EI Mod and my opinions

[Sensuki]

And the lack of attacks of opportunity makes the IE games poor simulations.  They have a completely artificial set of rules that have been put on a pedestal to be worshiped uncritically.  I'm playing parallel games of IWD2 (hard) and PoE (PoTD).  They're both fun.  The IE pathfinding is truly awful - as in, send critical party members or opponents completely the wrong way awful.  PoE is light years better.

That's funny because I find the combat pathfinding in all of the Infinity Engine games WAY better than Pillars of Eternity. Make sure to set your path search nodes to 40,000 in the IE games.

 

If you fight opponents in an open room, as opposed to blocking them in a doorway, they *do* target backfield players.  Archers target wizards.  Fampyrs target backfield players.

Yeah and this is dumb AI that is easy to get around too. Some target low DR so you can just wear heavier armor to switch targeting. Some target low Deflection, so what you do is run the character they are targeting around while everyone else attacks them ... lul so ez.

 

If I have a critique on the engagement system, it's that the AI should be able to use tools to break it.  Things like this would do a *lot* more to up the difficulty of the game than amateur game redesigning and fussing with the experience level curve.

The engagement system is so broken that if the AI did try to break it, this would happen.

 

[ComplyOrDie]

That's a very pessimistic view, it would not be difficult to script so if the enemy isn't engaged, it changes target, if it is suddenly re-engaged, stop moving immediately.  The goal should be for a non abusive player to be able to get difficulty and enjoyment out of the combat (though potential abuses should definitely be minimised - see the mod I posted above "better calls for help" for example). There are abuses in every game such as Monster Summoning Wands mentioned above.

Edited April 12, 2015 by ComplyOrDie

[Sensuki]

That's a very pessimistic view, it would not be difficult to script so if the enemy isn't engaged, it changes target, if it is suddenly re-engaged, stop moving immediately.

This is actually what happens, kinda. The problem is Engagement range is a circle. When units are engaged they target their engager with an attack. If they're melee they need to move in range. Sometimes units still need to move to attack, even if only a few pixels and this procs a disengagement attack.

 

Even enemies running straight at me die from disengagement attacks all the time because their selection circle clips the edge of the engagement circle of my character and they have to move closer to attack. This happens more often for units with larger selection circles.

 

The No Engagement mod doesn't remove the Engagement AI, just the disengagement attacks - so you can create your frontline but not suffer the bullsh1t attacks just because you step to the side.

Edited April 12, 2015 by Sensuki

[Emc2]

I can't say I disagree with Sensuki because it is essentially just a matter of preference. I agree that engagement system makes the combat too static (discussed in many threads) and currently the strategy options are very limited. There are some tricks you can use in some encounters but if I look back at the last 5 encounters I had, I used pretty much the same spells in the same order in each one with only one exception. The positioning was pretty much the same too. BG1 had the same problem, but that was mostly due to the limited options in the ability department.

 

I can't say I'm not enjoying the game and combat. I am enjoying it a lot, I just see many flaws and no ways to fix them without heavy combat system rework. Most of them are listed here so I'm not going to bother saying them again. The AI is a problem, too heavy focus on pre-planning, discourages glass-cannons (which might not be a flaw for some). Most of these are caused by the engagement system and damage calculations. The overly simple DR system just doesn't work IMO.

 

Judging from Sensuki's preferences, I'm pretty sure he plays either LoL or Dota(2) (nothing wrong with that). I'd like to see CRPG combat done in a similar way TBH.

[Blucher]

We both gave up because we don't find the game very fun to play.

 

I enjoy the Infinity Engine games (other than PST) for the tactical rts-style combat. Combat in Pillars of Eternity isn't very tactical at all, it's like 50% positioning, 45% strategy, 5% tactics and after level 4 you can rinse and repeat the same strategy almost every single encounter without having to even react to enemy actions, because there's nothing that forces you to change what you're doing.

