atom631

On 10/9/2023 at 7:04 PM, legend said:

 

 

It is recommended to start fresh because they overhauled the game and the entire leveling system. But it is not required. You have three options:

1. Start a new game. You will get a call that launches the Phantom Liberty story after you do the Voodoo boys main quest.

2. Start a new character directly into Phantom Liberty. This is an option from the main menu. I think they just advance you to that part of the game and give you a level 20 character or something to start with.

3. Load a previous character. When you do this, you keep the character level and question progression and just have to reassign all of your perk/attribute points, because again, these systems are entirely different now. It's a little weird in that you won't really know exactly what you're selecting since you didn't get them naturally, but you can also always respec whenever you want so you can experiment in PL. As long as your character that you load is past the voodoo boys quest, you'll immediately get a call starting the PL quest. If your previous save is a "game completion" save, that's perfectly fine, because game completion saves always take you back to right before the point of no return.

if you start from the beginning, how much of the campaign do you have to play before you get to play the DLC? are we talking like 1/2 way through (20hrs or so)? 

4 hours ago, Air_Delivery said:

 Haste

when is the best time to cast haste? should you cast it right before a fight begins or should it be the very first action of the character casting it? 

On 10/10/2023 at 4:57 AM, Spork3245 said:

I don’t know, the side quests in this game are infinitely better than 99% of other RPGs. I think most others would have the side quests be like…

 

- gather 10 mugworts for Auntie Ethel
- defeat 5 cursed shadows to aid the Harpers
- collect 5 flute fragments to wake Art Cullagh
- Rolan slipped and the flying scrolls are going rogue. Help Rolan keep his job by catching all the flying scrolls! (4/79 completed)

im not saying this isnt true. I guess when there literally isnt anything else to complain about (except maybe the path finding for your companions at times), that I am just nitpicking at this point. 

in act 3 i had to help the mail courier find his lost mail. that is the type of quest you mention above. 

two other quests in mind are finding dribbles the clown and solving the murder in the church. unless somehow they will tie into the main quest that i cant comprehend yet, they felt like filler in a game that absolutely didnt need, nor has it had any up this point. 

Im going to jump back into Cyberpunk when Im done with BG3. I had already completed the main story at launch. I have Phantom Liberty on deck.  I havent really been keeping up with reviews/talk about it, but I read that they recommend starting fresh to play the DLC? Is that really necessary? I dont have time to start a new game just to get to the DLC. Too much other stuff to play (havent even fired up Starfield yet). 

Im assuming there is still a way to jump in to Phantom Liberty from my completed save file? Am I doing myself a disservice by doing this? How do I access the DLC from my existing completed save? 

Act III is such crazy contrast to the rest of the game (at least so far). In typical storytelling as you progress, the world tends to get bleaker and darker...but in this game, you go from the gloom, creepiness and desperation of act II into this brightly lit city full of life and people going about their business. but you can still feel the heaviness of what's coming. it's really amazing world building. 

I'm not very far in yet. I'm heading to

I've stayed mostly in the starting area trying to complete whatever side quests have popped up and basically talked to everyone that was clickable. 

I would say my only complaint in act 3 so far is it suffers the same gaming cliche many RPGs have. Here you are in an urgent mission, but they throw these silly side quests at you that really have nothing to do with the main story. I know they are skippable, but I want to see everything in this playthrough bc there's no way I can do a 2nd...just too many games to play (although wouldn't mind trying some multiplayer). 

I never felt that way about act 1 and 2. the side quests felt like they had meaning and tied into the larger story being told. 

Either way, the game is amazing. it's one of those games I can't stop thinking about even when I'm not playing or haven't even played in a few days. 

just got to Act 3. this game just keeps getting better and better. 

ive been keeping track of my playtime

act 1 - steam 40 - save file 27:30

act 2 - steam 70 - save file 48:45

not sure why its such a huge discrepancy. I know ive walked away a few times, but not 22hrs worth. 

Im getting closer to the end of Act II. Havent been to moonrise yet but have done just about all the other side missions and cleared almost all of the map up to moonrise. 

I will say that if Act III is as good as Act 1 and 2, not only is this GOTY; this is easily in my top 5 of all time (and im not really a fan of turn-based combat). 

14 hours ago, Paperclyp said:

@atom631 so it turns into a 1 v 1 that way? I def didn’t do that but in retrospect makes a lot of sense lol

yup. sneak in and get the surprise and its over. 

