Before the beginning I must admit that I am not good in English, so most of this review is translated by google, so if you find out some paragraphs translated bad I apology you.
This game can be said to be quite magical. It has been 3 years since it opened for pre-order and early access until it was officially released. There are quite a lot of players who have fallen in love with it. I must admit that I was also dragged into the game by my friend. After all, I heard that character level cap is only 5 (early access version) which really scared me.
Now that I’ve bought it, I can’t waste this opportunity. After I insist on that cleared the game, let me analyze to you whether this game is really fun or just an RPG game with big thunder and small raindrops.
But one thing I have to say before the formal review is that the visual effect of this game can be said to be the ultimate. Not only are the 3D scenes very detailed and exquisite, not even inferior to the pre-drawn 2D images of Baldur's Gate II, but the character modeling is also very delicate, there are many and quite vivid actions, plus a large number of cutscenes and impromptu dice rolls in various situations, as well as the interaction between characters and scenes, and the design in which characters can move by jumping or even flying in the game. Coupled with the introduction of various D&D related spells such as "Feather Fall", "Fly", etc., it makes people feel like they are really playing a tabletop RPG (TRPG). This is probably why it can attract so many players.
※Baldur's Gate series games are computer games developed based on the "Forgotten Realms" of the famous tabletop game "Dungeons and Dragons" series launched by the American company TSR. The entire game setting and operation are based on the rules of TRPG. Baldur's Gate III uses the latest 5th edition rules of D&D to design the game.
Because there is quite a lot of content in this game, in order to experience all the content of the game as much as possible and make a fair evaluation, and if I write it from memory alone, there may be omissions or errors, so I wrote this review while playing (I attached some screenshots at the moment), and during this period I was not playing this game all the time (mobile games, GTA online), so it took more than one month. If there are some shortcomings or bugs that has been corrected during the time and I will add another note at the end of the title.
This time it’s still the same, it’s bitter first and then sweet. Let’s talk about its cons first.
CONS:
1. System configuration requirements are too high.
This game has been available for early access over 3 years before its official release. Considering the development time, it is reasonable to speculate that the development should have been at least 6 to 7 years ago. However, Larian Studio is obviously based on the latest computer components 7 years later to develop this game. As a result, if the player uses a slightly older equipments, the game will more often lag during execution.
Even when the player arrives at Wyrm's Rock Fortress to meet Gortash, the entire game can be so slow that each line of dialogue needs to pause for more than 10 seconds before the next line comes out, and the entire screen will jump frame by frame, as if watching a slideshow.
To be honest, the visual effects of Baldur's Gate III are extremely detailed and vivid. Almost all NPCs have unique movements and close-ups during conversations, and almost no corners can be seen at all. It is so delicate and realistic that it is shocking. Not an exaggeration.
In other 3D games, many buildings are often inaccessible (or are designed as independent spaces, and the computer need to read data before you enter it), because each building is an open space inside. Presumably the interior furnishings of these buildings will put an excessive load on the system (especially the memory), but in this game there are very few buildings that are inaccessible.
This is especially true when players inside Baldur's Gate city. Almost every time they go to the ground area of the city, the entire screen will start to freeze severely... At first, only part of floors and walls can be seen, and the clothes worn by the characters are even It became a blurry area, and nearby objects were not displayed at all. It took more than ten seconds for these map objects and material details to be displayed on the screen one by one.
The screenshot below is the screen displayed after 10 seconds to 1 minute of the above screenshot.
But is this a good thing? Are players really willing to trade such detailed and extremely complex map objects for the price of the game being constantly stuck?
Personally I don't think so. If the game doesn't perform smoothly, no matter how good the visual effects are, it will be useless. Players should feel lucky that this game is not a first-person shooting game, otherwise they may not be able to continue playing, unless they are willing to spend money to include the entire computer. The motherboard, CPU, power supply, memory RAM and 3D graphic card are all replaced with the latest high-end products.
But not every player is rich. Game design manufacturers should use the average equipment of many players instead of the top equipment as a reference for game development, unless they don't want to earn money. If they really want to earn money from rich players, to develop PVP Gacha game won't be faster and easier than standard RPG?
In fact, players will be satisfied if the 3D graphics are as good as GTA5, and most of the unimportant dialogues such as "How are you?", "Good day!" can directly used as monologues between the player character and his partners "Bubble dialogue" performance is enough. There is no need to have a close-up of the screen and let the NPC put on various expressions, which wastes cost and development time. Do you really think players will care about this?
I have to mention here that I don’t know how to play LAG at all in GTA 5. It is very smooth (Baldur’s Gate 2 Enhanced Edition is even more smooth, and the save file loading speed is so fast that it can be completed instantly). Even if I play Fallout 4 also rarely has LAG phenomenon, and my configuration is not too bad (16G RAM + GTX980 graphics card + Intel Core i5-10400 CPU 2.90GHz).
Finally, I would like to point out that playing this game takes too much time. In addition to the smoothness issue, with Larian Studio’s emphasis on combat difficulty, players will inevitably face the situation of loading save files multiple times. Each time it takes almost 1 to 2 minutes to load files, coupled with various tactical operations and the complexity of the game, playing for a whole afternoon may only make the player's progress a little bit, which really wears down the player's patience, especially This is an era where every minute is important.
2. The pathfinding AI is terrible.
When players use jumping methods to jump over some more harmful areas such as poison pools, burning ground, etc., the AI teammates who are following the team will not follow them to jump over such places, but directly and boldly go over and mess up. Step on...and even "repeatedly" step on these locations to cause yourself more damage. Are the designers out of their minds, or do they want to cause some trouble for players? Obviously some potholes will automatically jump over, but they still don't know how to jump over or go around these harmful and dangerous places?
3. Ignored the rules of D&D 5E and strengthened monster's ability without authorization.
For example, phase spiders were originally designed what has "Ethereal Jaunt", "Spider Climb" and poisonous bite abilities, but this game gives them the ability to "Spit Venom". The point is that this ability can even be used repeatedly without restrictions, Larian Studio could you be more exaggerated? The original D&D setting data it is level 5 creature, but in this game it changed to level 3, and then the attributes and all abilities are more and stronger compared to the level 5 official phase spider. It was clearly they knew this monster is level 5, but they changed the level to level 3 to hide their evil thoughts.
The same is true for the Minotaur. When the player encounters this monster, the data shows that it is a level 4 monster with HP as high as 84. However, the original monster setting of the D&D5E version is a level 9 monster with HP of 76. Larian not only enhanced the monster's power, but also deliberately displayed a lower level to make players careless? This mentality is really ridiculous.
BioWare, the design team for the previous two games of "Baldur's Gate" series, originally loved to use various cheating designs to instead the original D&D rules (such as the 11th-level female bard who came out as a mage to hunt players in Beregost in "Baldur's Gate I"), rune assassin who pretends to drink the invisibility potion to backstab player characters directly without hiding or becoming invisible in "Baldur's Gate II", etc.), this Larian studio has continued this terrible traditional, and then it’s no longer pretending, doing their best to strengthen monsters and enemy characters. It doesn’t matter if the player knows D&D or doesn’t know D&D. If you want to play, just keep playing. If you don’t play, they have already had your money. It's not bad at all.
Level 4 gnoll hunters can shoot player characters 3 times every round, and after killing them, their corpses will only have fur materials... The cheating level simply refreshed my perception of the level of cheating in this game once more.
In the goblin camp, there is a priestess of Absolute, "True Soul Gut". Her character level is only 4, but she can even cast the 5th-level "Telekinesis" magic of the mage; A mage's level needs to be 9 to cast 5-level magic, but this cheating priestess with level 4 is not even a mage, and she did not drop any equipment or props that can cast this magic after her death. Coupled with the multi-level structure of the scene, this battle is absolutely advantageous for her. If the player want to play long-range shooting battles through the height difference, his/her party members will be thrown to the bottom one by one in every round. If his/her party member's HP is not enough, they will fall to death directly. Another design designed to cheat players at all costs.
After arrived Gauntlets of Shar, there is a fiend "Yurgir" leading a Displacer Beast and a group of his minions. The Level 5 Displacer Beast here is also a creature cheating modified by Larian Studio.
"Displacement" ability as the data above stated which allows it to project a illusion of itself nearby to attract enemy attacks. However, the clone does not have physical attack capabilities and will disappear when it is attacked by any attack. It is similar to the "Mirror Image" arcane magic, except that can only project one clone in one round and can only maintain one clone at a time. Although the arcane magic "Mirror Image" has three clones at a time but there is a limit on the number of spells casting per day, this monster's innate ability has no limit on the number of times it can be used.
The multi-attack ability written on the data sheet is that it can only attack 2 times with tentacles per round, but there is no ability to act twice.
The AC value is 13, which is changed to 16 in the game. The hit die is 10, so it is a level 10 monster. It is not the level 5 shown in the game at all (the key point is that the level is lowered but it's HP, lethality, and attributes and abilities didn't weaken as it's level. but even the abilities became stronger than the original D&D displacer beast).
The lead-filled gloves are really exaggerated (a metaphor for the lead-filled gloves worn by boxers during boxing matches).Not only can this monster act twice in every round, each attack is a double attack, which can basically be regarded as 4 hits, and even the clone can actually cause damage to the player's team! It can even summon a new clone every round, even if the old clone doesn't disappear at all (more than 2 clones can be maintained)! The point is that this monster is not even a BOSS, because it has no special name, and when it appears, it is one of minions led by "Yurgir", a real fiend BOSS.
※In the setting of D&D, the level of a monster is determined by the number of hit dice. 10D10 means that it is level 10. The following D10 refers to the maximum increase in HP limit per level.
The flesh golem that appeared in the same area in the game was also filled with lead(cheating) monster, and there were also a bunch of enemy monsters that were filled with lead that I couldn't even list one by one.
flesh golems is the lowest level and the weakest among all golems. The golem that appeared in "Baldur's Gate I" only has this style, but its power is several times lower than the one in "Baldur's Gate III".
The HP of the flesh golem(Flesh) in "Baldur's Gate III" has increased sharply to 182 (the data sheet shows HP 93), which is more HP than stone golems with 17 hit dice, and the AC defense value has also increased from 9 to 11.HP11D8+44, which means it has 11 D8 hit dice, which is equivalent to the player character level 11. In this game, it was also decreased to level 7.
There are more enemy creatures that have been modified(strengthened) by Larian Studio in various ways later.It feels like they are deliberately trying to make every battle the player encounters an extreme challenge, but they don’t want players to see at a glance that the opponent is trying to mess with players, so the levels are deliberately displayed as low. In fact, All of them are high-level characters pretending to be suckers (except for the bronze dragon "Ansur", which is really level 17. It is also a BOSS that has been strengthened by Larian Studio. Its HP alone is directly doubled, and it has more abilities than any other in the history of D&D games. Several extremely powerful attack moves that have never appeared before).
It's not that there are no high-level encounters in Baldur's Gate 1 and 2. There are some, but the number is limited. Not every battle will make you so tense. There are also many common enemy NPC or monsters.
There are also high-level encounters in Athkatla in "Baldur's Gate II", which are very difficult battles for players who have not reached level 15 or above. However, this kind of challenge is extremely rare, except for deliberately fighting a group "Cowled Wizards" on the street. Besides (casting magic on the street without a license will anger the Cowled Wizards, who will appear to warn you the first time, and then teleport directly to kill you after the second time), there are really not many battles like this.※In fact, because Jon Irenicus’ sister Bodhi established a gang guild in Athkatla and openly competed with the Shadow Thieves organization for territory, conflicts between the two sides were often seen at night, and some NPCs on the street would remind players that not to go out at night. If players do not listen, they will encounter something terrible if they walk out too much at night. These terrible something are vampires, and players will easily be involved in a battle with a group of vampires.
