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Originally Posted by nation
Originally Posted by MarbleNest
If anything, WotR is giving me the cRPG experience I've been missing from BG3.
100 percent.
Can concur.

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Hard core nerd gamer community may be niche, but on a planet with 7 billion people even the niche communities have millions of people. It can be a good business strategy to pursue a (big) niche like this one rather than compete in the AAA space. Swinging for the casual market and missing is a good way to go broke.

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Originally Posted by Alyssa_Fox
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.
A big problem here is precisely the thinking that "you may have picked wrong". What do you even mean by "pick wrong"? That the devs intentionally put an extremely poorly designed class in their game to bait players into picking it and punish them for their choice? What's wrong with just picking "wizard"? Again, it's a fundamental class; thinking that one of the fundamental classes of RPG "may" be a "trap" class that would punish you down the line is silly.

Assuming we're talking about the Pathfinder games only, going a bit further, if you're afraid that during leveling up there are too many things you are allowed to pick but not sure what to pick, then there are always the recommended picks. There is a green thumbs-up icon next to the option recommended for your character. There is even preloaded build so you don't have to make the selections yourself. It eliminates most if not all of your "decision making". So what exactly frustrates you? The fear that the game will be punishing because somehow you've made the "wrong" choices? Now this is a different problem - it's about the difficulty of the game. This takes us back to the difficulty options, but are you going to complain that "there are too many options in the difficulty settings" next?

Now on the other hand, let's imagine, if we have 45 classes, but if the only differences between these classes are the appearance of your character (clothing, physical appearance, etc.) and starting equipment. Nothing else mechanics-wise. Would you say the game is still confusing and complicated? I don't think so.

So I'm just going to emphasize again here that, in the end it still boils down to "too much to read and too much to comprehend".

PS: this is not to disagree with you @Alyssa_Fox, that games that are more "user friendly" and "simpler" have higher chances to have a bigger player base. What I'm trying to say, is that, when it comes to video games, some players let themselves be intimidated too easily by "too much stuff on screen", when in fact things are really not that complicated if you just, you know, calm down and look a bit more closely. The game can be complex, the game can also be simple. If you refuse to let it be simple, that's on you.

Last edited by Try2Handing; 05/09/21 06:04 PM.

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Originally Posted by dwig
Hard core nerd gamer community may be niche, but on a planet with 7 billion people even the niche communities have millions of people. It can be a good business strategy to pursue a (big) niche like this one rather than compete in the AAA space. Swinging for the casual market and missing is a good way to go broke.

yep. 45k players just right now on steam is not remotely a niche title lol.

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Originally Posted by nation
Originally Posted by MarbleNest
If anything, WotR is giving me the cRPG experience I've been missing from BG3.
100 percent.
+1

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Don't like the setting or the story, but I can say it is a very well-crafted game.

Plus RTwP is a bless. Nice to see Cohn refusing to play in TB.

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Originally Posted by Try2Handing
Originally Posted by Alyssa_Fox
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.
A big problem here is precisely the thinking that "you may have picked wrong". What do you even mean by "pick wrong"? That the devs intentionally put an extremely poorly designed class in their game to bait players into picking it and punish them for their choice? What's wrong with just picking "wizard"? Again, it's a fundamental class; thinking that one of the fundamental classes of RPG "may" be a "trap" class that would punish you down the line is silly.
That's in theory. In practice, I've picked a bugged class (arcanist) on my first attempt. I didn't immediately realize it, because I don't play pnp and the class mechanics were new to me. I've since restarted, because I don't enjoy playing a character whose class feature isn't working.

I've since checked the Owlcat forums, and seems like a lot of class-related bugs were reported in beta. So it is not like the devs were not aware of most of them.

Last edited by ash elemental; 05/09/21 07:24 PM.
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Even as a cRPG fan, I dislike the vast amount of classes and choices Pathfinder games have, and how frontloaded it is. You start the game and the very first thing you need to do when you want to play a Wizard is to pick from 45 options. Start reading through a massive amount of information to pick which I like the best. I'd much rather have handful (<10) really well thought out options that have very distinct differences and varying playstyles.

And these games very much have crap ton of trap options. For example weapon proficiences, how are you supposed to know what kind of weapons the game has to offer in character creation screen? Oh, you picked X spell school to specialise in, too bad all the spells implemented for it are garbage.

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Since you have a talking weapon, Finnean, that could be turned into ANY kind of weapon, even ranged, and it's upgradeable the entire campaign I can safely say that there is no such thing as "trap" choices of weapons.

Even if you cannot find a good example of your weapon of choice this time you can always use Finnean. He can turn into anything that pokes, stabs or smashes besides a fork. And deliver sassy comments. So just pick any weapon you like.