 

Even with Engagement and movement recovery slow fixed, it's still not that fun. Encounter design is very copy paste, itemization/loot is poor to abysmal and while the environment art is for the most part pretty great, areas aren't really that fun to explore.

 

Poor combat is however, par for the course for an Obsidian game and I would have continued playing had I enjoyed the writing/story but quite frankly I didn't really, I liked the prologue reveal but I found that the pacing and player motivation to be very disjointed, Act 2 was a huuuge letdown and I got sick of all the forced lore dumps and dry as a desert writing style. The companions were also quite disappointing for the most part - I liked Chris Avellone's characters though, they at least actually had a personality. Can't even think of a memorable secondary character either.

 

I did like some of the story stuff, like the soul detective type stuff - that was pretty cool, although I think more could have been done with it.

 

I stopped during Act 3, and from what I've read the game goes downhill from here, and the antagonist isn't very compelling and the final battle isn't even as good as the BG1 battle vs Sarevok

 

I like a few things about the game - the art is good, some of the new ui features are nice and the character system has lots of custimization/choice.

 

Might give it another go somewhere down the line, but yeah, I'd rather just leave it and accept that the game was not made for people like me, but more for people who may have liked the Infinity Engine games, but disliked the combat.

 

(I'll reference BG2, since I consider that to be the very best of the IE games.)

 

BG2 combat was FUN.  Yes, it was over-the-top, crazy, horribly broken, abusable, etc. etc.  But still fun.

 

I was a long-time vet of AD&D(2) and I still got my arse handed to me in BG2 at first.  The game was challenging.  Then I learned, and I could face-roll my way through just about everything with a decent party and some meta-knowledge.  So I made less than optimal parties, and that was somewhat difficult for awhile.  Then I moved on to soloing the game, same thing.  Then Solo-no-reload (or Solo Ironman), and that is *still* crazy difficult (and fun) to this very day!  And that isn't counting all of the mods you could throw into the mix.

 

The combat in PoE just seems to be missing something to me.  The spells, abilities, and items, are all underwhelming.  It's a well crafted system (it's not easy making an RPG system from scratch), but maybe it's a little too well crafted.  Almost too balanced and bland?

[Sensuki]

Judging from Sensuki's preferences, I'm pretty sure he plays either LoL or Dota(2) (nothing wrong with that). I'd like to see CRPG combat done in a similar way TBH.

DotA 2. You could try Aarklash Legacy. It's a party-based MOBA/MMO style RPG. It's main problem is because heroes only have four abilities and it's an MMO HP slog/regen fight and it becomes repetitive just trying to deal DPS/disable as fast as possible but it's a really slick game. Great UI, awesome performance, really well programmed and feels right at home.

 

Edited April 12, 2015 by Sensuki

[Ohioastro]

 

And the lack of attacks of opportunity makes the IE games poor simulations.  They have a completely artificial set of rules that have been put on a pedestal to be worshiped uncritically.  I'm playing parallel games of IWD2 (hard) and PoE (PoTD).  They're both fun.  The IE pathfinding is truly awful - as in, send critical party members or opponents completely the wrong way awful.  PoE is light years better.

That's funny because I find the combat pathfinding in all of the Infinity Engine games WAY better than Pillars of Eternity. Make sure to set your path search nodes to 40,000 in the IE games.

 

If you fight opponents in an open room, as opposed to blocking them in a doorway, they *do* target backfield players.  Archers target wizards.  Fampyrs target backfield players.

Yeah and this is dumb AI that is easy to get around too. Some target low DR so you can just wear heavier armor to switch targeting. Some target low Deflection, so what you do is run the character they are targeting around while everyone else attacks them ... lul so ez.

 

If I have a critique on the engagement system, it's that the AI should be able to use tools to break it.  Things like this would do a *lot* more to up the difficulty of the game than amateur game redesigning and fussing with the experience level curve.

