PrimeJunta

BTW I made a dual kensai/thief and soloed Irenicus' place (after a leeetle help from Imoen to get me up to about level 5 or so). The backstab damage is rather lulzy. "KIAI!" (chunks) I think I still prefer my mage/thief multiclass though, as magic is rather interesting.

inb4 that shoop of kim kardashian as a centauress

@Sensuki man you have some weird defintions for words @4ward Thanks, but I'd rather learn to enjoy to play BG2 the way it wants to be played. The whole point of the movement system is that it lets you move freely, just like the whole point of the engagement system is that it lets you stop the enemy from moving freely. Trying to play one like the other is a recipe for frustration.

Have you even tried using the disengagement abilities tactically and/or trying to keep some of your toons unengaged and mobile, or do you just march your toons forward, engage, and swing until one side falls over?

Tactics is how you win a battle. Strategy is how you win a war. It's also a continuum. Going from most strategic to most tactical, character build, party composition, order in which you complete quests, choice of expensive purchases, how you equip each character, which spells you load up, whether and how you employ scouting, whether and how you employ pre-buffs, which opening move you choose in a battle, what you do as the battle progresses. Going by what Josh has said, I'd guess IE veterans who are not grognards. I.e., more or less people like me -- folks who played some, most, or all of them and had a good time, but did not turn Baldur's Gate 2 into a hobby or a lifestyle, or seek to fully master the system or the games. I think Josh/Obsidian believe that there just aren't enough grogs to sustain a franchise. Yeah, party interaction was one of the best things in PS:T. I hope P:E has something similar, as well as similarly interesting companions.

I can't actually. Sure, CC spells work, but there's no way to form a battle line and hold it, unless there's a choke point. I've come to enjoy IE combat too, but I still prefer something that's based on tactical positioning rather than moment-to-moment tactical movement. That's impossible, because we have different preferences. I want mechanics in the game that lets me control the battlefield by positioning. You guys do not want such mechanics. There's simply no way to reconcile the two positions within the same game. The best that can happen (Bester/Sensuki's grognard mod aside) is that (a) we learn to enjoy combat without such a mechanic, despite my preference, and (b) you learn to enjoy combat with such a mechanic, despite your preference. I will, and I think I am. I'm starting to enjoy it for real. I have shifted my position of some of the things I didn't like, but many of the beefs I have with it remain as strong as ever. Still, yeah, there is a uniquely great game there, no question.

I think the intent is that you can build a toon which is hardened against disengagement attacks; Josh suggested the monk as a base. I haven't attempted it though. At least the beetles punch so damn hard that I can't see anything surviving in the middle of them for long. The range/AoE thing works for spells with single-target or circular AoE's. Thing is, lots of them are cones or lines that start from the caster. So if you shoot them from the back, you'll get friendly fire. But, again, right now the best way to deal with enemy casters is just to shoot them dead, ideally with firearms but any ol' ranged weapons will do. Partly it's the AI, I don't think I've ever seen one put up an Arcane Veil, but firearms bypass that so... well. Clerics and such, fairly often. Wizards, not so much before dispelling the protections, but that done it's not a problem. I'm honestly not having a lot of trouble with the magefights so far, although of course I'm using brute-force tactics like using summons to draw fire and Breach to dispel defenses. Perhaps. I was just thinking out loud. Right now I can't see how a P:E wizard would effectively defend against firearms, since Arcane Veil is useless for it. Something ought to be done about that. Maybe I'll post a topic in the BB forum. Here's that semantical thing again, one of my little peeves with you grogs. Tactical positioning is also tactics. The fact that you move less doesn't necessarily make things "less tactical," only different. Also, things do move. There will always/usually be un-engaged enemies, so when you move your wiz to the side, it's likely something will target him and he'll have to do something about that. The field stabilizes, but doesn't become completely static. Again: I can see why people who really like the way combat works in IE will really dislike the changes to P:E. What I take issue with is the statement that it's "worse" or "less tactical." It's not worse, it's different. I think my idea of what tactical combat should be like comes largely from Total War, and I prefer the way it works in P:E.

@Nakia AD&D isn't really a system, it's more like a collection of houserules flying in loose formation.

The state-of-the-art RPG romance already has you having sex with a bull. A horse is only the logical next step.

