For anyone else who is wondering - the game works great on the steam deck. I actually prefer it over my macbook pro because it’s easier to read the screen. I’ve gotten hours logged into the game so far.
It is a perfect update of the franchise. The storylines and writing are top notch, and the technology is blowing me away with how they managed to update everything while keeping the feel.
Yup, I’ve tested windows->steam deck so far. No reason to believe it won’t work the other way around (paths seem to be compatible at least).
how’s the current state of controller support? i played a bit during EA but had been planning on waiting til the PS5 release cuz I figure the layout options would be in a better state by then.
Different than D:OS2, which means I’ve skipped a couple turns accidentally while adjusting to the new scheme. And there is some level of “I have 30 actions I could do so have multiple screens of choices to sort through”, but it’s not bad to get used to and I think it mostly works reasonably well. There are a couple changes vs D:OS2 I would have rather seen reverted (I like the old inventory better), but for the depth of the options you have it’s done pretty well. As much as I personally want to play everything with a controller, there’s a reason certain games don’t bother supporting them. They do a good job of showing that controllers are capable with good design.
There’s a controller layout from someone with some thousand hours of playtime that imitates a more traditional mouse setup where you move the cursor with the right track pad and then right and left click with the triggers (like you would in desktop mode). I’ve switched to using that and I like it more, even though the official controller layout does a decent job, it gets a bit annoying going through all the combat actions.
The only problem I’ve run into is my own muscle memory difference between the switch and deck layouts. The way they’ve done the radial menus, and especially the turn-based combat, make controller confusion much less of a factor. My thumb still gets confused between A and B more than. anything else, but BG is very forgiving.
As a point of reference Cyberpunk to be pretty tough in the real time parts. Stray is a bit more forgiving and had been my most played deck game before BG.
I can already tell I’m going to play this one through the end though.
@InfiniteLoop@lemm.ee English1•
how’s the current state of controller support? i played a bit during EA but had been planning on waiting til the PS5 release cuz I figure the layout options would be in a better state by then.
Haven’t played it myself, but this article on PCGamer seems to imply that it’s good support since they switched to using controller completely: https://www.pcgamer.com/baldurs-gate-3-controller-playthrough/
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Baldur’s Gate 3 just hit half a million concurrent players, and is already on track to challenge mega-franchise Harry Potter’s Hogwarts Legacy for this year’s Steam sales crown.
While old-school tactics franchises like XCOM vanish from purview, series like Final Fantasy drop turn-based gameplay altogether chasing broader audiences, and classic names like Diablo go always-online rammed with in-app purchases — Larian said no.
It’s also a turn-based RPG that follows cRPG traditions carried forward by a shrinking number of studios who seem to have convinced themselves in various ways that players don’t want this kind of game.
Forget for a moment that the game is just insanely good, with great writing, endless Dungeons & Dragons-inspired depth, and quite polished, optimized PC performance.
As such, I’m similarly nervous for Dragon Age 4, which according to leaks, has dropped tactical play in favor of chasing more action-oriented combat, doubtless with trend-chasing in mind.
Larian’s respect for its audience, the relentless pursuit of quality over quarterly targets, and the rejection of trend-chasing in favor of elevating classic gameplay conventions are being rewarded by gamers in droves.
I’m a bot and I’m open source!
People are just tired of the anti-consumer bullshit and it shows. I’m glad Larian are thinking ahead instead of grabbing the cash now and running unlike most modern day triple A developers.
Really shows that they care for the games that they make and the audience they’ve amassed.
Hopefully this helps kill MTX, lootboxes and Battlepasses.
I hate MTX, lootboxes, and battle passes, but I cannot imagine that they’ll go away unless it’s to replace them with something even worse.
Those “games” on Nintendo Switch that are just a license to access a cloud streaming version of the title is, in my opinion, a much worse issue than MTX.
In fact, one of them was taken offline - the Switch is still active, which means there are people who paid full price for a singleplayer game and it no longer exists.
MTX is here to stay, the numbers speak for themselves. It’s unfortunate, but unless people stop buying them (they won’t) they aren’t going anywhere.
Dragon Age Inquisition was already a giant pile of shit, why would anyone expect anything else from a studio that hasn’t released a decent game in over a decade?
Do what people want and they buy your game?
Lets get those fucking MBAs out of the gaming industry.
Fuck you bobby kotik for creating this mess.
Well think of the ROI for horse armor. One new model. How many sales do you need before you cover that cost?
EXCEPT it uses a launcher, that’d be my only complaint. When I click ‘Play’, I want my game to launch, not take me to another screen where I have to click ‘Play’ yet again.
“–skip-launcher” added to launch options in steam should skip straight to the game
In Linux it is pretty much mandatory, it asks for NVIDIA 536 drivers, max on linux is 535… skip the launcher, and suddenly my drivers are okay (and tbf, aside from my card not being extra good, and a couple texture bleed in portraits and some weird texture loading issues (like, some times faces look like they were hyper pimpled, for a lil while, then looks normal) it plays amazingly
On one hand though, it at least offers something with the launcher: cross-saving. Not for everyone, but kinda neat if you also play in a console.
You can add --skip-launcher to the game launch options. I actually did it while debugging an issue getting the game to launch and have never even seen the launcher despite playing quite a few sessions!
It’d be nice not to have to tweak things like that but at least the option is there similar to Cyberpunk
An own launcher does not fit at all to what is reported about Larian. Steam has monopoly position and that will probably not change so quickly. Another launcher will only annoy the users. I personally avoid even games that need an extra launcher on steam like from Ubisoft or EA.
The paradox of homogeneization… The more the industry trends towards chasing what’s considered to work and be safe, the more room it leaves for the truly bold like these guys to be successful by doing what’s considered to not work anymore.
Always beautiful to see.
It’s true. Kevin Feige (of the Marvel movies) once said something like, “People love chocolate ice cream, but if that’s all you offer them every day, they’ll start to hate it.” and for a time, it seemed like he and Disney / Marvel understood that, which lead to such a wide range of movie genres for the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the breakout successes… but now I feel like they’ve forgotten that, and now we get the formulaic “Marvel Movie” template shoveled out, and now they’re slowly starting to fail.
And for good reason. People need variety, and it’s because entertainment producers don’t understand this need that so many major studios are flailing. Hence the recent purge at Pixar for example, and why Ubisoft is struggling lately, etc. It’s not just game publishers that have this issue, it’s movies, tv, and comics too. Like the recent “Death” of Ms. Marvel which is eerily similar to all the extremely temporary crap that happened to Peter Parker’s Spiderman in the past, like the “death” of his aunt, or his “marriage” to Mary Jane.
Adding onto this, it also doesn’t help that executives go “hey, this movie/game/show has proven to work in the past and generated X amount of money, let’s do it again but slightly different,” which also contributes to everything feeling the same and formulaic due to corporate entities wanting their investment back on a “creative” entertainment product.