Really? I remember Sven saying something about pausing that set off a red flag for me. Of course everyone was like, "Of course you'll be able to pause the game. Anything else is ridiculous." Welp.
I completely overlooked using WSAD to move the camera around. That fixed the problem that I was having with using anything ranged out of my view. The problem of height being a main feature and no ability to look up remains, though
There is a turn-based mode that will eventually pause the game, but it doesn't work anything like the standard pause and queue system that is used throughout the industry. I haven't figured out how to pause the game when any combat is happening in the background, too.
I completely overlooked using WSAD to move the camera around. That fixed the problem that I was having with using anything ranged out of my view. The problem of height being a main feature and no ability to look up remains, though
There is a turn-based mode that will eventually pause the game, but it doesn't work anything like the standard pause and queue system that is used throughout the industry. I haven't figured out how to pause the game when any combat is happening in the background, too.
Yup. Usually, if it works to begin with, it only pauses your character and not other characters around you (so I'm told on the Larian forum).
1. Nothing to do with OG storyline (I could be wrong, haven't finished yet)
2. Menus and interface are not like BG at all.
3. 4 man party instead of 6
4. No map traveling with possible random encounters
5. Go to Camp feature. What happened to camping where you are (possible encounter) or buying an Inn bed?
6. Have yet to visit an actual town
7. Where in Faerun are we?
8. New combat system, not necessarily bad but, not like BG.
9. Can't set formation for party.
10, No day / night cycle.
I feel like we've been given the bait and switch, Last Jedi treatment. I remember the Devs saying how honored they were to be granted the BG IP then, just made Divinity 3 anyway.
To help you get a view on the storyline,
it is important to say that Larian's statement about
"This game will be a sequel to the games" Is bullshit.
The lore they use and it has been specified by them
(surprisingly i haven't seen people notice this lie), is all that leads to Descent into Avernus, Murder in Baldur's Gate included.
If this isn't clear enough, we're talking about the retconned novel lore where Minsc is actually Minsc but Abdel Adrian is still Gorion's Ward and as a nice cherry on top of the mound, he is still the retard we all hate.
He basically keeps the Taint and then in the module is attacked by Viekang(yes... the coward who would teleport away as soon as he smelled another Bhaalspawn), who apparently is now strong enough to kill a regenerating freak like Adrian.
Whoever survives of the two(the players can help either), turns in the slayer and he has to be put down... resurrecting Bhaal.
This brings up the question... if they are using this bullshit, why are they boasting the game will be a sequel to the originals?
To help you get a view on the storyline,
it is important to say that Larian's statement about
"This game will be a sequel to the games" Is bullshit.
The lore they use and it has been specified by them
(surprisingly i haven't seen people notice this lie), is all that leads to Descent into Avernus, Murder in Baldur's Gate included.
If this isn't clear enough, we're talking about the retconned novel lore where Minsc is actually Minsc but Abdel Adrian is still Gorion's Ward and as a nice cherry on top of the mound, he is still the retard we all hate.
He basically keeps the Taint and then in the module is attacked by Viekang(yes... the coward who would teleport away as soon as he smelled another Bhaalspawn), who apparently is now strong enough to kill a regenerating freak like Adrian.
Whoever survives of the two(the players can help either), turns in the slayer and he has to be put down... resurrecting Bhaal.
This brings up the question... if they are using this bullshit, why are they boasting the game will be a sequel to the originals?
To be fair, I don't think they had a choice there, this is just what WotC wants from them. I won't repeat it at length since I did so before, personally I am just disappointed by how they make the least interesting, financially safest choices. BG sequel: check. Sword Coast: check and yawn. TB Combat: check.
Ye, i perfectly know they are most likely forced by WotC to use the retconned lore, but a bit of honesty with either the title or the starting statements would be appreciated...
They have to make money, but saying what this is clearly at the start, would have been less scummy and they wouldn't attract hate from the part of the old dedicated fanbase that is being vocal about it.
I knew WotC would try to milk the franchise as soon as i saw the events of Murder in Baldur's Gate when it was released. Hell... they could have used the child of Gorion's Ward to resurrect Bhaal, by having them all conceived before the end of Throne of Bhaal and the taint slipping through the Solar's sight cause the child was not born yet/the child was wherever it is when you complete Aerie's quest(i never did the quest cause i hate her, so sorry for not being specific).
Hells, Even having this a mystery and allowing the player to discover it midgame would be better than having Adrian as enstablished lore...
