I valued Larian very highly after DOS2 because i felt it was a good game.
I had DOS 1 as my personal GOTY, despise having its own share of flaws. I loved DOS 2 as well, to an extent, despise the vague annoyance in seeing Larian doubling down on things I didn't like about DOS1 (like the horrendous randomized itemization and the exceedingly steep power curve) instead of addressing them. Not to mention adding other questionable design choices on top (armor system and necrofire everyfuckingwhere come to mind).
I cheered when BG3 was announced and I joked with my friends it would be a match made in Heaven, because it would give us a game with Larian's strong points while tying their hands on what they were terrible with (again, the itemization and their ruleset). I'm also a big fan of the transition to turn-based combat, since RTWP blows and it was always the weakest part of the original games. BG2's combat was good in spite of being real-time (and mostly thanks to an incredibly diversified encounter design) and not surely because of it. This, just to stress that I'm not against any change for the sake of it, I value each one on the basis of its own merits.
While I still don't think this game will be "BAD", I'm growing increasingly baffled at the sight of Larian purposefully and defiantly going against most people's expectations and wishes, with a constant series of moves that basically tell us "We never even tried to not make this anything else that the closest thing to DOS we could make on a different license".
I agree with everything except RTWP.
Turn-based combat is too sluggish and slow for me. I liked RTWP because of the chaotic mess it provides. Feels way closer to an actual battle than a character doing X amount of action then standing still until it's his turn to act again. I liked that with RTWP i had to try and predict where the enemies would be for my AOE spells to hit them. I liked that the moment i pressed "unpause", a bunch of spells and arrows from both sides would come flying around at the same time. Really immersed me in the battle. I also liked that for lesser encounters, I could just let my melee characters attack enemies to death. It would shorten the fights I didn't really care about.
With turn based, everything is slower, and it slowly drains my will to play. The only time I got to the end of DOS2 was when I was doing a solo run cause fights went quicker (and also the added difficulty was exciting). Combat feels unrealistic and breaks my immersion in turn based. It becomes very predictable. This guy moves, attacks, stands stlil. This guy casts, moves, stands still. Oh, now it's my turn. I will move, attack this. Pass turn. Just feels robotic to play.
Anyways, I get that it's personal preference, but, Baldurs Gate was historically RTWP. Why not atleast the option to play both like in Pillars of Eternity ?
I get the same feeling as you, they don't really care. That, or they're a one trick poney and / or scared of exeperimenting things they never did.
