Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Confused about some criticism

I've read a lot of criticisms of the game on this board and whilst I'm sympathetic to some there are two that repeatedly crop up that I'm confused about. They seem really blown out of proportion to me.

Firstly the complaint that Larian isn't using D&D RAW and creating house rules. I first played D&D 40 years ago and have played a lot of RPG's since then. The 80's were basically one long RPG session for me. With any system after the fist couple of sessions we always used house rules. That's various different groups. I've never met a group of role-players who didn't use house rules in their games. So why is this a bad thing for Larian to do? Maybe I'm just out of date and all the cool D&D5e kids play RAW now.

Secondly is all the complaints about BG3 just being DOS3. DOS was obviously Larian's way of making a D&D like game in the first place. Party-based, pseudo-medieval with story and narrative elements tied together by many combats. Basically D&D. The rule set might be slightly different, but that's par for the course when designing for a different medium and without a license for the base game. So yeah, it looks a bit like DOS. That's because DOS looks like D&D.

The argument isn't that Larian should be "100% RAW no exceptions" the argument is that particular rule changes are not making the game better, and it would better and more fun if they just had implemented the RAW instead.

"Players use home rules" is a strange argument when the complaints are that the home rules in question are detrimental to the game. They're not arguing that home rules shouldn't be allowed, they're arguing against these specific changes.

That's fair enough.

Some folks to go full hyperbole on criticism.

By and large the complaints come down to party size and high ground benefits. After that we would like to have a proper reaction system, readied action, and a more balanced action economy (decouple jump+disengage). Some of the rest are probably bugs that Larian want to address, or something not yet polished in early access.

For some it's almost an ideological all or nothing thing, for others like me - it's not necessarily one way or the other, but both. It boils down to what Dexai pointed out; particular implementations. For instance, the Warlock Hex spell implementation is RAW, but also in need of streamlining as the secondary curse ability effect has next to no in-game effect yet waste a lot of time manually choosing attributes (as opposed to automatically debuff all attributes) considering a Warlock cast this spell nearly every round. On the other hand, we have Larian "cheese" like ever-burning candles that puts weapons on fire for a pretty significant damage boost. Or tadpole jump+disengage. Both can be used to pretty much guarantee a significant edge in combat and your patience/boredom level performing the required ritual to leverage this edge is its practical limitation. Or exploitative use of endless healing food items instead of just giving us passive regeneration. It all makes for time-consuming bad gameplay and often lacks internal logic which leads to loss of immersion (esp. the ever-burning normal candles that set swords ablaze or eating 12 apples to heal mortal wounds in seconds).

It doesnt have to be all or nothing. I do not believe its beyond the pale to expect a D&D game to follow the current rule set. Candle Dipping? Shouldnt exist. Explosive Barrels? Everywhere? Shouldnt exist. Every archer you face packing explosive fire or acid arrows? Shouldnt exist. Abilities that are clearly Action, and not Bonus, being available (Shove)? Shouldnt exist as such, and should match the rules set.

Jumping in combat? Please.

Dont paint the 'we want 5e' crowd as this unreasonable 'RAW only' mob. The current implementation is an absolute farce, and it should be fixed.

We have about 15 minutes to wait. If I dont get some pretty clear 'we hear you and we will fix it' vibes, I'm fighting for a refund.

We didn't hear any. Watching Sven going through the same tedious party/ camera / gameplay issues we go through during the Hag fight made me both angry and sad. Angry because they didnt fix anything wrong, sad because I really wish them success and I hate to critizise other peoples work.
But come on, even Sven said he was probably boring people during the fight... this game feels so clunky, unbalanced and tedious on so many levels.

I even don't understand that they don't notice they are breaking the game by themselves...

AMAZING, the druid can flame his sword !!!
Swen, everyone already can.......

This is the same about advantages... bless...

As I thought, it looks like "we're listenning" and "we're reading" is just communication... They just don't care. Or maybe they find cool to implement useless things in their game, idk.

i mean, the whole hag combat swen was just trying to yeet her off a ledge - the developer was gaming his own game to win. it may seem critical, and i want larian and bg3 to succeed, but like - come on fam

This was really painful to watch. I also want them to succeed but that fight... it just showed everyone how the game really works : you have to already know what's ahead of you to be able to use it at your advantage, and you spend more time working around the party movement mechanics and such rather than playing the game and using cool abilities.
There has been 0 progress made on the flow of the game, on the balance or rather unbalance of advantage/backstab/spells and spell scrolls for everyone, etc.

