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Baldur's Gate III released into Early Access

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  • DinoDinDinoDin Member Posts: 1,567
    TBH, the fact that the game was going to be mod friendly was not a surprise to anyone who played the OS games. Especially OS2 was built to accommodate a DM + multiplayer + custom modules. All of that requires that the game be mod friendly as well.

    And, iirc, this is something Larian said from the very beginning about BG3.
    PsicoVic
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    edited November 2020
    kanisatha wrote: »
    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."

    I can fully understand both camps, tbh.
    kanisatha
  • PeccaPecca Member Posts: 2,175
    The implication of a possibility to mod RTWP is interesting indeed. I'm not gonna hold my breath for it, but for the first time since the announcement of TB, there is somewhat a chance that I will want to play this game some day.
    Kamigoroshikanisatha
  • KamigoroshiKamigoroshi Member Posts: 5,870
    Pecca wrote: »
    The implication of a possibility to mod RTWP is interesting indeed. I'm not gonna hold my breath for it, but for the first time since the announcement of TB, there is somewhat a chance that I will want to play this game some day.

    I felt the same way prior of knowing the engine limitation. If there is no way of pausing the game inside this engine, then modders ultimately can't create a RTwP mod. Which would also explain as to why noone of the Original Sin games saw such a mod as well. Closest is an abandoned RTS mod called Into the Abyss for DOS2, I guess... still a far cry from real time with pause combat.

    My guts tell me that the only real chances for seeing a BG3 RTwP mod down the line is a) a engine extender (ToBEx, SKSE), b) an engine replacer (GemRB, OpenMW), or c) recreating BG3 whole plotline as an NwN2 mod (Baldur's Gate Reloaded D&D 3.5th edition style). If my gut feeling is indeed right on this it will take dozen of years, if not decades, for getting such giant mods out of the modding oven.
    PeccakanisathaThacoBell
  • ZaxaresZaxares Member Posts: 1,325
    I'm personally also hoping for a mod that boosts party size to 6 (or beyond!) I think modding the game to have RTwP would be a LOT more complicated, but we can dream!
    Kamigoroshimlnevesekanisathaenergisedcamel
  • mlnevesemlnevese Member, Moderator Posts: 10,214
    Zaxares wrote: »
    I'm personally also hoping for a mod that boosts party size to 6 (or beyond!) I think modding the game to have RTwP would be a LOT more complicated, but we can dream!

    It was confirmed by the devs themselves that the engine supports 6-character parties.
    PsicoVicMirandelSjerrieZaxares
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,714
    Just curious: what is so special about 6-character parties? Besides nostalgia?

    ME had a 3-char party, DA had a 4-char party. I was ok with them both. And if you add 5th and 6th party members to your party in a game where all the combat design is created for a 4-character party, aren't you risking breaking the game and not getting the difficulty of the encounters the game was designed for?
  • PsicoVicPsicoVic Member Posts: 868
    edited November 2020
    In the DoS games (they have the previous version of the engine of bg3) there are mods indeed to make it a 6-man-party. It was great if you happen to have 6 friends online to play with in the same day and schedule (yeah, sometimes happen, really, no kidding. You can also win the lottery too, right?) instead of the usual 2 to four.

    You usually have to pair it with a mod that adds more enemies and another to halve the xp so you do not over level after killing too many enemies, but it was doable. Luckily BG3 would have MP that allows mods in the MP session.

    You usually end up with boss fights of over 15 minutes, something that could be a problem for some. Fun battles tho.
    JuliusBorisovArvia
  • CahirCahir Member, Moderator, Translator (NDA) Posts: 2,819
    mlnevese wrote: »
    Zaxares wrote: »
    I'm personally also hoping for a mod that boosts party size to 6 (or beyond!) I think modding the game to have RTwP would be a LOT more complicated, but we can dream!

    It was confirmed by the devs themselves that the engine supports 6-character parties.

