Saving and reloading

[Hypevosa]

Have a mock battle then - give the player a full party of full utility characters - have them be fully taught what each character does and what the abilities are, then have the battle take place on the highest difficulty. If they can survive, recommend the highest difficulty. If they cannot, lower the difficulty and let them try again.

[Jarmo]

^{Well would you guys like it the other way then? Difficulty levels 1-5 and you're only allowed to take the easiest.}

^{Then there's a mock battle you'll have to pass in order to qualify for the second difficulty and so on.}

 

^{Sounds like a waste of time as you know you wont be playing on easy anyway, eh?}

[liongoldstar]

This cuts both ways. If you LIKE reloading, then check all the options under the three difficulty modes except Iron-whatever and be done with it.

 

The few players on this forum have no real business telling Obsidian how to decide balancing the default "normal" mode for the majority of players, whoever we/they are, because there are too many extremes trying to edge in and Obsidian has a much better handle on "difficulty" at a high level we cannot see.

 

I think the most fair way in regards to the backers would be to set a "normal" mode which is similar to "normal" in the IE games PE compares itself to, like BG, IWD etc.

Edited October 9, 2012 by liongoldstar

[ogrezilla]

^{Well would you guys like it the other way then? Difficulty levels 1-5 and you're only allowed to take the easiest.}

^{Then there's a mock battle you'll have to pass in order to qualify for the second difficulty and so on.}

 

^{Sounds like a waste of time as you know you wont be playing on easy anyway, eh?}

i wouldn't want it to be required. just something you have the choice of doing if you really aren't sure.

[Lady Evenstar]

I think the most fair way in regards to the backers would be to set a "normal" mode which is similar to "normal" in the IE games PE compares itself to, like BG, IWD etc.

 

Exactly! They may also be able to offer limited accommodation to folks who want something different, but widespread feeling that the Kickstarter described one sort of game, and Obsidian delivered another would be a disaster for them. The assumption I've seen by some that folks who don't want a more punitive game, don't want to be challenged/don't want sophisticated enemy AI is wrong wrong wrong.

[Hypevosa]

^{Well would you guys like it the other way then? Difficulty levels 1-5 and you're only allowed to take the easiest.}

^{Then there's a mock battle you'll have to pass in order to qualify for the second difficulty and so on.}

 

^{Sounds like a waste of time as you know you wont be playing on easy anyway, eh?}

i wouldn't want it to be required. just something you have the choice of doing if you really aren't sure.

 

Same here, just have it be a small practice area that people can use for recommendations, not a "you must do this before you play every time".... blah, I hate forced tutorials.

[ReyVagabond]

if this poll is for those time i hit a wall The difficulty level, and by that I don’t like it. I want that each encounter be more or less the same difficulty level with bosses you need to be more careful and prepared more tactical. When all the rest of the encounters are more they take you by surprise.

 

Still ideally I would like to never need to chance the settings I chose but if I need to because of suck walls, its not many times for bosses some times for hard encounters and never with weaklings.

[soulmata]

Obsidian's stated on numerous occasions that P:E is intended to be "for players" and they will be putting an emphasis on "choice".

 

That said, it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect them to implement a saving mechanism that is user-configurable.

 

I'm an avid fan of things like Ironman/Hardcore runs, where the whole point is to challenge yourself to see a game from start to finish without resorting to reloads. I'm really happy to see that appearing more often in a variety of games (Diablo 2, Diablo 3, Torchlight, Torchlight II, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Depths of Peril, etc). What REALLY bums me out, though, is when the game itself facilitates it, the developers always operate under the assumption that individual saves never become corrupted.

 

Why does this matter? Particularly for Ironman play, but also for people who rely on auto-saves or checkpoints rather than manual saving, a corrupted save could mean trashing your entire game. So that's why my request to Obsidian is a little different than most others in this thread.

 

Implement save game consistency checks.

