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.

Development Info Girls can find love too in NWN2

RGE

Liturgist
Joined
Jul 18, 2004
Messages
773
Location
Karlstad, Sweden
Volourn said:
1. Familiars are nothing but Pocket Protectors.
Hardcore. I approve. Mages can use henchmen for tanking. Or dress up in platemail like mine. Or stay invisible. Or die.

Volourn said:
2. They are destroying the best interface in gaming ever, and replacing it with an unknown.
I didn't like it so much. The radial menu was pretty painful to click through, and the symbols weren't very informative.

Volourn said:
3. No sewers. You can't have a fantasy game with no sewers.
Oh, I remember this one now. Can't you just urinate in a cave?

Volourn said:
4. They screwed up rideable horses.
Screwed up the ridable horses that came with hakpaks? Because NWN1 didn't have them by default, so it'd be pretty hard for NWN2 to do that "worse".

Volourn said:
5. The forced starting alignments (though that may have been changed).
Rhombus said:
Sawyer said something about the PC starting out as True Neutral and then have the actions ingame shift the alignment around alot more than in the first game I think.
That's how I usually play my characters, but not always, so I could see how that'd be unnecessarily restrictive. And it's also a bit restrictive to force the PC to start in a village rather than letting them be a mysterious stranger with an exotic but non-plot-related past.
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
Pretty Princess Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Mar 10, 2003
Messages
24,924
"Hardcore. I approve"

It's not hardcore. It's even further away from D&D familiars than NWN1 familiars were.


"I didn't like it so much. The radial menu was pretty painful to click through, and the symbols weren't very informative."

Eh. Not much to say here. Differing opinions, and that.


"Screwed up the ridable horses that came with hakpaks? Because NWN1 didn't have them by default, so it'd be pretty hard for NWN2 to do that "worse"."

Sure. By saying it had them and then do the 180 and say they don't. If you cna't do rideable horses; just say it instead of wasting time stating that the only rideable mounts would be horses. LOL

The forced alignment thing at start basically goes against the whole point of creating a character in D&D.
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
Pretty Princess Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Mar 10, 2003
Messages
24,924
Everywhere. Except in case where the class has solid alignment restrictions ala paladin with LG.
 

Greatatlantic

Erudite
Joined
Feb 21, 2005
Messages
1,683
Location
The Heart of It All
Human Shield said:
Where have they started everyone starts at neutral? Because that is stupid.

Really? Because I very much like the idea of having your in game desicions affect your characters alignment, as oppose to just slapping a Good or Evil Label on your character and letting your imagination do the rest. I think this was well done in Planescape: Torment and have similar hopes for NWN2, if thats what they are doing.
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
Pretty Princess Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Mar 10, 2003
Messages
24,924
"Really? Because I very much like the idea of having your in game desicions affect your characters alignment, as oppose to just slapping a Good or Evil Label on your character and letting your imagination do the rest."

Yo, McFly, you can still have in game choices affect alignment and still have a chosen alignment.

The fixed neutral alignment at the start of PST worked because the character had amnesia so didn't remember anything.

However, your character in NWN2 OC apparantly doesn't have amnesia so actually had a life previously.

Your character isn't created in a vaccuum. :roll:
 

Slylandro

Scholar
Joined
Nov 27, 2005
Messages
705
I don't think it would make sense to directly choose your alignment if there are real vignettes/backgrounds in NWN2 (there are, right? Maybe I am confusing NWN2 with another game).

It'd be nice to choose a certain background and then based on the background have a certain selection of alignment(s) (eg vigilante of the town, as a kid was always looking out for others and protecting them in ways not approved by society, blah blah blah->chaotic good; psychopathic pyromaniac, hated by town and misanthropic, kills children -> chaotic evil; former captain of the guard, now retired, patriotic to a fault sometimes -> lawful evil / lawful neutral / lawful good (player decides between those three), etc).

