Sep 22, 2023

Patch #3: Mac Support, Magic Mirror & More!

Baldur's Gate 3 - Molly @ Larian

Hello everyone,

Patch 3 is now live for Baldur’s Gate 3. Mac users and chronic character re-creators rejoice! Friday’s update will bring the full release of Baldur’s Gate 3 to Mac, and allow you to change your character’s appearance in-game via the Magic Mirror.

These patch notes are hefty, and once again exceed Steam’s character limit for patch notes! If you want to skip the highlights and check out the full notes, head to this link.

Mac Support

With Patch 3, Baldur’s Gate 3 is now fully supported on Mac!

As with the PC release in August, saves made in previous versions of BG3 on Mac will not be compatible with the full release. To prepare your Mac for the full version of Baldur’s Gate 3 and minimise potential compatibility issues, we recommend you fully uninstall the game and remove any mods before installing the latest version.

The minimum and recommended specs for Mac users have also been updated: we recommend an M1 Pro processor and FSR enabled to run the game at high or ultra settings on a Retina display. Check the Steam store page for more details.

Mac players, thank you for your patience – now, gather your party and venture forth.

Magic Mirror

Tucked away in your camp, exuding a certain ‘we found this at a vintage fair and it’s too fancy for our current home’ energy, is an item called the Magic Mirror. Tales have been told of its legendary ability to permanently alter the appearance of one who gazes into it.

The Magic Mirror allows you to change up your appearance whenever you’d like, however many times you’d like. There are some restrictions: your appearance, voice, pronouns and nether regions can be changed, but your race/subrace and body type cannot. Origin characters, hirelings and full illithids cannot use the Magic Mirror. Cosmetic modifications that are a consequence of your gameplay choices will persist – hag got your eye? Swallow any interesting tadpoles lately? There’s no Magic Mirroring those big life decisions away.

Personally, we’ll be applying incrementally heavier eyeliner whenever we have a Dark Urge moment in our playthrough to really emphasise our descent.

Ooh, the mysteries of the void – time to change that ill-advised hair colour.

Once again, our patch notes have been defeated by the Steam character limit. Read the full notes here, but beware of spoilers! Check out some of the notes for Patch 3 below. We’re still working on further updates with additional features and epilogue scenes, and your continued feedback is helping to shape and impact the future of Baldur’s Gate 3.

Until next time, thank you for playing!

HIGHLIGHTS

Baldur’s Gate 3 is now fully supported on Mac!
A Magic Mirror that lets you change your appearance is now available at camp!

Combat

Cazador now cannot turn into or remain in his Mist Form if in magical sunlight, such as that created by the Daylight spell.
Fixed Ansur's Stormheart Nova blasting right through the ice shields you can hide behind.
Grym suddenly got eerily smart and was avoiding the Crucible in the Adamantine Forge. With a nervous laugh, we dumbed him back down a little.
Fixed Level 4 or higher Divine Smite allowing you to add Divine Smite as a reaction, allowing for two Divine Smites in 1 attack.
Fixed the Divine Smite damage increasing over the cap of 5d8.
Made several improvements to the Poltergeist enemy: they are now revealed on being attacked or hit with Radiant Spirit Guardians; they will not turn Invisible again if they are still in a character's See Invisibility aura; in Balanced and Explorer Mode, they have disadvantage on Dexterity Saving Throws when Invisible; the range of their attacks has been reduced; and they won't try to keep distance from the player in combat so that they are easier to find.
Fixed the Sneak Attack damage bonus not increasing to 6d6 at Level 11.
Fixed a case where multiple Smokepowder Arrows could be used for free while the Extra Attack feature was active.

PS5

The colours on the PS5 controller will now match elemental damage types more closely.

Performance

Improved performance in the Lower City. More to come!

Art

Made dye colours more intense and more visible on some armours. This will only affect newly dyed items.
Dragonborn characters can now select any of the barbarian piercings.
Fixed Shadowheart going blonde when equipping a hat.
Improved the reflection in the Spectator's eye in the Underdark.
Fixed face tattoos disappearing when zooming out.

