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#555321 21/09/14 03:55 AM
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Each time i actually start to get immersed into this world, I ed up digging some tomb or open some chest or enter a certain house in the black cove. AND BOOM! Everyone is dead from a sudden huge explosion and I have to restart over again from the last place is saved for no actual reason. Its not even funny or challenging its just plain sad that someone decided to make those events exist. Really a immersion and game breaker.

Hew.

Titanarrow #555327 21/09/14 05:29 AM
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I would somewhat disagree with the black cove example, as there is a solution to that one (while perhaps not the most brilliant puzzle); but yeah, I was pretty disappointed by the choice for graves to abruptly kill everyone. It just, isn't a very fun punishment.

'When digging graves players will often be prompted to load an earlier save'

Last edited by synra; 21/09/14 05:29 AM.
Titanarrow #555332 21/09/14 06:51 AM
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I agree. Instant death without warning is never fun.... it makes you want to save all the time and that breaks immerision and feels a bit like cheating.

Titanarrow #555339 21/09/14 09:41 AM
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Well, it is not like saving regularly is very complicated - I hit F5 every 5 minutes (and the saving process takes maybe 2-3 seconds) and I already have >150 hard saves (although I am not even close to finishing the game)... Beside, grave digging IS dangerous and an immoral task. I remember the one grave in Cyseal, where characters even discuss whether they should dig it up or leave the dead rest in peace (and there is even a warning "are you really sure you want to dig it up?")

Elwyn #555340 21/09/14 09:51 AM
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Originally Posted by Elwyn
Beside, grave digging IS dangerous and an immoral task. I remember the one grave in Cyseal, where characters even discuss whether they should dig it up or leave the dead rest in peace (and there is even a warning "are you really sure you want to dig it up?")


We're not debating that it presently is dangerous (that much is rather obvious). But why thematically should it be? Were a skeleton to arise, that would hardly be an issue for the source hunters.

And the very same characters that supposedly warned me (if I happened to approach the particular grave you mention) are the same that constantly squeak "I've spotted something!" when I encounter a grave.

The issue of morality is only interesting when players are free to make meaningful choices. At other times Larian rewards immoral players, such as by buffs associated with negative traits (egotistical, heartless..). I don't debate there should be punishment associated with some player choices, but the punishment should be engaging, or even fun (jump scares, debuffs, fights, reputation loss etc).

Last edited by synra; 21/09/14 10:02 AM.
synra #555342 21/09/14 10:26 AM
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Originally Posted by synra

The issue of morality is only interesting when players are free to make meaningful choices. At other times Larian rewards immoral players, such as by buffs associated with negative traits (egotistical, heartless..). I don't debate there should be punishment associated with some player choices, but the punishment should be engaging, or even fun (jump scares, debuffs, fights, reputation loss etc).


Well, I agree that there are more interesting punishments than instadeath.

Regarding the one grave in Cyseal there is, however, a nice backround insider story attached to it. Do you notice this one cute fluffy sheep standing next to the grave? It can be actually considered as THE sheep which gave birth to all the weresheep. Back in Kickstarter days, Swen and David were streaming the game on Twitch TV. So, at one point, they came to this house with the cute white fluffy sheep which was merrily turning somersaults in a blissful ignorance of the impending danger. Then, something went horribly wrong and the sheep was fireballed... and exploded... Of course, its sad fate didn't go unnoticed and people in Kickstarter comments were eagerly discussing the sheep and how it could defend itself from the unjustified source hunter attacks. And here is where the weresheep first saw the light of the day... This however, did not prevent some people during following Twitch streams from demanding that the one sheep should be again fireballed - fireballing a sheep actually became something like a running gag.

So, I believe, with this one exploding grave in Cyseal Larians took vengeance for all those innocent fireballed sheep... It actually gave me a very good laugh and I was gently reminded of the good old Kickstarter days.

