Baldur's Gate 3 - Pre-Patch Announcement

HiddenX · November 25, 2020

Larian is about to push an update that changes the story, and makes previous saves incompatible.
This link (unlike Steam's), shows the correct procedure for all platforms, for those who want to ignore the patch and continue playing with their saved games -> link.

Thanks for the info, Redglyph!

More information.

JDR13 · November 25, 2020

I wonder how big the changes are to the story. I'm still playing the EA a little in my spare time, but I won't be starting any new games or playing any content past the first map.

Redglyph · November 25, 2020

It would be interesting if they could bring a few of their "good" companions, to try other combinations.

I suppose that either way, it'll be a big download again..

JDR13 · November 25, 2020

Redglyph said:
It would be interesting if they could bring a few of their "good" companions, to try other combinations.

You mean good as in their alignment? Out of the companions they've shown so far (assuming that isn't all of them) only 1 seems to be of evil alignment afaict. Most of them don't seem to indicate an alignment at all.

Redglyph · November 25, 2020

JDR13 said:
You mean good as in their alignment? Out of the companions they've shown so far (assuming that isn't all of them) only 1 seems to be of evil alignment afaict. Most of them don't seem to indicate an alignment at all.

They mentioned recently that the current companions were mostly neutral or evil-ish, after complaints from fans that those companions weren't very friendly. Larian said they also had other companions in reserve who were more on the good side.

Not that I want to stick with good alignment, any other new companion would be interesting to discover.

wolfgrimdark · November 25, 2020

None of them have alignment but I know in getting to know them only Gale and the warlock guy seemed really on the side of good.

Shadowheart can be nice at times but considering the evil goddess she worships I don't really consider her good.

Based on likes/dislikes the rest tend to respond to negative actions with likes a lot. Cruelty, selfishness, things like that.

Still they were never that one dimensional to me. I found things to like and dislike in all of them. Shadowheart has a soft spot for animals which I really like. The vampire guy can be rather vulnerable at times and went through a lot of abuse, and was feeding on animals not people ... even if he tends to enjoy some cruel deeds. So mixed somewhat.

I thought they did a good job with all of them really. Some good unique personalities with multiple layers.

wolfgrimdark · November 25, 2020

Also saw this in the Solasta Q&A session but I believe it applies to BG3 as well in regards to "horrible" dice rolls and my own statements that its human nature to focus on the bad not the good, or to expect something good after a bunch of bad, so its more a perception issue than a reality.

My rolls are incredibly bad while the monsters' rolls are super good! What the hell?!

This is something that you will see in every game using true RNG. It is human nature to believe that after a series of poor rolls, you will be more likely to get lucky on your next one… but that's not the case. Sure, if you roll a million times the rolls will eventually even out - but if you roll just a mere 10 times, you can absolutely get nothing good. This is why many games use pseudo-RNG that will slowly increase your chances if you keep on failing, in order to reduce frustration. However, that's not what happens on Tabletop - which is why it's not something we've implemented in Solasta to start with.

To be perfectly clear, Solasta uses true RNG (pretty sure modders can look at our code to verify my claim) - but one thing that likely aggravates the belief of the player rolling worse than the monsters is due to a lot of players fighting in the darkness and thus rolling with disadvantage, which further increases the chances of getting a bad roll. We're hoping that the upcoming Lighting System changes which revert it to the Tabletop Ruleset will help lessen this belief that the dice rolls are skewed. We're also considering adding a difficulty setting called "Karmic Dice", which would add pseudo-random rolls as explained above (the more you fail, the more likely you are to get a better roll next).

Also offers a possible solution for BG3 as well. Anyhow thought the comment was interesting.

Redglyph · November 25, 2020

wolfgrimdark said:
Also saw this in the Solasta Q&A session but I believe it applies to BG3 as well in regards to "horrible" dice rolls and my own statements that its human nature to focus on the bad not the good - so its more a perception issue than a reality.

Also offers a possible solution for BG3 as well. Anyhow thought the comment was interesting.

Saw that too, that's an interesting phenomenon

That being said, I did write down every roll in BG3 for a little while, a couple of combats more or less, and there was a slight offset for 2 or 3 characters. I certainly didn't have enough samples to get an interesting confidence interval, and it's tedious to do so I won't bother. But using pseudo-random generators can be tricky in some conditions, especially when using one source for several events.

JDR13 · November 25, 2020

wolfgrimdark said:
None of them have alignment but I know in getting to know them only Gale and the warlock guy seemed really on the side of good.

Shadowheart can be nice at times but considering the evil goddess she worships I don't really consider her good.

Based on likes/dislikes the rest tend to respond to negative actions with likes a lot. Cruelty, selfishness, things like that.

Still they were never that one dimensional to me. I found things to like and dislike in all of them. Shadowheart has a soft spot for animals which I really like. The vampire guy can be rather vulnerable at times and went through a lot of abuse, and was feeding on animals not people ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚Â¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¦ even if he tends to enjoy some cruel deeds. So mixed somewhat.

I thought they did a good job with all of them really. Some good unique personalities with multiple layers.

Shadowheart is evil or at least she's tagged as "Evil Cleric" in her character page. I agree she doesn't seem very evil though.

None of the other companions have any indication of alignment outside of their reactions.

