Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Post PFH stepping back

It's been a bunch of hours, and for some us, a couple of drinks, since today's PFH and the initially ensuing discussions.

My thoughts are almost exclusively positive. The size, the scope, the variety, I see myself playing this game for years.

Looking back on all we've seen and talked about in the past half a day, what are your broader thoughts?

I'm particularly interested in the thoughts of folks who had very specific things they were looking for but aren't getting. Will that have a meaningful impact in the big picture of things? If you haven't been part of EA, do you not plan to buy the game at release?

Can we pretty please not have a bear sex conversation? That was an amusing gimmick that achieved its media attention goals, and there's no need to flog a dead bear horse

I definitely didn't get a lot of what I wanted to see during the stream, but it didn't really affect my overall excitement in either direction.

I was hoping for a bit more of a mechanical update. Particularly around crafting, camping, any inventory QoL updates, which we didn't get any of.

Overall I'd give it a B- for what was presented, I expected more but didn't sour the game for me.

There were a bunch of things that I wanted and I didn't get, but I wasn't really expecting them to happen anyway.

I'd say that probably shove remaining a bonus action is the closest to an actual disappointment.

The last "companion" being in fact not a character but a super-charged custom tag for you MC (and one frankly I'm not exceedingly interested to try) leave me lukewarm at best, too.

R.I.P. Helia, we hardly knew you (literally) but you sounded awesome.

Glad to see that the reaction,/interrupt system was confirmed and found new uses with the monk rather than being swept under a carpet.

yea i think the reaction system is a big thing, as shield needs it as well...

I'm disappointed that there wasn't a 10th companion, like we were sort of led to believe, but I probably would have been disappointed if the Dark Urge were a companion anyway.

I'm disappointed that the Dark Urge doesn't really appeal to me, but I'm interested in the precedent it sets. I wouldn't be opposed to getting more non-companion origins like it via DLC.

The furry/bestiality sex scene left me nonplussed. It's Larian's idea of "for the lulz", I guess. I'm not really into sex scenes anyway, though. Naked video game characters also seem like maximum uncanny valley, and it ruins my immersion.

Overall, I'm left where I was before, hype-wise. I'm interested in playing out the whole plot, but I'm not sure I will do it more than once.

Unfortunately, the PFH wasn’t really focused on addressing concerns that existing EA players had about the existing game. It was more about showing new things.

In the bigger picture, I think mods can be used to fix most of the mechanical / gameplay issues that people have with the game. Obviously, it would have been nice to have Larian address issues that many players were not happy with before combat encounters were “balanced”.

My all time forever favorite game romance is Parvati and Junlei in The Outer Worlds. That Junlei is open to romance with someone who is ace, I wish we got so much more of that.

Bear Halsin isn't the same of course, but it's new in terms of non-porn games, at least as far as I know

-I really expected more faces on character creation for the races we've had on EA. Same 6-8 to choose from and spend 100 hours with loads of cinematics, but now with scars and piercings. Or play the shiny dragon.
-I was very hopeful for some news on limits to resting via supply scarcity, or a mechanic with e designated areas for taking short rests based on some abandoned camps and bedrolls you could find in EA. I thought that might come associated with a difficulty setting, but that was another major let down. I wanted a more "hardcore" adventuring experience, but don't want grenades being thrown at me often, even more inflated hp and archers with +2 to hit, so I'll be playing on regular mode.

They've invested a lot into the game. I have mixed feelings about their styling and attention to part of the fan base but the bottom line is I am glad they have picked up the title and put on so much into it.

In general, i enjoyed most PFH ... except last two, that script with Santa felt really weird ... and this one left me feel kinda hollow.
I mean, im aware that PFH are just shows for fun, they were never supposed to "present the product" as a whole, just higlight some things Larian really like about it ... the problem is, that basicaly all things we have seen *here* we allready know, and most of them were repeated in every opourtunity for last three years. :-/

There will be consequences and lots of permutations ... what a shock.
We like our models and did lots of work on them ... uh huh.
Also ... just the fact that im sitting here for three minutes allready, and cant think about third thing that was said to make it feel like a list, tells something, and its not good.

Then there was that QA part ...
I mean no disrespect, but what the hells was that? We finaly have option to get something usefull ... and they are asking people "what is your favourite", or "how do you feel about" ... serisously? WTF!? Those people are there to advertise their product, ofc everything will be sunshine and rainbow and absolutely perfect! -_-
Such waste ...

Anyway, over and over around ... i start to understand why so many people were complaining about PFH being useless. :-/

It was not that bad so i would say that 3h of my life was completely wasted ... it was fun ... and it certainly helped that i didnt have any expectations, but still, it could (and maybe should) be so much better.

I wouldnt say it better ...

Unfortunately, the PFH did not give me answers. Actually, I have more questions than before. I really hope BG 3 will be a long term project for me again. I am still in good spirits. But I admit that I'm already torn about which TBM game, Baldur's Gate 3 or Jagged Alliance 3, will captivate me more. Since I don't have that much time, sooner or later one of them will have to lose out and gather dust because I'll be excessively busy with the other one. Ring free for the battle of the best TBM Game 2023!

I'm one of those strange people who tend to go in with few or no pre-generated expectations.
I liked what I saw and heard. If anything, the following month until release will be ripe with feelings of anxiety and "Are we there yet(i)?"

I understand there will be limits to where imagination can go, but Larian has been true to their motto of pushing the limits in all directions. Bearly anything left to the imagination in every aspect.

Having played some EA, my mind is still recovering from being somewhat blown.