Strictly speaking, these vampires are not really high-level encounters, but they are still very dangerous opponents for novices who are just starting to adventure. As long as a vampire in the 2.0 version of the rules (Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 uses the 2.0 rules) hits any creature that is not immune to negative energy, it will drained at least 2 character levels; in the 5th version of the rules, negative energy replaced to necrotic damage, and the level drain effect has been cancelled).
Moreover, in the previous game, high-level encounters were difficult, and the rewards also very generous, such as encountering a high-level team: a Lich who can cast 9-level magic, an Elder Beholder, a Vampire Master, a high-level warrior and a high-level assassin.
If the player can overcome this high-level encounter, the player can collect the most OverPower magic artifact in the game "Staff of the Magi", the weapon gives the wielder +2 defense and +2 saving throws, it also give the wielder "Invisiblility" buff(without activating the magic on it) and under the effect of "Protection Against Evil". In addition, every day the wielder can activate a 9-level magic "Spell Trap" once(which can automatically absorb any magic effects to restore the number of wielder's spell casting and can absorb spell effects up to level 40 in total) for 8 hours. If the wielder attack hits the target with the staff, it can automatic dispelled magic effects on the target.
In addition, there is a high-level encounter in the previous game against a legendary lich. After defeating it, it will transform into a demi-lich Kangaxx, which is immune to below +3(included +3) magic weapons and has a damage resistance of 90%. (Equivalent to the Adamantite Golem), immune to all magics, and will cast 9-level "imprisonment" spell on the player's party members every round.
As long as the player can overcome the battle, he will loot a "Ring of Gaxx" in the corpse. In addition to +2 defense and+2 saving throws, it also has a +2 HP recovery effect per second(passive) and the wearer immune to poison and disease. the wearer can activate "Improved Haste" spell and "Invisibility" spell 3 times on it per day. And this magical ring will not conflict with other defensive magic equipments like cloak of protection+2 or ring of protection+2 even full plate armor+2 etc. The character can wear the Ring of Gaxx and the Ring of Protection +2 at the same time. But "Baldur's Gate III" give me the feeling that fighting is difficult, but there is no relative benefit to winning. It sucks!
Please think about it again. Why did Larian Studio deliberately place monsters that would overwhelm the players early in the adventure process of "Baldur's Gate III", but then deliberately lowered the monsters' apparent levels to be almost the same as the player characters? Is it simply to deceive players' feelings? Even if this is the intention, it is definitely not the main reason. Now I think everyone should know it, it is just that they don’t want to give players too good rewards.
Compared with the player team defeating level 10 monsters with weakly level 5 party, if the list level of these level 10 monsters is reduced to 5, wouldn't it be more reasonable to only give a little experience value? Now look back at the D&D monster data sheet I listed earlier. Are these experience points fully provided in "Baldur's Gate III"? Um?
The most intolerable thing is that the members of Larian Studio designed a D&D game in a style that has no D&D flavor at all. They ignored the existing rules of D&D and even make the BOSS battle became special rule battles that are similar to solving puzzles to defeat the BOSS, but this is not in line with the setting and background of D&D at all, because in the world view of D&D, except in rare cases, there are no opponents that can only be defeated with special methods. Otherwise, Dragons will not be called the most power creatures(the most obvious example is dragons can be normally defeated).
The rare cases above refer to settings like Vampire Legend. When a vampire's HP drops to zero, it will automatically be transformed into a mist form. At this time, it is invulnerable and almost completely invincible (unless it is illuminated by the sun, or It means standing on the flowing water. If their HP drops to zero under the above circumstances, they will not be able to transform into mist and die directly), and then return to their coffin within 2 hours and rest for more than 1 hour to recover 1 HP. And resurrected.
Most creatures can almost be killed directly by melee weapons. Even golems with multiple immunity abilities are at best only immune to attacks from non-magical weapons. enchanted weapons can still hurt them. Even under the old rules before 3.5, as long as the magical weapon's enchantment the player character holds is powerful enough, he can kill anything, even the god's Avatar! However, Larian Studio directly created a mini-BOSS in this game that is immune to all physical attacks, forcing players to rely on magic to fight.
At the beginning, this guy can only be damaged by magic or elemental (including necrotic) attacks other than thunder. Coupled with a huge amount of HP, it can almost make low-level player characters helpless.
In addition, after it is damaged by elementals or magic, it will trigger the passive brewing skill, so that it can launch various AOE range attacks to cause huge damage to the player party(about 30~40). Player characters who are not high-level can only slowly carefully fight it.
First withstand its brewing attack until it summons a group of imps, and then use the elemental resistance aura of imps to absorb most of the damage from the BOSS's brewing attack.
You have to pay attention to the resistance aura of imps, If the resistance aura is frost, then the player should focus on attacking the BOSS with frost damage and convert its brewing form into frost element, until the BOSS used 3 brewing attacks, it will trigger the drunken state. At this time, it's physical immunity abilities will be temporarily broken for one round and converted amplify damage... Otherwise this monster is even immune to the resistance-ignoring effect of "Adamantine Weapon".
Frankly speaking, this kind of battle is probably based on those action RPGs, because action RPGs often deliberately use these "special" rules to increase the difficulty of the game, so that players cannot simply rely on various combo attacks to defeat bosses.
But what is this? This is a D&D RPG game. Larian Studio, do you really understand D&D? ? If you don’t, leave it to someone else who knows how to design it!
What's even more disgusting is that this kind of BOSS battle will not drop good equipment to players. These high-risk and high-reward things that has been emphasized repeatedly before is bullshit to Larian Studio!
What is the ultimate level of cheating(look at it's HP amount)? This mini boss can hit any person with the most golds on the player's party who exploded into mincemeat with just one attack(range attack). This is not an adjective, it is a real one hit to explode into mincemeat! Caused several hundreds damage! ! Apart from the gods, I have never seen any D&D character so powerful.
Because this kind of power involving natural rules controlling(similar to converting golds on the target into nitroglycerine and detonating it directly) is already powers possessed by gods, whether it is Toril in "Forgotten Realm" or Krynn in "Dragonlance", Even in the world of Planescape, no non-god existence can possess this kind of power.
You guys, Larian Studio, are you okay? In order to design a game that is different from the past D&D style, you really go to any lengths and ignore the rules of the game to this extent. Aren't you afraid that players will be disgusted?
Of course, I am not saying here that these cheating monsters are impossible to defeat. Of course they can be defeated, but they are not defeated according to the rules of D&D, but according to the rules set by Larian Studio.
Players must find out clearly how to defeat these cheating bosses can you have a chance to defeat them, but this is not logical at all. For example, the weakness of the above-mentioned "Gerringothe Thorm" is the floating skulls around it. As long as each skull is destroyed, its max HP will be reduced a lot(the golden armor on it will be destroyed as well). If you try to avoid instant killed by it's "home run" attack, you must put all gold coins to other place(they can be placed elsewhere before the battle like the storage chest in your camp, but it is best not to be placed near the battlefield, because they will be used to summon weapons to attack you).
There were almost no high rewards in the previous high-difficulty battles, with the exception of this BOSS, because the "Twist of Fortune" mace it dropped has some of its own powers, and anyone holding it can launch the "Blood Money" special attack, which can be used once after each short rest. As long as the enemy holds more than 300 gold coins, each additional 300 gold coins can cause an additional 4 points of damage. With the player using "Invisibility" + the thief using pickpocketing methods, they can give all their gold coins to the enemy target, and then let the character holding this mace launch the special attack to kill the target with one blow. This should be regarded as a officially certified cheating hidden weapon that can be used by players in the game(the weapon description does not explain its "Blood Money" function. When viewing the weapon information, press the T key and then move the mouse to the "Blood Money" skill icon. You can only see the instructions on the display).
In addition, although this game will thoughtfully display to players the attributes, resistances, skills and specialties of all enemy creatures on the battlefield, some monsters still have "hidden" immunity.
For example, the Nether Brain pictured below:
This creature shows no resistance and immunity in the monster data(the screenshot).
However, my "Cloud Kill" spell casted on it did not cause any damage at all (it was released centered on it). Obviously it is immune, at least immune to poison, otherwise it would not be unscathed.
4. Equipments from hostile creatures no longer drops normally.
Baldur's Gate series games inherits the D&D Gold Box series launched by SSI in old times, but this game does not inherit the Gold Box series' design of generously dropping equipment from all hostile creatures to players.
You must know that even BioWare, which designed "Baldur's Gate I" and "Baldur's Gate II", will at least pretend to drop weapons and armor that enemy NPCs seem to be wearing(even though some cheating equipments held by some powerful NPCs is designed to never drop). In this game, Larian Studio no longer pretend they did it. No matter how much power the enemy equipments has, it will not be dropped to the player. Isn’t this the same for Japanese games like Dragon Quest anyway? Players will always accept it. But there is no harm in not comparing. How could players who have played these classic old D&D games not make comparisons?
5. Equipment drops are extremely stingy.
After the middle progression of the game, boss monsters with obvious levels of 10 or above begin to appear in endlessly, but decent equipment is still extremely rare.
For example, "Ring of Protection+1" which is very common in "Baldur's Gate I", players can't found in the game as if all of them evaporated in the world. Players have to solve a side quest to get one, and only this one you can get. And even "Cloak of Protection+1" is only one(really unique item) in the game.
Apart from body armor, other similar defensive equipment is incredibly rare. Helmet+1 also seem to be extinct(except Helmet of Balduran). Shields don’t give you large styles like tower shields at all. , not to mention tower shields above +1, from the beginning to the end, players have only been given buckler+1 or shield+1; various defensive accessories extreme rare directly add defense bonuses and also rarely apply bonus to your all saving throws at all. Instead, they gave you various magical accessories with inexplicable effects that are not obvious or of questionable practicality(such as Ring of Twilight, and Coruscation Ring etc.) making it difficult for the player characters to avoid enemy attacks in many battles, and even casualties often occur.
It would be fine if this game was like "Icewind Dale II" and gave you large-scale battles with a large group of enemies at every encounter, or even provided "Heart of Fury" mode to challenge masochistic hard-box players, but Larian Studio has It forces all players to accept their unilateral design of abusing players - giving enemy creatures the cheating power, giving players junk equipments, showing the monster faked levels and making it more difficult for player characters level up.
Does this approach make the game more fun? Frankly speaking, at least I think it only brings the opposite effect, and unlike previous D&D computer RPG, this one doesn't feel like D&D at all.
6. The magic system of the D&D 5.0 rules is countless times weaker than the old version.
Many spells in older versions become stronger as the magic user's level increases. For example, with just 1-level "Magic Missile", when the caster level is 9, he can release 5 missiles to attack the opponent by spend one magic memory slot in 1-level arcane.(a level 1 arcane caster can only shoots 1 missile with the spell).
However, in the newest 5E rules, the caster must use the 2-level or higher-level magic memory slot to cast this originally 1-level magic in order to increase the number of missiles. This results in the caster's magic power being reduced. Therefore, it is greatly limited by the already limited spell memory slot, causing the spells that were originally very powerful to become weaker!
The only advantage is that when the caster just learned higher-level magic, its magic power is stronger than the old version from the beginning(just learned). However, the upper limit of its spell power is obviously not as good as the old version.
For example, 8-level "[url=https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Abi-Dalzim's_Horrid_Wilting]Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting" Spell, a very powerful AOE damage spell in "Baldur's Gate II", originally multiplied the damage by 1D8 per level of the caster, up to a maximum of 20D8(when the caster is level 20, the power of this spell can reach maximum), but now the new version has a fixed damage of 12D8. In the 5E rules, the max HP can be increased by a large amount as every class increase their level. Such damage magics is more difficult to use at all.
