So what exactly is Trash combat?

[Invictus]

Some pretty interesting observations here; to me trash combat is combat that might have served a purpose at the start of the game for example, but then it basicaly runs out of its purpose of either honing your combat skills or introduccion some sort of new mechanic or challenge.
The second combat feels more like a chore than a fun enounter (no matter how much you might like the combat system) its is the when it becomes trash.
When combat becomes an repetitive mostly unavoidable obstacle designed to pad out the gaming experience (japanese game excel at this) it is not only trash but lazy design trash
I liked the SS2 mention; games like that or Stalker Misery are more about resource management; when you have to balance the consequences of your action by engagin or not in combat "should I use my best rifle which has a few bullets left to make sure I get the kill, use my handgun which has easier to find ammo but might not be powerfull enough to kill that zombie or should I use my knife and heal up if I get hit?"
It is very dificult not to have trash combat but a properly designed game system can keep it at a minimum

Thinking of games like Dark Souls I believe it has no trash combat at all; you can get killed by the easiest enemies if you are careless or try to be cute, plus most of its combat is avoidable by running, taking shortcuts or sneaking arround...when the game allows the player to decide to fight or not or it depends on his skill then the game becomes truly trash free

 

[Morning Star]

Do you consider the groups of hobgoblins, gnolls, skeletons, etc that wander around various areas in BG1 to be trash combat?
Gibberlings are easy to pick on because after a few hours of playing they're completely negligible encounters, but these mobs operate on basically the same principle but are more challenging/take longer before you completely overlevel them. Are they still trash? Do they become trash when you outlevel them?

Basically, anything that can be killed by casting a spell (entangle, sleep, horror, web, grease) and then picking them out with bows and arrows, i sort of consider trash combat.

Davaeorn at the mines, the named bandits at the bandit camp, or even that ogre with a cursed male/female belt (if i remember that correctly) aren't trash if you stumble upon them at the right time, and even when you're more powerful, they are part of a quest at least. Another band of gnolls means horror -> they scatter -> kill those who made the free throw first -> now kill the rest.

It's more a matter of not "being there" for a good reason. (Good reason game wise, not location wise, i get it, the woods around Baldur's Gate / Beregost / Nashkel are full of wolves, goblins, etc, i understand the settings, it's just boring and annoying after the twelfth time.)

Adding (editing): so, in short, I would say that trash combat is combat that doesn't add anything to the story or to the experience. I mean, a random band of adventurers who wants my same treasure and consitutes a good challenge might not add anything to the story, but at least I have fun killing them (or being killed by them). If the umpteenth wave of gnolls was STILL challenging, i'd have no problem with them. But then we'd start with the fact that D&D's hit points and armor class system is flawed and so on, and that's a different matter .

Hit points should be more or less fixed and not change too much, and AC should work differently. That way, my lvl 20 fighter can STILL be swarmed by 30 goblins and be inevitably overpowered by the sheer numbers and be wounded and killed even at that level.

And while this IS another discussion, it is part of what makes BG's encounter "trash" after a while: the lack of challenge and the impossibility to die or even being hit if your AC is good enough. I mean, as someone has already pointed out, the charm of this game is the low level running about, with the risk for your caster to be killed by a single arrow (as it should be for someone going around wearing cloth as protection).

Standing in the same spot, surrounded by 10 goblins who can't seem to ever be able to hit me even if I'm doing nothing at all is quite silly.

(Adding again): Because to me, that's the charm of the setting really: a dangerous place where you make your own fortune if you're lucky and smart enough. Only that is true in P&P and with a good DM, and in BG1. The risk of dying for a stone thrown at you or a trap, the first 500 gp and your first half decent armor and weapon (OMG +2!!!), the couple healing potions, etc.

When you are a demigod who can kill whatever with a spell... it's a different kind of fun i guess.

