New build feedback

[Hormalakh]

 

This is the "crafting skill" fiasco all over again. Lore is a worthless skill in combat and has no value when meta-gaming is considered and so now it is being "remedied" by offering some sort of value by giving trivial amounts of XP.

 

It goes against the whole idea of you get XP only for completing objectives. It further minimalizes players who want to have a mostly "kill-free" gaming experience. And ultimately flies in the face of the main reason why combat XP was taken out.

 

If we have trap xp, lore xp, etc, why not have combat xp?

 

Stick to your guns, devs. You said there'd be no XP outside of objectives. Keep it that way.

 

 

So you basically say that they shouldn't be able to change their decisions based on feedback, regardless of how bad that decision turned out in regards to how fun the game is to play?

I'm sure the decision with bestiary exp is not only because of the vocal minority of backers here on the forums but also because of the playtests they are doing at the moment.

 

Also, lore is not a worthless skill in combat. It changes the rate at which you uncover information about your enemies, and information is crucial for tactics. The addition of bestiary exp is not changing the value of the lore skill, as you can get all the bestiary entries and exp even with minimal lore. Lore decrease the number of fights you need to fill in the bestiary entries, which means that you may get access to information about the enemy during the very first fight you actually have with them (fight 3 lions, one falls, get additional information about the remaining 2).

 

Is it useless if you have a walkthrough? Yeah it is, but a game should not be designed with a walkthrough in mind, and if you use one to neglect lore, then it's really your own decision and not the games fault, at least IMHO.

 

In particular, if you want to be peacefully as possible, max the lore skill and you reap the benefits during the first couple fights. If you want to get rewarded for your battles for a longer period of time, neglect the lore skill.

 

 

If the feedback isn't worthwhile, they shouldn't listen to it. There haven't really been any great reasons as to why combat XP should be put into place other than "Combat generally is boring to play in PE and so at least make it worthwhile for us!" Josh himself has said, and I'm paraphrasing here, that if his game isn't fun without XP adulterating the gaming experience, that he doesn't want gamers playing it.

 

The problem with combat isn't the lack of XP: it's the combat. XP will not make me enjoy it any more. At that point, I'd just be expected to suffer through it.

 

As for what you said re: the lore skill, it again flies in the face of Josh's design goals when it comes to PoE. He has stated several times that he'd like to minimize meta-gaming as much as possible. This is exactly why we don't have hard-counters and other "fun and unexpected" things that were plentiful in the old IE games. It's because Josh doesn't want players making decisions without the maximum available information, and once you know that information, the challenge is already gone. Even without a walkthrough, once you've played the game once or twice, there's really no reason to play the game with the lore skill, as you'd already have an idea as to what to expect with each enemy.

 

It's a poorly designed skill just like Josh believes hard-counters, etc were poorly designed. "Pretty much all games get it wrong." Josh's game is no exception, it seems.

Edited October 11, 2014 by Hormalakh

[Razsius]

 

You can always learn something more from a death and life situation and it was not always the same. At lvl 1 you need to kill 10 such creatures to level, at lvl 10 you needed 1000, at lvl 20 you needed 50 000. As long as XP for next level rises exponentially enemies can keep giving same XP. There is a limited amount of enemies in the game afterall.

 

That doesn't explain why you hate bestiary XP. It just explains what kind of XP system you'd like even more.

 

I still don't get it, other than from a purely emotional POV (you're upset at not getting exactly the XP system you want, and you feel they're patronizing you with a "half-measure"). Is that it?

