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)

Re: Illusion of choice

As Warren Spector once said, it's all illusion. Smoke and mirrors. When they did Deus Ex, which was meant to be the pinnacle in player agency at that time, they figured it was less about changing the narrative wholesale. As JC Denton in Deus Ex, you can't just say "Fuck it!", quit your job and book a flight to the moon, for a start. Eventually, you're going to see all the missions and one of the endings accounted for. This goes doubly so for games that have scripted narratives alongside to dialogue etc., rather than FULLY emergent ones, such as Dwarf Fortress. Eventually, everything that's gonna happen narrative wise, somebody had scripted after all (and in fact, lots of the most popular things to this day in Deus Ex are wholly scripted). That's smoke and mirrors right there.

Warren Spector argued it would be rather about providing moment to moment gameplay decisions that altered things, and let players solve stuff in their own way. Like BG3 does a lot of the time, individual quests included. Which actually NONE of the Inifinty Engine games allowed for, its quests are mostly completely linear in terms of how you solve them. They had their own strengths (or else I wouldn't replay BG1 every now and then). But that wasn't them. Fallout 1+2+Arcanum are far superior in that regard. And in the grander plot scheme of things, even the faction choice at the early stages of BG2 doesn't amount to anything by the end.

Pillars Of Eternity was the first Infinity Engine sort-ish game that was more open in that regard, at least for some quests... the fantastic Raedric questline early on being a prime example. However, here too it's all based on stuff the designers scripted. The way you can enter Raedric's fortress in a multitude of ways? It's not something you come up by yourself. Obisidan had to invidiually code those all into the game. The way you can betray allies even late into the questline? That's too dialogue options Obsidian specifically coded into the game. If you factor in systems such as AI, physics, object interaction, lighting, lines of sight/stealth etc. stuff becomes even more open, and players may solve stuff in ways you hadn't even anticipiated or accounted for (as was part of the goal in designing Deus Ex... or BG3).

Warren Spector, by chance, was also involved with Ultima/Origin Systems. And Ultima is Larian's platonic ideal (except for the world simulation aspects of it, such as night turning into day, every single NPC having a schedule going alongside to it, fairly natural landscapes with somewhat "realistic" scales and traveling times etc.). Unfortunately, BG3 in parts appears to be another case where all the best in choice&consequence is fairly frontloaded. E.g. despite their HUGE budgets, it's in parts the Vampire Bloodlines syndrome all over again... where it's clear Troika ran out of money eventually to keep the standards set by the early stages of the game. If only Larian had spent this huge amount of extra budget not on cinematics, but on further tuning emergent gameplay systems and further narrative branches...

But then, according to Swen, the game wouldn't have attracted as huge an audience and justified its budget. Just like Deus Ex didn't (and most of the games in a similar vein that came before and after it, whilst we're at it). In fact, going fully cinematic for BG3 was meant to draw more players, and apparently it helped to do just that. Bottom line: Cinematics are far too expensive and have to go! https://www.pcgamer.com/the-cinematic-bioware-style-rpg-is-dead-it-just-doesnt-know-it-yet/

BG2 triple the number companions. Triple the fun.
BG2 6 party members.
BG2 day/night/weather/time.
BG2 more classes, more kits.
BG2 friendship dialogues. More dialogue options. Who cares if its an illusion of choice (actually for many it is not). Exactly the same for BG3, in the end nothing really matters. So more is MORE, more roleplaying opportunity. Way better than less.
BG2 different strongholds for every classes.
BG2 WAY better leveling. Higher level spells.

I think it's not really "choice" that the original BG games were superior at. I think it was "immersion".

As the above poster notes, none of the BG games have been super great at "choice", when it comes to the narrative. In the end, it usually boils down to:

1. The fleshed out "good" way to do things
2. The underdeveloped "evil" way to do things
3. A few endings and their slight variations.

