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It's a 4-6 character low to medium level adventure yeah
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Nov 12, 2018 22:13
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Goddammit Siege of Dragonspear why do you have to make loving you so difficult. The atmosphere is SUPERB with areas like refugee flooded Baldur's Gate and a temple to Bhall riven by illithid plotting that are genuinely enjoyable to walk through, yet the writing is uneven--ranging from Pretty Good to hilariously gently caress-awful. The quests and encounters are really great, until you bug one out due to a combination of an over reliance on the IE's "use scenery" action, or utter disconnection between weird responses to inscrutably worded dialogue selections. The set piece chapter finales are epic homages to the excess of Throne of Bhaal, and they hang the entire thing on keeping Khalid alive. *in extremely benihana voice* Khalid? fuckin' Khalid!?! Are you loving kidding me Khalid, and he's level two and has no items because everyone in their right mind kicks him out of their party for being an anchor even in early BG1 and the quest fails instantly if he dies and his uncontrollable AI script charges into swarms and swarms of enemies WHY BEAMDOG WHY WOULD YOU BE SO CRUEL
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Nov 13, 2018 19:38
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they literally bring back a BG1 side character with Raise Dead in the prologue, and joke about how death is impermanent in Faerun! Just let him die and have Jaheira rez him or whatever, and to hell with her reasons for not doing it again in BG2! It's like having an escort quest for a kamikaze pilot!! It's definitely making me appreciate BG2's--and I cannot believe I'm using this word in relation to one of the largest RPG's ever--restraint in it's use of game elements. SoD is like drinking an entire fifth of scotch: a fun and indulgent notion, brought low by a messy reality.
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Nov 13, 2018 19:44
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Willie Tomg posted:Goddammit Siege of Dragonspear why do you have to make loving you so difficult.
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Nov 13, 2018 21:16
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Idk what choices I made differently but Khalid very much died somewhere offscreen in my only playthrough to date of SOD. I didn't notice until the epilogue when it mentioned it. I think it was when I waded into the army camp outside the castle and killed them all, I remember there being some sort of off-screen event and various NPCs fighting in the combat log. I guess he drops the drawbridge and charges when he sees you take on an army with a party of six?
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Nov 13, 2018 23:54
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Yes, attacking the siege camp on your own will cause the Bridgefort defenders to rally and for the Flaming Fist to attack.
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Nov 14, 2018 00:03
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Part of my problem might be: I have a party of four. Ha. Ha. Ha. Even using potions of explosion and wands, you can only make so many explosions per round, y'know? Listen: when my fighter/cleric has time to summon and buff up the Bone Boys we're a party of nine, when you think about it. We didn't even blink at the Neothelid!!  That said, I love being mostly to the XP cap with half of the game left to play, heh.
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Nov 14, 2018 00:53
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Attack from the tactically inferior position of sallying forth from a castle and save Khalid, or play it smart and attack from the flank? Sallying forth should not be the diversionary attack for the army, let a commando force do that, JFC Bridgefort defenders. You have a superior position, use it! It's like Khalid never watched the LOTR series...
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Nov 14, 2018 01:47
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Or, again, just sit tight in the castle and let a group of 6 mid level adventurers kill the entire attacking army.
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Nov 14, 2018 03:34
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I knew what to expect from SoD when after meeting Edwin and passing on having him join he gave the Rorshach speech from Watchmen. There was some good original writing in SoD and then holy poo poo did they just go "nerd reference! Amirite!?" Its like the problem that gets mentioned about the Simpsons. The original writers did not care about Groaning or Brooks and were trying to make a great show and would push back against them. 10 years later the new hires who grew up as fans of the show treat the creators like gods and wont criticize them.
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Nov 14, 2018 03:38
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I don't actually remember that many nerd references in Siege, to be honest. The writing isn't always great, but I mostly blame that to the fact that it has to be shoehorned between two complete games that, incidentally, also didn't feature great writing.
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Nov 14, 2018 08:15
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I mean for every time Glint quotes Judge Dredd in camp, there's a moment in BG1 where you're escorting a chicken back to his arcane tutor, or Minsc being... Minsc. But even at its worst, at least BG1 is bad quickly. The unskippable voiced cutscene where they re-introduce Baeloth in SoD is like, three times the length of the entire BG2 intro for god's sake.
