I would personally think that continued lobbying for someone to be banned even after a public apology would equally be a violation of terms as it is tantamount to Flaming. At minimum it is not respecting that poster and telling them that their opinion is not welcome. And it definitely boarders on Trolling. Just a thought.
I'm sorry if it felt that way to you, but my intent was that which I stated. Advice. I don't presume to think the modmins care what I think, even if I did think you should be banned, which I don't.
Perhaps they are off-topic @Shandyr. But I suggest you back off a little too. Lecturing people as you did on this thread because of an annoying, but otherwise innocuous, statement doesn't exactly make anyone comfortable.
If you wish to have a controlled debate a game forum isn't the place.
Letting people discuss things as they like is one thing, but threats of violence like the one that was posted earlier are a bit of a gray area, and if someone is affected by them they have a right to say something about it.
That said, @the_spyder did apologize and remove the comment from his post, and @Shandyr did only issue a verbal warning (rather than ban or suspend his account). I don't think anyone truly meant any harm by the comment, so it's "free pass" day at the carnival, so to speak.
That said, if people still have questions or concerns regarding what happened, I recommend taking it up in private messages, rather than on the public forums. Derailing this (or any other) thread by bringing up old issues like that isn't strictly against the rules, but it is rather bad forum etiquette in general.
However, I don't like "balanced" games. I'll try to state why in a couple ways:
Because genuine, perfect "balance" implies my choices mean nothing. My choices mean nothing because any number of choices would be "equally effective" (i.e. the choices are "balanced" in their effects).
A game without meaningful choice, is not fun for me. "Meaningful choice" means I could make a horribly "wrong choice" -- and, ideally, have to "start over". True "balance" decreases the "wrong choices" available.
People seem to be arguing against "balancing" using a very specific meaning of the word, so I want to be clear on what I mean when I use the term.
Balance does not have to mean that every single choice is balanced to have equal results, in fact balance is often considered as an overarching effect to ensure that the game is made well. For example, balance exists to make sure that there isn't a single class which is clearly worse (or better) than the other classes. If their is a class or a kit (or a race, etc.) that is clearly more powerful than the others, that will be picked more often than not and those wanting variety will have to choose to suffer in their gameplay. This is a failure of balance. Classes and races can be wildly different without breaking game balance, in fact that difference is necessary for an interesting game.
The failure of balance I mentioned is also undoubtedly present in in 2nd AD&D, I just think that following the 2nd AD&D rules as closely as possible is a good choice for this game. Also, certain imbalances are created by putting BG in the BG2 engine (powerful kits being available, etc.) which directly contradict the challenge intended by the original design of BG1. I absolutely think that these things need to be "balanced" to make sense in keeping with the intentional challenging nature of the original game.
Suggesting that "balance" means that all classes have the same utility or that it eliminates wrong choices, etc. is only true in reference to a specific view of balance.
The game doesn't need to be balanced, because it is not supposed to be particularly balanced. This is not the same thing as saying it is supposed to be unbalanced.
Pretty much that.
I would hope that if any "balancing" crap (aka nerfing) were to happen it would indeed be after all bug fixes and features were implemented. So I could simply never again patch the game. We'd have to have access to the individual patches though, in case of re-installs and whatnot.
Preferably, Overhaul would spend their time on something useful though, like BGII:EE and new content/DLC. "Balancing" can be left to mods, let people ruin the game individually, rather than have it done collectively to everyone who didn't even want it.
10ish people on the forum want to feel important by suggesting changes. Maybe 20 people agree with them. Now you have 30 people in one of the darkest recesses of gaming communities tapping Dev's on the shoulder to change something that everyone else (mostly people who would rather play the game than come complain on here) would rather keep how it is, or wouldn't care either way.
I find it sad to need to be so adamant about changing something like the AC of an item, or how a spell works, etc. It is like they feel that getting something changed their way will make them feel important and relevant.
I mean they really can't even deny that this is probably the main motivation for these changes, because if it wasn't they would just modify it for themselves instead of forcing it on everyone else.
So obviously I chose: Just modify the game yourself and stop mucking up mine.
I do not think that BG:EE needs to be balanced. It is primarly a singleplayer game and does not include a competitive multiplayer, thus balancing is not needed.
I think the poll was great. Many options gives more people a reason to vote because it matches how they feel more closely. Because the general theme is "To balance or not to balance" you can still lump these votes together and get a general idea of how others feel.
I wouldn't have mentioned your rules for polls if I didn't think those rules were pretty much spot on. I just thought it was ironic that I'd read it literally 1 thread before stumbling upon this. Made me chuckle. Hope you didn't take the criticism as anything other than friendly ribbing.
Answers being mutually exclusive is less important when people have the ability to comment. Comments actually forgive a lot of survey research's flaws.
So far I'm finding the game reasonably well balanced. And once SCS:EE is released that will pretty significantly change the game for me anyway, in that enemies will behave smarter. The game is arguably made easier by some kits, the addition of half-orc PCs, and new magical items. But not game-breakingly so. And that will be offset by SCS.
