Pillars of Metagaming

[Emc2]

 

 

If you die, just reload and come back later.

 

Obsidian are the masters of creating imbalanced games that force the player to cheat and metagame.

 

They could add a "Trial of Steel" mode, in which the game bricks itself when you die.  If you want to play again you have to buy a new copy.

 

Would that be sufficiently hardcore?

 

 

I just discovered a pretty cool version of this in Steel Battalion a hard core mech sim. If your mech starts to blow you have to go through the eject/self destruct procedure. If you do your character survives and you can retry the mission. If you don't it deletes your entire profile.

 

 

 

There was this one game which crashed my computer every time I died and I had to restart the PC before trying again. Really motivates you to play better.

[Gromnir]

If you die, just reload and come back later.

 

Obsidian are the masters of creating imbalanced games that force the player to cheat and metagame.

...

 

in that, the game is very much like bg, iwd, bg2 and iwd2, no?  part o' the pitch for the kickstarter were that the ie games were inspiration for poe, and iwd were specific referenced in regards to combat.  poe don't play exact like iwd (thank goodness,) but insofar as encountering a few battles that kick your arse the first time you face such obstacles, poe is following the path set by previous games developed by both black isle and bioware. 

 

you should not be surprised that obsidian is doing combat encounters similar to how the ie games presented such.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[luzarius]

I'm going to give the game one more chance.  This time I'm not fighting anything until I have a full party.   Sucks that I have to meta game in this way.

[Dongom]

I stopped having to metagame and "come back later" when I figured out to just spam aoe knockdown/stun/confuse abilities.

[KnightOfVirtue]

I think part of it is that people are too used to games giving things like a level indicator to show hard a fight will be. Instead PoE follows the good old formula of if the fight looks hard, it probably is (at least when you're new to the game). You don't go up and fight a dragon without being prepared to take a little damage. As for the bear, doesn't it make sense that a low level solo character would have a very hard time against it (not counting cheese strats), not an animal most people would want to face 1v1.

[luzarius]

I think part of it is that people are too used to games giving things like a level indicator to show hard a fight will be. Instead PoE follows the good old formula of if the fight looks hard, it probably is (at least when you're new to the game). You don't go up and fight a dragon without being prepared to take a little damage. As for the bear, doesn't it make sense that a low level solo character would have a very hard time against it (not counting cheese strats), not an animal most people would want to face 1v1.

 

My character is a ranger with a bear companion.  I basically assumed the enemy bear would be two to three times as strong as my own bear just to be safe.  Unfortunately it turns out the enemy bear adhered to a different law of physics and killed my own bear and myself in a cheap single blow.

 

It's my own fault for trying to role play in a role playing game.  As always meta gaming is key. 

Edited April 1, 2015 by luzarius

[PrimeJunta]

I'm going to give the game one more chance.  This time I'm not fighting anything until I have a full party.   Sucks that I have to meta game in this way.

 

If you don't like getting kilt, reloading, and coming back later, I would suggest this is not the game for you. The bear is just the first of many dark corners with something waiting to bite your head off.

[Hellraiser789]

.....in what game is it EVER a good idea to solo ANYTHING from a low level without getting some experience first? I think, in general, any game that has party based combat the first thing you do is look for more companions. The LAST thing you want to do is fight 1v1 against ANYTHING if you are trying not to die. Strength in numbers, right? Thats not metagaming, that just common sense, no matter how strong the enemy. H***, even in Skyrim you usually died a couple times before you got a feel for the general level of stuff and what to avoid.....the occasional bandit criting you, the random dragon spawns, the Spriggans, the saber tooth tigers, the bears...h*** just about anything that you fought for the first had a chance to kill you if you werent aware and cautious of your surroundings. Thats, what, like RPG 101 stuff. And, yeah, cant recommend soloing first time through - just doesn't make a lot of sense RP-wise (and I don't really RP that much), regardless of whether you "know" the wilderness or have survival techniques or anything really. Fact is, you dont know the surroundings and wandering around by yourself (even with a bear companion) is probably not the best idea....

