Something is happening with Baldur's Gate! *Update* Ipad *cough*

[ControlD]

The iPad version has been released. It does require iOS6, so no iPad1 support as of now. I will most likely purchase it this weekend, but I might wait to see how buggy it is first. The download is huge so it might be worth waiting for a patch or two.

 

[Ns1]

^^

After all that wait I can't play it on my iPad 3 cuz I won't dl ios6

 

[preslove]

^^

After all that wait I can't play it on my iPad 3 cuz I won't dl ios6

Same, but I have an iPad 2.

 

[Carfax83]

Cripes, this game is a lot tougher than I remember! I think they must have boosted the difficulty a bit..

Or perhaps the game doesn't adjust the encounters based on character level?

My entire party of 5 (PC is level 2) just got wiped out by 2 ogre berserkers and three hobgoblin elites on core rules difficulty.

I'm kinda regretting making a Paladin Cavalier rather than a Fighter Berserker. The Cavalier is definitely more survivable, but the Berserker packs a meaner punch due to increased weapon training and his berserker rage.

The Cavalier won't really be able to up his game in melee until he gets access to priest spells, but that doesn't occur till level 8 or 9 I believe.

 

[thespyder]

Cripes, this game is a lot tougher than I remember! I think they must have boosted the difficulty a bit..

Or perhaps the game doesn't adjust the encounters based on character level?

My entire party of 5 (PC is level 2) just got wiped out by 2 ogre berserkers and three hobgoblin elites on core rules difficulty.

I'm kinda regretting making a Paladin Cavalier rather than a Fighter Berserker. The Cavalier is definitely more survivable, but the Berserker packs a meaner punch due to increased weapon training and his berserker rage.

The Cavalier won't really be able to up his game in melee until he gets access to priest spells, but that doesn't occur till level 8 or 9 I believe.

Nope. That is just about normal. A party of level 2s can easily be wiped out by one Ogre, let alone two plus Hobgoblins. I take it you are heading south to Naskal? So your group probably consists of yourself, Imoen, Kalid and Jahira? And if you have the bard as well, yeah. That fight can be tough. Kevan is thereabouts if you don't already have him. That should help some.

 

[Dannar26]

The furthest I got in BG1 and 2 involved me making a multi player team all commanded by myself. Guess it's kinda like cheating. Though I probably missed a lot by having characters without personalty...

I think the point and click play style lends itself to tablet touch screen play. The bigger question is how this thing'll handle on my android phone, if they ever put this out for android.

 

[thespyder]

Doing a multi-player team and playing by yourself, isn't 'Cheating'. You do miss out on the personalities and I recommend playing just one character with a party of NPCs for that reason alone ("Butt Kicking for GOODNESS!", "Go for the Eyes BOO." Etc...), but that is down to preference. And really the personalities aren't really interesting till BG2. They are there, but just not as robust as in the second game.

I can't imagine playing on my DNA. but that could simply be me.

 

[Carfax83]

Nope. That is just about normal. A party of level 2s can easily be wiped out by one Ogre, let alone two plus Hobgoblins. I take it you are heading south to Naskal? So your group probably consists of yourself, Imoen, Kalid and Jahira? And if you have the bard as well, yeah. That fight can be tough. Kevan is thereabouts if you don't already have him. That should help some.

I was on the way to rescue Dynaheir. BTW, who's the best mage for a good aligned party? Edwin has the highest INT score, but he's lawful evil and I think he'd eventually leave the party due to the high reputation score.

Is Kevan better than Minsc?

 

[thespyder]

I was on the way to rescue Dynaheir. BTW, who's the best mage for a good aligned party? Edwin has the highest INT score, but he's lawful evil and I think he'd eventually leave the party due to the high reputation score.

Is Kevan better than Minsc?

For a good aligned party, prety much Dynaheir. Some people will say Xan (Neutral). I personally found him WAY to annoying to bring along.

There is another option, that of actually dual classing Imoen to Mage, which is what a lot of folks do. She actually makes a pretty good mage after she levels up a bit. And you really don't need a full mage early on anyway. And you don't "Need" a thief later on, though it is nice to have one. But if you push all of her points into find/remove traps and open locks, you won't feel the loss terribly much.

Going Dynaheir pretty much answers the Minsc/Kivan question as well. If you take Dynaheir, you have to take Minsc. I personally think he is the better choice anyway seeing as he is pretty much a barbarian ranger. But he never gets ranger spells. Both are excellent warriors for your party.

Edwin is an excellent wizard. And he has this really great story line in BG2. but yeah, he will have problems with your reputation if you are running a Goody, Goody party. Or if you have a paladin. And if you pick him, you have to kill Dynaheir.

Spoiler

What ever you do, don't keep Xar and Montoron until the very last battle. They leave your party then no matter what your reputation is.

I have to ask how you are only 2nd level and heading for Dynaheir. I mean you can definitely set out at that point, but...... It is going to be TOUGH. It is better to solve the problems in Naskal first. Then go after her. Just don't take too long to do it. Minsc will not want to wait.

