Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General What questions would you like to ask to Larian ?

I would ask them what their goals are for this game - what makes it a success/failure.

I would ask them how this game is supposed to feel. I would ask them about how important verisimilitude is to them and how they plan to achieve it.

I would ask them how they intend to use playtesters and other sources of information and how that feedback gets incorporated into the game.

I would ask them how they decide to use 5e RAW vs home-brewed rules.

I would ask them what they think they are doing well and what they think they are doing poorly. I would ask them about their plans in light of the answer to the previous question.

And then I would probably have a few hundred follow-up questions.

While I understand and accept rule changes due to being a video game instead of TT, many of Larian's homebrew rules don't NEED to be in the game at all. Food healing, backstab advantage, height advantage/disadvantage, scroll use for all classes, disengage as a bonus action and many others are simply the way they are because Larian said so rather than because they couldn't code things as they are in the TT.

With that in mind, my question would be how many of the Larian decision makers have actually played D&D and why did/do they feel the need to change/homebrew so much that isn't strictly related to converting the D&D system to a video game format?

I would just ask what classes and races they're working on now and what we should expect next.

I would ask Larian if their staff and contractors are well, and managing their lives successfully in the pandemic.

I would ask Larian if their expansion and integration of new studios is working out, and how this impacts their development ideas and plans.

I would ask Larian if they are content with their BG3 progress so far ( both EA and unreleased aspects ) against their original plans, and are confident that they can achieve their goals before running out of money ( Swen's only stated ship date ).

I would ask Larian how much of the game internals will be available open to modification, as that would potentially solve all the problems associated with the wide range of personal preferences on display.

And lastly, I would ask Larian if there is anything additional that interested EA players can do to help that we are not doing already through playing EA and expressing our opinions in public forums.

I would ask them if they consider incentivizing repetitive, micromanagement heavy, unbalancing and gamey tactics/mechanics practically limited only by patience or boredom to be a good mechanic for Larian house rules?

Thinking about everything from dipping weapons (only player), flanking (mostly player), shove (only player) long rest (ie. action surge can be once per combat instead of once per day), pickpocketing etc.

It’s a lovely idea and there are some pertinent questions suggested in the replies here. As much as I would like to see a more open dialogue between developer and community, are we ever really likely to see a response to any of them?

Why they said that their changes to D&D are needed for the video game environment when Solasta proves that this is not the case.

Will character import/export be available in this game? Just save state to save state in this game, not from another game. I do not want to play the NPCs if I drop into another game. I want my progress and gear for when I play with my wife and Friends.

Also, will we eventually get Goliaths?

Why is Lathander, one of the most prolific major deities, not a selectable God?
Especially since we need a full fledged nuetral good God for humans/humanoids to pick that isnt at all edgy, weird, or grim?

We need a "by the light!" Type god option.

...

My other question would be how they plan to implement the Paladin's divine smite

My question to Larian.

Have you played Baldurs gate 1 and 2 and finished the games?
What are your impressions on the atmosphere, gameplay, mechanics, dialogue, quests etc...?
Aside from the story, what elements did you enjoy and decided to revisit, upgrade and include in BG3?

Come now, we know why.

'Will there be a map designer?'

That would be my question.

Ok i am curious... Why??

They didn't try from scratch. This is a mod of their own games.

This is correct, except that it is an engine revision rather than a mod. The reason that Larian and WotC came to an agreement is probably that they both felt that the Larian DOS/DOS2 engine fit the requirements for a coop DnD experience.

Obviously Larian already have capabilities in the Engine from DOS2, which they mapped onto DnD where possible, before revising the engine to add features not already available. I'm sure Larian regard their core audience to be the people that bought DOS2, so it is important to keep that audience happy, while trying to expand the audience to new players attracted by Baldur's Gate and DnD material. Keeping everyone happy would only be possible through a fairly Byzantine set of optional behaviours.

Solasta, by contrast, is starting from no particular expectation, and aiming to build an audience mainly from the TableTop D&D player base. So they implement the current rules quite closely, and ( I assume ) accept that the wider videogame audience will probably find the game rather slow and uninteresting.

You can do ( almost ) anything you want when developing a computer-base game; the problem is finding something you want to do that is also commercially viable.

Yup! This!

I also agree.... all their Talking about „doesn’t fit a Videogalerie“ is nothing more that a cheap excuse for their engine not being able to handle a DnD game properly.

I have to agree. Personally, nothing what I've seen from Solasta's ads and lets plays so far has interested me.

Even back then not everyone who played the original BG games was a D&D player. And this is much easier to track nowadays, when steam tracks not only sales, but the number of players and also how many people even complete the game.

Ultimately that is the target audience if you want to make big sales: those who buy computer games. Small developers focus on their specific fanbase, because that is likely a guaranteed sale for them. But big companies and corporations I'd expect to rely on numbers.

Well based on Steam sales info the BG3 EA has:

sold 10x the copies of Solasta

has double the average playtime by the players who have bought those copies

has a 32 times higher all time concurrent playerbase

has 35 times the peak players in the last 24hrs

So basically, when they said that, they were using the good old Obi Wan Kenobi "point of view" perspective of what constitutes a successful and profitable product for them as a production studio.

Most of these points are restating the same thing: that BG3 has sold more copies than Solasta. Which is not at all surprising, considering that BG3:
-is a game officially backed by WotC using the D&D 5e license
-is made by a studio with hundreds of employees whose most recent game was a huge hit (and who have had experience making 6? other games)
-has the name association with a very popular (the most popular?) crpg series of all time

Solasta, on the other hand, is the first game of a 14-person studio and does not have the D&D full license so can't use all of its rules or its setting.

A higher number of sales doesn't mean that Larian's gameplay decisions are better; BG3's higher name-brand recognition and advertising budget can probably explain most of the difference in sales, especially while both games are still in EA.
Average playtime is a better metric, but is not conclusive. I've played some amazing 2-hour games and some pretty mediocre 10+ hour games.