Captain Shrek
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Posts posted by Captain Shrek
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" like is actually a pretty powerful indication that the D&D per rest system has some structural flaws."
The DnD per rest system is perfect the way it is. The issue is the way video gamers/video gamers use/abuse it. You should not be resting after every battle. PERIOD. Games should not be designed with that in mind. There are so many ways to fix this it's not even funny.
1. Limit resting to logical places - you shouldn't be able to rest in a palce with intelligent potetnial enemies - like that Lor'ds stronghold. If you try to rest you shoudl quickly find yourself sorrounded by almost the entire's keep's force. If resting in random dungeons like the Endless Paths random encounters may occur.
2. Only allow players to rest once per 24 hours (or 12 if being genorous or DnD elf). The body isn't meant t rest/sleep every 2 minutes.
3. Camping supplies if youa re gonna rest in wild and limited benefits to do so.
4. Time limits for quests so the player is motivated not to rest every second.
5. If time passes the dungeon/area should change and update brining more surprises. You cna leave various dungeons and its exactly as you left it. New traps, new enemies. Maybe what you seek has been moved/lost making you fail your quest. ie. A kidnap victim is moved location, killed, etc., etc.
It's not ahrd. Dnd rest system is perfect. game developers are not.
Volourn, my dove, been arguing for this since ages. I bet no one cares.
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Let's see: Sawyer was lead designer on Icewind Dale 2 and Fallout New Vegas. His bitter critics here don't appear to have designed much of anything, and the stuff that they are so angry about ranges from 'don't care' to 'flatly disagree' to 'perhaps, but fixable' in my book. I'll give the guy behind Door#1 the benefit of the doubt.
Don't you forget NWN2 OC.
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The real king in a single player game is content. And the content is NOT equivalent to packing dungeons with Giant beetles. Content is all about meaningful sidequests (read, not fedex) that interact with each other and create a story. Hopefully, a different aspect of the same story depending on how you do these quests. Alpha Protocol did it well so I know you guys can do it! But the best example I know of this is Iron tower's upcoming game Age od Decadence.
I will outline my biggest deal makers just for clarity:
1) Sensible encounter design
2) Acknowledgement
The first issue is about deciding what do we go to kill. Do I have to kill all the critters lying around? Is the world so infested with monsters that every step I take, I face a magical/dangerous creature? I am assuming that this idea intrinsically is insensible and only adds frustration and tedium in the game. We only need to fight those things which are IMPORTANT to the plot. Don't get me wrong though. I do not mean that this should somehow bring down the combat to the level of the Torment 2. But if the beta is any measure (rather the only measure we have at the moment) then the game seems like it is going to be a grind fest. Please avoid that!
That is the real problem: TOO MUCH COMBAT and that is a terrible design decision! That made IWDs a chore and NWN/NWN2 a disaster that most players can't replay it despite enjoying the story somewhat! Learn from their mistakes! Say no to the trash mobs!
The second issue is acknowledgement. There is an acknowledgement is the game, I must admit. It is the XP given out for ridiculous things. If there was a worse, more insipid form of such a payback, I haven't seen it yet. XP is the lazy man's way of design. Killed some zombies? Here, take some numbers that help you in a totally unrelated way. Maybe you want to increase you skill: SInging with that? What??? Besides several the mechanics related issues that I will not note down here, this is a really bad way to implement a kickback.
This HAS to change. Rather, killing everything should have consequences. There ALWAYS has to be a story! And a good story to boot. That is the real consequence in a game that calls itself an RPG. Personally I am a combat-type guy and I enjoy playing Bloodbowl to TOEE any day. But, if I want to play TOEE then it will most assuredly put me off if I have to kill 1 billion random encounter skeletons/giant battle toads without knowing what caused such an outburst from them and being able to take a quest to switch it off. So give us good reasons to kill things. Doing so for "bestiary" xp is just not good enough. A mass murderer needs to be treated as such, probably being set upon the local EPA/PETA people who are really out to get you.