@Jarmo Unpickable locks don't offend me as much. To be able to pick a lock, there has to be a lock to pick, and it's not hard for me to visualize a door which can only be opened by magic, or from the inside, or from another location. An undetectable trap feels like cheating when there is a Find Traps skill. Worse if it's even undetectable with the cleric spell.

Without doing anything to avoid them? I'd say yes, they're pretty bleedin' murderous. A tougher enemy will one-shot your mage with a disengagement attack, or close anyway. The good thing is that there are lots of ways to break engagement without incurring one, or to protect yourself from them. Off the top of my head: knockdown (fighter), stunning blows (monk), that awesome kick special (monk), any spell that causes stuns, paralyzes, knocks down, and probably a few others (wizard, others), any ability or spell that pushes toons back (wizard, chanter, cipher), that one spell that lets you switch positions with another toon (wizard), charm (cipher), Escape (rogue), Shadowing Beyond (rogue), Something-something Positioning (rogue). Things that are not 100% sure but are likely to help: Arcane Veil (wizard), Zealous Charge (paladin), that priest spell that gives a big buff to Deflection. I'm sure there's more. You're pretty unlikely to be in a situation where you really need to break engagement and there's no way to do it other than take the hit.

@4ward Casters, especially wizards but also ciphers do need to move in combat, more so than frontline fighters. This is because many of the good spells have AoE's which originate from the caster, meaning, you can't blast them safely from behind the front lines without causing serious FF. Once the front lines are engaged, the battlefield sort of stabilizes a bit; that's your cue to move the wizard to the side so he can blast with these spells. What you can't do (without using special abilities) is have a ganker rush to the back to murder a caster, then rush back. Instead, you can use stealth to get your rogue into position, stab stab stab, and use his specials to get back out. Or use the barb's Wild Sprint to make mayhem behind the lines, or the monk's fast movement. Buuuut... none of that is really necessary at least at this time because it's easier just to gank the mage with a ranged starting volley. Basically, you use your front line to engage the enemy's front line, then your ganker to gank enemies that are engaged and therefore can't engage them, and flank with your bombardier to apply AoE damage, while fighting off enemies who try to do the same to you. (Not that they're smart about it at all ATM.) I like the way they've done firearms. If the whole party is packing, that starting volley is murderous, you can pretty much take out any single enemy party member in the opening. The trade-off is that reloading is really slow, so you only get one volley like that. But they are supremely scary mage-killers, and they're okay that way. We'll see what kinds of encounters the full game will throw at us; I suspect that facing, say, three armored casters at a time would be pretty daunting if you're relying on putting them out of commission with the starting volley. Er, once they get armor working like it's supposed to, that is. But, it is very different from the IE games. Similar to DnD4 in many ways. (The classes aren't though.)

P:E is moddable and Obs have said they want to do their best to support modders. I have no doubt whatsoever that about three days from release the bang-your-elf mods will start rolling in, so never fear.

That's because it's my Let's Play and I go out of my way to avoid them.

You asking me? I dislike that trope. Just like I dislike being plopped right into melee in a random encounter. I'm being robbed of my agency. I may enjoy the fights, but not the way they're set up. BG2's are not especially bad (so far); the worst example of that type I can think of is in NWN2 OC where you're suddenly and without warning whisked off to solo against a LOT of vamps and other assorted undead. I wouldn't miss it if they stopped doing that sort of thing altogether. You know what else I dislike? Undetectable traps. IWD had lots of those, even if the Find Traps skill description warns that you won't detect all of them. If I invest points in Find Traps, by golly gosh I want to find traps. Same thing. I like scouting. It's a significant investment both in terms of party composition/character development and playing time. There should be a commensurately big payoff. If you want to limit it so it doesn't become a must-do thing, I'm sure there are ways to do that.

Most of you grogs are really unpleasant about the way you present your points though. I don't think most people in Josh's shoes would put up with that kind of thing for long. If he doesn't listen to you, it is largely your fault.

I would feel that setpieces which are sprung on you by surprise would become unfair in that setup. If it was based on scouting ahead so you'd know what to prebuff for, by all means.

