Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Sooo... when's BG4?

BG1&2 and NWN1&2 were all made by bioware / obsidian, before their EA buyout.

Following that the only good game they made was Dragon Age 1, and then Dragon Age 2 just showed how far they immediately sunk due to EA.

'When u push a button something awesome hasta happen'.

Oh well wait, I never played the mass effect games, people say those were good but with some similar problems going further into the series.

Wow, talk about rude.
I beg to differ. You'd be surprised. The biggest gamers I'd argue are in their 40s now. We played from Arcades to NES, Gameboy, PC DOS games, PCengine, Neogeo, SNES/GENESIS, PS1, Saturn, PS2... Pretty much the golden age of gaming.
I still play ORIGINAL BG2, Icewind Dale, Planescape torment on a MAC M1 via Wine. Because Enhanced Edition is pretty bad. I play on LCDs, CRTs, custom FPGA systems (Mister), Analogue, etc...So please, spare the patronizing. Millennials/Gen-Y game in so many ways I'll make your head spin.

Obsidian made nwn2. They had nothing to do with bg series or nwn.

Da1 and da2 were both great. So was me 1 abd 2. It us the oart 3s where bio became trash though they showed signs of EA creep earlier.

Nu bio would be awful for bg4. Bg3 has flaws, and us being overrated but I'll take this bg3 over any nu bio or scummy Obsidan version. That's for sure.

Sadly, unless things change, I don't think bg3 is even a top 10 crpg. Top 25 probably which is still good work.

Imagine if they brought back Dark Sun or something wild from the stacks?

I’d like Larian to stick with DND, but not necessarily Baldur’s Gate. However, it would be nice if there was some common thread, lore, or characters binding Larian’s DND games together. Maybe Mind Flayers? The Dead Three? Just Faerun? Our Companions? Withers? Providing sequels to other timeless classics like Neverwinter, Planescape, and Icewind?

And no, Larian homebrew doesn’t count as a common thread.

Would still like a direct continuation of BG3 though. And I’m not even done with the game!

Withers would be an interesting play, the dead god arranging heroes to thrawt other gods all culminating in his returning to power and taking down not just the dead three but all rivals in the process?
But, BG would be a good link, it's a spelljammer port city so adventures in the stars could link there, swords coast has a diversity of places to explore with BG city as the base to operate out of? BG has colonies in Chult so a game there, technically links?
I feel this game has done Mind Flayers as a focus enough? Dead Three, always work they're always up to stuff. Maybe not even the dead three just, Gods intervening in Faerun as a theme works and connects to the big plot points of Faerun?

Spelljammer would be brilliant, BG3 starts on a spelljammer ship after all, imagine a game where you go to the golden age of sail pirate asteroid city, then crash in the middle of the war between anarchocapitalist birds and communist lizards? Volo could randomly be there for some reason. Maybe some BG2 character is the captain you steal the ship from?

Bg4 could do what Bg2 fud in essence. Start in a big city, and work your way out in reverse of BG1/BG3 where the namesake city doesn't appear until relatively late. Maybe Cormyr the country. Perhaps Water-repellent. Heck, with Waterdeep, you'd never have to leave the immediate environs for adventure. Espicially with Undermountain. And, so many ways to connect to a variety if environs. Maybe Silverymoon.

An expansion to bg3 could be Myth Drannor. That could give good use to high level characters if you know it's history though Im not 100% sure what 5e did with the Myth , but a certain enemy type that starts with P could be cool.

Or we can head south to Calimshan/Calimport though some might hate that.

MD is a long way from BG, most of what is there could be done with Warlock's Crypt which is a location no game has done, and is within a weeks boat travel of BG? For expansions, BG is surrounded by locations that'd be fantastic to explore. Elturel to see the post-descent city, Tieflings are banned so it'd be fun to go there as /with Karlach?

Moonsea and Myth Drannor could be a great stand alone high level story? Waterdeep would be great, or an expedition to Chult, exploring the old Zhent lands now they aren't the black empire but a theives guild what sort of evils have their ruins unleashed? Idk, it's faerun, spin a cat and you hit something canon to build a story on

It's an expansion. A simple teleport or portal could easily get us to Shadowdale/Myth Drannor. To be fair, part of my reasoning, is to get a good MD adventure so I can erase POR2 from my mind. Lol

Warlock's Crypt could be near, but with the way 5e handles wizards, I dont see you know who being given justice.

