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#785935 08/08/21 07:48 PM
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Although Larian has put a lot of effort into nudity and sex, I don't see the same for violence and gore and the contrast makes it less convincing for the Forgotten Realms that I imagine.

The plastic nature of the models with no dirt or blood, the blood that doesn't look like blood.

The sound effects of the weapons has lost the authenticity of visceral blows.

The lack of dismembering or decapitation.

It is not that I am pro-violence but I think something is missing to portray FR as it should and justifying the R rate.

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I don't know any other Games or Games of DnD i can remember where it was more gory and violent than here, though.


Could be that it increases later in the Future, but also doubtful. Maybe Larian wants it limited so it is a bit more Juvenile-friendly? But then again People make such a big deal out of Nudity and Sex and "that" seems to be in the Game ... ... ;-)

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Um...Have you been to the toll house? And blood is everywhere in the game. You kill something, it forms pools of blood for days. Risen Road to the east is a horror zone. What about the Hag's lair?

What they don't have is Critical Hit Cam Intense violence like Skyrim with swords jabbing through guts and such, but whateves. The point is, lots of violence already. Just not super close up.

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I agree with author. The game has the best potential to become a worthy successor of Planescape: Torment, but to do so it needs a bit of polishing. So far I've found areas which needs to be more violent/gore to keep up scary atmosphere:
1) Some intro movie? The one when an armored warrior is changing into a mindflayer. In some scene tentacles start to grow up from man's mouth, and it is visualized as shadow on wall. NOPE, and NOPE again! It shall be shown in every detail.
2) Mindflayers' ship, a cocoon with imprisoned woman. You can make the tadpole hatch into adult mindflayer, I'd like to see whole transformation of the woman into monster, with all nasty details.
3) Once the ship crashes there is a scene when you find a wounded mindflayer, and, among other options, you can kill it, however, the camera is not showing the act. It shall be changed, I want to see how ex. a mace smashes monster's skull and splashes its brain all around, or a dagger slicing its throat.
4) Druid leader bitch and little daemon girl, in the scene when viper kills the girl I'd like to see how the snake attacks and bites her, and leaves two bleeding bite marks on her leg.

That's only few scenes I remember which could use to be more drastic/gore. As I said, BG III even at this stage is so amazingly atmospheric it would be a waste not to fully explore its potential. Heh, I was going to create a suggestion thread like this even.

Last edited by MasterBLB; 08/08/21 09:42 PM.
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The chunking animation from the original game is really tough to beat. I haven't seen one yet in this game, but every time I play I kinda hope it will happen. Crits used to do the exploding into chunks thing with that sound effect. Where the Xvarts or Kobolds just go "umph", and it hangs the air there for half a second lol

I don't know what the next level would of that would be, like a misty cloud thing when a monster just gets totally brained?

The violence isn't as ridiculous or camp as the other stuff, for the fangoria fans. I get it, the gross out stuff is maybe not for everyone. But its like you kinda wish there was a toggle, with an Ironside mode. You know, like where enemies are getting either one or both arms ripped off, and stuff of that sort. I could see them putting in a little more work there heheh

Last edited by Black_Elk; 08/08/21 10:12 PM.
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Big disagree on my part. I've seen enough gory video games/movies in my life. they don't add any realism to the world, they just make it seem dark and gritty. I'm tired of dark and gritty. We have enough edge with the companions, no need to turn this whole game into a depressing experience. That said, i'd be all for it if they added in a "remove all gore" option. Yea, yea, go ahead, call me a snowflake smile

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Originally Posted by IrenicusBG3
Although Larian has put a lot of effort into nudity and sex, I don't see the same for violence and gore

Well violence is allowed in media rated R+16.
While sexual stuff is allowed to see rated R+18.
Cause it is sooooooo horrible to watch. wink

Also the irony of "John Irenicus" opening up this topic did not eluded my eyes. ^_^


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Honestly, I've always thought monsters exploding when you hit them with a crossbow bolt or sword is dumb. First time I played Neverwinter Nights in Gore mode I was like, "What? Come on. I don't care how hard you hit an enemy, they aint gonna explode into chunky, gory bits. It's ridiculous.

