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

[Swen]

I'm pretty sure Larian is reading The Codex at this point.

Pity their heads are too empty to comprehend criticism.

Euh... we have big heads here at Larian filled with big brains.

 

[Grunker]

You make good points here, how do you feel about BG3. Are you excited or disappointed and if you have had any bad early access experiences are these enough to write off this game for you?

may be the result of a marketing strategy.

As much as I like to fuck around, it most certainly is. I have two friends in game development, one in a big company overseas and one in a small Danish outfit, and they've both said to me on different occassions that the most effective marketing strategy, which I find really weird, is make a big announcement years in advance, show very little until right before the release and then give the marketing another hard pounding. I can understand the latter part of course, it's the first bit about announcing so early only to then respond with relative silence for a long time that I don't get. But both of these guys are very good at what they do and make their respective companies a lot of money, so I trust their judgments - and besides, they both say it's the industry standard today for a reason: basically, the point is to get two launches (launches are responsible for the vast majority of sales). With this method, you get an EA launch where you sell a bunch of games and a real launch, which is obviously way more massive in terms of sales (and then maybe EE launches etc., but these have way lower value). So all the patches and the marketing in between the EA and the "real" release isn't to actually market the game, it's just something you have to do at that point if you wanted the EA launch (because EA customers expect it).

So basically my point is even if I like beating this dead horse of a joke, there's probably nothing we can divine either way about the dev status from the low effort releases. They are likely intentional regardless of whether the dev process is going poorly or well internally in terms of content production.

 

[Swen]

You make good points here, how do you feel about BG3. Are you excited or disappointed and if you have had any bad early access experiences are these enough to write off this game for you?

may be the result of a marketing strategy.

the point is to get two launches (launches are responsible for the vast majority of sales). With this method, you get an EA launch where you sell a bunch of games and a real launch, which is obviously way more massive in terms of sales (and then maybe EE launches etc., but these have way lower value).

 

[Grunker]

You make good points here, how do you feel about BG3. Are you excited or disappointed and if you have had any bad early access experiences are these enough to write off this game for you?

may be the result of a marketing strategy.

the point is to get two launches (launches are responsible for the vast majority of sales). With this method, you get an EA launch where you sell a bunch of games and a real launch, which is obviously way more massive in terms of sales (and then maybe EE launches etc., but these have way lower value).

The crux isn't the two launches, it's the why of the underwhelming marketing and (seemingly) development

 

[Johnny Biggums]

writing off any game because of early access design mechanics seems .....counterproductive to me?

I strongly believe that Early Access can be detrimental to the quality of the final product, because often the dev's vision loses clarity and cohesion under the pressure of submitting updates and driving average interest from people who are not necessarily interested in the final game or are going to buy it.

In the worst instances when your product is as popular as BG3 for example, the voices of sensible and knowledgable (therefore valuable) part of the community can be drowned in those of the worthless but numerous part of the community.

I would like to agree with you, but Larian's purity of creative vision included full barrelmancy and having the MC's dialogue narrated in third person.

 

[Harthwain]

I strongly believe that Early Access can be detrimental to the quality of the final product, because often the dev's vision loses clarity and cohesion under the pressure of submitting updates and driving average interest from people who are not necessarily interested in the final game or are going to buy it.

There were examples of good Early Access games (Deep Rock Galactic, Battle Brothers, to just name a few examples). It all comes down to how good a developer is. Nothing more and nothing less.

 

[BruceVC]

I strongly believe that Early Access can be detrimental to the quality of the final product, because often the dev's vision loses clarity and cohesion under the pressure of submitting updates and driving average interest from people who are not necessarily interested in the final game or are going to buy it.

There were examples of good Early Access games (Deep Rock Galactic, Battle Brothers, to just name a few examples). It all comes down to how good a developer is. Nothing more and nothing less.

But dont you think BG3 is a much more complex game than those games, they also have to incorporate the D&D ruleset into the game and ensure mechanics are accurate? It would be a big project for any developers and inevitably you going to learn lessons and address bugs

 

[Harthwain]

But dont you think BG3 is a much more complex game than those games, they also have to incorporate the D&D ruleset into the game and ensure mechanics are accurate?

I think it has problem with the size of the game, combined with the need to hard-craft everything for it. This is what eats most of the development time.

Another problem is NOT "ensuring that mechanics are accurate", but the constant balancing act due to the game being - in essence - a system of connected vessels. If you change one thing, this is going to create ripples and you have to make sure everything is working as intended.

 

[Rhobar121]

The problem with feedback is that everyone thinks theirs is valuable. Players often have different opinions on how the game should look like, and if everything was taken into account, they would have to release 3 different games.
There will always be someone angry.

I played the EA for the first time recently and thought it was quite good. If Larian had a good team of writers this could definitely be one of the games of all time.

It's definitely not disco elysium, but the writing is definitely above average.

 

[luj1]

this game been in early access / Act 1 for 2 years lol

Level cap 4 lol

 

[NecroLord]

this game been in early access / Act 1 for 2 years lol

Level cap 4 lol

Larian cultists be mad.

