alastair
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Post by alastair on Sept 18, 2023 19:45:06 GMT
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alastair
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Post by alastair on Sept 18, 2023 19:45:16 GMT
Hello new page!
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Frog
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Post by Frog on Sept 18, 2023 19:57:29 GMT
Thought I had wandered into the strange crush thread for a second.
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Post by retro74 on Sept 18, 2023 20:04:47 GMT
Not been in this thread before
However I got the new Edge today and saw it got a 10 so wanted to let you all know it must be very good indeed
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alastair
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Post by alastair on Sept 19, 2023 9:39:27 GMT
I've pretty much cleared Grymforge and the Underdark so I think I'm ready to head towards Moonrise Towers as far as the main story is concerned. But then I wonder if I've missed content up on the surface..
Last night I killed Auntie Ethel but the quest for Mayrina is bugged. Possibly because I killed the hag so quickly Mayrina was still sitting at the table.
Then I rescued the Zhentarim chest from the gnolls and now I've arrived at Waukeen's Rest.
Is the received wisdom to clear everything on the surface before moving too much further on? I guess I want to hoover up XP. Be nice to hit 6th level soon. |
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Post by salaman on Sept 19, 2023 9:55:17 GMT
I’m GMT-7. VTT = virtual tabletop, so you can run TTRPGs online. Aah, gotcha. No wait. You lost me on TTRPG (mostly the TT) I thought VTT was related to the multiplayer game. :-) So out of curiosity. What options do you all have for your party? I'm probably near halfway through Act 2 or so. I think my party make-up is pretty much decided for the rest of the game?
Shadowheart & Lae'zel from the prologue/Act 1
Gale & Astarion from the start of Act I
I'm playing as Wyll, so I killed Karlach by the river to help the paladins out.
I killed al 3 goblin leaders, which included .... whatserface... Miranda? Mithrana?
I saved the druid. He was at the party after the grove business was settled. I saw him Once more at camp during a long rest but I think he's gone again.
That's it.
It's usually Wyll, Shadowheart + 2 from the other 3 Lae'zel/Astarion/Gale out adventuring.
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alastair
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Post by alastair on Sept 19, 2023 9:58:17 GMT
TTRPG = Table top Role playing Game
VTT - virtual table top. Like Roll20 or DnDBeyond. Web apps that support play by working like a Zoom/Teams meeting. They support character sheets and allow the DM to share a map with tokens for the characters and the monsters. It can also handle the die rolls, so you click on one of your attack options and the app rolls for you, adding bonuses etc.
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Post by JuniorFE on Sept 19, 2023 10:59:46 GMT
If you did bad things to Karlach I can't trust you as a person (half-joking). You don't want her in your party, don't want to follow her questline, fine, whatever. But don't bully the Barb  |
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Post by JuniorFE on Sept 19, 2023 11:00:12 GMT
Despite how the timing may look the above is not aimed at anyone in particular 😅
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Post by skalpadda on Sept 19, 2023 12:26:28 GMT
I've pretty much cleared Grymforge and the Underdark so I think I'm ready to head towards Moonrise Towers as far as the main story is concerned. But then I wonder if I've missed content up on the surface..
Last night I killed Auntie Ethel but the quest for Mayrina is bugged. Possibly because I killed the hag so quickly Mayrina was still sitting at the table.
Then I rescued the Zhentarim chest from the gnolls and now I've arrived at Waukeen's Rest.
Is the received wisdom to clear everything on the surface before moving too much further on? I guess I want to hoover up XP. Be nice to hit 6th level soon. That does sound like a bug or like you missed something at the Tea House.
If you actually fought Ethel, Mayrina shouldn't still be at the table. Did you explore the entire house?
More specifically and spoilery,
did you carefully inspect the fireplace?
The Tea House quest is one I would recommend resolving before moving on if you can. |
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alastair
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Post by alastair on Sept 19, 2023 12:27:59 GMT
I've been right through it and picked up the required item.
I suspect my only option is to reload and play through the cutscenes properly. I snuck in and blasted so she was dead before getting a chance to do anything.
