Baldurs Gate 3

[ClassicPeon]

You have a snowballs chance in hell that it releases this year. We are nearing the half-way point of the year and the visible progress of the last 6 months was practically non-existent. They are missing a bunch of classes and 2/3 of the content.

I accept that, however they have explicitly stated they wont release any more content in the early access. We dont actually know how far they are with classes/acts

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I know I know so much less about this than yall do and I'm just guessing....but I suspect they will launch the game hard and it will be easier by the time they are done with it years later, no? Probably respec included with that, if not in at launch?

Also, I know some decisions seem set in stone now, but once a full release happens, community feedback can really erode confidence, and developers should probably never say never imho. Only a Sith deals in absolutes.

I know in DoS2, I literally lived on that boat to respec, lol. We'll see, but I'm a huge respec proponent and I'm not even worried, lol.

Dos2 had respec In at launch, Dos1 didn’t have it at first but it was added later down the line. Both games had respec only after act 1 though I believe so it might not have been in the EA.

[Sorrior]

So I bought BG3 when it became available and played just a little bit before I realized I'd rather wait until there was going to be much more content to sink into rather than replay the same small amount over and over as more was added. Is it at a point now where there is a significant amount of the story implemented or is it still just a small portion that's available? I'm really jonesing for some D&D/RPG goodness and I've discovered that Divinity doesn't do it for me so I'd really like to dive into some BG3.

Have you looked into Solasta Crown of the Magister? It comes out fully tomorrow abd is likely a closer to ttrpg experience then bg3

Beyond that if 3.5 type games work there is kingmaker right now and wotr for pathfinder in september

- - - Updated - - -

Hey guys. Whats the feeling on a possible release date in here?

Its supposed to be released somtime in 2021 but i've seen more and more youtubers(i know) saying they doubt its coming this year.

Cant wait to try out some more of the classes and i'm hoping they will add more companions.

I always assumed 2022 to 2023

[Makabreska]

Fk sake I want this game nao! Need some classic RPG fix.

[ClassicPeon]

Fk sake I want this game nao! Need some classic RPG fix.

I'm good with tbc coming next week and then 9.1 coming soon but yeah. I'd much rather be playing bg3 tbh.

The only thing i dont like as much so far is that i think they are going to follow the act thing they have been using in DoS aswell.

So that once you finnish an act you are basicly done with an entire area and wont really be coming back again.

It makes the world feel a bit smaller to me

[Proskill]

when can we expect a BIG update? like a new class? preferably a dragonborn

[Makabreska]

when can we expect a BIG update? like a new class? preferably a dragonborn

No one knows. No new updates announced.

[quras]

No one knows. No new updates announced.

They don't seem to have an E3 showing either so it could be a while.

[Warning]

New interview with Swen, pretty happy to hear their direction and the focus on improving combat and melee in particular. 5E melee is pretty stale so I'm glad to hear they're willing to add things there. I think it would be great if they added a few abilities to more classes to help set them further apart and have a broader toolkit.

[quras]

I don't care for his repeated use of the phrase, "there are certain things in DnD that don't work in videogames." We know thats wrong because of past D&D turn based games.

So, I'm not a fan of that idea given it actually does work and as you level you get more power and abilities in D&D. You're not supposed to have this plethora of things to do at low levels. It's part of playing D&D and straying to much from that is a wrong move in my eyes.

Move to far from D&D and it might as well be DOS3.

[starstationprofm]

I don't care for his repeated use of the phrase, "there are certain things in DnD that don't work in videogames." We know thats wrong because of past D&D turn based games.

So, I'm not a fan of that idea given it actually does work and as you level you get more power and abilities in D&D. You're not supposed to have this plethora of things to do at low levels. It's part of playing D&D and straying to much from that is a wrong move in my eyes.

Move to far from D&D and it might as well be DOS3.

With stacking a few things you can start shooting Eldritch Blasts at 600 feet of range. Most characters only move 30 feet a turn. So no, there's definitely stuff that DOES NOT work on a video game from D&D.

