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

Of course, the biggest crime, of all of the things that were in FFXII, that then were never seen again after it, is that we stopped seeing high quality Ivalician moogles. They stopped being proper living creatures after FFXII, and turned into silly caricatures and toy-like mascots instead, and that, to me, is the gravest and darkest travesty of all.

You probably think I'm being humorous, but I'm not. The world needs more moogles.

Funny people mentioning FF XII, I always thought it was brilliant system, a JRPG version of RtWP.

That is what I was hoping for BG3 until we got this turn-based antiquity.

Ps. The openness and non-linearity of FF XXII was very unique also. Only downside was the narrative that dragged a lot.

Yep, a lot of outpoken FF fans hated the gambit system but i loved it. It "played the game for you" only as much as you wanted it to. I loved the system and the game. FFXII is one of my favorite Final Fantasy games, it's up there with VII and IX for me. Of course it can't touch VI, but not much can (Chrono Trigger maybe)

The gambit system is great. Wish every modern RTwP had something like it but a lot of "modern" crpgs take pride in being dated when it comes to RTwP. This is true for wrath.

At the very least I highly recommend downloading the autobuff mod that will at least buff your characters for you automatically

Can you imagine if they had an gambit system in wrath where you could have simple "if x is weak to y, then cast z"? and so on? You'd have to set it up yourself, but that would be so fun. Optional, of course!

DA2 had tactics. They gave them to you with levels. But my favorite mod for the game allowed for 100 tactics from level 1. My first RPG was D&D Basic/ Expert editions, then AD&D and onward. My first RPG video game was Sega Genesis D&D Warriors of the Eternal Sun. Neverwinter Nights 1 was my first CRPG.


Me too. But I did enjoy Neverwinter Nights 2's RTWP, and I'm enjoying Pathfinder WotR's hybrid system. I always start on RTWP, to get that first shot in. Easier fights I stay with RTWP, harder fights I switch to turn based.

Yeah, I forgot about that. DA 2 also had tactics. Basically just as good as DA:O in that regard. No idea why they dropped them from DA:I. The party control was horrid in that game, and its the first one that I gave up on without finishing.

There were tactics in DA2? I don’t recall that, but I was not a huge fan of that particular game, so maybe I blocked it out! Lol

This whole discussion kinda makes me want to try a FF game now. My only experience of it was watching a guy I dated in my early 20s play FF7 on his console. Back then, I was only into tetris and myst/riven, so I missed alot of old console games.

There were definitely tactics in DA2. I think it was pretty much copy and paste from DA:O tactics. They did a lot of copy and paste in DA2, but at least that one was a good copy and paste.

My opinions on DA:2 have been all over the place, to be honest. The reuse of the same assets over and over again was absolutely unforgiveable, but I appreciate the fact that they were telling a story that was not a riff on "you are a chosen one here to stop an unspeakable evil". Not enough games break the mold that way IMO.

That's pretty much how I feel about DA:2 of the three DA games I think it has the most interesting plot, the best told story, but the worst production and combat system.

As for tactics in RPGs, where did they go? They used to be pretty common, especially in real-time games, but it's like everybody decided to drop them.

Just thinking about what playing WotR would be like with some triggered actions makes me want a mod, It would still be pretty useless at difficulties normal and above, but still.

Yeah like I said, only 12 has anything remotely similar to DAO’s tactics system. It employs a sort of real time with pause system. It plays drastically different from the rest of the series, which are turn based or ATB instead.

Technically, FFXII was also functionally an ATB turn-based system - it was just dressed up with a convincingly fluid aesthetic and design that it looked and felt real-time.

Everything you do is based on atbs and charge times, under the hood, and you can see this in the way the fancier spells with longer animations have to queue up and wait their turn - if you input to cast scathe, and the enemy you're fighting also tries to cast scathe, and off to the side Vaan is trying to cast protect on himself, his action bar will be full and flashing, but he won't actually act until the second scathe has actually started - which won't happen until the first ends.

It really was an excellent evolution of what turn-based ATB systems Could be like, and an illustration that they can play in a fluid, active-feeling way while still giving the player full control. You could also set it so that bringing up the command menu to input something paused the game while you made your choices, or didn't pause at all, depending on your preference. It was really very accommodating.

(I'm not reading all 58 pages of this before responding to the title.)

I, too, am a WotR player and am using it as an rpg fix until BG3 is released. I see you guys are talking about FF and other games that I haven't played, so I can't make any comments on that.

