PrimeJunta

@Enoch Yeh. Again: the coolest moments in a spell battle I had were in IWD when someone charmed a party member and I Dominated him right back, then someone did it again to someone else, and I used Hold Person to get him to stay put until it wore off. That was genuine back-and-forth, in-the-moment stuff which wouldn't have happened if I had just quick-loaded and pre-buffed with Freedom of Movement and Chaotic Commands (or something). I haven't had any moments like that in the BG2 spell battles. No back and forth. It's either quick victory or equally quick defeat. If it starts to go bad, I can only very very rarely turn it back around. Those high-level spells are just so immediately lethal or debilitating if they bite, on both sides. I would prefer a magic system that had more of that back-and-forth, rather than immunities that are either up or not. So no, I'm not really digging the mage battles, even if I've figured out how to beat them in a reasonable number of reloads.

We can both speculate on what "the community" wants and what the reaction will be once it's released. You however are stating that "the community demanded," past tense. It did no such thing. Your karma is about 500 for about 1000 posts. Mine is about 4000 for about 3000 posts. I'd say that if one of us wanted to claim that he speaks for "the community," my claim would be a good deal stronger than yours. And I'm not. I recognize that "the community" has a ton of divergent, often entirely incompatible preferences. Even your grognard sub-community differs on a number of points. Sensuki f.ex. doesn't care what the attributes mean, he just wants them to work mechanically, whereas Stun is really annoyed that Might means both magical and physical might. (Sorry if I got this particular point wrong, but you get my drift.)

Archangel, here's where you're wrong. "The community" did not demand they put in combat XP, make the attribute system more DnD-like and minmaxable, drop engagement, or put back hard counters. A number of individuals did so, all of whom don't even agree on these specifics. If you're wondering about the occasional acrimony here, at least I get a little ticked off when, for example, you make like you're speaking for "the community" and what it demanded.

"how many folks played beyond 10th level?" I ran one Planescape campaign which wound down when the players were around level 16-17. In all of the others, we wrapped up around 9-10 or thereabouts. The going gets pretty derp in PnP around the time when your lead fighter has more HP than the average rhinoceros. Less bothersome in cRPG's. Also, if you follow the spell rules strictly, collecting all the material components for a wizard's typical spell lists takes a bunch of sessions in and of itself, and put a major crimp in resting in the wilderness.

Just so you know, I hate everybody here equally, except IndiraLightfoot who is a trooper. Only way to stay sane and polite here.

@Starwars Hehe, I know. Thing is, I'm fascinated by the grognard battalion. Folks like Stun are hilariously fanatical about this. There must be reasons for it, and at this point I'm more curious about those reasons than I am about the actual game. I'm also exploring my own motivations and ways of playing these things. If I'm not enjoying it, is it because I'm playing it wrong, or is it because this sort of thing really isn't to my taste? The only way to find out is to try to learn to play it less wrong and see if the balance between frustration/irritation and enjoyment tips sufficiently towards enjoyment. Also, my vanity has been tweaked by Stun's and Hiro's constant sneering. I want to prove to myself at least that the reason I don't like it -- if I can't learn to like it, that is -- is not that teh combat is too hard. And finally, I want to reflect on what it is that I expect or want about P:E. I wasn't really hugely sold on the Kickstarter; I only pledgded enough to get the game and eventually a few add-ons. It seemed more Baldur's Gate-ey than Planescape Torment-y, what with the very generic-looking Western traditional fantasy and all. I only got really interested when stuff about the background lore started to emerge and it was clear that the worldbuilding was going to be way deeper, more coherent, and more original than I had expected, and that the story wasn't going to be your usual goatherd-grows-up-to-be-a-hero-and-saves-the-world-from-an-ancient-evil. Put another way, I'm digging this thread more than the game.

You don't need to outnumber your opponents. You just need to hold a line. The spiderfights for example become quite controllable that way. I would not enjoy them with the IE movement rules. Engagement is no fun on Hard with the beetles though, because Adra Beetles (and to a lesser but still significant extent, Stone Beetles) bite so hard you just can't hold a line against them. They just chew their way through. Instead of a way of controlling the field, it becomes an impediment.

@4ward Re the encounters, yeah, a lot of the time you can do that. I was scouting with Madam Evil in the Planar Sphere though; I don't know if retreat and regroup would have been an option in that case. Perhaps it would have. I didn't particularly hate that casterfight actually, maybe because I knew I was taking a risk proceeding with almost all my spells spent. Some of the times you can't though. The last such incident was the confrontation between those two nobles in Trademeet, when it suddenly turns out that both are high-level mages and start lobbing spells at you without warning. I'm sure Stun or Sensuki could've beaten that cold with the party I had, but I couldn't think of a way to stop one of them from casting Chaos after Mislead had fired on a spell trigger, or think of a way to get the hell out of Dodge before the Chaos bit. (Cue sneering from Stun at how much I suck, and from Hiro at how I should read the manual.) So I just buffed Korgan with Chaotic Commands while things were still amicable, and won. It was the most obvious thing to do, but it required metagame knowledge of that which was to come. I have been thinking more about this though, see if I can somehow manage to embrace this whole metagaming thing. Just treat the encounters as challenges to be overcome by any means possible. Will only try to limit reading actual spoilers. We'll see, I'm not about to give up just yet.