 

 

Because it is a half measure Prime and for at least a few of the pro-xp people (myself included) it won't cut it.  The bestiary xp system is more than shoehorned in.  It's a pathetic attempt to appease a crowd they deem unreasonable and it shows.  I suppose this goes back to the original reason(s) of why combat xp was dropped in the first place.  Supposedly, it was to create better balancing (ie making the game easier to make for the developers) and to improve the "freedom" of the player as a side effect it remedied what Josh called "degenerative gameplay."  I can probably state for a fact that the first reason definitely got accomplished.  With less total xp in the system I imagine it's a heck of a lot easier to balance the game.  So the first reason, for "balance" is definitely true.  The second was to create more player "freedom" but this came at a cost; the cost being the agency of a player who actually enjoys the combat itself and the thrill and rush of victory (the rewards too) of a good battle.  Kill xp provided (or at the very least *should* provide) proper measurement over the difficulty of a fight. if you got 5 xp a kill you were probably fighting gibberlings which you could one-shot.  If you got 10,650 xp you were probably tackling a dragon which you *shouldn't* be able to one-shot.  If i fight a wurm in the BB it gives me zip xp and a wurm part.  If I fight the spider queen I get zip xp and a venom sac.  What tells me these two fights shouldn't be the exact same difficulty?  Logic?  Then why am I filling out a bestiary when I choose slave as my background?  I'll allow that kind of slippery slope but I won't respond to it i'm afraid.  When you have comments on youtube, steam and even from other designers going "Where's the combat xp?" you might have a problem bigger than a small obligatory "reward" for participating in it.

 

Which takes me to perhaps my more important point in that it's a shoehorned in system.  Bestiary xp would make a HELL of a lot more sense if you're an explorer or part of a guild involved with cataloging information on the world about you but you're not.  You get to "choose" your background at the beginning of the game and it can practically make so very many design systems potentially a break in game logic to garner what is essentially a cosmetic choice.  If that's not bad game design than I don't know what is.

 

This brings me to some of the pro-objective xp posters.  Why aren't you guys mad too?  I see little if any real objectives in this game or rather one's that makes sense in game.  All I see is a quest railroad.  This comes after the fact that Dead State made me "see the light" in that regard.  You don't get a single xp for a single kill in that game yet it feels rewarding and productive to kill things.  Combat gets you more resources which you desperately need, it gives you additional safety and it indirectly awards you with "experience."  You don't *have* to empty the entire map either.  In fact, at times it might be prudent not to do so.  There's no combat xp, there's no lockpicking xp, there's no quest xp there is only the goal (objective) system and the goals more than make sense as they are focused on safety and survival in a *gasp* survival based rpg.  Right now we have a combat focused game with the "goal" system being what exactly?  Whether you talk to an ogre to ignore a farmer who lost pigs?  Whether you kill thug group A or B?  Whether you save some annoying noble's daughter?  Whether you fetch a big egg?  Truly riveting.

 

You might like being on that train but i, for one, do not.

 

Edit: But then again I suppose this is what we get if we don't even know what we want...

Edited October 11, 2014 by Razsius

[Guest 4ward]

I see, danke schön, Doppelschwert, thanks

I would prefer only boss versions to be in the bestiary since i'd find it strange to have e.g. Lions in it if i have a lion as animal companion and also the boss versions are normally surrounded by their lower versions so i first would go through them to get to the the tougher version. What insight could the simple versions of the enemies give the player?

[Hormalakh]

 

This brings me to some of the pro-objective xp posters.  Why aren't you guys mad too?  I see little if any real objectives in this game or rather one's that makes sense in game.  All I see is a quest railroad.  This comes after the fact that Dead State made me "see the light" in that regard.  You don't get a single xp for a single kill in that game yet it feels rewarding and productive to kill things.  Combat gets you more resources which you desperately need, it gives you additional safety and it indirectly awards you with "experience."  You don't *have* to empty the entire map either.  In fact, at times it might be prudent not to do so.  There's no combat xp, there's no lockpicking xp, there's no quest xp there is only the goal (objective) system and the goals more than make sense as they are focused on safety and survival in a *gasp* survival based rpg.  Right now we have a combat focused game with the "goal" system being what exactly?  Whether you talk to an ogre to ignore a farmer who lost pigs?  Whether you kill thug group A or B?  Whether you save some annoying noble's daughter?  Whether you fetch a big egg?  Truly riveting.

 

You might like being on that train but i, for one, do not.

 

 

I am mad.

