What's the best Veeky Forums video game and why is it Baldur's Gate II?

So am I like the one person in the world who didn't like DA:O?

The combat was tedious and occasionally infuriating, the story didn't grip me, the worldbuilding is okay, and above all the characters were completely uninteresting. The only guy I cared about talking to at all was Alistair.

Faster than Light, hands down. Close runner up is Knights of the Old Republic.

Why can't anyone spell Daggerfall right?

My friends first tried it on console, where they hated it, then tried it on PC where they liked it more.
The combat was really not as advertised and not even as intended, so while some people liked what they came up with, it also rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.
Story, wb, characters, are all very much season-to-taste. I think there was a bit of a 'Game of Thrones' effect; if you haven't seen any other fantasy fiction go this route, it seems fun and original, but you quickly realize that even by its own standards, it's pretty mediocre. I still enjoyed it at the time, at least - it's basically a grittier version of the War of the Lance, and every character in Dragon Age is definitely more interesting than those assholes.

Ditto. But I liked DA2, so I don't know if I'm a great person to agree with.

That's not how you spell Dawn Of War.

>So am I like the one person in the world who didn't like DA:O?
The more important question is did you like DA2 more than DAO?

I don't really like any of the Dragon Age games.

Origins had some choice music though. I'll give it that.

>But I liked DA2
What? Why?

Yes, in the whole wide world you're the only person who doesn't like DAO.

>Implying

PS:T, Ultima 7, either UW, Exile 3, Mask of the Betrayer, and Kotor 2 (with the gizka patch/restoration mod) are all enormously better than BG2.

Oblivion with guns? Nah, what your lookin fer is Mechwarrior 4.

A good GM should worldbuild like Morrowind, narrate like Planescape: Torment and level/encounter design like Baldur's Gate 2.

Man, I want to nitpick this, but...that's actually pretty damn solid.
I'd toss in some recommendations from the older series, like Ultima or Might and Magic, but I can't say for sure exactly what should be lifted from them.

>but I can't say for sure exactly what should be lifted from them.

References and callbacks to other games the GM ran.

I agree.

Though one big problem I had with DD is that wizards are boring. You've got all this action-packed combat going on when you're a Stalker, Archer, Rogue, Fighter, etc- and then when you're a sorcerer, you just stand there and watch a cutscene.

World interactivity from Ultima.

And magic from Arx Fatalis

>world interactivity
How so?
And, uh....how would spoiler work at the table?

Vermintide is pretty great. Warhammer end times... l4d with skaven...

... I was thinking about vidya when I posted, but I DO have a rune system homebrew in mind for the second of those.

Each 'spellcaster' has a bunch of index cards. Each card is either an 'Essence Rune', a 'Focus Rune', or an 'Amplifier Rune'.

Essence Runes decide exactly what the spells do. If they deal damage, heal the target, create an object, that kind of thing.

Amm Essence: Deals fire damage. 1d6 or whatever.
Baan Essence: Creates a physical object of some kind. Let's say it has, say, 2d6 health.
Cetra Essence: Heals. a solid 5 points of damage healed.

Then there are Focus runes. These determine who the spell effects.

Dex Focus: Targets a single target. Baan'dex would give a character armor, or create a single conjured object. Amm'dex would deal damage, Cetra'dex would heal.
Eaul Focus: Targets an area. Let's say, a 6-square line. Now, this is cool. If you throw together Baan'Eaul, you could create a wall. If you make an Amm'Eaul, you'll hurt everyone in a line.
Fuun Focus: Targets an area again, but this time it's a huge burst- a circle. Baan'Fuun would either create a solid sphere of stuff, or would protect everyone inside or whatever.

Finally, there are 'Amplifier' runes. These are more of addons to a spell.
Ghul Amplifier: Modifies, say, strength by 1 point or whatever for the encounter. If it hurts an enemy, they'd get -1 strength. If it heals an ally, they'd get +1 strength. And if you amplified a Baan'dex spell, your conjured object could be a summoned golem or whatever.
Huln Amplifier: Doubles any one rune. For Amm, it would deal 2d6 damage. For Eaul part, it would give you twice as many squares to effect. For Ghul part, it would modify twice as much strength.

So a wizard has 20 or so of these, and has to conserve cards. You play at least 1 Essence card to use a spell- without a Focus, it's touch range. So if a wizard uses his only Fuun Focus for the day, he has to deal with only having Dex focuses or whatever.

That's not how you spell Alpha Protocol.

