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

[Shadenuat]

DA:O's biggest strength was the total lack of any big RPGs to play at the time of its coming.

 

[Dodo1610]

DAO's greatest strength was the origins system, which affects most conversations in some way and even leads to different endings giving you the illusion that the world reacts to your grey warden's race. DAO offers lots of C&C with multiple solutions even for minor quests. Aside from that, it was well made had likeable companions and managed to present it's bland save the world from Orcs Darkspawn rather well. The downsides are a weak character, system and a severe lack of interesting fights.

DAO was the attempt at trying to mix old school RPG depth with (at the time) modern RPG presentation. BG3 apparently wants to do the same but this time without throwing away DND like Bioware.

 

[Roguey]

DA:O's biggest strength was the total lack of any big RPGs to play at the time of its coming.

It beat Risen and Knights of the Chalice.

 

[Lawntoilet]

DAO was the attempt at trying to mix old school RPG depth with (at the time) modern RPG presentation. BG3 apparently wants to do the same but this time without throwing away DND like Bioware.

BG3 is only keeping the name and still throwing out swathes of the D&D mechanics, from what Swen has indicated so far.

 

[Cryomancer]

DAO was the attempt at trying to mix old school RPG depth with (at the time) modern RPG presentation. BG3 apparently wants to do the same but this time without throwing away DND like Bioware.

BG3 is only keeping the name and still throwing out swathes of the D&D mechanics, from what Swen has indicated so far.

Yes, is like Jay "fuck that loser" Wilson with Diablo. HE criticized everything about D2 despite saying that D2 was an amazing game and the result was an game with more WoW-like bullshit(cooldown, stat linked towards gear, everyone at level cap and level cap meaning nothing, etc), so considering his quotes, i an expecting a lot of D:OS bullshit.

 

[Yosharian]

DAO was the attempt at trying to mix old school RPG depth with (at the time) modern RPG presentation. BG3 apparently wants to do the same but this time without throwing away DND like Bioware.

BG3 is only keeping the name and still throwing out swathes of the D&D mechanics, from what Swen has indicated so far.

Yes, is like Jay "fuck that loser" Wilson with Diablo. HE criticized everything about D2 despite saying that D2 was an amazing game and the result was an game with more WoW-like bullshit(cooldown, stat linked towards gear, everyone at level cap and level cap meaning nothing, etc), so considering his quotes, i an expecting a lot of D:OS bullshit.

What's the source on Jay Wilson criticizing D2 like that? I'm curious

And what's the link between Jay Wilson and Swen?

 

[Lawntoilet]

DAO was the attempt at trying to mix old school RPG depth with (at the time) modern RPG presentation. BG3 apparently wants to do the same but this time without throwing away DND like Bioware.

BG3 is only keeping the name and still throwing out swathes of the D&D mechanics, from what Swen has indicated so far.

Yes, is like Jay "fuck that loser" Wilson with Diablo. HE criticized everything about D2 despite saying that D2 was an amazing game and the result was an game with more WoW-like bullshit(cooldown, stat linked towards gear, everyone at level cap and level cap meaning nothing, etc), so considering his quotes, i an expecting a lot of D:OS bullshit.

What's the source on Jay Wilson criticizing D2 like that? I'm curious

Dave Brevik (creator of D1 and D2) said D3 "wasn't the game I would've designed" and Jay Wilson said "fuck that loser"
https://www.cinemablend.com/games/D...ls-Diablo-2-Designer-Fans-F-ck-Off-45895.html

 

[Yosharian]

DAO was the attempt at trying to mix old school RPG depth with (at the time) modern RPG presentation. BG3 apparently wants to do the same but this time without throwing away DND like Bioware.

BG3 is only keeping the name and still throwing out swathes of the D&D mechanics, from what Swen has indicated so far.

Yes, is like Jay "fuck that loser" Wilson with Diablo. HE criticized everything about D2 despite saying that D2 was an amazing game and the result was an game with more WoW-like bullshit(cooldown, stat linked towards gear, everyone at level cap and level cap meaning nothing, etc), so considering his quotes, i an expecting a lot of D:OS bullshit.

What's the source on Jay Wilson criticizing D2 like that? I'm curious

Dave Brevik (creator of D1 and D2) said D3 "wasn't the game I would've designed" and Jay Wilson said "fuck that loser"
https://www.cinemablend.com/games/D...ls-Diablo-2-Designer-Fans-F-ck-Off-45895.html

That isn't Jay criticizing D2.

