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HoloDust on 11 August 2023
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Mnementh said:
HoloDust said:

Turned based combat in a system like DnD is sort of given. Though, both BG1 and BG2 had real time with pause that really worked well, and I would be much happier if they kept that.

BG3 combat suffers from bad camera view that acts as if it's made for some mobile game action RPG, rather than proper isometric cRPG, and bad implementation of 5e rules - namely no Dodge and no Ready Action as biggest culprits. Dodge in 5e gives your attackers disadvantage to hit (approx -4/-5 on the role) and is a very important tactic for both front line tanks and spell caster trying to maintain concentration on an ongoing spell. Ready Action gives you a chance to wait for a certain trigger to happen to react, which obviously has tons of uses. They're both in Solasta and work as intended, so I have no idea why Larian decided to ditch that. Add to that some of their homebrew nonsense, and it's quite a mess. Oh, and did I mention that inventory is complete and utter rubbish?

But...the game gives you a lot of choices. That itself is its redeeming quality, if you like that. I've played it only a bit and so far it doesn't feel much like Baldur's Gate, it doesn't feel much like a proper VG representation of DnD 5e, but the chance to take different approaches and paths and do some of the inworld stuff you would expect for the modern VG games to have, yet they don't (and Ultima had it 30 years go) is a driving force behind it.

About the bad camera: did you try tactical view (o-key) in fights? Might make it a bit better. Also the key below the Escape-key (dunno how it is named) outlines all characters and NPCs, which is helping *a lot* to keep track of the participants in a fight.

About the D&D compliance. While I played Pen&Paper and also D&D (though not 5 specifically, I played 3.5 and Pathfinder), I think a video game is different enough to be OK with changes. I am not sure if every change Larian made to the system is good for that purpose or not, what I can say is, that the results works well. A thing Pen&Paper is usually better than video games is the flexibility (as the DM is a person that can react to the actions of the party). But BGIII is very good in that regard. I haven't even come close to all the stuff I can do. I love pushing enemies if I can, I also love if I anticipate a fight to hide and place my party and let only one person talk to the people (or just attack without talking). Throwing healing potions at my party members is also excellent. Throwing shit overall is quite fun and has cool effects. Throw a barrel of alcohol at the enemies and then set it ablaze, good times. Yeah, I think Larian did well with all the options the allowed for players.

Yeah, I've tried tactical view, it does help somewhat, but I find that the whole camera angle and field of view is quite a bit worse than in similar games (both old and new) - I'm getting used to it, but it is a pretty big flaw, IMO, for this type of game. I had to check up on some of those games (BG2, Planescape Torment, Numenera, Pillars, Solasta...) thinking I might be remembering wrong, but no, they just have better and more usable view.

I've been playing P&P since mid 80s and yeah, for me, it is a vastly superior experience, exactly due to how (good) DM can react on the fly. I've been DM-ing 5e for years, so I can say I know (most of) its ins and outs fairly intimately - now, I'm not really a fan of 5e, but some of the things Larian did just make no sense and actually make it worse. As I mentioned already, Solasta has shown (for all its other shortcomings) how it can be done faithfully and actually ending up with better combat than BG3.

Shoving is a 5e thing as well, and a very viable tactic for getting advantage on a then prone opponent. Throwing things IS fun - I haven't been checking if there's some calculus going on beneath in BG3 for that, depending on your size/strength/object weight/size, since 5e unfortunately does not have any, so you have to homebrew. I think they're overdoing it with surface effects, it reminds me a lot of 3rd person cover shooters where every room conveniently has a lot of just about right height objects to duck behind them.

There is some really wonky and broken stuff, like going into turn-based while exploring, going to a trap and triggering it, and moving out of its range before it activates - that just shouldn't be possible, but it is due to how your turn/environment turn works.

But yeah, overall, it IS a good experience - I just don't find it (so far) THAT good, as all the hype is making it to be.