Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback [SPOILER] Learning from a previous playthrough - a case for an intense tutorial

So, my current "style" or "method" of fixing the issue with the people hanging out above the crypt is to place my toons around the venue, use eldritch blast to shoot the guy standing on the box down to the ground (I'm usually level 3 when I get there, because I do... things), kill two more with the falling stone and the rest is usually done at the end of round 1.

Good, good. Thats my example here.

Honestly, I think the game should add tactical tutorial material to the prologue ship, showing off a little bit whats possible, by guiding the player some more. Solasta has a very nice introduction to this topic.

Why did I use my example?

Because this is exactly what such a tutorial should teach - thinking out of the box, forcing the player to really use whats available, not let people "drift" into the mindset of "ok, here are my spells and my skills, I need to spam them to fix the problem of bad guys existing".

I feel that this would rather play even more into Larians Divinity design with environmental tactics and less into d&d. You are supposed to deal with the problems with just your skills and spells, that should be enough. You are the hero here, not the environment.

Sure, every once in a while, a situational rock, or barrel etc could exist to make the fight easier or fun in a different way for those that think outside the box but I'm having hope that Larian see that all this environmental stuff is what the majority of us here in the forums are against. So a tutorial that says "here, look at all this goofy stuff we designed based on our experience with our previous series, don't forget to use it!", is not the direction of the game I wish to see.

I really wonder why some of you D&D people are so insisting on making this game as bland as possible.

I understand that this would work perfectly fine in a pure tabletop session, with a DM and a lot of metacommunication around the table, but this is still a PC game - and us PC gamers really require more than spamming the same skill / spell all the time, games have evolved.

See it as an opportunity - maybe even tabletop sessions will get better in the future because DMs may learn that they can setup interesting, puzzle-like fights instead of just having to compare D20 rolls against armor classes or whatever.

Sounds like metagaming to me @Firesong, which I find tedious and unimmersive.

This is supposed to be an rpg. I walked right up to those dudes at the crypt to chat with them (because why wouldn’t I?) and ended up in a battle. I don’t RP a psychotic murderer who peers ahead with my magical mist owl and sets up my team to take out everyone we encounter using tactical advantage. That would be lame.

If I want situational advantage without resorting to metagaming cheese, I use misty step, longstrider, and dash. Its really not that hard to use the DnD game mechanics. There are many options to mobilize and get position as soon as a battle starts.

This game is really easy imho. I don’t understand why a tutorial is needed to explain what is already explained by spell descriptions and percent chance descriptions on screen.

I get where you are coming from, and actually the game mechanics are not that hard to understand (even though it still needs an in game "wiki", similar to WotR, which explains stuff and, in the best possible of worlds, even lore and deities, etc...).

So, I mean, I roleplay, too... on my first 2-3 playthroughs. Last time I played I even set a few "story goals" ("romancing" Shadowheart, fixing the problem between and a few other details.

But at some point I start a real "min max hardcore, get everything done with max XP and everything"-playthrough. This includes and also other things.

In my opinion, especially gamers new to RPGs, who are also not used to Larian style games (my first Larian game was D:OS2), a bit of a kickstart.

Ok…i do admit…I preplanned hard to get that sword once I realized I could. Lol

Yes. Thats what I meant.

It is metagaming ...
But you can get the same result by just scouting ahead with your rogue ... so i would not call that unimmersive. :-/

Anyway ... Firesong have good point.
There really isnt much teaching us in tutorial ...
We were told that we can get high ground advantage, we were told by tooltip (that most of us probably didnt even bother to read) that we can dip our weapons, or explode those canisters ... and how to attack, but that is it.

It would be welcomed if there was some part where we will be teached about sneaking, and shoving ...
It dont even sounds too dificiult to me ... let one of those Thralls lay near the edge of that ship ... and two imps facing oposite side to where we come from, sitting next to it, giving him non-lethal attack over and over and over, as if they were just tormenting him ... then let say Lae'zel something like "They are occupied, we can use that." ... and popup tutorial message that tells us, that if enemy is in such situation, we can use it and shove them to death.

Let them live and meet them in Baldurs Gate City again.
Then they will be glad to have survived the invasionforce you tricked em with by talking to em, not knowing that was all a hoax.
They will pay u handsomly with stolen goods or ask you to help out in some other shenanigans.

Thats what i want out of them. No fan of killing everything because i can.
Why play shortsighted when in the long run good decisionmaking can be so more rewarding.

Some people definitly played too many shooters for a long time as in learning only: "shoot first, ask later!".
Or it seems some tadpoles ate more then they should have.

Problem with games like this are that until you KNOW there are rewards in the future for certain decisions, the lack of milestone levelling and the sudden boosts in difficulty that the EA has had so far means it's almost imperative to get as much XP as possible early on. Thus killing, sadly. Not enough XP for 'other decisions', as much as I'd like it to be the case. The full game should be better in this regard, but for now, it's all taking chances. I've definitely taken different routes depending on outcomes of rolls and playing through different scenarios with different characters. (I always choose an alignment in my head for my characters, even if it's not in the game itself, and RP that as much as I can accordingly). This is a strong effort for a 5e DnD game, but it's still an Action RPG at its heart, not a true RP game.

