It feels like for every one thing you improved you f*cked up 3 other things in their place.

A bit vague.

Not even saying you’re wrong, since I simply can’t bring myself to play, but some example or detail would help you make your case.

Not sure I get what you are saying. All the new intended non bug changes I've encounter has been overwhelmingly positive, so what of the new changes do you feel is worse than the version of it we had in patch 7?

If you are upset about changes comes with bugs especially in an Early Access game, I feel sorry for you. That would be like winning the lottery and being upset you get paid on the 10th instead of the 9th.

Patch days are allways messy ...
It takes time to catch all major bugs.

Some of the bugs iv encountered, Having a lot more trouble with battle camera, zooming in to my feet or just wandering off
some dice rolls dont show the right roll now, rolled a 9 on something total, which was a 10 to pass and I still passed, (cant remember which roll sorry)
Snake still killing the little girl if its dead
Waukeens rest "trapped man" room still explodes, if you jump in to the room with out destroying the doors.

People find bugs and errors in an early acces title.

Im shocked. SHOCKED! Well not that shocked...

I crash when my first long rest finishes. Tried it twice now., twice the same :-(
I also noticed more strange things with the graphics. For instance when La'zel talks about "US" being useful on the Nautiloid, you see the floor, but Us is missing and my player's feet hovering above the ground.
When I first go to camp, there is an image of the characters in resting position, then it switches to my PC walking into the camp spot.
And right before the game crashes, I see my characters back in the spot where they were before the rest, but in sleeping positions.

There were some more oddities like this I can't remember.

But the long-rest crash is serious of course. This halts the game quite early;

Watching Wolfheart playing the heck out of the game...yea. He's a die hard fan but TONS of frustration still in combat. Bugs everywhere (understandable but still...). That new swarm mechanic not working for so many battles. Cinematics still look janky even after 2 years of EA. Bard was fun the first hour, now its annoying to watch (my opinion) lol.

Best part he keeps mentioning is the improved UI. Except for the shit map. And that toilet chain struggle is real (hes not mentioning it but its obvious when watching him play...).
He loves the new lighting (?I feel its a downgrade...?) and especially the sound effects/music which is an amazing improvement, agreed!

He's mentioned it in a previous stream a long while ago, but I'd get a few more gray hairs of the time I'd spend trying to find it.

The chain system is truly the most awful and frustrating way to select/move characters i’ve ever seen in 25 years of being a gamer. That’s saying a lot.

I've been using some mods and can't remember, without mods, can you simply press "g" to unchain everyone and press "g" again to regroup?

they should consider using the bg1 and bg2 system to select characters, maybe they should use the previous games as inspiration for bg3, instead of using DOS

we're long past that point i think, the toilet chains are here to stay, it's just a matter of how many QOL features we can get to make them not as bad.

I like the chain system.

I don't have a strong opinion either way, but I do have to laugh at "use the old BG system" thing, because all that really changes is where we click and drag. If you wanted to move characters individually, you still had to issue a group wide hold command to do it, which is essentially unchaining them...

That's cool.
It doesn't make it good at what it needs to do, though.


Wel, you are wrong.
The difference is that with a traditional "click and drag selection"/lazo select/"shift clit on portrait" system you'd be able at any given time to SPLIT your party in subgroups (i.e. "these two go here, these three there, and the sixth on this spot") with few seconds of quick gestures and without having to fight the interface for a couple of minutes. And with the ability to PINPOINT the exact location of each character moved, rather than praying that characters may stick reasonably close to where you want them.

Also, these old systems allowed to give the party (or THE PORTION SELECTED of the party) group commands about generic orders without relying on a questionable "I can control just this unit and I can only hope the other will imitate it with a good approximation".

The SUBSTANTIAL difference in practical terms is there. Some of you seem to just lack enough familiarity with the genre to spot it, somehow?


P.S. And I'll invite you to take note about the fact that the example I described is about managing a larger party, too (six characters) despise STILL being more efficient and quick to use than what we have now.
Imagine what a hideous mess it would be to control six characters with Larian's signature chain system.

No wonder they are terrified at the idea of giving players an options for larger parties, despise being so broadly requested: that would basically force them to come up with a control scheme that doesn't make the average player wish to beat up a Belgian kid in retaliation.

I've said this before, but I would love to see someone send their party to four different corners of a town (or even just a small area in preparation for a fight), and then get them back together in the chain system vs the old school (which is how some people say "essentially unchaining them") crpg system. As Tuco said, if you can't see the differences, maybe you aren't familiar with both systems. They're VERY different.

I like it, too. Works well. I can maneuver all of my characters easily and quickly. Sometimes I wonder if the folks who don't like it never figured out how to use it properly?

