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My 2nd run in the game

PostPosted: Sat Apr 23, 2011 10:18 am
by Waterd103
My first run ended on the orc fortress on my ignorance that scribe scrolls is needed for this game, lets see how i do in the second run.
Boladin: Mul cleric S:17 D:11 C:18 I:12 W:17 H:10 Feat: Scribe Scrolls.

Kassar: Human Wizard S:10 D:14 C:11 I:18 W:15 H:14 Feat: Evocation, Greater Evocation.

Gadwin: Mul Knight S:19 D:13 C:18 I:15 W:9 H:11 Feat: Greatsword, Cleave.

Valina:Half-elf Knight S:12 D:20 C:11 I:13 W:10 H:11 Feat: Longbow, Point blank

The elementals take out , Kassar and Valina so fast that I thought it was the end, I only took one more elemental before Boladin went out. It was up to Gadwin against 2 elemental, and he did itwith so much problem. Gadwin is indeed the better char in my team.
I had only enough gold for the Missile wand, so I went to gamble my money to see if i could get enough money for the healing wand, lucky i was, I won, and I got my healing wand.
The orc raid was very easy with only Boladin going down, just made a wall of man and Gadwin and Valina took it allI got level 2

Gadwin: Dodge

Valina: Precise shot.

The centipide in the bathrrom killed Kassar in one hit. but it still was killed easily.

The thugs in corintah become a race between their leader and Gadwin to take out the trash. Gadwin again proves to be the key of survival of the team, beating their leader in a 1 on 1, its gonna be gadwin the only hero sorrounded by useless morons?

3 lizards in corintah proceed to again take my team while Gadwin saves the day.

4 lizards in the house give no fight at all, even Kassar with mere magic missiles seemed like a champ

Level 3:
Gadwin: Mobility
Boladin: Improved initiative Spells: Cure moderate wounds, Sonic burst.
Kassar: Improved initiative Spells: Web, Bull's strength.
Valina: Forge Weapon and Armor

After forgin a Greatsword and composite longbow masterwork, I fight a shaman that stands no chance against 4 chars.

2 lizards in a room prove a waste of time, specially because they do some damage so i have to go heal to the keep.

The same can be said about 3 snakes in other room, but at least they give me a +1 protection ring that I quikcly give to Kassar the wizard.

3 centipides seem to follow the pattern, this fights are annoying.

At last an intersting fight, when my team gets ambushed by the whole lizard team.
Im sad to see improved initiated didnt had any use when i was quickly sorrounded before i could move a finger.
Moreover im starting to worry about some of my choice, The cleric is helping the team with summons and heals (and some meatshield), The wizard is finish what gadwin left almost dead and, its bull strength proves great.
But Valina is nothing else than meatshield, her damage is pathetic at most, I wonder if she will do anything good for the team, maybe when I can forge Good arrows? I can only hope.

Leve 4:
After the talk with the people of the village, I get to level 4
Gadwin: +1 Str, Feats:Greatsword Specialization
Boladin: +1 Wis, Spells: Remove paralysis, Silence.
Kassar: +1 Int, Spells: Glitterdust, Daze monster.
Valina: +1 Con, Feats: Longbow Specialization.

I decide to see if I can do the possible sidequests before going to that orc fort which was my doom the last time.

I check the journal so I will go to the southwest cave to look for that ring. I talk with some bears that ASK ME to bring them zombie meat for a fireplace, why would i want a fireplace when I have access to it in the keep , to wich i have free way into?. No idea.

I fight 3 centipides in the entrance, wich pose almost no problem, great, another annoying useless fights, except now some spiders jump in!, maybe those centipides are just there soften me? no spideres dont want to fight, another useless fight, I go heal and comeback.

Wow another useless fight against 2 zombies, if it werent because i know the orc fortress is hard i would give up at this point.

Ok now we are talking I see some skeletons and 2 spiders trap me, that fight scared me , my wizard sorrounded by skeletons while the web make sure gadwin couldnt help, The fire elemental saved
teh day, and make me wonder if its worth to spend 2 feats in order to improve elementals (if it was just one, i would in a second), they are proving to be very usefull.

I need to get bludgeon weapons if there is gonna be more skeletons, just in case, again I feel my improved initiative was a wasted feat.

