235 réponses à ce sujet

[Joy Divison]

Cyonan wrote...

Pedrak wrote...

I believe the game's difficulty has been exaggerated in this thread, just as in the reviews I quoted. I take seagloom's point that the Baldur's Gate series was less accessible  than other more modern games, and yeah, it didn't take me 6 hours or so to die for the first time like in DA2, but, honestly, it's nowhere as incomprehensible and cryptical as it has been described, as you will find out if you decide to try it . 

It's a game that doesn't hold your hand and allows you to make mistakes (ex. venturing in an area where enemies are way out of your league; companions can die; more micro-management of your inventory and weapons is needed for different encounters), but that's it. It's not just BS boring difficulty ("LOL, let's throw hordes of enemies at the player!"); it's rewarding. Especially in BG2, encounters are nicely varied with a great variety of creatures and require different tactics; mage duels are spectacular and akin to a flashy game of chess. It allows the player to be more creative.

Still, you don't need any esoteric knowledge to realize that the guy with 20 dexterity would make a good archer, or that a balanced party and companions with different skills can work better (making an optimal squad, as you noted, it's another matter). And I say this not as some kind of "macho" gamer who does speed runs and can finish Dark Souls with his hands tied behind his back. It just requires some dedication.

I actually did try it, or rather I tried the Enhanced Edition.

First off, in a game that is so heavily based on numbers I'm kind of surprised that they don't list the exact numerical bonuses for stats. It would have let me know that Constituion was not terribly useful for my Sorcerer after 16 points.

Then there are some D&D terms being used. I'm not a D&D player although I have some vague knowledge of it, so I'm aware of things like saving throws or what 1D6 is supposed to be. THAC0 is apparently something that was ditched and I had no idea what it meant until I Googled it yesterday.

Those are all things that it wouldn't have killed the game to clarify what they are for people who don't know D&D. It's not holding anybody's hand really, it's just giving me basic information so that I might be more capable of making an informed choice.

That's the thing I'm finding out with Baldur's Gate. It feels like it's trying so hard not to hold my hand that it's just refusing to talk to me at all and keeping basic gameplay mechanics hidden from me until I go on Google and find somebody else willing to do the job for the game.

I mean, I'm still having fun with the game overall but it ultimately ends up feeling like I should have Google open on my other monitor just to be capable of understanding basic mechanics in the game at some points.

If you go into BG not knowing the D&D system you will be confused and get frustrated.  D&D had multiple manuals, each some 150+ pages, just to explain the basic rules - and things that are optimal like dual-classes you will find explained in no rule book.

I keep hearing how BG should explain stuff like this in game, but I don't think it's possible.  Someone said the BG II manual was like 260 pages or something.  The gameplay mechanics are complicated, contingent are certain condtions, and just about everything has an exception.  I played D&D since the 1980s and I still have to consult the rulebooks.  It is not an easy system and much of it is not intuitive.  See how long it takes to explain to your mother exactly what THACO is until she is comfortable with it.  The tutorial would almost be as long as the game.

As for whether or not the designers should have tried to ease players unfamiliar with the game, it's a moot point.  The game was made, what, 15 years ago and it became a classic.  It obviously worked out fine and had a tremendous appeal to RPG players of that era.  I don't buy the theories that "old school" or "hardcore" gamers of that sort that Jestina described are somehow better at RPGs or somehow better at figuring stuff out on their own.  That's crap.  Maybe 2E was not as alien to your college aged gamer circa 1999.  Maybe having the 260 page rulebook helped...gamers today are almost entirely dependent on tutorials or Google because most games no longer come with an actual manual.  Maybe BG players looked up walkthroughs and FAQs back then just many gamers do now.

I played the enhanced BGI and the GOG BGII.  They're hard.  I know D&D very well and had a character with mutiple 18s and still died a lot.  I can totally see how these games would frustrate people unfamiliar with the system.  And 2E's gameplay mechanics are bad.  The games were not great because of the gameplay mechanics.  The story, the replayablility, the companions, the freedom it gave the player, et al., those are the things that made them memorable.

[Eternal Phoenix]

In Exile wrote...
But that's terrible design. A game shouldn't be a homework assignment. 

Ummm, Dark Souls?

Again, you didn't come up with a refutation to it.

Dark Souls literally doesn't explain many mechanics at all such as:

• The level scaling of weapons.
• The ascension of weapons.
• The reinforcement of weapons.
• Faith scaling of miracles.
• Intelligence scaling of magic.
• Dexterity increasing the speed of spells.
• There are actually four different speeds of rolling based on your weight.
• The different and special combos you can perform with weapons.
• The numerous status effects.
• Being cursed or using a curse weapon is required to defeat ghosts.
• Not telling you where to get uncursed from.
• Not telling you how to remove the egghead.
• Not telling you vital information about some covenants or if they even exist and how to access them.

