P.S. In DA:O, I downloaded and used a mod that added Dog as a permanent 5th companion. Let's face it, he did NOT have the same kind of strategic depth and versatility as some of the other companions, so bringing him really means you're hamstringing yourself in terms of party power, but what kind of monster would leave Dog at the camp instead of having him be your faithful companion from start to finish! The mod gave me the best of both worlds.
Ok off-topic but the mention of Dog brings up memories of my favourite part of Origins where you can’t choose Dog as your Champion to fight Loghain because ‘leaving the fate of the world up to a creature that can be won over by a mutton chop bone shouldn’t be done’
Ha, had the same thought when reading that comment.
I could search specific examples about how different is the feel and psychological processes when you are in the driver´s seat deciding what to do and actively seeking information and the passive recall of information that involves being in the passenger seat but it´s easier if I simply suggest you to try to play a game. Any game. And then watch some streaming... If you say it´s the same and you have the same info, we have nothing else to discuss.
Games are meant to be played, they are not movies. The interaction with the player is as part of the game as the cinematics or the UI.
@BallpointMan "Emphasis mine, to show you exactly where the hyperbole of your argument was. The entire thesis of my point was that DOS2 iterated on a formula used in BG 1 & 2, changing some features while leaving others the same or similarish.
By pulling from DOS, Larian is also pulling from BG (and NWN, etc)."
There are no words in the english language that can accurately describe the level to which I disagree.
How can you disagree if you didn't even play the D:OS games for 1 minute? I played and I certainly agree BG and NWN and other games influenced them. Heck, to me D:OS 2 gave that BG2 feeling, but you won't believe me, of course.
Just gonna add that it's one thing to say of a game you haven't played "it doesn't seem a lot like BG". It's another thing to make the strident assertion that the game has borrowed nothing at all from the BG games. That kind of absolute claim does require that you have played the game, sorry.
Oh really? Name something that can't be understood without being on the keyboard.
Yeah, I'll try to rephrase it, so maybe you understand it. If people who never played the OS games stated their opinions with some degree of measure, some degree of restraint, I would accept that. But instead some folks have opted for a total stridency and hyperbolic characterizations. And one that clashes with the broadly-held opinions of folks who have played those games.
It's actually akin to an armchair sports fan saying something that experienced players would dismiss as an ignorance of the game.
I think it's perfectly reasonable to say that while you can credibly criticize a game you haven't played, you also, in order to be taken as reasonable, can only do so within limits.
We have discussed that topic in the past. How many players really played Siege of Dragonspear to understand:
- whether it's more BG or IWD in nature
- whether Jaheira and Safana changed
- whether the Talos cleric plays a big role in the game
- whether Irenicus is overused
- whether the difficulty has spikes
- whether Corwin and M'khinn have certain agenda
It's impossible to say without trying. I know there will be users who come and say: nah, it's completely different with the D:OS games. NO, it's not. It really depends on what you believe in and what your approach is.
To every post that says "D:OS didn't feel BG to me" I will say "I felt so to me". And that is ok. That is the point where the argument should stop. Because you will never convince me in the opposite point of view. And I - I will never convince you in what I think. Because we all like different things in games. And because we all have strong opinions based on our gaming experience, and it will not change because someone says something.
However, continuing the same old arguments doesn't bring anything except for antagonising remarks. Let's just stop at that. Please.
@JuliusBorisov "To every post that says "D:OS didn't feel BG to me" I will say "I felt so to me". And that is ok."
This is absolutely fine, and I completely agree. That's not what's happening though. How much someone sees a property they like in another property is subjective. But what I'm getting is a bunch of people saying that its impossible for me to have this opinion and that I am objectively wrong. I do not see anything specifically reminiscent of BG in BG3. This statement is objectively true. One cannot disprove a subjective opinion. Just like your opinon above is objectively true. I am not contesting that nobody can see BG in this game, I am contesting that people seem to think I HAVE to see BG in this game.
Even better, not a single person here has even been able to provide a single example.
"- whether it's more BG or IWD in nature
- whether Jaheira and Safana changed
- whether the Talos cleric plays a big role in the game
- whether Irenicus is overused
- whether the difficulty has spikes
- whether Corwin and M'khinn have certain agenda"
ALL of this can be determined without playing the game. everything character and plot based, can be read and understood. You can see the game as whole and determine for yourself if you think the distribution of Irenicus is appropriate or not, or whether the Talos cleric has a big role. Eyes are the only thing needed for this. Even the IWD influence can be pretty easily intuited by looking at how enemy and encounter distribution compares.