Anyway now im scared in may find the end in this dungeon, I forge a heavy flail and a warhammer in case more of these skeletons appear.

A useless snake die and waste my time. So does a war spider, even if it gives me an idea what i may follow next.

I fight the Queen spider and his friends, the fight seems to go easy , as i have all my chars full health by the time only queen spider is alive. I take her down little by little until she pulls some weird Coup de grace that i dont undrestand where it came from, killing my cleric, for good.
Since he is the only one that could cast Raise the dead, even if i buy a scroll, I have no way to revive him, also no way to produce scrolls of healings needed to go further. So with my cleric dead, I have a "technical lose", and thus Gadwin , Valina and Kassar, decide to leave the knighthood and dedicate their lifes to raise crops.

Re: My 2nd run in the game

PostPosted: Sun Apr 24, 2011 11:25 pm
by BlueSalamander
On battle difficulty: set encounters do not scale up or down according to your party's level, so clearly some fights that you could have tried at level 2 will seem easy if you attempt them at level 4. In any case, not all battles have to be challenging, and some won't be, simply because of lucky rolls.

On cleric death: that is when you should reload your saved game. Or else go to one of the NPC clerics and get your character resurrected for some gold. Maybe the cleric was paralysed due to Dexterity having dropped to 0.

It's a good idea to finish the game in normal mode before attempting iron-man mode.

Re: My 2nd run in the game

PostPosted: Mon Apr 25, 2011 12:39 am
by Waterd103
Btw im doing the third round now that I have 2 clerics Im just beyond the fortress now.

One of my problems is that some battles are not challenging, or most battles are not challenging, not because lack of scale, which im ok with , but they are not challenging just because they are just intended to not be challenging. I will post my 3rd run when it finishes. But after some really big and hard battles, then you fight wolves or orcs that do absolutely nothing. And that happens in several occasions.
If the fight is not there to be a challenge, i guess its there to advance the plot. But those are neither, if they have no purpose why they are there in first place?

I want to now that in this 3rd run of ironman, I have a rule of only 1 rest per every campfire. At this point I realize it doesnt make the game much harder, since Scribe scrolls is so cheap that you can basically go through the game probably not resting even once, I just make this comment as of this thread. viewtopic.php?f=5&t=165

Most RPGS I know, If you lose a char you can revive it even if you dont have a cleric from early on. If you cant revive it, cleric is not esential because you can buy health potions (read the "you NEED cleric in this game), Really its the first time I play an RPG where losing one member, one specific member, automatically loses you the game. or Close to it. Ive heard same thing if you only have a wizard and get petrified, he is gone for good.

Im not saying its wrong or right, Im saying that if you deviate from this from the norm, I would like to know beforehand that I need a cleric, and that the death of the cleric for a longtime means autolose.

The reload comment seems weird. IT means like the design is justified on the idea that the player will just reload? Personally I dont see the point of playing RPG that way, If i can just reload when something bad happens, then why would I care if something bad happens if I can just reload? why even try to think or do anything? Just smash buttons and at the wrong event, just reload.
It seems to me if the team dies it dies, thats the point of roleplaying to me.
I know some people like to just smash buttons and see how their avatar kill things regardless of input or decision, thats why games like diablo are popular, but if thats the case maybe the game should just have an option where you just left click on things and they die?

Re: My 2nd run in the game

PostPosted: Mon Apr 25, 2011 10:12 am
by Tiavals
Clearly your gaming ideology is drasticly different from 99% of people. I will try to give a few answers.

From my point of view, the so called pointless battles exist to drain the resources of the player, because even if you take a few points of damage, that will make later battles harder. Now, this becomes fairly pointless once you realize the usefulness of scribing scrolls. If you don't scribe anything, these battles suddenly have a lot more meaning.

As for playing Ironman, enjoy never playing the game through. I would be quite surprised if you ever did, since the game has it's fair share of difficult battles that have a high probability of insta kill on the first round without you being able to do absolutely anything. But I suppose I can understand your decision. I enjoy playing roguelikes, because they are always on ironman mode, but the difference is in that they are different each time, whereas KOTC is always the same.

As for needing to know that you need a cleric to play, that is why it's recommended to play the game without Ironman first. You'll understand how things work, and be spared from a few dozen surprises that will cause you to uninstall the game and rage about it when they happen.

