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#491179 21/04/14 09:13 PM
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Have to make a couple of things clear first. I havent played the Alpha at all.
Ive just started playing the game beta version, with a hotfix 1.0.239, a few days ago.

I also intentionally did not read any hints, didnt even try to see if there is any sort of game manual or asked about any feature or mechanic of the game - at all.

So you are getting a completely fresh perspective of an old cRPG player, going into OS completely blind and unprepared.




Onward:



Could you make the video option - not require restart of the game?
I mean, if that is possible... it would really be great.

***

That music... Ive just started and its already under my skin. My bow to the maestro.
Can i get the games music somewhere? I mean like... can i buy it?
Im not sure have i gotten that for my pathetic 25 dollar backing.

So fitting, so beautiful. There is a clear theme of a "good thing long lost", or "good times of the distant past when everything was better, brighter,...", a bit of sadness after a good thing, mixed in with understated heroic notions and sense of epic events that are about to unfold.

Its really, really good and really addictive and memorable.
You got yourself a hit there. A classic.

***

The character creation screen with those leaves falling...
Its all fits together so well.
I wouldn't add or take away a single thing from it. (and thats rare for me)

(Well, the character creation screen could use a few more portraits that fit with the selected look of the character, which could then serve as my character portrait inside the game - that would be very nice, but i trust you are onto this and it will be made available later on. If not - i can do it for you)

***

Very nice intro, with the illustrations and all. I especially liked that you went for those slightly animated illustrations, instead of actual cinematic cut scenes. Younger, old Max Payne memories ... (very nice).

Maybe, if its possible, add a bit of a smog and clouds animated effect in the transition between the opening animated illustration and our two characters appearing on the beach instance.
So its all more in line with the atmosphere and theme of the introduction, as it presents it.
The illustrated introduction makes it all look smoggy, cloudy and seen in a dusk kind of atmosphere. But the beach itself is very bright and shiny.

What i mean is; have character load into their positions as they do now, dont change anything - just add more smoggy clouds over them and over the visible screen to hide it, - and then have the clouds slowly drift apart - revealing our heroes on the beach.

Would fit much better with the intro illustration atmosphere and presented feel of the area it achieves.



----------------------------------------------------------------------
Things i havent been able to figure out naturally, just based on playing the game itself.
----------------------------------------------------------------------


- Crafting. I still have no idea is that even available in this beta... let alone how to do it. Ive tried all the usual things, clicking around, trying to force different items onto each other... and other stuff like that.
The game is perfectly playable without it though.

***

- Whether there is any levers extra (except the obvious ones) to find in the black cove, in the first place - and how to find them.

(i opened the way and then after when i was leaving i ran into one more lever to pull by pure accident)

Suggestion: add a line or two of text in the chief pirate diary mentioning one lever he hid in the bushes - but dont mention the others like it. Just reading that there is one lever that is purposely hidden will be enoguh to let players figure out there might be more like it - for any player.

Furthermore - if the pirate undead need the living to bring back their flesh then the chief pirate might have set up the levers and all that to lure various people in? eh?
Maybe changing the plot setup to make this clearer can be done? Maybe it was the pirates that intentionally drew the Orcs there - to attack them? Its only writing change, no gameplay changes necessary.

What was that about dragons in the chief pirate journal? I was expecting there will be a dragon somewhere in the cave there from reading that...

- Make the fight much harder. They have the blood stone which gives them super powers - right?

***

- Took me a long time to notice and figure out that there is some kind of skill menu. At first, when i removed some of the spells icons from the hotbar - to my horror - i couldnt find any way to put them back.

The icons for skill menu and inventory that are under the character portraits are really too small.
Really, really - really.

As are the other icons on the Ui in general.
Something should be done to make it clearer to the players that they are there and that there is some function to them.

Maybe making them a little bit bigger or making them have some nice, non intrusive and rare light effect?
Something like a small glow or shining effect that rarely appears - from time to time?

Illustrating them differently? So they look more like items from the game maybe? Maybe make them blue rather then black - so they stand out from the rest of the character portrait frame more then now. Blue background - gold icons?

Also - change the icon for skills menu. Seriously.
The inventory one is at least familiar and appropriate - once you figure out you can actually click it, but the skills menu icon is just... too generic and non descriptive.

***

Headless Nick quest. Is the head inside the black cove or... not?
Atleast that could be made a bit clearer to the players. After all, it is Nick and his daughter telling us this story. They should know as much at the least.

***

How to get out of the Zixzax dimension - but i see that was mentioned several times in the bug thread.




