What, exactly, was wrong with ToB?

meagloth

So, like the title says, what was wrong? It's generally accepted that ToB was so-so, but, along with imoens portrait, this is one of those things that is always complained about and never explained.

Durenas

It's very linear, the high powered abilities were plentiful(and somewhat confusing in places, as there was little actual documentation on what they do precisely) the battles were very binary, you either knew precisely how to defeat the enemy or it was impossible(the final battle was particularly irksome in that regard).

Due to level progression at the 20+ point, you reached a plateau of power past which levels meant little to nothing, and enemies weren't really scaled well. If you had a well-geared party from SoA, you could steamroll through the vast majority of the battles with just a melee crew and then run up against a wall of a fight you just could not beat because it had some mechanic you'd never encountered before and had no way to easily understand what you were doing wrong.

atcDave

I enjoyed ToB, I thought it offered a (mostly) fun conclusion to a great epic.

My biggest complaint is just that I'm not really in to such high level adventures. I think the game plays best from about 4th - 10th level (that's an AD&D thing, not just a BG thing). Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be stupid about it, I always want that next level and next cool magic item for my characters; but it always seems to me as we move from medium to higher levels my interest starts to wane.

Shar

I felt that items were a bit too owerpowered near the end but i understand that those were needed to combat high level bosses but still everything +5 and +6 is slightly weird...

recklessheart

I think for me the only real issue with ToB was that it was so streamlined. From the unnecessary (but wonderful) free-roaming feeling of Baldur's Gate, to the limited number of areas bursting with wonderful quests in Baldur's Gate SoA, it was very odd to then move into a realm that was go here, then here, then here, then one of these two places, and then the other one, aaaaand you're done.
Watcher's Keep was cool, but it was a dungeon run, not a sidequest.
ToB was still great, as far as I'm concerned. But I hope BG2:EE has focused on adding more flavour and aspects to ToB, rather than SoA, which is already so rich and wonderful, that I would be content with just a couple of new areas. ToB could use several new areas, some fun sidequests, and room for some NPC character exploration as we see that a major time in their lives is coming to a peak as well.

Durenas

I agree that it's an AD&D thing. It's an extension of the HP plateau. once you reach 21, your thac0 stops getting better, and saving throws also start reaching caps. At that point it becomes entirely about gear and the tactics. There's really no point to getting to level 40(the cap) since it won't really give you much benefit.

elminster

Not enough secondary quests. The places you go to feel kind of dead. Also all the cities are very small.

Kaltzor

The main problem I had with ToB was a lack of proper difficulty... Instead what you have is boss fights where you get overrun by endlessly spawning high level enemies or the bosses can take out a good fighter CHARNAME in like 2 hits...

The only good fight in my opinion to come out of ToB is the Tethyrian Army fight...

meagloth

Yeah, it seems a little crazy that you can just keep leveling up. It wouldn't hurt the game if you just stopped at level 25 or so. And kind of stupid that every mercenary or soldier could have 50 grand worth of gear on him. But still, I think it gets a lot of undeserved knocking. If they capped you at 25, some people would complain that there was in more point to leveling up. If they cap you at level 40, people complain that there is no point to leveling up. What a predicament.

marceror

My understanding is that Bioware had originally intended to make it much larger with much greater scope, but for reasons I don't fully understand (financial I would surmise) they had to cram everything into a fairly a single expansion. And especially after the granduer of the original and SoA, this is very apparent. It's still an enjoyable part of the game, but it falls short of what came before it in numerous ways. And as many have said, high level adventurers just aren't everyone's cup of tea.

Arcalian

I liked it better than SOA.

Eudaemonium

marceror said:

My understanding is that Bioware had originally intended to make it much larger with much greater scope, but for reasons I don't fully understand (financial I would surmise) they had to cram everything into a fairly a single expansion. And especially after the granduer of the original and SoA, this is very apparent. It's still an enjoyable part of the game, but it falls short of what came before it in numerous ways. And as many have said, high level adventurers just aren't everyone's cup of tea.

It was because WotC wouldn't renew their contract for a 3rd 2E game, since 3E was either about to come out or just had.

meagloth

Arcalian said:

I liked it better than SOA.

