Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Larian's Biggest Oversight, now with review of ea

I am still salty about missing the train when it comes to supporting PF: WotR. I have lurked around their wiki page and every time it is mentioned I am there with my opera glasses like: "O o O". Can't wait! \o/

Meanwhile, imma give Solasta, Tyranny, Wasteland 3 and BG2 a shot (while lurking about here as usual). :] And I been considering giving DA:I a try (since I now finished DA:O), but I've had a lot of warnings that DA:I seems to be mostly disappointing in a lot of aspects- so it is on lower priority than the titles mentioned before.

DA:I is AMAZING. I have just re-played it (well, nearly finished). It's a wonderful game.

I never found enough strength to replay it. :-/
The game is fine at worse ... mostly better than that.

But i find it incredibly frustrating how Bioware create just ilusion of choices. :-/ And nothing you do really matter in the end.
You can set your world on website, so you dont have to play DA:II again (thank gods) ... i spend hours there to be honest, since all choices i wanted blocked out something else. But when i was finaly done ... all important characters get just cameo, sometimes not even that, and the choices i was curious the most about ... was simply negated out. -_-

... Guess I am playing DA:I as well then! \o/ More for me!


Hmm, but seems to be worth at least one playthrough, so imma give it that!

Don't rely on people telling you DA:I is bad. Keep in mind that people who dislike something are far more likely to voice their opinion than people who like something, and they also tend to be more loud and vocal about their dislike. DA:I is a very nice game. It is an action RPG so you have to accept its action elements. But the things that make an RPG are all there: great story, characters, companions, dialogue, choices and consequences, etc. The only reason why I find it hard to replay is that it is so very big, and the vast areas have sometimes been filled in with fluff filler content, a solid argument for why bigger (i.e. open world) is not always better.

Same!

I rly wanted to play this game and waited for it, but it has too much grind... I felt like I was playing an MMORPG. And this is the main part of the gameplay, because the plot was cut into DLC. Then the plot itself in the game is very small and it is passed very quickly. The side quests are very boring and focus on "collect it". The open world here is not a plus, but a minus. I tried to force myself to play again, but I couldn't.

At the same time, I played DA2 many times, even considering all its disadvantages, it was more pleasant to play it.

And what I hate most about Bioware is that you're always a hero. You can be a hero diplomat or a hero tyrant, but you are a hero. This is why I adore Tyranny and I think people have not paid enough attention to this game. It has a huge plus, you can finally play as villain.

After MEA, Bioware finally lost my trust. Although I was big fan DA series. I have books, artbooks, encyclopedias, Dragon Age really has a very interesting world, but they talk about it so boring in their games.

I don't know why the topic of DAi came up here, but I just want to mention that I recently replayed it and yes, it is a really great game. Its issues come in my opinion from the decision to make it an open world game, but all the classic "Bioware" aspects of the game are superb.

I still believe that best 3 Dragon Age games was in this order:

1) Origins
2) Awakening
3) Witch Hunt

> Then nothing for some time ... and only then Dragon Age: Inquisition ...
Its not a bad game, not entirely ...
But i finished Origin with all its DLC at least five times ... and i still find that game interesting, i still have builds i dint try yet ... etc.
For Inquisition ... yes, i was exited when i played it first time ... but once that ended, and i have seen how my so called "choices" ended. :-/ Then i created another character ... and just image of what all i would need to complete again, but this time without that entusiasm of new world. :-/ I just uninstalled it, before ruin the good memories.

> Then for long, long, and once more long time litteraly NOTHING, complete void and absence of whole existence ... and after eons of agonizingly boring existence, i would be maybe able to reinstal Dragon Age: II. But i doubt that.

And to get on track with BG-3 at least a little bit ...
I really hope we get some Dwarven city. :3
I love Dwarven cities, and Orzamar is my favourite place of all times and all games i know. :3

Overall I enjoyed all the games in the DA series. DA2 is definitely "the worst," in that it is very poorly made. I also think it's the most unique and interesting game in the series but unfortunately it didn't get the development time it deserved and ended up being very bad overall.

Still, I think the dragon age series is exactly what Larian should look at when constructing their story and characters for Bg3. Origins especially, since the goals this game has set for itself are very similar to the goals of Bg3.

You can argue about the quality of the story and characters of DAO. But you can't ignore the attention to details and coherence of the story.

DAI has a weak story. It's so weak. Cut into DLC. With an extremely weak villain who was taken from DLC (AGAIN!) DA2. How can this be a good example? Never constructing story like that.
I really hope that Larian won't do this.