The engagement system is so broken that if the AI did try to break it, this would happen.

 

 

 

 

You really are fond of the old systems, and that's your right.  This thread spurred me to do a side-by-side, as opposed to a nostalgia run.  After doing so I just can't agree with your assessments.  Every criticism laid at PoE applies to the IE games. In the IE games I can manipulate the AI and I can metagame the encounters to make them simple to deal with.  Single spells like Entangle or Web are massively overpowered (far more so than things like Slicken that upset people here so much).  Archery is crazy strong in IWD.

 

The main difference is that IWD is a linear ride and as a result the encounters are tuned to your character level; the net result is a tight series of tactical fights that are fun.  BG, by contrast, was much easier to trivialize - as is any other open world game.  That's just the nature of the beast.  To be clear, I enjoy all of them.

 

I suspect that the difference between us is that I'm not trying to play PoE as if it is something else, but rather taking it on its own terms.  When I play IWD I don't focus on the quality of the story because that's not the focus - it's a dungeon crawl.  Playing PoE and always comparing it to another game, rating it according to how close it is, will only cause problems.

 

And there are a *ton* of quality of life improvements in PoE.  I don't miss the inventory nonsense, the poor pathing, fiddling with stacks of arrows and other consumables, stuffing and sorting things in barrels, the various "save, try, reload" annoyances with things like memorizing spells.  Or the baroque complexities of the class systems, the way that you can drive yourself down dead ends without realizing it (oops!  I had to have a 10 spellcraft to get the fire damage boost, even though it's useless to me), the min/maxing of the stats (set char=3 and int = 3 for almost all characters without consequences, everything else is maxxed, go me...)  The dialog trees are far, far more subtle and interlocking than IWD. 

 

The games are simply different ones.  But the game that answers all of the criticisms leveled at PoE doesn't exist. 

[Sensuki]

You can't use Entangle and Web every encounter in the Infinity Engine games, they're per-rest spells. You can if you rest spam, but you're not supposed to rest spam.

 

One of the things the Infinity Engine games have that Pillars of Eternity lacks is strategical management of resources (if you're not cheesing the game by rest spamming with the Rest Anywhere mod etc, which I don't do).

 

I talked about that in my thread here: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/quickfire-systemic-criticism-that-contributes-to-banality-of-gameplay.98429/

 

The Infinity Engine games have better combat pathfinding than Pillars of Eternity with path search nodes 40,000. I prefer limited inventories (but I don't give a **** about item weight). There are great mods for the IE games that make consumables/arrows highly stackable and I enjoy different types of ammunition. Even when I forgot to memorize new spells I never found it a problem. I never made mistakes when making characters, although I agree that Pillars of Eternity has a better character system. I prefer the 2E AD&D games to IWD2 (3E). Pillars of Eternity's attribute system has it's own issues. Yeah you can't stuff yourself up like you can in D&D, but attributes in turn have little impact on characters as a whole and builds are very polarized anyway.

 

My post on the Codex explains most of my issues with the combat in detail, so there's no point repeating them here.

Edited April 12, 2015 by Sensuki

[Tartantyco]

You can't use Entangle and Web every encounter in the Infinity Engine games, they're per-rest spells. You can if you rest spam, but you're not supposed to rest spam.

 

lol

[Jasta11]

 

and tough fights do force you to react or come up with strategies.

 

Nope. Tank & Spank pwns all.

 

 

I've had bosses steamroll me when I tried simple tank and spank, on Hard. Only after a few retires and coming up with better positioning, preparation and strategy could I manage to beat them. Several early encounters also forced me to blow my entire spell load in panic after being overwhelmed. Maybe I'm a simpleton or whatever, but in my experience, no, tank and spank definitely doesn't beat all. I didn't min-mx either.