Not a single person has managed to explain why having your fingers on a keyboard or your hands on a controller somehow makes you better able to look at something.
Oh, I think I got that one finally. You can get your opinion and whatnot based on the Internet. But you can't get your opinion changed without actually playing the game. This is what we've been trying to say.
Eg. You're convinced BG3 doesn't feel anything like BG. You can't get that opinion changed without playing the game. Remember I previously discussed one of the quests and said: these things are hard to understand when not playing. Maybe that should read instead: you won't be able to feel even 1/100 of what I feel without playing the game.
Second example. One person thinks the certain agenda ruined SoD based on the Internet. They won't be able to change their opinion without actually giving it a go. Thus there is such a big difference between owners' and non-owners' reviews of SoD.
And unfortunately, the opposite doesn't work. I already played the game, so I don't share your opinion based on that. This is what @DinoDin mentioned above: "If people who never played the OS games stated their opinions with some degree of measure, some degree of restraint, I would accept that. But instead some folks have opted for a total stridency and hyperbolic characterizations. And one that clashes with the broadly-held opinions of folks who have played those games."
I remember hating the single-class thieves and the assassins the first time I played BG games. I dismissed them as useless for a long time until I put some hours into it and now I find them really fun to play.
It happened to me too with some characters. We were talking before about Dragon age games. Characters like Wynne, Aveline or Sten I found annoying at first until I played an entire run with them, listening to their banters and they became some of my favourites.
Kinda like Sten and the cookies.
If I ever stopped playing those games after a few hours, maybe I´ve never got to enjoy some of those. You never know.
@JuliusBorisov "Second example. One person thinks the certain agenda ruined SoD based on the Internet. They won't be able to change their opinion without actually giving it a go. Thus there is such a big difference between owners' and non-owners' reviews of SoD."
The difference isn't because of the ownership itself though. SoD was used as an excuse to express political agendas from people who don't think trans people should exist. They never bought the game because they never cared. It was just another excuse to spread their hate. Whereas the people who bought the game did so due to actual interest, so even when they were more critical of it, it was more honest. SoD is also a much different example than BG3, because SoD was heavily politicized. Where BG3 is a sincere difference of what people think makes BG for them.
I don't like the kind of turn based combat here, but my biggest gripes have been the tone and writing. Both of which do not require gameplay to understand. Its also why I've stuck around here, to see how it all shapes up leading to, and as a final product.
Watching Let's Plays before actual game purchases has become pretty much a core procedure for me personally. Mainly because I grew tired of getting a game. Do a max. 2 hour test run. And then refund it afterwards for one reason or another. Way too time consuming, bothersome and quite frankly also downright frustrating. Doesn't help that one never knows whenever said brand new games even work via Steam Play/Proton. The reason being not all games get covered by ProtonDB users and their otherworldly helpful compatibility reports.
As a result, watching someone else's Playthrough first saves me quite a few headaches. While still providing me with entertainment. Additionally, I am able to better judge whenever the showcased title is indeed enjoyable for me. All things I am quite thankful for, honestly.
True. There may very be a crucial point not shown in the video. Or an alternative route of the main plot the youtuber didn't know about during their play. Such unknown happenstances may had influenced my first expression of the game either positively or negatively as a result. But so what? There are more than enough other games out there worthy of attention. And my time is limited as-is. Venturing forth into an questionable oddyssey in order to find enigmatic golden needles inside huge haystacks (which may very well not exist at all) doesn't strike me as very productive. I'd much rather save my time, money and nerves for other things.
And if a previously written off game turns out to be indeed good somewhere down the patching / DLC/ expansion line? Chances are I may give it another scrutinizing look. It also doesn't hurt that by that time said titles usually received a nice big sale discount as well.
Let me just add, once more, that I am one who does not like DOS or DOS 2 and yet I liked what I saw of BG 3.
Is it Baldur's Gate? Well, it really depends on what you understand as Baldur's Gate. We probably won't see the ties until we get to the city.
