Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 RELEASE THREAD

[turkishronin]

BG3's character generator is atrocious. The only reason it's getting praise is because of the They/Them pronoun shit.

There are no sliders of any kind. You have about 8 premade faces that each embody stereotypical facial types (African, European, Asian etc.) You cannot adjust the physical characteristics in any way.

You can alter skintone across a whole rainbow of colors, same for hair and eyes. You can even give your PC fucking Vitigilo, but God forbid there be a face or two that isn't perfectly sculpted to look as milqtoast adventurer as possible. There are no disabilities of any kind, no assymetrical quarks, nothing.

It is a very barebones character creator.

Yes, Dragon's Dogma is a console game released in 2012 on a system released in 2006, but it had an innovative character appearance customization system that allowed the player to choose the basic shape of important facial elements from a lengthy list of options (in similar fashion to selecting a hairstyle in many games, including BG3), supplemented by sliders to change size, positioning, etc. And it even had a more limited customization of the body, allowing the player to select from a smaller number of options for arms, torso, and legs, plus a height slider, a musculature slider, a weight slider, and (for women) a bust slider.

There have been excuses made for BG3's simplistic character creator, in that it was necessary to aid the player-character's facial expressions, but the expressions made by the player-character in Dragon's Dogma weren't all that much worse than the expressions made by the player-character in BG3, despite Larian limiting the player to a handful of heads (once sex and species have been chosen). Moreover, despite having just four "body types" with no customization aside from the race selected, the actual body meshes seen in practice are dependent on the specific armor/clothing meshes, which can be wildly inconsistent with each other, whereas Dragon's Dogma actually had a morphing system for adjusting the individual pieces of armor and clothing to the customized model of the character wearing them.

And Dragon's Dogma is a game with 70% cut content btw

 

[Zeriel]

BG3's character generator is atrocious. The only reason it's getting praise is because of the They/Them pronoun shit.

There are no sliders of any kind. You have about 8 premade faces that each embody stereotypical facial types (African, European, Asian etc.) You cannot adjust the physical characteristics in any way.

You can alter skintone across a whole rainbow of colors, same for hair and eyes. You can even give your PC fucking Vitigilo, but God forbid there be a face or two that isn't perfectly sculpted to look as milqtoast adventurer as possible. There are no disabilities of any kind, no assymetrical quarks, nothing.

It is a very barebones character creator.

Yes, Dragon's Dogma is a console game released in 2012 on a system released in 2006, but it had an innovative character appearance customization system that allowed the player to choose the basic shape of important facial elements from a lengthy list of options (in similar fashion to selecting a hairstyle in many games, including BG3), supplemented by sliders to change size, positioning, etc. And it even had a more limited customization of the body, allowing the player to select from a smaller number of options for arms, torso, and legs, plus a height slider, a musculature slider, a weight slider, and (for women) a bust slider.

There have been excuses made for BG3's simplistic character creator, in that it was necessary to aid the player-character's facial expressions, but the expressions made by the player-character in Dragon's Dogma weren't all that much worse than the expressions made by the player-character in BG3, despite Larian limiting the player to a handful of heads (once sex and species have been chosen). Moreover, despite having just four "body types" with no customization aside from the race selected, the actual body meshes seen in practice are dependent on the specific armor/clothing meshes, which can be wildly inconsistent with each other, whereas Dragon's Dogma actually had a morphing system for adjusting the individual pieces of armor and clothing to the customized model of the character wearing them.

And Dragon's Dogma is a game with 70% cut content btw

Yeah, it shows that not all cut content is equivelant. Some games that cut a lot are still amazing. I think when "cut content" becomes a meme is when there is something obviously, viscerally missing from the product and people are disappointed. Otherwise it just becomes a curiosity. The cut content in Dragon's Dogma certainly intrigues, like the cut content in BG2 (Twisted Rune), but it never makes you go, "Damn, I wish they hadn't cut out the ending."

It is also, clearly, a bit of a cope. This fantasy that if the content that the player feels is necessary for a satisfying experience was cut, it can automagically be added back in with a patch and a little time.

 

[MerchantKing]

BG3's character generator is atrocious. The only reason it's getting praise is because of the They/Them pronoun shit.

There are no sliders of any kind. You have about 8 premade faces that each embody stereotypical facial types (African, European, Asian etc.) You cannot adjust the physical characteristics in any way.

