Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General To this game's credit, there are plenty of things it does right too.

As other have said, it's not strange to have both critical and supportive threads. This gets at the distinction between criticism and critique. Criticism may or not be hostile but critique is always built on a bedrock of respect. The critic cares enough about the object of their critique to engage in a meaningful way.

The game has many good points:

It's beautiful. Sometimes I just pause the game to look at the panoramics in the underdark

I like the writing

It has a good, viable heroic narrative -- the game is bucking the trend to write generic, 'grey' characters. Enough with the grizzled mercenary who just does what he has to do

The game has an interesting take on evil -- evil is seductive and corrupting

I like way the game is dealing with sex. It's approach is mature and real to life.

I see potential for character development in the companions

The game has a dog

Well, no one is complaining about the production value. Graphics, voice acting, music is all top notch. The most important part of a GAME is the gameplay, however, and up to now, Larian has not delivered on that part.

This game keeps getting compared to Solasta for the latter being the exact opposite.It is ugly as hell, which is expected given its microbudget, but is FUN AS HELL to play.

I was asked recently which I enjoyed more-Solasta or BG3-and to my surprise I chose BG3. Even though I have a lot of criticisms with Larian's decisions about BG3 and found its combat worse than Solasta's, overall I still had more fun playing it.

I, of course, hope that the combat and resting mechanics are changed to more closely match 5e (or, at least, provide a better balance where the correct option isn't always to get high ground/backstab). But the quality of BG3's story, the nonlinearity of the maps, the production value and dialogue, all these things are pretty darn solid and more than make up for the lackluster mechanics. BG3 is currently around a 7.5/10 game for me (a real 7.5/10, not an "IGN 7.5/10"), which is not bad.

I most 'rpg' video games , I grew tired of quests and at the end of the day of the story that came to elude as a logical consequence. At the end of the day , I used rpg for the 'min-maxing mechanism' of fights. It's sad I know. With BG3 , I was simply into it completely without effort. So a very welcomed renewed sensation of being in a world and making choice. A large part is one the fact that all characters interact with you in 3d instead of a long wall of text. And also , while the companions are mainly annoying f***ers , the voice acting is very good, fleshing personalities and they grew on me.

Baldur's Gate 3 is shaping up to be a very good game. I'm already having more fun in EA than I do a lot of games I buy these days and as a DnD player who has a hard time finding groups it is a great way to play with character concepts I never got around to trying out. I also like all the companions so far and while I'm not suuuper on board with the overall plot yet it is sufficient to get me engaged in the game at least.

I honestly find the gameplay pretty fun too. I like how vertical the maps are and how many alternate actions you can take aside from just attacking as that is a common weakness in the gameplay of other turn based RPGs. Move, attack, end turn. Move, attack, end turn. In BG3 I can choose between shoving enemies into more advantageous positions, throwing items (and sometimes enemies! I enjoy tossing that halfling ranger outside the first dungeon waaaay too much), jumping around to get a more advantageous position, and using one of a wide range of spells and abilities either directly on the enemies or on the surroundings to generate unique effects.

Obviously there's a fair bit of balance to tweak in that regard but even in its current state I find it tactical and engaging, and I really enjoy approaching the same fights in different ways on different characters. Sometimes I'll go for an "honorable" battle with straight combat. Sometimes I'll pull every dirty trick in the book and shove people off ledges or throw a halfling at his friend. The variety in ways to approach combat does a lot to let the personality of my characters shine through even in an exercise of pure gameplay like combat.

And soon we'll have my favorite DnD class added; the druid. I cannot wait to see what crazy shenanigans I can get up to with wildshape!

Pretty graphics does not a good game make.

Lookit the sparkles (and ignore everything else)!

The games visiuals are very good.... the Sound however is even bettern, its AWESOME!
Hoever gameplay is Decent from a stadrad RPG viewpoint. But total Failure From a DnD perspective.

So if you DONT expect a DnD game with the Name Baldurs gate3 you can get a decent game.

