Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[Delterius]

(when every fight is special, no fight is)

Now that sounds kinda stupid.

Handcrafted encounters with interesting enemies don't become less or more unique because of the hundreds of exp bags you've grinded in between, on fast forward wizardry mode.

I disagree.

Imagine a game where every fight is a boss fight. Now no boss fight is a boss fight - they all just feel like 'encounters' because nothing distinguishes them from- ah heck, if you get what I mean you get it and if you don't you don't.

The fact that every encounter is unique and difficult doesn't mean that nothing distinguishes them from one another. Quite the contrary. A hundred wizardry exp bags are all the same because you can just go on fast forward and spam the strategy over and over again, regardless of wether they are skeletons, goblins or what have you. They also don't add anything to the Dragon at the end of the dungeon aside from being a whole lot of boring grinding.

A mindflayer that can easily dominate your characters, a basilisk that petrifies and a wizard who is immune to weapons are all facts unto themselves. They force you to adopt different tactics with each encounter. They can also be an oasis in the middle of the desert. And if you like that, good for you. But those are just your feelings, and facts trump feels.

Furthermore, the banal shit boring waves of enemies are just that. Banal, shit and boring. That there are decades old terms for them, such as trash, is also just a simple matter of categorization. Even a game of Wizardry is about the planning and grind towards the Big Ones. Not the boring shit.

 

[PulsatingBrain]

I think it's worth considering the context of these situations. SotC makes sense as a boss rush game because it's designed completely around that. In most RPGs you're some random person who suddenly starts meddling in everyone's business. You're bound to end up fighting mercenaries and bandits and shit.

 

[Roguey]

I think it's worth considering the context of these situations. SotC makes sense as a boss rush game because it's designed completely around that. In most RPGs you're some random person who suddenly starts meddling in everyone's business. You're bound to end up fighting mercenaries and bandits and shit.

Tides of Numenera is an example of an RPG where every encounter is unique.

 

[PulsatingBrain]

I've yet to proceed past the first few hours

 

[aweigh]

Even a game of Wizardry is about the planning and grind towards the Big Ones. Not the boring shit.

A hundred wizardry exp bags are all the same because you can just go on fast forward and spam the strategy over and over again, regardless of wether they are skeletons, goblins or what have you.

both of these statements are patently untrue.

 

[Delterius]

Even a game of Wizardry is about the planning and grind towards the Big Ones. Not the boring shit.

A hundred wizardry exp bags are all the same because you can just go on fast forward and spam the strategy over and over again, regardless of wether they are skeletons, goblins or what have you.

both of these statements are patently untrue.

Consider the actual discussion. The proposition was that a game loses something when every or most encounters are eventful. That the mere usage of the term 'trash combat' reveals an inability to appreciate how boring grinding adds to the eventuality of something actually interesting.

Now, some people truly do enjoy dumpster diving. To each their own. However, when a blobber has hundreds of encounters that aren't trash, not only is that a great thing but its an example that actually favors my side of the argument. That interesting beatiaries and well crafted encounters don't miss anything if the game lacks boring and easy, trashy, fights.

 

[Bio Force Ape]

I'm replaying PoE since getting White March 1 and 2. I'm a little into chapter 2 of the main quest and I have a White March quest. I'd assumed WM stuff was generally late game, but now I'm not sure.

Does WM content fit anywhere in particular?

Probably best to do WM 1 and 2 back-to-back after finishing Act 2 (when the trial ends) and before starting Act 3 (the tree village place).

 

[Jasede]

Even a game of Wizardry is about the planning and grind towards the Big Ones. Not the boring shit.

A hundred wizardry exp bags are all the same because you can just go on fast forward and spam the strategy over and over again, regardless of wether they are skeletons, goblins or what have you.

both of these statements are patently untrue.

Consider the actual discussion. The proposition was that a game loses something when every or most encounters are eventful. That the mere usage of the term 'trash combat' reveals an inability to appreciate how boring grinding adds to the eventuality of something actually interesting.

