Larian Banner: Baldur's Gate Patch 9
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Page 1 of 2 1 2
#666370 14/04/20 08:28 AM
Joined: Sep 2014
journeyman
OP Offline
journeyman
Joined: Sep 2014
Yes.
The ability to kill every NPC we come across. Bring back Biff the Understudy and his clones in case it's a plot critical NPC.
And if you're worried that it might be unimmersive/breaking the 4th wall, I have two arguments against that:
1) it's not more unimmersive then untouchable/invincible NPC's
2) players that would kill any PNC (especially plot-critical ones) are well aware of what they are doing, and are willing to the pay the price of 4th wall breaking

Joined: Mar 2013
S
veteran
Offline
veteran
S
Joined: Mar 2013
this seems to be a staple of larian games a thtis point

Joined: Aug 2014
T
member
Offline
member
T
Joined: Aug 2014
Originally Posted by Ellderon
Yes.
The ability to kill every NPC we come across. Bring back Biff the Understudy and his clones in case it's a plot critical NPC.
And if you're worried that it might be unimmersive/breaking the 4th wall, I have two arguments against that:
1) it's not more unimmersive then untouchable/invincible NPC's
2) players that would kill any PNC (especially plot-critical ones) are well aware of what they are doing, and are willing to the pay the price of 4th wall breaking


I recall a presentation (or Q&A) with Swen about something they call "n+1" or something like that, which basically means there are several ways to solve a quest (n) but there will always be a fallback option if you decide to kill everything (+1). Think of it as finding scrolls with information, or maps that lead you to the next location. Although BG3 might have a different narrative structure I think this is a great philosophy to have.

Joined: Sep 2015
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Sep 2015
I am not against the ability to kill people in the game,
but I find it strange if every importent char has a letter with your next goal in his pocket or you can simply talk to his ghost like in D:OS2.

Sometimes players deserve to fail or miss a quest if they mess up a lot or just kill everything.
Killing everyone has the advantage of getting more exp and items, so there should be some kind of downside for it.

Edit:
There is the "speak with the dead" spell for bards and clerics.
Its a lv3 spell and it has some downsides. This would work.
The dead will probably not be nice to you if they remember that you killed them.

Last edited by Madscientist; 14/04/20 11:20 AM.

groovy Prof. Dr. Dr. Mad S. Tist groovy

World leading expert of artificial stupidity.
Because there are too many people who work on artificial intelligence already :hihi:
Joined: May 2010
Location: Oxford
Duchess of Gorgombert
Online Sleepy
Duchess of Gorgombert
Joined: May 2010
Location: Oxford
Originally Posted by Ellderon
The ability to kill every NPC we come across.

Why?


J'aime le fromage.
Joined: Jun 2019
enthusiast
Offline
enthusiast
Joined: Jun 2019
Originally Posted by Ellderon
Yes.
The ability to kill every NPC we come across. Bring back Biff the Understudy and his clones in case it's a plot critical NPC.
And if you're worried that it might be unimmersive/breaking the 4th wall, I have two arguments against that:
1) it's not more unimmersive then untouchable/invincible NPC's
2) players that would kill any PNC (especially plot-critical ones) are well aware of what they are doing, and are willing to the pay the price of 4th wall breaking


You can certainly try.

It would only be available in permadeath mode. silly

Last edited by Nobody_Special; 14/04/20 12:42 PM.
Joined: Jun 2019
member
Offline
member
Joined: Jun 2019
Originally Posted by Ellderon
Yes.
The ability to kill every NPC we come across. Bring back Biff the Understudy and his clones in case it's a plot critical NPC.
And if you're worried that it might be unimmersive/breaking the 4th wall, I have two arguments against that:
1) it's not more unimmersive then untouchable/invincible NPC's
2) players that would kill any PNC (especially plot-critical ones) are well aware of what they are doing, and are willing to the pay the price of 4th wall breaking


You're asking for the impossible, preaching to the choir. In Baldur's Gate 2, killing a plot-critical NPC will result in an NPC attacking you that is completely invincible, so... no.

