Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Getting with the times.

Love the cutscenes and I think the commitment to including them with every dialogue makes this game feel more like roleplaying than rollplaying. Most DMs I know make a commitment to acting out NPCs regardless of how good their acting skills are, and I appreciate that for the very same reason. Guess that just makes me a dirty JRPG/handholder. Oh Well.

My favorite cutscene has to be Alfira and her song. It's really moving. But yeah, the visuals, storytelling and cutscenes in general are very well done.

I... strongly disagree with this comparison. BGIII utilizes a dynamic camera that cuts and changes angles to emphasize interactions with npcs. Not only that but dialogue is structured to be call and response. Which is to say, the npcs have a line, the MC has a line, the npcs respond, etc., etc. The player is an active participant in the conversation. Persona 5 uses a fixed camera (with beautiful panels/animated segments occasionally being interspersed to highlight emotional moments). Plus, entire scenes in Persona 5 can pass without any sort of input from the player character. The player character is a passive participant in the conversation. And I say this as someone who quite enjoys Persona 5.

The cutscenes (although I hesitate to call them that given most of them are still interactive) in BGIII make the npcs far more endearing as they have little nonverbal cues and verbal tics further distinguishing them as characters. I find many of tiefling children particularly memorable because of this, as well as the goblins at the goblin camp. Now if an npc only has one line and no response from the player then, yes, Larian shouldn't have a close up on their face as it doesn't add anything. But for the most part I've quite enjoyed the cinematics despite my complaints. That said, an ability to turn them off would likely be a best of both worlds scenario, although it's my personal opinion you're missing out on one of the best parts of the game if you do this.


Yeah, that's fair, but they've already improved the jankiness of the model animations in recent patches, so I have no reason to believe it won't continue to improve. I just hope we see more interesting camera angles, as a well shot scene can compensate for a lot even if model animations aren't necessarily of the highest quality.

It's kind of silly to complain about cutscenes when they aren't even done. Give them a chance. Last patch they did some work right? Chill.

Here's a previous thread about Cinematics:
This Thread

Getting back on topic, removal of day/night cycle or resting to reset abilities would be immersion breaking. Every edition of d&d that I know of used this system. In baldurs gate 3 you play the role of a adventurer in forgotten realms setting. With-in this setting people can only do so much in one day, your spells and abilities will tax / fatigue you. The more of a ability score you have invested the more you can achieve in that day (how much you can carry around, spells known, etc).

I don't recall a d&d game that used cooldowns instead of a rest system (besides mmos).

Honestly, it is just Larian laziness. There are multiple solutions and every great cRPG has a D/N cycle.

If the originals did not have D/N, I would be more forgiving. But that is not the case.

Yes, it is.

In this context, "laziness" means they don't believe the benefit is worth the cost. And I agree with that.

I'd rather they focus resources on investing in the story and the cutscene stuff that was getting a bit too offtopic. Haha.

PS: What is it about the day/night cycle you actually like? You haven't even said why you think it matters except that "everyone else does it".

If I might hijack your question here from a personal perspective, cosmetic additions like day/night/weather add immensely to the atmosphere of a game world. In BG1 you escaped after your father is murdered on a dark, stormy night. It sets the scene strongly; would this same instance have worked as well in the permanent sunlit lands of BG3?

The city in BG2 had a wonderful night time ambience, replete with night time sounds and potential danger at every corner. Night time is the perfect time for vagabonds, thieves, vampires, etc. and the idea that we will never get to experience the world of BG3 outside of daylight hours is a crying shame to me.

I've said it dozens of times on these forums but it is an absolute farce that classes who specialise in stealth/thievery are not able to put their skills to use in the twilight hours.

These things might not matter to some or even most gamers but they were a part of the original BG games and make for a more living, immersive world.

Thanks for your answer Etruscan, and I agree with all of that but most of that can be done without a day/night cycle.

Scripted night sequences for certain areas or certain parts of the story can also achieve that without needing an "open world" day/night cycle.

This is the one exception of course. I quite enjoyed the day/night cycle in Metal Gear Solid 5 for this reason.

Still, I'm not confident that the benefits outweigh the cost. I'm not against the idea though.

Ok....now you're just denying reality.

PnP is primarily(Ive heard of a few 1 on 1s, but they are not the norm) a mulitplayer, social setting.
cRPGs are primarily single player.

PnP is a slow paced roleplay intensive game. cRPG is more action and puzzle based, and far more fast paced. Resting after each encounter in PnP makes sense. Usually, you've gotten in a bunch of roleplay and storyline in by the time that happens. It makes zero sense in a cRPG.

