Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Baldur's Gate 4

I enjoyed NWN 2 up until the castle. After that, things fell apart in my opinion.

I blame it mostly on what they did with Black Garius. Instead of getting the fulfillment of facing him in combat, the weird ritual changed him into something else. I felt like that was a huge mistake, denying the player closure with that villain.

Same with the ambassador Torio. Having her executed or taking her on as an advisor just wasn't as fulfilling as wanting to face her in combat at some point.

I love how Mass Effect had the same pc for 3 games with a save import feature. If they did something like that for BG4, it would be great! Otherwise, if BG4 would have a new pc, then a save import feature doesn’t seem needed to me. Just have the game take place in a different region and/or time so the events and characters of BG3 aren’t referenced.

If it doesn’t make it into BG3, I would like to see an upgraded dialogue system for BG4, especially for multiplayer, so that everyone can contribute to conversations (like in SWTOR).

I would love to see cinematic dialogue in BG4 as they have done in BG3!

I would love to get a BG4! Larian might get a better reception with a new DOS game, though, and they wouldn’t be tied to a tabletop game.

This is certainly true of the default art. I barely remember their default art though (aside from not liking it either), since I've been using haks with custom content since basically forever
The "Single character plus mercenary" thing fortunately never irked me, as I play(ed) on persistent worlds in multiplayer. The controls were... admittedly somewhat bad, with NWN2 having the worse control scheme of the two.

Then again... I wouldn't consider the controls in BG3 to be much better...

It really depends on what you want(ed) from NWN... if you were looking for a toolset and a multiplayer mode with DM, it was/is still a good game. If you want a good single player game, then yes, you'll end up disappointed.

Yeah... No, I definitely wasn't.

-Would you want BG4 to have a save import feature from BG3, like the original Baldur's Gate games? How much of BG4 would you want to be dependent on your decisions in BG3?
I would prefer something like the external site for Dragon Age where you can do the previous world building that gets imported into the game. Save imports don't help players new to the series but they still might want to do a bit of world building. Only key parts should be affected by prior events.

-What features that didn't make it into BG3 would you MOST want in BG4 that Larian could FEASIBLY implement?
Day/night cycle, Z axis, a better movement system, optional RTwP mode, more companions, ideally 3 of each class, one of each base alignment (G,N,E). Separate volume control for more things as well. There are other things that I still hope will be fixed/changed before release.

-What features in BG3 that are necessary for that particular game would you want removed for BG4?
All the ridiculous cinematics for every npc. Keep it for only the important stuff. Also no face closeups showing our characters looking like idiots. Let our characters be completely silent, no random lines in voices that do not fit.

-What is your dream feature or addition to BG4 that didn't make it in BG3?
Same as above: Day/night cycle, Z axis, optional RTwP mode, more companions

-What parts of BG3 are so good that they MUST be included in a potential BG4?
I like the environment a lot, otherwise it is hard to say from playing just what we have.

-Any other thoughts on BG4, especially as we get closer to BG3's release?
I hope they give us enough menu options to resolve most of the wishes/complaints/debates and fix the things that need fixing. Hard to say if they are even paying attention to anything.

Yeah I agree with all that, essentially. I would also add that I would love to see them implement a system where character story progression is not bound to long rests, but rather that it can happen along the journey. Maybe characters reacting to something in the environment sparks a scene or something.

Hear, hear.

The dream scenario is IP/license transfering to a good developer who'd make something like Baldur's Gate III: Cults of Faerun so I can pretend BG3 never happend.

Right after someone makes Thief4: For real this time

My ideal would be that we don't ever get a "BG4," by which I mean a game with "Baldur's Gate" in the title. I'd want a completely new series and franchise, and if using the FR then in a part of FR we have NEVER seen in another game.

Has any game ever gone to Waterdeep? I constatly hear Waterdeep this and Waterdeep that, but never seen the place.

My vote is they move away from the Sword Coast entirely. The continent of Faerun is huge. The world of Toril is even larger. And the freakin D&D universe with it's multiple planes is incomprehensible vast. Oh, and D&D 5e also includes a multiverse that includes all possible settings!!

The Sword Coast is good enough, sure, but I've traveled up and down it so many times over different modules and video games. Let's get something new.

-Would you want BG4 to have a save import feature from BG3, like the original Baldur's Gate games? How much of BG4 would you want to be dependent on your decisions in BG3?

This function will probably not work due to missing (sub)classes etc. in BG 3, which are implemented in BG 4. There would be problems "inevitable".


-What features that didn't make it into BG3 would you MOST want in BG4 that Larian could FEASIBLY implement?

A proper reaction system? A custom party of 6 from the very beginning! Multilingual voice overs (German, French etc. pp.)


-What features in BG3 that are necessary for that particular game would you want removed for BG4?

Lae’zel: „Enough talk!“ Less companion dialogues and more focus for the main character by main story, by background, by factions like Zhentarim etc. pp. I loved IWD for fewer, frankly zero, companions, hence less complex and time-consuming dialogues in favor of more battles and narrative in a "tome & candlelight" atmosphere. --> Moreover it is easier for implementing multilingual voice overs, besides English only…


-What is your dream feature or addition to BG4 that didn't make it in BG3?

All additional subclasses and subraces? Multilingual voice overs (German, French etc. pp.)


-What parts of BG3 are so good that they MUST be included in a potential BG4?

Surface combos, throwing and pushing enemies (as action), hand crossbows, sickles, scythes?


-Any other thoughts on BG4, especially as we get closer to BG3's release?