The list goes on but you don't criticize it but somehow can criticize Baldur's Gate despite it containing descriptions for statistics and a fair tutorial with a guy telling you that your party formation and set-up is essential to winning some of the more challenging encounters. It's not my fault you didn't pay heed to Obe or missed out on his quest altogether.

In this sense both Baldur's Gate and Dark Souls are alike but you criticize one but not the other.

Don't forget. The prologue section of Baldur's Gate is also for people playing again who might not want to through it all again hence why it's optional.

In Exile wrote...Probably not a lot, because the difficulty in those games is pretty intuitive. In TW2 it's pretty clear what you have to do to learn to get good at the combat. Just like Dark Souls. Learning all of the arcane rules of D&D is nowhere near the same level of intuitve difficult. 

Need I continue my list above on all the game mechanics Dark Souls doesn't even tell you exist? Half of those are actually vital to getting through the game. I've actually heard of people who ended up getting cursed several times (to the point where they have the lowest HP possible) and quit the game because they didn't know you could get uncursed.

I've seen people asking "how do I kill the ghosts of New Londo???111" because they didn't bother reading the description for the transient curse. I've seen many players who I've invaded weilding the Drake Sword because they still don't understand weapon scaling (because if they did they wouldn't be using one of the worst swords in the game). Incidentally, these are the people summoning three people at once to help them get through the level because they find it impossible otherwise.

In Exile Wrote....
Except that knowing that mages won't be able to cast spells and have to rely on buying and hoarding scrolls isn't intuiitve at all. "Magic" does not evoke ideas of being a book hoarder.

Except it is especially when they see that their mage has limited spells just like mages in Dark Souls who need to rest at bonfires to recharge them (as opposed to Baldur's Gate mages who can rest anywhere) but somehow the two aren't the same again? lol

In Exile wrote...
It's nothing like an RTS because an RTS uses very basic concepts that we are familiar with IRL. People have a passing knowledge of warfare and what they need to learn in a proper RTS is how to micromanage large troops and get a hand of techniques and tactics like rushing etc.

An RPG is all about learning how completely arbitrary numbers - that are counterintuive to boot- actually work. So there's trial and error, but its' entirely divorced from any idea you might have of how to get started on your project.

If I'm reducing to opening excel and doing what amounts to actual empirical research then your game has terrible mechanics and should be scrapped.

Wait. You opened Microsoft Excel to learn about THAC0 or the self-explanatory statistics? Dark Souls (or so it has been claimed by people in your shoes) is also (apparently) about numbers and character builds and people constantly claim you'll need to visit the Wiki to get through the game.

Although this is all untrue unless you're someone who just can't be bothered to learn by yourself.

I scrapped many character builds in Dark Souls after two hours to see which one worked best for me. I did the same in Baldur's Gate.

These games are alike. They are for people who don't want to be led by the hand. People who can learn the game mechanics through trial and error. And if one can't be bothered to learn by this way then they always go the easy route and just go online like you did.

It doesn't make the game poorly designed. You seem to think trial and error means "bad design" even when it's a deliberate feature of the two games. The fundamental mechanics are explained but the rest is left up to you. In fact whether you bloody follow the path outside of Candlekeep to the Friendly Arm Inn Tavern is entirely up to you.

For you, that makes Baldur's Gate a "badly designed game" but for me that makes Baldur's Gate one of the ultimate RPG's out there.

In Exile wrote...
It's in no way self-explanatory that a class whose description amounts to "summing the raw powers of the universe" would be killed by people with pointy metal rods. It's entirely an abritrary convention of D&D that mages have to be weak at low levels and don't have the spells or damage output to outclass fighters.

But the fact that mages are balance to be garbage at low levels isn't intuitive at all.

Mages are weak in all RPG's.

Go melee in Dark Souls as your low level mage.
Go melee in Dragon Age: Origins as your low level mage.
Go melee in NWN as your low level mage.

Then come back and tell me how your characters died to those people with pointy metal rods.

The only difference with the mages of Baldur's Gate is that they have limited spell uses and start with very few spells but this should be apparent to anyone with visual reading skills.

We can certainly argue against the concept of weak mages and say how Bioware designed them is a bad design but that's another topic and one you even say is part of D&D.

Whether the mages of the bloody Witcher are earth-shattering gods like the LOTR ones is irrelevant. In this universe they start as regular humans who are learning magic. Their first spells are prankster spells. They become almost near-superhuman towards the end to make up with their crappy beginnings.

One must remember that this is a party game so yes it should be self-explanatory to cancel out the cons of one character class with the pros of another.

In Exile wrote...
How is any of this intuitive? How does someone's day to day experience tell them anything about this?

