[Pathfinder: Wrath of The Righteous] is out, how can [Baldur's Gate 3] learn from that!
kingnight
Member Posts: 54
Last year, I post a thread(look below) questing Larian Studios' work on their new title Baldur's Gate 3 with their turn-base-combat-system, and debating that they should provide a real-time-combat-system for all the traditional combat style fans, the topic did arouse some controversies. Some people still arguing that real-time-combat wasn't a choice for Laria Studios, wasn't really they? Why not just take a look on their siblings, Pathfinder: Wrath of The Righteous, and see how well they did. Pathfinder:WoTR even allow player switch combat style in-game, I mean in-game, no restarting, no new profiling, what a great achievement. And the question is, how can Baldur's Game 3(or Larian Studios) learn from them?
Screen shoot demonstrating the in-game turn-base-mode setting, player can change the setting any time, any soon, no game restarting, no new profiling needed:
A link to the thread I previously mentioned:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/78467/a-message-to-larian-studios-they-should-alter-the-work-on-baldurs-gate-3/p1
Screen shoot demonstrating the in-game turn-base-mode setting, player can change the setting any time, any soon, no game restarting, no new profiling needed:
A link to the thread I previously mentioned:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/78467/a-message-to-larian-studios-they-should-alter-the-work-on-baldurs-gate-3/p1
1
Comments
There is such a concept as the game and battle design. Larian's latest games are designed to be turn-based in combat, each combat encounter and the whole system are designed around that.
P:WotR, and previously P:K, are designed around RtwP, but due to great inventive approaches, they could broaden that and include the TB mode as well. But this doesn't make the game(s) designed for TB.
You can turn an RtwP game into a TB game, but you can't turn a TB game into an RtwP game, that's the unfortunate truth for RtwP fans.
At the very least, everything in gameplay happens according to the game's engine. Larian's engine doesn't support RtwP combat, while Owlcat Games's engine supports TB combat along with the RtwP combat.
I know there are a handful of fans that prefer Kingmaker turn-based, but it wasn't designed with that in mind. And in the later stages of the game there are several battles against enormous numbers of enemies, and I just don't see how it's a more fun experience to play those turn-based.
Wholeheartly don't agree. If not for the TB mod (there was no ingame TB mode back when I was playing) I would just bounce back from P:K completely. It's actually good for me to have this option. And from what I understand both modes are working just fine in Kingmaker, which actually leaves me impressed.
I agree with this. My experience with the TB mode in PF KM show me that the game wasnt designed with this in mind, and nor should it have been. It was designed for RtwP. There things that RtwP do better than TB (large scale combat, and dungeons/encounters with a high density of enemies) and things TB do better than RtwP (Tactical combat, resource management).
My preferred approach would be that a game is developed with only one mode in mind. If some intrepid mod maker comes through and can translate one system to the next: Sure - great. All for mod support, but official dev resources are better spent (in my opinion) optimizing the experience for the core expected gameplay.
Obviously i have no idea how WotR will end up, but based off of PR:KM and what I've seen, it seems like the combat design and encounter design is again much more of a RtwP approach and not a TB approach. I will 100% be playing WotR in RTwP.
Edit - I also just want to clarify: I'm not trying to gatekeep in anyways shape or form. If you can only play the PF games in TB mode because you hate the RtwP, then I'm glad that's there for you. For my own preference, I would want it to only have one mode - but I'm not going to be at all upset at the developers for spending time trying to make both modes work.
So you can, let's say, kill the boss in TB without your party members getting stuck in your web or your poisonous cloud and then go to RTwP and finish the minions. When your party members get stuck in choke points you can switch to TB and fine-tune the movement and attacks to unstuck it. Or turn it off in massive battles and switch it on when the enemy numbers are manageable. Play in TB but finish quickly in RTwP easy battles with trash mobs.
The way they made it it´s very comfortable and great to play those games.
That said, I agree with Julius Borisov. You can turn an RTwP game into TB (they even made it in a campaign with Warcraft 3) but not vice-versa.
I do agree most of your opinions, but the truth is, isn't BG3 still in developments? Even though the game was completely build on turn-base mode, it doesn't mean having no flexibility. Just take a look at these important D&D alike CRPG titles such as Pillar of Eternity, Pathfinder, all supporting both the turn-base and real-time style, and these titles will still do in their future sequel, it's a trend, so if the BG3(or Larian's) still stick to the past, how can it be competitive to the others, that is why I think how they can learn from them.
@DinoDin and @PsicoVic:
Thank you very much for @PsicoVic 's excellent reply, that is why Pathfinder: WoTR's switching method is so important and of milestone, I think it will definitely change the CRPG gaming industry.
No need for further explaining, it's a great great achievement, and above are the visions of two different studios, one looks for the future, and another looks to the past, who's gonna prevail, we shall see.
That being said, I still think it's an unwise choice. The lengthy period (literally months) of an unpolished, bug-ridden Kingmaker post release does speak, imo, to a failure to prioritize focusing on a core experience. And far too much prioritization of optional modes, other in-game options.
Frankly the market is now saturated with "BG style" CRPG's, in a way that it's never been before. I think successful studios are going to be ones that create a finely tuned core game experience, and not studios that try to cast a wide net to snag every gamer.
If it´s of any use, the second owlcat game, Wrath of the Righteous, is available now. it came this week. It has both modes and there´s not much on the gamebreaking bug side at least the first week.
And it´s a game with two game modes and over 50 different classes/subclasses.
It was far worse in fallout new vegas, skyrim, Vampire: bloodlines, fallout 4, Mass effect Andromeda and many other games with only one play mode, to give an example to compare.
Anyways, I think DinoDin is right in thinking that having both modes creates a lot of complications.
I think the main thing Larian can learn from Owlcat is try not to be completely buggy and still unfinished at release? But I never heard much against the releases of the D:OS games in terms of functionality.
with owl cat the game feels like it was not in early access at all.
What it does have though are a lot of more or less subtly broken items, feats and spells that do not work correctly. And various issues with the campaign mode. So I am not trying to say it is super clean or bugfree, just that I honestly feel it wasn't that bad.
Maybe it will change later on, but what WotR shows to me is how bad Larian is at basic world building.
I feel in BG 3 I just don't get a good picture of the world (this is somewhat alleviated by being familiar with the setting). In contrast I was completely new to the Pathfinder setting and after the playing you get a very good picture of the history, politics, major players and setting of the World Wound/Mendev.
There's also nice sense of distance and time passing (without having lots of quests with a ticking clock) that is completely missing for me in Baldur's Gate. If you just look at the Burned Inn in BG 3 you see that time and distance are sort of a mess in the game.