[Cantousent]

I don't agree with Raz about everything, but I *do* especially about one thing:  I think the objective system should be more robust.  This is basically a combat testing beta, but I sure as hell hope that the way that objectives are handled in the finished product will not only be more abundant, but also more sensible and engaging.  Other than the one dude's daughter, I didn't really *feel* any of the quests.

 

On the other hand, I have no illusions that no one on the design team even realizes I exist, let alone heeds my particular brand of advice.  lol  I don't care.  I trust them to flesh out the objectives.  I think the bestiary compromise is pretty shoddy, but it probably gets support in the broad middle so no biggie.  I think much more can be done with it but... meh.  I am *deeply* disappointed with lock xp, but I don't think it's a compromise with the fans.  I think there are people in the dev house that want XP for some of these incidentals, and it's a compromise within the team.  Of course, I have no way of backing that up, so I guess it goes in the conspiracy theory file.

 

EDIT:  I'm an idiot.  (even put in my own period so someone can quote.)  I started out completely opposite of what I mean.

Edited October 11, 2014 by Cantousent

[archangel979]

 

 

For my part, I have *always* said that I don't mind combat granting XP through specific objectives tied to it.

 

Killing an opponent is a very specific "objective".

 

Killing any opponent is bound to give you *some* experience (mostly depending on the difficulty of the fight).

 

I absolutely do not understand this bias against "kill XP". If it's what many players want, why not give it to them? How would it lessen game enjoyment for other players? This is like arguing against loot drops (which is also something I absolutely cannot comprehend).

 

The only explanation coming into my mind is, ironically, the same that explains the "no bad builds" concept and the oversall diminishing effect of player strategies on game outcome (like decreasing stat importance etc.).

 

That explanation is as follows:

 

The developers are in fact catering to the "lowest common denominator" and are making the game more casual.

 

By decreasing the effect of player actions (such as build strategies or getting bonuses from winning fights) they are making the game "streamlined" so that a "good" player does not enjoy significant advantages for playing the game better than "mediocre" or even "bad".

 

Hopefully, this is not the case and we will get a game where our actions do matter, and not just a rollercoaster from point A to point Z that is the same for everyone.

this post describes well how I feel about it. By controlling Xp so much they are trying to control player experience instead of giving us a sandbox like in IE games. If you over leveled in BG2 encounters would have +1 lich (as example).

 

Also mastering all parts of the game is part of the fun. Optimizing the play is as well. And removing kill xp does not even stop this as people will optimize quest farming and still have easier time in parts of the game same if there was kill xp.

[Quetzalcoatl]

The IE games were not sandbox games, far from it. The Fallout games, which came out around the same time, were.

 

Of course, the XP system has nothing to do with whether something is a sandbox game or not.

Edited October 11, 2014 by Quetzalcoatl

[morhilane]

 

this post describes well how I feel about it. By controlling Xp so much they are trying to control player experience instead of giving us a sandbox like in IE games. If you over leveled in BG2 encounters would have +1 lich (as example).

 

There is no level scaling in PoE.

[PrimeJunta]

@Razsius ... 

 

Okay, I guess. You see it as a "half-measure" and "appeasement" as well. You feel like you're being pandered to, and that makes you mad. Fine. I'm not really interested in these emotional reasons though, personally valid as they are. (Although if your objective is to make your 'camp' not look 'unreasonable,' that's not exactly helping, though.)

 

The rest of your post is a defense of kill XP, which is also not something I'm interested in pursuing. So I still don't see it, except from purely emotional/ego grounds (feeling first deprived of a prize, then slighted, then pandered to).

 

As to "shoehorned in," I don't see it that way. Again: the core design goal of P:E's XP system was to reward accomplishments, not activities. Filling in your bestiary is an accomplishment. Killing things is an activity. Therefore, bestiary XP makes sense from that POV whereas kill XP doesn't.

 

Nor does trap/lock XP, which is why I was really surprised to hear they're considering it, and hope they won't include it.

 

I.e.: I'm all for quest XP, objective XP, bestiary XP, and discovery XP, because all of these reward accomplishments, but I'm against kill XP, trap/lock XP, uncovering-fog-of-war XP, or practicing-your-skills XP, because they reward activities.