Not so. The game told me that I'll be going to Wyrm's Tooth Glacier which was a bit of a giveaway, so I loaded up on fire before going there. The entrance to Lower Dorn's Deep made it clear that there's gonna be more fire deeper in, so I swapped my spells on the first rest. The salamanders and constructs at that point weren't much of a problem. Honest, did not metagame there, just took an extra rest when I saw what the environment looked like. (Edit: also Wyrm's Tooth was really easy, I don't think I even used much magic there, just chewed through everybody with Stabby the Berserker.) I talked to some people before going into Artisan District, and they told me there's a crazy mage there building an army of Umber Hulks. So I loaded up on Chaotic Commands. Honest to God, this is what I did. I almost never felt that the game was suckerpunching me. It did a little in Dragon's Eye when I was kind of led to expect more Talonians (-> memorize Hold Persons and other cleric-suppression things) but then it turned out they were actually Yuan-ti. And that's about it really. It wasn't super-obvious about it, but if you're paying attention the clues are there. Not at all like "let's go to de'Arnise keep to get Viconia and Korgan some nice weapons."

ALL the hard encounters? Yikes. I'll head to Windspear Hills then, and see if I like it. @Stun Re gameplay, ultimately I define it by "I enjoy it more." So far I did enjoy IWD's gameplay a good deal more than BG2's. I could break it down, but that'd just make you argue it point by point and it wouldn't change the fact that I enjoy IWD's gameplay more so I don't see the point. I've tried to introspect a bit, to identify where exactly it is that my enjoyment takes a nosedive. At least one such trigger is when I use metagame knowledge. Whether it is "do de'Arnise keep to get Korgan that sweet axe" or "prebuff Korgan with Chaotic Commands to counter the Chaos the enemy mage is going to cast in round 2," it ruins it for me. It feels like I'm cheating, and I don't like to cheat. And since we've established that gathering and using metagame knowledge -- "practicing BG2, not playing it" -- is kind of the point, well, there's a problem there. Re the story, as I said I like the Bhaalspawn idea, and there's nothing wrong with evil-wizard-wants-to-exploit-it-for-his-own-ends either. There's however a lot more to story than the main conflict. All I've gotten of that is the expository dungeon and some dreams with rather clichéd villain monologue. ("You will SUFFER!" Come on.) Everything I've done since then has been entirely unrelated, and most of that just isn't very engagingly written.

Question. How much further do I have to play before you guys believe I've given it my honest best? I took a dip into what powergaming would be like. I read up on power builds, and set out to make one. Soloed Irenicus's place and the circus tent, except to pick up Imoen to help with some traps (XP, ding!) and Aerie to memorize some spells (XP, ding!) and racked up a couple levels. Wasn't fun. Feels like work, not play. I'll keep nibbling away at this with my Neutral Evil elf, but I'm starting to think you guise might have been right when you accused me of not digging IE gameplay all that much. It's okay, but not so awesome I'd commit, like, a hundred hours to this just for that. If only the writing and story were a little more engaging, that'd tip the balance and make me really want to play this. (Or, alternatively, if only some of the mechanics and UI elements weren't so irritating. I bleeping HATE that inventory!)

I preferred IWD's gameplay to BG2's. There's full control over party composition, the maps are more polished, and the setpieces -- so far at least -- are more varied and better designed. Perhaps that's one reason this feels a little disappointing actually, coming straight from IWD. Plus, while this kind of gameplay is nice enough it's not entirely to my taste. For pure gameplay goodness I'll take NetHack any day of the week, and twice on Sundays.

What the hell. I'll try ignoring the story and attempt to switch to pure powergaming mode. See if it makes a difference.

Lawful Good didn't work out so well for me either. I hadn't realized that "not doing quests" is a major feature required to properly enjoy BG2.

Yes, I've gathered that. Edit: I powergame games that invite powergaming, and roleplay games that invite role-playing. BG2 does both, so I try to do both. However, the gameplay in itself isn't engaging enough for me that I'd just do stuff in order gain levels and get better gear so I can do more stuff and get even better gear. This kind of thing feels very very grindy, and doesn't seem to be progressing anywhere. I'm just grinding quests, without discovering anything particularly interesting or having a feeling of progressing anywhere (other than seeing that nice golden + appear next to a portrait from time to time.)

My Neutral Evil sociopath PC doesn't give a toot about Imoen, and clearly the Cowled Wizards are quite competent and have Irenicus safely under lock and key somewhere suitably unpleasant. She's already forgotten all about him and is more interested in climbing the ranks of the Shadow Thieves, maybe having Bloodscalp assassinated in some way that can't be traced back to her and stepping into his shoes, once she's gotten a bit more influence in Athkatla maybe.