Mask of the Betrayer, hell i loved that campaign...
the spirit meter was a bit annoying, but i still loved it nontheless
I have to agree that I found Divinity 1 uninspiring without really knowing why. I think I'm just going to ramble on about the things I don't like about various RPGs since BG.
Let's start with the camp in Dragon age, the pocket plane in Divinity, or whatever. This utterly breaks immersion for me. I liked camping where I was. I didn't like getting ambushed, but I loved NOT getting ambushed. Paying a nominal sum to rest safely was worth every cent. The spaceship bases in Mass effect and XCom 2 are at least justified, actually unavoidable, and don't break immersion.
Group levelling. I hate this. I loved being able to level individually, I loved soloing and eventually becoming an unstoppable beast, yes it has issues, but swapping in different companions in Dragon age and having to level them up for a mission just annoyed me. Hitting a level for the PC or an NPC was an event in BG, lately it's a chore. Actually I do remember enjoying leveling up in the three Mass effects, I can't remember how the levels worked there though.
Swapping characters in and out as you like. This is sorta ok, you can just not do it if you want. It ties into the previous two issues though, it's probably the root cause of both of them, so it's gotta go.
Food to heal? It was in Fallout 3 and new vegas as well, I modded it out. The problem is, if a mechanic is in a game, I can't resist using it, but it's utterly silly, and needs to come out. If you really want to provide unlimited healing, just leave an infinite stack of healing potions in the pocket plane. You can totally have eating as a mechanic to not starve and die, but not to heal. Anyone remember Betrayal at Krondor? Limited inventory, and you needed at least two stacks of food per character? Also when you try to drop new food in your inventory, and it forms a new stack instead of combining with the existing one, so you know the new one is poisoned, but if you're not paying attention, your character starts taking poison damage and you don't know why? Fun times.
A final point, I loved BG1 when it came out, played it a couple of times, then I got BG2, and wow, I hated that first dungeon. Yes everyone does, but I didn't know it would get better, so I shelved the game for a year or so. Finally I tried it again, got out the dungeon, and absolutely loved it. More than BG1. Played it repeatedly, modded BG1 with easytutu and played that again so I could run my chars through BG2, played with multiple mods, really I've played it so much that I actually cannot play it one more time. Basically your problems with the setting or the NPCs can perhaps not be judged from the first area. Your problems with the mechanics and gameplay absolutely can.
Yeah definitely agreed with your point about leveling/experience in newer RPG's. One of the subtly great things in the BG rpg's (and even IWD) was how the leveling happened in a staggered fashion. This guaranteed the player would feel little bits of progression even if the overall leveling was quite spread out, as it is in BG1. It also gave the game greater flavor between the classes -- i.e. the advantages and disadvantages of bard over mage.
To be honest though, new rule systems in the tabletop are just as much to blame for the switch to more unified leveling as CRPG designers are.
I just rolled up my first 5e character for a tabletop game, and let me tell you about one of my abilities. I'm a ranger, the ability is called rope trick. It allows me to throw a rope up into the sky, climb it, and sleep safely in a pocket plane, along with 7 of my closest friends. Why? This is insane. What's wrong with 'sleep lightly, so you can't be ambushed'?
I just rolled up my first 5e character for a tabletop game, and let me tell you about one of my abilities. I'm a ranger, the ability is called rope trick. It allows me to throw a rope up into the sky, climb it, and sleep safely in a pocket plane, along with 7 of my closest friends. Why? This is insane. What's wrong with 'sleep lightly, so you can't be ambushed'?
Yeahhh, that should be a Wizard only spell, unless houseruled.
Gloom stalkers get it by default, instead of detect magic. The house rules appear to revolve around whether you can use it in combat or not, so climb it and snipe out of it. You can't actually sleep in it, it only lasts an hour, then evaporates and everything drops 60 feet. However, you can use it to climb a 60 foot wall without any skill in climbing. Do you know how high 60 feet is? I once stood on a 20 meter viewing platform below a waterfall, and two of my mates jumped off into the water below. Fourteen of my mates, myself included, grabbed the rails, and backed off slowly. 60 foot is high.
As an aside, it was at Epupa falls on the border between Namibia and Angola, we knew there were crocodiles in the water, but even crocodiles run from a 100kg lunatic jumping 20m. Well Duncan probably weighed around 100kg, Joey was more a petite 50kg. Also, crocodiles will watch you do something for a month to see how it works, and THEN eat you. Crocs are patient, and around 100% muscle.
