Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General gameplay criticism today 18.6.20

Maybe you guys need a more color accurate monitor or try adjusting your settings off of Cold color temps. The only dark and medieval setting in BG1 was Durlag's, underground caverns, and the very last map before Svaerok. Candlekeep was full of multi colored peasants, Baldur's Gate itself had bright onion dome buildings, multi striped tents, bright blue water and a whole host of other multi colored bright scenery. BG2 was just a bright and 'pretty' in the places it made sense; the maps there were all themed for the most part and color correct. Tradesmeet with a bright blue Djinn? The circus tent with Aerie and Quayle at the start? Inside the Copper coronet? Everyone had on colorful attire and artwork on the walls except for the dark and scary places as fit.

What we've seen of BG3 has been outdoors on a sunny day with the exception of building interiors and a few underground areas, all of which -were- dark and themed correctly. This may actually be the first CRPG that's made light sources truly relevant and not just for people without gamma correction.

You can argue that the color'd warpaint was a little too bright or that some armor's were too shiny but bland textures were just an art decision to make it over a technological hurdle and should be a thing of the past. Should the goblin's warpaint glow in the shadows? Of course not, but under the right lighting, open clear sunny day, I see nothing wrong. Maybe he's got a side gig as a Scrying mirror influencer and he's just repping his sponsor's Brilliant Bloodless Blue® scar cream. Can't hate the hustle.

maybe that changed in 5E, but level 3 characters in the underdark? wouldnt they be shred to pieces in seconds?

even later in the game, the underdark is extremely dangerous, especially to those not native to it. In addition to "general life threatening dangers" (which will most likely not be implemented in a CRPG), the underdark is the home of predators like aboleth, beholders, cloakers, derro, drow, duergar, dwarves, illithids, kuo-toa, driders, and svirfneblin.

since level cap is 10 the underdark seems rather unfitting to me (like: the underdark in BG1?)

Yea and going in the underdark jumping in a 300m hole, flying because "you have a tadpole in the head" => very easy narrative choices again...

What do you mean? He casted feather fall.

Visually I think the game is shaping up fine.
Larian said they still need to tidy up animations / mocap. Hopefully that includes the jog animation and jump, which still bug me a little.

As for the colour argument, FR isn’t grimdark, but it could use a little more realism in dirt.

I hope characters in camp will be animated to be doing things later on. Standing around waiting for you you to interact with them isn’t very 2020. I would expect a mage to be reading a spell book for example...

I agree with toning down some of the action selections to not all sound as though it’s epic dash, epic this that and the other. For spells that’s fine, but for “normal” actions I would like to see simply stance changes and maybe a more restrained / subtle sound effect.

All in all though I was pretty pleased with the presentation, I appreciate there are those who dislike the TB combat and it does visually slow it down. I do like the physical options and mechanics it presents though. So pros and cons on that one.

>Muh cartoony
Im gonna say it bluntly this time.
Go. Back. To. RPG. Codex.

Your argument has been disproven before. You dont know what youre talking about and youre making shit up.
You cannot prove it, you cannot provide evidence.
There is no way i believe you that you are beeing honest with this.
Id understand if you were comparing it to witcher or anything of the like, form a pure graphical fidelity approach. But solasta? Realy?
Youre just making shit up to justify your hateboner.

>the last of us 2
now i know youre troling. I guess youre not buying the game if it doesnt feature She hulk choking a lesbian.

You have to go back

The MC of Sven was actually shred to pieces in seconds...

Non cartoonish armor design : On spoiler : Gothic and Dark Souls Faraam set



Cartoon armor design : On Spoiler : DOS2 and D3



Armor doesn't need to be realistic(eg : greedfall) to be "non cartoonish". Faraam set is a fantasy armor which is gorgeous IMO. On Dark Souls 2 and 3.

Thats pretty ironic.
Faraam is the only Dark Souls starter armor that could basically be from an MMORPG, a bloody Barbute with greco roman elements, a cuiras with a chainshirt, no greaves and leather boots, those big gauntlets but no protection for the joints.
Faraam is one of my favorite designs in dark souls but certainly not for it beeing realistic.

Meanwhile original sin 2s Human heavy armor is besides a few exceptions based on actual Renaissance (parade) Armor.

And i quite frankly want to know where those standards come from.
Dark Souls protagonists would be pretty out of place int he wacky parade that is Forgotten Realms.

BG3s armor sets also arent particulary realistic right now, but they reflect the source material and thats what they are supposed to do.
Its no supposed to be grimdark or soulsesque, its supposed to be a Forgotten Realms adventure romp.

Id certainly but up for a high fantasy game with Dark Souls aesthetic, but i you cannot realy blame Larian for not going there
Maybe in a Ravenloft game

I wonder if the armor alters depending on your race/class. DOS2, for example, the armors altered greatly depending on your race to fit thematically to them. The armor the that Swen wore when he was a High Elf wizard and a Drow wizard seemed the same, and as I recall Wizards and Sorcerers cannot wear any armor at all unless they invest the points into it.

