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

[La vie sexuelle]

D&D mechanic is flawled anyway, Larian should drop it entirely.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

foundations to NOTHING

Just because your Asperger somehow manages to compromise your ability for imagination, I don't have to be the one who has to work around it.

D&D mechanic is flawled anyway, Larian should drop it entirely.

Given what they came up with before moving to D&D, maybe they really shouldn't.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

That's my point: you are specifically imagining a quest POORLY designed to fit the constraints of the game and attempting to use it as an excuse for dismissing an entire set of features that could be, you know, used properly instead.

Did I imagine the existence of these plot elements? No? Maybe you should use a different word.

And a quest? Wtf are you talking about? This is the main plot of the game. You can claim it's "poorly designed" all you want. It is what it is. For all you know, Wizards specifically asked for this plot.

It doesn't "need to" because time-skipping remains an option.

Remains? Where was the "time skip" button in BG 1 & 2?

But sure, do that. Again:

And if you had time run uncompressed and the odd rest issues don't bother you, you'd still have the issue of this constant timer running that the devs have no control over story-wise. What happens if the player goes afk and a day passes? Lots of tracking to be done that doesn't need to be.

It's a problem that doesn't need to be there. That primarily appeals to people who have long arguments about theoretical RPG features.

I would have cut it, and if it were your production time on the line, so would you.

We already went through it: a BASIC implementation of a day/night cycle even in absence of super-complex scheduling ALREADY comes with its own set of benefits and improvement to the game's immersion.

Cosmetic. Benefits.

On top of that it ALSO sets the foundations to build more over it, expand, improve and add content tailored around the feature.

For FREE mods that no one will PAY the company making the game for.

You realize that this will take a programmer to implement, right? Who will pay that programmer? You? The five other people on this forum who care?

No, you expect Larian to foot the bill because you totally promise that some mod later on will draw more customers to the game for this feature only a few people will give a shit about.

Conversely starting from the beginning with "I don't know if we should do it. It can be a lot of work to make it AWESOME, so let's build the rest and then evaluate"

Speaking of not knowing what you're talking about. How do you know that's the conversation that took place?

The whole reason I'm pointing out quest design is an issue is because it likely played a part in the decision not to add day/night when the game was still in the concept stage.

It doesn't mean I can't argue why that was not a good decision or worse that I should be the bling fanboy and attempt to rationalize why "that was achtually for the best" like you are doing.

I already said I'm not pleased with the game. I've complained about several features. That's not being a fanboy, is it?

You're nitpicking and getting upset with me over a non-issue. That's the problem I have with it.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

"day" "night" "many meaningful" and then you walk into underdark and SUDDENLY nobody sleeps anymore.

They sleep by night, when you are sleeping too

 

[Delterius]

Just because your Asperger somehow manages to compromise your ability for imagination

Here's your ability for imagination:

But NO ONE is asking for extensive and detailed NPC scheduling that changes between day and night.

A bridge to FUCKING NOWHERE

If you aren't going to ask for GOOD day and night cycles, then what the fuck is the point of such ridiculous waste? Cosmetic Variation? In place of C&C??

 

[Reinhardt]

"day" "night" "many meaningful" and then you walk into underdark and SUDDENLY nobody sleeps anymore.

They sleep by night, when you are sleeping too

i'm not some dresswearer so i don't need to sleep after every fight. and you know - drow shops are ALWAYS open and store clerks are always same! muh immersion broken!

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

"day" "night" "many meaningful" and then you walk into underdark and SUDDENLY nobody sleeps anymore.

They sleep by night, when you are sleeping too

i'm not some dresswearer so i don't need to sleep after every fight. and you know - drow shops are ALWAYS open and store clerks are always same! muh immersion broken!

It would be a point if some people posting here weren't spamming about it so many times now. It seems like petty criticism now.

 

[Reinhardt]

"day" "night" "many meaningful" and then you walk into underdark and SUDDENLY nobody sleeps anymore.

They sleep by night, when you are sleeping too

i'm not some dresswearer so i don't need to sleep after every fight. and you know - drow shops are ALWAYS open and store clerks are always same! muh immersion broken!

