Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Should have given this to Obsidian

I wish they would have given it to EA, would have love to pay extra for half the game

Obsidian is consumed by the Microsoft tadpole, too late. They also blew it with combat in PoE. I didn't enjoy it in either of the games. BG3 so far is the most promising game for me combat-wise since XCOM. And I think Elder Scrolls pretty much show us that you must have some funny exploitable stuff in a blockbuster game.

Replaying BG1 and 2 now and i'm pretty sure the combat in PoE, 1 at least, is a direct evolution of that. Maybe a bit too reliant on choke points on higher difficulties, but even then it's not that the originals/EE don't have them, it's just that they're not well implemented.

Having said that, i think Bioware would have higher chances of getting BG3 than Obsidian, if they just hadn't blown Andromeda and Anthem (granted, the former has a worse reputation than it deserves, even if it's Mass Effect in the same way the new ACs are Assassin's Creed).

Barrelmancy, you shall be remembered forever. Now, I demand more sexy bucket magic

EA would've never accepted a project that might reach some 5M in sales. They aim for something like 10M minimum with their yearly releases.

I don't understand why anything said in publicity mode could ever be taken as earnest. Of course Larian is going to say in interviews they loved BG and love DnD when they're making a DnD BG game.

Personally, I think Larian is the right team for the job simply because they're one of the biggest names making RPGs right now. Would I rather had some other company give it a try? Yes, I would. But I would also rathermost BG3 had been released in 2004 under the name the Black Dog and made by Black Isle. And we didn't get that either.

Exactly the opposite of my experiences. D:OS was easily the worst RPG I've ever played, and every single aspect of that game was a painful chore, worst of all the horrible world the game is set in.

By contrast, everything about the PoE games was awesome, from the world to the characters to the story. And the best part of those games is the new set of rules they created that are NOT based on D&D/D20, which is one of the worst rulesets for RPGs.

Besides, seems you're admitting BG3 has a lot of D:OS in it, despite all of the many attempts at denial in this forum.

It is, except they could not use D&D, invented their own rules and those rules are a convoluted mess. I don't know what makes D&D rules special, but they are. I couldn't even finish the 2nd one in turn based mode and I absolutely prefer that one to active pause.
In any case, I am super excited about what Larian is doing. A bit of polish and it will be a game with some huge replay value.

Actually the PoE ruleset is far easier to understand than 3.5e from NWN or Kingmaker. Not that I think that simple systems are good, as I do like complexity, but it definitely cannot be called a "mess".

If anything, the issue with PoE is its overreliance on "balance", an issue the second game suffers more from.

I’ve personally always embraced that BG3 has a lot of DOS2 in its DNA. For me BG3 is 2 of my favorite games having a baby, and I am fully on board with that. I don’t think it would be fair to say this game is DOS3 and not BG3, as some like to claim.

I wasn’t a huge fan of DOS1. It was okay for me, but nothing groundbreaking. I am very much an evangelist for the sequel, though.

I think that is a problem and should be treated as such.
BG3 should not be the combination of D&D and DOS, it should be pure D&D or almost it. Just remember how the first gameplay reveal was trashed for looking like a DOS mod. The majority of RPG fans are more into D&D than DOS, so the developers should take that into consideration.

I'd say it's not about "majority of RPG fans" but about what BG3 was marketed as. And this is primarily "Baldur's Gate proper main entry". As well as a D&D game. For me it matters not whether I would like or dislike D:OS (haven't played yet). I like TES, but I would not want TES in Baldur's Gate. I also like The Witcher games, but I would not want Witcher in Baldur's Gate. And so on. Baldur's Gate should be primarily Baldur's Gate, not primarily a mix of Dragon Age and Divinity based on 5e rules.

The first gameplay reveal was met with overwhelming positivity, as has been the general consensus of the Early Access so far. Not everybody shares your opinion, and the circumstances seem to be as such that most people don’t.

And I said BG3 was a combination of BG and DOS, not DOS and D&D. The elements from DOS I am referring to, such as turn based combat, open ended quest design, system driven gameplay with lots of room for improvisation, and the way party interactions and multiplayer are implemented are not mutually exclusive from D&D, so your distinction (whatever you intended it to be) isn’t applicable to what I’m talking about. In fact, these elements are all very much a part of D&D, so in many respects BG3 feels to me more like D&D than BG 1 and 2 did.

What? The reception was such that I felt really bad for Larian, that they got trashed so hard. I'm not saying there was no positivity, but there was a lot of negativity too.

Go to any video of the PAX gameplay reveal on YouTube and you will see significantly more likes than dislikes. I’m not sure where you saw any reception that was encourage pity for Larian. Despite some vocal opposition here and there, there hasn’t been much for them to complain about.

The one in which the main developer gets his ass kicked in the very first fight and has to resort to surface effects from DOS?
Player thoughts used as narration?
Goofy movement animations?
Reused assets from DOS2?

Well, more likes than dislikes on youtube doesn't really say much... And I watched the reveal live, and looked at many different places around that time. Yes, it was a vocal minority, but it was very vocal, and there was indeed a lot of hate towards Larian. There was even a thread on reddit along the lines of "I feel bad for Larian" that was exactly about that.

And whether there "wasn't much to complain about"... One thing is that people will always find something to complain about and the other that they had some of the same material to complain about that we have now. And people, like yours truly, certainly do complain a lot now. Of course we have a lot more material courtesy of EA, but the preview was a glimpse. Turn-based, for one thing. Origins, for another. Systems they've actually changed based on feedback.

Some people are whining while Larian seriously delivers. That would be probably the 1st cRPG where you can kill a bugbear by throwing a squirrel at it. And that squirrel is a rather nasty one, if you bothered to talk to it 1st. The game is unbelievably good tbh.

Yes, that reveal. It was met with overwhelmingly positive responses.




Likes and dislikes mean a great deal if what is being discussed is the reception of a video. It is far more indicative than comments because people click like or dislike more than they comment.

In vocal minority the operative word isn’t vocal, it’s minority. Anyway, you just admitted that those who didn’t like were in the minority, which was my point. How vocal they were is irrelevant.

I said Larian doesn’t have much to complain about with their reception. That has nothing to do with whether others have anything to complain about with the product.

Honestly any of the other studios could have licensed D&D (or pathfinder) at any time for any project. There's still IWD out there to continue as well so if a studio really wanted one of the properties I don't know what would have stopped them. I believe that the only competition Larian had for the BG3 property was probably Beamdog. Not sure Beamdog would have made a great BG3 but it is thanks to them that the infinity engine games remained in the public conscious.