Last edited by Elwyn; 21/09/14 10:27 AM.
Titanarrow #555345 21/09/14 10:54 AM
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There are exactly two points in the game where sudden death is unavoidable without a real proper warning. One of the graves on the Church graveyard in Cyseal and the crypt graves in Astartes temple Luculla mines. The Black Cove trap is obvious, as the visible mounts for fire death should be known from former expeditions like the blacksmith cellar in Cyseal. The trap trigger can be easily spotted (and avoided) with perception 9. No perception in your party? Bad and obviously bad party setup!

Well, actually only the first one - the visible lava eruption in the crypt should warn you to be cautious.

So, I disagree except for the first item. And quite frankly - as a newbie to RPG I would expect some real danger, otherwise it would be a Kindergarten with magic.

Regards,
Thorsten

Last edited by Thorsten; 21/09/14 07:28 PM.
Titanarrow #555351 21/09/14 12:00 PM
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Well for sure an ironman run in this game would be useless. You'd never leave the first map.

And I have to agree, if you can't beat the game without Meta-gaming, then what you have is some very poor game design.

Titanarrow #555352 21/09/14 12:23 PM
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I think the only 'insta' death I remember was the one in the crypt. The rest of them seemed rather obvious but maybe I'm missing something ?

LeBurns #555356 21/09/14 02:15 PM
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Originally Posted by LeBurns
Well for sure an ironman run in this game would be useless. You'd never leave the first map.


Perhaps in a first run through. Also an ironman run doesn't need to be a completionist run.

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Originally Posted by Horrorscope
Originally Posted by LeBurns
Well for sure an ironman run in this game would be useless. You'd never leave the first map.


Perhaps in a first run through. Also an ironman run doesn't need to be a completionist run.


But if you do it on the second run then you are just Meta-Gaming, which is even worse IMO.

Titanarrow #555481 22/09/14 02:25 PM
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The only "party wipe" grave in the game is the one next to the cheerful sheep in front of Thelyron's clinic. This is the only grave that will always kill your entire party, no matter how much health they have and how far away they are. This is also why the game gives you not one, but two opportunities to back away from the grave after attempting to dig it for the first time.

Other trapped graves in the game usually explode as an invisible mine at the center of the grave. You can usually avoid death by digging with a character who has high CON and fire resistance while the rest of the party keeps their distance - that's how I dug up every grave around Cyseal's old church without having to reload.

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Originally Posted by Emberstrife
Other trapped graves in the game usually explode as an invisible mine at the center of the grave. You can usually avoid death by digging with a character who has high CON and fire resistance while the rest of the party keeps their distance - that's how I dug up every grave around Cyseal's old church without having to reload.


Yup, thats the way to do it smile No 'save cheating' or immersion breaking this way, just being cautious and using the game mechanics as they were intended (I guess).

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Originally Posted by Emberstrife

Other trapped graves in the game usually explode as an invisible mine at the center of the grave. You can usually avoid death by digging with a character who has high CON and fire resistance while the rest of the party keeps their distance - that's how I dug up every grave around Cyseal's old church without having to reload.


I am NOT going to ask how you figured that you have to use a character with high fire resistance. Instead of air, water, earth or poison resistance. Quite frankly - either pure luck or the first bad experience and a re-try I guess?

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Thorsten

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Originally Posted by Jacob Marner
I agree. Instant death without warning is never fun.... it makes you want to save all the time and that breaks immerision and feels a bit like cheating.


It always amazes me the ideas people develop about how games are "supposed" to be played...;) A simple read through of the game instructions (yes, the game-play instructions written by the game creators) provides the following information on the proper way of playing the game: "save early, save often." (Possibly paraphrased, but dead accurate.) It's not a suggestion, it's a rule for playing the game successfully. Of course, playing successfully might not be what the player wants. He might prefer to play the game unsuccessfully, over and over again, and then write complaints in forums as to how impossible the game is to complete if one breaks the "save early, save often" game rule.

I've been playing rpgs for decades and I *always* save before taking a risk. I learned that rule of the genre from the start. It's not a matter of immersion--even in real life we hesitate (well, most of us) before taking a risk, and we think about what we are doing. Yes, some of the graves are booby-trapped--so saving ahead of digging an unknown, perhaps booby-trapped grave is simply...common sense. It doesn't pay to be angry with the game developer because you have no common sense, and because you refuse to heed his instructions about saving your games regularly. Just learn from your mistake and strive not to make it again, if possible. Saving early and saving often is a wonderful cure for frustration.

