Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Dank Crypt(Overgrown Ruins) vs. Fort Joy Prison

My own thoughts on some of the comments.

Tadpole = Source collar.
It's a no from me: The collar was removed pretty early on in the game. The tadpole thing will be there for the duration of the entire game, or until the near end.

Bhaal making an appearance and it being him all along?
Again, nope: I have maintained all along that the absolute is an elder brain. It makes the most sense.

Killed off companions making a return.
Im not sure how that would work given what I feel the plot is.

I for one cant help the feeling that if you will be snaping out details and replace things with pronouns ... sooner or later you find out that all games are more or less the same.

We begin having been captured, now we are traveling on a *cart*.
When we arive to the camp, its under attack!
We use that unexpected confusion to break free and get our bearings.
We play witness to several entities far more powerful than us flexing their powers as we try to escape.
During the escape we are thrown several times against game BBEG, that should have killed us, but we are allways saved by miraclous coincidence.

This is start of Skyrim.
Is that somehow hugely different?

Yes, Rag, it is.

Oh really ...
How?

The atmosphere, tone, setting and set-up are all entirely different... and you know this, and are being facetious.

I could split hairs and say 'a cart is not a ship' - in order to make that 'the same' you'd have to reduce the descriptor to an incredibly generic term, to the point of the statement having no meaning; this is not true of the example you're holding it up against, whihc are both set upon ,and use as their introductory setting, a literal ship - one is an astral ship, but ships they both very much are, in every way that matters for the plot element.

I could split hairs and say that we do not stay on the cart, and the rest happens in a different location, unlike the example you're holding it up against, for which the ship is the entire setting for the introductory sequence.

I could split hairs and say 'arrive at a camp' is not at all the same as 'break free on a ship'

I could point out that your last example is entirely different to the thing you are holding it up against, and is by your own descriptive words not even remotely the same thing at all...

I don't really need to do any of that, because you already know this, and if I try, you will just continue to be flippant and pedantic for the sake of being so, without really engaging with the topic in a meaningful way.... and I know that you are capable of being far better than that, Ragnarok, so it would serve neither of us to feed that aspect of your behaviour.


Rather than doing that, I'd recommend you address yourself to the wealth of individual elements that pair one-to-one between these two games opening introductions and first acts; they are numerous, specific and sufficiently detailed to be visible to many players as directly recycled elements. Please do share your thoughts and feelings about those.

Yes, that's right, I simply based the accusation of cloning on the critical voices from the Internet and their paraphrases based on their own gaming experience with DOS 2 & BG 3. So I also hope fervently that your, in the last sentence of you, described game experience does not come true and I cross my fingers of course for all of us.




This is the first time I've heard of it, probably because I don't read any of the megathreads here, but I really like this theory.





Hah Rag that's kinda true. Gothic & TESO came instantly to my mind.

Wanna know what else i know?
I know that i didnt talk about any of that ...

So unless your argument is supposed to be "difference between this two things is that something entirely else is different" ... i have no idea what else were you trying to say. :-/

That's okay Rag... I won't hold it against you, I know the language barrier gets in the way sometimes.

We're discussing how there are many mostly identical elements between one game opening d the other; the contention being that there is so much about them that is the same, that it becomes an almost shocking and very tacky-looking copy of one to the other, in a very uninspired way.

You brought up a different game and listed some only-vaguely-similar elements to some of the elements listed, and asked if it was any different.

I answered that it was, indeed, a very different comparison, because the elements you listed were only passingly similar, and in some cases not at all similar, and only lined up some of the listed details, while the initial comparison was of a list of very nearly identical elements all presented together, in the same way, at the same time, and with the same overall atmosphere and tone, which your example does not share.

Are we on the same page now?

Yeah i gues so:
You feel like your example is superb, and mine was not even close ...

To me they are simmilar enough.

//Edit:
After some thoughts ...
I would even go so far to calmly claim that "wooden cart dragged by horses" and "regular sailing ship" are closer to each other than either is to "alien biomechanical vessel capable of transdimensional traveling".

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Not the clone, no. Reskin I believe it's usually called.

An extreme example of this, I'd say, are UFO 1 and 2 (the original ones from Microprose, not the recent remakes by Firaxis). Apart from very minor changes (like 2-level maps), literally everything in the game is absolutely the same, only renamed and re-drawn.

With BG3, there's clearly more difference in the most important part of the engine which is visual / cinematic, and the rest is... renamed and re-drawn?

That’s even further from the truth. Even if BG3 was build in the same engine (which it isn’t - clearly a lot has been added), using the same ruleset it would still be a new campaign, with new characters, quests, areas, writing and conquest. While tutorial in both games happens on a ship, those ships have different layouts, content and items.

