PrimeJunta

Party is around level 9. See, I have a problem with this. Design-wise I mean. I really liked the de'Arnise keep overall. It was challenging but fair. This, on the other hand, feels unfair: (1) The quest is lobbed at you the first time you visit the Temple District, with an additional "Don't wait too long, this is urgent." (2) Massed gauth and beholders are overwhelming, unless you know exactly what their weaknesses are, and have the right counters. (3) There is no in-game way to find out about these weaknesses and their counters. For example, the blind ex-worshipper who should know all about them doesn't tell you jack. Basically, the game throws you at them and goes "Here, figure it out." No indication that you may be out of your depth here. No indication of what you should do to prepare. I maintain that the only way to learn how to deal with these is either to die repeatedly and try one thing aver another until something bites, or make like I did -- ask someone who already figured it out. The "cheesy" solutions -- Shield of Balduran etc. -- are also incredibly non-obvious. It is IMO unreasonable to expect players to return to a shop to browse its inventory to see if it just so happens that they have just the item to neutralize those critters. I find this frustrating and unfair, not challenging in a fun way. What's more, this would have been so, so easy to address: (1) Put a couple of anti-beholder spells in a cache somewhere nearby. (2) Make it possible to interview the blind ex-cultist about beholder-fighting techniques. (3) Don't push the quest in the player's face when he is certainly at a low level and unprepared for it. -- Anyway, I managed to defeat one group of gauth and a beholder, but I blew all my high-level spells on it: summoned a couple of elementals, cast Haste on them, and had them wipe out the group. It was not so much fun, but I'm pushing on nevertheless. I do not like this quest.

Okay. Beholders. I am finding them just about exactly as frustrating as the last time. I'm trying to lead with a fire elemental, scout with an invisible party member, and drop Cloudkill when I see them, but I always get wiped when they target my caster. Also the fire elemental usually gets really annoyed at being Cloudkilled which does not make things easier. I don't know Glitterdust and buffing doesn't help because one of those rays is Dispel. I have completely forgotten how to fight beholders. I do not want to tiptoe-and-rest-spam this like before. Thinking. I would need to either blind them, or find some way to protect myself from all those rays. I know about the Shield and Cloak of Balduran, but those are so cheesy I won't use them except as a last resort (and I certainly wouldn't know about them if I was playing this cold -- I do not look through every item description in every store). Let's see. No Glitterdust. Jaheira knows Pixie Dust which will make the party invisible and therefore harder to target, but I don't think it'll be enough; the first thing I attempted was buff Iggy, have him take Speed again, and attempt to solo it. No dice, he died in the first group. I don't think Pixie Dust will cut it. What, then? Cheat, of course: Google "how to fight beholders baldur's gate 2." read read read Damnit. It seems Glitterdust is the favored solution. And I don't know it. Do I really have to slog all the way back to the Adventurers' Mart or wherever to get it? Help a bro out here, bros. How do I beat the beholders without those cheesy items, without Glitterdust, and without using an expensive technique like invisibility+web+cloudkill+elemental which would require me to rest every three steps?

Yeh, I don't mind Kangaxx at all. I was repeatedly warned about opening the thing, so I had it coming. I will come back later, although I can beat him already now; with a couple more tries I'm pretty sure I could even beat him without (too many) fatalities. But meta it is: follow the combat log, see what he's doing, look up the counters in the spell descriptions, apply counters, if counters not memorized, rest, reload, try again, repeat until victory. I am, honestly, not a fan of this type of challenge. I understand why someone else would be, though, and I do not mind at all that there's one Kangaxx in a game as big as BG2. With all that stuff in it, there's bound to be something for everybody, and something that's clearly not what you're looking for. Edit: @Luckmann I'm trying to avoid cheesy ways of winning fights, unless I discover the cheese "organically" (like when I backed to the doorway with the iron golem and discovered that he can't actually hit me from there). I know about those, like I know about the Shield of Balduran and the beholders, but I don't want to use them. Might as well use the console. I want to beat these fights with what I've got, more or less.