The epic beginning is not bad storytelling. It's actually quite common in P&P and videogames as well... I once played in a P&P game where the city was attacked by a flight of dragons while a nearby mountain nobody knew was a volcano went into eruption. It took the group quite a few sessions and levels to discover what was going on. Meanwhile neither of the major parties involved even knew we existed. We were not their target; we were insignificant fleas that were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
That's what the group is in BG 3. Neither the Illithid nor the Githyanki CARE about the group. They're too busy fighting each other.
There are some mechanics I don't like, such as the excessive use of elemental surfaces but they will either add a possibility to turn that off, as they acknowledge that is a common complaint, or the modders will, so I'm not worried.
So, as far as I'm concerned, the game is not DOS 3, although it1s based on DOS engine.
Is it Baldur's Gate? I don't know, depends on how you define Baldur's Gate.
Is it a good game? Up to where I've played, yes. I've enjoyed the NPCs. I'll probably enjoy even more when the good companions become available.
I am 100% with Sawyer on this issue. And this is exactly why I have come to dislike D&D mechanics. Bonus that I now understand why he did not opt for using the D&D SRD for PoE. Good man. He made the right call, especially because I love the PoE mechanics. It's high-time developers stopped being lazy and just using D&D mechanics, and instead try to come up with something better.
Yes, i made a similar point about dialogue skill checks a few time. The difference between a trained and exceptionally gifted character and a scrub is too small for many kinds of tasks.
Anyway, on whether BG3 feels like BG1 and 2 - that is subjective. It doesn't really feel like it to me personally, whether we talk about narrative, gameplay or atmosphere.
Maybe we can at least on the game being much less grounded/down to earth than BG1 was and instead trying to raise the epicness from the start. It is not just the opening with the Illithids and Dragons, it continues the trend by making with the choice of what to use as early dungeons and enemies. Magic items are much more plentiful and powerful.
Yes, i made a similar point about dialogue skill checks a few time. The difference between a trained and exceptionally gifted character and a scrub is too small for many kinds of tasks.
Anyway, on whether BG3 feels like BG1 and 2 - that is subjective. It doesn't really feel like it to me personally, whether we talk about narrative, gameplay or atmosphere.
Maybe we can at least on the game being much less grounded/down to earth than BG1 was and instead trying to raise the epicness from the start. It is not just the opening with the Illithids and Dragons, it continues the trend by making with the choice of what to use as early dungeons and enemies. Magic items are much more plentiful and powerful.
I do not know about that. Besides the watered-down encounter with the 3 intellect devourers, the other enemies are the usual CR for a party of 4 characters of level 2-4: goblins, bandits, skeletons, spiders, mephits,...
Maybe the only ones that seem over them are the hag or the ones in the underdark, the spectator, the dreugh, etc, but those are watered-down versions of the usual monsters, at least in the EA.
About weapons, I´ve only been able to buy one weapon +1 in the merchant, because they cost a lot. The other weapons are non-magical weapons that sometimes add some effects when you hit or like the staffs that allow you to cast a spell (like the staff of create water). Most of the magic stuff you find not only are not +1 but often they have a pro effect and a con effect: The bracers that cast bane in the enemies and yourself, or the leather armour that deals 1d6 radiant damage against undead but beasts deal extra damage against you if they hit you,etc
I´ve never found a ring of wizardry at level one like in BG, to use an example.
Concerning the spiders good luck when you meet the phase spiders if you don't have some ranged hitters in the group
Yeah, there are some encounters that require heavy ranged firepower indeed: the goblins of the blighted village (if you want to save "him" or reach the ones in the roofs), the owlbear, the matriarch spider...
Fun fact.. I couldn’t stand Dragon Age Origins the first time I saw it being played. My old flat mate bought it when it came out. Me and him are both big Baldur’s Gate fans and he had heard all of the talk about Dragon Age being some kind of spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate. I sat and watched him play it multiple times and couldn’t get my head around why anyone would consider this monstrosity I was witnessing as some kind of spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate.
He kept saying to me ‘give it a try’ and that ‘I might change my mind’ and I just couldn’t get it.
Anyway after about 6 months or so I finally caved and gave the game a go. I believe my first origin character was the city elf. It probably took me about an hour to be totally hooked. I couldn’t believe how different I felt actually playing the game. It was a total transformation, and I have no regrets.
I’m not saying that no one can make a judgement about a game without actually playing it. I’m just saying sometimes actually giving a game a chance and trying it can make all the difference.
