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PAnel from hell - Larian

At 1:17:20 >


Swen mentions the tiered magic system of D&D as a "complicated" thing. Why he understimate the player base so much? Tiered magic system exists in TONS of games. Even Skyrim, which is extremely dumbed down uses it. You have novice -> apprentice -> adept -> expert -> master level of spells. My very first RPG was Might & Magic VII - For Blood and Honor and the game used the system >

Normal -> Anyone can learn it. Ex - Sparks, Poison Spray, Fire bolt
Expert -> Need some investment. Ex - Fireball, Lightning bolt, Water Walk, Stoneskin
Master -> Sorcerers needs to do a promotion quest before they can learn it. Iti s the "cap" for hybrid classes like Archers. Ex - Fly, Town Portal, Meteor Shower
Grand Master -> You need to become a Lich or a Archmage. No hybrid class can reach that point. Eg - Lloyd's Beacon, Incinerate

I played M&M VII as a child with ZERO English knowledge(not saying that my English as an adult is great. My grammar and accent sucks) and had no trouble to understand that someone who is "expert" at fire magic is more capable of someone who just knows the basic and that a gran master can do far more than a "expert". Hell, even mmos like Ultima Online and Meridian 59 has tier based magical progression and nobody complains about it. Is Larian designing games for Teletubbies? If they believe that spell level is so hard to understand, call it another thing. Call level 1 spell "fundamental" spells, level 2 "basic", level 3 "apprentice", level 4 "adept", level 5 "expert", level 6 "master" and level 7 "gran master"(The game will probably not feature tier 8/9 spells).

Tiered magical progression is extremely important in all D&D editions, except 4e which is not D&D.

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Really, it looks like Swen doesn't really care much about D&D and doesn't know BG3 very well.

His communication tend to show that he's more impressed by graphics and useless QoL improvement (torches, sorting items in containers) than foccused on mechanics (no one use torches except to dip and no one will sort 3 items in a container)

Last edited by Maximuuus; 19/02/21 04:52 AM.

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Ah Might and Magic! Totally off main topic, but If somebody remade the Clouds and Darkside of Xeen with a modern engine I'd be all over it in a heartbeat. I might secretly have more love for that one than even Baldur's Gate hehe. I still think M&M III IV V were the best party based RPG to hit before Baldur's Gate came along. I also love how they had to use terms like Might instead of "Strength" or instead of dexterity how they split it into Speed and Accuracy/Agility, and just all the little things they had to do to get around the dominant D&D provenance. But they had great skills, especially the exploration ones like forestry or mountaineering, and fun and varied party comps. BG3 combat almost reminds me more of Isles of Terra or Xeen than it does BG1, probably just because of the TB thing hehe.

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Where you been? Larian is now run by Teletubbies, lawyers and accountants. Swen is there for PR, comic relief and useless silly crap.
Doubt he even played one hour of BG2.
And as always WOTC is laughing to the bank.

Last edited by mr_planescapist; 19/02/21 09:32 AM.
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This was just rude. :-/


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Originally Posted by mr_planescapist
Where you been? Larian is now run by Teletubbies, lawyers and accountants. Swen is there for PR, comic relief and useless silly crap.
Doubt he even played one hour of BG2.
And as always WOTC is laughing to the bank.
You are well aware of the forum rules on being insulting.

Have 3 days off to think about what this means in terms of your future posting.

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One way they could rename it is "First Circle", "Second Circle", and so forth, rather than spell level.


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Originally Posted by SorcererVictor
Normal -> Anyone can learn it. Ex - Sparks, Poison Spray, Fire bolt
Expert -> Need some investment. Ex - Fireball, Lightning bolt, Water Walk, Stoneskin
Master -> Sorcerers needs to do a promotion quest before they can learn it. Iti s the "cap" for hybrid classes like Archers. Ex - Fly, Town Portal, Meteor Shower
Grand Master -> You need to become a Lich or a Archmage. No hybrid class can reach that point. Eg - Lloyd's Beacon, Incinerate
I believe this is where Wizards of the Coast come to play ...
Since as far as i know, they litteraly demanded that game must keep DnD rules.


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1st Level, 2nd Level, 3rd Level etc etc always seemed simple and intuitive to me? It's just 1-9 (or 0-9 counting cantrips) with 1 being "weakest" and 9 being "strongest". So I don't quite see where confusion could stem from.
Also 4e arguably had tiered progression for every class, you had your level 1 daily, level 3 daily and so on, and the higher level ones supposed to be stronger. And I'm one of the few who likes 4e and notices 5e did port a bunch over in and melded it with 3.5e...

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Originally Posted by SorcererVictor
PAnel from hell - Larian

At 1:17:20 >


Swen mentions the tiered magic system of D&D as a "complicated" thing. Why he understimate the player base so much? Tiered magic system exists in TONS of games. Even Skyrim, which is extremely dumbed down uses it. You have novice -> apprentice -> adept -> expert -> master level of spells. My very first RPG was Might & Magic VII - For Blood and Honor and the game used the system >
I don't quite understand what he means by "complicated". He might just mean: unintuitive. In the clip, the comment is made after: "level 3 spell is out of range of level 4 Wizard". And, let's be fair, for uninitiated "why a level 4 Wizard can't cast a level 3 spell" is a legit question. Still, it is a problem of using same terms for different systems rather then the system itself being too complicated. And a good UI could help a lot when access to new levels spells are gained, what spells are what level etc. BG3 likes to throw everything into one bucket a bit too much for by taste.

That said, it is an odd complaint to come from the guy who leads a DnD project.

