NWN Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition - Beamdog's final enhancement - now with new premium modules

[JarlFrank]

... A cool module like Swordflight deserves proper party control.

However much FPC might have benefited NWN in general, I am not sure it would really fit with Swordflight, where the primary companion is supposed to be something of an idiot and thus a burden and additional tactical challenge for the player to deal with. Swordflight was specifically designed to work with, and was partly inspired by, NWN's major limitations.

There is no tactics when all you control is a single character and your companion acts like an idiot, and the game essentially plays like slow Diablo except less flexible in its options. There were several instances where I was frustrated by the encounters because of how challenging they are, but NWN's combat is just so shit there's no fun in overcoming the challenge. FPC would do a LOT to improve that. The only "tactics" I get to do when playing as a fighter-rogue is deciding which enemy to focus on, and when to chug a potion. It's boring gameplay. It would be infinitely better with party control.

In fact, I got stuck at one place in Swordflight 3 (I think it was 3) because of some undead creatures that are almost impossible to beat, and the companions are too retarded to be of any real help.

There were many situations in the Swordflight series where I thought, hey, this encounter would be a lot of fun if I had a proper party at my disposal and could use actual combat tactics. Instead they were kinda tedious because it was such a gamble, hoping they'd use the right spells.

...the combat is just shit because your party members are retards who get themselves killed. NWN has the worst combat in any RPG ever made, in the entire history of RPGs.

Retarded party members and the associated issues is not a problem unique to NWN but is true of every non-FPC game I can think of (unless they either do not have companions at all or the combat is so ridiculously easy no one could be killed by it - either of which could be a problem in its own right) including some games like Fallout and Arcanum that are widely considered to be among the greatest RPGs of all time. Obviously someone who considers the lack of FPC to be a deal-breaker would not want anything to do with NWN (and presumably also not Fallout, Arcanum, Elder Scrolls games and many others), but compared to other non-FPC games specifically, I find NWN's combat system to be relatively quite good, and much more tactically interesting than most. It is even better than some really badly implemented games like NWN2 and Dragon Age: Inquisition that technically have FPC but implemented in such a kludgy and generally poor way that they would probably be better off without it.

I don't mind it in Fallout and Arcanum, strangely enough, and Elder Scrolls games are fun too because their systems are designed around single char gameplay.

NWN is extremely slow, probably the slowest RTwP combat I've ever played. Arcanum's real-time combat, on the other hand, is over extremely quickly and there's also a turn-based mode for harder encounters. Moreover, those games are designed to be fun as single character games. One character is able to go through most combat encounters with the right skills and equipment. Due to D&D's class based system, single chars are much less flexible. If you play a fighter you don't get spells, if you play a mage you are squishy in melee, and if you want a realistic chance at opening locks you need to be a rogue. Class based systems aren't very good for single char games.

Fallout, Arcanum, Elder Scrolls, Age of Decadence, ATOM RPG, they're all using classless systems that give you more flexibility. D&D is a system made to be played with a party.
The only way I can see NWN being fun as it is, is with a 2E style dual- and multiclassing system, but multiclassing in 3E works differently so it isn't as viable.

NWN just feels like playing Diablo to me except it's less dynamic and flexible and 10 times slower. The only way it's even bearable is to use Cheat Engine's speedhack, but that doesn't fix the blandness and non-tacticalness of the combat.

 

[rogueknight333]

There is no tactics when all you control is a single character and your companion acts like an idiot...

While it is certainly the case that party-based games usually have more sophisticated tactical options than single character based games, the latter still do have tactics. Indeed, theoretically, a game that provides a single character with a sufficient number of spells, special powers, usable items etc. might give him more tactical options than those available to a party whose members are all strictly limited in what actions they can perform. I have often run into NWN encounters that initially seemed impossible (while playing the admittedly rare modules in which combat is actually difficult) but turned out to be quite manageable or even easy once I figured out a new tactical approach. Many other players have run into the same phenomenon (often while playing my modules). Obviously that would not be possible if there were no tactics in the game.

If you are going to pretend you are playing a different game in which companions are more than marginally useful, and refuse to take their limitations into account when designing your tactics, then naturally you are going to have problems.

The only "tactics" I get to do when playing as a fighter-rogue is deciding which enemy to focus on, and when to chug a potion...

Have you heard of Sneak Attack? Use Magic Device? Traps? Just for starters. Admittedly playing a pure Fighter would give you far fewer options, though even there you would have more options than those two, but that is not a problem unique to NWN. In most RPGs I am familiar with playing as a pure warrior tends to be relatively boring.

There were many situations in the Swordflight series where I thought, hey, this encounter would be a lot of fun if I had a proper party at my disposal and could use actual combat tactics.

Since people who actually know how to play NWN can beat those encounters as is, adding a controllable party, without massively reworking the encounters, would just make them laughably easy.

