I loved:
- all the infinity engine games
- all the Dragon Age games
- all the Mass Effect games
- SWTOR and KOTOR
And so far I'm loving Kingmaker.
There are lots of different sorts of games. Tactically really demanding isometric games are cool; Bioware cinematic storytelling is also cool. With modern tools (especially for level design) 2D isometrics offers an opportunity to design cool games at comparatively affordable prices, but I'd be sorry to lose big expensive cinematic 3D games too.
You might like or not like the game, but TW3 was genre-defining. So while a player can still find Skyrim better/more interesting than TW3, the game changed something in the genre forever.
Really? I mean you can argue that it did a lot things very well and even that it was better a game with Skyrim (I disagree with that, but you could argue it). But genre-defining?
I think Oblivion and Skyrim both had more influence on the genre than TW3.
Especially as the Witcher did not really innovate anything. Everything it did, other games did before. Don't take me wrong, you do not need to innovate to perfect a formula and create an excellent games, but if we use the term genre-definining I think innovation matters. E.g. bringing back decent NPC schedules (which Ultima and Gothic had in the past) was something Elderscrolls pioneered, not the Witcher. So was easy modding for RPGs.
Strange that nobody mentions itemization as a strong point... IMHO, one of the biggest strong points in the BG series is the great loot and item design they have. Something that doesn't even NWN series share (IMO, again... but I'm not to deep into NWN myself, so I might be wrong with that in the long run.)
Even with static placement, and even with you knowing where to exactly get the items you need, they still serve as a great motivator for trying new and different stuff each run... I mean, you can design characters based on items and their usage and combined with thief Use Any Item the possibilities are endless.
Most modern RPGs seem to be in fear of giving the player cool items or too many options (more difficult to balance!,) and thus design everything to be some boring +1 to a few stats, or a few extra points of damage, and no so much extra stuff, just be sure on the side of the balance.
Yes, for me too, BG1 and BG2 combat deepness is supreme, but if it weren't for the items that come with it, I think it would be a lot less re-playable and interesting (again, IMHO.)
BTW, just to answer a post I've read a few pages back, where someone asked how do we played the game:
I tend to play it like an RTS (At least, when soloing...)
I use spell hotkeys and pause on spell cast, and mostly press keys as combat evolves. I only use pause to evaluate the situation and decide what to do next, or to read the combat log to analyze enemy moves/immunities and such.
When I play with a party full or otherwise, then I use the pause a bit more to give orders and keep everyone in shape... I tend to micromanage way more and I only use hotkeys for buffing or spells that are too commonly casted, like Stoneskin or Remove Fear, etc.
Magic items in BG do feel special. It's the rarity, the descriptions and the unique names.
Even Dragon Age: Origins kind of fumbled with equipment. When you are constantly upgrading everyone's gear to the next "tier" it starts to feel more like a chore. Magic items lose their magic. And trash mobs dropping dragonbone (or +5) items just because you are high level is immersion breaking. I absolutely hated that in DAO.
I also hate items like Rings having a million different random properties like Diablo 3 does. The items lose their character when they are nothing but stat buffs. NWN had random loot scattered all over the city which made zero sense except to artifically give the player "more" to do. But that more wasn't fun. I really need my RPG worlds to make sense and be believable.
5e is great in reducing the importance of equipment and emphasizing the characters and their skills instead. So hopes up for BG3...
If you want an example of really good itemization (and TB combat as well), check the King's Bounty: Legend and its sequels. It's a fine example of when you never want to sell any items you get a hold of, because nearly each one has special properties that might come in handy later on, even if it's tier 1 item brought into high-level fight.
BG was somewhat better than procedurally generated Z Sword of Element X +Y, but it's barely different from that if you compare it to KB design.
Really? I mean you can argue that it did a lot things very well and even that it was better a game with Skyrim (I disagree with that, but you could argue it). But genre-defining?
I think the open world aspect made Witcher 3 a lesser game than it would have been if it hadn't opted to focus on being more tightly focused, and yes, linear. Because it has a linear story it so wants to tell you, I don't think its a fantastic story but there's no question its the focus, and yet it constantly looks to sidetrack you with pointless filler quests. I feel whilst all the Elder Scrolls games are really shallow, and I'm not the biggest fan of them, they don't feel as conflicted and its easier to accept they are what they are. CD Projekt Red did that stuff because they felt it was expected of them, not because it was the best thing for the game. Breath of the Wild is another game that outright gutted itself of everything great about Zelda to do that.
