im glad it isnt.
Pathfinder devs realize that while they still want the IE formular, they dont wanna chase the past and want to actually innovate.
Thats why you got kingdom management and upcoming sutff like mounted combat.
Im glad theyre having their own identity.
What I meant, that Owlcat seems like as if it is building on BG2, but adds innovations.
Larian is reinventing Baldur's Gate and making a spiritual successor to divinity...
Which will be a great game, but it seems very-very different...
I don't think that Larian is making BG3 a successor to DOS2.
I mean, except by the artstyle, the game is nothing like DOS2
- Leveling and character building is D&D like not DOS like
- Itemization is BG like with handcrafted items
- The magic system seems like D&D, not divinity. IE - no cooldowns but has spell slots
- Skill checks everywhere.
- The numbers aren't like dos2, you have far lower numbers on BG3
- A class vs a classeless system
- Saves instead of armor and magical armor
- The bestiary seems far more forgotten realms than DOS2
- (...)
(...)
BG2 laid foundation for what became Bioware RPG - a story driven, character driven RPGs. While people praise BG2 for it's "simulation" 1) there wasn't much of it 2) I(..)
D&D mechanics aren't "simulations", 2e had his fair share of optional rules for more simulation but is far more simplistic abstractions of situations. A simulation would be like GURPS which has a chapter of a book only to describe walking on frozen lakes. The fact that plate armor is far more likely to deflect a sword than a mace being translated to a better AC vs slashes than blunt attack is not a perfectly simulation of medieval combat. It is just a simplistic abstraction.
That said, modern RPG's tends to not care about making mechanics and lore in line. Eg? You can use blood magic in front of templars on DA:O. They often come with cooldowns with no explanation to why i need to wait X seconds/turns to do another shield bash for eg. On Dragon Age Inquisition, literally one of the first dialog options is that the PC don't need a staff to be deadly but all spells scales with weapons regardless if this fact would contradict the dialog and make all previous lore irrelevant(why control mages if they are weaklings with no staves?) and has no explanation behind it. Even most games which tries to be old school like Underrail tends to put his fair share of modern BS. Like cooldowns on grenades. With zero explanation, why? VtMB is not a perfect "simulation" but if i use blood boil in front of kine, it is a masquarede breach and humanity loss(killing with no reason). It is not a perfectly simulation of what would happen if vampires with such powers existed and used on front of kine, but is good enough.
Almost every old school RPG makes me fell like i an in another fictional world. Almost every modern RPG makes me fell like i an doing a consequenceless busywork.
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In fact, survival games often comes with better and more immersive RPG elements than most of modern RPG's.