 

That's still more strategy than I ever employed in most fights of BG2, where I mostly right-clicked on the biggest menace and maybe cast one or two spells for comfort. The only time I ever had to change my routine was with 3-4 hard bosses (where I simply went all out with the spells and pre-buff), Illithids (stand in the back and summon stuff /yawn) and mages (try to remember which spells defeats the protections they instantly conjure on themselves, then right-click on them).

 

Overall I had far more fun playing PoE. That's my experience, and I personally wouldn't want Obsidian to try to emulate BG2 as close as possible. They have their own thing, it works overall, it still needs refinements of course but it's far from unsalvageable. 

 

Also @ Sensuki: I'm sorry, but I find that defense weak. You're ''not supposed'' to rest spam but you can do it, without consequence, in 90% of the areas where there are any fights worth resting. By that logic, you're ''not supposed'' to stealth + attack each fight in PoE. Which is something they should fix with individual stealth, if you ask me. But let's not pretend that IE games were any less exploitable than PoE. Quite the contrary in my experience.

Edited April 12, 2015 by Jasta11

[Namutree]

 

 

and tough fights do force you to react or come up with strategies.

 

Nope. Tank & Spank pwns all.

 

 

I've had bosses steamroll me when I tried simple tank and spank, on Hard.

Then you weren't Tanking & Spanking well. 

 

EDIT: I just want to make this clear. Despite how I talk about PoE's flaws; I really like the game. More than I expected. I obviously just don't mention what's been done right. Most of my gripes with PoE are similar to Sensuki's, but they bother him more than me.

Edited April 12, 2015 by Namutree

[Luckmann]

 

 

 

and tough fights do force you to react or come up with strategies.

 

Nope. Tank & Spank pwns all.

 

 

I've had bosses steamroll me when I tried simple tank and spank, on Hard.

The you weren't Tanking & Spanking well. 

 

EDIT: I just want to make this clear. Despite how I talk about PoE's flaws; I really like the game. More than I expected. I obviously just don't mention what's been done right. Most of my gripes with PoE are similar to Sensuki's, but they bother him more than me.

 

 

First, this. It's starting to feel ridiculous that I feel the need to preface criticism with this, but I do like the game as well, it's just.. flawed, in many ways. If we really thought it sucked ass, we would've just left by now.

 

Second, your avatar looks like Disney's Mulan to me when I see it resized in topic list of the forum.

Edited April 12, 2015 by Luckmann

[Sensuki]

Most of my gripes with PoE are similar to Sensuki's, but they bother him more than me.

ROI

[Hiro Protagonist II]

This thread spurred me to do a side-by-side, as opposed to a nostalgia run. Every criticism laid at PoE applies to the IE games. In the IE games I can manipulate the AI and I can metagame the encounters to make them simple to deal with.  

 

Archery is crazy strong in IWD.

 

The main difference is that IWD is a linear ride and as a result the encounters are tuned to your character level; the net result is a tight series of tactical fights that are fun. 

 

And there are a *ton* of quality of life improvements in PoE.  I don't miss the inventory nonsense, the poor pathing, fiddling with stacks of arrows and other consumables, stuffing and sorting things in barrels, the various "save, try, reload" annoyances with things like memorizing spells.  Or the baroque complexities of the class systems, the way that you can drive yourself down dead ends without realizing it (oops!  I had to have a 10 spellcraft to get the fire damage boost, even though it's useless to me), the min/maxing of the stats (set char=3 and int = 3 for almost all characters without consequences, everything else is maxxed, go me...)  The dialog trees are far, far more subtle and interlocking than IWD. 

 

ROFL.

 

I was playing IWD1 a week before PoE was released and will be going back to it in due course to finish it off. So I'm not playing from nostalgia but side by side. And I don't even have to meta-game the A.I. in PoE to know a lot of enemies will ignore my 5 character firing squad in open areas. I've just been to some open areas with drakes and they do the same thing with the screen shot of guls I posted in the previous page of this thread. They do the 'ring around the rosey' thing all the time. And if an enemy decides to go after my firing squad, I can have my characters run away and the enemy then turns back onto my tank.

