The supplies mechanic is bad

[Koth]

 

Isn't the key to Maerwald's room in an adjacent room, a couple of spiders and a few xaurips being all you have to defeat to get it?

 

I wouldn't exactly call it a adjacent. See here: http://www.gamebanshee.com/pillarsofeternity/locations/endlesspathsofodnua-12.php

Basically you have at least 2 semi-decent fights to get to the key. Basically by the time I reach Maerwald's door I've got *just* enough health / spells / resources to complete the encounter with him, but if I have to clear the fights to the key, by the time I get back to the door I've got nothing left in the tank for this encounter. Plus I don't expect to clear the gated 2nd half of this level, just the fight with Maerwald plus maybe be able to take on the fight with the Spider Queen to pick up the unique Stiletto.

[peko]

At location 5, literally in an adjacent room.

[Koth]

OK yes, you're correct it is in adjacent room, however there is a fairly significant fight with xaurips in this room that depletes any resources I had wanted to reserve for the encounter with Maerwald. It also doesn't address the request to simply clear out the first half of this level to get the dagger without having to trek back to GV. If you think it's an unreasonable request to add a single camping supply anywhere between the start of Caed Nua and Maerwald's room then cool. But Sking said if we had any requests to make them, so I did

Edited February 26, 2016 by Koth

[peko]

I'd be fine with that, though getting one after you've dealt with Maerwald would be more to my liking (that doesn't happen already does it?). I got a bit confused when you spoke of clearing out a significant part of the level to get to Maerwald and thought you might be going the other way which I find to be a lot more difficult than the fights in that room.

[globalCooldown]

Just throwing something out there:

We've all already established that camping supplies exist to try and incentivize not rest-spamming. Camping supplies, combined with the Endurance/Health system, is basically Obsidian's attempt at getting rid of the "15-minute adventurer workday" that exists in many games and game systems.

But some people just rest spam anyway, use up all their supplies and walk back and forth to town.

 

So maybe, there needs to be an incentive to not leave the dungeon. To ration and think strategically, as opposed to heading back to town every fifteen minutes. But it can't be a *hard* restriction (i.e. not leaving the dungeon at all after entry, limited camping supplies in the world, etc), or else you run the risk of the game becoming unbeatable for many players. And an unbeatable game state is worse than a Game Over.

 

One solution I've seen some tabletop systems use: there's a story incentive to not leave the dungeon, even though the option to do so is technically there. For some in-universe reason, a quest is on a timer, and you'll only have time to squeeze in a limited number of rests before Something Bad happens. An optional objective could fail, or you get a substantially smaller reward, or the villain actually does Just Shoot Him and there goes your character's childhood friend. You can technically still rest spam, but there are consequences beyond boring walks back and forth between a dungeon and town.

 

 

 

Oh, and as for Maerwald and the Spider Queen: in my No Rest for the Pro run, I picked the lock, fought Maerwald, and then turned around and went back up the stairs. Decided my health was more valuable than a unique stiletto. If you try a No Rest for the Pro run yourself, and you don't care about unique stilettos, I actually recommend this strategy; when you're heading back up through the dungeons, Aloth and Iselmyr talk to each other a little bit!

[Koth]

That's my point though, you were able to pick the lock... There are plenty of viable party compositions that do not include a class with mechanics which is why they put the key in the adjacent room in the first place. The problem arises in the fact that you're pretty much exhausted with just enough resources left to take on Maerwald only, so the fight with the xaurips is the straw that breaks the camels back. This has happened to me 3 times so far on PotD hence the request.

[falchen]

Considering the option to change supply limits is already in the game, I think there is no downside to making this it's own setting rather than tied to difficulty. Customizable difficulty is always good, so you could select to play with the more and stronger mobs from hard/PoTD without also lowering your supply limit. Stash access and knockout injuries are already their own toogle so I don't see how this would be different, would you folks preffer these get tied to the main difficulty setting as well?

Edited February 26, 2016 by falchen

[archangel979]

Considering the option to change supply limits is already in the game, I think there is no downside to making this it's own setting rather than tied to difficulty. Customizable difficulty is always good, so you could select to play with the more and stronger mobs from hard/PoTD without also lowering your supply limit. Stash access and knockout injuries are already their own toogle so I don't see how this would be different, would you folks preffer these get tied to the main difficulty setting as well?

