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this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2023
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Baldur's Gate 3
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Baldur’s Gate 3 is a story-rich, party-based RPG set in the universe of Dungeons & Dragons, where your choices shape a tale of fellowship and betrayal, survival and sacrifice, and the lure of absolute power. (Website)
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It does? I'm nearly done with Act 2 and haven't encountered that.
Perhaps what I've learned by paying attention to the books, letters, and NPC chatter (which are abundant in this game) has guided me away from those game-over options. They constantly telegraph useful information like history, faction politics, plots, and character motivations. By the time I'm in a dialogue, I usually have some idea of which options are likely to be bad choices, and in exceptional cases, just relying on good old situational awareness has served me well.
Does Rodis do none of that?
I'm not, though. A few decisions have been unknowns, of course, but in story-appropriate ways. (Is this character going to attack me if I rescue them?) But for the most part, I've found that the clues I need to make good decisions are out there; I just have to explore and talk to people to find them.
How can Rodis have "a vast, intimate understanding of Dungeons & Dragons" when he seems to be ignoring two of the game's three pillars (exploration, social interaction, and combat)? Maybe he does these things but quickly forgets what he learns, and doesn't take notes?
I have been rewarded over and over again for thinking deeply about the situations and characters. Even when I make suboptimal choices (often for role play reasons), they have never felt unfairly punishing.
Well, yes, that's how game saves work. Abusing them for advantage is a player choice, not a game flaw. For a more immersive story experience, I recommend exercising a bit of self-control instead of habitually reaching for F8.
I appreciate that the author admires her mentor, but ten years of experience isn't all that much, and in this case, I think it really shows. His analysis seems very subjective to me, based more on consequences of his personal play style than in the game's fundamentals.
(For the record, I have a multi-page document of complaints about BG3, but I think the complaints here are off the mark.)
There's an instant game over via dialogues in the Monastery region. That's the only one I saw across two playthroughs. There are also two more instant game over sequences you can get by traveling. All three of these are highly telegraphed.
I don't like dunking on writers new to the gig, but the linked article is a puff piece for some dude with 500 YouTube subscribers and unspecified credits. Not worth the read.
I remember a few dialogue options that had me thinking, "why did they bother putting that option in the game? Nobody would ever choose that!"
Apparently I misjudged.
Well, to be fair, I only saw any of them because (after saving) I thought "how bad could it be, really?" 😅
Same for me. I'm aware of two ways to get a game over in the first act, but both are very telegraphed, repeatedly. Each one has at least one NPC outright telling you not to do this, because if you continue with the thing you are doing, you WILL die.
Of course, I save scummed just to see. First, because I had this idea like, "I know it's supposed to be a catastrophe that could theoretically crater the entire coast, but...what if I trigger it really far down underground and then run really fast? (It did not work.)
The second was me deliberately egging on a self-styled god and then doubling down on it sincerely because I wanted to see what their in-game stats looked like, or at least how fast they could squash me and in what exciting fashion. Friends, I did not even get to enter initiative.
But a person has to really be pushing back the lower limits of the bell curve to make me believe they couldn't have foreseen a single one of these.
There's a choice like that in Nier Automata. Instant game over. It's very amusing and unlocks an ending achievement.