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#741752 05/12/20 12:00 AM
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Allow us to take the templates the premades have in character creation, such as vamp spawn for example.

But the option to play your premade characters?

Yawn. This isn't your other games, from what I read in the forums, people here are not interested in it.

But templates? Hidden areas that are template specific?

Like making a druid, that has a option to join the shadow druids, and open a whole different line.

Or playing as a goblin or hobgoblin starting in the camp, and has a different angle on the tadpole - you start out just recieving the tadpole.

So instead of origins, allow a choice to play from the angle of invernus, the angle of the mindflayers, the angle of the tieflings, the angle of the goblins.
All would be in the same area, but all would have different goals and objectives.
The mindflayers might even have dug out a spot near their crashed ship in a cave to lick their wounds,

Just typing that makes my heart skip a beat, and it sticks with the tadpole story line.

Which I still want more origin options than tadpoles... but different angles on the tadpole, I would be more than happy with too!

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I don't mind having companions with interesting and personal stories - but they need to be strongly secondary to the core story of the game, and the core story of the game needs to focus on, and make the player character feel like the actual protagonist.

The 'origins' aren't companions and don't feel like them, in that sense; it's very obvious that they are all designed to BE the protagonist, far more so than the player character, and the result is that they feel like mary-sues, who are every so much more important than anything else that's going on. I'm happy to get involved with their personal stories and side quests, but they should be that - side quests that are complimentary and related, but secondary to the main game's story, which the player, is ultimately the lead figure in; companions follow the group's leader (the player), *Because* that focus is ultimately more important than their personal story, and they're aware of it; it doesn't detract from the importance of their personal goals, but if their personal stories are so much grander and more important and focused upon than the core, then the reason for them follow our lead evaporates, and that is what happens here. When these characters travel with us, the extreme majority of their interactions revolve around demonstrating through dialogue just how much superior to us they are, and we rarely, if ever, get any opportunity to do anything beyond simply letting them; I'm int he process of testing the new interactions now, but the overall mode of their presence and cooler-than-you importance hasn't changed.

When you say templates, this brings to mind what I was thinking of and hoping for when they said 'origin avatars': What I'd really like would be if we could, rather than playing AS the origin characters, select from optional origin templates when making a custom character - and yes, they might load up when selected with a default name (Gale), and a default race and appearance (human male), but would be entirely renamable, and recustomisable to the character we'd like to play, and we could slip into the role of someone from that origin, but as the person we want to play as. The game should ultimately be about our characters - not Larian's.

If we don't pick an origin template, then we should still have an interwove story and background (or one of several to pick from), and the game can certainly predefined *some* elements of it for us to help work our custom character into the setting more, while letting us define and establish other less integral aspects of our history as we go - NWN2 did this to great effect, as an example. It would be the 'default' origin story, and wouldn't be represented by a companion if it wasn't taken.

As for the other suggestions here, it's an interesting idea, but I don't see how they'd be able to rectify that many different angles and motivations to align into a coherent story without functionally having to make multiple entirely separate games - not that it's not interesting (it is!), I just don't see how alternates that are that different could all channel into the same base game and feel believable.

That saaaid.....

In older editions there was a specific type of mindflayer that, after ceremorphosis actually came out the other side visually unchanged and completely resembling the person they were before-hand, and even to a certain extent retaining some of the sense of self and personality of that person. They could act as infiltrators and the like, and passed entirely well as the person they used to be, but still had to feed on brains and psychic energy. They were also prone to breaking away from the goals and plans of their elder brain and going rogue... Hmmm...

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Originally Posted by Niara
I don't mind having companions with interesting and personal stories - but they need to be strongly secondary to the core story of the game, and the core story of the game needs to focus on, and make the player character feel like the actual protagonist.