[Lord Vicious]

The IE games were not sandbox games, far from it. The Fallout games, which came out around the same time, were.

 

Of course, the XP system has nothing to do with whether something is a sandbox game or not.

 

BG 1 and BG2 were very high on the "sandbox" ladder. Not quite up on top with Fallout and Elder Scrolls, but player freedom was extremely significant. In the Enhanced Editions (which incorporate ToSC and ToB), and especially in umbrella mods like Big World, this is particularly evident. Once out of the initial "dungeon", the player was free to explore an enormous world, do a huge amount of quests in any order, and kill and loot many enemies. In fact, exploring BG1 and BG2 in this "sandbox" manner was absolutely awesome - and it was made possible, to a large extent, by the kill xp and loot system, that actually rewarded the player for independent actions outside the main plot line.

 

Removing this kind of incentive takes a lot of fun out of "free roam", and makes the game more dull for everyone. 

[Cantousent]

I don't think player mods or even designer modifications that come years after release should count for the purposes of evaluating the games.  How they were at release side by side is, from my perspective, the only reasonable way to compare them.

[Lord Vicious]

The rest of your post is a defense of kill XP, which is also not something I'm interested in pursuing. So I still don't see it, except from purely emotional/ego grounds (feeling first deprived of a prize, then slighted, then pandered to).

 

What kind of logic is this?

 

So winning at something is now a "purely emotional/ego" goal?

 

So great sportsmen or chess players are doing it only to "stroke their own ego"?

 

So a person who wishes to succeed at something is just an "emotional egotist"?

 

With this logic, basically every human activity can be viewed with disdain.

 

Including "bestiary filling" or any other "pursuit of objectives".

 

Remember, friend, that this is a game. The purpose of playing a game is to win and enjoy doing so.

 

 

As to "shoehorned in," I don't see it that way. Again: the core design goal of P:E's XP system was to reward accomplishments, not activities. Filling in your bestiary is an accomplishment. Killing things is an activity. Therefore, bestiary XP makes sense from that POV whereas kill XP doesn't.

 

 I'm against kill XP... because they reward activities.

 

 

How is winning a fight not an accomplishment? Particularly if it's a difficult fight that could get your entire party killed?

 

And how winning fights is different from filling bestiaries? It's the same "activity" - killing creatures you encounter. And it's the same "accomplishment" - you get rewarded for killing these creatures. The only difference is that the "bestiary approach" artificially limits the player's opportunities to get these rewards.

 

That is, instead of being able to get 1000 rewards for killing 1000 creatures, the player can only get 10 rewards for killing 100 creatures ("10 of each kind"). Once the player gets these 10 rewards, there is no more incentive for him to continue fighting the remaining 900 creatures. Which automatically decreases the playability of the game, since "fighting creatures" constitutes a huge part of it. Not to mention, it ruins the immersion and makes "sandbox" gameplay unrewarding.

Edited October 11, 2014 by Lord Vicious

[Quetzalcoatl]

 

The IE games were not sandbox games, far from it. The Fallout games, which came out around the same time, were.

 

Of course, the XP system has nothing to do with whether something is a sandbox game or not.

 

BG 1 and BG2 were very high on the "sandbox" ladder. Not quite up on top with Fallout and Elder Scrolls, but player freedom was extremely significant. In the Enhanced Editions (which incorporate ToSC and ToB), and especially in umbrella mods like Big World, this is particularly evident. Once out of the initial "dungeon", the player was free to explore an enormous world, do a huge amount of quests in any order, and kill and loot many enemies. In fact, exploring BG1 and BG2 in this "sandbox" manner was absolutely awesome - and it was made possible, to a large extent, by the kill xp and loot system, that actually rewarded the player for independent actions outside the main plot line.

 

Removing this kind of incentive takes a lot of fun out of "free roam", and makes the game more dull for everyone. 

