Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Thoughts on the Gameplay...

Hey there, i will start by saying that i am an avid and pretty much die hard fan of your work , I have played and finished Divine Divinity when i was much younger , finished Divinity 2 , only played a little Ego Draconis , never touched Dragon Commander to be honest..it really wasn't for me , and i played and finished Original Sin 1 , currently i am still playing and only just left Fort Joy in OS2 ( i know i'm abit late but i will explain in this post why it took me long to get started with it)

I have also played and finished all Baldur's gate and Icewind dales multiple times (and also both Pillars of Eternity) so before i go on with my rant , i just wanted to display my love for both genres and both your games and the old DnD style games , as this concern is coming from a place of love towards this genre.

The reason why i started Divinity OS2 very late and did so only because i kept and keep hearing praises towards many aspects (most of all the story line and continuity which you have molded throughout the Divinity games) was because of the combat system (i know you saw this coming :P )

Turn based combat , in my honest opinion , was ONLY good and worked for strategy games like Heroes of Might and Magic and Disciples game series...it did not appeal to me the slightest in Original sin 1 , but i bought the game and i felt obligated in a way to see it through to the end. I am enjoying OS2 since the combat is much more polished and the other aspects like storyline and voice acting etc etc etc are also better than the previous game.

After the announcement that YOU guys were going to develop BG3 i was extremely excited , since good dialogue and storyline and world building has always been you're strongest attributes..but..i hoped to all the gods both new and old , that you will make the combat system similar to what Pillars of Eternity did ( not exactly the same , indeed you have your freedom to experiment) but i just wanted the whole turn based concept to go away...but after the gameplay trailer , i can safely say it was like a dagger to my testicles , after hoping for a sequel for this game for almost 2 decades..to see that it's basically Original Sin game with Forgotten Realms lore and using a modified 5th edition of the D&D ruleset to fit the game..but man , this does not feel right at all , i'm aware that development is too far to change anything , but this is a pretty common concern among some of your fanbase..i just wanted to voice my concern and maybe get everyone else's opinion , i will most likely still buy the game and play it for the continuity...but it just won't have the same soul to it.

Kind Regards.

My two cents, this is everything that I didn't want for BG III. BG I & II were not turn based games and III shouldn't have been either. I will not be buying this and no folks you will not change my mind. I'm not here for a debate, just to make a statement.

I saw people complaining about not having fog of war , or the layout of the UI being almost like OS2 or not having the oldschool isometric view (like Pillars of Eternity).....I CAN live with all of thoese , but not the combat system...i'll throw out an example , let's say the game without turn based takes 100 hours to complete, with turn based it increases to 150-200 for literally no damn reason , basically wasting my time for NO REASON , im not mentally handicapped , i don't need turn based , i can function at a normal pace and make decisions quickly..i know i'm being a little mean at the end , but god my dissapointment is too strong...i wanna play a game with normal combat..not god damn chess..............

I just agree. BG 3 without RT-COMBAT is not good. And it looks like a DOS 2 RIPOFF.

I stopped watching the demo when I lerend the fog of war was still broken... you can actually see through walls and over doors... not worth my time.

combat looked totally fine lack of fog of war though makes the game a joke.

I believe RT-combat is a mistake because this is D&D not Diablo. Although I do disagree with the way the turn based combat is executed. Why is it your team vs enemy team as a whole. Why is it not individual-based like in actual D&D? Who made that decision? Was it a single person? A group of people? Have they ever played D&D?

I do not know if they played D&D but I am pretty sure they played XCOM...

It just doesn't work for me man...it doesn't feel right to go afk for 1-2 minutes everytime your enemies turn starts, in OS2 the scarecrow battle took me 15-20 minutes , like that's just garbage...there's so much wonderful dialogue ,reading and lore and books to read and things to do and experiment...i don't want to spend so much time waiting for characters to finish animations , and it's awkward to watch them staring at each other while the next NPC/Character finishes his turn. At least have an option that will speed up animations so i can get through the waiting times in a more tolerable manner.