Flow and Scripting

Fixed a bug where companions temporarily leaving the party (e.g. being sent to prison) would forget their partnership history and act unusually cold towards you.
Fixed a bug letting you trade with Cazador while he begs for mercy.
Improved the Astarion romance flow if you agreed to spend a night with him before going to camp by disabling some less important camp moments.
Fixed some dialogue options only showing up once when talking to Withers.
Fixed a blocker where if you knock Orin's Slayer form into the chasm, you can't get her Netherstone.
Fixed an issue causing Dammon to enter combat and die at Last Light, preventing Karlach's story from progressing.
Added a journal step for when the tieflings leave the Emerald Grove. The Forging of the Heart quest will also close if Dammon is no longer available in the region.
Fixed the game thinking you're dating Gale instead of Karlach in one of the dialogues with Karlach.
You now need higher approval for Shadowheart to confess her Shar worship to you.
Myshka the cat will now follow you around if told to, even if you don't have Speak with Animals.
Halsin, Jaheira, and Minthara will no longer be able to undergo Volo's icepick lobotomy. It's just not their kind of pastime.
Fixed not being able to cut Vanra out of the hag by interacting with her Knocked Out body if all of her mushrooms are destroyed.
Lae'zel will no longer tag along (whether dead or alive) after you slit her throat when she ambushes you at night.
Fixed a bug allowing you to yoink the Orphic Hammer right out of the so-called Impervious Sphere in the House of Hope if someone else in your party is in an interactive dialogue with the sphere.
Fixed a flow issue in Shadowheart's endgame romance dialogue to make sure Karlach appears alone in Avernus if Shadowheart says she'll meet her there at a later point in time.
Fixed Karlach's journal mistakenly saying you arrived in the Shadow-Cursed Lands when you arrive at the Rosymorn Monastery Trail.
Wyll should now acknowledge Karlach approaching him for the first time more consistently.
Fixed an issue that caused the Shadowheart swimming scene to not play for some players.
The Narrator no longer thinks you're a mind flayer when you're not.
Fixed companions talking about killing Gortash after meeting Orin even if the former is already dead.
Fixed issues with Astarion discussing topics that are no longer relevant.
Reworked the interaction between Nere and Minthara:
- The 'Travel to Moonrise Towers' quest no longer sends you to Minthara after saving Nere - he has a lyre of his own now. He gifts it to you if you saved him from the cave-in. This lyre can now be used to call for the drider through the Shadow-Cursed Lands, like Minthara's lyre does. Both lyres have new descriptions.
- Nere no longer mentions Minthara in his Speak with Dead.
- You can ask Minthara for a safe passage to Moonrise if you'd heard about it. She will ask to raid the Emerald Grove first. If this happens, Nere can be asked about Minthara and then Minthara can be asked about Nere.
- The journals for 'Travel to Moonrise Towers' and 'Follow the Convoy' were updated accordingly.
- Saving Nere no longer creates a danger zone if the duergar was killed before clearing the cave-in.
During your date with Karlach, Tender Henk will no longer walk away to reveal another Tender Henk standing behind him. Staring.

Gameplay

The following spells will now correctly break the Sanctuary condition: Call Lightning, Evard's Black Tentacles, Polymorph, Hunger of Hadar, Fear, Ice Storm, Flesh to Stone, Divine Intervention, Hypnotic Pattern, Slow, Stinking Cloud, Banishment, Glyph of Warding.
Level Up will now queue all characters who can be levelled up so you don't have to click on them individually.
Fixed some corpses never showing the '(empty)' tag after you loot them.
Fixed not being able to use some reactions while in disguise.
Cazador's staff, Woe, now correctly unlocks the Blight spell when equipped.
Fixed several magic items and Volo's Ersatz Eye losing their power after you are killed and revived.
Fixed the Spell Sniper feat not working on attack spells.
The Spell Sniper feat will now correctly reduce the Critical Hit threshold by 1.
Fixed the Idol of Silvanus buff disappearing after Long Rest.
NPCs will no longer run away from anything but the Dark Urge Slayer form to improve interactivity and flow.
Mummies raised through Create Undead can now Jump to follow you around better.
The Everburn Blade now correctly sets explosive surfaces and explosive objects alight when hit.
The Misty Escape feat will no longer break concentration.
Reading shop signs will no longer be considered a crime.
The Cutting Words reaction is now set to Ask by default.
Summoned zombies and skeletons will no longer be able to pick up loot and disappear with it when dismissed.
The Azer summon's Overheat ability is now available on its hotbar when summoned.
The Nimblefinger Gloves now correctly apply their Dexterity bonus to gnomes, halflings, and dwarves.
Fixed an Animate Dead exploit allowing you to summon 2 skeletons from the same corpse.
Optimised how the game handles object selection on controller.
Fixed Sovereign Spaw being able to resurrect hirelings with Animating Spores. We taught him to not use this on player characters anymore.

