Crazy difficult

[Death Machine Miyagi]

I found Stratagems to be the very definition of cheese. Especially when you change NPCs to do things they're not supposed to. In BG1, Yeslick can now use axes? Great. Re-introduce potions of Extra-healing? Wonderful. Move Boo to the backpack and give Minsc another quick slot even though he doesn't need it? Awesome.  Like pretty much all mods, when you try and balance something, all you do is unbalance it in another way.

 

Every component you listed can be skipped by pressing the 'N' button when it asks if you would like to install it. They're also an extremely tiny proportion of what the mod does. 

Edited March 16, 2014 by Death Machine Miyagi

[Death Machine Miyagi]

As someone who's been making his way through BG (Enhanced Edition) for the very first time sans SCS, I feel I have an outsider's perspective on this issue.

 

To be honest with you, I started on Core Rules, tamped it down to Normal after a while, and finally switched to Novice. If I am not a bad enough dude for BG1, I can accept that, but since I am a bad enough dude for Dark Souls and any number of exceedingly complicated roguelikes, I feel like there is something wrong with BG1 difficulty-wise.

 

Comments like this and the one about the final battle in Throne of Bhaal being too difficult are making me feel Hardcore™.

 

But then again, I haven't played BG Enhanced Edition, so perhaps its a lot harder than vanilla BG. Or, probably more likely, you're just struggling with an unfamiliar ruleset, as you say.

 

A hopefully helpful suggestion for the future: in BG1, missile weapons are God. Everyone in the party should have one, with plenty of ammo in your backpack. Hit and run is much more efficient than getting into a knock-down-drag-out fight in which the enemy actually gets the opportunity to hit you back. 

[zain3000]

Can't believe I've never heard of SCS. I'll have to give it a try.

[Ffordesoon]

@Death Machine Miyagi:

 

I knew that, but thanks.

 

It's not harder than vanilla BG. If anything, it's easier in a few respects, or at least less annoying. The problems I describe are in the ruleset and the presentation of the ruleset.

 

And I say this as someone who likes BG1 a lot. As I said, I still think it's better than DA: O, a game I quite like. I just don't like being punished because I haven't memorized the 2E Player's Handbook. The game was designed to be the first more or less comprehensive AD&D experience in computer RPG history, and it absolutely succeeds at that goal, as far as I can tell.

 

But that's a double-edged sword; what makes it stunningly comprehensive for those well-acquainted with AD&D makes it needlessly obtuse for those not acquainted with it. And the game isn't a very good guide through those rules, either. In fact, it's a terrible one. And yes, I'm including the manual in that condemnation. Very good lore-wise, very good at explaining the basic concepts behind AD&D and the Realms, but there's so much of great importance you simply don't learn from it. This makes the game harder to recommend and harder to play.

 

Sawyer seems to understand my frustration, thankfully. One of the biggest reasons I'm excited about PoE is because Sawyer isn't just a damn fine designer, but a guy who intimately understands the strengths and the weaknesses of the AD&D ruleset in cRPGs.

[Stun]

And don't get me started on the amount of prebuffing you have to do.

You don't. Not in BG1. The game can be beaten... soloed in fact, on any difficulty, without the use of ANY buffs, pre - or otherwise.

 

True story. A few months ago we had a thread here about the "evils" of pre-buffing. (according to some people, the IE games suck because, apparently, they require you to prepare for some battles). Anyway, one thing lead to another and I decided to prove, mainly to myself, how totally wrong and silly these claims were. I Decided to do a "no-buffing" run. I fired up BG1, created a plain-jane fighter and took Imoen for her Thieving skills. Played on the standard Normal difficulty (BG1 does not have a "core" setting. Normal IS core in BG1.)

 

What I discovered: I was right. after about 1/3rd of the way through, The game became so easy that I began to wonder why I wasted so many hundreds upon hundreds of hours these last 15 years making sure my party was glowing in the dark from the 1001 buffs I thought I needed before every major battle.