You can alter skintone across a whole rainbow of colors, same for hair and eyes. You can even give your PC fucking Vitigilo, but God forbid there be a face or two that isn't perfectly sculpted to look as milqtoast adventurer as possible. There are no disabilities of any kind, no assymetrical quarks, nothing.

It is a very barebones character creator.

Yes, Dragon's Dogma is a console game released in 2012 on a system released in 2006, but it had an innovative character appearance customization system that allowed the player to choose the basic shape of important facial elements from a lengthy list of options (in similar fashion to selecting a hairstyle in many games, including BG3), supplemented by sliders to change size, positioning, etc. And it even had a more limited customization of the body, allowing the player to select from a smaller number of options for arms, torso, and legs, plus a height slider, a musculature slider, a weight slider, and (for women) a bust slider.

There have been excuses made for BG3's simplistic character creator, in that it was necessary to aid the player-character's facial expressions, but the expressions made by the player-character in Dragon's Dogma weren't all that much worse than the expressions made by the player-character in BG3, despite Larian limiting the player to a handful of heads (once sex and species have been chosen). Moreover, despite having just four "body types" with no customization aside from the race selected, the actual body meshes seen in practice are dependent on the specific armor/clothing meshes, which can be wildly inconsistent with each other, whereas Dragon's Dogma actually had a morphing system for adjusting the individual pieces of armor and clothing to the customized model of the character wearing them.

I did like making a Gnome in DD:DA and going in all the holes that oversized characters couldn't fit into and then filling out my pawn roster with a party of hot babes made by fellow players who too appreciate Harem building and put effort into make good pawns. Too bad the personality system was broken in some ways that caused pawns to stand around doing nothing if they had the wrong personality tags.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

We've gone from criticizing overly aesthetic character creators with meaningless options (like in Bioware games) to wishing bg3 had more meaningless aesthetic options. That bit is cope, I'm sorry. Dragon's Dogma was pretty much the only game where physical dimensions of your character actually had an impact in gameplay. Having more haircuts changes nothing.

 

[Takamori]

The vampire manison just screams cut content.

You only get two fight(3 if you count the skeleton dude) in there and before you enter the underground part, you have to get to the upstairs to get the key. And there is nothing there, no plot, no enemy, no loot nothing. It will be exactly the same if you can just go underground straight away.

Not to mention you can only get into the manison in one path, there is no other way in.

Through a ladder in the slums.

And we are talking about a mansion

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

The vampire manison just screams cut content.

You only get two fight(3 if you count the skeleton dude) in there and before you enter the underground part, you have to get to the upstairs to get the key. And there is nothing there, no plot, no enemy, no loot nothing. It will be exactly the same if you can just go underground straight away.

Not to mention you can only get into the manison in one path, there is no other way in.

Through a ladder in the slums.

And we are talking about a mansion

Eh, it belongs to a vampire, and the slums are full of people whose disappearance won't raise many eyebrows or questions. Being able to access Cazador's inner sanctum via the sewers seems to be weirder to me.

 

[Takamori]

The vampire manison just screams cut content.

You only get two fight(3 if you count the skeleton dude) in there and before you enter the underground part, you have to get to the upstairs to get the key. And there is nothing there, no plot, no enemy, no loot nothing. It will be exactly the same if you can just go underground straight away.

Not to mention you can only get into the manison in one path, there is no other way in.

Through a ladder in the slums.

And we are talking about a mansion

Eh, it belongs to a vampire, and the slums are full of people whose disappearance won't raise many eyebrows or questions. Being able to access Cazador's inner sanctum via the sewers seems to be weirder to me.

I don't question his targets, yes you are going for people that no one will notice but you don't need to put a ladder straight into your house from the slum. God damn it you are a powerful rich vampire. What next its plausible that he go do grocery by himself using ecobags at night?

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

The vampire manison just screams cut content.

You only get two fight(3 if you count the skeleton dude) in there and before you enter the underground part, you have to get to the upstairs to get the key. And there is nothing there, no plot, no enemy, no loot nothing. It will be exactly the same if you can just go underground straight away.

Not to mention you can only get into the manison in one path, there is no other way in.

Through a ladder in the slums.

And we are talking about a mansion

Eh, it belongs to a vampire, and the slums are full of people whose disappearance won't raise many eyebrows or questions. Being able to access Cazador's inner sanctum via the sewers seems to be weirder to me.

