Analyzing the 10-min. SoZ video

[Warden]

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/neverwin ... d=6196650#

The first thing which I don't like is that supposedly monsters are respawning on the overland map, as Rorie happily announced "oh, they respawn anyway when you kill them". I don't know about you - but I want things to stay dead when I kill them. Like I want my companions to stay dead when: they get killed/I let them get killed.
And as we saw in the video, the same monsters respawned - at least they could have made it so that after you kill them, some other monsters respawn. Not the same group. And after you kill that gruop as well - stop with the respawn! I don't want to have endless xp (gold) available.
Some of you will whine.. but it's realistic that other monsters come bla bla.. that's not the point.


The other point is swapping between your party members on the overland map to benefit from their skills. WTF.. you can really, really easily have all relevant skills for the overland map maximized between your party members and just swap between them repeating the same routes to trigger something "hidden" (which is not hidden since it's so easy to find any fucking thing with this system).

What I suggest is to make the player select ONE party leader for overland map travel, at the beginning of the game, whose skills (and only his) will be relevant for overland map travel. Please.

Rorie should stop clicking on things - "oh, you click this and you get 1000 xp". Nice.

Oh yes, I don't like the mechanical spiders in Samarach, fighting together with Yuan-Ti's. Mechanical animals + jungle = no no.

 

[Starwars]

Semi-agree on respawns. But I'm fine with it as long as it's not instantenous basically (dunno if we saw any of that in the video, didn't look that closely). I'd also like if the respawns were not copies of each other, so in the case of those ogres wandering around, maybe there could be another encounter of similar challenge.
It'd be nice if there was a system where each place had a "pool of encounters" that is randomly drawn from, so that it would be a bit randomized.

I'm fine with how choosing a leader works now. It's true that one could probably get all skills into one party, but there is no fucking way I for one am gonna run around, switching between party members, and go back and forth over a particular area.
Still, I'd be fine with either choice. I wouldn't mind having to choose a set leader either.

Though (and again, I'm not sure if this is in the video, didn't look that closely when I saw it yesterday) I really want them to hide any explorative skill checks. Or at least when you fail, so you don't go over one particular area back and forth until you get a successful roll. It's fine when you're going past a monster, but don't pop up a "Spot: Failed" message, thus alerting the player that something *is* there to be found.

Agreed about mechanical spiders, never liked those at all in fact.

Seeing that video also kinda made me wish I could run the game with all shadows on, it does look pretty nice like that. So more optimizations plz /graphicswhore.

EDIT: And speaking of visuals, I'd personally prefer the world map to be a bit "cleaner". I don't quite like how it looks like things are being teleported in from a spaceship. Just having stuff fade in without any special effects would've been better.

 

[Warden]

Though (and again, I'm not sure if this is in the video, didn't look that closely when I saw it yesterday) I really want them to hide any explorative skill checks. Or at least when you fail, so you don't go over one particular area back and forth until you get a successful roll. It's fine when you're going past a monster, but don't pop up a "Spot: Failed" message, thus alerting the player that something *is* there to be found.

This is a smart suggestion. If they're not planning to have us select an overland leader (which I'd prefer) this seems like a possible solution. Actually, I'd like both.
To avoid: "Oh, there was a failed listen check, I'll select my druid now and circle around that spot.."
Although, I suspect they want us to discover as much as possible.. so that it wouldn't seem like they didn't put any content on the overland map. But then the whole spot/listen/etc. check system is pointless..

Also, it would be so good to have the fog of war. At least on the damn overland map.


To be honest, I don't like the mechanical spider model.

 

[Jasede]

It's an overland map. Why wouldn't monsters respawn there?

Getting to maximize most things by swapping characters is perfectly normal. It is an RPG thing. And in every single party-based RPG: We call it a "party", a group of people that can handle most things thrown at them.

Even Realms of Arkania 1-3 had this! You had to designate the guy with the best nature-skills as leader when travelling, but when in town, you would let the guy with urban and social skills go first; and in a dungeon, the guy most equipped with spotting and danger sense skills.

Random Encounters - i i's a D&D thing. Find real things to complain about.

