Baldur's Gate 1, man this game is old

[Rufus]

I found both main campaigns of NW1 and 2 boooring. You're gonna be exhausted by the time you get to the expansions, which might sour the experience.

[Bebpo]

Did most of the BG1 expansion. Did the Ice Cave, the Mysterious Werewolf Island, Firewine Ruins, and did the upperside of Durlag's Tower and the first basement labyrinth floor with the 4 wardens. That took foreeeever and so I'm just not gonna bother with the rest of the durlag tower floors. The puzzle stuff is really tedious.

Also ran into the first enemy where my party just couldn't hit them and they were regaining HP! The werewolf boss in Balduran's ship. Took a while and beat it using consumables + the 2 werewolf +4 THAC0 weapons.

Pretty much explored most of the sword coast and ready to get back to the MSQ and finish it out. Party is lvl.8 now and everyone is rocking +2 weapons and +2/+3 type armor and accesories. AC is about -3 to -1 on all my tanks and THAC0 is around 8-11 with like 8-20 damage generally.


The pure dungeon stuff burns me out in BG1, the design of the maps even like the mines are just big areas with lots of dead ends and tons of enemies and take a while and are pretty dull. Definitely prefer the questing which is why the werewolf island part was fun since it was a bunch of quests whereas the other expansion bits were just like dungeon crawls. BG1 is pretty big. If you do everything and explore every map fully out it's a long ass game. I'm not doing that and it's still pretty long!

[Bebpo]

Ok, beat Baldur's Gate 1. Story was pretty entertaining from Candlekeep on even if everything in the main quests happens real fast. The ending cutscene was kinda "that's it?" lol
I'm glad the Bhaalspawn spoiler was for this game and not BG2, now I can go into BG2 with nothing spoiled. Still need to read most of the lore books and play through The Black Pits.

I liked BG1 and there's a lot to like about it. It's definitely a game that I could replay someday. The traps were always annoying (I just wish at 120 skill points into detect traps you could detect them BEFORE you step on them, it's so random sometimes whether it detects them a few feet ahead or after you steps on them. And I don't understand how spell/status effect defense works in D&D.

Like when I was playing I'd just switch between normal difficulty and easy whenever some bullshit happens and it'd be like I'm doing well with my party, buffing and debuffing and fighting and healing and then some baby spider will bite all my tanks they'll get poisoned and go from full HP to wipe in like 10 seconds and I'm trying to cast cure disease and it works and then they get bit again and then I'm out of cure disease casts and everyone dies.

Or I'll fight a mage and battle is going good, using remove spell on them, and beating them up fast and then they get off one confusion spell and every party members starts running around in circles including the wizard/druid characters who have the heal spells. Basically I feel like anytime anyone gets a spell off that's a status effect might as well just reload the game. I don't understand how the combat is supposed to work to survive stupid spells that beat everyone in your party's save stats even at endgame stats and gear.

Like I'm 100% ok with the accuracy & damage of phyiscal & magical attacks in the game. Have a mage hit me with a fireball or some attack with a big damage hit and I can recover from it. But every stupid little status effect just ruins my entire battle to the point where I get fed up and just drop the difficulty and steamroll over the fight before turning it back up. A Spider casts hold web and everyone in your party gets stuck and can't move for 2-3 mins while the enemies just wail on them and kill them. Very annoying.

When I play BG2 I'd like to play it proper without having to cheese any fights, so that means I need to read up and figure out how the fuck to defend against status effect spells/attacks in battle.

I also feel like defense/healing is really limited by the small amount of spell uses per rest. Especially because like all the healing is shit like 12 HP on a 77 HP character and status effect healing only heals one character at a time. Feels like stacking everyone with potions they'll need for the fight in quick item is pretty much the only way to go.

So yeah, BG1's kinda boring and big but it's fun and lots of questing and areas and exploration and an alright story. Good start for the IE genre.