I don't question his targets, yes you are going for people that no one will notice but you don't need to put a ladder straight into your house from the slum. God damn it you are a powerful rich vampire. What next its plausible that he go do grocery by himself using ecobags at night?

Dracula used to drive people to his castle himself, via carriage, so it's not that out of the ordinary. Vampires have lots of weird tidbits like that, but people don't put too much attention of them because they make them very non scary.

 

[Takamori]

The vampire manison just screams cut content.

You only get two fight(3 if you count the skeleton dude) in there and before you enter the underground part, you have to get to the upstairs to get the key. And there is nothing there, no plot, no enemy, no loot nothing. It will be exactly the same if you can just go underground straight away.

Not to mention you can only get into the manison in one path, there is no other way in.

Through a ladder in the slums.

And we are talking about a mansion

Eh, it belongs to a vampire, and the slums are full of people whose disappearance won't raise many eyebrows or questions. Being able to access Cazador's inner sanctum via the sewers seems to be weirder to me.

I don't question his targets, yes you are going for people that no one will notice but you don't need to put a ladder straight into your house from the slum. God damn it you are a powerful rich vampire. What next its plausible that he go do grocery by himself using ecobags at night?

Dracula used to drive people to his castle himself, via carriage, so it's not that out of the ordinary. Vampires have lots of weird tidbits like that, but people don't put too much attention of them because they make them very non scary.

Dracula had the excuse he was living in bumfuck nowhere place so it would be hard to expect people finding an excuse without his invitation. Now Cazador live in Baldurs Gate that has people everywhere and lot of poor people that no one will miss.
He could use his spawns to collect food for him and do an ops to avoid any suspicion with local criminals and corrupt law enforcement.
It just feels really wrong his mansion entrance and location, besides of course the raw presentation of the exploration.

 

[gurugeorge]

See, after warming to the game again after the Moonrise Towers/Illithid colony sequence, I'm now pissed off again.

The events at (or rather not at) Wyrm's Crossing where the Emperor gives you the astral tadpole just seems very tacked-on, and one realizes that the whole thing with the "Guardian" was just a rigmarole tied to Larian's cool-fun-superpowers-tree.

The game is starting to feel like a Benny Hill farce complete with naked trannies running around and Yakety-Sax tootling away in the background. Or more accurately, it's starting to resemble the third movie in a capeshit series when they're piling in so many supervillains and superheroes that your suspension of disbelief/immersion starts to break. It seems they were so terrified of not making something "epic enough" that in a fit of nervousness, they stuffed the game with the kitchen sink, uncle Tom Cobbley and all, just hoping something will stick, or hoping players will be blinded by science enough to not think it's all getting a bit ridiculous.

The senses of scale are all wonky - you've got this ultimate, monstrous threat being controlled by three, count 'em, three Gods and their "Chosen" and for what? To "take control of the Sword Coast?" What even is that? With that amount of power you could basically take over the Universe. The Moonrise Towers boss - that I can understand, there's a good story background to it, there's human drama there and all the rest of it. That boss alone could have been the boss for the whole game and I would have been perfectly happy. But now we've got almost-a-cosmic-level threat (who, btw - wtf was that thing doing before the Chosen took control of him and why wasn't it already taking over the Universe?) controlled by three cosmic-level threats who are controlling three villains. Plus we have this other dude, and yet another dude (also in chains and "harnessed" to do some other shit, like the previous duddette).

Somebody should have reminded Larian of Ockham's razor - multiplication of explanatory entities is not a good thing.

Also, the subtext of "taste the rainbow, bigot" in the above-mentioned sequence (no doubt coming from some of the dangerhair "writers") is obnoxious in the extreme. There's nothing more pathetic than someone trying to convince you of what they themselves are unsure about.

This game would have been truly great if they'd just stuck to what they're good at: making neat little scenarios with cool encounters, good exploration and gameplay. Instead, we do get some of that, but packaged with it comes an over-egged story pudding plus this whole carbuncle of an "epic cinematic experience" and a bunch of gratuitous woke box-ticking.

 

[jf8350143]

The vampire manison just screams cut content.

You only get two fight(3 if you count the skeleton dude) in there and before you enter the underground part, you have to get to the upstairs to get the key. And there is nothing there, no plot, no enemy, no loot nothing. It will be exactly the same if you can just go underground straight away.