Okay, got a bit further. Retrieving an artifact for a blind beholder. There was a crypt with a sarcophagus I wasn't supposed to open, so of course I did. Kangaxx. I remember that. For spits and giggles I did a few save-and-reloads on this, and eventually managed to beat him but with half my party dead -- hard to keep those Death Wards up while dispelling his protections -- but it felt really metagamey and not so much fun, because the way I beat him was dying repeatedly, noting what killed me, reshuffling my spells to have the right counter, trying again, rinse, repeat. Also I don't know what the deal is with those golden bones. So, going back to my save, letting Kangaxx rest a while longer, and proceeding with the quest for the rod.

Eh, whatever you call it. Point is I'm getting a TON of quests dumped on me without asking for them, and all of these quests are presented as "urgent! urgent!" This does not feel right. It's jarring. I would have enjoyed it more if the questgivers had been spread out around the town, if the ones that walk up to you did it at intervals and not all at once, even if game time had passed, or if there was something as simple as a "Help Wanted" board where I could go pick some of them up. Again, it's not a huge deal. I was way more overwhelmed with them before; now I kiiinda know I can do them in any order I like so it's not so bad. Still detracts somewhat from the experience though.

Two more comments: One, I'm not sure stealth works like you say it works, Stun. I've been attempting to find darker patches to stealth in, and it doesn't make any difference that I can see. There are very few actual shadows -- such as cast by bookshelves -- on most maps. In any case, that tip didn't work for me. Sorry. Two, general enjoyment. I'm having a good deal more fun with this than IWD even. I notice it makes all the difference to me to be able to choose what to do and how to do it, instead of just following a linear dungeon crawl. The IWD maps were a good deal more polished and the encounters, so far at least, better thought-out and made better sense in context, but I have a much bigger feeling of agency here, with high-level objectives to pursue, lots of different things I can choose to do, and so on and so forth. I've been mentioning that content density thing a couple of times. It's not a huge deal IMO. It does, however, kind of ruin the sense of urgency the writers are trying to instil with all that NOW NOW NOW! stuff, when the fact of the matter is that you physically can't do all of that NOW, and it becomes increasingly clear that the game will, in fact, wait for you to do the stuff at your own pace.

Continuing the Let's Play. I returned to Athkatla, curious to see what the deal with the poisoned man was, to unload my loot from the Keep, and to do Yoshimo's quest. Again, yeah, there's too much content density: the minute I got to Waukeen's Promenade I got accosted by, like, a half-dozen people who all had REALLY URGENT problems they want me to solve. Told everybody yes and will ignore the REALLY URGENT part, doing them whenever I feel up to it. Then I started on Yoshimo's job. Eventually I'm supposed to steal a rather nasty god's priestess's amulet for an even nastier thief. I walk up to her and cast Dominate, expecting to be able to tell her to hand it over. That did not work, although in a perfect game it would have, in a PnP session it would certainly have worked. To pass the time (as it's daytime), I take a quest from the priest of Helm to investigate a cult in the sewers. Man, those are some busy sewers. I get murdered by an unreasonably tough band of adventurers down there -- what's a dragon-killing adventuring band doing in the sewers shaking up passers-by for coin? -- reload, and murder them right back. It was a good fight and one where I had to push to win, but ultimately not all that hard. I got whacked the first time because I honestly did not expect a wizard with Contingency and Finger of Death and what have you. Rather amusingly, one of the band survived my assault and ran away (Horror, I think), and I murdered him later. Some nice loot there. Good encounter, but really out of place IMO. I mean come on, the sewers? Then, still looking for this mystery cult, I stumbled upon Raszius. He's such a good egg that I swapped out Yoshimo for him, and continued exploring. Found a wizard's library (why would a wizard build a library in the sewers? I didn't find any other entrance to that library), nicked a couple of nice spells from him and took a quest to find an imp with a mirror. Did not find him. Instead, I found a rakshasa with some kobolds. (Yeah, man, busy sewers.) Feeling like a really wanted to rest but not having a safe place to do so, I proceeded to the Old Sewers, found an ominous room where a trap caused some ettercaps and shadows to materialize, and beat them up. Also noticed that Yoshimo had all my potions of Health so I had to get a bit creative to keep Jaheira alive; she got poisoned by one of the ettercaps. Now I really need to rest. Out of healing, low on punchy spells, and wrong loadout for what I'm pretty sure is waiting for me with that cult... that much I remember from over ten years ago, although so far the game's only been dropping extremely oblique hints. I think I'll just abuse the system and reload until I'm able. Comments: cool encounters, cool loot, but the area as a whole doesn't make sense. There's a specially locked door I can't get through but I trust that'll sort itself out later. Annoyed at not finding the imp, but not feeling like combing the sewers to find it. If this was P:E, I would blow one of my camping supplies right about now. If I was punishing myself, I'd trek right back to the Copper Coronet to rest, rest, then trek back here. Since I'm not, I intend to rest and reload until I don't get those annoying wandering monsters. I do not care for the resting mechanic here actually. It strongly incentivizes degenerate behavior, namely, what I'm about to do next. I like P:E's camping supplies much better. Area-based resting would also work for me. Unlimited resting + wandering monsters is just an incentive for abuse, and without wandering monsters is an incentive for pure cheese. Running commentary I wrote while playing below.