Lots of developer time and energy goes into creating a sleek, fast, efficient and reliable save-on-demand, save-anywhere system. To not use it is to not properly play the game, imo, and is not following the game-play instructions.

Want frustration? Play a brain-dead checkpoint-save game which might force you to blow yourself up ten times before you manage to get past the danger to place where *the developers* decide to let you save the game. Now *that's* immersion breaking...;)


I'm never wrong about anything, and so if you see an error in any of my posts you will know immediately that I did not write it...;)
Waltc #555671 24/09/14 03:29 PM
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Originally Posted by Waltc
It doesn't pay to be angry with the game developer because you have no common sense, [...]


About that, if one has no common sense, then you can't ask them to have the common sense to have common sense, because they don't have it, as is presumed.

But I do agree that harping on the devs for adding in some dangerous sidetracks in the middle of a low-leveled area is... silly. We're talking about a proper RPG, not some action game with RPG elements that make it be named a sort of RPG (i.e. action-RPG). On top of that, an RPG that the devs made clear is made with old-school in mind. Those came with plenty of save, resume playing, save again, continue, save just to be sure, etc.

Now, this newer trend of "don't make me save"ers does baffle me a little. Would they rather the game detect where they feel a slight anxiety and save for them, or maybe retread half an hour worth of play time due to how long ago the last auto save was made?

There is no consensus on how it should be done. Argue this way all you want, there's plenty that will argue against. In such cases, the devs are totally free to go with what they choose, because one can't satisfy both sides of a divide at the same time.

So says I, the insignificant one.


Unless otherwise specified, just an opinion or simple curiosity.
Thorsten #555680 24/09/14 06:58 PM
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Originally Posted by Thorsten
Originally Posted by Emberstrife

Other trapped graves in the game usually explode as an invisible mine at the center of the grave. You can usually avoid death by digging with a character who has high CON and fire resistance while the rest of the party keeps their distance - that's how I dug up every grave around Cyseal's old church without having to reload.


I am NOT going to ask how you figured that you have to use a character with high fire resistance. Instead of air, water, earth or poison resistance. Quite frankly - either pure luck or the first bad experience and a re-try I guess?

Regards,
Thorsten

Noticing that most traps do fire or poison damage. Having said that I have more poison resistance in the beginning because of so much undead.

By the way, separate your party if you suspect a trap, or trigger something like the one in Black Cove.

EinTroll #555686 24/09/14 08:06 PM
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Originally Posted by EinTroll


About that, if one has no common sense, then you can't ask them to have the common sense to have common sense, because they don't have it, as is presumed.


Agreed, and I like the way you put that sentiment...;) Very Funny!

Quote
But I do agree that harping on the devs for adding in some dangerous sidetracks in the middle of a low-leveled area is... silly. We're talking about a proper RPG, not some action game with RPG elements that make it be named a sort of RPG (i.e. action-RPG). On top of that, an RPG that the devs made clear is made with old-school in mind. Those came with plenty of save, resume playing, save again, continue, save just to be sure, etc.


Agree again!...I actually like and really appreciate being able to save anywhere, and I make use of it with relish. It adds to the game for me because it allows me to experiment and make choices just to see where they lead, if I've a mind to do so. It's really part of the rpg experience for me.

True Anecdote:

Years & years ago, when you could actually pick up a game box and dial the phone number of the game developer and actually *speak* with a game's developer on the phone (a member of the development team)...(!)...you could also send them snail-mail letters (this predated the Internet & email as we know it today) and they'd reply in kind! (*GASP*!)...:D (You also got whatever patches were made for the game via a snail-mail floppy.)

So...I sent a letter to the Bard's Tale II development Team (I *think* EA was the publisher, Interplay the developer, and I *think* B. Fargo produced BTII--it's been awhile)--but one of my chief complaints about the game was that it didn't have a save-anywhere/anytime feature!