In terms max HP increase speed, 5E rules is the same as the old 3E rules. In terms of HP, in "Icewind Dale II", which applies 3E rule, my paladin character has health point as high as 411 at level 29. The magic damage is reduced to this point. I'm really doubtful about all magic users how to survive. Under this new version of the rules, mages simply cannot shoulder the role of cannon.
Furthermore, "Stoneskin", a spell that was used exclusively to protect the caster in the old 2E rules, was completely changed to a spell that requires the caster to maintain "concentration" in order to maintain its effectiveness in 5E rules.
In addition, The setting that can be used to cast on other teammates makes it no longer a means of protecting oneself but a spell used to protect others, because when used on oneself, one is easier hit by the enemy's physical attacks. Isn't it putting the cart before the horse if we lose concentration and lose effectiveness?
And it is clear that the mage is the character who needs physical protection the most, but it is ridiculous to only use this physical protection method on others. Not to mention that in 3E rules, it can be used multiple times to protect oneself and teammates. These rules in 5E But it turns into a rubbish spell that can only be used on another person!
The point is that once this spell is used, the mage must maintain concentration and cannot cast any spells, otherwise the effect of the Stoneskin spell will disappear early! The most unacceptable thing is that this spell can only act on the physical attacks of ordinary weapons. If the opponent uses weapons with any enchantment effects or adamantine weapons, sorry, the resistance will be invalid.
Then you know with your ass that when your mage is level 7, the enemies will almost all be equipped with magical weapons, or the enemy monsters you encounter their attack will also considered as enchanted weapon, and the "Stoneskin" spell you finally learned will not be able to block any attack.
※The addition of the new "Concentration" rule means that all magic that requires concentration will automatically lose its effect when the caster casts other magic. Many originally practical spells have become junk spells as a result, such as "Protection from Good&Evil".
Another protective spell that was originally quite good, "Blink", has also been changed due to the concentration system to be used to maintain the existence of the magic instead of being the key to whether the spell can be completed. Once the player casts "Blink" spell, every time the caster transport to the "Ethereal Plane", the caster will immediately lose his concentration, making it impossible for the caster to safely cast magic that requires concentration through such protective magic!
The person who designed the 5th edition rules of TSR is perhaps to think:
"If you have the potential, just strip off your clothes and keep to concentrate your spell. Don't think you can hang a bunch of protective spells on yourself then to cast next spell that need your concentration!"
It's so idiotic that there is no leftover design.
The new 5E rules also greatly weaken the effectiveness of another practical magic, "Bestow Curse".
Originally in the old 3.5E rules, the effect of this spell was permanent, -6 to all target attributes, -4 to all target survival rolls (including attack hit rolls), and the target had to make a Will saving throw to resist this spell.
But now 5E rules has almost changed it beyond recognition. First, it has been changed to require the caster to maintain concentration in order to work. Then the effect is no longer comprehensive. The caster needs to specify what ability to reduce the target; such as reducing the related throws or saving throw of a certain attribute, or reduce its wisdom rollings and wisdom saving throws, or reduce the attack roll against the caster, or increase the caster's attack damage against the target plus an additional 1D8 necrotic damage, or directly Inflict fear on the target. The target must make a wisdom saving throw to againest this spell. Basic duration is 1 minute(10 rounds).
If the magic user casts this spell with a 4th level magic slot, the duration can be increased to 10 minutes(100 rounds); if casts with a 5th level magic slot, the duration is increased to 8 hours; if casts with a 7th level or higher magic slot, the duration is increased to 24 hours; if casts in the 9th level magic slot, it will last until the spell removed(permanently) or dispelled.
Casting this spell with a 5th level magic slot or above no longer requires the caster to maintain concentration(otherwise, which mage can continuously concentrate on the casting of a spell for more than 8 hours??).
The effect is that it becomes more diverse, but the reduction in effectiveness is unbearable.
The 5E rules also canceled the very practical "10' Radius Protection From Evil" spell in "Baldur's Gate II". In addition, the single-target version also needs to maintain "concentration", making this series of spells a joke in D&D.
※The 3E rules replaced it by "Magic Circle against Evil" spell. It was changed from the original 4th-level priest spell to 3rd-level, but the effectiveness became an aura spell that moves with the spell target. Teammates must continue to stay within 10 feet of the radius of the recipient. Only within the range can you always under the buff effect.
In addition, "Enhance Ability" spell that temporarily improve target's attributes have also become garbage, because they no longer directly increase the corresponding attribute values of the character, but instead allow the attribute to receive an additional bonus againest every dicing related it(enhanced strength attribute by the spell also increased the character's weight bearing capacity).
However, in the old version of the rules, the most commonly used attribute enhancement spells by players were "Bull's Strength" and "Cat's Grace".
Bull's Strength directly increases the physical attack hit roll and damage roll of the character, and can even increase the character's weight bearing capacity; Cat's Grace directly increases the bonus of all rogue skill check of the character and the additional dodge AC bonus after wearing leather armor or clothes, robes(this is also very useful for mages).
Now that the 5E rules have been changed like this, I want to ask who would still want to use this spell?
※The 2E rules only has Strength, a buff spell that temporarily increases strength. It can make the target's unconditional strength become 18. If the target's strength exceeds 18, it will be reduced to 18.
I don’t know which idiot changed these spells like this. Anyway, the magic changes in the 5E rules are really disappointing. A bunch of auxiliary spells that require concentration to maintain their effects are all garbage in my opinion. You want an archmage to fully maintain "Stoneskin" or "Protection from Good and Evil" spell in battles without casting other combat spells might as well kill him.
And even a pig knows that as long as the magic user who maintains concentration punched constantly by enemy, the spell he cast will be ineffective. Compared with "Baldur's Gate II", casting a spell requires time to cast, and you need to be careful during the spell casting that any injured may cause you to bite your tongue that "Baldur's Gate III" is ten times worse!
"Mirror Image", a self-protection spell that was very useful for low-level mages in the old version, has also been changed. The spell in 5E version only fixed generate 3 clone images (it does not support to cast the spell spending higher spell slot), and it's no longer like before 3.5E version that you can create 1D4+1 more images for every 3 caster levels. A high-level mage can even easily release max 8 clone images to make him more difficult for enemies to hit.
The operating rules of this spell are that any single attack(including physical or magical attack) launched by the enemy against the caster has a chance to attack the true caster. The probability of attack the true caster depends on the number of clones. Each clone image plus the true caster will be affected by The probability of attack is the same; if there are 3 clones images plus the true caster, the enemy's probability of attacking the true caster is 1/4; if only 1 clone remains, it is 1/2. Each clone image will disappear directly when attacked. If the true caster is hit by a physical attack, a normal hit roll must be made(the dicing based on the enemy's total hit roll and our AC). If the true caster is attacked by a magic attack It is directly treated as a case of being attacked by magic(such as a saving throw or magic resistance, etc.).
Finally, there are too few summoning spells for players to learn and cast in the 5E rules. Especially before the 3.5E rules. the entire series of "Summon Monster" spells was cut off in the 5E rules, leaving players more difficult to deal with various battles at lower levels.
I absolutely believe that if the novel "Dragonlance Chronicles" were under 5E spell system rules, it would be impossible for Raistlin to say "You all stay back, the weapons in your hands are useless for the situation." In this case, his magic would be even worse and also useless!
If "Baldur's Gate II" also adopts this rule, the final BOSS "Jon Irenicus" may only be able to play sands. If he dares to challenge the player party, he will be punched and flattened because almost any protective magic has these concentration problems and cannot effectively protect itself.
Not to mention that the spells that originally became stronger with the character's experience level were all changed to required by the 5th edition rules "cast spells on higher spell slots" has become weak and weak too much! All high-level damage spells have become less lethal. In addition, the max HP increased of every classes level up in the 5E rules is much higher than the old 2E rules of "Baldur's Gate II".
In Under this rule, it is more difficult for mages to fight monsters in their adventure with damage spells alone, and it is difficult for mages like Raistlin or Jon to take on major responsibilities.
Players who have read these novels or played "Baldur's Gate II" can take a good look at how unbearable the wizards in the 5th edition rules are. I am afraid that only novels like "The Dark Elf Trilogy" with the ranger as the protagonist can continuely write it down.
7. D&D 5E rules eliminated the attacks of opportunity against spellcasters and ranged attackers that existed before the 3.5E.
Before the 3.5E, there are more opportunities for attacks of opportunity and are more tactical. For example, when a player's warrior character holding a melee weapon stands next to an enemy magic user or archer, if the enemy still persists in trying to cast a spell or trying to shoot our party member, our melee warrior next to him/her/it will get an opportunity to attack, and any melee attack while casting a spell or shooting will be punished in terms of defense roll. The design is reasonable and tactical. Both the enemy and ourselves can suppress the opposing magic users or archers through numerical superiority.
So I really don't understand why the 5E rules canceled these attacks of opportunity. It's really un-D&D, and it's also very unprofessional.
8. D&D 5E has returned to the attack number setting of each classes in first 1E.
What does it mean to slap yourself in the face? This is called slapping yourself in the face.
TSR Company clearly allowed classes other than fighter-style to have the ability to attack multiple times per round in the 3E rules, but now the 5E has changed back to not allowing it. What does it mean that the rules are so capricious? It means that these people who design rules do not have their own ruler in mind, and it also means that they do not have their own professional persistence.
So what if non-fighter classes can have multiple attacks? The number of attacks per round is not as many as that of pure fighters, and the attacking roll is not as good as that of professional fighters. Rather than changing this, it is better to give fighter classes more defensive bonuses to balance the excessive attacking roll of enemies of the same class raising their hit roll with level up.
As far as the current situation is concerned, no matter how well everyone wears physical protective equipments, when a high-level fighter(or powerful monster) comes, he/she/it can still aim and hit wherever he/she/it wants.
Wearing them is almost the same as not wearing them. Players who have played "Heart of Fury" mode of "Icewind Dale II" will definitely feel this. They don't balance the broken AC settings, but deliberately nerf classes other than fighters to this extent.
I don't know what they are thinking. Are they possessed? Or is it that they were bullied by players playing other classes when they played the D&D board game with others last time, and they felt unhappy and wanted to regain their dignity through this method?
In the 3E rules, clerics, druids, rogues, and bards can all attack twice per round at level 8, and even mages can attack twice per round at level 12; fighters, barbarians, paladins, and rangers can attack 3 times per round starting at level 11.
※Fighters can attack up to 5 times per round starting at level 21; clerics, druids, rogues, bards, warlocks, and weapon-wielding monks can attack up to 5 times starting at level 28; mages and sorcerers above level 22 can attack up to 3 times per round; monks(unarmed) above level 18 can attack up to 5 times per round.
Now in the 5E rules, except for the fighter-style classes, all physical attacks can only be done once per round regardless of level, it is terrible. Even barbarians, paladins, and rangers can only attack twice per round at most. However, they will gain different additional abilities to compensate for this loss, but in my opinion, they are not as practical as hitting the opponent once more per round.
9. The source of fire in a burning scene cannot be extinguished by the player in any way.
Even if you splash water or even cast ice-based area-of-effect magic, including "Sleet Storm" that spell described "Summons a storm of snow and rain that can interrupt the caster's concentration and extinguish the flames...", it can only be temporarily extinguished embers at best, fire sources that burn more violently cannot be extinguished at all.
If the fire source is not extinguished, the surrounding embers will continue to spread repeatedly, which is useless.
10. Overcomplicated game world.
Your game is not necessarily fun even if you create a virtual world. Unnecessary designs will only become unnecessary loads between designers and players.
