Aww my biggest complaint about BG2 has been the absence of wilderness to explore. I actually tend to be more fond of Baldurs Gate 1 due to the open areas and the quests and encounters you can bump into. The few that BG2 have are kinda lackluster for exploring. Most of them are wrapped up in some other quest.
But I get it, most modern players seem to hate that aspect of Baldurs Gate 1. I don't know why though but I loved exploring the world rather than being stuck in one big city. It was still great but I longed for more places to see.
I think there are very legitimate criticisms that can be made for the D:OS 2 games in terms of the underlying RPG mechanics like itemization, character creation, armor system and skill/attribute system. For a D&D/Baldur Gate successors I feel that getting all those mechanics in great shape is critical.
Yeah, I just hated the combat system once I realised how repetitive it is once you've got the combination of skills you're just going to cast over and over again. I feel like any combat system in which the standard function of "attack" is never even used past a certain point is a ridiculous system.
A combat system should really be built around certain functions being the most common actions and then increasingly more powerful abilities that are resourced in some way so they have to be used in a tactical manner. You know, like magic spells cast by a wizard who can only cast them x per rest. That system worked well, but it doesn't sound like Larian thinks so, and well they did make Original Sin 1 and 2's combat system so I guess that makes sense.
Ugh.
I also agree with Subtledoctor's attitude about graphics but I come from a perspective that really is over the concept that graphics need to be a cost intensive part of any game, as about all it means to me is to force me to buy new hardware. I would want BG3 at most to be like the Pillars games, 2D Backdrops, 3D models for characters. Because you know, that would fit for BG3. What Original Sin does? It wouldn't, nor would what Dragon Age did be as fitting.
(...)
Yeah, I just hated the combat system once I realised how repetitive it is once you've got the combination of skills you're just going to cast over and over again. I feel like any combat system in which the standard function of "attack" is never even used past a certain point is a ridiculous system. (...) You know, like magic spells cast by a wizard who can only cast them x per rest. That system worked well, but it doesn't sound like Larian thinks so,
On D:Os i only played for 6 hours. My impression? The combat is mostly spam the same rotation or envorimental gimmicky. Also, i din't liked the story, the character progression and artstyle.
One aspect that i love about old school RPG's, is that the strategy that works amazingly against mindflayers can be awful if used against an dragon or an lich. They don't need to arbitrary force you to use another skill that results in you using the same rotation.
So, yes, for him even spell slots is not intuitive.
Hell, even Dark Souls 1/2 an action focused game uses smartly spell slots. The 3 got rid of spell slot and is the worst one of the series IMO.
Spell slots on the way that DkS 2 presented leads to some "decisions", for example, Forbidden Sun, the strongest pyromancy that literally creates an mini sun and trows at the enemy, Insane deadly and deals AOE damage. What is the problem? Is behind an long quest and takes 3 attenument slots ( https://darksouls2.wiki.fextralife.com/Forbidden+Sun ) So the 'charname' needs to make an choice. What is best? Be able to throw 3 forbidden suns with 43 ATN and Hexer hood or be able to throw 20+ fire orbs? And there are no easy solution. In some situations, one spell will excel and on another, another spell will be the best option.
See, they use spell slots in a different way than D&D and works amazingly. If was on D3 for Ex, pyromancer will need an big and sharp axe to throw the mini sun and the mini sun will scale with 100.000% of base damage and have 2 minute cooldown.
If was on D:OS will be an 13m ranged attack that can be used once per 10 turns and that is it. Nothing special, no decision, no player agency.
Sorry, cannot hold myself from commenting. Again, this has nothing to do with BGIII, because BGIII will use DnD spells and abilities.
However, combat in the DOS games is not the same rotation or environmental gimmicky, it's much more than that. And it's not repetitive. The standard function of "attack" can be a viable (and in my parties IS viable) tactic used by certain characters, such as backstabbing thieves and two-handed warriors.
Before you use your ability, you consider enemies' immunities. Yes, there're many immunities in DOS1, and in DOS2 enemies differ in terms of their magical and physical armour. There's also bodybuilding and willpower in DOS1, which defines enemies' (and your own) saving throws against different types of attack: eg. freeze, or stun. You also consider whether the enemy is undead or not, whether it has special immunities, or not. Certain enemies can start the battle completely invulnerable to any attacks. Certain enemies can summon. You can use grenades and special arrows. You can use scrolls.
