We need to be able to con mob levels

[geobio]

As there is an expert mod, it should be obvious that some need a "casual mod" where you can have all ease and use to just A click the game.

[FalloutBoy]

 

 

 

Honestly, if you are going to engage an enemy you never saw before, you quicksave, try. If you win, good. If you lose, reload and proceed playing. It’s not that hard nor it is inconvenient.

 

 

That line.  That one right there.  It invalidates every single argument anyone makes about me wanting the game to be easier versus the way it is now.

 

Easier and dumbed down is exactly what that line represents.  There is absolutely no risk if you play that way.  No matter how bad of a decision you make; you won't suffer the consequences of it.  Just reload.  And it applies to every single aspect of the game, not just combat.

 

I hate playing that way.  As I've said many times in this thread.  I want to make intelligent decisions, not no-risk decisions.

 

 

You've already stated your opinion many times now, why do you keep arguing with anyone who does not share your opinion?  Sounds like trolling to me...

 

 

Shall we go count posts? Because the last 3 I see are from you. Why does it upset you so much that some people prefer to not play "try and die" game mechanics? Anyway I'm done with this. Great game regardless.

[bobthe]

 

 

Once upon a time, I did write strategy guides.  I'm also a very, very long time CRPG gamer (you named it, I've prolly played it...including text based games).

 

There is simply no good reason not to give players an indication of mob strength via an obvious mechanic.  As I've said previously, levels are a completely arbitrary contrivance designed to simply bookkeeping in character/mob growth.  Why is a bear level 5?  Because some dev said so.  That's it.  No other reason.

 

Well, you can't know that some dev assigned bear = level 5 which means you can't make a rational decision whether to fight it or not.  Unless....

 

You buy some strategy guide that has an actually useful bestiary that tells you the mob levels before you guess, or (and this is why strategy guide writer is a former occupation rather than current) you look it up on the net.  This adds nothing worthwhile to the gaming experience.  And when you get to mobs unique the PoE gameworld, you're truly just guess or looking up stuff external to the game.  There is nothing fun about randomly guessing whether a fight is winnable.

 

The way it is now:

I look at a wuzzatthing.  I decide to attack because it's standing right next to a chest, and therefore, you can't sneak past it.  First tho, I save the game.  It roflstomps my entire party.  I reload the game.  Where is the fun in that?

 

The way things should be:

I look at a wuzzatthing and see that it's five levels higher than me.  I make a tactical withdrawal and a note to come back when I've drank a lot more milk to grow big and strong with healthy muscles and bones.

 

Now, maybe if it'd been closer in level I might have tried it because I'd made a lot of extra cash and had some sweet gear and a well-built (ie. no official companions) party that worked like a well oiled machine.  But the important part is that I make a decision based on information I have rather than make a guess and use save-load to mitigate the potential loss from a bad guess.

 

I get your point. Although in my opinion not having the level information does actually add something to my playing experience.

 

What does it add? It keeps me in the game world. When the game starts, I don't know anything about the land or its creatures. In the first couple of minutes I learn about spiders, then wolves. There's a bandit camp nearby. There's a bear cave. This first map exemplifies what I like about this game. Spiders can be beaten easily. Bandits are tricky. Bear is impossible at the start. All on the same map. Which is the only map that can be reached. When I died it wasn't because I was on the "wrong" map. It was because I was a level 1 adventurer who was stupid and a noob and didn't have a clue.

 

What did I learn from this map? I learned that the world is dangerous. I learned this by dying in-game, not by looking at a number. After the first map I did accept the possibility to encounter something that is actually stronger than my party. This created suspense.

 

What does this lead to? In my case, I read the monster descriptions in the 'pedia. I also did not dare to engage some scary looking creature, because I was semi-sure I'd get my ass kicked. When I fought that creature later, it was laughably weak.

 

I also engaged a group of guys that I took for some generic, weak ass bandits. Turned out they were not and I burned through all my spells in one unexpected show of power.

 

Suprises, suspense, triumph and fear would not have been possible if there was a level number. I'd know beforehand whether or not I am supposed to win this fight. On my 2nd playthrough I will know that spiders are weak to crushing damage and fire. I'll know that this group is dangerous and that group is not. I can focus on efficiency as opposed to exploration.

 

To put it short: Having numbers takes away exploration and adventure. I like this on my first playthrough.

 

 

Your logic is very flawed. The post you are arguing against describes exactly what you claim to want. I'm very confused about your position on this topic. Providing information about the difficulty of a mob is in-game information that your characters would get from evaluating a potential enemy. That is in-game information. Having to fight something, find out it kills you, and then reload is NOT keeping things "in the game world".

 

 

 

What did I learn from this map? I learned that the world is dangerous.

