Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Disappointed in Larian

Major bugs. Like, for example, bugged scenes which don't trigger at all, when at least SOME reaction is in order.
Scenes that contradict previous events (like, for example, Ascended Astarion breaks up with Mindflayer!Tav then 6 months later it's like nothing happened, they are still together).
Weird gameplay things, like, for example, Shadowheart's both good and evil paths having the exact same approvals with no difference at all. Stuff like that.

Yes, this is the kind of thing I'm talking about.

Are you positive those are bugs? (Aka content that exists but doesn’t trigger) or a game not keeping up with reactivity?

Well, call it as you like, but when a serious event happens with 0 reactivity I deem it to be an unfinished scene.
Like, when Durge finds out they were vivisected and experimented on and then companions totally ignore it.

I have speculation of my own - BG3 has so many moving part, so much reactivity and the game can be interacted with and broken in so many that Larian doesn’t want to mess with it too much lest they break it.

Well I guess I subscribe to the first set of metrics; Makes for a more objective review score tbh (Despite 100% objective reviews being impossible ofcourse).
Also, technical flaws should reduce their final score too tbh, because if you don't, it won't encourage the devs to properly fix their games before release.

Also, conversely, I'd find it abit deceptive if a game got high reviews based on personal enjoyment over what the game is actually like. E.g. Dragons Dogma 2 or Homeworld 3, as some recent examples that are definitely not 10/10 worthy.


On release, I remember having my UI disappear whenever I swapped to my 4th member (rather uncommon occurance). I also couldn't complete Lae'zel's final quest in the sewer because Voss didn't spawn.
Some skills were bugged like Shield Bash being non-functional, Polearm Master was triggering the enemy to attack when you walked into their range as well as Freecast being infinite use.

Not really that bad overall. Although, I heard people had Companions interact in cutscenes when they should've been dead or exiled. The worst probably would've been the save corruption bug on release that was patched out rather quickly.


Oh yeah, I forget they just kinda blank out when you obviously go through something like that... and they never improved it either.
On the other hand, slightly preferable that they don't instead of hearing the same gist regurgitated from each companion.

I think the distinction is very, very important. Bug means that something that was intended to be in the game is broken. Lack of reactivity can certainly be detrimental, but you are essencially asking for more content and Baldur's Gate3 is already a very large game, that's been developed for many years.

That's I think is were we disagree. Where you see unfinished game, I see a game that set up unrealistic expectations in the early access as far as detail, interactivity and sheer amount of optional content goes, and in the long run wasn't able to deliver. Larian designed a game that allows for a riddiculous amount of permutations, with almost no systemic abstractions, where each potential path requires expensive, time consuming, handcrafted content to be made possible. I am by no means surprised that they don't want to spend next couple years writing, recording, animating and testing an uncounted amount of cutscenes needed to fill all the scenarios they didn't account for, especially for origins who aren't very popular among the playerbase. In my view BG3 isn't unfinished - it is overambitious.


There is a reason why my go to reviewers tend to not use numerical values in assessing games. I also don't pay much attention to community reviews as I feel they tend to be swayed more by social media trends, rather than game's themselves. I just mentioned scores because I find the shift from "This is 10/10 masterpiece" to "WTF do you mean you are not going to develop the game further after a year of support and extra content" grimly hilarious. That said, if one has to interact with numerical score, treating it as "how good of a time I had" is a terribly way of using it. Too many things unrelated to a quality of the game have impact on how good of a time one has for it to be a worthy metric. A general question that I think should be asked is "does the game deliver on the experience it aims to deliver". A good reviewer should be able to appraise a variety of games pretty well, but I don't expect that amount of introspection from a random player. Still if one things a game needs years of work to be "finished" the score probably shouldn't be too high. It's perfectly fine to love a game that is deeply flawed - in fact, those titles have a tendency to be quite compelling if they fail in a unique way due to trying something new or ambitious.

