I have not read the entire 86 pages of discussion, interesting as it is, because time . Is it fair though to compare the unfinished game to the finished one? I am also under the impression that the first chapter of BG3 we have is not the exact copy of the first chapter in the finished game, so...
Having said that - I have played WOTR almost to the end. (My hard drive had died, and since I did not have backup saves...). I love some parts of this game, but some I despise with vengeance - yep, the (in)famous crusade mode - talking about immersion breaker. It annoys me to no end that I cannot concentrate on my questline and have to go into army/city builder. And dear god the silliness of RTS battles. I was always completely uninterested in RTSs but since WOTR my gut reaction is pure burning dislike. To the point that I am trying to replay WOTR and finish it but the sheer thought of going through crusade mode again stops me. The story and companions are fine, WOTR has that classic 90s fantasy vibe, the world is immersive and awesome, and the main questline (and most of the sidequests) is fun. But it is in no way original or subversive (which is fine bc this game is an example of solid wysiwyg fantasy game). However, there are parts of the gameplay that are still buggy and/or broken. (Maybe the recent patch improved it though, I haven't checked it yet.) By broken I mean, for example, a particular boss fight where the boss kept spawning minions every turn (yep, playing in turn base mode) until I had to wait for minutes until I could attack. It was bordering on ridiculous. I had last stand feat plus a pretty high AC rate and did consistent minimal damage but it took a very long time and bosse's spawning got out of control. It went into twentyish? or more number of spawns, a mini army pretty much. This should not be in the finished game imho. This is a broken mechanic if I ever seen one. Also some bosses are plain bullet sponges - which is the worst way of creating a boss fight. So, as much as I love the game the fact that it has such basic level errors in basic mechanics that should be polished is offputting.
It is still an amazing game and I will probably try tinker with toybox to cheese the crusade as much as I can.
i have not played the Kingmaker and I know it has a similar mechanic so... *sigh* I bought it though so I will play it for sure.
Also, perchance, I don't know if someone mentioned it before but Owlcat is Russian, I think?
BG3 on the other hand - requires a bit of background research. Considering the amount of external lore connected to the game, it takes some work to appreciate it. But that is a purely subjective venture, and I think the game by itself is off to a good start. By sheer premise - it is a pretty original and curious plot start of the game. And the companions - they are amazing in a more subtle way. From the start, I was second guessing each one of them - and finding them secretive and untrustworthy as ffff. Beginning with Gale - he tops my list of "do not trust anything this man says". Even the patterns of likes/dislikes to your actions are sometimes curious and may hint at different things going on beneath the veneer of champ, vamp or somewhat self-centered mage with a large ego. None of the cRPG games I have played had me thinking this hard about and checking my companions' actions, so I'd say job well done, Larian, in writing them.
Also I am a newbie so, hello everyone
Hello, welcome to the forums!
While it may not be fair to compare an unfinished game to a finished one, you also have to consider that Pathfinder:WotR was released in Early Access roughly the same time as BG3, and it makes much more sense to compare two EA games with each other. Alternatively, one could compare Act 1 of WotR with Act 1 of BG3...which as you mention, might not be directly comparable due to possible BG1 Act 1 overhauls, but still better.
I personally agree with many of your critiques of WotR - I stopped playing in large part due to the Crusade Mode. I refuse to play with it on auto mode, as I'm under the impression that you miss certain content/fail certain quests if you set it on auto mode (same as in Kingmaker with...Amiri's quest I think?). I'm also just not a fan of 6-person RtwP, especially with the complexity of Pathfinder 1e, and 6-person TB battles in WotR are such a slog.
Imo, Kingmaker's Kingdom Management is much less of a hassle then WotR's Crusade. In Kingmaker, managing the kingdom is mainly simply assigning advisors to tasks, and very quick "buying and placing buildings in grids to make your towns." There's not a separate gameplay element that you have to play through, like WotR's Crusade Battles. Imo, the main annoyances of the Kingdom were 1.) that you can't manage your kingdom outside its borders, which limits the amount of time you can spend traveling outside your borders before needing to go back, else you'll possibly miss something important, and 2.) that certain Kingdom Events fast-forwarded time 14 days, possibly again skipping over important events. Thus, I installed a mod allowing me to manage my kingdom from anywhere, which hugely cut back on my stress.
tl:dr - You might enjoy Kingmaker more (or hate certain aspects of it less), but I'd recommended installing some Kingdom Management Quality of Life mods.
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