6 hours at the start of the game is not a good representation of how battles go. Imagine first 6 hours at the start of BG1, and imagine it mid-SoA or later. Then add that you can use different classes and combinations of them, so, for example, if you start as a warrior, of course, you will use the same 3 abilities. You start with them.
13m ranged attack. The amount of times you keep mentioning it, it doesn't make your statement more valid. In DOS1 the range of a one-handed club is 2.83 m - but it's in-game metres, not real-life. It's the closes you can get to an enemy (because you can hit with a one-handed weapon only staying close to the enemy). Now switch that to 13 metres. THIS IS NOT FAR AWAY, this is completely normal. And in DOS 2 when you're standing higher, your range increases. This is alright.
You're all welcome to check my DOS playthrough thread, and see the screenshots. Judge youself, but never in my 182 hours on DOS 1 and 350 hours on DOS 2 I have felt the battles are more repetitive than they are in other games, such as Pillars of Eternity or Might and Magic games. And yes, there're more spells in Infinity Engine games than anywhere else. I guess it's because it's DnD.
I can go on into details about combat in the DOS games for many paragraphs. It will be not related to BGIII. But what I read here about the DOS games make me frown each time. I'm prepared for the usual opposite opinions on this, I'm fine with that.
But for people who read this subforum each day - don't just trust statements here, at least think things might be different if you try the game(s) yourself. And yes, I don't guarantee that people who try the DOS games will like them - no, I see how many (especially those commenting in this subforum) don't like them.
Well, i will abstain about comments from combat. Anyway, 6 hours is not little time. Looking to animes for eg, if you see an episode with 20 minutes on average(skipping oppening/ending), i could in 6 hours watch 18 episodes of an anime. This is one season and half of many shows. 6 hours is almost the average time that i spend working out in a week... And D:OS2 is according to how long to beat about 55 hours ( https://howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=39525 ), so is more than 10% of the game played and tree times the time limit to get an refund on steam.
If the opinion of someone who criticized the missing on BG2 and only played BG2 for 30 minutes(the steam review that Julius mentioned) is valid, note that BG2 is 72 hours long ( https://howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=810 ), he played around 0,5% of the game...
Anyway, i only barely mentioned D:OS, my main argument is that he is wrong when he talks about spell slots being counter intuitive. That other games used everything that he complains about BG successfully. In fact, i never saw an game that badly implemented spell slots. No one. And saw no one asking for get rid of it on the games that uses it. And his comments make me wonder not what he will change because is very lickely that he will change the leveling, spell slot system, resting, melee combat, etc; but what he will MAINTAIN from BG on "bg3".
Anyone here can name one game that did used spell slots and somehow messed up? I can't remember anyone...
I'm quite sure the main reason we don't complain about spell slots too much is because we've played way too many DnD titles. But it really isn't a good system, especially when you don't know in advance what to expect. It's ok on per-battle basis, kinda like choosing your deck of cards, but with free exploration the mana system will beat it any day.
A friend and I played around 10-15 hours of DOS1 years ago, before the rerelease. At the time I thought the combat was pretty innovative and fun, though I can see how it could become repetitive after a while. It's actually the rest of the game that we both found a bit stale. I remember that I wasn't too invested in any of the characters, so I didn't care much what happened in the story.
That said, I do want to try DOS1 again, now that the new version is out, and I'm also interested in DOS2. They're both on my backlog along with games like PoE2, Legend of Grimrock 2, Tides of Numenera, IWD2 (yep, I still haven't finished it), and so on and so forth. I recently even added Pathfinder: Kingmaker on there because a lot of people seem to like it. Too many great games, not enough time.
Whether BG3 makes it on there remains to be seen. Even if it's not my dream BG sequel it could still be a good game. But either way, I'll be alright, it's not like I'm in danger of running out of games to play.
I'm quite sure the main reason we don't complain about spell slots too much is because we've played way too many DnD titles. But it really isn't a good system, especially when you don't know in advance what to expect. It's ok on per-battle basis, kinda like choosing your deck of cards, but with free exploration the mana system will beat it any day.
