Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 Early Access Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[copebot]

6 is more fun for a CRPG because it enables you to have more redundancy in the party. Fewer can be interesting because it can force you to have a base uncovered. For P&P the bigger issue with the larger parties is just that things take even longer. It also becomes tougher to challenge the party without creating encounters that are likely to kill at least one player just at random, not necessarily due to bad decisions made by the players. With fewer player characters, attrition is going to be a bigger issue for them and you can make things challenging without having encounters with a high probability of spiking players before they can react.

For BG3 there are just a lot of things that stack things in favor of the player with all things that shouldn't be bonus actions being bonus actions.

 

[Desiderius]

I don't really care about how they "gather" feedback. I'm more interested to what extent they intend to act on it.
And they DO read forum threads. They just don't give a shit about what they have to say, nor they bother to have a back and forth with the user base.

It's the typical behavior of a dev who thinks he knows better what his playerbase wants than the playerbase itself. Beyond bug fixing, asking for feedback is just a PR move for the company.

On some level they do - that's why we hire them - but devs who are gamers themselves (which should be all devs) should then be able to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to feedback but that seems to be strangely disjoint from the skillset of actual devs.

 

[Gargaune]

Tuco Benedicto Pacifico, do me a favour once your ban expires, could you post this one suggestion over at Larian's for a mod's attention? I'm not gonna go and register on a new forum to only ever make one post.

A minimal quick fix for the party Chain controls:
1. Portrait Shift+Click listener to Chain or Unchain a companion to the currently selected character (leader). Shift+Click on leader triggers Chain/Unchain All.
2. Keybind for Chain/Unchain All.

The Shift-clicks will allow creating subgroups much quicker and simpler than dragging portraits in and out of the chained stack and a Chain All toggle will let players easily swap between controlling their leader or their entire group. Together, they would permit control somewhat similar to NWN2 in Puppet Mode, minus the Marquee selection.

These additions would make tactical party movement much more accessible without compromising the existing Chain design in any way, and they could both be implemented by a UI developer over the span of a lunch break.

Who knows, maybe the planets align and a dev will actually get it. It really is that easy, and it would make a significant difference in play.

 

[copebot]

It's pretty cool how in Solasta you can select your whole party, click on a platform that they will all have to jump on, and then they will all jump to the platform if they have the ability to with a single click. The same maneuver requires at least 12 clicks in BG3.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Gargaune
Aside for the fact that both suggestions were already made several time (the second in particular was my "at very least" card since I started my whole crusade about shitty controls) I find vaguely amusing that you seem to think Larian would pay any degree of attention to anything I have to post. :D
Even assuming someone there acknowledged I exist I'd be more incline to guess I'm probably closer to "that annoying overly-critical guy" that they go out of their way to ignore.

 

[Desiderius]

A lot of that going around, and not just in gaming.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

It's pretty cool how in Solasta you can select your whole party, click on a platform that they will all have to jump on, and then they will all jump to the platform if they have the ability to with a single click. The same maneuver requires at least 12 clicks in BG3.

• Companions will now jump to follow the main player character.

 

[Gargaune]

Gargaune
Aside for the fact that both suggestions were already made several time (the second in particular was my "at very least" card since I started my whole crusade about shitty controls) I find vaguely amusing that you seem to think Larian would pay any degree of attention to anything I have to post. :D
Even assuming someone there acknowledged I exist I'd be more incline to guess I'm probably closer to "that annoying overly-critical guy" that they go out of their way to ignore.

Ah, I'd only briefly skimmed the last page and saw a bunch of requests for party formations, marquee etc. and thought people were taking the all-or-nothing approach. I've had a second look now and I can see that exactly what I was describing has already been posted, so nevermind.

Boy, does it make Larian look like a bunch of consummate tools, though. Literally a few lines of code with no tradeoffs whatsoever, and they still won't listen.

 

[Larianshill]

It still requires more button presses in BG3.

 

[ADULF HITLOR FAN KLUB]

And they DO read forum threads. They just don't give a shit about what they have to say, nor they bother to have a back and forth with the user base.

It also bugs me that they don't bother to communicate with the fans at all. A simple "Hey, we will never change this <insert complaint here>, now kindly F off please" would suffice, but even that is asking too much.

I was a bit active on BSN back in the day and the devs would pop in from time to time, but with Larian it is pure crickets, other than an occasional youtube video of Swen wearing an armor suit like the goofball he is. If they don't want to communicate with the fans, then they should just follow Bioware's example and delete their forum.

It's the typical behavior of a dev who thinks he knows better what his playerbase wants than the playerbase itself. Beyond bug fixing, asking for feedback is just a PR move for the company.

On some level they do - that's why we hire them - but devs who are gamers themselves (which should be all devs) should then be able to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to feedback but that seems to be strangely disjoint from the skillset of actual devs.

Pillars of Eternity is case in point. Josh is quite talented, has the right amount of autism to be a good designer and has no family/kids to eat up his time, but he is also quite stubborn and couldn't see the wheat when presented to him on a silver platter by super fans like Sensuki.

... but in the end it still worked out very well for Josh. His failure was rewarded by Feargus with a salary of 200 thousand dollars per year (read all about it in the Josh Sawyer thread).

