Game News Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition announced, to be released within a month

[Waterd]

I agree a better RPG game is more like a rougelike. Rougelike is more a an actual game than most rpg. Sadly rougelikes in general have super terrible combat.
And yes, completly random combat vs scripted combats is a dichotomoy, actually is the real dichotomy.
Since the level of quality of completly random combats will be behind of scripted combats, there is reason to want to play games with scripted combats, genrally to expect better designed combats. Of course that hurts replayability.
It´s true that KOTC is closer to a puzzle, since it´s full of scripted combats, there is a solution to find or a course of action close to a solution, once you find it, there isn´t much to do. Similar to games like Fire emblem, Battle for wesnoth, etc.
But that is still closer to a game than the interactive systems we are talking about, which are not even that close. They are more like Sandboxes, where is no challenge at all and is full of actions, and light on decisions.

A game to me is a interactive system full of decisions. Knight of the chalice is more like a puzzle, true because it´s pretty much solvable, and thus once you find out the patterns, you pretty mcuh solve the game and the decision agency dissapears.
That is a lot closer of what I find ideal of game (considering games are test of decisions), than sandboxes without decisions like icewind dale.

Is true ultimately that some kind of rougelike with a complex party and turn based combat system is ideal. Sadly, for whatever reason, there is almost no piece of software with that quality.
So the closest there is on the market are puzzles witih similar properties, so by consuming tons of those we can achieve a similar product than a rougelike with those characterstics could provide.

Mansion of madness is an board rpg that is so. The idea is that you keep downloading or buying scenarios to keep replayability going.

If is intended for icewind dale to have no challenge at all, why is non optimal to have a story difficulty mode so I can skip all the micromanagment and the limitiations and can be the god I´m intended to be?.
The answer is no. IF we recognize, Challenge is not the goal of icewind dale, then interactive simulation or story are our goals, If that is so, a mode where I can´t die and can do whatever I want, seems the best design decision for the software

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

this. I never played the first one. I got IWD2 expecting a Baldur's Gate-ish experience. what I got was a good script, but a linear, tactical combat-oriented RPG in a system I'd long since out-thought. I guess if people like dungeon crawls in which the party has no real personality, they're fine, but. meh.

IWD2 had more role-playing than BG2.

 

[crawlkill]

this. I never played the first one. I got IWD2 expecting a Baldur's Gate-ish experience. what I got was a good script, but a linear, tactical combat-oriented RPG in a system I'd long since out-thought. I guess if people like dungeon crawls in which the party has no real personality, they're fine, but. meh.

IWD2 had more role-playing than BG2.

if you like hallways and noninteractive parties, sure

 

[Carceri]

if you like hallways and noninteractive parties, sure

As opposed to BG2 where the party was so interactive and had so much personality that I wanted to reach my hands into the monitor and strangle them all.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

this. I never played the first one. I got IWD2 expecting a Baldur's Gate-ish experience. what I got was a good script, but a linear, tactical combat-oriented RPG in a system I'd long since out-thought. I guess if people like dungeon crawls in which the party has no real personality, they're fine, but. meh.

IWD2 had more role-playing than BG2.

if you like hallways and noninteractive parties, sure

At least these parties have characters that weren't assumed to have Int 9, Wis 9 and Cha 9.

 

[crawlkill]

if you like hallways and noninteractive parties, sure

As opposed to BG2 where the party was so interactive and had so much personality that I wanted to reach my hands into the monitor and strangle them all.

I guess you don't have to like good things but I don't know why you expect other people to agree with you, idk

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

if you like hallways and noninteractive parties, sure

As opposed to BG2 where the party was so interactive and had so much personality that I wanted to reach my hands into the monitor and strangle them all.

I guess you don't have to like good things but I don't know why you expect other people to agree with you, idk

Why "good things"? So what if there are other characters if you can't even interact with them according to your character stats? And you can't even start conversation with them?

 

[Jaesun]

As opposed to BG2 where the party was so interactive and had so much personality that I wanted to reach my hands into the monitor and strangle them all.

Indeed. I was so pissed there was no STAB ANOMEN REPEATEDLY WITH A SWORD TILL HE DIES dialogue option.

 

[Nihiliste]

How can Trent and Beamdog possibly make a living off of this business model?

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

So I decided to try that Fire Emblem stuff people here has been talking about, being the right kind of hard and shit and IE games lacking any challenge (which wasn't true in mine case). Started with GBA game that was recommended somewhere else as a good starting point. First 9 chapters are just moving through some jackasses that can hardly harm you making sure that everybody is moving around since you don't want everyone to loose on exp, including supposedly hard bonus mission. That part is a bit boring since the game lacks any interesting spells and special abilities. Then comes chapter 10 the part until boss is just like the rest of the game. I died 2 times on the final boss, the first time because I accidentally positioned my heroine in range of his spear which was OK, the second time was bullshit "oh, I got you tee-hee" moment. I attacked the boss which the heroine, she missed then he countered and it was one hit KO. After grinding through pointless first part the third time I just beat the boss by making him fight the armoured guy, which ended the prologue. This is the same shit as Dark Souls. The game is not the hard, you are just forced to go through pointless boring parts every time you make a mistake. Trying to wear player off by boring him to death is not a challenge it's pointless. I made dozens of stupid mistakes in IE games, the game wasn't so difficult because I loaded in the room before, not at the start of the dungeon, and there was a margin of error. To be clear I'm not complaining about DaS or FE being too hard just about them feigning difficulty by forcing player to do chores when he fails. The game over screen is another example of this weird design philosophy. In IE games when you died there is a short skippable movie and then you are asked if you want to reload or exit. In FE you are taken to the menu, have to chose "restart chapter" from options (not to be mistaken with "continue chapter" which will conveniently take you to right to the moment you lost the game and get you to game over screen again) chose correct save file, go to the pre-battle screen and then restart the battle. It's just pointless padding. Thank you very much, I'll gladly take the goold old quick-load even if skipping the pointless bullshit means that the game somehow lacks any sort of challenge.