Originally Posted by ash elemental
That's in theory. In practice, I've picked a bugged class (arcanist) on my first attempt. I didn't immediately realize it, because I don't play pnp and the class mechanics were new to me. I've since restarted, because I don't enjoy playing a character whose class feature isn't working.

I've since checked the Owlcat forums, and seems like a lot of class-related bugs were reported in beta. So it is not like the devs were not aware of most of them.

I tried a brown fur arcanist and didn't find any bugs of note, in fact, it´s a crazy good class to buff your melee characters. I do not know if i was lucky...
You can pump any transmutation spell into your companions with a +50% of effectivity, even if the spell normally could only be cast on the caster. Dragonkind? Animal aspect? Legendary proportions in your frontline just because? Yes, please!

They have a limited number of slots that usually is the weakness of the class but in Wotr you can pick the mythic Abundant casting and Mythic Greater abundant casting (that doubles the number of your available spell slots) so that´s not an issue anymore when you have access to your mythic abilities.

I do not know if that´s what they are referring to, but in PnP, the arcanists have some other features that are not in the videogame, as the capacity of consuming magical objects or magic potions to replenish the arcane reservoir. You can only do that by consuming spells. They also decided that many of the arcanists exploits would not be in the game.
Even as a decaffeinated version as it is, it´s a solid class. Maybe not too noob friendly, but you can learn new spells like mages so it´s not like you can be afraid of picking a spell you cannot change after and find it´s not as useful as you think.

Ed: Ok, it seems now your extra stats for brown fur disappear if you load a save game ¿? so yeah, the feature is currently bugged and it would not give that until it´s fixed. at least the capacity of buffing your companions still works.

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Originally Posted by MarbleNest
If anything, WotR is giving me the cRPG experience I've been missing from BG3.

+100

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i will say this, good lord, they really like their long dungeons with fights constantly. I'm in
the grey garrison and holy, we're talking 10 - 15 FULL parties of enemies, and i'm not talking solely trash mobs either. I've had 2 - 3 fireball spells launched at me simultaneously.
i'm just not good enough yet for this lol

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I haven't gotten very far in WOTR but I find the evil path/choices to be kind of lacking. Like I want to be lawful and evil but doesn't seem possible? Also I can be evil but people like Seelah don't seem to really care. I hope it gets better in those aspects.

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Originally Posted by teclis23
My honest opinion from what i have seen so far;

Wrath of the righteous looks incredibly good and so does BG3.

WOTR does appear to be offering a lot more mechanics through mythics paths where you can become angels, devils and liches ect....it looks really really frickin good....like really good. WOTR also possibly looks to have better story writing and companions. Owlcat are based in Poland and arent necessarily all about diversity and gender neutral crap like Larian is. I think Larain have gone waaaayyyyy to far with this stuff and Owlcat have completely tuned it down eg Larian has gone woke and Owlcat are not woke.

BG3 on the other hand looks better visually and i think has more potential due to there budget.

Thoughts people?


I honestly don't get what's so damn "woke" about BG3? So far, from what I've seen in WOTR, that game is far more woke. Playing through at least the beginning of the game, it seems all male characters are either stupid, evil or corrupt, and the females are superheroes (some of which are of course lesbian couples). IMO it seems that WOTR is waaaay more woke than BG3.

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Originally Posted by andreasrylander
Originally Posted by teclis23
My honest opinion from what i have seen so far;

Wrath of the righteous looks incredibly good and so does BG3.

WOTR does appear to be offering a lot more mechanics through mythics paths where you can become angels, devils and liches ect....it looks really really frickin good....like really good. WOTR also possibly looks to have better story writing and companions. Owlcat are based in Poland and arent necessarily all about diversity and gender neutral crap like Larian is. I think Larain have gone waaaayyyyy to far with this stuff and Owlcat have completely tuned it down eg Larian has gone woke and Owlcat are not woke.

BG3 on the other hand looks better visually and i think has more potential due to there budget.

Thoughts people?


I honestly don't get what's so damn "woke" about BG3? So far, from what I've seen in WOTR, that game is far more woke. Playing through at least the beginning of the game, it seems all male characters are either stupid, evil or corrupt, and the females are superheroes (some of which are of course lesbian couples). IMO it seems that WOTR is waaaay more woke than BG3.


To be fair, everything is kinda woke nowdays. BG3 may seem more like it I think because of all the cinematics/close ups. Its just more <in your face>.

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Originally Posted by andreasrylander
Originally Posted by teclis23
My honest opinion from what i have seen so far;

Wrath of the righteous looks incredibly good and so does BG3.