 

Archery and ranged weapons is crazy strong in PoE too. In fact, the unlimited ammo allows me to tank and spank and walk away from my computer and make a cup of tea, knowing my characters won't drop, die or run out of ammo. It's even easier in PoE.

 

I would also argue the story in PoE is somewhat linear too. In fact, the quests seem to try and make you go to all the maps in the game. Go to Gilded vale and a quest makes you go to Raedric's Hold. Same with making you go to Caed Nua and various other maps. Something, BG1 didn't do.

 

There is min-maxing in PoE. Even moreso than the IE games. My Rogue that I'm playing is min-maxed and I was min-maxing throughout the beta. PoE introduced many (unintentional) exploits that didn't even exist in the IE games.

[Ohioastro]

You can't use Entangle and Web every encounter in the Infinity Engine games, they're per-rest spells. You can if you rest spam, but you're not supposed to rest spam.

 

One of the things the Infinity Engine games have that Pillars of Eternity lacks is strategical management of resources (if you're not cheesing the game by rest spamming with the Rest Anywhere mod etc, which I don't do).

 

I talked about that in my thread here: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/quickfire-systemic-criticism-that-contributes-to-banality-of-gameplay.98429/

 

The Infinity Engine games have better combat pathfinding than Pillars of Eternity with path search nodes 40,000. I prefer limited inventories (but I don't give a **** about item weight). There are great mods for the IE games that make consumables/arrows highly stackable and I enjoy different types of ammunition. Even when I forgot to memorize new spells I never found it a problem. I never made mistakes when making characters, although I agree that Pillars of Eternity has a better character system. I prefer the 2E AD&D games to IWD2 (3E). Pillars of Eternity's attribute system has it's own issues. Yeah you can't stuff yourself up like you can in D&D, but attributes in turn have little impact on characters as a whole and builds are very polarized anyway.

 

My post on the Codex explains most of my issues with the combat in detail, so there's no point repeating them here.

 

 

That's hilarious - you have two parallel systems that permit resting at will with no consequences, at worst just backtracking to somewhere safe...and they're different because.

[Sensuki]

@Hiro

Yeah I'm currently playing Baldur's Gate 1. Even in trash encounters, I'm quaffing potions and making tactical movements that I never make in Pillars of Eternity simply because I have to (react to enemy actions).

I'm using an archer instead of a Sword/Shield for the first time in years, and my character is way more effective at some encounters, but less effective in others. I actually had trouble with Narcillicus and his Mustard Jellies this time, because of this.

I could take down Narcillicus just fine (Mage) but it was more difficult for me to kill the Mustard Jellies because I didn't have my PC with 18/xx STR and the Longsword +2 from Greywolf, I had a Composite Long Bow and a Bastard Sword +1 instead, and Shar-Teel was not as effective as the PC I usually create and the Mustard Jellies kept killing Shar-Teel in two hits, forcing me to reload (didn't have any Remove Poison spells, Branwen hadn't rested to memorize them).

I only had level 3 characters, only a few magic weapons and I was hurt from clearing the rest of the area (this was the last encounter). I wanted to win it before resting, and it took a few tries with different strategies and tactics (Mustard Jellies are immune to normal weapons and all missile weapons).

Pillars of Eternity doesn't really have these kind of resource management problems with Health because of the way the Health system works. It doesn't have immunities. It doesn't force you to drastically change your approach to hardly anything, only to optimize it. The design pretty much fully prevents you from having fun this way.

And this is Baldur's Gate 1, the first Infinity Engine game.
 

That's hilarious - you have two parallel systems that permit resting at will with no consequences, at worst just backtracking to somewhere safe...and they're different because.

So, you're a rest spam abuser are you?

