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Sooooo in your head potd will be exactly like hof in every single way? Jump to conclusions much? To be fair, they DID name drop HOF mode, specifically. Why would they do that if the intention is to make it different in just about every way that matters? Btw, lets make some things clear about IWD/IWD2's heart of fury mode. In HoF: 1) The number of enemies is dramatically increased 2) The EXP rewards are dramatically increased 3) NPCs are dramatically bloated (in both their health, their saves, and in the damage they do) 4) The loot they drop often IS better. One example (of many in the game), In IWD2, when you kill Sherincal, she drops her fancy 2-handed sword. But depending on the difficulty setting, that sword's stats are radically different. On Normal It's an average powered Greatsword (it's +3 and does 1-6 electrical damage) In HOF mode, her sword is +5, Keen, and does a shocking burst for 2D8 damage. Now lets look at that list again. Will POE's Path of the Dammed have any of this? Well, we know it won't have #2. And They've said nothing about #1. #3 we're obviously not getting because they're decided on a system that will give us a different enemy, instead of a more powerful version of the same enemy. As for #4, this is the one that most concerns me. They've said nothing about it, and logically we can assume that if we get different enemies, then we're probably getting different loot. (it would be silly for a mage in Path of the Damned to drop the same armor and melee weapon that the warrior he replaced from normal mode drops.)

Ooh.... this is a really good point. I applaud them for trying to come up with alternative solutions to encounters, but if I see a hostile party of enemies, and their armor and weapons are all shiny and unique looking, I'm not going to prefer to Stealth past them or persuade them to walk away. Not when I could just kill them and take their stuff. LOL

Is that confirmed? If so Sawyer slipped that under the radar. A lot of us hate the idea. Yes. The first time they mentioned it was in the bottom of Update #7: I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I like it. It promotes true roleplaying, instead of the gamey Murdering-things-for-exp that defines most cRPGs. On the other hand, I'm seeing myself halfway down the mega dungeon and dreading that next encounter because there's no point in doing it.

I don't know. For some reason it wasn't that bad in BG1 (which was the worst offender. With TotSC, you could cap halfway through the game.) Smart developers can mitigate the anti-climax of the gameplay that happens post level cap via loot distribution, shifting focus from combat to story, and various other ways. I don't think POE will be having such a problem though, since you won't be getting exp for killing things. All exp will be quest exp, so they could precisely measure everything from beginning to end and make sure that a party of six won't hit the cap until just before the end of the game.

How much of info about PoE did you actually read? Hm... I stand corrected. I thought Path of the Damned would just beef up existing enemies and increase their number (because that's what IWD's Heart of Fury does). But they're actually going to replace enemy types? Interesting.

Alternatively, They could: 1) Make the Basilisk gaze be a cone attack that effects an area, instead of just one subject at a time. This will, of course, eliminate the common tactic that players always use of totally Buffing up just one of their characters and then having him draw all the attention of the Basilisks while the rest of the party safely takes cheap pot shots from a distance. 2) Eliminate Korax, forcing players to summon their own undead if they wish to use the "undead decoy" tactic. 3) They could Trap the area where the Basilisks are. 4) Finally, (and this one is really evil) They could adjust that Mage's AI, and have him spam Dispell Magic at anyone attacking his Basilisks. This will outright halt the use of the standard protection from petrification hard counter. ( Edit: It will also dispel the Ghoul's dire charm, making him turn on the party LOL)

A player can certainly tweak gameplay difficulty to taste. That's a given. But much of the stuff we're discussing here falls outside of that... Like an encounter design's inherent difficulty. For example, a low level party in BG1 can wander off a little too far to the east and stumble upon packs of Basilisks. Basilisks are nasty when you're low level. They can petrify you instantly, taking you out of the game (ie. time to reload). Well? Moving the difficulty slider to "easy", will not help, here. Unless it actually replaces that pack of Basilisks with a different encounter entirely... like Hobgoblins or something. But as far as I know, POE's difficulty settings will not be going so far as replacing whole encounters. As for Sawyer's explanations. Sure, there's just the right amount of "Ideal" in them to make them sound good, but the final verdict, which is still almost a year away, will be ours. Design plans, and design implementations are two very different things. We'll be playing the latter.

When defining "Challenge", you cannot separate these two. Often times (in fact, most of the time) Tough fights that require planning, require effective use of your party's skills, and require that you know when you're out of your league, will CAUSE #1. Especially in a first play-through. Gamers are a stubborn, prideful lot. They will incessantly do #1 until they successfully achieve #2. This is why I said a few pages ago that a tough, unique encounter should be like a puzzle. Well of course that's a gamer's worst nightmare. No one wants that. I've yet to hear anyone say: "Awesome! I get to redo this entire level because I was smart enough to forget to save!" lol But I'm pretty sure I heard one of the devs here say that they're not gonna stray too far from how the IE games handled saving. Which was perfect. 1) can't save during combat or dialogue. 2) can't save while duration-based AOEs are active (web, grease etc.) You can save any other time. So basically to avoid the gamer's nightmare of having to re-do an hour's worth of a successful gaming session, simply develop decent save habits. I usually quicksave after every encounter. Additionally, I'll quicksave after a particularly long inventory management session, or after a successful rest. I'll do Special saves (stuff I put in a new save slot) before a boss fight. And that's about it. If POE adopts the IE game save system then the game will also auto-save at area transitions, and occasionally before major story-based events.

That is precisely what's being argued. People here are LITERALLY against all unpredictable Variables in an encounter (the proof of this is right here in this thread. Notice how RNGs and "luck" have become bad words, and talking points on this thread even though this discussion has nothing to do with luck!) There may have been another way. But if there was, the Player didn't figure it out before he was killed, so the point remains. Why should we condemn that encounter and beg developers to eliminate it, and all encounters like it, just because someone could conceivably stumble into it unprepared and end up having to reload?

Right, but how can one make such a judgment call (that this encounter had a special attack that was impossible to predict)? Player Party X walks into a room of Clay Golems. They did not expect to encounter clay golems, and no one in his party has a blunt weapon. So...Clay Golems win. Reload. Ok, that may have been impossible for Player X to predict, but what about Player Y, player Z, Player A, and Player B? What if they happen to have Hammers, maces and morning stars in their arsenals because Blunt weapons ARE their party's strengths and they were promised that the game would play to their strengths? Should we all be deprived of such encounters just because it MIGHT be impossible for someone to predict the first time around?

BG1's final fight is unintelligently designed. Not because of the Cheese (Serevok is a 16th level fighter with 80% magic resistance. RIGHT!), Or because of the illogical terrain (cloudkill, web and stinking cloud traps that everyone is immune to except your party. RIGHT!) No. BG1's final fight is poorly designed because it instantly ends when Serevok is killed. This means that it's an utter waste of time to bother with his interesting cohorts. All you need to do is focus everything you've got on Serevok, and ignore everything else. Lame.

LOL I can't tear my eyes away from this thread. ....Then you're not learning from your mistakes. Or.... you're in an area you're not supposed to be. (the devs HAVE said that there will be no level scaling in this game. This means that you can, in fact, wander too far down in he mega dungeon (for example) and get yourself into a situation where the enemy is of substantially higher level than your party and therefore the solution is to get out and come back later) These are nice, fluffy words, and you're spouting them without knowing what they really entail. Look, Developers cannot create a combat encounter that requires strategy and plays to your party's strengths and weaknesses, while at the same time guarantee that no one will suffer from the 30 minutes of frustrating reloading and failure that you claim to despise. It's gonna happen. People have wildly different playstyles and the only way to eliminate all "frustration" and "tedium" is to make it so ALL strategies succeed. Well? if all strategies succeed then what you have is brainless trash mob encounter. And you're not asking for that, are you. Or are you?

I agree. Please design this game to be void of a learning curve. Give us success even if we fail. Make it pleasant, friendly, straight forward and one-dimensional... like tic-tac-toe, or Checkers. Make it so that 4 years from now, after the 5th play-through, the game is so simplistic that it plays itself while we watch. PS: and release it for the WII, so that my Mom can enjoy it. <gag>

... Maybe if you'd realized that before you said this: So? I've never in my life played a game that contained combat, that DIDN'T have at least 1 such encounter. Oh and by the way, POE won't be any different, so.... We could've all done more constructive things with our forum time. Not following. Just because devs design an encounter to be a pure trial & error experience for the player, does not mean it instantly succeeds in being one. (Chahopek the Guardian in IWD2 was supposed to be one of those, ask Josh Sawyer) But it wasn't for me. I destroyed him in 3 rounds in my first playthrough. All combat-based RPGs have such battles by design. Sometimes devs will even get all personal about things and try to *force* matters via scripts and whatnot to insure that their precious "bosses" cause first time players who don't cheat to die and reload (High dragon Battle in DA2, with its silly "phases".) But that covers all combat encounters, doesn't it. Especially that last one. Even a hostile 4hp Kobold is impossible to beat unless you employ a specific set of actions/choices. No, lets just stick with an increased unlikelihood of success. because, frankly, neither specific builds, nor luck, nor specific party composition is required to defeat Kangaxx (for example). But the likelihood of success is increased dramatically based on a variety of tactics, weapons and magic items that the game gives you. Tactics, weapons and items I might add, which players often already use to defeat other enemies in the game. For example, Kangaxx is Undead, and like any other undead in the game, he is vulnerable to the Improved Mace of disruption. I look forward to the learning process! But The ruleset isn't really a deciding factor here. Devs can make an encounter difficult or not-so-difficult regardless of the rules. Kangaxx Breaks almost every AD&D rule in the book. It doesn't have to, but why wouldn't it be? If you're a halfway decent player, you're going to be observant of how the enemy killed you and you're going to learn from your mistakes, yes? That naturally equates to a higher chance of victory in the rematch. Er... but your argument here suggests the complete opposite. If your 1st level Fighter, fresh out of the militia, has never seen or fought a scary ethereal creature from another plane before, then doesn't logic dictate that he probably has only a marginal chance of victory against such a creature? See, this is why a *good* game educates you, then gives you the tools....but not a guarantee of success simply because you took some "sword training". instead, it will be a trial and error ordeal. And you shouldn't hold it against the game if you "try your best" but still get your ass whooped the first time around.

Then we have no dispute. There are no encounters in the IE games that are impossible to win in a blind first playthrough. There are merely a couple that present an unlikelihood for a new player to win in a blind first playthrough. Now then, do you have a problem with that too?

You guys aren't communicating. The distinction Lephys is making is not: Fail the first time vs. Succeed the first time it is: Always fail the first time - impossible to succeed vs. Always succeed on the first time - too easy to fail. There's a lot of room between those extremes. If that's what he's saying then he's putting up a ridiculous straw man. I gave exactly zero examples of an "always fail the first time" encounter. Why? because there are no such encounters in the IE games. One can very easily (and logically) ONE-SHOT-KILL Kangaxx by accident in a blind first playthrough.

Right, but the problem we're discussing is not solved by difficulty settings. It's an issue with specific encounter design. A demi-lich with 100% magic immunity who fires off uninterruptable 9th level spells at you in combat will not be easier to beat on "easy" mode, he'll just have 'less health', or in PoE's case, he won't obliterate your party members, he'll just "disable them".

Wait a minute. I think I've found the real reason for the confusion here: But Lephys, we're not average people. Average people don't back Kickstarters that promise an isometric party-based RPG in 2014. We're very not-average people. We're Gamers who want what today's mainstream games are miserably failing to deliver.

LOL Ok. I'll answer the question, as stupid as it is: Because there isn't a 3rd option. In any encounter you engage in, you either 1)succeed the first time, or 2)you don't succeed the first time. There is no third Option (at least until the day we see an RPG incorporating stalemates. But that would be retarded, unless there's a story-based reason to have them, in which case the player is still succeeding by fighting to a stalemate (see #1). In this debate though, you want #1 and have vehemently opposed encounters designed to produce #2 Uh... no. It'd be more accurate to say that wanting what you suggest would be like forcing everyone to play on Easy mode. Seriously, a game who's normal mode is so easy that you never lose a fight, even on your first playthrough is.... not a well designed or well balanced game. And it will most certainly be seen as a giant "UP YOURS!" to the infinity engine classics. If combat DOES end up being so embarrassingly simple, then the story had better be extraordinarily good to compensate, or else the entire game will go down in history as an epic failure.

Timestop most definitely made combat more interesting (And a lot more fun!) Oh and for you "pre-buffing is bad!" peeps, Timestop also gives your mage a chance to freely buff himself up right in the middle of heated combat... literally, but I digress. lol Mostly though, Timestop's main purpose is to allow players a rare chance to stroke their egos. It just *feels* like the ultimate expression of power. Not to mention that For the first 100 hours of BG2, your party has to deal with mages and liches casting timestop against you. But when your mage finally gets it it's like: "Aaah! at last. Time for some seriously well deserved paybacks!"

The 2 encounters I cited don't work like that. There are 50 different ways to beat Kangaxx the demilich. Not just one. What typically happens for first time players is a total party wipe. Then, Second try: they discover something that works, right before they get wiped again. Then the third time they put up a decent fight....they come closer.... better than before. then they put together everything they've learned and Eventually they figure it out completely and they win. Then they come online and share their joy and satisfaction on a message board. Then they stick around the forums and wait for someone else to do a thread entititled: "how do I beat X?!?", where they then quickly show up to post advice. Then later someone does a song about it. I'll ask again, what's wrong with that? does everything have to be "usual"? does every single encounter have to be completely winnable the first time out?

So? I've never in my life played a game that contained combat, that DIDN'T have at least 1 such encounter. Oh and by the way, POE won't be any different, so.... Wait... so you don't deny that, ideally, things would not be designed thusly, yet you actively advocate not trying to design them better, simply because you believe they wouldn't actually be designed better? You do realize there are two different things there, right? You can think something is objectively problematic, AND simply believe it's not fixable. Deciding that somehow means it isn't problematic doesn't solve anything. Or maybe I don't see it as "bad design" when developers toss in a couple of encounters that you're not meant to just stumble upon and win? Encounters that are supposed to be the combat version of a puzzle, to be solved via trial and error, instead of yet another "tough boss fight" to test your power on? What's wrong with that? Why do you assume its a design flaw when (at least in BG2's case) these combat puzzles are 1) all optional, and way off the beaten path 2) the rewards for coming up with a solution happen to be some of the best loot in the game (Ring of Gaxx; Staff of the Magi)?

So? I've never in my life played a game that contained combat, that DIDN'T have at least 1 such encounter. Oh and by the way, POE won't be any different, so....

Your argument deserves no less. Edit: Hell, I'm giving you too much credit. You're not even putting up an argument. You're simply taking a game, and mindlessly bashing it.

I don't enjoy challenges built for reloading in any games. A challenge that's designed to kill you until you memorize the right moves is just lazy design masquerading as difficulty. It doesn't reward skill, insight, or creativity, only persistence. First off, you're trying to paint the IE games' combat as a rock-paper-scissors type thing. They are not. Oh and before you respond by citing freak exceptions to the rule (Kangaxx! Twisted Rune!) Let me pre-empt your feeble argument: NO. In a party-based RPG like bg2 + TOB, which sees 150+ hours of content, and a leveling system that starts at 8 and ends at 40, a few unique, hidden and totally optional encounters do not prove your case. Second, The IE games (all of them) richly reward ALL play styles. Including Skill, tactical thinking, Attrition, practice, trial & error, experience, creativity, teamwork, D&D knowledge, and oh yeah.... reading the friggin manual and load screens. These games did not become all time classics for nothing.