Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Best thing about BG3: Pathfinder & Solasta

Given the underwhelming latest patch (is Larian listening to any of the gameplay feedback?!?!) I posit that the best thing about Baldur's Gate 3 is actually that people have mentioned Pathfinder Kingmaker (PK) and Solasta Crown of the Magister.

I somehow played Pillars of Eternity (PoE), FF15, Octopath, Fire Emblem 3H, Witcher, DOS/2, Icewind, BG1, BG2, the list goes on. I am looking forward to Cyberpunk. Yet somehow I'd missed Pathfinder Kingmaker a couple years back and Solasta a few days ago.

I'm thankful to everyone who's mentioned PK and Solasta on the forums. They're good D&D RPGs in their own ways. I'm enjoying PK on Nvidia Geforce Now after a couple of runs through BG3 on Stadia.

The Patch was needed in regards to fixes and performance boost for people. But I agree, acknowledgement of current mechanics issues would have been nice.

What were you expecting? It’s not been a few weeks. Larion can’t just flip a switch to implement all of the changes they plan on making. Programming and designing take time.

I would love nothing more than to be proven wrong about what gameplay changes are in store for BG3.

There's a separate lengthy thread about why this isn't likely to happen:
https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=718905
And of course all the noise on the patch notes:
https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=718798


But I mostly just wanted to note Pathfinder Kingmaker and Solasta again since others may have missed these in their RPG travels.

An acknowledgement. A single sentence indicating awareness.

Well Larian has said that they read all of the feedback, and this attentiveness is evident from the development of DOS1 and 2. If you want anything more than that you’ll need learn some patience. It’s only been three weeks.

Just to make sure, you're also aware of Owlcat's Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, right? It's not out now (currently in alpha available only to kickstarter backers I think...), but it should be out in a year's time or so (idk).

From what I've seen others post, it's pretty good so far.

I think you overstate your own importance in the grand scheme of making a game.

So lets simplify it, as a game creator they have loads of things on their to do list, and new ones are coming in daily from all directions. And as they impossible can do all these things at the same time (that would cost to much), they prioritize.
Have they setup a EA to have us help them find bugs, yes, do they read the forum, yes (cause that is just smart business), is there any value to mark every single thread with a 'we have read and understood' notice, no.

What happens if Larian go in and mark a thread with 'Awareness'? People expect it to be on the next patch and if not they get a hissy fit for that reason instead.
That does not mean these issues will not be handled, but it they prioritized tomorrow or in a year is something Larian decides and they are under no obligation to tell us shit.
So Larian is damned if they do and damned if they don't cause special snowflakes wants special treatment.

That all sounds good until you learn what happened with the EA of DOS2.

Also this b******t that any one of us posting needs attention is ridiculous. "We're weighing the gameplay feedback." in the patch notes, or a tweet, would have placated most of us.

Thank you!

Also let's not make this yet another thread about being patient with Larian etc. etc. I just wanted to highlight that these forums made me aware of other options! PK and Solasta particularly. It was worth engaging here for that.

We know that jumping into an unfinished game in Early Access, when your saves will eventually be wiped, is a big ask. We are phenomenally grateful to each and every one of you who’ve jumped in, provided feedback, and sent error reports. These reports are channeled back to our QA leads and producers, and the information you provide helps us to understand why certain things are happening, and thus reproduce and solve them.

https://baldursgate3.game/launch-patch-1-and-interesting-insights_14

Happy to help

Sorry, but let’s be honest here: posting “the best thing about your game is it’s competitors” is some pretty passive aggressive shade. That’s not Merely an innocent, well-intentioned public service announcement. 😂

Haven't tried Solasta much yet, just looked at the char gen menu. Kingmaker I may try again, but I'm preferring Baldur's Gate 3 so far. Though I will admit, the kingdom building aspects of that game are fun to play with.

SPOILER

Valerie is a gold-digging slut who spreads her leg for every random mercenary and loves being bred by her after-game peasant husband, but plays hard to get with the baron for years and categorically refuses to have children with him. She also ends the relationship if you say a single wrong word.

Angra, that didn't acknowledge the gameplay feedback that's repeatedly arising in these forums. And of course I read that and every other official note.

Yes every game is flawed. Yes of course my sensational post title is a bit of shade. I'm not innocent. But we're all just squabbling amongst ourselves absent a feedback loop.

I actually enjoyed the 60+ hours that I dumped into BG3 over 2 playthroughs and thought it was well worth $60. The 160 hours I dumped in DOS2 for $60 was amazingly good value thanks to Larian, despite the botched last act. We don't have to be in blind deference though because of that.

I'm quite thankful that others have mentioned other games based on D&D rulesets. I bought those too!

Right, let's be mature on these forums please.