DAI has a few things that can contend for the weakest aspect for me.
Easiest target would be the war table that would have been fine if it wasn't with REAL TIME TIMERS. I guess thats something that I would really not want to see in BG3 cause lord was it frustrating to have to wait 10 minutes to up to like 48 hours (might be remembering wrong and it was 24) just to complete a sidequest. It was wholly unnecessary, and a terrible way to implement an interesting mechanic. SO if BG3 decides to add any management stuff I'd really hope for no real life timers.
Another contender would be Sera I think. It isn't that her personality grates at me, though it does, cause there I could say it isn't for me. Its that her actions seem incongruous with the character she is supposed to be. She is supposed to be a red jenny, competent rogue who takes down the establishment a few pegs. But in her introduction she decides to help you by taking care of a few men that are after you, but instead of IDK TAKING THEIR WEAPONS AND ARMOR, SHE STEALS ONLY THEIR PANTS. Like I would have been fine if the scene didn't change much and she still joked about them being in their knickers, but like if she took the weapons too I'd feel like she is chaotic but competent, not chaotic and stupid. So far, BG3 has completely dodged this issue. Our companions don't feel incompetent, if anything people complain that they don't seem like they should be Level 1 because their personality and story gives off too much competency.
Last thing I could possibly consider the weakest aspect of DAI is that the DLC, other than Tresspasser, wasn't actually that interesting. Which is a sad thing to say cause the premises sound cool like the origin of Lyrium and finding out about the first Inquisitor but like overall the experience was weaker that DAO or DA2 DLC. Lore was there but gameplay and encounters were just not. So far BG3 hasn't been like that, one thing that can be said is it certainly isn't boring (until the 50th barrel explosion).

For me the main plot was actually mostly fine. The opening is certainly the strongest and that is partly cause Corypheus doesn't feel like the overarching threat he should be and so his minions just become fodder to kill. DAO, despite the Archdemon not appearing throughout the game, it felt like he was a threat that was constantly approaching, especially as the map darkened and occasionally you got ambushed as you slept. After the opening DAI plot hits certain beats and gets to good points but overall isn't that strong. Though, probably in the minority for this but,

It allways seemed to me like if someone in BioWare had a vision ...
And really wanted to give it a try ... but the studio was not quite sure if that would work ... so they created low budget "test subject" ... and that is what we know as Dragon Age II.

Honestly im quite sad that Inquisition did not return closer to its roots ...
Especialy in character development, and combat matter ... those things seem to be upgraded (thanks god for at least that tho) DA 2.

I dared to cut Abits' quote a little, so the difference is more obvious. :P

And im for one with him in this ...
Origins have incredible story (even tho i believe it could be still improved), incredible characters (with one that is incredibly inconsistent with the rest of the universe ... yes, i mean un-horned Sten), and beautifly detailed world. :3
And those are things, Larian SHOULD do ... and so far, it seem to me like they are doing them pretty well.

The only real problem with DA:I is the baggage that came with its open world design, and I hope it's something that either gets scaled back in DA4 or they get rid of checklist design like collecting shards in every map. Super tedious as hell.

It's a fine game otherwise.

Can't really say I share the enthusiasm.

DAO had a fun combat system that included setting tactics for everyone in ur party. DAI is a button masher with the overhead tactical camera option that is so poorly designed it is unusable (and also pointless when you can just mash your left mouse button like a fiend).

Single playthrough of DAI is fine and it is a decent game storywise with pretty maps. Replay value is pretty low because of time sink fluff and minimal choice and consequence. Not as gritty, dark, or deep as DAO. Plus they shit all over some of the lore from DAO in DAI, which was annoying.

Still…it has some good parts and the maps are varied. I recommend getting it on sale if possible and not expecting it to be as immersive as DAO and you will enjoy it.

*I miss the murder knife…*

TL;DR: GTFO

Okay, I am here for one thing and one thing only: excoriation. Up front, I really don't care about other clarifications or justifications in followups, I've read through the first couple pages up to the point this thread becomes a BioWare tangent. My problem here is with the original post, and what a giant piece of festering trash it is. I'm getting pretty sick of drivel like this in the gaming community, and if I can help assure that even one person thinks twice before making an asinine post like this in the future, I'll have achieved something.