    Actually there is such a mod for DoS2. I'm currently using it and it does its job very well. So I'm almost certain it will be one of the first mods for BG3 after release.
    mlneveseJuliusBorisovArvia
  • KamigoroshiKamigoroshi Member Posts: 5,870
    When it comes to singleplayer games, I think there should be no hardcoded limit of how many companions you are allowed to travel with. That way mods could easily go beyond the "classic" four/six- man-party size. As of late, even Pathfinder: Kingmaker has now received a mod where all 13 companions could be in the same party if you so choose. Additionally, mods that introduce smarter enemy AI or heightened difficulty could be created specificly for larger party sizes as well in order to keep the game challenging. Wouldn't be the first time for such a thing to happen.

    The real downside to a larger than intended party is that fights would become very long indeed as a result. Personally, I would loose my patience very quickly if I had to control like 13 companions at the same time. That goes especially so for when in turn-based combat. *shudder*
    kanisathaThacoBellJuliusBorisovArvia
  • kanisathakanisatha Member Posts: 1,308
    Arvia wrote: »
    kanisatha wrote: »
    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."

    The way I understand the interview, he doesn't say the modders should take care of the problems, but that modding might be the long-term solution to address the expectations and concerns of opposing sides that can't both be addressed by Larian, because satisfying the demands by one large group of critical fans would be the exact opposite of what the other side demands.
    The fact is, you can't make everyone happy. There will be people who will dislike the outcome no matter what. So it's reasonable to make the game they want, and that might appeal to the majority of fans, and give the hope of extensive modding to those whose wishes can't be integrated.

    It would be rather self-centered to think that one's own wishes concerning a game are more important or more reasonable than others, or that a company or a developer "owes you" a certain type of game.
    (That's not aimed at anyone here, just in case someone misunderstands it. It's my opinion on fanbases in general).
    I agree with you, hence my first post on this topic. But both the number of people and their intensity of feelings on the other side of this really caught me by surprise, hence my second post.
    Arvia
  • kanisathakanisatha Member Posts: 1,308
    Pecca wrote: »
    The implication of a possibility to mod RTWP is interesting indeed. I'm not gonna hold my breath for it, but for the first time since the announcement of TB, there is somewhat a chance that I will want to play this game some day.

    I felt the same way prior of knowing the engine limitation. If there is no way of pausing the game inside this engine, then modders ultimately can't create a RTwP mod. Which would also explain as to why noone of the Original Sin games saw such a mod as well. Closest is an abandoned RTS mod called Into the Abyss for DOS2, I guess... still a far cry from real time with pause combat.

    My guts tell me that the only real chances for seeing a BG3 RTwP mod down the line is a) a engine extender (ToBEx, SKSE), b) an engine replacer (GemRB, OpenMW), or c) recreating BG3 whole plotline as an NwN2 mod (Baldur's Gate Reloaded D&D 3.5th edition style). If my gut feeling is indeed right on this it will take dozen of years, if not decades, for getting such giant mods out of the modding oven.
    Yes same with me. Learning about the engine limitations has been very disheartening. But then again, I had already written off the combat part of this game as something lousy and ridiculous, and was only hoping for ways/mods to make the (lousy) combat go faster so I could focus on the other non-combat parts of the game.
  • kanisathakanisatha Member Posts: 1,308
    Just curious: what is so special about 6-character parties? Besides nostalgia?

    ME had a 3-char party, DA had a 4-char party. I was ok with them both. And if you add 5th and 6th party members to your party in a game where all the combat design is created for a 4-character party, aren't you risking breaking the game and not getting the difficulty of the encounters the game was designed for?
    For me it is the type of RPG, specifically, whether it has a very robust class system with lots of classes or not. If the game has that robust class system with lots of classes, then I want a 6-person party so I can include a good range of those classes in my party and enjoy seeing how they work out. If the game does not have a strong class system (or a classless system), then a smaller party is something I can live with.

