So i just finished AoD

[Parabalus]

You get to pick 5 more companions and everything that comes with that.


Dual classing for humans, tho you dont really need relevant character advancement choices to have fun. Having to validate your choice all the time gets stale, and its what AoD does.


You have a few, but they are mostly irrelevant, its a bigger world and you can preocure shit from somewhere else.
The CYOA nature of AoD makes this impossible.


Nope, every encounter is wildly different, you dont tackle beholders in the same way you fight a pack of bandits, or a wyvern, or a dragon, or a basilisk. And this doesnt have much to do with strategy as much as it has to do with tactics.


Sure, every encounter is handcrafted in Uncharted. I feel you want to make a point here, but its falling flat.

• I wrote that you pick companions, what's unclear here?
• Validate your choice? If using class skills means "validating your choice" you do it every time you use a thief skill or countermagic.
  
• ????? Bg2 has no C&C, but it's ok, since there is a bigger world with no C&C ????? Why not say C&C is irrelevant to you/for this game?
  
• You literally right click (under haste) all of the above, that's all there is to tactics, with Breach on dragons maybe. Against basilisks you send 1 with protection from prot, that's strategy.
  
• Dude entire dungeons in Bg2 and Bg1 you do nothing but select all right click, think of Temple Ruins, Nashkel mines, Cloakwood etc. everything is select all right click except the bosses. AoD doesn't have much trash.

 

[Lhynn]

I really have no idea what you are arguing here. The claim is simple, BG and BG offer a lot more complexity than AoD because AoD is a glorified CYOA.

Every one of your points has been clarified already many times, you are either stupid or refuse to acknowledge it, and therefore it is a waste of time to keep going. Reread earlier posts.

 

[Jason Liang]

Hence, and this is assuming you know about Jason Liang's posting all those crazy 1 point in Bow challenge where he wipe the shit out of the game, then relate it to his criticism about how AoD's combat is broken (or something like that) just because you can spam bolas, it really doesn't make any sense. Now, let's try to apply the criticisms and accept that the game is indeed too easy. What can be improved, then? Tweaking and adjusting all the stats and numbers involved? Changing the combat encounters like adjusting the amount of enemies and/or their equipment? Remove bolas completely (or at least tweak the amount available in a single playthrough)?

My feelings about AoD comes down to one question: what makes this game fun or worth playing? A lot of the good will and generosity towards this game comes down to turn-based combat, but while AoD's tb combat is not shit, it's not great either. It's flawed. In hindsight AoD is overall much less fun to play as it should have been. Much of the game is just not designed to make fun a priority. But that's a bigger discussion. The combat is part of the problem.

In terms of combat, there's really not much to add to what we discussed in the original bola thread. I completely understand why the game has bolas, but it's sort of a lazy and misguided solution to the problem it's designed to solve. It's meant to aid more casual players, but those players tend to miss bolas completely (casual players tend to miss strange, inconspicuous and weak looking consumables hidden near the bottom of the shop screen).

- AoD's knockdown and choke mechanics are truly OP. Knockdown should NOT grant 100% accuracy at any range.
- I would change bolas to be slightly more difficult to use by reducing its range even further, to EXACTLY two spaces away. And probably remove the choke option entirely.
- The game definitely could have used a few more "hardcore" combat challenges which are difficult even for pure combat builds.
- The game probably could use higher combat difficulty modes, perhaps with an extra opponent added to each combat or something like that. But that starts to expose the game's other flaws.
- The game has other OP mechanics but each has to be considered on its own merits. For example, hand xbows are ridiculously OP but they are kind of fun and tactical. On the other hand, dodge and block mechanics probably should be reworked and rebalanced.

Harder combat would make the combat gameplay more rewarding by requiring more tactics to be successful.

- One glaring flaw is that the game disincentivizes you from investing in a variety of weapon skills. This is due to both the skill system and due to the fact that most of the weapons are too similar. The differences between Sword, Axe and Spear are minor in the grand scheme of things. Hammers are in a class of their own due to their ability to perform direct knockdowns. This limitation also limits the game's tactical depth. If more weapons had greater tactical difference and the game encouraged you to exploit a variety of weapons in combat rather than discourage, it would greatly expand the game's tactical layer.
- The game probably should have dual wield mechanics. This is obviously related to the game's dodge vs. block problems. Dual wield doesn't just give the player more options, but it can also provide more variety to enemies. For example, perhaps dual wield requires different tactics to defend against (perhaps give Dodge's counterattack ability to dual wield instead)?
- The game could use a more developed status effect system
- The alchemy system is fine in theory (although a bit unbalanced in implementation) but obviously the lack of actual spells and magic makes the game's combat inherently more tactically shallow compared to the average sword and sorcery rpg. Obviously this is a setting issue, but there are ways the game could have made up for this such as psionic abilities or more developed combat-oriented relic cyberware.

Even these small improvements would add a ton to the tactical layer of AoD's extremely stripped down and primitive combat gameplay. Again, AoD's combat gameplay is built on solid principles, but it's saddled with harmful flaws that should be addressed.

 

[Trash Player]

My feelings about AoD comes down to one question: what makes this game fun or worth playing? A lot of the good will and generosity towards this game comes down to turn-based combat, but while AoD's tb combat is not shit, it's not great either. It's flawed. In hindsight AoD is overall much less fun to play as it should have been. Much of the game is just not designed to make fun a priority. But that's a bigger discussion. The combat is part of the problem.

In terms of combat, there's really not much to add to what we discussed in the original bola thread. I completely understand why the game has bolas, but it's sort of a lazy and misguided solution to the problem it's designed to solve. It's meant to aid more casual players, but those players tend to miss bolas completely (casual players tend to miss strange, inconspicuous and weak looking consumables hidden near the bottom of the shop screen).

- AoD's knockdown and choke mechanics are truly OP. Knockdown should NOT grant 100% accuracy at any range.
- I would change bolas to be slightly more difficult to use by reducing its range even further, to EXACTLY two spaces away. And probably remove the choke option entirely.
- The game definitely could have used a few more "hardcore" combat challenges which are difficult even for pure combat builds.
- The game probably could use higher combat difficulty modes, perhaps with an extra opponent added to each combat or something like that. But that starts to expose the game's other flaws.
- The game has other OP mechanics but each has to be considered on its own merits. For example, hand xbows are ridiculously OP but they are kind of fun and tactical. On the other hand, dodge and block mechanics probably should be reworked and rebalanced.

Harder combat would make the combat gameplay more rewarding by requiring more tactics to be successful.