Infinite XP? First of all, random encounters tend to give not too much XP, and second, even when they do, only a very boring player would actually travel around on purpose to level up. And if a player wants to do that, so be it! Just as you should have the freedom to rest everywhere it makes sense, and the freedom to save the game everywhere. You can abuse it, but you do not have to. In fact I would feel like it was no D&D game if I could not at least try to rest mostly everywhere (Though naturally, I wouldn't do it more than once every 24 hours, and I would fully expect to be attacked by vicious monsters during rest. Most DMs I played with would actually, if the players rested in a dungeon, repopulate the whole thing with monsters that got some help, and fresh, newly fortified traps.).

Fog of war? We are in the Realms; you can buy a map at every run-down town, even Immersea.

Focus: It has become very clear that you are not actually interested in critizing either Dragon's Age or SoZ meaningfully. To me it seems like you are merely attemtping to troll. Even if you are not, please let me suggest first finding some valid complaints. A good guideline is "Would this have been frowned upon if it had been in Fallout or Realms of Arkana?" and when the answer is yes, you found a valid complaint.

 

[Lumpy]

Why shouldn't monsters respawn? It's incredibly silly to believe that your 5-6 fights have completely exterminated all hostile presence in a particular corner of the map.
Just like a scaled down forest in an RPG. Of course there is going to be a scaled down number of wolves, and you can kill all of them. That shouldn't mean that they shouldn't be replaced by wolves coming from the theoretical rest of the forest.

 

[Lumpy]

Also, on the overland map I'd rather the max skill among your party counts for every check. Doesn't make any sense that there would be a party leader that uses his skills while the others walk around with their eyes closed.

 

[Jasede]

I do not mind because if feels like Realms of Arkania. For somer humerous reason, nobody in slot 3-6 would use any skills at all while travelling/dungeoneering/town-exploring. Only the skills of the first 2 counted. I think this abstraction was intended to make it a little harder to have your party have an easy time with every situation: you needed to make choices. Do I let the nature-guy lead so we can avoid encounters, or the social guys so, if we run into them, they can try to negotiate? These kind of things.

 

[Lumpy]

Yeah but it doesn't make any sense. Why would all those guys be unable to use their skills? The whole point of traveling in a party, outside combat, is that you have a wide range of skills that you can use. The ranger takes control and guides the party around the enemy, while the druid makes sure they don't miss anything around them.
The decisions should lie in party creation - you shouldn't be able to get all skills into one party.

 

[Jasede]

I do not think everything needs to make sense, because by that logic, does surviving 200 orcs really make sense? Logically you would get tired. I think if sacrificing realism for gameplay makes for a better experience, go for it. It worked in RoA.

[Actually, for Spot and Listen and Wisdom checks, I agree with you. I do not know a single DM who would only make the character at the front make this check: everyone has to, once they are in potential spotting/listening range.]

Let us wait and see how it works for SoZ.

 

[Lumpy]

I wouldn't go for separate rolls for everyone, because due to the completely broken way skills work in D&D, dierolls are much more important than actual skill values at low levels, so given 4 dierolls, at least one character, even if unskilled, will get a value high enough. Just go for maximum value + d20.
Though in my opinion, they should cut the d20 altogether or replace it with d4 or something.

 

[Warden]

Respawning monsters: everything doesn't orbit around realism, lumpy and dumpy. It's about gameplay as well. Yes, endless xp and gold is a problem as there is a thing some rpg morons neglect - it's called balancing. (lumpy and dumpy: "wee wee I want to be able to endlessly kill the same monster again and again wee wee")

Having the possibility to have all the skills maxed for the overland map at the very beginning with an average party is plain and simple: BAD. What's the point of the checks then? I mean.. even a retard can understand that. You two are obviously even further below this (non)intelligence level.

Jasede: "Wee wee it's ok because it's like that in d&d". No, it's not. When things are shitty and imbalanced it doesn't matter whether it's d&d, your ugly skeletal body or something else - it has to be fixed.

I'm not trolling just because the things I care about are something irrelevant for you or something you don't want changed. Learn that skeletal boy and eat something so that your brain starts functioning again (if it ever has).

And stick Fallout and Realms of Arkana into your ass.

