Baldur's Gate 3

I think it’s the time of development. Bethesda games used to be shallow, but they also came out moderately paced. Now things like starfield take the better part of a decade and it’s still just as shallow, which has some people a bit underwhelmed. Personally it’s been so long since a Bethesda game came out, as a person who isn’t a Bethesda fan to start with, I forgot how shallow Bethesda games were.

The problem is people defending the games as perfect 10/10 GOTY. And just the general gamers who get super whiny and mad if anyone complains about anything in Starfield, saying that's just the "Bethesda genre".

I'm enjoying Starfield far more than I expected.

That said the NPC interactions are incredibly sterile in comparison to the full mo-capped acting of the BG3 NPCs. The Starfield NPCs feel like mannequins just spitting out their lines.

I like Skyrim and Fallout New Vegas, hate Fallout 3, 76, and Starfield. The former are not comparable to the latter.

It's totally fair. Other companies _could _engage in more dialog with players and take feedback into consideration before release, but they'd rather lean on their prior accolades and slowly leak teaser trailers and whatnot to build hype instead.

I think you mean, time for Bethesda to get their act together rather than create trash. I love skyrim, morrowind, and am excited for starfield, but larian is a bit smaller than Bethesda who is owner by zenimax who is owned by Microsoft and therefore has the folks to make awesome things. And yet you have BG3 as a masterpiece. It's all excuses to me. I wouldn't call it unfair. I'd call it fair. I'd say larian is even handicapped, and they just kicked the pants off Bethesda.

I've got a steam deck. BG3 runs fine on it and surprisingly so does Starfield. (albeit both on low graphics settings, but I'm cool with that). BG3 is also ok because it's turn based. Though, so far, any blips in fps in Starfield haven't messed up my being able to survive firefights.

BG3 has a steeper learning curve for sure. I love the character interactions and the voice acting is superb. Starfield is easier to just pick up and start playing. (though my first time navigating my ship was a WTF moment and the game threw you into a ship battle right away) The early battles are easy enough that even with flailing, you survive. Over time I've gotten more accustomed to the controls. FWIW, NPC dialog and interactions are more janky for sure than BG3. BG3 is so smooth and realistic with dialog and expressions.

Both games have abysmal inventory systems. hahahaha! So far, I'm enjoying both games. I've put BG3 down for a bit to allow time for Larian to clean up Act 3 a bit more. I'm 85 hours in and all of the story threads are coming together and the consequences of my choices are getting thick.

Starfield is a hit with me too. It's a grand exploration game. It scratches the Skyrim itch. It might be a looter shooter, but so far, I'm enjoying the quests. Eventually I will build outposts and build my own ship. There's no VATs any more, except in ship to ship battles where you can use the targeting system.

Unlike BG3, you aren't limited on how much you can develop your character. BG3 is capped at level 12 so you only get a few times to choose new spells/skills/abilities. Eventually, you're at your limit. Starfield has so many skills you can get, that I imagine that once you get many hours in, you'll be at such a high level and have so many skills that it will still be a blast to play. Early on, it's all so new, later on, you'll have so many options for things to do and how to do it that the gameplay will still feel fresh.

Long story short, I like both equally, but for very different reasons. Starfield is a big plate of good ole home cooking/mac and cheese. BG3 is a multi-course gourmet meal. I also have a steam deck, so I imagine that Starfield would play just fine on XBox.

I still do feel like I’m missing out on a lot by just going with “whatever” and not putting enough thought into character creation, spells, etc, but it’s a lot to learn and I’m only 1 day in :)

As someone who has run tabletop games including DnD for a few decades, your approach is perfectly valid. While any complex system can be gamed for optimal outcomes, it was designed to be roughly even enough that there are not a lot of choices that penalize you too much as long as you pay attention to vulnerabilities/resistances/immunities which can often be overcome with potions and other magic items.

Do what sounds fun and then have fun is not missing out on anything other than spending time not playing the game just to squeeze out edge cases. Some people enjoy that and thankfully the game caters to both casual players and optimizers.

I feel you. I spent a several hours learning about D&D character creation when I picked up BG3. And I spent a couple more hours crafting a back story that I used to influence my character traits. I've never played D&D before, but BG3 is the most fun I've had with a game in several years.

Don't fret too much about your early-game spell/leveling decisions. Pretty early in the game, you get the option to re-spec any and all characters for a small fee. You can mess around with new synergies, or go so far as converting characters to an entirely different class, any time you want.

In case you're interested, let me give you a couple of links:

• Oolite: an open-world space opera.

• Open source recreation of Daggerfall in the Unity engine.