@byrne20 It probably helped that the DA:O origins did an incredible job of drawing the player into the story and the world by making it so personal. I did get flashbacks to the way BG1 first brought us into the Realms by showing us our home, Candlekeep, and then rapidly up-ending it and kicking us out into the wider, but scarier, world. DA:O follows a very similar plot device, with our characters forced to leave our homes and take refuge with a wise mentor who is shortly also killed, giving us freedom of choice to move about the world as we will, but with knowledge of very high stakes and the knowledge that there are vast powers moving in the background of which we are only a tiny part (but not for long!)
I think I have DA:O about three fair tries, but I never grew to like it myself. First off, I felt that game was really going too much for grimdark for my taste in terms of atmosphere and secondly, I felt there was too much combat with the encounter design being really mediocre. I.e. Deep Roads.
Mediocre encounter design is fine with very fast combat (e.g. much of the overworld encounters in BG1 are not interesting in terms of design - but it does not matter much because they are over fast), but if it becomes a slog... that kills gameplay quality for me. I no longer have time to repeat the almost exact same combat over multiple hours.
Nevertheless, I can acknowledge the Origin stories there as a good thing, because they struck a nice balance between having a past and still being able to define your character, e.g. with Dwarf noble you could either be framed or be guilty.
Dice rolls in low level DnD are just fine, as long as it's not 5e. You can never overcome the D20 the way 5e is built, whereas in 3e you could focus on overcoming dice rolls or focus on being a better fighter, or somewhere in between.
It's the lack of character customization that hurts 5e more than anything else. All else is tolerable.
It's interesting how some seem to enjoy RNG. My whole point of building characters is the exact opposite; to beat the dice. In BG it's simply to rack up so high AC and THAC0 the dice roll will be less proportionally affecting the outcome or make you outright hit stuff anyways or to rack up +saves using dwarf CON and items to make the dice rolls redundant. Knowing where to find items to help with that even at level 1 makes me always run straight for those items.
For me personally, RPGs are great entertainment despite dice rolls, not at all because of it. Same with any RPG I play, PoE, PKM, whatever. Now that I think about it, it might even be the main reason why I tend to always create minmaxed munchkin characters simply to remove the dice from the equation.
Dice rolls in low level DnD are just fine, as long as it's not 5e. You can never overcome the D20 the way 5e is built, whereas in 3e you could focus on overcoming dice rolls or focus on being a better fighter, or somewhere in between.
It's the lack of character customization that hurts 5e more than anything else. All else is tolerable.
Finally took the time to read Sawyer's twitter mini-thread, and man, I just have to disagree really strongly with his take. First off, it's a little odd to complain about the D20 when your system used a 0-99 dice rolling system, where randomness could reign quite a great deal. At least in combat that is. Moreover, when he had a chance to iterate on this, the dice rolling got even more absurd with the damage and penetration system that they added in Deadfire. An added complexity to the combat system that did very little to make the combat more fun. If anything, it did the opposite.
Perhaps he's right about how the dice rolling works in Disco Elysium, it's a game I'll have to check out at some point. But, in Kingmaker the dice rolling for skill checks seems to work out fine, and it's d20. As I've said elsewhere, once you level up a bit, with some careful planning of the party and usage of certain skills/spells, you can frequently get many of your skills checks to >80% and even 100% in some cases. That comes with a cost, using up spell slots and bard songs and things like intelligence points, but you *should* have to make a sacrifice. It's all about the game designing good skill check thresholds, and they almost always feel fair in Kingmaker.
In addition, missed skill checks are not the end of the world in Kingmaker. And they actually give the game a great amount of replay value if you're willing to just roll with the punches.
Dice rolls in low level DnD are just fine, as long as it's not 5e. You can never overcome the D20 the way 5e is built, whereas in 3e you could focus on overcoming dice rolls or focus on being a better fighter, or somewhere in between.
It's the lack of character customization that hurts 5e more than anything else. All else is tolerable.
Finally took the time to read Sawyer's twitter mini-thread, and man, I just have to disagree really strongly with his take. First off, it's a little odd to complain about the D20 when your system used a 0-99 dice rolling system, where randomness could reign quite a great deal. At least in combat that is. Moreover, when he had a chance to iterate on this, the dice rolling got even more absurd with the damage and penetration system that they added in Deadfire. An added complexity to the combat system that did very little to make the combat more fun. If anything, it did the opposite.