 

 

Conclusion: As someone mentioned earlier here, the bulk of these gripes probably stem from lack of knowledge of the rules system. the IE games INDEED do a lousy job teaching those who don't know it. So please, people, just stick to that. Don't go off and accuse the IE games of faults/flaws they don't actually have.

 

Also another conclusion... one of personal tastes: I didn't really enjoy that playthough btw. The realization that all the wonderful, creative, fancy buffs in the game are nothing more than window dressing is.... disappointing. I WANT pre-buffing. I WANT a game that punishes me for being lazy, and rewards me for taking the time to prepare.

Edited March 16, 2014 by Stun

[Stun]

Sawyer seems to understand my frustration, thankfully. One of the biggest reasons I'm excited about PoE is because Sawyer isn't just a damn fine designer, but a guy who intimately understands the strengths and the weaknesses of the AD&D ruleset in cRPGs.

Well, This is faith/wishful thinking. Sawyer hasn't proven yet that he can create a better system. We'll know for sure when PoE comes out. But right now, he simply comes across as someone who thinks he can do better. And that's not unique. Mike Laidlaw thought he could do better. And we got Dragon Age 2.

 

AD&D, and the IE games were wildly successful for a reason. We probably shouldn't forget that.

Edited March 16, 2014 by Stun

[tajerio]

AD&D, and the IE games were wildly successful for a reason. We probably shouldn't forget that.

 

A big part of that reason wasn't so much the inherent quality as the fact that there wasn't anything else out there.

[Death Machine Miyagi]

A big part of that reason wasn't so much the inherent quality as the fact that there wasn't anything else out there.

 

AD&D 2nd edition was the first edition I was old enough to know about. Looking back, it was pretty awful in a lot of ways that I didn't fully appreciate then because I had so little to compare it to.

 

The world is better off for having moved on from it.

[Stun]

 

AD&D, and the IE games were wildly successful for a reason. We probably shouldn't forget that.

 

A big part of that reason wasn't so much the inherent quality as the fact that there wasn't anything else out there.

 

Sure there was. Everquest's system was prominent at the time. As was Diablo/Diablo2's system. And the Elder Scrolls's system.

[tajerio]

 

 

AD&D, and the IE games were wildly successful for a reason. We probably shouldn't forget that.

 

A big part of that reason wasn't so much the inherent quality as the fact that there wasn't anything else out there.

 

Sure there was. Everquest's system was prominent at the time. As was Diablo/Diablo2's system. And the Elder Scrolls's system.

 

 

Oh, that's true for sure.  But those don't scratch nearly the same itch, which is my point.

[Stun]

 

 

A big part of that reason wasn't so much the inherent quality as the fact that there wasn't anything else out there.

Sure there was. Everquest's system was prominent at the time. As was Diablo/Diablo2's system. And the Elder Scrolls's system.

 

 

Oh, that's true for sure.  But those don't scratch nearly the same itch, which is my point.

 

I have no idea what you're saying here.

 

They were:

 

1) prominent cRPGs at the time? Check.

2)they used their own rule system? Check.

3) Their existence goes counter to the claim that there was nothing else out there but AD&D and the IE games? Check.

[tajerio]

 

I have no idea what you're saying here.

 

They were:

 

1) prominent cRPGs at the time? Check.

2)they used their own rule system? Check.

3) Their existence goes counter to the claim that there was nothing else out there but AD&D and the IE games? Check.

 

I was merely pointing out that for complexity of gameplay and intelligent/interesting options for the player, 15 years ago the IE games didn't really have rivals in the wRPG space.  I didn't know that was a hugely contentious point.

[Ffordesoon]

I'm surprised you didn't mention Fallout, Stun. That's much closer to the IE games in feel than any of the others you mentioned, and it was put out by the same publisher. The IE games were perhaps more popular for reasons I won't go into right now, but Fallout could definitely contend with them on a few levels.

