Why did Baldur's Gate 3 blow up? Larian lead writer says it's thanks to "a big gamble" with CRPG standards
Why did Baldur's Gate 3 blow up? Larian lead writer says it's thanks to "a big gamble" with CRPG standards
"We believe RPGs are big ... So we always believed the audience was there," says Adam Smith
"We believe RPGs are big ... So we always believed the audience was there," says Adam Smith
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This game gives me the same vibes as Bioware games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age, I was craving for something like this, without the microtransactions and gambling bullshit infesting most modern games.
I'm not fond of DnD mechanics but it's ok, it's worth it nonetheless, BG3 is truly spectacular.
The BioWare vibes are exactly why I’m loving this game so much. Larian was never in my radar before, because I just can’t get into isometric games for some reason, but they definitely are now. Whatever they put out next, I’m probably going to get.
I didn't even know who Larian was before BG3 blew up lol, I can't get into isometric either nor turn-based combat, I'm mainly a MMORPG player, but when I saw reviews for this game and AAA devs shitting on it I decided to buy it and give it an honest try.
I fell in love with it immediately, still struggling a bit with mechanics but I'm learning :D
You might like Divinity 2: OS even more than DnD based combat, which is a bit...crunchy around the edges.
Playing BG3 has definitely made me curious about their other games and I’ll have to give them a shot
You’ve got probably a decade before their next big title so settle in for the wait lol
I’m a Dragon Age fan. I’m used to decade long waits by now.
Just a heads up, the game isn't isometric. It's top down. Isometric is flat, not 3d. It's viewed from a corner angle only usually and uses parallel projection (the view is rendered onto a plane where all lines of sight are parallel).
It's a direct sequel to a bioware game.
Really? Which one?
Baldur's Gate 2.
Now I feel stupid lol, I didn't know Bioware did the first 2.
Old bioware was a force to be reckoned with
Honestly I didn't realize BG2 was by Bioware until about a week ago so I can't say much there LOL
DnD 5e mechanics works ok-ish, nothing really wrong with them. But 4e would have been waaaay better. Imagine more battlefield manipulation, more pushes and pulls. And a bit more dangerous ground, not DOS levels but a bit more. 4e would shine then.
Imagine more battlefield manipulation, more pushes and pulls. And a bit more dangerous ground
Ok, I'm imagining something much more complicated than it needs to be. I just want to kill goblins, not win the battle of Waterloo!
Imagine not just punting goblins into the chasm but punting them into fire. Or that one on a scaffolding you drag towards you. And the bookshelf is now a projectile!
BATTLEFIELD CHAOS!
The thing to know is 4E (and every edition going back to the original, which was just a dungeon crawler) was much more combat focused. 5E is much more roleplay focused. That's fine, but I think the strengths of the game (since the RP has to pre-built options, not full freedom which is what 5E does well) is the combat.
I started playing TTRPGs with Pathfinder (which is basically DnD 3.5 expanded into it's own system, now on 2E). The amount of viable options in combat is so much better. Im fine with tabletop being dnd 5e because it's simpler and more accessible, but a video game where the rules are baked and you don't need to look things up or rule lawyer, something like Pathfinder or other versions of DnD might be better, at least for the combat portion.
There are Pathfinder games though that I haven't tried yet but I've heard are good. I'm planning on checking those out sometime after BG3 (and Armored Core, and Starfield, and Payday 3, and maybe other things about to come out).
I do agree with the person you're replying to, in that I'm not a huge fan of DnD mechanics - "works ok-ish" is what I would also say about them. It does do its job just fine, so this isn't a big issue by any means.
Related to game mechanics in BG3, my personal issues are as follows:
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Heavy reliance on RNG in combat. In turn-based games, I always prefer game mechanics which work as I planned, maybe with small variance (i.e. look at Advance Wars). Basically I prefer when my planning is the part determining how the combat flows (damage or cc? Which target? Where do I move to?) - there'll always be some "I'm not sure what happens on next round" due to just not being able to know what the enemies will do on their turn, so I don't really need even more RNG in the form of hit/miss (& save) rolls. Basically: chess is a good game as it is, I wouldn't want to have a 50-50 coin toss determining if I can kill a unit or not.