I think this really needs to be in the game. A PETA group that hunts you down for sport for killing beetles. yeah
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Quite astute! I will explain myself. It is objectively better because it has more classes, Spells, Multiclassing, Skills, enemy variety. These are the only things objective in any comparison as they are numerical.
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As I said: Do not play NWN2 OC. It was designed by monkeys.
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It never held any water except in the eyes of degenerates.
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Interesting. I know that Arcane Veil does an odd thing where it doesn't take a full action to cast. If Eldritch Aim etc are the same where they hardly add any recovery at all, then it might indeed be worthwhile. I'll give it a try next time.
It's still miles away from the old IE routines (e.g. Armour, Stoneskin, Chaotic Commands, Fire Shield, Mirror Image, Haste, Protection from Evil, Minor Globe of Invulnerability....) of course. Good times.
IE games and infinite resting and thus infinite spells. Which is why the buffing was broken. If pre-buffing came at the cost of actual spell slots sacrificed for later fights it would be the best system ever. Just like in PnP.
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It is unfair to compare PoE to BG. PoE will never reach the awesomeness and legendary status of such a game. End of.
BUT, as I was grinding through 40 rooms with 150 thugs watching hideous graphics, listening to terrible VA and repetitive music over and over and over again, while AI was infuriating me (Yep, I'm playing NWN2), I learned to appreciate just how good PoE is compared to some other games.
NWN2 is objectively better. And I am not talking about the campaigns, even when I believe that MOtB and SoZ>>>>> PoE. NWN2 simply has better mechanics, which when used judiciously can give us amazing modules like the Conan Saga. As I see it, PoE is totally hampered by its combat design where the attributes have little to insignificant effects and the entire engagement mechanics. Add to that the inability to multiclass and you have a repetitive and shallow gameplay.
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I think I asked a pretty straightforward question: Is playing a thief underpowered in Bg/2 all by itself or just wrt other classes? If it's the former then I will admit BG/2 were worse games as they made an entire class impossible to play. My general impression is, no matter what class you play the game is totally playable just like most modern games, including PoE.
Mages and other magic users are not particularly overpowered either. They require careful play and more input. The entire assertion that they are easier is blinded by player expertise and nostalgia at playing more complex classes better.
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Density does not make for quality. It was just more in BG2. You are projecting your baggage on me. Stop it.
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Gromnir, are you saying that thiefs are underpowered in BG games? Just want to understand your stance. Or is your point that they are weaker than other classes? Like rangers, priests and Wizards of PoE?
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So Grominir is bull****ting again?
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I can't really put my finger on an exact reason as to why I don't like PoE.
I *can* put my finger on why I don't like DA:I. It's a console game, with a piss-poor porting over to PC, with no Mac/Linux version.
It's definitely why I *DO* like PoE: it's a game written for PC Gamers, that uses an actual UI-control setup that makes ****ing SENSE.
That is something that is as up-to-date in 2015 as it was in 2001. If you're still a PC Gamer, and still like REAL RPGs (which at the end of the day still work best on mouse & keyboard, not a joystick/game-controller), as opposed to action-games that pretend to be one.
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Welcome to D&D, where there are more magic users than not.
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I would prefer it if swordsmen, sorcerers, and gunslingers are able to draw on magic, but use differing methods to achieve their goals. Having magicians completely obsolete other classes isn't fun, ultimately limiting the resilience of a ruleset and weakens the setting.
How so? As I said: Just make magic costlier. Problem solved.
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I don't know dude. This forced magic == Non magic kinda sucks to my tastes. Magic ought to be harder to use but more powerful than non-magic. The word does mean *something* no? I would say that make material components and cast times for spells larger and there is no need to change D&D system.
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Ciphers use the mana system. Part of why they are such a powerful class. But to use that system for the other casters...I enjoy the system being different from dragon age. I don't view one as better then the other, just different.
They get mana from SHOOTING PEOPLE IN THE FACE.
