More adventuring, and less resting
You now get 2 short rests after your long rest. Previously, you only had a single short rest. That’s twice the rest, for the same price! This means you have more uninterrupted adventures, and all the perks of resting.
What's not to like there? And a lot of these points refer to the real feedback, including some arguments that were heated on these boards.
The road less travelled is now rewarding...
Our games have always been about rewarding creativity and exploration, but some people were disappointed with the lack of experience rewards for pacifism, and creative solutions that utilize the road less travelled. Patch 3 introduces rewards for avoiding combat situations, whether in dialogue or through exploration and environmental puzzle solving. Now, all you pacifists will be able to carve out a journey more true to your character’s identity. Or, it’ll just offer more options for specific circumstances.
Companions will now feel more… companionable
On the topic of behaviour, we’ve certainly noticed your companions were perhaps a little negative at times. We’ve taken steps to move away from frequent nitpicking, so that they’ll start focusing more on the bigger picture. Companions will now be more tolerant. Not nitpicking about every single little thing they don't like but rather focusing on the things they do like while still maintaining their personality and having strong beliefs about certain things. In short, they’ll feel a little more like companions.
Dialog skill checks will be less likely to ‘lock you out of content’
Dialogues with particularly harsh or dramatic skill checks have been rebalanced - instead of failing an entire situation based on one difficult role, you'll have a higher chance of succeeding the roll. This is to stop dice from locking you out of content unless the situation really merits it. Ultimately, however, you’ll still have to flow with the will of the dice.
Rebalanced cantrips & fewer surfaces
This was a wildly popular community request. Spells that cost finite resources to cast will now feel much more impactful, as cantrips are now less impactful than ‘true’ spells. This’ll make the management a lot more meaningful, and the ‘true’ spells a lot more rewarding to use. What’s more, we’ve made changes to surfaces, reducing them dramatically to avoid accidents as well as to address other feedback about how combat felt to the community. Fire Bolt, Ray of Frost and Acid Splash no longer create surfaces on impact. Fire Bolt still ignites flammable surfaces, and Ray of Frost still freezes water and blood puddles.
UI improvements including spells & inspiration points
Inspiration points are now visible in the UI, so you can actually use them!
You’re now able to select upcasted versions of spells via a separate widget to declutter the hotbar UI, see today’s update video for how that looks. DnD allows a caster to cast the same spell at different ‘levels’, costing different resources and generally producing a stronger effect.
Previously, each level at which a spell could be cast had a separate icon. After a while, this led to tons of icons cluttering up the hotbar and players having to tediously rearrange it on level up. Now all the variations are neatly packed into a fly-out menu inside the single icon per spell.
All the changes are things I like, so this patch is definitely an improvement. But still a ways to go for the game overall to be good for me.
Btw, the changes to dialogue skill checks are actually a little more detailed in Swen's video presentation than what the written part of the Update says.
I expect gradual changes in an Early access. The fact they are listening to the community feedback as well as to the statistics sent from the game is something I see as an extremely positive point.
I've made it clear that I didn't really like the game at release but I'm pretty impressed with the steps they took with Patch 3. I believe Larian is definitely pointed in the right direction going forward wrt feedback and I have a much more positive vibe out of the game now.
I've made it clear that I didn't really like the game at release but I'm pretty impressed with the steps they took with Patch 3. I believe Larian is definitely pointed in the right direction going forward wrt feedback and I have a much more positive vibe out of the game now.
What has impressed me most is that they are not blindly servicing only the demands of the Larian/D:OS fans. They are even listening to the criticisms of people like me who are NOT Larian/D:OS fans. Massively reducing the elemental surfaces gimmick is huge for me.
That is because for developers there are no "camps". Developers want to create a game which will be fun for as many players as possible. That is the very premise of going into Early Access, btw. "Game at release", in this case, was a very early beta of a game which will be released in the second half of 2021.
There are no camps, I've been always telling that. Players might think they unite into Larian/Obisidian/Whatever-supporters, but this is not football. Games are being created for fun, they don't compete with each other directly.