That's why I loved the Psion system back in 2nd Edition. You chose which powers you knew and as long as you had energy left you could cast anything you knew. Also you decided how much energy you wanted to invest in a power to increase its effect so you could cast an effect with minimu cost that would do 1d6 damage, for instance, or you could use more power and pump it up to its limits let's say 10d6.
It allowed low level Psions to do a high amount of damage at relatively lower levels at the cost of becoming powerless until they rested.
Sorry, cannot hold myself from commenting. Again, this has nothing to do with BGIII, because BGIII will use DnD spells and abilities.
However, combat in the DOS games is not the same rotation or environmental gimmicky, it's much more than that. And it's not repetitive. The standard function of "attack" can be a viable (and in my parties IS viable) tactic used by certain characters, such as backstabbing thieves and two-handed warriors.
Before you use your ability, you consider enemies' immunities. Yes, there're many immunities in DOS1, and in DOS2 enemies differ in terms of their magical and physical armour. There's also bodybuilding and willpower in DOS1, which defines enemies' (and your own) saving throws against different types of attack: eg. freeze, or stun. You also consider whether the enemy is undead or not, whether it has special immunities, or not. Certain enemies can start the battle completely invulnerable to any attacks. Certain enemies can summon. You can use grenades and special arrows. You can use scrolls.
6 hours at the start of the game is not a good representation of how battles go. Imagine first 6 hours at the start of BG1, and imagine it mid-SoA or later. Then add that you can use different classes and combinations of them, so, for example, if you start as a warrior, of course, you will use the same 3 abilities. You start with them.
13m ranged attack. The amount of times you keep mentioning it, it doesn't make your statement more valid. In DOS1 the range of a one-handed club is 2.83 m - but it's in-game metres, not real-life. It's the closes you can get to an enemy (because you can hit with a one-handed weapon only staying close to the enemy). Now switch that to 13 metres. THIS IS NOT FAR AWAY, this is completely normal. And in DOS 2 when you're standing higher, your range increases. This is alright.
You're all welcome to check my DOS playthrough thread, and see the screenshots. Judge youself, but never in my 182 hours on DOS 1 and 350 hours on DOS 2 I have felt the battles are more repetitive than they are in other games, such as Pillars of Eternity or Might and Magic games. And yes, there're more spells in Infinity Engine games than anywhere else. I guess it's because it's DnD.
I can go on into details about combat in the DOS games for many paragraphs. It will be not related to BGIII. But what I read here about the DOS games make me frown each time. I'm prepared for the usual opposite opinions on this, I'm fine with that.
But for people who read this subforum each day - don't just trust statements here, at least think things might be different if you try the game(s) yourself. And yes, I don't guarantee that people who try the DOS games will like them - no, I see how many (especially those commenting in this subforum) don't like them.
I'm not questioning this was your experience. But I also put in a ton of hours playing the game, and my experience was very different: put the same set of spells on every character; just use spells, especially 'freeze' and 'stun' spells; don't waste your time with melee; look for and use the very conveniently placed water puddle or oil barrel; repeat, repeat, repeat. It was mind-numbingly stupid and boring. Eventually I just learned to drop the difficulty to the lowest level before a combat so I could blast through the enemies quickly and be done with it and spare myself the pointless waste of time.
I think that gaming experience (mine and yours) is related to a non-highest difficulty setting in your playthrough. I recommend to play D:OS only on Tactician, as it's where I enjoyed it. Once you dropped the difficulty lower, combat became even less intense. Dropping a puddle or a barrel won't help much when it's your characters who are already frozen and stunned.
I guess it's the same with PoE, where playing on Veteran at least, or better on PotD, provides the experience the devs wanted for IE players.
Anyway, combat in DOS 2 is more diverse than in DOS 1, and even more difficult.
Aww my biggest complaint about BG2 has been the absence of wilderness to explore. I actually tend to be more fond of Baldurs Gate 1 due to the open areas and the quests and encounters you can bump into. The few that BG2 have are kinda lackluster for exploring. Most of them are wrapped up in some other quest.
But I get it, most modern players seem to hate that aspect of Baldurs Gate 1. I don't know why though but I loved exploring the world rather than being stuck in one big city. It was still great but I longed for more places to see.
