My honest opinion from what i have seen so far;

Wrath of the righteous looks incredibly good and so does BG3.

WOTR does appear to be offering a lot more mechanics through mythics paths where you can become angels, devils and liches ect....it looks really really frickin good....like really good. WOTR also possibly looks to have better story writing and companions. Owlcat are based in Poland and arent necessarily all about diversity and gender neutral crap like Larian is. I think Larain have gone waaaayyyyy to far with this stuff and Owlcat have completely tuned it down eg Larian has gone woke and Owlcat are not woke.

BG3 on the other hand looks better visually and i think has more potential due to there budget.

Thoughts people?

I am not touching the "woke" part of the OP

When I have to compare both games currently I would say Wrath is way better. But how much you can compare them is debatable and not only because of the different state of development.
Owlcats games are more grand, they need to be as they are adding kingdom building or crusade leadership into it. They also have the advantage that they do not need to create the whole story by themselves but are implementing published adventure paths (although with a lot of modifications which so far made the game better).

Whats definitely better in Kingmaker/Wrath are the companions. The Kingmaker ones were already better than the BG3 ones as far as I can tell (even when they were a bit stereotypical in Kingmaker) and the Wrath ones look even better.

But you see a very different way of design in the Owlcat games and Larians BG3. Owlcat goes wide and include lots of subclasses, even obscure ones, and even creates more subclasses themselves. And for DLCs they add even more things like companions.
Larian in the other hand goes into detail with full voiceover and cutscenes.

What is better? I don't know. It also always depends on the execution.

Immersion is the biggest difference IMO.

WoTC is way more immersive than BG3. Despite it's good gameplay and graphics, BG3 always throw at our heads that it's a video game.

A book need paper and you hold it in your hand but when you're reading it's a story you see in your head.

A film show images but when you're looking a good film you forget that you're in your sofa looking at your television.

Despite the obvious requirement for video games (like a user interface), WoTR is WAY better than BG3 to make you feel that most things you see is a part of the story or the world.
But it's not that hard because despite it's beautifull 3D, there are ALWAYS something in BG3 that bring you back to reality.

- the user interface. A few elements are beautifull but 95% of every menu, hotbar, map and mini map is at best random/common, at worst awefull.

- the world is completely frozen. Nothing ever happen... Even when you destroyed the goblins leader those at the blighted village continue waiting without turning hostile.

- time does not exist. It's night when the player decide to click on a button.

- non magical things like jumping or pushing someone when you're a human look magical.

- faste traveling look like a cheat code rather than a travel.

- the main menu invite players for a story of runes and boat next to a cave rather than inviting you to write a story (pathfinder) or to invite you for a journey in the world (pillars of eternity).

- there are no drawings in the game. Everything is so common and lack of personnality. The portrait, the maps are just gamey and awefull.

- companions have a story that "does not look realistic (believable ?) at all".

Just a few exemple... In my opinion that's a BIG difference with a lot of other cRPG and BG3.

BG3 lack the pen & paper style and what makes the experience very immersive. WoTC is good at that.

Of course immersion depends the player... For a lot of players it only mean beautifull 3D and for other it only mean eating and drinking...

Ehhh... It's like PoE2 vs. D:OS2 back in a day.

Apples to oranges. Different RPG genres for different audience, on different budget, with a different experience in mind. There will be some audience overlap between two, and preferences for one over the other, but overall there is very little to compare.

I wish for both to do really well, and I wish myself to enjoy both games for their own merits.

EDIT:
And you aren't necessarily all about geography . Owlcat games is based in Russia, and fortunately, Poland isn't occupied at the moment.

Firstly, the level of these games is completely different, but both games are good in their own way. Second, Owlcat is a Russian developer, not a Polish one. And personally, I don't really see any "gender-neutral" things in BG3. What exactly are you talking about?

I would stay away from the "woke" part the OP is implying for BG3. We will have enough of those threads popping up post launch I fear. I don't feel like opening that can of worms myself. I cannot comment on Pathfinder WOTC myself as I haven't really been following it. Baldur's Gate 3 seems to be shaping up as what I would expect from Larian, a bit less grand scale and go for a more detailed approach, though it is hard to judge at this point in time what the final product will be, in all fairness. It will come out in late 2022 at the earliest and more likely in 2023. So yeah..

Overall I like the route they turned into with patch 5 and hope they continue tinkering along that route. I quite like the companions we have so far, but am really curious about what others we will be getting (I am counting on 8 to 10 companions myself, with maybe more added as free updates?) .

Hey Nyloth

The woke part i am talking about is the extreme political correctness that is currently making all mainstream media, streamed content and cinema content (that comes out of Hollywood) especially unwatchable.

eg they are more concerned about gender diversity and inclusion and political correctness then they are about producing great content. Owlcat have completely ignored this crap and Larian seemed to have embraced it.

For this reason i think WOTR will be better.

What exactly is overly "woke" about BG3?

He! I was wondering when we would get this thread.

P:WotR hands down. Yup it's an unfair comparison ... for BG3. The only dimension on which BG3 would beat WotR is on graphics technical quality, and even there NOT on graphics aesthetics. Everything else -- story, characters, setting, world-building, systems, mechanics, gameplay, combat, UIs, range of options for players, the "look" of the game (i.e. graphics aesthetics/art style), the level of responsiveness of the devs to fan input and feedback, and even bang for my buck -- WotR is waaaaaay better than BG3.

@ OP, I too think that WOTR looks like a great game, and as someone who came to BG3 as a longtime fan of BG1&2 I am sad to admit that WOTR is maybe more the game I was looking for than BG3 in terms of a modern equivalent/successor of the previous BG games.

That being said, I am really getting annoyed by how your post and several others in the past weeks/months construct a straw man to try and degenerate the discussions on this forum into a kind of idiotic gamergate reactionary bullshit. Gay people exist, feminine males and masculine females and everything in between exists, people having sexual intercourse with whomever they want exist, so please do yourself a favour and take your bullshit attempts to politicize games back to /pol or parler. It really blows my mind that such narrow-minded frustrated infantile idiots like you feel the constant need to bring up other people's sexuality and gender experience on a forum about a videogame set in an imaginary world. Like what the fuck is wrong with you guys, if you're so obsessed by the gay and queer perhaps you should start questioning yourself why the fuck you even care this much about it as apparently most other people seem to simply not care how people think about and what they do about their genitalia and agree it is total bullshit to oppress people because of what they say, think, and do with said genitalia. I can't stop thinking about that Hungarian anti-gay EU parliamentarian who made his career out of targeting LGTBQ and the "gender" agenda and got caught with plenty of mdma pills and other drugs on a clandestine gay chem-sex party during lockdown. Kinda validates my hypothesis that the most vocal opponents of 'the gay' are those who truly feel 'the call of the gay' inside of them but chose to fight it - and thus themselves - instead of simply embracing their own homo-erotic fantasies and without realizing the fact that they feel so threatened by 'the gay' living rent free in their heads is more telling about their own fragile sexuality in denial than about 'the gay' and society ...
Now please bugger off and take your cringe anti-woke crusade somewhere else. Btw, I hope you're aware the father of modern computing - Alan Turing - was gay too, so while you think you're probably super funny edgy and hetero you're actually wasting your live on a machine invented by a gay man - how ironic.

*took-the-troll-bait.jpg*

I pretty much agree with your post.
I am often confused why so many people are so hung up on *other* peoples preferences. I mean, no one is forcing you to become something you are not? That is, after all, the point. Just tolerate other people being different and go on about your day.
I mean, the "all-companions-are-bi"-approach ensures that you don't even have to worry about incorpatible sexuality. So no chance of your favorite companion, who could be your one true (in-game) soulmate not being interested in your character.
If there would be such a thing, I would understand it.
Personally, when I play games I want to see a good resolution and incompatibility is a RL thing I can really do without..



On the other hand, Serra? Wheren't you murdered by a Planeswalker ages ago? How can you run around and write forum posts? oô

Serra: I agree100% with your post. Well said.

I understand what you mean, but can you tell me more specifically where you have seen such content in the game? If you are talking about 'all bi', then for me this is a convenient tool than political correctness. I would not like to get a cyberpunk situation where you have one romance at all. Strong women? I hasten to disappoint you, they are in the Pathfinder, Wenduag generally hates men.

Otherwise, I don't see anything like this in first act.

I also didn't notice anything that you are talking about in DOS2 (Larian's last project). I know that people here on the forum constantly write about political correctness (for example, in the topic about elves), but this does not mean it is in the game.

Honestly, some of our companions are already showing racism and xenophobia, and our character can literally praise slavery. Not very politically correct, don't you think?

Everyone sees only what they want to see. That's why I am convinced that if someone really wants to take offense at the "evil drow" or perceive the Tiefling as real refugees, he will do it. But personally, I do not see this, and I do not see that Larian indulged American Trends. Owlcat also does not follow these trends. Both are somewhere in the middle. I'm sorry that I will again take Cyberpunk as an example, there was a strong indulgence of political correctness. This was very noticeable after the Witcher, where this was not at all. Honestly, this should serve as a bad example for all developers, political correctness does not make the game good or interesting, you should not listen to every user on twitter, huh.


Although we haven't seen the rest of the companions in BG3 and we don't know what the future holds for us. That's why I thought that maybe you have some information that I don't know about. Because right now I don't see it in the game.

Thx, Fox, not sure if you're referencing some MTG lore i'm unaware of - stopped playing/buying MTG long time ago already - i just like the artwork of that specific print of the card and it has a lot of nostalgia value for me as it was the first card I really wanted that I obtained trough trading in high school . A 4/4 flying , attacking does not cause this creature to tap, angel for 4 mana only, little 12 year old MTG obsessed me instantly fell in love...

Slightly off-topic, so I'll put it into spoilers:

To be more on topic:
As someone who actually disliked Pathfinder 1 and mostly likes BG for the banters (and, lets be honest, the romance =P) - would WOTR still appeal to me?
Then again, maybe I should play DOS2 first..

I prefer anything else at this point. Larian just used the BG license to make D:OS3 with more hype. They arent listening to the fan base, the D&D rules are their versions. You cant create your own party or save/export characters from one game to another, the heart of TT D&D.



***off topic***
Can I ask what you feel is "woke" in BG3? I personally do like a lot about this game, but I dont feel there is an agenda they are pushing, so im curious to hear why you think there is. This adverse reaction to "wokeness" is dumb. Hey you cant sexually harass people or make crude jokes on gender or race. Does this mean you should be ostracized from society, no. Does it mean you could lose your job and friends because people dont want to be associated with your behavior, yes. So where is the problem with "wokeness"? You cant bully people anymore, which is good. You have to be respectful to women, which is good. It doesnt stop you from being who you are, unless youre a creep, bully, or rascist.

I'm very much looking forward to WotR. Just got through another playthrough of P:Km (again stopping in Act ~6? because jesus the game is too long), so I'm excited that WotR will be tighter in scope and closer to ~80 hour instead of 150+ hour playthroughs from what I hear!

Honestly I think that Pathfinder, with the extreme amount of abilities to choose from during leveling up and to use during combat, is just better for a (combat-focused) crpg than 5e. In Pathfinder, your basic class-independent character can make decisions regarding: full attack vs separate move+standard actions, whether to move or use a move-equivalent action (drink a potion in P:Km), acrobatics to avoid AoO, charging the enemy, fighting defensively, flanking, and delaying your turn. In 5e, if you want to avoid AoOs or become more defensive, you have to sacrifice your action to do so. And move actions can't be replaced with anything. Additionally, the stacking bonuses in Pathfinder allow more for more party synergy and buffing compared to 5e's "oh you already have Advantage and Bless? Nothing else I can do then."

Larian has stated that they feel like low-level BG3 characters don't have enough to do (hence making more things into bonus actions), which is entirely 5e's fault.

I also don't see anything "woke" about this game. Also find the idea of "woke " to be odd. So if someone uses woke as a pejorative does that mean they're asleep?

Just remember, if you win a fight on Facebook or the Larian forums we can have equality for everyone. Of course if you lose the 14th amendment gets repealed. So, downsides...

Doesn't anyone else think its odd that the concept of and hatred of 'wokeness' came from social media? Its almost like social media is there to create conflict so they can sell stuff to people. But that can't be.../s



WOTR has a lot of interesting permutations and looks like it has enormous replay and build potential.

BG3 has the same incredible outcome potential and with its multiplayer and possible DM Mode, and additional campaigns has the potential to be a platform.

I think the devs from Larian look forward to playing WoTR and Owlcat can't wait to get its hands on BG3.

Both sets of devs probably look at pointless "who's game r better" quarrels and are like "what a bunch of idiots, lets grab a beer"

I'm ignoring the part about woke. Apart from that, i have completed WOTR beta twice and on the 3rd playthrough. What i can say the game trumps BG3 in every aspect. I only completed BG3 EA once and since then i haven't even touch it nor have ANY desire to play (with the new druid class).

I have so much fun in WOTR and all my playthroughs were turn-based. Biggest issue for me is BG3 indeed is a DOS2 clone slap with dnd5e ruleset. Also with just a party of 4 in BG3, i can just assume personally this is due to Larian wanted the multiplayer as 4 would be more feasible? to play along with friends. I play DOS2.. it's cool that they include the multiplayer part.. but i have NEVER once participated in DOS2 mutliplayer. perhaps there are many who loves DOS2 for its multiplayer? Personally, i just like to play single player. So in WOTR .. the 6 party character is really awesome.

And bear in mind WOTR / pathfinder is not an easy game.

To give credits where its due, the only thing that BG3 beats WOTR are the visuals. But, it's just my personal taste WOTR looks state of the art for me too. Just that it's current state it's still very buggy.

BG3 is the best for me. I love the cinematic dialogue and full VO. That adds a lot to the game for me and is something that WOTR does not have. I also like that BG3 at least so far does not have harsh resting restrictions like WOTR does. In general BG3 feels more like a modern game with fast travel, etc. These things are important to me.

I haven’t played WOTR, but at least from reading about them the companions seem interesting. The character models I saw did not look good, but maybe it was an earlier build. I don’t like how WOTR gates romances so that a male character can pick any woman, but everyone else has their choices gated. I like how BG3 handles it much better where none are gated.

Shocking.

And this is not even remotely true.

I enjoy WOTR. At first I was a little confused with the map for some reason. So when my character would say, "I know the way", I was like "no you don't."

Also I need to read up more on the different classes.

Honestly I thought I was loving the WOTR beta, but the more I progress in it, the more I get genuinely annoyed about how OVERTUNED most of the encounters are when playing at "core rules".
At least playing in turn-based model it feels like basically any fight is designed to make you survive only if give 100% of what's in your arsenal AND if RNG is on your side.

Is this a similar situation to PF:KM where they bloated creature stats? Outside of the weak enemy AI, that was my biggest problem I had with PF:KM - I was hoping WOTR would fix that.

It didn't make the game impossible, but it did make a lot of standard play/build far less viable without the heavy support. I.e. armor-wearing martials in PF:KM literally melted in the endgame because their touch AC are way too low without heavy optimization. You had to lean very heavily on other control mechanics to even give them a chance.

i'm fine with difficult "core rules" IF there are other options. "Core rules" for me mean that you know the system very well and are able to create a team that takes advantage of the rules and it's still not an easy win. I've always seen the core rules option as most games hard option but that's just my opinion. I know some people see core rules in the middle and think it should be considered "normal" difficulty.

I'm fine with core rules as well. That's the only difficulty setting I'm interested to deal with.
My problem is precisely that THEIR "core rules settings" is NOT a proper implementation of the core rules. It's an example of stat bloat that would make BG3 blush in shyness.

WOTR is an amazing game ( I have the beta) It's nothing that I would compare with BG 3 since both are great and I don't have to CHOOSE one or the other, in time BG3 is released I already will have done all I want on WOTR. So, which one? silly question, get both, I mean, both are amazing and I can't wait to enjoy both stories, gameplay, and to romance Arueshalae in WOTR and then Shadowheart on BG3 when it's fully released.

agreed. They're both must buys for fans of the genre

Frankly I have no idea what people mean when they say "You can't really compare DOS 2/BG 3/POE II/WOTR".
Yes, you can. They are literally minor variation in the same exact genre.

I like both games but I am admit I am more excited about BG3 (but that mostly comes down me loving the Forgotten Realms as a setting and not so much Golarion).

Though, I really do not think that Wrath is so much superior, they are just very different games. On writing and companions, BG3 companions are much closer to my heart, than the Wrath ones who feel very lukewarm for me.

I really liked that Wrath improved upon Kingmaker with greater reactibility, but still I prefer the immersion of BG3.

About being woke, Wrath includes several queer characters, with a strong bisexual woman being the main authority figure of the campaign, so yeah despite being a Russian developer studio, Owlcat does do everything in its power to appear progressive. This is not a political thing though, both Larian and Owlcat companies and not human rights groups, they just simply want to make their product attractive to the greatest number of people possible.

So let's bury this brain-dead argument...

Are we really doing this? WotR has less in common with BG3 than Solasta did.

Also, if you really want to get into the whole stupid 'woke' argument, the Pathfinder games are probably the most woke cRPGs ever to exist, it's just very good at integrating what people would call 'woke themes' to the level where it's already treated as completely normalized in the setting, so none of it really feels any preachy at all. Like you really have to go out of your way to find it.


Actually, the more I think about it, the more I believe this thread was made in bad faith, given OP's posting history. Because oh boy, if they actually played WotR, this thread wouldn't be framed the way it was.

My two cents on the actual quality of both games? I've ended up liking WotR much more than BG3 currently, even as someone who highly favors turn-based over RTwP, but one is also three weeks away from releasing while the other probably won't be done until late 2022 at the very earliest.

The writing for the party members and supporting cast in WotR has really elevated it to the point where even in its unfinished beta state, it has quickly become one of my most favorite games ever. I also usually don't give a shit about romances, as the way most games handle them ends up being little more than juvenile sex scene gratification at the end of the day. But the WotR companions have been so compelling that I may consider pursuing one, after hearing about how incredibly written they are from the people in the beta that did chase after them.

So while BG3 might set a new standard in reactivity and maybe role playing, I feel WotR will absolutely set a new standard in how party members are written and designed around each other. Granted, I am someone who cares way more about overall world building and how the characters interact with the world and each other, rather than what the characters would mean to me on a personal level, and the way the WotR companions are structured appears to be as pieces of a bigger whole.

I think the big difference is that the characters in WotR have a defined sexuality independent of the player while in BG3, depending on your viewpoint, everything is bi or playersexual (meaning their sexuality changes to always be compatible to the player).

Di they? I never really bothered chasing romance with anyone so far, but as far as I could remember even in Kingmaker you could basically flirt with the entire cast.

I have not played Pathfinder newest one. That said I think the difference here is that in BG3 companion male Elf Astaron tries flirt with you from the very beginning despite if your main is a man character.

My thoughts Poland got right attitude and Witcher 3 and this Pathfinder have the right views.

They Larian had a news out that they are dissatisfied the majority of player in Early Acces create a white human character. Certainly raised a stong red flag with me and to think they spy on players even on that subject is a red flag indeed. That is not all they have made now so if you choose human the default is black human you must manually change the skin color in character creation.
That is not all when in character creation can choose your ideal partner the faces of women if you choose human race there is only one white caucasian face. Rest are Asian or black peoples faces not in skin color, but facial looks. I find this sick they have done so. Well though I must admit I find also Asian women can be beutiful and example in Smallville TV Series Kristin Kruek that has parents from China and Europe etnic background is super beautiful in an interesting exotic way. Thai people are genetically like Chinese when I was in Thailand I once by mistake thought two women to be Thai ladies, but they were tourists from China.

Well not that I let it me bother super much and not so fond of the green color of Wood Elves changed their skin color to that of typical Tolkien Elves.

However all things said will this stop playing me BG3? No and any gay adancement from Astarion or anyone else for that matter I will simply ignore them.
Well and I believe mods could provide more character models.

Nah, playing it right now and it seems like female PCs only have Tristian and possibly the twins as options, while male PCs get the twins, Octavia and Valerie.


Some encounters can get pretty hectic because of the sheer number of enemies involved, and because tanks(/Valerie) are utter shit before they get good, but to be fair the rules overtune the player too, past a certain point. My kineticist can pretty much one-shot anything ever since he got level 7-8, and mages/bards/clerics get completely busted too.

No comparision. At this point WotR is in another level. Confident, detailed, atmospheric, fun and deep fantasy game. Doesn't give two @#@ about slick boring mobile UI and consoles and stadia and wokeness...
BG3 is still in an identity crisis telltale monty python game designed for everyone and every systems. It lacks FOCUS.

Said it before, say it again...Larian shot themselves in the knee by making this 100% cinematics. Less LONG dialogues and choices, less interesting NPCs, less resources for more atmosphere/game content/classes...It effects EVERYTHING in the game. BG3 cinematics is turning into a MEMEs comedy heaven on youtube. Its getting quite hilarious.

Does everyone agree with this assessment? If so, Larian should really start to work on improving immersion. I haven't played P:WotR yet (I prefer to play a mature and bug free game), but so far my biggest problems with BG3 EA have to do with immersion breaking (e.g. fast travel without portals, send stuff to camp, 2D yellow outlines on 3D shapes, ...). In my point of view, it stands to reason to try to avoid breaking immersion in an RPG as much as possible. The better a players succeeds at playing a role, the more fun she/he is having, right?
But it is good news that the developers of P:WotR did manage to get immersion right.

I don't recall being able to flirt with the whole cast in Kingmaker, although you could probably have friendly banter with them all. But now that I think about it, I vaguely recall that you probably COULD flirt with some of the romanceable party members, only to have them declare that you're not their type if they preferred the opposite gender later on. About half of the cast weren't interested in pursuing a romance there either. Same case in WotR.

The known WotR romances are as follows.

Exclusively available to female characters:
- Lann
- Daeran

Exclusively available to male characters:
- Camellia
- Wenduag
- Sosiel

Available to both:
- Arueshalae
- Queen Galfrey (unsure about this one, she may be male-exclusive)

Non-romanceable:
- Seelah (she's THE iconic tabletop paladin for the entire Pathfinder franchise. Paizo would never allow her to be romanceable, same reason Amiri wasn't romanceable in Kingmaker)
- Regill (he's a hellknight and has zero interest in that shit)
- Greybor (already married and a proud father making ends meet for his family by assassinating the shit out of people)
- Ember (mentally a child, or at least acts like it)
- Woljif (actually underage)
- Nenio (absolutely zero social skills)
- Finnean (he's the talking weapon, but probably still counts as an actual companion as he gets party banter and a companion quest spanning the whole game like everyone else, and his story arc is quite serious)
- Delamere (not actually a true companion, she's exclusive to Lich mythic path, none of the other mythic path exclusives like the Azata dragon Aivu or suspected potential secret late-game companions are romanceable either)

I hope you also know that one of them is nearly finished and will be releasing next month, The other is still in development EA and have years to be finished. What you're doing or trying to do is finding a way to find a reason to get WOTR over BG3? I mean you feel really insecure if you need to come here BG3 forum to talk about other game that even if is amazing has nothing to do with BG3, the gameplay, quality, etc all are different.

And as for companions, if you actually played WOTR you wouldn't have most of those pics calling them interesting. PF Kingmaker had interesting companions, WOTR has maybe 2 or 3 that are actually interesting in their group.

About the woke thing that seems to be around. I don't know where this idea came from, but Yeah, Pathfinder has defined gender lock for some romances, but only 2 companions in KM and I think 2 in WOTR, the others can be romanced by any gender, hells, in PFKM my human duelist married the twins tieflings making a big happy lesbian family in the end. you can also have more gay/bi relationships in PF than most games I've played, so please don't talk about what is not known to you.

The only thing I agree with is immersion. Larian is amazing when it comes to gameplay, etc. But immersion is not one of their strong, DOS2 was terrible at this and broke immersion all the time for me, BG3 is suffering the same issue.

I do not agree. I would hate for fast travel to be removed. For me removing fast travel and having to walk to portals would be tedious not immersive.

Guys, let's stay away from stuff like skin colour and sexuality, please. It never ends well. Thanks.

I agree, ppl always ask for no fast travel, or more immersive fast travel until they have to spend half of the game just walking around a huge map and the same places over and over again. So, you're right, Fast travel should never be removed from any game with a big map.

I mean you can, but it's pointless.

I disagree that difference between Larian RPG and Obsidian RPG is minor - one prioritises online play and player interaction, second one worldbuilding and story. That IMO makes them fundamentally different experiences. You CAN play Larian RPG as you would PoE2 or Pathfinder, as I do, but that means missing out on a major focus on the game - which is coop.

I wouldn't claim that D:OS2 was worse then PoE2, it's just that coop RPG (coop centric, not RPG with coop mode) is not something I have much interest in. It doesn't make D:OS2 bad, it's just makes it bad in things I care about in an RPG.

One of the very reasons people ask for no fast travel (or to better say it: "not OVERLY convenient fast travel that works at any given moment") is that taking it into account in the design phase helps precisely creating a game where you are NOT assumed to be zipping back and forth at any given second.

I'd rather get a game where I'm assumed to be moving through the game world at natural pace (and when the context required it, even being stranded in enemy territory with no easy way out) rather than a game that assumes (and so after a while implicitly REQUIRES) that I'll be zapping all over the place every two seconds.
Aside for being an erratic design focus, it also has the not negligible side effect of destroying ANY sense of scale in the fictional world.

A notable example of this is the first Dark Souls, before the shitty idea of giving to the player the "lordvessel" (bonfire warp) from the get go: your first descent in Blight Town or your first climb up to Anor Londo were memorable experiences ESPECIALLY because of that feeling of "Well, there's no convenient way back now". Something that the sequels failed to capitalize on.

It's like the good old argument against quest markers: give designers license to have unlimited and convenient access to a quest marker at any given time and you'll suddenly get a game where almost every quest is designed under the assumption that the player doesn't need much in terms of explanations and context because the marker will always be there to guide them.

Which is how you typically get some of the dullest quest design in existence. Something that plagued the modern era of triple A games. The difference between the average quest in Gothic 2, Fallout 2 or Ultima VII or in Oblivion/Skyrim can be downright baffling.
Even The Witcher 3 suffered significantly from this issue. Disabling on-screen helps and markers often left a player with hardly any context to go by and to proceed in a questline.

,
But they are not different subgenres, they are the exact same one, with marginal variations in flavor: top-down party-based CRPGs with a big focus on narrative progression, companions storylines and tactical combat.

I do not know why you have to choose when you could have both. PF: WoTR comes next month so we could play it until bg3 finally comes, they do not even overlap. Honestly, I´ll be happy to have several games to choose from, some time ago finding a CRPG game in between a tide of MMORPGS or shooters was a titan´s quest.


Anyway, the new trailer of WoTR looks good




That said, it seems there are some strong feelings about that, judging by the comments and images you can find online.

Not gonna lie, that last picture kinda shot down any interest I had for the game.
..And not just because I loathe the stupid virgin/chad thing.

But I guess different taste for different people?
Or the game is actually pretty good, but some of the fanbase is rather inane.

I know the virgin/chad meme is never meant to be taken seriously, but still... Mentioning HP bloat as a downside of BG3 while ignoring that PF is every bit as guilty of it if not more is at very least a bit disingenuous.

Eh, personally I didn't choose. Which is precisely why I already bought and I'm playtesting both.
The fact that I don't think they are mutually exclusive doesn't mean there's no ground to compare them (or any other title in the same genre, for all that matters).

Opening a map, click on a location, entering the area by the right side of it, having a notification that "x"hours has passed while walking (BG1/2)

VS

Open an awefull map, click a name on a list, being teleported because "stfu, it's magic" (BG3)

No one ever said that fast travel should to dissapear.
But fast travel can easily look like... A travel.

It's also worth noting that a lot of games when competently designed manage to make their "fast travel system" its own reward. Like the aforementioned Dark Souls, which forces you to move through the environment at a natural pace and feel the sense of immersion (and occasionally isolation) and THEN at some point finally rewards you with an item that unlock warp between keypoints.

