Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Not BG4 or D&D

Sorry, thought my previous post got eaten by the Gateway Error monster

Why yes, D&D may not be an easy system to implement in a game, but it is also an amazingly complex system thats yet very well balanced. Thanks to now 50 years of different people, and some very talented people among them, working on this system.

This would be a lot of work to have either way, and picking up D&D, you get it just so.

And besides, D&D5 is easier to do on the computer than D&D3, which in turn is much easier to do than AD&D (aka D&D2).

And all Bioware had for BG1 and BG2 was AD&D to work with.



I am far from religious about games using D&D, however I absolutely love the enormous flexibility that comes in regards to character creation if you have a system as complex as D&D.



The only games I know that can compete with D&D in this regards can be found in the MMORPG sphere. If developers get years of data and finetuning to perfect a rulesystem, some true rulesystem gems can be created.

In this regard I remember very fondly my favorite MMORPG of all time, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. As many different people told me back when VSoH was running, Sigil had managed to "make classes right".

So if someone would want to base their game on the VSoH system, or on an evolution inspired on the VSoH system, I'd be super enthusiastic about that.



As I understand it, WoW is also pretty good. Personally I have a hard time with the limitations of WoW though. Seriously ? You have to stand still while spellcasting ? Yikes. In Vanguard I could move at full speed backwards if levitating ! And move at half speed when spellcasting on the ground. Much more realistic. Why wouldnt you be able to move at all when spellcasting ? That just makes no sense to me.

Well, also in WoW you can completely reskill your character on the fly. Yikes. If you want to base or allow to inspire your rulesystem on WoW, please dont allow that one.

Another reason I personally never touched WoW. There are many more, by the way. But the ideas of the rulesystem havent been bad.

Popularity.

DnD and especially Baldur's Gate, is an EXTREMELY popular title.

Ergo, you get the IP you immediately attract all fans of the IP - Thus get a massive surge in popularity irregardless of how good your game actually is (BG3 is decent... But no multi-GotY material honestly... But then again, GotY is often just a popularity contest not a measure of quality...)

Of course, whether this surge of popularity continues is another matter... I.e. Will all the DnD/BG fans also buy DOS3 or whatever other new IP Larian makes (Given how many people on this forum seem to hate Divinity, it doesn't seem likely)

This is basically a bullshit statement. Larian was super stoked about working with WOTC and the D&D partnership. and anyone claiming otherwise is badly misinformed or outright lying. They pitched Bg3 twice to WOTC.

I have no doubt Larian would have loved to continue working with the D&D IP - in a different setting - which there are a TON to choose from.

That people keep getting hung up on this concept of "BG4" just boggles my mind and saddens me - like, really? You want to keep beating that dead horse? The story is told, move on you ding dongs.

In the end HASBRO fucked themselves over here. They needed Larian more than Larian needed them. Hasbro already tried a D&D game and it failed so spectacularly that the gaming studio went out of business. Dark Alliance was a perfect example of what their "corporate culture" is able to produce and will again produce in future.

So whoever is dumb enough to applaud Larian not working with the D&D franchise anymore I hope you enjoy games on the same level of quality as DA because that's the unfinished, buggy, bullshit that you can expect from that franchise. A couple of those and you will be begging Larian to come back.

Frankly I would love to see Larian partner with Critical Role to develop their own new system with a team of seasoned players and game enthusiasts - and make it open source. Or they can wait a few years for Hasbro to eventually sell off the D&D IP when they realize they can't make it profitable with their low-effort spreadsheet worshipping bullshit.

Forgive me @Blackheifer but it seems that if you are going to dismiss my statement as bullshit - a statement that was backed up by a quote from Larian - you should feel obligated to do the same. Where is your evidence?

I frankly don't have the time to pull up every instance where the Larian CEO indicated he didn't like DnD but, from memory:

- he doesn't like that you miss so often in DnD (in the DOS system missing was rare but enemies had a huge store of hitpoints)

- he doesn't like that character level and spell level are different

- he never played DnD and preferred some other RPG whose name I forgot

- didn't care for the BG series and was more into final fantasy

- the infamous "we produced a 5e version of the game but decided it wasn't very fun"

And, of course, we have the CEO's recent statement. Larian wanted to things in combat that would violate DnD rules.