How does someone's day to day experience tell them anything about bloody army formations in Total War?

In Exile wrote...
No, it isn't intuitive. And it certainly isn't "hardcore". It has some annoying features like permnent death but that's frankly just annoying and a quickload gets around all this supposed "hardcoreness".

It's hardcore as Dark Souls is hardcore then. It punishes you for mistakes.* It punishes you for wondering into regions you're not ready for. It punishes you if you decide to travel alone. It punishes you by making sure all deaths of every game character is permanent so you have to live with consequences.

It's hardcore also because it incorporates systems such as necessity to sleep and sleep in town inns to avoid unwanted trouble from the likes of wild animals who can disturb your sleep in the wilds. It's hardcore because it inevitably teaches you to stock up on healing supplies before heading to a new location.

*"But there's nothing hardcore about being one shotted by Winthrop who hated my elven ass!"

It's explained Baldur's Gate is a game based on the dice rolls of the D&D system. Bioware designed BG's combat around that. Critical hits play a part of that. You might as well argue against the D&D system it used rather than saying the game is badly designed as Bioware deliberately designed it on that system and it worked correctly. So it's hardly badly designed, you just didn't like it.

It's no wonder you're in exile here then.

I see no point continuing this debate. Baldur's Gate, badly designed? Nope. The combat system, badly designed? Nope. I even enjoyed the D&D system it used. It's your opinion that it's a bad system but it's the one Bioware had to use and it's one Bioware was able to faithfully replicate into a game. Their first RPG of all things...

So that's all I have to say on this now.

Modifié par Elton John is dead, 29 novembre 2013 - 11:43 .

[xAmilli0n]

Thread is still going...

Anyways, does it really matter? Classic games come with classic gameplay, which you have to be in the right mindset and time for. That's it. The main game I play that compares is Dark Souls. Took some time to get into and understand, but I kept at it because the world and gameplay interested me. I never intended to play BG.

Different games to accomplish the same thing, which is to have fun.

To sum it up, if someone cares enough, they'll put the time, if they don't, don't get bothered that they don't like your game.

Modifié par xAmilli0n, 29 novembre 2013 - 11:49 .

[Il Divo]

Elton John is dead wrote...

It's explained Baldur's Gate is a game based on the dice rolls of the D&D system. Bioware designed BG's combat around that. Critical hits play a part of that. You might as well argue against the D&D system it used rather than saying the game is badly designed as Bioware deliberately designed it on that system and it worked correctly. So it's hardly badly designed, you just didn't like it.

This is a very weak attempt at a semantics argument.

Bad game design is not contingent upon the developer recognizing the bad design or whether they intentionally designed the game in such a way.

[Pedrak]

xAmilli0n wrote...


To sum it up, if someone cares enough, they'll put the time, if they don't, don't get bothered that they don't like your game.

Bothered in a "I'm going to shoot myself is someone says anything bad about BG" ? Nope. I accept people might dislike it. If someone thinks that D&D rules are not his cup of tea, I got no problem with that.

But if I see a criticism I don't regard as valid (ex. "a game should tell you which loot to keep" or "they should inform you which party works better"), why not discuss it? That's pretty much the whole point about this kind of boards, after all, unless we further devolve into endless gushing or OT pillow talk.

[OdanUrr]

All of this because one reviewer didn't like a particular video game?

[Il Divo]

OdanUrr wrote...

All of this because one reviewer didn't like a particular video game?

Hey, reviews can be contagious. See Redlettermedia as a great example. Except in this case, I don't see the reviewer obtaining a cult following.

[HoonDing]

Oh, this again.

[Cyonan]

Joy Divison wrote...

If you go into BG not knowing the D&D system you will be confused and get frustrated. D&D had multiple manuals, each some 150+ pages, just to explain the basic rules - and things that are optimal like dual-classes you will find explained in no rule book.

I keep hearing how BG should explain stuff like this in game, but I don't think it's possible. Someone said the BG II manual was like 260 pages or something. The gameplay mechanics are complicated, contingent are certain condtions, and just about everything has an exception. I played D&D since the 1980s and I still have to consult the rulebooks. It is not an easy system and much of it is not intuitive. See how long it takes to explain to your mother exactly what THACO is until she is comfortable with it. The tutorial would almost be as long as the game.

As for whether or not the designers should have tried to ease players unfamiliar with the game, it's a moot point. The game was made, what, 15 years ago and it became a classic. It obviously worked out fine and had a tremendous appeal to RPG players of that era. I don't buy the theories that "old school" or "hardcore" gamers of that sort that Jestina described are somehow better at RPGs or somehow better at figuring stuff out on their own. That's crap. Maybe 2E was not as alien to your college aged gamer circa 1999. Maybe having the 260 page rulebook helped...gamers today are almost entirely dependent on tutorials or Google because most games no longer come with an actual manual. Maybe BG players looked up walkthroughs and FAQs back then just many gamers do now.

