That's why I don't like BG1. The combat system is okay, but the encounter design for most of the game is just banal shit boring. That's one of my main issues with how BG plays. It has a decent enough system, but you need more than a raw system for a game's combat to be fun: you need good encounters. And BG1 has mostly boring trash fights. They're not fun to fight, they're just a waste of time. You know what game has fun encounter design? BG2.
BG1's encounter design is perfectly adequate, and the modded experience is even better as Crispy has been attesting to this entire thread. Once again though, I will make the argument that neither BG1 or BG2 have
great encounter design. D&D based games with truly great encounter design would be KotC I & II, and Icewind Dale to name some examples. Neither Baldur's Gate game really compares to either of these games and others I'm sure when it comes to encounter design. At the end of the day, Baldur's Gate has Durlag's Tower which is hands down the best dungeon in the entire series. Outside of that, I find both games to be equal in terms of encounter design, with a few memorable encounters in both games. BG1 is balanced by the fact that it is a low level campaign so you really need to be creative with your resources to come out on top in certain encounters depending on what level your party is when attempting them and what your difficulty settings are, while BG2 does have more enemy variety, but since your party is higher level, you have more tools to deal with these encounters which takes away from their overall difficulty.
I don't think anyone players Baldur's Gate I or II for the encounters (mods not included). The thing that Baldur's Gate I did so great were the things that I described. It crafted a world that felt grounded and alive, and we felt like we were just another adventurer exploring that world, stumbling into a massive conspiracy which at first seems to be inexplicably linked to us, only to discover that it has its roots tied into the very fabric of our identity. Baldur's Gate II moved away from this in favor of focusing on the more secondary aspects of the first game, mistakenly thinking that those aspects were what made the first game great, versus acting as complimentary features to the things that actually made the first game great.
And I genuinely enjoy the combat of Gothic, Morrowind, Arx Fatalis etc more than BG1's. Morrowind's combat may be simple, but the magic system is amazing and gives you a lot of tools to handle your enemies. The true core of Morrowind is its exploration, though, not its combat, so no, Morrowind's core gameplay is not mind numbingly boring and bad.
I'm jealous of your ability to be so easily entertained. The games you mentioned require too much effort to be chill/relaxing, since you're directly controlling your character and microing all your movements, while also not being interesting because there is not much skill to what you are doing. Baldur's Gate on the other hand also requires a lot of effort, but there actually is skill in kiting hard to kill enemies, managing your back lines positioning and health, and so on. You can enjoy the combat in the games you mentioned, but you really cannot make an argument that they require more strategic depth and thought than Baldur's Gate. Without that, what's left? A game like Dead Cells doesn't require any real "strategic thought", but its fast paced, twitch nature is what makes the game fun. The games you mentioned don't even have that to fall back on.
Morrowind's magic system gives you tools to handle your enemies? Who cares? Different tools are only meaningful when the choices behind said tools are difficult to make and have thoughtful differences. Who cares if I have ten different ways to deal with my enemies when I could pick from any of them and win the encounter?
Yes, they are flawed products, but so is BG... and BG2, for that matter. Every game beloved by the Codex is flawed.
It's just that different people have different tolerances for different types of flaws. I happen to enjoy the flawed Morrowind more than the flawed Baldur's Gate - and the flawed Baldur's Gate 2 more than the flawed Baldur's Gate 1. You happen to do the opposite.
They are flawed products in the sense that their flaws are far too great for the things they do well to overcome.
My comment was directed towards your claim of animations being important for immersion, not the amount of NPCs displayed on screen. Morrowind NPCs do have animations, actually - when there's a storm they will shield their face, but only if they face the direction of the wind. Pretty cool huh? But your problem is that the animations are too wooden, that you can't look past the primitive 3D graphics - while animations of the same rough quality are ok in a zoomed-out isometric game like Baldur's Gate because you don't see them as closely, so it feels more abstract to you. That was your argument.
If you need a first person game to have a certain level of technical fidelity before it becomes immersive to you, that's absolutely a you problem.
I love how you completely ignore my very valid critique regarding the amount of NPCs displayed on the screen, because you do not have a response to it.
