No issues like that. Last night I did have a fade to black followed by a cutscene where it took a good few seconds for the video to kick in and not just hear voices on a black screen.
I know it wasn’t intentional because it would have still showed subtitles if it was just supposed to be black vs glitchy video.
I had quite a few crashes with Hotfix #7 – noticeably more than previous builds. Only one of them triggered the Larian bug-reporter which was new.
The game loader encouraged me to update my AMD drivers. After updating I have only had one crash. Not conclusive, but worth trying as @Whack-a-Mole suggested.
I’ve seen this a few times too.
I hope I can be forgiven by not going back through over 1,000 posts. I started playing just a little while ago on PS5. I’m trying to figure out if it’s going to be worth it.
I like RPGs. I don’t mind the game mechanics. I liked DnD when I was young. I think I would like the game but it’s just too damn hard.
I can’t seem to find enemies at my level. They all seem to make quick work of me. There doesn’t seem to be anywhere I can go to get better. I’m sick of getting crushed every fight. I find myself spoiling the game by looking things up just to try and get through.
Where are you fighting? Do you have a full team? What have you done so far? Just trying to get a feel so we can offer some useful advice. Or knowing which companions you have in your party to offer some tips.
Are you playing on Balanced (normal) or have you ticked it down to Explorer mode? I think Explorer doubles your hitpoints and halves enemy hitpoints so that might help (unless you’re already there).
I’m in balanced mode. I don’t want to dumb it down too much.
My main dude is Wyll. I have Astarion, Shadowheart and Lae’zel in my party. I’ve been through Emerald Grove. I killed the Owlbear. Any other place I go I get my ass kicked. I’m ok with grinding to build my character. There just doesn’t seem to be anywhere I can grind.
I don’t think it is a game you have to grind, but levels 1-3 can be tricky. At that stage your characters are underdeveloped and you’re still learning the game mechanics, spells, finding gear, etc. At level 4 your characters get a nice power boost that makes them better, but also gives you more options.
I think the easiest areas are by the beach, the dank crypt, around the druid grove, and the town with the goblins. The Risen Road gets a little harder and the swamp is tough.
In Act 1 when I started combat I would check the level of the enemies. If they were higher I would reload and go somewhere else.
I assume you’ve already done the ruined temple near the Grove (where you find Withers). If not, I’d go clear that. If so, the next logical location is the Blighted Village, populated mostly by goblins.
Combat-wise, try to have Astarion dual-wielding and assisting Lae’zel in melee. This means Astarion will be able to land Sneak Attacks on a regular basis (since you get a SA when attacking an opponent adjacent to an ally) for more damage and taking enemies out quicker. Wyll, despite his swanky rapier, is best off using Eldritch Blasts since his Charisma score (used for attack on the Blasts) is better than his Dex (used for to-hit on the rapier). Keep in mind that Wyll can equip a shield and should be using one to augment his armor class. Wyll should have the the Agonizing Blast invocation at a minimum (add your CHA mod to your Eldritch Blast damage) since Eldritch Blast is your bread & butter warlock attack. Some people like Repelling Blast but that’s more optional.
Shadowheart is a little bit of a mixed bag. The simplest advice is to use her to cast Bless to augment Astarion, Lae’zel and either Wyll or herself. Spiritual Weapon is a great use of a spell slot, offering Concentration-free attacking without using your own action/bonus action after casting.
The weedier part of Shadowheart is that she was apparently spec’d by someone mad at her. Trickery Domain is pretty lame and doesn’t offer much. Her attributes are sort of poorly assigned. For instance, she has a 13 in both Strength and Dexterity. Odd scores in 5e are “wasted” since you only get a mod bonus on the evens so she effectively has a 12 in those attributes. Her Wisdom is where it should be (17) but her attack cantrips are Sacred Flame which targets Dexterity, not Armor Class and Firebolt which comes from her half-elven heritage, not her Cleric class, and thus uses her low INT score as its mod. So she has two weak cantrips, mediocre melee ability and mediocre ranged attacks. There’s a real math reason for all the “lol Shadowheart can’t hit a barn” memes.
You can either deal with this by loving her for who she is and using her for buffs, Spiritual Weapon and then eventually you get Spirit Guardians and feats to raise her stats, OR you trot her over to Withers with 100gp and respec her. Change her Domain to either Life, Tempest or War (I’d go Life or Tempest) and dump her DEX/CHA/INT to raise her STR/CON (and keep Wisdom high of course). I’d go ahead and give her 8’s in INT/CHA and put remaining points into DEX because DEX has some use for saving throws and initiative order. This will give her more hit points and better melee attacks. Life Domain will give you more powerful heals and Tempest will increase your combat ability. Both will let you use heavy armors for better AC.
