If you read this post before I edited it, you should know that it was full of rubbish:
I remembered how in Dragon Age: Origins, a game with similar combat (Real time strategy with Pause), I'd target my area of effect spells with milimetric precision - undermining the most important tactical aspect of the game, positioning conditioned by friendly fire.
Currently on Baldur's Gate I can't, and seriously doubt most people can, do the same thing. Strategically, one must/should position his party with some room for error while prioritizing longer ranged confrontation. Sounds like a very good way to deal with it to me.
I'd also like to add that the sort of care the bolded part describes also seems to act closer to 'reality', in the sense that magic is dangerous, especially combat magic, and all those dealing with it should be very careful, as we are with real life artillery.
Good points @Aliteri. I agree about the greater realism (and closeness to the actual experience of the kind of characters we make in BG) not giving one's mages/ clerics the supernatural ability to see the exact circle of effect before casting- making the guess itself a matter of the acquired skill of spellcasting. This suggestion is only a little better than the "Add an extra string of 'quest-giver' text chatter to 'quest-giver' NPCs" by my impression.
I think the problem is that many people, myself included sometime ago, fall under the impression that there's simply NO way deal with this. We are, after all, spoiled by newer games and can be rather jaded when we can't see the radius of a Fireball spell. The tutorial npcs could mention that 'thou must be careful before firing your apocalypse spell, try to position yourself somewhat far way from the center of the explosions as to avoid injury and friendly fire'. In red.
My Fireball spells tend to be "the opening salvo" in fights because my melee aren't in the thick of things yet.
And that's the thing. In DA:O I could easily spam Fireball thorought the battle, long after the enemy closed range on me because of how insanely precise I could aim my attacks (though there's also the issue of DA:O using a mana-based spellcasting system that encourages spell spamming, but that's something else entirely), effectively making Fireball one of the most overpowered spells in the game.
After a while you can spam Fireball (if you've memorized it enough) without a cheat-circle as well. You'll know by estimate- or at least know how far away is clearly safe. It's almost like... like you're really casting spells in a dangerous environment rather than a player in a game with a special metagamed tool to wreak destruction with. This is really one of the fun things that distinguish BG from the "spoiling" games like DAO which over-convenience a number of tactical experiences. Even NWN from years after BG doesn't have such spellcasting cheese built in... And what's the harm in inadvertently killing your companions and bystanders at times? >:-)
It's not a deal breaker for me, it just makes me select spells that I can control better. Like I said, I hate using Lightning because I can't aim well with it, though I still use Fireball (because it lets me burn things!), I just tend to waste a bit of its potential damage by being overly cautious.
New practicing mage picks up spellbook after learning the spell Fireball. Reads, "Fireball: sends out a sphere of flame that erupts in an explosion which catches everything in its vicinity on fire doing massive damage the more experienced the caster..." Ponders, "Maybe I should practice it a bit first... and probably far away from myself..."
So far, I think that not seeing the exact radius of the spell causes us to:
-Be more cautious with spell targetting and party posiotining, to avoid friendly fire. -Value crowd-control spells more. -Value longer-ranged spellcasting. -Value resistances and immunities more.
Anything else?
But maybe I'm just very bad at aiming. >_>
It's not a deal breaker for me, it just makes me select spells that I can control better. Like I said, I hate using Lightning because I can't aim well with it, though I still use Fireball (because it lets me burn things!), I just tend to waste a bit of its potential damage by being overly cautious.
New practicing mage picks up spellbook after learning the spell Fireball. Reads, "Fireball: sends out a sphere of flame that erupts in an explosion which catches everything in its vicinity on fire doing massive damage the more experienced the caster..." Ponders, "Maybe I should practice it a bit first... and probably far away from myself..."
Novice Mage's friend: "I've heard of this nice place in the wilds with a lot of little blue targets that's excellent for Fireball practice".
@Bhryaen: Your description of the situation isn't quite accurate.
"New practicing mage picks up spellbook after learning the spell Fireball. The spellbook reads:
Fireball: Expected blast radius: 15'. Use with extreme caution.
The mage, who has never cast this spell before, thinks, 'I'm going to need a ruler.' "
A spellbook tells the caster the exact effects to expect from the spell he casts. This includes blast radius. If you know that the blast will be 30 feet across, then as long as you can tell what "30 feet" looks like, you can get a fairly precise expectation of the effect.
In fact, even before you learn the spell, much of your training as a wizard involves understanding the geometry of your spellcasting. If you've spent years learning that, it's not a great leap to say that a talented wizard could target his spells precisely enough to duplicate the effect of a "targeting circle".
Aosaw, you beat them with their own weapons. You show them that realism in a game is a very abstract concept. You guys tell us childish stories, how do you know that a mage doesn't know the exact effects (area I mean) of his spell. It is absurd. Good luck in finding more serious arguments. I meant no offence !!!!!!!
Aosaw, you beat them with their own weapons. You show them that realism in a game is a very abstract concept. You guys tell us childish stories, how do you know that a mage doesn't know the exact effects (area I mean) of his spell. It is absurd. Good luck in finding more serious arguments. I meant no offence !!!!!!!
Done.
@Aosaw I myself find it hard to believe that spells work with machine like efficiency. Don't the D&D rules already add modifiers to spells cast by mages of different levels of power and experience? Then a same mage at different moments (and experiencing differing levels of concentration), be it at the process of storing the spell (pre-casting) or of actually casting it in the middle of battle should also cast the spell with a given level of variation. You said it yourself: expected blast radius, its not a absolute.
That there's a instance of gameplay and story segregation at work here, with spells working always with exact efficiency, shouldn't really be a argument for machine like efficiency between wizards.
And besides, what about unschooled spellcasters such as clerics, sorcerers, bards and many wild mages? Under your logic, the spellcasters should not have the geometric ability nor should their spells be under the same expectations from the more academic spells (the latter not being the case for clerics, I suppose the deities' boons may be more uniform).
Aliteri, it is a fantasy game , spellcasters don't exist. To make the game easier to control let's suppose that their capacities of casting the same spells are equal. You are trying to find positeve aspects in the lacks of the game. It is not going to work.
You are trying to find positeve aspects in the lacks of the game. It is not going to work.
Not really, I found negative consequences in a different but similar game (Dragon Age: Origins) from the choice of letting the player see the radius of AoE spell effects. Namely, the player's ability to pause the game and aim their spells with milimetric precision greatly undermined one of the most important tactical aspects of DA:O - party positioning conditioned by friendly fire - something that doesn't really happen in Baldur's Gate. Even if you develop a better idea of the radius of a Fireball spell, you'll never be able to aim it with the same precision as you can in DA:O.t
Only then have I found positive aspects of Baldur's Gate combat that didn't really happen in DA:O, the player:
-Is more cautious with spell targetting and party posiotining, to avoid friendly fire. -Values crowd-control spells more. -Values longer-ranged spellcasting. -Values resistances and immunities more.
Really, were BG's combat a purely real time strategy game, had we no pause function to rely on, I'd advocate the ability to see the radius of the spells. But you can deal with it. And its part of the fun.
The above is the basis of my argument. The 'story' arguments are just flavour and really, when it comes to arguing story people rarely have the last word because people have their own views on things. My posts above show 'story' arguments which, I believe, gives more character to spellcasting as a plot point, variation and inaccuracy - \o/magic\o/. But I don't expect either my 'story' arguments, or anyone's, to actually define what should be done in respect to the thread's subject.
Aliteri, it is a fantasy game , spellcasters don't exist. To make the game easier to control let's suppose that their capacities of casting the same spells are equal. You are trying to find positeve aspects in the lacks of the game. It is not going to work.
Ingwarr23, you can't just dismiss peoples opinions because you don't agree with them. I'm pretty sure that this discussion is going round in circles and @tanthalas had the right point:
There's no point in going back and forth with this.
Some people would like the feature (like me).
Others don't care for it.
If Overhaul chooses to implement something like this they'd probably make it optional, so both sides can be happy.
@Aliteri You can choose to let it ruin your immersion, or you can find a way to justify it. For me, the justification is easy:
A wizard has a high intelligence, allowing him to correctly judge the distance between objects. A priest trusts in the divine judgment of his god to keep his allies out of harm's way. A sorcerer is manipulating the energy directly; his understanding of space and distance is instinctual. A bard is much the same as a sorcerer.
I'll agree that it shouldn't be a standard, and that it should definitely be an option that users can turn off if they don't want it. But as an option, not only does it have a basis in the D&D ruleset, but for many players - myself included - it not only makes the gameplay more intuitive, but it also doesn't take me out of the world at all.
@Aosaw Many changes made over the years on game design in general made game mechanics both more intuitive and more streamlined. I argue that it was overdone in the sense that games have gotten considerably less challenging and complex, a fate not to my liking for the BGEE.
So while there are changes and interesting tweaks to be made, we shouldn't fall into the illusion that its the case with everything. Not being able to target your explosive arsenal with milimetric precision has added, as I've said before, a lot of complexity to the game and it would be a shame if it all went away.
Essentially, don't break the fun.
Now lets get back to the pointless 'story argument'.
A wizard isn't necessarily immune to 'concentration checks', especially in the middle of battle.
I'd agree with your justification for clerical spells if either A)They were not required to do any decision making in the middle of battle, therefore truly relying on the judgement of their deity and B)If all their spells had no issues of friendly fire.
Sorcerers and bards, this is the one that I'm more likely to agree with but not for every spell. After all, there's a point in the life of a Sorcerer that he is not very efficient at controlling his emotion based power and therefore, the understanding of the spell isn't absolutely instinctive.
The Sorcerer and the Wizard might have different sources for their power, but just as a Wizard comes to understand a spell more (and, for a instance, gain a instinctive understanding of the radius of his Fireball spell) so does the Sorcerer understand his power more as well. Therefore, since a Sorcerer, as the Wizard, excuse himself of the potential for failure, especially in the middle of battle, then he too, no matter how intelligent, isn't immune to 'concentration checks'.
@Aosaw I'd agree with your justification for clerical spells if either A)They were not required to do any decision making in the middle of battle, therefore truly relying on the judgement of their deity and B)If all their spells had no issues of friendly fire.
I actually think that Good and Neutral aligned Cleric AoE offensive spells should never hit your own party members, but that this could happen with Evil Clerics. But I also think one could argue that Chaotic deities might not be as careful as more Lawful ones.
@Aosaw I'd agree with your justification for clerical spells if either A)They were not required to do any decision making in the middle of battle, therefore truly relying on the judgement of their deity and B)If all their spells had no issues of friendly fire.
I actually think that Good and Neutral aligned Cleric AoE offensive spells should never hit your own party members, but that this could happen with Evil Clerics. But I also think one could argue that Chaotic deities might not be as careful as more Lawful ones.
If ye deity disapproves of your company he'll do the only sensible thing: murder (just like a b-movie overprotective father).
So while there are changes and interesting tweaks to be made, we shouldn't fall into the illusion that its the case with everything. Not being able to target your explosive arsenal with milimetric precision has added, as I've said before, a lot of complexity to the game and it would be a shame if it all went away.
Essentially, don't break the fun.
Visible AoE has been around since 1974 when Dungeons and Dragons was first conceived - and likely much earlier than that. It has been a part of D&D-based video games since the early 90s. It's hardly a "new" concept, and its implementation isn't new either. It just hasn't been included in Baldur's Gate yet.
I fail to see how an optional feature to show the projected area of effect on the screen would "break the fun". If you don't like it, you can easily turn it off, just like the circles under your party members' feet. That argument has about as much merit as "Get rid of tab, it pulls me out of the game" - an argument that has also been beaten and beaten to death.
There are greater problems of immersion-breaking with the Pause feature than there are with letting spellcasters see where their spells are going to go off. I think, actually, that if you could see the projected area of effect for your spells, you might pause the game less often, rendering the issue moot.
Visible AoE hasn't been around in Baldur's Gate since 1998, that's all that matters. So far I have presented considerable strategic and tactical issues the player faces by not being able to target his AoE spells with milimetric precision right now in Baldur's Gate.
And personally, I don't think toggles are the be the end solution to all problems. At which point the issue rather is: if I do this, am I simply providing different levels of challenge (say, a difficulty slider that changes enemy hitpoints and damage output) or just removing an entire layer of challenge?
Which brings me to the pause button: no you won't stop pausing, no one is going to stop pausing the game, you'll actually pause so you can aim everything perfectly. Which means that the pause button combined with the ability to see exactly, with milimetric precision, the effects of all spells would be akin to removing friendly fire altogether. Therefore you're not just presenting different layers of challenge, you're giving the player the choice between 'do you want the game to challenge you or not?'.
Sure, if its just a toggle then, yes, I personally shouldn't care. Except that it would be bad design.
But if the choice was between 'Do you want the ability to Pause the game (one kind of challenge) OR do you want -insert various UI improvements here, including the option to see the radius of the AoE spell-'. Then things would be much more interesting, though I don't have a lot of faith for this level of modular difficulty customization.
How would it be bad design? All you're doing is drawing a circle centered on the cursor that says, "If you click here, this is the blast radius of your spell."
I think it would be good design to say, "Let the player choose the feedback level, not only of the circles around his party members, but also the projected area of effect for all his spells". Lightning Bolt becomes no longer a question of "Do I want to kill my entire party", and more a question of "Let's line this spell up so that it can be the most effective."
(For added clarification, I'm referring to the setting in the options screen that lets you choose whether to show the green, red, or blue circle around you, your party members, non-party members, and enemies - there's a slider there already; I'm just suggesting adding it to the far end of that slider. Adding it as a toggle would work better, probably, but that's what I'm referring to. The functionality already exists; I'm simply suggesting that it be expanded.)
I can see your point about not wanting to have that extra tool available to you, because you'll be tempted to use it. But honestly, I don't see this feature taking anything away from the players that choose not to use it. And for the players that DO use it, it adds an element of tactical focus that wasn't there before.
If I look at a group of enemies, and I see that they're in a group, my instinct is to cast my spell at the center of the group. But if that group of enemies is close to me and my allies, I might have the tactical sense to cast the spell behind them, so that it affects my enemies and not my allies. This is tactical focus; the game is already using an isometric view, which makes that kind of easy to "eyeball"; the only thing this feature does is let you make those decisions intelligently without having to guess, based on the size of the playing field relative to your current zoom, where to put your spell - and then be frustrated when you miss them entirely, and now you've not only wasted your action for that round, but you've also wasted a level 3 spell.
At which point, the players who would have liked to have this feature will sigh, and reload.
What you're suggesting is that that frustration, wasted time and effort, and reloading of the game is actually a layer of challenge. I'm suggesting it's not. I'm also, notably, not telling you that you have to use it (again - turn the option off if you don't like it). You're telling me that I have to go without it, despite the fact that there are clearly other players who would enjoy the same feature.
One of us is talking bad design, here, but it's not me.
@Aosaw Forcing the player not to use their Fireball spell when on close quarters is a perfectly valid tool of encounter design, which opens tactical and strategical opportunities and requirements.
Such as when two groups are engaged in melee combat or are at close range, then because friendly fire, you, as a thinking player, must/should make the choice of not using your heaviest spells because are, as they should, likely to hit both parties. Instead, you do something else, maybe reposition yourself or use crowd control or use magic/items/potions to render yourself immune to your AoE, reload to the begining of the battle and avoid being in close range from the start.
Those are actual strategic choices. Miraculously hitting 'behind your enemies' with milimetric and un-immersive precision is not. You don't call artillery fire to your position expecting that the shooters will make the 'tactical choice' of hitting behind your enemies and miraculously not hit you.
This how the Braveheart movie went: Longshanks: Archers. English Commander: I beg your pardon sire, but... won't we hit our own troops? Longshanks: (pretending surprise) ...Yes. But we'll hit theirs as well. We have reserves. Attack! Not this: Longshanks: Archers. English Commander: I beg your pardon sire, but... won't we hit our own troops? Longshanks: (surprise) ...Commander, have you forgotten the 'aim behind the enemy drill' we've been practicing so much? English Commander: Brilliant sire! Lieutenant, signal the archers to mathematically calculate the travel path of their arrows as to hit a space that only closely reaches our massed soldiers!
I believe that if the player is granted both the power of pausing the game at the same time as what the thread is asking, then Friendly Fire becomes moot. The pure choice between seeing the radius of the spell or not is bad design. Its not the choice between two customizable sets of difficulties, of playstyles, its the choice between being challenged or not. Its BioWare's philosophy of making a difficulty level for people who only like story and another for people that actually like gameplay (because, after all, combat is most of the gameplay in these most recent CRPGs).
This isn't some theoretical thing, this is by experience from more recent RTwP games, such as Dragon Age: Origins. Its rare that you can't use your AoE spells in that game, even if your party is surrounded and dismantled.
If you must see the exact radius of effect of inexact spellcastings without opting to this so that the game doesn't just becomes easier, but rather stops challenging you on a whole level (friendly fire), then you should also sacrifice the pause function.
And yes, I just repeated myself because you didn't really address any of my points. If you intend to do so, however, answer me how the thread's suggestion + the pause function doesn't eliminate friendly fire altogether.
I didn't address your points, because you called the idea "bad design", when it was patently obvious that it was something people wanted, and I felt insulted. I'm thinking a little more clearly now, so I'll address your points now:
Forcing the player not to use their Fireball spell when on close quarters is a perfectly valid tool of encounter design, which opens tactical and strategical opportunities and requirements.
Agreed. This is why fights in a small room aren't always the best place for a fireball. Generally speaking, if the room is less than 20 feet across, casting a spell with a 20-foot radius area of effect is a bad idea unless you've got fire resistance.
