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

Damn, with this kinda logic, Cyberpunk 2077 was 2020's game of the year, wasn't it? It did sell like 3x the amount that BG3 EA did, right?

But yes, Larian is no longer some random indie developer. Everyone on both sides needs to recognize that Larian now has a certain audience like any other popular studio. That is to say, they are now basically an AAA studio that as a company (and its rather admittedly rabid fanbase at this point) clings onto its indie image in an effort to shake off all of the negative connotations that can come with that.

They do have an audience to maintain, for better or for worse. And quite frankly, BG3 is fascinating to me for a lot of reasons, but the one aspect that would be relevant to this particular topic is that the game would prove if Larian's success is deserved, or if they'll make the same mistakes that causes them to join the ranks of CDProjekt Red and Bioware in infamy, who used to be equally beloved by their fanbases behaving in much of the same ways before.

And speaking as someone that actually knew of a Larian before D:OS2, the answer is actually unclear to me at this moment.

Why do you keep using this control scheme where we can only select one character at a time? It's so much clunkier than the RTS style control scheme almost every CRPG has used for the last two decades.

Why is this game's UI just one big unsorted hot bar? D&D has classes, and classes can have a wide variety of abilities and spells available at one time and then change them frequently. Dumping them all on a single hot bar and having the player manually sort and resort them sucks. These are issues CRPGs have had figured out for years, so why can't BG3 meet that standard?

Indie games tend to cater to their smaller fanbases, because that is likely a guaranteed sale for them. But once you are dealing with big player numbers, you are likely dealing with a more varied customer group. In case of BG3 you have fans of BG, fans of DOS, fans of D&D, general players who bought it because of the hype, and so on. So a developers needs to balance between the expectations of these groups, and they don't always agree.

For example, I'm not a D&D player. I've enjoyed Baldur's Gate a lot, but I couldn't even finish that first village in Temple of Elemental Evil, it was that boring to play. And ToEE was the game that was advertised as a faithful adaptation of the rules.

I'm not flat-out saying BG3 is a better game than Solasta based on these things alone; I'm saying that when you have a known formula, that you know works, and you have the costs of a AAA release to cover, you probably don't want to screw around breaking new territory. However I could also not that Steam's estimated average minutes of Solasta played over the last 3 weeks is... 0 minutes...


I've seen very little complaining that Cyberpunk was not a good game; it's issues were with the botched release state of the game and their stock's value dip is clearly linked to the game's being pulled from several platforms.

When are you going to implement proper limits and restrictions for Classes so we actually have a TRUE D&D CLASS SYSTEM with party synergy and not a DOS2 "handymen" system reskin?

When are you going to delete the Stealth Ultracheese where A.I. gets broken and simply passes turns to infinite and beyond?

When are you going to carefully plan encounters instead of lazily sponging up some enemy with overscaling and calling it a boss fight?

When are you going to implement a transfer all/send all to camp/select all buttons for inventory management so it doesn't feel like we are stuck in 1984?

When are you going to delete the over 9000 healing and restoration sources that completely trivialize the priest class?

When are you going to delete the over 9000 throwables and barrels that completely trivialize all enemy encounters?

When are you going to nerf the insanely high advantage bonuses ( Ex. Height )?

When are you going to implement actual useful magic items that have UNIQUE EFFECTS, can be used in builds and have very interesting lore instead of having a slightly scaled generalization of them like in DOS2?

When are you going to make spells and skills that work just like in D&D?

When are you going to make a dice roller that feels like a dice roller instead of a fake weighted one?

When are you going to put a proper randomizer for container loot so you don't get 99.9% empty containers from looting and feels like a complete waste of time?

When are you going to stop using the same DOS randomizer for merchants/traders which was the worst aspect of that game because of how insanely abusable and annoying it is at the same time?

When are you going to implement a proper resting system with penalizations since it basically means infinite free heal aside from recovering spells slots?

When are you going to make an actual D&D game?

This is not a question but a suggestion: OVERSCALING shouldn't be the answer to everything in your game.

Larian is already breaking new territory though. As much as people like to say BG3 is basically DOS3, there are a fair amount of differences between the 2 games. Different # of action points, different abilities/spells, a whole D&D class system, no armor/magic armor, an entirely new setting, d20 checks and rolling d20s, freakin' cinematics.

Things like reactions, jump+disengage as a bonus action instead of an action or as separate abilities, eating food in combat, Advantage from height (instead of just increased range or only a +2): all these things are well within the scope of changes Larian has made already. Larian could have implemented these more true to D&D very easily without deviating from the known formula more then they already are.

