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

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

So on an another note i tried to install Solasta today for playing a bit with the 5th edition ruleset. Made a character played for an hour and hell:

How bad it is?
Aside the combat the game is just pure garbage. Writing us awfyk. Artstyle everything even voice acting and cinematics is atrocious.

Compared with what i saw about bg3 in the EA Solasta is like a mere toddler. And no is not because the team is small that's not even trying.

I think bg3 will bomb and will be glorious.

To be honest I played Solasta and really enjoyed its combat and fidelity to the core ruleset of 5th edition.

It has several core features that BG 3 will likely never have, neither with mods nor DLC/Expansion, and which I sorely miss.

The main one is the stealth system: in Solasta enemies have both cones of vision and sound awareness. Your characters make noise in a circle around them that is larger the heavier the armor they wear and the lower their stealth proficiency. It's a very simple system but effective nonetheless. BG 3 on the other hand has only cones of vision, and that makes stealth a joke in several scenarios. A 7 Dexterity fatass with Plate Armor can get behind an enemy while farting and burping and not get noticed, benefiting from a Surprise round, which makes zero sense and doesn't involve stealth checks at all, provided you stay out of the stupid cones. Terrible design imho.

Another point is enemy information: in BG 3 you can click "Examine" on whatever creature you can see and have access to the full list of attributes, feats, genealogic tree and what not. Solasta has a cooler system where the info you can access to is contained in a Bestiary that updates with skill checks from your party members and by killing certain enemy types again and again, which is much more immersive. If you see a never seen before enemy, you know nothing about them, which is fair and good and fun.

Probably the most important element is tridimensionality and verticality. Solasta game scenes are structured with a tridimensional matrix made of 5-foot nodes and that allows you to interact with space points in the air. You can target a spherical AoE spell in the center between the floor and a turret and aim it so that it hits enemies both on the ground and higher up. Most of all, you can "actually" fly and choose points in the air to position yourself and look for particular angles and geometries to hit your Evocation spells like Lightning Bolt. I remember I had my Wizard cast Fly on my 2 Handed Fighter and had him trade blows with a levitating nasty creature in the air. It was cool and epic as fuck, and BG 3 design of space will never allow it, as far as I know. Flying is simply a super long jump, and you can't aim spells mid air

Last but not least, Solasta has day / night cycles and a world map where you can plan travels, deciding how fast you want to go (increasing or decreasing the risk of ambushes) and how many weighty rations you want to load your characters inventory with.
The day / night cycles has next to no consequences in the game world since it's really static and NPCs have non-existent AIs, but there have been cases where I waited for nightime to solve quests exploiting the lack of outdoor light, which was very cool for someone such as I that enjoys Rogue gameplay.

Solasta also had a pretty much perfect reaction system when BG 3's EA didn't even have the Shield spell. Moreover Solasta implements the Sneak Attack correctly, while BG 3 has it on a specific button that prevents you, for example, from using a Fire Arrow on a Sneak Attack, because arrows are not equipped and you have to click on them in your inventory to use them for a specific attack. Solasta also has consumables on Actions (not Bonus Actions) and allows you to use consumables on friendly NPCs (in BG 3 you have TO FUCKING THROW POTIONS AT YOUR ALLIES TO HEAL THEM).


If BG 3 had all this stuff I've mentioned, on top of everything else, it'd probably a Christ-like cRPG. The way it is now, it'll be a really good game with yellow teeth and smelly armpits.
I actually dream of working for them so that I won't have a high enough role to have my voice heard and will end up implementing systems I hate

(Ah, of course everything else in Solasta is shit-tier, from writing to graphics to cinematic to voice acting to non linearity to "liveliness" of the world, not to mention that when you have triggered dialogue your party assembles in front of the NPCs no matter where they are and they start the potential following combat in fixed positions, whereas in BG 3 you have the absolute freedom to do whatever you want, including never speak to anyone at all and kill everything on sight)

THe problem like someone else mentione if in solasta you remove the combat that has the only feature to be very close to the PNP there is like nothing else.
Encounter design are poor.
Artstyle is one of the must ugly i ever seen those characted seemed to be had thrown inside an hay sack and struck with club.
Writing is not even laughtable.
Setting? So barebone you could set the game in the "Ultra generic fantasy world X"
Also is made in grid. This mean all the ambients exterior and interior the combat take place are often very geometric in nature. Minecraft style. And i mean you also have game like Ja3 that has a greed and ambient dosn't feel geometric at all.
Dialogues are. Ehhhhhh...