 

[FriendlyMerchant]

Wasn't the game supposed to be out already?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Wasn't the game supposed to be out already?

butin decided to humiliate his country which caused larian to lose their second studio and not release it this year

 

[Aarwolf]

That would make me thank him for the first time in my life. Couln't he invade Belgium as well?

 

[NecroLord]

That would make me thank him for the first time in my life. Couln't he invade Belgium as well?

That's Germany's job.

 

[ferratilis]

I'm playing this rn, and just realized:
DOS2: you start on a ship, the ship gets attacked by a kraken, you end up stranded on a beach, you have to find a way to remove the source collar from your neck
BG3: you start on a flying ship, the ship gets attacked by dragons, you end up stranded on a beach, you have to find a way to remove a parasite from your brain
omg best RPG ever, 10/10 writing

One thing that I like is how there is no magic "highlight all" button. This game has actual secrets that reward exploration. Too many RPGs in recent years made it too easy and unrewarding to find hidden items.

 

[Tihskael]

I'm playing this rn, and just realized:
DOS2: you start on a ship, the ship gets attacked by a kraken, you end up stranded on a beach, you have to find a way to remove the source collar from your neck
BG3: you start on a flying ship, the ship gets attacked by dragons, you end up stranded on a beach, you have to find a way to remove a parasite from your brain
omg best RPG ever, 10/10 writing

One thing that I like is how there is no magic "highlight all" button. This game has actual secrets that reward exploration. Too many RPGs in recent years made it too easy and unrewarding to find hidden items.

No magic highlight button in 2d isometric games would have been perfect. Rotating the camera in games like DOS makes me want to kill myself. The Dragon Age Origins approach is perfect for a 3d game. Explore in first person or third person view and have the combat in the topdown view.

 

[Gargaune]

No magic highlight button in 2d isometric games would have been perfect.

I like PFKM's approach, automatic perception check in proximity. If you pass, the game enables and highlights hidden interactibles, if you don't it's as if they're generic level clutter. Actually, NWN's Swordflight has a similar design, passing a spot check will make hidden interactibles spawn in.

Rotating the camera in games like DOS makes me want to kill myself.

Rotating the camera in BG3 made my middle mouse button want to kill itself. And it did.

 

[ferratilis]

I like PFKM's approach, automatic perception check in proximity. If you pass, the game enables and highlights hidden interactibles, if you don't it's as if they're generic level clutter. Actually, NWN's Swordflight has a similar design, passing a spot check will make hidden interactibles spawn in.

BG3 has done it in a similar way, you can even see a small die being rolled above the character's head. It's a nice way to implement it imo.

Rotating the camera in BG3 made my middle mouse button want to kill itself. And it did.

I recommend using Q and E for rotation, that's what I do. Or instead of MMB, you can bind it to another, easy to reach key. Like ALT, for example.

 

[Gargaune]

Or instead of MMB, you can bind it to another, easy to reach key. Like ALT, for example.

That's what I did after I got a new mouse, precisely ALT. Of course, they could've easily added an edge turning option when the camera's locked to a character, but basic common sense just ain't the Larian way.

 

[AwesomeButton]

DOS2: you start on a ship, the ship gets attacked by a kraken, you end up stranded on a beach, you have to find a way to remove the source collar from your neck
BG3: you start on a flying ship, the ship gets attacked by dragons, you end up stranded on a beach, you have to find a way to remove a parasite from your brain
omg best RPG ever, 10/10 writing

D:OS - you start on a beach, period. They were still developing their ideas at the time, weren't ready with the whole premise.

 

[ferratilis]

I didn't think that Larian could design a worse UI than in DOS2, but they've outdone themselves. Tiny fonts that can't be increased, terrible choice of colors and transparency that makes tooltips hard to read, awful inventory screen, buttons and scroll bars that are put in unintuitive places and are too small, not using the screen real estate properly, actions hotbar that is not user friendly at all, lack of proper scaling etc. It's beyond bad.

Solasta's UI has the problem of not belonging to fantasy, it looks too sci-fi. But at least it's intuitive, easily readable, buttons and menus are easy to find and navigate, and most importantly of all, it doesn't strain your eyes. BG3 UI is an eyesore.

But both teams could learn a lot from Owlcat, Kingmaker still has the best UI I've seen in CRPGs. Not only in terms of style, but user experience. RPG, more than other genres, needs solid UI.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

I think Owlcat is a very mixed bag. There are parts of their UI that are exceptionally good (tooltips, character creation, no fucking toilet chain to select and move characters around, etc), but also some that are genuinely terrible (i.e. they rely a lot on the shitty auto-filling hotbar like Larian, the three mini-menu above said bar couldn't be made less comfortable to use if they tried, etc).

 

[Cryomancer]

In therms of UI, the UI of BG3 improved a lot. Before, was too similar to DOS2. But are wizards able to switch spells at will like in previous paths? I have no interest in playing this game till an mod which makes the most important thing(spells) more akin to 2E or at least 3E and remove the hp bloat.

 

[Shrimp]