Such as when two groups are engaged in melee combat or are at close range, then because friendly fire, you, as a thinking player, must/should make the choice of not using your heaviest spells because are, as they should, likely to hit both parties. Instead, you do something else, maybe reposition yourself or use crowd control or use magic/items/potions to render yourself immune to your AoE, reload to the begining of the battle and avoid being in close range from the start.
If you've got your own guys in melee with the enemy, and you cast Fireball so that you hit three of the enemy in order to not hit your own allies instead of all ten of them, that's a tactical choice. It's also probably not the best choice strategically, because you've probably got a targeted spell that will deal more damage to the same number of enemies.
If your allies aren't enmeshed in the enemy ranks, though, it is commonly accepted business practice within the profession of adventurers to cast your fireball behind enemy lines, blasting your enemies in the back and giving your friends a clear view of the explosion so they can take cover. Because area spells in Baldur's Gate don't have "blasting zones" that knock people back, this is much less of a hazard than, say, a grenade. It's basically equivalent to lighting a gas fire and throwing it.
This how the Braveheart movie went: Longshanks: Archers. English Commander: I beg your pardon sire, but... won't we hit our own troops? Longshanks: (pretending surprise) ...Yes. But we'll hit theirs as well. We have reserves. Attack! Not this: Longshanks: Archers. English Commander: I beg your pardon sire, but... won't we hit our own troops? Longshanks: (surprise) ...Commander, have you forgotten the 'aim behind the enemy drill' we've been practicing so much? English Commander: Brilliant sire! Lieutenant, signal the archers to mathematically calculate the travel path of their arrows as to hit a space that only closely reaches our massed soldiers!
In D&D, it also wouldn't be an issue, because there's no chance of hitting a different target when you fire into melee.
The difference there is also that the Scotsmen were amidst the ranks of the Englishmen. In the realm of area of effect, this would be the same thing as casting fireball on a group of enemies that also includes your allies, because "hey, at least we'll kill the enemy". There's no "millimetric precision" (kind of a haughty term to repeat thirty times, but whatever). A more accurate scenario would be this:
Ally A is a wizard; Ally B is a fighter. Enemy A is a fighter, in close combat with Ally B. Ally A knows that Enemy A is fifteen feet away from him, and Ally B is ten feet away. So Ally A, rather than casting Flaming Arrow, casts Fireball, targeting a spot on the ground twenty-five feet behind Enemy A. The blast engulfs Enemy A, but narrowly misses Ally B.
It's a gross waste of a third-level spell, I think we can agree. In a game that, unlike DA:O, relies on use-per-day spell slots rather than mana points, you have to be economical with your spell use. Casting Fireball in a wasteful manner like that is reckless, and poor strategy. But it's not exactly unrealistic.
Post-Combat: Ally B: "What the hell was that? You could have killed me!" Ally A: "Ah. But I didn't. Did I?"
I believe that if the player is granted both the power of pausing the game at the same time as what the thread is asking, then Friendly Fire becomes moot. The pure choice between seeing the radius of the spell or not is bad design. Its not the choice between two customizable sets of difficulties, of playstyles, its the choice between being challenged or not.
So I'm playing World of Warcraft, and I'm using a mouse with two butttons because I use a PC. My friend is playing World of Warcraft, and he's using a trackpad because he's using a laptop. My friend has made the conscious choice to use his laptop when he comes over to my house, and to not use a mouse, because it makes him feel a greater challenge. I keep my mouse, because I like having greater control.
Is that bad design? No.
I'm playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and I've got a sniper rifle in my inventory. But instead of using the sniper rifle, I decide to use a pistol to shoot someone across the room, just because it's a greater challenge.
Is that bad design? No.
The developers give the player the ability to play the game in a way that suits his style.
My friend and I are taking a math test. The teacher says we can use calculators. I decide to use a calculator so that I can solve the problems more quickly; my friend decides to do everything by hand because he likes drawing out the equations. We both get the answer right.
Is that bad design?
Its BioWare's philosophy of making a difficulty level for people who only like story and another for people that actually like gameplay (because, after all, combat is most of the gameplay in these most recent CRPGs).
So your position is, if someone is more interested in the story of Baldur's Gate than the gameplay, they have no business playing the game. Baldur's Gate is only for the elite players who can eyeball a 30-foot radius because they've been playing the game for fourteen years.
That's bad design. As soon as you start making value judgments on the players because they're more interested in one aspect of the game than others, you're making a mistake as a developer. The game is there to be enjoyed. It's there so that you can experience the story. For most people, the gameplay isn't important. For some people it is, but in an isometric RPG, the emphasis is more on storytelling than anything else.
One of my favorite gameplay experiences of 2011 was Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which has three difficulty settings: "Tell Me a Story", which is basically like Easy, but the description explains that it's for people who just want to experience the game's story; "Give Me a Challenge", which is like Normal, described as "Deus Ex the way it was meant to be played"; and "Give Me Deus Ex", which is like Hard, and described as "suitable only for the most hardcore of gamers".
My first time through, I played the game on its easiest difficulty, because First-Person-Shooters aren't really my thing, and I wanted to go through the story without worrying about running out of ammo. I had a grand old time.
Next time through, I'll play it on Give Me a Challenge, because I'll be playing it for the gameplay. And it will probably be just as much fun.
Baldur's Gate is the same way. Not using the area of effect marker is a bit like using a sniper rifle without the scope. Those of us who have been playing the game for fourteen years will probably not need it; we know where the enemies are, we know how big our spells are, and we can willingly turn it off. Those of us who haven't, who are playing the game for the first time, can play with the scopes on, and get their headshots every time.
And yes, I just repeated myself because you didn't really address any of my points. If you intend to do so, however, answer me how the thread's suggestion + the pause function doesn't eliminate friendly fire altogether.
Well, no, it doesn't. If you cast Fireball in the middle of the room where your allies are in melee, your allies are going to get hit. That doesn't change. And if the room is small, or if you can't see far enough, or if the battle is happening near a corner in the hallway, then fireball is still the wrong spell to cast.
All that this does is give the player a better sense of what's going to happen when he casts the spell, so that the player can say, "Okay, Fireball, that looks like a good spell to cast", and then see just exactly how big that spell's radius is. The player might then say, "Wow, that's bigger than I thought, time for something smaller maybe", which is also valid, and a lot more intuitive than forcing the player to go to their spellbook, finding the level 3 spells, right-clicking on the fireball icon, and reading the description again.
Does it make the game easier? Sure. Can you turn it off? Absolutely. Is it bad design to give the player something that will be useful when learning the game? This shouldn't even be a question.
I didn't address your points, because you called the idea "bad design", when it was patently obvious that it was something people wanted, and I felt insulted.
Thank you for directly addressing my points, now I can do as you did, actually criticise your ideas.
Speaking of criticism, and I mean no disrespect, but calling it a insult is incredibly arrogant. Your posts aren't insulting to me, and you're being critical of my ideas. I'd recommend you a similar outlook on things.
Finally, people don't always know what they want: my first post on this thread shows that I almost agreed with spell radius. I just thought about it and came to the conclusion that leaving both the pause button AND adding a spell radius helper would greatly undermine friendly fire.
Agreed. This is why fights in a small room aren't always the best place for a fireball. Generally speaking, if the room is less than 20 feet across, casting a spell with a 20-foot radius area of effect is a bad idea unless you've got fire resistance.
Not just a small room, also a open field or a relatively open forest path. Quickly closing in on your enemy is a perfectly valid strategy for the player to use, and the encounter designer as well.
If you've got your own guys in melee with the enemy, and you cast Fireball so that you hit three of the enemy in order to not hit your own allies instead of all ten of them, that's a tactical choice.
Not without a big chance of failing because if we, with our pause button and top down view cannot calculate the 30yard range, I highly doubt a mage in the thick of battle can.
It's also probably not the best choice strategically, because you've probably got a targeted spell that will deal more damage to the same number of enemies.
Unlikely to be the case because its rare that the enemy melee fighters actually push into your party's formation, especially if you hold you ground. Not to mention if you use a narrower spell than a Fireball, such as Aganazzar's Scorcher.
If your allies aren't enmeshed in the enemy ranks, though, it is commonly accepted business practice within the profession of adventurers to cast your fireball behind enemy lines, blasting your enemies in the back and giving your friends a clear view of the explosion so they can take cover.
Again, if we, with our top down view, outside of the thick of battle and the power to control time are unable to calculate the radius of the explosion, can't see why our characters can.
Because area spells in Baldur's Gate don't have "blasting zones" that knock people back, this is much less of a hazard than, say, a grenade. It's basically equivalent to lighting a gas fire and throwing it.
Considering that most of Baldur's Gate spell effect actually should have a knockdown mechanic (explosions and jets of ice?), I'd say this is a argument of gameplay and story segregation - ie pointless.