 

As to your objections to my previous post, I judge them all fair enough. Though I would argue that D&D's enduring appeal does not stem from specific mechanics in any particular edition. Rather, it comes from a combination of factors:

 

1) Being the very first tabletop roleplaying game, and remaining the only one to penetrate mainstream culture to the extent it did and does.

2) The comprehensive nature of the ruleset.

3) The encouraged mutability of the ruleset.

4) It lets you live out the fantasy of you and your friends being the most awesome heroes who ever lived...

5) ...while also giving you and your friends an excuse to hang out and shoot the s**t.

 

You could change a ton of rules and still keep the essence. Players do that very thing already, and they never say they're not playing D&D anymore. Hell, Pathfinder is only Pathfinder because of trademark issues.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

 

I found Stratagems to be the very definition of cheese. Especially when you change NPCs to do things they're not supposed to. In BG1, Yeslick can now use axes? Great. Re-introduce potions of Extra-healing? Wonderful. Move Boo to the backpack and give Minsc another quick slot even though he doesn't need it? Awesome.  Like pretty much all mods, when you try and balance something, all you do is unbalance it in another way.

 

Every component you listed can be skipped by pressing the 'N' button when it asks if you would like to install it. They're also an extremely tiny proportion of what the mod does. 

 

 

I could list a whole page of examples and if I pressed the 'N' button for all these examples, I wouldn't have a mod to install.

[Death Machine Miyagi]

I could list a whole page of examples and if I pressed the 'N' button for all these examples, I wouldn't have a mod to install.

 

I thought this conversation was sounding a bit familiar. 

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60787-project-eternitys-longevity-will-be-determined-by-its-modability/

 

In that thread, you made a list of components that were a part of SCS you considered 'game breaking', all of which could be skipped. You ignored components of the mod (the majority of components) that didn't support your case. When called on this by myself and others, you didn't respond directly except to later post another dismissive post about BG mods.

 

If you don't like mods, that's fine. To each his/her own.  But at least don't pretend like you gave the thing a fair hearing only to overlook the vastly improved AI, intelligent spell usage, enemies calling for reinforcements, broken items being moved or removed and so on because allowing Yeslick to use axes 'breaks the game.' 

[Hiro Protagonist II]

 

I could list a whole page of examples and if I pressed the 'N' button for all these examples, I wouldn't have a mod to install.

 

I thought this conversation was sounding a bit familiar. 

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60787-project-eternitys-longevity-will-be-determined-by-its-modability/

 

In that thread, you made a list of components that were a part of SCS you considered 'game breaking', all of which could be skipped. You ignored components of the mod (the majority of components) that didn't support your case. When called on this by myself and others, you didn't respond directly except to later post another dismissive post about BG mods.

 

If you don't like mods, that's fine. To each his/her own.  But at least don't pretend like you gave the thing a fair hearing only to overlook the vastly improved AI, intelligent spell usage, enemies calling for reinforcements, broken items being moved or removed and so on because allowing Yeslick to use axes 'breaks the game.' 

 

 

I listed a few examples. Notice the 'etc' after that post. It means there's more I could list. I didn't see the need to list every single example of the mod. You asked and I answered.

 

Also, I didn't respond because I didn't see the need to drag out the argument page after page. But it seems you do want to. I can debate this until the cows come home, but you know what? My time is better spent doing other things than debating over a mod. Just because you're a fanboy of it doesn't mean anyone who doesn't like it is wrong. The fact that your counter is 'just skip it' is a weak argument. You don't even acknowledge there are game breaking and balancing issues.

 

If you don't like people using unbalanced and OP mods, then to each his/her own. But at least don't pretend that the mod is fair and balanced in every way. I gave it a fair hearing and found it cheesy, just like most mods.

[Death Machine Miyagi]

I listed a few examples. Notice the 'etc' after that post. It means there's more I could list. I didn't see the need to list every single example of the mod. You asked and I answered.

 

Also, I didn't respond because I didn't see the need to drag out the argument page after page. But it seems you do want to. I can debate this until the cows come home, but you know what? My time is better spent doing other things than debating over a mod. Just because you're a fanboy of it doesn't mean anyone who doesn't like it is wrong. The fact that your counter is 'just skip it' is a weak argument. You don't even acknowledge there are game breaking and balancing issues.