Joined: Jul 2019
old hand
Offline
old hand
Joined: Jul 2019
Originally Posted by Ellderon
Yes.
The ability to kill every NPC we come across. Bring back Biff the Understudy and his clones in case it's a plot critical NPC.
And if you're worried that it might be unimmersive/breaking the 4th wall, I have two arguments against that:
1) it's not more unimmersive then untouchable/invincible NPC's
2) players that would kill any PNC (especially plot-critical ones) are well aware of what they are doing, and are willing to the pay the price of 4th wall breaking


They've said you can kill almost everyone including PNCs, but with a couple exceptions like Gods and Undead (I took that to mean super powerful undead, not like zombies, but someone like Larloch or Szazz Tam). That doesn't automatically mean you can't attack them, it could be they are so powerful they will crush you like bug for 100% certain, BG3 only goes up to level 10 after all.


Joined: Jan 2009
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Jan 2009
Originally Posted by Madscientist
I am not against the ability to kill people in the game,
but I find it strange if every importent char has a letter with your next goal in his pocket or you can simply talk to his ghost like in D:OS2.

Sometimes players deserve to fail or miss a quest if they mess up a lot or just kill everything.
Killing everyone has the advantage of getting more exp and items, so there should be some kind of downside for it.


Even in DOS 1/2, "You can kill everyone and still continue" applied ONLY to the main quest. There's always some way to continue the main quest. If it's optional, Larian will gladly let you screw yourself out of it.

Joined: May 2019
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: May 2019
Originally Posted by Madscientist
I am not against the ability to kill people in the game,
but I find it strange if every importent char has a letter with your next goal in his pocket or you can simply talk to his ghost like in D:OS2.

Sometimes players deserve to fail or miss a quest if they mess up a lot or just kill everything.
Killing everyone has the advantage of getting more exp and items, so there should be some kind of downside for it.


Not just sometimes but always. Yeah, people can kill anyone they want, but there absolutely should be a price to be paid, and not just in info or quests lost and no longer being able to advance the story, but also in all the other NPCs in the game world deciding you are an evil SOB who needs to be taken down. So realistically, we should see shopkeepers and other similar NPCs no longer being willing to deal with you, and every single law enforcement person in the world converging on you to take you down. If them's the rules, then sure you should be able to kill anyone.

Joined: Sep 2015
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Sep 2015
Originally Posted by kanisatha
Originally Posted by Madscientist
I am not against the ability to kill people in the game,
but I find it strange if every importent char has a letter with your next goal in his pocket or you can simply talk to his ghost like in D:OS2.

Sometimes players deserve to fail or miss a quest if they mess up a lot or just kill everything.
Killing everyone has the advantage of getting more exp and items, so there should be some kind of downside for it.


Not just sometimes but always. Yeah, people can kill anyone they want, but there absolutely should be a price to be paid, and not just in info or quests lost and no longer being able to advance the story, but also in all the other NPCs in the game world deciding you are an evil SOB who needs to be taken down. So realistically, we should see shopkeepers and other similar NPCs no longer being willing to deal with you, and every single law enforcement person in the world converging on you to take you down. If them's the rules, then sure you should be able to kill anyone.


Well, they tried this in BG but the result was not so great.
The guards come and prizes are higher ( or no shopping at all ) if your reputation is very low and halved prizes with maximum reputation.
If your reputation is low you can spend money in a temple to get it up.
My problem was that I could not play the game with evil characters in my party. They leave the party if your reputation is too high.
Finishing quests will get your reputation to max sooner than later and I did not want to bring my reputation down by randomly killing someone.
There is a difference between being evil and randomly killing people just to become famous as mass murderer.

Edwin and Viconia would not walk around and kill some random people just because they are bored. Well, Korgan would probably do so.


groovy Prof. Dr. Dr. Mad S. Tist groovy

World leading expert of artificial stupidity.
Because there are too many people who work on artificial intelligence already :hihi:
Joined: Mar 2020
Banned
Offline
Banned
Joined: Mar 2020
alignment has always been a bit of a bugbear for developers, because computers think in 1s and 0s, it's tough to make nuanced meaningful choices, even today 20 years later. but those are all things that could be improved with clever innovation and writing.

Joined: Mar 2020
enthusiast
Offline
enthusiast
Joined: Mar 2020
Originally Posted by kanisatha
Originally Posted by Madscientist
I am not against the ability to kill people in the game,
but I find it strange if every importent char has a letter with your next goal in his pocket or you can simply talk to his ghost like in D:OS2.

Sometimes players deserve to fail or miss a quest if they mess up a lot or just kill everything.
Killing everyone has the advantage of getting more exp and items, so there should be some kind of downside for it.