Why all the cities and villages are so close together?

Why can everything backstab, including a bear Wild Shape?

Why can you eat a pig head food and heals more than a potion for a bonus action?

Why is combat based on exploiting homebrew?

What are they supposed to learn in your opinion and what has it to do with CP2077?

BG3 in EA is already a far better game than CP2077 in my opinion... So just because you don't like it doesn't mean that others don't like it either.

It would be nice if you could really make a fair point with your question instead just spreading negativity.

Finally, some REAL and valid questions/issues here.

Larians answer: DIPPING!

Is the UI pretty much what we’re going to get or will it continue to change before release? The UI for Dark Alliance feels much more like a D&D game because it uses the same typefaces and design language as the 5E books. BG3 has the same typeface and largely the same design style as DOS so feels like the next in that series.

my questions:
- Why did you do all the rule changes to DnD 5E (merge jump and disengage, backstab advantage, hight advantage, missing fire arrows cause a burning surface and so on?)
I think they ruin the differences between classes and make the game more boring because they encourage players to repeat the same non DnD "tactics" over and over again.

- Will you make changes to the UI, especially adding a spell menu and making inventory management less annoying?
I did not really like it in DOS1+2, but now that we have many different classes and more spells then ever its worse than before.

- Why did you invent the chain system for party control in the first place?
From my point of view I see no reason to change the system used by BG1+2 and many other party based RPGs.

my comments:
- To be honest, BG2 did not really restrict resting and there were very few quests with a timer.

- About Solasta vs BG3
Larian has already made several large games with their own fan base and Baldurs Gate and Dungeons and Dragons are very famous and have their own fan base.
On the other hand Solasta is made by a small and new company.
Its no miracle that BG3 sold more units, but this is not an evidence that Solasta is a bad game or sticking close to DnD rules is a bad idea.

- I can understand that the DOS engine fits well to a DnD game.
Its a 3D party based and turn based RPG. Many game mechanics are different. But this is mostly numbers, like how this stat influences damage and hit chance and when you roll a saving throw against what. The game is made in a way that you can add new abilities and status effects and since Larians rules are more "crazy" (sorry, I lack a good word for this) it should be no problem to reproduce DnD rules with this engine.
Still, you should make some big changes to UI so it fits better to a different setting with different rules, such as having different classes and tons of spells that are sorted by spell levels.

"Will you adjust summoning mechanics to be closer to 5e?"

Is what I'd ask, summoning is usually my main focus with stuff.

Does anybody actually believe any longer they read this? Lest answer to it?

Even if they do i'm pretty sure they don't care about anything even if it's valid criticism. Sven must have a pretty clear idea of what he wants.

A cinematic experience with tons of explosions everywhere, just like the original BG games.

Will it run at 24 fps only?

My question would be: do you plan to add some ruleset customization options (like the ones Solasta is adding next week in their new update) at some point up to full release, in order to make gameplay appealing to even more players, im interested in options especially:
- food healing on/off
- universal scroll using on/off
- changing some bonus actions to main actions (shove), bringing them closer to the 5e rules
- option for jump distance nerf, jump itself to separate from disengage and removing that its avoiding attackofopportunity
- highground to give a smaller flat bonus instead of advantage/disadvantage
- long rest restrictions on/off
- option for reactions to have pop-up option next to automatic on/off
- encumbrance effects on/off
- can loose concentration on/off
- being able to see enemy stats and vulnerabilties/resistances (without gaining knowledge about or encountering them at least once) on/off
- failed exploration checks to hide/show
- companion approvals hide/show
- option to take 10 for dialogue skill checks on/off
- option to take 10 for exploration skill checks on/off
- options to set the game to forced turn based if a character is downed or a trap is detected etc

It would be nice if difficulty options affecting how many enemies we encounter and how equipped/skilled they are (like the way DOS2 tactical mode changed it i think) we would be able to set up SEPARATELY from these.
Presets are essential so new players dont get overwhelmed with options but would be nice if it would be possible to separately tweak these and carefully tailor the experience for multiple playthroughs
So my question is basically whether they have plans to do smthg like the above

YESSSSS!!!! God, those options would be *AMAZING* to have!!!!! It would literally make the game one hundred times better! <3

Total agreement to Mat22 as well

- What have you learned from player data?
(most deadly encounter, most often used ability, stuff like this)
Did you change things because of this?