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Originally Posted by Maximuuus
It looks like you don't like RTWP smile

Had you tried The Temple of Elemental Evil (or any other TB tabletop based vdeo game) or is BG3 your first D&D turn based video game ?

About advantages, did you notice the highground/backstab advantages or are you playing with spells like true strike / faery fire / invisibility and so on ? Are you usual with tactical TB games ?

These are serious question to understand a very different point of view than mine.

Well, I'm not sure it's the RTWP element I dislike about the other games, but rather whether the games gave me an overall feeling of excitement when entering combat. I could turn the question around and ask if you liked the combat in BG1 and2?

My main issue with Pathfinder, which is the one I most recently played, is that all enemies gather mindlessly around one or two characters and you sit and wait for all the carnage to be over, and you really have to pause a lot to maintain just a bit of situational awareness. D:OS 1&2 were my first turn-based tactical combat games, and I wasn't fond of the concept to begin with (it was my main doubt before buying D:OS 1), but it won me over. I don't know if the turn-based part is what made the experience better, or if it is Larian's ability to make fights tactically interesting, with some pretty decent AI. So I can't really answer you fully, whether one system just makes things better or not, but I don't miss RTWP in BG3. The main shortcoming in D:OS is that you spend the same resource to move and attack, so I rarely moved characters into better positions and tended to stay as much in place as possible. BG3 completely mends this, by having movement seperate of attack actions, and it feels more dynamic. I also get a feeling of being able to see where things are headed, which is a basic premise for making tactical decisions, rather than just hoping things work out. Again, whether this is attributed to one system over another, or Larian's coding skills and encounter planning, I honestly don't know.

And I'm not familiar enough with 5e to notice all deviations, so this is all very general, about how it feels to play the game.

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First I want to say, very well written observations, thanks Drath.

As Niara and Lunar Dante expressed, I too have to chime in to one of the conclusions of Draths write-up regarding the communication problems:
Homebrew rules would be ok, but not somethink what we are seeing now.
We have a DnD game, but only in terms of the setting. Everything else is not DnD (5e).


Originally Posted by Rack
I don't think this pessimism is warranted. It's very easy to tweak these kinds of rules at this stage in development. Changing the way these kinds of abilities work is pretty straightforward and it's easier to get good feedback by overtuning tweaks and dialling back than undertuning and amping up. Their goal is definitely not the same as Solasta's but I don't think it's fair to judge their ability to make an insteresting system based on early access. We've seen from their previous games that Larian are extremely good at incorporating feedback from players into their games. They've worked small miracles on Original Sin so getting the balance right for BG3 should be a snap. I don't think their goal is going to be a 100% faithful recreation of 5E but I'd be very surprised if the blatantly overpowered moves made it in without adjustments.

You may be right, but it sure doesn't look that way. I think they don't want to change anything regarding combat rules (and items, mechanics and graphics related to combat), simply because they like it better that way.


What's very interesting is what Saito said, and it resonates well with my opinion.
The whole combat system of DOS2 was nice for a couple fights, but not very balanced and extremely bloated (also hp, armor), especially at the end. There is a Mod for DOS2, I think it's called 'Reduced numbers bloat', and I would not have been able to play the game without that mod. It was just too ridiculous in its original state for my taste.

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OP, you assume that people who are unhappy/disappointed with BG3 feel that way only because of BG3 not strictly adhering to D&D 5e rules. This is simply not true. My interest in BG3 has nothing to do with D&D. I'm not particularly invested in tabletop D&D and am mainly a video game player. My interest in BG3 is because of my love for BG1 and BG2 as video games and NOT as D&D games. Relatedly, I also love the FR setting and its lore. So my disappointment with BG3 is because I want BG3 to be a natural progression from BG1 & 2, where BG3 fully takes advantage of 2021 technology and all the advances made towards a better gaming experience for players, but generally keeps with the game formula that made BG 1 & 2 so very special as VIDEO games.

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I agree, Dos 2 combat was brilliant for the first half of the game but it got tired for me really fast. The number bloat and armor system (Swen admitted they probably never should have shipped with that or at least not thew way they did) caused issues on higher levels, also battles started to be really repetitive once i realized the winning chain of actions to be used. I was able to pick teleportation actions/spells for all of my characters pretty early and the game turned to a teleportation-fest from there. I love DOS2 but second half of the game i tried to avoid combat.
I have a similar problem with BG3's jumping, I use these every turn with all chars (because it gives me opportunity to avoid opp attacks), i got really tired of it after some hours. Game has potential though, i think the combat could be really tactical and more exciting if they tweak (or introduce options for players to tweak) how actions and action economy works. Fingers crossed.