Same goes with Gothic 1 and 2: you are forced to fight teeth and nails for any few meters of ground you explore at first, but then the game at some point "opens up" and starts rewarding the players with a system of runes that allow them to teleport to specific keypoints in the world map.

There are many, more imaginative ways that games could use to "unlock fast travel" if they really tried. For instance an open world game could have a ground mount and then a flying mount later on, even ON TOP of a (less forgiving) network of portals.
But I'm digressing a bit since these are not examples that apply to BG3, specifically.

I fully agree with all of that!
Besides, the opposite of having non-immersive fast travel is not removing fast travel altogether. The game design could also make fast travel more immersive. And yes, that will probably mean having less access to it. But that could still fit in with a fun and immersive game. As an example of the point Tuco made, perhaps the game developers could make the gaming areas more lively and dynamic if players spend more time walking through them. Additionally, players could be encouraged to spend more time thinking about which routes to follow and the order of tackling quests (as you would do if the game were real). So I think anti-immersion fast travel could be countered by adding more immersion elsewhere.

About your picture. I know you dont want to heat this likely.

BG3 at full release will not be even near 20 level characters I am perfectly fine with this excpect it to have level 10-13 maximum level and example in Solasta DnD 5th maximum level is 10.
25 classess is utterly unealaistic expectation that will never happen for BG3 full release. They have said the main classes from Players Handbook will be inclunded at full relasese (if not already released before that example likely one new class in Patch 6). The remaining classes that will be included in full release (if not before that in a patch) added are in alfabetic order: Barbarian, Bard, Monk, Paladin and Sorceror.

I would be more worried about will this game have much more subclasses and Cleric Domains? Only time will show much this game will have.

No I dont want to this game to have maximum level 20 and 25 base classes and released date postponed to year 2024 or 2025.
It is enough slow current release date expectations is roughy October-December 2022 or January-December 2023 and that inciudes all classes from PHB, but not freaking 25 clasess.

Does P:WotR have toilets? I can't recall spotting one in BG3 EA. Admittedly there are plenty of bushes, but the situation does need to change once the environment becomes more urban.

That's a problem I had with Kingmaker. They greatly bloated enemy stats even on normal for whatever reason, and playing on Hard, the game was a nightmare until the end of chapter 1.
I can see people being turned off by some encounters that I genuinely considered to be unfair. I'd asked on reddit and people playing the beta said that WotR had corrected this.

Owlcat is based in Russia not Poland.

I wouldn't agree with this. Talking only about BG3, gameplay is by far the most criticized aspect of the game, with the criticism escalating after Solasta came out with a superior adaptation of 5E ruleset translated into better combat.

About the image. Jokes aside, I 100% agree with the waifu statement and Astarion too. And never should anyone make fun of the amazing barrelmancy, barrelmancy is life. *_*

Jokes???
Maybe if I win EUROJACKPOT 100 million+ EURO. Well then I could buy much of Larian and get much power to decide.
I could say DELETE Astarion . Well and some other things on plus side I do like.

Well though I still agree on this:

I love dragon mounts.

Well nothing wrong with that games like WOW MMO have flying mounts and Witcher 3 have at least horses. That said I would be very suprised if Larian suddenly says BG3 will have mounts.
+1 for mounts in games, but I doubt mounts is in BG3. Closest you will come to Dragon mounts likely in BG3 is some cutscene with Gityanki riding Dragon mounts.

You could have a Dragon fight in BG3 Act 3 maybe that is realistic. No I dont mean some super huge Dragons necesssary, but example Solasta has a Green Dragon that is not undefeatable.

Well, In WotR you have to do with dinosaur mounts.
Although one mythic path gives you a dragon companion. No idea if you can use him as mount though.
And another path lets you become a dragon, but technically you are no mount.

I hope BG3 will have mounts. Not because I overly care about them, but it is a good old tradition that Paladins have their special mount and I want to use that at least once.. =P

Yes, since day 1. I think it was one of greatest strengths of the originals back in the day. But Larian is completely out of touch with the originals, have you seen them mentioning BG1/2 any time? I was surprised when Swen mentioned immersion on Patch 5, until then I never imagined he knew what the word meant.

Regarding PF WOTR, it looks like a really nice game, but the setting doesn't appeal to me. That giant cockroach demon dropping from the sky and killing a dragon was too much for me.

1) players open a beautifull map that represent the area.
2) players click the icons on the map to select an area to fast travel (BG1)
3) players are teleported to the right entrance in the area (in exemple you can reach the blighted village by 4 roads. If you were in the north of the map you're teleported in the north of the village, at the closed gates).
You have a
4) a few hours have passed

Done.

This is the same fast travel system except that your characters have walked rather than being magicaly teleported.

But it require one of the most important and one of the first thing to make such a game a bit immersive... a day and night cycle and a world in which days and hours exists.

If you don't want to break any sense of immersion without a real full cost day and night cycle make it like it was done 20 years ago.

1) 1 atmosphere during the day with NPC doing their NPC's stuff.
2) night has come. Beautifull cinematic to make the transition.
3) 1 atmosphere at night with NPC's doing their.NPC's things at night. You don't need a bed for everyone. Some activities in the night doesn't require a bed.
4) day has come. Beautifull cinematic to make the transition.

Making such a game without a day and night cycle is a shame.

Well said. It is also my experience that virtually all anti-gay or anti "woke" are at a minimum assholes and almost always closeted and self hating homosexual curious.

Shit, no Astarion in WoTR? I guess it's a buy from me.

If you're really turned off because someone made a shitty meme, it's worth noting that pretty much the entire rest of the cRPG community sees the Larian fanbase as rather inane too. And I say this as someone that got into cRPGs with DOS2.

I have met many people in the PoE community especially who absolutely refuse to credit DOS2 as being part of the cRPG resurrection at all, let alone contributing much more to the cause than PoE did, which is where the DOS2 VS PoE2 animosity came from back in the day - and now the goalposts have been shifted to the Pathfinder games.

A lot of the flaws of PoE2 and its ultimate failure are now even generally attributed to resources being diverted in an attempt to chase after DOS2's popularity (full voice acting being the big one), at the cost of resources that could have been spent improving the actual game (namely fleshing out the actual companions, the vast majority of the companion quests could be done in less than 10 minutes after you start them, and the dev team were straight up quoted in an interview saying they weren't any meatier because they were expensive to create). This belief has become stronger in the wake of the Pathfinder games releasing afterwards and being overall much better experiences, while not pursuing those design decisions at the expense of the rest of the experience.


I would be surprised if BG3 had mounts in any capacity. DnD 5E doesn't officially support it as far as I'm aware (while Pathfinder does), and I'm not sure Larian will go out of their way to introduce that system while opening themselves up for the potential for a lot more bugs. (As in, what happens if you begin a cutscene while mounted? If something happens to you during the cutscene while you're mounted, will it change to account for that mount being there, such as someone physically trying to punch you?)

Well, it is mostly because none of the mentioned things interest me. And the way it was presented made it worse.
And I did not really liked Pathfinder when it came out. Don't have an opinion about the current edition, since I do not know it.
But I am just not a fan of the 3rd edition of D&D. Only played it because there where neither games nor rounds where I could stay at the 2nd.


I mostly joined because I do have fun in BG3, I have not really played any D:OS games. Tried out D:OS on console, but my console died a while ago. I did play the other Divinity games, but they are kinda hard to compare. ;-)

The PF ruleset is essentially 3E on crack, unless I'm missing something, and WotR would appear to be using the full load of rules plus supplements, which on one hand is cool for those among us of the nerdy pursuasion, but on the other hand is an absolute nightmare to get into for more casual people. And WotR is centered around taking that whole path from relative obscurity up to demigod level and eventually punching dragons on the nose when they misbehave, isn't it?

Looking back, neither BG1 nor BG2 nor PST were that kind of over the top "clash of the titans" combat simulators. ToB and the IWD games were, arguably, and that's probably why they are generally less fondly remembered than what I feel is the case for BG1, SoA, and Planescape Torment. The awesome part of those games was going around to different places and having that "party of adventurers on adventure" experience. The combat itself was something to do, but it was never the main focus. And particularly in BG1 and PST, it really wasn't that good, was it? It got your pulse up, it was a change of pace, but it wasn't the thing that kept one coming back.

Thus if that is ultimately where WotR is aiming, and given the PF rules and the 25 classes and the thousands of perks and whatnot I kind of suspect that to be the case, then I really don't see a Baldur's Gate title ever being serious competition. Crazy high level encounters is just not what the franchise is about, is it?

I notice one thing that hasn't been brought up in this topic yet is the OST.

WotR's OST in particular has absolutely blown me away thus far. There's sheer variety in it since it appears the game has taken the stance of having regional/path-specific themes just like Kingmaker did, except they're a lot more distinct this time around. For instance, Kingmaker had one single world map theme. WotR has 3 known themes so far, one for chapter 1, and the other two looping between each other for chapters 2-3. (Chapter 4 doesn't have one, since you have no access to the world map for the entire duration of that chapter.)

There's also something like 7 different combat themes off the top of my head thus far, not counting the boss themes. Could be more than that. Though thematically, the themes are pretty epic, for lack of a better descriptor.

BG3's OST in comparison isn't quite there yet, but maybe it'll improve over time. Or it may largely remain the same thematically, since it appears the game is taking the approach of the quieter atmospheric route.

Well, 'Planescape: Torment' climbed up to INSANE power scale in its latter half, actually. From a certain point on it was basically a battle of demigods, even if combat wasn't exactly its main focus, in general.


One of my favorite things about both Kingmaker and WoTR is that it's basically character creation porn. You can spend hours just coming up with builds and combinations.

If there's one thing that disappoints me about 5E as a whole thus far, as someone who got into DnD with 5E, it's the relative lack of build variety in comparison to the Pathfinder franchise. I can't go make an Arcane Archer without feeling like something is majorly missing or going very off-flavor from the spirit of the original class design. Even the actual Arcane Archer fighter subclass in 5E is mostly about having enchanted arrows, while missing the actual spells to go along with it - and I suspect this is one of the subclasses that may make it into BG3 in the end.

It's to the level that I consider College of Valor Bard to be a better Arcane Archer than the actual Fighter subclass, and that's also a subclass that's very likely to make it into BG3 when the Bard class is released for us. I feel like getting access to double attack while having full spellcaster progression is going to be very powerful utility-wise in BG3.

It's why I was so fascinated by Solasta's homebrew wizard Greenmage subclass, even if it was less optimal than the horribly busted Shock Arcanist subclass. And Pathfinder's Eldritch Archer (and let's add Dragon's Dogma Magick Archer to this) was exactly what I'd been envisioning when I think of a proper Arcane Archer. Straight up casting spells through your bow is very visually pleasing.

I think this is the most Astarion like companion on WotR (still a far way off from the original)

Woljif is actually somewhat self-aware too, up to a certain extent. He is Chaotic Neutral IIRC. His combat lines are pretty hilarious, outright revealing that he knows he isn't beating anything in a straight fight, so he's relying on you to distract the enemies so that he can run off and sneak attack. He'll also say that it's your fault if he drops to critical HP, in which case... He's not wrong.

Daeran has far more similarities to Astarion than Woljif does, but still fundamentally different in many ways (for one, he's actually the party's dedicated healer, but also a very potent nuker utilizing elements that most enemies in the game don't have any resistance to). He has a lot of hidden depth that later made him one of my most favorite evil companions ever, and said depth for him and Regill in particular makes it very easy to include them in a good-aligned party without twisting yourselves into pretzels trying to justify it. Pay attention to what Daeran directs his ire towards, and the few rare things he chooses to praise. He may seem like someone lashing out against the world, but you'll start noticing that he has actual reasons and targets for that. He did choose to specialize in healing for a reason.

I hope Astarion has as much depth, but we won't know until the full release it seems.

Actually, some of the WotR evil companions are probably among my most favorite (and probably the only ones I've ever liked to begin with, besides Nok-Nok from Kingmaker but I don't exactly consider him actually evil at all). They don't fall into the trap of 'evil = perpetually edgy and chaotically stupid for no real reason'.

With that logic I would buy it immediately.

Have not bought it yet. That is one detail. I wonder what is true from those + sides I find hard to believe they are all true. From what I have heard though it is truly possible to become a Lich in Pahtfinder 2 as I call it since first Pathfinder was released years ago.

Oh Gosh while you start from level 1 you can really reach level 20 in Pathfinder 2!
I am not so sure I like the Mythic Paths do they belong to even real tabletop Pathfinder rules? I do know the do not exist in DnD 3.5 at least but Pathfinder rules is evolved from Dnd 3.5 and not same.

Well and whats about controlling armies like in Heroes 3 strategy? Sounds like the have 2 games instead of one game.

Comparing both games having played with both rule sets pathfinder plays off the 3.5 dnd rule set slightly modified so you could call it 3.75. The mechanics have had alot more time in development than 5e. The plus is that brings much much more diversity in character design and progressive options. Down side to the rule set is alot of the classes in pathfinder are not as balanced tuned as 5e your characters using the 5e rule set feel more in line with each other power wise in 5e than they do in pathfinder as time and power goes on.

Same time that being said some of the mechanics in 5e are under tuned and some of the abilities currently in bg3 make it even worst. Duel Wielding in 5e is already weaker than 2 Handed weapon skills this is made more evident the later you play. Additionally BG 3 takes that a step further but not requiring actions to change gear. Something that drastically needs a fix and was ignored in patch 5 despite it being a major detriment to the game as a whole with balance. One of 5E's biggest benefits over the pathfinder system. Additionally they kind of took Wizards and gave them divine spell casting again breaking the rules of the mechanics in all genras of the game. No version of DND has generally allowed wizards to heal without multi-classing.

Graphics Drastically are better in BG3 however at the same time there is a lack of ability to customize your characters size /body type which is a downside this can be done without be commical just by adding body shape varients. Voices are extremely limited and I am a little disappointed by the lack of options for a roll system or the ability to customize your starting equipment. Both games lack in different areas of the character creation in different ways here. However overall the WOTR system currently is much better. Outside physical appearance customization. The portaits are also very limiting in WOTR which is a dissappointement however you can also upload portraits to the game files and get patchs of portraits for it.

Combat the amount of aoe effects / Barrel effects is too high in bg3. Its nice to be able to creatively take advantage of those in some fights but it can be carried too far right now the state of the game is too far status. The Food system made me strait up skip patch 5 as the system for recovery / rest and random encounters is much better than a food system for bg3. I feel a chance at random encounters would be a much better situation to resolve short and long rests than a system with food. The food system IMO is just stupid. Its a time sync that wastes valuable time to be enjoying the game and doing other things. It also removes chances for characters to get some variation and varient loot in there play through. This is something I personally think Larion is squandering adding some random encounters to the resting with a few generic map enviroments would allow characters to get some different stuff in play throughs and allows larion to expand possible items characters can aquiremaking the game feel much more unique than a 1 dimensional play through it currently has with things being static in most cases regarding magical items and fights / locations of fights.

Adding the diversity of random encounters throws off your entire grove and would make barrel mancy as you call it feel less of a thing it also gives them the opportunity to expand on terrain / different situations where encounters could have different advantages and disadvantages to players on the whole having a set of maps that generate randomly to an extent would help a HUGE amount with this It would also take away your ability to prepare for certain encounters.

4 Player party vs 6 player party this is another detriment to BG3 the 4 character party really limits what you can do with the group especially when you factor in mercenarys that were mentions down the road. Which is also in WOTR. Having that option for a custom party and having a 6 character party lets you get those story elements in with other characters and still lets you build the party the way you want. It also helps with having a necessary diversity to deal with different situations and encounters. Thinking of your typical party what comes to mind is wanting that diversity in your setup wanting 1 character to heal, wanting your skill based character in a rogue or a bard, your ranged caster, your melee fighter and your melee tank. + the additional off setting character who might be a ranged dps, a divine caster ect. There is more diversity options for you to customize your party the way you want to build it having a larger group.

Level limits - Right now BG3 doesnt have its maximum level limit additionall 5E is more limited in maximum levels than pathfinder is with a level 20 soft cap and with optional rules level 25+ epic boons. Pathfinder doesnt really have the same limitations as epic levels gives options to go much higher. Which creates obsurdity in creating challenge for characters your talking characters with virtual omni-slash casting wish twice a turn ect. BG 3 having a soft cap of what will probably be 12-16 with full release is kind of good it gives the game options for DLC content. I give BG3 a + for doing this. It also makes multi-classing more viable if they fix the other combat issues.

Back attacks and flanking. This is something else larion needs to address while i dont mind the height advantage personally and ability to take advantage of fights in combat. Combat should still require flanking to get a backstab effect. No Flanking no back stab. WOTR wins that argument.

Companions - Not a fair comparision here as well the game is currently much further along with WOTR. That being said Larion has a very long ways to go to catch up here and I personally feel there is so much opportunity for them to do this better than they currently are. But the characters that do exist are currently better fleshed out on the whole to an extent personality wise. Mounts do give WOTR some edge here as well however to fight back. Also what companions you like and dont like will vary from person to person personally I do not think asterion is my favorite companion so that's a matter of perspective. Like wise with quote "Waifu's". Matter of preferance that varies from person to person. I personally enjoy the stories for shadowheart and Wyll much more overall. #glad to see that shadowheart got some love but its not going to make me play patch 5.

Item state BG3 currently loses drastically. Additionally they need dye options for armor your character you want them to look a certain way its an important option to have. In addition to lack of diversity. Alot of items feel too generic as well like +1 flat bonus items just feel lack luster get more creative please.

Classes / Races - in the end BG3 probably should not try to be Pathfinder with classes but they should be much further along personally I think than they are currently considering both games entered development at the same time. BG3 should be pumping out the base classes like they are hot potatoes and I do think that given the time they have had in comparison to each other the level limits should be alot more in line. If you can hit level 6 off whats available it should be an option. I can get the time needed to work on multi classing but larion should be pumping out a core class /sub class every other month if not every 3rd month at least right now they are way behind based on what we can see in comparison to state of WOTR. Larion puts out 1 class WOTR puts out 3 classes and 15 subclasses in same length of time. Right now they are looking very very bad on this front. It does take time to flesh out but having it there sooner just feels good right now it feels like larion is focusing on things. Not all but a lot of people do not care about as much for early access. Things that get tuned more over time and ignoring larger issues which is why I skipped patch 5 myself all together. But have kept peeking back on. Given context of whats missing from the PHB BG3 should have more races than pathfinder in the end if larion follows through and there is opportunity to do a much better job on this again if they follow through. I will be dissapointed if we dont get Aasimar however despite that I dont see them being a priority to get pushed out. I think dragonborn should be next in line for both body type niche and to see if larion can handle putting out a monstrous race. As it could be very lack luster if they do a shitty job at it.

Good vs Evil - This is probably in the games biggest detriments currently right now BG3 good vs evil does not feel rewarding in any way. These choices should matter way way more there is no real strong feeling benefit to the choice to be evil over good currently. If anything it feels like you lose more by choosing the evil path and you detriment yourself. In some cases it doesnt even feel like the choice you make makes any difference at all its like do you want the cinnimon buns or the apple. Ill take the cinnimon buns...You recieve 1 apple. That is not a choice thats a masked forced decision...LAME. Larion really needs to get its act together on this and I personally would call them out on it especially with the pre-early access push with play the evil path we want to see what happens when people are evil...here I will say larion did a down right toilet job on this so far. Utter Garbage. There are games out there those choices really feel like they matter and that it changes the game this is not one of those situations. It feels like you either did nothing or you just got dumped on for being evil. Losing companions, Losing access to items. Why on earth would you want to be evil when you just lose out more and more in doing so. There are so many opportunities for them to do so much better with this it honestly makes me want to puke a little with just HOW BAD of a job they are doing on it. They could be giving you different Items for joining the dark side changing up your companions making you feel like those choices matter so so much more. Gaining characters like minthra, Kagha ect would make the game feel so much better in place of other existing characters because you chose a different path. Getting different quests from companions having different paths and avenues to visit. Maybe recieving an unholy weapon or getting special rewards for a different choice. Different shops. Different Locations to consider kind of like your home base. Changing the asthetics of things around camp. So many many squandered opportunities here. This is something WOTR has done a much much better job with despite I am not a huge fan of the mythic path system being so previlent in some ways it feels alot more like your choices matter. Choices should matter and there should be rewards and losses depending what path you choose it also again like random encounters adds a tone of replayability taking away from what feels like a forced path through the game. This is something larion really really needs to get there act together on and right now is probably in the top 3 things that really makes it feel like in the end BG3 might long term lose respect of players for doing a very bad job on. Choices feel weak.

I have not played Pathfinder 2 so can not really comment on that. Regarding your subjective taste on BG3 I will not either comment since all can give reviews as they want. Thank you for the review it was interesting to read and I respect your opinion though not necessary agree 100% with all things you said.

That said I find your estimate of max level for BG3 as level 12-16 to be at least slightly to optimistic from your view. Personally I have never liked super high level content unless you perhaps really earn it and it feels like a truly long time achievement. Max level what I believe in BG3 to be at full release is between level 10-14. Have I some inside information I know it will be so? No that is my best estimate and guess. Regardless if your or mine guess about max level is correct it is true BG3 could get an expansion that raise max level even up to level 20. However a possible expanison of BG3 is far in future and now want first full release of the BG3 game.

My estimate on BG3 full release date? No I do not know this either, but if I give my best guess on BG3 full release date October-December 2022 or between January-December 2023.

I generally don't have a stake in this particular argument as it boils down to encounter balance at the end of the day. But you are correct in that party diversity is going to be an issue when you compare a 4 person party to a 6 person party. I remember when PoE went from 6 party members to 5 in PoE2. It had a huge effect on the community's perception of class balance in the end. Classes with more generalized roles like Druid were suddenly seen as straight up inferior to classes with more specialized roles such as Wizards and Clerics in PoE2, and Rangers also caught some heat for KOed animal companions resulting in the ranger suffering significant stat penalties on top of that.

Personally, I run the following main party in WotR.

- Seelah (main tank/highly mobile melee bruiser when mounted)
- Camellia (front line sub-tank/melee damage/divine or nature-based caster)
- Ember (buffer/crowd control/debuffer)
- Eldritch Archer MC (hybrid arcane caster/ranged DPS)
- Arueshalae (pure ranged DPS/divine or nature-based support caster)
- Lann (pure ranged DPS/back line tank, specialized into shortbows instead of longbows)
(There is also the dragon Aivu as a permanent 7th party member, who acts as an AoE blaster and sub-tank with a spammable cone breath attack)

If I had to drop 2 party members from that setup for a 4 person party, I would most likely end up dropping Lann and either Ember or Camellia. Note that I have 3 archers in this setup, but all three cover distinctly different roles.

Meanwhile, I run the following in BG3.

- Bard MC (archer/support caster tank)
- Shadowheart (divine caster tank)
- Wyll (arcane caster)
- Gale (arcane caster)

Granted, I can replace Wyll or Gale with Lae'zel or Astarion for some much needed melee damage, though I'm not fond of them on a personal preference level. I would drop Wyll in a heartbeat if we got a Paladin or Druid party member. Assuming BG3 has a companion of all 10 base classes, my final party setup if we were to have a 6 person party instead would look like the below.

- Bard MC
- Shadowheart
- Gale
- Druid companion
- Paladin companion
- Monk companion

If I run a 4 person party, I'd most likely end up dropping the Monk and Druid. My original plan was to drop Shadowheart in favor of the Paladin to make room for the Druid, but it's now become blatantly obvious that she's meant to be BG3's version of Morrigan, and her presence in the party now comes off as absolutely essential for the story. (It's worth noting that I consider Arueshalae to have a similar role in WotR in terms of being 'essential', but not as much as Shadowheart.)

Admittedly, BG3's party diversity might only feel like it's in a bad spot right now because there are so few companions to begin with along with available classes at the moment. It's why I really hope that the next patch introduces a new party member (hopefully the Druid) along with a new class.

I mean, if my memory serves me well Wasteland2 and PoE1 met with major success on Kickstarter, and other titles followed, including Divinity: Original Sin (though whenever D:OS1 campaign is a direct result or just correlation is unknown to me).

D:OSs definitely stick out from “cRPG renesaince” as they are not nostalgia driven, and provided a different RPG experience, with innovative coop implementation. It doesn’t evoke fallout/baldurs gate/Planescape in a way that Wasteland2, Pillars of Eternity, Pathfinder or Disco Elysium do. So if for someone “cRPG renesaince” is all about recapturing the appeal of those classic cRPG then they do have a point. D:OS1&2 IMO are cRPG, as they too try to bring tabletop like experience into computer setting, albeit their approach is quite different and fresh.


That’s a bunch nonesense. If I remember Sawyer’s GDC talk correctly Obsidian invested into PoE2 far more money BECAUSE how well D:OS2 did compared to well received D:OS1, and they hoped for he same when moving from success of PoE1 to PoE2. Still, most of PoE2 must have taken shape before D:OS2 launched - games aren’t made within a year’s time.

Full VO was strain but it was a late addition, and therefore didn’t influence content - game wasn’t created with full VO in mind. It might have contributed to unpolished launch, distracting key devs from polishing other stuff, but that’s about it. Surprisingly enough, if there was a money sink that wasted money and manpower it were: ship-combat, and convoluted relationship system. Ship-combat being forced upon Sawyer from one of the higher ups in spite of it proving to be a unenjoyable money sink before fig campaign, and the other was well intention idea of Sawyer that turn out really really badly.

“Vision quests” in PoE2 are lame indeed, but that ignores sheer content and reactivity that Obsidian gave to companions in regular conversation, which tramps any other comparable RPG. Still, nothing works as well, as a satisfying story arcs, and those were missing in Deadfire, unfortunately. Personally, I would attribute it to lack of strong narrative lead - while I like Sawyer a lot, I don’t think he has a knack for storytelling.

I would say that Disco Elysium is as innovative as DOS2 or even more. Even though Planescape and DE are superbly written and more story driven/adventure RPGs, they have completely different settings, themes, atmosphere, art direction and play-style. It is a genuine original game, probably more than DOS2. Not like like BG/PoE or Fallout/Wasteland.The thought cabinet for example is genius mechanic (even though it could be more meaningful in the game).

Found this post.... responding to this now. I am curious. Pathfinder makers Owlcat said they would make Pathfinder 2 more easy from the ruthless challenge of Pathfinder 1. Well if nothing else then that make more settings you can change in settings to make it more easy. Personally I would dump somatic component (you need hand free for spellcasting) immediately at least in Solasta I got really annoyed by it. In real pen and paper a GM either understand in less then 3 seconds if I say I drop item and cast spell and many friendly GM do also ignore the somatic component rule in Pen and Paper Dnd sessions.

However I dislike a solution if you are forced to make challenge more easy from table top rules example enemies less hitpoints etc.
Well my question for Pathfinder 2 players since I have not played it is this:
Do you think the rules that are most close to real Dnd Rules are to tough challenge in Pathfinder 2 (well lets say you can ignore somatic component rule but everyhting else as in DnD Pathfinder)?

I am not talking about if you take most easy challenge level or most hard challenge level.
Well and is Pathfinder 2 any more easy then Pathfinder 1 in challenge combat?

I know that many player can say what is this I played through Pathfinder 1 no problem. Pathfinder 1 got much criticism due to a bit unpolished (bugs) and then to hard challenge level.

That's the first time I've seen that Disco Elysium video, and I am now reminded that I bought it nearly two years ago but never got around to playing it, even if I already recognize how genius that game's writing is. That talk at the beginning as I am watching the video about the position of dialogue boxes is actually really fascinating, and I agree that it's a far better approach.

I wonder how much Disco Elysium has sold? I know it got a huge boost out of winning the most awards at the VGAs two years ago.

Games journalism is a trash fire, but they're floating numbers around 2 million copies of Disco Elysium sold, and that was before the Final Cut release. It's unclear where they get their numbers.
As far as I know digital sales are hard to come by.

