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metiman
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Posts posted by metiman
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How is reloading when someone dies any worse than casting "raise dead" on them when they die? Would you still be against save scumming if there were no "raise dead" spells in the game even at a temple? Maybe that sort of magic just isn't possible in the world of PE. After all it's not D&D. Raise dead is not guaranteed to be in the game.
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Am I the only one who has always wanted to kill Imoen, and was frustrated that I couldn't?
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Firkraag undefeated? wat.
several breach/pierce magic spells + attack damage is usually how I beat him
most casters (and dragons) chain stoneskin / weapon & spell immunity spells, so you just have to keep removing their iterations as fast as possible you can actually do damage.
There's always the finger of death attempt too hahah
never cast mordenkainen's sword in bg2 myself.
I realize that it is unusual. I'm not claiming he was objectively the most difficult opponent in BG2 or ToB. Just that I have never beaten him and I've tried lots of times over the years, albeit usually with a level 10-13 party. And I've already read every strategy guide or forum post on the topic that I could find. I have beat him using cheese or exploits just for the hell of it, but never in a fair fight. Seems to just be my own personal quirk. For me he seems to be the most difficult opponent in all of BG2 SoA, including Watchers Keep. I don't think it would be fair for me to compare him against ToB foes because I've never tried going after Firkraag after the underdark or after the underdark + watchers keep. By the time I'm ready to switch over to ToB I probably could beat him. But by that time I'm too excited by ToB and usually can't be bothered. On my next playthrough I'm going to make it a point to see if I can defeat Firkraag at any point before the end of SoA. Although that will be with SCSII, highest hitpoints, and with Smart Dragons enabled. Many of my previous attempts were even without SCSII installed. I'm probably not a particularly good player, but I'm almost glad because that keeps it challenging.
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Raise dead.
I hate "raise dead". It's cheesy and implausible and removes nearly all the penalty from dying. In terms of making the game easy it's much worse than save scumming. Actually I'd like to propose that all versions of "raise dead" even at a temple are removed in expert mode. The whole mechanic is just silly. If that's what people mean by permadeath then I am all for permadeath.
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The problem with not save scumming (as you put it) in BG2 was that there were not an infinite number of companions to replace your dead ones. If you can just keep replacing them then it's not such a big deal, but what if half your party gets killed in nearly ever fight? You would need an awful lot of replacement characters. Or you would just have to go solo. But even then what happens if you die in nearly every encounter? Soloing is not even supposed to be easy. That's the whole point of it. That it's hard. I just don't see any way to avoid save scumming. Unless of course you want to make the game so easy that combat is almost never lethal. Or if you can't die like in Torment. You definitely didn't need to save as much in Torment because you could just continue the game even if all of your companions were killed. I've soloed PS:T a few times. It's totally doable.
Of course PE probably will have at least some replacement companions at the Adventurers Hall or whatever, but I'm not sure there will be an infinite number. So if you are not talking about an ironman mode then it will only be a matter of time before you are soloing the game. While I don't have anything against that style of play. Could be interesting occassionally. It's definitely not my first choice for normal playthroughs. OTOH, if there are an infinite number of replacement companions then I guess you could just keep going back to the tavern or whatever and ask new Red Shirts to join you. I could see that play style as being potentially fun for novelty value I guess. Probably a good argument for the ability to hire an infinite number of adventurers from the hall.
I sort of have two modes when I play. In one mode I allow some or all of my companions to die and only reload when I have no choice because it was my main character who died or my entire party was killed. I find this mode much easier to play actually. In BG2, once I reached ToB I found that it wasn't practical to play any other way. I had to allow at least one or two of my companions to get gibbed in order to have any chance at all of prevailing in the encounter. I found myself forced to use raise dead, because otherwise I wouldn't be able to play at all. I don't think I have ever been a good enough player to solo ToB. Especially with SCSII installed and I don't like to play any other way these days.
In the other mode, what you call save scumming, I reloaded whenever anyone died as a result of the fight. Sometimes that meant reloading several times even on a fight with just average difficulty, but I still prefer that to losing all of my companions quickly or doing the whole raise dead thing which to be honest I've never really liked. Even in PnP I resisted having to use that either from my own priest or at a temple. It just doesn't seem very "realistic". Yeah, I know it's fantasy, but I still have trouble finding it plausible even within a fantasy world. Just my personal preference.
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The per day stuff is from the most recent news. Sounds a lot like 4E.
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There's a rather long list of game mechanics, ideas and even classes that lost their value in the IE games because save scumming was allowed. Character death, rest ambushes, the Wild Mage, etcetera.