As I said earlier, there are achievement for finishing the game on PotD. LImited supply is part of that difficulty. Someone finishing PotD with access to 10 supply will have way easier time than someone doing it with 2 supply.

[globalCooldown]

 

Considering the option to change supply limits is already in the game, I think there is no downside to making this it's own setting rather than tied to difficulty. Customizable difficulty is always good, so you could select to play with the more and stronger mobs from hard/PoTD without also lowering your supply limit. Stash access and knockout injuries are already their own toogle so I don't see how this would be different, would you folks preffer these get tied to the main difficulty setting as well?

As I said earlier, there are achievement for finishing the game on PotD. LImited supply is part of that difficulty. Someone finishing PotD with access to 10 supply will have way easier time than someone doing it with 2 supply.

 

Ditto. Difficulty levels exist to be challenging, not to be zoomed through like a checklist. I fully admit most of my runs are done on bog-standard Normal difficulty, because a lot of the time I just want to chill out and not stress out over my decisions. If I want a challenge, that's when I crank up the difficulty level.

 

At the same time though, customizable difficulty is never a bad thing. Hell, I'd probably just play on Normal and restrict my supply limit to 2 (taking it the exact other direction of the guy on PotD with 10 supplies).

 

Just...be aware of *why* you want difficulty tweaks. Do you want a challenge? Do you want to customize your challenge? Or do you just want to be able to say you Did A Thing, so you can check it off your list and feel proud of yourself? There's no shame in sticking to a lower difficulty you're comfortable with.

[falchen]

 

Considering the option to change supply limits is already in the game, I think there is no downside to making this it's own setting rather than tied to difficulty. Customizable difficulty is always good, so you could select to play with the more and stronger mobs from hard/PoTD without also lowering your supply limit. Stash access and knockout injuries are already their own toogle so I don't see how this would be different, would you folks preffer these get tied to the main difficulty setting as well?

As I said earlier, there are achievement for finishing the game on PotD. LImited supply is part of that difficulty. Someone finishing PotD with access to 10 supply will have way easier time than someone doing it with 2 supply.

 

 

It's a single player game so who cares? It's not a competition and you can already cheat in much worse ways making achievements meaningless in this regard.

 

 

 

Just...be aware of *why* you want difficulty tweaks. Do you want a challenge? Do you want to customize your challenge? Or do you just want to be able to say you Did A Thing, so you can check it off your list and feel proud of yourself? There's no shame in sticking to a lower difficulty you're comfortable with.

 

 

In my case? Because I enjoy fights to have more and stronger mobs.

Edited February 26, 2016 by falchen

[Arnegar]

I've gotten to the point where I see criticism of the game and look to see if the poster cites IE, BG, or BG2 as a basis for the complaint and roll my eyes. It's almost disqualifies the argument. Not because there aren't valid complaints or comparisons on such a basis, but because it's become a sort of religious mantra.

 

No, that just makes your response utterly bereft of any merit because it isn't based on any sort of reasoning, just your dislike of an arbitrary thing that has literally nothing to do with the subject. It's about the same as saying "whenever someone makes an argument and I see he's wearing sneakers, I roll my eyes and decide that he's wrong."

 

Well done. You're the definition of unreasonable.

[Arnegar]

 

Considering the option to change supply limits is already in the game, I think there is no downside to making this it's own setting rather than tied to difficulty. Customizable difficulty is always good, so you could select to play with the more and stronger mobs from hard/PoTD without also lowering your supply limit. Stash access and knockout injuries are already their own toogle so I don't see how this would be different, would you folks preffer these get tied to the main difficulty setting as well?

As I said earlier, there are achievement for finishing the game on PotD. LImited supply is part of that difficulty. Someone finishing PotD with access to 10 supply will have way easier time than someone doing it with 2 supply.

 

 

But it's not difficult. There's literally no element of difficult associated with this mechanic. This is because the game must be designed in such a way that you ALWAYS have the option of going back the way you came to buy more supplies. There simply cannot be any difficulty associated with this mechanic because of this. The game is never allowed to put you in a "now what?" situation, because once you're reduced to 1 health, you can no longer continue and are forced to go get more supplies. People keep talking about supplies being a difficulty feature, but it's not, it's an anti-difficulty feature. Its existence has necessitated that the game be less difficult in order to accomodate it. Even in places where they seem to have tried to impose that "trapped in a dungeon" feeling, like going through the pool to the drake level and having to fight your way out, you can tell that they've erred severely on the side of caution and give you just a few rooms of trash mobs to clear in order to get to the master stairs.

