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No Arrows Good thing or bad?


ctn2003

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I thought about pointing out the shortcomings in using message board participation to judge what the 'majority' wants.  Gromnir beat me to it, which worries me.  I mean, he should be worried that we're having similar thoughts.  For my part, agreeing with Gromnir too often usually results in getting in a bare knuckle brawl with him, and I'm a 90lb online weakling.  :Cant's pugilist stance icon:  Hey, I can kid too.  <.<

 

In all seriousness, I think the devs should trust their instincts regarding what will make the game good and mix in truly stand out ideas from the boards as they see them.  For example, in regards to another subject on this board, I'm in what amounts to a small majority as I see it.  Among the backers at large, there's probably a wide variety of people forming a majority who would be in the opposition, but most of them don't have real depth of feeling on the matter.  That's my instinct, but I believe it at any rate.  The devs thought about the ins and outs and made a decision, just as they'll do here.  However, in this case, I think the situation is different in that you might not even get a weak majority to support the push to include arrows and even if you did, it's probably such a non issue to most folks that you might as well fall on the side of convenience.  Once again, for the charm, using my intuition rather than access to cold hard facts that probably haven't been accumulated.

 

For my part, I say leave out arrows, but I don't care enough to fight over it and I'll live with arrow stacks or not.  I hope not to be completely bogged down with inventory tetris, but I've had different views over the years on the subject.

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BG series Itemization was fine.  You needed those insane weapons to make playthrough 1000 interesting, and you might not use it on play through 1001.

 

With the current inventory... I am fine without arrows.  If that changes to something more like the IE games then I am 100% behind arrows.  I enjoyed that aspect of the IE games.  Inventory management as a whole was something I really think the IE games did well.  I am fine with the Stash, and think it is a good mechanic in its own little way, but it isn't something I felt needed an overhaul.  I do miss not being able to pick up items, and drop them, from the inventory screen though. 

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Kind of a shame there's no Broadhead and Bodkin arrows like originally stated.

 

Ammo stack juggling can be taken out of the mix if they have high or unlimited arrows - just have quivers instead, unlimited quivers.

 

The point is different types of ammunition I guess, but I don't think they're going to add them in, they'll probably just have enchantments on the ranged weapons themselves to give any distinction.

Edited by Sensuki
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I think there are some UI and inventory problems that need to be fixed before we can say "yay or nay" to having to manage arrows or quivers unlimited or no.

And then there’s the whole were you put it and how your equipped bow distinguishes what arrows you are using and how you change what arrow you are using and the like. And if you have arrows you should also have bullets/bullet sacks.

Regardless of wanting to have them or not it seems too much of a hassle to implement for too little gain. Every character would maybe need an UI box were they can put ammunition or something so that’s more cluttering and space being occupied for a "maybe" option.

I think they have more important thing to do than worrying about ammunition management and if it’s a matter of how it "feels" like they could just add a quiver/bag model along with your bow model and you can just pretend your characters stock up on ammo when they go to town or something. These games have selective suspension of disbelief already.
And really, if it’s that important to people I’m sure someone will mod it in.

 

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I could see specialized arrows as quick slot items that you can use same way as scrolls and potions (although using them would need bow be equipped in one of the weapon slots), but I really don't see any compelling point for make player manage normal arrows/bullets/bolts. 

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Majority of what? A small sample of people that will end playing the game. People that bothered posting in a thread?

 

What you want is a pool like money. All arrows go there. As longs as there is one, you can fire bows (sbstracting one per shoot).  You just need another pool for bolts. Not saying that OB should do that, just that it's the only reasonable option.

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Kind of a shame there's no Broadhead and Bodkin arrows like originally stated.

 

Ammo stack juggling can be taken out of the mix if they have high or unlimited arrows - just have quivers instead, unlimited quivers.

 

The point is different types of ammunition I guess, but I don't think they're going to add them in, they'll probably just have enchantments on the ranged weapons themselves to give any distinction.

I dont mind that idea. Unlimited quivers/bolts/bag of gun pellets. With the stat boost/effect on the quivers rather than the arrows.

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I've also expressed my thoughts in the other thread. 

 

Ammunition was a big part of the IE games. I must admit that when Obsidian changes stuff like this it makes me sad...

 

I know the IE system was not perfect. But to remove ammo completely, is over the top for me-

 

AND MANY OTHER changes have been made to fit Obsidians visions of a new game, even though I bought it because of this description :"... Pillars of Eternity aims to recapture the magic, imagination, depth, and nostalgia of classic RPG's ...."

