Schyzm

the fact that its solo is meaningless, it was just a way to more concretely imagine something that is harder, because harder things require more optimization. you could if you wanted also imagine a game that simply gets harder and harder, as it gets harder you would need to make more optimal decisions, one of those would be to rest more often to optimize your power. your conflation of tedium with failure is also a poor connection, failure is the fundamental mechanic of difficulty, running and seeing bunches of load screens are not.

but the resource system isnt attrition based because...camping...is...not...limited. and btw people already rest more to do solo potd, which is harder and requires more optimization, other somewhat tedious optimization also happens on potd like eating the a bunch of different types of food buffs before fights which I doubt many groups bother with. you don't pay a price for resting more often, or not a price any good game designed would want you to pay, making you annoyed by tedium. again, for the large #th time. camping....is....not....a....limited....resource.

you still labor under the idea camping is a limited resource, it is not. you also labor under the idea that going "longer" w/o camping is somehow "optimal" that is also false. I will confess that if you continue to believe things that are simply not true then your argument is much stronger. Exactly how is it false? I have yet to have to return to town because I needed camping supplies. Either your argument is it's not limited because it's already effectively free, in which case the solution would be to make it more scarce, or you believe it's impossible to optimally utilize resources such that you don't need to camp constantly, in which case you're just wrong. Or you think that the game should be balanced around single encounters rather than attrition in which case you disagree with the direction they took the game. Going longer without camping is optimal to the point where you are only need more supplies at points where you find more supplies, or when you would return to town for other reasons, optimal is reaching a point where your usage of resources precisely equates to the most optimal division of your time, which is that you never want to return to town in the middle of a dungeon (thus requiring backtracking) or otherwise need to turn back in order to continue onward. there is nothing in the games mechanics that rewards resting fewer times besides possibly paying less for camping supplies, which is trivial. you may feel better that you rested fewer times, but thats more or less you imposing things. if you are concerned with not resting then just run ciphers, they have no rest mechanic outside of health(or some other classes). you keep implying that resting fewer times is optimal, you are just wrong. I doubt we are going to come to agreement on this, but imagine if you will a game that gets increasingly harder, you would rest more often, the reason you would rest more often in a harder game is because resting more often is optimal and you would be forced to make a more optimal decision because the game is harder.

you still labor under the idea camping is a limited resource, it is not. you also labor under the idea that going "longer" w/o camping is somehow "optimal" that is also false. I will confess that if you continue to believe things that are simply not true then your argument is much stronger.

first of all it should be noted, resting is not limited. this is important...resting...is...not...limited. I also dislike how much groups are able to power spike for "tough encounters" but lets stick to one discussion at a time, and certainly other bad mechanics shouldn't justify this bad mechanic. costing time is not an equivalent thing, which appears to be the divergence in our perspectives. for me dying involves a question of how I could have not died, and a failure of some amount. in ironman the failure is absolute in non-ironman its more a small failure, but the important aspect isn't time, its failure. having to run back is not a failure, it is in fact a smart decision, its just a boring and tedious decision. it might be said that the game designers would like you to treat resting as a limited resource, that is probably the implication being handed out, but it is not limited. and because of this raw fact the actual game mechanics encourage a very boring and tedious play design.

punishing a player by having them die and thus costing them time is NOT the same as punishing them by having them run really long distances repeatedly. it is also wrong to say that running back often is poor play, it is plainly not poor play, in many ways it is ideal play, just boring play. after those two things are wrong most of the rest of your argument is shambles.

so the idea of limited resting is not bad, it adds tension and a "survival" aspect to the game, but once u realize its not actually limited resting, then it just adds tedium. I assume they couldn't actually make it limited because that would cause some people to become "stuck" where they could win a fight but not in their unrested state.

I think the resting mechanic is basically good. The way it's implemented necessitates there being a very time-consuming way to undermine it available. The encounters/areas/difficulty obviously aren't balanced around people resting at will. Your position seems to be that because it's *possible* to undermine the resting mechanic to force through tough areas if you cba with it, doing that should be effortless to reduce busywork. I think you'd have a very different (and worse) game with all abilities being de facto per encounter, so I like the system as is where it is technically possible so players can't get completely stuck but it's discouraged from being a thing that's used all the time. its not like undermining it requires some game bug, undermining it is literally "damn I used some spells and i'm outta camps, guess I'll run back." and yes its bad design if the "difficulty" of a game is tedium and not actual thought and skill.

yah you do come across as a pretty spiteful person.

