Video Games You Wish Existed

[Pale Violet Light]

Pillars 3 - Yeah unfortunately Josh Sawyer said he's not making Pillars 3… He was also clear it would be turn-based combat if it happened, because RtwP just does not sell period… so it seems unlikely.

Thats a real shame; they’re great games. I’ve no strong preference for RTwP over turn-based in general, but to me RtwP is part and parcel of the Pillars of Eternity games.

"a Baldur’s Gate 3 with all of the DoS rubbish removed" - What would that actually look like though? To me the only "DoS rubbish" remaining in BG3 by release was a generally excessive fondness for evil nonsense options and excessive use of surfaces (but both were toned down massively from early BG3 EA). You could pretty much mod those out.

Surfaces, barrels, and the Larian-special subsystems (arcane acuity, heat, etc), which are either overpowered or useless, and the Larian-special feats (Tavern-brawler wtf are you thinking?). I’d hardly go into bat for 5E as the perfect system but near every change Larian made to the rules exacerbated balance issues. I had heard it was much worse before player feedback so I’m glad at least they listened. And yes, the evil nonsense options, exemplified by the Dark Urge, were sometimes offputting.

"an Owlcat cRPG with half-decent encounter design" - Yeah for a while thought this might just be because of Pathfinder 1E and RtwP combining to make tedious and poorly balanced encounters (and encounters which hard-required extensive buffing by later in the game, and that too was deeply tedious), but then I played Rogue Trader, which, whilst an excellent game overall, also has pretty awful encounter design, despite being an entirely different system and turn-based.

So tedious! So poorly balanced! And I like the writing a lot so I wish they’d do something about it for the next one. Actually I thought Rogue Trader encounters were better-balanced (less of the old “slap a +27 CR template on it and call it a day” attitude of the Pathfinder games), but far more tedious, thanks to the turn-based combat. In contrast, while I do moan about BG3 a lot, the encounter design is mostly excellent.

 

[MoonSong]

Some thoughts re these.

Pillars 3 - Yeah unfortunately Josh Sawyer said he's not making Pillars 3 (and given his position in the company, therefore no-one is) unless it gets a BG3-style budget (i.e. $100m+), which would require MS to actually not only "want it to happen" (as MS reps continually say when asked about potential games from Obsidian) but put some actual money where their mouth is. Realistically it would also require Sawyer to drop his "I'm against romances in games" stance because you're not making BG3-type sales with that particular attitude. He was also clear it would be turn-based combat if it happened, because RtwP just does not sell period, no matter how much wishful thinking is applied to it. I do think it would actually be a pretty smart investment from MS if those conditions were met, but they're in a corporate money-saving phase (for games/Xbox, so they can blow it all on AI nonsense) so it seems unlikely.

"a Baldur’s Gate 3 with all of the DoS rubbish removed" - What would that actually look like though? To me the only "DoS rubbish" remaining in BG3 by release was a generally excessive fondness for evil nonsense options and excessive use of surfaces (but both were toned down massively from early BG3 EA). You could pretty much mod those out.

"an Owlcat cRPG with half-decent encounter design" - Yeah for a while thought this might just be because of Pathfinder 1E and RtwP combining to make tedious and poorly balanced encounters (and encounters which hard-required extensive buffing by later in the game, and that too was deeply tedious), but then I played Rogue Trader, which, whilst an excellent game overall, also has pretty awful encounter design, despite being an entirely different system and turn-based.

Sorry I'm an idiot, what do you guys mean by DoS?

 

[MarkB]

Sorry I'm an idiot, what do you guys mean by DoS?

Divinity: Original Sin and it's sequel, the major CRPGs Larian developed prior to BG3.

 

[Pale Violet Light]

Sorry I'm an idiot, what do you guys mean by DoS?

Sorry I should have specified: I mean Divinity: Original Sin. More properly, I should say the Larian-specific additions and changes to the 5E ruleset, most of which I thought were downgrades.