That's the thing with opinions: they are not equally shared amongst people.
I am with @kanisatha on this. During the last couple of months, the more I learned about what kind of game Vincke and his team wants to play... the less their idea appealed to me on a personal level. It is not an overstatement to say that Larian's taste and my own are polar opposites to each other.
My opinion is a game (any game) can only become a good one if developers are trying to make the game that they'd like to play.
I'm a big Baldur's Gate fan, myself, and I think BG3 works for me quite alright.
I am with you on this. I am also a massive BG fan. I’ve been playing both of them since I was about 12 years old and they will always hold a very special place for me, and nothing could replace them.
I don’t have as much time these days to game as I would like but the time I have spent in the BG3 early access had been awesome. I’ve enjoyed it a lot. I am loving being back in Faerun again. I really can’t wait to see the city of Baldur’s Gate in game.
That's the thing with opinions: they are not equally shared amongst people.
I am with @kanisatha on this. During the last couple of months, the more I learned about what kind of game Vincke and his team wants to play... the less their idea appealed to me on a personal level. It is not an overstatement to say that Larian's taste and my own are polar opposites to each other.
Maybe Sven and team really are such massive fans of the series as they say they are, but it is obviously for different reasons than myself and some other frequent commenters here. That's fine, different strokes and all that. It's just a shame that apparently those differences are unable to be reconciled in the same game.
I really cannot reconcile Larian claiming to be big fans, with how BG3 is turning out so far. Nothing in the game looks like BG to me, none of the writing sounds or feels like BG to me, none of the mechanics make me think of BG at all.
I still love "cryptids" though. I really hope that becomes a meme when the game fully releases. Its so hilariously ridiculous.
"There were two things that struck me at first," Vincke says, "I underestimated that a group of players would really have that hard a time with the dice. I was reading a comment the other day from a guy convinced the game was horribly bugged because he rolled a miss in combat eight times in a row. I really sympathise with that guy, but you’ve got to say ‘well, that’s my luck!’ But the game is intended to be played by lots of types of people, so we need to put in something that helps these players deal with the rolls. Loaded dice as an option is an obvious solution we could work in, but there’s multiple ways to handle it.
"The other thing that surprised me, in hindsight could’ve been predicted. We put in the evil and neutral NPC companions first, so there was a bit of backlash from people complaining that all the characters were so haughty and snarky, but it was really just those characters acting as their natural selves. I didn’t realise it would be such a thing, but in reality we just hadn’t put the good characters in yet. There’s a much wider variety, and hopefully it’ll settle down in time, but it’s interesting the conclusions people draw when there’s only a small selection."
Not a fan of the loading dice and stuff like that but at least it seems they are addressing the feedback received in the EA. The final product may be different from what we watched until now.
I do not think they redub the companions´ dialogues, so the ones we already know would be like that.
PD: BTW Larian team discovered what we already knew: The sword coast is in Portugal and Galicia XD
I don't really understand what they mean with loaded dice as an option. Can someone please explain?
They probably mean stacking the dice rolls so that they arent actually faithful d20 rolls. The idea goes something like this: You may roll a d20 in your attack on a monster. If you miss two or three times in a row, the game may throw you a bone and give you a bonus to hit (without telling you) - as a means to make the game feel less unfair.
the new XCOM games are famous for doing this: Their percentages are responsive to previous hits and misses to try to stop you from hitting or missing too many times in a row.
My opinion is a game (any game) can only become a good one if developers are trying to make the game that they'd like to play.
I'm a big Baldur's Gate fan, myself, and I think BG3 works for me quite alright.
This is exactly right. I don't think you can get a team of people to labor passionately for hundreds of hours of the course of years on a product unless they're making a game they like. The same is true for books or movies or whatever.
I don't really understand what they mean with loaded dice as an option. Can someone please explain?
They probably mean stacking the dice rolls so that they arent actually faithful d20 rolls. The idea goes something like this: You may roll a d20 in your attack on a monster. If you miss two or three times in a row, the game may throw you a bone and give you a bonus to hit (without telling you) - as a means to make the game feel less unfair.
the new XCOM games are famous for doing this: Their percentages are responsive to previous hits and misses to try to stop you from hitting or missing too many times in a row.
Just to be clear, the specific thing that bothers me from that excerpt I posted is Vincke saying: "... we think we can make a game that works for all the fans out there." ALL the fans.
I'm a fan. I would put my original BG games fandom up against anyone. But BG3 is not a game that is working for me. What the hell, Vincke? (asking this with disappointment and sadness, not anger)
That's a fair criticism, tho it's essentially a typical marketing platitude. I think it's absolutely the case that no game is going to satisfy every fan. There are people who have posted here who are not particularly fond of BG2 even. Nothing wrong with that.