This. Please, I don't want a railroad game. We have so many games doing that already and frankly it has little immersion value because one quickly gets the feeling that you are forced too much along the way. The beauty of rpg video games is the free environment they can produce - with Larian's systems backing it all up. This all turns to nothing if "freedom" is limited to only meaning"choose between 10 different answers to deal with a forced situation".
"Mearls: I can say purely from a tabletop space, one of the things we found was that the ranger character class, in tabletop players really felt the first couple of levels, they weren’t really making choices that they felt were having a real impact on gameplay... One of the things we learned is that we had some assumptions about how exploration would play out in the game back when we were developing 5th edition—we thought, “Oh, we’ll give the rangers some of these toys to play with because exploration is part of the game.” And we’ve just found that either a lot of DMs don’t use a lot of the sub-systems that those spoke to, or they weren’t really coming up on a level of play at the table that was actually impactful to the narrative.
The ranger, for instance: Oh, I’m gonna pick desert as my favored terrain. We can’t get lost in the desert. Which sounds great—I wouldn’t want to get lost in the desert. But when you’re playing a tabletop role-playing game, it basically means, “OK, you’ve crossed the desert, you’re done.” It’s not really giving the ranger a chance to shine. So we’re looking at maybe play-testing this summer some new options that complement what’s there without overriding it. One of the hard things about working in tabletop is you can’t patch a physical book—unless you’re willing to break into everyone’s house and paste in new things."
"Mearls: I can say purely from a tabletop space, one of the things we found was that the ranger character class, in tabletop players really felt the first couple of levels, they weren’t really making choices that they felt were having a real impact on gameplay... One of the things we learned is that we had some assumptions about how exploration would play out in the game back when we were developing 5th edition—we thought, “Oh, we’ll give the rangers some of these toys to play with because exploration is part of the game.” And we’ve just found that either a lot of DMs don’t use a lot of the sub-systems that those spoke to, or they weren’t really coming up on a level of play at the table that was actually impactful to the narrative.
The ranger, for instance: Oh, I’m gonna pick desert as my favored terrain. We can’t get lost in the desert. Which sounds great—I wouldn’t want to get lost in the desert. But when you’re playing a tabletop role-playing game, it basically means, “OK, you’ve crossed the desert, you’re done.” It’s not really giving the ranger a chance to shine. So we’re looking at maybe play-testing this summer some new options that complement what’s there without overriding it. One of the hard things about working in tabletop is you can’t patch a physical book—unless you’re willing to break into everyone’s house and paste in new things."
More in the link.
One of my players is a Ranger - and we opted to use the alternative Ranger ruleset because reviews of the base PnP 5e Ranger were pretty god awful.
I've had to give that player a few extra toys over the past year to offset some of the feature weaknesses and issues that the Ranger has.
I'm quite sure the main reason we don't complain about spell slots too much is because we've played way too many DnD titles. But it really isn't a good system, especially when you don't know in advance what to expect. It's ok on per-battle basis, kinda like choosing your deck of cards, but with free exploration the mana system will beat it any day.
That's why I loved the Psion system back in 2nd Edition. You chose which powers you knew and as long as you had energy left you could cast anything you knew. Also you decided how much energy you wanted to invest in a power to increase its effect so you could cast an effect with minimu cost that would do 1d6 damage, for instance, or you could use more power and pump it up to its limits let's say 10d6.
It allowed low level Psions to do a high amount of damage at relatively lower levels at the cost of becoming powerless until they rested.
Sounds a little similar to how P:KM used PF for ie Monk's Ki, Barbarian's Rage and Magus' arcane pool (and to some degree, the Bard's Song). I really liked all of these where you used up a point from your resource pool per round and could turn on or off at will. Ie the Magus could spend many points per round to maximize crit chance, int to hit, add damage etc but that meant spending the pool quickly (at least 1 per added boon). It was a good way to implement skills that was spent on a "mana" system but still also enabling non-wizards to have skills in a similar fashion. Also, all pools could be increased with feats!
