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I generally agree with most of this thread. I too think the phase spiders and spiderlings are strangely implemented, and that the spider fight overall focuses too much on verticality rather than genuine, monster-accurate strategy. Part of me isn't too bothered, though, because I believe it's highly possible that Larian just haven't finished the 'phase' ability and are using misty-step as a placeholder. The spider fights aren't really linked to the main quest and to me it seems like the most left-field bonus content of the entire EA, so it makes sense to me that they haven't finished implementing the full mechanics of that battle.

However, I have no real problem with the intellect devourers at the beginning of the game. It makes sense to me that Us doesn't insta-kill Tav and take over their body because Tav is host to a highly unique mind-flayer tadpole that needs to be protected. I also have no problem with Us not being able to insta-kill the Commander, because I consider winning that battle to be an 'easter egg' of sort and not really an intended result of the tutorial section - the same section that, if you do manage to kill the Commander, has the Mindflayer turn on you and the party, including Us, who can then attack its Mindflayer master? So I take that whole section with a grain of salt.

I also have no problems with the intellect devourers on the beach. I saw people complain that the party of 1 or 2 including shadowheart at level 1, or 2 if you did manage to kill the Commander on the nautiloid, shouldn't be able to take on 3 intellect devourers. Sure, but I'm also going to assume that the intellect devourers on the nautiloid were newborns just like Us. Also, remember, they just fell thousands of feet from the sky in a fiery blaze after warring with githyanki *and* imps, the intellect devourers on the beach are wounded. They didn't have an 'Absolute' to magic them safely out of the sky because the Absolute doesn't care about them, so it's a wonder they survived at all. This is why it doesn't really bother me that Tav and Shadowheart can kill them at the beginning. It's not even that easy anyway, if you don't firebolt the tank and run up the ledge at the side for extra distance - they still can insta-kill the party if they manage to get in close. I don't consider this a 'nerf' because it makes sense narratively.

Apart from this, I would definitely like to see some more battle-instances that are designed around strategy and tactics rather than verticality and ranged attacks. Putting a crossbow in the hands of all my weaker party members so they can run away from and whack the minotaurs/owlbear etc that just keep jumping around the battlefield instead of focusing on my damage-dealing tank is just weird. Feels like some of the battles are really well designed, and then others are sloppy, and I'm not even sure if that's down to the AI or the enemy's stats/abilities.

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Taking a step back a moment, I want to be clear. Patch 5 is great. I enjoyed the game SO much more. I'm still not done with it, mind you, but it is so much more enjoyable. I don't feel like I'm bashing my head into the wall during every battle just trying to figure out how to cheese the fight in order to move forward. I felt like I was able to make my way through without getting frustrated. Some fights I did have to reload, but I felt like either that was due to just bad rolling the first go around or I made some stupid mistakes. It wasn't because the game was just too dang hard.

The hag fight, for example, used to piss me off to no end. I loved the concept of it, but the execution was awful. For my first playthrough, the only way I wound up beating her, after like a dozen tries, was that I finally got lucky and shoved her through the hole. I had one character left alive and had a 25% chance of shoving her and succeeded by some miracle. Now, in Patch 5, I had to maybe only play it twice at most, and each time I felt things were going relatively well.

The Gith fight I actually beat on my first try, reloaded it and did it again just to see what would happen. Same result. I won. It was tough, but not like it used to be where in the first round half my party was dead because they Misty Stepped to high ground or backstabbed me to death with two attacks from behind.

So, this said, my issue isn't so much that the game isn't fun. It's just the implementation of the monsters. I get what you're saying about the intellect devourers being weaker because of the crash, and they don't body thief you because of the special tadpole. I figured that was what they were kind of going for. They even have the devourers now with less health, as if they are injured. That's fine too. In fact, I thought having them with half or less health really fit the scene well.

The issue is simply that even at half health, whether newborns or not, they should be resistant to piercing, bludgeoning, etc. But even if you make an exception to this and say that they are all newborns who haven't developed resistance yet, my issue is that ALL of them are then newborns without resistance. Likewise, ALL of the imps you face have no resistance either. Are they ALSO newborn imps who haven't developed resistance? Why do imps not use Sting or Invisibility? Sting would be much more effective than melee or ranged weapons. It is one of their natural abilities, so why wouldn't they use it? Invisibility would make them like phase spiders, assassins who are not able to be seen until they attack you.

