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Originally Posted by RagnarokCzD
Originally Posted by Noraver
Normal Difficulty - Help restores 1 HP
Hard Difficulty - Help stabilizes an ally. Medicine Kits can be used in combat to grant 1 HP, or out of combat for a heal
Tactician - Medicine Kits can be used in combat to stabilize an ally in combat, or out of combat for a heal
Awfull idea ...

I dont quite understand why people are so fixated to this old (and frankly quite outdated) system, where everything need to be "intact part of difficiulty" ...
What if i want to use Medicine Kits, but dont want stronger enemies?

Isnt it much better when you have just difficiulty PROFILES, that can be adjusted with this being just optional setting so you can turn it on or off, regardless of what challenge you want from your combat?
Hint: It is! :P
The best solution is that Larian balances each difficulty level based on a certain set of options, but then the player can individually change all/most settings to match their preferences.

Rag, you'd maybe choose "Normal Difficulty" but then individually change the Help/Medkit option to it's 2nd or 3rd state.
Or even you'd choose "Hard Difficulty," but then change enemy HP to 80% and give all enemies a -1 penalty to their attack rolls and STs, and give allies a +1 to their attack rolls.

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I'll be happy with a Core Rules difficulty where the game plays exactly like 5e.

I'd like a good tactical challenge but through resource management / rest restrictions and removing easy cheese like "help". NOT through pumped enemy stats. I'm ok with more enemies but not enemies that have 50% more HP and deal 50% more damage or whatever nonsense like that.

Also not a fan of delving through a million toggles of game settings and having to make my own difficulty. "Core Rules" should be simple enough.

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Originally Posted by mrfuji3
The best solution is that Larian balances each difficulty level based on a certain set of options, but then the player can individually change all/most settings to match their preferences.
Exactly my point! ^_^


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A general comment about playtesting games:
-It is the job of the designer and/or developer to create a set of rules and then pose a problem to the playtester.
-It is the job of the playtester to try anything and everything allowed within those rules to try to solve the problem and then report on what happened. This helps the designer to understand what is working well and what isn't.
-"I found this thing that you can do (or are incentivized to do, because it's good at solving the problem) and it feels bad" is useful feedback. A good designer should be trying to avoid situations that make their players feel bad.
-Telling people that their feelings are invalid because they can choose to not do that thing isn't helpful. They're doing what they're supposed to be doing and giving feedback on it.

My feelings with regards to exploits:
Combats in this game (from what I've seen) are pretty simple - if you want to progress in the game, you have to win the fight. There is no notion of failing forward; if you lose the fight, you die and have to load an old save. Therefore, winning the fight is paramount and it is expected to do anything that you can within the rules to kill your enemies. If I find a tactic like this that works, but feels like cheating, it makes me think less of the game. It isn't fun to be torn between progressing the story and feeling like you are exploiting an oversight in the rules. If winning at any cost weren't ingrained into the structure of the game, it would feel less necessary to rely on exploits. But stumbling on a tactic that works, even if it feels bad, usually means that I'm not searching for better tactics to use - a local maximum is often good enough. That's not fun. It's easy to say "just don't use that exploit," but I want to feel like I'm struggling to solve the problem, not holding back because an obvious answer feels like cheating.

My feelings on a larger, related issue:
Like many of the other exploits that have been pointed out in the past (e.g. bonus action projectile shove, hide shenanigans, attack advantage from height, etc.), this is an exploit that (nearly) every character can take advantage of. Some of the most powerful things in the game have nothing to do with the choices you've made about your character. Class features are severely diminished in the face of a toolbox of exploits that anyone can use. I want my character to feel powerful. I want to feel like the choices that I've made about how my character grows are important. But time and again it seems like my character is overshadowed by what pieces of fancy gear they have collected and how good I am at flogging the same loopholes in the rules over and over again. It feels really bad and makes me not want to play the game. I really don't care about how pretty the graphics are or how many voiceover options I can choose from if the gameplay feels bad.

Last edited by grysqrl; 08/08/22 07:44 PM.
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Originally Posted by grysqrl
A general comment about playtesting games:
-It is the job of the designer and/or developer to create a set of rules and then pose a problem to the playtester.
-It is the job of the playtester to try anything and everything allowed within those rules to try to solve the problem and then report on what happened. This helps the designer to understand what is working well and what isn't.
-"I found this thing that you can do (or are incentivized to do, because it's good at solving the problem) and it feels bad" is useful feedback. A good designer should be trying to avoid situations that make their players feel bad.
-Telling people that their feelings are invalid because they can choose to not do that thing isn't helpful. They're doing what they're supposed to be doing and giving feedback on it.