@Air_Delivery @Paperclyp - I gave up and looked it up and its so ridiculously obvious. 

lol. I feel like an idiot. 

anyway I completed that whole area…but im about to do a massive save scum and do the last part all over. 

I love this game! 

so im completely stuck in act 2. 

im doing the 

is there a trick to this? 

Just picked this back up after being on vacation and then catching on up on work and life after coming back from vacation. I just completed Act 1. Steam is saying Ive been playing for about 40hrs but my save file is at 27.5. Its massive and was never dull or boring for a minute.  Im pretty sure I did just about everything there was to do. 

I had to look up a few things here and there. One quest in particular:

Was so cool and felt very Elden Ring like in its obscurity. The reward for completing it is absolutely awesome. I have a feeling it will be very useful in act 2 based on my 5 minutes there. 

For those of you who completed the game, are the other acts as long and meaty as act 1? 

13 hours ago, cusideabelincoln said:

 

 

The 3DMark CPU score is entirely a multithreaded benchmark. Any multithreaded benchmark is going to draw max power from a CPU, whereas games will only hit a single core hard, other cores less hard, and require less CPU wattage.  

 

So if I had to guess, I'd say you're hitting a power limit that's causing your CPU score to be low.  Might be able to change the CPU PL (power limit) in the BIOS, but a search led me to a program called "throttlestop" that might unlock more CPU performance for you. 

 

SSDs will throttle their speeds the warmer they get, so those scores are close enough to marketed speeds to be fine. Throttling does start around 70 C, and gets worse the hotter it gets.

I think youre right about power throttling. My Alienware Control Center (AWCC) only has one power option - “balanced”. From what I read, there should be a few options such as power save and performance. 

1 hour ago, stepee said:

 

hm, does it actually bottleneck you in real life does it seem or just with the bench?

laptop works great. running BG3 in ultra/1440 basically. most other games too. 

22 minutes ago, stepee said:

 

hm if your bios is showing 4800 (and i assume cpu-z is showing it too?) I think you have XMP enabled, or you wouldn’t be at that speed.

 

Have you tried using afterburner to put in stats and check heat on the cpu while playing a cpu intensive game or while running the bench?

yup. i run afterburner. rarely does my CPU or GPU ever get above 70-72

6 minutes ago, stepee said:

 

Do you know how to get to your bios? You can check from there what it’s running at. That is also where you would enable XMP to make sure you are running the ram full speed.

 

I hate trying to time hitting the right button during startup so here is how I always enter bios;

 

How To Access BIOS in Windows 11 – Pure IT

WWW.PUREIT.CA

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Access Windows 11 BIOS: 5 easy methods. Customize system settings and options. BIOS controls computer's basic operations like power and booting.

 

cpu-z is a program that should also confirm your speeds

 

 

 

I was just in the bios and i didnt see any where XMP being listed. but it did tell me my memory is running at 4800. 

i downloaded CPU-Z and under the SPD tab: SPD Ext. is greyed out. which i think this means XMP Is not enabled. 

Just now, stepee said:

 

Did you confirm your ram is running at that speed? Wondering if maybe XMP isn’t enabled and if that’s why affecting the cpu score, just a guess for why it’s low

how could i confirm that? 

3 minutes ago, stepee said:

 

I have launchers start up if I have like 10+ games on it, if it’s like Rockstar or Blizard where it’s two games or so then I don’t auto start. 

 

What model i7 specifically? What speed ram?

i7-1200H and Crucial 64Gb DDR5 4800MT/s CL40

Does everyone keep all the game launchers running and starting with windows? Or do you only open them when you are playing a game through that launcher and then close it when done?  So many damn launchers these days. 

Also  - a few questions about my performance on my Alienware M15 R7 w/ I7, 3070ti, 64Gb Ram, 1TB boot drive and 2Tb Western Digital BLack SN850X 2TB drive for gaming. 

Here is my 3D Mark Score. I think my GPU score is within range for that model, but my CPU seems to be scoring really low. From what I read, I should be in the 11K range. It doesnt appear to be thermal throttling. Any idea why its so low? 

On my WD Black drive, I tried both with game mode on and off. In game mode off, I seem to be getting better read/write speeds and it runs cooler. But in both modes, the drive was running hot, reaching over 70 degrees (78 in game mode off). Are these good speeds for this drive? I know its up to 7300 read 6600 write. 