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Originally Posted by RagnarokCzD
I believe this is where Wizards of the Coast come to play ...
Since as far as i know, they litteraly demanded that game must keep DnD rules.
If only that were true.

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Originally Posted by RagnarokCzD
I believe this is where Wizards of the Coast come to play ...
Since as far as i know, they litteraly demanded that game must keep DnD rules.

Disagreed. WoTC had no problem with mobile cashgrabs and games like Sword Coast Legends. They don't care about rules.

Originally Posted by Wormerine
And, let's be fair, for uninitiated "why a level 4 Wizard can't cast a level 3 spell" is a legit question. Still, it is a problem of using same terms for different systems rather then th

HE said loud and clear complicated. Call it circle(Gothic 2) , tier or whatever.

When the magician reaches certain levels, show a notification "new tier of magic available" and with a "help' button which the player can read some explanation like "just like your character has levels, spells has tiers ranging from 0 to 9, You now are a <<insert a homebrew "title">> and can cast spells like <<insert spell examples>>"
Title suggestions
  • Char Lv 1~2 / Spell tier 1 - Novice
  • Char Lv 3~4 / Spell tier 2 - Aspirant
  • Char Lv 5~6 / Spell tier 3 - Fledgling
  • Char Lv 7~8 / Spell tier 4 - Apprentice
  • Char Lv 9~10 / Spell tier 5 - Adept
  • Char Lv 11~13 / Spell tier 6 - Expert
  • Char Lv 13~14 / Spell tier 7 - Master
  • Char Lv 15~16 / Spell tier 8 - Archmage


BG3 will definitively not have tier 9 spells, like Wish or Time Stop, probably 6/7 and that is it. You can call Cone of Cold an "Adept" level spell and require Adept casters to cast.

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I'm not sure I understand the thread. What's complicated about spell levels? It's extremely basic in 5e..

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To be fair, when introducing new players to 5e the magic system does cause some confusion. And I'd expect a lot of people who never played 5e will be playing BG3.

When you have a full caster things are straightforward, but then you have 1/2 and 1/3 casters. And then you have warlock spell casting.

Add multiclassing on top of that (they were planning on that, right?) and you have an even more confusing situation where you have X level spell slots while not being able to prepare spells of X level.

When you are playing 5e at the table the player/DM will explain it and answer questions.

When you are playing a video game you expect the game to explain this to you. And currently BG3 is not doing a great job at it, I think.

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Originally Posted by Scribe
I'm not sure I understand the thread. What's complicated about spell levels? It's extremely basic in 5e..

Had the same reaction. As @Womerine said it's just on odd thing for a someone making a D&D game to even comment on. The D&D way of doing things has become so intuitive for me that I had to stop and think "oh, yeah, right, spell level and character level not the same thing. I guess I could see how that could confuse someone new to the game"

Because I'm kinda derpy myself I actually like the derpiness of the presentation -- the mic not working properly, the cow not cooperating -- that's me at every presentation ever. They need to continue with silly, amateurish panels but they really need to have Sven do introductions and then hand over the gameplay over to someone who really likes D&D.

His "I'm told that's a D&D thing and we can't change" statements that communicate annoyance with the rule set aren't helping Larian.

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Originally Posted by Dexai
One way they could rename it is "First Circle", "Second Circle", and so forth, rather than spell level.

The thing that would really help Larian and WotC would be a set of videos that explains this in terms like this or the one the OP suggested. " If you've played _____ you know that you don't get second circle spells until character level 3. The same principle applies but . . . ."

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Originally Posted by KillerRabbit
His "I'm told that's a D&D thing and we can't change" statements that communicate annoyance with the rule set aren't helping Larian.

I mean this really say's a ton to me. If the name drop of 'Baldur's Gate' didnt feel cheap enough, its comments like that that just say 'We are only using this setting for name recognition, forget the rest why can't we just cover the sword coast in explosive barrels???'

Its utterly depressing.

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There is some merit to the argument that spell levels are overly complicated for newbies.

The best argument i heard is, why can't spell levels match class level? Why can't a level 5 wizard cast level 5 spells? That would require 20 levels of spells and require some realignment but that might help in re-examining spells.

We have charts that track 20 levels. Why not for spells?

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Originally Posted by spectralhunter
There is some merit to the argument that spell levels are overly complicated for newbies.

The best argument i heard is, why can't spell levels match class level? Why can't a level 5 wizard cast level 5 spells? That would require 20 levels of spells and require some realignment but that might help in re-examining spells.

We have charts that track 20 levels. Why not for spells?

Yes there is some merit. Sure, you could but if WotC were to ever change it I would take a reorganization of the rest of the class features. The ripples would be large enough to require a new edition.

I think explainer videos would help. "You know that 7 year old kids are not enrolled in the 7th grade, right? Well in DnD . . ."

Last edited by KillerRabbit; 19/02/21 06:08 PM.
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Originally Posted by KillerRabbit
Originally Posted by spectralhunter
There is some merit to the argument that spell levels are overly complicated for newbies.

The best argument i heard is, why can't spell levels match class level? Why can't a level 5 wizard cast level 5 spells? That would require 20 levels of spells and require some realignment but that might help in re-examining spells.

We have charts that track 20 levels. Why not for spells?

Yes there is some merit. Sure, you could but if WotC were to ever change it I would take a reorganization of the rest of the class features. The ripples would be large enough to require a new edition.

I think explainer videos would help. "You know that 7 year old kids are not enrolled in the 7th grade, right? Well in DnD . . ."

Correct. It's too late for 5e.

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