Fallout New Vegas did open world as well as I think it can be done, and yet I'd still really prefer games stop going so much for it because its clear most of these games cannot fill the space with indepth, interesting content. Cyberpunk 2077 may very well work better, I think the concept of doing this whole thing in a city is interesting, but the novelty of it might wear off as it has with everything else.
Again, this is important. In the REAL world, where you have to pay talented people decent wages to do all the labor that's required to make games, it's best to have a title that a studio can project will sell. Get cranky all you want about how it's not being made PRECISELY how you want, but I think that's just counter-productive petulance. The better a title is projected to sell, generally speaking, the more a studio can invest in it. And this is not EA or some obnoxious AAA studio doing this.
So long as it's made PRECISELY how you want it, right? Yeah, sure.
Larian's obnoxiousness is yet to be determined. They may have proven themselves to you, but they are yet to prove themselves to me.
This post doesn't make any sense. There's tons of design choices in Original Sin that I'm not fond of as a player. And how the heck is BG3 being made precisely how I want it? How would I even know? This is trollish nonsense, and you can do better.
Neither here nor there, but how do you think Siege of Dragonspear stacks up against recent similar RPGs? D:OS 2, Kingmaker, etc. My feeling is, it might not best them, but it holds its own to an impressive degree, considering it was made with 20-year-old tech. I think your supposition that only a brand new shiny engine can get the job done is flawed.
TBH, and with gratitude and respect for the guys at Beamdog, it doesn't stack up at all, imo. Perhaps it stacks up decently compared to DLC's of games and maybe that'd be the more fair comparison. But actual full on titles?
For just one telling example, every dialogue choice is broken into three rote categories throughout the entire campaign. That doesn't come close to the depth of roleplaying interactivity we see in Kingmaker, D:OS or Pillars games.
I can totally see where Boris is coming from regarding cutting edge AAA game quality. Do you think I really enjoy playing outdated sprite based characters with terrible path finding and old unchanging rules? It was a very hard thing for me to get used to, when I realized that none of the new games I had bought for the last few years had brought me any joy. I have a cutting edge PC that can make the latest games scream at 60+ FPS at 4K resolution. An I9 9900K processor overclocked to 5Ghz, multiple graphic cards, 4000Mhz RAM, the whole bit. I have always loved pushing the boundaries of gaming. Relying on tiny indie teams that take a year to make a patch is horrible....but it's the only area of the industry that has any innovation and complex gameplay that satisfies me. My computer is pretty much going to waste. Especially now when hardware is costing almost 2X as much as it used to.
I don't like that I have to personally crowd fund POE and TTON because publishers are so greedy that they won't settle for modest profit. It has to be billions or nothing. The only way to turn a profit on an AAA title that costs millions of dollars to develop is to have an audience that is gigantic. Most niche titles have dried up because of this. Like I said in an earlier post. Games like Resident Evil dropped the survival horror aspect. Most stealth games have turned into action games with stealth ingredients. All of the AAA titles have been turned into the same open world action/RPG hybrid and it's just not doing it for me. Anything that could get in the way of a 13 year old's enjoyment of the game is cut out and I'm not a teenager anymore.
You can't have an AAA Baldur's Gate title unless you have a large enough crowd that is interested in a Baldur's Gate title to fund it. Games like Baldur's Gate don't have that kind of following and that is why they are all crowdfunded now. It's a legendary IP just like Planescape Torment but it is legendary from the times of old. Modern audiences are not interested. They will be interested in Baldur's Gate 3 as long as it has the same gameplay as all of the other current RPG's that they are familiar with. POE adding in turn based in a desperate attempt to get more players is a sign of this.
