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

My head kinda exploded reading this so please bear with me if my reply seems incoherent.

The impression I got playing Solasta and continuing further into Dungeon of the Mad Mage tabletop campaign was that there would be immense opportunity in a game that was literally just a DnD tabletop module in a very detailed multiplayer video game format. The structure of Dungeon of the Mad Mage especially seems like it'd be very conducive to such a thing. Basically, Roll20 converted into a video game engine. From what little research I've done, the Neverwinter Nights 2 modding/multiplayer scene operates off of a similar concept, and it has endured for that reason.

Like there are arguments to be made in that BG3's single player aspects is being held back by its multiplayer focused design, both narratively and mechanically. But perhaps the same could be true of the other way around. One can easily argue that the entirety of Solasta should have been a multiplayer game from the beginning too, with its focus on a custom party and the combat mechanics.

It seems, for whatever reason, the D&D folk were determined to make spells as underwhelming and boring and uninspiring as they possibly could. You don't even need to compare with BG. I did one sorc run in NWN and I was still able to have fun. It's like they took out the most fun spells, looked at the rest and went "now how do we make these ones even less fun?"

- Right, first we'll have a bunch of spells that increase one attribute score by 4 to fill up the level 2 slots, then make them aoe to fill up the level 6 slots, but don't forget to make these bonuses "enhancement", meaning that these spells become useless at around level 8 or so because by that point all characters already have a belt/headband that gives them +4/+6 enhancement to their core stat(s) anyway.

- Next, we have a spell that gives an ally a +2 morale bonus to a few things. Increase that bonus to +4 to make it a level 6 spell. Then make it aoe so we have a level 9 spell.

- Foresight is added by a mod to BG2 as an HLA and it's more or less worth a HLA slot. In Pathfinder? Useless. I find it baffling that they thought this spell is worth being a level 9 spells. In BG2 anything coming from level 9 has the potential to wreak havoc even in late game.

Like, seriously, what the hell happened? Like they seriously hated how fun spells are in BG/BG2 and made a point of not allowing players to have fun playing with spells anymore. Going through your available spell lists when you're playing level 18 clerics/mages is just heartbreakingly sad.

...and let´s not talk about how now every debuff spell, being pinned, enchanted, charmed, paralized, etc allows a SAVE EVERY TURN. Hey, I want to burn a level 6 spell to mass charm or cause mass fear for a huge 6 seconds, one entire turn, to the enemies, yes please. And if for some like phantom or weird they have to fail 2 saves, just because =D

and it goes worse from there. In D&D5e you have to use higher spell slots to buff all of your party, because even the classic party is made of 4 characters all our spells allow only 3 characters to be blessed, aid, enlighten, etc; by default so you have to use higher spell slots to buff them all. That if you do not want to use 50% of your offensive arsenal, like hold person or storm cloud because you lose concentration and lose your protections if you try to attack too. because hey, when I play a caster character what I want to do is not be allowed to cast spells just because.



I´m now used to this but...
Really, I mean, really?

I decided normal difficulty was so braindead easy that I bumped up to core difficulty in order to understand what everyone was talking in regards to the difficulty balance about before initiating the end of chapter 1 dungeon, though I also turned off extra enemies.

...It wasn't nearly as bad as I expected. It did force me to think quite a bit, but I may have decided to bump up the difficulty right as I got viable answers to a lot of things. Fighting the demons would have sucked on core difficulty before finding cold iron gear, for instance. At the same time though, I did have quite a lot of foresight having participated in the beta.

I think I'll stick with Core for the rest of the playthrough and see how it goes.

Having played NWN1 recently as a Bigbi's-handing evoker who soloed fights by squeezing enemies and raining death on their defenseless selves - yeah, it's on point.
While 5e's spellcasting system has its issues (the concentration mechanic can be frustrating, but I get why it's there), I am hopeful looking at what we have already in BG3 that they won't shy away from the weirder, more niche magic. I mean, we already got Disguise Self.
It's less about which system is inferior or superior (I prefer the complexity of the older ones/Pathfinder over the streamlined (a.k.a. dumbed down) nature of 5e) and more of what a particular adaptation does with it. Owlcat's feels like the blandest essay on a book you could imagine, Larian's a fanfiction - time will tell if it's a good one or not.

