Baldur's Gate 2 > PoE 2 Deadfire

[xzar_monty]

 

 

 

 

The (difficult) encounters of BG2 require metaknowledge. And, as you point out, when you have that knowledge it's quite simple.

 

Could you name me one BG2 encounter that requires metaknowledge? I don't think there are any. But then, our definition of metaknowledge might differ.

 

When I first played the game, Kangaxx gave me the most trouble, and indeed I couldn't beat him until I remember those two Protection From Magic scrolls on sale at the Adventurers' Mart. I have subsequently come up with other strategies.

 

Kangaxx is a good example. I think extremely few players beat him on their first try.

 

Losing a fight does not mean it requires meta knowledge. That is called difficulty.

 

 

You don't lose to Kangaxx because of difficulty, though. You lose because he has enormously specific instant death abilities that you need to know about before he casts them which can only be countered with very specific things. It's not actually hard to cast Protection from Abjuration and Death Ward or Berserk and Death Ward and hit him with a +4 weapon, you just have no reasonable way of knowing you need to do that unless you've died to it or you've read a wallkthrough. That is meta knowledge.

 

 

I agree that this can be seen as a problem. But it's not as if PoE doesn't have the same kind of things, at least to a certain extent.

 

For example, my first encounter with the Alpine Dragon (which turned out to be by far the most difficult enemy for me) left me extremely disappointed with the makers of the game. We met. We talked. I tried to persuade him to let things progress peacefully but failed (I have subsequently learned that it is also possible to succeed in this). So, a fight began. And that's when the game suddenly cheated, big time.

 

A moment earlier, I was in a cave with a dragon. But all of a sudden, the place was also full of various spirits. Who summoned them? Not the dragon. How did they end up there? How could they know when to arrive? There's no rationale to any of this, it was just blatant cheating from the game makers, and I was disappointed.

[cokane]

What people are calling "metaknowledge" here in most cases is just "knowledge". Using the shield of Balduran to beat beholders is something your characters in the game would know. The shield is sold in a freaking shop where you can read the item description. You're told about the existence of Beholders in the Unseeing Eye quest (and even fight a little one) before you have to descend into the pit to fight all of them. Kangaxx is undead and you know this before you have to fight him. There are scrolls of protection from undead. Hell, even loading a bunch of traps in his room isn't outlandish from your characters' point of view. This is something your characters would do if they were actually adventuring in a way where their lives were on the line. None of this stuff has to break immersion or be considered some knowledge outside of the game world.

Edited July 4, 2018 by cokane

[Psychevore]

I replayed the BG games a while back and to be honest, already on the menu screen and when trying to create a character I realised that almost all of my fond memories of the game were 90% nostalgia.

[TheisEjsing]

Kangaxx really flew over my head the first time I played. I had viconia with Crom faeyr in my party and he attacked her, which she resisted all day, while killing him in a few rounds. So I first found out that he was a gimmick boss the second time around, when he wiped me good. ^_^

Edited July 4, 2018 by TheisEjsing

[Madscientist]

OK, after this discussion I made a choice:

I will play deadfire again when the expansion comes out and then I will try BG2 again right afterwards.

Normal difficulty, only story companions, no mods.

 

Lets see what will happen when I compare the games directly:

- Will I quit BG2 because I find it terrible or boring?

- The encounters I remember to be hard, will I manage them at all or will I find them easy now?

- Will I find story, companions and writing terrible or great?

 

I chose to have a balanced party: 2 arcane casters, 2 divine casters and 2 martial chars

So its main char (fighter/thief), Minsc, Jaheira, Anomen, Imoen and Nadia

 

Minsc, Imoen and Jaheira are a must have, I cannot stand Aries whining and Jans turnip talk and I cannot take evil chars because I will get max reputation and they will leave.

I chose a fighter/thief because I want a char with backstab and traps in my party. Keldorn or Mazzy would be OK but I already have Minsc as second martial char.

[Taevyr]

OK, after this discussion I made a choice:

I will play deadfire again when the expansion comes out and then I will try BG2 again right afterwards.