Idk if this was in the last patch or this one. But Shadowheart now has 10 strength and 15 dexterity (changed from 15 and 9).
They also adjusted Astarion's stats so that he now went from having 12 strength to 8.
But this significantly affects his ability (and the parties ability) to carry things. Especially with Shadowheart also receiving a large drop in her strength.
Idk if this was in the last patch or this one. But Shadowheart now has 10 strength and 15 dexterity (changed from 15 and 9).
They also adjusted Astarion's stats so that he now went from having 12 strength to 8.
But this significantly affects his ability (and the parties ability) to carry things. Especially with Shadowheart also receiving a large drop in her strength.
Is this a good "Make hard decisions to decide what to carry" kind of change for you? Or just tedious?
Inventory weight systems are usually pretty hard to pull off.
All of the changes above sound pretty great. To be honest - I'm a bit surprised they're able to make significant changes to the companions. I guess I assumed the dialogue/voice acting part was either finished or hard to change. Maybe that's something that can continually evolve over the length of the project?
Idk if this was in the last patch or this one. But Shadowheart now has 10 strength and 15 dexterity (changed from 15 and 9).
They also adjusted Astarion's stats so that he now went from having 12 strength to 8.
But this significantly affects his ability (and the parties ability) to carry things. Especially with Shadowheart also receiving a large drop in her strength.
Idk if this was in the last patch or this one. But Shadowheart now has 10 strength and 15 dexterity (changed from 15 and 9).
They also adjusted Astarion's stats so that he now went from having 12 strength to 8.
But this significantly affects his ability (and the parties ability) to carry things. Especially with Shadowheart also receiving a large drop in her strength.
Is this a good "Make hard decisions to decide what to carry" kind of change for you? Or just tedious?
Inventory weight systems are usually pretty hard to pull off.
All of the changes above sound pretty great. To be honest - I'm a bit surprised they're able to make significant changes to the companions. I guess I assumed the dialogue/voice acting part was either finished or hard to change. Maybe that's something that can continually evolve over the length of the project?
Just tedious in my opinion. If they were going to change either of these the only one that really needed it was Shadowheart. Even then, they could have adjusted her stats to be
14 str
12 dex
14 con
10 int
16 wis
10 charisma
from
15 str
9 dex
13 con
10 int
16 wis
14 chr
That would have largely kept her carrying capacity being good while still using the standard array (which is how they have been giving NPCs stats) and allowing her to use strength based melee weapons. With 10 strength she is quite a bit less effective with them now.
That is because for developers there are no "camps". Developers want to create a game which will be fun for as many players as possible. That is the very premise of going into Early Access, btw. "Game at release", in this case, was a very early beta of a game which will be released in the second half of 2021.
There are no camps, I've been always telling that. Players might think they unite into Larian/Obisidian/Whatever-supporters, but this is not football. Games are being created for fun, they don't compete with each other directly.
BG3's massive popularity brought forth extremely invested fans and anti-fans of all kinds. The bad noise made me have too hard a time getting a legitimate read on the direction Larian is taking BG3. I feel much better about it now! I'm VERY excited. I still think the people with 400 hours in 1/4th a Beta Test saying it's the greatest game of all time are weird af though.
I left and went to go make coffee and thought, "You can't judge an RPG like Baldur's Gate by 25% of the story. This isn't The Canterbury Tales." and then I realized oh crap Baldur's Gate 3 is exactly The Canterbury Tales, isn't it?
That is because for developers there are no "camps". Developers want to create a game which will be fun for as many players as possible. That is the very premise of going into Early Access, btw. "Game at release", in this case, was a very early beta of a game which will be released in the second half of 2021.
There are no camps, I've been always telling that. Players might think they unite into Larian/Obisidian/Whatever-supporters, but this is not football. Games are being created for fun, they don't compete with each other directly.
BG3's massive popularity brought forth extremely invested fans and anti-fans of all kinds. The bad noise made me have too hard a time getting a legitimate read on the direction Larian is taking BG3. I feel much better about it now! I'm VERY excited. I still think the people with 400 hours in 1/4th a Beta Test saying it's the greatest game of all time are weird af though.