For instance, I recall one person talking about how they kept jumping off the nautiloid on mistake, and I was thinking, gosh, that might be more of a user issue than a problem with the chain system.

No, you can't.
Put it in a video as proof and I'll believe it.

Eh, I'm almost willing to bet I could probably TEACH YOU how to play better with this system. Which still doesn't make it better than the alternatives, anyway.
You just like to comfort yourself in this self-serving lie that "The others probably aren't as skilled as me" when the real issue is that you are somehow willfully blind toward the objective failures of the system.

I suspect that may be in the video where he listed the main and most frequent criticisms/things players would like Larian to address.

Also, in the category "people followed on YouTube who mentioned the toilet chain as frustrating", I remember that at some point Felicia Day played BG3 in a streamed video and mentioned it.



Wait, what ? I am confused and I don't think I get what you meant to say. We click-and-drag what, and in what game's control scheme ?

Anyway, here are just a couple of differences, which prove that there is more than one. (And also that the classical control scheme is superior, but hey, there's perhaps a reason the rest of the video game industry did not introduce the Larian chain breakthrough before Larian did it, and why it has not been massively adopted since then.)

• The classical scheme (used in most party-based CRPG and RTS and, you know, every Operating System ever) uses Selection whereas BG3 uses Groups (i.e. locked Selections).
  In BG1-2, you can move Characters {A, B, C} to Location 1, then select Character D to move them to Location 2 and do things with them. Then when you select character C to move them to Location 2, next to D, you only get Character C selected. In BG3 you automatically have A and B selected with (and following) C, since they formed a Group when you last moved them. Which, of course, is highly cumbersome.
  
  
• With the classical scheme, adding or removing a character to the current selection could be done with Ctrl+Click. In BG3, to add a character to a Group, you have to drag-and-connect their portrait (which takes longer to execute than the Ctr+Click input). And to remove a character from a Group, you can either drag-far-away their portrait (which again is more cumbersome than Ctrl+Click) or use RightClick>Ungroup (which takes 2 clicks, and you have to be a bit careful in the drop-down menu, to select the correct option, so it's really bad).
  
  
• The classical scheme, in BG1-2, allowed form party formations. The chain system doesn't.
  
  
• After a fight in BG1-2, your characters did not all converge to the last character to act in the fight (and who now the selected character), walking where they should not in the process.
  
  
• In BG1-2, selecting all your character one after the other (say, to drink potions, cast spells, etc), did not cause them to shuffle around.
  
  
• (Theoretical) In BG1-2, if we had wanted to issue a command, such as Stealth or Dash, to the whole group it would probably have been trivial. And when we want to order the selection to Stop Moving, it was easy as there was a button for it (let's leave aside the fact that we had a Pause function that didn't take endless seconds to react). In BG3, after all this time in EA, there is now a Group Stealth command and it isn't even that good. Don't even think about stopping the movement of the whole group in an instant.

Feel free to add Mortismal and Harbs Narbs to the list of somewhat popular Youtubers that mentioned having issues with the system at least once.
But I'm sure there's plenty more.

Thanks for the extra examples. It would be, hm ... "fun", to create a compilation of YouTubers struggling with or getting frustrated by the chain. Can you send me the links for Mortismal and Harbs Narbs ? (Not that I want to create this montage, I just want to see/hear their experience.)

This is a joke right? Having to prove you like something, amazing.

Anyway, ya, I don't know if its patch 8 but they seem to remade it hard to move character order on the ui. You could click hold on a portrait and drag it to another location without causing a toilet chain reaction. Now you have to hard drag it away just to move it. Just been playing with patch 8 for a hour or so, so there is probably a lot more.

What is toilet chaining?????

Hey all just wanted to add my 2 cents on the patch

I did like a 12-16 hour binge of BG3 the last 24 hours. Im not sure if im allowed to post my stream here but my twitch username is JustinGayme if ya wanna see the progress of what im about to explain.

My issue is this: The longer I played, the more and more crashes I got from long resting and quicksaving.

I know these are known issues, but it was particularly curious to me that I wasn't having many issues at first, but in the last few hours it's every singlle long rest, so I logged off.

Not angry just sharing my experience.

I don't want to put words in Tuco's mouth, but it sounded clear to me that "no you can't" and "prove it" referred to "I can maneuver all of my characters easily and quickly".

Are you ok?

I didn't ask him to prove that he likes something. In fact I absolutely don't give a damn of what he likes.
I asked him to prove that he can "maneuver easily and quickly".
Which he can't, unless his definition of "maneuvering" translates in strolling around with the entire party in auto-following without attempting a single advance action.

