Thoughts on Gamescon Stream

[Marceror]

 

And when you're mage is getting hammered, you always run them out of harm's way.

yeah, but then the beetles get a disengagement attack and the mage drops anyway.

 

 

If he would have dealt with the problem as soon as it presented himself, he likely could have brushed off the blow.

[Volourn]

That's why you don't wait til the mage is almost dead. You do it as soon as they decide to attack him. If you wait til you have single digit hit points you deserve to die.

[Sensuki]

He clearly wasn't as big of a fan of the Infinity Engine games as he claims.

The IE games had auto-attack.

[Marceror]

 

He clearly wasn't as big of a fan of the Infinity Engine games as he claims.

The IE games had auto-attack.

 

Actually, what they had were AI templates you could assign to characters. One of those being none. And those AI templates could be turned on and off globally for your party. So the idea of characters not attacking in the IE games was a common enough occurrence.

 

What I'm more commenting on though is Adam's apparent lack of awareness of what was going on during the battle. Unless he was trying to get his party killed, an IE veteran should have easily been able to determine that something was going very wrong during the battle, and made the appropriate adjustments to improve his tactics. He also had his archer trying to fire in melee range. And why the hell was he playing on easy in the first place?

 

Logical conclusion: he has no idea how to properly play the game!

Edited August 14, 2014 by Marceror

[Sensuki]

Actually the IE games had a button on the UI called "Party AI", which was not related to any AI template whatsoever. When Party AI was turned on, every NPC companion would auto-attack enemies on sight if idle in the Baldur's Gates (but not the player made characters) and in Icewind Dale player made characters auto-attacked (p. sure anyway).

 

This is a simple part of RTS gameplay that seems sorely lacking here. You should definitely be able to disable auto attack if you don't want it, but it should be in there.

Edited August 14, 2014 by Sensuki

[Marceror]

Actually the IE games had a button on the UI called "Party AI", which was not related to any AI template whatsoever. When Party AI was turned on, every NPC companion would auto-attack enemies on sight if idle in the Baldur's Gates (but not the player made characters) and in Icewind Dale player made characters auto-attacked (p. sure anyway).

 

This is a simple part of RTS gameplay that seems sorely lacking here. You should definitely be able to disable auto attack if you don't want it, but it should be in there.

Sorry, but this is wrong. When party AI was turned on, then the AI script assigned to each character would kick in. If there was no AI script assigned (i.e. AI - None was assigned) those parties members would never attacked unless the player ordered them to. Easy to overlook this I guess, since usually characters did have an AI script assigned. But any rate, getting off topic a bit.

[Sensuki]

Yeah - AI Script: default, which was just an auto-attack when idle clause.

 

Came with all Companions in the BGs, and all characters in the IWDs.

Edited August 14, 2014 by Sensuki

[Marceror]

Yeah - AI Script: default, which was just an auto-attack when idle clause.

 

Came with all Companions in the BGs, and all characters in the IWDs.

 

There was also an AI Script - None, which I believe would be applied when you played a multiplayer game, and created your party from scratch, IWD style.

 

Anyhow, my original point was, the concept of party members not attacking should be something relatively familiar for players of the IE games, since even just by turning off Party AI, there would be instances where you party wouldn't automatically attack.

[Sensuki]

Sure, but I'm just saying that if auto-attack was on, Adam would not have been butchered by beetles in that instance.

[Silent Winter]

 

 

And when you're mage is getting hammered, you always run them out of harm's way.

yeah, but then the beetles get a disengagement attack and the mage drops anyway.

 

 

If he would have dealt with the problem as soon as it presented himself, he likely could have brushed off the blow.

 

True - that comes down to 'don't rush everyone forward' - mage should be on 'runaway alert' with the melee characters intercepting.

But I guess it comes down to how many HP (SP? - Stamina Points?) Aloth had in the first place and how hard the beetles hit.  (Or was it mostly the poison damage draining him quickly? - I've only watched it once).

[Bli1942]

The guy playing looked a bit nervous also wasn't playing like how you would in the game, I'm guessing because combat would have taken up the whole stream if he played like you're meant to, a lot slower, pausing every few seconds. They probably should have toned down the difficulty to make it easier to run through though...not that I minded since I'll play the beat anyway but it would be a bit embarrassing to them having non-backers watch it

 

How do we know if we have beta access? When Josh talks about it he seems to just say backer beta as if it's something all backers have access to but I saw a beta upgrade

Edited August 14, 2014 by Bli1942

[Bryy]

The guy playing looked a bit nervous also wasn't playing like how you would in the game, I'm guessing because combat would have taken up the whole stream if he played like you're meant to, a lot slower, pausing every few seconds. 

Or it could just be that different people - including the developers - play the game differently.

[Bli1942]

Well obviously some people pause a lot more than others but you won't get anywhere playing like he did in the Gamescom stream, you need to be pausing a fair bit and managing the party well which he wasn't since they wanted to get to the cool part which they couldn't end up getting to. Once again it doesn't really matter for us backers, I think we all just wanna see how nice the game looks and will play it ourselves later going a lot slower

 

It's nice to see it's hard but I don't think it looks too hard like some have said, because he just wasn't playing in the realm of how most people will need to to actually get anywhere. If you're thinking about your combat it won't be rageworthy on easy

Edited August 14, 2014 by Bli1942

[Silent Winter]

How do we know if we have beta access? When Josh talks about it he seems to just say backer beta as if it's something all backers have access to but I saw a beta upgrade

Either you backed a tier that included beta access ($110 and up I believe) or you bought the beta access add-on

(Not all backers get it)

[Bli1942]

 

How do we know if we have beta access? When Josh talks about it he seems to just say backer beta as if it's something all backers have access to but I saw a beta upgrade

Either you backed a tier that included beta access ($110 and up I believe) or you bought the beta access add-on

(Not all backers get it)

 

 

Ok thanks, it just sounded like it was an all backer kind of thing, by the way Josh was talking. Will probably just buy an addon then cos why the hell not!