As for your other comments, in general, it is much easier to make an isometric game feel immersive compared to a first person game. First person games by their very nature require a lot more details to feel immersive compared to isometric RPGs, and this is an implicit difference in the perspectives. Technical fidelity is not a must, but it certainly helps in these situations. A first person view is something that leaves very little room for abstraction, but what you are seeing is meant to be seen through your own eyes. I cannot get immersed in the game and believe I am in a bustling city when my very eyes are telling me that is not the case. An isometric view however allows for far more abstraction however, which makes the process of getting immersed far easier. There is a reason why books tend to be the most immersive form of story telling out there, and the fact that isometric RPGs can tap into this is a huge advantage compared that first person RPGs need to work really had to overcome.
Just take a walk in Vivec and Balmora and tell me these two cities feel alive. There is basically no one in the streets, very little ambient sound, and the NPCs do not seem to move. Contrast this to when you're walking around the city of Baldur in Baldur's Gate I, you see hundreds of NPCs moving around, visiting stores, drinking at taverns, in the museum looking at exhibits, etc. And all of it is complimented by the excellent fucking ambient sound design. You hear the sounds of hundreds of footsteps, peoples voices, birds chirping, and of course, the excellent soundtrack. The ambient soundtrack is amazing throughout the entire game mind you, not just in the cities, and even the wilderness/forest areas in Baldur's Gate, though a lot more plain and less interesting at a glance than the exotic and foreign envrionments found in Morrowind, feel a lot more immersive and alive than anything in Morrowind. There are many reasons why Morrowind would not be immersive that are unrelated to its level of technical fidelity, and are instead directly related to its first person perspective and the lack of things required to make a first person perspective immersive.
That said, I also mentioned how BG's exploration is inferior to, say, Arcanum's where maps don't have artificial borders and you can walk beyond a town's borders to explore the wilderness beyond. Usually there's nothing to find there and you'd just fast travel, but the Tomb of Mannox is a good example of how this feature of Arcanum is used to facilitate interesting exploration and secret hunting.
Baldur's Gate can never have something like "Leave town by the south gate, walk 50 paces to the west, and you will find a hidden tomb." because you cannot leave the boundaries of the maps, and those boundaries are always 100% clear, no mystery about it.
Arcanum and Baldur's Gate both having good exploration are not mutually exclusive features. There are many games that have maps with artifical borders with great exploration, so don't cite that as a reason for why Baldur's Gate has bad exploration. If it wasn't for your lack of interest in the world/setting in Baldur's Gate 1, you would find the exploration much more enjoyable I'm sure.
Also, what the fuck are you talking about? If the boundaries of the map include an area outside of the towns south gate, fifty paces to the west, you could have something like this in a game with map boundaries. Alternatively, you could just have this instruction across a zone transition, like we see in Underrail as an example.
As for the second paragraph here, that's where I have to heavily disagree with you, and I think that's the big point where our opinions differ. You consider BG1 to be interesting, engrossing, beautiful, immersive... I consider it the opposite.
- I don't find BG1's world to be interesting at all; it's basic bitch generic Forgotten Realms fare
- When I explored BG1's maps I discovered few things I would consider interesting, so discoveries never felt awesome.
- The world didn't feel real or interesting to me at all.
- Discovering powerful items is more a thing I associate with BG2, rather than BG1, where the most powerful thing you might find would be a generic +2 sword.
- I'd also disagree with beautiful buildings - I consider BG1's artstyle to be incredibly bland, nothing about it looks beautiful to me. Oh and they're not hand drawn backgrounds btw, they're pre-rendered 3D backgrounds.
- Yes, it is a lot of fun to find new things in a world you're invested in, which is why I love exploring Morrowind and Arcanum but completely check out when exploring BG1. I just can't get invested in its world.
- What you feel about Morrowind is exactly what I feel about BG1. I cannot immerse/invest myself in the game, because I'm constantly disappointed by everything it throws at me.
Your inability to get immersed with Baldur's Gate is not due to something the game does wrong, but due to your own personal issues and poor taste (preferring BG2's retarded inconsistencies and zanyness simply because it differs from standard fantasy conventions for one). I am unable to get immersed with Morrowind due to structural issues within the game related to its engine and elements of design.
One of them is a valid complaint, the other is not. The only thing stopping you from enjoying Baldur's Gates exploration is getting immersed/engaged in the setting. I am already engaged and immersed in Morrowind's setting, but I still cannot enjoy the exploration. There is a big problem here, and it is on Morrowind's end, not Baldur's Gate.
