Let's Play Baldur's Gate 2, and reflect on Pillars of Eternity (2)

[Jarmo]

 

Word of advice: Cut it out with worrying about timed quests. 80% of the time it doesn't matter, and the other 20% gives you absurd time allowance.

 

 

 

Yeah this, there's like one quest in the underdark much later that has a time limit that might potentially matter, the companion quests give you ages and will warn you before they leave anyway.

 

 

The last time I played I had Viconia and .. that paladin dude whatshisname.. they didn't get along and I thought I could just ignore it for a while or talk them out, being a charismatic talker man and all. Turned out all nasty, having to struggle out of some dungeon without a proper warrior and way encumbered hauling some extra bloody paladin loot.

[Sensuki]

I use some mods to suppress the NPC bickering. Works like a charm.

[Mr. Magniloquent]

I use some mods too

 

 

 

Installation Order
------------------
Game 1
Game 2
No CD Hack
Ascension
Wheels of Prophecy
Baldur's Gate 2 Fixpack

Baldur's Gate Trilogy
Baldur's Gate Trilogy Tweaks

--------------------
Baldur's Gate 1 Mods
--------------------
Baldur's Gate I Restored Narration
Baldur's gate Lightmaps
Baldur's Gate Unfinished Business
Baldur's Gate Mini-Quests & Encounters
NPCs
Baldur's Gate NPC Project
Level 1 NPCs
Sword Coast Strategems I
Baldur's Gate Tweaks

---------------------------
Baldur's Gate 2 Mods & Else
---------------------------
Baldur's Gate 2 Unfinished Business
Pocket Plane Group Quest Pack
Assassinations
Pocket Plane Banter
iepBanter
Baldur's Gate 2 Creature Fixer
Oversight
Rogue Rebalancing
Improved Horns
Item Revisions
One Pixel Productions
Baldur's Gate II Sheild Animation Fix
PnP Free Action
Wildmage Expansion
WizardSlayer Mod
Shapeshifter Mod
Spell Revisions
Picky Familiars
PnP Celestials
Sword Coast Strategems II
gMinion
Baldur's Gate II Tweaks
aTweaks
eSeries (PC Scripts)
WideScreen
Generalized Biffing
Throne of Bhaal Extender
Refinements

 

 

 

Even on a modern machine it takes several hours to install, but by every god and its mother, is it worth it. There is some feature overlap, but many of them now recognize this and help the uninitiated through the process. Some of the NPC mods which allow you to kit them out or change their class might not be advisable for someone not intimately familiar with the game though. Baring that, this game was already a marvel, but with over a decade of dedicated polish and expansion, it is unrivaled.

[Sensuki]

Baldur's Gate II Sheild Animation Fix

  

What does this one do?

 

I think I use about half to 3/4 of those BG2 mods. I don't use NPC/Banter stuff because I don't really care about that anymore.

Edited January 11, 2015 by Sensuki

[Lord Wafflebum]

YES. I'm glad I have tomorrow off. I'm gonna be playing BG2 again. With mods. Oh, I'll also be sure to reflect on PoE while doing so- Don't want this thread moved elsewhere.

 

I'll probably play as a monk. I've been having a blast with the PoE monk; kinda curious how it measures up with the BG2 monk now. 

 

To touch on the Paladin subject, I really like how much more free the Paladins are in PoE. I liked playing as a Paladin in pen and paper D&D, but I didn't like how much more constricting it felt in BG2. The removal of alignment is probably my favorite thing so far in PoE from a role playing perspective. It allows more nuanced gameplay.

 

I like to play a generally good person, but I'm super racist against dwarves. I do as many terrible things against dwarves as I can. Does that make me evil? Probably. But I like to do good things for everyone else. Makes it hard to stay in a particular alignment.

[500MetricTonnes]

Neutral Evil is basically "do whatever is necessary to advance your own interests, regardless of who has to suffer." If that means working with someone, go right ahead. If it means murdering someone, then so be it. To a Neutral Evil character, other people are merely tools to be used for your own purposes and discarded when they are no longer needed. Think Kreia from KotOR2 as an example of this mindset.

