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Enough of BG2!

fvmedeirosfvmedeiros Member Posts: 32
in Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition
Hey friends! I needed to unburden, to see if someone else think like me.

I am a RPG lover. RPG in every sense os the term: non-linear games, open map, customization, imersion, complex character creation, open end, tons of choices, role playing, fantasy, difficulty, lore... etc!

I play rpg since diablo 1... i played every MMOrpg since WoW... i played pc, ipad, ps and xbox RPGs, from old schools to moderns, turn based to hack n slash. From Final fantasies to Diablos, Wow to Eve online, Ultimas, GW, D&D online, Elder Scrolls series and all bethesda games (love the hugeness, lore and ambient), demon/dark sous (love the difficulty), Dragons dogma (love the night shift thing and difficulty), one of best games ive play was the first NWN, including all expansions, all the RPG available in app store for ipad, Dragons ages and all the endless list i cant remember.

Im not kidding, I play RPG every day for the past several years... and i probably will play for the rest of my life...

The games i divided in 3 main groups: the "best ones" (in their own field and time)(for me: nwn, skyrim and wow), "great games" and "games not that good", that i found lots of issues (didnt like nwn2, dark souls, diablo 3 and so on). But even if i dont like, i play and try to finish the game (im a completionist).

AND there is a 4 group: Baldurs gate. Wich i played just now (yes, theres people that after all these years did not play BG yet). And after 1 week, i quit (in the beggining... first city)... is the only RPG i cant stand, i think is the WORST of all.

Why? Reading. I could not play RPG for the past week because i was reading dialogs for the entire week.
I love the D&D character creation, lore, forgotten realms, difficulty, strategic combat, etc... I dont like parties, i like solo games, but that is OK (i was playing solo)... i just cant stand reading for hours with 1 short combat between.

First day I played the first dungeon 4 times (to test different classes and kits) and when i came to the city, omg... tons of people to talk, endless dialogs, dont know where to go, very little quests and after 2 days talking to everyone, i did one combat (circus). So i thought, i will give this game 1 more shot tomorrow, maybe it will begin... and then, 4 more hours of dialogs, entering and exiting doors, and looking for what to do... i quit. Men, i like lore, but i also like to play... and i could not find the "game factor" just the "book factor" and the "look! another door! factor". (i like books, but when comes to games, i like to play them, not reading them)

(that was BG for me: continue, continue, continue, end conversation... continue, continue, continue, end conversation... continue, continue, continue, continue, continue, continue, continue, continue, continue, continue, continue, continue... continue, continue, continue, end conversation... continue, continue, continue, end conversation... continue, continue, continue, end conversation... continue, continue, continue, end conversation... continue, continue, continue, end conversation...)

I think i was resilient to dialogs, i love elder scrolls, nwn etc... but this... far over the top...

I cannot understand why someone in entire earth like this game (I know that is one of the most beloved game of all time...) i just cannot understand.

It is only me?
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Comments

  • MoczoMoczo Member Posts: 236
    Yes, it is only you.

    ... More seriously, though, BG as a series is actually rather combat heavy. From the way you are describing it, you just walk around talking to EVERYONE, which is a massive waste of time. If an NPC does not have a name, they have nothing of importance to say. Named NPCs usually have at least a minor quest to give, but random commoners just babble.
  • fvmedeirosfvmedeiros Member Posts: 32
    Moczo and Metal... i agree that rpg must be storydriven and full of lore... i like it!

    I just found bg away too much... maybe moczo is right, i was playing it wrong... talking to everyone and dont knowing where to go (complex games need a few days to get used to)

    I found TES and NWN dialogs dozen times less annoying than BG2. There was always something to do, adventure, combat, exploring.... and i didnt found it in BG2.
  • MetallomanMetalloman Member, Moderator, Translator (NDA) Posts: 3,975
    @fvmedeiros:

    In BG saga there's always something to do, at every corner, trust me! at certain points you have so many quests that you don't know which one to begin with! :)
    I just think you need to take your time and approach BG:EE in a different way: be more calm, less frenetic, enjoy the details and focus on the path that the main plot shows you: after Candlekeep you'll need to fight tooth and nail to reach the next village and you'll be so focused to try to survive that you'll learn to enjoy the fighting encounter and when you'll reach the next settlement you'll be relieved to see some dialogues and rest a bit! ;D
  • TaearTaear Member Posts: 90
    I feel like the games you like to play aren't RPGs. WoW, Skyrim - they're games where you skip the majority of the dialogue and are just walking around in open worlds.

