He'll probably includes Throne of Baal in BG2 so it's not that different. IIRC there items felt boring because every peasant has +5 pitchfork now.Yes, it's going to feel like a downgrade. A lot. I'd recommend waiting a bit after completing BG2 to start PoE, like a month, maybe more.
Regarding classes, let's see:
Objectively better BG2 classes: Wizards (and Sorcerors, in PoE there's only one class)
Debatable, I like PoE versions more, YMMV: Cleric, Druid
Objectively better PoE classes: Paladin, Ranger, Barbarian, Monk, Chanter (Bard), Rogue, Fighter
Unique PoE classes: Ciphers
Are we comparing classes now? Obsidian themselves agreed that classes are too complex for 6 player party. Those priests can do a hundred things on any moment and it does feel overwhelming.
Dunno how PoE casters can be regarded as too complex when the comparison is Bg2.
In general mage vs mage duels were pretty interesting. But the rest... meh. I like everybody in my party to have something interesting to do, not just mages. Also prebuffing was more tedious, as far as I remember. In PoE you can't really prebuff, so you have to make a choice: buff or fight, which is more efficient? And generally you only have the time for some critical buffs.
There is nothing rose tinted about it, some of us played it recently and not only when we were kids.Eh, I think people tend to look trough rose tinted glasses when they speak of Baldur's Gate.
Sure, there were SOME memorable encounters. Party vs party, like the Temple District building come to mind. Or a really tough enemy, like Kangaxx.
In general mage vs mage duels were pretty interesting. But the rest... meh. I like everybody in my party to have something interesting to do, not just mages. Also prebuffing was more tedious, as far as I remember. In PoE you can't really prebuff, so you have to make a choice: buff or fight, which is more efficient? And generally you only have the time for some critical buffs.
Well in PoE you don't even need to reload because everything died while you jerked off.In general mage vs mage duels were pretty interesting. But the rest... meh. I like everybody in my party to have something interesting to do, not just mages. Also prebuffing was more tedious, as far as I remember. In PoE you can't really prebuff, so you have to make a choice: buff or fight, which is more efficient? And generally you only have the time for some critical buffs.
Ah yes, this is what I remember of BG2.
Standard fight? Just kill them all. No sense in using potions or something. No sense in saving your spells for later, I can rest anytime anyway (maybe some helpless rats will attack me).
Hard fight? Well I can try to be clever. Or I can reload the game, cast all the hastes and blesses and mirror images and all the fancy stuff and then the fight is turned into a standard one. In rare cases it wasn't enough, I remember using some scrolls and potions against dragons. Rare.
What does this mean? How can you say shit like this and not have your brain blow up?Regarding classes, let's see:
Objectively better BG2 classes: Wizards (and Sorcerors, in PoE there's only one class)
Debatable, I like PoE versions more, YMMV: Cleric, Druid
Objectively better PoE classes: Paladin, Ranger, Barbarian, Monk, Chanter (Bard), Rogue, Fighter
Unique PoE classes: Ciphers
What do you mean by "execution for combat in BG2 was off the charts"? Like graphics? Or specific encounter design?
Classes in BG2 are a joke compared to PoE - you basically get fighter (plus their gimped versions, pally/ranger/barb, with to real reason to take them beside role play)
Piotrovitz said:Also, can someone explain to me what's with this legendary appeal of magic in BG2?
The encounter design. It has been answered already, but liches, dragons, mages, mind flayers, several party encounters etc-etc. Every few fights there was a really interesting one. Had to change tactics all the time (golems etc). Bioware had some dude back then who designed the fights to death (I think Trent Oster?) to make sure they were cool.
Brent Knowles said:Baldur's Gate 2 was an amazing game. Its puzzle-like encounter design, its rich assortment of magical items that were so much more than just plusses and minuses, and its epic mage duels are all unparalleled to this day. 14 years later, people still talk about character builds and party compositions, and share strategies on how to defeat iconic foes like the Twisted Rune, Firkraag, and Kangaxx. No other game has ever been as successful in delivering that essence of high level Dungeons & Dragons gameplay. What we'd like to know is - who was responsible? Who pushed for this stuff? And how did he (or they) manage to do such an incredible job?
James Ohlen and Kevin Martens… the lead and co-lead respectively, had a huge influence on this. They were very focused on the high-level details and spent a lot of time testing the content everybody was creating.
BG2, like HOTU, was also a fun project to work on. BG2 had a functional game engine (as opposed to an engine-in-development) and (many of) the designers were more experienced with it, so they knew what worked and what to avoid. Even brand new designers like myself were given areas to "flesh out". We were able to take characters from our old pen and paper campaigns and create little plots for them and it was very creative and organic. And certainly we made a mess of things at times, some of the plots, especially the Drow ones were horribly complicated and hard to troubleshoot!
But all of us were given semi-free reign to take things as far as we thought we could. I had a lot of fun working with the combat system, for example, and tried to pull in all the tricks I remember that had been used while playing pen and paper during high school. And all the team members were doing this, within their own areas of responsibilities.
As well, because the game content did not have to be locked down too early (for voice over and cinematics), we actually had more development time. With AAA titles nowadays, it becomes harder to tweak content in the late stages of development.
It says a lot about the game that you needed to up the difficulty to hardest to just get any semblance of challenge. Also that challenge is MORE enemies + multiply their stats so I go no idea what you are talking about here.No, unlike BG2 and unlike most RPGs PoE had a good higher difficulty mode, not just multiplying HP and damage of the enemy. You're talking about thematically memorable BG2 fights, in PoE there was no location without a fight that was interesting mechanically if you play on Path of the Damned.