[Makabreska]

Well shit, next year release is "not guaranteed".

[FelPlague]

With stacking a few things you can start shooting Eldritch Blasts at 600 feet of range. Most characters only move 30 feet a turn. So no, there's definitely stuff that DOES NOT work on a video game from D&D.

Especially since a lot of battles 600 would be the entire map, and for like 90% of the game you wouldd be well within the normal range. Or 600 would be blocked by line of sight, so it either ends up being super OP or a useless choice.

I mean hell even in normal D&d it's debatable, as it depends heavily on the dm and the area of the campaign. Won't get much use in a town or dungeon. But in a forest or field yeah sure.

And yeah a lot of spells lose a lot of their use, thaumaturgy a spell that has a lot of practical uses just becomes a charisma buff. It's rather lame....

Imagine silent image like how do you have that in the game be as useful as it can in normal dnd?

[Warning]

I don't care for his repeated use of the phrase, "there are certain things in DnD that don't work in videogames." We know thats wrong because of past D&D turn based games.

So, I'm not a fan of that idea given it actually does work and as you level you get more power and abilities in D&D. You're not supposed to have this plethora of things to do at low levels. It's part of playing D&D and straying to much from that is a wrong move in my eyes.

Move to far from D&D and it might as well be DOS3.

I think he's actually 100% correct. For example I really feel the super high RNG of the D20 is bad for modern video games and basically weren't really intended to be used there at all. Many decisions in current D&D exist to simplify things enough to the point where people can easily resolve outcomes in their homes during their own sessions. That is necessary and good in tabletop, but a computer can do a much better job tracking stats and simulating many more variables without wasting anyone's time. Its like using gameboy graphics on a 3090.

It's also correct in regard to fighters and what he's talking about in this video: having a class basically do nothing except use a single "Attack" action over and over is garbage tier gameplay for a modern triple A title. Of course they had to add things like shove, weapon attacks and whatever else they're planning to increase variety. It seems kind of insane to me that some D&D purists are actually giving Larian shit for this.

There's also a ton of other spells which are hard to do well in a videogame. Transport via plants? Animal Messenger? Arcane Lock? Modify Memory? Legend Lore? Awaken? All stuff that you'd maybe use in one niche or scripted situation in a videogame. And, as others have stated, ranges and other spell properties as well as effects on terrain and non worn objects need to be somewhat streamlined.

Rests are another one where the dynamics of videogames kind of interfere. In tabletop the DM can scale back incoming threats on the fly when they are too lethal. In computer games players want to be challenged but having the computer change encounters or dial down a threat when you're about to lose feels unfun or fake.
Players can also save their game and tend to do so after a won battle. If it turns out that you can't rest after your save and you're in an unwinnable position that means a player possibly bricked their savegame and possibly lost a ton of progress if they overwrote a previous one. That feels terrible, so the game needs to offer more opportunities for resting and recovering resources so you don't end up in a lost position after winning a battle. They actually did a great job adapting here because they still have some no resting areas in those places where you can expect a significant threat and going in unprepared will cost you.

But yeah, all of these are some of the things D&D purists complain about because they don't really understand game design well enough. They'll also bring up other, tiny D&D games and point at the mechanics of those games to try to convince a studio that is operating about 50 levels higher that the huge marketshare they unlocked with DOS2 and earned them the Baldurs Gate license in the first place should be ignored so they can be more "faithful to D&D". Like that somehow has more value than Larian doing whatever they feel makes the best game possible.

[Aresk]

I don't care for his repeated use of the phrase, "there are certain things in DnD that don't work in videogames." We know thats wrong because of past D&D turn based games.

So, I'm not a fan of that idea given it actually does work and as you level you get more power and abilities in D&D. You're not supposed to have this plethora of things to do at low levels. It's part of playing D&D and straying to much from that is a wrong move in my eyes.

Move to far from D&D and it might as well be DOS3.

Which past D&D turn-based games? And which versions of D&D were they based on?

