Should Black Pits have been more in Baldur's Gate 2-style?

Tenrecc

So, I havn't had time to play the real adventure yet, but I did have a blast fighting through the black pits 2 which I feel is an extremely welcome addition to the game (I always enjoyed the arena-style combats in the game, however small they were), but there is one thing that kept on annoying me and I was wondering if any of you felt the same.

The combat didn't feel very... Baldur's Gate 2-ish.

There are mainly two things that gave me this feeling - the first being the lack of possible preparation. In every fight except the last (which by the way was a weird change of phase), you can't prepare yourself for what's coming, which is directly contradictory to how you enter fights in the real game.

Now, I can understand that would be to "even the fights out," and make it "more arena combat-ish" except that a lot of opponents starts out with contingencied spells, which makes no sense. If it was purely for the difficulty, why not raise it and let us play the fights BG2 style? This way, soloing a fighter/mage for example, is made almost impossible in the earlier stages since there's simply not enough time to get your defenses up. I really see no reason why this was made, either for gameplay or role playing purposes.

The second thing is the lack of BG2 end-game items. Some of the items have pretty powerful combinations built around them, such as the Robe of Vecna and Amulet of Power, or Staff of the Ram for backstabbing, or Staff of the Magi for insta-cloak... Yes, some ridiculously powerful, but still it's what we are used to and how the combat were usually played out. I was expecting to be able to purchase these items later on, but was pretty disappointed when there were almost no +5 weapons.

So... am I just an old stick-in-the-mud for disliking this revamped combat system, or are there others who would also rather have been able to make use of their years of culumated skills in order to take on new and ever so hard challenges?

AlexT

Tenrecc said:

There are mainly two things that gave me this feeling - the first being the lack of possible preparation. In every fight except the last (which by the way was a weird change of phase), you can't prepare yourself for what's coming, which is directly contradictory to how you enter fights in the real game.

While you cannot pre-cast buffing spells prior to the arena fights, you are allowed to set up your own contingencies, spell sequencers and triggers. If you take your entire party to the bunks your spellcasting and resting will be enabled (but only in that area). Any contingencies/sequencers/triggers that you set up there will be retained for the arena fights. Note that enemies don't pre-buff either, unlike in the original game. They only use legitimate spell combinations in contingencies, sequencers and triggers which are allowed for their class and level.

I was expecting to be able to purchase these items later on, but was pretty disappointed when there were almost no +5 weapons.

More items become available during the later Tiers. Also, some of the most powerful items are gained as battle rewards (i.e. the Amulet of Power and the Staff of the Magi) and cannot be purchased from stores. As for the Robe of Vecna and +5 items being available in stores, you do actually get access to those after the last Tier 4 battle (just before the rebellion starts). Furthermore, you can get several +5 items as post-battle rewards even before that. Note that you need to actually ask for an item when addressing the crowd, otherwise you will not get anything after the battle.