Game mode off

game mode on

5 hours ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

Baldur's Gate 3 - Community Update #23: Here's To You - Steam News

STORE.STEAMPOWERED.COM

---

Hello, everyone! During the launch weekend, you played a combined 1225 years of Baldur’s Gate 3 – almost as long as it took to make it. And 368 of you managed to finish it within that 3-day weekend. We salute you. We’re about to enter the second weekend of launch, and thanks to you, it’s looking like it might be a big one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

368 people beat it in 3 days!!!! Holy shit. They literally must have not taken more than 1-2 hrs/day break over the 3 days. thats insane. 

Just now, legend said:

 

  Hide contents

You'll only need to sacrifice 3 magical items and then it stops because a new thread will start to fix it for good. Which I haven't done yet, but the thread started and I stopped having to do that  

 

hallelujah! 

3 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

Finally made my way through the rest of the indoor area of the goblin camp and wiped out everything, then walked out the front door and was attacked by like damn near 20 enemies. (I came in through the back so I never saw the front entrance prior.)

Luckily after the massive level 5 power bump, I had that entire area cleared in like 5 minutes. Didn't hurt that they were all debuffed from being drunk and were just generally weaker than the inner enemies.

My pockets are so fat now. I haven't tried it yet, and I don't think it's an option, but if it IS an option, I want to start sending corpses back to camp. Pretty sure I didn't see that option while toying around, but I bet a mod could do it... Would love to do some dumb playthrough where I just have every single NPC's corpse in the game in my box at home!

speaking of mods, I was watching FightingCowboy stream and he had a mod that allowed him to have up to 8 party members!  somehow it wasnt game-breaking and seemed to function totally fine. 

16 minutes ago, BloodyHell said:

I just hit level 9, and im really starting to feel powerful. Especially throwing lvl 5 fireballs with Gale. 
 

and Astarian is so useful in cities. I steel so much with him!

and speaking of Gale. Im getting fucking sick of sacrificing gear to him, but its great having a wizard in the party. I have him cast grease and then use Shadowheart to throw a fireball. Works amazing for crowd control. 

27 minutes ago, legend said:

 

 

Sharpshooter is fucking amazing as a feat, but you simply must get your bonus to attack up higher to make it worthwhile. A good ranger build can pull like +15 to the attack at which point taking sharp shooter is very wortwhile. But early levels it's not so great.

how do i get my bonus to attack up higher? is that just through levelling? or is there specific gear i should look out for? 

31 minutes ago, BloodyHell said:

Yhave you gotten to the underdark? There’s plenty more down there before you move on to act 2.

 

I reached Act 3 last night. BG is possibly the biggest city I’ve seen in a game. My girl Shadowheart is officially my girl. I slaughtered a clown in front of a crowd of onlookers, polymororph’d my way into a places I wasn’t allowed. Good times all around. My favourite thing about this game is that the choices are so abundant. I failed quests I wanted to finish in the underdark because I suddenly couldn’t backtrack about half way through act 2 though. Kinda wish I’d known that, but even that leads to new quests you wouldn’t get otherwise.
 

This game is so intricately crafted, it really stands out in a year of gaming that has really stood out itself. And it’s not done yet! Sea of Stars, Starfield, Spiderman, and im sure im forgetting more. Also, isnt there a suikoden remaster coming this year? 
 

 

Im kind of surprised this is a first for so many. CRPG’s are one of my favorite genres. My friends and I played so much of the original BG in the late 90’s. I only beat BG2 once I believe. Divinity 1&2 are some of my favourite games. I really need to replay the original BG sometime soon. 
 

 

i did realize i missed a whole area to the south with the bog and the hag. Im doing that now and @legend - good call, i actually left most of the goblins in the camp alone bc I was able to walk in like i owned the place. although they are very upset with me now. maybe ill go finish them all off. 

Also - rerolled my Drow Ranger. I hastily picked some things, but now that im understanding this better, i feel they were bad choices. I originally was going for like a beastmaster specialization, but i find using the animal companion a PITA and  not very useful other than to maybe pull agro. So I wound up not using them, which was wasting the class. So I gave him more of a focus on movement/stealth and ranged attacks. He hits like a truck, but i picked up the feat  "Sharpshooter" which i think gave me -5 to attack roll but +10 to damage. It seemed like it was a net +5 to damage, but i think its causing me to miss shots. does anyone know if there is a limit on the amount of times you can respec? 

the more I play, the more im getting the hang of it and the more im loving it. I had sex with an alien and recruited a dog to my camp. GOTY! 

@legend im confused by this tho

but im only like level 4.4. I still need over 2000xp to get to level 5 and everything ive read seems to suggest I shouldve easily hit 5 by now. I feel like I missed a massive quest somehow. 

Im like level 4.5. I have 2 options: