Stun

The IE games Broke away from it. Lets pause a moment to clarify something here. The fact that if you wanted to you could build a "trinity" party and totally succeed in steamrolling through all enemy challenges in the IE games does not mean that those games were specifically designed and balanced around being played with a trinity party. So saying that the IE games had your trinity is true, but it's irrelevant. And to argue that it's the same as the extreme lengths that WoW takes the trinity (which I hope no one here is trying to argue) is absurd. In BG1, using a trinity was completely unnecessary. And In BG2, it was actually inefficient/suboptimal.

Why? Are the two supposed to be related somehow? And what defines a "good boss encounter"? I'd argue that BG2 and Temple of Elemental Evil had plenty of rather good Boss battles. I'd also argue that in BG2's case, some of those bosses were more easily/efficiently dealt with by NOT employing the classic trinity battle plan (what good is a Tank against Irenicus at the tree of life?; How is crowd control or healing going to help against Kangaxx?) Personally, I'd sooner see the elimination of the entire "boss" cliché outright. When I think back to the most memorable (and most fun) battles in my years of playing RPGs, They're almost never against the "bosses". The encounters that stick in my mind the most were against enemy parties. The Holy Avenger battle in IWD2. The Bounty-hunter battles in BG1. The Arcane Brotherhood Assassins in IWD: Heart of Winter. The Enemy adventurer Party at the beginning of Trials of the Luremaster. The Berserker Lodge in Mulsentir (MoTB). Those were the real good stuff. They were the funnest battles because instead of facing some alien entity with "special unique attacks" and a silly-bloated Health pool, you faced a party of enemies similar to your own, using all the same powers and defenses your own party uses, same strengths and weaknesses that you had. etc. Plus those battles always yielded the coolest loot for everyone in your party. It was, after all, the equipment they were using. lol

The only counters to a Charm or Hold spell would be Hard counters (ie. free action, or Immunity to charm/mind effecting spells, or dispel magic), which is a bad word in Josh-land. Also whether these spells are all or nothing is a matter of opinion. I don't know about you, but for me, in the IE games at least, if I've got an opponent stunned, It's over. Stunned opponents are automatically hit, and in BG2 if you can automatically hit someone, they're as good as dead.

Well, said inspirations (the IE games) HAD some death spells that could be used at 12th level You had: 1) Disintegrate 2) Slay Living 3) Flesh to Stone 4) Death Spell 5) Chromatic Orb But I suspect that the very mindset Josh and Co are using to argue against death spells is going to manifest itself in much more far reaching ways. For example, it makes no sense to say: death spells aren't in because they're all or nothing mechanics that do nothing but promote save scumming/reloading" but then turn around and offer us stuff like Save or Sleep. Save or be Stunned, Save or be Charmed, Save or be Dominated.... as all of those wonderful effects are ALSO all or nothing and ALSO promote save scumming/reloading by sh*tty players.

I agree. They're not. Consumers expect a fully polished and playtested product already, so such stretch goals only invite PR headaches. When a dev says: "give us another $300,000 and we'll make everything more polished", the first thing that pops into my head at least is.... well what happens if we don't? Are you going to give us a half-assed, less polished product? That's probably not a mindset that devs want to tangle with. Which is why you usually see specifics tied to such stretch goals. Like the $4m stretch goal for POE which WAS "enhance the whole game".... but it was followed by "we'll use live instrumentation and add in-game developer commentary..." Also, this is sorta why the Torment Numenera Kickstarter rubbed me the wrong way from the getgo and caused me not to bother with it. It used a lot of unspecific stretch goals like "At $2.5m We'll give you a deeper story!" and "at $3m we'll give you More reactivity", and "at 3.5M even more more reactivity". LOL Which makes you wonder what they would have delivered if the funding hadn't gotten that high.... a shallow unreactive turd not worthy of carrying the Torment name which they arrogantly tacked on to it before knowing how much funding they'd get??

Well it's not. I believe this is the balance that the death spell detractors here claim does not exist with Death spells. Additionally, the Spell caster using those death spells has to deal with all the other standard checks and balances, such as Spell interruption, elongated casting times, general magic resistance, and in the case of HP-dependent death spells (like Power Word: Kill and Symbol: Death) correctly assessing how much health the target has left. Death spells, like any other kind of spells, are situational. There will be times when they're super useful and times when they're worthless. In BG2 and Icewind Dale 2, they worked best when used against "generic" monsters and summons. Like... you see 2 beholders. You send all your melee/ranged guys against 1, then you have your Mage take out the other one with a finger of death or whatever.