...

I enjoyed Morrigan a lot but only because she was as fed up with stupid shit as I was. Her "I want to give birth to a God" plotline was wayyyyyy more interesting than the generic fantasy darkspawn shit.

Coincidentally I actually enjoyed DA2 quite a bit, because playing a Sarcastic Female Hawke is just playing as Morrigan.

Morrigan was okay, but she reeked of being some art designer or writer's waifu.

>BBEG
No thanks

I wouldn't go so far as to say I disliked it, but I didn't think it was great either, I thought it was profoundly mediocre. Never cared enough about the series to play the later games.

Yeah, you're right, he isn't the actual BBEG, but you don't know that at the time.

I played Inquisition because I heard it fixed some of the problems with Origins' gameplay.

It did; combat was far more engaging. But it did away with most of the first game's dark fantasy atmosphere and the whole thing just felt like a very lame knockoff of Forgotten Realms or something. To say nothing of the boring, no-surprises story and lack of any genuinely interesting companions (except for one: Blackwall).

Basically you just ran around performing fetch quests then went back to your castle to play a dating sim.

Mechwarrior 4 was only good for multiplayer.

The single player campaigns were dogshit. Dumb AI where every enemy mech just marches into close range and then waddles around a bit. Doesn't matter if they're a long-range missile support mech or a brawler, they all fight the same. The selection of mechs was stupid, with a bunch of random invented ones instead of old classics, and the mechs rarely even match the factions that are using them in-game. Case in point: the Capellans in MW:Mercs use only one mech that's even vaguely Capellan (the Catapult) and all the others were either Lyran or FedSuns proprietary mechs (Hellspawn, Bushwacker, Thanatos, Argus). That's like doing a WW2 game where the Russians are using nothing but Shermans, Panzer IVs, Tigers and Panthers for the entire chapter. The game's characters were pretty crap too. Stupid Evil Steiners in the first game, and a bunch of forgettable quirkily-accented mercs in the second.

But that multiplayer was boss though.

Will you please just fucking kill yourself?

>Baldur's Gate II?
Ugh. Spoken like a main stream /v/er. Gross

Darklands remains, hands-down, the best cRPG ever made.

There are other arguments that can be made, but they are all incorrect because this is not a matter of opinion. Darklands is superior, and that is objective fact.

What, no Pillars of Eternity?

Oh it´s you again

>generic as fuck fantasy setting
>ever good

Pick one and only one.

>WAAAAAAH STOP USING TERMINOLOGY THAT'S BEEN IN USE FOR OVER A DECADE BECAUSE I HAVE AUTISM
Go away.

The reason Forgotten Realms is generic as fuck is because it was the first real codifier of the 'generic fantasy setting'.

At the time, that shit was new, bro. It wasn't generic at all.

Not really, FR is just a pastiche of generic tropes which existed well before the setting came into being.

The only thing really new was it took all those things and gave them a massive scale.

Baldur's Gate II is probably the better game on a mechanical level in almost all respects, but in terms of actually getting the D&D experience I think I had more fun with the first Baldur's Gate.

I can justify that, though: after the tutorial, the original Baldur's Gate opens up pretty unrestrictively for you to wander around, do quests, explore the world, and run into cool characters. There's not a lot of pressure to immediately chase the main quest in-character, and the immediacy of the plot doesn't become urgent until you've actually hit the city of Baldur's Gate. The whole game has a kind of comfortable, "wandering the countryside and going on adventures" feel that my favorite campaigns were all about.

In contrast, it feels kind of weird to dick around and go on side quests in BG2. The game starts with Imoen getting kidnapped and the circumstances of the story only get more dire from there. Whenever I'm trying to really get into roleplaying a character in BGII, it never feels like there's an appropriate breather period in the plot where it actually makes sense to dick around exploring dungeons and ruins. It's like the "game master" of BGII is being a lot more heavy-handed with their plot than in the previous campaign.

It's still the better of the two games, don't get me wrong, but I just think I had more fun with the first one.

Well, it first came into existence only what, 13 years before LoTR was published? I'd say that's pretty new, especially for the whole 'orcs/elves/dragons' thing.

>Well, it first came into existence only what, 13 years before LoTR was published?

user, FR was published in 1987...