Perhaps he's right about how the dice rolling works in Disco Elysium, it's a game I'll have to check out at some point. But, in Kingmaker the dice rolling for skill checks seems to work out fine, and it's d20. As I've said elsewhere, once you level up a bit, with some careful planning of the party and usage of certain skills/spells, you can frequently get many of your skills checks to >80% and even 100% in some cases. That comes with a cost, using up spell slots and bard songs and things like intelligence points, but you *should* have to make a sacrifice. It's all about the game designing good skill check thresholds, and they almost always feel fair in Kingmaker.
In addition, missed skill checks are not the end of the world in Kingmaker. And they actually give the game a great amount of replay value if you're willing to just roll with the punches.
I'm a bit confused. I was talking about 5e's skill checks, not Deadfire, Disco Elysium, or Kingmaker. I have admittedly never played any of those and can't comment on how their skill system works out.
Dice rolls in low level DnD are just fine, as long as it's not 5e. You can never overcome the D20 the way 5e is built, whereas in 3e you could focus on overcoming dice rolls or focus on being a better fighter, or somewhere in between.
It's the lack of character customization that hurts 5e more than anything else. All else is tolerable.
Finally took the time to read Sawyer's twitter mini-thread, and man, I just have to disagree really strongly with his take. First off, it's a little odd to complain about the D20 when your system used a 0-99 dice rolling system, where randomness could reign quite a great deal. At least in combat that is. Moreover, when he had a chance to iterate on this, the dice rolling got even more absurd with the damage and penetration system that they added in Deadfire. An added complexity to the combat system that did very little to make the combat more fun. If anything, it did the opposite.
This bit felt so obvious to me that I honestly was wondering if I misunderstood the argument somehow. You can like the randomness of a d20 based system, or dislike it - more power to either camp. I dont know why you'd dislike the randomness of a d20 system... and then create a d100 system to replace it.
My PoE knowledge is meager to be sure, and I know even less about the system under the hood, to be fair.
To be fair there are four outcomes in the PoE combat system -- miss, graze, hit, crit. As opposed to D&D's three outcome system. So you could argue that dice rolling is a little more smoothed out. But I actually think the penetration system in Deadfire made this worse because massive swings in damage could occur on a crit. And a crit was not necessarily just the upper 5 or 10% of dice rolling, but frequently a larger percentage.
At the end of the day, as I said about Kingmaker, the d20 is not the culprit Sawyer thinks it is. The skill check requirements being balanced against what a player can potentially have are all that matters. A locked chest with a difficulty of 5 is totally open-able at level one in Kingmaker, 100% of the time with the right class/dexterity/etc. Similarly, even a locked chest with difficulty of over 20 is 100 percent-able even at level eight or so, given the right party composition, builds and gear availability. But, conversely, without the right party members, gear, point investments, etc, these locked chest *do* become a roll of the dice. As it should be.
It's a bit weird that this is being still discussed at this level considering how long RPGs are around. There are really two points that could be criticized in D&D 5th edition or at least in my opinion do not fit a computer game well, without a DM to tailor the failure path to the character.
First - the impact of luck vs skill. This is in contrast to 3rd edition where skill modifiers to the roll were substantially larger. This would be easy to fix, but then of course +20 skill check characters start achieving things that seem quite impossible.
Secondly - the pure randomness, by making an important outcome (like a saving throw) depend on a single roll. This you can just live with, but it leads to a high variance in potential outcomes.
I think for the second issue a multi-roll success based system such as used in boardgames like Arkham Horror or White Wolfs RPG is an interesting alternative. Basically you roll a number of dice which depends on your skill and see how many successes (e.g. rolls >= 4 on a d6) you achieve. With enough skill total failure (0 successes) becomes very unlikely faster than in single D20 systems and the number of successes allows you to quantify how successful you were.
I think that system would be fairly well suited for a RPG.
Agreed that there are not many substantial differences between a d20 and a d100 roll, except maybe that with a d100 you can better model the chances for a fluke success or a fluke failure.
So, Ed Greenwood is saying there that a video game (supposedly, BG3) has a lot of Myrkul-related plot details. Potentially, it can mean other Dead Three are also involved in the BG3 story, Bhaal included. It can become that "missing" connection to the classic games.