Edited April 12, 2015 by Sensuki

[Ohioastro]

In both games I rest when I run out of spells or when the characters are banged up; they're identical.  Usually a few well-chosen spells, in both games, are sufficient to turn trash mob battles.  In both games, you rest before main encounters and throw everything at the wall.  In both games some spells are a lot more powerful than others.

 

Are we supposed to play these games by charging into battles with no resources or hit points?  If you want an example of a game where there is no "rest abuse" you play a game where there isn't any resting, like the Thief or Dishonored games.  Of course, this usually coincides with cooldown abilities rather than ones that require resting to recharge.

 

I don't even know what "rest abusing" is.  You have resources, you use them until you run out, you rest.  If you mess up on a battle you get banged up and rest more.  If you mess up less, you go further.  I just don't see a difference between these games.

[Sensuki]

Also @ Sensuki: I'm sorry, but I find that defense weak. You're ''not supposed'' to rest spam but you can do it, without consequence, in 90% of the areas where there are any fights worth resting. By that logic, you're ''not supposed'' to stealth + attack each fight in PoE. Which is something they should fix with individual stealth, if you ask me. But let's not pretend that IE games were any less exploitable than PoE. Quite the contrary in my experience.

 

Oddly enough the Stealth system was created specifically to allow you to set up on encounters like this, by the lead designer's very own words. Are you trying to justify rest spamming?

 

Regardless, it doesn't make heaps of a difference because you use the same positioning and strategy versus most encounters anyway.

 

In both games I rest when I run out of spells or when the characters are banged up; they're identical.  Usually a few well-chosen spells, in both games, are sufficient to turn trash mob battles.  In both games, you rest before main encounters and throw everything at the wall.  In both games some spells are a lot more powerful than others.

Are we supposed to play these games by charging into battles with no resources or hit points?  If you want an example of a game where there is no "rest abuse" you play a game where there isn't any resting, like the Thief or Dishonored games.  Of course, this usually coincides with cooldown abilities rather than ones that require resting to recharge.

 

I don't even know what "rest abusing" is.  You have resources, you use them until you run out, you rest.  If you mess up on a battle you get banged up and rest more.  If you mess up less, you go further.  I just don't see a difference between these games.

 

Pillars of Eternity has way less strategical resource management than the Infinity Engine games because of the health system (you're usually *always* at full endurance for every encounter unless you're down to your last health multiplier) and per-encounter abilities. Also the Crafting system (can craft scrolls and potions on the spot ... not that you need either). Getting knocked out is also pretty meaningless (so much so that I reload if a character gets KO'd).

 

The same encounter I described before in Pillars of Eternity would be like this:

 

All of my characters are either at full endurance or close to full endurance. I have all of these per-encounter abilities to use. There is no immunity to weapons and I don't have to remove poison. I can just auto-attack those Mustard Jelly equivalents to death without any tactics whatsoever, ho hum.

 

If you want an example of a game where there is no "rest abuse"

 

Neither game has rest abuse if you don't use it. I have no idea why you're trying to justify the use of it because it takes away the strategical concern of every single encounter, thus requiring less tactical considerations because you don't have to work with limited resources. That's not fun at all.

Edited April 12, 2015 by Sensuki

[Yosharian]

I think there's merit to both systems.  Pillars has made some great changes, but also the BG series still has some superior elements.

 

Let's at least credit Obsidian for having a good try, and hope they improve on it in the next iteration.

[Sensuki]

That's still more strategy than I ever employed in most fights of BG2, where I mostly right-clicked on the biggest menace and maybe cast one or two spells for comfort. The only time I ever had to change my routine was with 3-4 hard bosses (where I simply went all out with the spells and pre-buff), Illithids (stand in the back and summon stuff /yawn) and mages (try to remember which spells defeats the protections they instantly conjure on themselves, then right-click on them).

There's more positional strategy. The IE games have more tactics involved as encounters are far more fluid. In your case with the Illithids you beat those encounters in the most boring/cheesy way possible. Why did you resort to summons? Because you couldn't beat them normally?