I could claim the same about your view of exploring - you are far more easily entertained than I when uncovering a fog of war is more engaging to you than exploring a fully 3-dimensional worldspace.
You enjoy the physical act of exploring a fully 3-dimensional worldspace. I do not enjoy the physicala ct of uncovering fog of war. What I enjoy are the implications and abstractions that I am able to concieve after I have uncovered something. Very different.
Of course, you value other aspects of exploration; the metaphysical rather than the physical, one could say. But that doesn't mean my enjoyment of the act of exploration means I'm "more easily entertained".
You are able to value the metaphysical aspects of exploration AND the physical aspects of exploration. I really only value the metaphysical aspects of exploration (there are some exceptions, but in general this is true). This by definition means you are more easily entertained than I.
My favorite game of all time is Thief, and I love playing its fan missions, many of which are even better than the original. The exploration there is top notch. I can spend 4 hours in a single level, exploring every nook and cranny. And due to the game's mechanics, the physical act of exploration itself is mentally stimulating. You see an open window somewhere above, but there's no direct way to reach it. But there's a narrow ledge leading to it, so you follow the ledge with your eyes... and over there, you spot a wooden surface that can take a rope arrow! You climb up, hop onto the ledge, and go to the open window. From there, you see another opportunity for getting to another place... and so on.
Good exploration in a 3-dimensional space involves reading the environment and finding ways to reach seemingly unreachable places by using your tools. It can be just as stimulating as solving a tough combat encounter in a tactical RPG.
Ehhhhh, I just don't see it. Spending hours trying to find an outcropping of rock which will take me down a path which will lead to another path so I can eventually reach my goal is not what I consider mentally stimulating. I'd say that is exercise in tedium more than anything, because there is no real puzzle to be solved. Either I spot it with my eyes, or I don't. Yeah, I can use context clues to make it easier to spot, but it is extremely rare for these context clues to be actually mentally stimulating, because if they were, it would be very difficult to actually pick up on them while your focus is split between mentally unraveling things and physically looking.
By any chance, do you enjoy word searches?
Of course, the why of exploring and the discoveries you make during it are also important. But as stated above, I never got invested in what BG1 offers me there. It never made me feel like I'm exploring and interesting world, so it left me cold both in the physical act of exploration and in the metaphysical act. Exploring Morrowind is interesting to me not only because of the 3D environment and the frequent use of levitation to find hidden nooks and crannies, but also because of the lore of the place, the design of the dungeons, the things you can find, etc. Morrowind feels very much like uncovering mysteries at every step - even some of the main quests are about discovery, like the one where you have to find a rare copy of a banned book and are given only few hints as to where it might be. That's exciting, isn't it? I don't remember anything of the sort from BG1, but to be fair, I remember little of BG1 due to how unmemorable it was for me.
Baldur's Gate has tons of examples of interesting and exciting things you can discover while exploring, and it's clear to me that you missed out on all of it.
The visual story telling in Baldur's Gate is fucking amazing, as is the envrionmental story telling. The game does so many things right I really can't be arsed to list them all. There are plenty of videos that touch upon all of these things and if you're interested I'd be happy to provide them.
This is interesting. I won't argue with you about taste, it's completely fine to prefer BG's looks over Morrowind's, but I just find it strange. Baldur's Gate's art is not hand-drawn, it was composed of pre-rendered 3D objects. You can clearly see the difference when you compare it to other isometric games that do have hand-drawn art. The 3D of Baldur's Gate's day was even more primitive than Morrowind's, even when pre-rendered, and it is noticeable in the game's final appearance. It does look rather ugly in certain places, especially natural caverns (but so does Morrowind to be fair), and I'm confused how anyone could think that's hand-drawn when it's obviously a crudely carved 3D render with muddy textures.
BG2's graphics are an improvement upon BG1's precisely because graphical technology had progressed at that point, and the pre-rendered 3D backgrounds look a lot less muddy in comparison.
All the Infinity Engine games were made with pre-rendered 3D backgrounds, as was Pillars of Eternity (but they added a lot of hand-drawn details on top of the pre-rendered backgrounds in that one), and it's plainly obvious from how they look.