I want to see a D&D 5E game in a nice cutting edge engine but I just don't think it can be done without turning the game into the Witcher or some other title with simplistic gameplay that nobody will play more than a few times. Like I said before, I also like turn based gameplay but it's not as mentally challenging and it restricts the overall tactical complexity of a game like Baldur's Gate and drags it out to be 3 times longer than it should be. I might have a great time with it but the replay ability will not be there. After a couple years the game will disappear from the public's eye and those flashy graphics will date revealing a boring, dumbed down title. Even a great story won't keep you coming back without the gameplay that needs more complexity and depth than an AAA audience will put up with.
If they make a cutting edge 5E game in a ground breaking engine and it has large party configurations with real time gameplay and unique and fun items and encounters I would love it. I just don't think the mainstream would love it and the game would flop.
Either way, it's no sweat off my back if they make another copy/paste mainstream RPG and put the Baldur's Gate name on the cover. It's been done many times over the years and I am beyond caring. After all, they are just video games. It's too bad that game development got so expensive that it crushed all of the niche genre's but that's the way it is. Either way, I'm sure it would be fun to see the forgotten realms in a new engine and a dumbed down game in the forgotten realms with 5E rules is still better than yet another dumbed down generic RPG with half baked rules in a generic setting. I don't expect complex RTS like gameplay with large real time battles in this day and age but who knows, maybe they will surprise us. It's too early to tell.
FWIW, I enjoyed SoD far more than any of its contemporary RPGs. With the exceptions of Tyranny and Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass.
I have not played Tyranny. I own POE 1 and 2. What makes Tyranny special to you?
Lots of reactivity to your "class", backgrounds and stats. I really enjoyed the art style and design aesthetic. The setting and concept were things I hadn't experienced in a game before. I mean, how many fantasy games take place in the bronze age? Not to mention "evil" being the focus of the game actually made sense and didn't go super edgelord. The evil empire was practical and operated pretty much like ancient Rome. The overlord even instituted "Pax Romana". The companions were fun, more complex than they seemed at first glance, and even unlikeable people were interesting, or unlikeable in ways that were fun to interact with.
The real kicker for me though? Tyranny had what was the most satisfying "good" path I've enjoyed in a game to date. Most games with multiple routes feel kinda threadbare, or being anything other than good is just tacked on and usually petty evil. Tyranny encouraged you to be evil, made it difficult to be good, and the good that you were able to do was more meaningful as a result. The whole experience was interesting and engaging to the end.
Like I said before, I also like turn based gameplay but it's not as mentally challenging and it restricts the overall tactical complexity of a game like Baldur's Gate and drags it out to be 3 times longer than it should be.
I... don't think you've ever played a good TB game. BG combat is complex not because it's RTwP, but despite that.
The only place where real time adds complexity is the action genre, which you don't sound particularly fond of. Otherwise you substitute mental challenge with reflex challenge.
I might give it a try. I lost interest in POE for multiple reasons. The gameplay was fun at first but it lacked the complexity to hold it through the whole game. The trash mobs from Icewind dale were never a pleasure for me and the biggest killer was uneven pacing and balancing. A couple years after I stopped playing it, I started it again from my old save and found that the game balancing had been fixed and the trash mobs had been toned down. The fights that were left had more complexity to them and I found myself more into it. I am planning on finishing the winter expansion pack in the coming weeks and I'm looking forward to what they have in store for POE 2. Have you played POE 2? If so, did you like it? Does it have more unique items than the first one? All of the items felt so bland in the original POE.
I can totally see where Boris is coming from regarding cutting edge AAA game quality. Do you think I really enjoy playing outdated sprite based characters with terrible path finding and old unchanging rules? It was a very hard thing for me to get used to, when I realized that none of the new games I had bought for the last few years had brought me any joy. I have a cutting edge PC that can make the latest games scream at 60+ FPS at 4K resolution. An I9 9900K processor overclocked to 5Ghz, multiple graphic cards, 4000Mhz RAM, the whole bit. I have always loved pushing the boundaries of gaming. Relying on tiny indie teams that take a year to make a patch is horrible....but it's the only area of the industry that has any innovation and complex gameplay that satisfies me. My computer is pretty much going to waste. Especially now when hardware is costing almost 2X as much as it used to.
...
I gotta say, everything in the post strikes me as completely wrong about the state of RPG's today. Yes there is an abundance of Skyrim/Witcher/Fallout actiony-RPG's. But there are SO MANY independent, isometric, party-based RPG's that I don't even have enough time to play them all. Pillars, Kingmaker, D:OS is only scratching the surface.
