So there's maybe one thing in some criticism that I've observed over the past week that has rubbed me the wrong way, even if I tend to agree with most people about the game's combat balance being rather off for the time being. But one needs to take into account that once something is coded in, it's often not as easy as taking it out and expecting things to go well. I myself may have given the devs some crap for seemingly using the D:OS2 engine to create BG3, but at the same time... Hindsight is 20/20. It probably didn't seem like a bad idea at all when they started development on BG3. And now the game may be too far along to just... Scrap all that effort and restart anew.

A few of you may have noticed that I often segue into talking about other cRPGs in development and what programming struggles they ran into, mostly to give a frame of reference to indicate that nobody's really perfect at this. Here's a couple of my own excerpts.

On Solasta


On Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous


So you can read all these and share some examples you know, and understand that... Imagine what kind of scary bugs we don't know of that existed within BG3 too. Larian did say that we would have had patch 4 by now if it weren't for a bug they had discovered last minute. I almost wonder exactly what it is.

Rest assured, we will almost certainly never know...

Thank you for the rather humorous examples though. I enjoyed that... and yes, programming is hard. That's a large part of why I try not to be overly critical of the programming aspects of the game. The writing is another story all together, as is the design. The programming though, that I can understand the difficulties and limitations for.

+1

Just going to add that the scope of the game (from what we can see in patch 3) is significantly bigger than the scope of Divinity: Original Sin 2.
Larian was very honest when they brought up in the Panel From Hell II that they had to reallocate resources, and that they were opening a new office to onboard employees.

It's normal for projects with increasing scope to consider delaying the project or hiring new employees. I've brought this up before, COVID impacted game development (and other businesses) across the globe and Larian had an office flood. It's been a challenging development period.

I want patch 4 and 5 as soon as possible too but we have to be realistic about it.

Oh, right. The office flood.

How many have they had now? This is like, the third time, right?

Might be an old building with plumbing or storm drainage issues.

Nah, I think the explanation was that the office is located within a massive flood plain that stretches across several countries in Europe. And they're in one of the worst places in said flood plain. Really unfortunate, that.

I don't know how many, the most recent flood it seems they lost a server. At least I think that is what has been implied with the word "drowned".

Larian's Twitter

Enjoy your posts OP but I wonder if you are jousting with windmills in this instance? I've not read any "lazy" posts. Granted there are some posters that I only scan. The delay of the patch sucks but it just happens.

Does sound like they need to move their servers to the upper levels. And COVID is screwing up everything.

Who's saying lazy?

Everything I have issue with took work to put in the game. Thats not lazy.

There's an implication of it now that people are realizing more and more about how the choice of engine explains a lot in regards to how certain mechanics are being designed. The angrier posts over this stop short of outright calling them lazy without adding much of anything.

Granted, there's not THAT much of it, and the purpose of the thread is really about sharing programming struggles across all of the major cRPGs in development to balance out the forum's general mood and provide perspective more than anything else.

I suspect this thread is more of an opportunity to be noticed as a "voice of reason" rather than a genuine attempt to address a real issue. I don't think I've ever seen a single post complain about "lazy programming". I even got off my own lazy behind to do a internet search - which came up pretty much a wash with a handful posts on various forums complaining about perceived developer laziness, and about as many complaining about the complaints. Such is the interwebs! Conflating design decisions with programming to paint critics as unrealistic is a pretty new take though.

Larian might have been seen as "lazy" by some for relying so heavily on DOS2 assets in the early development cycle, but for reasonable people these were more placeholders to efficiently utilize early resources rather than a grand conspiracy to make DOS3: The D&D conversion mod.

What constitutes (pure) "programming" depends on how you define it, but much of it is universally praised. The game looks beautiful for starters. The animations need significantly more work, but they are getting there.

Aspects like defaulting to "Larianisms"/"Larian cheese", when there are plenty of objectively superior D&D alternatives that are much more immersive (have internal logic in a way an everburning candle in your backpack putting swords on fire doesn't), better balanced, and less clunky to use, are reasonable and valid criticisms of design decisions and by extension resource management (for every "bad" feature that makes it into the game at any stage, likely a "good" feature won't ever make it).