Now, here's why--you'd manage to find your party successfully navigating through 20 levels down under the town (one level consisted of a 22x22 square grid which you'd map manually on graph paper!), and then suppose you wanted to save your game. Well, you'd have to retrace your steps for *all 20 levels* back up (which meant fighting re-spawned monsters all the way) until you were back in the "Adventurer's Guild", at which time you could actually *save* the state of your characters (but not their locations, etc.) Then, next session when you reloaded, you'd start again in the AG and have to fight your way down through the 20 levels you'd already mapped just to get to where you were when you quit the last game!

What this meant is that fully two-thirds of *each* gaming session was spent retracing your steps just so you could save the game state...;) So...you could play an hour and then it would take 45 minutes to an hour to get back to the AG so you could save the game before quitting the session, and then on reload you'd spend another 45 minutes to an hour just getting back to where you originally quit! Lots and lots of wasted time! Mountains of it.

Short of it is that I wrote and asked for a save-anywhere feature for just these reasons and the female member of the dev team who wrote me back thanked me for the suggestion and let me know they were implementing the save-anywhere feature as it made so much sense...!...;) True to her word, a few days later I got a patch disk in the mail with the new version of the game that would save both party location and game state anywhere and on demand! What a difference in game-play this made! (I've never forgotten this incident as you might imagine--and it also let me know that sometimes game devs develop blind spots you'd never think they'd have...;))*

Anyway...this is what makes me so keen on save-game capability today, decades later! Save-game functionality is not something trivial that should be taken for granted as there is actually a lot to it--and save-anywhere, save-on-demand is absolutely the best version of the save game format that there is, imo--so-o-o-oooo much better than check-point saves (which came later with consoles), and etc.

So maybe you can see why I think it is just so wrong-headed to underestimate the importance and value of the now-ubiquitous save anywhere/anytime game capability! And calling it "near cheating" strikes me as almost blasphemous! Heh...;)

Quote
Now, this newer trend of "don't make me save"ers does baffle me a little. Would they rather the game detect where they feel a slight anxiety and save for them, or maybe retread half an hour worth of play time due to how long ago the last auto save was made?

There is no consensus on how it should be done. Argue this way all you want, there's plenty that will argue against. In such cases, the devs are totally free to go with what they choose, because one can't satisfy both sides of a divide at the same time.

So says I, the insignificant one.


I'm like you--what's so *perplexing* about saving a game? It's our choice--left up to the player entirely! How could that be implemented any better? In these games, imo, the wisest thing a player can do is to follow the dev's advice about "saving early, saving often," and *especially* before one takes a risk in the game that *might* result in one's demise...;) Yes, it is common sense--but I can surely remember those days in gaming when save-anywhere was actually a new & novel concept...! But in this game you can even adjust the number of auto-saves the game will make if you absolutely are opposed to saving your own progress--it's just that the auto-save programming is semi-intelligent and won't know to save just before you take a risk, etc. Like playing the game itself, that sort of intelligence is *supposed* to be sitting between the keyboard and the chair!

(*The events related in the above account are true to the best of my creaking intellect, and only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.)


I'm never wrong about anything, and so if you see an error in any of my posts you will know immediately that I did not write it...;)
Titanarrow #556047 29/09/14 02:28 PM
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due to exploring Cyseal counter-clockwise, I encountered my first graves in the actual cemetery. One of the first graves I've dug up had skelly with a bomb strapped to it - my party lived through that because the guy with the Teleporter skill won initiative.... but after that he was appointed as the "Nodwick" of the party (by virtue of also having been the one to pick up the shovel in the first place)

Nodwick digs up graves while observed by the rest from a distance, has trap exploring duties (Perception 5) and is generally why all found Ressurect scrolls are not sold to vendors.

Titanarrow #556189 01/10/14 01:59 PM
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I didn't touch any grave during my first run (except Jake's of course).

**spoilers**
In my second run, I read more thoroughly Thelyron's diary about his motive for fiddling with Star Stones. So I figured, if the guy's wife is dead and he wants to revive her, she probably ISN'T in her grave. I wanted to make sure this time, so I dug it up. BOOM. Way to reward critical thinking.

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