IWD vs P:E combat - likes and dislikes

[PrimeJunta]

I don't really use those spells in the IE games, anyway. In ToB I sometimes use Wail of the Banshee to kill summons, but by that time your Fighters are so baws that they can kill them in a round or two anyway.

The opposition does though.

 

I used Confusion once. It didn't do what I wanted but still won the fight. It was in the setpiece over the bridge in Upper Dorn's Deep. The drow resisted, but the orcs went cuckoo which got the archers out of my hair and let me beat it. Second try, and my only reload in Upper Dorn's Deep, not counting the trap which disintegrated my thief because of a misclick.

 

I am getting better at this. Perhaps I will beat some of the tougher set-pieces on the first try at some point.

 

Haste BTW is seriously OP. I'm trying not to use it unless I absolutely have to because it's so powerful it feels cheesy. Something that strong should absolutely be single-recipient only. Or else it should be level 7 or thereabouts.

[wuss]

 

(3) Pre-buffs

 

Stun and others have said that stacking prebuffs is not actually needed. So, fine, I'm not prebuffing. This is actually true, for the most part, but not completely. So far I've only prebuffed in one fight (Ixonomicon). It is harder going though; I feel like I'm gimping myself, so I'm going to go back to at least limited pre-buffing. I.e., it's possible not to prebuff, but I do get the feeling the encounters have been balanced with prebuffs in mind, at least the set-pieces.

 

I used lot's of prebuffs on my playthrough, but it still wasn't easy, since I rolled a bunch of ****ty characters. Spells like cat's grace or strength of one were almost essential, at least until mid-game. The game was more about strategy and organizing ressources than about tactics for me. 

That however is one of the advantages of IWD. You can play more tactical or more strategic, depending on situation and party composition, e.g more possible experiences. If you use more spellslots for prebuffs, you have less tactical possibilites and vice versa. Although I'm not claiming that this is perfectly balanced. Especially later, when you have more spellslots and the duration of your buffs increases drastically.

 

 

 

Preliminary conclusion -- my stance against hard counters and on/off effects is softening. I think they're fine if they're single-target spells, and do not involve instant death (which prompts a reload for me until/unless I have Raise Dead available in some form). But countering genuinely nasty spells like Dire Charm, Dominate, Hold Person, Petrify, and similar is fun. (Death effects are fine later, of course, once you have Raise Dead available.)

Yeah, that's one of the reasons why there are so many spells you'll never need. Spells like Chaos or Slow are way op, with a few exceptions always better than single-target spells. However I don't think that you need to ditch such spells all together. You could still keep them and give them for example extra long casting durations, or other tradeoffs. Certainly not the way IWD handles it though.  

[PrimeJunta]

More notes.

 

Partway through Lower Dorn's Deep. Man I love the pacing of this thing! Breezed through the glacier, yawning and feeling pretty good about myself. Then, okay, salamanders with that AoE fire attack, a little annoying but nothing that difficult. Then... that elf maiden who gibs my party in like no time flat. Wow. Change. Of. Pace!

 

That wasn't too hard though when I woke up. I had a couple of Rigid Thinkings memorized, and the second one bit. She got into a fight with one of the fire giants, and while she was stabbing him, I had my fair elf maiden (CHA 8 ) put her full of Arrows of Piercing. The fire giants were not much of a challenge.

 

Anyway, I just whacked Malavon, which was the fight I really really hated the last time around. It's still not my favorite. Pure mayhem. Also has that "This is not even my final form!" thing which I also... dislike.

