Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Low pool of EA testers worries me

Ah, I see.
That might make it easier to watch.


Exactly.
Also, it seems like Wizards of the Coast doesn't even care really.
Neverwinter is an MMORPG.
Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance is very subpar and quite different from Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance I&II.
Baldur's Gate III is also different, but at least it's far more likely that it will turn out to be a good or great game.


I might be wrong, but I think that...

I see the problems with D:OS2, too, thats why I'm "on / off" vocal about the severe QoL issues the divinity engine has: shopping, inventory management, looting. All three of them are horribly implemented and require intense micromanagement which doesn't add anything to the game.

Shuffling inventories doesn't add anything to the game.

And the "endgame" of D:OS2 was a joke, I even agree with that - the last fight was among the easiest in the game, I finished D:OS2 4 or 5 times and even on the first attempt it was, mostly, a more "facerolling" experience than anything else, this didn't change with tactician dificulty level.

The worst part of it was the two puzzles, which were really only annoying and also not contributing anything meaningful.

So, there is that.

But - the spirit of what makes Larian game a Larian game is that rich world, the rich storytelling and characters, the ability to play WITH the environment and the 3D world.

And I see the greatest divergence here - the "Larian formula" is very friendly and compatible with modern expectations when it comes to a video game. Even EA BG3 is already a wonderful example of that, the world is full of chances, of things to exploit for tactical, but also stragetical, purposes, players really have agency here.

What the hardcore D&D cult people forget:

AI is not there yet to reinstate player agency after a series of failed story related dice rolls - surely you can go the "Solasta" route, where the story is linear and decisions don't matter eventually (which is a cheap implementation, a cop out, honestly speaking, I will say more about my impressions about Solasta a few sentences below), but it's, looking at an RPG as a whole, by far not as satisfying as what one can do in games which abide to that "Larian formula" (a term I just invented, but I think it describes D:OS2 and BG3 well).

So, regarding Solasta:

I don't see Solasta as a proper RPG game, quite frankly. To me it's more like "playing chess with D&D rules", or a "D&D 5e combat simulator", instead of a fully fleshed out story driven game. I don't care in the slightest what the story of Solasta is about, this died the very moment I read that "your decisions don't matter, there is only one path through the game anyway" for me, so I use it to get a kick of "yes, lets slay some baddies of irrelevant agency and origin with my custom 4 PC party", nothing else.

Am I harsh?

Yes.

But is that necessary?

I most certainly think so. The D&D people get all their races, lore, dice, stats, skills, spells, etc..., this needs to suffice, and I'm dead serious about that. The video game people with attachment to modern role playing, and this is the same crowd that D:OS2, with all it's apparent limitations and weakness, spoke to extensively, want that "super high end game master (or was it "dungeon master"?)" which the "Larian formula" provides.

That guy on the table that tells a AAA story (and yes, the stories I have seen so far ARE AAA material) and allows for sneaking into combat, abusing environmental circumstances, creative use of whats available in the location where a fight takes place.

Also, because I read this here as well:

No, the stories and origins are NOT the same as what we got in D:OS2. We will forever - FOREVER - have to live with tropes and archetypes, yes. Wyll and Ifan Ben Mezd share the same archetype, so do Astarion and Sebille (to some extent, the backstories are different enough in both cases, mind you), but there is only so much one can do within the confinements of "swords, shields, fireballs and healing spells" anyway.

It's time to accept that this is October 2021, not September 2000 (when BG2 was released).

This is super spoiler territory so please don't read it if you are sensitive about that

Is Solasta a Baldur's Gate game, then? How about the Icewind Dale games, are they Baldur's Gate too? Planescape Tormet?

Obviously these are ridiculous questions to ask, but the point I'm hoping to make is that it takes a little bit more than just being a D&D game with a fancy title to actually capture that feeling of Baldur's Gate.

And of course we can analyse the actual gameplay in details to try and understand in detail what Baldur's Gate was back then and how Larian have interpreted it. But I'm not sure we've quite got the toolkit to do it correctly. Personally, I do work with software development, but I'm not a game developer. We could probably iteratively grind our way through it an eventually get a proper analysis put together. The wildly different backgrounds and skillsets and worldviews of people on the forum would be an advantage, but it would require a level of trust and goodwill that frankly doesn't appear to exist at the moment.

That is pretty cool. But shouldn't it be
?

I really don't understand the comparison with Solasta.
There's something between "a faithfull adaptation of D&D with a linear story" and "the Larian formula with story permutations".

Saying that BG3 does not look A LOT like DoS is lying or being dishonnest.
Gameplay mechanics, story telling, map design, companions plot, animations, UI,...

DoS improve the genre a lot if we're talking about several gameplay mechanics but it's far from being perfect for players that are looking for a good, immersive and coherent story/experience.

TW3 shows us than players still like very immersive games in 2021 (well, ok it wasn't release in 2021).
The Larian formula is anti immersive by nature.

