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[IlyaP]

18 minutes ago, Gorn said:

You're right, the cosmetic attacks do exist in the originals to make the melee characters look busier than they actually are during combat.

Cosmetic...attacks? As opposed to uh...non....cosmetic attacks? 

[Luzifer's right hand]

1 minute ago, IlyaP said:

Cosmetic...attacks? As opposed to uh...non....cosmetic attacks? 

Attacks without actual dice rolls.

[IlyaP]

6 minutes ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

Attacks without actual dice rolls.

So kind of like...fake animations, to give players the sensation that *something* is happening even if none of the actual attacks shown connect aside from the determined number of attacks per round?

[Luzifer's right hand]

7 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

So kind of like...fake animations, to give players the sensation that *something* is happening even if none of the actual attacks shown connect aside from the determined number of attacks per round?

Exactly.

[IlyaP]

1 minute ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

Exactly.

Was this something that bothered die hars d&d fans? Cause no one in my roleplaying group was bothered, and none of us, to this day. 

Different strokes for different folks, I guess? 

[Luzifer's right hand]

11 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

Was this something that bothered die hars d&d fans? Cause no one in my roleplaying group was bothered, and none of us, to this day. 

Different strokes for different folks, I guess? 

No idea. It never bothered me.

I just wanted to point out that characters actually don't stand around doing "nothing" if they do nothing mechanically.

There are some changes to game mechanics for the enhanced editions that have haters like bard songs not stacking or some effects preventing haste.

Another example is that helmets prevent double damage from crits and in the originals that was triggered by something in the head slot. Which made ioun stones and quest helmet work too. That was changed in the EEs which made the Monk and Kensai become rather squishy. The Monk actually became the most squishy character you can melee with in the endgame that way.

Edited July 21, 2023 by Luzifer's right hand

[Gorn]

30 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

If you are willing and have the time, could you expand upon this a bit? The reason for asking is: I am not an under the hood mechanics kind of guy. My experience with D&D is a DM-modified version of 2.5ed during my high school years, jusf as BG1 was released - which I played over and over and still go (hell, I still know where to find the ankheg armor in the Friendly Arm Inn map to the south-east!), but I was and am a lore and history guy, not a mechanics guy. 

So when it comes to the combat in BG1, I would pause the moment action started, assign actions, and get down with the violence. Wax, rinse, repeat. 

I never noticed the timing observations you made, ditto Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2, both of which are addictive drugs in my life and games I love dearly. 

Of course. My original post was partly incorrect, since I forgot that Bioware added the cosmetic attacks in the originals.

In short, regardless of how many sword-swinging animations a low-level melee fighter (or the enemy) makes, he/she only has a chance to hit once every six seconds of play time. With five bad dice rolls in a row, that means they spent 30 seconds of real time play contributing nothing to the combat. Which would look and feel awful to play in a videogame, except that you have five other characters, and hopefully some of them are hitting instead.

Even so, the real-time playing of the game was still feeling unmanageable in play-testing, so Bioware devs (supposedly) interfered with the dice rolls to make 1s and 2s more likely than 19s and 20s for both the player and the enemies, thus slowing down the game even further. In BG2 it doesn't matter so much, since both your characters and the enemies are HP sponges due to high levels, which slows down the game further.

Obsidian wanted to avoid this background "cheating" in PoE1, which made too many things happen simultaneously for anyone to keep track of. This is IMO the reason why they reduced the party size from 6 to 5 in the sequel, and why turn-based was introduced as an option.

[Luzifer's right hand]

2 hours ago, Gorn said:

Of course. My original post was partly incorrect, since I forgot that Bioware added the cosmetic attacks in the originals.

In short, regardless of how many sword-swinging animations a low-level melee fighter (or the enemy) makes, he/she only has a chance to hit once every six seconds of play time. With five bad dice rolls in a row, that means they spent 30 seconds of real time play contributing nothing to the combat. Which would look and feel awful to play in a videogame, except that you have five other characters, and hopefully some of them are hitting instead.