 

I didn't fight it particularly well and if I did it again I would pre-buff a bit more (which, as stated, I've been trying to avoid this time around so I won't get lazy): Chaotic Commands against the Umber Hulks plus a standard Prayer+Recitation combo for better saving throws. As it is, I had Stabby the Berserker glug a Potion of Heroism and an Oil of Speed (he didn't know it was supposed to be applied externally and is feeling a little queasy now), equip him for immunity against Confusion and with Free Action (his standard equipment actually), and sent him after Malavon. That worked well, although it did take a few rounds for him to whittle him down. The rest of the party didn't do so great against the Umber Hulks and Iron Golems, and I eventually had to Raise Dead on two of them. I'm sure I could avoid that with those pre-buffs; as it was my Dispel Magics went unused because the toons who had them got confused. I'm thinking that if I buffed Stabby absolutely to the hilt to absolutely ridiculous levels, he could take the fight all by himself. 

 

But... the Malavon fight is clearly one of the ones that is tough if you go into it "cold" but becomes easy if you know exactly what's coming, memorize the right spells, and apply the right buffs beforehand. I don't care for that type of fight. It feels like I'm using knowledge my party isn't supposed to have, and it feels cheesy. Even if it's kinda sorta designed that way.

 

I had more trouble with the temple fight with the multiple Greater Mummies. I was advancing too carefully and didn't discover the idol until dying a couple of times. Should have scouted with a thief, but I was feeling ****y at the time. Then when I sent a couple of my guys after it one of them got Petrified by it (sucker punch! sucker punch!) and, died again. So next time I pre-buffed Stabby with Protection from Petrification (metagame knowledge! metagame knowledge!) and sent him after the idol, whirling around it to avoid getting pinned down by the others, and had the rest of the party drop Holy Smites to keep the mummies blinded and confused and otherwise suppressed. Then I won, and the only guy who got his armor scratched was Stabby.

Edited January 8, 2015 by PrimeJunta

[Sensuki]

Yeah I wasn't too big on the Idol room. The second time I played the game, I got stuck there because I just couldn't beat the respawning undead. There was like 8-9 year old kid at Athletics when I was younger who also played Icewind Dale because his dad did and he told me that I just had to rush straight to the idol and destroy it and ignore the undead. Worked like a charm.

 

Have to be careful of the spell that paralyzes your entire party though And it's also much better to attempt from the side door, rather than the door from the Fire Giant entrance as it's a long run to the end, and more chance that you're going to get paralyzed by that spell.

 

The first time I fought Malavon it was super hard, and I beat it by sitting in the doorway until all the AoE spells ran out. Last time I did it though it was easy, I didn't use any pre-buffs. I just used an in-combat Oil of Speed and a Cure Critical Wounds to heal my Fighter who solo'd most of the Iron Golems inside a Cloudkill spell.

 

I've also never had trouble with that Elven chick, but YMMV.

 

Lower Dorn's Deep is really well designed, and you can complete it by doing the various things in any order

Edited January 8, 2015 by Sensuki

[prodigydancer]

- In the IE games a good way to beat hard enemies was to have one char to walk around in circles and the enemy follows him and all others shoot arrows. I think the engagement system is a good choice.

Just stop. Kiting only really worked in simple 6v1 fights against melee guys. None of them was any hard anyway no matter which strategy you used.

 

But have you ever tried to pull your little trick in one of the larger IWD fights against multiple melee/ranged/caster enemies? Now I don't remember the original but in IWD:EE in some fights you're outnumbered 3-to-1 (on Insane, probably not so bad on Core). Good luck winning those encounters with kiting.

 

Engagement is a horrible mechanic that was added only because Obsidian cannot into encounter design.

Edited January 9, 2015 by prodigydancer

[Valsuelm]

Yea... Having played and beaten the IE games multiple times on core rules difficulty or higher, I think I might have used the kiting strategy once, and that was just as a trial strat (I usually try everyone at least once). It certainly wasn't how I went about fighting your average let alone most fights, and it certainly wouldn't work on a great many of them.

 

And counterspelling being deliberately removed from the game is just bad. The complexities and diversities of the IE magic system is one of the primary things that made fights in that game very fun, challenging, and interesting.