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Nov 14, 2018 08:23
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Big props to Willie Tomg for sticking up for SoD. I actually really enjoyed the thing. The voice acting is all over the place in it though. Some of the voice actors they snagged sounded exactly the same, others not so much. I think one of the Dukes at the beginning in Baldurs Gate was so bad that I was convinced they used a text-to-speech program for him. I really wanted Beamdog to do something else with the Infinity Engine after SoD. There was a rumor they had some Planescape stuff going on and I thought to myself that an IWD style combat romp across the planes would have been sweet. I think the strengths of SoD was their encounter design and items they added and less the plot / NPCs. If they realised that, they could make a bunch of sweet DnD games.
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Nov 14, 2018 08:51
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Mechanically sound D&D games without charming NPCs have rarely sold very well.
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Nov 14, 2018 08:52
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Fair Bear Maiden posted:Mechanically sound D&D games without charming NPCs have rarely sold very well. Yea, that is totally fair and correct. I guess it was more of a dream than anything.
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Nov 14, 2018 08:59
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References are a poor excuse for actual humor, but complaining about their presence in SoD is odd to say the least. BG1 especially had tons of them. Although SoD leans a bit too much into gaming and nerd references; in BG1 you got stuff like, well, Quayle among them. Re: the Bridgefort battle, both times I've gotten that far into SoD I just got access to the Crusade camp, went in there and started prebuffing, summoning and throwing AoE spells around right in the middle of it:  Mainly because it's funny, but it also means you get a good alpha strike off and have some time alone with the Crusaders before Khalid, naked and at level 2 as he may be, gets there.
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Nov 14, 2018 12:10
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I thought SoD was awesome and just as good as the rest of the series and a great in-between chapter. I loved every second of it, and it also brought with it the best looking UI that the series has ever had.
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Nov 14, 2018 15:54
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chaosapiant posted:I thought SoD was awesome and just as good as the rest of the series and a great in-between chapter. I loved every second of it, and it also brought with it the best looking UI that the series has ever had. Not an empty quote. I never grew up with bg1 or 2 and played sod before i ever played bg2. Tldr feels great, really fun, i would rather start a character in sod before i ever start in bg1.
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Nov 14, 2018 17:56
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Meyers-Briggs Testicle posted:Not an empty quote. I want to add that I did actually play the games when they released. So while I have a great deal of nostalgia for the original games, I still play them regularly and they are just as snarky and goofy and silly as SOD is. If you released SOD at the time of the originals and didn't tell me, I'd never have assumed that it was written by a different team. The only thing I can say about it that might be a negative is how linear it is. But it's sandwiched between two huge non-linear games, so having a linear expansion is not different than say, the Underdark chapter in BG2. Also, I don't play these games individually. I always play BG1/Tales and then import into BG2/TOB. So SOD just adds more fun times with the characters I'm already planning on spending 100+ hour with. Some folks only play BG2 or what have you, and that blows my mind. To me, BG is one huge game, broken up into different parts.
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Nov 14, 2018 18:21
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After beating BG1 one time, I can’t find it in myself to do it again. I get burned out on all the giant maps and terrible dungeons. I decided to just port my completed save again and restart BG2, this time with a different set of characters. Minsc, Aerie, Yoshimo, Jaheira, and Viconia. For someone with super awesome special traps, Yoshimo’s trap setting skill really sucks.
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Nov 14, 2018 18:31
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Lucas Archer posted:After beating BG1 one time, I can’t find it in myself to do it again. I get burned out on all the giant maps and terrible dungeons. I decided to just port my completed save again and restart BG2, this time with a different set of characters. Minsc, Aerie, Yoshimo, Jaheira, and Viconia. As someone playing BG1 for the first time I can echo this sentiment. So far it's been a lot of wandering around revealing huge maps with maybe 1 or 2 interesting things on them and the couple of dungeons I've done haven't been very noteworthy.
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Nov 14, 2018 18:39
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I do wonder if it makes a difference to know and how to abuse all the easy XP you can gain throughout. I feel if I ever play BG1 again, it’ll be to get through as quickly as possible so I can move on to BG2 with a truly built up PC.
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Nov 14, 2018 18:42
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I cheated to bring back the infinite golem cave and don't feel a tiny bit guilty.
