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ampersandrew, in How are you all playing these insanely complex games?
ampersandrew avatar

Baldur's Gate 3 has a lot of mechanics to it, but it does a really good job of onboarding you in most of them. On character creation, or on leveling up, or anything where the game asks you to make a decision about how you've built out your character, there are tooltips to explain the mechanics. Mouse over it if you're on mouse + keyboard, or press Select or click in the right analog stick if you're on controller (it should tell you which one). It will explain everything you need to know there. But if you'd like to breeze past the character creation screen, you can choose an origin character, which are pre-made, or you can stick to basics. Choose a Fighter with 17 Strength if you want to do melee stuff. Choose a Rogue with 17 Dexterity if you want to do ranged attacks like bows. Choose a Wizard with 17 Intelligence if you want to do magic; magic uses "spell slots" instead of mana or MP, which basically just means you can use a spell that many times. When you get the option to choose a "feat", which is approximately every 4 levels, upgrade that primary attribute until it hits 20, which is the max. Whatever that attribute is (the ones I just listed for those classes), the higher it is, the more likely you are to hit with your attacks.

The gist of it is, when you find a complicated game, you can often just engage with it on the most basic level, and then once you master that basic level, you build on it a little bit at a time. BG3 is a long game, so you've got plenty of opportunity to master what you know before building on it; rinse, repeat. I've applied this same methodology to fighting games plenty of times as well, which many people would consider to be a difficult genre to learn. We got rid of game manuals a long time ago, so complex games have had to get better and better at teaching you how to play while you're playing.

helenslunch,

Thank you for this insightful feedback ❤️

massive_bereavement,
massive_bereavement avatar

I had the same overwhelming reaction to BG3's creation menu, but honestly, the game goes the mile to let you change everything later if you feel like it and honestly there's a "go with the flow" vibe by the fact that very few cases have instant game over conclusions.

I would say though that combat tends to be a measure twice and cut once because there's often an easy way of dealing with it, being either using the environment or exploring first another location that might give an advantage.

helenslunch,

I will just dive in, then!

EvaUnit02,
EvaUnit02 avatar

I love both Baldur's Gate III and fighting games but disagree. I think both are woefully inadequate at explaining their rules to players. Larian games need to not only make BGIII's rules as clear as a rulebook but also make tactics and strategies plain and clear to the user. Otherwise, it is very easy to fall back on decades of video game expectation only to realize your expectations are wrong. I had a co-op game of BG3 with a friend. My friend couldn't understand why he had to position his units anywhere. Didn't understand why inventory wasn't just immediately being teleported to a shared infinite item box. Didn't understand the basic mechanics of D&D combat (which even then, Larian changes to various degrees) Didn't understand why decisions had any meaningful consequences. Didn't even understand what he was supposed to be doing narratively despite there being a quest log and having us recap the story up to the point we were.

While fighting game tutorials have gotten better, I still have yet to experience one that explains very basic things that the FGC takes for granted. Things like health bars being identical physical lengths but representing different numerical values. Things like "waiting for your turn." Things like meter management.

Complex games are great. But complex games need to recognize that they have a larger duty to teach than simpler games. I think video game design needs to take a page out of tabletop game design and provide some analog to the tabletop rulebook: complete with not just rules but detailed explanations, sidebars, and examples of play.

ampersandrew,
ampersandrew avatar

I agree that fighting games haven't made it where they need to be yet. In fact, I've only ever found one that explains how to defend against a command grab, which is a very basic thing they should be doing better. As you agreed though, they're getting a lot closer, with a lot of intermediate steps along the way.

I disagree that the teaching tools are insufficient if they never teach you about something like positioning in Baldur's Gate. For one, you can observe that your opponents are doing so, and you can observe which things that makes easier or harder for you and why, like now it's harder for your melee character to hit them when they run away. That's way better than someone telling you about it, and it's better onboarding to not info dump all the rules at once.

EvaUnit02,
EvaUnit02 avatar

While I agree in principle, I think a game needs to make it clear when something isn't window dressing. My buddy just couldn't understand why positioning mattered. It never clicked for him because he figured RPG combat was just "swing a sword/shoot an arrow until the other guy dies". We had to explain it to him. He also never thought to explore the UI for information as to why his movement was reduced or why he was disadvantaged, despite having icons next to his character with tooltips explaining what status effects were in play. While it may seem obvious that things are happening on screen and one could deduce that something meaningful is occuring, I think if I'm honest, I can't blame my buddy for not understanding. I've fallen victim to it myself.

Sometimes we just don't, on our own, interpret information as being meaningful. Consequently, we unduly discard it before making decisions. I think it's important to be told in one form or the other when something matters. Whether that's tutorialization or otherwise, I think it's important. I think the more complicated the game, the easier it is for a player to fall in to a trap of discarding important information and subsequently becoming frustrated.