----------------------------
Suggestions and ideas
----------------------------


The very start:
Maybe, instead of telling player to open the inventory - with a popup, which is a very fourth wall breaking thing to do, and a bit insulting in a way - Scarlet could just ask about their orders. And then players should figure it out themselves. (maybe the orders were sealed with instructions to open them upon arrival? - if you need a quick excuse for that)

Do i really need to be insulted because there can possibly be some players that dont know there is an inventory to open - in a cRPG?
We dont really need to pander to hypothetical players incapable to or ignorant about opening inventory - in a RPG game, surely?

How do you expect those younglings to learn anything if the whole industry just keeps force feeding them and pushing silver platters in front of them? Surely you guys dont need to do that too? Please?

Shouldn't we strive to teach them how to take care of themselves?

Could there be an option to hide such hints in the main options?

I know its only the start of the game and that everyone are used to such things by now. But there is no doubt it affects the narrative negatively - and since it is only a very small thing - it could be easily avoided and it should be avoided.

***

The undead should be really scary enemies. Instead of moles you pop easily. And they should be much more resistant to slashing and piercing damage too. Currently i can only notice a small reduction in damage when i use swords and other blades on them.

They should also be completely resistant to Air and Water magic. Although that can be saved for tougher individual undead enemies - if you really want ...

(I dont really get why undead would be damaged by any sort of electricity... except just because thats the way some previous games did it and it just became a cliche and a trope that repeats itself without any actual real reason. If anything, i would make them heal when electrocuted - they are dead for zombie sake! Dr Frankestein Monster? Surely there is enough of material about electricity and different undead in the general fantasy lore to support such an idea...)

***

Let me zoom out more. Its great. In a few cases, like black cove - the camera remains zoomed out much higher, due to differences in height of the ground.

It looks really, really awesome and it really shows off the art design skills of the team and beauty of the game environments.
I didnt notice any slowing down because of it, either.

***

ALT key should highlight items only acording to perception skill of the character.

***

Statues quest suffers a bit from the restricted camera angles because the player almost cannot see one or two symbols on them. Maybe moving the symbol of the right most statue more towards the player PoV would be better?

***

- inventory hassle solution ! -

Simple - move the "all items" sorting icon-tab to the bottom of the sorting icons-tabs list. Or just remove-disable it completely.

Have the "equipment" sorting tab be the first and the default one instead.
If the things are arranged that way - the players will quickly and easily figure out how things work - and actually wont use the dreadful unsorted "all items" icon at all.

Ive started using the Equipment tab and trading by using different tabs instead of "all items" and its all much better!
Really.

Because its not really necessary, useful or needed the way it is now.
This will save you the effort of adjusting or creating some sort of sorting mechanics.

***

- The "Ill take my leave" dialogue line with which we end conversations should be taken out of the dialogue options and put to the upper left of the the big gray section of the dialogue screen, where all dialogue options are.

So it is always visible and easily available. In this way we can always end the conversation quickly, without having to scroll through all dialogue options to get to it. You can make a button out of it. I dont care.
There is enough of free space inside the dialogue window to do what you want with it.

Just make it easily and quickly available - because the game has a lot of conversations and its very annoying having to scroll down looking for it each and every time.

***

Also, concerning dialogues... you really should make the sentences i already chose and my character "spoke" - disappear.
Maybe you can somehow select all quest relevant sentences and make them disappear after they have been chosen for the first time?
And leave only the trivial - plot unimportant ones to remain - because an empty dialogue window isnt nice either.

***

Sneak and weapon toggle icons should be a bit bigger and bit more pronounced - significant, since those two things are. Currently, they almost look like just some nice part of the game Ui art - almost.

***

Could you make right click useful for something? For example several of the "ctrl +" abilities could be linked to the right click - without the need for ctrl itself.

***

How about opening the inventory when i right-click on the empty item slots in the hotbar? That would be very useful. VERY.

***

How about having all characters pictures on the side of the inventory too? So when we move items between them, we can just drop items onto those pictures, not on character portraits.
It is a much shorter distance and so it would be much more elegant then moving the pointer across half of the screen - for every single item we want to move.

***

- Esmeralda & Evelyn

Esmeralda has nothing to say at all about Evelyn - until i figure Evelyn out and read her diary and other letters in her house. Only then i get a dialogue option to mention Evelyn to Esmeralda - and only then Esmeralda says how she doubted Evelyn for a long time, blah, blah, blah...

That simply doesnt make sense and should be corrected with something small and indirect.
Like for example - having the option to talk to each of the suspects about other suspects. Which they can use to blame and cast doubt onto others so to confuse the player more.


-



im still only two thirds of the way through so i will probably add to this thread, and keep on adding after i play through new incoming beta version.