- One glaring flaw is that the game disincentivizes you from investing in a variety of weapon skills. This is due to both the skill system and due to the fact that most of the weapons are too similar. The differences between Sword, Axe and Spear are minor in the grand scheme of things. Hammers are in a class of their own due to their ability to perform direct knockdowns. This limitation also limits the game's tactical depth. If more weapons had greater tactical difference and the game encouraged you to exploit a variety of weapons in combat rather than discourage, it would greatly expand the game's tactical layer.
- The game probably should have dual wield mechanics. This is obviously related to the game's dodge vs. block problems. Dual wield doesn't just give the player more options, but it can also provide more variety to enemies. For example, perhaps dual wield requires different tactics to defend against (perhaps give Dodge's counterattack ability to dual wield instead)?
- The game could use a more developed status effect system
- The alchemy system is fine in theory (although a bit unbalanced in implementation) but obviously the lack of actual spells and magic makes the game's combat inherently more tactically shallow compared to the average sword and sorcery rpg. Obviously this is a setting issue, but there are ways the game could have made up for this such as psionic abilities or more developed combat-oriented relic cyberware.

Even these small improvements would add a ton to the tactical layer of AoD's extremely stripped down and primitive combat gameplay. Again, AoD's combat gameplay is built on solid principles, but it's saddled with harmful flaws that should be addressed.

Have you tried out DR yet? It is good bit more challenging if you play solo.
-I agreed on kd and choke being arbitrarily good. The former is hard to pull off though, except for hammer.
-May as well.
-They ran out of resources. DR kinda is one.
-See above.
-It is unavoidable with a flat distribution or a single roll based system that a superman is very favored. The wonkiness of the arrow types, inventory switching xbows, top down thinking on the differences between weapon/armour types, and more exist, and these are arguably the lesser problems. On the other hand, they don't need an actually fun or balanced system: the setting suggest even powerful people will die in humilating manners, extending it to PC isn't a stretch. Though I suppose this angle is unintentional on ITS side.
-Yes, investment in a weapon skill disincentivizes one from using anything else because AP is limited and synergy is just a shortcut to boost the main weapon. Tying up a weapon to a skill naturally create this issue. A way to circumvent it is having enough options in each weapon group but that is not the case with the almost palette swapping template: AP, passive, and minor bonus. One can think of better ways to do that easily but money and time.
-They don't have resources.
-They can absolutely use one and a UI for that, not even DR tracks penalties. The ever excuse is above.
-Alchemy is limited in the best stuffs and poison is nerfed a bit already. An easy hack would be putting more antidotes on enemies.
I will d1p/preorder The New World even though I don't think the combat system will be any better in the coherent design front because ITS is more than that. If I want a more coherent system or so, I may as well homebrew one or engage in whatever solipsistic activities it takes.
Instead of arguing with people in this thread fruitlessly, why not drop down the ideas of your dream system and discuss with likeminded people? You sound like someone with the right idea. I am quite interested in hearing you out.

 

[mushaden]

ok I'm going to attempt play a 1/1 longbow combat thief to get some of the remaining achievements and also because the game is fun

 

[Parabalus]

I really have no idea what you are arguing here. The claim is simple, BG and BG offer a lot more complexity than AoD because AoD is a glorified CYOA.

Every one of your points has been clarified already many times, you are either stupid or refuse to acknowledge it, and therefore it is a waste of time to keep going. Reread earlier posts.

Bg1&2 are easy games with easy combat, needing mods to achieve a semblance of difficulty. There is no C&C, no character customization, no chance of failure and nearly limitless resources.

They are loved because they are adventures to explore and have fun with, not because they are complex in any way. IE games are the simplest of RPGs. If they are complex for you consider taking your own advice and visiting a specialist.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

and nearly limitless resources.

Nearly? There is ZERO RESOURCE MANAGEMENT in BG2. You can press "rest" to recharge your whole party anytime. BG2 fans need to larp resource management and make absurd rationalizations to convince others that resting is not a mechanic. The same thing can be said about BG2 tactics. They need to larp the necessity of the different spells and choices when the reality is that you can select all your party and click to attack through the whole game. The gameplay is total trash.

That someone can critise AoD combat and brings BG2 in this discussion shows the level of missunderstanding and irrational prejudices involved. It also suggests that this discussion is a red herring for something else, namely, feeling in charge of a ego pandering gameworld made for children. If Aod had childish characters and romances, the likes of Lhynn would never, ever complain about the combat. It is a red herring.

 

[Parabalus]

Nearly? There is ZERO RESOURCE MANAGEMENT in BG2. You can press "rest" to recharge your whole party anytime. BG2 fans need to larp resource management and make absurd rationalizations to convince others that resting is not a mechanic. The same thing can be said about BG2 tactics. They need to larp the necessity of the different spells and choices when the reality is that you can select all your party and click to attack through the whole game. The gameplay is total trash.

That someone can critise AoD combat and brings BG2 in this discussion shows the level of missunderstanding and irrational prejudices involved. It also suggests that this discussion is a red herring for something else, namely, feeling in charge of a ego pandering gameworld made for children. If Aod had childish characters and romances, the likes of Lhynn would never, ever complain about the combat. It is a red herring.

You can run out of gold, especially in modded installations. There is a period in every run where you don't have enough money for everything, before you start swimming in gold. Gold management falls under strategy for me, hence I wrote "nearly". Rare copies of scrolls would also fall under this umbrella, maybe some usable items - it's really thin regardless, but not completely non-existent.

I agree with your points about combat/rest.

 

[Tito Anic]

The discussion made me replay AoD. Picked 10,8,10,4,4,4 legionnaire all skills went to sword and board. Now in Ganezar sword-9, block-10, alchemy-2, crafting-2, i have 60 points and dont know where to put them, most of battles won first try. I think i could Ironman it, basically you need to play game in correct sequence (Aurelian autpost after poisoning, last Arena battle after power armor). AoD is more of memory than rng game.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

One thing that would spicy things up later on is giving more bombs and bolas to your enemies.

 

[Lhynn]

One thing that would spicy things up later on is giving more bombs and bolas to your enemies.

I guess? but all you are doing is making hybrid builds less viable.

 

[Mech]

I think what makes the AOD characters lose part of what would make them interesting is the fact that they are all assholes. You have assholes thieves, military asshores, assholes authorities, assholes deities, beggars assholes and so on.

Apparently Brother None rubbed off a little too much in the character design.