In D&D, it also wouldn't be an issue, because there's no chance of hitting a different target when you fire into melee.
If true, then this is a argument of gameplay and story segregation. Just because D&D doesn't bother to list every single possibility as a rule doesn't mean that the possibility doesn't exist.
I mean, if I critically miss a guy who's using someone as a shield, the GM is bound to make the hostage suffer for it. In the thick of battle, things shouldn't be that much different.
The difference there is also that the Scotsmen were amidst the ranks of the Englishmen. In the realm of area of effect, this would be the same thing as casting fireball on a group of enemies that also includes your allies, because "hey, at least we'll kill the enemy".
This is true. However, the enemy in Baldur's Gate (and Dragon Age: Origins) rarely pushes into your party's formation, as said above. So that limitation of the Fireball spell is scraped most of the time.
In general, you'll see something like this:
X O O
X X O O X O
With the enemy stopping as soon as they've met with the nearest party member, they are ripe for a milimetrically aimed Fireball (as if you're not already imagining me talking with the haughtiest voice possible ~.^).
You could make the case here of "I'm trapping the enemy's position with my melee so that my AoE can make short work of them!" - to which I'd agree. However:
A)You can already do that in Baldur's Gate, though its a risky tactic - as it should be.
and There's still the issue of the AI probably not even trying to escape from that, even if in the middle of a open field.
Ally A knows that Enemy A is fifteen feet away from him, and Ally B is ten feet away.
Wow, and he didn't even need a Fly (the player's top down view) and Time Stop (the pause button) spells to do that insane calculation? With a precision that even I, myself, certainly don't care to reach? In the middle of battle, and therefore severe penalty to his concentration checks?! IMPOSSIBLE.
So your position is, if someone is more interested in the story of Baldur's Gate than the gameplay, they have no business playing the game. Baldur's Gate is only for the elite players who can eyeball a 30-foot radius because they've been playing the game for fourteen years.
First the insulting part. Please, do not accuse me of elitism. I am merely suggesting that there are ways to deal with the issue, I myself have terrible eye coordination and both I and thousands of others, for the last 15 years no less, dealt with the issue strategically and tactically. And they, us, simply:
Positioned ourselves to giver our aim a safe margin of error, say, surrounding the enemy from a distance. Prepared themselves with resistance/immunity to their spell's element. Or they simply casted from a longer range.
Second. I think that a story in a game should be told by the actual game. BioWare is unwilling/unable to create paths of advancement of the story that aren't conditioned by combat - which is no surprise considering the history of CRPGs in general.
In a RPG, if you don't want to fight, you'll rely on things such as diplomacy, you'll take the strategic choice of creating/developing/or in the case of BG hiring a character that can get you out of trouble somehow. And if push comes to shove, you can always try to flee or otherwise disarm/disable your enemy.
We can agree that cannot be easily implemented. Instead they opted for the current levels of difficulty, which is far easier to implement. Instead of making a game out of avoiding parts of the game that you dislike (say, fighting) they, instead, allowed you to bypass over half of the game. Because in BioWare RPG, character creation and development is almost limited to how it affects combat, occasionally cosmetically affecting dialogue.
So yes, I do think unholistic game design is bad design.
So I'm playing World of Warcraft, and I'm using a mouse with two butttons because I use a PC. My friend is playing World of Warcraft, and he's using a trackpad because he's using a laptop. My friend has made the conscious choice to use his laptop when he comes over to my house, and to not use a mouse, because it makes him feel a greater challenge. I keep my mouse, because I like having greater control.
Is that bad design? No.
That's not even part of the game's design. It would be if Blizzard added 'handicap points' for those without a proper mouse or internet connection and even then I wouldn't necessarily call it bad design (though it would be a silly idea).
I'm playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and I've got a sniper rifle in my inventory. But instead of using the sniper rifle, I decide to use a pistol to shoot someone across the room, just because it's a greater challenge.
Is that bad design? No.
Allow me to give you a Baldur's Gate equivalent of it. You, cast a AoE spell in a situation where its a clumsy weapon and miraculously/skillfully hit with the consequence you were hoping for. Both using a pistol at long-range and AoE clumsily are bad decisions - and in both Baldur's Gate and, hopefully, Deus Ex won't have a flashy graphic telling you its a bad decision, you should either already know it or find out yourself, as part of the game.
My friend and I are taking a math test. The teacher says we can use calculators. I decide to use a calculator so that I can solve the problems more quickly; my friend decides to do everything by hand because he likes drawing out the equations. We both get the answer right.
Is that bad design?
If the teacher believes, and he clearly doesn't, that the challenge provided from not using a calculator/not being able to research/having to know the formulas is worthwhile to the test/to him, then yes, it was a bad decision of him to let you use a calculator or read your notebooks.
Mind you, this isn't game design but, like with our disagreement, there aren't different kinds of challenge involved, but rather one side that actually is challenged and the other that isn't. That's why I believe that there should be a trade involved, not just a sort of slider challenge/no challenge.
Those of us who have been playing the game for fourteen years will probably not need it; we know where the enemies are, we know how big our spells
You don't need any of those things.
In fact, I myself don't have any idea of the radius of any spells, even after 4 years. I always. Always cast them from afar.
Furthermore, we have stealth and invisibility, therefore we have scouting.
But maybe new players won't have that much forethought. Guess what? None of us did! Oh the horror! But wait, we're here aren't we? We and thousands of others loved and still love the game, right? So we dealt with this layer of challenge. We did not demand it to disappear!
In fact, I'm pretty sure most of us still aren't capable of predicting/reacting to the trail of a lightning bolt! In fact, unlike your accusations of my elitism, most everyone here, for the best part of their playtime, couldn't really do distance calculations with exact precision to maximize the effect of a fireball spell! Even with the pause button. Even with the top down view. Imagine if your character tried to do that.
Well, no, it doesn't. If you cast Fireball in the middle of the room where your allies are in melee, your allies are going to get hit. That doesn't change.
This is true. However, the enemy in Baldur's Gate (and Dragon Age: Origins) rarely pushes into your party's formation, as said above. So that limitation of the Fireball spell is scraped most of the time.
In general, you'll see something like this: [ ] [ X O O Open] [X X O O Field ] [ X O ] [ ]
Is it bad design to give the player something that will be useful when learning the game? This shouldn't even be a question.
You're not doing that. People who already played Baldur's Gate learned, overtime, how to counter their inability to see their spell's effects with perfect precision; they also learned, more or less, the radius of the spells (not my case). The player learns things when challenged, not when someone holds his hands.
I'm pressed for time (and this discussion is, as HeroicSpur pointed out, going literally nowhere), but I'll address the following two points:
A) Speaking of criticism, and I mean no disrespect, but calling it a insult is incredibly arrogant. Your posts aren't insulting to me, and you're being critical of my ideas. I'd recommend you a similar outlook on things.
I didn't call it an insult. I said that I felt insulted by it. I'm not sure how this is arrogant - in fact, I pointed out (however implicitly) that it had resulted in me not thinking clearly. Self-deprecation has never, in my understanding of things, been a sign of arrogance.
First the insulting part. Please, do not accuse me of elitism when I am merely suggesting that there are ways to deal with the issue of not retaining a perfectly un-immersive knowledge of a AoE effect I myself have terrible eye coordination.
The elitist part of what you said was the implication (which I quoted, so I'm not sure how this was misinterpreted) that it is wrong for a developer to create two sets of difficulty depending on whether a player is more interested in story or gameplay. It's elitist (and I didn't call it elitist before, but I'm calling it elitist now) because it assumes that only one kind of player is right, or should be "allowed" to enjoy a game. It seemed to me that you were saying anyone who's only interested in story has no business playing a Baldur's Gate game. I don't disagree that CRPGs over the last ten years have been systematically "dumbed down" in terms of difficulty, largely as a means to make them more accessible to a broader market.
To me, though, the "two difficulty settings" you mentioned are what makes a good game more accessible to all players, not just the new ones who have never played a video game in their life, or the old ones who've been playing games for fifteen years (or twenty years, in my case). I may have misunderstood you, but it seemed to me that you were saying, "No, this game is for hardcore gamers only; everyone else is going to have to just deal." If I misunderstood you, then I retract my earlier statement.
Everything else in your post I disagree with - for reasons that I'm sure you can intuit from what I've already said (except for the bit about how a wizard couldn't "millimetrically" calculate distance from within a battle; I think you're underestimating an 18 Intelligence, just a hair) - but I think this conversation has outlived its utility.
It's up to the developers whether or not to implement this feature. I really don't think it will injure your gameplay experience if the feature is included, especially if it can be turned off at your leisure, and otherwise I believe it adds an element of usefulness that would be enjoyed by many players, despite the fact that it might "break the immersion". First-person shooters include a crosshair in the middle of the screen to let players accurately aim their shots. A sniper's scope lets him zoom in to shoot someone from a distance, with incredible precision.
