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

The disclaimer was there for a reason. lol.

Baldur's Gate 3 has changed to a more "open world" style design when compared to the previous instalments (by ditching the classic world map). Personally, I compare this to the games Expeditions: Viking or Pathfinder Kingmaker or even XCom: Enemy Unknown. These are modern games that still use a world map in a similar manner to Baldur's Gate, and I think the world map design has its own advantages.

Yes, the original Baldur's Gate was released at a time when an "open world" was not technically possible. But that doesn't mean that open worlds are better for every game.

Really my point is that it's fallacious to be appealing to popularity by saying:
"popular games don't have resting so no game should have resting" or
"open worlds are more popular so every game should be an open world"

It's equally fallacious to appeal to technology by saying:
"resting was technically necessary in PNP but it's not necessary in a video game so no video game should have resting" or
"open worlds weren't possible before, but they're possible now so every game should be an open world"

This kind of logic leads to the conclusion that every single game ends up being a clone of the most popular modern game (eg Assassins Creed).

Instead, it's important to make design decisions that best fit the niche/brand of the game you actually want to make.

Please bear in mind that this is a Baldur's Gate game. D&D is part of that brand, and the current version of that is D&D 5E. I just don't see how you can throw out everything from 5E and still call it a Baldur's Gate game.

I’m not saying to follow every popular game. I’m stating that other games have designed a superior balance mechanic since the first 2 BGs.

Also I didn’t say we shouldn’t have resting, only that it shouldn’t be tied to an unnecessary out of date balance mechanic.

I don’t care about open world myself, I’d rather have quality over quantity. I do miss the “you must gather your party before venturing forth tho” I don’t miss how annoying it could be when 1 member got stuck on a rock somewhere causing that message. Why they couldn’t implement the “Congratulations” when so level up is beyond me. That would’ve been nice. I also would’ve preferred fast travel with encounter possibilities as opposed to the waypoint system as well, oh well.

Also the rest system has not even been true to form over the evolution of D&D. Go back to BG and you don’t even heal full HP from resting. Also BG was more about small scrapes all the time, not real encounters. You’d walk along and have to kill a bear or 2 kobolds at a time, every once and awhile you’d need to fight a hard battle. In this game uhm I’ve gotta kill a whole goblin village at level 4, with only 4 characters. Granted I can setup oil barrels and blow everyone up and have like 1-2 peeps left to poke, but I want to have some real fights too. I did a bit of both to clear the goblin village.

I’m all for being as true to D&D as possible, but different format dictates some adjustment. I play my games on hard mode because I like Strategy. I’m currently playing they DoS2 on Tactitian as a lone wolf, me and 1 other character. I’m playing a necro finesse tank(Eternal Knight) and the one npc is playing a summon healer(Druid). I like them to be challenging because they require strategy, not because I’m forced to Auto Attack everything because I’ve used up my 4 available spells/skills for the day. What’s the point in even having different classes at that point if I end up just auto-attacking all the time?

Sorry but it’s not about what other games are doing because they are popular. It’s about the fact they will always be more popular because they aren’t cutting their legs out from underneath themselves holding onto a bad mechanic for the format.

You know why old companies go out of business all the time, when they had the market cornered? They fail to adapt to changes, and/or by the time they do it’s too late. D&D was the original, and yet it’s never been able get beyond a certain threshold.

Most people want to be able to use the character they’ve built in all its glory when they play a game. The spell and skill availability being tied to a rest mechanic, makes that more of an obstacle to do. This makes peeps lose interest, and then you don’t get word of mouth advertising, you don’t get spotlighted for “games to play in 20XX” and you don’t get as much $ to fund the next project.

While I suppose BGIII is open word in the strict definition of the term, the design philosophy feels very different from Assassin’s Creed or Skyrim or Breath of the Wild. Breath of the Wild uses Disney World’s ‘weenie’ philosophy—distinct architecture/landscape that acts as a visual cue to guide player to areas of interest. While Skyrim is more reliant on quest markers to guide the player, although really what they want is for the player to just wander wherever and stumble across something without ever realizing it was there in the first place.

The closest comparison I can think of for BGIII design is fromsoft games, which use a hub world with various paths leading to points of interest. In BGIII you’re naturally guided to the Druid’s Grove and then the Blighted Village, which acts as the central hub you pass through to access every other portion of Act I. There are also various shortcuts that can be discovered to access different areas in the game. This might change once the two pathways closed off in EA open up, however, idk.

