On character development/levelling pacing

[PrimeJunta]

You mean, the game gets harder when you up the difficulty? Imagine that.

[Caladian]

Of anything, I always despised uneven character development.  If you have a character not in the party, they should get the xp.

[Seari]

You have to rest more the higher the difficulty it is, but with the limited supplies... You get where I'm going with this? The system ****s itself in the ass. And don't say in higher difficulties you should preserve resting supplies, you have to rest more because your health will be lower obviously.

 

I'm open to you changing my mind, I have a limited experience with the beta(don't want to "corrupt" my view of this game with a ****ty beta build), but just by looking at this system it seems bad to me.

[PrimeJunta]

You have to rest more the higher the difficulty it is, but with the limited supplies... You get where I'm going with this? The system ****s itself in the ass. And don't say in higher difficulties you should preserve resting supplies, you have to rest more because your health will be lower obviously.

I don't see the problem.

 

Harder difficulty is supposed to be harder. You'll only take more damage if you don't play any better than you did on normal, in which case the limited resting supplies will bite you in the posterior. Isn't this how harder difficulty is supposed to work?

 

Or do you feel that only individual fights should be harder, but strategic difficulty should remain the same? If so, I disagree. I especially enjoy games with limited resources where I have to think about what to use and when. (Which is why I really liked the Spirit Eater mechanic in MotB.)

[Elerond]

You have to rest more the higher the difficulty it is, but with the limited supplies... You get where I'm going with this? The system ****s itself in the ass. And don't say in higher difficulties you should preserve resting supplies, you have to rest more because your health will be lower obviously.

 

I'm open to you changing my mind, I have a limited experience with the beta(don't want to "corrupt" my view of this game with a ****ty beta build), but just by looking at this system it seems bad to me.

 

You don't need rest even once in beta even in highest difficulty level with right party composition, as you can use AI's behavior against it, you can use some of those over unbalanced abilities by yourself to kill all enemies without ever dangering your characters.

 

If game's balance would work as indented you would need to rest after every 4 encounters that are designed for party's current level (design philosophy that is adopted from PnP D&D) if you didn't do something absolute horrific in the combat encounter or face one of the more demanding encounters.  And players that know what they do should be able to stretch their adventure day so that they can face even 6 or 8 encounters that are designed for party's current level, before need to rest.

 

I would note that in beta we face mostly encounters that are designed for 5-7 level party that has higher level gear than what our party has on default in beta, which mean that all the encounter feel harder than they should be and this feeling isn't help by fact that some abilities and mechanics don't currently work as intended.

[Seari]

 (Which is why I really liked the Spirit Eater mechanic in MotB.)

 

...the worst thing about MotB IMO, thank god for mods.

 

We'll see how this system holds up when there are harder fights/better AI.

Edited September 15, 2014 by Seari

[archangel979]

 

No, to mitigate rest spamming they limited resting, i.e. resting supplies.

 

No. It was to mitigate degenerative gameplay like rest spamming and save scumming. By taking health healing out of the game, it would make players play strategically by not rest spamming with a regenerating stamina mechanic. With regenerating stamina, this would mitigate rest spamming.

 

 

in cases where design mechanics tend to lead to degenerate gameplay (e.g. savescumming, rest spamming), we try to think of ways to remove the degeneration without harming the enjoyable mechanical elements. if a mechanic seems like it's not adding genuine challenge, we question if it should stand as-is

 

with regard to regenerating health and spell cooldowns, we're not intending on having the former (though we have talked about a darklands endurance-like stat), and spells will not have cooldowns in the way that some people have assumed (per spell). when we discuss spell mechanics, i've tried to use the term "lockout" to communicate that it's much like a sorcerer exhausting an entire level of casting in 3E D&D."

 

This does not prove its purpose is to remove rest spamming. The second part of the quote does not talk about that specifically.