The only incompetence and lack of care here belongs to the OP. And OP, if you come back to this thread and that makes you feel bad, cool, that's intended. Maybe apply an empathetic lens to a reconsideration of your original post if this strikes a chord with you. That said, I don't know why you feel justified in flat out insulting people's work when you can't be bothered to proof read your own post, but I for one am sick of seeing people make posts like this, and watching as they inevitably take this attitude to AMAs to harass devs with. Everyone wants to be Red Shirt Guy, and it's insufferable every time. He was a dick, you're a dick.

Part One: The Constitution of Criticism

You did part structure here, so I'll play along. I am by no means here suggesting that criticism is not warranted, or that you cannot make it. I am simply asking that you inform yourself first, back up your points with meaningful examples, and state them plainly. It is extremely fair to criticize Larian for something like Sebille and The Red Prince conflicting in Divinity OS2, and especially for not finding a way to resolve it - but foundationally unfair to criticize them for not solving it the way you would. Constructively building on the criticism would be preferred; for example, suggesting that the characters should present the player with a choice between them and a forced confrontation, or that if The Red Prince is in your party then his quest should block Sebille's conflicting quest element from being started. However, criticism ends when you start asserting shit you can't possibly know as fact and then continuing to construct horse shit theory based on vapid assumptions.

Now, as an example of you not being informed, take your apparent lack of ability to divine how the interaction system in this game works - which, honestly, I have no idea how you managed. Larian uses an arguably antiquated dialogue/interaction system wherein, despite offering players a character creator, tying success to the focal character, and suggesting via that focus that the game revolves entirely around that character, does not actually center its interactions on that character. We can see this in how skill checks are resolved. In most modern CRPGs or RPGs the player is given the option to choose to use companion characters' stats in rolls or simply does so automatically. At the very least, with a game like Dragon Age Inquisition, the entire party is accounted for in conversations. Larian does not do this. It cares only about the interacting character, and normally at most one other party member that is relevant to the quest. I would say that this was to allow the studio's structure to work on characters in vacuums, but IMO it doesn't really matter either way.

Like or dislike, there is a reason for this in Larian's design that is core to the structure of the game, and if you knew enough about making games to level the accusations you level you wouldn't level them in the first place because you'd recognize the trade off being made and why. Original Sin 2 and Baldur's Gate 3 (as it follows the same formula) present players with an option that simply does not exist in many other games. It is possible to have a companion die and stay dead, unscripted, from combat. This means that assuming companions are available from party comp alone is not a viable check for the flag system you complain about but don't understand. More importantly, it means that more checks are required to integrate dialogue as tightly as a game like Dragon Age, and more checks means more chances for those checks to break in a game as complicated as OS2.

Even games like Pillars, where death is fundamentally harsher, still shield the party from it by default and also do not lock the player into a party comp - as they are traditional CRPGs. Larian seeks to straddle the line between a harsher isometric experience like Pillars or the Pathfinder games, and BioWare's rather casual party story romps where no one can die in combat and it only really cares about who you brought on your little narrative roller coaster. Larian also seeks to provide a more organic approach to traversal. Avoiding locking you into small areas (PoE, Pathfinder, Tyranny) or linear paths (ME, DA). Games with similar freedom of exploration like The Witcher also include either a universal main character and/or the exclusion of things like the gloves of teleportation that allow massive sequence breaks.

I honestly can't believe that people are complaining that sequence breaking the game is accounted for. You don't have to skip Fort Joy if you don't want to, sorry skipping a bunch of the story breaks a bunch of the story later. I'm not sure what you all expect to happen when you choose skip the entire prologue.

Part Two: Rose Tint

It's obvious from the thread that OP likes BioWare games. Great! So do I, I've played every single one of them multiple times. I will not, however, abide revisionist nonsense. The suggestion that BioWare would have accounted for everything and, at least in their prime, never made a mistake like Sebille and The Red Prince is ridiculous. [Spoilers] Origins released with a bug that made it impossible to complete the game if you you married Anora and killed Loghain, and more commonly had Allistair constantly refer to himself as king after the Landsmeet even if he wasn't.

Basically every BioWare game has had the occasional issue with gender flags not being read properly in conversations. Awakenings is notoriously packed full of quest bugs. Sequence breaking the original Mass Effect regularly resulted in side quests behaving weirdly. IIRC, Iron Bull's companion quest line could break quite easily. (Hell, a bunch of DAI was way more broken than BG3 or OS2 and it never had early access.) It's possible to lose multiple companions in ME2 from check thresholds that the player cannot know before experiencing them. Jack is written and styled as a Bi character, and that option is never given. Stop saying just demonstrably false shit, seriously. If you have nothing worth saying, then at least spare everyone fabricating a reason to whine on a forum.