The 'origins' aren't companions and don't feel like them, in that sense; it's very obvious that they are all designed to BE the protagonist, far more so than the player character, and the result is that they feel like mary-sues, who are every so much more important than anything else that's going on. I'm happy to get involved with their personal stories and side quests, but they should be that - side quests that are complimentary and related, but secondary to the main game's story, which the player, is ultimately the lead figure in; companions follow the group's leader (the player), *Because* that focus is ultimately more important than their personal story, and they're aware of it; it doesn't detract from the importance of their personal goals, but if their personal stories are so much grander and more important and focused upon than the core, then the reason for them follow our lead evaporates, and that is what happens here. When these characters travel with us, the extreme majority of their interactions revolve around demonstrating through dialogue just how much superior to us they are, and we rarely, if ever, get any opportunity to do anything beyond simply letting them; I'm int he process of testing the new interactions now, but the overall mode of their presence and cooler-than-you importance hasn't changed.

When you say templates, this brings to mind what I was thinking of and hoping for when they said 'origin avatars': What I'd really like would be if we could, rather than playing AS the origin characters, select from optional origin templates when making a custom character - and yes, they might load up when selected with a default name (Gale), and a default race and appearance (human male), but would be entirely renamable, and recustomisable to the character we'd like to play, and we could slip into the role of someone from that origin, but as the person we want to play as. The game should ultimately be about our characters - not Larian's.

If we don't pick an origin template, then we should still have an interwove story and background (or one of several to pick from), and the game can certainly predefined *some* elements of it for us to help work our custom character into the setting more, while letting us define and establish other less integral aspects of our history as we go - NWN2 did this to great effect, as an example. It would be the 'default' origin story, and wouldn't be represented by a companion if it wasn't taken.

As for the other suggestions here, it's an interesting idea, but I don't see how they'd be able to rectify that many different angles and motivations to align into a coherent story without functionally having to make multiple entirely separate games - not that it's not interesting (it is!), I just don't see how alternates that are that different could all channel into the same base game and feel believable.

That saaaid.....

In older editions there was a specific type of mindflayer that, after ceremorphosis actually came out the other side visually unchanged and completely resembling the person they were before-hand, and even to a certain extent retaining some of the sense of self and personality of that person. They could act as infiltrators and the like, and passed entirely well as the person they used to be, but still had to feed on brains and psychic energy. They were also prone to breaking away from the goals and plans of their elder brain and going rogue... Hmmm...


Everything you typed i could get 100% behind.

Yes, Origin Templates would be a very nice feature!

Playing as Larian's roleplaying party? Trash. Sorry to say Larian.

As for the other angles, I feel like they have enough foundation to build it into the game with what they have.

And I am definitely going to speak my mind, and let the devs decide "Hey, we can do that!." or... "Well..."

I personally want different origin issues besides tadpoles.
Stuff that is serious enough to confer powers and what not, and to force you to want to seek others out, to for others to seek you out.

There is just so much foundation here they can build with I feel like. So much of it has me excited, and it would be a tragedy if they wasted it worthless features like playing as origin characters.

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I like the origins, so this is a big ole shrug from me.

Until a game developer actually gets to the point where a custom character is fully-voiced and has a massive questionnaire attached to character creation that will dictate what I'm likely to do in different situations and how I feel about certain ideologies, an origin character will always be my go-to because I'd rather have a complete experience with a dedicated personality that's set in stone. The idea of "Tav" awkwardly emoting or only choosing from oversimplified options throughout the adventure is terribly boring to me.

A game developer would need to partner with someone like eHarmony and come up with some 300 question survey and include an MBTI test in order to have a custom character feel like they're of any consequence to the world.


I don't want to fall to bits 'cos of excess existential thought.

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At this point in development, Larian can just polish all the origins stories.
However as adding tons of templates in an expension/DLC Im 100% with you. That would be incredible.

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Originally Posted by Niara
snip


+all I have.

