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

[Thonius]

It's not gonna be DnD game at this point... they will take lore names of the spells, and abilities and just gonna roll with their shitty designs. Cancel pre-orders! Oh right, we cannot pre-order. Thank god.

 

[Mr. Hiver]

Why is it a "struggle" to speed up leveling?

Just give more XP... whats the problem? Its been done in ever RPG ever made. You want players to reach lvl 15? lvl 20? Just give enough Xp and or set levels so they are reached with specific amount of xp...?
Wtf is he on about?

 

[Thonius]

Not enough AWESOME BUTTONS!!!

 

[Jasede]

Let's make a D&D game!

First we remove dice, that's too clunky and people don't like the missing.
Then we change the progression. Leveling up has never felt good in a D&D game before so we made it a level one to 100 progression to keep people engaged.
Spells? Well, they're not accessible to new players so we replaced them with a better system.

Please enjoy our faithful D&D game.

 

[AwesomeButton]

What the fuck have I been saying for scores of pages now?

 

[Curratum]

Nobody said there will be no dice, you absolute lobotomy survivors.

 

[Jimmious]

Also Sven more or less says in the interview that they will basically keep the leveling system but are "figuring out other ways to make the player feel progress".
Unless we know what he means it's a bit awkward to pass judgement

 

[Jasede]

I'm sure there'll be some on the box art...

It's not awkward at all. Despite the strange love some here have for Sven the man has never made a good RPG. It's far more likely he doesn't get it than that he does. If in doubt, add more cheese jokes.

 

[Incantatar]

Audio interview by Jason Schreier: https://player.fm/series/kotaku-splitscreen/how-baldurs-gate-3-came-together

“That’s actually been one of the things that we’ve been struggling with, because it’s a very slow leveling process in the books,” he says. As D&D players will know, gaining ten or 12 levels on the tabletop is a journey that could last weeks, but for a videogame, it’s “not a lot.”

Wtf? "Not a lot" Only, from Candlekeep to Ch3+ in Athkatla. That is weeks of average game play. The same in P&P is like a year for my group playing every 1-2 weeks.
But we need levels 1-40 in a single game now of course.

 

[Fairfax]

Swen spewing nonsense again. 5E's progression is way too fast if you use the default system, which is why even the official modules avoid it entirely. The official guideline is that each 'adventuring day' has 6-8 medium/hard encounters (traps and hazards included). With that system it takes ~14 adventuring days total to reach level 10, and ~33 to reach level 20(!). Even assuming a week of travel time between each adventuring day, that's insanely fast for D&D.

 

[Strange Fellow]

I am already assuming it's 3rd person action game where you can zoom out to a significant distance if you want, and pretend it's an isometric game.

How would this work? Can't have action gameplay with that setup, unless it's some Diablo-like thing.

 

[Mortmal]

What the fuck have I been saying for scores of pages now?

Same same, but we kinda are the chosen ones , the common people are only starting to awake...

 

[AwesomeButton]

I am already assuming it's 3rd person action game where you can zoom out to a significant distance if you want, and pretend it's an isometric game.

How would this work? Can't have action gameplay with that setup, unless it's some Diablo-like thing.

I imagine it will be like Dragon Age Inquisition. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ-asPRTixI

 

[Strange Fellow]

I am already assuming it's 3rd person action game where you can zoom out to a significant distance if you want, and pretend it's an isometric game.

How would this work? Can't have action gameplay with that setup, unless it's some Diablo-like thing.

I imagine it will be like Dragon Age Inquisition. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ-asPRTixI

That just looks like RTWP to me. It doesn't look good, I'll give you that.

 

[Infinitron]

Now on YouTube:

 

[AwesomeButton]

Also Sven more or less says in the interview that they will basically keep the leveling system but are "figuring out other ways to make the player feel progress".
Unless we know what he means it's a bit awkward to pass judgement

Ok, let's think on that. Did we ever hear Owlcat say they are figuring out other ways to make the player feel progress, or that they feel the respective PnP system doesn't let the player feel progress well enough, or often enough? No, because it hasn't been a priority for them. We didn't even hear it from Josh who was developing his own RPG system. Let alone from Beamdog. I think it's evident Larian are using their "blank check" without shying away from any changes.