Now, some people truly do enjoy dumpster diving. To each their own. However, when a blobber has hundreds of encounters that aren't trash, not only is that a great thing but its an example that actually favors my side of the argument. That interesting beatiaries and well crafted encounters don't miss anything if the game lacks boring and easy, trashy, fights.

First of all, the dumpster diving thesis is audacious and insulting.
Second, " That interesting beatiaries and well crafted encounters don't miss anything if the game lacks boring and easy, trashy, fights." <- this is the problem. The encounter itself - the unique one you have in mind - does NOT play out the same in the game with trash vs. the one without. In the game with, as you call it, trash, by the point you get to the boss you will have uses mana to heal the injuries, you will have used potions to survive the fights, you'll be down some HP from the fighting and you'll have had a chance to get used to the boss's mechanics by the designer introducing part of them in the encounters leading up to the fight. That's good design to me.

If you remove all that 'trash' you lower your design space and then have to labor really hard to make your game otherwise interesting - and very few good 'boss rush' style games exist and pull this off. Someone mentioned This of Numenara. Is that game better because it has no trash? Hell no. Now they just make me forced to read awful writing more often. I'd rather fight Goon 1324 than John Sterling, a gender queer mutant-kin who lost his parents in the war.

 

[Lacrymas]

I'm replaying PoE since getting White March 1 and 2. I'm a little into chapter 2 of the main quest and I have a White March quest. I'd assumed WM stuff was generally late game, but now I'm not sure.

Does WM content fit anywhere in particular?

Probably best to do WM 1 and 2 back-to-back after finishing Act 2 (when the trial ends) and before starting Act 3 (the tree village place).

Nah, it's best to do WM1 when you get the quest, the encounters are way more brutal that way. I'd recommend sacrificing Sagani to the pool, if you want to sacrifice her instead of Devil, as fast as possible and then go do WM1.

 

[Safav Hamon]

I heard White March is actually hardest past level 9 with scaling.

 

[Shadenuat]

you'll have had a chance to get used to the boss's mechanics by the designer introducing part of them in the encounters leading up to the fight. That's good design to me

That's not trash encounters, if they have purpose. Not to mention you're suddenly adding a meaningful resource system to your example as if any game has it.

 

[Jasede]

We're talking in this context about encounters in an RPG. I think it's reasonable to assume that, as it's a staple of this genre, that meaningful resources like HP, healing potions, gold, are going to be a factor.

My point is that trash has a point: it introduced mechanics, helps you practice your own mechanics, and most importantly, wears down your resources, such as speaks, to make the boss or dungeon harder the worse you manage and use your resources.

I don't think it's fair of me to say I'm introducing resources out of nowhere when nearly every rpg has them and we usually discuss from an RPG centric context.

It's also not fair to say, oh, but if it has meeting it's no longer trash because meaning is very subjective.

 

[Shadenuat]

Most RPGs have them, but 99% do not work around them being scarce enough to bother. Many even just regenerate your resources before combat and especially before boss. So the meaning of trash monsters like you say it is was lost long time ago - together with the lost mechanics to support that meaning.

There's nothing subjective in "meaning", if designer used some monsters to create learning pattern for players it would be fairly obvious.

How much practice you need anyway?

My point is that trash has a point

Trash can't have a point. By it's definition it's combat encounters that are pointless and do not achieve anything. You're just playing around words here.

Note that even in games that do use resources, and make you manage them, say Dark Souls, they don't just throw enemies in a same wave at you all the time. DS1 first level has basically skeletons with swords and skeletons with ranged weapons. And they're positioned within level design that most of them do not feel meaningless at all. That's good design rule 101 - even same enemies can, with positioning, composition and resources have meaning. But if nothing of that is present like on a picture above, that's, basically, trash.

 

[Jasede]

I don't think anyone here is using the word trash right, including myself and yourself. We might be hung up on semantics.

