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The game is definitely slower now. What is your feelings about this new game speed?

I personally do not like it because it forces more downtime while my army is being rebuilt. In the end the battles are resolved the same way, it's just the regrouping phase that has been extended.

That covers army creation speed, as for actual game speed...well projectiles are not just a blur when in dragon form, which is an improvement, and you get more time to do the safety dance around warlock's storms. Most projectiles are homing so that extra split second to move your units away is barely noticeable.

Last edited by pakoito; 02/07/13 09:38 PM.
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I think the slower pace is caused by a few new bugs (I sure hope they are bugs). for me at least, I have to click and drag to select a construction site. I click on an individual unit or structure, it selects ALL of the same type of structure or unit that I have on the map. You used to be able to gain a boost in recruits, even if the pop is depleted each time you capture a construction site. Now the only source of recruits are recruiting citadels and the number of recruits you receive has been reduced.

I do prefer that they kept the recruit boosts from capturing sites, It encourages expansion and without that the only reason to expand would be for the recruiting citadel. The war forge and factory are useful for building an army quickly, but just one structure builds pretty fast. I find that (against A.I at least) I usually just capture the sites just to keep the enemy from getting the recruiting center within the area.

And one more thing, the only thing an a.i opponent had control of was a couple of recruiting citadels, the A.I usually would surrender at that time but this time they never surrendered so I had to take extra steps to officially win. I did feel like they surrendered too soon a couple times before, but with this new update they surrender WAY late.

Definitely a few new things to fix, hopefully they fix that really soon.

And another thing, I really hope they manage to get the A.I to use Their dragon as well. without it even the insane difficulty a.i is still really easy.

Last edited by Alastar; 02/07/13 09:46 PM.
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Personally I like the slower speed, I think it gives a more "even" experience and emphasizes starting units a bit more.
Also keep in mind that they mentioned that the faster old combat speed will stay an option in the menu.

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Originally Posted by Alastar
I do prefer that they kept the recruit boosts from capturing sites, It encourages expansion and without that the only reason to expand would be for the recruiting citadel. The war forge and factory are useful for building an army quickly, but just one structure builds pretty fast. I find that (against A.I at least) I usually just capture the sites just to keep the enemy from getting the recruiting center within the area.


You do have a point, but one thing to note is that in the campaign mode, getting 10 free recruits per construction site made starting out with more Hunters than your opponent powerful - much more so if you didn't have any. It's probably better to not have one unit be quite so influential to the economy.

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To quote myself from the patch thread:
Quote
Pace:
While I admit I was surprised to see the big recruit bonuses from capping structures done away with, I think I like the resulting pace much better. Capturing points doesn't turn into one huge recruit clickfest rush, and losing units while capturing a base actually hurts now, as you don't get an instant refund from the capture. It makes the strategy and unit composition and micro play a much stronger role than sheer volume. Rock paper scissors now actually matters! I think turning recruit bonuses off has added many more positive things than leaving the bonuses intact did. Bravo.

Campaign board:
Now in the campaign setting, the extra units bring in to a fight via cards and factories matter a heck of a lot more now that you don't have crazy income/production at hte start of RTS. And nixing research in forges/factories/aero makes your research choices matter. Great improvement.

Last edited by JadeViper; 03/07/13 01:09 AM.
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A great improvement so far, I've been able to micro my units and take advantage of dragon mode to far greater effect with the new pacing.

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I've only had the chance to play a little bit, but I think the pace is much, much better. It is true that the start of a match is quite slow, as there are little funds to build units or structures, and free recruits for capturing construction sites are gone, but if the free construction site points were left in, it might have been unbalanced in favour of more Hunters entering the battle at the start.

Micro feels much more reasonable to do now, and I've even tried using some of the Dragon buff skills. I like the greatly reduced cooldowns, they make both the Dragon and units feel much more useful.

Last edited by Stabbey; 03/07/13 04:53 AM. Reason: stuff
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For me, it's definitely an improvement.

I think it is much easier than before for beginners to take in hand the game.

I am such a beginner, and before the new pace, It was too fast to understand what happened:
I didn't know what recruits to buy, the time to think and the ennemy was already attacking me with an army (easy AI). So it was just building a lot of every units and sending them into the battle without understanding anything. I think the new pace allow more reflexion and lower the needs of jerks.

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So far I played several hours against hard AIs (who were also allies) in the previous and the new versions of the beta. I am still divided on the change.