Not just sometimes but always. Yeah, people can kill anyone they want, but there absolutely should be a price to be paid, and not just in info or quests lost and no longer being able to advance the story, but also in all the other NPCs in the game world deciding you are an evil SOB who needs to be taken down. So realistically, we should see shopkeepers and other similar NPCs no longer being willing to deal with you, and every single law enforcement person in the world converging on you to take you down. If them's the rules, then sure you should be able to kill anyone.

The one thing your're missing is 'speed of information'.

These day's, it's easy for the news to go worldwide on a murder or manhunt.
In a world like BG3? Or most 'dark ages'-type worlds? It can only travel as fast as a man on a good horse. Or a spell to talk to someone far away.

But in a wild, dangerous world, what man is going to risk his life to ride from town to town saying 'These people are evil'? And what mage will spend his spell slots to tell someone half a world away? Plus they woudl have to KNOW that person to Send a magic message.

So it makes more sense that only people who live near or wittness a murder would get upset. Sending that information to other towns would probably garner 'Eh. They can deal with it themselves' reactions.

Thus, the whole world would not hate you just because of a few evil acts; most would not ever know what you did!

Joined: Jan 2009
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Jan 2009
Originally Posted by Eguzky

But in a wild, dangerous world, what man is going to risk his life to ride from town to town saying 'These people are evil'? And what mage will spend his spell slots to tell someone half a world away? Plus they woudl have to KNOW that person to Send a magic message.


Many, if you do something stupid like slaughtering towns and guards in plain sight and the local guards seem unable to stop you.

Joined: Mar 2020
Location: Belfast
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Mar 2020
Location: Belfast
Originally Posted by Madscientist

Sometimes players deserve to fail or miss a quest if they mess up a lot or just kill everything.
Killing everyone has the advantage of getting more exp and items, so there should be some kind of downside for it.

Yes. Playing through D:OS2 and here are two thoughts related to that:
Pillars had a right idea by removing XP from kills. D:OS2 is very level oriented game (loot more so, but it's tied to player level, so...) and I find it frusrated by the feeling that if I try to roleplay and not murder everyone I miss out and potentally run into problems later.

More so: If you can do everything then nothing matters. That comes to letters on NPCs bodies with written info on them, which you would get if you talk to them - or more horrid, ghosts, which, again, serve similar function. D:OS2 has an overwhelming amount of freedom, but fairly little when it comes to reactivity or consequence. Either systems driving the game need to be developed further for BG3 to create to varied and interesting reactions to player actions, or a stronger narrative direction with predesigned consequences for taking certain actions - conequences not necessary punishing players, but reacting to player's inputs. That's something I also blame of D:OS2 multiplayer design - afterall you wouldn't want a strager to come to your world and mess things up. So he can come, but anything he does remains relatively consequnce-less.

Joined: Jan 2009
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Jan 2009
Originally Posted by Wormerine
Yes. Playing through D:OS2 and here are two thoughts related to that:
Pillars had a right idea by removing XP from kills. D:OS2 is very level oriented game (loot more so, but it's tied to player level, so...) and I find it frusrated by the feeling that if I try to roleplay and not murder everyone I miss out and potentally run into problems later.


Even in DOS 2, Civilians don't give very much - if any - XP at all. I used a level 4 party to kill seven level 2 prisoners in Fort Joy. I got a total of 950 XP, but not every kill gave XP.

You should trust in the idea that the game developers will balance the game on the idea that you do not need to steal from and murder every single entity to survive. You can do just fine financially and reach the level cap without going all genocide on everything.


Quote
That's something I also blame of D:OS2 multiplayer design - afterall you wouldn't want a strager to come to your world and mess things up. So he can come, but anything he does remains relatively consequnce-less.


This is false. It's only true if you keep saved games and reload them later. A stranger can absolutely mess things up if they so choose, attacking NPC's, giving away all their equipment for free, things like that.

Again, the only thing that DOS 2 guarantees you is that if you are able to survive, you can complete the main quest in some way - it will happily let you fail all the side quests.

Joined: Mar 2013
S
veteran
Offline
veteran
S
Joined: Mar 2013
this thread reminds me how much people will argue in favor or agaisnt something entierly depending on wether or not divinity dd it.
eveyone would be falling over each other for beeing ableto kill everyone because "freedom".
but divinity did it so now there wasnt beeing done enaugh.

