EI Mod and my opinions

[Nerdwing]

 

Nerdwing, on 13 Apr 2015 - 01:35 AM, said:

 

Malekith, on 13 Apr 2015 - 01:31 AM, said:

No one cares if you rest spam or no. But rest after every encounter AND complaining that IE games were too easy/had unbalanced spells is idiotic.

And yet it was doable.  People just opted not to do it.

 

Of cource it was doable. Your point is? The spells weren't balanced for you to use them in every fight, and that was clear in most people minds.(people with functioning minds at least).

Yes, it was very easy to sidestep the restriction, abuse the system. So what? If someone didn't make the correlation between :game too easy->spamming 3 dragon's breath in every encounter, chances are he was to dumb to win otherwise and should be thankfull that the BG2 devs allowed for an ingame easy/cheat mode.

 

So it was the devs giving a freebie to less-autistic players and not them using what was an easily exploitable system that was easily exploited?  

 

Holy ****, take off your nostalgia goggles.   This is absurd.

[Nerdwing]

"PoE is too exploitable for my taste" he says, doing yet another solo run of BGII before rolling a d20 to determine if he's going to take his meds that night

[Malekith]

Nerdwing, on 13 Apr 2015 - 01:45 AM, said:Nerdwing, on 13 Apr 2015 - 01:45 AM, said:

 

Malekith, on 13 Apr 2015 - 01:41 AM, said:Malekith, on 13 Apr 2015 - 01:41 AM, said:

 

Nerdwing, on 13 Apr 2015 - 01:35 AM, said:Nerdwing, on 13 Apr 2015 - 01:35 AM, said:Nerdwing, on 13 Apr 2015 - 01:35 AM, said:

 

Malekith, on 13 Apr 2015 - 01:31 AM, said:Malekith, on 13 Apr 2015 - 01:31 AM, said:Malekith, on 13 Apr 2015 - 01:31 AM, said:

No one cares if you rest spam or no. But rest after every encounter AND complaining that IE games were too easy/had unbalanced spells is idiotic.

And yet it was doable.  People just opted not to do it.

 

Of cource it was doable. Your point is? The spells weren't balanced for you to use them in every fight, and that was clear in most people minds.(people with functioning minds at least).

Yes, it was very easy to sidestep the restriction, abuse the system. So what? If someone didn't make the correlation between :game too easy->spamming 3 dragon's breath in every encounter, chances are he was to dumb to win otherwise and should be thankfull that the BG2 devs allowed for an ingame easy/cheat mode.

 

So it was the devs giving a freebie to less-autistic players and not them using what was an easily exploitable system that was easily exploited?  

 

Holy ****, take off your nostalgia goggles.   This is absurd.

 

No, it was an exploit, and IE games were easily exploitable. So is PoE in a different way. What of it?

Read my above post. PoE main problem isn't that the game is exploitable.

Edited April 12, 2015 by Malekith

[Bulivyf]

 

Nerdwing, on 13 Apr 2015 - 01:45 AM, said:

 

Malekith, on 13 Apr 2015 - 01:41 AM, said:

 

Nerdwing, on 13 Apr 2015 - 01:35 AM, said:Nerdwing, on 13 Apr 2015 - 01:35 AM, said:

 

Malekith, on 13 Apr 2015 - 01:31 AM, said:Malekith, on 13 Apr 2015 - 01:31 AM, said:

No one cares if you rest spam or no. But rest after every encounter AND complaining that IE games were too easy/had unbalanced spells is idiotic.

And yet it was doable.  People just opted not to do it.

 

Of cource it was doable. Your point is? The spells weren't balanced for you to use them in every fight, and that was clear in most people minds.(people with functioning minds at least).

Yes, it was very easy to sidestep the restriction, abuse the system. So what? If someone didn't make the correlation between :game too easy->spamming 3 dragon's breath in every encounter, chances are he was to dumb to win otherwise and should be thankfull that the BG2 devs allowed for an ingame easy/cheat mode.

 

So it was the devs giving a freebie to less-autistic players and not them using what was an easily exploitable system that was easily exploited?  

 

Holy ****, take off your nostalgia goggles.   This is absurd.

 

No, it was an exploit, and IE games were easily exploitable. So is PoE in a different way. What of it?

 

[Varana]

Edit: Delete.

