Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Map and Mini Map discussion

"YOU HAVE BEEN WAYLAID BY ENEMIES AND MUST DEFEND YOURSELF!"

I just want to carve out a manageable subject, since there are a thousand things worth discussing. But first the Map! cause I dig maps haha

I find it generally pretty challenging to parse the main area map and the mini map right now.

Its not always clear what is an accessible area for movement and what is inaccessible terrain from looking at the map.

Elevation is difficult to determine from the map.

Orientation is sometimes hard to determine, or maybe I just have vertigo, but a compass UI element would be cool.

Explored vs Unexplored, it would be cool if there was a visual distinction on the map between areas that have been explored vs just seen/known. Basically the fog in the earlier bg games, distinct from black, showing the area but not what's in it. Would be a helpful option during testing I'd think.

The location of things like doors or merchants or major landmarks, would be cool if more of that was visible on the map. I frequently find it hard to tell where doors and area transitions are located from the map view.

PC and NPC colors. In the older games party was green and neutrals were white or yellow hostiles were red. Here the party is white/blue on the map gold in the portrait tabs, and the allies are green on the map/portraits, which kinda threw me. But anyhow, could introduce more colors there on map. Maybe blue or pink for merchants or quests? Basically more ql features to make interacting with the game environment through the maps more useful.

Issue movement commands from mini map

Fast travel from main map. I like Fast travel and the waypoint concept handling here, but I want more from the fast travel option. It should be able to take you anywhere you've explored, but with a risk! I have fast travelled the map probably a hundred times and have yet to spawn an encounter. Fast travel from the main map should be balanced against the possibility of being "Waylaid by Enemies" cause you know that's a fav.


That's all I can think of at the moment, but anyone else have thoughts specifically about the Maps?

I think they should add a hardcore mode that removes all quest markers, I also think the map needs an overhaul, its pretty not up to par, if your quest descriptors are not detailed enough for people to find it with out cheater marks there is a problem with the quests.

Fast travail should be doable by clicking the icon, not the text works on the side.

Yeah that would be rad!

Also I'm curious, how do people feel about the open world exploration and how its organized on the main map?

BG1/2 despite being fairly simplistic with its division into discrete areas (essentially it was a big grid with a bunch of area transitions) the exploration component in BG was always pretty clearly delineated and straightforward to grasp. You entered the area and, if you wanted to experience everything, you walked around in it until their was no more black in that part of the grid. Then moved on. Most of these areas had 3 or 4 transitions at the edge connecting to another similar square of the grid, and often at least 1 transition to a cave or abandoned cabin or a mini dungeon, and at least afew encounters of some note.

The world map felt very much like a traditional "map" with coffee stains or burned edges. Whereas the area map was just a zoomed out view of the actual level with landmarks and location names.

Although I find the large main map in BGIII more realistic in many respects (like in a google earth sort of way) in others it feels somehow less coherent as a tradtional Map. I don't mean from a utility standpoint, it clearly provides way more information than the old map systems ever did at a glance, but its also not terribly clear on where the boundaries for exploration actually are. I think it can be harder to navigate for that reason sometimes.

As more of the map is explored, I also imagine that the one giant map might drift into information overload territory, where there is just so much going on at a glance that it becomes convoluted.

Anyone else feel like a grid overlay might be helpful?

In the original games there was no mini map, just the world Map and the Area map (which functioned pretty similar to a mini map here except that you could issue movement commands directly from the area map view.)

In this one the world map functions exactly like an extended area map view, just with a very wide zoom. This is cool in many ways, and fun to try and push the edges. I'm constantly jumping. But then I'm also never quite sure if maybe a different jump would have opened up a whole new area branch. Or if maybe that stuff is locked out just for EA. Or perhaps meant to be permanently blacked-out just for geometric variety on the map. I end up backtracking a lot and probably wasting a bunch of time trying to access parts of the environment that were intended to be merely decorative or just to give a sense of scale.