Also, in, say, botw, time is not a factor when it comes to completing events. Zelda will always be waiting with ganandorf at the end of the game no matter if you play for 100 hours or 10. The main quest lines can be done in any order with no true change to their approach. Meanwhile, if you wait too long, Arabella dies in the grove. The grove can eventually enact the Rite of Thorns and close itself off. Which is probably the strongest argument for a day/night cycle, imo, because it telegraphs the passage of time to the player in a clear way. That or some sort of calendar that tracks the passing of time outside your journal (I think the way time is handled in BGIII is a huge problem, although a day/night cycle isn’t the only way to solve it).

And yes: the original Baldur’s Gate was meant to be an adaptation of the DnD rule set to a video game format. I have a lot of fun with DoS2. And if I want more of DoS2 I’ll play it again. But BGIII isn’t DoS2 and is trying to establish itself within the DND rule set. Camping should be tweaked but I don’t think the concept of long resting itself is the problem, but instead the implementation.

Eh, I resisted replying to this thread because the first post seemed baity but, since the patch isn't here yet . . .


That's just a weird point to be making now that DnD is more popular than ever, is growing in popularity and the alternative rulesets have largely been abandoned.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/ente...6-5f8f-11e9-9412-daf3d2e67c6d_story.html

It always gets surges of popularity, but it always falls back down. It has gotten a recent surge in PnP because some “non-nerd” celebrities have talked about it the last couple of years.

I’m not here to bait anyone, it would just be nice, for once if the surge wasn’t squandered. PnP has adapted to the times consistently. The video game side has not adapted to the format.

Btw I’m proud to consider myself a nerd, so let’s just nip that retort in the butt.

I disagree. I am not trying to say that BG3 is open world. I just think it's embracing open world game design to a limited extent.

An open world means you'd be able to explore the entire world from end to end without transitioning between levels.

BG3 basically seems to be using similar level design philiosophy to DOS2 -- where you have expansive open "levels". You transition from one open level to the next depending of the stage of the story but there's no world map and little-to-no backtracking to old levels.

There's nothing wrong with this design. These are all just different ways to design the game with different philosophies. However, for Baldur's Gate, I'd prefer the more traditional style of level design as represented in games like Expeditions: Viking and to a lesser extent Pathfinder: Kingmaker.

Anyway, I didn't want to derail the topic. I was just using this as a useful example that just because technology makes something possible that doesn't mean it's always better.

I think that time in video games is a dangerous thing. Having a quest that changes after a certain amount of time passes is generally not a good idea, in my eyes. I think it's best to represent the passage of time in other ways. Like, if there's a quest where the story involves some kind of "time limit", then this should be represented with branching paths, where you are given the choice to get distracted.

I generally don't think it's a good idea to have "open world" style time limits where the distraction is playing the rest of the game.

Otherwise I agree with a lot of what you said.

Again, it's just really weird to be appealing to popularity.

Do you know what's popular? If we all decide we want something, then that's the thing that's popular. The thing that's financially successful? It's the thing we're all willing to pay for.

Just talk about what you want and why you want it and do your best to convince the rest of us. That's when you win the popularity contest.

If Larian wants to know what's popular, then they can pay for some market research. These forums are here just for our steaming hot takes.

I agree that it falls under the definition of an open world game. But where I disagree is that the map design falls in line with modern day open world philosophy. It much more closely resembles hub design. I feel similarly about DoS2.


I haven’t played either of those games but I have played Tyranny, which I loved. So I wouldn’t be against that style of level design. However, and correct me if I’m wrong, none of those games are considered triple A or had a triple A budget.

My problem with this line of thinking is that the Baldur’s Gate games were the cutting edge of technology at the time of their release. If the developers made BGII today it would no doubt utilize different map design elements than a game made in the late 90s/early 00s. That said, I can buy the argument that the map shouldn’t be as dense as it is currently to replicate how spread out everything feels in the original games (although this might be less of a problem once the rest of the paths currently not in EA are available, as act 1 is clearly unfinished). In this respect, I agree with the OP that we shouldn’t be beholden to the past. There are other ways to invoke the spirit of the og games, including themes, motifs, music, characters, and setting (which means DnD, which means DnD rule set, to keep this on topic, haha).


That’s fair. Most people hate timers for very understandable reasons. I just think the way it’s currently implemented is a very strange middle ground.

No, just your very subjective view on the matter.

@marajango

Nope you are literally denying reality.

A Letter and a resume are in a different format. Books and movies are on a different format. To then tell me I’m having a subjective view that a tabletop version and a video game version are different formats? That’s just lunacy.

Sure

Hi! Just adding my 0.02$: I completely disagree with the OP. If Larian implemented this, they might just as well throw the whole ruleset out of the window. And with that, probably also the setting (licensing reasons) and therefore also the name. The game already departs from the rules in many ways, and in most cases, it is for the worse, not better - I'm of course not talking about decisions such as replacing some dice rolls (level up HP...) with their expected values, those are perfectly reasonable for CRPGS.

