Baldur's Gate 3 - Early Access Interview with Swen Vincke

Any news about raising the level cap during EA?

FFS, Couch. What's the point in deleting and editing your posts after a conversation's been had? It just makes a mess of the thread.

Originally Posted by Ripper
FFS, Couch. What's the point in deleting and editing your posts after a conversation's been had? It just makes a mess of the thread.

Well, he did write he would be out of this thread

Originally Posted by Telstar
Any news about raising the level cap during EA?

I'm assuming they'll do that when they roll out the next area. No point in raising the cap without the content to reach it.

@Couchpotato, for what it's worth I'd really like to understand your point. I assume it's a misunderstanding. And as I haven't played the EA but you have, it is most likely on my side.

I want to experience an interesting and believable story and hopefully feel that my choices matter to some degree. If winning or losing dice rolls still makes for an interesting and believable story, then in my view it is all good. As long as I go into a game understanding that there are these story-important dice rolls, then I am good with that.

On the other hand, if losing a die roll means that the game is suddenly over and I'd have to save scum to avoid that, then that's not a particularly fun situation. If it's that way once or thrice in a game, then that's okay I'll save scum, but it's not ideal.

I haven't played the EA yet, but I think they could go the route people suggested - provide alternate solutions, make diplomacy/social situations work differently from combat/sneaking in terms of using your skill ranks to unlock options etc. Anyway, I have no plans to touch the EA so happy to wait while they iron out the kinks - just hope they don't end up ironing out D&D

It sounds like people's opinions boil down to the ancient discussion about determinism, stochasticity, and free will (at the moment stochasticity leads in our world, btw).

I played the EA and liked the randomness very much. None of the dice rolls were game-ending although many were game-changing. I had initially planned on playing evil but failed a dice roll with a central evil character and ended up fighting against the evil side instead. The only way out was to go with the good side and I loved the randomness, the resulting chaos, and the need to improvise. As I see it, it improves the replayability unless you do save-scum. It reminds me of life. You rarely know what you'll get. You can only do your best.

Making both options, deterministic and stochastic, available sounds like a reasonable solution for Larian. I hope they'll manage to balance both. The dice rolls were a lot of fun but their consequences could definitely be improved and sometimes I felt I sucked for no reason.

The 5e and D&D sponsorship/commercial brand probably made them feature this dice rolling so prominently in the game, most likely. At least they seem to be listening to the complaints. The attitude of "this is fun, and the way we decided to do it, in all our wisdom, so you better enjoy it!" just doesn't cut it, I'm afraid.

Originally Posted by largh
It sounds like people's opinions boil down to the ancient discussion about determinism, stochasticity, and free will (at the moment stochasticity leads in our world, btw).

Well, that's a much deeper conversation than what I'm getting at. What I'm talking about is the notion that I've seen many times yelled at game developers - that there's something "wrong" with the RNG; that unfair results are being generated. My point is that's highly unlikely - the psuedo-random numbers generated by the PC are likely to be more than sufficient to provide fair outcomes for the "die rolls" of an RPG. It seems to me the complaint is rather like shouting at the DM that there's something wrong with his dice, when you're having a bad night.

The idea that die rolls should be used less frequently to resolve situations outside of combat seems very reasonable to me. I think what Couch was getting at there is that it might be better to have static checks of attributes vs the required score to prevail in certain situations, and that also seems fine as a preference.

Originally Posted by Ripper
I think what Couch was getting at there is that it might be better to have static checks of attributes vs the required score to prevail in certain situations, and that also seems fine as a preference.

That would be called determinism, i.e. the outcome is determined before you go into the situation Anyway, the comment about determinism and stochasticity was partly sarcasm.

Originally Posted by Ripper
The idea that die rolls should be used less frequently to resolve situations outside of combat seems very reasonable to me. I think what Couch was getting at there is that it might be better to have static checks of attributes vs the required score to prevail in certain situations, and that also seems fine as a preference.

Ah dammit I was going to stay away from this thread but yes I agree.

That's my point. I've been spoiled by 100's of other RPGs that dice rolls and the Chaos theory don't work for me anymore. Yes it's a preference and not everyone will agree.

Look to games like Skyrim, Falout:NV, and NWN 2 for reference.