As for reloading, it is simply realistic. Some people find some battles harder than others, and some find the game harder than others. It is impossible to make a battle that everyone will find equally difficult, and that difficulty is the correct one. Making 200 battles, where each is just so hard that everyone can beat it is quite impossible. Thus the mechanic of reloading exists, so you can make the battles more difficult, but because everyone can try them multiple times, the enjoyment will be good for everyone. Once you finally beat the battle after 5 reloads, you will feel very satisfied by the feat. If you had played the game at Ironman mode and failed the 4th time at the same battle, you will probably kill yourself.

The point of "reloading if something bad happens", is that most people don't do it, because it's annoying. They only reload when they encounter things that are beyond their ability to bear them. For instance, you have only 1 cleric and he dies, you reload. If just your fighter dies, you will likely just Raise Dead him, even though it means his experience drops a lot.
As for thinking, ít seems to me that you have neither played KOTC too far, nor Diablo much at all. My experience is quite different with both games. Both are difficult, and if you play without thinking, chances are you will perish. And indeed, that you will in fact never beat a given challenge because you don't think. It's the same as saying that by randomly moving the pieces, you will win at chess against a proficient player. Sure, it'll happen, but only if you try billions of times, and most people don't live long enough to do so. Therefore, to advance in the game(and gain the feeling of satisfaction from succeeding in a battle with your own wits) people think as they play. To beat a challenge with your own skills is a very nice thing. That's the reason people play most games. They gain pleasure from beating others or overcoming challenges. People don't play chess because they're roleplaying a kingdom that's in war with another, and just randomly moving the pieces until they lose. No, they play it because they have the will to win. The theme in chess, while light, is something that serves to enhance the experience, it is not the point of the game as such. You might as well replace king with frog, and pawn with cheese. The theme would change immensly, but the game would essentially be the same. While for roleplaying games, the theme is especially important, so are the underlying challenges as well. Such is the meaning of computer games. Live-action-roleplaying exists for those who do not care about mechanics, but about only the story, as such.

I believe I have now tried to explain most of your points to the best of my ability. Hopefully this'll help you to understand some of the underlying design mechanics involved in games such as these.

Re: My 2nd run in the game

PostPosted: Mon Apr 25, 2011 4:14 pm
by Waterd103
Your response is very good, but if you are interested in this discussion, there are a few things that i dont agree with.

From my point of view, the so called pointless battles exist to drain the resources of the player, because even if you take a few points of damage, that will make later battles harder. Now, this becomes fairly pointless once you realize the usefulness of scribing scrolls. If you don't scribe anything, these battles suddenly have a lot more meaning.

Except most of these pointless battles are near a campfire, so, even if you dont use scribe scrolls its FULL of meaningless battles.


As for playing Ironman, enjoy never playing the game through...

I dont need to finish the game to enjoy it, as long as the run its fun. It seems bad that sometimes you lose with no chance whatsoever tough (according to you , didnt experience that yet). and YEs i like the rougelike feeling.
As for needing to know that you need a cleric to play, that is why it's recommended to play the game without Ironman first...

There is not alternative to having a Cleric (or Wizard for flesh to stone) you must have it, PERIOD.Its the first RPG i see that do this, and i dont think its a good design decision.
The idea that to know I I need a cleric thats why its a good idea to play the first beforehand. First its not like the game last 30 minutes. SEcond, If i know the surprises, then i dont enjoy the game as much, thats the main reason i do Ironman mode to be honest. I find the fun in trying in finding and solving unknown situations.
In other RPGS if you dont have a cleric or wizard, you can hire the service for a price.
If you dont have a rouge to solve a situation in games, there is always a way to solve, you may even miss some rewards or just have a harder fight.
Imagine you add to this game a ROUGE class, and is the only one that can unlock doors, and you put a door 2 hours into the game that you need to open to advance in the game but only a rouge can do it. So if you got that point and you dont have a ROUGE thats the end, is impossible to pass. Its completly crazy deisgn decision and is similar to it. You should tell the player before hand he NEEDS a rouge i the party in the game, the same way you should inform the player he needs a Cleric.
Im currently level 13 and I didnt find any NPC cleric, without a cleric, I would be blind, crippled, etc, because i cant even hire restoration , or remove blindness.

