Icewind Dale The Icewind Dale Series Thread

[Iselor]

I always said: IWD I (with HoW) and IWD II are games much better than first Baldurs Gate.

 

[Cyril]

The character system in IWD2 is still rigid, but deep. The abundance of loot creates cluttering in gameplay and takes away from the immersion of the game, unless you can afford to miss important items by only picking up some of the loot. I like the relative humblity of the story though.

 

[Wyrmlord]

I never got into IWD2 because I never bothered to learn the D&D3ed rule.

This is a rather asinine reason for not liking a game.

I mean, in ID2, you have an Information tab accessible at any time to explain any of the game's mechanics. You have detailed descriptions of how every class works or does not work. You have a game designed in such a manner that all necessary information is immediately available at a click of a button, so that you don't have to look at the manual.

And even otherwise, it takes 30 minutes to skim through the 75 or so relevant pages of the 150 page manual to understand how the game works. Considering that this is a 30-hour long game, spending 30 minutes on reading the manual seems to be nothing. And we are talking about one of the least complicated rulesets ever. I mean, if this was Wizardry 6 or 7, yes there is a bit of a complication to how the combat works, but even that takes 30 minutes to understand for a new player.

But most of all, you bought the game. And then never got into it, because you didn't bother to learn how to play it? How? Why?

 

[dream_the_cream]

Chill out, bro. I never said i don't "like" the game, i said i never got into it. There are PLENTY of games that i couldn't get into at first but eventually became some of my favorite games, such as: X-Com1 and Fantasy General. i still have IWD2 on my gog account, and I am planning to beat it one day. but i have more games on my backlog that i need to finish. currently, i'm playing through Jagged Alliance 1. JA2 is my favorite game of all time, and I really like JA1 as well, and i have played it to about the halfway point and owuld've finished if not for a bug that prevented character speech. JA1 without character speech is like drinking tepid water, because the characters' voices and personalities are the main attraction of the game for me (while JA2 has personality, gameplay and pretty much everything else). Anyway, one thing that i love about the IWD series is the character portrait artwork.. absolutely stunning stuff.. One class that i'm interested in making in IWD2 is a deep gnome monk ,because i happen to like the monk class in RPGs.

 

[Wyrmlord]

One class that i'm interested in making in IWD2 is a deep gnome monk ,because i happen to like the monk class in RPGs.

I am also a big fan of the monk class.

I soloed ID2 with a deep gnome monk recently.

I was surprised by how strong he was.

The Mirror Image and Blur ability of the Deep Gnome really allow him to get most of the damage onto his enemies before they finally start fighting back.

In that dragon fight, I got to use the Monk's Blink ability with which he can become ethereal and disappear from existence. He can fight others without others being able to fight him back.

 

[laclongquan]

What's the draw of playing solo? Monk solo, at that.

I mean, a single character allow for overleveling, but oversimplifying tactical options. Either you crush every enemy on your path or you lure away one by one.

I dont get it.

 

[Wyrmlord]

What's the draw of playing solo? Monk solo, at that.

I mean, a single character allow for overleveling, but oversimplifying tactical options. Either you crush every enemy on your path or you lure away one by one.

I dont get it.

There is a lot of elements, if you play a monk.

You have to understand where you stealth up to, and at what position you initiate a fight.

You have to determine on whom to use Quivering Palm in order to kill the hardest enemy first.

When surrounded by multiple meelee fighters, you have to use Stunning Fist on the hardest hitting of them in order to save yourself.

You have to position yourself in such a manner that you can have an exit when a fight gets too hairy, using the Svirfneblin's Invisibility.

When an enemy with a very very high attack roll approaches you, you must save your once a day Svirfneblin Mirror Image and Blur for that occasion, so that he never gets a hit on you.

And you have to ration your usages of Empty Body so that you save them for the moments where it really saves your life.

And where it gets really fun is a Sorcerer solo. When you use Animate Dead, you have to keep in mind to have your zombies attack the bugbears but remain far away from orcs and goblins. On the other hand, your Greater Boneguards must attack all the orcs and goblins but stay far away from bugbears. And you have to decide as to whether you want to stay in the heat of the action as a buffed fighter in Tenser's Transformation mode, or as a pure mage using AOE spells from far away. You can only do one of them, since Tenser's Transformation and/or Iron Body restrict usage of spells.