 

[octavius]

Heh, those who complain about trash combat in BG1 can't have played any CRGPs from the DOS era - most of those games consisted of only trash combat.
And if you dislike trash combat in the woods so much, then why the hell do you seek it out? You don't need to cover every square inch of the Sword Coast to complete the game.

 

[Morning Star]

Heh, those who complain about trash combat in BG1 can't have played any CRGPs from the DOS era - most of those games consisted of only trash combat.
And if you dislike trash combat in the woods so much, then why the hell do you seek it out? You don't need to cover every square inch of the Sword Coast to complete the game.

Or maybe they could make it interesting.

 

[octavius]

Heh, those who complain about trash combat in BG1 can't have played any CRGPs from the DOS era - most of those games consisted of only trash combat.
And if you dislike trash combat in the woods so much, then why the hell do you seek it out? You don't need to cover every square inch of the Sword Coast to complete the game.

Or maybe they could make it interesting.

There are tons of interesting encounters in BG1. In fact BG1 is among the few CRPGs that actually have good encounter design. So targeting BG1 is retarded, especially since the trash combat in BG1, unlike most other CRPGs, can mostly be avoided.
I can understand critizising BG1 for it's writing, for the generic setting or for the RTwP combat, but encounter design??? It's like complaining about a burger having too much vegetables, and then ordering a salad instead.

 

[Morning Star]

Heh, those who complain about trash combat in BG1 can't have played any CRGPs from the DOS era - most of those games consisted of only trash combat.
And if you dislike trash combat in the woods so much, then why the hell do you seek it out? You don't need to cover every square inch of the Sword Coast to complete the game.

Or maybe they could make it interesting.

There are tons of interesting encounters in BG1. In fact BG1 is among the few CRPGs that actually have good encounter design. So targeting BG1 is retarded, especially since the trash combat in BG1, unlike most other CRPGs, can mostly be avoided.

How can you avoid it, if over half of the locations are filler generic woods? By not exploring the world and only going on with the quest? Sure, but then you miss out on half the game. And while I'm not denying that interesting enocunters do happen, my memory of BG1 (admittedly from years ago) is rich of trash encounter rather than good ones.

And the encounter design is not THAT good, really.

That guy you meet the Friendly Arm? If you're a caster, he throws a magic missile your way and you're dead. Nothing you can do about it, when you have 4 or 6 hit points. So the solution is metagaming by putting someone else in front, or leveling up before reaching the Arm. Because the alternative is dying without being able to do anything at all. Which is not good design, really.

And how is it good design encounter when you're faced with again another wave of generic filler enemy which adds nothing at all to your experience?

BG1 is good for other things, and it certainly does have good encounters, but saying that it doesn't have trash combat or that it can be "mostly avoided" is, I'm afraid, and forgive me, the "retarded" claim here.

 

[V_K]

Heh, those who complain about trash combat in BG1 can't have played any CRGPs from the DOS era - most of those games consisted of only trash combat.

True for M&Ms, early Wizardries and Bard's Tales. Not true for QfGs, RoAs, Ultimas, Magic Candles, DHoU, Amberstar and many other DOS-era games, that provied a much more varied gameplay experience than any of BGs.

 

[octavius]

Heh, those who complain about trash combat in BG1 can't have played any CRGPs from the DOS era - most of those games consisted of only trash combat.
And if you dislike trash combat in the woods so much, then why the hell do you seek it out? You don't need to cover every square inch of the Sword Coast to complete the game.

Or maybe they could make it interesting.

There are tons of interesting encounters in BG1. In fact BG1 is among the few CRPGs that actually have good encounter design. So targeting BG1 is retarded, especially since the trash combat in BG1, unlike most other CRPGs, can mostly be avoided.

How can you avoid it, if over half of the locations are filler generic woods? By not exploring the world and only going on with the quest? Sure, but then you miss out on half the game. And while I'm not denying that interesting enocunters do happen, my memory of BG1 (admittedly from years ago) is rich of trash encounter rather than good ones.

