16th October 2010, 8:44 PM
I still have no idea what BG1 you were playing, because it's definitely not the same game I've played. You act like it's some infamously difficult game or something, which simply is not true... it's not even the hardest Infinity Engine, much less one of the hardest RPGs!
Basically, in combat, Torment is easy, the BG series medium, and the IWD games challenging. In story, it's the reverse -- Torment has the most and best story, the BG games in between, and the IWD games the least. Those are the basic designs of the games. BG is supposed to be middle of the road, with plenty of challenge for those who want to seek it out but also approachable and a good game to learn the 2nd edition D&D rules with. I would say it succeeds at all of those things. Sure it's challenging at times, I agree, but you act like it's so, so much harder than it is...
I mean sure, the first time you play things like the bounty fights can be surprising. Most people die to those bounty hunters the first time they play. I think you're supposed to, so you have to take the game a little more seriously and learn strategy better...
The first couple hours of BG2 is chapter 1, a not that hard dungeon. Definitely not representative of the game as a whole... unless again you're confusing linearity with difficulty (thjat is you find it easier when like BG2 it's always obvious where you're supposed to go and you follow a mostly linear path, instead of like BG1 where you sort of know where to go, but can wander around into quite hard areas a lot along the way), or you're playing BG2 at normal but also played BG1 at normal and thus are playing BG2 at a lower difficulty level (considering as I've said they made the default easier -- no permadeath, etc).
Really the only reason I'd say that BG1 is harder than BG2 is because of that lack of linearity. It's easy for me to get off track in BG1, just wandering around the forests and stuff, and forget to get around to actually doing the next part of the story... but in BG2 you're always clearly following a path, so that's almost impossible. That's both something I like and dislike about BG1.
I mean, despite how much I love it, I've never actually finished BG1 while I have finished BG2 (though not ToB, it's extremely hard), and that's mostly because of how often I lose focus and find it hard to get myself to just do the quest path. :)
Basically, in combat, Torment is easy, the BG series medium, and the IWD games challenging. In story, it's the reverse -- Torment has the most and best story, the BG games in between, and the IWD games the least. Those are the basic designs of the games. BG is supposed to be middle of the road, with plenty of challenge for those who want to seek it out but also approachable and a good game to learn the 2nd edition D&D rules with. I would say it succeeds at all of those things. Sure it's challenging at times, I agree, but you act like it's so, so much harder than it is...
I mean sure, the first time you play things like the bounty fights can be surprising. Most people die to those bounty hunters the first time they play. I think you're supposed to, so you have to take the game a little more seriously and learn strategy better...
Quote:And, no, it's not easier than BG2, because I actually made it through a several hours of BG2 and only get completely wiped out once [in an optional battle].
The first couple hours of BG2 is chapter 1, a not that hard dungeon. Definitely not representative of the game as a whole... unless again you're confusing linearity with difficulty (thjat is you find it easier when like BG2 it's always obvious where you're supposed to go and you follow a mostly linear path, instead of like BG1 where you sort of know where to go, but can wander around into quite hard areas a lot along the way), or you're playing BG2 at normal but also played BG1 at normal and thus are playing BG2 at a lower difficulty level (considering as I've said they made the default easier -- no permadeath, etc).
Really the only reason I'd say that BG1 is harder than BG2 is because of that lack of linearity. It's easy for me to get off track in BG1, just wandering around the forests and stuff, and forget to get around to actually doing the next part of the story... but in BG2 you're always clearly following a path, so that's almost impossible. That's both something I like and dislike about BG1.
I mean, despite how much I love it, I've never actually finished BG1 while I have finished BG2 (though not ToB, it's extremely hard), and that's mostly because of how often I lose focus and find it hard to get myself to just do the quest path. :)
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