I'm simple.

My hype for the game is higher than it has never been, but it is not due to the PFH.

To be honnest I think this one was less good than the others.

I would have love to see a bit more about the Monk and the new process of character creation (not only the edit appearance thing).
I would also have love to learn a bit more about what's new/different in the release build compared to EA.
In exemple the mercenaries, the stealth mechanic, the inventory management improvement (I saw new containers + keyring), they could have shown the respec mechanic and so on.

This PFH looks to me more like an advertising for the game rather than a presentation of how it has changed.
I guess that's fair less than a month from release and I'm very excited about the city and act 2... but I was expecting more details.

Still can't wait to play at release ! And still hoping someone at Larian will at least ANSWER ME about press/influencer build request.

Oh... and hide is an action while shove is confirmed to be a bonus action ! Modding will not be an option apparently.

BG3 is in an odd spot for me and the PFH hasn't changed it.

It's definitely a passion project, of tremendous size, with a lot of options. It does a great job of giving people an opportunity to create a character they want to create. Far more subclasses than I expected, they didn't cut the races, a lot of customization options for the characters... They have fantastic voice actors. I also think even though the style isn't a 100% what I prefer their character art team has done a amazing job. As someone working with CGI hair I utterly impressed with their animal fur and I think their have done a great work on the hair as well. In general the individual assets the game is composed of look great. There has been an incredible amount of work on making sexuality feel inclusive, which is great as it looks that a large part of the audience cares for that (me personally I've reached the point were I hate Bioware for what they have done to RPG's with their romances XD I feel like too much time and effort is these days wasted on this topic, its no longer a nice gimick/bonus, but a big thing players scream and complain about that actually add little to nothing to the games themselves).



Now there is the other part... the game for me suffers tremendously in lacking a cohisive art/style direction. Serious topics are completely overshadowed by goofyness. I'm not saying comedy and tragedy can't be portrait together, actually they need to to create the emotional flow that really impacts us, but this game simply fails. Looking at the Dark Urges presentation for example - tearing apart Gael's hand has nothing tragic about it, its a meme pushed over the edge by Shadowheart's cheap 'you were supposed to lend a hand and not take one'. This is all over the game. There is a lack of sense for dramaturgy. And don't tell me its like at your table - you ain't paying an Oscar winning actor to voice your villian as well as an amazing cast of other actors to give those characters life and gravitas. If it was designed as a comedy than well yes, it could work as well, but nothing about the story screams 'Pixar's lighthearted Baldur's Gate'.

The big issues from EA are all still present as well. UI and especially party controls are questionable at best. The sneak exploit is still in the game as well as many other balancing issues Larian created. Do I have an issue with homebrew? Not necessarily as it can help fixing issues the core 5e rules have. Is your subclass sub par? Maybe a little push will help it balance out - that's not a problem. What Larian did though showed a serious lack of understanding of how the core of the game was balanced. Instead of cutting away dead leafs, they took the axe to the trunk and everything across the board was affected. PFH showed not really much that makes me hope our issues from the EA have been adressed, so my hopes for the gameplay are very low - if the core is rotten, I don't trust the additionally attached classes will improve the experience.

Characters... I'm sorry, but the origin characters feel like the main focus and once again the 'Tavs' are an after thought. The cast will have its fans and to be fair its down to personal taste, but I could neither stand them nor my interactions with them so far in EA. I don't know what to think of the Dark Urge. Personally its just more of the same and tried Larian story telling. You have your choice a pick of dark secrets... which honestly, I don't know how much they actually offer to replayability because the secret my change, your class my change, but its pretty much always just a different flavor of evil past you can share. Also to me they failed in early access as companions - their background secrets were pretty much in your face. You don't know the details, but which character's dark secret wasn't obvious in the first 1-2 chats with them? So yeah... I don't know. I'm not too excited about having Minsc the ranger, Jaheira the druid and Haslin the druid as party - I like the characters, but it sounds like I will end up with hirelings if none of the origin companions surprises me. I most likely will start a playthrough with a Dark Urge main and a second self created Tav to see the different stories unfold (maybe even more custom characters).


To sum it up - BG3 sounds on paper excellent. Endless possibilities, endless options in game, endless reactions from the world,... the images also look astonishing, the voice acting is great,... but once the parts come together to me the whole is less the than the sum of its parts. At least so far. Maybe playing the whole game unchained from the limitations from EA it will have a different empahsis and overshadow the weaker points - but the final PFH has done very little to convince me of that rather repeated the same issues I saw before.

thought 1 = the game will get banned because "think of the kids" will go bat shit crazy you can have sex with a bear... the fact that is nuts doesn't matter

thought 2 = Xbox, Geforce and Ps5 will not be able to handle that many randum people walking around the town maps... even Larian crashed their demo over and over trying to load all the bullshit background noise and i assume those systems are not MIn spec

thought 3 = all the people upset about CE are leaving that a bit late imo but whatever

thought 4 = Larian needs to wake up and at least mod out all the robot spam bots on their live streams... that was beyond embarrassing

thought 5 = yipee, no really just YIPPEE

I mean... those were probably people who love the game for the story and the studio, so it was to be expected they will ask about those two aspects. I firmly believe most of the playerbase doesn't care all that much about game mechanics.

As I said above - PFH are for the people who want to see gow the game is being made, hope for juicy deets on the companions/story or just are fans of Larian.

Can't speak for the rest, but I enjoyed each of the PFHs, no matter how chaotic or cringy they got because each was a showcase of the people behind a game I already love - mostly because I got to see how they love it.