 

There's no difficulty associated with supplies, just a bit of meaningless OOC punishment when you take too much damage and have to waste time leaving the area to buy more supplies. They're infinite at the source, it's not like you can deplete it. There's quite a lot of content in this game that can't realistically be completed without those pointless, tedious return-for-supplies trips, so anyone saying that you just need to get better at the game is simply full of **** and trying to feel superior. No player never gets in that situation where you need to rest and have no more supplies. And when you do, there's no challenge, there's no obstacle to overcome, it's just a waste of five minutes as you effortlessly backtrack and sit through a few loading screens before you're allowed to continue again.

 

Nobody has presented any argument against this that holds any water. It's all just "I don't mind the tedium" or "I'm so good that I don't have that problem, lern 2 play scrubtard."

[Lord_Mord]

 

just a few rooms of trash mobs to clear in order to get to the master stairs.

 

Unless you are dumb like me, don't find the staircase and fight your way upstairs through the other levels with no extra supplies.

[archangel979]

 

 

Considering the option to change supply limits is already in the game, I think there is no downside to making this it's own setting rather than tied to difficulty. Customizable difficulty is always good, so you could select to play with the more and stronger mobs from hard/PoTD without also lowering your supply limit. Stash access and knockout injuries are already their own toogle so I don't see how this would be different, would you folks preffer these get tied to the main difficulty setting as well?

As I said earlier, there are achievement for finishing the game on PotD. LImited supply is part of that difficulty. Someone finishing PotD with access to 10 supply will have way easier time than someone doing it with 2 supply.

 

 

But it's not difficult. There's literally no element of difficult associated with this mechanic. This is because the game must be designed in such a way that you ALWAYS have the option of going back the way you came to buy more supplies. There simply cannot be any difficulty associated with this mechanic because of this. The game is never allowed to put you in a "now what?" situation, because once you're reduced to 1 health, you can no longer continue and are forced to go get more supplies. People keep talking about supplies being a difficulty feature, but it's not, it's an anti-difficulty feature. Its existence has necessitated that the game be less difficult in order to accomodate it. Even in places where they seem to have tried to impose that "trapped in a dungeon" feeling, like going through the pool to the drake level and having to fight your way out, you can tell that they've erred severely on the side of caution and give you just a few rooms of trash mobs to clear in order to get to the master stairs.

 

There's no difficulty associated with supplies, just a bit of meaningless OOC punishment when you take too much damage and have to waste time leaving the area to buy more supplies. They're infinite at the source, it's not like you can deplete it. There's quite a lot of content in this game that can't realistically be completed without those pointless, tedious return-for-supplies trips, so anyone saying that you just need to get better at the game is simply full of **** and trying to feel superior. No player never gets in that situation where you need to rest and have no more supplies. And when you do, there's no challenge, there's no obstacle to overcome, it's just a waste of five minutes as you effortlessly backtrack and sit through a few loading screens before you're allowed to continue again.

 

Nobody has presented any argument against this that holds any water. It's all just "I don't mind the tedium" or "I'm so good that I don't have that problem, lern 2 play scrubtard."

 

Going back takes real life time. I never do that unless I have no other option.

 

Character on 1 HP don't force the group to rest or go back. Give them a ranged weapon and keep them in the back. Once a few of them are on 1 HP and you cannot defeat anymore enemies, than it is time to go back or rest.

[manageri]

We can only hope they wake up and remove this resting crap from the sequel. We can hope they only added resting because that was present in IE games and they felt compelled to keep it to keep this a spiritual successor as promised.

 

If they actually think this **** does anything other than turn EVERY encounter (apart from the few boss fights) into boring mush that you know you can plow through effortlessly by emptying your spell stores, I can only face palm. Punishing the player by making them stare at loading screens if they don't play exactly the "right" way has **** all to do with balance, ugh.