 

Fun thing I just learned about Throne of Bhaal: If you left Jaheira in her cell in Irenicus' dungeon, and you summon her in ToB, she'll remember what you did and attack you.

[Stun]

I honestly am trying to enjoy this. I believe there's a great game underneat there somewhere and I'm trying hard to dig it out.

I have advice for you. A lot of it. Because the game is throwing itself at you, like a horny, half naked supermodel.... and you're resisting like prude. Let go already. Stop worrying about what could/might/might not happen, and just take things as they come. Maliketh pointed out the folly of stressing out over the whole timed quest thing (which is odd. I didn't even know there were timed quests in BG2 until about 5 years into playing the game) Trust me, PrimeJunta, it's NOT worth worrying about. It's an illusion.

 

But there are other things too:

 

-Don't Worry about your weapon proficiency choices. There are ZERO bad ones. Period. Unique over-powered gear of every type falls from the sky in BG2, and you have (literally) dozens of opportunities to change your build even after the fact anyway.

 

-Don't worry about your spell choices. Contrary to the BS blather spouted by Josh Sawyer, and parroted by his legions of worshippers, you cannot "dead end" yourself in Bg2. If your wizard or cleric did not memorize the "right" spells, the game will toss items at you to fully compensate. I soloed a Berserker...on insane, in this game. And beat it. And it wasn't very difficult. Which means spells aren't needed anyway. They just make things easy.

 

-Don't worry about sucker punches. The Liches, Mindflayers and Beholders in this game will sideswipe you and take you by surprise in chapter 2. Yep. You'll die, reload and die again. Until you learn how to beat them. And then after that, you'll face Liches, Mindflayers and Beholders again...in chapter 4, 5, 6, 7 etc..... but by then you'll have learned how to steamroll them.

 

-Don't friggin judge the whole based on the exceptions. Carrying your disgust around because Edwin's quest was linear, will cause you to overlook the fact that the "get into the Asylum" quest is about as open ended as quests can be and still be called quests. And so is the "deal with Valygar" quest, and the entire underdark, and the Hell trials etc.

 

-Don't worry about 'Rock-paper-scissors'. Again, forget what Josh Sawyer has brainwashed you into believing. You don't need Blunt weapons to kill Clay Golems. Everything in BG2 can be killed in 10 different ways...or more. There are 50 ways to kill Kangaxx.

 

-Take your time. Realize that this is a massive game. Massive in every conceivable way. And you will gain power in slow drip form....until you and everyone in your party, becomes god like. That is the beauty of BG2 - perfectly paced from the beginning to the end.

Edited January 11, 2015 by Stun

[PrimeJunta]

Interim report. I busted Xzars buddy out of the Harper hall, only it wasn't him at all! **** move, Harpers. **** move! In other words, cool twist. As quests go, this one was good. Then one thing sort of led to another, and now I'm running my own thieves' guild. Left a trail of corpses in my wake, including that one traitor. His fault for not wanting to talk to Renal Bloodscalp.

 

In other words, yeah, this is fun again. I hope the thieves' guild timed stuff won't mess too much with plain ol' adventuring; I kinda like the idea of checking in every 5-10 days, as it also serves to "organically" limit resting. And I know what the schedule is. I gave some orders more or less at random; hope the place is still standing when I get back from wherever.

 

It'll also be interesting to see what tips, if any, P:E's stronghold mechanics take from that. The whole lieutenant-and-assigning-orders thing is clearly similar to the stronghold in NWN2, which was IMO one of the better parts of the game.

 

The wizard fight in that quest had me trekking back to a shop by the way. I had no +2 weapons, and those stone golems needed dismantling. It was OK though; there was an affordable +2 mace which Korgan used to clobber it, and now Viconia has it (shame she's not much good at hitting anything with it). 

 

Anyway: the Xzar/Montaron questline and the Thieves' Guild questline were both highly enjoyable... when played from a Neutral Evil mage/thief point of view that is. 

 

Also, still leveling up like blue blazes. Am liking this three-toon strike team much better than the previous full party. Banter is much less annoying too.

 

I think that's enough BG2 for today though. I will definitely continue this later. Maybe use mah metagame knowledge and go do that de'Arnise Keep again -- there's a sweet axe there for Korgan whose +1 battleaxe is really not cutting it.