Edited April 12, 2015 by Varana

[Bulivyf]

 

 

 

 

I don't drink alcohol

 

 

 

 

And there it is.    You just listed several enemies that require different strategies.  But it's not really about that, it's just about the incredibly cheesy high apm single-player dota movement dance.  Which no, you can't do in this game.  Because it's unrealistic, abuses enemy targeting in a way that no AI programmer could fix, and is incredibly limited to a small subset of players.  The game just doesn't cater to your personal preferences no matter how many times you tried pushing the developers or bitching on the codex.

 

Do you think combat could be more fun / satisfying If the game, still has the engagement system but mönsters have different ( for real) immunutes, abilities and suchas..? I agree sometimes combat is so not satisflying your imersion breaks from the story, after some time therefor I'm trying more stupidly challanging ways to play. Which is sad beause I love the books and all the lore is wasting at this plain combat.

 

 

 

Yea, I am just bowing out.  In the end, some people can't accept that other people have a point, and Sensuki is one of them.  There is a reason why I, and a lot of other vets, don't hang out at the Codex - because you have people trying to win arguments rather than having discussions.  I like IWD; I like BG; I like PoE.  Other people have different tastes.  Vive la differance and all that!

 

 

Why do you keep posting Wu-Tang pictures???

[Nerdwing]

Yeah what the hell is with that?

[Shadow_Arms]

ahhh now i understood

 

the thing is

 

-Spamrest works only on easy and normal, and isn't a exploit(unless you are a dirty cheater that uses the console), PoTD and Hard is impossible, so you need more strategy instead of going full D2 barb dual wieding 2 greatswords against mobs, as you can do it on easy and normal

 

-Everyone spams and abuses rest because

• Damnable Shades on POTD or any level
• Vampires with their eternal hate against Wizards(ok obsidian we got the old joke of "kill the one with the robes 1st" but this is ridiculous and he need more AI) and the party wiping charm that passes through prayer against treason buff
• More Shades and Phantoms
• Druids and Ogre Druids wiping your party before you even move
• Armor and character resistance rating needs a rebalance
• Shades, cean gwla ignoring everything even anti dazing and petrify blessings
• Did i said Shades?

the game itself still needs to be refined, its still a Coal being cut to become a Diamond, BG1 was a hellhole of bugs, combat and broken %, until BG2 came up and fixed everything Including Irenicus fight thanks to mods and EE

 

the New Shadowrun was the Same, Returns was bad at the beginning, Dragonfall Refined it, and Director's cut became the Crown Jewel with all fixed and updated mechanics from his former predecessors, and Director's cut is Awesome.

 

Pillars still has a long road to walk with, it was born already as a refined IE game with a Great combat mechanic and great story, its been 1 month since it was released, and its early yet to make a final decision of it, we are on the 1.4 patch and it will take a time until all bugs are addressed for the 1.5 big balance and updated patch, thus there's still the problem that new bugs will show up, its somthing that we must live on

 

Say that "NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE im not going to play this **** anymore because i cant xploit it like muh bg2", is ridiculous, its like saying that you are not going to play Ultimate doom because there's no SSG on it to kill the cyberdemon in 15 shots or the damnable spider in 10, it will take some time until the game itself is fully refined, also playing using exploits its ridiculous its kills the fun of it.

 

And Pillars doesn't even have a Mod tools yet to be worked on yet =(

Edited April 12, 2015 by Shadow_Arms

[View619]

Why the Wu-Tang pictures? O.o

 

@Shadow_arms

For the record, hard mode is not even close to being difficult. Maybe key points in Act 1, but after that it's a cake walk. Regarding people dropping POE, not everybody is going to like it. Honestly, having a handful of people dislike it for xyz reasons should mean nothing to you if you find something to enjoy yourself.

 

It's not about the exploits, some people just do not think it's fun. It's not a game meant for everybody, unfortunately.

Edited April 12, 2015 by View619

[Namutree]

 

Why do you keep posting Wu-Tang pictures???

 

Because Wu Tang Clan ain't nuthing ta f*ck wit.

 

The real question is, why don't we all post Wu Tang Clan pictures?

[Valsuelm]

 

 

Why do you keep posting Wu-Tang pictures???

 

Because Wu Tang Clan ain't nuthing ta f*ck wit.

 

The real question is, why don't we all post Wu Tang Clan pictures?

 

 

No, please. This thread's page just got spammed with enough crap.

 

Nothing against Wu-Tang specifically, but they have nothing to do with the topic at hand. Go make a Wu-Tang lovefest thread in WOT if you want.

[Nerdwing]

 

 

 

Why do you keep posting Wu-Tang pictures???

