Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback This doesn't feel like a Baldur's Gate game (or D&D)

She also probably wouldn't give her armor to what seems like half of the people she meets on the nautiloid and continue on her own wearing a bra and panties.

That's the problem when companions are given such strong voices and opinions. When they don't act on them it makes them lose credibility. Lae'zel would go straight for the creche and ditch the party. Her following a random noob PC and complaining about doing the wrong thing completely undermines her character. Would an epic Wizard who plays with goddesses or an infernal commander of the Nine Hells suddenly start blindly following a level 1 nobody?

Ok. Now we're getting carried away. What's our objective here? Do we want them to completely start over and we'll never see the game finished?

The writing's not that bad. Little things can fix just about every issue and explain it.

SPOILERS: Gale has in his posession the most powerful healing spell in the world of D&D outside of maybe "wish". True resurrection can bring a 150 year old zombie back to life at full health. This spell cures ANYTHING, mindflayer tadpoles included. It is a 9th level spell so powerful if the only thing left of you was your big toe your entire body would grow back from it, it would pluck your soul from the netherrealm and shove you back in. You would be like a new born baby.

The number of clerics or druids that can cast this spell would be probably countable on one hand in the entire fogotten realms, it is also INSANELY expensive to cast. The only divine magic more powerful than this spell would be that of the higher gods. As such if you cast cast true resurrection on gale and he still has the bloody tadpole the chances of finding someone to heal you outside of a god is naught. Not happening, end of story.

When you first meet gale he asks you are you an arch/druid/mage/cleric? You answer no obviously. Gale being an academic know it all, he would know full well his "true resurrection" spell is the most powerful healing spell any healer in the world would be able to cast. He also clearly understands its usage. Mmmm. This is a quite painful story plot hole. This paradox shatters the entire story for me.

Gale has a magic void in his chest that feeds on powerful magic. The tadpole is enchanted by powerful magic.......See where I am going here? The void is also the same netherese magic used in the tadpole. I know if you suck the magic from a tadpole you would turn into a mindflayer according to that geezer in the underdark. However you could still use gale to suck the magic from the true souls tadpole and have the resulting mindflayer/s go nuts in the goblin camp.

That said if you could dispel the magic from the tadpole with gales glory hole you would have half the solution yes? All you would need to do then is get someone to remove a normal tadpole say the hag and drum roll.....meh.

I agree with the premise that the strong imposing nature of your companions like lea'zel, who basically thinks of you as dog dirt under her boot, very unlikely to remain in your party unless of course she enslaved you all. If you were gith of a different creche and cast she would still be overly critical unless of course you agreed with her zealous devotion to the lich queen. She is like an anti-paladin. Gith are xenophobic to an extreme level. The Kith'rak said it in a nutshell, "question, kill, move on".

I really loved playing a neutral kingdom in Pathfinder Kingmaker. That was my main motivation to play the game. I only would have wished that playing neutral would have given me more special quests & allowed me to recruit beasts and monsters into my kingdom.


Larian could simply give people to possibility to generate additional characters even in single player.


He would have been great as being just an arrogant, conceited, self absorbed mage. Just a really genius mage with lots of intelligence who constantly reminds you how much better than you he is.

The Mystra story ruined it. It's too much over the top.


I either played alone with a ranger or sorcerer or together with Imoen, Jaheira, Khalid, Minsc, Viconia. Mostly just with characters I found interesting, not those that were useful.

I must admit I have found BG1 to be the most lackluster of the trilogy. I liked BG2 quite a bit, though. BG3 seems great lorewise. The companions in BG1 were quite basic, cartoonish even and fortunately, BG2 added a layer of complexity to them. I love moral ambiguity and BG3 offers far ore freedom to pursue your goals. Part of the changes in enemies come from the 5e ruleset where in general low level characters have a bit more chance against stronger single monsters than in earlier editions. Overall, BG3 is on the way to topple BG2 in my ranking (if they might reduce the number of explosive barrels, it will be even better )

I sincerely hope I'm not the only one reading this thread and feeling like some of the feedback has jumped the shark.

*

Sigh.