I think 4th Ed would make an awesome video game as is. Similarly, 3.5 has enough feats and the like to give some great builds. 5th Ed D&D is...well...lacking in a lot of options. The fun in 5th Ed, for me, comes in inventive problem solving. That's not something one can do in a video game, where only solutions supported by the game engine are viable. If it's going to be reduced to a tactical video game, then I want to have the levels of options seen in that genre.

[exochaft]

I think he's actually 100% correct. For example I really feel the super high RNG of the D20 is bad for modern video games and basically weren't really intended to be used there at all. Many decisions in current D&D exist to simplify things enough to the point where people can easily resolve outcomes in their homes during their own sessions. That is necessary and good in tabletop, but a computer can do a much better job tracking stats and simulating many more variables without wasting anyone's time. Its like using gameboy graphics on a 3090.

I didn't quote everything, but I did read it all, and I think it all comes down to degrees of freedom in a game. Is it possible to crafting a game completely adherent to a D&D tabletop experience? You could get pretty close, but the amount of development to entertain that many degrees of freedom in gameplay is not feasible (for now anyways).

I will say the nice thing about having dice rolling still a part of the game is because it does evoke a sense of more control or feedback in your experience similar to actually rolling dice on a tabletop. While it's easier to just have all the numbers in the background done automatically, having the same outcomes visually shown with dice being rolled does add that little flair to the experience... even if the outcomes would be exactly the same. It's akin to an illusion of choice, where everything is out of your hands but you feel some level of control of your character, but the sensation is dramatically reduced if things just happen in the background that you never see. Been playing Solasta a bit, and I quite enjoy all the dice rolling that's in the game, as the experience is close enough to the tabletop experience... even the joys of rolling a natural 20 or the pain of rolling a natural 1 (or wasting a 20 on an easy skill/ability check ). Again, nothing actually changes in the game in terms of outcomes as it's all RNG in the end if you use a D20 (or any dice) or not, but the player experience is different if you add dice to the game.

In terms of difficulty scaling that a DM can do, that's something you can put into a game (can even make it an option to turn on or off) or implement it in another way. Typically, many D&D style games have difficulty settings that you can adjust on the fly, and sometimes that adjusts not only damage/HP values but how also tough/forgiving encounters actually are in terms of spell usage or AI. While video game players typically rely on saves to navigate difficulty settings, the ability to adjust the difficulty of the game manually or automatically are pretty much a staple exactly because you don't have a literal DM there guiding you along.

When it comes to specific spells and abilities... yeah, that's a hard one to implement beyond scripted events, but in reality everything is scripted in a computer game to some degree. It's technically not impossible to implement every spell available in 5e, the question is whether it's worth the time and effort to do so and to what degree you implement a spell. This goes back to the concept of degrees of freedom in a game, and how much you'd fundamentally have to change for one or a handful of similar spells to work. For example, implementing Shape Water in a game would be extremely hard in terms of replicating what you could do in a tabletop setting. A developer would have to reduce the degrees of freedom drastically in order to implement the spell, as not only would it be impossible to manifest every effect a person could think of for Shape Water, but also programming the AI to deal with all those outcomes is just as impossible. Maaaaybe in the future with some leaps in AI tech could you craft a game that allows all those degrees of freedom, but the best you could do right now is severely limit the options with Shape Water to what you can actually code in a feasible amount of time. Or just outright not add it to the game if things become too difficult.

Anyways, I think the spirit of the argument is to add as much as you can and try to give players as much freedom as possible while keeping the experience as authentic as possible. While everyone has their own parts of D&D that they'd consider mandatory or defining, they probably vary quite a bit. Personally, I think having dice rolls a part of a game (even if all the math happens in the background anyways) is one of those features I find rather defining for a D&D video game and keeps the experience authentic. I'm sure everyone has their favorite or 'lucky' dice they like to use for tabletop applications, and it just adds that little personal touch to the experience that's not really found in other medium.