The "rest to regain spell slots" system works fine in both P&P and CRPGs (if properly implemented) - not that everything from P&P translates well to computer games, but this does reasonably well.

In BG3 the rest system would also work fine if time actually mattered - spells other than cantrips and once-per-*-rest abilities are supposed to be exactly that, not something you can mindlessly spam in every fight and easily regain it without consequences. If anything, resting / passage of time should have (more) consequences, or resting shouldn't be possible everywhere, or there should be random encounters when resting in dangerous places (that might just not be implemented yet) - so you are actually forced to think before using those spells/abilities. Things will get even worse with higher-level spells, as discrepancy between attacks/cantrips/per-combat abilities and higher-level per-rest spells/abilities increases.

I think marajango's point was that a single ruleset may work reasonably well for both P&P/tabletop and computer games - with some notable exceptions/modifications of rules (mostly due to existence of save/load functionality in computer games). And indeed, there are lots of good games based on such (not necessarily just D&D) rules.

Fair enough.

I have no clue what your talking about when you mention mechanic from another game. Maybe you miss read my reply.

That's how d&d works along with any other d&d video game I can remember, even pathfinder went this route. It's not a stone age mechanic its just a mechanic some games use. Your abilities are tied to rest, you character gets fatigued and runs out of spells / abilities he can do with-in the day. I already mentioned this in my previous post. Here ill copy / paste it so you can read it again.

Before this thread I thought I was on the "they don't have to make a 5E simulator" train. After reading how far people think Larian should deviate from the Core Rules, I'm practically converted to the other side of the fence. Outside of pick up games, I don't find 5E to be all that compelling of an iteration, and I think if Larian wants to lean into the reactivity that people enjoyed in DOS2, they should give it a shot. But completely reworking character resources to something like cool downs or mana points is way beyond the pale. It's also not really even worth considering. If Larian tried to completely remove/replace the resting system they'd be dumping a fair portion of the work they've done so far downt he drain. It really just doesn't bear thinking about.

I'm encompassing some other things mentioned by others that are on my mind the same time, that I am giving a more direct response.

This is why D&D stays in obscurity, or reverts back to it. Statements or points of view that say "we have to throw the baby out with the bathwater".

@everything else going on, that I've needed more time to comment on.

Rest resetting has evolved even in the PnP setting. The PnP setting got more fast paced, as some others have gotten interested in it. Since it has, it has added a short rest for even that setting. D&D has modernized itself on the PnP side. Adapting a mechanic to the video game landscape, is the logical thing to do. They tried to stay as true as possible to the system for DDO, and even there they adopted a mana system, which lets you spam spells. At least cooldowns limit them. Combat usually does not extend past 5 rounds. Cooldowns lasting 4-5 turns limit them to 1 time per battle, this makes it serve the same purpose as the rest reset mechanic. As a matter of fact you can balance it even better, because you can make higher level spells/abilities more restricted. Spellslots would allow me to actually spam a spell back to back, as long as I have them available, and is less strategic overall. Cooldowns serve the same exact purpose of balance, that rest resets do, except they do it better. What reason is there to keep rest resets other than "that's the ruleset bro". Once upon a time there was 4E too, which was the worst thing WotC ever produced.

Because it was cherrypicked out again, I will address it AGAIN. My statement about popularity, wasn't that it should be implemented because its popular. I stated I'd like a D&D based game to actually be popular enough for it to get a successful franchise. That is why it is a relevant statement, because I'd like more content to become available. I firmly believe those games are more popular because of that mechanic, not that the popular games just use them. Sticking to things because, "that's just the way we've always done it", is a terrible reason. What holds back the D&D inspired games from actually being received by a wider audience? Is it the stories? Nope, I think the D&D based ones have some of the most interesting/epic storylines. Is it cuz peeps don't play RPGs? Nope, definitely not that one. Is it the barrier to entry. Maybe, character creation, leveling and advancement is slightly more confusing than other games out there, but then again there are games that are even more min/max that have popularity. Is it because the gameplay sucks or its clunky? Nope, D&D nails combat. Is it because it loses fun factor because it has laborious chore like mechanics, that don't translate to the medium of PnP to cRPG well. Pretty sure that's the reason. I would even argue that a lot of you arguing against it prefer cooldown mechanics, but just don't want them in this game cuz you want a true to life ruleset, even if it makes parts of the game less fun. Sounds masochistic to me.

