Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General How does BG3 compare to BG2?

You're putting words in my mouth. Harry Potter isn't necessarily childish. It's just not literature. Its fun, you can sit back and enjoy it and the journey but you don't need to step inside it and analyze anything.

Shadowheart, Gale, Lae'zel and Wyll are more like regular people. They have problems. They are at times unlikable. They have their own motivations you have to deal with. You can't always trust what they say. Gale has a stupid mustache, and you have to try and watch him say things with his dumb face and not punch him.

Astarion is the most "go with the flow" option. As long as SOMETHING is dying he doesn't care much.

Compared to Minsc who is a simpleton - "You point, I punch!"

Eeeeh, Idk man. To some extent you're right. Characters in BG2 were a bit simpler (Not all of them. Minsc being the most popular among them kinda proves your point though.) But they did follow you mostly cause you were the child of bhaal. They had a loose reason to be with you.


>>> Here having your companions with you cause you're all screwed and have no other choice would be 100% more interesting for me me but the absolute lack of "general" backstory for the PC is just so strange. And that's my main point.<<

I had the same problem in DOS2. I want to create my own character and all but If I do it he will have 0 anchor in the world apart from being one of those who got kidnapped or one of those with the tadpole.



I don't think it's anywhere close about "realism" or characters being " too deep". For now the only motivation of shadowheart seems to be pretending she's very selfish and very "evil" by harassing you of nowhere for no reason + finding a cure to the tadpole. And eventually she sleeps with you if you gather enought " Shadowheart approves" options. Like come on. Shaowheart is really the #1 offender in this category. It's just insane.

They don't care that much about other party members, they seem to focus 100% on the PC altough the PC is literally the only guy who doesn't give any reason to think he's a threat. He doesn't even talk about his past that they could dislike because he doesn't have one if you don't play one of the origin characters. Shadowheart talks about leaving if you don't change your ways of doing once and we all know it won't happen since apparently after ACT I our party composition is set in stone.

How is that realistic? Compare this to a plane crash on an tropical Island( that's literally what happens to us). Would the guys around you behave like 15 years old? Even if they were from Yakuza? Come on).

Small description of how this compares to BG2:

You took Minsc as an example but take Viconia or Edwin. Viconia felt she owed you something(you saved her life), was attracted to your power ( cause drow + evil ) but on the same time wouldn't stand your presence if you were way too nice to everyone. She was a drow trying to make her life on the surface despite the odds. She was " evil" deep down but that's not the only motivation she had. Not speaking about actually having an opinion about most of the things happenning around her based on your decisions. Opinion she would share straight away and eventually leave if she had enought of your "let's save the world" bs.

Edwin had more straightforward reasons, he hoped to become more powerful in your presence( and was right) but had his small mental issues to make him a bit more interesting and could eventually start a fight with Minsc over Dynaheir if you had Aerie in your party(Minsc takes Aerie as a substitute for Dynaheir). He also seen you help the thief guild he was working with so he had reasonable reasons to trust you. Not speaking about Edwin's quest....like his identity issues went a bit further than expected didn't they.

Yoshimo was a interesting too with his very calm and analytic approach, his issues he wouldn't talk about until he eventually shows you his backstory in the least expected moment. He was probably the closest to a shallow character in terms of backstory but had quite intereseting opinions after me.

Khorgan was the closest to shadowheart. He was just a son of a bitch and you had to literally pay him to rejoin you if you did something he disliked like giving money to a beggar in the street. He was literally the opposite of Minsc an 100% over the top for 0 reason apart from being like this cause " he's evil". Still to some extent he had something to earn by your presence and as long as you didn't piss him off too much it made sense for him to be with you.
Don't remember his quest or his interactions. Played with him only once in my playthroughs.


TLDR:
Now.... How are interactions in BG3 more realistic and deep compared to BG2? I don't think they are. Mostly due to the current structure of the game( companions can't leave us and look for the cure themselves cause where would they go?), the PC character not having at least one distinctive characteristic compared to other characters and them ignoring 100% of the world around them apart from the PC.

Those 3 things are just annoying to me with the 3rd +2nd point being the main offenders.

At no point is it about "writing choices" or anything like this. I can like or dislike a character, a story the devs try to tell and still enjoy it. I can hate Astarion at 100% and disagree with everything he has to say and still keep him in the party cause at least he's the guy who reacts the most to what's happening around.

The same way I hated Edwin and still had him in the party and kept him with me just to make in-party interactions more interesting.

My problem with Harry Potter is how it started out as an interesting story with children main characters, then devolved into more standard YA fair.