*

The tadpoles are great. It's a little reminiscent of the ear worm scene in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, but I accept that as a nod. The idea of a worm getting inside of a character's head is strong. And it becomes a powerful visual when we see it happen, as we do in the opening scene of this game.

This puts the characters in a situation where they have a condition. This is good for storytelling purposes. There's now a problem that the characters face, and conflict is what storytelling is all about.

Initially, the conflict is twofold. There's a parasite in the character's head, yes, but they also need to escape the Nautiloid. This is dramatic. It's full of action; it's wonderful. The setting is interesting, hurtling through the hells on a flaming Nautiloid, the stakes are interesting, the combat is in your face, and you can feel the heat of the flames all around. And everything is alien, even the floors, writhing underneath.

During the desperate escape, unlikely alliances are made. This is also good for storytelling. It escalates tension.

When we reach the helm, there's a sense of urgency pushing us forward. We have to fight our way forward to connect the nerves of the transponder.

--Now, some players are going to ignore the urgency and concentrate on killing the Commander to get the ever-burning blade (and the extra xp). That's a player choice, and in my opinion, it breaks the scene a little bit, but I respect Larian for leaving it in as a possibility because some players want that level of agency, to break out of the story momentarily for the reward of a small power boost. Fine, to each their own.

--But as a reminder, that is a player choice. At no point does the game demand that the character fight a Mind Flayer or a Cambion. The opening scene is about fighting imps. The Mind Flayer and Cambion are nothing more than background figures to make the scene more exciting from a storytelling perspective.

*

So our opening is excellent. We have a condition, and we find ourselves in the middle of nowhere with nothing on our side but an unlikely alliance.

--I do have a small issue with how this is done. If we were knocked out of the side of the ship, how is it that we wake up right beside the ship? Wouldn't the ship be a lot farther away after having crashed? Or did it drop straight down beside us?

--That's an example of what we would call "refrigerator logic." The idea being that the logical inconsistency doesn't generally occur to us until later. Regardless, it's not the biggest deal because the essence of what's happened is clear. Personally, I would prefer that we just crashed with the ship and were thrown from it onto the beach, but if Larian feels like there's something important with the fall and the magic keeping us from splitting our heads open, fine, I can accept that without screaming about bad writing.

*

We've accomplished one of our goals, which was to escape the Nautiloid. Again, we are confronted with a couple of goals.

The biggest one, of course, is that we still have the parasite in our head. We need to avoid turning into a Mind Flayer.

But we also have to survive and ideally get away from the wreckage, to find shelter and food and such.

*

Basically, we always have a goal amidst conflict. That's how storytelling works, and Larian is doing a wonderful job in that regard. Things are visually interesting, and our main character conflict continues to grow and develop.

First, it's that we need to avoid turning into a Mind Flayer.

When we realize we're not turning into a Mind Flayer, we're confronted with what the tadpole is doing to us. It's giving us powers, yes, but is it also controlling us? Speaking for us? Where do we end and where does the tadpole begin? What is this dream? Is it the tadpole talking to us?

Why were we infected? Not to turn into Mind Flayers, perhaps, but what... to become a beautiful weapon? And if so, to be wielded by whom?

This mystery deepens. We are confronted with True Souls. These are people like us, infected with a tadpole, but they don't know they're infected. Why not? Ah, maybe we never finished going through the process to become a True Soul. Maybe there was another step at Moonrise Towers, and we're not fully baked. Half-done.

What do we do now? Do we confront the True Souls directly in a combative manner? Or do we infiltrate the True Souls? And then there's a third option still, which might sound crazy, but could we maybe even join the True Souls?

*

Everything going on is fascinating.

There's a religious order building, shaking things up along the Sword Coast, and we are right there in the thick.

Who is the Absolute? A new goddess? Perhaps. Certainly a force to be reckoned with.

And the True Souls are her powerful disciples, leading a force in her name.

As we continue to learn more, we realize that she has three chosen, and it seems that there may be factions within the ranks of the True Souls. Only by continuing to Moonrise Towers can we learn more.

*

The whole of the plot is an unfolding mystery, but we can be sure that it interconnects multiple things. Shar is somehow involved, for one. As are the Githyanki and the Mind Flayers, and the connection of all of this is evident in the artifact, the item being referred to as the weapon.