Props for honesty. I get what you’re saying, but I don’t think an acknowledgment would do much to actually diminish that. Squabbling will happen here inevitably. 😂

I don’t see much of the squabbling because I tend to avoid those topics. As we don’t know how much the game will change over the next year, spending any significant amount of time debating mechanics seems like a good wasted effort to me. I definitely want, for example, proper reactions, but I’m not going to enter those debates because I’m pretty sure that Larion are well aware of the discussion whether they give a formal announcement of such or not.

Warlocke good points.

Given the scope of BG3 and the large number of initial sales. I would expect Larian to have received 10's of thousands of bug reports. Its a truly monumental job collating them, weeding out false reports, prioritizing, and then fixing things.

I suspect their main early focus is on game breaking stuff (crashes) and building out cinematics (which take a lot of time . . . and is a whole different team of employees).

Play balance and rule changes will come over time . . . although given everyone has different ideas about how things should be . . . well we aren't all going to get what we want.

So far in just 3 weeks we have had two major updates, both with nice communication pieces. That is more than enough for me.

The only subject I've been especially annoyed and vocal on is the Kahga/Arabelle covnersation because it just feels so badly designed while having so much potential to have been done better.

But realistically, I know they're unlikely to do much with it because arranging things like more voice-acting seems unlikely at this stage. Unless that conversation is currently only partially implemented and there's a lot more conversation there already recorded, it feels unlikely to be changed.

Other than that, most of what I have been suggesting I firmly expect the game is too late in development for them to be possible to implement and remain practical. But I suggest anyway just in case.

When a contractor tells you; "Hey, the foundations are almost done, come take a look at how the new house is coming along", it's more than fair to think about what color you want the kitchen to be in. It is unfair, then, to tell them off because it's not in your preferred color yet.

Yes P:WotR should be hugely improved in many areas over P:Km.

In addition to the two Pathfinder games and Solasta, there is also Realms Beyond which, like Solasta, is using the D&D SRD but 3.5e instead of 5e.

You don't pay a contractor full price for a new house before it's done in order to offset risk in case the contractor doesn't deliver. BG3 EA came with all the usual beta disclaimers, that's not what the griping is about, and as I've noted elsewhere I got my money's worth already. It's a testament to us wanting this to go from good to great that any of us are still engaging in these forums.

Clever analogies aside, I'm glad Larian is fixing crashes and communicating via newsletters, rather than complete silence.

kanisatha thanks for the Realms Beyond pointer.

Solasta has terrible graphics and is very linear but does 5e right and the fights are more fun. What BG3 could learn from it.
1. Auto-party Jump
2. Dodge, Ready, Reactions and Disengage
3. Self-Built party that still has roleplaying and interaction
4. World map, random encounters, limited camps
5.Rolling For stats. Though I know it throws off balance horribly as people will roll 2000 times for their ideal as many 18s as possible.
6. Unique feats and Subclasses for the setting. Green mage was very fun to play.
7. NO GROUND EFFECTS EVERYWHERE!!!!!

I’d love to see most other of these.
World map I can do without. If the game is designed where it doesn’t need backtracking then I don’t need that.
Rolling is coming.
The game is in the Forgotten Realms. Larian doesn’t need unique feats and subclasses. All of PHB is enough.
I’ve gotten used to the ground effects. I don’t think they are as bad as I did when I started.

Solasta graphics are bad, especially the models. DOS2 at least had vibrant terrain even if the graphics were shabby. Let's be honest though, we don't expect amazing graphics from our RPGs and we're lucky when something as pretty as FF15 or Witcher 3 lands. The dialog graphics in BG3 are decent.

This is why early access should also come with an age limit.

I am definitely looking forward to this one. BG3 is the first game I have ever bought on EA, and I have never done a kickstarter. With the experience of BG3 so far, I think I will avoid EAs and kickstarters in future, so I will have to wait a year or more to play PF:WotR.

Sure. But we've got to be realistic about what a small indie studio can possibly do. Games like Solasta and Realms Beyond (and other recent non-D&D old-school cRPGs like Black Geyser and Alaloth) are being made by really tiny studios. Even Owlcat was extremely small (under 20 people) when they first made P:Km, and only started expanding after receiving good sales of the game upon its release such that they are now somewhat bigger. Tactical Adventures, as I understand it, is making Solasta with 17 people. By contrast, there are over 400 people working on BG3.

Didn't know that, though they have seemed to have outsourced a lot. https://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/pathfinder-kingmaker/credits As long as teams this small can make decent games, I am not worried about the future of this type of games. At a certain size, It's all about chasing that blockbuster game, and there's few/er I personally consider as inspiring as smaller scale, more focused projects catering to more specific niches as opposed to everybody. A blockbuster done right can be really good, mind, but there's usually always heavy compromise somewhere.

And still all those games are creating better BG successors than Larian. The only thing the 380 additional people seem to do are graphics.

