Baldur's Gate The Baldur's Gate Series Thread

[Krivol]

It's a trap...

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

Yup, looks like SMA finally got her boobjob..

 

[Cael]

Spoiler

I already plan to replace her with Safana.

T-there are S-SO many chars I would rather take.

Pretty funny and cheeky, but Safana is basically an Imoen who needs a tome to dualclass and gets a little useful utility skill that isn't too much, but can help in a pinch (though probably isn't that useful when you've already cleared out Durlag's). You trade raw power (Imoen has a better stat spread) for waifu potential (though Safana's vanilla portrait is atrocious) if you're so inclined. Ergo, one big shrug, really. At this point in the game I'd rather pick Alora in Baldur's Gate for both reasons (Happy happy joy joy!).

I wish more people picked Tiax. Tiax rules.

I don't dislike Safana's vanilla portrait that much, and while her PaintBG portrait may not be great

I could always resort to...

Spoiler

Those pics... I can't unsee them... No more post-op trannies... PLEASE!!!!

 

[Sigourn]

Holy. Fucking. SHIT.
This is arguably the most retarded case of railroading I've EVER experienced in a videogame, right up there with Little Lamplight in Fallout 3. The game gives you the perfect opportunity to slay the werewolves by surprise and your only possible dialogue options are literally "LOL NO I'LL TACKLE YOU HEAD ON!"????

Durlag's Tower was definitely a happy accident, because there's no way that dungeon was done like that consciously.

 

[octavius]

Werewolf Island and the Island maze felt horribly rushed compared to the delightfully detailed Durlag's Tower.

 

[Cael]

Wait till you try to fight Karoug... and run into the bug.

Screams of outrage and sheer frustration in... 3... 2... 1...

 

[Sigourn]

Wait till you try to fight Karoug... and run into the bug.

Screams of outrage and sheer frustration in... 3... 2... 1...

Which bug?? I ended up dying a couple of times before coming up with a "strategy": hasted my party, as before, but this time I send Khalid alone into the wolf's mouth (HARR HARR HARR). Had an AC of -7 and was wielding Flametongue. First he killed the mage, then got all the werewolves near the southern side of the level, and once they were in position I got my mainchar (Ranger) onto the level as well, and started using her as a backup for Khalid. He was hit ONCE during the entirety of the fight, and I was completely unaware you needed silver weapons to deal damage to Karoug, so it was sheer luck he was using Flametongue and not something else.

octavius Yeah, both felt rushed, but at least the Island Maze felt longer. Here, the island feels very empty. Even the ship itself is kind of shit and hasn't got anything going for it in the way of "uniqueness": it looks like your average Morrowind sunken ship.

 

[Cael]

Wait till you try to fight Karoug... and run into the bug.

Screams of outrage and sheer frustration in... 3... 2... 1...

Which bug?? I ended up dying a couple of times before coming up with a "strategy": hasted my party, as before, but this time I send Khalid alone into the wolf's mouth (HARR HARR HARR). Had an AC of -7 and was wielding Flametongue. First he killed the mage, then got all the werewolves near the southern side of the level, and once they were in position I got my mainchar (Ranger) onto the level as well, and started using her as a backup for Khalid. He was hit ONCE during the entirety of the fight, and I was completely unaware you needed silver weapons to deal damage to Karoug, so it was sheer luck he was using Flametongue and not something else.

There is a bug where his regeneration goes through the roof. It doubles every reload or something like that. He effectively becomes immortal :D

I also did wwf first over Durlag because that last boss of the Durlag quest chain...

Spoiler

Err... You didn't fight the last boss of Durlag's back in Ulgoth's Beard, did you?

 

[Lilura]

Durlag's Tower was definitely a happy accident, because there's no way that dungeon was done like that consciously.

You and Cael are the lowliest IE scrubs I've seen on the Codex, and I've seen Octavius, Sensuki and MicoSelva. Also, Luke K. on Durlag's.

 

[Sigourn]

There is a bug where his regeneration goes through the roof. It doubles every reload or something like that. He effectively becomes immortal :D

I also did wwf first over Durlag because that last boss of the Durlag quest chain...

Spoiler

Err... You didn't fight the last boss of Durlag's back in Ulgoth's Beard, did you?