The end of the day the rest mechanic was/is a balancing mechanic, that is all it was. Y'all are clinging to it like its a plot element to rest to reset spells. Resting was and is a plot element in stories because every time of the day is a plot element. Pathfinder is not popular at all, and while maybe you can argue it doesn't matter, it actually does. Sorry mate but this is a capitalist society, you wont see games you like develop more content and new games if they don't make popular and therefore successful money making games. Some others have mentioned Solasta(a game can be made that way) uhm yeah it can be made, doesn't mean it should. Solasta is in EA, and we dont even know how successful it will be, so that's a poor choice. this is 2021, not 2000. oh and even DDO went with a mana system, because guess what, in a fast paced mmo setting, spellslots and rest resetting don't work. Just like they don't work since we've developed better balance mechanics for skills/spells/abilities. DDO got rid of spell slots but kept the rest reset to refill mana, having to run all the way back to shrines in dungeons constantly. It was a huge chore, and everyone hated it, and asked why they couldnt just have it regenerate like EVERY OTHER GAME.

I get it, I like day/night cycles and RPing at a camp, and resting to restore your character in some way. Implementing bonus XP for just resting, or adding in fatigue debuffs for not resting. Making mob encounters more frequent or harder at night. these are all great resting and day night cycle mechanics, they add to the story. Making skill and spell availability tied to resting, is a terrible idea for computer games. Tabletop, it works, and its the superior balance mechanic for that format. You need more than 1 tool to get thru life though, and having the right tool for the right job, makes the task smoother, and more enjoyable.

I want to see BG4 and BG5, and not have to wait 20yrs again, so I want them to make a successful game, and an enjoyable one. Removing the rest mechanic doesn't ruin immersion, using the rest system tied to spell availability ruins the immersion.

@Larian at the very least keep a backdoor in for a mod to be capable of changing the system over to cooldowns.

I would also like to add, the peeps that don't like the environment usage and the jumping around, shoving, etc. cuz its not true D&D are not real gamers. We always looked for terrain advantages, chances to use STR for grappling, acrobatics/athletics to position, and jumps to topple into a group of enemies, just to name a few. D&D is fantasy, its suppose to be fantastical. That was making combat into more roleplaying, feats of str, and hella fun. I think i remember a DMG equating normal everyday peeps from RL to have 8-12 attribute scores, and that 18 in any one stat puts you beyond what even top performers in that stat could dream of, like Mike Tyson would have a 16 STR and 13 DEX and a 16 CON in his prime. Think about that, before saying this isn't some bad Japanese action movie, to be flying around the screen.

I get the whole purist mentality, but there's things to keep pure, and then there's stuff to let go of, and sacrifices so that we can actually see better content, and more of things we love. Yes to day-night cycles, yes to resting mechanics like fatigue, but keeping spell/skill availability tied to a rest mechanic that was only there to balance the tabletop version, is liken to being Amish / a luddite. You are clinging to something, for a misguided reason.

I’m with Ayvah on this issue. Day/night cycles are nice but I don’t need them, and you can have night scenes without a day/night cycle. I mean, the game already has several areas that aren’t ‘drenched in sunlight’—the withering bog (unless you don’t break the spell, but even then the brightness is meant to be unnerving), the whispering depths, and the underdark.

It can be. It also can have other elements. PnP focuses on three main pillars - different types of games focus on one element or another more than other players and different games. When a D&D game is presented in a video game format, they usually focus more heavily on the action, exploration and puzzle elements, because those are what work best for the media.


To whom? I certianly don't play in nay games where we rest after every encounter, and I don't generally do it in video games either. Getting what you can done in a day and managing your energy and resources to do so is part of the game, whether it's in tabletop or digital formats. If you're trying to rest after every little scrap, and your DM is letting you, that's between you and your DM but it's not indicative of normal play, generally speaking.


So, there's a mechanic that exists as part of game balance. There's an in-universe justification and an explanation that goes along with this and is an established part of the lore in the world space. You're saying that it's just a mechanic though, and is not important - you're saying that there's no reason not to completely excise that particular part of the world lore and the history surrounding it. Why? What justifies that arbitrary decision that you're making? Why is that piece of long-standing established in-universe world lore not important, but other parts are? What is your reasoning? You didn't actually give any, despite your vehemence, and I'd like to know.


Yes it was. It was quite successful. They are currently making another one.


So is this game; that's part of why people compare it. They are both in EA. We don't know how successful either of these titles will be when they release. People are comparing their experiences of them. The general consensus from a large majority of commenters seems to be that the other game's implementation of the ruleset is very satisfying as well as being very close to faithful; that the game provides fulfilling, meaningful, tactical and satisfying combat that is enjoyable to play. People who were drawn to this game based on the promise of a near faithful 5e implementation, and of a dungeons and dragons game, have for the most part been quite disappointed, upset, felt lied to or deceived, or else have contented themselves with other aspects of the game instead. Most who wanted what was promised by larian and have been told about or tried out the other game have found it to be much closer to what they felt larian was promising, and much more satisfying in that regard, even if many other elements of that game are more staunchly lacking still. I do not believe that your opinion is a majority here, and it's certainly not a definitive fact.

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The bottom part of your post is more full of abrasive, derogatory or deliberately antagonistic, flame-baity remarks; you're not going to convince anyone or win any supporters by talking like that.

