Thoughts about encounter design, structure and pacing in Path of the Damned difficulty

[Infinitron]

I find challenge rewarding. After a decade of popamole games where you can't really lose, it doesn't seem like it should be that surprising when I go "Hellz yeah, now you're talking" when I see Eder getting torn to bits after I fail to support him properly.

What do you mean by this, exactly? Could you give a kind of a blow-by-blow of what you did wrong? I'm wondering because my problem with difficulty in RtwP is that it often involves failure by omission rather than by decision, i.e. that you simply couldn't be bothered to pause enough or manually manipulate each of your party members consistently.

Off the top of my head, I'd say it comes down to:

1) Forming your line properly so your main tank doesn't get mobbed by too many enemies at a time. It's often tempting to rely on one single tank while everybody else does damage, but when the enemies are too tough, the results can be disastrous. So yes, you do need to put that other character at risk despite the fact that his Deflection score is kind of ass.

2) Despite your characters now being spread out to hold back the enemy, you still need to successfully focus-fire enough so that you can actually take out enemies instead of wearing them all down simultaneously. With the game's DT-based armor system and its preponderance of area of effect attacks, you can find that actually attaining sufficient damage output on any one enemy can be a real problem. You'll survive for a long time, but just kinda fail to kill the enemies, and eventually your guys start dropping.

3) Use debuff and crowd control spells to take the edge off the enemy as they arrive. And more crucially, commit yourself to using them some more as they run out. This ties in to what I said earlier in the thread about keeping things in reserve. You'll often think that "okay, I used that spell once, killed some of the enemies, I think I can take on the rest of them now without wasting any more". And often, you'll be wrong. It's a habit that comes from being used to D&D-style Vancian casting, where every individual casting needs to be memorized. But of course, you don't want to waste too many spells either. Appraising the "correct number of spells" to use in a battle is an inevitable thing in these sorts of games.

I wouldn't say that micromanagement/manipulation is a huge factor here, except in the sense of keeping your eyes on the remaining spell duration counters. I believe you can win surprising victories by leading enemies on micromanagement-heavy kiting-like goose chases that end up disrupting their formations and allowing them to be flanked, but I don't use that tactic often.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

I'm not an anti-trash-mobbist, and fights like that don't, as a rule, make me go "fuck, not again". That Xvart village is a fond memory from BG1. As long as there are other things as well, that is.

Again, it's all about the pacing. Quick trash mob fights where they make sense, slower tough nuts to crack where they make sense.

Uh, nope? Like I said, difficulty and challenge where it fits. When I spend a bunch of time clearing out numerous groups of lions or boars or whatever and end up having to splooge a whole bunch of spells to defeat them, in my book, that's not "bad encounter design", but it is an unusual roadblock in the game's expected sense of pacing. It's not "this is bad combat", it's more "cool fight, but why am I doing this so much and spending so much time on it?"

Where it fits? Where it makes sense? Dude, you're turning into a dirty simulationist, Josh would not approve.

Lets be real. Infinitron is the King of Copypaste. Of course he supports Copypaste encounter design.

Nah, he wants easier trash mobs and harder and better placed special (say party-vs-party) fights that yield unique rewards (see Baldur's Gate series).

 

[Infinitron]

I wouldn't say that I want mundane wildlife encounters to be "easy", but IMO they should rarely be the difficulty spike of an entire area.

A good example of a more traditional IE-like pacing is Level 4 of Od Nua. It begins with these fairly easy troll and ooze encounters. You can actually "select all-left click" with these, just using per-encounters. When I first met them, I went "Oh fuuuuuuu, the haters were right".

But then you notice that they're slowly wearing Eder down...and you arrive at that bridge/stair area with the stone and adra beetles. Followed by a long path with a HUGE horde of oozes and trolls. And then you get to use all those spells that you didn't use before to hold them off because the wounded Eder can't manage it alone.

Pretty fun, and noticeably different from the usual PoE level design with its difficulty spike optional rooms. Here, the difficulty spike is at the end of the main path through the level, as it should be (although you can circumvent the beetles by taking an alternate path, which deprives you of a position where you can take potshots at the ooze/troll horde).

 

[Darth Roxor]

ah yes od nua level 4, i remember it well

 

[roshan]

That's just disgusting.

 

[Infinitron]

Are you two trying to say something? Because I'm not getting it

 

[Gord]

I think the critique that there are several similar "themed" encounters on most maps is stupid, although I do agree with people who are saying that there should be more encounters that stand out. Preferably stand out by doing more than just increasing numbers - while that does provide some challenge from time to time, it would certainly be more interesting to have other approaches as well.

