No more GM sucker punches, and the gameplay challenges thereof

[Lephys]

Sawyer's example seems like a neat way to do things but  it does make things less dangerous hence less challenging. When you are exploring the CAVE OF DOOM you gotta expect some doom. Having  multiple  second chances doesn't make it more fun or rewarding to survive a beholder. Heck, in the example, it turns  flesh to stone into  a simple parlysis/stop spell that may  turn more 'permenant' a half dozen rounds later.

The thing is... if your character is paralyzed or stopped, your character is paralyzed or stopped. As opposed to just damage having been done, or simply being knocked down (and he can just get back up but was delayed a little), the tactical effect is that you have to go without that character for a prolonged period of time. Whether or not its permanent isn't really going to change that.

 

And if you're a man down because an enemy instantly paralyzed/petrified you, then the added challenge of dealing with that given situation with only 5 out of 6 people is there, no matter what. Now, sure, if you only ever got paralyzed for 2 seconds, it'd wouldn't have much of an effect. But, as long as it lasts a significant amount of time, it doesn't really matter if it's forever or not.

 

Whether or not the effect ultimately obliterates your character has no significance, whatsoever, on the difficulty of the remainder of that particular encounter. The only difference is, you actually have a chance of fighting your way back from that state, instead of being absolutely screwed. Sure, it's a little "easier," potentially, in the long run. But, the cost-benefit ratio is pretty crazy.

 

If 3 of your 6 party members get petrified, for example, in the beginning of a fight, and they're automatically permanently petrified and dead, then the fight's difficult all right. Most likely too difficult to win. So, what do you do? You reload. I'm not even talking about save-scumming or meta-gaming here. I'm talking "I literally don't have the means of beating this combat, so I'm going to skip the next 2 minutes where I slowly struggle until we're all dead, then I'm forced to either reload the game or never play again." BUT, if you're just going to have to fight without all three of them for the next 15 seconds, but THEN they can possibly break out of it and have them back, then the fight just got harder, and yet still not hopeless.

 

The ability to come back from something, as opposed to being absolutely removed from the fight (given characters) might be "easier," but easier than impossible isn't really hurting anything.

 

Honestly, I'd much rather not even have a hard counter for petrification (for example), and simply have the good possibility that it won't be permanent, and have to fight my way through a whole battle even after some people got petrified, than simply have a "Nuh-uh, basilisks!" button that I push every time I see basilisks. I mean, objectively, casting "protection from that nasty effect" and then winning with relative ease really isn't more difficult than actually having to deal with the effects of very un-fun spells, but not having those spells be so extreme that you just automatically lose if their effects befall you.

[Infinitron]

I also want to say that I don't want to take away what Sarex says about "enjoyability" from those difficult encounters - those do exist. But I don't think those encounters are enjoyable due to their metagaming potential. They're enjoyable despite their meta-gaming potential. In other words, what players see as enjoyable in those encounters actually has nothing to do with being aware of what is coming up or being able to quicksave/quickload; the reason they are enjoyable is because they provide an interesting monster, a different way of playing your party, or a very nice reward after defeating the tough boss (carsomyr +5 after beating the Red Dragon in Windspear)

 

Very true. I'd also add that this is true for BG2's "mage duels" as well. Some people say that they liked the metagaming/hard counter aspect of them, but I believe that what 90% of them really liked is the fact wizard vs wizard combat was so well-developed in the first place - hard counters or no hard counters.

Edited April 9, 2014 by Infinitron

[Sarex]

Very true. I'd also add that this is true for BG2's "mage duels" as well. Some people say that they liked the metagaming/hard counter aspect of them, but I believe that what 90% of them really liked is the fact wizard vs wizard combat was so well-developed in the first place - hard counters or no hard counters.

 

So what you are trying to say is that you know what people liked better then they them selves do. Ok, well I believe that what people liked in bg was not the gameplay and the iso view, but the hipster feel it made them experience. I think we are getting somewhere here. Soon we will create the game that everyone likes.