They're making a sequel, and they felt comfortable enough to go back and voice every line of dialogue, so well I think.

I'm not sure DOS2 is really a innovative entry into the cRPG canon, either in terms of narrative or combat, but I see a real effort to make a game with a sandbox environment that wouldn't break if you changed variables. Kill this NPC or steal their plot item and the game compensates for it, even if it doesn't drastically change the way the story goes. you'll never see: "With this character's death, the thread of prophecy is severed. Restore a saved game to restore the weave of fate, or persist in the doomed world you have created"

I think there's certainly been a renaissance of cRPGs lately but like with everything most of the stories are forgettable, and mechanically they're all variations of on the same game. Which means that the most compelling games are ones that put your party into interesting combat scenarios, Larian does pretty well with this, Pathfinder 1 I think did pretty well too, but I can't really remember most of the dungeons and bosses of any of the other games mentioned. (not that that is the last word)

The environment interaction, the surfaces (even if overused), the "tactical turn-based combat", the co-op experience brought some fresh air into CRPGs in a time when there was nothing really creative going on.

But Disco Elysium is far more original than DOS2, even if less influential. Calling a Planescape clone like Tides of Numenera is an insult to the game.

Who me? I love Disco Elysium, it's the future more than DOS2 could hope to be.

I was saying in the three ways I typically measure cRPGs: Story, Rules, and "Combat"/ Scenarios, most of the new cRPGs we've been getting in this post-Bioware era rarely have very interesting stories(though some interesting premises), the rules they use are reworks or responses to D&D 5e, which is fine but rarely innovative (and with the MMO-ification of things often regressive). Which leaves making interesting combat scenarios, DOS2's use of environment interaction did a lot to make its combat more interesting, and Kingmaker had some nice old-fashioned dungeons and monster puzzles, but their story and mechanics still were more a secondary concern. Unlike the Obsidian Bioware spin-offs that sold themselves as story forward companies, but didn't really deliver on what Rpgs stories should be working towards.

Disco Elysium is certainly my favorite RPG to come out in a long time, I like a classless skill based system, I liked how the skills interfaced with the story, I like how skills reacted to min-maxing, and I liked how it supported role-playing. I've heard people quibble with the 'mystery' at the center of the game but it was pretty clear to me early on the game wasn't really about solving a murder, even if that is your raison d'etre. I'd say Disco is the reverse of what I find lacking in the above, it's a story first game, with a innovative rpg system, the scenarios on the other hand, they're all bespoke, I still haven't made up my mind about it really.

Disco Elysium makes me wonder where the line between visual novel and cRPG is, especially in the wake of recent criticism of Bioware's stories being "Choose Your Own Adventure" games with a combat system to carry you from choice to choice.

Wait, you never played it? That's illegal. But yeah, you should. It's an instant classic.
In before Icelyn "I never played it but I prefer BG3".

Also, it approaches 40K Steam reviews at this point. Safe to say it sold a buttload of copies.
Still, not as much as DOS 2, which is now approaching 100K reviews.

It's not really a hard rule and there could be outliers, but as a general indication keep in mind that a lot of devs suggest to take the number of Steam reviews and multiply it by 50 to have a rough estimation of copies sold for most games.



I have no idea of what you are even attempting to ask, frankly.

I didn't hate it one single bit... But then again I listened to the warnings before starting the game and I played setting it to its easiest mode.
Maybe it actually used to be a pain at first.

Game was a crap show when it first launched cause they needed more funding. So people that picked up the game got a beta version. Tons and tons of bugs broken crap, missing feats (which i wouldn't be shocked if its still that was). They had exotic gear like Sai's an such at the small inn, but you wouldn't see a handcrossbow.

Been a real long time, generally what I remember before Uninstalling, never reached passed the first chapter.

I've said this before, pretty sure PFKM would be a more better comparison to BG3. Both games are a first and both seem to be a work in progress.

Well one more try.

If you choose dificulty settings in Pathfinder 2 as closes to real Pen and Paper DnD Pathfinder is that any easier then Pathfinder 1 when in Pathfinder 1 chose most close to real Pen and Paper settings?

I am curious because Pathfinder 1 got critism of being to difficult game.

Here a link to what people complained about Pathfinder 1:
Gamespot article named:
Pathfinder: Wrath Of The Righteous Won't Repeat Kingmaker's Mistakes
Pathfinder: Wrath Of The Righteous Won't Repeat Kingmaker's Mistakes

Ah now I see while you can play in Early access
Pathfinder: Wrath Of The Righteous full release date is Planned Release Date: 2 September, 2021

Well I guess I have to read reviews after release date.

My woke comments have nothing to do with gay? Why are you saying this? LGQBT people are incredibly welcome in my books and i wish them all the best.

The issue i have is an over-representation of wokeness in the game. The game should be all about quality content and nothing else. I dont want Larian to bend the knee to the woke cancel culture mob and make the game all about race and gender and racial diversity like Hollywood currently is. Hollywood is in the gutter because of this garbage.

Also woke-ness tries to undervalue masculinity. We need Masculinity for BG3 to work well 100%! Currently there are no masculine NPCS in BG3! WOTR has heaps of them. In BG3 we have woke Astarion who is more concerned about what color shirt he is wearing to a battle as apposed to actually winning it. Its a disgrace!
Trust me ditch the woke and the game will be FAR FAR FAR better!!!

WOTR has a wide range of race and genders as well. One if the characters is transgender. And you seem to have contradicted yourself if you say you have no problem with LGBTQ and then say it's woke to have a wide range of genders.

And I don't know what you mean by masculine NPCs. Halsin seems masculine to me. So does Zevlor, Arron, Aradin, and many others. All of them probably. Can you define masculine and what makes those examples not masculine?

Ok, why everyone talks about male characters as if only Astarion exists? Gale seems the kind you like. Also, Wyll looks pretty manly as well, if you want looks, and there are lots of side characters. What is masculinity for you? He-man like only? (Halsin sends his regards) And for women, teenagers perfect barbie faces kind of girls? Because that's what seems like, Shadowheart is beautiful, even if her personality is annoying. Gale looks really nice, and Wyll too. I don't get where you come with the whole woke on BG other than your limited knowledge from both games, WOTR has masculinity? where, on the portraits? because the models of characters are just bland cartoons like, and that's a fact.

I have some shocking news for you: I have played Disco Elysium!

Disco Elysium...Legendary. This game will age like fine wine. Up there with Planescape: Torment and Arcanum.

That's not what I meant to say, and didn't mean to belittle any of the games, and especially not Disco. But DE clearly bounces off Planescape - it is not imitation but the point of origin is pretty obvious. It succeess because it is different and full of its own ideas and identity rather then being derivative.

But it is following Infinity Engine's interest in storytelling and worldbuildong, where is I think Larian is more interested in the social aspect of an RPG - being with human buddies, and messing with each other doing silly things. I don't think that's something other RPGs focused on, even if they had multiplayer (can't speak for NWN - am not familiar with its multiplayer functionality). That's all I wanted to say, nothing more.

+1. I understand your reaction completely and you got my symphaty.
While Astarion you need to be blind if you dont see he tries to flirt with you... from the very beginning.
However relistically speaking do I believe he will be removed? No I do not that will happen the only thing Larian might maybe change (less then 25% chance that would happen I believe because many also like him I know that his Vampirespawn side is kind of another aspect more cool) is some of his dialogues I think they did change already some characters dialogues from the feedback by players they are to hostile towards the player.
The only thing I do not agree with OP is this strong masculine wish. The Druid Elf that can change into Bear and help in the Goblin area I complained myself he is to bodybuilder type for being Elf, but then some one explained that is subrace of Elf can be more like that but I think he is still to bodybuilder type for being an Elf and not Human or say Half Orc.

I dont get care how people are bodybuilder or say more nerd less strong they can still be my friends and if you read the info in spoiler about my real life friend two of them you might get very suprised.
Well and I go to gym myself though I am more fitness type then huge bodybuider type though I am fairly strong and I am respected in the gym.
Well and regarding Astarion he is a dex based Elf (and Vampire Spawn) Rogue and he does not have high strenght.
On the Rogue class In BG3 combat now that they have made so that backstabbing does not give advantage and on top of that pushing really requires good strength and based on weight of opponent (a Dragon impossible to push) Rogues are not Tier S (S as in SUPERIOR best tier) in BG3. That is good because Rogues certainly are not S tier in Dnd 5th Pen and Paper.

I have bought BG3 and I am interested to buy Pathfinder 2, but I think I wait for reviews after full release. Pathfinder 1 i do not consider it a great game and yes I played it but never finished it.
However Pathfinder 2 is improved better game then Pathfinder 1 was I get that impression clearly. While Pathfinder 2 have bugs it seems to have less bugs in BETA then Pathfinder 1 had at release.

That said is Pathfinder 2 super polished as in WOW MMO? No it has graphical bugs and other bugs they could still make it more polished for sure.

Well and the Pathfinder 2 they have made world more better looking and you can even replace character portraits to what you want.

Full stop on social politics regardless of which side of the isle you're on please. Thread will be closed if you can't keep it on topic.

Maybe some people are intentionally derailing the thread because they want to get it closed?

I think Pathfinder as a game, on its own will likely be a good game. The thing that ruins it for me is that Owlcat has elected to bundle optional materials with in-game items at significant cost. plus the cost for the 1st year of 'optional' DLC - even though that DLC is being developed at the same time as the primary game. Its basically $100 for the game in full.

I don't oppose DLC - but it shouldn't be this tiny piecemeal crap. I am hoping Larian does DLC that is entirely new modules separate from the main campaign. That's worth charging a significant price for especially for the multiplayer fans.

Owlcats pricing structure is something that I tie in with the general downfall of gaming and its a huge red flag - they will be selling "horse armor" DLC soon enough.

Oh please, this 'both sides' stuff is getting a bit old at this point. Many EU countries have laws against racist, sexist or otherwise discriminatory and hate instigating speech so, why can't Larian simply take a stand saying there is no place for discriminatory language - be it sexist, racist, homophobic, etc. - on their forum ? If we do not accept this language on our streets and in our workplaces, why should it be given a voice online ? Especially given the inflammatory and provocative tone of OP's post, this 'bothsidesism' seems a bit weak, a fortiori given the contrast between on the one hand the absence of any interaction with forum members from larian's part on issue directly related to the BG3 game (e.g. some mega threads were created but people are still left in the dark regarding Larian's stance or decision in these topics) while on the other hand from the moment some new account makes low effort troll posts Larian comes in to declare the issue taboo.

It would be nice if you did not get the thread shut down. You did see what the moderator wrote since you are directly responding to it, hartstikke bedankt.

According to the steam page, it looks like the DLC is being released at the same time as the game?? Ick; not a fan of that. While it doesn't necessarily mean that content was carved out of the base game and put into DLC, it does mean that development resources that could have improved the base game were instead poured into these DLCs. DLC development should be reserved for after a game comes out and bugs are mainly fixed.

I'm fine with Commander Pack bundle that gives artbook/OST/map & small in-game items; the main rewards seem to be the digital artbook/ost, with the in-game items being a bonus.

And +1 for punishing offenders instead of entire threads.

Then they may find that more than just a thread ends up closed.


I'm not one for saying things twice. 24 hour break to re-think how you act online for you.
Edit: Larian doesn't need to take a stand for discriminatory language, because for most of us, it's common sense and just... It has no place in a gaming forum; Everyone is welcome among us gamers, and that's a self-explanatory given. We'd rather moderate those who disagrees with that, because they are far and few between. Assume good intentions in the rest, until otherwise is proven. Off topic derailment no matter what it is, has better avenues online for it, than a gaming forum. People have derailed about gymnastics, female dancers, actual politics and other before, and that too gets a bonk on the head if it insists on continuing.


Larian hasn't been particularly huge on DLC in the past, at least by traditional means us gamers think of. Closest thing I can think of would be the gift bags for DoS2, which I wouldn't really say was DLC per se personally, as the original mods were already available on the workshop and nexus; Rather it was to port some of the more popular mods for console players to get in on a small portion of the modding fun too. Unless things have changed in partnership with WoTC, I'm much more inclined to suspect a definitive edition with more content and polished content based on how 1.0 went in player opinion, than extra modules added. (But it would be kinda cool to have post-content though, as long as it's additive and not cut out of the base game to be re-sold as "new content". But there's nothing imo to indicate Larian has gone down that dark path.)

?
Steam doesn't even list the DLCs for WotR yet. Only the season pass which is basically the preorder for the 3 following DLCs which will come later and not at release (some probably not even 2022).

So you are saying in regards to new - polished - modules we are more likely to get an entirely new game using the same engine than selling us a new module that can be added on. Or we need to look to modders to create that content.

And the expected Definitive Edition which will have new content.

This begs the question; is the majority of the work then creating the game story, maps, combat and dialogue or is it programming, bug fixing and modifying the actual engine?

Sure it does. Jump into the purchase page for the DLC and check the "About this content" bit

DLC #1

New additional campaign. Import your character from the main campaign to the moment of their greatest triumph — their victory over the Worldwound. Answer a plea from a powerful entity and leave Golarion behind to defend the space-time continuum against imminent collapse. Use your unparalleled mythic powers to do battle with truly invincible opponents. This additional campaign offers 7–8 hours of gameplay.

DLC #2

New additional campaign. The demon attack on Kenabres changed the lives of many. While the mythic hero and their loyal companions were busy liberating the city, the common folk had to find a way to survive, relying only on their humble skills.
Band together with other survivors and try to reach the Defender's Heart tavern, the last foothold of the crusader forces in the city. Choose who will join your group, and make difficult decisions about allocating scarce resources. Remember — in fire-ravaged Kenabres, every scroll and potion could make the difference not only in an individual fight, but also to your very survival. Act in the group's best interests or focus solely on your own well-being. Import your choices to the main campaign and look forward to seeing this story develop in other DLC. This additional campaign offers 6–7 hours of gameplay.

DLC #3

A new rogue-like mode with partial integration into the main campaign. In Alushinyrra's port, climb aboard a cursed ship that will transport you to a mysterious whirlpool lost amidst the Midnight Isles. Dive in and discover a dungeon whose proportions you can only guess at. Go exploring in search of glory, loot, and battles, and come face to face with a secret that will benefit either Nocticula, the mistress of the archipelago, or her enemies. The dungeon's levels, created using random zone generation, are populated with various enemies, devious traps, and secret rooms. You will return victorious to Alushinyrra — or else the cursed ship will return on its own, laden with trophies from the last expedition, to await new adventure-seekers.

Assuming that the confirmed mod support includes access to the engine as with Dos1/2, then I dare with some confidence predict that a ton of people are going to try and re-create various campaigns from D&D in it (or their own new original ones), no doubt in my mind. In fact I've seen several people talk about it and have plans already, should the opportunity present itself in the future.


Both, it's different teams and individuals involved in the particular roles, so... I wouldn't dare trying to guess any metrics on like "how much work" either is. I don't think they're even necessarily comparable. But I do know that the focus is on the main campaign for BG3 and all the work it involves, than anything else (such as other modules, GM mode etc). So if the focus isn't on GM mode, which you'd think be one of the big things people would want outside of a campaign, then I doubt much time goes elsewhere either. I'd like to dream about Larian realizing something I thought of earlier in Dos2's release, where most people that wanted to make a fully fledged GM campaign, ended up pretty much having to delve into the engine anyway; So personally I'd double down on improving the engine and make it more intuitive for content creation, so that most people with some intuition for software and technology can get into it and make their own Gm campaigns there instead. Fingers crossed...

Ah, gotcha. I was misunderstanding the release date of the Season Pass as the release date for the DLCs. Still, I dislike the whole "Season Pass" thing that's come to be common in gaming. It's worse than pre-ordering. I have faith in Owlcat to produce these DLCs (though not necessarily faith in their good quality, given the reviews of Kingmaker's DLCs), but still...there's a whole slew of games where Season Passes are basically scams. Just make the DLCs, then release them for purchasing, and eventually bundle them together when they're all released.

Edit: The level of detail on the Season Pass steampage (7-8 hours of additional gameplay) does imply that the DLC has already been significantly worked on. Which again goes back to my point, that working on DLCs before the game has even released is...ick.

Yeah the prioritization on the DLC does have me slightly worried. PoE2 did the exact same thing and we all know how that ended up. Though I don't think Owlcat's handling of it will be anywhere near as bad.

I would not hold my breath for the best mods for BG3. When Neverwinter Nights 1 was released a lot of people complained it was to extremely hard to learn to create mods. What you can play BG3 mods classes not yet released? They have not created anything! They found some pre super early alpha classes of them and when they eventually are really released by Larian they can be very different. Now it can take a long time even years from now 2021 before best mods come out. We already have a thread it is to difficult to create mods in BG3. Now Pathfinder 2 is great in that way it let you replace character pictures. I can do it by myself and when done rest assurred my game of Pathfinder 2 will be as "nasty" as Witcher 3 was regarding to content . What there is no point so small character pictures in Pathfinder 2 unless you play on 70 inch TV? I have some experience in this I would be content with showing upper part of body and Face picture of course then it is not so freaking small picture. Many people in real life take pictures of them showing only upper body and face.

I could see Larian releasing a tool liek NWN did to make own adventures. I don't know, if that is doable, but it would make sense in a game like this.

You remind me of Neverwinter Nights. I might be talking out my backside here, they made the tools for building things first, and then made the campaigns with them? That takes a very, very specific project direction which BG3 isn't on.

I don't think it's going to be anywhere near Skyrim levels of modding or Neverwinter Nights. I can't see Larian putting in a toolset to allow people to create their own campaign.

I believe only a very few games would be Skyrim lvl of modding. But I do think we will be able to get great mods, especially since this game is a more adult one, and that will def grab the attention of modders from all places. And besides, Larian seems to be very aware that the modding community can contribute to making a game live for years more with mods. They even take many mods from the community and turned them into official DLCs on DOS2. So I wouldn't worry about this, once the game is fully released I think we will have a great time in the modding area.


If I were you I would check the visual parts of the mods, yeah many things are being unlocked, but also being created, as hairs, textures, head meshes even, even with little support on an EA state. So I think once the game is fully released we will be able to see many creations from the modders.

If a game is loved by the modding community it will have wonders.

No 😫 . Please Larian when I did say best mods I want to have adventures as Newerwinter Nights 1 thank you. That is the best mods.

I suprised how no one has mentioend how tedious the first Pathfinder game was, not saying WOTR will be this way but I found the first one just such a slog...here is hoping its "sequel" will be better.

Maybe because a DLC in DOS2 where you are already maxed out during the main campaign wouldn't make much sense, but given that BG3's max level will for sure not hit 20, the idea of waiting 5+ years to max out my character is not very pleasant.

For me what made the first PF boring was the forced Kingdom management, that thing was boring, badly designed, and if turned auto mode could lock even main quests. I hated that, and guess what, we have a similar thing on WOTR. Here's hoping they've learned something, I did a little, but so far I can't confirm how much I will dislike it. Just that I already dislike it.

Max level in the game code of Dos2 is 35 (though that is because of crashing due to an integer limit), though it doesn't follow PHB so any level cap there is arbitrary. I can also think of many other purposes of a DLC other than meeting a level cap. I'm only saying I find DLC unlikely, as Larian is in my opinion more into making a complete game for what it aims to do, to begin with. But who knows. I'm not opposed to seeing content all the way to max level in D&D

Well BG3 will not have max level 20 or 35 at full release. Please read this I did answer this when someone guess that max level is 12-16. At one point Larian said max level will be level 10. However later they said that MAYBE a bit more. A bit more whatever that is (and it was maybe) is not level 20. They could of course with an expanison after full release make max level to 20.

Sven from Larian said this about full release date. We are very lucky if BG3 will be released in during 2022 and not year 2023.
Of course in worst case they could say during year 2023 that no sorry this will be relased 2024.

However my release date guess is based on what Sven from Larian did say in year 2021.

Probably because it wasn't.

Another big difference between BG3 and WotR is how the main character matter in the story.

In BG3 after 30 hours the main character has nothing special. He has no story, no background, nothing else to do or think about,... You're just playing the role of someone that has no role.

WotR introduce a very interresting story. Everyone has it's role in it. Every characters and companions are involved for a reason or another into this war and so is your main. From the beginning to the end every characters write its part of the stories / main quest / side quest.

The main character does not write a side quest but he's reacting a lot to others and he's writing the main story more...
Choosing a mythic path with it's own game/role play makes him very interresting (the commander of the fifth crusade, is that not epic ?)

In BG3 the main character has no background and no story except the same than everyone else.

20+ hours is too late to introduce the main character's specific role in the story. Owlcat understand it and introduce it right at the beginning. Larian does not and as a result, Tav is mercenary in the story.

I disagree. It's the same in DOS2 when playing as a customizable character, what I felt was freedom, freedom to do whatever the hell I wanted, take decisions I wanted without the whole, hmm, that doesn't fit this character, or having these choices doesn't even make sense, etc. I like the whole no background hero, because this way it's up to me, not the developer to create one.

However, you should also have in mind that no background is done yet, for any character, even the origin, this is something we will get at the full game, which seems to be a thing ppl is forgetting so much around here. We are on EA and have barely ACT1 complete, and ppl already want to judge or make comparison with games that are practically finished and days of release.

Freedom of what ?

Freedom of answering and rolling dices because you choose to speak with your main rather than someone else ?


I agree that Larian make a good job with how quests can be solved, sometimes depending your class or your race... It's very impressive and I'm still discovering new things.

But it does not prevent to have a specific role in the story. Like Shadowheart with it's artefact in exemple.
He could in exemple be the only one to make dreams and have special powers... We'll discover why later.

Now your character does not matter at all.
If you're not in the story, the story remains the same.
Why even play this character ?

You're not writing anything else than what is planned except for details. That's cool, but it's still details that does not make your character look invested in his quest. He's just another guy with a tadpole in it's head that does not find a cure and that's going to travel to the moonrise tower with his 10 mates.

You're even not really the leader or something.
You're just nothing. Just random Tav that has the exact same story as everyone else.

If this isn't freedom for you, to change from minor to big things, because your choices affect everyone around you in some way. I don't know what else to tell you. If what you want is already start doing choices that will affect the whole world like some legendary hero when you just started a game, I... have no idea how to respond to that too.
And if you think your Tav is nothing, that on you. I think my Tav is amazing and so far my favorite character in the game.

If your Tav didn't have an attractive avatar, what makes your Tav amazing? and why are they your favorite character in the game?

Well, if such an empty character is your favorite that's up to you.

Shadowheart with his artefact does not impact the whole world.
And if the artefact was in Tav's pocket for a reason we'll discover later it wouldn't have changed the world. Just the story of the artefact that would have needed to be a bit more different.

If you were the only character to make those dreams and have those powers, it wouldn't change the world at all.

I don't even understand why you're talking about legendary heroes.

Your Tav is not amazing. He's just the same as every origin character. He has the exact same story except that he does not have any side story. He's not special at all in Larian's campaign, he's only in your head.

Sigh... just go play whatever makes you feel good.

Interresting.

He wasn't disagreeing with you about the freedom thing. What he was saying is that this freedom shouldn't prevent your main character from having some sort of background so that the player feels like the story is about their character, that they *matter*, which, from what I can tell, is something BG3 isn't quite conveying. I think it's useful to take an example here. In BG1 when you start the game you discover that someone is hunting you and wants you dead but you don't know why. That makes you special. And it is hinted via conversations with NPCs and the journal that it seems something bigger is going on and somehow you are part of it. The game makes you feel you have a role in this story, just not exactly how. This doesn't prevent you from being able to be whoever you want, picking whatever dialog choices you want, etc. I haven't played BG3 EA but from what I've gathered some are saying that they lack this kind of impression of a "role" when playing BG3. You have the same tadpole thing as a bunch of other people, and there isn't anything that makes you more special than them - if you're taken out of the story there will still be a bunch of people with the tadpole thing for the bad guys to hunt.

@Terminator2020 larion did do a post saying the level count would be 11+ on the live release health break points could be seen at 12 / 16 In most cases feel it would come down to where they feel the break points would best fit to the levels vs class that came off the initial feedback being that level 10 felt underwhelming from there original tests. 12/16 are optimal with multi classing however if you wanted to look expansion wise 12 is better for optional DLC content. It was confirmed unless they went back on there word to be at least 11+ so I would lean more to 12 as that options 2 DLC content patches being optimistic. I dont see them doing 20 even if they have supposedly worked out how to best use the wish spell.

Regarding the release date they did say 2022 however I would think most likely based on rate of content looking closer to 2023 or even later which is not really a good sign IMO feels like they are focused to much on fine details rather than getting initial content functioning then fine tuning after the initial core content is built. Re-tuning story ect over time while more game options are available will bring more replays over time rather than focusing so much time retuning your creating more dead time / down time IMO for players small story changes with a lack of options coming from someone with over 400 hours play time on the game. Replaying again just doesnt feel worth it without like more mixed options for a couple of small changes. But again that can be subjective as my perspective will differ from some people.

@Saito Hikari - Honestly the classes vs party size has a huge factor on options for replaying I personally like having about 2 of the npcs in the party for most of the quest line stuff but with a 4 person party I often cut it to 1 and use multi player in its current state to resolve not having access to mercenaries. I just have pre-constructed lists for party members i send the numbers to friends they take 5 minutes and create the mercenary version of characters for me. However given full release with BG 3 and access to mercenarys I would probably tend heavily on multi-classing without level 20 access I would not feel as tempted to full class a specific class.

Having access to 6 party members creates more mix match combinations more things that you could explore the game with more builds you could optimize in different plays. Because your going to be able to build up different builds and re-explore those builds more you also going to feel better bringing more npcs with the previous build most of my time going to camp was just changing npc's for different sections of the game. Which would be a time saver having a larger party. I also feel that would be more expansive if they explored good vs evil options with companions which some people dont like because they want every companion but that does create options to play the game different ways and having that party size larger creates more times you can build your party the way you want and still enjoy the companion stories and interactions. Also everyone has there own way they like to play there parties myself I tend to a much heavier melee design in bg 3 often using a couple ranged attacks to reduce health and then doing big bust melee rounds. But its all flavor and there are easy ways to abuse ranged mechanics with level limitations.

Pathfinder is kind of a lot more difficult to develop really strong melee due to touch AC / vs normal AC mechanics and the way that pathfinder tends to develop a lot of the late game fights vs 5E where that mechanic is less of an issue. Its one of the issues with older mechanics not being as balanced class to class. But at casual playthroughs its not as much of an issue you can still enjoy playing the way you want a lot more so without planning for those more difficult fights.

Commenting on max levels if optional rules were used there are ways to kind of extend to level 25 which is more kind of level 30 as there is an optional rules book out there for 5e that does have level 21-25 as well as how to impliment epic boons for an additional sudo 5 levels so its kind of like level 30. But there is nothing that goes beyond that currently effective for 5E. Vs Pathfinder which there is an epic rules book that has no level limit. Similar to never winter which i believe has the ability to go up to level 40. No one really has ever tried to go beyond that on a pc game as really after around level 25-30 creating challenging fights just gets to be extremely pressing as your pretty much talking instant death effects in a lot of cases. Even over 15-16 its very challenging to create good high level encounters for players. A lot of Dungeon masters have difficulties after level 10. Which is why the majority of campaigns end around 10-12 for groups of people.

I have seen it where DM's have been like this is going to kill you if your not careful against parties of level 10 characters and utterly flopping against 1-2 over tuned characters. You can pretty easily pump out 100 damage in a turn with a level 10 character optimized. Which makes encounters very hard to balance without making the encounters very very difficult.

Looking at BG 3 I honestly think the minotaurs currently feel more like a level 5-6 encounter for most people where the spider felt that way more so in the initial play through. When I did that encounter during patch 4 vs the spider I cleared it without taking damage. Where the Minotaur encounter which i underestimated after my first playthrough I actually had to use a rez scroll on one character. With an optimized party.

i am checking out all the latest WOTR youtube videos now. I must say it looks incredible.