 

No, I agree there isn't much point in arguing this further. I can argue with Jarrakul's criticisms because I see where he's coming from. I can't argue here because it feels like you played an entirely different mod. 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I prefer BP's tacical componets to SCS.

 

Not only does it take this time to install, but the AI sill makes some mistakes, which seems more natural to me.

 

I also feel that pre-buffing itself is pretty cheesy, and am glad it will not be in PoE.

[Stun]

Spell pre-buffing will not be in the game. But they said nothing about every other kind of pre-buff. We don't know, for example, whether we'll be totally free to chug down potions of fire resistance, potions of accuracy, potions of invisibility etc. before a fight.

[Ffordesoon]

Spell pre-buffing will not be in the game. But they said nothing about every other kind of pre-buff. We don't know, for example, whether we'll be totally free to chug down potions of fire resistance, potions of accuracy, potions of invisibility etc. before a fight.

Personally, I'd rather not. You say it makes the game more involved and challenging, and if it does for you, that's fair enough.

 

But, for me, if the game does a good job of telling you what you're in for in the next encounter, chugging a bunch of stacking potions that turn you into an unstoppable god takes the challenge out of that encounter. If the game does a bad job of telling you what you're in for, as BG does, then you could easily be wasting potions - which are, for most of the game, rare and very expensive - on protection from the wrong sort of thing. Make the effects not stack, and then you have to design the game around enemies that only inflict one or two status effects to compensate. Limit the number of potions, and you encourage hoarding. Make them unlimited, and you encourage potion-spamming. It's an insanely tricky thing to design around, for rewards that aren't commensurate with the effort.

[Jarrakul]

My two cents on prebuffing: I really like it in concept. If you have time to plan and prepare, you should have an advantage. The problem is when you run into a battle, die, reload, and then prebuff. You aren't being rewarded for good foresight and planning. You're being rewarded for having died the first time. I don't like the way that changes the game. That said, it's entirely possible to just voluntarily not do that, but the game can't be balanced for both prebuffing and no prebuffing. So in the interests of balancing the game for as many people as possible, the devs need to pick one, and I do support their decision to choose no prebuffing. Granted, my feelings on the matter aren't all that strong.

 

By contrast, in pen-and-paper, where there are no reloads, I support prebuffing. I actually support it in hardcore mode also, but allowing it in only one game mode would require more design effort than I suspect it's worth.

[Lephys]

Spell pre-buffing will not be in the game. But they said nothing about every other kind of pre-buff. We don't know, for example, whether we'll be totally free to chug down potions of fire resistance, potions of accuracy, potions of invisibility etc. before a fight.

True story. However, I think the allowance of any magical class being able to simply slap 7 "non-magical" buffs onto the party before combat, while the magical classes have buffs to slap onto people but are required to wait until combat is in full-swing first, conflicts with the general idea of "Feasibility for all!" in their design plans. So, non-magical folks might be able to toggle a useful effect here and there, but I doubt we'll see much (if any) proper "buffing" going on from any non-magic peeps. There's plenty of modal stuff, it would seem, that, for all practical purposes, probably is just only active while in combat (it functionally activates the second a conflict arises.)

 

Potions and items, on the other hand... that's the only thing I can think of that would probably allow any pre-buffing we'll see. But, I still don't see it being like 6 or 7 stacked effects before fighting. Josh seems to take issue with the functional aspect of stacking lots of bolstered numbers/effectiveness toggles before going into combat, as opposed to accomplishing the effectiveness of pre-buffs via more active means, in-combat. So, whether or not the effects come from spells, or items, or people's sheer force of non-magical will, seems to be a fairly arbitrary factor.

 

And, in general on pre-buffing, and hard-passive-counter spell effects and such, and most of the stuff that's getting referred to as "cheap" or "cheese" in many above posts, the issue isn't with the sheer ability to bolster things about your characters. It's not about preparation, either. It's about the method by which effectiveness is achieved being largely passive, as opposed to active. The more things you achieve via passive tactics, the less there is to achieve with active tactical effort.