 

[Absinthe]

Now, I'm gonna say I'm not exactly in full agreement or disagreement with the criticism regarding combat that's being discussed here. Yes, you think much less about how you handle combat if you fully focused on making a combat character, that much is obvious. But at the end of the day, you still use different moveset, instead of just click-click-click to win, like Jason Liang said (and this is something I assumed based on VD's asking him to make a video where he make a 4/4 character and attack spamming the Outpost fight to win). Even you admitted it yourself, right? You use shield bash, whirlwind, fast/normal/power attacks, utilizing those, managing AP, positioning, and timing is vital to reach victory and still counts as tactics and not just attack spamming. Although, perhaps your definition of attack spamming is different than mine or Jason Liang's, but if you ask me, I think attack spamming is just clicak-click-click to win, instead of watching what kind of attacks you're using nor paying attention to AP management.

No, this is just wrong. I barely gave a shit what I was doing. I was just hitting shit. My "positioning" consisted of me occasionally taking a step or two back to force the other 3-5 guys to take another two steps to follow me, making their group waste more AP than me. Bashing was just another way of creating distance without provoking AoOs. The most attention I spent in combat was to murder/bash hammer wielders so they wont dent my shit up. I would frequently stand in the middle of 5 enemies and just whirlwind and attack without moving, since I have no mobility penalties unlike dodge and couldn't give a fuck about archers with my massive shields. All I cared about was how to hit as many times as possible and occasionally I would hit heavier attacks just to overcome DR. If I find myself with a 2 AP surplus it just means I walk a step or bash someone. The only fights that involved careful positioning were Widowmaker and Agathoth. Widowmaker was just running around in circles until he walks up to you and ends his turn without attacking you, then you swing, bash, and run. Rinse and repeat, Widowmaker dies without ever attacking you. He's liable to crit two-shot you even with 10 block, 12 str, and 10 con, so letting him melee you is not recommended unless you use shit like nets, bolas, or aimed strikes, which I wasn't using. Aimed strikes would've trivialized the game further (and spamming legs and arms is pretty brainless too). As would just leveling crit or crafting my own gear. Even using whetstones with the 3 crafting I'd gotten for free as IG auto-training would've helped.

When you have 10 str and 10 con you have stupidly high block rating and you can afford to take hits and poisons. I didn't even remove bleeds, let alone poison.

Hence, and this is assuming you know about Jason Liang's posting all those crazy 1 point in Bow challenge where he wipe the shit out of the game, then relate it to his criticism about how AoD's combat is broken (or something like that) just because you can spam bolas, it really doesn't make any sense. Now, let's try to apply the criticisms and accept that the game is indeed too easy. What can be improved, then? Tweaking and adjusting all the stats and numbers involved? Changing the combat encounters like adjusting the amount of enemies and/or their equipment? Remove bolas completely (or at least tweak the amount available in a single playthrough)?

Honestly, a lot can be improved about AoD's combat system. A lot of design ideas have been implemented on top of each other that new mechanics make old ones shitty. Between fast attacks and aimed strikes to the legs, for instance, aiming for the legs is frequently a more appealing option since a good hit will cut an opponent down to size and let you stack penalties until he becomes a joke. Attribute synergies also have shit effects. For instance, 1 dex gives 3 daggers/swords/spears/dodge. If I'm going dodge+swords, 1 point of dex is worth more than 1 point of perception even if there were absolutely no AP bonus for dex. Stat synergies have caused this shit and imo should not exist as they encourage extreme min-maxing to fix your defense. The 10str-8dex-10con build for instance has a full fucking +30 block rating over a 4-10-4-10-8-4 crossbowman build just from its stats, for instance, and that's not counting the bonus block rating you get just for using shields and the extra block rating you get vs ranged weapons. Basic builds like dodge dagger assassin do not work due to how unreliable dodge is even outside of mobility penalties, aimed strikes to the legs, nets, and the extreme likelihood of getting crit for massive damage and losing DR due to the abysmal vsCrit and hardness on light armors. Dodge essentially assumes you have crafting and ideally alchemy too to make some kind of decent DR score with hardness and vsCrit behind it. I think hardness was honestly a mistake as was hammer denting. Originally heavy DR armors were supposed to be counterbalanced by their low defense score and the ability of power attacks to overcome them. Now it's countered by DR denting and aimed strikes horribly crippling you with ludicrous ease along with extreme crit now plowing you open. Incidentally, hardness denting seems like the kind of mechanic designed to make it more viable to damage heavily armored foes, yet ironically you have a much, much easier time denting light DR enemies in crap like leather than heavy armor users which have massive hardness scores. It's ass-backwards design even in terms of its intention. I also think crits shouldn't bypass damage reduction. It's brainless and stupidly powerful. I think crits should've been set up to make aimed strikes viable instead of letting everyone aimed strike out of the box in addition to improving crit rate and that crit skill should give you a bonus to your vsCrit and a minor bonus to THC. As it stands shields are the best way to avoid getting crit because a crafted armor with a crafted shield has a much better vsCrit than anything a dodge build can come up with. Dodge builds are resigned to getting crit for damage, esp. when you factor in their tendency to wear light armors. Axes and hammers both need a different weapon mastery effect and I think you should be able to collect a weapon mastery and crit on the same attack. For some reason, right now you can't, which makes crit swords awful (used to be good back when weapon mastery for swords was extra crit chance). Incidentally, the latest axe rework resulted in axe-wielding NPCs without proper crit, which is ridiculously bad, whereas previously axe and crit was the bad combination. I also think that antidotes shouldn't just lower the current poison intake but basically give you extra poison resist for a limited duration. Right now antidotes are fucking useless if you're liable to get poisoned all over again each turn. Just a bloody waste of precious APs. I also don't agree with the combat training you get for killing shit. Combat SP are already a reward for murder. If I'm making the Thief escape from Teron and I get to choose between killing everything and talking my way out of everything, it's a little silly that it's plainly more rewarding for me to go murder everything that moves just for the bonus combat training rewards that stack up there. I also think Liquid Fires need a rework since the way they provide damage bypassing DR on top of barriers to shoot behind makes ranged combat too easy. I can hole up in a corner and liquid fire the tile diagonally in front of me and only big spears will be able to melee me. Bolas I think should be more dependent on throwing and crit rate to be effective. Nets should be more demanding on your throwing skill too. I also think healers should be less expensive and that you shouldn't get to make healing medicine until at least 3 alchemy and that they should start with healing 5 or maybe 10 points. Atm healers are a straight waste of money. I only used them in my last playthrough because I had too much money to burn and to get the Maadoran healer quest, a sidequest players are liable to never discover if they just opt to use their own much cheaper alchemy heals like everyone recommends instead of her services. I also think you shouldn't have your starting SP divided into combat SP and social SP. It was a rather bad division from the start. I can understand getting combat SP from combat but dividing skill points the way the game does strongly suggests that you're supposed to hybrid towards both combat and noncombat which is a fucking terrible message to send newbies. Social skills like Crafting and Alchemy are also plainly more combat skills than social skills and Perception is also a combat stat despite giving social SP. Also the F1 tutorial is out of date giving incorrect explanations of mechanics, character creation shows the wrong critical rating for your character when you rank crit, and a number of subtler mechanical features (constitution's vsCrit effects and poison scaling aspects, str and per's bonuses to aimed strikes, dex's initiative score, armor AP limitations vs dex and the ability to raise the limits through crafting) have to be discovered rather than being explained to you during chargen. The combat tutorial is also shitty in terms of explaining how combat really works. The most it offers is a practice opportunity and some painfully basic advice like skilling your attack and defense skill. AoD lacks a proper manual on this shit too.