 

It's pretty simple - whatever writing mechanism used is irrelevant, so long as following a write to disk, the file is read and verified to be accurate - if not, repair or write it again.

 

Ah, my dreams.

[teknoman2]

again, I think there is a huge difference between difficult and a cheap trick. The notion that the only alternative to constantly reloading and trying again is easy mode is simply wrong. Being able to win a fight the first try doesn't mean it was easy. Getting killed in a fight 10 times before winning doesn't mean it was difficult.

 

And no offense, but I'm going to classify your decisions as stupid haha naive might be a better word for a 14 year old. I've made my share of stupid choices and you're right, they can be fun. But neither of those really describe what I'm talking about. I have no problem with either. Going somewhere you shouldn't be yet or even summoning something you shouldn't fight yet I don't really mind that much because most likely you've saved and its sort of a funny "that was dumb" moment. Its when you run into fights that you are meant to be fighting and the enemy just pulls some bs instant loss attack with no way of knowing about it that bothers me.

ceap trick

in BG 2 you could load 3 offensive spells on a spell triger and use it on an enemy, or put in 3 defensive spells and use them on yourself. same thing was for chain contigency. however most enemy wizards could have 2 defensive and one offensive spell or 2 offensive and 1 defensive spell in a triger or contigency, and auto cast the defensive on them and the offensive on you.

ie

Draconis: contigency activated

Draconis: shielded

Draconis: protection from magic weapons

Draconis: Ali Da'Zib's Horrid willing-John

Draconis: spell triger

Draconis: casts stoneskin-Draconis

Draconis: casts Death spell-John

Draconis: casts Symbol Fear-John

not to mention the fact that you could have only 1 active contigency, but ALL enemy wizards had at least 3

or the fact the certain spells, offered more to enemies that what they did for the party... complete imunity offers invulnerability to all weapons except +5 and up. a lich used it, i used Ixil's Spear +6 on him and: Weapon Ineffective

Edited October 10, 2012 by teknoman2

[elminster]

again, I think there is a huge difference between difficult and a cheap trick. The notion that the only alternative to constantly reloading and trying again is easy mode is simply wrong. Being able to win a fight the first try doesn't mean it was easy. Getting killed in a fight 10 times before winning doesn't mean it was difficult.

 

And no offense, but I'm going to classify your decisions as stupid haha naive might be a better word for a 14 year old. I've made my share of stupid choices and you're right, they can be fun. But neither of those really describe what I'm talking about. I have no problem with either. Going somewhere you shouldn't be yet or even summoning something you shouldn't fight yet I don't really mind that much because most likely you've saved and its sort of a funny "that was dumb" moment. Its when you run into fights that you are meant to be fighting and the enemy just pulls some bs instant loss attack with no way of knowing about it that bothers me.

ceap trick

in BG 2 you could load 3 offensive spells on a spell triger and use it on an enemy, or put in 3 defensive spells and use them on yourself. same thing was for chain contigency. however most enemy wizards could have 2 defensive and one offensive spell or 2 offensive and 1 defensive spell in a triger or contigency, and auto cast the defensive on them and the offensive on you.

ie

Draconis: contigency activated

Draconis: shielded

Draconis: protection from magic weapons

Draconis: Ali Da'Zib's Horrid willing-John

Draconis: spell triger

Draconis: casts stoneskin-Draconis

Draconis: casts Death spell-John

Draconis: casts Symbol Fear-John

not to mention the fact that you could have only 1 active contigency, but ALL enemy wizards had at least 3

or the fact the certain spells, offered more to enemies that what they did for the party... complete imunity offers invulnerability to all weapons except +5 and up. a lich used it, i used Ixil's Spear +6 on him and: Weapon Ineffective

 

I loved the figths in Baldurs Gate 2 although even with 3 contigencys many wizards used the same spells.. so combat was easier than it could be. I generally like more spells than having always the same 5-10 used by enemy mages. That was quiet boring after some time. And yes, this of cause requieres more reloads