Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous vs BG3

Yea, I personally do not see it. I much prefer Baldur's Gate 3 over WotR, and that's with BG3 still in an early access stage. I guess it just goes to show that the perfect game doesn't exist because you can't please everyone.

You've perfectly described how I feel about BG3, including especially the BG3 companions whom I universally despise. But yeah, neither of us is really going to be able to understand where the other is coming from. It is what it is.

Middle mouse button moves the camera. It's still isometric but you change camera position, zoom and enter photo mode.

Good points. The writing in BG3 has been good. Some of the WOTR characters are pretty flat and some are anime waifu but give Daeran some credit - while he has fewer lines than any BG3 character some of lines are real gems. And while I find adoration that Regil receives disturbing, he's a well written NPC with great voice acting.


While I appreciate Larian taking community feedback I still want irritable, scowling Shadowheart to come back - she's supposed to replace Viconia not Aerie (for Mystra's sake!)

I also think the Paladin oaths show the weakness of trying to run DnD without alignment - A lawful good, Oath of Devotion Paladin *should* fall for poisoning the goblin punch bowl and attacking non threatening goblins. A chaotic good, Oath of Ancients Paladin should not. The goblins are burning down trees and spoiling the environment, it's time to take them out.

I feel like the space to talk about such matters have been eliminated but I do get this is WotC's doing and not Larian's.

Thus far, Wrath feels more like BG2 than does BG3 - perhaps that will change when meet Jaheria and Minsc.

Gameplay and graphics in the pathfinder games are more similar to BG2, I will admit that. They even have the RTwP and a 6 person party. Change is not always a bad thing though. If I had a choice for BG3 to be like it is now, or more like WotG, or for Larian or Owlcat Games to make BG3, I would without any hesitation or doubt pick Larian and the BG3 we have. I find the writing to be way better in BG3. Characters like Wyll are so nuanced. They have flaws and the inner conflict and turmoil that you'd see in a real life human being. BG3 is what led me to try DoS and DoS2, which I ended up loving. I think they are doing an amazing job and am excited for the full release and hope we get more RPGs like this is the future! 😄

Given the choice I would also choose Larian because of Owlcat's bad habit of releasing buggy games - the initial release was buggier than any of the early access patches and the 'core' difficulty was terribly misnamed it should have been 'hardcore'.

But the party banter, slow moving romances, 6 person party, lack of chain mechanic, alignment . . . all make me prefer Wrath. To me it's not new vs old because BG3's mechanics feels like *old* DOS2 it's instead are you willing to exchange some dazzling visuals for workable mechanics.

Again, BG3 is fun now and will be fun when it gets full release but, thus far, I consider Wrath to be the strongest contender in the "spiritual successor to BG2" contest

There are so many things about WotR that I wish were in BG3.

Day/Night

6 person party - I mean GEEZ. We're supposed to have MORE potential party members but still only 3 slots? Plus, if I play 4 players, no origins can join... Ever. It's seriously way too limiting

Ah shoot! Wait. I think I went through this list back on page like 50 or something. Nevermind. I'll stop now. 😏

Agree!!!

I just took a walk down memory lane. Some good stuff back in the 50s

I'll agree that BG3 is trying to be something that WotR isn't. It's doing something else, trying to be another kind of crpg. I think that's good, it's healthy for the evolution of the genre. And I think there is a lot of merit in what BG3 is trying to be. My opinion though is that thus far, Larian has only been doing an okay job at achieving that, whereas I think that WotR has ultimately excelled at what it was trying to be. I can't think of any aspect of BG3 that I like better than WotR. Even in terms if graphics, BG3 is higher fidelity, but nothing I've seen has blown me away the way that the invasion scene in the prologue of Wrath did. And Wrath managed to blow me away several times with what it did. BG3 is going for higher fidelity, but it can't compete with other stuff that's going for the same thing, while Wrath is pushing its style farther than its been pushed before.

The companions? Wrath's companions feel like a real group in a way BG3s party barely comes close to. They feel like they have chemistry with each other, dynamics within the party that make them stick in my mind in a way BG3s companions don't. I think BG3 companions are good, but nothing special. I'm withholding full judgement since we don't even have all of act 1 and everyone has potential.

Choice-specific dialogue options? Wrath blows BG3 out of the water. So many little and big tweaks based on who you are. Not to mention the mythic paths. BG3 does really well here, though. Ploy and story? I think Wrath wins again, but that's even more subjecti e than anything else I've mentioned. I agree that Wrath's plot is more simple, but I think it's in service to our character, allowing us to shape the story and be the focus in a way we don't and aren't in BG3. Meanwhile I think the story is more important than our characters in BG3, which some people will like more. I personally don't feel especially engaged in BG3s story, but I also think the storytelling in BG3 is genuinely kinda weak. It's scattered and seems allergic to giving us good anchors into the setting. I'll keep saying, but act one seems insistent on us not caring at all aboutthe stuff happening in this area and wants us to forget about the place as soon as we leave. Meanwhile even from act one Wrath was consistent and clear in its storytelling.

