Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Larian's gimmicks are like an invasive species to an ecosystem

Go to SteamDB and compare pre-release sales, concurrency figures and average playtime for BG3 and Solasta and you have your answer. It might not make sense to you but it's an out-and-out fact of the modern gaming genre. The PnP game may have increased its following significantly, but computer gaming has exploded in the last 10 years and now for the first time console players exceed PC players.

I've not seen a single person argue anywhere that Solasta isn't a much better, truer adaptation of the DnD ruleset to a cRPG format than BG3. It even has higher ratings from its players than BG3, probably as a direct result.

But BG3 has sold more copies, more people who bought it played it, they played it for longer, and are still playing it. Of couse that's an over-simplified perspective, but it's compelling all the same...

The problem is that DOS mechanics are inimical to 5E. Couple that with Larian's cavalier rule changes, and you've just got a poorly balanced game, that plays like DOS2 with characters built for another game.

The problem with just saying "barrelmancy and the other Larian tropes are optional", is that they really aren't. Barrels litter the landscape, and if you don't use them or at least acknowledge them and plan around them, then the AI will. Same with push, same with height for automatic Advantage.

If their goal was to make a game that differentiated from DOS, and didn't feel like a 'reskin', then at the moment, they've failed.

They just have to tweak their homebrewed to give us an amazing tactical game. (and add 1 party size slot, for many reasons)

Honnestly I don't share your though at all about barrels.
I think I saw ennemies using them at a single location, in the entrance of the blighted village.
It has no impact on my experience and if being in BG3's guiness book for the "greater explosions category" is something other players like... Why not ?

Solasta seems to have a better player retention overall. (Using 24 peak over sales estimate). Player retention is where we really get to see the impact of gameplay instead of brand recognition and graphics.

• For Solasta the player retention 1090/200000 is .55%
• For BG3 the player retention 4899/2000000 is .24%

(Whether we use SteamSpy or PlayTrackers estimates we see the same trend).

There are of course extremists, but I think (I hope) that these are in the, possibly loud, minority. As a BG and crpg fan, it's obvious to me that it is not one specific mechanic that defines a game. BG3 can be a faithful sequel to the BG franchise without perfectly recreating its mechanics.

In fact, it is impossible for BG3 to perfectly recreate all of BG1&2 because there is no way that WotC will allow Larian to use older versions of D&D. Changes are required, and even can be good, while still retaining the spirit of BG, whatever that is.

A more useful metric would be comparing the ratios of (# of copies sold)/($ spent on development and advertising). Of course BG3 is going to sell better; it's the game from the company that had a huge hit with DOSII, it has a much larger development team, and has had a much higher budget. Whereas Solasta is the first game from a development team of ~12 people.

Also, BG3 selling better than Solasta doesn't mean that all of Larian's decisions are justified. If Larian had made BG3 more faithful to 5e, it could be selling 50% better...or it could be selling 50% worse. But I argue it'd probably be selling better, given the near ~universal praise for Solasta's mechanics, and the decent chunk of negativity for BG3's mechanics

The chunk of negativity isn't even widespread, it's purely directed by 5e DnD cultists who think their dice marathon gameplay makes for a superior experience to Divinity.

I can already tell his video likely involved several save reloading in case the dice rolls didn't favor him.

It's absolutely abysmal videogame design. Keep that crap for tabletop trolling with friends; this design has no place in a single player RPG videogame experience.

Their biggest mistake is trying to please the 5e crowd, which will be insatiable and only cares for strict adherence to their sacred book regardless of how many potential players not interested in 5e tabletop play it alienates. They should have kept the Forgotten Realms IP and storytelling and discarded the awful 5e in favor of creating their own cRPG game, which has brought them to the financial success that they are by this point.

Their biggest mistake is trying to please the 5e crowd, which will be insatiable and only cares for strict adherence to their sacred book regardless of how many potential players not interested in 5e tabletop play it alienates. They should have kept the Forgotten Realms IP and storytelling and discarded the awful 5e in favor of creating their own cRPG game, which has brought them to the financial success that they are by this point.

I'm not a D&D 5 purist at all but I think that a better balance between Larian's homebrewed and D&D would lead to a superior experience to Divinity.
Is that negativity ?


This video is boring because he's playing a solo cleric.
Being able to play a solo cleric easily in a normal game mode shouldn't be possible.

On the other hand, encounters aren't designed to play with a solo character. Of course missing once twice is boring...

But did you really play any other TB games ?
This has nothing to do with D&D.

The video is boring because you know the outcome of that fight is down to a dice roll. He was able to survive that solo fight because with Light Cleric's passive of imposed disadvantage on enemies plus his heightened AC, he had a better dice roll to dodge the Iron Foots that would have 2 shot him several times.

But it's just that, if the dice roll had not gone his way, the video would have been over in less than 40 seconds.