I played the enhanced BGI and the GOG BGII. They're hard. I know D&D very well and had a character with mutiple 18s and still died a lot. I can totally see how these games would frustrate people unfamiliar with the system. And 2E's gameplay mechanics are bad. The games were not great because of the gameplay mechanics. The story, the replayablility, the companions, the freedom it gave the player, et al., those are the things that made them memorable.

To clarify, I am not asking for them to explain any advanced tactics or optimal setups. Merely to explain the basics of the gameplay.

In explaining something like THAC0, it would be broken up into 3 sections: Basic dice rolls, AC, and THAC0. Once you know how basic dice rolls work you really don't need to explain much about how THAC0 works.

I am not trying to argue that the game didn't have appeal with certain people or what made it considered a classic.

What I am doing is criticizing the game for not explaining the vast majority of its own mechanics.

[Isichar]

EntropicAngel wrote...

Isichar wrote...

Boy, if the reviewer thought this game was bad I cant imagine how hard of a time he would have with games like The Witcher 2, Super Ghouls and Ghosts, and Resident Evil 2 which would just continually keep killing you at the start if you did not know what you were doing.

Personally I like games that force me to actually think and take time to learn the gameplay without it holding my hand, I find it more immersive and in the case of Baldurs Gate I think it adds an absurd amount of replay value.

I don't know about the others, but TW2 is playable. It's fairly...simple. Moderately easy.

It's just twitch gaming, little more than that. What's complex about that?

Edit: Fun fact, my spelling mistake for "plowing" at the top of the page came from the Witcher.

To clarify I did not say it was complex.

I did not mention those games because I think they are complex (nor do I think BG is all that complex either if you actually put an effort to learn it) I said the game will kill you at the start if you do not know how the gameplay works. First time I ever loaded up the Witcher 2 I had a brief dialogue scenes followed by me taking control of Garet and getting destroyed almost immediately by a dragon well I was in combat.

[MerinTB]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

ThisOnesUsername wrote...

MerinTB wrote...
I come from a different generation of gamers, where you often had games without manuals

Isn't that this generation of games as well?

This is true enough. 

I'd say older games were MORE likely to put a manual in. Some games like Ultima 4 had stuff in the manual that you wouldn't be able to beat the game without knowing... old school DRM.

Nowadays, you're lucky to get a two page insert that even tells you how to turn the game on.  

There was a period of computer gaming, circa the C-64's prime, where swap meets and Fast Hack 'Em lead to people owning shoeboxes full of disks that were full of games, and no one owning ANY manuals.

No in-game tutorials, no in-game help on how to play, and no manuals.  It was a thing in the early to mid 80's.

And no world wide web to look up game instructions on.

It's not a matter of ignoring the manual - it's not having them.

[Fast Jimmy]

MerinTB wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...

ThisOnesUsername wrote...

MerinTB wrote...
I come from a different generation of gamers, where you often had games without manuals

Isn't that this generation of games as well?

This is true enough. 

I'd say older games were MORE likely to put a manual in. Some games like Ultima 4 had stuff in the manual that you wouldn't be able to beat the game without knowing... old school DRM.

Nowadays, you're lucky to get a two page insert that even tells you how to turn the game on.  

There was a period of computer gaming, circa the C-64's prime, where swap meets and Fast Hack 'Em lead to people owning shoeboxes full of disks that were full of games, and no one owning ANY manuals.

No in-game tutorials, no in-game help on how to play, and no manuals.  It was a thing in the early to mid 80's.

And no world wide web to look up game instructions on.

It's not a matter of ignoring the manual - it's not having them.

Well, fair enough. But I'm not entirely sure that people passing disks around and not buying them from the appropriate retailers was neccessarily the intended outcome of the developers at the time? But I could be wrong - I was stil a little tyke in the early 80's.

[Isichar]

Cyonan wrote...

To clarify, I am not asking for them to explain any advanced tactics or optimal setups. Merely to explain the basics of the gameplay.

In explaining something like THAC0, it would be broken up into 3 sections: Basic dice rolls, AC, and THAC0. Once you know how basic dice rolls work you really don't need to explain much about how THAC0 works.

I am not trying to argue that the game didn't have appeal with certain people or what made it considered a classic.

What I am doing is criticizing the game for not explaining the vast majority of its own mechanics.

On the menu screen theres a "how to play" that pretty much explains what THAC0 is and AC is, as well as explaining basic gameplay.

Edit: I am however going off BG2:EE. After looking at BG:EE I see it has a tutorial mode but I admit I have not actually gone through that so maybe that is missed in BG:EE.