I almost wish this game approached exploration a bit like Might and Magic where you could pick up a number of exploration skills along the way such as mountaineering or swimming or forestry. Stuff that allowed your party to explore otherwise unreachable parts of the map, but still using the same basic movement commands. It seems to me that climbing could be used like that here... where it allows the Toons to just climb up the rocks or scale rugged terrain with a simple click on the ground the way movement works in normal areas (without a ladder or vines or rocky crag and whathaveyou). But only if someone in the party has the know how to forge a path. This would give us reasons to throw that mysterious rope maybe. And could include other ideas as well, like sustaining injuries if an inexperienced party attempts to move in terrain without the requisite proficiency or a guide to lead them.

This kind of stuff could give Rangers and Druids more purpose as utility characters, while still allowing other characters to swiss army knife it on some level from things like background or specialized equipment or training they might acquire from NPCs they meet along the way.

I get that much of that stuff is now built directly into specific skills selected at character creation, or through leveling, and using that to the fullest extent possible makes total sense. But I also always liked the idea that some stuff could be built out or refined through exploration and conversation too, with more of a narrative component, as opposed to just a mechanical thing coming from the innate skills selected via Classes or Backgrounds. Something maybe a little more nuanced than an area unlock via convo, but essentially the same, just with more gameplay elements in the execution. Pulling from the old bag of tricks to make map exploration more gameful.

How does everyone else feel about the maps?

Another mini map idea just occurred to me, it would be cool if we show toggle to "show camera" orientation on the map.

One of the reasons its kinda awkward to know which direction you're facing is because the mini map shows which direction the characters are facing, but not which direction the camera is facing.

Since we're constantly rotating the camera with the mouse wheel, I think this would be a helpful feature for navigating the mini map.

Here is a link to the wiki showing the current maps in EA...

*SPOILERS if you haven't seen all the areas yet.

https://baldursgate3.wiki.fextralife.com/Maps

I guess this maybe isn't the hottest topic for discussion based on thread replies hehe, but I'm still hammering away with the thoughts about the maps.

Right now we have a glimpse of the "World Map" presented when you try to access an area that isn't yet available in EA. The area we're in for EA is actually all the stuff on the far right, not the keyed out region immediately around Baldur's Gate which is just a built-in zoom I'm guessing to give Baldur's Gate itself a greater sense of importance/scale.

Then there are basically 15 area maps we have access to in the current EA build. Half of them are stitched together pretty seamlessly in the main map view (I guess presented like a mini world map, just with no transitions) of the surface, the others are like discrete areas Dungeons/Caves/Temples and the like.

The mini map is a slightly scaled down version of the same, but which also shows things like NPCs wandering about.

Just wanted to save that link here as a reference in case anyone wants to dive in to particulars.

One thing I'd say is that its pretty hard to tell which stuff being displayed on the map represents impassible terrain vs like a rock outcropping or bridge that you can pass under, or like doors to interior area transitions. It'd be nice if we could get some kind of overlay showing elevation or just a transparency that tells you where there are multiple paths at different elevations. Sometimes the path simply ends where it butts up against a cliff, sometimes the path continues and what appears to be a cliff/rocks on the map is actually just an overpass, but its hard to see that from the map.

There is also a lot of black fog for inaccessible areas, that might appear to be unexplored but which is in fact simply unreachable even with death defying jumps. So anyhow, seemed a helpful link to have in a thread about the maps.

My 3 main wishes regarding maps would be...

1. Issue movement commands from the mini or area maps.

2. Fast Travel between Camp or Waypoints involving some risk of being Waylaid while enroute.

3. More wishes! hehe

Honestly though the ability to make notes on the map, or simply to have more notes auto added after an area has been explored, esp showing stuff like the location of merchants. Not that everything needs to be displayed in the same view all at once, but it would be nice if we could toggle landmarks via a map key with filters of some sort. It'd also be cool to see the path that the party has actually travelled. Maybe something similar the handling used in the Breath of the Wild expansion? The "heroes path" with a toggle to see the snaking route the party has actually walked up to that point.