Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General New interview with Sven by Gamespot

(ooh, hold on a minute, I have to add a little more chocolate sauce to my fry pan ... gotta carmelize the salmon a little more ... OK!)

I can understand why developers do not participate on chat boards or other public forums. It is definitely a double-edged sword, and I think the etiquette has changed a lot since the late 90's. John Winski was pretty vocal about the futility of posting on the BioWare boards, but yet many other staff members posted regularly and I believe some threads did actually result in game improvements and new features (and NPC characters!). I really appreciated the ability to correspond directly with the BioWare creators, and to know that they heard my ideas. It was fun, and I definitely felt like a human community member. I think keeping that community spirit alive was a driving motivation for Neverwinter Nights.

As I have said before, there is a difference between a bunch of game developers trying to form a business, versus a business trying to develop a game. Part of the magic of Baldur's Gate was that the community was right there on the ground level with the developers. And that is where I want to be with Larian, too! So if Larian employees cannot post openly, so be it, I will assume they are still lurking in the background, and I will talk about the same things I would have said if they were posting officially. For example, the City of Brass adventure still needs some attention ...

Doesn't the surprise on the beach have to be Us.(The intellect devourer companion)
It's the only surprise that would be dependent on the choices made in the prologue.

Mmmm. I'm feeling lazy tonight so I'm going to stick with my old standby of yogurt and ketchup.

Us sounds like a really good guess to me, but Swen did mention changes to the tutorial, so there could be other choices and other consequences... (I still think Us is a high probability though).

Being able to keep Us around would be quite the disappointing surprise, if that’s actually it.

Also, no way I’m keeping that disgusting little fucker alive out of the ship in any of my playthrougs.

A quick synopsis of the interview for those who don't want to watch a video recording:

This will mostly focus on Sven's responses, but in a few places it will be pertinent to mention the interviewer's questions or comments as well. My own cross comments are spoiler tagged for those who just want the raw 'what was said'.

The opening comments from Sven are that the long radio silence means that they are busy; he later comments to say that if they aren't silent they don't get anything done. It seems to run counter to the concept of the community engagement that was advertised initially.


He tells us that the next update is coming soon(tm), and that they are focusing a lot on the community feedback they've received. He says they're focusing on game features and not new content (presumably for the update, since he talks multiple times later about the fact that they're working away on the rest of the game), and that it addresses a lot of the things they've been reading.


When asked about what they've learned since adding druids back in February (four months since the last update), Sven comments that: “What we learned from bears is that on-boarding is important”.


He briefly explains further by saying that they'll try to explain the rules and game mechanics better; not just through tutorials, he says, but, ehh, really, ah, a whole, erm, bunch of things, really, a lot. He goes on to further explain: “I'm being vague, but it's cool stuff, really, erhm, things that... make.. the game, ehm, better.”


He comments that combat is a big focus for them right now, because they've seen that a lot of players are not getting what they want out of combats. He goes so far as to confirm that they may even be making major changes to some existing systems in the game... he doesn't elucidate on how, but then makes some other comments that make this initially promising statement more troublesome.

He says they'll be trying things out to see what works and what doesn't, before doubling down again on his rhetoric that tabletop doesn't translate well into a video game (despite mountains of evidence to the contrary); he says they're willing to turn things around “if they think it's necessary”. His comments go on to say that melee characters don't have enough to do; that fighter is a tutorial class that leaves players with little to do, that players coming from D:OS/2 want to be able to do more, more quickly, and that while this isn't that sort of game, they need to give them something more, and that they really do love the shove and throw mechanics and systems, and that they are working really well.


The next couple of minutes involve comments to the extent of saying that the game is bigger than anything they've done before (we know this already), that it takes time to make things, and that more will be coming eventually, because they are in fact, going to release a full game, even if the EA is only act one. That there is a lot of work being done, that a lot of stuff is happening, which will, he assures us, make the game a lot better.. again, with no indication of what he means by that and with no actual information. He comments that sometimes people will play and wonder why they decided to do something, or focus on something, but that it will all become clear, he promises.


Something curious happens in the next part of the interview: They talk about release times, and Sven laments the setbacks caused by the Covid crisis, the difficulties with VAs and motion capture - major issues that were reported on last year. The interviewer then asks: “Full release, is 2020 ballpark what you're aiming for?” To which Sven responds: “We would be happy if we can release next year, yes.”


