Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Larian, You Have Underestimated Japanese Audiences

(or overestimated, if you will.)

First, I'm glad that Baldur's Gate 3 have basically reignited D&D in Japan, alongside the WotC's new promotions and the Honor Among Thieves movie. That said, the developers didn't seem to have any input from players completely new to D&D itself.


In an interview found online (https://dengekionline.com/articles/211958/), your developers have said new players shouldn't be worried about the Forgotten Realms lore even if you're unfamiliar with it. But the reality is, in most cases, they had no idea what they're doing mechanically.

Current Japanese video game market have become utterly detached (or not even attached to begin with) from table game/TTRPG side and had not much of cross-pollinations, unlike how Baldur's Gate 3 is. To most of them, BG3 and D&D in general was a game that runs on a completely alien set of mechanics. For D&D itself, it wasn't much of a problem because they had the DM to teach them. But it's a video game. The game had to it. But the game's poor tutorial kicked in. Many have came in just because it have beaten their favorite Legend of Zelda game in the awards. They were left in the dark.

I've heard many words about mechanics being not clear and poorly explained. Some have left characters encumbered all the time or kept using weapons and armors not proficient with just because they could equip it. Of course, Spell Slots should've thrown many off too. To us, that's an old and antiquated mechanic (which shouldn't be, they're just different, but digress) that only NES/Pixel Remaster of Final Fantasy and Wizardry used.
Throwing players into character creation before teaching them the mechanics looked like a bad idea too (like d20 rolls or actions in combat.) As a DM myself, I always do that with monster-esque stat blocks that explain itself.
Even beyond that, tutorials and UIs in general felt severely underexplained.

Your friends over Spike Chunsoft have included early game guides, but that was only for early adopters on PS5, which ended up becoming way less of entire playerbase.


Back to the lore: not being familiar with the source material didn't just mean not knowing what to expect in gameplay, but also in mechanics and lore. I've heard words about that starting from a Mind Flayer ship with heavy sci-fi vibes threw people off the loop for whoever expected classic high fantasy vibes. Having a Western origin makes a fantasy work look "genuine" to them, not expecting the wild and wacky side of D&D.

(Sidenote: the "isekai" thing your rep have mentioned in the interview might've been a bit out of date. Isekai have gone out of fashion a little bit: now people are reignited with what a classical fantasy (without isekai) can offer and we are exploring what's beyond that without the cheap power fantasy. In recent years, Frieren: Beyond Journey's End and Delicious in Dungeon have gotten anime adaptations, both of which builds on the RPG archetype we have built even after the first decline of D&D in mid-90s. Even the author of Delicious in Dungeon is a huge fan of D&D, have played the Planescape: Torment which we never got a Japanese version.)

Despite everything, it's not like we're completely clueless, though: I've seen some community content creators (especially the few D&D content creators that existed before BG3) and trashy curation media (that just curates X/Twitter or message board posts and reposts them to get views) have caught on to the game. Still, the game did not do enough explaining on itself. That's where we were blaming for.

I just thought the detriments might've been out of your expectations and I wanted to tell.


TL;DR: Early game was utterly rough on players completely new to D&D in terms of both lore and mechanics.

Very interesting post, thank you!
WOuld you say Korea may have a similar issue?

I'm not with Korean community, but I'd assume it had much less barriers, especially on the following:
- Language barrier: they have better access to English-based resources (mostly lore).
- Show, Don't Tell: they were much more used to Western fantasy media.

Mechanics-wise, they might've had similar issues with us.

I think this is a general issue here in that the game does a rather poor job of tutorializing itself and it's systems.

I'm not sure how many people really recall, but Baldur's Gate 1 had a physical game manual that was like 100 pages long. They did this for every subsequent BG release too, usually with a nice slick for the cover and a large map. Additionally there was an "Official Strategy Guide" by bradygames released concurrently that did some extra legwork.

I suppose the assumption now is that this has all been superseded by things like youtube or reddit. I swear every other article google throws at me about BG3 is some version of summarizing what reddit users have summarized. about what people have said on discord probably heheh. But then that's not exactly going to be curated in the same way right. Or like if considering this for ESL players, whether those sorts of materials or preliminaries are going to have the same sorta cache.

It's really not the same as an in-game tutorial or advisor, or simply designing the presentation in such a way that it's so incremental and DIY that that's not needed. I do feel in playing for example BotW, that when the shoe was on the other foot and the audiences reversed, the Japanese must have taken great plains to make sure certain things would carry over in translation or just be so universal as to not really need it. Thinking of all the clever ways they made the whole idea of a switch into using a "slate" feel gameful, for users who were perhaps new to handhelds. Not that I'd really expect BG to go that level with it, I mean Nintendo has been particularly adept at this over the years. Also when I think back to BG1, even if you had the game manual, most people wouldn't read it I'd imagine and then just die 5 times to the first wolf they met, before finally starting to figure out what was going on (this was me! lol) That said, I think the tutorial could be much stronger here.