 

In my last playthrough I killed most of the Illithids with my Kensai and Minsc who only had 10 Intelligence and 6 Intelligence respectively, which is a problem, because Mind Flayers drain Intelligence and 0 Intelligence = Death.

 

I had to use potions of Mind Focusing and Potions of Genius to raise my Intelligence so I could tank them properly without dying, and swap between my Kensai and Minsc tanking alternatively (otherwise they'd die).

 

There's a spell (Chaotic Commands) that makes you immune to the intelligence drain I think, but I didn't have it memorized/didn't care to use it.

 

It was fun doing it the hard way.

Edited April 12, 2015 by Sensuki

[View619]

I think there's merit to both systems.  Pillars has made some great changes, but also the BG series still has some superior elements.

 

Let's at least credit Obsidian for having a good try, and hope they improve on it in the next iteration.

 

I would prefer that they make feasible improvements to the current iteration, which then carry over into the next. The system has great potential, but I would be much less likely to buy a POE2 or even expansion if the approach of the team is to abandon all tuning/tweaks with the excuse that it's to be expected initially, so deal with it.

 

As Luckmann and Namutree said previously, we wouldn't bother posting at all if we didn't think the game had merits. There's just no real point in discussing areas that were done well. 

Edited April 12, 2015 by View619

[Tartantyco]

You're just using examples where you handicap yourself in IE games vs. examples where you don't handicap yourself in PoE, while talking about cheesing and abusing because you shouldn't cheese and abuse while cheesing and abusing, Sensuki. I can only describe your argumentation for this thread as schizophrenic.

[PrimeJunta]

@Sensuki It's worth noting that the strategy you like to brag about (exploit AI targeting) doesn't work in all the IE games as the AI is different. In particular BG2 with ToB and all the EE's, which have much "stickier" targeting than classic IWD or BG2:SoA. Same as when you deflect criticism of pathfinding in the IE games by saying "Oh, just adjust the configuration to 40,000 whatsits per whatsit." 

 

IMO your systemic criticisms are not always entirely fair as they at least to an extent rely on niceties like this. Beating the illithids "fairly" for example -- I assume you're referring to your favorite AI targeting abuse dance -- requires a different technique depending on which BG2 variant you're playing (standard, with ToB, EE, which mods you have installed, possibly other things). I also find it borderline cheesy, as you're not actually beating the game based on its systems, but based on the specific way a particular facet of the system has been implemented (AI targeting). So IMO characterizing that as "beating them fairly" is ... well, not quite right.

 

So if you're calling us as "not liking RTwP" or "not liking the IE games" because, say, we didn't like the illithids or the beholders (and I still don't), I could accuse you of exactly the same thing because you don't want to play IWD in an engine that doesn't let you do your AI targeting abuse dance. Not liking a specific feature or specific fight or specific enemy or specific tactic does not equate to not liking the system.

 

 

I've beat the illithids in three different ways. With a backstabber: use a summon to pull them one by one, then backstab, then finish off with the rest of the party. By spamming summons (animate dead, invisible stalker, Mordenkainen's Sword). And by taking two front-line fighters, having them glug potions of genius, buffing them with Chaotic Commands, then pulling them one by one or two by two and beating them to death, pulling one of them back to recover if they get their brain eaten. I did not find any of these techniques all that much fun; also they got repetitive because there were so many identical illithid+umber hulk groups to fight. Not my favorite part of BG2. Is there a "fairer" way still to do this, other than AI targeting abuse which I do not consider fair?

 

[Namutree]

 

Most of my gripes with PoE are similar to Sensuki's, but they bother him more than me.

ROI

 

What does that stand for?

 

EDIT: Googled it. I shouldn't have even asked. Now I feel silly.

Edited April 12, 2015 by Namutree

[Sensuki]

You're just using examples where you handicap yourself in IE games vs. examples where you don't handicap yourself in PoE, while talking about cheesing and abusing because you shouldn't cheese and abuse while cheesing and abusing, Sensuki. I can only describe your argumentation for this thread as schizophrenic.