You're right that PNP has differences. That difference is not "story". Baldur's Gate is a story/roleplay-driven game. It is not gameplay-driven and it never has been.

The main distinctions between PNP and a video game is:
1) Video games are better at maths. Some mechanics for PNP exist not because they're better but because the maths is easier. Rolling dice for damage is easier than the complex RNG used by a game like Final Fantasy. This allows for a better, more realistic and immersive simulation.
2) PNP is better for improvisation. In a video game you need to plan everything ahead of time, while in PNP the GM can improvise new mechanics, new characters relatively quickly. This means you have a lot more flexibility.

None of this has anything to do with the rest mechanic though. There are many ways you can implement a "cooldown" mechanic or a "mana" mechanic in a tabletop game. There are also plenty of other tabletop roleplaying games without rest mechanics, and even when I've played D&D the "camping" wasn't really seen as a roleplaying opportunity.

The "spell slot"/resting mechanics used by D&D have nothing to do with the limitations of the medium. It's a deliberate gameplay design decision.

I'll be honest: I don't even prefer spell slots. My preferred mechanic is mana (which would still mean having to rest), but that's not D&D.

I think there's some irony in being excited about getting a new Baldur's Gate game but only if it abandons everything that would make it a Baldur's Gate game.

"Like, I want a new Baldur's Gate game, but turn-based games suck. Also, resting mechanics suck. Also, open worlds are cool. And they don't really need to bother with the story or the weird nonhuman races. Basically what I'm saying is that I'm excited for the new Baldur's Gate game but only if it's Assassins Creed."

(I know that's not what anyone's literally saying but lol.)

I'd wait to see how much the sequel actually sells, it probably will sell well but more than the first, questionable. They released the game far to early cause they ran out of money and had a never ending road of bugs (some pretty game breaking).


crpgs are pretty slow paced imo compared to action rpgs or generally any other game. there are several that actually are multi btw, for example (this shouldn't be a shocker) baldurs gate 1 maybe 2 haven't played that one.

Resting after each encounter in pnp would be a bad dm, that would mean the dm is taxing your group after one fight, instead of spreading out the encounter levels between multi fights.

It does cause your characters are not never ending bots, they have limits on how many times they can use a ability as explained in my previous post.

@Niara

The statements were made on a general basis.

Yes there are more action based tabletops. The discussion that has been made this far has been around keeping the RP value of rest mechanic, so how is this valid to the discussion. I started off the examples stating "primarily" and that I know there are exceptions to what I was saying. Should have clearly set the tone of the rest of the post.

I'm not talking about minor scrapes, y'all really need to stop taking things in literal context. When I say resting after every encounter, I mean meaningful ones, and I meant more in-between those encounters and not so much right after. I could've worded it better, but again you took it literally, or pointed at it literally to try and make your point.

Resting for spell/skill availability is Lore now? So you know what lore is? Explaining why something is done in a way, so that there's not a plothole or mcguffin reason, is not lore.

Sorry but (37k) players is not really all that successful. That's about 10% of any normal cRPGs total lifetime player count. It also peaked out at (22k) players. DoS2 the game everyone here wants to crap on peaked at 4x that.

Also the bottom part of my post being flamebaity and insulting? Lol.

Immersion, stealth mechanics, quest design (especially interesting for vampires), etc....

Instead, Larian decided to implement speak to the dead and animals which only serves to Divinitize BG3 and takes a lot of resources for a minority of players that will actually use it.

Can you imagine,a dnd game full action, fighting a famous high cr dragon. At night with lanterns/torches/magic, under a full moon that shines through some clouds, in the rain(obviously), in a forest that takes environmental damage(trees being destroyed/knocked over), and towards the end of the battle the sun is rising in real time.

Only Dragons Dogma came close to that level of adventure immersion.

I mean bg3 is ok I guess.

Lol

Actually the only mechanic I think should change is the rest to reset spells mechanic. Turn based should absolutely stay.

The open world comment I haven’t the faintest clue as to what you’re talking about. But the fact that there were more loading screens in the first 2 BG, was the limitations of the computers at the time, not because that’s what the game was about.

Uhm I said primarily....smh.

There can still be a rest mechanic, I literally outlined in the post that it just shouldn’t be tied to spell/skill availability. I said in a previous post I would also not be against more powerful spells needing rest too, like source points from DoS2 for some. Also, just because I mention a mechanic from another game that I think is good, doesn’t mean I’m asking for it to be that game.

And you can argue all you want about not having to rest ruining your immersion when you could just do it to keep immersion. Me having to rest constantly ruins my immersion, and I can’t get around it. There is literally no choice to it, I am forced to do it. No-one would be forcing you to not do it.

I don’t use food in battle in the game, because that’s my own rule. You can’t just eat an apple and heal for 8 hp in battle, that’s nonsense. That’s my choice tho, for my own immersion.

Also I’ll say it again, I’m for a rest mechanic, just not one tied to an inferior (for the format) balance mechanic, that is just tiresome.