Normal difficulty, only story companions, no mods.

 

Lets see what will happen when I compare the games directly:

- Will I quit BG2 because I find it terrible or boring?

- The encounters I remember to be hard, will I manage them at all or will I find them easy now?

- Will I find story, companions and writing terrible or great?

 

I chose to have a balanced party: 2 arcane casters, 2 divine casters and 2 martial chars

So its main char (fighter/thief), Minsc, Jaheira, Anomen, Imoen and Nadia

 

Minsc, Imoen and Jaheira are a must have, I cannot stand Aries whining and Jans turnip talk and I cannot take evil chars because I will get max reputation and they will leave.

I chose a fighter/thief because I want a char with backstab and traps in my party. Keldorn or Mazzy would be OK but I already have Minsc as second martial char.

Looking forward to your conclusion, good luck.

[Blovski]

 

 

 

 

 

The (difficult) encounters of BG2 require metaknowledge. And, as you point out, when you have that knowledge it's quite simple.

 

Could you name me one BG2 encounter that requires metaknowledge? I don't think there are any. But then, our definition of metaknowledge might differ.

 

When I first played the game, Kangaxx gave me the most trouble, and indeed I couldn't beat him until I remember those two Protection From Magic scrolls on sale at the Adventurers' Mart. I have subsequently come up with other strategies.

 

Kangaxx is a good example. I think extremely few players beat him on their first try.

 

Losing a fight does not mean it requires meta knowledge. That is called difficulty.

 

 

You don't lose to Kangaxx because of difficulty, though. You lose because he has enormously specific instant death abilities that you need to know about before he casts them which can only be countered with very specific things. It's not actually hard to cast Protection from Abjuration and Death Ward or Berserk and Death Ward and hit him with a +4 weapon, you just have no reasonable way of knowing you need to do that unless you've died to it or you've read a wallkthrough. That is meta knowledge.

 

 

I agree that this can be seen as a problem. But it's not as if PoE doesn't have the same kind of things, at least to a certain extent.

 

For example, my first encounter with the Alpine Dragon (which turned out to be by far the most difficult enemy for me) left me extremely disappointed with the makers of the game. We met. We talked. I tried to persuade him to let things progress peacefully but failed (I have subsequently learned that it is also possible to succeed in this). So, a fight began. And that's when the game suddenly cheated, big time.

 

A moment earlier, I was in a cave with a dragon. But all of a sudden, the place was also full of various spirits. Who summoned them? Not the dragon. How did they end up there? How could they know when to arrive? There's no rationale to any of this, it was just blatant cheating from the game makers, and I was disappointed.

 

There's sort of a  vague rationale in that this dragon has this collecting all his soulmates thing but I do agree with you that this felt cheap and a little inexplicable. That said, it's the sort of cheap where you don't instantly have to reload because you didn't happen to have the right spells precast for the combat so it is a lot less pronounced.

 

 

 

"What people are calling "metaknowledge" here in most cases is just "knowledge". Using the shield of Balduran to beat beholders is something your characters in the game would know. The shield is sold in a freaking shop where you can read the item description. You're told about the existence of Beholders in the Unseeing Eye quest (and even fight a little one) before you have to descend into the pit to fight all of them. Kangaxx is undead and you know this before you have to fight him. There are scrolls of protection from undead. Hell, even loading a bunch of traps in his room isn't outlandish from your characters' point of view. This is something your characters would do if they were actually adventuring in a way where their lives were on the line. None of this stuff has to break immersion or be considered some knowledge outside of the game world."

 

Apologies for the lack of formatting-fu on my part. The meta-knowledge part is that there's one item available from basically the start of the game that completely trivialises an otherwise very dangerous recurring enemy (said item was not in the game's original release but added later, incidentally). How would your characters happen to know that such an item and exactly one such item exists? It is *completely* different fighting beholders with and without it.

 

On Kangaxx... traps would just go on his first form anyway unless you were aware in advance that there would be a second. If you're not using full party protection from undead scrolls to cheese every lich (and a lich not casting any spells because of a 750 gold scroll is a little immersion-breaking anyway), I can't see how you could conceivably beat Kangaxx on the first attempt, not because he's hard but because the demilich form will instantly kill you if you don't know it's coming.