[PrimeJunta]

The only time I used kiting in my IWD playthrough was for the end boss. I simply didn't have the melee oomph to win in a fair fight, and of course the (really stupidly contrived) setup is such that both offensive magic and buffs are... severely limited.

 

I did not like the end boss fight. It amounted to a bunch of sucker punches, so I didn't feel bad about cheesing (=kiting) right back.

[anameforobsidian]

It's not official, but the scs Sarevok fight is clearly designed for kiting  (lots of room, removed traps, invincible boss).   It's also probably not incidental that most of the big setpiece bosses in BG II are in big circular rooms.

Edited January 10, 2015 by anameforobsidian

[teknoman2]

Yeah, I did actually enjoy the Yxunomei fight. It was fun trying to figure it out, and extremely rewarding when I eventually did -- and the tactic was a crude version of yours. That Cloudkill is nasty though; how do you deal with that if you just ignore her? -- But, contrary to what Stun at least has said, I did think it was very much a trial-and-error affair. I wonder if anyone has ever beat it on the first try? As in, the first try they ever attempt the encounter, without having had it spoiled before, on core rules or harder? If so, they must be damn good.

 

Re the Talonits and trolls, that one I didn't enjoy so much. I found it more frustrating than fun. I attempted more or less what you say -- take the Talonites out fast -- but didn't get far with that; I did manage to get them killed but then I always lost some party members to the trolls. They got surrounded and couldn't get out before I could break through to them. Also, only one archer which was also clearly a mistake -- would've been much easier if I had had two which I could use to suppress the Talonites.

 

I.e., at least party this is a party composition problem. Which is another of my beefs with DnD -- there's not a lot of margin for error in character and party-building, and it's VERY hard to correct those errors when you discover them. Again, I'm fairly certain I understand DnD better than the average gamer, better than the average RPgamer even, but I still make dumb mistakes. Both AD&D and DnD3-based cRPG's have scads of gotchas and trap choices which you'll only discover well into the game.

the first time i played the game, i did so with a single fighter/mage/thief character instead of a party. you should try the Yxuwhatshername fight like that if you wanna see what hard is

[PrimeJunta]

I bet you get a lot of girls with that line.

[teknoman2]

It's not official, but the scs Sarevok fight is clearly designed for kiting  (lots of room, removed traps, invincible boss).   It's also probably not incidental that most of the big setpiece bosses in BG II are in big circular rooms.

most fights in IE games are kite fests... at least in my playthroughs. in both BG games i had all my party equiped with ranged weapons, and 1 member was pulling aggro while the rest were scattered around shooting bullets and arrows.

[PrimeJunta]

Mine too. Which is one reason I never really developed a huge enthusiasm for the fights. It's just not a fun way to play. It only got seriously fun when I developed quicker and more varied but costlier (in in-game resources) tactics.

 

Another thing that's greatly increased my enjoyment of these games: overcoming my hoarding instinct. Now I'm using consumables a quite a lot, instead of saving them for later. Resting and memorizing another Haste is more efficient in terms of resources than glugging a potion of Speed, but glugging a potion of Speed involves less clicking, has a more relaxed duration, and is more fun.

 

I consider this a bit of a design issue in the games: they do incentivize boring and tedious activities by making many fun activities cost more. I don't think most of us count "time played" as a resource. /bracing for more sneering from @Stun

[Jarmo]

I consider this a bit of a design issue in the games: they do incentivize boring and tedious activities by making many fun activities cost more. I don't think most of us count "time played" as a resource. /bracing for more sneering from @Stun

 

This is why I'd like to see stuff like camping supplies you dragged along being costly and limited, so you can stay in the dungeon for maybe a week max. The hired mercenary costing another 250 per day and so on. Some incentive to not sleep for 2 months in the snowy pass like I did in Icewind Dale. Just bottoms up with a few healing potions and press on.