Pros:
1) More time for decisions.
2) Dragon is finally useful.

Cons:
1) Less Micro/Macro. I was really engaged when I was defending several fronts against allied AIs... and it felt interesting and challenging.
2) There is now even less balance - Dragon vs Macro/Micro. It was one of the points of the game. You could not spend a lot of time as a dragon without hurting yourself in terms of macro. Now you can easily spend a lot of "free" time as a dragon, since you are waiting on units, especially at the start of the game. I suspect that a person with a lot of dragon skills can just destroy opponents at the start of RTS mode, but I have not played against people/ only AIs.
3) AIs flaws are more visible and I am not really surprised by its actions, since I see them a mile away.

I really can't say if I like the change or not.

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Originally Posted by Alastar
for me at least, I have to click and drag to select a construction site. I click on an individual unit or structure, it selects ALL of the same type of structure or unit that I have on the map.

I don't have that problem. A single left click selects 1 unit/building, while double clicking selects all of that type; with construction sites, a single or double click selects only that platform.

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That seemed to be a glitch that happened the first time I booted the game up after getting the update, It stopped after I rebooted the game so THAT isn't a problem any more.

Now about the pace after playing a few matches I see the benefits a little better. so if they take the bonuses away or give them back I'm fine either way.

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Originally Posted by Kerael
So far I played several hours against hard AIs (who were also allies) in the previous and the new versions of the beta. I am still divided on the change.

Pros:
1) More time for decisions.
2) Dragon is finally useful.

Cons:
1) Less Micro/Macro. I was really engaged when I was defending several fronts against allied AIs... and it felt interesting and challenging.
2) There is now even less balance - Dragon vs Macro/Micro. It was one of the points of the game. You could not spend a lot of time as a dragon without hurting yourself in terms of macro. Now you can easily spend a lot of "free" time as a dragon, since you are waiting on units, especially at the start of the game. I suspect that a person with a lot of dragon skills can just destroy opponents at the start of RTS mode, but I have not played against people/ only AIs.
3) AIs flaws are more visible and I am not really surprised by its actions, since I see them a mile away.

I really can't say if I like the change or not.

I'm with him. The current pace is fun because as many people say they are new or adapting to it, but on the long run it seems to hurt the game. I know you're still deciding who to cater to, so it's just a choice.

If you go for the hardcore...well, DC will never be the game at Dreamhack so it's not really your audience. You can hook most of them with easy(ish) and let them stay for modded-in balance patches, worked for other games.

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Originally Posted by Kerael

Cons:
1) Less Micro/Macro. I was really engaged when I was defending several fronts against allied AIs... and it felt interesting and challenging.
2) There is now even less balance - Dragon vs Macro/Micro. It was one of the points of the game. You could not spend a lot of time as a dragon without hurting yourself in terms of macro. Now you can easily spend a lot of "free" time as a dragon, since you are waiting on units, especially at the start of the game. I suspect that a person with a lot of dragon skills can just destroy opponents at the start of RTS mode, but I have not played against people/ only AIs.
3) AIs flaws are more visible and I am not really surprised by its actions, since I see them a mile away.

I really can't say if I like the change or not.


I tend to dissagree with you on those points.
1) I think that thanks to the different pacing, micro'ing your units is now easier and makes me use many unit's abilities that I simply ignored before, due to battles relying majorly on quickly producing amny units and sending them to the front.
Having some breathing time also helps with planning and acting instead of spending most time reacting to the faster AI.

2) Before the patch you had to keep your dragon time short, or you would be set back too much due to not keeping up a constant stream of fresh units. I think that de-valued the dragon form too much.
Keep in mind that the dragon can not be used for the first couple of minutes. In that time you can already capture several build sites and build factories on them. You have less to do in the first minutes, but it's not only waiting.

3) The AI has to be improved, yes. OTOH, this was true before as well, so not much change there, maybe with the exception that you can now pay more attention to it.

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i personally prefer the faster pace.
What i realy enjoyed about the game before is that essentialy an entire army could get destroyed and rebuilt and this process could happen around 5 times per game, shifting around the focus (what kind of units) of the game quite a bit.

I also thought that it fit better with the dragon gameplay.
Since the pace slowed down, the dragon is ALOT more powerfull since churning out units takes alot longer now.
It also means that you can react very slowly to a change of tactics.
If you have a huge ground army and your enemy starts popping out bombers as a result, switching to fighters takes quite a while.