[Hormalakh]

Liking something and knowing why you liked something are two very different things. You liked BG and BG2 as a whole experience - most here did. But when it comes down to very specific minutae and mechanics, it's very tough to tease out the nostalgia, genuine enjoyment, and just putting up with it. Especially when it comes to fully understanding the back-end workings of these games.

 

If you can properly explain why you liked those aspects of "meta-gaming" in a clear way, I think that would be a fruitful discussion. But jumping to hyperbole and demagoguery really doesn't do much. Try to think what aspect of them you liked and maybe we can move forward.

Edited April 9, 2014 by Hormalakh

[Sarex]

Liking something and knowing why you liked something are two very different things. You liked BG and BG2 as a whole experience - most here did. But when it comes down to very specific minutae and mechanics, it's very tough to tease out the nostalgia, genuine enjoyment, and just putting up with it. Especially when it comes to fully understanding the back-end workings of these games.

 

If you can properly explain why you liked those aspects of "meta-gaming" in a clear way, I think that would be a fruitful discussion. But jumping to hyperbole and demagoguery really doesn't do much. Try to think what aspect of them you liked and maybe we can move forward.

 

I don't mind that he disagrees, I mind that he dismisses other peoples opinions. It's very arrogant.

 

It's very simple, those fights where harder(harder then any in the game, you could even say unfair) and unless you knew the hard counter(for some of which it didn't even resolve the fight on it's own) you had to figure out what combination of spells, positions and character you needed to beat the encounter. We can use Kangaxx as the poster boy fight. My first time against him, my knowledge of D&D was what the game it self provided, it took me an hour to beat him. During that hour I changed who tanked him, who was out of range of him when to cast spells what spell worked and most annoyingly of all Jaheria had to survive (the bugs on that NPC were unreal), that was the only encounter in the game where I had to work that hard and that is what made it memorable. Now all of a sudden I hear people moaning about it being a sucker punch and how they didn't like it. Well ok, you didn't like it then don't do it, it is purely optional and it doesn't affect the story at all. But alas it's seem that it's either or neither.

[Ffordesoon]

You do know the difference between being critical of something and disliking it, right?

[Yonjuro]

.....

It's very simple, those fights where harder(harder then any in the game, you could even say unfair) and unless you knew the hard counter(for some of which it didn't even resolve the fight on it's own) you had to figure out what combination of spells, positions and character you needed to beat the encounter. We can use Kangaxx as the poster boy fight. My first time against him, my knowledge of D&D was what the game it self provided, it took me an hour to beat him. During that hour I changed who tanked him, who was out of range of him when to cast spells what spell worked and most annoyingly of all Jaheria had to survive (the bugs on that NPC were unreal), that was the only encounter in the game where I had to work that hard and that is what made it memorable. Now all of a sudden I hear people moaning about it being a sucker punch and how they didn't like it. Well ok, you didn't like it then don't do it, it is purely optional and it doesn't affect the story at all. But alas it's seem that it's either or neither.

 

 This is a useful addition to the discussion. I will talk about two fights that I found challenging. The first was the final fight of BG1 (the ToTSC version, which, I think, is harder than the original version).

 

 BG1 was my first D&D Game (in fact, it was my first game; I'm old and there weren't any games when I was growing up). I found the final fight to be challenging because there were two difficult melee opponents coupled with a magic user who dispels all of your buffs and does status effect spells and a second magic user who does area of effect damage (mostly with arrows of detonation, I think). I found it challenging because you can't really ignore the melee guys to focus on the magic users since they do so much damage. Ignoring the magic users is always a bad idea and the status/aoe spells make maintaining a formation a bad idea (whereas maintaining a formation is a good idea to beat the melee guys). It took me a while to figure this one out and I found it challenging for a few play throughs. The last time I played I had Imoen kill the final four by herself and nobody in my party even lost a single hit point - metagame knowledge is powerful stuff and these things do get a lot easier as you learn more about what's available. I suppose that a similar fight without the need for and availability of hard counters would be more interesting for a longer time which is something that I can appreciate about Josh Sawyer's recent comments. I hope that the game will be as much fun to play as BG was even though ti will clearly be different.

