And Dragon's Dogma is a game with 70% cut content btwYes, 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.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.
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 btwYes, 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.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.
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.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.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.
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.
Through a ladder in the slums.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.
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.Through a ladder in the slums.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.
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.Through a ladder in the slums.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.
And we are talking about a mansion
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.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.Through a ladder in the slums.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.
And we are talking about a mansion
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 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.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.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.Through a ladder in the slums.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.
And we are talking about a mansion
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?
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.Through a ladder in the slums.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.
And we are talking about a mansion
Agree. But you can always donate the astral tadpole to refugees at the Fists' donations collecting point.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.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.
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).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 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.
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.Larian's cool-fun-superpowers-tree
Not exactly true, Swen had said earlier there will be mechanical combat benefits from allocating points on some talent tree.There was also no power tree. Just powers you would gain access to while using the tadpole abilities in dialog.
My big problem was the quest scripts triggering.The problem of third act is it has too much content but also at the same time too little.
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?).Larian listened to the EA midwits that complained about the twist being too obvious
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.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
LmaoI did like making a Gnome in DD:DA and going in all the holes that oversized characters couldn't fit into
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.And Dragon's Dogma is a game with 70% cut content btw
Like the gnomish holes?LmaoI did like making a Gnome in DD:DA and going in all the holes that oversized characters couldn't fit into
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.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.