 

Erhhm ... Why all the changes then? 

 

I'm beginning to think that Obsidian has aimed too high with this... If 4 mill$ is not enough to make an IE like game, then I'm starting to wonder how they ever made BG in 1999 ???

Edited by Cluas

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players want arrows implemented (around 70%) 

 

Based on what?

It's well known that 85.4% of statistics are made up on the spot ...

^This is supported by a 92% correlation with forum debate technique ...

 

Edit: And 9 out of 10 cats prefer Druids

Edited by Silent Winter
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I don't think I ran out of generic arrows in the IE games ever, so...

 

Last time I played IWD1, I always filled my inventory with bullets/bolts/arrows in Kuldahar before leaving for one of the big dungeons (like Dragon's Eye), and yet I usually ran out of bullets and bolts before the end of the dungeon. And I think the only reason I did not run out of arrows as well, was that my bow-wielding character was a mage, and thus a) had a low attack-per-round, and b) was often preoccupied with casting spells.

 

I also remember running out of fire & acid arrows in De'Arnise Keep when playing BG2 with Stratagems, which made the experience a little more... memorable ;).

 

Shuffling stacks of arrows in the inventory might not have been the most fun part of those games, but it did add some pacing and diversion in between combat, and the greater game mechanic that it was a part of did add some more strategy to the game.

I don't think it needed to be removed; making the inventory slots' maximum stack sizes bigger would have been enough to fix (or at least minimize) the annoyance factor.

Too much streamlining in the name of simplicity, can lead to blandness.

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One problem with arrows.. namely magical arrows are they always overshadow the bow itself as far as damage value and damage type (as did bullets and bolts). Also they are always the highest gold value.. which always seemed weird.

 

I do think arrows should exist and bullets too.. but maybe a little more refactoring could be done on how they work..

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**** arrows, gimmme a codpiece mounted revolver.

 

If you miss a lot do you get a perk called "shooting blanks"?

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Maybe it was mentioned earlier in the thread and I missed it as I was skimming posts, but I think part of the reason arrows were finite in the IE games was sort of a "gamist" reason as well as trying to be semi-realistic (though it's hard to imagine somebody hauling around hundreds of arrows on their back). Ranged combat in BG/IWD and fighting from a distance was the best survival strategy; you didn't fare too well if you wanted to go toe-to-toe, mano-y-mano in those games. To account for this you had to make a strategic decision about how many projectiles you were going to carry vs. how much loot you were willing to pick up along the way. So simulationism vs. gamism aside I liked having that as a strategic decision. 

 

So far from what I can tell with PoE, projectile weapons are still useful, but they're not quite the clear-cut advantage they were in those other games. Rates of fire are different, DPS is less, etc. So without the advantage over mélee that existed in the IE games, having to carry stacks of ammo is less advantageous from a gameplay perspective.

 

Personally I would have liked to see finite ammo and ranged combat balanced against those finite resources, but with the bottomless stash and no weight limits already in, I just don't think that's going to happen. No biggie either way.

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So far from what I can tell with PoE, projectile weapons are still useful, but they're not quite the clear-cut advantage they were in those other games. Rates of fire are different, DPS is less, etc. So without the advantage over mélee that existed in the IE games, having to carry stacks of ammo is less advantageous from a gameplay perspective.

 

I would argue that ranged combat in PoE is pretty powerful atm. You can have one "tank" while everyone else just unloads from a distance especially with Rouges and guns.

 

I wonder how a party with 1 fighter, 1 priest and 3 rouges (or 2 rouges and a ranger) would fare. Particulary since right now you can "pull" individual members for certain mob gorups with ease.

 

 

Personally I would have liked to see finite ammo and ranged combat balanced against those finite resources, but with the bottomless stash and no weight limits already in, I just don't think that's going to happen. No biggie either way.

 

 I think that each ranged weapon having a limited number of "uses per rest" or "uses per encounter" would help with the everyone´s desire for ammo with guns having much less uses than bows. It doesnt require inventory fidling/clutering so people that dont want that would be happy and people that want an acknowledgement of there being limited ammo would be happy. At least in my head it feels like a decent compromise/middle ground.

 

Unless what people really want is simply "do it like IE games because IE games did it!".

Edited by Fiebras
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players want arrows implemented (around 70%) 

 

Based on what?

 

Based on the fact that it's what he wants, and therefore his opinion must be in the majority. It's the same reason that people think that everyone will leave in droves if kill XP isn't added, or if D&D stats and the class dependencies on those stats aren't implemented.

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