 

 In BG2, I think the Twisted Rune is a similar fight - there are some interesting complications that come up when you put that collection of enemies together (e.g., the beholder will remove negative plane protection from whoever is tanking it giving the vampire an opening). The only real problem I have with it is that it is very easy to stumble into it before your party has any chance of beating it and you can't leave. That aspect, to me is the sucker punch part of it but otherwise it is an interesting encounter and very doable for a high level party.

 

 Kangaxx wasn't difficult for me mainly due to luck - I encountered him for the first time with a high level party with two mages and a berserker (three characters who could become immune to his attack) and with two weapons that could hit him. After seeing the one thing he does (and reloading), it was easy to contain him and beat him to death before he could imprison any unprotected party members (who were 'valiantly' hiding in the corner - this fight reminds me a lot of the basilisk map in BG1, a very nice XP farm where the protected characters terminate with extreme prejudice while the unprotected ones hide). Of course, with a different party it could have been challenging (or impossible).

[Lephys]

It's very simple, those fights where harder(harder then any in the game, you could even say unfair) and unless you knew the hard counter(for some of which it didn't even resolve the fight on it's own) you had to figure out what combination of spells, positions and character you needed to beat the encounter. We can use Kangaxx as the poster boy fight. My first time against him, my knowledge of D&D was what the game it self provided, it took me an hour to beat him. During that hour I changed who tanked him, who was out of range of him when to cast spells what spell worked and most annoyingly of all Jaheria had to survive (the bugs on that NPC were unreal), that was the only encounter in the game where I had to work that hard and that is what made it memorable. Now all of a sudden I hear people moaning about it being a sucker punch and how they didn't like it. Well ok, you didn't like it then don't do it, it is purely optional and it doesn't affect the story at all. But alas it's seem that it's either or neither.

I think this illustrates at least one of the main disconnects here:

 

The criticism to these factors that are creating these "suckerpunches" seems to be taken as though it's "I want all the complexity gone from that fight."

 

I don't think the people who take issue with this criticism realize the subtlety of the problem factors that cause a suckerpunch.

 

It's not really a "burn it down and start from scratch" problem. It's something some rather minor tweaks can fix, without at all jeopardizing the complexity and problem-solving nature of combat.

 

If I'm mistaken, then I apologize. But, I just notice that those in here who aren't really convinced that suckerpunches aren't just some made up "problem" are commonly presenting examples like Sarex's, above -- namely of a LOT more of the substance of the example encounter than just what's actually being called problematic by others -- and sort of saying "I don't understand why'd want that encounter to be devoid of all that."

 

In other words, the non-suckerpunch version of that particular combat would not result in the absence of complex choices and problem resolution, but would simply tweak the nature of the choices and problems you're dealing with. It's like pulling some debris from a swimming pool. The debris is taking up space in the pool, true, but not much of it at all. And, when removed, there's not just a gaping hole there. The water flows in to fill that gap.

 

This isn't just "take a fight like Kangaxx and rip stuff out of it, and leave everything else as-is." That would result in a loss of complexity. But, no, it's about tweaking the system to still attain that same level of complexity and challenge, but simply having it be achieved in a different, slightly less swayingly-extreme manner.

[Hormalakh]

 

 BG1 was my first D&D Game (in fact, it was my first game; I'm old and there weren't any games when I was growing up). I found the final fight to be challenging because there were two difficult melee opponents coupled with a magic user who dispels all of your buffs and does status effect spells and a second magic user who does area of effect damage (mostly with arrows of detonation, I think). I found it challenging because you can't really ignore the melee guys to focus on the magic users since they do so much damage. Ignoring the magic users is always a bad idea and the status/aoe spells make maintaining a formation a bad idea (whereas maintaining a formation is a good idea to beat the melee guys). It took me a while to figure this one out and I found it challenging for a few play throughs. The last time I played I had Imoen kill the final four by herself and nobody in my party even lost a single hit point - metagame knowledge is powerful stuff and these things do get a lot easier as you learn more about what's available. I suppose that a similar fight without the need for and availability of hard counters would be more interesting for a longer time which is something that I can appreciate about Josh Sawyer's recent comments. I hope that the game will be as much fun to play as BG was even though ti will clearly be different.