I did! It was a pain in the ass mostly because I had to micromanage my party movements. In hindsight, it would have been much more easier for me to leave Dynaheir and Safana back in the upper level. In the end I ended up using my main character as bait while the others took down the followers, and retreated to the upper floor when things got nasty. After Aec'Letec started chasing my other companions, I got back down and in the end it was her, Imoen and Jaheira using ranged weapons; Dynaheir using a Wand of Fire in its proximity (later learned through the wiki that this was pointless as Aec'Letec was immune to it... oh well, placebo effect), and Khalid tanking the faggot. Safana naturally died, just like she did in the Isle of Balduran (literally died to one of those werewolves ambushes, missed most of the questline).

Lilura that seems like an interesting read, looking forward to it!

 

[Cael]

I did! It was a pain in the ass mostly because I had to micromanage my party movements. In hindsight, it would have been much more easier for me to leave Dynaheir and Safana back in the upper level. In the end I ended up using my main character as bait while the others took down the followers, and retreated to the upper floor when things got nasty. After Aec'Letec started chasing my other companions, I got back down and in the end it was her, Imoen and Jaheira using ranged weapons; Dynaheir using a Wand of Fire in its proximity (later learned through the wiki that this was pointless as Aec'Letec was immune to it... oh well, placebo effect), and Khalid tanking the faggot. Safana naturally died, just like she did in the Isle of Balduran (literally died to one of those werewolves ambushes, missed most of the questline).

The main pain is the thing's gaze attack. Everything else was easy once you figured out that it was a gimmick boss. Pots of Mirrored Eyes all around is practically mandatory.

Not having to micro party members was definitely one of DA:O's highlights. Too bad no one else took it up and they screwed up the sequels so badly.

 

[Anomander Rake]

Honestly I've never found so many issues with Karoug. I just used a solo level 9 barbarian solo and trashed him.

Face meeeeeeee

Face the new lord of murder

 

[Cael]

Honestly I've never found so many issues with Karoug. I just used a solo level 9 barbarian solo and trashed him.

Face meeeeeeee

Face the new lord of murder

It is quite a bit harder when you specialise in longswords and haven't been to Durlag's yet.

 

[octavius]

Did you guys fight an enemy named Karoug, or a "Greater Werewolf"? I'm asking because http://gibberlings3.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=29074

 

[Cael]

Did you guys fight an enemy named Karoug, or a "Greater Werewolf"? I'm asking because http://gibberlings3.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=29074

That's the guy. Note in the link, it was said that WeiDu screwed things up. There were only 4 weapons that could affect him:

Albriun - Bastardsword
Sword of Balduran - Bastardsword
Silver Dagger - Dagger
Flametongue - Longsword

If you specialise in any other weapon, you are basically in deep doo-doo.

 

[Anomander Rake]

@Sigourn

Yeah now that I saw it that railroading is the thing I hate the most about the whole werewolf stuff. I asked more than once on beamdog forums for a mod to fix the issue, but no one seems to realize there is a big issue on that dialogue.

Given my limited scripting ability (limited as none) I couldn't fix it myself and I'm hoping that someday someone will release a fix.

A little note: there is a "good ending" fix for the werewolf island if you installed SCS (the AI mod).

 

[octavius]

Did you guys fight an enemy named Karoug, or a "Greater Werewolf"? I'm asking because http://gibberlings3.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=29074

That's the guy. Note in the link, it was said that WeiDu screwed things up.

But weird that it only affected the Greater Werewolf and not Selaad Gan.

 

[Sigourn]

Did you guys fight an enemy named Karoug, or a "Greater Werewolf"? I'm asking because http://gibberlings3.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=29074

The dialogue said "Karoug", but when the battle started and he transformed, the tooltip read "Greater Wolfwere". I'm only using the Fixpack and the Game Text Update mods, wanted a "vanilla" experience. I've yet to return to Selaad Gan, so I'll see what's up with that. Picked all the good weapons too.

Sergio What's worse is that it could have been EASILY solved: when asking to join his clan, have him reject you and initiate combat (the easiest solution, and there are others, more elaborate and interesting, that come to mind). But no, BioWare apparently thought it made more sense to ask to join his clan only to reject him yourself with sarcasm and threats.

