Ffordesoon

...Fair enough. I would hope that someone reading this thread would read on to see me cop to my mistake, but you're correct that someone could read what I wrote and get a false impression. For that, I apologize.

Yes, but what is your point in making that point? What is the objective here?

I'm aware of all this. What's your point?

As far as movies are concerned, I'm a big fan of the musical chameleon known as Michael Giacchino. Every one of his scores sounds like the lost work of a different composer, but they all sound "Giacchinoesque" as well. Compare Up to The Incredibles to Star Trek to Speed Racer to Lost to Super 8 to Mission: Impossible to Alias. They all sound vastly different from each other, but they all have Giacchino's unique signature. That's a hell of a trick.

Read it plenty of times. Got it, then forgot it, then got it again. I'm well aware of exactly how to access the spell descriptions in every case, and I've studied the ones that trip me up multiple times. Stuff still occasionally leaks out, though, as the difference between Dispel and Remove Magic did for me when I wrote that post. Total brain fart. I would rather be honest about my failings than act like I'm so supercool that I can memorize everything about every spell at once. I find that kind of attitude unhelpful at best. I'm not perfect, and neither is anyone else. Are we done, or is the snide implication that I can't comprehend written English a hill you're willing to die on? EDIT: Also, I'm playing the EE. No QRCs.

Being unable to beat situations unwinnable without metagaming knowledge is absolutely the game cheating you. To say otherwise, that it's somehow my fault an encounter was badly designed, is asinine in the extreme. If I ran a race, and someone tripped me in the middle of it, would you say I suck at gravity because I didn't expect someone to trip me? If you would, you are a deeply troubled human being, and I hope you get the help you unwisely begrudge others. If you wouldn't, we might be able to talk like human beings. There is a valid argument for design that requires metagaming. There is no valid argument for elitism.

@Justin: What, Avellone didn't make all of you play the Advanced Edition and bask in his brilliance?

Death in Dark Souls is irrelevant? Are we thinking of the same game? Because it's pretty darn relevant in the one I'm thinking of. It's just not the save-and-reload death of BG, which is only relevant inasmuch as it wastes the player's time. And no, I'm not saying PoE should be the same as Dark Souls. It should learn from Dark Souls.

<3 <3 <3 EXACTLY.

<3 Really beautiful piece, Justin. The Basil Poledouris influence is pretty noticeable, but that's no bad thing. I'm detecting a bit of Dark Souls' Firelink Shrine in there as well, which is always nice. I often either don't like or am indifferent to music in fantasy films and videogames, especially Western ones, because it often feels soulless and - literally - generic. There is nothing genuine in it. This piece is not soulless or generic, and it is genuine. It is also evocative to the point that it could almost be considered a mild spoiler (which is a compliment). It sounds to me like a regretful homecoming of some sort, or a lament for past glories. Dyrford is not what it once was, is it? That's the vibe I'm getting.

EDIT: Accidental double post, please delete

In addition to the already confirmed markers for AoE spells, I'd like to see some status effects that last for the length of an encounter if you don't dispel them. I'd also like to see AoE debuffs last a shorter (though still lengthy) time than single-target versions of the same debuff. And, er, I'd like to see single-target and AoE debuffs be separate spells, in the same way that Mass Cure is a separate spell from the Cure Wounds series. I think that would satisfy folks on both sides of this argument, because it would feel like BG without turning the game into the status effect bonanza BG could be. A notable exception to this would be a petrification effect, should one exist in PoE. I think the BGs did that mostly right, apart from it garnering an automatic game over when inflicted upon the protagonist.

I have a feeling you say that a lot.

@Karkarov: Ah. Well, to each his own, I guess. I personally like BG a lot more than Dragon Age, which (weirdly) has a lot of the same problems, but compounds them by not being nearly as varied. For me, anyway.

@Hassat Hunter: Actually, I would find "reflection" less confusing than "turning," because it's a more accurate description of what the spell does. "Turning" is vague, and could just as easily mean deflection as reflection.

DING DING DING YOU WIN

The difference between those spells is that Remove Magic dispels only your enemies, while Dispel Magic also dispels your party members.Remove magic is used when your party members are standing near and you don't wish to dispel buffs from them, While Dispel is used when you aren't buffed or have an affliction on your party members like confusion or fear, to get rid of it. Also Mages get both Dispel and Remove magic, while priests only get Dispel. Ah. See? I'm playing this thing right now, and scanning the spell descriptions like an illuminated text, and still simple stuff like this escapes me. And I am in the target audience!

And yet, there seems to be a lot of dislike for the game from a lot of posters on this forum. Especially BG2 and the arguments how bad it was and how it handled things. eg. spells, ruleset, no variety, etc Where?

What about when it disables four of your party members? Five? Including the only characters who can make it stop? Also, "I m 2 1337 4 u L0L" is not really a valid argument, and "Dark Souls balance" doesn't mean "This game should be exactly like Dark Souls in every concievable way!" Would you like me to expand on what I mean by "Dark Souls balance?" I'm more than happy to do so.