Or the user could opt for "No significant background" and then get to directly choose an alignment without any restriction, but then not get any interesting, possibly influential backstory or ability involving his supposed past. For instance, the former captain of the guard could have a bonus to reputation depending on alignment. Depending on the alignment selected, the bonus may be fear (perhaps "lawful evil") giving bonuses to Intimidate for example or Persuasion ("lawful good?"), etc. And like in PST or for Viconia in BG II, events and decisions could swing the player's alignment from one to another, possibly conferring different abilities (using the same example before, if the former captain "falls" to darkness and succumbs to evil, lose bonus to Persuasion, gain bonus to Intimidate, etc). At least that's how it would ideally work, I think.
 

Seven

Erudite
Joined
Aug 20, 2003
Messages
1,728
Location
North of the Glow
AlanC9 said:
Again, what are you talking about? There is no mention of the rest of the boarding party dying when Revan was captured.

And just because Revan was the most powerful Sith doesn't mean that he was lots more powerful than the Jedi who didn't turn. Smarter than them, sure -- wouldn't be hard -- but not that much stronger in the Force.

I recall them saying that she was the only one who survived, and yes, the lord of the sith is supposed to be uber powerful, that they said for sure--as a Jedi Revan was very powerful, once he got that ancient tech and went the way of the sith he become uber powerful. They did have a whole cutscene about the him getting his uber sith powers.
 

kris

Arcane
Joined
Oct 27, 2004
Messages
8,836
Location
Lulea, Sweden
Slylandro said:
I don't think it would make sense to directly choose your alignment if there are real vignettes/backgrounds in NWN2 (there are, right? Maybe I am confusing NWN2 with another game).

Sounds like you confuse it with Dragonage.
 

LlamaGod

Cipher
Joined
Oct 21, 2004
Messages
3,095
Location
Yes
The 'alignment formed by player choice' idea would be good in weirdo D&D games, like PS:T was and did, but NWN is intended to be a electronic version of the Paper and Pen books, so it's a wee bit retarded.
 

Seven

Erudite
Joined
Aug 20, 2003
Messages
1,728
Location
North of the Glow
LlamaGod said:
The 'alignment formed by player choice' idea would be good in weirdo D&D games, like PS:T was and did, but NWN is intended to be a electronic version of the Paper and Pen books, so it's a wee bit retarded.

No not all; how often in the BG games was it possible to be LG and yet do all kinds of evil things? That's stupid.
In PnP you have DM's to regulate this kind of thing; this is the same in principal.
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
Pretty Princess Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Mar 10, 2003
Messages
24,924
"No not all; how often in the BG games was it possible to be LG and yet do all kinds of evil things? That's stupid.
In PnP you have DM's to regulate this kind of thing; this is the same in principal."

No, it isn't. Not even close. NO ONE is arguing thata ctions in game shouldn't effect aligment. Quite the contrary. Don't confuse the starting alignment issue with in game actions possibly changing alignment.

Moron.
_________________
 

Crazy_Vasey

Novice
Joined
Apr 25, 2004
Messages
82
Like you said, while the Terentatek is “tough” for the game it’s by no means difficult to kill. And I still believe that it is accessible quite early, especially given it’s power (and yes, I’ve your post, Drakron, and I just have to disagree with you on this point. And if we’re going to discuss getting and using powerful items, well then let’s talk about the light saber in KOTOR2. If we use your logic then having to wait for it is a good thing because it aids balance—I hated being a Jedi and not having a light saber, it just felt wrong even though it made for some interesting character leveling choices).

Well it goes without saying that the enemies in KOTOR could have done with a spot of beefing up. I think that just about everyone agrees that the game was rather lacking in challenge. That, really, is the root of my complaints about the game mechanics in the sequel. They took a game that was already far too easy and made it even easier. It's a decision that just baffles me. They have more of everything: levels, powers, items, the lot. And there's very little to balance those additions out.

As for the lightsabre, well, the basic lightsabre isn't all the much more powerful than some of the better melee weapons you can buy on Telos. The single-bladed sabre only does, what, eighteen damage maximum? It's not that high. Letting you have a sabre there wouldn't have been an issue for game balance. And really, in the context of Star Wars, it makes very little sense for you to have to go on this massive scavenger hunt for components. It's almost to the level of everyday technology in that universe.

