All D&D campaigns should start from level 3. I enjoy low level play too, but “one bad die roll away from instant death” is no way to play anything.
Gosh yes. First couple of levels are SO VOLATILE. Starting a mage character is tough.
Counterpoint - Roguefrog is wrong. I would strenuously argue that everything about the BG experience gets better as you progress through the games and Bioware’s skill increases – the dialog, the quests, the stories, the NPCs, the enemies, the locations, the scale, the fun.
Certainly, the combat becomes a lot more complicated and there’s a lot going on as you gain levels. On the other hand, in BG1 your wizards are useless after they’ve cast 1-2 spells. This is 2nd Edition D&D rules, and they are certainly flawed. You also die a lot more because you have a lot less HPs.
I suspect Roguefrog’s experience was inferior because he went evil. This is an old game series, and going evil is not well rewarded. I tried going evil once and gave up.
I just love ToB, it’s incredibly epic. And Cespenar? Oh man. “OooOoooH! Shinies!”
Durlag’s Tower is way worse. You can figure out your way through Watcher’s Keep. In Durlag’s Tower I have look up all the puzzles they’re just so obtuse. Both Watcher’s Keep and Durlag’s Tower were bonus “endless dungeon” style content Bioware added. They are not very good. I usually only hit them looking for specific pieces of loot, then move on.
I only play Baldur’s Gate 1 if I can tweak the starting classes of all the characters. Too many cool kits just not used in BG 1.
Also, its fun to make almost all the specialist Human Mages Clerics, and duel class them into Wizards.
Just as a small counterpoint: I love BG1. It’s probably my most-replayed game…in fact, I know it is. I’ve played it to completion at least 6 times (I have all my final saves on a flash drive!), and I’ve started and abandoned new PC builds more times than I can count.
I just love the more freeform and exploration-driven nature of the first one. You’re just kind of on your own with low-level characters…every spell matters, every magic item, every potion you find matters. By the time you get halfway through BG2, you’re basically a demigod. Just not as fun for the way I like to play.
This is well said, and what I was trying to get at myself.
True. But you’re fighting other demigods. I understand the appeal of the low-level game, where every piece of loot matters. But in BG1, it’s just so limiting. So few spells and abilities and items. It’s boring.
I agree with most of your points and think they’re valid points to make, and still, BG2 is my favorite of the two. It’s just more immersive, has better art design, is less clunky, has great in-party banter between members, and those high level mage fights were tough (and a little ridiculous as the game went on) but still a lot of fun.
I guess I sort of equate it a little bit to Mass Effect. In many ways ME was the better, more grounded, even experience. ME2 was uneven, but it just hit a lot of higher peaks for me. It was more polished, and the characters/quests were pretty memorable making so I’d like to replay it someday, whereas I will probably never touch the original again.
And only if I can mod their travel speed. So… damn… slow.
Isn’t there one?
Haven’t played it in a long time. There may very well be one now.
True. Some people enjoy that maximalist “give me all the powers right now make me a GOD” rpg.
Some of us appreciate more of a…refined, skilled experience, I guess you could say. Something that takes a little more forethought and finesse than just flinging 12 hit dice fireballs all over the map.
You know…horses for courses.
ITT: Everyone but @Balasarius is wrong. Like, wrong wrong.
(Cool writeup though @roguefrog, that was fun :D )
I do think a lot of the best gameplay comes around levels 3-8 or so (fuck that level 1 “die from one random arrow” BS) but Baldur’s Gate 2 just has so much GREAT GAME wrapped around it, and you get a lot more tactical options when you have more varied spells/items and, likewise, so do your enemies.
I feel there is a threshold somewhere in mid-to late BG2 where how well you can manage the combat moment to moment starts running away from you due to the sheer amount of variables reaching critical mass resulting in completely whimsical bi-polar outcomes. This is only exacerbated in ToB where I would struggle with a fight at first, reload, only to do the exact same thing ending the fight easily within 5 seconds. So much stuff is happening in such a short amount of time it is too laborious to deduce what is going on and/or what went differently. It isn’t like random stuff doesn’t happen early but it’s mostly my ability to follow the combat is limited.
The final battle is the epitome of this where I had tons of summons, and so does the boss, with magic flying everything and every fighters is attacking 10 times in a single round. (that’s like 6 seconds) The screen is just covered in a colorful haze and the battlelog is like watching Internet packets flash by.
My attention is like butter spread over too much bread, and the bread only keeps getting bigger.
My experience of BG1:
- Click to uncover black areas.
- Click to uncover black areas.
- Click to uncover black areas.
- Attack monster, let your guys do stuff.
- If you survive, go on.
- If you die, reload and try again.
- Click to uncover black areas.
- Reach a town, enter a million identical houses.
- Click to uncover black areas.
- Repeat.
There’s far less map exploration in BG2. Most houses in BG1 can safely be ignored. There’s usually something going on in the taverns though.
My main memory of combat in bg2 was figuring out the mage load-out to beat the litch ( it was it an arch Litch?) there was some feat that let you put a series of spells into 1 slot, what was that called? Anyway good times. In bg1 my character was a dual class gnome wizard/crossbow user (rogue? Fighter? I forget) who abused invisibility. I enjoyed them both but somehow never felt the urge to replay either. But I still have fond memories of them.
But I could also say the late game is filled to the brim with an embarrassment of unused, extraneous abilities, potions, phat loot, win more progress. You don’t need half of them. At low level everything carries more weight. Every new character level a game changer.
I think around the time I stopped using fireball because it was too weak, with the advent of high damage AOE that doesn’t harm your party, the combat starts to suffer.
This is true of virtually every RPG. Let alone one that’s 20 years old.