The argument that turn-based is not as tactically deep at RTwP is just... factually wrong. And it's hilarious to hear nowadays, because it's the exact same argument that leveled against the old IE games when they first came out -- only in reverse. Both systems can contain strategic depth.
All the other complaints about adding action elements or dumbing down of RPG's or the AAA games issue just strike me as oddly placed here, because Larian isn't guilty of these sins.
Again, I think there's some things about the Original Sin games that were poor choices, but they are so far afield from the Resident Evil or Bethesda-type complaints you're making. To reiterate, the idea that RPG's are ONLY major studio, AAA titles is just not true. There are so many dang small-studio RPG's out right now!
Like I said before, I also like turn based gameplay but it's not as mentally challenging and it restricts the overall tactical complexity of a game like Baldur's Gate and drags it out to be 3 times longer than it should be.
I... don't think you've ever played a good TB game. BG combat is complex not because it's RTwP, but despite that.
The only place where real time adds complexity is the action genre, which you don't sound particularly fond of. Otherwise you substitute mental challenge with reflex challenge.
I don't agree. There is no fun in trying to surprise an enemy with an ambush if you have to walk each character out one at a time and let everyone take turns. I can imagine how boring the chess board fight would have been in Baldur's gate if each character had to launch their fire balls one at a time. It takes more mental work to think of a strategy all at one time and it's more rewarding to watch the fight take place in real time.
I mentioned earlier that Final Fantasy was an old favorite of mine since I was a kid. 3,7,and 10 being my favorites. Even though they were great, (I had more fun playing FF7 then I did Baldur's Gate) but I was tired of FF7 after 2 play throughs. Baldur's Gate is still fun 20 years later. I don't want to sit around watching each character do their little animations one at a time over and over again in some contrived way. It might make a short game feel longer but it's lack of replay value always rears its ugly head in the end and the lack of content is also obvious. If a TB game is 80 hours then it has half the content of an 80 hour real time game.
Like I said before, I also like turn based gameplay but it's not as mentally challenging and it restricts the overall tactical complexity of a game like Baldur's Gate and drags it out to be 3 times longer than it should be.
I... don't think you've ever played a good TB game. BG combat is complex not because it's RTwP, but despite that.
The only place where real time adds complexity is the action genre, which you don't sound particularly fond of. Otherwise you substitute mental challenge with reflex challenge.
Yeah it's wild to see the complaints about tactical depth resurrected, only now in reverse. I mean come on, are we going to argue turn-based combat in Gold Box didn't have depth? Or that chess doesn't?
Much of the rest of his complaints seem oddly placed, given the context of Larian. Nothing Larian has done in their OS titles is anything akin to the actiony, streamlining he's complaining about. Moreover, it's simply not true that modern RPG's are all big studio, AAA, type titles. Don't get me wrong there are indeed alot of those out there. But there are more independent, tactical combat, isometric RPG's than I can even play right now! This is a freaking golden age far surpassing the days of the IE games in terms of independent, deep RPG's.
Also, to add, people don't play the Witcher 3 multiple times, because it can take literally over a hundred hours just to beat it once. Not even completionist either.
I don't agree. There is no fun in trying to surprise an enemy with an ambush if you have to walk each character out one at a time and let everyone take turns. I can imagine how boring the chess board fight would have been in Baldur's gate if each character had to launch their fire balls one at a time. It takes more mental work to think of a strategy all at one time and it's more rewarding to watch the fight take place in real time.
It's amazing that we live in an age where RTwP is now seen as the tactically deeper combat mode. People were making the exact same arguments about the IE games' lack of depth back when they first launched.
I can totally see where Boris is coming from regarding cutting edge AAA game quality. ....
I think alot of points in this post are weirdly misplaced with regards to Larian possibly making BG3. The OS games are not at all guilty of any of the actiony, streamlining you're talking about.
Secondly, I just don't think it's true that games today are an all-or-nothing endeavor. Larian itself is proof of this. OS2 did well, but the first one was not a huge seller, relative to games like Bethesda products or Resident Evil. There's a crapton of small-studio, tactical combat, isometric RPG's out today. More than I can even play!
