Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General The importance of this game.

I hope MS doesn’t ruin Obsidian. They tend to have good ideas but lack the funds to follow through.

I have mixed feelings about Pillars of Eternity. There was a lot to love, but the setting never gripped me the way even D:OS does. The game also had what I consider to be some design flaws. Replaying all of the Infinity Engine games has helped me isolate why. Compared to those classics, I spend a lot more time in POE tapping the pause button in difficult fights. Que up a few moves, play, immediately pause again, select abilities, play, immediately pause, and so on ad nauseam.

I don’t do this in IE games, because most of my party members don’t have as many skills to juggle. I’m mostly just selecting skills for spell casters and to a lesser extent, priests. Everyone else is largely autoattacking. In POE almost everybody has a selection of skills, so that requires more time spent tapping pause. More difficult fights often feel like a scattered slog.

Also, POE, especially #2 is overly balanced. The IE games are not, and that is a big part of the charm. When I discovered in ToB that I could defeat a dragon easily by casting timestop, polymorphing into a mind flayer, and attacking the dragon until it’s Int reached 0, and then watching it crumple when the timestop concluded, I was elated. It felt like cheating the system, but that was the point. D:OS2 has the same design ethos, where the player is rewarded and encouraged to abuse the system, so I think Larian is the perfect choice for BG3.