And the encounter design is not THAT good, really.

That guy you meet the Friendly Arm? If you're a caster, he throws a magic missile your way and you're dead. Nothing you can do about it, when you have 4 or 6 hit points. So the solution is metagaming by putting someone else in front, or leveling up before reaching the Arm. Because the alternative is dying without being able to do anything at all. Which is not good design, really.

And how is it good design encounter when you're faced with again another wave of generic filler enemy which adds nothing at all to your experience?

BG1 is good for other things, and it certainly does have good encounters, but saying that it doesn't have trash combat or that it can be "mostly avoided" is, I'm afraid, and forgive me, the "retarded" claim here.

You're missing the point. Nobody says BG1 doesn't have its share of trash combat. But the ratio is lower than most other CRPGs, so using BG1 as an example of trash combat is retarded.
And please mention other CRPGs where you can meet several parties of named adventurers and mercs.

And as for that guy at Friendly Arm, would you have preferred if he was scaled to your level?

 

[octavius]

Heh, those who complain about trash combat in BG1 can't have played any CRGPs from the DOS era - most of those games consisted of only trash combat.

True for M&Ms, early Wizardries and Bard's Tales. Not true for QfGs, RoAs, Ultimas, Magic Candles, DHoU, Amberstar and many other DOS-era games, that provied a much more varied gameplay experience than any of BGs.

Don't know about QfGs, RoAs and Amberstar, although I've heard the RoA has very boring encounter design.
Ultima IV and V have some interesting encounters in the alter rooms and dungeon rooms, but most of it is trash combat, especially U4. Magic Candle is filled with trash combat.

 

[Storyfag]

There are tons of interesting encounters in BG1. In fact BG1 is among the few CRPGs that actually have good encounter design. So targeting BG1 is retarded, especially since the trash combat in BG1, unlike most other CRPGs, can mostly be avoided.

How can you avoid it, if over half of the locations are filler generic woods?

There is this revolutionary concept known as scouting, you know... The only issue I have with it in BG is that Thieves appear to handle it much better than Rangers.

 

[V_K]

Don't know about QfGs, RoAs and Amberstar, although I've heard the RoA has very boring encounter design.
Ultima IV and V have some interesting encounters in the alter rooms and dungeon rooms, but most of it is trash combat, especially U4. Magic Candle is filled with trash combat.

I'm not talking about combat encounters, I'm talking about things to do other than combat - exploration, puzzles, survival etc. BGs have practically nothing to offer apart from combat, and given that the bulk of it is trash, it makes up for a pretty boring game compared to those older titles.
(I think we already had this discussion on CRPGAddict's blog )

 

[octavius]

Don't know about QfGs, RoAs and Amberstar, although I've heard the RoA has very boring encounter design.
Ultima IV and V have some interesting encounters in the alter rooms and dungeon rooms, but most of it is trash combat, especially U4. Magic Candle is filled with trash combat.

I'm not talking about combat encounters, I'm talking about things to do other than combat - exploration, puzzles, survival etc. BGs have practically nothing to offer apart from combat, and given that the bulk of it is trash, it makes up for a pretty boring game compared to those older titles.
(I think we already had this discussion on CRPGAddict's blog )

Well, the reason the IE and Gold Box games are amongst my favourite games are just because they do combat (not just the combat engine itself, but also encounter design) so well. But I dont agree about the bulk of the combat being trash, for several reasons:
It can often be avoided by scouting.
With the right scripts and turning on AI trash combats can be resolved faster than you can say choices&consequences. For me the epitome of trash combat was Ultima IV with it's ultra slow combat and boring encounters.
The trash combat to interesting combat ratio is lower than most other CRPGs I've played.
The trash mobs can be made more interesting with the right mods.

But you may have a point about variety of gameplay, though. Although I wouldn't say BG1 is without its fair share of puzzle solving (Durlag's Tower) and exploration (lots of interesting mini encounters on most of the maps).