Sorcerers and wizards have penalties using armour because they do not have the proficiency indeed, but they can multiclass, choose a race trained in armour (githyanki) or pick a feat (losing a stat upgrade) to be able to use armour.
The good thing is that you can cast your spells without any problem in medium or heavy armour and a shield, for example, if you have the proficiency.

No point in making armor-design-by-class like in PF:K but they could change armour by race, indeed.

Loved the VA, but if you are not going to voice the MC then you should not focus on him/her from the waist up in dialogues. The MC looks stupid standing there like a mannequin.

I hate the curvy lines to show movement. To me it looks sort of trashy and unprofessional. Better to keep the DOS way of showing it.

Animations are kind of over the top. It was one thing when they were tied to talents in DOS, but not so appropriate when used for regular actions in DnD.

Are you really like that or are you doing it on purpose ?

Where the hell did he ask dark souls aesthetic ? He gives exemple to try to explain to poeple really not open minded what he mean.
Seriously, you don't understand what "less cartoony" means ?
Do you want other exemple for you to understand the concept ?

I understand what less cartoony means.
you do not.

Thats why im making these posts.
Whenever someone claims BG3 looks cartoony, they never actually compare screenshots from BG3 and BG1 or 2.
Because then it would be aperent that they have no actual argument.

Instead they always use other examples like previous larian games or just point towards MMORPGs.

TL;DR: Lurk more and youll understand

Ok so you have the right answer but you keep it in your mind LOL.

Even if it's totally ridiculous to compare pictures of a 20yo isometric game with actual games, just compare only one official map from BG where there's grass with one of DoS2 maps...
How the hell could you say one's colors are not more cartoony or flashy than the other's...

https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/North_Nashkel_Road?file=Area_n_of_nashkel.png

https://guides4gamers.com/sites/6/maps/24-6/slices/2/2x2.jpg

Maybe you'll understand a part what they mean talking about "cartoony graphics" (or not because I don't think you want to understand differents point of view than yours... Your goal is only to say they're wrong)

Anyway a simple reshade mod should already help about that.

I fail to understand why using bright colors is seen by many people as automatically bad.

so.. divinity has a less saturated colour palette than baldurs gate and more craggy lifelike enviroment.
What is that supposed to mean?

And as someone who spends quite a bit of time drawing and occasionally texturing, i am interrested in what differentiates certain styles.
I can tell you for a fact that baldurs gate 3 is not cartoony , and certainly not more cartoony than baldurs gate 1 and 2.
They both pretty accurateley reflect the art of DnD sourcebooks of their respective times.

and while im at it. AdnD sourcebooks were quite a bit cartoony at times.

Oh god... Use the name you find perfect as the professional you are to describe the difference between colors and lightning. It's not complicated to understand that THIS are their complaints if you're a little bit open minded.

I agree with them. It looks way less realistic according to me.
It's too much "modern" and "glossy" for full 3D environment, not enough immersive and story telling.
(Really hard to explain that feeling, especially in EN so consider many "")

When I'm playing RPG I like something more real and/or more poetic.
Something like P:K and PoE1 i.e suits better but of course, it's not full 3D so you can't really compare... I could also talk about KCD but another totally different general design and point of view. Don't really find the perfect exemple but I'll try to.

The sourcebooks had nothing to do with the tone of colors and the lights, particularly of the environments.
Design is good enough to me, but I find colors and lights look cheap.

Of course it's better if it's in base game, especially for console players but as I said it's not a big problems to me because a sweetfx reshade or something like that would solve this.

What "cartoony" means seems to be something of spectrum, with actual cartoons on one end and the most realistic graphics currently available on the other. I don't see BD3 being anywhere near even the middle of that spectrum. Certainly not cartoony to me at all.

As for colors, my friends and I have been playing Dragon Age Inquisition multiplayer lately. The color palette for armors in that game is quite muted. And man, do the armors look like shit (models are awful too).

my point was that the colours in BG3 are less cartoony than in BG1 and 2.
They are less saturated, more muted, more believeable.

>glossy
one issue wiht shading OS2 had, everrything reflected too much, it wasnt intentional but a graphical limitaiton that they worked out from the gamepaly ive seen of BG3.
it also isnt "cartoony", its just kinda bad graphics. And again its gone now.

>real
>poetic
isnt that a contradiction? when you talk of something beeing poetic, dont you usually refer to romanticism? wouldnt that be LESS realistic?
And more idealized?

>P:K
wat? P:Ks Artstyle is Cartoony as fuck! Have you ever looked at the textures up close?
PKs Textures are hand paitned, all the shadows are painted on the actual model, they even have that thing from cartoons where the eyes have a shiny little dot to show they are reflective.

The entire artstyle is based on wayne reynolds.

Dont get me wrong, I love that artstyle. I like PKs artstlye BECAUSE its cartoony.
because western Devs usually dont do this Hand painted style anymore. But realy? Thats NOT cartoony? Literaly exagrated proportions with tiny heads and big bodies, painted on shadows and exagrated weapons is NOT cartoony?
now youre just trolling me.

What the hell are you even talking about. Are you from some bizarro world where Kingmaker and BG3 swapped palces?