As for reloading,

Its ok to have the option, is ok to Expect people to reload, but What i dont think its ok is to design the game so people HAVE to reload to finish the game. So far it doesnt seem is the case here though.
My complain is that in the game you need a cleric, because there isnt one in the game, and the game doesnt hint you thats the case or where is one, im level 13 now and still didnt see an NPC cleric.
Worst case scenarios, even most rpgs allow you to create a new char if you dont want to revive, even if level 1. Something else this game do not allow.

its ok to give reloading as an option, as it may be perfectly ok to add a God mode cheat. So if people want to get through it with them, its ok, but expect it to be a main feature of the game is not ok imo.
Its like adding such God mode and then say that to pass certain pass you need to active the God mode. In both cases it removes the suspension of disbelief and is calling for an external mechanic to come into play.

nor Diablo much at all.
Diablo 2 has almost no thinking whatsoever, I finished the game in very hard without ever losing once on my first try, as part of a challenge with a group of friends.
Just grind non stop until the creatures are too weak for you, then advance, its just right click and take potions against boss, and anything non boss is just a bad joke. I have no idea what you are talking about where is the difficulty in Diablo 2. You just right click and the game play itself. The only non dumb thing that you should do is going further than your level allows. Knowing only that, and being enough , i wouldnt call it thinking or difficult.
In case it isnt obvious at this point , I play all RPG games in ironman mode. and generally dont do many runs, 5 max, probably less. As a result as you may imagine, i dont get to the end of every RPG I play, Diablo 2 was the first game I did end the game without losing in my first run. And there is a very short list of that.

Actually KOTC, with monster respawn is equally easy, you can just grind non stop and outlevel everything, and its amazing that is on by default. Maybe still the end of the game where is balanced by max levels and max equipment there is a chance to lose..

But I think its pointless to argue how hard games are. And I dont find satisfying getting through some place after 5 reloads, more like sad. If others enjoy it, good for them.
The difference between Chess and beating an RPG, is that when you beat an RPG after several loads, its just plain knowledge of whats ahead what made you win. In chess if you win, its not by sheer knowledge, unless your opponent plays the same every-time. In chess your opponent will adapt at how you play, in RPG the opponent will not. Thus just knowing what your opponent or the game will do in an RPG is enough to beat it, in chess thats not true because a good player will change and re-adapt. For that reason, is not a good example.

Re: My 2nd run in the game

PostPosted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 1:25 pm
by BlueSalamander
From my point of view, easy battles exist in RPGs for various reasons:

1) filler: standardised battles of low challenge fill up a game that could otherwise seem too short or too empty. What self-respecting overlord doesn't have weak minions?

2) feeling of power: easy battles demonstrate to the player that his characters have become stronger.

3) grind: easy battles can be used for the accumulation of experience points and gold.

If you want your game to be really hard, then I suggest you don't give 20 Strength to your Knight. As you said, at low levels, a character with 20 Strength is head and shoulders above the rest.

NPC Clerics (the one in Vanicia can be accessed right from the start) can remove Petrification as well as other permanent problems from all your characters in exchange of gold. The death of a cleric is definitely not auto-lose.

Tiavals wrote:Once you finally beat the battle after 5 reloads, you will feel very satisfied by the feat. If you had played the game at Ironman mode and failed the 4th time at the same battle, you will probably kill yourself.
Very true! :lol:

You might as well replace king with frog, and pawn with cheese.
That might actually be a good idea! :lol:

Waterd103 wrote:There is not alternative to having a Cleric (or Wizard for flesh to stone) you must have it, PERIOD.Its the first RPG i see that do this, and i dont think its a good design decision.
Frankly, it was not a conscious design decision per se. I've just taken the most important character classes from the ruleset. That's all.
It makes sense that to be effective, your party should have one of each character class, but there's nothing stopping you from trying with four wizards or four knights.

As I mentioned several times, there are NPC clerics and one of them is available right from the start; so if you like going back and forth just to heal your characters, suit yourself.

Plenty of games requiring the creation of a party present the same situation to the player. Dark Sun, Bard's Tale, Wizardry, the Gold Box games... you can't do well in any of these games if your party is entirely made up of melee fighters, or if you make a conscious effort to avoid all healer types. It's common sense really, I shouldn't have to type this.