 

If that Wizard now has immunity to arrows, simply from a duration-based spell, then he's not really having to do anything about arrows. It's not like you can use arrows in such a way that they'll be more or less effective. You can strip that protection off of him with the right magic, sure. But then you're back to square one. Whether arrows do 0 damage (because of full protection), or full damage (because of the lack of the protection spell), those are just static effects. You can instantly allow for active effort to play its party by simply limiting the protection. Maybe 3 hits within a certain duration allows an arrow to penetrate the spell's barrier? Or maybe the spell only covers a 120-degree arc in front of the character. Now, you've got an active challenge: get into the right position to allow your arrows to be effective. Because of specifically what you're doing and how you're doing it, effectiveness is achieved. With some kind of dispell, the spell's very nature is what generates an effect where there was none. There are still tactics involved in not dying before you cast it, and landing it, etc. But, you're not actively making an attack or option generate the effect of negating that Wizard's protection. The spell just does that if it lands. You're just toggling battlefield factors.

 

Anywho, the point is, regarding difficulty and AI and whatnot, that what makes us us, and what puts the I in "AI" and makes it attempt to simulate us, is active adaptation. Taking the tools we have, and producing results. The more hard toggles you put into the combat aspect of a game, the fewer options are available, and the fewer options there are available, the less adaptation can go on.

 

How smart can an AI really be if its only option, for example, is "negate that protection spell, or continue doing no damage and wasting combat resources"?

 

To be clear, the mere existence of buffs and such (and even pre-buffs) doesn't ruin everything. Just... all things in moderation. Also, there's nothing wrong with enjoying the passive-tactic aspect of combat to the extent of stacking lots of buffs and having to negate others' buffs to achieve victory. But, the more of that that's there, the less active adaptation and problem-solving can really occur via active tactics, and a lot of people enjoy the active tactical aspect of things, too.

 

Approaching the extreme on something like pre-buffs is very much like the opposite: making EVERYTHING active and extremely timing-sensitive. i.e., instead of being able to cast a spell or activate an ability that gives you an armor bonus for even 20 seconds, you'd have to in essence cast it at the same time you were being attacked, to "block" the attack. We don't really want that, either. So, I hope that puts the "I don't want to just boost all my stats and render 7 different types of attacks ineffective for the duration of some spells, then partake in combat" sentiments into better perspective, as they are not just "Buffs are dumb" sentiments.

 

It's about how much is just taken care of by passive effects and the nature of the rules/abilities. Not whether or not anything is.

[Stun]

Potions and items, on the other hand... that's the only thing I can think of that would probably allow any pre-buffing we'll see. But, I still don't see it being like 6 or 7 stacked effects before fighting. Josh seems to take issue with the functional aspect of stacking lots of bolstered numbers/effectiveness toggles before going into combat, as opposed to accomplishing the effectiveness of pre-buffs via more active means, in-combat. So, whether or not the effects come from spells, or items, or people's sheer force of non-magical will, seems to be a fairly arbitrary factor.

Yes, I was there when someone asked Sawyer what his problem was with Pre-buffing, and I saw his answer (he dislikes it because he once saw someone take 6 rounds to pre-buff in order to win a tough battle in Icewind Dale.) In Josh's opinion, this constitutes a waste of good gaming time ie. "degenerate Gameplay", and therefore, there will be no such thing in POE.

 

As for the issue itself, I do not rank it very high in importance. (I prefer to be allowed to pre-buff, but I won't boycott a game that prohibits it. BUT I do take issue with most of the arguments that have been made. The bulk of them are really silly, so I'm going to take some time here to address the more common ones.