I do think that WotR is BG2-esque simply based on its design. BG3 is going the "next-gen" route and will be closer to DAO or something with turn-based DND thrown in. I personally like it and am glad they're going in a newer direction, rather than making an isometric clone or "Original Sin 3."

BG3 so far reminds me more of the Neverwinter MMO and again, Dragon Age, both more modern games. I mean it's still point-and-click and turn-based, but graphic-wise. I really hope they add PC controller support soon because when I first downloaded this, it was the only mouse-controlled game I had installed. I had to redo my desk just so I could play it. The Steam controller mapping does work but it's still a little wonky.

As for the story and everything, I think they're doing the series some justice. I barely remember the end of Throne of Bhaal, but I played SOA a fuckload when I was a teenager and I almost have it memorized still to this day, 20 years later. I get BG2 "vibes" from the setting in BG3. It's not a generic fantasy land. Everything's grittier and dark like BG2 was.

I haven't beaten WotR yet, but I did make it to act 5 in one playthrough. I like some of the characters and hate some of them. Sometimes the world feels dull because nothing happens, and then sometimes you'll go back to a location and everything's different. This doesn't happen enough in games. A lot of games feel lifeless and dull (Greedfall is a prime example). WotR is loads better than Kingmaker, which was too dull for me to beat. The best part was the almost immediate thrust into the main story line and the world practically ending. Your character was vital to the continuance of reality and gave me that special feeling like older Final Fantasy games did.

I still prefer Deadfire to WoTR. WotR was basically fight after fight, and Deadfire was much more interesting with optional giant boss fights and secrets to find. It felt a lot more polished than WotR did.

I would not compare Owlcat and Larian, though. I would not like BG3 to be like WotR. BG2 already did that, and if Owlcat did it then there'd really be no progress made at all. It'd just be BG2 with modern graphics at a higher resolution. Larian is going much much further, especially with the conversation cinematics. The game is going to be AAA quality and not just an homage or reiteration of older styles of games like WotR is (even though it's a good game).

I played WOTR in casual settings and sometimes easy.
Something about the combat didn't engage me like Baldurs Gate 3 has.

However the music in WOTR is god tier. It helps the immersion and stakes of what is happening so much.

The other thing I noticed was how awesome the characters are. Yes there are weak ones but all in all its a cast of lovely characters.

The one character I found the most shocking was Wenduag. She starts off as this cynical evil B word that I had to really force myself to choose as a companion because she seemed to have more interesting party banter than Lann.

Wenduag starts of as this groveling minion who calls you master and is romanceable. Her story arc was just amazing and the romance despite starting off as this convenient powerplay companionship that she uses to ensure her own survival becomes this incredibly sad but ultimately wholesome sweet finale.

Hopefully Larien looks into WOTR and draws some inspirations. Especially the romances.
Some people think that its the sex animations that are important but nothing is more hilarious than your spider cat girlfriend roasting a succubus lord to her face for flirting with you. Absolutely gold.
Thats what really makes a romance worth pursuing in an RPG.

The companions have actual relationships with each other instead of merely pretending to care by just asking each other about where they're from. It's the one thing that sets the Pathfinder companions apart from most other cRPGs, and makes them feel a lot more organic than most.

It's not just Larian that should be taking notes in that department, pretty much every RPG developer should.

The side commentary is great too.

You are speaking with someone and one of your companions interjects with their own comments before you reply. And its great 🤣.

1. I'm an original BG player, run through the games to this day.
2. I'm an FR Fan, have been for decades.
3. I played through BG 3 multiple times.
4 I'm on the 3rd act, in Wrath of the Righteous.

Wrath is deeper, has better writing, way more crunch, and interesting companions and feels like an actual World instead of some weird theme park.

It's in the league of BG 2.

BG3 isn't even in the conversation, I can't think of a single thing it does better as far as actually playing the game.

Scouting before fights in order to spy on the enemy, for example. Doesn't do much good in Wrath, because the devs like to teleport enemies out of nowhere. And when they are teleporting, there is a delay between an enemy appearing and an enemy becoming physical, so you cannot even attack them.

Also, having finished the game, I'd say Chapter 3 (and 4) is where the game still holds together. Chapter 5 is where it starts to fall apart at the seams. Last chapter is basically house at the edge of time, demons and bugs edition. Bonus points for random demonic flunkies being tougher than the demonic army leaders.

A minor part of the story/conversation in WOTR confuses me.

If you choose to show Sull the angelic sword and Wenduag leaves, after the battle at the maze ends your chest wound is healed and there's no sign of it. Yet Wenduag says something about the wound and how demons can sense it. And as a result sense Lann too. But the wound is gone?