Yeah I remember. It's because taking your time to fine tune each character is done in real time just like turn based but it doesn't feel as in debth because the game doesn't divide up the fight into little micro one person focused attacks. Those people were overlooking the real time strategy element that is completely missing from turn based games and failed to realize that it was capable of more strategy while allowing far more content. I think one of the reasons why modern games favor turn based is because of production costs. They look for anyway to minimize the number of areas that need to be modeled and textured. The isometric view with 2D backgrounds allowed for much larger adventures with much larger worlds and much more story content at an affordable price. Something that is not possible in high end triple A 3D game engines, unless you want to spend a billion dollars like Rockstar does. These new AAA games would be over in 20 hours if they were real time.
I can totally see where Boris is coming from regarding cutting edge AAA game quality. ....
I think alot of points in this post are weirdly misplaced with regards to Larian possibly making BG3. The OS games are not at all guilty of any of the actiony, streamlining you're talking about.
Secondly, I just don't think it's true that games today are an all-or-nothing endeavor. Larian itself is proof of this. OS2 did well, but the first one was not a huge seller, relative to games like Bethesda products or Resident Evil. There's a crapton of small-studio, tactical combat, isometric RPG's out today. More than I can even play!
Honestly, none of my comments have anything to do with Larian. I have absolutely nothing against them. I do have a lot of reasons why an AAA Baldur's Gate title will either be a flop or a Baldur's Gate game in title only. My comments are simply observations about game production quality vs game quality. Basically, money spent on the game vs mainstream audiences that are needed in order to heave the extra costs and what mainstream audiences actually want. If a producer is going to heave the cost then it's their obligation to leverage the developers for their market share holders. Those people do not care about the integrity of a game or the passion of a development team. They will push for broader audience to make up the cost at all costs.
I can totally see where Boris is coming from regarding cutting edge AAA game quality. ....
I think alot of points in this post are weirdly misplaced with regards to Larian possibly making BG3. The OS games are not at all guilty of any of the actiony, streamlining you're talking about.
Secondly, I just don't think it's true that games today are an all-or-nothing endeavor. Larian itself is proof of this. OS2 did well, but the first one was not a huge seller, relative to games like Bethesda products or Resident Evil. There's a crapton of small-studio, tactical combat, isometric RPG's out today. More than I can even play!
Honestly, none of my comments have anything to do with Larian. I have absolutely nothing against them. I do have a lot of reasons why an AAA Baldur's Gate title will either be a flop or a Baldur's Gate game in title only. My comments are simply observations about game production quality vs game quality. Basically, money spent on the game vs mainstream audiences that are needed in order to heave the extra costs and what mainstream audiences actually want. If a producer is going to heave the cost then it's their obligation to leverage the developers for their market share holders. Those people do not care about the integrity of a game or the passion of a development team. They will push for broader audience to make up the cost at all costs.
Ok great. But if Larian really is making BG3, then none of that applies.
It depends, where are they getting the money from? Is it all funded from past projects or are they taking out a loan? Is the game engine going to be built from an existing one? If it's new, who is building it? Are the people supplying the production costs willing to do so with anything other than a compromised gameplay system to support the largest audience at all costs?
It seems like multiple Beamdog employee's are in favor of turn based gameplay. Should I assume that they know something that I don't? It doesn't really matter what I think anyway, and Larian will certainly make the mainstream more happy with turn based. It will be easier on game length and production costs plus Larian seems to specialize in turn based anyway. I'd say this was part of the reason they were chosen for this project in the first place if I had to guess.
As I said previously, I think assuming that Larian is going to make BG3 out of line with its predecessors (turn-based vs realtime), simply because it has made *some* turn-based RPG's, isn't very good guesswork. It's also making assumptions about game studios (they like to make all their games similarly) that are just flat out wrong.
It's also not true that turn-based is more mainstream friendly. The highest selling RPG's are not turn-based.
It's also making assumptions about game studios (they like to make all their games similarly) that are just flat out wrong.
Anyone who thinks this about Larian studios doesn't know Larian studios.
I was actually surprised how far they were within to change their divinity series, heck people were complaining that they didn't just make dragon commander another rpg.