Even so, the real-time playing of the game was still feeling unmanageable in play-testing, so Bioware devs (supposedly) interfered with the dice rolls to make 1s and 2s more likely than 19s and 20s for both the player and the enemies, thus slowing down the game even further. In BG2 it doesn't matter so much, since both your characters and the enemies are HP sponges due to high levels, which slows down the game further.

Obsidian wanted to avoid this background "cheating" in PoE1, which made too many things happen simultaneously for anyone to keep track of. This is IMO the reason why they reduced the party size from 6 to 5 in the sequel, and why turn-based was introduced as an option.

The dice thing is just an old rumor and is not actually true.

One attack per round only really applies to non-warriors though. You get another half attack with two profiancy points and another one half at level 7. The gets you to 2 attacks or which means 4 midgame hasted in the original. Bows get 2 attacks from the start and get the same bonuses and ranged is king in BG1 with how strong ammunition is. If you know how to use debuffs/disablers you actually tend to hit all the time in the early game as early spells like sleep or blind make most fights really easy.

Blindly attacking with 6 characters is not how you play the game well at all unless you are using 6 ranged characters which actually works but even in that case one character that casts disableing spells is recommended.

Gameplay in BG1 is only slow at the very start and if you don't know what you are doing.

In BG2 you can hit 9-10 attacks per round once you get improved haste and even the most difficult fights are over in few round if you understand the mechanics.

There is a reason why difficulty improving mods tend to be very popular among people who have been playing the games for close to 25 years now.

In BG2 you also hit a point where warriors will only miss most enemies in a 1.

[Werthead]

On 7/20/2023 at 12:42 PM, Rhom said:

Is it turn based?  I assumed it was real time with pause like the others.

It's real-time whilst your characters are exploring or elsewise not in combat. It goes into turn-based when combat begins.

11 hours ago, Darryk said:

*sigh* Making a Baldur's Gate game that goes against the Baldur's Gate tradition.

Baldur's Gate III is only somewhat nominally a sequel: the story begun in Baldur's Gate ended definitively in Throne of Bhaal. In the wider lore, it also became less relevant when Bhaal returned to life after the Spellplague (albeit through a different mechanism than the Bhaalspawn).

BG3 has some returning characters and shout-outs to the original, and a return to the city of BG itself and it sounds like the new origin story quest they've added might tie in with the Bhaalspawn in some fashion, but the game is pretty much doing its own thing in terms of its primary story and most of its characters.

11 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Wow, I didn't realise Baldurs Gate 3 was going to be turn based combat! My initial reaction is 'well thats going to be shit'

However I played Pillars of Eternity more recently than playing the original BG and honestly I never liked the combat, was just super awkward, loads of pausing to do stuff. Maybe turn based would be better.

I haven't played these sorts of games properly for years though so I'm pretty open to it.

Turn-based can be well-done but it has a number of issues. The first is that the game can have an awkward transition from real-time exploration into turn-based combat, especially if you're trying to pre-position before a fight, buff up by taking strength or haste potions etc. Larian's previous games, IIRC, allowed you to enter turn-based mode before moving into the combat area to overcome that issue, I assume BG3 does the same.

The other main issue is that turn-based is deeply tedious for battles against hordes of lower-levelled enemies you are going to dispatch with ease, it just massively slows the game down for a fight you have zero chance of losing. Turn-based is much better for intricate, complex battles with tons of stuff going on and you need to track statuses, spell areas of effect, casting times etc. BG1+2 dealt with this by giving you the pause option and AI responses to automatically cast healing spells when needed etc.

Larian's previous game, Divinity: Original Sin 2, made an interesting choice by making every single fight in the game a puzzle, with you being able to use physics traps, magic, ranged weapons etc, and at low levels there was often only one optimal way to win a fight, opening up to more choices at higher levels. Depending on your POV, that worked either really well or got annoying for those who wanted to play a fantasy RPG, not undertake 350 puzzle boxes through the game's length.