WOTR does appear to be offering a lot more mechanics through mythics paths where you can become angels, devils and liches ect....it looks really really frickin good....like really good. WOTR also possibly looks to have better story writing and companions. Owlcat are based in Poland and arent necessarily all about diversity and gender neutral crap like Larian is. I think Larain have gone waaaayyyyy to far with this stuff and Owlcat have completely tuned it down eg Larian has gone woke and Owlcat are not woke.

BG3 on the other hand looks better visually and i think has more potential due to there budget.

Thoughts people?


I honestly don't get what's so damn "woke" about BG3? So far, from what I've seen in WOTR, that game is far more woke. Playing through at least the beginning of the game, it seems all male characters are either stupid, evil or corrupt, and the females are superheroes (some of which are of course lesbian couples). IMO it seems that WOTR is waaaay more woke than BG3.

Also Owlcat are a Russian company, they are based in Russia.

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Originally Posted by kanisatha
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 to this.

I barely get time to play, and when I do I tend to have to split my time between focusing on stuff in my MMO of choice, or playing single player games from my backlog. I'm quite the definition of a casual gamer in that respect, but I still much prefer and tend to stick longer with games such as WotR/BG1+2+IWD/NWN/PoE/etc. simply due to the sheer amount of choices I can make. Not just in terms of character building on a stat sheet and with skills, but with gear, with dialogue, with alignments, what have you. That sheer feeling of freedom and uniqueness every playthrough is what keeps me coming back, as I never quite feel so static.

In games with less choices (I'll just pick out Mass Effect as an example; one of my favorite games, I routinely replay the trilogy through entirely at least once a year), I tend to go through for the first time and then end up 'stuck' in my initial playstyle and choices. I don't feel a need to try out what other class options there might be, because the selection is more limited, and if what I liked on my first go worked, why would I opt to try the other things that are going to be mostly the same but with a different flavor - and also tend to not have any effect on dialogue or how others respond to me in the course of the game?

I never feel that way with many of my favorite cRPGs.

I do feel like I'll feel that way in BG3, which has been part of the reason I've yet to really finish the whole of what we have in EA. If I know I'll likely be playing this one way (unless they drastically change stuff up and add much more to the table), I'd rather get started on playing that one way fully from beginning to end. So, more than likely I won't really be playing it much anymore until full release.

In that sense, it's sort of 'failed' me as a more 'casual-oriented' game compared to WotR. Neither are bad, but I'm certainly getting more enjoyment - and know I will continue to get much enjoyment in the years to follow - from one over what I feel I'll end up getting from the other.

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One other quick criticism, only because BG3 does kind of the exact same sort of thing, but I think the prologue pre-amble in WotR was a big missed opportunity for tutorial stuff and introducing the basics. Same as here, the prologue also can't be easily skipped to just advance to where the actual gameplay begins, like I'm sure most people already wish would be an option hehe.

Now that I've already played out the intro like 30 times (of course I'd roll 30 toons before settling on one I actually like lol) the opening festival fail is becoming a bit more stark.

The player is immediately subjected to a lot of dialog skipping, and a pair of pointless exercises that don't really teach them anything about the game's basic systems, just to advance to the Lord of Locusts kick off. There are like 100 NPCs dancing in place at the festival, each with nothing interesting to say. Then we get to raise a glass and throw a dart, and that's basically it? Instead of providing a place for the new player to figure out the controls, or to discover how things work with the various UI menus or with merchants or whatever, in an environment where all those things could be conveniently introduced in a low pressure situation, we just get a time sink. Candlekeep lite, where the player learns how to do absolutely nothing lol. It's too bad because there is a fair amount one might learn, before having a full party foisted on them and sent off into the dungeon.

I don't really understand why both these games failed to see the merits of letting the player do some initial window shopping at a merchant, you know like Winthrop, then visit a temple, learn how to hide, sneak, steal, see how combat works and the like. Kingmaker was pretty lackluster in this regard as well, but at least it had a flow to it. I guess they expect that people who buy this sequel have already learned this in the previous game (BG2 took a similar approach) but again, just feels like a missed op, especially since the game starts at lvl1 and isn't really a direct sequel like Kingmaker 2 or whatever. Anyone else feel this way?

Like it doesn't surprise me at all that D&D games don't capture a very large crossover audience, since the games always assume a lot of prior familiarity with D&D systems, instead of teaching the new player what they are and how they work. BG1 was one of the few examples of a D&D game that actually met the player wherever they were at, and did the requisite hand holding until the player felt they had their bearings. Skipping that whole first section was also very straightforward in BG1 once the player had had enough of it. I think newer games are maybe wary of copying that template and seeming too derivative or generic, when it actually worked pretty well. The WotC opener is equally generic, but doesn't really even try to do the new player set up intro to Dungeons and Dragons stuff. I appreciate the tooltips and the encyclopedia, those are clearly clutch, but I mean more of the basics and in how they are presented, so it's not like getting dropped into a maze, right before getting dropped into a maze, you know? lol

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Originally Posted by Black_Elk
...I think the prologue pre-amble in WotR was a big missed opportunity for tutorial stuff and introducing the basics...
One other quick criticism, only because BG3 does kind of the exact same sort of thing, but I think the prologue pre-amble in WotR was a big missed opportunity for tutorial stuff and introducing the basics. Same as here, the prologue also can't be easily skipped to just advance to where the actual gameplay begins, like I'm sure most people already wish would be an option hehe.