[Bebpo]

So I was reading up on status effect defense and I think this is where me not having a cleric in my party hurt me. I don't have a lot of the spells people are talking about. My Wizard with Dynaheir only had a handful of defense spells as most were offense and Jaheira's druid spells were pretty limited.

Also the limited inv system and weight was very annoying. For potions it was fine with the potion case, same with rings/gems, but like for actual armor/weapons I pretty much just had to look at a new piece of loot, see if it's better than what I have equipped, if so -> equip it and sell/toss the old one, if not, usually don't even pick it up. I didn't have extra weight just sitting around to keep all the magical +1 gear I found. I read the best strategy on this is to find an empty chest or two in an empty house and store stuff so I might try that in BG2, but I wish there was just a portable chest with infinite space you could keep like the potion/gem/scroll bags/boxes.

I'll try to mess around with the defensive combat more in black pits since it's an arena story. See if I can get better at dealing with status effects to prep for BG2.

[Bebpo]

Been trying to do the final boss fight normally for the last 30 mins but no luck. No matter what strategy I try to use to pin down the mazes, they get spells off before I do and cause chaos and something else which takes away control from all my tanks and my party is 4 tanks + archer + wizard. I don't even think I have a spell on my wizard that recovers people from that...

[Rufus]

That's why I recommend to just savescum like crazy. Sidestep all the bullshit by controlling time itself.

I'm sure the true masters know how to mitigate everything, but even they have to contend with unlucky dice rolls. Not to mention that all the fussing necessary to do everything 'properly' completely kills the pace.

Feels good to land a juicy Rigid Thinking though. Even if it takes a dozen reloads, hewing a dragon to bits as it struggles to even point the right direction is very cathartic.

[Bebpo]

Ez mode, you get like +50% damage and take like -50% damage which lets you cheese any fight you're stuck on.

I watched like a billion videos and read tons of strategies and watched people solo him and etc..etc... and spent an hour last night trying to beat him on normal but never even got close. For me Sarevok is not the issue, he's not that bad since he just hits one enemy at a time and you can slow him and debuff him and paralyze him and stuff and wail on him. It's the 2 mages causing greater malignment, chaos, web, etc..etc... and I always end up losing control of most of my party and then it's a wipe.

I do the summoning tons of monsters and putting them up front for Saravek to tank and the mages to throw spells at and it never works because the mages still teleport down and come after my team and KO everyone in 2-3 seconds.

I've tried luring them out one by one as I see in some videos and I never get it to work. I've tried interrupting the mage attacks with magic missile spam and insect swarm etc... and it never works and they still get their spells off KO-ing the party.

I've decided that in general I just don't like the combat in Baldur's Gate. It feels like broken ass shit in many, many ways. I'm sure BG3 will be fine with modern improvements and probably turn-based, but for now I'm just playing BG1/2 for the story and questing and exploration and not for the combat.

[Bebpo]

Also from what I'm getting from all the combat strategies I'm reading and experimenting on my own, mages are useless unless you are doing a ranged party because every.goddamn.fucking.spell hits your guys as well and there is absolutely no way to measure the radius. Like strategies say use Grease, use Web, well that's all fine except your own tanks (and my party is 4 out of 6 are tanks) get greased and stuck in a web and then they die instead!

For BG2 I feel like I'm going to make a party of nothing but archers, wizards and clerics with 1 tank only. I'll put the tank out front and then throw a million spells and archer all the stunned enemies from a distance. Seems like the only way to play in BG.