Modifié par Isichar, 30 novembre 2013 - 01:23 .

[MerinTB]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Merin wrote...
And that's not a dig at console gamers, just a note that some people
like to play Sorry and some people like to play Backgammon.

I think your dig at console gamers is a bit unjustified. Old school console games were just as difficult and brutal as old school PC games. There's a reason the term "Nintendo Hard" exists... because beating Contra without using Konami's infamous cheat is pretty much an act of insanity that makes solving a Rubix cube blindfolded look like a cake walk.

It's not a dig.  I owned a TI-99 4A and a C-64 and a 286 PC.  I also owned an Atari 2600 and an NES.

The 'diffculty' or 'depth' difference between a console game and a computer game were great in all but the extreme examples on either platform.

There's nothing wrong with enjoying the board game Sorry.  Or the Harry Potter novels.  Or the Teen Titans cartoon.  I love all of those.
But those are different audiences than those of Axis and Allies, Jorge Luis Borges, or House of Cards.

Difference in complexity doesn't not equate to difference in quality.

And Contra was not that hard, without the code.   Battletoads, sure - but, again, extreme example.

There's probably a disconnect on what we me by 'hard' or 'complex' - and I'll lay my cards on the table...

I don't consider 'hand-eye coordination' nor 'how fast you can hit buttons in the right order' to measure any kind of difficulty or complexity that I care about.  Games, for me, are about puzzles and stories and decisions.  I'm not a twitch gamer, and that's probably the reason that 90% of the time I played Atari or Nintendo was because friends wanted to - I was never that keen on that kind of gaming.

Modifié par MerinTB, 30 novembre 2013 - 01:24 .

[MerinTB]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

MerinTB wrote...
There was a period of computer gaming, circa the C-64's prime, where swap meets and Fast Hack 'Em lead to people owning shoeboxes full of disks that were full of games, and no one owning ANY manuals.

No in-game tutorials, no in-game help on how to play, and no manuals.  It was a thing in the early to mid 80's.

And no world wide web to look up game instructions on.

It's not a matter of ignoring the manual - it's not having them.

Well, fair enough. But I'm not entirely sure that people passing disks around and not buying them from the appropriate retailers was neccessarily the intended outcome of the developers at the time? But I could be wrong - I was stil a little tyke in the early 80's.

And the recording industry didn't want downloading of music nor MP3's to happen, but the late 90's were the age of Napster.

[slimgrin]

Old school dudes need to step off their platform. Turn based RPG's are not the be-all-end-all of this genre. I'm annoyed that gamers think only turn based, isometric games are true RPG's. Leave that **** for RPG codex, that den of angry neckbeards.

[In Exile]

[quote]Elton John is dead wrote...

The list goes on but you don't criticize it but somehow can criticize Baldur's Gate despite it containing descriptions for statistics and a fair tutorial with a guy telling you that your party formation and set-up is essential to winning some of the more challenging encounters. It's not my fault you didn't pay heed to Obe or missed out on his quest altogether.[/quote]

There's a fundamental distinction between Dark Souls and Baldur's Gate: the fact that Dark Souls a real-time action game. Understanding that you're controlling a physical character in real-time from a third person perspective, that you have control over things like parrying and attacks, etc. is intuitive. The mechanics are the gameplay in BG. 

There's another importnat distinction: Dark Souls markets itself - and indeed prides itself - on being opaque and difficult. If you're going to purchase Dark Souls, as a consumer, you are fully aware that the game is designed to be a punishing experience. BG didn't hold itself out when it was released as some kind of sadistic difficutly simulator. 

[quote]Need I continue my list above on all the game mechanics Dark Souls doesn't even tell you exist?[/quote]

You can, because you'd still be wrong. 

[quote]Except it is especially when they see that their mage has limited spells just like mages in Dark Souls who need to rest at bonfires to recharge them (as opposed to Baldur's Gate mages who can rest anywhere) but somehow the two aren't the same again?[/quote]

No, they aren't the same. Because even if the mechanics are opaque in Dark Souls - and I never said the mechanics weren't opaque - the basic functional understand of the game actually works, i.e., how to control your character in an action-RPG - does not require a slog through Google open in a separate window. Beyond that, Dark Soul advertises itself as a punishing experience. 

But you know what? If you want to say that Baldur's Gate - a game that was not trying to actively create the most opaque possible mechanic - is the same as Dark Souls, a game that was designed specifically with being punishing and arbitrarily difficult at absolutely every turn, then I concede the point. 

Baldur's Gate is so well-designed that it unintentionally achieved what another game working really hard to intentionally achieve did: hidden mechanics, arbitrary difficutly spikes, and an absolutely punishing experience that's a test of fortitude all on its own.  

