Larian Banner: Baldur's Gate Patch 9
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Page 4 of 9 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Joined: Jul 2019
addict
Offline
addict
Joined: Jul 2019
Originally Posted by kanisatha
Originally Posted by Uncle Lester
Originally Posted by kanisatha
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.


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.

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.

Joined: Mar 2020
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Mar 2020
Bethesda games sucks hard at storytelling and characters. Everything else is great though


Larian's Biggest Oversight, what to do about it, and My personal review of BG3 EA
"74.85% of you stood with the Tieflings, and 25.15% of you sided with Minthara. Good outweighs evil, it seems."
Joined: Jan 2018
W
veteran
Offline
veteran
W
Joined: Jan 2018
Originally Posted by Abits
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.

Joined: Oct 2020
addict
Offline
addict
Joined: Oct 2020
Originally Posted by kanisatha
Originally Posted by TheOtter
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.

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.


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. wink

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.

Originally Posted by Danielbda
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.


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.

Originally Posted by Abits
Bethesda games sucks hard at storytelling and characters. Everything else is great though


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

Originally Posted by Warlocke
I hope they step it up for TES 6.


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.)

Joined: Oct 2020
vel Offline OP
member
OP Offline
member
Joined: Oct 2020
This thread is testament to 1) the many RPG options and 2) all the history needed to design a new tactical RPG.

Joined: Mar 2020
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Mar 2020
The Witcher 3 is Skyrim only with story


Larian's Biggest Oversight, what to do about it, and My personal review of BG3 EA
"74.85% of you stood with the Tieflings, and 25.15% of you sided with Minthara. Good outweighs evil, it seems."
Joined: Oct 2020
apprentice
Offline
apprentice
Joined: Oct 2020
Originally Posted by Danielbda
Originally Posted by kanisatha
Originally Posted by Uncle Lester
Originally Posted by kanisatha
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.


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.

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.


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.

Joined: Oct 2020
S
Banned
Offline
Banned
S
Joined: Oct 2020
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.

Joined: Jan 2018
W
veteran
Offline
veteran
W
Joined: Jan 2018
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.

Joined: Jul 2019
addict
Offline
addict
Joined: Jul 2019
Originally Posted by Warlocke

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.

Joined: Jun 2017
member
Offline
member
Joined: Jun 2017
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

Joined: Jan 2018
W
veteran
Offline
veteran
W
Joined: Jan 2018
Originally Posted by Nezix
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.

Last edited by Warlocke; 29/10/20 10:33 PM.
Joined: May 2019
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: May 2019
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.

Joined: Oct 2020
addict
Offline
addict
Joined: Oct 2020
Originally Posted by Warlocke
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.”


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. wink

Joined: Oct 2020
member
Offline
member
Joined: Oct 2020
Originally Posted by Warlocke
Originally Posted by Nezix
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.


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.

Joined: Oct 2020
T
journeyman
Offline
journeyman
T
Joined: Oct 2020
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.

Joined: Jun 2017
member
Offline
member
Joined: Jun 2017
Originally Posted by Osprey39


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.


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.

Joined: Jun 2017
member
Offline
member
Joined: Jun 2017
Originally Posted by Uncle Lester

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. wink


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.

Joined: Oct 2020
Location: Sigil
member
Offline
member
Joined: Oct 2020
Location: Sigil
Originally Posted by Uncle Lester


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 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. smirk


"There are three things that are strength incarnate: there is love of life, there is fear of death, and there is family. A family that loves death would have a strong pull indeed." - Tamoko
Joined: Oct 2020
T
member
Offline
member
T
Joined: Oct 2020
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. frown

Page 4 of 9 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Moderated by  Dom_Larian, Freddo, vometia 

Link Copied to Clipboard
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5