Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Latest News Dev Blog: Patch 9 is Coming

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Hello everyone,

Like a team of infernal reindeer, the next major update for Baldur’s Gate 3 is coming in for a smooth yuletide landing — yes, new features will be live before the year is out, accompanied by a festive Panel From Hell that will give you a peek at what’s to come in 2023!

In the Community Update accompanying that Panel From Hell, we’ll go into detail about some of the most discussed topics in the community. The good news is that we’re on track for release in 2023 – and we’ll have more on that in December. Acts 2 and 3 of the story are being actively playtested to ensure they’re up to the same level of polish and you’ll soon discover that there’s much more in the works (or already complete) than what you’ll encounter in an Early Access playthrough. Our goal is for even the players who have repeated Act 1 over and over again for hundreds of hours to feel like there’s a whole new experience in store for them at launch.

We're still paying close attention to all your feedback, bug reports, comments, your fan art and jokes – they sustain us, so please keep them coming or we will grow desperate and you’ll discover us consuming pigs’ blood in the middle of a Belgian motorway like a certain vampire spawn. Whatever it takes to get the game out, you know?

In all seriousness though, it takes time to tell a great story, implement feedback, and iterate on such a large game, so we want to thank you for your patience as we get closer to Patch 9.

We’ll see you in December – the dress code is “Christmas from Hell”. 🎄😈

Behind the Scenes: Motion Capture

We’ve just opened up a new, dedicated motion capture space in Guildford, so while we have you here and we’re telling you things, we thought we’d give you a little peek behind the betentacled curtain into one of the most important tools in our storytelling arsenal: our motion capture tech.


A typical day at work at Larian Quebec

We have been working with motion capture for years, with mocap-ready studio spaces constructed at our offices in Ghent, Kuala Lumpur, Quebec and Dublin.

Having multiple locations has meant that each team could be empowered to try out new ideas, experimenting upon and refining animations without having to wait for another studio to come online. Having spaces across the globe also meant we could capture data anytime over the 24 hour period, allowing for continuous development.


Our team in Kuala Lumpur passionately discuss whether Gith are in fact more similar to platypus than humans. “They’re both egg-laying mammals.”

Early on, we began using XSens’ full-body motion capture which allowed animators and designers to quickly monitor and review data even when working from home — something that proved pretty helpful during lockdown. We integrated StretchSense gloves to improve the speed we can get finger data into the engine and completed major overhauls to our pipelines to allow the Optical Performance Capture data to be quickly imported into our build.
But as we first began development on Baldur’s Gate 3, we knew in order to achieve a truly cinematic feel we’d need to improve the quality of our technology and the speed of our mocap pipeline.

So we decided to expand on this idea last year with the launch of Larian Guildford; our first studio in the UK.


The actors when lunch arrives.

England has a wealth of talented performance capture artists and we knew we wanted to start working with them, but the biggest challenge would be to find a space large enough for the kind of choreography we require. Many locations were visited, measured, and considered before we finally settled on our current office* — an ideal location nestled in between a bustling high street and a place that sells 12 different kinds of sausage rolls.


Our Guildford mocap team tries to comprehend the physical feasibility of the Buthir/Grukkoh love scene.

The Larian Guildford Mocap Facility is big. This is the largest mocap space we have at Larian, measuring 14m x 12m, and currently features 40 Vantage V16 Cameras and 3 additional reference cameras, all running through our VFX motion capture software.
With a studio of this size we can easily record a dozen mocap actors at once — capturing everything from complex movements and gestures to stunt work with props.


A man in full mocap regalia thinks back to the time someone insulted his character build.

Bringing Baldur’s Gate 3 to life has been an incredible experience and we can’t wait for you to see the results come launch.

If you want to be part of this story, we are looking for new blood to help run the studio, producers and tech. Keep an eye out for listings.

And until then, we’ll just say see ya soon — there’s more information about the next patch still to come. Watch this space!


The illustrious Neil Newbon (voice of Astarion) directing a team of 12 in our Guildford studio, while wearing a beautiful kimono.

*Of course, no Larian studio could be complete without an induction into our grandest tradition of all: soggy carpets. Yes, like our Belgian studio in 2020, our new Guildford office got a light baptism of its own this year in the form of some pretty insistent British weather. Luckily it was only a very minor hiccup and we were able to seal the leak using a pie barm.