Video documentation of getting the party sidebar working well would be nice, just to show me what I've been doing wrong for the past year...s, cripes it's been a minute.

The named given to the "Larian chain", the control scheme used by Larian (and fortunately, only Larian).

There's a whole mega-thread about it.

Thank you

buckle-up, it's a ride Lots of strong opinions on both sides

i see! Its not perfect but its never botehred me except sneaking / not sneaking consistency. But, I've kinda accepted it for what it is.

Giant euphemism.

I personally never found the chain system an issue as I played countless of games across the decades that had this chaining system and I never really thought it's limiting me from accomplishing whatever I wanted. From Dungeon Siege II to Dragon Age, Star Wars: KOTOR I & 2 to plenty of other games along the way and until recently, the Divinity Original Sin games and Baldur's Gate 3. To me party members following the main character feels immersive and adventurous as it makes the main character feel like an actual leader and makes companions feel lively by following behind. Not to mention that characters feel like they have individuality, as opposed to grouped movement where it's more like an entity.

With Divinity Original Sin 2 and Baldur's Gate 3, if I want my party to stay put or simply position them somewhere individually, I just press "G" and unchain them. So I honestly never felt like this chain system is making it impossible for me to do something strategically in the games that I played.

For me grouped movement is alright in games where characters aren't really as fleshed out in personalities and background stories, so I don't really care to sacrifice that individuality for grouped efficiency. But in games like these, I am perfectly alright with fleshed out characters following the main character to give them more life and soul.

Im still standing by my "im neutral on the chain in bg" but, pigygybacking on your post (aka agreeing), if you think of DND being turn based and turn on turn based mode, like actual DND, the chain isnt nearly as big adeal imo.

No, we just took the time to figure it out. Party members that are chained will move as if they are a unit. In regard to "tell them what to do", are we playing the same BG 3? In a turn based scenario, in combat anyway, you are not telling groups of characters what to do, you are doing their individual turns. This means that it doesn't matter how the group is linked together, because they're acting one at a time.

lol gotcha, ya seemed pretty wtf, makes more sense, my bad.

On the ability to maneuver with the toilet chain, the only thing I know of that makes it easy is swapping two hotkeys around so you can swap between characters fast.

"Figure out" what? That you can't tell the difference between having to juggle with "links" between "chained" characters to achieve basic split orders or doing the same with a RTS-like control scheme, that makes it a matter of a handful of quick clicks?
Or again that you believe that ungrouping anyone and moving/adjusting/committing to an action with every single character individually is a proper and equivalent alternative?

And the turn-based scenario is irrelevant as you’ll have to move characters one at the time regardless.

The issue is tied to moving, positioning, controlling and splitting the party in real-time environment.
How are you even failing to identify the entire issue at hand, here?

Every single game you mentioned used an entirely different system.
And I would argue that most of them weren't that good, anyway, so I wouldn't exactly take them as virtuous examples. I surely don't wish for an isometric party-based CRPG that controls like goddamn KOTOR, for a start.
We could also namedrop Neverwinter Nights 2 just to be sure every shitty one is on the list.


Also, Dragon Age Origins (which was THE Dragon Age game with somewhat decent controls, before it became an action MMO) implemented its version of the "chain system" exactly in the way I begged several times Larian to consider: as a toggle that could be disabled (and I DID, because auto-follow sucks) and you'd still able to select and issue orders to multiple characters at once. Which you can't do with the toiler chain.

Can't. Stop. Laughing.

Sorry I used Tasha's Hideous Laughter on you.

Did the author dropped a one line complain without explaining why he thinks that way and then never answered back? What is this? The Steam forums?

The author made several posts in the Suggestions part of the forums, noting plenty of game-breaking bugs that hinder progress, mostly in the Druid's Grove. So that's what the author meant by the post, to express frustration at lots and lots of progress stopping bugs in this patch that make it impossible to properly enjoy it.

As far as the patch goes though, I personally love the new additions that the patch made. The UI for one looks much cleaner and more responsive. And majority of new features will be very fun to play with once Patch 8 becomes stable for a solid playthrough.

The only thing I really don't like about it are the lighting changes. Ruined the atmosphere in most places and caused awful washed out colors around the entire game. But despite all of that, the new additions are very much welcome. Just need to fix them first before the update can be enjoyed properly.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of the toilet chain either. Companions run through dangerous surfaces to follow you, alert enemies and become stuck regulary.

Apart from the game crashing on saving (making me redo the grove fight twice), the patch is actually neat in many aspects. The role-playing side of playing as a bard is very well-done, and it'd be great to find magical instruments down the line that add extra effects to inspiration - mechanically, though, they NEED to be overhauled together with the reaction system. The way inspiration and cutting words work is unacceptable and involves very awkward enabling/disabling of effects that is the opposite of ergonomic. Vicious Mockery is a win in and of itself, though. And Expertise, at long freaking last!