What really happens if we use Cooldowns instead of Rest Resetting spell availability?
1. The same effect of balance. Better balancing overall, because you can fine tune it better. Rest resetting is a sledgehammer approach, mana is a slightly smaller/bigger hammer depending on how you look at it approach, and cooldowns are a dagger approach.
2. You can still keep rest mechanics. You can still make some spells restricted to 1/day.
3. Your character can have a more realistic day/night rest cycle.
4. Combat becomes more strategic, because you have to use more than 1 spell you really like from each level.
5. We could get a Day/night cycle, that we can't control. This adds so much more RP value.

What happens if we don't change them.
1. AA slog battles.
2. Not being able to really appreciate your character in battle, always having to force yourself to hold back, and never truly being able to just unload on an enemy.
3. Rest cycles are entirely unrealistic.
4. You cant fine tune balance, meaning once we get to level 20 in this game or future expansions, all combat will be a slog, and or completely irrelevant, and/or those levels will continue to be locked off, because gameplay at those levels is just bleh.

What happens if options that have been suggested, are added on top of this poor mechanic.
5. Day/Night cycles will be so fast they will be unrealistic, or so slow that you have to sit around and wait for night time just so you can rest.
6. If you make it limited to 1 rest per 2hrs of play, you are forcing people to sit around and wait, creating even more of a negative experience for them, and making the game get bad reviews.

In closing, you can achieve better balancing, and you can implement a more meaningful resting mechanic, when it is not tied to skill/spell availability. That more meaningful rest mechanic will have actual roleplay value. You could add a day night cycle, that can make the game more immersive. You can add in an actual time into the games, that is impactful and meaningful. You can actually improve the overall experience, and implement more things and not have them be negatives, but positives.

If you're going to counter point this, at least give real reasons, and discuss in good faith.

In this case, why even wait for cooldowns? Why not just reset spell slots at the end of combat?


It's pretty hyperbole to say that clicking a few times is masochistic. I prefer mechanics that make for meaningful and engaging combat.

Take Fire Emblem for example, Combat Arts are limited by a weapons durability. So the player has to manage the risk/reward with Combat Arts, if you break the weapon you need to repair it or buy a new one outside of battle. It's very engaging and completely cooldown free. Abilities/Spells have a limited use at the start of combat similar to DnD. (In Fire Emblem the player starts out with significantly more uses, it's like having more spell slots). The games are fun and combat is tied to skill/spell availability.

Outside of combat the player has a significant rest period, where they can repair weapons, catch fish, cook dishes, etc. etc.

So we have a lot more options to change the game, than what has been implied. We have the option to increase spell slots for casters to adapt DnD 5e better to a videogame setting. We have the option to give the player an item that can restore a spell slot. We could talk about long rest having mini-games itself. The most important thing, whether it's through long rest or not is that the player has meaningful and engaging choices about it. (There probably are more options besides implementing cooldowns).

And I don't really see how cooldowns would improve player choices, if anything they would be the same as the game currently is (sans a few mouse clicks).

The current issue is: repeatedly using long rest to get spell slots back feels like a chore and combat is balanced to where the player feels the need to do this between every encounter.

As others have stated, rebalancing combat can improve this issue. But I do agree with you as well, it can be fun to put your best spells forward. That would go back to other options to replenish spell slots or increasing the total. (While moving long rest to safe zones only).

As someone who doesn't really care much about D&D and likes other ttrpgs far better for varying reasons, I still think you're wrong about the cooldown issue and also about how obscure D&D is. If you ask any person who doesn't play ttrpgs about games they've heard of, D&D will almost certainly be first on the list. I don't think it's the best system by a longshot, and if it changes I would probably be in favour of it purely because there are aspects of it I think really need changing (though rests aren't high on that list for me). But I think you're being hyperbolic and dismissive about the game in a way that's not really fair.

Regarding Baldurs Gate in particular, I think trying to change things as much as you're suggesting isn't feasible because it would probably require tearing a whole lot down and starting from scratch. That is something I can't imagine them being willing to do that at this stage and frankly I doubt that it would be viable at this stage. They may be at a stage where they can tinker with the rest system, but completely replacing it would require going back and reworking a whole host of systems from the ground up, altering everything about the way spellcaster classes play. Then going back to every other class and making sure they're still interesting and fun and worth playing compared to casters. And even then you need to look at casters more as well, making sure that a Warlock still has something to offer compared to a Wizard. If they were thinking about implementing multi-classing, that'll need to be accounted for as well. All of that stuff is perfectly doable, but it would require massive changes to the D&D system that you don't want to be doing at this stage in the games development.