[archangel979]

 

 

He clearly wasn't as big of a fan of the Infinity Engine games as he claims.

The IE games had auto-attack.

 

Actually, what they had were AI templates you could assign to characters. One of those being none. And those AI templates could be turned on and off globally for your party. So the idea of characters not attacking in the IE games was a common enough occurrence.

 

What I'm more commenting on though is Adam's apparent lack of awareness of what was going on during the battle. Unless he was trying to get his party killed, an IE veteran should have easily been able to determine that something was going very wrong during the battle, and made the appropriate adjustments to improve his tactics. He also had his archer trying to fire in melee range. And why the hell was he playing on easy in the first place?

 

Logical conclusion: he has no idea how to properly play the game!

 

Or he was just nervous because he was playing live in front of 10 000 viewers and had to play fast so they get to the Ogre. 

[Doppelschwert]

Or he was just nervous because he was playing live in front of 10 000 viewers and had to play fast so they get to the Ogre. 

 

 

I agree, cut the guy some slack already. There's also the jetlag issue when they arrived in germany just a couple days ago. He may also very well use other classes when he plays the game himself. I'm not sure if I'm going to the take the 4 core classes with me when I play the game.

[beardedbrian]

my question is: was the guy playing just that bad, or is this game really that hard?
i like challenge, dont get me wrong, but i had being frustrated constantly over insignificant enemies in games. and im not sure if i like the decision that experience isnt gained by killing monsters...

[dorkboy]

What's that weird seam between the beetle area and the statue feet/scripted interaction area?

 

Clearer feedback on what is going on, especially with regards to taking damage, would be good. I reckon watching a lossy/slightly laggy stream with commentary on top of it isn't helping, but I nevertheless think taking and dealing damage should be at the top of the feedback hierarchy. (Yes, this will obviously be improved through beta testing..)

 

Occasionally semi-invisible character models. Hard to make out, and would probably end up being annoying in the long run.

 

A picture or some other sort of dramatic illustration on the "party has died" screen. 

 

Probably has been answered twelve illion times already, but can you bind specific abilities/spells/weapon sets to hotkeys (unique to each character)?

 

And it looks awesome.

[PrimeJunta]

my question is: was the guy playing just that bad, or is this game really that hard?

i like challenge, dont get me wrong, but i had being frustrated constantly over insignificant enemies in games. and im not sure if i like the decision that experience isnt gained by killing monsters...

Adam did not play very well. He fireballed friends, let some of the beetles through the lines to nibble at his glass cannons, had his most powerful damager (the rogue) stand around doing nothing, and backed into a situation where he got swarmed by two groups from two directions. Scouting ahead with the rogue would've helped but it would've slowed things down.

[PrimeJunta]

Watched today's stream. Take that, beetles! Did Josh coach him a bit or something?

 

I do hope they'll improve the pathfinding; it was obviously wonky. Also it'll be interesting to see how exactly you're supposed to play a rogue for maximum damage -- I get the feeling that it's all about status effects, so there's a lot of potential for synergies between classes there. Could a rogue take down an ogre if the rest of the party focused on slapping suitable status effects on it?

[Darkpriest]

Watched today's stream. Take that, beetles! Did Josh coach him a bit or something?

 

I do hope they'll improve the pathfinding; it was obviously wonky. Also it'll be interesting to see how exactly you're supposed to play a rogue for maximum damage -- I get the feeling that it's all about status effects, so there's a lot of potential for synergies between classes there. Could a rogue take down an ogre if the rest of the party focused on slapping suitable status effects on it?

 

is there a link to another vid?

[PrimeJunta]

is there a link to another vid?

Embedded here

 

BTW I also noticed how fighters are a strategic resource. Their ability to pin down beasties and stay standing while the rest of the party whacks them is massively useful, but costs a lot of health. I thought that'd be the standard tactic for most combats, but it looks like that's something to reserve for the big battles or else you'll have to rest a quite a lot. Also looks like fighters really need to pump Deflection and Health if they want to play that combat role a lot.

 

Am wondering if there would be less costly ways of pinning down beasties. Rogues clearly had some ability that does that, there was the Halt spell (very short duration), perhaps more. Are traps in? Would it have been possible to sneak in a rogue to place a bear trap, then lure the ogre into it and stick it full of arrows as it struggles to free itself?

[Bli1942]

 

Watched today's stream. Take that, beetles! Did Josh coach him a bit or something?

 

I do hope they'll improve the pathfinding; it was obviously wonky. Also it'll be interesting to see how exactly you're supposed to play a rogue for maximum damage -- I get the feeling that it's all about status effects, so there's a lot of potential for synergies between classes there. Could a rogue take down an ogre if the rest of the party focused on slapping suitable status effects on it?

 

is there a link to another vid?

 

 

For the moment you can go to 1 hour 37 in this video, can't see it on Youtube yet

 

^beat me to it!

 

http://www.twitch.tv/twitch/b/557987029

Edited August 14, 2014 by Bli1942

[Stun]

Am wondering if there would be less costly ways of pinning down beasties.

I'm hoping there will be enough spells in the game to accomplish such a task. Not sure of Josh is a big fan of the Hold/Stun/paralyze/entangle line of magic. But in the IE games, those were an option.