I don't mind it in Fallout and Arcanum, strangely enough...

It is indeed strange, since most other non-FPC games have even fewer tactical options than NWN, and companions who are even more stupid and harder to control. Logically it would seem that someone who dislikes NWN for those reasons would like those other single character focused games even less. I personally, while appreciating many things they do right, was never able to enjoy those particular games as much as, for example, Infinity Engine games, for precisely those reasons. I was more able to enjoy NWN, because, though it has the same problems, it has them (I found) to a noticeably lesser degree.

...Due to D&D's class based system, single chars are much less flexible. If you play a fighter you don't get spells, if you play a mage you are squishy in melee, and if you want a realistic chance at opening locks you need to be a rogue. Class based systems aren't very good for single char games...

Leaving aside that 3E only marginally qualifies as a class-based system, I am not sure this is necessarily correct. If you want any given character to be able to do everything in the game, then sure. On the other hand, if one wants a highly reactive game in which playing different characters means accessing significantly different content, being able to make content dependent on class-specific skills not all characters will have can be quite helpful.

 

[turkishronin]

I tried playing NN. Basically the first quest out of the temple is to run around the city killing prisoner enemies, going down one level in jail and killing some other prisoner enemies and going down even further and STILL encountering the same type of enemies. Does this game get better or am I just going to kill the same type of enemies for the rest of the game?

 

[Alpan]

I tried playing NN. Basically the first quest out of the temple is to run around the city killing prisoner enemies, going down one level in jail and killing some other prisoner enemies and going down even further and STILL encountering the same type of enemies. Does this game get better or am I just going to kill the same type of enemies for the rest of the game?

The original, base campaign does not get better. You're better off playing Shadows of Undrentide or (even better) Hordes of the Underdark.

Shadows is fine, and Hordes is pretty awesome. Once you have some familiarity with how the game plays, you should go for some custom modules. Darkness over Daggerford is a pretty good starter in terms of player-made content.

 

[Lacrymas]

Yeah, just start SoU. There's also an "official" interquel somewhere that bridges SoU and HotU that might be worth playing before exporting the character to HotU.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Yeah, just start SoU. There's also an "official" interquel somewhere that bridges SoU and HotU that might be worth playing before exporting the character to HotU.

I would be interested to know what that is.

 

[Lacrymas]

Shadohaunt is the winner of the contest. But there's also the Nether Scrolls and the Shadow Queen.

 

[Sabotin]

https://neverwintervault.org/article/reference/campaigns-and-module-series-list-nwn1

There's a list there under official campaigns etc.

Btw I played a ftr/rog dualwield squishy and it was often a quite frustrating experience with the party. I think the biggest issue is that NPCs have a sort of delay before they "start up" combat and can't initiate well. It's much easier to manage if you're the one charging ahead and can simply have the others follow/stay behind you. UMD is your best friend if you have it.
For an early and fairly broken combo cast ultravision (lv1 or 2) which lasts hours and then darkness (lv2 and can be cast in armor) on groups of enemies. Sneak attack galore. And enemies mostly ignore you outright if you're not near enough.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I tried playing NN. Basically the first quest out of the temple is to run around the city killing prisoner enemies, going down one level in jail and killing some other prisoner enemies and going down even further and STILL encountering the same type of enemies. Does this game get better or am I just going to kill the same type of enemies for the rest of the game?

nwn is pretty trash for anyone who isn't interested in playing custom modules

 

[glass blackbird]

I tried playing NN. Basically the first quest out of the temple is to run around the city killing prisoner enemies, going down one level in jail and killing some other prisoner enemies and going down even further and STILL encountering the same type of enemies. Does this game get better or am I just going to kill the same type of enemies for the rest of the game?

Never play the original campaign. Even if you want to play official stuff just play the expansions; SOTU starts you at level 1 and HOTU is a continuation of that story

 

[Fedora Master]

The OC is basically just a demo of what the toolkit is capable of, little more. Every chapter boils down to "Here's 3-4 areas, go there and kill x"

 

[Cael]

OC had uninspiring story and badly written NPCs.

The other two were far better with both and had more unique loot to boot.

 

[JarlFrank]

There is no tactics when all you control is a single character and your companion acts like an idiot...

While it is certainly the case that party-based games usually have more sophisticated tactical options than single character based games, the latter still do have tactics. Indeed, theoretically, a game that provides a single character with a sufficient number of spells, special powers, usable items etc. might give him more tactical options than those available to a party whose members are all strictly limited in what actions they can perform. I have often run into NWN encounters that initially seemed impossible (while playing the admittedly rare modules in which combat is actually difficult) but turned out to be quite manageable or even easy once I figured out a new tactical approach. Many other players have run into the same phenomenon (often while playing my modules). Obviously that would not be possible if there were no tactics in the game.