Edited January 12, 2015 by Jarmo

[PrimeJunta]

Yep. Incentives are powerful. In Rome 2: Total War, they changed the way mercenaries work. Before, you just bought them once, then paid normal upkeep, and many of the mercenary units were very cool or plugged a hole in what your faction could do (at that point anyway). In R2:TW you pay the full cost every turn.

 

I liked that change a lot. I still use mercenaries, but only when it really counts; then I use them as shock troops since I'll be letting them go the next turn anyway. It adds a new twist to both the strategy and the tactics, and I think it's also more like how real warlords used real mercenaries. It was a dangerous business.

 

(If on top of that they added a mechanic where mercenaries would start demanding higher prices if your general or side got a reputation of having lots of them killed, it would be even cooler.)

 

Edit: and another thing about incentives. I think one reason for the abiding hate between the 'grognards' and the 'casuals,' aka everyone else, is related to incentives in BG1/2 in particular. It's a combination of the "throw him in the deep end of the pool and let him learn to swim" approach on the one hand, and highly exploitable systems on the other. What's the first "tactic" you learned playing BG1? I would bet it's kiting. Have Imoen and PC take turns pulling a bear or an ogre while the other one pelts it with arrows. It's a really efficient tactic in terms of in-game resources, but it's also really dull.

 

The consequence is that lots of stopped right there. Because kiting worked so well, we kited every damn encounter that could be kited, adding twists like pulling enemies one-by-one, and so on. These are all tedious, repetitive, dull, and efficient. Consequently, we missed out on almost all the fun the game's combat could offer.

 

I believe this phenomenon goes a long way to explain Josh's obsession with eliminating exploits and "degenerate strategies." They simply make many, many players miss out on the fun. I also think it would be even better to find ways to direct players to use the fun strategies from the get-go, rather than focus on eliminating the un-fun ones.

Edited January 12, 2015 by PrimeJunta

[Jarmo]

BTW. Now I really got the cravings to try IWD2 again.

 

Played it through right after IWD ways back when, and liked IWD2 better.

Tried again few years back and again last year, but gave up for some reason.

 

Would be interested to hear your take on that, (if you have anything left after BG2)

 

--

It's just how World of Tanks sucks up my time now,

 

also reinstalled Medieval 2 TW with Stainless Steel and having fun with crusader states.

That also has different mercenary system, where it can cost 2K to get a bunch of Templar knights,

they're only 200 per turn, whereas heavy Kwarizmian cavalry is also 2K to hire, but 1K per turn.

Relatively easy and fast to build an army that'll bankrupt you in the long run. One more thing is

you can only hire templars maybe every 5 turns, but can hire all mercenaries from an area just like that.

(And unless you do, your enemy might).

 

Plus I haven't tried PoE despite having access, and DA Inquisition is tempting me.

Edited January 12, 2015 by Jarmo

[Sensuki]

What's the first "tactic" you learned playing BG1? I would bet it's kiting. Have Imoen and PC take turns pulling a bear or an ogre while the other one pelts it with arrows. It's a really efficient tactic in terms of in-game resources, but it's also really dull.

 

Contrary to popular belief this is absolutely not true. I never did it and neither did any of my RL friends, who are all worse at the IE games than me. My friend Andrew got it first, and he taught me how to play it, and introduced me to D&D.

 

One example is the Ogre right at the start of the game. On my first try, I sent my PC Fighter in to melee the Ogre, and he killed me in a single hit. I repeated that tactic and died again. On my third go, for some reason I thought okay, I'll use Imoen to take the hit, while I attack from the side. The Ogre hit Imoen, didn't kill her, and I got the hits in to take it down.

 

I do not know how this works, because Imoen has like 8 HP, and my PC has 14. I have *never* seen the Ogre kill Imoen on the first hit, ever, in any BG1 vanilla game, almost if she has some kind of script protecting her from this encounter. So that's how I beat that one. 