While your characterization of Hasbro - low effort, spreadsheet minded - is correct I see no evidence that they were behind the death of the DLC. I'm happy to hate on Hasbro but I think I need a bit more than Hasbro eeeevol to go on.

To underline this point: I don't want to carry water for WotC but I don't like conspiracy theories either.

As to why they wanted the contract and tried to get it twice? Everyone making RPGs wanted to make BG3. It's the flagship. It's the name that brings in money and brings recognition They wanted to contract to make money and burnish their reputation. No fandom required. Duh.

I know the perfect IP they should work on next:

Leisure Suit Larry(-an)
Its a perfect fit.

Wacky systems. check.
Weird unfinished stories that starts out hard and ends soft. check.
Disney grotesque visuals. check.
Romance simulator. check.

Just add that fun X rated strategic turn based combat, Halsin the bear running a pub, Astarion the vamp running a brothel and we have a hit.

+1

So I'm looking forward to new titles/parts from Larian!

+1

Sorry but no. D&D 5e is the poster-child for a dumbed-down, over-simplified and superficial character creation system. Even just within D&D, 3.5e is far more deep, complex and sophisticated, as amply demonstrated by the awesomeness of character creation and development in the Pathfinder games. But even better as a deep and complex system is that of the PoE games, which for me is by far the best out there.

I doubt Larian moving away from D&D is some kind of WotC boycott. I mean it might controbute it, but I would be surprised if Larian stuck with D&D.

They are a studio with their own style, ideas and identity. They created their take on D&D game, and the most prestigious PC IP at that. Sure, a business focused CEO might double down on BG3 success to milk it for as much as it is worth, but Larian is a private company - and Sven is clearly passionate about creating games. They did BG3, brought a lot of eyes on them, made money and expanded the audience: now is time to invest and try something new.

While milking established franchises is how gaming industry functions, it is not healthy way of doing it. They would only be point to making Baldur's Gate4, if Larian wasn't able to pull of what they set out to do in BG3.

I'm disappointed, not so much for the loss of BG4, but for the lack of any new DnD settings from Larian. Whether that be something in Cormyr or a new Dark Sun or some other setting.

I applaud the desire to do something new. Too often in life these days, we get rehashes of previous titles. Movies do this all the time and it reaches the point where you start to wonder where all the creativity went.

My concern is that a new ruleset could be a recipe for disaster. The ruleset itself holds equal importance to all the flavor of the setting. We all know DnD, and for all its flaws, it's packaged into something that works well enough to support the flavor of the story being told. A new system will have to be brilliant to compete, and that's a tall order.

*

I do get the impression that WotC is the reason we're not getting another DnD title from Larian. With the right deal, I think things would have progressed smoothly, but I suspect that Hasbro overestimated the importance of their IP and underestimated the importance of Larian.

The stagnant corporate culture probably didn't make things any easier.

I mean, the fact that the team was burnt out and happy to finally push the game out the door at long last was pretty damn obvious as early as the semi-final EA showcase in Q1 2023, when the game basically took a 180 degree turn and stomped on most things the EA players were trying to steer it towards, marketing towards a quick and short-term reliable shipper- and "average Bioware fan" - customer base who care not about the mechanical background or a deep, impactful storyline - but instead want a glorified dating sim with a flashy presentation.

Like, to this day, I am baffled by the decisions like removing belts and swapping them for the underwear slot which you find no items in the world for until Act 3, just turning crossbows into better bows by not implementing the loading tag, throwing racial ability bonuses away but not allowing for dice roll allocation, screwing up spell distribution with multiclassing so that mixing casters gets out of control all for the sake of it being "fun", not changing the illogical bits of Act 1 whatsoever and not elaborating at all on the Absolute's route, swapping Daisy for the Emperor, going out of control with all the gimmicky magic items instead of reining them the hell in, adding a bunch of characters just for fanservice or to seemingly fill the quotas, never really touching up on the warlock making it one of the most boring classes to play (after the cleric), adding full frontal nudity for whatever reason,...

