there is a way to actually be overlevelled by the end of Act 2. Normally, the game makes you choose between going through two different paths to get there, but pro tip, you can do *both* before moving on. You'll be sitting at a nice level 8 or late level 7 by the time you go into Act II proper. Divinity 2 had the same exact issue with punishing people for being underlevelled and I really wish BG3 communicated what level you're expected to be at before moving on to the next zone. It might feel "game-y" but to be honest with you the way that time flows in that game and in BG3 is extremely weird and janky and it's in your best interest to manipulate it to your advantage. Edited for obvious spoilers lol

[@helgenlane]

But you can return to previous areas from act 2. There's one point where the game warns you that the story will be changed after that, but before that point you can easily travel back and forth and get all the experience and equipment you missed.

[@ordinarylady157]

@@helgenlane [spoilers] What I mean by Act II is the area near Moonrise, and if you go there the worldstate definitely changes.

[@acleus]

I had that infinite conversation loop bug in act 1. Went into the cave with the thief kids and the leader just kept repeating "I don't wanna see you ever again" until I gave up and reloaded.

[@tigrafrog]

Soo, no miracle this time. Game still pushed [partially] incomplete/broken, as everything else. I'll let it stew another 2 years, get them a chance to fix and expand. So far my principle (after fallout 4) to not touch game for 2 years after release works EVERY TIME (sometimes games will die within 1 year).

[@samuelyeates2326]

Just saying, I really appreciate your "wait and beat the game approach." You are probably the only reviewer that I trust to accurately review high hype games.

[@tylerstaples81]

1. Turn off karmic dice. The fact you left it out is interesting 2. Act 2 just literally never talk to her and avoid that entire bullshit fight. You're 100% right and it' requires 100% meta knowledge

[@emytzu]

For all it's foibles, ESPECIALLY THE FUCKING CAMERA, this game allowed me to be a party of one. Something i did not expect in the least. And it makes damn sure you know it's your own choice and a very bad idea. Even Withers got on my case about it: "Thow walkest alone. On all these harsh nights, thou hast sought no company." Literally got off Elden Ring and i still get npcs basically calling me "Maidenless". Even if i had to cheese a looooot of fights. I still managed to get to Act 3, had to really comb the map for that XP. That toad looking people creche? Yeah...it's empty now. The hag? Down the river she went. Had to teach her the same fucking lesson again in Act 3. Gortash? Motherfucker should've invested in spring legs or rocketboots for his precious steel soldiers. Literally used a potion of sleeping (long rest) midfight to recover my abilities. Even got an achievement for not triggering his stupid traps. Orin is still on my hitlist, the red-haired girl will have to wait...this fucking city is huge! And i am so annoyed the max level is 12. I read it's due to complexity of the game...but all they had to do is force you to multiclass from level 12 into another class. "Why can't i become a level 20 wizard?" "Because tadpole in brain, shut up, now pick up that flute!"

[@xSaintxSmithx]

I think you (perhaps unintentionally) made a fantastic point when you said, "It's the curse of being a game reviewer." That changed my whole perspective. I will now watch every game review with the idea that they are playing the game to review it, and that may lead to them playing inorganicly or at least in a slighty compromised, time-efficient way.

[@Shanewayne9]

13:22 In that fight I literally blocked all of the doors so no other monsters would slip themselves in, while 1 character protected the tieflings outside

[@Mefungpoo]

Love the video - last night I was pumping through the back catalog of all of your videos, and was surprised to wake up to see this. I’m gonna sound demanding, but when is the BG3 - Spoiler filled retrospective video coming? 😂

[@sofiee8531]

Since I play these kinds of games during several years (I am a real slow burner) and never have an opportunity to start a new game within several years after their release due to my backlog, one week after release can hardly be considered as a “late” review for me ;-) . But also I appreciate your take on “everyone else seems to love this, let’s see if it stands up to scrutiny!” Good job and a great and informative review!

[@helgenlane]

It's been 3 weeks since the game released, some people beat it like 4 times already

[@sofiee8531]

@@helgenlane And those people hardly need a review… 😜

[@bigs5078]

TBH, as a longtime Ravenloft fan and necromancer extraordinaire, Act 2 actually wasn't that bad for me. Guess I just vibed with the overall aesthetic so much it helped me look over it's problems.