I don't know if your suggestions would actually be objectively better (I've played Solasta and found the rest system and combat in that game far more smooth and enjoyable, same with Pathfinder: Kingmaker which used a rest system as well so I do think a degree of this is simply how Larian chose to implement their system) but I don't think it can be implemented regardless. Plus I do think there's something to be said for the fact Larian has been claiming this to be ass close to the real tabletop experience as they can make it. If they had just said they're adapting the 5E system it'd be simpler but they've made a promise to customers, and deviating as far as your suggestion would be breaking that promise and there'd probably be repurcusions. And it's unreasonable to expect people who came because they were promised a thing not to get mad when the people who made that promise actively choose to go against it. Larian made the promise and got themselves into the situation. Now it's on them to deal with it.

So true !

Again, it's irrelevant. You're not an authority on what's popular. And I really don't think you're going to change anyone else's mind on what they enjoy by appealing to this.

I want D&D to be popular, but that's because I want other people to like the things I like. If it becomes a thing I don't like, then if I care at all then I'll want them to hate it.

If you don't like skill slots/charges, or if your friends you want to share this game with don't like skill charges, then you can talk about that. That would be a solid argument and that's not an appeal to popularity. That's not quite what I'm hearing here.

Again, let Larian worry about what's popular. They can do their own market research and manage their own business. I will understand if they make a decision that I believe makes the game worse simply because they think it's more popular/safe (such as the DOS2-style "open" level design that stripped away the world map). But that doesn't mean I'll agree that it's better, and if they make too many sacrifices then they risk leaving me behind.

There's really no point being here to just advocate for what other people you've never met might want. It just seems absurd.

And again, the part that really has me confused is that the fantasy RPG you seem to want -- DOS2 -- already exists. Why don't you just ask Larian to make DOS3 instead? It seems to be at least 90% what you want. What would you change about DOS2?

Ah, the real meat.

Anyway, I could address these points, but I think they already have been. D&D is fun. Given that the Baldur's Gate brand is tied to D&D (which is currently interpreted as 5E), the burden is on you to justify why deviations from the D&D 5E model would be for the best.

The core burden you have is explaining how the element you're criticising fails in the context of Baldur's Gate 3, and why the best solution is to nuke it by completely removing/replacing the element.

I agree that's a bad idea.

But what about the suggestion of having campsites at fast travel points with no day/night cycle?

Love how peeps just throw words around. Hyperbolic....about what? Since both of you used it, and 1 actually put a face to it. When I say masochistic, I meant causing yourself undue harm, for no other reason to do it to yourself. (Harm in this context means creating a laborious act, in order to feel what....more true to life? It seems to just suck joy away from the game for no real benefit.)

Dismissive of the game? Again throwing words around. How am I dismissing the game? You are the ones that are being dismissive. There hasn't been a D&D ruleset game yet that has tried to change to a cooldown system. You all keep naming games that didn't, that didn't do anything for creating a real fan base. So maybe, especially since there's Solasta that is also in in EA already doing the true to life ruleset, we could....idk try testing out something a little different and see which game does better.

Saying we might as well just reset spellslots after battle, is actually being hyperbolic. We're throwing the baby out with the bathwater again. Cooldowns provide in combat balancing. Rest resets don't do all that much to balance in combat, just length of combat. Like I said its a sledgehammer approach.

Again I go back to the point resting in unrealistic timeframes is immersion breaking. This is something everyone seems to be able to see on the other end of the scope of not having to rest at all, which again would be your choice not to RP it yourself, but don't see how constantly doing it does. It also downgrades the whole meaningful experience that camping should be to a few clicks.

The best way I can think of to explain this is that the rest mechanic as it stands having spell/skill availability tied to it is a vampire, sucking the enjoyment out of the things it touches.

Again I will also address, maybe there are some that don't mind the rest mechanic, or maybe they even like it, however most people obviously do not.

As far as Fire Emblem goes, I've never heard of it, so I cant comment too much, but from some quick research, there isn't a "rest mechanic" just downtime in-between. The only "resting" thing I found on that quick search was to get a 50-100% XP boost to your students. Which is quite funny, as it is something I said I'd be in favor of for rest mechanics. Of course there should be downtime, would be nice to have some downtime features, like I mentioned in another post having a city management option for the goblin village and/or druid grove. Have it completely side quest, that got some very dismissive responses. Hey you don't have to play it, but I like having some other game features besides just punching people in the face, if I cant talk to them or buy something from them.

Love how I've actually spent time trying to discuss this, and actually make a case, and point things out, and I'm the one that gets called dismissive, hyperbolic, flamebaity, etc. Yet, not a lot of the responses have actually offered up more than just those types of comments.