A wizard, priest, sorcerer, or bard can bend reality itself to his will. We're talking about a man who has the ability to summon a sixty-foot diameter sphere of fire in the middle of a forest without setting it on fire. A man who could beat Albert Einstein in a game of chess, not least because chess is the wizard's favorite game, but also because he's just plain smarter.
The player is not that smart. Sometimes the player needs an analog. Not every player wants one. Not every player needs one. But I fundamentally disagree with the idea that the analog should not exist.
I didn't call it an insult. I said that I felt insulted by it. I'm not sure how this is arrogant - in fact, I pointed out (however implicitly) that it had resulted in me not thinking clearly. Self-deprecation has never, in my understanding of things, been a sign of arrogance.'
The choice of feeling insulted insulted to criticism implicates a preterit belief that you couldn't possibly be wrong. What came after was humbling, what came before (and sparked the issue), however, was not.
that it is wrong for a developer to create two sets of difficulty depending on whether a player is more interested in story or gameplay. It's elitist (and I didn't call it elitist before, but I'm calling it elitist now) because it assumes that only one kind of player is right, or should be "allowed" to enjoy a game.'
This is silly.
When a 'player' falls under the misconception that only part of the game is story and only part of the game is, well, game, then someone's wrong here - either the game has troves of un-immersive and unholistic design that segregates gameplay and story or the player is being silly, in the sense that he is unable to see that everything he does in the game, combat included, is part of the story. When a player skips either part of the game, the combat or the dialogue (and, again, both are the story), then that player is only going through a part of the experience.
And what that means in RPG is that the player isn't roleplaying his character.
The correct way to appease to those who do not wish to fight in a RPG is to give them game ways to circumvent combat. To avoid combat should be part of the game, to avoid combat should be part of the story.
The wrong way to do that is through difficulty sliders - if the story assumes that Commander Shepard battles through every enemy encounter, when you skip those battles, you're not roleplaying Commander Shepard at all. If the game assumes you killed Sarevok, but you chose the 'story' difficulty and the battle is promptly/practically skipped, then you didn't kill Sarevok and the game must not assume you did.
In the correct way, Charname, Shepard, whatever character you're playing as would have a customizable experience. Planescape Torment did that, I believe (didn't play the game) there are only 2 monsters you have to kill in the game, with other situations being just as efficiently resolved through stat checks and choices as they would be with steel or magic. If you don't like combat in Planescape, then you'll create and develop a Nameless One that excells in other areas of expertise. And that Nameless One of your creation, the cunning and smart guy who'd get away from every confusion with his wits instead of his brawl, that would be part of the story.
To truly enjoy a game, you must play through the entirety of it. And yes, the right player is not even the one that succeeds at that, just the guy who at least tried. The wrong player is the guy who wrote in the cheats just because he'd rather see the 'story'. That is why only one of those two get to enjoy the game in its entirety, to react to the limitations that the game imposes on you through all facets of the game, be it combat or dialogue, through the entirety of the game's story.
If by now you still actually think that 'gameplay' and 'story' are segregate, then you might as well as watch a movie - there you'll find no pesky and opressive games.
No, this game is for hardcore gamers only; everyone else is going to have to just deal." If I misunderstood you, then I retract my earlier statement.
Cut the populist arguments, please. We are talking about a game that's has already been played for a decade! And not for a handful of loyal fans but rather by common people who are certainly not 'hardcore', unless for your 'hardcore' is equivalent to gamer, at which point I do believe that only 'hardcores' will get full satisfaction out of the game.
(except for the bit about how a wizard couldn't "millimetrically" calculate distance from within a battle; I think you're underestimating an 18 Intelligence, just a hair)'
1 - Not every spellcaster has high intelligence.
2 - High but yet not supernatural intelligence does not make you immune to concentration checks.
3 - Story arguments are moot because everyone has their own view of these issues, therefore story arguments do not dictate gameplay mechanics.
4 - The character has a much worse point of view than the player, who enjoys the combined powers of a level 3 spell called flight and the level 9 spell time stop and, according to you, still can't roughly estimate the radius of their fireball spell with all the tranquility (as opposed to the combat situation the spellcaster finds himself in) in the world.
5 - I'm pretty sure the Baldur's Gate players, in general, aren't smarter than Albert Einstein but still could, in disagreement with you, roughly estimate the radius of their AoE spells.
despite the fact that it might "break the immersion"'
Was never my problem, as said before my 'story' arguments were merely flavour. My problem is that it hurts the game's strategic and tactical potential but practically scrapping friendly fire as a game mechanic.
With a visual aid you'll no longer need to:
Position yourself to giver your aim a safe margin of error, say, surrounding the enemy from a distance. Prepared yourself with resistance/immunity to your own spell's element. Or simply prioritize longer range spellcasting.
First-person shooters include a crosshair in the middle of the screen to let players accurately aim their shots. A sniper's scope lets him zoom in to shoot someone from a distance, with incredible precision.'
Interestingly the FPS genres is one of the most 'streamlined' of gaming, its no wonder they are this generation's platformer. But since first-person shooters don't have a pause function, and are truly real time games, then a better analogy would be a automatic aim.
A wizard, priest, sorcerer, or bard can bend reality itself to his will. We're talking about a man who has the ability to summon a sixty-foot diameter sphere of fire in the middle of a forest without setting it on fire. A man who could beat Albert Einstein in a game of chess, not least because chess is the wizard's favorite game, but also because he's just plain smarter.
The player is not that smart. Sometimes the player needs an analog. Not every player wants one. Not every player needs one. But I fundamentally disagree with the idea that the analog should not exist.'
The player also bends reality to his will. Not only he commands the power of aforementioned spellcasters (and can manipulate the battlefield to deal with his own limitations) but he can stop time and see from high above the surface - if with all this he cannot aim his AoE's correctly, even with, Gods Forbid!!, a little practice, then it would certainly be a problem.
But you see, every player who's finished Baldur's Gate did. And I'm pretty sure none of us are smarter than Albert E.
I'm done arguing this. It's patently obvious that you and I will never agree on this point. I find it incredibly close-minded that you refuse to entertain the notion that not every player feels the same way about this feature that you do, and would go so far as to condemn some players for wanting to use the analog when you can just as easily disable it for yourself. You talk about me being arrogant (not for taking offense, but for admitting that I felt insulted), but of the two of us, your position is the one that is assuming everyone else must be wrong.
We've gone back and forth on this so many times, the only thing this conversation can succeed in accomplishing is making one of us angry. So I'm done.
And for the record, "millimetric" isn't a word. Stop using it.
Comments
It's not a deal breaker for me, it just makes me select spells that I can control better. Like I said, I hate using Lightning because I can't aim well with it, though I still use Fireball (because it lets me burn things!), I just tend to waste a bit of its potential damage by being overly cautious.
Reads, "Fireball: sends out a sphere of flame that erupts in an explosion which catches everything in its vicinity on fire doing massive damage the more experienced the caster..."
Ponders, "Maybe I should practice it a bit first... and probably far away from myself..."
-Be more cautious with spell targetting and party posiotining, to avoid friendly fire.
-Value crowd-control spells more.
-Value longer-ranged spellcasting.
-Value resistances and immunities more.
Anything else? Just described me.
"New practicing mage picks up spellbook after learning the spell Fireball. The spellbook reads:
Fireball: Expected blast radius: 15'. Use with extreme caution.
The mage, who has never cast this spell before, thinks, 'I'm going to need a ruler.' "
A spellbook tells the caster the exact effects to expect from the spell he casts. This includes blast radius. If you know that the blast will be 30 feet across, then as long as you can tell what "30 feet" looks like, you can get a fairly precise expectation of the effect.
In fact, even before you learn the spell, much of your training as a wizard involves understanding the geometry of your spellcasting. If you've spent years learning that, it's not a great leap to say that a talented wizard could target his spells precisely enough to duplicate the effect of a "targeting circle".
@Aosaw Well, yes, I was thinking that, but... trying to be more impressionistic for dramatic effect. :-P
@Aliteri More good points about the skills one acquires by using one's head rather than one's metagamed tool system to survive and win fights... :-)
You show them that realism in a game is a very abstract concept.
You guys tell us childish stories, how do you know that a mage doesn't know the exact effects (area I mean) of his spell. It is absurd.
Good luck in finding more serious arguments.
I meant no offence !!!!!!!
@Aosaw I myself find it hard to believe that spells work with machine like efficiency. Don't the D&D rules already add modifiers to spells cast by mages of different levels of power and experience? Then a same mage at different moments (and experiencing differing levels of concentration), be it at the process of storing the spell (pre-casting) or of actually casting it in the middle of battle should also cast the spell with a given level of variation. You said it yourself: expected blast radius, its not a absolute.
That there's a instance of gameplay and story segregation at work here, with spells working always with exact efficiency, shouldn't really be a argument for machine like efficiency between wizards.
