Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General annoyed by lazy negative critics

It's an interesting article I think. No, I don't I don't encouraging critics to do their best work is smarm. But you constructed one extreme - lazy negativity - I invoked its polar opposite. Partially because I don't think there is that much lezy negativity on this forum. It's a matter of taste, smarm offends me in a way that relentless negativity does not.

And because I do think that smarm ruled some of the larger outlets for some time


Yep, Astarian's voice acting is great. Do we really need 10 appreciation posts a day make that point?

At this point any critique is largely moot. People are speaking out to be heard, not because they think they can improve the game. EA is over, no DLCs are planned, the devs have told us that the game is finished -- we're just helping to write the obituary.

The forum is to discuss the game, not cheerlead for it. Lazy positive feedback has no more value than lazy negative feedback.

Personally I've no problem with either. Some feedback (positive or negative) may appear lazy because it lacks specifics but that doesn't mean it is lazy. Not everyone wishes to write lengthy posts and there is no minimum character requirement to post here.

One of the most useful and impactful forms of feedback here is also incredibly lazy..... the ubiquitous "+1".

BTW Killer Rabbit that Gawker Article was a fine read.

That's easy. It is a AAA production, that isn't a pisstaker. It's a massive campaign, for a set, reasonable price with no microtransations. An unusually high production of what is a traditionally a nieche genre, but a privately owned developer with distincts sensibilities. An achievement worth celebrating.

By all means I am happy for Larian success, and I hope they continue succeeding and evolving.

BG3 is... fine. The way most, mass production AAA games are fine. Too unfocused, trying to appeal to a too wide of an audience to do a single thing particularly well. I have spent two years criticising various aspects of BG3, and don't feel repeating myself. For one, I spend enough time doing that, and those can be found (though Larian's forum doesn't make it easy) but more importnatly: my criticism is irrelevant. Larian more or less finished the game, and my feedback is moot at this point (and has been for some time). I don't care if other people think it is the best RPG of all time. I am happy that they enjoyed it. Personally, I didn't find BG3 to be exceptional, and in some areas it felt strangely clunky. I had good enough time with it.

And to be honest, in spite of its shortcoming BG3 would probably be a contender for my GOTY as well - not many standouts for me in that year, though I am yet to play some important releases of that year. And lets be honest, there have been some real stinkers crowned as GOTY, and BG3 definitely isn't that!

Your point is more or less correct, except that I'd like to point out that the toilet chain is legitimately awful. Hopefully the legions of game devs out there preparing to copy BG3 don't copy that.

Last year Elden Ring won GOTY - and it was well deserved. It was deserved because a good game tests the person playing it. A good game can reveal the nature of the person who plays it.

Are they smart or dumb, clever or hapless, do they persevere or do they give up easily?

Do they see clearly or is the world an opaque fog to their mediocre organs of sense?

Can they think tactically, or do they just charge headfirst into every defeat repeatedly?

Can they laugh off adversity, or do they take everything personally and get angry?

Can they see and appreciate Art or do their eyes pan over such things without any comprehension?

Do they need everything handed to them or can they figure it out themselves?

Do they accept the consequences of their decisions or blame others for it? On top of that can they accept that they cannot always know what the outcome will be but stick to their moral outlook anyway?

BG3 deserves its GOTY wins, not just because it upsets the same people that would fail at Elden Ring - which I of course find highly amusing - but because the experience people have is dependent on the person playing it.

So one way to reconcile the more hyperbolic and silly critiques is to understand that it's not really the game they are complaining about.

I dunno, this seems like a weird take to me. Personally I love Elden Ring and most of From's games, and am simultaneously very critical of BG3. It seems a little bizarre to me to claim that the sort of people who get upset at BG3 are the same people who can't git gud at Elden Ring - in particular because BG3 is an absurdly easy game.

Yeah, I'd like Bg3 to be more challenging as well. However, that isn't a common experience. The majority of players find it very challenging to the point of frustration even on Balanced Difficulty.

What that really tells me is that gaming companies have been afraid to challenge their players and have been cheating them out of the experience of overcoming difficult scenarios.

Nah, it's pretty much the game. Clunky UI is a clunky UI for example. Tactically uninteresting combat, is just that. I did find narrative to be messy, and choices the game offers narratively unappealing. I don't think you will learn much about my personality, beside I played cRPGs for over 20 years, and BG3 just didn't blow my socks off.

Elden Ring and BG3 compasison is... interesting. You suggest that there is major overlap in audience.... which you will need data support to convince me of it. I can only speak for myself - and while I enjoyed Elden Ring a lot (not as much as most of other FromSoft releases though) I didn't BG3. Which is not a judgement on either of the games - they are very, very different titles. One suits my tastes much better, that is all.

For me, these are just words. I don't find the UI clunky. Nor do I find the combat uninteresting, tactically or otherwise. That's why I find it hard to take seriously.

