Moreso how you interpret combat balance. I didn't see things in the same way you did. I don't really think freak dice accidents were really controlling combat. I died when I went in unprepared or made a lousy tactical decision or two. Sure, there were a few "freak accidents" where somebody got taken out by an enemy critical, but that happens in almost every game with critical hits. You can't tell me you've never been demolishing some mutants and one of them score a very lucky critical and end your character's life.
The big differences here between Fallout and Baldur's Gate (may be due to my own perceptions, but the vibe I get) are firstly that AD&D damage mitigation is binary hit/miss, and secondly that nearly all combat is "open plan".
So in other words, in Fallout I can expect to be hit more often, but armour lessens the blow. In AD&D, I expect to be missed more often than I get hit. And when I do get hit, there's nothing to mitigate the damage (at low levels). In that respect, Fallout is far better at demonstrating a losing battle, and giving the player ample opportunity to reconsider their options. It also reduces the variance between fights with identical starting variables.
For instance, in Baldur's Gate, I can fight a bear - I haven't any real numbers handy, so I'll go with the feel. Please correct me factually if I'm off base here - say it has 20% chance to hit me, and that hit is going to kill me instantly. It's not an unreasonable outcome for the bear to only hit me on it's fifth attempt, giving me five rounds to kill it. It's equally reasonable that the bear will hit me first time and kill me, and then miss my comrade with identical AC four times. That's a pretty critical disparity that can't be blamed on "luck".
Likewise, there are a lot of other examples. A mage who has 20% chance to put me to sleep, paralyse me, cause fear, or any other number of variables that cannot be mitigated or controlled by a low-level character, but will almost certainly cause my death.
Fallout's armour providing AC I've always found counter-intuitive, since it's basically a measure of evasion, but that quirk aside, the damage threshold/damage resistance model actually allows the player to mitigate the effects of near certain damage. It's safe to assume any character over second level using their primary combat skill at point blank range will hit you, ergo you can strategically plan for exactly that, by either positioning or armour.
The second point I touched on was Baldur's Gate's "open plan" combat. Very rarely could I use the terrain to my advantage. In Fallout, I could use the tactical advantage of cover fairly often as a mitigative measure toward damage - I've made a tactical decision to avoid damage, rather than merely hoping for low rolls an the enemy's behalf.
That's what I'm getting at when I talk about Baldur's Gate lacking combat control, and being too randomly determined. Most games have fights that you'll never win. Baldur's Gate and AD&D in general have way too many fights where you might have say, 10% chance of winning. So you just quicksave and load ten times until you do win.
I don't think it's so much bad encounter design as what is between them, so to say. Encounters tax your resources. Resources you typically use as a "buffer" between baddies and you. Those fodder might have more impact if their damages weren't solved by a quick "Rest for 8 hours" button. Of course there are monster attacks when you rest...but still. Resting does have too much rejuvenation power.
I thought Baldur's Gate was good in theory in terms of making resting difficult, but again, the massive disparity was a major issue. If I can sleep and get all my spells back, heal myself and be on my way half the time, and the other half of the time get attacked by hordes of ghasts or ogres that I have little chance of beating, why wouldn't I quicksave every time I go to sleep? And again, resources are troubled by the same probability divide. If each fight took a steady toll on me, you'd have a point. But the results have been exceedingly disparite in my experience.
Maybe it's because I've spent too much time starting unfinished Baldur's Gate game and plodding through the randomly determined outcomes of lower levels and not giving higher hit point pools their due. I know Baldur's Gate 2 felt a little better in the early stages since there was a buffer by starting at level 7. But resting was even more implausible and retarded. "We gotta get out of here!" Something about "three weeks later" kinda takes the urgnecy out of things.
Well....depending on your definition of "intellectual" you could. One could discuss whether he was satire on the "hero and his animal companion" archetype or slapstick humor, whether he was truly insane or just retarded, and other topics like that. I mean people have had quite large discussions on topics with far less depth.
If it's satire, it's "satire" in the same vain as the Scary Movie series, or any of the other vapid shit the Wayans brothers see fit to turn out every few months. For instance, here is me "satirising" you in a similar vein:
"Hur hur, Baldur's Gate is the next best thing after Cheetos and Mountain Dew. My name is Edtard L Burro, and I'm a mid-thirties geek virgin who lives in my parents basement and uses the internet to talk to my Star Trek buddies about how awesome dungeons and dragons are."
See how the "bite" of the satire isn't relevant at all? It's just the sarcastic regurgitation of a retarded stereotype that could have been penned by a twelve-year-old. The whole idea of satire should be slyly suggesting that something is beneath you, not proving yourself to be beneath what you're satirising.
As for slapstick and such, I don't think it qualifies. If Minsc hit himself in the balls when he critically failed, that's slapstick. There's no physical component to "go for the eyes Boo, go for the EYES. RAAARRRRRHHHH!" The suggestions of "legitimate" insanity or retardation are barely worth making, when he's clearly a failed novelty character. Even those "crazy low prices" guys put forward a more convincing portrayal.
Inflated by the fact it never seemed to hamper my gameplay in any way. Sure, it was kind of annoying sometimes in cities if I wanted to just set a point and have my party go there and instead I was forced to utilize smaller intervals, but it wasn't game-breaking or even a constant nuisance.