So are there mindflayers, dice, Drow, +1 items, etc... in D:OS1 or D:OS2?

I really have a hard time seeing how BG3 is NOT D&D. It's all there.

I told u guys I cannot recall proper spelling of the guy but u know whom I am referring to.

I haven't say that BG3 doesn't look like D&D for some things. I said it looks like DoS for many things.

Not sure I read a lot of people complaning that BG3 doesn't look like D&D enough except for a few mechanics (rest, reactions, highground,...)

But I saw many people complaning because it does not look like an improved BG game at all.

Right.


Definitely.


Obviously, but seeing characters with similar tropes and archetypes in the next game that a developer makes is weird.


I'm not sure about that.

I have a different impression here.

I brought up that "heavy metal scene" example already a few days ago. When, in late 90s, more and more metal bands started to introduce keyboards to their lineups (even extreme metal bands did that), there was a similar outcry, because "purity" and "it's is not teh metalz aNyMoRe!!11".

Similar situation here, it's like a deja vu.

I would wholeheartedly agree with the D&D people if something was taken away from them, but it clearly is not. All that BG3 does over BG2 is to make it BETTER an experience, offer more options, offer more player agency and make it a more cinematic experience.

For me this whole discussion is far too reminiscent of "who is TRVE METAL" and "whimps and losers, leave the hall" (to reference Manowar).

Come on, we all know that this will be an amazing game, we will get tons of dice to roll and lots of lore, even good old Volothamp Geddarm is with us here, like back in the good old days.

And with D:OS2 (much more so than D:OS1) being a groundbreaking game, I welcome that all the good things that were learned are put into action here as well.

No 500 square kilometers of necrofire was good choice, of course (blackpits... you know what I'm talking about).

Besides that, I will not stop being vocal about the micromanagement issues Larian games sadly still have to a great extent, and I assess that, at some point, Larian will fix that, too. If not in this game, then in a later one, but I'd prefer BG3 to already have a state of the art inventory / shopping / loot system in place which doesn't act as handbrake on the flow of the game.

And, to mention endgame once again: people were VERY vocal on all channels about the endgame of D:OS2 in the past (and still are). I think that this time it will be different. We can even already extrapolate a bit that it will be because the prologue area of BG3 is already a big improvement over the Merryweather, while still keeping the good things (exploitable, rich starting area environment and stuff) in place. What we could deduct from that is that also endgame will be much improved.

Lets have a little faith and never stop contributing our voices.

And thats what I don't see here - even the characters which are MOST similar to anything even remotely resembling "counterparts" in D:OS2 are very different from them.


We have seen, at most, like (my best guess) 20% of the full game. With all the permutations and suprises yet to come I'd even say that this is quite a high estimation.

I don't think that we have seen more than 20% about our companions, yet.

I'm not sure why you keep mentioning Dungeons & Dragons.
The people who want an adaptation of seem to be mostly happy with Baldur's Gate III.
It's the Baldur's Gate fans who are saying that Baldur's Gate III isn't a true Baldur's Gate game, and that it's basically Divinity: Original Sin III.

As for your music analogy...
This is like if a band changed members and started playing a different subgenre of music (because that's what the new band members are used to playing), added more instruments from the main genre, but kept the same themes of the original band for the lyrics.
The fans of the original band would probably say that it's no longer the same band but a variation of the band that the new members came from.
Whether the fans of the original band or the fans of the main genre like the new band would be up in the air, but it doesn't make much sense for the new band members to continue calling their band the name of the original band, since they're not even in the same subgenre as the original band.

Hmm. So, what's the difference between "drag to group" and "draw a square around party members to group select"? Where you have to click with the mouse? How is it much different from having to select a single character, and then click a button to make the party stay where they are?

Why even mention anything beyond Act 1? Did you read something that said we'd be getting more than that in EA? I certainly never did. Can you provide some links to that, before I start a bonfire, and start sharpening my pitchfork? Most of us weren't expecting more than what we were promised on the store page when we bought in to the EA. What was it that you were expecting?

CDPR released CP 2077 as a complete game, not an Early Access alpha, although it seems like that may be what we got, by and large. This, however, came with a clear warning that if you were expecting a polished experience, you should skip it until release. So being surprised that we're not getting any information about anything past Act 1 is unsurprising. In fact, it's what most of us were expecting. I say "most of us" because it's becoming increasingly clear that not everyone understood that. Just reading this post leaves me believing that you expected more than what was offered, and it's not leaving me with a poor impression of Larian, or the game...

Knowing that WotC et al have a very hands on approach to handling licenses in this IP, I'm not concerned about "rules not being sorted". If it's in game, the "higher ups" approved it, for better or worse. I mean, it's not like there was a lawsuit filed against them for breach of contract or anything by the original creators of the Dragon Lance series. Oh, wait, there was one, because of their "hands on" approach.