It would be a point if some people posting here weren't spamming about it so many times now. It seems like petty criticism now.

no. human shopkeepers are cleared from the streets, but drow shopkeepers stand behind corner 24/7/365. it's just lazy.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

The process of replacing the host brain is supposed to only take a few hours, so if that's your argument, Baldur's Gate 3 has already failed.

It's not my argument.

Maybe you should try learning the first thing about the game's plot before you talk about it.

I do find it amusing that your argument boils down to "muh tadpole biology".

No, it doesn't boil down to that. You clearly haven't played the EA or even read a single article about it. These are not normal tadpoles. But they are tadpoles. My point is that their nature is different from your MotB example.

What about all the creature and spell descriptions in D&D that explicitly list how they interact with day/night?

Wow, Sherlock! Great job noticing that! Did you also notice that the game has a vampire walking around in daylight? Did you? Maybe there's a story behind that.

Again, learn about a subject before discussing it.

 

[Delterius]

"day" "night" "many meaningful" and then you walk into underdark and SUDDENLY nobody sleeps anymore.

They sleep by night, when you are sleeping too

i'm not some dresswearer so i don't need to sleep after every fight. and you know - drow shops are ALWAYS open and store clerks are always same! muh immersion broken!

It would be a point if some people posting here weren't spamming about it so many times now. It seems like petty criticism now.

It's as petty as the original call for cosmetic immersion.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

If you aren't going to ask for GOOD day and night cycles, then what the fuck is the point of such ridiculous waste? Cosmetic Variation?

This is all he's asking for, yes. It's all about how it "feels" and muh immersion.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

no. human shopkeepers are cleared from the streets, but drow shopkeepers stand behind corner 24/7/365. it's just lazy.

Technically elves don't sleep. Maybe he's meditating at work.

The life of a Drow salaryman do be like that sometimes.

 

[Reinhardt]

no. human shopkeepers are cleared from the streets, but drow shopkeepers stand behind corner 24/7/365. it's just lazy.

Technically elves don't sleep. Maybe he's meditating at work.

The life of a Drow salaryman do be like that sometimes.

also they don't let slaves they selling to sleep because drow sadism > profits.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

Just think about the life of a Drow male shopkeeper:

>never sleep
>probably a slave
>constantly yelled at by women
>big ass spiders EVERYWHERE
>people around you getting eaten by spiders, mindflayers and beholders all the time
>if you manage to have a kid, chances are some cunt will feed your baby to the spider demon that runs your entire society

Any Drow male who remains in the Underdark is cucked beyond belief.

 

[Swen]

"Just have day and night system bro, just because reasons bro"

 

[Reinhardt]

Any Drow male who remains in the Underdark is cucked beyond belief.

usually literally like that soulafain fag

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

"Just have day and night system bro, just because reasons bro"

Mods will fix it, bro. But you need to fix it first so that mods can fix it.

 

[Jermu]

how interesting is itemization? hope its not original sin tier where everything is useless after gaining level or two

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

how interesting is itemization? hope its not original sin tier where everything is useless after gaining level or two

Items are handplaced and the notable ones are unique.
The scaling is also according to D&D standards.
In short, it's nothing like DOS 1 and 2.

That said, I wouldn't really go around bragging about how good or interesting most of the items were in Act 1 because... eh.
Then again it's early game, so I would expect "the good stuff" to start popping out later in the Second act.

 

[almondblight]

Day/night cycle was always only bothering me. Who cares about that. I want to go to shops/houses anytime I want. Making me wait for day (rest until sunrise) was always inconvenient. I want to play a game, not simulate life.

I have to agree. Making the entire map hard to see half the time is just annoying, and most games barely made any use of the feature. If you're only going to have a handful of moments where it matters, like in almost all games, it's better handled by scripting those 3-4 moments.

 

[Mortmal]

The only thing that matters is great combat. Literally everything else can be mediocre and it will be lifted by combat. This is also why PF:KM/WotR are shit games despite boasting really deep build customization because the games horribly fails in encounter design. Autistically worrying about day/night cycles is like item #5821 on the list of things that makes or breaks a cRPG.

