Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 Early Access Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Lacrymas]

If you are trading pre-buffs like this, just bake the buffs into the classes and spare me minutes of pre-buffing time before the combat.

How is it possible that you can't conceive the invention of a comfortable piece of UI that allows the player to configure its buffs in a series of presets invocable with a single click?

I can, I have used the rod of pre-buffing mod in NWN2. That doesn't fix the problem of it making fights easier and freeing up your action economy.

 

[Anonona]

How is it possible that you can't conceive the invention of a comfortable piece of UI that allows the player to configure its buffs in a series of presets to invoke with a single click?

I guess because it still would be an unnecessary step. I think a system where long duration buffs are always active like some kind of aura but take up a number of slots equal to the numbers if buff spells you have memorized could work, while short duration buff have to be casted. While they can be casted outside of combat, if they are relatively short then you won't always do it, specially if you don't know what you are facing. Make it so that if the caster is silenced, its enchantment dispelled or is KOed then the long duration buff stop working, which adds even more importance to keeping the caster alive or incentivizes the player to create strategies that depend less on buffing.

If you have to justify why the spells work like that, say that long duration buff and enchantments are difficult rituals that require a significant amount of time and concentration to keep.

 

[Yosharian]

Whenever someone talks about immersion over game mechanics, I cannot help but remember the awful era of game journos praising "realism and immersion" and the obssession of the masses over it that brought brown graphics, shitty military shooters like CoD which limited the numbers of weapons you could carry because it was realistic, and the dead of shit ton of genres because of it, from platformers to TB and RTwP RPGs in general because "lol, why are characters standing around without doing nothing? That is not realistic!!!." Those were the precursors of the decline we are nowadays.

Immersion is nice and all, but is a poor argument to defend any game mechanic.

I mean that is a red herring, because military shooters are not RPGs. The goal of a game like DOOM isn't simulation, it's fun. Not the same thing. Military shooters sort of straddle a line between realism and fun, but ultimately they are about tactical decision-making more than immersion. Also CoD isn't realistic or a good simulator at all, it has respawning enemies for god's sake.

Again I'm talking about RPGs, stick to the subject. And I'm not saying we have to simulate taking a shit every day and eating to survive in every RPG, I'm just saying that when we throw everything logical out of the window in the name of creating a 'balanced' system, we ruin the very nature of what we're trying to create.

 

[Yosharian]

If you are trading pre-buffs like this, just bake the buffs into the classes and spare me minutes of pre-buffing time before the combat.

How is it possible that you can't conceive the invention of a comfortable piece of UI that allows the player to configure its buffs in a series of presets invocable with a single click?

I can, I have used the rod of pre-buffing mod in NWN2. That doesn't fix the problem of it making fights easier and freeing up your action economy.

I said ONLY USABLE OUTSIDE OF COMBAT

 

[Cryomancer]

lol, why are characters standing around without doing nothing?

Turn based combat is to allow PC's and DM's to act. A better example would be realistic inventory management.

hitty military shooters like CoD which limited

CoD is not realistic. A better example would be ArmA 3.

But is not that game mechancis needs to be a hard translation of in fantasy concepts. Just in line. Like the artstyle, As Yosharian said, the excessive focus on balance is ruining RPG's.

 

[Lacrymas]

How is it possible that you can't conceive the invention of a comfortable piece of UI that allows the player to configure its buffs in a series of presets to invoke with a single click?

I guess because it still would be an unnecessary step. I think a system where long duration buffs are always active like some kind of aura but take up a number of slots equal to the numbers if buff spells you have memorized could work, while short duration buff have to be casted. While they can be casted outside of combat, if they are relatively short then you won't always do it, specially if you don't know what you are facing. Make it so that if the caster is silenced, its enchantment dispelled or is KOed then the long duration buff stop working, which adds even more importance to keeping the caster alive or incentivizes the player to create strategies that depend less on buffing.

If you have to justify why the spells work like that, say that long duration buff and enchantments are difficult rituals that require a significant amount of time and concentration to keep.

The problem is not how tedious it is, but how it makes fights easier as a rule. It is tedious, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't pertain to the actual mechanics.

 

[Yosharian]

The problem is not how tedious it is, but how it makes fights easier as a rule.

Implement dispelling properly and allow enemies to prebuff also, then it doesn't make the game easier per se, it just adds an extra strategic layer into combat.

Also you are contradicting yourself because mere minutes ago you were complaining about the tedium of having to prebuff

 

[Lacrymas]

The problem is not how tedious it is, but how it makes fights easier as a rule.