 

I'm not sure what Baldur's Gate games you played, but neither of them was a sandbox, although BG 1 is the closest to one, with the many wilderness environments. Still, areas were unlocked as you progressed through the story chapters - in a true sandbox, you could've visited them whenever you wanted. The mechanics, like shopkeepers' inventories disappearing when you killed them, are also at odds with sandbox design.

 

BG 2 on the other hand isn't really anything like a sandbox at all. Incidentally, almost all of its dungeons have a quest or two tied to them, so it would've arguably been perfectly fine with an objective-based XP system.

Edited October 11, 2014 by Quetzalcoatl

[Lord Vicious]

 This comes after the fact that Dead State made me "see the light" in that regard.  You don't get a single xp for a single kill in that game yet it feels rewarding and productive to kill things.  Combat gets you more resources which you desperately need, it gives you additional safety and it indirectly awards you with "experience."  You don't *have* to empty the entire map either.  In fact, at times it might be prudent not to do so.  There's no combat xp, there's no lockpicking xp, there's no quest xp there is only the goal (objective) system and the goals more than make sense as they are focused on safety and survival in a *gasp* survival based rpg.  Right now we have a combat focused game with the "goal" system being what exactly?  Whether you talk to an ogre to ignore a farmer who lost pigs?  Whether you kill thug group A or B?  Whether you save some annoying noble's daughter?  Whether you fetch a big egg?  Truly riveting.

 

 

Edit: But then again I suppose this is what we get if we don't even know what we want...

 

This game is being marketed as a successor to the Baldur's Gate series and other classic CRPGs, is it not?

 

I'm pretty sure that the basic expectation that most of us share is "give us something as good as BG".

 

Games like "Dead State", for all their merits, are not like classic CRPGs. They function on different principles. There is no need, IMHO, to make PoE into one of those games, when it should be a modern implementation of the classic CRPG genre.  

 

P.S. Otherwise, you are making a lot of great points that I agree with.

[PrimeJunta]

@Lord Vicious I wasn't referring to in-game activities. I was referring to emotions caused by perceived slights and pandering by the developers of P:E.

[Lord Vicious]

 

I'm not sure what Baldur's Gate games you played, but neither of them was a sandbox, although BG 1 is the closest to one, with the many wilderness environments. Still, areas were unlocked as you progressed through the story chapters - in a true sandbox, you could've visited them whenever you wanted. The mechanics, like shopkeepers' inventories disappearing when you killed them, are also at odds with sandbox design.

 

 

 

BG 2 on the other hand isn't really anything like a sandbox at all. Incidentally, almost all of its dungeons have a quest or two tied to them, so it would've arguably been perfectly fine with an objective-based XP system.

 

 

 I played the same Baldur's Gate as everyone else, thank you very much.

 

 

BG1 was almost a complete sandbox, with the player being able to visit almost every location right out of the box, and the rest after just a few quests. To get to the city you had to progress the storyline somewhat, but that was not a big deal.

 

BG2 was so big, that its "free - roam" Chapter II was basically like an entire game.

 

And with mods like Big World that united the two games and their add-ons into an almost seamless world, the sandbox effect was definitive.

 

Again, it's not like 100% sandboxes like TES or Fallouts, but there was a high degree of sandbox gameplay in the BG series. And in some ways it was even better than TES, for instance, because the latter suffered from generic environments, whereas everything in BG was unique. 

 

Now, I do not understand this "objective" talk.

 

My character's objective is to become powerful and rich. (I'm pretty sure that's the dominant objective for many - if not most - of the human race).

 

So doing something that makes him more powerful (getting experience and loot) and rich (getting loot) is his greatest "objective".

 

Yes, he can do a stupid Fedex quest or save some pointless damsel in distress.

 

But he'd be just as happy (in fact, happier probably) if he could get experience and loot also by ushering loot-carrying creatures - be they monsters or NPCs - towards oblivion.

 

Why should I play rat exterminator in a smelly basement when I can ambush the guard, cut his throat and take his weapons, armor and money? Hunting guards is a much more interesting challenge than hunting rats, and something I really enjoyed doing in Candlekeep as a Fighter/Thief, or in Vivec as an Ordinator Eliminator, for example.

