Berath's Blessing - Do's (make things easier) and don'ts (make things harder)

[pi2repsion]

Developer update #9 told us about Berath's Blessing, providing options for people when they start new games based on completed content in prior games, and I quite like a lot of the things they talk about. But not all.

 

These are my DO's.

• Enabling people to start with favourite companions in new games after they've already reached some milestones in game
• Ditto with favourite items
• Enabling more powerful starting character, help with reputations, or other ways to make the game easier without changing the core game experience beyond recognition (unless the option specifically warns that it changes the experience beyond recognition )

 

All of these are fine as far as I am concerned, so I have little to say about them.

 

I can certainly see many positive aspects to this, not the least of which is that those players who play part of the game, put it aside for whatever reason, and then start over may be able to more quickly reach the parts that are new to them.

 

Or say somebody finds difficulty level X fine, X+1 a bit too difficult, and would like something intermediate? Or somebody who just happens to love a specific companion or piece of equipment? Great for them.

 

And if somebody makes some super-awesome powerful character when restarting that laughs at danger using any number of bonuses to speed him along? Well, so what. The more power to him!

 

It is no skin off my nose how other people find their entertainment playing the game so long as it doesn't affect my playing, and since these things will only be available after having completed some or all of the game, the game itself is going to be balanced around the base state that people will encounter on the first playthrough. So those are all DO's.

 

 

Which brings me to my DON'Ts.

• Enabling new content
• Enabling difficulty increasing options

 

The short version is this:

 

If you want to reward me with challenges or content in the game based on the actions of a group I am roleplaying, reward the group that achieved it - not some other group of characters I roleplay some other time.

 

I understand that there are players who like to hunt achievements officially noted by games rather than relying on their own sense of achievement as well as people who'll go out of their way in order to tick off achievements from a list if it is available, and I have nothing bad to say about their sport, but I am not one of them and having their sport turned into something that is necessary for experiencing challenges or content is abhorrent to me.

 

So DON'T gate content or difficulty increasing options when starting a new game of PoE2 behind achieving something while playing PoE2. Just don't.

 

 

The long version (and you've been warned, so don't complain about its length) is this:

 

The first one - new content - is not even hinted at in update #9 and I assume that the devteam is too wise to go there, but I want my opposition preemptively on the record in case anybody wants it. :D  I want to register my utter opposition to introducing things to a roleplaying game that you'll only see after you have already completed part of the story and play it again - any such resources would as far as I am concerned be better spent on content that everybody playing through the story once would have an opportunity to see within their roleplaying visit to that game world. Fundamentally: Every roleplaying game tells a story depending on player actions, and while any given playthrough will never experience all of the possible paths through the story, it is important to me that it could have experienced any of them depending solely on the player's actions in that playthrough.

 

The second one - difficulty increases - may sound weird to some, but hear my out.

 

At a guess the thinking behind it is that "once players have completed some content, they know it, so it'll be easier for them. By giving them options to make it harder they'll still be able to be/feel challenged and still have fun". But if that's what's behind it, it ignores two groups of people for whom difficulty of combat encounters are of the highest import: Those who get their jollies from completing the hardest content and those who aren't challenged much in the first place; these are two distinct groups, and I belong to the second.

 

The first group is likely to view any such difficulty gating by completing content as a case of having to complete the game before playing what they consider the REAL game, which has got to suck. As for the second....

 

Obsidian has the unenviable task of balancing a game that is marketed as being somewhat oldschool. That means different things to different people, but one of the things it means is that a certain market segment, of which I am one, expect its tactical combat encounters to be at least somewhat challenging. Require us to think tactically. Run a risk of failure, not because of unfortunate dice rolls, but because of poor planning or an inability to adjust to changing tactical circumstances during combat. It doesn't mean it has to be challenging to those who aren't interested - and story time and easy deals with that market segment.

 

Obsidian's task is ideally to balance their game such that both newcomers to the genre appreciate its difficulty, such that players of the Infinity Engine games appreciate the difficulty, and even such that the people who were veterans of CRPGs when the Infinity Engine games were produced will find something to appeal to them - and if we stay within the AD&D universe of the Infinity Engine games for reference, we are talking about Gold Box veterans here.

 

Players of the Infinity Engine games may remember the Twisted Rune. Kangaxx. BG2's mage battles. David Gaider's mod that buffed/reinstated Demogorgon and ToB bosses power to something more interesting than their default state - a default state that already featured encounters significantly more deadly than anything in Pillars of Eternity.  Players of the Gold Box games might wax nostalgic about fighting trolls while level 1 in Pool of Radiance, some of the more interesting encounters in the Krynn series, Dave's Challenge in Pools of Darkness, or the Mulmaster Beholder Corps in Curse of the Azure Bonds without using the Dust of Disappearance (which remains to date the nastiest battle in a CRPG that I know of). Tactical minded players have played CRPGs since the beginning, and they adore challenge that isn't simply based "we buffed the hitpoint/defenses of the existing creatures". For such players achievement isn't getting shiny loot, xp, a badge saying "you're a winner" to treasure, or beaten the hardest difficulty in the game - it is achieving something that is difficult for them to do at whatever level of tactical expertise they are.

 

However, Pillars of Eternity, while otherwise a great game, failed big time in that respect with respect to the two latter categories. For experienced CRPG players the basic game simply wasn't challenging on Path of the Damned, the supposedly hard difficulty level. Sure, you could play ironman or try to solo the game for additional challenge, or enable expert mode to get rid of helpful tooltips or indicators, and I appreciate what Obsidian did by providing these as an option, but these are a poor  substitute for a party based game that, when played with a party, has tactically challenging combat encounters.

 

There are a number of reasons for falling short - encounters typically had only a few opponents, constricted space, engagement, and bodyblocking made tactical control of the battlefield trivial, the lack of any requirement for hard counters (until the introduction of White March resistances) meant that any problem could be addressed by the simple solution of applying more force, and opponents typically had only a few abilities each that, once known, were easy to plan against.

 

Whether that'll be the case in Pillars of Eternity 2 is anybody's guess, of course. Who knows? But it might well be the case as Obsidian has a track record of being much better at providing stories than challenge. (Which is not a bad thing for a roleplaying game, mind you, as it is certainly better than the reverse.) Certainly neither White March, Tyranny, or anything they have revealed until now about PoE 2 suggests that more interesting or difficult tactical encounters are a priority, which suggests that all else being equal, while they'd of course like to do things better (developers always want to do things better) they are pretty much satisfied with what they have been delivering in that respect.

 

Whether it is the case or not, those who for whatever reason want challenging encounters will be much better pleased with the game if they have the option of enabling any or all combination of the difficulty increases chosen to suit their desired level of difficulty when they start a game rather than the game requiring them to complete parts of the game with less challenge first and then start over.

 

Since it is hard to see how giving players the option of enabling difficulty increases without having to unlock it through playing will detract from the game experience of those who are satisfied with the basic difficulty levels, this really should be a no-brainer.

 

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Are there other do's or don'ts? Chime in with your ideas if so.

Edited February 9, 2017 by pi2repsion