Review Neverwinter Nights 2 review at RPG Watch

[made]

I found it amusing that even the game itself seems to make fun of its annoying and forced partymembers.

At some point the warlock dude states that one character might have a crucial role to play in an upcoming event (implying that he will be forced upon the player for the next mission), whereupon the PC gets the option to say "this better not be Grobnar!" as if he could read the player's mind who dreads the possibility of having to drag the annoying halfling along. That made me chuckle.

 

[Crichton]

Why? I'm often asked by friends to negotiate on their behalf because I'm much better at it than they are. It doesn't mean that I'm suddenly in charge of anything. I do my part and then step back. What's wrong with this approach?

Arcanum handled it perfectly in the crash site encounter. You start talking with a guy, then Virgil interrupts and tells you that he can handle it better. Then you can either let him do the talking or do it yourself. Everything was done through you and *your* dialogue window, so you didn't have to select Virgil to let him do the talking.

Two things are wrong with it.

1) This doesn't work well if you're in a group, not of friends, but on a mission to save the world by following your leader, TEH CHOSEN ONE!!!11. The leader does things his way, he might take advice from others, but is unlikely to if he can't understand why his way is unwise. I'm sure there were fairly diplomatic people working for khruschev, napoleon or fredrick the great, they come off as ogres because part of being undiplomatic is refusing to take advice about being diplomatic.

2) A role playing game relies on different characters providing different experiences. I'm quite alright with each game having one dialog where my undiplomatic character has a safety valve (crash site + virgil in arcanum, trial + sand in NWN2) but if I had a whole game of them then my choice of character would feel a lot less important. If my half orc / half ogre could always just let the humans do the talking in arcanum, then the impact of being the outcast would have been completely eliminated.

 

[Dhruin]

Other considerations aside, If Obsidian had made the choice that the PC is central and there should be consequences for certain character development choices and designed the game accordingly, that would be one thing.

But allowing Diplomacy, Bluff et al to be assigned to party members when they cannot be used it pretty silly, no?

 

[Zomg]

I think some of them are prerequisites for D&D feats, and therefore necessary for proper spreadsheet autism.

 

[DarkPhantom]

I think some of them are prerequisites for D&D feats, and therefore necessary for proper spreadsheet autism.

Are they? Give me one, any one.

 

[Zomg]

Hell if I know. I know I needed them as prereqs for something, but it might have been a prestige class, which only the head asshole could get.

 

[Crichton]

Are they? Give me one, any one.

You need Bluff to Feint properly. Outside of that, Taunt can be used in combat and I think that's it, but I'm hardly certain.

 

[AlanC9]

1) This doesn't work well if you're in a group, not of friends, but on a mission to save the world by following your leader, TEH CHOSEN ONE!!!11. The leader does things his way, he might take advice from others, but is unlikely to if he can't understand why his way is unwise. I'm sure there were fairly diplomatic people working for khruschev, napoleon or fredrick the great, they come off as ogres because part of being undiplomatic is refusing to take advice about being diplomatic.

But nothing's forcing the player to be diplomatic -- the game won't automatically force him to choose diplomatic options just because one of the party NPCs has the skills to bring them off.

2) A role playing game relies on different characters providing different experiences. I'm quite alright with each game having one dialog where my undiplomatic character has a safety valve (crash site + virgil in arcanum, trial + sand in NWN2) but if I had a whole game of them then my choice of character would feel a lot less important. If my half orc / half ogre could always just let the humans do the talking in arcanum, then the impact of being the outcast would have been completely eliminated.

I agree with this, mostly. I'd probably let NPCs help out only minor tasks (haggling with merchants, minor information-gathering), while major plot convos are in the PC's hands.

Another problem with letting the NPCs do the talking is that you can end up with each member of the party taking a swing at the target NPC with their skills. ToEE made this even worse, because you didn't know what skills you could try on a target until you actually found one that worked.

 

[AlanC9]

But allowing Diplomacy, Bluff et al to be assigned to party members when they cannot be used it pretty silly, no?

But if Obsidian locked out those skills in the GUI, it would cause trouble for any mod builder who wanted NPCs to use conversation skills.

In practice,a player would have to be pretty stupid to force the NPCs to take dialog skills once you notice that starting a conversation with one automatically switches the conversation to your PC.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Two things are wrong with it.

