Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 Pre-Release Thread [EARLY ACCESS RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[fantadomat]

Ahhh how i miss the good game from larian,both Divine Divinity and Beyond Divinity are really good ones. They were filled with originality and good writing.

 

[Dodo1610]

There will always be a big video gaming event in LA managed by the ESA though it's pretty clear that it will now just be seen as one gaming event among others in the worlds. The days in which the E3 was the single most important gaming event of the year are long gone anyway.
Can't say I fully understand why Larian needs a big event to announce the date for early access when a simple press release would have been enough.

 

[vortex]

One more month guys!

Swen, please, BG3 is RTwP. Pretty please.

 

[Lacrymas]

One more month guys!

Swen, please, BG3 is RTwP. Pretty please.

Larian have deleted the concept of RTwP from existence. Pretty please.

 

[vortex]

Larian have deleted the concept of RTwP from existence. Pretty please.

You're inflicting real pain by saying this.

 

[Lacrymas]

You're inflicting real pain by saying this.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

a cr2 creature info mentioning wish as a counter to one of its abilities

It's not a counter, it's a way to regain your devoured brain. If someone casts protection from evil and good on your now brainless body, you just die and the devourer is expelled. I wish wish didn't exist, but there you go.

5E has gone through pains to correct Wish without gutting it. I feel like its scope is pretty clearly defined. It's more like Limited Wish from 3E, but with better flexibility. You can still engage in shenanigans, or use it to make a big fix, but you're not going to want to use it. The crippling aspects, and 1/3 chance you never get to cast it again are pretty big moderators of its use.

 

[Ontopoly]

Ahhh how i miss the good game from larian,both Divine Divinity and Beyond Divinity are really good ones. They were filled with originality and good writing.

Divinity original sin 3 has retroactively made all these games garbage. Don't even support that shit, any profits from them made today will go into their pockets and helps to support this decline that's effecting the entire industry. Every purchase of Divine Divinity has brought us to this point and so they are equally to blame

 

[The Great Deceiver]

The move to turn-based is the only good thing about this. Too bad everything else about this looks terrible. Small party size, awful art-style and an utterly moronic way the dialogues are presented. Remember how we all mocked Oblivion "roleplaying", as LARPing?. I want to play a role, not pretend my character said something. I realize writing all those dialogue options that allow you to express yourself is hard work and you don't always get an option you'd like to use, but it's still preferable to fucking LARPing them in your head.

Both BG games weren't amazingly written, but the sequel certainly wasn't awful in that department, providing a solid villain at least and decent dialogue. I sincerely doubt Larian will be able to match even that fairly low bar, given their absolutely dreadful track record. You could, of course, mention that story and dialogues are a secondary concern for this series and perhaps that's right. Although I'd still argue we're discussion a Baldur's Gate, not Icewind Dale sequel, so disregarding writting completely does seem rather disingenuous.

Having said that, we're stuck with a small party size, which severely limits combat options and kills any interesting party compositions; in a game based on D&D that's a rather big flaw. And every other interview we hear words like "streamlining", "simplifying". Something which already happened with Original Sin II - and since that game was wildly successful, it's safe to assume it'll happen again.

So what's there to be excited about exactly, aside from the switch to turn-based combat? Just to be clear - I'm talking about a system here; and we all know that it doesn't automatically make combat great by virtue of simply being implemented. That's down to character building options, encounter design, visual clarity, UI, etc. etc. And whether that'll actually be good remains to be seen. That said, I generally enjoy TB a lot more (ToEE!), so I welcome the change.

I have to say that I applaud the Larian fans for directing the discussion towards that one topic only, with every other issue now successfully sidelined and forgotten. Or perhaps I should blame RTwP fans.

Either way, can we please move onto more pressing issues?

