Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Baldurs Gate 3 - the face of Dungeons and dragons

You are not an outlier. There are many people out there who agree that the PoE games are awesome. Sales numbers are not a true reflection of whether something is good, because if that were the case then Pokemon would be the greatest RPG ever made. I agree with you that there is very little to dislike in the PoE games and that they scratch every itch for the old games. So much so that since the PoE games I no longer replay the old IE games anymore because now I just replay the PoE games.

Hordes of the Underdark is just amazing. If only we could get a glimpse at Menzoberrazan with BG3 engine, it would be crazy awesome.

I got burned out on 3.X when I learned about the Ivory Tower game design (where they made some player options deliberately stronger or weaker on the idea that a player would learn from their mistakes and not play that option again...nevermind that it screwed over some concepts).

5e is the best D&D so far, lots of narrative flexibility in character design, though some classes are still way to cookie cutter for me so I can only do limited build plans and level-up/XP spending is sort of how I engage between sessions and help frame my characters state of mind and intentions going forward...so...when you have like a cleric, where the only build choice points are at 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, 19th...where you get the option of Feats....it makes it a bit hard to get as good a hold on my character's plans and make them unique and individual as I can with a system like City of Mist where character advancement is more ongoing and related to events in the character's life.

3.X had a lot more building in it, but with the Ivory Tower design where some options were deliberately weakened.....I can't trust it so...I lost taste for it.

but my favorite games tend toward City of Mist, Monster of the Week, Hero System, Scion 2e, Legend of the Five Rings 5e, Star Wars FFG/Genesys, Fate (with some heavy houserules...I love Aspects and the central gameplay mechanics, but the Skill pyramid thing that many versions of Fate use is annoying)

To me D&D has always been about learning, teaching and fun. I always found it fun to bring new folks to the game, watch their imaginations crack open as they got the hang of role playing for the first time. There were always snobs in the community and it took me a long time as a tween to find folks I enjoyed playing with. As a kid I thought it was really weird that the community could be so snobby and divided when at the same time playing D&D was something you could easily get bullied for. You'd think it would make the nerds of the world unite but it was just as divided and cliquish as these and other forums are today. The face of D&D remains the same.

I agree, 5e is the most fun edition of D&D (personally ofc), more class features overall, and streamlined rules being the primary reason. Especially when GMing, not having to remember bazillion modifiers is a blessing. Granted, some of the depth was lost (mostly feats) but the accessability is a valid tradeoff IMHO. Luckily Pathfinder is pretty much 3,75e, so with BG3, and Kingmaker we can have the best of both worlds :p

Yeah, when I say 3.X I include Pathfinder in that. Pathfinder made an attempt to fix the Ivory Tower design a bit in 3.X and was partially successful (had great fun as a Fighter with Combat Stamina tricks) but it added to the extra complication.

I don't know I love Larian but I think they changed a lot from 5e that they really did not have to change. I play 5e on a regular basis and it's very beginner friendly. People picking up the game I don't think would have issues learning the system even if they dont D&D. BG 1 and 2 were pretty successful and used AD&D's confusing ass system to the tee and at the end of the day people loved it.

I agree that Larian changed a bunch of stuff they shouldn't have... that being said, BG1&2 really don't follow 2e rules to a tee, they make a lot of their own tweaks, albeit mostly out of necessity due to RtwP. Still the games that got me into both computer games and roleplaying though.

Also, they were pushing a lot of changes that would come out in 3.X, such as dropping level limits.

I disagree on the changes to 5e for the purposes of a CRPG vs TTRPG, certainly they COULD do a more accurate version, but I'm remain unconvinced that would be a good idea. But no, I don't think there's a problem with learning D&D from this.