For instance, if I happened to be in a restaurant enjoying meal, surrounding by numerous other people also enjoying their meals, and some fella sauntered in and claimed the food was bad, the utensils barely worked and the service couldn't be relied upon... I'd roll my eyes and keep eating.

I appreciate that people have different tastes, but I'd argue that some people's "tastes" mean they're incapable of recognizing a good thing when they see it. What I mean is that if an enormous number of people like pizza prepared one way and you don't, it probably means you shouldn't open up a pizza joint.

Ya definitely disagree combat is tactically uninteresting. Certainly using broken builds, op equipment, op potions and exploiting meta knowledge can make for some pretty boring fights.

Alter some of those variables and you can really get creative and conduct most encounters many different and interesting ways.

That is a false analogy. To make it work you should be comparing the meal in one restaurant with the same meal in other restaurants. Lots of other games have better GUIs and combat systems. The GUI and combat systems in BG3 have been improved upon by modders. As for the rest of that paragraph - how is one to know that they don't like pizza without first trying pizza?
I have almost 25 years of playing FRPGs and I can live with the 5e ruleset. Along comes a game set in the FR and purportedly utilising the 5e ruleset. Why would I not be interested in playing it? Since the release of BG3 I have played WH40K Rogue Trader - post- pocolypse, distopian is not my style - and Cyberpunk 2077 - post-apocolypse, distopian, FPS not my style. Neither game is without its problems but I enjoyed them both - far more than I anticipated and far more than I did BG3. I played Elden Ring last year and didnt enjoy it one bit - I just couldn't see what the point of it was - no plot or story, no characters, just a concatenation of weird creatures to fight every 100m.
Some of us are prepared to venture outside our comfort zones.

"I'd argue that some people's "tastes" mean they're incapable of recognizing a good thing when they see it". That is not an argument, it is an assertion without any possible evidence to support it. I could easily "argue" that there are people who bought into the narrative of BG3 being the best thing since sliced bread who are incapable of accepting that the game and Larian are nowhere as good as the hype had it.

Well, it is definitely hard to criticise anything without using words. I have written in the past (using words as well, unfortunately, but also occasionally with aid of videos) with examples (I will stick to UI as that's I think the easiest to argue fairly objectively) how chain system requires more clicks and is less accurate than traditional control system - you make not care and enjoy the game anyway. That's great. For me, after so many years of playing games in the genre, I find such things irritating. I run into this video couple weeks ago (time stamps 59:01). Even after almost 200h in the game it happens a lot. And it irritates me every single time - same when I have to micromanage hotbar, or abandon a characte concept as it turns out too powerful to be fun due to game's questionable balancing. It might not bother you, it bothers me. My ongoing playthrough is on hiatus, as I need to do some UI management, and I just can't be bothered. That is not a problem I encountered in many other RPGs (outside Larian's other titles). And BG3 isn't particularly complex either.

I don't think I am blind to games strengths. Sure, there are things I dislike that I know people enjoy (that's why I will avoid duscussing stuff like romances). As I said I think it is fine, just outside production value I don't think it is particularly exceptional.

The frustrating thing is that BG3 could be to my liking. I like turn based game, I like narrative games, I like systemic games. I like D&D and BG1&2 were some of my favourite games back in the day. But I suppose if you are into "a thing" and you consume a lot "of a thing", you also become more critical of "a thing".

Larian has been doing a great job in reaching new audiences. It doesn't mean that they are flawless, or beyond criticism. Pointing out potential flaws doesn't stop it from being a game that millions of players bought and enjoyed.


I suppose in some way I might be unfair to BG3. Personally, I stack it against the original BGs, or newer smaller games like Pathfinder, Pillars of Eternity or Disco Elysium, and I will simply always favour a tighter, more artistically consistant design of a smaller title. I should probably compare BG3 to likes of Dragon Ages - and in my mind it mostly overshadows those games. At the same time, should a game be held to a lower standard, just because it is severly overproduced? Does a film become immune to criticism simply because studio poured millions into the production? Maybe, gaming does tend to favour expensive looking AAA. It is just not a criteria I value that much.

Ok, at least we can agree that BG3 is better than most AAA shlock out there. In other aspects, let's agree to disagree.

I was server for decade so I love these sorts of analogues and metaphors. Yes, we are in restaurant where millions are enjoying their meal (myself included) but that doesn't mean that **every part** of the meal is excellent. It's possible to have a fantastic main course and think the wine has turned to vinegar. It's even possible to think that two parts of the meal were fantastic but didn't belong together. (don't serve a vindaloo and an umami mushroom dish together you won't taste the umami)

This is a post mortem and it's good to talk about what worked and what didn't.

I do truly think that people who enjoy the UI are in the minority. Easily the worst UI of any any game I've played. But people tend to look past that because the game has some interesting stories in it and because there is so much good content.

I think the lesson for future games is: give players the kitchen sink. If you give people hundreds of hours of game play and some good stories they will give every other sin.