 

[Lacrymas]

Fewer can be interesting because it can force you to have a base uncovered

There are no bases that need covering in D&D, especially 5E. All parties (i.e. class combinations) are ultimately viable.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Fewer can be interesting because it can force you to have a base uncovered

There are no bases that need covering in D&D, especially 5E. All parties (i.e. class combinations) are ultimately viable.

Maybe, but plenty aren't exactly interesting.

 

[Storyfag]

Fewer can be interesting because it can force you to have a base uncovered

There are no bases that need covering in D&D, especially 5E. All parties (i.e. class combinations) are ultimately viable.

Ultimately you do need a healer more often than not. A face wouldn't be out of place either.

 

[Lacrymas]

Ultimately you do need a healer more often than not. A face wouldn't be out of place either.

If it isn't an all-out balls-to-the-wall character grinder of an adventure, I've found that most of the time short rests and healing potions are enough. I only allow Paladins to heal in my setting and parties rarely, if ever, require even more healing.

 

[damager]

I hated the pompous intro of the game. Like all pompous intros it made me stop playing directly after ending the intro. I really like to start out low key, as a nobody, in nowhere, in the bum phase or what we call it here.

 

[Varnaan]

And they DO read forum threads. They just don't give a shit about what they have to say, nor they bother to have a back and forth with the user base.

It also bugs me that they don't bother to communicate with the fans at all. A simple "Hey, we will never change this <insert complaint here>, now kindly F off please" would suffice, but even that is asking too much.

I was a bit active on BSN back in the day and the devs would pop in from time to time, but with Larian it is pure crickets, other than an occasional youtube video of Swen wearing an armor suit like the goofball he is. If they don't want to communicate with the fans, then they should just follow Bioware's example and delete their forum.

It's the typical behavior of a dev who thinks he knows better what his playerbase wants than the playerbase itself. Beyond bug fixing, asking for feedback is just a PR move for the company.

On some level they do - that's why we hire them - but devs who are gamers themselves (which should be all devs) should then be able to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to feedback but that seems to be strangely disjoint from the skillset of actual devs.

Pillars of Eternity is case in point. Josh is quite talented, has the right amount of autism to be a good designer and has no family/kids to eat up his time, but he is also quite stubborn and couldn't see the wheat when presented to him on a silver platter by super fans like Sensuki.

... but in the end it still worked out very well for Josh. His failure was rewarded by Feargus with a salary of 200 thousand dollars per year (read all about it in the Josh Sawyer thread).

From what I understood with MCA's total disclosure, PoE and Deadfire were shit because the upper management (Feargus) is fucking retarded.
Honestly when I read the whole thing I understood why the entire Obsidian catalog is basically second rate garbage at best (NV retards get the rope, the core systems are the exact same as Fallout 3 and the only big difference is in the writing, and writing is never a saving grace for a game when the core gameplay is bad, don't mention Torment because Torment's gameplay is not good but it's not bad either, it just works).
The entire NV worship to me seems like fanboy wank.
If I'd give 3 a 5/10, I'd give NV a 5.25/10.

 

[Larianshill]

Spoiler

If the Absolute is the tadpole in your head, why does it have clerics? Only demigods and above are supposed to have clerics.

 

[Storyfag]

Spoiler

If the Absolute is the tadpole in your head, why does it have clerics? Only demigods and above are supposed to have clerics.

Spoiler

Remember that hot Bhaal on Elder Brain action you furiously fapped to? The tadpole is the demigod result of that.

 

[Testownia]

One element I am excited about immensely is having a AAA RPG portray a large, fleshed out city. When was the last time? Neverwinter? The Imperial City?

 

[Cael]

One element I am excited about immensely is having a AAA RPG portray a large, fleshed out city. When was the last time? Neverwinter? The Imperial City?

Planescape: Torment?

 

[Larianshill]

One element I am excited about immensely is having a AAA RPG portray a large, fleshed out city. When was the last time? Neverwinter? The Imperial City?

Depends. Do you consider the Witcher an RPG?

 

[Xamenos]

One element I am excited about immensely is having a AAA RPG portray a large, fleshed out city. When was the last time? Neverwinter? The Imperial City?

Have you played any of the Divinity: Original Sin games? That's the amount of "fleshed out" I'd expect.

 

[Testownia]

One element I am excited about immensely is having a AAA RPG portray a large, fleshed out city. When was the last time? Neverwinter? The Imperial City?

Depends. Do you consider the Witcher an RPG?

No. Yes. Maybe.

 

[Gargaune]

One element I am excited about immensely is having a AAA RPG portray a large, fleshed out city. When was the last time? Neverwinter? The Imperial City?

Depends. Do you consider the Witcher an RPG?

No. Yes. Maybe.

Stop editing your post, you're making it hard to pick a button!

 

[Testownia]

Also, maybe now that:
1. Games Workshop and its properties are getting more and more "mainstream."
2. They're bringing back Warhammer Fantasy.
3. Games Workshop is massively expanding its product line.

We'll finally get a proper RPG set in that universe. And please, no "it's called Dragon Age" or "it's called World of Warcraft" jokes.