But that reality is exactly why a game company should be focused on what they would want to play.
I don't really understand what they mean with loaded dice as an option. Can someone please explain?
They probably mean stacking the dice rolls so that they arent actually faithful d20 rolls. The idea goes something like this: You may roll a d20 in your attack on a monster. If you miss two or three times in a row, the game may throw you a bone and give you a bonus to hit (without telling you) - as a means to make the game feel less unfair.
the new XCOM games are famous for doing this: Their percentages are responsive to previous hits and misses to try to stop you from hitting or missing too many times in a row.
XCOM does that, though it depends on difficulty. I don't feel it should be transferred to Baldur's Gate though - combat in XCOM is more deadly.
Just to be clear, the specific thing that bothers me from that excerpt I posted is Vincke saying: "... we think we can make a game that works for all the fans out there." ALL the fans.
I'm a fan. I would put my original BG games fandom up against anyone. But BG3 is not a game that is working for me. What the hell, Vincke? (asking this with disappointment and sadness, not anger)
I'm a fan as well. The thing is, if they change something it can - hypothetically - stop working for me. So each change they make, they have to consider not only those who don't like something in the game but also those who like something in the game. It can't be one-way traffic. Imagine going through these tough topics every time.
Yeah, opinions are like noses: everybody has one.
If you focus on pleasing everyone you end up pleasing no one. It´s best to do the best game you can IMHO and let people decide. Some may like it, some don´t, but that´s going to be the case no matter what you do.
The only way you're going to like everything in a game is if you make it yourself or if you mod the game to infinite and beyond to suit your tastes. That´s one of the main reasons why games with strong modding community and support are so long-lived, like the bg series, Bethesda games, etc.
Probably a good idea to not make claims like that at all then. I've always been baffled by people excusing this stuff as "marketing again lol". Its falsehoods, lies, untruths. Marketing needs to be held accountable for stuff like this.
I don't really understand what they mean with loaded dice as an option. Can someone please explain?
They probably mean stacking the dice rolls so that they arent actually faithful d20 rolls. The idea goes something like this: You may roll a d20 in your attack on a monster. If you miss two or three times in a row, the game may throw you a bone and give you a bonus to hit (without telling you) - as a means to make the game feel less unfair.
the new XCOM games are famous for doing this: Their percentages are responsive to previous hits and misses to try to stop you from hitting or missing too many times in a row.
XCOM does that, though it depends on difficulty. I don't feel it should be transferred to Baldur's Gate though - combat in XCOM is more deadly.
It depends on difficulty? Didnt know that.
Either way though, I agree. Incidentally - I somtimes fudge numbers at the table in order to make the game more interesting, but I think I'd prefer (like you) that BG3 didnt do this at all.
I dont mind if the game is hard. Probably cant be any harder than PF:KM
Edit - actually. If there's one thing they could take from PF:KM that I'd love, it'd be the super in-depth difficulty customization choices. PF KM really lets you change a lot to make the game suit your expectations.
Probably a good idea to not make claims like that at all then. I've always been baffled by people excusing this stuff as "marketing again lol". Its falsehoods, lies, untruths. Marketing needs to be held accountable for stuff like this.
I think it's minor semantics. If they had said "most of the fans" instead of "all fans", I think this discussion wouldn't be happening. An exaggeration, perhaps not even phrased that way on purpose, is not the same as a lie.
Probably a good idea to not make claims like that at all then. I've always been baffled by people excusing this stuff as "marketing again lol". Its falsehoods, lies, untruths. Marketing needs to be held accountable for stuff like this.
I think it's minor semantics. If they had said "most of the fans" instead of "all fans", I think this discussion wouldn't be happening. An exaggeration, perhaps not even phrased that way on purpose, is not the same as a lie.
(Edited a typo)
That's the marketing excuse though, they dance around what a "lie" is so they get away with all kinds of bullcrap claims. This specific example is relatively minor (but still problematic imo), but I will forever hate marketing for the buzzwords and false definitions they made out of "organic" and "processed". Its so ubiquitous that businesses who go out of their way to be honest LOSE BUSINESS because people aren't being tricked into thinking they are getting better deals than they are.
Probably a good idea to not make claims like that at all then. I've always been baffled by people excusing this stuff as "marketing again lol". Its falsehoods, lies, untruths. Marketing needs to be held accountable for stuff like this.
I think it's minor semantics. If they had said "most of the fans" instead of "all fans", I think this discussion wouldn't be happening. An exaggeration, perhaps not even phrased that way on purpose, is not the same as a lie.