Don't be "that guy", @arcalian!
:-)

LordRumfish

Really, all versions of D&D face this dilemma (yes, 4th edition as well). I haven't played ToB, but as a veteran dungeon master I can tell you that stories are more fun to tell when the characters struggle but encounters are not hard to balance. I don't have to scratch my head to challenge a 5th-level party (I might have to scratch my head to figure out how to avoid killing a 1st-level party on occasion), there are plenty of believable monster encounters, NPC encounters, etc. to challenge them with. At very high levels, even powerful monsters aren't necessarily a challenge (in 3rd edition, a banshee that kills enemies with her wailing is CR 17; a party that is level 26 is far enough above that banshee that she isn't worth XP anymore) since the characters may be immune to its detrimental effects, or will only fail a save on a critical failure.

To challenge such players, you have to pull out the stops in such a way that you may very well kill them all with an overpowered encounter. Usually fights at that end of the game are either 1.) over quickly and never really threatened the group, or 2.) destroy the group / nearly destroy the group.

On top of this, it seems that ToB has fallen victim to a railroad plot and linear zone progression, based on what you all are telling me. This is unfortunate, since I was looking forward to seeing what all of the ridiculous end-game content has in store for me.

meagloth

@lordrumfish I would stay away from this thread if you haven't played ToB. I hung around *spoiler alert* discussions to much before I played bg2, and I do regret it. That said, I have yet to kill the final boss, so look who's talking.

Cowled_wizard

As far as ive read the reason for tob to be like it is was that
They only got permission to do a 2ed game because it was an expansion not a new game.
The release date of TOB had to as close as possible to bg2 release (marketing strategy)

I think with the very limited time they had (6 months?) it was a decent job.
Weapons being too powerful? HEY you are almost a god!

What i dislike most about TOB (and about SOA also) is how xp seems to rain from the sky, you almost get 10000xp for resting in an inn.


I would prefer if the xp limit was something very hard to achieve with a full team.
Several xp rewards have very little benefit when you're always reaching xp cap. (hell pride reward, deck of many things xp rewards, etc)

What else: Ilasera combat was waaaaay to easy, and in my opinion it happened too early. I would prefer a big bad ass ambush where you fear for your life.

meowzor

meagloth said:

So, like the title says, what was wrong? It's generally accepted that ToB was so-so, but, along with imoens portrait, this is one of those things that is always complained about and never explained.

no depth in storyline like BG2, just fighting
final boss has no personality like sarevok or jon irenicus and just appeared out of nowhere.
every zone and quest seems rushed because the devs had no time.

SharGuidesMyHand

meowzor said:

meagloth said:

So, like the title says, what was wrong? It's generally accepted that ToB was so-so, but, along with imoens portrait, this is one of those things that is always complained about and never explained.

no depth in storyline like BG2, just fighting
final boss has no personality like sarevok or jon irenicus and just appeared out of nowhere.
every zone and quest seems rushed because the devs had no time.

This, especially the last one.

It was basically just thrown together hastily to bring the series to a close. It was the Matrix 3 of the BG series.

The final boss fight actually felt more like a video game than an RPG.

Also, SoA ended with a cliffhanger that implied that there would be a final showdown between the Charname and the Cowled Wizards, but this was completely ignored in ToB which went off on a different (and much less developed) direction. Ideally, if ever a BG3 is made, it should take place in between SoA and ToB IMO.

Messi

elminster said:

Not enough secondary quests. The places you go to feel kind of dead. Also all the cities are very small.

This, and also the fact that ToB comes right after SoA that is pretty much always in Top5 of best game of all times votes. It's kinda hard to come right after something like that. I don't think ToB is bad, it's actually pretty good, just not good SoA itself.

Also I actually like the high level combat. At least with Ascension installed ToB has the most fun fights of all the BG games. Ascension Yaga-Shura especially is just a perfect boss fight.

Edit: Why are people spoiling themselfs on stuff like this? It's not even the story spoilers themselfs, but if you come expecting that something is going to suck, it probably is going to suck simply because of your own attitude. I'd pay money to play these games as a complete newbie again!

LordRumfish

@Messi I have a powerful ability to avoid metagaming. I think it comes from being a DM and appreciating the needs of the story over the needs of the player.