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Post by skalpadda on Sept 19, 2023 12:44:07 GMT
That sounds broken then, that's a shame. So was Auntie Ethel just not downstairs behind all the gas and explosive traps where the real fight takes place? Did she die upstairs without transforming? Level 5 should be fine to start moving to Act 2. I was level 6 when going to the Mountain Pass in this playthrough I think. If you do the Mountain Pass stuff first you can pick up another level or two before going to the Moonrise Towers area as well, and you can go back to the Act 1 areas until you're quite a ways into Act 2, so you're not locked out of the other path no matter which one you take first. |
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alastair
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Post by alastair on Sept 19, 2023 15:27:27 GMT
Ethel:
She transforms on the first hit you make on her. I'd cast Pass Without Trace so we could sneak up. I started with Necrotic Touch with lvl3 slot from Shadowheart, then she transforms and turns invisible.
So then I go with Fireball from Gale. He can control the effect such that Shadowheart takes no damage. That damage breaks the invisibility. A ranged sneak attack from Astarion and then some frenzied melee attacks from my main PC barbarian saw her drop before she could take any actions.
On heading into the lower levels the NPCs could tell she was dead. But Mayrina remained at the table - she berated me for killing Ethel, but didn't leave to go to the coffin, and picking up the Bitter Divorce didn't update my quest log.
Moonrise Towers
I'm planning to go there via the access at Grymforge.
Although the mountain pass might be just as easy as I'm right next to it at the moment.
I haven't done anything on the Githyanki creche questline, nor have I encountered Karlach.
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Post by skalpadda on Sept 19, 2023 17:36:19 GMT
Probably borked because it couldn't initiate any of the cutscenes then. I started a fight with her upstairs in this playthrough, but not from stealth, and she changed and teleported herself and Mayrina away. Then it proceeded as normal. I'd recommend doing the Mountain Pass at some point, but you don't have to go there right away if you don't fancy it, just at some point before some pivotal events in Act 2. If you have Wyll you should have a map marker for the place to find Karlach. |
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Post by docrob on Sept 19, 2023 19:45:12 GMT
Is it recommended to do the Mountain Pass as well as the Underdark? I’m getting on for done with the latter, and 6th level.
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Post by skalpadda on Sept 19, 2023 19:58:09 GMT
You don't have to of course, but both places have a lot of story (some quests have threads that extend to the end of the game) and there's some very nice loot.
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Post by Vandelay on Sept 20, 2023 7:23:54 GMT
Now in the big BG. Performance really does tank in this area. I'm getting the occasional drops below 60 even on my 4090. It is also weirdly seems to utilising only about 40-50% of my GPU. CPU utilisation is only about 50% too, so not like that is bottlenecking it (unless it is poorly optimised for multi-cores, I guess). Very odd how the performance has steadily declined. Act 1 was flawlessly running at 144fps, fully using my GPU too. Act 2 then dropped to about 90-100 with about 60% GPU utilisation and now I'm at probably an average of 60fps. Anyway, arrive in Baldur's Gate and almost immediately wind up in jail. Found this section a right pain. Dumping everyone's inventory all into one box and giving you about 5 seconds to sort through them before a fight starts is very much a dick move. Thinking about it now, I realise there were likely ways around it (go into turn-based mode, quickly unlock a cell and hide, etc.) but still was frustrating. Fortunately, losing the fight with the guards only put you back in your cell, so it wasn't too bad to do the fight across a couple of attempts, but still feels like it would have been better for them to have individual boxes for each party member, so you can just click "take all" quickly and also have the boxes in a secluded place. Even after the fight, it took me about 5+ minutes to sort through it all. |
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Post by skalpadda on Sept 20, 2023 11:55:05 GMT
I sat up late last night and played with the character creator for a possible third playthrough (I'm not done with the second yet). Then I started glancing at mods. God help me. Now in the big BG. Performance really does tank in this area. I'm getting the occasional drops below 60 even on my 4090. It is also weirdly seems to utilising only about 40-50% of my GPU. CPU utilisation is only about 50% too, so not like that is bottlenecking it (unless it is poorly optimised for multi-cores, I guess). Very odd how the performance has steadily declined. Act 1 was flawlessly running at 144fps, fully using my GPU too. Act 2 then dropped to about 90-100 with about 60% GPU utilisation and now I'm at probably an average of 60fps. Rivington/Wyrm's Crossing was a lot worse than the Lower City for me on both playthroughs, so there's a good chance that it will get better once you get to the city proper (assuming you got arrested on the bridge). There's something wrong with that map, like things aren't being culled properly or something else that completely clogs up the gears in places. There's also some leak or whatever that makes performance degrade over time, so restarting the game completely after a couple of hours will probably help as well.