I'd rather have more realism, actually, which is to say LESS blood and gore. In RPGs, when you hit an enemy, the amount of damage you do actually simulates the intensity of the hit. HP simulates how many minor blows you can take before you finally suffer a major hit. When your HP reaches 0, THAT's the only time you should see a serious amount of blood splatter. If you lose you Max HP worth in HP in a single hit, that's an insta-kill like someone lobbing off a head or ramming a blade through the gut.

So, this said, we should never see serious blood and guts except on rare occasions in this game. I would say on a hit that reduces an enemy to 0 HP, that would be appropriate, and especially if you reduce to 0 with a Critical Hit, and especially if you deal an insta-kill. Otherwise, it just doesn't make sense.

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Originally Posted by Black_Elk
The chunking animation from the original game is really tough to beat. I haven't seen one yet in this game, but every time I play I kinda hope it will happen. Crits used to do the exploding into chunks thing with that sound effect. Where the Xvarts or Kobolds just go "umph", and it hangs the air there for half a second lol

That is exactly what I meant! Playing BG 3 made me realize how I underestimated the effects of the original .

In the originals, the combat felt very visceral, the sound effects were spot on (both weapons hitting flesh and the companions grunting whenever they lose HP). The crits with dismembering were also satisfying.


Originally Posted by VarneyTheReaper
I don't know any other Games or Games of DnD i can remember where it was more gory and violent than here, though.[/b]
I think Witcher3 and BG2 (engine aside) were fairly violent.


Originally Posted by GM4Him
Um...Have you been to the toll house? And blood is everywhere in the game. You kill something, it forms pools of blood for days. Risen Road to the east is a horror zone. What about the Hag's lair?

The blood is far from convincing. The opening are in the Nautiloid and the scene with "Us" was the closest I can see to a "dark game". The rest is still too Larian playful for me.

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As with many things, if you see the same thing over and over again it starts to lose its significance. What I would like to see, however, is when you are fighting a troll and chop off its arm, that the arm crawls away and grows into a whole new troll. That would be very startling, like in John Carpenter's "The Thing" when the dude sticks a hot wire into the petri dish of blood!

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Originally Posted by IrenicusBG3
That is exactly what I meant! Playing BG 3 made me realize how I underestimated the effects of the original .

In the originals, the combat felt very visceral, the sound effects were spot on (both weapons hitting flesh and the companions grunting whenever they lose HP). The crits with dismembering were also satisfying.
Yeah the original BG games do that pretty well, conveying violence in a subtle but effective way, though I feel BG1 actually pulls this off better than BG2. I remember back when I was playing BG1 for the first time, the first time I saw a chunk death happen to a party member, I was like "holy crap, how did that happen?" And then some time later when I finally pulled off a chunk death on a gnoll, it just felt so good. Eventually after more testing I figured out that a "special death" happens when a creature's health falls to -9 (IIRC). Not just chunk death, but there's flaming, freezing, electrified death too. That said, once you get to BG2, chunk deaths happen all the time due to much higher damage output, so it kinda gets old and this may be exactly why it feels more impactful in BG1.

But yeah I agree. It's not simply just there being blood. How things happen and even sound effects are also part of the whole thing. If killing blows - like the stuff you have in Skyrim or Witcher 3 - are a thing in this game, that would be cool.

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I don't have exactly a roaring fetish for gore details, but I'd like to see a bit more, yes.
Some blood splash here and there (it's quite weird to see a longsword coming down as a guillotine for all of an enemy's height and a small floating number is often the only visual feedback that your hit landed) or the occasional dismemberment on kill.

Not exactly something I'm going to lose my sleep over, to be clear, but if asked "Would you rather the game to have more or less of it?" my answer would be "More" for sure.

P.S. Interestingly enough, now that I think about it, the game already has "fatalities" when it comes to being burned, electrocuted, frozen to death, etc.

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That and dirt.
I appreciate we don't necessarily want Gme of Thrones, but everything does look super clean here, like the orginal D&D movie ( cry) or like some of the criticism thrown at the Witcher sets in the Netflix series. Especially the party members. Would be nice if some of the grime or blood would remain on the models, at least until we rest or something along those lines.