 

1) The Meta-gaming argument - we see this one a lot. It goes like this: You engage in an encounter, you get your ass kicked, you reload and pre-buff according to what you saw happen to you. This argument is particularly absurd for a number of reasons. First, there's no cure for metagaming. You want to know what the real waste of time is? When devs sit down and try to figure out ways to cure the incurable. Second, I really don't see the great evil in the above example anyway. In this situation, metagaming occurred because the player couldn't figure out a strategy on the fly to win that encounter the first time out. So friggin what? If the game is well designed and challenging that's gonna happen with or without pre-buffing. So why cite this as a reason for...anything?

 

2)Pre-buffing eliminates Challenge - Yeah, It certainly can.... If those buffs are so game-changingly powerful as to make you immune to all harm. The solution here, then, would be to <gasp> make those buffs less powerful, NOT, take away the player's ability to plan ahead.

 

3) Pre-buffing is Passive countering, not Active countering. Active is Good. Passive is bad - Ie. It's good to run outside naked in the cold and then find a way to get warm once you're out there. (build a fire, find leaves/newspapers to cover yourself up etc). But It's Bad to just put on a coat before stepping outside. Yeah. Ok. Got it. Wait, why does it have to be Either/Or? What's wrong with a system that incorporates both passive and active countering? Oh that's right. nothing. Nothing but your personal opinion that preparing ahead of time somehow eliminates the problem-solving element.

 

4) Josh's Argument: It's a waste of good gaming time. Tedious. - This is for US to decide, Josh. Not the developer. If the time comes where I get sick of pre-buffing, then.... I'll stop prebuffing. By the way, Josh, if people are getting sick of pre-buffing in games that you made, then that means you messed up... in other ways. Either you made encounters too frequent, or you created too many overly specific Buffs, or you made the duration of those buffs too short. Or the nature of the Buffs is just wrong.

 

5) Balance! Devs can either balance a game for pre-buffing or no pre-buffing. But they can't do both.- I don't buy this one. They can easily do both at the same time. Simply vary the difficulty of the encounters. Make some easy, make some moderate, make some difficult. And then leave it up to the player to deal with it.

Edited March 18, 2014 by Stun

[Ffordesoon]

Your points seem more argumentative than substantive.

[Lephys]

In Josh's opinion, this constitutes a waste of good gaming time ie. "degenerate Gameplay", and therefore, there will be no such thing in POE.

I could be wrong, but, it still seems to me like the whole "what you're giving up in active combat time to spend all that prep time achieving all those effects" aspect is a bit more key here, rather than it just being "that took more than like... a certain amount of time, to pre-buff a lot, and that's a waste of time, therefore BAD!"

 

I mean, I think we can all agree that there's eventually a "too long" there somewhere; being able to stack 50 buffs on each party member, requiring 15 minutes of spell-casting, would be quite blatant overkill. But, if he just had a problem with time-wasting, I think he would've just come up with some kind of buff-macroing or some other streamlining function for pre-buffing. Instead of specifically designing buffs to support and be heavily influenced by active combat factors. *shrug* That's just me, though.

 

As for your list, I actually agree very much with the first one. It's no different from save-anywhere. However, in that particular case, I would argue that you shouldn't really need to, or be able to, prepare beyond a certain amount with passive, duration-based value-changing spells/abilities.

 

The most valid (that I can see) argument deals heavily with extents; your "passive is bad, active is good!" and "Balance!" points are good, but those aren't really the issue. If anyone's claiming that's the issue, then they're missing it a bit.

 

The simplest way that I can put it is, yes, if you took a game and just ripped all the pre-buffing out of it, it would be a lesser game. The comparison of that particular design to the same game just devoid of that particular design is going to come up lacking. However, there's another way of doing it that's in conflict with the more passive way, and it is true that you can't really do both.

 

You said in point 2 that if the buffs are so powerful that they eliminate challenge, make them less powerful. Well, giving them shorter durations and limiting to combat-only IS effectively making them less powerful. Really, they're almost one in the same, too; if all buffs (just for example) now last 7 seconds, then you can't really stack 10 of them, then enter combat, can you? By the time you've stacked the 10th one, the first 6 are gone. So, it's effectively just duration shrinking. Maybe the magic in this world can't be attached directly to living things for long amounts of time? Who knows. It's a perfectly valid way of doing things.