Maybe it's just me, but I approach any crpg with the attitude that I'll have a couple stabs at a playthrough to learn the mechanics before making a serious attempt. The environmental/positioning stuff? I learned that when


took my ass to town. But then I knew those mechanics. Is it reasonable to expect a full understanding of every mechanic to be achieved through a tutorial? Maybe sometimes, but maybe not always. I felt like the tutorial on the ship was more than enough. Jump. Push buttons. Loot stuff. It's more than enough to get started, without getting overwhelmed, and I think not overwhelming people is preferable to scaring people off with complexity.

You know.. I role-play an assassin, and pretty much kill everything in my way in the most expeditious means possible. If it's quick and convenience... I use the environment to be more efficient at doing my work.

See it's really about the perspective we as individual players have when we play. Not everyone plays your way, and not everyone plays my way. Leave it open for options methinks?

+1

And, as always: this is a computer game in 2021.

For me, it's not about making it bland, but making it focused on the gameplay I enjoy and how I envision a d&d rpg. See it as an opportunity - maybe you'll discover the pleasure of planning tactics and strategy based on limited resources(if Larian or any other developer figures out a nice way to balance short/long rests and encounter design).

I guess you won't but hey, we all advocate for the kind of game we ourselves would like to see, cause yes, for your information, I'm a pc gamer too and have never actually played the tabletop. Also, even if the current tutorial indeed can be improved, if it tells you how to use the environment to your advantage, or the game gives you an abundance with opportunities to do that...can you really say you're thinking outside the box after that?

And yes, it is 2021. The wheel has already been invented, we don't need to do it again and pc games don't need be inventive or quirky to catch my interest.

Maybe they don't have to be, but I wonder:

How clunky would KotoR had been if it had played exactly like BG? FO 1 and 2 did, but Bethesda went a different direction with F0 3 and 4, and Obsidian as well with FO NV.

I can't imagine trying to play Oblivion, or Skyrim in the same manner as BG, since the environments were as much a part of the game as the characters in them.

As an aside, if you've never played Table Top, how do you know if this game, or any other cRPG DnD game, is even close to the rules, because someone said so? I mean, one of the common arguments when I was last active here was "but exploding barrels", as if Larian invented them in DoS. It's not like there's been a Grease spell in DnD for a very long time or anything... Wait, there has been. It's been flammable too. It's not like it doesn't have practical advantages in Table Top as well, where I have actually played, and actually used it tactically. I once linked to a video of Outside Xtra and Outside Xbox playing 5e, where they had a really fun scenario play out with Grease, and Spike Trap.

The thing about "cheese mechanics" is that yes, they are available, but they are not required. The encounter listed in the OP here, as an example, I scouted the area, noticed that I could take out some of them really fast with a bow shot, and a push, and did just that. I didn't need a tutorial, or a "Let's Play" to figure it out, I scouted it out with my rogue, and went for it. Is it cheese, or taking advantage of the environment? Some could argue cheese, and some could argue a clever use of the environment, and neither would be wrong, it's just a matter of perspective. Now, if I'd stacked up 500 barrels... Another thing about Cheese Mechanics is that one is perfectly capable of creating them w/out using environmental objects, Grease, and potions that will ignite, or even Spike Trap, as just one example, there are plenty more, all within the actual spells and abilities available to characters within the rules.

I'm just struggling with the idea of "make it more like DnD" from someone that's never played DnD to know how far removed it actually is, or isn't, from what's possible in a Table Top campaign.

Wow. Do...do you know the landmine you just walked into? Whether grease is flammable or not is an incredibly divisive topic in the 5e community. RAW, it is not specifically said to be flammable.
https://twitter.com/jeremyecrawford/status/739200837809934340?lang=en

KotoR is an entirely different game series than BG, so it makes sense that they don't play exactly the same. It's similarly not really relevant to compare Skyrim to BG. Your Fallout comparison is more apt, but to be fair, there was a huge outcry when FO3 was revealed to be significantly different than FO 1&2. A lot of fans didn't like the way Bethesda was taking the series. Allegedly, BG3 (because of the "3") is a direct sequel to the BG1&2 games, which means that naturally it is going to be compared against them. Had Larian titled the game "Baldur's Gate: Rise of the Absolute" then there would be much less unhappiness at its differences from BG1&2.

I was thinking about the thread today while doing another playthrough, and I'm now convinced additional tutorial isn't required.

Shoving? You look at the UI, and you have a shove option. As soon as you see that, you look for precariously placed enemies.

Additionally, the crypt is as far as I'm concerned a secondary tutorial to the nautiloid. Lots of opportunities to try things out, learn from mistakes, etc.

I totally get OP's point, but I think there's so much initial stuff that more formal tutorial would be off-putting for a lot of people.

