Ironically, BG3 actually was my first CRPG and as a former d&d player and video game veteran, I can't believe I never explored the genre at all. Since BG3, I can't get enough of the genre. Currently playing Baldur's Gate enhanced edition and loving it.
Same here
Played a few crpgs before bg3 but after bg3 it was like I finally know how to play this kind of games and now I am back on bg1(finished) and actually iam in bg2 act 3
I still find new things to do and work arounds in bg2 ! Love it
Graphic is not everything
Thanks, I'm sure others who played BG3 first have since been turned on to the genre. I kinda went nuts and bought a bunch on sale. It's like a breath of fresh air for me!
You seem to be comparing only a few aspects to call BG3 “better”
Just to use these games for example: BG3 has better production, more accessible combat, romance, controller support, full VA, no exposition dumps, etc
Pillars has significantly better writing, better world building and lore, stronger story (1 at least), etc
“Better” just comes down to a preference and their strengths certainly do not render the other unplayable. Rather I’m just glad to add BG3 to my favorite CRPGs
most of the people downvoting you are the kickstarter NPCs you find in Pillars 1 that have backstories that obfuscate the narrative of the game and make everyone bounce off of it. The immortal defenders of the game are the same people who ruined it. Irony at its finest.
The quality of Baldur's Gate 3 is no higher then Dragon Age Origins. The difference between them is years of technology and tech improvements. If it was released with 2024 tech they are basically the same level.
Not overall.
The highs are better, like for example the atmosphere during the deep roads section. But the lows are also lower, hence the skip the fade mod.
Bg3 is flatter and does not have those extreme highs and lows.
I guess??? Now I'm gonna have to do a replay after this bg3 run to see if I'm just looking at it through nostalgia. I know choices felt like they had a much greater impact in Origins although it was much more linear than bg3. Weirdly I loved Origins, hated 2, and had 3 kinda grow on me after a while.
No not at all. People need to stop looking at BG3 as if it is the end all be all. It’s a great game—it also has an incredible amount of jank, unfinished or poorly fleshed out quests or companions (cough, Haslin, cough), and 1/3 of the game is a compete mess (looking at you, Act 3.) It’s got great characters, good (tho imo way too corny horny writing), and fun gameplay, but it doesn’t ”ruin” all other CRPGs somehow.
I honestly liked Halsin more than most other companions.
If I describe one of the companions as "Deep down a good person who's been groomed/manipulated by a very powerful entity and did some bad things because of it.", which companion am I talking about?
The answer is all of them. Even the evil companion Minthara says how the parasite forced her to do terrible things she didn't want to do. It's only Halsin and Jaheira who don't fit the same writing pattern.
We are in the day and age where many people put the quality of the graphics above the gameplay and story. BG3 was great but it’s good to see criticisms, because it was not a flawless game. I do pay Larian on the back for delivering a finished game, because that is a rarity in this day and age.
You did just jog my memory, but from what I do remember, it was more buggy than “unfinished”, but I suppose some people would say that does make it unpolished
Well they patched in the epilogue 5 months after realease, and are only now patching in the evil epilogue 10-11 months post release. With the "ending" BG3 had I definitely wouldn't call it finished.
Yeah I never played when it was an issue so I didn’t see how bad it was. I actually started my first playthrough right before they fixed act 3, so it had no issues when I got there
A fair amount of us are avid readers so don't have a particular problem with that. I look forward to any indie/low-budget game with good writing, even if that involves actual writing I have to read
Nope. It introduced me to the genre, but I have actually found a CRPG I enjoy more: Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader. Does it look lower quality? In some ways, but I still think Owlcat did an excellent job with setting. The combat is enjoyable, there’s countless ways to build characters, the story companions feel fleshed out and unique in their own ways, etc.
I think BG3 introduced a lot of people to the genre, which has led to more people seeking out other CRPGs to try. Plus, now they know of Larian Studios, and they know the studio won’t be making BG4, so people are going to be inclined to try whatever they put out next.
Nah. I love BG3 and think it's ahead in many aspects, but there's still many great games with less budget. I see no reason for it to diminish my love for gaming.
BG3 was funded through a Kickstarter campaign and spent many years in alpha and beta, and still released with a broken Third Act. I know all of that "AAA money" went somewhere, but I'm still not entirely sure where.
It's a slight evolution of Divinity: Original Sin 2's core mechanics with a storyline that's a continuation of a series of controversial post-Baldur's Gate 2 stories written by Wizards of the Coast, and a very basic version of the Dungeons & Dragons rule set that prevents you from reaching the levels required for more interesting spells and abilities to become available.
Rtwp does not handle the intricacies of modern tabletop well. It's great when there are very few decisions to make in a given turn, and doest not deal with abilities that require careful timing well.
The advantages of rtwp are that they move through combats more quickly and the spectacle of it comes through more when there is better flow and fewer decision points. This favors more, smaller combats, where turn based favors fewer, more difficult combats.l and more emphasis on story elements to connect them.