Black Geyser is a glimmer of hope that RTwP won't die out... Now that Obsidian packed their stuff and left to play in another sandbox, Owlcat is, I think, the only studio left (other than Black Geyser devs) that is making primarily RTwP cRPGs. (Not sure what system is Alaloth? Seems aRPG-like.) I have some hope for Archetype Entertainment, but for now we have no idea what they're doing, could be a Bethesda-style game for all we know.

A Baldurs gate game without day/night cycles is really disappointing. At least have some maps be at dusk...or nightime.
BG3 basically has no <TIME> to speak of. Its always noon or camp time.

Don't write off Obsidian just yet. They have said (a) RTwP still has a place in cRPGs and that they have not walked away from RTwP; and (b) several of their devs including senior devs remain interested in the PoE franchise and making another game, but they are just burned out from PoE for now and need to go do other things for a bit before returning to a possible future PoE game.

I tried playing with the mod disabling the constant damage made from ground effects (poison, acid, fire). It's like a different game and it feels way better. The entire barrelmancy incentive goes out the window for me (almost).

I'm in the alpha test for WotR and yes it is going to be very good. Also loving Solasta which is also still in development but very good already. Anyone who has not played Kingmaker, stop what you are doing right now and go get it, you will not be sorry. BG3 looks the best visually with the big budget motion capture and I'm sure the story will be fun and worth playing but I don't see it having the replay appeal of Kingmaker. Also have to mention that Kingmaker has a DLC that is pure dungeon crawl and it is so much fun because you create a full custom party for each run and there are so many great classes to choose from, you are always thinking about what party you want to build for your next run.

Actually Avowed is technically a PoE spinoff.
I'm very happy either way, with Obsidian working in first person RPGs or CRPGs, only recently noticed the shortage of the former, pretty much only Bethesda makes these types of games, so another player in the matket is great.

GamerSerg thanks for the WotR enthusiasm and the PK DLC dungeon crawl tip! I didn't know about that.

1. No, different strength equals different jump heights and distances which is used to lock off secret areas and means an 8 str character can’t just leap to the top a mountain for high ground advantage.
2. More complexity for an already complex game that would add what exactly other than being more like DND? Their goal isn’t a die hard dnd replica, its a fun and enjoyable game that millions will love, not just dnd players.
3. They have already said mercenaries will be available
4. There is a world map already in the game you can see....random encounters if they happen at all(bg2 did not have them) then they will surely appear when traveling over the world map to different areas. This is normal difficulty, limited rest may be added or will be saved for harder difficulties.
5. No, people would just install auto rollers and cheese through the game. Just mod your save file or download a hack if normal limits make it too hard for you.
6. The more they add or change from standard dnd the more complaints they seem to receive....can’t have your cake and eat it to.
7. Without a detailed Matt Mercer style map, how would your average DM really show ground effects? This isn’t a ‘not in my dnd’ issue, it’s just something 90% of people do not have the resources to include in their games. It’s a great idea, adds tons to combat and terrain in general, and would be way more prevalent in tabletop except for the complexity of using it.

A quick aside, in a recent session of “table top” (Google hangouts) our DM has us fight in a room that was quickly catching on fire.

I was so happy that after 15 levels I finally had an opportunity to use my Control Flames cantrip. It was a fun mechanic to add pressure to the battle.

I tried pathfinder.
The writing was pretty stereotypical and the gameplay/graphics left much to be desired.
I pretty much quit when I was out "exploring" after saving that inn from raiders.

Solasta just seems a little a bit the same thing.
Maybe I am a sucker for pretty games and streamlined gameplay.

But I would sooner play BG3 or DOS2 than those two games.

Wow, I disagree with most (if not all) of what you said, macdami.
1. Do characters with different strength scores have different limitations? Sure, but Larian already isn't using strict D&D jumping rules anyways (I think it is handwaved as being, you have a constant jump spell on you due to mindflayer parasite). I believe you said something along the lines of "can't have your cake and eat it too".
2. Well for a game that toutes that it is not DOS3, but instead a D&D 5e game, it probably should stick to the rules wherever possible. This one obviously, isn't that difficult to implement if a team with 17 people managed to make it happen.
3. Larian Studios has said alot of things, I take whatever they say will happen with a grain of salt.
4. I am fairly certain that BG2 had random encounters depending upon where you rested.
5. How is installing auto rollers any different from modding your save file or downloading a hack?
6. This is possibly the only thing that I might agree with you on; I don't want to see any unique feats or subclasses until we have all the subclasses and feats from all published D&D 5e sourcebooks (mainly Xanthar's Guide to Everything, Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, and Sword Coast Adventure GUide).
7. The ground effects are too much of a deviation from D&D 5e rules. The way I see it, there are already published spells that create "ground effects" such as the create bonfire Cantrip. There is no need to modify existing spells such as firebolt to create "ground effects". If there doesn't exist a pre-published spell that does a "ground effect" they want, they should create a new cantrip that creates it, not modify existing spells.