Ruleset, unlike UFOs, also is fundamentally different. Do I need to list all? % to hit, advantage, per rest abilities, rest system, camp and minicamp and list could go on and on.

The most one can accuse BG3 of, is feeling like a sequel to D:OS2 rather then BG3 but even that has some caveats.

If you cannot see the similarities between the two stories then I think you are purposefully being a bit obtuse.

Does that mean they will continue on being very similar? No.
Is that necessarily a bad thing? No.

But there are fundamental similarities that exist between the two games. I honestly think a lot of it is brought on by making companions also be able to be 'origin characters'. This is a concept that I like, but I never quite understand why Larian has to make every origin character sort of have the same plight... or at least it is something they seem to struggle with in their last two games. Everyone needs to escape the ship, get the collar off/parasite out and deal with a very similar big bad. Then after a while their paths diverge, even though the same major overarching plot applies to them. But it seems like they could just be very different from the beginning. Like I see no reason why they have to share the burden of the collar or parasite - this mechanism is not necessary for having a similar goal toward the end of the game.

But eh - it is what it is. I loved D:OS2, one of my top 2 favorite games of all-time with The Witcher 3. I really like Baldur's Gate 3 so far. You can offer criticism without hating something.

That pretty simple to asnwer. Because they are all playable, they need to share a lot of content, and because writing unique multiple playable protagonists with different motivations and objectives would lead to even more dialogue to be written rather then occasional character specific lines - that was the case in D:OS2 and is likely to stay the same in BG3. Imagine not having tadpole, and how many interactions would be removed. Tadpole, like source, act as a convenient narrative device to override any roleplaying goals player might make, and conveniently ties player character to the plot of the game no matter their origin, or imagined background. Tadpole seems to be an equivalent of source, then collar - we ain't gonna be rid of it, and likely will tie every single origin to the plot till the end of the game.

Having different origins start in different situations, could also clash with coop - do you have individual players start in different parts of the map and having to meet? Do you force them to play singleplayer intro, before starting game proper? As it is, you can create coop experience and all start as fellow prisoners. I think it's very neat for coop, a bit less exciting for singleplayer.

So that is what I was thinking, but then I thought (and again, this would fundamentally change the game, but in theory) if you removed the tadpole/mindflayers as the main story and added in something else down the line that brought them together... it doesn't seem like it would be that hard.

Default Tav could wake up on the beach.
Astarion could wake up in the Dank Crypt since he is a vampire.
Gale could teleport into the setting like he already seems to do. (At least he did when I did my playthrough)
Lae'Zel could be on some kind of quest in the area for her people or whatever.
Shadowheart could wake up somewhere nearby not knowing what happened to her.
Wyll could be hanging out in the village - like he already is.

Which is to say... as long as you come up for a reason to them all to be in the same place or near the same place it doesn't seem like it is that big of a deal. If using the existing map they could all just start out at different areas near the village and the quests could all kick off from there... and some of them could be "side quests", while others would be part of whatever the main story is. It would restrict any content, it would just change the beginning parts of the game in a minor way... and you could introduce them all with their own little side quest for wherever they start - which doesn't seem like a very big lift.

I'd like it better if they were all raised at Candlekeep.

Coming up with seperate motivations to pursue in an intertwined story which brings them all together for, what (not sure what the final number will be) companions, plus custom does sound rather hard. Plus custom character who can have whatever motivations player will imagine. At this point you are writing 8 different protagoninsts, rather then one protagonist with minor variations. Interactions of every origin with NPCs would need to be different as they are not pursuing same goals.

Seperating party would also have major impact on balance - as it is game is designed for you to play with companions from the get-go. Starting by yourself, let's say as Karlach in the northern part of the map wouldn't be a fun experience, by yourself on lvl1. And making sure that content all over the map is appropriate for lvl1 solo, would mean that this party cRPG isnt' well suited for parties for a large chunk of act1. That just would work - designing content that can be explored on different levels, from different directions etc. would be rough.

So you add tadpole or equivalent somewhere down the line or rather it seems to me that what you are really asking for are seperate origin introductions - something to introduce characters before their capture by mindflayers, ala. Dragon Age: Origins/Cyberpunk77. It could be cool, but really you are just adding stuff before game proper (and story proper) kick off. DA:O did some quality worldbuilding with it, but in Cyberpunk I felt those to be rather pointless, and would rather have the game developing protagonist I play, rather then giving me a short introduction with no relevance to the rest of the game.