1) This doesn't work well if you're in a group, not of friends, but on a mission to save the world by following your leader, TEH CHOSEN ONE!!!11. The leader does things his way, he might take advice from others, but is unlikely to if he can't understand why his way is unwise.

Sure, but would a leader, even a not very bright one, completely ignore skills he has in his disposal? I'm not talking about NPCs hijacking conversations, but about volunteering to handle certain tasks or following the leader's orders to handle certain tasks.

2) A role playing game relies on different characters providing different experiences. I'm quite alright with each game having one dialog where my undiplomatic character has a safety valve (crash site + virgil in arcanum, trial + sand in NWN2) but if I had a whole game of them then my choice of character would feel a lot less important. If my half orc / half ogre could always just let the humans do the talking in arcanum, then the impact of being the outcast would have been completely eliminated.

That's where design kicks in. For example, having an army of people constantly at your disposal is stupid. Had they limited the party to 3 extra people, forcing you to dismiss/ignore other people permanently, the game would have played differently. You'd have to choose between a good fighter or a good crafter/gadgeteer and a smoothtalker. Needless to say, picking a talker would reduce the party's efficiency in combat.

 

[Crichton]

Sure, but would a leader, even a not very bright one, completely ignore skills he has in his disposal? I'm not talking about NPCs hijacking conversations, but about volunteering to handle certain tasks or following the leader's orders to handle certain tasks.

The three examples I gave were all leaders (and two of them considered to be geniuses) and they all really screwed the pooch diplomatically. In general, being diplomatic is more about not saying things than saying exactly the right thing. Fredrick for example didn't need someone else to write his letters for him, he needed to stop writing insulting letters to foreign monarchs.

That's where design kicks in. For example, having an army of people constantly at your disposal is stupid. Had they limited the party to 3 extra people, forcing you to dismiss/ignore other people permanently, the game would have played differently. You'd have to choose between a good fighter or a good crafter/gadgeteer and a smoothtalker. Needless to say, picking a talker would reduce the party's efficiency in combat.

So being a half-orc means I'm up 1.25 units of combat ability but down 0.75 units of talking ability? Whopee. That's marginal gameplay balance, but it has nothing to do with roleplaying. Choosing a half-orc as the primary character should mean that the player is stuck with the negative social consequences, not that their party is sitting pretty for melee ability but needs someone else to pick up a few ranks of talking skill X.

 

[Roqua]

Sure, but would a leader, even a not very bright one, completely ignore skills he has in his disposal? I'm not talking about NPCs hijacking conversations, but about volunteering to handle certain tasks or following the leader's orders to handle certain tasks.

The three examples I gave were all leaders (and two of them considered to be geniuses) and they all really screwed the pooch diplomatically. In general, being diplomatic is more about not saying things than saying exactly the right thing. Fredrick for example didn't need someone else to write his letters for him, he needed to stop writing insulting letters to foreign monarchs.

That's where design kicks in. For example, having an army of people constantly at your disposal is stupid. Had they limited the party to 3 extra people, forcing you to dismiss/ignore other people permanently, the game would have played differently. You'd have to choose between a good fighter or a good crafter/gadgeteer and a smoothtalker. Needless to say, picking a talker would reduce the party's efficiency in combat.

So being a half-orc means I'm up 1.25 units of combat ability but down 0.75 units of talking ability? Whopee. That's marginal gameplay balance, but it has nothing to do with roleplaying. Choosing a half-orc as the primary character should mean that the player is stuck with the negative social consequences, not that their party is sitting pretty for melee ability but needs someone else to pick up a few ranks of talking skill X.

Why not remove them from the combat equation then? If the only thing having a party for is talking to you, why have them? If a diplomat is in your party he should diplomat, if a fighter is in your party he should fight. This is the most retarded debate the world has ever seen. "Oh, the people in your party are only there for fighting and talking to you, regardless of the skills they bring to the table"

I guess if you have a rogue in your party, but no rogue skills yourself, you shouldn't be able to pick locks or disarm traps. Genius.

 

[Drakron]

No, it means talking FOR YOU and not TO YOU.

It means moving beyond the "combat aspect only" that we see in cRPGs, allowing NPCs to replace the PC in dialogs would make the player to care less about having the "right" social skills of his characters.

I think ToEE did that were the party leader was not the "talker" but the selected character so its hardly new.

