I guess I'm a strange gamer. I love RPGs, I like D&D, but I never got into Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale or Torment the way most people did. I could never really put my finger on what was it that rubbed me the wrong way about them. It's not like I hated them. But they felt cluttered, I never felt fully at ease playing them. It always felt like swimming up river, fighting the game, rules and mechanics that seemed ill-fitting.

So how much like those games are Pillars of Eternity? Is there any point in me putting it on my wishlist and keeping an eye out for a price drop or a promo? I know "spiritual succesor to Baldur's Gate" is the games big selling point, but it's a loose term that can mean many things.

To me it actually seems to be a very good amalgam of all of those games, so likely not something you'll want to play if you didn't get into those older ones. If you're curious enough, try watching a couple streams or let's plays to get a feel for what it's like. If you're still a little on the fence, then I'd say wait for a big price drop and give it a shot then.

It's not exactly like those, but it's very close. The battle mechanics need a bit of getting used to... like my Rolling Flame bouncing back from the arch of a door... but all in all it looks and feels great.

If you go by the truth table:

Do you like Baldur's Gate = False
Do you like Icewind Dale= False
Do you like Planescape Torment= False

Would you like Pillars of Eternity = Do you like Baldur's Gate + Do you like Icewind Dale + Do you like Planescape Torment

Would you like Pillars of Eternity = False + False + False

Would you like Pillars of Eternity = False

So there, you have it :P

I'm in a similar boat to the OP. For me, I think it was the dated mechanics of BG and PT that annoyed me. In BG, I hated how resting in the wilderness was punished by ever spawning enemies and yet if you don't rest, you run out of spells fast. But in battling the spawned enemies, you might use up more spells and hence make the resting pointless. Area effect spells don't show you what area they would affect. Equipping a bow for every party member was handy for softening up the enemy before melee and yet it was tedious to switch weapons. In the end, playing it seemed more of a chore than fun. Or maybe I just sucked at it. The story, though, seemed interesting. PT's story and characters was also interesting but the combat was really boring. I probably would have completed it but stopped playing at one point and never went back. Too hard to pick up again since I've forgotten what happened.

I loved KOTOR2 and NWN2 and its expansion, though, but it sounds like Pillars of Eternity might be a bit more old school than those. I do tend to prefer fully voiced dialogue, although I appreciate that it then limits the amount of branching dialogue that can exist.

I didn't play the original BG until recently. I played BG2 when it came out, a couple times, I like the story a lot but there is a lot of overcumbersome combat IMO and the roleplaying is to be desire IMO, as interesting as the ROLE you play going good or bad is, it's not deep role-playing at all. But I could never get through BG because the few times I tried over the years the respawning of the mobs killed it for me along with some other iffiness of the interface, but most of all the respawning. But now there are patches and mods that fix a lot of the issues, as well as having the ability to turn monster-spawns COMPLETELY off (the #1 thing that allowed me to play it, finally), you can also use the BG2 UI and updated engine, which really just makes it that much smoother of a play and actually allows getting into for me. However, they are still just good+ games in my book, BG2 being the better game, but both just being good, nothing great. The story is told really well, that is what is great about it, and if you like a lot of combat for a lot of time, that is also great, but for me it becomes a bit much to get through to get at the adventure and story.

I recommend at PS:T, Arcanum, Fallout 1+2, and now Inquisitor and consider them to be must-plays and think they deserve mention wayyyy before BG/BG2 (which I don't consider a must-play, at all, it's a "must play if if if") , to me they aren't even the same calibur of games. There are other games I'd recommend before they BGs as well, and I'm not suggesting you play BG/BG2 but I do suggest the others. Maybe you should just play PoE and let it really get you into the genre and then go back and play these classics, but, that is almost blasphemy, but hey, whatever it takes! Start PS:T over, become a mage ASAP (best way to play the game, and best combat, IMO.) If needed turn the difficulty down and play it easier.

As for having a hard time dealing with "dated mechanics", I really think it just takes a little time and getting used to them and if you allow yourself the patience for that you will get huge rewards. They just have a bit of a learning curve more than most because of the complexities and the not-perfect implementation of everything and their unique styles.