Not sure of what to think of BG3s gameplay and shallow custom 5E<<systems>>... if it weren't for all the pretty faces and cinematics...wonder what people would think of BG3.
The story is still kind of meeeh and while WoTr is nothing demonicaly <ground braking> lol you have some urgency from the get go, and nearly 6 companions to boot. And WAY MORE INTERESTING than Larian has showed us with theses unlikable companions.
And the character you spent imagining and creating for a whole day feels alive and strongly plotted in the narrative...unlike in BG3 were your character feels worthless.
BG3 could be sooo much better, going hardcore 5E, TONS MORE COMPANIONS and CLASSES...from the looks of things we wont get that much more stuff; but PLENTY OF CINEMATICS and pretty faces. <sigh>.

Making playing the combat in videogame adaptations of the franchise with a caster repetitive as hell? because if that´s the case, they made a very fine job.



To be fair, in BG3 they allow your party members to do more than you can usually do if you apply D&D5e rules. Speaking with the dead, for instance, does not come usually until later levels, And the push as extra action, dip weapons on fire, allow your mage hand to push, etc.

But yeah, I expect the franchise to offer more than pretty cinematics.

Yeah... This didn't land as well as it sounded in your head, probably.

Also, demonstrably false. An embarrassingly large amount of options at character creation is precisely that type of "paralyzing choice" that even casual players tend to love.
You could go pretty much anywhere on the internet and read truckloads of comments from people expressing pure glee and joking on the amount of time they spent on character creation.

And I've basically never seen anyone complaining that the party is too large. Which makes sense, given that even if someone was in that fringe minority that prefer to play with a smaller party, there would be nothing stopping them from doing it.
In fact, there are people doing solo runs.

Encounter design continues to be terrible. The tavern defense fight was just dumb. For some reason the paladin and her melee troops stood glued in place, even as two steps away a bunch of enemy alchemist kept trying to destroy the barricade. The grove defense fight in BG3 looks like a pinnacle of strategy gaming by comparison.

I just don't see the point of this, why create an encounter with a horde of trash mobs and allied troops, when your ai scripts are not good enough to handle it. It could have been just a simple fight between the big bad and his team and your party instead of this mess.

No doubt! That one also has a great cover too! I love the idea, or the general idea of it.

Another thought I had earlier tonight, was how there is probably pressure for a campaign to capture all the sort of traditional environments one would expect (with an expansion in the same, but + snow lol) but I'd almost rather they pick something tight, like the said Dungeon of the Mad Mage, but then just really tried to give it a world physics within that space. Perhaps with a more action oriented non combat movement and exploration aspect, but where encounters or combats prompt the familiar TB scheme. I think there are ways they could perhaps hybridize the gameplay too for the video game format, taking part of what games like Breath of the Wild do in terms of making the player feel like they can interact and move within the environment in really nuanced ways, but then still find ways to occasion the use of the various specials and magic, that then bends the physics in satisfying ways. Like to really make it really like even the low level magic or spells are fucking awesome.

I often come back to simple things, like just wanting the character to be able to crouch, jump, climb up a tree maybe? Use a rope to repel down a cliff or swing off something like tarzan, drive and swim. Maybe shoot an arrow or a magic missile or chromatic orb in a more FPS style. Or hookshot whips or whatever novelties they might use there, when in non combat exploration. Do all that aspect a bit more like Zelda in the non com, but then when encounters or combat are entered its all streamlined to the core rules. Sort of like gameplay vignettes, where you'd get the free form exploration or environmental interactivity run ups as like the interludes between the various campaign encounters. I'd almost rather they just pick one place, like a dungeon or forest but do it up to the nth degree that way. Like such that every cantrip and lvl1 spell, and every feat feels like totally badass within the game system. I wish someone could pull that off. I don't really mind hovering at super low levels like 1-4, if all the gaps are filled in and it really behaves like an imaginary world. Larian talked a big game in the early videos about wanting to go that direction, and they have some cool reactivity and environmental stuff going on, but still not quite on the level of what I'd wish. I think the godmode iso view necessitates the pull away view, but I think I could picture something with a more realistic pov out of the fps genre rather than the rts. I think that's maybe the bigger divide. It's sort of like the difference between eyes closed picture it in your head, or wanting to see it drawn out on a map. In D&D its like always both for me, I want both, but in the games we usually have to choose one or the other. I was kind of excited to see BG3 attempting to do a compromise, but its clearly more geared from the top iso view and not really the driving one, but who knows, maybe they'll circle back to it eventually.