>13 years before LotR

I don't mind the FR setting but I really think you have your dates a bit off

Just thought of a game like that, jizzed

That's nice and all, now be a good imouto, take off those clothes and put on the Robe of Good Archmage

I couldn't get into it at all, unlike Jade Empire or KOTOR

WHO THE FUCK HAD THE IDEA TO DUAL CLASS IMOEN, for fuck sack.

say what you will about DA 2s pants-on-head retarded story but combat in that game is fun as hell.

IIRCs there was literally no other option for good (Good) non-specialist Mage. And Rogue's main use was that 120% trapfinding. Imoen could conveniently cover both. There was no reason not to Dual Class her.

I just feel betrayed that they impose you the dual class at the beginning, as it is also a character from the first one... Minsc is still a ranger, jaheira is still a druid/warrior and so on, but imoen just happened to study magic (lore wise, why not, but it doesn't feel right)

I don't even this has to be b8.

Hey, I read a thing that mentioned that the dude started writing stories set in FR in 1967.

I play all the sidequests available in chapter 2 when you're raising money for the Shadow Thieves. Then just play the main quest straight out. I thought that's how everyone did it?

Which would still be well after Lord of the Rings, which were published in 1954-55.

Planescape: Torment, go fuck yourself.

Other acceptable answers are Morrowind, Dwarf Fortress, Legacy of Kain, SW:KotOR, and Dark Souls.

... Wait, shit, I meant after, and typed before. Goddamnit.

Man I don't even give a shit about the source of whatever it is you're doing here, I just fucking love card-based spellcasting systems.

Too bad that the gameplay of PST is not that great... It could have been, by far, the best game ever...

Also agree with the other. Dark souls is truly a masterpiece

If you were like me and expected Neverwinter Nights 3, you were greatly disappointed. Either way, the game was shit. Veeky Forums hates it too.

>Too bad that the gameplay of PST is not that great...
The combat is weak, but you only have to fight a handful of times. All other gameplay aspects are great.

Yeah, but in fact, if you really play in character, you should try to save Imoen as fast as possible and try to stop a true bbeg to achieve is evil plan.... And not wander half the kingdom to meet nice druids and blairwitch project references. Also, bg1 was way more friendly toward evil characters , while bg2 is made for at least neutral party, and ideally good. It's not even the major plot, as you could imagine that you pursue Irenicus to take his power/recover your legacy, but how you must resolve most of the stuff as "good" (it's still way better than in most other games... I'm still a huge fan of the ability to keep the soul gem in the faust quest)

Yeah, that's why it's still one of my favourite game, but those fight sequences are such a let down in this amazing game. I'm even wondering if the game could have been better with "narrated fight"

Don't worry, the source has absolutely nothing to do with the system.

But yeah, the idea is that a wizard has a set of cards that he uses for the day. Then over the length of the day, he's gotta conserve them. If he spends too many cards he'll be left with the shit that isn't very useful- like an Essence Rune that just creates light, or an Essence rune that literally does nothing but serve as a vehicle for augments. But when you combine Light Essence with a huge Area focus, you can create a sphere of blinding. Or if you connect a bunch of 'boost constitution' augments to the Nothing Essence, you can give yourself a ton of constitution.

>This shitfest was bumped back from page 11

And you bumped it too ! Quick ! Everyone to the shitfest !

>This guy made a post and uploaded a reaction image instead of scrolling past

Keked at the filename

I literally just grabbed the stupidest reaction image I had.

Sure. The other advantage is that BG1 had twice as many party members to recruit. The other problem is that most of the best ones in BG2 are evil. Viconia, Edwin, Korgan.

>Outlanders actually believe this
Alright, fun's over. Back to the ebony mines, slave.

Yes. Mostly Sword Coast, a bit of the North, and Waterdeep, with Cormyr over to the east a bit later on.

I tried and tried to get into it, and could never make it all the way through. Some of it is what you and others have mentioned (the combat was usually more frustrating than entertaining), but it never really grabbed me. And the crawl through the dwarven cavern shit that never seemed to end killed it for me.

I didn't mind the dwarf section, it was probably one of their better-written parts.

Fuck that Fade bullshit though, with a rusty spike.

>Fuck that Fade bullshit though, with a rusty spike.

The reason I finally just dropped the game.

The mage's tower part? Yeah, fuck that place.

Every time I see one of these threads, I read through them in search of some great game I haven't played.
Then I'm reminded that there already are games I know about but haven't gotten my shit together to play.
Then I go on to waste my time elsewhere.

I gotta play Planescape: Torment already.

Good news, there's a mod that gives you all the attribute boosts and XP while skipping the boring parts.