I think even something as simple as the game making its expectations clear from the start could go a long way. Something as simple as conveying to the user that they are expected to be attentive as they play.

ampersandrew, (edited )
ampersandrew avatar

We had to explain it to him.

This line strikes me as curious. Were you playing co-op together for his first time through? There are a lot of tutorials in the early game that explain so much of this stuff that you have to explicitly dismiss that they're hard to miss...unless you're in a discord call with some friends. And did you have to explain it to him, or was that just the first opportunity he had to raise the question, and you answered right away without him having time to figure it out himself? Did he ask you because he found the game difficult, or did you just tell him without him even asking because you observed that he wasn't using his movement? The opening moments of the game actually require you to use your movement in turn based combat in order to continue, and you can observe which enemies can reach you or not as you approach your objective.

If your friend really had this hard of a time learning that without trying to see how to overcome the challenge by just doing anything else besides what didn't work, it sounds like the type of person that Sony gets for their play tests that tells them they need to give an answer to a puzzle after looking at it for only a few seconds. I don't know that you can onboard that person without frustrating everyone else, other than easy mode, which BG3 does have, and it tells you what kinds of expectations it has of you on that screen.

EvaUnit02,
EvaUnit02 avatar

And did you have to explain it to him, or was that just the first opportunity he had to raise the question, and you answered right away without him having time to figure it out himself?

I suppose it was a bit of both.

It was three of us playing. I had finished the game already by the time we started. At first, we left it to him to explore the systems on his own. He got frustrated with that and would complain that we weren't telling him what to do. So, we gradually explained more and more until we just started making decisions on our own. He was still frustrated. For example, late in to Act I, he would continue to throw his cleric in to the middle of battle as a melee fighter and die. Shortly after that, we all decided to stop playing.

There are a lot of tutorials in the early game that explain so much of this stuff that you have to explicitly dismiss that they're hard to miss.

I must have missed them, then. I don't recall any tutorials explaining anything beyond the cursory "you have to be in range to attack" or "potions heal HP" type of things. In fact, I loaded up my save and perused the tutorials again. The tutorial titled "Combat" simply tells you that there's an initiative roll, combatants are listed at the top of the screen, and during a turn, a character may take an action, bonus action, and move. It's entirely unhelpful. It may as well be a fighting game tutorial which says, "use punches and kicks to defeat your opponent."

The opening moments of the game actually require you to use your movement in turn based combat in order to continue, and you can observe which enemies can reach you or not as you approach your objective.

I got through it by just running past most everyone. Sure, you can clearly see you have to move and that you have actions to take but nothing else is explained beyond that. I think that opening sequence is a great example of the lack of explanations in the game. My buddy thought he had to kill absolutely everyone on the nautiloid. We tried twice before telling him that you can continue moving past enemies. The thought never occured to him. I can't blame him, either. All you're told is that you have to connect the transponder in a certain amount of turns and narratively, there's a sense of urgency. Nothing tells you that you don't have to kill everything on the screen. That might seem painfully obvious but that's my point: things obvious to one person are not obvious to another. That doesn't make someone stupid, either. They just have different experiences and different expectations.

Nothing in the game explains that encounters are not immutable. Nothing in the game, as far as I can remember, explains the value of environmental elements and how to leverage them in combat. Nothing explains the tactical value of oil or water on the ground. Nothing explains the concept of crowd control at all. Nothing explains how to keep backline party members safe. This is all left for the player to discover.

I've been playing Larian games for a long time and I don't remember a single one of BGIII, DOS2, or DOS ever explaining these concepts. If you walk in to these games without the understanding that you are expected to be observant and play around with the game mechanics, you will have a bad time. There are innumerable posts on the Web by people frustrated with the game because they don't know what to do. My buddy is not an isolated example. People think differently.

My buddy tried fighting in melee combat as a low-level cleric. That might be a totally valid thing to do in something like Final Fantasy. My buddy thought he had to kill every enemy on the nautiloid. Maybe that's just what you do in something like Diablo. Hell, I just finished a dungeon in Star Ocean which required exactly that. (It even told me upfront that would be the expectation of the dungeon) We are taught things which influence our decision making process. Without being told otherwise, it can be hard to understand exactly what is being asked of us as players as we try to reconcile those expections with our experiences.

My buddy didn't need to be told what to do. What he needed to be told is what he can do and why he might want to do those things. In that, Larian failed him and, in my opinion as an adoring fan of their games, they have a habit of doing so.

ampersandrew,
ampersandrew avatar

I don't think you actually let your friend fail and try to figure out how to not fail, and I don't think it makes the game better when you're so afraid of letting the player fail and apply what they've learned that there aren't actually any decisions to make, like those Sony examples (God of War and Horizon's latest entries, to be specific, were the ones that caught flak for this). That's where the fun comes from.

