Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General This patch is really bad.

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.