Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Just remove 90% of cinematics and focus on the game

What makes a great RPG? A deep story, great characters, fun gameplay. For these things you can go and re-play old great classic games over and over again. Why do you need to create cinematics for every fng dialogue? Create them for the most important ones, and leave the rest as dialogue boxes with the isometric view. Who actually needs all these buggy cinematics? I love DOS2, its great story and characters, its fun gameplay and there is NO CINEMATICS. Baldur's Gate? NO CINEMATICS. Pathfinder? NO CINEMATICS. Pillars? NO CINEMATICS. BUT, all these are great games. Why? Because they had their focus on actual game, and not on stupid cinematics. IT IS NOT THE TYPE OF GAME TO HAVE SO MANY CINEMATICS. You play D&D with your imagination turned on! You read the story dialogue and imagine. Why do I need to see how this dude talks with that dude up-close? I don't. How many resources and time you spend on cinematics, man, that's ridiculous. You would have made so much more, much bigger game, much deeper game, if it wouldn't be for thinking about making cinematics for EVERY LITTLE DIALOGUE. You have a year (at least) before Definitive edition, so just cut 90% of this cinematic ***, and give us the great RPG.

Tastes vary, they don't bother me. It's easy to skip cut scenes you've seen before by hammering the space bar, although they need to disconnect that from dialog option choice.

Animated cut scenes and voice acting are something people expect from a $60 USD game these days. It will probably help sell more copies, and more sales means more resources Larian can put into the rest of the game. Also, developer teams are usually specialized. It's not like the animators working on these cut scenes could be working on AI programming or story writing instead.

I agree that NPCs with a single line of dialogue don't need cinematics. It discourages me from talking to random NPCs because it just wastes time. More time is spent on loading/deloading the cutscene than the dialogue itself.

@Frumpkis: Yes, the animators wouldn't be working AI programming/etc. But if Larian didn't have to hire as many animators, then they could hire another AI programmer/story writer. Although, as said in the Panel from Hell, they kind of already have too many writers.

Cutscenes don't do anything for me, especially beyond the first time. Some people dig them, though. Are all the cinematics worth the resources required to create and implement? Would they be better off spending those resources elsewhere? I would definitely say yes, but that's for Larian to decide. When the modding tools come out, there will hopefully be loads of playable content eventually, none of which will have cutscenes. So we have that to look forward to I guess.

I think cutscenes are a good addition - once they are polished.

If they are on par with games like Witcher 3 in the finished product then I am all for it.

The reality is, BG3 is too large of a project for them to purely prioritize a "perfect CRPG experience"

Given the budget of the game, they'll need to appeal to an equally large audience to make this work. Roughly guessing, the audience breakdown:

• CRPG Enthusiasts (including original BG1/2 players)
• 5E Table Top Enthusiasts who might try a videogame
• Returning DOS 2 Players
• More "mainstream" RPG players (Witcher 3, Mass Effect, Fallout 4, Skyrim players)

I'd argue that the last 2 are likely the biggest markets/opportunities, hence the focus on cinematics. There's a reason why they've made so many adjustments to the rules too (instead of just applying them as written, which is FAR easier and simpler). Hence why you see surface areas, etc.

Does this mean the game is better for it? Not necessarily, but I do understand the business decision behind a lot of their choices.

I loved the originals, BG2 is still my all time favourite game, but I don't need the wall of text anymore.
More speech, more cinematics. Sorry OP it's a no from me, Witcher 3(as an example) has shown it's doable and well.

This is supposed to be a AAA game so let there be cinematics, they just need to be improved. Add instant transitions, no black screens and decent camera work and I'm good.

Cinematics bother me greatly. It takes away from the flow of the game and breaks your tactical setup for combat. It also forces characters to teleport into scene when they are farther away. They cut scenes also for a pause to your characters but NPCs are free to act and cause disadvantages if combat begins. I have had many of NPCs attack and things explode around me because I couldn't react fast enough due to cut scenes.

I do enjoy cutscenes as well, and the voice acting is something I enjoy too, but agree the story and role playing elements should come first. I don't like the fact that they are using an almost identical story architecture as DOS2 (see my other post). I think that is part of the reason DOS2 players are mentioning this. I am hoping the story arc is nothing like Early access, and they listen to this feedback, and that they just put this together to test things out.

Despite what I said there is obviously still a lot of polish required and on top I would say there are instances where I don't feel the need for them, such as re-arranging party members back in camp. In that instant and others like it, I am happy to do it on the fly and don't mind banter being lobbed my way, but really don't need the cut scene to tell someone to leave my party temporarily and to bring someone else in.

Cinematography is an important part of the game, I don't want it cut out

+1
it is really a weird decision to go cinematics with one line NPCs
Hope they notice this and remove it entirely and move the resources for more important stuff(like more polishing for the important scenes)

Well, it's 2020. Movie dialogues have been a standard for years.

I agree they should 100% focus on gameplay and combat because that's where the issues are. However cinematics and voice acting is the only place where the game is actually excellent.

Hopefully we can have our cake and eat it too

I made a post like this and saw a lot of agreement with people.
Nothing breaks up the entire flow of the game like talking to a non-factor flavor NPC and getting pulled into an intimate dialog scene so that they can say their one forgettable line.
Voice-accompanied text boxes are ok. Not everything needs a cinematic presentation.

I really agree with that.
Cinematics for quests, main story or companion story is really cool but when the dialog is useless, so is the cinematic.

I like the cinematics. Add an option to skip if you want but I always watch them, draws me in more to the respective stories.

I agree they could cut most of the one-liner "flavor" NPC cinematics and just use voice response.

It's possible we're getting so many non-consequential NPC scenes because Larian has an easy, automated way to do that. They're doing it because they can? It does break the flow of the game without really adding anything.

This 100% there's no reason a classic genre couldn't evolve in 20 years (dear lord I don't feel as old)

While I'd even be inclined to agree you don't need a cutscene for every peasant NPC - but then there's such gems like Alphira so... (I might or might not have shed a tear there)