 

The point isn't that having meta-knowledge be this influential is bad (it's still a very common principle in roguelikes and semi-procedural strategy games) but that it's understandable that the POE games didn't want design space where you get instantly one-shot because you didn't know an enemy could do something or where one specific item will single-handedly render an area irrelevant.

[cokane]

...

 

Apologies for the lack of formatting-fu on my part. The meta-knowledge part is that there's one item available from basically the start of the game that completely trivialises an otherwise very dangerous recurring enemy (said item was not in the game's original release but added later, incidentally). How would your characters happen to know that such an item and exactly one such item exists? It is *completely* different fighting beholders with and without it.

 

It's sold in the adventurer's mart, which is the first good shop you see in the game and a shop you are regularly directed to via other characters in the game. You can right click all items even in the store to see their effects and I never considered item descriptions outside the characters' knowledge. I also think people here exaggerate the effect of the item here for the sake of making their arguments stronger. While it makes beholders vastly easier, it doesn't completely trivialize their encounters, as you still need to micro your party so to always have the shieldbearer up front. And this is actually tricky with the Elder Orb who spawns unpredictably. The shield also dings your strength, so it has a drawback, not to mention is quite expensive during a part of the game where you're pressed for gold for various reasons -- if you rush to that quest anyways.

 

I can sympathize with some people who find it cheesy, but there's no "meta-knowledge" required to take advantage of it. Why wouldn't a party of adventurers facing dangerous odds look carefully at all the top line gear in the top shop in the game's central shopping hub? If you entered the game with zero foreknowledge, the shield rewards careful exploration of the shops, which is something you want to encourage players to do.

Edited July 5, 2018 by cokane

[cokane]

I'd also add that it's not true these meta-knowledge things don't exist in Pillars, though perhaps there's fewer. But in general combat is just less dangerous in Pillars. However, lagufath can put a party in paralyze-lock and pretty easily cause a wipe. This is beat by simply casting the cleric's protection spell at the start of combat. I don't see how this is different than the complaints about BG -- at least the shield of Balduran required you to spend some money! As others have mentioned the Alpine Dragon fight can quickly knock out your backline casters, and you have no way to know that's coming. Sirens can toss your party into a stun-lock, easily causing party wipes. Again, solved by a spell you always get if you have a cleric, but again, advance knowledge helps. Vampires can charm you, and, again, you're unlikely to appreciate the power of this skill on your first encounter with them, thus leading to easy party wipe situations. Once you know, as with the stun-prevention, it's pretty easily preventable. The fungus plants have the same issue with confusion and at lower levels.

 

I fail to see how any of this is radically different than the issues listed about BG. Though I can say these are way less memorable fights than what we got in BG2. Sure, there's lower odds of party wipes in Pillars, but that is more due to the unforgiving hitpoint system versus health-endurance, and not the actual encounter design.

[Arddv]

 

 

The (difficult) encounters of BG2 require metaknowledge. And, as you point out, when you have that knowledge it's quite simple.

 

So claiming that is more complex than PoE is really a stretch. Particularly when you take into consideration that the devs have clearly stated from the beginning that they wanted to, and have tried to, move away from encounters that hinges on metaknowledge for the player to be successful.

 

It's still your prerogative to prefer metaknowledge encounters, however that is not the same thing as the BG2 encounters being more complex when you make a comparison.

 

 

You always play with metaknowledge. Just the amount required differs. When you choose lower common denominator, the result can always be described as 'dumbing down'.

[ThacoBell]

 

 

 

 

The (difficult) encounters of BG2 require metaknowledge. And, as you point out, when you have that knowledge it's quite simple.

 

Could you name me one BG2 encounter that requires metaknowledge? I don't think there are any. But then, our definition of metaknowledge might differ.

 

When I first played the game, Kangaxx gave me the most trouble, and indeed I couldn't beat him until I remember those two Protection From Magic scrolls on sale at the Adventurers' Mart. I have subsequently come up with other strategies.

 

Kangaxx is a good example. I think extremely few players beat him on their first try.

 

Losing a fight does not mean it requires meta knowledge. That is called difficulty.

 

 

You don't lose to Kangaxx because of difficulty, though. You lose because he has enormously specific instant death abilities that you need to know about before he casts them which can only be countered with very specific things. It's not actually hard to cast Protection from Abjuration and Death Ward or Berserk and Death Ward and hit him with a +4 weapon, you just have no reasonable way of knowing you need to do that unless you've died to it or you've read a wallkthrough. That is meta knowledge.

 

Its a puzzle boss. You fgure out how to beat it, and you can learn without looking up a guide. Thats just part of learning a game.

[Murp]

"If Deadfire combat is more simplistic than BG Then you must have been playing a completely different game. I dunno what to tell you."

 

It is, in many respects. Combat is a binary state in the POE games, so you don't have prebuffing and/or summoning and combat arenas are discrete, you can't combine stealth and traps in the same way with combat. BG2 has far more specific interactions than Deadfire and a much deeper pool of spells and effects. Ammo has been simplified/removed. Obviously certain systems have been made more complex and less discrete but as BG2 was happier for you to fail miserably and happier for you to break the game with shenanigans, it could afford some additional complexity that the POE series very reasonably doesn't want to get into.

 

Those aspects I think are more for a modern player than anything. Having like 50 different arrow types and only using like ten at the most is just tedious, The player stash for the same reasons.

 

Having all this micromanagement and such just isn't viable if they want to appeal to a wider audience.

[Arddv]

I think it is common knowledge that as soon as something tries to become mass product it becomes trash. It's not about games specifically, it's universal. And I think Obsidian does a decent job of walking the fine line between mass product (and therefore commercial viability) and a work of art. Not perfect, but decent.

[MrMoe]

I think that's more interesting than what happens in PoE1, for instance. I walked into the lair of Cail the Silent, the red dragon I mean, fairly low on resources, and I just hacked him to death. There was no need for any thinking on my part.

 

I really liked the fact that Firkraag was difficult in BG2 and I had to retreat and level up before taking him on.

 

 

One other thing just comes to mind that is just awesome about the Baldurs Gate series,

when you walk into an epic fight, you'll hear some epic theme music. The cloakwood mine battle song, encountering dragons etc.

PoE isn't really bad in the music compartment, but I can't really recall any track right now that feels special. But I can play pretty much the whole BG tracklist in my head, or Fallout 1+2 or Planescape Torment or..  Arcanum!!

 

 

btw.

Balduran's shield was sold by one of the 2 bonus merchants that were not available in vanilla BG2. As a proud owner of the collectors edition of the game (with Tshirt and trading cards) I could install them as an extra. And I think the one in the copper coronet  was still bugged and might not spawn.

Edited July 5, 2018 by MrMoe

[murraydd]

BG2 is still one of my favorite games of all time, although the recent surge of superb CRPGs and my newfound obsession with Dark Souls and Hollow Knight have pushed it down a few notches.  It sat at the top for a very, very long time - specifically because, as some other posters have commented, it's just such a huge game with so much going on.  A long time ago, when Westwood Studios still existed, I played RTS games almost exclusively; BG2 was my first big RPG and having a decent amount of RTS blood in it helped me get into the genre.  (Funny enough though, when I played BG1 years later, I wasn't too impressed by it).

 

That all being said, though, I still think PoE1 is a better game overall than BG2, because the mechanics are so much better.  PoE2 isn't there quite yet, but it has a ton of potential.  Don't forget how much better PoE1 is now than it was at launch.  (To be fair, I haven't yet completed a 100% playthrough because I was waiting for PotD buffs and now I'm a little too busy to devote myself to another run, so there's still time for Deadfire to already be great).

[PizzaSHARK]

 

People hold BG2 in high regard because it's just simply BETTER than Deadfire in most non-technical ways.  Deadfire's combat is just too barebones and simplistic.  I don't care much about balance problems because BG2 was certainly no star when it came to balanced gameplay anyway.