These are things that make the monsters what they are. Goblins are not tanky fighters. They are little grunts who are only really effective in large groups. So why use goblins instead of something like orcs, or if you are going to use goblins, why not just send out more of them so players feel like they are having to kill mass numbers of them as the challenge as opposed to only a few tanky ones? I can even accept that these are the Absolute's goblins, so maybe Gut has enhanced them with certain spells. Okay. That's fine. But phase spiders also don't act like phase spiders and wood woads don't really use wood woad stats and mud mephits don't use mud mephit stats, except maybe their ability to generate a few more mud mephits, and even that isn't implemented completely accurately. Then you have gnolls not being true gnolls and minotaurs not being true minotaurs, and so on and so forth.

I can work with one or two variants here or there. I can make excuses for those and accept them. The issue is that ALL the monsters are not using proper stats. ALL of the monsters are altered. Many of them are only what they are in name and skins only. What gives them their true identities has been stripped from them.

The main reason I use the intellect devourers as a prime example is because they don't even ever use devour intellect on anyone. That is their primary ability. That IS what makes them what they are. Devour Intellect and Body Thief are what they are. So, if you're going to use an intellect devour, even 1, let me see them be intellect devourers.

Neverwinter Nights, the original, made perfect use of an intellect devourer. It took over a soldier's mind and had that soldier attack the MC and companion. After that soldier died, it jumped out of him and ran to the next one and took him over. Then you had to fight another grunt soldier and kill him until the intellect devourer had no one left to take over... BUT YOU! But he didn't take you over. That was fine with me. No complaints. In fact, I'm glad they didn't allow it to do such a thing. That would have sucked. So the point is that they at least used its primary ability in some way.

In the same way, they could do something similar in the battle against the MC and Shadowheart. Have a single, or multiple, devourers that are super hurt with only a few HP left fighting some fishermen when you arrive. As you enter the battle, they devour intellect and body thief the fishermen. Then, as the fishermen, they attack you. You have to kill the fishermen and then they pop out. Then you have to finish them off. Maybe they only have like 2-5 HP left after the crash but they have resistance, so you have to still do at least 10 damage or something to finish each of the 3 off. That would be just fine. Something like that would make the scene more true to the creatures and make it so much more emotionally raw. Here are these fishermen who are just victims, but the devourers have taken them over and are using them to kill you. You have no choice but to kill them. Shadowheart could even say something like, "Their minds are gone. Don't hold back. They're already dead," just to appease any guilt you might have.

And, on that note, I would also ask, "If our tadpoles are special to the Mind Flayers and they want us to live, why are they trying to then kill us? If I help kill Zalk and save the Mind Flayer, why does he turn on me and try to then kill me? Shouldn't he, instead, use some sort of ability to take over my mind and MAKE me go to the controls? He's a mind flayer. Why is he not taking over minds especially of our characters? Why kill something so special to him? Why are the devourers even trying to kill us? If they don't Body Thief us because of our special tadpoles, why are they even attacking us? Shouldn't they be like, 'Ah! Master! Let me join you and help you fight anything that's coming to kill you?' Are they confused and disoriented?"

None of it makes sense, and that's where my problem comes in. Maybe it'll make sense later in the game. Whatever. I find it hard to believe that they could really make sense of every single creature being not true to their proper 5e stats and design, but if they can... Great! Fine. But they better have some seriously good reasoning for it. Otherwise, why?

Again, if you need mind flayer grunts, why not use something like Kuo-Toa? If you need goblinoid tanks, why not throw orcs in the mix or hobgoblins? The Absolute obviously has multiple races working for her. Why not more bugbears instead of tanky goblins? Why not some crazy spider variants? Why phase spiders that aren't acting like phase spiders? Why wood woads and mud mephits? Why not something else? Giant frogs? Something that fits more. The list goes on and on.

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Originally Posted by lilaque
I would definitely like to see some more battle-instances that are designed around strategy and tactics rather than verticality and ranged attacks.

This, so much !

Verticality and ranged attacks are so much everywhere than playing foccused melee characters can be a pain in this game.


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I agree with everything except for the imps and intellect devourers. I think the narrative reasons overrule any need for them to be their normal powerful selves because of it being the tutorial level. Larian want the nautiloid level to be engaging and bombastic without being overwhelming/overpowering. Later in the game, I'm sure that intellect devourers and mind-flayers and imps and devils and cambions etc from the first area will all be back in their true forms without any of the limitations set by the tutorial. We know that imps *can* use invisibility and sting, we know that from summoning them, they're just disabled in the tutorial so that Tav and Lae'zel and Shadowheart don't get their shit rocked before the game even really starts. I'm fine with this because I don't think it takes away from their identity as monsters, and I think that the tutorial would be less fun the other way.

I do agree, though, that it would be cool to actually see the intellect devourers take over someone's body. I think adding this to the beach would be cool. The 'abducted nobleman' in the husk of the ship could be still alive when we get to him, with one of the intellect devourers taking over his brain and the other one coming at Tav's party. Move the tank of fluid that's in the centre of the ship husk and put it at the entrance instead, so that Tav/Shadowheart can blow it up and give themselves a tactical advantage before the devourers reach them. I think that could at least solve the monster identity issue without making it super difficult.