Being honest. I used bad arguments. Like saying that if they change too much the rules, they will become like SCL. Well, an game actually took inspiration of BG without following barely any rule but was actually an good game is PoE 1/2. No, i din't changed my mind, but realized that one reason was wrong. Sorry about that
It's absolutely crazy to me that anyone can criticize DOS1 for repetitive combat and also be a fan of the combat in BG1. I'm sorry, but how many kobolds do you kill in a typical playthrough? Hobgoblins? Gnolls?
People simply are not being honest if they fail to acknowledge that combat is *extremely* repetitive in BG series (even if SoA is a bit better), especially in contrast to modern RPG's like OS or PoE.
In BG you can throw a fireball and let the party AI finish the job. But since DOS is turn-based, depending on UI/balance design it might indeed get repetitive if you have to manually click each goblin to death.
It's absolutely crazy to me that anyone can criticize DOS1 for repetitive combat and also be a fan of the combat in BG1. I'm sorry, but how many kobolds do you kill in a typical playthrough? Hobgoblins? Gnolls?
People simply are not being honest if they fail to acknowledge that combat is *extremely* repetitive in BG series (even if SoA is a bit better), especially in contrast to modern RPG's like OS or PoE.
If that's directed at me, that's misunderstanding my point. Yeah BG1 has a lot of repetitive trash mobs, which probably at the time the game was made likely felt the right thing to do, because although D&D might have basically innovated the concept of role playing, it's always been a combat heavy system. However, that's an issue with encounters, not with the combat system itself. I hate the Original Sin combat system, as I think it makes basically every type of fight repetitive, be it mooks, mid tier enemies or bosses.
In BG you can throw a fireball and let the party AI finish the job. But since DOS is turn-based, depending on UI/balance design it might indeed get repetitive if you have to manually click each goblin to death.
This statement, while correct hypothetically, is incorrect in the game. This post which got 4 agrees at this time, sadly is very far from the actual truth.
There are no trash mobs in DOS, or at least not the same amount as in BG. When you approach goblins, and you do that in the second areas of DOS, they are formidable enemies, and each fight differs from one another.
And you can still cast spells like chain lighting, meteor shower, or arrow rain, to end a few battles in seconds in DOS.
Btw, a fireball in BG is a lvl 3 spells. Usually people clear dozens of kobolds, gnolls, xvarts, gibberlings, bandits without this spell, taking each enemy one by one, with Sleep if you have it.
Yeah, it's odd to bring up fireball, which is unlocked at level 5. And even then you're getting at max one casting per rest (or two w/ Edwin/specialist). And that's assuming you even want to use fireball as opposed to some other strong level 3 spell. This is basically halfway thru BG1.
Obviously I'll concede that combats tend to be faster in BG1. But there are far fewer fights in OS1. I'm sorry, but with the exception of the assassin fights, there's a lot of using the same tactics over and over in the first half of BG1.
People are not honestly describing these games, and that's becoming frustrating in trying to discuss these things. It's not even true, for example, that most fights in OS rely on some terrain effect (except for those you can create via skills, which is no different than casting cloudkill or some such). I'm not even the biggest fan of OS1 combat, PoE and P:K have done a better job imo. But I'm not going to make up facts about it.
Judging by this very thread and general mood of fans (about any franchise, actually - game, movie, you name it) I think inXile and Obsidian CEOs were genuine in their happiness about Larian making BG3 - this way they (inXile and Obsidian) will not be blamed for "butchering legendary game".
On rangers, curiously I've always found that class super OP as a member of your party in the BG series. Specifically, if you use them with the sneak skill. Helps with dungeon crawling -- aiding a thief disabling traps while seeing enemy packs. And of course ambushing enemy packs in wilderness sections. A party with a ranger and sufficient sneak def makes it much more of a breeze to clear these zones than one without.
I am not going to claim that the early BG trash fights are particularly interesting, but they have one major saving grace that IMHO many other games like Dragon Age, Wizardry 8 and D:OS lack. They are extremely fast.
Fighting through 50 kobolds in the mines might not be super interesting, but you spend less time on it than on 1-2 D:OS fights.
And I like that some many monsters only have a standard physical attack.
In D:OS 2 it seems that almost every enemy needs to have a subset of the same skills that your party can have. The crocodiles in one of the first quest have a ranged AoE attack (Fossil-Strike) and can teleport (this you might try to justify with the gloves, but all crocodiles have it, not just the one with the gloves).