@the_sextein Note that Tyranny either hit a deadline or was intended as part of a series. The game ended very abruptly, so be aware of that.
As for PoE2. I started a playthrough when it first released, but put it on hold when one of the patches changed a bunch of class stuff and changed how my build would work. I still haven't gone back to it, but I plan too.
Fair enough, but I'm seeing more active moderation supporting turn based and Larian does have a history of it. It's possible an existing engine that Larian is already using was chosen as the best cost effective way to build the game. As for turn based, you may be correct but from where I am sitting, every major game is either a single person action title with RPG elements or a small party turn based game. The only large party real time games I have seen are indie games, most of which were crowd funded. The only reason my assumption that the game will be out of line with the predecessors has nothing to do with larian though, it's all about modern game development trends.
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Mass effect
Really? I mean you can argue that it did a lot things very well and even that it was better a game with Skyrim (I disagree with that, but you could argue it). But genre-defining?
I think Oblivion and Skyrim both had more influence on the genre than TW3.
Especially as the Witcher did not really innovate anything. Everything it did, other games did before. Don't take me wrong, you do not need to innovate to perfect a formula and create an excellent games, but if we use the term genre-definining I think innovation matters. E.g. bringing back decent NPC schedules (which Ultima and Gothic had in the past) was something Elderscrolls pioneered, not the Witcher. So was easy modding for RPGs.
I am pretty sure Skyrim also sold better.
Even with static placement, and even with you knowing where to exactly get the items you need, they still serve as a great motivator for trying new and different stuff each run... I mean, you can design characters based on items and their usage and combined with thief Use Any Item the possibilities are endless.
Most modern RPGs seem to be in fear of giving the player cool items or too many options (more difficult to balance!,) and thus design everything to be some boring +1 to a few stats, or a few extra points of damage, and no so much extra stuff, just be sure on the side of the balance.
Yes, for me too, BG1 and BG2 combat deepness is supreme, but if it weren't for the items that come with it, I think it would be a lot less re-playable and interesting (again, IMHO.)
BTW, just to answer a post I've read a few pages back, where someone asked how do we played the game:
I tend to play it like an RTS
I use spell hotkeys and pause on spell cast, and mostly press keys as combat evolves. I only use pause to evaluate the situation and decide what to do next, or to read the combat log to analyze enemy moves/immunities and such.
When I play with a party full or otherwise, then I use the pause a bit more to give orders and keep everyone in shape... I tend to micromanage way more and I only use hotkeys for buffing or spells that are too commonly casted, like Stoneskin or Remove Fear, etc.
Even Dragon Age: Origins kind of fumbled with equipment. When you are constantly upgrading everyone's gear to the next "tier" it starts to feel more like a chore. Magic items lose their magic. And trash mobs dropping dragonbone (or +5) items just because you are high level is immersion breaking. I absolutely hated that in DAO.
I also hate items like Rings having a million different random properties like Diablo 3 does. The items lose their character when they are nothing but stat buffs. NWN had random loot scattered all over the city which made zero sense except to artifically give the player "more" to do. But that more wasn't fun. I really need my RPG worlds to make sense and be believable.
5e is great in reducing the importance of equipment and emphasizing the characters and their skills instead. So hopes up for BG3...
BG was somewhat better than procedurally generated Z Sword of Element X +Y, but it's barely different from that if you compare it to KB design.
I think the open world aspect made Witcher 3 a lesser game than it would have been if it hadn't opted to focus on being more tightly focused, and yes, linear. Because it has a linear story it so wants to tell you, I don't think its a fantastic story but there's no question its the focus, and yet it constantly looks to sidetrack you with pointless filler quests. I feel whilst all the Elder Scrolls games are really shallow, and I'm not the biggest fan of them, they don't feel as conflicted and its easier to accept they are what they are. CD Projekt Red did that stuff because they felt it was expected of them, not because it was the best thing for the game. Breath of the Wild is another game that outright gutted itself of everything great about Zelda to do that.
Fallout New Vegas did open world as well as I think it can be done, and yet I'd still really prefer games stop going so much for it because its clear most of these games cannot fill the space with indepth, interesting content. Cyberpunk 2077 may very well work better, I think the concept of doing this whole thing in a city is interesting, but the novelty of it might wear off as it has with everything else.