I don't recall any tutorials explaining anything beyond the cursory "you have to be in range to attack"

And that's all you need to know in order to determine that positioning matters. They also explain opportunity attacks.

The tutorial titled "Combat" simply tells you that there's an initiative roll, combatants are listed at the top of the screen, and during a turn, a character may take an action, bonus action, and move.

Which are a few of the things you said your friend was unaware of, despite the fact that several of these things are reiterated on most of the cards for your available actions during combat.

I've been playing Larian games for a long time and I don't remember a single one of BGIII, DOS2, or DOS ever explaining these concepts.

Me neither, but even in my brief time with DOS1, I don't recall needing to be told either. I just somehow found out that poison clouds can be set on fire, and very quickly.

This is not an insult to your friend, but just because he falls into the group that didn't catch on immediately, I don't think that's indicative that the game is bad at teaching you how to play it. The Nautiloid highlights exactly where you have to go and how many turns you have to do it. If you let him fail once and try again, presumably, he'd realize that what he was doing wasn't working and notice that giant UI element telling him how many turns he had to get to his objective.

maynarkh, in Disney's CEO Is Reportedly Being Urged to Consider Turning Company Into a 'Gaming Giant' [and buying EA]

I love that “innovation” with big US companies always means acquiring another company. Not like EA is a big innovator either.

It always reminds me of this.

Bldck,

Or AOL-Time-Warner-Pepsico-Viacom-Halliburton-Skynet-Toyota-Trader-Joe’s from Bojack Horseman

Leafeytea,

😂 😂 💜

Sidewayshighways,

Verizon Chipotle exon, Proud to be one of America’s 4 companies.

bionicjoey,

“Wait so how many companies are there in the world now?”

“Nine.”

llii,

Yeah, but don’t worry. It’s not a monopoly until only one company bought every other.

perishthethought,

Ooohhhh, please don’t suggest anyone buy Trader Joe’s. That would F Up my world.

HarkMahlberg,
HarkMahlberg avatar

Trader Joe's is privately owned, but it is owned by Aldi.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trader_Joe%27s

luciferofastora,

More specifically, by the heirs of Theo Albrecht, one of the two brothers that founded the two Aldi companies.

perishthethought,

Hrrrrmm, TIL. As long as they keep it running the same, that’s OK.

luciferofastora,

Albrecht has owned it for most of its existence. The first TJ was opened '67, Albrecht owned the chain since '79, so out of itd 56 years, 48 have been in possession of himself or his family.

KingThrillgore,
@KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml avatar

I actually like both Trader Joe’s and Aldi in the states because they both prioritize affordability

luciferofastora,

The name ALDI literally stood for “Albrecht’s Discount”. It was part of their concept from the start. We can bicker about quality, but if you don’t have the luxury of choice, their prices are generally good here in Germany too.

KingThrillgore,
@KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml avatar

I’m actually quite impressed with the quality of their organic goods.

moody,

Trader Joe’s is already owned by Aldi.

RootBeerGuy, in How to let my kids find quality games on Android? Right now they only find the pay to win / ad riddled games.
@RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

www.darkpattern.games

I have not extensively used this site but it seems to have some good pointers

So maybe check with them there first, then install

sylverstream,

Thanks, interesting site! Bookmarked.

fbmac,

I loved that this one explain each of these dark patterns too

ICastFist, in Hatoful Boyfriend creator: "btw I’ve got no royalty payment for Hatoful Boyfriend from Epic since they acquired Mediatonic back in spring 2021"
@ICastFist@programming.dev avatar

Nitter link - nitter.net/moa810/status/1707541071205724413

He’s basically asking for information on who he should contact because of that, since he didn’t get any replies from Epic yet. Comments are mostly people being shocked.

Let’s see what happens 'til the end of the day, or next week.

bl00dmeat, in Please help me select parts for a "competent" gaming PC

What I usually tell people is "set a budget". You can always fall in to the trap of $20 more here, $40 more there...etc and explode your budget.

If you can keep moving the needle, you can keep dumping more into better components in different areas.

Use PCPartPicker to make sure everything is compatible, check the price history to see if there's a similar component available for cheaper or if you're getting a good value, and make decisions on what is necessary. Also, pick a date. You can hang around for MONTHS waiting on a certain part to hit a price drop.

bl00dmeat,

Going back through your specs...bro a 4090 costs basically the same as my whole PC that's running games at 120 FPS+ on a 4k monitor with no issues.

Check out combo deals on Newegg for Mobo+RAM+CPU, or Microcenter if you have one nearby (I don't). Your biggest factor for gaming will be the GPU. You can run 60+ FPS on a 1080P monitor on 5 year old midrange GPUs. If you need 4k res, ask on PCPartPicker forums.