In my opinion, D:OS 2 has too many fights that are neither fast nor interesting. Even SoD (which I liked) erred in the same direction: too many trash fights that are just barely difficult enough that you need to pay attention but not difficult enough to be interesting, especially in the outdoor areas.
Later edit: also note that since monsters tend to use same ability pool as your party members, I feel that D:OS 2 combat is a bit repetitive even if you fight different monsters. For example, the crocodiles are interchangeable with a Geomancy 1, Aerotheurge 1 humanoid enemy with a melee weapon.
Comments
But I get it, most modern players seem to hate that aspect of Baldurs Gate 1. I don't know why though but I loved exploring the world rather than being stuck in one big city. It was still great but I longed for more places to see.
Yeah, I just hated the combat system once I realised how repetitive it is once you've got the combination of skills you're just going to cast over and over again. I feel like any combat system in which the standard function of "attack" is never even used past a certain point is a ridiculous system.
A combat system should really be built around certain functions being the most common actions and then increasingly more powerful abilities that are resourced in some way so they have to be used in a tactical manner. You know, like magic spells cast by a wizard who can only cast them x per rest. That system worked well, but it doesn't sound like Larian thinks so, and well they did make Original Sin 1 and 2's combat system so I guess that makes sense.
Ugh.
I also agree with Subtledoctor's attitude about graphics but I come from a perspective that really is over the concept that graphics need to be a cost intensive part of any game, as about all it means to me is to force me to buy new hardware. I would want BG3 at most to be like the Pillars games, 2D Backdrops, 3D models for characters. Because you know, that would fit for BG3. What Original Sin does? It wouldn't, nor would what Dragon Age did be as fitting.
On D:Os i only played for 6 hours. My impression? The combat is mostly spam the same rotation or envorimental gimmicky. Also, i din't liked the story, the character progression and artstyle.
One aspect that i love about old school RPG's, is that the strategy that works amazingly against mindflayers can be awful if used against an dragon or an lich. They don't need to arbitrary force you to use another skill that results in you using the same rotation.
About spell slots
So, yes, for him even spell slots is not intuitive.
Hell, even Dark Souls 1/2 an action focused game uses smartly spell slots. The 3 got rid of spell slot and is the worst one of the series IMO.
Spell slots on the way that DkS 2 presented leads to some "decisions", for example, Forbidden Sun, the strongest pyromancy that literally creates an mini sun and trows at the enemy, Insane deadly and deals AOE damage. What is the problem? Is behind an long quest and takes 3 attenument slots ( https://darksouls2.wiki.fextralife.com/Forbidden+Sun ) So the 'charname' needs to make an choice. What is best? Be able to throw 3 forbidden suns with 43 ATN and Hexer hood or be able to throw 20+ fire orbs? And there are no easy solution. In some situations, one spell will excel and on another, another spell will be the best option.
See, they use spell slots in a different way than D&D and works amazingly. If was on D3 for Ex, pyromancer will need an big and sharp axe to throw the mini sun and the mini sun will scale with 100.000% of base damage and have 2 minute cooldown.
If was on D:OS will be an 13m ranged attack that can be used once per 10 turns and that is it. Nothing special, no decision, no player agency.
However, combat in the DOS games is not the same rotation or environmental gimmicky, it's much more than that. And it's not repetitive. The standard function of "attack" can be a viable (and in my parties IS viable) tactic used by certain characters, such as backstabbing thieves and two-handed warriors.
Before you use your ability, you consider enemies' immunities. Yes, there're many immunities in DOS1, and in DOS2 enemies differ in terms of their magical and physical armour. There's also bodybuilding and willpower in DOS1, which defines enemies' (and your own) saving throws against different types of attack: eg. freeze, or stun. You also consider whether the enemy is undead or not, whether it has special immunities, or not. Certain enemies can start the battle completely invulnerable to any attacks. Certain enemies can summon. You can use grenades and special arrows. You can use scrolls.
6 hours at the start of the game is not a good representation of how battles go. Imagine first 6 hours at the start of BG1, and imagine it mid-SoA or later. Then add that you can use different classes and combinations of them, so, for example, if you start as a warrior, of course, you will use the same 3 abilities. You start with them.