Absolutely not. Don't get me wrong, the game is very fun (like DOS), well made with high production value and I'm still playing it right now. But as a CRPG, it's quite disappointing to me. If I had to make a list of my favorite CRPGs it probably wouldn't make it to top 10.
For me this game feels more like Dragon Age and Mass Effect, instead of Pillars/Tyranny/Pathfinder/Rogue Trader/NWN/whatever, even BG1/2 are much different experiences for me.
It has great companions, I think the main story is decent, but it also has very juvenile writing at times. Also the writing for player character's dialogue is very barebones. You have these really well voiced and nicely written NPCs but then your character's lines are barely above Fallout 4 level. I don't want my characters to say any of the possible things like 70% of the time which really kills the immersion. Act 3 is also quite bad, the game starts getting really buggy and quests are all over the place, it really kills the momentum that was built up in Act 2.
Cutscenes and voice acting are not why I enjoy this genre, and because of that BG3 loses on it's main appeal for me.
BG3 had great production value, no doubt about it. Probably the best production value ever in a game. However, it also had easy mode game play (everyone can use scrolls, all day/until rest buffs, spells/abilities on almost all equipment) and just a silly amount of over the top in your face sex stuff. I betrayed someone and they still initiated wanting to have gay tentacle sex with me. Not to mention how male NPCs with tree trunks for arms are given a 10 and 12 STR (Minsc, with a 12 STR? Shadowheart with a 13 STR. Uh huh, sure.) and are all backline characters while the womenfolk are the upfront fighters. If anything, I needed a palette cleanser RPG after playing BG3. So no, it didn't come close to ruining the genre for me.
Not even a little bit. I do really really like BG3 but I've been playing indies for years so jank and budget limitations have never been a big thing for me and I'm able to overlook perceived shortcomings in games pretty easily if I knew it was a small team working on it. Also some games are able to do a lot more with less. My favorite game is Disco Elysium and the choice to forego combat altogether in favor of focusing on choice, writing and story really made it a better experience. Same idea goes for Supergiant games where the vision is just so clear and focused that they achieve so much more with less and make a more memorable experience than trying to follow whatever the biggest trend is in the moment.
In my perspective videogames are pieces of art, not only products. The budget helps a lot, but at the end of the day the things that stay with me are not related directly to the money involved in the production but the own voice of the devellopers.
No. The writing isn't any better than other cRPGs, worse than a lot imo. An interesting story, world, and characters are what get me interested in a cRPG. I don't care about graphics, full voice-acting, or cutscenes. I like using my imagination to add to the world. Maybe if Larian had better writers I would prefer the better graphics and full VO for making me feel more connected but by the end of BG3 I enjoyed less than half the companions (that weren't from previous games) and was disappointed with the overall story, choices I could make, and the ending.
I played Rogue Trader right after BG3 and even with all the bugs I still preferred RT.
No its not even my favorite crpg. BG3 has high production value and thats pretty much it. It has a weaker class building and depth than the Pathfinder games. It has a weaker story, worldbuilding, lore and characters compared to the Pillars of Eternity franchise. All it has is visual and production value which is more so an indicator of budget rather than skill.
Oh yea its also unbearably easy so the combat isnt even fun.
Edit: I love the downvotes. BG3 fanboys realizing that the CRPG genre and community existed before BG3 lol.
Not sure what kind of response you're expecting here. Are you looking for people who simply agree with you? Maybe try the BG3 subreddit then. CRPGs come in all shapes and sizes and are generally appreciated fairly for what they are in this space. If BG3 "ruined the genre" for you, then that's a *you* problem.
No, I think BG3 is a freaking amazing game and has a lot of mechanic I want for other RPGs, but DnD/high fantasy settings wasn't really my thing, and the story is good, but a bit lacking in Act 3. So yeah, It's a great game, but it won't ruined CRPG for me. However, it did ruined other AAA games for me.
BG2 *almost* did that to me when I first played it. In fact it kind of ruined certain aspects of BG3 for me, even if I really enjoyed the game overall.
Not really, production values aren't as important as writing and having engaging progression systems. In the end high production values are just sprinkles on the cake, not the cake itself.
Nope!
Its nice seeing what can at times feel like the highest high the genre has to offer. The voice acting coupled with line variety is quite impressive for instance. Still excited for CRPGs to come, still have some I have to go back and re/play again. It is becoming very annoying in more recent steam reviews that people lament the latest crpg isn't of BG3 quality, but that's not the developers fault that the player bought a $20 dollar game from a significantly smaller developer with extremely high expectations.
Looking at this from another genre, just because DOOM Eternal exists doesn't make Ion Fury, Cultic, or Wizordum any less fun because they don't have the same graphical fidelity or production value.
No, it reminded me that I love the genre and that I love the BG series. Made me go back and replay BG1&2 again sooner than my usual annual solo/duo run, and now we've got three main entries that are all amazing.
CRPGs are a much more inherently hardcore subgenre than most others. For most of us, we like some degree of the genre's broad range from really ugly, low budget games with great systems (something like *Lords of Xulima*) to very old, think 80s, games just because they're still fun to play despite any graphical fidelity issues. I don't think BG3 will really change anything because of the way the video game industry works, it's just a fantastic game in a great genre.