Cult could be cool. Mainstream would love the dinosaurs. Jurassic Park! Pet raptor to replace owlbear!

Dark Sun would be an interesting take for sure.

In BG3 you do get to explore a small bit of Chult in Act III and fight a few dinosaurs which is pretty cool. I’d love an entire campaign in Chult if they could still provide a mix of biomes to explore.

I’m also a fan of Ravenloft but Act II in BG3 might have scratched that itch for some.

Solasta devs with the same funding and team size as Larian could have probably made BG3 even better.

At the least being able to pick which companion rolls in conversations, people want to complain solasta isn't as good as bg3 yet it at least gets the most simple fundamentals of DnD correct.

'Its impossible to do this' stated Larian, like no it isnt, if MC has 8 CHA and Wyll is in the group with 18 CHA and Persuasion proficiency, make Wyll's stats roll for perception instead of MC when the dice come up even if MC started the discussion, wow so difficult. Simply apply your groups highest speech stat when the rolls come up regardless of which character initiates the roll.

Nothing but excuses from Larian meaning speech skills are 100% useless on every party member other than MC.

Nah. Disagree with that on principle. Most characters aren't gonna react to who has the highest charisma just because it's convenient fir you. In fact, in RL, the lowest charisma character will often ruin things.

Also in dnd, if you interact with an anti dwarf racist with a dwarf in the part, it wint matter so much if yiur ekf has a charisma of 18. Sorry not sorry. And, many you interact with in bg3 including your party members, see your MC as 'da man' or 'da woman' so I'd argue 9o% of dialogues should be based on your MC's stats.

In a PnP campaign say with 4 players, I doubt any of them specifically take a 'main character' designation.

Also 'main character' is simply a different term for protaginist, in a video game its just the character you make. So say you were to play a multiplayer game with 4 custom Tav's, who exactly is the main character then?

You have a party of characters, you can choose who to use for interactions, thats how I'm certain DnD is intended to be.

But never mind then, it isn't surprising why Paladin, Warlock and Sorcerer are the most played classes, if Larian want to change that then they know what to do - make any party member's CHA skills applicable in conversation.

Or make other checks equally as vital in conversation.

In pnp, players don't always get to decide if their party 'spokespetson' is gonna Speak. Barbarians are not gonna take that 120lb skinny bard seriously. The general is not gonna care about what the wizard thinks if her military plan. The deep gnome is not gonna be sweet talked by the drow's 'sweet talk'.

Well Larian decided to make CHA skills vital to just about every conversation in BG3, so good luck getting most players to not play a CHA class.

I've enjoyed resolving a number of challenges through deception & persuasion in my current sorceror playthrough, but am also looking forward to running through again without the same options, and trying out more combat or stealth oriented approaches, or indeed using other skills where possible.

I could be wrong, of course, but while I expect that the experience will be quite different, I'm not currently expecting it to be worse.

But anyway, and my apologies, that's taking us further off topic. I'm pretty sure there are already other threads talking about the pros and cons of playing CHA classes in the game. Let's get back on topic for this one.

When I decide to replay it, I really hope there are alternate options that don't simply involve skill checks. Right now, despite everyone's insistence that you fail upwards with skill checks, that's not been my experience at all. If you fail a skill check, you either fight, get a lower reward, die, get no information, or have to pay more for something. There were very few exceptions to this general rule that I noticed.

Also, it's unfortunate, but avoiding combat is going to hurt you massively in the early game, and you simply don't get as much xp from non combat solutions.

It's of course completely valid to discuss how satisfying playing non-charisma characters, or "failing" checks is, but can we take it to as separate thread as it's not on topic here and good feedback is likely to just get lost?

It would be more on topic in a thread like https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=877200&page=1, or given people are now able to give views having completed, or at least played at lot of the full game, it might be better starting a brand new thread.

Larian doesn't do expansions. They make a game, and then move onto the next game.