To expand on that...
Take arrows for example. I now have no less than eleven different types of arrow in my inventory. They do varying amounts of extra damage but in different ways - i.e. fire, water, ethereal, poison, spiritual etc. But the figures are all small compared with my basic damage figure.
At the start of the game they may have contributed a noticeable percentage of the damage done, but before the end of Act 2 I had some good crossbows and good overall damage figures. By then the damage the arrows added was now usually well below 15% of my base damage figure, and mostly well under 10%. In a party situation this rarely made any different at all to the number of hits needed to kill an enemy. Even testing with one character only and comparing arrows that the monster had
plus 100 resistance to with different arrows that it had
minus 87 resistance to made very little noticeable practical difference. To give a crude example, if you’re knocking down 400 hit points 150 at a time it takes 3 hits. If you take them at either 135 or 165, it still takes 3 hits.
So what’s the point of all the bone/ethereal/spiritual/shadow stuff? Is it just there to try and add Role-Play depth?
Are there really players who think “Hey, I’d like to build a hero with super high Bone Resistance”, or “Wow, that DK doesn’t look Evasive enough for my taste…”? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
Can anyone put forward an intelligent discussion on what the concepts of Ethereal, Bone, Earth, Spiritual and Shadow mean in the context of how they played BD? I understand the words, and some of the concepts, I just can’t yet see any meaningful link between them and the way BD actually plays out. It seems more like surplus width than genuine depth.
Even crystals and charms are of fairly limited value. Sure, they seem like they’re going to do something cool, but if you test your character with similar gear without the ‘extras’ it makes very little difference to how many hits it takes for a kill or how long you survive. And it adds nothing at all to how the story plays out.
Most RPGs depend very heavily on the principle of frequent (and largely pointless) random “rewards” to maintain interest. But my preference would be for RPGs to ditch a lot of the fluff, slim down on the repetitious “violence and shopping” aspects, and concentrate instead on good stories and a strong dramatic atmosphere. Things like a good gusty beginning that actually stir the emotions and the interest a bit more. Some decent tension, excitement, suspense, sadness, or whatever. Some humour that was a bit more than just a few amusing one liners. Some of today’s shooters do a better job in those regards than many RPGs do. That should be cause for thought!
The current RPG format of battling evil demons via the “smash skeleton, smash barrel, smash skeleton, smash barrel, find quest item, smash skeleton, smash barrel, smash skeleton, smash barrel, smash skeleton, empty pockets and make slight adjustment to outfit, check look in mirror, smash skeleton…. return to start of loop until game over” route is getting a bit played out.
I’m not bashing BD specifically here. Apart from a few well discussed weaknesses, it does what it sets out to do pretty well. It’s just that (IMO) it’s a format that’s looking a bit creaky now.
Any chance of some fresh ideas with future, post DD2, Larian projects please? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