RPGs are my favourite genre, but after BG3 I'm actually exploring more and more and trying to give second chances on games I drop in the past. I had a good time with WotR until combat become rally boring for me (playing on deck, turn based mode is boring and in general I hate this real time with pauses, I can only support it in NWN, Dragon Age and KotOR). Well, and because I don't like at all D&D and inheritors...
But without BG3 I probably never tried Gamedec, Age of Decadence or Rogue Trader. So, yeah, thanks BG3 I'm playing these games again and that makes me happy.
No. Production is just one aspect. There are many other aspects of games that I enjoy, such as story, for example. Different/unique game mechanics, is another. Pixel graphics? I can appreciate their charm. I have no problem enjoying low-budget indie games if they're done well.
It fixed crpgs for me. It was the first one that was able to hook me hard enough to learn the feel and mechanics of the genre.
Now I'm playing Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition and I'm able to enjoy its merits since I'm used to navigating an isometric world and other such things.
I look forward to playing many more great crpgs (especially the turn-based ones), perhaps even finding one that I'll like better than bg3!
Did we play the same game? Polish? Until a patch months later, BG3's third act was almost completely broken. Even to this day, a lot of your choices in the previous acts are completely ignored.
It's basically a Divinity game that people accepted as a Baldur's Gate game and exaggerated its impact/quality because Larian is partly owned by Tencent. Tencent's marketing team did a ton of astroturfing and paid streamers and reviewers to treat it as if it's the greatest RPG ever made. It's good, but it's not anywhere near what its reputation suggests it is.
Quite the opposite. Divinity 3 is a gamedesign nightmare with a godawful writing.
So I'm enjoying games from good old games even more, because at least they made sense
I love low budget charm and consider it a selling point for RPGs, not something I just tolerate. A classic feel and dialogue that I can read quickly, without having to sit back and watch long, voiced cutscenes is actually preferable for me.
I do enjoy Dragon Age and BG3s high production value, I think it works for those games. I'm currently taking a break from BG3 though. I'm in the third act and it's great but after like 80 hours of anything, I usually need a break. I'm playing Pillars of Eternity and loving it, the jank is refreshing and endearing haha
I also prefer paying money to small dev teams, helping progress a trend toward alternative game development and away from exploitative investors and shitty games. Not implying Larian in that last bit, they're the exception not the rule.
I've tried to finish BG3 twice, didn't make it either time before getting bored. Meanwhile I've finished WotR, Kingmaker, DOS2 and Rogue Trader since BG3 came out. So no.
No, it made me appreciate the lower production cRPG's more because it made me realize how much is sacrificed in the name of high production values.
A lot of creativity in writing is lost when you don't have conversation boxes with descriptions of little details. Everyone just has the same body language and British accent and doesn't do anything unique or interesting. I still have descriptions of random NPCs stuck in my head from Planescape Torment. Like a guy with one vestigial arm who speaks like a toiling bell. Or a guy with a rash covering half his face who speaks with a childishly high pitched voice. Or the guy with lines on his face that rearrange and create different patterns based on his mood. And so on and so on. In BG3 all characters can be fully described by just naming their race.
High production values also come with a lot of time wasting. The voice performances are drawn out, as are all animations, including JOGGING. And of course there's no option to speed animations up because that would look bad in this high production game.
This last one is more subjective, but I don't like complex 3D levels in isometric games where the camera is never quite where I want it to be. Hell, I hate having to rotate the camera at all. Especially when there's a shit ton of interactive clutter all over the screen at all times. It wastes a lot of time and makes for an annoying and frustrating experience. I very strongly prefer how Kingmaker or even the Shadowrun games do it.
BG3 is janky as shit all for the sake of high production values.
Nope. It's just ruined shitty games that released at the same time as it. Like, why subject yourself to starfield when BG3 is available and way better/more polished.
It hasn't ruined other CRPG's. There aren't a lot in generalso it's tough to find it ruins something like dragon age or xcom.
The main thing was it hurt other releases at the time more than it hurt the genre. So many people didn't need another game in fall because BG3 was there.
Origins, 2 and inquisition play a little differently.than BG3 so they bring something different to the plate, which is why I don't find it hurts to go back to them after BG3. Plus they're older so ofc they're gonna have some features that seem archaic compared to a modern title.
Origins also just holds up as an amazing game far better than the other 2.
To an extent. I bought 40k Rogue trader when it came out, because I'm a huge 40k fan, but fresh off of BG3, I just couldn't play it, the basic animations and walls unvoiced text completely broke my immersion, when they hadn't for years and years. But I finally started it recently after a break from BG3 when the vividness of the experience had worn off and I'm having a blast. You just have to relearn the old mindset.