And personally, whenever BG3 is a game "worthy" of 10, 9, 8 or 7 is just uninteresting conversation to me . It is a cRPG with biggest budget that we have seen that tried to allow players to play as both custom and pre-made characters, supports singleplayer and multiplayer gameplay, offers a lot of player agency while at the same time delivering story through expensive to make cinematics, made by an independly owned studio which had to scale up greatly to make it happen, big chunk of development happened during Covid and so far it seems to be a pretty humane place to work. There is a lot to be happy with here, regardless what are ones personal thoughts on the game itself, or whenever putting all the things I listed above into a single game was actually a good idea in the first place.

Which is concerning when you remember that Larian said their next project will be "Larger in scope than BG3"...


Money.

The vast majority of professional "Reviewers" are paid for their reviews and thus, that buys them an instant 6 points of "Rating". Meaning the 1-10 scale gets condensed into 7-10 (Which leads to the really dumb decimal points so something isn't rated 7 it's rated 7.2) because then a "Bad" review still is a 7/10 which is a positive review.

It's one of the reasons I tend to put more stock in community reviews because they will actually use the full 1-10 scale so it's much easier to gauge user sentiments (You just have to check out some actual reviews to see if there's any outside influences, like review bombs because the company is bad rather than the product).

The professional vs community reviews also tends to reflect the "Objective analysis" vs "Subjective opinion" dichotomy. To which, the latter tends to be more informative. Since something like Forspoken can get a good score objectively, it was a mechanically sound game with the only major flaw being low tier writing. While anyone who actually played the game was bored out of their mind because just because the game is mechanically solid doesn't mean it's a fun experience.

Since I play games for a fun experience (Or more accurately, an engaging experience), reviews based on experiences matter more to me than an objective assessment of development quality. (I mean, I liked FO3 and Skyrim and both of those were buggy messes full of jank - Which would objectively cause a low score which doesn't account for my many hundreds of hours spent on each title)

Yeah, I am more hopefully when they said they will do multiple smaller projects to take a break. But I want to see what Larian will come up with. I don't think scale is BG3 problem but it's unwieldiness. Hopefully they learned a thing of two from BG3 and will be able pull of effective reactivity that they will be a bit more in control of. D:OS2 had very little of narrative reactivity - they changed that in BG3 in a big way, but it seems they allowed it to get out of control. But than again, I hope Larian will change some things for three games now, and they keep doing the same thing over and over again, and it apparently works, so who knows.

Hmmm, that's definitely not what reviews I watched said. From what I remember combat was supposed to be rather undercooked as well. And yeah, while BG3 receptions does feel to me a bit off, Bethesda's success with Skyrim and Co. is even more puzzling.

edit. Which reminds me of realisation I had a while ago, which I constantly keep forgetting: while as a long time RPG enjoyer it is easy for me to sniff at everything that BG3 doesn't do as well as it could, if someones reference as to what an RPG is like are Dragon Ages or action games with light RPG elements like Witchers or Ass Creeds, than it is not susprising that Baldur's Gate3 is judged like a groundbreaking masterpiece. And I suppose creating a blockbuster, approchable game that is also doesn't handhold the player, nor in an animated movie in disguise is a feat in itself.

I said SERIOUS scenes. I find it hard to believe that Larian has never planned for any reactivity in some of the most important scenes, while developing this game. If they didn't - well, their mistake that should be corrected. I'm not asking for minor scenes reactivity. I'm sure, most of them are just bugged. Like a lot of scenes of Spawn Astarion are currently bugged. For example, his scene after Tav cheats on him with Mizora just doesn't trigger, but it's definitely already recorded - there are voicelines of it in the game's files. So this is in no way the same as "writing, recording, animating and testing an uncounted amount of cutscenes ".
I don't ask it. I ask to fix what is broken, essentially.

Also, a lot of bark voiced lines are also already there - you can find them on YouTube, they just never trigger.

P.S. That said, I think there is definitely one scene which they should record again - the big Durge moment, when your companions and especially your LI don't care at all that you This is the one scene which should be changed significantly.
But still, I bet, it's the only one. Or one of a few ones.

Honestly, even when compared to those RPG-lites... BG3 doesn't come up as impressive as it gets rated at.

Like, after recently having played DA:I, the ME trilogy, W3, AC: Odyessy before BG3 dropped... My take was "Okay, and?" while everyone else was losing their minds and giving it GOTY awards out the wazoo.