Cambions are also somehow involved. We know that the True Souls have abducted Mizora, and that may explain Raphael's interest.

*

This is a setting and a plot filled with mystery and flavor.

Are there things that need to be smoothed out? Sure. Some people apparently have an issue because the plot makes them want to avoid long resting, which is keeping aspects of the story from opening up to them. That's a legitimate issue that needs to be smoothed out.

But the answer to that isn't that the story sucks.

The answer is to get across the idea that you're not turning into a Mind Flayer immediately faster. Or let the game force you into a long rest if only because of sheer exhaustion. Something to solve the problem and continue the narrative.

And yes, there's an issue with Lae'zel being so singularly focused on the creche. It's hard to accept that she would stick around to fight the goblins instead of venturing out on her own.

The solution to that isn't to throw our hands up in the air and say the story sucks.

The way forward is to perhaps tweak her character and make her at least a teensy bit more open to trying out Halsin or Gut.

Someone else mentioned that her character would never stand for having her armor taken. I agree. Does that mean the story sucks and the writers are no good? No. Personally, I would suggest that Larian locks her armor to her unless she can be talked out of it in dialogue. Something like, "We need to talk about your armor. I'm going to give you this better armor, but you need to get rid of that armor."

That said, if they don't lock her armor, I'm fine. Because I never take her armor. Because I know taking her armor isn't something that would make sense. So I don't actively do things that wouldn't make sense and then blame Larian for the things I'm doing.

*

I don't know. Again, we're to the point where people are suggesting that Larian get rid of the tadpoles. In my opinion, that's insane.

Not only is such a thing not even feasible, it would completely ruin all the amazing flavor and plot we have right now.

I like the idea of the Absolute. I like the mystery. I like the terror and wonder of the tadpoles, and I'm blown away by the flavor of the True Souls, acting as disciples of a new goddess.

And that's my opinion.

In my opinion, that's how it should work, and indeed taken as a bulletpoint pitch the story is great indeed, it's just that the way they implemented (in EA, lets hope some things are simply left out for not spoiling us) the story is not convincing at several occasions to some of us - for a variety of reasons - and this thread served to illustrate this by comparing BG3 to previous BG games.

It's great that you share your opinion but at this point simply repeating your praise for the story and presenting subjective opinions as fact (tadpoles are great, opening is excellent) doesn't feel like contributing much to the discussion of how it relates to the previous games, nor does it meaningfully engage with what others have said, criticized and suggested in this thread.

I feel you just counter what you might interpret as excessive negativity with what you probably think is a nuanced and positive constructive attitude, while - in my eyes - your post has a very annoying and condescending undertone of which you might not be aware but which does not benefit the tone of the discussion, nor any potential replies. So please stop taking criticism on a video-game in development personal and let us grumpy old BG veterans have our critical reflection, this is a hill no one wants to or needs to die on... We're all here to offer our own perspective, it's up to Larian what to do or not with it, I don't see the point of bitter discussions as to who is right or who isn't as it really doesn't matter, we can only hope and try keeping these forums a nice civilized place to share our thoughts and (differing) opinions...

Special shout-out to the composer, btw, I seriously think Larian should just give you a salary and put you in charge of community engagement ! Give that person a job Swen !

So why fight on a hill at risk of dying, over someone else offering their perspective? Rest assured it doesn't overshadow criticism and discussions, I've had a gold-mine of notes to lurk and snag from the thread already


Thanks! I'm flattered. I'm not sure if Larian would actually like my ideas and approach to it, I'm a gamer first and foremost and would approach it as a gamer but with energic spirit of Swen, rather than a PR guy. Thought about it quite a bit, on how I'd approach it actually, but that's neither here nor there.

It is great, I agree. Just like the original BG story was great. Because it focused on conflict, goals, and getting to the bottom of a mystery that specifically impacted the main character. See how similar the two stories feel when you take a step back and actually look at them?


And I believe I touched on several of those reasons.



Thank you.


"It's great that you share your opinion, but stop sharing your opinion."

Hmm.