So I'm not all that fussed, at this stage in development. I have walked away from the EA, but it's got a lot more to do with not wanting to be burnt out on the game when it actually releases, than disappointment at getting an Alpha version of the game to play around with while bug hunting. As I said, that's exactly what it was implied to be on the various store pages, expecting it to be anything else would be my problem, not a problem with the game.

So was ME or DA just a DoS clone too? They all have companion plots. I mean, not to set too fine a point on it, but one of the Comp Plots in DA 2 set up most of the whole scenario for DA Inquisition. Ignoring the Comp Plots in ME 2 can have a drastic effect on the ending. But let's keep it BG? Were Khalid and Jaheira generic NPCs, or did they have some story lines tied to them? How about Imoen? DoS 2 was a great game, but it hardly reinvented the wheel. But pointing to "companion plots, so DoS3" isn't even close to accurate, is it?

Better is very subjective... But I totally agree that BG3 is going to be an amazing game.

I also agree that DoS add groundbreaking things to the genre and I'm glad some of them are in BG3. TBH I think it should be in any games even if I don't always like "how" it works in BG3.
To give an exemple I think that every modern RPG should have some kind of surface effects and items you can interract with... But I hate that every single arrows create a surface and that rocks are flamable in Larian's formula.

I also like that we have a lot of tools to play with but I hate when it's at the expense of the coherence of the game.
Diping is a great exemple because it could be a cool tool... but it's done as a ridiculous one. Shove is also something great but it also look ridiculous both from a visual and mechanical point of view.
Same about throw, about crates and barrels you can pick in your bags, about cow that can climb ladders,...

There are others things that are imported from DoS...
Animations or visual effects that often does not suit the setting, the map design that create stupid questions about the story, the main "character" that is an empty box, the origin characters that have a specific story from the beginning to the end (>< the MC), the lack of day/night cycle, the control scheme, the feeling of a frozen world, the cheesy combat mechanics,...

These core things of DoS were not so good but they were imported in BG3 too and that's exactly what the (moderate) "frustrated BG1/2 old fans" including myself are complaining about.
No one can deny that DoS 1 and 2 are great modern games but we should not forget that BG1 and BG2 are not unanimously considered as legends without reasons.

I guess Larian does not try to think about it before doing BG3. And that makes me really sad because the game will not enter the pantheon of games that revolutionized RPGs as DoS1/2 and BG1/2 did before them by simply improving "their formula" with cinematics, voice acting and a few UI tweaks.
But it's too late for core design decisions so we'll deal with it.


That's absolutely not what I wrote. And I absolutely didn't wrote anything like "DoS3". You won't find something like this is my posts.
My idea was not the single line you're talking about.

TBH I was not really accurate writing "plot". I was more thinking about the fact that everyone have the same problem, the same introduction to the story, the same goal, the same reason to follow the "MC" and so on.

How else are you going to get this cast of characters to be motivated to work together? All of us start in the same place, after all. The only thing that separates us is where we land when the ship crashes. But the plot forces us together because we're all in the same boat, metaphorically, since we all have a new little friend in our heads. I'd be more outraged about that, but since it ties into the main story, I'm not sure why I should be?

The cast of character is not really the problem here. It's more about the origin system and how the multiplayer mode works imo.
The fact that everyone has the same main story, the same problem, the same introduction, the same goal is very specific to Larian games.

A druid could become a companion because he wants to learn more about the strange things he noticed right next to his grove.
A bard could become a companion because he wants to reach Baldur's Gate after being captured by goblins in the middle of nowhere.
A fighter could become a companion because you decide to help him finding a powerfull artefact in the underdark if he gives you half the reward.

You know... characters that are living in the world and have their own motivations, different goal, different introduction to the story you're writing and different reasons to eventually follow you.
Of course it does not exclude that "some" other companion(s) have a tadpole in the head.

Just like in DoS the origin characters will be more deep than the main character because the main character is just an empty box with the "common" story of everyone.

This would preclude many of the game features and story options, I think.

I don't know anything about how this will unfold eventually, but I can imagine that those with the special tadpole 3.0 (1.0 is the one that turns people into bread and butter mindflayers, 2.0 turns them into Absolute cultists, 3.0 makes them BG3 player characters and companions) will eventually have to fulfill a mission of extraordinaire importance.

Also we have things like "resurrect" and "Illithid spells" and "psionic transfer of data between brains", all of this would be gone if the average Joe could join the party.

No, no, it's good as it is, but I start to see your point.

Not even a hardcore BG fan, but comparing BG2, the Baldur's Gate everyone thinks about when they think Baldur's Gate, one of the best RPGs ever made and a game that set the foundations for all CRPGs onwards, to the glorified demo of a Dragon Age-esque game, and saying the latter provides a better Baldur's Gate experience, is just plain silly.