-edited details-

Last edited by Hiver; 23/04/14 11:15 AM.
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You can open a character's inventory by right clicking on their portrait. Right clicking on an empty skill bar slot could be a handy way to open the skill window, though.

Nick's head is not in the Black Cove. It is not hidden in an obscure spot, and you can find it just by exploring. If you want to narrow down the general region, it is...
within Cyseal.

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Well, yeah... skill window ... i guess. Although i would naturally assume that it would open the inventory, just as a general player logic goes.

Right clicking on the portrait to open inventory is fine, as an additional usability feature. I haven't even thought to try it though.
Both that and clarifying or slightly changing the icons under character portraits should be done to make those basic things a bit clearer.

And as i said above, aiming while not in combat could be done by right click, maybe? Instead of ctrl combo? (just a thought)

These are not critiques, every game has its own peculiarities one should get accustomed to, but i thought to mention it so as to find some easy ways to increase ease of use and general usability.
Seems to me that the right-click is very underused.


Thanks for the Nicks head location and all but i dont really need it.
I just wanted to make it clear that the player doesnt understand where the head might be from the way it is presented and that it may be unfairly confusing - since it is easy to assume his head is somewhere in the Black Cove - since pirates loped it off - and those very same pirates and a lot of sea are right there - and so spend a lot of time searching every meter of the place for nothing.

One small tweak to the text and dialogues of the quest would make that much clearer.


***

Generally i find the story, writing and narrative of quests really well done.
But there are some places where it can be improved or corrected - just as the rest of the game can be at this stage.



Last edited by Hiver; 24/04/14 10:23 AM.
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Ill trust that this double post will be accidentally overlooked by the mods.

Just because its so pretty.

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

We really, really should be able to zoom out further, right? Just look at this!
All that verticality...

And the whole Black Cove gave me a very strong feel and sense of the "Goonies". Which was great.
Wish there was even more to do there... and more Goonies kind of stuff.


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And they should be much more resistant to slashing and piercing damage too. Currently i can only notice a small reduction in damage when i use swords and other blades on them.

They should also be completely resistant to Air and Water magic.

And why would that be ? Because it seems logical to you ?

Quote
That simply doesnt make sense and should be corrected with something small and indirect.

Quote
Although i would naturally assume that it would open the inventory, just as a general player logic goes.

^^ That doesn't sound logical. Could you define what a general player logic is ? This is Larian World, dude. Beside, we are all different. Be honest, don't talk about no logics in a thread, and logics in another thread, just because it suits you.

Quote
We really, really should be able to zoom out further, right?

Wrong. Zooming out too much could make us see the "deus ex machina" border mapping issues, which are pretty ugly, and break the immersion.
Beside some players might find the graphics "cartoony". However, I do like them too.
Quote

ALT key should highlight items only acording to perception skill of the character.

That would be great. Really. No attack or sarcasm inside.

Last edited by Cromcrom; 24/04/14 06:35 AM.

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I clearly meant "what usual cRPG player is used to" generally speaking.
Doesnt really matter that you didnt get that and used it as some laughable way of "getting back at me" for something other ive said in some other post.


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Originally Posted by Cromcrom
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And they should be much more resistant to slashing and piercing damage too. Currently i can only notice a small reduction in damage when i use swords and other blades on them.

They should also be completely resistant to Air and Water magic.

And why would that be ? Because it seems logical to you ?


It actually is stated in the game itself ( the lost archeologist I believe will explain it to you ), and it was working this way in the Alpha, making archers very difficult to play since they only were doing Piercing damage.
Slashing though was working OK I think.

@Hiver
Yeah the zooming out bug or rather the "camera doesn't follow the character" bug ! It's actually kind of nice, isn't it ; and it can lead to some nice large overview. Happens when you click to move ( aka waypoint ) instead of holding down the button and dragging ( aka hack'n'skash ).


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It actually is stated in the game itself ( the lost archeologist I believe will explain it to you ), and it was working this way in the Alpha, making archers very difficult to play since they only were doing Piercing damage.

I am actually all for this feature. I am glad Hiver proposed to make it more relevant, because it would have probably been flagged as "stupid" or "illogical" if it had been me ^^


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It isn't a bad thing yeah, I just think there is a slight issue with archetypes - Warriors can bring different type of weapons, Mages have different schools of magic, but Archers only have piercing arrows. Well sure there are special arrows but base damage will be mostly piercing anyway. Unless they start adding boxe gloves arrows! So yeah, archers/roguish archetypes would have a hard time dealing with skeletons, which isn't a bad thing per se, but only when it happens later in the game when you may have a bit more options.

That said, I won't hijack Hiver's thread, but I suddenly wonder if and how the various damage type Piercing/Slashing/crushing are different from each other. There is the Anaconda talent, but nothing for the other types... And they all seem to give the same kind of numbers anyway...