I hate the whole resting mechanic in general in this game, although I don't believe 4x is that bad, but the 2x is just ridiculous, especially on PotD. I don't know what they were thinking. It's not actually fun or strategic, because if you have the patience to do it, you can bypass it by simply abusing Inns if you really wanted to. It just seems like they wanted to add in "depth" with it, but it just makes the game tedious and specific classes a slog/weak until the higher levels where the mechanic doesn't even really matter for the most part. I think it's basically a way of showing you when you're out of your depth and might want to go do something else for the moment. It works for me. Why do so many of the comments around here plummet into this "you just aren't good" at the game elitist nonsense? Not liking a specific mechanic says nothing at all about the player or whether or not they are having any legitimate difficulty. And those that criticize those who don't like the mechanic seem to ignore the fact that it penalizes some classes much more than others (some not at all). You also seem to forget that it becomes a non issue at level 9 and 11, so why even have it in the first place? "Oh, here's your reward for tolerating this for so long!". There was an entire thread where someone was asking for a camping mod, and of course a bunch of snobs jumped in and exploded all over him about how bad he was, how lazy he was etc. etc. when his biggest gripe was the fact that for the first 8 levels, his PC Wizard was resigned to using auto attack 80% of the fight. No one in their right mind picks the Wizard expecting to do that. He had already finished PotD with his Wizard, yet was still basically told to "git gud" as though he needed advice on how to actually finish. You misunderstand me. I think the camping system is a soft way to indicate to the player when they're underlevelled while attempting an area. If I need a separate rest for, say, every two encounters on level 8 of the Endless Paths, I realise I should come back later with bigger swords rather than brute-forcing it by eating a couple of wipes, save/loading a ton and hoping my Dominate spell gets the Fampyrs eaten by their friends. I personally tend to find that my tanks run out of health about as quickly as my casters run out of spells, it's only really secondary backrow casters and archers that I don't have that problem with, and even then, only if the engagements are going perfectly. If you take these mechanics out, you have a binary THE FIGHT IS TOO HARD TO PROCEED/THE FIGHT IS NOT TOO HARD TO PROCEED system of feedback for the player, in addition to which you cut out any sense of attrition and make the game somewhat easier. That said, I would support an option to have infinite camping supplies for people who want to play the game like that or anyone doing interesting caster solo shenanigans. there's a perfectly reasonable way to indicate an area is marginal in terms of clearing it, that a bunch of ur dudes are getting knocked out. u don't need a camping system to indicate difficulty. its really, like a lot of the bad things in this game, a 20 year old legacy that they may have felt obligated to include because of the promise of making this "baldurs gate 3" You take the resting out, you get rid of the persistence from encounters, make the game rather easier, especially making it easier to cheese encounters by fighting them piecemeal. It would also make encounters more monotonous because you'd have identical resources for all of them. Same difference as regenerating health in shooters, really. It's not even a BG legacy, really, just a decision on whether you want encounters to have any relationship with each other. thats the problem though is that the game is NEVER easier by taking resting out, it is just less cumbersome, you can always just run back for more camping. you seem to be missing like...the main complaint here.

I hate the whole resting mechanic in general in this game, although I don't believe 4x is that bad, but the 2x is just ridiculous, especially on PotD. I don't know what they were thinking. It's not actually fun or strategic, because if you have the patience to do it, you can bypass it by simply abusing Inns if you really wanted to. It just seems like they wanted to add in "depth" with it, but it just makes the game tedious and specific classes a slog/weak until the higher levels where the mechanic doesn't even really matter for the most part. I think it's basically a way of showing you when you're out of your depth and might want to go do something else for the moment. It works for me. Why do so many of the comments around here plummet into this "you just aren't good" at the game elitist nonsense? Not liking a specific mechanic says nothing at all about the player or whether or not they are having any legitimate difficulty. And those that criticize those who don't like the mechanic seem to ignore the fact that it penalizes some classes much more than others (some not at all). You also seem to forget that it becomes a non issue at level 9 and 11, so why even have it in the first place? "Oh, here's your reward for tolerating this for so long!". There was an entire thread where someone was asking for a camping mod, and of course a bunch of snobs jumped in and exploded all over him about how bad he was, how lazy he was etc. etc. when his biggest gripe was the fact that for the first 8 levels, his PC Wizard was resigned to using auto attack 80% of the fight. No one in their right mind picks the Wizard expecting to do that. He had already finished PotD with his Wizard, yet was still basically told to "git gud" as though he needed advice on how to actually finish. You misunderstand me. I think the camping system is a soft way to indicate to the player when they're underlevelled while attempting an area. If I need a separate rest for, say, every two encounters on level 8 of the Endless Paths, I realise I should come back later with bigger swords rather than brute-forcing it by eating a couple of wipes, save/loading a ton and hoping my Dominate spell gets the Fampyrs eaten by their friends. I personally tend to find that my tanks run out of health about as quickly as my casters run out of spells, it's only really secondary backrow casters and archers that I don't have that problem with, and even then, only if the engagements are going perfectly. If you take these mechanics out, you have a binary THE FIGHT IS TOO HARD TO PROCEED/THE FIGHT IS NOT TOO HARD TO PROCEED system of feedback for the player, in addition to which you cut out any sense of attrition and make the game somewhat easier. That said, I would support an option to have infinite camping supplies for people who want to play the game like that or anyone doing interesting caster solo shenanigans. there's a perfectly reasonable way to indicate an area is marginal in terms of clearing it, that a bunch of ur dudes are getting knocked out. u don't need a camping system to indicate difficulty. its really, like a lot of the bad things in this game, a 20 year old legacy that they may have felt obligated to include because of the promise of making this "baldurs gate 3"