No. I legitimately don't think some of what I'm hearing makes sense. I think, as I've mentioned, that a lot of the suggestions amount to really bad advice, and I think it needs to be challenged because I'm worried that Larian might actually go that direction if no one makes any counterpoints, and in my opinion, that would ruin the game.


I disagree with you about storytelling and about the direction a game should take. Other than that, I have no idea who you are, and I'm not making any personal judgments.

I do happen to believe I'm right in what I'm saying. I do happen to be confident. But I'm also open to ideas that challenge my own.

For what it's worth, I'm not sure that others here have been so open. To me, it appears a handful of regulars have settled into a collectively shared opinion, and oddly act transgressed against if someone disagrees with that opinion. Sincerely, the environment here feels uncomfortable for a newcomer like myself, almost bully'ish I dare say.


I do not take it personally. Again, I'm countering the points only after they're mentioned, and only in an effort to show Larian that other opinions exist.


I would never stop someone from sharing their opinion on a forum designed for that purpose. In return, I would ask you to refrain from trying to quiet me, politely.

In my small opinion, people have been quite a bit more rude to me than I've been in return. At least from my viewpoint.

I'm also an "old BG veteran," by the way.


Yes, which is why I'm offering my perspective.


That's certainly the goal to my understanding, and that's what I'm going for.

I see the opposite probably occurring, at least considering it from the perspective of the OP, who signed up for the boards what, like not even 2 week ago? First did a bit of dabbling by responding to some existing threads, created a couple new threads offering what I read as largely positive feedback suggestions without much recourse to charged language or a sardonic tone. But then came back a few days later and just brought the crashing hammer this time! With a hilarious and lighthearted take down of BG3 from the vantage of BG1. The kind of post that calls for a nod and a first bump, like someone delivering a clutch eulogy at a wake, with some good jokes sprinkled in there to really capture the spirit of the dearly departed. You know, the kind of thing that gets a hand on the shoulder and some drinks on the house for +650 xp. To see it pulled apart on the point by point as if it were offered as some kind of philosophical tractatus or something seems somehow more bully-ish. I agree though, the boards are often a bit hostile, like a wolf pack devouring itself or internecine video game warfare lol. It's what happens when forums are left sort of anarchic like this, they tend to devolve into the personal agon pretty quickly. I thought for sure that Larian would migrate their forums or use this EA as a pretext to provide some better boards, with better structure and functionality, more Mods, more stickies, and a more guided discourse in general. Baldur's Gate III deserves its own set of boards I think, with some nice gilded framing, a warm hearth and inviting light, perhaps even a section specifically for comparisons with the previous BG games. Instead it's still hella desperado here, even after a year lol

All this thread is about subjective opinions of players. The discussion is also about good writing or rather to what extend the players subjectively think it is good.

I think JandK has made a number of valid arguments why the flow of logic in BG3 is there and that it is good enough (with some room of improvement, of course).

In addition, there has been all kind of nods towards the original games: special powers and the githiyankis, mindflayers and drows had quite the presence in BG2. Plot wise there is enough ground to call this game Baldur's Gate 3. If you take into account how gaming has changed the last decades, I think this game justifies the title. Personal opinion, of course.

I wouldn't say that "special powers and the githyanki, mindflayers, and drow" are nods to the original games. Having special powers is the generic premise of ~all chosen one stories, and all those species exist in the D&D world. The presence of these certain races & creatures in both games doesn't necessarily connect the games - that's just a result of both games being based on an edition of D&D.

If there's a quest about investigating a mine that's producing sub-standard quality ore, that'd be a nod to BG1&2. Or if named characters from BG1&2 show up (e.g., Minsc), that'd be a nod.

This does come across as rather arrogant you know? There is no right or wrong here…just opinions. I think the game is flawed, you think it’s wonderful. Neither of us is ‘right’. I totally respect your stance on it but I don’t agree with some of your points. Again, that doesn’t mean I am correct, we merely have opposing opinions.

Horses for courses, as we say in England.

I think i agree. Especially when it comes to conversations where i constantly ask myself why certain questions are not asked or this or that solution not tried etc. Ofc multiple choice answers are there to lead us in a certain direction but after seeing so many different dialogue choices ending the same way makes me cringe at times.
Also background knowledge of the chars is somewhat strange, especially the gith knowledge about the mindflayers. Things the PCs know and don't know is inconsistent at times. Especially if you do not follow a certain path.