    Having said this, however, I do have additional considerations that lead me to prefer larger parties over smaller ones always. @deltago has already discussed having more party banter, which I so love and enjpy in my games. For me there is also the fact that I love and enjoy micromanaging my companions out of combat. I enjoy the process of leveling up my companions and figuring out optimal builds for them. I enjoy the process of optimally distributing items and equipment across my party members (I never hold all the best items just for my PC). For all these activities that are fun for me, a bigger party is naturally more fun.
    JuliusBorisovArvia
  • BallpointManBallpointMan Member Posts: 1,659
    ThacoBell wrote: »

    Dragon Age was outright hurt by its party limit. I basically made a rogue every single playthrough just so I could put whoever I wanted in without missing anything. The banters in DA:O were also fantastic, I would have loved to see what they could ave done with 3 or even 4 or 5 way banters.

    Okay. Honest question here: How many 3-4-5 player banters did you ever see in BG 1 or 2? I legitimately cannot think of banters that went beyond 2 players talking to each other.

    I guess there was the "Talk to everyone before the final fight" banter in BG2. But beyond that, I dont really remember the game ever availing itself of 3 way interactions.
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    @BallpointMan Off the top of my head there's a Minsc, Jan, Sarevok banter (its AMAZING). I want to say there's at least 1 more 3 way, but I might be misremembering.

    But no, BG2 does not have 4 or 5 party banters. Its also a much older game and Bioware already had to cut a lot out before release.

    The banters in DA:O were so good, I want more. 6 man parties being my preferred amount (okay 7, but I'm pretty sure that doesn't exist), it was just natural to go there. BG2 hurt less, because even if most banters were only 2 people, you had 5 in a party that could banter. That's a lot of possible banter combinations.

    kanisathaSjerrie
  • kanisathakanisatha Member Posts: 1,308
    ThacoBell wrote: »

    Dragon Age was outright hurt by its party limit. I basically made a rogue every single playthrough just so I could put whoever I wanted in without missing anything. The banters in DA:O were also fantastic, I would have loved to see what they could ave done with 3 or even 4 or 5 way banters.

    Okay. Honest question here: How many 3-4-5 player banters did you ever see in BG 1 or 2? I legitimately cannot think of banters that went beyond 2 players talking to each other.

    I guess there was the "Talk to everyone before the final fight" banter in BG2. But beyond that, I dont really remember the game ever availing itself of 3 way interactions.
    You cannot consider this question without the context of the timeline. These games are 20 years old. If they were being made today, so much about them would be different including how party banter is handled.
    ThacoBell
  • deltagodeltago Member Posts: 7,811
    ThacoBell wrote: »

    Dragon Age was outright hurt by its party limit. I basically made a rogue every single playthrough just so I could put whoever I wanted in without missing anything. The banters in DA:O were also fantastic, I would have loved to see what they could ave done with 3 or even 4 or 5 way banters.

    Okay. Honest question here: How many 3-4-5 player banters did you ever see in BG 1 or 2? I legitimately cannot think of banters that went beyond 2 players talking to each other.

    I guess there was the "Talk to everyone before the final fight" banter in BG2. But beyond that, I dont really remember the game ever availing itself of 3 way interactions.

    I gave an example from SOD. A game that isn’t 20 years old. New games should be looking to improve on those that came before them.
    ThacoBellkanisatha
  • AmmarAmmar Member Posts: 1,295
    Even if each individual banter only involves two companions you have more combinations with 5 of them. It is 10 pairs vs 3 pairs.
    ThacoBellSjerriekanisathamlnevese
  • BallpointManBallpointMan Member Posts: 1,659
    Okay - I accept that argument, but it must be pointed out that this forum has an issue with people who feel that it is appropriate for BG3 to iterate on a 20 year old game's formula in some instances and are then upset in equal (or to be frank, far greater) measure when other iterations arent to their liking. Even when those iterations are just to more normative RPG expectations in the year 2020.

    I like multi-character banter too(meaning 3+). There wasnt much of it in the BG franchise. For all the fun and value of the 6 man party, there were few instances of roleplay that ever involved more than 2 or 3 of them at a time.
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    @BallpointMan "Okay - I accept that argument, but it must be pointed out that this forum has an issue with people who feel that it is appropriate for BG3 to iterate on a 20 year old game's formula in some instances and are then upset in equal (or to be frank, far greater) measure when other iterations arent to their liking. Even when those iterations are just to more normative RPG expectations in the year 2020."