Even something as simple as resting and how that is meant to work. Instead in the prologue we have restoration pods, and just a very bare bones gist given in the fight with the 3 imps. The idea of learning some moves from our resident battlemaster sorta went out the window when they compressed the Nautiloid down to it's current scale. I prefer the current iteration myself, cause I just don't think it was ever going to work all that well as the backdrop for introducing the systems. There's too much to cover in a set-piece escape scenario, but then by the time you hit the beach or the first village we're sort of beyond the point of tutorial by then. I don't mean complex build related stuff or overly nuanced mechanics of spellcasting and consumables, but just the very basics like dash or hide toggling light sources, how to equip the things you find, how to parse the map, move as a group or ungrouped, all that stuff. I suppose we're meant to just get there, trial by fire and caustic brine, but anyway point being that I think the same would hold for any audience unfamiliar with D&D, or previous Larian games, or previous BG games. Though I can see where a cultural/language barrier would just compound that, depending on how much exposure one had prior, or not being quite as inundated with other stuff that might serve as a primer, like watching say Crit Role TTRPG stuff in a foreign language. I don't know, I mean it just seems like a tall order there, so it really should be the game that does this, with that stuff built-into it.

ps. the crazy thing to me on this one is that the game has the perfect narrative conceit, since there's a tadpole in our mind and a dream guardian. Seems like they could have found a way to tutorialize literally everything in vignette that way, complete with set-pieces if needed. They could also be framed as abstract memories and sort of detached from the main events if needs be, so that the tutorial presented would be entirely elective. Skip with spacebar, opt-in.

Each of the Origins could fulfill this role as the archetype for their class. Or random NPCs, books we find, whatever. I think the original dream visitor Daisy, would have been cool for this concept, also Lae'zel, Shadowheart, Gale, Astarion as companions. That is your 4 person party comp for the basic instruction right there. Warrior, Priest, Wizard, Rogue, enough to get the job done. This might take the form of a preamble or something else. Instead of an Origin monologue, we get an Origin Companion remembrance/tutorial, something we can access even if not playing "as the Origin" but rather at any point via the companions we've recruited. Instead of "tell me your story" it would be "tell me your story, while also teaching me how to play as your class." Could be launched via dialog prompts at camp so it can be worked into the pacing more readily, like when the player wants some down time from the main beats. Effectively they could take the approach that Solasta did, but cut it up and spread it around, so it's not boring. Make us care about the character a bit first, then give us the thematic stuff, complete with narration to support what's happening. Mini games or short 'levels' presented in flashback. Say Gale trying to sell a book for the best price to show us how bartering works, but which ends up in some sort of magic duel. Or Astarion trying to steal something from the glass case without getting caught. Lae'zel training with different weapons back at Creche K'liir etc. Just little mundane flashes like that, but where we care more perhaps, because it gives us a Character moment too. This way it feels connected to the story and to the particular personality, buttressing that while also instructing the player about how to use the UI and such. There are other approaches that might have done the same, but I'm just trying to think of stuff that might still fly, like even now. Whatever works right!

pps. in BG1 the Gatewarden would lead us into the "Storage Cellars" where we could train in combat mechanics and party controls. It was entirely optional, but would preview higher level abilities and kit and spawn random classic monsters, giving the player a sense for what the bones of the game would really be. This was done in the low stakes environment of a dry run like that, with no xp or reward from it really, other than knowledge. BG3 Characters might do something similar. An impromptu scenario related with a sort of play by play. So we've heard about Wyll facing those Minotaurs, but maybe in this version we actually see that go down? Like with gripping narration from the Blade of Frontiers himself! Somehow he sneaks a blade of daggers in there, cause that's a fun one! Maybe it's left up to the imagination how much these memories are being embellished in the retelling, but it would be an easy set up for a lot of quick little sets. In the same way that the characters are reluctant to reveal themselves initially, the memories could likewise start more abstract and then become more specific, the more we get to know them. Thinking particularly of Shadowheart, who might relate a lesson on the importance of discretion and dissembling, to teach the player how to use disguise in context, or spells like silence and sanctuary - but where it snaps to cut, for like a jumpscare, and she really didn't tell you anything other than how to use the UI and the spellbook hehe. I'm just riffing and rambling now, but it would likely require some more lines recorded to carry. They should do the Lae'zel weapons training at the very least. It is the game's responsibility to explain the fighter class completely, since Warrior is the way in usually. She's the first one we meet, so it makes even more sense, but also we need to preview a little bit ahead of the power curve to understand the choices we're asked to make. That's why I think those vignettes would work better. It also reinforces the idea that all the characters were more powerful before recent events set everything in a tale-spin. Even for the returning characters from the previous BG games, the same suggestion is made at many points. All this could be the Tutorial/UI equivalent of reflections/recollections of the hazy past. I think that would be good, given this particular game's set up and provenance. It doesn't all have to happen on the Nautiloid, but could stage in more naturally once we hit the beach and start connecting minds.