I admit that I haven't paid attention to the whether enemies also use kits or are ever half-orcs. It doesn't appear so. But that would make for a good mod that offers an increased challenge.
@Shandyr, again kudos for thought provoking threads and thoughts. A staple of your participation on the forums.
@Lifelat and @Allen63 are two of my favorite quotes too. But there's something they don't address that cannot simply be ignored. As you say the definition of Balance or Unbalanced is for anyone to decide. But I guess it can be generally agreed that some aspects of a game can be at large considered unbalanced if they affect gameplay in a negative way; a cloak that once worn makes the game much easier, a kit that once picked makes a character or NPC cruise through the game, et cetera.
These are aspects that we must consider. There's something here that we can agree is inherently a responsibility of the game developers. I voted for mod intervention, but I cannot deny that some balancing aspects of the game should be addressed by the developers themselves and essentially filled in as bugs by the player community.
So the notion of game balance is usually a false problem, I can agree. A game needs to remain unbalanced. But only in the way that lack of balance provides players with a richer game experience. However, it's important to look at balance issues on a game as something more than that though; something that negatively affects gameplay. And this, I believe, is how the majority approached this thread.
There's another point I'd like to make.
Despite my vote for mod intervention, this doesn't necessarily mean I'm happy with that decision. Mods come with their own baggage of issues. For one mods -- particularly those that tend to deal with balancing aspects (including here the ones that try to handle game difficulty) -- tend to lump a whole lot of alterations to the game that may not be to the liking of a player. I may want something be done about this or that kit or object, but rarely will I find a mod that deal with just that. What's worse, mods will rarely offer me a way to select individually which changes are to take place. It's an all or nothing proposition.
It's here that game developers working on a patch are a whole lot more incisive on their approach to the game and where they are most valuable. Their approach to the game is more centered on core gameplay aspects and they are better at dealing with it on a case by case basis.
It's important for this reason, I feel, to not entirely discard the possibility of developer intervention. There are some aspects of a game that are essentially their responsibility. In essence, what each and one of us should make before deciding to bring a balancing issue to the developers is to try to honestly answer this question: Do I consider this balancing issue a bug or is this simply my desire for a different gameplay experience?
I enjoy the game a lot as it is, but wouldn't mind seeing some minor tweaks.
I would like to see some of the kits made a bit better. I would like to see the enemies get a bit tougher, at least after level 4 or so. Maybe a few more QoL improvements, like more gear variety and scroll cases, potion bags, etc being available at shops. I think it'd also be a good idea to change a few quests so that the player can't unknowingly make them unable to be completed. And a big vote of NO to making this an MMO.
I would leave this to mods. It has always been left to modders, why not now. If you lower the difficulty --> why the spawns are lackluster if you increase the difficulty --> why a vampire wolf appears in the ambush area if you fix uber items --> sacrilege, Algernon's cloak always had 65535 charges! if you add uber items --> sacrilege, i want my pure BG1
True story....
Just leave all this to the modders and players to pick their preferred way of playing.
@ankheg I don't get it... I never follow video game news. Does that stuff happen a lot?
Well, I only play with "old" games on principle, so I am not really competent but according to my friends yes. The only thing I see that games became simpler, shorter, dumber with awesome graphics.
@ankheg I don't get it... I never follow video game news. Does that stuff happen a lot?
Well, I only play with "old" games on principle, so I am not really competent but according to my friends yes. The only thing I see that games became simpler, shorter, dumber with awesome graphics.
Yup, if you are in the market for new games, you need to search indie or small time developers for anything remotely innovative and fun. The big names out there are only concerned with pushing out fancy graphics with simple gameplay that can be completed in 4-6 hours so the player will get bored and buy another game. I blame stupid players with too much money. They go out and play these games for months and buy every DLC at 10 bucks each just to get the game they should have started out with from the beginning.
It almost makes me feel like giving up on gaming. The entertainment value is just not there, and it causes a severe lack of interest.
@thedemoninside How sad... to be honest I have had like 0 interest in new games for several years now. Instead I have spent the last like 4-7 years of my life revisiting old games, and sometimes ancient relic games. For what they lack in all their fancy pants graphics and animation they make up in gameplay and entertainment more than 5 times over. I think I may try to find an off topic discussion to find out more about this...
Comments
If you wish to have a controlled debate a game forum isn't the place.
That said, @the_spyder did apologize and remove the comment from his post, and @Shandyr did only issue a verbal warning (rather than ban or suspend his account). I don't think anyone truly meant any harm by the comment, so it's "free pass" day at the carnival, so to speak.
That said, if people still have questions or concerns regarding what happened, I recommend taking it up in private messages, rather than on the public forums. Derailing this (or any other) thread by bringing up old issues like that isn't strictly against the rules, but it is rather bad forum etiquette in general.