C4d,

The above build (with a suitable NZXT H7 case) can be built for around £3,800; such a generous budget might be doable but deep down I know this build is over the top and that I cannot really justify ploughing that much into something like this. Thank you for the PCPartPicker recommendation; I will try that.

bl00dmeat,

I got mine for just under $1800 US early this year, with just online deals available at the time, no waiting for better pricing (honestly PSU prices were INSANE at the time and that made a difference). I wouldn't change a single part today. It does everything I need (including video editing/rendering)

TowardsTheFuture, in ‘I am sorry’: Unity partially walks back on controversial monetization plans | VGC

So they walked back the part where they would’ve been sued anyways because it was already in their contract that they couldn’t retroactively charge you unless you renewed/updated. They of course changed it for this update.

“Oops you caught us doing something illegal and bad so we’ll still do the bad part, but we are sooo sorry you caught us trying to do something against our contracts, so I guess we’ll remove that part. See how sorry and humbled we are? Now give us your money.”

TipRing,
TipRing avatar

Someone finally calculated the cost of legal challenges, I guess. While this certainly saves in developer costs in legal fees, I don't see why anyone would keep their projects in Unity under the new terms, charging a developer based on a metric disconnected from sales is always going to incur unacceptable risk unless the developer has really deep pockets.

echodot,

I never understood why they even had that clause in their contract. You’re already not allowed to change the terms of a contract after the contract has been agreed (because otherwise what’s the point), you don’t need to independently include wording to say you won’t do it. Equally removing the wording doesn’t allow you to make those changes.

So effectively they had some wording that didn’t give anybody any additional protections, then removed it, thus not removing any protections. They then acted as if that weirdly allowed them to break the law, and then broke the law. Then when someone pointed out that’s not how it works, they backtracked.

Does Unity even have any corporate lawyers?

Fiivemacs, in Unity Apologizes For Runtime Fee Policy, Promises To Alter Plan This Week

All developers should continue to move to other platforms. Do not trust anything unity says.

Moonrise2473,

exactly, this is a non-apology. It’s just the social media manager who come back to work after the weekend and is trying to mitigate the situation.

There’s a chance that they will come out and say “ok we listened to the community, we don’t want the 20 cents per install anymore, we want 15 cents”

BTW if they really have a tech that can distinguish pirated installs with a 100% success rate are and not just lying “trust our numbers, they’re correct”, they should monetize that, developers are paying much more for Denuvo.

TwilightVulpine, in GameStop Boss Says Disc Drives Should Be Required On Game Consoles

He is obviously biased by his business interests, but frankly he is ultimately correct. Once consoles are digital only, console players will lose the last form of control they have over anything they own.

WagesOf,

They're all digital only now. There's no reason, at all, to have optical drives in consoles. With the advent of direct nvme to video memory you have to load content to the nvme anyway because spinning g plastic sucks soooo much. Today SD is actually cheaper per gb than Blu-ray.

Want to purchase a physical copy? Buy it on a SD card and get a $10 usb SD card reader, which will be compatible with every console anyway.

My prediction will be that the next gen (PS6) will go 100% download only, get shat on then start up a service with gamestop or someone to distro encrypted game installs onto WHATEVER usb media you bring in.

mcforest,

Today SD is actually cheaper per gb than Blu-ray.

Just checked Amazon prizes for the first best SD card and Bluray disc. This is a lie. Discs are still less than half the prize.

And you didn't take into consideration that it's much cheaper and faster to press the data onto the disc than writing on an SD card when you do that in great numbers.

w2tpmf,

You should check prices on the 2GB SD cards not the high end ones because the disks usually contain that much or less. Most AAA games only have the game INSTALLER on the disk, and still require you to download the game in order to play it.

WagesOf,

30 second search at 100gb (modern AAA games and the biggest Bluray)

Bluray is $10 a disc, microsd is $8 and you get 128gb and can get bigger media, which doesn't exist for Bluray.

That doesn't account for mass production, fewer people care about physical media with every passing year.

Physical media will still exist, but it won't be optical. Opticals advantages over cart just don't exist anymore. You don't include a $80+ part on the bom when less than 5% of your users want it and that 5% can get a bog standard usb device that can be had for $10

SaltySalamander,
SaltySalamander avatar

MicroSD is not comparable to the flash memory on NVME SSDs.

Bluray is $10 a disc

Bluray hasn't been $10 a disc since maybe 2003. Bluray discs are literally pennies to a manufacturer like Sony.

WagesOf,

Nobody said it was. It's a medium to get games from a brick and mortar store to install onto the nvme on the console you can't play modern games directly from Bluray either.

deetz,

Its incredibly niave to think it costs Sony, co-developer of blu-ray, $10 to press a game onto a blu-ray disc. Its probably costs a dollar or less to manufacturer a disc by bow. They can sell blurray movies for $9.99 and still profit.

It will definitely be cheaper for Sony to stick with optical discs next gen if they don't drop the drive entirely.