 

[Johannes]

Sometimes soloing a game really opens the door for harder tactical choices. Latest game I noticed this was in Realmz. With a full party I ended up doing the same thing in every fight a lot - the warrior classes beat the enemy down with melee or ranged weapons, priest heals, sorcerer gives buffs or AoE spells. Assassin and Minstrel learned spells eventually but fighting was still their main thing. You couldn't really vary your tactics too much from battle to battle, the party was built with a clear purpose, most damage dealt in melee with good spell backup. If I'd had a more caster-heavy party, it'd be a bit more varied since I could change spells, but still I'd mostly be casting AoE a lot and healing the tanking character religiously. And resting a lot more for spell points.
It's also easy to have all relevant non-combat spells and skills covered in a full party.

Now when I tried with a solo or duo of hybrid characters, the performance of the party depended a lot more on changing tactics depending on opponent. Especially first rounds of combat are tough. Do you want to buff your attack or defense? Use a debuff spell on a tough opponent? Use physical weapon? Run to a chokepoint? Use invisibility spell? Whereas with a full party you can do all of these right during the starting round, or they're not an option at all. And getting spells for opening locks, identifying items, removing cursed items etc. is a tougher pick when you don't have a dedicated caster so you get less spells total.

 

[Cyril]

Why would metal be used to produce weapons and armor if everyone can just learn to be monks.
Too much save scummability and powergameability in IWD2.

 

[laclongquan]

Quivering Palm is once a day, correct? When I look at once a day abilities in monk I really get turned off.

 

[Wyrmlord]

How many of you have played both the Icewind Dale games on Heart of Fury with a newly minted Level 1 party, as opposed to an exported Level 15+ party?

And out of morbid curiosity for a really insane challenge, have you tried to do it with a small or solo party?

I soloed ID2 on HoF with a Sorcerer, reached Level 30 at the start of Chapter 2, and gave up at Chapter 3. Now, I didn't give it up because I was finding it too hard. But I gave it up, because it was too easy. Yes, it was extremely difficult in Targos itself. But once you get the Animate Dead spell, it's like a win button. And once you get the Gate spell and summon 6 Gelugons (called Pit Fiends in BG2), it's a bit excessive. Besides, at level 30, and with Greater Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Focus in Necromancy, your Finger of Deaths are not easily resisted by bosses.

Strangely enough, I have not been able to make nearly as much progress with any of the other classes, in full parties or otherwise. Barbarians, Clerics, Wizards, Rogues, Fighters, Paladins, and Druids are all worthless next to a Sorcerer. It's like most classes are 2/4 and only Sorcerer is 4/4. That's the huge margin of difference.

 

[Moribund]

Please restrain the urge to tell me there was an IWD 2 thread 8 years ago, I'm sure there was. However I think it's topical since JE Sawyer is head ubermaster of PE, and in the recent news item about balance or some nonsense I listened to I heard about a thousand things that make me question his manliness and filled me with stern disapproval. This made me think back to IWD 2.

Back when men were real men there was the gold box series. I was a mere shrub at the time so I can only imagine the glory of playing it for the first time on a c64 on christmas day, but I played it later and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it in spite of the very retro art. I'd already played BG series but not IWD so I tried that immediately afterwards.

I got to create my own party, sweet. Combat was still a little junky like BG but somehow I didn't mind all that much. There were all sorts of fights and lots of little areas to explore, and there was a bit of a story but not too intrusive. I was surprised to realize I liked it maybe more than BG and almost as much as gold box series, though it seemed more like a B title in most ways.

I was pretty excited to play IWD 2 next. The new (to me) 3rd edition stuff was really cool. Making a party was a lot of fun...then, it sucked. It didn't suck hard but somehow it left me flat at every turn, like a negative image of the original that had been much more than its parts somehow. Instead, though obviously more work went into it, IWD 2 was kind of crap, and annoying in ways, and things seemed like a burden at times.

And finally I realize why. The second you arrive in town you are in a big battle. Which is not good pacing, but more than that everything in the game happens to you. You have no real control at any time. It's almost one big quicktime event. Go here then Oh No! Another lame scripted thing happens. Then Oh No! Another one!