Edited October 11, 2014 by Lord Vicious

[archangel979]

 

this post describes well how I feel about it. By controlling Xp so much they are trying to control player experience instead of giving us a sandbox like in IE games. If you over leveled in BG2 encounters would have +1 lich (as example).

 

There is no level scaling in PoE.

 

And that is not a good thing. Also, it is not level scaling. BG games added more enemies, not scaled all of them to your level. Also it wasn't adjusted for each player level but only at some thresholds. The system was so well done in BG that I didn't even know about the system until I read it on BGEE boards.

 

I seen level scaling in Oblivion after playing for 1h.

 

 

 

The IE games were not sandbox games, far from it. The Fallout games, which came out around the same time, were.

 

Of course, the XP system has nothing to do with whether something is a sandbox game or not.

 

BG 1 and BG2 were very high on the "sandbox" ladder. Not quite up on top with Fallout and Elder Scrolls, but player freedom was extremely significant. In the Enhanced Editions (which incorporate ToSC and ToB), and especially in umbrella mods like Big World, this is particularly evident. Once out of the initial "dungeon", the player was free to explore an enormous world, do a huge amount of quests in any order, and kill and loot many enemies. In fact, exploring BG1 and BG2 in this "sandbox" manner was absolutely awesome - and it was made possible, to a large extent, by the kill xp and loot system, that actually rewarded the player for independent actions outside the main plot line.

 

Removing this kind of incentive takes a lot of fun out of "free roam", and makes the game more dull for everyone.

 

I'm not sure what Baldur's Gate games you played, but neither of them was a sandbox, although BG 1 is the closest to one, with the many wilderness environments. Still, areas were unlocked as you progressed through the story chapters - in a true sandbox, you could've visited them whenever you wanted. The mechanics, like shopkeepers' inventories disappearing when you killed them, are also at odds with sandbox design.

 

BG 2 on the other hand isn't really anything like a sandbox at all. Incidentally, almost all of its dungeons have a quest or two tied to them, so it would've arguably been perfectly fine with an objective-based XP system.

 

And you could go to all areas in Fallout right from the start? No. And to access some end game areas you had to do quests. Just like doing 3 quests in BG1 let you unlock all areas.

 

BG2 was less open, but still pretty free in letting the player choose how to play. It certainly felt sandboxy without feeling generic like Elder Scroll games.

Edited October 11, 2014 by archangel979

[Doppelschwert]

If the feedback isn't worthwhile, they shouldn't listen to it. There haven't really been any great reasons as to why combat XP should be put into place other than "Combat generally is boring to play in PE and so at least make it worthwhile for us!" Josh himself has said, and I'm paraphrasing here, that if his game isn't fun without XP adulterating the gaming experience, that he doesn't want gamers playing it.

 

The problem with combat isn't the lack of XP: it's the combat. XP will not make me enjoy it any more. At that point, I'd just be expected to suffer through it.

 

As for what you said re: the lore skill, it again flies in the face of Josh's design goals when it comes to PoE. He has stated several times that he'd like to minimize meta-gaming as much as possible. This is exactly why we don't have hard-counters and other "fun and unexpected" things that were plentiful in the old IE games. It's because Josh doesn't want players making decisions without the maximum available information, and once you know that information, the challenge is already gone. Even without a walkthrough, once you've played the game once or twice, there's really no reason to play the game with the lore skill, as you'd already have an idea as to what to expect with each enemy.

 

It's a poorly designed skill just like Josh believes hard-counters, etc were poorly designed. "Pretty much all games get it wrong." Josh's game is no exception, it seems.

 

 

So who decides which feedback is worthwile to listen to? If you refer to josh, he also gave perfectly fine reasons why bestiary exp would work within his vision, so I don't see a problem there.

 

 

Regarding the lore skill:

I get your arguments, but you can apply these arguments for all the other skills as well, so why does lore deserve all the bashing? You can't use any skill directly in combat. Mechanics work only for traps before combat starts, stealth has a very limited use since you can only use it to initiate combat (if at all), athletics concerns only minor penalties you can probably deal with by proper resting and survival only effects potions. All of this is purely optional stuff you won't need to play through the game, so for combat purposes all skills are equally useless unless you want to actively use them.

