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HoloDust on 14 October 2023
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Mnementh said:
HoloDust said:

I'd say Baldur's Gate 3 proved that, despite Larian's incompetence to make proper isometric view and workable camera (as opposed to games like Pillars, Pathfinder, Solasta), isometric view is still very much valid option for CRPGs.

Anyway, for all fans of original Fallouts,  Fallout of Nevada and Fallout 1.5: Resurrections total conversion mods are good way to have more of that - they are fan mods, but quite enjoyable experiences. Still patiently waiting for Fallout: Sonora translation to English...

Interesting thing you say about the camera. I tend to zoom out in BG3 as much as possible and get an overview, also using the tactical view from time to time. But I am annoyed with stuff that geometrically cuts in front and is displayed. I really liked back in the day UFO: Enemy Unknown (known as X-COM in the US). It had a 3D-model, where the height was layered and I could as a user say which layer to view, which meant everything above was cut away. I wished something like that was possible in BG3.

On the flipside though - I saw some videos of people playing BG3 on the internet, and some clearly stating they feared isometric view and like that they can zoom in on the character so it is nearly a third-person view. Same person though struggled to revive their character than they died of fire early on, as they didn't realize they control all characters, not only the one they created. They looked for an option to ask the companion to revive instead of taking control of them. I think such stuff is very interesting as it tells us a lot about game design and expectation of different players.

Yeah, X-COM got camera and verticality right. BG3 has lot of verticality (obviously, tabletop RPG mapping trend got to them as well), and while there are some really nice areas, the fact that BG3 camera is just plain awful, in addition that they've massively gimped ranges for spells and ranged weapons (longbow in 5e has normal range of 150ft, in BG3 it's 60ft), makes lot of vertical areas often unsatisfying. Which is mind blowing, given that Solasta, which is several grades cheaper game, got that shit mostly right, while staying true to 5e rules.

Generally, I find that game they were making should've been 3rd person perspective, with combat system that more resembles KOTOR - the amount of details that is visible only when you zoom in and amount of irrelevant crap that is all over the place almost cries for that. You know, for me, it feels as if they really wanted to make THAT game, but they had to go with isometric view for legacy reasons. And don't even get me started on omission of grid.