I don't really care what the designer was thinking when designing them. It's the end result that counts. If the system allows prebuffing, and prebuffing turns an otherwise hard fight into cheese, then that is kind of a problem IMO. Again: in a game where the player teaches himself to play, if the most obvious and easiest strategies are dull and/or cheesy, then there is something wrong with the design. Either change the mechanics to make the interesting and fun strategies more obvious, or change the game so that it nudges you towards those strategies from the start.

Mm. I agree with you on your thinking about objection #1. BG2 does do this a lot of the time; e.g. with the Planar Sphere thing I knew I was up against a necromancer so I should expect death magic. OTOH a lot of the time it doesn't: the Cowled Wizard ambush was a suckerpunch. As to objection #2, I would agree with Josh if the fight is one of the ones you can't investigate by scouting ahead. If you sneak ahead and see a bunch of vampires, it is entirely reasonable to pre-buff with Death Ward before charging in. If OTOH it's one of the ones where the foes materialize out of thin air and there's no way you can anticipate this, then pre-buffing because you knew that they were going to do that is kinda cheesy. (Example: the first real fight in the tomb with Korgan's quest. Go past a certain point and pop! you're swarmed by all kinds of nasty things. I didn't pre-buff for that one BTW, I managed to slap a Death Ward on Korgan when it started and then have him tackle the level-drainers.) My thinking? Set-pieces like the one in the tomb don't really mesh with pre-buffing. I like the set-pieces, and I think they would be improved by removing that mechanic. OTOH pre-buffing would work great if the content was more dynamic, i.e. you really couldn't metagame-anticipate what's going to hit you next. How do you think it would play if, for example, there were two or three different locations where a setpiece could trigger, and two or three different enemy compositions? That means that even if you had fought them all, you would have no "meta" way of knowing exactly which one it would be.

@Stun One thing I've been having trouble with is figuring out exactly what the mage is protected with, especially (as usual) the combo is fired with Contingency or Spell Trigger. The spell FX flash by quite fast, and obscure each other. I can usually catch Stoneskin because of the boulder effect, but that's about it. Similarly, I can't tell which protections my attempts dispelled. More practice needed I suppose.

FWIW I get the biggest kicks from reacting and adapting in the middle of a fight/the game/with the tools I brought. The most fun I've had so far from my BG2 attempts this time were nuking those umber hulks with my single-charge wand of cloudkill and beating the necromancer with the scrolls I happened to be carrying. Both times I was out of suitable memorized magic. Reloading and metagame-prepping for a casterfight with the Tolgerias encounter was much less rewarding. I think it should be possible to have both though. Make playing with a "standard party" relatively straightforward, but with "gimmick parties," smaller parties, or solo require planning and creativity as well as on-the-fly adaptation.

I think a lot of Josh's concerns would be resolved simply by having the game communicate how it wants to be played better. What he says about hard counters and parties isn't strictly true (if it was, Stun wouldn't have been able to solo BG2 with a berserker), but it is true that many party compositions are much harder to play than others -- and that's perfectly fine. If the game just said "Yo, you're going into this without a healer and that's gonna be pretty rough, so be warned" in some way, the people who want the challenge could proceed, whereas those who need the warning can heed the warning. Again: I'm 100% certain that it is possible to make a game that's enjoyable for those who just want to play it once, without making it any less enjoyable for those who want to play it continuously for the rest of their lives. With BG2, most things screwing it up for the first group could easily have been addressed in ways that the second group won't even notice.

Tangent: this thing is doing something to the way I see things. I was just reading through the latest Q&A on Josh's blog, and where previously I would've just nodded in agreement (specifically regarding casterfights and hard counters), now I was going "but but but."

Yeah, I agree. It felt rather random. The only decent setpiece was the final one. They really need to do something to make magic more of a 'potent threat' as Josh likes to put it. As it is, most of these mage duels are easily resolved with a musket volley. Those archers with their Bleeding Wounds are a good deal more dangerous.

I played some NWN back in the day, but somehow never really really warmed to it. Dragon Crown of Cormyr and Darkness over Daggerford were cool (=better than the OC by far). Hordes of the Underdark was kiiinda OK. There's just something about the whole thing that turns me off. Maybe it's the visuals; normally graphics aren't very high on my list of priorities for a good game, but NWN hits a particularly bad spot. There's enough there to stop me from filling the blanks with my imagination, but not enough to really create an atmosphere. Dat game be fugly.