Sigh.
Honestly I dont get why theres always these D&D players around that dizz the latest iteration of D&D.
Thats was already the case when AD&D was the previous system and D&D3 came around.
And now people act as if D&D3 is the good system and D&D5 is somehow "bad".
(D&D4 was really bad, as in it wasnt actually D&D, but thats another topic; and by the way 3.5 was basically 3.0 with only very minor changes and not even good changes)
No D&D5 is still not perfect. But it solved a lot of problems that D&D3 had.
Just an example, D&D had from version 1 to 3 always the problem that attack rates would get up and up, while armor improved much less.
In BG2 you would in the end absolutely not care anymore what your AC is. Unless you would manage to build very special characters, opponents would hit you all the time anyway. Only countermeasure was to have Improved Speed so you would kill opponents quickly, and to have Regeneration so you would heal enormously every round.
Or in "Star Wars: Knights in the Old Republic", which was based on d20, which was a simplified version of D&D3 that didnt require to pay Wizards of the Coast to use, I just gave up trying to build up defenses - even if you went all in on defenses, you still would get hit all the time anyway. Instead I went for maximum offense, combined with crowd control where that was possible, and found this much stronger.
D&D5 finally fixed that. Now you only improve your attacks with the proficiency bonus, which starts at 2 and increases by 1 every four level after the first.
All in all D&D5 is easier and more elegant, just like D&D3 was easier and more elegant than AD&D. Except the step from AD&D to D&D3 was a lot bigger.
So yeah, D&D5 is great. Its also the most successful version of D&D ever. They did something right there.
Why BG3 was so successful well I'll have to list a lot to fully explain but bottom line, its a passion project. For example I saw a statistic that only 3% of Steam players actually finished the ironman mode. And yet the game has one. The game is full of details, great storylines, etc. And they are only expanding on this now.
There are many reason why dnd 3e is better than 5e. It changes depending on who you ask.
As for me the main reason is ECL (LA + RHD) and prestige classes.
Level adjustment and Racial Hit Die allows to play stronger races like brelani eladrin, Fey'ri, Hound Archon, Rakshasa or Gloura with keeping their unique feats and abilities.
Getting damage reduction as brelani or gloura up to level +3 weapon is awesome; you get the feeling that you are playing this all-powerful races. Choosing them was awesome but everyone of them had handicap; slower leveling; at level 20 or 40 you get easily defeated by level 20 or 40 human mostly because of level difference aka hp difference. Was it worth playing race that had those big bonuses but kinda was weak at the endgame or play as human who was weak in the beginning but would shine at endgame or should pick a race as yuan-ti pureblood or drow/githyanki to gain spell-resistance who wouldn't matter at lower level but play big role at level 40 since they gain +1 to spell resistance at every level.
Presitge classes allows for every playthrough to be unique like being as bladesinger, hellfire warlock or become a lich.
Prestige classes opened so much possibilities no only because of roleplay but also of gameplay possibilities.
That what makes 3e better then AD&D or 5e.
I think it is less about “the thing” BG3 or Larian did, but variety of smaller bits that made the game attractive to a variety of potential players. Mass appeal titles have less to do with being exceptional, and more with offering something to more demographics.
Using well respected IP
D&D game
Making a big budget RPG during an AAA RPG drought
Characters (with them I take issues as far as long term storytelling) but are very evocative and compelling on surface level
Game mechanics and story situations fitting nicely for social media
A lot of good will from EA, good buzz.
Game that can be played solo, and in multiplayer, promising scone magic story driven experience and interactive sandbox.
I wish game like kingmaker, tyranny or wrath of the righteous had similar budget like bg3.
Other RPGs also had fine characters.
People like to say sandbox are awesome but real life disproves this. Nearly all sandbox MMO had failed - only eve online is there as a shining beacon of sandbox success.
All other sandbox games failed.
Other games tried doing gimmicky things and they failed so I wouldn't count it as a sign for a game to succeed.
Despite bethesda games being named as sandbox, they are not, they are theme park games. In those games you cannot create your own cities, etc.
So you are saying that this game is combination of theme park game and sandbox? Interesting.
IMO the most important thing that BG3 did was high quality motion capture and very good voice acting. Larian did other things well too, but its the unprecedented scale of the fully voice acted script and the acting that really sells it. I say this even though I actually prefer games that are not voice acted.
That definitely was a cause of its success. Not sure about motion capture but voice acting is important to bring larger audience.
I remember the amount of backlash fallout 4 received when it was discovered that protagonist will be voiced.
Bear sex.
The hype for the game only really started with the presentation of that scene floodes tiktok. Before that only rpg gamer were really interested because of the ip.
And Larian kept the hype going by focusing on the sexual content in marketing, making it seem more explicit than it was, and designing the companion to be thirst traps, more like characters in a visual novel, than a rpg. And Larian then reworked the game so that you can experience everything in one playthrough.
And the simplicity and full voiceover also helped. You could read a lot of variations of "After BG3 I tried out <other rpg>, but its so much reading/math/complicated so I stopped playing."
Its quite interesting how full vo made PoE2 into a failure but helped BG3 immensely because of the different target groups.
Yes, Bethesda got backslash for having voiced protagonist and Voiced main character was the main reason I played mass effect series.
Only blizzard managed to pull this well so far aka the formula "easy to learn, hard to master".
There are tons of 18+ games that offer sex scenes and yet, it didn't make them popular. So i really do not get why that scene caused the game to go viral.
I do not like the word simplicity; it sounds like boredom. I remember when planescape: torment pride itself for having more than 100 000 lines of dialogue.
Thing change i do not know if it is for the better.
Reading is a byproduct of low budget. Owlcat or Obsidian didn't even had the third of budget that larian had to make bg3.
Not wanting to make a big game does mean it would mostly cater to hardcore audience rather casual audience.
It is hard, i would even say impossible to cater to both hardcore and casual audiences.
