Larian Banner: Baldur's Gate Patch 9
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I'll add my thoughts to the discussion. Sorry for the huge post, I just figured I'd say everything in the same post:

I just finished the game with the same party composition I usually use, to get a feel for the changes and I mostly agree with OP regarding some of the changes this patch. While I like the boost to enemy AI, I can hardly say I like the rest.

1- Surfaces change.

I don't understand the idea behind making most of them be permanent. It is quite annoying having to manually clear the residual effects after a fight (if you even can), especially cursed surfaces early game because you don't have access to Bless yet, and blessed surfaces because you can't do anything about them. I have almost the entire map covered in blessed fire on the stairs leading to the end battle and it's staying that way forever now..

I do appreciate the change to poison not contaminating water now though.

2- Durability.

So glad durability is gone from gear. Even with a proper repair mechanic it would be more of an annoyance than anything else. Seems weapons still have durability but even using CTRL on chests and doors don't use up durability, I recommend just removing it entirely. (By the way, you can spam attacks on chests and the like with a bow since the animation restarts every time you ctrl + click)

3- AI.

I quite like the new AI. It feels much smarter regarding it's position before using it's skills in order to hit multiple characters at the same time. It does seem like they also use a LOT more cc skills, source spells and consumables than before; That's not smarter AI, that's just harder difficulty. Even then, the game is still a breeze using basic delay turn tactics.

They do however perform some seriously stupid actions now. Sometimes enraging my tank twice on the same turn with 2 different characters, and not attack him with either because they both probably run out of AP. (That happened on 2 different occasions, one of them were the Meat Golems, I don't remember who was the second). Or the Decomposing Markswoman, north of the undead vendor, using Clear Minded on my tank which has absolutely no downside if I'm not mistaken, so that's not even AP mismanagement.

4- Loot found.

I did notice looting less gear. I personally don't enjoy going shopping for gear in any game tho' so I don't particularly like this change either; I'd much rather gear up from looting, and buy skill books with the gold I save up. With the current system, early on you have to save up for skills, so you don't even go shopping for gear anyway. Not sure if it's intentional but even level 3 thievery you can't even pickpocket a single level 4 skill book now that prices have gone so high. So I ended up gearing up with all the random unique items scattered around the world (there are quite a few now), without purchasing a single item from vendors, and completed the game without any problem so the change didn't bother me much, but the direction the devs want to go scares me a little.

I do enjoy the buff to rare items very much by the way. They now have interesting stats early on like memory. Getting a rare feels much more impactful than before.

5- AOE size.

Another change I really don't like is the AOE size reduction on all mage spells. Especially already small ones like Magical Poison Dart, which I felt had the perfect size. Now it's basically the same as Searing Daggers, which I never use because of how small the aoe is (basically single target). I could understand wanting to reduce the size of impalement and fireball for example, as they were quite huge.. but Magical Poison Dart is now just as useless as Searing Daggers. It hasn't made the game harder, I just had to replace it with another skill that's still actually useful, I'm just sad I don't have a good poison spell anymore.

By the way, Rage now lasts 2 turns, because of a bug i'm guessing, which makes it quite OP because of the existence of Delay Turn.

6- Requirements on gear.

Concerning the attributes requirement on gear.. Please get rid of it. I understand wanting to have players invest in other stats. But all it does is either make us be unable to even use the gear we find, or force us to "waste" attributes on our next level up, just to equip an item we might replace soon anyway.

Just to give an example, the last ring I got had a 13 strength requirement and gives +2 intelligence and +1 bartering. We're not gonna waste points in strength just to get some intelligence, it's counter productive. (Even if you say it's a ring for a Battlemage build, that means you're saying that a ring you randomly found is completely useless for every character you have, because it's for a very specific build you're not using).

Same for shields. Don't lock them behind constitution, which is the most useless stat in the game, with the added cherry on top, in that it makes it so every time you use Flesh Sacrifice with a shield equipped, your elf will unequip the shield because of the temporary constitution loss.

Even if the stats given and required match, that means you can't equip that item on other characters for the physical/magic armor it provides just because of the restrictive requirements it now has. Leading you to have 3 pair of pants for your mage, and not a single one for your other characters.

Similarly... Why is Warfare required for the Warlord talent now? All it does is make you waste a point in Warfare to get the talent. It doesn't do anything else. You finish the act with 5 Pyrokinetic and 1 Warfare on your mage, instead of 6 Pyrokinetic and 0 Warfare. What's the point in making us invest 1 point there? If it's just for lore, that's a pretty lame reason.

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TLDR. I still love the game even in it's current state and had just as much fun playing as before, I just find last patch to be a better version of the game, besides the AI upgrade. I hope most of these changes are just tests to see what works, which is why I want to give my honest feedback.

PS. I love how the 3 respawning undead are now level 7 using source spells right off the bat... I went in with a single character thinking I was going to solo them like last patch... It didn't end well for that character. It was a nice surprise!

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Could you post a few videos of how you breeze through the game with delay turn tactics? Would be interesting to see.

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Originally Posted by Kelsier
Could you post a few videos of how you breeze through the game with delay turn tactics? Would be interesting to see.


I'd rather not. With my shitty 0.5 Mb/s upload speed it would take me forever. Besides I'd need to download screen capture software since Geforce Experience doesn't recognize D:OS2 yet.

It's a pretty simple concept though. Delay your turn with every character unless you need to perform an urgent action, and teleport all enemies into a pile for you to blast off the face of the earth at the end of the turn.

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What party composition do you have? How do you deal with enemy melees who just use battering ram on your back line (you can't engage from distances that prevent this realistically)? How do you teleport more than two people at once, unless you go hybrid for the entire party?