If you are going to pretend you are playing a different game in which companions are more than marginally useful, and refuse to take their limitations into account when designing your tactics, then naturally you are going to have problems.

Well, a character class without spells just isn't as tactically diverse as one with spells. Most of the tactics for a fighter-rogue comes down to which enemy I target and whether to use a consumeable right now. Not that varied.

There were many situations in the Swordflight series where I thought, hey, this encounter would be a lot of fun if I had a proper party at my disposal and could use actual combat tactics.

Since people who actually know how to play NWN can beat those encounters as is, adding a controllable party, without massively reworking the encounters, would just make them laughably easy.

They'd be more fun though because there would be more to actually do. NWN makes me feel like the one thing I'm doing the most is waiting. 70% of my time is wasted waiting, and only 30% actually making decisions.

I don't mind it in Fallout and Arcanum, strangely enough...

It is indeed strange, since most other non-FPC games have even fewer tactical options than NWN, and companions who are even more stupid and harder to control. Logically it would seem that someone who dislikes NWN for those reasons would like those other single character focused games even less. I personally, while appreciating many things they do right, was never able to enjoy those particular games as much as, for example, Infinity Engine games, for precisely those reasons. I was more able to enjoy NWN, because, though it has the same problems, it has them (I found) to a noticeably lesser degree.

Maybe it's all because of the pacing. NWN has the worst pacing in any game I've ever played. It's just slow, and since you only control one character, you don't have that much to do, not that many decisions to make. If you controlled party members, there's be at least twice, if not thrice as much to do in the same amount of time, since you'd be controlling twice or thrice the amount of actors.

Arcanum has a relatively quick turn-based mode, and a really quick real time mode. It has about the same amount of tools as NWN (plenty of spells, potions, throwable weapons like grenades, etc), but it's much, much faster. Even if you play in turn-based, one turn is much quicker than in NWN. If you play in real time, a trash encounter vs 10 rats is over in 10 seconds. In NWN, that same encounter would take a full minute because of how slow everything is.

Fallout is pretty quick too, usually, the only exception being the bums in the towns who move slow as molasses during their turn. But a fight vs 4 radscorpions in Fallout is much quicker than a fight against 4 equivalent enemies in NWN. Same with Age of Decadence.

Also, the very nature of turn-based makes decisions more tactical, makes them count more since you have more control over when and how they are performed, so I find Age of Decadence's combat more tactical than NWN's. It also offers me plenty of tools like throwing weapons, bombs, molotov cocktails etc. While real time single character games in the style of Diablo are fast and action-y and yet still offer tactics by giving you plenty of skills to use. Meanwhile, NWN combines the worst of both worlds without any of the good, by giving you a very very slow real-time with pause system. It's slower than both turn based and full real time, doesn't offer quite the same level of tactics as TB and doesn't offer any of the action of pure RT.

The main problem I have with NWN is that it doesn't respect my time. It makes me wait long, long periods of time for most things. "Turns" take extremely long, probably the longest in any RTWP game I played. You will spend most of your time in combat watching your dude circle the enemy dude without swinging his weapon because a single "turn" takes so incredibly long. I don't like games that pontlessly waste my time for no reason. NWN is the most time-wastey game I ever played, and I despise its engine for it.

...Due to D&D's class based system, single chars are much less flexible. If you play a fighter you don't get spells, if you play a mage you are squishy in melee, and if you want a realistic chance at opening locks you need to be a rogue. Class based systems aren't very good for single char games...

3E only marginally qualifies as a class-based system

How so?

 

[Cael]

If you really want to fast track NWN's combat, play a Fighter 4/Bard 1/RDD 10 and dual wield. That build cuts through hordes of mobs like hot knife through butter.

 

[Lacrymas]

JarlFrank, it really reads like you've only played up to 3rd level on any character. Once you get your 2nd apr, it isn't as slow as you make it out to be. It also reads like you don't have UMD or don't use scrolls with your Rogue characters. Turns take as much time as they did in BG - 6 seconds. The only really boring class is the Fighter, and even then, you have things like Power Attack, Combat Expertise, maybe Whirlwind Attack. Have you tried Swordflight and not given up before going to the desert?

 

[JarlFrank]

JarlFrank, it really reads like you've only played up to 3rd level on any character. Once you get your 2nd apr, it isn't as slow as you make it out to be. It also reads like you don't have UMD or don't use scrolls with your Rogue characters. Turns take as much time as they did in BG - 6 seconds. The only really boring class is the Fighter, and even then, you have things like Power Attack, Combat Expertise, maybe Whirlwind Attack. Have you tried Swordflight and not given up before going to the desert?

I played into the level range of 12+, in Swordflight I got stuck in I think episode 3 where you enter a dungeon filled with undead along with 2 companions and those things are almost impossible to beat so that's where I gave up.