 

 In BG2, I think the Twisted Rune is a similar fight - there are some interesting complications that come up when you put that collection of enemies together (e.g., the beholder will remove negative plane protection from whoever is tanking it giving the vampire an opening). The only real problem I have with it is that it is very easy to stumble into it before your party has any chance of beating it and you can't leave. That aspect, to me is the sucker punch part of it but otherwise it is an interesting encounter and very doable for a high level party.

 

 Kangaxx wasn't difficult for me mainly due to luck - I encountered him for the first time with a high level party with two mages and a berserker (three characters who could become immune to his attack) and with two weapons that could hit him. After seeing the one thing he does (and reloading), it was easy to contain him and beat him to death before he could imprison any unprotected party members (who were 'valiantly' hiding in the corner - this fight reminds me a lot of the basilisk map in BG1, a very nice XP farm where the protected characters terminate with extreme prejudice while the unprotected ones hide). Of course, with a different party it could have been challenging (or impossible).

 

 

These three fights are very interesting to discuss because I believe that - if I understand Josh and co's goal correctly - they can bring light to the discussion.

 

The first fight (final fight of BG1) really doesn't seem to have any "sucker punches" per se. It was a difficult fight and it's not "swingy." It needs tactics and you could win the first time, or you could win the 100th time. But the battle doesn't really require any meta-gaming (you don't really need to know anything about the fight other than it's tough) to beat it. This is not what I understand Josh to have an issue with. Let's leave that battle in.

 

The second fight (twisted rune) is also good to go except for maybe locking in the player to that site. So if that battle had a flee option, then it would be again a worthy fight. If you step in, realize that it's about to go down, there really isn't much to change (maybe beholder's sucker punches, but that's another issue...). So again, pretty good.

 

The third fight: the one thing you mentioned that really strikes me is that you had to play the battle once to figure out exactly what was going on, then you could quickly "solve" the problem and the fight was a cakewalk. Kangaxx's imprison really has no counter outside you knowing Kangaxx can imprison. You would never know that the first time around. It's impossible to know. that's a sucker punch. Imagine if Kangaxx always imprisons your PC. Basically, you can never win that fight the first time around, because there is really no way you would know that Kangaxx will do that. You'd learn that the 2nd-30th time you play that battle. But Kangaxx is still fun without imprison as a spell - or at least, as it currently stands. At the same time, Kangaxx became a "battle of luck" for you. That basically ruined what was supposed to be an interesting battle for you. You can remove or adjust aspects of the Kangaxx battle (imprison for example) and make battle still fun. What difference does it make if imprison occurs immediately after it's cast or if it's adjusted as Josh mentioned? The only difference is that you don't have to reload and that imprison can actually still be a viable tactic for the enemy AI.

 

My third playthrough on BG2 - I was able to finger of death Fiirkagg (Red Dragon) and one-shot him. That felt extremely unsatisfying because my previous experiences taught me to settle in for a long fight. Being able to finish that battle in less than 5 seconds made me wonder what happened and I felt like "oh well, i guess I won that battle."

Edited April 10, 2014 by Hormalakh

[Hassat Hunter]

The difference would be instead of a fearsome foe that crushes you under his feet, you get another Nihilus.

 

Massive upbeat about his power, looking forward to. Hits weaker than a bunny, and dies equally fast. If he murdered Visas and Mandalore right on the spot, it would have been a much grander display of power.

(still a suckerpunch of low difficulty, but, well...)

Edited April 10, 2014 by Hassat Hunter

[Yonjuro]

 

These three fights are very interesting to discuss because I believe that - if I understand Josh and co's goal correctly - they can bring light to the discussion.

 

The first fight (final fight of BG1 ... 

 

The second fight (twisted rune) is also good to go except for maybe locking in the player to that site. ....

 

 

 Yup, exactly. I completely agree on these two and it was the reason I brought them up.

