Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Visual Range

Dear Lariant team,

I like BG3 very much, but I have some (one big) requests changing the game:

1(big): Visual Range
The visual range in BG3 is far too wide.

BG3:
- Im standing near the raided village and can see nearly all the houses and even inside the houses.
- Im running into the owlbear cave and can see the beast and his kid and every path in this cave.
- This can be exploited in many ways.

BG1 and 2:
Compare it to BG1 and BG2: You have this black edge. If you see an enemy, he sees you and attacks you instantly. You dont know how many companions of him are behind him in the shadows. You dont know what kind of fight you will expect.

Solution:
The visual range in BG1 and BG2 was way to short, to be realistic. But the visual range in BG3 is way to far to give us an realistic AI.
Please, please find a good compromise between these two extremes.

Importance?
- atmosphere: The game will feel much more threatening and mysterious. You dont know what lies ahead of you.
- realism: It just feels like exploiting the game, if you prepare way ahead of the fight without giving the enemies a chance to do the same or attack.
- overstrained: In BG3 im arriving at a crossraods; I see 1 dead, two living humans to the left, one dead boar in front of me, a trasure right to the east, I can jump upwards and downwoards and maybe my char even spots sth hidden right next to me...... Im totally overstrained what to do. Most of the time Im running around with a list in my head, what I NEED to do after the things Im doing right now. It somehow feels like work and stress sometimes. It would be easier, if you have to deal with every situation, if you encounter it (I see the 3 people; they come to me to talk).

2: Light and atmosphere
The game feels way to friendly. I think this is the reason why so many people want to have a day/night-circle. Imagine the forrest in the moonlight with a shortened view. It would bring back the BG-feeling much more!
But we dont need a day/night circle for that. Please just durken the textures or the light. Make the world feel much more threating and mysterious.

Path-Design
What do Dark Souls 1 and BG1 have in common?
After the tutorial you can head for nearly any direction and deal with everything in an order you decide. This is one of the big reasons, these games were replayed so much: You were able to alter your pathing like you wanted it to be.

This is partially included in BG3. But it feels too controlled.
- I start at the south of the forest and heading towards the north. I can sometimes walk to the right or left of cource, but in the end I need to be north.
- I have this one big forest, that I cant escape from.

In BG1 after Gorion died, I was able to go in nearly any direction I wanted to. Heading for the gnoll stronghold first? No problem! Fighting basiliscs with a lvl 1 Viconia? Here you go!
If I didnt liked the Ankhegs anymore, I was able to go somewhere else -even if my lvl wasnt meant for that map ("Just a bigger challenge for me!").

Of course we have a big forest here, where I can go north, east, west or south. But its always the same forest with the nearly same big fight in the end. This feels too controlled.

Please give us the ability to change the map-order how we want them to be. Make the maps smaller for that purpose, but more diverse. Dont let all the companions be on the same map, but let us fight for them though some monsters to earn them in the order we want them to get.

Honestly I hope we get an Evening/Night toggle. The game is far to bright and sunny most of the time.

I think this is one of the problems I felt the most while playing EA " atmosphere: The game will feel much more threatening and mysterious. You dont know what lies ahead of you.".

As it stands the game just has a really uninteresting atmosphere to it. Firstly it looks like you're playing in a candyland map or something, everything is so shiny and round and cartoony in the world. Even the cursor and interaction UI makes it look like something out of Barbie Pony Island. The whole dark and mysterious feel of Baldur's Gate or even other DnD titles is completely gone which is a massive mood-killer for the game.
The overall visibility is horrible and the camera is completely broken. A game where exploring a dungeon should be fun, exciting, tense and mysterious, and I can see through the walls? wtf? So there's a closed door in front of me, but oh wait, the camera is showing me 5 guys standing behind it waiting to ambush me... It just kills the whole point. All the fun out of exploring the place has been sucked dry. Not only that, but walking around and having the camera show secret paths behind magical walls... I mean come on...
The other stupid thing is regarding failed investigation rolls. I walk into a room and suddenly I have 4 failed investigation rolls popup. At this point, I already know something is wrong with the room, most likely hidden traps. Well, there goes the excitement down the drain again.
Most of this stuff was done absolutely right in the originals.

I think this is one of the problems I felt the most while playing EA " atmosphere: The game will feel much more threatening and mysterious. You dont know what lies ahead of you.".

As it stands the game just has a really uninteresting atmosphere to it. Firstly it looks like you're playing in a candyland map or something, everything is so shiny and round and cartoony in the world. Even the cursor and interaction UI makes it look like something out of Barbie Pony Island. The whole dark and mysterious feel of Baldur's Gate or even other DnD titles is completely gone which is a massive mood-killer for the game.
The overall visibility is horrible and the camera is completely broken. A game where exploring a dungeon should be fun, exciting, tense and mysterious, and I can see through the walls? wtf? So there's a closed door in front of me, but oh wait, the camera is showing me 5 guys standing behind it waiting to ambush me... It just kills the whole point. All the fun out of exploring the place has been sucked dry. Not only that, but walking around and having the camera show secret paths behind magical walls... I mean come on...
The other stupid thing is regarding failed investigation rolls. I walk into a room and suddenly I have 4 failed investigation rolls popup. At this point, I already know something is wrong with the room, most likely hidden traps. Well, there goes the excitement down the drain again.
Most of this stuff was done absolutely right in the originals.

True! You made some very good additional points:

Cause of the camera we can see through walls? Please stop that.

And if we fail an investigation roll, we dont have to see that. If we do, we know something is up and just reload the game until we got the roll the wway we wanted.