Not to mention you can only get into the manison in one path, there is no other way in.

Through a ladder in the slums.

And we are talking about a mansion

Eh, it belongs to a vampire, and the slums are full of people whose disappearance won't raise many eyebrows or questions. Being able to access Cazador's inner sanctum via the sewers seems to be weirder to me.

The problem is not you can get to the mansion through a ladder in the slums, the problem is that this is the only way you can get there. The only other way in is from the sewers and that requires you to get into the mansion first to unlock the door.

You can't go through the main gate or any other ways, chances are these are cut out along with everything else in the upper city.

Except they don't have the guts to admit it and spew bullshit like "we never want upper city to be anything but the place for the final battle"

 

[jf8350143]

The problem of third act is it has too much content but also at the same time too little.

It has too many characters and quests carried on from the previous chapters(mostly from chapter 1) and none of them have a satisfied conclusion.

In first chapter evey other NPC you meets are going to Baulder's Gate and ask you to meet them there. And when you meet them chances are you talk to them a little and that's it.

They should cut half of them out and have a more focused experience.

 

[AwesomeButton]

The events at (or rather not at) Wyrm's Crossing where the Emperor gives you the astral tadpole just seems very tacked-on, and one realizes that the whole thing with the "Guardian" was just a rigmarole tied to Larian's cool-fun-superpowers-tree.

Agree. But you can always donate the astral tadpole to refugees at the Fists' donations collecting point.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

The events at (or rather not at) Wyrm's Crossing where the Emperor gives you the astral tadpole just seems very tacked-on, and one realizes that the whole thing with the "Guardian" was just a rigmarole tied to Larian's cool-fun-superpowers-tree.

Originally, the guardian was a dream companion who would try to seduce the player. And it was actually the mind flayer parasite, trying to lull the player into surrender. So, it was always going to be rigmarole. But originally, it would have at least not been laughable rigmarole.

There was also no power tree. Just powers you would gain access to while using the tadpole abilities in dialog.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

The events at (or rather not at) Wyrm's Crossing where the Emperor gives you the astral tadpole just seems very tacked-on, and one realizes that the whole thing with the "Guardian" was just a rigmarole tied to Larian's cool-fun-superpowers-tree.

Originally, the guardian was a dream companion who would try to seduce the player. And it was actually the mind flayer parasite, trying to lull the player into surrender. So, it was always going to be rigmarole. But originally, it would have at least not been laughable rigmarole.

Hence also the "down by the river" song which doesn't carry the same narrative subtext now with Daisy (a.i. the tadpole iteration of the guardian) being cut. Alas, Larian listened to the EA midwits that complained about the twist being too obvious and awkwardly relegated Daisy's content to the Emperor, as if every twist has to be some out of nowhere big reveal even at the cost of narrative cohesion. Same shit as with people complaining about the companions being too mean in earlier EA iterations which in turn led to their backstories being sanitized (particularly Wyll's, completely changing his personality and turning him from a coward into a valiant hero archetype played straight who somehow was still dumb enough to enter a Faustian bargain with Mizora).

 

[jf8350143]

Raphael's story line must have gone through some serious change as well.

In act 1 he offers you a cure, but in act 3 he just gives you a hammer, which itself is completely useless. Unless you are playing as a gith, otherwise there is literally no reason for you to take the deal.

If that's the best effort from a high level devil hell would be wiped out by the demons years ago.

 

[apostrophe]

I'm bored with these basic bitch practically low-fantasy stories of saving the world or killing dragons. Make something truly epic and unbelievable, like how two stooges infiltrated Cania and stole a powerful artifact from Mephistopheles, or how geriatric Mind Flayer strolled in Castle Susurrus and stole an ancient githyanki relic, but then decided to live his best, shirtless, life inside of it.

 

[Xelocix]

 

[whydoibother]

Larian's cool-fun-superpowers-tree

Swen straight up said he thinks people don't get enough new things to play with on levelup, and levelups aren't frequent enough in late game, and you might get bored of your character at some point due to not getting new tools. That's what the illithid talent tree is there for, from a game design stance.
Narratively, it doesn't make much sense, especially since its not directly tied to irreversible progression towards ceremorphosis, and I can't say I like it either, but to be surprised by it is weird. Everyone knew what this is for.

There was also no power tree. Just powers you would gain access to while using the tadpole abilities in dialog.