 

To this day, I have never kited an enemy in an IE game with ranged weapons. I have killed plenty of enemies with ranged before they got to me, but I always just send my melee guys charging headlong in to meet them. Kiting is not necessary.

Edited January 12, 2015 by Sensuki

[Luckmann]

 

What's the first "tactic" you learned playing BG1? I would bet it's kiting. Have Imoen and PC take turns pulling a bear or an ogre while the other one pelts it with arrows. It's a really efficient tactic in terms of in-game resources, but it's also really dull.

 

Contrary to popular belief this is absolutely not true. I never did it and neither did any of my RL friends, who are all worse at the IE games than me. My friend Andrew got it first, and he taught me how to play it, and introduced me to D&D.

 

One example is the Ogre right at the start of the game. On my first try, I sent my PC Fighter in to melee the Ogre, and he killed me in a single hit. I repeated that tactic and died again. On my third go, for some reason I thought okay, I'll use Imoen to take the hit, while I attack from the side. The Ogre hit Imoen, didn't kill her, and I got the hits in to take it down.

 

I do not know how this works, because Imoen has like 8 HP, and my PC has 14. I have *never* seen the Ogre kill Imoen on the first hit, ever, in any BG1 vanilla game, almost if she has some kind of script protecting her from this encounter. So that's how I beat that one. 

 

To this day, I have never kited an enemy in an IE game with ranged weapons. I have killed plenty of enemies with ranged before they got to me, but I always just send my melee guys charging headlong in to meet them. Kiting is not necessary.

 

 

Having not played BG1 for so very long, my memory is fuzzy, but I seem to recall that that ogre had absolutely no problem completely wrecking my ****, Imoen or no Imoen.

 

That being said, kiting is definitely not "the first tactic you learned playing BG1". Without abusing the enemy targeting AI (which is something people that have played the game for years is usually terrible at) kiting is actually terrible in BG1. Kiting as a "tactic" only really gets possible with Boots of Speed or similar (this is where I admit to kiting the hell out of some opponents by repeatedly casting Haste).

 

Try kiting that damn gibberling swarm. Try kiting the wolves. Try kiting the elite kobold guards.

 

The first real "tactic" I learned in BG1 was Staff of Summoning, because **** you, Drizzt, **** you very much you black-skinned mary-sue munchkin, I hope these gnolls will wipe that ****grin off your face.

 

[...]

 

I believe this phenomenon goes a long way to explain Josh's obsession with eliminating exploits and "degenerate strategies." They simply make many, many players miss out on the fun. I also think it would be even better to find ways to direct players to use the fun strategies from the get-go, rather than focus on eliminating the un-fun ones.

"Play it my way or you're playing it wrong."

 

If he had an interest in eliminating exploits, he should focus on not creating exploitable scenarios, not create artificial limiters to perfectly reasonable solutions to the problems presented. There's a difference between plugging unreasonable exploits (such as pulling enemies one by one, gassing entire rooms from fog of war, etc) and deliberately kneecapping perfectly reasonable actions (such as fleeing an encounter, initiating combat with an ability, or attempting to carefully reposition during combat, etc) in his interest of playing it right.

Edited January 12, 2015 by Luckmann

[PrimeJunta]

@Jarmo Not sure I want to play IWD2 again. I have a half-finished game waiting to be resumed somewhere. Those waves after waves of identical filler enemies wore me down, even though some of the setpieces were as good as anywhere (the battle of the bridge was particularly memorable -- as indeed were the fights in the starting town). 

 

I'll keep playing BG 2 for a while -- not sure I'll finish that either; I really couldn't care less about Irenicus and Imoen at this point, but I do want to see what else is in Athkatla -- and then maybe Heart of Winter which is one module I never tried. (I think it's the last major IE game/expansion I haven't played to date.)

[PrimeJunta]

To this day, I have never kited an enemy in an IE game with ranged weapons. I have killed plenty of enemies with ranged before they got to me, but I always just send my melee guys charging headlong in to meet them. Kiting is not necessary.