(Edited a typo)
Yes saying "most" instead of "all" would've helped cover his butt, to be sure. But my point would still stand short of evidence that "most" fans were happy. Furthermore, "most" can be 50%+1. That still leaves a heck of a lot of unhappy fans, and to just dismiss them would be very wrong, imo.
After making the unforgivable crime of claiming they want to make a game that appeals to all fans, it´s obvious that they are not going to make it. Mainly because it´s impossible.
I think we should not beat around the brush anymore and take the forks and torches and run to the main company building of Larian and burn it to the ground. They deserve no less for such a deplorable claim. The nerve of those guys!
After making the unforgivable crime of claiming they want to make a game that appeals to all fans, it´s obvious that they are not going to make it. Mainly because it´s impossible.
I think we should not beat the brush anymore and take the forks and torches and run to the main company building of Larian and burn it to the ground. They deserve no less for such a deplorable claim. The nerve of those guys.
After making the unforgivable crime of claiming they want to make a game that appeals to all fans, it´s obvious that they are not going to make it. Mainly because it´s impossible.
I think we should not beat around the brush anymore and take the forks and torches and run to the main company building of Larian and burn it to the ground. They deserve no less for such a deplorable claim. The nerve of those guys!
A more interesting new interview with Swen. Here's the part in this one that I love:
One of the more difficult elements of developing Baldur’s Gate 3 with player involvement is that there are numerous different ‘camps’ of people interested in the game. There’s Larian’s long-term fans, who are crying out for there to be more ‘surfaces’ in the game (a mechanic used in the Original Sin games to create dynamic fire, poison clouds, oil slicks, and more). Then there’s players of the D&D tabletop game, who’d rather have surfaces removed all together. And then there’s old-school Baldur’s Gate fans, who want the real-time combat of the BioWare original games back. There’s a lot of people pulling in a lot of directions.
“I can imagine that we will never manage to find the balance that will please everyone,” says Vincke. But, there is a (sort of) solution: “The game will be moddable eventually, so people will be able to make their mods. I expect multiple flavors of Baldur’s Gate 3 to come out of that. Over time there will be probably a flavor that will appeal hopefully to everybody.”
FINALLY, I feel like Swen is acknowledging a fan like me, and is even saying he wants this game to be a game for a fan like me. This is what I have been waiting to hear since the initial announcement. So now I do appreciate Swen's words and thank him for them (and have done so on the Larian forum).
Very robust modding is what I am counting on to make BG3 at least an acceptable game for me. But who knows? May be enough great mods will be created for it such that, in time, as Swen envisions, there will be a version of the game that I will even love.
There is also one that adds variant human ( basically it gives the vanilla humans a feat so they could have a racial ability of sorts like the other races. It´s also an official D&D subrace so it´s not actually cheating, I think).
The game is still not 100% ready for modders. You can only get the extra feat at level two instead of at character creation due to the modding limitations of the EA.
It's really funny, here I am grabbing the lifeline of the possibility that a whole bunch of mods may save BG3 for me someday down the line. Over in the Larian forum people are reacting to this same interview with fury, fury over what they perceive as Swen Vincke being indifferent to the many, many criticisms of the EA game that have found loud voice on that forum (many looooong lists of things that people say need to be fixed) and that he is effectively saying "let the modders address the complaints and the problems."
Comments
I'm a big Baldur's Gate fan, myself, and I think BG3 works for me quite alright.
I am with @kanisatha on this. During the last couple of months, the more I learned about what kind of game Vincke and his team wants to play... the less their idea appealed to me on a personal level. It is not an overstatement to say that Larian's taste and my own are polar opposites to each other.
I am with you on this. I am also a massive BG fan. I’ve been playing both of them since I was about 12 years old and they will always hold a very special place for me, and nothing could replace them.
I don’t have as much time these days to game as I would like but the time I have spent in the BG3 early access had been awesome. I’ve enjoyed it a lot. I am loving being back in Faerun again. I really can’t wait to see the city of Baldur’s Gate in game.
Maybe Sven and team really are such massive fans of the series as they say they are, but it is obviously for different reasons than myself and some other frequent commenters here. That's fine, different strokes and all that. It's just a shame that apparently those differences are unable to be reconciled in the same game.
I still love "cryptids" though. I really hope that becomes a meme when the game fully releases. Its so hilariously ridiculous.
Not a fan of the loading dice and stuff like that but at least it seems they are addressing the feedback received in the EA. The final product may be different from what we watched until now.
I do not think they redub the companions´ dialogues, so the ones we already know would be like that.