 

 

 

The third fight: the one thing you mentioned that really strikes me is that you had to play the battle once to figure out exactly what was going on, then you could quickly "solve" the problem and the fight was a cakewalk. ...... You can remove or adjust aspects of the Kangaxx battle (imprison for example) and make battle still fun. What difference does it make if imprison occurs immediately after it's cast or if it's adjusted as Josh mentioned? The only difference is that you don't have to reload and that imprison can actually still be a viable tactic for the enemy AI.

 

 Sure. My problem with Kangaxx was that (in hindsight) the fight is too easy. I don't think you can just replace his imprison ability with an imprison that can be countered after the fact and have an interesting encounter. I think it needs a complete redesign. 

 

 The fight with Irenicus on the Tree of Life is another example. I've posted about this before. He is built up as some kind of uber mage and then, when you finally face him, the fight is far too easy. I killed him by accident the first time by summoning some skeletons and a hakeshar to soften him up - the next thing I knew he was dead (the text that says something like 'your party was so badly injured that they got dragged into hell with you' was a LOL moment in that game). An encounter with one nuclear ability (imprison in the case of Kangaxx and Wail of the Banshee in the case of Irenicus) just isn't very interesting. 

[Lephys]

My third playthrough on BG2 - I was able to finger of death Fiirkagg (Red Dragon) and one-shot him. That felt extremely unsatisfying because my previous experiences taught me to settle in for a long fight. Being able to finish that battle in less than 5 seconds made me wonder what happened and I felt like "oh well, i guess I won that battle."

That's the other edge of the sword of those luck-based extreme effects: Sometimes, a fight becomes really easy when you still wanted it to be challenging. The player really shouldn't have to restrain himself just to avoid being at the mercy of luck like that.

 

But, yeah, that's also a testament to the things that could be tweaked in suckerpunches. If being surprised by stuff and/or needing very specific hard counters is the only thing that makes the fight "hard," then was the fight really that hard to begin with? Is it any harder than trying to bake muffins before looking up the recipe? And, once you have the recipe, you just follow it, and you get perfect muffins.

 

That's the thing about combat difficulty. If the solutions to problems aren't emergent, then how is it not just a fancy action puzzle?

[Mr. Magniloquent]

It's all relative. I petrified the Shadow Dragon with a Chromatic Orb spell from my lvl 10 wizard/party. Some of my party members who had their Negative Energy Protection dispelled had been obliterated by the level drain of the Dragon's breath if not the acid itself. My party couldn't really hit the dragon or stand-up to it, but my spellcasters certainly exposed and/or created weaknesses for it, only to deliver a killing blow on the brink of defeat. That was my very first encounter with it. No metagaming. No-reloading.

 

That was a white-knuckle victory. People have different tastes. Sometimes they are dissapointed by slaying a major foe with one spell--other times people are elated at their character's prowess. What people also seem to ignore, is that not all enemies are the same, nor should they be. Jumping into melee with any dragon is generally a very poor choice, but slinging spells at the golem is an equally poor tactic. It's not exactly like Finger of Death is some chump spell either. Casting that spell requires serious power in the D&D universe. Context is important.

 

Meta-gaming does not make encounters fun. Nor do hard counters. Hard-counters are great, because they make things matter--this is besides the point. Whether hard-counters are reasonable comes down to encounter design. Context is the word. It was reasonable to have a Shadow Dragon with level-draining breath because you were at the end of a dungeon filled with undead. It is reasonable to expect that a party will be prepared for such an effect. Furthermore, you are given PLENTY of warning. Not just warning by NPCs, but an actual object that allows you to engage the encounter on your terms, or bypass it entirely. Decidedly not a sucker punch encounter.

[Yonjuro]

....

Meta-gaming does not make encounters fun. Nor do hard counters. Hard-counters are great, because they make things matter--this is besides the point. Whether hard-counters are reasonable comes down to encounter design. Context is the word. It was reasonable to have a Shadow Dragon with level-draining breath because you were at the end of a dungeon filled with undead. It is reasonable to expect that a party will be prepared for such an effect. Furthermore, you are given PLENTY of warning. Not just warning by NPCs, but an actual object that allows you to engage the encounter on your terms, or bypass it entirely. Decidedly not a sucker punch encounter.