 

-- So yeah, I can see why you guys thought this was a good questline. It is. I stand by my original criticism though, that it should have featured more reactivity for those drawn into it willy-nilly. There were obvious evil or at least selfish dialog options in the poisoned-dude quest, so it should not have been hard to add them converse there.

 

So, here's another thing I dig, and I hope P:E will be able to feature: I took off in a completely different direction, am having a completely different experience, and it's working out great. That's a good kind of content density. As I've said, my beef with Athkatla isn't what's in it; it's how it's presented/flung at you.

 

@Stun: Thank you. I'll pay more attention to items especially. I have been using consumables a lot more this time around, as there really are a lot, and they're only taking up inventory space anyway. Having to overcome a certain amount of hoarding instinct, but that's all good.

 

Re golems, I'm curious -- besides +2 or better weapons, how do you kill a stone golem? I had no problem with the ones I met since I could just go out and buy one, but I'm curious. 

[Sensuki]

Yeah I'd take what Josh Sawyer said about BG2 with a grain of salt. I'd like to know how many times he's actually played it actually.

[Stun]

Re golems, I'm curious -- besides +2 or better weapons, how do you kill a stone golem? I had no problem with the ones I met since I could just go out and buy one, but I'm curious.

1)Summons. Lots of the monsters you can summon can whack any kind of Golem. An Arial Servant's fists strike as +3 weapons. And any type of elemental can hit anything in BG2

 

2) Magic. Contrary to what people think, Golems are not immune to magic. They're just 100% resistant to it. Since this is BG2, there's a difference. As it stands, a mage can fire off a few "Lower Resistances" (5th level spell, look it up) at the golem. And then after that, it's totally up to you how you wish to obliterate that golem, whether it be a magic missile barrage, or disintegrate, or Flame strike, or Abi Dalzim's Horrid Wilting, or whatever.

[Sarex]

I found that summons are a solution to 99% of the encounters in BG2. At least when I played it as a kid.

[archangel979]

I found that summons are a solution to 99% of the encounters in BG2. At least when I played it as a kid.

I only use summons vs Ilithids. Mordekain Sword cleans them up nicely by itself.

I also used them in my solo Werewolf Druid play. That party in sewers cannot withstand the power of couple of Fire Elementals.

Edited January 11, 2015 by archangel979

[prodigydancer]

Neutral Evil is basically "do whatever is necessary to advance your own interests, regardless of who has to suffer."

Not really. You're trying to generalize what is a particular case. Consider Ra's al Ghul as he was portrayed in Batman Begins. The guy isn't above deception, openly committing a crime or trying to make an entire city go down in flamses so he's definitely not LE. On the other hand, he's not CE because he doesn't relish in the suffering of others. The destructions he causes - he thinks it's merely a necessary evil. The ends justify the means. His philosophy and his methods make him a NE villain even though he doesn't care about personal gain. Edited January 11, 2015 by prodigydancer

[PrimeJunta]

1)Summons. Lots of the monsters you can summon can whack any kind of Golem. An Arial Servant's fists strike as +3 weapons. And any type of elemental can hit anything in BG2

2) Magic. Contrary to what people think, Golems are not immune to magic. They're just 100% resistant to it. Since this is BG2, there's a difference. As it stands, a mage can fire off a few "Lower Resistances" (5th level spell, look it up) at the golem. And then after that, it's totally up to you how you wish to obliterate that golem, whether it be a magic missile barrage, or disintegrate, or Flame strike, or Abi Dalzim's Horrid Wilting, or whatever.

 

Ahhh... good. I'm not 100% hip on what the stats of each summoned creature is. Is this information (e.g. about an aerial servant's fists) available in the game somewhere? How about elementals? I read the spell descriptions and there was nothing there.

 

I've used Lower Resistances but it hadn't occurred to me that it would work on golems. My mind equated 100% resistance with immunity. Subtle, but def. something that a smart player can figure out.