Balance does not have to mean that every single choice is balanced to have equal results, in fact balance is often considered as an overarching effect to ensure that the game is made well. For example, balance exists to make sure that there isn't a single class which is clearly worse (or better) than the other classes. If their is a class or a kit (or a race, etc.) that is clearly more powerful than the others, that will be picked more often than not and those wanting variety will have to choose to suffer in their gameplay. This is a failure of balance. Classes and races can be wildly different without breaking game balance, in fact that difference is necessary for an interesting game.
The failure of balance I mentioned is also undoubtedly present in in 2nd AD&D, I just think that following the 2nd AD&D rules as closely as possible is a good choice for this game. Also, certain imbalances are created by putting BG in the BG2 engine (powerful kits being available, etc.) which directly contradict the challenge intended by the original design of BG1. I absolutely think that these things need to be "balanced" to make sense in keeping with the intentional challenging nature of the original game.
Suggesting that "balance" means that all classes have the same utility or that it eliminates wrong choices, etc. is only true in reference to a specific view of balance.
I would hope that if any "balancing" crap (aka nerfing) were to happen it would indeed be after all bug fixes and features were implemented. So I could simply never again patch the game. We'd have to have access to the individual patches though, in case of re-installs and whatnot.
Preferably, Overhaul would spend their time on something useful though, like BGII:EE and new content/DLC. "Balancing" can be left to mods, let people ruin the game individually, rather than have it done collectively to everyone who didn't even want it.
10ish people on the forum want to feel important by suggesting changes. Maybe 20 people agree with them. Now you have 30 people in one of the darkest recesses of gaming communities tapping Dev's on the shoulder to change something that everyone else (mostly people who would rather play the game than come complain on here) would rather keep how it is, or wouldn't care either way.
I find it sad to need to be so adamant about changing something like the AC of an item, or how a spell works, etc. It is like they feel that getting something changed their way will make them feel important and relevant.
I mean they really can't even deny that this is probably the main motivation for these changes, because if it wasn't they would just modify it for themselves instead of forcing it on everyone else.
So obviously I chose: Just modify the game yourself and stop mucking up mine.
Answers being mutually exclusive is less important when people have the ability to comment. Comments actually forgive a lot of survey research's flaws.
I admit that I haven't paid attention to the whether enemies also use kits or are ever half-orcs. It doesn't appear so. But that would make for a good mod that offers an increased challenge.
@Lifelat and @Allen63 are two of my favorite quotes too. But there's something they don't address that cannot simply be ignored. As you say the definition of Balance or Unbalanced is for anyone to decide. But I guess it can be generally agreed that some aspects of a game can be at large considered unbalanced if they affect gameplay in a negative way; a cloak that once worn makes the game much easier, a kit that once picked makes a character or NPC cruise through the game, et cetera.
These are aspects that we must consider. There's something here that we can agree is inherently a responsibility of the game developers. I voted for mod intervention, but I cannot deny that some balancing aspects of the game should be addressed by the developers themselves and essentially filled in as bugs by the player community.
So the notion of game balance is usually a false problem, I can agree. A game needs to remain unbalanced. But only in the way that lack of balance provides players with a richer game experience. However, it's important to look at balance issues on a game as something more than that though; something that negatively affects gameplay. And this, I believe, is how the majority approached this thread.
There's another point I'd like to make.
Despite my vote for mod intervention, this doesn't necessarily mean I'm happy with that decision. Mods come with their own baggage of issues. For one mods -- particularly those that tend to deal with balancing aspects (including here the ones that try to handle game difficulty) -- tend to lump a whole lot of alterations to the game that may not be to the liking of a player. I may want something be done about this or that kit or object, but rarely will I find a mod that deal with just that. What's worse, mods will rarely offer me a way to select individually which changes are to take place. It's an all or nothing proposition.
It's here that game developers working on a patch are a whole lot more incisive on their approach to the game and where they are most valuable. Their approach to the game is more centered on core gameplay aspects and they are better at dealing with it on a case by case basis.
It's important for this reason, I feel, to not entirely discard the possibility of developer intervention. There are some aspects of a game that are essentially their responsibility. In essence, what each and one of us should make before deciding to bring a balancing issue to the developers is to try to honestly answer this question: Do I consider this balancing issue a bug or is this simply my desire for a different gameplay experience?
Can someone explain that to me ?
I would like to see some of the kits made a bit better. I would like to see the enemies get a bit tougher, at least after level 4 or so.
Maybe a few more QoL improvements, like more gear variety and scroll cases, potion bags, etc being available at shops.
I think it'd also be a good idea to change a few quests so that the player can't unknowingly make them unable to be completed.
And a big vote of NO to making this an MMO.
If you lower the difficulty --> why the spawns are lackluster
if you increase the difficulty --> why a vampire wolf appears in the ambush area
if you fix uber items --> sacrilege, Algernon's cloak always had 65535 charges!
if you add uber items --> sacrilege, i want my pure BG1
True story....
Just leave all this to the modders and players to pick their preferred way of playing.
It almost makes me feel like giving up on gaming. The entertainment value is just not there, and it causes a severe lack of interest.