The open world comment I haven’t the faintest clue as to what you’re talking about. But the fact that there were more loading screens in the first 2 BG, was the limitations of the computers at the time, not because that’s what the game was about.
The disclaimer was there for a reason. lol.
Baldur's Gate 3 has changed to a more "open world" style design when compared to the previous instalments (by ditching the classic world map). Personally, I compare this to the games Expeditions: Viking or Pathfinder Kingmaker or even XCom: Enemy Unknown. These are modern games that still use a world map in a similar manner to Baldur's Gate, and I think the world map design has its own advantages.
Yes, the original Baldur's Gate was released at a time when an "open world" was not technically possible. But that doesn't mean that open worlds are better for every game.
Really my point is that it's fallacious to be appealing to popularity by saying:
"popular games don't have resting so no game should have resting" or
"open worlds are more popular so every game should be an open world"
It's equally fallacious to appeal to technology by saying:
"resting was technically necessary in PNP but it's not necessary in a video game so no video game should have resting" or
"open worlds weren't possible before, but they're possible now so every game should be an open world"
This kind of logic leads to the conclusion that single game ends up being a clone of the most popular modern game (eg Assassins Creed).
Instead, it's important to make design decisions that best fit the niche/brand of the game you actually want to make.
Please bear in mind that this is a Baldur's Gate game. D&D is part of that brand, and the current version of that is D&D 5E. I just don't see how you can throw out everything from 5E and still call it a Baldur's Gate game.
I’m not saying to follow every popular game. I’m stating that other games have designed a superior balance mechanic since the first 2 BGs.
Also I didn’t say we shouldn’t have resting, only that it shouldn’t be tied to an unnecessary out of date balance mechanic.
I don’t care about open world myself, I’d rather have quality over quantity. I do miss the “you must gather your party before venturing forth tho” I don’t miss how annoying it could be when 1 member got stuck on a rock somewhere causing that message. Why they couldn’t implement the “Congratulations” when so level up is beyond me. That would’ve been nice. I also would’ve preferred fast travel with encounter possibilities as opposed to the waypoint system as well, oh well.
Also the rest system has not even been true to form over the evolution of D&D. Go back to BG and you don’t even heal full HP from resting. Also BG was more about small scrapes all the time, not real encounters. You’d walk along and have to kill a bear or 2 kobolds at a time, every once and awhile you’d need to fight a hard battle. In this game uhm I’ve gotta kill a whole goblin village at level 4, with only 4 characters. Granted I can setup oil barrels and blow everyone up and have like 1-2 peeps left to poke, but I want to have some real fights too. I did a bit of both to clear the goblin village.
I’m all for being as true to D&D as possible, but different format dictates some adjustment. I play my games on hard mode because I like Strategy. I’m currently playing they DoS2 on Tactitian as a lone wolf, me and 1 other character. I’m playing a necro finesse tank(Eternal Knight) and the one npc is playing a summon healer(Druid). I like them to be challenging because they require strategy, not because I’m forced to Auto Attack everything because I’ve used up my 4 available spells/skills for the day. What’s the point in even having different classes at that point if I end up just auto-attacking all the time?
Sorry but it’s not about what other games are doing because they are popular. It’s about the fact they will always be more popular because they aren’t cutting their legs out from underneath themselves holding onto a bad mechanic for the format.
You know why old companies go out of business all the time, when they had the market cornered? They fail to adapt to changes, and/or by the time they do it’s too late. D&D was the original, and yet it’s never been able get beyond a certain threshold.
Most people want to be able to use the character they’ve built in all its glory when they play a game. The spell and skill availability being tied to a rest mechanic, makes that more of an obstacle to do. This makes peeps lose interest, and then you don’t get word of mouth advertising, you don’t get spotlighted for “games to play in 20XX” and you don’t get as much $ to fund the next project.