WagesOf,

It's also dumb to expect they'll be paying retail for microsd or whatever usb flash sticks they decive to use.

TwilightVulpine,

You are mixing having your own physical copy with needing to run games straight from the disk. Nevermind that there's no reason that games couldn't be sold on faster cartridges, you can still have a physical media that can install a game into the console. Offline, without relying on an online service that will inevitably close eventually.

As it is, with disks and cartridges, they can't make it so absolutely every game must check with their online services. They have to make sure grandma in the boonies can make little Timmy's game work right out of the box. Without them, there's nothing stopping them. They could even straight up say that "no game could be expected to last more than 10 years", and I see enough people that already seem ready to fall for that. Nevermind that to this day there's people playing the nearly 40 year old Super Mario Bros.

w2tpmf,

They have to make sure grandma in the boonies can make little Timmy's game work right out of the box.

...and yet, most AAA games cannot do this, and require you to go online and download the game assets after you put the disk in the console.

TwilightVulpine,

I literally just replied to you about this and I don't know where you are getting it from. Games may ask for updates but games that are unplayable without downloads are very much the exception.

gvasco,

Not if modern proof of ownership technologies are implemented, such as NFT smart contracts.

TwilightVulpine,

Nah, dumping your own copy, or at least DRM-free digital, is a much more reliable way to maintain your ownership than any blockchain-based system.

AnonTwo,

You don't need CDs for that, and CDs don't prevent that.

As the other user pointed out, most CDs don't even have a playable form of the game on them anymore. You usually need additional updates to actually play the game (or in the case of those steam installs, the CD doesn't even have a bare minimum on it)

Technically you can own a game as a digital install too, just they won't deliver it that way.

TwilightVulpine, (edited )

Most? That's definitely not right. Every single game I bought up to the PS4 could be played without any downloads.

ag_roberston_author,
@ag_roberston_author@beehaw.org avatar

I think they mean most recent or most new games, the PS4 came out nearly a decade ago.

w2tpmf,

Every single game I bought up to the PS4 could be played without any downloads.

But they still couldn't be played directly from the disk, which is part of the point of the comment you replied to. Every single game I have for PS3 requires it to be installed onto the console in order to play it.

TwilightVulpine,

This is why I edited my last comment to say explicitly "played without any download" rather than "run from the disk", the comment I replied to was missing my point. I couldn't care less if the disk goes spinny or not, this is not about storage technology, it's about control over the games you buy. The point is owning games without being bound to online services, which a disk that can be installed directly does perfectly fine.

HellAwaits,

Unless it needs a day one patch, then you’re SHIT OUTTA LUCK

stopthatgirl7,
stopthatgirl7 avatar

I watched a YouTube video where the guy played Cyberpunk on a PS4 from disc with no patches installed. It was as bad as you think.

TwilightVulpine,

Cyberpunk on PS4 was an unparalleled shitshow

scrubbles, in Hi, I'm A Stupid Person Who Gets Mad At Review Scores
@scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech avatar

Beautiful. I’m playing it now and gotta say, I hate everyone who has talked about it up until now. From the die-hard fanboys who say it has to be the best game ever created, to the anti-bethesda circlejerkers who roam every gaming community telling people how it’s a terrible game even though they have not played it.

I’m tired of everyone and their opinions about gaming. I bought it with mid expectations, and I am happy with my purchase.

strongarm,

Isn’t this the outcome from it all?

Rational people who aren’t fanboys or haters buy and play games with low expectations, and are rarely disappointed.

DarkThoughts,

Honestly, the game is exactly what I expected from all the pre-release info. It's a Bethesda RPG in space. I didn't expect a space sim, so I didn't expect any sort of dynamic streaming for seamless planetary transitions and the likes, because they very clearly stated that this wasn't a thing.

And the capital G Gamers seem to be more bothered by pronouns, body types, female leaders, all the "replaced white people", etc. lol
Seriously, stay away from the Steam forums folks.

stopthatgirl7,
stopthatgirl7 avatar

And the capital G Gamers seem to be more bothered by pronouns, body types, female leaders, all the "replaced white people", etc. lol

Capital G Gamers were a mistake.

Erk,

Whenever anyone calls me by my “they them” pronouns in game, a tiny juvenile part of me chuckles at the Gamerz out there who I’m sure are frothing at the mouth at the fact that I can play a single player game how I want.

DarkThoughts,

I was considering using they / them for a second, just for shits & giggles, but then thought it's likely not even really used in a lot of dialogs anyway (very much true after many hours later now). In hindsight it would have probably just confused me though, thinking they talk about someone else. Because I am super tired from literally playing too much, which completely fucks with my concentration & attention span. lol

AngrilyEatingMuffins,
AngrilyEatingMuffins avatar

I think it's pretty good so far. I wish it were half as wide and twice as deep, though.

stopthatgirl7,
stopthatgirl7 avatar

I’ve heard it described as wide as an ocean but deep as a puddle.

