Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Giving PoE another chance

oldmanpaco

Master of Siestas
Joined
Nov 8, 2008
Messages
13,609
Location
Winter
This wasn't so noticeable in BG2 because level ups did very little except for key spellcaster levels.

Well BG2 also upscaled encounters based on your level. But they did it well enough that most people don't even realize it.
 

almondblight

Arcane
Joined
Aug 10, 2004
Messages
2,549
Nobody is going to remember how they backtracked 5 times through the dungeon to rest in-between encounters (because they could). What I'm trying to say is that we shouldn't impose rules on ourselves so the gameplay makes sense, we've been over this countless times.

Sure, but those rules are in the game. Not allowing you to rest whenever you feel like means you're incentivized to go through the dungeon using nothing but the campfire to heal. Spending 4 minutes walking all the way out of a dungeon, back to an in, resting, then walking back to the dungeon than back to the place you left off is boring, and doing that 5 times for each dungeon is nuts. And we know that there's a decent incentive not to run back and rest, because a lot of people here complained about how tedious it is.

The fact that a lot of Codexers seem to want to waste a lot of time doing mindless stuff in order to remove any challenge from the game isn't really the games fault. It's like if someone decided to rest 100,000 times in the stronghold in order to collect a bunch of taxes, and then complained about money not being an issue in the game. Sure, they could give you a difficulty option to not leave the dungeon until you reach the end, but what would be the point? We've seen that most of the people complaining aren't playing on the higher difficulties anyway.

More of an issue is there being too many campfires, and their cost being so cheap. When I'm playing I'm just about always only using them when I find them - much more of a self-imposed rule than not running back to a town every 10 feet. I think KotC type one use rest rooms would work better. Still, the carry limit is a good idea and the game is at least moving things in a good direction.
 
Last edited:

The Bishop

Cipher
Joined
Oct 18, 2012
Messages
359
Sure, but those rules are in the game. Not allowing you to rest whenever you feel like means you're incentivized to go through the dungeon using nothing but the campfire to heal. Spending 4 minutes walking all the way out of a dungeon, back to an in, resting, then walking back to the dungeon than back to the place you left off is boring, and doing that 5 times for each dungeon is nuts. And we know that there's a decent incentive not to run back and rest, because a lot of people here complained about how tedious it is.

The fact that a lot of Codexers seem to want to waste a lot of time doing mindless stuff in order to remove any challenge from the game isn't really the games fault. It's like if someone decided to rest 100,000 times in the stronghold in order to collect a bunch of taxes, and then complained about money not being an issue in the game. Sure, they could give you a difficulty option to not leave the dungeon until you reach the end, but what would be the point? We've seen that most of the people complaining aren't playing on the higher difficulties anyway.
You're incentivized in terms of tedium, but in terms of mechanics it's the opposite. The most optimal way to play mechanically would be to use no camping supplies at all and always backtrack to stronghold to rest for free. This saves you the most gold and allows 2 additional rests at all times in an unlikely scenario that you can't backtrack. Personally I think tedium is a really bad way of stimulating player towards a certain choice of behavior, and having fun and optimal ways to play clash with each other looks to me like a bit of a design failure. Not a huge one, but still.

Also AFAIK you can't farm taxes by resting repeatedly in the stronghold. You get taxes per stronghold turns and those are advanced through completing quests, not waiting for certain in-game time.
 

roll-a-die

Magister
Joined
Sep 27, 2009
Messages
3,131
Sure, but those rules are in the game. Not allowing you to rest whenever you feel like means you're incentivized to go through the dungeon using nothing but the campfire to heal. Spending 4 minutes walking all the way out of a dungeon, back to an in, resting, then walking back to the dungeon than back to the place you left off is boring, and doing that 5 times for each dungeon is nuts. And we know that there's a decent incentive not to run back and rest, because a lot of people here complained about how tedious it is.

The fact that a lot of Codexers seem to want to waste a lot of time doing mindless stuff in order to remove any challenge from the game isn't really the games fault. It's like if someone decided to rest 100,000 times in the stronghold in order to collect a bunch of taxes, and then complained about money not being an issue in the game. Sure, they could give you a difficulty option to not leave the dungeon until you reach the end, but what would be the point? We've seen that most of the people complaining aren't playing on the higher difficulties anyway.
You're incentivized in terms of tedium, but in terms of mechanics it's the opposite. The most optimal way to play mechanically would be to use no camping supplies at all and always backtrack to stronghold to rest for free. This saves you the most gold and allows 2 additional rests at all times in an unlikely scenario that you can't backtrack. Personally I think tedium is a really bad way of stimulating player towards a certain choice of behavior, and having fun and optimal ways to play clash with each other looks to me like a bit of a design failure. Not a huge one, but still.

Also AFAIK you can't farm taxes by resting repeatedly in the stronghold. You get taxes per stronghold turns and those are advanced through completing quests, not waiting for certain in-game time.
Playing the game stronghold heavy right now. This is true, you accrue turns by completing quests, and then expend them by resting if I am correct, it's also possible they tick between then, without resting, or immediately on quest completion haven't noticed. Some quests also give multiple turns. And incentive to avoid rest abuse is that each day you've got hireling pay to pay. Meaning rest to try and collect taxes will eventually run you out of money not the other way around. The advantages of the stronghold are not the taxes. But rather the fact that the good events you get from high stronghold development are massively good events. EDIT:Other than that the stronghold is just tedious and a money sink. You have to run back and protect it otherwise generally you lose buildings.
 