I am used to codex calling most random encounters trash which is in error. I've not really experienced this idea of trash without meaning in anything but an MMORPG. That and NWN 2 orc caves.

You're right though, most games I do play have meaningful resource management. I happily dodged the whole regenerating HP and spells era. Maybe that's why we have a different perspective. Same with aweigh and his dungeon crawlers: there's a lot of random encounters in them but it's tied to a tight resource limit in form of HP, healing, gold.

 

[Lacrymas]

Repetitive and too frequent encounters can also be trash, regardless of how many of your resources they gobble up. It just gets tedious and grindy.

 

[Strange Fellow]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the death of resource management was the single biggest letdown of the Kickstarter RPGs.

 

[Lacrymas]

Yes, because resource management was so important in the actual RPG Renaissance (without mods). The biggest letdown of the KS RPGs is not being as good as the already dumbed down RPGs of the Renaissance. The only comparable thing (maybe even surpassing them) is PoE's character building (including itemization). Other than that, they are worse in all other categories that matter - encounter design, combat systems, writing, setting, C&C, world interaction, exploration, dungeons, imagination, etc. That last one is especially poignant, they are so creatively bankrupt and secondary/derivative I have no words. There is nothing particularly wrong about being derivative, 90% of all art ever is derivative, even a lot of the masterpieces, but the quality of craftsmanship, mastery over the medium and creative energy that set the good derivatives apart are lacking in the KS RPGs.

 

[Strange Fellow]

All right, all right, it was an issue with Renaissance games too. Jeez. At least most games still had random encounters back then.

 

[Shadenuat]

Older games just had higher lethality in combat, which is why you'd often gobble healthpots in them. Together with initiative/turn based mode, using potion would be just a more effective way of staying alive - like, in TB you may not survive until your cleric's turn.

 

[fantadomat]

I have no idea what you mean by trash mobs. The worst thing about rpgs is the random encounters style JRPG and the respawning enemies,also shitty survival mechanics like thirst and hunger. If you take away all the "trash" mobs you will be left with extremely small game. They are there to eat at your resources before the boss and give you some EXP for levelling. Every rpg have such encounters,making every encounter challenging is the worst thing in a game. That way the whole game is the same shit and doesn't give you that kick when you encounter a hard fight,it is just frustrating,MMX comes to mind.

 

[Delterius]

The encounter itself - the unique one you have in mind - does NOT play out the same in the game with trash vs. the one without. In the game with, as you call it, trash, by the point you get to the boss you will have uses mana to heal the injuries, you will have used potions to survive the fights, you'll be down some HP from the fighting and you'll have had a chance to get used to the boss's mechanics by the designer introducing part of them in the encounters leading up to the fight. That's good design to me.

You can have attrition between 5 well crafted encounters that actually demand from your party's resources. As opposed to 20 boring ass 'fights' peppered with maybe a Dragon at the end.

Is that game better because it has no trash? Hell no.

Would the game be improved with the addition trash? Of course not.

If you remove all that 'trash' you lower your design space and then have to labor really hard

Nope. By removing the crutch of trash hordes, the developer has to work hard for once in implementing a fully realized beastiary and actually crafting interesting encounters.

First of all, the dumpster diving thesis is audacious and insulting.

It is also clearly true, even if not politically correct.

 

[Jasede]

Not in that sense. I meant you're implying people who enjoy random encounters are worse than those who don't by that comparison.

Your other points aren't bad at all but I think you don't realize the high cost of opportunity that comes with hand-crafting . The best you can do, I think, is hand-placing. For example, I consider none of the fights in ToEE or KOTC trash whereas maybe you do. I feel like the encounters were deliberately and thoughtfully composed .

 

[Dorateen]

Combat is the greatest form of storytelling in a role-playing game.

 

[aweigh]

trash combat and c&c are the worst codex memes... and both have a distinct storyfag stink on them. ew.

 

[Safav Hamon]

Older games weren't any greater. Old people just look at them with greater nolstalgia.