xzar_monty

Care to elaborate on this? I am not entirely certain what kind of economy you refer to, but in terms of material and monetary stuff, there are some pretty glaring oddities in the game world. For instance, it seems to me that every piece of non-magical armor is worth 40 cp (or some amount pretty close to that) when sold to a trader. I find that strange, to be honest. How can roughly worked leather be as valuable as professionally worked steel? This is a minor thing and not a problem as such, but at the same time I don't see this as a great improvement -- if this economy is what you were talking about.

Exactly. I fully understand that it's a balancing act, and not a particularly easy at that, because the game mechanics restrict the developers quite a lot. Also, the fact that all dialogue choices are made from a number of possible options (and not by typing in text) is another restriction: the developers can't really write stuff that requires you to type in the real solution, they have to give the right answer as one of the options you can choose. (So, any logical verbal puzzles can by definition be solved by trial and error even if you have no clue about the answer. I am not sure if there is a way around this problem, other than modifying the engine.) However, I still think this could be done a lot better. It feels a bit cheesy to be given the right answer so obviously and so generously, in a way that I realistically cannot fail to understand what the solution is.

Well, it took Deadfire several months to start looking like a game you'd want to play.

I have seen one puzzle, and there are no intellectually challenging quests, simply because answers and solutions are handed to you in a way which makes it almost impossible to fail. For example: in one room, there is a piece of clothing. How convenient, then, that next to this piece of clothing is a diary entry saying "If I wear this piece of clothing, certain critters will mistake me for someone else". Sheesh, I thought. Also: who writes down stuff like this? That bit is flawed in two ways: 1) you are given the answer before you even knew there was a question, and 2) the answer is handed to you in a way that makes a character in the game look completely fake and artificial. (Of course that person IS artificial, but it shouldn't be stressed like this.) @Tagaziel: We're talking about different things, yes.

In the first instance, if we're referring to the sandswept ruins, there is the execution room there, but there's also the awesome scripted interaction with the tomb and sand burial. That was neat and wasn't handholding - and neither was the long, long corridor of traps with varied skill requirements. Nope, haven't been to a place like that. It's a cave with critters inside. They have a symbol of some kind for protection, but that same symbol is rendered meaningless by the fact that before reaching the symbol, you can pick up a wardstone for it, thus making the whole thing powerless. I agree that stuff like this is subjective. But can you give me an example of a situation where the game actually requires that you come up with a solution for a problem? Instead of the game handing it for you. (I can think of just one. But then I haven't finished the game yet.)

Hmm. I wonder where the OP's playing strategy and immersion level falls within the playing community. In other words: is it reasonable for a company like Obsidian to even consider stuff like this. I may of course be completely wrong, but this may be a real hard-core gamer talking, one in a very small minority.

Yesterday, I had another example of the kind of writing in Deadfire that leaves me baffled as to who this game is designed for. I mean, is the intention to hold the player's hand to such an extent that he absolutely cannot fail? My previous example was this: In a cave, on an island, there is a symbol that causes problems. However, in that very same cave, before ever reaching the symbol, you can quite conveniently pick up a wardstone that makes you immune to that symbol. Ho hum, I thought, wasn't that nice. Obviously the folks who set up the trap also gave you a way of avoiding said trap, clearly that's what you do when setting up traps... The latest example was this: Upon some battlements, on an island, there is a mechanical device that is stuck. The game suggests that the situation could possibly be helped by some grease or oil. At this point I thought: "Hey! I'll head straight to the kitchen whose door I have already seen, I'm sure there's some oil there." And then, after pressing "End" to leave the interaction scene, Aloth quite conveniently piped up: "Hey, maybe we'll find some oil in a kitchen." To an extent, this last example is reasonable: Aloth is smart, and he would think of that. But still. Why is this game written like this? Obsidian have left NO joy of discovery for the player, and no sense of satisfaction for solving a problem, even a very small one. Everything is handed on a plate. Why?

From the fact of having played it for a while. (I'm close to level 9.) I cannot see myself playing this again after finishing it once. I also only played PoE all the way through just once and no longer even have it on my computer. The second time would be the same, in essence: same conversations, same factions, same story, same encounters. Nothing random in the game, it seems to me. I agree that different choices can be made, but that doesn't warrant a new playthrough, in my view. You’re arguing that your personal preferences means no one plays the game more than once? Get serious. Why on earth would I do that, and where do you get the idea I have? Of course I'm not arguing that. Whichever way anyone else plays the game is just fine.

From the fact of having played it for a while. (I'm close to level 9.) I cannot see myself playing this again after finishing it once. I also only played PoE all the way through just once and no longer even have it on my computer. The second time would be the same, in essence: same conversations, same factions, same story, same encounters. Nothing random in the game, it seems to me. I agree that different choices can be made, but that doesn't warrant a new playthrough, in my view.

