Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Should have given this to Obsidian

Also sorry but i can't help but laught when i read: CDPR should had done that.

CDPR is what turned one of my favourite pen and paper franchise in a First Person Shooter. So no. I am glad CDPR did stay far away from D&D and BG

Never forgive. Never Forget.

They couldn't have gone in a better direction.
Systems like Vampire and Cyberpunk are not traditional party-based RPGs, they work very well in first person, as Bloodlines already shown. For a game in this setting an immersive FPS is much more interesting than a top down isometric game.

All of those observations are subjective IMHO. Some are deliberate design decisions which I may or may not personally care for; Larian have always been a bit full-on in terms of combat biting you until you figure it out the hard way; the "bad soundtrack" mystifies me the most as Pokrovsky's work is pretty well renowned. I'm not arguing that everyone should respeck the game's awesome, there are things I dislike about it myself, but to say "it just sucks" as the indisputable and unalienable truth is... well, it's a bold claim.

Yeah sure.
Insert Shooter guy song tropes here.
[video:youtube]https://youtu.be/ALd0ILisKvI[/video]

And yes both Cyberpunk and Vampire are party based rpgs.

I showed why it sucks. The only subjectiviness there is the soundtrack, which improves massively in DOS2.
The rest is just there: the nonsensical randomized loot, ugly character models, exaggerate difficulty, need to use surface effects in every (like really, EVERY) fight in the game, no respec until 2/3 of the game.
You know the main issue? The lack of choice, which is what defines an RPG. In DOS1 you can't create the character that you want, or play how you want, because the "puzzles" usually have only one solution that involves surface effects.
Still, most of this was addressed in DOS2, which deserves its reputation as a masterpiece. Obsidian is more consistent in quality though.

I put NON-TRADITIONAL in there.

First of all, I am happy that Larian does it.
I really enjoyed BG3 so far.
I wish they would stay closer to the PnP rules and less DOS stuff.
But I like the changes of the last patch, such as bringing cantrips back to PnP.
So things are going in the right direction.


At the moment I would say Owlcatgames are the best.
Kingmaker is the best successor to BG2 at the moment and WotR looks also great.
Kingmaker release was a buggy mess, but they fixed it and WotR alpha is already better than kingmaker at release.

Obsidian made good games (Kotor2, NWN2, PoE1+2, Tyranny, FONV) but none of them is as close to BG2 as kingmaker.

Regarding CDP, I love the witcher games and cyberpunk looks great, but those are action games, not classic RPGs.
I would say TW3 is the best western action RPG ever, but gameplay is very different from what I expect from a Baldurs gate.

Obsidian didn't make NWN2, they only made MoTB, which is admittedly one of the better things they did.
New Vegas is definitely their masterpiece, hands down, it's my favorite non-fantasy game ever.
Tyranny is also great, it's leagues above PoE, it has a better leveling system, and better combat with an intriguing story with branching outcomes, it's exactly what they should be making a sequel to instead of whatever the hell they are doing now.
Kotor 2 is interesting, but I think it's a touch overrated, and PoE is just straight up garbage. Why do people like it? The combat is the worst I've seen in any game so far, and the story is incredibly dull.

I've played both Poe's and both original sin's and personally I didn't like any of them overall.

Poe 1 had an amazing first section right up to the first town. Then it felt flat and I spent the rest of the game bored. By the time I got to the famous "good part" I couldn't be bothered. The characters were meh for me as well. I did like the Grieving Mother exclusive stuff while playing as the psychic class though.

Poe 2 had problems with combat that I didn't notice in the first. It felt like 4e homebrew. It had potential but never went anywhere. I hated all the companions and most of the ncps. I did like the islander feel though, but as an islander myself it just did not click well enough. Funny enough I really liked some of the sidekicks. The pirate girl was amazing and the cipher girl was entertaining and kind of adorable. I also liked the mage from the shop. This game convinced me to never buy a game where companions can romance each other ever again. Its not banter, its annoying. It almost convinced me to drop romances all together. Almost.

Dos 1 was fun actually at first. I liked being a cop in a fantasy setting. It was novel ish at the time. Then the plot went sideways and teleported away. I didn't find the main plot that interesting from then on. Not bad but not interesting either.

Dos 2 was nice for the first two acts but I absolutely loathe the last two. I did like Loshe and Beast. Liked Ifan at first till his allegiance came into question. I didn't like the rest. The combat was not great either. Everything devolves into "the map is on fire". At least melee actually got abilities instead of copy paste auto attacks with different names.

So yeah out of these two devs teams I'd choose Larian. Only reason I'm here is because dnd lore is amazing.

I liked Tyranny a lot. The only real downside for me is that it did that "yeah whatevs, I want to finish now" in about the last quarter, but it's hardly the only video game to do the same thing.