At level 4, you’ll get a feat (or got one). I recommend using it for an ability stat increase. Each character starts with a 17 in their prime attribute and you should raise that to an 18, using the other point to increase the 15 they usually have in Constitution to a 16. While less sexy than the neat feats, this will give everyone more hit points and better attacks which is generally the best option at that point.
I stumbled on the temple early before I had a full party and got wiped out. I’ll have to try it again.
You definitely want to clear it as it has an important NPC in there as well as at least one decent magic item.
Thanks. I started it last night but had to go to bed before I finished.
Now I have Gale. Should I keep my current lineup or would he be better?
It shouldn’t really make any difference, the combat in this game is easy enough that you can just take who you like without any concern for party balance. There is also no such thing as grinding. If you are having issues the only thing I can recommend is to lower the difficulty until you get the hang of it, because the fights are not hard at all.
I’d skip Gale for now. You’d either need to trade out one of your two melees or your cleric. Although you don’t “need” a healer, I’d say that Bless+Spiritual Weapon+Healing Word (as needed) is worth more than Gale brings to the party right now.
Eh, I’d say some of the earlier fights can be a handful, especially if you don’t know the system well or go in some odd order. My first game, I struggled a bit in the temple since the route I took led me to facing a handful of NPCs in a small room. One of the last fights there was a little tough my first time as well, with my party holing up in a room and letting enemies come to us just because of the numbers. Add to that low starter AC, hit points and limited spell slots and it’s not hard to see someone getting overwhelmed.
By level 4ish, you should be feeling better about your gear and will have your first Feat/Skill Increase. At level 5, you get your first major bump in power with 3rd level spells (which are significant) and extra attacks for most of the melee types.
Yeah, I guess if he skipped the temple he’d be running around as lvl 2, which is probably a bad idea.
So the one scum-savvy, grinding thing I do in BG3 - I can’t really help myself - is right at the beginning I make sure I take out all three cambions and the mind-flayer on the nautiloid. It’s not exactly easy even with the exploding purple thingies, hence the scum-saving. But in addition to that spiffy sword and a little extra loot, it rewards a nice chunk of experience. You’ll start at second level on the beach and third level after the first big tomb fight if you do things in a normal order. That tiny bit of early power-leveling does help.
But it requires putting your gamer sense of self-respect in your back pocket for the first half-hour.
Oof that is rough, I have never really focused on it but if i manage to take out the main cambion and the mind flayer I just get out of there and call it a win.
I also found combat tough until around Level 5 and sometimes even after. Some things that helped me:
Take advantage of the environment. Listen to Obi Wan and take the high ground.
Take advantage of the bonus actions when you can.
Using Jump to position your fighters can be really useful.
There’s a particular encounter that can give you some temporary reinforcements that got me through two of the really hard fights in Act I. I can provide more details as a spoiler if you wish.
A lot of encounters have alternate ways of approaching them to make the fights easier or avoid them altogether.
Me too. I leave the brain puppy behind to serve as a distraction for the other cambions. I can only take out the flayer and the sword guy because they beat up on each other. I even toss some heals to octo-head so that he doesn’t go down too fast. There’s no way I could take on any of those enemies at full health.
That battle is intentionally overtuned so that you’re encouraged to flee and take over the ship. I figure what I do is already going above and beyond.
The other two are only doable if you lure them into a trap. You pick up all four of the exploding purple thingies you find along the way and arrange them in a nice little tight pattern to the right of the cambion-illithid brawl. Then make sure the cambion captain and mind-flayer go down more or less together (tricky, but doable), with just enough time to pull back from the advancing junior cambions with “US” the intellect devourer serving as bait inside the 'splody ring of death. Cambions are lured in and you then have someone like Shadowheart firebolt one of the 'splodies and BOOM! Both cambions are reduced by 1/3-2/3 of their health and are in a fire pond. Then the HARD part starts 
.
It’s honestly too much if you don’t want to save and re-load every goddamn second. But I’ve done it a few times, because I can get compulsive that way.
I killed the cambion once for the achievement. The other times I just yoink the sword and book it into the real game 
I’d guess I’m about a third of the way through act 3, although I’ve mostly been doing character side quests vs the main story so I’m not sure.
I’m surprised how buggy the game is to be honest. As previously mentioned I see a fair amount of dialog that references things I haven’t done. I get updates to my quest journal without the requisite action happening (like I’ll walk by a building and the journal will update with the results of a conversation I can have with someone inside) and I’m pretty sure my romances are bugged. I’ve had Karlach and Shadowheart at very high relationship since act 1 and they show no interest. Maybe I missed a trigger? Fine. Mizura just propositioned me though, I played along, she said she’d come to me that night on camp, and nothing.
I’ve come to really like Karlach as a character too, so if I do a second playthrough I’ll really have to think about doing an evil run or just a “romance Karlach” run.