I suppose this DLC trend implies that a game should be bought approximately six months after release, at the earliest. That way, you get the DLCs pretty much straight away and most of the bugs have been ironed out. (This attitude is quite strongly based on the idea that a game like this is going to be played once.)

If this was a comment on patches coming out in quick succession, then fair enough. It has to be said that after the year 2000, the only computer games I know anything about are Civilization IV, some versions of Football Manager, NWN and PoE.

I am not sure if I have ever seen a game developer bring out patches this often.

I'm not sure if this helps. http://existentialcomics.com/philosopher/Arthur_Schopenhauer I **** you not, this was my second port of call after Wikipedia. Those were pretty good, actually, and demonstrated the inadequacy of Schopenhauer's thinking. In other words, while he had correctly identified a problem, he incorrectly assumed that it was the end point. The Buddha, among others, took the next step.

Your post inspired me to read up on his philosophy but I don’t think I’m any the wiser. Is he saying, like Buddha, that the ‘will’ of the world around us prevents us from actually achieving anything, so we should all just deny all desire? Just to be clear: the Buddha is not saying that. You have misunderstood something. I am not going to comment on Schopenhauer, as I don't know his work well enough, but he doesn't appear to be one of the more interesting philosophers, shall we say. The Buddhist dictum known in the West as "life is suffering" or "everything is suffering" is one of the great mistranslations in world history. It is not entirely incorrect, but it is wrong enough to be seriously misleading.

Ok, thanks for that. It'll be interesting to see where and when I start finding them. As for enchantments: classically, in RPGs, there's a certain delight to be had when gaining your first magic items, and there are also certain monsters that can only be hit with magic or otherwise special items. Here, none of that exists, as you can hit pretty much anything with pretty much anything (Item-wise, not spellwise). That works, but I have a nagging feeling that something has been lost.

I am now knocking on level 8 in Deadfire. I just realized what a change there has been since PoE1: nearly everything I've done so far has consisted of walking around and talking to people. There has been some occasional sailing and very occasional fighting. There have been no important-feeling fights. As such, there's obviously nothing wrong with that. I am enjoying this. But from a "classical" RPG perspective, I find it really interesting that I haven't essentially looted or otherwise gained any magic items yet. And I'm almost at level 8. Apart from my main character, everybody's still using the equipment they had at the start of the game. It works perfectly, too: apart from one encounter in the Old City below Neketaka, everything has been dead easy. At this point, I don't even know whether Soulbound items exist in the game (my guess: yes). Uniques seem to be very, very rare. Some shopkeeper have had a few, but I haven't bought them, because (and this has not changed from PoE1) you don't need items to get ahead, and almost none of them have substantial powers. I am enjoying the game. I am, however, beginning to wonder whether these changes hit the RPG genre to the core in the sense that something essential has been lost. I am not sure yet, but I may have different thoughts at level 15. PS. Sometimes I also wonder whether the game is designed to be too easy. Like so easy that you cannot fail. An example: on an island, there is a cave. In a cave, there is a symbol of sorts that hurts you when you go near it. However, in that very same cave, before reaching that symbol, you can also pick a wardstone that keeps you safe from the effects of that same symbol. Now isn't that nice? They just left it lying around for you.

Thanks for that!

I am no longer at all computer savvy and I'm old enough to not be afraid of looking stupid when I don't know something. So: does telemetrics mean the data gathered from players while they're playing? If not, what does it mean?

Oh yeah. I remember one lol roll. We were already more than little bit tipsy IRL, and our extremely low social skill Barbarian was pissed at Bartender for not giving him another mug of Ale. So he decided to urinate all over the serving table. Just for the sake out of it, I told him to roll for "improvised ranged attack" to hit the table. He rolled 20 on that roll and confirmed critical The result was a 100 word long poem how the bartender sucks "written" in Golarions alternative to Schwabacher writing Of course, he ended up in a jail after that, but the sillyness of the whole situation was epic We're playing Mysteries of Moonsea at the moment (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysteries_of_the_Moonsea). Somewhere in there is a fairly dangerous cavern complex and an adult (?) blue dragon as the main baddie at the end of it. I recall we weren't that high on resources when we found ourselves against it. There was a surprise round where our DM deemed that only the quickest in initiative could make one standard action. The winner was our mage, who decided his best chance of hurting the beast was to cast Feeblemind. He beat the dragon's spell resistance, after which the dragon failed its save. That was three lucky throws in a row for us. We knew we were lucky, given the place, our location within it, the size of the dragon and the breadth of our resources at the moment. But it was only at the end of the session where our DM said that of all our available options, it was precisely that spell and its success that he felt was our only way of avoiding wipeout. The dragon was pretty well prepared for everything else we could have thrown at it, including our attempt not to throw anything and run.

