Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General It's actually for everyone.

Disclaimer:
There was a post, and I felt the need to respond in a rather long fashion. Took me a bit, I went back to work and got back to type, only to find the thread locked when I hit 'post'. I was sad to find my effort wouldn't make it in. Due to the janky performance of the forum, though - I tend to CTRL-C before posting, and I figured I'd CTRL-V it here.

Now, The Red Queen stated that, paraphrased, the OP was allowed to pose his question / state his opinion without being offensive or dismissive. I am most certainly not the OP. What's below is in direct response to it, but I'll not quote the original text, here, either and try to rephrase it.

And, I'd like then, to rephrase this thread into; 'Hey, now that I think of it, it appears this game actually is for everyone!'

Yes it is.
I'm not one for bragging, but I started off the saga again two months ago. On SCS Hardcore / Ascension / 50% Damage increase and NO RELOAD. That means, when charname dies, it's over. Someone gets chunked? Gone forever. Petrified an chunked? Gear gone, too. Restarted in Candlekeep a couple of times. About to face Demogorgon tonight. Well. That means I've practiced. And I have, I go through the whole saga at least once a year, and have done so for more than 20 years. I'm a *huge* fan of the originals.

And I could write an[other] essay on how the turn-based system in BG3 was an excellent choice, but in particular - how that caters to CRPG fans. Hells, if you play the originals like I do, for the tougher fights - you're paused *constantly*, and for the worst fights [Abazigal, Sendai, Mellysan] you have your auto-pause set to 'spell cast' and 'end of round' effectively turning it into a turn based game. Reading through the combat log, swapping out gear with certain resistances, chugging potions...

Sure it is.
Eh... I've said this before already, but here I go again:
Every handbook from the first edition to the current one has a paragraph stating that it's supposed to serve as a guideline. A foundation. And, that it should never get in the way of your world, your imagination or your story. They encourage you to tweak it to your preference. Pretty much everyone does, too. IN 20+ years of playing and hosting tabletop D&D in various incarnations, I've never played a game without at least *some* homebrewing. That too, is part of the ruleset. D&D is about adventure, creativity and imagination.

Never mind this, it's in response to a weird complaint I didn't get.


Yes it is.
Even you and I have to agree that it makes more sense that this sort of thing happens in a magical world, regardless of our own. The whole point of these sort of games is, that you play out in a fantasy of your own making. If this is how people choose to do that, all the power to them, no?. And since you're referring to the oldschool games: In the originals you can actually find a belt that changes gender, Wild Magic can do this even if you don't want to, and then there is the Nether Scroll.

Also it doesn't mean it's not made for me. I can choose whatever is in my own pants, if I want to see that, and where to apply it.
Lastly, I suspect those that make the most use of the genital-options here are the same demographic as those that downloaded CBBE for Skyrim. Which, incidentally is in the top ten most downloaded mods for it.


No it isn't.
Sex sells. It sells deodorant, cars, shampoo, coffee and, as much as you may dislike it - games. That's fair, they want to leave an impression and this tickles people. Also, if they show the romance thing, they don't give away the main plots too much. They show a vampire and a bear, a dragon and a tiefling.. It's just clever. And, the game is narrative driven. What good story has no romance?

At the same time, BG2, KotOR , Jade Empire, Mass Effect, Dragon Age and The Witcher all had romances with increased levels of depth and graphical fidelity. It's an expected industry standard. So they show something that is utterly expected. Can't blame them for that. They also show the protagonist eating his potential friend's arm, and how to Monk the Gobbos off the rooftops.

Again, it fits within a narrative experience, be it a book, a movie or a game. People *want* it, and prefer to experience that the way they see fit. Just going over these forums you'll notice it's highly anticipated.

It's a big game. There's things you'll like, there's things you'll not care for. I don't like Planar Travel, ever. It's way too weird and I never get it. Doesn't mean I won't play this.


Huh? What are you on about?
2010 Mass Effect 2, Fallout New Vegas
2011 Skyrim, Dragon Age 2, Witcher 2
2012 Shadowrun Returns
2013 Mass Effect 3, Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition
2014 Wasteland 2, Shadowrun Dragonfall, Divinity Original Sin
2015 Fallout 4, Witcher 3, Pillars of Eternity

I don't understand what you're saying in the slightest. I'd say the genre got a massive boost during that era, expanded the playerbase by a metric ton and more or less set the bar for what we get today. D&D was never as big as it is today, and the upcoming game will only boost that. This is *exactly* the timeframe where RPG's were put back on the map. And yeah, sales did that. What's the problem?

So, yeah, I think this game is for pretty much everyone to enjoy, cranky old conservative RPG fans like myself included.

I don't care much for the system of likes/upvotes/dislikes/downvotes that is all over social media. But if I could have I would have upvoted this post.

Well said.

Agree completely. I also think it's helpful to the community when we get to respond to these people - as long as we do it respectfully.

We have had a lot of strangers in our house recently, and most have been good but there have been some obvious shit-stirs who just want to spew hate or start fights.

Yeah, as I said in the other trhead: I'm a BG fan, I'm a DnD player and I don't care a lot for realistic sex scenes and I'm excited for the game. It doesn't have to be a copy of the old games, they had their problmes too (looking at you, Anomen) and I'm not a rules lawyer, I know that video games will have to change things - I wish, some things wouldn't have changed, but I doubt, that those will be my hills to die on for this game.
And as for the sex scenes /raunchy stuff: It is totally up to everyone, how much we will have of that in our game.