Last edited by Riandor; 09/08/21 10:17 AM.
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Originally Posted by GM4Him
Honestly, I've always thought monsters exploding when you hit them with a crossbow bolt or sword is dumb.
Yeah, I ususally had those off in BG1&2. Fallout1&2 had pretty darn good stuff like that, but I suspsed that OPs problem isn't with lack of gore but overall tone. I mean we have people burn alive when killed with a fire spell and other elemental attacks - it's more grusome then anything in BG1 or 2. It's just no one takes it seriously enough to care. They can add beheadings and dismemberment and it still won't feel "crunchy".

I would be wary of going to far. Dragon Age tried very hard with persistant blood, but it made it more hilarious then immersive. While your characters probably should be covered in blood, shit and gore, you probably don't want that when you talk to random NPCs.

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I certainly hope that final product will look at least as good as this. laugh
(yup, it didnt work to upload it here as gif)


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Originally Posted by Wormerine
I mean we have people burn alive when killed with a fire spell and other elemental attacks - it's more grusome then anything in BG1 or 2. It's just no one takes it seriously enough to care. They can add beheadings and dismemberment and it still won't feel "crunchy".

Exactly, I guess there always will be a spill from Larian overhappiness persistent midday sunshine.

Originally Posted by Riandor
Would be nice if some of the grime or blood would remain on the models, at least until we rest or something along those lines.
That would bbe great idea. It does not need to be like DAO.

Originally Posted by GM4Him
Honestly, I've always thought monsters exploding when you hit them with a crossbow bolt or sword is dumb. First time I played Neverwinter Nights in Gore mode I was like, "What? Come on. I don't care how hard you hit an enemy, they aint gonna explode into chunky, gory bits. It's ridiculous.
In BG1/2 there was limitation of the engine, so they had to be exaggerated. Still felt satisfying though.


Originally Posted by RagnarokCzD
I certainly hope that final product will look at least as good as this.
Not too bad for its time.

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Originally Posted by IrenicusBG3
The blood is far from convincing. The opening are in the Nautiloid and the scene with "Us" was the closest I can see to a "dark game". The rest is still too Larian playful for me.

Really? Apart from the brain episode, I felt little resembling a "dark game". For instance, the quickened ceremorphosis of the female NPC in the tank was *much* too clean. I understand animating gruesome change ala the initial announcement trailer is a resource intensive task, but Larian lost out of an opportunity to create more dread in the player by awkwardly skipping the metamorphosis process. This is central to the plot of the game, not mere gratuitous violence for the sake of atmosphere - so hoping Larian reconsider at least this scene.

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+1 with Irenicus.

Not 100% about blood because there are way too much blood in the game... But all the blood is on the ground which is ridiculous.

Everyone just loose ALL his blood when death has come...

But there's 0 blood on models, creature that die are never pushed a bit and never have big and visible injuries... The extreme violence is just showed through ridiculous pools of blood.

Hurted characters should react and scream and have blood on their face or loose their arm or being pushed a bit after you stab them to death with your spear...

Pools of blood are cool in games that only rely on surfaces but it cannot be the only thing that represent the violence of combats in a mature game.


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Nudity and Sex, sure. Gore and Violence, no. Gore and Violence just doesnt sell in game industry, its been tried so many times.

As for Sex. I hope they go with Casual Sex. No more damn Romances, just old school sex. Couple goes to forest, 10 min later they run back to the group. Sorry to say this but in old days Fantasy, girls were usually more "slutty" too.

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Originally Posted by Seraphael
I understand animating gruesome change ala the initial announcement trailer is a resource intensive task, but Larian lost out of an opportunity to create more dread in the player by awkwardly skipping the metamorphosis process. This is central to the plot of the game, not mere gratuitous violence for the sake of atmosphere - so hoping Larian reconsider at least this scene.
I really don't need that, though that particular bit really doesn't work for me neither. Not necessarily because I am not forced to see a tenticle monster being born in detail, but because swapping of the models is a bit obvious and unceremonious.


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