Comments
Ha, had the same thought when reading that comment.
Games are meant to be played, they are not movies. The interaction with the player is as part of the game as the cinematics or the UI.
Yeah, I'll try to rephrase it, so maybe you understand it. If people who never played the OS games stated their opinions with some degree of measure, some degree of restraint, I would accept that. But instead some folks have opted for a total stridency and hyperbolic characterizations. And one that clashes with the broadly-held opinions of folks who have played those games.
It's actually akin to an armchair sports fan saying something that experienced players would dismiss as an ignorance of the game.
I think it's perfectly reasonable to say that while you can credibly criticize a game you haven't played, you also, in order to be taken as reasonable, can only do so within limits.
- whether it's more BG or IWD in nature
- whether Jaheira and Safana changed
- whether the Talos cleric plays a big role in the game
- whether Irenicus is overused
- whether the difficulty has spikes
- whether Corwin and M'khinn have certain agenda
It's impossible to say without trying. I know there will be users who come and say: nah, it's completely different with the D:OS games. NO, it's not. It really depends on what you believe in and what your approach is.
To every post that says "D:OS didn't feel BG to me" I will say "I felt so to me". And that is ok. That is the point where the argument should stop. Because you will never convince me in the opposite point of view. And I - I will never convince you in what I think. Because we all like different things in games. And because we all have strong opinions based on our gaming experience, and it will not change because someone says something.
However, continuing the same old arguments doesn't bring anything except for antagonising remarks. Let's just stop at that. Please.
This is absolutely fine, and I completely agree. That's not what's happening though. How much someone sees a property they like in another property is subjective. But what I'm getting is a bunch of people saying that its impossible for me to have this opinion and that I am objectively wrong. I do not see anything specifically reminiscent of BG in BG3. This statement is objectively true. One cannot disprove a subjective opinion. Just like your opinon above is objectively true. I am not contesting that nobody can see BG in this game, I am contesting that people seem to think I HAVE to see BG in this game.
Even better, not a single person here has even been able to provide a single example.
"- whether it's more BG or IWD in nature
- whether Jaheira and Safana changed
- whether the Talos cleric plays a big role in the game
- whether Irenicus is overused
- whether the difficulty has spikes
- whether Corwin and M'khinn have certain agenda"
ALL of this can be determined without playing the game. everything character and plot based, can be read and understood. You can see the game as whole and determine for yourself if you think the distribution of Irenicus is appropriate or not, or whether the Talos cleric has a big role. Eyes are the only thing needed for this. Even the IWD influence can be pretty easily intuited by looking at how enemy and encounter distribution compares.
Not a single person has managed to explain why having your fingers on a keyboard or your hands on a controller somehow makes you better able to look at something.
The prosecution rests.
Eg. You're convinced BG3 doesn't feel anything like BG. You can't get that opinion changed without playing the game. Remember I previously discussed one of the quests and said: these things are hard to understand when not playing. Maybe that should read instead: you won't be able to feel even 1/100 of what I feel without playing the game.
Second example. One person thinks the certain agenda ruined SoD based on the Internet. They won't be able to change their opinion without actually giving it a go. Thus there is such a big difference between owners' and non-owners' reviews of SoD.
And unfortunately, the opposite doesn't work. I already played the game, so I don't share your opinion based on that. This is what @DinoDin mentioned above: "If people who never played the OS games stated their opinions with some degree of measure, some degree of restraint, I would accept that. But instead some folks have opted for a total stridency and hyperbolic characterizations. And one that clashes with the broadly-held opinions of folks who have played those games."
It happened to me too with some characters. We were talking before about Dragon age games. Characters like Wynne, Aveline or Sten I found annoying at first until I played an entire run with them, listening to their banters and they became some of my favourites.
Kinda like Sten and the cookies.
If I ever stopped playing those games after a few hours, maybe I´ve never got to enjoy some of those. You never know.
The difference isn't because of the ownership itself though. SoD was used as an excuse to express political agendas from people who don't think trans people should exist. They never bought the game because they never cared. It was just another excuse to spread their hate. Whereas the people who bought the game did so due to actual interest, so even when they were more critical of it, it was more honest. SoD is also a much different example than BG3, because SoD was heavily politicized. Where BG3 is a sincere difference of what people think makes BG for them.