My feelings with regards to exploits:
Combats in this game (from what I've seen) are pretty simple - if you want to progress in the game, you have to win the fight. There is no notion of failing forward; if you lose the fight, you die and have to load an old save. Therefore, winning the fight is paramount and it is expected to do anything that you can within the rules to kill your enemies. If I find a tactic like this that works, but feels like cheating, it makes me think less of the game. It isn't fun to be torn between progressing the story and feeling like you are exploiting an oversight in the rules. If winning at any cost weren't ingrained into the structure of the game, it would feel less necessary to rely on exploits. But stumbling on a tactic that works, even if it feels bad, usually means that I'm not searching for better tactics to use - a local maximum is often good enough. That's not fun. It's easy to say "just don't use that exploit," but I want to feel like I'm struggling to solve the problem, not holding back because an obvious answer feels like cheating.

My feelings on a larger, related issue:
Like many of the other exploits that have been pointed out in the past (e.g. bonus action projectile shove, hide shenanigans, attack advantage from height, etc.), this is an exploit that (nearly) every character can take advantage of. Some of the most powerful things in the game have nothing to do with the choices you've made about your character. Class features are severely diminished in the face of a toolbox of exploits that anyone can use. I want my character to feel powerful. I want to feel like the choices that I've made about how my character grows are important. But time and again it seems like my character is overshadowed by what pieces of fancy gear they have collected and how good I am at flogging the same loopholes in the rules over and over again. It feels really bad and makes me not want to play the game. I really don't care about how pretty the graphics are or how many voiceover options I can choose from if the gameplay feels bad.
Yes. To all of this.

Oh, and welcome back, by the way.
It's been a while but I still have vague memories of your contributes earlier (...) in Early Access.


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Originally Posted by Tuco
Yes. To all of this.

Oh, and welcome back, by the way.
It's been a while but I still have vague memories of your contributes earlier (...) in Early Access.
Thanks! I haven't played in several patches. I really get the feeling that the game that I want and the game that Larian is looking to make are different things, so I've been doing other stuff rather than get frustrated about what felt like an exercise in futility. I still drop in once in a while just to see what's happening. This just happened to be a moment where I felt like I had some potentially useful words.

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Originally Posted by grysqrl
[...]

-"I found this thing that you can do (or are incentivized to do, because it's good at solving the problem) and it feels bad" is useful feedback. A good designer should be trying to avoid situations that make their players feel bad.
-Telling people that their feelings are invalid because they can choose to not do that thing isn't helpful.

[...]

If I find a tactic like this that works, but feels like cheating, it makes me think less of the game. It isn't fun to be torn between progressing the story and feeling like you are exploiting an oversight in the rules. [...] That's not fun. It's easy to say "just don't use that exploit," but I want to feel like I'm struggling to solve the problem, not holding back because an obvious answer feels like cheating.

[...]

This is an exploit that (nearly) every character can take advantage of. Some of the most powerful things in the game have nothing to do with the choices you've made about your character. Class features are severely diminished in the face of a toolbox of exploits that anyone can use. [...] Time and again it seems like my character is overshadowed by [...] how good I am at flogging the same loopholes in the rules over and over again. It feels really bad and makes me not want to play the game. I really don't care about how pretty the graphics are or how many voiceover options I can choose from if the gameplay feels bad.

Very strongly seconded to all of your post, Sqrl (good to see you again, by the way!), but in particular these parts. Thank you for neatly conveying the feelings that many folk here have attempted to communicate.

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Originally Posted by grysqrl
[...]
Glad Tuco quoted this post in another thread! I agree with all of it.


Larian, please make accessibility a priority for upcoming patches.
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Glanced over the comments and only seen med kits talked about, isn't there suppose to be a skill check to get someone up in 5e?

Edit* Ya, its:
Medicine. A Wisdom (Medicine) check lets you try to stabilize a dying companion or diagnose an illness.

skill is in the game, just not used, feel like I've said this before.

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Off base (going by core rules), anyone can make a medicine check to stabilise a dying creature (dc 10 usually, unless there are other complications); this doesn't get them up - they'll still be unconscious for a few hours, unless they receive other healing, but it does protect them from having to make any more death saves, unless they take damage and begin dying again.

A healer's kit has a number of uses (10) before it is used up, and can be used by anyone to automatically stabilise a dying creature without needing to make the medicine check. Someone with the Healer feat can also uses a charge of a kit to restore hit points - not many, but some. This means that someone with the Healer feat and a kit can use their action, and a charge of the kit, too bring a downed character back up into combat, in a inch... but it requires both of those things; a feat investment, and a kit with charges available. Though this is functionally similar to using a healing potion, kits have 10 charges, for a fraction of the cost, and can generally be purchased very easily compared to healing potions (usually).