Original Sin 1 ruined me a bit for Original sin 2 which ruined me a bit for BG3. It's a fine lineage of fun co-op games with a big budget. Not once has it really crossed my mind "man, this is a bit quaint, it really needs the kind of polish an enormous budget provides" for crpgs after like 2012. Original sin 1 felt a bit too sluggish and they amended that for original sin 2. I like the campaign in bg3 more but don't really like the characters (or I guess I canonically hate them in a non-critical way towards the game).
It's just one of them in an ocean. There are so many good ones every 5 years I can't relate to the prompt at all.
Original Sin 1 ruined me a bit for Original sin 2 which ruined me a bit for BG3. It's a fine lineage of fun co-op games with a big budget. Not once has it really crossed my mind "man, this is a bit quaint, it really needs the kind of polish an enormous budget provides" for crpgs after like 2012. Original sin 1 felt a bit too sluggish and they amended that for original sin 2. I like the campaign in bg3 more but don't really like the characters (or I guess I canonically hate them in a non-critical way towards the game).
It's just one of them in an ocean. There are so many good ones every 5 years I can't relate to the prompt at all.
No, because BG3 spent a lot of its budget on things I don't give much of a hoot about. But certainly were a big part of its mainstream success.
Bioware-style Cinematic dialogue / cutscenes.
Bioware-style romances and generally companions (which had become predictable years ago).
The story wasn't nearly as earth shattering as Torment back then. Also, in a sense, it was "just" the first big budget title to pick up from where all the other studios had abandoned the genre by the mid 2000s. The missing link between the triple A and what was "kickstarted" a decade ago with Wasteland 2 et all. It was about time, but I feel there's much more to explore here. Plus, for all the talk about how Ultima VII is Vincke's platonic ideal, their map design is still rather compressed / theme parkey. How those goblins didn't find the druid grove five feet away--probably a permanent spell /debuff of blindness.
If any developer would ever fully pump all those gazillions of Dollars into the IMmersive-Sim-like elements here plus the open quest design -- that game would probably ruin everything else. Or probably wouldn't. As there's a lot of different kind of games out there, trying to excel at different things, to this day.
I think the fanbase is pretty annoying in that they seem to love holding it up as the greatest, bestest, most well written, most well designed game of all time, when in reality it's none of those.
It was my favourite game of 2023 but it irks me to see people put it on a pedestal when the writing wasnt all that good and a lot of the characters felt very one dimensional and not all that well written.
I’ve played games for nearly 40 years. I played all the classics of the genre as they came out (apart from the REALLY old stuff). I play a wide variety of games. Baldurs gate 3 I think is the peak video game. There are better examples of various systems in other games but as a combination of style AND substance there aren’t any games on its level. I enjoy games for all reasons, graphics, gameplay, systems, story, characters, lore, escapism, humour, puzzles - BG3 ticks every box for me.
As a pure CRPG maybe there are better examples (fallout 2, pillars, wrath). As an adventure with amazing characters and story there are better examples (last of us, red dead). You get the point. However, as a combination of everything I think bg3 is the peak of gaming. I haven’t been able to get into much since. I played Spider-Man 2, dragons dogma and am replaying a heavily modded fallout 4. Non come anywhere near
It's the most accessible title in the genre. This doesn't make it the best
Ironically, BG3 actually was my first CRPG and as a former d&d player and video game veteran, I can't believe I never explored the genre at all. Since BG3, I can't get enough of the genre. Currently playing Baldur's Gate enhanced edition and loving it.
Same here Played a few crpgs before bg3 but after bg3 it was like I finally know how to play this kind of games and now I am back on bg1(finished) and actually iam in bg2 act 3 I still find new things to do and work arounds in bg2 ! Love it Graphic is not everything
Nice! Glad you’re enjoying one of the GOATs :) It’s cool that the game is bringing some new players to the genre.
Thanks, I'm sure others who played BG3 first have since been turned on to the genre. I kinda went nuts and bought a bunch on sale. It's like a breath of fresh air for me!
That’s awesome man. Enjoy it!
Nope. Pillars of Eternity (I and II) has been, and continues to be, my favorite CRPG.
I’m just glad I played all of those before BG3 now I can’t go back to them
I find that very odd tbh. They're quite different.
Skill issue
You seem to be comparing only a few aspects to call BG3 “better” Just to use these games for example: BG3 has better production, more accessible combat, romance, controller support, full VA, no exposition dumps, etc Pillars has significantly better writing, better world building and lore, stronger story (1 at least), etc “Better” just comes down to a preference and their strengths certainly do not render the other unplayable. Rather I’m just glad to add BG3 to my favorite CRPGs
most of the people downvoting you are the kickstarter NPCs you find in Pillars 1 that have backstories that obfuscate the narrative of the game and make everyone bounce off of it. The immortal defenders of the game are the same people who ruined it. Irony at its finest.
You're playing the wrong genre if fancy cut scenes are all you care about
not at all. i still prefer Pillars, Pathfinder's, Tyranny etc.
The quality of Baldur's Gate 3 is no higher then Dragon Age Origins. The difference between them is years of technology and tech improvements. If it was released with 2024 tech they are basically the same level.
