If you receive a random encounter once maybe every thirty minutes to an hour of gameplay, how is that a major exploit in the game?
As i said there is no such thing as "major" or "minor" exploit ...
There are exploits, and based on who is using it, in what situation is he using it, or what benefits it will bring him ... every exploit can be big or small ... depending on those circumstances.
But lets say every 30 minutes ...
Right now EA (if you do it whole) is worth aproximately cca 20h or gameplay.
That would mean 40 encounters.
Im too lazy to count them right now ... but from just quick look it seems like amount of combat was at least doubled.
Wich obviously also means double amount of XP, amount of loot, amount of long rests and everything else related to combat.
And you are asking how is that an exploit?
The exploit potential is that you can easily just return to the same place over and over and over and over and kill yet another and another and another and another "randomly" spawned NPCs ... to get yet another and another and another and another loot and XP ...
This is basicaly "infinite gold" and "infinite XP" mod.
[sarcasm]
I believe the game will be much harder when group of level 7 players in full magic gear will attack Minthara in her goblin camp, bcs they spend 4h killing the same group of bandits in the crypt.
Doesnt sound exploitable at all to me.
[/sarcasm]
On the contrary, you can literally use stealth in every situation to win, or you can literally freeze an enemy in dialogue, switch to characters not in dialogue or combat, move around in real time and position yourself so you can attack the enemy over and over again from the best possible position, and win every time. Or, spider lair, you can just wait until she's on a web, multiple times, and shoot her down so she loses like 20 HP a drop until she's almost dead.
Yes you can ...
Your point?
Just bcs something worse exists doesnt mean that bad things that are not so bad sudently become good.
Yes, they are "lesser evil" compared to "greater evil" ... but noticed the therm?
Its still evil.
But most of all, you WANT them to make it so you can long rest all the time so that when the game gets to spellcasters hurling fireballs you can literally use them in every battle, long rest, and use them again in every battle spamming them and making every other class completely obsolete. Makes absolutely no sense.
Not sure how im i suppose to understand this sentence ... are you speaking about me speficily or in general?
Since if you were adressing me, no i dont ... but even i would it make no difference, from what Swen want.
That is the reason why i restrict myself from resting too often ... for one it takes away my fun to burn everything with strongest spell possible, and i play to have fun ... and two (wich is probably more important for me) resting is mostly anoyance, i rather explore, fight and resolve puzzle than sit around the fire and listen the same old conversations i allready heared thousand times before.
BUT if you were talking in general ... i still think "you" dont.
I mean, keeping in mind less experienced players *i* think its good think that Larian decided to allow us rest almost anytime ... but *i* also believe that we should not be able to rest everytime.
Hag lair is perfect example, i love the place ... no, there is nothing stopping me from runing out and rest as much as i need, on the other hand i also dont need to
but if someone do, the game is totally playable for him aswell. Wich is important.
Sure this problem will be void once difficiulties will be introduced, but until then we just have to all play at same playfield.
Random Encounters during travel, if done right, would only add a small element of risk for the purpose of making players be on guard at all times.
Again that vague "if done right" ... well, surprise surprise, anything that is "done right" is "done right". Who would expect that?
The question is what does it even mean "done right"?
If you never know when you might suddenly drop into combat, you aren't going to use your high powered spells constantly in case you get suddenly jumped by a troll or a couple of gnolls or ogres or whatever.
Sure ... you can either save it, or restore it asap.
Both approaches are valid.
In either way the point is the same "to have prepared your hight powered spells ... just in case".
I simply believe that you have to take both in concideration, since THAT is the situation.
[quote=GM4Him]Here's what I mean. I just got done fighting Ragzlin. I have 1 HP for one character, 9 HP for another, 5 HP for another and 4 HP for another. Game has no random encounters, and I know I've just cleared a huge portion of the game map. Inside the goblin base, there are no enemies at all. Now, if there are no random encounters, I don't need to worry about healing at all. Why bother? There are no enemies left. So why should I waste potions? Why should I waste a short rest? I'm good. Area cleared.
Ah an example.
Excelent!
Lets see ...
Well, this is a good one, i agree you dont need to "bother" with healing after all your enemies are done ...
Lets put aside for a second that you dont know if *all* your enemies are done, unless you are metagaming ...I think its totally safe for you to dont bother with healing at all and ... and what exactly?
Sory i just dont see any conclusion here.
I mean the important question is what will you with your 1HP, 9HP, 5HP and 4HP halfdead party do now?
If that is gameover for you, then yes it really dont mean anything how much HP you have left.