In a video game translation, this could be smoothed out and made more player-friendly; [[This is Just One Possibility - It Could Be Done Many Ways]] One way we COULD do this would be to have the help action automatically stabilise, while someone with the Healer feat restores a die of hit points whenever they help a downed creature. Like that, you *could* get to the ridiculous conscious-popping circle spam invulnerability situation, but everyone would need to invest a feat in doing so; some players might swear by it as a safety net, others would not feel compelled to use it at all, and view the investment cost as too high to justify, and others may take the feat on one character, as a character/insurance choice... and if the people taking it or leaving it is a varied spread, then balance has done its job.

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The Healer feat sounds good but healing potions are everywhere in BG3. I'm finding new potions faster than I can use them with the main source of healing being Short Rests. If actual 5e rules were being used, we would be using potions to revive PCs.

Then we have the ridiculous potion throwing homebrew. Which table ever used such an asinine house rule? As long as you can throw potions at people to heal or revive them, such feats would be even more redundant. You can even throw potions from another character's inventory. They've made it so convenient the player doesn't have to think who carries what and you don't even need to get close to the downed character anymore. And even if you did Larian are spamming the game with movement / haste / teleport items.

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Doesn't the Healer feat follow the same logic that forces you to do X to achieve Y which is not anyhow different from having to Help downed characters to achieve victory? Instead of developing your character in any different way you'd be inclined to pick healer just because it allows you to cheese fights.

I like the original Idea of 1varangian with plain medicine checks better tbh.

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Well at least by making it require a feat, player would have to give something up rather than every character having access to it.

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Originally Posted by Gray Ghost
Yeah, that's it pretty much. In my experience it's harder to make a choice to let yourself lose. If the option is out of your hands entirely, then you can put it down to either not enough skill on your part, bad luck, etc. But opting to just not use it entirely means that you're actively hurting your own chance to win. You're not losing because you don't have enough skill, you're losing because you didn't want to deal with an annoying mechanic. I don't think most people would consider that a satisfying loss. You don't come away feeling as though you gained more experience or system mastery from it, because you know exactly what you could have done to win, you just didn't want to deal with the tedium. And if the only benefit to making a choice is because you don't want to deal with a mechanic, then the mechanic probably needs a second look

Imagine you are talking about Healer feat here and tell me how it is in any way different. May be I don't get something, I don't know. Seems the same to me. Like if you agree with a thing that is the same in its essence with the one you've just disagreed.

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Well firstly, there is I think the very real chance that players won't unerstand the full scope of what the ability could do for them as a feat. Second, there's no guarantee that come the final game, healer will be objectively the best feat to choose. There are likely to be other feats that could be better for other builds, or that you just like more. Players also aren't likely, in my opinion, to take the feat for every character anyway, so odds are they end up leaving the healer character behind now and then, so it's not going to come up as often as it otherwise could with every character having access to it. Basically, making it a feat turns it into an actual choice where players have to weigh up gameplay costs. With the current implementation, the only choice is whether the player finds it too annoying to use or not.

Having said that, my final point in the quote still stands; if the only reason people end up not choosing the healer feat is because they find it tedious, then the feat itself still needs to be looked at and tweaked.

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Originally Posted by neprostoman
Doesn't the Healer feat follow the same logic that forces you to do X to achieve Y which is not anyhow different from having to Help downed characters to achieve victory?

Simple answer to your question: No. It does not.

In one case, it's a mechanic that every character, regardless of character class or proficiencies, and regardless of personal choices, simply has and can use at any time without any kind of resource limitation or value decision-point cost.

The other is none of those things.

==

The value of a feat like Healer is heavily dependant upon a world where the resource availability supports it; in most average D&D settings, healing potions are not easy to come by in any great quantity - strong ones are rare, and even the weakest grade is heavily limited in availability. In most cases you can't just walk to the corner store and buy a brace of 20 healing potions per character, and the ones that you can buy are generally quite expensive - prohibitively so for low level adventurers. Healing kits, on the other hand, are cheap and readily available in even small townships because everywhere where there are people, there's a need for healers and doctors (divine healing, if it's available is usually pretty expensive too).

In Larian's current game space, one of thrown dimensional-pocket potion healing with healing potions that rain from the sky in volumes enough to drown an incautious halfling, there isn't really a feasible way that the healer's kit, or the healer feat, could be made that would let it hold its own but wouldn't be ridiculous... because the things it's sitting alongside ARE ridiculous... so any work in this regard comes with the caveat that the current situation has to change first.

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It seems like I mixed 2 threads in my head so i deleted the last post crazy. I think I tend to agree with you on the help thing after all.

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