 

[Cael]

Did you guys fight an enemy named Karoug, or a "Greater Werewolf"? I'm asking because http://gibberlings3.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=29074

The dialogue said "Karoug", but when the battle started and he transformed, the tooltip read "Greater Wolfwere". I'm only using the Fixpack and the Game Text Update mods, wanted a "vanilla" experience. I've yet to return to Selaad Gan, so I'll see what's up with that. Picked all the good weapons too.

Sergio What's worse is that it could have been EASILY solved: when asking to join his clan, have him reject you and initiate combat (the easiest solution, and there are others, more elaborate and interesting, that come to mind). But no, BioWare apparently thought it made more sense to ask to join his clan only to reject him yourself with sarcasm and threats.

Karoug is a Greater Wolfwere, so it fits.

 

[Cael]

Did you guys fight an enemy named Karoug, or a "Greater Werewolf"? I'm asking because http://gibberlings3.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=29074

That's the guy. Note in the link, it was said that WeiDu screwed things up.

But weird that it only affected the Greater Werewolf and not Selaad Gan.

Selaad isn't a Greater Wolfwere. I think he is just a normal one.

 

[Sigourn]

Another excellent example of Tales of the Sword Coast's amazing writing.

Notice how I'm unable to say that I was literally framed by one of the villagers, which ended up fucking everything up.

Anyhow, I'm done with the expansion. Now all I have left to do is explore the Northwestern section of Baldur's Gate, and finally hunt down Sarevok in the Thieves' Guild.

 

[Sigourn]

I feel western developers really fucking suck at polish in their RPGs. Never, ever, in my whole life of playing Final Fantasy, did I ever encountered ridiculous cutscenes appearing out of nowhere and breaking the flow, messages such as THAT ("SAREVOK HAS FALLEN") or so many other things I've witnessed in quite a few games already. But Baldur's Gate is by far the worst: kill an enemy, pick up a scroll and suddenly you are thrown into a narrated cutscene regarding info you still haven't read for yourself, what the shit.

Not much more to say than I haven't already said. Fallout and Arcanum still reign supreme.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Now at chapter 6 and with most of the city of Baldur's Gate improved, I've come to the conclusion this game is a solid 5.

- Awful pathfinding that impacts many, many things (makes exploration annoying, makes combat annoying, makes dialogue annoying, makes area transitions annoying, makes EVERYTHING annoying). This alone is my biggest complaint with the game.
- Very slow movement speed, which wouldn't be so problematic if pathfinding didn't fuck up movement so often.
- Inventory management is kind of shit since it lacks some quality of life improvements, like being able to switch items between two characters with filled inventories.
- No particularly interesting quests.
- No way to filter out the filler NPCs so you can get right to the meaty ones that serve a purpose.
- Breaking into homes is very unrewarding, and reminds me of the whole "let go of the checklist" thread because of how much time I spent in those homes yet how little I get in return.
- That fucking inability of my characters to move in formation.
- Map is absolute crap. In a city like Baldur's Gate, it becomes even more obvious how crap it is.
- Juvenile, laughable writing.

Mediocre game that has its fun moments (mostly in the wild; even then you will spend lots and lots of time walking around doing nothing). The combat is nice, though.

Why this is ahead of Gothic on the Codex Top 70 list is beyond me.

I'm currently in chapter 7 of vanilla BG1 and chasing down Sarevok underneath the Rouge Guild and I agree with most of your points here. Weirdly enough though, I wouldn't go so low as a 5 and be happy to give it a solid 7, even though I could add even harsher criticism than your already extensive list provides. In addition to your points I'd say the many vast open areas are akin to the horrors of what people complained about with Dragon Age: Inquisition, in that there is just huge rafts of nothing but respawning bears and wolves. Jesus H, I must have slaughtered literally hundreds of wolves of various shapes and sizes, my guess is between 300 and 500 by the time I got to Baldur's Gate.

The monster variety as a whole has just been a gradually developing disappointment from a start which seemed so very promising. In the first 5-10 maps I'd been accosted by a huge array of interesting and none-too-common-to-isometric-RPGs enemies and it really felt like something thoroughly monster-manually. However, once those first encounters are completed the game suddenly stops offering anything new and, by chapter 6, you're still killing Spiders and Skeletons for the nth hundredth time. What started out as an example to all gradually descended into something I'm more used to seeing in commonal garden Eurotrash shovelware.