Anyway, it's not till you go to Dantooine and pick up all those crystals that the lightsabre's power gets ridiculous. Seriously, that crystal that's attuned to your character is the single most overpowered item I've ever seen in an RPG. The one I had on my last run through was getting me twelve attribute points and that was only a medium attunement. God only knows what you get if you really work it.

But it's not so much the individual items that are the problem, it's the accumulation of them . In the original there are only a handful of really powerful items dotted through the game and everything else is rather mediocre. In the sequel there are a lot of very nice skill and attribute boosting items that can be found in the random loot. Visors that give a dozen skill points in bonus, stealth belts that give massive bonuses to stealth and dexterity, and so on – they're very common. My last time through I gave my character one stealth point and then loaded him down with item bonuses till he had a skill in the 25+ range when I needed it. That's just ridiculous. It's not like you need to go hunting for this stuff either, it just falls in your lap as you play through, and it renders some skills rather valueless when it's level-up time.

As for the implants, I think the trade in feats is well worth the stat boost.

Depends on how you build your character I suppose. I never had many feats to spare on that sort of thing till the end of the game when it had already stopped mattering. Having the top duel-wield and master flurry always seemed far more useful to me and that's a lot of feat points gone right there.

As for the level cap, well I don’t think it has the huge impact that you say it does. Let’s say that there is a level; it means that you peak sooner, so difficulty only becomes “balanced” at the end, or as soon as you hit the cap. But I don’t buy this, I think that it still would have been no problem even with “just” a level 20 character. The problem with level caps is that once you hit them your character feels stagnant, so then what? Especially in action driven games where half of it is building this uber character—realistically, in action oriented games it’s very hard to justify a level cap because it takes a way part of the motivation (if this were a story driven RPG then the motivation would primarily be advancing the plot),

Well that's only going to be a problem if you hand out the experience points too freely. Anyone making a game where you whack into the level cap halfway through the game needs to go back and rethink things. It wasn't a problem in KOTOR because there simply wasn't enough experience points available to hit level twenty till very late on unless I missed some random spawn point somewhere that let you power-level. Even if they removed the cap you'd probably be lucky to hit level twenty-one by the end of the game.

The difference between your average KOTOR character with four or five levels as a soldier or whatever and the rest as a Jedi and a KOTOR2 character with fifteen levels as a Jedi and then ten more as a prestige class is rather pronounced. Sticking them in the same engine with the same sort of enemies (power-wise anyway) as in the original game is just a joke. If they'd given the enemies some real power it might have worked but they didn't and removing the level-cap then stands out as being rather silly to me.

It's just something that pisses me off for the sheer pointlessness of it. I frigging hate sequels to games that randomly screw with the game mechanics and give the players extra munchkin power and more uber-items for the hell of it.

As for FO, well the thing about that system is one lucky shot and you’re toast, so you always have to walk a line and never get too cocky; I know that I died a few times in the game in FO and it just ruined the immersion and it made me be more careful and less likely to run in guns blazing.

Ah, yes, instant death by random dice roll. That's so much challenging as bloody fucking irritating for me. It's not like there's anything you can do about it really. It's up there with having your shiny, new, nearly unique (until the military base anyway) plasma rifle explode in your face.

It’s basically stated that all Bastila has is her battle meditation; I could be wrong but when you acquire her she doesn’t even have the Jedi heal power, so you’ve really got to wonder about the whole mindwash amnesia thing, it’s a huge hole. The sequel has holes too; supposedly you’re the last Jedi and yet you encounter Jedi throughout the game—does that make sense? No, of course not.

Star Wars game mechanics are not canon. Game stories are, but not the mechanics, because you have to screw things around to make them work in a game. Someone sent to fight a Sith Lord would not be a level four character but if they gave her something more along the lines of what you expect from a Jedi of decent power then she'd fucking stomp everything on Taris with ridiculous ease. And if she didn't have the healing power when she confronted Revan, then Revan would not have survived and there would be no game, or you'd be role-playing a vegetable. Either way, not so good.