 

-- Did de'Arnise Keep again. The maps were much easier to navigate with a party of three, but I still didn't care for them. The lowest floor in particular has you progressing from north to south, and if e.g. you're holding the Umber Hulks at a doorway, it gets very tricky to click on them because the door is in the way. I wonder if it was developed early? The Umar Hills maps were much more polished, as was the tomb map for Kograk's axe.

 

It'll also be interesting to see if the level of polish in the P:E BB maps is characteristic of the full game, or if there will be similar differences in quality there.

[Sensuki]

I've seen most of the maps in a small file, and the Dyrford Crossing is easily the worst designed wilderness map in the game (also their first). The others are much like Stormwall Gorge - way more open. 

 

Most of the Dungeons are probably more like Lle A Rhemen in dimensions of pathing space and stuff like that than the Dyrford Ruins.

Edited January 12, 2015 by Sensuki

[Blarghagh]

-- Did de'Arnise Keep again. The maps were much easier to navigate with a party of three, but I still didn't care for them. The lowest floor in particular has you progressing from north to south, and if e.g. you're holding the Umber Hulks at a doorway, it gets very tricky to click on them because the door is in the way. I wonder if it was developed early?

 

I am certainly hoping that there aren't that many tight corridors in most dungeon maps in PoE. It may make for interesting combat but it makes for frustrating navigation.

[PrimeJunta]

Questions, especially to Stun and Sensuki. (And yes, this is relevant to P:E, bear with me.)

 

I'm noticing that a lot of my preconceptions about how you're "supposed" to play this type of game are interefering with the way I'm playing it (which I'm trying to shake, more on that below). I also notice that it appears that both of you have a somewhat different approach to playing it. 

 

For example, the umber hulks in the Keep. This time I didn't have Cloudkill available, and the fight was a lot tougher. I tried to "man fight" it, as per Sensuki, and it did not work. Even when buffed to the hilt, Korgan didn't survive a massed umber hulk assault for long, certainly not when I sent him into the room, and not even at the door, and they move so fast I'm just not able to keep up with the AI to manipulate it, other than to the extent of having my Chaotic Command-protected Korgan absorb the Confusion attacks. I eventually won it with a fairly intricate combination of Web + Ice Storm + fireballs + Korgan mopping up the survivors. And a fair bit of reloading. But that was OK, going into this with a three-toon party I'm expecting some things to be a bit harder.

 

Now: Sensuki's general strategy appears to be based on having figured out how the AI does targeting, and manipulating that. Stun, on the other hand, appears to have an encyclopedic knowledge of everything in the game, and is able to find the optimal mechanical solution to any situation with whatever's available. ("Just polymorph into a mustard jelly. WOW!")

 

I.e., Sensuki's approaching this more like an RTS, and Stun is approaching this more like a set of problems with a set of tools to solve them. (Incidentally, Stun's approach is more to my liking.)

 

Am I at all on track here?

 

And Stun: did you learn all this yourself from the game, or did you use resources that didn't come with it (a little/sometimes/a lot/yeah baby!)

 

Then: I notice that there are efficient things I don't want to do because, for some reason, I don't think a game "should" be played that way. These things include:

• "Easy" strategies, unless I discover them myself, while playing the game. Web + Cloudkill on the umber hulks was fun because I figured it out myself (and used an expendable). I didn't know Cloudkill yet, and I didn't go buy the scroll because "my character wouldn't know about this." I did the same thing with the beholder quest: I knew -- metagame -- that I'd be facing beholders, and I knew -- also metagame, probably derived from reading it somewhere ages ago -- that Glitterdust would be extremely useful against them, but when going into the sewers "my characters wouldn't know that" so I didn't pop by Adventurers' Mart to buy it. Instead I set myself up for a highly frustrating tiptoe crawl involving summons out the wazoo which I did not enjoy.
• Use of metagame knowledge, like which quests I should take in which order because of the challenge level or some particularly cool item/character/whatever I should get early on. Clearly for many of you, discovering this in multiple playthroughs is a big part of the appeal. I think to really appreciate BG2, I'd have to shake this preconception as well. This is why I enjoy roguelikes: there's the same process of learning the game, but the particular content is different every time.
• Exploiting the AI -- Sensuki's favorite strategy, basically. For some reason I feel I should pretend to myself that there's an actual intelligence behind there, and thinking "if I do X, then I know the AI will switch targets like so, and I'll win" feels like I'm exploiting the system rather than playing it "fairly," whatever that means. I.e., Stun's approach of using the right tool for the job is much more appealing to me. (Mah immershun!)
• Believing what the characters in the game tell me. For example, if someone says something is urgent and "won't wait too long," I tend to take that at face value. This was one of the things that ruined things for me in the first attempt. I think I get the famous ludo-narrative dissonance (got to use the term in context!) when I agree to do something urgently and then ignore it. (I'm like this IRL too by the way. If I promise to do something by some time, I do my level best to get it done. I'd rather not promise.)
• Going through the same content again, unless there's some materially different way to do it. I didn't enjoy de'Arnise keep all that much this time; I knew what to expect and what to do, and just did it. The umber hulks gave me pause because no Cloudkill, but that's about it.  