 

[Sisay]

To go on a slight tangent here, there's one thing that often bothers me a bit about party based cRPGs where you create the whole party. You're encouraged to create very specialized and varied characters to cover all bases but does it ever really make any sense the bishop, ninja, valkyrie and gadgeteer are in the same party? Other than that they're 'adventurers'. Where did these people meet anyway? Were they approached by an old man in a tavern or something? I guess the same thing kind of applies to NWN2 as well and made even more obvious by the fact that I can't get rid of the holier-than-thou Paladin or emo Ranger even considering their completely opposite alignments, they both just love me too much.

 

[AlanC9]

Two things are wrong with it.
That's where design kicks in. For example, having an army of people constantly at your disposal is stupid. Had they limited the party to 3 extra people, forcing you to dismiss/ignore other people permanently, the game would have played differently. You'd have to choose between a good fighter or a good crafter/gadgeteer and a smoothtalker. Needless to say, picking a talker would reduce the party's efficiency in combat.

This wouldn't work in D&D 3.5. The way the class skills break down, a combat-optimal party will have all the dialog skills as class skills for somebody in the party. Which is by design, I think; the intent of the system was always that parties should cover all bases -- individual characters vary, but parties all play more or less the same. And even the bard class is fairly combat-proficient these days.

Of course, the designers of the system never considered taking a repeat pass through the same adventure with different characters.

 

[Roqua]

No, it means talking FOR YOU and not TO YOU.

It means moving beyond the "combat aspect only" that we see in cRPGs, allowing NPCs to replace the PC in dialogs would make the player to care less about having the "right" social skills of his characters.

I think ToEE did that were the party leader was not the "talker" but the selected character so its hardly new.

No, not talking for me, talking for themselves. Look at nwn 2, were the party memebers walking automatons? If we want party members to bring personality and skills to the table, fucking let them.

That leads to roleplaying, not just a bunch of stupid pre-set scripted cut-scenes which are the anti-thesis of roleplaying. Maybe the rough dwarf that doesn't take shit from anybody starts a fight. You, as the protagonist, get these choices:

1) Fuck em up, pussy.
2) Korawhatever, relax.
3) Let me handle this.
4) If you get in a fight, you're own your own
5) etc

Roleplaying isn't having game mechanics that just don't make sense, and having a bunch of automatons that only show a semblance of life and personality during prescripted cut-scenes isn't roleplaying. Its retarded.

If any of us were to set of on an extreme epic adventure to save the world, and we picked up a some party members along the way, we sure as fuck would utilize them and their skills to the fullest. I pray for the day when party members are more than a bunch of cheesy filler.

 

[Suicidal]

...After you despatch all of these, and find your target, he’s in a room with the head thief honcho, who still hasn’t killed him. She needed all those men for one merchant and you still manage to rescue him. It’s just silly...

A simillar problem seems to plague a lot of RPGs, and not only RPGs - lots of games in general. I lost count of how many times you are told to hurry up or someone will die/the evil d00d will get away etc. but no matter how slow you are you will still make it in time before something bad happens. If they insist on always telling you to hurry up before it's too late in some quests, there should be a time limit so there would really be a reason to hurry up.

Like for example that quest with the soon-to-be-assassinated merchant in NWN2. To make things more interesting the thieves should really kill the merchant if you hesitate too much. And if that happens, there shouldn't be a need to reload - 1 way may have been blocked for you, but you could find another soultion, like say, trying to make up excuses with your 1337 persuasion skills("Sorry, but they killed him before i could get in the house") and asking for other opportunities to prove yourself.

I don't know, maybe there have been such quests in some RPGs, but i've yet to see one.

 

[made]

Failure is not an option. Marketing studies have revealed that failing objectives leads to frustration among the playerbase, hence the hero must always succeed.

 

[Suicidal]

Failure is not an option. Marketing studies have revealed that failing objectives leads to frustration among the playerbase, hence the hero must always succeed.

Yeah, I know. It's really fucking retarded. Games just don't encourage players to find alternative solutions or try something else. It's just success or reload and this leads to extreme dumbing down, rediculous difficulty and things like the magic quest compass.

In a good RPG, IMHO, failure should close some routes to success, but open others and not cause players to reload the game. But what am i thinking? Consequences are practically nonexistent in today's RPGs, that's not what the public wants.

 

[Volourn]

"It's really fucking retarted."