    I think we disagree on what counts as iterations on BG's formula here. Almost everything I see in BG3 is more iterations on DOS and modern rpgs in general, rather than BG.
    kanisatha
  • SjerrieSjerrie Member Posts: 1,234
    IMO Mass Effect and Dragon Age both worked perfectly. There were less joinable characters in general than BG, and on the mechanics side, there were only 3 classes in both game series, 6 in ME if you count the multiclasses.

    For that same reason BG3 is balancing on a sword's edge here, because there is obviously a lot more variation in DnD in classes, races and (potentially?) alignment. If Larian is even a little bit committed to rounding out the roster of joinable characters for those, we'll end up with a lot more choices and thus eventually you might end up with multiple favorites covering the same role.

    One could argue that increases re-playability, but because of the 4 member limit you'd seldom have those 2 arcanists in the *same* party, if you want a well-rounded party that is, losing out on their interactions.

    On the other hand, mechanics could be diluted similarly to DoS2, where every class could potentially do everything and cast every spell, which would partially invalidate the whole concept of classes.
    JuliusBorisovkanisathaThacoBellArvia
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,714
    I see. Even while I'm a sucker for party interaction, I wouldn't change the maximum character limit for these games as I enjoy tactics and hard battles. Seeing all the banter at first would be fun for me but then the disbalance will kill all the fun and thus stop me from enjoying the game.
    Arvia
  • BallpointManBallpointMan Member Posts: 1,659
    DOS2 of course iterated on CRPGs in general, including but not limited to BG3. The changing nature of CRPGs is reflected across the past 20 years. I dont think it's reasonable to expect any designer to confine themselves to only iterating on a single game, especially when it is so old.

    6 man parties in other games havent really led to strong plural member interactions. PF:KM and PoE being two examples, neither of which strongly pushed out 3 member banters (I didnt beat PoE, to be fair)

    5e as a system is balanced around 4 player parties. This response is only aimed at @Sjerrie 's argument: The larger number of classes does not necessarily mean you need more character slots. 2.5 (and 3e) both benefited from more character slots because of the way the system worked. 5e streamlined it so that 4 man parties are more than capable of dealing with any situation.
    JuliusBorisovArvia
  • SjerrieSjerrie Member Posts: 1,234
    5e as a system is balanced around 4 player parties. This response is only aimed at @Sjerrie 's argument: The larger number of classes does not necessarily mean you need more character slots. 2.5 (and 3e) both benefited from more character slots because of the way the system worked. 5e streamlined it so that 4 man parties are more than capable of dealing with any situation.

    Fair point. But don't let Larian read this or they might see it as an excuse to *not* round out the roster. ;)
    BallpointMan
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    @BallpointMan " I dont think it's reasonable to expect any designer to confine themselves to only iterating on a single game, especially when it is so old."

    I don't recall making the argument that Larian should ONLY iterate on BG. I would like it if Larian iterated on BG at ALL. I just can't see the classic games in any way in their product.

    Also, if BG is so old that iterating on it is not worth it, why bother having a sequel at all? I don't really see the upside to your argument here.

    SjerrieKamigoroshikanisatha
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,714
    Not sure how that is relevant to the current subject. Dragon Age had 4 characters in the party, Divinity: Original Sin had 4 characters in the party. The Outer Worlds and Mass Effect had 3 characters in the party. Pillars of Eternity switched from 6 to 5 for the second part. That is the industry right now.

    6-character parties existed in legacy BG and IWD games, PoE 1 (which released in 2015, 5.5 years ago) and P:K.

    If anything, BG3 IS trying to follow to the industry standards and set new ones. It can't follow the formula from 2000, though. There are design reasons for that, and I understand some of you disagree with them. But it is just how it is, and modding is still available. The fact that it's possible to mod a 4-char party into a 6-char party in D:OS is a testament the company behind the game is not deaf and left such a possibility. What is not to like?
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