Other than that, I agree about the gnolls and mephits and minotaurs etc. There's no real reason for them to not be set-up as their traditional selves w stats and abilities intact. If Larian wants us to go against loads of rangers then put us against another group of bandits that have taken over a fort, and leave the rest of the creatures alone.

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I wholly agree and even in the case of the imps and intellect devourers there is no reason they cannot be included with the correct lore. This is simply creative laziness. I will explain:

They could easily have you fighting injured and or crippled enemies for your tutorial engagements. For example they could be debilitated from their previous fight. The Ship itself could be debilitating them somehow. A Nautaloid could be debilitating them and ends up bleeding out as soon as you finish combat.

There are so many things they can do to address this. These things would be easy to do and would not require much, do not attribute their disregard for this due to restraints, as that's simply untrue. The fact that they are disregarding the monsters so much is truly a sad thing to see.

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Ok. I'm officially good with the goblins. Played Gut scene and talked with all the gobbos. I'm not sire which one says it, but the goblin tells the MC that the Mark of the Absolute is ehat enhances them. So, many of the goblins do not have enhanced homebrew stats because they aren't marked, but many do have enhanced stats because of the mark.

I can accept that. I'm good with it. They actually had someone explain it. That's cool.

Still, not every monster in the game was altered by the Absolute. Right? RIGHT? 😳

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Wait! What if they were? 😳

Phase Spiders in the Whispering Depths came from Elliette, who was captured by Drow. She only escaped because of some turmoil in the Drow families. Perhaps she wasn't visited by Lloth but the Absolute and enhanced by the Absolute. She gave birth, then, to Phase Spider variants.

The wood woads and mephits were alsoessed with too? Wait. No. Can't even remotely make a connection there. Same with imps.

Sigh. 😔 Oh well. Thought I had something.

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The gnolls definitely were though! The leader of the pack was infected with a tadpole and the others were following its commands, they had painted blood murals of the Absolute's insignia on the rocks around their den.

Goblins and gnolls definitely are accounted for with Absolute meddling, not sure about the wood woads and mephits, they're more linked to Kagha right? I've seen no connection to her and the Absolute but perhaps the Shadow Druids that she was indoctrinated into are? Maybe that's the connection? No idea about the spiders, I didn't even know about the matriarch's backstory until I read this thread, I must have missed a journal or something in the caves.

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Originally Posted by lilaque
The gnolls definitely were though! The leader of the pack was infected with a tadpole and the others were following its commands, they had painted blood murals of the Absolute's insignia on the rocks around their den.

Goblins and gnolls definitely are accounted for with Absolute meddling, not sure about the wood woads and mephits, they're more linked to Kagha right? I've seen no connection to her and the Absolute but perhaps the Shadow Druids that she was indoctrinated into are? Maybe that's the connection? No idea about the spiders, I didn't even know about the matriarch's backstory until I read this thread, I must have missed a journal or something in the caves.

Between journals in the apothecary and the whispering depths, you het her full story.

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The point isn't really how many excuses one can come up with to explain why nothing is ordinary.
It's more about mundane the "extraordinary" becomes when you try to make everything special.

It's perfectly fine to have an aberration from the norm (the gnoll pack leader in this case). Less so when you are making up contrived crap every two steps to justify how nothing matches the standard baseline.


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Originally Posted by Tuco
The point isn't really how many excuses one can come up with to explain why nothing is ordinary.
It's more about mundane the "extraordinary" becomes when you try to make everything special.

It's perfectly fine to have an aberration from the norm (the gnoll pack leader in this case). Less so when you are making up contrived crap every two steps to justify how nothing matches the standard baseline.

Exactly this, if you want to have a Gnoll leader of some kind who has been marked by the absolute and so has enhanced stats, fine. But don't make his entire pack the exact same as him, or every gnoll in the game the same, because then the leader isn't some kind of special gnoll but rather just another regular gnoll with altered stats like all the others. Same for the goblins, a few marked goblins is fine, but if every single goblin in the game were to be marked and buffed then they aren't really special anymore, they're all just homebrew goblins.

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But they're not, and that's what I'm saying. Fight the gobbos at the camp and you'll find a lot of them with normal stats. Some of the gnolls are too. So they actually did do a mix of both normal and not normal for both races.

What isn't normal at all are the imps, though they used to be MORE normal, and especially the intellect devourers, the wood woads and the mephits.. and ESPECIALLY the phase spiders, and minotaurs, and hook horrors and...