The recent Pillars of Eternity 2 and the excellent Pathfinder duology (Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous, which to be frank feel much more like BG3 & 4 than any other games, as they use D&D rules, despite being set in a different world) both overcome the issue by simply letting you fight in real-time or turn-based as you want, and they handle the transition excellently.

10 hours ago, IlyaP said:

I never thought of the combat in BG2 as being messy, but each player will bring their own attitude/perspective on this stuff. I grew up playing RTwP, and love the hell out of the Pillars games, like @Heartofice, and never quite took to turn-based games, even modern ones, so I suspect I won't be playing BG3. 

Which is okay. There are always other things out there.

I don't mind turn-based if turn-based combat is the whole point of the game, like XCOM and the recent Druidstone: The Secret of Menhir Forest. I rarely encounter a long CRPG which makes turn-based combat work well with pacing over the game's entire length. Wasteland 2 was okay at it (haven't played the third one yet), Divinity: Original Sin got deeply tedious about 20 hours in with it, and Torment: Tides of Numenera was dogshit with it (although you can avoid combat almost altogether in that game if you want, which is less of a choice and more of a necessity).

6 hours ago, Gorn said:

Real-time management of six characters is inherently messy. BG1 & 2 "fixes" it by using D&D turns in the background taking 6 seconds each, which means that melee martial characters take a swing, and then stare menacingly at their opponent for the next 5 seconds while standing in the same spot (which goes unnoticed by the player since they have 5 other characters to manage and worry about).

Pillars of Eternity made the mistake of trying to improve this by speeding up everyone's actions to be more realistic, which (for me) made combat unmanageable without pausing every two seconds, at which point you might as well go with turn-based.

Personally, whenever an RPG gives me an option to play it turn-based, I take it and I don't look back. That's how I played Pillars of Eternity 2 and Pathfinder: Kingmaker, and that's how I'm currently playing Wrath of the Righteous.

As for "Baldur's Gate tradition", they are D&D games. D&D is turn-based. The first two games are the ones going against  tradition, the third is returning to it.

D&D tabletop is turn-based due to the limitations of the human Dungeon Master. Once that limitation is removed, because the computer DM can handle the actions of half a dozen PCs and dozens of NPCs without screaming in frustration and throwing a Mountain Dew at the dwarf player dicking around, the argument for 100% being turn-based disappears.

It's also worth noting that Baldur's Gate was very far from being the first D&D real-time game: the Eye of the Beholder trilogy was also real-time (so were Descent to Undermountain and Blood & Magic, but they weren't using the actual D&D rules) almost a decade earlier, and did it very well.

Edited July 21, 2023 by Werthead

[Trebla]

10 hours ago, Relic said:

Combat in BG3 is just fine. Yeha it sort of sucks you have to hit the end turn button, but it's more strategic than the occasional mess BG2's combat could be. I've played a few hours of early access and the game is sweeeeeet

I bought the game almost THREE YEARS ago and I love it. I always hated having to constantly pause during the BG, Icewind Dale, and Neverwinter games. I was able to play almost the first quarter of BG3 as a pally, rogue, and wizard and all 3 were a lot of fun.  August 3rd cannot get here fast enough.

[Relic]

32 minutes ago, Werthead said:

D&D tabletop is turn-based due to the limitations of the human Dungeon Master.

That's not true. Its not just the DM that's "limited", its the entire table that needs to take turns doing things or else it descends into utter chaos. Its a human limitation, not a DM limitation. I use the word limitation only to reply to you. I don't view it as a limitation at all. It's a way to let everyone take part in the war/combat without turning it into the incomprehensible mess it is IRL. 

