When "Torment: Tides of Numenera" was in development, i wrote on inXile forum about balance: If dialogues are shallow, combat system must be thoughtful and sophisticated. If game consisted huge amount of reading, that text must be counter-weighted by the fast combat system.
I tried to remind them: if you tighten the string too much, it will snap, if you leave it too slap, it won't play.
Almost all didn't take it seriously, someone thought that i am a troll.
Well, You can go and see the results; even hardcore RPG veterans admit that the game is a bit boring. On Steam few backers even wrote that combat system literally killed gameplay for them and it is easier to talk your character out of combat than to be engaged in one. Someone wrote, that it is more "interactive book" than an RPG.
One guy in that forum wrote to me, saying that T:ToN was designed as backers wanted. All right, what about all other folks, who can pay to developers much more, when the game is ready? If inXile had made the game more interesting to wider audience, they could raised more money to make better patches and maybe the addon.
Turn-based combat system now is some sort of a bad trend. That is not because many "indie" developers don't make enough efforts to calculate proper mechanics. They not lazy, quite the opposite. It because they just don't have money to hire additional programmers to make real-time combat system. In case of T:ToN limited budget was the real issue and they cut out too many good ideas. But Larian have all resources they need to make game mechanics well.
If Baldur's Gate 3 will have turn-base combat system, it won't be Baldur's Gate anymore. It will be Original Sin 3 - D&D Edition. Or, worse, Tides of Numenera. Or even worse: ToEE with fancy graphics.
Why ToEE has turn-based combat system and radial menu? "Troika" claimed that they want to make "true tabletop experience". The truth is much more simple. With turn-based combat they didn’t have to spend time adjusting the rules.
Don't get me wrong: Original Sin 3 - D&D Edition can be very good, considering how good was two previous games. I fear it just be less Baldur than it could be.
Make a decent triquel is often harder, than make something new. In case of Baldur's Gate 3 Larian should look back in order to move forward. I mean by that: good story, good dialogues, RTwP combat system similar to Infinity-engine era. Don't waste time to make online "achievements". Don't try to please SJW, feminists, and "PC principals", who will shout the loudest and never buy the game. Don't make any sort of lootboxes. And never ever, God forbid, flat minimalistic UI.
And another important thing: If BG3 will be driven by Unity Engine, native GNU/Linux version will be much appreciated. Windows 10 became much more mad this days.
