Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Latest News Gathering the Party - Community Update #2

-I can see drinking a potion being a bonus action. I've often house ruled my games to do this. However, if you want to give a potion to another character, it should be an action.

-I agree with all of the Mage Hand stuff. Mage Hand is really just a tool to help navigate traps and puzzles. It's combat utility should be limited unless playing an Arcane Trickster Rogue.

-I don't see the big deal about being able to dip an arrow in fire to get a bit of fire damage added to the attack. Also, I find managing ammunition for weapons tedious. Unless they are super special arrows/bolts, I really don't want to mess with it. I never track ammunition in table top D&D.

-Agree with the time taken to remove boots. Now, if the boots were just in your bags, withdrawing them could be a free action. But if you're wearing them? Yeah, they need time to be removed.

-I'm not sure how much more sophisticated they can make the light/shadow system. To take silhouettes into account seems to be a lot of unnecessary work imo. It would also make things tough on the player.

-Alignment is absolutely NOT essential for D&D. 5th Edition has moved away from it so drastically that it's barely referenced anymore. The focus is on character choices and character agency. Instead of saying, "What would a Lawful Good Cleric do in this situation?" it becomes "What would MY CHARACTER do in this situation?" Alignment puts a character into an unnecessary box. Just think about what kind of character you want and stay true to it with their actions. No doubt BG3 will be tracking your morality in one way or another.

Another thing that worries me is Shove, Jump, and Disengage being bonus actions. Disengage being a bonus action takes that unique utility away from rogues specifically. Shove/Jump being bonus actions skew the power curve towards classes like Fighter and Barbarian as they get bonuses to Shove.

- One thing is to tie a piece of cloth imbued with oil to make a burning arrow and it require time to craft (not much but is anyway time), another is to throw your bow in the fire and hope to obtain a magical weapon and not some piece of coal... so, maybe rethink the visual effect of the action and making it cost 1 action: less "the bow is on fire" and more "flaming arrow"

- Ok, maybe, is to much for the system to take silhuette in account

-Pathfinder Kingsmaker did a good job into taking in acfcount the alignment variation.

-I agree with you on these thing

Are you able to quantify the "very vocal minority"?

Are you able to quantify the "Most people" who care more about a 5e D&D game?

I agree with you that Baldur´s Gate is a city at the Sword Coast in Faerûn in the Forgotten Realms. I also agree that it´s been revisited in other medias. It´s also right, that BG1 and BG2 don´t have a monopoly on it´s name. But the question is - at least for me - why is it called Baldur´s Gate III?

Maybe because it has certain explicit connections with the original story (which it seems to, based on what was written by the dev in the opening post)? Or even because it takes place in the same setting as the original (which would give it an indirect connection with the original story).

I don't think he can. In every social media and forums there are huge uproar and it's not vocal minority at all. People have legitimate concerns. He's just trying to intimidate or silence people so that it may appear as small problems.

I dont know if your are blind, deaf or whatever. Even I would like what Larian showed to us is easy to see that in Twitter, Facebook official and fans pages, this forum, reddit forum, steam forum and youtube comments... there are A LOT of people dissapointed with what they saw. I dont want to go throught if they are right or they are wrong, dont care about it. The truth is it is no a minority, and of course Larian, from the commercial point of view, have to handle it.

It is definitely more than a vocal minority, but the reasons for the dissaproval are very varied. It's why waiting to see more is the sensible argument, though there is nothing wrong in expressing constructive criticism.

I just want to mention, go and take a look at DOS2 pre alpha.It looked SO much like DOS.Because in the beginning they use SO much placeholders. In the interviews it is said that the engine now is 30% what was left from DOS2 engine and 70% new. Also, look at DOS pre-alpha. The colouring was way too over the top.The final product didn't look anything like this.

What we've seen is pre-alpha. There will be such a big difference between what weve seen vs what we're going to get.Ofc the engine will be the same, ofc it will still lookk like a game made with the same engine.But imagine what you've already seen with a slightly adjusted colour palette and less recycled surfaces. That will already look like a different game.And rulewise, they are not really alike, although in a sense, since Larian always pulled inspiration from games like ultima and BG and icewind and... they were always already partially like those games.So the shift might not seem that big.

I wish this forum had an upvote button, the voice of reason!

I hope there will be other ways for us to give Larian our feedback. I have many questions for Larian, but I don't have a Reddit account and will not create one just for this AMA. But hopefully others who share my concerns will ask the questions I would've asked.

Feedback is being observed, FWIW. Obviously this doesn't imply any particular outcome but people are aware.