So, another question: you who have played this game through multiple times -- say, more times than there is gated content in it, like the class strongholds -- what keeps you at it? How do you keep it feeling fresh?

 

And finally, the relevance to P:E. 

 

(1) Other than adding lots more gated content, is there a way to make the game less punishing for a first-time run (or even a run 10+ years after the first run) while maintaining a similar level of replayability? If so, what would these be? 

 

(2) How should metagame knowledge be taken into account when designing a game like P:E? For example, in a game where you get to pick the order in which you do things, if you place a powerful artifact somewhere, players who know it's there will beeline for it. When is this good or bad? (I just beelined for Frost Reaver +3 and I don't think it'll make the game less fun. OTOH beelining for the Enclave in Fallout 2 will kind of make the whole game derp since the Enclave Power Armor is effectively godmode).

 

(3) How important is mechanical and narrative consistency? If a character tells you something is urgent, for example, should the game enforce it? Always? Sometimes? Not at all? Should you know how urgent? What should the consequences be?

Edited January 12, 2015 by PrimeJunta

[PrimeJunta]

Annnd... another thing, regarding that favorite bone of contention, hard counters. Specifically: immunities (something you apply before you're attacked, like Negative Plane Protection vs level drain or Chaotic Commands vs confusion), or counters (something you apply after you're attacked, like countering one Charm with another).

 

There's one thing about hard counters in BG2 that I don't like. Namely, that it's so vitally important to get the counter in first, a lot of the time, and a lot of the time, the set-pieces are set up so that things materialize at you out of thin air, more or less. If the attack hits before the counter, it's very often combat over, or at least one or more fatalities. This gives an incentive to apply the immunity before the fight, which your characters couldn't know about but you do because you just died and reloaded.

 

Consider level drain. Negative Plane Protection is a hard counter available at a relatively low level, but in limited numbers. Yet the casting time is pretty long, and because of the high cost of Lesser Restoration (essentially, a rest, and if you're a caster, two rests because you'll need to re-memorize your spells), you really want to avoid getting level drained.

 

My preference is for counters over immunities. I got a huge kick out of the magicfights in IWD's Severed Hand because they worked like this. Someone was Dire Charmed; Dominate them right back, or Hold Person to get them to stay put while it wears off. Immunities should IMO be largely on items, not spells, and these items should be rare.

 

So, another question to the grognard gang: which one do you prefer, immunities or counters, and why? 

Edited January 12, 2015 by PrimeJunta

[Hiro Protagonist II]

Questions, especially to Stun and Sensuki. (And yes, this is relevant to P:E, bear with me.)

 

I'm noticing that a lot of my preconceptions about how you're "supposed" to play this type of game are interefering with the way I'm playing it (which I'm trying to shake, more on that below). I also notice that it appears that both of you have a somewhat different approach to playing it. 

 

For example, the umber hulks in the Keep. This time I didn't have Cloudkill available, and the fight was a lot tougher. I tried to "man fight" it, as per Sensuki, and it did not work. Even when buffed to the hilt, Korgan didn't survive a massed umber hulk assault for long, certainly not when I sent him into the room, and not even at the door, and they move so fast I'm just not able to keep up with the AI to manipulate it, other than to the extent of having my Chaotic Command-protected Korgan absorb the Confusion attacks. I eventually won it with a fairly intricate combination of Web + Ice Storm + fireballs + Korgan mopping up the survivors. And a fair bit of reloading. But that was OK, going into this with a three-toon party I'm expecting some things to be a bit harder.

