But that is making equal assumptions about people being here for the Larian brand. Sure, the forum activity could easily be a vocal minority but if you say you make assumptions one way, you also cannot make assumptions the other way. I personally know more people who share my thoughts and wanted either a BG game or a 5e DND game rather than a Larian game.
Actually the 'Vocal Minority' is what's going on in the forums. To try and say that's what skews the conversation to 1 side of the purist mentality, is a can of worms that I don't want to bother with opening. I could state that purists are a huge group of people on most gaming forums, but that's anecdotal, and spending my time trying to find data and statistics to prove that, is not something I care to do, or get into.
However, there is a big * here, Larian recently made a game, and grew its own, some could say grass-roots, fanbase. BG 1&2 are 20yrs old.
BG brand is bigger than Larian, they already stated that being able to make BG3 is huge to them.
20 years ago, maybe.
Huge to them because....they are fans of the game, is the most likely reason. Not because they are some dad's garage company, getting a huge deal that makes or breaks them.
Secondly I'm here as a mix of both Larian and the Baldur's Gate title.
I think that is what the community for this game is, a mix of both. I'd lean more heavily towards Larian's fanbase, since it is a more recent fan-base.
Larian has repeatedly said they didn't expect the sales numbers they received and It's pretty clear that the unexpected boost in EA sales came from the BG / D&D name.
You cant equate this to meaning its a turnout of BG fans. It's a different title than what their fanbase came for, having that fanbase buy into an off-title product so readily / would be willing to buy it, in EA is surprising in and of itself.
Per-Rest abilities add a strategy to the game, that removal would reduce the game. It's fun having to think about when to use what abilities, that's why it's been a core mechanic of pretty much all RPGs to have items or abilities you can run out of.
Games that have, use ability when it's recharged so you just span them are fun sure, but because of being different games with different reasons.
It's not old or new either, both systems have always been around but with different purposes and for different experiences and a BG-RPG style game without per-rest wouldn't be as fun. You'd need a completely new system to add the strategy and risk to make up for it or else it'd just be a game built on a per rest model that doesn't have one.
Cooldowns also add strategy, having to think about when to use them, and cooldowns are also the core mechanic most other rpgs use, some use mana, some combine both.
Cooldowns are a time tested and reliable balancing mechanic. Spellslot rest resets, are only ever used in D&D ruleset cRPGs. If its such a good mechanic why do no other rulesets adopt it? I might be wrong, maybe some have that I just haven't heard of.
Also, there is no real balancing to the spellslot mechanic at all if resting is meaningless. The only thing it creates is a chore. Go to camp, end day, pet the dog, see if anyone needs to talk, rest, pick a waypoint close to where you were, cast all your passive long term spells, walk all the way back to where you were(all meaningless because mobs dont respawn, and new ones dont repopulate, no random encounters.) then finally start back up. No consequences to going to rest, I can spam my good spells every turn to soften them up, until I run out of usages, and then just AA slog until the battle is done.
There is no RP value to this mechanic, it does a poor job of actually balancing combat, other than you knowing exactly the amount of resources you have going in to use against the opponent. The only thing it does is create a list of chores you have to do, every time that you have to spend yourself in an encounter. Yes we can make resting have more consequences in several different ways. However, most of those ways would make the gameplay experience more tedious, unless you change to a cooldown mechanic for balance instead, then they can become RP aspects, and you can also have more engaging combat.
Limited uses per item, and per day limits on some abilities are not exclusive to spellslot rest reset mechanics.
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Just to explain how I came to be here.
I haven't had a PC for about 5 yrs, because I was living on the road for my job, so Ive been stuck playing mobile games(Glorified slot machines, if you ask me. There are a few decent ones, but mostly just companies trying to get you to spend as much as possible.) Changed job paths so I could sit in 1 place, and finally got a PC again. I decided to look up games id played before to see if there were any possible sequels. I searched for BG3 as a joke really, and found out it had come out and was in EA, so I am here as a BG fan, but overall I'm here as a cRPG fan in total. I'd like to see D&D get its due, but also I'd like it to adapt to create a more enjoyable gaming experience, and hopefully expanding the fanbase enough that we can get some more content.
I hadn't even heard of Larian myself, but looked into the company because "Why did this company get the rights to make a D&D game, and a BG title to boot." I found that they had come smashing into the cRPG industry with great success, so I bought the game. Played thru it, and am now waiting for more. I am currently playing DoS2, and realizing why they got the go ahead. I haven't played DoS yet, and I normally try to start at the beginning, but I was more interested in how there recent game played, because of BG3. I definitely don't want to see BG3 be a reskinned clone of DoS2, but I trust the game in Larian's hands. I'm just hoping that they are going to leave enough modding capability to make a mod that will allow a CD mechanic to be used instead.
Cooldowns do change the balance of the game, but for the better, and with more balancing options.