For a char creator I think the basic threshold has to be, can the player use the tools available to recreate a reasonable facsimile of their own face? Like usually the way it's done is a series of presets, say 30 and you try to get as close as you can from those limited options. But if it truly could do any face or hairstyle that a human might have, then that is going to go a long long way. I think you'd need closer to 300 presets to really cover the basic facial types that exist in the world. Then they just need a clean way to display the stuff in larger preview groups, of say 10, 20 or 30 models at a time. Instead of cycling through a big list 1 by 1, they should map the faces out into a series like Mombi's cabinet or a hollywood squares type view, so that the player can quickly find exactly what they want.

Same deal with the hairstyles. Do it like those magazines they have at barber shops or salons, where all the styles are shown in boxes next to one another. The different races could just key off the main 'human' headsets, that way you don't have to reduplicate everything. You just give the Elf, or Half Elf, Half Orc version etc. But by doing them in a snapshot preview, then they could actually display the options in a way that allows for having hundreds or possibly thousands of presets. You know, instead of just a few dozen since anything more an its too much cycling. They don't need sliders for everything if the presets are doing the heavy lifting, but it would be nice to have them for the main features.

Slap a basic outfit designer on top of that, and you're pretty money for a Roll20 convert type thing. I think it could work so well, but I haven't seen it yet for D&D proper. Pathfinder is doing some stuff right, other stuff still off the mark for me, but it is curious to see how now three different D&D cprgs are handling things differently at the same moment in game history. Instead of falling completely for one or the other, I keep thinking of ways they might be synthesized or done differently to be more fun. WotR is definitely giving me some of what I want, though I'd rather have what you described. Like ports of the classics, or even just the newer ones, but done that way. With a convert takes some of the pressure off to be novel with everything, since players already know what to expect, but then that's where the engine and systems can come into their own. By trying to get the game world as close as it can be to the real one, just with the imagination in overdrive. I think for the future they could also take a tip from things like minecraft, or some of the fallout builder type stuff, like to give the world a more lego style atomic sense to it.

Just as a random aside, I always thought a cool spell to see in action would the water ones. Like I appreciate that it exists here as a way to "put out" the environment hehe. But there are so many ways the concept might be treated beyond insta rain puddle. Like maybe diverting a river, the way Thales was supposed to have done? Or doing it Last Unicorn crashing waves style, or like Arwen in FotR parting the river and then sending it crashing. Or maybe the idea of making a sphere or water and suspending it. I mean there's just a lot of places one can go in their head that the game can't. But part of that is maybe because the avatar is so scaled down, like a figurine on the table, rather than being the imagined character in an imaginary (but real) world. I still think Breath of the Wild was onto something. A similar idea but adapted to more to a classical sword and sorcery vibe and D&D rules and would be really cool to see. I'm surprised more fantasy RPG games haven't really tried to copy what that zelda game did, but adapt it to an mp or party type thing. Perhaps choice of class or background or skills and the like could be fleshed out more to include things like mountaineering or forestry or sailing, but where the game actually provided settings for them to be fully exploited. Steering a raft down a rapid? but like actually do it, instead of just having that be a cutscene. Use the rope to repel? heheh. Someday they'll get there

No need to get defensive here, I'm just stating facts. Too many option is often as bad as having too few and the developer has to find balance when making a game. Analysis paralysis is a real thing and it's bad especially for casual gamers. Complex games with lots of options tend to have cult following, but they are still very niche and don't do well in sales as much simpler and streamlined games, for example Stellaris is much more successful than Distant Worlds or any other more complex space strategy that has more options, Witcher where you can only play as Geralt is one of the most successful RPGs even though you can only play as Geralt, there are literally no choices in creating your own character, Dragon Age and Original Sin series are much more popular than Pillars of Eternity, even with just 3 classes in DA and 4 person party in both. Actually, Pillars of Eternity 1 was a success mostly because of nostalgia that weared off and the second one flopped hard.