It goes on like that for the first 5 hours of gameplay at least. All these scripted events, everything is scripted, and you just go from one to the other like you are being guided. I don't just mean to complain you are on rails, but it's just terrible storytelling. You had events happen in gold box games, and in IWD 1 but in IWD 2 the whole game is scripted and it's a hot mess.

And you are on rails, too, in a very literal sense. On many the levels you literally have one path to take, which winds around and around. If you don't you always get told exactly where to go next, so you are just running back and forth putting out fires that happen due to silly events. At their heart I guess all quests are a little hoakey but when you have endless little piddling pointless tasks to do that get shoved in your face over and over it's just not possible to really care about any of it.

There's really no exploration, no feeling of it because of this. You really have no control at all. You don't play the game, it's inflicted on you.

The art is better, the games longer, and 3rd edition was pretty cool but it was just less than the sum of its parts, in counterpoint to IWD 1 which was much better. I want to call it handholding but I don't mean to say it was really dumbed down. It was more a style of storytelling that is just so...shit. And come to think of it the OC of NWN II suffered the same problem. Oh great something has happened again, no need to PLAY THE GAME and figure out what to do I've been forced into another silly task, as if it were an awesome CoD game.

Paratroopers, take them out! Oh no, that wall has fallen down, need to shoot those explosives before those sappers get to the dam! Replace russians with orcs and the parody video where every gun shot says "boring!" applies all too well.

 

[Baron]

Gold Box lol...

Real men played Wizardry, where you could irreversbily teleport your party into solid rock, except your testicles which will remain bronze until unearthed and prized by dwarves. Wireframe is how a dungeon wall should be, textured walls reek of effeminacy. That saying, I slightly agree with your point about an overreliance on scripted events. However, I enjoy a combination of free exploration with a sense of purpose and plot. Back to my beer, if you'll excuse me...

 

[Kalin]

Don't know about those older games, but I feel pretty much the same about Icewind Dale 2. It held a lot of promise, beautiful art, cool new concepts (loved the Dreadmaster sub-class for example) but the gameplay sucked and the plot was simply atrocious. Icewind Dale, for all its shortcomings, was vastly superior.

 

[MetalCraze]

Welcome to Josh Sawyer design.

 

[Wyrmlord]

And finally I realize why. The second you arrive in town you are in a big battle. Which is not good pacing, but more than that everything in the game happens to you. You have no real control at any time. It's almost one big quicktime event. Go here then Oh No! Another lame scripted thing happens. Then Oh No! Another one!

It doesn't happen the second you arrive to the town, dammit. Only after any gnome in your party decodes the ramblings of the dead goblin that you begin the battle with the soldiers of Caballus the goblin sorcerer. Prior to that, you do plenty of sidequests. And Caballus' destruction of the Palisade was the only scripted event. It's not like that the game heavily abuses scripted events.

It goes on like that for the first 5 hours of gameplay at least. All these scripted events, everything is scripted, and you just go from one to the other like you are being guided. I don't just mean to complain you are on rails, but it's just terrible storytelling. You had events happen in gold box games, and in IWD 1 but in IWD 2 the whole game is scripted and it's a hot mess.

You are not on rails. You are only on rails if you force ahead. Otherwise, at each stage, there are lots of extra things to do to make your path ahead much easier. You rescue the druid and his wife at the Broken Tusk outpost to save yourself from their deadly ambush later. You return Moonblade's sword to get free healing. And so on.

And you are on rails, too, in a very literal sense. On many the levels you literally have one path to take, which winds around and around. If you don't you always get told exactly where to go next, so you are just running back and forth putting out fires that happen due to silly events. At their heart I guess all quests are a little hoakey but when you have endless little piddling pointless tasks to do that get shoved in your face over and over it's just not possible to really care about any of it.

Was the Horde Fortress a place with only one path to take?

There's really no exploration, no feeling of it because of this. You really have no control at all. You don't play the game, it's inflicted on you.

Sure, but despite the game's heavy linearity, there are so many choices, so many skill checks at every situation, that the game always plays out quite differently.