Since most closed environments I traversed were full of narrow passages that necessitated the "follow the leader" formation, I'd say it's a problem. If anyone but the point man wants to get into toe-to-toe combat, I have to babysit them around the leader. It's even worse when there are multiple paths to an opponent, and upon failing to navigate around a stationary friend through what seems like a perfectly valid path, they proceed to take the "long way" around. It was a constant nuisance to me, I think you're just viewing through rose-coloured glasses.
Point taken. It's just you've got a lot of malice towards the game. Although it just wouldn't be Codex enough without it I suppose.
Well the malice is more a less a manifestation of the frustration at the popular opinion that Baldur's Gate represents a renaissance of RPGs or a pinnacle of gaming. I'd imagine any punk music community would show considerable malice in an argument intended to deconstruct a view that Avril Lavigne has revived their flagging music genre. And I guess I'm more than just a little hurt I bought Baldur's Gate on the back of Fallout's reputation, only to be bitterly disappointed, even when I knew a scant fraction of the goodness Fallout offered. I guess it had some value in compelling me to be more discerning about the games I choose to buy/play.
Isn't that "luck", though? By chance Ian was the earliest NPC and he happened to be the one to be associated with said AI malfunction, seems totally by a stroke of chance, no? It obviously wasn't intentional and supports my claim that memorable characters aren't necesarily developed ones.
I still don't think Ian is a memorable character. The action may be associated with him, but people remember the action, rather than the character. Ask someone to define Ian outside of that character, and you'll get a blank response. And by that token, ask someone to define Minsc outside of his pantomime madness, or Khalid outside of his cowardice and you'll probably get the same blank response.
Yes, but that's exactly the reason people remember her. There's some old saying about loving people for their flaws. I think that's quite applicable here.
Again, I don't think this is remembering
her per se. I'd be inclined to think most people would refer to her as "that useless chick you can marry". That's little more than "that guy who gets mown down by Frank Horrigan". Or "that guy who stood in front of the tanks in Tienanmen Square" It's memory of an event or situation, not a character.
If you say so. When he took down two super mutants carrying heavy weaponry alone he seemed less "dog" and more "killing machine". But aside from that, I see your point. But I don't really think the "dog immersion" contributed as much to his popularity as the flipping out and mutilating enemies part did. So it wasn't the intended that helped, it was the (sort-of?) unintended.
Sort of, but being a super dog is still better than being a selectively mute or repetitive human.
I guess. But that also really wasn't intentional. It's just one of the many things that just happened to make Dogmeat the lovable canine killing machine we all fondly remember.
Oh, I'm sure most of what Dogmeat was isn't necessarily intentional. But I'm just saying that it's not blind luck. You can sit back and analyse why he's a memorable character, and I think that's a healthier response than attributing memorable characters to chance.
Fair enough. EXTREME (I had to....) distaste for something would possibly transfer memories quite well, but I don't think it would as well as the good memories. For instance I'm sure you don't happen to remember Minsc's lines, whereas I'm sure someone who enjoyed Baldur's Gate very much might in fact reference "going for the eyes" or "swords for everyone!" often.
"Montaron, you are sooooo aggravitink!"
You'd be surprised at what I remember from games I haven't really enjoyed, especially ones like Baldur's Gate where I've given them countless chances. Besides, the fact that Minsc said that "go for the eyes" shit pretty much every time you assigned him a target, it kind of hammers the point home, no?
I guess it really is how you see all of them. I personally saw most of the NPCs as satirical takes on certain fantasy archetypes. It was amusing enough as that, at least to me. Throw in a few references, some stolen one-liners, campy dialogue, and you've got something...interesting and sure to create some mixed opinions.
Well I guess. Duke Nukem is also popular despite being nothing more than a parrot. There are also people who think Jim Carrey pioneered the "Go ahead punk, make my day" line with the Mask. Regardless of opinion, I think there's a stronger argument in labelling Baldur's Gate as the jejune attempts at humour from someone possessing little comedic insight or wit. Of course there's nothing wrong with
liking that sort of thing, but just like the folks who think Insane Clown Posse are awesome - I'm going to sneer down my intellectual snout at such an opinion and offer (what I think is) reasonable critical debate as to the merits.
Of course it is. But implementation becomes subjective as well. Let's take the Modron Maze in Torment. If you go in and interpret it as a serious dungeon, you're probably going to be disappointed, as it really wasn't meant to be one. If you see it as a comedy bonus area, you will be amused a little. If you see it as satire on dungeon crawls, you're going to be laughing quite a lot. It all depends on how you interpret implementation.
This is certainly true. I know most people don't really like Paul Verhoeven's flicks, especially the poor bastards expecting Heinlein from a movie entitled
Starship Troopers, but I think they're fantasic satire of idiotic Hollywood excess. And it's the best kind of satire - indistinguishable from sincere effort. If indeed Baldur's Gate is purporting to be "satire", it's trying way to hard to be funny. Satire should be ironic parody of something very real, not thoughtless sarcastic absurdity.
"Hurrr, I'm a stoner, I eat Doritos all the time, because I always have the munchies. Duuuuuude, I've so got the munchies right now, let's get some Doritos! Hehehe, I'm so wasted right now, everything is soooo funny. Hehehehehehe, I said munchies."