As far as I can tell, Larian's origin system is a bit like their surface system: no one cares about it anywhere near as much as they do. Origins in particular just seem like wasted resources that should have been spent on a greater diversity of options for customising the player character - sub-classes with their own dialogue choices/ quests/ NPC reactions, perhaps a DA:O origin system that works to anchor your character to the world, a much more expansive "background" feature, that kind of thing.

Agree with mr_planescapist that this is pretty useless as feedback at this point, despite being valid criticism. The best they can do is make the most of it but I'm not overwhelmed by the project management side of BG3. Too much wasting of their/ our time.

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If it weren't for the DOS-influenced combat the origin characters would be the most hated feature for me. I don't like them. I really don't like what influences it had on the development of the game and I most likely because of all that won't use them even as companions.

All the effort put in those GM created characters should have been spent on the player character and improving their experience. Companions should be designed as NPCs and good as NPCs, not player characters.

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Originally Posted by Niara
I don't mind having companions with interesting and personal stories - but they need to be strongly secondary to the core story of the game, and the core story of the game needs to focus on, and make the player character feel like the actual protagonist.

The 'origins' aren't companions and don't feel like them, in that sense; it's very obvious that they are all designed to BE the protagonist, far more so than the player character, and the result is that they feel like mary-sues, who are every so much more important than anything else that's going on. I'm happy to get involved with their personal stories and side quests, but they should be that - side quests that are complimentary and related, but secondary to the main game's story, which the player, is ultimately the lead figure in; companions follow the group's leader (the player), *Because* that focus is ultimately more important than their personal story, and they're aware of it; it doesn't detract from the importance of their personal goals, but if their personal stories are so much grander and more important and focused upon than the core, then the reason for them follow our lead evaporates, and that is what happens here. When these characters travel with us, the extreme majority of their interactions revolve around demonstrating through dialogue just how much superior to us they are, and we rarely, if ever, get any opportunity to do anything beyond simply letting them; I'm int he process of testing the new interactions now, but the overall mode of their presence and cooler-than-you importance hasn't changed.

When you say templates, this brings to mind what I was thinking of and hoping for when they said 'origin avatars': What I'd really like would be if we could, rather than playing AS the origin characters, select from optional origin templates when making a custom character - and yes, they might load up when selected with a default name (Gale), and a default race and appearance (human male), but would be entirely renamable, and recustomisable to the character we'd like to play, and we could slip into the role of someone from that origin, but as the person we want to play as. The game should ultimately be about our characters - not Larian's.

If we don't pick an origin template, then we should still have an interwove story and background (or one of several to pick from), and the game can certainly predefined *some* elements of it for us to help work our custom character into the setting more, while letting us define and establish other less integral aspects of our history as we go - NWN2 did this to great effect, as an example. It would be the 'default' origin story, and wouldn't be represented by a companion if it wasn't taken.

As for the other suggestions here, it's an interesting idea, but I don't see how they'd be able to rectify that many different angles and motivations to align into a coherent story without functionally having to make multiple entirely separate games - not that it's not interesting (it is!), I just don't see how alternates that are that different could all channel into the same base game and feel believable.


Your thoughts are gold, Niara.


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Originally Posted by guy
Allow us to take the templates the premades have in character creation, such as vamp spawn for example.

But the option to play your premade characters?

Yawn. This isn't your other games, from what I read in the forums, people here are not interested in it.

But templates? Hidden areas that are template specific?

Like making a druid, that has a option to join the shadow druids, and open a whole different line.

Or playing as a goblin or hobgoblin starting in the camp, and has a different angle on the tadpole - you start out just recieving the tadpole.

So instead of origins, allow a choice to play from the angle of invernus, the angle of the mindflayers, the angle of the tieflings, the angle of the goblins.
All would be in the same area, but all would have different goals and objectives.
The mindflayers might even have dug out a spot near their crashed ship in a cave to lick their wounds,

Just typing that makes my heart skip a beat, and it sticks with the tadpole story line.

Which I still want more origin options than tadpoles... but different angles on the tadpole, I would be more than happy with too!