The art is better, the games longer, and 3rd edition was pretty cool but it was just less than the sum of its parts, in counterpoint to IWD 1 which was much better. I want to call it handholding but I don't mean to say it was really dumbed down. It was more a style of storytelling that is just so...shit. And come to think of it the OC of NWN II suffered the same problem. Oh great something has happened again, no need to PLAY THE GAME and figure out what to do I've been forced into another silly task, as if it were an awesome CoD game.

Paratroopers, take them out! Oh no, that wall has fallen down, need to shoot those explosives before those sappers get to the dam! Replace russians with orcs and the parody video where every gun shot says "boring!" applies all too well.

Except CoD games are just about walking through and witnessing a war theater.

That does not at all describe, say, the Ice Palace, where you had to take the initiative, collect clues, figure out what you are supposed to do, solve various different checklists of problems in whatever order seems convenient. This game involves actual investigation in a lot of situations.

Nothing in the CoD games involves the player taking any initiative ever.

 

[serch]

They just wanted to pull a slam dunk with it (Fearguslicious) and they managed to score it. They wanted a quick, fun dungeon crawler and they succeded. Story is there to take you from combat zone to combat zone. PE's design goals are very different.

 

[Roguey]

Targos is all on Avellone
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art39332.asp

Lisa: If you were making Planescape: Torment right now, are there things you would do differently from the original release?

Chris: Probably start off with more combat - the beginning is very slow and exposition-heavy, and I don't think that helps get the player into the mystery of his character. This is something I tried to correct in the future opening levels of Black Isle games (notably IWD2, where you're in trouble the moment you step off the boat in Targos).

As for other issues
http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/39565-icewind-dale-2/page__st__20#entry534111

Making the game was very difficult because of the circumstances at Black Isle during its development. Icewind Dale II started development the same day that TORN was cancelled and five people were laid off. It was the first time that people had been laid off in Black Isle, so it wasn't exactly a happy beginning. A lot of other people left shortly after development started because IWD2 looked like it would be an embarassment. Seventh-ish IE game, still using 2nd Ed. rules, with a development cycle of about four months. One of those people was the lead designer, so I did double duty on IWD2 while FR6/The Black Hound sort of simmered in the background.

The four months eventually turned into ten. It was less of a death march and more of a death race. I felt like I wasn't exactly leading people as much as shooting them out of cannons in a general direction. The levels were very inconsistent in feel because, while there was time to do "course correction", there was no time to do level overhauls -- especially from an art perspective. Also, some of the area designs were just very difficult to do in the IE. Fell Wood was not the sort of puzzle area that Dave Maldonado imagined it would be. Rob Holloway did his own scripting for his extremely ambitious Ice Palace and Dragon's Eye levels, but it was a staggering amount of work.

We were also overly concerned with jam-packing every level with stuff because of how short HoW turned out. Areas like the Horde Fortress probably could have been half as long and much more satisfying. If we had 2/3 the number of areas, but they were all the quality of Targos and the Severed Hand, I think the game would have been much more well-received.

In terms of technology, I think IWD2 did a great job. Sure, the pathfinding was still Ebola-ridden and the networking code was its usually junky self, but most of the 3E stuff we implemented was solid. I don't think it was mod-unfriendly. I mean, except for the fact that it broke a lot of the existing IE mod tools (lol). I think that people just got tired of modding IE games at that point. Icewind Gate looked neat, but it ran out of steam.

As far as the story goes, you weren't "supposed" to feel anything specifically about the twins. They weren't written as bad guys or good guys, but as antagonists. I knew that some people would feel sympathetic for them and some people would think they were buttheads and I thought that was a good goal

Also

I am not proud of any of the games I've worked on, so it's not that surprising that people conclude I'm incompetent from looking at my work.

 

[Captain Shrek]

I am not proud of any of the games I've worked on, so it's not that surprising that people conclude I'm incompetent from looking at my work.

Damn straight. This is sig material.

 

[Wyrmlord]

I am not proud of any of the games I've worked on, so it's not that surprising that people conclude I'm incompetent from looking at my work.

So Skyway and Josh Sawyer agree on something.

 

[Erebus]

I finished IWD 2 recently. While I wouldn't call it one of my favorite games ever, I liked it much better than IWD 1, in part because I knew what to expect (plenty of fights and a basic, slow-progressing plot).