@Vaalac Experiment with the camera settings. It is possible to tame it. I don't remember how, but I got it to go from tear-your-hair-out to tolerable. @prodigydancer I wanted to include NetHack but I'm pretty sure most of you guys wouldn't consider it a cRPG at all. Even though if Wizardry's a RPG, then so is it. It would take the #1 spot easily. I liked Morrowind because the world was just so damn awesome -- there was something surprising and different and cool behind every corner, and the lore opened it up beautifully. That's pretty much all it was, but it was enough. @Sensuki That is true. Give me good writing and motivate me, or just give me some rails to follow with fun gameplay on the way. Morrowind had awesome writing but not in the usual "story" sense. I'm not all that much into a sandbox with just "stuff to do" in it. Doing stuff for the sake of doing stuff starts to feel like work rather than play. That's also why I like Total War by the way -- the battles always have a wider strategic context so they mean something. It's also why this whole metagame thing -- like the way I pre-buffed with Chaotic Commands to win the final Trademeet mage battle -- is such a big turn-off for me. It jolts me out of the game. Mah immershun. It is gone. And with BG2, I do have to think a lot like that, right down from "Don't take this quest, 'cuz it's better to take that quest first." But we'll see. I'll keep playing a bit more. Perhaps it'll get more fun again. BTW, if I was doing this for revenge/to embrace mah Bhaalspawn powah/to save Imoen, I'd be beelining for the main quest the minute I scraped that 20k together, no?

My top 10? I don't maintain such lists, but off the top of my head here's a bunch of cRPG's I've enjoyed more than BG2 (so far), in no particular order: Planescape: Torment Fallout Fallout 2 Fallout: NV Morrowind NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer The Witcher The Witcher 2 IWD Gothic 2 Vampire: Bloodlines

Interim report. Headed off to Trademeet and murdered some druids and an old lady who gypped me out of a potion and turned out to be a rakshasa some dao with a Desi accent wanted dead so it was all good. Got caught in a battle between two nobles who somewhat surprisingly turned out to be über mages who could certainly have gone and fetched thate doodad from the tomb themselves, but whatever. Then headed back to Athkatla, where I decided to visit the one part of town I haven't seen and got slapped with another quest. Now I'm supposed to solve a murder in a district I've never visited, involving people I don't know. This is also sliiightly starting to pall on me again. Starting to feel a bit like a glorified errand boy: bring me this, do that, fetch the other, kill the third. The Umar Hills quest was similarly uninteresting for me. I can't put my finger on exactly why. I think it's this "getting things lobbed at you" thing again which rubs me the wrong way. The Tolgerias quest was interesting because I was curious about the Cowled Wizards and wanted to find out what it is they wanted, and then one thing led to another. The Shadow Thieves questline for similar reasons; I was curious about the faction, and it pulled me in. But I really have no reason to care about Umar Hills or Trademeet, and I already have way more money than I need to advance the main story, so I don't really feel motivated to do all this busywork. Which is why I think I'm going to drop it and ... pursue the main quest. Which, truth be told, I don't really care about either. This I think is one of the game's weak points for me: it somehow doesn't manage to make me care about anything much in it. Perhaps it's the weak writing. There is also something about the gameplay that doesn't quite agree with me, and it is about those save-or-lose effects. I found the surprise mage battle where I got caught in the middle intensely irritating, because it was all about countering what those two idiots were lobbing at me, and, once again, the order of things mattered enormously. The system is fascinatingly complex, but I'm not supremely motivated to learn it inside-and-out so I know exactly what to do with what I have when somebody's Spell Trigger fires and she pops up Mislead. So I got impatient and slapped on a couple of metagamey pre-buffs and won easily. I dislike it when I "have to" do that, but I didn't have the patience to trial-and-error my way through it either. The Monty Haul aspect is also starting to get to me. There are so many awesome things in there that they stop being awesome. Bit like BioWare's famous awesome button, only with loot. I preferred IWD's loot balance where there really were only a few very good weapons in the game, for example, and getting one felt like a real accomplishment (trap specialization choices aside). Basically, this experience is very up-and-down for me. There are some bits I enjoy enormously, and then long stretches which I find just irritating or pointless. Again, I liked IWD a lot more, and PS:T more still. Feelz right now? I'll keep soldiering on, hoping for more of those really cool bits. Sorry to disappoint you grogs, but this still isn't my favorite cRPG. It's not even in the top 10. Does it get seriously better from here on out?

I do? "Microstrategy." It's called tactics, mang.

I for one am glad they don't.

Not gonna happen. He's just going to disable movement in combat altogether. Exploit that, fools!

The casting time would have to be instant though, otherwise that starting volley is going to get him first.

While BG2 spell battles are out, the enemy mages in 392 are kind of disappointing. If you're rocking firearms, they're chunked in the opening. Arcane Veil also does not protect against firearms, and I don't think there's any "opening move" currently in the game that would defend a mage from that. Pelting the mage with arrows has much the same effect, only takes a little longer. They're just too fragile and too easy to interrupt. Which is kind of amusing given all the bellyaching over 'muscle wizards' a while back, actually. Something should be done to make enemy spellcasters more dangerous. They oughtn't be that easy to neutralize.