Sorry but I just basically disagree with everything you said there. It just kind of seems like you want to knit pick ANYTHING that isn't 5e. The game is "based" on 5e, that doesn't mean it has to be a 1:1 carbon copy of it. Why would a video game limit that much and probably limit its playerbase to just D&D nerds (and I mean that in the best possible way, I was one for years). If they did that, and did not add some other flavor to the game, it would turn off more players than draw in. Not to mention, there is even a good number of D&D players that despise 5e. Just saying.

Just wondering, are you a mouse/keyboard player or a controller player? Because I haven't had that party movement playing with mouse and keyboard. A couple of camera glitches but that is about it. As for the hag fight, I liked that it was a difficult fight, so tired of just click to win fights in todays games. But it wasn't THAT hard, you just have to pay attention to which one is her. Just my 2 cents.

Didn't watch the livecast though, I just don't care that much for them, and usually they don't really tell anything. I will check out the patch 4 trailer though.

Basically instead of playing normally (as we understand it) Sven tried all the time to solo the Hag with his druid by shoving her down the hole with chaining bonus action wild shapes and potions of speed.

Then I'm glad you'll get to enjoy a game set in the Forgotten Realms.

Not once did I say it had to be a carbon copy. I've played Baldurs Gate. You don't start with flaming swords, and broken mechanics at level 1. You don't pick up stacks of consumables off various work benches, and not every class gets to read off scrolls and blow up barrel bombs for the lulz.

Enjoy.

It doesn't need to be a 1:1 copy, but what Larian apparently doesn't realize (or ignores) is that modern D20 games have a very narrow range of values where every +1 matters. That also means that many rules have a mathematical reason to be what they are instead of just being limited by humans having to calculate everything.
That of course clashes with Larians preferred way of designing games which is flashy and throwing out bonuses like candy. Mixing those two approaches creates a huge mess which sadly is currently seen in BG3.

Yep, I'm using KB+mouse but I find (as other pointed) the camera angle to be a problem and not to be working especially when the game needs you to position your party in a very specific spot. It's by no means impossible to work around, I manage to get it done, but what I meant is that the time spent on doing busy work positioning your party, gathering them, linking/unlinking their portraits, clicking on one side, moving back to the other group who isnt in combat yet, clicking on the end turn button a couple times in between - all of this busy work breaks the flow of the game.

I mean I get what your saying, especially about every +1 in a D20 roll counts big, but I also take into account dealing with today's gaming culture. Personally I love challenge, and hard fights that I can die in, but nowadays, people will cry like a bunch of carebears if they can't just easily beat fights. I think that is possibly a reason for the bonuses. As for the flashy, I don't have a problem that much with that kind of thing. It is just the difference between a tabletop and a 3D computer RPG. You have to make stuff a little flashy.

Also, this is after all still EA, so I will give them the benefit of the doubt that maybe these things will change during development to fine tune the rolls etc a little better. But when a poster just wants to knit pick about different types of arrows not being in 5e, or jump not being in 5e, or height advantage (which I actually like if it is just ranged classes it affects) I just don't think that really helps development overall. People have to realize that these games have to be attractive to a broader base than the 5e purebloods. Not to mention, who is right in the D&D community about what rules they should follow? I still have friends in that community and there is a good number that despise 5e. So I give Larian a little play room in regards to the rules etc that they want to implement in their game.

They can, but after the livestream I doubt they want to. For Larian, all the broken 5E rules in favor of flashy and unbalanced stuff seems to be a feature and not a problem to be addressed based on the way they spoke about and focused on them.

I think you're fundamentally misunderstanding the critique, here. The problem with everybody having firebombs/arrows is that they quickly make every combat exactly the same. That was the problem with everything making surfaces, combat became a game of high ground + spam surface effects. It takes any depth or strategy out of combat and makes it, honestly, a boring slog after the novelty of "big explosions" wears off.

If the solution to almost every problem is "throw a barrel at it," you might as well not even have different enemies beyond aesthetics. Your strategy will be nearly the same every time whether its a dragon or a goblin.

I guess for some, but I am on my 3rd play through (I just got the game like 5 or 6 days ago), and I have yet to use firebombs at all honestly, I just sell them for gold. You as the player could choose not to use them for more strategic tactics. Personally I like focusing on positioning, and use of each class in my fights. The mechanic is there for people that want them, and can be ignored by people that don't. So am I missing something?