I can think of 2 posters that have straight up become no better than memes in regards to their insults and anger. Although I think a number of posters are just to the point of knitpicking, I think it has value. At least they are taking the time to figure out the issues, and giving them some thought, so I respect that. Honestly, I think the people that regularly call Larian liars and lazy (I think we all know who they are) should just be banned. They add nothing to the conversation, just vitriol.

But game development, is based off of the spine of a single entity, that is a company's game engine. Changing physics and rules inside there is a nightmare, and your right, it does cost a fortune to fix small things. The actual world development, character design, asset design, is pretty GUI interface right now, since getting back into 3D modeling and working in Unreal, I find it crazy how much easier they have made it since back in the day.

But when you have a company like Larian, that has their own engine, it can be a blessing and a curse. So your right, to get in there to change the engine drastically, or make major changes like flying, can almost be impossible. Not to mention, the original programmers that made the engine might not even be working there anymore. ANYONE that has coded, knows it is pretty much twice as bad trying to modify another persons code (even with decent notes in the code). When you talking about a game engine, with literally millions and millions of lines of code, well you get the picture.

This post is what happens when you feel like you've made good comments on other posts, but they were ignored, so your desire for recognition drives you to make a recap post quoting yourself.

And yours is just unconstructive snarkiness. Please refrain from such unhelpful and obviously antagonistic posts in the future.

You have been warned about such language before so you may consider this a final warning before leaving the forum.

Say what you will about Saito, and some stuff he posts I disagree with. But at least they are thought out, considerate posts that are not inflammatory, baseless hate threads.. But generally, his posts get a lot of attention and responses. A little self projection maybe?

Given I have just given Tzelanit a warning for his post style, please do not engage with the post in question lest you be scooped up in the fallout.

Yeah sorry...my bad.

Eh, not really. I left the quote tags in for formatting reasons, because it looked messy without them. The WotR stuff is something I actually hadn't mentioned anywhere else in the forums, but it looked awkward without the quote tags while all of the Solasta ones had them, because the Solasta examples were quoting direct posts I had made in the past.

Also to the mod: I took no offense to these posts, as what was mentioned wasn't my intention to begin with. Though they were a bit de-raily, I think I can handle things. :P


Well it's not like I was hiding that, as you can see from my post before yours. But for the last part, I don't really mean to conflate programming decisions with making some of us look like we're suggesting something unrealistic, but it all depends on how the developers take the criticism.

Maybe they'd surprise us and it turns out the engine actually does have ways to implement certain notable missing features. But at this point, it's also possible that certain things just can't realistically be done without things breaking left and right, and it may be more practical for me to accept that, as sad it might be.

... I should have worded the title differently now that I think about it.

@Saito Hikari Appreciate the reply even as I find myself agreeing with Seraphel that laziness isn't really a subtext of many posts. Glad we can agree that laziness rarely, if ever, directly mentioned.

But to your point about programming -- yes, trying to change the movement mechanics on the DOS-Unreal engine would take a tremendous amount of work. Probably 6 months at minimum. But it's work work doing. I would be happy with a commitment to change it. I'm already prepared for EA taking two years instead of the estimated one.

Well I’d be happy if they were to do that, although the thread may be an attempt for me to rationalize Larian not doing that for myself. Again, hindsight is 20/20, what seemed like a good idea at the start of development might not match with the reality today. Plus Larian simply being unable to program some missing features is a more palatable reason, than them simply refusing to listen to us because it’s not part of whatever vision they have.

Plus Larian could take the time to swap to a new engine, but the real question then becomes, will WotC accept that? My guess is no.

That said, I don’t think anyone would be as forgiving if they use the same engine for a sequel.

Hmm. Not a programmer but an engine does many things other than manage movement. There are many things that I like about the unreal engine. Unreal has the photo realistic graphics and it supports my sli setup but I've seen smaller devs tackle issues like recreating graphics interfaces and transforming a RtwP engine into a turn based engine so big changes do seem possible.

