Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General The importance of this game.

I don’t think being a spiritual successor to BG hurt PoE artistically, because without that it wouldn’t exist. PoE was specifically conceived as a spiritual successor. Obsidian was on the verge of closing up shop for good and they needed something they could make relatively cheaply and would actually sell well, so they banked on nostalgia.

i honestly dont see how PoE had the best lore of any non liscened CRPG.
but i guess that reayl depends on what you call a CRPG.

if only top down IE style games count, then it sitll goes up against Disco Elysium which supposedly is very good, Underrail and Age of Decadence who all have been lauded for great worldbuilding.

i dont see anyhting about PoEs worldbuilding that isnt dry and unimaginitive.

I actually like Divinity 2s worldbuilding, its not amazing but i like stuff like the Elves, the original idea of the etenral undead was great, the ancient empire is also great and all the stuff with the Scar singing.
at leat those are novel ideas.

PoE showed a distinct lack of that to me.

As for

>Artistic vs Commercial

are reviews a good gauge for artistic success?
Games journalists are notorious for having the opinion that a game is better if its closer to a movie and worse if its closer to anyhting else.

man that perfectly sums up my feelings about PoE. Dry, bland, and somewhat unimaginative. I've tried so hard to get into it but it's just so uninspiring and lacks any real charm. The series also isn't that great at storytelling, which I think is its biggest weakness. There's so much lore but I never felt like it was being pushed on me in an organic way, especially with the first one. The second got a little better about it, but it still suffered IMO.

I also agree with you about Divinity. It isn't the most interesting stuff in the world, but it's a unique take on things like Elves, Gods and and the grey nature of people doing what they think is best, or not (magisters). I really enjoy the lore of the world, and the way the game allows you to digest it at your own pace. The game doesn't take itself too seriously all the time, but doesn't come off as a goofy comedy at the same time.

I know all of this stuff is subjective, and I do see some things that PoE did right. Ultimately it just isn't for me. I guess that's one of the great things about RPGs, though, is that they speak to people in drastically different ways.

I would say lore is good because how closely tied it is to character arcs and themes. I find central moral dilemma of the series to be fascinating and it exploration through Dyrwood and Huana history is engaging. Again, moment to moment storytelling isn't great in PoE - I feel things are introduced out of order, too many things are included through books. PoE is a great I fully appreciated on my 2nd playthrough, but I am not blind to it's many flaws. But I find it's ambitions far more interesting and I find Sawyers historical obsessions to give PoE a fresh and authentic quality. PoE definitely isn't approachable, and work that came into crafting each culture can be a barrier. I think PoE2 showed that if properly explored in-game, rather then in-books it can work well, but then again PoE2 spent most of its time exploring sociopolitical situation of Deadfire with little time for actual story with themes. That I blame on change on narrative lead though, whenever fairly or not - without insight into game development one can only guess.

There is one part of PoEs that I would praise to no end - that's White March expansion. I think that is a bit of content that to me shows what PoE could have been.

If I were to nominate best world building in recent years, that would be Dark Souls - completely unintrusive to gameplay, puttings atmosphere and "feels" over dry history with world, history deeply tied to the gameplay loop.

Disco Elysium is half of a great game, I didn't get too invested in the lore - I personally think that if it was set in real world setting it would be more compelling to me. Need to give it another playthrough at some point.

Again, I don't think we're saying very different things. Your focus is on the impact of the IE lineage artistically. For me, it is both artistically and commercially. And the games falling short of their potential artistically, I think, is because Obsidian/Sawyer went too far in trying to hue as closely to that IE lineage as possible.

But, even if they fall short of what they could have been, I still find them to be superior to the D:OS games in every way: world-building, storytelling, characters and character development, mechanics, artsyle. Everything.

> I think, is because Obsidian/Sawyer went too far in trying to hue as closely to that IE lineage as possible.

Trying to far?

PoE 1/2 is completely inferior compared to IE games. They share similarities BUT Infinity Engine games was made focused on freedom and replicating a TT experience in a screen. PoE 1 was made putting balance and accessibility above everything else.

And for eg, you can be a low INT wizard on PoE 1, because they wanted to make impossible to have "bad builds", so they made might dictate the power of spells, firearms, bows and physical blows and note that the lore established that wizards are intellectuals.