 

[turkishronin]

Small party size

wait wasnt it 6

 

[User0001]

Remember how we all mocked Oblivion "roleplaying", as LARPing?.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

Godwin's law (or Godwin's rule of Hitler analogies)[1][2] is an Internet adage asserting that "as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1".[2][3] That is, if an online discussion (regardless of topic or scope) goes on long enough, sooner or later someone will compare someone or something to Adolf Hitler or his deeds, the point at which effectively the discussion or thread often ends.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

but the sequel certainly wasn't awful in that department, providing a solid villain at least

top-tier trolling

 

[Saravan]

I have to say that I applaud the Larian fans for directing the discussion towards that one topic only, with every other issue now successfully sidelined and forgotten. Or perhaps I should blame RTwP fans.

Yes it's one big conspiracy. Us Larian "fans" (read: anyone who doesn't autisticly screech about the end of the world) only come here to circle-jerk each other, in a turn-based fashion of course.

 

[deuxhero]

Guerrilla Collective Live presentation will begin on its official Twitch channel. Hosted by Kinda Funny's Greg Miller

I hate that guy.

I am supposed to know him?

He is just the embodiment of shill.

Another Dorito Pope, or something worse?

 

[Ontopoly]

Swen is literally Hitler.
Bg3 is literally a concentration camp.
Turn based is literally a gas chamber.

 

[Ranarama]

There's no D&D after Gary Gygax left TSR in 1986.

Dave Arneson.

Gary Gygax made Dangerous Journeys. Go play that if you think he's the reason for D&D.

 

[Lacrymas]

So what's there to be excited about exactly, aside from the switch to turn-based combat? Just to be clear - I'm talking about a system here; and we all know that it doesn't automatically make combat great by virtue of simply being implemented. That's down to character building options, encounter design, visual clarity, UI, etc. etc. And whether that'll actually be good remains to be seen. That said, I generally enjoy TB a lot more (ToEE!), so I welcome the change.

We've been over this. D:OS1 and 2 suffer from schizophrenic design that contradicts itself constantly. Expansive maps worth exploring are contradicted by random items (+crafting) and almost *no* uniques, the above-average combat system is countered by boring and same-y encounter design after a while + too much reliance on environmental effects (also armor in the sequel), the attempt at roleplaying is countered by perks which are vastly unbalanced with each other (+1 to crafting vs immunity to fear? rofl) forcing you to choose the options which lead to the actual worthwhile perks, skill checks that are countered by you always getting all of them at once (and just reloading until you get them).

The demo we were shown remedies *almost all* of these problems. There are no random items in D&D; the combat system is D&D so no over the top environmental interactions, just the encounter design is still questionable since we don't have all the game in front of us; we saw there are different skill checks depending on context and it has no perks like D:OS. We also saw map exploration using jump to get to hidden places and the maps are still expansive judging from the other screenshots and videos we've seen. The character building is D&D 5E with multiclassing and feats enabled. Which is not the greatest, but still better than what Larian have ever offered.

Using D&D is actually the best thing Larian could've done in order to fix their underlying design problems that have plagued their games since the beginning. Swen has been quite clever with this.

 

[Morblot]

There's no D&D after Gary Gygax left TSR in 1986.

Dave Arneson.

Gary Gygax made Dangerous Journeys. Go play that if you think he's the reason for D&D.

Lol @ the revisionists trying to claim that Gary did nothing but steal from Arneson. They did OD&D together, then Gary did AD&D by himself because Arneson couldn't be bothered to write anything.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Arneson was a storyfag anyway.

 

[Icewater]

Hold your tongue, knave. Storyfags are the master race.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Hold your tongue, knave. Storyfags are the master race.

Only in their own stories.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

Lacrymas
Also, DnD has much less bloat that had always been an issue for Divinity.

 

[Lacrymas]

Lacrymas
Also, DnD has much less bloat that had always been an issue for Divinity.

5E is the least bloated of the D&D systems too. There are reasonable hardcaps on attributes and the items only go to +3.

 

[Silly Germans]

Hm, lets hope the preexisting game system doesn't backfire. Imagine what could happen if they
channel even more of their Larian craft into writing since the game sytem requires less work.
I don't like the outlook on that ...

 

[Lacrymas]

The writing is going to be shit. No doubt about it. What is concerning is whether Larian are going to override the system and go far beyond the +3 on the weapons and overstep the attribute caps.