    There's nothing wrong with it, but that's not what baldurs gate is. You're playing the role of the bhaalspawn, you're not just exploring a world with a blank slate character.
  • MetallomanMetalloman Member, Moderator, Translator (NDA) Posts: 3,975
    Oh, and if you like to explore @fvmdeiros, try to wander a bit off the main road: you'll find that every area is finely crafted, full of detail and picturesque and you'll find strange encounters everywhere! :)
  • moody_magemoody_mage Member Posts: 2,054
    @Metalloman BG2.

    Try exploring different areas, head to the slums, talk t a few folk in the Copper Coronet, visit other areas. in the city I find it quite hard to believe you struggled to find things to do.
  • MetallomanMetalloman Member, Moderator, Translator (NDA) Posts: 3,975
    @decado: right, but this is another reason he should start with BG:EE instead of BGII:EE.
    BG is BGII training camp! ;D
  • HeindrichHeindrich Member, Moderator Posts: 2,959
    Metalloman said:

    @fvmedeiros:

    In BG saga there's always something to do, at every corner, trust me! at certain points you have so many quests that you don't know which one to begin with! :)

    Yes ^^ I had so many quests the first time I tried BG 2 that I had to start making a list.

    "Evil 'round every corner, careful not to step in any."
  • TaearTaear Member Posts: 90
    Yes, I think more what he wants is to build a character and kill stuff. That's not Baldurs Gate. It's Icewind Dale, though!
  • MetallomanMetalloman Member, Moderator, Translator (NDA) Posts: 3,975
    edited January 2014
    @decado, yeah surely he will find the learning curve a little steep in the beginning, but I like to encourage him, giving him a little insight and telling him that he needs to change approach if he wants to enjoy this kind of games... of course if in the end he will have no fun anyway, it will mean that this is not the right kind of game for him, but there's a chance that with a different approach he could enjoy BG and have fun with it. He just have to try. :)
  • fvmedeirosfvmedeiros Member Posts: 32
    Heindrich1988 / Metalloman - i think you guys are right in everything you say...

    I am sure i was disapointed because the approach i did... i was expecting a even better NWN... but i found BG a different game. Less character customization, more story.

    I dont feel bad about people talking that skyrim or wow arent RPG... i understand that... rpg for them will be always about the role playing, the old school... that is the real RPG... but you know, modern "rpg" like skyrim have lore, dialogs, customization, freedom, and that IS a rpg, and is found in the rpg category of any store. So lets move on and not be so elitistic.

    Games skyrim and wow focus more on rewarding, loot, leaderboards, min/max, beat almost impossible encounters, etc (altough they have a great world/lore immersion, but isnt the main appeal, after the first playthrough you only think about min/max, and that is addiction).

    BG is focused more on immersion, and i am used more to another kind of games (not hacknslash, but progression driven games).

    And for not native english people, like me as you may noticed, too much dialog are not easy, as my english is not fluent, i need to overthink, a few terms are new, and so on. So, i guess that this post was good to understand why i did not like BG2.

    And Metalloman, i am not stupid, i even consider myself a smart guy, but i did not find any "main road", i was for hours looking for a way to escape the city, no success! Besides a few quests marked on my map (that i could not complete because monsters where way stronger than me).

  • MetallomanMetalloman Member, Moderator, Translator (NDA) Posts: 3,975
    @fvmedeiros: I thought you were in BG 1, where the "first city" is candlekeep and short after you are in the wilderness, with a main path and direction signs, but if you explore the wilderness out of the path there are many encounters and fights, but you were talking about BG 2, as @decado said some posts before.
    and as I've said, you should start with BG:EE 1, to get used faster and to learn better how to manage this kind of game. :)
  • HeindrichHeindrich Member, Moderator Posts: 2,959
    fvmedeiros said:



    I dont feel bad about people talking that skyrim or wow arent RPG... i understand that... rpg for them will be always about the role playing, the old school... that is the real RPG... but you know, modern "rpg" like skyrim have lore, dialogs, customization, freedom, and that IS a rpg, and is found in the rpg category of any store. So lets move on and not be so elitistic.

    I didn't mean to come across elitist. Like I said, I did play 'modern RPGs' too, and actually I am kinda new to the Bioware/D&D games too.

