Let me try to express my point of view in another way.
I will try as much as possible not to use elements that could be subject to personal interpretation.
Rather than talking about reality (if I use the term on it's own some will take pleasure in quoting me to tell me that the FR is not a real world) . I'm going to talk about the "reality of the world" in which the game is set.
In the reality of the FR (and usual other classic fantasy reality), the following elements doesn't seem to me very usual.
If they are sometimes in, I think we can agree that they are generally very unconventional:
- Dip your weapons directly into fire to create magical weapons.
- Constantly jumping (in each round) during a single combat to gain efficiency.
- Eating a sausage during the confrontation, I was hungry.
- Burn everything down as soon as you meet any creature.
- Losing 30 L of blood when you die
- Being able to teleport so easily (Fast Travel)
- Having 25% more chance of hitting your target with a bow if you are higher.
- A small army unable to find their ennemies, even if they're doing a great ritual in their camp and had hosted refugees, 1km away
- ...
This is not a short bug list, nor something we could use to describe what the reality of the FR is.
This is a list of choices made even if some are probably subject to modification or adjustment.
Let me also talk about some other issues that are very much rooted in the reality of the FR but not really in BG3.
- The question of time (day and night cycle, travel time)
- The question of the environment (weather that does not exist)
- The question of the scale of the map (5 extremely varied locations over 2 or 3km², Goblins unable to find the druids)
This looks like important questions. If you had to describe a world or a part of it, I guess this is something you would talk about (densisty, climate, distances, time,...)
The FR references are great and give the specific "taste of FR" to the adventure but the reality of the world in which the game takes place is not respected.
From that point, I find it hard to imagine that we can find the world really consistent with what it claims to be.
Let's say that for me it's currently 50/50.
Afterwards, everyone is free to assess what is or isn't part of the reality of this world.
That said, I really think that everything is a whole when you're playing a video game.
Whatever we're talking about "the lore", the animations, gameplay mechanics etc... everything is a part of the experience and everything is a part of the reality of the world in which you're playing.
To come back to the map because one understands that I want a map full of wilderness to be travelled in real time on like in TW3, the other that I want maps like BG in which there is often not much things to do...
I'm not saying that thesee exemples are the best way ofe doing things but this a my feeling about what they could do (have done) to increase the FR feeling.
I.E They could have created 3 or 4 smaller maps by adapting them of course:
- The crash site and the blighted village.
- The druid grove and its surroundings
- The goblin camp and its surroundings
- The marshes
They would be far from ridiculous in terms of size and content, we would travel "as" in the old BGs, the notion of time could be created when travelling, the notion of distance would also make sense, the camp could have been in a place "easily" accessible on foot and we wouldn't have to disappear to get there, a day/night cycle, even a cosmetic one, would probably have been simpler to set up, random encounters on the roads too, for example.
This looks very FR and/or BG to me.
This last example would also have had an effect on the rest system.
Exept that travelling to the camp would have been justified on a map rather than with another wtf teleportation, we could have encountered enemies while travelling. In other words, this would have had a direct effect on the notion of resources management, i.e for spells but not only. Either an important gameplay element of D&D.
I.E Back to the jump system and let's talk about backstab.
At the very least, if they want to keep their backstab system, let them create a new bonus action called "surprise the opponent". A dexterity throw in front of the enemy AC and if you succeed, you find yourself behind. It could be ultra cool with a nice animation. If you succeed you are behind and can do your action, otherwise you are at a disadvantage when using your action.
Just make the jumps trigger the opportunity attacks and you have consistency and two tactical possibilities instead of one totally WTF tactic + a better visual feelings of the FR while fighting with really D&D mechanics.
I.E About Fast Travel : they have a wonderful worldmap. Let us use it for fast travel. I guess it's also much more FR than portals everywhere.
Anyway I hope that you'll understand what I was talking about.
It's totally about the FR and it's reality, whatever it has an influence on our feelings about the game or not...
According to me actually this world is half custom and inconsistent, half FR... That is definitely not sufficient for me to feel like I'm playing a video game in the FR.
Last edited by Maximuuus; 02/11/20 10:26 PM.
