Whats better, deadfire or Baldurs gate?

[Hafenguy]

Hi Folks I will finish POE 1 in a few Day and now im figuring out, what game I will start next. 

Baldurs gate 1 + 2 or Deadfire. 

I started playing iso RPGs after I finished watching Game of Thrones and wanted to play a game that gives me the same feeling of experiencing a epic Story with a Group of different Charakters. 

 

Which would you think will be better? 

I now in this forum will probably not everyone have played Baldurs Gate but I guess most of the people who play POE will even now Baldurs Gate. 

[kanisatha]

I don't see why it need be one or the other. Since you've just played PoE1, I would suggest PoE2 to follow up. And you can (and should) play BG1&2 later on. But I can also see some people recommending the opposite because they like taking a break from what they just played. I, however, favor continuity over taking a break from something.

[Chaospread]

Epic story (and similar environment of GoT) --> go for BG1, but I'd do what @kanisatha told you, playing Deadfire just after Poe1 makes it to be more appreciated, I suppose

[xzar_monty]

Given that there aren't that many good titles in the genre[*], you're likely to eventually play both Deadfire and Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 and then see for yourself which one is better, in your view. Since you've just played PoE1, Deadfire seems the obvious choice for your next game.

 

[*] I mean, BG1&2, PoE1&2, Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous just about covers it.

[thelee]

To me, it's very very hard to compare the games. They're basically separated by decades. BG1 & 2 are great games, but even the enhanced editions really show their age. BG1's writing is pretty torturous (a lot of faux-middle-ages dialogue), and you'll do tons of aimless wandering through identical-looking and vast, empty wilderness (i basically keep a walkthrough open so i know where to go on any map for the interesting stuff). BG2 has much better writing and better area design, but the system is just creakingly dated compared to more modern CRPGs.

 

to the actual meat of the question, you should just go for Deadfire for now. Then if you're still hankering for more party-based iso-style CRPGs, I would do Wrath of the Righteous or Kingmaker. And if you're still trying to scratch the itch, then go for Baldur's Gate 1 & 2. like xzar_monty said, even if you play a lot of these games to death, there's only a handful of them with no time horizon for more, so you'll probably eventually find your way to Baldur's Gate 1 or 2 in the end. though personally I would skip straight to 3 unless you really want the isometric experience.

[xzar_monty]

In my view, BG2 still works remarkably well, but I do agree that BG1 is essentially rubbish, pretty much for the reasons you describe.

[omgFIREBALLS]

Systems-wise I'd say Deadfire is the best RTwP party-based RPG out there. The mechanics are good (and I like to partially attribute this to "not forced to imitate some tabletop rules") and your character can be fairly nuanced. I could really do without the Polynesian archipelago setting and the gods behaving the way they do though.

Since you're looking for story, go with BG1/BG2.

[De_jesus]

To respond properly: BG2 is a great game. Very dated, and will feel like it. If you love CRPGs, you'll adapt fairly quickly. It has been years since I played it, but one thing I remember, I think, is the tedium with spellcasters early in the game. Especially as it relates to the rules for DnD at the time.

Edited February 28 by De_jesus

[thelee]

3 hours ago, De_jesus said:

From a production standpoint, it is hard to even compare them. Far and away Baldur's Gate wins in that regard. Combat also offers more "versatility"; not necessarily better, but the ability to leverage your terrain, shove, fly, etc. is a big plus. I would LOVE to see Deadfire with the same production value.

note - OP is asking about BG1 and 2, not BG3.

[De_jesus]

8 hours ago, thelee said:

note - OP is asking about BG1 and 2, not BG3.

Ha! Well, that is embarrassing.

[SenSx]

I'm not going to make friends with hardcore c-rpg fans, but I tried Baldur's Gate late, and did not find it very entertaining.

Combat is dated, mechanics are dated, progression is very poor, story did not really start before I left the game.

I of course had its merit at its time, it started it, but it does not offer much anymore now.

 

Never tried BG2, and that might be a mistake though.

 

So I would definitely advice PoE 2, it's a great game and has many bug fix and balance mods.

Dragon Age Origins would be the game to play first imo, it's easier to understand and the narrative is very engaging, but since you started with PoE alwready...

Dragon Age 2 is not as bad as people say it is, it's just way worse than Origins.

Tyranny is in the same vein as PoE, but with a different fighting system based on abilities with cooldown and a progression similar to Elder Scrolls, refreshing for a c-rpg imo (not as good than Pillars, suffers from lots of balancing and difficulty issues if I  remember well)

You also have DoS 1&2 although I would say they focus more on gameplay than everything else (story, world building), but the companions are great.

