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The Icewind Dale Problem

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Re: The Icewind Dale Problem

#41

Post by BEEdwards »

sgtnasty wrote: post #28
dri_ft wrote: post #15

I clocked more than my fair share of hours rerolling stats on Baldur's Gate. But in retrospect, it seems like outrageously shoddy game design. "We're going to have a permanent set of stats that determine how powerful your character is for the whole game, and how good those stats are is going to depend mostly on how much time you spend clicking 'reroll' and a little bit on luck. And we're going to make you do this all…

I think they were trying to replicate the tabletop experience. Now imaging replicating the classic Traveller RPG, where you had a decent chance of your character dying during generation. I think that any computer RPG with D&D like stats needs to have point buy by default and only use a random generation as an option for tabletop like simulation.

Back when video games where interesting and tried new things, they did in fact make a mega traveller game, it may nerf character death during creation a little, but you can still come out with unusable ones.

http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/search?q=MegaTraveller

Re: The Icewind Dale Problem

#42

Post by beobab »

jghn wrote: post #38
dri_ft wrote: post #15

I clocked more than my fair share of hours rerolling stats on Baldur's Gate. But in retrospect, it seems like outrageously shoddy game design. "We're going to have a permanent set of stats that determine how powerful your character is for the whole game, and how good those stats are is going to depend mostly on how much time you spend clicking 'reroll' and a little bit on luck. And we're going to make you do this all…

This reminded me of how I spent multiple nights re-rolling my party on my Mac port for Wizardry I. I eventually hit a point total that allowed me to start one character as a ninja, which apparently must have been a bug because that was supposed to be impossible. My cheesiness knew no bounds however. At some point I acquired a shuriken, which would increase your total HP by 1 every time you equipped it. I did the righ…

And you got an enormous amount of enjoyment from it, which is what a game is for. :)

I remember doing a similar thing with save files and the old Ragnarok game.

Re: The Icewind Dale Problem

#43

Post by talmand »

moron4hire wrote: post #37
dri_ft wrote: post #15

I clocked more than my fair share of hours rerolling stats on Baldur's Gate. But in retrospect, it seems like outrageously shoddy game design. "We're going to have a permanent set of stats that determine how powerful your character is for the whole game, and how good those stats are is going to depend mostly on how much time you spend clicking 'reroll' and a little bit on luck. And we're going to make you do this all…

I'm trying to remember off the top of my head how Skyrim did it. During the character creation, I don't remember doing a class assignment, certainly not explicitly like Morrowind or Oblivion. I think everyone just started at the same base character level, and your "class" fell out of your behavior over the course of the game. Do more destruction magic, earn more magic power. Regardless, if it wasn't Skyrim, that seem…

I've played several games over the years that handle skills/classes that way, Skyrim being a recent one. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Often times it's easy to abuse the system to get high stats quickly and unrealistically.

Plus, these games will usually have a scale on enemy difficulty based on you instead of the game world. So if you somehow run into something that should be incredibly dangerous for your beginner character, it is not that hard to defeat. Remember that rabbit you smacked a couple of times to kill for its meat in the early game? Later it requires gear designed to fight gods to kill that rabbit's brother. I exaggerate, but that type of system bothers me to no end.

Re: The Icewind Dale Problem

#44

Post by talmand »

bbctol wrote: post #40
moron4hire wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying to remember off the top of my head how Skyrim did it. During the character creation, I don't remember doing a class assignment, certainly not explicitly like Morrowind or Oblivion. I think everyone just started at the same base character level, and your "class" fell out of your behavior over the course of the game. Do more destruction magic, earn more magic power. Regardless, if it wasn't Skyrim, that seem…

Yeah, Skyrim was a major break from the earlier Elder Scrolls games by abandoning pre-made classes. It's probably a good idea in many ways, but you run into a similar problem if you want to level up in skills that aren't actually that much fun (which is basically anything except fighting.) If you want to be a master blacksmith, instead of spending time re-reolling, you spend it... crafting hundreds of iron daggers.

And you bankrupt every smith in the game because you flooded the market with hundreds of iron daggers.

Re: The Icewind Dale Problem

#45

Post by dkersten »

dri_ft wrote: post #15

I clocked more than my fair share of hours rerolling stats on Baldur's Gate. But in retrospect, it seems like outrageously shoddy game design. "We're going to have a permanent set of stats that determine how powerful your character is for the whole game, and how good those stats are is going to depend mostly on how much time you spend clicking 'reroll' and a little bit on luck. And we're going to make you do this all…

"...and before you know what stats are important for what, or even what play style you may enjoy most."

I always found it a bit strange that many games frontload you with decisions (what class? what stats? etc) before you even know anything about the game, what is effective or what you might enjoy.