I encourage anyone who wants to get a feel for how combat would play if it were closer to tabletop to try Solasta, which is also in early access. BG3 has a lot of things over Solasta, but Combat gameplay isn't one of them (nor is party control out of combat or moving through environment to be fair, but the biggy is getting people to see what being closer to the actual D&D rules might look like)

You're definitely welcome. BG 3 does resemble a turn-based Dragon Age Origins, in my opinion. But, right now, it's not much of a D&D game more like a D&D/DOS hybrid system that's unfortunately broken.

The 2000s RPGs are dumbed down considering how good writing was in late 90s both in BG2 and Planescape Torment as well as better RPG mechanics and attention to detail. And these 2 titles had beatiful art. To this date the still remain as a gold-standard. Fallout 3, DAO are very shallow compared to this game.

There are exceptions such Disco Elysium and Witcher 3 that are really new masterpieces, but in general RPGs have been dumbed down.

IMHO, "dumbed down" is one of those phrases that's best avoided. In saying so I'm speaking as a gamer, not a moderator, there are no rules against it, but I think there's a risk of alienating the very people who might enjoy exploring stuff that has more complexity to it. I speak as someone whose belated introduction to RPGs (by which I mean I've been playing video games on and off since the 1970s... the "off" tended to happen as I'd repeatedly missed the genre that really appeals to me) was by way of the much-denigrated Oblivion. Which felt overwhelming at the time, bearing in mind I was someone for whom Half Life 2 was pretty in-depth, but soon got the hang of it, and not much later understood the criticism, and then understood modding and that other people had fixed it and with the FCOM meta-mega-mod and a bunch of my own stuff it became a game absolutely worthy of the title RPG. And by that point a lot of the still ongoing comments about it being "dumbed down" were looking conspicuous by their absence of detail, originality or any solution to the problem.

Which sounds like more of a criticism of your post than I'd intended; which is not what I'd meant, just that the message may have more impact by focusing on constructive criticism. I learnt much more from the people who fixed the problems than the ones who made a passionate but rather non-specific argument.

You are not. The original game was good as well as succesful, when it released in 2015. A year into it the game sold 700k copies, which is around the same as the original BG sold in 8 months. It was also almost universally well-received by the players and the critics. The first game was simply excellent and right on par with BG2.
PoE2 however flopped hard. Gameplay-wise it improved in the right spots, the general consensus was, and the story was still well-received as well. However it only sold 110k copies around 5 months after release. Why that happened is anyone's guess. I'd assume that the "new and fresh" setting in the world being a pirate and hopping islands probably came a few years too late to be of much appeal. Hence it did divert from the BG formula too much.

>The first game was simply excellent and right on par with BG2.

That's wrong though. Also it wasn't really successful, despite riding on bg's coat tails and being release in the era of internet gaming. It was ok, nothing more.

PoE1 had the best story since PsT and it stands as the best RPG story ever (yet to try Disco Elysium which I hear is as good).

But I'm surprised that people can replay it -- for me the endless path dungeons was a tiresome grind of trash mobs. I think that dungeon and religious zeal around balance where players would find their favorite weapon and/or class nerfed with each subsequent patch killed PoE2. Which is real shame because the engine was perfected by the end of PoE2. That and so much of the PoE ruleset is based on a critique of the D&D ruleset I never agreed with. Still, a fantastic game for two playthroughs.

And the story of PoE2 wasn't nearly as strong and the attempts to improve it actually made it worse -- at one point one of the super secretive gods decides to set up fireside chats where they reveal all of gods the closely guarded secrets. Which really departed from / ruined the idea that gods were conspiring to keep the truth from the world.

Like others I really like 5th ed even if prefer 2nd to any other. Most people focus on how some of best the elements of 2 and 3.5 were brought back but I also see some welcome aspects of (much maligned) 1st edition. Namely, the rule of cool is the one rule that matters. In first edition you just kinda explained if what you wanted to do and if sounded plausible or creative enough the DM would rule that it worked.

Enjoying @blindhamster 's reviews of Solasta but those graphics are still keeping me away. Wish they had gone the PoE route just using hand painted art in place of close ups of uncanny 3D models.