A moving interpretive dance performance representing Larian’s feelings on pipe leaks.

OK OK here's a bonus video -- please name this dance move:

I can finally stop checking SteamDB like a maniac, very happy for this news!

Awesome news.

Yay for patch 9 in December!🎄🎄🎄Love the motion capture behind the scenes as well!

Yay! And good to know that things are on track for a release in 2023!

Gooood news!

My first thought was, 'that guy looks like Kylo Ren'. My second thought was, 'HARDCORE!"

to the max.

Looking forward to the yule tidings.

I too am looking forward to the next patch. Hopefully the patch A) comes after i've finished my current run through and B) introduces the monk class because Iove monks and think that they're cool, so that'd be a great way to convince me to go right into another playthrough.

Woohoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seeing their MoCap team consisting of eleven men and one woman just gives me so much confidence in their fidelity, quality and breadth of variability for their animations of female characters.

Actually looks like there's 2: Kayleigh and Gerry, but your point is nonetheless well taken.

Fair - I couldn't see the person in the real-world lineup, since they were obscured, but the steam photos give a slightly better angle.

more than a few in picture two as well.

Great news sounds like some decent news coming this patch - well that’s shelved my brief idea to play some DDO while waiting ….

I wonder if their mo-cap recording is the reason why quarterstaff is two-hand only. O_o

Thanks Larian. That's about what one would normally expect from a Dev blog.

It's pretty hard to use a quarterstaff one handed... I mean a shortstaff I can see but then it's really just a mace or club

Concidering ingame models tho ...
It would be just as hard as Longsword.

Iirc one handed spear will be in game (could be very wrong here)… so… just take the pointy part off and bingo!

This was the most encouraging thing to me. I hope this is true.

Our goal is for even the players who have repeated Act 1 over and over again for hundreds of hours to feel like there’s a whole new experience in store for them at launch.

And

we’ll go into detail about some of the most discussed topics in the community.

And

The good news is that we’re on track for release in 2023.

I AM still holding out hope that the end product is going to utterly blow all competition out of the water.

If there aren't infernal reindeer, I'm asking for a refund. ;-)
But seriously, can't wait for the awesome Christmas present.

So ...
We would poke with our quarterstaff rather than smash?

Now that you mention it, I require a reindeer form for the druid 🦌

You are incredible!
Thank you for sticking with us and supporting us with good news.

I wonder whether motion capture is a hidden hint to a new class release in patch 9...
Since, you know, enchanted knights do not have that many motions to capture and reproduce, while the other class definitely has...

The mo cap chat was interesting to read, but... To the folks who are talking about the 'good news' here, help me out... what good news have we been given?

- Patch 9 is going to be a thing that happens: We knew this already.
- Patch 9 will have stuff in it: We knew this already, and it's a non-statement besides.
- There will be another PFH when it releases: Of course there is going to be.
- They're planning to release in 2023: We knew this already.
- They're testing the other unreleased Acts: You'd bloody well want to hope so by this stage, but we also knew this too, since they've had applications up for advanced testing of those acts for ages.
- Act 1 will have unreleased content, in an effort to feel new for EA testers on launch: We knew this already, it was spoken about very early on the in EA.

- They plan on doing a Community Update alongside the PHF to discuss some of the biggest community issues: This Would be excellent and promising news... if not for the fact that they've promised this same thing, or variants of it, multiple times now, in the lead up to multiple different patches, and they have not once, Ever actually delivered on doing so - we're still waiting for those from previous panels, with nothing to show for it. So what reason have we got to suppose that This time it will be different, and that This time they'll do as they promise? Evidence points to the contrary so far... I'd love to be wrong, and I hope that I am... but I'm not going to get excited over the promise of news... which is a promise that Larian have not shown themselves to be good at keeping, over the course of this EA.

I see this announcement as a Rorschach test. It is vague enough for people to draw their own conclusion. People who are confident in the project are happy to know everything is going according to plan and people who have trust issues are projecting on it their worriness of the state of BG3 and Larian.

I see it as "I reserve judgement until I see what they actually say and do. I am still hopeful that they'll give us maybe a few more things we've discussed out here, but I'm not holding my breath. Regardless, the game is great. I love it still and can't wait until the full release."