To give you the most obvious example, creating a lot of pick-up props and objects like "Elder Scrolls" series actually only increases the burden on players to compare whether they are valuable or useful. Novices will definitely spend a lot of unnecessary time on this. Picking up trash increases the character's burden, seriously affecting the speed of adventure exploration.
Especially props that are only used to provide players with food consumption for camping overnight. Obviously the game already has a "supply package" that can directly provide players with food needed to spend the night. But Larian Studio still produces a lot of different foods, which makes people doubt that it is to extend the player's unnecessary game time (after all, it takes time to pick up these foods, not to mention there are so many types of items that you have to spend time sorting them out).
11. Creatures burned by fire will spray out blood.
Larian Studio designed many aspects of the battle in this game to be quite realistic and complex, except for the omission of the design that creatures should not spurt blood when burned by fire.
12. Characters with the ability to fly are unable to maintain a floating state.
And when the character pushed to fall from high place by an enemy, they cannot trigger reaction actions to use "Feather Fall" or "Fly" spells to counter.
The most obvious example is that the flying ghoul summoned by the mage using the "Animate Dead" cast by 5th-level magic slot cannot maintain it's floating state while fly to the air, and can only fly within the maximum distance in one round(including the Z-axis movement distance).
And the character who has been cast on the flying spell(included the flying ghoul and other creatures who can fly) will be "pushed" off the cliff by the enemy instead of floating in the air. This is an inexplicable and unreasonable phenomenon.
In fact, since Larian Studio has designed this game to be so similar to XCOM, I don’t understand why they can’t just transplant the flight design from the X-COM: Enemy Unknown game to this game? After putting on the Archangel Powered Armor, the player character of X-COM can truly maintain a flying state in the sky and fight(shooting enemies in the air can also enjoy a height advantage, and killing the opponent can also trigger the "Death from Above" skill to gain action again effect)!
In addition, although this game has unprecedentedly added spell-casting defense actions that players can perform passively during combat, such as triggered the character's "Reaction" to cast "Shield(it also temporarily increase AC5 bonues on the caster in the round)" spell to block the opponent's "Magic Missile" and other attacks when attacked.
But it does not include the design of activating "Feather Fall" spell to slow down or "Fly" spell to maintain the state of floating in the air to relieve the crisis when being pushed down by the enemy. If the game actually makes such a counter-action, I will definitely put this as an "pros" rather than a "cons" here.
13. The method of determining whether a push attack is successful is incorrect.
It should also be regarded as an ordinary physical attack, which means that the higher the target's AC, the harder it is to be hit by push, even included when the target itself is under "Mirror Image" spell effect.
And once such an attack is avoided, The attacker should also bear the reaction force, that is, if the character he was originally pushing was not hit, he would rush forward, and there is a certain chance of causing him to lose balance or even tumble down by self(excessive force). But it is a pity that here This game only implements the advantageous situation of making a push attack but does not realize the price of failure to perform such an action.
14. Time will not be automatically paused when the player character discovers a trap, and the detection range of the trap is too small.
"Baldur's Gate" series produced by BioWare and even "Icewind Dale" series produced by Black Isle with the same engine(infinity engine) all have this design. I don't understand why Larian took over "Baldur's Gate III" but abandoned this good design.
Have they themselves tried to play the situation where when their characters found a trap is nearby, they rush directly through the trap area before they have time to react? When players move around the wild, they don't just take a few steps at a time.
There are still hidden dangers in some wild areas. It is common for players to move a relatively long distance in one go. Player's party usually does not abandon the rogue character. However, the rogue in the party discovered the trap in time, but failed to prevent others to stepping on it that is what kind of this suck design?
Even if the player urgently presses SHIFT+SPACE after discovering the trap to turn on the turn-based state and manually pause the time, it is often because the trap discovered is too close to the party characters and there is no time to stop them from stepping on it.
It can be seen that Larian Studio, like other game production teams, really sells the game without properly testing it, treating the players as guinea pigs. It is ridiculous that this problem still exists 3 years after the trial version was launched. That's nonsense, of course we can't expect players to be more professional, but when the design team abandons their own professionalism, how good can the game be?
15. Player's rogue cannot set traps.
Another good design of the previous game that Larian abandoned. In fact, not only "Baldur's Gate II", but also the "Neverwinter Nights" series allows player characters to set traps by themselves, and players can even make various types of traps by themselves.
16. The corpses of some enemies are inexplicably judged to be "other people's assets".
Is this still have reasonable? Obviously these enemies is a criminal, why is it considered theft if you loot the items on those corpses after you kill those enemies? It’s confusing whether Larian Studio created this as a bug or on purpose (that’s why I didn’t put it in the “bugs not resolved”), and this design flaw still needs to be pointed out.
For example, there is some Banites in Baldur's Gate city who secretly participated in the terrorist attack of stuffing bombs inside the bear dolls(the attack targets the refugees who came to Baldur's Gate to escape the war and seek protection). In this side mission, the player cannot do anything at all like to report these terrorists, the only option is to kill them all.
However, it is really inexplicable that all their corpses are classified as public property. One of them even has an illithid parasite in his brain(the true soul of Absolute), how can I do it if I don’t take it?
What's even more ridiculous is that there is a group of Flaming Fist patrols standing in front of this store who are openly derelict in their duties and do not patrol. As long as the player starts a fight with the terrorists inside, they will immediately rush in to help the terrorists! Full of malice.
Even if these terrorists(Banites) is serving Gortash, who has become the Grand Duke, on the surface even he cannot agree with what they are doing (because the justice is not on their side).
In this case, why doesn't Larian Studio Just allow players to report them and let the Flame Fist mercenaries raid their store themself? Even if they don’t accept it, they should at least authorize the player party to carry out justice, right? How can players be forced to engage in illegal and righteous things like superheroes?
17. The interaction between the protagonist and his teammates is not as good as "Baldur's Gate II", and the main plot has too many contradictions.
Party members will not take the initiative to chat with the protagonist on the way. They will only show exclamation marks on their heads every time to remind the players that they have something to say. It is as if they lose if they initiative to chat. It is a bit idiotic(in the previous game, party members often took the initiative to chat with the protagonist).
Regarding the favorability system, Larian used a very lazy way to deal with it, that is, regardless of the gender of the player character, and only made the love route, as if the friendship route did not exist. To be honest, this kind of treatment that ignores the gender of the characters is like using the identity of "gay" to cover up the designer's own laziness.
Is it difficult to write more paragraphs about the development of pure friendship between same-sex people? Even pigs know how many homosexuals there are in the world, and they make this game seem like everyone is gay. Is this looking down on the player’s IQ or looking down on the designer’s own IQ?
In "Baldur's Gate II", many NPC followers will also develop their own romances with each other. For example, Valygar and Mazzy, Anomen and the female protagonist or Aerie, [url=https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Haer'Dalis?so=search]Haer'Dalis and Aerie. However, in this game, it seems that all followers only revolve around the player. This illogical design makes people wonder whether the people at Larian Studio have really tried to play the previous game. How can they continue the glory of "Baldur's Gate" series if they have not done their homework before to design the game?
Moreover, the main plot is even more outrageous. The desperate attempt to form an alliance between the three gods of death is nonsense. It makes people wonder if the screenwriter didn't even know enough about the story background of D&D and started messing around with the plot. You must know that before the story of "Baldur's Gate I" begins, the three gods of death, "Bane" God of Destruction, "Bhaal" God of Murder, and "Myrkul" God of the Dead, were already killed by Cyric in "The Age of Turmoil", Cyric also gained part of their godhood and became the God of Lies.
In the setting of D&D, once a god dies, his followers will also lose their divine power, because without the source, where can the divine power come from? Unless you convert to another god.
However, in the plot of the game, their followers are still coming out. Is this funny? Even the undead NPC in the player camp is still talking nonsense about these things. Even if the screenwriter admits the fact of Bane's death, the Lord of Murder Bhaal still has been killed in The Age of Turmoil for a long time. His resurrection plot completely failed in the storyline of "Balder's Gate II: The Throne of Bhaal".
Regardless of whether his throne is finally accepted players in the previous game, the new evil god will definitely not be called Bhaal. What's more, even players in the previous game can finally choose whether to inherit the Throne of Bhaal and become the new God of Murder, the official also admitted that the choice made by the protagonist in the Baldur's Gate novel was to give up the Throne of Bhaal(his's essence will be keep by the gods, there will be no possibility of resurrection).
[url=https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Baldur's_Gate_trilogy_(novels)]https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Baldur's_Gate_trilogy_(novels)
To put it bluntly, if the three gods of death really join forces, it is impossible that Cyric, as their competitor, will just sit idly by and do nothing, and will definitely intervene(their hatred is huge), but what is strange is that the Cyric believers who could be seen on the streets at the beginning of "Baldur's Gate II" are completely extinct in the game?
18. This game further reduced the spell effectiveness of the 5E rules.
The duration of the "Bestow Curse" spell became shorter when cast with higher-level magic slots; the duration of casting this spell with 4th-level magic is changed from 10 minutes (100 rounds) to 2 minutes (20 rounds); the duration of casting this spell with 5th-level magic is changed from 8 hours are changed to 5 minutes (50 rounds); the duration of casting this spell with 6th level magic is changed from 24 hours to 10 minutes (100 rounds).
And it always requires the caster to maintain his concentration. Such changes make the already rubbish spells completely useless, and it is another malicious design that ignores the rules of D&D.
In fact, the 100 rounds of buff or debuff spells like this are honestly impossible to worn off in any combat(if it really fight to 100 rounds, the player may have fallen asleep in early time), so I suggest Larian Studio can change it to cast this spell in higher magic level, over 1 magic level will allow the spell to last until short rest, and casting it over 2 magic levels will extend it to long rest. In this way, it meets the requirements mentioned in pros "7" below. The purpose of simplifying magic duration is also quite reasonable.
"Dimension Door" and "Arcane Gate" have also been changed in this game to have an effective distance of only 18M... The original D&D rule setting is 500 feet (converted to meters is 152.4M) Ah! Even if the character's line of sight cannot reach this far, it is definitely far beyond the short distance of 18M!
"Mirror Image" in this game has been changed that each illusionary duplicate can only increase the caster's AC+3 and every time the enemy's attack on the caster misses, there will be one less duplicates.
That is to say, instead of equally dividing the probability of being targeted for attack, the most idiotic way is to directly add an AC bonus to the caster to deal with the enemy's attack. Of course, the AC of mages is definitely the worst. Is this rule fair to mages? If the rules for the spell are based on the 3.5E, a mage summoned 8 illusionary duplicates will naturally have a high chance of being able to withstand one or two attacks from enemies of the same level.
However, compared to the judgment method of 3.5E, this spell is still impractical. What's more, the 5E rules can only generate fixed 3 illusionary duplicates(it is not allowed to cast the spell by higher magic level), which is a drop in the bucket! Not to mention that this spell in the 5E rules need the caster to keep concentrate on it(that means you got hit probably make the spell worn off earlier).
"See Invisibility" has been modified so that the target can remain invisible without being seen as long as it passes a saving throw. The name of this magic is directly slapped in the face.
Why is Larian Studio so obsessed with changing this? Because in many scenes, some Bhaal follower assassins will use the cheating "self-invisibility" ability to remain invisible every round (I really don't know which class has such an incredible ability, even the Air Elemental Myrmidon has to restore the invisibility ability after a short rest), if the player drinks a potion and captured them directly, what is the difficulty?
Naturally, they have to change it to a "you can't see me" version, so that they will feel that the difficulty of the game they designed is in place.
If you ask me, their level of shamelessness is a little bit more than BioWare's. At least BioWare only dare to cheat secretly. Larian you guys just abandoned to pretend: "You can bite me but we still wanna cheat in our game".
