BG3 and PoE - PoE2 best of both games?

Been playing BG3 and about 100 hours in and man what a game! BG3 EA was four years and honestly if it took GGG that long to produce a game as good as BG3 I would not care because it is an absolute masterpiece and worth the wait.

There is no endgame in BG3 it is one long campaign with unique dialogue, outcomes, cutscenes and progression based on your decisions which makes it infinitely replayable. Big maps are not an issue because exploration is rewarded with powerful loot and unique interactions with npc's and quests. Nothing in the game feels like a waste of time - you're rewarded for exploring and the tedious stuff is cut out of it with things like 'transfer loot to camp/hideout' and 'arrange loot by latest/weight/rarity/utility'.

BG3 also has different difficulty levels which PoE2 desperately needs because it's hard to strike a balance for everyone's skills, experience and challenge needs.

There is an obsession with endgame but if more effort was put into an engaging campaign that took ~60-75 hours on an optimised run, with unique storyline and outcomes based on your class and choices, endgame would not be as critical.

In a live service game where leagues are necessary for giving people stuff to do, for the people that have 100's of hours time to play, an endgame is essential. PoE2 leagues could add new classes, ascendancies, quests, unique chase items and endgame bosses.


That style of gameplay may not be for everyone but maybe with GGG's big brain they can create a truly unique game in the arpg genre that caters for those who want a deep and engaging campaign and those that like to zoom.

BG3 and PoE are not comparable. Very different types of RPGs.

BG3 is good - aside from the cheap pixel porn

"

Glorfndel01#6465 wrote:

BG3 and PoE are not comparable. Very different types of RPGs.

BG3 is good - aside from the cheap pixel porn

They are very different but thats why GGG could learn some things from BG3 to make it an undisputed masterpiece. You can retain the action elements and add a deep and engaging roleplaying element. That's actually what I thought GGG were going for when they made PoE2 - Jonathan actually said they want to do the campaign so people want to play it. Right now it's a slower PoE.

As said above, the two game are not comparable.

BG3 is pretty good, but unbalanced story wise. Act 1 is too short, Act 2 is to fast and Act 3 is too bloated. Most Act 3 sidequest would have made the game more replayble if scattered on Acts 1 and 2. Yet, the game isn't unfair or causes boredom.

PoE2 has a great Act 1, berable Act 2 and a prety tiring Act 3... the whole time travel plot is over the top. Hope GGG fix the balance in Acts lenght when release the Acts 4 to 6. Endgame needs a huge overhall... because is repetitive, exhaustive and not engaging at all, the whole tower + mechanics setups sucks all the fun out of gaming.

Comparing "Baldur's Gate 3" with "Path of Exile 2" is possible, but leads nowhere.

BG3 is a turn-based cRPG (basically table-top on PC) that focuses completely on the characters, story and is built around rolling a dice (Dungeons and Dragons).

PoE2 is an aRPG (Action Combat) that focuses completely on the "grind", kill, kill, kill - loot, loot, loot.

BG3 has difficulty settings because it's in that regard a classic role-play single-player game (with possible co-op).

PoE2 has no difficulty settings because it's an online game with an economy where everything, in terms of difficulty, has to be the same.

Both are "Role Play Games" genre-wise, but what they take out of the genre is completely different especially how they do things.

In BG3 loot is always in the same place/location/enemy without the ability to craft completely new gear.

In PoE2 you acquire random items and craft them to get what you need.

Long story short, turning PoE2 in BG3 would completely go against what the game wants to be. It's like turning "Counter-Strike" into a card game.

If you want other games like "Baldur's Gate 3" you have a huge selection.
Obviously "Baldur's Gate 1 & 2", "Dragon Age Origins", "Divinity Series", "Neverwinter", "Pathfinder", "Pillars of Eternity", and even stuff like "Warhammer 40k - Rogue Trader" - it's a huge selection.

"

JakkerONAIR#4902 wrote:

Long story short, turning PoE2 in BG3 would completely go against what the game wants to be.