I have no issue with that. I get that D&D fans are used to being told what someone's alignment is, but I'm fine with how Larian is handling that so far. I also hope they don't cave and make them more friendly just because a few snowflakes feel they're too abrasive.

Couchpotato · November 25, 2020

Redglyph said:
They mentioned recently that the current companions were mostly neutral or evil-ish, after complaints from fans that those companions weren't very friendly. Larian said they also had other companions in reserve who were more on the good side.

Not that I want to stick with good alignment, any other new companion would be interesting to discover.

Yep in the last IGN interview it was stated the first version was basically released for evil players and companions. It has nothing to do with snowflakes it was a test run.

Same with the dice rolls they made them extremely hard on the first release.

wolfgrimdark said:
Also saw this in the Solasta Q&A session but I believe it applies to BG3 as well in regards to "horrible" dice rolls and my own statements that its human nature to focus on the bad not the good, or to expect something good after a bunch of bad, so its more a perception issue than a reality.

Also offers a possible solution for BG3 as well. Anyhow thought the comment was interesting.

At least the Solasta developers allow you to pick and choose your dice rolls. That's what Larian needs to do. Allow the player to chose how difficult they want the dice to be.

Thanks go to Redglyph for sharing the image.

JDR13 · November 26, 2020

There's nothing hard about the dice rolls. Some people are simply complaining because they're accustomed to having things slanted in their favor.

Couchpotato · November 26, 2020

Lets see this was quoted right from the last interview.

Elsewhere, player concerns will be addressed by the introduction of numerous new companion characters. “There's been a group of people complaining about the fact that the companions are snarky and they have to have an opinion,” Vincke reveals. “But we’ve only put the ‘evil’ and the ‘neutral’ ones out there. We haven't put any of the ‘good’ characters in yet, so I think that will balance that.

Also the data suggests all you EA players are evil and not neutral.

JDR13 · November 26, 2020

Yes, you just said that in your last post.

Couchpotato · November 26, 2020

Just adding some reference before someone says snarky shit about how I'm wrong again once again. As that seems to be the trend with certain posters on this site.

Redglyph · November 26, 2020

Also from the last IGN interview, regarding "hard" dice roll:

(Vincke) recognises that the amount of players reloading to try to get a better outcome is something Larian can learn from. "We made [the dice rolls] hard, but maybe we can add extra role-playing options for players to get the same effect. It's one of those things that we can pick up from seeing those behaviors of players."

It's not just in this situation that players are becoming frustrated with Baldur's Gate 3's dice rolls. The system - based on tabletop Dungeons & Dragons' use of D20-based skill checks - has proven divisive in the BG3 player base. Many players are not used to a dice roll governing their successes or failures; random number generation (RNG) disrupting a sneaky attempt to deceive someone or foiling a heroic deed can feel at odds with roleplay. "There are people who have had difficulties with that," says Vincke. "They want to be able to manipulate it."

and

"We opted to just go pure RNG for the initial release in early access just to see what was going to happen," he explains. "We see the people that have really bad luck, and they are really, really angry over it. So, we're going to help them. We're going to add modes to the game that are going to go with things like a loaded die, and that's going to be a bit more manageable. We'll still keep the option of having full RNG in there. We'll experiment with that throughout early access, and see what we should make the default option. That's one of the things that will be driven by the analytics."

JDR13 · November 26, 2020

It's weird that Swen contradicts himself like that, but I think referring to the dice rolls as hard was just a poor choice of words on his part.

As he says in the latter paragraph, it's pure RNG. There's nothing easy or hard about that, it's completely random. Like he said, some people are just getting pissed because of having bad luck sometimes, but that's how RNG works. It can seem like it's working against you but it's not.

wolfgrimdark · November 26, 2020

I like it that the followers aren't always kissing my characters ass. It was a bit odd at first after so many games where followers are more like thralls to the player. But I enjoyed it. The Geth woman, she was loads of fun. I confess my Drow Rogue had a lot of fun antagonizing her.

And I am surprised they said they only put in neutral or evil characters as Gale and the warlock dude both seem on the good side. But I suppose neutral could work since they both did something you could argue wasn't very good. Still both tend to like it when you make "good" choices or decisions.

Anyhow curious to see how the patch goes. Course people on the forums are complaining about losing their characters. There is a way to not update but then they complained that the way it was done was too difficult and they should have done it in reverse.

Not unexpected though since we all know you can't please everyone.

JFarrell71 · November 26, 2020

Btw, everytime there's one of those "more info" links on announcement posts like this, the link just takes me to the very thread I was already on. Instead of a source, like I would assume would be the result.

mat9813004 · November 26, 2020

Wondering if I should buy the game before they make changes to the story. Perhaps it will appear on Steams Autumn sale.

largh · November 26, 2020

mat9813004 said:
Wondering if I should buy the game before they make changes to the story. Perhaps it will appear on Steams Autumn sale.

Stop dreaming. This game has not even been released yet. Perhaps it will be on Autumn sale in 2022 or 23.

wolfgrimdark said:
Also saw this in the Solasta Q&A session but I believe it applies to BG3 as well in regards to "horrible" dice rolls and my own statements that its human nature to focus on the bad not the good, or to expect something good after a bunch of bad, so its more a perception issue than a reality.

You can never be sure about RNG…

Baldur's Gate 3 - Pre-Patch Announcement

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