Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Pillars of Eternity after Baldur's Gate3 [spoilers for both titles]

I think I am diving into an unnecessary argument, but here is where I have a problem. Because that's not how dialogues work - NPCs don't "react" to the option you pick, because there is no system that governs what it is that you said and what are NPCs as a response (aside perhaps from Arcanum. It's all hand desined "if you pick option A that leads to node B3". I have very shallow understranding, but from what I understand if you were able to ask lets say any NPC about a location, and there was a system that would check the knowledge of that NPC and respond accordingly - that would be system. Designer hand writing the question in a conversation node, handwiritng the response in another node and manually linking them together is scripting. (to explain myself further here is another Tim Cain video on programing and scripting - this is what put my thinking on that lane).


Well, no. I think an example of what I would call "scripted" combat would be Disco Elysium's shootout, or Pillars of Eternity/Pathfinders story book moments. Those are narratively combat/stealth events, but they aren't using actual combat/stealth systems - just hand written text nodes, using hand made conversation trees and embedded checks to govern out progression through that conversation tree.

Combat system has rules - if you attack NPC they become hostile, AI turns on and you attack each other in turns until one of you dies - a regular verbs, and responses that work consistantly and in every encounter. A change to the system affects all encounters (which I would assume is what makes it easier to invest into enhancing complexity of combat, than conversations where each individual conversation requires to be made from scratch).

And yes, there has been attempt (especially by Obsidian) to add more systemic elements to their conversation trees. But those also often don't turn out so well. While PoE Disposition system was great, Deadfire's companion relationship was quite a misfire. Even in a mechanically simple implementation of reputation system as BG3, companions to sometimes miss the context of the action. I wouldn't go as far as to say that humans are too complex for other humans to believably reduce them to a game system, but at least a game should probably put more focus on it to get it right. (Hey Josh uses "hand scripting" to discribe dialogue reactivity, so maybe I am unto something here afterall!)

If Larian had made Pillars of Eternity the Watcher would have the ability to have a threesome with Durance and Grieving Mother.

Yup, thus souring me on the game big time.

Eh, if Larian made PoEs, they would be very different games on a fundamental level. And it's not like Obsidian didn't to sexable companions in the Deadfire - to me that game is a far better argument for a potential negative impact of romances (at least in games that aren't really interested in doubling down on that fature), than anything that Larian has done.

I also don't think it is a good think to locked ourselves in camp. Cause you know what, if Larian licenced their engine to Obsidian, I would kill for Deadfire (or any other RPG) that they would do with that. Larian's priorities are very different than Obsidian, and I think that's fine. Pathfinder and Larian games aren't RPGs for me, and that is fine (well, I am less fine with BG3 and BG1&2 were very much games for me). But I do agree with the video esseyist that it would be a shame if BG3 success stifled some of the other interesting things that's been done in the genre lately.

I wasn't really being serious.

That being said, based on what I have heard of the original scripts for Durance and Grieving Mother a threesome with them would be an extremely dark place to go.

I knew you were being tongue-in-cheek, but agreed with it nevertheless because it rang true to me.

If Bioware too figure that adding more sexy time equals instahit, they're gonna underperporm EA's grand expectations and are gone for good (linking a "normie" channel referencing another "normie" channel for reason). Sexy-time may act a lure, like Scarlett Johansson /Chris Hemsworth playing an entire movie wearing panties and several sets of "shag me now" outfits. But it's not gonna carry a hundred hour campaign alone. Let alone one that's still being played by 100k players peak on Steam a year after release.

More recent Wolfeye Studios (Ex-Arkane, Dishonored, Prey) officially announced their new game, and that it was steering towards a more traditional RPG direction (stats, dialogue trees Fallout-ish and all). They've also announced an Alpha you can apply to, and given Raf Colantonio's fondness of BG3, I think this may have been influenced by Larian going EA. I've signed up, hopefully will be accepted. And hopefully, they'll explore this further than Larian does, as cinematics are kind of the anti-thesis to systemic design... you can push them far, such as acknowleding players going all throughout the game entirelly solo (or playing as a party of cheese or chaos wreaking halfling Barbarians), and the game's cutscenes never "breaking" no matter what you do. However, eventually, something is gonna break.... unless you limit what a player can do (as happened during development with a satisfying out-of-the-box solution for a bunch of enemies I used to apply in early EA).


As to POE, still hoping for a POE3 proper down the line, eventually. That end of Deadfire didn't feel like proper closure and Deadfire didn't deserve to bomb as hard as it did upon launch.

I worry how much Wolfeye can do budget wise, but I am curious to see what they will pull off. I did create a thread back in day contemplating BG3 as an immersive sim (I am pretty sure I used interview with Raf C. as a reference), and I am very curious to see what Wolfeye could do within the genre. Some great RPGs were very systemic in nature, and if they go all immersive sim emergent gameplay philosophy on an RPG it could be very fun, even if it is light in narrative department.