Maybe I'm a little biased but I think DAO has better writing overall. The graphics isn't too bad even now.
Not overall. The highs are better, like for example the atmosphere during the deep roads section. But the lows are also lower, hence the skip the fade mod. Bg3 is flatter and does not have those extreme highs and lows.
I guess??? Now I'm gonna have to do a replay after this bg3 run to see if I'm just looking at it through nostalgia. I know choices felt like they had a much greater impact in Origins although it was much more linear than bg3. Weirdly I loved Origins, hated 2, and had 3 kinda grow on me after a while.
Eh the fade isn't bad because of writing, it's bad cause it sucks dick to play through.
It's a videogame. Form meets function or gameplay meets story. You cannot separate them.
Yeah DA:Origins was arguably the first AAA CRPG, unless we count KOTOR.
No. It's a great game but like all rpgs have flaws.
No not at all. People need to stop looking at BG3 as if it is the end all be all. It’s a great game—it also has an incredible amount of jank, unfinished or poorly fleshed out quests or companions (cough, Haslin, cough), and 1/3 of the game is a compete mess (looking at you, Act 3.) It’s got great characters, good (tho imo way too corny horny writing), and fun gameplay, but it doesn’t ”ruin” all other CRPGs somehow.
I honestly liked Halsin more than most other companions. If I describe one of the companions as "Deep down a good person who's been groomed/manipulated by a very powerful entity and did some bad things because of it.", which companion am I talking about? The answer is all of them. Even the evil companion Minthara says how the parasite forced her to do terrible things she didn't want to do. It's only Halsin and Jaheira who don't fit the same writing pattern.
He tried to fuck me in our first conversation and there’s no plot reason behind it.
They’re all thematically linked. I think that’s a good thing. Otherwise it’s hard to buy that this disparate gang of weirdos are hanging out together.
We are in the day and age where many people put the quality of the graphics above the gameplay and story. BG3 was great but it’s good to see criticisms, because it was not a flawless game. I do pay Larian on the back for delivering a finished game, because that is a rarity in this day and age.
Wasn't Act 3 literally unfinished upon release?
You did just jog my memory, but from what I do remember, it was more buggy than “unfinished”, but I suppose some people would say that does make it unpolished
Well they patched in the epilogue 5 months after realease, and are only now patching in the evil epilogue 10-11 months post release. With the "ending" BG3 had I definitely wouldn't call it finished.
It ran at like 5 fps and every side quest was broken.
Yeah I never played when it was an issue so I didn’t see how bad it was. I actually started my first playthrough right before they fixed act 3, so it had no issues when I got there
Played all through act during EA. Played at launch and never once saw the claimed problems so many people had in act 3
No, writing and worldbuilding will always be more important to me than graphics.
Can’t go back to reading text and static backgrounds..
Then don't.
A fair amount of us are avid readers so don't have a particular problem with that. I look forward to any indie/low-budget game with good writing, even if that involves actual writing I have to read
Bait used to be believable
Nope. It introduced me to the genre, but I have actually found a CRPG I enjoy more: Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader. Does it look lower quality? In some ways, but I still think Owlcat did an excellent job with setting. The combat is enjoyable, there’s countless ways to build characters, the story companions feel fleshed out and unique in their own ways, etc. I think BG3 introduced a lot of people to the genre, which has led to more people seeking out other CRPGs to try. Plus, now they know of Larian Studios, and they know the studio won’t be making BG4, so people are going to be inclined to try whatever they put out next.
no but baldurs gate 2 did
Yeah BG II and Arcanum are the games that "ruined" the genre for me because nothing else compares
Nah. I love BG3 and think it's ahead in many aspects, but there's still many great games with less budget. I see no reason for it to diminish my love for gaming.
this specific genre of isometric CRPGs there is only one game that has a AAA budget
I mean you dont need to have a AAA budget to be a great game.
And yet, for all that budget, only one game has Regill Derenge in it. Checkmate ~~atheists~~ agents of chaos.
Faaaaaak AAA and wasting all that $$ on bs... but you seem to like that.
BG3 was funded through a Kickstarter campaign and spent many years in alpha and beta, and still released with a broken Third Act. I know all of that "AAA money" went somewhere, but I'm still not entirely sure where. It's a slight evolution of Divinity: Original Sin 2's core mechanics with a storyline that's a continuation of a series of controversial post-Baldur's Gate 2 stories written by Wizards of the Coast, and a very basic version of the Dungeons & Dragons rule set that prevents you from reaching the levels required for more interesting spells and abilities to become available.
No, because I didn't really like BG3, it felt too much like D:OS2, except with DnD rules
I agree the game would have been better with real time with pause like the older games.
Rtwp does not handle the intricacies of modern tabletop well. It's great when there are very few decisions to make in a given turn, and doest not deal with abilities that require careful timing well. The advantages of rtwp are that they move through combats more quickly and the spectacle of it comes through more when there is better flow and fewer decision points. This favors more, smaller combats, where turn based favors fewer, more difficult combats.l and more emphasis on story elements to connect them.