I don't like the kind of turn based combat here, but my biggest gripes have been the tone and writing. Both of which do not require gameplay to understand. Its also why I've stuck around here, to see how it all shapes up leading to, and as a final product.
As a result, watching someone else's Playthrough first saves me quite a few headaches. While still providing me with entertainment. Additionally, I am able to better judge whenever the showcased title is indeed enjoyable for me. All things I am quite thankful for, honestly.
True. There may very be a crucial point not shown in the video. Or an alternative route of the main plot the youtuber didn't know about during their play. Such unknown happenstances may had influenced my first expression of the game either positively or negatively as a result. But so what? There are more than enough other games out there worthy of attention. And my time is limited as-is. Venturing forth into an questionable oddyssey in order to find enigmatic golden needles inside huge haystacks (which may very well not exist at all) doesn't strike me as very productive. I'd much rather save my time, money and nerves for other things.
And if a previously written off game turns out to be indeed good somewhere down the patching / DLC/ expansion line? Chances are I may give it another scrutinizing look. It also doesn't hurt that by that time said titles usually received a nice big sale discount as well.
Is it Baldur's Gate? Well, it really depends on what you understand as Baldur's Gate. We probably won't see the ties until we get to the city.
The epic beginning is not bad storytelling. It's actually quite common in P&P and videogames as well... I once played in a P&P game where the city was attacked by a flight of dragons while a nearby mountain nobody knew was a volcano went into eruption. It took the group quite a few sessions and levels to discover what was going on. Meanwhile neither of the major parties involved even knew we existed. We were not their target; we were insignificant fleas that were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
That's what the group is in BG 3. Neither the Illithid nor the Githyanki CARE about the group. They're too busy fighting each other.
There are some mechanics I don't like, such as the excessive use of elemental surfaces but they will either add a possibility to turn that off, as they acknowledge that is a common complaint, or the modders will, so I'm not worried.
So, as far as I'm concerned, the game is not DOS 3, although it1s based on DOS engine.
Is it Baldur's Gate? I don't know, depends on how you define Baldur's Gate.
Is it a good game? Up to where I've played, yes. I've enjoyed the NPCs. I'll probably enjoy even more when the good companions become available.
Exactly.
I am 100% with Sawyer on this issue. And this is exactly why I have come to dislike D&D mechanics. Bonus that I now understand why he did not opt for using the D&D SRD for PoE. Good man. He made the right call, especially because I love the PoE mechanics. It's high-time developers stopped being lazy and just using D&D mechanics, and instead try to come up with something better.
Anyway, on whether BG3 feels like BG1 and 2 - that is subjective. It doesn't really feel like it to me personally, whether we talk about narrative, gameplay or atmosphere.
Maybe we can at least on the game being much less grounded/down to earth than BG1 was and instead trying to raise the epicness from the start. It is not just the opening with the Illithids and Dragons, it continues the trend by making with the choice of what to use as early dungeons and enemies. Magic items are much more plentiful and powerful.
Maybe the only ones that seem over them are the hag or the ones in the underdark, the spectator, the dreugh, etc, but those are watered-down versions of the usual monsters, at least in the EA.
About weapons, I´ve only been able to buy one weapon +1 in the merchant, because they cost a lot. The other weapons are non-magical weapons that sometimes add some effects when you hit or like the staffs that allow you to cast a spell (like the staff of create water). Most of the magic stuff you find not only are not +1 but often they have a pro effect and a con effect: The bracers that cast bane in the enemies and yourself, or the leather armour that deals 1d6 radiant damage against undead but beasts deal extra damage against you if they hit you,etc
I´ve never found a ring of wizardry at level one like in BG, to use an example.
He kept saying to me ‘give it a try’ and that ‘I might change my mind’ and I just couldn’t get it.
Anyway after about 6 months or so I finally caved and gave the game a go. I believe my first origin character was the city elf. It probably took me about an hour to be totally hooked. I couldn’t believe how different I felt actually playing the game. It was a total transformation, and I have no regrets.
I’m not saying that no one can make a judgement about a game without actually playing it. I’m just saying sometimes actually giving a game a chance and trying it can make all the difference.
Mediocre encounter design is fine with very fast combat (e.g. much of the overworld encounters in BG1 are not interesting in terms of design - but it does not matter much because they are over fast), but if it becomes a slog... that kills gameplay quality for me. I no longer have time to repeat the almost exact same combat over multiple hours.