Re: My 2nd run in the game

PostPosted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 4:13 pm
by Waterd103
First, i want to state that my comments are in good faith, I want to be constructive, and im aware that when i state something is valid/not, wrong/right is on my own views on how games are more or less enjoyable, So I really try to be constructive here, whether I actually im or not.
Now with that out of the way.

I dont feel those are valid reasons: Felling empty or too short its a lot less problematic that to be artificially extended. It seems you love darksun: Shattered lands as the game seems inspired and give homages to it at every second, specially at the start. (Since darksun is one of my favorites games, I appreciate them). So lets compare it to darksun.
One of the MAIN things that Darksun does well, or I should say great (and I know darksun does many things wrong), Is that the game do not feel artificially extended. Every battle feels natural. Even easy battle, even battles with minions are there for plot purposes.

Just look at the probably most straightforward dungeon in Darksun, which is the Dagolar one.
First when you enter you fight 4 powered slims, which are a welcome to what the place is, and are not wimps. They also set the peace of where you are getting into.
Then you have a very easy fight against 4 zombie guardians, but those are there because you need to take the necklaces to get through the door.
As soon as you enter and the door slam behind you and you are presented with the right hand of Dagolar, in a fight that feels important, Then you fight 4 Zombie guards. Again his right hand, more slims if you toy with his books. Then Dagolar himself.

That differs completly from the approach of KOTC, I just got past the giant fortress in my run. I was doing an LP in the codex forum but i quitted in the middle of it with the LP. If you look at my Notepad about the run "I fight 2 giants" Now 5" , "now I fight 4 giants in a room" "now I fight 10 giants in a room"
At which point I got frustrated , bored and just realized that thats not even worth to post. Note that this design line can be seen during the other quests, in the giant fortress it goes out of proportions.
At this point Im almost only playing just to finish the ironman run and because I plan to post a review on Sirlin.net, which is a design site I frequent a lot. (incidentally because KOTC does many many things amazingly right And I want people there to see that, things that many current RPGS do not do right)

If the dagolar place would be done under KOTC philosophy. I would fight the powered slims in 10 different rooms, and the zombie guardians 6-8 times instead of 2 (at least)

1) filler: standardised battles of low challenge fill up a game that could otherwise seem too short or too empty. What self-respecting overlord doesn't have weak minions?


In darksun I get the "I fight the minions, feeling" without dwelling into repetitive and pointless territory. Moreover, you can still get the minions part, and present a challenge. in two ways, Make the PCs fight a HORDE of them at once. (Wich is something Darksun does), or let the player get into the "lets be drained of resources territory" Limiting the potential rest, which KOTC does SOMETIMES, as does Darksun: SL. Of course with Scribe scrolls and enchant wand is a moot point tough. Im doing the ironman run with "only 1 use per fireplace" And I realize So far, i dont even need the fireplaces. I can cast all the spells from scrolls and heal all with my clerics for super cheap price. In fact the limitation of spells per rest seems a joke, since even at Zero, I wouldnt care with enchant wand and scribe scrolls.
But thats not the point, if you set the situation as to minions to be able to drain the party, thats good enough.

2) feeling of power: easy battles demonstrate to the player that his characters have become stronger.


If you make the player fight a horde of minions he will feel it anyway, or even see that previous monsters. Where one was troublesome, now the team can beat group of them. In any case, the player dont need to be reminded during 30 fights that his chars are stronger.

3) grind: easy battles can be used for the accumulation of experience points and gold.

First the game do not need to give gold and experience to the player, by force. Change the rules, give exp and gold to the player with different excuse, give him those by presenting him challenges or just adapt the story or the events or the fights as to fit the probable level/experience of the PC at certain point.

If you want your game to be really hard, then I suggest you don't give 20 Strength to your Knight. As you said, at low levels, a character with 20 Strength is head and shoulders above the rest.


The problem is not how the game is hard or easy, Its abou pointless fights, just a few, but most of the fights in the game.
If I somehow change the rules as to make my party weaker so those pointles fights challenging , then the REAL fights would be impossible. As its clear to me in the giant fortress. When I was bored, i was just click as fast as possible to kill the giants in every room. and had a wand with ice storm, and kill, kill, kill, no fight was any trouble at all. Then I get to the King of fire giants. And I almost lose the game there. And I guess if I didnt had 4 +Fire protection Rings, I would lose. Its true that I was a little confident by how easily I was wiping out giants, but still the fight ended with only one char alive. My cleric. (even if full health).