 

[Abelian]

Did the discussion from the So, Baldur's Gate thread spill here, or what?

Personally, I like how the Grimoire demo has both fixed encounter and random ones that can be disabled. Of course, this is not something that is feasible in all games, but it's a nice feature for games that have things going for them other than combat, such as exploration or puzzles (as V_K pointed out).

 

[Invictus]

Great point Abelain, by actualy making the encounter rate and combat dificulty (I don't think it affects puzzle difficulty for example) Grimoire allows you to have only the staged or planed map encounters only, a few random monsters (mostly to keepthings lively and gaining XP) or beign swarmed every 3 steps like a good JRPG; it let's you have the option of how much encounters will you have so in a sense it allows the player to define what trash combat is and if they want it in the game or not.
The meld of old skool gameplay but with the added customization of modern games, either via developer tools or mods, make Grimoire truly make it shine...I could rant about Grimoire beign the Herald of Incline and Mr Blakemore its prophet but I can keep my opinions on those matters in it very own thread

 

[DraQ]

Having your rest interrupted by mobs is a good mechanic to discouraging abuse of resting.

Not if they get slaughtered so easily that I can afford multiple interruptions while just spamming rest button in order to eventually get some sleep.

Easy combat is not necessarily trash - party may be running into things to fight.
Easy combat initiated by enemy might be trash but not in every case - enemy may underestimate party or act in perceived self defense as party moves around.
Easy combat repeatedly initiated by enemy smart enough to use weapons, completely on their own discretion (ambushing stationary camping party), while disregarding growing mound of corpses IS INEVITABLY TRASH.

And that applies to majority of BG1 combat - rest interruptions, *waves* of identical suicidal mooks constantly respawning as soon as party clears visual range and so on.
BG1 is *the* undisputed king of trash combat.

That guy you meet the Friendly Arm? If you're a caster, he throws a magic missile your way and you're dead.

Actually, he tends to cast horror and then slaughter party while they run around like headless chickens.

Without metagaming pretty much the only counter to this sort of encounters that gives you reasonable chance of survival is having a thief scout forward while skulking around in the shadows and preemptively stab anyone remotely suspicious.

Yes, BG has some interesting encounters - mainly in the form of hostile adventuring parties, but they are just small islands jutting from the gameworld-wide ocean of trash combat (and even they suffer from being metagamey).

And as for that guy at Friendly Arm, would you have preferred if he was scaled to your level?

Actually, yes.

He is a guy sent specifically after you, no?

 

[Morning Star]

There are tons of interesting encounters in BG1. In fact BG1 is among the few CRPGs that actually have good encounter design. So targeting BG1 is retarded, especially since the trash combat in BG1, unlike most other CRPGs, can mostly be avoided.

How can you avoid it, if over half of the locations are filler generic woods?

There is this revolutionary concept known as scouting, you know... The only issue I have with it in BG is that Thieves appear to handle it much better than Rangers.

Sure, but why would you scout, see a bunch of wolves or what have you, and just leave them there, when they're an easy target, free XP in exchange for a minor (boring) inconvenience? What I'm trying to say is that BG1's encounters are not very interesting (for the most part), hence i consider them trash combat.

As i wrote previously, I wouldn't mind trash combat at all if it was interesting, and if the bunch of wolves actually constituted a challenge. My problem is with having the same fight over and over and such fight to be... bland. I can, of course, avoid it, but you ARE, after all, trying to level up. Your attempt at leveling up should be made interesting rather than repetitive, imo.

 

[octavius]

And that applies to majority of BG1 combat - rest interruptions, *waves* of identical suicidal mooks constantly respawning as soon as party clears visual range and so on.
BG1 is *the* undisputed king of trash combat.