Not exactly true, Swen had said earlier there will be mechanical combat benefits from allocating points on some talent tree.

The problem of third act is it has too much content but also at the same time too little.

My big problem was the quest scripts triggering.
Walk into a bank, "oh, you are finally here" and 3 quest updates. Apparently I negotiated to help the robbers? Whom I never met? In some smuggler guild spat I never knew of?
I get that you want to onboard people into quests even if they miss the initial step, but there might be too many false positives here. Too much of me entering a building to do quest X, and then suddenly being onboarded in the middle of quest Y, with multiple journal logs of events that should've happened before, but I didn't do.

 

[whydoibother]

Larian listened to the EA midwits that complained about the twist being too obvious

I think the more powerful complaints was people being mad about the real thread of ceremorphosis if you do 6 long rests before finding a cure, or however many it was. Hidden timer, punishing bad players who rest too much, bricking your safe game (imagine resting 5 times, then realizing you only have 1 more rest, but need to do several difficult fights. Restart?).
So the character who was seducing and easing your mind into succumbing to the parasite was changed to a guardian who protects your mind from transformation.

particularly Wyll's, completely changing his personality and turning him from a coward into a valiant hero archetype played straight who somehow was still dumb enough to enter a Faustian bargain with Mizora

Having seen some of his romance stuff now, the guy absolutely should've been a Warlock-Bard hybrid, with his dancing, singing, folk hero, stories of valor... except the stories aren't all true, and the valor isn't all earned, dark bargain, etc. Of course the available companion respec, which probably wasn't planned from the beginning, and the slowing down of levels, means by the time you meet him he simply doesn't have enough levels to be a 1 bard 3 warlock, for example, with a Pact of the Blade. Which is how he is presented thematically.
He most of all characters would've benefited from some unique build/feats that you can't get on a normal character, such as having the Blade pact earlier on, but having no Eldrich blast. Like he just traded his soul for the ability to swordfight very well, so he can be the hero he sings of. That could've been a cool character, and you could've had the development be either about embracing and going all power, all warlock; or breaking the contract and becoming all bard, clean of demonic possession.
Companion respecs rob us of such possibilities, but again, its probably so bad players don't brick their saves by making a stupid build and feeling they need to restart a 100 hour game.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I did like making a Gnome in DD:DA and going in all the holes that oversized characters couldn't fit into

Lmao

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

And Dragon's Dogma is a game with 70% cut content btw

Dragon's Dogma was initially much more ambitious in its scope, but the team realized fairly quickly that budget and time constraints necessitated reorganizing and reducing their original plans. This shouldn't be confused with games where a large amount of content was completed, or nearly so, but then subsequently cut in order to meet a release date. The latter is obviously the case for BG3, in addition to various conceptual changes at a fairly late date that result in muddled, incoherent narratives, such as the dream guardian being reassigned from the tadpole to the Emperor, who then turns out to have also been the legendary Balduran with a bizarre story trying to explain the historical gap.

 

[NecroLord]

I did like making a Gnome in DD:DA and going in all the holes that oversized characters couldn't fit into

Lmao

Like the gnomish holes?

 

[AwesomeButton]

Originally, the guardian was a dream companion who would try to seduce the player. And it was actually the mind flayer parasite, trying to lull the player into surrender. So, it was always going to be rigmarole. But originally, it would have at least not been laughable rigmarole.

The Emperor idea is much better than the simple "guardian is the tadpole" rug pull, you just need to think about it from the perspective of a subsequent playthrough.

The whole story of the game suffers a lot from not lending itself to subsequent playthroughs, there are too many zoomer "wow" moments that, once spoiled, will only serve to annoy players. Not to mention the slog that is Act 2, even in the first playthrough imo. By comparison BG2 had a better story from that perspective.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Swen straight up said he thinks people don't get enough new things to play with on levelup, and levelups aren't frequent enough in late game, and you might get bored of your character at some point due to not getting new tools. That's what the illithid talent tree is there for, from a game design stance.
Narratively, it doesn't make much sense, especially since its not directly tied to irreversible progression towards ceremorphosis, and I can't say I like it either, but to be surprised by it is weird. Everyone knew what this is for.

Swen is an ass, because I'm an unstoppable juggernaut of death righteous justice without ever using a tadpole from a jar. His "extra tools" are not needed unless the player has an IRL brain disability.