 

From what I understood the health/stamina system is to make healing spells less important while also letting players fall during combat without dying. It also creates a non-replenishable resource that was needed since most abilities were moved from 1/day to 1/encounter.

Edited September 15, 2014 by archangel979

[Hiro Protagonist II]

This does not prove its purpose is to remove rest spamming. The second part of the quote does not talk about that specifically.

 

From what I understood the health/stamina system is to make healing spells less important while also letting players fall during combat without dying. It also creates a non-replenishable resource that was needed since most abilities were moved from 1/day to 1/encounter.

 

It does prove it. You're cherry picking. The whole quote is about regenerating health and spell cooldowns. Rest spamming and save scumming.

 

Some more quotes:

 

low-level powers will return after (sometimes during) battles without requiring the need to rest.

 

Finally, we'd like to ensure that a) non-casters have more things to do more often (e.g. fighters knocking dudes down, self-replenishing Stamina, etc.) and b) that casters have low-level abilities that come back without needing to rest -- basically, to mitigate the desire to rest-spam.

 

Bold emphasis. Replenishing Stamina was part of the whole mitigating rest spamming.

[PrimeJunta]

...the worst thing about MotB IMO, thank god for mods.

Hehe, yeah, I sometimes get the feeling that I'm in the minority with this one.

[morhilane]

DoT is bugged. I suspect once they've got that sorted out, poison won't be anywhere near as punishing as now. Nor do I think poison will be as frequent an occurrence on average as in the beta. Give us some potions of antidote and ways to craft them, and we're good.

 

The potions are already in the game (for poisons). They are called something like minor restoration potion (in the alchemist shop, she had only 3 in my playthrough where I checked them...not enough and super expensive too).

 

They work against beetle's poison, I forgot to try them against deep wound.

[Elerond]

 

...the worst thing about MotB IMO, thank god for mods.

Hehe, yeah, I sometimes get the feeling that I'm in the minority with this one.

 

 

It was awful mechanic as it stopped me to resting after every fight with my sorcerer, which made game so much harder, because I had to think what spells I use instead of normal strategy to use strongest first and see if any enemy could survive from those. :|

[PrimeJunta]

I liked the one that changed them into chickens. I WANT TO USE IT EVERY TIME

[ctdavids]

We seem to have diverged a fair ways from the initial thread topic: levelling pace and character development.

 

In respect of those, I have the following comments:

1. I want levelling to be slow enough that I get a feel for any new abilities I picked up on levelling before I have to level up again.  I do not want to spend 26 hours at level 1. Not even close.  I'm glad Indira is enjoying his experience, but that's way, way too long between levels.  To me, maybe 1-2 levels across the current beta quest content would not seem unreasonable.
2. I want them to be within a level (given that all classes have the same level/xp advancement) and this specifically includes companions I haven't found yet.  I really hate finding a companion who seems interesting, but is levels and levels below my characters, making them essentially worthless in combat.
3. That said, it doesn't matter to me that the companions be exactly lock-step in terms of levelling.  It can actually be interesting to have one char level up before another.  It wouldn't surprise me if this happened as a result of characters found having slightly different xp values (although, again, hopefully within 1 level).
4. With respect to Caladian's comment about keeping absent characters in lock-step xp wise, I would have to agree save that I'm ok if the xp values are a bit different, but within a level.  I'm not sure I'd make use of it (I tend to stick with a party), but I think having the option to pickup a companion you originally didn't take is a good one (especially if you're the kind of person who wants to let their party members stay dead - that's not me, but they exist).

So obviously Indira and I differ on this point.  I guess my summary is that I want the game to be challenging, but not annoying.  I want the combat to challenge a party of adventures of the expected level and gear. I want to have to work for it.  I want to be rewarded with a level before I have to go to sleep.  I don't want to have to gimp myself by taking a low-level character because I want that companion.  I recognize that keeping within 1 level may lack somewhat for realism (or maybe not, I mean it's not like the companions just sit in a bar while I'm off saving the world... right?), but for me the easy-of-use just completely overrides that argument.