Consequently, if you think that all skills in PoE suck, go ahead, that's fine with me.

However, regardless of how many playthroughs you do, you will always be able to use the skills outside of combat in conversations and scripted events, so dismissing them as useless is wrong. As I understood it, the vision was that they are supposed to define your character and help you play them outside of combat, the combat bonuses are just a little bonus on top and not supposed to be their defining quality.

[archangel979]

 

You can always learn something more from a death and life situation and it was not always the same. At lvl 1 you need to kill 10 such creatures to level, at lvl 10 you needed 1000, at lvl 20 you needed 50 000. As long as XP for next level rises exponentially enemies can keep giving same XP. There is a limited amount of enemies in the game afterall.

 

That doesn't explain why you hate bestiary XP. It just explains what kind of XP system you'd like even more.

 

I still don't get it, other than from a purely emotional POV (you're upset at not getting exactly the XP system you want, and you feel they're patronizing you with a "half-measure"). Is that it?

 

Because it is a pathetic half measure. If lack of kill xp is a problem after all implement that as it should be. Otherwise stick to your design vision and make your current system as best as possible.

Also Bestiary XP is just a glorified kill XY creatures to gain a reward quest and it seems there will be one for most of the creatures in the game. It will not even be explained, at least in NWN2: SoZ, the hunter explained why it is needed in the lore of the game.

[Quetzalcoatl]

 

 

I'm not sure what Baldur's Gate games you played, but neither of them was a sandbox, although BG 1 is the closest to one, with the many wilderness environments. Still, areas were unlocked as you progressed through the story chapters - in a true sandbox, you could've visited them whenever you wanted. The mechanics, like shopkeepers' inventories disappearing when you killed them, are also at odds with sandbox design.

 

 

 

BG 2 on the other hand isn't really anything like a sandbox at all. Incidentally, almost all of its dungeons have a quest or two tied to them, so it would've arguably been perfectly fine with an objective-based XP system.

 

 

 I played the same Baldur's Gate as everyone else, thank you very much.

Apparently you haven't, because you then go on to say:

 

BG1 was almost a complete sandbox, with the player being able to visit almost every location right out of the box

which is not really true. All of the plot-critical areas in BG 1 are unlocked through story progression. Nashkel mines, the bandit's hideout and of course the titular city of Baldur's Gate. These are major areas around which the game revolves and that make up a big part of it.

 

BG2 was so big, that its "free - roam" Chapter II was basically like an entire game.

Sure, but it was only one half of a game. The other half, from travelling to Brynnlaw to emerging in the elven camp, is the very opposite of sandbox design: story-driven, tightly packed and with no option to actually travel as you would in a sandbox. And unlike in BG 1, new areas on the world map are triggered by quests rather than by being discovered.

 

 

And you could go to all areas in Fallout right from the start? No. And to access some end game areas you had to do quests. Just like doing 3 quests in BG1 let you unlock all areas.

 

BG2 was less open, but still pretty free in letting the player choose how to play. It certainly felt sandboxy without feeling generic like Elder Scroll games.

If you don't see the difference between 'area that be entered at any time, but takes effort to gain access to' and 'area that can only be entered once the story lets you', I can't help you. Equating Fallout and Baldur's Gate in that way is absurd.

Edited October 11, 2014 by Quetzalcoatl

[Elerond]

Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2 were games with linearly progressing main story that had somewhat nonlinear (meaning that player can access that content in any order they wish, but some of that content becomes linear after initial triggering, which is something that story driven content nearly always has to do because of limitations of coherent storytelling) optional content.

 

Fallout 1-3 and New Vegas are open world games, with somewhat nonlinear main story progression and optional content

 

But none of them come even close to be a sandbox game, because they all lack player's ability to modify the world and create their own ways to play the game. Sandbox games usually lack story content as they focus on players freedom. Sandbox as term comes from concept that player is given sandbox and bunch of tools and then player makes content themself instead.  Minecraft, Sim City, Sims are good example of what sandbox games are.

