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this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2023
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Baldur's Gate 3
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All things BG3!
Baldur’s Gate 3 is a story-rich, party-based RPG set in the universe of Dungeons & Dragons, where your choices shape a tale of fellowship and betrayal, survival and sacrifice, and the lure of absolute power. (Website)
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Really seems like they hit a nerve with this game, which seems to be that people want these giant RPGs with tons of quests, choices and companions, but also want them to have actual cutscenes and not just textboxes as far as presentation goes. Probably helps that this is like the first AAA CRPG like this since like Dragon Age: Origins, which came out 14 goddamn years ago. I don't quite think the overwhelming praise the game has gotten is quite warranted, since it just doesn't seem inspired to be more than a good DnD campaign, but at that it is really good and manages to be just polished and streamlined to be a hit (even though parts of it feel undercooked and janky, like the map or the inventory system).
Why would it want to be more than a good DnD campaign? That’s exactly what Larian hoped it would be, and pretty much what it is. It’s not as open-ended as a real campaign can be, but given the scale and quality of the content, it’s really something special. It’s only the best dnd game ever made.
I don't question the quality of the game, I just don't feel that just doing Baldur's Gate again, twenty years later, really warrants ALL of the hype. Like the games from that time people still talk about, like Planescape Torment, Arcanum, even something like Fallout 2 or somewhat later Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines are games that are just a bit more "out there". Baldur's Gate feels comparably more vanilla compared to those. It's full of tropes and it does them well, but as far as I've played it doesn't always manage to rise above them and even from a design standpoint it is not that much different from original Baldurs Gate games.
I guess this is more of a lament about the state of the industry right now, but the fact that twenty years of gaming evolution leads to just doing the same types of games again but doesn't really fill me with that much excitement.
Those are completely different genres of games, though, and certainly not what I or anyone else I know that was hyped for BG3 wanted. We wanted a modern DnD game, Larian wanted to make a modern DnD game. We got a modern DnD game.
DnD is massively popular nowadays, more so than ever. It's okay that it's not what YOU wanted, but it's not saying anything about the "state of the industry".
This the exact kind of hyperbole the thread op was just talking about. The "best d&d game ever made" is a highly subjective opinion. The amount of content is being massively overrated by the hype. Yeah, it's a solid amount, but BG2 had more content than this game 20 years ago especially when it comes to dialogue, since people can't be bothered to read without a voice actor doing it for them.
I'm really enjoying it but I'm also tired of how ridiculous and aggressively cultish fanboys get during the post release period. The game is far from perfect.
I have 165 hours played, about half of that in early access. I’m just about to get to Baldur’s Gate itself for the first time, and can already see that I’m going to have at least two more full playthroughs to explore the campaign’s boundaries. How much content do you think qualifies for your standard?
There are no perfect games, but this one hits a lot more than it misses.
I think part of it is that it's a single-player RPG (or co-op if you want) with a focus on the story experience. No mmo-lite features, battlepasses, always online requirements, live service, etc. bloat to be found. A concept that the current AAA market seems to be allergic to.
It says what it is on the tin and delivers that. That's a breath of fresh air for many people right now.
Also, there was that whole drama with devs complaining about how BG3 was going to ruin it for everybody else by making gamers expect a higher quality product from studios. Which isn't really what those devs were saying, but it's what it came off as to people, and that probably gave the game a lot more positive attention than it probably otherwise would've gotten.
Those damn gamers and their expectations of receiving a quality product they pay for!
Not that I strongly disagree with you, but did you see the map in early access? Ha! And at least we got a few things fixed in the inventory system since EA. Sorting and multi-select are key for a hoarder like me. They took so much feedback from early access and fixed most of the worst things they could. But I've been playing since patch 0, so....
Any game that gets anywhere close to being a good DnD campaign is Gold in my book. But yeah; certainly still lots of bits are undercooked and janky.
There is still stuff in here that other games have managed to fix like a decade ago, like being able to access all your characters inventory in the camp, having a place where all the books and texts you've read are collected, automatically picking up gold or merging the inventories of enemies when their bodies are close together. The quest log is just a void filled with text, without any flavor or convenience whatsoever, no way to click on a quest and see where the quest marker is or anything like that. Same with the map, there's no worldmap that shows the location of the individual maps on some larger scale that would help you orient yourself, no way to even switch between the different maps and all the fast travel points are just in one giant list. Also even in singleplayer I've not found an actual way to pause this game. For a game that was in early access for three years, these feel like basic things that never got the second round of polish they deserved.
I have collected several chests/containers that are in my box in camp. I have sorted my inventory into these containers, one with books for example. It's relatively easy for me to add any books I find to it, so that part isn't really an issue if you think for a second about it.
As for the quest log showing you were to go, yes it totally does if you know where to go. There's a "show on map" button at the bottom of the log.
To pause, enter turn based mode. Shift-space on KB&M, or the button on the button right next to the camp button, where end turn is in combat. I somewhat agree in single-player, esc should just pause as well, but it really isn't an issue worth worrying about.
The rest of what you said, yeah I agree with. Probably the most frustrating thing you've mentioned is the fast travel not allowing you to see other maps. I remember where each one is, but it'd be easier to select it on a map for some of them. They're ordered based on the order you found them, so close ones may not be grouped.
I still think having it fully voiced makes it lighter than it could be if conversations were entirely text. Even the longest speeches in BG3 pale in comparison to random idle banter found in a tavern of BG2. There's just more of it. More dialogue, more lore, more background... If they could do that, and still have that density, that but still be fully voiced, that would be the dream.
Would need to lean on AI for something like that, I think. Keep the normal human-acted main cast/supporting characters, delegate everything else to AI.
It's already been done with a Skyrim mod.
Personally, I don't mind reading and I wish we'd get more games that don't require voice acting for everything. It'd allow them to do so much more with a lot less. I do think at some point we'll get that that point with synthesized voices, but it isn't quite there yet. I've used several in Ludum Dare games, and they sound great but not perfect. Still, even as they are if they let devs write more and create more options, I'd take it. Adding options with voice acting balloons work required fast, so that's why it's so often fake choice but the other person (or, in FO4, the player character even) responds similarly no matter what you say.