Baldur's Gate 3 - Top Changes we want @ Fextralife

Redglyph said:

What do you mean "in terms of graphics"? That's one of the areas they normally excel in, what part don't you like which is "copy pasted"? The only feature I'm not fond of is the way those characters dance when idle during combat, which is a bit ridiculous, but it's not a big issue, otherwise I find it gorgeous.

As for the story line, the plot directly involves the player with an immediate problem to solve: removing the tadpole. Then along the way, other considerations are discovered and the plot gets deeper. It's quite classical and very effective, I'd rather see that than a remote, high-level issue which flies over the head of the player because it's too abstract.

Don't forget that they only reveal a small part of the story in the EA, it will grow. It was exactly the same in D:OS2, your first concern was saving your life on the ship, then escaping Fort Joy, hardly a "save-the-world"-class story. It comes along the way.

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I want a whole new graphics look and totally different presentation for a new Baldur's Gate game, that is what I mean. Not anything that looks close to the Divinity Original Sin series. I understand why Larian did it, and it saved them a bunch of money and time in development, I'm sure, but for me I would want a unique Baldur's Gate look and atmosphere and presentation, in other words based on a new game engine that is fresh and tailor made for the game from the ground up.

Don't get me wrong, I liked the graphics of Divinity original Sin, but they were a wee bit too cartoony for my taste.

I just don't like the story line, as I said, the cheese factor is too much for me. When I heard/saw in previews that you go to hell in the game, that really topped it off. Give me a break! How over the top and cheesy did they have to get? "Do we get to go to hell too? How epic!" No sorry, that is not my reaction. Its much more along the lines of rolling my eyes…

Its a matter of taste of course, but I just don't find that story line (from what is known so far) to be interesting. I don't care about having tadpoles/parasites/mind control story line as a focus to be compelling, its just boring to me. And I don't think mindflayers are all that interesting either. I much prefer a classical story line of high fantasy like Baldur's Gate had. (shrug)
Your mileage of course may differ, and that is OK.

Side note: I can write kind of colorful sometimes so don't take anything I say/my opinions personally, I just like to write with a little bit of spice and make my points easier to understand that way.

P.S> I have not played Divinity Original Sin 2 yet, and so when I speak of the series I am only referring to the first game.

Arkadia7 said:

I want a whole new graphics look and totally different presentation for a new Baldur's Gate game, that is what I mean. Not anything that looks close to the Divinity Original Sin series.

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Still not sure to see exactly what bothers you, maybe the interaction with the world is quite typical of Larian and it will "feel" similar: you can open everything, throw items, and so on. And the infamous area of effects, which they mostly kept, unfortunately.

Apart from that I found they made quite an effort to be less cartoonish and get an engaging story, so the similarities with D:OS don't bother me but I suppose we all have our preferences.

I'd say wait until the release, we'll see the whole picture then.

I'd prefer something similar to Kingmaker, but we can't all get what we want in life. Joking aside I like what the game is, but I can't deny I wanted something different.

I've never seen so many opinions about a game coming from people who haven't even tried it yet.

Yep, guilty as charged.

But I don't need to play the game to know that I don't want a companion lock early in the game.

I'm really keen to have a look at the city of Baldur's Gate in the game. So far Larian failed to present a city that feels alive in their games. I honestly doubt their talent in this regard. I hope to be proven wrong.

My first wish: Add Sune as a deity for clerics. Totally serious.

Morrandir said:

Yep, guilty as charged.

But I don't need to play the game to know that I don't want a companion lock early in the game.

I'm really keen to have a look at the city of Baldur's Gate in the game. So far Larian failed to present a city that feels alive in their games. I honestly doubt their talent in this regard. I hope to be proven wrong.

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I have to disagree. Cyseal felt pretty alive to me even if it was far from perfect.

Regarding the companion lock, yeah, I'm not a fan of that decision either, but I don't consider it a deal-breaker.

I think it's strange though to see negative comments about the storyline or locations from people who haven't played it and therefore have no context.

Aubrielle said:

My first wish: Add Sune as a deity for clerics. Totally serious.

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They really should, Shelyn played a role in Pathfinder: Kingmaker

Maybe that's just my impression, it seems deities play a larger and more serious role in Owlcat games than other "lore-rich" RPGs.

Redglyph said:

They really should, Shelyn played a role in Pathfinder: Kingmaker

Maybe that's just my impression, it seems deities play a larger and more serious role in Owlcat games than other "lore-rich" RPGs.

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I mentioned on a past thread how being a paladin of any good deity in Pathfinder Kingmaker left me feeling evil given the dogma. You have to kill almost every monster.

Anyway a certain god of murder from past BG games might play a role in BG3.

Morrandir said:

I'm really keen to have a look at the city of Baldur's Gate in the game. So far Larian failed to present a city that feels alive in their games. I honestly doubt their talent in this regard. I hope to be proven wrong.

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Cyseal, as @JDR13; said, or Arx and Driftwood (and Fort Joy) in D:OS 2, they all seem quite alive to me, even a little bit too much sometimes (I had to do something about this town crier). It depends what you mean, of course.

Agreed on the companion lock, it's a strange decision and not a popular one. Especially if that's a long game, that not everybody can afford to play multiple times. But then the same was true of D:OS 2.

What sells a city for me are environmental sounds of city life, crowds of people gathered in locations with ambient chatter, a city design that is pragmatic and feels lived in, a sense that there are more things to discover than what has been presented.

