Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Technical & Gameplay Problems Post patch 4: Act III is profoundly broken

I’m gonna wait till next year for the full release - it feels like I forked out £60 on a demo lolz

I think it's some kind of memory/event management bug that was introduced in last patch. PC users found out a fix which involves deleting thousands of events that clog up the game and create those huge delays we are experiencing. Unfortunately us PS5 peasants can't do anything but wait for a fix, which i'm sure Larian is working on as this is a known issue. I'd be happy with a rollback tbh.

Hello, ps5 user here.

I started having the problem in the end of act 2 but still tolerable (companion not following here n there).
But straight after arriving at Rivington, everytime i go to a different area, the game stop functioning. Especially when moving from rivington to the gate, and to wyrm rock.
When i do not move to a new area but moving within the map that has a lot of npcs, the game freezes for a good 2-3 minutes, and my companions do not follow. Then the game loaded and it was ok but the experience is not good.

I have 2 other runs and about 15 saves in total but still have quite a bit of storage freed up. The internet is working fine when i play other games.

I have stopped playing and wait for a hopefully soon enough update.

It's been almost 3 weeks, I just wanna finish my playthrough
Hope it's fixed soon

In my case, the solution was to quickly get to the lower town - the game worked normally there.Start quest "Open Hand Temple Murders " We bypass the first guards on the right side by jumping to the platform and talk to the second ones and give them a pass (we get it from the flying one... for completing a simple quest [spoiler]). You can bypass the problematic area in 15 minutes and continue your adventure in the lower town where everything works normally. I think the next patch will solve the problem with the beginning of Act 3.
?

@Dagorian

First, I agree the solution is to get to the lower city and bypass the coronation event for now because the glitch seems to be around the crossing the first bridge to the area you would enter the prison or coronation. HOWEVER, going around via the right side leads only to the prison entrance and you hit the SAME glitch trying to leave.

Am I missing something here to bypass? Can you be more specific in your solution?

Thanks

Have every issue listed here also. Now got to the point where I exit camp the game doesn't progress and my party are stuck in a state of limbo where the map just loads forever. Not happy. Some form of acknowledgement of the issues with Act III on the PS5 would be appreciated, a patch to address the issues even more so. Absolutely loved the game up until Act III. Don't mind decreased frame rates or tearing however the issues listed are not down to CPU or GPU bottlenecks.

I have Just started Act 3 , and was really enjoying how it was playing. that is until the glitching started. I can no longer play it as it keeps freezing, doors not opening or taking literal minutes to open, my party doesnt follow, conversations end or dont even reconisge. its a real shame as the game its self is amazing. i hope they fix the issue soon as i want to carry on with act 3

While general lag still seems to be much less pronounced after hotfix 11, one place where it is pretty insane is the start of the Cazador fight. Took literally over a minute on multiple attempts I made last night before anything started to happen. Meaning before the pre-fight conversation starts.

Your active character will be able to run down the stairs all the way, but the enemy NPCs are just frozen in place and the party does not follow the selected character down the stairs. You're also not able to select a different character, even though you will be getting their voice-reactions to being selected.

This was probably the worst instance of rubber-banding/lag I've yet encountered post patch 4, with or without any of the hotfixes applied. And no: This has never happened to me before patch 4 and I did that fight way too many times because of other glitches that interaction contains (the whole "sunlight hyper-sensitivity"-thing blocking certain events after the fight is over).



EDIT: I just remembered that the Stone Lord fight at the counting house also took an insane amount of time to get going. Didn't time it exactly, but I'd say the Cazador fight was still worse... but not by much. My group stood on that balcony overlooking the ground floor, with all enemy/neutral NPCs visible but frozen in place (even the ones that should be invisible when the fight starts) and it took at least a minute, possibly longer, before the cut-scene with the dwarf-banker started.




S.

Ditto for me as well (PC is a monster, never had any issues before Patch 4). I hoped disabling dynamic crowd would help and it has some. Still, lots of lags in Wyrm's Crossing, though much shorter than before disabling dynamic crowds. May the be of help to others.

[s][/s]It's the 24th now and this bug is still very much active, I spent the last couple of days on a new character trying to see if it was due to my other save file being corrupted. I got to act 3 again today hoping that would be the case, but the problem is still there. At this point I'm just hoping that enough people write about having the same issue so it gets the devs' attention.

Congrats - your game is broke.

PC - locks up with no action possible but walking with my thumb up my @$&

Currently sat here in Wyrm's Rock Fortress, 20 minutes into a freeze-up that happens every time the game has to load in new assets. PS5 version. I am spending more time waiting for the game to be playable than I am actually playing it. I love this game but ffs Larian.....

