Friday Bits

Dispatches from @ultrviolet@gts.endgameviable.com:

Spoilers for Baldur’s Gate 3, Act 2, in the Gauntlet of Shar, below.

10:05 # So my first hour in Starfield was, um, not impressive. For one thing, it runs quite poorly if you install it on an HDD, which I guess is just the standard now. For another thing, the first hour is kind of bland, and felt like playing a really old Bethesda game papered over with modern graphics. Also ugh I’ve never liked the cyclic yo-yo flybys of video game space combat. In other words, I saw nothing to keep me from putting all my free time into finishing Baldur’s Gate 3. Considering returning it and waiting for a sale. #starfield #baldursgate3

12:24 # Baldur’s Gate 3. Yay Shadowheart has finally gotten her hands on the Dark Justiciar Spear. 3 of the 4 party members have 1 hit point, there are no short rests remaining, and I don’t have enough camp supplies for a long rest. Good times! #baldursgate3

18:26 # Baldur’s Gate 3. I got the fourth Umbral Gem. Little did I know it was hiding in plain sight back at the beginning of the Gauntlet in that one direction I didn’t go. I had to steal it. That fight was cray-cray-donkulous, in the immortal words of Francine from American Dad. Raphael’s going to have to wait for his revenge or whatever. I don’t like the encounter designs where you don’t know what’s going to happen until after you encounter it, then have to reload. #baldursgate3

20:19 # Baldur’s Gate 3. Ugh well that’s two encounters in a row now where my level 6 party gets roflstomped on Tactician difficulty. Super frustrating. Might be time to switch to Explorer difficulty just to finish the story, because these fights are getting ridiculous now. So unfair and outmatched, there’s like 15 enemies, the whole party goes down in like 2 rounds. It’s one thing to play a challenging encounter, but it’s another thing entirely when it doesn’t even look possible to win a fight without using cheat codes or just reading somebody’s wiki. #baldursgate3

00:45 # Baldur’s Gate 3. Yeah I think I’m done with Tactician difficulty after tonight. Frickin Yurgir was impossibly unfair, Balthazar was impossibly unfair, and it took me 2.5 hours of intensive save scumming to beat the Adamantine Forge monstrosity which was, you guessed it, impossibly unfair. It’s not even the slightest bit fun to win a fight like that. It’s just a tedious slog. Very disheartening. Shouldn’t have returned Starfield. :) #baldursgate3