13m ranged attack. The amount of times you keep mentioning it, it doesn't make your statement more valid. In DOS1 the range of a one-handed club is 2.83 m - but it's in-game metres, not real-life. It's the closes you can get to an enemy (because you can hit with a one-handed weapon only staying close to the enemy). Now switch that to 13 metres. THIS IS NOT FAR AWAY, this is completely normal. And in DOS 2 when you're standing higher, your range increases. This is alright.
You're all welcome to check my DOS playthrough thread, and see the screenshots. Judge youself, but never in my 182 hours on DOS 1 and 350 hours on DOS 2 I have felt the battles are more repetitive than they are in other games, such as Pillars of Eternity or Might and Magic games. And yes, there're more spells in Infinity Engine games than anywhere else. I guess it's because it's DnD.
I can go on into details about combat in the DOS games for many paragraphs. It will be not related to BGIII. But what I read here about the DOS games make me frown each time. I'm prepared for the usual opposite opinions on this, I'm fine with that.
But for people who read this subforum each day - don't just trust statements here, at least think things might be different if you try the game(s) yourself. And yes, I don't guarantee that people who try the DOS games will like them - no, I see how many (especially those commenting in this subforum) don't like them.
This is true. It actually seems like it could be a fun system at that point, play much more and its clear its not a fun or satisfying system.
We're going to keep disagreeing but I played the game enough to know it wasn't working for me at all, and I just had way more fun with other games.
If the opinion of someone who criticized the missing on BG2 and only played BG2 for 30 minutes(the steam review that Julius mentioned) is valid, note that BG2 is 72 hours long ( https://howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=810 ), he played around 0,5% of the game...
Anyway, i only barely mentioned D:OS, my main argument is that he is wrong when he talks about spell slots being counter intuitive. That other games used everything that he complains about BG successfully. In fact, i never saw an game that badly implemented spell slots. No one. And saw no one asking for get rid of it on the games that uses it. And his comments make me wonder not what he will change because is very lickely that he will change the leveling, spell slot system, resting, melee combat, etc; but what he will MAINTAIN from BG on "bg3".
Anyone here can name one game that did used spell slots and somehow messed up? I can't remember anyone...
That said, I do want to try DOS1 again, now that the new version is out, and I'm also interested in DOS2. They're both on my backlog along with games like PoE2, Legend of Grimrock 2, Tides of Numenera, IWD2 (yep, I still haven't finished it), and so on and so forth. I recently even added Pathfinder: Kingmaker on there because a lot of people seem to like it. Too many great games, not enough time.
Whether BG3 makes it on there remains to be seen. Even if it's not my dream BG sequel it could still be a good game. But either way, I'll be alright, it's not like I'm in danger of running out of games to play.
That's why I loved the Psion system back in 2nd Edition. You chose which powers you knew and as long as you had energy left you could cast anything you knew. Also you decided how much energy you wanted to invest in a power to increase its effect so you could cast an effect with minimu cost that would do 1d6 damage, for instance, or you could use more power and pump it up to its limits let's say 10d6.
It allowed low level Psions to do a high amount of damage at relatively lower levels at the cost of becoming powerless until they rested.
I guess it's the same with PoE, where playing on Veteran at least, or better on PotD, provides the experience the devs wanted for IE players.
Anyway, combat in DOS 2 is more diverse than in DOS 1, and even more difficult.
This. Please, I don't want a railroad game. We have so many games doing that already and frankly it has little immersion value because one quickly gets the feeling that you are forced too much along the way. The beauty of rpg video games is the free environment they can produce - with Larian's systems backing it all up. This all turns to nothing if "freedom" is limited to only meaning"choose between 10 different answers to deal with a forced situation".
https://kotaku.com/the-ranger-class-is-getting-some-changes-in-d-d-and-ba-1835659585
"Mearls: I can say purely from a tabletop space, one of the things we found was that the ranger character class, in tabletop players really felt the first couple of levels, they weren’t really making choices that they felt were having a real impact on gameplay... One of the things we learned is that we had some assumptions about how exploration would play out in the game back when we were developing 5th edition—we thought, “Oh, we’ll give the rangers some of these toys to play with because exploration is part of the game.” And we’ve just found that either a lot of DMs don’t use a lot of the sub-systems that those spoke to, or they weren’t really coming up on a level of play at the table that was actually impactful to the narrative.