+1.
\
I could get behind this

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Please do NOT scrap origins!
I love all these characters and I want to play as them!
If anything full voice-acting for the custom character should be scrapped because it's not even done yet and as such it would not be a waste!
I want to play as companions, in fact that's pretty much what I do in all Baldurs Gate games! (Currently playing BG2 as Minsc).

Please Larian do not listen to these people, I love your ideas about playable companions, and I also loved playing as Red Prince in DoS2
Even though there are many people who complain about you, know that I support what you are doing and I consider the gameplay so far to be absolutely amaizng and satisfying!
Please don't scrap origins!

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Originally Posted by Skeletor
Please do NOT scrap origins!
I love all these characters and I want to play as them!
If anything full voice-acting for the custom character should be scrapped because it's not even done yet and as such it would not be a waste!
I want to play as companions, in fact that's pretty much what I do in all Baldurs Gate games! (Currently playing BG2 as Minsc).

Please Larian do not listen to these people, I love your ideas about playable companions, and I also loved playing as Red Prince in DoS2
Even though there are many people who complain about you, know that I support what you are doing and I consider the gameplay so far to be absolutely amaizng and satisfying!
Please don't scrap origins!


You're playing as a BG2 companion without the origin system, so what's the problem?

edit: also, this is extremely rude: "Please Larian do not listen to these people [because I personally disagree]"

Last edited by dotmats; 05/12/20 10:52 AM.
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Originally Posted by dotmats
Originally Posted by Skeletor
Please do NOT scrap origins!
I love all these characters and I want to play as them!
If anything full voice-acting for the custom character should be scrapped because it's not even done yet and as such it would not be a waste!
I want to play as companions, in fact that's pretty much what I do in all Baldurs Gate games! (Currently playing BG2 as Minsc).

Please Larian do not listen to these people, I love your ideas about playable companions, and I also loved playing as Red Prince in DoS2
Even though there are many people who complain about you, know that I support what you are doing and I consider the gameplay so far to be absolutely amaizng and satisfying!
Please don't scrap origins!


You're playing as a BG2 companion without the origin system, so what's the problem?


The problem is that making it happen is easy with BG2.You just choose the portrait of a given character, assign them the same stats and download their voiceset. That's it!

Making that happen in BG3? Good luck!
You can't select Astarion's voice acting and headmorph in character creation either, so that's off the table as well!

I'm really looking forward to play as the origin characters, in fact that's the main appeal of the game for me if they force a voice acted protagonist on us!
If I get stuck with a voice acted MC AND I can't play as origin characters, I will not buy the game. Something's gotta give.

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Originally Posted by Skeletor
Originally Posted by dotmats
Originally Posted by Skeletor
Please do NOT scrap origins!
I love all these characters and I want to play as them!
If anything full voice-acting for the custom character should be scrapped because it's not even done yet and as such it would not be a waste!
I want to play as companions, in fact that's pretty much what I do in all Baldurs Gate games! (Currently playing BG2 as Minsc).

Please Larian do not listen to these people, I love your ideas about playable companions, and I also loved playing as Red Prince in DoS2
Even though there are many people who complain about you, know that I support what you are doing and I consider the gameplay so far to be absolutely amaizng and satisfying!
Please don't scrap origins!


You're playing as a BG2 companion without the origin system, so what's the problem?


The problem is that making it happen is easy with BG2.You just choose the portrait of a given character, assign them the same stats and download their voiceset. That's it!

Making that happen in BG3? Good luck!
You can't select Astarion's voice acting and headmorph in character creation either, so that's off the table as well!

I'm really looking forward to play as the origin characters, in fact that's the main appeal of the game for me if they force a voice acted protagonist on us!
If I get stuck with a voice acted MC AND I can't play as origin characters, I will not buy the game. Something's gotta give.


Dude, if the OP suggestion is taken, Astarion would be the default character. All that is being asked is the ability to edit him into something more amenable to our own individual sense of asthetics

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Originally Posted by Skeletor

I love all these characters and I want to play as them!