So making my chars weaker wouldnt work really., because or one fight is too hard or the 30 fights are too easy.

Indeed the only reason I did run with one max stat was that I wanted to play with the rules of the ironman challenge in the RPG Codex.
http://rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php ... 66#1066566

NPC Clerics (the one in Vanicia can be accessed right from the start) can remove Petrification as well as other permanent problems from all your characters in exchange of gold. The death of a cleric is definitely not auto-lose.

Expecting the player to go there right away, and not ending in any other place where they would die because low or medium level or to know that seem bad.
I should know that? not.
Lets say I should assume there is a cleric in some other town, If I end in other place , looking for a cleric I may as well die, since im completely outleveled. More important the town that is closer, have a few fights that would completely destroy the party at low levels.
Its nice that it removes petrification tough.
There should be a cleric on the keep or THE SLIGHTEST hint that there is a cleric in Venice right from the start. Or you should remove possible fights in the other towns.

I see that you copy many things from Darksun: SL and that is great, But I think the biggest and strongest point in DS was how fights arent repeititive, pointless, and most fights have a plot meaning more than "Just another 4 giants in another room, exactly like the ones I killed 10 times already".
Im sad that you didnt decide to copy Darksun strongest point.

Re: My 2nd run in the game

PostPosted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 5:46 pm
by BlueSalamander
Waterd103 wrote:In darksun I get the "I fight the minions, feeling" without dwelling into repetitive and pointless territory. Moreover, you can still get the minions part, and present a challenge. in two ways, Make the PCs fight a HORDE of them at once.
Okay. You're a partisan of more challenging battles, and situations that force the player to be conservative. I agree with these things. I guess what I don't agree with, is the dissection of every battle in the game and the labelling of every battle you find easy as 'annoying', 'pointless', 'useless', etc. What one may find easy, another may not; what one may find annoying, another may enjoy. And criticism is easy, but art is difficult.

Recently, I was playing Final Fantasy 3 on Nintendo DS Lite, I suppose you hate that kind of RPG. The party is stopped every four steps in order to fight the same old couple of skeletons, and there's no way to speed up the battles...

I remember the first time I tried to kill Dagolar in Dark Sun. :lol: Ten super slimes appear in front of him, and they seem invulnerable if you haven't levelled up a lot or you don't have magic weapons. Plus, you can't get out of the dungeon until you finish that fight... Balkazar's babaus are nasty too, since they can destroy your equipment.

If I somehow change the rules as to make my party weaker so those pointles fights challenging , then the REAL fights would be impossible.
I think that if you decrease your character stats, you will have to choose your spells more carefully, but you will still be able to win.

When I was bored, i was just click as fast as possible to kill the giants in every room.
You don't really have to kill all the giants, just the leaders. But I agree, too many of them, or not enough, depending on how you look at it.

Indeed the only reason I did run with one max stat was that I wanted to play with the rules of the ironman challenge in the RPG Codex.
http://rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php ... 66#1066566
That is one cool thread.

Expecting the player to go there right away, and not ending in any other place where they would die because low or medium level or to know that seem bad.
I should know that? not.
I really don't expect the player to go there first. It's there only because it was requested after the game was released. In the beginning, even NPC clerics could not heal you. What I do expect, is for the player to have a cleric or two in the party, and to reload if they get killed.

There should be a cleric on the keep or THE SLIGHTEST hint that there is a cleric in Venice right from the start.
It would make sense, I agree. As I said, when I made the game I expected the player to rely on his own cleric.

I see that you copy many things from Darksun: SL and that is great, But I think the biggest and strongest point in DS was how fights arent repeititive, pointless, and most fights have a plot meaning more than "Just another 4 giants in another room, exactly like the ones I killed 10 times already".
Well, even Dark Sun Shattered Lands had areas of fighting without plot. The volcano (gem field) area comes to mind (an entire map full of thri-kreens without dialogue), as well as the monster area east of the village of Gedron. The lava rift with the hermit and the desert area with a wagon train are also very 'plot-light'. Dark Sun Wake of the Ravager also had some plot-less fighting. The reason why games don't have more plot lines is simply that it takes more work. KotC wasn't intended to be perfect, just enjoyable, and for most players, it is.

