Sure there's no general formula, but it's really not a surprise that the first big D&D videogame in a long time would be a huge success, after several years of tabletop D&D skyrocketing in popularity.
This game also has the meta that most recent D&D games missed. If you know the tabletop game, you can build an optimized character in the bg series, because the game system is close wherever it can be. Some spells are just too freeform to work without a human DM, but they seem to have done very well, perhaps a bit too much focus on environmental damage like the divinity series, but they toned that down right? I haven't looked at it in over a year.
Main thing I'm missing so far is you can't ready an action, which makes it nearly impossible to play defensively.
If your turn doesn't give you enough movement to run up to the enemies and stab them, you can't say "I run next to the doorway and wait to stab the first person who runs through it."
Instead, you have to waste your turn and then stand around getting attacked. So it's often to your advantage to roll worse in the initiative order, because the enemies will spend their turn dashing to within your movement range and then you actually get to hit them on your turn. Kind of hate it, rolling high initiative is supposed to let you get the drop on people or set up the battlefield more to your liking.
BG3 players, please let me know if I'm missing something here.
Interesting, the way other games have dealt with this problem, is a wait option. you roll to move first, decide to wait, now everyone with lower initiative must move before you do. It’s a version of first in last out, if everyone waits, the last to wait must move first. Sort of an elegant solution to part of this problem. Other games might also have a generic guard move. Move+guard and you attack first thing to come in range
3e used to have a "delay" option where you could opt to move down the initiative order (and stay there going forward), but 5e did away with it and the only way to change when you act is via the Ready action.
The way readying usually works is basically "move + guard", though it's more flexible than that in regular D&D with a human DM where you can line up whatever action you want like "I'll stay put, but if the goblin comes toward me I retreat into the next room" rather than only being for attacks.
But if they wanted to only implement it as letting you attack or cast a spell when an enemy enters a target area, that would be a lot better than nothing.
Ready an action could get really complicated from a design perspective, but I really miss the "dodge" action. It would've been easy to integrate and support offensive play. I use it in the tabletop often when I play tank characters to hold chokepoints. Interested in the reason why they don't have it, maybe some EA players involved in the feedback process know why?
Agreed on the dodge action, that's also a great default to have around too when you can't find something useful to do.
As far as readying an action, at minimum it could work like XCOM's "Overwatch" action, targeting the first enemy you see within range.
But it would be nice to give you a choice of targeting options so that you can designate a smaller area, just in case that's useful. But fine leave it as "first enemy in this area" instead of trying to give you full pencil and paper D&D flexibility. There is a UI for picking between options in an action, such as Enhance Ability needing you to pick an ability.
If it's limited to readying an attack, it would look like pretty much all the tactical games which have an "overwatch" mode. They already have most of the logic they need with attacks of opportunity. Just need a slightly different trigger.
Works for some characters, not really a strategy for a heavily armored fighter.
And either way, if there's a crowd of archers in the next room I wouldn't want to walk in (sneaking or no) where I have no cover, so I'm going to try and hold at the door. Still the better play even if it costs a whole turn of not being able to use my action.
The missing Ready action really tilts things toward those "alpha strike" characters made to hit first and hit hard, which isn't a design choice I like much. I want to be able to lure enemies into a room with minor illusion or other sounds and have the whole party readied the jump them.
Ready an action is only usable in combat, so RAW outside of combat readying actions to jump on people you lured with an illusion into a room is not possible. This is an ambush and would be dealt with stealth / surprise rules and THAT is in the game, so it is possible if you play it by the rules.
The ready action is designed to get used for delaying actions to bypass initiative order.
Is it considered weird to drop into combat grid and initiative order to handle action strategy like trying to dodge around a guard patrol, even if nobody's been stabbed yet and nobody might get stabbed at all?
Speaking of delay, I know that's not part of 5e (it was in 3.5), but if we can't have ready action could we at least have the delay option? A lot simpler to implement and it'd at least help with the situations where you would have been better off at worse initiative.
Even the ones I would never have expected to work do, I had a couple of potions of speaking to animals, which led to a lovely (fully voice acted) conversation with some oxen.
And I think this is one of the things modern games have missed for a lot of BG-era players -- discovery and delight.
AAA production costs make it difficult: you can't just spread the game's budget equally into niche content most will never see.
But if you do it smartly, it seems like there's still financial and development space for "Wouldn't players find it cool if...?" things.
One of the major turn-offs of post-TES3 Bethesda style games has been just how soul-less the tracks through their content have been. It's obvious anything "weird" had to get approved through a committee and was watered down in the process.
Games were the better when there was a path for a development team member to have 10% time to implement some kooky feature.
And maybe now that needs to flow through approval... but don't soften it into pablum in the process.
My first attempt with Speak with Animals led to a somewhat awkward conversation with a boar, whom an absent druid had recently promised a mate. His "haunches" clenched and quivered with anticipation.
Given almost every single D&D movie has been horrible it would be surprising if it wasn’t a well known studio like Larian doing it. It’s pretty common for games from existing “high profile” IP to be lazy, lackluster, money grabbing products.
The last D&D game I remember, Dark Alliance, is horrible.
I had fond memories of Dark Alliance. You maybe didn’t like it, and coming out for a console with no PC release was an odd choice for the series, but there was fun gameplay and story there. At least, 13 year old me playing co-op with my Dad through Dark Alliance 1 and 2 on my PS2 is a fond memory I have that maybe nobody else got.
Anyway, I was just surprised because I guess I never looked up a review of the Dark Alliance games but my general impression was actually pretty good.
edit: Apparently there is a Dark Alliance game with a naming collision that came out much more recently than the Dark Alliance series I'm thinking of. Smart move, Wizards of the Coast/DnD.
I had the same reaction as GP, thanks for the explanation! I don't think the original DA games hold up too well nowadays, but they were good at the time and still provide me with fond memories.