No, I don't buy that. First off, these games did not come out in a vacuum. Had they been littered with bad gameplay, they would have never sold as well as they did, lasted as long as they did, been ranked in the "top 10 of all time!" list by just about every gaming publication on earth as they have, and we wouldn't be here today responding to a Kickstarter pitch that promises to give us another game like them. Second, the IE games themselves were not one monolithic entity. That is to say, the game play mechanics of Planescape Torment are light years different than BG2's gameplay mechanics, etc. Lastly, That Sawyer post you linked us to is a pure minority opinion. Of HIS. He has yet to prove that anything he's saying is "Right". He will get the chance with PoE, and we will be the judges. But that is not going to happen until several months from now. In the meantime, many of his gameplay preferences have already been put in place in, say, 4e D&D and you can see the fan reaction to them. It's not Great. 4e stuff has not proven as successful as its predecessors, in any way. Even Wizards of the Coast realized the fail. "D&D Next" will be coming out soon, and it will quickly replace just about everything in 4ed, instead of just adding to it, like previous versions of D&D did to their predecessors.

Stun has pages and pages of comments about how he likes hard counters and save or die mechanics all over this forum. Forced party make up is just the oldest form of a hard counter. Also try beating Baldur's Gate 2 with no casters and let me know how how it goes Monte. I bet you it doesn't go very well. That has nothing to do with anything. Hard Counters and chance are a completely different subject, and Josh did not cite them as things that Grognards desire. Not in this article at least. And don't kid yourself. There will be hard counters in PoE, and chance. We have already seen enough class abilities and mechanics to prove that. I have, many times, beaten BG2 without any spell casters. I have soloed Ascension on Insane with a vanilla Rogue. I have seen others do the same with Berserkers, Kensai and other completely non-spellcasting classes. It's not, by any means, impossible. In fact, after about chapter 3, its not even particularly difficult. BG2's vast, vast tactical freedom allows it, as does its loot system. That is something Josh should probably take a hint on. Perhaps, although I'd argue that blunt opinions on their own tend to be refreshing, and when they come from game developers, reassuring. But again, making blunt statements is one thing, and bluntly assigning traits to whole swaths of gamers that they don't have is quite another.

Yep. That's why the storylines of Mask of the Betrayer and Planescape Torment are hailed as so great. They were about Saving yourself, not the world/kingdom/realms/country. We most definitely need more stories like that.

There are people who like this? I consider myself a traditionalist closer to a traditionalist in nature, but when has this ever been a think anyone enjoyed? Careful. I pointed this out a page ago and was immediately accosted by someone here who felt the need to remind me that devs have different opinions than us, or something. But seriously, that comment is nonsense. Most "traditionalists" or "Grognards" I've seen want the OPPOSITE. We are the ones who look at games like WoW and Dragon Age 2 and scoff at the cookie-cutter template parties those games require for success. Ie... Gotta have a Tank, Gotta have a DPS character, and gotta have a Crowd Controller, or else GTFO.

Wasn't Grognard that silly Gnome Bard in Neverwinter Nights 2?

Enough already, Bryy. In one post you remind us all that sometimes people have differing opinions, and then, in your next post you use silly sarcasm to deride someone for.... having a different opinion. Why don't you practice what you preach? Let me tell you what I *think* is happening here. Josh is a blunt guy. God love him. The world needs more people like him. However, he tends to lace his bluntness with sweeping generalizations. And that's what causes the dissent that you seem to be crusading against, here. Again, I've never met a Grognard who loved rigid encounters that only had one solution to them, or that could only be beaten with a specific party makeup. Ever. I have met Grognards who don't mind such encounters (I'm one of them). And others who flat out dislike them. So I don't know how or why he gets off tossing such labels at us. It comes across as caustic. And there's no need for it anyway. he could just as effectively answer questions and promote his game by just telling us what's in and what's not, without giving us elaborate "whys" and "why nots" specifically designed to piss off whole segments of the fan base.

K, is this supposed to be representative of what "grognards" want? Aside from the fact that I can only think of 1 (one) such encounter in ALL of IE games (Kangaxxx), I have yet to meet a grognard who's ever said: "hey I want more encounters that force me to use at least 1 rogue and 2 clerics." or "I hate modern games because they don't require you to have a Fighter!" lol Although this comment from Josh does seem a bit odd considering that he's decided to give MMO like combat role definitions to the classes. From the above, I'm assuming I can have a well rounded party without a "mob ruler" or a "heavy hitter"? Gee I sure hope so. I'd hate to be GM-sucker punched because I decided to roll up an all mage party due to my love for mages. Wow, someone's a little upset that the devs think differently than they do. Huh? Think differently about what?