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I hope patch 4 addresses the most blatant non-D&D issues. I can say, like Niara, that I would not have jumped in feet first, at full cost, if I had an inkling that so much of DOS would bleed over, and if I had paid attention to comments like those highlighted by the OP. I had put these issues down to the early phase of EA, but now I'm not so sure. I also joined this EA after first joining the Solasta EA and thoroughly enjoying that, bugs and all.

I thought this must surely be even better - it's BG (!), they have a large budget, it looks awesome and WotC endorses it etc. I would still have bought the game eventally, even if it was not a faithful rendition of 5E, but when it was considerably cheaper. Did the same with Sword Coast Legends - very weakly 5E, and not TB - and I had fun. But I had low expectations for that game - that is most definitely not the case for BG3. I think if Larian ignores the people who want a more authentic 5E table-top experience they will generate a lot of bad will for future D&D releases (assuming they care about that). I enjoyed DOS1/2 - but those felt very different from D&D, and I don't want to play something that borrows heavily from those games when I'm playing a 5E game.

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Originally Posted by Gimbal
Originally Posted by Maximuuus
It looks like you don't like RTWP smile

Had you tried The Temple of Elemental Evil (or any other TB tabletop based vdeo game) or is BG3 your first D&D turn based video game ?

About advantages, did you notice the highground/backstab advantages or are you playing with spells like true strike / faery fire / invisibility and so on ? Are you usual with tactical TB games ?

These are serious question to understand a very different point of view than mine.

Well, I'm not sure it's the RTWP element I dislike about the other games, but rather whether the games gave me an overall feeling of excitement when entering combat. I could turn the question around and ask if you liked the combat in BG1 and2?

My main issue with Pathfinder, which is the one I most recently played, is that all enemies gather mindlessly around one or two characters and you sit and wait for all the carnage to be over, and you really have to pause a lot to maintain just a bit of situational awareness. D:OS 1&2 were my first turn-based tactical combat games, and I wasn't fond of the concept to begin with (it was my main doubt before buying D:OS 1), but it won me over. I don't know if the turn-based part is what made the experience better, or if it is Larian's ability to make fights tactically interesting, with some pretty decent AI. So I can't really answer you fully, whether one system just makes things better or not, but I don't miss RTWP in BG3. The main shortcoming in D:OS is that you spend the same resource to move and attack, so I rarely moved characters into better positions and tended to stay as much in place as possible. BG3 completely mends this, by having movement seperate of attack actions, and it feels more dynamic. I also get a feeling of being able to see where things are headed, which is a basic premise for making tactical decisions, rather than just hoping things work out. Again, whether this is attributed to one system over another, or Larian's coding skills and encounter planning, I honestly don't know.

And I'm not familiar enough with 5e to notice all deviations, so this is all very general, about how it feels to play the game.

It really looks like your issues comes from RTWP.
You're not always "waiting until the end of the butchery", especially in harder difficulty mode but of course, you can't meticulously plan things because everything happen in real time.

Reading your comment, it looks like it's the main reason why BG3 is your favorite D&D video game.
The only 2 others are the (old) temple of elemental evil and (the less ambitious) Solasta. That's probably why you never experienced any other D&D TB games before.

I love RTWP but I also love tactical turn based game.
Both are different style and have pros/cons.

Tactic is obviously the most interresting things in TB but if I compare BG3 to other tactical turn based game (including DoS) I don't find its combats very engaging.

We lost a lot of what was interresting in DoS in the D&D implementation process, and at the moment combats are far from being as tactical as D&D TB combats should be in a video game (synergies between companions, tons of choices and possibilities, cover mechanic,...)


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Originally Posted by Icelyn
As far as resting goes, the older BG games didn't have any limits on resting, either, and weren't 100% faithful adaptation of the rules.
And they were also worse for it. Resting being too exploitable was a very common complaint about BG 1 and 2 that several devs tried to address in their spiritual successors (i.e. PoE 1 with limiting how and where you could rest and Pathfinder: Kingmaker by improving several aspects of how involved the mechanic was and adding time sensitivity and weight carried to the issues that needed consideration).

Larian instead keep going down the road of the "dumbing down" approach, with mixed success as well, sinche THEIR rest mechanic is at the same time just as exploitable as the originals but ALSO way more convoluted/unintuitive in terms of implications and far more immersion breaking in terms of consistence.
But that's what happens when you dismiss the concepts of "passing time" and "day/night cycle" as minor annoyances that aren't worth working on.