 

Then you have Pathfinder games, but with hard accessibility reputation I haven't tried it yet.

Also it is one of those RPG that forces the tabletop adaptation, imo it's not always for the best...

 

BG3, I hope it's as good as people say it is...

Tabletop adaptation worries me, I hope combats are still good.

[thelee]

slight thread necro, but

  

On 3/3/2024 at 2:46 AM, SenSx said:

Then you have Pathfinder games, but with hard accessibility reputation I haven't tried it yet.

Also it is one of those RPG that forces the tabletop adaptation, imo it's not always for the best...

Kingmaker and especially Wrath of the Righteous are extremely inaccessible IMO. Very relentless curve to learn the extremely complicated mechanics quickly and very punishing for suboptimal builds. Some people are really into that aspect, though. I ended up having to watch a ton of youtube build videos (despite being familiar with 3/3.5e, the PF1e ancestors) because I was getting extremely overwhelmed by the mechanics and decision points.

 

On 3/3/2024 at 2:46 AM, SenSx said:

BG3, I hope it's as good as people say it is...

Tabletop adaptation worries me, I hope combats are still good.

i only played a couple of casual 5e sessions, but imo BG3 is better thought of as an immersive sim RPG (immersive sim = think like the Prey remake which had very open mechanics and world exploration) that just happens to have a D&D 5e flavor, than a D&D 5e game. Lots of very important mechanics that are Larian specials and not D&D rules (the massive interactions with surfaces of various types, extreme verticality, interesting itemization [I don't think stuff like Lightning Charges or Arcane Acuity are D&D]). Even when they are D&D rules, Larian adapts them in a way that make them pretty special or distinct (jumping is a lot easier, the extreme verticality makes athletics a very valuable skill, etc). Combat in BG3 is legit great and is a great argument for turn-based, i don't think it could possibly work as well in RTwP. edit: put another way, if I spend an hour in a single battle in pathfinder crpgs, or classic BG, it's extremely annoying or something has gone really badly. Spending an hour in combat in Deadfire or BG3: very satisfying.

Edited March 6 by thelee

[Elric Galad]

BG1 feels way more dated than BG2 somehow. Encounter design is the most dated thing in BG1, with a lot of dumb foes and is overall quite repetitive.

 

That being said, BG1 still has a few unique perks :

- It's a low level experience. You have no money, overlevelled foes and even your weapons sometimes break. 

- You will free to explore, more than many game of the sub-genre, comparable to an Elder Scrolls. These area are reallistically depiscted as pretty empty from interesting stuff. The game is quite immersive because the city of Baldur's Gate is literally fully included which is quite rare for a city of this size in a videogame. Even the Witcher series won't let you enter most buildings. That makes a lot of these area not so interesting, but there are still surprises here and there if you search everything.

So you're more likely to reject BG1 than PoE1&2 or BG2. But I still cherish it.

[De_jesus]

On 3/6/2024 at 9:19 AM, thelee said:

slight thread necro, but

  

Kingmaker and especially Wrath of the Righteous are extremely inaccessible IMO. Very relentless curve to learn the extremely complicated mechanics quickly and very punishing for suboptimal builds. Some people are really into that aspect, though. I ended up having to watch a ton of youtube build videos (despite being familiar with 3/3.5e, the PF1e ancestors) because I was getting extremely overwhelmed by the mechanics and decision points.

A huge part of that inaccessibility is the attribute and enemy volume bloat. (Special mention, for the learning curve around how to build characters properly)

Those two things basically require that you know how to tactically address specific enemies AND pre-buff after every single rest. And there are a LOT of buffs you'll need. Casting 5-10 buffs at the start of each day for each character in your party, then marching into enemy encounter after enemy encounter after enemy encounter is a slog. Wait, not just casting but manipulating certain feats to have 24+ hours of a buff, so that you can cast buffs, rest, maintain those buffs, then cast more buffs to deal with specific encounters. The end of Act 4 or start of Act 5, I forget, just dragged on.

Not to mention dealing with "mirror image" constantly...

I love the game mechanically, but it's something you need to be prepared to sit through. Because it can be a slog and it is not user friendly.

Edited March 18 by De_jesus

[yorname]

On 3/7/2024 at 1:19 AM, thelee said:

i only played a couple of casual 5e sessions, but imo BG3 is better thought of as an immersive sim RPG (immersive sim = think like the Prey remake which had very open mechanics and world exploration) that just happens to have a D&D 5e flavor, than a D&D 5e game. Lots of very important mechanics that are Larian specials and not D&D rules (the massive interactions with surfaces of various types, extreme verticality, interesting itemization [I don't think stuff like Lightning Charges or Arcane Acuity are D&D]). Even when they are D&D rules, Larian adapts them in a way that make them pretty special or distinct (jumping is a lot easier, the extreme verticality makes athletics a very valuable skill, etc). Combat in BG3 is legit great and is a great argument for turn-based, i don't think it could possibly work as well in RTwP. edit: put another way, if I spend an hour in a single battle in pathfinder crpgs, or classic BG, it's extremely annoying or something has gone really badly. Spending an hour in combat in Deadfire or BG3: very satisfying.

