Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Everything too close together?

Does anyone else feel everything is too close together? Considering the scale of the map I don't know how the goblins didn't find the Druid Grove right off the bat; it's only about a 5minutes walk down the road after all.

I know many people aren't fond of lots of travel time but we have fast travel once we discover places. I would really like Larian to introduce a sense of distance even if they have to introduce cut scenes between map parts to do it. Like in the original BGs with travel time in the hours between places denoted by hours passing during cut scenes; this helps give a sense of scale.

We discussed this a lot since the EA launch.
Of course everything is too close.

Looks like that's how Larian design their maps.
+- Fast gameplay
+ No loadings
+ Natural borders
- Lack of immersion (exploration, distance, time,...)
- Incoherence (story, area scale,...)

Yes, it's been discussed a lot.

IMO, it's not that the map should be bigger, but that content in it, isn't narratively supported by map design. It's pretty much the same issue D:OS2 had, and it seems not too many people cared.

The theme park map design really kills any feeling of epic traveling and adventuring or the game world feeling real and immersive.

I think it's too late to change that, but I really hope Larian will never again cut distances and cram everything into a single map. What's the point, really? Player convenience? I would MUCH rather use the overland map to travel from Druid Grove to Goblin Fort or to Hag Swamp.

What's the point of even having these separate locations marked on the overland map when they are in fact the same location? As a player I have no idea of geography or distance. All I know is I'm on the "game map" where distances are illogical.

The city shouldn't be as bad as the wilderness though since everything being close makes sense there.

That is not exactly true and i believe that skilled modder would be totally able to cut whole map into smaller hubs with some screen message telling you something like "you were travelling for 3 days in a forrest".

Basicaly all you would need to do would be cut whole map into separate hubs ...
And then add borders in between them, just as they are on Mountain Pass, or Shadowcursed lands entering zone.

If you take Blightened willage for example:
You cut it on North there where Goblins have that bridge conecting it to their gate ...
You cut it on East there where that broken bridge is ...
You cut it on South there where that drained pig is ...
And you cut it on West there where you fight those two Goblin guards ... maybe +/- few metters around, so there is some space.

Ten, once you reach those borders message with traveling appear ...
And then your group is spit out on other side of that border.

Its clumsy i know ... and could be done better ... but that would require assistance from larian wich would need to cut the map acutaly to those pieces and add some "filling" in between them.

Pretty much ...
That and Multiplayer. :-/

I mean, i know that this game is not ment for our group to go separately, but that option is there ... so the game needs to be prepared for that.
So while one of your party can decide to go to Swamp, other one can go to Risen Road ... that would be impossible if the game would not allow you to move acros whole map.

It also seems that Larian favour much more single long loading before the game, than MANY shorter during play.

I like the small maps in BG3. 😊 I like that BG3 doesn’t have large, empty maps like some open world games or lots of loading screens.

This debate goes all way to the 90s. They could add more distance but then it becomes too HC for players and they complain about that. I loved Darkfall Online, it had massive distances between locations, sometimes you just had to ride 2 hour to get some materials you wanted. And it was Full Loot PVP game too, if you encountered an enemy, there was a battle.

Kingdome Come Deliverence. It has interesting map and fast traveling system. Its really trying to fix it. Try to give you a sense of bigger world but yet offering fast traveling option too for occasional use.

I wouldnt mind if Larian changed to use that. Good Features should be used in game industry. While Im it, I think War Horse should take Narrator from Larian. Narrator could help KCD's fast traveling, if you get attacked, Narrator could talk you in.

I am thinking about Gothic1&2 which had small, packed maps. Still, the world and setting described in this game fitted the map. I think the problem in BG3 is lack of cohesion between individual elements then one element (like map design). It’s a game with many ideas and aspirations, but little creative direction.

if they wanna do it "tabletop" style, they just separate all zones from each other, then Adventure Party says "We travel there" etc. Thats how it works while you're at the table. Then DM chooses if something happens or no or throw a dice.

ESO had tons of locations close to each other, it isnt the best if asked from me. Theres some farm and close to it some Massive Dark Anchor.

Lots of locations is more commerical, you can say "hey, we have 305 locations" in this game for you to explore.

All they needed to do was to do it exactly as in BG1 & BG2. Smaller areas connected through world map travel.

But no, they had to put their own stamp on that aspect as well instead of respecting the originals and fix what wasn't broken.

Its cool way to design imho. Lets say Party is at Big Capital and chooses to move to another location, DM can say, you got lost, and you've found yourself in this location. Or you get attacked. Or something happens to a character or party and you need to solve it. Sure you lose discovering, and abit of exploration.

Someone should make that kind of game, if Larian isnt up to it.

I guess I disagree because I've always felt the smaller zones actually make the world feel less cohesive and, frankly, smaller. Each time I press up against the border of something, it's a reminder of the limited scope. Smaller maps bring about this experience more regularly. Furthermore, I've always felt that traveling across a map screen doesn't capture scale very well at all. At least in ye olde JRPGs traveling a world map always felt more interesting because you could see and travel over the land, rather than just be told in text "you traveled to such-and-such".

I'm not against the design of smaller zones and world maps, but given the choice I'll opt for something more singular and cohesive.

In games where you were teleported to other zones and received travel notices I always wished I could have experienced doing the actual travel. That, of course, isn't for everyone and could be somewhat optional by giving us a "Random Encounters" chance slider... having such a feature simply trigger a chance for a random encounter on an appropriate random terrain battlemap would be a lot of fun and very table-top like. I think they are missing (another) good opportunity here.

As for needing a single cohesive map for multiplayer... that's not necessarily true for this engine. They have an "ask everyone if they want to go here" mechanic to keep parties from splitting across more significant divides.

Im liking the location idea, lets forget world map. If there was Locations, wouldnt it be possible for gamers to build own locations? I could build my own Rave Tavern, some hopeless noob gets lost and finds it.

EA doesnt sound so bad after all. Player built locations, and Battle Generator too.

This is damn cool. Rave from Hitman 3.