Anyway, all the Jedi Masters on Dantooine say that Bastila will be a great Jedi some day. She's at an age by the time of the game where someone who's got the potential to be a great Jedi will be starting to show some real power, like Anakin in AOTC, who was able to give Dooku a better fight than his Jedi Master, even if their control is less than perfect.
 

kris

Arcane
Joined
Oct 27, 2004
Messages
8,836
Location
Lulea, Sweden
Crazy_Vasey said:
As for FO, well the thing about that system is one lucky shot and you’re toast, so you always have to walk a line and never get too cocky; I know that I died a few times in the game in FO and it just ruined the immersion and it made me be more careful and less likely to run in guns blazing.

Ah, yes, instant death by random dice roll. That's so much challenging as bloody fucking irritating for me. It's not like there's anything you can do about it really. It's up there with having your shiny, new, nearly unique (until the military base anyway) plasma rifle explode in your face.

I love this, the sense of mortality. Gives you a sense of danger, a reason not to run into fights or even pick fights altogether. Of course it would fit better together with a system where not everyone kills you and where the injuries are more of the crippling sort than insta-death.
 

Crazy_Vasey

Novice
Joined
Apr 25, 2004
Messages
82
kris said:
I love this, the sense of mortality. Gives you a sense of danger, a reason not to run into fights or even pick fights altogether. Of course it would fit better together with a system where not everyone kills you and where the injuries are more of the crippling sort than insta-death.

I could definitely go along with that. A game where you actually get the chance to recover from that sort of bad luck and come back for another go eventually would be damn fun.
 

Azael

Magister
Joined
Dec 6, 2002
Messages
4,405
Location
Multikult Central South
Wasteland 2
Crazy_Vasey said:
I could definitely go along with that. A game where you actually get the chance to recover from that sort of bad luck and come back for another go eventually would be damn fun.

Try Mount & Blade, a single hit from a couched lance can knock you out, but you get to live and fight another day.
 

kris

Arcane
Joined
Oct 27, 2004
Messages
8,836
Location
Lulea, Sweden
Crazy_Vasey said:
kris said:
I love this, the sense of mortality. Gives you a sense of danger, a reason not to run into fights or even pick fights altogether. Of course it would fit better together with a system where not everyone kills you and where the injuries are more of the crippling sort than insta-death.

I could definitely go along with that. A game where you actually get the chance to recover from that sort of bad luck and come back for another go eventually would be damn fun.

Moreso if they rob you or anything such. Then you get a extra incentive to get back at them in some way, possibly including using smarts if they are more powerful and took your sword of extra killing.
 

Avin

Liturgist
Joined
May 8, 2004
Messages
377
Location
brasil
Volourn said:
"Hardcore. I approve"

It's not hardcore. It's even further away from D&D familiars than NWN1 familiars were.

there's nothing far from D&D than NWN familiars, sucker. go read your PHB.
 

Atrokkus

Erudite
Joined
Feb 6, 2005
Messages
3,089
Location
Borat's Fantasy Land
Well it goes without saying that the enemies in KOTOR could have done with a spot of beefing up. I think that just about everyone agrees that the game was rather lacking in challenge. That, really, is the root of my complaints about the game mechanics in the sequel. They took a game that was already far too easy and made it even easier. It's a decision that just baffles me. They have more of everything: levels, powers, items, the lot. And there's very little to balance those additions out.
I agree. There was only one thing in KOTOR2 that was pretty hard -- when Atton was attacked by the Twin Suns at the canteen and I had to control the damn idiot, despite the fact that I've never considered him as a party-member and never took him with me on missions.

Ah, yes, instant death by random dice roll. That's so much challenging as bloody fucking irritating for me. It's not like there's anything you can do about it really. It's up there with having your shiny, new, nearly unique (until the military base anyway) plasma rifle explode in your face.
There is nothing wrong with this system. It's actually quite fucking realistic. Critical hits happen. However cool your armor is, you still have weak spots. Someone aimed at your chest but hit your throat? Well, good for him, because you're dead. shit happens.
The element of chance should always be there, because it's inherent to our very existence in the real world. Damn, our fucking Earth was created as it is now by a mere chance.
The critical deaths make the game challenging and making you actually take precautions even with seemingly not-so-dangerous enemies.