[IndiraLightfoot]

ctdavids: I got to commend you for your well-argued post. The clarity of it makes me envy you. 

 

1) As for my preference for a really slow pace: It's a bit like that Marathon speed mode in Civilization. Sometimes, slower gives you more time to savour each phase (level) of the game, as it were.

 

2) Although some of my weakest party members die a lot more than the "stronger" ones in BG1, especially when they are so weak bad luck at level 1 and 2, I have so far yet to experience a worse gap than two levels, and both BG1 and BG2 handle such a party level imbalance very well. With a little skill, and some luck, I would be so cheeky as to suggest, the challenge of combat gets even more intriguing and refined.  

 

3) As long as I don't have to experience lock-step level progression, seemingly working cog-in-cog, I'm happy enough.

4) More of a question: In the BB, and somewhere else, I do recall (probably just my imagination playing tricks on me) that self-made adventurers will be one level below your party when you pick them up (at least - it's a matter of money), whereas companions will be automagically levelled to your level when you accept them in your party.

Edited September 15, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[PrimeJunta]

I haven't heard about companions, but Adventurers' Hall companions will not be higher than your level minus one.

 

Update on my BG playthrough, by the way. Playing with a four-member party, PC is a totally startscummed fighter-mage. I do like the pace of the level progression. I also dig the exploration. The combat, not so much. Frankly I like the combat in the BB more already. Party is between L4-6 so it's in the same ballpark.

[IndiraLightfoot]

OT: The best thing about the low-level combat in BG is the pretty quick and very varied (even within single classes) resolvement of encounters, as opposed to the dragged out combat in PoE (where ironically, the baddies move very fast, but then the facepalming begins.  )

[ctdavids]

1) As for my preference for a really slow pace: It's a bit like that Marathon speed mode in Civilization. Sometimes, slower gives you more time to savour each phase (level) of the game, as it were

 

A fair point in respect of civilizations, but I guess to my mind a key difference is that in civilizations the content is unlimited.  Slower development means a slower game, but you still get to experience the full gamut of levels from stone age to space age.  The same would be true in a PnP game, assuming your DM didn't burn out creating content.

 

That said, in a CRPG you've got a limited amount of content areas and I find that those content areas are more defining in terms of game experience than your character's level.  Fighting wolves is different than fighting ghouls is different than diving into the deep to find sahuagin is different than a riddle puzzles is different than... As a result, the levelling mechanic becomes more of a reward/progression indicator rather than defining the whole experience.  Another interesting point, to my mind, is that levelling an CRPG is most interesting when it occurs in the middle of a content area because you suddenly have a new tool to deal with the challenges you've been facing thus far.  This is what leads to my liking 1-2 levels per content 'area'

 

Please note: I DO NOT WANT THIS TO TURN INTO A DISCUSSION OF COMBAT XP. Do that somewhere else. Please

 

2) Although some of my weakest party members die a lot more than the "stronger" ones in BG1, especially when they are so weak bad luck at level 1 and 2, I have so far yet to experience a worse gap than two levels, and both BG1 and BG2 handle such a party level imbalance very well. With a little skill, and some luck, I would be so cheeky as to suggest, the challenge of combat gets even more intriguing and refined.

 

I could live with 2 level gaps.  I know that my 1 level behind paladin held her own in the BB, even before all her stats became 8000 or better.  It's been awhile since I played BG (although I did just install BG:EE due to this post, and picked up SCS to see how that changes things) and I know part of the issue there was companions you got way too late in the game so that you were emotionally invested in your party (which I know OE has said they're going to avoid).  My most recent experience with the level gap thing was in Wasteland 2 (beta) where I find level 8 NPCs when I'm in my 20s or 30s.  I mean.... wow.