[morhilane]

Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2 were games with linearly progressing main story that had somewhat nonlinear (meaning that player can access that content in any order they wish, but some of that content becomes linear after initial triggering, which is something that story driven content nearly always has to do because of limitations of coherent storytelling) optional content.

 

Fallout 1-3 and New Vegas are open world games, with somewhat nonlinear main story progression and optional content

 

But none of them come even close to be a sandbox game, because they all lack player's ability to modify the world and create their own ways to play the game. Sandbox games usually lack story content as they focus on players freedom. Sandbox as term comes from concept that player is given sandbox and bunch of tools and then player makes content themself instead.  Minecraft, Sim City, Sims are good example of what sandbox games are.

 

Technically, the term sandbox is supposed to be another word to mean open-world/free-roaming and it has been in usage since the mid-80s when the Space Sim Elite was compared to a sandbox by a reviewer. The idea that sandbox means "a place where i can build anything I want" is an invention from the WoW area gamers who pretend gaming didn't exist before 2004.

[Elerond]

 

Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2 were games with linearly progressing main story that had somewhat nonlinear (meaning that player can access that content in any order they wish, but some of that content becomes linear after initial triggering, which is something that story driven content nearly always has to do because of limitations of coherent storytelling) optional content.

 

Fallout 1-3 and New Vegas are open world games, with somewhat nonlinear main story progression and optional content

 

But none of them come even close to be a sandbox game, because they all lack player's ability to modify the world and create their own ways to play the game. Sandbox games usually lack story content as they focus on players freedom. Sandbox as term comes from concept that player is given sandbox and bunch of tools and then player makes content themself instead.  Minecraft, Sim City, Sims are good example of what sandbox games are.

 

Technically, the term sandbox is supposed to be another word to mean open-world/free-roaming and it has been in usage since the mid-80s when the Space Sim Elite was compared to a sandbox by a reviewer. The idea that sandbox means "a place where i can build anything I want" is an invention from the WoW area gamers who pretend gaming didn't exist before 2004.

 

 

I personally would not use sandbox to refer open-world/free-roaming games that don't give player ability to modify game world, as I don't feel that term sandbox works well to describe game with static world even if player is free to roam it as they please. But I am aware that people often use sandbox to refer all open-world/free-roaming games but I am also aware that there is people (like me) that have objected such use even before 2004.

 

But regardless of do one define sandbox game to be free-roaming/open-world game with ability modify world or/and  without such ability, Fallout 1 & 2 and Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 still aren't such games but games where action happens in areas that are independent of each other and player needs to use world map screen and loading screens to move from one to another. And it is not bad thing that players don't have ability roam world freely and modify it, as restricted maps and restricted ability to move between them helps in story telling which is important in story driven rpgs, and restricted maps leave room for imagination about how world is build and how people live in it, which is part of charm that made IE and Fallout 1 & 2 games as great experiences that they were.

 

EDIT: With Elite I see why one would use term sandbox to describe it, as its concept is here is world and now go do what you want in these sets of limits, which were as limiting as they were mostly because of technical reason instead of what designers would have wanted to give player to ability to do. Ultimas had quite similar ideology behind them.

Edited October 11, 2014 by Elerond

[Namutree]

 

 

 

There is no level scaling in PoE.

 

And that is not a good thing. Also, it is not level scaling. BG games added more enemies, not scaled all of them to your level. Also it wasn't adjusted for each player level but only at some thresholds. The system was so well done in BG that I didn't even know about the system until I read it on BGEE boards.

 

No level scaling is always good. The biggest flaw of BG2 by far was the insufferable level scaling. God I wish I could find a mod to get rid of it. In some cases the game can actually get harder from leveling up! That's BS!!! Leveling up should always be a good thing with no downsides whatsoever. I've played a lot of RPG's, and I have yet to ever play one that was better thanks to level scaling.

[wanderon]

I seem to recall Josh saying there would be minimal level scaling for the main quest line and no level scaling for side quest areas?