Do you think RTwP games can learn at least something from Larian? I've finally tried BG3 (didn't finish it though, computer can't handle it mid to late game), it's clearly by far the best combat from Larian and even for a TB "hater" like me, I have to admit I can't complain about pretty much anything except for it being TB. I've seen people arguing that the Larian style of terrain utilizing and verticality are hard to adapt for RT or RTwP, but I don't know, isn't using Z-axis already in modern ACT or general RPGs? Maybe it's something technical, rather than a design problem?

 

It's kind of funny that BG3 as a turn-based game allows saving mid-combat, while I've seen at various points in Pathfinder games, the auto-save checkpoints Owlcat put there don't work because they conflict with a cutscene or combat has begun, so a reload means going through cutscenes and dialogues again and again. I think this choice from Larian also helps reduce the punishment on player's mistakes.

[thelee]

12 hours ago, yorname said:

I've seen people arguing that the Larian style of terrain utilizing and verticality are hard to adapt for RT or RTwP, but I don't know, isn't using Z-axis already in modern ACT or general RPGs? Maybe it's something technical, rather than a design problem?

i dunno what "ACT" stands for here. but i think the two big problems is that 1) it would be too chaotic, and 2) a lot of the more interesting tactical plays really only work as an artifice of turn-based mode.

as an example of the 2): you can shove enemies off cliffs because they're just patiently waiting for their turn. in RTwP they would be running towards you, the window of time to do a fatal shove is like a fraction of a second. another example (with a direct analogue to deadfire): blowing up barrels or creating surfaces near/on enemies. in deadfire, there are actually those essence batteries and barrels stuff that you can try to blow up, but they are mostly practically impossible to use in the intended manner. you have to basically tank an enemy right next to one of them, in such a way where your tanker is out of range but the enemy is not, because otherwise you have like 1 second to blow up the battery/barrel before the enemy gets out of range. in BG3, if an enemy is standing next to an explosive hazard, that enemy will politely wait for their turn while you explode it.

as for the chaos in 1), as it stands a lot of people already struggle with RTwP. my honest take on this is that it's a skill issue - people aren't pausing nearly as aggressively as they "should." but ultimately the gamer is right because the gamer is the customer. if you add a bunch of environmental interactions and effects, you start to demand an awful lot from the player.

[yorname]

2 hours ago, thelee said:

i dunno what "ACT" stands for here. but i think the two big problems is that 1) it would be too chaotic, and 2) a lot of the more interesting tactical plays really only work as an artifice of turn-based mode.

as an example of the 2): you can shove enemies off cliffs because they're just patiently waiting for their turn. in RTwP they would be running towards you, the window of time to do a fatal shove is like a fraction of a second. another example (with a direct analogue to deadfire): blowing up barrels or creating surfaces near/on enemies. in deadfire, there are actually those essence batteries and barrels stuff that you can try to blow up, but they are mostly practically impossible to use in the intended manner. you have to basically tank an enemy right next to one of them, in such a way where your tanker is out of range but the enemy is not, because otherwise you have like 1 second to blow up the battery/barrel before the enemy gets out of range. in BG3, if an enemy is standing next to an explosive hazard, that enemy will politely wait for their turn while you explode it.

as for the chaos in 1), as it stands a lot of people already struggle with RTwP. my honest take on this is that it's a skill issue - people aren't pausing nearly as aggressively as they "should." but ultimately the gamer is right because the gamer is the customer. if you add a bunch of environmental interactions and effects, you start to demand an awful lot from the player.

I'm not sure about 2), for example there are already tons of push/pull effects in Deadfire, I found the reason I never use them is purely that they don't do anything beneficial for me, moving enemies away just means I have to reposition. not because I can't find an ideal chance to push them in the direction I want. Also for things like barrels, the problem is other isometric CRPGs don't let players to move them at all, not necessarily because it's hard to aim in real time. In comparison Larian maps feel much more alive even outside of combat.

But for being chaotic, that's a fair point. Limiting party size and making encounters of less but stronger enemies can help.