Implement dispelling properly and allow enemies to prebuff also, then it doesn't make the game easier per se, it just adds an extra strategic layer into combat.

No, it just equalises the playing field, which should be equal in the first place, so just bake the buffs into the classes and skip the extra step.

 

[Yosharian]

Why not remove magical weapons from D&D, too? They make the game easier and monsters generally don't or can't use them.

 

[Yosharian]

In fact fuck it let's just play chess every time there is an encounter in the game, chess is a perfectly balanced game

 

[NJClaw]

No, it just equalises the playing field, which should be equal in the first place, so just bake the buffs into the classes and skip the extra step.

Okay, time to ask for an expert opinion:

Delterius, can buffs be baked into classes?

 

[Anonona]

I mean that is a red herring, because military shooters are not RPGs. The goal of a game like DOOM isn't simulation, it's fun. Not the same thing.

Ah, so the goal of RPGs isn't to have fun, got it.

RPGs are a game, just like any other. They descend from wargaming, and as "simulationist" as they are, at the end of the day the mechanics are designed to be fun first and realistic later. The Vancian system of casting exist not because it is more realistic, but because it makes for more fun and strategic gameplay. You can justify how it works later, but the most important part will always be how it functions mechanically.

Also don't take me wrong, I'm not saying that a game would be bad for trying to be realistic or trying to simulate real life and making mechanics that harmonize both. But using it as the main argument for something is quite honestly not good, specially when it comes to magic which is something that doesn't exist. Prebuffing has its pros but you can create a system without it and justify it perfectly and not lose "realism". Simulation isn't justification enough to defend it.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

pre-buffing is homo

 

[Yosharian]

There is no logical reason to restrict spellcasting to combat-only, it makes no sense and it runs contrary to the essence of what an RPG is.

When I run a tabletop session my two primary concerns are to tell the story of the game and help simulate the fantasy world so that the players can act within the world.

CRPGs should try to replicate that as much as possible (within reason) and breaking the simulation of the setting to balance gameplay is anathema.

 

[Cryomancer]

There is no logical reason to restrict spellcasting to combat-only, it makes no sense and it runs contrary to the essence of what an RPG is.

Exactly. The same larian fanboys praising speak with the dead allowing you to speak with deceased NPC's on BG3 (a thing which I only saw on Arcanum) now saying that magic should be combat only... CRPG's should do the OPPOSITE. And allow you to solve more problems outside of combat with magic, strength checks and etc.

VtMB 1 had a lot of usage of disciplines in dialogs.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

we're saying pre-buffing shouldn't exist because it's for homos

 

[Yosharian]

we're saying pre-buffing shouldn't exist because it's for homos

Strange that you would argue against it then, knowing your proclivity for taking dicks in your ass

 

[rusty_shackleford]

we're saying pre-buffing shouldn't exist because it's for homos

Strange that you would argue against it then, knowing your proclivity for taking dicks in your ass

I'm one of the few straight people on this site, it's difficult staying sane in the insane asylum

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

On a side note I'm not really sure what's wrong with some users and their incapacity to grasp when their feedback is unreasonable.

There was (another) discussion going on on their forum about the day/night cycle, why Larian doesn't want to do it, how it could be achieved in a cost-effective manner, etc, etc.
Here comes this guy suggesting "We should fragment each day in five/six different time windows where different things are going to happen and you'll have to use a mandatory short rest to move to the next time period".

Jesus fucking Christ, you have a developer that doesn't want to even bother with the most basic-ass, binary, mostly-cosmetic day/night variation AND your alternative suggestion is a system orders of magnitude more elaborated than that?
And of course he started to somewhat antagonizing me when I politely pointed out why it wasn't the most practical suggestion.
"How is my suggestion less practical than yours??" etc, etc.

 

[fantadomat]

system orders of magnitude more elaborated

And retarded.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

system orders of magnitude more elaborated

And retarded.

Yeah, I also don't like it in principle. Especially the "time passes only when you do a rest" part.
Apparently his argument for it was that "it gives him anxiety" when a day passes after a certain amount of real-time hours. When I pointed that we aren't exactly facing pressing deadlines and that anxiety didn't seem to be reasonable I never got an answer back, so who knows.

 

[fantadomat]

system orders of magnitude more elaborated

And retarded.

Yeah, I also don't like it in principle. Especially the "time passes only when you do a rest" part.
Apparently his argument for it was that "it gives him anxiety" when a day passes after a certain amount of real-time hours. When I pointed that we aren't exactly facing pressing deadlines and that anxiety didn't seem to be reasonable I never got an answer back, so who knows.