 

If Deadfire combat is more simplistic than BG Then you must have been playing a completely different game. I dunno what to tell you.

 

 

Even vanilla BG2 had more challenging encounters than anything I fought in Deadfire.  Have fun fighting an Iron Golem without a +3 weapon and some way of dealing with the poison, and hope you brought that +1 Mace along for dealing with Clay Golems.  If you're going to be fighting Mages, maybe you should dedicate a spell slot or two to Breach and Dispel Magic.  Hell, Dispel Magic is so useful you should probably consider keeping a copy of it attuned or some scrolls handy because it's not like Mages have a monopoly on buffs or debuffs, and buffs and debuffs in BG2 could be of the "you just don't get to play" form rather than the "you're slightly stronger/weaker than usual" form that Deadfire has due to the simplification of its buffs and debuffs compared to Pillars (which probably needed to happen, Pillars was a mess.)  Maybe bring some Greater Malison or Lower Resistance if you want to fight dragons or drow or other resistant enemies, or Chaotic Commands if you find yourself dealing with Mind Flayers or other stun-happy enemies.  A Mage can use Protection from Magical Weapons to make himself immune to your +5 Sword of Asskicking but you can then just switch to a mundane dagger and stab him, but if he cast Absolute Immunity instead, you're gonna have to dispel it or wait it out (all of the Mantle spells are short-lived.)  The game even had unique animations and sounds for different schools of spell, so you could make educated guesses as to what's coming and react to it.  Sure, melee characters basically just walked up and hit things but they're the same way in Deadfire, too - oh, sure, Hobbling Strike does a thing in addition to the damage, but no one uses it for anything but more damage.

 

Watcher's Keep had brilliant things like the floor with magic golems, which needed mundane weapons to beat - and the fact that you were finding some mundane items here and there, where normally you'd been finding magical items, was an obvious hint as to what needed to be done.  Pillars ALSO had these sorts of things, but Deadfire largely did not - it seemed like Obsidian was okay with forcing the player to try again with a different combination of items, spells, etc in Pillars (which ties into the Vancian magic system, although even Wizards behaved more like D&D Sorcerers than D&D Wizards) but tried to move away from that with Deadfire.

 

And it gets even worse, comparatively, when you look at things mods like SCS did with the game mechanics.  Enemies had spell triggers and contigencies on top of contingencies.  In many cases, these were ILLEGAL but they kind of HAD to be because the player could easily meta-game certain encounters and enemy types because there was no DM to adjust things on the fly to account for them being cheesy.  I don't think it's unreasonable to expect Obsidian to be aware of one of the most popular mods for a nearly 20 year old game they had a huge part in creating.

 

Yes. I also eat with my feet.

 

In BG2 you could make a character who is literally immune to everything. That "strategic layer" you speak of matters only during the early game. Which is what Deadfire has too, with ruins Drake and Gorecci. And I'm not even talking about potential exploits, or using gear that wins fights just by having it equipped (hello Beholder, meet Shield of Balduran).

 

 

SCS and several other mods nerfed these items.  In particular, Kangaxx and other spellcasting undead would dispel your Protection from Undead effects if they became aware of you (being hit in the head with a mace tends to make them aware of you), the Shield of Balduran did not reflect Beholder rays or the Beholders would ignore the person with the shield (depending on specific implementation of mods), Thief traps no longer persisted between rests and were treated as a hostile act (no more plunking 50 traps on top of the dragon and then making it upset), etc.

 

It's not like Pillars wasn't full of this, except it was usually in the sense of spell slots or crafted items rather than equipment.  The vast majority of encounters were trivialized by using a Scroll of Paralyze.  Many encounters hinged on effects like stun or paralyze, and if you had immunity to those effects (through Priest spells, which also came in scroll form) then they were largely trivial.

 

Those encounters are memorable, though, because they at least required the player to do something other than "buff up, proceed to autoattack it until it falls over."

 

 

Kangaxx is a good example. I think extremely few players beat him on their first try.