Astarion drank the "see invisibility" potion but still see nothing, his movement routing blocked by the enemy who keep invisible effect.
"Darkness" spell was modified into a spell that can sweep away higher 3rd-level "Daylight", and it can also block enemy's any ranged attacks(included spells)! This mass of darkness will stand in front of you like a physical obstacle, making it impossible for the mage's magic to throw through and the archer's arrows to shoot through.
Can't I blindly bombard it or shoot it blindly? Even if "Greater Invisibility" spell is still active but the enemy sensed the character, the enemy still can attack the character, but there will be an disadvantage on the attacking hit roll. And as long as the opponent has the "Blind Fight" feat, it can ignore these adverse effects of the attack.
It's completely inexplicable, and it's filled too much lead(as if a boxer weared lead-filled gloves)! It's too serious. Can this kind of power be called a 2nd level spell? Why did Larian Studios want to modify this spell? Because there will be a battle with Shar believers in the plot, almost every one of them will throw darkness spells at players, and then rush up to attack at close range (their attacks have a lot of extra damage bonus under the cover of darkness).
In order to make thess battles more difficult, the first thing Larian Studio did was to remove "Dispel Magic" and "True Seeing". The second thing was to greatly modified this "Darkness" spell so "Daylight" spell could no longer become their threat. Another ugly eatting appearance.
There are countless settings like this that have been further weakened by Larian Studio. Players who are interested can play it for themselves and then compare! I just want to ask them one thing: "Since you don't want to design a game according to D&D rules, why not just design Divinity 3? Is it fun to design this bullshit Baldur's Gate III like this?"
19. The third-person perspective cannot move as the player wishes and observe distant scenes.
As long as the player moves the screen far away, the perspective will slide down inexplicably and even touch the ground, forcing the player to have to control the character to run near the place before the perspective returns to normal.
There is really no problem with this restriction during normal exploration, but if there is a battle, the player will not be able to observe the entire battlefield. You can't control your character to run to the easternmost part of the battlefield and then run to the westernmost part during the battle, right? Enemies or monsters won't wait for you to finish the exploration in the battlefield before they attack you.
The most important thing is that this game does not allow players to freely adjust the Z-axis movement of the screen (moving the screen scene up and down). This makes it difficult for players to adjust the screen in a timely manner when exploring in scenes with many different floors so that players can clearly see different floors. What's in the different areas, or control your character to go to these areas.
Of course, I don’t want to deny that this game is quite exquisite in the design of the 3D scene. It is far ahead of "Neverwinter Nights 2" by five blocks. However, since the scene has been designed to be so detailed and complex, it does not give players enough permission to move the screen freely, it’s really hard to understand what's their thought about this. The method of screen movement alone makes the Neverwinter Night series beat this game.
Since Larian Studio want to develop a sequel instead of BioWare, they shouldn't just jump into it without even playing the previous game, right? Lazy reject to do the homework can cause problems!
20. Players are not allowed to export their characters and to import them into the new game(New Game Plus).
Compared with the "Baldur's Gate" series and all D&D games designed by BioWare and Black Isle, this "Baldur's Gate III" changes from the previous interesting design and only allows player characters to exist in one game. Even the multiplayer mode does not allow players to use their own characters, but forces them to re-create their new characters before they can join other player's games!
This decision by Larian Studios shows that they simply don’t understand what players are interested in, or they simply don’t understand why players like the previous games.
21. As long as NPCs sees summoned creatures following the player, they will follow the player character everywhere, or run away in terror. (Corrected in the last update)
Then they would shout words of expulsion such as "Go! go!"
This is really quite speechless, especially if NPCs running around like this will only bother players. After all, they may be involved in the battle between players and monsters, because area damage spells do not recognize people. Just because they chase the player, they can't become a load on the player's side, right? This is one of them.
The second is if the store owner follows the player around, where will the player find him/her to buy or sell items if the store owner got lost in future? We can't let the players follow the original path based on memory to find them, right?
In addition, Last Light Inn in the Land of Shadow Curse is even more of a disaster, because the NPCs there will be cursed by the shadow as soon as they run out of the Inn's protection. Although some NPCs, such as children, are immortal, others NPCs will still die, including important NPCs in side missions. Once they die, the mission will fail on the spot.
The most exaggerated thing is when the player come to Last Light Inn and doing a main quest "Lift The Shadow Curse" and then Arch Druid Halsin opened the portal to Shadowfell and enter it. If the player brought the summoned creatures to defend the portal, the NPCs of Last Light Inn probably will following the player's summoned creatures. Then they may killed by the Shadow Curse. As a result, everyone in Last Light Inn thought that NPCs was killed by the player and became hostile, and the entire defense battle lost control.
22. NPCs from different factions should not help each other locate stalkers and remove player characters from stealth.
For example, when the player's rogue wants to launch a sneak attack on a monster in the wild, the nearby neutral or friendly NPC should not break the player's rogue's stealth state. In other words, the stealth mechanism of the game system should be changed to an individual judgment for the targeted character. Stealth state should be maintained forever until one stops sneaking, and could his/her stealth state fades or not should be determined by the targeted of the stalker's.
For example, a rogue sneaks up and tries to attack passerby A. This behavior has nothing to do with passerby B. Passerby A and passerby B do not know each other and may even be hostile to each other. Then passerby B will not take the initiative to point out the rogue's sneaking position to passerby A and remind passerby A. The success rate of the rogue's sneak attack will only be affected by the passerby's own detection ability.
In the same way, even if the rogue is sneaking on the street and trying to pickpocket a passerby, even if other passers-by see it, they can only report the security guard after the theft is over, instead of directly telling the store owner that "there is someone behind you sneaky", no game designed like this.
Because even in the real world, a crime can only be recognized after the crime action is committed. Before someone starts stealing, even you try your best to warn the store that the person wants to steal your things, you can't arrest him for the crime. And you will also offend others because of it. Some things involve "under a plum tree or in a melon patch", and you are responsible for the consequences of causing misunderstandings, so no one will do such a thankless task.
At most, they will just watch what you want to do, and then ask people to arrest you after you do it. Therefore, the system of this game The design itself is problematic. In addition to the previous cons "21", the NPC always runs behind the player, and the player has no way to sneak attack on the monster. It is unreasonable, meaningless and uninteresting.
Finally, I just want to ask Larian Studio, if you want to make NPCs all over the world want to identify the stealth actions of the player's rogue, why don't you just include the player's party members and identify the stealth location of the rogue to everyone in the world (forced to cancel Stealth)? Don’t you think the design itself is idiotic?
23. The game system should not rotate the perspective and screen without player's authorization.
For example, when a character jumps behind a monster during a battle and wants to strike, the system deliberately shifts the screen at the same time, causing the player to execute the command that has been given previously "to strike the monster" changed "move to another position".
The sudden movement of the screen will cause the character's position to change too, causing the player's previously issued command to change(clicked on the enemy changed that clicked on another location). It's really annoying to be changed by the system into a move action, wasting a round, and getting an extra opportunity attack from the monster because of it.
Designers should not provide unnecessary functions without authorization, especially without giving players the right to choose.
If you do something like this right, players should not feel it, but if you do it wrong, you will often get scolded. How can you do such a thankless thing? Shooting yourself in the foot?
24. There are still some bugs that have not been fixed to this day.
For example, Fire Myrmidon's ability "Myrmidon's Immolation", if the player control it to use the abilitty then it always interrupted it's concentration after it did one action and be stunned whatever players control it to do.
For example, in the multiplayer mode as long as other players join your host game, the new characters they created will occupy your party member slot forever, and you will not allowed to replace these characters later (when other client players go offline) because you cannot talk to new characters created by offline players, you cannot ask them to leave the party!
For example, when the character controlled by the player has the ability to jump and fly at the same time, because the game defaults to the Z key for jumping and flying, the player can only see the jump key in the "Options" → "Button Tied" list. the player can change these hot key, but the column for the "Fly" button won't be listed on the list, so it is impossible to set different hotkeys for these two different actions. This results in the player only having to press the button when controlling a character with both action abilities. Pressing the Z key will only trigger the "Jump" action instead of the more useful "Fly" action.
For example, the icon of "See Invisibility" scroll is exactly the same as "Invisibility" scroll, which confuses players (the icon for "See Invisibility" spell has a big eye enclosing a human shape, but the one on the scroll has no eyes and only a human-shaped icon).
For example, in the ruins of Gauntlets of Shar in the Underdark, there are several drain outlet traps on the floor that can be detected but cannot be removed.
For example, in Shar's Shadowfell, clearly winged apostles or flying ghouls fly to the platform below, but they occasionally fall into the bottomless abyss for no apparent reason.
For example, some boxes, containers, and even books are clearly right next to the player character, but they cannot be picked up or read after being clicked. The message "can't reach" is completely inexplicable. What is the game's determination method? For example, there is a book of "Advanced Healing Potion Recipes" on the table in front of where Jeheira is standing in Last Light Inn. Players cannot read it because "can't reach" even if the character It's the same as it's already stuck next to the book. Such bugs are not limited to this one, there are many in other places as well.
For example, when the player's party inside the building teleport to the camp, upon teleporting back, they will find that several party members appeared inexplicably on the roof of the building, caused characters who cannot fly cannot come to the ground to rendezvous with others safety.
For example, summoned creatures occasionally gets stuck inexplicably and cannot move normally and falls behind. The player needs to personally control it and command it to jump or fly before it can return to normal. Moreover, creatures such as water elemental, dryad, and wood woad that have no jumping or flying abilities can easily fall behind when encountering certain terrains that require jumping to cross. (Although water elements have teleportation capabilities, the AI will not actively use the ability to follow the party).
For example, the treasure-hunting AI of the puppy "Scratch" cannot distinguish which hidden treasure chests have been discovered and which ones have not. Anyway, it will run wherever there is a hidden treasure chest and bark to disturb the player's exploration. Often the player thinks that it has found a new hidden treasure chest, but when the player ran over, the player will found that it was another treasure chest that had been dug out and searched a long time ago.
For example, there was a bug where "Kozakuran Dictionary" disappeared inexplicably when the player was getting the book in the Cazador's Palace(forcing the player to reload earlier progression).
For example, when the player enters the Gate of Sin in Cazador's Palace and starts the battle after the dialogue, all other team members except the one who triggered the dialogue are locked outside by the re-locked door and cannot enter. A proper "close the door and beat the dog" BUG (if the player takes the initiative to attack, the door will not close).
For example, some enemies can use skills that ignore walls or giant doors with no gaps and penetrate them to hit the player character's BUG.
The air elemental myrmidon got hit by the steel watch's ranged attack who behind the door.
For example, when the player destroys the Steel Watch Foundry, after the plot animation ends, all the summoned creatures of the player are left in the foundry control center (the player's party last position before the animation) and were not teleported out with the player. The player cannot return at this time because the foundry destroyed so the player's all summoned creatures never rendezvous with other party members.
For example, as long as there are any NPCs who have not entered the combat state during the battle, the DOT spells cast by the enemy or the player will cause these NPCs to continue to lose hp until they die at the rate of losing hp 1 time every 6 seconds instead of only losing hp at the end of each round.
Of course, generally speaking, if a battle starts in a city, the NPCs that have no fighting power will disappear immediately and clear the area. Even if there are any remaining ones, they will squat down and hold their heads in place, so there will be no such problem.
However, in some battle scenes, such as to comfront the vampire master Cazador, there will be multiple sacrifices around him in the state of having their souls absorbed by him for sacrifice, so they will not move or enter a turn-based battle. The player can just throw any DOT spells at them. Watch them keeps to lose hp and dead that intentionally not ending his/her turn.