I think this point about motivation is the main difference between BG 1 2 and 3, the Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 you picked up companions mostly because they were looking for muscle to help with a trivial quest, their motivations were straightforward usually quickly satisfied and lead to you gaining an ally for your own quest. The most memorable companions are the ones who had motivations that developed during your quest, mostly the romanceable ones who are given that much more narrative real estate.

In Baldur's Gate 3, we've been given a cast of characters with multiple motivations, and who clearly aren't willing to reveal everything upon joining the quest, people are acting like they have a good handle on what our companions' backstories and motivations are, but I personally don't know how much we've really been given, even from the glimmerings of intimacy we've gotten in the EA, though maybe there's that much datamined informing these criticisms.

It’s funny folks bring up Harry Potter, as I have compared it to BG3 in convos with pals. I liked the plot of Harry Potter, but despised the characters for the most part because it was basically a bunch of aresewipe jocks with barely an ounce of empathy between them who are the heroes in the end.

Similarly, I get a bit of cringe from my team in BG3 because they also lack empathy. I feel like I am walking around with a bunch of narcissists, which totally voids any emotional investment I may have in them. Hope that improves as we get to know them more later in game. Fingers crossed.

They do have empathy (well, except Astarion, that guy is classic sociopath), they are just not really good people. Every companion (except Lae'Zel, she is the only honest and straighforward companion in EA) in BG3 is trying to manipulate you and lies to you, but they do it in a way normal people usually do it in the real life. They have huge skeletons in their closets, so it makes sense for them to open up and confess their deceptions and manipulations only when they get to know you more and learn to trust you.

You must know some pretty shitty people lol. Most people in real life default to telling the truth and we assume most people we interact with on a daily basis are telling the truth as well unless we have reason to believe otherwise. Unless we're saying that everyone of these "normal" people have deep dark secrets that have caused them to mistrust literally everyone they meet, which would be about as far from "normal" as you can get.

Most people don't have much to lie about, they also don't usually make appearances in genre fiction. I agree with Alyssa that having a bunch of these neutral to evil companions in an opportunity for some interesting stories to be told. I think the problem people are having is that it can be little much all at once.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-06/uoma-urf061002.php

People lie a lot to make others feel good, to make themselves feel better, to hide something embarassing that happened to them and these little lies don't make them shitty people. Imagine an old woman who is dying from cancer, but hides her ilness from other people because she is so nice, she doesn't want them to worry. Or a recovering alcoholic who is deeply embarassed by his addiction, he is fighting it, trying to suppress his urges, but in the same time he is making fake excuses not to go to a bar with you without telling about his weakness. Or maybe you are approached by a hobo who reeks of booze, he asks you for some money, telling you they are starving, but you lie that you don't have any money, because you believe that he will buy whiskey instead of bread, after all, you believe you have a good reason not to trust him. People generally tell truth only when it's safe and doesn't endanger them, like most gay people pretend to be heterosexual in countries that punish homosexuality or if there is a strong social stygma against gay people.

Now let's take a look at BG3 companions and why they lie. Gale is one of the companions who asks to travel with you first, he believes that in a group he has a better chance to survive and find healing. It makes total sense for him to omit the fact that he is literally a walking bomb, until he can trust you enough with that kind of information. He is sure that he can keep it under control, he just needs to find some magical artifacts, to keep his bomb dormant, no big deal for him, after all, he's been doing that for some time already, and telling every stranger he plans on spending some time with about it the moment he meet them isn't that smart.

Wyll is reluctant to admit his pact with Mizora, because he is embarassed and feels 'fake' as a true Hero he wants people to think he is. His huge ego is but a mask for his lack of real self confidence, caused by the conflict with his father. He wanted to prove himself, but instead he sold his soul to a devil. He too needs time so he can learn to trust you with his background, because it's extremely uncomfortable to appear vulnerable before people you can't trust.

They lie to you like every normal person would lie about things they consider private, embarassing or sensitive considering that they only lie to you until they begin bonding with you and trusting you after some time.


True, right now I believe that Lae'Zel and Minsc will be the only straightforward and honest companions you will get. Maybe Karlach too.

Eh i've never been a huge fan of Dragon Age series, I felt it's lore has always been one of the weakest of the fantasy games especially compared to this one's or even TES. They rarely go deeper beyond the devines this, the chantry that, mages vs templars, which frankly aren't even that interesting of concepts themselves to warrant such focus, especially when both factions weren't that deep, and this didn't change in the sequels, the lore still didn't expand much. TES has pages upon pages of lore for every race, every specific daedra, their histories, and DA always seem to be casual fantasy only lightly ever touching on it's lore, very forgettable and faint.

Ultimately as far as Bioware goes, Mass Effect's lore and world building was handled far better than that of Dragon Age's.