You are either kidding or trolling me. Alright, I'll dissect your points, one by one.

General plot line will be clearly different, because it's set in a different framework (FR vs. whatever Larian calls the world of D:OS). Or at least it will look different, on a high level. But what we'll see if we zoom in?

• First of all, maps are absolutely out of the question - I think a lot of people, possibly including some at WoTC, would be furious if Larian would re-use some of D:OS' locations. But - the thing about BG3 is that it is set in a universe with almost 50 years of accumulated lore, across all DnD editions. You need almost no creativity when it comes to map design - you just take whatever map(s) for this area have been created before, either official or fanfics, and build on top of that, adding a bit of flavour here and there. It's not a very demanding, intensive process - Larian could have generated them and then applied some manual polish, for all we know.
• Characters - are they really new? Astarion, just like his predecessor, greets us with a knife at our necks. Why Larian reused this bit? Did they run out of psychedelics, because delivery chain got disrupted due to covid? This is my biggest gripe so far - this, and countless others like it. I feel cheated when I see characters, re-skinned and renamed, behaving exactly like they did in the previous product of the same company. I don't care if their hair's colour and / or dialogue lines are different this time - it's the same character as before, and they behave more or less the same as they did before. Deja-vu.
• I can't really say much about quests and writing, as I never played any other Larian's game before (for more than 5 minutes, anyway). This can be better analysed by someone who did. Also, not sure what you call "conquest".
• Ship - maps have already been addressed above. At the same time, a ship is a ship, even if it looks different.
• Ruleset. I think even Larian perfectly understands that they can't pass a D:OS clone as a DnD game. So yes, they added some new mechanics that create a certain degree of familiarity for those who know what DnD is. The emphasis, however, is on "some". I can only assume that the stuff available from EA's day 1 was simple to add. The rest is problematic, due to the engine (probably being a Gordian knot made of glass at this point).
  An example: how much time it took them to implement Skill Expertise - almost 2 years into EA, innit? I haven't been around for a while, so feel free to correct me, but afaik we are still waiting for proper multi-attack and reactions.
• The list can go on, but Niara has already described the fundamental issues with similarities, in a much more succinct and lucid way than I will ever be able to.

These shameless "borrowings" will be completely unnoticed, of course, for everyone who didn't play D:OS2 and doesn't know about them. Me? I detest cheaters.

And yet, I have a group of friends who love BG3 and couldn't go past 5 hours of DoS2. I wonder why it is the case if boths games are so similar...

Hm... apart from the very basic fundamentals, which is normal as each studio has a certain style and mark with their games, I can't say that at any point through playing BG3 did I feel like it reminded me of DOS2.

Now you could say that in relation to DOS2;

• Nautiloid = Merryweather
• Beach = Fort Joy Beach
• Astarion = Sebille
• Tadpole = Source
• And so on...

But as someone who played DOS2 religiously for a long time, I can't say the experience of it ever poured into BG3 and made me reminisce. To me the experiences are vastly different, it's like comparing the moon and the sun. Yes they both share the sky and stars, but are nothing alike.

Yes, but none of it constitutes clone and definitely not a reskin. If anything in many of those similarities the skin is what is the most similar. Take the opening ship sequences. Ignore for a second the "skin" or theming of the sequence (being a prisoner on a ship under attack and having to escape) - once you scrap that, how similar are they really?

That they choose to repeat that much from their highly acclaimed D:OS2 I think it tells something about Larian priorities - I think it goes in line with how little they think of importance of the narrative. Mario games often repeate same level theming but they are clearly not copies. I suspect Larian might be thinking the same way - "We did D:OS2, how can we make it better?", rather then thinking of a new story to tell.

As to combat, yes, it is not faithful adaptation of D&D 5e, but it's not D:OS2 system either. It just not - I am trying to come up with something that would be same, and I can't. Stats work differently, there are classes, to-hit works differently, THERE ARE HALF ASSED REACTIONS, which is not something that existed in D:OS2, surfaces for the most part work differently, skills aren't on cooldown, there are saving throws, no armor system, the game doesn't use action points. And so on and so on. Do they feel similar? In many aspects yes, but it's down to Larian modifying D&D 5e to their design ideology, not to them reusing D:OS2 systems.

Sure, D:OS2 and BG3 are very similar in many aspects - both in terms of character archetypes, plot points, and overarching design ideals, but let's keep criticisms based in reality. It's not clone nor a reskin - those words have a meaning and that meaning doesn't apply to BG3 without some really heavy overexaduration. Is it reimagening of D:OS2 in a D&D IP? Perhaps, but we will need to see more to judge that.