D&D (2024) BG3 is the new Skyrim

[GMMichael]

I've mentally agreed with you on so many things that this post just made my head explode.

Pretty much. Although my head did explode when I watched this video on BG3 combat. I guess, after Mordhau, it's about impossible for me to go back to turn-based, D&D-rules combat on computer. I'll play the discursive version once in a while, though.

 

[pukunui]

But that's also another reason why neither Bethesda RPGs nor BG3 have really tickled my fancy, with all of their protagonists being silent as well.

FWIW Fallout 4 has a fully voiced protagonist (and you get to choose whether you play the husband or wife).

 

[Reynard]

FWIW Fallout 4 has a fully voiced protagonist (and you get to choose whether you play the husband or wife).

And is often considered the worst choice they made for FO4.

 

[Mind of tempest]

It would make sense to conflate BG3 with Skyrim, because I have had a hard time wanting to go further with either of them. LOL!

I much prefer narrative-focused RPGs and could take-or-leave most combat. Usually when I play any of these games I set the combat level to it's easiest setting because I don't care about "tactically-interesting fights", I want to just get past them and continue the story. BG3 does have a compelling narrative to play through which is good... but the game's D&D combat of "moving pieces around the board" and the time spent "rolling dice" in-game and watching all the animations of every attack just makes every combat feel like a slog. Granted... it certainly evokes the grind-to-a-halt combat from the first two Baldur's Gates... but those games were back when "action RPGs" weren't a thing. I've been tainted by the much faster combat models of Mass Effect/Dragon Age BioWare... GTA/Red Dead... Assassin's Creed etc. that the throwback "board game combat" of BG3 is just painful. I just finally got through Act 2 on what is my first playthrough, and I've been hard-pressed to continue going into Act 3 because it just feels so slow.

(And in case anyone was wondering about my time with Bethesda games, I only finally finished Fallout 3 after watching the tv show and forcing myself to complete it... I'm still trying to work up the energy to finish Fallout New Vegas (maybe once Season 2 gets released and the show takes us there I might get inspired to try and finish the game)... and I've started and stopped Skyrim so many times I know that I will never bother finishing that game ever because there's just nothing there to drive me to continue. Wandering around for hours in the so-called "sandbox" just to get attacked by random "wandering monsters" every five minutes is not an RPG I wish to engage in.)

(And in case anyone was wondering further... what do I think is one of the best RPGs I've ever played? Disco Elysium. And that's because there's virtually NO COMBAT whatsoever. It's just finding and then following narrative plot threads without being stopped every 2 minutes with a meaningless fight, LOL.)

why do you not just follow quest lines then?

 

[DEFCON 1]

why do you not just follow quest lines then?

Do you mean for Skyrim? For that game in particular the questlines just were never that compelling to me. But that's not the game's fault, it's just what I find fun. Skyrim (and indeed all the Elder Scrolls games) are always more geared to the "You can do anything and go anywhere" mindset and that's where their game design focus seems to have thrived. But their concerns of narrative and forward momentum never seemed to be utmost in their mind.

This was made most clear to me in Fallout 3 when I first tried it out and got to the part where you had to go find the radio DJ... and there was virtually no indication of how the heck you were supposed to find him because the navigation arrows that pointed to his location weren't clear you had to actually go down in the subway tunnels and then follow convoluted pathways down there that weren't actually in the direction of the arrow pointing to him. Thus the first bunch of times I tried to play it, I got so annoyed by all the runaround in their navigation design and the fact that as I kept trying to find my way around to get to the radio station I'd get jumped by random mutants and monsters and such that I just stopped playing it. I wasn't there for the random combats and the unfocused wandering around, I was there to follow the narrative... and the game seemed to me to go out of its way to make doing that more annoying and difficult than it was worth.

(And this latest time I played it where I finally finished FO3 only happened because I gave myself the green light to just follow walkthroughs when necessary because I had no intention of wasting my time getting stuck on all the random walking to just "stumble" my way through the main questline. This is why I don't tend to play Bethesda games... because I'm not the right audience for them.)

 

[pukunui]

And is often considered the worst choice they made for FO4.

OK. Fallout 4 is the only one of the Fallout games I've played, so I was fine with it.

 

[pukunui]

And is often considered the worst choice they made for FO4.

OK. Fallout 4 is the only one of the Fallout games I've played, so I was fine with it.

 

[TwoSix]

It would make sense to conflate BG3 with Skyrim, because I have had a hard time wanting to go further with either of them. LOL!

I much prefer narrative-focused RPGs and could take-or-leave most combat. Usually when I play any of these games I set the combat level to it's easiest setting because I don't care about "tactically-interesting fights", I want to just get past them and continue the story. BG3 does have a compelling narrative to play through which is good... but the game's D&D combat of "moving pieces around the board" and the time spent "rolling dice" in-game and watching all the animations of every attack just makes every combat feel like a slog. Granted... it certainly evokes the grind-to-a-halt combat from the first two Baldur's Gates... but those games were back when "action RPGs" weren't a thing. I've been tainted by the much faster combat models of Mass Effect/Dragon Age BioWare... GTA/Red Dead... Assassin's Creed etc. that the throwback "board game combat" of BG3 is just painful. I just finally got through Act 2 on what is my first playthrough, and I've been hard-pressed to continue going into Act 3 because it just feels so slow.

(And in case anyone was wondering about my time with Bethesda games, I only finally finished Fallout 3 after watching the tv show and forcing myself to complete it... I'm still trying to work up the energy to finish Fallout New Vegas (maybe once Season 2 gets released and the show takes us there I might get inspired to try and finish the game)... and I've started and stopped Skyrim so many times I know that I will never bother finishing that game ever because there's just nothing there to drive me to continue. Wandering around for hours in the so-called "sandbox" just to get attacked by random "wandering monsters" every five minutes is not an RPG I wish to engage in.)

(And in case anyone was wondering further... what do I think is one of the best RPGs I've ever played? Disco Elysium. And that's because there's virtually NO COMBAT whatsoever. It's just finding and then following narrative plot threads without being stopped every 2 minutes with a meaningless fight, LOL.)

A lot of your D&D complaints make much more sense in this context, lol.

 

[DEFCON 1]

A lot of your D&D complaints make much more sense in this context, lol.

I know, right?

The reasons for getting into fights and the results that come out of having fought have always been more interesting to me that the actual process of conducting a fight. Whether that's tabletop or video game. Especially in video games when most of the fights are there just to slow players down and waste their time, energy, and resources. What better way to turn 5 hours of plot into 30 hours of a game by making players fight meaningless enemies every 5 minutes, LOL!