[@ervinaspetrauskas1716]

liked easthetic too, just hated the part where i teleported into a fight with world damage over time. so after i won it i had to find a way out since it was a place i never been to. It took me maybe 5 retries just to find a way out without dying

[@KairuFreestar91]

all i will say for the necromancer fight he is talking about is that there IS a cheese for that fight and it happens to involve using rarely used menu options where you can switch between characters while talking to someone. the other is throwing stuff towards the edge of the map or just off the edge if you dont want exp!

[@alexhunt6034]

Or just kill him when you first meet him. 🤷‍♂️ Which I'll be honest did take me a couple of tries to figure out how to survive.

[@jakedill1304]

You know I was going to say Rock door when...? In anticipation of this but.. I don't know.. I kind of wish I did though after seeing your thumbnail.. I'm so glad you exist.

[@TheHeartThatRunsCold]

Act 2's start is stilted because there is the mountain pass entrance where enemies are lvls 6-8, and then the underdark entrance, which is primed to give you a good Fx#%ing.

[@cam-the-bassist]

One of the worst bits for me is that scenes seem to be queued in your long rests - I tried to not take many long rests so they felt more like a resource and resultantly, I ended up missing out on some things because too much stuff happened to be in my 'queue'.

[@adeldell8275]

I'm happy I waited for your review.

[@Geologese]

I thought I was schitzophrenic for thinking the voice quality would flip to it sounding like they are recording in a home studio randomly.

[@DasMaggie]

Hard agree with what you are saying man, great vid as always. keep it up.

[@SapientGestalt]

Love the review. Agreed with a lot you had to say, disagreed with some mostly because mileage may vary and didn't have some of those issues or didn't see them as issues. But God damn if I don't agree with the AI but for a different reason. My experience (before some patches) was that allied AI seemed to be toddler level suicidal in a certain prison break out quest in Act 2 as well as the cleric fight. I had unarmed civilian dudes trying to punch a level 7 or 8 paladin when all they had to do was break ropes and escape. I think that was the most frustrating part of the game for me. But it's still one of my favorites of all time and I can't stop playing/making new characters to see what events or cutscenes I missed.

[@LadyDeutza]

That's so true. Isobel on my first run tried to fight Marcus which was so annoying. On my second run, I accidentally opened the cages. After rescuing them from themselves and killing all the guards, we're out of combat and 2mins later quest updates... Welburn died cause he decided to run into the next room with 3 guards when he had no weapons. He learnt nothing! It was an evil playthrough so I didn't care (didn't mean to even free them), but my golly are those guys dumb.

[@jermainegrays]

Great review. Humor on point as always.

[@dallasshumaker6148]

18:11 you can pull one character portrait away from the group so it goes out scouting on its own. It can lead to some odd situations though as if you are caught or sneak attack, only that character will be in the fight and turn order.

[@BIacklce]

Stealth archer build being good huh? Looks like someone is finally awake

[@tessfairfield6435]

I also failed that cleric mission horribly my first try. The enemies completely surrounded her and she got wrecked in 3 turns

[@fmsyntheses]

You should get games so early that it's before Todd even steals the idea for them

[@The_Yukki]

It's kinda funny since the way you describe stealth working in other rpgs, where one person sneaks and others stay put unless they're also sneaking is... exactly how it worked until release of the game...

[@Art-ed1tz]

Great vid

[@Jehovahs_Thickness]

Just got this yesterday been a blast. The no spoilers from my boy tho 🔥

[@bugg6597]

23:55 “A.I far more A than I, T pose to assert dominance and oh no, the all consuming void, to name a few” -Internet historian

[@JamesMadisonsSpiritAnimal]

In dos2 there was a floor level switch button. They removed this in b3 and i literally can not scream loud enough at how angry this makes me.

[@InvadeNormandy]

It is an ass backwards de-evolution of flight controls and Z axis handling isn't it

[@shutinshogun]

Ahh I'm a Schnookum Ookum?! Oh Paul you're too sweet ;) Great video my dude keep it up!

[@guildingfire6216]

The Raphael fight music is golden

[@dycol6851]

the music cannot possibly be better than wasteland 3

[@zgegosaurusrho8205]

The no spoiler was mandatory man. Thx.