Particularly I didn't go very far, I just got to the goblin camp. My objective buying the EA was to make my own decision instead of basing it on the haters/lovers. If I didn't like it I could refund and buy something else. I'll invest time in it when it's completed, and I can actually see the full story.
I blind bought it but through the lens of skepticism, which I made clear here on these forums. I was a big fan of DOS2, however. I ended up walking away with a sour taste in my mouth, because yeah, I grew up playing Baldur's Gate, and I tried to get involved here once I got around to the Enhanced Editions. The real question to me at the time of playing BG3 was: Where is this going? I ended up trying to bring up some legitimate criticism elsewhere to try and provide feedback in a way I thought would be visible and was greeted with the general sentiment "OF COURSE the companions hate you! Everybody is stressed out and in a survival situation!" and "It's a Larian game, OF COURSE there's going to be surfaces in every fight!" and "OF COURSE you fail most of your checks! The DM hates you! Old school!" Just reading over the patch notes, it seems I was definitely mistaken for having taking this as the voice of Larian themselves. I'm so relieved, honestly. I started up the game and, spoiler alert, the previously very racist Gith is now instantly siding with me as a potential companion in true Baldur's Gate fashion. Just an entirely different initial reaction.
GOG bounced my ticket to let me rewrite my review already and I don't know how to word it or who to send it to to revise it now, but I'd upgrade this to "Soft Pass if you aren't keen on Early Access but it's definitely headed places" Just a total course correction, in my opinion, that makes me have faith in the future of the game.
That is because for developers there are no "camps". Developers want to create a game which will be fun for as many players as possible. That is the very premise of going into Early Access, btw. "Game at release", in this case, was a very early beta of a game which will be released in the second half of 2021.
There are no camps, I've been always telling that. Players might think they unite into Larian/Obisidian/Whatever-supporters, but this is not football. Games are being created for fun, they don't compete with each other directly.
Sorry, I disagree profoundly (in the specific case of this game). There is nothing anyone can say to me to convince me otherwise, but when Larian introduced the game back in February it was clearly a game aimed at their D:OS2 fans first and foremost. Sure, they obviously wanted as many sales as they could get from other fan bases (who wouldn't want that?), but the game was all about making the D:OS2 fans happy while ignoring other potential fan groups. My credit for Larian is strictly that in the months since February, and especially now within the game's EA period, Larian seems to have (correctly) concluded that catering just to the D:OS2 fans will be disastrous for the game, and as such are making some good changes to be more inclusive of people who did not care for the D:OS games but who are potentially big fans of a BG3 game. They clearly made a mistake. But they are acknowledging (subtly) this mistake, taking criticism seriously, and making as many changes as they can. This is what I am praising them for.
There seem to be a lot of assumptions in there. I think a far (far) simpler answer is:
Larian just finished making the most successful CRPG of the decade. When tasked with making a new CRPG, they started using the model that had worked for them before (DOS:2), and are slowly iterating on the concept based on EA feedback.
I think the absolute tremendous sales they garnered before a single EA patch was released shows they were on track to be successful before changes were made, and there isnt really any evidence that they decided it would be a disaster if they didnt change their approach.
There seem to be a lot of assumptions in there. I think a far (far) simpler answer is:
Larian just finished making the most successful CRPG of the decade. When tasked with making a new CRPG, they started using the model that had worked for them before (DOS:2), and are slowly iterating on the concept based on EA feedback.
I think the absolute tremendous sales they garnered before a single EA patch was released shows they were on track to be successful before changes were made, and there isnt really any evidence that they decided it would be a disaster if they didnt change their approach.
I think this was probably the approach all along.
Unlike D:OS2, this is a AAA game with a AAA budget, and as such AAA sales expectations. 1m in sales on EA release is solid for sure, but they need to see at least 5m in sales in the year after full release, and at least 10m overall. These are way bigger numbers than the overall 2m+ sales for D:OS2.