For example, certain battles can be made easier as long as the player does not initiate the fight through dialogue. Like the aforementioned situation in the fight against Cazador, if the player takes the initiative to attack him, his Ascension Ritual will not be activated (he will not get various buffs from these sacrificial lambs); the same is true in the fight against Viconia, if the player takes the initiative to attack her without dialogue, she will not take the action of transforming into a wolf against Shadowheart (Shadowheart will not have negative debuffs); even the situation against Orin is even better, even the persuasion check roll to save the companion is not used. She will simply gave up killing the hostage and transformed into the avatar of Bhaal(The Slayer) to fight against the players and so on.
For example, when the player encounter death knights at the entrance of the Murder Tribunal, they requires the player to hand over the flesh evidence, but the player does not have the object they wants, he/she must relies on persuasion check by pass the throwing dice to leave. Because of the issue related the party members and their following AI, after they(NPC partners) running into the scene again, death knights will start the dialogue again asking the player to hand over the object. This is obviously a BUG. because there was no reason why the other party members had to convince them again. This is illogical, because every party member belonged to the same group, and there is no need for the guards to confirm one by one.
※The character controlled by the player must be the one walking in front, but when walking back, the team members behind will run behind the character who is running back in order to keep up with the character controlled by the player, that is, the character who has just been caught by death knights for dialogue Location.
For example, when the player is going to Wyrm's Rock Fortress to fight Gortash, bomb thruster machines on the surrounding walls should not continue to throw bombs after the battle and then change back to real-time mode and explode directly. This is unreasonable, uninteresting, and obvious, and this is a BUG caused by Larian Studio's failure to properly design the automatic switching mechanism between real-time and turn-based systems; this should be changed to where the game should be forced to enter turn-based combat state as long as there are items on the ground that are counting and will explode.
Because the system won't automatically switch back to turn-based when a bomb just thraw to player characters that the battle finished and turned real-time mode. The player won't has enough time to react this accident and move his/her all party members away from the bomb.
For example, there is a Circus of The Last Days in the "Rivington" area outside Baldur's Gate. There is a clown there who has been killed by Orin's men and divided into seven pieces of corpse. The leader Lucretious refuses to admit this quest finished that the player found the missing clown's all body parts. The mission list clearly shows that all seven body parts have been found, but it still says "We need just one final piece to complete Dribbles." There is obviously a bug and the mission cannot be completed at all.
It’s incredible that this game, which has been Early Access for three years before officially release, still has obvious bugs. This is also the biggest drawback of leaving all the testing work to players, because most players In fact, they don’t seriously help the design team catch bugs.
Please recognize the reality. These players who test your game they paid their money to play the game, not to be your free testers.
Quality control work such as catching bugs is also something that requires great attention and professionalism to do well. This is an unchanging fact no matter which industry in the world it is in. Unfortunately, it still cannot taken seriously by major game companies, and it can even be said that it has always been a problem that has been deliberately ignored.
In fact, there are many other bugs that I haven't listed here. Some are beneficial to players, such as the bug that allows players to rob merchants without risk to break the law. If you want to know, you can check out the link below.
25. Too many old characters from the previous game appear, and the selling of nostalgia is too obvious.
The first character to appear in the previous game is Jeheira, followed by the undead necromancer who took away Balthazar's corpse and occupied his body. Balthazar is one of The Five in "Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal"(actually, to put it bluntly, it is just another NPC who bears his name). Viconia, Sarevok and Minsc will appear later.
In fact, except for the villain Balthazar, whose name is simply used indiscriminately, there are obviously two major problems with the appearance of other companion characters of previous game players in this work.
(1) Their age is hard to explain.
The game's story takes place more than a hundred years after the previous game. Jeheira is a half-elf, so we all know she can still alive. What about Sarevok who is a human? He should have died of old age long ago.
Moreover, Sarevok revealed in the ending of "Throne of Bhaal" that he later went to the Eastern Realms "Kara-Tur" to bury his lover "Tamoko" and never returned. Larian Studio deliberately what does it mean to have him appear? Create plot conflicts? I think they have never played "Baldur's Gate II" before making such a stupid mistake.
What's more, how could Sarevok, who was so affectionate, ran to have a child with a female doppelganger? Moreover, "Tamoko" is obviously Japanese name, which is why he went to Kara-Tur to bury her. This proves that she is a human, not a doppelganger. Larian Studios deliberately set up Sarevok and a certain doppelganger to give birth to a doppelganger daughter. What kind of crazy script is this?
(2) The intensity of their power is difficult to explain.
The characters in the previous game such as Jeheira were already at the legendary level(30~40) when they defeated Amelyssan in "Throne of Bhaal". It would be fine if they only came to talk and explain the plot and then left the scene in the game.
But obviously, Larian Studio is not willing to let them just go through the motions, and even lowers their levels significantly, greatly weakening their power, and letting them fight side by side with players(or against players). However, this created another huge plot conflict arose. You can't explain why these legendary characters have collectively became so weak(and their equipments also became weak)...
Moreover, weakening those old friends of previous games will not make old fans feel nostalgic, but will make old fans feel that Larian Studio has gone too far and turned them into chickens for no reason. This is not selling feelings, but provoking old fans.
Minsc are two different characters before joining players and after joining players... The most ridiculous thing is that his attributes after joining players are ridiculous! How would a strength-based "Berserker" character be abruptly changed into an agility character?
Do you want to take a look at the cover image of the enhanced version of STEAM's previous game?
He is holding a two-handed sword, okay?
How do you, an agile character, use a two-handed sword?
What's more, in the opening scene of "Baldur's Gate II", he was directly imprisoned in a cell that welded the door shut by Jon Irenicus. He was the only character players couldn't use the key to open the door and rescue him. How could he escape?
He was provoked by the player through dialogue, and enter his berserk status forcibly bent the pillars of the cell with his hands then left the cell! What do Larian mean by setting his strength to 12? Are they going to collapse the character? Moreover, in previous games, he was a ranger who could use the barbarian's "Berserk" skill. As a result, Larian directly abolished his "Berserk" skill, which was completely unreasonable.
Here is Minsc's detail information in "Baldur's Gate I".
26. Once begin the dice throwing, you cannot choose to leave without dicing.
No matter whether the player clicks on a key item by mistake or triggers an event, as long as the player sees the dice appearing, even if he knows that this situation is very detrimental to the character who is currently triggering the dice roll, he cannot exit the dice rolling state and replace someone else to roll the dice, or do other things first.
Once the dice comes out, they can only be thrown down to see the points to determine the outcome, and the players are not given the right to escape. But frankly speaking, this doesn’t make sense at all, does it? Even if a thief wants to pick a lock, he will first estimate the success rate based on the difficulty of the lock. There has no reason to force someone to do it?
Moreover, if the dialogue character's persuasion skill is not enough when the dialogue is triggered, you cannot temporarily order another character to do the persuasion check dicing. Is this reasonable? Who decided this situation with no degree of freedom at all? And everyone knows that there is a limit to the number of failed dice rolls. If the number of failed persuasion rolls in the cutscene exceeds the allowed number, the plot will directly follow the route of failed persuasion. Unless the player loads the earlier game progression save file, there is nothing that can be done.
For example, if the player accidentally touches the large safe next to Gerringothe Thorm while cleaning the battlefield, it will immediately enter a violent unlocking state if the player don't has the key of the safe... and the player cannot exit the dicing state.
27. The settings for breaking doors and walls are not fully designed.
Obviously the game allows players to break doors and walls in various ways, but there is nothing they can do when they blocked by shadow cursed vines(plants) of "Medium Toughness(HP 160)", even draw adamantine weapons to chop it, It even can't be hurt at all.
By the way, the setting of adamantine weapons in D&D is that as long as the target of the attack is an object rather than a creature or monster (including constructed inanimate objects), it will definitely be a critical hit, and it can ignore all damage resistance. According to these rules It seems that when used to cut this vine, it should be able to directly cause critical damage regardless of its physical resistance even immunity, but the result is that no matter how the player cuts this thing, it will not lose hp which completely slaps the face of D&D rules.
In addition, there is a cell wall in the Moonrise Towers that can also be destroyed (as shown below).
I also drawed an adamantine longsword and used to chop it but it still got no damage. The message "critical strike" + "it immune to your attack" popped up. I changed it to a hammer+1 and smash it. I almost immediately broke down it with one blow... Adamantine is no longer adamantine.
Someone here may jump out and say, "This stone wall itself is immune to slashing attacks. Of course it will be useless if you use an adamantine longsword to slash it."
Yes, the setting in this game is correct, but D&D does not have a rule like "Walls are immune to slashing attacks"
On the contrary, there is the rule detail about it how to againest those doors and obstacles below here:
"While adamantine weapons are not inherently magical (a +1 adamantine longsword is just a very good sword), they are still effective in overcoming damage resistances displayed by some creatures – specifically constructs.
Animated statues, gargoyles, stone golems, and their ilk commonly have resistance (or even immunity) to all Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing damage from nonmagical sources. But many of these monsters, like the Giant Four-Armed Gargoyle from the Tomb of Annihilation, specifically note that adamantine weapons overcome these resistances."
Yes, adamantine weapons can not only ignore the resistance of these "objects", but can even ignore their "immunity" ability. It is a pity that Larian Studio has distorted this rule in order to conveniently create trouble for players.
By the way, who said that a sword cannot cut through a wall? As long as you slash with enough power, you can cut through anything, okay? Have you never heard of the common theorem in the real world that "Breaks Laws with Brute Force"?
28. Formation movement cannot be set.
As a result, the team usually forms a long snake formation every time they enter a battle, which has a great impact on tactical combat and is very detrimental to combat, especially since all summoned objects will just follow the summoner stupidly behind.
In "Baldur's Gate II", players were allowed to form designated formations on player's party(although it did not support formation movement as "Age of Empire II"), so why didn't Larian Studio think of the importance of maintaining formation movement to enter the battlefield?
Even if they have never played RTS games, they should at least think about the adventurers who explore dangerous places such as dungeons in various fantasy novels and stories adapted into movies, comics, or animations. Their party must keep the formation to move (including vanguard, backbone and rearguard). In particular, only by keeping the formation moving can we avoid falling into the dilemma of our casters being directly exposed in front of enemy warriors.
29. Ammunitions and slings have been cancelled.
For example, various bows and crossbows no longer require players to equip arrows or bolts in order to shoot. This seems to be a good thing, but it is not. Because the enchantment bonus of long-range weapons such as crossbows or bows in the original D&D rules before the 3rd edition only increased the hit rate correction value, the damage was still determined by arrows (bows) or bolts (crossbows), this kind of design is more realistic and more tactical.
Also, don’t forget that sneak attack of "Baldur’s Gate III" is considered an active attack skill rather than a passive skill. In the previous game, as long as the rogue was sneaking or invisible, attacking from behind the enemy would automatically become a "backstab" attack, and the damage would be calculated based on the character's backstab damage multiplier.
However, in "Baldur’s Gate III", the sneak attack has become an active attack skill, which also requires the rogue to be in a hidden or invisible state. But, this brings another problem. Such attack skills cannot be used with special arrows carried by the rogue! In other words, the rogue cannot use sneak attack to shoot flame arrow or lightning arrow to further increase the damage of this attack!
Finally, even slings that all characters can use has been cancelled, which is really baffling.
30. The order of actions in battle cannot be flexibly changed.
"Heroes of Might & Magic" series is also the same turn-based strategy game, but it allows any unit to "wait" during the battle so that the unit can move the priority back to let other partners action first, which in many situations can serve greater tactical purposes.
For example, when the enemy has multiple charges of "Unstoppable" blessing, our characters with powerful attack methods can stop taking action at this time and wait for other partners to use magic like magic missiles that can shoot multiple missles to quickly decrease the enemy's charges. When the charges of the enemy's unstoppable depleted, and then let the partner with a huge single attack damage give it a home run (such as casting "Disintegrate" spell).