Overall there are too many ways to cheese enemies and a number of intuitive builds just don't work as well as they should. If you ask me maxing weapon+block+crafting would be my basic advice for newbies (along with using whetstones). You can't really lose that way.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

Honestly, a lot can be improved about AoD's combat system.

The main problem is that when you achieve a certain level no tactics is needed anymore. The player’s strength could be compensated if the environment had a tactical role or you had to face different types of enemies with special abilities, but the way it is now you become unstoppable. Even the fact that you are outnumbered in AoD becomes negligible after a certain point. The only way to solve this issue is by giving your enemies more bolas and bombs, but then you can forget about hybrids and this is okay, since the game was not designed to be hybrids-friendly to begin with. I hope that TNW will fix this problem.

 

[Lhynn]

Bg1&2 are easy games with easy combat

Difficulty =/= complexity.

There is no C&C

Thats a lie, there is a bit of C&C in the first game, a bunch more in the second game. Especially when it comes to influencing your companions, but also with the fortresses questlines.

no character customization

Better no character customization than bad character customization.

no chance of failure and nearly limitless resources.

This is a lie. plenty of people have failed to beat these games. Mastery of the system makes the game easier, thats for sure, but the same can be said for AoD, mastery of its systems makes the game every bit as brainless as any dragon age.

They are loved because they are adventures to explore and have fun with, not because they are complex in any way.

Making a fun game comes down to many, many elements working well together. If it was so easy to make fun games then everybody would be making them. AoD is simpler and harder than BG titles, thats the claim and you cannot disprove it because it is a simple fact.

IE games are the simplest of RPGs.

Not even close

If they are complex for you consider taking your own advice and visiting a specialist.

That you consider AoD more complex than AD&D is just baffling and a testament of the level of rampant retardation and autism you can find in these boards.

 

[mushaden]

This isn't my playthrough, but you can see that AoD combat is a joke all the way to the end.

Obviously if you play through with a straight combat character it's even more of a joke.

Why is combat in AoD a joke? Because unless you are using a gimped character, you don't actually need to use strategy or tactics to win the fights.

I think this is the elephant in the room. I’m trying to emulate this in a play through, and though I believe it is possible, I’m sure getting this amount of skill points is truly autistic perfection I will never come close to.

But anyway, I have to say that this guy didn’t really gimp his character. He had to invest in 4 skills to beat all the fights (critical strike, crafting, alchemy, and lore). Sure he has a lot of extra skill points but this is at the end of a perfect game. Could he have won all the fights while otherwise playing purely as a thief (max two or three thief skills) or as a merchant (max persuasion and streetwise). I don’t think so, but I haven’t done the math, and you have to take into account the sequence the game plays out. This =\= hybrid.

So while I am finding that it is possible to play a very gimped combat character, you can’t really do multiple playthroughs in one. I.e. the game isn’t broken.

Combat is easy if you know what you’re doing, and the game is storyfag first of all imo. But you guys are offering a lot of exaggerated criticisms.

 

[Jason Liang]

Why is combat in AoD a joke? Because unless you are using a gimped character, you don't actually need to use strategy or tactics to win the fights.

I think this is the elephant in the room. I’m trying to emulate this in a play through, and though I believe it is possible, I’m sure getting this amount of skill points is truly autistic perfection I will never come close to.

But anyway, I have to say that this guy didn’t really gimp his character. He had to invest in 4 skills to beat all the fights (critical strike, crafting, alchemy, and lore).

I'm not sure how you would consider Lore a helpful combat skill.

While yes, I think it's necessary to have some Alchemy to beat most of the game's combats with a 1/1 or 1/x character, it's not a priority skill that one has to maximize at all. In my playthrough, my only Alchemy is the single free point that you get as an Assassin, useful to make basic poison and healing pots. I suppose at some point one should raise it enough to craft bombs and liquid fire but anything beyond that is a luxury. The only fight where Alchemy 10 would be useful is Mountain Village, so that you can craft cellular regeneration immediately. Since basic bombs and liquid fire are purchaseable, alchemy is more a convenience than a necessity.

As far as Crafting, even on a Lore run one would raise Crafting to 8 to unlock gated content anyway. The minor advantages from crafting 6 (about as high as you would raise it in Teron) are a nice convenience but again hardly necessary. Then as soon as you make it to Maadoran, you have access to near endgame weapons and armor from Maadoran's markets already. Whetstone is a pretty nice bonus too.

I suppose Critical Strike lowers the difficulty of many fights by removing one opponent outright. In actual battles though, CS is more a quality of life skill since it's most useful effect is to reduce the chance of being crit'd. Unlike the other combat skills, this effect itself doesn't make the battles tactically less challenging.

Putting points in the four skills you mentioned is by no means an effective substitute for actually investing directly in weapon skills or (in his case) defense skills. I'm not sure how far you've gotten, but the point I am trying to make is that only by gimping your character in this way (not raising weapon and/ or defensive skills) are the game's fights challenging enough to require actual use of deeper strategy and tactics. Which is the point where tactical combat actually becomes fun.

A good analogy is Chess. At what point is Chess fun? Is Chess fun when you are skilled and you are destroying weak opponents who are making rookie mistakes? That's not really what makes Chess fun. Chess becomes fun at the point when your opponent is skilled enough that you must grow and play with strategy and tactics to beat them.

 

[Trash Player]

Now, I'm gonna say I'm not exactly in full agreement or disagreement with the criticism regarding combat that's being discussed here. Yes, you think much less about how you handle combat if you fully focused on making a combat character, that much is obvious. But at the end of the day, you still use different moveset, instead of just click-click-click to win, like Jason Liang said (and this is something I assumed based on VD's asking him to make a video where he make a 4/4 character and attack spamming the Outpost fight to win). Even you admitted it yourself, right? You use shield bash, whirlwind, fast/normal/power attacks, utilizing those, managing AP, positioning, and timing is vital to reach victory and still counts as tactics and not just attack spamming. Although, perhaps your definition of attack spamming is different than mine or Jason Liang's, but if you ask me, I think attack spamming is just clicak-click-click to win, instead of watching what kind of attacks you're using nor paying attention to AP management.