 

Because Wu Tang Clan ain't nuthing ta f*ck wit.

 

The real question is, why don't we all post Wu Tang Clan pictures?

 

 

No, please. This thread's page just got spammed with enough crap.

 

Nothing against Wu-Tang specifically, but they have nothing to do with the topic at hand. Go make a Wu-Tang lovefest thread in WOT if you want.

 

Booooooo

 

 

Get off the stage

 

Booooooo!

 

This guy stinks!

 

Toss him to the hounds!

Edited April 13, 2015 by Nerdwing

[CynicalP]

I don't understand what superior tactics IE games over POE. In IE there were just three forms of attacks: melee auto attack, range auto attacks and spells/scrolls/items. With the spells system the only available attack that allowed for player choice.  Here was my three main strategies I used thru out the IE games.

 

  1) select all auto attack group and allow AI script to clean up .  What target I selected depended on threat. Caster were first, followed by range then finally melee targets .  Once I got Haste I spam haste my fighters and archers.  

 

2) Once my fighter/thief character was of  sufficient level I would stealth gibbed everything run hit and run attacks,, Stealth run in backstab then run away stealth again.

 

3) Personal favorite,  With a stealth spotter,  send either summoned canon fodder  then take my Wizard and throw some fireballs  or cloudkill . Rinse and repeat.

[Namutree]

 In IE there were just three forms of attacks: melee auto attack, range auto attacks and spells/scrolls/items. 

Nope.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Namutree

[Sensuki]

3) Personal favorite, With a stealth spotter, send either summoned canon fodder then take my Wizard and throw some fireballs or cloudkill . Rinse and repeat.

Rest spammer.

[Shadow_Arms]

says the guy who defends Baldur's gate rest exploits

[Sensuki]

Did you rest spam as well? Because I didn't. Not my fault if you ruined the game for yourself.

[PrimeJunta]

Did you rest spam as well? Because I didn't. Not my fault if you ruined the game for yourself.

 

I've been a vocal critic of the rest system in the BG's. They contributed greatly to my ruining the game for myself. There was nothing in the game or the manuals saying that you shouldn't rest-spam. Quicksave and quickload are a keystroke away. Both the manual and loading screens emphasize that you should "save frequently and in different slots."

 

If you're playing the game without the benefit of spoilers or BBS's -- as I was at the time -- I think it's unfair and unreasonable to go :shrug: not my fault if you ruined it yourself. (Technically of course it's not your fault, but it is the game designers' fault.) 

 

You've found a way to play the IE games that you find extremely enjoyable, by not exploiting the easy-to-exploit systems that you don't enjoy exploiting, and exploiting a feature that you do enjoy exploiting (AI targeting). Bully for you. That, however, doesn't mean squat for any other game except for a very, very specific type of gameplay -- "DotA style" as it's been characterized here. It's an incredibly narrow view, and not at all relevant to anyone who wants to play any of these games in some other way. I, for example, derive most of my enjoyment in BG2 from exploring the interactions between the systems: using tools they give me to get past the defenses of hard-to-kill enemies, or defending against extremely lethal attacks by extremely lethal enemies. The whole movement-and-targeting dance is borderline irrelevant to me; I'd enjoy BG2 at least as much if not more with P:E's engagement mechanics. 

 

And IMO P:E could use a lot of improvement in these areas. Specifically by stronger immunities and better ways to get past them. I get that you shrug that off as "pss, strategic, uninteresting." What I don't get is how you seem so completely uninterested in these 'strategic' decisions. It sounds to me that you just don't like what's the actual major distinguishing characteristic of the IE games -- those extremely rich systems and the ways they interact with each other. That you've just been playing them like a glorified Warcraft. I remember you even saying this when I was asking for tips against some tough enemy or other, ":shrug: I just man-fight them." It's only now that I'm realizing that your idea of "man-fighting" is abusing the targeting AI so they're never able to hit you, strategy be damned.

 

Which is cool and all -- it says something that the games permit such different playstyles -- but it makes you a fairly unusual IE superfan, even among IE superfans. You're very different even from Stun, Hiro, and a bunch of the others here in this respect. It's almost like you've been playing a whole different game. It also makes your butthurt in re P:E somewhat unreasonable, and your (recent) scathing criticism of it off the mark. It's not DotA. It's not meant to be DotA. Most IE game fans, even the extreme hardcore Stun-level fans, don't want it to be DotA.