You don't see people complaining, because a vast majority of casual gamers don't bother writing reviews or complaining, they either just buy the game, dlcs, sequels if they like it or they don't and the game flops. There are many games who are considered good by their fans but failed in the market which led to their developers going bankrupt. Are they objectevly good games? No, they are good NICHE games, which means they are only good if you are the party of their niche fanbase.

i'm sorry but it's hard to take you seriously if you're trying to use Stellaris as an example of a "casual" game with few options. The fact that you even know Stellaris EXISTS means you're not even remotely a casual gamer. You just don't like wotr, and that's fine, but let's not pretend it's because it has too many options and it's for "nerds".

I'm not "getting defensive", I'm saying that you are spouting nonsense.
And not even out of particular love for WoTR, since I didn't spare it my fair share of legitimate criticism so far.

I'm not even sure what casual gamer means. I used to think it was the people who only played mobile games, but apparently it really means people who don't know what a gaming PC is. Or perhaps people who only started playing computer games after 2000

Nonsense is saying that "an embarrassingly large amount of options at character creation is precisely that type of "paralyzing choice" that even casual players tend to love". It's basic psychology that people don't like too many option unless they are really into them, from Ancient Greeks and Aesop's Fables to modern psychologists like Barry Schwartz and the "paradox of choice" it's established, that the amount of options should be balanced to cause satisfaction and enjoyment instead of frustration and anxiety. There are hundreds of articles, lectures, podcasts from actual professionals and researchers about the problem designing a balanced amount of options and why too many options is bad, but you continue to believe that more is always better, even if it has been proven so many times that it's not how it works.

You're mixing "having a lot of options" and "being complex" together. There's "having a lot of options", and there's "having a lot of things going on at the same time". If we're going to start listing reasons why a player would be put off by the Pathfinder games, there are other reasons much more convincing than "because the games have too many classes and races". No one forces players to read through all 20+ classes and 10+ races. The few core classes - Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard, and core races - Human, Elf, Dwarf, are all there, so you can just pick them if you don't want to bother with the rest.

What would put people off tends to be what comes after that, when they find out there are way too many factors that affect their character which require their decision making. For someone who is not familiar with the system, this would probably put them off. For someone who knows the system, however, they will probably be comfortable selecting things for their character. What "confuses" you is not the "options", but the complexity of the system. And if we're talking about the Pathfinder games in particular, they are not only complex, but can also be unforgiving, even on what they call "normal" difficulty, unless you have very good knowledge of the system. This means, again, it requires people to invest time and effort to get used to a complex system in order to have a chance to enjoy the games.

If a person never played pathfinder or dnd and just wants to play, let's say, a mage-type character he will have to choose from Alchemist (6 subclasses), Arcanist (6 subclasses), Bard (6 subclasses), Magus (7 subclasses), Sorceror (7 subclasses), Witch (6 subclasses), Wizard (7 subclasses). That's 45 options for an arcane spellcaster. If you aren't into rulebook reading and decide to read about every class you will get bored, if you just randomly pick one you will be frustrated by the fact that you may have picked wrong. You can't win there if you are just an average rpg fan.

This is why I like D&D 5e. Simpler.

Still, I find Pathfinder still much easier than past D&D video games like Neverwinter 2 with all the fears and so forth. Play that game and then tell me Pathfinder has too many options. I didn't like leveling up in NWN2. That took time and patience. Pathfinder at least limits your level up options pretty well.

I think it is way too simplistic to divide people into two either/or camps of those who are hardcore gamers who like lots of options and complexity versus those who are casual gamers who don't like too many options or much complexity. I am very much a casual gamer, someone who does not have much time at all (sadly) to play video games and who wants to blow through combat quickly without having to put in too much effort. But at the same time I am also very much someone who loves having TONS of options (options are ALWAYS good), options in gameplay, options in character creation and development, options in party composition, options in dialogue and quest resolution, options in settings and difficulty, options everywhere. I also love my RPGs to have complex systems. So exactly where would I fall in this very binary discussion?

It is very much possible to be both a nerd gamer (I am okay with that word as I very proudly consider myself to be the king of nerds, that being a nerd is a very good thing, and society would be way better off if more people were nerds) and a casual gamer at the same time.

100 percent.