I also noticed something else: PoE games have very dull sound effects and animation, while Larian makes every action comically impactful, both visual and audio. That's probably another advantage of TB to make the game attractive. Other than maybe Obsidian was just bad at it (character voices also have awful recording quality), it would be so messy if everyone is doing the Larian style animation and bombarding my ear at the same time.

[yorname]

Maybe it's unnecessary for OP now, as for BG1 and 2, IMO there isn't a huge reason to even play 2 today. 2 was great because of a relatively compelling story and amazing amount of choices and consequences at the time, but today POE offers much better gameplay while maintaining the overall style; BG2's story, characters and freedom aren't really dated by now, but also no longer groundbreakingly good. You can certainly play it, you won't regret it, but IMO it's better if you're interested in its influence on the history of RPGs, otherwise there are much better choices.

[Yougottawanna]

Speaking only for myself, I put 500+ hours into the Baldur's Gate series and loved it.... but have put 1200+ hours into the PoE series, 850 or so in Deadfire, I think it's my most played non-MMO game ever. I actually do think PoE is the better series, partly just because it was released later with better engine tech etc...

[Masticator]

Hah, I still have yet to watch Game of Thrones. Maybe one of these days. I just don't want to pay for HBO.

I do want to defend the BG games, I feel they are worth playing if you care about video game history and CRPG history, and have an interest in Dungeons and Dragons. Yeah they are clunky and outdated, but the enhanced editions help with some of that clunkiness. I definitely recommend Deadfire first though, it's a good game.

 But if you have any interest in Dungeons and Dragons. BG1 and 2 is worth checking out. And yeah I even like all the outdoor maps in BG1. It's what a quintessential D&D adventure usually started out in back in the old days. And that's it's core identity, Dungeons and Dragons. So yeah it's all about traipsing about the forest and going into inns/taverns and all that. BG2 is a step up in every single direction. At the time it seemed the best thing out there. Especially since they added things like strongholds which was a pretty cool addition. I'm not sure if anyone else was doing that type of thing back in those days. The combat was more in depth as well, though mage battles could get a little tedious trying to bring protections down. You'll probably have to look some of that stuff up about the mage protections.

BG1 is not without its faults though. Level design isn't great. And respawning kobolbs and gnolls. Ugh. Respawns are a big no-no for me. And the random encounters while resting is annoying, but those kinds of things were in D&D rules back then. And don't get me started at the annoying xvart village.

I actually played BG2 before BG1, but I don't recommend it. Despite that, I still see the charm in BG1. Though it helps when you had the tutu mod. With the enhanced edition you don't have to worry about the tutu mod, I believe it's all built in.

[thelee]

a bit of a thread necro but responding to Masticator and touching on something SenSx said months ago - 

personally speaking I played both BG1 and 2 when they came out. While i Iiked BG1 i could not get into it long enough to get past Nashkel mines. For some reason I picked up BG2 at release and then played it to death and only then did i go back to BG1 and enjoy it for its own sake (with a better appreciation of AD&D). I think BG1 is a lot more "old-school" RPG [meaningless random encounters galore! lots of early permadeath opportunities] and more tabletop-grounded, whereas BG2 did a lot more modern video game design innovations and polished the tabletop edges more. So BG1 is probably going to be rougher to get into from a modern standpoint, even with enhanced edition. I actually prefer BG1 these days precisely because of these old school charms, it's a pretty different experience. (Ironically that's the exact opposite dynamic with PoE and Deadfire, PoE1 feels more old school and traditional and I prefer Deadfire precisely because it feels a lot more modern and polished.)

Edited September 6 by thelee

[yorname]

Exactly! The maps, quest design and storytelling were so different between 1 & 2. If you neglect the graphics, BG2, DAO to BG3 were not all that different, but BG1 was something else.

I began to play when I was teenager because I was trying to be this edgelord: BG was not a huge deal in my country, the majority got PC and games slightly later, at the time of Warcraft 3 and WoW. So I just wanted to be different and play this "cult classic" someone told me about. It was the first game I played with proper story at all (with localization at least, Starcraft actually had good storytelling but no localization meant it was gibberish to 10yo me) so I didn't notice it. But after many years that I've played newer CRPGs, or even games in general, the difference was obvious.

I too went back to PoE1 a few times but could not finish it again. I think the problem is that in many QoL aspects Deadfire is a strict upgrade, unlike BG1 and 2 where the different character levels made player experience different enough that it's only a matter of preference.

For example I noticed that PoE1's shorter but more frequent encounters to be very tiring. You need to do the exact same things at the start of nearly every encounter, but every encounter is so short that you feel most of combat time is buffing chore. When playing BG you can afford being lazy, but endurance/health design in PoE1 means you want to at least do something in trash fights if only to preserve health.

Edited September 9 by yorname