Or when the enemy has the blessing of "Sanctuary" spell and we are unable to attack first, we can rely on the "wait" to let the enemy attacks our characters first to deplete his/her "Sanctuary" effect, and then attack him/her without waiting for the next round. Only then take action (coupled with letting the summoned monsters step forward to attract his/her attention, it can effectively reduce the damage our character receives).
If the player's prediction is accurate enough, he or she can even estimate the range within which the enemy can move, deliberately move to a position that the enemy cannot reach, and then "wait" for the enemy to act first, and then use the remaining actions to proceed preemptive attack!
Sorry I forgot to say, "Heroes of Might & Magic" series even allows players to "see" the estimated action range of each enemy unit.
31. Various magics that existed in "Baldur's Gate II" and were full of tactical effectiveness have been cancelled.
3rd-level arcane magic, divine power, druid magic.
As mentioned above, this spell has a clear effect and has been in D&D since the first edition since ancient times.
It should be noted that this spell can only affect magic with continuous effects, and magic that is completed instantly cannot be affected by this.
For example, "Animate Dead" of necromancy magic gives life to the corpse after casting and does not need to maintain its effectiveness, so it cannot be directly turned back into a corpse with dispel magic; however, the spell still has a time limit. The time to reanimated undead obey the caster's orders is 24 hours.
After the time, the caster's instructions will no longer be unconditionally obeyed unless the magic user casts "Animate Dead" again before the expiration of the time limit to regain control. Dispel Magic can only work on time-limited spells.
※BioWare even added Remove Magic in their design of Baldur's Gate 2, which is not available in D&D and is specifically designed to remove the enemy's buff magic. Of course, according to Larian Studio's style, it is even more impossible let it exists in the game.
This is a very simple 1st-level divine spell(5E), and it is also a spell that has always been in "Baldur's Gate" and even "Icewind Dale" series (it was called "Detect Evil" in the old edition). This spell can especially allow players to It is urgent to find out which NPCs can be trusted early, because as long as this spell is cast on those seemingly friendly NPCs, players can immediately find out whether the other party is who they say they are, and make the right response in an emergency.
So Larian Studio does not want this spell to exist , very reasonable, even if it is very inconvenient for players, they don't care about it.
4th-level druid magic.
The effect of the 5E version is:
you transform up to ten centipedes, three spiders, five wasps, or one scorpion within range into giant versions of their natural forms for the duration. A centipede becomes a giant centipede, a spider becomes a giant spider, a wasp becomes a giant wasp, and a scorpion becomes a giant scorpion. Each creature obeys your verbal commands, and in combat, they act on your turn each round.
6th-level arcane magic and divine power, with a duration of 1 hour.
This spell can be cast on a willing character, and gives him/her the ability to see through any illusion, including secret doors hidden by magic, walls of illusion, the true appearance of creatures (the changed appearance of a shapeshifter cannot fool the character), and of course the character under this spell effect can see invisible things and hiding assassins at open places(but if the enemy is hiding behind a wall, the subject still cannot see it because it cannot see through the wall).
In "Baldur's Gate II", this spell had a slightly different name called "True Sight"(2E), which could break all enemy illusions within the range "every round" within its duration and force hiding enemies to appear.
The reason for not implementing this spell is easy to guess. They are afraid that players will spot the disguised appearance of Orin and his subordinates at a glance, causing Larian's carefully designed scam to fail to work or even be directly slapped in the face by players.
At the same time, it is also to prevent players from using these spells to break enemy assassins' cheating invisibility ability when players fight them; "Darkness" spell of Shar believers will also be ignored by the recipients, resulting in a sharp reduction in difficulty.
6th-level arcane magic, effective for 10 days.
The caster can designate another spell of level 5 or below to be stored and set trigger conditions, and the target of effect is limited to the caster himself.
For example, the caster can set himself to automatically activate water breathing to protect himself when he is immersed in water. The spell will automatically activate when the conditions are met, regardless of the caster's own will, and casting the unexpected spell again will cause the previously set spell to lose its effect.
It’s easy to guess why they do not implement the spell. This spell is too OP and doesn’t fit in with Larian’s usual style. But BioWare has used this spell to perfection in "Baldur's Gate II". Almost every enemy mage appears with this spell (activate it as soon as it appears, or activate it in the middle of the fight, and even "Chain Contingency" spell and various similar trigger spells can be used together), so implementing this spell will actually increase the difficulty of the game rather than reduce it.
This shows that Larian Studio has a considerable error in their understanding of the previous game. They have never actually played it.
Originally, I thought that this game did not have "Lightning Bolt", but it turned out that I had misunderstood. What it did not have were its scrolls and "Counterspell" scrolls. If the player's mages did not choose to learn it when level up, These two spells, it is a pity that will no longer be learn to them.
To be honest, this is really shocking. After all, most of the wizard's spell learning comes from these magic scrolls. Since the game has designed these spells, why are the scrolls not actually made? It would be fine if this game allowed players to make their own magic scrolls (for example, the Neverwinter Nights series has always supported the production of magic scrolls, but it is very expensive), but this game does not support players in making magic scrolls, so if they did not learn these spells when level up. Would those mages never have the chance to learn these spells forever? I was also drunk when I saw that the game balance could be so bad.
In addition, "Lightning Bolt" was originally set to bounce off the wall after hitting the wall. This was the case in Gold Box series produced by SSI and D&D games produced by BioWare, but in this game designed by Larian Studio, it was changed not to It will rebound. To be honest, this change is really meaningless and makes the entire game less tactically deep (D&D was originally just a tabletop game, so it was impossible to have such detailed design).
Larian Studio has obviously never played "Baldur's Gate II", so that’s why they don’t add these spells and fully used them on the enemy camp. BioWare allowed the enemy to use these spells too much in the previous game. It is guaranteed that players can feel their power. Not all of these spells are only beneficial to players. It just depends on whether the designers use their brains.
32. Larian Studios does not allow players to report Gortash.
This is really very confusing.
It's natural if players can't report him when they first arrive at Baldur's Gate, because he has already finished building momentum at Baldur's Gate and is about to become a Grand Duke. In addition, there are Steel Watchs all over the city, even if somebodys wants to challenge him, they also didn’t dare to take action.
But which player would not blow up Steel Watch Foundary while playing this game? After the foundary was blown up and all steel watchs in the city were shut down, why couldn't the players still bring a pile of written evidence and the rescued Duke and former Flaming Fist officers to report his illegal deeds? I really don’t understand what kind of creepy design it is to force players to kill all the way to him.
I don't rule out that some players really like hacking and slashing, but I really don't like killing innocent people indiscriminately, even if it's just a game. When many games today even allow players to solve the problem by talking, but your game does the opposite and is not interesting at all, how do you expect players to support you?
There are obviously a lot of letters in the game, but until the end of the game, players will realize that almost all of them are garbage, and there is no need to collect them, because even if the players get them, they cannot be used to report the illegal works of certain criminal NPCs.
Damn it. Damn mindless design, damn meaningless items. Did you, Larian Studio, have nothing to do? Is it fun to mislead players and increase the time they waste? If you don't want to give these letters substantial meaning, then you do not treat them as "items" for players to pick up! Did you feel happy to deliberately set weights for them?
Let me remind you again that in "Baldur's Gate II Enhanced Edition", players were allowed to copy the content recorded by this type of letter props into the adventure log for review at any time, so in the previous game players did not carry these unnecessary letters at all.
Pros:
1. Many scene objects can be used tactically by players.
Not to mention objects that are also found in other games such as explosive barrels. For example, fuel accumulated on the ground will burst into flames and continue to burn for a period of time as long as it is attacked by fire.
Water or even blood on the ground will freeze if it is attacked by an ice element. The ice becomes a slippery terrain. Poisonous spiders will emit poison pools where they die. The original spider webs in the scene can be burned with fire and the spiders standing on them will fall down. Most creatures need to pass the saving throw if they step on those webs or will be bound by them, etc
In addition, players can also use spells to blast through wooden doors or knock down scene objects such as lights. Even spells such as fireball can destroy terrain objects such as wooden ladders and certain wooden floors (fire spells can even be used to blast the fragile wooden floor on which the enemy is standing, causing the enemy to fall to death).
2. There are more actions available to the player character.
Including jumping and climbing, players can use these actions to traverse various terrain obstacles.
3. The game will make various dice throwing determinations when players encountering various situations.
For example, when being discovered by an owlbear, the discovered player character can make a taming ability roll; when a +1 dagger is found stuck in the animal's flesh, different rolls are required depending on the method of taking it out (observation → intelligence, Brute force → strength, dexterity → agility) to pull out the dagger, etc.
4. More alchemical materials allow players to concoct various alchemical potions such as poisons or benefit potions, healing potions, explosives.
The materials are really quite diverse, and players can buy them directly from merchants or find them while exploring various places. Compared with other D&D games except Neverwinter Nights series, this game really carries forward the design of D&D's alchemy.
5. D&D 5E rules added many new skills.
Compared with "Baldur's Gate" series and "Icewind Dale" series with old version rules, this one is really different, especially the exclusive abilities of each profession and the professions are more subdivided.
6. All dialogue messages are voiced by real people.
As the title says, it's a big deal. BioWare probably doesn't have that much money to burn.
7. The magic systems in The 5E rules have been simplified, and this game further simplifies the setting of duration.
All buff and debuff spells are directly divided into combat magic and non-combat magic. The duration of combat magic is based on 10 rounds (some buffs or debuff magic can be further extended by casting in higher-level magic slots), and the duration of non-combat magic can be maintained until a short rest or a long rest(except "Invisibility").
The short rest here can restore half of the team's health and restore the use of certain active skills, but it cannot restore the number of spells that can be cast per day. The long rest is like camping and resting for 8 hours in the previous game; players in the game can use 2 short rests per day.
Because of this setting, players finally no longer have to press the pause button to give various instructions to the character in non-combat situations, and use every minute and second to the limit to prevent buff spells from being wasted. In this game, players can slowly explore the map slowly to see if there are any places that have been missed.
In addition, because the 5E rules have greatly simplified the entire magic system, unlike before 3.5E version when a character is attacked by magic, in addition to being able to roll a saving throw to aviod it, there is also the setting of magic resistance(another saving throws againest enemy spells). In the 5E
version, the Magic Resistance only additional increase the character's saving throws for enemy spells.
In addition, many spells that give characters resistance to multiple types of elements (such as "Resist Fire&Cold", "Protection From Energy") and even spells that provide immunity to various psychic influences or negative energy have also been cancelled and have all been changed to effect of increasing resistance only affects a single type of element, and the caster must maintain concentration to continue to take effect.
In addition to magic, the enchantment bonuses of magic weapons have also been simplified.
Before the 3.5E version, many powerful creatures had different settings in which enchanted weapons below +n were ineffective or had damage resistance. For example, before the 2E version, stone golems were immune to enchanted weapons below +2. Stone golems in the 3E version had a fixed value of damage reduction(10) when attacked by enchanted weapons below +2. Iron golems had immunity or a fixed value for damage reduction against enchanted weapons below +3, etc.
In the 5E version, it all changed to these creatures only resist or immune to non-magical weapons, very few monsters have the resistances to both enchanted weapons and non-enchanted weapons (those like this will have special weaknesses).
8. The detection function has been strengthened.
The detection ability is not only used to detect traps, but also allows players to discover many hidden things.
For example, the character who detected something special nearby will proactively remind players whether there are secret doors, secret button mechanisms, or the like around them, and it can even detect the ambush of monsters or enemies and their ambush locations!
Moreover, there are random hidden treasure chests in many locations waiting for the player team to discover through their investigation capabilities.
