Which is to say... I think that if you disliked D:OS2, you probably aren't going to like BG3. Game studios tend to have formulas that they follow.
If Bethesda were following their formulas, they'd still be making Daggerfall (an open world sandbox full of procedurally generated content -- and a fairly complex character system to boot). Quite clearly, they've stopped making that kind of game ages ago, which started some with Morrowind already.
If CD Projekt were following a formula, they'd demand you to think a little every once in a while like in Witcher 1, rather than having you blindly follow bread crumbs /witcher senses and push a few buttons in combat in between.
If Bioware had followed a formula, they'd still be trying to emulate a tabletop feel as in BG, as opposed to a Hollywood action movie ever since Mass Effect-ish.
On that note: aside of the combat, I didn't much like DOS (in particular after the first area, which clearly was by far the most polished -- the second already had lots of trash encounters against hordes of orcs, despite the game being TB). BG3 EA may be clearly game by the same developer. BUt there are noticeably differences that I like and make the game feel very different to me. The top ones:
- The map isn't pretending to be this huge open sprawling RPG experience, when it is in fact a fairly thinly veiled linear combat parcours.
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd....6DD195AD430C7FE5EC87F8AE67A996550F93337/ Had they scrapped the "open map" design for DOS and simply designed a string of fun an diverse combat sequences, it wouldn't have made that huge of a difference
- There aren't enemies gatekeeping every path you can take in BG3 either, blocking every destination with inevitable combat (as far back as two years ago, even some NPCs that were hostile otherwise weren't, solely depending on the race I played).
- Gear doesn't have levels, which naturally is D&D. This is a big part of why every map in DOS is one large combat puzzle -- D&D doesn't have level 3 swords that basically do double the amount of damage than a level 1 sword, both on enemies and own party
- As such, gear also doesn't become obsolete five minutes after you have picked it up. And needs to be dropped/sold and looted over and over -- with inventory management in DOS being the WORST I've seen in any RPG I've played since the mid 1990s. This may be the result of the game having Co-Op in mind. But still, BG1 is the pinnacle in usability compared to this. Inventory Management in DOS is a game within a game on its own.
There's even stuff that I'm confident will be more intriguing than any Infinity Engine game: Which is environmental reactivity and systems driven gameplay. I love the Infinity Engine. However, it was fairly static when compared to Ultima 7 even back then already. The IE was created with the idea of having gorgeous backdrops in mind (which is actually one of the reasons Interplay signed Bioware), however, they're not much there for the touching. Larian maybe aren't Arkane, but this kind of stuff was fun two years ago already -- even if the actually scripted part, the ZOMG CINEMATIC CUTSCENE, naturally couldn't react properly. CINEMATIC CUTSCENES FOR EVERYTHING ARE SO 1990s EITHER WAY.
https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=88275&Number=680547#Post680547Is BG3 going to be the game that will blow my RPG-loving mind? We'll see. I'm actually hoping for a few surprises next year, too, such as Broken Roads -- with Colin McComb attached and some fairly novel ideas.