The visual changes are... here and there, honestly. Hair no longer being gender-locked and having highlights as an option is great, but the colours are all off now. They all had contrast turned up a few notches, from the looks of it, and some (like the raven black) look really weird, while all the irregular colours are now too bright and artificial-looking. Physics got disabled on every hair style for some reason, but were (somewhat jankily) added to the githyanki half-plate's leather straps, so the character wearing it now provides a more or less constant supply of fanservice. Gnomes look nice, although you can notice how some of the faces/features are lifted from the other races' heads, going back to the appearance variety discussion.

Speaking of gnomes, the svirfneblin just having advantage on Stealth checks at all times is *kind* of a messy implementation. It should at least probably only work indoors, which shouldn't be too hard to implement? (just slap a tag on each area that denotes whether or not it counts as outdoors/indoors).

Still, it's not as dissapointing (to me), as the last patch was. Reactions have to be done properly before the release, though. They simply have to. And heads/bodies would need a re-work similar to hair's to be more customizable so that the visual aspect of character creation is finally acceptable.

the larian chain is an abomination. the real reason is being used and designed was for the controllers IMHO. keyboard & mouse players are getting the shaft. larian should design the controls separately for each platform.

That reminds me of Skyrim's menu layout...

Except the bg1 2 characters stay where we leave them, have controlable portaits, with out clumsily trying to disconnect them from each other every time you need to micro them

Bg1 party system is superior to the DoS one in most ways
6 slots is better then 4
Multiple npcs for lots of classes, (and before you say ha early access) - I will be very shocked if we have more then 1 joiniable npc of each class type (if that)
Bg had lots of the same class with diffrent personalitys so you could actually role play and shape the personality of your party, and with it your play style

And finally why 6 is better then 4 imo

In a party you probably want a tank, healer, Charisma class, spell chucker, a theif,(locks traps)

So to cover the most roles you will probably have to play a Paladin to cover tank healer Charisma

Bard again to charisma healer theif

Or sorc to charisma caster

Druid, tank healer

That leaves you 2 classes to cover if your paladin of bard, or 3 if you are sorc, or druid

So if you are paladin, you need astarian, in bg2 you would use a good theif like imoen.
You need gale to cast spells
a bard may support the group better then astarian (ill assume we will get an npc)
Bad could be better role play wise and extra you may need the extra healing with the paladin

1 class left for whatever is needed (probably and exta mele like the barbarian, since a paladin and lazel would not get on imo.

Thinking about this makes me feel how restrictive party classes vs npc personality is.

I realise that having 6 party members does not effect current npc personalitys, but it does get rid of the need to have each class cover 2-3 rolls just to be a good adventuing party, and this will allow for us to pick followers based more on personality then a role we cant fill otherwise

This is why i said larian need to use the old bg games as inspiration instead of DOS, because bg1 and 2 just do party systems better

YOU USE A MOUSE? THEN Toilet chain is shit. 100%. Watching youtubers playing the game, nearly everyone struggles...but usually bite their tongue, because hey, its Larian! They know what their doing.
You got used to Larian shit chain now it smells great!

Still shit though.
30 years of RPG gaming up to today proves it. Very convincingly. 40+ years of PC gaming, we still use a mouse. There are basic stuff that stays basic, and top down character selection via mouse drag and pin point placement is one of them. For operating systems, MacOs does it. Windows does it. Linux does it still today. Its easy. Its accurate. Its fast.

The most ironic thing is...my little birds tell me that the in-house version of BG3 that Larian developers use HAS that regular selection system, and not this chain trash. Its so much easier to work with! lol.

Now if you use controllers...that's an entire different matter. Might actually be alright??? Apart form Japanese stuff, I don't play tactical cRPGs with controller so...

I have held a controller in my hand once in my life, half my life ago, and somehow don't have an issue with the chain and don't see how it's "designed for consoles". Both of the D:OS games, from what I've seen, control like absolute arse with a console setup (what a surprise!...). It's not as bad as Wasteland 2 and 3, but it's a masochistic experience from the looks of it.

There are worse party control schemes out there, you know. Have you played NWN2? That stuff is horrific. It's Bioware's Aurora contol scheme hammered into having a 4-6 character party, with you having no control over who goes where when you click somewhere, and you being better off just moving a single character with WASD and having the rest follow.

Of all things to not like, this one seems like an overblown one, honestly.