...this might go on a while. Point being, suddenly going on a rampage with all the smiley interviews and aggressively marketing the game as having the most detailed and inclusive and such character creator and reactivity and the ability to play who you want (which the game barely, if at all, delivers on), and gushing on and on about romances after ~2 years of at least pretending to build up on the game's mechanical core only to throw most of it out the window was very telling. I even asked "who's this game ultimately for?" back then. Welp, it sure ended up with an identity crisis, perhaps the worst case of one in Larian's portfolio.

Forgive me @Killerrabbit but D&D isn't just a set of rules - it's an entire IP that includes people, places, Realms, and existing stories with 50 million current players. They may not have loved aspects of the 5e ruleset, but the ruleset isn't the IP - and if you really just wanted the ruleset you could even mostly replicate that with some clever renaming and some decent lawyers...but why would you want to? 5e isn't anything particularly special as a ruleset - frankly it's pretty basic.

The characters that Larian created now belong to WoTC to do with as they please. Larian CAN'T tell new stories with them without the ok from Hasbro.

So to say that they weren't excited to work with D&D - in your case - is a severe misunderstanding of what D&D actually is, and therefore bullshit.

Larian wanted the Lore...they were forced to use the ruleset.

If you decide to call someones opinion "bullshit", then you show more of your character than you might want to and you don't really encourage others to interact with you. Just saying.


I don't think the ruleset restrictions is the only problem but all the other decisions they made. They wanted to add a lot of traumatic topics like SA but failed to handle it with the needed care and sensitivity.
To me personally (and I'm saying that without any evidence) it feels like they aimed for a big shot to gain popularity, to be a part of the holy grail and in doing so, they never even asked themselves if their were capable of doing so or if they maybe couldn't keep it up for the time needed. In addition to that, the fans they attracted (especially all the fans that bought the game based on all the bear sex and Dark Urge violence news after last PFH) have proved to be way more fanatic and obsessive then they maybe even expected.
I can see the team burning out after all the feedback, the threats and such - thus adding to an already questionable state of the team.

Again, this are just my thoughts, I don't have any evidence but I try to take a different approach than just "Larian good, Hasbro evil, accept it or leave".

I don't like True Strike, but that doesn't mean I don't like DnD. There are numerous things I would change about DnD, but that doesn't mean that I don't like DnD.

Larian has also mentioned a passion for DnD several times.

Bottom line, at least for me, they did a great job with the game. And to reinforce my point: there's a lot about BG3 I don't like. But that doesn't mean I don't like the game.

Bullshit.

You have the option as the player to handle the existence of SA or DV with care...or not. If you fail to see it, or understand it then so be it. What other people do isn't your concern. Frankly it's absolutely brilliant the way these things are written because it leaves the responsibility to you as the player and it doesn't pull punches.

Hasbro is an awful company, and other people have said so. I was nervous about Larian working with them for this very reason. Purely speculation but I am betting Hasbro was pushing for "additional monetization" and Larian said stuff it.

You really must be fun at parties - if you ever get invited, that is.
Marking every opinion as bullshit while also making speculations and even with others still being nice to you.

It's not my concern what other people do? Well, if said other people speak openly about how they bad they felt when they saw how Larian handled the topics, then it is my concern and it should be for every normal empathetic human being, but maybe this is your time failing to understand that.

As for Hasbro, I never said they are good in any way but still it is way too easy to white knight Larian and seeking 100% of the problems at Hasbro just so there is nothing left for your precious little development studio but praise and love. If you are not capable of seeing more than just black and white, then I take that as an explanation for your bad behaviour.

Come on, folks, let’s keep it friendly. We can disagree without being rude or dismissive.

I agree, that this would be good for Larian, good for you, but I don't think it would be good for D&D, and it will definitely not be good for BG franchise. In fact, I think BG franchise just got put to rest (which is not necessarily bad).

I agree with you about Divinity 3, I'm not a big fan of both Original Sin games myself (I loved their first two Divinity games, though) and I hope they will reach for another IP.

My personal dream would be their partnership with Games Workshop and making a game in Warhammer Fantasy setting (or Warhammer 40k, but this is probably less likely, because Owlcat already made a game in this setting). WFRP was probably my favourite tabletop setting, with lots of unforgettable memories from my younger days. I'm not familiar with newer editions, though, I hope GW didn't ruin the lore, like WoTC did with FR.