The first two points apply to all Infinity Engine games except maybe Planescape: Torment.

1. When creating characters, you have to choose your character's stats. The problem is that, once you choose your stats, they are set in stone. (This is in contrast to games like Wizardry and Bard's Tale, where your stats can increase and eventually max out as you level up.) This means that, if you are unfamiliar with the game and happen to choose badly, there is no fixing without starting a new game or using a cheat program. (Original Icewind Dale is slightly better in this regard because you can at least delete the character, create a new one, and use the cheat console to give the character an appropriate amount of experience, but that still involves a cheat.)

2. Weapon proficiencies. Basically, at character creation, you need to choose what types of weapons your character is good with. This essentially locks your characters into a specific type of weapon, and that decision has to be made before you know what types of weapons are in the game. How do you choose between Mace and Flail when you don't know that the Flail of Ages exists? Bad proficiency selection can eventually be fixed, but it requires reaching rather high levels.

Essentially, the game requires new players to make permanent decisions uninformed. I consider that to be bad game design.

The third is specific to Baldur's Gate 2. (Haven't played through 1 because the game is not fun at low levels.)

3. You can only create one character (without using multiplayer, which doesn't seem to work with WINE). For the rest of your party, you are stuck with the available NPCs, and the class distribution is not balanced. Among the interesting setups that are not available in NPCs are Figther/Thieves, Thieves that can gain Thief levels, Fighter/Mages, and triple classes. Also, the only Bard isn't the most accessible and has poor singing skills, and the only Paladin doesn't get most of the Paladin abilities. Thing is, I don't want to use one of them as my main character, but still want to play with one. Even worse, Baldur's Gate 2 added three classes based on the then not yet released 3rd Edition D&D, but yet those classes are only available to the main character. Why can't I try both Monk and Sorcerer in the same playthrough?

The player is not obligated to creating their own characters, although, has the freedom to do so.
Aren't there pre-generated characters in the game that the player can choose from to pick up and play?
If the player is unfamiliar with how the ability system works (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma), or how the weapon proficiency system works, pre-generated characters can provide a point of reference, no? I have no comment for this one.

:)

Looking at the premades for Baldur's Gate:
The cleric has only 10 strength and 10 dexterity. A Cleric will generally want more. (Also, 10 Intelligence isn't that great when mind flayers show up.)
The fighter has poor dexterity (11). Also has Grand Mastery, which isn't that much better and isn't worth restricting yourself to one weapon, especially if you're not yet familiar with the game.
The mage appears decent, despite lacking a ranged weapon proficiency.
The thief has poor constitution (9).
The other 4 single classes are not represented, nor are the 3 3rd edition classes, and there are no kit or multi-class options.
The TOB characters are not balanced for Shadows of Amn; they come with 2.5 million experience. Throne of Bhaal puts the player in a boss fight right away that might be too much for someone not familiar with the game engine.

In other words, the premades are not particularly good examples, and are suboptimal compared to any decent rolled chararcter. A new player is not going to notice this. Also, Grand Mastery is not something to recommend to new players, especially since it exacerbates point 2.

Remember, a new player is not going to be informed as I am.

I must admit, the first time I played the expansion, 'Throne of Bhaal' I had a really, really hard time trying to make sense of it all. That was nearly 10 years ago. Things are much more different today as I have become familiar with how gameplay works in Baldur's Gate 2.

Getting back to ability scores on pre-generated characters, for a novice player (even advanced players), I believe it's fair to say that those characters are just a point of reference and are playable.

I would answer to all your criticism that Baldur's Gate intend to give a somewhat "realistic" RPG experience, close to the pen-and-paper game.

Attributes can't be changed (well, there ways to gain up to one point in each in each game) ? Well, that's how it is in the pen-and-paper game, and makes the occasional gain of one attribute point something really worth it. It also means your initial choice matters a lot, which is not _easy_ but is _interesting_. Baldur's Gate isn't supposed to be easy.

Same for weapon proficiencies and weapons you can find. It's just being realistic, you train in a few weapons, without knowing which magical ones you'll find. One you find the Flail of the Ages, you can retrain (but it takes a long time, as it should) by investing your next points into Flail, or just give it to someone else.