All very good points. The arpg and crpg genre's currently play very differently but that's also why I believe its GGG's biggest opportunity.

To this point I think the game can still be a great rpg and I keep coming back to the point Jonathan made about it people wanting to play the campaign after multiple playthrough's. The only way to do that is to add more variability to the campaign. If you ever played D1 the Butcher and King Leoric were random quests - not every playthrough got to fight these memorable minor bosses they were random encounters.

"

There is no endgame in BG3 it is one long campaign with unique dialogue, outcomes, cutscenes and progression based on your decisions which makes it infinitely replayable.

Not really. At least not for me. Though almost all quests can be solved in different ways with different outcomes, in the end it means nothing. You just get some unique dialoge lines and basically that's it. Well, okay, sometimes you get unique item, but loot is very bad in DND by its very design.

From what I get, certain people do play BG3 again and again simply because of RP element. Literally. They want to dive in the world and live there with their char. Aside from that there is not too much replayability. Combat is nice, and you can replay 1-2 times max with very different setups, but there is no randomization in enemies/position/gear and it becomes boring.

Replayability comes only with RNG. The more RNG game offers, the more replayable it is.

"

GuiltyParty32#9913 wrote:

"

JakkerONAIR#4902 wrote:

Long story short, turning PoE2 in BG3 would completely go against what the game wants to be.

All very good points. The arpg and crpg genre's currently play very differently but that's also why I believe its GGG's biggest opportunity.

To this point I think the game can still be a great rpg and I keep coming back to the point Jonathan made about it people wanting to play the campaign after multiple playthrough's. The only way to do that is to add more variability to the campaign. If you ever played D1 the Butcher and King Leoric were random quests - not every playthrough got to fight these memorable minor bosses they were random encounters.

I mean, I get what you mean, but you don't have to do everything in the PoE campaign too.
The biggest problem is - the campaign works in both games completely differently and changing that would harm the game.
In PoE, the campaign is meant to be an introduction to the game (lore too if you bother) and all its mechanics until you hit "maps" (endgame).
If you type in global chat "Guys, I finally finished Act 10" (the campaign of PoE1) you will read to 100% "Gratz, you finished the tutorial" or any alteration of that. That's not even meant as a toxic thing in PoE1 - it's the truth.

Making the campaign better in terms of "replayability" is GGG's goal with PoE2, but not to the extent that it becomes too massive. Keep in mind, that playing through the PoE campaign is something ppl do every 3 months at least once and often multiple times with different characters. That's why it's more streamlined and not so "open and role-play-like" compared to actual RPGs.

The "we aim for a better replayability of the campaign" addresses something else - a lot of ppl hate doing the PoE1 campaign, so GGG tries to make one that ppl enjoy more or at least don't suffer that much.

"

Azimuthus#1135 wrote:

Replayability comes only with RNG. The more RNG game offers, the more replayable it is.

Agree about almost all your comment, besides this.

Replayability isn't much about RNG, but different outcomes... bear with me because I'm an old SNES gamer that grew up playing Chrono Trigger where RNG was basically inexistent, but outcomes were vast.

Replayability is about outcomes resulting by choices made during the gameplay. RNG is just a timesink.

"

Fhrek#4437 wrote:

"

Azimuthus#1135 wrote:

Replayability comes only with RNG. The more RNG game offers, the more replayable it is.

Agree about almost all your comment, besides this.

Replayability isn't much about RNG, but different outcomes... bear with me because I'm an old SNES gamer that grew up playing Chrono Trigger where RNG was basically inexistent, but outcomes were vast.

Replayability is about outcomes resulting by choices made during the gameplay. RNG is just a timesink.

nope, all wrong. replayability is about enjoyment of the gameplay-loop. you can have a predicable linear game and you can play it till wheels fall off because its fun to play. then you can have a full rng game or sandbox game or dynamic story with multiple endings and you will not even finish it once because its shit to play with.