 

Call it metagaming if you want, I call it common sense.

Edited April 2, 2015 by Hellraiser789

[waretaringo]

reload-itis is something all tactical games suffer from to greater or lesser extent.

a lot of people will redo an entire battle in Fire Emblem if they just get a level-up they don't like, or in X-Com if they lose one damn soldier they cared about.

IE-style games at least have fast-paced combat and a higher degree of immersion than most tactics games to encourage you to just keep playing whatever happens

[Hellraiser789]

reload-itis is something all tactical games suffer from to greater or lesser extent.

a lot of people will redo an entire battle in Fire Emblem if they just get a level-up they don't like, or in X-Com if they lose one damn soldier they cared about.

IE-style games at least have fast-paced combat and a higher degree of immersion than most tactics games to encourage you to just keep playing whatever happens

 

O Fire Emblem was great. But yeah, I was one of those people who could never lose a character. Not a single one. I'd reload it over and over until I got it right. Immersion-breaking, maybe. Frustrating - definitely. But I just hated it when they died. Then again, I also remember playing Halo and trying to save all the marines...one time I even blocked them off in a cave on a level...I was devastated when I came back and found them all dead, slaughtered and blown apart by a hunter that had spawned nearby....that was awful. Eventually I gave up though, cuz lets be honest - those guys were useless and got themselves killed all the time (Plus they were pretty much scripted to die anyway so...kinda fighting a pointless cause trying to keep them alive...)

[Stratosj]

 

wait are the killer bears that everyone is whining about, the ones in the cave above Gilded Vale

 

Are you kidding me

 

 

Those bears are a piece of cake on hard

Solo, straight out of the caravan? I don't believe you.

Possible with a cipher on hard, go have fun ^^

[Katarack21]

I took down everything in the Valewood with nobody in my party except my PC (a power-based damage dealer), Eder, and Aloth--and it was easy.

I am playing on normal, though, not hard.

Edited April 2, 2015 by Katarack21

[Hiro Protagonist II]

I take it people who have always had a problem with these similar 'sucker punches' from the IE games, that's been brought up time and again over the last two years of development on these forums and didn't want to see them in PoE, now like them in PoE since the game has been released, have changed their minds and also like these similar 'sucker punches' in the IE games?

[Rosveen]

 

 

wait are the killer bears that everyone is whining about, the ones in the cave above Gilded Vale

 

Are you kidding me

 

 

Those bears are a piece of cake on hard

Solo, straight out of the caravan? I don't believe you.

Possible with a cipher on hard, go have fun ^^

I can easily accept it's possible, but I'm still not convinced it's a piece of cake as Urthor claimed. Certainly not enough to condescendingly comment on other people's problems with them.

[Urthor]

Well I just didn't think anyone was stupid enough to run into a cave to do optional content while playing with one character, in a game designed to be played with 6 party members not one.

 

Apparently this is not so

Edited April 2, 2015 by Urthor

[Katarack21]

Well I just didn't think anyone was stupid enough to run into a cave to do optional content while playing with one character, in a game designed to be played with 6 party members not one.

 

Apparently this is not so

"Me and my wizard self, so badass. Spells and ****. I'm gonna go kill this bear! I don't care if I've got no armor and about 10 hitpoints, I'm the PC and I'm a badass!"

 

*mauls* *screams* *dies*

 

"This game is to hard! It sucks!"

[Monte Carlo]

I think the OP might be a fairly skilful troll. If he is, bravo.

[Urthor]

"Me and my wizard self, so badass. Spells and ****. I'm gonna go kill this bear! I don't care if I've got no armor and about 10 hitpoints, I'm the PC and I'm a badass!"

 

*mauls* *screams* *dies*

 

"This game is to hard! It sucks!"

 

Severely tempted to roll a Wizard on PotD just to show these kids how its done

Edited April 2, 2015 by Urthor

[PrimeJunta]

I take it people who have always had a problem with these similar 'sucker punches' from the IE games, that's been brought up time and again over the last two years of development on these forums and didn't want to see them in PoE, now like them in PoE since the game has been released, have changed their minds and also like these similar 'sucker punches' in the IE games?