Why bother? Anything - anything - he says will not matter. The argument will go on with or without him, and may get worse if he does comment. There is no point. I have seen tons of these sorts of threads, and dev comments never work as intended.

@Mr. Magniloquent: I'm more sympathetic to your argument than you might believe. Whatever BG2's spell combat is, it's not just "counter the mage," and I think that's an overgeneralization from the memory of someone who hasn't played the game in a long time rather than an accurate statement about most combat in the game. As someone who's playing it for the first time right now, I'd like to think I have more of a handle on what works and what doesn't about BG2 combat. I will also cop to hyperbole and overgeneralization myself for saying that "every rule has a billion exceptions." Obviously, that isn't true; many systems in the game work spectacularly well, however counterintuitive or overwhelming they may seem to the unlearned player. My point is that the AD&D ruleset gives the appearance of being far more byzantine than it actually is, and this inculcates within a player not already familiar with AD&D a profound sense of mistrust. For example, can you tell me the difference between Dispel Magic and Remove Magic? I don't mean the differences the descriptions inform you of, but the actual, functional difference? As far as I can tell, there are none. They are the same spell. It's just that one is something that clerics get, and the other is something that wizards get. Why don't they get the same spell? Because one is for wizards only and one is for priests only? Why? Then there are the descriptors attached to multiple spells. Why is there a Minor Globe Of Invulnerability in the same game as Lesser Restoration? Why aren't both Minor or Lesser? Et cetera. Or we could take a look at the boatload of spells that all do a similar thing in a slightly different way, or sound similar but are wildly different. Color Spray causes enemies to fall unconscious for a short while, while Chromatic Orb is like eight different spells in one, none of which seem to have much to do with color. Spell Deflection and Spell Turning sound the same, but have notably distinct effects. I could go on. It sounds horribly nitpicky, but little things like that really do erode the player's trust in the whole system. And when the player's trust is eroded, the player starts to become suspicious of the mechanics. As often as not, this results in players brute-forcing their way through encounters with a few cheap tactics rather than exploring the system, which they've come to believe will not reward that exploration. Then they come to this board and start talking about how BG2 has only one style of encounter, etc.

But it doesn't need to be less complex or interesting, nor do the effects need to be less powerful. The question "What do you do?" simply needs to have an answer the player can grasp without memorizing the Spell Compendium. Which isn't hard, as the answer to almost all of those questions is ridiculously obvious: use the appropriate counter. The only issue with BG2's combat is that it's rarely obvious what the appropriate counter is in the moment, because every rule has a billion exceptions.

Isn't that an oxymoron? Heh, well, you use the examples people hate when you put the word "not" before anything, not necessarily the most apt examples. Bit of a rhetorical trick, but I find it works. For what it's worth, I have no problem with Stun or Fear effects as ideas, and I don't think the tweaks even need to be that significant. The problem I have with the spells is not that they're too powerful on their own, it's that AD&D's systems are designed for a turn-based multiplayer tabletop game rather than an RTwP single-player computer game. And, let's be clear, the AD&D ruleset was hardly perfect. While a certain silly part of me rather likes that the player has to be versed in arcane (read: excessively obtuse and overly specific) knowledge in order for their character to dabble in the arcane (read: magical), the fact of the matter is that AD&D is as needlessly complicated as a document written in legalese in some areas and frustratingly vague in others, and putting all the die rolls and rounds and stuff under the hood of a game with fundamentally different pacing than the rules were designed to accomodate exacerbates that to an occasionally intolerable degree. The point of the changes to PoE as I see them is not to make the game "casual" or "modern" or "accessible" or whatever word that's somehow been turned into a hateful slur by embittered grognards, nor even is it to decrease the level of complexity appreciably, as Dragon Age did. The point is to make the ruleset transparent and intuitive (and yes, I know those are used as slurs too) while hewing to the spirit of the old games as closely as possible. The changes so far announced are akin to the decision to concatenate the various unconnected "Save vs." saving throw effects into Fortitude, Will, and Reflex saves in 3E. I'm not naive enough to believe there isn't someone on here who didn't like that change, but can you really argue with it? It kept saving throws in the game while making their inner workings transparent and getting away from the disconnected and obtuse "Save vs." list. Likewise, doing away with THAC0 made the game far more intuitive without changing the game into something unrecognizable. I believe Sawyer's changes are of a similar bent.

But there will be ways to leave and come back to it over the course of the game, which mitigates the problem of "Oh, well, great, I guess I'm stuck here until I plow through this f***ing thing." Durlag's Tower and Watcher's Keep aren't places you're supposed to leave until you're done. (FULL DISCLOSURE: I haven't played through Durlag's Tower or Watcher's Keep myself, so take everything I say about them with a grain of salt and/or feel free to correct me.)

Hoo-boy, here we go...