 

Now: Sensuki's general strategy appears to be based on having figured out how the AI does targeting, and manipulating that. Stun, on the other hand, appears to have an encyclopedic knowledge of everything in the game, and is able to find the optimal mechanical solution to any situation with whatever's available. ("Just polymorph into a mustard jelly. WOW!")

 

I.e., Sensuki's approaching this more like an RTS, and Stun is approaching this more like a set of problems with a set of tools to solve them. (Incidentally, Stun's approach is more to my liking.)

 

Am I at all on track here?

 

No need for any attacks or engage the umberhulks at all. I use Dog Stew for the Umberhulks. It nets you 11,500xp to make the stew in the kitchen. You can even charm the dogs outside to attack the Otyugh for one last glorious battle for them. Then you can use a thief with hide in shadows or a potion of invisibility or whatever to walk right past the umberhulks, place the stew in the correct place in the dungeon and the umberhulks will walk off for some nice stew. Then close the door on them. That's it. Closing the door on them nets you 18,750xp. Easy peasy.

[PrimeJunta]

@Hiro Thanks. I knew about that actually and had the fight proven too tough that's what I would've done. In my first attempt I snuck to the feeding area and figured there's something I could do there, there were dog bones,  I had previously seen the kennels, and clicked on the kitchen thing where it mentioned I could make stew, so I had put the pieces together. (I really like dogs though and would have felt bad about it so I kind of didn't want to. There must've been plenty of roasted troll bits lying around; it's too bad there's no way to use those.)

 

My questions e.g. about metagaming it were more general. I beat them easily with Cloudkill last time, but intentionally did not go out of my way to get that this time around, "because my characters wouldn't know about it." I'm getting a feeling that this "because my characters wouldn't know about it" thing is actually detracting from my enjoyment rather than contributing to it.

[Sensuki]

Over time I've basically lost any bit of LARP in me and I won't do any unless the game gives you a pretty even choice about it - such as The Witcher series. I usually do things based on what the rewards are going to be. Sometimes it will be what content I want to experience. 

 

Stun's approach is good, and he knows more about the game than me. I am better at handling multiple melee characters and positioning, moving them and using them in conjunction with usually a couple of spells or item uses to beat most encounters.

 

I can't really remove the metagame knowledge from my mind, but even if I 'forget' something, I can always work out a way to deal with a problem. On my last playthrough I had a Kensai with low intelligence. This was fine, until I came up against Mind Flayers who drain your intelligence. If your INT hits 0 - you die. Game over. So I had to play knowing that I could only take x amount of hits from a Mind Flayer before I died. My other main tank was Minsc who .. yeah only has 6 Intelligence. Luckily for me I had a few Potions of Genius lying around that allowed for a few more hits, and I switched aggro between characters until I could beat the various groups.

 

These groups were fairly large because I was using a mod, and there was more of them than normal. But I did it. It took careful playing and I did stuff up a few times, but I did it.

 

So, another question: you who have played this game through multiple times -- say, more times than there is gated content in it, like the class strongholds -- what keeps you at it? How do you keep it feeling fresh?

 

BG2 to me is an experience. It is probably my favourite game, but until this year I had not actually played it for about 7-8 years because it is a pretty serious commitment and I had been playing competitive Call of Duty - which took up a lot of time, so I'd been replaying BG1 and IWD1 each year instead, and not BG2.

I am at the point where I do not care about any of the dialogue because I've heard it so many times before. I just play it because I love the gameplay. Using mods also adds a lot of new enjoyment. Playing Unfinished Business for the first time. Playing with TobEx for the first time. Playing with 1PP for the first time.

 

(1) Other than adding lots more gated content, is there a way to make the game less punishing for a first-time run (or even a run 10+ years after the first run) while maintaining a similar level of replayability? If so, what would these be?