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Because I am a stubborn fool I decided to start a new playthrough since my last one was unwinnable. Before I get into anymore new criticism I have of this patch I want to say that all my other criticism mentioned earlier in this thread still stands.

Got interrogated for vandalism while trying to removing an ice surface that was in my way, and couldn’t win the check because a non persuade oriented character was interrogated instead of my main character (really wish the game prioritized the character you are currently controlling/highlighting when starting auto dialogue).

High judge Orivand can sometimes see you even though the door is closed so looting his room without trigger his dialogue is annoying. Also had my party members occasionally wonder off into scripted boss fights when I was trying to loot rooms.

Trying to keep npcs alive during the Griff fight was the only challenging thing about it. Ended up losing several vendors during it, so I couldn’t purchase any air magic books even if I could afford it till I got to the seeker camp.

Whenever you try to pickpocket someone sitting down Ifan will walk in front of them to pickpocket.

I got gloves with +1 finesse and critical chance, but my rouge couldn’t use it because it requires strength, which is why gear requiring stats was a terrible mechanic in Dos1, Dos EE, and it continues to be terrible here in Dos2. And then latter I found gloves that increase thievery, and then I let out an annoyed sigh when I found that it required points in strength. Then I found another +1 thievery glove that I couldn’t use because it required intellect. This system is incredibly frustrating. Not only does it mess with hybrids but it screws with non hybrid characters as well.

On the subject of stats and builds constitution is still a bad stat. It would be good if it gave both +2% physical and magical armor, and a 7% boost to vitality every point.

Not a fan of the ap recovery debuff being removed from cripple, and cripple no longer shows its aoe circle.

Had the game crash on me a lot more than any other play through.

Hope that a steal toggle becomes available eventually. I’ve had several instances this play through where I miss clicked and no matter how much I right clicked to cancel the order my character stole anyway. One time I stole from someone that had 100 approval, and it put me in a fight anyway.

Lost my blood rose elixir buff on one character because losing a character almost every battle is a common occurrence because of how much damage the a.i can deal to you in single action. Please make the elixir buff permanent even after death.

I really couldn't stand how progression feels in this patch even with the foresight gained from my unwinnable playthrough. I was eventually able to buy some skill books, about level 5, but it required such ridiculous amounts of stealing and bartering that I felt exhausted when I was done, and I still didn't have all I needed to get my builds to where I can actually start having fun with them. I miss how amazing and steady skill and gear progression felt during the last patch, rather than the slow crawl of progression and every once in a while a small burst, and then back to a crawl featured here.

Because i couldn't buy any armor recovery spells till level 5, shields feel mandatory on most of the party. The non defense weapon skills, sans the single weapon punch that can knock down, are far too weak to warrant any use.

Ifan, every once in a while will move out of back stab range even though the back stab icon is there.

Also gonna take back my comment on children looking different. They still all look the exact same, their hair color is just different from the previous patch. It would be nice if only Mody was blond, and Han had black hair ect.

Last edited by Damashi; 05/02/17 08:49 PM.
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Originally Posted by DamienHaaayHaaay
I needed to create an account for this... Just to clarify for Larian that not everybody feels that the only viable option to make any kind of progress is to bang ones head against a wall.

It is still not challenging (yet, atleast). I am only level 5 (still hopefull that something will take me by surprise).

Sure, skills and items are not by any means easy to come by. But we are prisoners breaking free, not billionaires taking a stroll through a shopping mall. Epic weapons should not be easy to come by this early on. Anyways, this is not an issue. Just pick up everything you find and push bartering on one of your characters. Ta-da!

Personally I feel that both enemies damage and health-pool is a bit low. Id like a bit more insanity. I actually want to bang my head against a wall, to be honest.

Ive only suffered one lethal blow and it was when my group entered the arena because of stupid misplacement of characters. Otherwise its been quite dull.

I do agree that certain surfaces can be viewed as rather stupid, this should be looked into.

I might just need Tactical mode to cheer up.

//ZigurdRock


Created an account just to agree with you. Just spent five hours or so playing with a friend who has played DOS II, and im new to the game. I can't say how far we've gone, we are about to fight some dogs in a room inside the fort, so far the game is fair, perhaps a bit too easy (but hey, its normal mode). Some annoying bugs made we quicksave and load some times but they have all been reported already. My point is, as far as balancing goes the game is just right for the available difficulty. Great job Larian Studios, the AI is cleary better. People should not mix bugs with balancing errors, as this post have complains about both. Also the backstories so far have been really interesting. I don't understand all this bashing against difficulty right now. Also loved the way CC works now with armor types and such.

Edit1: Forgot one thing, people saying the game does not award creativity are simply not creative, even during encounters, the one in the prison just after the fire lava bugs, me and my friend were cleary under geared for that fight and we just had the fastest member in the party get their attention and run to a room and close the door, the enemies entered one by one and died just like that.

PS: Tried to keep the grammar errors at a minimmal since im from Brazil and im really tired, will fix later.

Last edited by vometia; 05/02/17 11:04 AM. Reason: formatting
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I have to disagree. For one thing, the game is only somewhat-easy for certain builds. For another, the "this is easy" crowd are ignoring some very real issues with early progression being way too slow in comparison to late progression, due to several factors like costly skillbooks, nerfed thieving, and so on. It's better than it used to be, probably, but still needs fixing.

Oh, and NPCs still have infrared vision when detecting stolen equipment. And friendly NPCs still attack you if you steal one wooden spoon in front of them that doesn't even belong to them.

Last edited by Kelsier; 05/02/17 09:40 AM.
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