Which I still consider far worse problems to worry about than being fastidious about matching the rulebook in the minute details of the "action economy", incidentally.

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Originally Posted by Tuco
Originally Posted by Icelyn
As far as resting goes, the older BG games didn't have any limits on resting, either, and weren't 100% faithful adaptation of the rules.
And they were also worse for it. Resting being too exploitable was a very common complaint about BG 1 and 2 that several devs tried to address in their spiritual successors (i.e. PoE 1 with limiting how and where you could rest and Pathfinder: Kingmaker by improving several aspects of how involved the mechanic was and adding time sensitivity and weight carried to the issues that needed consideration).

Larian instead keep going down the road of the "dumbing down" approach, with mixed success as well, sinche THEIR rest mechanic is at the same time just as exploitable as the originals but ALSO way more convoluted/unintuitive in terms of implications and far more immersion breaking in terms of consistence.
But that's what happens when you dismiss the concepts of "passing time" and "day/night cycle" as minor annoyances that aren't worth working on.

Which I still consider far worse problems to worry about than being fastidious about matching the rulebook in the minute details of the "action economy", incidentally.

I also miss a proper day/night cycle a lot. Also that the map is so cramped and small is not really helpful in setting up the impression of the vast, mostly unconquered, wild and dangerous place the Sword Coast is supposed to be (and the Underdark as well).

And it would not be necessary to follow the 5e rules in miniscule detail, although it would have helped tremendously if they tried with a faithful adaptation of the rules and iterated from there, at least that's what I believe.

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I absolutely share your concerns OP but I do not feel particularly betrayed, just a bit sad with things at present. We all have our own visions for how we would like the game to be and it would be impossible for Larian to please all parties. I do feel the legacy of BG has not really been honoured in any meaningful sense; the odd token mention of past occurrences in previous games from books or letters in BG3 does not really amount to anything tangible in my opinion. Larian have obviously had their vision for the game from the outset and rightly so, but it seems clear they want to implement their sense of 'fun' on the game which seems to deviate somewhat from other people's sense of what that entails and also deviates quite considerably from some of the core rules. These have been covered at length elsewhere.

I stand by the notion that BG3 should have relatively little to do with DOS; different IP's, different rules, different art direction, the list goes on. It feels a little like BG has been given the Marvel super hero film makeover; mass appeal; brash; high octane; everything is exceptional; that sort of particular humour which irks me...I don't know how to describe it but it's akin to the sort of one liners you get in the recent Star Wars films. I don't know, at times it just strikes me a bit juvenile? Hard to put into words.

I await the new patch with interest to see if it deals mostly with cosmetic fixes or addresses some of the more glaring issues raised in these forums.

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Originally Posted by daMichi
Also that the map is so cramped and small is not really helpful in setting up the impression of the vast, mostly unconquered, wild and dangerous place the Sword Coast is supposed to be (and the Underdark as well).
+1 i agree with this sentiment - i feel like the world is more maze-like than a fully open and traversable world, but idk how larian could address this issue at this stage in development. i also have fears that the act map locks mentioned earlier in ea is gonna exacerbate this 'cramped' feeling further - but idk if we have or will hear further about this mechanic as part of tmr's panel

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Originally Posted by Rack
I don't think this pessimism is warranted. It's very easy to tweak these kinds of rules at this stage in development. Changing the way these kinds of abilities work is pretty straightforward and it's easier to get good feedback by overtuning tweaks and dialling back than undertuning and amping up. Their goal is definitely not the same as Solasta's but I don't think it's fair to judge their ability to make an insteresting system based on early access. We've seen from their previous games that Larian are extremely good at incorporating feedback from players into their games. They've worked small miracles on Original Sin so getting the balance right for BG3 should be a snap. I don't think their goal is going to be a 100% faithful recreation of 5E but I'd be very surprised if the blatantly overpowered moves made it in without adjustments.

Yes! There is absolutely still hope!

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Originally Posted by Rack
I don't think this pessimism is warranted. It's very easy to tweak these kinds of rules at this stage in development. Changing the way these kinds of abilities work is pretty straightforward and it's easier to get good feedback by overtuning tweaks and dialling back than undertuning and amping up. Their goal is definitely not the same as Solasta's but I don't think it's fair to judge their ability to make an insteresting system based on early access. We've seen from their previous games that Larian are extremely good at incorporating feedback from players into their games. They've worked small miracles on Original Sin so getting the balance right for BG3 should be a snap. I don't think their goal is going to be a 100% faithful recreation of 5E but I'd be very surprised if the blatantly overpowered moves made it in without adjustments.