Continuing on from one of your previous points you forgot to reiterate in this post, the reused assets throughout the game really scrape away at the personality of the game, the same way they did in Dragon Age 2. Which, combined with the crap maps, make exploring a boring chore rather than an exercise in adventuring. I didn't even loot any boxes or houses in my entire playthrough and I was still bored of the repetitive formula of the same houses in the same quantity being in every city map with maybe one or two interesting people per area making the city about as content-empty as any given wilderness area. I'm deliberately trying to play it as slow as possible, exploring all I can while remaining as lawful as possible and even I decided to fuck it and get on with the main quest while many minor quests were still open. Just couldn't be fucked any more.

I've heard people say it has a decent plot and story, but all I'm seeing is a bare-bones thread of a predictable short-story. The dream sequences don't really add anything apart from providing an excuse to give you random spells, it's mostly just fluff with a bit of exposition and a lot of the NPCs who tell you what's going on along your journey are mostly just people constantly repeating themselves. I've no doubt that if you ran this game as a pure main-quest adventure with no skitting about you'd have a really teeny game and a really teeny short story. The open world aspect is its excuse to be considered epic (time-wise) but the rewards for exploration are so weak as to make you feel stupid for bothering most of the time. Fucking Avernum was better in this regard.

Why would I still give it a 7/10? Because its still a very well made product. (I rated Drakensang: The River of Time a 7.5, for visual comparison). Its not a shit game, in that its not a shit game, its just a game that's quite shit. A tightrope walker between the good games and the shit games. Very much my experience with most Bioware products, be it the Neverwinter Nights OC or Dragon Age: Origins. As in: would you rather play a generic Bioware game or a generic Eurotrash vapourware such as Eschelon? The BG1s of this world will always manage to be more worthwhile than the genuine dross, even though they never really provide top-class entertainment. It's managed to do enough for me, it just hasn't amazed me in any way other than the odd, very odd tid-bit here and there. A game of many oasises in a big desert.

I haven't installed Tales of the Sword Coast yet, so none of this includes that game as of yet.

I'm guessing the love for BG1 stems more from its position as a 'first' among isometric fantasy RPGs in a particular graphical style which would have been top-drawer for the time and one has to assume that many Withcer fans will still love Witcher 1 in 15 years time, even though its really nothing special either, it was just the 'first' of a generation of a particular kind/brand of game.

- Map is absolute crap. In a city like Baldur's Gate, it becomes even more obvious how crap it is.

I can understand, yet not necesserily agree with, all your other points, but what's wrong with the map ? It's pleasant to the eye and serves its purpose pretty well.

I disagree that the maps are particularly pleasant to the eye. The vast majority of them have absolutely no distinguishing features and are just bland, personality-free assets clumped together. Many could have been randomly generated for all it matters to their design and purpose.

Now at chapter 6 and with most of the city of Baldur's Gate improved, I've come to the conclusion this game is a solid 5.

- Awful pathfinding that impacts many, many things (makes exploration annoying, makes combat annoying, makes dialogue annoying, makes area transitions annoying, makes EVERYTHING annoying). This alone is my biggest complaint with the game.
- Very slow movement speed, which wouldn't be so problematic if pathfinding didn't fuck up movement so often.
- Inventory management is kind of shit since it lacks some quality of life improvements, like being able to switch items between two characters with filled inventories.
- No particularly interesting quests.
- No way to filter out the filler NPCs so you can get right to the meaty ones that serve a purpose.
- Breaking into homes is very unrewarding, and reminds me of the whole "let go of the checklist" thread because of how much time I spent in those homes yet how little I get in return.
- That fucking inability of my characters to move in formation.
- Map is absolute crap. In a city like Baldur's Gate, it becomes even more obvious how crap it is.
- Juvenile, laughable writing.

Mediocre game that has its fun moments (mostly in the wild; even then you will spend lots and lots of time walking around doing nothing). The combat is nice, though.

Why this is ahead of Gothic on the Codex Top 70 list is beyond me.

Because as much as there are few things more infuriating than dismissing evident superiority of something as just nostalgia, most Codices *are* in fact completely blinded by nostalgia and will happily gush over, for example, BG1 while also whining that, say, DOS2 is not nearly perfect enough for their refined tastes.