Have you ever tried the hardcore mode? When you just start the game and save it only between playing sessions, when you just positively have to exit the damn game, and not when you're feeling chicken? Well, that sort of game would lose the whole unpredictfulness and challenge if not for the random events. Things like your comrades, those people who you are so fond of, so interested in talking to, get shredded to pieces in a random encounter with an overwhelming group of bandits, and then you lose your mind and rush into the overpowering enemy, yearning only to avenge, and... fail horribly, biting the bloody dust...
Now that's the thrill, the challenge. ANd it fits the setting of the game, where no one lives forever and there are no gods and fate to keep from harm's way... only the chance.
 

Crazy_Vasey

Novice
Joined
Apr 25, 2004
Messages
82
I agree. There was only one thing in KOTOR2 that was pretty hard -- when Atton was attacked by the Twin Suns at the canteen and I had to control the damn idiot, despite the fact that I've never considered him as a party-member and never took him with me on missions.

Yeah, that part could be a bit of a pain. Blasters are just so useless in KOTOR and if you left Atton as his default blaster-user build . . . yeah, you'd be in trouble. I found that some decent melee shields could mitigate that though. Unless you sell your loot off, you probably have some of the Mandalorian melee shields by then and they'll keep you alive long enough to win.

There is nothing wrong with this system. It's actually quite fucking realistic. Critical hits happen. However cool your armor is, you still have weak spots. Someone aimed at your chest but hit your throat? Well, good for him, because you're dead. shit happens.
The element of chance should always be there, because it's inherent to our very existence in the real world. Damn, our fucking Earth was created as it is now by a mere chance.
The critical deaths make the game challenging and making you actually take precautions even with seemingly not-so-dangerous enemies.

Yeah, we're approaching this from completely different points of view. For me, a challenge is something that can be overcome with sufficient skill. Instant, random death cannot be overcome, obviously. Bad critical hits that leave you in a messy situation, I can deal with that, but instant death is just a step too far for me. And hardcore mode with that? Christ, I'd never have beaten the game. There's always one super-mutant who scores an ungodly powerful critical hit on me in the military base with the gatling laser and decorates the nearest wall with my brains.
 

Atrokkus

Erudite
Joined
Feb 6, 2005
Messages
3,089
Location
Borat's Fantasy Land
Christ, I'd never have beaten the game
Neither have I, though I tried twice. I would try more, but alas I have no time for this. I enjoyed both attempts, it felt good. Of course, taht was well after I've had about 6 walkthrus, finishing almost all of the quests, exploring the whole game. That's when the hardcore mode becomes the only way that is actually interesting.
 

Seven

Erudite
Joined
Aug 20, 2003
Messages
1,728
Location
North of the Glow
Volourn said:
"No not all; how often in the BG games was it possible to be LG and yet do all kinds of evil things? That's stupid.
In PnP you have DM's to regulate this kind of thing; this is the same in principal."

No, it isn't. Not even close. NO ONE is arguing thata ctions in game shouldn't effect aligment. Quite the contrary. Don't confuse the starting alignment issue with in game actions possibly changing alignment.

Moron.
_________________

Thank you for reading Pat's mind and telling me what he meant; the next time I want to know what he thinks I'll cut out the middle man and go straight to you.

Jack ass.
 

Seven

Erudite
Joined
Aug 20, 2003
Messages
1,728
Location
North of the Glow
Well it goes without saying that the enemies in KOTOR could have done with a spot of beefing up. I think that just about everyone agrees that the game was rather lacking in challenge. That, really, is the root of my complaints about the game mechanics in the sequel. They took a game that was already far too easy and made it even easier. It's a decision that just baffles me. They have more of everything: levels, powers, items, the lot. And there's very little to balance those additions out.

As for the lightsabre, well, the basic lightsabre isn't all the much more powerful than some of the better melee weapons you can buy on Telos. The single-bladed sabre only does, what, eighteen damage maximum? It's not that high. Letting you have a sabre there wouldn't have been an issue for game balance. And really, in the context of Star Wars, it makes very little sense for you to have to go on this massive scavenger hunt for components. It's almost to the level of everyday technology in that universe.