 

[hell bovine]

Are you two trying to say something? Because I'm not getting it

That Od Nua should be renamed to "Endless Paths of Repetitive Encounters".

 

[Tigranes]

That's just disgusting.

Looks like De'Arnise Keep, Level 1.

 

[Lhynn]

That's just disgusting.

Looks like De'Arnise Keep, Level 1.

Yeah if you remove anything remotely interesting from the first level of De´Arnise Keep you will end up with something similar to this.

 

[LizardWizard]

Od Nua level 4 was indeed the shittiest floor of a mediocre dungeon. Funny that it drops one of the best weapons in the game though.

 

[Infinitron]

I think the critique that there are several similar "themed" encounters on most maps is stupid

The "anti-mundane combatists" are the most unhappy of RPG players. They're fans of a genre that's not really for them and never has been.

In what world is a self-described megadungeon in a combat-heavy fantasy RPG not allowed to have a troll and ooze infested dungeon level? Like, when did that happen? How did these people play Diablo? How did they play the swamp in the Witcher? How did they play Icewind Dale? Did somebody send out a memo at some point saying "Nope, sorry, RPGs aren't allowed to do that anymore" that I never got? I've been clearing out dungeon levels like these for all the 20 years that I've been playing RPGs.

In any case, I'm not saying that Level 4 of Od Nua has brilliant encounter design, just that it's an example of mundane combat that's well-paced and structured. In fact, it's that very mundanity that makes it such a good example of the importance of pacing.

 

[Shevek]

What many dungeons and overland encounters in BG1 and IWD were like:

I sure designers agonized for hours over mob placement and variety.

 

[Darth Roxor]

I think the critique that there are several similar "themed" encounters on most maps is stupid

The "anti-mundane combatists" are the most unhappy of RPG players. They're fans of a genre that's not really for them and never has been.

In what world is a self-described megadungeon in a combat-heavy fantasy RPG not allowed to have a troll and ooze infested dungeon level? Like, when did that happen? How did these people play Diablo? How did they play the swamp in the Witcher? How did they play Icewind Dale? Did somebody send out a memo at some point saying "Nope, sorry, RPGs aren't allowed to do that anymore" that I never got? I've been clearing out dungeon levels like these for all the 20+ years that I've been playing RPGs, what happened?

In any case, I'm not saying that Level 4 of Od Nua has brilliant encounter design, just that it's an example of mundane combat that's well-paced and structured. In fact, it's that very mundanity that makes it such a good example of the importance of pacing.

<Excidium> lol
<Excidium> hahaha
<Excidium> @_@
<Excidium> my g0d
<Excidium> did infinitron spawn a minion or what
<Excidium> that's such a caricature
<Excidium> of the typical infinitron
<Excidium> that I couldnt believe it was him for a second

 

[Ziem]

.. feels like we've been there a billion times already


"pilloe encounter design sucks."

"no it totally doesnt look its amazing on potd enemies very stronk! wata cool gaem! many numbers!"

"yeah these copypasted trashmobs are very fun and exciting"

"B-B-BUT BG1 GNOLL STRONGHOLD WAS SHIT TOO!!!"

 

[Gord]

"B-B-BUT BG1 GNOLL STRONGHOLD WAS SHIT TOO!!!"

Meh, it's warranted when people suddenly keep mentioning BG1 of all games as a positive example of how a game like this should be done...

 

[Shevek]

And naskel mines, and kresselacks tomb, and beholder lair, and most of durlags, and all of PST, and...

 

[Infinitron]

Darth Roxor Say hi to him for me.

"B-B-BUT BG1 GNOLL STRONGHOLD WAS SHIT TOO!!!"

Shit? Eh, I dunno. The gnoll stronghold is certainly very simple. What gives it some redeeming value, I think, is the respawning. It gives you a cool "hack your way in, grab the damsel in distress, hack your way back out" feel which reminds me of the raid on Thulsa Doom's fortress in Conan the Barbarian. The fact that the gnolls die so quickly adds to that heroic feel. So it serves a purpose.

That megadungeon level is better than that though.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

In what world is a self-described megadungeon in a combat-heavy fantasy RPG not allowed to have a troll and ooze infested dungeon level? Like, when did that happen? How did these people play Diablo? How did they play the swamp in the Witcher? How did they play Icewind Dale?