@Niara you're missing the 2nd biggest piece of news from this dev blog: a rough date! Patch 9 will be in December.

And I'll just put this here
(We never got this update)

Ideally this Patch 9 PfH+Community Update will not only "go into detail about some of the most discussed topics in the community," but will also discuss a bit about *how* Larian turns such feedback into tested/implemented mechanics. Why they decided to go with X, or why not, providing info on how they made a good faith effort to accommodate various feedback requests and reasonable explanations for their final decision. I'll keep my hopes low, though.

FIX THE GOD DAMN HOTKEYS AND DUAL-WIELDING.....

That's fair - they do update on a vague timeline for the patch we know is coming, which we didn't have before, other than general moderately-sure speculation that it would be out before the end of the year.

i think this post means that patch 9 is a major revision with new features(even content robust), after all patch 7 and 8 emphasize in improving animation and combat.
even there is a formal inform for patch 9, patch 9 can be seen the real update since patch 6, the duration is over one year. patch 7 and 8 are transition patches.
you can read someone explains the post : https://www.shacknews.com/article/133090/baldurs-gate-3-release-date-december-update

That may well be the case.

As part of team “trust issues”, I find it reassuring to see Larian’s mocap facilities. They’re saying: “Relax everyone. We know we’re trying to make a 100 hour animated movie in the time it takes to make a single pixar film, but we can actually pull it off and deliver on the rest of BG3.”

It’s either that or two bears wearing hats fighting in a meadow.

+1!

Basically. They've had so many chances to allay fears and concern about the future state of the game.

But we will see...SOON...

Looking forward to PFH and patch 9.
Larian - keep up the good work, cant wait for 2023 for full release!

That is one thing i always missed a little in D&D...weapon speed. A guy with a dagger should be able to attack way more often that someone swinging a Maul or Greatsword. D&D just compensates it with the additional dmg for Dex (since finess was implemented) but if weapons would be
differentiated by more than dmg dice, it could actually make a difference between weapons that use the same dice.

Interesting. Ever actually fight someone with nerf weapons or whatever? It doesn't usually matter what size weapon you have. You look for an opening and strike. Sure, a dagger is easier when attempting a quick jab, but it's not like you usually attack multiple times compared to the person with the bigger weapon.

This is wonderful news! And was very happy about the paragraph that those of us who have played hundreds (ahem...thousands...) of hours will get to feel like act 1 is new! Woot woot! Thank you!

AD&D had weapon speed, but it was removed in later D&D versions - too much for most people to think about I suspect (I barely remember it)..

The biggest disappointment for me so far is the railroading in terms of exploration. Hardly anything you can climb, and if so only very narrow spots, swimming, canoeing etc. is not available, no logging of trees getting you over a river etc. Whatever you can think of, you can do it was the advertisement. Well, my hopes are not very high any more...

Climbing would really have been a VERY good feature in the game especially with the verticality.
I still have nightmares of my characters falling in the spiders nest during the fight versus Dror Razglin and that are unable to re-join the battle. Spider climb / Fly / Ropes and climb would have been really good with such a verticality.

I personnaly don't mind at all about being able to swim and canoeing in a heavy armor... But more interractions with the environment would have been very cool (like as you said logging trees, cutting bushes to find new pathes,...).

Sorry GM4Him, but nerf weapon fighting is nothing like fighting with real weapons. Someone quick and nimble could jump inside your swing of a great axe or a long sword and stick their dagger in you 4 or 5 times before you could even begin to recover from your missed swing.
Check out your local Ren faire next time you get a chance and pick up some of those weapons they have for display / sale.

You're missing my point. It's not about whether you can get in multiple jabs compared to someone's greatsword. It's about whether you actually would. When facing off against someone, you don't just rush in and go all crazy jab fest. You look for a single opening and strike, dodge, block, dodge, strike. In real combat, you die if you just rush in and try stabbing 5 times with a dagger.

It's kind of funny that they used that tag line when describing their game system in the early days... and it's countered by something as non-problematic as "I'd like to cast fly, at third level, in this supposedly D&D video game, in order to float 20 feet up in the air and avoid the melee warriors". It's not even thinking of something weird or unusual, it's just a tactical choice of core mechanics... and the game engine literally cannot handle it.