Anyway, it's not till you go to Dantooine and pick up all those crystals that the lightsabre's power gets ridiculous. Seriously, that crystal that's attuned to your character is the single most overpowered item I've ever seen in an RPG. The one I had on my last run through was getting me twelve attribute points and that was only a medium attunement. God only knows what you get if you really work it.

But it's not so much the individual items that are the problem, it's the accumulation of them . In the original there are only a handful of really powerful items dotted through the game and everything else is rather mediocre. In the sequel there are a lot of very nice skill and attribute boosting items that can be found in the random loot. Visors that give a dozen skill points in bonus, stealth belts that give massive bonuses to stealth and dexterity, and so on – they're very common. My last time through I gave my character one stealth point and then loaded him down with item bonuses till he had a skill in the 25+ range when I needed it. That's just ridiculous. It's not like you need to go hunting for this stuff either, it just falls in your lap as you play through, and it renders some skills rather valueless when it's level-up time.

Well that's only going to be a problem if you hand out the experience points too freely. Anyone making a game where you whack into the level cap halfway through the game needs to go back and rethink things. It wasn't a problem in KOTOR because there simply wasn't enough experience points available to hit level twenty till very late on unless I missed some random spawn point somewhere that let you power-level. Even if they removed the cap you'd probably be lucky to hit level twenty-one by the end of the game.

The difference between your average KOTOR character with four or five levels as a soldier or whatever and the rest as a Jedi and a KOTOR2 character with fifteen levels as a Jedi and then ten more as a prestige class is rather pronounced. Sticking them in the same engine with the same sort of enemies (power-wise anyway) as in the original game is just a joke. If they'd given the enemies some real power it might have worked but they didn't and removing the level-cap then stands out as being rather silly to me.

It's just something that pisses me off for the sheer pointlessness of it. I frigging hate sequels to games that randomly screw with the game mechanics and give the players extra munchkin power and more uber-items for the hell of it.

It seems what you're suggesting here is that with KOTOR the level cap isn’t the problem; instead, it could use some beefed up enemies and less experience for dispatching them—not too big a surprise for any one who’s played the game. And of course there is also the problem with the uber items; this wasn’t too big of a problem with me since I like to evenly distribute the loot amongst my companions but if you’re only going to use a few companions (which would make perfect sense) then yeah you get some pretty powerful pieces of equipment on single companions. I still don’t think that they were overly different than the first, considering that the enemies were less powerful.

Star Wars game mechanics are not canon. Game stories are, but not the mechanics, because you have to screw things around to make them work in a game. Someone sent to fight a Sith Lord would not be a level four character but if they gave her something more along the lines of what you expect from a Jedi of decent power then she'd fucking stomp everything on Taris with ridiculous ease. And if she didn't have the healing power when she confronted Revan, then Revan would not have survived and there would be no game, or you'd be role-playing a vegetable. Either way, not so good.

Anyway, all the Jedi Masters on Dantooine say that Bastila will be a great Jedi some day. She's at an age by the time of the game where someone who's got the potential to be a great Jedi will be starting to show some real power, like Anakin in AOTC, who was able to give Dooku a better fight than his Jedi Master, even if their control is less than perfect.

Come one it's a Bioware story, do we really need to say more on this? It's a big hole and you can make up all kinds of esoteric and practical reasons why they had to implement like they did, or you can be like me and be disappointed that they did not put some effort into making it more credible.
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
Pretty Princess Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Mar 10, 2003
Messages
24,924
"there's nothing far from D&D than NWN familiars, sucker. go read your PHB."

You are an idiot. You know nothing about D&D. Next moron, please.
 

RGE

Liturgist
Joined
Jul 18, 2004
Messages
773
Location
Karlstad, Sweden
As far as I remember from the 3.0 PHB, PnP familiars are closer to being pocket protectors than to being NWN1 combat familiars. And if I had a familiar that could only be replaced after a year and a day, I wouldn't risk it in combat.
 

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