Unfortunately its not just nostalgia. The basket of reasons why shite gets high praise here, and anywhere really, is so vast its a miracle anything good ever gets made. I think the trap you're falling into is the age-old "see everything as black or white", either people love something or they hate it. You do this because you're retarded, so there's not really much one can do as an observer to help you out here, but most people will criticise things they like as well as things they don't like, but true shite and genuine near-perfection are so rare and such polar opposites that most things end up in the middle somewhere, or, to put it in a more 'codexian' language, there are just different flavours of shit and most of the time people are just choosing their favourite flavour of equally shit products. Comparing decent budget western fantasy isometric RPGs on the codex is pretty pointless as most vocal people will shit all over either of them while most lurkers will quietly lap it all up either way.

Between yourself and Sigourn you've decided that its unfair that BG1 is more popular shit than Gothic 1 or Divinity: Original Sin 2. I've no doubt if you asked every person on this site for their own personal BG1 vs MyFaveGame then you'd get a list of practically every RPG ever made being "better than BG1: The Outrage: The Agenda: The Decline" etc etc and I see no real value in making explicit game vs game comparisons in that regard.

 

[Anomander Rake]

I think you are exagerating with the issues baldur's gate 1 has. I think I count amongst the codexian that like ('love' is a too strong word in this context, unless I mod it) Baldur's gate and it's not for nostalgia.

When it came out and I played it, Baldur's gate summoned a whole range of different emotions that I didn't experience before.
Nowadays, it is like meeting your first love with which you've parted in good relationship.

It is deeply flawed, that is surely true, but there is nothing so excruciating that leaves you in bad taste (apart from Karoug, that's the only issue I've got to be honest).

 

[Sigourn]

I'm currently in chapter 7 of vanilla BG1 and chasing down Sarevok underneath the Rouge Guild and I agree with most of your points here. Weirdly enough though, I wouldn't go so low as a 5 and be happy to give it a solid 7, even though I could add even harsher criticism than your already extensive list provides.

Well, to me Arcanum is a solid 7, but I also consider it a must-play because of its strengths (and not because "duh it's Arcanum you should play it"). Same with New Vegas. These are heavily flawed games yet overcome their flaws through great design decisions. A game IMO not only needs to have no flaws, but it must also have lots of strong points. Baldur's Gate has one strong point (the combat), and plenty of flaws. A flawless game with no strong points would be "mediocre" IMO, "good for what it is" except it really isn't good at anything.

The monster variety as a whole has just been a gradually developing disappointment from a start which seemed so very promising.

I agree. If I was asked to name the monsters I encountered, from memory, it would be something like:

- Gibberlings
- Wolves and variations
- Bears and variations
- Hobgoblins and variations
- Kobolds and variations
- Ogres and variations
- Spiders and variations (fuck these)
- Skeletons and variations (fuck these too, motherfucking Skeleton Warriors and their bitch arrows in the Rogue's Guild maze)
- Sirens, Dryads.
- Wyverns.
- Ankhegs.
- Battle Horros, Invisible Spectres, that kind of stuff.

And I think not much more. Of all those, they are mostly just "like before, but stronger" monsters. Only Sirens and Dryads posed an interesting challenge.

Why would I still give it a 7/10? Because its still a very well made product. (I rated Drakensang: The River of Time a 7.5, for visual comparison). Its not a shit game, in that its not a shit game, its just a game that's quite shit.

I'll repeat what I said earlier just to be clear: I don't think Baldur's Gate is "bad" or "shit". I just use my own personal scale: 1-4 is a negative, 6-10 is a positive, 5 sits right in the middle. If it wasn't "BALDUR'S GATE" then I wouldn't recommend the game to anyone because I don't think it is worth anyone's time. Arcanum, for example, would vastly benefit from much better combat and better balance. Easily worth another 2 points (taken to 9). If you added more polish to it, you have a masterpiece. In hindsight, maybe New Vegas is more deserving of a 6. That one is indeed one heavily flawed game in almost every aspect. Gothic, IMO, is also deserving of a 7. Maybe a 7.5, but I honestly don't like the idea of rating games on a numerical number: it's pretty pointless.

I find it much easier to rank the games based on how much enjoyment I got out of them, and even then it is dependant on what I want out of a game. Gothic may be above Planescape: Torment or below depending on what I'm seeking, exactly.