So yes the only pro is the very well implementation of the core rules but all the rest is just horrid.

 

[Darth Valer]

I kinda remember in 90s we used system that assumed that enemies actually look around, so vision was a circle around them. Frankly, why wouldn't some monster look behind? It might do so randomly. No problem.

BTW goats have 300 degree vision.

My personal workaround solution would be to create a small circle behind enemies so that you are forced to do a stealth checks for getting in range to attack them in any case (even though in full light characters are spotted without checks, so there'd be need to find a solution for that as well). Ion think it ever makes sense to get unnoticed behind someone at arms length without having to roll a stealh check.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Even in Solasta's OC at release, a lot of skills and whatnot were marked as "the OC won't make use of this skill, just so you know". I'd say it was like a sixth of them or so, or at least it felt like that.

 

[Jermu]

also it seems that human + half-elf gets shield proficiency so might make it worth it now for some casters so no need to dip because of that

Polearms, Light Armour, and Shields.

 

[Takamori]

also it seems that human + half-elf gets shield proficiency so might make it worth it now for some casters so no need to dip because of that

Polearms, Light Armour, and Shields.

Well at least half elf has darkvision, fey ancestry and skill versatility going for them and plus variants.

Now human just get the shitty proficiencies and skill versatility?

 

[Jermu]

also it seems that human + half-elf gets shield proficiency so might make it worth it now for some casters so no need to dip because of that

Polearms, Light Armour, and Shields.

Well at least half elf has darkvision, fey ancestry and skill versatility going for them and plus variants.

Now human just get the shitty proficiencies and skill versatility?

+20 carry weight

 

[Gargaune]

The main one is the stealth system: in Solasta enemies have both cones of vision and sound awareness. Your characters make noise in a circle around them that is larger the heavier the armor they wear and the lower their stealth proficiency. It's a very simple system but effective nonetheless. BG 3 on the other hand has only cones of vision, and that makes stealth a joke in several scenarios. A 7 Dexterity fatass with Plate Armor can get behind an enemy while farting and burping and not get noticed, benefiting from a Surprise round, which makes zero sense and doesn't involve stealth checks at all, provided you stay out of the stupid cones. Terrible design imho.

This was one of my bigger bugbears with the EA as well, omitting a hearing radius meant that you could play some stealth encounters almost like an arcade game in real-time. A shame because BG3 otherwise has a very good implementation of the visual part of stealth.

Another point is enemy information: in BG 3 you can click "Examine" on whatever creature you can see and have access to the full list of attributes, feats, genealogic tree and what not. Solasta has a cooler system where the info you can access to is contained in a Bestiary that updates with skill checks from your party members and by killing certain enemy types again and again, which is much more immersive. If you see a never seen before enemy, you know nothing about them, which is fair and good and fun.

I always thought this was a missed opportunity for D&D in general to give Identify some combat utility. I was actually planning on houseruling something like that before my group hung up our foray into tabletop.

 

[Rhobar121]

By the way, I wonder if the game could have received better advertising than Blizzard and Sawyer tweets.
It's almost everywhere on the internet right now.

 

[scytheavatar]

BG3 is already a success. It's already on the millions. That's AAA territory for rpgs. And it's a western made turn based game, which used to be a hard sell a few years ago but apparently not anymore. There could be also a sense of jealousy that Larian was the only dev that actually profited from the Kickstarter craze, and was probably the only one who got where the others wanted to be. Now they are the face of the genre and they're there thanks to sticking to "old fashioned" stuff like turn based combat. So much for the progress that real time shit would've brought to the genre.

Larian is certainly NOT the only dev that "actually profited from the Kickstarter craze", but they are the only ones who used their Kickstarter success to fuel bigger successes in the future. While Kickstarter profits were a curse for a studio like Obsidian cause after the failure of Deadfire they came to the conclusion that they can't survive without the backing of a big publisher.

 

[Rhobar121]

BG3 is already a success. It's already on the millions. That's AAA territory for rpgs. And it's a western made turn based game, which used to be a hard sell a few years ago but apparently not anymore. There could be also a sense of jealousy that Larian was the only dev that actually profited from the Kickstarter craze, and was probably the only one who got where the others wanted to be. Now they are the face of the genre and they're there thanks to sticking to "old fashioned" stuff like turn based combat. So much for the progress that real time shit would've brought to the genre.