And finally, role-playing. I think Wrath provides a better role play experience. Our character actually matters, we're able to fully project onto them, we have a wider breadth of choices in conversation, etc. This is also super subjective though, since BG3 does give a lot of options for doing things in the environment, but I've been trained by other rpgs to feel like if there isn't a text box involved, choices don't "count." So things that involve messing with the environment don't actually feel like role-playing to me, they just feel like gameplay. Speaking of gameplay, I think the gameplay in BG3 is lackluster. I feel more urge and interest in playing Solasta for the gameplay than I do BG3. Its serviceable and that's it. Meanwhile I think Wrath gameplay is pretty fun, but I also have options to let me just barrel through it when I just want to get to thr story.

Funny. Looking back at the 50s pages of this thread, I absolutely hated Kingmaker. Why? I was trying to play it on authentic rules difficulty level which was way too hard. That really cheesed me off because I like playing by the authentic rules. Once I let that go and played by the Normal difficulty, I loved it and bought WotR which I loved WAY more.

Consequently, that's presently one of my pet peeves still about BG3. It strays so much from authentic 5e rules that the balance is all out of whack and the volatility of combat is still too high. Either a fight is too easy because of some particular homebrew, or it's too hard. It's like you can't quite find the good middle ground.

Example? The thread about stealth I posted more recently. Either you can stealth, snipe, stealth your way through every BG3 fight or the game is making your character make 3 stealth checks in a row when it should just be 1. It makes no sense. I had Astarion in a good looking and dark hiding place, but because he was still in a skeleton sight cones he had to make 3 consecutive stealth checks. By the time I clicked on Sneak Attack and selected an enemy, he'd failed the 3rd check and was visible. Meanwhile, in a different fight, SH and my MC were like 10 feet from a devourer and they just kept stealthing and shooting every turn while the devourers just sat there doing nothing.

More 5e would balance the game. Just saying.

I've had something of a realization that some of the changes and alterations in BG3 (like the paladin) could be what WotC may be ultimately going for with their next iterations of the system. Meaning that a more or less purist 5e adaptation (Solasta) is actually not what they're keen on endorsing.

As for the Kingmaker difficulty remark, playing it on Normal makes it way too easy. Once you get past the pre-barony part, you're pretty much going to roll over everything except for perhaps Pitax and the Wild Hunt, maybe an optional boss or two. Once your characters can take one hit without dying and you have practically unlimited money and an ability to buy as many healing supplies and rations as you want, you are no longer in a desperate situation resource-wise the first act forces you to be in. They've pretty much repeated the BG issue where at levels 1-2 you are pathetically weak but become exponentially stronger later on, except BG is all low-level, so it still can succeed in kicking your ass on a regular basis (with enemy spellcasters), while in Kingmaker you can just keep interrupting Vordakai's spellcasting because they didn't think to have him come pre-Stoneskinned/Blurred/Mirror Imaged.

Out of curiosity; how many people here have actually finished WotR on core difficulty or above?

The whole game felt like a mindless slog....and I was glad to be done with it.

Horrible gameplay balance.
Stereotypical evil Wizard antagonist.
Predictable story.
Boring companions.
Unintuitive quests.

Honestly I play on a specifically tweaked difficulty that's a bit above easy, and it's just right for me. Just difficult enough to make me put in effort and feel like I have to pull out my cool abilities and spells, but even then I still die sometimes. And sometimes I turn the difficulty as low as possible, switch to real time, and steamroll everything to get to the story. Being able to do that is probably why I've bee able to out in so much time on the game.

This I have to strongly disagree with, because if we get more games like BG3 in the future then you and other BG3 fans will keep getting the games you like while people like me will never get the games we want.

So nobody talking about Act 4? Ew..

I agreed with @NotoriousZow on this one We want lots of DnD games. Which is why the OGL matters - we don't *just* want games from the big boys! Tiny little studios should be free to make their weird interpretation.

Agreed. I'm still annoyed Owlcat called 'hardcore' mode 'core'. I started enjoying the game when I just gave up any idea of it being a tabletop like experience and started playing the min max, power fantasy game the devs gave us. And it was glorious.

Yes, closer to 5e would improve BG3, I think the reaction system is move in a positive direction. I am worried that this is the last patch - there are few forum members I really want to be in playtest group . . .

@Valis I thought Areelu had layers. I also thought her story *spoiler* explains the protag's plot armor pretty well. Why can this nobody from nowhere special walk out of hopeless situations without a scratch? Turns out there's a reason for that. I'm okay with using some prototypes, this is fantasy after all and mages - like Irenicus - just make good opponents.

I also think Ember is a pretty deep character - she's a philosophical pessimist and the only one I've ever seen portrayed in popular media (I'll die on this hill)

I think a better way of putting it would be:''I hope we get more DnD games in the futur, with varying styles and visions and from different studios.''

what does core difficulty have to do with any of what you said other than the balance?