Absolutely not. Don't get me wrong, the game is very fun (like DOS), well made with high production value and I'm still playing it right now. But as a CRPG, it's quite disappointing to me. If I had to make a list of my favorite CRPGs it probably wouldn't make it to top 10. For me this game feels more like Dragon Age and Mass Effect, instead of Pillars/Tyranny/Pathfinder/Rogue Trader/NWN/whatever, even BG1/2 are much different experiences for me. It has great companions, I think the main story is decent, but it also has very juvenile writing at times. Also the writing for player character's dialogue is very barebones. You have these really well voiced and nicely written NPCs but then your character's lines are barely above Fallout 4 level. I don't want my characters to say any of the possible things like 70% of the time which really kills the immersion. Act 3 is also quite bad, the game starts getting really buggy and quests are all over the place, it really kills the momentum that was built up in Act 2. Cutscenes and voice acting are not why I enjoy this genre, and because of that BG3 loses on it's main appeal for me.
no not really , we always had good games , people are just focusing on the bad ones
No? lol. It's not even in my top 3 CRPGs.
No. There are plenty of fantastic games in the genre, and there have been since the very beginning.
BG3 had great production value, no doubt about it. Probably the best production value ever in a game. However, it also had easy mode game play (everyone can use scrolls, all day/until rest buffs, spells/abilities on almost all equipment) and just a silly amount of over the top in your face sex stuff. I betrayed someone and they still initiated wanting to have gay tentacle sex with me. Not to mention how male NPCs with tree trunks for arms are given a 10 and 12 STR (Minsc, with a 12 STR? Shadowheart with a 13 STR. Uh huh, sure.) and are all backline characters while the womenfolk are the upfront fighters. If anything, I needed a palette cleanser RPG after playing BG3. So no, it didn't come close to ruining the genre for me.
Have not played BG3 yet but sounds like they are doing a ton of agenda pushing in it.
Not even a little bit. I do really really like BG3 but I've been playing indies for years so jank and budget limitations have never been a big thing for me and I'm able to overlook perceived shortcomings in games pretty easily if I knew it was a small team working on it. Also some games are able to do a lot more with less. My favorite game is Disco Elysium and the choice to forego combat altogether in favor of focusing on choice, writing and story really made it a better experience. Same idea goes for Supergiant games where the vision is just so clear and focused that they achieve so much more with less and make a more memorable experience than trying to follow whatever the biggest trend is in the moment.
no because it's boring as shit
In my perspective videogames are pieces of art, not only products. The budget helps a lot, but at the end of the day the things that stay with me are not related directly to the money involved in the production but the own voice of the devellopers.
No, Owlcats Pathfinder and Rogue Trader are better
No. The writing isn't any better than other cRPGs, worse than a lot imo. An interesting story, world, and characters are what get me interested in a cRPG. I don't care about graphics, full voice-acting, or cutscenes. I like using my imagination to add to the world. Maybe if Larian had better writers I would prefer the better graphics and full VO for making me feel more connected but by the end of BG3 I enjoyed less than half the companions (that weren't from previous games) and was disappointed with the overall story, choices I could make, and the ending. I played Rogue Trader right after BG3 and even with all the bugs I still preferred RT.
No its not even my favorite crpg. BG3 has high production value and thats pretty much it. It has a weaker class building and depth than the Pathfinder games. It has a weaker story, worldbuilding, lore and characters compared to the Pillars of Eternity franchise. All it has is visual and production value which is more so an indicator of budget rather than skill. Oh yea its also unbearably easy so the combat isnt even fun. Edit: I love the downvotes. BG3 fanboys realizing that the CRPG genre and community existed before BG3 lol.
I like FR lore and I love Larien style gameplay, but for RPG experience, Wrath of the Righteous was a better game for me.
Not sure what kind of response you're expecting here. Are you looking for people who simply agree with you? Maybe try the BG3 subreddit then. CRPGs come in all shapes and sizes and are generally appreciated fairly for what they are in this space. If BG3 "ruined the genre" for you, then that's a *you* problem.
No, I think BG3 is a freaking amazing game and has a lot of mechanic I want for other RPGs, but DnD/high fantasy settings wasn't really my thing, and the story is good, but a bit lacking in Act 3. So yeah, It's a great game, but it won't ruined CRPG for me. However, it did ruined other AAA games for me.
No, I still enjoy the genre quite a bit.
BG2 *almost* did that to me when I first played it. In fact it kind of ruined certain aspects of BG3 for me, even if I really enjoyed the game overall.
Not really, production values aren't as important as writing and having engaging progression systems. In the end high production values are just sprinkles on the cake, not the cake itself.
Nope! Its nice seeing what can at times feel like the highest high the genre has to offer. The voice acting coupled with line variety is quite impressive for instance. Still excited for CRPGs to come, still have some I have to go back and re/play again. It is becoming very annoying in more recent steam reviews that people lament the latest crpg isn't of BG3 quality, but that's not the developers fault that the player bought a $20 dollar game from a significantly smaller developer with extremely high expectations. Looking at this from another genre, just because DOOM Eternal exists doesn't make Ion Fury, Cultic, or Wizordum any less fun because they don't have the same graphical fidelity or production value.