There was a shift in game industry when 3D became widespread. In general, games lost complexity because complex games in 3D would take significant more development.

BG2 was extremely complex at its time: 200h of gameplay, extensive meta-bibliography (where you could read full novels in game, not the 1 page notes you find in RPGs from today), day night cycle with time-specific quests, dozens of NPC party members with individual quests and some with romance, class-specific quests and strongholds, individual items skechts with its individual story. The scope and attention to detail was surreal (and it still is). I remember playing Morrowind afterwards and feeling it was a joke in comparison.

All of that paired with excellent writing and artful backgrounds.

I can say that now we are finally reaching a point where 3D is "mastered" and we are starting to see very complex games such as CP 2077 and I hope BG3 becomes part of this as well.



Games nowadays sell much more that in late 90s, the industry grew significantly.

PoE failed because it did not bring any innovation to the genre and instead chose to copy a game from the past.

No it isn't. This part is my opinion. But is also based on reference. BG1 has a metacritic of 91% BG2 of 95%. That is exceptional, but considering that metacritic is a rather new thing and that we tend to view things more positively in hindsight, I daresay a few points too high. But anyway, PoEs metacritic score is 89%. So I daresay we are operating on a rather low variance here.
If we delve deeper into contemporary critics, from the biggest German outlets we see: BG1: 87% (PC Games) BG2: 88% (Gamestar) 92% (4-players) 10/10 (PC Games, they switched systems, so likely 95+). Pillars of Eternity: 92% (Gamestar) 90% (4 players) 9/10 (PC Games -95). PoE2: 92% (Gamestar) 9/10 (PC Games) 90% (4 Players) So again, we are in the same realm here the differences in tests are nuances.
I acknowledged sales already. PoE sold 700k copies in the first year. Sure it were other times, and BG sold the same amount in that year, while BG surpassed that (the whole franchise sold 3.5 million until 2003, although that includes the DLCs and the two action RPGs). They were huge successes.
However the market since then naturally dwindled. PoE aimed for a certain audience and caught it. I do not see how that is in any form riding the coat tail of a 15 year old game.

It's a matter of perspective too. You may all call 'em classics, but for the chief designer of the Realms Of Arkania series, Baldur's Gate was the game that had shown there was a market for "light role-playing games". And compared to Realms Of Arkania, BG is pretty "dumbed down"/streamlined if you will. (For the record, BG1 is one of my all-time favourite games, but I too enjoyed the RoA games very much).

https://rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=8620


As for BG3 being the face of D&D, I hope it's successful enough that WOTC may consider kick-starting (heh) an all new series of different D&D RPG games, and hopefully in different universes too. Ravenloft... wouldn't mind a similar format to the oldies, which were sort of FPS with sort of real-time combat (works well in a Gothic/Horror setting imo). Surely the high-point for D&D games both in numbers as well as diversity were the late 80s/early 90s. You had dungeon crawlers like Eye Of The Beholder, the classic Gold Box series, an early MMORPG, Dark Sun, the horror of Ravenloft, even fighting games.

I'm also new to D&D as I haven't yet played the tabletop game but I will say that for me it was the Neverwinter mmo that got me interested in D&D lore. This is the first Baldur's Gate that I'm playing and I I'm loving the characters and lore of this region.

RPG game developers have changed the mechanics of a game in order to bring in new players so that the franchises can get even bigger. BioWare did it with Dragon Age and Bethesda with Fallout. I didn't get into those franchises until I played Dragon Age: Inquisition and Fallout 4. So, by changing the mechanics of the gameplay they brought me in as a new fan among many others.

I believe that this is what Larian is doing with BG3 for people that never played Baldur's Gate as well as the tabletop D&D. That's why they "dumbed down" the D&D mechanics so that us non-D&D tabletop players can understand what goes in playing D&D.