Obviously you only played the vanilla version where the respawning indeed works in way you described. But that was 15 years ago. Lots of patches and mods have appeared since then.
And if you don't like being interrupted while resting in the wild, then find an Inn. Although I must say that it should have been relatively safe to camp in the wild, at least compared to a dungeon.

Actually, he tends to cast horror and then slaughter party while they run around like headless chickens.

Without metagaming pretty much the only counter to this sort of encounters that gives you reasonable chance of survival is having a thief scout forward while skulking around in the shadows and preemptively stab anyone remotely suspicious.

Actually you can avoid the whole party being affected by spreading in all directions as soon as you see that spell coming. Sure, some of the party will be hit, but not all..

 

[octavius]

As i wrote previously, I wouldn't mind trash combat at all if it was interesting, and if the bunch of wolves actually constituted a challenge. My problem is with having the same fight over and over and such fight to be... bland. I can, of course, avoid it, but you ARE, after all, trying to level up. Your attempt at leveling up should be made interesting rather than repetitive, imo.

But nearly all CRPGs are that way to some extent, so why singling out Baldur's Gate?
One of my pet peeves is having to fight the same fights over and over again, which is why I think Gateway to the Savage Frontier is the weakest Gold Box game, and Wiz 7 is inferior to Wiz 6, for example.
The trash combats in BG1 never bothered me much (although the respawning was infuriating first time I played). First time I played I just used the AI scripts and any fight against trash mobs took only seconds to resolve. So I don't really see why BG1 should be singled out when there are som many games with more trash combat, poorer or non-existant party AI (like the Gold Box games) or very slow combat (Ultima IV).

 

[Morning Star]

You're missing the point. Nobody says BG1 doesn't have its share of trash combat. But the ratio is lower than most other CRPGs, so using BG1 as an example of trash combat is retarded.

Possibly. It still does have trash combat, and quite a bit of it. If other games have more of it, that doesn't excuse BG1 from having trash combat. And BG1 was the first example that came to mind.

And please mention other CRPGs where you can meet several parties of named adventurers and mercs.

BG2

Spoiler

And as for that guy at Friendly Arm, would you have preferred if he was scaled to your level?

I'm sensing sarcasm here. It's like you have been hurt by my criticizing BG1 for the amount of trash combat in it. I also said (i think) that I really like BG1 and it's one of my favorite games in general. I replay it ever 3-4 years or so. I am sure that other games have more and worse trash combat, but BG1 was the first that came to my mind. I don't mean to say that you have bad taste for liking BG1 or anything. But denying that, on a normal game session, a guy shooting a magic missile at you when you have 4 HP is bad encounter design seems a bit preposterous. Imagine a DM on your new D&D adventure going: "So, this guy in a dress asks you if you are <character name>. You answer "no". He says "Well, i think you are anyway", and casts a magic missile at you. You are now dead. Luckily, your party killed the guy, but now they don't have 1000GP to resurrect you. No scaling to your level, sorry.

If that's what we are arguing, I'll just stick with my opinion and consider yours wrong, sorry.

 

[octavius]

I'm sensing sarcasm here. It's like you have been hurt by my criticizing BG1 for the amount of trash combat in it.

Not hurt, just puzzled.

I also said (i think) that I really like BG1 and it's one of my favorite games in general. I replay it ever 3-4 years or so. I am sure that other games have more and worse trash combat, but BG1 was the first that came to my mind. I don't mean to say that you have bad taste for liking BG1 or anything. But denying that, on a normal game session, a guy shooting a magic missile at you when you have 4 HP is bad encounter design seems a bit preposterous. Imagine a DM on your new D&D adventure going: "So, this guy in a dress asks you if you are <character name>. You answer "no". He says "Well, i think you are anyway", and casts a magic missile at you. You are now dead. Luckily, your party killed the guy, but now they don't have 1000GP to resurrect you. No scaling to your level, sorry.

Sure, but if he was scaled to your level, then BG1 would have been critisized for having level scaling.