Incorrect. You, as a player, may have learned this, but your character certainly did not. You have to reload to a time prior to when your character found this information out (i.e. before the fight). This is NOT keeping things "in the game world" as you claim to like. This is exactly the opposite of that.

 

Having said that, it would be easy enough to implement the feature as optional, so why not suggest that instead of all the people saying "omg no I don't want this"?

[kylania]

 

False. Once aggroed, it's you or the bear. No escape. No indication to the player that you need to level up a bit before fighting it, yet there is a quest telling you to go in the cave. Game tells me to do something then punishes me for doing it.

 

 

It gives you a challenge and an opportunity to come back when you're more powerful and extract revenge.  Perhaps also a warm bear rug for your stronghold!

[Nukenin]

 

 

False. Once aggroed, it's you or the bear. No escape. No indication to the player that you need to level up a bit before fighting it, yet there is a quest telling you to go in the cave. Game tells me to do something then punishes me for doing it.

 

 

It gives you a challenge and an opportunity to come back when you're more powerful and extract revenge.  Perhaps also a warm bear rug for your stronghold!

 

 

Wait, are you telling me I should've kept the bear hide?  

 

Also, @FalloutBoy—you actually do not get the quest in question (har!) until you've dispatched the bear and interacted with wot's beyond it.  So "the quest told me to do it!" isn't actually the case here.  

[kalel78]

 

guys.. its a toggle to show a mob's level.. its not "hand holding".. having a toggle for this in the game is a reasonable request IMO.

 

 

 

Problem is they have more important things they could do, like fix all the bugs.  Adding hand holding features that are not required except by people playing at difficulty levels they are not capable of is just a waste of time.   A bit of common sense and reading can avoid most all deaths in this game provided you know what you are doing and not playing beyond your ability. 

 

for expert mode i agree.. but having this  for normal mode is a reasonable request, and IMO i dont think would be that difficult to add as part of a future patch.  i agree that a patch for bug fixes should be high priority.. but i definitely think this is one future request that should get added.  and if you dont want it.. just play on expert.

[Reapa]

 

Giving players information that they should have if they actually lived in the world you're putting them in isn't dumbing down the game.  It's giving players the same tools they'd have to make intelligent decisions if they actually where characters in that world.

Since it's been said more then enough times and you still didn't understand it i thought maybe the others weren't direct enough so i registered to tell you that in order to make intelligent decisions, first of all you need to be intelligent.

Bragging about rpgs you may or may not have played doesn't hide the fact that you learned nothing from them.

Your take on strategy/tactics seems to be comparing 1+1 to 2 in order to see if they really are equal and to top it off you call that skill.

Yes the game could give you lore if it were inclined to do so. It could also give you 20 levels from the start. But it doesn't. So the sensible thing to do would be to cope with the situation and try to make the best of it. That would be an intelligent decision.

And now to the strategy: A party based game requires a party in order to overcome enemies and obstacles designed for parties. (Yes there are people out there bragging about soloing this and soloing that. What they really do is cheat and exploit game weaknesses. It is neither honorable nor strategic nor fun. A very common way is kiting which is only possible on extremely poorly designed games, like this one for example. Yes the game is deeply flawed on several levels but weirdly enough not the one you mention.)

So what do you do after coming out of the cave and losing your party? ... Right! You get a new party. I'm sure you guessed that one without hours of pondering. (For some reason the bear will not run off while you do that. Maybe because the game is static or maybe it's his cave. I don't know, I'm not a dev.)

Now your character does know there should be a bear in that cave cause an NPC told him so. So your character will want to go back there as soon as he feels comfortable enough to do it. So when will he be comfortable enough to go kill a bear? This is where you should use some strategy. there are several strategies to pick from if you don't have one of your own. just google faqs for any party based rpgs. most of them will tell you you might need at least one healer, at least one tank, at least one dmg dealer. The logic behind this common strategy is that you need someone to keep the bear busy while your dmg dealer kills it and you need someone to heal your tank while he's keeping the bear busy. Based on the dificulty level you have chosen and based on the fact that the games allows you to have 6 party members but doesn't force you to, it's up to you to decide whether you want to increase your numbers or go with the basics. Sure enough, with minimum logic and strategy you can now kill the bear.