This post doesn't make any sense. There's tons of design choices in Original Sin that I'm not fond of as a player. And how the heck is BG3 being made precisely how I want it? How would I even know? This is trollish nonsense, and you can do better.
TBH, and with gratitude and respect for the guys at Beamdog, it doesn't stack up at all, imo. Perhaps it stacks up decently compared to DLC's of games and maybe that'd be the more fair comparison. But actual full on titles?
For just one telling example, every dialogue choice is broken into three rote categories throughout the entire campaign. That doesn't come close to the depth of roleplaying interactivity we see in Kingmaker, D:OS or Pillars games.
I don't like that I have to personally crowd fund POE and TTON because publishers are so greedy that they won't settle for modest profit. It has to be billions or nothing. The only way to turn a profit on an AAA title that costs millions of dollars to develop is to have an audience that is gigantic. Most niche titles have dried up because of this. Like I said in an earlier post. Games like Resident Evil dropped the survival horror aspect. Most stealth games have turned into action games with stealth ingredients. All of the AAA titles have been turned into the same open world action/RPG hybrid and it's just not doing it for me. Anything that could get in the way of a 13 year old's enjoyment of the game is cut out and I'm not a teenager anymore.
You can't have an AAA Baldur's Gate title unless you have a large enough crowd that is interested in a Baldur's Gate title to fund it. Games like Baldur's Gate don't have that kind of following and that is why they are all crowdfunded now. It's a legendary IP just like Planescape Torment but it is legendary from the times of old. Modern audiences are not interested. They will be interested in Baldur's Gate 3 as long as it has the same gameplay as all of the other current RPG's that they are familiar with. POE adding in turn based in a desperate attempt to get more players is a sign of this.
I want to see a D&D 5E game in a nice cutting edge engine but I just don't think it can be done without turning the game into the Witcher or some other title with simplistic gameplay that nobody will play more than a few times. Like I said before, I also like turn based gameplay but it's not as mentally challenging and it restricts the overall tactical complexity of a game like Baldur's Gate and drags it out to be 3 times longer than it should be. I might have a great time with it but the replay ability will not be there. After a couple years the game will disappear from the public's eye and those flashy graphics will date revealing a boring, dumbed down title. Even a great story won't keep you coming back without the gameplay that needs more complexity and depth than an AAA audience will put up with.
If they make a cutting edge 5E game in a ground breaking engine and it has large party configurations with real time gameplay and unique and fun items and encounters I would love it. I just don't think the mainstream would love it and the game would flop.
Either way, it's no sweat off my back if they make another copy/paste mainstream RPG and put the Baldur's Gate name on the cover. It's been done many times over the years and I am beyond caring. After all, they are just video games. It's too bad that game development got so expensive that it crushed all of the niche genre's but that's the way it is. Either way, I'm sure it would be fun to see the forgotten realms in a new engine and a dumbed down game in the forgotten realms with 5E rules is still better than yet another dumbed down generic RPG with half baked rules in a generic setting. I don't expect complex RTS like gameplay with large real time battles in this day and age but who knows, maybe they will surprise us. It's too early to tell.
I have not played Tyranny. I own POE 1 and 2. What makes Tyranny special to you?
Lots of reactivity to your "class", backgrounds and stats. I really enjoyed the art style and design aesthetic. The setting and concept were things I hadn't experienced in a game before. I mean, how many fantasy games take place in the bronze age? Not to mention "evil" being the focus of the game actually made sense and didn't go super edgelord. The evil empire was practical and operated pretty much like ancient Rome. The overlord even instituted "Pax Romana". The companions were fun, more complex than they seemed at first glance, and even unlikeable people were interesting, or unlikeable in ways that were fun to interact with.
The real kicker for me though? Tyranny had what was the most satisfying "good" path I've enjoyed in a game to date. Most games with multiple routes feel kinda threadbare, or being anything other than good is just tacked on and usually petty evil. Tyranny encouraged you to be evil, made it difficult to be good, and the good that you were able to do was more meaningful as a result. The whole experience was interesting and engaging to the end.
The only place where real time adds complexity is the action genre, which you don't sound particularly fond of. Otherwise you substitute mental challenge with reflex challenge.