Not sure what you're nitpicking about. Right there in the video Swen says that the game is selling amazingly well, beyond what they have expected (and they have said this many times now). The game is in Early Access. Early Access titles sell much, much smaller than actually released games. Just look at Hades. It was ~1 mln in Early Access and more than 3 mlns now.
BG3 broke Steam during the first few hours, which is quite surprising for an Early Access title, don't you think?
What BallpointMan tried to say is that they are working based on the Early Access feedback. If you expected the company not to start from something hugely influenced by their previous game, when this is the same game engine, then I don't understand you. But if you expected them not to change anything based on the feedback, then I understand you even less. This is a normal process.
"The game was all about making the D:OS2 fans happy while ignoring other potential fan groups" - I didn't get that feeling. And how do you define a "D:OS fan"? Should it be only someone who plays only D:OS games? Or should it be someone who plays many games but didn't hate D:OS? Then how would you classify original BG fans? Are they those who only play original BG? What about those who like all these games, from BG, to PoE, to D:OS?
Nitpicking? My point is a very solid point that is in contrast to yours. Agree or disagree with me I don't care. But to label it as nitpicking is inaccurate and unfair.
There's no camps, right? But almost all the criticism gets labeled as "nitpicking"
The progression of arguments here is also hilarious to me.
"Larian are HUGE D&D fans, of course the game will be like BG, you don't need to worry."
"So what if Larian said that RtwP does not work in games? You can't judge the game based on what the creator has said. Wait for gameplay footage"
"Well of COURSE its turn based, Laian's DoS2 was hugely successful, of course BG3 will borrow from that more. BG2 is hecka old anyway, you can't judge BG3 by the previous games in the series its a part of."
"Well of course Larian is going change direction and reduce DoS elements that were already programmed in. It was so obvious they were always going to do this and I just can't understand someone who would judge the game based on itself."
There have so been SO MANY moving goalposts since the game was announced. And the goal has always been, "You are wrong to not like the game." Are we at the "You just can't judge the game" point yet?
There's no camps, right? But almost all the criticism gets labeled as "nitpicking"
The progression of arguments here is also hilarious to me.
"Larian are HUGE D&D fans, of course the game will be like BG, you don't need to worry."
"So what if Larian said that RtwP does not work in games? You can't judge the game based on what the creator has said. Wait for gameplay footage"
"Well of COURSE its turn based, Laian's DoS2 was hugely successful, of course BG3 will borrow from that more. BG2 is hecka old anyway, you can't judge BG3 by the previous games in the series its a part of."
"Well of course Larian is going change direction and reduce DoS elements that were already programmed in. It was so obvious they were always going to do this and I just can't understand someone who would judge the game based on itself."
There have so been SO MANY moving goalposts since the game was announced. And the goal has always been, "You are wrong to not like the game." Are we at the "You just can't judge the game" point yet?
I'm sorry - but this post is just very disingenuous.
Not only are most of those points taken out of context, but plenty of them do not contradict each other in the slightest.
First, @JuliusBorisov was referring to there being no "camps" in terms of who the developers were trying to please. Not anyone on this forum. So it's unrelated to any particular person's comment in reference to another on this forum.
Second - Plenty of those points are roughly true, minus any snark injected on your part.
According to the Larian staff, they are big D&D fans. They are using their old game a starting point (see how they used the DOS2 UI to start, and have now changed that). If I am not mistaken, it's actually a variation of the engine used in DOS2. So some of the programming is already present (again, see the UI. They didnt make a DOS2 clone UI and then decide not to use it. They were clear early on it was alpha footage and they wanted to show something
They put the game in EA for a reason - not to secure additional funding but as means for user feedback to adjust the game. That was very clear from the get go. What doies a good company that gets good user feedback do? Respond and make changes accordingly. That was obvious from the get go, I'm sorry if you're only just now recognizing it.
Just going to second the point that Julius *did not* say there are no "camps" period. He said there were no "camps" among game developers. In fact, his post implicitly acknowledges that there are camps among consumers. Extremely disingenuous to twist his words like that.