Same here!

I totally understand the previous posts, but it's impossible to make a big game in which you can fully create your own character and to design the world to treat this character as this special person you made as a player. That's why always choose origin characters, even if I don't really like them (this was my problem in DOS, but I chose an origin character anyway) - because devs know them and can prepare the whole world and NPCs for them. They are not able to make the same for your potential vampire tieflings, paladin drows and other. All they can do they're already doing - making special lines for their classes and races, but it's all they can do. Maybe they could make origin templates, but remember that these origin characters personality, NPCs and plot would be copied too. You would always play as Astarion or Gale, the only reason would be your race, name, or sometimes class (I can't imagine barbarian Gale for example, his story is strictly connected to his class). And even this would create problems - what if we can meet, let's say, Shadowheart's parents in the next acts? If you change her race, devs would have to think about it too - they would have to create EVERY possible combination of her parents - like drow + hight elf, dwarf + dwarf, tiefling + tiefling etc.

Tabletop RPGs are great, because you can create your own character and experience the world as this very specific person, but sadly it's simply impossible in cRPGs.

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Originally Posted by Phea
Originally Posted by Skeletor

I love all these characters and I want to play as them!

(I can't imagine barbarian Gale for example, his story is strictly connected to his class). And even this would create problems - what if we can meet, let's say, Shadowheart's parents in the next acts? If you change her race, devs would have to think about it too - they would have to create EVERY possible combination of her parents - like drow + hight elf, dwarf + dwarf, human + tiefling etc..


So as to the first, noone is saying there cannot be basic pre requisites. To access an origin dealing with magic, one would obviously need to play certain classes. This is reasonable and presents no undue burden. As to the second. . .That is the sort of thing programming was made to do, execute basic if - then commands. If player is an Elf then parents equal Elves. Again, easy to implement and fail proof. This suggestion is incredibly easy to facilitate and there is really no reason not to use it. The only thing I see being an issue is voice work because then all male and female dialogues would have to be recorded by all voice actors. That would be a huge and discouraging cost. . .But ultimately I think it would be worth it to do something this liberating and unique. It really would be moving the state of the game forward.

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Originally Posted by DistantStranger


Dude, if the OP suggestion is taken, Astarion would be the default character. All that is being asked is the ability to edit him into something more amenable to our own individual sense of asthetics



Yeah but that would leave me without the ability to play as Wyll and Shadowheart.
I want to play them too.

I'M sorry but Larian is doing something better then what you guys suggest.

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@DistantStranger It's not only about these parents look from my example. It's also writing and context. You can't just generate this.

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Originally Posted by Skeletor
Originally Posted by DistantStranger


Dude, if the OP suggestion is taken, Astarion would be the default character. All that is being asked is the ability to edit him into something more amenable to our own individual sense of asthetics



Yeah but that would leave me without the ability to play as Wyll and Shadowheart.
I want to play them too.

I'M sorry but Larian is doing something better then what you guys suggest.


No it doesn't. This suggestions take nothing out of the game, it only adds further option for those who wish to pursue it. The origin characters don't disappear, they simply become unlocked so players can alter them to suit their own tastes. Vanilla is perfectly valid

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Originally Posted by Phea
@DistantStranger It's not only about these parents look from my example. It's also writing and context. You can't just generate this.


Yes you can, games do it all the time. This is what programming does, it permeates outcomes based upon formulaic variable. Like an excel spreadsheet. Input dictates output.

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Yeah but a character is about a story and a background. What you suggest is basically BG3 having several Commander Shephard's that you can tweak into your liking instead of actual characters you can play as.
If you want to play as a custom character thats fine, but Larian is already doing that. Astarion is Astarion, he is a rogue and thats it.
Gale is inseparable from his Wizardry, he wouldn't even work as a sorcerer, because he is too much of a nerd.

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