Well, true. DOS2 actually did not support cinematics like what we know BG3 can do now. Which I now realize undermines my argument here, because it does mean the devs can indeed make significant changes to the engine if they put their minds to it.

Man, this thread was a much better idea in my head while I was bored at work yesterday.

The use of a developed "game engine" like Unity or Unreal or Divinity is basically an advanced Roblox or Lego set. If you want custom pieces, you have to make them yourself, otherwise you are stuck using the basics. Now, you can make some really amazing shit with basic lego and roblox, so this isn't an issue.

But if you go making a ton of custom lego pieces and amass so many of them that when the new lego set comes out you can't play because none of the pieces fit ... whose fault is that?

Larian built themselves a cool lego fort, and now are faced with having to tear it down and build something new, but are refusing to do so in the name of "Homebrew".

That's why I call Larian lazy.

Putting in an exorbitant amount of effort to force a round peg through a square hole is not "productive" or "helpful" or "difficult".

It's the most insidious form of stubbornness and procrastination.

And, looking at things like the DOS2 armor apology, this kind of stubbornness is a TRAIT of Larian Studios. Bad business.

OP's next thread "Larian is LAZY!!!"

Nah, that isn't Saito, I think he/she meant well. Threads like this are notorious for bringing the negative people that just want to push anything Larian under the bus because they, God forbid, do not listen to EVERY thing that they recommend, and then say "Yes master, hit me more please".

Well, I AM a programmer, but not a game one. Still, it seems that the most broken things about the combat combat system can be changed/fixed easily - if modders can do it, so should Larian: https://github.com/ZerdBG3/DnD-Rebalancing/blob/main/Features.md (note e.g. "Removes Backstabbing from the game")

Not commenting on everything you've said but I think it's been settled. Op said the thread wasn't a good idea -- which is kinda impressive, rare for people change their minds -- and that's that for me. Looking forward to other good threads from Saito Hikari

no, i know Just a little poke.

Ehhh... Probably not. I did mention that if Larian made a clear message indicating that many of the more questionable mechanics are here to stay, I would step away from the forum and wait for release in acceptance that this is how their vision is meant to be. Putting in actual video tutorials for high ground advantage and backstab advantage is about as clear as it gets.

Plus I've pretty much run out of things to say, and you all got better shit to do than to listen to me being a broken microphone spewing 20 more pages of walls of text. :P

I do want to say this, though. If by any chance any of the class modders see this, would it be possible to mod in the Greenmage from Solasta? It's a super fun homebrew wizard archetype whose specific niche doesn't really exist in any of the official 5E classes at all. I mean, why not?

Is it documented somewhere? Sad to see you leave, but I dont blame ya.

Boot up the game and see for yourself. Assuming your ISP isn't throttling you. Which it probably is, because this is a larger patch due to the backend changes in how the files are packaged, and ISPs are gonna ISPs. Previous patches took me about an hour to download, this one took me 2 and a half, for reference.

That said, I'm not completely leaving the forums. I'll just pop in randomly to talk about whatever new development catches my attention, as I quite like these forums. I'm just not gonna vomit wordy waterfalls as usual. Again, I've pretty much ran out of anything new and constructive to say in the face of knowing that a lot of the design choices are meant to stay.

There's life and other games to keep track of as well (Solasta's probably having an update in a few weeks, and it looks like Pathfinder WotR Beta is also getting a Phase 2 towards the end of April), so there's that too.

EDIT: I just ran across this thread.

https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=759820

That thread details subtle balance changes to mechanics we considered problematic that were NOT mentioned in the patch notes, of which I suspected something like that would occur. After all, the switch from field effects applying their effects multiple times per turn to once per turn were not documented in the Patch 3 notes either. Interesting thing to consider.

Well if you do go, know that I've enjoyed your in-depth critiques.

I still have a fools hope that Larian will change its mind but you are right, the signs aren't good. If anything Sven seemed annoyed that he couldn't deviate from the rules even further. And this patch doubles down own surfaces -- seems like Larian wants to make electrified ice the cheese surface that wins the day.

