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‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Prepared for 100k Concurrent Players, They’ve Gotten 700K

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Re: ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Prepared for 100k Concurrent Players, They’ve Gotten 700K

#301

Post by ctenb »

kuang_eleven wrote: post #199
ctenb wrote: post #79

Does anyone else think that modern rpg art style and graphics are often too flashy and overwhelming? I'm tempted to try this game, but held back by its appearance.

In a team-based isometric RPG like BG3 you kinda have to be, the characters are dime sized and anything less flashy just wouldn't read. It's like stage acting, you have to overexaggerate so that audience can actually see what's going on from a distance.

That's an interesting perspective, hadn't thought of it that way. Even so, the fact that everything is so overwhelming also adds to that problem in a way. Can't see the wood through the trees so to speak.

Re: ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Prepared for 100k Concurrent Players, They’ve Gotten 700K

#302

Post by brmgb »

d-lisp wrote: post #248
ivanbakel wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Bless Elden Ring, one of the only big new games that wasn't a sequel last year. Elden Ring may not be a narrative sequel, but it is definitely a mechanical sequel in the line of From Software games stretching back to Demon Souls in 2009, which makes the series 14 years old. It's innovative in its series, but I wouldn't praise it for a wealth of conceptual originality. There's also an inherent bias with looking at th…

Elden Ring is peak Demon Souls which was peak Kings Field (FromSoftware 1994). The lack of gameplay and qol enhancements makes Kings Field a weird boring game, but after having playing the serie (I-IV) during the pandemic I can say that the scope and purpose of these games are the same. While there are some very difficult arcade games, Kings Field, SoulsBorne and Elden Ring build a landscape around difficulty in such…

> the landscape is a maze, and every new place you encounter needs you to overcome a sort of soft anxiety (Souls games were weird in this sense, every new place you encountered was a relief because it meant you were done with the previous place; but at the same time it was a chore because you became so accustomed to the previous place (LITERALLY HELL) that it felt like you were leaving your house for the unknown wilderness)

Still puzzled about why Souls games difficulty is so overhyped on the Internet. Souls game have a gameplay which takes some time to get used to, don't shy from encounters with a bit of complexity and don't mind trolling the player a bit on their first go around a new level. It means you have to play for a bit before you are good.

They remain modern games however and are not overtly punishing. You always have a respawn point close to the boss room. Hardest challenges are optional. They give you ample space to get better if you want to grind. They try to avoid difficulty spikes. It's pretty far removed from hell, certainly a lot easier and fair that most NES games. There is a reason they are that successful.

I think I'm starting to get old.

Re: ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Prepared for 100k Concurrent Players, They’ve Gotten 700K

#303

Post by theoriginaldog »

wlesieutre wrote: post #196
galangalalgol wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This game also has the meta that most recent D&D games missed. If you know the tabletop game, you can build an optimized character in the bg series, because the game system is close wherever it can be. Some spells are just too freeform to work without a human DM, but they seem to have done very well, perhaps a bit too much focus on environmental damage like the divinity series, but they toned that down right? I haven…

Main thing I'm missing so far is you can't ready an action, which makes it nearly impossible to play defensively. If your turn doesn't give you enough movement to run up to the enemies and stab them, you can't say "I run next to the doorway and wait to stab the first person who runs through it." Instead, you have to waste your turn and then stand around getting attacked. So it's often to your advantage to roll worse…

Ready an action could get really complicated from a design perspective, but I really miss the "dodge" action. It would've been easy to integrate and support offensive play. I use it in the tabletop often when I play tank characters to hold chokepoints. Interested in the reason why they don't have it, maybe some EA players involved in the feedback process know why?

Re: ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Prepared for 100k Concurrent Players, They’ve Gotten 700K

#304

Post by theoriginaldog »

wlesieutre wrote: post #276
dvngnt_ wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think the key is to start combat in stealth so they're surprised and they waste their first move

Works for some characters, not really a strategy for a heavily armored fighter. And either way, if there's a crowd of archers in the next room I wouldn't want to walk in (sneaking or no) where I have no cover, so I'm going to try and hold at the door. Still the better play even if it costs a whole turn of not being able to use my action. The missing Ready action really tilts things toward those "alpha strike" charact…

Ready an action is only usable in combat, so RAW outside of combat readying actions to jump on people you lured with an illusion into a room is not possible. This is an ambush and would be dealt with stealth / surprise rules and THAT is in the game, so it is possible if you play it by the rules.

The ready action is designed to get used for delaying actions to bypass initiative order.

Re: ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Prepared for 100k Concurrent Players, They’ve Gotten 700K

#305

Post by [deleted] »

mastax wrote: post #9
rcoveson wrote: post #6

It's not obligate-multiplayer, but seeing as it's a Dungeons and Dragons implementation with lots of best-in-class multiplayer features it seems libelous to call it "single player".

I love how the party can split up and go do completely different things. That's often difficult to do even in a traditional tabletop setting.