The ranger, for instance: Oh, I’m gonna pick desert as my favored terrain. We can’t get lost in the desert. Which sounds great—I wouldn’t want to get lost in the desert. But when you’re playing a tabletop role-playing game, it basically means, “OK, you’ve crossed the desert, you’re done.” It’s not really giving the ranger a chance to shine. So we’re looking at maybe play-testing this summer some new options that complement what’s there without overriding it. One of the hard things about working in tabletop is you can’t patch a physical book—unless you’re willing to break into everyone’s house and paste in new things."
More in the link.
One of my players is a Ranger - and we opted to use the alternative Ranger ruleset because reviews of the base PnP 5e Ranger were pretty god awful.
I've had to give that player a few extra toys over the past year to offset some of the feature weaknesses and issues that the Ranger has.
Sounds a little similar to how P:KM used PF for ie Monk's Ki, Barbarian's Rage and Magus' arcane pool (and to some degree, the Bard's Song). I really liked all of these where you used up a point from your resource pool per round and could turn on or off at will. Ie the Magus could spend many points per round to maximize crit chance, int to hit, add damage etc but that meant spending the pool quickly (at least 1 per added boon). It was a good way to implement skills that was spent on a "mana" system but still also enabling non-wizards to have skills in a similar fashion. Also, all pools could be increased with feats!
People simply are not being honest if they fail to acknowledge that combat is *extremely* repetitive in BG series (even if SoA is a bit better), especially in contrast to modern RPG's like OS or PoE.
If that's directed at me, that's misunderstanding my point. Yeah BG1 has a lot of repetitive trash mobs, which probably at the time the game was made likely felt the right thing to do, because although D&D might have basically innovated the concept of role playing, it's always been a combat heavy system. However, that's an issue with encounters, not with the combat system itself. I hate the Original Sin combat system, as I think it makes basically every type of fight repetitive, be it mooks, mid tier enemies or bosses.
This statement, while correct hypothetically, is incorrect in the game. This post which got 4 agrees at this time, sadly is very far from the actual truth.
There are no trash mobs in DOS, or at least not the same amount as in BG. When you approach goblins, and you do that in the second areas of DOS, they are formidable enemies, and each fight differs from one another.
And you can still cast spells like chain lighting, meteor shower, or arrow rain, to end a few battles in seconds in DOS.
Btw, a fireball in BG is a lvl 3 spells. Usually people clear dozens of kobolds, gnolls, xvarts, gibberlings, bandits without this spell, taking each enemy one by one, with Sleep if you have it.
Obviously I'll concede that combats tend to be faster in BG1. But there are far fewer fights in OS1. I'm sorry, but with the exception of the assassin fights, there's a lot of using the same tactics over and over in the first half of BG1.
People are not honestly describing these games, and that's becoming frustrating in trying to discuss these things. It's not even true, for example, that most fights in OS rely on some terrain effect (except for those you can create via skills, which is no different than casting cloudkill or some such). I'm not even the biggest fan of OS1 combat, PoE and P:K have done a better job imo. But I'm not going to make up facts about it.
Fighting through 50 kobolds in the mines might not be super interesting, but you spend less time on it than on 1-2 D:OS fights.
And I like that some many monsters only have a standard physical attack.
In D:OS 2 it seems that almost every enemy needs to have a subset of the same skills that your party can have. The crocodiles in one of the first quest have a ranged AoE attack (Fossil-Strike) and can teleport (this you might try to justify with the gloves, but all crocodiles have it, not just the one with the gloves).
In my opinion, D:OS 2 has too many fights that are neither fast nor interesting. Even SoD (which I liked) erred in the same direction: too many trash fights that are just barely difficult enough that you need to pay attention but not difficult enough to be interesting, especially in the outdoor areas.
Later edit: also note that since monsters tend to use same ability pool as your party members, I feel that D:OS 2 combat is a bit repetitive even if you fight different monsters. For example, the crocodiles are interchangeable with a Geomancy 1, Aerotheurge 1 humanoid enemy with a melee weapon.