The Underdark entrance is underneath the main goblin camp in the abandoned temple of Selune. The blighted village is over the dungeon filled with phase spiders.
You’ll have another night or two ahead of you before your intention plays out with that plan. Worth it though!
I peeked at that dungeon, assumed it was connected to the Underdark, and said “no thanks, not yet”. I’ll have to swing back by on my way from the party at the Grove to the Githyanki patrol.
Same thing with the Underdark itself, I got to the Selunite outpost and turned around, but I plan to go back later.
Yeah, that part is perfectly fine. I just absolutely HATE building a character without knowing what the class can do. Most of the stuff I’ve been finding out as I go along by picking things randomly, which is not how i like to do things.
If someone doesn’t want to put much work/thought into their companions, the best bet is to take the melees and/or Wyll. Melees hit stuff, Wyll casts Eldritch Blast. There’s a lot of more intricate stuff you can do with them but you’ll still be doing fine if they just hit/blast things in the most obvious way.
As I understand it, there’s two ways into Act 2 and each has distinct companion opportunities: Overland through the pass for Gith stuff and through the Underdark for Shar stuff. I’m doing Underdark both for the Shadowheart story and because my character is a Deep Gnome. But there’s a good piece of Underdark before you reach the “border” and I haven’t gotten there yet so plenty to experience before you make your choice.
Minor spoiler abour the coastline near the Druid Grove:
Ran into some harpies on an island off the coast; was a really fun fight what with the craggy cliff you’re on and the island they’re on. I’ll admit the fact that flying enemies just fly from location to location rather than fighting in the air was a bit disappointing but from a gameplay perspective it worked great. But the coolest part was the music! Every time the harpies sang it hijacked the soundtrack until I could silence them or end their concentration. And then the combat mysic would triumphantly return! It was great.
Missed that location but sounds cool – next time!
Trying not to go back at this point just so I (a) have new locations for next time beyond different plot paths and (b) heavens forbid I run out of gas before reaching Act 2 just because I try to do everything in one go.
There are actually two entrances to the Underdark.
The other is through the secret zentarim base, under the burning outpost.
I’m using the other one though because I want that artifact.
Another missed location!
Good… good… keep the content coming 
For those with Nvidia graphics card they have released a new driver update and claim some dramatic performance gains in the game. Personally, it seems to perform fine to me already but better is better.
Do you all use the DirectX version or the Vulkan version? I tried the Vulkan, but it seemed to suffer from tearing. On the other hand, the DirectX version sometimes crashes on startup.
I think I’m using DirectX but it’s whichever the default option for my Nvidia card was.
The default visual is borderless full screen. Switching it to real full screen shaved 10-15C off my processor temps. Your results may vary depending on what other programs you have in the background.
DirectX so far. I have an older 1070ti card and figured I’d just go with the old standard while I was just starting too play around. But I’ll try Vulcan one of these days just for giggles.
I tried Vulcan and it made everything suuuper dark, and I couldn’t manually adjust the settings enough to make it look good.
I have a 1070Ti card, use Vulkan, everything runs smoothly and looks good.
I use Vulkan because the game developers recommend it unless you experience stability or performance issues, and I haven’t seen either.
I have a GTX 1070, it’s gotta be like 7 years old now… game defaulted to Ultra and generally runs great though I wish I had DLSS.
I haven’t noticed a difference so have been using the default dx11 option but I may try Vulkan.
I thought that was really cool too.
It made it extra satisfying when your character breaks their concentration and the song stops.
Spoilers about a couple of Very Good Boys:
I’ve gotten both the pupper and the owlbear cub at my camp and they’re adorable, chasing each other and whatnot. I suspect keeping an owlbear around will end in tragedy but I can’t not do it. I keep chugging speak with animal potions before bedtime so that I can talk to them in cutscenes.
I had a fight tonight that just sucked. Not like “This is a challenging fight” sucked but rather “This fight uses obnoxious video game logic” sucked. Like platformers where you have to wait until the boss’s red dot glows then set off a cannon to hit it so he’s stunned for ten seconds while you hit him twice sort of nonsense. Felt bad and I wound up save-scumming every two moves to finally slog through it. It didn’t feel epic or immersive, it felt very mechanical. Maybe the sort of thing that would play better at the table but didn’t translate well into code.
Still love the game, of course, but hope that’s the last fight like that. Earlier today I was thinking that I haven’t been this invested in a game since Dragon Age: Origins but, hey, even DA:O had The Fade (bleah).
So, I went back to the well under the Blighted Village to kill the spider matriarch. I remember now why I thought this was the way to the Underdark - it’s how I got in in early access. You can jump down the green glowy chasm to get there, with Feather Fall (well, you can get there without Feather Fall, you’ll just hit the ground and die).
Lovely bits of environmental storytelling in the Blighted Village caves:
The Phase Spider Matriarch isn’t a normal spider monster. She was originally a high elf taken captive by drow but favored by Lollth who became a powerful Arachnomancer and transformed into a spider.