 

[burrie]

 

[Curois]

Respawning monsters: everything doesn't orbit around realism, lumpy and dumpy. It's about gameplay as well. Yes, endless xp and gold is a problem as there is a thing some rpg morons neglect - it's called balancing. (lumpy and dumpy: "wee wee I want to be able to endlessly kill the same monster again and again wee wee")

So the developers should account for every moron, you included, who is going to abuse the system by running back and forth killing monsters? If you have to account for all the stupidity that people are going to pull of with your game, you can never properly balance it.
It's a normal thing for new monsters to wander back in place where old ones were. If you're a normal player, you kill the monsters because they're in your way. Your way to some defined destination like town x. If you're a normal player, you just kill them and get on to town x. You don't walk the same road over and over again to get more xp and phatz l00tz. Maybe when you visited town x and go back to village y, you will encounter monsters again? So you kill them again because they're on you path. That's it. Nothing unbalanced there. It maybe nets you a wee little bit more xp than encountering them just once. Not really unbalancing is it?

Regarding skill checks: Most of the codexers are always ranting about realism (if you want realism, go play REAL LIFE), so I don't see the problem with maxed skills to win every skill check. The more people there are in a group, the better the chance they collectively overcome a challange. Party leader? Bullshit. So how does that work? The rest of the group has their eyes closed, their noses blocked and ears cut off now?

 

[Deleted member 7219]

My two pennies:

From what I've seen of SoZ, it looks fucking awful. And this is coming from an Obsidian fan - I loved KOTOR2 and MotB, and I actually quite like NWN2 too. Basically I'm a fan of RPGs with good stories and C&Cs/character interaction. I'm not a fan of RPGs that focus on combat. Sure NWN2/KOTOR2 had a hell of a lot of combat, but they had story and character interaction too. SoZ just looks like a return to IWD, and that's a big no-no for me.

 

[Lumpy]

It must've been the Christians' fault. [/Matt] [/Kingcomrade]

 

[DefJam101]

They should hire ToadyOne to come up with some fractal animal sex program that tracks the mating habits of all the monsters, respawning them realistically over time based on population density and evolutionary traits.

Also, sex animations.

 

[Hory]

Having respawning monsters is a gigantically retarded design decision for the players or for respectable developers. You're just making the player have to REPEAT what he has already proven to be able to do. Thank you for respecting my time with your washed-down content which serves only to increase the game's length. On the other hand, some players don't mind the grind, and these *cough*jrpgay*cough* guys are even more pathetic. There are exceptions, of course, like in survival-horror games...

 

[Curois]

My two pennies:

From what I've seen of SoZ, it looks fucking awful. And this is coming from an Obsidian fan - I loved KOTOR2 and MotB, and I actually quite like NWN2 too. Basically I'm a fan of RPGs with good stories and C&Cs/character interaction. I'm not a fan of RPGs that focus on combat. Sure NWN2/KOTOR2 had a hell of a lot of combat, but they had story and character interaction too. SoZ just looks like a return to IWD, and that's a big no-no for me.

I think it will actually be rather story-focused as well, seeing that the plot is linked to the events that lead to the FR as they are in 4E D&D. From what I've read, there some pretty big changes going to happen.

 

[Volourn]

Nah, it won't be story focused. Story will be important; but the focus is obviously on party building.

 

[Warden]

So the developers should account for every moron, you included, who is going to abuse the system by running back and forth killing monsters? ... If you're a normal player, you just kill them and get on to town x.

Oh, ok, so only morons would kill monsters who respawn? And normal players kill them once? Let me think... So why include a feature, thus spending development time on it, that will be used only by morons, moron?

Party leader? Bullshit. So how does that work? The rest of the group has their eyes closed, their noses blocked and ears cut off now?

if you want realism, go play REAL LIFE

Might be best for you to follow your own advice and go play real life, maybe?

 

[Andyman Messiah]

Summer clothing. This new game takes place in a freaking jungle, right? Well, I hope my lawful good human monk gets to run around in boxers instead of a big fucking coat. Having to run around a lawful good human monk in a goddamn swamp was bad enough. I know there are mods that fix this, but they suck. End of story. Mods fucking suck. I want official chainmail bikinis.

Also I think re-spawning is acceptable on the map as long as it is permanently fucking turned off whenever my guys enter any kind of orc caves or warehouses.