[@drshemp1]

just got the game for my bday its sweet so far!

[@azikusblue7224]

As a guy who had never played a CRPG and a total noob to D&D my 1st play through really challenging on balanced. One instance i still remember is defending the portal. I failed so many times I raged quit that evening but was so obsessed i couldn't stop thinking about that fight and kept me up the whole night... Lol... Next day it clicked to me i didn't watch any tutorials and won. So satisfying... Also, for me act 3 was a bit lackluster. The wtf moments in act 2 is unmatchable especially with the boss fights.

[@ninjosh7]

I KNEW there was something up with the Marcus fight! Isobel died so easily after I had a great round, I figured it was a forced thing. It felt really bad to fight all the people I had just saved. I hope I have a save file before that fight though I think it's too late ☹️

[@ItsToioko]

I agree with most of what you said and we all like and dislike whatever it is but the stealth thing. You can drag the portraits off the chain so no one else follows you., then put them when needed (If i am stealing everyone else is in a different zone or camp). There's also something in the key bindings that make them stand still while you move who you need to without breaking the chain

[@fuzzydragon]

Sign a funny thing with that necromancer is. I never had to do that fight. Because I assassinated him earlier.

[@jakeparkinson8929]

thard swords was my build, slashing flourish is extremely useful to take out multiple enemies. Basically, you can use cheese to out win combat. Reclass gale as a sorcerer, use twinned spell on haste and then have him hide far away so the concentration doesn't get broken. I was level 7 when I finished act 2, it was very painfully difficult to get through that opening fight near the end against the absolute on the way to bbeg. I prefer WOTR over bg3 for combat and complexity, it does so many more things right but has many more bugs, i.e ai noclipping through walls and ignoring pathing, and annoying inability to use spells for no reason in turn-based until you toggle on and off realtime and freak over iniative order.

[@jakel2837]

I have carpal tunnel syndrome, so I have to play pretty much every game with a controller (keyboard mouse causes more irritation). I really appreciate the effort Larian put into making BG3 work with a controller. For the sake of convenience, I'll use the mouse for some menus and the keyboard to type; but for things like combat and movement in the world, I found I actually prefer the UI for controller. The system of radial menus makes it easier to access spells, items, and abilities that you use a lot.

[@GreyWarden00]

How was your performance for Act 3? I see that throughout your Act 1 clips there was quite a bit of hitching/stuttering/fps drops. Is your tolerance for such things high or are those things not worth mentioning to you in a review?

[@StratEdgyProductions]

I need to upgrade my computer so I don't feel right critiquing performance when I'm not rocking serious firepower to test it against.

[@GreyWarden00]

@@StratEdgyProductions oh I see. I have a 3700x amd 2080 Super. Played through Act 1 and 2 with DLSS on Quality mode with all Ultra settings on with very little frame drop. The drops I got started in the Last Light and Moonrise Tower, which were ignorance enough if a little annoying. Act 3 was horrendous though. GPU usage was all over between 50-75% and all my cores were generally in the 30% range. Despite using DLSS performance and turning down a lot of settings, I couldn't even maintain a steady 60 FPS despite getting steady 70 to 85 in the previous acts. I was constantly going from slightly above 60fps to sub 40. I even hit 15fps at some point. Some ppl seem to be spared the fps drops. I really hope Patch 2 actually fixes the issues of optimization in the city. I paused my playthrough and went back to my save right when you enter Wyrm's Crossing from Act 2 in hopes for a better experience at a later date

[@NatrajChaturvedi]

@@StratEdgyProductions Still, this is a top down cRPG game with fairly basic dx11 graphics. As long as someone's PC hits the recommended specs, the game should be performing flawlessly in terms of fps which is not the case I know for many. So apart from bugfixing and polishing up, the game could have done with more optimization too.

[@dr.calibrations7984]

One bug that you missed is the bug where a follower will stop following in a group. If you have them be the party lead they will workn as intended but if you have anyone else lead they'll stand there. At the time of posting there is no fix that works all the time and its apparently been an issue since the beta. This happened to me and i didn't know about it until it was far too late and ruined Gale. While i was a Sorc so i didnt miss him too much this can absolutely break someones game, especially if it happens to multiple party members. And like I said its been a problem that the devs know abiut for over a year

[@HierophanticRose]

Interesting, conversely I felt act 2 is where persuasion characters really shine. And yes, I agree. Even though it had frustrating moments for me too, where it shines more than made up for it.