On Mac, have been on early release and since full release have played through and completed once and recently played 2 more play-throughs.

First things first - this is my favourite game ever and I've played most CRPGS.

However.

On 1st play through there were some issues in 3rd Act but mostly around Gortash - and a few quest lines. Act 3 did not have the same UX as Act 1 especially.

2nd play through (after latest patch). Bugged out on Act 3, where characters wouldn't follow me. NPCs would float around or stop animating, real lag in game. Decided to restart with a new character anyway.

3rd play through (after latest patch / including hotfix). Bugged out Act 1 after completing Gith Creche. The Act 1 area was as if you hadn't been there (sort-of) all the Gobos back from the dead - an army outside of the Druid enclave, their camp back alive - other NPCs back alive. In the Underdark area the Beholder was already active attacking Drow. The land shark was active and visible but not animating, (though triggered later). Hidden chests visible even if undiscovered. Wizard tower - Bernard did not give ring and then you could not interact with. At this point I gave up.

Something needs rolling back or fixing.

Overall - I really would like Act 3 as whole tidied, maybe even reworked. There could be some better UX throughout based on your character choices too (i.e choosing Cleric of Lathander doesn't give any extra options at Temple etc.).

On PC; been in this since 1 month out of EA release (meaning November 2020; currently over 1,600 hours invested!)

I'm not sure if its Patch 4 or Hotfix 11 that's causing the issue; I didn't notice anything wrong in Act 2 (where I was when both Patch and Hotfix released) but noticed a lag with companions, saves, etc., once in Act 3. It's now unplayable at Wyrm's Crossing. Can't interact with companions, they don't follow, can't save or load and can't exit the game. Have to Alt+Tab+Delete and then restart computer as it freezes up completely. I am so bummed; have many (many) hours in, but haven't finished game yet as Larian Patches the game, so it fixes issues, so I've restarted. Finally got a PC I love (Lolth Sworn Necromancer Durge) and am having a ball with and this happens. So, gonna start a new playthrough to test this out (I thought we were out of EA?). Larian - please fix this. You're up for game of the year - let's not do anything to ruin that (meaning: how can I vote you as game of the year if I can't finish it?!?).

This is my exact experience, but in my case, it is more like 20 minutes freeze and then 2 minutes of gameplay, rinse and repeat.

Patch 4. I experience the issue and don't have hotfix 11 yet.

Interesting tidbit. Once you reach the lower city, Wyrm's Crossing no longer lags when you return to it.

I have a theory that it might be to do with the assets itself, I mean I know that's pretty obvious, but I went about walking through the map yesterday, very slowly and methodically to each quick travel sigil, and each time it froze the NPC's, I would backtrack a little and they would unfreeze. I was then able to take a few more steps before it would freeze again, usually when you enter a different district of a map area, so when I hit a hard barrier in progress and it would freeze persistently, I would backtrack to the last fork in the road and take the other path, at which point, upon activating the next sigil, it would start to freeze a lot less, it would still freeze for a minute or so, but not the 20 minute freezes I was experiencing. This possibly suggests that the biggest issue is when you try to load large areas of the map too quickly for the first time. I have no idea how and why, or why it should get better after you have activated the quick travel point, but I'm not a game dev so I just have to hope that someone reads all of these posts and suddenly gets a lightbulb ping moment. I know they have issued a workaround for the coding on the PC version, but consoles not being so easy to fix, I can see this one being a real pain and something that they will NEED to get fixed before the Xbox release or really face the wrath of the fandom.

man oh man. i got this game the day of launch and it was everything. Long-standing Elder Scrolls fan and having dabbled in the first two games a little, I loved it. Great storytelling, beautiful graphics, awesome diversity in spells and classes. I have had multiple playthroughs for different class and race combos and it was fine…

Until this patch. Hotfix 11 wrecked the Steam Deck version of it, at first it was nigh impossible to launch but with a bit of tinkering i got it to launch. Needless to say, act 3 was slow as balls. In the words of Jontron it’s like taking a romp through a field of honey. My companions stand there looking at the city like they’ve never seen bricks before today and my ass is waiting minutes for them to catch up. Once I got to Wyrm’s Rock Fortress after sludging my way through Rivington and the boondocks of town, I gave up. The game would not let me into the Lower City, I could phase through doors in the fort into a void of darkness, and my companions were fiddling about on the bridge like they were waiting in line at the DMV.

All that to say, I love this game. I miss it as it was. Whenever we get news, Larian, please deliver. There are many who are angry about this, and some like myself who are patiently waiting for the game to be restored to its glory. No hate, just awaiting a response on hotfix or patch and perhaps some verification on the silence regarding these issues.