Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Please call this game what it is, DOS III

It has nothing to do with gate keeping IMO. You need to be blind not to see that this game have much more in common with DOS then BG. It's not a criticism, just an observation. Game like Pillars of Eternity have much more in common with BG than BG3, and they don't even share the same rule system.

BG3 is like a combination of DOS and Dragon Age to me. Both great games which I love to death, none of them are Baldur's Gate or even close. From the music to the UI to the NPCs, nothing screams Baldur's Gate to me. I still think that so far the game is really cool and fun. And even if later on we will discover how BG3 is related to 1 and 2, it will still feel to me artificial and forced.

Saying all that I am very glad that there's going to be a good D&D 5e game around for me to play. BG or not.

Again, as someone who has played both DOS 1&2 & BG 1&2, this definitely feels more like BG where it counts the most (the characters & the colour palette), & feels like DOS where it counts the most (turn-based combat being the most obvious). Do I also need to keep reminding people that, as a game that was obviously created from the same engine as DOS, it will almost certainly have more of a DOS feeling during the earliest parts of the Early Access period? Hopefully some of the more obvious placeholders will get replaced over time, but that is not remotely sufficient complaint for me to go off on a toddler-level tantrum & try to get the game refunded. I'll leave that to the OP.

Again, as a fan of both game franchises, I am really quite unsure what people were actually expecting this game to be? Its set 100 years after the previous BG game, so it was never going to be a true sequel.

not much ponit in discussing with Marc. He is right, because he says he is right. Just say otherwise, and he will pretty much tell you.

Had this game been titled DOS III, I'd not have bought it in the 1st place. I did not care that much for DOS/DOS II. BG/BG II OTH, I dearly loved. Ergo, I bought BG 3; even after saying I wouldnt. Why?

MOO was great, MOO2 was superb...MOO3, blew chunks.
BL was outstanding...BL 2 was prettty damn good...BL3...blew chunks.
Diablo was fantastic...D2 was utterly superb...D3...blew chunks

My personal experience with 3rd iterations of a serial, has not been favorable. So I had intended to wait until this was on sale in the future, 3 or 4 years probably, for $20 or under. But I watched some youtube, watched some community reveals, loved the visuals so figured..what the hell. If it holds to the pattern of 3rd serials, I can refund. If it works for me...great. Well, it didn't work for me.

As for the 85 minutes I played the game...if after that long you can't tell that you don't like something, then I might suggest you need psychiatric assistance vs the feedback you will garner from a game forum.

No being BG = not being RTwP? Or is there something else?

The game adapts D&D rules but carries over some features from DOS2 - perhaps in an attempt to appeal to two fan bases. The colour coding of items, for instance, is out of DOS. I don't really mind, but some things bother me. Basically in the original D&D Intelligence of 9 meant you had 90 IQ. Now it's very tempting to min/max to create the most effective characters. But the results aren't necessarily believable. I may raise this as a separate thread also.

It's good to have companions with deep back stories but original main characters need more depth at creation also. Maybe extra background choices? We haven't seen Baldur's Gate in the gameplay yet ; but I don't accept that the game has to carry on the Bhaalspawn narrative to be a successor to the original Baldur's Gate games. Finally I wonder where the final level cap will be. At one point the Devs were saying level 10 but this got a bad reaction. I'd like to go to at least level 5 in Act I.

The question then is what's for a sequel? Maybe an entirely new D&D story/setting? Or maybe work out a way to go beyond level 20 - as in BG 2: Throne of Bhaal.

So far I'm quite happy with the progress - except the need for a higher level cap, maybe more magic items.

I think people expected it to be BG3, engine or not engine, 100 years in the future or not. And if it wasn't going to be a true sequel, why call it BG3? I would guess marketing mostly. I really think that Larian gained enough renown with the RPG community that if they would just said that they are making a D&D 5e game people would be more than happy to buy and play it. It's like if Mass Effect 3 was a 1st person shooter 100 years in the future with different plot and massive visual redisign of everything. It wasn't really Mass Effect 3 right?