And firerams? Obsidian did such a amazing job with new vegas firearms, on PoE1, they are lackluster. Classes are also extremely lackluster compared to IE games. You have generalist wizards on PoE 1 and all except generalist and evoker are useless on PoE 2. The keep is also extremely lackluster if compared to NWN2 crossroad keep. Or even Baldur's Gate 2 player stronghold which depends on your class.

Baldur's Gate 2 had over 300 spells and the spells aren't "fireball 1, fireball 2(...)" are stop time, wish, animate dead, cloudkill, cone of cold, delayed blast fireball(...) And some spells can produce multiple effects, like wish which can produce dozens of different effects.

The magic of PoE 1/2 are extremely lackluster.

Here a video which explains my point if someone din't understood.

Yes... though I think Divinity succeeded in what it wanted to be. Externalising mechanics visually made it approachable and easy to understand. And while I don't like many designs, it is a great coop experience (at least D:OS1 was - didn't try D:OS2 that way). While I like PoEs better then D:OSs, I think in some way D:OS better achieve what they aim for.


IE games offer more freedom then PoE1/2...? You must be joking.

Yes, PoEs made DnD like system which is more balanced and accessible (well, except for some fine math which is never explained). That's why it's better for a computer game, as there is no DM to adjust adventure for whatever character you create.

This here is exactly what I believe made all the difference between the sales numbers of PoE2 versus D:OS2. Both PoE and D:OS use original gameplay mechanics systems. Neither of those new systems is similar to D&D mechanics. As such, since D&D mechanics is what is most familiar for most cRPG fans, neither the PoE system nor the D:OS system has an inherent advantage over the other based on familiarity: they were both equally unfamiliar and equally unlike D&D. So what explains people's preference for the D:OS system over the PoE system? It is complexity. The PoE system is very complex and often very non-intuitive, making it difficult for players to figure out what's going on. The D:OS system, OTOH, is extremely basic and simple, and very easy to figure out. It took me just a few minutes of playing the game to completely figure out how everything worked in the game.

I personally much prefer the complexity of the PoE system over the simplicity of the D:OS system, but in today's gaming world simple and easy beats complex and difficult for most people. But this is also why I wonder how all those D:OS fans who are unfamiliar with D&D will react to BG3. Those fans will be approaching BG3 with D:OS2 as their baseline for comparison. Will they be thrown off by D&D's complex mechanics? I already see on some forums people asking: How come this game (BG3) doesn't have cooldowns like D:OS? Or, how come there are no action points? Etc.

That video sums up my feelings about PoE’s overbalancing quite nicely. I 100% agree.

More freedom? Lets suppose that i wanna play as a caster. BG1/2 > Should i play as a pure caster? Generalist wizard? Evoker? Illusionist? Conjurer? Wild Mage? Multiclass and be a fighter mage? Or a cleric mage? So many possibilities. And my favorite specialization is necromancy. Can i be a necromancer on Pillars? I can on BG1/2 and have access to necromancy with arcane and divine means. And even use mods and play as a Pale Master ( https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/64333/kit-mod-pale-master-sorcerer-kit-v1-4-5-re-upload ). this is impossible on PoE1.

They force your wizard to be either a """blaster""" or a """disabler"""" on PoE1/2 and can't do anything interesting. Psion is the unique thing not present on IE games and is very lackluster compared to TT 3.5e psion ( http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/classes/psion.htm ). The game which is the true spiritual successor to infinity engine is pathfinder kingmaker. The "blaster" spells are also very lackluster. When i casted a fireball for the first time on BG1, was so cool and amazing. On PoE 1 was "meh, din't took even 1/3 of mob's health"

Since Larian has way more mainstream appeal and 5e is far more accessible, i an happy to see Larian dealing with BG. I just believe that unless the game is somehow a sequel to Bhaalspawn saga, the name should be something different, but is just my opinion.