Sven is asked about releasing to next gen consoles, but if firmly making no comment about that question; fair enough.

Next up the interviewer informs us that, apparently, everyone misses seeing Sven in his armour, and this is the thing that he sees most commonly asked about on the BG3 reddit... Yeah, no... Regardless this segues into questions about whether or not there will be a new Panel from Hell, for the next major patch. Sven is pleased to inform that yes, indeed, there will be another one ,and that they are working on it already, and that they have some very, very special plans for it.


When questions about DM mode and DM tools, Sven quite firmly asserts that their main focus is on getting the game done, and that that's where all of their efforts are right now. He doesn't drop the classic developer line of saying “we'd really like to”, he just says they aren't working on it.


Next, er, Sven likes beaches? The beach is getting better and better? Every time he starts up the game, the beach just seems better and better... and apparently there's going to be a big surprise on the beach next patch, that may have long-reaching ramifications, depending on your decisions.


Sven rounds out the interview by also commenting that all of their effort goes into the things you'll never see, and that everything they do is so much work because of the approach that they're taking.

I wish I was as articulate and organized as niara. Why is she always right?

Thankyou, hehe, but I assure you I'm not... I try, but I make plenty of bad calls, I promise ^.^

+1

Sven did stress in the video that they are trying to push the next update to be released soon, but they want it right before they do.

I imagine a lot of the developers are going on a few weeks summer holiday now as well - I know I am 😉. So the question is if we get it before end of August. I doubt it

Good summary and insightful comments as always, @Niara.

2 comments
First of all, Swen says "What we learned from players" not "bears". Not sure if this is a typo or you misheard (or I can't find that specific "bear" dialogue line).
Your comment here seems a bit harsh (I'm assuming because of ^)? As apparent from forum posts, there are many things in BG3 that aren't adequately explained and leave people confused. BG3 definitely needs to have an improved tutorial, especially for teaching what things are D&D and what are Larianisms. This was the aspect of the interview I was ~most happy with.

I think the interviewer was asking "twenty twenty-what?", trailing off and leaving Swen to fill in that final digit. 2021 or 2022 or 202X

If indeed he said 'Players' and not 'Bears' then that's certainly on me for mishearing. "Players" would make more sense....

Edit: Relistened, I'll grant that he is almost certainly saying 'Players' there, my mistake. I sometimes struggle with Sven's accent and mild mumbling, and the screen at the time was specifically showing a druid turning into a bear, and I guess that's where my brain went, so yeah, that's on me.

When I'll have a bit more time, I'll wrote a thread to Swen to explain him WHY melee classes ARE fun and definitely HAVE things to do despite not having to choose a button among 36.

I heard he like wizards and casters. But he definitely don't know why melee characters including fighter are appealing. Clue : control the battlefield !

Old school 90s priorities versus next gen lol (BG3 pic from their own Instagram...) . Larian turning into a AAA studio isn't helping either. This is turning into a PG13-simp game for the masses.

I don't like Us either! I usually squish it, can't stand it.

I'm holding out for a repeat sensation of when I downloaded a mod for Fallout 4 that turned Dogmeat into a leveled companion, and then wondered why I ever bothered with all those humanoid npcs and their nonsense.

Hopefully the surprise on the beach is a neutral-good character stuck in a pod that we can release and have join the party. But that would be content and it sounded like content wasn't the focus of the next patch.

Maybe it will be a big pile of gold (like 20K) so we can buy things from the vendors rather than not having gold but having stuff we want at the vendors and then later having gold but not having the stuff we want at the vendors because they rotated the items out of stock. I'm collecting and selling spoons and cups for Christ's sake!

I'm hoping they've improved pathing so that when we tell the character to move from point A to point B (which is 3 steps and one "climb onto" away) the character doesn't turn around, climb a ladder onto the roof, walk to a higher roof, climb onto the higher roof, walk over to the edge, then throw themself off the building taking damage and going prone.

I'm hoping we can drop a dead party member from the party. I don't want to resurrect them at camp and then remove them from the party. When someone throws themselves from a cliff and dies, or when they walk through fire or acid and die (when the party members ahead of them managed to walk around the hazard, evidently by accident) I want them to stay dead. I'm not interested in paying for their resurrection. I'll just loot the body of anything useful and leave them. Bonus points to Larian if, at the end of the game, we'd get a cutscene that says so-and-so died after jumping off a cliff or while wadding through fire or acid. Put a dunce hat on their graphic and/or have townspeople pointing at their ghost and laughing.