Its not the "Multiplayer nature" of those games that made it so killing people is of little consequence.
The reason for it is simply that its a feature that most people will not use (because ultimatltey you are diminishing your own content) and thus its not very well developed.
Im pretty sure if larian had infinite money they would have implemented a proper reputation and justice system.
But when the game came out they still hadnt properly fixed up act 3 so i guess the "Murder everyone and get send to jail" playstyle just wasnt the priority

Joined: Sep 2015
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Sep 2015
Well, I think DOS had 2 problems:
- There were no negative consequences for killing everyone after you have finished all quests in the area
- The game is very level dependent and people drop everything you have ever sold them ( At least in part 1, not sure in part 2 as I did not kill merchants there)

Killing random people is not needed to finish both games, but doing it after finishing all quests gives you some profit (exp and items) without any downside.
After leaving fort joy, nobody cares if you killed everybody there or not. Same for the other regions.

For BG3 I would say:
- Killing people in a town will shift your alignment towards evil, unless they are hostile from the beginning, combat starts after a dialogue that make it clear you have a reason to fight or they belong to a group that is hated by most people in town (like you fight bandits or cultists).
- Killing townspeople gives you the mass murderer tag. Most people will fear you, some might respect you more and others might give you a job because of it.

I admit that even BG1+2 was sometimes inconsistent too.
Many people in a town would be considerer townspeople and killing them would be considered bad while others were considered as combat encounter, so killing them would not result in reputation loss even if you attack them first, even if they would not attack you by themselves or you could avoid combat with talking.
It feels strange when the game says its bad to kill people, but killing this and that guy is totally fine.
In some inns there were some adventurer groups that attack me when I stand in the room long enough.
Imagine a judge tells you this: "OK, so you broke into somebodies room and you were staring at them until they attack you. Its totally fine to kill them then because they attacked first. Its even fine to attack them first because they would have surely attacked you when kept standing there after breaking into their room."

This reminds me of the western "the great silence" and a quest in Morrowind: You insult or annoy people until they attack you, then you can legally kill them in self defense.


groovy Prof. Dr. Dr. Mad S. Tist groovy

World leading expert of artificial stupidity.
Because there are too many people who work on artificial intelligence already :hihi:
Joined: Mar 2013
S
veteran
Offline
veteran
S
Joined: Mar 2013
well i personally think that "Beeing evil" shouldnt be the "Hard" option.
It should be the easy option.

Generaly beeing evil makes your life easier.

Ad in terms of mass murdering, this makes no sense for DnD, but for OS2 it makes a lot of sense.
A lot of the "Moral choice" in OS2 is about wether or not you devour the souls of people.
theres no actual consequence for doing it, which is also part of the games lore.
The gods do it, Lucian does it, essentialy there is no big "judgement", in the game, any good in the game can only come from you yourself.
Its a game about defying the current order whcih is built on the exploitation of mortal worshippers.

in a sense, not having consequences for beeing a huge asshole is part of what makes the sotry of OS2 what it is. Most people that do evil shit get no consequences unless you personally dish it out.
And doing so pretty much requires you to wipe out all factions the game has, as every sinlge one of em is either 1. wrong 2. malciious or 3. misguided, tho the "misguided" part probably only appleis to the seekers, who are the closest you get to "good guys", when realy they are just pawns.

Joined: Sep 2015
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Sep 2015
My problem with DOS2 was not being evil, it was that nothing you do seem to matter much at all.

I would say the best evil setting I know is the witcher series.
After some thinking I decided that by DnD standarts the world is lawful evil in cities and neutral evil outside of cities.
In towns the witch hunters enforce order by enforcing the dogma of the church and burning heretics alive.
The rest of the country is ruled by bandits, witches or others who do whatever they want to increase their power.
There are some good characters and most people are neutral, but the ones with most power are usually lawful evil or neutral evil.
This makes sense because evil chars care mostly about their own power but chaotic evil ones (there are some of them) are too unorganized to rule over anything for a longer time.
While the game is quite dark and evil, you still have the feeling that your actions matter and it makes a difference if you chose a or b.


groovy Prof. Dr. Dr. Mad S. Tist groovy

World leading expert of artificial stupidity.
Because there are too many people who work on artificial intelligence already :hihi:
Page 1 of 2 1 2

Moderated by  Dom_Larian, Freddo, vometia 

Link Copied to Clipboard
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5