No, this is just wrong. I barely gave a shit what I was doing. I was just hitting shit. My "positioning" consisted of me occasionally taking a step or two back to force the other 3-5 guys to take another two steps to follow me, making their group waste more AP than me. Bashing was just another way of creating distance without provoking AoOs. The most attention I spent in combat was to murder/bash hammer wielders so they wont dent my shit up. I would frequently stand in the middle of 5 enemies and just whirlwind and attack without moving, since I have no mobility penalties unlike dodge and couldn't give a fuck about archers with my massive shields. All I cared about was how to hit as many times as possible and occasionally I would hit heavier attacks just to overcome DR. If I find myself with a 2 AP surplus it just means I walk a step or bash someone. The only fights that involved careful positioning were Widowmaker and Agathoth. Widowmaker was just running around in circles until he walks up to you and ends his turn without attacking you, then you swing, bash, and run. Rinse and repeat, Widowmaker dies without ever attacking you. He's liable to crit two-shot you even with 10 block, 12 str, and 10 con, so letting him melee you is not recommended unless you use shit like nets, bolas, or aimed strikes, which I wasn't using. Aimed strikes would've trivialized the game further (and spamming legs and arms is pretty brainless too). As would just leveling crit or crafting my own gear. Even using whetstones with the 3 crafting I'd gotten for free as IG auto-training would've helped.

When you have 10 str and 10 con you have stupidly high block rating and you can afford to take hits and poisons. I didn't even remove bleeds, let alone poison.

Hence, and this is assuming you know about Jason Liang's posting all those crazy 1 point in Bow challenge where he wipe the shit out of the game, then relate it to his criticism about how AoD's combat is broken (or something like that) just because you can spam bolas, it really doesn't make any sense. Now, let's try to apply the criticisms and accept that the game is indeed too easy. What can be improved, then? Tweaking and adjusting all the stats and numbers involved? Changing the combat encounters like adjusting the amount of enemies and/or their equipment? Remove bolas completely (or at least tweak the amount available in a single playthrough)?

Honestly, a lot can be improved about AoD's combat system. A lot of design ideas have been implemented on top of each other that new mechanics make old ones shitty. Between fast attacks and aimed strikes to the legs, for instance, aiming for the legs is frequently a more appealing option since a good hit will cut an opponent down to size and let you stack penalties until he becomes a joke. Attribute synergies also have shit effects. For instance, 1 dex gives 3 daggers/swords/spears/dodge. If I'm going dodge+swords, 1 point of dex is worth more than 1 point of perception even if there were absolutely no AP bonus for dex. Stat synergies have caused this shit and imo should not exist as they encourage extreme min-maxing to fix your defense. The 10str-8dex-10con build for instance has a full fucking +30 block rating over a 4-10-4-10-8-4 crossbowman build just from its stats, for instance, and that's not counting the bonus block rating you get just for using shields and the extra block rating you get vs ranged weapons. Basic builds like dodge dagger assassin do not work due to how unreliable dodge is even outside of mobility penalties, aimed strikes to the legs, nets, and the extreme likelihood of getting crit for massive damage and losing DR due to the abysmal vsCrit and hardness on light armors. Dodge essentially assumes you have crafting and ideally alchemy too to make some kind of decent DR score with hardness and vsCrit behind it. I think hardness was honestly a mistake as was hammer denting. Originally heavy DR armors were supposed to be counterbalanced by their low defense score and the ability of power attacks to overcome them. Now it's countered by DR denting and aimed strikes horribly crippling you with ludicrous ease along with extreme crit now plowing you open. Incidentally, hardness denting seems like the kind of mechanic designed to make it more viable to damage heavily armored foes, yet ironically you have a much, much easier time denting light DR enemies in crap like leather than heavy armor users which have massive hardness scores. It's ass-backwards design even in terms of its intention. I also think crits shouldn't bypass damage reduction. It's brainless and stupidly powerful. I think crits should've been set up to make aimed strikes viable instead of letting everyone aimed strike out of the box in addition to improving crit rate and that crit skill should give you a bonus to your vsCrit and a minor bonus to THC. As it stands shields are the best way to avoid getting crit because a crafted armor with a crafted shield has a much better vsCrit than anything a dodge build can come up with. Dodge builds are resigned to getting crit for damage, esp. when you factor in their tendency to wear light armors. Axes and hammers both need a different weapon mastery effect and I think you should be able to collect a weapon mastery and crit on the same attack. For some reason, right now you can't, which makes crit swords awful (used to be good back when weapon mastery for swords was extra crit chance). Incidentally, the latest axe rework resulted in axe-wielding NPCs without proper crit, which is ridiculously bad, whereas previously axe and crit was the bad combination. I also think that antidotes shouldn't just lower the current poison intake but basically give you extra poison resist for a limited duration. Right now antidotes are fucking useless if you're liable to get poisoned all over again each turn. Just a bloody waste of precious APs. I also don't agree with the combat training you get for killing shit. Combat SP are already a reward for murder. If I'm making the Thief escape from Teron and I get to choose between killing everything and talking my way out of everything, it's a little silly that it's plainly more rewarding for me to go murder everything that moves just for the bonus combat training rewards that stack up there. I also think Liquid Fires need a rework since the way they provide damage bypassing DR on top of barriers to shoot behind makes ranged combat too easy. I can hole up in a corner and liquid fire the tile diagonally in front of me and only big spears will be able to melee me. Bolas I think should be more dependent on throwing and crit rate to be effective. Nets should be more demanding on your throwing skill too. I also think healers should be less expensive and that you shouldn't get to make healing medicine until at least 3 alchemy and that they should start with healing 5 or maybe 10 points. Atm healers are a straight waste of money. I only used them in my last playthrough because I had too much money to burn and to get the Maadoran healer quest, a sidequest players are liable to never discover if they just opt to use their own much cheaper alchemy heals like everyone recommends instead of her services. I also think you shouldn't have your starting SP divided into combat SP and social SP. It was a rather bad division from the start. I can understand getting combat SP from combat but dividing skill points the way the game does strongly suggests that you're supposed to hybrid towards both combat and noncombat which is a fucking terrible message to send newbies. Social skills like Crafting and Alchemy are also plainly more combat skills than social skills and Perception is also a combat stat despite giving social SP. Also the F1 tutorial is out of date giving incorrect explanations of mechanics, character creation shows the wrong critical rating for your character when you rank crit, and a number of subtler mechanical features (constitution's vsCrit effects and poison scaling aspects, str and per's bonuses to aimed strikes, dex's initiative score, armor AP limitations vs dex and the ability to raise the limits through crafting) have to be discovered rather than being explained to you during chargen. The combat tutorial is also shitty in terms of explaining how combat really works. The most it offers is a practice opportunity and some painfully basic advice like skilling your attack and defense skill. AoD lacks a proper manual on this shit too.