I took a warrior, a ranger with a few levels of rogue, a cleric, a druid, a wizard and a sorcerer. It worked pretty well (though the druid was of little use in the last third of the game). There were some pretty nice fights, which is after all what matters in such a game. The 3rd Edition rules are better than the previous ones, if only because its saving throws make sense. And the plot, while less than satisfying, wasn't as bad as the one in IWD 1.

 

[Wyrmlord]

I finished IWD 2 recently. While I wouldn't call it one of my favorite games ever, I liked it much better than IWD 1, in part because I knew what to expect (plenty of fights and a basic, slow-progressing plot).

I took a warrior, a ranger with a few levels of rogue, a cleric, a druid, a wizard and a sorcerer. It worked pretty well (though the druid was of little use in the last third of the game). There were some pretty nice fights, which is after all what matters in such a game. The 3rd Edition rules are better than the previous ones, if only because its saving throws make sense. And the plot, while less than satisfying, wasn't as bad as the one in IWD 1.

Curiously, by the end of the game, which one did you find better - the wizard or the sorcerer?

Sorcerers are somehow so superior in ID2, I just feel there is no reason to play any other arcane class. Especially for summoning spells, they are amazing, since they can summon a full second party of 6 monsters to assist you. Wizards, by being forced to ration spell slots, don't seem to offer the same advantage.

 

[Erebus]

Curiously, by the end of the game, which one did you find better - the wizard or the sorcerer?

The sorcerer was better, but one in the team was enough : I wouldn't have replaced my wizard with a second sorcerer.

Sorcerers are a class that's probably vastly better in CRPGs than in PnP, because the very limited number of spells they can know isn't much of a problem when spells are almost only used for combat.

 

[CappenVarra]

The budget/time constraints are old news (as is anything written in this thread now), and while it's nice to know the reasons behind the disappointing aspects of IWD2, it doesn't make them any less disappointing. And when adding it all up, I find IWD1 a vastly superior game (even with its own numerous shortcomings).

First, the 3rd edition implementation is... well, there is no fitting expression other than "half-assed". A whole new, high-resolution action economy underlying the combat system? Sorry, no time to implement it, we'll just use the standard IE stuff - who cares about attacks of opportunity, 5-foot steps, move actions... Oh, a significant number of combat feats are based on those elements? Uhm, let's just cut them out and implement a hack based on the IE weapon proficiency system or something instead. Gee, there seems to be a very small number of feats in the game now, kind of makes gaining them or playing a class with high feat progression pointless... Is it some exotic, little-played class we can ignore? Shit, it's the fighter. Uhm, let's pad it out with flavor feats from the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, surely that makes up for it! So, skills... Even with the explosion of similar skills (who takes Hide but not Move Silently?), if we give classes the number of skill points the PHB says they get, they won't have a way to spend them... Better cut it down to 1/2 the normal rate for everybody but the rogues. Etc. - it's all understandable and very reasonable given the constraints - and it's all so disappointingly half-assed.

But hey, 3rd edition multi-classing is shiny and interesting, and we managed to implement that! Players can now mix and match levels from different classes, and create a huge variety of builds - and given that a variety of character builds is so important in RPGs, at least something works well! And it does... Well, there's this small detail of the 3rd ed multi-classing they kinda overlooked... Namely, while "mundane" class combinations are quite interesting and work well, caster multi-classing is something completely different. Casters scale in power with caster level, so non-trivial (cherry picking a level or two) multi-classing of a caster is (in terms of simple, uninteresting power) a horrible gimp. I personally don't mind horrible gimps (if they're intended by the player and interesting to play), but in a combat-centric game it kinda limits things... I'm still not sure did Wizards intentionally design the system so caster multi-classing is only viable with prestige classes that mix the exact caster level progression and non-casting features your build uses (resulting in a huge number of lazy combinatorial prestige classes filling up splatbooks that need to be bought). However, since IWD2 implements exactly 0 (zero) prestige classes, the point is moot - and the number of viable builds is severely reduced in the game (compared to the expected 3rd ed possibility space). Still larger than 2nd ed implemented in IWD1, don't get me wrong, but - disappointing again. (aside: to fix this in NWN2, they had to add prestige classes AND the Practiced Caster cheat - can you imagine a feat that gives you +4 BAB in the same circumstances? Or 4 levels worth of any other character progression element from any class? Epic feats like Gain:Attribute excluded because they are, well, epic).

