No more GM sucker punches, and the gameplay challenges thereof

[Silent Winter]

So long as retreat is an option, needing a silver weapon to harm a werewolf (for example) can add to the experience.  "Nothing we do works - run away ... and look for clues"

On the other hand, throwing a basilisk with no warning is cheap.  On the other other hand, having a party member petrified that you can come back to rescue later is ok so...

 

It needn't be 'fair' that the enemy is immune to fire when you couldn't have known beforehand, so long as you can adapt on the fly (and a good adventuring team will be able to adapt).

 

But having hints along a trail to the likes of Kangaxx is a puzzle to be solved and therefore has its place in a good rpg.

[Hassat Hunter]

Yup...

I don't mind finding a high-level cave in a low-level area... it makes the game feel alive, realistic, and not like 'the more north you go, there more dangerous everything is'... get your ass super-kicked and return later when you've improved.

The ONLY problem with that would be if a person would enter with Ironman mode. On his/her first game. But I really think making the game suitable for that will only ruin the overall experience, and lessen ways to make the game world alive and fresh and realistic.

And yes, sometimes that involves getting your ass massively kicked... and not be sugercoated nd everyone tailoring exactly to your specific powerlevel (d

damn you Oblivion!)

 

@ Infinitron: Name a few of those strategy and tactical games then. Also I don't quite think that's the way one *want/should make* it to go, but of course that would be personal preferences.

[Karkarov]

Yeah, it's pretty hard to avoid those in the BG games...

But apparently, still people need 'you need +X to harm this opponent' spelled out?

 

@ Infil; I think that's the problem really. I can't really see 'sucker punches' being out without making the game a complete snoozefest. I hope OE proves me wrong though.

You are tasked with taking out a bandit camp, you fight your way through, in the end you trap the bandit leaders in an old farm house and move in.  Turns out the old farm house is full of dry hay and the leaders have outfit a group of archers up in the rafters with fire arrows and stacked the hay so it is all near where you enter.  That combined with the best melee fighters being on the bottom floor holding your group near the entrance can make for a very tough fight that is in no way a "sucker punch".  It is a little mean but they are held up in a barn, it is not unreasonable to expect there to be hay in a barn, and they are bandits they are going to fight dirty.

 

That same fight goes down except now the archers have normal arrows and the hay isn't arranged this way.  Oh but the Bandit leader is actually a Red Dragon who has polymorphed himself into a human... now it is a sucker punch.  See the difference?

[Chippy]

Lot of variation on what people think a sucker punch is.  For me it's playing Assassins Creed for over 100 hours without dying at all, able to complete any challenge with full sync (even the tank one without cheese) and get through any combat encounter or QTE - but what ruined the games for me was those occasions where the camera took control (you had to fight it to look around) and positioned itself in the direction you had to leap in.  That direction was at an odd tangent/angle incompatible with mouse/keyboard, and the ledge it pointed you towards was false - resulting in you falling to your death and having to replay 10 min to get back.  Rinse and repeat because maybe it was the mouse/keyboard setup until I realize that I had to fight the camera to advance at an odd angle to a ledge I would have seen if it wasn't trying to 'help' me.  

Sucker punch.  Immersion breaking to the point where I began wondering if these occasions - maybe 1/50- where because some member of staff was working a holiday/weekend and just stuck them in there because they resented the player enjoying the game.

 

Completely different from me building a 3rd edition character that can re-roll on a 1 against all save vs fort (death) spells, but dies against nightmare @ save vs will.  That I see as my ignorance of the rules.  Whether they're crappy rules or not is a matter for debate... 

[Hassat Hunter]

Except this giant polymorphed red dragon just talked, and allowed you to walk away if you wanted without any combat at all.

How's that a suckerpunch?

 

Also, ingame technicalwise, I see no difference. It's both "fight vs. fire"... so why is one okay and the other apparently not, if the difficulty is equal?

[Jarrakul]

I actually think the dragon thing is fine, so long as dragons aren't immune to wide varieties of things that aren't immediately obvious. Say, for example, that only piercing weapons can hurt dragons. Other weapons and spells are useless. Then it's a pretty big problem if you're forced into a fight with one without any warning, because you didn't know you had to pack piercing weapons, and you still don't until you try everything else and find out it doesn't work (and it's the same if you knew there was a dragon, but had no way of knowing it was randomly immune to 3/4ths of attacks). Immunities to a few things that aren't obvious is fine, and immunity to things that are obvious is also fine (I mean really, fireballing a dragon is only one step less dumb than fireballing a fire elemental, at least if you've established that the dragon breathes fire), but when immunities are broad and unintuitive, there needs to be some way of figuring it out other than trial and error.