I am referring to the following sentence: "HE criticized everything about D2" I didn't know that Jay criticized D2 directly so I'm looking for a source on that.

 

[Cryomancer]

DAO was the attempt at trying to mix old school RPG depth with (at the time) modern RPG presentation. BG3 apparently wants to do the same but this time without throwing away DND like Bioware.

BG3 is only keeping the name and still throwing out swathes of the D&D mechanics, from what Swen has indicated so far.

Yes, is like Jay "fuck that loser" Wilson with Diablo. HE criticized everything about D2 despite saying that D2 was an amazing game and the result was an game with more WoW-like bullshit(cooldown, stat linked towards gear, everyone at level cap and level cap meaning nothing, etc), so considering his quotes, i an expecting a lot of D:OS bullshit.

What's the source on Jay Wilson criticizing D2 like that? I'm curious

And what's the link between Jay Wilson and Swen?

Is a very long video but here you can see why he did all decisions



Jumping few parts, i believe that he criticized :
Gearing at 11 min
Potions at 18m
An overall of chances at 27m
Skills at 30 min

I just skipped almost all the video. Din't re listened to everything.

But is no different than "baldur's gate is one of the best RPG's, except by missing, by leveling, by spell slots<<insert things on future interviews>>>"

PS > an interesting comment from

wuldntuliktono ptb 2 years ago "you can tell he never played d2 bc he thinks only sorcs can teleport and barbarians had to use leap..."

 

[Agame]

I am referring to the following sentence: "HE criticized everything about D2" I didn't know that Jay criticized D2 directly so I'm looking for a source on that.

Dude, just look at D3, its built on the premise that D2 was bad and the almighty Jay "Fuck that loser" Wilson would change everything to make it a superior game.

Kind of similar to Sawyers "I can make a better D&D", and look where that ended up.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

DAO combat was decent, and it had enough trappings of a proper RPG, at a time when every other RPG seemed to be made just along a completely different set of systems & philosophy. It was essentially like playing BG2/Arcanum and then not getting to play any RPGs for about 8 years - so "oh god, there's a party I can control", and "oh wow, elemental environmental interaction finally", "Oh wow thieves aren't useless in melee", was all pretty refreshing.

Now, well, it's a bit quaint to go back and see how dual-wielding thieves do about 8 million damage per second by spamming MMO-y abilities, for example.

There are a shit ton of problems with DA:O that go far beyond the fine-tuning of damage values.
For example the fact that every single enemy in the game can be fought basically with the same strategy. It doesn't matter it it's elementals, werewolves or undead, some combinations of spell and abilities will just work on everyone, even when they shouldn't (i.e. the fear effect working on undead is a textbook example).
Aside for that, the game had dreadfully boring encounter design with little to no variety, dull itemization (but there's been worse in this area, admittedly), parts that drag forever, level scaling and a long series of other minor issues.

It beat Risen and Knights of the Chalice.

I'd pick Risen over DA:O any day.
Then again I'd pick Risen 1 over plenty of other titles, all things considered.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

DAO combat was decent, and it had enough trappings of a proper RPG, at a time when every other RPG seemed to be made just along a completely different set of systems & philosophy. It was essentially like playing BG2/Arcanum and then not getting to play any RPGs for about 8 years - so "oh god, there's a party I can control", and "oh wow, elemental environmental interaction finally", "Oh wow thieves aren't useless in melee", was all pretty refreshing.

Now, well, it's a bit quaint to go back and see how dual-wielding thieves do about 8 million damage per second by spamming MMO-y abilities, for example.

There are a shit ton of problems with DA:O that go far beyond the fine-tuning of damage values.
For example the fact that every single enemy in the game can be fought basically with the same strategy. It doesn't matter it it's elementals, werewolves or undead, some combinations of spell and abilities will just work on everyone, even when they shouldn't (i.e. the fear effect working on undead is a textbook example).
Aside for that, the game had dreadfully boring encounter design with little to no variety, dull itemization (but there's been worse in this area, admittedly), parts that drag forever, level scaling and a long series of other minor issues.

It beat Risen and Knights of the Chalice.

I'd pick Risen over DA:O any day.
Then again I'd pick Risen 1 over plenty of other titles, all things considered.