It's totally fine to like their style - I do enjoy the looks of BG2, PST, and IWD2 myself - but I'm just wondering where the impression that they're hand-drawn comes from.
I just bungled up my words, I did indeed mean pre-rendered 3D backgrounds. With mods to modify graphics (and/or) mods that fix the issues in the EE, both BG and BG2 look fantastic.
Personally I didn't feel like BG was any more alive than Morrowind, but yes I can understand why some people can't get into Morrowind for the reasons you stated. Fair enough.
As I mentioned above, the ambient soundtrack is another big thing in favor of BG over Morrowind, but whatever since you already admit to understanding my point.
Okay, sure, I can agree with you there, Baldur's Gate does present a cohesive setting where everything makes sense. But that on its own isn't enough to capture my interest. The detailed portrayal of infrastructure is one aspect of what makes Morrowind so immersive, so I'm totally on board with your line of thinking there.
It's just that, for me, beyond the logical setup of how people live in the Sword Coast, Baldur's Gate doesn't provide anything to hook me into the setting.
I just don't understand what BG2 does that provides you with something to hook you into the setting. Are the few things it does that different form traditional fantasy tropes really all that was required to make you interested, thus hooking you?
Also, and I can't believe I haven't mentioned this before, did you not watch the fucking amazing 1990s cinematics from the start of the game? What about the amazing voice acting performance which punctuate the prologue, chapters, and dream sequences? You're going to tell me this opening cimeatic didn't interest you in the setting?
The silliness is very front-loaded, often appearing in the wilderness areas, and often directly approaching you rather than being hidden in a corner (like in, say, Fallout 1), so it left a pretty big initial impression on me. It's mostly a problem with the writing.
BG1's writing feels like someone's first D&D campaign, a DM who's enamored with the cool new game he found, and is introducing all kinds of quirky fun characters to make his players laugh (happens a lot in pen and paper D&D actually), and also has some lore dump characters (Elminster in BG1) because he's really fond of the setting he's been reading up on. BG1 just gives me those vibes of young and enthusiastic DM playing a super generic Forgotten Realms campaign with beginner D&D players. If you've ever had that experience, you know what I'm talking about.
Baldur's Gate 1 was the second cRPG I ever played and it was one of my first D&D campaign, so I definitely understand what you are saying. I don't see how this is a con however, and if anything, the fact that Baldur's Gate can scratch that itch seems to be a pro in its favor versus a con against it. Also, you are definitely over exagerating the silliness and how much of it there is. Baldur's Gate is not that silly of a game man, and I don't know where this notion comes from. Once you leave Candlekeep, the game is pretty serious as you head to the Friendly Arm Inn, to Beregost, to Nashkel, and beyond.
True enough. I would argue that there is a similar difference between Baldur's Gate and Athkatla, but I can't back that point up because I never had enough interest in BG1's NPCs to closely read their dialogs, so I can't make the comparison.
I played and paid good attention to both, and I did not see any meaningful difference.
Perhaps this can be blamed on me playing BG2 first, many years before I ever got my hands on BG1, and I was a young teen when I did so. But it never felt explicitly theme-parky to me. Even on a replay many years later I didn't get that impression.
Now, I do understand why you would get that impression, especially if you played BG1 first and expected a similar experience. But due to the way the game's story is framed, it doesn't feel very themeparky to me despite the game pushing so many different scenarios on you. For the first half of the game, you're basically a mercenary looking to make money, and what kinds of jobs would a high profile mercenary most likely go for? Yep, dangerous jobs with good pay! Now the second half is a lot more railroaded, but it still makes sense within the narrative structure. You have to go through the Underdark, which might feel like fan service to some degree, but the underwater city is an optional area you only get when you use the ship to travel, and suffer a shipwreck.
BG2's story progression/areas you go through feel very much in line with something an Edgar Rice Borroughs might write in his Mars novels - you know, something pulpy. As a fan of pulp fiction, I never had an issue with BG2's wild and messy structure.
The issue isn't the danger level of the jobs that you might go for, but how the jobs come to you and the types of jobs you are getting. I'm happy that the game didn't feel theme-parky to you but this is a common complaint of BG2 and for very good reason.
What can I say man, you unironically enjoy pulp fiction, something I consider to be decline and not suited for anyone but young teenagers just getting into reading.