[Bebpo]

Ok, I beat Sarevok on normal, now you can be satisfied Borys 

What I did:

Part 1:
-Lured Semj who is the main guy that fucks my party with chaos down from the right hand side solo
-Imeon shoots arrow of dispelling on him
-party + summoned monsters flank him and fuck him up

Part 2:
-Tried to do the same with Angelo on the left side but it aggro'd Angelo + Sarevok at the same time
-Angelo shot his dispel magic to everyone
-Had everyone drink an oil of speed (haste)
-SOMEHOW MC PALADIN + JAHEIRA GOT CONFUSION. I DON'T KNOW WHY
-so they just sat there
-Angelo + Seravok comes down
-Had Imeon shoot an arrow of dispelling on Angelo
-party + summoned monsters flank Angelo while whoever is targetted by Seravok (was Dynaheir) runs away
-Kills Angelo pretty quick but by now most summoned monsters are dead
-Seravok turns to Minsc and starts fighting him 1 on 1 and kills him, then turns to Khalid.

Part 3:
-MC + Jaheira frozen in place with confusion (fuck u game)
-All summoned monsters outside Nymph dead
-Dynaheir down to like 1 hit until death on left side
-Khalid & Nymph tanking Sarevok
-FLAME HORROR SPAWNS AND RUNS OVER AND STARTS WHACKING CONFUSED JAHEIRA
-Dynaheir spams paralyze wand on Sarevok
-IT FINALLY WORKS ON SAREVOK WHEN KHALID HAS 1 HIT UNTIL DEATH
-Nymph disappears

Part 4:
-MC + Jaheira still frozen and useless goddamnit because somehow confusion hit them and Battle horror is beating up Jaheira slowly to death
-Sarevok paralyzed in place
-Khalid (1 hit away from death, hitting Sarevok for about 10-12 damage per attack) + Imeon (even arrow + 2 with bow + 2 is only doing 4 dmg which is being resissted for 4 dmg so I switch her to a +2 dagger and she's doing 6 dmg with 4 dmg resisted) + Dynaheir (1 hit until death and out of all attack magic after a few magic missles, so throwing sling shots) hitting paralyzed Sarevok hoping to kill him before A) Sarevok wakes up and kill Khalid in 1 hit and then Dynaheir in next hit and then Imeon and B) before Flamehorror kills Jaheira and then goes and kills frozen confused MC for game over.

This goes on for like 5 mins. Sarevok was at like 1 bar the entire time. How long hitting him for 10dmg + 6dmg + 4 dmg does it take to do that final 1 bar.

Battle horror kills frozen Jaheira and starts wacking on MC. Now if MC dies game over, Sarevok unparalyzes game over.

Luckily Sarevok finally fucking dies.

The end.



Full size & readable: https://i.imgur.com/73vBlXQ.jpg


If the MC and Jaheira hadn't gotten taken out of the battle with confusion that would have gone MUCH MORE SMOOTH since they'd both be wacking on Sarevok while he's paralyzed and since both of them are my healers they could have actually healed!

[Bebpo]

Started on The Black Pits, it's good because learning how to deal with a lot of combat situations and spellcasters and using more spells (sleep is really OP early on for both sides).

But freaking Beamdog, my game keeps crashing at Arena Match 5 vs. Necromancer and I google it and it's a known issue that Beamdog is working on to fix with the next patch in 2019 and the game was released in 2012

https://www.reddit.com/r/baldursgate/comments/alr5pv/black_pits_crash_when_you_kill_lyrk_the/

Now I'm worried about the potential bugs/crashes in their original expansion (which I’m going to skip and play after BG2) since even a small thing like this is buggy.

[Rufus]

Every other IE game has exactly the same combat so I dunno... how will you like them further on?

Defenses are easier to understand in 3rd edition, at least. Just three types of saving throws, and all synergize with primary attributes. That way at least your caster won't get charmed or whatever.

BG2 will be easier by virtue of your party becoming more powerful.

[Bebpo]

Borys: In Beamdog's BG1 EE and BG22 EE they added actual content. Also their content sticks out because it's 100% voiced dialogues.

In BG1 EE they added

-3 new player companions Neera, Rashan, Dorn. All 3 actually talk to you as you walk around and have conversations. These are the only 3 companions that do that. Their questlines also each lead you to a brand new map for the finale of their questline.