Including his entire party doesn't make it more interesting. If you're playing without the vaunted "homebrew", it boils down to a bunch of actions with 50-70% hit chance, and about half your playtime spent missing attacks and hoping the same applies to the enemy so you don't eat an attack for more than half your health from a single enemy.

And it's not just the combat, putting down dialogue outcomes down to dice rolls is horrid design as well, meant to rob you of playtime by having you play the save reload game wasting your time on asinine mechanics.

I wouldn't be surprised if some modder manages to delete the awful dice a rama casino play off the game, but it shouldn't take a modder to realize that playing the game in 7-10+ individual participant turns with a single action turn where half the abilities miss makes for a deplorable gameplay experience.

People like to be in control of the outcomes through their own decisions, not have the outcome of a fight drastically come down to the roll of a dice.

In it's current state, I doubt they are going to really satisfy any group, it plays like a DOS game hampered by having characters that are built around 5E, and then had their class skills nullified by DOS game features.

Man this has nothing to do with dice rolls.

%to hit is something that exist in EMANY games (even if you don't always see it). Don't call it dice if you will... But RNG is a part of many games... DoS included.

Dialogue has nothing to do with combats but they're doing an amazing job with RNG in dialogs.
I still discover unexpected situations after hours and hours and you think it's bad ? Larian is doing an amazing job with the "dices" outside combats.

Let's balance combats to have real tactical combats but the game has the potential to become the best tactical TB games I've ever saw...
And that's because D&D's possibilities + Larian's imagination could lead to something that has never been done.

Man this has nothing to do with dice rolls.

%to hit is something that exist in EMANY games (even if you don't always see it). Don't call it dice if you will... But RNG is a part of many games... DoS included.

Dialogue has nothing to do with combats but they're doing an amazing job with RNG in dialogs.
I still discover unexpected situations after hours and hours and you think it's bad ? Larian is doing an amazing job with the "dices" outside combats.

Let's balance combats to have real tactical combats but the game has the potential to become the best tactical TB games I've ever saw...
And that's because D&D's possibilities + Larian's imagination could lead to something that has never been done.

"They're doing an amazing job with RNG in dialogues". Speak for yourself, I'm not particularly interested in reload spam for important dialogue choices like saving Arabella, convincing Kagha to turn on the shadow druids, or diverting Dror Razglin's interrogation of a mindflayer. No thanks. Whether I see the druid grove frescos with the history of Ketheric's defeat or not just based on a dice roll or not. Whether I get to reveal traps via perception or not or blow myself up.

This has everything to do with dice rolls. Some of us appreciate what Larian has done in their previous 2 games, and given the success it deservedly got them, I'd rather they stick with known quantities than some tabletop gimmick that has forced them to waste time on even a feature called "weighted dice" because obviously the RNG is unpopular.

% hit barely exists in any modern RPG. Don't confuse it with crit %, they're not the same thing. In DoS, % hit is absolutely negligible, and a caster doesn't spend AP on a 50% chance to hit spell they can only cast 5-7 times before a long rest is needed, on top of the fact spellcasters in DoS get to weave all their spells without some contrived restriction of Concentration.

"They're doing an amazing job with RNG in dialogues". Speak for yourself, I'm not particularly interested in reload spam for important dialogue choices like saving Arabella, convincing Kagha to turn on the shadow druids, or diverting Dror Razglin's interrogation of a mindflayer. No thanks. Whether I see the druid grove frescos with the history of Ketheric's defeat or not just based on a dice roll or not. Whether I get to reveal traps via perception or not or blow myself up.

This has everything to do with dice rolls. Some of us appreciate what Larian has done in their previous 2 games, and given the success it deservedly got them, I'd rather they stick with known quantities than some tabletop gimmick that has forced them to waste time on even a feature called "weighted dice" because obviously the RNG is unpopular.

Larian had to implement weighted dice because their base rng system is bad and leads to streaks. If you get one bad roll, you're much more likely to get subsequent bad rolls.
Larian's "weighted dice" actually just corrects for this problem and is more consistent with a truly uniform distribution.

It has nothing to do with dice rolls. Dice rolls are almost exactly the same as percentage rng, just with less precision. There could be an argument that everything is left too much to chance, but the solution for that is to decrease the AC of enemies and the difficulty of dialogue checks, not necessarily throw out the d20.
Similarly, one could argue that failing isn't fun (one of Larian's stated goals), but that indicates a problem with Larian not providing fun failure options.

Honnestly I think everyone agree that the game has a huge potential but it's strange to see (some) D&D and DoS fans dissapointed.

The game has it's ass between 2 chairs and is not fully satisfying whatever you like more one or the other.

I really think that they should try to keep the whole balanced (their mechanics + D&D).

Choices for fun are 100% fine (like barrelmancy, unlimited items to stole,...) but a lot of players also enjoyed DoS because it's a strategy TB game. On the other hand a lot enjoy D&D because it has hundreds of possibilities.