 

I agree it's not necessary. That wasn't my point. (It appears I was wrong about how universally discoverable it was.)

 

It was, however, the first IE tactic that I figured out. It was with a bear wandering just outside Candlekeep. Then the ogre with the girdle fetish. Then others. I kited pretty much every creature that was either (a) slow or (b) solitary. You can kite wolves just fine as long as there's only one and there's some object like a tree to run around.

 

My point is that if the game has obviously discoverable easy but dull exploits, then a lot of players are going to discover them and look no further, instead refining their ability at that particular dull and easy exploit. Therefore, the game should (a) minimize the number of easily discoverable but dull exploits, (b) incentivize the player to play in a way that's fun rather than dull, and © point the player in the right direction.

 

Of these, IMO (b) and © are far more important than (a). I think both BG's would have had far more Stuns and Sensukis and far fewer Gfted1's without changing a damn thing about the mechanics, if only they had paid more attention to (b) and ©. This would not have limited the grognard battalion's options the least, either.

[Lord Wafflebum]

I, too, learned kiting very quickly. Having no understanding of how AD&D rules worked, it was the only tactic that worked reliably. Then my kiting only became more advanced as time went on. My strategy is way better than it used to be, but my first playthroughs in games almost always involved heavy kiting when possible. It's how I got through skyrim. Once I have a bow, oh boy, you best believe I have a companion to draw aggro and run around shooting arrows. 

 

Now that I suck less I can go back and try different strategies and have a lot of fun doing it. However, I probably wouldn't have bothered learning anything other than kiting if I had never stumbled upon gamefaqs. 

[Nakia]

I knew a little about 2.5 ed rules but nothing about 3.5 ed and I think I had an easier time with IWD II fights.

 

Note: AD*D is just D&D expanded, it does not necessarily mean more powerful or better just some things added.  It is still Dungeons and Dragons.

[Zeckul]

It's interesting how IWD is both so flawed and so fun to play. As you point out so many things require knowledge of what's to come, in party design, spell selections, pre-buffing tactics etc., which makes the game obtuse and frustrating on a first playthrough; but then as you learn how to play it well, the sheer variety of party compositions and tactics make it incredibly replayable and interesting.

 

Modern games usually try to do away with die-and-reload gameplay... except for Dark Souls that is. And Dark Souls is a ton of fun. It's intuitively wrong to punish the player for not knowing about something he couldn't have known, but isn't it fun?

[PrimeJunta]

@Nakia AD&D isn't really a system, it's more like a collection of houserules flying in loose formation.

[Nakia]

@Nakia AD&D isn't really a system, it's more like a collection of houserules flying in loose formation.:

Yep, that was what I was trying to say.   It is still part of D&D not a separate system.

Edited January 14, 2015 by Nakia

[danielkx]

The problem with the die and reload aspect of IWD and IE games is that it requires a huge amount of metagaming. Having to know what the upcoming battles are going to be in order to have success is not good design. Learning from mistakes is one thing but having to metagame at such a substantial level and so often is quite absurd.

 

This is honestly the overall problem I have with DnD games...while they feel rewarding when you figure things out, they are not as fun to get into for a lot of people, myself included. For those of you that have been playing DnD games for so long have have a good understanding of the system I am sure you enjoy the metagaming because you likely see it as more advanced planning, the problem with those of us that don't have such a strong grasp of the system is that not only are the games very unforgiving, they feel restricting and not nearly as fun to play.

 

No doubt many of you will not agree with me, I wouldn't expect you too, however I am just speaking from my experience with these games. I am in fact extremely excited for PoE because it will be challenging but likely not require such an extreme amount of metagaming and will be more forgiving but still challenging.

 

And yes I know virtually all rpg's require some metagaming in some way, I am speaking more of having to have so much foreknowledge of the battles to come and related aspects of the game.