    The BG saga is HUGE, there's a massive amount of depth and complexity from a game mechanics perspective if you wanted to be challenged in that manner, which is why there's also lots of powergamers on this forum, and there's is a bit of a roleplayer/powergamer split in terms of what drives people to keep playing the BG games so many years after their initial launch. In fact @CrevDaak and I are pretty much on the opposite ends of the spectrum, and he's gonna be shocked to discover that I am actually a powergamer in different games. XD

    Even after over 300 hours of playing this game, I only consider myself 'initiated', and nowhere near 'veteran' or 'expert'. I understand most of the core mechanics, most of the spells. But I don't have the intricacies of stats, bonuses, items etc memorised, and my understanding of the endgame high level mage protection/penetration metagame is sketchy. I think that's pretty insane (in a good way) for any game, given that by about 50 hours, I pretty much understood all of Diablo 3's game mechanics, and after each patch, I'd figure out the next 'optimal metagame' within hours.

    Oh and if u are hardcore enough that the game becomes easy... there's the SCS and Ascension mods.

    But yeah I can see immersion might be a problem for a non-native English speaker, although what you've typed is pretty good and fluent. There are quite a lot of puzzles in the game where English understanding is pretty helpful, so you might find that annoying.

    If you do want to give this saga a chance, I totally agree with @Metalloman that you should start right at the beginning with BG EE.
  • HeindrichHeindrich Member, Moderator Posts: 2,959
    edited January 2014
    ^^
    lol cool.

    Actually I can tell u how to get outta Athkatla... the first time u leave, you need to go through the Gate District. After that u can enter and leave at will through any district.

    But yes, I STRONGLY recommend that u begin from the beginning. Build up ur knowledge and understanding bit by bit. Otherwise there's over 200 spells in the game, which is way too much reading to do in a burst. lol
  • CrevsDaakCrevsDaak Member Posts: 7,155
    edited January 2014
    Heindrich1988 said:

    fvmedeiros said:



    I dont feel bad about people talking that skyrim or wow arent RPG... i understand that... rpg for them will be always about the role playing, the old school... that is the real RPG... but you know, modern "rpg" like skyrim have lore, dialogs, customization, freedom, and that IS a rpg, and is found in the rpg category of any store. So lets move on and not be so elitistic.

    I didn't mean to come across elitist. Like I said, I did play 'modern RPGs' too, and actually I am kinda new to the Bioware/D&D games too.

    The BG saga is HUGE, there's a massive amount of depth and complexity from a game mechanics perspective if you wanted to be challenged in that manner, which is why there's also lots of powergamers on this forum, and there's is a bit of a roleplayer/powergamer split in terms of what drives people to keep playing the BG games so many years after their initial launch. In fact @CrevDaak and I are pretty much on the opposite ends of the spectrum, and he's gonna be shocked to discover that I am actually a powergamer in different games. XD

    Even after over 300 hours of playing this game, I only consider myself 'initiated', and nowhere near 'veteran' or 'expert'. I understand most of the core mechanics, most of the spells. But I don't have the intricacies of stats, bonuses, items etc memorised, and my understanding of the endgame high level mage protection/penetration metagame is sketchy. I think that's pretty insane (in a good way) for any game, given that by about 50 hours, I pretty much understood all of Diablo 3's game mechanics, and after each patch, I'd figure out the next 'optimal metagame' within hours.

    Oh and if u are hardcore enough that the game becomes easy... there's the SCS and Ascension mods.

    But yeah I can see immersion might be a problem for a non-native English speaker, although what you've typed is pretty good and fluent. There are quite a lot of puzzles in the game where English understanding is pretty helpful, so you might find that annoying.
    I tried to role play in Diablo II, I was 7 years old and wanted to play an undead buster, but to keep the fauna alive (I was a true hippie in those times) so I only ran away from natural beasts, or natural looking beats!
    In BG2 I don't powergame so much, I only use inmensely helpful spell combos and rest when I need a spell, since my PC had like 21 INT and 19 WIS by end game. I understood all the game mechanics with BG:EE, and then I got BG2:ToB (pretty much like @Heindrich1988 did, the same thing!!) I played with my fourth PC (another Elven M/T :P) who had ultra-op-stats-and-profs since I was like a pro. When playing BG2 I ran into thousand bugs, so I got editors to blow them out, and there I got into modding, BG2 is complicated to mod so I work over the EEs, still I miss the Multikit mod and some cheesy stuff like infinite money to test a mega-secret-mega-big-mega-buggy mod I'm working into and things like the Console that I only could activate in the EE because bugfixing is easier and better for testing.
  • TheZodiakTheZodiak Member Posts: 33
    You should consider that Baldurs Gate and Baldurs Gate 2 are overhauled games and due to their release they were pretty much epic games. I mean you can compare them to the first elder scrolls games (the ones before morrowind).