If you're this down about the game why post? This is incredibly passive aggressive and childish.

Same.
I haven't tried Solasta (but plan to get it at some point), but I backed Pathfinder and played it since release, but never managed to get into the game. I tried coming back to it about 4-5 times (about 20 hours total), with last one being after they released their Enhanced Edition. I loved the classes and mechanics, but absolutely hated the writing, the companions, and the art style, which are all major deal breakers for me. So yeah, I disagree with OP.
Give me a game like Baldur's Gate 3 any day.

Just want to point out that Swen @ Larian even tweeted about Solasta when it came out. That's quite standup and admirable to promote a competitor, even if a minor one.

https://twitter.com/LarAtLarian/status/1318641976556855297?s=20

I don't know how can they be viewed as competitors; it's not something one has to pick over the other. Buy both games if you like them, just don't be upset after, there are many sources to find out about the dirty secrets of a game these days.

PF is the true successor to the BG series though.

Ah, that's good to hear. I thought they just considered PoE(2) to not be as successful as they had expected and moved to another niche - like Danielbda said, Avowed is set in the same universe as PoE. Honestly, I'm curious about Avowed - now the "Bethesda-style open world RPG" is just that - Bethesda. Lots of space for competition. I just hope they didn't put RTwP cRPGs on "forever hiatus". It'd like it if they alternated between PoE and Avowed entries. It would give us a nice variety and pacing of the releases and Obsidian some time to regenerate from a series, step back and think what worked in the previous entry. Ideally. :P

Yeah same here. I love old-school cRPGs but I also like playing RPGs like Avowed. Hopefully Avowed will be more like Witcher 3 than Skyrim (including with a third-person option), with all the great storytelling and character development that Obsidian is known for.

Aw, I like most of the Pathfinder characters. Well, except the bard. I had to park her ass. You can't really get rid of her though since she is the 'narrator' of the story even if she isn't in your party.

I wasn't expecting big overhauls just some word on if they will be removing the Divinity stuff or not.. If not i can uninstall now and move on... I have no interest in another Divinity game, i disliked the first two, i'm here for a D&D 5th edition game.


I disliked Pathfinder because of the same issues BG3 is having the rules were too homebrew and the odd story aspects between gameplay really broke my immersion during the campaign...

Fair enough, different strokes for different folks. I generally do not hate on any companions in any video game, very few manage to get to me enough, but this bunch made me rage quit and uninstall the game heh.
Edit: I'm still getting the next Pathfinder but only after release in hopes that I might like it. Maybe its masochism



Aren't PK rules basically D&D 3.5, which are as homebrew as BG1 and BG2 "brewed" the 2e?

Sure, like an Ancient red dragon is basically a big lizard that happens to breath fire.

It´s technically a homebrew because it uses the SRD rules of 3.5 , but Manual has over 300 pages and PF has over 10 rulebooks, with a whole new world, lore, +20races, +30classes, +50feats, +7combat maneouvers, abilities, +100 monsters and many campaigns so it´s a hell of a "homebrew".

You could also say Kotor games are basically D&D3.5 with starships because they use 3.5 SRD too. You can do pretty different games with the same d20 base.

Eww... Witcher 3.
Personally I hope for something more akin to Skyrim, but still with better storytelling and developement and world exploration.
Can't beat making a custom character.

I liked all of the characters, and especially Linzi! The dwarf and goblin were the ones I initially did not care for, but even they eventually won me over.

Okay yes, I agree about making your own character. That is very important to me too, and I am sure that will be the case with Avowed. But overall Witcher 3 was way better than Skyrim for me. Skyrim is the only RPG I have ever played that I did not finish and have not had any motivation to return to.

If Avowed is going to be what New Vegas was to Fallout 3, then everything could be plenty fine. I'm sure Avowed will have lots more banching dialogue than Witcher 3 too, as that is one of Obsidian's forte. Back at Black Isle, they gave you options to actually role-play your characters/party even in linear dungeon crawlers such as Icewind Dale. Also, I'm expecting much less linear quests as that's Obsidian's thing too -- some of the quest flowcharts of New Vegas are pretty special. https://i.imgur.com/sywQ3cz.jpg

The characters in Pathfinder are very good and quite unique. the problem there is very poor pacing.

If you disliked both Divinity Original Sin 1 and 2 and Pathfinder . . . I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you aren't going to like the finished Baldur's Gate 3. I'm somewhat hopeful Larian will tone down the Divinity surfaces/barrels but they are going to make the game that appeals most to the mass market . . . and given that the vast majority of steam reviews are very positive (and their existing DOS fanbase) . . . I suspect the gameplay isn't going to change much (or at least not move closer to true 5e rules)

I hope for the opposite. Witcher 3 is a great RPG in terms of world building, writting and quest design, but it has a huge flaw that apparently goes unnoticed becase of the spectacle, which is gameplay and customization. Playing Geralt always feels the same, he always has the same moves and fighting style, the combat sucks when it tries to copy Dark Souls but putting you against 10 enemies, no iframes and 1 hit deaths if hit from behind. Also no weapon choice, always the same signs etc.
Bethesda RPGs nail immersion and gameplay, which to me are the most important. Sneaking and shooting an arrow onto an enemy's face feel so good, so does decapitating, shield bashing, crafting OP gear. They just need more polish, which I'm sure Avowed will have, given that it is the only thing that Outer Worlds has.