[Cubiq]

One thing in BG2 that i considered a suckerpunch was the beholder cave in the underdark.

I entered the cave and a beholder was instantly within attack range. My main char was at front of the group, got hit by a ray, failed a save and turned to stone, game over.

If a monster is going to have instant kill attacks then at least give a little bit of warning to what you might face.

[Sarex]

One thing in BG2 that i considered a suckerpunch was the beholder cave in the underdark.

I entered the cave and a beholder was instantly within attack range. My main char was at front of the group, got hit by a ray, failed a save and turned to stone, game over.

If a monster is going to have instant kill attacks then at least give a little bit of warning to what you might face.

 

It's called the "Beholder Lair" ffs.

[Hassat Hunter]

No one expects Beholders in a Beholders Lair!

It's like... a Necromancer in an undead infested place... totally, out of the blue!

 

Though I do agree with the PC dead = game over situation the BG's had. If Bhaal's Children cannot be revived, why can we do so with Imoen?

[ReyVagabond]

So, the sollution would be "massive handholding"...

 

Somehow I don't see that 'adding to the puzzle' or 'adding the fun'... it's more fun deducting tactics on your own then having them spelled out to you for each and every foe.

 

Maybe when I wrote “that can be toggle in the options.”

 

My intention was that some players may not want that option, or solution “ON”.

[Ffordesoon]

A suckerpunch happens when you don't see what the hell you could have done differently, you have no way of figuring it out without consulting a guide, and you can't come back to it later for whatever reason.

 

I'll give an example that happened to me in BG1 (TOTSC, to be exact): the fight with Karoug in Balduran's ship. It is bulls**t, and the reasons why are legion.

 

1. Unlike regular wolfweres, Karoug can only be hurt by approximately five specific weapons, none of which the player has a reasonable chance of acquiring without metagaming knowledge.

 

2. You have to have taken specific weapon proficiencies throughout the leveling process to use the weapons effectively enough to kill Karoug.

 

3. Karoug is very very good at saving throws against debuffs, should you finally come to the realization that he can probably be beaten if you use one of them. This is assuming you have a mage who can use that school of magic in your party (which I didn't), or that you have a wand of paralyzation (which I did, thank God).

 

4. He has like five or six additional wolfweres with him, one of whom is a powerful wizard who can debuff your party something fierce. You basically have to use the area transition trick to take care of these guys.

 

5. His health regenerates. And it regenerates quickly, too. A single miss can see him going from injured to barely injured. And if your party isn't specialized in certain weapons types, they're going to miss a lot.

 

6. You're in a tight space when you fight him, and the Infinity Engine was never good at pathfinding in tight spaces. Also, it means ranged characters have to take a penalty on the other enemies. Ranged characters can't hurt Karoug at all.

 

7. One of the weapons that can hurt him, the Sword Of Balduran, is in a chest in the room where you fight him. The chest is trapped, and the game doesn't pause when you open chests, meaning you have to use the area transition trick to get all the wolfweres out of the room so you can get the weapon that will kill Karoug.

 

8. Most of the weapons you need to kill Karoug are in chests off of the island. The island where you are trapped until you kill Karoug. Oh, and there is no way to get some of them without stealing. Because of course there isn't.

 

9. Only the fact that you are going to fight him on a boat is foreshadowed in any way.

 

10. All but two of these conditions are entirely unique to Karoug. No other character in the questline works this way. And you have to beat him to complete the questline, even though the writers could easily have provided you with a perfectly acceptable nonviolent solution. And you have to complete the questline to get off the island.

 

That's a suckerpunch.

[ReyVagabond]

the hole underdark, was a swing and mis in my case, I didnt knew the first time what the hell i was fighting, and i died a lot!

 

By The 8º time i played it, i knew what to expect how to win and so on, so it was easy.

 

Personaly i want the game to be CHALENGING not GIMMIK HARD.

 

I could prefer a degree or randomness in enemies i could enconter from  playhtrogh to playhtrogh, like a Red dragon the first time an ice dragon the next.

i dont know how to explain it.

