Comment on Playing Pillars of Eternity for the first time
Gamoc@lemmy.world 11 months ago
If you’re looking for similar games to move onto, Baldur’s Gate 3 is in its own tier, right at the top of the genre. Not only that but it’s a step forward mechanically and presentation wise for the whole genre as well. In this game I once threw an angry hyena at an enemy. Later just threw enemies at their friends.
Pathfinder Kingmaker and Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous are both excellent as well. Especially Wrath, though still with the aged style graphically speaking. You can cast touch spells through weapons! In the second one I became a lich queen with an army of undead, it might be my favourite CRPG ever because of that. It’s awesome.
Divinity Original Sin and its sequel are also brilliant, made by bg3 Devs Larian on their own ruleset. I’m currently replying the second one this with my sister (yep, it’s co-op), we are both playing undead. We are healed by poison and damaged by healing. Very cool.
This is my favourite genre, if you can’t tell.
UndercoverUlrikHD@programming.dev 11 months ago
When it comes to combat and character creation, I’d argue the Pathfinder games surpasses BG3. BG3 obviously looks better and has a more interactive world, but the combat is lacking compared to the builds you can do in Pathfinder. More races, way more classes, more intricate builds, higher level cap, etc…
For people that are more into combat and kiting out your characters, I think they’ll enjoy those games more. Not too say BG3 is bad or anything.
Gamoc@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Baldur’s Gate 3 is incredibly detailed in combat though, so much so that it takes sometime to wrap your head around it. I’m addition to pushing and jumping, which both sound so simple but have a huge effect on gameplay, there’s also environmental things that you just don’t think of because in other games in the genre it isn’t an option. As an example, there’s a giant spider that wanders around on webs and summons smaller spiders from eggs, you can sneak around to destroy the eggs before combat to stop summoning and destroy the webs whilst the spider is on them to cause it to drop and take extreme damage.
So you’re right that character building may be better in Pathfinder - I really do love casting touch spells through weapons, it’s great - the combat in Baldur’s Gate 3 is far more interactive and dynamic in combat. It’s also way more accessible.
Either is a good choice, but I give the edge to Baldur’s Gate 3 because, well, every single line is voice acted and motion captured, and the freedom you get in the story is astoinding. It’s such a profound improvement, a night and day difference from the basically everything else in the genre.
UndercoverUlrikHD@programming.dev 11 months ago
I agree, they also solved the “everything is on fire” problem that Divinity had with it’s element interactions. And it is what I hope the most Owlcat takes inspiration from.
It still feels like the game is lacking in the combat diversity department compared to Pathfinder. From the way you buff characters before a dungeon/combat to how you can specialise your characters. Some of it may just be product of how Pathfinder and D&D 5ed are, and some of it may be a product of trying to make it more accessible as you put it, at the cost of choice and complexity.
Yeah, never got to fight that boss. Started (and ended) the combat by eldritch blasting the poor baby over the edge into the abyss when I first saw it.
No doubt BG3 is a better game for the general gaming crowd, but if combat and complex character building is your jam, I’d say Pathfinder might be a more enjoyable game.
Gamoc@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I think it’s simpler character creation-wise because DND has gotten simpler in the same area, definitely seems much less complex than before.
Wrath is going to be my favourite for a very long time I suspect because of the Lich thing. I’ve always wanted that since playing DND games as a kid and it’s the only game that allowed it. Then it went above and beyond, I could reanimate almost anything, it was great.