And besides, what about unschooled spellcasters such as clerics, sorcerers, bards and many wild mages? Under your logic, the spellcasters should not have the geometric ability nor should their spells be under the same expectations from the more academic spells (the latter not being the case for clerics, I suppose the deities' boons may be more uniform).
To make the game easier to control let's suppose that their capacities of casting the same spells are equal.
You are trying to find positeve aspects in the lacks of the game. It is not going to work.
Only then have I found positive aspects of Baldur's Gate combat that didn't really happen in DA:O, the player:
-Is more cautious with spell targetting and party posiotining, to avoid friendly fire.
-Values crowd-control spells more.
-Values longer-ranged spellcasting.
-Values resistances and immunities more.
Really, were BG's combat a purely real time strategy game, had we no pause function to rely on, I'd advocate the ability to see the radius of the spells. But you can deal with it. And its part of the fun.
The above is the basis of my argument. The 'story' arguments are just flavour and really, when it comes to arguing story people rarely have the last word because people have their own views on things. My posts above show 'story' arguments which, I believe, gives more character to spellcasting as a plot point, variation and inaccuracy - \o/magic\o/. But I don't expect either my 'story' arguments, or anyone's, to actually define what should be done in respect to the thread's subject.
A wizard has a high intelligence, allowing him to correctly judge the distance between objects.
A priest trusts in the divine judgment of his god to keep his allies out of harm's way.
A sorcerer is manipulating the energy directly; his understanding of space and distance is instinctual.
A bard is much the same as a sorcerer.
I'll agree that it shouldn't be a standard, and that it should definitely be an option that users can turn off if they don't want it. But as an option, not only does it have a basis in the D&D ruleset, but for many players - myself included - it not only makes the gameplay more intuitive, but it also doesn't take me out of the world at all.
Many changes made over the years on game design in general made game mechanics both more intuitive and more streamlined. I argue that it was overdone in the sense that games have gotten considerably less challenging and complex, a fate not to my liking for the BGEE.
So while there are changes and interesting tweaks to be made, we shouldn't fall into the illusion that its the case with everything. Not being able to target your explosive arsenal with milimetric precision has added, as I've said before, a lot of complexity to the game and it would be a shame if it all went away.
Essentially, don't break the fun.
Now lets get back to the pointless 'story argument'.
A wizard isn't necessarily immune to 'concentration checks', especially in the middle of battle.
I'd agree with your justification for clerical spells if either A)They were not required to do any decision making in the middle of battle, therefore truly relying on the judgement of their deity and B)If all their spells had no issues of friendly fire.
Sorcerers and bards, this is the one that I'm more likely to agree with but not for every spell. After all, there's a point in the life of a Sorcerer that he is not very efficient at controlling his emotion based power and therefore, the understanding of the spell isn't absolutely instinctive.
The Sorcerer and the Wizard might have different sources for their power, but just as a Wizard comes to understand a spell more (and, for a instance, gain a instinctive understanding of the radius of his Fireball spell) so does the Sorcerer understand his power more as well. Therefore, since a Sorcerer, as the Wizard, excuse himself of the potential for failure, especially in the middle of battle, then he too, no matter how intelligent, isn't immune to 'concentration checks'.
I fail to see how an optional feature to show the projected area of effect on the screen would "break the fun". If you don't like it, you can easily turn it off, just like the circles under your party members' feet. That argument has about as much merit as "Get rid of tab, it pulls me out of the game" - an argument that has also been beaten and beaten to death.
There are greater problems of immersion-breaking with the Pause feature than there are with letting spellcasters see where their spells are going to go off. I think, actually, that if you could see the projected area of effect for your spells, you might pause the game less often, rendering the issue moot.
Visible AoE hasn't been around in Baldur's Gate since 1998, that's all that matters. So far I have presented considerable strategic and tactical issues the player faces by not being able to target his AoE spells with milimetric precision right now in Baldur's Gate.
And personally, I don't think toggles are the be the end solution to all problems. At which point the issue rather is: if I do this, am I simply providing different levels of challenge (say, a difficulty slider that changes enemy hitpoints and damage output) or just removing an entire layer of challenge?
Which brings me to the pause button: no you won't stop pausing, no one is going to stop pausing the game, you'll actually pause so you can aim everything perfectly. Which means that the pause button combined with the ability to see exactly, with milimetric precision, the effects of all spells would be akin to removing friendly fire altogether. Therefore you're not just presenting different layers of challenge, you're giving the player the choice between 'do you want the game to challenge you or not?'.
Sure, if its just a toggle then, yes, I personally shouldn't care. Except that it would be bad design.
But if the choice was between 'Do you want the ability to Pause the game (one kind of challenge) OR do you want -insert various UI improvements here, including the option to see the radius of the AoE spell-'. Then things would be much more interesting, though I don't have a lot of faith for this level of modular difficulty customization.
I think it would be good design to say, "Let the player choose the feedback level, not only of the circles around his party members, but also the projected area of effect for all his spells". Lightning Bolt becomes no longer a question of "Do I want to kill my entire party", and more a question of "Let's line this spell up so that it can be the most effective."
(For added clarification, I'm referring to the setting in the options screen that lets you choose whether to show the green, red, or blue circle around you, your party members, non-party members, and enemies - there's a slider there already; I'm just suggesting adding it to the far end of that slider. Adding it as a toggle would work better, probably, but that's what I'm referring to. The functionality already exists; I'm simply suggesting that it be expanded.)
I can see your point about not wanting to have that extra tool available to you, because you'll be tempted to use it. But honestly, I don't see this feature taking anything away from the players that choose not to use it. And for the players that DO use it, it adds an element of tactical focus that wasn't there before.
If I look at a group of enemies, and I see that they're in a group, my instinct is to cast my spell at the center of the group. But if that group of enemies is close to me and my allies, I might have the tactical sense to cast the spell behind them, so that it affects my enemies and not my allies. This is tactical focus; the game is already using an isometric view, which makes that kind of easy to "eyeball"; the only thing this feature does is let you make those decisions intelligently without having to guess, based on the size of the playing field relative to your current zoom, where to put your spell - and then be frustrated when you miss them entirely, and now you've not only wasted your action for that round, but you've also wasted a level 3 spell.
At which point, the players who would have liked to have this feature will sigh, and reload.
What you're suggesting is that that frustration, wasted time and effort, and reloading of the game is actually a layer of challenge. I'm suggesting it's not. I'm also, notably, not telling you that you have to use it (again - turn the option off if you don't like it). You're telling me that I have to go without it, despite the fact that there are clearly other players who would enjoy the same feature.
One of us is talking bad design, here, but it's not me.
Forcing the player not to use their Fireball spell when on close quarters is a perfectly valid tool of encounter design, which opens tactical and strategical opportunities and requirements.
Such as when two groups are engaged in melee combat or are at close range, then because friendly fire, you, as a thinking player, must/should make the choice of not using your heaviest spells because are, as they should, likely to hit both parties. Instead, you do something else, maybe reposition yourself or use crowd control or use magic/items/potions to render yourself immune to your AoE, reload to the begining of the battle and avoid being in close range from the start.
Those are actual strategic choices. Miraculously hitting 'behind your enemies' with milimetric and un-immersive precision is not. You don't call artillery fire to your position expecting that the shooters will make the 'tactical choice' of hitting behind your enemies and miraculously not hit you.
This how the Braveheart movie went:
Longshanks: Archers.
English Commander: I beg your pardon sire, but... won't we hit our own troops?
Longshanks: (pretending surprise) ...Yes. But we'll hit theirs as well. We have reserves. Attack!
Not this:
Longshanks: Archers.
English Commander: I beg your pardon sire, but... won't we hit our own troops?
Longshanks: (surprise) ...Commander, have you forgotten the 'aim behind the enemy drill' we've been practicing so much?
English Commander: Brilliant sire! Lieutenant, signal the archers to mathematically calculate the travel path of their arrows as to hit a space that only closely reaches our massed soldiers!
I believe that if the player is granted both the power of pausing the game at the same time as what the thread is asking, then Friendly Fire becomes moot. The pure choice between seeing the radius of the spell or not is bad design. Its not the choice between two customizable sets of difficulties, of playstyles, its the choice between being challenged or not. Its BioWare's philosophy of making a difficulty level for people who only like story and another for people that actually like gameplay (because, after all, combat is most of the gameplay in these most recent CRPGs).
This isn't some theoretical thing, this is by experience from more recent RTwP games, such as Dragon Age: Origins. Its rare that you can't use your AoE spells in that game, even if your party is surrounded and dismantled.
If you must see the exact radius of effect of inexact spellcastings without opting to this so that the game doesn't just becomes easier, but rather stops challenging you on a whole level (friendly fire), then you should also sacrifice the pause function.
And yes, I just repeated myself because you didn't really address any of my points. If you intend to do so, however, answer me how the thread's suggestion + the pause function doesn't eliminate friendly fire altogether.