 

[ScrotumBroth]

Nah, transcribe the essence Infinitron. Bird feed that shit for us.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I am already assuming it's 3rd person action game where you can zoom out to a significant distance if you want, and pretend it's an isometric game.

How would this work? Can't have action gameplay with that setup, unless it's some Diablo-like thing.

I imagine it will be like Dragon Age Inquisition. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ-asPRTixI

That just looks like RTWP to me. It doesn't look good, I'll give you that.

Maybe that's how it looks, but how it plays is, like an action game with a superficial "tactical view".

 

[Riddler]

I am already assuming it's 3rd person action game where you can zoom out to a significant distance if you want, and pretend it's an isometric game.

How would this work? Can't have action gameplay with that setup, unless it's some Diablo-like thing.

I imagine it will be like Dragon Age Inquisition. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ-asPRTixI

"Hidden functions" lol

 

[AwesomeButton]

Nah, transcribe the essence. Bird feed that shit for us.

Even the dumbest canary has the instinct to peck the bird food on its own, when you fill the feeder. :D

 

[Jimmious]

Also Sven more or less says in the interview that they will basically keep the leveling system but are "figuring out other ways to make the player feel progress".
Unless we know what he means it's a bit awkward to pass judgement

Ok, let's think on that. Did we ever hear Owlcat say they are figuring out other ways to make the player feel progress, or that they feel the respective PnP system doesn't let the player feel progress well enough, or often enough? No, because it hasn't been a priority for them. We didn't even hear it from Josh who was developing his own RPG system. Let alone from Beamdog. I think it's evident Larian are using their "blank check" without shying away from any changes.

No offence to the otherwise cool Owlcat, but I don't consider them to be in the same league.
Other than that Owlcat went for a pure "D&D" feel and I guess they got it right, although it's a bit russky-junky.
Larian obviously goes for a different vision, I'm not saying I'm happy with all the nitpicking of what Swen likes or not (I mean since when are Swen's tastes so accurate that we should change game systems because of them?), but I just want to see what he actually means before I judge

 

[Riddler]

So what could the reason really be for why they aren't telling us how the gameplay will work even in general terms?

Could it be that they actually don't know even 2+ years into development?

 

[ScrotumBroth]

Even the dumbest canary has the instinct to peck the bird food on its own, when you fill the feeder. :D

But only retarded ones confuse food for shit.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Probably want to drip-feed us information in order to maintain a steady stream of hype.

 

[Grunker]

Also Sven more or less says in the interview that they will basically keep the leveling system but are "figuring out other ways to make the player feel progress".
Unless we know what he means it's a bit awkward to pass judgement

Ok, let's think on that. Did we ever hear Owlcat say they are figuring out other ways to make the player feel progress, or that they feel the respective PnP system doesn't let the player feel progress well enough, or often enough? No, because it hasn't been a priority for them. We didn't even hear it from Josh who was developing his own RPG system. Let alone from Beamdog. I think it's evident Larian are using their "blank check" without shying away from any changes.

No offence to the otherwise cool Owlcat, but I don't consider them to be in the same league.
Other than that Owlcat went for a pure "D&D" feel and I guess they got it right, although it's a bit russky-junky.
Larian obviously goes for a different vision, I'm not saying I'm happy with all the nitpicking of what Swen likes or not (I mean since when are Swen's tastes so accurate that we should change game systems because of them?), but I just want to see what he actually means before I judge

It's not really that russky-junky anymore. I fully expected that so didn't play it until after it had been out for more than a year, even though isometric Pathfinder is basically my dream game. And at least when I played it, jank was down to a minimum. It's actually impressive how well stuff works considering the insane wealth of stuff implemented.

In my mind PF's biggest problem is that they implemented things with too few changes, meaning high level encounters are either a complete walkover or use "cheap mechanics" that can only be overcome with great patience or using exploits yourself.