I never, ever let casters auto-cast in IE games. And that was without friendly fire.
I think I found a “reset” for the missing (and haunting) status effects. I was previously effected by some sort of insect swarm giving my main party a perpetual -20 Concentration, plus I hadn’t seen the racial Battle-forged ability on my Monk since basically last Thursday. I swapped out and back in the party members and that fixed them, looks like, but how to fix my main character?
On a whim I beat him to death.
Of course, he didn’t die (I have “maim before death” enabled) but he did get maimed. However, when he stood back up I looked and his reduction in concentration and other strange active effects were gone! Best of all, I saw his Battle Forged kick in again! So hopefully that works for others, as well.
Great point, except the infinity engine games had AI.
I don’t know about you, but I never let the AI do much when playing those games. I basically played them exactly like I’m playing this. Pause at start of combat, issue commands, unpause for the actions to fire, pause, issue commands, etc.
robc04
1606
Me too. I pretty much didn’t let the AI do much of anything either.
robc04
1607
It wasn’t obvious to me, but you can click on your attributes to see what the base value and modifiers are. This may be a way to see if you’re affected by the double click bug.
Yeah, I never let the AI do anything in BG. Now, like I mentioned a few pages back, if they gave me a Dragon Age: Origins/Final Fantasy XII style “if/then” system I may set a few parameters up (like “If target has low fortitude -> Necrotic Lance”) but honestly, even then it kinda takes some of the satisfaction out. The way the combat works now is still thrilling (to me) and enjoyable, even as I approach hour 40, and I’m already thinking up my next character for a different play through. And I hate micro-managing in RTS and DOTA-style games, for some reason it feels better and more satisfying here, though.
I think this has already been discussed but you really do need to know when you are outmatched in this game (on hard mode). After the early areas when I was down to just my main char (Ranger + Wolf) I was getting destroyed in Valewood by parties of wolves and bandits/outlaws. I kept retrying the battles with different tactics but they just overwhelmed me and exhausted my endurance every time. I left for the Gilded Vale and recruited Aloth, then made 2 more party members (Druid and Monk). I then went back to Valewood and freaking held court. It was quite a power trip to waltz in and have my Monk pummel the faces of bandits that had wrecked my main character earlier.
Woefully behind most other people here,
Todd
robc04
1610
It’s hard to be grumpy after reading your posts about games BleedTheFreak. I wish I could always maintain your level of enthusiasm for games (mine isn’t waning for Pillars). To reclaim the feeling of playing the first Civilization would be an awesome thing!
stusser
1611
I let the AI handle tons of activities in infinity engine games. Healing and potions, in particular. I only micromanaged hard fights, usually with named enemies, not every group of bears or gnolls.
The micromanagement wouldn’t be a problem at all with 1 character, or even 2 or 3. But 6 is just crazy.
The game would be much better-- for me-- if it included Infinity Engine style AI.
Well, the other options are generally:
- Add “safe” resting points throughout the game. This can get contrived/feel gamey.
- Allow resting most places (as Eternity does) but maybe do the random encounter thing.
- An entirely different mechanical system.
#3 is moot.
#2 is essentially how the IE games work. You also get devs have to add a strict “norest” in some places to “up tension”. Random encounters don’t solve anything; players will just save/reload until you get a successful rest (even players who ordinarily wouldn’t do such a thing could get forced down that road).
#1 is just a different way to do what Obsidian is doing. I think it does save the trouble of having to walk back somewhere to go get more supplies. I don’t know that it’s really better other than this (and player convenience is a reasonable factor to consider the feature).
I think an argument could be made for divorcing supplies from the main difficulties (Path of Highest Difficulty excepted, maybe). I’m not really far enough in to comment on that yet, though.
mono
1613
I’ll echo similar sentiments here. I am loving this game, but there are definitely rough spots.
I jumped on stusser’s console/rest cheat so fast I think I heard a sonic boom. I’m just not interested in the tedium of managing camping supplies. Losing achievments couldn’t be less of a concern. :)
The combat view being obscured by the environment, as mentioned, is also quite a drag. Honestly, I understand this is BG3 in spirit, but I’d love the ability to rotate the map 360° and zoom in from any angle. Combat is a bit fiddly too. I don’t remember being this frustrated using Wizard fire/ice spells in, say DA:O and trying to avoid flaming my party instead of the enemy.
That said, I’m truly enjoying my time w/ the game, and can’t wait to press on.
DeepT
1614
One thing I wish I could do, is have my guys fight enemies near them, but NOT run off an engage enemies. I try and setup choke points at doors and once the first mob or two dies, one of my fighters will pick some other mob far away and run off to engage them.
I also notice that any ranged characters will NOT engage automatically when a fight starts. You need to tell each of them to attack. The same goes with summons. It can get very hard to pick units in the chaos of battle. I frequently can’t tell where my character is when I have several surrounded by mobs. There needs to be some better highlighting, or perhaps a beam of light showing the selected character.
Really, the IE scripts? Jaysis those were awful. I’m honestly shocked that anyone used them.
Anyway, cheating your daily powers to encounter powers is a massive, massive nerf to the game’s difficulty. I guess if that’s more fun for you go nuts, but when I think about infinite supplies and how I would approach every fight as if I planned to rest afterward…yeah, it’s not really the same game.
stusser
1616
Yes, that is the complete lack of AI at work. What I do is select all (I bound mousebutton 4 to this) and force attack a single enemy at the start of the battle. Actually, you need to do that twice, once when it autopauses upon sighting an enemy, and again once it autopauses when combat actually starts. For some reason that second pause sometimes resets the attack direction.
@Adam: It’s a game without attrition, which is what I want. Yes, that is obviously less challenging. But I have more fun doing it. I mostly don’t use even per-encounter powers anyway, because it just takes too damn long micromanaging every trivial fight with 2 slimes or whatever. Vast majority of my damage is autoattack.
mono
1617
It is more fun for me, so thanks!
However, personally, I don’t rest after each fight. I just don’t have to huff around the world wasting time to gather camping supplies when I do want to rest.
stusser
1618
Of course, with the endurance mechanic you don’t need to rest after each fight. I just rest whenever I think I should probably rest, and don’t worry about attrition.
I love the level 5 spells I’ve gotten access to. Here is a peak at the Wizard’s spell, Wall of Force:
It doesn’t hurt my allies at all and it hobbles (slows) enemies that try to pass through it while crushing them every second they are in it. I cast it across the room so enemies can’t get to my priest, ranged rogue, or wizard by walking around the front line tanks, and if they want to fight the front line tanks they have to stand in it! Haha!
Oh man, I love this game so much.
Have we talked about how much better Agannazar’s Scorcher is with the engagement system? Because it’s soooooo goooooood.
Oh yeah, it’s a great one, too - but for the love of all that is holy and just, do not target a non-engaged melee opponent, they DO like to run around in a circle so your beam catches ALL your friends! :)
robc04
1622
Even though I want to control everything, I’m trying to keep my party size down. I’ve got myself and 3 companions now… I’m hoping I can keep my party size at 4 without it becoming too difficult on Hard.