It has the name Baldur's Gate 3 because it is set in the WORLD of the Baldur's Gate games-namely Faerûn. I have no doubt that we will encounter many of the same creatures, & possibly some of the more long-lived inhabitants, that we encountered in the previous games. Truth is, the longer some of you people post, the more convinced I am that you're engaging in Gate Keeping. Well I hate to break it to you, but I was playing D&D back in the early 80's, so if anyone is entitled to Gate-keep, it would be someone like me. However, I'm so much more broad-minded. Maybe because I am a more mature person.

80s huh? noob. I started with the box set DnD, pre AD&D.

The more I read about 5E, the more I am thinking that may be no small part of the problem right there. Do away with alignments? Hell we have definable alignments IRL. Just look at some of oyur coworkers. You can probably name 1 or 2 who are LG, 1 is clearly CE, 1 or 2 who are clearly CG...

The more I am reading, the less convinced I am that I will ever buy the game.

It has nothing to do with gate keeping, I am also an old player, I was there when BG1 and 2 where new, and love to see new blood in the RPG space, and I am very glad that Larian are making a D&D game, because I love their games and I know that they are the best people to create such a game, also, everyone can go and play the old games and decide for themselves. I think that the game is amazing so far, I truly am having a blast. It just have nothing to do with Baldur's Gate, the fact that the city Baldur's Gate is in the game doesn't really say much, there was no Baldur's Gate in BG2 it was in another part of the world.
Neverwinter Nights, Icewind Dale, Sword Coast Legends, and many many other games are set in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting and have many characters and lore in common. But you don't call them Baldur's Gate.

The point is that Larian are making an amazing game, that feels very different from the first two games, and kinda feels like a marketing stunt more than anything else to me. Just like the adventure WoTC released, Baldur's Gate: Decent Into Avernus. You have Baldur's Gate for a tiny bit at the start with some minor easter eggs and then you continue on with the campaign that have nothing to do with the Bhaal spawn or anything else from the BG franchise. I think that they are playing here on nostalgia.

Ehh, I'm going to have to disagree with that, at least a little bit.

A video game has to take into consideration all variables from the get go when designing it, but the DM has the advantage of being a person and being able to make their own calls within the game world. And even then, there are things that either a) the game doesn't address in RAW anyways that comes up and you have to make the call or b) it's some errata buried in Jeremy Crawford's damn twitter account and, again, the DM has to make the call on if they want to play it that way or a different way. I don't think Baldur's Gate 3 is a replacement for D&D whatsoever, but it doesn't aim to be that in the first place - it's a video game that uses the same setting and a similar premise. Depending on how much Larian takes from the early access, they might be able to address more things properly once situations show themselves and they get some feedback on it. After all... in D&D, you always have to prepare for the unexpected from your players. Personally I haven't had those surface issues though, at least not yet; I'm a few hours in currently. My biggest issues so far is more related to the party AI's poor movements when I'm running around more than anything.

But playing it does feel a lot like D&D mechanically at a very simple, base level. So I guess it just depends on what you focus on. For me, it was the action/bonus action and movement phases, spell distance and cover, etc.
I've only played a little of BG3, but the biggest combat thing that stuck out to me is you don't get advantage on flaking (presumably, anyways) but that's an optional rule anyways if I recall correctly. I don't really expect a 1:1 of anything from D&D though, since it's a different medium and my personal thoughts is if I want 100% unadulterated D&D, I'll play D&D. My current campaign is past level 20 though and going through the Epic Legacy supplement though, so I am enjoying the feel of a low-level party since it'll be awhile before we start a new D&D campaign.

The main problem to me is the visual tone of the game that feels way more like DoS rather than a new game (BG new gen)

Cinematics are the only things that are visually very different than DoS and it's good... But After cinematics that gives you the feeling you're in a new game... Every gameplay visual feels like DoS.

The awfull containers UI, the cartoonish animations, the spells incantation, the way you select and group your characters, the quantity of surfaces everywhere, the 60L of blood each time someone is dying ... I find it a little bit disturbing because you can absolutely see they tried to do something new especially with dialogs and cinematics but when you control your party, it feels like DoS a lot.

One time you're crushing a head with your feet in cinematics, 30sec later your characters jump everywhere on combat, you fall asleep due to an ennemy spell with an animation that comes from the sims (or looney tunes), you have flaming surfaces arround 30m2, acid everywhere arround your characters and 120L of blood on the screen.

That's a little bit dissapointing.