This is an easy one - what they have done is make easy and normal difficulty relatively easy, and the general gameplay is also much simpler than any IE game, except for maybe BG1. There however, are still a lot of rules to learn and they are not going to be able to clearly explain how stuff works via the UI before release, so they may run into some problems.

 

(2) How should metagame knowledge be taken into account when designing a game like P:E? For example, in a game where you get to pick the order in which you do things, if you place a powerful artifact somewhere, players who know it's there will beeline for it. When is this good or bad? (I just beelined for Frost Reaver +3 and I don't think it'll make the game less fun. OTOH beelining for the Enclave in Fallout 2 will kind of make the whole game derp since the Enclave Power Armor is effectively godmode).

It shouldn't be, I don't think.

 

(3) How important is mechanical and narrative consistency? If a character tells you something is urgent, for example, should the game enforce it? Always? Sometimes? Not at all? Should you know how urgent? What should the consequences be?

Personally I don't really care too much, but Obsidian are usually pretty good about this stuff. I wouldn't be worried about that.

 

There's one thing about hard counters in BG2 that I don't like. Namely, that it's so vitally important to get the counter in first, a lot of the time, and a lot of the time, the set-pieces are set up so that things materialize at you out of thin air, more or less. If the attack hits before the counter, it's very often combat over, or at least one or more fatalities. This gives an incentive to apply the immunity before the fight, which your characters couldn't know about but you do because you just died and reloaded.

I don't use auto-pause, and I don't have a single problem with those encounters. I always seem to manage. Just press pause straight away and think about your actions. Sometimes some save or die effect will kill a character though, and you'll be like oh, well I'll just Death Ward next time. That's just how it is.

Edited January 12, 2015 by Sensuki

[PrimeJunta]

More musings.

 

I'm feeling BG2 is a lot like IWD would have been if they had put the areas/encounters in a random order. I.e. if you could stumble into Yxunomei or Malavon straight out of Easthaven, by taking a particular direction, i.e. they had left it up to you to discover/decide in which order to do the encounters.

 

I can see why someone would consider that fun. I liked Gothic 2 a lot precisely because it kicked you hard in the groin if you went off in the "wrong" direction, but let you do so nevertheless. However, it did communicate to you quite clearly when you were about to do that. One of my more memorable moments in G2 was in a later playthrough when I snuck to that pyramid to get that badass sword early on, avoiding all the monsters I knew would roflstomp me if I got spotted.

 

But... I do like meself a bit of signposting, and do feel BG2 would be much more accessible without detracting at all from the "hardcore" experience if it had more of that. It's a shame nobody will ever mod that in, because modders are by definition hardcore players and won't need it.

[Luckmann]

More musings.

 

I'm feeling BG2 is a lot like IWD would have been if they had put the areas/encounters in a random order. I.e. if you could stumble into Yxunomei or Malavon straight out of Easthaven, by taking a particular direction, i.e. they had left it up to you to discover/decide in which order to do the encounters.

 

I can see why someone would consider that fun. I liked Gothic 2 a lot precisely because it kicked you hard in the groin if you went off in the "wrong" direction, but let you do so nevertheless. However, it did communicate to you quite clearly when you were about to do that. One of my more memorable moments in G2 was in a later playthrough when I snuck to that pyramid to get that badass sword early on, avoiding all the monsters I knew would roflstomp me if I got spotted.

 

But... I do like meself a bit of signposting, and do feel BG2 would be much more accessible without detracting at all from the "hardcore" experience if it had more of that. It's a shame nobody will ever mod that in, because modders are by definition hardcore players and won't need it.

 

Pff. Casual.

[archangel979]

I am more like you Primejunta. I know perfect counters but I use what I got at the time. I also don't use stuff that I feel makes the experience cheap (cloak of reflecting).

 

As for counter vs immunity I like counters more. I got angry one time when I cast chaotic commands of a person that was already under effect and it didn't cancel it.

But I don't mind that removing level drain is so tough, it makes the player understand the danger of the enemy.

I hate it that modern games pander to people like you so you don't have to go rest and (OMG) lose 5 min to do so.

[PrimeJunta]

@archangel Suppose level drain took two rounds to take effect, and slapping Negative Plane Protection on the character in the time window would stop him from getting level drained. Worse or better?