Overall there are too many ways to cheese enemies and a number of intuitive builds just don't work as well as they should. If you ask me maxing weapon+block+crafting would be my basic advice for newbies (along with using whetstones). You can't really lose that way.

I agree with most points, except 3:
1. Leg strike costs base weapon AP with -10 to-hit, fast costs base-1 with +15 to-hit, they have different roles. I can see where you are coming from though: you play as a 8Dex character; there is only one good 4AP hammer in game and it is easy to miss ;5AP weapons give significant debuffs. Even then, two leg hits might just be better than 3 fast hits in some cases.
2. Throwing is already too good. It is tied to CS chance of net and bolas right now.
3. Ditto for Alchemy. It is already too good, no need to make it indipensable. Fighter PCs aren't short of money anyway, at best it would delay buying good stuffs. Attrition isn't a design goal for either AoD or DR, even though some players have this trouble with the later.

Why is combat in AoD a joke? Because unless you are using a gimped character, you don't actually need to use strategy or tactics to win the fights.

I think this is the elephant in the room. I’m trying to emulate this in a play through, and though I believe it is possible, I’m sure getting this amount of skill points is truly autistic perfection I will never come close to.

But anyway, I have to say that this guy didn’t really gimp his character. He had to invest in 4 skills to beat all the fights (critical strike, crafting, alchemy, and lore).

I'm not sure how you would consider Lore a helpful combat skill.

While yes, I think it's necessary to have some Alchemy to beat most of the game's combats with a 1/1 or 1/x character, it's not a priority skill that one has to maximize at all. In my playthrough, my only Alchemy is the single free point that you get as an Assassin, useful to make basic poison and healing pots. I suppose at some point one should raise it enough to craft bombs and liquid fire but anything beyond that is a luxury. The only fight where Alchemy 10 would be useful is Mountain Village, so that you can craft cellular regeneration immediately. Since basic bombs and liquid fire are purchaseable, alchemy is more a convenience than a necessity.

As far as Crafting, even on a Lore run one would raise Crafting to 8 to unlock gated content anyway. The minor advantages from crafting 6 (about as high as you would raise it in Teron) are a nice convenience but again hardly necessary. Then as soon as you make it to Maadoran, you have access to near endgame weapons and armor from Maadoran's markets already. Whetstone is a pretty nice bonus too.

I suppose Critical Strike lowers the difficulty of many fights by removing one opponent outright. In actual battles though, CS is more a quality of life skill since it's most useful effect is to reduce the chance of being crit'd. Unlike the other combat skills, this effect itself doesn't make the battles tactically less challenging.

Putting points in the four skills you mentioned is by no means an effective substitute for actually investing directly in weapon skills or (in his case) defense skills. I'm not sure how far you've gotten, but the point I am trying to make is that only by gimping your character in this way (not raising weapon and/ or defensive skills) are the game's fights challenging enough to require actual use of deeper strategy and tactics. Which is the point where tactical combat actually becomes fun.

A good analogy is Chess. At what point is Chess fun? Is Chess fun when you are skilled and you are destroying weak opponents who are making rookie mistakes? That's not really what makes Chess fun. Chess becomes fun at the point when your opponent is skilled enough that you must grow and play with strategy and tactics to beat them.

CS skill contributing to VsCS is a legacy myth: it was considered or even implemented at one point but isn't true since release. Same as bomb crit chance tying to CS skill. That was position before and victim's Con now. CS do give a powerful alphastrike to a character like that, assuming savescumming.

 

[Parabalus]

Bg1&2 are easy games with easy combat

Difficulty =/= complexity.

There is no C&C

Thats a lie, there is a bit of C&C in the first game, a bunch more in the second game. Especially when it comes to influencing your companions, but also with the fortresses questlines.

no character customization

Better no character customization than bad character customization.

no chance of failure and nearly limitless resources.

This is a lie. plenty of people have failed to beat these games. Mastery of the system makes the game easier, thats for sure, but the same can be said for AoD, mastery of its systems makes the game every bit as brainless as any dragon age.

They are loved because they are adventures to explore and have fun with, not because they are complex in any way.

Making a fun game comes down to many, many elements working well together. If it was so easy to make fun games then everybody would be making them. AoD is simpler and harder than BG titles, thats the claim and you cannot disprove it because it is a simple fact.

IE games are the simplest of RPGs.

Not even close

If they are complex for you consider taking your own advice and visiting a specialist.

That you consider AoD more complex than AD&D is just baffling and a testament of the level of rampant retardation and autism you can find in these boards.

• complexity without difficulty is pointless
• branching quests =/= C&C. Which fortresses have C&C? Priest one because you can get different ones? Companions in 2 yeah, but only few have consequences. I should have added significant though.
• Who shit on AoD's char system ? You can complain about alleged storybook gameplay but the character system is great.
• Nice straw man. Free rest makes the majority of difficulty self imposed, but the comments were separate because I meant lack of faliable checks & no long(er) term strategic management, not difficulty (in terms of normalized average TtB or w/e)
• IE games aren't more complex because you have more characters to control, if the only thing you need to do with them is right click.
• See above, you overrate party RPGs.
• In the IE games' AD&D, there is 0 thought in creating a character beyond choosing a class
  Spoiler

  few alignment stuff notwithstanding
  , everything is railroaded. Complexity means nothing if there aren't competing compelling choices in the system. There has to be tension for a system to be good, which you didn't experience since you cheated.

 

[Black_Willow]

Hello mods of VideoNovelAndCYOAGameCodex, could you move this discussion from this niche "RPG discussion" board (where it clearly doesn't belong) toward our main board? Thank you very much!

 

[Lhynn]

complexity without difficulty is pointless

Nope, any retard can make a game difficult or easy, it doesnt take much but number bloat. Having complexity adds to gameplay.

branching quests =/= C&C.

Free rest makes the majority of difficulty self imposed, but the comments were separate because I meant lack of faliable checks & no long(er) term strategic management, not difficulty (in terms of normalized average TtB or w/e)

Yeah, no. There are plenty of fights that cannot be overcome unless you know very well what you are doing or have decent enough stats. You cannot stumble your way to victory in BG.

IE games aren't more complex because you have more characters to control, if the only thing you need to do with them is right click.

Except you cant just right click in any of them. There are plenty of encounters in both games that require a more hands on approach or a winning strategy, either way it involves more than just clicking on the enemy.