As for PoE, it is probably worth trying, but read some information, watch some videos, give it some time for more information and videos to accumulate and find out more about it, you'll probably be able to tell if it is for you or not. If you have difficulty with the type of game because of the character building aspects, just play it on an easier mode. Don't worry about learning how to build a great character so you can be badass as possible, play a main character you will find fun in a fun way and enjoy.

If you don't like combat, why not just play adventures?

Re-post this in the Captain Obvious tread :P

We share an opinion on the original BG, so if you haven't already, I fully recommend NPC mod for the game. All of the party members actually have full dialogue trees and fun interactions with it, and altho it's a completely fan-made project, it has improved the game significantly, at least for me - I found most of them very well written, nicely thought-out and just plain fun to discover. Vast majority of games don't offer interactions nearly as deep as I want of a RPG. In fact, the word 'non-linearity' is pretty much unknown for them.

The only Infinity Engine game I played was Planescape, never really played Baldur's Gate past Gorion's demise. However, from what I can tell about PoE is that it plays very similarly to the IG games minus the D&D rules, however they still managed to build a similar system.

Despite my lack of BG experience I am enjoying PoE a lot, still learning the game mechanics and they resemble highly the D&D ones but getting used to them slowly.

You might not like it because from my perspective it's like BG3.

It looks like I'll give this one a pass then. If there is ever a major discount or, with a lot of luck, even a freebie during Insomnia Sale or something like that I'll gladly give it a chance, but untill then I'll set my sights at some other RPG's. Thank's for your advice everyone :)

Though I agree, it was kind of exhilarating wielding magic that was as likely to murder you as the enemy. 'Sorcery is a sword without a hilt. There is no safe way to grasp it.' I remember throwing a fireball and running like hell while giggling.

In any case, none of those things are issues in Pillars of Eternity. At least as far as I can tell so far. There's no obvious way to botch a character beyond belief, no dump stats. Spell ranges are clearly marked, difficulty settings offer variety instead of turning enemies into sacks of hitpoints, switching weapons... well that one was solved in BG2 anyway. Experience points aren't awarded for killing everything in sight so you're given more freedom to play your way too.

In fact despite clearly trying to invoke the memory of Baldur's Gate in look and style, Pillars of Eternity is very much modern. That was one of my major gripes with Wasteland 2 - it replicated everything from the older games including the outdated design. You'd have to individually select a character, click their skill in the hotbar, and then click on a locked container about a thousand times. In Pillars of Eternity you just click the container and the party member with the highest skill automatically goes to work. A simple thing maybe, but it serves to illustrate my point. If the OP or yourself is too used to the refined modern designs developed over decades of trial and error and frustrated by the outdated interfaces of older games, Pillars of Eternity might just be your bread and butter after all.

I don't think my problem with Baldur's Gate was that it was not "modern" enough. After all I love Lands of Lore, a game way older than Baldur, and I played that one for the first time only some two years ago, and the first time I bounced off Baldur's Gate was about a decade ago, maybe more.

Not sure if that was directed at me or not, but, for me, it's not that I don't like combat. I love combat. In BG/BG2 for me, a lot of it was "filler" combat to kill mobs to get XP (because it is a D&D game, part of the whole point), and while I like that to an extent, and like it for a good portion of the game, I could have simply done with less of it because of how it was implemented. To me it distracted from the game rather than added to it, 25% less combat and I would love the game more because of the story/adventuring, but the combat gets in the way of the enjoyment, in that game, for me. I wouldn't like the game if it was just an adventure with NO combat. That is pretty cool, maybe if I ever play it through again I will add them! I don't know that I will though, well, maybe in a long time.

No XP is given by regular combat like random mobs unless you clear an area or complete a quest, gives a nice incentive to solve quests however you like rather than farming enemies to reach a higher level. I haven't played enough Baldur's Gate to answer the topic question, but I would caution against playing yet due to the numerous threads regarding in-game issues at Reddit, Steam and Obisidian forum.

I just read that as you gain more party members loading times increases by a good rate and something like that will piss me off to no ends.