I think that standards have simply been set really low as of late with the concerning number of abject failures coming from AAA studios. Where it feels like every other week there's a brand new "Lowest rated game in history" and several studios getting completely shut down due to how horrendously poorly their game performs.

So anything that is even passably good looks like a diamond in a sea of turds.

This is not just BG3, but also many people highly praise CP2077's 2.0/Phantom Liberty but playing it myself I'd give the game more of a 6/10 maybe a 6.5 if feeling generous (A lot of stuff is still based on the flawed 1.0 designs...). But hey, compared to Redfall, a 6/10 may as well be a 10/10...

I don't think it's a bug. Ascended Astarion is definitely not very attracted to the Mindflayer Tav, but he is willing to cooperate, he says, we are both Monsters. He accepts such a Tav. So it's not surprising that they end up together. Unlike Spawn, who says, I'll try to get used to it, I love you, but in the end he can't come to terms with the Mindflayer Tav. This is just in the character of Ascended/Spawn Astarion. The fact that you find this wrong is another matter. This is not a bug, but your unjustified expectations. The same with other aspects of the game, are you sure that these are bugs and not how it was intended?
For me, BG3 is the best RPG, I enjoy the game a lot, I didn't have any big bugs. I don't think a DLC or expansion of Act 3 is needed. The story is over. Larian regularly released hotfixes, patches, and after the 7th patch there will be small fixes, they said. What else do you demand? This is not an online game that they have committed to supporting for ten years. The studio has its own plans for future games. Moreover, there will be hotfixes and minor patches.
It's just somehow offensive to read all this discontent, when the studio has been supporting the game for a year, making improvements, and people are still unhappy.

This one is due to a problem with flags and a problem with just... how rushed his specific epilogue is. I don't know if that's the case for other romanced companions, but it barely takes a few choices into account, all across the board. The flags that it sets for the situation are set up for a reason but then not brought up at the epilogue. There are more contradictions at play there, but they're contained within the devnotes, so I guess that's dubiously canon.

I'm not savvy enough about game development, but I'm not sure other games have such big issues with the flags. Watching the SlimX videos about how much content is broken is staggering, and the worst part is I'm not sure the devs are aware that it's not working because no one was able to tell until now that that content wasn't triggering.

I've played BG3 on release and had a lot of bugs in act three, both with quests and gameplay. Some of the quest bugs got fixed (like Gortash battle), some did not (like Ravengard's dialogue). On a side note, even though the game gives you a story reason to kill Gortash asap, if you do so too early it will break a lot of quests, and this is still not fixed.

Gameplay issues examples: camera not showing floor in some houses in combat, companions or summons who have the flight ability not jumping or flying across sometimes, big animal companions getting stuck in places (cannot find path), enemies getting hostile & attacking through walls.

Also, I have played the game with mouse & keyboard before, now I have tried a controller and I am baffled they would release the radial menu in such state. Not only is it very messy, recast abilities like hex don't even show up on their own, I have to add them manually each time before using.

I can only speak for myself here, but I am in the same boat as you. I really do love the game, and I've clocked hundreds of hours in it. However, my enjoyment and love of the game does not forbid me from saying negative things about it and expressing my anger at the developers for making what I believe to be a bad and frankly disrespectful decision. You are right that this is not a "live service" game with planned new content, but think about the things that Larian has added to the game since its launch. They have not been giving us "extra" content as some people claim they are. They haven't dropped brand new content like "Hey, here's a new questline" or "here's a brand new origin character". I will come out and blatantly say that their post-launch patches were them finishing the game after it had already released. People were ecstatic when the epilogue patch was released in November/December, but we don't seem to talk about the fact that its absolutely ridiculous that we had to wait MONTHS after the game had already released for the developers to add an ending to the game instead of just an embarrassingly bad "good job champ" and fade to black that we had when the game released. Beyond that, they are only now, after over a year of the game being out, adding endings to the game for players who take the evil path. That's pretty lame if you ask me (especially considering how much of a let down these new endings are). The reason I and so many others are upset with Larian is because they are a company that built a reputation for themselves of taking time after the game is released to actually polish it and fix up the spots where it's sorely lacking. Here, they started that process by actually adding endings to the game, but then came out and said "we're tired of the game and are done with it" without even acknowledging that people had been talking for months about glaring issues the game still faced.