Oh, and the magick system in Skyrim sucks. More spells and scalling spell damage please.

Bethesda games sucks hard at storytelling and characters. Everything else is great though

Eh, I think Fallout 4 sucked at pretty much everything except crafting and base-building, which was pretty neat. After I finished my masterwork Red Rocket super-fortress I didn’t have much more desire to play. I hope they step it up for TES 6.

I enjoyed Skyrim a lot, did almost all there was to do, but from start to finish I found myself thinking "this thing here is bad game design". It's a great, fun game, but it's very flawed. Then I went on to play Dragon Age: Origins and often had the thought of "this is how it should have been done in Skyrim" (even if the subgenres are different).

So for Avowed, I hope they have what makes Bethesda games fun - interesting, vast open world with lots of freedom and tons of lore behind it - as well as Obsidian's approach to quest design and CDPR's overall quality. Add to that captivating main plot and great atmosphere and voila, a great game is born. Let's hope.

I'm curious how they're going to approach character customization - Bethesda-style MC is a total blank protagonist, but maybe they'll do something more interesting while still giving the player lots of freedom.



I wouldn't say set protagonist is a flaw in The Witcher - it's a different approach that also works, though of course one can prefer one or the other. For Bethesda-style RPG of course customization is very important. Gameplay in The Wicher is hardly stellar, though it didn't bother me too much. But I'd strongly disagree that combat gameplay and crafting are good in TES; the only thing that is better than in TW3 would be the variety. Combat itself I'd say is even worse than TW3, with the exception of sneaking, which is a lot of fun (if ridiculous).

Regarding magic - bring back Morrowind's system. It was great, if somewhat janky. Even Oblivion's was better than Skyrim's. One thing I liked in Skyrim magic was the Detect ___ spells, those were done very well imo.



The newer ones are bad with storytelling - but Morrowind actually had a great main storyline. Oblivion had meh-at-best main quest and good-to-great faction storylines. Skyrim... yeah, not great, with some exceptions. I'd also say there's quite a lot of problems in general with Bethesda games, even if I do enjoy them. :P



I was pessimistic about this until Microsoft acquired Zenimax. Acquisitions suck most of the time, but in this particular case it might be for the better. I have a lot of problems with Microsoft, but their gaming department seems quite reasonable under Phil Spencer. (And better MS than EA, that's for sure.)

Interestingly, Microsoft is now holding all "Bethesda-style RPG" cards, having both Obsidian and Bethesda as subsidiaries. (There's indie Isles of Adalar in the making, but it's hardly competition, as much as I wish them success. And I guess Piranha Bytes, but it's quite low-profile for now.)

This thread is testament to 1) the many RPG options and 2) all the history needed to design a new tactical RPG.

The Witcher 3 is Skyrim only with story

There's some great mods that really improve the swordplay in the Witcher 3, similar to what was shown at E3 way back in the day. Even without that though, I don't see how you think combat is always the same though. You can build a few distinctly different Geralts (signs, fast attack, poisons/bombs), and maybe it's just me, but I liked the increased difficulty when fighting multiple enemies. Geralt definitely feels superhuman, but not superman.

The witcher 3 combat with it's retarded helicopter twirling can't be improved unfortunetly. Just like skyrimjob's terrible combat. At least w3's combat is decent, but not good.

I hated the combat in the Witcher 2, so I never tried 3. I’ll probably give it a shot someday when I can pick it up for $5 on a Steam sale, but I don’t have high hopes. If if I don’t enjoy the part of playing the game where I’m actually playing the game then I don’t care how great the world building and production values are. It’s a shame, because I love the look and especially the music in W3.

For as janky as TES games are, I appreciate the variety and then I can play the games however I want. Playing as a preset character in an RPG isn’t a dealbreaker for me (though I find Geralt tedious) but if I can make my own I’ll be more willing to overlook the other flaws in the game.

That's the main reason I like Bethesda-style RPGs, playing anyway you want.
I have no issues with always playing with Geralt in Witcher, the problem is that his skill set is presented at the beginning of the game, and the only thing you can customize is to focus more in some skills.
It would be nice if following Witcher games allowed you to to create your witcher and choose your school, which could function as a class. In the Witcher lore there are schools that specialize in assassination for example, there are also many mage schools. So the possibility for customization is already there.