Character death loses it's meaning? Seriously? So if your penalty for dying is not to replay the entire game from the start then that makes dying worthless? Also, what wild mage? I haven't heard PE mention anything about a wild mage.
Furthermore, a player that can save scum isn't encouraged to make good decisions. If I could save and reload right before every pit during a Mario run, I wouldn't ever have bothered with trying to get better at the game.So if you think save scumming is bad then I guess you must really hate the existence of cheat codes or mods. To me save scumming (I prefer to just call it saving but whatever) is the difference between my purchasing and playing a particular game or not even thinking about playing a partiicular game. I find enforced repetition awfully boring. I don't like having to replay a game right from the beginning every time I face a difficult battle. So let's say I have to fight Firkraag and it takes me 30 reloads before I can defeat him. With your system I would have to go through Chateau Irenicus 30 times in order to do that, right?
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Althernai, you do realize I was talking about purchasing the game after it was released commercially, right? I was talking about Obsidian releasing a small combat demo after the game has been completed and is being sold. I do realize that a single encounter is less than ideal, but it is far better than nothing at all.
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Were those examples using a fully patched game? I don't remember Firkraag just standing there inside a cloudkill even without SCSII installed. Anyway that silly cloudkill tactic is pure 100% cheese. You may as well just hit ctrl-y if you just want to "defeat" him. I was talking about a 100% fair fight. No fake talk or disabling spells before he has turned hostile. No obvious cheese. Not saying Firkraag is impossible to defeat, but he was for me. I'm not sure I ever went after him above level 13 or so though. I know there were a number of strategies I read about that required high level spells. Using high level spells against him kind of ruins the point for me. To me Firkraag seems like an early game challenge. BTW, I couldn't tell what was going on in the second example. The text was too small for me to read.
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What's wrong with save scumming?
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Everything I've heard so far about 4th edition has been bad. Everything I've heard so far about Pathfinder has been good. I really have to look into Pathfinder. I keep hearing that wotc has been planning to go back to some kind of 2nd edition / 3rd edtion hybrid with the 5th edition and backtrack away from MMO values. Probably just wishful thinking though. They'll probably take everything about the 4th edition and just make it even more like playing WoW. Anyone ever made a computer game based on Pathfinder?
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I had a lot of trouble with many of the fights in ToB and found myself resorting to using cheesy tactics like the Mordenkainen's sword + bad AI trick. Doesn't work with SCSII of course. That giant fight near the beginning was nearly impossible for me. Great fun, but nearly impossible. And I've never beat Firkraag. Must have tried 60-80 times. Most of the other dragons in BG2 SoA I've beat, including the WK dragon, but not Firkraag. He remains undefeated, and I like that. What a great game that was. I actually think the number of reloads you have to do is a decent metric of whether a particular game and difficulty level is well balanced for you. I'm not sure I've thought of it that way before either. I think it's an interesting point.
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When paypal was added it gave me pause as well. I kept hearing that paypal takes less of a commission than kickstarter + amazon. If true then it almost seems like kickstarter is more just to get things going and reach the initial goal. After the project has been funded, paypal seems like it would be a big advantage. Of course, Paypal's reputation precede's it. They aren't the most ethical and trustworthy company apparently. It would be nice if there were a third option with even lower comissions. Sending cash in envelopes directly to the Obsidian offices? Sending checks made out directly to your favorite Obsidian developers? E-gold or perhaps actual gold pieces?
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Have you played BG2 ToB?
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Wild guess: most of the people here didn't even try the 4th edition.
That is an excellent guess. The only thing I know about it is what I have heard indirectly, mostly on the codex, but also a few comments here. So far nothing good. I think there should be a thread dedicated to just discussing DnD 4th Ed. considering how important it seems to be as an inspiration for the PE ruleset. I am planning to look into the whole thing soon. Considering starting a thread, but as always would prefer if someone else would do it. Preferably someone who knows something about it, has read the rulebooks, and maybe even has tried playing it.
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Every time I hear the term "x scumming" I think, "console player".
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What is your alternative, Elerond? A game so easy that you never have to even worry about dying? If a game is challenging you're going to die. It's that simple. The real mystery to me is not players like me who almost welcome death and subsequent reloads, but the real hardcore players who not only welcome death, but welcome replaying the entire game from the beginning when you do die. I would never, ever finish a game if I played like that. Might be fun once in a while though, depending on the game. Sometimes you just want to replay a certain section of a particular game because it is so good.
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Well Indira is a mod. So it is up to her.