Larian is certainly NOT the only dev that "actually profited from the Kickstarter craze", but they are the only ones who used their Kickstarter success to fuel bigger successes in the future. While Kickstarter profits were a curse for a studio like Obsidian cause after the failure of Deadfire they came to the conclusion that they can't survive without the backing of a big publisher.

Which is funny because Larian even though he was fucked by the publishers a few times, they handled it.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

BG3 is already a success. It's already on the millions. That's AAA territory for rpgs. And it's a western made turn based game, which used to be a hard sell a few years ago but apparently not anymore. There could be also a sense of jealousy that Larian was the only dev that actually profited from the Kickstarter craze, and was probably the only one who got where the others wanted to be. Now they are the face of the genre and they're there thanks to sticking to "old fashioned" stuff like turn based combat. So much for the progress that real time shit would've brought to the genre.

Larian is certainly NOT the only dev that "actually profited from the Kickstarter craze", but they are the only ones who used their Kickstarter success to fuel bigger successes in the future. While Kickstarter profits were a curse for a studio like Obsidian cause after the failure of Deadfire they came to the conclusion that they can't survive without the backing of a big publisher.

That's exactly what I meant, though. Obsidian and inxile both relied too much on the past and fake nostalgia while Larian presented a much more attractive product which, ironically, was much more old fashioned than those in its mechanics. Sven is a better leader than Feargus or Fargo.

 

[LJ40]

Was skimming through some of the stuff I've missed in this thread, waiting to come to the inevitable reaction to the bestiality announcement, when I came across this quote:

Not every RPG has to be Oblivion.

Still not sure what the context was, because I immediately had a series of small strokes trying to imagine the possibilities.

"Fallout was pretty fun, but what if it were more like..."
"Planescape was good, but wouldn't it benefit from a dose of..."
"Deus Ex is really solid, but what if we added some..."
"Underrail is a excellent start, but we need to mix in some..."

"...fucking Oblivion."

I don't care what the context was. Just no.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

Still not sure what the context was

Probably back when Drakortha was saying how BG3 needed to have a 'real AI' with NPC schedules like The Sims 2 or Oblivion.

 

[LJ40]

Still not sure what the context was

Probably back when Drakortha was saying how BG3 needed to have a 'real AI' with NPC schedules like The Sims 2 or Oblivion.

All I remember is it was somewhere around July 3-4, and Delterius said it. I didn't want to call out too many details in case whoever wants every RPG to be Oblivion is properly ashamed of themselves.

Late Bloomer is there something you want to share with the class?

 

[Theodora]

Schedules are a nice idea, but doing them well — and not just a dull routine where NPCS all randomly start running in concert at exactly at x'oclock — is probably a lot more effort and developer time than it's worth; especially if not knowing where an NPC will be is "compensated" by the timeless classic, Follow the Map Marker.

 

[Drakortha]

You Larian fags extrapolate everything I say. Baldur's Gate 3 is releasing in 2023 and doesn't have Day/Night cycles or NPC schedules, a feature that existed in Oblivion in 2006, on an Xbox 360 which had 512mb of Ram. Think about it.

I want to know why you think this is okay? What exactly is the payoff here for having NPC's stand around in place all day waiting for you to interact with them, like some fucking lifeless MMO?

The answer is; there is no Payoff. Except you pat yourselves on the back and say to yourselves "Schedules are a nice idea, but doing them well. It might just be too much work for those poor devs. I don't want them to have to crunch!"

This is why you get called faggots every day.

 

[Rhobar121]

I don't give a shit if the npc will have a schedule or not. It literally won't change anything for me.

 

[Reinhardt]

Drakortha you seem upset

 

[LJ40]

You Larian fags extrapolate everything I say. Baldur's Gate 3 released in 2023 and doesn't have Day/Night cycles or NPC schedules, a feature that existed in Oblivion in 2006, on an Xbox 360 which had 512mb of Ram. I want to know why you think this is okay? What exactly is the payoff here for having NPC's stand around in place all day waiting for you to interact with them, like some fucking lifeless MMO?

The answer is; there is no Payoff. Except you pat yourselves on the back and say to yourselves "Schedules are a nice idea, but doing them well. It might just be too much work for those poor devs. I don't want them to have to crunch!"