I agree. If it's the RPS article I *think* we're talking about, his only real complaint (aside from the stuff you mentioned) was that the quests that he got to see were "standard fare". He cited a nobleman at a bar who was looking for his daughter, and a cemetery that had a ghoul like creature who was lamenting about its plight and asking for help. I'm not sure what he was expecting. He was given a pre-alpha demo of the first couple of hours of the game. Did he expect to be instantly tossed into an earth-shaking, super dynamic, faction-changing, branching quest line that early on? The *good* games don't do that. They ease you in gradually. As it stands, that entire article did nothing but make me more excited about the game! But back on topic: K, is this supposed to be representative of what "grognards" want? Aside from the fact that I can only think of 1 (one) such encounter in ALL of IE games (Kangaxxx), I have yet to meet a grognard who's ever said: "hey I want more encounters that force me to use at least 1 rogue and 2 clerics." or "I hate modern games because they don't require you to have a Fighter!" lol Although this comment from Josh does seem a bit odd considering that he's decided to give MMO like combat role definitions to the classes. From the above, I'm assuming I can have a well rounded party without a "mob ruler" or a "heavy hitter"? Gee I sure hope so. I'd hate to be GM-sucker punched because I decided to roll up an all mage party due to my love for mages.

Well, I don't know about better, as that's a measurement of taste. But with 4x what they initially asked for, they can certainly do bigger. Keep in mind that the initial $1.1 million was for a game with only 1 city, the core 4 classes, and only a small number of companions and races. Since that time they've literally doubled everything, as well as added huge time sink-stuff like a 15 level mega dungeon and a giant stronghold, both of which come across as games in themselves! Yet a lot of people still seem to be getting this "vibe" or "hunch" or "worry" that PoE will be like the IE games but will lack their length and gameplay scope. That is one fear I stopped having sometime after October of 2012. Everything about this game, as described since the end of the kickstarter has pointed to a massive thing, seemingly designed to compete with the Longer IE games, like BG2. And this is what has me excited. I just hope we don't get 80 hours of mediocrity.

I'm hardly a tech-e, so I'm not particularly following this discussion you three are having. But I did find something that might help: Though they do have to UNITY, Unity is actually dirt-cheap as far as game engine licensing is concerned, and I've found nothing suggesting that Royalties are part of the Terms of use. Check this out: https://store.unity3d.com/ The full version, of the Latest Unity (Unity pro 4) is only $1500 or $75/month per 2 seats. And a Team license add-on (which I assume Obsidian is using?) is +$500 or +$20/Month per 2 seats So....$2000 for 2 computers? The team working on PoE is not that big, so we're looking at, what? about $20,000 max? Is that even worth mentioning for a game that has $4 million+ in funding to work with?

Sure it does. I believe it's called a miss. Oh, well, Finger of death can be saved against. Its casting can also be interrupted. Fine, I won't use "preferred" at all. Real time with pause = 100% good. Turn based 0% good. That does not mean I hate turn based. I will play a turn based game, and tolerate it. But I don't hate it. I'll tell you what I hate. First person shooters. I will never play another one ever again. Why? because I hate them.

You don't seem to comprehend the difference between its being the effect of a spell (what the spell does, and not what it indirectly happens to cause) and it simply being "an effect." Why can't you just once stop leaping bridges and actually inspect what's between one end and the other? Citing a qualm with absolute death as the inherent effect of a spell in no way leaves "obviously death, itself, is a problem" as the only remaining option as a point to adhere to. Well, Lephys, I could cite you a list of Death spells where Death isn't the absolute effect (finite damage is another effect they may cause). Oh wait, I already DID cite you that list... about 37 times in the last year or so that we've been debating this subject. Willful denial is also an absolute effect. And you failed your save. I have absolutely no idea why you just said that, or what it even has to do with anything at all. Then I'll spell it out. You claimed Death spells require no Effort. So I cited the fact that they do require effort. a ton of it. They're higher level spells that must be earned through long hours of playtime and leveling. And then you responded with: "That's not the effort I'm talking about! That's like citing game development as effort." So I decided to remind you that a rare high level skill/ability/spell acquired through Leveling... in games where leveling is a big deal... IS real effort. More so than simply buffing up your accuracy score so that you can hit things and do more damage. Nope. They're just doing the same thing that other stuff already does, but in a shortcutted form. You can already kill things in one hit, under the right circumstances, with plenty of abilities. What can be more "shortcutted" than one-shotting someone? Hell, one-shotting someone doesn't even allow for a saving throw. Nah. They're an extra element of gameplay, complete with their own set of resistances, modifiers and de-modifiers. Because the "tools" we're talking about also include ways to defend against death spells as well as ways to strengthen those death spells. Like I said it's an extra element of gameplay. It does not exist in a vacuum. And in no game they're in do they even reach the point where they're the most powerful tool in the arsenal. Nope. Saying that something's specifically cited alternative is 0% good means you hate that specifically cited alternative. What!? That's complete nonsense. If I were to outline my thoughts about combat systems in cRPGS, I'd say that Real time with pause is 100% good/preferred while turn based is 0% good/preferred. But I certainly don't hate turn based. I just don't prefer it. At all. Especially when the alternative is RTwP. You sir, have lost your mind.