Has anyone played Kingmaker? I am thinking about playing it now i have never played it before? I loved DOS2 and Pillars Deadfire how does it compare to those 2?

What??? I am from Finland Europe and I do not understand what all you say sorry.
Right Tuco did not undertand as is from Italy Europe and one time did not understand.

Whatever you think max level is 12-16 and I think max level is 10-14. Whatever we will see
what is max level.

"Regarding the release date they did say 2022"
No last time they did say we are lucky if it in 2022 and during 2023.


Sven from Larian said this about full release date. We are very lucky if BG3 will be released in during 2022 and not year 2023.
Of course in worst case they could say during year 2023 that no sorry this will be relased 2024.

However my release date guess is based on what Sven from Larian did say in year 2021.

Can you please show me where Sven said that "we will be lucky if released in 2022?" This is not true all he said was "we are doing our best to have it released by the end of 2022".

Do I dont need to find that... you can find when during 2021 they did say year 2022.

EDIT I believe they have removed release date saying from the videos.
It was not in Panel 3 from hell or Bread and Butter video anymore. Likely they edited it and removed saying release date year.
I can not find anything. Well and any promise before year 2021 I consider bullshit if it is about release date.

We could as well then say UNKOWN release date... but sorry I dont believe it is during year 2022 unless very end of it like October-December 2022. I still also keep guess January-Decmber 2023 as good valid guess.

After playing a bunch of WotR, I find it incredibly difficult to go back to Kingmaker. WotR even in its unfinished state is a better game than Kingmaker in virtually every conceivable way. The leap in quality is comparable to the jump between DOS1 -> DOS2. Perhaps even beyond that, as DOS2 sacrificed quite a few things from DOS1 (as in crafting and actual dangerous exploration) in order to focus on the combat design, while WotR didn't really sacrifice much of anything at all.

Like I already have 275+ hours across all of the alpha and beta phases of WotR. I only have 180+ hours across my Kingmaker playthroughs in comparison.

If you do intend to get into Kingmaker, there's a few things you'll probably find very questionable, the kingdom management system foremost among them. But it adds quite a lot of weight to the narrative, IMO. The first time I played through the game, the combination of the aytpical story along with the gameplay structure was quite intriguing, and I did feel a great sense of accomplishment when advancing into each chapter, much more than I had felt in any cRPG previously.


I think this entire argument should be approached from a different angle. In WotR, your player character is really just a nobody that got railroaded into being something special due to factors also completely out of their control if you really want to deeply analyze it. Though there is one fundamental difference there, the powers you have are truly yours to mold into whatever way you see fit. It's too early to see if you can do anything similar with the tadpoles, or if it's going to be a binary 'get rid of them ASAP or embrace them' thing.

Anyway, the real point is that the true difference is in the presentation, and it all goes back to how the party interacts with each other and the rest of the world - and everyone already knows my thoughts on how WotR is leagues ahead of BG3, if not all other cRPGs thus far in this category. Even though your character's story is somewhat railroaded as hell in WotR outside of choice of mythic path, the actual dialogue options you can have are quite varied since it's a game that places quite a lot of emphasis on alignment. The way that the party members and supporting cast interact with you and each other makes your character feel like someone that is an integral part of the group for very personal reasons other than being the obligatory party leader, and it gives off the impression that you and the rest of the cast have always been a part of that world, no matter how differently you fight or role play in each playthrough.

BG3's party in comparison feels like a group of annoying tourists getting into everybody's business and making up plans as they go along in comparison.

That said, BG3 -can- stand out in different ways in this category, without having to play follow the leader in regards to the other cRPGs or something. There are ways to add a lot of subtle reactivity that goes a long way towards reinforcing a character's development. For one, certain party members could have unique combat lines when attacking or encountering specific enemy types. Wyll could have quite a bit to say about the goblins he's attacking. Or Gale could be utterly freaked out by the Beholders. Lae'zel could try to act tough in front of the Minotaurs, and so on.

Although once again, I am someone who places great value in world building and how it is presented, enough to pick up and care greatly about such subtle means of character development and world presentation. And honestly, BG3 hasn't really done very well in the world presentation part, as it doesn't really convey the sheer scale of the setting or give you any reason to care about anything beyond your immediate surroundings. Though this will likely change over time, considering the current setting isn't very conducive to such things.

Haha, was going the write the exact same; PRECISELY. While Pathfinder was far from a perfect game, wasn't at all <tedious> to me. Base game already pretty great, and a few great mods fixed so many issues I had.
Man Im really PUMPED for WotR. Tons of new class builds Id like to try out...
As for BG3...I just dont feel the appeal anymore...since I dont like the few playable NPCs with have, and our own hero has NOTHING special, no great story going for it. And were getting what, max 3 more companions? ...and a <couple> more classes it seems?
Classic case of : Cinematics/Graphics >> Content??

I've been playing PK. ~170h so far, first playthrough, doing the end chapter rn. I first tried this game 3 years ago when it was first released then gave up cause I wasn't able to cope with the difficulty (trust me, this is saying something, coming from me). I only gave it a second try recently also because I was hyped by WotR. Only playing on normal (Challenging, to be precise, but with "normal" enemy stats) and I've been enjoying it. A lot, in fact. A shame the ending portion is such bullcrap that killed essentially 95% of my enjoyment and 40% of my motivation to replay the game, despite all the build ideas I've been having and thought I'd like to try. I'm actually redoing the entire ending section a second time, cause I'm not satisfied with the fact that I ran out of patience and lowered the difficulty to Story mode just to get through the ending portion in a "no longer caring what happens anymore" kind of mood.

How does it compare to DOS2? Very different. To Deadfire? More similar, but PK is more brutal, has more complex mechanics, awkward pacing, with a hit-or-miss "kingdom management" thing. Also, this is only my 1st playthrough and my party doesn't have a dedicated spellcaster, but I find PK is more "brawn" oriented - as in, it favors physical combat over magic. PoE is more balanced between brawn and brain. I may do another playthrough with a dedicated spellcaster and may change my mind, though.

Lol i completely agree man the NPCS in BG3 are just way to politically correct and woke for me. Larain need to re-invent the wheel with this crap they have produced. They need a complete over-haul 100% i completely see where you are coming from.

So do you reccomned i play Kingmaker or not? Maybe i just save myself for WOTR? To get a full new raw experience or should i play Kingmaker?

I still legit don't know where this woke talk is even coming from, nor why a couple of posters keep trying to rail the conversation back towards that topic after a mod legit told everyone to stop. It's almost like this thread was made for an entirely different purpose, because literally everyone who has played the WotR beta would argue that the actual comparison of where each game lies on that scale is actually the opposite.

To continue on the whole 'BG3 isn't really representing the sheer scale of the world it's taking place in yet' topic, you can see this in the companions. Out of the five known companions, we have...

1 Half Elf
2 Humans
1 Elf
1 Githyanki

Among the known datamined companions, we have...

1 Tiefling
1 Human
1 Halfling
(One of the most requested NPCs to be turned into a companion is another Elf. A buff one, but still an elf.)

WotR in comparison has...

2 Humans
2 Mongrelmen (mutually exclusive choice, in reality you only really get one in your party)
1 Aasimar
1 Tiefling
1 Kitsune
1 Dwarf
1 Gnome
1 Half-Elf
1 Elf
1 Succubus

More pillars than DOS. They even have both a turn based and real time mode.

Yes. Best RPG in recent years.
No idea why people have problem with the Kingdom Management, its rather easy.

Just don't forget that you have a (generous) time limit for main quests so after chapter 1 it might be best to do them early/first and save side missions for later.

I agree that Kingmaker is worth playing. It's a fun game and I actually quite like the kingdom management. It can be awkward early on before you know what you're doing with it, but once you've got your head around it and have a good number of advisor slots filled, it's not really that difficult, though I can totally understand why some people don't really click with it. However, I think that the game would be much lesser were it not for the kingdom management aspect. I love that the game puts as much emphasis as it does on running the kingdom and developing it. The story is unmistakeably about being a ruler, and all the main quests and such revolve around that to some extent. They're almost all things you get involved in specifically because you're a ruler and you have to deal with them to care for your nation. The main quest itself is inextricably tied to the fact that you are in charge and have to deal with the slings and arrows of ruling. I think that without kingdom management as a thing to engage with, it would be too easy to feel like you're less of a ruler and more of an errand runner.

As for comparing WotR with BG3, I think that it's a fair comparison to make, fairer that Solasta and BG3 even, since I think these games are both on the same scale. And I for one am looking forward to WotR way more than BG3. I don't think BG3 is bad, but it definitely appeals to me way less. This is my purely subjective opinion, but looking at them both, there is nothing in BG3 that I think is going to be better than WotR. Even the graphics, while they went in different directions I feel like WotR looks more interesting and engaging overall than BG3. I know it's not entirely fair to judge given how far from release BG3 is, but at this point, while I look forward to full release, I'm not convinced that I'll actually complete it. Where that is not a worry at all for WotR.

If it's to know another decent cRPG, to get yourself familiar with the rule set, maybe to appreciate WotR even more because it sounds like WotR is much better, then sure. To avoid that possibility of playing WotR first then when you try to play PK you realize that you just can't get into it because it's "inferior". AFAIK this and WotR are two separate stories so no worries here (though WotR does get referenced in a kingdom event which implies these two games take place at the same time). Just take a bit of caution with you, cause this game can be pretty brutal. It has a tendency to be really great one moment just to hit you in the face hard right after. This is based on my personal experience as well as what many have said in their feedback. Take it slow, learn stuff, be patient (I'm assuming you're not a 3.5e expert who knows the rules inside out) and this game can be really fun. It got quite a few things right in terms of "design spirit" which should make you hopeful about the sequel.

On that note, to be fair PF:WoTR has a 6-man-party so it´s logical that they have more companions and are more varied, but also you can say that it was a bg3 design choice to do so.

As a D&D fan I found the world presentation in BG3 is adequate, you have continuous references to the lore, other campaigns of Wotc, and some inside jokes, so I found it familiar and cozy.
But I do not know if for people that are not interested in D&D or do not have previous knowledge of the setting; the worldbuilding makes the players invested enough in the world of bg3.



Oh yeah, definitely, it´s a very good CRPG, but it´s somewhat hard and unforgiven, mostly because they do not explain very well basic mechanics; and has a steep learning curve in harder difficulties. Think dark souls Mets nwn2.
Many people like it, some do not. I kinda like the kingdom management, I like strategy games, but there is an option to turn it off/automatic mode if it´s not up to your tastes.

That said, I agree with @Saito Hikari that said Wotr is superior to the previous game. They take the first game's foundation and built upon it to make it better. Kingmaker has some complicated mechanics ( it´s based on pathfinder tabletop, very faithfully) but they have little on the tutorial side.
WOTR makes better work explaining the game mechanics and it´s definitely more newbie-friendly.
My recommendation? unless you have previous knowledge of the pathfinder tabletop or you are patient about getting your ass handed in a game every hour or so; start with WOTR, the beta is on, and the game comes in September the 2th. They have better tutorials.
Once you master the game mechanics, definitely try kingmaker. The base game and the two stand-alone expansions are fun to play and have ties to the main campaign. The third expansion adds yet another companion(s) and questline to the main campaign, one of my favorites.

...Or just try kingmaker, after 3 years there are plenty of guides, or ask for advice in the discord or the owlcats forum. There are nice people there.


Another poster @TrytoHanding stated that the game ís very battle-oriented and brutal and yeah, it is depending on your difficulty options, but with options to roleplay in the middle, plenty of dialogues, exploration, and high skill usage. I do not know about the characterization that the game is very warrior-oriented. I finished once the game with a party of 5 bards just because.
You can build your party around might or magic, or mixed, all very powerful. As in many games and tabletops, magic-users may reach their full potential a little later, but when they do...let´s say there are one-shotting, enemy-wiping, deadly magic combos. And you still need magic to buff your party, protect them against enemies´ debuffs and kill some enemies that are impervious to physical attacks.

i learn the rules from pathfinder kingmaker myself before going to wrath of the righteous. both has it's magic feeling for me. i love the characters in kingmaker. as for wrath, it's more of a dark grittier games. in terms of gameplay i would say wrath of the righteous is really what i enjoyed most especially with the mythic powers.

and the musical score is really meant for angel mythic paths i would say. if anyone decide to play wrath, i would suggest hold on till official release in september and choose the angel mythic paths. it was a truly heroic and the feeling of righteous in me (the musical score made it so epic).

edit
basically back on topic regarding the comparison to BG3 i would say.. Larian has the technology and resource (their game engine, visuals, verticality, bigger budget, AAA), if these were given to Owlcat games that will be really awesome. i only completed BG3 EA once and shelved it already. compared to playing wrath of righteous, that keep making me replaying for many playthroughs with wrath of the righteous. also latest beta seems to impressed me how much visuals has been improved as well from beta2 to beta3.

I think the comparisons and recommendations between Kingmaker and WotR are going to end up being the same as DOS1 and DOS2.

If you can only play one, pick the second game. Then pick up the first game afterwards if you are interested in seeing how everything started, and to compare and contrast the two games.

In the case of Kingmaker VS WotR, Kingmaker's gameplay pacing is basically main story -> downtime/exploration phase -> next chapter main story -> etc throughout most of the game. It has a somewhat open world structure too. WotR is a much more linear game with almost no downtime between each story beat, and also features a lot more proper dungeons and miniboss encounters as a result. Though while it is more linear and the game is said to be shorter overall, it also has more divergent path choices compared to Kingmaker.

Yeah, also they improved the dialogues, NPCs and the writing and voice acting overall, being a more story-driven game than the Kingmaker campaign; with more roleplaying options and unique dialogues for race, class, alignment and path, at least I am enjoying it.


I forgot: in Wotr you technically do not have 5 companions in your party plus your MC, you have 5, a very talkative weapon (Finnean even interjects in banters) and optionally

Not only was P:Km NOT tedious at all and quite fun to play, since we're comparing, for me D:OS was the poster-child game for tediousness and boredom.

This review is spot on. I'm also used to playing CRPGs on the highest difficulty settings and the beginning of Kingmaker on Hard, which is not even the highest difficulty setting, must've been the hardest game I've ever played. After level 5 or so my build started to get broken, so the rest of the game was relatively easy.

I'd say that because of the stat bloat Kingmaker is not a game that encourages experimentation, since even on Normal a non-optimized character will suffer. A shame considering the endless possibilites you have.

Other than that, the game is too long clocking close to 200 hours if you want to try to do everything (which I always do), which kinda undermines replayability as well. If all this time was spent on quests and combat it'd be cool, but dozens of hours were spent in main quest downtimes and kingdom management, which I thought was boring.
Still, for CRPG fans is a must play, there is too much good stuff in there. @teclis should definitely check it out and play at least (and most likely only) once.

Even loving PFKM, which I do a lot, it's easily one of the best games I've played in years. The later acts, and having to spend so much time in the kingdom management are painful. I replayed a few times because builds are amazing, but only after I got mods to fix the management, make it simpler, so I could enjoy the story and explore more.

And I remember having to literally abandon my first try when reaching Act 2 because the difficulty is over the top for any new player. Like. I was playing on normal, had no many clues about builds, etc, and was being massacred, especially because the game likes to throw dozens of enemies against you all the time, and not actually give any real placement, or strategy on the field, etc. All you have to do is buff before going to battle and prepare skills to counter what is coming. And as said above, the last part of the game is simply brutal if you're not a maniac for rules, micromanagement, know every move an enemy can do, etc. And that's even on normal difficulty. The last boss I gave up and went to story mod in my first time finishing the game even with good builds, because I just got frustrated with how many enemies kept coming and how strong even minions were.

In this, DOS2 and now BG3 is so superior, you can plan before starting a battle, strategically put characters in specific places to take advantage, control enemies, cut their movements by blocking their passage to reach you using the scenery, objects, the number of ways to approach even hardest enemies or numerous ones are amazing. As in DOS2, I have so much more fun in combat that I can't stop playing.

I won't talk about the story or characters anymore, since it's controversial and one game is finished and the other doesn't even have full ACT yet. But gameplay-wise, BG3 is far superior and fun just like DOS2 was for me.

This as a reminder. I am sorry for old posts. Simply lets agree UNKNOWN BG3 release date though I still guess this. I can not find any single reliable release date for BG3 anywhere. I know Pathfinder 2 will be released in September 2021.

However what I still find Sven Larian said there is coming light in the tunnel things are getting slowly done. Well so I do not believe BG3 postponed to year 2024 release date.

I have raged at a dumpsterfire that is Kingmaker's campaign enough times, to feel like I am repeating myself too much.

Snide comment, your builds probably weren't that good if you couldln't beat the last boss without going to the easiest difficulty. I mean, insane, or whatever it's called, is easily the most artificially hard difficulty i've ever faced in any game ever, for the first 20-30 or so hours the game literally plays against you and the only way to advance is RNG, but everything is still doable and everything still turns into a cakewalk (with proper managament) at higher levels. I can't imagine anything that could get through that (a good build) not being able to get through normal difficulty.

I do agree the gameplay is not all that accessible, though. But then again, as far as i'm concerned, it's not that bad of a trade considering how many things you can do in that game.

Pathfinder 1 was no success game (well not complete failure either more like average game) or AAA game though yes I also played Pathfinder 1. Swarmed with bugs, below mediocre graphics and effects well and then to open world feeling (I don´t like Skyrime to sandbox for me) for me with annoying fast travel map.

Many also complained to hard challenge though personally that was not the issue I quit Pathfider1 (did not find it to hard) and never finished it and it felt lackluster to me much like Solasta does for me. Well though Solasta annoys me with other ways (example Solasta is filled with annoying riddles), but you can read that in the Solasta thred.

Based on how Pathfinder 1 was I would not buy Pathfinder 2, but to my understanding Pathfinder 2 should hopefully be clearly better. Well though I think I wait for full release Pathfinder 2 professional reviews before making any decision to possible buy it.

Well and I do finish playing through some games like example Pillars of Eternity 1.

How the fuck Kingmaker wasn't a success? It sold around 2 million copies, considering the game was sold at 40 dollars, that's US$ 80 million in revenue for a game that cost 900k to make.

for anything Terminator says, just add "in my humble opinion" and you'll get along with them more

Hey, "in my humble opinion" PF ranks pretty high. the more derisive adjectives he uses to review a game, the better the game end up being for me. He should be making "raging nonsensical reviews" more often. Going pro even.

While I agree with the general sentiment, for 900K you would have maybe the character creation and tutorial of Kingmaker. It costed a lot more.
Still impressive what they managed to achieve on a tight budget, anyway.


And yeah, keep in mind that Terminator2020 is one of these weird people that seem to think that dismissing and shutting down any other title on the market is some sort of moral obligation as "true BG3 fans" or something.

Well professional game reviews and community feedback. I played it and never finished it. Yes even I got interested to buy because slightly reminds of old BG games and then a version of Dungeons Dragons. I played WOW MMO for over 3 years happy and satisfied more or less and I got so annoyed and bored in Pathfinder 1 that I never finished it. Well fine I can admit that if you play Pathfinder 1 now it has less bugs when it was released. I played Pathfinder 1 immediately when it was released with lots of bugs. Well so nowadays when bugs fixed more or less better then when full release was.

Google has it where 91% liked Kingmaker. Steam has it as mostly positive with 78% liking it.

Personally I like it but never finished it. Will finish it eventually

Kingmaker on release wasn't finished. (For me it couldn't be played beyond Act 1) but playing it now is a totally different experience. Keep that in mind when listening to reviews of it.

Also, If you like WoW then your RPG expectations are I would guess diametrically opposed to Kingmaker's design.

It was roughly 7/10 at full release professional reviews and I agree on that. Wait super good why have you not finished it if it is so good .

I don't know a lot about the different classes and all that. Already bought WOTR. Will probably play that first

Yes ok I have never said Pathfinder 2 is bad. Likely hopefully Pathfinder 2 is better then Pathfinder 1 I will wait for professional reviews. Well it is true WOW MMO gamplay is different. However It did play through many older games and then Pillars of Eternity. I would say POE reminds of Pathfinder more or less at least. Well though POE is not Dungeons Dragons ( but reminds lot of Dungeons Dragons) it reminds more of Pathfinder then say DOS2.

+ WotR also managed to raise more money on kickstarter than DOS2 did. Though I also remember it got a substantial boost from the reveal of turn-based mode being supported at launch, along with BG3 being revealed to be exclusively turn-based while the kickstarter campaign for WotR was still running. I think a lot of the hopes behind WotR doing well is a recognition that somehow, the Pathfinder games have become the last remaining major cRPG series to carry the RTwP torch.


I'm not even sure how WoW is really relevant to all this. Game has a nonsensical excuse plot at this point, and it even having a place in a talk about cRPG design is incredibly demeaning to the cRPGs.

FF14 on the other hand molded me into someone with a great appreciation for world building.

Whatever fits your nickname while your location is CZE your nickname sounds Asian . WOW vs Final Fantasy MMO is offtopic though nowadays WOW number 1 and FFIV MMO second in popularity of active players. I am not interested in them now but Ashes of Creation MMO due to PvP interest me a lot but that release date is far in the future. Oh and I did see WOW movie in cinema and liked it very much and saying it has no lore or story is bullshit. Now these games Pathfinder 2 and BG3 are different kind of satisfaction I am interested in them due to the PvE content though BG3 you can play single player or up to maximum 4 players cooperative multiplayer. Lol Pathfinder 2 is not so close to old BG games. Why does it not support cooperative multiplayer? There is nothing wrong play solo games, but to add cooperative multiplayer as an option would be great improvement to Pathfinder games.

Any game where you have to look into supplementary material to understand the in-game story does not have a place at the table when we talk about good narratives. And a big part of the current exodus from that game is also fueled by a big plot thread having a very disappointing conclusion after about a whole year of no new content beforehand. I see the situation there and realize that our 4-5 month wait for new content in BG3 was really nothing in comparison.

FF15 fell into that greedy trap of supplementary material, and people rightfully slam it for that. The real reason people have high hopes for 16 in particular is that it's being helmed by actually competent writers from the FF14/Ivalice teams, despite its seemingly generic fantasy look at first glance.

And my name is a direct reference to a much older game series that has long passed its time, with one of the most intriguing hybrid real time action-RPG/turn-based deck building combat systems I've ever seen, more than anything else. Really the only deck building game I actually liked. I naturally gravitate towards any game with interesting world building or exceptionally well designed combat systems on a mechanical level, though I wonder why I never discovered the glory of cRPGs earlier than DOS2's release.

(I still need to actually play Disco Elysium. A cRPG going all in on the writing without any traditional combat is also just as novel, and many people don't even have to play the game to recognize its genius. A single screenshot seems to be enough to convince me how good it is.)

On the topic of multiplayer, implementing multiplayer is a big investment. Most cRPGs are Unity engine games on top of that. DOS, DOS2, and BG3 aren't, so it's almost like Larian had to build a new engine for the purpose of multiplayer above all. Coincidentally, the company behind the Unity engine recently acquired a company called Parsec, of which I had only heard about it very recently as a third party method to play Solasta as a multiplayer game. From what little I've looked into it, it appears to be a screenshare sort of thing for the purpose of multiplayer gaming? It makes me think the acquisition could have something to do with implementing native multiplayer support into the Unity engine, which could result in multiplayer support for cRPGs not being such a hurdle to implement in the future.

Well I find this talk about Final Fantasy so "great" BLAH BLAH boring. I do agree BG3 should really add more content to Early Access next patch 6 like a new class release and perhaps more. I think they sorry waste slightly ( well not saying hate it find it more like average) their time with those Panel from Hell newest one I did not even look on it through when they did their live roleplaying in castle though I did listen to info about the game. Simply please add more content like example classes Barbarian, Bard, Monk, Paladin and Sorcerer at least one of them to next patch.

Well sure add multiplayer would increase the budget of Solasta or Pathfinder games, but even ancient old BG1 supported multiplayer in LAN. Well and Neverwinter Nights 1 is old today, but it supported multiplayer with lots of players in player driven servers.

I will make a rant of POE (PILLARS OF ETERNITY 1 and 2), Solasta and Pathfinder 1 and 2.

They advertize we are like games like Baldurs Gate 1 and Baldurs Gate 2.

A complete lie!

BG1 and BG2 support multiplayer.

There is a trend of we are new game company then lets make a Kickstart and then release a game with average graphics (or worse Solasta is ugly) and not MULTIPLAYER.

BG1 an BG2 are 5 STAR CLASSICS: Sorry none of the above games I consider truly 5 star even though I finished playing througyh POE games that I consider 8/10. Solasta is so freaking boring and average that I have not yet even finished it full of riddles that I hate consider it 6.5/10. In POE1 and POE2 you can manually change your character portraits to whatever you want. That is impossible in Solasta that generates it from they ugly doll like characters.

I mean, it's doing Planescape again but without crappy bits that no one liked. I need to give DE another go, now when it got new content.

Just bought it yesterday. Enjoying it and highly recommend. Writing is great so far. Very immersive imho. And darkly funny. Inspired to buy by a video posted in this thread! And the current sale price on Steam.

Never played PWoR…reviews in here at least seem pretty mixed. But might give it a go if BG3 Patch 6 does not have the Sorcerer or Monk class.

Something I love about WotR; Combat is turn based AND realtime with pause! Pick witch-ever you prefer during battle.

Nice to hear that. Again, Planescape and DE are very different titles, the only thing in common they are text heavy and isometric. As a player, you get two completely different experiences.

Well, you're a corpse trying to piece together you're identity after a traumatic event, with serious philosophical divergences. Disco deals a bit more with political philosophy (though not entirely seriously).

That is an oversimplification. PST is more much more lore-based, party-based, explores completely different themes and the writing style/narration also differs vastly. And I am not even touching the atmosphere, art-style and mechanics. There are plenty more differences than similarities.

I would describe PST as surrealistic and DE as psychedelic.

It is pretty obvious that DE initially was inspired by Planescape. Which is completely fine in my book. It is a game that scratches that Planescape itch, but also tickles another part of the brain at the same time. And the artwork is gorgeous to boot.

It is interesting for me with BG3…it scratches the Dragon Age and DOS itch more than the BG itch imho. Which is…what it is, I reckon. Perhaps that is why there are so many posts like this one…ie, comparing it to games that folks feel are more faithful to what they hoped it would be. But that is likely an oversimplification.

I mentioned somewhere else that Act 1 reminds me most of the escape from Irenicus' dungeon, with everything possibly coming to a head at Moonrise. I think I feel that way because the initial dungeon crawl is a very on-rails segment of that game (as you might expect in the beginning).

Everything in the Grove area is very fun and interesting, there are a number of ways to resolve the grove-tiefling-goblin conflict but I still don't feel the same kind of gratification I did in Baldur's Gate discovering things while trudging through the Terra Incognita, nor the sense of activity and possibility that could be found in every nook and cranny of Athkatla in BG:II. I don't know why that is, there's hours of quests and NPCs to find in the EA, I wonder if my perspective is skewed now because of how much time I've played in it.

The EA isn't really about giving us a feel for the game, it's about testing encounters and finding broken features, so I feel most of the 'comparison' threads are premature; but what do I know.

Another factor is how much you see being set up in EA, that will pay-off later, leaving you with a lot of things to speculate on.

BG1 and BG2 have multiplayer. BG3 have multiplayer cooperative up to maximum 4 players. There is nothing wrong playing solo games. Well even I that will play with my brother and a friend will also play single player BG3.
This because it can be difficult to agree with other people when to play. Well and most likely I will not play exactly same Class in my single player and multiplayer in BG3.

Well since old BG1 and BG2 games did not support PvP multiplayer I do not think BG3 need to have PvP.