Well DA2 had that shit,where you had different npcs and quests during different time of day, day/night. It was repetitive tame wasting shit with 2 versions,let alone with 6 or more. I generally agree that having timed events is annoying,running around thinking if you missed a quest or something else is pretty nasty way to play a game. The best option would be to ignore time and just have day/night cycle as a cosmetic thing. That said i don't have problem with the way it is now,nobody likes playing during the night because you can't see shit during it,especially if you are playing in well lid room.

 

[gurugeorge]

I dunno, pre-buffs allow for a higher ceiling.

A higher ceiling of what? It's definitely not the skill ceiling.

Maybe ceiling was the wrong word (because of the association with "skill ceiling"). But I explained what I meant. Un-buffed farmboys can do low level stuff up to big beasties, dangerous men (kings, gangsters, etc.) and that sort of thing. But if you want higher level enemies that edge more into the fantasy realm, the magical realm, then you have to have some sort of magical buffing to match, otherwise you have the incongruity of farmboys eating eldritch bolts and that sort of thing.

The higher, the more comprised of layers of specialization, therefore the more fiddly to apply in combat (when you really want to be getting more into the meat of the combat), and better done beforehand (apart from clutch short-term buffs that could be applied in combat).

Buffs are not an exciting part of combat. But they can be an immersive part of the pre-combat scenario, and there's nothing wrong with that. If it's all too much clicking for sir's poor little fingers, or too much to remember for sir's poor wee brain, then join me and Desiderius in recommending some kind of automation (which as I said, can easily be given an in-lore rationale)

 

[Gargaune]

On a side note I'm not really sure what's wrong with some users and their incapacity to grasp when their feedback is unreasonable.

There was (another) discussion going on on their forum about the day/night cycle, why Larian doesn't want to do it, how it could be achieved in a cost-effective manner, etc, etc.
Here comes this guy suggesting "We should fragment each day in five/six different time windows where different things are going to happen and you'll have to use a mandatory short rest to move to the next time period".

Jesus fucking Christ, you have a developer that doesn't want to even bother with the most basic-ass, binary, mostly-cosmetic day/night variation AND your alternative suggestion is a system orders of magnitude more elaborated than that?
And of course he started to somewhat antagonizing me when I politely pointed out why it wasn't the most practical suggestion.
"How is my suggestion less practical than yours??" etc, etc.

The bigger problem is that it skews the feedback to Larian and makes it look like it's pointless giving an inch because only the mile will satisfy. Same problem with the discussion on party management, where some insist on "full RTS" controls with formations etc., no compromise. Yes, the game should have those, but I'd readily settle for a click interface on the toilet chain than nothing all.

 

[gurugeorge]

CRPGs' number 1 priority is to simulate a fantasy world, because that's what role-playing games are about, SIMULATING FANTASY WORLDS. The minute you introduce retarded rules like 'no casting in combat!' to try to balance out gameplay, you are prioritising balance over SIMULATION. And thus you are making a SHIT RPG.

Very much agree with this. Simulation should be gameplay, at least in terms of everything that doesn't relate to magic (and even with magic, I would argue that it should be simulationist of traditional ideas of "real" magic, of which there are plenty examples, pretty consistent across cultures). Simulation is gameplay because the rules are familiar - the world ought to react how you'd expect it to react. The ideal game should react to your intuition immediatly, there ought to be no special "gameplay" rules that you have to learn.

One of the most insightful comments I saw from a gamer about this was someone talking about trying to get his gf into videogames. He observed that what put her off was the fact that she would try things out, and the world wouldn't react the way one would expect it to react (could be as simple as putting a box on top of another box). And this made him realize that us gamers have just gotten used to earlier forms of simulation that were around when we were younger, so we understand the rules and the limitations. All the "game" stuff we have is either a) simulation that fails to be good simulation because of technological limitations, or b) the hiving off of "art for art's sake" rulesets that we call "gameplay" (as if that's some special thing that's different from simulation) that have their own discrete charm. Us "gamers" are so used to these that we don't hold developers to a high enough standard re. simulation.

Why should Larian's world-interactivity be hailed as some sort of great advance? It should be just basic stuff. Just the world reacting to one's actions as it should, as one would expect it to. But we know why: it's because of the limitations - limitations of skill, of programming, of AI, of graphics, etc. Gradually these limitations are being overcome and we have the potential for improvement. At the momen turn-based or RTwP are generally more simulationist than realitime play: because with turn-based you can actually simulate more of the detail than you could, even if only in abstract ways. Realtime simulation is still limited by the limitation of inputs (m/k, "controllers", etc.).