It's minor but day and night is also part of the tactical combat, target being obscured giving malus to hit. Some monsters appearing at night strongers and some have penalties in daylight like drows , or even troll get slowly turned to stone on some rpg rulesets. It's another layer of depth and its always welcome. Of course i know no one gives a fuck about our opinions...

 

[Gargaune]

Except you would lose the time mechanic of the game. Days are tracked. It's not BG where you can spam rest and the date is just a meaningless count. They wanted each day and each rest to progress an event timer. A short one.

Can't do that when some fake ass day/night cycle is running every hour or two.

Don't be silly, of course you can. Kingmaker, Mask of the Betrayer, even the original BG had timed quests, this isn't some revolutionary concept we're talking about, that BG3 is "more timed" doesn't change that. At the end of the day, these are videogames and I expect the plot to be developed in service of the functional experience, not the other way around. That means you start with mechanical aspects, like the day/night cycle (whether it's an hour or six or whatever), and then build your plot and time its progression around that.

Also, as a sidenote from skimming some of your other replies here, there's no point going into the "lore" of cereomorphosis (sp?) since the plot makes it clear that you and your companions are "special" and that it's not progressing as usual anyway. The nature of your Urgent Problem™ here doesn't really impose too many restrictions on how to write the functional progression.

So, no, Larian didn't omit dynamic day/night because this particular plot needed to happen, but because it's not part of their DOS formula and they didn't want to change up their design and development processes. It's a legitimate rationale, but so is the criticism, especially when BG3 isn't an indie star anymore, but a full-blown AAA production. If we can be disappointed in, say, Bethesda for not developing their formula past its traditional limitations, the same goes for Larian.

Complex NPC schedules? Do you think BG had these?

I said "Larian don't want to spend time on dynamic light and complex NPC schedules, nor do they like the presentation of NPCs that ignore day/night." The part you omitted was in reference to the original BG games, obviously.

Or do you want Skyrim and not BG?

Wouldn't say no to some Skyrim schedules in my BG. I'd be okay with NPCs loafing around, ignoring the time of day, but taking it further would certainly be welcome.

Again, this doesn't work. You could easily have world objects interfere with the scene in a cinematic game. Just being in a walled corridor could do this.

Kingmaker has no cinematic dialog or animations. It's all abstraction. It might as well be 2d.

I said I'd take simpler cinematics with a dynamic, in-level camp over movie-game drama that needs a distinct, pocket plane camp. The reason I brought up Kingmaker is because resting isn't just a button press, you have to put down a large object in a clear area, and that object contains some waypoints that the party animate on, the same approach could be used to help stage those simpler cinematics, in addition to what Tuco said about contextual cinematic stuff.

From who? Here?

The general reaction I remember when DAO came out, restricting party interactions to camp was lame.

I doubt the difference between mage armor lasting 8 hours and it lasting until the next day will matter to most people.

That wasn't directed at you, I was just completing my own point from earlier. Skipping the day/night cycle reduces the cosmetic engagement of the game space, the illusion of the open world, it misses a wonderful opportunity at mechanical interplay with BG3's otherwise pretty sophisticated stealth system, and it adds limitations to the D&D ruleset adaptation.

When you're making a game, you have to choose what's more important. Day/night cycles, which are cosmetic in these games and would interfere with their planned narrative, got the axe. Oh well.

This isn't some videogaming marvel we're discussing here, a day/night cycle doesn't require a technological breakthrough, just a quantifiable labour allocation. Obviously, it's a core design that you can't just change mid-development, people who thought it could be "added" through Early Access were being completely unrealistic, but it's legitimate to criticise the pretty big corner that got cut here.

There are several things I'm not happy about with this game, but this isn't one. It's just nitpicking at this point.

To be honest, we're all just rehashing the same tired arguments over and over, this thread degenerated into a pointless circlejerk a long time ago. And no amount of reason is going to convince the shills that BG3, for all its fortes, has some serious problems baked into it as well, just like no amount of shilling is going to convince me that the controls aren't a fucking obscenity.