Never been arrested in the game, but considering the amount of crap I'm carting around in my inventory I definitely feel your pain.
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Frog
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Post by Frog on Sept 20, 2023 17:14:43 GMT
2 playthroughs finished now and they were pretty different experiences. One good (mostly) playthrough and one reluctant dark urge. Got a 3rd on the go with the Mrs where she has the dark urge and that will end differently too as she is a psycho and will fully embrace the urge.
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alastair
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Post by alastair on Sept 21, 2023 5:40:45 GMT
How long for a playthrough?
Maybe I don't need to grind every side mission...
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MolarAm🔵
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Sept 21, 2023 6:40:58 GMT
Not counting reloads, I'm at 100 hours and haven't started Act 3 yet. I think I've been fairly thorough at doing most things, but there's some companions that I've barely even spoken to (hey Asterion, how you doing with that vampire stuff, oh so you're into dancing Wyll, good for you I guess)
So yeah, I reckon you're looking at at least 120 hours, 150-200 if you rinse everything.
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Frog
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Post by Frog on Sept 21, 2023 6:58:32 GMT
First co op playthrough with Mrs with about 100 hours, 2nd (solo) was about 70.
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zephro
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Post by zephro on Sept 21, 2023 7:05:08 GMT
I'm doing a second more thorough playthrough. Even on Tactician it's going way quicker as I just understand the systems better.
First playthrough I wasn't very thorough and hit the level cap with time to spare. So thorough or grinding just aren't necessary.
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Post by JuniorFE on Sept 21, 2023 9:13:59 GMT
It's pretty amazing how, in such a big game, Larian went out of their way to make so many minor things charming and interesting. They didn't have to, say, add voice acting to the Vicious Mockery lines, but here we are: and now I want to have everyone dabble in Bard just for kicks  It's this kind of polish and attention to detail that shows real care went into the game IMO |
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alastair
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Post by alastair on Sept 21, 2023 10:51:44 GMT
I'm doing a second more thorough playthrough. Even on Tactician it's going way quicker as I just understand the systems better. First playthrough I wasn't very thorough and hit the level cap with time to spare. So thorough or grinding just aren't necessary. Is it capped at level 20, or lower? Level 20 is the cap in the table top game. And when you get there (We've never got past about lvl 13 in our group) you are *seriously* powerful. |
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zephro
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Post by zephro on Sept 21, 2023 10:57:07 GMT
I'm doing a second more thorough playthrough. Even on Tactician it's going way quicker as I just understand the systems better. First playthrough I wasn't very thorough and hit the level cap with time to spare. So thorough or grinding just aren't necessary. Is it capped at level 20, or lower? Level 20 is the cap in the table top game. And when you get there (We've never got past about lvl 13 in our group) you are *seriously* powerful. It caps out at 12 mostly as they seem to not want to have to start implementing shit like the Wish spell. As that's where stuff starts to become silly, leading up to the very silly of lvl 20 being able to duke it out with gods. |
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Post by skalpadda on Sept 21, 2023 11:00:55 GMT
Over 150 hours for my (very thorough) first playthrough. I don't know exactly how long since I have a bad habit of leaving games running while I do other stuff. Second playthrough has been much faster. There's plenty of XP to get, so no need to worry about hitting the level cap before the end.
Astarion is almost better as a Bard than as a Rogue. It fits his swagger perfectly and lines up with his story as well. It's a shame Vicious Mockery is rarely worth casting other than for the humour.
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askew
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Post by askew on Sept 21, 2023 16:48:18 GMT
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zephro
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Post by zephro on Sept 21, 2023 17:04:19 GMT
I really hope the new patch tomorrow fixes my performance issues. Well not performance. But no matter how small the environment or how little anything is going on my CPU is constantly 80-100%. Even in a tiny basement. It's not a GPU issue that's at 30-40%. The disk is doing nothing etc.
Really feels like there's a rogue spinlock somewhere in the code and it's a bug. As it's not like it's actually got more logic going on than say Total War.
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Post by skalpadda on Sept 21, 2023 22:31:41 GMT
I hope they let us turn off (or remove altogether) NPCs panicking about summons, animal companions and druids in Wild Shape. It's very annoying to either have to dismiss/relocate things or chase NPCs around when you want to interact with them.
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