Regardless of how I feel about Infinity vs Divinity, there's just too much in the patch notes and what I'm seeing playing Patch 3 to suggest to me that Larian is acting in good faith to make the best Baldur's Gate game to the best of their specific abilities. "To the best of their specific abilities" is not what everybody wants tho, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. Hasbro no doubt wanted sales and that's what they got and are getting.
I might be wrong, who knows, but I definitely went from cynical fan of both series to about 70%-80% optimistic with the direction they're headed comparing Patch 2 to Patch 3.
Comments
Such good news for warlocks especially.
- The road less travelled is now rewarding...
Our games have always been about rewarding creativity and exploration, but some people were disappointed with the lack of experience rewards for pacifism, and creative solutions that utilize the road less travelled. Patch 3 introduces rewards for avoiding combat situations, whether in dialogue or through exploration and environmental puzzle solving. Now, all you pacifists will be able to carve out a journey more true to your character’s identity. Or, it’ll just offer more options for specific circumstances.- Companions will now feel more… companionable
On the topic of behaviour, we’ve certainly noticed your companions were perhaps a little negative at times. We’ve taken steps to move away from frequent nitpicking, so that they’ll start focusing more on the bigger picture. Companions will now be more tolerant. Not nitpicking about every single little thing they don't like but rather focusing on the things they do like while still maintaining their personality and having strong beliefs about certain things. In short, they’ll feel a little more like companions.- Dialog skill checks will be less likely to ‘lock you out of content’
Dialogues with particularly harsh or dramatic skill checks have been rebalanced - instead of failing an entire situation based on one difficult role, you'll have a higher chance of succeeding the roll. This is to stop dice from locking you out of content unless the situation really merits it. Ultimately, however, you’ll still have to flow with the will of the dice.- Rebalanced cantrips & fewer surfaces
This was a wildly popular community request. Spells that cost finite resources to cast will now feel much more impactful, as cantrips are now less impactful than ‘true’ spells. This’ll make the management a lot more meaningful, and the ‘true’ spells a lot more rewarding to use. What’s more, we’ve made changes to surfaces, reducing them dramatically to avoid accidents as well as to address other feedback about how combat felt to the community. Fire Bolt, Ray of Frost and Acid Splash no longer create surfaces on impact. Fire Bolt still ignites flammable surfaces, and Ray of Frost still freezes water and blood puddles.- UI improvements including spells & inspiration points
Inspiration points are now visible in the UI, so you can actually use them!You’re now able to select upcasted versions of spells via a separate widget to declutter the hotbar UI, see today’s update video for how that looks. DnD allows a caster to cast the same spell at different ‘levels’, costing different resources and generally producing a stronger effect.
Previously, each level at which a spell could be cast had a separate icon. After a while, this led to tons of icons cluttering up the hotbar and players having to tediously rearrange it on level up. Now all the variations are neatly packed into a fly-out menu inside the single icon per spell.
Btw, the changes to dialogue skill checks are actually a little more detailed in Swen's video presentation than what the written part of the Update says.
Baby steps, my friend, baby steps ?
There are no camps, I've been always telling that. Players might think they unite into Larian/Obisidian/Whatever-supporters, but this is not football. Games are being created for fun, they don't compete with each other directly.
They also adjusted Astarion's stats so that he now went from having 12 strength to 8.
But this significantly affects his ability (and the parties ability) to carry things. Especially with Shadowheart also receiving a large drop in her strength.
Is this a good "Make hard decisions to decide what to carry" kind of change for you? Or just tedious?
Inventory weight systems are usually pretty hard to pull off.
All of the changes above sound pretty great. To be honest - I'm a bit surprised they're able to make significant changes to the companions. I guess I assumed the dialogue/voice acting part was either finished or hard to change. Maybe that's something that can continually evolve over the length of the project?
A vampire... with 8 strength... SMH
Just tedious in my opinion. If they were going to change either of these the only one that really needed it was Shadowheart. Even then, they could have adjusted her stats to be
14 str
12 dex
14 con
10 int
16 wis
10 charisma
from
15 str
9 dex
13 con
10 int
16 wis
14 chr
That would have largely kept her carrying capacity being good while still using the standard array (which is how they have been giving NPCs stats) and allowing her to use strength based melee weapons. With 10 strength she is quite a bit less effective with them now.