I think, like hit points representing skill at higher levels as much as ability to take punishment and armor is a binary effect (Hit or not Hit) which is the opposite of combat where armor can slow you down but add the benefit of absorbing impact, weapon speed is just opens up a whole can of worms. Yes, a dagger can attack more quickly, but it's much less effective at blocking heavier weapons, and the act of trying to get inside the swing is basically risking an attack of opportunity. Rather than all this detail (which was sort of in the 2nd Edition Players Option rules), just get rid of weapon speed and imagine the combat how you want.

I'm sorry, but you're just wrong.
In real combat, not nerf or dnd combat, if you've got a giant weapon that you have to "wind up" to swing, you're dead if I can jump in and stick my dagger in your neck before you can hit me, period. That's just how it works.
I'm not arguing DND rules or nerf combat, I'm talking realism.
Have you ever, or even seen someone, swing a baseball bat at someone when they don't already have it cocked back? If the target isn't drunk or stupid, they're not getting hit.
A quick nimble guy with a pocket knife is going to kill a big slow guy with a baseball bat 99% of the time. That's just how real fighting works.

Lol. I love when people just flat out say you're wrong. There’s no doubt a dagger CAN make a much faster strike than a two handed sword at full swing. But most weapon attacks aren't full swings. They are also quick thrusts, jabs and slashes. Because the reach is greater on a sword or axe, a dagger is typically less effective in combat because the sword or axe bearer has a much greater area of attack. It's harder for the dagger wielder to even get close enough to strike.

I'm also not talking nerf or D&D here. I only brought up nerf because my point is when you are in even mock combat with someone else, you don't just rush in and strike a bunch of times simply because your weapon can make a faster strike. Timing is everything. You fake a jab, dodge, sidestep, dodge, wait for your opening and then go for it. You would ONLY ever go for the barrage of fast strikes with a dagger if your opponent was momentarily stunned or defenseless - aka a Sneak Attack or Coup de Grace.

D&D 5e combat simplifies all this. I hit with my greataxe and do 4 damage. That's like a swift jab of the weapon, maybe even with the butt end. I hit and do 16 damage. Ah, now that's a full swing timed just right. I jab with the dagger and do 2 damage. I cut a slice on my enemy's arm. I did Crit and dealt 12 damage with the dagger and sneak attack, simulating maybe a series of quick jabs to the back or side after my enemy swung and left himself exposed. It's however you want to interpret it. However, it's all still there.

Very rarely do I ever flat out say someone is wrong. Only when I'm really convinced that they are in fact, wrong.

Point being, IF the quick guy can get inside of the swing of the big guy, one jab of an ice pick in the ear is going to end the life of the guy that can cut you in half with a great sword, great axe, halberd or any other weapon that REQUIRES distance to be effective.

But I'll rephrase out of common courtesy.

I still THINK you're dead wrong.

Well, this is exactly what i meant. I said weapon speed. That is not exactly what i meant. Thing is, a 2-handed sword for example weighs about 7-10 pounds. May not sound much, but swinging that around is quite exhausting. Noone even a little trained in that just goes around and does big swings. Those things are pretty balanced though so they can be pretty versatile.
Taking a greataxe or maul, even if the weight is the same, is a lot harder to control. Most of the weight is in the head. Ever tried to do a full power swing with a sledgehammer and stop it? And those usually do have only like...4 pound heads.

in D&D a 2H does 2d6, GAxe 1d12 and the maul...also 2d6 i think? But a full swing with a 2H sword will not be as devastating as a full swing with a greataxe. So even the Dmg is not even realistic. Logically a 2h should do less dmg but have a better speed (or rather initiative) than a Greataxe.
To implement that in D&D you would have to change quite a bit though.

I just said i missed it exactly because of that. But i tried playing RoleMaster once and i prefer D&D. too much realism can ruin the fun^^

Hmmm. I'm not sure how we got on this topic with the Patch 9 thread, but whatever.

So, here's the part where we're missing each other, I think. "Point being, IF the quick guy can get inside of the swing of the big guy, one jab of an ice pick in the ear is going to end the life of the guy that can cut you in half with a great sword, great axe, halberd or any other weapon that REQUIRES distance to be effective."

So, "REQUIRES distance to be effective." That's the thing. You are focusing on what is REQUIRED for serious amounts of damage. However, in order to do SOME damage, you don't need to do a full swing with any weapon, big or small. And that's where the disconnect is.