Yes, Risen is better, but it's a budget ARPG. Knights of the Chalice is better, too, but it's a retro throwback to Dark Sun more than anything else. DA:O was a big budget AAA RPG that looked great and played enough like Baldur's Gate that it scratched the same itch, albeit not as well. God knows it had much better combat than KOTOR or Jade Empire, which are probably the best comparisons.

DA:O's execution is often deeply flawed, but at the time I was grateful that even bothered to try.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Yes, Risen is better, but it's a budget ARPG. Knights of the Chalice is better, too, but it's a retro throwback to Dark Sun more than anything else. DA:O was a big budget AAA RPG that looked great and played enough like Baldur's Gate that it scratched the same itch, albeit not as well. God knows it had much better combat than KOTOR or Jade Empire, which are probably the best comparisons.

DA:O's execution is often deeply flawed, but at the time I was grateful that even bothered to try.

I don't disagree.
That's why I didn't hate DA:O and I always hoped it would be just the stepping stone to build better games over with the sequels (nevermind we know how that turned out, in hindsight).

But it's an entirely different thing to claim it was a fully accomplished classic and it borders into DELUSION to suggest it's some golden standard that Baldur's Gate 3 should strive to match.
Especially since Larian already did better than that with the two Original Sin games.

 

[Rpguy]

BG1, BG2 and many other games mess up the basic rules like spell slots, experience and to hit chance. They throw XP at you for completing quests to turbo level your party, they make the 1st level easier by things like a tutorial with super weak monsters or prevent you from dieing in 1 hit. Knights of the chalice changed the way spell slots work for cleric and wizard ( to be like sorcerer) etc. So what Swen talks about is not going to be unique to BG3 it is the standard and it does not mean the game can't be like DOS or BG1/2

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

and it borders into DELUSION to suggest it's some golden standard that Baldur's Gate 3 should strive to match.
Especially since Larian already did better than that with the two Original Sin games.

You misunderstand why people are saying this. It's not because DA:O is some classic that's worth aspiring to. It's because Larian is spending so much money on this thing that it's obviously going to be heavily casualized, or how else will they turn a profit? DA:O is the best example of a big budget CRPG that still plays like an RPG, not an action game. That's all. More likely it will be a Larian action RPG.

That said, the people saying this generally did not enjoy either Original Sin, either because Larian's writing is awful or because the combat was gimmicky and repetitive, and the loot made me want to shoot myself. I have no problem saying Origins, for all its flaws, is better than anything Larian's ever made, but then I've never liked Larian since I played Beyond Divinity back in the day.

Edit:

BG1, BG2 and many other games mess up the basic rules like spell slots, experience and to hit chance. They throw XP at you for completing quests to turbo level your party, they make the 1st level easier by things like a tutorial with super weak monsters or prevent you from dieing in 1 hit. Knights of the chalice changed the way spell slots work for cleric and wizard ( to be like sorcerer) etc. So what Swen talks about is not going to be unique to BG3 it is the standard and it does not mean the game can't be like DOS or BG1/2

Even forgetting everything Swen has said, the game's budget is what means it can't be like D:OS or either Baldur's Gate. They have a team of 300 people! They've been working on it for more than two years. That costs. The only assumption we're making when we say BG3 won't play like a traditional CRPG is the assumption that Larian is a profit-seeking entity and thus wants to make money. Maybe Swen wants to make another turn based game or a RTwP game, but you know what he wants even more? Not to go bankrupt. Given how much Larian's spent so far on this project (which he's self publishing!), those two goals are mutually exclusive.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

underrail expeditions, kangmaker roguelike mode, solasta, colony ship, etc. lot of fun stuff in the pipelines.

fuck sellout swen and his spell slots/missing rolls are bad mindset.

remember true incline is coming from small studios not sjw infested bloathouses like Larian...

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

You misunderstand why people are saying this. It's not because DA:O is some classic that's worth aspiring to. It's because Larian is spending so much money on this thing that it's obviously going to be heavily casualized, or how else will they turn a profit? DA:O is the best example of a big budget CRPG that still plays like an RPG, not an action game. That's all. More likely it will be a Larian action RPG.

Well, i guess we'll live and see.
My guess, currently, is that you people are making A LOT of incredibly dumb assumptions, bordering into hysterical paranoia.
It's honestly comical how most of you are automatically turning "Swen isn't confirming anything" into "Swen is basically confirming [worst case scenario for every single feature]".