Baldur's Gate 4 - replaced with a new storyline and location like Luskan, Silverymoon, Daggerford or any dwarven town or Maztica or Kara-Tur. Or something completely different like MtGs Ravnica, City of Guilds. Dimir ftw!

My stance on this is that I sincerely hope Larian didn't start development fully assuming that they'll be making BG4 after this. We all know how well that worked out for the Pillars of Eternity series. I imagine a subset of the Larian fanbase wants them to go back to making DOS3 afterwards, or they might want to do something entirely different like going back to their action RPG games or making a game with a different IP. Owlcat did just take a detour from Pathfinder into Warhammer 40k, after all.

Not to mention that trying to design too many choices for the sole purpose of sequel bait would be an ambitious headache too. The Dragon Age series is already the poster child for this, and that series has to deal with the fanbase being eternally disappointed about surviving protagonists of the first game being forever in the background just because it's possible for them to die at the first game's conclusion instead.

Larian already talked about how the possibilities revolving around Shadowheart's artifact already caused issues with how they were designing the plot in this game too, I don't think they want to extend something like that to direct sequels, if they even want to make one to begin with. All of their most recent Divinity games either took place hundreds of years apart or are heavily implied to be in different timelines with how many retcons there are.

If a BG4 exists, the most I'd expect to carry over are maybe bonus items and certain characters from BG3 showing up that can't be killed off here at all.


Strangely enough, there aren't very many games taking place in Waterdeep, but there's a lot of literature and tabletop modules revolving around that city and the Undermountain beneath it. The only games I'm aware of are two dungeon crawlers in the 90s, and some mobile gacha within the past 5 years, and both revolved around the Yawning Portal and the Undermountain rather than the actual city.

(EDIT: Actually some Neverwinter Nights modules took place in the Undermountain too, and there was apparently a little known action RPG made for the Atari in 2004 that very briefly took the main cast to the city.)

Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone

Anyway, the distinction between the proper city itself and the Undermountain is fairly important. Waterdeep is said to be one of the largest cities in the entire setting (if not THE largest) and considered one of the best places to study magic, and the Undermountain is a strange dungeon underneath the city managed by some crazy ass reclusive mage living down there, and the city just kinda has to deal with it being there because it seems every time anyone besides the reclusive mage tries to do anything in there beyond trying to claim a piece of the dungeon for themselves and adventuring for treasure, bad shit happens. There's also a lesser known city of Skullport that can be reached from the Undermountain, an ancient Netherese city that is, in the present day, a den of crime and slavers that also happens to be managed by a beholder that took on the title of Xanathar (a name most of you have probably heard in passing).

The scale of the entire region can be assumed to be far beyond that of Baldur's Gate, which is probably why there aren't very many games taking place in the area, and none in the city itself. The place seemingly has the attention of every god in the setting (and IIRC it's guarded by some dragons too). I remember reading at some point that, according to one of the latest modules, one of the possible major explanations for all of the weird shit surrounding that city is due to how...


My hope is that the Solasta devs get contracted to work on a Waterdeep-centric game. But as to what it would even look like, there's so many directions it could go in, as the place basically has decades of lore at this point.

For all we know, BG3 might actually briefly take us to Waterdeep. There's a few plot threads that might take us towards the city, mostly revolving around Gale. Mindflayers are known to be operating in the Undermountain too.

We should have received a third Baldur's Gate title built on an updated Infinity Engine and utilizing AD&D 2e (there was still so much more of that system to explore).

*sigh*

I just realized there is one feature BG-3 dont have and i would really love to see it there ... or at least in next game:
Adjustable size of hotbar!
I desperately need to make that thing biger!

I've been thinking about this for a while and I concluded that I wouldn't probably be able to go back to play another "DOS" unless Larian starts taking cues from what they are learning while doing BG3, from D&D or from other relatively similar pen & paper systems.

While all things considered my opinion of DOS 2 remained fairly high overall, after being done with it I don't think I could stand another game with the same "pits" in its core design.
The itemization, the progression curve and stat bloat, the armor system, the overuse of surfaces and explosives at every corner, the excessive hyper-mobility of everyone making basically the layout of the battle arena irrelevant... These are all elements I would dread to have to face again in their next product.

For all my minor gripes about the current state of BG3, I still find it a massive improvement over what they did with DOS 2 in most areas. And there's room to make it even better.

Full agreement with Tuco.

I never finished DOS2 because stat inflation, excessive surface effects and hyper mobility.
And I am a backer of DOS2.
BG3 is not perfect but a huge step forward.

My opinion:
For both games the quadruple alpha strike makes least sense.
For one char and all enemies time stands still in combat. The other chars have all the time in the world to sneak past vision cones and do another alpha strike.

I think this could be avoided if they had made pause work on the entire world. You can move everyone into position for the ambush attack then initiative should immediately start for everyone. Even if you leave party members back until later in the combat then they should still get only one attack before being added to initiative.

Well, this could have worked, of course, but the thing is that they don't want to do it because the mutliplayer-focused design demands that the other player away from the fight may be able to keep moving in real time...

Which is relatively fine on its own (not a fan, but I understand the design decision, at least). The real issue is that at very least in the immediate surroundings of the fight even characters in stealth should be mandatorily pushed into the turn-based initiative queue.
The fact that you can keep chaining alpha strikes at will is abysmal.

But the worst thing is that if you tell that to the Larian leadership their answer will be that "they know and they aren't changing how it works on purpose, because the player feels clever doing these tricks and they want you to feel rewarded".

Forgot about the multiplayer part. I suppose what we have is better than some stupid system that wouldn't allow us to make surprise attacks at all.