Ha! #3, the Dice-Cursed, is a classic. Funny how it always seems that 1) one of the players generally seems more dice-cursed than others, and 2) in any given session, a specific that-session-only dice-curse hits someone pretty hard. In our current game, my fighter-rogue seems to roll disproportionately well when checking initiative. Obviously we realize that now that we've noticed this, our impression tends to strengthen itself, i.e. we notice every time I roll an excellent initiative check and ignore it when I don't. But still, this campaign has been going for about three years now, and I'm pretty sure my initiative rolls from that time are statistically better than they should be.

I can't really see a game called Baldur's Gate 3 being that in anything but name. I mean, the story finished already at the end of ToB. This doesn't sound like a very interesting project. Of course, if the game ever comes out, it could be the best ever, but on the face of it, I'm not looking forward to it. BG is done already. It was superb, but it's done.

Edit: Also, hard and unfair difficulties mean exactly that. This, by the way, probably represents a fairly big cultural difference between North America and not North America. And there's no problem with that. This game was not created by North Americans. Being a European myself, I find the game's approach to "hard" and "unfair" perfectly rational. (I'm not playing on hard, much less unfair, but I appreciate the honesty in terms.) A possible analogy here can be drawn between this and strength and/or acrobatics training, which is a field I know something about. Some very famous teachers have commented how, when they're in Europe, they can tell students that actually they don't know a particular trick yet, or that they really need to practice it more before nailing it. At the same time they have told that if they say in the United States, especially, that a student's efforts are anything less than great, that student is going to need extensive therapy to get over it. They cannot handle difficulty. Note: I am not saying this. I haven't been teaching in North America. But this is something that teachers talk about.

Well in that case I tip my hat to your exquisite memory, good sir. No wonder you don't need any in-game helpers. I do have a decent memory but it is far from exquisite. I believe this is more a question of playing style and general mentality. It goes something like this. There is an underlying mechanism that is pretty much reducible to mathematics. In other words, there are certain constants and then there are variables affecting them. This stuff is better kept as much under the hood as possible, simply because it's more fun that way. The main exception that always happens is in a PnP battle: if an encounter against a single enemy lasts for a number of rounds, it is inevitable that the enemy AC gets mapped out. First, we find that 23 is not enough to hit. Then we find that 27 is. Eventually we find out that the AC is 25. And of course we make assumptions and observations: if a fiery-looking salamanderish creature attacks us, we are not likely to rely on fire, and if we have cold available, we will use it. But writing stats down and making lists of them sounds like turning a PnP session into a lesson in math, statistics and accounting. Fair enough, if that's what you like, but I don't see any attraction in that. I've never heard of a DM allowing players to write down stats of enemies they encounter. As a player, I wouldn't even entertain the possibility. It would never occur to us to do that. And even if one of the players suggested it, our DM wouldn't allow it. As players, we're too busy roleplaying our characters and being involved in the story than to put on our statistician hat. It comes across as metagaming and something my or other players characters wouldn't do. Yep. This discussion shows that there are apparently many ways to handle the whole PnP thing. Some of them appear very strange to me, but fair enough. I agree with you in that I wouldn't even want to make write down any friggin' stats while I'm playing.

Well in that case I tip my hat to your exquisite memory, good sir. No wonder you don't need any in-game helpers. I do have a decent memory but it is far from exquisite. I believe this is more a question of playing style and general mentality. It goes something like this. There is an underlying mechanism that is pretty much reducible to mathematics. In other words, there are certain constants and then there are variables affecting them. This stuff is better kept as much under the hood as possible, simply because it's more fun that way. The main exception that always happens is in a PnP battle: if an encounter against a single enemy lasts for a number of rounds, it is inevitable that the enemy AC gets mapped out. First, we find that 23 is not enough to hit. Then we find that 27 is. Eventually we find out that the AC is 25. And of course we make assumptions and observations: if a fiery-looking salamanderish creature attacks us, we are not likely to rely on fire, and if we have cold available, we will use it. But writing stats down and making lists of them sounds like turning a PnP session into a lesson in math, statistics and accounting. Fair enough, if that's what you like, but I don't see any attraction in that. In CRPGs, I never min-max my characters. If I specialize in, say, greataxes, I don't go on forums asking about the location of the best greataxe in the game, that would be stupid in my view. If there are difficult monsters, I very much prefer finding solutions myself. I like to solve quests on my own, by myself, and find out stuff.

Well it is ages since I played, but don't you get to write down monster statistics after trying different approaches on them the first time around? (which is precisely what Pillars does - it'll just print a question mark on defenses when you encounter something unknown) What? Never heard of anyone writing down any statistics in PnP.