 

 

Likely, but there were enough hints and information that it WAS possible to beat him on the first try.  He's clearly not someone you should trust and you know he's undead.  You know there are Scrolls of Protection from Undead, and there are numerous spells and items that are very effective against undead, such as the sword Daystar, the Sunray spell, a Cleric's Turn Undead, the Mace of Disruption, and so on.  It's unlikely you'd be aware that you need a +4 weapon to harm him, or what a Demi-Lich is... but if you're doing his stuff in Chapter 6 instead of Chapter 2, it's actually fairly reasonable to expect the player to have something like that available.

 

Kangaxx is memorable because he's a fine example of what others have called a "puzzle boss" - a boss that is relatively simple once you know what to do, but is generally quite difficult until you've figured them out.  I didn't encounter a single ****ing enemy in Deadfire like that (much less an entire encounter), and they were fairly uncommon in Pillars, too.

Edited July 5, 2018 by PizzaSHARK

[Madscientist]

I do admit that the fights in BG2 are more memorable than the ones in PoE2.

 

Its a question of how much of a "puzzle boss", meta gaming or however you call this exists in the game and if you like this or not.

 

In BG2 you enter a room with a high level mage and he instantly triggers several protection spells and invisibility, then he casts time stop and while the time is stopped he casts an AoE save or death spell, a huge AoE damage spell and a petrify spell. Time stop ends and you see the game over screen. When a player encounters this the first time he says "WTF how am I supposed to deal with this. The game is cheating and you have to read a PhD thesis about game mechanics to have a chance." When it happened to me I went somewhere else and did not return anytime soon because I had no idea how to deal with it. You just go somewhere, a fight starts and a few seconds later its game over. How are you supposed to learn from it?

Lets say you want to try again and you also have a mage, a cleric and a druid in your party. You say: " I died so maybe I cast protection from death magic, my enemy is evil so I try protection from evil and he becomes invisible so I try a spell that lets you see invisible things" You select new spells, rest to memorize them and try again: Result: You survive the first attack by taking tons of damage and then you realize you cannot target the enemy and even if you can target him he reflects your spells back at you and you cannot hit him and you die again. It takes tons of tries to find out what spells does he have exactly and do you have a spell that can deal with it. You have to try this many times and each try means that you enter a room, you die after a few seconds and often you do not know what exactly killed you. Remember that you cannot scroll through the combat log when you see the game over screen.

For me ( and probably many other players as well ) that was super frustrating because I die all the time after a few seconds. I am still bad in dealing with enemy mages, though somehow I managed to beat most of them after some tries. Irenicus in the tree is still the mandatory fight I fear most. In ToB the most annoying fight was the monk who casts time stop and then beats the hell out of you and then he turns into a dragon who becomes invisible every few secons.

 

On the other hand the latest twitch video of deadfire ( dev talk while playing Arkemyrs mansion ) showed a difficult fight in deadfire. They played on PotD with a low level party and sneaked into the mension. At some point they decided to fight a group of enemies ( some imps, golems and I think also ooze ). The group died when the imps cast AoE spells, the golem hits like a truck, the slime poisons you while you have low acc and pen. The fight was hard but not unfair. You knew what enemies are there and you can guess what they can do. You knew exactly what is killing you.

 

Once again, yes the fights in BG2 were much more memorable than the ones in deadfire. I do understand that some people enjoy this, but for many players it is just frustrating to die in a few second unless you know exactly what awaits you and you know exactly how to deal with it. I can understand when players rage quit at that point and I can also understand that most devs do not make such a design any more.

 

The alpin dragon and lengrath were the only enemies I could not beat in PoE1 ( hard difficulty), but I managed to solve their quest peacefully. So I think its good to put some very hard optional enemies in the game.

 

By the way, I totally respect the devs of "Age of Decadence". They said from the start that combat is extremely hard and unforgiving. I finished the game twice as pacifist but I have no chance with a combat char. Though this game is not about mage puzzles, its just that you are always outnumbered, you cannot heal during combat and enemies use all the tricks you can do as well. ( poison their weapon, throw net to bind you, throw grenades, . . .)