I to feel Larian still have time to tweak and improve both game mechanics and rules implementations. But the question is; will Larian use the time to adress criticism and fix issues reported by testers? Or will they just use the time left to create the game they want to play, and damned be what the testers think or want? The problem is that no one knows what Larian has in store, becuase they stalwartly refuse to enage in anny kind of discusson, or even bare minimum communication or transparity with the EA testers.
And that is why people are starting to feel annoyed and acting very pessimistic. And I think it's warranted at this point

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Originally Posted by Maximuuus
I don't feel betrayed because of D&D. I'm not a D&D player, just a video game player... but I feel "betray" because the game doesn't feel like Baldur's Gate (or any other tabletop video game adaptation, including ToEE) at all and because it's a cheap tactical turn base game.

My first concern is not the "faithfull 5e implementation", but obviously everything that has been changed by Larian drive the game away from my expectations.

I'm here because of "the name" but I'm a huge fan of tactical TB game and I'm fine with many things in BG3... They did a great job on many points and the game has an awesome potential but the "Larian layer" upon D&D seems to be all what I don't like in BG3.

As a results it leads to many inconsistencies whatever we're talking about the story or the world. They completely altered the reality of the classic fantasy world in which our journey take place and I don't like the silly (some would say funny) things they added.

On the other hand, to me combats is one of the main features I like in a tactical TB game.
According to me combats in BG3 are poor and repetitive, determined by the limited but OP Larian's custom rules.

I'm not a D&D expert but I know the PHB pretty well now and it looks like it has all the materials to create a real and deep tactical turn based video game...

That's why the rules implementation is important to me. It could leads to a more consistent setting and to better tactical combats.

At the moment the game looks more like an assembly of elements than a coherent whole.
You see a sex scene and the next second you're a kangaroo in combats... You learn that goblins can't find the druid grove but you walk 3 min between both... You're exploring the dangerous underdark but the next second you're safe outside...
Not sure those exemples are the best but you'll probably get the idea.

I have mixed feelings about these "nonsensical" situations (Like Sazza running from the grove to the goblin camp and then silently waiting outside until YOU show up to lead the goblins back.)
But, the first module I DM'ed was "B2 The Keep on the Borderlands", created by Gary Gygax. It has a cave complex inhabited by all kinds of different creatures who somehow form an ecosystem together. When you get out of the caves, you're kind of safe and can go back to the keep to rest. It was a beginner's module to learn the game.
So maybe we should not try to rationalize too much this L1-L4 intro. We want the tabletop D&D atmosphere ? Think of your first L1 adventure. I'm sure there were some incongruities in it also. Moving the grove and the ruined temple/city complex away to realistic distances might be detrimental to the gameplay, expecially at L1-L3 stage.
So for this (and some other spatial and temporal strangeness) I don't want to judge Larian too harshly. I don't think it's outside the typical D&D beginners module setup. (At least not at the good old first edition times)

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You don't have to move anything. You just have to write your story according to your map (or design your map according to your story if the story is the first thing you have in mind).

That's exactly an exemple of what I call "a coherent whole".

About being safe through TP... This sentence doesn't mean that the player has to walk for 10 real time minutes. Hours can pass in a few seconds in video games.

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Originally Posted by kanisatha
OP, you assume that people who are unhappy/disappointed with BG3 feel that way only because of BG3 not strictly adhering to D&D 5e rules. This is simply not true.

I don't assume that. What I said is that some players feel betrayed (or cheated, or misled, whatever word you prefer). That doesn't mean all players. To be more specific about how I came to writing this post, there exists at least one other thread in which at least one player expressed that feeling (and some more have expressed this here). I said there something along the line that I understood, because I too remembered hearing Larian saying this would be relatively faithful to 5E. But then in another thread (or not, I'm not sure), Topgoon questioned the assumption that Larian had promised some faithfulness to the rules. So I thought : hm, what did Larian actually say on this topic ?

What I think on the original question, according to what I could dig up and how I feel about it, is that it is understandable to see how Larian's communication misled some people to expect a real 5E feel. I also find that :
- Larian's communication really wasn't clear, going in two directions (faithfulness and not faithfulness), depending on whether they were talking about the rules or talking about the pressure of making BG3.
- While I can put together the pieces and get an idea of what their vision is, what they're going for, they haven't properly communicated it. I think they should.