 

[Morning Star]

Sure, but if he was scaled to your level, then BG1 would have been critisized for having level scaling.

Cutting to the chase: do you think that an early on encounter with someone/something who can effortlessly kill you out of nowhere, with you being unable to respond without metagaming is a well designed encounter?

Adding: remembering that the lore is that the Friendly Arm is neutral, no-nonsense, no-weapons or magic territory?

 

[DraQ]

And that applies to majority of BG1 combat - rest interruptions, *waves* of identical suicidal mooks constantly respawning as soon as party clears visual range and so on.
BG1 is *the* undisputed king of trash combat.

Obviously you only played the vanilla version where the respawning indeed works in way you described. But that was 15 years ago. Lots of patches and mods have appeared since then.

"Game is good because mods"?
Oh, please, even Skyrim is at least mildly entertaining in its vanilla state.

And if you don't like being interrupted while resting in the wild, then find an Inn.

Logistics. Travel times between locations are often on the order of 8-16h and mages have limited spell slots with often highly situational loadouts.

Actually you can avoid the whole party being affected by spreading in all directions as soon as you see that spell coming. Sure, some of the party will be hit, but not all..

Except your party may reasonably be as small as 2 people at this point and you have no way of knowing what the guy is actually casting.

If your main is a caster with protection from fear, then ok, it's a bit of a stretch, but scouting ahead with Imoen (she only becomes Emoen in otherwise superior 2) or Montaron then prebuffing the moment you see anyone looking suspicious, while staztioning your thief behind them might be a legitimate if tedious strategy, but what if you have no caster then? What if your thief durps up stealth roll as they tend to at low levels?

It is pretty much learn by dying encounter, and not in terms of learning general mechanics, but in terms of particular one shot event which makes it a bad design.

 

[octavius]

Sure, but if he was scaled to your level, then BG1 would have been critisized for having level scaling.

Cutting to the chase: do you think that an early on encounter with someone/something who can effortlessly kill you out of nowhere, with you being unable to respond without metagaming is a well designed encounter?

I wish I could remember how I felt the first time I encountered Tarnesh...IIRC the guards helped and even killed Tarnesh, so I guess I was lucky. I think luck is actually more important here than metagaming.
You could make a case both for and against the design of this encounter.
On one hand it teaches you to be on your toes, and it gives you an excuse to ditch dead party members (after all there are plenty more to recruit).
On the other hand, if CHARNAME is killed it's Game Over, so that is an argument against such a difficult encounter.
But death from out of nowhere is nothing new if you have previously played the Wizardry games or Might&Magic 1-2.

 

[Abelian]

Sure, but if he was scaled to your level, then BG1 would have been critisized for having level scaling.

Cutting to the chase: do you think that an early on encounter with someone/something who can effortlessly kill you out of nowhere, with you being unable to respond without metagaming is a well designed encounter?

Adding: remembering that the lore is that the Friendly Arm is neutral, no-nonsense, no-weapons or magic territory?

I think the Friendly Arm assassin was meant to be a difficulty spike example that showed the players that they couldn't just blindly charge at all their enemies and have to use some tactics when dealing with mages.

As for the Friendly Arm being neutral, they didn't actually disarm the visitors (and how would they disarm a wizard? not let him sleep to prevent him memorizing his spells?), they just warned them to behave or else they would be dealt with by the guards (the guards do turn hostile to the wizard since he initiated the combat and the PC can just run away and let the guards deal with him).

 

[octavius]

"Game is good because mods"?

No, game is improved by mods. You know, those third party modifications you use when you are not satisfied with certain aspects of the vanilla game.

Logistics. Travel times between locations are often on the order of 8-16h and mages have limited spell slots with often highly situational loadouts.

Which is why you conserve your spells. Only retards use spells against trash mobs anyway, which according to you is what BG1 mostly comprises of. So unless you're a retard, why would you want to rest in the first place?