First time I saw Divinity: Original Sin, I was blown away just how gorgeous it looked. But not for having a great 3D engine, or by hogging your systems resources, no, it was just a damn beautiful world, full of History, living characters, lore. The cramped cities, the ruined briges, the wrecked ships, there was just so many details in such a modest game. So it bears to notice that BG3 is just not simply gorgeous for being gorgeous, but for giving us a world that we want to explore, to run through, to live in. Best comparison is the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, a movie impossible to be made with such craft and attention to detail on a small budget. But a huge budget by itself doesn't grant us anything, isn't that right, The Hobbit? An even bigger budget but a rushed production ended up a big turd.

you are absolutly right.... i LOVE the Adventure Part of BG3....... and there are so many details!
But as soon as Combat starts i cant endure it. Its like reading a good Fantasybook and everytime combat starts you puit away the book and take the latest super Mario magazine and watch Mario fight Lugi.

Exactly.
Adventure : mature / immersive
Combat : childish / burlesque

Nice to see some positive comments for once.

Personally, while I see the need to rebalance certain mechanics, and introduce others to fill needed gaps, I am not looking for strict or even close to strict adherence with 5.0.

5.0 was built for table top game play - where most of what occurs is in your head - no visuals, no audio (except for what the GM states), no jazzy effects. But a wide use of imagination.

BG3 is not able to provide the range of options available to a human GM - players will always stretch the possibilities. What BG3 can do, and does well, is provide the visual, audio and jazz that a GM cannot easily provide.

What it attempts to do, and is still a work in progress, is the "imagination" portion of gameplay.

Lighting, height, environmental effects spell and skill implementation and such are all aspects of this latter forum.

I enjoy lighting, height and environment impacting choice and effect of martial and spell tactics and selection. Do they perhaps need to be tones down and re-balanced to be effectively used in the game? Sure. But I anticipate this will be a gradual process, as other systems, mechanics and ideas are incorporated. They have already begun to make such adjustments.

Personally, I would like to see poison become something an appropriate character can prepare on an arrow or blade ahead of time, with perhaps special benefits to thieves, rangers and druids. I think arrows can be coated with tar ahead of time, allowing for dipping into a flame for extra damage - but I have issues with acid and cold dipped. While throwing boots might get boring to many, I call to mind a certain Gnome in BG1 and 2 who made a career (and a class) based on a damn vegetable!!

I also have no issue with lightning based spells causing further damage to someone in water - this is in accord with nature - but again it needs to be incorporated in a balanced manner.

Even barrelmancy has a place - as long as that place is a potentially explosive vat of alcohol in a brewery or tavern - or something similar in an alchemy lab - not barrels sitting conveniently next to a Goblin nap spot, in the middle of nowhere.

I am thrilled by the attention provided to opportunities for using spells like speak with animals and speak with dead - things historically given little attention in D & D rpg's. I'm hoping other historically ignored spells (and skills such as religion, nature and such) continue to receive attention.

But bottom line, EA is going to last another one to two years most likely - there is plenty of time to provide constructive criticism without screaming end of the world proclamations. And certainly such criticism can be balanced with some degree of tact, bon homme, and kudos for the things Larian is doing right, or at least trying to get right. The game will never be anyone's idea of 100% perfect - each of us will always have things they wish Larian had changed or incorporated - but the doom and gloom approaches the 9th circle of hell on these boards some days.

While I'm not a huge D&D player (only last year did I started campaigning with friends), I also feel something... awkward with BG3's combat, and that already came from DOS2. Can't really put into words, but it's like the combat drags itself too much, or that it happens in a different reality from the main adventure. I'm waiting for patch #4 to hit and then I'll return to see if can explain it better.

I have the exact same feeling.
It looks like combats are "silly/funny" parenthesis in the story (jumping, dipping, throwing things, eating food,...)

But this is the positive thread and the story is probably going to be interresting^^

Besides the combat and the rest system I like how the devs approached this game. Looks and sounds stunning, characters are great.
Its just as others said i started to avoid combat after some hours into it, it feels a little bit boring, as is. But the rest of the game is definitely nice.