I hate the whole resting mechanic in general in this game, although I don't believe 4x is that bad, but the 2x is just ridiculous, especially on PotD. I don't know what they were thinking. It's not actually fun or strategic, because if you have the patience to do it, you can bypass it by simply abusing Inns if you really wanted to. It just seems like they wanted to add in "depth" with it, but it just makes the game tedious and specific classes a slog/weak until the higher levels where the mechanic doesn't even really matter for the most part. I think it's basically a way of showing you when you're out of your depth and might want to go do something else for the moment. It works for me. Why do so many of the comments around here plummet into this "you just aren't good" at the game elitist nonsense? Not liking a specific mechanic says nothing at all about the player or whether or not they are having any legitimate difficulty. And those that criticize those who don't like the mechanic seem to ignore the fact that it penalizes some classes much more than others (some not at all). You also seem to forget that it becomes a non issue at level 9 and 11, so why even have it in the first place? "Oh, here's your reward for tolerating this for so long!". There was an entire thread where someone was asking for a camping mod, and of course a bunch of snobs jumped in and exploded all over him about how bad he was, how lazy he was etc. etc. when his biggest gripe was the fact that for the first 8 levels, his PC Wizard was resigned to using auto attack 80% of the fight. No one in their right mind picks the Wizard expecting to do that. He had already finished PotD with his Wizard, yet was still basically told to "git gud" as though he needed advice on how to actually finish. I agree completely that per rest stuff is badly designed and that it basically only takes up your real life time to run back is obnoxious.

I understand the stronghold perfectly, its where I dump thousands of gold every game to not much noticeable effect and rarely visit.

in my ideal world the solution for the super tank issue would actually be better ai and more impactful abilities for enemies. more willingness to bypass tanks, to ignore things that do no damage, more abilities like clear out, teleport, sprints or maybe "dont stand in the fire" aoe. could make battles more chaotic and awesome. obviously this isn't going to happen really, but it'd be cool if it did.

no, building a super tank is the optimal method, you can get most enemies in most encounters to hit ur tank and ur tank takes probably 5% or less of the damage of your other characters, so it is by a large margin the optimal solution to normal group fights. which is really the problem w/ the tank or with the AI depending on how you look at it. you can build a character that does .8 dmg a hit but takes nearly zero damage and then get the enemy team to attack that character exclusively. Scenario A) Your tank takes most of the damage for the group. The group does 5x damage (missing the tank, for all intents and purposes) Scenario B) You control your enemies to mitigate damage your group might otherwise take. The group does 6x damage (the "tank" is a healthy contributor to combat) Both are valid. B), in my opinion, is the superior option because it's generally faster and more fun. B is not the superior option because its massively less reliable and doing 20% more damage is basically never more desirable than a simple way to reduce the enemies damage by...lets say 95%, though honestly it might be higher. it should be noted also that you don't even do 20% more damage, since you have to spend resources doing the controlling, but wutever, you can have the 20%. if you have more fun doing things your way then don't let me stop you, but building super tanks is optimal. they are that good.

no, building a super tank is the optimal method, you can get most enemies in most encounters to hit ur tank and ur tank takes probably 5% or less of the damage of your other characters, so it is by a large margin the optimal solution to normal group fights. which is really the problem w/ the tank or with the AI depending on how you look at it. you can build a character that does .8 dmg a hit but takes nearly zero damage and then get the enemy team to attack that character exclusively.

people aren't nearly as tolerant of bad design decisions that are covered up by blaming the player as they use to be.

I agree that most hard fights that aren't the silly dragon at the end can be solved by using ur army in a can figurines.

seems unlikely since nature and death are more or less ass. fire is cool but usually in a pretty specific build sorta way since it can't beat out orlan for tanking in a party(imo). I mean I know balance isnt that big an issue, but it is a pretty yawning gap to give one race double the endurance every fight, and have it come in the form of an aoe and have that aoe be instant, non-interruptable, and cast during any action.

on a dps character (high might, middle/low con) it basically doubles ur endurance, every fight. the thing is so good that I've had dps chars w/ 10 con die permanently due to health(from full health) loss just because they were standing around a bunch of other moon godlikes. not that I mind too much because its nice to not use priests, but I mean damn son.

I would recommend if you want optimization that you have 1 fighter tank or 2 fighter tanks, but no offtanks and no non-fighter tanks. and mostly the game can be done with 1 tank. right now on triple crown I'm using 1 fighter tank and 5 rangers which is pretty funny.

yah animals get fatigued crazy easily, its obnoxious and probably a design oversight. I dont see much point in taking much other than the bear, companions die easily enough that living a little longer seems to beat most other things, but I often just leave the animal companion in the back anyway.

going back is more a hassle than a strategic decision. which is just one of the many problems w/ per rest abilities. you're not making any real in game tradeoff so much as a real life tradeoff of 5 minutes of ur actual time. but yah per rest is old and busted and shouldn't have been included in game.

I agree that per rest mechanic is a 2 to 3 decade old anachronism in modern rpgs and wish it had gone away. I actually don't use wizards/druids/priests atm just to avoid the mechanic.

easy answer I think, the guy in the first zone that I always let die:).