As for choice of companions, companions in Baldur's Gate aren't just a set of stats/class. They are real characters, with their own personality, opinions, and quests. That makes the world so much alive, feel so much more like a real pen-and-paper RPG, and is a great part of Baludr's Gate awesomeness. But that means that we have to be limited to a few of them, because they took a lot of time to develop, so they can't have all possible class variations in them. That's one of the main difference between BG and IWD, and one of the main reasons for which I much prefer BG to IWD.

Personally, what works well in P&P is not necessarily good design in a computer game. For stats, having stats start lower but increase at every level up would be a better choice. (Check out Wizardry 8, though it still heavily favors initial status. Also checkount the first Avernum trilogy.) This way, a bad choice at character creation, while it still matters, isn't fatal.

In terms of weapon proficincies, you say "it's just being realistic", but honestly, I'd rather have more fun gameplay over realism. The range limit on trading equipment is another example of this; it's just annoying and the game would be better without it. Another thing to consider is that, in P&P, the Dungeon/Game Master can choose to give out weapons the PCs can use effectively; in the computer games, the weapons are placed without taking into account the choices the PC has made.

For the choice of companions, my problem is that many interesting setups, including very basic setups, are not represented. The worst offender in Baldur's Gate 2 is the lack of a single class thief you can keep endgame. Sorry, but that is just embarrassing; one of the 4 most basic classes, in its single class form, is not represented. Also, the downside of making them "real" characters (they're still technically combinations of sprites, stats, text and scripts) is that they keep interrupting the player, which is frustrating. The player will be minding her own buisness, sorting out what items to sell and deciding what to buy, only to be interrupted by recruited character dialogue and lose her train of thought. This is why, from what I have played, I was more able to get into IWD than BG.

The only reason I've tried to play Baldur's Gate 2 multiple times is the powerful arcane spells that have been implemented. Now that I have IWD:EE, I can use most of the spells there (assuming the game runs). Baldur's Gate 1 was just not fun for me because P&P system it's based on is just not fun at level 1.

You need to stop complaining about Baldur's Gate, and go play another game. Seriously.

Honestly, the point of this is topic is to have a serious discussion about game design and where Baldur's Gate (and its sequel) fail in that regard. Also to see what other people think about those aspects of the game's design.

I disagree. Other game designers can learn from the flaws (and merits) of any specific game. Also, modders could attempt to fix some of the flaws.

I actually consider Baldur's Gate to be part of a shift away from what I consider to be classic cRPGs. The real time with pause combat (which I consider to be worse than the turn based combat it replaced) is one example.

They have tried. And in all cases, they have failed. Even the enhanced editions, created largely by, or upon the backs of, community modders, failed miserably. Game designers... current game designers, are obsessed with console and other platform design. None will ever learn anything from flaws or merits of the Infinity Engine, or BG design -- they don't want to. That is precisely why you should go and play another game; you have no appreciation or understanding for what Baldur's Gate is or represents, clearly.

Sometimes, I just don't feel like playing a game. After all, posting on a forum takes much less time than committing to a gaming session.

Anyway, I am trying to have a conversation about this game's design and you are in effect saying the conversation shouldn't be had. Please do not post anymore in this topic unless you have something constructive to say.

You are not trying to have a conversation about the game's design, you are merely endulging your need to complain: you only talk about negatives.

And you don't get to demand who post what or where -- request denied.

Agreed. The real-time style of gameplay may very well be because of the number of real-time strategy games that gamers were playing at the time the original Baldur's Gate was released; At the time that the original Baldur's Gate came out, there were at least 60 real-time strategy games out there. The gameplay in the original Baldur's Gate was strongly influenced by the most popular genre including its own.

If you've ever played Dungeons & Dragons: Temple of Elemental Evil, you'd find that the turn-based gameplay in that game is about as close to P&P D&D as it could possibly get.

Then again, a few weeks ago, I was perusing the RPG category at Steam and discovered a new actual P&P style Dungeons & Dragons game complete with authentic character sheets, dice, maps and everything was on the store list. You might wanna take a look at that.

I'm not sure why this is a problem. In BG2, there are rather spiffy weapons in each of the weapon classes so while you won't be able to use the flail of ages, you will still be able to use a good weapon. It isn't like the flail of ages is the only weapon worth using.

Also, if you are using a multi class character, you will only be able to put two proficiency points into a certain weapon. In other words, you can max your weapon proficiency easily. The problem you've described is only for single class fighters but it really isn't a problem because of what I mentioned above.