It's an enjoyable set of modules but I just can't extract that much fun out of the combat. It still feels much, much slower than it should be.

I guess I could try using Cheat Engine's speedhack at 5x speed.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

JarlFrank, it really reads like you've only played up to 3rd level on any character. Once you get your 2nd apr, it isn't as slow as you make it out to be. It also reads like you don't have UMD or don't use scrolls with your Rogue characters. Turns take as much time as they did in BG - 6 seconds. The only really boring class is the Fighter, and even then, you have things like Power Attack, Combat Expertise, maybe Whirlwind Attack. Have you tried Swordflight and not given up before going to the desert?

I played into the level range of 12+, in Swordflight I got stuck in I think episode 3 where you enter a dungeon filled with undead along with 2 companions and those things are almost impossible to beat so that's where I gave up.

It's an enjoyable set of modules but I just can't extract that much fun out of the combat. It still feels much, much slower than it should be.

I guess I could try using Cheat Engine's speedhack at 5x speed.

Nix. Roll a barbarian.

 

[rogueknight333]

Well, a character class without spells just isn't as tactically diverse as one with spells. Most of the tactics for a fighter-rogue comes down to which enemy I target and whether to use a consumeable right now. Not that varied.

It is usually true that warriors have fewer options than casters, but, again, true of almost every RPG, not just NWN. If you do not like this, playing a caster would seem to be the obvious solution?

Furthermore, there are far more tactical options available in NWN than you seem to be aware of. Even a pure Fighter (never mind a Fighter/Rogue whose options would be significantly greater), in addition to choosing targets and using the standard buffing/healing potions, can:

1) Use special abilities like Knockdown, Called Shot, Expertise, etc.

2) Switch between kiting with missile weapons and engaging in melee as circumstances dictate.

3) Use Terrain chokepoints to limit the number of attackers able to strike.

4) Use Invisibility potions to gain time to heal, or tactically reposition, or catch enemies flat-footed, etc.

5) Occasionally use various spells that can be cast from items usable by any class.

And probably other things if I took the time to think of them.

NWN has the worst pacing in any game I've ever played. It's just slow...

I never noticed it being unusually slow myself, but as I do not customarily play with a stopwatch running to keep precise track of how long things take, I suppose it might be.

I suspect that part of your problem may be that not liking the game very much, for whatever reason, you have naturally not played it too extensively or taken the trouble to learn many tactics, and thus tend to default to having to win difficult fights through sheer attrition, which indeed can get tedious. Swordflight, in particular, is very much intended for at least somewhat experienced NWN players with some knowledge of appropriate builds and tactics.

3E only marginally qualifies as a class-based system

How so?

3E is something of a hybrid system trying to combine elements from class-based and skill-based systems. Technically, it is class-based, but one can multi-class very freely thus combining a very wide range of skills in one character. One cannot become quite as omni-competent as, say, a character in an Elder Scrolls game, but with the right combination of classes one can often get quite close. Now, in practice, it is true, despite greater theoretical freedom to multi-class, there are particular class combinations that worked better in earlier editions. For example, in Baldur's Gate Cleric/Mage was a class I much enjoyed playing, but this particular combination does not really work in NWN (mainly, though, because NWN did not include any of the prestige classes that could have made it viable)

 

[Wunderbar]

https://steamcommunity.com/stats/704450/achievements/

furries are everywhere

 

[Lilura]

I love this thread title.

 

[Sacibengala]

I love this thread title.

This new title gives me some peace, even if it is an illusion.

 

[fantadomat]

What is happening with their studio? Did they go kaput?

 

[Lilura]

They are working on console 'tard versions of the EEs.

Render rewrite for NWN:EE is a year away. Then, there will be bugs. So maybe 3 years.

Note that IE:EEs are still being patched and updated after 5 years.

 

[Poseidon00]

What annoys me more than the lack of FPC is Beamdog's lame excuse for not implementing it. It goes against the "spirit" of NWN? Oh please, the entire ruleset is based on parties of adventurers taking out encounters together, not 1 person.

Just say you don't have the money, skill, or good will to implement it and shut up already.

That being said I still enjoy NWN even without full party control. Some great modules out there for the DnD nerds that just need more.

 

[Lilura]

Well, yeah. I wrote up a big rant on that, but I was humbled by Swordflight's tactical nature, so...

According to my data, in regard to single-player mode, NWN2 has been as "popular" as NWN for the last half a decade.

This is probably attributable to things like:

MotB
FPC
Most people think it looks better
3.5
better UI mods for 1080p
better performance/compatibility on current gen hardware/OS

Bear in mind that, unlike NWN, NWN2 does not have an EE and is not on Steam anymore. It's basically received no attention. There are only three active dev blogs (Bedine, World of Althea and There & Back Again). And yet it's still pulling the same no. of single-player gamers.