- I do think that some form of randomness is fine, but I don't like that there's just so many layers of RNG in all things. Damage abilities: first roll if you hit or miss, and if you hit, then the damage variance is often like 5d6 (5 to 30) - it's almost like doing two rolls to figure out if you actually deal any notable amount of damage or not.
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Practically everything related to the resting mechanic. I really feel like I would enjoy the game more if I just had fully recharged spells (and other stuff) in the beginning of any fight - and obviously then balance the game with that in mind. Where needed, devs could tag a certain area as "no resets here" so you know you'll be forced to do a couple of fights in a row without resets.
- One reason making me think this way is just the amount of available food, since you get more than enough resources to do a full rest after practically any fight anyway - so now it just becomes a QoL issue. It's not "do I want to use my resources to reset here?", in practice the choice is just "do I want to spend a couple of minutes going through loading screens?".
- If there was less food available so that you'd need to be careful about when/where you do a full rest, progress through the game would be: go forward until you fail a fight, load the game, do a full rest, fight with full resources - this really doesn't sound fun in practice. I don't think there's a way to implement this style of a resting mechanic in such a way that I'd personally like it (at least without changing a lot more about the game).
I do want to finish this with another disclaimer that I do think BG3 is a great game, and these are really just minor issues - I completed it yesterday and enjoyed my time for the whole ~120 hours. But my two biggest issues that I can point out about the game's mechanics are both just base mechanics of DnD.
Re point #2… was completely agree. Resting has always been horrible in every Baldurs Gate game. There is little to no consequence to resting in these games. Start fight, alpha strike, rest, repeat. It takes me out of the game when the mechanics don’t match the environment. I’m aware that resting is optional, but still… Unless you’re running a pure martial team, you’ll need to rest before the sun hits high noon.
The Owlcat Pathfinder games solved this problem brilliantly. They baked it into the gameplay by adding fatigue after so many in game hours, and the camp was something you setup in place, not some static map you revisit every very time. By far my most favourite resting mechanic I’ve seen in cRPGs. If I could change one thing about BG3, it would be this.
The Pathfinder PC games have one fatigue problem IMO and it's that fatigue/resting should just happen while you travel (literally just add time based on fatigue timing) so you can just click somewhere, go there, and play without needing to manually rest.
Otherwise I was a big fan, especially with corruption in WOTR
Solid argument. It was a pain to pop into a map supe up with buffs do half the map then have someone bitch about being tired.
But that’s the Seela always took remove fatigue for her lay on hands blessing.
But that’s a solid qol upgrade for sure.
Pillars of Eternity 2 took a different approach to resting by making pretty much everything encounter based, except for some "ultimates". Was a while since I played it last but boy was it refreshing to not "needing" to rest after every encounter. The first game was more traditional with most things returning on rests. Two classes though were entirely encounter based and I used them in pretty much every run. Chanter (Bard) and Cipher (Psyker). Also Larian's two previous cRPGs (Divinity: Original Sin 1 and 2) don't use rests.
But resting is a core feature in D&D and in the tabletop there is the trope of the five minute adventuring day for a reason.
Personally, I like the RNG. It means you can't guarantee much. You have to plan on what you might do if you fail. Some players won't like planning for possible failure, which I understand, but I think it adds depth. You can choose to use a spell like magic missile, which is a guaranteed hit but low damage, or you can choose to use a more powerful ability but it may fail, and what will you do if it does. It's one more thing to consider. If it's a guaranteed hit/kill then you don't need to think of how you may have to mitigate what happens on a fail. You can also never be totally safe. Even if you have a lot of armor/health/saves you can still fail, so you need to decide on equipment that might help you when you fail rather than stuff that will just keep you from failing.
I didn’t anticipate liking the dice rolls as much as I do in conversations and actions like lock picking. Like, I love how you can completely whiff something. My character’s got all these stat boosts for lock picking, but sometimes you roll a CRIT fail with a 1. To me, it’s like the tools slipped and broke the lock. It feels oddly realistic because we all have just fumbled something in real life that we dang well know how to do.
Although in combat a bunch of bad dice rolls recently almost got Halsin benched because HOW ARE YOU MISSING THIS MUCH HOW PLEASE BITE THAT DUDE WITH ONLY THREE HP LEFT ALREADY.
