Rico

My favorite run was as an enchantress. My romance was with Gale and we did everything together. My Tav specialized in support, charms, illusions and persuasion as well as psionic attacks. Gale just nuked things. Very different characters, and very competitive with one another. I always made sure I could one-up him in conversations, especially because unlike with other classes, I actually had the opportunity to teach him a thing or two and correct him.

I even leaned heavily into mage tropes. I got Gale a long pointy hat, while my enchantress had long blonde hair and revealing "robes" basically a bra and a loin cloth in high heels. We could not have looked more different or behave more different, but when we talked shop, sparks literally flew.

It was the best run, I had everyone wrapped around my finger. I even helped Alfira in such a way that I could play music and I picked up a harp and frequently would set myself up in Baldurs Gate and go afk while playing the harp to make money. She was pretty much a walking cliché of 1980s princesses and sorceresses and at first I thought it was just funny, but ultimately? It was just fun.

We destroyed the crown, we took the more mundane route in the romance scenes because I figured nothing he could do would really "wow" her because she had seen and done it all herself. It just worked.

I'd already seen my daughter play as a monk and romance gale, and had seen what the more typical romance storyline was like with him, so taking the route I did instead? It just made me appreciate the game so much more that it could feel so different.

So to me? If Gale made your mage feel obsolete? That's 100% on you. Because my mage could not have been more different and our group chemistry could not have been better.

I would instead recommend Dragon Age: Origins, the Mass Effect Trilogy, Baldurs Gate 1 & 2, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Fire Emblem: Three Houses.

Also Divinity Original Sin 2. I agree on that point.

The scary thing about. Baldurs Gate is that it's as replayable as Skyrim. It'll take time, a lot of it, but full new games will be made using its toolkit that you'll be able to play for free because you already bought Baldurs Gate 3.

Skyrim is still alive and thriving, with massive mod projects like Beyond Skyrim: (enter territory name here, such as Cyrodiil, Morrowind, Elsweyr, etc.) As well as Skyblivion the fan made remake of Oblivion using the Skyrim toolkit, its community is as active as ever, and the release of one of these projects will spike user activity in Steam quite measurably when it happens.

And Baldurs Gate will do the same, even if its the year 2030 when it happens.

I wish someone would talk about how they did Viconia DeVir dirty. They basically took all of what really made Viconia, Viconia, and pour her into either Minthara or Shadowheart.

By the end of Baldurs Gate 2, Viconia had turned from Shar and was blessed by Elistraee. Her whole character was built around the idea that she hates the manipulation and sacrifice of children. It was why she turned from Lolth and it was later why she turned from Shar.

She was essentially Minthara had she worshipped Shar like Shadowheart instead of the Absolute.

The Viconia depicted in BG3 makes no sense, and looked almost twice the age she should have appeared, as she was barely reaching the end of her prime years.

Baldurs Gate 3 warrants very little in the way of complaints, but this SHOULD be a big one.

I would gladly pay for additional party members that added more breadth to the game. It doesn't need to be an expansion in the sense that an additional campaign is tacked on to the end. Just seeing Alfira made recruitable (outside of the dark urge storyline) with full party interactions and a quest line that spanned all 3 acts, etc, would be more than enough to make me want to give the game yet another playthrough and be worth most any price I could envision Larion deem fair from their perspective.

I mean, western RPGs are my favorite genre, but I'm not wholly sure I understand what separates this definition from games like Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Final Fantasy Tactics, where your party members are fully customizable as well and must be leveled up.

And while I am biased towards the Baldurs Gate 3 type games, I would not exclude Three Houses or FFT.

That actually sounds like a good way to approach not only diversifying the franchise, but also to introduce new heroes/villains for the next large scale trilogy.

Another suggestion would be to create a different type of RPG following a new species as they take the final steps to join the galactic community.

Hey look! Somebody had a good idea! Remake Origins and then by way of a new sequel use that same remade engine and take a different path forward like say, what does the Warden do next? Don't go to Kirkwall, don't touch the inquisition or the veilguards, take a different path. Origins 2, if you will, and focus on characters people actually like, and focus on writing that doesn't sound like Gen Z trying to appease their college professors.

Origins was meant to be a spiritual successor to Baldurs Gate 2. Make the next sequel an answer to Baldurs Gate 3. Beat Baldurs Gate 3. Origins beat BG2, something I didn't think possible. Now the bar you have to clear is beat Baldurs Gate 3 at its own game. And if you can't, hire new people who know they can.

Adjustable party limit is great, and so is the ability to customize the looks of party members, there are also voice mods that adjust the pitch of party members voices. A female Astarion is really quite funny.

One of the better ones though is Alfira Joins The Group, where all main characters get the same Alfira recruitment storyline, only unlike with Dark Urge, Alfira survives the night. This project will tie in with another mod that is expanding her storyline to try and get her recruited path comparable in size to that of the others recruited in Act 1. Who knows when that mod will be done, but for now, you can still recruit a bard in Act 1 who feels like she canonically belongs in the party.