Gloom stalkers get it by default, instead of detect magic. The house rules appear to revolve around whether you can use it in combat or not, so climb it and snipe out of it. You can't actually sleep in it, it only lasts an hour, then evaporates and everything drops 60 feet. However, you can use it to climb a 60 foot wall without any skill in climbing. Do you know how high 60 feet is? I once stood on a 20 meter viewing platform below a waterfall, and two of my mates jumped off into the water below. Fourteen of my mates, myself included, grabbed the rails, and backed off slowly. 60 foot is high.
As an aside, it was at Epupa falls on the border between Namibia and Angola, we knew there were crocodiles in the water, but even crocodiles run from a 100kg lunatic jumping 20m. Well Duncan probably weighed around 100kg, Joey was more a petite 50kg. Also, crocodiles will watch you do something for a month to see how it works, and THEN eat you. Crocs are patient, and around 100% muscle.
jumping into water at 100 kg from 20m? yikes, that must have hurt, did Duncan dive in or canon ball?
jumping into water at 100 kg from 20m? yikes, that must have hurt, did Duncan dive in or canon ball?
I don't know, I was lying on the deck with my eyes closed No, both went feet first, all the better to stun the crocodiles. They were probably wearing takkies (sneakers) too, that would have softened the impact.
jumping into water at 100 kg from 20m? yikes, that must have hurt, did Duncan dive in or canon ball?
I don't know, I was lying on the deck with my eyes closed No, both went feet first, all the better to stun the crocodiles. They were probably wearing takkies (sneakers) too, that would have softened the impact.
I just rolled up my first 5e character for a tabletop game, and let me tell you about one of my abilities. I'm a ranger, the ability is called rope trick. It allows me to throw a rope up into the sky, climb it, and sleep safely in a pocket plane, along with 7 of my closest friends. Why? This is insane. What's wrong with 'sleep lightly, so you can't be ambushed'?
The answer to your question, quite simply, is the evolution and popularity of video games. For a LONG time, every CRPG was getting it's rules, setting and parameters from tabletop concepts and dice. Sometime in the 2000s (and really as good an example as any is how the Elder Scrolls went from dice-based hit mechanics to real-time combat in Oblivion) tabletop games started taking the lead from the video games, the most obvious evidence being how 4th Edition (which is still unfairly maligned) felt like a very clear attempt to translate concepts of MMOs to a tabletop setting. And at a certain point, no one sitting down in front of their 4k TV is impressed with a bonus to infravision, and you instead get "leap into the sky, and crash down with the force of thunder with your weapon, dealing massive damage to all enemies in a 30 ft. radius".
Comments
There is a turn-based mode that will eventually pause the game, but it doesn't work anything like the standard pause and queue system that is used throughout the industry. I haven't figured out how to pause the game when any combat is happening in the background, too.
1. Nothing to do with OG storyline (I could be wrong, haven't finished yet)
2. Menus and interface are not like BG at all.
3. 4 man party instead of 6
4. No map traveling with possible random encounters
5. Go to Camp feature. What happened to camping where you are (possible encounter) or buying an Inn bed?
6. Have yet to visit an actual town
7. Where in Faerun are we?
8. New combat system, not necessarily bad but, not like BG.
9. Can't set formation for party.
10, No day / night cycle.
I feel like we've been given the bait and switch, Last Jedi treatment. I remember the Devs saying how honored they were to be granted the BG IP then, just made Divinity 3 anyway.
To help you get a view on the storyline,
it is important to say that Larian's statement about
"This game will be a sequel to the games" Is bullshit.
The lore they use and it has been specified by them
(surprisingly i haven't seen people notice this lie), is all that leads to Descent into Avernus, Murder in Baldur's Gate included.
If this isn't clear enough, we're talking about the retconned novel lore where Minsc is actually Minsc but Abdel Adrian is still Gorion's Ward and as a nice cherry on top of the mound, he is still the retard we all hate.
He basically keeps the Taint and then in the module is attacked by Viekang(yes... the coward who would teleport away as soon as he smelled another Bhaalspawn), who apparently is now strong enough to kill a regenerating freak like Adrian.
Whoever survives of the two(the players can help either), turns in the slayer and he has to be put down... resurrecting Bhaal.
This brings up the question... if they are using this bullshit, why are they boasting the game will be a sequel to the originals?
To be fair, I don't think they had a choice there, this is just what WotC wants from them. I won't repeat it at length since I did so before, personally I am just disappointed by how they make the least interesting, financially safest choices. BG sequel: check. Sword Coast: check and yawn. TB Combat: check.
I want more exotics like Mask of the Betrayer.