See above, you overrate party RPGs.

Nope, the only one overrating an RPG here is you.

In the IE games' AD&D, there is 0 thought in creating a character beyond choosing a class

Spoiler

few alignment stuff notwithstanding

, everything is railroaded.

This isnt a bad thing tho. In AoD theres only thought when creating a character. Everything beyond that i just validating your choice.

Complexity means nothing if there aren't competing compelling choices in the system. There has to be tension for a system to be good, which you didn't experience since you cheated.

This is just retarded, the point was already made and already refuted. I had no more trouble completing the game than any given full combat build.

 

[Parabalus]

complexity without difficulty is pointless

Nope, any retard can make a game difficult or easy, it doesnt take much but number bloat. Having complexity adds to gameplay.

branching quests =/= C&C.

Free rest makes the majority of difficulty self imposed, but the comments were separate because I meant lack of faliable checks & no long(er) term strategic management, not difficulty (in terms of normalized average TtB or w/e)

Yeah, no. There are plenty of fights that cannot be overcome unless you know very well what you are doing or have decent enough stats. You cannot stumble your way to victory in BG.

IE games aren't more complex because you have more characters to control, if the only thing you need to do with them is right click.

Except you cant just right click in any of them. There are plenty of encounters in both games that require a more hands on approach or a winning strategy, either way it involves more than just clicking on the enemy.

See above, you overrate party RPGs.

Nope, the only one overrating an RPG here is you.

In the IE games' AD&D, there is 0 thought in creating a character beyond choosing a class

Spoiler

few alignment stuff notwithstanding

, everything is railroaded.

This isnt a bad thing tho. In AoD theres only thought when creating a character. Everything beyond that i just validating your choice.

Complexity means nothing if there aren't competing compelling choices in the system. There has to be tension for a system to be good, which you didn't experience since you cheated.

This is just retarded, the point was already made and already refuted. I had no more trouble completing the game than any given full combat build.

• Complex systems add nothing to the game unless you have to use them! Look at Dumpsterfire for a recent example.
• No idea why you'd merge the terms.
• Any encounter without an caster(like) in Bg1/2 can be done by casting haste and right-clicking. Or spamming summons if you're a degenrate. What stats in IE games? In Bg2 you have no progression until you get to HLAs. Enemy AC is too high for Fighter ThAC0 to matter, I think lowest is Firkraag at only -12ish in SoA, you autohit everything on warriors. How do you stumble your way to victory in AoD? Share that with the steam reviews.
• Yes, and AoD has more of them.
• I'm not overrating AoD by saying it is as/more complex than IE games, that is tangential to a game's rating.
• Why even play an RPG if character customization doesn't matter to you? Only "validating" you're choice would make sense if you were stuck playing only archetype in AoD, instead of being free/encouraged to choose/switch in-game.
• The entire point of character systems is for the player to have to make hard choices when leveling up/CC. AoD does this (sometimes for the wrong reasons), IE games don't since they have none (outside minor IWD2). This is related to difficulty by my first point.

 

[Absinthe]

The main problem is that when you achieve a certain level no tactics is needed anymore. The player’s strength could be compensated if the environment had a tactical role or you had to face different types of enemies with special abilities, but the way it is now you become unstoppable. Even the fact that you are outnumbered in AoD becomes negligible after a certain point. The only way to solve this issue is by giving your enemies more bolas and bombs, but then you can forget about hybrids and this is okay, since the game was not designed to be hybrids-friendly to begin with. I hope that TNW will fix this problem.

No one is denying that it's normal for the combat to become easier as you get better at it and as you dedicate more character resources into it. But AoD's combat can get a little too brainless for dedicated combat characters, and the fact of the matter is AoD's combat has numerous issues, in terms of being newbie-friendly, in terms of bad NPC builds, in terms of build requirements, and in terms of tactics. If you're pushing a combat route, the game should be throwing more interesting and varied challenges at you. Instead the combat becomes less and less meaningful.

I think this is the elephant in the room. I’m trying to emulate this in a play through, and though I believe it is possible, I’m sure getting this amount of skill points is truly autistic perfection I will never come close to.

Not really, no. I've done much better than that. For a SP-hoarding do-everything run, that feels somewhat weak for Maadoran.

But anyway, I have to say that this guy didn’t really gimp his character. He had to invest in 4 skills to beat all the fights (critical strike, crafting, alchemy, and lore). Sure he has a lot of extra skill points but this is at the end of a perfect game. Could he have won all the fights while otherwise playing purely as a thief (max two or three thief skills) or as a merchant (max persuasion and streetwise). I don’t think so, but I haven’t done the math, and you have to take into account the sequence the game plays out. This =\= hybrid.

So while I am finding that it is possible to play a very gimped combat character, you can’t really do multiple playthroughs in one. I.e. the game isn’t broken.

Well playthroughs tend to be mutually exclusive but it is definitely possible to create extreme hybrids.

I'm not sure how you would consider Lore a helpful combat skill.

Power Armor, of course. And IIRC depending on your build Lore gives more SP through sidequests than it consumes in skill cost. Although the 5 str indicates he didn't actually use the lore option.

I agree with most points, except 3:
1. Leg strike costs base weapon AP with -10 to-hit, fast costs base-1 with +15 to-hit, they have different roles. I can see where you are coming from though: you play as a 8Dex character; there is only one good 4AP hammer in game and it is easy to miss ;5AP weapons give significant debuffs. Even then, two leg hits might just be better than 3 fast hits in some cases.

You didn't need to quote my entire post. People can scroll up just fine, but now they have to waste time scrolling down past a quote of a post they already read. If you wanted to get my attention, you could've just tagged me. Once you get one leg strike in, the others come easier, you stack up the debuffs, and their dodge basically vanishes. Then you aim for the arms and rotate arms+legs. They can't hit you anymore while you can whittle them down without trouble. IIRC works best on dodge-based enemies. IIRC there was some kind of cap with leg-striking block builds, which was another reason why it's better to go block than dodge, since eating leg-strikes as dodge is frequently game over.

2. Throwing is already too good. It is tied to CS chance of net and bolas right now.

I'm saying THC should be tied to throwing and their CS should be tied to crit.

3. Ditto for Alchemy. It is already too good, no need to make it indipensable. Fighter PCs aren't short of money anyway, at best it would delay buying good stuffs. Attrition isn't a design goal for either AoD or DR, even though some players have this trouble with the later

This doesn't improve alchemy or make it indispensable. It weakens it. It encourages you to buy the healing salves from stores and visit healers. Speaking of which, I think some healers should sell salves and antidotes and crap.