I gotta say, everything in the post strikes me as completely wrong about the state of RPG's today. Yes there is an abundance of Skyrim/Witcher/Fallout actiony-RPG's. But there are SO MANY independent, isometric, party-based RPG's that I don't even have enough time to play them all. Pillars, Kingmaker, D:OS is only scratching the surface.
The argument that turn-based is not as tactically deep at RTwP is just... factually wrong. And it's hilarious to hear nowadays, because it's the exact same argument that leveled against the old IE games when they first came out -- only in reverse. Both systems can contain strategic depth.
All the other complaints about adding action elements or dumbing down of RPG's or the AAA games issue just strike me as oddly placed here, because Larian isn't guilty of these sins.
Again, I think there's some things about the Original Sin games that were poor choices, but they are so far afield from the Resident Evil or Bethesda-type complaints you're making. To reiterate, the idea that RPG's are ONLY major studio, AAA titles is just not true. There are so many dang small-studio RPG's out right now!
I don't agree. There is no fun in trying to surprise an enemy with an ambush if you have to walk each character out one at a time and let everyone take turns. I can imagine how boring the chess board fight would have been in Baldur's gate if each character had to launch their fire balls one at a time. It takes more mental work to think of a strategy all at one time and it's more rewarding to watch the fight take place in real time.
I mentioned earlier that Final Fantasy was an old favorite of mine since I was a kid. 3,7,and 10 being my favorites. Even though they were great, (I had more fun playing FF7 then I did Baldur's Gate) but I was tired of FF7 after 2 play throughs. Baldur's Gate is still fun 20 years later. I don't want to sit around watching each character do their little animations one at a time over and over again in some contrived way. It might make a short game feel longer but it's lack of replay value always rears its ugly head in the end and the lack of content is also obvious. If a TB game is 80 hours then it has half the content of an 80 hour real time game.
Yeah it's wild to see the complaints about tactical depth resurrected, only now in reverse. I mean come on, are we going to argue turn-based combat in Gold Box didn't have depth? Or that chess doesn't?
Much of the rest of his complaints seem oddly placed, given the context of Larian. Nothing Larian has done in their OS titles is anything akin to the actiony, streamlining he's complaining about. Moreover, it's simply not true that modern RPG's are all big studio, AAA, type titles. Don't get me wrong there are indeed alot of those out there. But there are more independent, tactical combat, isometric RPG's than I can even play right now! This is a freaking golden age far surpassing the days of the IE games in terms of independent, deep RPG's.
Also, to add, people don't play the Witcher 3 multiple times, because it can take literally over a hundred hours just to beat it once. Not even completionist either.
It's amazing that we live in an age where RTwP is now seen as the tactically deeper combat mode. People were making the exact same arguments about the IE games' lack of depth back when they first launched.
I think alot of points in this post are weirdly misplaced with regards to Larian possibly making BG3. The OS games are not at all guilty of any of the actiony, streamlining you're talking about.
Secondly, I just don't think it's true that games today are an all-or-nothing endeavor. Larian itself is proof of this. OS2 did well, but the first one was not a huge seller, relative to games like Bethesda products or Resident Evil. There's a crapton of small-studio, tactical combat, isometric RPG's out today. More than I can even play!
Honestly, none of my comments have anything to do with Larian. I have absolutely nothing against them. I do have a lot of reasons why an AAA Baldur's Gate title will either be a flop or a Baldur's Gate game in title only. My comments are simply observations about game production quality vs game quality. Basically, money spent on the game vs mainstream audiences that are needed in order to heave the extra costs and what mainstream audiences actually want. If a producer is going to heave the cost then it's their obligation to leverage the developers for their market share holders. Those people do not care about the integrity of a game or the passion of a development team. They will push for broader audience to make up the cost at all costs.
Ok great. But if Larian really is making BG3, then none of that applies.
It's also not true that turn-based is more mainstream friendly. The highest selling RPG's are not turn-based.
I was actually surprised how far they were within to change their divinity series, heck people were complaining that they didn't just make dragon commander another rpg.
As for PoE2. I started a playthrough when it first released, but put it on hold when one of the patches changed a bunch of class stuff and changed how my build would work. I still haven't gone back to it, but I plan too.