Without the ability to revive, I totally agree combat could be tough. I dint use the karmic dice, just pure random. You sometimes just end up on a bad luck streak and it's rough. As long as you can finish the fight, you're fine though. You may spend more resources than you wanted, but that's how it goes. (I also don't just long rest after every fight. I try to play like tabletop and only rest when it's critical. It makes spell slots much more of a resource to manage and spend.)
Yup, I have to say that I completely understand why some people like it - it adds to the chaos, and your job is to mitigate/control the chaos (by eg. choosing to use Magic Missile like you mentioned). It's just not something I personally enjoy. :D
If you dislike these, check out Divinity 2:OS. Lot less random, more fluid combat, doesn't have that familiar 5E crunch. Keeps most of the good stuff, and even adds in its own unique stuff that makes combat and game play even better imo. BG3 brought some improvements, but also was forced to work with WOTC kinda outdated systems....
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I know very little about DnD so I don't know what you're talking about, but if you mean more difficult or complicated, please no, I'm mainly a MMORPG player, having more complicated mechanics would make it almost impossible for me to get into this game.
I believe BG3 is attracting a wider audience than pure DnD/cRPG players, having it accessible is a very good thing IMO.
Dungeons and Dragons is very old now. When they release a mechanics update, they change the edition. 5e is the current edition of D&D. 4e was the previous edition, 3.5e before that, etc.
The older versions are generally more complex than 5e as it's designed to be a bit more streamlined and accessible, but the old versions aren't strictly harder in terms of difficulty, more just mechanic complexity.
Thanks for the explanation :)
4E would have been a mess. Non DnD players already struggle with the mechanics of 5e in BG3, trying to get them used to 4e would have been worse. But I really hope DnD One is coming out soon and the next project will use that. That should get rid of the biggest issues of 5e, mainly that just a handful of builds are "competitive". Not having to take Great Weapon Master as a fighter anymore is something I am so looking forward to.
Some of my favorite parts of One DnD are the things that Larian already changed. Starting proficiencies tied to class instead of race? Perfect. Physical features tied to race seems fine to me, i.e. elemental resistances or a free spell or 2. But linking proficiencies limited your choices when creating a new character. Some races were just built better for some classes and some are built really poorly for some classes. That was the first thing they fixed and it made me happy. WotC knows that the majority of people just want a streamlined way to have fun when playing without having to do hours of research and they're clearly moving in that direction. If you want to have a fun game with a large player base, the entry fee needs to be reasonable. I love 5e but when I was first learning the rules and making a character, I realized that if I wanted to actually be happy with my character months later I would need to spend a lot of time planning. If you don't already know all the features and how they work with/against each other, it's real easy to find yourself with an ineffective member of the party if you're just picking whatever feels fun at the time. That can put a lot of people off and the new edition is fixing a lot of that by basically including a lot of house rule stuff that people were already doing to make their own games more fun.
You can beat BG3 on Tactician with a jank-ass build tho. You don't need to do anything "competitive" if you play well. Great Weapon Master is definitely not necessary in BG3.
Source: I beat it on Tactician with a jank-ass build and didn't respec or multiclass any companions at all. Didn't even bring a wizard. Just Wyll (melee even!), Karlach, Sheart, and my bard.
Have you considered mods? Extra feat at first level could give you the edge you want.
That doesn't fix the underlying issue of the potential dmg that GWM gives you. I am not a full on min maxer but having a feat that is objectively so much better than basically all other options makes it hard to ignore it. The only true choice is between GWM and Sharpshooter. But they are the same, just one uses two-handed weapons while the other uses ranged (and you will end up with heavy crossbows). An extra feat won't make a dual wielding fighter outperform a great weapon master.
And I am not necessarily just talking about BG3, I don't find the game particualry hard even on Tactician, so there isn't a need to cheat to make it easier. And I am not using any broken builds either. Mostly sticking to builds that fit the theme of the companions.
Okay so then your issue isn't with BG3, your issue is with 5e it seems. Yeah GWM is partially power attack, which should be available to any, similar to disengage or withdraw.
Don't think 4e would have been a mess. It was a streamlined "computergamey" edition that wasn't that well received, hence the creation of Pathfinder. It had a vastly different approach to the battlefield forcing it to be dynamic. So many abilities moving a target in one way or another. As a skirmish game it is pretty neat but severely lacks in the roleplaying department.