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I assume they will release at least a small piece of a level or one encounter or something so that people with doubts can at least get a taste of their unique combat system. That's not charity. Just good business sense. I trust them 100% with story. Just not with combat. Especially when they seem to be thinking in terms of something like 4th Ed. DnD. Even if they don't release any kind of demo I'm pretty sure someone I know will probably buy it when it's finished. I don't think Obsidian would mind my trying the game on a friend's computer, especially if they don't release a demo. And, no, I don't believe in pirating. Especially not with a kickstarter project and no BigEvilPublisher or DRM. That's just evil as well as disrespectful. Probably the majority of this forum (which to me is starting to resemble Bioware Social more and more) does regard me as the evil one, but I feel the same about most of you. Assuming that I am a pirate from my statement is just weird IMO. It's not like I have ever advocated piracy anywhere. As far as I'm concerned I didn't even bring up the topic.
I said the thing about trying before buying (which, again, I don't see anything wrong with) before I read Josh's recent Formspring and SomethingAwful comments. After Josh's comments I really am just left scratching my head. I hesitate to take anything they say about the magic system too seriously at this point. They keep contradicting themselves. At this point I'm too confused by all of their different statements to decide anything now as far as backing the project or not. I think I'm going to have to wait until maybe the day before the project ends and weigh all of the statements that have been made at that time to try to decide if the project is something that I feel I should support for philosophical reasons or just because I think the game will almost certainly be worth buying.
I agree that $25 is not a lot of money for a game, and if it is a good game it would be a bargain, but I'm not looking for a bargain. I'd be perfectly happy to pay Obsidian $65 or more for the game if it turns out well or even if they were at least trying to make the kind of game that I like. I remember I once posted on the Interplay forums that I wouldn't hesitate to pay over $100 for any sort of Black Isle game with a good story and I was soundly attacked for it by lots of people who thought that was way too much money for a computer game.
Hell, the whole point of this thread was that I was desperately eyeing the $250 and $500 tiers wishing that I could justify going for them. I would very much like to support them if they really were doing the kind of game that they at least seemed to promise on the kickstarter page and in the video. They didn't say, "Think BG2 or IWD but with 4th Edition rules." That second part changes a lot. I'm not sure what I think of 4th Edition DnD except that I dont think it is as good as 2nd or 3rd edition.
For those of you who are just on a witch hunt for pirates the forum rules do not allow me to say what I would like to say. Same reason I don't feel free to flame back the same people who are always flaming me. I'm not quite ready to get my IP address banned. I'll leave it at that.
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Umm, I don't quite get it.
I mean, if you die you are obviously going to have to reload otherwise you won't be able to keep playing. It's hardly a matter of 'like' or 'dislike'.
But how many times would you like to die in various sorts of encounters? I quite like the poll.
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The poll question seems strange to me. I find it hard to believe anyone likes to reload---players like to be challenged up to the point of their mastery, which symptomatically may require reloads if the difficulty mode is set higher than their current know-how. But ultimately, the point of combat fun is to not require the reload, right?
If I don't have to reload because some or all of my party was killed then the fight was too easy. I consider a reasonably challenging fight to require at least 3 reloads. Or alternatively at least the death of half of my party if one is playing ironman or something. A boss fight should require at least 10 reloads IMO. The most epic challenges I've faced in games like BG2ToB with SCSII required 20-30 reloads or more before I managed to figure out a winning strategy and maybe get a bit lucky.
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Yes. I was just sent a link to that formspring announcement. I don't know what to think anymore. These guys seem to be constantly changing their minds about what kind of system they want. Or maybe there is some disagreement between Tim and Josh. These contradicory statements are confusing. Josh is the lead designer. So in theory his statements should hold more weight. OTOH, Tim's announcement was part of an official update. Who the hell knows at this point what kind of system they are planning? I do take some comfort in the fact that their ideas seem so incrediblly uncertain and vague. Their commitment to cooldown timers seems absolute, but their committment to high level spell resets during battle or even between battles is apparently not. And now the potential for sleep only spell resets? This site needs better emoticons. I'm at the hair pulling stage.
The system described in Josh's Formspring statement seems an awful lot like the 4th edition ruleset, based on what I have heard about it at least. I think it would be illuminating if someone more familiar with 4th Ed. PnP could chime in and compare/contrast the two systems. It basically sounds like a system that uses at will, per encounter, and daily categories. Albeit with a per encounter category that is sometimes more than one set per encounter. I've never played 4th Edition PnP. I'm not sure what to think about it. My main concern with the magic system that has been described so far has been the lack of attrition mechanics in the per encounter or more than one per encounter high level spell reset. Despite their statements it is starting to seem like their plans are simply too chaotic at the moment to really make any firm assumptions about what kind of combat systems they want.
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@alanschu:
Why is it that you believe I am referring to you personally? I assume you are referring to my statement: "They will probably make a lot more money on a system that younger players and modern game players are used to and seem to enjoy."
If you wish to argue against this statement then please go ahead and do so. It seems clear to me that kooldown kombat is definitely an easier system for younger and more casual players to get into. Pretty much every major publisher would seem to agree with me. By "younger" I mean "younger". I am not referring to any particular age group. You are aware that 14 year olds play computer games too, right? Admittedly they are more likely to play console games, but some play computer games as well. I think it will be easier for, say, a 10 year old to get into a cRPG with the kind of combat mechanics being proposed here than the ones in the original IE games or god forbid something like ToEE or the Realms of Arkania etc. That is not intended as an insult. I was once 10 years old as well and was playing computer games like Zork or Super Star Trek or whatever. We obviously didn't have such fancy games. I'm sure I would have enjoyed them. Especially if I had never tried anything else. But, yes, I do think a simpler system with less micromanagement and more action will have a greater appeal to younger gamers. Publishers seem to be making a lot of money based on that very assumption.
I think the real issue here is that you struggle with the idea that your classifications (and it seems as though these classifications are important to you for some reason) don't seem to be much of a reflection of reality as you would like them to be, because you continue on here:
Ah. Yes. Psycho-analyzing people over the internet. Always such an efficient process. I don't really consider 31 to be in the 'geezer' category yet. I think you have to at least wait until late 30s before you can claim that, even half-seriously. You aren't young anymore, but neither are you old. You are also still part of the younger generation that somehow took games more seriously later in life. Not sure why that is since people in their early to mid 40s are also young enough to have played computer games as a child, although late 70s / early 80s games were not even close to as sophisticatd as early 90s games. Perhaps that's the difference.
Here's the reality: the people that you thought (and hoped) loved the IE games for the same reasons you do.... don't. In spite of your rationalizations that Obsidian is making these changes to appeal to some different audience, the fact is their initially stated target audience (fans of IE games) are still very much looking forward to this. Obsidian is looking on making a combat system that the "older" IE games have enjoyed, make no doubt about it.I realize there are a great many people here who hated IE combat and only liked the games due to the setting and the wonderful stories form games like Icewind Dale II. Where have I actually claimed that Obsidian is making these changes to appeal to any particular audience (aka pandering)? Go ahead and cite it. You have no evidence for your claim that the original target audience are still very much looking forward to this game. Take a little ride over to the codex if you can handle it and see for yourself. Or perhaps you think Bioware social is a more realistic place to look. If you Obsidian were in fact targeting the people who loved the combat of the IE games they would not be making a game based partially on 4th Edition combat rules and partially on ease-of-use, which they are. So you are wrong. I'm sorry if using logic instead of ad-hominem attacks does not suite you.
Well, I suppose it's certainly easier and safer to just go and pirate yourself a copy and then play some mental gymnastics to determine if you should bother paying for it after the fact....Please cite where I said I was going to pirate the game. I think piracy is wrong and would never engage in such a vile pursuit. Oh sorry. Do facts make your arguments more difficult?
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Where has Obsidian claimed to be interested in this sort of system? It seems to contradict Tim Cain and Josh Sawyer's recent announcements. Someone have inside connections at Obsidian?
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My fwiw kickstarter economic analysis regarding the rift between the traditionalists and evolutionists
in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
Posted · Edited by metiman
Some people only like new things. I've noticed this when Microsoft releases a new OS. These types of people *always* like Microsoft's new OS. No matter how bad it is. And these same people always argue that everyone who doesn't like it is just opposed to all change.
There is another possibility. That some new things just suck. I would be quite happy playing computer games by hooking some kind of wires directly into my brain or using some kind of lucid dreaming system or any other innovation that is actually cool and not a form of going backwards. I was very excited anticipating the Emotiv EPOC for instance. At least it's a first step in the right direction. I've also been following a form of computer display that uses a laser to paint an image directly on your retina. Can't remember what it's called. Looks like it hasn't made much progress. I love change when it is change for the better. I just don't like it when it is a change for the worse. A lot of people seem to believe that 4E is a step back and was designed to appeal to more casual gamers who don't like having to read so many tables and numbers. For me the tables and numbers were part of the fun of PnP, but ultimately I would support any system that was more strategic and challenging instead of streamlined, simplified, and easier.