The metagaming: If done right, the bear should die regardless of his level. Since this is not wow and differences in level do not diminish dmg and def to the point they become useless, there is no need for a level indicator and there is no need for devs to create level based areas. There are indeed creatures out there that can one hit or almost one hit your tank but these are usualy very deep in the game and don't look harmless to start with. This is another aspect you seem to ignore completly. A bear is not a cat. It will kill you if you fight it like a noob. The game doesn't have to tell you that, you should be able to figure that out without saving and reloading. This applies to dragons and storm elementals and what not. Shades are a different thing all together. They don't really look very scary, they don't sound scary but they can kill whole parties. But the reason for that is not their level but their skills/spells. They will ignore your tank and attack support members of your party and summon shadows. This is where the basic strategy no longer apllies and you actually need to use the abbilities of your party members. You will notice that your party members don't have only weapons but also skills and spells. Some of these skills/spells can be used to render shades unable to move/fight/cast.

On a final note: Living in some world doesn't automatically give you any information on what different creatures are able to do. Especially in a medieval era fantasy role playing game there is no internet or google or libraries open to everyone and the information they contain might or might not be reliable or usefull. not even in the real world will you be able to google a real bear's dps range. Whether or not one man can kill a bear armed or not depends entirely on the type of man and the type of bear and weather conditions and season and whether the bear is sleeping and the man gets a sneak attack with a shotgut or the bear surprises the man from behind and chews on his head. The character you are playing in this game can have quite a few different backgrounds at that. Assuming he would be knowledgeable of every type of creature's level is so far fetched that one would be inclined to believe you don't lack only rpg experience but also real world experience and any kind of intelligence.

[Sangnz]

From me a no.

I prefer my rpgs to be designed around as minimal amounts of metadata as possible.

My personal take is that if my character has no way of knowing I shouldn't either, sure if a game has a way of me studying to learn about a monsters strengths & weaknesses, like a knight school..., then all good that means there is an in game reason for my character to have that knowledge.

Some meta cannot be avoided but it should be minimised.

Most new monsters are introduced 1-2 at a time so you can get a feel for them, if you pay attention the game for the most part is good at introducing us to monsters and how tough an area is.

Most "traps" like the bear cave can be avoided with some common sense.

 

However many games, I feel, have numbed our common sense and ability to pay attention by leading us by the nose into areas or giving us quests designed to our level or have everything dynamically level with us meaning while we are challenged we rarely are in any serious danger. Hence we often run around like muppets until we get that first wakeup call,

[paz12]

 

 

 

(...)

I get your point. Although in my opinion not having the level information does actually add something to my playing experience.

 

What does it add? It keeps me in the game world. When the game starts, I don't know anything about the land or its creatures. In the first couple of minutes I learn about spiders, then wolves. There's a bandit camp nearby. There's a bear cave. This first map exemplifies what I like about this game. Spiders can be beaten easily. Bandits are tricky. Bear is impossible at the start. All on the same map. Which is the only map that can be reached. When I died it wasn't because I was on the "wrong" map. It was because I was a level 1 adventurer who was stupid and a noob and didn't have a clue.

 

What did I learn from this map? I learned that the world is dangerous. I learned this by dying in-game, not by looking at a number. After the first map I did accept the possibility to encounter something that is actually stronger than my party. This created suspense.

 

What does this lead to? In my case, I read the monster descriptions in the 'pedia. I also did not dare to engage some scary looking creature, because I was semi-sure I'd get my ass kicked. When I fought that creature later, it was laughably weak.

 

I also engaged a group of guys that I took for some generic, weak ass bandits. Turned out they were not and I burned through all my spells in one unexpected show of power.

 

Suprises, suspense, triumph and fear would not have been possible if there was a level number. I'd know beforehand whether or not I am supposed to win this fight. On my 2nd playthrough I will know that spiders are weak to crushing damage and fire. I'll know that this group is dangerous and that group is not. I can focus on efficiency as opposed to exploration.

 

To put it short: Having numbers takes away exploration and adventure. I like this on my first playthrough.

 

 

Your logic is very flawed. The post you are arguing against describes exactly what you claim to want. I'm very confused about your position on this topic. Providing information about the difficulty of a mob is in-game information that your characters would get from evaluating a potential enemy. That is in-game information. Having to fight something, find out it kills you, and then reload is NOT keeping things "in the game world".

 

 

 

What did I learn from this map? I learned that the world is dangerous.

Incorrect. You, as a player, may have learned this, but your character certainly did not. You have to reload to a time prior to when your character found this information out (i.e. before the fight). This is NOT keeping things "in the game world" as you claim to like. This is exactly the opposite of that.

 

Having said that, it would be easy enough to implement the feature as optional, so why not suggest that instead of all the people saying "omg no I don't want this"?

 

It's the difference between PnP roleplaying and CRPG. You don't reload anything in PnP. You either play like a cowardly chicken, or you will simply die and roll a new character, if you did not make sure to consider all availble options before fighting this or that monster.