You Tuco lol hate all MMO games World of Warcraft MMO, Final Fantasy IV MMO, Neverwinter MMO and in future release date Ashes of Creation MMO. Those MMO games can give PvP.
Well not that I am against PvP as I have said for example Neverwinter Nights 1 support PvP in multiplayer and why I want to play Ashes of Creation upcoming MMO is mainly due to the PvP content. If Larian or Owlcat would suddenly decide their games will have PvP multiplayer I would be surprised, but I would accept that.

Well and have I never been very negatively against Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2. No I played them and consider them 8/10 very good games. Unfortunately POE1 &POE2, Solasta, Pathfinder 1 and Pathfinder 2 do not support multiplayer. Solasta looks ugly however POE1 and POE2 characters do not look ugly and you can even change character portraits if you want to do that. That is impossible in Solasta. Solasta generate the character portrait from their ugly 3D dolls.
In Pathfinder games you can also change the character portrait which is good. That is impossible in Solasta and I know you are fan of Solasta.

However since BG1 and BG2 supported multiplayer, but never supported PvP it would be enough for me if Pathfinder games would support at least cooperative multiplayer play that would be very nice improvement.

Gotta agree with Terminator on this. Lack of Multiplayer is fail. Glad there is somebody besides me that is an advocate for strong multiplayer in RPG's and BG3.


Any RPG that has multiplayer > any RPG that doesn't.

And hey, nothing against single player, but my experience has been that multiplayer comes significantly closer to replicating a TT experience.

Also - and this is just a personal opinion - I think that multiplayer leads to a healthier gaming environment when you interact with other human beings. I am not saying that the single player nation is a bunch of weird anti-social trolls that hide from sunlight and feast on human flesh but there is an unhealthy side to gaming that lack of human contact exacerbates.

Gamer toxicity is a thing - and while I don't agree with the crowd that likes to blame video games for everything bad that happens in the world - I also think that its important to have a healthy relationship with them.

Its really unfortunate that Owlcat didn't take the extra time to implement multiplayer.

Wrath of the Righteous (the game, not the module) is written specifically as a single player cRPG: Mythics has been modified to suit a single player campaign of 1 player + their followers. You are the commander of an army with super powers which by association your followers gain some measure of these powers: its not a group of adventurers, and while the 1 person in charge + their followers can work in TT session, the entire plot has been modified to prioritise the single player RPG experience, and it does it very well.

That makes any idea of multiplayer, beyond the obvious difficulties in implementing it, at odds with how the story has been laid out and how the Mythic mechanics have been designed for the game.

edit: whoops, this sounds like im being dismissive, what im trying to say is that owlcat have gone down a route of writing specifically for a single player experience, while in contrast larian's writiers are clearly intending for plot-congruence in both both single and multiplayer: everyone gets a tadpole style.

The thing is BG1 was also optimized for a single player experience. Only the 1st player was the Bhaalspawn and everyone else was a support character on that main quest when you played multiplayer.

Its a stylistic difference that I've never had a problem with as long as you know what you are getting into.

Larian takes a different tack of allowing everyone to have a shot at that shiny brass ring with how they structure their games. As in DOS2 where we end up competing. I think the same may occur in Bg3 where there is a degree of competition in Multiplayer? Maybe?

Strong disagree with this. A well designed single-player rpg can easily be better than a multiplayer rpg. Especially when said multiplayer rpgs don't do a great job of including everyone in dialogue/etc

Obviously, if developers made a game and then just adds on multiplayer, the game becomes strictly better. But unfortunately, developers often remove focus on the single-player experience to emphasize the multiplayer: take Larian's reasoning that a day-night-cycle would be too complicated given multiplayer. Quote from a writer: "We're playing a multiplayer game and day and night multiplayer cycles are incredibly complicated."

Lol. I always laugh at the notion that SP is a “lone weirdo” type of exercise. Especially in a gaming forum where we are all discussing our individual experiences with games. Lmfao.

SP versus MP is a tired argument. It is like the difference between reading a book alone and then discussing alternate interpretations with friends versus watching a movie adaptation with friends in real time. The former leads to a deep understanding of the story and a personal connection with the writing, the latter a fun experience with pals complete with unique memories and convos to deepen friendships. Both can have very social components depending on how you approach them. If that is what you dig. And even if u don’t dig other gamers — Reading a book or playing a SP game for your own pleasure is NOT some symptom of the maladjusted. Jaysus. What utter tripe.


I have no idea why people insist on comparing and ranking these two completely different (yet often complementary when it comes to gaming) experiences. Unless massive resources are being siphoned from one experience to facilitate another that is not your preference, it is a moot point.

Hey, I didn't call you Single Players 'lone weirdos" - I may have thought it, you may have heard it, but I never said it. :P

Its NOT like I am saying you are all Renfield type characters eating random insects you find and making slurp slurp noises all day which hiding in darkened basements! (tongue-in-cheek)

Anyway. I get that Single Players outnumber the Multiplayer gang. And frankly Single player in Bg3 is worth it, gives you time to go slow and read everything. In multiplayer you are too busy bathing in the blood of your enemies (ie. everyone else) and stealing everything not nailed down to really get into that.

"Do these books explode? Then I don't want them!"

All I am saying is that having both experiences is the better way to go, especially when it comes to long term viability. The Multiplayer crowd in NWN lasted much longer than the single player crowd, and I would argue that's what made it such a classic and well-loved/remembered game.

Saying the likes of Mass Effect Andromeda and DOS1 are better than 95% of RPGs is pretty based. Wrong, yeah, but based. I respect it.

I like it best when everyone works together in multiplayer, so I hope that is an option as well.

I also play BG3 both single player and multiplayer. Both are great!

Thank you I agree with you! I would understand if some players do not like PvP. With that logic all do not like PvP I said make it multiplayer cooperative like BG1, BG2 and BG3. Those who want to play single gamers still could do it. Well and saying no is trolling. With that logic Is could start posting please do not add more subclasses to BG3. They got enough money with all who bought it. To add cooperative multiplayer to Pathfinder would be super nice. POE 1, 2 and Solasta also fails with this. What is worse Solasta made dumb game why use ugly dolls 3D characters and then generate character from them so it is impossible to change characters portraits in Solasta. At least Pathfinder and POE games did not make that mistake you can change the portrait pictures of your characters.

Gah! Loved that image! Lol

I mean…I do not feel that MP only fans are vacuous frat-boy wannabees who cultivate online gaming communities to achieve some semblance of connection and fill the hole of existential dread buried deep within their hyper-cool facades—-that almost inescapable voice whispering to them that they are unimportant and unloved. That would be cruel.


Totally kidding—-I play MP stuff too. So I could not possibly think that. And it is all two sides of the same coin anyway.

*Wipes brow*

*quickly searches discord*

*sees no one online*

*wonders how long till next game*

*panic swells in chest, filling soul with the screech of a dark, unforgiving bird…a mocking…cruel…vulture*

*taps fingers on desk impatiently*

*curses under breath*

*checks lifeless phone*

*loads up SP campaign to pass the seemingly endless time, which by now has become a Lovecraftian horror*

*realizes gaming pals have finally abandoned me to pursue real life*

*sees insect crawling on table*

*embraces true self*

It was inspired for sure, but it didn't prevent it from being a completely original game. There are so many new ideas in DE in so many different aspects that puts the game in its own category. Wasteland 1 was an inspiration for Fallout 1 and you can see the connection across many different areas, yet I would still consider Fallout 1 an original game. DE is even further away from PST than FO1 is to Wasteland 1.


Yes, I mentioned something similar in another thread. It seems Larian is using Dragon Age as a reference instead of the orginal BGs. I rarely see Swen mentioning the originals, they market the game as a new 5E D&D game.

Yep, thats fair enough. The differences in power between the MC and their followers is far more that in Baldurs Gate however - with lots of extra feats and powers above and beyond what the other players would receive. Maybe Owlcat will consider making a SP+MP pathfinder game if WotR is successful, though it is a considerable investment for a small studio to offer MP.

I thought that Bioware's triumph with Baldur's Gate 1 and especially 2 is creating an RPG campaign structure tailor for singleplayer experience and by creating "companions" they added table-top-with-other-players flavour in an appropriate computer setting.

Personally, I like my RPGs singleplayer. I am playing RPGs mostly for story and engaging narrative, and other human players go against it. There are multiplayer games I do enjoy, but I have far bigger appreciation for quality singleplayer games. Table-tops and boardgames for spending evening with friends, singleplayer computer games for lone evenings, competitive online games with no access to voice chat, and limited/no access to chat for multiplayer with randos.

That's cool that there is market for games like Neverwinter Nights1 or Divinity: Original Sin1&2.



I don't mind multiplayer like in BG1&2. I do mind multiplayer like in D:OS1&2 and BG3.

Different designs are needed for a quality singleplayer and multiplayer. By the very nature engagement with content is different. A good example is Don't Starve and Don't Starve: Together. Klei likes making good game, so with strong market for multipler Don't Starve they created a seperate experience rather then adding multiplayer to Don't Starve. Playing Don't Starve by yourself wouldn't quite work, and playing Don't Starve: Together by yourself wouldn't quite work.

Baldur's Gate1&2 were Dont' Starve with added multiplayer. Divinity: Original Sin1&2 are Don't Starve together that you can play by yourself.

[BG3 is in weird mid place - It does make a far bigger effort in making a better singleplayer experience - there is far more singleplayer centric content in the game this time around - I appreciate all that. But there are compromises - companions are torn between being companions and cool playable characters, making them IMO rather uncompelling when compared to last 20 years of competition. Protagonist writing is not teribly strong, as it will have to fill roles of Tavs and Origin companions. A lot of ease of use things missing as expererience will change depending if it's singleplayer or multiplayer exprience. Handy multiplayer easy of use features like "send to xxxxxx"/turn-based bubble etc. create awkward exploits when one player is in charge of everything]

I am very glad Owlcat did not waste its limited resources on MP. Just like with full VO and fancy graphics, so too with MP, it is something a game can have if the budget is huge and so won't harm or take away from the really important parts of the game (which absolutely includes a stellar SP experience). But if one's budget is limited and there will be trade-offs, things like MP, VO, and fancy graphics are precisely what should be de-prioritized.

Ahahaha! This is great!

I mean you are right about the knuckle-dragging frat boyish behavior.


Typical MP session dialogue:

"Hey guys, watch me Thunderwave this stupid tiefling bard off the cliff"

BOOM!

"Lolerkek! Awesome dude, yeah she sucks."

"Dude, Chad, my dad owns a dealership."

"Right on bro"

Thanks fun reading. With Kani logic I can start posting thank you Larian lets not add more races or subclasses that is a waste of budget hehee really I could do that. I am against any stuff outside of PHB and I would not cry if every class get maximum 2 subclasses.

I prepurchased BG3 and am planning to purchase Pathfinder WOtR; I think both are great games. I like to wait until games are full release before playing them, but I played BG3 for a few minutes.
The graphics were extremely impressive and the game has an epic feel. I'm looking forward to playing it as Paladin.
Hopefully, there are plenty of playing options, so players aren't forced into playing against their own character. In NWN-Hordes of the Underdark, I enjoyed dissing the mind flayers, even though they became enemies instead of tenuous allies at the end. There can be consequences in a game for a decision, but being railroaded into decisions you don't like isn't fun. Hoping as a Paladin I will have the player options to completely reject the demon elements offers. If that means the game is harder because of that, that is great -- just a better challenge. Also, hoping I get a chance to kill Astoralon.

I'm probably halfway through Pathfinder Kingmaker. It is a really good game. I couldn't get into POE or even Divine Divinity, but Pathfinder felt like I was playing a new Baldur's Gate with much better graphics (a game that matches my best nostalgia inflated memories of BG). The kingdom management portion is just ok, but the game is still great. However, when BG 1 & 2 came out, they had an awe factor compared to other games of their time, and Larian's Baldur's Gate 3 replicates that feeling today. I am excited that Pathfinder Wrath is switching to incorporating a Heroes of Might and Magic army building element rather than a sim-kingdom element. I think it will be much better than Pathfinder Kingmaker.

I predict both Pathfinder Wrath and BG3 will be A++ titles, and my favorite 2 games of their era.

As far as the romance type stuff, I hope there is an option in BG3 to turn all that off. I'm happily married to the woman of my dreams, and have no interest in such fantasies. There's probably a lot of players like me.

Please at least make a rudimentary attempt to understand what I say before responding. Things like covering all races and classes in the PHb is fundamental to the game, and that is exactly what *should* be covered within even a limited budget, which is exactly what the Pathfinder games do.

No I do not agree and that is you personal opinion. I am not expert on what is in real Pathfinder rules. That said I suspect strongly those mythic powers that are much more powerful then normal spell are not in real Pathfinder Dnd rules. Well and what has controlling an army like in Heroes 3 to do with Pathdfinder? They have wasted money on things that should not be in the game.

They could stick to 2 subclasses for every class and Cleric has 3 Domains to choose from in BG3 so far that has been the trend in Early Access.

Well and they will not add all subclasses to full release BG3 that I am confident of. All base classes from PHB
so yes Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Paladin and Sorceror will be added to BG3 full release if not before that.
Likely all races from PHB will be added to BG3.
Well and regarding my "threat" I would not start posting that please do not add the base classes from PHB I consider them important to be in the game at least in some form if not all subclasses.

Here are some problems example some spells like example Wish is so unclear that many times GM and players do not agree on what Wish is limited on unless GM bans that spell or say from beginning Wish can only do this can you understand it? That is not the only problem, but one easy example that can be a problem to implement into a computer game.
Now do I believe they add more sub classes and races from PHB to BG3? Yes likely, but all of them do not believe that regarding sub classes.
I do not see adding more sub classes more important then adding multiplayer cooperative play.

Well and adding any race, class or subclass outside from PHB I am against it. It is enough I had to read Players Handbook from DnD 5th edition for this game.

If you mean Pathfinder Kingmaker as an example, then I'd rather Larian doesn't follow that. Because several of the classes were bugged, or not working properly. It's like the wizard in BG3 currently, or like some of the class features that you can see on character creation but are not implemented yet. Except in PK that was not in EA, that was on release. Not having played Pathfinder pnp, I didn't know how all things were supposed to be working, so it felt like the developers left "trap choices" for new players in the game. Like spell school specialization universal, when there were no universal spells in the game, and no manual where you could check that. And that was still in the game, last I checked. I should not have to guess as a player whether a class feature even does something in the game.

It is true BG3 have been to far from real Dnd rules specially in the beginning, However progress has been done. Example no longer does food heal in BG3 though you need food for resting. Well and now you can not jump from enemy without causing attack of opportunity. You can instead use disengage, but then you forfeit the chance to attack enemy. Well and then now strength is really required to push a dex based Rogues can not do that well and some heavy opponents like example Dragon can not be pushed. Rogue backstabbing does not anymore give advantage and good Rogues was to good in BG3 they should not be some S Tier class. AI is smarter after patch 5. Many scenes that in early stage had "we have not yet created this video trailer" has now been added.

Yes it has been long time since a class was introduced a Druid, but I believe patch 6 will have at least one more base class released and perhaps more example a race.

Thanks for this message ! You summarised very well many of my feelings and expressed them far more better that I did on the Larian/BG3 discord !

I'm going to add that the Pathfinder games go a step further in that the cRPGs are adaptations of actual tabletop modules of the same names. So not only are they trying to cover as much as possible in regards to races and classes, the entire damn setting of the module and plot is getting covered too. Though modules are generally barebones in regards to having an actual cohesive plot, so they're still filling in a lot of blanks in the writing department.

BG3 in comparison is an original work in the DnD universe.

I believe you compare that BG3 is Forgotten Realms the most popular Dnd Universe. Example Solasta is Badlands less popular then Forgotten Realms.

BG1 and BG2 were both Forgotten Realms world.

Pathfinder 2 does it wrong. No multiplayer and they have stuff that do not belong to Dnd like
A. Mythic spells and abilities? Really I doubt that exist in Pathfinder Pen and Paper.
B. You can control an army like in Heroes strategy games. I am sorry but this was not going to be a strategy game.
C. The world is less popular then Forgotten Realms Dnd.

Plenty of Mythic spells in the MANY Pathfinder PnP plugins.

That is extra book and not the CORE Pathfinder book. I hate it.

Same as in BG3 i only want Players Hand book and not some extra.

The only exception to that is a book with Monsters and sure books with adventurers.

IF I would have GM with DnD 5 I would say you only PHB and NOT all subclasses!
I would say all race, class from PHB is ok but NO not all subclasses!
Why?
I want also PvP 4 player vs 4 player...
Pvp and PvE.

No Invisibility spells or wish Spells...
Why not Invisibility? Because in PVP if 4 player you Invisibility vs 4 player who are not Invisibility then it then Invisibility player win.
Some monster in PvE true do find even if you are Invisibility...
Well and I would say max level is 12. Start from level 1 and very slowly get exp. Well not that it will get much exp to get to level 4 but after that get more slowy since you need much more exp to get to next level. Well and I would not give much exp no extra exp from something... you did to kill monsters or players (PvP) to get exp.

If only give exp from kill monsters and players then is very slow to get to level 12 that I want as max level. Of course I would NOT send some super monster vs 4 players that are level 12 or less. I dont want to be evil GM and send some super monster that is good for level 15-20 vs a lowly level 4 players that are level 8.

The players should have some chance... Ok maybe you good have some super monster true but then players much not fight it: GM tell you can see from long a HUGE DRAGON but right now Dragon have not seen you... then players can try do do so they do not fight it.

Hey. I wasn't talking to you. You missed my entire point and twisted it into something else anyway, but you do you.

Now I understand why some of the people more in favor of Larianisms get ticked off at purists, because lo and behold, we finally have an actual purist here. Either way, you're kinda barking up the wrong tree, derailing a thread comparing two cRPGs over semantics about what should or shouldn't be considered official material for the sake of adapting mechanics into these games.

I will judge both games as and when I have played both games in the state they are supposed to be played and judged in (i.e. full release).
Thus PWotR next month and BG3 as and when it is released fully.

Until then there are pointless comparisons between a Beta and an EA Alpha.

As for SP vs MP, sheeesh. I played quite a lot of SP & MP BG1 &2, both were great and having played BG3 MP I can confirm it is a real blast and I am very grateful it is having decent attention. SP is like reading a book, it's my solo experience, my world. MP is obviously more like a board game with your friends. Both can be enjoyed and one is no better than the other, just more appropriate to one's preference at any given moment.

The BG and later, NWM series has always had MP, this should not even be a discussion point.
Not including day and night cycle as a result however totally should, because that decision is just daft.

"Owlcat are based in Poland and arent necessarily all about diversity and gender neutral crap like Larian is. I think Larain have gone waaaayyyyy to far with this stuff and Owlcat have completely tuned it down eg Larian has gone woke and Owlcat are not woke."

I was really hoping you may be able provide an example (or more!) of them going woke. Having played through most of the EA content, I have to say I was very glad to see there wasn't really any of the idealogical stuff you mentioned but perhaps I missed some examples?

I wish i could but one of the mods has already said on this thread they will ban anyone who tells the truth about this. This is the age of censorship we have to bend the knee to the woke mob and we are not allowed to say anything that contradicts their narrative.

You should be-careful what truth you tell aswell or they will ban you.

just look at the OP's previous posts in this thread. You'll see his..."arguments" for why this game is "woke". They're..ah..interesting.

Well, given the centrality of the Forgotten Realms to D&D over many decades, I could argue that the Forgotten Realms is itself a module, a very non-barebones and gigantic module.

As a reminder, the actual warning was as quoted (emphasis mine):


Don't go there and there won't be problems.

Yes indeed I am happy many times to be person that is traditional that no want everything change and consider all changes to be good.
Let not go offtopic politics with that logic however in DnD talk see below.

However in Elves are not Elves thread
RagnarokCzD that have same as your Avatar picture wanted REALLY that Elves should be FAT and have BEARDS perhaps not every Elf, but there should be many such Elves.
Of course I am against it. Perhaps slightly little bit fat is possible for some old Mage Elf, but that would indeed be very rare. Elves are different from humans and I am not going to complain if I see fat humans in Baldurs Gate city.
I am not against everything NEW.

I did like DnD 3.5 , Pathfinder is fairly ok without Mythic Spells.
DnD 4th I did not like they removed lots of dice rolls and made it very difficult rules.
Wizards of Coast got the feedback and DND 5th again have the dice rolls and more simple to play and learn rules then Dnd 4th and less time sink also since more simple.
DnD 5th edition is fine.

Let me explain why I am against Mythics Spells in DnD and Pathfinder 2?
A. They are to powerful. Does not make much sense to use much spells from CORE book so much at least since when Mythic spells are available since they Mythic spells are so powerful.
B. Pathfinder is like Dnd 3.75 little bit more stuff then DnD 3.5. With Mythic it becomes even more difficult not necessary for me but for someone that have
do not know Dnd rules really. Even youtuber Wolfheart mentioned that he find Pathfinder 2 rules sometimes a bit to overwhelming to much to understand and to much choices.
C. One friend of mine (not my brother he knows Dnd rules well) does not like if learning curve is tough and there is lots of information to choose from in a game.

It is subjective taste. I have always liked more the journey being low-medium level and not like level 20 and on top of that Mythic Spells super powerful almost like a demigod. If talking about MMO:S then my logic is quite the opposite, but this whas about DnD and not a MMO game.

Well and finally when they skipped adding Multiplayer to Pathfinder 2 they added that you can control a freaking army and play Pathfinder 2 as a strategy game.
What has that controlling an army and playing a strategy game with armies to do with DnD? Nothing.

Fair enough that you don't like that stuff, you're entitled to your own tastes. For me I don't like multiplayer and genuinely, the mention of multiplayer in the description turned me HARD away from the idea of picking up Neverwinter Nights when I was looking back at old crpgs. However I think you're overstating things to say that WotR "does it wrong". For one thing, the only "right" way for any creative endeavor is the way that works at the time for the occasion. Also, what is the "it" that Pathfinder is doing wrong? It's not trying to be Baldur's Gate. It's trying to expand and be its own thing within the genre that Baldur's Gate created. There's room for more stuff in the genre, same as how there's a boatload of variations within every other genre of games.

Regarding your feelings about Mythic spells, I think that in general you're right that if they were just a part of any old D&D/Pathfinder game then they probably would feel out of place. But WotR is a campaign specifically built around mythic paths and the abilities they grant. It's a game made for a different level of play. I imagine it's the same as in tabletop, they're a resource for those who want to experience a different, higher level of play than the default. They're not going to be good for every campaign, but if the campaign is constructed with those mythic spells in mind, then they can create a very fun new experience. Yet even then, it's an experience that some people, like you, aren't going to be interested in. WotR is a game that's ABOUT your character becoming a demigod. There is without question room for a game like that in the genre. It's not going to be for you, but it's going to be for a lot of other people, and those people aren't going to be wrong for liking it. Same goes for the army command feature. They're experimenting with integrating different kinds of gameplay and seeing what that creates. Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't. It will definitely work for some people more than others.

It is your taste only. I don't give a shit about people who only want single play unless you do it so great as Witcher 3 that had sold over 35 million copies and includes all adult content as it should be! I fully agree I agree with Kana... that Withcer 3 is one of the best single player games ever made! Well and then Solasta and Owlcat and Pillars of Eternity always brag and lie it is like old Baldurs Gate games. I sure remember when Pathfinder 1 was released they bragged about game being like BG1. Total bullshit! BG1 and BG2 and BG3 have multiplayer! Witcher 3 is the king of fantasy single player games over 35 million sold and so much adult content I don't even need to use some nasty mod like I did with Skyrim! Well Witcher 3 over 35 million sold and Pathfinder games will never achieve that! They even have started a TV serie based on Witcher games or books that is still being made more and not cancelled. Witcher 3 is so nasty so lol SerraSerra could not play it if want to keep that kind of ideology. Apparently over 35 million players that bought Witcher 3 did not fully agree with SerraSerra at least on amount of adult content in games. On top of that Witcher 3 has truly great graphics specially for being slightly old game now though can get expansions. Well and Witcher 3 has really many settings you can adjust graphics so even if you don't have very high end computer you can make it good looking. Example I have Nvidia 1070 Titanium 8 GB DDR5 and that card is not great compared to top end modern graphic cards nowadays. Well and certainly good enough since my max resolution for monitor is FULL HD I can tell that Witcher 3 runs great on my computer and looks light years better graphics then example Solasta. My cpu? Amd Ryzen 5 2600 4.2 GHZ in turbo mode 6 cores 12 threads. RAM 16 GB DDR4 3200 Cl 16. Oh and Witcher 3 runs great though I only run with FULL HD resolution due ro my monitor. Power source bad one can cause problems in long run so my power is Seasonic 650 W GOLD 🥇 standard! The only standard better then GOLD is PLATINUM for power sources for normal gamers. What Intel? Todays best AMD Ryzen better then mine are Elite! Well and my CPU is not bad for gaming.

These are all straw man arguments in the extreme.

“Game not as good as BG3 because it has no multiplayer.
Game is a joke because all single player games must be compared to TW3, and thus will always fail.
Therefore, BG3 wins! “

Methinks your math is flawed.

I for one am extremely happy to have a diversity of video games that are not cookie-cutter copies of each other.

Your opinion not mine. Well of course everyone has right to their own opinion. Well and regarding BG3 full review is a bit difficult before full release and that is not any time soon. While Pathfinder 2 pathetic as single player compared to single player Witcher 3 will be released already in September 2021. OP made some impression though of not good things in BG3 that certainly is not the case in Witcher 3. Lets not discuss those things. However Witcher 3 has rightly so for many reasons 18 years age rating and still manage to sell over 35 million. If nothing else then on content regarding age rating over 35 million buyers disagreed with SerraSerra in that specific regard at least of allowed content in games and age rating. If Witcher 3 would do as SerraSerra want its age rating would be to my guess roughly 12 or 13 and not 18.

Your argument here is really weird. Who was even talking about age ratings and adult content? Why are you bringing this up now because no one has mentioned that for several pages at least. Also, I think comparing WotR with Witcher 3 is not really a good comparison since they're two different types of game. That's like comparing Baldurs Gate 1 & 2 with Stardew Valley because they both have multiplayer and fantasy elements. They're both trying to evoke different sorts of experience. And calling WotR pathetic compared to Witcher 3 is also just wrong. Again, they're different kinds of games doing different things. If you want to talk about how well they accomplish the different things they set out to do, great, that's an interesting discussion. But it doesn't seem to be the discussion you're trying to have here.

Regarding graphics (another thing that no one was talking about before), firstly, the level of graphics don't matter nearly as much as a game's art direction and art style. In that vein, comparing Witcher 3 with WotR or Solasta is ridiculous because they're going for very different art direction. If anything, you should be comparing those aspects with BG3 since it also seems to be aiming for the high fidelity route Witcher 3 went for. Again, if you want to argue that one achieves its art direction goals better than the other, that's a valid discussion to have, but neither Solasta or WotR are even trying for the same level of fidelity Witcher 3 went for, so comparing them based on raw graphical power is a pointless excercise. Secondly comparing Witcher 3 to Solasta at all is a pointless excercise. That's not even opinion, that's actually a fact. You're comparing the third game in a successful AAA franchise made by an already successful and experienced team to the first attempt of a brand new studio. That's like comparing the latest Tarantino film to a film school project. They're working on such different scales that there's almost nothing to be gained by comparing the two.

I have not played Patch finder 2 difficult for me saying about its exactly graphics. However Pathfinder 1 certainly did not impressive me with graphics. Pathfinder games does use 2D portraits that can be changed which is impossible in Solasta. Pathfinder wins Solasta graphics but not impressive to me like BG3 and Witcher 3. Well and regarding budget what a waste of budget in Pathfinder 2 to create a strategy game with armies that has nothing to do with DnD. I don't care about leftist idea because it is so low budget we must give it good reviews. It is either good or not. Solasta is so bad that I have my doubts I will finish it. However I admit that I don't believe Pathfinder games will be full of annoying riddles like Solasta and Pathfinder character portraits can be changed which is impossible in Solasta. At one point I had to load an old game in Solasta due to a bug and to forward was not easy when a major bug. Well and then minor bugs in Solasta items disappeared from inventory. Regarding bugs in Pathfinder 2 well lets see when they do full release in September 2021 and professional reviews will be done. I must say it is tempting to me buy Pathfinder 2 and then complan to Kingdom Come what is bad in Pathfinder 2😁. Well and seriously before playing it myself I don't want to give my final opinion about Path finder 2 graphics. However I am not in any hurry or super eager to buy it. If I order it I will not do preorder and I could even wait for discount prices n months after release. Well and what is wierd can always be argued. I find some posts beyond wierd myself what other forum members posts like example Elves must be fat and have beard sounds insane wish to me. Lets not go over who said what if you missed it then let it be so. My point was we really have crystal clear opposite wishes here on forums.