Your selected trade mode (trade or barter) is now saved to your player profile.
Added an option to the Default Online Settings to let you automatically listen in when another party member enters a dialogue in multiplayer.
Clarified whether something is a Resistance, a Vulnerability, or an Immunity in the Examine window.
Added a notification for when another player in your party is trading.
Fixed spells being interrupted by climbing, allowing you to attack twice after climbing down from a crate.
Updated the Character Sheet on controller to place active Conditions above the list of Notable Features.

Level Design

Fixed some small holes in Act I that weren't letting tiny characters through them.

Writing

Added a dialogue option to the first in-person dialogue with the Dream Visitor to avoid only having two antagonistic choices.
Rewrote some spell and action descriptions that were too vague.

Audio

Fixed Raphael's boss fight music sometimes being incomplete or missing.
Fixed some VO not playing in dialogues on PS5 split-screen.
Fixed audio cutting out with 3D Audio enabled on PS5.
Optimised audio in merged split-screen cinematics.

Cinematics

Improved contact when petting Ketheric's good girl, Squire.
Added some lovely blood spurts when Volo carries out his expert operation.
Fixed Wyll's horns clipping into Karlach's face during an Act II romance scene.
Fixed missing music on the Wyll path of Karlach's endgame scene in Avernus.
Placed a nice purple picnic blanket in a romantic scene with Gale and fixed a camera spin if you choose to prefer to spend your time with him on a bed.
Fixed Shadowheart looking like she's either in pain or about to sneeze in the background of a dialogue with Thulla.
Added some missing Boo squeaks.
Reworked the intro of the scene when you approach the altar at the Temple of Bhaal and fixed some bugs.
Updated cameras, facial expressions and head directions to better suit the tone in dialogue with Shadowheart.
Fixed some pops and camera issues when you start dating Lae'zel, including Lae'zel's body flying elsewhere and then back again mid-dialogue.
Boo will now be framed in the shot as intended when you talk to Jaheira after recruiting Minsc.
Fixed Scratch floating in the air while you pet him by the posthouse in Rivington.

Read the full Patch 3 patch notes (Note: Some of the entries might have spoilers!)

Sep 22, 2023

Devlog: Orbitect, Spreadsheets, and JSON.

Orbitect - Propulsion Games

This is a reblog from the Propulsion Games devlog.

Setting the scene.

What's up, world?

For anyone who works in and around super small indie video game studios, you'll have noticed that individuals often have multiple roles in the project. People wear many hats. So many hats. More hats than a birthday party, fancy wedding and a day at the races combined. Maelstroms of hats. Hats everywhere. Hatters gonna hat, after all.
So for a project like our upcoming game Orbitect, which is an ambitious physics-based construction roguelite with a complex tapestry of configuration, it was super important that we utilised our time in a sensible, efficient way in order to stay as focused and efficient as possible so that we could realise our vision without spending decades in the process and tying ourselves in a myriad of nebulous (albeit rewarding!) knots.

This post is about an example of how our small but mighty team have used some spreadsheet-based automation to streamline selections of our production in order to iterate and refine our gameplay balancing at speed and scale. We'll be writing more in the future about exactly how we tackled the balancing itself, as well as how Orbitect is utilising configuration on the programming side, but for now - feel free to treat yourself to a little insight into how we've joined the two together in data-driven harmony.

What's our problem?

