A major subject of discourse right now is the need for game formats to evolve. While sometimes this means bigger, it can also mean more immersive, denser, with new material, or with major additions or changes to fundamental mechanics. Think about how games from your favorite studios have evolved over time, or how you wished a “dated” format had evolved in recent memory (looking at the Starfield thread). Consider the jump from DOS1 to DOS2 to BG3.
How would you evolve the next game from BG3? If you had a button that could evolve the format, what would the end result look like?
Remember the human (This is a forum for a video game):
Quite honestly? For cRPG systems in general? Some form of AI to guide things on the fly.
Let me explain: A big part of what makes tabeltop RPG systems fun is the creative flexibility players have to come up with unique solutions to a problem. This, unfortunately, is really difficult to translate to computer games. (Just look at what happens to the poor school of illusion in every single video game implementation of DnD for the most severe example.) This works in tabletop because you have a DM who can make on-the-fly adjustments to what the players are trying out. You simply can't have that in a video game (currently.)
Larian shines the most when they try to APPROXIMATE this. Unfortunately, they can only ever do an approximation. And it likely adds a lot to development time, because they essentially have to think of the solutions themselves and code them in. For example, consider early on in the game, where you visit the goblin camp and come across a bunch of raucously partying goblins. One thing you can do there is distract the goblins with a bard and then poison their drinks. It's a pretty neat little solution, but it's one that Larian had to think up themselves first - if THEY hadn't thought of it, poisoning the drinks wouldn't even be an option.
But seeing how well conversational AI has done over the past year or so, it's made me wonder: Could we use an AI like this to sort of "DM" over the small things? Probably not currently, but I wonder how far we are from that. The overall story could still be driven by whatever the writers wanted. But like, what if there was an AI DM that could listen to things the players say they want to try, and make small adjustments on the fly to allow them to try their solutions? Maybe we could achieve a degree of flexibility closer to that of tabletop. Maybe we'd actually be able to make illusion spells feel good if a player could describe to this "AI DM" what they wanted to make an illusion of.
I hope for reactivity and the move away from simple fetch quests. But apart from that BG3 has nothing which I hope is used as a template in the future. Voice over and graphics is just the result of people pumping money into the project.
What I would hope is if studios would pay actual writers for the story but that is unlikely to happen as BG3 succeeded without that.
What I want to finally happen in gaming is interactive environments. Having everything to be destructible is a good start. Have you played Noita?
Larian likes to create a “playground” type of experience, good physics engine and destructible environments would enhance that experience.
Total absence of loading screens. Once you load into the game, that’s it. Dungeon Siege did this in 2002. After finishing the game, I ran back from the final boss chamber to the starting village without any loads.
Day and Night cycle, dynamic weather.
More class - specific, stat - specific progression paths.Disco Elysium style. If not that, then drastically different choices and consequences between good and evil.
Can we finally get rid of clipping and get proper physics for character equipment? Not a single game in history has that yet.
1. Less world shattering plotline. Save a village level, as opposed to dealing with gods and devils and all the high end stuff. Something much smaller and more intimate, personal.
2. NPCs following the exact same rules as the players. Stats, skills, spells, etc. Everything. No inflated stats, no inflated hit points. Rules for me = rules for thee.
3. More cultural "realism."
4. An AI that learns and adapts in combat, while respecting the intellect/cunning of the opponent.
5. Plot threads that truly matter. I want vast differences in Act III based on what was done in Act I and Act II.
6. Relationships and friendships that honestly feel organic.
7. Enemies that feel personal with resolutions that are satisfying.
8. Less superhero power levels. More human level, where fights actually feel dangerous. (but *NO* scaling enemies based on PC level. nothing more annoying than suddenly running into level 15 guards. all things should be beholden to world "realism.") --I mean the system itself should be designed so that combat is dangerous. Where fighting more than one opponent is incredibly difficult, regardless of character level.
My thoughts go out to more immersion. Of course that would mean development for VR systems only. And much more interactions between party members. That means no pregenerated cinematics, but an AI that is capable of generating text on the fly, (within limits set by the dungeon master) and an engine that is capable to translate output to body language and facial movement. O, and of course the player would be able to talk to the companions, using simple language, but their own voice. I guess melee combat woudl be hard to simulate, but with such a much deeper level of immersion, people should be happy to only be able to use ranged combat (spells and crossbows).
1. I was struck by the occasional open-world feel of Acts 1 and 3. In Act 3 especially, I found it interesting to go to any part of the city at any time in any order while being able to go on top of buildings, around them, and in them. Unfortunately, once you visit a place once, you have little reason to return, leaving the discovered section of the map “places I’ve completed.” In open world games, once you discover a place on the map, you can have many reasons to return there: new quests, follow ups, being directed there by quests from different locations, immersing yourself in NPC schedules to see how the place feels lived-in, merchants, idle travel across the world, attempting to uncover further mysteries, new characters, etc.
The verticality in exploration in BG3 and handcrafted environments sometimes remind me of Morrowind, which I’ve made no secret about being one of my favorite games. If BG3 combined the gameplay of DOS2 with the storytelling of DAO and the probability-gaming of DND, I’d like to see if the next iteration could incorporate the world-feeling of Morrowind, or that feeling when you go in the opposite direction of where an adventure module tells you to go and the DM gets to make up a world on the spot, continuing your adventure in every direction. As one might say, being able to pick a direction, go that way, and have a whole world unfold before you. I wouldn’t do this like modern Open World ARPGs; rather, I’d do it smaller, denser, with an emphasis on diverse traversal and recurrence of locations. I’d increase the size of the over world and things to discover, while having more vertical locations like cities and dungeons. In addition to this sense of space, I’d add a day/night cycle for a sense of time. I’d keep the DND-DAO-DOS2 feel for everything else, though, except for the world. Basically Dungeons and DragonMorrowSin 2: Origins.
What if all Acts were freely traversable, and initiating events in Baldur’s Gate changed things in the already completed Druid’s Grove? What if you had reason to travel the Risen Road again and again, and experienced new things along the way? Essentially, I’d like the theme park effect to dissipate and for the world to feel lived-in rather than just waiting for you to happen. I’d also give some (not all) NPCs schedules. Need to rob someone’s home? Wait until they’ve left for the market and you have three in-game hours.
2. I like the destructible environments idea. I think for everything one can see, one should be able to walk to it, destroy it, add to it, climb it, move it, inspect it, deface it, etc. if every object is interactable, make every aspect of the environment too.
3. Consider the use of AI for less important NPCs (keep everything important custom and handcrafted please). The technology is still young, so I don’t think it should be used until it can be incorporated seamlessly into the game without causing a jarring sensation.
4. Companion and party commentary on the wonky bullshit you choose to do as team leader.
5. Let the player to use gold to upgrade different aspects of camp as a home base. Have the party and camp companions react accordingly and change their schedules accordingly. Upgrade a training compound to see how the party reacts to combat with new abilities? Maybe some companions choose to spar there.
6. Smarter AI and upgraded horde AI. Let enemies react all at once as a single unit, taking into consideration each other’s abilities on the fly, making for faster paced and harder combat.
7. Uses for crafting beyond combat consumables and unique equipment. Have rope and a hook? Make a grapple hook to swing across chasms or climb great heights. Have a pole, wire, and a hook? Make a fishing rod. Also make food more scarce and capable of spoiling so one has to produce or find food for long rests. Have ink, quill, and paper? Forge documents or write letters.
8. Let keyboard and mouse players have the controller style camera and ui option as a toggle. Let them customize and mix and match styles for camera and ui.
9. Outside of settled areas and handcrafted combat encounters, make environments BIGGER and GRANDER and LET US LOOK AROUND THEM. This game’s environments can look beautiful with certain camera mods, and I’d like that grandeur to go to 11.
10. Fix the total number of companions at 6-10, but make party dynamics deep as fuck. Choose not to bring a character in your party? Congrats, they’re now doing stuff in the world. Some characters in your party a lot? They get real familiar with each other and follow up on prior conversations. Have dynamics change based on choices and events.
11. Make every item usable in some capacity. Turn my trash into treasure.
12. Give spells and attacks more non-combat uses. In addition to dialogue uses, give them environmental and narrative uses.
13. Since people clearly like it so much, keep the romance system, but make it deeper rather than more horny. Also have friendship, frenemy, and enemy relationships too.
Remember the human (This is a forum for a video game):
For Larian game specifically? I think the most interesting thing they have done in D:OS has been the coop. D:OS2 and BG3 have been their attempts to introduce more traditional RPG elements (coherent story, companions) into D:OS coop centric design, but I feel those two are ever in conflict. So what I would most be interested is to see is for Larian to pick a line, and try to evolve coop design that they pioneered in D:OS1.
Or they could drop coop and create singleplayer first experience - but that wouldn't be evolving. That just would be doing what other RPG developers are doing.
While I am not exactly for AI writing dialogue for RPGs - I would rather see RPGs writing get better, not worse - Arcanum back in a day did procedural dialogue for NPCs that provided robust reactivity to our character. That is something that I think games tend to do poorly. Sure, they will script special dialogue here and there, but for the part we are treated the same. I think there is potential there to be mined - imagine if shopkeepers and minor NPCs in Baldur's Gate could respond to players in a more reactive way, than having a pre-written bark. Or if dialogue could take into account systemic reputation and such.
Still, with full VO production that runs into another problem, as BG3 definitely wouldn't be better if stilted AI generated dialogue was added. If anything it is the human touch that makes the game appealing.
14. Continue to invest in performance capture technology and detailed animations. It is so nice to see an RPG see more to an actor’s performance than just the voice. Facial expression, body language, situational and idle animation all have unique ways of bringing characters to life, and the more precise and detailed they become, the more the cinematic can feel lifelike even without cutting edge graphics.
15. Lighting is a powerful thing and I hope Larian pursues more lifelike lighting and shadows.
16. Agree on COOP being great, but that it’s sometimes in conflict. I still like the idea of a COOP Dungeons and DragonMorrowSin 2: Origins, though. Like that video where one of the devs said you could be on the rooftop in one part of the city and see your friends on the other end. While a party of 4 precludes the addition of companion stories when all PCs, it would be cool if parties of 1-3 had unique ways of interacting with companion slots. If Larian insists on keeping the Origin System, keep the Origin characters voice acting and performance when played as them, but NOT for Tav or Custom Origin, who should be SILENT. This way, multiplayer parties can experience companion narrative and performance.
Remember the human (This is a forum for a video game):
Well in all honesty, I hope for the industry moving away from simplifying games because of consoles. The UI of so many games have been ruined because of consoles, open areas have been turned into instanced areas because of consoles, graphics are held back because of consoles (though I personally don't care about graphics), etc. Larian didn't specifically state what it was that made it impossible for their ambitions to be achieved (and act 3 to be BUTCHERED so), but it's not hard to guess that it was consoles and hand-held devices.
This thread is about BG3 so it's unlikely that it will move from 5e, but my God did 5e dumb down the RPG aspects! If this game was still using the skill and perk system in D:OS2, the gameplay would have been amazing. Same about dumbing down things from AP to the 5e system. We had SO MUCH freedom of action when playing D:OS2 Lone Wolf. I can understand why, from a business standpoint, BG3 would use 5e, but moving on - Even in the D&D world there are systems better suited for videogames - older editions, specifically. They are much more complex and the only reason WOTC moved away from the complexity was because they wanted to reduce the amount of dice-throws and calculations needed. This is no problem for videogames. Then there's Pathfinder, or why not just good ol' D:OS2?
I'm still hoping we get this for BG3, but if not BG3 then maybe D:OS3: DM mode with better mod support. Some games (like Grim Dawn) literally give you access to the same tool that was used to create the game. Now that's modding power! You know all those people still playing Neverwinter Nights 1 because it has an absolutely amazing DM mode? Those people could be playing BG3, you know. Just saying
"AI" could be used in next-gen games, it's rather good at some things already. I'll leave it to the devs to decide what they could use it for, but there's surely uses for such systems. If nothing else, modders could use them to create VO for their new content. Joshua Graham reading the Art of War went incredibly well, and that was a free model! Free AI conversations don't work right now without oversight, but I imagine there could be a faction / character that would (because of story reasons - in BG3, maybe an old automaton or golem?) be entirely driven by AI (is that too much of a pain to implement? I dunno, but would be cool to investigate). One thing I'd love to see AI used for is generating maps. This would be an immense help to modders creating new areas.
I'd also look back to the past a bit for the evolution - why did RPGs stop using If-Then automatic actions like Dragon Age: Origins had? If (HP) < (40%) then (use) (Greater Health Potion). Those were great, especially for companions in "AI mode". What happened to BG1/2 Scripts for followers? In BG3, we could have maybe just have a "eh, you do it" button where we let the script/AI play the turn if we don't need precise control that turn (you know, those turns where you stand still and shoot a regular arrow from up high).
If done right (it's so easy to fail with this), I'd love to see mounts and support groups for BG3/4. "Henchmen", draft horses, carriages, guards or why not a magical equivalent of all of that (floating disk, animated items / equipment, etc). Want to build a small "village" around your adventuring group? Go ahead. Rather use magic to create your safe and cozy camp sites? Go ahead. Or maybe you just want to have an army of undead following you wherever you go - either way, I'd really like to see camps expanded. Player housing could be a thing (I'm honestly not into it, but I know a lot of people want it).
BG3 is quite... barren of useful items. Crafting isn't in the game unfortunately (no alchemy doesn't count). I mean come on, we don't even need empty bottles for our potions? No alchemy kit? Anyway, I'd love to see containers being filled with more kinds of items that actually have uses. Give Rope some uses, for one LOL. I can't believe we never need rope. Even Divinity 1 and 2 had uses for ropes in encounters! But if we get player housing or something similar, we could craft furniture and stuff.
For me the biggest areas would be to have meaningful choices that cover a reasonable range of choices, and then have real consequences following from those choices; meaningful reactivity from the world to my PC; my PC being central to the story; using the DU concept to provide a range of PC choices (while dropping the "origins" concept); a more balanced distribution of alignment personalities for my companion choices; no railroading; meaningful ways to avoid combat where the outcomes are not inferior to the outcomes from combat; the game being playable with a range of party sizes; and, ideally, a move away from DnD mechanics.
To me the natural progression or next step at the flick of a switch gives me this...
A fully customizable Avatar and portrait where the player can effectively create any 'face' they can imagine, including their own.
I think the baseline for achieving this is somewhere around 200 archetypal heads (100 for each gender) and say a dozen body phenotypes, then modular variation from there. So going up here by at least an order of magnitude.
Sort of an in-game version of Maya light, that can be used by anyone without needing expertise in design. A tool created by artists for use by non artists, which nevertheless makes the player feel like they are the creative force behind designing their characters look.
This sensibility would also be brought to the outfits, for the dress em up aspect
All this visual stuff would by heavily stylized so that game does not appear dated in 5 years time. Here I'd look to 2d animation more than 3d as the goal for a vibe, and trying to achieve something timeless like that, not the cutting edge of mimesis per se. Since the goalpost there is always moving, and making it look real isn't as important as making it look 'fantastic' if that makes sense hehe.
Part of what makes BG3 cool I think is that it is already doing this. So just pushing that as far as it can possibly go for D&D.
Things like voice, where having options for different cadences, including voice modulation would do the same for sound. Also a gesture and emmotive suite, which could make two characters who are otherwise identical feel completely different just from that stuff alone.
For me environmental exploration would start very basic. Goal here would be to capture all the mundane stuff like climbing, swimming, tumbling around and make that feel so cool with interactivity that it throws you right back to your elementary school days on the playground or building tree forts. There should be no tree we cannot climb hehe.
That way when you actually get to the truly fantasy stuff, and abilities beyond, it feels totally next level, since the basics of exploration adventuring would already be blowing your mind anyway at the floor. Making even the lowliest cantrip feel high magic by comparison, because the basics already felt like magic, before you even hit your first level as a proper adventurer. I just picture whatever the best in class is for a modern FPS there, with that sort environmental interactivity during exploration, but then extended to the entire party, all using those features - as a group. Party on!