 

[Jaesun]

Joined: Mar 28, 2014

 

[Waterd]

im not saying fire emblems are perfect, im saying they at least have challenge. IE games do not. (btw never played the sword of flame, which i assume is the one you played, since its the most popular one)

 

[Volourn]

L0L

 

[likaq]

A new "Story Mode" difficulty setting to allow players to experience all of the story with none of the Game Over screens.​

​

 

[whitepony]

Currently playing IWD 2 (my 1st IE game ever), rolling a party of 4, just got out of Fell Wood. Fuck me sideways if it doesnt give any challenge for the 1st run.

 

[Gragt]

As opposed to BG2 where the party was so interactive and had so much personality that I wanted to reach my hands into the monitor and strangle them all.

Indeed. I was so pissed there was no STAB ANOMEN REPEATEDLY WITH A SWORD TILL HE DIES dialogue option.

You can kill Anomen anytime. It isn’t a dialog option, just a regular action, but it works just the same. At least that game allows you to attack and kill almost anyone, unlike Bioware’s next games where you could only attack something if it got flagged as hostile.

 

[GarfunkeL]

You also don't need Anomen for anything, so you're free to put him to death as soon as you see him in Copper Coronet. Which is what I always do.

Waterd, there are no insta-death traps in Baldur's Gate. There is a single one in Durlag's Tower that is added by Tales of the Sword Coast. BG2 had a number of insta-death traps. BG had few bugged traps that were impossible to find in vanilla but that was fixed by mods, IIRC - and they didn't cause insta-death, just a bunch of HP damage which might kill a CON 6 wizard, I guess.

Also, from the description, Fire Emblem difficulty sounds similar to Sengoku Rance difficulty, in that you're supposed to save-reload battles dozens of times on higher difficulty levels and if you want to reach optimal outcomes, because it's entirely possible for RNG to utterly fucking rape you and there's nothing you can do about it.

 

[Waterd]

i dont save reload ever in fire emblem, so what?

I did 2 runs of BG, where i tried to beat the game in 60 ingame days. Here are my deaths.
1. I open a chest with a thief, it triggers a lightning bolt who jumps from thief to a wall to my main character dropping him from full health to zero. That is instant trap to me, by the very definition
2. I talk with NPC in the middle of town, she get me to a women and tells me to kill certain main, I say no , she chain lightinings me and instant death, close to instant death trap to me

So i dont know how is the rest of the game, is still instant death trap.

 

[sser]

I've only played Fire Emblem Awakening but my experience wasn't so much that RNG could fuck you, it was just how the maps progressed that could fuck you. It's one thing to poorly strategize your moves, but there's not much you can do when half a dozen enemies just appear on your flank or behind you or whatever. Good game, but maps that did stuff like that were very poorly designed, IMO.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Edit: this is to Waterd not sser.

Sorry but I call BS on both.

1. That is not an instant trap. You made a serious mistake by not looking for traps before opening a chest. Second, your MC had a chance of resisting half of the damage with his/her saving throw, not to mention there was a chance that it would not even hit your MC. Instant death trap is one that is impossible or extremely difficult to avoid and kills a character or your entire party without any chance of survival.

2. Impossible because the encounter you describe is Silke in Beregost and she casts Magic Missile as her strongest spell. BG1 doesn't even have chain lightning. The strongest deadly spell is Cloudkill and that's only available on a single scroll that you're meant to use in a tight spot. Without SCS, Silke often didn't cast ANY spells and could be easily killed.

So you're either outright lying or your memory is poor.

 

[pippin]

I do remember her casting that lightning spell... It's been a long time since I played it, though.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Okay, you made me doubt myself about vanilla BG and fuck me, Gamebanshee's vanilla walkthrough says that she casts Lightning Bolt. Holy shit! SCS, while pumping up her level, must have changed the spells she has or something because I cannot for the life of me remember ever seeing her cast that - especially since in vanilla she dies from three arrows or so. Still not Chain Lightning, though.

 

[Waterd]

I did look for a trap, as i do with every chest, it wasn´t any detected. I use the girl you get early on as a thief. And to me is instant death, because it instantly killed me with me unable to do anything. Ok, is not chain lighting? its a lighitng and instantly wiped me out, im sure the fight is almost impossible at the level you meet her (which is level 2 or something).

As a Side note the trap system is retarded. There is no decision involed, since time is infinite you have to check every fucking inch for traps. There is no reason to not do it. Why make me do something that is not a decision? just to waste my time?
I almost never see in a game traps well implemented. There is always no decision (because you have infinite time to check it) or since healing is free (DSO), any non lethal trap is irrelevant, and lethal traps are unfair randomness since you can´t , using decisions, avoid them.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

LOLOLOL BG so easy , Fire Turd has real challenge.
Btw, BG sucks beacuase bard wussie chick killed me instantly and I'm too retarded to prevent her from doing so. Such an easy game, no challenge, unlike Fire Turd.

Youa re an idiot.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Ok, is not chain lighting? its a lighitng and instantly wiped me out, im sure the fight is almost impossible at the level you meet her (which is level 2 or something).

Yeah bro, I can see this game is definitely too easy for you