All in all its also ALOT easier now, alot more predictable and alot less dynamic.
I realy realy liked the battlesystem before because of how much could happen in what little time.
Right now you are going into a very traditional RTS direction which i dont neccesarily like since the RTS part itself lacks the depth of games like starcraft and thus lived, at least in my opinion, on the dynamic tactics you could apply thanks to the high gamespeed and the quick reactions you could pull off.

Now its very sluggish and you dont have the same sense of moment to moment gameplay.


Imo: get the speed to where it was, it was better that way.

Last edited by Sordak; 03/07/13 06:12 PM.
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Originally Posted by Sordak
i personally prefer the faster pace.
What i realy enjoyed about the game before is that essentialy an entire army could get destroyed and rebuilt and this process could happen around 5 times per game, shifting around the focus (what kind of units) of the game quite a bit.


Although that doesn't really fit with the idea of the campaign map, now does it?
If you move around only a small fraction of the units you routinely deploy in RTS mode, it seems a bit strange.

And the dragon was simply too weak before, but a stronger factor now.

Of course, that's only my opinion. smile

But, didn't Larian mention somewhere that the old pace will stay an option in the menu?
If that's the case, both sides get what they want and everyone is happy!

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Originally Posted by El Zoido
Originally Posted by Sordak
i personally prefer the faster pace.
What i realy enjoyed about the game before is that essentialy an entire army could get destroyed and rebuilt and this process could happen around 5 times per game, shifting around the focus (what kind of units) of the game quite a bit.


Although that doesn't really fit with the idea of the campaign map, now does it?
If you move around only a small fraction of the units you routinely deploy in RTS mode, it seems a bit strange.

And the dragon was simply too weak before, but a stronger factor now.

Of course, that's only my opinion. smile

But, didn't Larian mention somewhere that the old pace will stay an option in the menu?
If that's the case, both sides get what they want and everyone is happy!


well in general you always end up with loads and loads and units at the end of a battle, unless you realy have overwhelming numbers at your disposal.

So to me its just making a particular "problem" (its not realy a problem, its just weird) a little smaller.

To me the RTS part was made good through its pace because it encourages a very different playstyle to other RTS games and you also would not get locked down too quickly, always giving you the opportunity to come back up after you got defeated.

How much that is the vision for this game is of course debateable. But i like it.
And i think this is one of the biggest strenghts of this game.

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The faster gameplay didn't allow for much micro management of the various unit abilities however. The mines were useless, and often spamming a unit type was far more effective than using their abilities. Now actually using Shaman/Warlock CC is a viable alternative to using a few more units, and taking time to keep units alive in a fight via micro makes a huge difference.

The dragon is also far more fun to use now. Before it was good to pop off one or two moves then switch back. That could have just been replaced by some spells honestly.

I find the new pacing leaps and bounds better than it was. I've been playing the skirmish maps and campaign all day and can't get enough since the rebalance.

Also the faster pace before wassn't different from other RTS games It was just reminiscent of older ones like red alert or TA or even supreme commander. But none of those games focused on unit abilities or upgrades, which is the real sticking point for me here. If there were no active abilities the faster gameplay would be great, but the abilities beg for a more thought out and tactical pace.

Last edited by Goblin One Eye; 03/07/13 10:44 PM.
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I think we are bound to get division on micro issue. On one side there are players who prefer slower game, because it allows them to micro. On the other side there are players who prefer fast paced, where the micro was more challenging and hence rewarding.

If I remember correctly, RA/TA/SC relied on resource management and base building. It is not the case here.

In fast paced there was more style. Each player had to find their own balance between macro/micro/dragon. Now anyone will macro, micro and use their dragon. You won't be hurt on one, because you spent to much time on the other. Less choice now, even if it sounds illogical. That said the ability to access all 3, even for a new player, is easier (less challenging) and gives more fun overall.


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I've always preferred micro to macro. I can get an okay economy going in Starcraft 2, but not to the level where I could graduate from the lowest ranking in multiplayer.

This game has a lot of upgrades, a good part of the strategic decision making is what upgrades to get first. The previous fast-pace meant that the active ability upgrades were much less important and harder to use, and if the upgrades aren't worth the trouble of using, having them in the game feels like a waste.

The slower pace makes the S in RTS stand for Strategy, instead of Spam.

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Wow, I haven't played it with the new pacing (I didn't know that they had done this), but I was just giving my first impressions and stated that I wanted things slowed down.

I'm gonna go fire it up! Excited to see the differences!

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