AngrilyEatingMuffins,
AngrilyEatingMuffins avatar

I wouldn’t go that far but if you’re looking to explore alien biomes or whatever it’s not gonna be ideal

bermuda,

incredibly based

powerofm,

Same. I know game reviews have been getting worse lately, but the whole discourse around Starfield feels particularly terrible.

TonyTonyChopper, in Xbox boss would ‘love to find solutions’ so games aren’t lost when the 360 store closes | VGC
@TonyTonyChopper@mander.xyz avatar

The final solution 🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

orca, in Hi-Rez Studios, the people behind Paladins and Smite, have stated that they will be using AI to clone voices and refused to add in any words to contracts that would protect actors from it
@orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts avatar

I will happily continue to not pay for games that do this and I won’t be missing out on anything.

This is on par with restaurants that microwave garbage food. They’re phoning it in to squeeze as much profit as possible out of the product. That tells me you don’t want to make games people enjoy, you want to make games that do nothing but maximize profit. I ain’t here for that shit. I’m willing to pay money for companies that respect art and trades, not ones that worship capitalism and exist to appease assholes in suits.

GolGolarion, in Baldur’s Gate 3 Is One Of 2023's Best Games, Don't Turn It Into A Weapon

What do you mean “dont turn it into a weapon,” i have a dedicated spot on my action wheel specifically for turning things into weapons. My barbarian buddy can do it as a bonus action

cdipierr,

Pro-tip: if a low-health enemy is close to escaping to call for help you can just throw Baldur’s Gate 3 at them for that last bit of damage!

TheOctonaut, in (SOLVED) Ok, so I just bought Baldurs Gate 3. Now how do I bypass the 'Create Larian Account' bit without creating an account?

If you’re using Steam (or any kind of shortcut I suppose), add --skip-launcher to the launch options. Here’s how to do so with Steam:

  • Right-click the game in your library and select Properties.
  • Look for the Launch Options field at the bottom of the General tab.
  • Add “–skip-launcher” and close the properties window.
  • Launch the game as normal.
Faydaikin, (edited )
@Faydaikin@beehaw.org avatar

Thank you for the step-by-step. Steam can be a bit of a maze when you don’t fiddle with these things so often. :)

Edit: Apparently it’s " --skip-launcher" the extra dash matters XD

Smoke,

In future, drop by the PC Gaming Wiki first - it’s a great resource for exactly this kind of question.

Skip Larian launcher on startup

Faydaikin,
@Faydaikin@beehaw.org avatar

The Launcher bit was a helpful add-in by a another kind user. I didn’t ask about that specifically, just mentioned that I dislike extra launchers.

My question was far more stupid than that. However, people came through for me regardless. And very fast at that. And for that, I am thankful.

jherazob,
@jherazob@beehaw.org avatar

I wish all these games had skippable launchers, i refuse to touch any game that needs a launcher beyond Steam

Nighed,
@Nighed@sffa.community avatar

Does it launch with directx or Vulcan when you do this?

punter,

For me it chose direct x so I had to use the launcher. Vulcan is much better for me (just be sure to not use triple buffer for nvidia cards). Just choose skip and check the box that says ‘do not ask again’ and the launcher is less aggravating.

Avanera,

What differences do you see when you use Vulcan? And what's the deal with triple buffering?

TigrisMorte,

vulkan is more efficient on AMD than directx, as I understand it.

Sina,

When Vulcan worked for me it used less Vram, then dx11 does now on linux.

punter,

My experience is that the directx reflections and post processing look worse. Triple buffering on was causing screen tears.

circuitfarmer,
@circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Triple buffering basically means that the GPU can temporarily store frames in three different locations in VRAM. This has implications for smoothness and frame time, so it should in theory always be the best option for v-sync and avoiding tearing.

Vulcan should be more efficient so you should get somewhat better performance, though my understanding is it depends on card (AMD cards are kind of designed for Vulkan, but not so much nvidia cards).

Nighed,
@Nighed@sffa.community avatar

It looks like the following should work (from one of the links above)

https://sffa.community/pictrs/image/3e47b677-886b-4815-95be-a6eedec8e5a0.png

raphael,

You can also make it launch the Vulkan version with skipping the launcher. Seehttps://gamepretty.com/baldurs-gate-3-how-to-skip-launcher-and-use-desired-graphical-api-vulkan-dx11/

circuitfarmer, (edited )
@circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

If anyone happens to be playing on Steam Deck (or any Linux desktop), the launch options are slightly different:

  • DX11 no launcher: –skip-launcher
  • Vulkan no launcher: bash -c ‘exec “${@/bin/bg3.exe}”’ – %command% --skip-launcher

Though for this particular title, the Vulkan one is really crashy on my system rn, which is ironic since the DX11 shaders are converted to Vulkan on Linux.