 

In a PnP game, I would never fight anyone on the first map. It's the wilderness. I am alone. I am on my way to the next city. Why would I want to fight random bandits 3 or 4 vs 1? But here I can reload, so I might as well try my luck. (Which is why I said that I was dying like a stupid, lvl 1 adventurer nub. It's a really stupid idea to consider fighting anything on that map.)

 

If you take a CRPG seriously, that means if you consider it to be a role playing game, you'd have to adjust the playstyle and be very, very cautious. Giving away the level (or HP) of the monsters is information that is kept away from the players in role playing games. The GM won't tell you: you are facing a lvl 5 troll with 5d6 HP. He'll tell you: You are facing a troll. It's everybody's guess how strong that thing actually is in comparison to your party.

 

You are right in saying that more information is needed about the monsters though. Because during the 1st playthrough I didn't have any idea how strong a shadow of phantom might be, and there was nothing that could tell me. No books, no characters, no nothing.

 

However: If you take your time and play PoE on normal difficulty with expert mode "on", you will get something that simply isn't offered by games that give away level information (or colour coded mob names). Adventure. Because then you will try to avoid fights at all costs, meaning you will sneak through the wilderness, beelining towards the next quest objective, without trying to farm XP from monsters that you know to be weaker than your party.

 

I am pretty sure PoE can be played without reloading if approached in a role playing way. That means: Sneak to Gilded Vale. Talk to everyone. Pick up 2 companions. Sneak south. Pick up 3rd companion. Sneak East, pick up 4th companion. Return to map north of Gilded Vale. Kill four bandits and a bear. You don't need level information or reloading to accomplish this.

 

This playstyle actually works in PoE. Which is probably one of the game's greatest achievement.

 

Apart from that: Role playing games work best, when the party knows that they are seriously underleveled. Because that's where exploring the game world starts, as opposed to going on a killing spree.

 

But I get your point. Having level information has it's advantages. It's helpful information. But it has its dangers. And those outweigh the benefits, in my opinion.

Edited April 1, 2015 by paz12

[paz12]

 

 

 

Is it actually possible to escape combat at all once it's initiated?

 

 

Yes, you use a disable or interrupt (or an escape spell, clone potion, etc).  There are ways to leave a battle, no need for easy mode to hold our hands.

 

 

False. Once aggroed, it's you or the bear. No escape. No indication to the player that you need to level up a bit before fighting it, yet there is a quest telling you to go in the cave. Game tells me to do something then punishes me for doing it.

 

If the game tells you to jump from a bridge, are you going to do it?

 

Feedback like this shows that most games have degenerated into something that comes with its own walkthrough built-in.

[gray808]

Maybe you'd like a big red button too which says 'complete the game for me' ?

 

Why is it that anytime anyone asks for anything at all, someone has to jump from "How about a con system that will tell me 'easy' or 'really hard'?" to "Hey, can I just push a button an win?"

 

Why can't you just chime in with how it would effect your game play, whether you think it's a good idea or not, and possibly suggest some alternatives?

 

In this particular case, I just don't see how it wouldn't be a good thing to add. Most everything else is optional/toggleable, so why wouldn't this be? Most of those things are turned off in Path of the Damned, which I assume you are playing, so it wouldn't effect you at all. 

 

I tend to play through theses games on easy first, then settle in to progressively harder settings... so it likely wouldn't do much for me either. But if I was one who did want to jump in on my first playthrough to Hard.. then I'd likely use and appreciate the feature.

 

--Gray

[StubbinMyToe]

It does impact everyones play if the developer is wasting time implementing a useless feature.

 

Here is an example of thinking out a battle sort of the way it should be done.  If he would have been more careful and gotten off the traps before the fight, it would have been better!  If there was a con feature, he probably would not even have tried!  Anyway, this is what makes people like CRPG's that don't hand hold, check it out:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFrfcKroZsM&feature=player_detailpage#t=201

Edited April 3, 2015 by StubbinMyToe

[DanMan3395]

 

 

 

No, no, no.

 

Just no.

 

One of the glorious things about this game is that it can bitch slap you hard.

I hope you restart anytime you die and dont use save and load then otherwise you invalidate your claim.

 

Simple way to make everyone happy, make the con system toggleable. 

 

The bestiary is there to give stats on creatures and limit grinding for xp as you fight the mobs. 

A con system is so you know if you should attempt to attack a mob.

 

 

I should ... restart my whole game on a wipe because I don't think con levels are a good idea, preferring surprise over knowing the level of every encounter in advance?

 

 

The bestiary gradually provides useful information about a creature ... such as its level.

 

The point he's making is that you gain the same information by fighting and reloading as you would get just by a little more information on the popup. The first is far more inconvenient.

 

It's a game, not a life style. Who cares about convenience. This thread is what ended the production of games like baldur's gate and NWN