Wait, electrified ice is a thing in BG3? That never actually existed in D:OS2 (because adding a potential damage/stun effect to a surface that can trip you to begin with is busted even by that game's standards), and I don't think BG3 would actually go much further than that in this department...

Had the same thought.

ugh, the pacing of combat is so staccato and slow.

camera snap. camera snap. camera snap. camera snap. camera snap. 2 seconds of player control. camera snap, camera snap, camera snap. 40 seconds of non-player action. camera snap. camera snap.

one of the things I hate MOST about DOS3 combat is how the camera hops around EVERY SINGLE FUCKING action like a Ritalin kid on M&Ms.

A significant number of complaints people have are about design choices, not implementation in coding. Most people get that there will be unpolished things at this stage. The idea that the game revolves around the high ground, Anakin, has nothing to do with that.

Oh.

I thought the ice would actually get electrified, which is what I thought you were describing.

Still, a quick skim through the first part is actually way more excessive than anything I had ever seen from my Hydrosophist/Aeroteurge party setup in D:OS2. Getting stunned in D:OS2 required one of two other conditions first:

1) Being under the effect of the 'Shocked' status, and then getting hit by an attack that inflicted the Wet status or another Shocked status effect, which upgraded the Shocked status into Stunned
2) Being under the effect of the 'Wet' status, and then getting hit by an attack/walking into a field effect that inflicted the Shocked status, which took you straight into being Stunned

If you walked into an electrified water field without any magic armor, you'd either get Shocked, or Stunned if you were already Shocked or Wet. However, this act also causes all electricity in the water to disappear, as it is assumed that the affected character absorbs it all, so it required a bit more effort to stun multiple enemies at once.

Oh man this is so heartbreaking to watch. Swen would probably love it and be kicking himself that he didn’t think of it for his stream.

No, it's a bit simpler, in BG3 you can electrify the water, freeze it and the electricity flows through the ice. Don't yet know if you can electrify steam clouds like you could in DOS2.

Given that druids now have destroy water I'm seeing the DOS like sequence fall into place -- you freeze, they make it water again, you make it steam, they have no counter, you electrify. Destroy water ends the surface management.

And people in this forum still say that this game does not resemble DOS and is "more D&D than BG".

Yeah, this patch actually increased the surface management in a big way. I just tested to see if they fixed the "silence doesn't Gut from calling for help" bug and the electric ice surface is used against the party by Gut's followers. (Gut still yells despite being in a zone of silence) The goblins break the strategically positioned water barrels, one warlock electrifies and the other freezes. Now the party is prone on electric ice.

Haven't tired it but obvious counter this is barrellmancy -- either blow Gut up or blow up to avoid the fight or blow up the smokepowder reserves in the storage room. Then Gut's followers have to stand in a fire surface and the two surfaces come together to make steam.

I'll see if I can electrify a fog cloud spell this weekend. BG3 still a hybrid but this patch made it resemble its DOS parent more than ever.

Seriously, now someone is just sounding like an apologist for a failing game trying to remain relevant in the face of constant criticism from all but its most stringent supporters.

These forums are primarily for the discussion of Larian Studio's Baldur's Gate 3 game.

Please don't start bringing in long posts about other games and the minutia of their updates. If you feel that such posts are relevant to BG3, at least put them in spoilers.

As above, but you have already been warned about your abrasive tone. This time you will have a 7-day suspension.

Taken in conjunction with your post on another thread, the ban is now permanent.

Some posts have gone away. To reiterate Sadurian's post from just a few hours ago:


Some people may consider themselves on their final warning.

...

Yeah I'm just gonna request a lock at this point.

This thread really DID sound better in my head when I was bored at work. It has clearly turned into a terrible idea by this point.

On second thought, something was just announced for Solasta that is making me rethink a few things.

A Dungeon Maker.


An update like this kind of shows that Solasta's priorities lie firmly in the combat/gameplay experience, and it doesn't make any attempts to pretend that it's going to be anything but that with how the writing is presented. Maybe the same should hold true for how we're supposed to view BG3 - a highly cinematic experience first and foremost, with a combat system that tries to be as much of a sandbox as possible, no matter how much certain factions here want it to conform more to 5E in varying levels of strictness. Both vastly different experiences - and the question there would be, is that really so much of a bad thing in the end?