Sina,

On my system dx11 crashes right away, so vk it is…

circuitfarmer,
@circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Larian themselves warn that Vulkan should be the least stable of the two options at the moment. That said, I’ve heard tons of conflicting reports, so it may be super dependent on specific hardware.

Sina,

Ironically, with the final (not the pre-purchase) release it’s the other way around. Vulcan crashes after the airship cinematic… (I’m also on Linux)

TigrisMorte,

directx is the default and you must apply another switch to start with vulkan https://gamepretty.com/baldurs-gate-3-how-to-skip-launcher-and-use-desired-graphical-api-vulkan-dx11/

Smoke,

You can start the exe you want directly from the directory, there’s one for each renderer: www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Baldur's_Gate_3#Skip_La…

flying_monkies,
flying_monkies avatar

Thank you for the info on this, will be using it going forward.

Not sure if you did this on purpose, or if something else did it as part of editing, but your bulleted steps included an en dash (–) instead of two short dashes (--).

Have had issues in the past with that, generally with WYSIWYG type editors combining your -- into either – or —.

AnarchoYeasty,

Ugh word does this. I didn’t realize until I wrote some documentation for a cli tool I made for a client and I wrote the documentation in word because they are fairly non technical so I wrote in the documentation sample arguments they can copy and paste and shipped it feeling good that it would work flawlessly because I tested the crap out of it. Or so I thought because they immediately hit back with it doesn’t work. I spent hours recreating their environment and watching it work no matter what I tried to get it to not work. Then I hopped on a call and had the client step by step show me what they did and they opened the word doc and copied the example commands, changed the arguments to be correct and run it. I followed along on my own machine and then I fucking saw what had happened. Fucking Microsoft Word replaced my " " with “ ” (straight quotes for smart quotes for those who cant see the difference). A quick patch of the cli to properly parse those and things were working again.

uid0gid0,

Copying out of MS products always seems to leave junk behind. The worst one is the zero-width space (unicode U+200B or hex e2808b) . Sharepoint loves to scatter these all over so any copy from a sharepoint source has to be put in a plain text editor and have a run through with a regex to find any invisible formatting characters.

TheOctonaut,

I typed them directly into my comment from an Android phone, and it continues to display as two hyphens/minuses for me. Are you it’s not your client trying to be clever?

vegivamp, in Ubisoft Can Delete Inactive Accounts, Making Users Lose Access to Their Games
@vegivamp@feddit.nl avatar

The thing is, just like software subscriptions, you aren’t buying a piece of software, you’re buying the right to use it. You can be pretty sure that they have legalese in the eula that says that your right to use the software expires with non-use. I wouldn’t be surprised if they can even let it expire by simple deciding to no longer support it.

And what do you think will happen if their license servers ever go offline?

For the longest time I never bought anything digital, but I eventually caved to steam. I still blatantly refuse to join other digital platforms, except gog where I can download the software and it works without any remote server.

Same for music: I refuse to use Spotify. I buy from 7digital and the like, where I can download either mp3 or FLAC.

NightOwl,

I’ve like GOG since whether they disappear they provide installers for users, so it’s the best of both worlds of easy launcher management and installer for those that want to archive and self host everything they buy.

QuestioningEspecialy,
QuestioningEspecialy avatar

Just reminded me of the concern people brought up when GOG Galaxy was starting out: Once most people are using the launcher, we're a few steps away from losing the installers. 😐🤷🏿‍♂️

ampersandrew,
ampersandrew avatar

The launcher is great for automated features that make our lives easier. But if the launcher is all we have and the installers are gone, the reason to use GOG at all over its competitors evaporates.

Grimpen,

Love that about GoG. It’s been my preferred store for years.

ampersandrew,
ampersandrew avatar

If only they had a Linux version of Galaxy for cloud saves and auto updates, it would be my preferred store.

RandomStickman,
RandomStickman avatar

It's the only thing stopping me from using GOG more. I've fiddled with Lutris but it's still pretty finicky. Proton making things run out of the box most of the time make it very hard to switch off of Steam.

Grimpen,

I’ve used Lutris and Heroic. They’re pretty good.

I’m thinking GoG should just support one of those projects to add functionality.

shadowbert,
shadowbert avatar

That only kinda works. No multiplayer, no achievements, no cloud saves...

Some people will immediatly want to respond with "I don't want that anyway". Before doing so, please consider whether you're missing the point entirely.

Grimpen,

That’s what I mean about supporting those projects. They could add functionality to Lutris or Heroic rather than build Galaxy for Linux.

Wittless,

I just use ownCloud for my own saves. I created a game saves file system to sync and some games that save out to different subdirectories, I just use symlinks

Chozo,
Chozo avatar

I wouldn’t be surprised if they can even let it expire by simple deciding to no longer support it.

