anameforobsidian

I prefer playing BG with the BG Trilogy mod that combines them all together, and some of the engine improvements are nice. But I think it may have to be a mod thing if they switch to a newer version of unity.

Wizard 1 Druid 3 (Also, blights are nasty with their AoE attacks) Priest 0 Cipher 0 Chanter 6 Versus BG1's: Priest 3 (animate dead, summon animal I & II) Wizard 3 (monster summoning I, II, III) BG2 may or may not have about 25 arcane summoning spells alone, clearly smashing PE. That said, the whole BG series is particularly guilty of "change the color of this spell or summon, use it again in three levels."

From Od Nua, it looks like this: Major Spoilers in tag:

The level cap is higher than BG1, and there's still an expansion coming. I would say its following the D&D tradition of a more gradual power curve, which is a good thing. I've definitely felt it when my characters have leveled.

It's a shame that the beautiful Anslog's compass has so little to do in it. I personally really like the wilderness maps around Twin Elms, and think that the other maps should try to match that content density. Also the backer beta area is quite nice.

Speaking of insignificant spoilers:

Absolutely. I can't wait for expansions and sequels.

I also haven't noticed lash making a huge difference, but then again, there's few wide disparities in DR.

If your front line is Eder, it's just as important to have him knocking down and using modals every fight. You might be running into problems with poison, in which case druids and priests can help.

Disagree very heartily about resting. Campfire supplies plus inn incentives solve the every battle is a boss fight syndrome the BG games encouraged. The non-normal difficulties should probably have their campfire supplies raised by one though. I think it would make way more sense if might and intelligence names were switched for what they did. A mighty wizard makes big explosions. A smart wizard hits the enemy in exactly the right place. It would also get rid of the complaints about ranged damage. I can't rightly complain about dungeon length, because the endless paths is like a mini-dungeon crawler inside the game. Seriously, I've spent more time there then playing the overland world. Some more puzzles might be nice. The first dungeon is also one of the best.

They could put object finding on normal, just give it a far reduced range and higher DC (I think they use mechanics as a DC, but am not sure). That way you don't have to sneak, you can just watch your characters detect traps right before you run over them. And its worth point out that stealthing all the time in the IE games was optimal too. It's always optimal to be cautious. That's not a problem, that's the game rewarding good play. The first poster just wants to eat his cake and have it too.

Making a system at all implies that you will limit the desires of players to reflect your artistic intent. At some level, every game has a designed form of play, and there are always limited resources to support play formats that abberate from the desired form of play. For instance, how many chess sets support multiball? Eventually designers must set limits.

Many systems have largely side-stepped this problem entirely by giving the enemies a different set of powers. I think that's a pretty weak solution, because party vs. party fights are really fun. The problem is that high damage, low health characters are more interesting for the player to play. They are balanced assuming a certain amount of aggregate defenses+health, damage, and crowd-control in mind. Prebuffs dramatically improve the health+damage part of that equation. In the case of some classes, the resources lost are negligible. Ciphers have some very nice single target buffs, but can generally regain the focus they lost casting them quite easily. Furthermore, the time is not really all that valuable considering the ready availability of both resting materials, and the fact that you're still gaining a bonus that the enemy cannot get.