 

I.e., if "we" are "ruining the IE games for ourselves" then you're doing the same thing for P:E. And sniping each other about it is unlikely to do anyone much good.

[Shadow_Arms]

its a waste of time, this is why you weirdos are always kicked from most rpg communities

 

now how is the vaporware project?

[lionspaw]

Only chiming on the part about not having a fair way to beat Illithids and Umber Hulks in BG2:

 

In my playthrough with Swordcoast Strategem and Ascension, my main was a pure class half-orc Berserker... needless to say, i could pretty much solo those parts with my PC alone lol. 

[Zwiebelchen]

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.

 

You know, I've always been supportive of your suggestions throughout the backer beta and I really appreciate all the work you did for the community. But reading this I can't but think that you're probably letting out your disappointment about a game design that clearly isn't in it's final stages. It's not all as bad as you think. Your largest critics are in the encounter design and NPCs, after all... nothing that an expansion can't fix, really.

 

I see PoE more of a framework and a piece of established workflow, than a finished and completed product. Which is kind of the way game developement works nowadays. A possible expansion doesn't have to deal with actually developing a game engine anymore, which allows higher quality content to be created.

 

Think of it like this: BG1 didn't really have interesting combat or interesting locations either. Most encounters were exactly the same type of copy & paste as they are in PoE. You battle wolves, bears, gnolls and ogres 90% of the time. The only interesting fights in BG1 were against the human parties and assassins. And mind you that those were rare. PoE showed exactly the same symptoms here: battles against monsters are forgettable, whereas human parties are interesting and fun (the Raedric battle was probably the perfect rolemodel for how epic battles in possible expansions could look like).

It was the expansion material (Durlac's Tower) that really added the actual fun into BG1.

 

BG2 had interesting battles right from the get go - but then again, we did not start at level 1 here. A truly epic story needs a buildup. BG2 pratically already had the past buildup of BG1. It's natural that encounter design in BG2 would be better as it could assume a wide selection of skills and abilities available right from the start (and a minimum character level) ... mind you that the level of characters in most of PoE combat could vary from level 4 to level 10 depending on when you visited those places.

 

 

Also, there's one more thing that makes me positive about the quality of future content additions:

If you enabled developer commentary, they will often explain which areas got designed first and which got designed almost at the end of the game developement. Those that were designed last usually had a much higher feel of quality to them (basicly, large parts of Act 1 were made last, whereas most stuff in Act 2 was designed early).

 

 

I think all PoE combat needs to really improve the tactical aspect is: more enemy spellcasters. Those few fights against mages were pretty interesting. Especially those few that CC'ed or used stationary AoEs. The AI wouldn't even be a problem if there was something that could mess up my tank pretty badly if I won't move it away manually. A well-placed stinking cloud could do so much for the game...

Edited April 13, 2015 by Zwiebelchen

[Sensuki]

You've found a way to play the IE games that you find extremely enjoyable, by not exploiting the easy-to-exploit systems that you don't enjoy exploiting, and exploiting a feature that you do enjoy exploiting (AI targeting). Bully for you. That, however, doesn't mean squat for any other game except for a very, very specific type of gameplay -- "DotA style" as it's been characterized here. It's an incredibly narrow view, and not at all relevant to anyone who wants to play any of these games in some other way. I, for example, derive most of my enjoyment in BG2 from exploring the interactions between the systems: using tools they give me to get past the defenses of hard-to-kill enemies, or defending against extremely lethal attacks by extremely lethal enemies. The whole movement-and-targeting dance is borderline irrelevant to me; I'd enjoy BG2 at least as much if not more with P:E's engagement mechanics.

I don't see understanding AI targeting as an exploit and it's a mechanic that you are SUPPOSED TO USE in many games, particularly RTS games. You *have* to use it in the Warcraft 2 and Starcraft single player campaigns in the missions where there's no base building. I see it as a skill, and it has helped me play well at any similar game since. The Infinity Engine games use a similar engine with similar mechanics and the combat is very similar. There are encounters in BG2 in particular and in many mods for the game (Harder Yxunomei, Harder Belhifet, Harder X enemies in ToB) that promote using this more, because it is underused in the default game.

 

If I was going to mod the game myself, I would make encounters tougher so that it required smart targeting, positioning and movement in combat more often.

 

It sounds to me that you just don't like what's the actual major distinguishing characteristic of the IE games -- those extremely rich systems and the ways they interact with each other. That you've just been playing them like a glorified Warcraft. I remember you even saying this when I was asking for tips against some tough enemy or other, ":shrug: I just man-fight them." It's only now that I'm realizing that your idea of "man-fighting" is abusing the targeting AI so they're never able to hit you, strategy be damned.