It's ****ing awesome, is what it is.
PoE mana > other games' mana
Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin
The cognitive dissonance is strong in this one. LOL.
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That has nothing to do whatsoever ith High level vs Low level. In D&D Magic >>>> Not magic.
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I disagree. Durance and Grieving Mother are every bit as deep as anyone from MotB or PS:T, even the really deep ones like Grace or Dakkon.
The others were less so, but they still hold their own against Baldur's Gate companions. Remember Aerie, anyone? Anomen?
EDIT: Not that you need depth to be good. My favorite NPC from the BG series happens to be Minsc.
Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin
Griveing mother, No. Durance yeah. Again, both written by Chris Avellone. Durance I do not consider as great simply because of the setting. The gods are revealed to be mostly impotent idiots bickering amongst each other and with mortals. This practically flattens out the emotional power of what Durance is trying to say. Worse yet, it harms the entire setting in general as the central theme: 'can meaning exist without faith?" is practically pointless in a world where answers are forced on the PC and the chars.
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yeah. Great dialogue like
<Priest of Eothas> : Who was Eothas?
is why I enjoyed playing this game. This kind of horrendous lack of attention to detail concerning backgrounds is also present. Dialogues are JUST NOT better than PST or MoTB or even Alpha Protocol, which had probably the best overall dialogue presentation. PoE companions are not really weak, btw. They are just so much worse than ones from MoTB/PST that it stands out. You can not compare *any* of these to Gann or Kaelyn or anyone from PST. These were games written by the same people.
The 'cutscene' idea was great and it indeed is a strong point in favor of PoE. reminds me of Darklands. A bit unfortunate that this was not what made darklands great but rather just added to its fun.
UI is indeed better in PoE though.
Nostalgia is also not my 'thing' as I never liked IE games so much.
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The funny thing about this game is how soft counters end up becoming hard counters anyway. In the sense they become so highly accrued on a target that 'extreme and specific' means need to be used to overcome them. That quoted portion is what I consider hard counters. Examples are the Adra Dragon and Thaos.
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It is sad indeed. But PoE improves upon things that made BG a success anyway. It improved upon art and uh oh.. Yeah, that.
There are other small individual things like it gave melee fighters at least one useful ability that they can use other than a right click.
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Even one trap can make a difference. Early/mid-level, Noxious Burst traps can do enough damage to enough creatures to take several down to low health. Adragan's Gaze traps are obvious win buttons given how overpowered the spell is. Chain Lightning spells are also pretty useful.
The weakest ones like Tanglefoot or Dart obviously don't do too much.
Yeah. Except one seal makes more difference. Way more difference. To set traps right takes either metagaming knowledge or lots of reloads most of the time. The encounter design is hardly suited for tactical gameplay that allows stealth scouting. Not to mention, where traps actually matter, like Raedrick's hold, it makes almost zero sense to allow it. In the game if you 'sneak' (note the quotes) up to Raedric then he sees you putting traps. IN HIS THRONE ROOM.
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dao combat is good, but it boil down how fast i can chug potion
Actually underlying DAO spell mechanics is way better with spell interactions and resource consuming abilities. It is only hampered by encounter design and kooldowns.
Also, the secret to success in DAO is HARDLY chugging potions. If you are playing that way, you don't get the mechanics. There is an optimal strategy with every kind of opponent: Mobs? Cast AoE. Melee fighters? Cast stuns and shatter. Magic users? Cast mana clash.. etc.
Comparing PoE to BG is unfair
in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
Posted
Frankly, NWN2 combat was a nightmare. Does anyone remember those horrible rogue filled rooms in the NW manor? Or the Orc caves? Or how rogues were *made* useless by filling the game to brim with undead hordes? In many ways, these are the same problems that IWD2 faced. As well as PoE. I personally feel that 3.5 D&D is a great RPG mechanics facility, not perfect, but still great nonetheless, which has received a bad name as it was abused by bad developers.