It's also a lot of missed opportunities, despise these relentless attempts at damage control.

I said multiple times across the last two-three years that I don't have particular doubts BG3 will be a very solid game, a title worth spending a lot of time on (I already wasted hundreds of hours on its EA, after all) and a solid contender to the game of the year.
Hell, probably even in the competition as one of the best CRPGs ever made (and undoubtedly the one with the biggest budget).

Sadly, I've also resigned myself to accept that it will littered all over its length with...

- bad implementation of the rules (and let me be absolutely clear here: I absolutely DO NOT GIVE A SHIT about the little footnote on the official books saying "it's just a guideline" when the changes introduced are almost invariably bad)
- bad design decisions (giving up on the day/night cycle from the get go, having a terrible instanced camping system, super-restrictive party of four, etc).
- bad aesthetic choices (the juxtaposition of a pseudo-realistic look and "cartoony" visual effects like jumping, falling, shoving, dashing, the lack of cosmetic details on the characters like scabbards and quivers, etc).
- one of the worst control schemes the genre has ever seen since BG1 defined the standards in 1998, with the infamous toilet chain system.

I hope the good parts will just be good enough to erase that bad aftertaste and remove that uncomfortable impression of being served some amazing food, only to spot the waiter smearing a couple of boogers into it before serving.

I'm looking forward to the game, but you dont speak fir everyone. Clearly it isn't for everyone. And, that's okay.

I agree completely. Respectfully is the key word here.

The original *trigger* response to the original poster was not made in good faith. It was full of sarcastic triggers and its a shame because it didn't need to be that way. The OP holds responsibility still for letting it spiral into the abyss, but provocation was clear as day and I hope @Vitani also got a warning of sorts. That kind of poorly disguised mockery is unacceptable. Every ban like this is a sad one, considering the OP was not a complete disaster and had some comprehensive things to say.

Theres no need for "damage controll" a handful of posters here not having the game turn out exactly how they wanted isn't damage, thats just how game developing works.

You'll never find a game that gives you 100% of what you want.

The vast majority of people seem to want BG3 though. It's top 2 on steam and is on top content creators radars. So the dev team is clearly on the right path.

Damage control is a poorly written thought. For me its more like wishing for your vision of a perfect or a close to perfect BG3. I naturally care for my own experience of BG3 more than for the experience of others. It is just natural to ask for the things you want. Whining about it is unnatural though.

Argument by popularity leads to the conclusion that live services garbage is the best that gaming has to offer and One Direction is the best music. Let's please not go there.

Let's instead go have the world's best food at McDonald's.

It's also almost revoltingly disingenuous as an argument.

"a lot of people bought it anyway". So fucking what?
I bought it as well. Three years ago. That doesn't make me blind to the things the game handles poorly, nor it bars me from commenting on them.

And that's even ignoring that most of people who are buying the game on the trail of its hype-train do not even know enough about the game to have any settled opinion on its mechanics or balance.
Not to mention the ones that aren't simply equipped with enough knowledge of the genre to comment on it, to begin with.

When we're talking about a product, popularity is the only thing that matters.

When company's forget this and instead try to develope based on arbitrary ideas of what they think a consumer wants or needs they turn into modern Blizzard.

Plus, I'm sure every single one of us have bought a game we ended up hating.

For many, its either 'you can't judge until you play' or 'if you bought a game' or 'you played it a bit/lot but still bash it you must like it' thing.

It is silly.

I don't need to buy Diablo 4 to know the game sucks. Ive seen enough videos, and what not, to know it sucks.

Hot Take:
You can like a thing and also think it is deeply flawed, pointing out said flaws while still mostly enjoying said thing. Enjoyment and criticism are not mutually exclusive. It’s how we take things that are “good” and make them “better.”

It shouldn't be a particularly sophisticated notion, right?

Neither should the fact that you are not the arbitrator of what makes a decision good or bad, right?

In other words, you want BG3 to become a bloated live service mess with a ton of microtransactions, because those are hella popular. Maybe add a battle royale mode too, because PUBG is so popular as well? And after all, popularity is really all that matters!1

That whole "chase popularity" nonsense is why almost every single triple-A game released is shallow and unsatisfying. They're not designed by people with a vision, they're designed to check the maximum amount of boxes to have all the popular stuff. You need "sidequests", you need "minigames", you need "exploration", you need crafting, resource gathering, survival elements, item tiers, you need some character level system so players can watch numbers grow into bigger numbers, you need battle passes, and most importantly, you need microtransactions!!

For all intents and purposes, modern triple-A game developers do to good ideas what Netflix has done to the Witcher.

I’m not quite sure whom this is directed at but nobody has said that people shouldn’t or can’t be critical of any media.

This thread was made in response to another (that was rightfully locked) made by somebody who was upset that there were things in the game they didn’t like, mad that it was trying to appeal to people who weren’t him, and doing quite a bit of gatekeeping railing against the “casuals.” The problem wasn’t that he had criticisms, it was that his tone was bitterly dismissive and not constructive.

This is definitely true. Problem arises when the only thing someone express is hate. I don't buy that someone actually like something when the only thing they do is pointing their finger at things.