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Nov 14, 2018 19:00
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BG1 exists in an odd little blind spot in my hatred of sandbox models of gameplay - I've given up on Dragon Age Inquisition thanks to its openness on several occasions despite it being ostensibly a very good game, but I'll happily hexcrawl across the Sword Coast without the faintest feeling of tedium. Well, until I hit the main city, then I beeline all the important quests, cheese for the good equipment, and take a trip to Durlag before wrapping up. The powergamer in me will literally never let me start a character on BG2 anymore. ability score tomes
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Nov 14, 2018 19:49
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Okay, this may just be one of the coolest things I've seen as a Baldur's Gate fan: a Heroes of Might and Magic 3 custom map that replicates the Sword Coast and Baldur's Gate 1. I love the little touches of adding small landmarks and monsters, like the dead halfling south of Beregost!
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Nov 14, 2018 20:38
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Olive Branch posted:Okay, this may just be one of the coolest things I've seen as a Baldur's Gate fan: a Heroes of Might and Magic 3 custom map that replicates the Sword Coast and Baldur's Gate 1. I love the little touches of adding small landmarks and monsters, like the dead halfling south of Beregost!
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Nov 14, 2018 20:58
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This current playthrough of BG1 was weird in that I kinda found myself enjoying chapters 2-3 largely because of the QoL changes in the UI (oh my GOD how did I play this game without the ability to zoom and a quick loot bar), where Chapter 5 felt like a hot mess of uncategorized nonsense. e; well gently caress you too khalid. thanks for all your help missing a single punch in this fight. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dY2aim1h6w Now That's What I Call A Powerspike Relative To Chapter 1 e; anybody have any notion of why Belegar will always claim to be too busy as part of the Memories of Battles Past quest? It's not really that big a deal I guess, but its annoying that the game has just decided to crap out again in this instance. Willie Tomg fucked around with this message at 07:46 on Nov 15, 2018 |
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Nov 14, 2018 21:38
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Just finished Heart of Winter for the first time and it was disappointing. The vast majority of the game was one long path where you pull 2-3 enemies punctuated by one or two large battles that were easily solved with AoEs. The late-game enemies introduced for mobs were confusing since they were significantly below the power curve, and I found the trolls leading up to them at least slightly challenging. Even the boss was a disappointment since it lacked many of the defenses and protections it would have in other IE games and it was solved the same way every other enemy was solved: putting my fighter in melee and having her beat it to death while a mage took out the mobs with AoE. I was hoping for more since even the OC's boss was more of a challenge, but it was just a letdown.
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Nov 18, 2018 23:46
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Softface posted:Just finished Heart of Winter for the first time and it was disappointing. The vast majority of the game was one long path where you pull 2-3 enemies punctuated by one or two large battles that were easily solved with AoEs. The late-game enemies introduced for mobs were confusing since they were significantly below the power curve, and I found the trolls leading up to them at least slightly challenging. Even the boss was a disappointment since it lacked many of the defenses and protections it would have in other IE games and it was solved the same way every other enemy was solved: putting my fighter in melee and having her beat it to death while a mage took out the mobs with AoE. I was hoping for more since even the OC's boss was more of a challenge, but it was just a letdown. What level were you? I've never gotten very far in Icewind Dale so I'm not sure how the level scaling is, but I'm pretty sure you're supposed to be significantly lower level for Heart of Winter than for endgame stuff in the main campaign.
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Nov 19, 2018 03:54
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Skwirl posted:What level were you? I've never gotten very far in Icewind Dale so I'm not sure how the level scaling is, but I'm pretty sure you're supposed to be significantly lower level for Heart of Winter than for endgame stuff in the main campaign. I was at around 2.5 mil XP, so 17 Fighter, 18 on both clerics, 11/13 mage/thief, and 16 Necromancer. Being able to drop Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting might have made a balance-tipping difference in the endgame fights.
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Nov 19, 2018 04:54
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Softface posted:I was at around 2.5 mil XP, so 17 Fighter, 18 on both clerics, 11/13 mage/thief, and 16 Necromancer. Being able to drop Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting might have made a balance-tipping difference in the endgame fights. That was the original level cap before the expansion. You were definitely over levelled. Heart of Winter was designed around doing it at the halfway point, around level 11, give or take depending on class.