Click and dragging party members, or individuals... in an area or pre battle...its so much easier! Simpler! Faster! CLICK, DRAG....and SELECT! or CLICK portrait DONE. Takes 0.2 seconds.
So you telling me...CLICK PORTRAIT, DRAG PORTRAIT TO UNCHAIN FROM EVERYTHING OR CHAIN WITH SOMEONE ELSES (sometimes works, sometimes doesnt) is better?!?! Or press BUTTON TO UNCHAIN EVERYONE, CLICK PORTRAIT, ??!

Man I wish someone made a video to show the silliness of the chain system versus what we have been doing for 40 years with our computers, aka CLICK AND DRAG in other RPG games.
"alright, I need to select these few files on my desktop...so first I need to unchain them, then..." rofl.

Dammit!!!! I was laughing at the people in the Vicious Mockery thread for failing their saving throws, and then come over here and fail mine...

I don't buy the "it needs to be controller friendly" excuse.

"Controller compatibility" is a poor argument, generally speaking, both because the game currently doesn't even have a working controller interface/scheme (so they could adjust that area at will) and especially since (as already pointed more than once in the past) we have the example of WoTR that uses a classical CRPG RTS-like control scheme if played with mouse and keyboard and THEN plays pretty much in the same way as DOS 1 and 2 (and so like BG3 most likely will, as well) when using a controller.
Which goes to prove the two solutions (a competent M&KB UI and a controller-friendly one) are in fact NOT mutually exclusive.

In fact, WOTR arguably plays even a bit better in some areas, since if nothing else it allows for formation control, while the Larian solution doesn't.

Plus, a little detail: you CAN'T use the exact same control method on console, anyway. The toilet chain isn't fit (poorly) for any other purpose than using a mouse, having to drag portraits around to unlink characters on a controller would get Larian people lynched on any console-centric internet board.

________________


On a totally CHAIN-UNRELATED side note, in the past I had complaints about the Playable Character over-acting any reaction as an alcoholic destitute street mime every time the camera lingered a single second on his face...
So I'm glad to see that Larian... Extended this behavior to the companions, too, for some reason.

It's odd, then, that I first played DOS 2 on my console, and had no issues with party control, beyond pathfinding, which, given your history in this thread, you'll try to claim wasn't an issue in any of your "pet games". Even when I got it on PC, I found that using a controller, and kicking back in my recliner was a perfectly viable way to play. I've been KB/M gaming since my computer had a cassette tape for storage and learning to code in Basic was a thing. Yet, I don't have any issues adapting to a controller, whether on my console(s), since I can go all the way back to Pong on an Atari, or on my PC. Assuming we get controller support here, I can see me using it when I want to sit in my recliner and game, instead of sitting at my desk. I guess the difference here is that I've actually played some of these games with a controller, and know how it works, as opposed to trying to preach the KB/M rhetoric?

As is tradition, you seem to take Tuco's frustration as "it's tooo harrrrrd, i can't do itttt", which seems to be creating a strawman that Tuco never put forward. Something that is possible, and even fine when you get used to it doesn't mean that it's automatically an awesome system compared to another.

I can play with the chains, I'm sure most people can, it's not rocket science. However, when you compare it to the older system, decades older, which is imo much more intuitive and powerful at the same time, a lot of us shake our head. It seems like Larian just had to create their own system of party management, and are just sticking with it despite its weaknesses.

That's cool for you, I guess.
Not that I agree a single bit, since I don't enjoy playing either DOS game with a controller a single bit, but hey, it was YOUR playthrough.

Still, nothing to do with what I said. Which is that the current limitations and shortcomings of the chain system on M&KB are NOT tied to its attempt to be controller friendly.
Quick reminder that DOS 1 was a PC exclusive without controller support for more than a full year before getting a console port AND a controller-friendly UI. And it already had all the problems of the chain system we are highlighting in the past two years.

Same. An Amstrad CPC 464 was the first one I owned (but not the first one I used). Is this supposed to be a contest of credentials?

Ok? I even go as far as to PREFER using a controller with certain specific games or genres. So what?
Party-based CRPGs do not fit in that type of scenario, though.


...Ok? Still not sure why I should care.
And yes, I'd be ready to bet we WILL get controller support.


I guess the issue is that you once again failed to keep your focus on the matter at hand.
We weren't talking the merits of having controller support. The discussion has always been about how the chain system is a poor solution when playing with mouse and keyboard.
Especially compared to OTHER M&KB-centric controls schemes broadly used in the entire genre.

Here's the beauty of the situation, you don't have to agree. It would be nice to not spout nonsense about something with which you have no experience, however. A good example is your claim that Larian would be roasted on console-centric forums for the control scheme in DOS 2. Unless, of course, you can provide some links? I've already demonstrated how "party based CRPGs don't fit into that category" is a fallacy, by demonstrating that I have played party based CRPGs with a controller.