@Althernai -- The quest design is brilliant, better than anything I can think of other than Fallout 1 and 2. But the writing really is not. Not even compared to later BioWare: KOTOR and Jade Empire were both better-written overall (they 'read' more like competent fanfic than 15-year-old-DM), and while the ME's and DA's are fairly badly-written overall, all of them had some parts that were well-written, even really well-written (Mordin/the Tuchanka arc, the noble dwarf origin story, Varric, Cassandra.) Some of the voice acting is awesome (Irenicus), some is better than the writing (Minsc), some is brain-scratchingly awful (Aerie). Interesting if the Harper's Call thing is bugged. I'm pretty sure I clicked on the portrait; I don't even think there was a highlightable corpse to click on, just a pile of inventory. According to AD&D rules though you need Resurrection to bring back an elf so I didn't think it was a bug. As to party banter, barks, whatever, my main beef isn't even that it's inopportune; it's that it's repetitive. Lines that weren't that great to start with do not get better when repeated for the umpteenth time.

Maybe. You'll never get me to admit that the writing isn't terrible though.

AD&D also, except there it's done the other way around (XP rewards are constant, but requirements go up exponentially). Ends up in the same place.

:boggle: Playing EE now, and it's absolutely not there. Checking out my old installation. How could I have missed it? Edit: okay, found it in the vanilla one. All it does is explain how the UI works and the base mechanics at an extremely basic level. It doesn't even say anything about stealth actually requiring shadows, something I only found out about now, to pick one gotcha. Perhaps it was in the manual, but I'm way too cool to read manuals. I.e. not at all what I had in mind.

I'm a munchkin in IWD. In a more open-ended game which has multiple ways to do things, I, um, role-play. I.e. when offered choices, I choose in-character. Iggy the Paladin would not have killed a charmed captain of the guard unless he had no other option, so I looked for one. And it was enormously rewarding that there was. That makes up for having no choice but to have Jaheira help slaughter those poor caged animals earlier on. It is after a little unreasonable to require that the game accommodates every choice. But it is very cool when it does. (When the choice is "accept quest/do not accept quest" rather than "accept one of A, B, C quests" I usually accept quest, though, role-playing be damned.) Also: BG2 doesn't appear to incentivize munchkinitude all that much. I'm kind of buried in loot as it is. A couple potions more would not have made much difference, although full plate would be very nice. I'm sure there's gonna be something even better later on though. Continuing this tomorrow. And, Stun, seriously, I am having a blast. This is fun in a way that few games manage to be, warts and all.