Haplo

Prophet
Patron
Joined
Sep 14, 2016
Messages
6,138
Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
You don't need to rest to pass stronghold turns, they happen immediately on quest phase progress/finish. With high security rating the attacks hardly ever happen.
 

almondblight

Arcane
Joined
Aug 10, 2004
Messages
2,549
You're incentivized in terms of tedium, but in terms of mechanics it's the opposite. The most optimal way to play mechanically would be to use no camping supplies at all and always backtrack to stronghold to rest for free. This saves you the most gold and allows 2 additional rests at all times in an unlikely scenario that you can't backtrack.

Huh? How does this make any sense? At most you can carry 2 camping supplies at a time. So a player thinks to themselves:

"Hey, I've been able to backtrack out of every dungeon I've been in. But later on in the game, there might be a dungeon I can't do that in. And though every dungeon has additional camping supplies, this hypothetical one might not. So if I were to ever run into this theoretical dungeon, and use up my two camping supplies, I would need to pay a 150 gold to resupply. I can't stand the thought of possibly paying 150 gold, so I'm going to leave extra camping supplies around that I could backtrack to and pick up instead in this scenario. And since I apparently can't count, I'm not just going to leave the 2 extra camping supplies I need lying around, I'm going to leave every single camping supply I see lying around so that I have 40-50 times the amount I'd actually need. And in order to accomplish this, I'm going to play the game in an extremely tedious way."

It's not the "most optimal" way to play. You're saying that if you do something tedious you could possibly save 150 gold (and possibly save zero, if the above scenario doesn't manifest). And then if you can't count and don't realize that you already have the two extra supplies needed to possibly save you 150 gold, you might just happen to start habitually doing that for no reason and make the entire game tedious.

Not really sure what to say to a player like that.
 
Last edited:

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,948
Pathfinder: Wrath
...that's what he's saying - that you are incentivized to not do something out of tedium, rather than a well thought out design principle, like resource management or points-of-no-return in dungeons. It's obvious most players won't play it tediously to save 150g, but that doesn't negate the design flaw inherent in the layouts of the dungeons and the strategic layer of the game. This flaw manifests more deeply in the whole combat system and isn't an isolated vacuum bubble that doesn't matter. There's a reason they are removing the semi-Vancian spellcasting in the sequel.
 

The Bishop

Cipher
Joined
Oct 18, 2012
Messages
359
You're incentivized in terms of tedium, but in terms of mechanics it's the opposite. The most optimal way to play mechanically would be to use no camping supplies at all and always backtrack to stronghold to rest for free. This saves you the most gold and allows 2 additional rests at all times in an unlikely scenario that you can't backtrack.

Huh? How does this make any sense? At most you can carry 2 camping supplies at a time. So a player thinks to themselves:

"Hey, I've been able to backtrack out of every dungeon I've been in. But later on in the game, there might be a dungeon I can't do that in. And though every dungeon has additional camping supplies, this hypothetical one might not. So if I were to ever run into this theoretical dungeon, and use up my two camping supplies, I would need to pay a 150 gold to resupply. I can't stand the thought of possibly paying 150 gold, so I'm going to leave extra camping supplies around that I could backtrack to and pick up instead in this scenario. And since I apparently can't count, I'm not just going to leave the 2 extra camping supplies I need lying around, I'm going to leave every single camping supply I see lying around so that I have 40-50 times the amount I'd actually need. And in order to accomplish this, I'm going to play the game in an extremely tedious way."

It's not the "most optimal" way to play. You're saying that if you do something tedious you could possibly save 150 gold (and possibly save zero, if the above scenario doesn't manifest). And then if you can't count and don't realize that you already have the two extra supplies needed to possibly save you 150 gold, you might just happen to start habitually doing that for no reason and make the entire game tedious.

Not really sure what to say to a player like that.
So always resting at stronghold is not optimal because you can stash extra supplies all over the world and then go around looking for them? And that's also supposedly not as tedious? I'm not even sure what you arguing for here.

Resting at stronghold is free and unlimited. Keeping around extra supplies is not unlimited, buying supplies is not free. Free and unlimited is strictly better than not free and not unlimited. I mean, this is kinda obvious, is it not? If you have a way of playing that is strictly superior to every other in terms of in-game rewards then this way is very clearly mechanically optimal. I can't think of a simpler way to put it. And there's really no room for sensible disagreement here.
 

almondblight

Arcane
Joined
Aug 10, 2004
Messages
2,549
Keeping around extra supplies is not unlimited, buying supplies is not free. Free and unlimited is strictly better than not free and not unlimited.

That's ridiculous. If I'm at the end of the game, how does knowing I have 4 camping supplies I didn't pick up at the Temple of Eothas, 4 I didn't pick up on the way to Defiance Bay, 3 I didn't pick up at Heritage Hill, 2 I didn't pick up in the sewers, etc., etc., help at all? Are you a squirrel?
 

The Bishop

Cipher
Joined
Oct 18, 2012
Messages
359
That's ridiculous. If I'm at the end of the game, how does knowing I have 4 camping supplies I didn't pick up at the Temple of Eothas, 4 I didn't pick up on the way to Defiance Bay, 3 I didn't pick up at Heritage Hill, 2 I didn't pick up in the sewers, etc., etc., help at all? Are you a squirrel?
Perhaps you need to ask that question yourself? Because it wasn't me who brought up this whole extra supplies thingie for some reason. You didn't address any of my points though. Do you really just can't understand them? You didn't seem dumb from your previous posts, so I just assume that you're being contrarian here. Oh well, good talk.
 
Last edited:

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom