Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General My hopefully constructive criticism about BG3

Dear Larian and community

yes this is my first post here. But it's very important to me to show and share my thoughts on BG3, so which place could be better than the official forum?

I read alot of threads here and iam sad that it turned out the way i recognized in quite alot of games. The discussions getting toxic when people don't agree on something and what should bring us together (the game we are all waiting for!), divides us. Please don't make this mistake. Stay polite and respect the opinion of other people, instead of insulting them. We all want a good game and especially when alot of people say something there could be at least a little truth in it.

About me: i have to admit that i am a hardcore fan of Infinity games, especially BG2 fan and for me it is the best rpg ever made. I am also not even 30, so maybe the point of view and opinion from someone who is a bit younger is also helpful. English is not my mother tongue so please forgive my mistakes. I will try to write this in a constructive way and not totally driven by emotions. I also like DOS 1 +2 alot. Obviously these are incredible games, and i really appreciate them alot.

Atmosphere

I first want to describe my initial thoughts while watching the livestream (yes this is emotional and just my own oppinion!) and my oppinion about the atmosphere in general:

The first render trailer was incredibly well done and a very good initial showing of a big threat and of course you think "okay, i am the hero, my mission is to stop this, Iam ready". I was quite hyped, but i also thought its possibly a bit over the top.
When I saw the ongoing gameplay, I was seriously surprised, because i was not expecting that its THAT MUCH like DOS, especially when its about atmosphere, characters and the overall feeling.

Baldurs Gate was always to me (or forgotten realms in general) a very dirty, harsh nearby mediaeval world.
In Baldurs Gate 1 you start safely, but after Gorion was murdered, you're on your own, you discover a world full of maniacs and danger. One of the first companions is Xzar (take a look on his portrait and you know what iam talking about!).
In Baldurs Gate 2 youre directly in trouble, being tortured in an laboratory also full of maniacs, cruelties and after you come out you're again discovering a world you dont know anything about. In the first few hours you're going to the slums in the tavern, and there are a bunch of drunken, rude people, some grim dwarfs, slaves, prostitutes, dogfights - its just not a nice place!
You also have it in Neverwinter Nights for example, where a plague is going on, everything is dangerous and dirty.
On the other side you also have some rightgeous knights fighting for good, but still in a bad bad world.

This is how i always saw BG2 and what i experienced while watching the BG3 gameplay was completely different.
In general it reminded me alot on the general style of DOS. Everything felt very colorful, bright, nice and just much too clean.

I can imagine, that this is a general problem of the engine. Or maybe its possible to add some shaders to fix it.
Even the initial fight against those Intellect Devourers felt too "cartoony". There is fire, there is blood, and little brains are attacking you. Just on its own its should show some brutality, some horror, but i didn't felt like this is transported properly.

Characters

Also the characters on its own doesn't fit in my opinion.
The vampire doesn't has anything todo with the image portrayed in baldurs gate and other forgotten realms stuff. Vampires are pure evil, some fucked up guys, monsters. And this guy was more the most klischee hollywood vampire possible. This barouque touch this guy and a few other scenes had, simply doesn't fit it the world.

Also the teased backstory about the characters where too much over the top. Its like everyone you showed is some extremely special person on its own and together they're like a bunch of super heroes. What we had in Baldurs Gate? A grim dwarf who does everything for money. A ranger whos talking to his hamster. A knight who has a sister and a crazy stepdad. They where interesting through conversation, their character, their problems, thoughts - but NEVER because of something that made themselves extremely rare in this world. They were all some kind of grounded people who tried to survive, fight for their believings or go their way in the world of forgotten realms. And this is in my opinion already a major difference between character design! And they didn't felt interesting on its own. They really dont need some super "origin", they need just some remindable attributes.

Dialogues

They felt not authentic to be honest. They had this horrible experience and it begins with "Oh.. its you". On some situations it didn't feel natural or believable that theyre talking like this - especially wih those voices. The level of emotions were not on a level i know and love from BG2. This was especially for 2000 mindblowing for a game. They did an incredible job and alot of phrases from the npcs are stuck in my mind even until now.


Humor


You even had in BG2 some situations that were a bit funny or some jokes. But i really hope there is not this typical Divinity humor in it. It fits to DOS, but seriously not in BG. The bard was... let's not talk about it. For me unfitting humor is also destroying movies for me, like the Hobbit or the new Star Wars episodes, so please don't do the mistake and implement slapstick humor in a world, that is not build in this like forgotten realms!


Gameplay/Animations

I have to admit i would prefer the pausable realtime like in BG2 (by the way which is also in the core turn based!!), but i guess this was expectable from larian. It was alot of fun in DOS, so lets see. This is a point were iam a bit disappointed, but not hugely negative. I just hope, that not every fight is about getting high ground. That would be too much. I am also not sure what i should think about one group first than the complete other.

The animations also reminded me too much on DOS. For example the jumping animation. Its in general "too much". I really like that youre able to interact so much with the enviroment, but those hulk like jumping is too much - and not even D&D. Youre justifying alot with "we want D&D experience" but for example the jump is not D&D at all.

That you can only have four partymembers also forces you to take always a fighter, one mage, one healer, and one for traps/lockpicking. There is no room anymore for experiments and mixing like it was possible in bg2. Who would take a bard for example now?

General thoughts

I guess the similarities between the beginning of the bg3 gameplay demo and the beginning of dos2 are also kind of a negative point. Why there not stranding in the mountains or the forest or whatever. It needs something own in my opinion. Maybe this is also the source of that thinking of "this is too much os2".

Two things that bothered me alot were that feeling of "everything is too much" and those "origins":

About the feeling: the content of the origin stories, the animations... it felt too much over the top, which is fitting for DOS but not BG, not forgotten realms nor D&D.

I also dont like the concept of those origins: I can pick a character and add his background and quests, problems etc. to my game experience. And when i choose to make my own character the story will be just "less"? It was in BG always about the world gives you the story, the past was introduced to you and you can be inside this world whoever you want. As a BG fan i really disagree to the concept of origins. Also on DOS2 not choosing a pre constructed was a disadvantage.

I can understand that Larian wants to deliver something they re good at and know how to do it, but i would love if they would go out of their comfort zone and think deeply what Baldurs Gate is, what it makes special and what it gave so many gamers. I know its pre alpha, but i think its important to address our thoughts as early as possible to help making them the best game possible - and i really hope that Larian is willed to change some things in its core.