Nope. You probably just rest spam.

 

It's very difficult to even get lots of party members down to their last health multiplier or run out of per-rest resources before you encounter Major Fatigue, at which point there's not much point trying to fight anything as you won't be able to hit anyone. You'd have to deliberately play badly just to do that.

 

@Sensuki It's worth noting that the strategy you like to brag about (exploit AI targeting) doesn't work in all the IE games as the AI is different.

Yeah it does man, it works in every single game. I haven't played the EEs so I don't know what they've done if they've done anything to the game in that regard.

 

In particular BG2 with ToB and all the EE's, which have much "stickier" targeting than classic IWD or BG2:SoA.

ToB AI isn't that sticky? I've got a ToB save on my PC. No problem keeping Modded Harder Yaga-Shura on my highest AC character, etc etc.

 

Same as when you deflect criticism of pathfinding in the IE games by saying "Oh, just adjust the configuration to 40,000 whatsits per whatsit."

What does that have to do with targeting AI. There is one problem with the pathfinding in the IE games in combat and that's that units *can* get stuck on the edge of another unit's selection circle. It's easy to correct though. Pillars of Eternity's is majorly screwed up to the point where you can have an entire line of enemies standing there doing nothing when there is *clearly* enough space for them to move.

 

IMO your systemic criticisms are not always entirely fair as they at least to an extent rely on niceties like this. Beating the illithids "fairly" for example -- I assume you're referring to your favorite AI targeting abuse dance -- requires a different technique depending on which BG2 variant you're playing (standard, with ToB, EE, which mods you have installed, possibly other things). I also find it borderline cheesy, as you're not actually beating the game based on its systems, but based on the specific way a particular facet of the system has been implemented (AI targeting). So IMO characterizing that as "beating them fairly" is ... well, not quite right.

That example doesn't have anything to do with the targeting AI, you just leave the rest of your party in the other room because Illithids can dominate, so if your Kensai gets dominated it becomes a liability to the rest of the party. You just send in one guy and use the narrow corridors to your advantage. You can't play like that in Pillars of Eternity, but stat drain isn't a life or death situation in Pillars of Eternity, let alone even a big deal.

 

So if you're calling us as "not liking RTwP" or "not liking the IE games" because, say, we didn't like the illithids or the beholders (and I still don't), I could accuse you of exactly the same thing because you don't want to play IWD in an engine that doesn't let you do your AI targeting abuse dance. Not liking a specific feature or specific fight or specific enemy or specific tactic does not equate to not liking the system.

What engine? I don't use the EEs because they're inferior in many ways, and if I did, I bet I'd be able to control enemy targeting easily.

 

 

I've beat the illithids in three different ways. With a backstabber: use a summon to pull them one by one, then backstab, then finish off with the rest of the party. By spamming summons (animate dead, invisible stalker, Mordenkainen's Sword). And by taking two front-line fighters, having them glug potions of genius, buffing them with Chaotic Commands, then pulling them one by one or two by two and beating them to death, pulling one of them back to recover if they get their brain eaten. I did not find any of these techniques all that much fun; also they got repetitive because there were so many identical illithid+umber hulk groups to fight. Not my favorite part of BG2. Is there a "fairer" way still to do this, other than AI targeting abuse which I do not consider fair?

 

That's one of the cool things about BG2 is there are many very different ways to tackle encounters.

 

The way I listed hasn't got crap all to do with targeting AI, you just have to be clever with how many characters you take at once, have to manage their intelligence drain and stuff like that.

 

There's probably a few other ways to beat them, Stun would probably be the best person here to answer that question.

 

I don't believe you're supposed to fight Mind Flayers the traditional way, that's one of the cool things about them IMO. They require "something completely different".

Edited April 12, 2015 by Sensuki