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Maybe Piercing would increase crit chance, slash increase bleeding chance, and crushing increase stun/fall chance. I thought it was already the case ?


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Originally Posted by Dr Koin

It actually is stated in the game itself ( the lost archeologist I believe will explain it to you ), and it was working this way in the Alpha, making archers very difficult to play since they only were doing Piercing damage.
Slashing though was working OK I think.

Yes, the game lore provides some info on this, but i actually was thinking more in line with the general fantasy lore about undead, from Frankestein monster onwards.

And on my first playthrough of Icewind dale, long, very long time ago - where i intentionally gimped my whole party by making them all dual class, and not using or investing enough points into "turn undead" skill...

Man - i was running away from any undead screaming.
And the memory just got stuck with me.
Undead while i played like that - were the most terrific, scariest enemy i could encounter.
And that was very refreshing - compared to how cheaply that kind of enemy is usually used.

- Its not just about making some kind of logic according to personal preferences. btw.
Internal logical coherence of the setting, then the general fantasy lore - and value in gameplay itself - are important parts all.

Originally Posted by Dr Koin

@Hiver
Yeah the zooming out bug or rather the "camera doesn't follow the character" bug ! It's actually kind of nice, isn't it ; and it can lead to some nice large overview. Happens when you click to move ( aka waypoint ) instead of holding down the button and dragging ( aka hack'n'skash ).

I know when i happens smile

I would just want it enabled as a feature - and not disabled in cases like black cove where it happens... naturally (due to differences in heights or - verticality).

This game is very fit for it -since it is gorgeously designed - and it could be very useful for general navigation.

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Generally (and it seems the case here too) the difference in types are simply resistances from enemies.
With a 0 resistance foe, nothing going.
However add resistances (and there are seperate ones for piercing, slashing and crushing as a certain spell told me and should actually display in the inventory :/) and you're starting to get a whole other story.

Makes sense to me skeletons and arrows don't quite match wink

Personally I would think the best solution would be some skills that do alternative damage. So you'd still mostly do piercing, but if you want otherwise you aren't exclusively tied to special arrows.

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Originally Posted by Hassat Hunter
Generally (and it seems the case here too) the difference in types are simply resistances from enemies.
With a 0 resistance foe, nothing going.
However add resistances (and there are seperate ones for piercing, slashing and crushing as a certain spell told me and should actually display in the inventory :/) and you're starting to get a whole other story.

Makes sense to me skeletons and arrows don't quite match wink

Personally I would think the best solution would be some skills that do alternative damage. So you'd still mostly do piercing, but if you want otherwise you aren't exclusively tied to special arrows.


I have no problem with resistances/weaknesses to certain types of weapons, however if that gets tweaked it would be nice to see some alternative weapon types for each group. You could have blunt arrows for bludgeon damage, or a cetus for a dagger equivalent, ect.

variety is never a bad thing :P The only thing I wouldn't want to see is a huge buff in resistance to say slashing/piecing to undead and have no other options. This would make your rogues and knights useless to undead, which is like 50% of the mobs you encounter in the game.



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In the beta... how profound undead are in the whole game... well, we don't know. Maybe the whole forest is filled with bunnies, and then we fight chickens, humans and dragons... and there's not a single undead ever again.
Unlikely, but it could happen smile

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HA!

Im just watching update 59, and it seems that

my
"ALT key should highlight items only acording to perception skill of the character."
suggestion is actually in the game! ha!

I have no idea was it already in (because it didnt look so), or had it been added only with the recent version. Was it only me that suggested it or was it a case of simply thinking same things as some others - but i dont care.

Its great. Yess!


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If it was in, it surely was broken. Or everything which should be hidden has 6 PER requirement.

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I don't think it's in, and no offense, but I hope it isn't - I hate pixel-hunting! wink I also wouldn't see how even a player with a Perception of 5, who can clearly see a large area of the surrounding environment, wouldn't also be able to see items lying about.

Anyway, I'm planning to update the "UI Wishlist" forum thread after messing around with the new update a bit more, as it still seems that "ALT" highlights most items, but not all - so maybe that's the reason for the confusion here.

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ALT seems (by design) to skip the 'useless' items (those costing 1 gold, no-one wants to buy for more than 0 and has the default garbage icon instead of it's own).
However, last version it also didn't show actual useful items like pillows, which it definitely should highlight.

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I've been testing how "ALT" works since the alpha (yeah, you know I'm obsessed with this thing), and it actually seems designed to highlight everything, including some junk items. It's just about 10 or so items that still aren't highlighted, so I assume it's just an oversight.

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What junk items does it highlight?

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