That said, the people saying this generally did not enjoy either Original Sin, either because Larian's writing is awful or because the combat was gimmicky and repetitive, and the loot made me want to shoot myself. I have no problem saying Origins, for all its flaws, is better than anything Larian's ever made, but then I've never liked Larian since I played Beyond Divinity back in the day.

I can only agree on the dreadful itemization (and I have several complaints on the progression system as well), but beside that we fundamentally disagree.
For all its flaws, DA:O is garbage compared to both D:OS 1 and 2 (with all their flaws. too). It plays worse, it has worse encounter design, worse combat mechanics, worse enemy variety, worse environmental interaction, parts that drag WAY more than they should, etc. Not to mention half of the world map is fucking brown muddy ground.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Well, i guess we'll live and see.
My guess, currently, is that you people are making A LOT of incredibly dumb assumptions, bordering into hysterical paranoia.
It's honestly comical how most of you are automatically turning "Swen isn't confirming anything" into "Swen is basically confirming [worst case scenario for every single feature]".

It’s not about his statements at all, not really. It’s 100% about the money. They’ve had 200 people working on this for the first two years in some of the most expensive cities in the world, now they have 300 people. Show me a TB or RTwP RPG that had a team that big and I’ll change my mind.

 

[Rpguy]

They have a team of 300 people!

And how many people worked on BG2? check the credits.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

They have a team of 300 people!

And how many people worked on BG2? check the credits.

As full time developers? Probably less than a third of that number.

Still, the assumption that since "they are 300 people!" this should suggest without any hesitation what sort of game it will be sounds dumb to me, especially in the recent years where more and more devs should have learned at their own expenses how many of their assumptions about what make a game/genre popular were wrong.

 

[Rpguy]

SV: We're in production. This is the biggest RPG we've ever made, so our team is now over 200 people internally and together with all the externals, we're heading over 300 people. It's a very big production. It's the biggest that we've ever done.

That is not 300 developers, 300 is including voice actors, game testers etc.

 

[DalekFlay]

Still, the assumption that since "they are 300 people!" this should suggest without any hesitation what sort of game it will be sounds dumb to me, especially in the recent years where more and more devs should have learned at their own expenses how many of their assumptions about what make a game/genre popular were wrong.

No one's saying we know what kind of game it will be because of the team size. We're saying we know what kind of game it WON'T be, i.e. Pillars of Eternity.

 

[glass blackbird]

It'll be a turn-based rpg based on Original Sin but with D&D theming. Close the fucking thread

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

Has any game ever had characters level as slowly as in real tabletop? I'm not that experienced with tabletop, but my understanding was that it's much slower.

And the comment about spell slots I think might be a miscommunication. He's had them in every game he was involved with.

Either way, this is still nothing until we see what's actually there. Sven always does a lot of talking and he's not a designer

its not a miscommunication IMO, he is simply communicating with a difference audience in mind and a different purpose perhaps.... and that is where all this guessing and drama comes in. There is one way to end this.... all this guessing about what he means is a self created problem (if they even see it as a problem)- its what people do when they are given a lack of information or fed obvious bullshit.

Its also the opposite of how Larian has operated in the past, which has been mostly direct and straight forward, so its no wonder this new way of behaving is causing people to become suspicious, especially since this is a very consistent pattern in CRPG game design. In fact to not have this grasp for AAA status occur might be more surprising than having it happen. Its almost the expected business evolutionary pathway it seems.... so those calling other people conspiracy theorists for noticing the obvious signs right before our face are simply being obtuse mushed brain chumps.

OTOH, probably its mostly just cucks, liberals and millennials doing this for the most part... they have been trained their entire lives to be authoritarian heel lickers so they can't really themselves I suppose... have to cut them some slack and realize how greatly disadvantaged and unfortunate they are.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

SV: We're in production. This is the biggest RPG we've ever made, so our team is now over 200 people internally and together with all the externals, we're heading over 300 people. It's a very big production. It's the biggest that we've ever done.

That is not 300 developers, 300 is including voice actors, game testers etc.

Pretty sure even 200 is a far larger team than any TES or Bethesda Fallout game. Dragon Age: Origins had a total team of 180.

And it’s not like Larian has never made an ARPG before.

If Swen really is spending like $40 million on a turn based CRPG, he has the biggest balls in the history of video games.