Your defense of PoE seems to happily oscillate between "you conservative grogs loved shit gameplay because it was shit, recognize progress" whenever it does something remotely new-ish, and "you progressive complainers must hate crpg's because crpg's have always done shitty gameplay dwi" whenever PoE repeats 20 year old crpg tropes.

 

[hell bovine]

I think the critique that there are several similar "themed" encounters on most maps is stupid

The "anti-mundane combatists" are the most unhappy of RPG players. They're fans of a genre that's not really for them and never has been.

In what world is a self-described megadungeon in a combat-heavy fantasy RPG not allowed to have a troll and ooze infested dungeon level? Like, when did that happen? How did these people play Diablo? How did they play the swamp in the Witcher? How did they play Icewind Dale? Did somebody send out a memo at some point saying "Nope, sorry, RPGs aren't allowed to do that anymore" that I never got? I've been clearing out dungeon levels like these for all the 20+ years that I've been playing RPGs, what happened?

In any case, I'm not saying that Level 4 of Od Nua has brilliant encounter design, just that it's an example of mundane combat that's well-paced and structured. In fact, it's that very mundanity that makes it such a good example of the importance of pacing.

Diablo and Icewind Dale had fun combat. In Poe, it doesn't matter if it's trolls and oozes, or xaurips, or whatsoever; I went through Od Nua with different parties (took different NPCs along), at different levels (like the game expects you to), and still used the same tactics (send in melee puppets, follow with guns and the occasional confusion spell), because there was no need for anything else, with the exception of 3 levels. Three levels out of 15. That is what makes Pillar's such a repetitive game.

 

[Infinitron]

In what world is a self-described megadungeon in a combat-heavy fantasy RPG not allowed to have a troll and ooze infested dungeon level? Like, when did that happen? How did these people play Diablo? How did they play the swamp in the Witcher? How did they play Icewind Dale?

Your defense of PoE seems to happily oscillate between "you conservative grogs loved shit gameplay because it was shit, recognize progress" whenever it does something remotely new-ish, and "you progressive complainers must hate crpg's because crpg's have always done shitty gameplay dwi" whenever PoE repeats 20 year old crpg tropes.

Details aside, is that really so weird, when we're talking about an explicitly nostalgia-based project? The old stuff was good, otherwise people wouldn't have pledged for it. Seems to me that lots of these nostalgia-based Kickstarter projects with limited budgets follow a similar pattern - "Because we have limited resources, we'll invest in some stuff and change it/make it better, while leaving other stuff at the baseline of what the original games did, so people can't complain". So like, for example, Wasteland 2 didn't have day-night cycles, because the original Wasteland didn't have that (even though Fallout did). But of course people will always complain.

Anyway, it's not like I'd consider it a bad thing if the game had more intricately designed encounters. But I guess overall I'm okay with the dichotomy of "new systems, oldschool content".

 

[Shevek]

Let's look think back to the Xvart Village. Hey its some Xvarts. Select all attack. Hey its more Xvarts. Select all attack. Hey its a bear. Select all attack.

Wow, I really had to change tactics there.

Heys let's go to Ulcaster... Or Firewine... Hmm, what tactics might I use, I wonder.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

And naskel mines, and kresselacks tomb, and beholder lair, and most of durlags, and all of PST, and...

did you even play kresselacks tomb faggot? in poe kresselacks tomb would be just full of skeleton warriors and skeleton archers(or skaen priests/cultists). meanwhile in iwd you have guardians skeletons, Mytos with his guards, Mummies inflicting fucking disease, skeleton mages casting e.g. stinking cloud, tattered skeletons, imbued wights with magic missiles, plain zombies, temple guardians, ghasts, spectral knights, chosen zombies, shadows, lesser shadows and fuckton of traps with shit like one trap freezing you whole party and surrounding your party with skeleton archers.

I am not even going to compare durlags tower/watchers keep to PoE cause that would be so fucking one-sided its not even funny anymore

 

[Shevek]

Different shapes for mobs that all I did was select all attack through. The zone was a cllusterfuck of undead that you wade into.

 

[Roguey]

As mentioned in my article, the imbued wights are immune to normal weapons and cast magic missile on sight so select all->attack is a really bad idea, considering they're also found in groups of other creatures.

They're the only thing I found interesting though, Josh's worst IWD area.

By the by, I remember Dragon's Eye, his second area, being criticized for being a bit of a theme park so there's no pleasing everyone.