Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Low pool of EA testers worries me

If they change things massively, sure. So far the player is just some random nobody whereas Gale is a chosen of freaking Mystra, Shadow is a special operative chosen for a massive mission to pick up some super-gismo that is a major part of the story, Astarion is a weird centuries-old vampire spawn that somehow has enough control to not be the least bit vampire spawny (looks perfectly normal and isn't prone to losing control), then we have an in-the-flesh local folk hero, Laezel is high enough in the Gith hierarchy that she expects help to be cleansed rather than just having her head cut off, and are we going to get that tiefling "I was a badass kicking ass and taking names in freaking hell" lass too?

So far we've seen no indication that the player has any story at all. Except the main story, of course, which seems to revolve much more around the Origin characters.

Actually, BG1 and 2 were absolutely stories about the protagonist, but the various plots out in the world that the protagonist bumbles into were of course not all directly about the protagonist as such, because that would be ridiculous.

All of the mess in BG1 does indeed turn out to be the work of someone who wants to be Lord of Murder, but it's your party centered around your character that ends up figuring that out, and you are the main actor opposing the big dude with bigger daddy issues. Then in BG2, you and your friends are captured by some unpleasant dude who does some torture and murdering and then gets snatched along with your sister, meaning you have a very strong incentive to find out where they went. You. The rest of the party are supporting characters of various backgrounds but you are the central character. And then TOB, where the plot makes very little sense, Cespenar smacks you with a stupid stick whenever you fall asleep, you're pretty much the mindless henchman of a "benevolent" advisor that totally tries to solve all the problems, but bar none you are indeed the central character who can clean up the big mess and finally sort out the whole Bhaalspawn saga once and for all.

No time system, weird movement system, weird way that time fractures around those in combat and those outside of it, and of course the ridiculous inventory that lets characters move stuff from one inventory to another across any distance. And the game is set up so most dialogues are completely agnostic regarding which member of the party they're talking to, which can happen at any time regardless of what is going on with the rest of the party. Also, have you noticed the lack of "you must gather your party before venturing forth"? Yeah, not much sense in a SP game letting the party split up like that but of course it makes perfect sense in an MP coop game.

The gobbo camp is literally right next to the super secret druid grove. Everything in Act 1 is pressed into a single map rather than letting things have the space they should have. I haven't done the math yet, but I would be very surprised if the Act 1 overland map isn't roughly a square kilometer in ingame units. And within that area, you have a dead village taken over by gobbos, a mill used for gobbo entertainment, a ruined temple, a crashed mindflayer ship, a druid grove, the gobbo camp outskirts, the gobbo camp temple, an eternally burning inn, the dam and bridge area for the gith encounter, the river place for the sirens, and that high overlook Harper thing, and the gnoll encounters. Even for a two square kilometer area, this is just way too much.

You can then ask yourself why you think the range of all ranged attacks was cut down so much. The range profile of a longbow is 150/600 in feet. Try and imagine having that sort of range in the current overland map. Could the AI deal with that? Are enemies even loaded that far away?

And yes, the world is nice and fisherprice plastic. I don't want the world to be nothing but greys and browns, but particularly the constant never-ending summer time sunlight is a bit much. And the atmosphere never really gives a "people are starving" vibe in the grove, or one of barely hanging together buildings left long ago in the village. Neither of the temples have much of an "evil place" vibe, do they? And I suppose the underdark didn't feel all that oppressively deep and dark either, did it?

BG1 and 2 have a time system and no, time does not stand still. Time moves. Granted, most quests don't care much either way, but some of them do. Some of them are day time only. Some of them are night time only. Take too long somewhere and suddenly it becomes dark and then the vampires come out to play. Not ready to deal with vampires yet? Better get inside then. Time also does not fracture between characters in combat and characters outside of combat.

The biggest problem is that the area to explore is just too small and too full of stuff. It's like the Mojave desert in Fallout New Vegas, around every corner there's something. How often was that the case in BG1 and 2?

You could not use pre-generated characters in BG1 and 2. You could use pre-generated profiles for your character that has your name, your choice of background, and your choice of personality. It was still your character, just using a suggested setup. Origin is different in that they're in no way imaginable "your character". They are Swen's characters, designed by Swen, with a personality dictated by Swen, with Swen's choice of background, with Swen's choice of future goals. They are the equivalent of turning up at a TT session and asking the DM to just quickly put together a toon that you can use. How is that in the spirit of D&D?

Except Larian is ignoring 5E whenever they feel like it, so arguing that they're tied by 5E rules is hardly convincing. But given the other details it does make sense to not have more, because how slow would this turn based system be if we had to go through six people on our side and a suitable number of enemies to maintain challenge? But that is a function of Larian's other design decisions. 5E in general does not in any way force Larian to only let the player character bring three friends along. And Swen has fairly strongly hinted that they'll do that whole party wipe thing after Act 1 so rotating party members won't be possible either. You get three friends and only three friends and that is the entirety of the party. And that doesn't leave much room from bringing along someone just to bring them along, even if they're not strictly speaking pulling their weight, does it?

What I mean by slow combat is that it is just that, damned slow. You get into a fight against a dozen kobolds with a full party and a couple of summons, how long does that take to resolve in real world time? It takes a while, because every character has to spend time on every single action in isolation. This was also how 2E worked, as I recall, and yet it didn't completely grind everything to a halt in BG1 and 2, did it?

Nalia is a betrothed noble whose father is dead and whose only resort, if she can't make the protagonist take over as keeper of her estate, is to run away from her commitments. She is *not* a powerful spellcaster when you run into her and she's not a skilled thief either.

There is Keldorn, a mighty and high ranking paladin who is on guard duty in the ass end of a sewer. He is old, he has some seniority, but he is not in charge. He is not in line for commander of the local chapter of the paladins.

There is Anomen, a pathetic little clown of a man, a fighter->cleric dual class who is not a paladin and who spews platitudes but is very short in both wisdom and competence.

There is Cernd, a wishy-washy druid that you meet in the local jail of Trademeet, where he is locked up in part for his own protection. He is not the archdruid of a grove nor even all that powerful at the time you meet hime. But he is one of precious few characters that make me seem short-winded and prone to using only 15 words when maybe the same could have been said with 17.

Jaheira, yes, she is a harp and a seasoned adventurer, but she's not a Harper boss at all. Just a fairly low level member.

Imoen, yes, she is a Bhaalspawn but she never manifests any powers at all. Fundamentally, she's just Imoen, your sister, gifted but not one of those world-shaping people. She might end up becoming that powerful but that's epilogue rather than during the games.

Aerie, a winged elf without her wings that is stuck in the illusion of an ogre inside a circus.

Viconia, a drow on the surface.

Minsc, a ranger who is very good at hitting things but who suffers from a traumatic head injury and relies on his stress relief animal for sage advise to a worrying degree.

Shall I go on? None of these people are the chosen of Mystra or anything like that. If we think of it from a lore perspective then the most powerful of your companions is probably Edwin, at least until ToB where Sarevok is an option, but Edwin is powerful enough to get himself into big problems and just not quite powerful enough to be a realm-shaper. And he has some hilarious issues with an actual chosen of Mystra, doesn't he? Well, she, I suppose.