I'll be the first person to give this game praise for all the things that deserve to be praised. Yes, it gave us a whole bunch of wonderfully written companion characters with a diverse range of stories, who all make the game a joy to experience. Yes, it's awesome that almost every situation is able to be solved in whatever crazy way you can imagine, and the game usually does a good job of acknowledging your creativity. But there's so many issues with the game that rightly deserve to be called out to make the devs aware of their shortcomings. I understand that some people come forward with ridiculous requests that are completely out of the realm of possibility. No, we're not going to be able to romance Gortash. No, we're not getting a fully explorable upper city or avernus area. But there are reasonable things that Larian could and SHOULD have addressed before dropping the game like a hot stone and running off with their arms full of trophies while they come up with ideas for a new game.

- Why does Minthara feel like she was put together by a single developer without any QA testing only a few days before the game released. She's got barely anything to do once she joins your party (just one example of how the so-called "evil path" was seemingly abandoned and left in the dust) and the things she does do never work properly, with a huge chunk of her dialogue having been bugged for a whole year since the game released. That's ridiculous. Even Mr. Halsin, who is only there because bear sex is a funny joke, has things to talk about, and has a fully functional romance arc in the third act.
- Why is pretty much every "evil" choice you can make in the game just a slight variation of the good path but with blatantly less content. You want to raid the grove and infiltrate the cult of the Absolute instead of playing the part of the heroic defender who stands up for refugees in need? Congratulations, you're going to go to the same place and do the same things as the good guys, but you miss out on several recurring npcs and lose multiple members of your party. Larian really liked to talk about how evil the game lets you be before it came out, but it seems like most of the uniquely evil content ended up on the cutting room floor as they realized their vision for the game was too big and needed to be narrowed down.
- Branching off of this, why was the very interesting and fully written storyline of the dream visitor just thrown in the trash can before the game's release and replaced with the messy story of the Dream Guardian and a tadpole skill tree instead of the complex system of gaining illithid powers that was present in Early Access. Back then, you were able to really roleplay being evil and being seduced by the lure of power that the tadpole offered you, which would organically steer you towards the evil ending we currently have in the game of dominating the brain and becoming the absolute. This whole story was just replaced with the dream guardian showing up regardless of what you do and just saying "Please trust me and eat the tadpoles. They'll make you stronger and have no consequences to them at all." That of course also just leads into the silly reveal of the emperor, who is a character that doesn't make any sense. There's really no possible way that he could feasibly be Balduraan based on established lore, and that important part of his story is never even going to be seen if you're playing an evil character (the ones who are more likely to join his side) because for some reason the reveal of his identity happens as part of Wyll's personal quest.
- Finally, there are just so many issues with reactivity in Act 3, showing how little time it had to bake in the oven after the developers spent years adjusting every detail of Act 1. The companions go from having something new to say every ten steps at the start of the game, to suddenly being completely indifferent to the world around them and having no reactions to anything unless you're actively engaging in their personal questline. They just kinda stand there and watch as The Dark Urge either dies and has their soul brought back or willingly chooses to become the chosen of the murder god. Also, going back to the Emperor for a moment, he is constantly present in Act 3, but adds nothing of substance and is so inconsistent with his own words. He'll constantly tell you "Hey, don't do that thing you're doing. It makes me angry and we need to remember to work together" but when you do it anyway he just ignores it the next time you see him and speaks as if you've been following his every command to the letter the entire time and are his best friend.

Apologies for going off on a bit of a tangent there, but I want to make it clear that my love for this game is the exact reason why its flaws bother me so much. I would do anything in the world to see Larian right their wrongs and give us the game they wanted (and promised us), but they've taken a firm stand that they just don't feel like doing it. It's heartbreaking.

Em... Sorry, but it's definitely bugged. Source: datamined files and Larian's own flags. Spawn is intended to stay together with a Mindflayer Tav, not AA. And honestly, I find it surprising that you think the opposite. AA straight up INSULTS Midflayer Tav and doesn't even want to see them. Also AA will always break up with Tav he can't control, like when they refuse to be turned into his spawn. So of course he doesn't want to stay together with a mindflayer, because he can't control them. He is the one who breaks up without any suggestion to try to make it work, it's Spawn who says he doesn't want to lose Tav.
So yeah, it's definitely bugged. So my point still stands.

