Just gonna say it. BG3 is based on D&D 5e, which is, hear me out here, also a turn-based game. So it is entirely in keeping with the rules of the source material. If they were making almost any other sort of game, you might have a point. But 'Turns' have been part of D&D from the beginning.
This argument doesn't fly when BG3 is supposed to be a sequel of BG1 and BG2, which were *not* turn-based despite also being based on D&D. Not to mention that a computer game doesn't have the same physical limitations as a pen-and-paper tabletop, which are turn-based by necessity. They shouldn't be treated the same.
I think it's a perfectly good argument. Fizzwick didn't say a D&D game
had to be turn-based, only that it is in keeping with the source material which it is.
They said the OP doesn't have a point because D&D is turn-based ("if they were making almost any other sort of game, you might have a point, but..."), implying that turn-based is the only option that makes sense.
Sure there are other games, including BG1 & BG2, based on D&D or similar rule-sets that aren't turn-based, but that doesn't mean the choice to make BG3 so isn't valid, or that there is anything wrong with trying to make a game that is more true to the experience of playing PnP D&D in this respect.
Thing is, BG1/BG2 were never trying to replicate the experience of playing PnP D&D. They built off the base ruleset but changed a fair amount of it, in order to make a fast-moving *real-time* RPG game that was uniquely its own. The BG3 approach of trying to replicate PnP D&D is... not what the BG1/2 games were about. That's mainly my issue.
Put another way: BG1/B2 were RPGs that had
elements of D&D. BG3 is trying to be a full-on D&D 5e computer game. If it weren't meant to be a sequel to the Baldur's Gate series, I'd have no problem with it, but it's distinct from the approach of BG1/BG2.
And much as I love BG1 and BG2, I don't think their combat mechanics are something to aspire to in 2023.
You don't think 20+ years of game development could improve RTwP from the original BG days? Plenty of other games have successfully implemented RTwP in similar settings.
I vastly prefer RTwP over turn-based combat. I'd take BG1/2 combat over BG3 combat any day.
An argument that I don't think flies is that because computer D&D games don't need to be turn-based given that they don't have the same limitations as PnP, they shouldn't be turn-based.
And I'm not saying that. In a perfect world I'd like BG3 to have an option for both, so all parties can play the way they want to play. I just strongly disagree with any stance that D&D is turn-based therefore BG3 being turn-based is the only thing that makes sense.