 

4) More of a question: In the BB, and somewhere else, I do recall (probably just my imagination playing tricks on me) that self-made adventurers will be one level below your party when you pick them up (at least - it's a matter of money), whereas companions will be automagically levelled to your level when you accept them in your party.

 

I have a vague recall of something like this... but you might just have put the idea in my mind, you mind mage you.  As you say, the Adventure Hall companions are level-1 at best in the BB.

[PrimeJunta]

OT: The best thing about the low-level combat in BG is the pretty quick and very varied (even within single classes) resolvement of encounters, as opposed to the dragged out combat in PoE (where ironically, the baddies move very fast, but then the facepalming begins.  )

Actually since taking a few pointers from Sensuki, the encounters in the BB are resolved pretty quickly too. Estoc, morningstar, and firearms FTW. Druid-wizard combos also rain death in a most satisfactory manner.

[Gfted1]

All classes work off the same XP table?

[ctdavids]

All classes work off the same XP table?

 

They seem to.  I mean, the BBXs level at the same time as each other and the PC.

[Gfted1]

 

All classes work off the same XP table?

 

They seem to.  I mean, the BBXs level at the same time as each other and the PC.

 

 

 

I guess it makes sense considering the simplistic XP system.

[archangel979]

 

 

All classes work off the same XP table?

 

They seem to.  I mean, the BBXs level at the same time as each other and the PC.

 

 

 

I guess it makes sense considering the simplistic XP system.

 

That is not the reason. In AD&D different XP tables were part of balancing classes. Wizards were pretty powerful but also took forever to level.

Since PoE design is about balanced classes they don't need to give them separate XP tables. Funny think, in 3.X D&D they gave all classes same XP tables but kept spellcasters as most powerful classes.

[aeonsim]

I haven't heard about companions, but Adventurers' Hall companions will not be higher than your level minus one.

 

Update on my BG playthrough, by the way. Playing with a four-member party, PC is a totally startscummed fighter-mage. I do like the pace of the level progression. I also dig the exploration. The combat, not so much. Frankly I like the combat in the BB more already. Party is between L4-6 so it's in the same ballpark.

 

I wonder if it's possible to push your companions XP & level higher than the main char. It'll depend on how exactly the Stronghold and companion tasks/quests work.

 

If they're based on game time ie one is available every X game days then it may be possible to send them away on these and then just wander around the map until they complete it without doing any quests with your main char. So they gain XP while you gain none, if there are enough of them then like this you could probably push their level past your own, would be pretty boring but doable...

[ctdavids]

@aeonsim That's a pretty hilarious idea and one I imagine falls pretty smack dab into "degenerative gameplay".  I doubt it will be possible, but I love that you thought of it.

 

 

In respect of same/different level tables for classes, I honestly don't think it matters in a CRPG as long as the classes are roughly balanced in terms of power on a per-xp basis (that is that if it takes you twice as long to level you get twice the benefit of a level).  As long as each member in your party is roughly as useful (albeit in different ways) as the others, it's fine.

 

As an aside, I think that equivalent level tables work way better for PnP because each player is primarily concerned with their own character advancement so giving them carrots at roughly the same rate is a good thing.  That doesn't really come up in a CRPG though because one player controls all characters.

[Fiebras]

You do get XP in stages, only the stages are dictated by quest stages. You get XP for entering the ogre cave and entering the Skaen Dungeon. At least last i checked.

Overall I think the level progression might be fine but I cant possibly know for sure since the XP we recieve is more than normal for the purposes of the Backer Beta.

 

I honestly felt like I leveled TOO FAST in BG, particulary at early levels. I could have a full party of 6 level 1s and could get everyone to level 4 before Nashkel Mines without ever deviating to any side area except maybe the gnoll stronghold, which felt like too much at the time. I rather like a slow pacing on leveling. Give me time to enjoy the struggles of my low level characters.

Im fond of low level adventures before everything becomes mage duels.