Knowledge and die rolls were always an issue for me. either you know something or you don't. Skill checks on history etc. feels more like remembering. So my char knows everything but remembers only somethings if the dice are nice. But i guess thats a game mechanic issue.

I agree dice rolling knowledge checks etc. translate quite odd in a game. What would make more sense would be meeting a minimum of say +2-3-4 in the chosen field or you simply fail the knowledge check, don't even roll. If you meet the minimum in the check say it is +2 you need to roll a dice to see if you remember but if you have +4 you automatically succeed. A bit like knowledge based on race of class should automatically succeed imo.

A wood elf druid isn't going to fail a nature check where a city rouge passes because of a lucky 20. It would also make it advantagous to have a group with varied knowledge bases.

Normally I'd be in agreement. Except we're at a point where the standard EA playthrough is approaching ~30 hours or so. Taking in the perspective of a new player who will be taking it much slower (as much of the people in EA right now have already done their first playthrough long ago), probably closer to 40-50 hours. I've played and seen enough games that I don't think Larian should make it a goal for the typical 'this game gets interesting after X hours' criticism to approach the higher end of the spectrum.

Of course, there's probably a way to actually rush a solution to the tadpole problem in the full game. But then you run into other potential issues - possibly being extremely underleveled because you didn't put things on hold to explore instead, along with the implication that you're not returning to the area + possibly losing half your party afterwards. Again, not a problem with the foresight us EA players have. But with the floodgates opening to new players once the full game launches that come into the game believing what we all did on our own first playthroughs in an environment where we can actually act on it now? Oh boy.

Always gotta look at the big picture.

---

My argument though is less 'the tadpole plot device is bad and should be scrapped', it's just I don't think it should have been the central focus of the game because of how much it can hamstring the potential narrative in the long term. The amount of handwaving the overall presentation already does over it is outright concerning.

Maybe it's a red herring and the tadpoles aren't actually that important, they're probably just the vehicle for us to gain access to crazy magical abilities. Perhaps we actually do get the option to have a permanent solution to the tadpole problem at the end of act 1 but still keep some of the abilities granted by them/still at risk of being brought under the influence of the Absolute. It's what I'm hoping for, because I'm not wholly interested in a plot that's controlled by a singular mcguffin plot device, where all of the other more compelling plot threads throughout the entire game end up being interrupted by constant queries of 'oh by the way we have a tadpole in our heads, what do you think about it/what can you do about it?' while knowing in the back of our heads that everyone's just going to string us along until towards the end.

Earlier today, someone went and posted a thread on Reddit about recent datamining discoveries. The tadpole stuff is only mentioned once, and... It's a bit much.

https://old.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/qxfczx/minor_and_major_act1_datamining_spoilers/


That said, I am intrigued as to what the game may do with that plot development. But I expect half this thread to react purely negatively to it too since it'd be way high up on the epic scale, ha.

Meanwhile the Last Light Inn subplot seems to make no references to it, and I imagine it'll be a lot better off for it.

something along those lines would be good. Best would be to have different systems for active/passive skills. so lets go for your nature example: Knowledge of nature beeing a passive and passed/failed automatically based on skill level. active beeing to pluck some difficult berries (while that could go under survival).

Easy to implement ways should be available. That beeing a change to the rules i would applaud. (not like shoving people 50 m over a 2m high wall, gods how i fking hate that mechanic)

The opening/religious setting is basically 1:1 DOS2 - your ship is attacked, you drown/fall to death and some god seems to intervene and save you. Then you have a religious cult that is trying to take over/save the world.

Reusing that opening and setting is not necessarily bad, but a little bit lazy.

Agree, also if you go one step further back you start out on imprisoned on the ship with an attached/inserted foreign object/lifeform that you need to get rid of. I was a little taken aback on my first playthrough and unfortunately I wonder if it was more a case of it being a deliberate choice to be cute rather than unintentional laziness.

It would be so much better if there was no Absolute and we had just regular tadpoles with Mind Flayers being the primary antagonists.

The scene of being saved from the Nautiloid crash is just a downright cheap plot device.