[TheMetaphysician]

That monk in ToB is optional -- I always persuaded him to sacrifice himself.

[xzar_monty]

Also, when it comes to sheer brilliance in BG2, I think it's reasonable *not* to consider ToB. ToB was essentially nothing but railroading -- and taking the player for a fool. I mean, I suppose most everyone understands who the baddie is pretty early on, but the game offers you absolutely no way to show this before the final fight.

 

(ToB also sucks partly because it's simply a lot more difficult to come with anything challenging and/or reasonable for a group of characters nearing the power of demi-gods or something. This, in turn, partly explains why it's precisely BG2 that is so good: for much of BG1, you're living in the insta-death levels and meeting monsters who can be undone with a Sleep spell, whereas in ToB you're too strong. For most of BG2, however, you're playing the absolute best levels where there's plenty of challenge but you won't die if someone sneezes too close to you.)

[Manveru123]

Not really, for me ToB still is the greatest expansion pack ever released for an RPG game.

[try2handing]

That monk in ToB is optional -- I always persuaded him to sacrifice himself.

 

Also, when it comes to sheer brilliance in BG2, I think it's reasonable *not* to consider ToB. ToB was essentially nothing but railroading -- and taking the player for a fool. I mean, I suppose most everyone understands who the baddie is pretty early on, but the game offers you absolutely no way to show this before the final fight.

 

(ToB also sucks partly because it's simply a lot more difficult to come with anything challenging and/or reasonable for a group of characters nearing the power of demi-gods or something. This, in turn, partly explains why it's precisely BG2 that is so good: for much of BG1, you're living in the insta-death levels and meeting monsters who can be undone with a Sleep spell, whereas in ToB you're too strong. For most of BG2, however, you're playing the absolute best levels where there's plenty of challenge but you won't die if someone sneezes too close to you.)

Ascension is pretty much a must for ToB, IMO. Even I found the dialogues with the main antagonist excruciating, because you have no choice but to be an idiot. At least Ascension expands your options so you can prove to the game that you have a good idea what's really going on.

 

With Ascension's expansion to Balthazar's role, I'd never go with convincing him to sacrifice himself. I'd either choose to fight him to have one hell of a fight, or go with the third option.

 

I also think "death traps" adds to the memorability of encounters in games - if done right. To me, "most likely your party will get wiped the first couple times" is not automatically a bad thing. As long as legit ways to beat the traps are provided to the players, either easily to get your hands on, or maybe requiring a bit of extra thinking and leg work. Making it so that the chance of you succeeding first try is always high is like playing it too safe. Nothing really wrong with it, but it takes some of the fun away. We need to take advantage of the fact that "certain encounters are OPTIONAL". Their being optional means devs shouldn't hesitate to make them unforgiving, even a little bit on the "cheating" side (just a little bit). In exchange, you get super cool stuff for beating such encounters.

 

In this regard, PoE2 has been playing it too safe, I'd say. I would like to see a global increase in difficulty of encounters, as well as some select encounters being bumped to even the next level. Extremely tough encounters give players the opportunity to exchange and share their ideas as to how to overcome the challenges, finding out the coolest ways available. That is exactly what makes these encounters more memorable. Otherwise, we don't really care how others approach the problems, cause "meh I beat it first try too, no big deal"; we just move on and forget about the whole experience.

Edited July 5, 2018 by try2handing

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

Two different games can both be good

[anathanielh]

Two different games can both be good

No, people must fight. Only one opinion can rise to the top and transcend into the ultimate truth that we shall all abide by.

[TheisEjsing]

Not really, for me ToB still is the greatest expansion pack ever released for an RPG game.

I hope you're joking? Mask of the Betrayer, Heart of Stone, Blood and Wine, and The Citadel DLC among others, are all miles ahead of ToB. ToB is at best a mediocre fix you need for more BG II action, after the main game is over.

Edited July 5, 2018 by TheisEjsing

[xzar_monty]

 

Two different games can both be good

No, people must fight. Only one opinion can rise to the top and transcend into the ultimate truth that we shall all abide by.

 

 

They both are good. And we're talking.