[Ymarsakar]

While there are gameflow problems with the supply mechanic, notably it would have made slightly more gameplay sense to collect up a lot of supplies and create a "base camp" in the wilderness campsite for like say 10x uses of supplies for every 2-3 supply. Slightly more reusable. Still, the supply mechanic greatly encourages me to use non standard tactics such as switching my main tank to the rear and using druids or wizards to do spot tanking, and other tricks. It makes the difference between wizards/druids/priests very different from the hybrid classes, and those still different from the per encounter ability melee users.

 

Personally, I thought the Mask of the Betrayer logistical constraint made more gameplay sense. It wasn't exactly more fun, per say, but it fit the context of the plot and game more consistently. Something that combined Watcher abilities with supply limits, might have did something similar.

 

Since the Watcher cannot sleep... what happens when game time keeps passing because the party is resting? In Don't Starve, you become insane and shadows begin attacking you, and all your easy food sources become hair.

 

As for having to go back, that's usually a break in pacing for when you have too much combat. For those that want to play it like a Diablo dungeon crawl, they just roll20s in console and hit rest. Simple.

 

On another note, the reason why making a game easy to mod like CK2 is easy to mod (you can reload save games after modding it, and it still works, mostly), is the strain and load it takes off the developers. Because the developers have a hard time separating the noise from the signal. How many of these complaints are legitimate and how many can be fixed with a reasonable amount of resources?

 

They don't have to deal with those questions, if the players can mod the systems themselves. Then the devs just sit back and look at who is willing to do the work. Some who complain a lot, will also do the work, then the devs can see if that system actually works or not. And they can easily separate out the complainers that do nothing about it, vs the ones most motivated to work on it. Wheat from chaff.

Edited March 1, 2016 by Ymarsakar

[Crucis]

We can only hope they wake up and remove this resting crap from the sequel. We can hope they only added resting because that was present in IE games and they felt compelled to keep it to keep this a spiritual successor as promised.

 

If they actually think this **** does anything other than turn EVERY encounter (apart from the few boss fights) into boring mush that you know you can plow through effortlessly by emptying your spell stores, I can only face palm. Punishing the player by making them stare at loading screens if they don't play exactly the "right" way has **** all to do with balance, ugh.

 

 

Wow.  Rage much?   I happen to like the camping system, mostly as is.  I always thought that the old model in BG/IWD where you could pretty much rest whenever and however much you wanted to was completely bogus and created a rather annoying style of play, along with all those non-combat buffs.  It was annoying to constantly have to spend real time minutes buffing up parties prior to just about any battle that was the least bit challenging, only to then ... wait for it ... rest after each of those battles. 

 

I'm sorry if you don't like the PoE model (well maybe I'm not), but I think that forcing players to stretch themselves and stop resting after each and every friggin' battle is a truly GREAT THING.  There's no challenge in being able to rest after every fricking battle just so you can spam out your wizard's entire supply of spells from his grimoire ... just so you can evade the concept of limited spells.

 

And ya know something, I don't have much of a problem with the Devs deciding what they think is roughly the "right" way to play THEIR game.  It *is* their game after all.  If you don't like it, no one's forcing you to play it.

[Sonntam]

Is there any reason not to use console commands to rest?

 

Sure, achievements are turned off while using cheats, but it you can turn them back off in a second. 

 

Console commands really seem to be the easiest and fastest way to circumvent the problem if one is really so tired of running back and forth to get more supplies.

[Crucis]

While there are gameflow problems with the supply mechanic, notably it would have made slightly more gameplay sense to collect up a lot of supplies and create a "base camp" in the wilderness campsite for like say 10x uses of supplies for every 2-3 supply. Slightly more reusable. Still, the supply mechanic greatly encourages me to use non standard tactics such as switching my main tank to the rear and using druids or wizards to do spot tanking, and other tricks. It makes the difference between wizards/druids/priests very different from the hybrid classes, and those still different from the per encounter ability melee users.

 

To me, this is one of the really great things about PoE and its limited camping supplies system.  If you have wounded characters after some battle, you can't just willy-nilly rest after each and every battle, unless you charge back to some inn, which most don't want to do.  I very much enjoy that the player needs to conserve his health, look after wounded characters when your supplies are low, and generally do what you'd have to do in a p&p rpg with a game master or what would happen in a similar/parallel situations in real life.