Just like these quest bugs and oversights, however, the issue you have with BG3 is a problem that's scale does not warrant insulting the developers. It's possible to lock yourself out of content in almost every game that you mention as handling their systems better, and every single one of them has a wonky or overly restrictive quest line if not many multiples. There are quests that conflict in all of them, and all of them include the ability for narrative elements to simply break. Bugs exist in games, this fact is unavoidable, and your ability to find bugs in an Early Access game is not a sign of incompetence. It is simply impossible to avoid, so faulting people for the game not being perfect is, frankly, insane. Speaking of which.

Part Three: Games Are Made By People

I have no idea why I have to keep pointing this out, but yeah, games are made by people. Larian is a group of people not a faceless machine spitting out code. People are fallible. People make mistakes. If you can only muster single digit examples of this supposedly foundational problem in two massive games that's more of a point against you than it is for you. If Larian actually didn't care, which is such a straight up rude thing to suggest that it borders on obscenity, you wouldn't have problems finding examples - and these games wouldn't be successful.

Part Four: Games Are Made By People, And Time Is A Finite Commodity

No, seriously, games are made by human beings and you should start treating the people that make them like human beings instead of content factories. It's not absurd that Larian didn't go back and add dialogue to fix a bug, it doesn't show a lack of care or competence. Would it have been nice? Hell yeah, but all it shows is that you know nothing about how gamedev works.

Larian is an independent developer that self-publishes. Their funds are far more limited, even with Wizards onboard for BG3, than a lot of the studios you're comping them to. They're also, as a good reference point, about the size of one AAA studio, like, let's say BioWare Edmonton (320 people), split across 7 studios and outsource partners. CDPR gets grants from the Polish government and runs a successful storefront, BioWare is owned by one of the biggest entertainment entities in the world, Obsidian was an already well-regarded studio that could have easily gotten funding traditionally but asked fans to pay for PoE - including asking thousands of dollars to essentially do work on the game by designing stuff.

At some point a game has to be called finished, regardless of how much people care or how competent the artists, writers, programmers, actors, and musicians working on it are. Regardless of how much they want to keep working on it. The classic 80/20 rule comes to mind here, but the reality is that things are often more granular. Eighty percent of the work might be getting the game content complete, but the next fifteen percent might only solve half of the problems after all the content is in the game, and the next five might make as many problems as it fixes.

At some point people need a break, at some point you want creative people to try something new, and at some point it becomes detrimental to continue polishing the game. More money and more people does not solve this problem as someone naively suggested it should. Big complicated projects are regularly poorly served by simply throwing manpower around, and it can lead to a scenario where things like worker health is traded away. You can, ironically considering your praise, look to BioWare and CDPR for examples of this lately.

Epilogue: This Thread Sucks

I can't say I'm surprised to show up to a studio's forum and find an overly self-entitled person being a jerk to the devs, it's pretty par for the course, but I wish y'all would just go the hell away.

People are intitled to their opinion, personal attacking someone on the forums I'm pretty sure is against the rules. Way to go on necroing a 2020 thread.

What fallen said. You (RocketPunches) might have some good arguments or insight, but your awful attitude makes it difficult to actually understand the point of your critique. About half of your comment is just plain harassment against op for no good reason... I mean, people are allowed to have a different opinion than yours. They are not "wrong" by default just because they don't see things the way you do. If you wish to discuss OP's post and attempt to bring another point of view to the table - the least you can do is to do so respectfully.

Not sure if triggered Larian employee, Larian simp, or simple forum troll but you might be overreacting a bit here, next time you want to explain something try avoiding insulting your readers ....

Being civil is indeed the better way, even if it means combatting lack thereof with civility. With that said, move on and bring the topic back on track so I won't deem it necessary to be closed. At risk of being an old record by now; Focus on the merit of the discussion, not the person. Hopefully you take it to heart RocketPunches, so that your otherwise good points won't be dilluted by unnecessities.


Fighting fire with fire is rarely a good idea. This isn't particularly better, undermining the rest of your message. In standing with previous responses, you don't have to be remark X or Y just because of being of different opinions. Flip the coin, and you could just as easily claim anyone with criticism or different ideas are fired Larian employees, Larian haters or simple forum trolls. Doubt anyone would equally appreciate that when discussing their criticisms and wishes for things to be changed to be called that.

This post as an entirety would've sufficed:


To the point, polite and digestable. And less writing needed, which as a lazy person myself, can only be a good thing