Ps. For inspiration, when the ropes start looking like this in Baldur's Gate, we'll know we're getting there... lol
17. I wish the future games would have a greater semblance of difficulty while maintaining the creative freedom of the immersive sim. Most moments in BG3 have multiple solutions, but some of these solutions are very easy. While creativity should be rewarded, it would be nice if there were more moments where the game sat you down and said, "No. Fuck you. This section is HARD. You have MANY solutions, and can be super creative, and they are all valid, but NONE of them are easy." Integrating a sort of Elden Ring-like experience: some puzzle or combat or problem or traversal issue appears, and you need to go explore and talk and beg, borrow, and exhaust every option, and eventually you find a valid solution (there are many), but it is difficult still. You get to be creative, get the satisfaction of the game honoring your creativity, but also get the satisfaction of overcoming a great difficulty.
18. If and only if Larian INSISTS on leaving DND and its ruleset behind, it would be nice to integrate the AP action economy with DND's probabilistic combat, concentration, and its own action economy idiosyncrasies. A sort of hybrid of DND and DOS2, if you will.
19. If the AI can improve and combat can get significantly faster, I'd like to see much larger combat encounters with more diverse terrain and objectives other than fighting. For example, the tutorial has you running to the transponder. It would be cool if you could have giant combat set pieces with dozens of enemies moving in rapid succession, all while needing to traverse complex terrain each turn to avoid something which may be pursuing you.
Remember the human (This is a forum for a video game):
Have rope and a hook? Make a grapple hook to swing across chasms or climb great heights. Have a pole, wire, and a hook? Make a fishing rod. Also make food more scarce and capable of spoiling so one has to produce or find food for long rests. Have ink, quill, and paper? Forge documents or write letters.
I could hang out on this point for ages! I'm convinced there's not a kid anywhere, who at some point didn't fantasize about having a grappling hook heheh. We've all got that somewhere deep down right? Sorry I forgot that video links here don't rescale when embedded, guess we got that rope in full glory. Environmental interactivity is clearly more involved than just having a ton of procedural animations, but I'd start with those, because it's fairly straightforward if not necessarily easy. Like just pouring zots into the mocap.
I was trying to think of stuff we haven't really seen before in games of this sort. I was impressed by little things like versatile quarterstaffs or spear and shield in BG3. Taking those sorts of ideas further, if you have a pole, perhaps you can use it to increase your jump distance or avoid environmental hazards on the ground by vaulting?
Remember that scene in Tremors where they have to vault from rock to rock to avoid getting eaten by the sandworms?
That's a whole vignette to play off right there. Everything about this scene honestly, including the party banter... lol
I think better writing is the most important development area for Larian. It improved a lot from D:OS1 to D:OS2, and then again it took great strides from D:OS2 to BG3. But act 3 writing still leaves me wanting. If they really want to make the best rpg games, it's not enough with hilarity and great map design, we need great stories too. I think BG3 is pretty close to a masterpiece, but their writing inconsistencies and messed up ending in BG3 is what takes a "game of century" down to an 8/10.
The party members also need more interaction between each other. The small blurbs while we are out are great, but in camp there should be more than 2 or 3 scenes throghout the game. Full on party discussions about the course of action and development kind of stuff.
The origin characters are pretty great IMO, though I have a bit of an issue with their distribution and mix of races/gender/class/attitude. However TAV is to me quite soulless. The dialogue choices so often are either short questions or brief statements of actions to be taken. No personality at all. I feel like a vacant shell going around experiencing a living world I'm not a part of. I'd love for Larian to write more personality into their dialogue choices.
I'm playing through the game as Wyll now and it's hardly better. There's a few Wyll specific lines but it's mostly just clicking "I am the Blade of Frontiers you know" . Very little personality comes through. The characters I've come to love are the companions, not the player character. And playing an origin character doesn't seem to convey the personality at all either.
Black Elk, I really like the idea of using real or semi-real physics and improvised tools to solve terrain puzzles. Maybe it’s just recency bias because TOTK just did that with an open world, but it sounds like it would be so fun in a cinematic CRPG. Or even in combat: using poles and swinging ropes during turns to reach and evade enemies.
Remember the human (This is a forum for a video game):
There was this video I saw recently on youtube with the most modern AI put into some game engine demo, like chat gpt stuff, but you could use a microphone and have real conversations with any NPC. The video in question had the player trying to convince the NPCs that they aren't real and are living inside a game and they all thought they were real people in a real city saying stuff like 'But that building over there is real, and I just came from a real coffee shop'.