As for your statement that it is not true that all players who are disappointed feel that way because of BG3 not strictly adhering to D&D 5e rules, I fully agree. Firstly, logically, it is simply true. You only need one example to prove it, and plenty can be found. Secondly, it applies to me : I am disappointed with how BG3 (especially the combat) currently feels and it is not particularly because it is not strictly following 5E (as far as combat is concerned, it's just because it isn't really good once you're passed the first 15h).

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These options to tweak gameplay and play the game either in causal story mode or authentic dnd5 (or something in between) modes do look cool, it seems like they try to make it accessible for all camps:

Difficulty Settings

I really hope Larian has something like this in plan and they will give us an update on this topic at some point up to release.

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In a sense I hope so too ... but I would bet money on the fact that Larian will give us a range of difficulty options at some points, seeing as they mention the topic of difficulty in the Early Access FAQ. Although which options will be included, I don't know. Also, while Solasta is building/releasing these options right now, Larian's FAQ seems to indicate that they will do this at the end and it won't be available in EA.

As an aside : Wow ! It's not so much the impressive level of flexibility that strikes me. It's more the fact that their news section shows that Tactical Adventures seems to publish a communication about 2-3 times a month ! Baldur's Gate 3 is my first time going Early Access on a video game, so I have no real reference point for what is typical. But TA is doing what I imagine/feel a video game dev should do. I'm still not sure if I'll take part in its EA, but my enthusiasm for Solasta has just gone up one level.

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Yea Tactical Adventure release regular updates.

It's the same with Owlcat. And if there's no update, there's a facebook post or something else. They keep the players hyped and engaged a way or another.

Talesworlds don't release updates often for Mount and Blade Bannerlord and their roadmap isn't clear but a few devs (devs, not moderator/community manager/...) are active on their official forums, talking sometimes with the community on specific topics.

A few others give "a vision" of new features implementation. That's how it work with render cube (medieval dynasty).
There's not a lot of communication but you know +- when you can expect new features.

I don't really have a lot of exemple but at the moment, BG3's EA is the only EA where I feel like the developers just don't care about players.

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I don't feel betrayed, I feel like I made a mistake in joining the pre-order for the game because I had thought it was going to be at least foundationally close to 5e rules. My problems with the changes, particularly the rests, is that they basically trash some of the core balancing in the game, the action economy balance and the short rest/long rest recovery balance. Both of these have dramatic impacts on the power level between classes, but I'd argue free infinite long rests do the most damage. Bonus action disengage kills one of the core rogue and monk abilities.. the ability to disengage as a bonus action. It's unbalancing in that it takes a defining ability away from two classes and gives them nothing in return to make up for it. Is it the end of the world? No. Does it look like someone doesn't understand the class balancing act in terms of the action economy? Yes. Do I trust someone who seems to not understand how impactful this is to those classes? No.

Now the infinite long rest thing just makes it far more clear that they really don't have the first clue about class balance, because they are skewering any class that regains its resources on a short rest. This means monks and warlocks mostly who in terms of class design have fewer resources to go around than other characters, but can recover them on a short rest. Looking at warlocks, they get 2-4 spell slots, but they recover them on a 2 to 1 or 3 to 1 basis when rest restrictions are implemented so it balances out to a degree. (4-16 spell slots to use between long rests compared to 2-22 for other full casters). They also have a much shorter spell list to choose from, usually 1/2 to 1/4 the size of most other class lists at equivalent spell levels. In exchange the few spell slots they have cast at higher levels. So ultimately it balances out, until you let all other casters have unrestricted long rests. At that point warlock becomes a liability unless you think eldritch blast spam makes up for the difference between a 10th level warlock utility and that of a 10th level wizard. Same thing happens with monks, everything they do needs ki and the costs compared to ki gained is high, terribly so with way of the elements. The upside is that all ki is restored on a short rest, so monks can keep up with the utility of other melee classes, or at least play stun bot, given short rests. But again unrestricted long rests makes monks mostly worthless. Heck I'd go so far as to say it makes most not full casters worthless, because seriously why would you opt for a fighter when you can use mage armor with a decent dex and the shield spell while unloading hell on your enemies and simply long rest right after to get right back to full.

These are the design decisions that worry me, because they show a stunning lack of experience in how the game works and plays. And these kind of decisions are the ones that make me think I made a mistake. Just my opinion.

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My standard for good communication is Paradox -- they usually post a dev log once a week for each of their current games.

Once a month is less nice but of course still a very reasonable rate.


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