 

 

  Yes, the shadow dragon is a well done encounter (*) and certainly not a sucker punch.

 

  So is Firkraag (*). In the Windspear Hills dungeon you find several items that give you clues about fighting Firkraag - especially the sword that protects the wielder from fear. That was a good clue for those of us that didn't know what to expect from a dragon fight that an appropriate buff spell would be useful but it wasn't as if we found Elminster's Tome of Dragon Slaying with detailed instructions.

 

 Also, Firkraag was a good warmup dragon for the shadow dragon since you can cast 'friendly' spells on him without turning him hostile e.g. things like Strength that will lower his strength. Its a good practice encounter for the shadow dragon that attacks you as soon as he notices you.

 

 (*) (except that a thief can kill either of them quite easily with traps)

[Hormalakh]

Just imagine actually rolling a petrify via chromatic orb on a shadow-dragon in a P&P game - the table would go crazy. Same with a finger of death. That's because the act of rolling the dice is the game in PnP. Not so much in CRPGs. That part, because it's black-boxed away, really takes out that intimate feeling. cRPGs should try to bring back that feeling in their own way.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Hormalakh: My sentiments, exactly! Post of the day!!

[Karkarov]

Just imagine actually rolling a petrify via chromatic orb on a shadow-dragon in a P&P game - the table would go crazy. Same with a finger of death. That's because the act of rolling the dice is the game in PnP. Not so much in CRPGs. That part, because it's black-boxed away, really takes out that intimate feeling. cRPGs should try to bring back that feeling in their own way.

As long as "bringing back that feeling in their own way" doesn't include one shot kills on major enemies or chump weaklings one shot killing you all due to random chance, dumb luck, or hard counter situations then yes, I agree.

Edited April 11, 2014 by Karkarov

[PrimeJunta]

Perhaps a little paradoxally, I think random insta-kill effects only work in hardcore/roguelike modes. When dead means dead, you do a whole lot more to avoid them, which can be exciting and rewarding. But combined with unlimited save and reload, they don't make games harder, only more repetitive.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Yeah, that's the crux of it!

For instance, playing D3 hardcore and D3 softcore are almost two different games. In the first one, I emphasize defences, healing and sneaking and escaping if something is going all south. In the other, I just chill, experience some dialogue, take in the battles and the sceneries, and basically just look for upgrades. I guess, it's like flying a Cessna vs playing a flight sim flying a Cessna.

Edited April 11, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Replating the BGT and have noticed that if you remove the suckerpunches the battles that rely on them for challenge become too easy.

[PrimeJunta]

Replating the BGT and have noticed that if you remove the suckerpunches the battles that rely on them for challenge become too easy.

 

Duh.

[Lephys]

 

Replating the BGT and have noticed that if you remove the suckerpunches the battles that rely on them for challenge become too easy.

 

Duh.

 

That's because it's not really "challenge" (or, not as much as it's claiming to be). It's "under these circumstances, your chances of success are horribly slim, if not non-existent." But then, not only is the solution easy (enemy's using X? I should probably use Protection from X), but the remainder of the substance of the combat encounter isn't nearly as tough at that point, especially if you just generally know how to use your abilities to good effect (in general, and not just for completely situational extreme effectiveness.)

Edited April 11, 2014 by Lephys

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

If the only way you can make a battle challenging is by inserting a sucker punch, either in the form of an immunity or a nuke, then perhaps the encounter isn't very well designed. Whenever I GM a PnP game, I attempt to avoid immunities or nukes and instead try to coordinate the player's foes in a difficult manner. I believe this leads to a more satisfactory experience.

[Hormalakh]

But...but ...that's boringggggggg!

 

So sayeth the wise "pro-players" who disagree with you.

[Sarex]

But...but ...that's boringggggggg!

 

So sayeth the wise "pro-players" who disagree with you.

 

Because your preferences are all that matters, right?