Re: My 2nd run in the game

PostPosted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 6:37 pm
by Waterd103
I liked most of your answers, so I will not answer to that, I will answer mostly the last paragraph.

Well, even Dark Sun Shattered Lands had areas of fighting without plot. The volcano (gem field) area comes to mind (an entire map full of thri-kreens without dialogue), as well as the monster area east of the village of Gedron. The lava rift with the hermit and the desert area with a wagon train are also very 'plot-light'. Dark Sun Wake of the Ravager also had some plot-less fighting. The reason why games don't have more plot lines is simply that it takes more work. KotC wasn't intended to be perfect, just enjoyable, and for most players, it is.


Yes darksun had some of those, and some of those may be ok, even if i found the thri kreen part to be rather pointless.

Im well aware that making all that dialogue, and tricks/triggers and plot related things are a lot of work. The problem here is that I think Kotc actually do not have much less, dialogue, trigger or plot that darksun shattered lands. But shattered lands is a lot shorter game. But its so because its not artificially prolonged. KOTC seem to say "I want to make the game 30+ long" And you aimed to fill that time with a lot of monsters and meaningless repetitive fights.

Now it would be a valid argument. "People prefer to have 30 hour game of mediocre quality than 5-10 of high quality' or you could even argue that people enjoy killing the same monster 20 times, even when there is no challenge. AS you guessed right , I hate final fantasy games, with the huge exception of Final fantasy tactics. Which its one of my favorite games.

If you want people to have their chars kill bears for hours, you can make sidequest with heavy grinding, wich is easier to do, just put monsters and rooms and people enter and kill.
I guess you merged the two, the plot fight with the Grinding fights in the same game, making it longer but lower quality. I prefer shorter, non repetitve and higher quality.

Again, I think it would be good if you support my kind of player by moving those fights to sidequest only, or if you merge both, at least make the "grinding" challenging, by making those drain players resources. Maybe balance that part of the game as if scribe scrolls/wands isnt in the game, and give the player a "hard " difficulty where those feats arent there.
The idea you seem to try to implement of draining players resources with sporadic campfires in the dungeons would work, if the game is balanced around not having scribe scrolls/enchant wand I guess. That way the grinding may be slightly better since at least those fight have a meaning. So maybe you are even forced to use crappy spells and make them work because you put scrolls on the dungeon for free. I dont know, many things can work, I should think abou tit more to put better ideas.

In any case, about the comment that KOTC do not meant o be perfect. I feel you take this as a personal attack and it isnt. Im here because I liked some things of the KOTC. Specially the interface. Im not kidding in that if i could play any RPG, past, present and future, I would like to play it in KOTC interface/engine, the only thing that really annoys me is the low resolution,, I play windowed just because it allow higher resolution, and i read you are trying to improve that in KOTC2. Its not personal, and despite KOTC is not perfect, it doesnt mean KOTC2 couldnt be better, so if there place to improve, welcome it is.

Re: My 2nd run in the game

PostPosted: Sun Jun 05, 2011 12:22 pm
by Opipo
Waterd103 wrote...

Diablo 2 has almost no thinking whatsoever, I finished the game in very hard without ever losing once on my first try, as part of a challenge with a group of friends.
Just grind non stop until the creatures are too weak for you, then advance, its just right click and take potions against boss, and anything non boss is just a bad joke. I have no idea what you are talking about where is the difficulty in Diablo 2.

Then you make a comment about an unknown game like KofC it could pass, since noone knows what game mechanics and characters are capable of. But talking about an old, popular and explored game, like Diablo 2 it is obvious youre not telling the truth, even unintentionally, and missing some key element, that made the game easy for you only. Implementing any kind of changes w/o knowing that, would lead to completely disastrous and unpredicted outcomes, and youd probably be the first to criticize them. As seen in the cleric example, to improve difficulty and tactical gameplay, healing is restricted to clerics, and here you are complaining why cant anyone heal/res, contradicting the point made earlier.

Power in D2 comes from items, not levels, levels and stats are mainly just for fulfilling item reqs. No amount of grinding would help here. The scariest enemies in d2 are all non boss. Non obvious mobs , instakilling people in a non obvious way. If you didnt die, it just means someone more powerful took the hit, although its not uncommon for the entire party to die in seconds, later in the game. I can make a level1 char complete "very hard", doesnt make the game easy, because all the work was done by my lvl90 companion hehe.