You know what... never mind. 😂

Last edited by GM4Him; 05/08/21 10:47 PM.
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Originally Posted by Tuco
The point isn't really how many excuses one can come up with to explain why nothing is ordinary.
It's more about mundane the "extraordinary" becomes when you try to make everything special.

It's perfectly fine to have an aberration from the norm (the gnoll pack leader in this case). Less so when you are making up contrived crap every two steps to justify how nothing matches the standard baseline.


Cool your fire, friend, try not to dictate the flow of conversation just cuz it doesn't perfectly align with the sentiments shared in your OP. All we're doing is discussing our opinions and making slight jests at the vaguely possible reasons that Larian may or may not have made the monsters the way they did. What exactly was the point of posting on here if not to invite people to talk about their own opinions?

Me being in favour of making changes to monsters for narrative reasons doesn't mean I'm 'making up contrived crap every two steps', I literally have also criticised some of the monsters' implementations myself as well. It doesn't have to be just for or against. It's more than black or white.

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Originally Posted by lilaque
Cool your fire, friend, try not to dictate the flow of conversation just cuz it doesn't perfectly align with the sentiments shared in your OP. All we're doing is discussing our opinions and making slight jests at the vaguely possible reasons that Larian may or may not have made the monsters the way they did. What exactly was the point of posting on here if not to invite people to talk about their own opinions?

Me being in favour of making changes to monsters for narrative reasons doesn't mean I'm 'making up contrived crap every two steps', I literally have also criticised some of the monsters' implementations myself as well. It doesn't have to be just for or against. It's more than black or white.
Well, you can chill. You weren’t being scolded, if that was your worry.

I was just making a point (and I stand by it) that figuring out a convenient excuse doesn’t solve the problem at all.

And the problem is precisely that making too many exceptions strips the setting of its very sense of consistency/familiarity.

After a while you start to get the feeling you aren’t even playing a D&D game anymore , but something more sinister and evil: Rivellion wearing the Forgotten Realms skin like an Edgar-suit.

Last edited by Tuco; 06/08/21 01:30 AM.

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I have considered it a bit more. Having a variety of monsters instead of cookie cutter ones is nice. Still, there is a bit too mich homebrew that really is taking away from what makes the monsters what they are, and that is the main point.

So all kidding aside, there are quite a number of monsters that dont even seem like they fit their race. I would like to see the monsters being true to their natures. Like it was said, minotaurs should be charging, not hulk jumping and smashing. Devourers should be shown taking people over, etc.

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Totally chill, just wanted to make sure we all remember this is a discussion of opinions smile Your sentiment is fine it was just worded in a way that could have provoked someone with a shorter temper than I. There are indeed too many unrealised monster identities, but I'm sure they will be fixed, besides the narrative ones, if people fill in the feedback tickets from Larian surveys and from the Larian launcher (and ofc if anyone from Larian reads this thread).

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Also, what exactly are the odds that a Gnoll could even be persuaded to the side of the Absolute? Admittedly I haven't gotten far into the story line so I don't know what/who the Absolute is or what their abilities are, but from what I know Gnolls are basically just beings of pure chaotic evil who want nothing more than to raid and eat and whatever else their god(?) Yeenoghu wants. So...why exactly would a Gnoll, who's entire existence is basically just about raiding and killing and such, align themselves with this Absolute and their ordered form of evil? Seems like Yeenoghu would make a snack of them for this.

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Originally Posted by Pupito
Also, what exactly are the odds that a Gnoll could even be persuaded to the side of the Absolute?
I didnt even know that happened ... O_o
Could you please provide more information?

Bcs as far as i know, if you pray for the origin of Gnoll leader tadpole (others of hic pack are not tadpoled if im not mistaken) she is showing you the image of her being hold by several people in place, while mind flayer gives her the tadpole ...
That description didnt seem much like "persuation" more like just the same that happened to Tav. laugh


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Originally Posted by RagnarokCzD
Originally Posted by Pupito
Also, what exactly are the odds that a Gnoll could even be persuaded to the side of the Absolute?
I didnt even know that happened ... O_o
Could you please provide more information?

Bcs as far as i know, if you pray for the origin of Gnoll leader tadpole (others of hic pack are not tadpoled if im not mistaken) she is showing you the image of her being hold by several people in place, while mind flayer gives her the tadpole ...
That description didnt seem much like "persuation" more like just the same that happened to Tav. laugh

Right. She was savagely dominated and barely restrained at all by the Absolute, not persuaded. Flind then was used by the absolute to guide and manipulate the rest of the gnoll pack.

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Yeah persuasion was a loose term hehe. More like tortured and forced, and now the tadpole is controlling its every move. Definitely not voluntary like the goblins or drow, since they seem to have no knowledge of being infected, or memory of it happening.

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