I'm sure one of Bioware's design goals was to have arbitrary difficutly and opaque mechanics. That's why they had the tutorial - as a kind of taunt to the players, and a way to communicate that they were responsible for learning the mechanics on their own, on their own time. 

[quote]Wait. You opened Microsoft Excel to learn about THAC0 or the self-explanatory statistics? Dark Souls (or so it has been claimed by people in your shoes) is also (apparently) about numbers and character builds and people constantly claim you'll need to visit the Wiki to get through the game. [/quote]

What people like myself? I didn't claim that Dark Souls was all about the numbers and builds. If you're going to make a rhetorical point, at least be honest about it. 

[quote]These games are alike. They are for people who don't want to be led by the hand. People who can learn the game mechanics through trial and error. And if one can't be bothered to learn by this way then they always go the easy route and just go online like you did. [/quote]

No, they're not. D&D is not a system that was designed with the intention of being an empirical science project where players would first spend a week creating detailed spreadsheets and running excel data charts to compare what combination of numbers gives you better numbers in the long-run. And BG certainly wasn't designed so that players - new players - would take a week to run mathematical simulations before diving into the game. 

[quote]It doesn't make the game poorly designed. You seem to think trial and error means "bad design" even when it's a deliberate feature of the two games. The fundamental mechanics are explained but the rest is left up to you. In fact whether you bloody follow the path outside of Candlekeep to the Friendly Arm Inn Tavern is entirely up to you. [/quote]

Trial-and-error is absolutely not a deliberate feature of BG. It amounts to a feature - and that's what makes it such a poorly designed game. It's opaque not because it was designed and marketed to be opaque or minimalist, but because the ruleset is a pile of garbage. 

[quote]Mages are weak in all RPG's. [/quote]

I get that reading is your weakness, but you'll notice I never said anything about mages in RPGs in that passage. I said that - intuitively - people would think that a class about altering the fabric of reality is strong. The idea that you're a pathetic bottom-feeder that's about to be killed by semi-wild rats is an RPG staple, but it's certainly not something someone can divine without playing RPGs first.

[quote]Go melee in Dragon Age: Origins as your low level mage.[/quote]

Why would I bother? In DA:O a mage is OP and broken about level 5. 

[quote]The only difference with the mages of Baldur's Gate is that they have limited spell uses and start with very few spells but this should be apparent to anyone with visual reading skills. [/quote]

No, the difference in BG is that the low level spells are absolute garbage. 

[quote]We can certainly argue against the concept of weak mages and say how Bioware designed them is a bad design but that's another topic and one you even say is part of D&D. [/quote]

I have no idea what you're on about with Bioware, because in pretty much every game they've ever designed the caster class is absolutely OP. Sometimes which Caster class varies (see the shift from ME1-ME2 and ME2-ME3), but it's been a staple of this company to have OP mages since, I suppose, KoTOR. 

[quote]How does someone's day to day experience tell them anything about bloody army formations in Total War? [/quote]

It's not unlikely someone's ran across a big epic historical battle in some form of media - books, studies at school, movies, etc. 

[quote]It's hardcore as Dark Souls is hardcore then. It punishes you for mistakes.* It punishes you for wondering into regions you're not ready for. It punishes you if you decide to travel alone. It punishes you by making sure all deaths of every game character is permanent so you have to live with consequences. [/quote]

It's certainly not as hardcore as Dark Souls. You can break BG into a joke on the hardest difficutly by just (i) knowing the mechanics well and (ii) knowing what happens in advance. Dark Souls goes beyond that in virtue of requriing you to actively control your character alone. 

[quote]It's explained Baldur's Gate is a game based on the dice rolls of the D&D system. Bioware designed BG's combat around that. Critical hits play a part of that. You might as well argue against the D&D system it used rather than saying the game is badly designed as Bioware deliberately designed it on that system and it worked correctly. So it's hardly badly designed, you just didn't like it. [/quote]

I am saying the D&D system is a steaming pile of garbage. I opened with sayign that the D&D system is a steaming pile of garbage. BG just makes it worse by taking this garbage P&P system and then slicing it up in such a way that you have to teach yourself it's ridiculous counter-intuitive and arbitrary rules to play the game. 

Modifié par In Exile, 30 novembre 2013 - 02:54 .

[Il Divo]

In Exile wrote...

There's another importnat distinction: Dark Souls markets itself - and indeed prides itself - on being opaque and difficult. If you're going to purchase Dark Souls, as a consumer, you are fully aware that the game is designed to be a punishing experience. BG didn't hold itself out when it was released as some kind of sadistic difficutly simulator. 

As a small aside, while there's nothing stopping someone from enjoying figuring out the rules to Baldur's Gate on their own, that Bioware themselves set out to include an extensive DnD manual with original copies would indicate that, in their eyes, players should have the ability to understand all the basic facets of the game up front.