Oh, it actually takes lighting into account? I was not aware of that. I didn't think the engine was smart enough to do so. Cool, I will adjust my playstyle accordingly. Thank you. Consumables don't really cut it for scouting though, you know, as I'd go through them really fast. ... Went back and killed the iron golem. That was unexpectedly easy. My plan was to buff Minsc and Iggy with Haste, Defensive Harmony, and Chant, with an extra Improved Invisibility on Iggy, then pull Mr. Golem to the doorway and clobber him with my shiny new toys, running back to the party for healing if necessary. That turned out to be wild overkill as apparently Mr. Golem can't actually hit through the doorway. Minsc and I ended up dismantling him with complete impunity. Seems he used up all those acid burps earlier too. A bit of an anticlimax, that, actually, but yay, XP, and now I know what I need to do if I meet one in the open (=run screaming and soil my armor). (Or, more accurately, better AC.) I guess that means I'm done with de'Arnise keep, and it's time for bed. Summary -- I liked the yuan-ti mage encounter; it was exciting to crawl through the place without resting at every turn, and with using potions and other consumables to get out of trouble instead. I really liked it that they put that iron golem there; something that was obviously out of my league, but then put the tools there with which I could beat him anyway, even if the method was a little cheesy. I really really liked the encounter with the charmed captain of the guard and that my magic snapped him out of it. I liked the variety of encounters, and the way they tipped you off all of the three main types of enemy I'd be facing in there. When they brought up the tunneling bug-like things I knew they were gonna be umber hulks, but I didn't want to re-rest to get more spells (still wasn't sure if Nalia's quest counter was running). I liked the "flavor" encounters with the staff; while Nalia is clumsily written, they did at least try to establish her character, which is more than most games do. I didn't like the maps; the constrained corridors plus the pathfinding made going through them feel like I'm herding cats. I didn't like one of the random encounters (the one Stun thinks is absolutely briliant and flawless and not at all lazy). I do not like the inventory system. And I was using stealth wrong (again, thank you Stun, you have just made a major contribution to my enjoyment). And I do not like the party banter. They're repeating the same lines over and over, often at entirely inopportune moments (Nalia complaining about crawling "around here" instead of helping people, when we're tearing through the very damn thing she wanted us to do), and the voice acting is way over the top. Annnd... I am really, REALLY digging the way there are so many ways to do things. Take those umber hulks for example. My solution was a bit brute-force, but I used what I had and it worked. Same thing with that captain of the guard. This is how you should set things up: throw a problem at you, make mechanics that affect things, and let the player loose. This is the same kick I got from the spell battles in the Broken Hand's upper levels: there's not a solution you need to figure out, but many possible solutions, some of which probably even the designers didn't think about. And, 'tis true, "modern games" generally don't do things this way. There are predesigned paths for you to follow, with little scope for creativity. I haven't seen much sign of this in the P:E beta. In fact I can't think of any good example of it from there. I hope there will be some in the full game, because they're the things that make this kind of thing more than the sum of its parts -- however hackneyed, mechanically obscure or clunky, or otherwise flawed those parts may be.

Oh, and: somebody here commented on the writing style. My beef with BG2's writing is not that it's not "realistic" or "gritty." It's that it's hackneyed and clumsy. Terry Pratchett at his best and when he has a good editor slapping him down when needed, writes excellent light-hearted and funny fantasy. He's intelligent, witty, and keeps surprising you. BG2 is... not Terry Pratchett. @Stun: I did cast Cloudkill on the umber hulks. And Web, just in case. Missed one with the AoE. Used up that single-charge Wand of Cloudkill on it, as I didn't have one memorized.

:sigh: Yes dear. BG2 is perfect in every way. All the encounters, even the random ones with nameless opponents are gems of design and pure gameplay goodness. The writing is positively Shakespearean, and no game before or since can come close to the mechanics. :pat pat: There, happy now?

... annnd, time for a rest I think. Flail is assembled (found the forge the servant was blabbing about). Now also got the hammer. Kind of tempting to go after that iron golem and all the XP now, but... hmm. Maybe tomorrow.

Screw you, Stun! I am being 100% genuine and honest here. In case you missed it, I am also enjoying the bejeezus out of this, frustrations with stealth, inventory, and some of the maps and all. I'm having way more fun with this than any "modern game" of yours. (Okay, I did get a gigantic kick out of The Witchers, but that was a different kind of kick. Not comparable.) I might be a little bit extra pointed with my verbiage just to get under your skin, but that's as much troll blood I'm willing to 'fess up to at this point.

Didn't have a potion of Mirrored Eyes. Nor anything else that counters Confusion. I checked. Easiest way would have been to rest and memorize Chaotic Commands, slap it on Iggy, and solo them (more or less), but I didn't want to.

I know it now because I just Googled the list. I had forgotten it. It's been more than ten years since I last played it, and I remember very well getting bitten by this in IWD because that happend last week.