D:OS2 had a similar toolset that let you create your own adventures, but it never took off at all because it was supposedly extremely cumbersome to try to create things with it, so we probably wouldn't expect such a thing in BG3. And quite frankly, BG3 probably doesn't need to waste precious resources trying such a thing again.

(Some might take the way the post is worded as me being disappointed with Solasta's latest update. It's the exact opposite, I think it's pretty freaking great because it basically means Solasta is now firmly set on its own path away from BG3's shadow, with something that might spawn a modding community that persists through entire decades like Neverwinter Nights. BG3 and Solasta are going to end up being amazing in the end for completely different reasons. A couple of us, perhaps including myself, would probably benefit from the practical approach of just letting both games do their own thing.)

the DOS2 dungeon builder was horrendous. There were basically a small set of pre-made rooms and caverns that you could tile together. There was no actual user creativity involved, more like work to overcome the hindrances of the toolset.

I really don't understand this argument.
There should be no "choice" between the game being this cinematic experience and also having great combat, that is, being a faithful adaptation of the 5e mechanics.
BG and IWD are both great games that have the exact same mechanics and no one ever thought they were the same.

My argument is a bit roundabout. For one, I don't really expect Larian to really listen to our feedback (or they simply can't due to the choice of engine and that it's far too late for them to turn back on that), ergo, I'm not going to bother talking about the game in a way that misrepresents what it actually is. So instead of wasting my efforts spending entire afternoons typing out huge essays in these parts, I've learned to simply accept BG3 for what it simply is. It's a highly cinematic experience with a very sandbox-type combat system.

Indeed, I found myself enjoying BG3 again. What changed? I simply stopped formulating my strategies around it being a DnD game, and adapted towards approaching it with the mindset of a D:OS game, which I enjoyed for largely different reasons.

Coming from you, this ought to be a huge wake up call to a company who openly admitted they were afraid people would confuse BG3 with their DOS games.

Larian needs to take a step back and reassess.

I've had the same experience except instead of stop thinking it's a D&D game, I had to stop thinking of it as a BG game and try to enjoy it for what it is. That unfortunately means ignoring all the companions right now as i don't like any of them, but the game has promise, it's just not a BG game right now imo.

Yeah, I agree. P4 / Panel from Hell 2 made me fully realize that the BG3 name/setting/D&D part is just marketing/cash-grab, but BG3 definitely still has a fighting chance to end up being a pretty good RPG. Still, it would be nice if Larian actually managed to get out of their DOS comfort zone a bit more (both in terms of gameplay/mechanics and writing).

Could have left us with OP cantrips if the rest of the game won't be D&D then. To extrapolate, it greatly impacts what the fan feedback should be and what Larian should implement from that feedback what the end product is supposed to look like. And to the extent there's lack of clarity from Larian, it makes it hard to give feedback. And then people get frustrated. Like the wrong thing could have been implemented because most of the fans were confused about what the game was even supposed to be then the entire thing becomes worse for it.

Like right now I'm freaking out how druids have been nerfed to the ground and it's not clear if this is intentional or if Larian is working on it with regard to, for instance, controlling concentration spells that existed before you wild shaped. With slightly better communication, I wouldn't be worried because I'd know one way or the other, whether I liked the outcome or not. As it is, I'm looking at the possibility of a good outcome or a bad outcome, so I experience some level of anxiety.

And you may say, well, they never promised they would implement it this way. But in a sense, by saying they're trying to do 5e, with some changes, you don't expect major core class functions to be dead. And controlling concentration spells while wild shaped, for instance, is a very core druid feature. This is actually the first time I ever felt really nervous about this game's development so far. Like lighting people on fire with a cantrip isn't that big of a deal comparatively to me, as that's just sort of a damage function feature. This is about how you play and strategize as the class. It takes a class that's interesting and requires a lot of thought and actually gives it fewer options in beast mode than a fighter. I don't think it's a hyperbole to say if the implementation of call lightning is screwed up, you're not playing a druid.