And overall, I think that is something other RPGs can learn from. If with all available gamespace, the gameplay takes place in two small boxes in two corners of the screen (https://imgur.com/YZhn2B2) I think it is time to rething the design.
I am curious to see how much Larian will alter DnD. Something I have to applause is constant inclusion of dice in gamespace: you land critical hit - big dice animation on screen. You roll skill check - you actually roll a dice. I think those kind of tricks can help a lot in making gameplay mechanics understandable. I don't think having a system roll a dice for you, to be nearly as engaging or intuitive as doing it yourself. Seeing dice being rolled visually, be it in initiative, attack or skill check I think should help a lot.


Well, first of all, in BG1 you could play as just plain wizard (if my DnD terminology is wrong I am sorry - back in a day I played it in PL). As to subclasses you have those in PoE2 as well. A fair deal less, I give you that, but still a good offering for multiple playtrhoughs, and a decent amount of builds. I played with some of them, and they are all effective. As to necromancer - Beckoner is your PoE2 substitute I think - never played as necromancer myself so I might be missing some of the appeal.

And yes, I remember casting my first fireball and a room full of hobgoblins and seeing them all die. I think that's a really bad gameplay. I am not saying that powerful but limited spells of BG2 couldn't work, but it needs structure to pace rest and limited access to those spells - think like bonfires in Dark Souls. If I need to make myself special rules of not using Finger or Death, stop time, or dragons breath to not trivialize the game, then we have what I call a bad design. You don't have a way to reinforce design based on limited resources, then you shouldn't have skills made for this kind of structure. It might be my problem of liking RPGs and Tactical games. As I said many times: PoEs seemed to be created precisely for me.

I am just flabbergasted, how people complaint that spellcasters suck in PoEs, when they are possiblely still a bit OP. "Oh no, the fireball doesn't completely kill all enemies - it's just does a really good damage to a large amount of enemies." Like seriously, whenever I go for spellcaster DPS they outperform everyone else by a large margin. And sure, I am not the guy who can abuse systems to the point of making single-character run, but comeon - casters went from God level to really really good. Gap between them and other classes in terms of fun and versatility was slightly minimised. Great. I would never consider playing other class then spellcaster in DnD - I did the mistake of picking a ranger in Pathfinder after PoEs... big mistake, really boring.

I think if you take spellcasters alone you could be right. I think where I disagree is that spellcasters are the most fun and only fun classes in BG1&2, where is PoE spread the fun around. And in team based RPG with what is supposed to be tactical combat - I think PoE is much closer to it, even if it has still a lot of space to improve.

EDIT: Oh, one thing I miss was the sequencer. I thought that was a handy utility spell, and I would welcome it in PoEs - especially with no prebuffing.

EDIT2: I watched the video. I definitely agree on items in PoE1.

I understand you like to play mages, you want to be powerful, you want powerful ranged attacks. That´s fair and square if you want to play a wizard.

But what about if you want to play a fighter, or a rogue?
Let´s see what options do I have in IE games in combat. so

I´m a fighter: I point this enemy, I watch until the enemy dies. Then I point the next enemy, and wait till the enemy dies... rinse and repeat.
And when I try to play a rogue. I just prepare a trap. The trap springs and I take 10 points of damage. Then I go invisible, I sneak attack one enemy before he casts true sight and then... I spent the rest of the combat searching a rock to hide behind.
The IE games like IWD or BG are (fantastic) party-based games so it does not really matter because you are playing with the entire party but with some choices, you are basically dragging your party down if you want to roleplay some subpar builds. I do not expect to be uberpowerful if I want to play a beastmaster or a rogue, but I least expect the class to be playable.

At least in POE games your fighters, rangers, rogues, etc have something else to do if you want to play another class than a caster for once. And I am not talking about powerful attacks and dealing/resist damage, I meant something to do besides point what I want to attack (until epic levels)

And if you ask me, I prefer to play and fight instead of having guys in robes that kill half your party with one spell if you fail ONE save or wipe out an entire room full of enemies with a fireball while the rest of my party have tea and scones.


I understand that there always be some classes that have advantage in a campaign, because they have a lot of utility, a lot of power, or they are more suited for this campaign (In NWN2 OC you spend the last chapters fighting undead so a cleric would be more useful than a rogue that cannot sneak attack undead) but at least I expect the difference between classes not to be overboard.