Here are some of the basic arguments back and forth. Arguments Against: There's no drawbacks to casting spells outside of battle. It provides a tactical non-choice; you do it every time before entering battle and there's no interesting tradeoff. This is especially true if what you're using is a cipher power, or something else that comes from limitless resources. This is partially countered by the fact that rests are limited and buffs are relatively short. This in turn is partially countered by the fact that you're still getting a relative (if smaller) advantage by having buffs up when combat starts. Another line of argument against prebuffs is that it gives player characters a definite and immediate advantage over enemies. Enemies can't chose to prebuff since they "don't know" the player's there before combat starts. This problem existed in the IE games, and the most popular difficulty mod, Sword Coast Stratagems, partially solved this problem by giving enemies the unfair advantage of three instant buffs right at the start. This has a minor counter with, "the system could be rebalanced to support prebuffs," which is weak because most of the ways to support it are tedious/ It's boring to cast the same sequence of spells over and over again. This is made irrelevant by the fact that boring is not an agreed upon state. One person's boring is another's deep mastery, etc. Arguments For: An argument for prebuffs is that they incentivize cautious and smart play. You want players to sneak around, observe their surroundings, and gain an advantage for doing so. This is mostly countered by the existence of save and reload, metagaming knowledge works just as well as cautious play. This goes on into a "you don't have to play that way," "but the game rewards you for using metagame knowledge..." spiral. Another argument for prebuffs is that it breaks immersion. There's a weird hard limit between when you can and when you can't cast spells. This is partially countered by the fact that immersion is incredibly relative, and there are a ton of things that may break immersion. Another argument for prebuffs is that it makes sense from a simulationist perspective. Generally you should let all characters in the game, player or not, use their ability on the environment whenever and however they want to. This leads to emergent play, which is good because it increases player ownership of their experiences and creates a wider variety of tactics. One fairly significant counters to this is that by strongly incentivizing a particular type of gameplay, they actually reduce the variety and viability of non-prebuffing strategies. The other is that this system is not designed to be simulationist, and not every system has to be. In the end, I find the whole thing comes down largely to personal preference. Personally, I find the simulationist logic interesting, but think the gamist logic has made some solid points about absolute and relative player advantages.

That's a mistake. Two ciphers make for beautiful crowd control and some really nice flash damage.

May be wrong in this but didn't Obsidian chose Unity so they could swap assets with inXile and stuff? I don't believe so. I believe it was for ease of porting.

I love Eder and Palegina. Especially the part where Eder talks to the piglet.

My response to quests where you kill children and/or those little bastards in the Den in F2:

That's the backer beta forum right now.

I enjoy resting a lot. I'm resting way less than BG / BG2, and it feels sensible every time I do. I'm getting in the more difficult parts of odd-nua (lvl 13 right now), and can still clear half a level on normal with rest.

Pretty much everything said above, especially rest. The classes are more unique. They could do with some more options for each class (there's never enough), but you can get some really unique play out of the different classes. Once I finish my current run with my cipher, I'll probably try going barbarian next. Also, lowered duration on enchantments. That was one thing that was flat out annoying in the IE games.

You can also buy wizard rings that give you more spells. That said, wizards do a surprising amount of damage with their implements.

Armor absolutely had encumbrance issues in real life. Many knights had squires dress them, and Conquistadors etc. switched to half-plates and breastplates because they didn't need the protection of full plate. That said, a system with stacking armor would be really cool.

Harry Potter was never a mighty wizard nor did he ever try to fit that archetype. He just had high dex and perception. What about Gandalf slaying the **** out of some orcs with a sword?

On armor: I disagree with the armor. Certain enemies destroy your normal send tanks in first, nuke strategy. Shades and Fampyr's particularly. When the front line is overwhelmed, it generally helps to have someone who can take a few hits while the softest members of your party retreat. Armor can really make a difference there (especially on normal). I have a leather armor cipher with a flail/stiletto and shield weapon set in reserve for that time, they can take a hit or two and then blind enemies when they need to get out. By min-maxing armor, you have a lot of strength, but its an incredibly brittle kind of strength. I also think it plays really well with the range system that most people haven't commented on. Characters like chanters, mages, and ciphers have to get close to use some abilities, the closer you get the more vulnerable you are. The armor debate assumes perfect tactics every time, when in reality it takes a lot of gameplay experience to get there. You said the exact same thing in your post. On stats: Two things with stats. One is that by having you chose tradeoffs between three stats instead of one, that's already a limited success. Would you rather max dex, int, or might is still a better decision than make a mage with 18 int. And, I think your analysis is hobbled by little experience with barbarians and monks. If a fifth of the classes in the game keep breaking the blanket statements, that means the blanket statements are inaccurate. That said I think they could make perception more attractive by having enemies use AoEs more often. In DnD enemies fireball / etc. you all the time so you want to build up your reflex score. Also, interrupts could use a boost. I'd really like to run a high might / dex / perception ranger who focuses on keeping enemies locked down and only the current balance is keeping that from happening. Resting: The resting system is much better. It allows you to go fairly far on level, doesn't let you rest spam your way through difficult areas, and gives you a reason to sleep in inns. If you have problems with wizards, clerics, druids, just buy rings of wizardry.