-The Black Pits, a short story about an evil mage that warps people into an arena to fight to the death. You do an arena fight and then get warped back to the rest area room where there are NPC vendor characters and you level up and spend money on gear and keep fighting arena battles and the story slowly progresses between battles and then there's an ending about 16 battles in. It's ok but just a budget arena thing. You use a team of preset characters.

Not sure what they added in BG2 EE but I know they did a The Black Pits II sequel for it.

Also if you're not aware, Beamdog also made a full on original Baldur's Gate game called The Siege of Dragonspear which takes place between BG1 and BG2. Basically what Larian is doing with BG3 on a much smaller budget. Reviews say it's fun but writing-wise it feels out of place compared to Bioware's writing in BG1/2. I'm planning on playing this after BG2 to check it out.

[Bebpo]

And regarding team setup, the main thing for BG2 is I'm going to have a cleric in my party. This would have made my life much easier in BG1. Like all those web issues of not being able to get close to enemies when they're stuck in a web? Just have a cleric use free action on all the tanks and they can rush in and fight the webbed enemies. (I had no access to free action in my party).

Party gets confused? Spiritual Clarity fixes it (I had no access to Spiritual Clarity)

For anti-mages, I had no access to Hold Person, no access to Silence, etc....

All that is priest stuff.

Like in BG2 my Paladin MC will start getting to use priest spells at lvl.9 so maaaaybe I won't need a separate priest but I'm probably gonna party up with a priest no matter what this time around. Like in Pillars 1/2 I always had a priest in my party for healing/buffing/removing bad status.


Anyhow I heard that in BG2 you start getting weapon upgrades that have skills on them like free action and stuff, so maybe that'll help. I also read that you get chaotic commands (again a Priest spell) which basically protects against a shitload of status effects and you can just cast it on all your party members before every fight because it lasts a long time and then boom no having to deal with all this stupid status effect stuff. So BG2 definitely sounds better at this. But yeah, I'm gonna be running 2 priests in BG2, my Paladin & a dedicated Priest. Everyone else I'll mix and match. Probably have 1 wizard, 1 thief archer, 1 tank and then whatever I feel like for the 6th spot.

[Bebpo]

Started playing Planescape Torment just to check it out. It's interest to see the improvements, changes to the DnD 2d Edition Baldur's Gate engine Black Isle did within 1 year from BG1. Like holy shit there is a run button! Also the combat seems to go much faster like instead of 30 seconds of missing, every swing or two is a hit from the start.

Inventory space still sucks though. Filled up my inventory for both characters before even leaving the mortuary! I love when crpgs started having unlimited crates. Are there any mods for IE games that give you a crate with unlimited space to dump stuff?

Oh and I wasn't sure what stats to go with but since it's a BI game I figure there will be a lot of chances to talk my way out of stuff so I went with Int/Char/Wisdom at the expense of Str and Dex and Con.

The biggest difference though is the writing. Like damn, just from the first 5-10 mins this is so better written than all of BG1. Very nice having actual writing again in an rpg. Although tbf duckroll was telling me that when Bioware started and made BG1 that it was written by a bunch of D&D fans and doctors and no actual writers so that sorta makes more sense.

[Himu]

Planescape isn't a gameplay IE game. It's a total story game and the perfect vay cay game after BG1. Enjoy the ride.

Also unlike BG its manual isn't required reading.

[Rufus]

Oh and I wasn't sure what stats to go with but since it's a BI game I figure there will be a lot of chances to talk my way out of stuff so I went with Int/Char/Wisdom at the expense of Str and Dex and Con.

Very good

[thisismyusername]

Also unlike BG its manual isn't required reading.

I forget if the Manual Bioware did is better, but Beamdogs is It straight up has Typos (did nobody proof read this? I know most tabletop companies have typos, but Jesus) and doesn't fully describe things.