Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Game is still too goofy.

The animations are still out of place. The movement animation looks like carefree, casual jogging. Jumping looks like out of a cartoon for children. Shooting arrows with a bow looks like a toy. The interface looks like WOW. The "outline everything" is unimmersive. The content, story and gameplay may be good, but the packaging is off-putting.

Ok

Huh. I feel almost the opposite. I think the game looks incredible. I think the gameplay is pretty darn good too. I think the story is good and the content is good. There are only just a few things that I am hoping that they will add to really make it super awesome and maybe tweak a few things that don't make sense.

I guess I will admit that some of the running needs to be tweaked. Sometimes my characters look like they're kind of running funny. But I would say most of the time it looks good. It is still EA don't forget.

The interface needs a re-work and the camera needs a "look-up" ability, but the game looks good to me otherwise. Sometimes characters run with their arms down by their side which looks really odd, but I should think that'll get fixed.

One thing that amused me the first time I played a halfing, was that she sat down and bum-shuffled off a ledge, instead of the crouch-and-hop animation of the medium sized characters. I loved the attention to detail (plus we've all done it!).

The only goofy I find off-putting are the exaggerated shoves and jumps. Visually, and especially mechanically. I wish Larian would just get the ridiculous shoving out of their systems already and turn it into serious tactical gameplay instead of comedy fights. High strength characters shouldn't jump like Marvel superheroes either. Magic exists for that in D&D.

And the silly flight arc of bows and other ranged weapons. It looks like you're shooting a sucker cup instead of an arrow. And mechanically, you can hit targets you don't even have a line of sight to, because of the ridiculous arc.

The UI looks decent but the functionality is an awful frustrating mess.

Nyeeh.... Sneaky hobbitses, Nyeh-heh-heh-heh....


There's still a lot of goofiness out there that should probably be addressed ^.^

The original games weren't exactly a pinnacle of seriousness. In fact, apart from the main story of 1, most of the stuff there is random silliness.

Mixed feelings, for the most part.

The game is, generally speaking, a weird mixture of "visually stunning" and "bizarrely inadequate" from moment to moment.

There are moments where I can't help but feel this must be the best looking CRPG I've seen so far, where character models and animations are absolutely top of the line for the genre (especially for some monsters).

Then other where I find myself wondering why they are harming their own visual appeal with some fairly questionable choices that mix with the rest like oil with water.
Typical examples would be arrows/projectiles that can't do 5 meters in a straight line, your main character overacting like a street mime (in a way that is not just awkward in itself -and it is- but also a poor match with what other NPCs do while talking), the "fall from height" animation/trajectory looking like it was borrowed from a Wil E. Coyote sketch with questionable cartoon gravity, etc.

"Moe, Larry! The Cheese!"

Yeah, huge problem with goofiness from excessive animation mannerisms, jump/shove animations, lack to cinematic direction/cinematography of cutscenes to the UI, bad dialogues and poor overarching writing.

Essentially the Matrix Resurrections of the series.

Like I've said before, the problem with BG3 is that the identity of the game isn't clear, or isn't well directed.

Art, writing and cinematic teams are creating a serious photorealistic cinematic experience and a story for adults.

Gameplay team are making a fun cartoon game for children where undying characters get constantly shoved into pits or lava for the giggles, and arrows fly in funny arcs. And they are changing the ruleset to accommodate that as 5e is pretty grounded in reality with things like shoving and jumping distances. And the videogamey boss fights that basically ignore the entire ruleset and play like a puzzle instead.

They are making two different games.

Yeah, it's like there are two games there, and at times, a different game kind of pops out. And the one that pops out doesn't quite fit the other. It's kind of odd, really. I don't know any other way to explain it.

Despite the fact that the game really has a lot of potential, thank you for putting into words a feeling I had throughout Early Access without knowing exactly what. I totally agree with these feedbacks.

It's kind of weird. I do agree with many of the actual points people are making. I don't find it quite that "goofy". But it definitely has more of a D:OS feel than a BG feel to it. And this may be the thing I haven't been able to quantify about why it doesn't feel like a BG game—the visual aesthetics of the game.

Ultimately, it is Larian's game to do with as he feels and put his own mark on it. Nothing is a deal breaker (Yet). While I did enjoy the Divinity games I do wish this wasn't so D:OS-ified. PoE felt more BG than this.

Joe

It has modern 2022 gamers aesthetics. Larian did their research and know their audience.
Goofy movement, colorful, silly this and that humor. Blood/gore is goofy looking. Sex is cringy...characters behave like what adults think kids imagine adults behave like. This is a PG13 game at heart trying to show gamers its really like a rated R flick.

For me it so hard to take seriously. I like dark fantasy, realistic colors touching a bit on horror. Tons of atmosphere. BG2 kind of felt like that. Notice also the game world...in BG2 there is NOTHING no UI elements that disturbs the world, the UI is AROUND the play area, not in your face. Its incredibly immersive.
The perfect analogy would be the 90s first Matrix movie versus that wanabe <<Matrix??>> movie that just got released. Or the 1997 Ghost in a Shell movie versus Arcane <league of legends> for style.

I am starting to dig the dead bodies floating in mid-air.

Joe

Except Arcane has much better style, it's creative and innovative, while GiS is one of the many overrated weeabo cartoons with edgy plot. Also it was released in 1995, not in 1997.

If I had to put it down to one thing - it's probably the inclusion of a physics engine. While I love that the in physics adds quite a bit of depth to gameplay, physics in most games always feels a bit off and cartoony - big bounces, weird launch trajectories, rag doll physics, etc. This, when combined with the slightly larger than life animation, is what gives the game it's balloon-y feel IMO.

However, I don't think the actual visuals play a huge part in making them feel different. Outside of unchangeable factors - engine feel, 2d vs 3d, super modern-day sharp graphics vs. pixelated visuals, and actual light sources, I think Larian's done a decent job of matching up the visuals. Both games can have earthy, gloomy, monochromatic in some locations, and others that are more bright and colorful.

In terms of cartoony blood and gore, I think both games are cartoony in their own ways. BG3 with their pools of blood. BG2 with their anime-esque critical-it gibs - people literally exploding into meat chunks when hit by a weapon. I suspect in both cases, it's deliberately cartoonish to avoid anything too gruesome. As BG2 did get an ESRB rating of T despite the chunking.

Lastly, BG2's UI Design (sectioning the playable world into its own little area) is basically no longer used. This is both due to updated design best practices, but the requirement to keep UIs "responsive" for various wide-screens ratios. Even the BG2 EE version has a similar updated UI to accommodate wide screens.

Haven't seen Arcane so I have no opinion on that one. Let's just hope it is just as original and influencial as GiS was.

I have watched Arcane, and while the animation is really exceptional, the plot and characters are less impressive (it's a prequel, so it suffers from a certain level of prewriting). Also, I don't think you can really compare the two, one is a series of late cyberpunk think-pieces wrapped up in a cop-drama format that were in fact made to be relevant to the modern world they were released in; the other is an artistic passion project of a steampunk high-fantasy origin story to a mediocre MOBA game made by a shitty company. But also purely in terms of animation style they are vastly different beasts, made with different tools, and made nearly 30 years apart.