9. Evolved camping design.
Now there is no need to worry about what to do with the extra teammates, just throw them into the camp anyway. In this game, the existence of the camp is like the pocket space of "Baldur's Gate II" expansion pack "Throne of Bhaal".
All NPC characters who join the player will be automatically placed in this camp waiting for the player to invite them to join the team at any time, and when the plot advances and triggers further dialogue between relevant NPCs, you can always go here to find someone to talk to.
There is also a large box in the camp with almost unlimited storage space. When players are adventuring outside and found any items or resources that are temporarily unused (or want to loot that cannot be picked up because it is too heavy), they can directly right-click on the item and select "Send to the camp" is directly sent to the storage box in the camp. There is very convenient.
In addition, the most important thing is to rest in the camp (long rest). It is completely different from other D&D games in that you don’t need to worry about being attacked by monsters. However, camping in the camp for a long rest has been changed to require the consumption of foods(fixed 40 share).
※Strictly speaking, this design is unreasonable. After all, the protagonist of this game does not have the ability to freely enter and exit the "pocket space". In the future, the number of teammates or NPCs following the player will increase. Where are those who do not join the team usually? The establishment of camps is also a question that cannot be explained clearly.
10. Improper picking up actions will not immediately turn into stealing and be arrested by NPCs.
When the player sees some items or containers displayed in red in some places, it means that these items belong to some NPCs. If the player attempts to pick up these items in front of NPCs, the system will warn the player that this behavior is a crime in the eyes of NPCs and cancel the previous Pickup command, but giving that command again really turns into stealing.
11. The scene creation is very detailed and beautiful.
Some scenes even have the atmosphere of a horror game. For example, the hospital scene in Shadow Cursed Land and the morgue really look like "Silent Hill", even the monster nurses(undeads) are similar.
Druid Grove where the druids live are also quite beautiful. Sunlit Wetlands around the Riverside Teahouse where the hag is located is also a beautiful pond before entering. Once you enter, the entire scene is replaced by a gloomy swamp.
Underdark is also filled with all kinds of dangerous mushrooms. When a creature approaches, they will emit spores. Some of these spores can be poisonous and some can confuse people. The poisonous spores will explode when they come into contact with fire; some plants will also glow discolor or even explode.
There will be monsters ambushing in some scenes. If the player character fails to pass the perception check, there is no way to find their location. Once they reach the ambush location, they will be attacked and the player party will be in a state of shock and unable to action for 2 rounds.
12. There are teleport points in each map area.
As long as the player character has reached these locations, the player party can be teleported to each teleport point location at any time through the map teleport function, which can save the player a lot of movement time.
13. Added inspiration points system.
Whenever a player reaches some special conditions, such as reading certain books, or making a decision that touches certain character in the party, the character will receive inspiration points and the party will also receive experience points as rewards. These points can be used to re-roll the right to determine the success of various dice rolls (but such as saving throws or attack rolls in combat cannot be applied).
14. The design of the transformation system is much better than "Baldur's Gate II".
In "Baldur's Gate I" or "Baldur's Gate II", whether it is the druid's transformation ability or the low-level magic polymorph (Polymorph) or even the high-level polymorph (Shapechange) of 9-level magic, the effect is actually only half. Most of the abilities possessed by the new form cannot be used or even have strict limits on the number of times they can be used (for example, depend on "shapechange" spell transforms you into an illithid, you can only use 1 or 2 mind blasts and 1 mind control ability).
Moreover, the various resistances and immunities that the creature should have after the transformation will not be fully implemented at all, and even the number of attacks per round are not implemented.
For example, if you transforms into an iron golem, it will not look like a real iron golem because your new form without magic immunity and the number of attacks per round is only one. In addition, the Druid's transformation ability will not become stronger as the Druid's experience level increases, and the power of the transformed creature is fixed.
But in "Baldur's Gate III", Larian Studios allowed all transformation abilities to fully reproduce all the creature's abilities, including all resistances and immunities, and even the creature's special abilities were completely retained. Moreover, the power of the transformed creature after the Druid's transformation ability will also become stronger as the character's experience level increases!
15. Extremely diverse plot divergences (note, this project contains spoilers).
For example, in Druid Grove, if the player rescued the tiefling child who attempted to steal the idol used in the Druid ritual, "Mol" will come forward to protect the player's party when the player's party entering Last Light Inn in Shadow Cursed Land and convince Jeheira what you can be trusted. If the player has not rescued the tiefling child before, the person who comes forward at this time will be another Flame Fist NPC.
If Isobel(NPC) is unfortunately defeated when the player is defending Last Light Inn, she will be taken to Moonrise Towers by the leader of attackers, causing the protection barrier of Last Light Inn to disappear, and all Harpers and all Flame Fist members who stationed there except Jeheira will instantly die and become shadow cursed creatures to attack the player's party(the consequences of this plot line are really serious, players who want to challenge the difficulty can try it).
On the eve of the player's attack on the Moonrise Towers, the player can choose to go to the main entrance to attack with Jeheira and other Harpers, or launch an attack from the underground prison, and then leave the main entrance to Jeheira and her Harpers to die (If the player does not help, they will definitely die. The consequences are also very serious, because Jeheira is one of the companions who can join the player).
There is a tomb in the Shadow Cursed Land that leads to Gauntlets of Shar on the other side of the Underdark area(originally, the temple ruins could only be seen from a distance in the Underdark area but could not be entered). If the player entered the deepest part of the ruin and encountered Nightsong in the Shadowfell, you can decide whether to let Shadowheart, a cleric of Shar, kill Nightsong and complete her dark justiciar trial. The choice here has a great impact on the subsequent main plot.
There are so many such disagreements in the game that it's difficult to list them all here.
16. "not only hack and slash".
The above sentence was the promotional slogan when the first generation of Baldur's Gate was launched. It means that unlike pure action RPGs like the "Diablo" series, D&D games focus on plot and puzzle-solving components, and combat is just polishing.
In the game, players may encounter various puzzles and mechanisms at any time, and even if they really can’t think of a solution, it doesn’t matter. These puzzles and mechanisms don’t really affect the advancement of the player’s main plot. It only affects whether the player team can get more loot, experience points and even inspiration points and other additional benefits. Players who like solving puzzles should not dislike it.
17. Very practical magics "Speak with Animals" and "Speak with Dead" for talking to animals and the dead.
Although these magics are originally something that existed in the initial version of D&D, they are only implemented in the computer game "Baldur's Gate III". In addition, many quest clues and background stories can also be implemented through casting these spells, although using this method when handling a case seems a bit cheating.
For example, when you investigating a murder case:
You: "Hey, who killed you?"
Corpse: "It was John Doe next door."
You: "Case closed!"
Holmes cried and fainted in the toilet.
However, "Speak with Dead" spell also has limited targets. Only important corpses that emit halo will respond to your call (in rare cases, the corpses of enemies killed by the player can also talk), and the number of questions that the player can ask the dead is also Limited (usually only 5 questions can be asked), so you need to choose your questions carefully.
In addition, whether "Speak with Dead" or "Speak with Animals" spells, there is an advantage. As long as this spell has been cast, the caster does not need to recast the spell before taking a long rest. Activate its effects at will to talk to other corpses or animals.
Tip: If players find suspicious animals, they can try to use "Speak with Animals" spell to talk to them, and players may be able to discover their true identities.
18. Some spells have broken through the 5th edition rules and been strengthened.
For example, "Speak with Dead" mentioned above, as long as a spell is cast once, it can be cast again at any time and any number of times before a long rest. The same is true for the warlock's "Hex". The mage's "Cloudkill" can be re-cast and change the coverage area for free at any time within 9 rounds after casting.
Summarize:
Although it seems that many people like to play this game, if players have played X-COM before, they will definitely feel that this is basically the D&D version of X-COM, with combat difficulty, enemy design, turn-based system, and the use of surrounding scene objects, etc.
The designs are all being made in the direction of X-COM, but this kind of design is probably only suitable for strategic management + simple turn-based strategy game that goes from stage to stage.
It's not D&D can't be designed as a pure turn-based strategy game, but it's not suitable for this. Otherwise, manufacturers would have done it long ago. The early Gold Box series produced by SSI actually focused on plot adventures, and the combat was just polishing, except for a few BOSS battles, the difficulty of the general battles is not too high, and common enemies are still easy to deal with.
Then again, "Baldur's Gate III" is also a standard RPG game. What do you mean by designing every battle in your RPG game to be so difficult? And what does it mean that players are not allowed to gain experiences by repeatly fight to common enemy creatures in the wild and dungeons to level up (all enemies and monsters are fixed and limited in number, and there are no random encounters)? If it can be called an RPG game just by adding a lot of plot, then the category of ADV games will not exist.
To be honest, the plot is a bit too much. It's okay to deliberately let the characters from the previous game appear to create nostalgia. But it's really too much to ignore the plot setting of the ending of the previous game.
For example, Sarevok actually appears again? ? Players who have played "Baldur's Gate II" expansion pack "Throne of Bhaal" should still remember that this man had already left for Kara Tu and never returned. What did Larian Studios want to forcefully pull him out? They just slapped fans in the face with this stupid plot without doing any research before?
What's even more ridiculous is that this legendary warrior who defeated the highest priestess of Bhaal, "Amelyssan", was defeated by a team of only level 12 players? ? They just want to play nostalgia to attract fans but what do they mean by ignoring so much authenticity? Did they think all fans are brainless?
Furthermore, even Viconia appeared on the stage, and despite the fact that she was almost burned at the stake by the mob as an evil drow in Ankatra before, this time she actually became the leader of Shar cult and not only attracted a large group believers in Waterdeep, but she is also very popular at Baldur's Gate.
Has she turned into a master of deception, or has the public suddenly not cared about her identity as a dark elf? And she was also deliberately made to be hostile to the player, and her level was lowered to level 12. Are you kidding? Earlier, Jeheira could use the excuse that her strength had declined greatly because she was old. Minsc, who joined later, was also at the same level as the players. How do you explain, Larian? Now that even Viconia and Sarevok have been weaken, did you think players who played the previous game dementia?
In the story setting of D&D, there are so-called rules of the game among the gods. What everyone knows is that they cannot come to other planes with full power, and what they can generally give to their believers is only their own divine power(divine spells).
Even if their partial godly power can directly grant to others, it must be limited to a very small number of targets. Otherwise, if a certain god bestows a large number of his own divine power and blessings on a group of people, won't it directly form a "Chosen Army" and conquered the entire Faerûn continent with no problem(this is basically considered descending to the main material world with all its own power)?
Will the other gods sit back and watch this happen? I know it's impossible, and other gods will probably follow suit. What will happen to the continent of Faerûn next? The conflict escalated infinitely, and in the end the continent of Faerûn will destroyed by the war of gods.
The supreme god Ao will never allow them to play like this. This is completely beyond the line of what he can endure, and it is not like he has never executed gods who do not abide by the rules. Which god would dare to try this.
But what did Larian Studios do with this game? A bunch of followers of enemy gods appear with various blessing auras or various special skills (such as "Aura of Murder", "Murder Thirst", "Unstopable" by Baal followers, "Born in Darkness" by Shar followers. ”, “Shadow Ambush”) can’t wait to beat the players into a stick. Is this designed according to D&D game rules? When these inherent magical powers do not exist (except in very special circumstances, the only power that the gods can bestow upon their believers is magical powers)? Not to mention the story background of all the three gods of death losing their divine power, it is obviously illogical for them to do this under the eyes of the gods. Larian, do you think all the players are mentally retarded? This is D&D's game, not your Divinity, please understand!
Because Behemut has the limit of article size, I cannot write all my review here so please move here to continue reading my unfinished review:
達人