I'm so incredibly disappointed. Nothing about this feels like Baldur's Gate to me. Pillars of Eternity is a better and more playable likeness in both tone, writing, and mechanics. This feels like them just making the game they always make and cosmetically slapping the name on.

The corny visual dice rolls are killing me. The turn based combat is slow and has no suspense. I get it...they wanted to make a D&D 5e game, but I didn't buy a computer game to literally roll dice and take turns like I would in paper and pen. I do that every Sunday night with my D&D group, but at least then I have my friends with me and a DM creatively narrating how it goes down rather than seeing the same cheesy animations over and over. It's frustratingly emersion-breaking. BGI and BGII managed to have the mechanics of D&D without making you manually take every single step of a D&D round. That's why it was awesome. You knew all that stuff was going on in the background, but you didn't have to see it. If they at least got rid of the forced turn-based combat I might be able to get through the game.

I just feel like someone ran over my dog, got a different dog, and then tried to pass it off to me like it is the original dog.

You did though. Unless you jumped into early access in the first couple of days without watching any videos or reading anything about it.

Quit with the personal attacks, eh?

Oh shush, maple leaf...

...agreed. Even if it's obviously quite an emotional topic for some.

If anything I would count not being RTWP as a net improvement (a new BG with a decent turn-based combat rather than the half assed compromise that RTWP is was basically what I wished for since I played Temple of Elemental Evil for the first time).
Itemization also needs some refinement, but BG3 is already massively better tha DOS 1 and 2 on the loot front merely by ditching the horrendous randomized loot that characterized Larian's RPGs for years.

That said, improving the way the party controls (absolutely mandatory) and allowing for a larger party (greatly appreciated but less crucial) would both go a A LONG way to make this feel closer to the old Baldur's Gate games and a departure (where it matters) from the Original Sin series.

I recommend you take a course on ethics, but seeing how that's less likely, how about try this marvelous lecture series by the esteemed Michael Sandel: https://www.edx.org/course/justice-2

I know you missed out on the last 30 years and then some of progress, but there were serious issues with alignments and it was almost inevitable that it would have to go away.

Also, your heuristics are beyond stupid.

Personally I never liked Alignments in DnD so its the one thing I am happy to see not implemented.

Heck they are practically never done right in video games anyways.

A reputation system fits better in the same niche in terms of function anyways. Alignment systems tend to get super wonky and function weirdly.

Pathfinder Kingmaker is a great example of an Alignment system done so hilariously badly that it's not even funny. Overzealous incorporation of the system there. Saying the most random of things changes your alignment. Instead of doing things - so pretending to be a good guy with evil goals will have you be generally good alignment. Funny consequence. It's only something that works in tabletop and really only when you have a good DM who understands Alignments.

I'm not sure Larian can handle doing an Alignment system right, so thank the gods it's not a thing. I think its fine as a general descriptor of a character, that can change rather fluidly, not as a hard thing some folk take it as.

Not to derail the thread onto a debate about alignments, but I find it's only useful in a game if it informs other actual game mechanics - e.g. certain items can only be used by certain alignments. Otherwise what's the benefit of trying to box the vast complexities of a being's ethical outlook and demeanour into one of nine categories?

Also, actions should inform alignment, not the other way around. That's an important distinction which many seem to forget.

Anyhow, I don't see any great benefit in trying to put alignment in BG3 as it's barely a thing in 5E.

As I tell everyone who are disappointed, I get it, you loved the idea of games with the name Baldur's Gate. To you Baldur's Gate is a specific gamestyle.
I get all that.
And then I say: The only problem is the name. Call it Waterdeep and no one would complain.

Heck you say there's no DnD here? Do you even play 5e? I do, every week, and BG5 is 5e the videogame.
If this game wasn't called Baldur's Gate, then I think no one would be complaining, and most people would praise it for what an amazing translation of DnDs rules this is. Frankly the best in my opinion.

Sure you can hate the mechanics of how Larian solves party management, but that's a preference. At it's core this game is more DnD than Baldur's Gate 1 and 2.

PS: DnD isn't a setting. The Sword Coast / Faerun is the most commonly used setting from many of the official ones, but even saying "only the setting is DnD" is wrong. The core rules don't actually introduce the settings much.