Larian games have the sound scape sorted, but the cities resemble small villages because there are usually not that many buildings overall, plus the incongruity of thinking about where merchants sleep etc. On the subject of the buildings they seem Warcraft inspired artwise and don't look like real places because of this. It doesn't help having barrels everywhere and places looking like combat zones. Hard to immerse myself when it feels like I'm in a well designed amusement park.

Having said that I'm sure Larian is aware of this and designing Baldur's Gate to scale and with more realistic architecture like the original games.

What would make it more convincing, for a city or even in general, is a day / night cycle instead of NPCs staying always at the same place (and in the case of Larian, always repeating the same line ad nauseam).

JDR13 said:

I have to disagree. Cyseal felt pretty alive to me even if it was far from perfect.

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Redglyph said:

Cyseal, as @JDR13; said, or Arx and Driftwood (and Fort Joy) in D:OS 2, they all seem quite alive to me, even a little bit too much sometimes (I had to do something about this town crier). It depends what you mean, of course.

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Well, what I mean with an "alive city" is an area of a city that feels alive and believable.

While Cyseal and Driftfood might have felt alive, they clearly aren't cities. They both have about 8 houses. So as presented in the game they are small villages at best.

Arx has a bigger map, but when you look closely there isn't much meat besides the "functional" buildings like the Cathedral, The Black House, Linder Kemm's Mansion etc. Where do people live?

Examples of cities according to my taste are: Vizima (TW1), Novigrad and Oxenfurt (TW3), Citadel (Mass Effect) (yeah, not a traditional city), Athens (and some smaller ones, AC:Odyssey), Defiance Bay (PoE1), Neketaka (PoE2), Night City (CP77) and of course Baldur's Gate in the trilogy.

(Also the settlements in Kingdome Come were exremely well done, but hardly qualify as cities.)

One of the reason why I like to have cities in my RPGs is that they serve the purpose of a possible "change of pace" which I value highly in RPGs. They are a contrast to going on adventuring in dungeons or in the wilderness where the general atmosphere often is more "rushed". From time to time I want to exit adventure mode and take a break.
While in cities quests may also involve fights, the quests often have another tone, like solving crime or doing political stuff.

For BG3 my worst fear is that the city will not be in a state where this slow down is possible.

Yes, it's a smaller scale with Larian games, perhaps because it's quite packed, and each house or building usually has several NPCs, many objects, side quests. Actually, their whole map is usually like that, the rythm is high because there is no space, you're out of Driftwood and before you take a few steps, you either see a stupid troll keeping a bridge or a cemetery, which leads to other fights or quests.

In Skyrim, Morrowind and The Witcher 3, for instance, where we can find cities that better correspond to what you're hoping to see, everything is more distant and can spread more easily. There are also closed/fake buildings that are only there to suggest but not to interact, which leaves more time to walk around without getting into some event or encounter. It's indeed more convincing (if done right).

Morrandir said:

Arx has a bigger map, but when you look closely there isn't much meat besides the "functional" buildings like the Cathedral, The Black House, Linder Kemm's Mansion etc. Where do people live?

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NPCs only live in their own, same static spot, and there's no night - no need for a house :lol:

Now I'm getting curious to see what Baldur's Gate looks like!

Redglyph said:

NPCs only live in their own, same static spot, and there's no night - no need for a house :lol:

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My point wasn't about the NPC to interact with but the nameless inhabitants.
I'm aware that it's difficult (and hardly worth the effort) to create a realistoc model (or simulation) of a city. However the illusion should be created that it's a city that could somehow actually work.

Morrandir said:

My point wasn't about the NPC to interact with but the nameless inhabitants.
I'm aware that it's difficult (and hardly worth the effort) to create a realistoc model (or simulation) of a city. However the illusion should be created that it's a city that could somehow actually work.

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No, this was rather a separate remark with NPCs being at the same place day and night (well, all day long since there is no night). I think it removes a lot to the realism. But it was mostly a joke In any case, it shouldn't be too hard to only add fake houses, and I agree that would already add to the game vs a shrunk city where everything is functional.

So your concern is really about size not whether the settlements feel alive.

I can understand wondering where NPCs sleep when there are few houses, but, tbh, no city in any game has ever been close to realistic in that way.

Morrandir said:

One of the reason why I like to have cities in my RPGs is that they serve the purpose of a possible "change of pace" which I value highly in RPGs. They are a contrast to going on adventuring in dungeons or in the wilderness where the general atmosphere often is more "rushed". From time to time I want to exit adventure mode and take a break.
While in cities quests may also involve fights, the quests often have another tone, like solving crime or doing political stuff.

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Cyseal fits that description perfectly, so I'm not sure why you fear BG3 won't have that.

Redglyph said:

Now I'm getting curious to see what Baldur's Gate looks like!

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Are you still currently playing BG1? It's one of my favorite cities in any game. For 1998, it was mind-blowing. I still find it fantastic even today.

JDR13 said:

So your concern is really about size not whether the settlements feel alive.

I can understand wondering where NPCs sleep when there are few houses, but, tbh, no city in any game has ever been close to realistic in that way.



Cyseal fits that description perfectly, so I'm not sure why you fear BG3 won't have that.

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Daggerfall did; some were amazing in their complexity for the time in which the game was made. I do mean the fixed cities, not the randomly generated towns.

By the logic of what we see is all there is, Amn from Baldur's Gate 2 is home to maybe 100 people. Unless you're going to base your entire game in a city (Cyberpunk) I don't think it's a good idea at all to try to make an RPG city look "alive" by this definition. What you're really making in that case is a large, empty, very boring place like the cut and paste cities of the early Elder Scrolls games.