Nevertheless, I can acknowledge the Origin stories there as a good thing, because they struck a nice balance between having a past and still being able to define your character, e.g. with Dwarf noble you could either be framed or be guilty.
Dice rolls in low level DnD are just fine, as long as it's not 5e. You can never overcome the D20 the way 5e is built, whereas in 3e you could focus on overcoming dice rolls or focus on being a better fighter, or somewhere in between.
It's the lack of character customization that hurts 5e more than anything else. All else is tolerable.
For me personally, RPGs are great entertainment despite dice rolls, not at all because of it. Same with any RPG I play, PoE, PKM, whatever. Now that I think about it, it might even be the main reason why I tend to always create minmaxed munchkin characters simply to remove the dice from the equation.
I don't minmax, but I 100% go for reducing the impact of rolls as much as possible, as Skatan does.
Finally took the time to read Sawyer's twitter mini-thread, and man, I just have to disagree really strongly with his take. First off, it's a little odd to complain about the D20 when your system used a 0-99 dice rolling system, where randomness could reign quite a great deal. At least in combat that is. Moreover, when he had a chance to iterate on this, the dice rolling got even more absurd with the damage and penetration system that they added in Deadfire. An added complexity to the combat system that did very little to make the combat more fun. If anything, it did the opposite.
Perhaps he's right about how the dice rolling works in Disco Elysium, it's a game I'll have to check out at some point. But, in Kingmaker the dice rolling for skill checks seems to work out fine, and it's d20. As I've said elsewhere, once you level up a bit, with some careful planning of the party and usage of certain skills/spells, you can frequently get many of your skills checks to >80% and even 100% in some cases. That comes with a cost, using up spell slots and bard songs and things like intelligence points, but you *should* have to make a sacrifice. It's all about the game designing good skill check thresholds, and they almost always feel fair in Kingmaker.
In addition, missed skill checks are not the end of the world in Kingmaker. And they actually give the game a great amount of replay value if you're willing to just roll with the punches.
I'm a bit confused. I was talking about 5e's skill checks, not Deadfire, Disco Elysium, or Kingmaker. I have admittedly never played any of those and can't comment on how their skill system works out.
This bit felt so obvious to me that I honestly was wondering if I misunderstood the argument somehow. You can like the randomness of a d20 based system, or dislike it - more power to either camp. I dont know why you'd dislike the randomness of a d20 system... and then create a d100 system to replace it.
My PoE knowledge is meager to be sure, and I know even less about the system under the hood, to be fair.
At the end of the day, as I said about Kingmaker, the d20 is not the culprit Sawyer thinks it is. The skill check requirements being balanced against what a player can potentially have are all that matters. A locked chest with a difficulty of 5 is totally open-able at level one in Kingmaker, 100% of the time with the right class/dexterity/etc. Similarly, even a locked chest with difficulty of over 20 is 100 percent-able even at level eight or so, given the right party composition, builds and gear availability. But, conversely, without the right party members, gear, point investments, etc, these locked chest *do* become a roll of the dice. As it should be.
So, his analysis is extremely flawed.
First - the impact of luck vs skill. This is in contrast to 3rd edition where skill modifiers to the roll were substantially larger. This would be easy to fix, but then of course +20 skill check characters start achieving things that seem quite impossible.
Secondly - the pure randomness, by making an important outcome (like a saving throw) depend on a single roll. This you can just live with, but it leads to a high variance in potential outcomes.
I think for the second issue a multi-roll success based system such as used in boardgames like Arkham Horror or White Wolfs RPG is an interesting alternative. Basically you roll a number of dice which depends on your skill and see how many successes (e.g. rolls >= 4 on a d6) you achieve. With enough skill total failure (0 successes) becomes very unlikely faster than in single D20 systems and the number of successes allows you to quantify how successful you were.
I think that system would be fairly well suited for a RPG.
Agreed that there are not many substantial differences between a d20 and a d100 roll, except maybe that with a d100 you can better model the chances for a fluke success or a fluke failure.
So, Ed Greenwood is saying there that a video game (supposedly, BG3) has a lot of Myrkul-related plot details. Potentially, it can mean other Dead Three are also involved in the BG3 story, Bhaal included. It can become that "missing" connection to the classic games.