[Warning]

I didn't quote everything, but I did read it all, and I think it all comes down to degrees of freedom in a game. Is it possible to crafting a game completely adherent to a D&D tabletop experience? You could get pretty close, but the amount of development to entertain that many degrees of freedom in gameplay is not feasible (for now anyways).

I will say the nice thing about having dice rolling still a part of the game is because it does evoke a sense of more control or feedback in your experience similar to actually rolling dice on a tabletop. *SNIP*

I think that's fair, I'm not a tabletop player and I understand why they kept the dice in the game. Its funny that you mention a sense of control in regards to dice, because that's kind of the opposite of what it evokes in my view. I feel like it takes some control away because outcomes aren't in your hands anymore when they are random. I really liked tactician mode in DoS2 and especially how the AI could sometimes surprise you with really smart plays. In a sense I was hoping that an even higher level tactics would be in BG3 but I'm a bit worried that that level of tight tuning isn't an option when a certain course of action could either lead to huge success or failure depending on pure randomness. I guess I do somewhat understand the point though from the perspective of "If you're going to have RNG in the game (which you always will) then at least let me make the roll".

In regards to the freedom possible in a game vs tabletop, I feel like they are definitely doing a lot and probably more than any other studio will in the near future in terms of creating a game where different approaches to a problem can work and where choices actually significantly alter outcomes. In that sense I feel like this is going to be the most true D&D adventure experience. I also believe that where the game currently falls short in providing an outcome that a player might expect from a particular clever little use of a spell, there is room for feedback and they'll probably be swayed if the argument is convincing enough and time allows.

Scaling difficulty on the fly by the AI I think would feel to me somewhat like cheating or robbing me of an experience. I would be somewhat disappointed if I found out that a particularly hard encounter I beat had been holding back or scaled down without my knowing. I think I want to engage every encounter without any such nerfs. On the fly adjustment done by the player could provide some relief though I do agree there.

About staying close to the original ruleset: I feel that the purist argument is actually not in line with what defines D&D or what is the spirit of 5e. It seems the creators of the ruleset really intended to create a foundation upon which DM's could build, adding and removing what they felt was necessary for the specific adventure they wished to craft. And that is also the way it is played, many campaigns that are played around the world that are of much smaller scale than Larians have a ton of their own ideas, so Larian in creating the gigantic adventure they are should not be constrained to the bare minimum of the RAW. Fun and wonder should always trump tightly following the rules.

[Makabreska]

Completely missed new panel:

[nRes]

In regards to the freedom possible in a game vs tabletop, I feel like they are definitely doing a lot and probably more than any other studio will in the near future in terms of creating a game where different approaches to a problem can work and where choices actually significantly alter outcomes. In that sense I feel like this is going to be the most true D&D adventure experience. I also believe that where the game currently falls short in providing an outcome that a player might expect from a particular clever little use of a spell, there is room for feedback and they'll probably be swayed if the argument is convincing enough and time allows.

I have to disagree. Disco Elysium is the game that innovated the genre to the point where I play BG3 and it feels straight up archaic. Why wouldn't I save scum my rolls in BG3? What's the upside of failing a roll? In Disco Elysium both successful and failed rolls lead to unique outcomes in terms of narrative and based on your stats and what rolls you won/lost you get a different experience, but all of the situations feel special. In BG3 every time you fail a roll you just miss out on content, usually the coolest content.

[Warning]

I have to disagree. Disco Elysium is the game that innovated the genre to the point where I play BG3 and it feels straight up archaic. Why wouldn't I save scum my rolls in BG3? What's the upside of failing a roll? In Disco Elysium both successful and failed rolls lead to unique outcomes in terms of narrative and based on your stats and what rolls you won/lost you get a different experience, but all of the situations feel special. In BG3 every time you fail a roll you just miss out on content, usually the coolest content.

I think there's some very interesting content behind failed rolls in BG3 as well. I don't really want to post spoilers though but one example of it relates to tieflings. I also think the scale of BG3 is a lot bigger.