I also like TOW, though. So there.

The main problem is simply that Larian reuses Divinity 2 for BG3. Maybe because its cheaper or because they think the DOS system is better, but the end result is the same, you do not get a D&D Baldurs Gate 3, but a hybrid.
Compare that for example with Kingmaker from Owlcat. Sure, it might be because they had no previous RPG platform available, but when they made Kingmaker they made it with Pathfinder rules in mind. Are they exactly as in the PnP? No, but it is very clear that the game is intended to be a Pathfinder game while in the current state BG3 is at best only inspired by D&D.

Hard to disagree. I'm not even a BG purist, i'm trying right now to finish my first trilogy run, which probably won't happen because Cyberpunk, but even just the main menus give a different vibe.

I would say, though, that capturing the feel of a game is pretty hard to begin with, especially so when what you're trying to capture is the feel of 20 year old isometric rpgs and import it into a Dragon Age style game.

Of course they did. Base game and expansions.

As to OP and thread subject. Eh. Maybe - for a singular reason that RPGs Obsidian creates are direct continuations of what BG2 did. Larian’s design and approach to an RPG is rather different - but that’s not necessarily bad. I might not like it in the end, but at least BG3 can be something that will stand on its own.

I would rather have Obsidian stick to their own stuff. I would love to see proper Pillars of Eternity3 one day, as those series didn’t reach their full potential just yet.

There were tons of good CRPGs that came out in this new renaissance era of CRPGs.

Wasteland 2
Torment Tides of Numenera
Shadowrun Returns
Shadowrun Dragonfall
Shadowrun Hong Kong
Pillars of Eternity
Pillars of Eternity 2
Tyranny
Masquerada
Pathfinder Kingmaker
Divinity Original Sin
Divinity Original Sin 2


To the best of my knowledge, DOS2 sold the best out of all of those. By a wide margin, even.

I find this nitpicking over the small stuff ridiculous I'm myself a big veteran from BG1 + BG2 and I never had issues with how BG3 looked I just missed the day/night cycle which was present in Baldur gate 1 + 2 but otherwise, I liked it. 1 and 2 real-time combat sucked for me and I loved more Xcom turns based combat making you have to plan your moves than just being a god at micro and cheese AI "I think Obsidian should have made that's a completely subjective opinion which won't add anything to the overall debates here on the forum I personally would give Larian chance and criticize them after they reach 1.0 version this game is like 25% finished and people are already making verdicts which I find absurd, because how you can judge game when that said game isn't finished yet? People are complaining about how it's not dark but DnD isn't only about exploring edgy and grimdark dungeons, there are also beautiful parts of Faerun.

I also liked how now dices made more impact on your choices and how everyone now can lockpick and disarm traps so you don't need to spam 100 rogue companions, it's so close to DnD it makes me proud of course I would prefer something like Solasta with better graphics and story but Larian also improved some rules from the original 5e which were not clear or made little sense. There are always going to be a small minority of people with nostalgia glasses who will be upset about Baldur gate 3 not being the same game just with better graphics but that's how it is If the community directs them the right way we will get a good DnD game which everyone can enjoy, making rant topics about why Larian sucks and why CD project or Obsidian would have been better choices won't help them improve our game.

Real time or turn based is a matter of taste. Some players like this more and some like something else.
DnD is turn based per definition and 5E is harder to put in real time than 2E or 3E, at least I have not seen a real time 5E game so far.

So far I have not seen any change of rules that is a clear improvement.
In 5E you do not need a specific class as long as you have most skills covered, for example via backgrounds, and you can use some useful spells.

side note that i haven't seen shadowrun mentioned at all in context of BG3 here - always liked those ones and the turn based worked well.

No. Claiming your points were objective doesnt make them less subjective.
For example the exaggerate difficulty is perfectly to my taste. In an turn based RPG with so many options i want to be challenged and have to use the aviable options to have success.
Im not saying DOS was perfect but its a matter of taste and the overall success speaks for itself.
The randomised loot however was tedious, but there are great games with much bigger issues

Yes! I love those Shadowrun games!

Everybody always says that New Vegas is Obsidian's best game, or only good game, whatever. It seems to be the prevailing opinion. But I didn't even like New Vegas much, and I love a bunch of Obsidian's other games, so I guess I'm a weirdo.


Here's my favorite Obsidian games in descending order:

1. Alpha Protocol
2. Tyranny
3. Neverwinter Nights 2 (and expansions, especially Mask of the Betrayer)
4. The Outer Worlds
5. Pillars of Eternity 2
6. Pillars of Eternity
7. New Vegas, I guess


The first two, especially, are among my favorite games of all time.