Forcing the player not to use their Fireball spell when on close quarters is a perfectly valid tool of encounter design, which opens tactical and strategical opportunities and requirements.
Agreed. This is why fights in a small room aren't always the best place for a fireball. Generally speaking, if the room is less than 20 feet across, casting a spell with a 20-foot radius area of effect is a bad idea unless you've got fire resistance. If you've got your own guys in melee with the enemy, and you cast Fireball so that you hit three of the enemy in order to not hit your own allies instead of all ten of them, that's a tactical choice. It's also probably not the best choice strategically, because you've probably got a targeted spell that will deal more damage to the same number of enemies.
If your allies aren't enmeshed in the enemy ranks, though, it is commonly accepted business practice within the profession of adventurers to cast your fireball behind enemy lines, blasting your enemies in the back and giving your friends a clear view of the explosion so they can take cover. Because area spells in Baldur's Gate don't have "blasting zones" that knock people back, this is much less of a hazard than, say, a grenade. It's basically equivalent to lighting a gas fire and throwing it. In D&D, it also wouldn't be an issue, because there's no chance of hitting a different target when you fire into melee.
The difference there is also that the Scotsmen were amidst the ranks of the Englishmen. In the realm of area of effect, this would be the same thing as casting fireball on a group of enemies that also includes your allies, because "hey, at least we'll kill the enemy". There's no "millimetric precision" (kind of a haughty term to repeat thirty times, but whatever). A more accurate scenario would be this:
Ally A is a wizard; Ally B is a fighter. Enemy A is a fighter, in close combat with Ally B. Ally A knows that Enemy A is fifteen feet away from him, and Ally B is ten feet away. So Ally A, rather than casting Flaming Arrow, casts Fireball, targeting a spot on the ground twenty-five feet behind Enemy A. The blast engulfs Enemy A, but narrowly misses Ally B.
It's a gross waste of a third-level spell, I think we can agree. In a game that, unlike DA:O, relies on use-per-day spell slots rather than mana points, you have to be economical with your spell use. Casting Fireball in a wasteful manner like that is reckless, and poor strategy. But it's not exactly unrealistic.
Post-Combat:
Ally B: "What the hell was that? You could have killed me!"
Ally A: "Ah. But I didn't. Did I?" So I'm playing World of Warcraft, and I'm using a mouse with two butttons because I use a PC. My friend is playing World of Warcraft, and he's using a trackpad because he's using a laptop. My friend has made the conscious choice to use his laptop when he comes over to my house, and to not use a mouse, because it makes him feel a greater challenge. I keep my mouse, because I like having greater control.
Is that bad design? No.
I'm playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and I've got a sniper rifle in my inventory. But instead of using the sniper rifle, I decide to use a pistol to shoot someone across the room, just because it's a greater challenge.
Is that bad design? No.
The developers give the player the ability to play the game in a way that suits his style.
My friend and I are taking a math test. The teacher says we can use calculators. I decide to use a calculator so that I can solve the problems more quickly; my friend decides to do everything by hand because he likes drawing out the equations. We both get the answer right.
Is that bad design? So your position is, if someone is more interested in the story of Baldur's Gate than the gameplay, they have no business playing the game. Baldur's Gate is only for the elite players who can eyeball a 30-foot radius because they've been playing the game for fourteen years.
That's bad design. As soon as you start making value judgments on the players because they're more interested in one aspect of the game than others, you're making a mistake as a developer. The game is there to be enjoyed. It's there so that you can experience the story. For most people, the gameplay isn't important. For some people it is, but in an isometric RPG, the emphasis is more on storytelling than anything else.
One of my favorite gameplay experiences of 2011 was Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which has three difficulty settings: "Tell Me a Story", which is basically like Easy, but the description explains that it's for people who just want to experience the game's story; "Give Me a Challenge", which is like Normal, described as "Deus Ex the way it was meant to be played"; and "Give Me Deus Ex", which is like Hard, and described as "suitable only for the most hardcore of gamers".
My first time through, I played the game on its easiest difficulty, because First-Person-Shooters aren't really my thing, and I wanted to go through the story without worrying about running out of ammo. I had a grand old time.
Next time through, I'll play it on Give Me a Challenge, because I'll be playing it for the gameplay. And it will probably be just as much fun.
Baldur's Gate is the same way. Not using the area of effect marker is a bit like using a sniper rifle without the scope. Those of us who have been playing the game for fourteen years will probably not need it; we know where the enemies are, we know how big our spells are, and we can willingly turn it off. Those of us who haven't, who are playing the game for the first time, can play with the scopes on, and get their headshots every time. Well, no, it doesn't. If you cast Fireball in the middle of the room where your allies are in melee, your allies are going to get hit. That doesn't change. And if the room is small, or if you can't see far enough, or if the battle is happening near a corner in the hallway, then fireball is still the wrong spell to cast.
All that this does is give the player a better sense of what's going to happen when he casts the spell, so that the player can say, "Okay, Fireball, that looks like a good spell to cast", and then see just exactly how big that spell's radius is. The player might then say, "Wow, that's bigger than I thought, time for something smaller maybe", which is also valid, and a lot more intuitive than forcing the player to go to their spellbook, finding the level 3 spells, right-clicking on the fireball icon, and reading the description again.
Does it make the game easier? Sure. Can you turn it off? Absolutely. Is it bad design to give the player something that will be useful when learning the game? This shouldn't even be a question.
Speaking of criticism, and I mean no disrespect, but calling it a insult is incredibly arrogant. Your posts aren't insulting to me, and you're being critical of my ideas. I'd recommend you a similar outlook on things.
Finally, people don't always know what they want: my first post on this thread shows that I almost agreed with spell radius. I just thought about it and came to the conclusion that leaving both the pause button AND adding a spell radius helper would greatly undermine friendly fire. Not just a small room, also a open field or a relatively open forest path. Quickly closing in on your enemy is a perfectly valid strategy for the player to use, and the encounter designer as well. Not without a big chance of failing because if we, with our pause button and top down view cannot calculate the 30yard range, I highly doubt a mage in the thick of battle can. Unlikely to be the case because its rare that the enemy melee fighters actually push into your party's formation, especially if you hold you ground. Not to mention if you use a narrower spell than a Fireball, such as Aganazzar's Scorcher. Again, if we, with our top down view, outside of the thick of battle and the power to control time are unable to calculate the radius of the explosion, can't see why our characters can. Considering that most of Baldur's Gate spell effect actually should have a knockdown mechanic (explosions and jets of ice?), I'd say this is a argument of gameplay and story segregation - ie pointless. If true, then this is a argument of gameplay and story segregation. Just because D&D doesn't bother to list every single possibility as a rule doesn't mean that the possibility doesn't exist.
I mean, if I critically miss a guy who's using someone as a shield, the GM is bound to make the hostage suffer for it. In the thick of battle, things shouldn't be that much different. This is true. However, the enemy in Baldur's Gate (and Dragon Age: Origins) rarely pushes into your party's formation, as said above. So that limitation of the Fireball spell is scraped most of the time.
In general, you'll see something like this:
X O O
X X O O
X O
With the enemy stopping as soon as they've met with the nearest party member, they are ripe for a milimetrically aimed Fireball (as if you're not already imagining me talking with the haughtiest voice possible ~.^).
You could make the case here of "I'm trapping the enemy's position with my melee so that my AoE can make short work of them!" - to which I'd agree. However:
A)You can already do that in Baldur's Gate, though its a risky tactic - as it should be.
and
Positioned ourselves to giver our aim a safe margin of error, say, surrounding the enemy from a distance.
Prepared themselves with resistance/immunity to their spell's element.
Or they simply casted from a longer range.
Second. I think that a story in a game should be told by the actual game. BioWare is unwilling/unable to create paths of advancement of the story that aren't conditioned by combat - which is no surprise considering the history of CRPGs in general.
In a RPG, if you don't want to fight, you'll rely on things such as diplomacy, you'll take the strategic choice of creating/developing/or in the case of BG hiring a character that can get you out of trouble somehow. And if push comes to shove, you can always try to flee or otherwise disarm/disable your enemy.
We can agree that cannot be easily implemented. Instead they opted for the current levels of difficulty, which is far easier to implement. Instead of making a game out of avoiding parts of the game that you dislike (say, fighting) they, instead, allowed you to bypass over half of the game. Because in BioWare RPG, character creation and development is almost limited to how it affects combat, occasionally cosmetically affecting dialogue.