Say what you want about Baldur's Gate 3, unlike Wrath, I'm sure it will work on lunch.

Joking aside, the only real "weak point" of wrath compared to bg3 is that I don't really like buffinder as a system. But this is a very subjective and personal beef. As someone who played wrath of the righteous a lot (I think I have more than 200 hours already), this game is better at all accounts, except production values that are lower, but I feel like they could catch up if they'll keep doing such great games.

Since we are talking comparison, a lot of people praise Baldur's Gate 3's replayablity, and I call bullshit for many reasons (you can check out my signature for more details). Wrath is more restrictive in the things you can do as a player, but the choices you do have are much much more significant and affect gameplay and story immensely. Writing in general is excellent overall.

I am not complaining about Pathfinder 2 replay value other then that you can not play it multiplayer. I know you can even become Lich or Angel believe at least Lich. About Bg3 replayability is difficult from Act 1 alone value it and Alpha with not all base classes released.

BG3 has no sort of management system, Kingdom management on PF1, and now Crusader on PF 2. For this reason alone BG3 already is better for me. Not that I won't play WOTR, it's just that having those mechanics are boring and I hate it and always will.

Multiplayer is not a feature I care about at all. In fact Bg3 would have been much better without it.

It's literally optional in wrath. You can go to the options and cancel it if you want.

I'm gonna move along from this graphics discussion since I think your other points are more worth digging into, on account of you admitting you can't really judge WotR graphics at this point. Regarding judging Solasta, I am not suggesting that because its budget is low we should automatically give it good reviews (and this "leftist notion" thing you mention is ridiculous on its face, that's just plain not a thing. Certainly not in any sort of political sense like you're insinuating). I for one liked Solasta and found it more satisfyint than what I've played of Baldur's Gate quite honestly, but that doesn't mean I think it should automatically be given good reviews. Your comments about annoying puzzles and poor graphics are perfectly valid criticisms even if they didn't bother me personally. There are absolutely problems with it that should be taken into account when talking about it. But acknowledging a game's problems on its own terms isn't the same same as judging it by the standards of a game that's being made on a budget orders of magnitude higher. BG3 is probably spending more on its graphics than the devs had to spend on the entire game. Judging Solasta based on BG3 is, again, like judging a student film based on a Tarantino film. Sure the student film can still be good, or it could still have its own problems, but the best version of what the student film could produce is still going to pale in overall quality compared to even an average version of what Tarantino could produce.

Regarding WotR, it really sounds like you've already decided that it's going to be bad before you've even played it. Your argument is weird to me because you have not, in these last two posts of yours, actually said what you want out of these games. You've just said that you think they're bad for one reason or another. As far as the strategy game stuff, your claim that it's a waste of budget because it's got nothing to do with D&D is extremely closed-minded. You don't have to like it, hell, you don't even have to play it, but you can't say before the game is even released whether or not it's a waste of money. It'll only be a waste of money if the majority of people come back and say that it was bad and not fun. Just because it has nothing to do with D&D doesn't really mean anything as far as quality is concerned. I think you should just steer clear of WotR because it clearly doesn't have what you want from a game like it and you're also clearly not interested in judging it in good faith.

I will also point out that you completely ignored my arguments regarding multiplayer and mythic spells.

Like Larian don't waste money on useless bullshit all the time

But from many complaints on this thread isn't this one of the most said things about BG3? because it seems they've made or still are making changes and ppl are complaining? Wouldn't it also apply to BG3 as well? I may have understood it wrongly, if so, just ignore it. But still, I'd say to wait until BG3 is actually out, or at very least finished the EA to compare both games? or with any other game actually. At the current state, how can one say that BG3 or WOTR is better? It will only be based on personal tastes and NOT facts.

WotR is clearly better at anything other than presentation

I fully agree that this applies to BG3. I just also think that a number of the things that Larian has added to BG3 from outside D&D has been to the game's detriment because the additions don't, in my opinion, mesh well with D&D as a system. This results in a system that feels as though it's fighting against itself. I think some changes, like what Larian has done with the Ranger class and the addition of Seladrine Drow as a subclass, actually work quite well.

As for comparing the two, I feel that the fact Larian has an open Early Access going makes comparisons, even in the current unfinished state, acceptable. Though yeah, holding off on definitive opinions is probably wise.

Love your signature. It definitely highlights one of the [many] bigger issues I've found with EA. They seem to take the data from player choices without context and then project their own opinions and insights onto it.

I ate a bagel this morning rather than a steak, egg and cheese, therefore I must be vegan. Well no, I ate all the steak and eggs and my mode of transportation is currently in the shop. It's the same type of projection of choices in BG3. I chose the Tieflings over Minthara, because I like good instead of evil.. Well, actually it's because the writing for the evil side was subpar and the choices made no sense for a character with above 9 intellect.

As for this topic: I didn't buy into the alpha/beta for WotR, but from the bits I've seen and heard it seems substantially better than Baldur's Gate 3 at present. That could certainly change at launch, but there seems to be far more choice, consequences and influence on the world and characters in WotR. And that's just things that can be said without breaking NDA and from multiple paths missing from the game in alpha.

Gameplay, substance, lore, choices and consequences, writing are all significantly more important than cinematics and graphics.

As for Terminator's comparisons to Witcher 3.. lol.. Why do people bother responding ever? After all, Baldur's Gate 3 is clearly such an inferior product because Minecraft sold 238 million copies and GTAV sold over 150 million entirely because they have multiplayer. /s

I wish Baldur's Gate 3 would have half of the quality of the Witcher 3

Witcher 3 is the most overrated game ever in my opinion. Also, who knows, once the game is done, it may surprise you.

I doubt it but I can dream.

You doubt it because you already made your decision. So, the most important question is... why still try to be around this game if you don't seem like it?

I don't need your permission to be here and your gatekeeping and "wait for the full game" approach is the worst way to handle our situation

Sigh... if you say so. *Shrugs*

I think we all want this game to be good, or else we wouldn't be here. It's good to have different opinions on what we want this game to be.

For sure

Like origin characters. When the point of RPGs is to create your own adventure.

Really?
Because in my view it is clearly an inspiration, and one of the things that are wrong with BG3. Graphics, VA and spectacle are what this game is going for so far, in detriment of good gameplay. EXACTLY like Witcher 3.

The Witcher 3 didn't invent production values. I don't want to turn this into a Witcher 3 discussion but I just wanted to point it out. And yes, I think the Witcher 3 is a superior game. It might have some similarities with Baldur's gate 3 (I guess you mean cutscenes...? ) But it did it better

Blah Blah so much text I don't want to read it. Shortly said I don't like Mythic spells and no multiplayer is bad and also strategy army is shit in Pathfinder 2. Well and regarding Solasta that you like. Today I said in Solasta thread I was stupid and buyed Solasta. It is so bad not sure I will play through Solasta. After that n players agreed with me Solasta is not good. I know you are fanboy of Solasta, but there the opinion of n players they are not happy buying Solasta.

Just to make sure, you didn't play wrath of the righteous not Solasta and the oy thing you need from a game to be good is to have multiplayer?

I bought Solasta after full release. Pathfinder 2 not interested yet not even full release. BG3 was an exception to buy so early since fan of BG1 and BG2 and it has multiplayer. It is rare I buy and play games and even more rare I buy a game PRE relaese.

For example since I like BLADERUNNER movies I was slightly interested to that fact and ULTRA HYPE of Cyberpunk 2077. I am happy I did no buy it is not even near the level it was HYPED. There are people that like Cyberpunk 2077, but i am not interested in it despite one patch in year 2021 fixed some bugs at least still many bugs and problems. Well and it is NOTHING like the dream game I hoped it would be.

I know one one person that has payed lots money for the SCAM game Starcitizen MMO and that player is furious. I have not payed for it and not going to to that. Squadron 42 its single player part might get released some day the single player part but the MMO not if they are going to keep the impossible promises well so even if MMO would be released after 20 year from now it can not keep what has been promised.

When I bought Skyrim by then price was 10 euro.
I bought Battlefield 3 for 10 euro.
I bought Hellblade Senuas Sacrifice on huge discount roughly 5 euro.
All these on PC and not console prices.

I am still highly questioning the real motivation for creating this thread, seeing as a few people are still a little too over-eager to keep injecting subtle political narratives into their arguments.

Also, spending the last couple pages solely complaining about how WotR doesn't have multiplayer support isn't going to suddenly change it into having multiplayer, the same way BG3 won't suddenly implement RTwP despite all the complaints early on about it being purely turn-based. We all already know. We just choose not to care.

At this point, multiplayer support is an exception due to games these days needing bigger budgets compared to the old cRPG days, and there is an argument to be made that the exact multiplayer support is behind a lot of the more questionable aspects of BG3.

('Toilet Chain' system. The hideous inventory management that happens to be less of an issue in multiplayer. Origin system acting as a way for players in multiplayer to pick a pre-loaded build, but also indirectly resulting in the writing for the companions seemingly being awkward to the level where you can't tell if each companion is supposed to be an actual companion or all acting as the party leader at once, and leading to the companions being as largely devoid of personality compared to other cRPG companions as they currently are with the exception of Shadowheart. Though if Larian wanted quick pre-loaded builds, they should have just done actual pre-loaded builds without the entire rest of the origin system. It feels like an excuse to lock entire cutscenes behind playing as a specific party member, but I've noted that a lot of the datamined origin exclusive cutscenes so far are mostly inner thoughts stuff, and we already have a convenient plot device that should allow us to interact with it as a custom MC anyway. It's like they are taking 'replay value' to a bad conclusion that doesn't respect the player's time, because a lot of the stuff gated behind the origin system would be much better off enhancing your experience with a custom MC. And as a result, it's going to result in that first playthrough being a lot less magical than it should be, and if it isn't magical enough, people will be less naturally inclined to pursue multiple playthroughs to begin with.

Like instead of all this effort being sunk into the origin system, we should have increased emphasis on backgrounds for the player character instead, which is how the origin system worked in Dragon Age Origins. Actually, I'm not even sure why Larian chose to name their system the Origin system, unless it was to invoke comparisons to the system of the same name in Dragon Age, even if the actual function of both is completely different.)

I have actually taken the latest BG3 patch for a spin. There were a few more interactions between your companions than I remember, but it seems that past the Grove, they really stop trying to banter. It's probably still a work in progress, but I have noticed subtle hints at recycling certain plot beats from D:OS2 that I feel contributed to the heavily excuse plot narrative of that game as soon as you got off that end of act 1 boat. As in, hints that the antagonists and eventually the party may be competing with each other for something later on. The big difference would be that the 'something' would be a lot more ambiguous this time. This competition narrative is also something that I feel only existed in D:OS2 because of multiplayer.

Like, I'm sort of getting this deep vibe that a lot of the design in BG3 seems to be pushing towards the game subtly making choices for you in the end, rather than you making choices on your own volition. I don't get that same feeling in WotR for whatever reason, despite that game being far more railroaded than BG3. It might be because the latter game has a lot of smaller choices that contribute to the player feeling like they are molding the personality of their player character on their own terms.

Well, I shall politely move past you blatantly ignoring my attempt to engage with you and your arguments and simply say that I'm not a fanboy of Solasta. I enjoyed it a lot, but you can like something and not ignore its flaws. I happen to like Baldurs Gate 3 as well, and think that it'll probably end up being a better game overall than Solasta, though I think as a translation of the 5e system Solasta probably wins out. It just so happens that Baldurs Gate 3 doesn't really click with me for whatever reason and Solasta did. That doesn't mean I don't recognize it's weak graphics or very basic story. It's just that those things don't ultimately take away from my enjoyment of the game overall. Solasta is a weaker game than BG3 in most respects. It's also a game I enjoyed. I don't know how WotR is going to measure up to BG3 and neither do you.

I honestly think the comparison to WotR is pretty useless at this point since most people didn't even play it. from what I'm seeing most people here that think bg3 is a better experience never touched WotR and some explicitly said they don't plan to. So I don't see how can we really create a productive discussion, but whatever

People really trying to compare The Witcher 3 with BG3 or WoTr?!?...LOL. I guess in 2021 RPGs are just...whatever...Why not just compare it to Madden while your at it? Its 3D, has stats...
The Witcher 3 is a real-time diablo'esq ACTION game (click, to attack!, move, click, attack) at its base surrounded by RPG elements and cinematics. I mean, it actually plays BETTER with a controller...that already tells a lot. Thats why so many people loved it. Dont need to think too much, super accessible for an <<RPG>>.
However good the production value and story and MUSIC... I hated the stiff repetitive gameplay and controls.

I think people bring up WoTr because it feels more like a Baldurs gate game, its as simple as that. It does more things similarly to the franchise than what BG3 does:

6 party members
Big roster of playable NPCs
Engaging lead protagonist
Pick your killer fantasy portrait
More varied / tons of classes
More spells
Similar UI/Controls
Similar big dialogue trees
Flow of time (nights/day) and weather
Realtime with pause (AND turn base)...

So its a natural comparison. I also thing its the closest thing to a classic Baldurs gate game with have in the market, whether you like it or not.
Larian improving on any ONE of these points would be amazing...instead of using resources to add more cinematics and gimmicks.

It's also a better game than Bg3 by far, but like I said, until people could actually play it and see for themselves, I don't see the point in Theorising which game is better

oh, the mystery. A forum dedicated to BG3 with ppl who didn't play WOTR, a game that isn't yet fully released as well. It's like going to their forum and get surprised most of the members there didn't play BG3. A mistery for the ages.
Btw, the image you posted it's actually accurate. on that, I agree with you. Especially Dark Souls, DS I can affirm is far superior to any of the games around here, WOTR, BG3, witcher, etc. That IS a true masterpiece.

Sigh first fo all anything more is a change in process. We can not know the extect BG3 provides before full release. They never promised to inluded all races or classes in Early Acces.

Well and as said many times Pathfinder 2 do not have multiplayer and we have already in tnis thread a player who said will not buy Solasta since it has it army controllig in game (which has nothing to do with DnD).

Well and then they fuckded Solasta with their annoying Mythic spel ls that I personally do not like though I do understand some other players might like it very much.

BG1 was never high level not some annoying demigod. While in PAthfinder you become level 20 and get on top of that annoying Mytthic powers.

Well as it turns out when people start listen to oh it is so good blah blah on forums they get interested and might buy an then regret it. There are 4 different players that gave +1 for my thoughts on BG3 Solasta thread so 5 different players who bought Solasta and are not happy with it at all stupid buy and unknown amount of other unhappy Solasta buy consumers who have not bothered to write +1 on that.

My point being if you already find lots of things you do not like about a game it is not quaranteed that when you buy it then suddenly you will like it so much that you want to give it a good rating. I already have RED flags about Pathfinder 2... freaking army controlling that is not voluntary, freaking Mythic spells and a sea of choices I am not super interested that I need to study a game. Well and then absolutely no multiplayer support while adding bad content.

Nailed it.

I also enjoyed TW3, but it is not a true RPG imho. It is a story-driven action game with a choice and consequence system. I get tomatoes thrown at me online all the time for saying that…despite having played over 1000 hrs on the damned game. But folks will call it an RPG till they are blue in the face.

Solasta, PWoR, and BG3 are all rpgs. And are DnD based rpgs to boot. Thus…I enjoy reading the comparison discussions, personally.

(when they are well-constructed and informed arguments, I mean)

Civilization 6 also had some really well done cut scenes, and the animation in Roller Coaster Tycoon was nice. So lets compare BG3 to them next, shall we?

What I praised Witcher 3 for was:
A. Graphics. Granted a bit demanding at original release date, but nowadays most PC users have enough good hardware. Well and this is not FPS (first person shooter game) so you do not need freaking 120-200 FPS.
B. Adult content.
Witcher 3 combat I guess you either like it or not that simple.
15 best roelplaying games aarticle from JUNE 2021
If you google best roleplaying games or even if you google best fantasy roleplaying games you will find Witcher 3 among them.

and this writtenJune 2021 and not 15 years ago.
Intesting I can not see lol Solasta or Pathfinder 1 among them. Pathfinder 2 is not among them but it could be since not yet released.

Yes, I know. However, I do not rely on google (or game journalists) to tell me what is or is not an RPG. I have my own mind and standards.

I loved TW3, but do not consider it an RPG. I also loved Bioshock, and do not consider it an RPG. By the logic of many people, who define an RPG as playing a role and making choices, Mario on my old Nintendo was an RPG. GTA is an RPG. Donkey Kong is an RPG.

Sorry…I disagree.

Skyrim was an RPG. DAO was an RPG. BG1, BG2, BG3, Solasta, Tyranny, DiscoE, PWotR, DOS, POE…all RPGs. Etc ad nauseum.

No I disagree with you. Skyrim is total shit for being roleplaying game. I bought it for 10 euro and it is the last time I believe Elder Scrolls games are good. The Skyrim graphics were not bad though not very good and I was delighted you could get mod to make it for adults only. Witcher 3 is roleplaying game with adults content even without any mods. Witcher 3 graphics is better then Skyrim graphics.

Anywya BG3 graphics is better then Pathfinder 2 graphics that I can tell even without playing Pathfinder 2.

This thread has become so messed up.
Pathfinder 2 sounds interesting, it is definitively in my list. As is Solasta. I need a break from BG3, I'm a bit burned out after all the playthroughs, I did. So those two games might come in handy.
And I, too, don't really care about what Google says. I watch gameplays and decide that way, If I buy a game or not.

I haven't played the beta, but if Wrath of the Righteous retained Kingmaker's worst traits (warning: a rant)...:

- the tedious overtuned combat being most of what the game has to offer (apart from perhaps the middle where you can get ahead of the power curve), testing not one's skill but how min-maxed their characters are, something that D&D/Pathfinder handles very poorly what with the spells, resting, and death implementation. The endless Wild Hunt battles in the final two chapters of the game are some of the most obnoxious, time-wasting, luck-based trash fights ever conceived for a CRPG. And while on the subject of being overtuned, having DC 20+ skill checks at the start of the game constantly and hitting as high as 45+ by the end turns it into a savescum fest. Who needs balancing, anyhow? My last 20 or so hours (Pitax and onward) turned for me into an absolute slog that I really wanted to end sooner rather than later, and yet it had the gall to keep going.

- the unbearably verbose and awkward writing that doesn't even manage to maintain consistency on characters (Amiri constantly switching from being very articulate to barely stringing a sentence together), with such a big emphasis on the characters' alignment rather than their actual personality (which, sometimes, is the only part of their personality - see Valerie and how dim-wittedly she behaves to fit into the Lawful Neutral archetype) that it's practically impossible to get attached to anyone, except for, personally, Jubilost (whose character, at least, makes the verbosity and overnarration make sense) and the DLC tiefling twins.

- the plot that is incredibly transparent and obvious but is sloooooowly spoon-fed to the player along with their character who remains clueless for about three times as long as they should have. Really, why would someone named "the guardian of the bloom" be responsible for something literally called "the bloom". Inconceivable! And having your main villain's motivation be "just 'coz, lol" is infuriating, frankly.

- the pointless and shallow RTS mode added on top that has all the depth of your average mobile game and requires about as much thinking, and devolves into an utter unbalanced nightmare at the endgame which is better just skipped by making your kingdom indestructible.

- the practically complete lack of character expression apart from, again, alignment - and romances. I played as a paladin first, now tried again as a wizard/cleric/mystic theurge as WotR draws nearer, and there's hardly anything different based on the class and deity. It doesn't affect your kingdom options (but guess what does - freaking alignment!) or provide any additional choices - at most you either can or can't detect magic, and that's about it.

- the awful quest design and scripting that made me waste a lot of kingdom stats because of the game locking story progress until you do a very specific obscure thing (Brineheart and dealing with Pitax influence).

...then I don't have too much hope for it. Solasta was rather disappointing as well, because it did nothing well apart from the ruleset implementation (and even there they screwed up here and there). All the while BG3 actually offers a highly interactive, reactive, and deep experience that goes beyond just watching your stats grow and optimizing your gear for the next dozen or so hours of endless grindy combat that amounts to always having all your spells active and hoping your rolls outsteamroll the enemies', which really makes me second-guess replaying Kingmaker.

Then again, I loved PoE2, which is apparently seen as some kind of mental deficiency by the more elitist folk out there. So what do I know?

I've finished one playthrough recently and luckily for me I didn't have much of an issue with most of the things you listed, except for the first point - questionable combat balance. The early game was rough, then I guess I "got ahead of the power curve" at some point and the game became fairly easy, and I had quite a lot of fun. I only ran into underleveled enemies for a while, and I felt this was starting to become too easy, then BAM the final dungeon, namely HATEOT, happened. I honestly can't recall a more lazy, boring, overtuned, but also long, dungeon from any of the games I've played, and I've played a lot of RPGs, from the old isometric titles to games like TES or Witcher. They made a couple of the most overpowered enemies and copypasta'd them a hundred times all over the 6 floors of the goddamn building. It was just senseless, mindnumbing hacking at thousands of points of HP of the same few enemies over and over, and nothing else.

This too. Dialogue choices are way too plain and generic, except for the ones tied to alignment, which suddenly become way too verbose and feel like too much info was crammed into one sentence. And all the "[Attack] I'm gonna kill you now cause I feel like it yeaaaah!" options make no sense majority of the time. Being evil doesn't mean you're a bloodthirsty maniac who just goes ahead and kills anyone who just starts a conversation with you, without even trying to find out who this guy is or what he's about. In the old BG games conversations with NPCs are colorful, expressional, and fun to navigate.

Also, the way the kingdom management progresses and how it progresses the main plot confused the hell out of me. The game bombards you with problems but at the same time wants you to rank up and do the few dozens of other events. I tried to reason to myself to understand the intention of the devs and what exactly I was supposed to do, but I'm still not sure on this.

To be more on topic, I don't know much about 5e or 3.5e, but I really hope 5e gives more love to magic and spellcasters in general, than 3.5e. Unless somehow P:K translated magic and spellcasters poorly from TT to the game, but I feel spells in general are nerfed to all hell in P:K. And they are boring too. Majority of spells are super bland, including the ones that are actually "strong". It's just the same few effects over and over, but with a bit stronger magnitude, and instead of single target now it is an aoe. P:K makes it feel like you don't need a spellcaster in the party at all, unless you just feel like having one for the sake of it. Why bother with spells when enemies have god-tier saves but brute force fighters can make 5+ attacks per round each dealing 60-70 dmg and critting for 200, and what's more: there's no "saves", no protection, against basic attacks. I think the spell system in P:K is just bad in general. I just hope BG3 makes mages dominating again, and not just because of a few one-shotting spells. BG2 has so many different magic effects, magical protections against just about everything, anti-magic spells, and useful utility spells.

You just have a taste for finer things

PoE2 was fine. It had some wasted potential in regards to the companions, but it wasn’t aggressively bad at much of anything outside of the main story being a massive railroaded sequel hook that might never pay off at this point. Complete sign of hubris from the writers or the upper management right there.

Josh Sawyer confirmed more than once that he also regretted splitting the major story focus on TWO narratives that conflicted with each other (namely chasing Eotas and dealing with the power struggle between factions).

I am not surprisedthat you got various titty mods for Skyrim and then felt underwhelmed by it as a game. Skyrim has its flaws, sure, but it's not that bad. Just rather light weight. And having everybody walk around with obvious modern day plastic surgery and aggressive makeup and photoshopped faces is not going to help the immersion one bit. It just makes everything look completely absurd.

As for the Witchers, there certainly is role-playing elements in it, but it feels to me that too much focus is placed on player skill rather than character skill. That's a trait of action games. Still, there is some character-definition in it and there is a fair amount of dialogue and there is consequences to choices. So I'm not willing to reject the franchise as "not RPGs", but they're not really the deepest RPGs either.

MMO's, yes, of course you'd be a fan. To my knowledge there isn't an MMO out there that isn't about repetitive grinding, with an absolutely pathetic story that has more problems than the last season of GoT. Being a tiny bit blunt, I'm occasionally hard pressed to find people that I feel like having a conversation with, so why would I then want to spend hours playing a game with bunch of of the people that I don't really want much to do with in the first place? Sure, call me antisocial, but if I wanted some clowns to run around and be randomly incomptent in my games, I'd probably be playing Counter Strike.

Anyway, it seems to me that the "RPG" of MMORPG is really to suggest that they're the same form of "role-playing game" as the Diablos, the Path of Exiles, and what have you. Meaning really just action clickers with player-directed stat upgrades and mindblowing item grinding. Imagine running that Boddhi boss lady 500 times for good drops, totally makes sense, right? Or maybe you'd need to kill Lord Firecracker 1000 times to have a 5% chance of getting Carsomyr, right? Awesomesauce!!! (No, not really). Point is, anything and everything that makes any game more MMO-like is, in my opinion, hopeless garbage that needs to take a quick hop into the fires of Mount Doom. Just my opinon, of course.

Cyperpunk 77, indeed a total flop, but MP is hardly the reason. There's no MP that could save that game. It has a railroading and janky storyline that really isn't about the player character, its environment lacks interactivity, and there's really not a whole lot of character development for the protagonist. The dramatic majority of quests in the game are random fedex or assassination jobs that have zero impact on anything. The few times it matters whether you've done a quest, it doesn't matter at all how you did it, whether you went full murder hobo or peacenik. The itemization scheme of the game makes exploration moot, and while the city looks glorious, there's really not a whole lot of effort put into designing with verticality in mind. There's rarely ever any reward to climbing up and it's usually not possible to go below.

And in action terms, the AI is rubbish, the enemies are all the same with marginal visual differences, the weapon variety is lacking, and CDPR completely failed to set up truly "epic fights", in no small part because of how much impact character level has. Overlevel and you're nearly immortal and just pwning like a madman, underlevel and you get one-shotted from a random gunshot in your general direction. Reducing the game's problems to just being lack of MP, bad AI, and bugs is selling CDPR short in terms of the rank incompetence on display. The game isn't just bad, it's like if a clusterfuck met a disaster that it really liked and produced a whole family of purified awful.

Getting back to this topic, WotR. A pathfinder game, meaning a game using a crack-snorting variant of the D&D 3.5E ruleset. I'm sure it does get a lot of things right and from what I can tell, it looks like it does have some more Baldurian design elements, but I really don't like 3E that much, and I very much suspect that WotR late game gameplay will either be quite doable, if you've optimized the everlasting hell out of your character and your companions, or it will be completely insane, if you've taken a role-playing approach and just picked whatever "felt right". And 3E optimization is hard. I say that as someone with a university degree. Trying to figure out all the nuance in all the race and class options and the exact right time to take this or that class for access to this feat or that class skill is more work than I put into some of my classes, back in the day. That's frankly more work than I feel like putting into a game that I'm playing for fun. The alternative appears to be the cookie cutter approach, which gets old real fast. Do I want that in BG3? Not really. Were BG1 and 2 like that? Not at all.

Frankly, most of these games shouldn't be an inspiration for BG3 in any imaginable way. BG1, BG2, PST, maybe a few popular books on how to design user interfaces, maybe a book on human-computer interaction, and that's really all Larian needed to focus on. They are well versed in everything else they need to make a great game, after all. Frankly, I worry some times that Bethesda managed to come closer to the originals with their first modern Fallout sequel than Larian is aiming to do with BG3. And to be brutally honest, I am very worried about all the MP nonsense that appears to be part of the single player experience that Larian has in mind.