Shall I tell you about encounter design? Actually, IWD2 has better (more challenging) encounter design, throwing mixes of melee/archer/multi-caster enemies at the player much earlier than IWD1, and giving them new tricks at a steady rate. Also, since in 3rd ed even regular fighters have a number of active abilities to use, things get more interesting on paper. Ironically, instead of making the game much better, for me this only served to highlight the inadequacies of RTwP for games with consistently interesting combat encounters. Much has been made of the "boredom" of playing a fighter in IE games, who doesn't have many buttons/abilities to choose from round-to-round, but "only" selects which enemies to attack with which weapon. And there has been near-universal clamor for giving all classes more buttons to press to make them more interesting to play. On the other side, there is a train of thought (last expressed by Infinitron, I think in some BG thread or other) that RTwP just "plays different", and relies less on micro-managing every party member and more on just letting them do their thing.

And, based on the IWD2 experience, I'm tempted to think that acceptable RTwP combat can only (even theoretically) exist if a minority of classes is "micro-heavy", while most can work as "micro-light". If you're "playing it wrong" by pausing every round or two in an RTwP game, then does making all classes more "micro-heavy" make it impossible to "play it right" after a point? Of course, different people have different preferences and tolerances, and in 2nd ed era of IE games, you could adjust the "micro-intensity" of your party by using more or less casters etc. - personally, I find playing a 6-caster party tedious (in RTwP games, not turn-based ones!). And again, somewhat ironically, if P:E "fixes" the "boredom" of playing a non-caster by giving all classes lots of buttons to press, won't it make it harder for players to adjust the "micro-intensity" of their party? I mean, if fighters have a choice of active abilities rivaling the wizards (or even just the bards), won't playing them right require choosing the right ability at the right time, like it does with casters? How does such a "micro-heavy" approach work in an RTwP game, without requiring constant pausing, to the point of matching the decision resolution of turn-based games (without the turn scaffolding that makes it possible)? (again, I love "micro-heavy" parties - in turn-based games; too bad this isn't one of them) Perhaps they'll shift the "micro-intensity" slider from class choice to build choice (i.e. each class will have "passive" builds and "active" builds), but if so, I don't think they have mentioned it yet.

But back to IWD2: the game is also hugely annoyified (yes, that's a word) by the proliferation of shitty scripted sequences. Gee, thank you for disabling the UI and pausing the game so I can watch the orc chieftain slowly walk from point A to point B, speak an inane (voiced!) one-liner, than slowly walk away. Unskippable, of course. And then repeat it several times on the same map. Thank you, BG2 engine/influence, for making this cinematic experience possible (and the shitty character models, while we're at it). Yes, IWD1 was also linear, but IWD2 really tries hard to rub the linearity in your face constantly, lest you manage to forget that you're playing the cutting edge of interactive storytelling (in my dungeon crawler). Shitcock.

In conclusion, IWD1 >>>>>>>> IWD2, and they would do well to make Dullsville more like the first one.

 

[Erebus]

But back to IWD2: the game is also hugely annoyified (yes, that's a word) by the proliferation of shitty scripted sequences. Gee, thank you for disabling the UI and pausing the game so I can watch the orc chieftain slowly walk from point A to point B, speak an inane (voiced!) one-liner, than slowly walk away.

That was indeed annoying, especially when said sequences put your party in an unfavorable position at the beginning of a big fight.

Yes, IWD1 was also linear, but IWD2 really tries hard to rub the linearity in your face constantly, lest you manage to forget that you're playing the cutting edge of interactive storytelling (in my dungeon crawler).

At least, IWD 2 didn't make you go through an annoying dungeon full of traps and skeletal archers just to learn in the end that the asshole who lived there had nothing whatsoever to do with the plot and couldn't even give you any useful information :

knowing where your enemy is *not* is as vital as knowing where he *is*

No it's not, you retarded fucker ! When I learn where my enemy is, I automatically learn all the places where he's not !