If you go loot, and then teleport to vendor to sell it ... then i gues it doesnt matter either.
If you will heal them with cleric, since you dont need to worry about your spellslots ... well you can aswell long rest.
If you went to explore, then i gues you made a misstake ... did you noticed all those skelletons we are looting in games? Especialy those who have healing potions by themselves? Well, those are adventurers who decided to "not waste a potion" and then trigger some trap.
I would need this example to lead somewhere.
This tells me nothing, you described the situation and thats it.
But, if there's the potential that while I'm trying to work my way out I might random encounter 2 ochre jellies, or 2 hobgoblins, or 3 more roaming goblins, or 2 giant spiders, or whatever, a sense of danger is created in the game. I COULD risk trying to get out without healing, and I would probably succeed because the chance of a random encounter in the goblin base is maybe 10% chance on a dice roll every 300 feet of movement or something like that. Well, am I willing to risk it, or should I heal just in case I am unlucky and encounter something I won't be able to handle? This creates potential dangers that can occur at any moment, since you won't know when it was that the game rolled the last time to determine if you encounter a random encounter. It makes you strategize and think, and it adds a "living" element to the world. It isn't just some stagnant map where nothing ever changes unless it's scripted, and once you've played the game through once, you know exactly what to expect. You never know when something will jump out at you, so you best not be stupid and continue roaming a hostile camp with very little health, etc.
This is interesting scenario ... a little idealistic tho, but interesting.
As i allready said, the main problem with PC game is that everything litteraly "needs to be scripted" ... so, yup things still dont change, unless someone in Larian will implement several variatiaons of the same encounter.
(note that when you create two versions for one encounter its no longer matter of "chance" that players will not see one of them, that is certain)
You say "It makes you strategize and think" ... i say it makes me use one of my bzillion potions, healing scrolls, or tons of food for long rest.
Its the most logical move. :-/
Sure you can explore damaged and at half strength ... but the less you know about your surroundings, the less rational move it would be.
So the only way to as you say "done right" random encounters would be rework whole game. :-/
And, now to Draigo's point, random encounters is meant to prevent rest spam. If you know you could be attacked by a troll if you long rest in goblin camp, but there's no chance of it if you rest in the Druid's Grove, you'll make sure you rest at Druid's Grove and not try to long rest while exploring the goblin base.
That is exactly it ... if the mechanic is negated so easily as by clicking on fast travel ... why even bother with it?
Game companies usualy try to remove as much of "just running around" as possible (except survival games, there its usualy core part of design) its called Quality of Life improvements.
One of example for quality of life improvement is ability to "magicaly trade items between characters" without need to do that manualy.
Or another would be ability to send things to camp ... instead of traveling there, put item to the chest, and traveling back.
Or yet another would be ability to fast travel from everywhere, instead forcing us to roam back and forth between Vendor and Loot waypoints.
If you add the thing that in spiders cave i can be attacked when long resting, what is holding me back from simply travel outside to rest?
Nothing.
So what exactly does this feature add? It effectively added five minutes of our characters jogging through the spider cave.
You make it sound like a troll would be easy to take out, so spam long rest more frequently so you can trigger the troll early. That would be foolish. Why? Because after you've wasted all your spells on the troll, you try to long rest again and might, maybe run into a couple of hobgoblins as well.
How?
When i travel to my camp ... i find a Troll there ... so i waste all my spellslots on him and kill him ... now i AM in my camp, and it is clean, since i just cleaned it ...
Why (and more important how) would i "try to long rest again" ?
I simply crawl to my tent after i kill a Troll and rest, there is no try.
AND, if they prevent you from simply teleporting from anywhere back to Druid's Grove, then it works. OR, if you try to fast travel, they implement a random encounters interruption potential every time you fast travel, symbolizing that you traveled on foot to the nearest portal and there was a chance that you might encounter something on the way. Either way, limiting long rest spamming, as Draigo said, is essential to later levels of spellcasting. (Plus everything else he said.)
I believe you noticed that they added option to "run from combat" in ... im not sure if that was last patch, or some previous to be honest ... well, anyway in the past.
So what exactly is holding me back from simply play "all in" and if i just happen to walk into a hard random encounter in both Long Rest, or Fast Travel ...
To simply run away and then do the same action without the encounter?
I mean sure, you can say that encounters will not dissapear, they can theoreticaly keep waiting for us forewer ...
In that case you just created scenario, when Random Number Generator is just generating Game Over for unexperienced new players.
Does that seem like fun to you? :-/
I mean dont get me wrong, i allready noticed that you are creating the best possible game experience for *youreself* ... but think about it for a second, would you?