Games like BG2 automate character actions based on a small subset of possibilities (Aggressive, passive, ranged, and so on). If you want to truley dictate what each character is doing you pause so often that ou might as well be playing a turn based game. 

Edited July 21, 2023 by Relic

[IlyaP]

1 hour ago, Relic said:

If you want to truley dictate what each character is doing you pause so often that ou might as well be playing a turn based game. 

I do - by pressing the space bar and pausing the game to decide on everyone's actions. 

Also, I too hated Numenera's turn-based mechanics - but I was driven quite mad early on by the insanely slow to load dialogue/action window. 

[Werthead]

The sequence in Grounded where you have to venture into the pond is brilliant, tense and extremely hilarious.

Trying to fight off water fleas and pond spiders whilst a fucking koi the relative size of a kaiju from Pacific Rim is just hoovering up everything in sight is a highly memorable gaming experience.

[dog-days]

Played turn-based in the first instalment of the Banner Saga, and it was okay. But Banner Saga was a short game with a limited number of set-piece combats. I'm not sure I'd want to go through a 100-hour campaign on a pure turn-based system; it would be too slow, lacking the excitement of simulated RT action. Will give it a go, naturally. 

[Werthead]

5 hours ago, dog-days said:

Played turn-based in the first instalment of the Banner Saga, and it was okay. But Banner Saga was a short game with a limited number of set-piece combats. I'm not sure I'd want to go through a 100-hour campaign on a pure turn-based system; it would be too slow, lacking the excitement of simulated RT action. Will give it a go, naturally. 

Yup, turn-based games with short run-times work really well. The entire Banner Saga trilogy combined is under 25 hours. Druidstone was another really great, short-ish game with a turn-based focus. The XCOMs work over 50+ hours - and BG3 I think is trying to emulate this - because of continuous character improvement and equipment upgrades and buffs to make combat a constantly-evolving thing. It didn't work entirely well in Larian's previous games, but they seem to be working on it more for BG3. Of course, XCOM has a large-scale strategy layer that contextualises the combat really intelligently.

[Ser Not Appearing]

Starfield dropped three video shorts today:

 

 

 

Edited July 25, 2023 by Ser Not Appearing

[Werthead]

40 minutes ago, Ser Not Appearing said:

Starfield dropped three video shorts today:

Very short but cool. Reminded me of the Tales from the Frontier short story book that shipped with Elite II way back in 1993, showing slices of life in the setting.

Todd Howard is a BattleTech/MechWarrior fan and it's cool to see some nods to it there with the mechs fighting.

[Luzifer's right hand]

I'm paying through the Fromsoft "Soulslike" catalogue right now. Backwards.

I have reached Bloodborne which sadly looks pretty shit on the PS5 imho.

I enjoyed all of them although Dark Souls 3 and Bloodborne felt far easier than Elden Ring. But I did not know how the games worked when I started Elden Ring as a lot of mechanics are rather unintuitive. The Demon's Souls remake looks great but you feel that the combat system has improved a lot since the original was released. I managed the defeat the tutorial boss in it. 

Sekiro is different and has far superior storytelling. Combat is too different to compare but I would say it is both more and less fun because trying different things is lots of fun in the other games and Sekiro focuses on one weapon and a rather limited number of abilities/tools which it does really well. Once you are in the flow Sekiro just feels awesome when you slaughter enemies. 

Edit: I did try the Dark Souls remaster first but that just looks bad to me. I only enjoy old graphics if I have my nostalgia goggles on and I never played it back in the day.

Edited July 26, 2023 by Luzifer's right hand

[Kalbear]

Sekiro becomes a lot easier when you realize it isn't a combat game and it's a rhythm game. It's a really cool rhythm game!

[Ran]

On 7/25/2023 at 8:42 PM, Werthead said:

Reminded me of the Tales from the Frontier short story book that shipped with Elite II way back in 1993, showing slices of life in the setting.

Loved that book at the time, and the game of course. Jesus, 30 years...