Then there's this???

What "agreeing" has to do with it?

How do you fail SO CONSISTENTLY at reading comprehension?
I said Larian would be roasted if the DOS 2 control system on console would involved clicking and dragging portraits around. Which DOES NOT.

What "fallacy" are you even talking about? I was speaking about my specific preference there. How can I be "wrong" about my preference?
I said that there are games I even prefer to play on a controller, but CRPGs are not among them.

I don't care if you are happy with playing a party-based CRPG with a controller, I'm not.

...Ok? So what?
And it's terrible on console, incidentally, so not sure what's your point.

This is exactly my point. Was Dragon Age Origins crap on XBox? Maybe you played it on Playstation? Maybe you never touched it on either, but "it's on console, and it's party based, so it's bad"? What about Mass Effect? Once again, however, you try to push your opinion out as fact.

You: "That's cool, I guess, not that I agree a single bit"
Me: "That's cool, you don't have to agree"
You: "What's agreeing got to do with anything"...

If you don't want people replying to things you post, don't post it? The fallacy is that these games can't work with a controller. This is your stated opinion, and what we are expected to accept as gospel, because you said it? My own experiences with these games doesn't matter because you said "well, that's bad"? You can't even remain consistent about things that you bring up, and then have questioned or commented on, such as agreeing or not. It doesn't make me feel like I've learned anything new about the game(s) in question, but it does tell me a lot about your position.

I played it on PC, which is WIDELY recognized to be the best version of the game by a landslide? And the UI (not to mention the possibility to use the tactical view) is a big part of why.
Still not sure why this is relevant.

Why are you even rambling on and on about the merits of playing CRPGs on consoles? At WHAT POINT did I even state that people should not enjoy these games there? Did you once again lose the thread of the conversation?

I started talking about how the failures of the chain system are NOT tied to its attempt to cater to console players and as an answer you started going on and on for several posts about how you enjoy playing these games on console.
Ok? So fucking what? WHY IS THIS RELEVANT to begin with?

And apparently now you are even demanding to have my approval about it, which you won't get because I DO NOT enjoy playing party based CRPGs on controllers, PERIOD.

But more importantly, when did you get the impression that I wanted to argue the merits or demerits of playing these games on consoles?
Because I can promise you I didn't.


I never claimed anything of that sort.
I challenge you to find me the quote where I stated it.

Keyboard/mouse for life.

The Switch version of bg1/2 is actually great. they did such a good job its one of my fav ways to play the game

What kind of philistine plays the seminal computer roleplaying game with a gamepad?

Xzoviac is the kind of Philistine that uses a controller to play role playing games as I wish to play baldur's gate on the train, You simians may refer to me merely as "sir" if you prefer a less... syllable-intensive workout.

No matter where they find themselves, a true maverick makes the room for the necessary implements: presently or in advance.

Im the kind of person, that likes to find the easiest way to do things.
give me a hard job and ill find an easy way to complete it.

keyboard mouse/ mods for bg1-2 are definitely the "best" way to play.
but on the move relaxing on the train the switch is convenient easy, and a lazy way to play.
and I do love being lazy

So you can choose to ignore it, like you just did with the "what's agree got to do with it"? Every time I've listed off some games that I've played with a controller, or that someone else has listed off other games, your response is "well, that's crap anyway", even going so far as to list off NWN 2, right? No, I'm starting to feel like I'm taking the bait a little too hard and will be hearing from someone official soon. Anyone that's curious can read through our exchange, at least in posts that I've made, to see what I'm responding to. I provide the full context for just that reason.

Ok, seriously now...

What the hell are you even trying to say?
What are you even rambling about?
WHY. DO. YOU. KEEP. TALKING. ABOUT. GAMES. THAT. YOU. ENJOY. PLAYING. WITH. A. CONTROLLER.

That was NEVER the topic, until you tried TO FORCEFULLY steer the conversation there.
Quite frankly I don't give a shit about what you enjoy to play or on what. I pointed that I don't share your enthusiasm for it only because you kept mentioning it, but It has nothing to do with what I said, it bears no relevance to the topic that started this conversation, it doesn't relate to the chain in any way, shape or form.
My only mention of consoles and controllers was precisely to argue that I DO NOT believe that these are responsible of the shortcoming of the chain system. Nor that the need to cater to them counts as a valid justification.


Yeah, exactly, it's here for anyone to see that you keep expecting to score a GOTCHA while switching entirely the topic being discussed.

I keep talking about the shortcomings of the chain system as a PC-centric UI and you keep trying to make some point about controllers being Ok for CRPGs, which is... whatever?


P.S.