I would argue DA:O's lore was actually fine, maybe not "top 3 fantasy game lore", but solid, with some potential and nice ideas. It was the first game in the series that laid the foundations. The later games just didn't build on it, instead reusing the same themes, plots and lore hooks or, worse, changing the lore and tone of the series. I groaned when I saw that DA:I is AGAIN about mages vs templars. Come on. DAII had it, but at least it was relatively short and focused. (I liked red lyrium though.)

One thing I did NOT like about the "foundations" was what TV Tropes calls "Fantasy Counterpart Culture". Totally-not-England Ferelden, totally-not-France Orlais, totally-not-Italy Antiva... Come on. Annoys me every time I see this in (fantasy) fiction. Make your own cultures. Or at least mix like three real-world ones to make something that appears original, not rip off one wholesale.

Agreed with Abits though, if BG3 would be like DA:O, I'd be happy. It was actually a decent spiritual successor to BG. Not stellar, but decent, and a very good game on its own.

I actually like when its is based off of a real culture with some heavy differences, gives it some grounding to work off of, and also allows a tiny bit of shorthand. Like how you don't really have to justify to a viewer that Orlais has this aristocratic society that cares so much about optics and the game, but of course it does. But this then allows the series to go into the more specific stuff like the role of assassins in society, past conflicts with Elves,government instability because of this system, and their history with grey Wardens and Blights.

The thing about DA lore is that it is so... narrow. What I mean is, it's always either "templar / mages", "mages are dangerous", "chantry", "maker this maker that". That's really about it. No one ever talks about anything else. You can't talk to anyone for more than 2 lines without them mentioning either "mage", "maker", "Andraste". It gets boring talking to anyone pretty soon, tbh.

My statement has nothing to do with lore. The lore of Dao, while fine, is not what makes it a great game.

What features from DAO would you like to see in BG3?

My problem with DA:I was that it wasn't about mages v templars. It shunts that conflict, setup in the Dragon Age II, in the very opening, relegating the central conflict of the series in favor of some ancient bad guy with vague insights into the tainted fade/dark spawn.
As far as making an interesting medieval fantasy world, I think DA:O and DA:II did pretty well, but Inquisition did little more than tread water, except for Orlais which was a complete dud to me. I still have high hopes for the next game, a game set in Tevinter has to potential of being Dragon Age's Morrowind, the best TES game in terms of lore for me (not having played the older ones)

Lore might not have been Abits aim but I certainly would like to see more of it in BG:3, you don't need to look at BladeDancers threads to know a lot's been going on in FR, but it's been a long time since I last visited, I'd appreciate a lore dump so that I can better play, say, a 300 year old vampire spawn.

I wouldn't. Bioware has not made a good game since EA bought them. ME3, Andromeda, DA:I - all trash/mediocre.

In fact nobody makes good games after EA buys them as a rule. I have not forgotten what happened to Origin Systems.

I'm a big enough hater of EA as anyone, but people really need to stop blaming the publisher and absolving Bioware of all fault, afterall EA publishes an assortment of different games by different devs and none of them are having even remotely the same issues as Bioware, they are the ones who make these design choices. Infact EA gave Bioware a boatload of money to support Swtor, and Bioware even messed that up to the point EA would no longer dump that much money into the game again.

It's less about EA, and more about how Bioware's decisions has chased nearly all of their veteran devs away which has effected their games quality

The lack of toilet chains is a good start.

Even if I wouldn't exactly pick DAO as my paragon for the ideal control scheme, either.

It still stands though. It takes a team of talented people to make truly great games. Bioware doesn't have that anymore. In fact they lost even more Devs after they decided to do ME4.

I mean, I really wish they could turn it around. I have loved Bioware since they started with the original Baldur's Gate and its Infinity Engine.

We'll see though, not going to pre-buy anything this time.

I know what you mean, but I stand by my point that it's the problem of DAII and DA:I. In DA:O, you had, besides mages and Chantry (admittedly an overused dull rip-off of the Catholic church), different societies with all their problems, different faiths, little lore pieces, mentions of distant lands... Orzammar, on the brink of collapse, with both isolationism and cosmopolitanism being potential reasons for its end. Dwarven Paragons, which are an interesting take on ancestor worship (kind of). Elves having basically three societies (city, mage, Dalish) and all that follows. Dragon cults. Some nice teases and world mysteries (which mostly lead nowhere in the sequels, but that's besides the point). All the little stories of places you visit. Finally, Darkspawn, which are basically a bunch of cliches thrown together and made into something slightly different and interesting. It was a world I actually wanted to explore and get to know better. Templars vs mages was, iirc, mostly present just in the mage tower questline and only overstayed its welcome in the sequels.