I liked the story in Witcher 3, but got bogged down in the infinite point of interests that didn't add any value to the game. Side quests fine, random spots on maps = waste. I wish I could have ignored them and kept playing. Maybe someday.

A suggestion for those with a little Skyrim experience:
After my initial attempt (that I didn't get through it) a few years later I read a great article about creating a character with a proper backstory and personality traits, and then trying to play that specific character in Skyrim. Add in a few mods, most importantly there is one that sort of cuts off the main story line, or at least makes it completely optional. So you can create a character in this world completely without the whole dragon shouting thing. Wow, I had so much more fun. I limited what my characters did based on their backstory, both in terms of quests and content in the game but also mechanics like the crafting that if you combine them usually break the balance. It really was so fun. I went through a few different characters to cover all the content of the game and loved every minute of it.

I really want to do something similar for BG3's release. It might not be as much of a sandbox of choices, but it'd be great to actually roleplay a character and have the support to do so.

For anyone interested, these are the two related articles by the same author. I've used these to help me think about D&D characters as well.
10 Tips for better roleplaying in Skyrim
How to build interesting characters in Skyrim

I am still amazed that people DON’T play RPGs this way. In Skyrim my character started off as a thief. Not as assassin or a swashbuckler, literally a petty pickpocket and burglar. I even used the console to decrease his size to make him more diminutive and less heroic looking. He had no weapons, no armor, just sneaking. Eventually he became a wizard and an assassin, but only used illusion and enchantment magic and still carried no weapons or wore any armor. He would assassinate targets by casting frenzy on them and having them attack city watchmen or their own bodyguards. By the end of the game he became a necromancer (using a mod for infinite undead summons) and a vampire, so by then was completely OP, but it was such a fun journey to get there. Only after I did all of that did I decide “well, let’s look into this Dragonborn business. . . . I can kill people with my voice? Well, that’s cute.”

A game with that level of character customization and freedom with Witcher 3 production values would be great.

Awesome discussion on what makes for a good RPG. I agree with much of what you all are saying and disagree with some. But I am finding all of it really interesting.

Re. Skyrim, what I found was that about halfway through the game I got really bored with it because everything started to feel the same.

@Warlocke, the combat was the one thing I did not like in Witcher 3. But because difficulty settings are entirely about combat and affect nothing else in the game, I just set the difficulty to the lowest setting and that allowed me to thoroughly enjoy the game. But this only works with the main game and doesn't work with the DLCs because there you are very high level and the combat is super-brutal even on the lowest setting.

I'm a completionist, so I have to do everything in the game and I'm not a heavy roleplayer... But I started making some actual stories for my characters to justify the completionism. My Oblivion character went through all the questlines, but he started as small fry criminal (in jail for getting into a tavern fight with some unfortunate results). He was the kind of guy who's always in the wrong place at the wrong time and then has to deal with what he got himself into. I did the quests in such an order so he slowly descends into villainy as he discovers the lure of power and begins to steer his life. Cliche, but it was fun to come up with why he'd go on all the quests not particularly befitting a petty criminal who just wants The Call to leave him alone.

I always find some fatal flaw in Elder Scrolls games that makes them stop being fun to me. In Oblivion, it was when I got my stealth high enough that if I ever needed to disengage from a fight I was losing I only had to hide and run like 2 steps and the mobs would start wandering around randomly trying to find me. That made it where I felt like I could not die unless I wanted to and I stopped playing the game at that point because the challenge was gone.

In Skyrim, as soon as I learned how to dual cast and it made killing dragons childs play, I was done and for the same reason. The challenge was gone.

Mind you, I didn't go online to figure any of that stuff out. I just found it out by playing the game normally and with my initial character in both cases. That's just how I am though, if a game is too easy, I get bored of it quickly.

I have to admit I never played Skyrim. I played enough other Bethesda games (Elder Scrolls series from Arena through Morrowwind) that I knew I wouldn't like Skyrim.

I know they're all the rage, but I don't like open world gaming - at all. Bethesda games feel empty and soulless to me - like a single player MMO. Without a strong narrative arc and memorable companions, RPGs pretty quickly bore me. Particularly when you realize that so much of the content is random shit generated procedurally rather than something touched by the hand of a human. I simply don't care enough about the level/skill progression of my character (and loot) for that to be the driving force of my gameplay by itself.

This was also my experience in both games. In Oblivion I, completely ignorantly enchanted 5 pieces of armor with 20% chameleon which meant perma invis nothing could attack me. I immediately restarted to a no magic character and had some fun with the thieves/assassin guild but never got very far for whatever reason.

Skyrim had the same problems with a lot of the crafting skills, which combined just became ludicrous. I hate that, but one thing those articles suggested was actually giving your character a handicap that made sense. So my assassin did alchemy, the paladin type character I made did blacksmithing, but I kept it at that. I did other things (and upping the difficulty) to make it fun. But I totally get it, I hate that such game breaking things even exist.