They're a chance roll A chance roll that can be heavily influenced and even eliminated by tactics, buffs, items, class and race abilities on the part of the target, as well as heavily influenced and almost guaranteed by tactics, debuffs, items, and class abilities on the part of the attacker. Death tends to be an absolute effect, yes. Some games "cure" this by eliminating death. Do you like games where you don't have to worry about dying? Hey, I understand this mindset. It's common among modern gamers, since they're used to modern games where leveling is so common/frequent that it no longer signifies an accomplishment. But we weren't talking about those games. They're an additional element of gameplay. They add to what we already have (all the stuff you mention) It's in the part where say his argument is that 0% luck and 100% non-luck is good, Wait, so let me see if I got this right. Saying that something is 100% good and preferred means you Hate all alternatives? LOL I'll ask again: Have you lost your mind?

I don't recall dying at the beginning of BG1 (the game gives Imoen a wand of missiles. If you can't kill that wolf outside of Candlekeep with a magic missile or two then it's not the game's fault, it's yours), but I do recall losing half my party in East Haven in Icewind Dale 1. Near the exit of town you face that pack of goblins and 2 of them are archers, and the way the narrow path snakes around, those 2 archers inevitably have a perfect, direct line of sight to your squishy mage and druid in the back. And of course, level 1 mages have, at most, 6hp, so a single arrow will usually kill them. And you can't rush them either and kill them before they attack because, again, the way the path winds around.

Taking the rest of your post into consideration, doesn't all that planning make the fact that it's decided by die roll worse? If I'd formulated a plan of action like that, I'd want it to pay off in some capacity. Maybe not in instant death, but at least in a lot of damage. The problem Josh is talking about is the fact that it's both all-or-nothing and random. You might disagree that it's a problem, but a lot of players would disagree with you, myself included. Josh knows full well that it was never truly all or nothing in the IE games, and even dice roll results weren't 100% random. Spells like Slay living and Finger of Death still did damage if the target made his save. And saving throws themselves can be lowered via decent planning/buffing, or raised by debuffs. And btw, the BG games had No-auto-fail-on-1, which meant that there was no way a Disintegrate or Wail of the Banshee could kill you if buffed your save vs. death to 1 or better. Then there's the "obnoxious" hard counters. A misnomer, since even death Wards can be dispelled and magic resistance can be lowered by an intelligent enemy who's looking to make sure his finger of death doesn't go to waste.

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All death spells require influence/effort on the part of the player. They're not Level 1 spells that are given to you at character creation, after all. They must be earned. Straw man. (why the hell do I waste my time with you?) Edit: and you're blind. I said THIS in my last post: ^imagine that Can you show me in that quote of mine where I accuse Josh of hating luck?

I'm fairly certain he didn't, but I could be wrong. If you can locate a quote, I'm all "ears." I distinctly recall him talking about his qualms with missing in the previous games, back when he was talking about pulling full misses from attack resolution. Then, of course, it was decided that missing would be included after all, albeit in a more minimized and influenceable capacity. His design decisions speak a lot louder than vague misinterpretations of his words ever could. He had a problem with the degree to which chance affected attack resolution. Having adjusted that degree (and allowed player choice a greater hand in the mix), he is content. And so are many others with that system. Ok. found it. Sorta. It's not the quote I remember but here's his thoughts on "luck". http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/62090-instant-death/page-5 It's a quote of his taken from Mindspring. Again, Everything he's saying here is "right" and "logical". But that doesn't change the fact that Death spells were FUN. They were fun to use, and fun to see being used against you. But, they're not going to be in PE because.... they can be abused.

When did he say that? Remember that giant Insta-death thread? I think he said it there.