 

If that was for me, no, I don't like the sucker punches in BG2. Except by now I know where everything is so I don't get sucker punched anymore. 

 

Going out of my way to look for trouble and then getting my face pushed in is completely different than being actively approach by an NPC with a quest, accepting it, and finding that it's way out of your level. I never had a beef with the difficulty of BG2 quests, only with the way in which the game pushes them on you.

 

I still contend it would have been a far better game had the Chapter 2 content been spread out differently.

Edited April 2, 2015 by PrimeJunta

[Rosveen]

Well I just didn't think anyone was stupid enough to run into a cave to do optional content while playing with one character, in a game designed to be played with 6 party members not one.

 

Apparently this is not so

Leaving the bears and coming back later was a no-brainer for me too, but after seeing so many people on this forum trying to kill it solo and then coming here to complain...

 

Actually, I lied. I knew I'd die, but I attacked it anyway just to see exactly how strong it was. It definitely met my expectations. :D I don't mind reloading to test stuff like that.

[Malignacious]

reload-itis is something all tactical games suffer from to greater or lesser extent.

 

Shadowrun is the worst at this:

80% hit chance -- miss

90% hit chance -- miss

95% hit chance -- miss

 

This happens consecutively. They need a completely new combat system.

 

Reloading frequently can really destroy the enjoyment of the whole game.

[Eurhetemec]

 

Well I just didn't think anyone was stupid enough to run into a cave to do optional content while playing with one character, in a game designed to be played with 6 party members not one.

 

Apparently this is not so

"Me and my wizard self, so badass. Spells and ****. I'm gonna go kill this bear! I don't care if I've got no armor and about 10 hitpoints, I'm the PC and I'm a badass!"

 

*mauls* *screams* *dies*

 

"This game is to hard! It sucks!"

 

 

I remember a 1st level AD&D party once nearly destroyed a badger... you'd think people would learn!

 

(I saw the bear and ran a mile, as I may have said!)

[Katarack21]

 

 

Well I just didn't think anyone was stupid enough to run into a cave to do optional content while playing with one character, in a game designed to be played with 6 party members not one.

 

Apparently this is not so

"Me and my wizard self, so badass. Spells and ****. I'm gonna go kill this bear! I don't care if I've got no armor and about 10 hitpoints, I'm the PC and I'm a badass!"

 

*mauls* *screams* *dies*

 

"This game is to hard! It sucks!"

 

 

I remember a 1st level AD&D party once nearly destroyed a badger... you'd think people would learn!

 

(I saw the bear and ran a mile, as I may have said!)

 

I once played a level 1 Sorcerer who was nearly taken out by a squirrel.

 

Ended up being one of my favorite characters of all time. See, they were a powerful in-born magic user but also dumb as a brick...he thought all forms of magic wer just more and more advanced control of the level 0 cantrip Prestidigitation.

[DocDoomII]

If you die, just reload and come back later.

 

Obsidian are the masters of creating imbalanced games that force the player to cheat and metagame.

I'm sorry, if you want level scaling enemies you can choose any other game.

This kind of games do not scale enemies to your level.

[Hellraiser789]

 

 

Well I just didn't think anyone was stupid enough to run into a cave to do optional content while playing with one character, in a game designed to be played with 6 party members not one.

 

Apparently this is not so

"Me and my wizard self, so badass. Spells and ****. I'm gonna go kill this bear! I don't care if I've got no armor and about 10 hitpoints, I'm the PC and I'm a badass!"

 

*mauls* *screams* *dies*

 

"This game is to hard! It sucks!"

 

 

I remember a 1st level AD&D party once nearly destroyed a badger... you'd think people would learn!

 

(I saw the bear and ran a mile, as I may have said!)

 

 

Anybody remember that noob party of adventurers that broke into a mage's lair, got attacked by floating eyeballs, and ended up as petrified statues? (Abazigail's lair in ToB, I believe). Then they end up stealing the wizard's pantaloons or something? For some reason, this conversation made me recall that....