So yes, I do think unholistic game design is bad design. That's not even part of the game's design. It would be if Blizzard added 'handicap points' for those without a proper mouse or internet connection and even then I wouldn't necessarily call it bad design (though it would be a silly idea). Allow me to give you a Baldur's Gate equivalent of it. You, cast a AoE spell in a situation where its a clumsy weapon and miraculously/skillfully hit with the consequence you were hoping for. Both using a pistol at long-range and AoE clumsily are bad decisions - and in both Baldur's Gate and, hopefully, Deus Ex won't have a flashy graphic telling you its a bad decision, you should either already know it or find out yourself, as part of the game. If the teacher believes, and he clearly doesn't, that the challenge provided from not using a calculator/not being able to research/having to know the formulas is worthwhile to the test/to him, then yes, it was a bad decision of him to let you use a calculator or read your notebooks.
Mind you, this isn't game design but, like with our disagreement, there aren't different kinds of challenge involved, but rather one side that actually is challenged and the other that isn't. That's why I believe that there should be a trade involved, not just a sort of slider challenge/no challenge. You don't need any of those things.
In fact, I myself don't have any idea of the radius of any spells, even after 4 years. I always. Always cast them from afar.
Furthermore, we have stealth and invisibility, therefore we have scouting.
But maybe new players won't have that much forethought. Guess what? None of us did! Oh the horror! But wait, we're here aren't we? We and thousands of others loved and still love the game, right? So we dealt with this layer of challenge. We did not demand it to disappear!
In fact, I'm pretty sure most of us still aren't capable of predicting/reacting to the trail of a lightning bolt! In fact, unlike your accusations of my elitism, most everyone here, for the best part of their playtime, couldn't really do distance calculations with exact precision to maximize the effect of a fireball spell! Even with the pause button. Even with the top down view. Imagine if your character tried to do that. This is true. However, the enemy in Baldur's Gate (and Dragon Age: Origins) rarely pushes into your party's formation, as said above. So that limitation of the Fireball spell is scraped most of the time.
In general, you'll see something like this:
[ ]
[ X O O Open]
[X X O O Field ]
[ X O ]
[ ] You're not doing that. People who already played Baldur's Gate learned, overtime, how to counter their inability to see their spell's effects with perfect precision; they also learned, more or less, the radius of the spells (not my case). The player learns things when challenged, not when someone holds his hands.
A) Speaking of criticism, and I mean no disrespect, but calling it a insult is incredibly arrogant. Your posts aren't insulting to me, and you're being critical of my ideas. I'd recommend you a similar outlook on things.
I didn't call it an insult. I said that I felt insulted by it. I'm not sure how this is arrogant - in fact, I pointed out (however implicitly) that it had resulted in me not thinking clearly. Self-deprecation has never, in my understanding of things, been a sign of arrogance.
First the insulting part. Please, do not accuse me of elitism when I am merely suggesting that there are ways to deal with the issue of not retaining a perfectly un-immersive knowledge of a AoE effect I myself have terrible eye coordination.
The elitist part of what you said was the implication (which I quoted, so I'm not sure how this was misinterpreted) that it is wrong for a developer to create two sets of difficulty depending on whether a player is more interested in story or gameplay. It's elitist (and I didn't call it elitist before, but I'm calling it elitist now) because it assumes that only one kind of player is right, or should be "allowed" to enjoy a game. It seemed to me that you were saying anyone who's only interested in story has no business playing a Baldur's Gate game. I don't disagree that CRPGs over the last ten years have been systematically "dumbed down" in terms of difficulty, largely as a means to make them more accessible to a broader market.
To me, though, the "two difficulty settings" you mentioned are what makes a good game more accessible to all players, not just the new ones who have never played a video game in their life, or the old ones who've been playing games for fifteen years (or twenty years, in my case). I may have misunderstood you, but it seemed to me that you were saying, "No, this game is for hardcore gamers only; everyone else is going to have to just deal." If I misunderstood you, then I retract my earlier statement.
Everything else in your post I disagree with - for reasons that I'm sure you can intuit from what I've already said (except for the bit about how a wizard couldn't "millimetrically" calculate distance from within a battle; I think you're underestimating an 18 Intelligence, just a hair) - but I think this conversation has outlived its utility.
It's up to the developers whether or not to implement this feature. I really don't think it will injure your gameplay experience if the feature is included, especially if it can be turned off at your leisure, and otherwise I believe it adds an element of usefulness that would be enjoyed by many players, despite the fact that it might "break the immersion". First-person shooters include a crosshair in the middle of the screen to let players accurately aim their shots. A sniper's scope lets him zoom in to shoot someone from a distance, with incredible precision.
A wizard, priest, sorcerer, or bard can bend reality itself to his will. We're talking about a man who has the ability to summon a sixty-foot diameter sphere of fire in the middle of a forest without setting it on fire. A man who could beat Albert Einstein in a game of chess, not least because chess is the wizard's favorite game, but also because he's just plain smarter.
The player is not that smart. Sometimes the player needs an analog. Not every player wants one. Not every player needs one. But I fundamentally disagree with the idea that the analog should not exist.
When a 'player' falls under the misconception that only part of the game is story and only part of the game is, well, game, then someone's wrong here - either the game has troves of un-immersive and unholistic design that segregates gameplay and story or the player is being silly, in the sense that he is unable to see that everything he does in the game, combat included, is part of the story. When a player skips either part of the game, the combat or the dialogue (and, again, both are the story), then that player is only going through a part of the experience.
And what that means in RPG is that the player isn't roleplaying his character.
The correct way to appease to those who do not wish to fight in a RPG is to give them game ways to circumvent combat. To avoid combat should be part of the game, to avoid combat should be part of the story.
The wrong way to do that is through difficulty sliders - if the story assumes that Commander Shepard battles through every enemy encounter, when you skip those battles, you're not roleplaying Commander Shepard at all. If the game assumes you killed Sarevok, but you chose the 'story' difficulty and the battle is promptly/practically skipped, then you didn't kill Sarevok and the game must not assume you did.
In the correct way, Charname, Shepard, whatever character you're playing as would have a customizable experience. Planescape Torment did that, I believe (didn't play the game) there are only 2 monsters you have to kill in the game, with other situations being just as efficiently resolved through stat checks and choices as they would be with steel or magic. If you don't like combat in Planescape, then you'll create and develop a Nameless One that excells in other areas of expertise. And that Nameless One of your creation, the cunning and smart guy who'd get away from every confusion with his wits instead of his brawl, that would be part of the story.
To truly enjoy a game, you must play through the entirety of it. And yes, the right player is not even the one that succeeds at that, just the guy who at least tried. The wrong player is the guy who wrote in the cheats just because he'd rather see the 'story'. That is why only one of those two get to enjoy the game in its entirety, to react to the limitations that the game imposes on you through all facets of the game, be it combat or dialogue, through the entirety of the game's story.
If by now you still actually think that 'gameplay' and 'story' are segregate, then you might as well as watch a movie - there you'll find no pesky and opressive games. Cut the populist arguments, please. We are talking about a game that's has already been played for a decade! And not for a handful of loyal fans but rather by common people who are certainly not 'hardcore', unless for your 'hardcore' is equivalent to gamer, at which point I do believe that only 'hardcores' will get full satisfaction out of the game. 1 - Not every spellcaster has high intelligence.
2 - High but yet not supernatural intelligence does not make you immune to concentration checks.
3 - Story arguments are moot because everyone has their own view of these issues, therefore story arguments do not dictate gameplay mechanics.
4 - The character has a much worse point of view than the player, who enjoys the combined powers of a level 3 spell called flight and the level 9 spell time stop and, according to you, still can't roughly estimate the radius of their fireball spell with all the tranquility (as opposed to the combat situation the spellcaster finds himself in) in the world.
5 - I'm pretty sure the Baldur's Gate players, in general, aren't smarter than Albert Einstein but still could, in disagreement with you, roughly estimate the radius of their AoE spells. Was never my problem, as said before my 'story' arguments were merely flavour. My problem is that it hurts the game's strategic and tactical potential but practically scrapping friendly fire as a game mechanic.
With a visual aid you'll no longer need to:
Position yourself to giver your aim a safe margin of error, say, surrounding the enemy from a distance.
Prepared yourself with resistance/immunity to your own spell's element.
Or simply prioritize longer range spellcasting. Interestingly the FPS genres is one of the most 'streamlined' of gaming, its no wonder they are this generation's platformer. But since first-person shooters don't have a pause function, and are truly real time games, then a better analogy would be a automatic aim. The player is not that smart. Sometimes the player needs an analog. Not every player wants one. Not every player needs one. But I fundamentally disagree with the idea that the analog should not exist.'
The player also bends reality to his will. Not only he commands the power of aforementioned spellcasters (and can manipulate the battlefield to deal with his own limitations) but he can stop time and see from high above the surface - if with all this he cannot aim his AoE's correctly, even with, Gods Forbid!!, a little practice, then it would certainly be a problem.
But you see, every player who's finished Baldur's Gate did. And I'm pretty sure none of us are smarter than Albert E.
We've gone back and forth on this so many times, the only thing this conversation can succeed in accomplishing is making one of us angry. So I'm done.
And for the record, "millimetric" isn't a word. Stop using it.