Now that I've already played out the intro like 30 times (of course I'd roll 30 toons before settling on one I actually like lol) the opening festival fail is becoming a bit more stark.

The player is immediately subjected to a lot of dialog skipping, and a pair of pointless exercises that don't really teach them anything about the game's basic systems, just to advance to the Lord of Locusts kick off. There are like 100 NPCs dancing in place at the festival, each with nothing interesting to say. Then we get to raise a glass and throw a dart, and that's basically it? Instead of providing a place for the new player to figure out the controls, or to discover how things work with the various UI menus or with merchants or whatever, in an environment where all those things could be conveniently introduced in a low pressure situation, we just get a time sink. Candlekeep lite, where the player learns how to do absolutely nothing lol. It's too bad because there is a fair amount one might learn, before having a full party foisted on them and sent off into the dungeon.

I don't really understand why both these games failed to see the merits of letting the player do some initial window shopping at a merchant, you know like Winthrop, then visit a temple, learn how to hide, sneak, steal, see how combat works and the like. Kingmaker was pretty lackluster in this regard as well, but at least it had a flow to it. I guess they expect that people who buy this sequel have already learned this in the previous game (BG2 took a similar approach) but again, just feels like a missed op, especially since the game starts at lvl1 and isn't really a direct sequel like Kingmaker 2 or whatever. Anyone else feel this way?

Like it doesn't surprise me at all that D&D games don't capture a very large crossover audience, since the games always assume a lot of prior familiarity with D&D systems, instead of teaching the new player what they are and how they work. BG1 was one of the few examples of a D&D game that actually met the player wherever they were at, and did the requisite hand holding until the player felt they had their bearings. Skipping that whole first section was also very straightforward in BG1 once the player had had enough of it. I think newer games are maybe wary of copying that template and seeming too derivative or generic, when it actually worked pretty well. The WotC opener is equally generic, but doesn't really even try to do the new player set up intro to Dungeons and Dragons stuff. I appreciate the tooltips and the encyclopedia, those are clearly clutch, but I mean more of the basics and in how they are presented, so it's not like getting dropped into a maze, right before getting dropped into a maze, you know? lol
Totally agree, not only would more elaborate prologues be a good way of easing people into the world without some ungainly lore dumps, it can also be a good way of demystifying the rules for the neophyte. I'm pretty sure that having a little foreknowledge of third edition changes my experience with Pathfinder to something manageable, from something more like my experience with Pillars of Eternity.

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I think it’s too early to do a fair comparison.
Even EA Act 1 vs say up to the point of controlling armies say.

Dialogue wise yes, in WotR I have had a lot of alignment based options and decisions, and as someone who grew up with d&d and AD&D 2nd, I like!!

That said most of the none “good” options just seemed a little ott or daft. I think sometimes I picked chaotic, but lawful was always wanting you to kill people (slight exaggeration) and Evil seemed bored.

By contrast I have so far had 0 class based options and 1 race based dialogue.

There is also too much time spent on a city travel map annoyingly waiting to see if you get into another pointless encounter that you kill in 3 seconds flat (normal difficulty). It feels like pointless time bloat and unnecessary clicking.

Yes it advances time and yes there is a night and day system, but in a city at war and on fire, meh, who cares.

BG3 prologue is better, though both feel undercooked. WotR’s prologue is just plain bad and the character speech lines are cliche and generic. It does improve as you move towards the end of your time in Kalebres and I’m on board with the story and the characters. In fact I will say that WotR does a better job of hiding the quirks of your party, whereas most of the companions in BG3 telegraph that they have secrets the moment you meet them.

So yes, so far WotR has more of that bg2 feel to it I guess in terms of mechanics, but BG3 definitely feels more d&d in its setup and encounters. Hopefully once more of the BG story elements kick in BG3 will balance out.

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Originally Posted by Riandor
There is also too much time spent on a city travel map annoyingly waiting to see if you get into another pointless encounter that you kill in 3 seconds flat (normal difficulty). It feels like pointless time bloat and unnecessary clicking.

Yes it advances time and yes there is a night and day system, but in a city at war and on fire, meh, who cares.

There are also several timed quests and some areas change with the passing of time.
A thousand times better than BG3s never exploding ticking timebomb.

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