Modifié par Il Divo, 30 novembre 2013 - 03:09 .

[Joy Divison]

MerinTB wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...

ThisOnesUsername wrote...

MerinTB wrote...
I come from a different generation of gamers, where you often had games without manuals

Isn't that this generation of games as well?

This is true enough. 

I'd say older games were MORE likely to put a manual in. Some games like Ultima 4 had stuff in the manual that you wouldn't be able to beat the game without knowing... old school DRM.

Nowadays, you're lucky to get a two page insert that even tells you how to turn the game on.  

There was a period of computer gaming, circa the C-64's prime, where swap meets and Fast Hack 'Em lead to people owning shoeboxes full of disks that were full of games, and no one owning ANY manuals.

No in-game tutorials, no in-game help on how to play, and no manuals.  It was a thing in the early to mid 80's.

And no world wide web to look up game instructions on.

It's not a matter of ignoring the manual - it's not having them.

Not that I did any of this, but I heard from peers and associates that is was often encessary to copy the manual to bypass the "what's the first word in the fourth line on page 23" security question 

[Kaiser Arian XVII]

My graphic standard for RPGs is NWN 2. It's not ugly. It's actually cartoonish! Less than that in 2013-15 period and devs can GTHO... or they can try to move the camera far from the ground (Da trick).

D&D 2 sucks and D&D 3 is the best settings on earth for fantasy games. Agreed?

[spirosz]

Elton John is dead wrote...

In Exile wrote...
But that's terrible design. A game shouldn't be a homework assignment. 

Ummm, Dark Souls?

Again, you didn't come up with a refutation to it.

Dark Souls literally doesn't explain many mechanics at all such as:

• The level scaling of weapons.
• The ascension of weapons.
• The reinforcement of weapons.
• Faith scaling of miracles.
• Intelligence scaling of magic.
• Dexterity increasing the speed of spells.
• There are actually four different speeds of rolling based on your weight.
• The different and special combos you can perform with weapons.
• The numerous status effects.
• Being cursed or using a curse weapon is required to defeat ghosts.
• Not telling you where to get uncursed from.
• Not telling you how to remove the egghead.
• Not telling you vital information about some covenants or if they even exist and how to access them.

The list goes on but you don't criticize it but somehow can criticize Baldur's Gate despite it containing descriptions for statistics and a fair tutorial with a guy telling you that your party formation and set-up is essential to winning some of the more challenging encounters. It's not my fault you didn't pay heed to Obe or missed out on his quest altogether.

In this sense both Baldur's Gate and Dark Souls are alike but you criticize one but not the other.

Don't forget. The prologue section of Baldur's Gate is also for people playing again who might not want to through it all again hence why it's optional.

In Exile wrote...Probably not a lot, because the difficulty in those games is pretty intuitive. In TW2 it's pretty clear what you have to do to learn to get good at the combat. Just like Dark Souls. Learning all of the arcane rules of D&D is nowhere near the same level of intuitve difficult. 

Need I continue my list above on all the game mechanics Dark Souls doesn't even tell you exist? Half of those are actually vital to getting through the game. I've actually heard of people who ended up getting cursed several times (to the point where they have the lowest HP possible) and quit the game because they didn't know you could get uncursed.

I've seen people asking "how do I kill the ghosts of New Londo???111" because they didn't bother reading the description for the transient curse. I've seen many players who I've invaded weilding the Drake Sword because they still don't understand weapon scaling (because if they did they wouldn't be using one of the worst swords in the game). Incidentally, these are the people summoning three people at once to help them get through the level because they find it impossible otherwise.

In Exile Wrote....
Except that knowing that mages won't be able to cast spells and have to rely on buying and hoarding scrolls isn't intuiitve at all. "Magic" does not evoke ideas of being a book hoarder.

Except it is especially when they see that their mage has limited spells just like mages in Dark Souls who need to rest at bonfires to recharge them (as opposed to Baldur's Gate mages who can rest anywhere) but somehow the two aren't the same again? lol

In Exile wrote...
It's nothing like an RTS because an RTS uses very basic concepts that we are familiar with IRL. People have a passing knowledge of warfare and what they need to learn in a proper RTS is how to micromanage large troops and get a hand of techniques and tactics like rushing etc.

An RPG is all about learning how completely arbitrary numbers - that are counterintuive to boot- actually work. So there's trial and error, but its' entirely divorced from any idea you might have of how to get started on your project.

If I'm reducing to opening excel and doing what amounts to actual empirical research then your game has terrible mechanics and should be scrapped.

Wait. You opened Microsoft Excel to learn about THAC0 or the self-explanatory statistics? Dark Souls (or so it has been claimed by people in your shoes) is also (apparently) about numbers and character builds and people constantly claim you'll need to visit the Wiki to get through the game.