Having more info in the popups about how long spells last and how other things work will be great. I hope that's what he meant when he spoke about on boarding. A lot of us don't memorize the rule books and it wouldn't matter if we did. We need to know how things work as Larian has implemented them for the difficulty level we're playing not what is in the rulebook.

I had to laugh when Swen nailed the fighter as an intro class. Yup.
DM: Hey, there's this new tabletop game we can play. Here are some books to read and a bunch of funny shaped dice.
Group: (long explaination and Q/A session ensues)
DM: Look, just play as fighters until you get used to the rules.

Ah, I don't think I could play "clubs and sticks" as we used to call it nor even Cyberpunk tabletop any more. But I do enjoy cRPGs as long as there's a difficulty setting that doesn't bury me in busywork nor make up for simple enemy AI with mass attacks of regenerating hordes. Which leads to another change I'm hoping for: difficulty settings. That way Larian can stop nerfing things because some people complain the game is too easy. Larian can make the higher difficulty levels closer to the official D&D rules and less gold and more difficult battles. The mid-difficulty level can be the "BG3 for DOS2 audience". Easier levels can start with more stat points, more gold, some starter items, and better loot from battles (and more light battles). And my Ranger wants his d*mn Dire Spider back! (I'm pretty sure that's what it was before it was nerfed).

Us becoming a companion or pet "surprise" would be the exact kind of thing Larian would do and I would hate.

It was a really cool little detail in the tutorial. But if you overdo it, you will ruin it.

If the brain monster will hang out at your camp (like a certain undead character that already turned from creepy and intriguing into ridiculous and mundane) or follow you around in the city of Baldur's Gate, it's just stupid and then the world is expected to react to this weird brain monster. Which will cost a lot of development time which will be wasted on anyone who just chooses to kill such monsters on sight.

There seems to be an uncomfortably large nuber of people coalescing around the idea that the goals of BG3 are wrong. That taking 5E as a base and tuning it to make something that would appeal to fans of Divinity Original Sin and tactical combat is just fundamentally something that shouldn't even be attempted. BG3 needs to be a strict interpretation of 5E and nothing else is acceptablr. Solasta did it and it appealed to a tiny number of existing fans of 5E so that's evidence it's the only possible solution.

If that's true (and honestly I can see the logic) it's still not useful feedback. Larian are all in on BG3 they simply cannot pivot it to being a niche product aimed solely at 5E purists. Nor can they ditch the 5E system at this juncture. BG3 is going to be a game based around giving each player several interesting choices every turn and minimising those turns in which a player rolls a dice, misses and nothing happens. They're not going to change that based on what people on the forum say. It's reasonable to be upset about this, it's not reasonable to expect this to change.

You mean the estimated 14 MILLION people that play D&D currently? And I don't understand the mentality behind thinking you SHOULD deviate from 5e for a video game. The system has been refined for years to be as balanced as they can possible make it. Is it perfect? Of course not. Have other games like Solasta and Pathfinder: KM been able to translate TT rules into fun and well done digital version? ABSOLUTELY. But Larian started this project by telling everyone they want to make BG3 as faithful to 5e as they possibly can. That sets an expectation. Come to find out that they decided 5e isn't popular enough with people (despite the ~14 million active players), and need to gamify almost the entire rule base in order to fit THIER vision of what 5e is, or should be. As a fan of Larian, DOS, BG, and D&D (DMing for over a decade) I can say with confidence that I honestly don't mind them changing a few things here and there as needed. I get it. But they have bastardized the ruleset SO MUCH, that it only vaguely resembles the original system. Its painfully obvious that they simply ported their DOS system into BG3 and then have been trying to fit the DOS engine into 5e. Instead of designing their foundation around the 5e system, which they probably should have done, they are now caught desperately trying to shove elements of 5e into their DOS engine to try to pass it off as a 5e system.

I'm not a purist by any means. Like I said, I get it. But when you start a project with the goal of making as faithful to the ruleset as possible, you set that expectation for people that play the 5e ruleset. And so far, the 'As close as possible' has turned into 'Meh, close enough'. And that's what upsets people.