Hi there,

i am really concerned. I played BG1 and BG2, especially BG2 multiple times. I also played DoS1,DoS2 and some other Divinity Games.

I really love the Divinity games, i also love the Baldurs Gate games. But i love them in different ways and for what they are.

I never would compare these Games with each other, but now this thought came to my mind, and i do not like what my brain makes up.

To be honest, i am mostly concerned about the combat and how different they are...

That being said. Maybe i am ignorant and turn based combat is more true to D&D then real time + pause ever was. But i am still concerned
because the turn based combat in DoS1/2 was awesome, the effects of the elements on the ground and how it changed the battlefield. But
in BG, how should this work? There are so many spells which not really justify this level of environmental impact, at least not in this simple
and easy to understand DoS way. But maybe they just have less of those rather abstract spells in the game.

I think real time + pause was important for the BG games. Especially because of the rather abstract nature of many of the spells. I think they
just had not a good idea how to visualize them and therefore most of them where just "numbers".

I really don't know what to expect, i hope they show some gameplay soon.

PS: i saw that some other people have similar concerns about the game. I hope everything works out! I hope we get a great game!

EDIT:
And thanks for this really old school forum experience, not even HTTPS :D

D&D 5E doesn't exclude the possibility of spell-related environmental interaction. You can still set things on fire with a spell in the P&P. If anything, D&D 5E allows for a lot more interaction because the spells are way more creative than anything in the Divinity games.

Then i am even more worried xD

But it might be the case that i don't know what exactly you are talking about. :D

I never player D&D 5e or any other D&D, except in BG or other video games...

But if you know D&D, what are you thoughts on a real turn based system, does it make sense with 5e?
What are your thoughts on the visualization? I mean, it is a video game after all. I am not talking about
what you can "add" by using you fantasy, but more what the game might give you.

Sven has said you can do things like set fire to a chair then hit somebody over the head with said chair.

I'm similarly very concern as well. I'm sure many of the baldur's gate fans are equally concerned. I really don't wish to see the Baldur's Gate slapped with a Original Sins clone.

D&D is designed for turn-based combat, so yes a turn-based system makes perfect sense if you want to adapt the ruleset.

Especially when using the Game Master Mode. I watch the video of them using in to play "Lost Mines of Phandelver"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJyXQxgNVhU

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/c8/cd/25/c8cd2571d4841073c38b120cc9e395d7--lds-memes-lds-quotes.jpg

Here are my thoughts.

If I wanted to play turn based, I would play pen and paper.

If I want to play real time, I'll play a video game.

However I do play a killer game called "ages of wonder 2" Love it

Also I loved "Storm coast legends" I thoughts their idea of turn based worked well for those of us who like real time. Not sure why the game didnt go over well. I liked it. I also love the mechanics of making your own stories and dungeons.

Hmmm I would like to know why Storm Coast Legends failed as well... I didn't mind it, but it did get a touch ?repetitive after a while... perhaps the main story was lacking??? Might google an analysis on why it failed if I can... Still have the game, but I am back playing BG ee at the moment, but haven't replayed Storm coast legends.... Also haven't replayed DoS1 or DoS2 after finishing them.

I think in general the idea here is to create a game in the spirit of the originals rather than in the exact form.
If the developers back then had a different engine and different technical capeabilities, theyd have made different games. And you can see this from later DnD games like Neverwinter Nights or ToEE.
If they were to make one today, i figure it would be closer to Dragons Dogma than any infinity engine game.

Regardless, i think the issue you are discribing mostly comes from the system itself. DnD is a very abstract system and it is so for a reason:
Its a PnP game and simulationism can be a pain in the arse, if youve ever played The Dark Eye you know what i mean.
5E is a notoriously easy to run and low depth version of DnD, the reason for this is that 3.5, the edition 5E is based on was very cumbersome to run due to beeing very bloated with material.
2E which baldurs gate (besides the dark alliance ones) is based on is an older, more archaic version that had its focus very clearly on the dungoen crawling aspect, something the game took a step away from in third edition.

Introductions aside, DnD is an abstract game because that makes it easy and fast to run, however, one of the strengths of a PC game is that you dont have to consider ease of running. Thats probably why NWN with its port of the third edition ruleset became very popular. Also why people bemoan that there never has been a fourth edition video game.
Which kind of leads us to enviroment interactions. To someone who doesnt play DnD, this most likeley seems to be an issue. As DnD doesnt have enviroment interactions in the way Original Sin does.
This however is completley untrue, ill give you an example from a very early point in the campaign im DMing right now.

AS you might now, Dragonborn are a core race since 4th edition and a friend of mine played a Dragonborn with the Thunder breath ability.
In one of the first couple of enocunters, my party was fighting a Tribe of Kobolds, while they were engaged with Kobold skirmishers at a riverbank, kobold reinforcements were wading through the shallow water, so my player decided that she would use her breath attack on the kobolds in the water.
When i was about to tell her she hit two Kobolds she told me she expects to be able to hit all of them, as they are all partly submerged in water and sureley her electric dragons breath would fry the lot of them.
This lead me to homebrewing the effect of this interaction on the spot.
So its not that DnD doesnt HAVE these thigns, its that it doesnt have rules for them because that leads to some very cumbersome gameplay. Also editions like 4E are centered around balanced gameplay rather than simulationism.

What Sven said when he talked about "Systems" is that he wants to put systems into place that simulate a Dungoen Master. An arbitrator of what you can and cannot do. Naturally this can extend beyodn the rules, anyone that ever DMed will tell you that you probably cant make it to session 2 in any campaign without having to houserule one thing or another.