[deleted]

Re: ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Prepared for 100k Concurrent Players, They’ve Gotten 700K

#306

Post by WithinReason »

caskstrength wrote: post #246
jakebasile wrote: post #23

It's a really, really good game. I'm glad they decided to make it turn based vs the real time with pause, though I know that's a somewhat controversial decision (what isn't?). The game itself is beautiful, the music is immersive, the writing is (so far) intriguing, and it runs on Linux with only minor tweaks. The game does wonders to capture the feel of playing a well-DMed campaign. It's no surprise to me that it's g…

>It's a really, really good game. I'm glad they decided to make it turn based vs the real time with pause, though I know that's a somewhat controversial decision (what isn't?). Yes, but naming the game "Baldur's Gate 3" instead of something like "Divinity: Dungeons & Dragons" is, unfortunately, a successful cash-grab. Which is to be expected considering that AFAIK _none_ of the original developers or writers worked o…

Is Minsc in it? If not, it's Baldur's Gate in name only :)

Re: ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Prepared for 100k Concurrent Players, They’ve Gotten 700K

#307

Post by theoriginaldog »

lylejantzi3rd wrote: post #31
mastax wrote: post #18

I am a bit shocked by how popular this game is. All the signs were there, though. - Their previous game Divinity: Original Sin 2 was critically acclaimed, very popular for a pretty hardcore CRPG, and had long legs. - DnD has a lot of brand power and has been strongly in the zeitgeist for years. - There's a big cohort of millennials who have strong nostalgia for Baldur's Gate and who have plenty of money to buy games…

> I definitely underestimated the brand power of DnD and Baldur's Gate I think you're trying to put too much of its success on "brand power". Social proof is a thing, but it's not powerful enough to overcome a bad game. Just look at what happened to the Call of Duty and Battlefield franchises. I think it's doing so well because they nailed the execution. The graphics are great. The game hasn't had any opening week di…

>When was the last time a AAA game was truly fun to play? Tears of the Kingdom just recently is hella fun to play. Elden Ring last year was also great. You make it sound the last fun AAA game is decades ago, but the truth is that most years have 1-2 really fun AAA games. But Baldurs Gate 3 is definitely the first fun AAA game for years in its genre. Pillars of Eternity was great, but lacked the AAA production values/

Re: ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Prepared for 100k Concurrent Players, They’ve Gotten 700K

#308

Post by theoriginaldog »

lylejantzi3rd wrote: post #52
jncfhnb wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When was the last time a AAA game was truly fun to play? Tears of the Kingdom, Resident evil 4, Street Fighter 6

Interest in Tears of the Kingdom dropped off pretty quickly. Is that all? edit: I didn't play the other two games. One's a remake of a game I never played (I never owned playstations) and I don't really play fighting games. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ edit2: this is getting ridiculous.

> Interest in Tears of the Kingdom dropped off pretty quickly. So are you now talking about what AAA games are fun to play or how big the interest is in them? Tears of the Kingdom is definitely an AAA game that is really fun to play and was also very successful. Elden Ring last year was also great. Your perception of fun AAA games is just warped. Baldurs Gate 3 is the first fun AAA game for years in its own genre, but if you include all genres there are actually quite good and fun AAA games that came out recently.

Re: ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Prepared for 100k Concurrent Players, They’ve Gotten 700K

#309

Post by theoriginaldog »

flohofwoe wrote: post #25
jakebasile wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the CRPG genre a lot, but I think one reason that BG3 is taking off is that it _looks_ like a modern AA(A?) game while the rest look basically like Baldur's Gate did in 1998. BG3 lets you see the world in a lot more detail and it helps immerse you in Faerûn. Many people will claim "graphics don't matter", but the reality is that they do help.

TBH it looks and especially feels much more like a reskinned Divine Divinity OS2 with DnD rules implanted than BG1 and BG2 (which isn't necessarily a bad thing of course, but I don't feel a lot of BG1 and BG2 nostalgia when playing BG3, instead I'm constantly reminded of OS2). PS: One thing that is a lot better than in BG1 and BG2 is that combat with low-class characters feels a lot more interesting. Not sure how muc…

And yet the graphics are obviously better and more immersive than BG 1 and 2. Of course they build their technology from their previous games, but it doesn't change the fact that most other CCRPGs are less immersive for most gamers. I am pretty confident that high fidelity 3D graphics attract more gamers than isometric 2D, no matter if these look like the studios previous game.

Re: ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Prepared for 100k Concurrent Players, They’ve Gotten 700K

#310

Post by theoriginaldog »

wlesieutre wrote: post #185
mastax wrote: post #18

I am a bit shocked by how popular this game is. All the signs were there, though. - Their previous game Divinity: Original Sin 2 was critically acclaimed, very popular for a pretty hardcore CRPG, and had long legs. - DnD has a lot of brand power and has been strongly in the zeitgeist for years. - There's a big cohort of millennials who have strong nostalgia for Baldur's Gate and who have plenty of money to buy games…

I've made a habit of not buying games at launch anymore. Most of them are nagging me for microtransactions (rant: don't like that word for repeated $10 purchases on top of a $70 game, that's not "micro" at all), they require an internet connection for single player, or are otherwise full of bullshit that to me makes them not worth $60+. This one doesn't do that, so I bought it! I've never played any of the previous B…

I think I just like different genres of games, because all the games I bought at launch in the last years never had these issues you describe. Zelda, Elden Ring, God of War eg.
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