If the difference in balance between classes is too steep, you find entire servers with only weapon masters and not even one bard in sight like in NWN at high levels.

pretty much going off topic but Wormerine idk, there might be a lot of work in PoEs cultures but none of that looks like somethign i havent seen already.
Visually they are all pretty much earth cultures (Venetians but theyre black! genious!)
And the wolrdbuilding still doesnt grip me.

you can pour a lot of work into something and it can still be pretty stale.

The RPG genre simply has a lot of very strong worldbuilding.
PoE tries too hard wile also trying to be approachable by people who play FR games.
So PoE 1 naturally looks like ye olde england and its got recoloured human races and people wear brown """"medieal"""" stuff. Plus some ventians and some Native americans. Which also somehow didnt realy impress me.

If you go up against stuff like Morrowind, that did all that Wolrdbuilding exercis ebut did it with a great artstyle an some amazing drug fueled metaphyiscal ideas, PoE just falls flat on its ass.

Dark souls is anohter great example. Its worldbuilding serves the game and it makes the game feel better, it doesnt feel tacked on, even if its completley inconsequential to the actual game.
good worldbuilding is one that makes you appreciate the game more even after youve played it.
bad worldbuilding feels like reading a book about somehting compleltey unrelated.

>On PoE , balance and builds

Balancemen went too far. i admit that.
I like some semblance of balance, but CRPGs in a way are made to be broken and thats half the fun of it.

but Sorc runs into the same issue we run into every time we have this discussion:

Youre having fun in DnD games specifically because the Caster can do anyhting.

And thats where the argument breaks down, because where else do we go from here? its a fundamental disagreement.
I know your opinion is that a Fighter CAN be just as varied and powerfull as a Wizard.

but i disagree, becuase the wizard does everything. If a fighter is on the same level, hes just another wizard.
the only way to not do this is to introduce a bunch of new mechanics to the game that the wizard cannot do.

In that case you have three tiems the ammount of development effort to make classes.

Im not disagreeing with your in principle Sorc. Making everyone cooler is better than making the wizard lamer.
but DnD wizards got too much. They got so much theres no space for anyone else to expand into it.

name something you could potentialy come up with a in a fantasy setting that isnt already covered. i cant think of muh without coming up with a custom setting that has new things that your average dnd setting doesnt.

I think it very much depends on what you want from fantasy world. PoEs world isn't very "fantastical" - you may like it, or dislike, that's very much Josh's sensibility and not a good or bad thing in itself, even if it may enhance or detract from ones enjoyment.

What made me fall in love with Dune's world wasn't how cool or imaginative the setting was, but how believably and wellthoughout it was - the influence of the enviroment on the culture. How would people living on such planet behave - how different their values and greeting would be? PoEs cultures are never appealing at first but they grow on me - I didn't love Dyrwood until I understood its history and it's ramification on current events. I don't think Huana were initially interesting, but how different effect on them Leaden Key's influence had was a revelation. And having to weight consequences of putting in power one of four, disctinct, well developed ideologies was a compelling character choice to make. And that's all coming back to central conflict of the game - humanity's uncertainty of existence, and whenever they need an authority figures to reign over them. Having to place each character I create within that conflict is... interesting. I sometimes find my characters having to make a decision I wouldn't expect. I felt the way PoE setting encourages roleplaying is exceptional, even if package isn't particularly enticing at first. That kind of involvement with the setting, as well as navigation of where my character would fit in that setting is what makes it so much more compelling to me then D:OS.

As far as world-building high-point of D:OS2 for me was witnessing burial ceremony of elfs. But those moment are few and far between and have little impact on the overall game or character development or expression.

I think here is the best explenation as to why I think PoE one of the best worldbulding in recent memory. You can't take characters out of PoE and have them work in another setting - who they are, how they view thing, what their goals are, they way they are tried is unseperately connected to the world and the conflict that surrounds them. To understand your companions you need to understand the world they live in, and through your companions you understand the world. That's why PoEs1 ending worked so very very well to me - the implication the revelation had on my companions personal conflicts was profound.

No, is not a bad gameplay. Fireball is like the high fantasy version of a grenade. It should clear a room of weaklings.



Pathfinder Kingmaker did it right. Resting is not trivial and time matters in that game.