I typically have the same problem in these games. I have to pick up everything, and I want to know and do every little thing. It's really hard for me to fight that urge. In the Skyrim example, I could look up what content was out there and then make sure the characters I made that fit that content did it (i.e. thieves and assassin's guild stuff only for that guy, mage academy only for my mage, etc). But yeah it's rough. The containers in BG3 are my worst enemy.

I still firmly believe that Morrowind was the best TES game ever made. Everything was perfect, from the ambiance, to the music, to the story, and even combat. Sure you can cheese it, but that was the fun part. I still remember the mourning sound of the silt strider after exiting the boat.
Oblivion was was still good imo, but potato faces, NPC conversations, and the standard medieval setting kind of diminished it. I do like Skyrim and played it since launch but even to this day I have not yet defeated Alduin. There is something very wrong with the game you cannot complete. Morrowind I've lost count how many times I went through the story.

I think open world is great, as long as its populated well and does not detract from the main story. Once it overwhelms you, you will have a Skyrim effect of never reaching the end.
On the other hand there is the highly railroaded Dragon Age 2.

Sadly 1st person just doesn't work for me. I can't get attached to my character . . . I need to see them in game. And then generally get motion sickness. Skyrim nope, Avowed and Cyberpunk . . . sadly not going to happen for me.

Same. This is the aspect of the elder scrolls games I appreciate the most, the option to play in third person. It was very clanky in morowind and oblivion but by Skyrim it much better

Same for me. Ironically, I also feel more apart of the world if I can see my character in it rather than see from his perspective. Also, I’m always a sucker for character creation and customization, which is largely wasted in first person. That is the main reason I’m not at all excited for Cyberpunk. I’ll get it in a few years probably.

Same. I'm really hoping for a third person mod, but judging from the progress that was made on The Outer Lands, I don't hold my breath

I might end up doing that. We will see. I prefer to play games where combat is something I enjoy and not something I need to suffer through, even briefly. I can even put my finger on what it is about Witch combat that bothers me so much. It doesn’t help that it has been so long since I tried it. I just really remember it not clicking with me.

And if they expand the series past Geralt and let you make your own Witcher who is Geralt’s pupil I’d have more patience with it. I don’t know. I like Elric of Melnibone and I like Solid Snake, but colliding then together (which is especially what Geralt is) does not do it for me.

Third person mods are pretty hard. It isn’t enough to just pull the camera out, as it also requires new controls and working with animations. The more sophisticated the game, the harder it is, so such a mod would probably be a nightmare on CP. Not unfeasible, especially if there is a large group dedicated to the project, but still a hassle nonetheless. I still don’t know what CDPR went with that design choice.

Seems like a prevalent mindset among a subsection of RPG players, which is interesting given first person view provides the best immersion/conditions for roleplaying by far. Then again, nor did I never really understood the hordes of guys preferring to play female characters in RPGs - because they prefer to stare at a female pixelated butts lol

I think that with first person it is easier to feel like I am present in the physical space and experience the immediacy of certain situations. If I am role playing a character, however, I’m not imagining that I am there. I Imagine what it is like to be this distinct character who is not me, and personally I find that it helps to see that character inhabiting that space. Plus, a big part of being a character in that world is deciding how my character looks in that world.

I’m with you I’m not understanding staring at pixelated butts though.

This exactly. In first person I feel like I'm in the story. In 3rd person I can see and experience the character that I'm role-playing and telling the story of.

As for pixelated butts . . . well if you are playing 3rd person you have to stare at something. No I mix it up . . . usually playing the character that feels better for the story. Mass Effect Femshep I felt fit the story better and I preferred Jennifer Hale's VA. Same for Assassins Creed Odyssey . . . Cassandra was just better voiced and acted. But for Assassin's Creed Valhalla I'm absolutely going with the guy . . . much prefer his acting.
For games like Baldur's Gate 3 I'll be making multiple playthroughs so will mix race/class/gender just for variety and to experience different parts of the story.

Pathfinder Kingmaker, the very game which let you enter combat with swarms of creatures and then tells you you need to have some AoE damage to deal with them? This Pathfinder? No, thank you.

I find no immersion in 1st person because I will not play games that make me nauseous. I tried one time for a few minutes with a lot of ginger tea, but when I was moving I couldn't understand why I was running in place. I looked down and there was a pixel rock in the way. First person feels like looking through tiny holes and being forced to move only the head and not the eyeballs.

What about females who play male characters? Sometimes we prefer to stare at the male butt. I play both depending on the character I come up with, my mood, and the animations. For this game I will play mostly male. One female and two male for sure as they are already created DnD characters, the other male is one I created here but wish to play in DnD since he now has a developed personality (I get bored easily )

It tells you such beforehand. No idea what the issue was (at least a year and a half ago, they've reworked the entire area since for the swarms to be wholly optional), I made this on my first attempt. Admittedly a lot of so called RPGs nowadays can actually be finished without ever following any dialgue. But the only thing that was missing here was an instrusive "TUTORIAL MESSAGE" pop-up during the dialogue where you get the optional side-quest. Now in general, the game could have done with better documentation, which is an issue all faithful tabletop adaptations have nowadays in the digital market. Realms Of Arkania, BG et all shipped with fairly comprehensive manuals.