 

I want a good inmertion, chalenge, that the game tells me some times depending on certain factors, suff I should know without reading the manual, etc.

but Not too much, to spoit the fun.

Edited April 3, 2014 by ReyVagabond

[Karkarov]

Except this giant polymorphed red dragon just talked, and allowed you to walk away if you wanted without any combat at all.

How's that a suckerpunch?

 

Also, ingame technicalwise, I see no difference. It's both "fight vs. fire"... so why is one okay and the other apparently not, if the difficulty is equal?

Yeah here is the thing.  They are bandits, they fight unfairly.  They fled to this barn and are cornered knowing you are coming to wipe them out since that is what you were hired to do.  It doesn't take a genius to stop and think.... hey... they fled in there, they fight dirty, maybe it is a trap?  So someone who thinks about it can maybe anticipate they fled to the barn because they have some strong advantage fighting there.  As for the dragon..... it is a red dragon... you had no clue this was anything other than regular bandits, and I don't care how BA the bandits are they are not as dangerous as a full on dragon.  He will have crazy hp, huge stats, probably magic powers, deadly fire breath, the whole enchilada.

 

Like I said, one way the fight is hard, but reasonable.  You could anticipate some level of what is going down before it does just by stopping, thinking, and analyzing what could be happening.  With the dragon it is totally out of left field, you have no reason to expect it, you had no way to prepare for it, and it is totally out of nowhere.  It also goes from being a hard fight in a tough scenario to potentially being unwinnable. 

[Kjaamor]

But you don't need to beat it in a fight to "win".

 

And given how powerful dragons tend to be, it can hardly be a sucker punch when you attack it and get your ass handed to you.

[Hassat Hunter]

Really depends... on how much foreshadowing there has be. The 'they are bandits, they fight unfairly' is relayed somehow, and thus that same way some rumours could go around the boss is really an ancient magical being.

It's all in the setup. As much as 'this makes sense!' it might not if not relayed, and 'it makes no sense!' might not be true if foreshadowed.

 

All in all, the key is in execution.

[Ffordesoon]

Really depends... on how much foreshadowing there has be. The 'they are bandits, they fight unfairly' is relayed somehow, and thus that same way some rumours could go around the boss is really an ancient magical being.

It's all in the setup. As much as 'this makes sense!' it might not if not relayed, and 'it makes no sense!' might not be true if foreshadowed.

 

All in all, the key is in execution.

Yes, but a suckerpunch by definition fails at execution.

[Cubiq]

It's called the "Beholder Lair" ffs.

 

No it's not genius

Edited April 4, 2014 by Cubiq

[Lord Gorchnik]

Given how young I was at the time I can't remember the name of the computer game but I had trouble at a certain point.

 

I remember a boss creature being a troll and of course trolls need either fire or acid to permanently kill them.  Of which neither I had.  Because i didn't know this lore, and the game didn't give me a way to find out via in game resources, text, NPC conversation, etc, I could never beat it.

 

Then I remember years later playing BG1 and encountering trolls and remember that there were multiple references of acid and fire and how effective it was against them.  I have long since forgotten the name of that PC game and probably won't ever remember, but sometimes I wish I could find it again and see if there were fire and/or acid items in the game to use.

[Sarex]

 

It's called the "Beholder Lair" ffs.

 

No it's not genius

 

 

 Well if you read the quest when it was given to you, you would have seen that you have 3 choices Illithid to the east, Beholders to the south and the mushrooms to the west. You were forewarned, genius!

[Cubiq]

 

 

It's called the "Beholder Lair" ffs.

 

No it's not genius

 

 

 Well if you read the quest when it was given to you, you would have seen that you have 3 choices Illithid to the east, Beholders to the south and the mushrooms to the west. You were forewarned, genius!

I gave you the benefit of the doubt that you were smart enough not no reply with this, but you actually went for it...

No you weren't forewarned.

You can access the southern tunnels without actually getting the quest in Drow city and there is ABSOLUTELY no hint in the game that tells you to go the city before trying to enter the southern tunnels. Whether or not you read about the Beholder lair is purely decided by luck, which is the definition of a suckerpunch.

In fact it would be logical to explore the southern tunnels first before actually entering a "drow" city.

Stop trying to be a smartass since you're clearly grasping for straws.