    I think the biggest difference you see in Baldurs Gate is how the game flow/pace developed over years. The people who buy the game for a PC do it for nostalgic reasons and not to get something new. They are fans of the game before they even buy it.

    Baldurs Gate has alot of flaws today but if you place it on a right platform (tablet) it become good again. I really don't care about a dialog if its good and i have the time to read it. When i play on my tablet i have the time and i enjoy to read alot of stuff.

    To make it short: BG/BG2 is perfectly designed for a tablet and no more for a pc because of its slow game pace.

    If you want to enjoy an rpg on a pc just play skyrim, dishonored, thief ... solo rpg's.
  • HeindrichHeindrich Member, Moderator Posts: 2,959
    edited January 2014
    @TheZodiak

    I gotta disagree with that. BG EE and BG 2 EE are both very complex and involved games. Playing on the tablet is pretty tedious/fiddly, and it's really designed for long-ish sessions (40mins- 2hrs is my usual BG gaming session) to allow urself to become fully immersed. It's not designed for a 10 minute quick game. For that I play Asphalt 8!

    I actually bought BG EE for my ipad when I travelled by train a lot. I gave up on the main quest in Beregost cos it was becoming a chore, and I couldn't get immersed without custom portraits.

    I tried to play Black Pits, which was a bit better, but I started to get owned once the battles got harder cos it's tricky to micromanage party positioning on a tablet.

    In short, stick with the PC! Especially for a first timer.

    And yes BG doesn't have fancy graphics and non-stop killing like Diablo 3, but that's not why I play it. If anything I think BG has too many random trash mobs. I like to use mage heavy parties and it's a bit tedious having to pause so much to kill random ogres and bears that infest the wilderness! I also find it hard to imagine how the world could be SO dangerous and yet there are still living commoners! lol I imagine Charname is just REALLY unlucky that he keeps getting ambushed each time he travels more than a few miles.

    Edit:
    To answer @CrevsDaak's question, without making a new off-topic comment.

    No, I don't. Asphalt 8 is fun and free, and u don't even need to buy any ingame P2W stuff cos u can unlock it all pretty quickly. I am ranked about 500 in multiplayer without ever spending a penny on it.
  • CrevsDaakCrevsDaak Member Posts: 7,155
    edited January 2014
    @Heindrich1988 do you play Real Racing 2, that game really rocks!
    BG has very few enemies, the new content in the EE is like..... 300 enemies around you, while in vanilla enemies were harder to kill and not so many.
  • fvmedeirosfvmedeiros Member Posts: 32
    i was playing in an Ipad, that i think is another reason of my frustration... someone stated "talk to everyone is a waste of time, you need to see if is a named NPC"... my i cant "mouseover" NPCs on an ipad, i need to click them and talk to them... makes it annoying... i can mouseover maps to see where are exits and doors, i need to go everywhere... manage party and itens are a pain... maybe i will try BG in the Mac
  • HeindrichHeindrich Member, Moderator Posts: 2,959
    @fvmedeiros

    Ah... that probably explains it. I find that I play about 1/3 to 1/2 speed when playing on Ipad. And yes, for a first timer, clicking on all the commoners one by one to find the a named character would be tedious.

    I don't know if the BG 2 EE UI is the same as BG EE, (I don't have BG 2 EE on tablet) but there should be a magnifying glass button on the bottom right. That functions like the Tab key on PC/mac... and highlights things that u can interact with (containers, doors etc) and also displays NPC names. There's also a 'select party' button below that, with the 3 heads, encase u didnt know about it.
  • HeindrichHeindrich Member, Moderator Posts: 2,959
    @CrevsDaak

    BG 1 Vanilla was harder than BG EE because:

    1) More brutal early game ambushes.
    2) No pause in inventory screen.
    3) No Tab key. (U'd never find Ankheg Plate/that mage ring playing blind with BG 1 Vanilla).
    4) Default difficulty in Vanilla was Core, default for BG EE is Normal. (I tend to play games on default settings the first time and didn't notice the difference at first).

    I didn't notice any significant differences in mob sizes though. If anything BG 1 ambush mobs were much bigger/deadlier.

    And the entire BG saga is pretty bloody in terms of the staggering deathtoll u rack up, even without exploiting respawn points and playing every quest.
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