Edit: I have edited this comment since i did not formulate correctly what i wanted to say the first time

That is your opinion and you are entitled to it, but I´ve never seen a non competitive TB game that you have to wait for your turn so long as you`ve said.

Literally the worst part of Baldur's Gate is the combat system. It is objectively inferior when it comes to DnD implementation.
The move to TB is logical because it allows the game to actually use the license that they have access to. This is coming from someone who still own the original big box versions of the BG series I purchased 2 decades ago, and owns every version of the games released, including platforms I do not own (Xbox).

You are complaining about having to actually play the game, so as far as I can see you don't actually like old school RPGs. The fact you even complain about the amount of lore the games contain seems to indicate that you should look at different gaming experiences, as this does not look like your wheelhouse at all.

I think it kinda misfired...
It looks too similar to DOS, plays too similar, had bugs and missing features from the tabletop. Hope this is far away from beta.

Yeah, I'm a big fan of BG, I played the second in particular something like ten times or so, from start to finish.
I still think the combat being real time was the most glaring flaw of the game, despise having some damn good encounter design to ALMOST make up for it.

Conversely, I liked a lot of the two Orginal Sin, but hwat I hated the most about them was their half-assed ruleset/progression system and the horrendous randomized itemization.
This automatically addresses both (at least to some extent) even just by merely being based on D&D.

No matter how I look at it, this is a win/win for me.

THAT SAID, I really think they should work on giving the UI and camera a more distinctive look and separate identity over the OS series.

I don't think it's too late to change. As Sven says in a recent interview, they want to get feedback on the game and D:OS1 turned out to be a very different game after its early access period than it was when when it went into early access.


But if Larian don't change the game to RTwP or add RTwP as an option equal to TB, then they should change the name of the game. Because this isn't a Baldur's Gate 3 and it is disrespectful of the fans of the Baldur's Gate series who have waited decades for a sequel to pretend that this is the game they've been waiting for. Calling this BG3 is indeed wrong and It shows a lack of integrity.

Sorry but i may i have made a grammatical error in my statement , as english is not my main language , what i meant to say was that i enjoy and love the "long dialogue ,reading and lore and books to read and things to do and experiment" which is enough time invested , i do not want invest my time in the combat just to watch animations play out separately for each enemy/character , still really not my thing , i would invest my time in a combat system that would not make me fall asleep...you can say whatever you want about the combat system being "appropriate" for the genre , but it's basically chess , only less entertaining:P

I have talked with a lot of BG series fans and everyone was worried that it might be a DoS clone.... I hoped it wont be but...
Thank you Larian studios for ruining the hopes of thousands, I hope your studio will go bankrupt or something.

I agree wholeheartedly of implementing both combat systems which you can change in the options , or make it a permanent choice per character start , but a choice nonetheless..and this will satisfy both camps , because at the moment , the game has heavily divided the fanbase between the ones that want Turn based , and the ones that want real time...why not both eh:)?

You can like whatever you want, but I sincerely wish you could stop talking as if you were the bannerman for all the old school Baldur's Gate fans out there.
You surely aren't speaking for me, as the ditching of RTWP for turn-based is something I always wished for the series.

In the same way I always loved Space Rangers 2 but I sure as fuck wouldn't want the RTS sections back in a sequel and I would gladly replace them with something else (i.e XCOM-like combat would be neat).

P.S. "implementing both combat systems" is a terrible idea that could easily turn out to be a half-assed hybrid and the worst of both worlds.

I don't think the turn based combat is that big of an issue. Both DOS turned out fantastic and there are some features of the tabletop that can be better implemented through TB such as surprise, which was present in the reveal.
The problem is that it looks like a DOS mod, both grafically and gameplay wise.
Also if they are going TB I hope they make a perfect translation from tabletop to PC, which is not viable using RTwP. However there seemed to be a LOT of stuff missing, including race features.

POE2 turned out fine. TB just takes too long because of the size of mobs. But in DOS and probably in BG3 there are less enemies.

100% this, RTwP simply sucks!