BG3's massive popularity brought forth extremely invested fans and anti-fans of all kinds. The bad noise made me have too hard a time getting a legitimate read on the direction Larian is taking BG3. I feel much better about it now! I'm VERY excited. I still think the people with 400 hours in 1/4th a Beta Test saying it's the greatest game of all time are weird af though.
Particularly I didn't go very far, I just got to the goblin camp. My objective buying the EA was to make my own decision instead of basing it on the haters/lovers. If I didn't like it I could refund and buy something else. I'll invest time in it when it's completed, and I can actually see the full story.
GOG bounced my ticket to let me rewrite my review already and I don't know how to word it or who to send it to to revise it now, but I'd upgrade this to "Soft Pass if you aren't keen on Early Access but it's definitely headed places" Just a total course correction, in my opinion, that makes me have faith in the future of the game.
Larian just finished making the most successful CRPG of the decade. When tasked with making a new CRPG, they started using the model that had worked for them before (DOS:2), and are slowly iterating on the concept based on EA feedback.
I think the absolute tremendous sales they garnered before a single EA patch was released shows they were on track to be successful before changes were made, and there isnt really any evidence that they decided it would be a disaster if they didnt change their approach.
I think this was probably the approach all along.
BG3 broke Steam during the first few hours, which is quite surprising for an Early Access title, don't you think?
What BallpointMan tried to say is that they are working based on the Early Access feedback. If you expected the company not to start from something hugely influenced by their previous game, when this is the same game engine, then I don't understand you. But if you expected them not to change anything based on the feedback, then I understand you even less. This is a normal process.
"The game was all about making the D:OS2 fans happy while ignoring other potential fan groups" - I didn't get that feeling. And how do you define a "D:OS fan"? Should it be only someone who plays only D:OS games? Or should it be someone who plays many games but didn't hate D:OS? Then how would you classify original BG fans? Are they those who only play original BG? What about those who like all these games, from BG, to PoE, to D:OS?
The progression of arguments here is also hilarious to me.
"Larian are HUGE D&D fans, of course the game will be like BG, you don't need to worry."
"So what if Larian said that RtwP does not work in games? You can't judge the game based on what the creator has said. Wait for gameplay footage"
"Well of COURSE its turn based, Laian's DoS2 was hugely successful, of course BG3 will borrow from that more. BG2 is hecka old anyway, you can't judge BG3 by the previous games in the series its a part of."
"Well of course Larian is going change direction and reduce DoS elements that were already programmed in. It was so obvious they were always going to do this and I just can't understand someone who would judge the game based on itself."
There have so been SO MANY moving goalposts since the game was announced. And the goal has always been, "You are wrong to not like the game." Are we at the "You just can't judge the game" point yet?
I'm sorry - but this post is just very disingenuous.
Not only are most of those points taken out of context, but plenty of them do not contradict each other in the slightest.
First, @JuliusBorisov was referring to there being no "camps" in terms of who the developers were trying to please. Not anyone on this forum. So it's unrelated to any particular person's comment in reference to another on this forum.
Second - Plenty of those points are roughly true, minus any snark injected on your part.
According to the Larian staff, they are big D&D fans. They are using their old game a starting point (see how they used the DOS2 UI to start, and have now changed that). If I am not mistaken, it's actually a variation of the engine used in DOS2. So some of the programming is already present (again, see the UI. They didnt make a DOS2 clone UI and then decide not to use it. They were clear early on it was alpha footage and they wanted to show something
They put the game in EA for a reason - not to secure additional funding but as means for user feedback to adjust the game. That was very clear from the get go. What doies a good company that gets good user feedback do? Respond and make changes accordingly. That was obvious from the get go, I'm sorry if you're only just now recognizing it.
I might be wrong, who knows, but I definitely went from cynical fan of both series to about 70%-80% optimistic with the direction they're headed comparing Patch 2 to Patch 3.