CS skill contributing to VsCS is a legacy myth: it was considered or even implemented at one point but isn't true since release. Same as bomb crit chance tying to CS skill. That was position before and victim's Con now. CS do give a powerful alphastrike to a character like that, assuming savescumming.

F1 still says that CS skill contributes to vsCrit. I'm not saying it contributes to vsCrit. I'm saying it should contribute to vsCrit as it's hard to get a proper vsCrit score nowadays and it would improve the value of a crit skill without the DR-ignoring strikes.

 

[Lhynn]

Complex systems add nothing to the game unless you have to use them! Look at Dumpsterfire for a recent example.

BG isnt complex, just more complex than AoD. Either way, interaction between spells, items and classes is fairly fun even in an easy game. To think otherwise is plain retarded.
There is a case to be made for boring encounter design making complex systems irrelevant. But BG1 had more than a few interesting and memorable encounters and locations, and in BGII most of them were.

Any encounter without an caster(like) in Bg1/2 can be done by casting haste and right-clicking.

Oh, so you mean like 10% of the encounters?

Or spamming summons if you're a degenrate.

Hey guise, if you cheese the game its easy!!1!

What stats in IE games? In Bg2 you have no progression until you get to HLAs. Enemy AC is too high for Fighter ThAC0 to matter, I think lowest is Firkraag at only -12ish in SoA, you autohit everything on warriors.

With warriors? sure. With other classes, no. The class about autohiting being good at autohiting is wrong because

How do you stumble your way to victory in AoD? Share that with the steam reviews.

Another retarded non-point, you are getting too good at this. Theres people that cant beat encounters in deadfire storymode. Theres no accounting for retardation.
Also i never said AoD was easier, just simpler. But keep trying to move that goalpost.

I'm not overrating AoD by saying it is as/more complex than IE games

Yes you are. You retarded shill, theres simply a lot more to learn in AD&D than in this CYOA.

Why even play an RPG if character customization doesn't matter to you?

I dont know. Because its fun? Do you need the hamster wheel of "im going to put points here the next time i level up!!1!" to play them?

The entire point of character systems is for the player to have to make hard choices when leveling up/CC.

No, the entire point of character systems is to make the characters interaction with the world more interesting and extensive. But if to you leveling up should be about making hard choices then so be it.

AoD does this (sometimes for the wrong reasons), IE games don't since they have none (outside minor IWD2).

AoD never forced a hard choice on me, neither on Upgrading skills or during the gameplay. It was always fairly straightforward.
BG didnt either, but BG wasnt predicated on choice on the first place.

This is related to difficulty by my first point.

Again, complexity =/= difficulty, get that through your thick skull.

 

[Parabalus]

Complex systems add nothing to the game unless you have to use them! Look at Dumpsterfire for a recent example.

BG isnt complex, just more complex than AoD. Either way, interaction between spells, items and classes is fairly fun even in an easy game. To think otherwise is plain retarded.
There is a case to be made for boring encounter design making complex systems irrelevant. But BG1 had more than a few interesting and memorable encounters and locations, and in BGII most of them were.

Any encounter without an caster(like) in Bg1/2 can be done by casting haste and right-clicking.

Oh, so you mean like 10% of the encounters?

Or spamming summons if you're a degenrate.

Hey guise, if you cheese the game its easy!!1!

What stats in IE games? In Bg2 you have no progression until you get to HLAs. Enemy AC is too high for Fighter ThAC0 to matter, I think lowest is Firkraag at only -12ish in SoA, you autohit everything on warriors.

With warriors? sure. With other classes, no. The class about autohiting being good at autohiting is wrong because

How do you stumble your way to victory in AoD? Share that with the steam reviews.

Another retarded non-point, you are getting too good at this. Theres people that cant beat encounters in deadfire storymode. Theres no accounting for retardation.
Also i never said AoD was easier, just simpler. But keep trying to move that goalpost.

I'm not overrating AoD by saying it is as/more complex than IE games

Yes you are. You retarded shill, theres simply a lot more to learn in AD&D than in this CYOA.

Why even play an RPG if character customization doesn't matter to you?

I dont know. Because its fun? Do you need the hamster wheel of "im going to put points here the next time i level up!!1!" to play them?

The entire point of character systems is for the player to have to make hard choices when leveling up/CC.

No, the entire point of character systems is to make the characters interaction with the world more interesting and extensive. But if to you leveling up should be about making hard choices then so be it.

AoD does this (sometimes for the wrong reasons), IE games don't since they have none (outside minor IWD2).

AoD never forced a hard choice on me, neither on Upgrading skills or during the gameplay. It was always fairly straightforward.
BG didnt either, but BG wasnt predicated on choice on the first place.

This is related to difficulty by my first point.

Again, complexity =/= difficulty, get that through your thick skull.

• What are some complex games according to you?
• I think you inverted the numbers here. Take Firkraag's

  From memory it goes, from main entrance into the first area:
  
  
  

  • fodder hobgoblins
  • more fodder
  • Raksasha with exploding imps, fodder if you can hit him (weapon enchant check)
  • "trap" room with fodder archers
  • Golem pack with Adamantite/juggernaut golem, fodder or kite to door
  • left and right fodder room with turncoat orc and troll cool, otygh backroom
  • progress hallway with fodder
  • vampire pack to the right (sunray fodder), followed by shadows in room with mind flayer room key
  • meet chick with quest
  • kill 7x identical djinni by stacking 100% FR, kill lone beholder
  • "adventurer party backstab" , IIRC the mage isn't even high level
  • progress hallway with were/wolfs (weapon +check) to room with well, air elemental with helm
  • more weres, funny trio, more kitable golems with heartseeker secret room
  • across bridge more golems/orogs
  • Tazok party, nothing special
  • lone mage
  • Dragon

  • Much less than 90% casters like you claim, even if you count the magical beasts. This dungeon is also a total zoo, rest are much less diverse.
• Ye, except I called it degenerate. Funny you dodged haste
• You wrote about class progression, that level up stats matter in IE games. Now you agree that they don't, thanks.
• You are probably conflating the IE games with P&P AD&D, dunno how else you could believe this BS
• Ye, you have to look at a spellbook filled with 100 spells, and identify the 10% which isn't garbage. Such complexity!
• Sure dude, I play games other than RPGs too. I also play&enjoy RPGs with little character development options, nothing wrong with that, but why defend that as something good/desired?
• If there aren't (hard) choices, what's the point of having a system in the first place? You can have branching interactions without them, systems add gates and failure chances.
• Ofc it didn't force a hard choice on you, you used AddSP(200)
• I think you might have reading issues. Nobody claimed complexity=difficulty, but complexity for its own sake is pointless. You need a reason not to ignore game systems, be it difficulty or otherwise.