A greataxe does 1d12 damage. Greatsword does 2d6. So, you can actually do a minimum of 1+Str Bonus damage. Not effective. OR you can do 12+Str Bonus damage with a full - effective - swing.

See. There are LOTS of ways you can use a sword or axe or staff or whatever while in combat that does damage but isn't necessarily effective. Those methods are quicker attacks with those weapons. They aren't necessarily effective, but they are faster than a full swing, making the weapon just as quick and effective as a dagger depending on what type of attack you are making.

Standardly, a person wielding a greatsword or greataxe won't get that many full swing attempts that do 12+ damage when facing any enemy, big or small. A person with a greataxe going up against a dagger wielder will likely do a jab with the head at the dagger person, smack them with the butt end, do a small swing/swipe, try to bash them with the staff part of the greataxe, etc. Then, when the timing is right, after throwing their opponent off balance, they take the full swing, dealing in D&D 5e terms, a full 12+ damage. MOST of the time, though, the greataxe won't be doing a full swing, so again, no slower than a dagger.

And notice, the dagger does a fairly consistent amount of damage each time. 1 or 4+ damage is very little difference. This is because with the dagger it doesn't matter whether you do a quick jab or a slash, it's going to do roughly the same damage.

My point is that the 5e system is pretty darn good if you truly understand why things are the way they are. A person with greater strength will have an easier time wielding a bigger weapon like a greataxe, so they have a faster strike and are more likely to hit than someone who has like 10 Strength. Meanwhile, a faster person will have a much better chance of hitting with a dagger against a slower person because they can get inside their attack zone and make that quick jab before the slower person can dodge out of the way or bat the attack to the side with their big weapon.

Nevertheless, as soon as you start adding weapon speeds into the mix, realism actually starts flying out the window. I've tried it when I was attempting to create my own RPG. What you get are these dagger wielders with like 3-5 strikes to every 1 strike from a two-handed person - no matter how strong they are or how capable they are at wielding the big weapon - and suddenly the fast dagger wielder is beating the living tar out of the big guy who has no chance at stopping him. When, in real life, the two handed big guy would likely wipe the floor with the dagger wielder because the dagger wielder has a puny six inch knife and the big guy has this seven foot long sword that can run the dagger wielder through before the dagger wielder even gets within 5 feet of him. Why? Because the two handed sword guy doesn't do a full wide swing with the sword. He makes a quick jab/thrust at the dagger person as the dagger person makes a measly attempt to try to get in close.

Well. Salo, and the rest of the team, even though I have recently been quite critical I have to say that I love this post. It's full of energy, informational and shows some good bits of "behind the camera"-work which is always fun and lovely to see. I really hope you'll be able to give us more like this as we creep closer to full release.

Neat Explanation, never looked at it that way. I like it

Sounds good GM4Him. I won't spoil this Patch 9 post any further with of topic chatter.

Looking forward very much!

https://twitter.com/larianstudios/status/1597651903114100736

Larian started teasing ...
They usualy do that 2 weeks in advance. :3

I go write my letter to Swenta. ^_^

My vacation starts at 12.12. it would be good timing.

I have an intuition that they would like to release the patch first week of December, but it could be the second.
That avoids most of the vacation time that is certainly to come in mid to late December...because I think it would be PR nightmare for the patch to really need hotfixes and no staff available to fix and stage.
That's my thought on timing...and of course, I prefer it sooner than later, but December *is* a good month to spend a lot of testing/playing.

Do you guys think we could get Karlach as a companion too, if she is indeed a Paladin?
Really looking forward to playing Paladin, certainly one of the coolest classes in 5e

Will Stadia receive the patch too or is that version finished?

Nope ... dont get me wrong, i would love have her with me ... but i dont think this is going to happen.
And Nope ... i dont really think she is a Paladin.

Here is the reason:

I'm honestly a bit disappointed Karlach isn't a paladin bcause that just would have been cool, but barbarian does fit her-she's got plenty to be angry about after all, and I'm just looking forward to her as a companion.

Chubblot breakdown of Karlachs class (contains datamined information! You have been warned!):


I think 70/30 she is Paladin, not Barbarian atm

Imo she is much more pally than berserker but it's easy to mod

Her character felt paladin to me but datamined as barbarian so...