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Nov 19, 2018 05:04
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Skwirl posted:That was the original level cap before the expansion. You were definitely over levelled. Heart of Winter was designed around doing it at the halfway point, around level 11, give or take depending on class. That would explain why it felt very easy and unsatisfying overall, then  If I play through it again I'll probably run through it before going into Lower Dorn's Deep, or just turn up the difficulty and see how that goes.
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Nov 19, 2018 07:01
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pentyne posted:I knew what to expect from SoD when after meeting Edwin and passing on having him join he gave the Rorshach speech from Watchmen. Sounds like the a significant chunk of dialogue in BG1 to me.
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Nov 19, 2018 17:15
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My favourite conversation in BG1 is where you can speak to the dockworker about the New World and make a scathing attack on colonisation, to which he responds 'You're right, we'll murder natives by the thousands, but the winners write the history books so no-one will remember, and that's why it's okay.' It kind of came out of left field after all the lukewarm, nudge-nudge self-aware RPG writing that characterises the game.
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Nov 20, 2018 08:31
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Maybe he was forecasting the disappearance of Maztica in later editions. 
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Nov 20, 2018 08:52
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Ulvino posted:Maybe he was forecasting the disappearance of Maztica in later editions. Maztica had already appeared by then. The Baldur's Gate series has a number of references to other settings within and without the Realms - BG2 has the Knights of Solamnia from Dragonlance, Dark Sun halflings, and a Spelljamming ship.
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Nov 20, 2018 15:14
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i just played baldur's gate 1 for the first time since i bought it in 98 and can't believe how much fun i thought it was. all the poo poo i thought i remembered hating i enjoyed immensely. it's overall a smarter game than i gave it credit for as a dumb teenager. siege of dragonspear was excellent as well i thought. now i'm moving on to baldur's gate 2 which, though i haven't played it in 12 years, i have played probably like 30 times in my life and i'm considering if any mods or whatever would be worthwhile. is installing the ascension narrative stuff through big world project worth it? i never used it before, though i read it expanded some epilogues back in the day, and changed some encounters up like letting you not murder balthazar which i thought would make sense. that's kind of what i'm looking for, more flavor type stuff or narrative things, not anything like sword coast stratagems or the retarded end boss stuff ascension purportedly did. ya boy still getting his sea legs back here. are there any recommendations? i've skimmed back to page 430ish so far and the vibe i get is that there isn't much that's vanilla-good, most npcs are cringey as gently caress, and the universal antipathy towards that imoen romance mod honestly makes me want to see how loving bad it is first hand.
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Nov 23, 2018 09:50
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There aren't any content mods that anyone will 100% endorse, I don't think. Personally I don't mind Unfinished Business for the most part, it tries pretty hard to fit seamlessly with the vanilla flavour and style. Though it has contributions from a whole bunch of modders so the quality is not even. To be honest, playing BG2 for the first time in 12 years with all the QOL improvements and ease of use stuff baked in via the enhanced edition might be enough.
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Nov 23, 2018 12:44
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There are a lot of NPCs I don't mind, or at least say they're no worse than the canon NPCs - people seriously have rose colored glasses for the quality of the character writing in this series. But as someone who made two NPC mods myself, I suppose I don't have room to argue.the nucas posted:and the universal antipathy towards that imoen romance mod honestly makes me want to see how loving bad it is first hand. The three mods pretty much everyone reviles are the Imoen romance, Saerileth, and Chloe.
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Nov 23, 2018 13:50
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Cythereal posted:There are a lot of NPCs I don't mind, or at least say they're no worse than the canon NPCs - people seriously have rose colored glasses for the quality of the character writing in this series this was my thinking while playing through bg1ee and siege of dragonspear. i thought the new characters slotted right in with baldur's gate's npc quality level and were mostly pretty good, despite all the caterwauling on toilets like reddit about how bad and dumb they were and video games are ruined. i especially liked dorn, since at first i thought he was a generic anti-hero who went to extremes for revenge, but then it turned out he was really just a bloodthirsty mass murderer his whole life and the revenge thing just made him turn it up to 11. i've seen isra and some tiefling paladin recommended a lot; though the tiefling paladin of illmater made me kind of roll my eyes at how tryhard a concept it is, i then remembered baldur's gate 2 has a halfling that dreams of being a paladin.
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Nov 23, 2018 17:38
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