No, and casters was never god level. Seriously. Every spell which a PC can cast, a NCP can cast too. Sodalis on NWN1 - Hotu teleports, casts stop time among other things.

And they aren't good in PoE either. They can't do anything. "they can do damage", eqquip all slots with firearms, fire a barrage, switch to another firearm, fire a barrage, switch(...) and you can "outdps" anyone.



The solution is to make rangers GREAT, not to make casters boring.

On my one 3.5e campaign arrond 2010, the gretest threat that i had to face was elves head hunters with longbows and poisoned bodkin arrows helped by a single illusionist and diviner mage. Longbows is one of the most iconic medieval weapons which shaped battlefields around Europe. Needs more love in fantasy.

Dragon's Dogma did a amazing job to rangers





As i've said many times, the solutions is to make this classes more interesting to play, not every class equally boring.

If And i an glad that you recognize that on high level NWN2 servers, nobody plays as caster due the Sawyerism on arcane classes. NWN2 is clearly Martial > Divine > arcane. With spell fixes and warlock reworked mod Martial still has his ludicrous op gear but at least casters has ludicrous op spells.

Balance is entire subjective, a lot of people will say that everyone being martial and casters only serving to craft magical gear to martial classes is perfectly balanced. Hell, look to BF1, how many people cry to bolt action rifles and shotguns, literally the less used weapons according to BF tracker.



Wizards aren't my favorite class either BUT should be optional rules limiting wizards to a research theme, eg : a wizard which studies necromancy casting cloudkill and cone of cold? Ok. Casting Knock, Stop Time, Wish and Fireball? Not ok.

And when i say giving more options to fighter/barbarian, i don't say making then like wizards. I mean making then like warlocks for eg, which has very limited spell selection in all editions, except 2e(they are a wizard subkit on 2e)

Some prefer Divinity’s approach, others Pillars of Eternity. But can we all agree on one thing: Dragon Age is trash! XD

Sorry no. I like DA. I even liked DA2. And I'm very much looking forward to DA4. DA is especially awesome because it is party-based and still hasn't caved to the mob demanding that all party-based RPGs need to be TB.

But of course, the overbearing superiority of clerics and warriors in NWN is as problematic as the superiority of arcane casters in other games.

As I said before, I understand that there always be some classes that have advantage in a campaign, because they have a lot of utility, a lot of power, or they are more suited for this campaign (In NWN2 OC you spend the last chapters fighting undead so a cleric would be more useful than a rogue that cannot sneak attack undead) but at least I expect the difference between classes not to be overboard.
And when I said classes I could also add weapons, magic schools, etc... anyone tried to use short swords or bastard swords in BG2?, enchantment and necromancy specialist in NWN2 OC? a slinger halfling in Icewind dale?

I i tried to make a necromancer specialist on nwn1 and nwn2 and ended deleting my character. Playing as a necromancer on NWN2 was pure frustration. I was using only my party members and spending more time on gorund than playing my char. In fact, people who enjoy being a necromancer on it generally mod the game



Spell fixes is a must have spell if you wanna be a necromancer. Why?



Is so frustrating to see enemy necromancers and warlocks doing all cool and crazy stuff on cutscenes while the PC being one is a useless piece of ****. I can bet that a lv 12 NPC necro is stronger than a lv 20 PC necro on nwn2. Seriously, warlocks on OC appears conjuring hordes from hell, teleporting and doing all crazy stuff only to enter in your party and have useless invocations even after epic level. In fact, many invocations which should grow up with the PC, like chilling tentacles(should have caster level + 8 BAB) has a fix + 5 BAB meaning that decent armored enemies can't be hit by it. And even after the hit, they are allowed a save before being grappled with no grapple routine implemented. Epic feats like Eldritch Sculptor and Master of elements also doesn't exist unless you use warlock reworked.

PS : One thing that i love BG1/2 is that Plate armor is more likely to deflect slashes than blunt attacks. Maces are far better against plate armor.

PS 2 : I don't like playing as divine casters but i an against nerfing the class.

==============

Talking more about necromancy, i asked some questions to Larian on reddit AMA but nobody answered. I an pretty sure that if they put a one summon limit, every necromancer fan will download a mod to fix it.

Oh goodness, yes. Disappointment that this game was scarred me.