Good summary and review, but i don't agree with everything...
Combat
In D:OS however, the outcome of certain actions is way less transparent or easy to understand. Many systems rely on percentages (like chance to hit or resistencies) but there is no obvious pattern or basic values to easily understand the system in each and every occasion.
In BG, lets say you have a +5 magic sword with 1d8+5 (or 6-13), but you also have Str 18/76 so you get another +4 (10-18), and you are a Kenasai for +2, and you are Specialised +2, and often get the strength spell, sometimes might even be buffed with multiple spells. No problem, if you are an experienced D&D player. But i would actually prefer to see the final numbers like in D:OS (you deal 14-22 damage, minus DR) instead.
To hit is about the same in BG, but you only see the likelyhood of hitting after the fact in the combat log, while in D:OS you get to see it before that (even shows your flanking modifiers). And D20+class+proficiency+magic bonus+bless+other vs AC isn't really transparent, i would prefer a percentage instead (and it is a percentage in BG, only with 5% steps). For any non-P&P-Player, its actually quite intransparent.
2) By using casting times players had to come up with a real strategy what to do with their mages, druids and clerics. Very powerful spells needed quite some time (or behind-the-scene turns...) to be casted, letting the caster defenseless in the meantime. Mages could be interrupted all the time and their allies and tanks had to protect them (and stay alive) in the meantime.
Well, normally i used mirror image and stone skin, in the computer game spells/day were never a limitation, unlike P&P
. Pure Mages should be protected anyway, not just due to interrupts but especially due to their health and armor.
Party combat was much more tactical in a system with casting times than in a system with cool-down times like in Divinty: Original Sin. In D:OS mages can perform their most powerful spells in turn 1. There is no reason to wait with casting the spell.
Poor slow BG2 Mages with their Time Stop/Improved Alacrity casting feast, Chain Contingency etc^^. But i agree, during the mid levels, casting time adds a tactical element with a dungeon master / good AI present (=not in BG2 unless you intentionally break formation).
Another effect of that is that mages in D:OS sometimes have rounds in which they don't have anything to do because they have to wait until their cool-down times are over. The usual pattern here is: stron spell, weak spell, weak spell, strong spell, weak spell, weak spell, following cool-down times.
At low levels i agree, but you also had a similar problem with the limited number of spells in BG1 (below lvl 10). But a dedicated mage with some levels in D:OS really never needs to resort to the basic damage spell.
3) Baldur's Gate 2 offered a huge amount of spells from different categories, most or all of them based on D&D. The positive effect of that was the wide variety of spells with very unique ones not based on putting out damage as the main goal but to incapacitate players by a huge variety. BG2 offered a whole lot of very dangerous "instant kill" spells for example and dangerious spells and abilites which resulted in permanent damage to your party members (turn to stone, entomb, brain feed, finger of death,...). I like D:OS's reliance on environment spells and the combination of ground effects and spells but imo the game lacks really powerful spells to really harm or incapacitate a single enemy.
The spell interaction and effects combination system in D:OS is better than anything i remember in BG, but the damage potential of mages is definitely behind the other classes. However, i think this is both intentional and a good idea: If mages are a great at area damage, great in controlling, great damage dealers, the other classes are just filler. In P&P, this was balanced by the limited spells/day. In BG2, it wasn't balanced at all: Who needs fighters, i can summon an army. Who needs sneak attack rogues, i can stack high damage and save or die spells until my time stops run out. Who needs clerics, i take no damage anyway. Etc.
4) You were not able to save your game during combat in Baldur's Gate 2! It's one of the very foundations of a game like that imo to prevent saving during combat. Why? Well, the core issue with that is that these games are based on randomness (dice throws in BG2 and whatever is used for D:OS). That means that every action in combat can vary in results. One of the core fascinations of games like BG2 was that you managed to overcome enemies and combat situations. The possibility to save during combat really "dumbs that down".
Agreed, i hope for an iron man mode. But if you take a look at other threads, some people are even frustrated by the game difficulty now. Not everyone is a P&P/Tactical cRPG veteran
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In Baldur's Gate you couldn't even save a game if any enemies were nearby (in a certain radius). That often meant that you couldn't just heal and rest between two fights but you had to fight the way you were and with the spells and skills you had left.
But in most cases, you could just go back and save/rest.
5) Baldur's Gate offered a party size of 6 members at the maximum while in D:OS only 4 regular members are supported. Imo 6 members were the optimal size for a party consisting of members of different professions. You often used 2 tanks (warriors, paladins, clerics, rangers,...) for melee control and defense, a ranger for support, one rogue for trap finding and shadow attacks and two spell casters (mages, wizards, druids, clerics,...) for attack, defense and support spells.
But the tanks didn't have any tactical depth in BG, the right position and focus was really all you needed. In D:OS, the Rogue/Ranger/Fighter special abilities mean you have the tactical equivalent of a 4 wizard party (in terms of micromanagement). I also think, due to turn based combat, that single turns would last too long in a bigger party, especially considering the ability to add 4 summons to the mix.
Role-playing and decision making
Well, the comparion here should be pretty obivous. In Baldur's Gate you had extensive well written dialogues with a massive amount of decision-making. I mean real decision-making. Most of the stuff you chose in dialogues led to different results. Some answers led to combat, others not. Some led to party member leaving your party, some led to love stories. Some were just there to increase atmosphere. In my whole playthrough of the actual beta content of Divinity: Original Sin I can't recall more than a few real decision-making situations. Often you only have to choose between two answers or there is no decision to make after all. That is, actually, pretty weak for a role-playing game. Of course there is also the co-op aspect, which is pretty unique and a core feature of the game, but even the co-op dialogues only offer two answer options, often two extreme positions, probably both not fitting the way you want to roleplay your character. Compared to the massive amount of decisions and answer possibilites in Baldur's Gate 2 that's something Larian could or should improve on imo.
Quoted in full for truth, unfortunately. There are multiple interesting ways to solve quests (like pickpocketing a handkerchief and give it to a dog to check the persons guilt in a certain crime, if you can speak to animals), but the choices in dialogue itself are a bit lacking.
Story, quests presentation and lore
I agree completely. Recepies and funny ironic stuff is ok, but some lore about the game world would be great!
Graphics, sound and design
I agree, but thats a problem of every game with an open world (instead of snapshots and a world map like baldurs gate). I can only remember one cRPG with believable city and farm sizes (TES:Daggerfall btw.).
SummaryAnd why the hell are there no toilets in the game?
Also wondered about that in about every cRPG (except fallout) ;-)