HenryDoughnut - wonderfully said!! You expressed my thoughts much better than I could ever have. Totally agree with your post.
THIS.

I don't this is a stretch to assume that Larian greatly scaled down their original plans for the amount of companions available. When EA was released the pitch was "we are releasing few, mostly evil and neutral cause they don't get used much, companions, and we will add more, good aligned, later". That never happened, and the only main companion we got was Karlach. In return Larian added 4 joinable NPCs, and until after launch it was either Minthara or Halsin so it is not surprising she got the short end of the stick. I lean toward believing that Minthara and Halsin received status as joinable NPCs to pad out companion roster - so no wonder they are lacking content. If Larian had time for content they might as well create more companions . And I am pretty sure people in EA did ask for NPC to join even if they won't become fully fledged companions - Deadfire's sidekicks being brought as examples. BG2 was also very uneven as far as content per companion was concerned.


Yeah, you answered it yourself near the end. There is only one game that goes for big branching paths approach and doesn't crash and burn (Witcher2, though act 3 of that game crashed and burned). As compelling of a pitch as "your choices will result in a completely different playthrough!" is it tends to be a pipe dream. No surprise for me here - act1 did seem to me like a lot of promises that couldn't ever be delivered on. It also doesn't help that majority of players won't do evil playthrough - so this content will always have lower priority if developer has too choose.

Personally, I am a bigger fan of variables, than big branching paths. Just seems more feasable to do, and in the long run more satisfying.


Was it fully written? Or did Larian create dream visitor for Early Access years ago, and changed their mind as they develop the rest of the game? That Guardian wasn't patched into Early Access doesn't mean that he didn't interanally replace Dream Visitor much, much earlier. I don't disagree with your dislike of Emperor, but that's how the finished story goes. I don't know why would you assume that Larian is sitting on something better, or that they will be rewriting big parts of the game after the production has wrapped up. #releasetheSnydercutofBG3


Well, I thought that happened as soon as one left Early Access area. Larian set for themselver some unattainable goals with Early Access. I don't think the problem is the amount of content they produced - it is well and beyond the compeition - but it is not smartly utilised. A game can be effective with a fraction of stuff Larian did if utilised properly. If companions keep responding to every little tidbit early on, and become silent later that's a self made problem. Something they should keep in mind for their next game, but it seems not something they can or are willing to address in BG3.

A game being frontloaded isn't uncommon. First of all, a lot of players won't get far into the game, and first impressions matter. I don't think Larian handled the transition gracefully, but the drop off isn't surprising in any way. The problem I think, that BG3 rather than delivering a kickass opening, is focused on promising the rest of the game, that it than can't quite deliver. It is a J. J. Abrams of videogames.

In this specific scenario the game lacks proper reactivity, AA is only in an alliance with a mind flayer Tav, not in a romantic relationship (despite the fact AA still has feelings for the creature and appreciates them), as he vividly explains how repulsed he is by their looks and recognises they're no longer the same person as before. The game reverts to regular consort Tav lines, including the dialogue about freedom, which makes no sense here, as Tav is no longer AA's spawn. Video showcasing the inconsistencies inside the spoiler:


There is also no follow-up and explanation why AA and Tav stay in the palace if they decided to travel, likewise UA and Tav end up travelling even if they chose to settle down. The epilogues are simply underdeveloped.


He only doesn't want to see them if they refuse his offer, he still considers them a valuable ally (as shown in the video). He also stays with mortal Tav if you don't long rest after the ascension and it's actually Tav who has to bring up wanting to be turned into a vampire.


These are also things that bother me and fall under the unfinished and rewritten last minute points I brought up earlier.


This is yet another issue I have with the development of the evil path. You miss out on content, you have potential allies dangled in front of you and they end up getting killed off in front of you or off-screen. The evil protagonist is often reduced to a cartoonish bloodthirsty murder-hobo who can't even attract like-minded individuals to their cause. The people I really wanted to have in my party and to be allies were Nere, Ketheric and Gortash. The game especially set up Ketheric to be a viable party member (including a way to intimidate him), but alas, just another wasted potential.