 

Active-versus-passive is an aspect of things, but it is not the whole thing. Otherwise, they'd've just removed buffs entirely. The thing is, with shorter-term, focused buffs being used actively and tactically (timing and positioning, included) in combat, you can actually have more significant potency without it being absurd. Thus offering something that, objectively, I won't say is more interesting, but is interesting in a different way. A way that you can't do it while simultaneously doing it the other way, too.

 

If you have protection from arrows, for example, for 10 minutes, then you HAVE to make it kinda wussy. Like you said, if it's stupidly powerful and just makes you immune and that's that, it's out-of-hand. But, if you have protection from arrows for 10 seconds, hell... it can be 75% damage reduction from arrows, or even full immunity (although I still think in the context of a tactical combat system, having at least some exploitable weakness is ideal -- the easiest example of that is to have such a "full immunity" spell not cover all angles of attack, leaving your back exposed or something). Now, you can utilize more tactics with this than you could with "-5% damage from arrows" or something. It's pretty cool to be able to cast a swirling orb of wind around your Fighter, then have him charge the big heavy melee enemy since he doesn't have to worry about becoming a porcupine for not cautiously prioritizing the archers. OR you can use that on your Wizard, so that he can get that long-cast-time spell off right now before you've dealt with the archers. OR you can save it until you see the enemy boost their archer's firing speed, or bestow flame arrows upon him or something. Boom.

 

That's an isolated comparison. I don't have a problem with a 5-10-minute minor protection from arrows that you can cast before the battle. However, in lieu of that other stuff, now it's just a value that's changed unless it gets dispelled before the battle is over. You just make everyone in your party less worried about arrows, inherently. It's like you just summoned a whole 'nother armor equipment slot and a piece of equipment to go in it, until 5-10 minutes from now.

 

I'm all for planning, but planning does not mean "deal with every possible factor before you go into this." No. It means "Okay, there's gonna be a lot of lava around, and no rails to stop us. Let's put on some heat barriers to make getting knocked about on this battlefield a lot less of a worry." That was feasible preparation. So is the proper formation. Equipping the proper weapons, etc. Choosing the proper stances. Coming up with a plan to set up choke points, and/or keep certain enemies from moving into certain areas or getting behind certain people, etc.

 

You wouldn't want buffs that do all that, would you? "Let's cast a buff that automatically keeps the enemy at least 20 feet away from all of us." No, you wouldn't. Well, that's the type of function we'd like to see made happen by our crafty use of the tools at our disposal. Not "well, back when there was no hurry or threat, we cast some spells to deal with these very factors: those archers' damage, that Wizard's ability to harm us with poison, that Cipher's ability to shatter our minds temporarily. Now we just get to not-deal with those things from the get-to, and all we have to do is interrupt their attempts to dispell them, because pre-buffs!"

 

That's why I made the armor comparison in the pre-buffing thread. When you prepare for a battle in a world without magic, you don't bolster 17 things about yourself. You might decide to go with a shield and sword, instead of a two-handed sword. You might opt for lighter armor. You'd decide how to set up, and what maneuvers to have on-hand in the event of enemy actions you can anticipate. Why, when you simply add magic into the mix, do you need to have oodles more things you get to deal with up-front? "Oh, magic? Make everyone magically shielded, and I want a 10% damage reduction from every element known to man! Throw in some Thornskin! I want that extra 5 damage to all melee combatants! Don't forget to boost everyone's willpower, so they're less likely to be hit by mind-targeting spells!"

 

And really, the AI should already be pre-buffingly prepared, just like you were. So, you spend the whole fight trying to de-buff each other (when only certain characters can de-buff, so you end up with things like AoE debuffs and whatnot). It just becomes commonplace for everyone to walk around with a bunch of advantages attached to them, and the fight becomes "Let's see who can take away the most advantages the quickest." Forget actually producing or gaining advantages.