Swarms are another specific of the Pathfinder ruleset though. Larian seem more willing to adapt (for better and worse, see their nerfing of armor classes in favor of hitpoint bloat so that players wouldn't miss as much as in the tabletop), likely because they are on a much larger budget and can't afford to only appeal to D&D players.

CD project red strikes me as a "story character world first" company. Gameplay mechanics seem to be in lower priority for them, and they prefer to put the bulk of their resources into making the story and characters as awesome as they can. Their gameplay is usually minor part of the reason like their games. It was super true for Witcher 1 and 2 and it's also true for Witcher 3. Usually it works in my favour since these are my priorities when I play as well. But this time their choice kinda killed this game for me even though I'm sure the aspects that are usually the strongest in their games will be strong in this one as well.

I agree on most of that, but certainly not everything was perfect. :P Combat imo was very bad (they had this D&D-inspired system that worked terribly in a first person game) and the leveling system was atrocious. I didn't mod it out because I prefer to play vanilla, at least for the first playthrough, but the first 20 hours weren't fun gameplay-wise (a lesson for my Oblivion playthrough). But yes - in general, I agree that it's the best TES game. No nostalgia speaking, I played it for the first time about a year ago.



The potato faces were so bad it made me mod them out, which is extremely rare for me, as I've mentioned. (And man is modding Oblivion hell.) I liked NPC conversations, as primitive and silly as they were, because I saw the improvement over Morrowind - NPCs spoke to each other, had daily routines and so on. But combat, same-y dungeons and level scaling were terrible in Oblivion. (Granted, combat was better than in Morrowind, mechanically... but the HP bloat made me just lower the difficulty.) And yes - the setting was as vanilla and bland as it goes. I wonder what it will be for TESVI. Certainly not High Rock or Hammerfell. Har har.



At least he's more bearable than in the books. CDPR imo did a great job at staying true to the source material and tweaking the bad aspects of it at the same time.

I'd love the next Witcher game to have a custom Witcher protagonist, I was thinking it would be cool if , but I'm afraid they are going to go with Ciri... Iirc it was hinted at. I hope I'm wrong.



Regarding male and female protagonists - I choose semi-randomly, though there are some factors: if a game has bikini armors/boob bowls, a male protagonist it is. Those things are ridiculous, I'm not playing a warrior-themed exotic dancer.

Going with Ciri is the worst option especially with the way the game ended.

I mean, the "good" ending would make sense for that, but... I just really don't like Ciri. And it would be a huge wasted opportunity for a custom witcher game.

Well I pray that isn't true for Cyberpunk. I expect a lot from that game, including great FPS gameplay.
I don't think the developers should choose beteween great story and great gameplay. Just go for both.

I feel the same way about first person as many of you. I don't feel like I'm my character when I can't see them, and especially yes all of that customization of my character that I want. I feel disconnected, both from my character and even from the world since I can only see the world from one rather limited perspective. But I'm not at all wedded to isometric either. I feel third-person (with a freely movable camera) is actually the most optimal.

For Avowed, I am quite confident we will get the option of third-person. Obsidian's current game, Grounded, which was developed before MS bought them up, is also first-person. They received many calls from people asking for a third-person option, to which the developers actually responded on the forum saying they would love to have that option in the game but don't have the budget for it. So budget was the only reason for not including optional third-person. But now they have MS's money.

Re. "Witcher 4," yeah the "consensus" among fans and gaming journos seems to be the game will be based on Ciri. I also am not too thrilled about that (nothing to do with gender, btw). I just don't find her character to have enough there to fill out even one story-rich game let alone a trilogy. And, there's talk that in a Ciri game they can use her power to be able to teleport to any world to have us go "world-hopping." I HATE world-hopping as a game concept.

Out of curiosity I just Googled “Avowed third person.” Apparently Obsidian recently posted a job listing for an animator for third person combat animations. The listing didn’t mention Avowed, but that is a good sign.

I hope Avowed does well. I think Pillars of Eternity is a great IP, and even if I had problems with the sequel, I think that it did enough right to warrant another chance. Obsidian had a lot of talent, so with the right resources they could make PoE3 something really special.

It's not about choosing, it's about their strengths as developers. gameplay was always their weaker side. but you also can't deny the progress they made even in this aspect. if you think the witcher 3's combat is bad, check out witcher 1 to see what bad combat truly looks like.

The "problems" with the sequel was lack of marketing.
Deadfire is a fantastic game and a visual marvel. It has the best looks and best class system of all CRPGs.