That's one thing, and that's an acceptable risk everyone takes when buying from an online storefront, IMO. Eventually, they're going to stop supporting that, and we all kind of accept and agree to that. But this is them cutting off your access because you haven't played recently. They're not dropping support for the games in question, so this feels a bit unwarranted. What does it actually cost them to store your game license and save file? Is that cost really offset by the price of the games, themselves?

And what do you think will happen if their license servers ever go offline?

If Google Stadia is to be considered precedent, they refunded every purchased game and DLC when they shut down their service earlier this year. I should hope that a similar offering is made from other storefronts should they ever decide to cease operations.

ampersandrew,
ampersandrew avatar

Eventually, they're going to stop supporting that, and we all kind of accept and agree to that.

The hell we do. I've stopped buying games that disappear when some server somewhere goes offline.

cloaker,

You accept it by participating. You don't participate, therefore the comment wasn't referring to you.

ampersandrew,
ampersandrew avatar

I was simultaneously saying that we don't "all" participate, as well as encouraging others to do the one thing we can to stop the practice.

cloaker,

The comment was referring to people who do participate though. If I make a comment about Australians Americans aren't supposed to comment their disagreement

ampersandrew,
ampersandrew avatar

That's retroactively deciding your audience. Once again, I'm highlighting that it's not our only option to endorse the practice, whereas the language of the comment I replied to implied that it is.

cloaker,

No, it's not. The original comment was specifically referring to it being a risk you accept when buying off steam etc. You accept that by participating. You can protest outside the system but your comment is entirely wrong.

ampersandrew,
ampersandrew avatar

Not every game on Steam has DRM, let alone a server dependency.

cloaker,

Steam is naturally a DRM. Offline mode works for I think a month before you're locked out of your games.

ampersandrew,
ampersandrew avatar

Not all. Steam has DRM that developers don't have to use. Once the game is downloaded, it may not even check with Steam again to see if you own the game, even letting you launch the game when Steam is closed or uninstalled. It's not inherent to all Steam games.

cloaker,

Apologies, you are correct. In that case you are right.

shadowbert,
shadowbert avatar

At least with Spotify, you don't specifically buy any songs.
GOG is the only good egg in your list. Shame their Linux support is awful...

Crotaro,

You can be pretty sure that they have legalese in the eula that says that your right to use the software expires with non-use.

It’s not even in legalese. I’m on my phone right now and thus have no motivation to look through a couple EULAs but I did read the interesting parts of a handful of software EULAs. A couple straight up state that they can revoke your access for any reason (usually followed by “including x, y, z”). And especially for multiplayer games, I understand why you would prefer your wording as such instead of having to list and define every “bad behaviour” like cheating, cracking the game, being an asshole to the community (including the moderators), etc.

The decision makers at Ubisoft, I imagine, just went ahead and said “How about we take this ‘for any reason’ to the absurd? If just 1% of the deleted accounts is remade and buys their games again, we make a lot of free money.”

Okalaydokalay,

Even places where you can download music aren’t safe anymore.

I bought an album back in September 2022 on iTunes and downloaded it. Apple Music synced some of my music and fucked up my library, causing me to have to go to a backup from August 2019. I thought, “no problem, I’ll just go download that album from iTunes again.”

Album is no longer available for download. I have a receipt showing I legitimately paid for it.

I’ve found others online saying the same. One person even defending this behavior “well it’s not Apple’s fault the music isn’t on the store anymore”. Maybe not, but I’m going to need a refund from them if that’s the case. We shouldn’t be tolerating this BS.

KoboldCoterie,
@KoboldCoterie@pawb.social avatar

Unfortunately, “not tolerating this BS” just means “Not buying from them”, and by the time you see that it’s a problem, it’s too late for that. Even if this was a clear-cut case of them breaking some law, which it isn’t, it’s Apple; they have more money than God, and you’d never successfully sue them before they bankrupted you.

Maajmaaj,

To be fair, everyone has more money than God. He’s broke as fuck, but like on purpose or something? Idk.

KoboldCoterie,
@KoboldCoterie@pawb.social avatar

Well maybe if he wasn’t such a deadbeat… Sitting at home all day, sending his son out to do all the work…

moon_matter, in What's the most toxic game community you know of?
moon_matter avatar

Genshin community,

I get that communities for popular games can be a bit hit or miss, but communities for single player games are pretty chill. Competitive team games like the Source games you mentioned, League of Legends etc. are on a whole different level of toxic. They can't even be compared.

For something like Genshin the real problem is content creators. Much of the so called toxicity has little to nothing to do with the game itself and is more an issue with huge cults of personality clashing with each other. I think every popular game is going to fall victim to this going forward and you just have to learn to ignore it.

pixel,
@pixel@beehaw.org avatar

Yeah cults of personality + ipad kids on social media tend to be the large problem with genshin imo

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