 

And it's the fish-men, not the mushrooms that you need to get the blood from, so shows how much you actually read quests.

Edited April 4, 2014 by Cubiq

[IndiraLightfoot]

One thing in BG2 that i considered a suckerpunch was the beholder cave in the underdark.

I entered the cave and a beholder was instantly within attack range. My main char was at front of the group, got hit by a ray, failed a save and turned to stone, game over.

If a monster is going to have instant kill attacks then at least give a little bit of warning to what you might face.

If you venture down into the underdark, you got to expect horrible creatures lurking in its deepest recesses. However, the ease with which a failed save can kill you when encountering Beholders is another issue.

[Sarex]

No you weren't forewarned.

You can access the southern tunnels without actually getting the quest in Drow city and there is ABSOLUTELY no hint in the game that tells you to go the city before trying to enter the southern tunnels. Whether or not you read about the Beholder lair is purely decided by luck, which is the definition of a suckerpunch.

 

No it isn't, you first meet the merchant who you can question about the Underdark, then you meet and fight the Drow and only then can you go past and to the south east part of the Underdark. Also I don't know about you but players usually explore the whole map before going further. So no, it's not luck, it's just you speeding through the game without reading the dialogue and exploring the whole map. A sucker punch would have been if you had to go there, no one forced you to go off map.

[Cubiq]

 

No you weren't forewarned.

You can access the southern tunnels without actually getting the quest in Drow city and there is ABSOLUTELY no hint in the game that tells you to go the city before trying to enter the southern tunnels. Whether or not you read about the Beholder lair is purely decided by luck, which is the definition of a suckerpunch.

 

No it isn't, you first meet the merchant who you can question about the Underdark, then you meet and fight the Drow and only then can you go past and to the south east part of the Underdark. Also I don't know about you but players usually explore the whole map before going further. So no, it's not luck, it's just you speeding through the game without reading the dialogue and exploring the whole map. A sucker punch would have been if you had to go there, no one forced you to go off map.

 

Okey then please give me a screenshot of the dwarven merchant telling me about the beholder's lair, because i'm talking to him now and they don't mention it.

And no you absolutely don't have to fight the drow to get to the southern tunnel, i just tested it.

[Cubiq]

 

One thing in BG2 that i considered a suckerpunch was the beholder cave in the underdark.

I entered the cave and a beholder was instantly within attack range. My main char was at front of the group, got hit by a ray, failed a save and turned to stone, game over.

If a monster is going to have instant kill attacks then at least give a little bit of warning to what you might face.

If you venture down into the underdark, you got to expect horrible creatures lurking in its deepest recesses. However, the ease with which a failed save can kill you when encountering Beholders is another issue.

So when you played the game you were walking around the Underdark with every possible buff in the game, while sacrificing all your offensive spells, even though you could easily encounter something that you can only hurt with magic, or something with enough regeneration that requires you to focus purely on offense, like the Kuo-Toa boss you face in the western cave?

I doubt you did, and your expectancy of others to do that is unrealistic.

If they named the tunnels the "Beholder lair", which you could probably notice once you got close to it, then it might have been fair play because you were forewarned what could be your next challenge, but it wasn't, you are instantly teleported in to the attack range of a beholder.

Edited April 4, 2014 by Cubiq

[Sarex]

Okey then please give me a screenshot of the dwarven merchant telling me about the beholder's lair, because i'm talking to him now and they don't mention it.

And no you absolutely don't have to fight the drow to get to the southern tunnel, i just tested it.

 

He gives you general info about the area and you should follow his info, instead you explored and payed the price. I personally never had the issues you encountered, nor have I heard anyone complain about the Beholder area, in fact I have heard people complain about the Illithid more.

 

Also if you used auto-pause you could have easily backtracked out of the area. I don't think you really get what a sucker punch is.

 

So when you played the game you were walking around the Underdark with every possible buff in the game, while sacrificing all your offensive spells, even though you could easily encounter something that you can only hurt with magic, or something with enough regeneration that requires you to focus purely on offense, like the Kuo-Toa boss you face in the western cave?

I doubt you did, and your expectancy of others to do that is unrealistic.

If they named the tunnels the "Beholder lair", which you could probably notice once you got close to it, then it might have been fair play because you were forewarned what could be your next challenge, but it wasn't, you are instantly teleported in to the attack range of a beholder.

 

That is the price of non-linearity and speeding through without information.