 

I find this challenge FAR more enjoyable than constantly resting after every frickin' battle followed by dumping your mage's entire supply of spells, and rinse and repeat as necessary. 

[Gfted1]

Wait, you can no longer rest wherever / whenever you want? Did they re-institute the dedicated camping locations in the latest version?

[Crucis]

Is there any reason not to use console commands to rest?

 

Sure, achievements are turned off while using cheats, but it you can turn them back off in a second. 

 

Console commands really seem to be the easiest and fastest way to circumvent the problem if one is really so tired of running back and forth to get more supplies.

 

 

Other than the enormous Endless Paths dungeon, I don't recall any other "dungeon" or area that was so difficult and extensive that I couldn't make due with the 4 sets of camping supplies you get in Normal mode.

 

Having said that, maybe the problem here is that in the harder modes players are too limited in the max number of camping supplies you're allowed.  Just a thought...

 

 

[why]

 

I've gotten to the point where I see criticism of the game and look to see if the poster cites IE, BG, or BG2 as a basis for the complaint and roll my eyes. It's almost disqualifies the argument. Not because there aren't valid complaints or comparisons on such a basis, but because it's become a sort of religious mantra.

 

No, that just makes your response utterly bereft of any merit because it isn't based on any sort of reasoning, just your dislike of an arbitrary thing that has literally nothing to do with the subject. It's about the same as saying "whenever someone makes an argument and I see he's wearing sneakers, I roll my eyes and decide that he's wrong."

 

Well done. You're the definition of unreasonable.

 

That's a bit of a false analogy. I could be clever and equate it to the same as saying, "whenever someone makes an argument on the basis that he's wearing sneakers, I roll my eyes and decide that he's wrong." I guess arguing that you like a because you're wearing sneakers is probably eye rollable. However, that's also a false analogy. Sneakers aren't relatable to the argument at hand. A great number of people don't make the argument that the game needs to force players to wear sneakers. The comparisons with BG and BG2, fairly or no, came hot and heavy early on. I was lurking around here from time to time during development. So, not only is your analogy off in that it's entirely different in kind, it's astronomically different in number.

 

The game is released. Saying that you don't like Pillars because it's not more like BG is fair enough, but some of the arguments are so far reaching is this regard that in meaning they amount to not liking the game because it's not the same as BG. That's fair enough, but after a while of hearing the same refrain, yeah, I roll my eyes.

 

Look, I say all this without rancor. I don't want to get into a multi-page forum fire over it, so if you're still steamed at me, I'll let you take the last shot. I'll still think the whole BG thing is a kind of religious mantra for some people.

[Sonntam]

Wait, you can no longer rest wherever / whenever you want? Did they re-institute the dedicated camping locations in the latest version?

 

No, but you are simply forbidden from resting in a couple locations, for example in the Iron Flail comander tent. 

[Ymarsakar]

Why don't people like manageri use the console?

 

Is it really easier to lobby a developer to change a game option when you can already change the game option by typing two lines of text... not sure why people want to Change the World so much that they refuse to change themselves. Is it just easier to change the world...

Edited March 1, 2016 by Ymarsakar

[Crucis]

Wait, you can no longer rest wherever / whenever you want? Did they re-institute the dedicated camping locations in the latest version?

 

I actually didn't say "wherever".  And when I said "whenever" it was tied to however much you wanted, by which I was saying that in those old IE games, you could rest 100 consecutive times in a row in the wilderness and the game would let you.  You could rest after every single tiny encounter, and the game would let you.  You'd never run out of food.  And because you could do this, any spellcaster could cast every spell he knew in every battle without any consequences.  Beyond that, when the game gets balanced for this model, you end up making the battles so difficult that players who prefer a more role-playing style of combat are increasingly forced to play this powergamey style just to have the firepower to defeat their enemies.

 

I prefer the PoE model a lot more.  You can quite easily go into most battles without needing any pre-battle buffs, and if you want to, you can often get through all but the very toughest battles without any significant buffing in battle too.  IMO, this is a vast improvement, because it saves a bunch of time and lets me get on with the battles most of the time.  And because of this, you aren't emptying your spellcaster's supply of spells nearly as quickly, making it much easier to go for quite a number of encounters without needing to rest for lack of spells.  (Needing to rest due to low health is a different story, of course.)