It really fuckin' is.

 

[Vault Dweller]

The three examples I gave were all leaders (and two of them considered to be geniuses) and they all really screwed the pooch diplomatically. In general, being diplomatic is more about not saying things than saying exactly the right thing. Fredrick for example didn't need someone else to write his letters for him, he needed to stop writing insulting letters to foreign monarchs.

Well, there is a difference between being a leader of a large and powerful country that can afford to say "fuck you all" and a leader of a small group who may not have such a luxury.

So being a half-orc means I'm up 1.25 units of combat ability but down 0.75 units of talking ability? Whopee. That's marginal gameplay balance, but it has nothing to do with roleplaying. Choosing a half-orc as the primary character should mean that the player is stuck with the negative social consequences, not that their party is sitting pretty for melee ability but needs someone else to pick up a few ranks of talking skill X.

The negative social consequences should be applied to the party, not the party members.

 

[aboyd]

BG's dialogs just kneel in supplication before NWN 2.

Yes.

 

[Suicidal]

On the subject of NPCs speaking instead of the player.

There is a difference between the NPC making the plans and saying whatever they want, and the PC allowing the NPC with a superior diplomacy or language ability to get the finer points across in a conversation.

Of course it shouldn't be the case in every conversation, but if somebody else has the ability to possibly change the mind of someone the party is engaging in, only an idiot would say 'I am the boss! Shutup and let me handle everything' when the Bard could smooth talk a way around an impasse, or possibly gain an advantage with a silver tongue.

Ladonna made a good point and i think an interesting way of letting a party NPC do the talking for you could be implemented kind of like that.

The player should be allowed to pick an NPC to be his/her representative in a conversation, but the player shouldn't have any control of what and how the NPC says, so it won't turn into a no-brainer like "My diplomacy skills suck, so i will pick an NPC with the highest skill level and succeed in all conversations!". The player should take the personality of an NPC into consideration, so for example, asking Sand(that sarcastic elf mage in NWN2) to convince some thug-bouncer to let the party in the theives hideout(or something) would be a bad idea, because Sand would most likely make an asshole remark about the said thug's intelligence and the party will end up fighting him.

The player should be able to speak to the party member before asking him to convince someone, and say what and how he/she should act. If an NPC has been in the player's party for a long time, the player should be able to know about his personality, and ask him to restrain from doing something that would offend the NPC the player wants to convince. The NPCs should also have some initiative when it comes to things like that. If the party gets into trouble, someone who is confident in his/her abilities to settle thing peacefully should interfere, like the example with a smooth-talking bard Ladonna gave.

Such a thing would be difficult to implement, but it would be well worth it, IMHO.

 

[Hamster]

Strong and dumb types are often well aware of their intellectual/conversational shortcomings, and will gladly use/ask/let someone else do the talking, creating a basic symbiotic relationship (your brains, my muscles).

Look at it this way, let's assume that you are a weak, but smart, talkative type. Your kinda dumb, but strong friend asks you to accompany him for whatever reasons. Some guys block your way. Your dumb friend is about to start a fight, because he sees no other way out of this situation, but you do. So, will you interfere and do your best to convince the other people to let your pass, or will you let your dumb friend to start a fight because he's the leader of this "expedition"?

The problem is, using npc speech skills will require player to choose dialogue options for this npc, which is ok in a game like IWD with party generated entirely, but is not an option for a game like BG2 where NPC act like personalities of their own. It can be made so that player can ask diplomatic npc(or this npc can intervene on his own) to speek instead of him and npc will voice "smart" variant of responce wich is unvailable to player due to his low intelligence or charisma. That sound loke a good idea...

Such a thing would be difficult to implement, but it would be well worth it, IMHO.

Too difficult for modern RPG developers, i'm afraid...

 

[Lumpy]

That's why Party-based RPGs suck. They dilute role-playing by allowing you all options.
Of course, in most RPGs it doesn't matter because there's only one option anyway.

In most party games (if not all of them), party members hardly say anything in conversation. In Arcanum, I was discussing dwarven philosophy with the Wheel Clan King, and Magnus doesn't say anything. In fact, he never says anything except when interacting with the Schuylers.

What I'd like would be a game where there only were 1 or 2 party members, who had really good reasons to follow you everywhere, and who would speak in almost every conversation with NPCs. And possibly employ diplomacy skills.