PD: BTW Larian team discovered what we already knew: The sword coast is in Portugal and Galicia XD
They probably mean stacking the dice rolls so that they arent actually faithful d20 rolls. The idea goes something like this: You may roll a d20 in your attack on a monster. If you miss two or three times in a row, the game may throw you a bone and give you a bonus to hit (without telling you) - as a means to make the game feel less unfair.
the new XCOM games are famous for doing this: Their percentages are responsive to previous hits and misses to try to stop you from hitting or missing too many times in a row.
This is exactly right. I don't think you can get a team of people to labor passionately for hundreds of hours of the course of years on a product unless they're making a game they like. The same is true for books or movies or whatever.
99% hit chance miss intensifies
I'm a fan. I would put my original BG games fandom up against anyone. But BG3 is not a game that is working for me. What the hell, Vincke? (asking this with disappointment and sadness, not anger)
But that reality is exactly why a game company should be focused on what they would want to play.
XCOM does that, though it depends on difficulty. I don't feel it should be transferred to Baldur's Gate though - combat in XCOM is more deadly.
I'm a fan as well. The thing is, if they change something it can - hypothetically - stop working for me. So each change they make, they have to consider not only those who don't like something in the game but also those who like something in the game. It can't be one-way traffic. Imagine going through these tough topics every time.
This is why there can only be one approach:
If you focus on pleasing everyone you end up pleasing no one. It´s best to do the best game you can IMHO and let people decide. Some may like it, some don´t, but that´s going to be the case no matter what you do.
The only way you're going to like everything in a game is if you make it yourself or if you mod the game to infinite and beyond to suit your tastes. That´s one of the main reasons why games with strong modding community and support are so long-lived, like the bg series, Bethesda games, etc.
It depends on difficulty? Didnt know that.
Either way though, I agree. Incidentally - I somtimes fudge numbers at the table in order to make the game more interesting, but I think I'd prefer (like you) that BG3 didnt do this at all.
I dont mind if the game is hard. Probably cant be any harder than PF:KM
Edit - actually. If there's one thing they could take from PF:KM that I'd love, it'd be the super in-depth difficulty customization choices. PF KM really lets you change a lot to make the game suit your expectations.
I think it's minor semantics. If they had said "most of the fans" instead of "all fans", I think this discussion wouldn't be happening. An exaggeration, perhaps not even phrased that way on purpose, is not the same as a lie.
(Edited a typo)
That's the marketing excuse though, they dance around what a "lie" is so they get away with all kinds of bullcrap claims. This specific example is relatively minor (but still problematic imo), but I will forever hate marketing for the buzzwords and false definitions they made out of "organic" and "processed". Its so ubiquitous that businesses who go out of their way to be honest LOSE BUSINESS because people aren't being tricked into thinking they are getting better deals than they are.
I think we should not beat around the brush anymore and take the forks and torches and run to the main company building of Larian and burn it to the ground. They deserve no less for such a deplorable claim. The nerve of those guys!
"⸮"
Can we stop at Wizar...never mind.
Okay. :P
A more interesting new interview with Swen. Here's the part in this one that I love:
One of the more difficult elements of developing Baldur’s Gate 3 with player involvement is that there are numerous different ‘camps’ of people interested in the game. There’s Larian’s long-term fans, who are crying out for there to be more ‘surfaces’ in the game (a mechanic used in the Original Sin games to create dynamic fire, poison clouds, oil slicks, and more). Then there’s players of the D&D tabletop game, who’d rather have surfaces removed all together. And then there’s old-school Baldur’s Gate fans, who want the real-time combat of the BioWare original games back. There’s a lot of people pulling in a lot of directions.
“I can imagine that we will never manage to find the balance that will please everyone,” says Vincke. But, there is a (sort of) solution: “The game will be moddable eventually, so people will be able to make their mods. I expect multiple flavors of Baldur’s Gate 3 to come out of that. Over time there will be probably a flavor that will appeal hopefully to everybody.”
FINALLY, I feel like Swen is acknowledging a fan like me, and is even saying he wants this game to be a game for a fan like me. This is what I have been waiting to hear since the initial announcement. So now I do appreciate Swen's words and thank him for them (and have done so on the Larian forum).
Very robust modding is what I am counting on to make BG3 at least an acceptable game for me. But who knows? May be enough great mods will be created for it such that, in time, as Swen envisions, there will be a version of the game that I will even love.
Also count me as first in line to remove the surface effects.
The game is still not 100% ready for modders. You can only get the extra feat at level two instead of at character creation due to the modding limitations of the EA.
Tell that to Tycho Brahe.
He can have mine. It doesn't work anyway.