Very nice to see that. Much like kanisatha, I don't have a reddit account and don't want to make one just for 1 AMA, so seeing that feedback is already being observed feels really nice

Cool my question is will we be able to pick deities for our custom none divine characters this is the one thing I hated about Pathfinder Kingmaker it made zero sense to have other characters who had a deity even the ones that had no divine powers and yet our none divine character could not pick one

It is why I left steam and came here. At the very least, the community is not toxic like steam, and I know that Larian is watching, even if they don't agree with me, I can be more confident they hear me.

Same here

This ^.
I post here mainly in the hope that there are at least some people in Larian who do want to hear from critics and not just their fans.

...and we don't really need to see much of the game, because first impressions mean a lot. And one doesn't need to go into in-depth analysis as to how the reveal differs greatly from past Baldur's Gate games, as they are immediately seen from the surface, with no digging required... As stated, even the UI is completely different. The only thing that was reminiscent from the older games was the fact that it was using the dnd ruleset, and that it takes place in Baldur's Gate. Other than that, it shared aspects that rpg's generally share. This reveal was like when they revealed Dungeon Siege 3, and how it looked and played nothing like the older games.

It isn't about people wanting it to look and play like a 20 year old gfame. It's about people wanting the devs to take the aspects they loved from the old games, and translate it to play like an updated Baldur's Gate game, which it objectively did not.



So you're really resorting to the mob rule mentality? Oh, and the word "most" implies a majority, meaning over 50%, so unless you have any sort of stats or graphs to confirm this claim, don't use the word - it just makes you look like you're overcompensating toi "prove" your point. Besides, your tone suggests you are only using it as a disingenuous attempt to try and make your viewpoint seem more valid than others. Who gives a shit what "most" people think. "Most" people thinking something, does not equate to it being the better idea. YOu know what even more poeple would like? If you could choose between both modes?...



I take it you are not familiar with Pillars of Eternity 2? It's a rtwp crpg, inspired by the old Infinity Engine games, where the developers added the OPTION to play the game in turn-based mode, AFTER THE GAME WAS COMPLETED...Larian is only in pre-alpha.


you are conflating 2 separate ideas: Wanting a game to look/play a certain way, and seeing/not seeing quality/potential in what was revealed. These are not mutually exclusive. One can be critical at the fact that the game doesn't appear to be what they wanted, and also see quality and potential in what is there. I do see quality and potential, I just don't see a Baldur's Gate game.


When did I ever say I thought this was or wasn't a "fantastic and promising taste of a pre-alpha game?" My initial reply was in response to another poster, and was what I thought (based on observation of others) were the criticisms people had with the game. It had nothing to do with my impressions of the game in it's current state or even what I thought about it as a game in general. If you are under impression that I think this game looks like shit because it appears to be not what I wanted, then you are sorely mistaken.

I and others have been waiting nearly 20 years for a BG sequel, that up until when Larian announced it, was just a fun thought to have because we were convinced it was never, ever, ever, going to happen, and then when it was announced and recently revealed, and I and others saw that it wasn't really what we were hoping it would/could be, I don't think it's too unreasonable for some of us to be upset, seeing as how one could complete grade school, high school, college and have a child, in the time that we've been hoping for a sequel, so you can drop the condescending tone that's been oozing out of you throughout your entire response. Remember, my reply was just offering feedback and a general opinion - you attacked me.

And also, why would I or anyone else care what everyone else thinks? Like how does that add merit to anything? Again, it is an attempt to try and bolster your viewpoint and dismiss others. In terms of what somebody likes or sees value in, their own opinion is literally the only one that matters. Do you tend to buy games based on what most others think of them, because I don't...


So now you are not only speaking for other people, but also in absolutes...

True.

And i would say most people dont care about an exact adaptation of D&D. For the people who want it: BG3 isnt obviously when you know D&D

Even Larian don't cares about an exact adaptation... They said it, video games is a thing, tabletop game is another.
They took what they can (or find cool to keep) and delete/modify what they have to (or find better to delete/adapt).

For exemple (I swear it is, not another message about RT/TB)
=> they find better to """keep""" turn base (""" because when you read the rules, it's not obvious that the feelings is turned base)
=> they find better to modify armors and weapons.

Annnnd... it's another conflict about the name of the game yea
I think i'll write it everywhere it is. Couldn't you just change this f**** name for us all just to discuss about your new cool game ?

I vote for Baldur's Gate: Absolution after the Cult of the Absolute that is showing up in Baldur's Gate recently that coincides with many of the bad omens.