Lesifoere said:
FYI, I find it funny you keep citing Kangaxx as a tactical challenge
Yeah...I don't get that one either. The lich part was nice enough, but the demilich part (vanilla of course) was stupid as all hell. You pretty much had to have someone go berserk with either a +5 weapon, or the improved mace of disruption in most cases. A Fighter/Mage could use Spell Immunity: Abjuration to keep from getting imprisoned and the throw Minute Meteors at it. I guess you could also abuse clones to fire three ring of the ram shots at once to ice the bastard, but that's about it for "legitimate" strategies.
The Sword Coast Strategems version was actually pretty cool. One of the few creatures that the mod actually alters, rather than just re-scripting, and it does a good job too.
as if there's ever been a tactical challenge in a Bioware game
And here's where you started to lose me.
--and no, having one character kite an ogre around while the party pelts it with missiles in BG1 doesn't count.
Why do something like that when quality disabling spells like Entangle, Sleep, Blindness, and Command are all accessible at level one (among many classes)? Not to mention amazing stuff like Stinking Cloud, Web, and Horror at mage level three. Much more effective, especially against multiple foes, who won't be easily kited.
BG2 combat is a matter of spamming the same spells over and over and over (in SoA: khelben's warding whip breach horrid wilting horrid wilting horrid wilting here are some summoned elementals
First off, time to be anal retentive. Warding Whip is good, but has a key flaw. It only dispels protections up to, and including, 8th level. In a lot of cases, it won't do anything but give back an eighth level spell to the thing you cast it on, as higher level mages love Spell Trap. You'd have to use a Ruby Ray, which would only take the Spell Trap down, and you'd still have to find a way to get through the other protections, but you'd be down a 7th level slot just the same. Also, most mages have sequencers, contingencies, and cheesy-as-fuck tattoos/enchantments that will fire off mid-battle, revving them up again.
Next up, in SoA, most mages will only be able to field two or three 8th level spells, and only towards the end of the game. So, most of the game isn't horrid wilting spammable to the degree you say it is.
Basically your argument is the combat sucks because a knowledgeable player with all the high level abilities available to them can dominate encounters. Does that mean X-COM is bad because scout hovertanks and a sniper or two plus lots of psionic troops equals assured victory in almost any situation? Or that JA2 is bad because a skilled player can solo entire maps with a stealthy, night-ops merc carrying a silenced weapon and night-vision goggles?
You said that WoW isn't formulaic, that bosses in it can be done in different ways than just the most convenient, formulaic way. I'll take your word for that. Yet why do you only consider the formulaic way for BG2 and exclude the myriad other options that aren't just for people who want to down the encounters, loot, and get on with the story?
in ToB: comet, time stop, alacrity, dragon's breath, dragon's breath, summon planetar zzzzz)
A lot of fights in ToB are pretty much cheese-fests, with the better encounters being the ones hardy enough to resist the player's cheese barrage and keep going, forcing a more conservative approach as opposed to the "classic" Improved Alacrity, Time Stop, unload entire fucking spellbook for the win.
or using exploits (laying traps, scrolls of protection from magic) to cheat the retarded NPC AI.
Using exploits as an argument against something is bad form. Every game has them, even the best ones. They're a grey area. Some people find them fun, some don't. Some don't even consider certain things exploits. A lot of great games have exploits that destroy encounters and such. God Hand is a stellar action game, with really intense one-on-one brawls serving as the main attraction. However, a certain exploit based on a physics glitch allows you to catch enemies in a stun loop and completely take them out with no fear of repercussion. It's an interaction that was happened upon by chance. One of the dozens of available moves, when used in a certain way, and in certain conditions, works to make the exploit. Same thing with things like traps, "Fake-Talking", Simulacrum restoration, and such in BG2. Exploits, unlike bugs or harmful things, are optional and to the player's discretion.
For that matter, how many abilities do your non-spellcasting characters even have? Oh, that's right. They charge in, buffed to the gills with immunity to everything, and then auto-attack until enemies fall over dead. Fun.
Well, thieves have stealth, illusion detecting, and backstabbing. Kit classes have their abilities in combat. Not to mention, not constantly casting spells means "casting-impaired" characters have typically less of an opportunity cost associated with using item abilities, like a ring of the ram, necklace of missiles, rod of reversal, etc. There's plenty they can be doing besides lasso and click.
Plus, it's not that important that fighters don't have a ton of activated abilities, because the player has control of more than just the fighter. The fighter is merely a tool in the player's arsenal, a unit with lots of hp, and lots of constant, consistent damage ability. It's not like this is NWN, where a player can only control one character, and boring fighter gameplay would be the only gameplay available to a player.
Celestial Fury totally doesn't render everything trivial by chain stunning, nope.
Most big enemies are immune to stun effects. It's one of the most common immunities. Not to mention, it's a save or else effect, and most enemies will likely make the save. Oh, and the fact that it's only +3 makes it not as good in ToB, where +4 is the gold standard for hitting things. Oh, and to chain stun effectively you'd need to focus on one enemy, and one enemy only. It doesn't work on the larger fights too well.
What, does Ascension fix that too? Is this a case of "if you install 453636376 mods Oblivion is a semi-tolerable game!" equivalent?
That's a little unfair for you to disqualify Ascension, which is basically not an "official" add-on, because Bioware Corp. didn't want to deal with customer service, while using WoW as an example, which benefits greatly from constant updates, patches, and additional end-game content. So Bioware has to do it all right in one shot, but Blizzard can take their time?
That's a bit like saying "well, you don't have to explore the copy-pasted dungeons in Oblivion" or "okay so the planet-exploration missions in ME are shit but you don't have to do them." Being optional doesn't excuse being pathetic, and these methods are there.
This comparison doesn't make any sense. Exploits and shitty content are completely different things and you can't really make the connection you're trying here. Like I said, every game has exploits. Are you going to slam Fallout because, by exploiting metagame knowledge, you can beat it in under 10 minutes? It's "optional", it's "there", but I'm sure anyone would excuse it. I don't think it's reasonable to test every possible interaction in a game to find exploits, so I can live with them in a most cases. I mean, you can't compare intentional design that turns out to be shitty with an unintentional interaction of abilities or code. That's just goofy. If a developer leaves a powerful exploit in, it' tempting, but I don't have to use it. It's not a net negative in an uncompetitive game. If a developer makes only shit side content...well....that does negatively impact the gameplay experience.
Maybe if we were discussing the relative tactical merits of ToEE, it'd be different, but you people had to pick BG2 of all games.
I find that ToEE was much less tactical in a lot of ways than BG2, merely because it rarely pushes the player. It's too easy. Honestly, the tactics available in party-based D&D games are usually the same as in other party-based D&D games with similar settings. So ToEE and BG2, both being generic (game terms...no crazy Planescape/Ravenloft-esque overarching rules), pretty high magic settings, play similarly.