Oh, and if you see someone named Nober in Naskal, talk to him.

Spoiler

he has some very interesting information to impart to the party.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Cripes, this game is a lot tougher than I remember! I think they must have boosted the difficulty a bit..

Or perhaps the game doesn't adjust the encounters based on character level?

Correct, it doesn't. You forget that all the encounter/auto-leveling/matching has been something that really only came out around the time Oblivion came out (and propagated to almost every RPG style leveling system). This is old school. You wander around and run into a dragon when you are just level 7 or 8 and you need to remember to run, or else you are what's for dinner

 

[UberNeuman]

^^

After all that wait I can't play it on my iPad 3 cuz I won't dl ios6

Glad I'm not the only one. For those of you that have BG now - how well does it play on the Pad?

 

[Madia]

Cripes, this game is a lot tougher than I remember! I think they must have boosted the difficulty a bit..

Or perhaps the game doesn't adjust the encounters based on character level?

My entire party of 5 (PC is level 2) just got wiped out by 2 ogre berserkers and three hobgoblin elites on core rules difficulty.

I'm kinda regretting making a Paladin Cavalier rather than a Fighter Berserker. The Cavalier is definitely more survivable, but the Berserker packs a meaner punch due to increased weapon training and his berserker rage.

The Cavalier won't really be able to up his game in melee until he gets access to priest spells, but that doesn't occur till level 8 or 9 I believe.

I went with a Fighter Berserker and haven't had much difficulty surviving. The golden rules seem to be stick to the path (don't go exploring different areas and stay on the roads when they're there) and always travel with a party of six. When I first started and strayed from the road to and from the friendly arm inn a lot of the enemies in the area could one hit kill me. Even now (level 3) if I go exploring outside the story area the enemies can one hit kill m.

Also, during character creation make sure you reroll until you get the best statistics. I ended up with 18/00 in strength, 18 in Con and Charisma, 10 in Int and Wis and 14 in dexterity. I would've put more in Dex but you get the gauntlets of dexeterity pretty early and with them you have an 18 dex. So if you start a new character keep rolling to get the best stats.

Does anyone have any suggestions for my party? Right now its me (neutral good fighter berserker), Minsc/Dynaheir, Khalid/Jaheira and Imoen. I've heard good things about Kivan but I don't want 4 ranged fighters so I was thinking about dropping Khalid/Jaheira for Branwen and Ajantis. After that, once I find Yeslick I'll dump Branwen and Ajantis for Yeslick and Kivan.

What weapons should I be using for my Wizard and Cleric? Should I mainly have them equipped with slings or should I also be using staffs?

 

[Mopetar]

Glad I'm not the only one. For those of you that have BG now - how well does it play on the Pad?

Surprisingly well. I've only put about 4 hours into it so far, but it works out quite well on the whole. My biggest gripes are that you can't mouse-over things. There's a button you can click that has the same effect, but it's not quite as good. Also, it can be troublesome to loot items as you need to make a precise touch to get your character to get at them. I've had a few similar issues with targeting in combat where the character will try to move towards an enemy rather than attacking it. I'm not sure how easy this would be to do on a smaller screen, so that may be some food for thought. Another similar issue is that the text is rendered fairly small. This isn't a problem on anything with a high PPI like that iPad 3, but I'm not sure how good it would look on an older iPad or on something like that iPad mini.

There was one instances where the game seemed to be getting bogged down. I'm not sure what caused it, but at that point I'd been playing for 3 hours straight so there may be a small memory leak; however it came on rather suddenly, so I'm not sure if that's the case either. Either way, a quick restart fixed the problem completely.

Outside of that, it's still the same Baldur's Gate that we all know and love. The iPad version doesn't come with the new NPCs, but they're available as a separate purchase. My guess is that they did this in order to get the cost down. At $10, the game is probably one of the most pricey available on the app store. All in all, I'd say it's worth the price of admission. I don't think they've set a date for the Android release, but it says "Coming Soon" on their website so possibly within the next few months.

 

[Mopetar]

What weapons should I be using for my Wizard and Cleric? Should I mainly have them equipped with slings or should I also be using staffs?

Give them ranged weapons. Unless they have a good AC (Clerics can do this) don't let them get anywhere near the front lines, especially wizards. The AI will mogthwamp them and you'll end up with a dead caster. Give them slings to use when they're not casting, but generally they're not even all that good with those so if you don't want to, just have them sit there until they should cast a spell.

 

[ControlD]

Glad I'm not the only one. For those of you that have BG now - how well does it play on the Pad?

Pretty much I have to echo what Mopetar said above. The game plays quite well on my iPad3, but a few things take a little getting used to. Opening/entering doors can be an exercise in tapping randomly until the game registers the right spot. It seems like the devs could have done a better job at optimizing these parts of the game for fat fingers rather than a precise mouse pointer.