Although this is all untrue unless you're someone who just can't be bothered to learn by yourself.

I scrapped many character builds in Dark Souls after two hours to see which one worked best for me. I did the same in Baldur's Gate.

These games are alike. They are for people who don't want to be led by the hand. People who can learn the game mechanics through trial and error. And if one can't be bothered to learn by this way then they always go the easy route and just go online like you did.

It doesn't make the game poorly designed. You seem to think trial and error means "bad design" even when it's a deliberate feature of the two games. The fundamental mechanics are explained but the rest is left up to you. In fact whether you bloody follow the path outside of Candlekeep to the Friendly Arm Inn Tavern is entirely up to you.

For you, that makes Baldur's Gate a "badly designed game" but for me that makes Baldur's Gate one of the ultimate RPG's out there.

In Exile wrote...
It's in no way self-explanatory that a class whose description amounts to "summing the raw powers of the universe" would be killed by people with pointy metal rods. It's entirely an abritrary convention of D&D that mages have to be weak at low levels and don't have the spells or damage output to outclass fighters.

But the fact that mages are balance to be garbage at low levels isn't intuitive at all.

Mages are weak in all RPG's.

Go melee in Dark Souls as your low level mage.
Go melee in Dragon Age: Origins as your low level mage.
Go melee in NWN as your low level mage.

Then come back and tell me how your characters died to those people with pointy metal rods.

The only difference with the mages of Baldur's Gate is that they have limited spell uses and start with very few spells but this should be apparent to anyone with visual reading skills.

We can certainly argue against the concept of weak mages and say how Bioware designed them is a bad design but that's another topic and one you even say is part of D&D.

Whether the mages of the bloody Witcher are earth-shattering gods like the LOTR ones is irrelevant. In this universe they start as regular humans who are learning magic. Their first spells are prankster spells. They become almost near-superhuman towards the end to make up with their crappy beginnings.

One must remember that this is a party game so yes it should be self-explanatory to cancel out the cons of one character class with the pros of another.

In Exile wrote...
How is any of this intuitive? How does someone's day to day experience tell them anything about this?

How does someone's day to day experience tell them anything about bloody army formations in Total War?

In Exile wrote...
No, it isn't intuitive. And it certainly isn't "hardcore". It has some annoying features like permnent death but that's frankly just annoying and a quickload gets around all this supposed "hardcoreness".

It's hardcore as Dark Souls is hardcore then. It punishes you for mistakes.* It punishes you for wondering into regions you're not ready for. It punishes you if you decide to travel alone. It punishes you by making sure all deaths of every game character is permanent so you have to live with consequences.

It's hardcore also because it incorporates systems such as necessity to sleep and sleep in town inns to avoid unwanted trouble from the likes of wild animals who can disturb your sleep in the wilds. It's hardcore because it inevitably teaches you to stock up on healing supplies before heading to a new location.

*"But there's nothing hardcore about being one shotted by Winthrop who hated my elven ass!"

It's explained Baldur's Gate is a game based on the dice rolls of the D&D system. Bioware designed BG's combat around that. Critical hits play a part of that. You might as well argue against the D&D system it used rather than saying the game is badly designed as Bioware deliberately designed it on that system and it worked correctly. So it's hardly badly designed, you just didn't like it.

It's no wonder you're in exile here then.

I see no point continuing this debate. Baldur's Gate, badly designed? Nope. The combat system, badly designed? Nope. I even enjoyed the D&D system it used. It's your opinion that it's a bad system but it's the one Bioware had to use and it's one Bioware was able to faithfully replicate into a game. Their first RPG of all things...

So that's all I have to say on this now.

[Isichar]

I somehow managed to not only figure out how to play this game, but to even enjoy it when I was only a child without the use of the internet.

Im not sure if I am just a genious, crazy, self masochistic or what? According to nameless reviewer X in the OP I must have the patience of a saint.

Modifié par Isichar, 30 novembre 2013 - 07:02 .

[bussinrounds]

Kaiser Arian wrote...


D&D 2 sucks and D&D 3 is the best settings on earth for fantasy games. Agreed?

No.  Earlier settings were better.  

Ravenloft
Dark Sun
Greyhawk
Birthright
Planescape
Wilderlands

WotC totally screwed up D&D.  They even messed up the FR.   Long live TSR !

Modifié par bussinrounds, 30 novembre 2013 - 07:52 .

[Pedrak]

All of this because one reviewer didn't like a particular video game?

Oh, this again

Yeah, it's a pity this conversation about RPGs is taking away time from other more constructive discussions here on the boards, such as "Would you do Wynne?" or "How many times a day do you take a dump?". Sorry, guys.