Ye, i perfectly know they are most likely forced by WotC to use the retconned lore, but a bit of honesty with either the title or the starting statements would be appreciated...
They have to make money, but saying what this is clearly at the start, would have been less scummy and they wouldn't attract hate from the part of the old dedicated fanbase that is being vocal about it.
I knew WotC would try to milk the franchise as soon as i saw the events of Murder in Baldur's Gate when it was released. Hell... they could have used the child of Gorion's Ward to resurrect Bhaal, by having them all conceived before the end of Throne of Bhaal and the taint slipping through the Solar's sight cause the child was not born yet/the child was wherever it is when you complete Aerie's quest(i never did the quest cause i hate her, so sorry for not being specific).
Hells, Even having this a mystery and allowing the player to discover it midgame would be better than having Adrian as enstablished lore...
Mask of the Betrayer, hell i loved that campaign...
the spirit meter was a bit annoying, but i still loved it nontheless
Let's start with the camp in Dragon age, the pocket plane in Divinity, or whatever. This utterly breaks immersion for me. I liked camping where I was. I didn't like getting ambushed, but I loved NOT getting ambushed. Paying a nominal sum to rest safely was worth every cent. The spaceship bases in Mass effect and XCom 2 are at least justified, actually unavoidable, and don't break immersion.
Group levelling. I hate this. I loved being able to level individually, I loved soloing and eventually becoming an unstoppable beast, yes it has issues, but swapping in different companions in Dragon age and having to level them up for a mission just annoyed me. Hitting a level for the PC or an NPC was an event in BG, lately it's a chore. Actually I do remember enjoying leveling up in the three Mass effects, I can't remember how the levels worked there though.
Swapping characters in and out as you like. This is sorta ok, you can just not do it if you want. It ties into the previous two issues though, it's probably the root cause of both of them, so it's gotta go.
Food to heal? It was in Fallout 3 and new vegas as well, I modded it out. The problem is, if a mechanic is in a game, I can't resist using it, but it's utterly silly, and needs to come out. If you really want to provide unlimited healing, just leave an infinite stack of healing potions in the pocket plane. You can totally have eating as a mechanic to not starve and die, but not to heal. Anyone remember Betrayal at Krondor? Limited inventory, and you needed at least two stacks of food per character? Also when you try to drop new food in your inventory, and it forms a new stack instead of combining with the existing one, so you know the new one is poisoned, but if you're not paying attention, your character starts taking poison damage and you don't know why? Fun times.
A final point, I loved BG1 when it came out, played it a couple of times, then I got BG2, and wow, I hated that first dungeon. Yes everyone does, but I didn't know it would get better, so I shelved the game for a year or so. Finally I tried it again, got out the dungeon, and absolutely loved it. More than BG1. Played it repeatedly, modded BG1 with easytutu and played that again so I could run my chars through BG2, played with multiple mods, really I've played it so much that I actually cannot play it one more time. Basically your problems with the setting or the NPCs can perhaps not be judged from the first area. Your problems with the mechanics and gameplay absolutely can.
To be honest though, new rule systems in the tabletop are just as much to blame for the switch to more unified leveling as CRPG designers are.
Yeahhh, that should be a Wizard only spell, unless houseruled.
As an aside, it was at Epupa falls on the border between Namibia and Angola, we knew there were crocodiles in the water, but even crocodiles run from a 100kg lunatic jumping 20m. Well Duncan probably weighed around 100kg, Joey was more a petite 50kg. Also, crocodiles will watch you do something for a month to see how it works, and THEN eat you. Crocs are patient, and around 100% muscle.
jumping into water at 100 kg from 20m? yikes, that must have hurt, did Duncan dive in or canon ball?
I don't know, I was lying on the deck with my eyes closed
jumpin into croc filled water, good times hahaha
The answer to your question, quite simply, is the evolution and popularity of video games. For a LONG time, every CRPG was getting it's rules, setting and parameters from tabletop concepts and dice. Sometime in the 2000s (and really as good an example as any is how the Elder Scrolls went from dice-based hit mechanics to real-time combat in Oblivion) tabletop games started taking the lead from the video games, the most obvious evidence being how 4th Edition (which is still unfairly maligned) felt like a very clear attempt to translate concepts of MMOs to a tabletop setting. And at a certain point, no one sitting down in front of their 4k TV is impressed with a bonus to infravision, and you instead get "leap into the sky, and crash down with the force of thunder with your weapon, dealing massive damage to all enemies in a 30 ft. radius".