Many players strive for successful outcomes in their favorite games. For this, they are often willing to use tricks to guarantee this success. Larian has now explained: Players who used a frowned-upon method in Baldur’s Gate 3 will not want it in Divinity at all.
What “gaming sin” is being talked about? This refers to savescumming: a method that is widespread in many games with multiple save states. If one is not satisfied with the outcome of an action, one reloads an old save and simply tries again.
In a game like Baldur’s Gate 3, where decisions and their (mis)successes greatly influence the story and events, savescumming is viewed by a large part of the community as cheating. Why many players still chose this playstyle is explained by one of them in a recent AMA (“Ask Me Anything”) with Larian Studios on Reddit, where the developers of Baldur’s Gate 3 and Divinity interacted with the community: “
BG3 is a game where most “better” story and world interactions depend on successful rolls and checks. […] Admittedly, I usually only let a bad roll go if I feel that there are no significant consequences (narratively or in terms of rewards) that would mean I would miss out on content.
Are there plans to make these dialogues narratively more interesting, similar to Disco Elysium, to encourage players to accept “bad” random values?
Nidies on Reddit
Adam Smith, Writing Director at Larian, addressed this question and gives the community hope that savescumming may not be necessary in Divinity at all.
Here you can see the trailer for Baldur’s Gate 3:
Failures should no longer encourage players to reload
How does the Writing Director address failures in Divinity? Smith responds to the fan that the team wants to not only take away the urge to savescum but also that failures can also yield exciting results that are just as valuable as successes.
“Our goal is definitely to make failure more interesting,” explains the Writing Director on Reddit, “There are already some situations in the game where, in my opinion, the most exciting – and most extensive – outcome results from a ‘failure,’ but you will be best able to judge how well we have succeeded.”
The community is relieved that Larian is not ignoring this problem, as SireEvalish explains, who relied on savescumming himself: “That was probably the biggest flaw of Baldur’s Gate 3. The randomness ultimately meant that I was more focused on the save system than engaging with the game mechanics.”
What does Larian say about narrative balance in Divinity? In line with the topic of story and narrative consequences, CEO of Larian and Game Director Swen Vincke also commented.
As Divinity is supposed to be even larger than the already extensive Baldur’s Gate 3, this could make a challenge of the previous project even more difficult, as darkitay mentions on Reddit:
“Since Divinity will have a larger scope compared to BG3, I assume there will be more branching narratives and problem-solving opportunities. How are you trying to achieve this while mitigating the risk that the story falls apart without too much ‘railroading’ certain key plot points?”
Vincke clearly explains that Larian hates this “railroading” of certain paths. They want to increase the number of possible outcomes and create freedoms while still ensuring a captivating story: “We learned a lot from BG3 and are now applying those insights along with a variety of new ideas” (Source: Reddit).
The AMA between Larian Studios and the community also addressed further questions from curious fans, such as how they intend to use what they learned from Baldur’s Gate 3 to make Divinity a success. The topic of loot also played a role, showing that they made a good decision with their previous project: Larian admits: Random loot in the Divinity series was too confusing – BG3 provided the solution for the new game