Ok.... What do you want to hear me say about it, exactly?
Do you want the most redundant and didactic explanation of that exchange, otherwise you'll keep CRYING about it as if was dodging your "strikingly good arguments"?
Fine, here it is: "The abrupt way you started with that, after quoting a whole lot of other stuff I said, made it look so sudden that at first I had no idea what you were even answering to."

There, happy now? Do you suddenly feel like you scored a big point?

And incidentally you were right: I don't need to agree with your taste, which is why in fact I DO NOT.

This is so wrong. First of all, the "charisma class" role in DnD is called the Face and it can be rogue, cleric or whatever because you don't need to max charisma to be a good Face, even 14 is okay as long as you get proficiency in Persuade and maybe Deception. Also, 4 characters is actually an overkill, because you *need* a frontline, a controller, a support, a striker for combat and for social/exploration you need a skill monkey and a Face. Every class in DnD is capable of doing more than 1 job. For example cleric can be a support, a controller, a face and a frontline at the same time and the boring basic fighter can be at least a frontline and a striker.

I smell MMORPG...er, I mean...D&D 4e lingo!

The great thing about this game (and DnD with a good GM) is that you do not need any particular class or a traditional party setup. Anyone with Sleight of Hand can pick locks, potions are enough to heal if you play smart, melee is unnecessary with good tactics and control spells. Having someone with proficiency in at least one of the social skills does make life easier but is still not necessary. Play whatever party composition you want, even 4 of the same class.

First of all its called the face, 🤣
Ok mate, bg1 and 2 ( its predecessor) have 6 character slots, you ofc can play 1 character and multiclass or whatever you want ofc its not "needed" the full 6 party.
But this allows for you to have way more interactions,
And a more dynamic party, you can think the traditional
party settup its so wrong all you like but i personally like to play this way

Ah. We had this fight plenty on the Party of 6 Megathread with Alyssa. You can't win. She will fight tooth and nail against Party of 6.

Just like I'll fight tooth and nail FOR Party of 6.

Not that it matters. Larian doesn't listen to me anyway.

Plug for Party of 6 anyway! Remember. You can play 4 players. However, party of 4 multiplayer means 0 slots available for ANY companions to join you. Party of 6 means 2 slots available. That means you can actually play through companion quests in multiplayer 4 player. Party of 4? Nope. You are locked out entirely. You can NEVER help Lae'zel find her creche or Wyll find Mizora. NEVER. Best only play 3 player if you want to do those things.

Yeah i can tell what kind of person he is, when the first thing he says to me when starts a dialogue is by attacking my language, like it matters what words are use, as long as your point is clear.

You can compromise at 5? lol.

Or you can allow players a party of 6, and if they only want 4 or 5, they can simply send the extra to camp or kill them (as is the case for many players who hate Astarion).

To get back to a less divisive topic - character customization UI needs change severely now that there are more options. Packing them all into a single panel with a very anemic scrollbar makes for a miserable experience. Since the main game UI got revamped, I highly doubt they won't touch the CC one as well - perhaps once there are more options?

And speaking of options - guessing here, but it's in the realistic territory - I assume we're getting body tattoos (Gale's an example, Shadowheart is supposed to have one also), gith facial pattern options, and perhaps separate eye customization (Wyll) in the future at least. Less of a given are scars and the like, although there are NPCs that have them both on the face and the body. As for the bodies - correct me if I am wrong, but wouldn't it be simply more practical and sensical to actually implement shape customization instead of sculpting a bunch of separate body types that would have to be there for every differently-built race so that it's fair? It seems like a more practical solution that would universally apply, although given how most of the existing stuff is picked from a list, it may not be where things are going in the end (given the existing approach to faces). That (picking from the list) brings us back to the UI issue, actually, because going through 66 hairstyles with a back&forth selector is kind of a UX torture.

We have gone a bit full circle here though and are back at chain system and 4 vs 6.
I do think a few things have gone wonky in Patch 8 and expect a Hotfix at some point, especially regarding the Long Rest and food issue.

I'll post the Chain stuff in the man thread.

Given this patch is about the Bard though... I must admit upfront, I don't usually play those types of support classes, as a result I am less likely to pick them in my party if I have limited spaces. There is plenty of crossover in 5th Ed, but having played a fair amount of the EA (though certainly less than many here), I would still claim that whilst I love 6 in the originals, 5 I think would be the sweet spot here for me in terms of party skill composition (I would equaly be happy with 6 being implemented, just saying a compromise of 5 would already make me happy). In a 4 man party, I am unlikely to take the Bard along with me (in Single Player), in a 5 that becomes more interesting and in a 6, yeah easy.