Personally speaking;

BG3 needed a year more of development to get brought up to a proper state.

As someone who experiences any game as an overall artform rather than systems upon systems, it's truly a shame when wonderfully ambitious works of art end up mistreated due to poor development management and then never reach their full potential they were destined to reach. There are unfortunately so many unfinished aspects in BG3 that could've easily been corrected with just a tiny bit more time and care, which are now going to become a permanent stain on this wonderfully ambitious work of art, something that as a player who participated since Early Access hoped would be addressed either through regular development or the Definitive Edition... but ultimately now won't be addressed by either, which is even worse and will make BG3 go down for me as just an alright RPG (great overall but terribly unfinished).

I'm sure whatever Larian ends up creating next will be an even better game overall even if it doesn't end up as big or as widely successful, because it will be coming from their heart. Something that's truly theirs, something they'll be truly passionate about and be able to shape however they envision it. There will not be pre-existing fanbases to appeal to, no pre-established lore to adhere to, no restrictions on what they can and cannot do. They will have absolute control over the project and I'm looking forward to seeing what that project is because they've grown as people and hopefully learned what and what not to do when it comes to development management. Because when something is truly yours, it is a completely different creative feeling (and pride).

And although I respect Larian's decision to move on, unfortunately the mistreatment of BG3 affected my perception of them as a player who wants nothing but the best for the game. I tremendously loved my time here during Early Access and even at launch, because it is their overwhelming passion, ambition, devotion and potential that initially drew me to BG3 and their enchanting DOS series despite never having played a turn-based game before. But as time went by it gradually became more and more obvious that their passion was slowly diminishing with each passing month just by reading through the patch notes alone, to the point of eventually even announcing it to the whole world themselves during the game's peak.

As someone who played Divinity Original Sin 2 for so many consecutive 100% playthroughs precisely to see how every miniscule detail is addressed throughout the game for every major and minor character and still intends to play even more in the future because I LOVE that game, I would never imagine such a passionate studio that created that wonderful work of art ending up with poor rewrites, forgotten details, abandoned plotlines, rushed parts, contradicting additions and so much more in BG3 to the point of even uncaringly having two companions not registering each other at all at camp along with so many other narrative issues... when in DOS2 even a tiny 'insignificant' crab on a beach ended up having an amazingly satisfying storyline.

Although I have no doubt the next game will be great precisely because it'll be their own love child, I'll be staying away from it because I've no faith they won't repeat the same development mistakes yet again with Early Access and post-launch due to community demands. After seeing what these two periods ultimately did to BG3 overall, all I can say is I hope they trust in themselves, their narrative vision and do not budge from what they envisioned. To finish the foundation of the narrative first and then begin Early Access only to improve the game's existing aspects like story reactivity, fluidity, additions, safeguards, gameplay and so on... so they don't end up yet again with poorly rushed mistakes like Karlach, Wyll, Halsin, Minthara, the Dream Guardian, the Emperor, the illithid parasites, the entire evil side of the story, the majority of ACT III and the drastic imbalance of content (like giving their most overdeveloped character even more camp interactions yet again with Patch #7, when there are numerous suffering aspects in dire need of development attention).

What I would truly love to see is for Larian to elevate themselves with bigger, richer and more intricate stories like the iconic trilogies Mass Effect and the Witcher. To come up with a beautifully enchanting franchise that so mesmerizingly establishes a wonderful sense of belonging within its vast immersive setting and ends up creating personal bonds equivalating that of a close family by the time we're done with it.

I wish them luck, will be too busy trying to finish what they started here.

This puts most of my own thoughts and feelings into words really well. So I don't have much to add beyond saying that I hope one day they change their minds about a definitive edition, and decide to work on one that gives the game the care it deserves and the care they gave their past games. I understand that creatively they want to focus on something new right now, it's just leaving the game as it is permanently that's an issue for me. It's just a shame they've decided that instead of rectifying this game's issues, they'll only be using them as an example of what not to do with their future games. Their treatment of this project at the end doesn't lend any confidence to how they'll handle their future ones. But more than that it's beyond disappointing as someone who just loves BG3.