This is...actually exactly the way it is in BG3, too. Where BG3 does a bit better is in how players can *choose* to solve different quests....but even on that front it's not like, mind-blowing or anything. For the most part, it's you discovering the unique solutions the devs hand-coded into the game. It's rarely "emergent", as in, coming up with a unique solution the devs didn't think of utilizing the mechanics of the game.

Where the originals really outshine BG3 (at least for me) is in the immersion aspect: The world feels, at least, much more broad and lived-in, the characters you meet feel much more like they have their own depth. BG3, a lot of the time, really does feel like you're seeing just the tiny slice of the world necessary for the game. And I don't know what it was...I think maybe partially the character writing (some of the companions in BG3 are good, some of them have awful writing imo), maybe partially the really garbled plot, but I never really felt able to get lost in BG3's world the way I could be immersed in the worlds of the original. I think the GAMEPLAY of BG3 really hooked me (at least until the combat becomes trivially easy), but the world and the characters never really did.

And its not only the companions that are meh, but also the enemies. Irenicus is far better and interesting than the three chosen. And the brain is even worse and imo make the game less interesting by being the final enemy as there is no buildup (apart from chekovs gun and it being super obvious that the brain will be the boss) or background to it.

Same goes for the Emperor, a very bland and uninteresting character thats only there to confirm your opinion of him but has no personality of his own. And the game railroads you into working with him. And to shoehorn him in Larian had to retcon FR lore.

Count Turnipsome, with all due respect - do you even understand the question?

I did not ask what meaningless gimmick in the game that you liked.

"Triple the number companions. Triple the fun."?

"BG2 has exactly the same choices as BG3"?

Come on.

I apologize if these all sound mock-ish, but This has to be a joke.

If any of you notice, the discussion starting to devolve to "I like BG2 story better" as it was predicted. Because literally everything else outside the Story is objectively worse than BG3.


So to make this thread a little bit productive:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/grapeocean/black-geyser-dlc-tales-of-the-moon-cult

Back this DLC kickstarter from the game Black Geyser. It needs backing up because isometric cRPG with "double the companion, double the fun!" logic, Real time with Paws, inspired (heavily) from Baldoorian Gato 1 from Bioware -- and because these aspect are so popular among gamers! (yes it is!) -- they struggle to stay afloat.

Video games does not need to die because ye old BG2 is better than BG3 folk does not understand better game design and because there are only 5 people who like the old Biowarean design.

Back the game. It deserve to live.

Don't say "objectively" when you are giving your own opinion...
No, everything else is not worse in BG2.

The old games suceed at creating a world that looks a lot more real (in the reality of the FR) than what Larian has created.

Map/world design, physics, time/meteo/day and night, lack of unexpected encounters when you sleep or travel, distances, caping nowhere, teleportation runes, VFX, animation, and so on...
A lot of things in BG3 are not coherent at all with the world in which the story take place.

Larian did an awesome job and gave us A LOT more options to role play our characters. Immersion in the lore, in our character and in the story of NPCs is very impressive in BG3 imo.

But immersion in the World with a big W is very bad despite beautifull overall graphics.

Last time I love a game as much as I love BG3 was 20 years ago but don't tell BG1 and 2 were worse at everything because you are objectively wrong

I am sorry because I'm gonna say exactly that. BG1/2 is objectively worse than BG3 on everything else except for story which are highly subjective.

Your complain is absolutely valid regarding BG3 misc design, but if you notice, those are personal gripes. It's not objective flaws such as "Act 3 is a buggy mess".

Here are objective criticism and flaws in both BG1/2:

1. What's the difference in dialogue between 1 Charisma character and 18 charisma character? 99% identical.
2. What's the difference between Cleric Player and Rogue player within the dialogue/options which can alter their experience (outside of combat)? None.
3. Are there are more fingers in my hands than there are dialogue checks in BG1/2? Yes.