Totally agree... the scroll bar and clicking through options is a right drag, even FIFA (bleurgh...) has a more user friendly interface for selecting the pre-defined styles (like hair for example).

In addition to more face and body types and UI improvements, I would personally also like more clothing choice. The default armours are dull.

1. The patch bugs are pretty bad. Hoping it all gets fixed soon.

2. The lighting is too bright now.

3. I wish we had gotten level 5 or a few more outfits.

4. Other than the above few things, I think the patch is awesome.

The bard's not my favorite class, but I can see the amount of work that's gone into it. I'm genuinely impressed with so much of what they've done.

I love the look of the spellbook area now.

The way the various races move differently is super interesting, in my opinion. Personally, I think the male elves look a little too effeminate while standing still and running, but I'm still blown away by the work, and they look amazing in combat.

Some of the NPCs are looking incredible.

Yeah, the instruments are probably too big, and the buried chests are way too big, but there's so much to love in the game otherwise.

Just my opinion, of course.

Well... hmm. Well and BG3 is only problem.

Why is forum bad now? Cannot edit old posts:
Cannot edit old posts
Please change this than you. This was much better before. No I do like to post in forum.

Ok.
Not sure what this has to do with the current patch, though.

Same. Apart from the bugs and ugly looking lighting now, everything else is pretty much awesome. I especially like the UI improvements as not only does it look cleaner, but more responsive as well. I also hoped maybe they'd give us level 5, but I'm okay with it all the same.

Just need to squash those bugs and the patch will be really fun to fully experience.

Don't derail or hijack threads please, Terminator. And editing window won't be extended, particularly indefinitely. People will have to be able to stand by what they've said in the past, and if that's a concern, it's a good practice to take a moment to consider what one wants to say before posting in that case. It's generally a good habit to have, and indefinite editing would open up for a hell of a lot of gaslighting opportunities.

Continued spam will result in action being taken.

The bard class is fun to play though. I currently have the really annoying crash when saving bug, so I can't really go forward with my current playthrough, but I heard, that Larian is already working on that. I'm testing different builds meanwhile - playing a gnome rogue and another bard and stuff.
I would love to see level 5 in EA, since that would give us a bit more to test out with all the new power levels and the stuff, I mentioned in different threads (reactions, toilet chain, party of 6), but I do enjoy the game. There is some goofy stuff, but there is a lot of good stuff in there too. I like, that you have a lot of freedom in approaching situations and I hope, that this will stay throughout the game.
I think, most people are so vehement about the points, they are not so ok with, because they care for the game - at least, it's that reason in my case.

Sorry for going a bit off topic here, but have you checked to be sure that you have applied an exception for BG 3 in your anti-virus? I have had this same type of crash twice after updates, and verifying that it was still an exception cleared it up. I'm not sure how it happened that it got removed one time, but the second time was after a drive crash, and I forgot to reapply it when I reinstalled everything.

Totally agree.

The core system of BG1/2EE on console is a very responsive (and classic) system that allow you to fully control your characters.
On top of that, they added "some kind of chain" for convenient reasons when you use the sticks to move your party.

In BG3 the core system doesn't fully/always work properly and no one but dishonnest people can argue with this.

If you compare both games on console, BG1/2EE's system is more optimal.
Less clicks, way less unexpected movement, better control on your characters, easier to create subgroups,...

There's nothing to prove to players that had tried both systems on Switch (I guess it's always the same as soon as you have a controller in your hands). Saddly a lot of players here haven't and keep repeating the "console" argument.

Yeah if larian have any switches around they should consider checking out what beamdog did for bg1/2ee this system would work perfectly for controllers, and use bg1/2s mouse and keyboard systems aswell, they dont always need to reinvent the wheel, the old systems work, and feel better then the chain atm (that is currently making the game unplayable with its unfollow bugs)

+1

Have you looked in the bug section lately? This is a game bug and it woll be adressed according to Larian. It has nothing to do with the antivirus program and if you don't encounter this bug, consider yourself lucky.

Not lately, no. However, if you scroll through the bug section, you will find a thread started by me about this very issue and checking the AV exception was the solution.

Is learning spells working? Or is there a failure chance? Had Gale learn Magic Missle. It never showed up in his spell book.

This is specifically tied to this patch.

Regarding being able to perform on the streets (well, in ruins and refugee camps, so far) - the scripted interactions between NPCs get paused while the bard plays their instrument. In my case it led to Aradin and Zevlor forgetting about their argument and Aradin's crew stopping to watch the show. I haven't tested it in the other contextually inappropriate areas on account of the game crashing on saving yet (like Waukeen's Rest, or the myconid grove, or the spot where Nere is being dug out), but there's, ironically, a bit of tone-deafness to it at the moment.