*Quietly removes herself from the thread again*

Typically tutorials take one of two forms. Either it's a one-and-done starting level which can then be skipped in the future after its completed the first time, or it's a kind of optional but ongoing tool-tip mode where the game is constantly highlighting and interjecting advice during the course of regular play. Both have definite downsides.

A tutorial level or separate initial mini-campaign is usually only played once, and so any real content or polish there tends to feel like a wasted effort, since most players will never return to it. A tutorial advisor or optional advice mode on the other hand, tends to lack the charm of the in-story delivery and can quickly become immersion breaking or too repetitive to maintain, so players just turn it off.

I can appreciate why Larian has been reluctant to let us skip their Prologue and advance straight to the beach, because that would basically mean skipping out on the start of their story. I can also appreciate why they don't want to have some generic and boring Tutorial level as the first thing that happens, because if that's the first thing a player sees, it totally hoses the first impression. I think I've started like half a dozen threads on these boards to offer suggestions on the Prologue Tutorial since this thing first kicked off a year ago, but rather than repeating those ideas (since most seem to get ignored anyway) I thought I'd offer a new one...

Instead of giving us a full tutorial prior to the Nautiloid, or a tutorial during the entire Nautiloid escape as an unavoidable initial game level, perhaps the Tutorial section should commence somewhere in between, more as a side path?

Like what if our Tutorial pet unlocks an optional "tutorial pod" during the Nautiloid section? Us points it out, and then the player is given the choice to "Enter the tactical tutorial?" That way the player who is not interested can run right past this optional section and head straight to the Helm, but the new player would be encouraged to make a detour on their first run. That might be an interesting approach, because there always seems to be this tension between setting up a good story via the Prologue, and having a robust Tutorial that actually introduces the gameplay and instructs new users how to play the game well. These two things tend to work at cross purposes when they occur at the same time, which is why I kept suggesting that they be separated initially. The more tutorial-izing that takes place at the outset, the weaker the overall story flow and pacing become. Information that is very useful for a first time player quickly becomes annoying and gets in the way once the player is already in the know.

I think the narrative device to bring the tutorial into the story is already basically in place. Brain worm is like the very first thing that happens in this game, and there are all these holding pods and such all over the place in the first areas we get to explore. Perhaps the player plugs into one of those, and enters a sort of dream plane where memories of different situations are recalled. Advice is whispered to them by Us or Daisy, and the player gets some set piece encounters to show them the ropes in more exacting detail, for as long as their patience or interest allows. When it concludes the player is returned to the same place/point in time where they left off, so not skipping too many beats, or dragging down the actual story overmuch. Once this vehicle for Tutorial Sections is established, they could occur again at sensible intervals. For example, the optional Tutorial on the Nautiloid might deal with things like basic commands and combat tactics. A later Tutorial on the Beach or in the Crypt, could present in a similar way, as a kind of memory with Daisy doing narration, but focus on other things. There's certainly a lot of ground they could cover if they wanted to.

I think a truly great game will build its tutorial in such a way that it feels rewarding rather than a nuisance, but there's a fine line to walk there in terms of what exactly the rewards should be beyond gaining some know how. If it becomes experience driven or loot or story driven, then that has moved outside the realm of tutorial and more into regular gameplay. If there's no tutorial at all, and it's like "Good luck newb, have fun figuring it out!" I think that can be more problematic here, in a D&D game where the official rules are like these 200+ page book-length manuals that the player is already supposed to be familiar with, than it might be in some other sort of standard Action RPG game.

My point, however, is in how modern(ish) games would play if we stayed with the same style as BG. There are games today, along with a whole host of others, that wouldn't be the same if they had been released in top down isometric. Instead, the technology advanced, and the games became "inventive and quirky".

Yet, despite the complaints, FO 3 went on to be wildly successful, as have most of the other FO titles since, 76 being a whole other ball of wax. Ironically, we have one chapter of BG 3, and no idea where the game is going after we leave this zone, and yet we have loads of "but it's not connected". How do they know? What is it that they've seen that others of us haven't seen? One thing I do know is that we will find our way to Baldur's Gate, which ties it to one in so far as locations go. However, flipping back to the FO references, are 3, NV and 4 not FO games, since they aren't direct sequels to 1 and 2? They share one thing in common, background lore. One can see that connection simply reading the myriad of books laying around the map here, and what would have been the response if it had been set x years/centuries before the events of BG 1 and 2? Is it a case of "but we have to be Bhaalspawn for it to be a BG game"?

At any rate, this is wildly off topic. There are a lot of cRPG veterans that have the same(ish) philosophy that I have; "Know your world". This means that they'll be overturning every rock that they can, and clearing the Fog of War from all zones on the map. They're going to read every tooltip they see, and spell and skill descriptions. Some folks may be a bit surprised to find out how many strategies can be gleaned from just doing that, with no need for a drawn out tutorial section. Especially if something winds up changed down the road, and thus requires the tutorial to also be changed. A tutorial should give you the basics, and leave advanced strategies for the players to discover.