Does this mean BG1/2 is worse game ever exist and their fans should be dragged up to be executed in a guillotine? Absolutely not.

Nothing will ever change the fact that BG2 *was* a masterpiece and RPG to this day has evolved *from* it. But please put BG2 to your (in general, not specific individual) warped standard which you has put BG3 in. You'll find the same flaws and bad design and likely worse.

I'm not sure why you're determined to say things that you and every sensible person knows are incorrect, but here are a few things raised already by the posts in this thread:


The list could be continued to a very extensive degree, depending on what aspects and elements you wish to compare, and how fine a field you wish to narrow your comparison metric to. You could do the same back at me for metrics by which BG3 exceeds BG1 or 2, but that would be irrelevant to the point which is that, no, BG3 is not objectively better than its predecessors in every way besides subjective elements. That's simple not true. It does not matter how many ways you care to define or point out that BG3 is better than its predecessors, it is unarguably not better in every way beside subjective matters. You know this, I know this - everyone knows this, as a simple matter of course, and it's easy enough to acknowledge it, and still present your own opinion, if you are an honest participant in the conversation.

Metric number of Polygons:
Objectively Lesser: BG2.

Metric number of grass:
Objectively lesser: BG2.

Metric number lootable Vase:
Objectively lesser: BG2.

Because these three things, are definitely the thing that make BG3 better.

I am sorry, but you are the second person here to not properly giving a reasonable comparison.

I would like to honestly discuss about aspect that are reasonably can be compared between old game and new game.

How is the roleplaying opportunity via dialogue between the two games?
How does combat encounter design between them?
Indepth discussion about each game quest design which offers choices and let's talk why BG2/3 is more binary than 3.

...not counting grass number and vanity features or worse... ended up "I like BG2 writing more", well BG2 doesn't have the inch what PST had to offer.

Why, BG3 definitely has some exceptionally strong writing in places. Far beyond what BG1 and BG2 had.

BG3 is also riddled with details and unique content that you wont find if you just play the game. BG1 had some easter eggs, especially in the early game, but that was it.

For that and the many ways you can build an interesting character the replayability of the game is through the roof.

About "not feeling like D&D or BG", well, Larian put their own spin on this. I think its mostly just different though. Not actually bad.

Can you make some example for that strong writing in BG3?

Glad to see you back here @Niara

You are totally confusing objective data and subjective criticism/flaws as proven by the quote and your answer to Niara.

To be honnest it is really hilarious to read that "the greater number of lootable vase in BG3" is "definitely a thing that make BG3 better". Don't get me wrong I'm glad it is something you enjoy... But I've seen A LOT more complaints about inventory management and looting in BG3 than I read complaints about the lack of checks in dialogs in 2 games that were released 20 years ago.

I could even say that inventory management and looting is even more enjoyable in those 2 old games than in BG3^^
But sure it is subjective... exactly like your definition of a "better" role playing game.

I initially planned to give you objective data too but to be honnest it looks totally useless to talk with you and I'm done with endless discussions about BG3^^
BG3 is an awesome game but it's a very poor representation of the world in which it takes place... Which is at least as much important to me than "dialogs checks" to be a "better" role playing video game.

(Heya Kanisatha, I'm lurking and commenting on occasion ^.^ To be fair, Maximuus, I'm pretty sure the lootable vases and grass count comments were intended as deliberately sarcastic by Dex... internet text conveyance and all that.)


As I said Dex (enhanced emphasis added)...


So the fact that you then proceeded to... do exactly that and list a handful of metrics by which one game exceeded the other, tells me that you did not engage with what was said, and did not read it with a discerning eye; you just wanted to look for something to argue about.

Which I'm not interested in doing.