I want to participate in the forum community, so I have exposed myself to a number of spoilers. That doesn't mean I've studied the dialogue trees, looked up the item locations and memorized the traps in BG2 or ToB. OK, so you can shift Sarevok or Viconia's alignment... I don't know what's involved with it though. Maybe I'll try for it, and maybe I'll pick the wrong dialogue tree.

I don't really feel spoiled on it, is what I'm getting at. I've heard of Crom Faeyr, but I'm going to have to learn for myself how to find it. I don't know what I'm in for if I want Haer'Dalis in my party.

Does this make sense? I know but I don't know, and it's still all going to be new to me.

ghostowl

I enjoyed the high level abilities and powerful battles

TOB lacked side quests, it lacked areas to explore, and it felt like the whole expansion was just a single train ride. You can't do anything except what you were told to do.

Arcalian

meagloth said:

Arcalian said:

I liked it better than SOA.

Don't be "that guy", @arcalian!
:-)

Years too late for that advice, I'm afraid.

Madhax

A couple specific bummers:

In SoA, almost every NPC had a side quest, some of which were quite expansive. In ToB, there's only the one new NPC, and I'm pretty sure that, for all his badassness and cool dialogue, all you get to do with him is let him follow you about and blow things up for you. None of the old NPCs had continuations of their personal quests, if memory serves.

The ending really didn't work for me. It was painfully obvious how the game was going to be end, and the final boss was in fact spoiled on the artwork of the CD case I originally got the game in. This made the storyline less of a chaotic adventure like SoA and more of an arbitrary slog through mini-bosses to get to the finale.

None of the Five were particularly memorable. They really should have been. All of them had huge potential for epic plotlines, and with some reworking of the story some of them would have worked as the final boss of an entire game dedicated to defeating them. Instead, they just seemed shallow. I mean, Yaga-Shura (sp?) is a similar warlord to what BG1 Sarevok was shooting for, but instead of a multi-chapter quest to hunt him down, you just teleport next door to find his weakness, then kill him. Abazigal as a dragon-bhaalspawn totally could have been a major character, but instead has a generic dungeon for you to explore before you get to fight yet-another-dragon. And whats-her-name the swift was just terrible.

All that said, I enjoyed some of the fights for their gameplay value, the high-level abilities were fun to play with, Watcher's Keep was amazing, and I loved the Pocket Plane. It was a fine game, just nowhere near the caliber of the other two installments.

Ygramul

Does Ascension help with any of these problems?

[caveat: I *only* play NO-RELOAD games, so if Ascension is mostly an arbitrary difficulty mod and not a story mod than it doesn't help. (never played it before; beat ToB only once when it came out, non-no-reload.)]

FalkonSwiftblade

I REALLY liked SoA, but ToB seemed too grindy for my party and like some have said the balance was lacking. You were either way too powerful, or way under powered and I felt like the fights were a little too samey. I did think the series was excellent and fulfilling as far as character arc goes though.

jackjack

It felt too linear to me, but I admit that's what I expect from a story - a rapid acceleration toward its conclusion. I think the real reason I didn't like it was the many deaths of possibilities, and having to admit that my favorite CRPG saga was coming to an end.

Fardragon

The story was railroaded. It was quite obvious who the real enemy was, but you where forced to go along with their evil plan anyway, rather than cut them down where they stand.

It failed even to create an illusion of choice.

Ygramul

(It occurred to me that I am probably thinking of "Unfinished Business"... any thoughts?)

Ygramul said:

Does Ascension help with any of these problems?

[caveat: I *only* play NO-RELOAD games, so if Ascension is mostly an arbitrary difficulty mod and not a story mod than it doesn't help. (never played it before; beat ToB only once when it came out, non-no-reload.)]

Permidion_Stark

I hated Cespenar - I didn't find him funny or cute, just really irritating.

jamesker

Tob I liked a lot, think you have just gotta take it as it is, which is a ad on, if you compare it to what you think bg3 should have been your going to be disappointed. The soundtrack for tob was quite spectacular however. (especially Bhaal spawn battle and end credits music)

jamesker

Compare throne of bhaal to tales of sword coast for example, which do you think has more content?