Excuse me. Did you even watch my Icewind Dale Let's Play? I man fight enemies in combat and control targeting and health, I *use* the systems and resources given to me to their full extent and by the end of the day, all of my characters are usually low HP, they've all been hit and I used mostly melee characters and didn't kite anyone in circles, just made the odd movement here or there to switch targeting, and often kept several characters away from the fray (like you do in Pillars of Eternity too). Throughout the adventuring day you are given a certain amount of HP, you have your healing resources and you have your health potions. I use them, to the max - and I get the most out of them because I fight optimally. You can take damage only for so long, and there are several ways that you can manage those resources.

 

One difference might be that I actually use every health potion I find. There are LOTS of people that hoard strategical resources like this because they're unsure about when they'll need them. I can't remember who talked about this recently but they basically said that they rest spammed the IE games because it was easier than manually healing or something like that.

 

In Pillars of Eternity, you don't have to do any of that, your tank is always the best character to be taking aggro so you just send your tank in, no strategy or tactics required. Same thing every encounter - tanks forward, everyone else back or coming in late to avoid initial targeting.

 

That doesn't have too much to do with overall tactical feel of combat - it's more to do with the lack of hard counters, the unified resolution mechanics, immunities and stuff that 'breaks the formula', but it is a little bit because of how differently many of the mechanics work such as poison and several of the afflictions, etc etc.

 

Which is cool and all -- it says something that the games permit such different playstyles -- but it makes you a fairly unusual IE superfan, even among IE superfans. You're very different even from Stun, Hiro, and a bunch of the others here in this respect. It's almost like you've been playing a whole different game. It also makes your butthurt in re P:E somewhat unreasonable, and your (recent) scathing criticism of it off the mark. It's not DotA. It's not meant to be DotA. Most IE game fans, even the extreme hardcore Stun-level fans, don't want it to be DotA.

 

I.e., if "we" are "ruining the IE games for ourselves" then you're doing the same thing for P:E. And sniping each other about it is unlikely to do anyone much good.

Stun and Hiro (and many of the codex BG2 guys) seem to have similar problems to the game with me though, even if they don't have the same playstyle as I do. The severity of my disappointment probably has a lot to do with time/money input vs output I got from the game.

 

I think you're just triggered by the word DotA, as many other people are. People who rest spam are avoiding the strategical resource management from the game - are you trying to deny that? This makes the game less tactical because you can always use your big spells, and play sub optimally. Many people have done this and then criticize the Infinity Engine games for letting them do it. The biggest tell sign is the elapsed time in the game.

 

TBH I think Pillars of Eternity caters to the preferences of people who played like this. Josh acknowledges that people rest spammed in the Infinity Engine games, so he designed the game where resource management wasn't a concern. It's easy to rest spam in Pillars of Eternity, especially on Normal or Easy difficulty. However you're not required to because there's no resource management concern, and then you have people saying "I don't feel like I need to rest spam in Pillars of Eternity, it must be because they've made it more difficult" ... well they haven't really, it's just that there's not really a penalty for being knocked out, you don't need to use potions (they suck anyway). You don't really have to manage your healing at all, not even in combat and there's per encounter abilities.

 

So yes, I can see why people who rest spammed are triggered by my opinions. Perhaps they don't enjoy resource management, or tactical gameplay - fair enough, but there is a large difference between playing the Infinity Engine games properly, and playing Pillars of Eternity.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Sensuki

[Sensuki]

I see PoE more of a framework and a piece of established workflow, than a finished and completed product. Which is kind of the way game developement works nowadays. A possible expansion doesn't have to deal with actually developing a game engine anymore, which allows higher quality content to be created.

While this is true, I have an issue with the core design of many of the systems. Tweaking those systems will not change the style of gameplay.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Sensuki

[Flow]

 

 playing the Infinity Engine games properly,

 

 

 

If you don't play the IE games the way Sensuki does, you're not doing it properly.

 

If you kinda like PoE, you're a "casual".

[Namutree]

 

So yes, I can see why people who rest spammed are triggered by my opinions. Perhaps you don't enjoy resource management, or tactical gameplay - fair enough, but there is a large difference between playing the Infinity Engine games properly, and playing Pillars of Eternity.

 

There should be a mod for the IE games that combats rest spamming. Maybe there is one and I don't know it.