Thank you for the reviews. Yes agree with you about Parhfinder 1 and Solasta bad games.
I wonder if Pahtfinde 2 is better then bad Pathfinder 1? Well I guess I wait for full reviews of Pathfinder 2.

It seems like we really can't have any topic about anything anymore without Terminator trying to monopolize it with his inane incoherent ramblings.

Every time I get home from work, I open this thread and wonder if I had somehow suffered a stroke on the way back.

I totally understand some of the others’ views on this now…

First things first, I POE2 is one of my favourite games. As it is the witcher series, planescape, wasteland series, the divinity series, tyranny, Neverwinter nights series, bg, iwd, fallout, temple of elemental evil, pillars of radiance, modded elder scrolls games, etc... or even south park: SOT

To like them is not mutually exclusive. They have more in common than... let's say battlefield 4 or league of legends. Pointless battles over a niche genre, like western crpgs only makes it more niche, and that causes fewer sales and less money to make more. Myself, I´m perfectly ok with having so many titles, or even more, even if those are not perfect for me.

I find it funny that 90% of the threads about WoTR are full of people just complaining about the things they do not like about the first game instead of talking about the second (the second game those posters did not even played). and the threads become just another thread about Pf:KM instead.

Second, I am not going to argue the reviews here ( some are a matter of personal opinion, some are so plain inaccurate it is not even worth the time to refute because anyone playing the betas more than 10 minutes will find it false)

but I find it puzzling that there are many people judging a game without even playing it.

There are some things that videos, photos or second-handed opinions simply cannot convey. Games are meant to be played, a stream, videos, does not show everything that a game will have. There are even cases that some things that seem awful or boring in theory work well when you are playing. Like the terrible camera of Mirror edge that causes vertigo to everybody besides the one that is playing, because it makes you feel you are really jumping between buildings. Or the 8-bit graphics of undertale or "to the moon" , that become part of the story itself.
Even the fact that you can finish a game without killing no one may seem boring to some, but it works in games like Alpha protocol or Undertale.
It happened to me that some games does not appeal to me for some puntual things; but after some time I actually try them and became one of my favourites, because some flaws may not be flaws, or simply may not matter if you are playing it.

The first Neverwinter, for example, I dislike the main campaign even remastered, but after trying multiplayer, the two expansions and the many custom campaigns it was a game worth buying and playing ( I have the impression that Solasta is going to be like that, it has a lot of potential and there are many people already making fanmade campaigns)

BTW there is something fundamentally wrong with a label like "RPG"
when you enter, let´s say steam or GOG and you find that games like "Devl may cry" "Baldur´s gate 2" "The witcher 3" "Disco elysium" and "Kings bounty" are in the same category -RPG-

This is a war we lost 20 years ago.
There are people who legitimately think Diablo 3 qualifies as RPG at this point.

Diablo 3 to me always will be Hack & Slash.. But yeah, these days they are called action rpg or w/e. The Witcher 3 is a RPG of sorts. Though you could also put it under action/adventure or 3rd person RPG. back on topic.. took the plunge and will see if pathfinder 2 grabs me more than the first one did. Doubt any RPG's out there will quickly replace the old Black Isle Studio works..

Well, yes.
The entire Witcher trilogy and Gothic are action RPGs, since they are games with "RPG framing" (branching dialogues, storylines affected by choices and consequences, etc) and an action, mostly-skill-based combat.
Diablo is a hack'n slash, as you said, since its gameplay loop is entirely focused of whacking hordes of enemies and there's hardly more than that.

The point is that you'd have a hard time trying to convince a general audience that they aren't all under the same "RPG" label. The nuance is not particularly valued outside of certain circles.

Preach, brother!!!

[Nice to have you back active here]

This is what makes Obsidian above the rest. They actually sincerely make an attempt to reevaluate and critique their own games and the approaches they have taken, and are not afraid to admit if something did not work out as they expected or where they were wrong about something or regret a choice they made. Self-criticism is big at Obsidian, unlike certain other peer studios that seem to be governed more by ego and hubris.

Close this thread already thank you or do something about rude Tuco and Saito Hikari. Many posters here talk here about other PC games and yet they only attack me.

BG3 vs Pathfinder 2? Easy to compare BG3 better graphics, support multiplayer, better trailers , nice story with movie effects, excellent music and no annoying strategy game to control an army like Pathfinder 2.

The only thing Pathfinder 2 has that is better right now it has more classes, races etc. and more levels (but I dont care about getting to max level 20) and if max level is 12 in BG3 at full release that is fine with me. Of course with an expansion BG3 could raise the max level to 20.
Well I have not played Pathfinder 2 so I know nothing about its camera control or any thing about controlling it.
Companions? Well since I have not played Pathfinder 2 it is very difficult for me to compare BG3 companions vs Pathfinder 2. Well OP had an opinon about that but we really do not know yet all companions of BG3.
It is possible that BG3 will get more companions example in Act 2 and/or Act 3.

However since BG3 is at Early Access we really need to wait for full release before knowing how much classes, subclasses and races BG3 has at full release.

Try to convince someone that JRPGs are not RPGs at all.
"But it has RPG in the name" they say.

I would be careful with making definite statement like that. Personally I love developers doing Post Mortem on games - I just find it fascinating to hear dev's viewpoint as well as additional insight into the development. Obsidian has been pretty open with those - or at least Josh Sawyer was. I think his presentations are well put together and insightful. In Deadfire one, he even didn't hold from expressing his frustration with whoever in management forced his hand to add ship combat during fig campaign - that's something that surprised me.

But I think it is less likely that other devs aren't thinking or analyzing failings of their titles, but that they will not be willing (or allowed) to criticise their product publicly. I do wonder, if under Microsoft we will see brutal post-mortems like Josh's Deadfire one - partially, because other leads might not be into public speaking the way Josh is, and because Microsoft might not be happy to see their bought studios posting videos criticising their own product. I would be shocked if majority of devs didn't have plenty of things they weren't happy about. It's just they won't do it publically.

That was after PoE2 bombed so hard that everyone knew, and they obviously couldn't hide it under any ambiguity either.

Considering that it's fairly known that stuff like ship combat was basically forced into the game by upper management, let's hope they don't try to take an active role in Avowed's development this time around.

[rant]
I wish we could provide constructive feedback about one game without having to rely on another game as a model. If every studio did this, genres like RPGs would all become formless blobs of copied features, rather than games with personalities of their own. I for one am glad that the RPG genre is big enough, and flexible enough, to allow forms of passionate organic expression, rather than "this is not what an RPG should be like so let's just copy that other game". Forgive me for the spurious comparison, but this is not the smartphone market, and thank goodness for that.

And, really, I think some forum members should chill with the attacks on developers. Studios are not out to get you or to insult your personal sensitivities. I believe that Larian and Owlcat want what's best for their game and truly wish to deliver a good game. There are companies out there that have legitimately bad practices (with recent events, I think we can all think of one in particular), but I genuinely believe that both Larian and Owlcat are deeply passionate about their game and wish to deliver the best product possible. A little appreciation goes a long way, especially when those studios have a proven track record of listening to their communities.
[/rant]

Back on topic: I haven't played WotR or even Kingmaker, but I'm looking forward to my first playthrough WoTR on September 2nd. I love BG3 and it probably has the potential of becoming one of my all-time favorite games if act 1 is representative of the rest of the game, though I realize that there are things I would personally like to improve with the game (some things which I've addressed in the feedback section of the forum).

In all fairness Swen VIncke in his DOS 2 post-mortem made a lot of self-criticizing as well.

The framing was also fairly similar to what Sawyer said about some issues with POE 2: "We didn't list to our community under the impression that they were a vocal minority and they would come around appreciating what we did... And what do you know? It ended up being something that even the public at large criticized".

The whole thing is worth watching, but an example is here with the armor system:




It's minute 40:00 if the direct timestamp doesn't work for you.

That's a fairly interesting analysis.

Granted, I don't have the time to listen to the whole video, but I wonder if he ever talks about the origin system or the mass culling at the end of Act 1? If not, I forsee a second post-mortem presentation for BG3. Or perhaps not, because the issues with the armor system are immediately noticeable just like the arguments revolving around height advantage and so on, while the effects of the origin system and the act 1 culling would have extremely subtle narrative effects in comparison.

Hahaa Tuco and Saito Hikari I dont giva a shit about DOS 2 ramblings.


I only wanted to correct a few things...
This is for adults only talk. Please do no read if you are sensitive:



I can not really speak for all MMOS. but the end fo the day expericence can vary much of the GUILD your are member on how friendly your other players are in the guild you are member of.

Regarding NPC choice in the hidden spoiler fact ... I did today see in movie theaters as an exception (not my usual taste) a Comedy movie Free Guy.
I liked it fairly much that is pretty much about NPC and AI gaming and players and game developers. Well not super movie, but I rate it 7/10 and do not regret seeing it. This from me typically Horror and Action movie fan.

I agree with you like more the user interface of BG1 and BG2 then BG3... BG3 controlling camera and user interface feels average to me at best according to me BG3 weakest point. I am not those hardcore DnD that must have freaking somatic component to spell casting that in many pen and paper session GM choose to ignore that rule completely about somatic spell casting aka must have one hand free.

Since I have not played Pathfinder 2 so I can not say much really about its interface or camera controlling.

...Ok?

But we all know that's not going to stop you.

i remember when i first started modding Skyrim...loverslab? What's that?



but let's not talk about Skyrim modding. Tis a silly place.

On topic: 2 weeks to go! I'm really curious to see how the overall tone feels compared to BG3.

Well as I also mentioned in previous post a bit a spinoff from that I would find it very interesting if they would create a true AI as in Comedy movie Free Guy that I did see today. In all games AI seems even at best very limited.

Well neither BG3 or Pathfinder 2 will have that level of very high true AI.

I am not even interested in any modding talk either. It's such an inane and pointless conversation to have when literally anything becomes a better game tailored to anyone's specific preferences when modded. The only difference is which games are popular enough to receive such mod support to begin with, and the ease of doing it (as in whether it has official mod support).

I mean, sure, modding had a huge effect on Kingmaker's popularity in the end, the famous turn-based mod created about 8 months after release later being officially supported by the devs themselves. But it's also important to note that the way the Pathfinder games still split actions into turns in the background even during RTwP is what allowed for the mod to exist to begin with. Anyone expecting something like RTwP to be modded into BG3 in turn is going to be disappointed.

Okay, I changed my mind, maybe mod talk is pretty interesting from a gameplay analysis level rather than this weird nudity tangent. Maybe someone within the BG1 and 2 community might be pissed off enough about the series pivoting into strict turn-based to try. It is possible in theory, considering the game already runs in real time outside of combat. The big hurdle is determining how you would handle transitioning from using one skill into the next, and the lack of an apparent pause ability even when opening the menu.

You know what would be REALLY neat, from a player convenience and an experimental standpoint? If you had the option to let the game take control of your party members, either to speed things along in an effort to address the big complaint about turn-based and/or observe what the computer thinks the best thing to do is while potentially learning something along the way. A mod to do that would be huge.

Well I would hope (and I fear that is hope in vain) BG3 could go that level of modding players could create adventures as in Neverwinter Nights 1 that other players can play, but I fear it is a dream only. Solasta have Dungeon creator, but even that is not Neverwinter Nights 1 modding where you can create anything the sky is the limit for environment you can have forests, mountains, seas a city adventure or whatever as surroundings in your world. Well and then you can guess what nasty thing I can wait patiently for in mod content... but enough of that I am sure you figured it out by now.

D:OS2 had an officially supported campaign creator. It never went anywhere because by all accounts, it was awkward to work with. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if whatever tool BG3 comes up with meets the same fate. Fanciness shouldn't take precedence over ease of use.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1356308905

The above is literally the only custom campaign I tried out for D:OS2, some 2 or 3 years ago. I am also heavily unsurprised that it's probably the only well known one. Digging around in google tells me that a community focused on creating custom campaigns in DOS2 straight up doesn't exist. I'm also not surprised that Larian has yet to promise a campaign editor for BG3 as a result.

I have actually not had the opportunity to actually play PF:WotR yet, but I have been stalking it through other players (thanks, Saito for getting me started ), and I been doing my homework regarding it.

Imma just make a short list of the most important aspects (imo) to keep the post semi-clean:

Combat: I actually enjoy Larian's "somewhat" flawed TB combat more than the RTwP (with TB option) of PF. DOS2 brought me into CRPGs and with my TB-heavy background - the style of DoS2 combat always felt easier for me than RTwP (although, I've gotten much better than I was 8 months ago ). From what I've seen (however, I cannot say with 100% certainty until I've actually played the game), WotR seems to easily be as "cluster-forky" as PF:KM in terms of combat. ... And I do hope they skip the legendary difficulty scaling that I've heard regarding PF:KM's release. x] Either way - I hardly play either game for the combat mechanics, so as far as they are both "acceptable" in terms of combat, I'll endure. :]

Story: One of the things I liked less about PF:KM was that you *had* to embark on a quest to become a ruler (and hence "king maker"). I struggle with this perspective unless I am going the full evil route (which I usually do on my second playthrough). WotR's story is easier for me to "adapt" my character into - but similarly to many other "power focused" cRPGs (such as DA:I), I struggle a bit with the entire thing about "being the chosen one." Opposing a lot of people in these forums, my base character is based off my TT character and hence not "made" for being the solo leader of the group. :] Roleplayers will probably understand what I mean, even if I feel like I explained it poorly Bear with me, I have not had enough sleep due to being sick. ANYWAYS, as for the story in it's core - I do not know the entire WotR story nor the entire BG3 story yet, so I cannot say anything definite here either. c:

Choices and Consequences: Now this is something that PF:KM already blew me away in during the very first "introduction." Owlcat handle choice and consequence very, very, very well. Unsurprisingly, Owlcat seems to have pushed themselves even harder and from all I've seen, I've been positively surprised. It is difficult to not stay immersed in WotR when the entire world seems to react to your actions. BG3 has thus far not impressed me regarding choices and consequences, but I am willing to give Larian benefit of the doubt that this is more of a EA-issue and bug-related issue. ... ... ... However, the legendary issues of DoS2 in the subject does make me slightly nervous...

Companions: I am a sucker for companions, and for me - they are a HUGE part of the game. Equally huge to my co-players in the TT version. Good wriiting, character development and the feeling of actually bonding as a group is EXTREMELY important to me. Now, I actually never had much of a issue with the personality of our companions in BG3 - in fact, I thought they all reacted rather reasonably considering their position. And I do know that Larian know how to write good character development from "harsh" characters (Sebille <3), so I am rather certain that our companions in BG3 have a lot more to them than what we'll see in EA. HOWEVER - WotR has blown me away in the way that they handled companions. I thought PF:KM did a pretty neat job with companions, but everything about WotR companions just makes me feel joyous. The way that they managed to weave evil-aligned companions to match a good-aligned party AND LET IT MAKE SENSE has just surpassed all expectations I had. WotR companion dialogues are absolutely amazing to read and I am not bothered one bit by not everything being voiced as it is written so damn well that you can HEAR the character's voices in your head as you read the dialogue. I had the same experience in PF:KM (to the point where I actually forgot they were not voiced until it was pointed out to me), but it seems to be EVEN more so in WotR.

A lot of writers forget that evil is often pragmatic, rather than showy and doing everything for laughs. Truly well-meaning good companions shouldn't turn down actual help purely for the sake of moralizing or keeping up an image either, especially with the stakes so high as it is. It's the one thing that makes WotR's evil companions (and the cast as a whole) really stand out compared to the few unambiguously evil companions in other cRPGs, even Kingmaker.

Granted, that's not to say that displays of outright showy evil don't exist among WotR's cast. But those situations are made a lot more poignant among the sheer variety you get with the cast.

Two more weeks to go...

I can accept that not all developers may have the freedom to be self-critical in public, but I would at least expect to see their self-criticism reflected in subsequent games they make.
"Bombed so hard" is a blatant exaggeration unsupported by the facts.
Interesting video. Thanks for sharing.

PoE 2 had fairly underwhelming sales at launch but over time it caught up a bit.
The game at this point made back its cost a while ago and started to finally making money, so it can't exactly be dismissed as a complete failure.

Still, a bit unlikely to see Obsidian rushing to make another one for a while...

We were both there at launch and we saw what happened. It caught up eventually but that was after years worth of intense word of mouth and a ton of sales. Publishers weigh launch numbers far higher than long term sales anyway. In the eyes of Obsidian, the launch was enough of a dud by their standards to later openly admit that it sold way under expectations and that they weren't planning on a sequel for a while. It's kinda unambiguous if even the developer is openly admitting that.

Maybe 'bombed so hard' is a bit strong of a descriptor. But everyone knew the launch performance wasn't up to par regardless.

Avowed veering straight into first person RPG with no hint of a PoE3 in sight is rather telling as well. Though it's likely that they planned on Avowed for a while, PoE2's earlier performance most likely meant that they wouldn't be able to complete the project without additional funding from Microsoft.

Fucking first person again.

Hey look, we aren't hallucinating in regards to the WotR companions.

(Potential spoilers below)

https://old.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder...hink_daeran_managed_to_seduce_my_player/

I told [Daeran] he can't be in the council room so he shouts his advice from the balcony. I really like the writing for him.

https://old.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder_Kingmaker/comments/p70jal/i_love_the_party_dynamics_in_the_game/

For example, I was talking to the brother of a certain traitor and during the entire conversation every person in the party chipped in from Cammelia noting his craftsmanship, Sosiel noting the brother bond and Ember saying he was kind and treated her with charity. Better yet Daeran then followed up on Ember's comment by mocking the guy for treating Ember kindly and then consorting with demons so woe was him.

Speaking of which:

https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/1428767638205784068

Aside for the fact that Sawyer is apparently playing Kingmaker for the first time, the news to me is that he's working on a title that isn't either TOW 2 or Avowed.

There have been some rumors for FNV 2.

This has been known for a while. Obsidian was said to be working on 6 projects last year, and Sawyer was not attached to any project already announced.

Do you have sources? This would be great, though I'd prefer a new Fallout by the NV team on another setting.

Non violent small project, I believe. Maybe, finally, he got to make his bike simulator?

Sure, it underperformed. Maybe just that words like "bombed so hard" comes across very differently to me than you.

Also for sure work on Avowed began before PoE2's release.

I wouldn't be too hasty on this. I'm still quite optimistic (based on comments they themselves have made) they will do what Skyrim did and provide a third-person option for Avowed.

@Wormerine beat me to it, but yeah it's been long known JES has wanted to make a no-combat historical RPG. His unannounced project (Project Missouri) team is very small at present, numbering only about 10 people. But keep in mind he is also Game Design Director for Obsidian, so he is the guy in overall charge of ALL Obsidian games in a supervisory way.

As for F:NV2, those rumors have been around for a while, and have naturally intensified since the MS takeover. But there are no concrete facts at all thus far. Obsidian's current projects are: Avowed, TOW2, Grounded, Sawyer's small project, and two other small teams still working on TOW1 and the Pathfinder card game. Those are the six projects: two big, one medium, and three small teams.

There are negatives and positives to WOTR, Solasta and BG3. Peoples perspectives are going to vary based on personal preferences.

WOTR
Pros
- Party of 6.
- 3.75 System More Verstility than 5E
- Good/Evil Choices In general feel more relivent to the game itself.
- Mounts
- RTwp Option for those that want it. (Don't care myself)
- Larger Equipment Options
- Random Encounters

Cons
- 3.75 System can be difficult on begginers / Lacks Balance of 5e.
- Mythic Levels and extra add-ons can feel make you feel like your getting over powered.
- Difficulty late game can feel very choice limiting at higher difficulty levels.

Solasta
Pros
- Character Creation Screen has far more initial options
- Sticks to all the 5e rules.
- Full party interaction.
- Stat rolling option.

Cons
- Limit of 7 classes from 5e.
- Party doesnt really give you the individual feel of each character mattering as much it feels less story driven with lack of companions.
- Not core with races.

BG3
Pros
- Higher system graphics makes the game look more asthetic.
- Combat does seem to be more fluid in current state.
- Immersive dialogue options.
- Target to Include all core options.
- Multi-Player Feature.

Cons
- Lack of ability to diversify the appearance of your character//Initial character design in general is super limiting.
- Choices feel non-Impactful
- A lot of homebrew rules.
- No Random Encounter Options.

Im sure there are more things could go on there but those are the more stand out things.

I would add to WOTR pros:

Lots of playable companions.
A night/day system + weather
Great UI
Super portraits
Part of 3.75 system but still: TONS of classes/kits options.

WOTR cons:
Not of fan of the color palette, better than Kingmaker but still a bit too cartoony.

add to BG3 Pros:
Really like the spell icons; This is probably the ONLY thing that reminds of BG2??

add to BG3 cons:
CRAP console like UI with stupid chain mechanic.
Cinematic dialogues for EVERYTHING slows the game to a crawl.
AGAIN, feels a bit too cartoony/vibrant! Whats with RPGs being like this these days?? Give me rated R dark and gritty!!!! Diablo 2 remake is finally a game thats getting there!? Maybe?!

And only about 2 weeks to wait!

The great news is that this should make the wait for the next BG3 patch a lot more bearable. Or 3, considering how long these games are, ha.

Honestly the BG 3 character creaction process in general lacks alot. I dont mind the in game UI as much though sometimes it feels a little clunky. WOTR does need a larger color pallet. I'm not a fan of the portraits however overall In case of bg 3 I do like that it adapts the character portrait to match your character. Where in some cases pathfinders portrait system is far off the actual base.

I left companions off the table because currently BG3 is a long way off completion so there is room for them to add more which I think is very important but right now WOTR does kick the shit out of it companion wise. Day and night could be impactful but I feel timing it around encounters is kind of better in some ways. The current reset system also impacts that heavily the food and camping system i think is currently a detriment to BG3. It actually was enough to discourage me grinding another playthrough for the small amount of added content this patch. Patch 4 was not as enjoyable as the first time playing as well despite the druid I felt there was more that could have been done if it wasn't for the druid I do not think I would have bothered with an extra 2 playthroughs in patch 4. Second one actually kinda ended with a non-full complete because I just felt like there was not enough difference in the playthrough to make it worth it.

Alot of the good / evil choices feel like they do not matter enough to be worth multiple playthroughs for what you lose of gain. I think random encounters could help that a lot with the game and be a much better option than food. To have say a 20% chance everytime you go to rest you could end up with an unexpected random encounter. It would add more variation to loot more options for difficulty as you could restrict it to level appropriate encounters or increase the difficulty of the potential random encounters risk / reward. It creates some interesting ways to make each playthrough feel different and less static with loot and items. It makes you think more about burning through all your abilities on encounters as you could get caught with your pants down and it doesn't make things feel like a chore in comparison to making sure you have enough food to repeatedly abuse resting which instead turns things into a farming chore (Unwanted things people do not like from mmo's). At least an encounter feels interesting its a risk/reward circumstance. Some encounters could be much more rare and if you burned all your abilities your going to hate the fact you got on of those encounters and might not be able to finish it cause you did not rest correctly meaning even save scumming may not necessarily be what you want to do in those cases. They could also make some areas more risk of encounters than others impacting the risk and reward even more so to pay attention to your abilities much like adventurers in a dungeon you can always leave if you dont want to finish it in one go and rest / recover unless there is a time constraint on it.

Trying to be somewhat lenient with bg 3 negatives due to it being a long way off release but it feels like they are lagging behind addressing issues I have yet to see much mention of at all on the forums if you look at the major topic threads. There is alot of stuff that has been brought up much much more than some of the small fixes. Removing flat backstab abuse + not adding flanking mechanics -. Flanking has a large impact on rogue party power. It makes having a more melee focused party better so taking it away is a detriment to melee. Which not a fan of as a person who does play melee much more than ranged characters in parties and its often overlooked as a lot of people do prefer spell casters melee characters do tend to get shafted quite a bit in a lot of games. 5E and live play dnd is one of the few games that usually doesnt feel that way as if your a caster and most melee characters ever get ahold of you you can pretty much assume your going to half die from a single round of attacks you are going to be using those spells to protect yourself heavily with hit and run tactics.

I honestly think that if WotR will be relatively bug free, there is almost nothing else that could stop this game from being much much better than Bg3. The only advantage Bg3 has is that it's still in development, and hopefully it might get some improvements that will make the competition more balanced. And of course full Bg3 is probably still pretty far off

I actually did not enjoy how the mythic powers is integrated into the main story of WotR
it felt like as if I am watching an anime (cheap basically)

-Might be a spoiler so don't continue reading -


when there is no hope of survival and out the sudden a mysterious power comes to aid the party (not just the mc) lol
mechanical-wise they sound great
but story-wise
I am not happy with it

Based on your comment I'm not sure if you played it or not.
Anyway there are two things to be said about it - hero getting superpowers is something RPGs have since at least Baldur's Gate. It's all about execution.
If we talk about WotR specifically, I would say some paths are weaker than others story wise but it's to be expected that not everything would be perfect with a game of that scale made by such a small company.

I have played the second beta and stopped at chapter 3 I think
given your comment about me not being sure if I played it or not, I hope I am wrong and it is just me not paying close attention to the story since it is beta and all and I was more into finding bugs rather than enjoying the game

everyone has a different opinion and i respect that.

for me personally, WoTR was truly heroic and glorious. i first played the Angel mythic path. and i salute owlcat for their musical score. it connects on having the feeling of righteous in it. basically WoTR is based on the Pathfinder Adventure Path. so i believe they are staying true to the original storyline from Paizo.

i completed WoTR EA and basically i'm not going to spoil it. I find the story quite interesting personally.

I have really enjoyed what I have played from the beta and hearing all the positive comments here give me more hope for the full release

I am worried about the bugs that have started floating from the third beta
the only thing that I see that will hold back the success of this game is how baggy will it be once it releases.

I agree. I wasn't around the PFKM release But I read that it was filled with bugs and almost unplayable. Even to this day I still got bugs, some that even breaks immersion like the ending if you marry the Tieflings twins. I hope for WOTR to be able to release without any problems, I played the beta a little, but I wanted to wait for full release since it's so close.

As for the graphics, they released recent dev progress where it seems they are upgrading/remaking the graphics and it's looking really good.

This man is out here digging. Someone stop him. Holy shit.

I see where you coming from. And undoubtedly the first two act's story is not a masterpiece of writing. The story does get a more nuanced later on, but even then it does depends on your choices and could be a little too on the nose. I think the problem is the fact that this game is based on some buffinder adventure that didn't have as good a writing as owlcat's original stuff. But they did the best with what they had and the story does pick up later. Moreover, the pacing at the very least is much better than it was in Kingmaker.

I'm afraid i have to agree with you on this. Through out beta and beta2 i do have genuinely experienced some game breaking bugs and some annoying ones. As we are nearing September, i was thinking if i should hold till the game full release. I'm not sure if they will wipe the save games or not so it's a little risky for me to start my trickster playthrough.

He got temp banned in a different thread and the mod made it explicitly clear that derails like this were why, so I don't think you'll need to worry on that front.


My view on the story is that it does what it does rather well. The real selling point is the interactions between the companions and supporting cast anyway. A fun party drastically elevates the experience, and I'm evidently not alone in the belief that WotR has among the best cast of party members in existence. DA:O for instance would have had naught more than a generic excuse plot at the end of the day if it weren't for Alistair, Morrigan, Leliana and company.


Saves will most definitely be wiped by full release. Or at least existing saves will be considered corrupted. Consider that even BG3 essentially wipes saves after almost every patch thus far, even though the opinions on the impact of each patch widely varies. I think the only cRPG in recent memory that didn't wipe saves was Solasta, and it's several magnitudes far smaller in scale than BG3 and WotR.

100% agree. But if we want to judge the game fairly, the problematic nature of the story should be mentioned. and it's not just that it's generic. there are some problems with certain plot threads.

however, even so, if we are discussing comparison to bg3, WotR takes this game effortlessly

WARNING in SPOILERS about BG3 main story plot do not read if you do not want to:
That said I have a bit difficult to estimate BG3 plot from Act 1 Early Access only.