As for RTWP: Im gonna make myself realy unpopular right now: but RTWP is a terrible system that only exists due to the limitations of their time. It was an attempt to emulate the DnD ruleset and thats it. It snot some sort of holy grail. It leads to terrible combat and repetetive encounter design in which only a couple of encounters will actually be thought about while most of them will be "right click toe goblins".
From Svens combat, i think we wont get either RTWP or Turn based but a completley different system alltogether. my money is on something like Divinity 2 or maybe Dragons Dogma.

Ok, it seems the fighting system question is answered.

The german magazine Gamestar asked the fighting system question.

Original:
Fan-Kritik und Feedback der Community sind Larian wichtig - aber zentrale Gameplay-Elemente wie das Kampfsystem sollen deswegen nicht geändert werden.

Translation:
Fan criticism and feedback from the community are important to Larian - but central gameplay elements like the combat system should not be changed.

Meaning not be changed from the BG franchise and RTwP? Or not be changed from Larian's engine in D:OS2?

Or not be changed from D&D 5th Ed? Or not be changed from whatever they've come up with for their BG3 engine?

Yeah, no real information there.

We already know it has to be changed from D&D to whatever they come up with for the BG3 engine. They said so themselves, a straight port does not work.

Logically, it's either the 2 combat systems we are familiar with, or a 3rd one we are not.


And in fact, there is some actual new info there...

German Und dann teasert Vincke noch an, dass die Kameraperspektive des Party-Rollenspiels Baldur's Gate 3 den ein oder anderen Spieler vielleicht überraschen könnte ...

Translation And then Vincke teasers that the camera perspective of the party role-playing game Baldur's Gate 3 might surprise some players ...

The camera perspective of Baldur's Gate 3 could for the first time not be classically isometric.

OK...

Can anyone else fully access the rest of this article? LINK

When I get to the 3rd break (after the image of the Mind Flayer), the text fades out into an Ad that blocks it, much like a paid subscription site.

Can't tell how much longer it is, and I'd be curious to know what else was said to this reporter that might not have been caught by the major outlets.

Thanks for the additional info,

You can use inspect element to read the rest of the paragraph, but I don't know if the article continues beyond the following part:


My German isn't exactly great, so I'd appreciate if someone could provide a proper translation.
It seems Swen is talking about the BG3 trailer ranking highly on Google/Youtube after it was released. He then mentions that player feedback will play an essential role in the game's development, similarly to their two Original Sin games. He says that once they have some gameplay to show they expect to receive a lot of opinions from the players/community.

Yeah it actually raises more questions than it answers.

I see no reason for Larian to hide anymore. The whole community is anxious about the system they are going tu use. Just spit it out already.

told you, its very obviously not going to be isometric.
its going to be a third person action type of game with maybe a tactical camera

The comment about the camera perspective is indeed interesting.
I don't like speculating too much, especially not when we currently don't know anything about the game, but I'm really curious to see what he means by his statements. If I were to take a guess I'd say the most reasonable guess would be a tactical / third-person hybrid like in Dragon Age: Origins. I've seen some people speculate that BG3 will be a full-blown third-person ARPG, but personally I find this idea a bit too far-fetched.

This is not something surprising. Modern AAA games do not use the isometric perspective. It was obviously going to be third person or first person, and since first person won't work for a party-based game, it had to be some form of third person.

If the game world is not rendered in isometric perspective, calling it "Baldur something" is just a marketing move and has nothing to do with the original (neither gameplay nor story since the Bhaalspawn saga is over)

One thing is clear though, all this uncertainty is a great marketing tool. Everybody talks about the game and what it might be.

If that's the look they chose to go with, why use the BG name? If it was the D&D license they wanted, just make it a new Neverwinter Nights title....?

Otherwise....

obviously, they arent stupid, it gets people talking.
Anyway, sven wouldnt be saying the camera position will surprise people if it isnt isometric.

I dont know how many porn movies ive seen that were called "Pizza surprise" the the surprise was that the hot milf gets delivered a Quatro Stagioni without a hole in it.
Anyway, only time can tell

You can easily have a game that's similar to the 1998-2002 CRPGs in every single aspect except the camera. Let's not pretend static isometric backgrounds are the most defining aspect of these types of games.

But it's surely one of the most beloved aspects.

In fact, just texted my sister about it and she said "not as interested then."

One person's thoughts don't constitute the opinion of the entire world. If you want to argue semantics you'd also have to find out if those who consider the 'camera' integral to these types of games actually prefer the 2D sprite graphics, the fixed camera angle or a mix thereof.

speak for yourself artagel.
not to mention that around the same time we had games like might and magic and wizardry.
and even then, i want to see some positive evolution of the genre.
games have been regressing for too long, and now all thats left is soulless open world single player MMOs or Nostalgia bait games.

time to move forward again

Never said I felt progressing or evolving the genre was the wrong way to go. These are my hopes as well. And I never expressed a desire to see a 2019 RPG still doing 2d iso and sprites. Not sure where you got that notion, either.

But the fact is, the nostalgia of a franchise whose last entry was nearly 20 years ago is most definitely part of the reason Larian spent so much time and $$ to acquire the license. I think it's interesting to talk about how much they will try and retain from a presentation standpoint.

Third/first person perspectives have advantages.

- Fog of war actually works. You can only see what you can see.
- Enemies and skills feel much more massive when you see them up close. Especially dragons. Those things look even more ridiculously huge when you look up at them.

There are obvious advantages to isometric too. But many here like isometric already so i will only type a con

- occlusion. It is a drag to rotate a camera just so you can see properly or ih you have to walk close to a wall to see things behind it.

just some thoughts to lighten the thought of another camera angle.