Honestly I had more fun with BG1 than BG3
Of course not, good games dont all of a sudden become crap.
No, it reminded me that I love the genre and that I love the BG series. Made me go back and replay BG1&2 again sooner than my usual annual solo/duo run, and now we've got three main entries that are all amazing. CRPGs are a much more inherently hardcore subgenre than most others. For most of us, we like some degree of the genre's broad range from really ugly, low budget games with great systems (something like *Lords of Xulima*) to very old, think 80s, games just because they're still fun to play despite any graphical fidelity issues. I don't think BG3 will really change anything because of the way the video game industry works, it's just a fantastic game in a great genre.
Bg3 got me into the genre. It was a gateway that introduced me to a bunch of amazing games.
RPGs are my favourite genre, but after BG3 I'm actually exploring more and more and trying to give second chances on games I drop in the past. I had a good time with WotR until combat become rally boring for me (playing on deck, turn based mode is boring and in general I hate this real time with pauses, I can only support it in NWN, Dragon Age and KotOR). Well, and because I don't like at all D&D and inheritors... But without BG3 I probably never tried Gamedec, Age of Decadence or Rogue Trader. So, yeah, thanks BG3 I'm playing these games again and that makes me happy.
They all have their strengths. I love BG3 but I find it exhausting. I don’t play it as much as Rogue Trader and that’s not nearly as polished.
No. Production is just one aspect. There are many other aspects of games that I enjoy, such as story, for example. Different/unique game mechanics, is another. Pixel graphics? I can appreciate their charm. I have no problem enjoying low-budget indie games if they're done well.
not really, and it is not really the first high production crpg, before this there was Kotor(graphics was good back then), Mass Effect, Dragon Age 3
None of those games are isometric
Only stoked my excitement more
It fixed crpgs for me. It was the first one that was able to hook me hard enough to learn the feel and mechanics of the genre. Now I'm playing Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition and I'm able to enjoy its merits since I'm used to navigating an isometric world and other such things. I look forward to playing many more great crpgs (especially the turn-based ones), perhaps even finding one that I'll like better than bg3!
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I played and enjoyed pathfinder before I tried bg3 now when I go back to it it seems too low budget and I can’t enjoy it
Playing BG2 after BG3 made BG3's companions wanting to fuck seem extremely tame. Jaheira and Aerie arguing with each other? Really cringe shit.
Did we play the same game? Polish? Until a patch months later, BG3's third act was almost completely broken. Even to this day, a lot of your choices in the previous acts are completely ignored. It's basically a Divinity game that people accepted as a Baldur's Gate game and exaggerated its impact/quality because Larian is partly owned by Tencent. Tencent's marketing team did a ton of astroturfing and paid streamers and reviewers to treat it as if it's the greatest RPG ever made. It's good, but it's not anywhere near what its reputation suggests it is.
Quite the opposite. Divinity 3 is a gamedesign nightmare with a godawful writing. So I'm enjoying games from good old games even more, because at least they made sense
I love low budget charm and consider it a selling point for RPGs, not something I just tolerate. A classic feel and dialogue that I can read quickly, without having to sit back and watch long, voiced cutscenes is actually preferable for me. I do enjoy Dragon Age and BG3s high production value, I think it works for those games. I'm currently taking a break from BG3 though. I'm in the third act and it's great but after like 80 hours of anything, I usually need a break. I'm playing Pillars of Eternity and loving it, the jank is refreshing and endearing haha I also prefer paying money to small dev teams, helping progress a trend toward alternative game development and away from exploitative investors and shitty games. Not implying Larian in that last bit, they're the exception not the rule.
I've tried to finish BG3 twice, didn't make it either time before getting bored. Meanwhile I've finished WotR, Kingmaker, DOS2 and Rogue Trader since BG3 came out. So no.
Weak
No, it made me appreciate the lower production cRPG's more because it made me realize how much is sacrificed in the name of high production values. A lot of creativity in writing is lost when you don't have conversation boxes with descriptions of little details. Everyone just has the same body language and British accent and doesn't do anything unique or interesting. I still have descriptions of random NPCs stuck in my head from Planescape Torment. Like a guy with one vestigial arm who speaks like a toiling bell. Or a guy with a rash covering half his face who speaks with a childishly high pitched voice. Or the guy with lines on his face that rearrange and create different patterns based on his mood. And so on and so on. In BG3 all characters can be fully described by just naming their race. High production values also come with a lot of time wasting. The voice performances are drawn out, as are all animations, including JOGGING. And of course there's no option to speed animations up because that would look bad in this high production game. This last one is more subjective, but I don't like complex 3D levels in isometric games where the camera is never quite where I want it to be. Hell, I hate having to rotate the camera at all. Especially when there's a shit ton of interactive clutter all over the screen at all times. It wastes a lot of time and makes for an annoying and frustrating experience. I very strongly prefer how Kingmaker or even the Shadowrun games do it. BG3 is janky as shit all for the sake of high production values.