[@robertfishburn8545]

Charisma characters shine the whole game, aside from Wyll, there are no Charisma heavy origin characters so it helps to embrace your MC nature and become the face

[@busterampleforth9806]

Worst thing about DOS2 was the difficulty spike every level (I played tactician blind and was struggling to figure out where the fuck to go in Reaper’s Coast) and BG3 is so much better with smoothing out that balance. I can actually explore without being punished, and beat encounters above my levels by playing tactically! But then again, I have like 6 years experience with 5e, so that also comes into play.

[@micah2288]

Nice video bud. Fair takes.

[@MusicFella]

If you press G you can ungroup the party and go into single stealth

[@Zathurious]

About your gripe with stealth... Did you not know about the group and ungroup button beneath your character portraits? If you click it and "ungroup" the party, you can move them one at a time. I'm sure by the time you read this comment you will have noticed, but overall, I don't actually disagree with your review.

[@obudanbondon]

17:10 you can press F1, F2, F3, F4 to select individual characters in your party. G ungroups everyone in the party...after this you can drag-and-drop one by one and make 2by2 groups, if you'd like or even 3 in a group and one solo. SHIFT + C will place everyone in crouch, while holding SHIFT will show you enemy fields of view around your screen. Holding ALT will show text for every lootable item in the area. Pressing O will give you an eagle-eye view whenever you'd like. you can also go from Real-Time to Turn-Based whenever you'd like. There's many, many more quality of life helpful keys and tricks to make your gameplay experience much more enjoyable.

[@leopard2690]

Act 2 is probably one of my fav part of the game. Perfectly balanced in my opinion. Act 1 was a bit too hard sometimes bc you are low level. Act 3 was too easy bc you are too high level. Act 2 is perfectly fine. Challenging without being too hard. The curse was never a Problem, I actualy forgot it is a thing. Balanced is perfectly balanced imo. Dont tell them to look up builds, just try things out. I never needed to optimize my build. Being level 6 in act 2 is normal

[@markhill3858]

ta strat :) it sounds like your health is no longer at the front of your mind too ..which is good we need ya mate :)

[@spac3dout320]

I surprisingly did not have much issues with difficulty even though this was my first time running through a top down rpg... though that couldve been because I saw tavern brawler, saw you could throw enemies and stuck to that

[@Paulygotto]

Commenting mostly for the algorithm. I'm still going through act one at this point. I probably would have been farther but work has got me doing crazy overtime. The only bug I've really dealt with was from safescumming where one of my characters became permanently overweighted. Had to return to a previous save to undo it.

[@Ajme-kb4os]

You never separated your party? Ungroup the portraits and do your own thing.

[@thedude7319]

29:30 you can just feel the energy, those words were meant

[@JamesMadisonsSpiritAnimal]

Height matters souch that the higherst damage spell in the gameis the owlbears belly flop if you stack about 150 boxed and climb them lok

[@tutorialboss4090]

Never too late for a game review.

[@dirtydiggle]

I actually love playing on controller. The menus do not bother me at all and I enjoy organizing them

[@BBQBEEFBUGERMAN]

Oh yeah ! Bg3 my man!

[@Ioperzu]

Mate, I watch your videos on games released and that I played years ago. At least, on my case, I couldn`t care less for being "late" xD There`s always gonna be someone that just read Don Quixote for the first time and wanna talk about it/see others reaction and impressions to it. Here you have my late comment xD

[@sparkyspinz9897]

I never really felt a huge jump in difficulty in act 2 personally. Maybe i was overlevelled? Full disclosure though my girlfriend was playing bard and speeched her way through 4 major boss fights lol. The ketheric fight was a nice challenge.

[@MrDmitriRavenoff]

I'm like you. I got bogged down in act 2, as well as screwing up st the Inn and getting everyone killed. I just got to act 3 and I'm kinda tired and feel listless.

[@JamesMadisonsSpiritAnimal]

Did you know they completely modeled and fleshedout the upper city of bg3 but didnt add it? Theres like an emtire half of the game just as cut content, wild