Well here is my question about Pathfinder 2? What if I do not want to control a freaking army at all? What if I do not want to do that since
A. If I really want to play a strategy game then I can play another game.
B. I want to feel this like an adventure and playing Dungeons Dragons and not control some freaking army.
Can I from Pathfinder 2 settings choose no Army Campaign? I guess not there you go...

Well and then those freaking annoying Mythic spells in Pathfinder 2.
You know what in my country I could join DnD Pathfinder Pen and Paper group. My first question would be to GM do you have Mythic spells? If yes then my answer sorry do not want to play.
Mythic spells if not some usual core book that people buy when they initially buy Pathfinder Pen and Paper. It is an extra optional book... some like it and I very much dislike it.

Seeing people praise WotR's writing after having just abandoned Kingmaker on account of a hidden timer screwing me over with a character I wanted to have around and not having an extra save, but having already, um, appreciated how freaking awful its writing is throughout sure is a sight and a half.

Is it actually good, or are people just kissing its feet to spite BG3's defenders? Because I really, really doubt that something anywhere near compelling could come out of the writers who worked on Kingmaker's plot and characters. When the premise of you having a kingdom and having an army and such amounts to it all not doing anything in the plot (apart from helping to bypass one final overtuned skillcheck), and you effectively remain an adventuring schmuck who has to do everything themselves throughout the game, it shows that it has no legs. And it's rather difficult to feel anything about the Evil Disco Ball and Nero-wannabe and pretty much every other antagonist (Nyrissa especially, with whom there are random hints of your PC being infatuated with her, which appear outta freaking nowhere) when they are barely characters who don't exist outside of their specific chapter (apart from the Evil Disco Ball, but his motivation is basically non-existent, so it's a main villain with all the nuance of a child throwing a tantrum).

If Linzi was meant to be a stand-in for the writers (a specific writer?), then I say it's a perfect fit, given how bad she's at her job and how irritating a character.

i find Kingmaker gameplay design really well thought out. it's punishing due to their design especially if you don't have an earlier saved games like vordakai's tomb. Kingdom Management take times to learn and understand and actually there's some difficulty or challenges in it. i would say it involves in alot of trial and error. there aren't really many helpful guides out there. also the Kingdom Management is deadly. you can easily waste your time without doing much of anything (progressing your party, leveling and upgrading them). when the timer hits, it's only about you able to beat the encounter or reload to earlier saves to prepare for it.

while personally loving this, many casuals may find it very punishing and unforgiving. i would say if owlcat maybe and perhaps do a hard saves checkpoint for every critical chapters (which is non deletable saves). then players may still can go back to the latest chapter checkpoint before it's really Game Over.

there are plenty of time (hundred of days) before the timer kicks in for each chapter. it's a balance between the kingdom events and party leveling and progress.

they make it more easier with Wrath of Righteous. i love the crusade battle. it reminds me of Heroes of Might & Magic. some people here dislike crusade battles. I think there are only few forced major crusade battles. also if not mistaken there's a difficulty for the crusade battle if anyone don't enjoy it.

That's a weird conclusion to come to.

Kingmaker's story and pacing was... Unique, for lack of a better descriptor. But there's a reason why there's a major consensus among beta testers that the WotR companions are much better written then their Kingmaker counterparts, with a couple exceptions on both sides. The actual story could be hit or miss based on how much people care for the source material, but the companions are great enough that they absolutely elevate the experience for me. I didn't really have that feeling with Kingmaker.

Real spite would be bringing up D:OS2's writing and wondering why people would expect much better from BG3, but it's a useless exercise for the purpose of this thread. Both WotR and BG3 are big improvements over their predecessors in that department anyway. Granted, these days I have similar feelings about things like kingdom management and crusade management as I do with the origin system. It's not much of a secret that the crusade management in WotR has been kind of an afterthought, it was just merely functional until beta phase 2 started adding some depth to it. Though I still think the origin system is the worse waste of resources by far.

I wouldn't be surprised if the next Pathfinder game doesn't have some sort of side management system, because I get the impression that the devs may have realized that they might have bit off more than they can chew with the crusade system. If it's based on Iron Gods as most are theorizing now, I don't think they can fit any kind of management system in that campaign without coming up with a concept that straight up didn't exist in the actual modules.

in regards to BG3.. i think the only noticeable changes personally were the visuals and it being dnd5e. apart from that i don't really see any more different than being a DOS game. they have close up dialogue system much like witcher 3 or dragon age and nice visuals / facial or appearance. apart from that would be the Forgotten Realms settings. but even that larian failed in making me having the feels that i'm in the Forgotten Realms. a very big pity i would say.

also comparing to wrath of the righteous, i seems to experience significant changes visually from beta 2 to beta 3. i kinda impressed in that. but problem with owlcat they are still back to square one with being how buggy the game which strike similarity like the first pathfinder kingmaker.

also the companions in wrath of the righteous.. i love most of them except a few which.. i think due to gameplay reason and my party composition.

i rate wrath of righteous 8.5/10 so far .. if they iron out the bugs i would say it's a 9/10.

i also dislike the nerfing of the ranger class which is against the rules. but i understand it being significantly more powerful due to the abundant of demons in the game.

I am hoping that feeling changes as soon as we reach Baldur's Gate, personally. The Pathfinder games have made me legitimately interested in the setting enough to theorize where each subsequent game might take place/which modules they might be based on.

BG3 so far just makes me want a Waterdeep game, and only because I'm also part of a tabletop group running a campaign taking place around that city too, along with sheer bafflement at how there isn't a recent cRPG taking place there yet. Though it's clear that the setting of Act 1 doesn't really lend itself to building the world, it's only really focusing on the immediate area and the people already there. Reaching the city of Baldur's Gate proper should change that quite a bit. Unless it's something like Arx, which was rather disappointing in scale for an area that was seemingly hyped up throughout all of DOS2.

Now that I think about it, I remember really liking Aleroth in Divinity 2 (the action RPG before the Original Sin series). The entirety of the expansion took place within that city, and I remember it was a large and visually interesting city with a lot of fun quests throughout. Then again, I wouldn't be surprised if I was one of only a handful of people on this forum today who actually played that game and its expansion.

I am anything but a casual (in my opinion, at least), and I found it unforgiving regardless because it's not a well-implemented mechanic. Kingdom management is much too random and in the late game can become impassable not because you're bad at it but because your highest stats have success chance of 30% or so against the checks it throws at you. I've beaten the game once on Challenging and the part where you are bombarded with ridiculous unfixable hits to your kingdom stats (Pitax) that can ruin your game unless you safe-scum a lot or just switch it to cheat mode is NOT well thought-out. Neither are the late-game fights where you are drowning in enemies that have godlike stats and a lot of DR/resistances. The Bald Hilltop, on the other hand, was not a problem at all. It was more of a nuisance and a really weak plot anchor rather than an actual challenge.

I used to stand up for it back when it was being bashed for being unplayable on release due to how difficult it was at the start (The Old Sycamore and such). Having finally played it to the end after two enhanced editions and a myriad of patches, I, in retrospect, don't really agree with my assessment back then. It's a design disaster for the most part, and unless they intended for the players to min-max to hell and back, I see no way to explain why the game has an abundance of enemies with ridiculously overtuned abilities (+8 to AC from Dexterity on a random cat is insane) and that can hit you so reliably that any AC value below 30 in the early-to-mid game is already too little for your frontliner. It's not interestingly challenging, it's a stat bloat through and through. And people complain about how BG3 does that, when that one troll in Kingmaker's penultimate chapter was almost unhittable by my divine hunter PC with a +5 weapon, 26 Dex, and a bunch of active spells without casting True Strike on top.

All the class choices and multiclassing possibilities are nice, sure, but how many of them are actually functional against what the game throws at you and how many are just plain garbage? The alchemist is pretty much mandatory to have, as spamming difficult fights with force bombs saves you a lot of trouble (tactics, planning? Grenade spamming!), while someone like the crusader can neither do their cleric duties right nor hold their own in melee and ends up hampered in both ways. Something like the magus is a fantastic concept that is fun to play and build - but they melt in melee and can't hit crap without constantly using their weapon enhancement ability because of the lower BAB, so I had to scrap my very first playthrough because I kept dying to bandits and start with a regular ol' fighter (well, Aldori defender) instead.

As for the writing, maybe it is indeed dependent on whether or not you like the setting to enjoy it. I can't really take Golarion seriously, though. It took the edgier/more nonsensical parts of the D&D settings and cranked them up to the max while still clearly just taking a lot of the concepts and using them as their own. The pantheon alone sure is a... collection of extremes. And as far as Kingmaker specifically goes, it really makes you hate their version of the fey with a passion. Will-o'-wisps especially.

About gameplay - I'm so glad you said it because I am pretty casual and in some circles it means I can't have an opinion on the gameplay XD. But yeah I agree, especially when it comes to the fact you have millions of classes, but if you only count viable ones you have much less, and even if you can make a less great class work, you have to be super powergamer minmaxing to do so. About stat bloat I also agree, and that's why I call it buffinder. If that is too much annoying for you to play the game, you're out of luck because wrath of the righteous is the same.

About crusader system and kingdom management - unfortunately I feel like the crusader system is not much better. Fortunately you can easily remove it from your playthrough.

About story and writing - I generally agree with what you're saying here. However, I think the owlcat writers are much much more better than the TT buffinder writers are. That means that most original content in wrath of the righteous is amazing. I really really hope owlcat next game will be original, or at the very least not based on some existing buffinder adventure. At the very least, while these extremes you talk about are still in the game, the overall writing is still a big improvement.

The largest issue with comparing bg 3 and wotr is the systems. BG3 is a 5E game so the mechanics of the games are different at a core rule set vs Pathfinder which is 3.75 rule set.

The rules in 3.75 were not as balanced class wise. Saving throws worked much differently meaning certain mechanics at high dcs can be difficult for characters to handle vs 5e where those mechanics are not necessarily game breaking instant death is not necessarily going to be instant death in 5e vs 3.75 where its going to kill you. Barbarians / Paladins in 3.75 are drastically weaker in a lot of offensive perspectives than fighters. 5E shored this up significantly. 5E generally your not going to find a mage out damaging a melee character in single target damage but instead trading it off for aoe and utility. There are still some weak points to balance in 5E but its significantly less noticeable compared to 3.75 mechanics. Powers for leveling all the way to 20 in one class are also significantly better than 3.75 where multiclassing was much easier to work with as a lot of classes were very heavily front loaded so that you got a lot of the good abilities early out so deciding if you wanted to go all the way to 20 or not in a class was much less difficult of a choice. Part of what enabled a large amount more with customization to characters. There is a lot more focus on break points of power levels in 5E when choosing to multiclass stopping at the wrong level could drastically decrease your characters overall performance.

Mythic paths I think would have been much better as a I hit level 20 now there is this to explore aspect as it is traditionally in Pathfinder its something for after you already powered up like a beast. However illithid mind flyer powers are along the similar lines with BG3 so you cant really say that bg3 doesnt really add above normal power levels to characters.

Story line wise both games are decient for the story plot but its a matter of perspective I personally enjoyed watching other playthroughs more of pathfinder with some good narration than BG3 but that was dependent on content creators and the fact that WOTR choices felt more impactful on the way the story was going. Its one of BG3's current weak points while there are alot of choices present most of them are negative if you chose evil or as if the choice doesnt really have any direct impact and that your actual choice to kill or not kill an npc is really more impactful than any real dialogue choices in a lot of cases. It really feels more like a punishment than a real choice if you don't follow the path of a good guy in the game in general. The best arch of good vs evil choices being impactful with changing how the story actually unravelled was probably the SwTOR mmo game where everytime you played through the game it felt like you were playing a completely different story based on your choices. While it didnt drastically impact the game the story felt like you were going down a different path. BG 3 it doesnt really feel like your story changes that much with alot of the current existing choices outside if you kill certain people certain options are just not present.

It also again feels like picking any evil path is punished. If anyone can give me a positive benefit to choosing an evil path that benefits you more than choosing a good path I would be in shock and awe. PS different cinimatics dont count. You lose out on party members. You lose out on items and you dont get anything to replace the losses at all. If you chose the goblins even you get access to less shops and item crafting in general. Where as even if your the good guy in most cases you can pick pocket anything you would have lost out on for being good. Its just really not impactful. There are no particular rewards for doing an evil path or quest options really that truely expand evil play throughs.

WOTR you give up the good guy path you can take the path and get different bonus powers / benefits. You can benefit from evil items that give you particularly good bonuses in place of good items you cant benefit from.

Thank you for the tip. Considering the likely bug-a-thon it'll be on release, giving it a year or so, just like the original, and picking it up on sale is probably a good call then.

My main gripe is not even with the stat bloat but with how they don't give you any tools or tricks to deal with it (and the combat in general) apart from just giving you a +2/4/6/8 to all your physical/mental stats belt/headpiece and a +5 unobtanium weapon of fire (hopefully of the type that your character is using, as in - one of the swords, occasionally a scythe or a bow, but good luck getting a good heavy crossbow). Finding and forging magical items and artifacts in something like Baldur's Gate 2 was engaging and interesting. There was lore behind the items, and they had interesting and powerful effects you could strategize around. Kingmaker barely has any item descriptions apart from the - again! - overly verbose ones on the stuff you restore with the Storyteller, and there's almost no reason to pick a belt with a cool effect over a belt that increases your Strength, Dexterity and Constitution by 6. The abundance of the latter kills any instances of actually interesting gear. Did they do anything about that in WoTR?

No, and when you started talking about it I was like "bullseye" because I feel like that all the time. some items (I came across a necklace) are special cool ability items in addition to providing the generic bonuses (in this example some cool abilities in addition to +3 NAT armor) but most items are just like you said, more generic tools in the numbers race.

There's a greater variety of gear in WotR, but it's not a high bar to clear considering Kingmaker was largely sparse in most weapon types outside of your companions' favored gear. Finnean the talking weapon can morph into any weapon type you need, at least. I have noticed that there's a lot less straight stat upgrade gear, and a lot more accessories with actual unique effects. There were enough unique accessories that I had to constantly weigh whether I wanted to equip accessories that boosted offensive effects or keep those standard deflection rings and natural armor amulets on, which was something I never had to consider in Kingmaker.

For example, a ring that allows an archer to launch an opportunity attack at an enemy within 30 feet receiving another opportunity attack from a party member attacking in melee. Or something like the below, which I imagine will be a staple for ray blasters/Eldritch Archer builds.


I would find the occasional straight up +2/4 belt, but I don't recall running into any +6 gear until I reached chapter 4, which I understood to be about 2/3rds-3/4ths through the game.

The biggest problem (or strength, depends who you ask) of WotR is that it is a niche game, and the developers develop the game specifically for their niche audience that seem to like the things we hate (powergaming, minmaxing, etc). I feel like more work should have been done with the difficulty settings, that while are better than most game, still lacks more customisation that might have made the game more accessible. For the most part, I still find the difficulty to make the game either hard and sometimes too hard or too easy.

Then don't play a campaign centered around leading crusade into hells? We will see if it will be a problem - P:KM revolving around being king with kingdom management and kindgom itself being tedious and difficult to care for, was to me a bit problematic.

Yeah, that's a very good question. Unfortunately, I have been hearing how great P:KM story and companions are, and I have hard time believing that we played the same game. So, yeah, I am remaining doubtful whenever WoTR will offer anything appealing to me until I give it a go myself.

Kingmaker has setting to tune down both the complexity and the relevance of the kingdom management, by the way.

And generally speaking I'm not sure it's even possible to fail a "timer" in that game unless you purposefully ignore something for months in a row.

Like I said earlier and I'm trying to be very objective here, I think some elements of the story are improved a lot. The pacing is much much better, you don't feel like nothing happens and all the things you do feel important enough and not like filler. The companions roster is the best in recent years at the very least, and of course not all of them perfectly written but the good ones are really good. Moreover, some of them are actually unique.

The story is still not too great at least until chapter 3, which is a significant chunk of the game, but the companions are good enough to carry it imo. And since I don't care for the gameplay almost at all, and outright despise buffinder system for the most part, if the story was bad I would have ditched this game a long time ago

.... Except you are not being objective at all, no offence intended.



More work with the difficulty settings? O.O



As you can see you have 7 difficulty modes and you can customize from the difficulty and strength of the enemies to the number of the enemies you face in every encounter, weak critical hits against the party, party speed, encumbrance, dead party members rise after combat, etc.

And, like kingmaker, you can turn off or put the crusade management in automatic mode if you do not like that kind of strategy minigame with minimal story impact.

I mean, if you have that kind of customization and you want even more because it does not reach the sweet spot you will like for your game... well... I do not think the problem is in the game.
You simply cannot ask the devs to adjust the difficulty to every player in the game, but you could ask that they provide the more options they could with the budget and human power they have. And they did.


Evidently, it´s not the type of game do you like, or even the tabletop it´s based on. that´s fair; but it seems you are just finding fault in everything in the game, even things that are objectively not there.

... And just for the record, the fact that kingmaker and WoTR are hard games nobody argues, but I also have to say I finished the game with a party of 5 bards, so the need of what you called "powergaming" and min-maxing are only needed for the harder difficulties. Pretty sure in story mode with the lowest "damage to the party" setting the IA wins almost all the fights for you with autoattacks (I know that for a fact because my sister do not like combat and management, so she played the game like a visual novel, just to read and roleplay)
You still need to beat some enemies that have particular resistances with the right spells or weapons, but you have all the time in the world to do so in the lowest difficulty settings.
As I said it´s a hard game. it´s like playing dark souls and complain that you are dying. Yeah, it´s a hard game from starters. Nobody said otherwise. But unlike the dark souls series you can lower the difficulty to a manageable point, letting players that like challenges play the game too.

I find it a good decision to allow people that like challenging combat and people that are there for the story and are not interested in to play the same game. I think BG3 would be like that too.

I'd be careful with turning it to auto mode, if it's like Kingmaker, it will screw even some main and important quests on later acts.

Excellent post Vic! This was so awesome in Kingmaker and will be even more robust in WotR. This kind of range of a great many option toggles and sliders is what BG3 desperately needs to bring in people like me who want to like BG3 but are currently a solid 'no'.

I'll say it again because you kinda nitpick a part of a sentence out of what I said. while the game difficulty settings are better than most games there is still work to be done in my opinion. It doesn't mean what they already did is bad or unappreciated. quite the opposite. When it comes to what I specifically like about RPGs, I like it to be challenging, but not too challenging as to force me to have perfect builds and only use specific weapons and such. right now I can kind of work it out in normal mode but some battles are still too tough in my opinion. the interesting thing about it is that for the most part, I use the builds that were provided by the game itself, so it's not like I'm necessarily build my characters really bad or something of the sort. perhaps it's just a matter of git good, but I can say for certain that lowering the difficulty doesn't help, because then enemies die in two or three hits. The only thing that kinda helps is the party damage slider, but than I can have a very long battle of miss miss miss miss miss miss until I hit something. and to be honest, I'm not sure it's a problem with the difficulty settings.

That's pretty much my stance on this too. There's a reason I haven't mentioned much about the actual gameplay. The combat being balanced around RTwP already lowers my standards by quite a bit in that department, so any thoughts about balance I would have for such a system would be a foregone conclusion. Thankfully Kingmaker's characters and aytpical plot premise was interesting enough for me to tolerate it, and the superior overall pacing of WotR and the amazing interactions between its party members are stellar enough that I don't even care (along with turn-based being available from launch). Though I will say that some party members are very unique on a mechanical level if you leave them single classed, which deepens my appreciation of them. Like Seelah potentially transitioning into a mounted tank/bruiser, Lann being a tank archer that later gets a personal dimension door and ability to attack of opportunity with a bow so that he can potentially warp up to and shotgun enemy mages and archers, and Camellia essentially being a front line tank druid-type character that trades shapeshifting for hexes and elemental weapon enchants.

(I really hope the next game goes even further with mechanically unique companions. We've had a ranger in both games so far, even if Arueshalae trades an animal companion for the ability to share her favored enemy bonuses with the party instead. If it's based on Iron Gods, we'll probably get the gunslinger Lirianne as the featured iconic, but I hope there's also an Eldritch Archer or a similar spellcasting archer somewhere in the cast too. WotR actually has one big gaping hole among its known cast, and it's that none of the known companions use two-handed melee weapons. Or well, Regill does, but I think on a mechanical level, his hooked hammer is treated as dual wielding for feat purposes despite being a two-handed weapon. Haven't used him in my main party much, even though I really appreciate his writing and the perspective he brings to the cast.

Also, let's just say there's a reason I specify known companions up there. There's strong hinting in-game at one more that does wield two-handed weapons, which would bring the non-path specific companion total up to 12. One could say this might be too many companions and that they all can't be written that well for that reason alone. A younger me would have believed such a thing, but WotR unexpectedly blew me away in that regard, especially in a way that it appears that all of the companions are framed as pieces of a larger whole through their party interactions. While most other cRPG companions seem to be written as if they exist in their own bubble, I somehow never got that impression from the WotR companions at all.)

I'm a lot more harsh on BG3 in comparison because it's a turn-based cRPG adaptation of a turn-based tabletop game, so there's not much excuse to make gigantic balancing missteps like high ground advantage/disadvantage. The limited pool of companions have yet to grip me in a similar way as WotR's have too. Considering Larian has long made their reputation based on the combat systems of their prior games, of course people are going to be especially harsh on the combat design while not having much expectations in regards to the writing.

We most definitely should have another companion or two available during the EA phase of BG3, though. I remember during WotR alpha testing last year, there was one early game companion that wasn't available during phase 1, and she just showed up out of nowhere in our party after the prologue during phase 2 (the wizard Nenio). The biggest criticism of phase 1 was that we were hard locked into using Woljif or an arcane caster MC if we wanted one in our party, and Woljif was actually unavailable during the last dungeon featured in alpha phase 1 for plot reasons. Beta 1 began implementing her quests, party banter, and a proper introduction into our party, and it was a lot different from what people expected.

As I said above, there are e 7 difficulty modes and you can customize from the difficulty and strength of the enemies to the number of the enemies you face in every encounter, weak critical hits against the party, party speed, encumbrance, dead party members rise after combat, etc.
If with that kind of customization you still have problems with the overall difficulty of the game, I do not think the problem is in the videogame.


Let´s be realistic, not many games will offer you more than this, you will hardly find games with more options than the ones offered. If you still have issues, maybe it´s simply not the game for you. But It does not mean it´s a bad game or could be enjoyable for a lot of people.

If you want even more control to make your experience with the game exactly what you want, you can make your own mods and do the perfect game for your tastes. Check here

https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder_Kingmaker/comments/9m6sos/modding_pathfinder_kingmaker/

That's not an answer ("go mod it yourself"). Not many games provide such an extensive difficulty options, that's true. The fact that we got this means owlcat are interested in providing us options to customize the game to our liking. I think it's not perfect in execution, and I don't understand why do you get so defensive about it, since my point here is not shit on the game. I love this game

Because you insist on being objective when you are not.... like at all.

The "objective" part was in regards to the story. I thought that was clear.
Edit - you conflated and mixed two completely separate massages I wrote

So "get good, practice" is not an answer, because the game is hard and if you do not have some skills you may suffer from high difficulties (even if you have tons of options to lower them to your tastes)
So "mod it yourself" its not an answer because you want a game with the difficulty tailored perfectly to your personal and particular tastes but you do not want to work for it.

What´s the answer you seek, I wonder?

ED: That said, I do not particularly care if you like it or not, if you play it or not, but I do not think you are trying to be particularly objective. I do not think you are not aware of the nightmare that is the option to add more enemies or with different tactics to an entire campaign. there is a reason many many games do not do it or simply add more HP and damage to the enemies in higher difficulties.
Saying the in the game "more work should have done with the difficulty" is pissing in the honest efforts of the encoders there. They do not have to, as many other games do, but they did. The game has (a lot) of flaws, possibly more until patched repeatedly, but pissing in the honest efforts of the encoders there offends me personally and profesionally, TBH, since it seems you do not really bother to do your own work to improve the game to your particular tastes.

Definitely not an answer you can provide unless you are an owlcat developer but thank you for your concern

I like how you have to be more than "daring" simply to play the core rules...

Pathfinder core rules? Damn straight that's more than daring lol. Without a GM making sure every encounter isn't a TPK, core rules are brutal lol

What they consider "core" is way harder than the PnP. I really hope they tone down the stat bloat for WotR.

The "center options" are ok, but "hard" and "unfair" are still insane. The strengthened enemies have some mad AC, saves & CMD. You can still choose to pick "hard" but lower the enemy stats in the options if stat bloat is what bothers you the most.

I am playing a hunter trickster, acrobatics variant, and the CMD of most of the enemies even with a Mythic trickster is impassable in Hard mode.

PD: I still love tricksters, btw. The trickster path is hillarious.

Well, so far they didn't.
It was by far my disliked aspect of the beta.
I'm not even against the existence of a "masochist mode", but if you name a mode as "Core rules" and describe it as the closest to the P&P experience, you should put the bare minimum of effort to make so that it matches the description.

Regardless of how that annoys me in principle if things don't change I already sort-of decided that I will play at "daring" at most or tweak individual settings, because beta 3 went out of its way to NOT be fun and feel constantly frustrating with its encounter design (even if in the end I still won every encounter), especially played in turn-based mode (which is the only mode I have interest to play).

It's also worth noting that the gap in difficulty with what they call "Normal" is enormous. You go from being constantly one step from being destroyed to barely even needing to pay attention in a fight.

Probably on account of the fact that the "normal" difficulty has weaker criticals. So you don't get hit for, um 60+ damage by level 6-8 enemies who for some reason have their Str in Dex in their twenties? When one hit from a random troll sends your barbarian into negative HP, something is clearly not right, and it would also seem that Challenging and higher add to their critical confirmation rolls/critical threat, because boy do they land them often.

I've played tabletop Pathfinder, and apart from the usual early-level D&D displays of myopia on characters and an occasional unlucky roll, it flows well enough and is about as close a thing to 3.5 apart from 3.5 itself that you get these days (except I've heard that the second edition apparently changed a lot of things?). Kingmaker is like having a DM who has the local steroid-fiending heavyweight champions be your level 1 party's opponents in an inn brawl.

That was my first reaction to Kingmaker, too. I didn't understand why they buffed up the enemies so much. I really dummied down the difficulty setting before I discovered the turn-based mod that players made (then a developers made their turn-based addition to the game). With turn-based, I could weather higher difficulties and even enjoy myself playing with them. But, yeah I am not a huge fan of a common bandit having an epic ability score array...

So I was really interested to find out how kingmaker did in terms of sales just to set expectations of how WoRT can do in comparison:

In March 2020, the Publisher announced that KM and Outward has sold 1.2 Million combined:

https://presse.kochmedia.com/en-AU/...r-Combined-Sales-Exceed-12-Million-Units

https://www.gamasutra.com/view/pres...mbined_Sales_Exceed_12_Million_Units.php

https://twinfinite.net/2020/03/outward-pathfinder-kingmaker-combined-sales-hit-1-2-million/

and one month before that (Feb 2020), Outward has sold 600K:

https://gertlushgaming.co.uk/outward-tops-600k-units-sold-and-releases-official-soundtrack/

https://twinfinite.net/2020/02/open...600000-ost-released-as-digital-download/

So after nearly 18 months, KM has sold 600k units maximum.

we know from Steamspy that KM has sold between 1-2 million.

but we actually can get the exact number from Steamspy if the studio has just one game

and Owlcat just has KM.

https://steamspy.com/dev/Owlcat+Games

Total copies owned: 1,194,000

-----------------------------------------

I am surprised that KM just sold 600k after nearly 18 months. I expected at least 1 million but I guess I set my expectation way too high for a new studio and unpopular IP.

I hope WoTR can reach 1 million in less than 12 months.