I also sort of wish they had updated the interface a little more. The spell icons are pretty small and many of them look quite similar to each other. Little things like tap holding and then seeing a tool tip would really have been nice. I honestly had the same complaint with the original, but here having such tiny icons really makes spell selection problematic.

 

[Red Storm]

Wait, so you know the key that highlights things in the game world on the PC (I'm drawing a blank and can't remember if it's tab or alt)? Does this function exist on the iOS version?

Dave, On the PC you can hover over a spell and press the highlight key to see its name.

 

[sigurros81]

Wait, so you know the key that highlights things in the game world on the PC (I'm drawing a blank and can't remember if it's tab or alt)? Does this function exist on the iOS version?

Dave, On the PC you can hover over a spell and press the highlight key to see its name.

Biggest gripe I'm hearing from people is that there's no function to highlight clickable/tappable objects in the game.

 

[Red Storm]

Biggest gripe I'm hearing from people is that there's no function to highlight clickable/tappable objects in the game.

Oh, well that's a potential deal killer.

 

[Coffinmaker]

I share a few of the gripes but none of them are deal breakers. The issue with trying to trigger an entrance/exit is annoying but no biggie. Question: When dealing with weapon stats, what does 1d8 mean compared to 2d4? Which one is better? Also, I noticed that one weapon said THACO on it, what's that?

 

[Fenixgoon]

how long is it going to take for BG2EE to be released?

 

[CPA]

I share a few of the gripes but none of them are deal breakers. The issue with trying to trigger an entrance/exit is annoying but no biggie. Question: When dealing with weapon stats, what does 1d8 mean compared to 2d4? Which one is better? Also, I noticed that one weapon said THACO on it, what's that?

Good question. On one hand with 2d4, you know you'll get at least a minimum of 2 versus a minimum of 1 on a 1d8. On the other hand, I believe the odds are tougher to roll 2 4's versus rolling 1 8.

 

[motsm]

I share a few of the gripes but none of them are deal breakers. The issue with trying to trigger an entrance/exit is annoying but no biggie. Question: When dealing with weapon stats, what does 1d8 mean compared to 2d4? Which one is better? Also, I noticed that one weapon said THACO on it, what's that?

THAC0 = To hit armor class 0, so this is the lowest roll required on a 20 sided die that will hit an opponent with an armor class of 0. In Baldur's Gate, a lower armor class is better, and therefor you want your THCA0 to be as low as possible to increase your chance to hit. This can get a little weird when you have an item that gives you a +1 to hit, because it will actually reduce your THAC0. (Luckily D&D dropped this oddness in later versions)

the D in 1D8 or 2D4 stands for die, so the first number is how many die the weapon will use for it's damage roll, the second number is how many sides the die has. So if your rolling 2 dice with 4 sides, the lowest you can roll is two 1's, which is 2 total damage, while the lowest you can roll on a D 8 is 1 total damage. With both having the same maximum damage, it makes 2D4 the better choice.

 

[Ferzerp]

2d4 averages 5 damage, while 1d8 averages 4.5. 1d8 damages range from 1-8, while 2d4 ranges from 2-8 with a trend towards totals of 5.

There are 16 possible rolls of 2d4.

2: 1/16
3: 2/16
4: 3/16
5: 4/16
6: 3/16
7: 2/16
8: 1/16

With 1d8, each option is always 1/8. Statistically, 1d8 is worth, on average .5 damage less than 2d4, despite 2d4 only being 1/2 as likely to get the highest score. This .5 comes from the lack of being able to roll a 1.

 

[ControlD]

Wait, so you know the key that highlights things in the game world on the PC (I'm drawing a blank and can't remember if it's tab or alt)? Does this function exist on the iOS version?

Dave, On the PC you can hover over a spell and press the highlight key to see its name.

Thanks for the tip. Somehow I never figured that one out!

There is a button you can press on the iOS version to highlight items that can be interacted with. It works much the way the highlight key does in other games like NWN or Torchlight. It does not (I believe) highlight doors for some reason, just items that you can search, pick up, etc.

 

[Mopetar]

Pretty much I have to echo what Mopetar said above. The game plays quite well on my iPad3, but a few things take a little getting used to. Opening/entering doors can be an exercise in tapping randomly until the game registers the right spot.

I've found I've been getting slightly better at tapping where I need to. It's a bit of an acquired skill, but for someone who isn't already familiar with the game, it would be hell. At some point they definitely need to make this easier to do. Even something as simple as placing a small icon over top of the environment would make it so much easier. That goes double for looting, which can be can absolute chore if the touch target is really small. If I had a smaller tablet, I would probably have thrown it out of the window by now.

Wait, so you know the key that highlights things in the game world on the PC (I'm drawing a blank and can't remember if it's tab or alt)? Does this function exist on the iOS version?

There's a button that has the same effect. It also acts like the mouse-over action in that it will display information that would normally show up when mousing-over a creature.