This issue that I dropped in to post about was, very specifically, your doubled down assertion that BG3 was objectively better than Bg1 and 2 in Every way, besides the subjective. That's not true, and you know that's not true.
You might perhaps say that BG3 is better than its predecessors in every way that matters, but you're introducing your own subjectivity to it if you do that. The main point is that you cannot attempt to strengthen your case by making claims of objective superiority, when those claims are known to be false and ridiculous by everyone present - including yourself, and I give you the benefit of the doubt on that, because it's been adequately demonstrated already.

Such claims are hyperbole - and mixing talk of objective and and subjective truth with hyperbolic statements just makes the speaker look foolish and ignorant. You are capable of being better than that.

I am not, personally, interested in discussing which game was better; I'm interested in reading folks discuss, reasonably and in good faith, meaningful comparisons that they personally feel are worth focusing on. You don't get to be the final arbiter on which elements are worth comparing or judging the games over - you just get to give your own opinion on whether those metrics are meaningful or not. You can tell others that you don't think things like affectations of time passage, total companion options and active companion count, or volume of class and subclass options are reasonable or worthwhile metrics to compare and judge the games on, and that's a perfectly valid opinion to have, but it's not an objective truth and it's not grounds for you to shut down or dismiss others who feel that those metrics are of value to consider. To be clear - those considerations are not ones I raised; I merely quoted them back as examples so far used by other people in this thread, who believe they are worthwhile considerations.

well if you start bg1 and get outside the beginner area you'll wind up fighting mobs for 5 minutes each watching your character miss a lot...bg3 is better than that

I've actually started the EE for the first time ever (only ever played the original), and nah.... A typical early campaign enemy such as a skeleton has an armor class of 7ish... therefore, unless you're doing something wrong, the hit ratio should be 50/50ish right from the go. Ok, some companions are less than ideal, ahem, and there's a couple beefier enemies sprinkled in between, but yeah.

Since it was brought up, I'm also not a super fan of Larian's compressed "Theme park" kind of map design (even though it's fairly free to explore). But BG2 already steered seriously somewhat into that direction. Moreover, you rarely find quests for yourself, they sort of find you (and the quest givers mark locations on your map, which you also don't find yourself). BG2 is a world entirelly built around the player, and it crams as much D&D bestiary et all as it can into a campaign. In particular the exploration as argued was an overreaction to vocal fan criticism leveled at BG1. "Let's not improve how we bulit the first game -- let's just toss is all out entirelly."

As an aside, whilst exploring it occured to me how much the soundtrack, and style of that, had been such a part of the experience. Including different music being played at night... Top drawer.




Baldur's Gate, exactly as it were, is never going to come back. There's people who worked on that game that aren't even in the industry anymore. And not even the "official" spiritual successor, DA:O was all that close to it. Aside of the simplified combat/classes/spells: BG went with the cozy kind of storytelling that was closer to the feels of the TT (including the narrator at each chapter). Whereas DA:O went fully on Hollywood. I'm of the opinon though that a "next" BG will look nothing quite 100% like it. As it's been 25 years now. Geez, I'm old.

Oh... I've never been very good at understanding sarcasm on forums... Especially in English.
(I kind of was with Rag, thanks to smiles!)

Doesn't matter as it does not change the message. On top of that inventory management and user interface are other points in which BG1/2 were "objectively" better than BG3.
Same about party control, interractions between characters,... It is easy to give objective data to make a subjective message looks like if it is an objective one... but objectivity would first require us all to agree on what is most important for a role-playing game to be good, on what a good interface is, a good control system, and so on...

There definitely are things wrong with BG3.

Watch Honor among Thieves. That really feels like D&D and FR. BG3 does not really.

I get the feeling that the movie really embraced D&D while Larian saw it more as a burden and only wanted the brand name.

Same with me. My commenting has gone down very sharply as I'm tired of pointing out all of the many, many flaws of the game again and again, especially in the face of some people on this forum who want to keep denying that those flaws exist and where Larian itself doesn't care.

In a recent interview Sawyer said he would be willing to make a PoE3 if he were given a budget similar to what BG3 had. So that's where I'm placing my hope now.