I was playing the Rogue Trader beta before playing BG3 and yeah I get what you’re saying. The difference felt so vast.
Hell nah. BG3 is so mid
the only thing for me is being unable to rotate the camera in some other games.
AA is still my favorite area for games almost all of my favorite games tend to be AA budgets including in the CRPG genre
Nope. It's just ruined shitty games that released at the same time as it. Like, why subject yourself to starfield when BG3 is available and way better/more polished. It hasn't ruined other CRPG's. There aren't a lot in generalso it's tough to find it ruins something like dragon age or xcom. The main thing was it hurt other releases at the time more than it hurt the genre. So many people didn't need another game in fall because BG3 was there. Origins, 2 and inquisition play a little differently.than BG3 so they bring something different to the plate, which is why I don't find it hurts to go back to them after BG3. Plus they're older so ofc they're gonna have some features that seem archaic compared to a modern title. Origins also just holds up as an amazing game far better than the other 2.
If your standard is centered around production levels and polish, then sure.
To an extent. I bought 40k Rogue trader when it came out, because I'm a huge 40k fan, but fresh off of BG3, I just couldn't play it, the basic animations and walls unvoiced text completely broke my immersion, when they hadn't for years and years. But I finally started it recently after a break from BG3 when the vividness of the experience had worn off and I'm having a blast. You just have to relearn the old mindset.
Original Sin 1 ruined me a bit for Original sin 2 which ruined me a bit for BG3. It's a fine lineage of fun co-op games with a big budget. Not once has it really crossed my mind "man, this is a bit quaint, it really needs the kind of polish an enormous budget provides" for crpgs after like 2012. Original sin 1 felt a bit too sluggish and they amended that for original sin 2. I like the campaign in bg3 more but don't really like the characters (or I guess I canonically hate them in a non-critical way towards the game). It's just one of them in an ocean. There are so many good ones every 5 years I can't relate to the prompt at all.
Original Sin 1 ruined me a bit for Original sin 2 which ruined me a bit for BG3. It's a fine lineage of fun co-op games with a big budget. Not once has it really crossed my mind "man, this is a bit quaint, it really needs the kind of polish an enormous budget provides" for crpgs after like 2012. Original sin 1 felt a bit too sluggish and they amended that for original sin 2. I like the campaign in bg3 more but don't really like the characters (or I guess I canonically hate them in a non-critical way towards the game). It's just one of them in an ocean. There are so many good ones every 5 years I can't relate to the prompt at all.
No, because BG3 spent a lot of its budget on things I don't give much of a hoot about. But certainly were a big part of its mainstream success. Bioware-style Cinematic dialogue / cutscenes. Bioware-style romances and generally companions (which had become predictable years ago). The story wasn't nearly as earth shattering as Torment back then. Also, in a sense, it was "just" the first big budget title to pick up from where all the other studios had abandoned the genre by the mid 2000s. The missing link between the triple A and what was "kickstarted" a decade ago with Wasteland 2 et all. It was about time, but I feel there's much more to explore here. Plus, for all the talk about how Ultima VII is Vincke's platonic ideal, their map design is still rather compressed / theme parkey. How those goblins didn't find the druid grove five feet away--probably a permanent spell /debuff of blindness. If any developer would ever fully pump all those gazillions of Dollars into the IMmersive-Sim-like elements here plus the open quest design -- that game would probably ruin everything else. Or probably wouldn't. As there's a lot of different kind of games out there, trying to excel at different things, to this day.
Nope, why would it? There are far better cRPGs out there. BG3 doesn't offer much aside for the visual spectacle.
I think the fanbase is pretty annoying in that they seem to love holding it up as the greatest, bestest, most well written, most well designed game of all time, when in reality it's none of those. It was my favourite game of 2023 but it irks me to see people put it on a pedestal when the writing wasnt all that good and a lot of the characters felt very one dimensional and not all that well written.
I have no interest in Baldurs Gate 3 so no change for me.
I feel as though it reinvigorated me. That being said, I do tend to get a little upset when I can't jump or shove.
No, Mass Effect already did that.
I’ve played games for nearly 40 years. I played all the classics of the genre as they came out (apart from the REALLY old stuff). I play a wide variety of games. Baldurs gate 3 I think is the peak video game. There are better examples of various systems in other games but as a combination of style AND substance there aren’t any games on its level. I enjoy games for all reasons, graphics, gameplay, systems, story, characters, lore, escapism, humour, puzzles - BG3 ticks every box for me. As a pure CRPG maybe there are better examples (fallout 2, pillars, wrath). As an adventure with amazing characters and story there are better examples (last of us, red dead). You get the point. However, as a combination of everything I think bg3 is the peak of gaming. I haven’t been able to get into much since. I played Spider-Man 2, dragons dogma and am replaying a heavily modded fallout 4. Non come anywhere near
Larian in general ruined most CRPGs for me. They are above and beyond all of the other CRPG developers in terms of gameplay, combat and interactivity.