@Stun, you know why decided to do that? Because on my first attempt at a BG1 playthrough, I lost every party member I wanted to keep because I didn't complete their personal quests on time. When Nalia reminded me about hers, I beelined for the keep because I did not want that to happen again. Then I got hit by the poisoned guy thing, and had to go back to Athkatla so he wouldn't die on me. Got hit by random encounters with every travel. Then I headed back to de'Arnise keep, and then I lost Aerie. I had already used all my Cure spells. It is true that I should have had her glug a couple potions, because I did have a quite a few of those. Yes, mistake. As to the encounter itself, I already said I lost it because I was sitting there drooling like an idiot instead of hitting pause. (I don't like auto-pause. It messes with my flow. I want to be the one determining when the game pauses or not.) Also: I tried raising her with Jaheira's Call of the Harpers. Did. Not. Work. Which is all beside the point. My beef is with the way that particular encounter was set up: with the orogs and the unnamed slaver already in melee with the party. That's lazy. I would not have been annoyed if, say, the orogs had been hiding behind rocks and shot Aerie down. That's a legit ambush setup. I love it by the way that you're such a huge BG2 fan that any criticism of it -- even coming from someone who's having a blast playing the game and says so -- gets your panties all in a twist.

Proceeding. Had Minsc glug a couple potions to get him back on his feet. Scouting with Yoshimo. Cells, umber hulk feeding spot, could probably do something with this but what, hmm, and behind this door... an ominous hall... sneak sneak sneak... oops, discovered, it's the boss, a talkative troll. Fight ensues. Yoshimo runs back to the party, pulls Boss Troll with him. Hahaa, both Aerie and Nalia have some Melf's Special Troll Remedy memorized, and start spamming those while Iggy, still on speed, wails away with that annoyingly talkative two-hander, Jaheira casts a bug swarm, and Yoshimo pelts him with fire arrows 'cuz I have lots. That didn't last... very long. Finish off the two giant trolls who for some reason didn't follow their boss, and we're about finished here. Still have these three flail pieces I meant to assemble though, so gonna do that. Also, both Iggy and Minsc went up a level. Both also get a proficiency pip. Gonna give MInsc, umm, flail, but what to give Iggy? ... annnd ... here's another of my pet peeves: the trap weapon choices. I'm really nervous about this one. I want to pick another two-handed weapon because I already have a pip in two-handed weapon style, and also it makes it easy to switch between main and ranged. But which one? I've been bit in the posterior with bad weapon proficiencly choices before. Since I've got two pips in two-hander, I'd want a two-handed bludgeoning weapon. The only one is quarterstaff, but most good quarterstaves are either druid or wizard only; I just learned this in IWD the hard way. What to do, what to do... cheat. Googling quarterstaves in BG2. ... glance through a couple on the list ... hey cool, there are high-level quarterstaves usable by paladins here. Quarterstaff it is then. So, off to make a flail.

deeper... and... deeper... Scouting ahead with Yoshimo. Oh crap, umber hulks. Checks memorized spells. No Chaotic Commands memorized. No items that give immunity to Confusion. Don't wanna rest for this, so I do what any sensible inquisitor would: have Nalia cast Web from beyond visual range, and Aerie use that single-charge wand of Cloudkill to gas the nasty little creatures. Was just taking up inventory space anyway. Proceeding... Edit: sheeeit, one of them survived. Almost took Minsc down before I managed to clobber him. This is exciting!

... continuing ... Haha wow. Golems. This was my first save-and-reload-repeatedly encounter. Tried a few things, but it seems I just don't have any weapons that'll put a ding in that iron golem's armor. So I had Iggy glug a potion of Speed, go ... ... grab the loot, scoot back out, with the rest of the party safely in the little room nearby, out of reach of Mr. Iron Golem's farts. Dismantled the other golems, left the big one stomping around angrily in the courtyard. (It must've been assembled there as it wouldn't fit through the secret door.) Anyway, that was fun. Take-home point: you can put really mean monsters in, as long as they're not blocking progress. Onward.

That was after Suna Seni, and I already used her Stoneskin with that encounter. She only got croaked because I was surprised and didn't hit Pause fast enough. In the reload I got her out of trouble with Sanctuary. The encounter wasn't tough, just the first suckerpunch.

Okay, now THIS was cool. Met a guy called Glaicus who was apparently the chief of the guards and according to Nalia a good kind of fellow. He glugged a potion (speed?) and charged. I had Aerie slap a Dominate on him. To my delight, that snapped him out of it, and we had a friendly conversation instead of a fight. Nice job. It's moments like this that make all the difference! (But yeah, the keep maps. The outdoors are really hard to navigate because the perspective obscures such a lot, and the indoors are hard to navigate just because of the really narrow corridors and what the pathfinding does to them. Not fun.)