Not sure how combats could be satisfying if those hundreds of possibilities are close to useless and if at the same time, the strategies to use are always the same.

"Don't like it, don't use it" works for fun choices like barrelmancy but not with the main features of the game. By main feature I mean verticality, close combat rules, how magic works,... But ofc even dipping and throwing items are main features of this game (we have a specific bonus/action)... And I'd love being able to choose them among many other possibilities rather than "don't use it because it's OP".

The problem is that DOS mechanics are inimical to 5E. Couple that with Larian's cavalier rule changes, and you've just got a poorly balanced game, that plays like DOS2 with characters built for another game.

The problem with just saying "barrelmancy and the other Larian tropes are optional", is that they really aren't. Barrels litter the landscape, and if you don't use them or at least acknowledge them and plan around them, then the AI will. Same with push, same with height for automatic Advantage.

If their goal was to make a game that differentiated from DOS, and didn't feel like a 'reskin', then at the moment, they've failed.

I don't really know what DoS mechanic you're talking about but if surfaces is something you have in mind, I have to disagree.
A new Baldur's Gate game should definitely have surfaces effects and environment interactions. This also exist in D&D and many spells can create surfaces and I guess a lot of DM would allow players to electrify a water surface.

What's going wrong is not Larian's ideas at all... It's only a matter of balance and the result is 100% contrary to their desire to give us more choices/tools.
Their basics homebrewed mechanics are just too powerfull and they will be the only viable choices to survive higher level of difficulty.

Our tactical skills or D&D knowledge doesn't really matter in combats - what matter is your knowledge of the OP mechanics Hundreds of things become a bad or unoptimised at all choice because : there are way better choices in the basic mechanics of BG3.

- I love having highground bonuses in tactical TB games.
- I'd love being able to flame my arrows in a fantasy tactical TB games.
- I'd love being able to throw traps/throwable usefull items to my ennemies during combats.
- I love that my position in melee really matter.
- I'd love being able to put power on the ground to ambush ennemies and put the ground on fire...
- I... Don't like being able to eat during combats... Honnestly I can't live with this one.

But what I hate more than anything else is that those mechanics are totally broken.

At the moment it completely ruins the "tactical" in "tactical combats". After 1 playthrough in a normal game mode everyone is going to be a Baldur's Gate 3 master. There's nothing to really know about classes uniquenesses or encounters to beat the game... you have to know those homebrewed rules.
I have to choose which cool thing to use or not because it's a meaningfull question that have a HUGE impact on the game's difficulty.
After watching 30 minutes of youtube video I know everything I have to know about "how to win in Baldur's Gate 3 ". Higher level of difficulty will only be a bit more "die and retry".

They just have to tweak their homebrewed to give us an amazing tactical game. (and add 1 party size slot, for many reasons)

Honnestly I don't share your though at all about barrels.
I think I saw ennemies using them at a single location, in the entrance of the blighted village.
It has no impact on my experience and if being in BG3's guiness book for the "greater explosions category" is something other players like... Why not ?

% hit barely exists in any modern RPG. Don't confuse it with crit %, they're not the same thing. In DoS, % hit is absolutely negligible, and a caster doesn't spend AP on a 50% chance to hit spell they can only cast 5-7 times before a long rest is needed, on top of the fact spellcasters in DoS get to weave all their spells without some contrived restriction of Concentration.

"They're doing an amazing job with RNG in dialogues". Speak for yourself, I'm not particularly interested in reload spam for important dialogue choices like saving Arabella, convincing Kagha to turn on the shadow druids, or diverting Dror Razglin's interrogation of a mindflayer. No thanks. Whether I see the druid grove frescos with the history of Ketheric's defeat or not just based on a dice roll or not. Whether I get to reveal traps via perception or not or blow myself up.

This has everything to do with dice rolls. Some of us appreciate what Larian has done in their previous 2 games, and given the success it deservedly got them, I'd rather they stick with known quantities than some tabletop gimmick that has forced them to waste time on even a feature called "weighted dice" because obviously the RNG is unpopular.

RNG has always lead to streaks. Putting in bad luck protection is just curtailing what RNG is. You don't just make one side of the coin heavier so it favors landing the face you want more often and call it still random, because then it isn't. And that is the crux of the argument, that you could reduce the AC of enemies or difficulty dialogue checks, but getting that 3 roll on a 5 roll is still equally aggravating and the outcome is the same, you end up staring at the loading bar again. Same for missing 30% of the time instead of 50%; that miss feels like total ass regardless.

What is a fun failure option with failing to persuade Kagha to not envonm a child to death? What would be the fun option to failing to convince the Zhentarim to release the captive artist? To me the outcome of failure is pretty obvious. The point being that regardless of what "alternatives" they offer in failure, you're still not getting your desired outcome, which prompts the save reload BS.