 

[Reinhardt]

main reason day/night is absolute shit is because you will have to find npcs across bunch of different buildings at different times with modern rpg games loading times each time you enter or quit.

 

[Saravan]

The only thing that matters is great combat. Literally everything else can be mediocre and it will be lifted by combat. This is also why PF:KM/WotR are shit games despite boasting really deep build customization because the games horribly fails in encounter design. Autistically worrying about day/night cycles is like item #5821 on the list of things that makes or breaks a cRPG.

It's minor but day and night is also part of the tactical combat, target being obscured giving malus to hit. Some monsters appearing at night strongers and some have penalties in daylight like drows , or even troll get slowly turned to stone on some rpg rulesets. It's another layer of depth and its always welcome. Of course i know no one gives a fuck about our opinions...

I find it a cool feature as well but everything rests on combat. Nothing matters if it’s a boring slog and shallow. It’s incredibly hard to get combat right. Build variety and depth, itemisation, interesting abilities, encounter design, use of environment, pacing, VFX, SFX etc all have to work in harmony. You get that right and everything else become ‘nice to have bonuses’ like reactivity, interesting story, whatever. However, those things don’t have to be great.

If combat isn’t good absolutely nothing else can replace it.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

Don't be silly, of course you can. Kingmaker, Mask of the Betrayer, even the original BG had timed quests

And I brought up that BG had them and how they were different on the previous page. I also talked about how MotB is different.

You're comparing apples to oranges. These games were all essentially designed like 2d games, even the ones that are 3d. NWN2 was barely cinematic, and only some of the time.

Also, as a sidenote from skimming some of your other replies here, there's no point going into the "lore" of cereomorphosis (sp?) since the plot makes it clear that you and your companions are "special" and that it's not progressing as usual anyway.

Fake news.

The plot eventually makes it clear that you ARE progressing. Just not at the speed you thought you were, or in the way you thought you were. We're still not out of Act One though, so not sure about the conclusion.

At first, you think it's going to be around a week (meta: obviously not). Then, you see that you aren't transforming. But if you rest enough, and I've tested it, you start hitting events like Lae'zel going nuts and possibly trying to kill you, or everyone having fever dreams. Finally, you can start gaining minflayer powers, depending on your choices.

The point is, it's time-based progression. The devs need a way to track and manage this so that the players, unless they just decide to spam rest and ignore the repeated warnings about doing so, won't accidentally find themselves progressing further along this path than they meant to.

I said "Larian don't want to spend time on dynamic light and complex NPC schedules, nor do they like the presentation of NPCs that ignore day/night." The part you omitted was in reference to the original BG games, obviously.

Why include it if that wasn't what my question was about?

You and the Taco guy keep doing this. You have some vision other than BG 1 & 2, but your initial premise was basically 'this is different from BG 1 & 2, that's bad and here's why'.

Why was your initial premise not "I wish this game had X features that even BG2 didn't have"?

The general reaction I remember when DAO came out, restricting party interactions to camp was lame.

I haven't played DA:O in years, but I thought you could talk to them outside of camp.

Anyway, you can clearly interact with BG3 companions outside of camp.

I said I'd take simpler cinematics with a dynamic, in-level camp

Good for you. Make a game like that then. Because this game is meant to be cinematic.

Larian was commissioned by WotC to make a AAA game with a 5e ruleset. Not Pathfinder: Wrath of the Tranny. Not Kingmaker. Not PoE.

Saying that they should have degraded the overall product just to make you happy is unreasonable.

Skipping the day/night cycle reduces the cosmetic engagement of the game space, the illusion of the open world, it misses a wonderful opportunity at mechanical interplay with BG3's otherwise pretty sophisticated stealth system, and it adds limitations to the D&D ruleset adaptation.

I agree, but as you say, a lot of these are cosmetic changes.

To be honest, we're all just rehashing the same tired arguments over and over, this thread degenerated into a pointless circlejerk a long time ago. And no amount of reason is going to convince the shills that BG3, for all its fortes, has some serious problems baked into it as well, just like no amount of shilling is going to convince me that the controls aren't a fucking obscenity.

Fair enough.