In Orbitect, the player uses blocks and stat-based panels to craft a space station capable of destroying waves of space debris. Destroying that space trash earns the player money and resources to repair, upgrade and expand their station, so on and so forth, ad infinitum (well, until the end of the campaign at least). We have designed many levers of configuration in order to control the flow and feel of gameplay. For example:

Panels: How much does one cost? What's it's health? Strength? Defence? Speed? Efficiency? How much to upgrade or repair? How much damage can it do? What description does the player see?
Debris: How massive, or metallic, or explosive are they? How much money is earned from destroying it? What's the probability of reward if the debris is destroyed? What reward does the player get if they destroy it?
Waves of debris: When and how does debris appear? How much debris appears in a given wave? How long does the wave last? What does the play get for clearing a wave?
Wave Patterns: What type of ways can debris appear in a wave? Which direction? How often? How fast? Does it target a specific part of your station?
Bosses: When in the campaign do they appear? How difficult are they? What do you get for defeating them?
Stat Rewards: What rewards are available and for which stats? Are all panels affected from a reward? How much is rewarded?
Gameplay boosts: How much does each one cost? How much do they affect gameplay?
Other player values: How much money does the player start with? You get the picture…

All in we have just over 70 configurable attributes to work with, each with dozens (or more) entries comprising the overall configuration of the game. Can you imagine if we had to keep track of this manually in-engine? Tweaking the configuration to refine the game's campaign experience would be a time consuming, miserable, communicative monstrosity and would most likely fail before it began. Thankfully, we are making use of a data interchange format called JSON to store attributes and their values across various files.

Here's one excerpt as an example:

{
"wavePatterns": [{
"name": "Wavepattern 1",
"description": "Rest wave",
"speed": 1,
"direction": "All",
"spawntype": "Every 5 Seconds",
"target": "None",
"difficultymultiplier": 1
},
{
"name": "Wavepattern 2",
"description": "Build Back wave",
"speed": 2,
"direction": "All",
"spawntype": "Every 4 Seconds",
"target": "None",
"difficultymultiplier": 1
}
]
}

When it comes to refining the game design itself - updating multiple values quickly and accurately directly in the JSON is still a challenge. It'd still require us to manually scroll through and edit various attributes. And if we had multiple waves, debris, panels etc in the game (which we do), then we'd have to do this multiple times.

So what did we do about it?

Enter: The Spreadsheet.
That's right. We've employed the old reliable stalwart that holds the entire knowledge working world together - a spreadsheet. We used one to lay out the various configurations across multiple tabs. For example:

These are placeholder values! Don't go getting all excited.

Not only is this useful because of the use of rows, columns, and formatting that we all know and love, but because we can make use of formulas to create feux-JSON configurations in the spreadsheet itself. For example:

We specify a row and column from our easy to understand spreadsheet that corresponds to a cell containing an attribute name. We do the same for that attribute's value.
We hardcode in some curly brackets that will be needed in the JSON no matter the configuration values.
We add a Y/N column to flag whether the value is a string (because if so we need speech marks for a string).
We use the "indirect" function and Char(34) with the above to create a formula that acts as a concatenation and pre-populates the feux-JSON with spreadsheet values where they are needed. Some logic is also needed here to remove a comma from the last value in an encased sequence.
We can scale the JSON for all entries by adding 1 to our row reference (or a letter along for our column reference) in the next row down so that all rows from the spreadsheet are captured in the JSON file.
Thanks to the excellent JSONLint for providing an excellent validator!

Here's a snippet of one to illustrate what it looks like:

Making the feux-JSON.Great! That's already saved us some time trawling through JSONs. However, we were still maybe spending around five minutes copying, pasting, zipping up and sending to one another every time we wanted to tweak a few parameters and test out the gameplay implications. Given we are iterating repetedly during our development, we had an opportunity to further help ourselves. So we utilised a google apps script (with thanks to this thread and this thread) to automatically copy and paste our feux-JSONs into (real life) JSON files, and store them onto a specific folder in our shared google drive, for anyone in our team to pick up and play in their local build (and eventually use in the main development build). We even made a little button to run the apps script and export them!

Not the best looking button in the world, but I'm a spreadsheet geek, not an artist. What do you want from me?Behold! Exported JSONs hot off the press (of the button).

Now at the click of a button we have fresh Orbitect gameplay configurations ready to use the next time we run the campaign in-game. The couple of hours invested in making these little innovations (can I be so bold as to call them innovations? Probably! If you've read this far down then you must like this approach too, right?) has saved us exponentially more time in the run up to release. It has paid for itself within a couple of development days.

So there we have it. Is it rocket science? Hardly. Just a good old spit-and-sawdust approach to saving us a little bit of time, hundreds of times. Little friction-busting steps like this along the way help our team to release a game that reaches for the stars, and takes out the trash along the way.