This is why you get called faggots every day.

Unless you're an alt of SpoonFULL , sorry to have inadvertently brought up whatever you're sperging about. That's who I was referring to.

And just for your knowledge, I have a big sign above my bed that says: It has been __ days since I've been called a faggot. My record is 5 bitch.

 

[Drakortha]

Unless you're an alt of SpoonFULL , sorry to have inadvertently brought up whatever you're sperging about. That's who I was referring to.

And just for your knowledge, I have a big sign above my bed that says: It has been __ days since I've been called a faggot. My record is 5 bitch.

I was referring to that other faggot, Non-Edgy Gamer who cited my comment about BG3 not having AI from Sims 2 or Oblivion, which by the way, both have better AI than BG3 has out-of-combat. Which BG3 has none. Sims 2 and Oblivion came out in 2004 and 2006 respectively. That's almost 20 years ago if you're really this fucking shit at maths.

Video games and cRPG's in particular are not evolving. Larian are doing the same boring shit Dragon Age and Mass Effect was already doing with it's cutscene dialogue 15 years ago. Tell me one good reason why I should be excited about BG3 and I'll give you 10 reasons why I'm not excited. This game is a huge disappointment since the moment it was first shown in a live stream with Swen running around a beach straight out of Original Sin while he stacked wood boxes and shot at puddles of oil with a fireball.

 

[Theodora]

This is why you get called faggots every day.

Nice.

(Also, apples and oranges; just because they're both RPGs doesn't mean they're similar enough to warrant direct comparisons. Different games, and their developers, will always focus on different experiences and what's important to achieve them.)

I don't give a shit if the npc will have a schedule or not. It literally won't change anything for me.

Inasmuch as there is an issue, it's more more about what may be incidentally changed as a result of such a feature, or what might be neglected in its place.

also i saw that NEG u_u

 

[AwesomeButton]

wouldn't that be the best for us as a CRPG site?

They are objecting to good design such as reactivity, the abundant choice of character building, not against production values - cinematics and full VO.

In terms of C&C, reactivity and production values this is obviously leagues above any rpg released so far and will raise the bar. Hence the whining.

Now they are the face of the genre and they're there thanks to sticking to "old fashioned" stuff like turn based combat. So much for the progress that real time shit would've brought to the genre.

Hard to argue with these statements. Whether they have voiced it or not, I assume some devs are especially salty after in one way or another snubbing the "grognard" audience. Turns out they actually knew far better that audience than the one they were unsuccessfully trying to capture, and doing so on grognard KS money. They should be feeling... not a little silly now.

In any case it's hilarious listening to "the grapes are sour anyway", and "let's not set expectations that all grapes will be tasty" from people whose projects just couldn't do it, didn't know how to.

I'm the last person to praise D:OS/2 but it was obvious that there was a tech and a production pipeline being refined there for years.

 

[d1r]

You Larian fags extrapolate everything I say. Baldur's Gate 3 is releasing in 2023 and doesn't have Day/Night cycles or NPC schedules, a feature that existed in Oblivion in 2006, on an Xbox 360 which had 512mb of Ram. I want to know why you think this is okay? What exactly is the payoff here for having NPC's stand around in place all day waiting for you to interact with them, like some fucking lifeless MMO?

The answer is; there is no Payoff. Except you pat yourselves on the back and say to yourselves "Schedules are a nice idea, but doing them well. It might just be too much work for those poor devs. I don't want them to have to crunch!"

This is why you get called faggots every day.

How is it that you are berating everyone of giving up gaming and doing something else with their life, but you at the same time, are still sperging out about video games for hours every day?

 

[Drakortha]

How is it that you are berating everyone of giving up gaming and doing something else with their life, but you at the same time, are still sperging out about video games for hours every day?

How is it everyone gets excited about increasingly shitty games each year and keep buying into the same bullshit marketing, hook line and sinker? And then they defend it like a pack of loyal dogs?

 

[LJ40]

Video games and cRPG's in particular are not evolving.

There's a certain case to be made for "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" here. Although I'd say it wasn't broke, they broke it, then they stuck their wieners in it, then they stirred it around for a while. How much do you think that helped anything?

Tell me one good reason why I should be excited about BG3 and I'll give you 10 reasons why I'm not excited.

Give me one reason I shouldn't be excited and I'll give you one much more important reason I don't give a fuck what you think.