Re: The Icewind Dale Problem

#46

Post by LeifCarrotson »

talmand wrote: post #43
moron4hire wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying to remember off the top of my head how Skyrim did it. During the character creation, I don't remember doing a class assignment, certainly not explicitly like Morrowind or Oblivion. I think everyone just started at the same base character level, and your "class" fell out of your behavior over the course of the game. Do more destruction magic, earn more magic power. Regardless, if it wasn't Skyrim, that seem…

I've played several games over the years that handle skills/classes that way, Skyrim being a recent one. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Often times it's easy to abuse the system to get high stats quickly and unrealistically. Plus, these games will usually have a scale on enemy difficulty based on you instead of the game world. So if you somehow run into something that should be incredibly dangerous for…

> Often times it's easy to abuse the system to get high stats quickly and unrealistically.

Or, even if you're not trying to abuse the system, the behavior that's most natural and which results in the best outcomes can modify your character from what you may have intended.

It's typical get the best loot from the hardest quests. You could grind the easy ones, but quick progression requires taking on difficult tasks.

In Skyrim, if you see a group of baddies that are too strong to take on in a brawl all at once, the way to proceed through the quest is to shoot them with an arrow from far away, and sneak until they de-aggro. Or if you don't want to attack it, just sneak around. Or if they're charging you and too far away to melee attack yet, put in a couple hits with your bow to soften them up.

Surprise! You're not a mage or a heavy like you thought you'd be. You're a stealth archer.

Re: The Icewind Dale Problem

#47

Post by seanp2k2 »

beobab wrote: post #42
jghn wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminded me of how I spent multiple nights re-rolling my party on my Mac port for Wizardry I. I eventually hit a point total that allowed me to start one character as a ninja, which apparently must have been a bug because that was supposed to be impossible. My cheesiness knew no bounds however. At some point I acquired a shuriken, which would increase your total HP by 1 every time you equipped it. I did the righ…

And you got an enormous amount of enjoyment from it, which is what a game is for. :) I remember doing a similar thing with save files and the old Ragnarok game.

Same but with stuff like Diablo 2 and D2Edit / Jamella. Gameshark Pro was also fun stuff. It's honestly sad that you can't gameshark modern consoles since it was so much fun to mod games in ridiculous ways. Mod support for PC games is what keeps me buying PC games.

Edit: excited for the potential mod support for FFXV on PC.

Re: The Icewind Dale Problem

#48

Post by pavel_lishin »

jghn wrote: post #38
dri_ft wrote: post #15

I clocked more than my fair share of hours rerolling stats on Baldur's Gate. But in retrospect, it seems like outrageously shoddy game design. "We're going to have a permanent set of stats that determine how powerful your character is for the whole game, and how good those stats are is going to depend mostly on how much time you spend clicking 'reroll' and a little bit on luck. And we're going to make you do this all…

This reminded me of how I spent multiple nights re-rolling my party on my Mac port for Wizardry I. I eventually hit a point total that allowed me to start one character as a ninja, which apparently must have been a bug because that was supposed to be impossible. My cheesiness knew no bounds however. At some point I acquired a shuriken, which would increase your total HP by 1 every time you equipped it. I did the righ…

> At some point I acquired a shuriken, which would increase your total HP by 1 every time you equipped it

Dear god, why does such an item even exist?

Re: The Icewind Dale Problem

#49

Post by kazagistar »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #48
jghn wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminded me of how I spent multiple nights re-rolling my party on my Mac port for Wizardry I. I eventually hit a point total that allowed me to start one character as a ninja, which apparently must have been a bug because that was supposed to be impossible. My cheesiness knew no bounds however. At some point I acquired a shuriken, which would increase your total HP by 1 every time you equipped it. I did the righ…

> At some point I acquired a shuriken, which would increase your total HP by 1 every time you equipped it Dear god, why does such an item even exist?

A bug?

Re: The Icewind Dale Problem

#50

Post by seanp2k2 »

Nr7 wrote: post #17
StanislavPetrov wrote: post #6

Alternate Reality, a cult classic game from the 1980s by Philip Price featured a character creation process similar to the one described in this article (it also contained many other game features well ahead of its time). A rotating series of numbers would scroll through each stat box, with the player having to hit the space bar to freeze the numbers and select their stats. However, the stats slowly degraded the long…

Captive, another cult classic from early 90s used another novel method of calculating the stats for the characters. The game used an algorithm that determined the stats based on the name the player gave to each character. I even remember seeing some recommended names on the cheats & tips sections of some computer games magazines back in the day.

My name is 00000000 AKA death to your algorithm :) (or: hope you hash it first)
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