no pause challenge

mumumomo

the poll regarding pausing gave me an idea (probably not a brilliant one) : a no-pause challenge.

What do you think about it? would it be dull or a refreshing change? what would be the most suitable class to play with?

Solo play is the way to go, even more than usual (i don't even see how to manage several NPC without pausing)

I think magic should be mostly limited to buffing and a few critical spells. Therefore pure mages should probably be excluded.

Therefore i would go either for :
- swashbuckler : huge passive (passive = good in no pause) abilities + traps
- F/M/T : used mostly as a F/T + some buffs (stoneskin, PFMW, contigencies,...)

thesoloer

I am soloing as a berserker and I never pause in battles. It is so much fun. It introduces a whole new challenge and it is indeed a refreshing change from getting to stop time and think about your next move. It keeps you on your toes.

lunar

Now that is an interesting idea. I am so used to pausing that I will find this challenge real tricky to play. But I guess that is what a challenge should be. Bummer that game is auto paused in inventory screen, back in vanilla bg1 the action continued as you struggled to find an antidote or heal potion in your backsack.

Ballad

I just posted in the other thread, making the claim that no one could possibly be so masochistic as to attempt anything this crazy. I guess I was mistaken.

mumumomo

I really miss the vanilla bg1 time. i don't know why they changed that. It was actually a great feature.

jackjack

I would have to tie my left hand behind my back, because it's become a reflexive action at this point. Genuine kudos to anyone who can even attempt this challenge, but it's not for me

MacHurto

Similar tactics as @bbear‌ solo lv1 run could work, I guess. Should be a character class that can use wands to spam cloudkill. They go faster than searching for spells. F/M/T could work great as you can place traps before the battle starts. Basically, I would think anything that is more than one button away should not be used in a battle unless it is an easy one. And then, you probably dont need it.

GreenWarlock

Solo is really missing the point of a no-pause game. While I won't begrudge anyone finding their enjoyment in the game in a way that works for them, I feel a 'no-pause' challenge worthy of the name should feature a minimum party size of 4 (and carrying 3 corpses all game should not count!)

no-reload, no pause, solo I might accept as a challenge worthy of the name, but at heart it is still just training wheels for no pause-reloading a party

mumumomo

I started the run with a swashbuckler halfling. Hardcore rules, max hp at leveling.
Level 4 so far, having done the beregost quests (save for silke), joia's ring, the priestess of umberlee and zombie infestation.

All this with no harm but with a lot of kiting.
Money is still a problem since i don't want to get the hidden rings. I need to get some to be able to buy the wand of sleep.

meagloth

You guys gotta do this in vanilla when the inventory doesn't auto-pause. I know that was mentioned before, but it's the first thing I thought of. Back in the good old day you had to pause, so you could remember where the healing potion was, then mental prepare yourself for moving it to the quick item slot as fast as you could. They should make that an option.

GreenWarlock

Alternatively, a soft-rule for the no-pause challenge would be no hitting inventory while there are red rings on the screen - make sure to set your quick slots in advance of any fight. No-pause will also put shortcut keys at a premium.

Lemernis

This sounds really intriguing, and I can see how it could be fun; although for a party of six it might be incredibly difficult I would think. I don't think it would be realistic to combine it with strict no-reload!

I think one day I may try this with a party of three or maybe four. It could probably be done most easily with a tank-heavy lineup. I'd probably go with with three no-necked hog lineman and maybe one multi-class cleric/mage quarterback. I guess come to think of it, I could even go with a party of six consisting of four bruisers on the frontline, and a mage and spellcasting priest (backrow only; no melee). (One of the meleers could be a Fighter/Thief; again, multi-class.)

bbear

This shouldnt be too much trouble if one assigns hotkeys and nimble with fingers.

FinneousPJ

The hard part about this challenge is the clunky user experience. That's not my idea of fun, but I hope you guys have fun.

simples

really interesting, good luck with this.
i'd probably get so frustrated trying to click my opponents i'd give up within about an hour

mumumomo

I play on ipad also, so no hotkeys for me.
@meagloth, accessing inventory during fights is also forbidden for this run to be closer to the vanilla experience.

Level 5 now, finally bought the wand of sleep after selling the ring of princes from the half ogre quest.
I also killed neera (wand of magic missile), the guy in firewine bridge for the gauntlets of weapon expertise and i spoke to neeber. With the wand of sleep, i cleared landrin's cellar of the spiders.

Next stop is probably the wilderness west of nashkel. I still need money to buy the greenstone amulet.

molloy

simples said:

really interesting, good luck with this.
i'd probably get so frustrated trying to click my opponents i'd give up within about an hour

... and that's not just in battle. I often find pausing really helpful just to initiate a conversation to one of those people running around like crazy.

simples

right?

Drayen

Honestly, no pause 6people party would be nice to see.

When i watch videos of fights in BG2, i find pause to be soooo anticlimatic, because thats whats going on in the video for the vast majority of it.

MacHurto

Hostile SCS Ust Natha no-pause. Any takers?

meagloth

MacHurto said:

Hostile SCS Ust Natha no-pause. Any takers?

No-reload All 75-roll custom party of mages :P

CrevsDaak

meagloth said:

MacHurto said:

Hostile SCS Ust Natha no-pause. Any takers?

No-reload All 75-roll custom party of mages :P

That will make it easier, by that time you have 3M XP per character, so if you did Watcher's Keep, just keep casting Wish (and being lucky also when doing that) and you can survive for some time.
A good Survival-like challenge would be surviving SCS Ust Natha for 30 Real Life minutes. I might give this a try today

GreenWarlock

Where do you get so many scrolls of wish to keep a whole party of custom mages spamming the spell by Ust Natha? 9th level spells invariably are rationed tightly in parties of mages, and few show up before leaving the under dark and Ust Natha well behind - admittedly I don't know how many extra might turn up in Watcher's Keep.

GreenWarlock

Also, kudos to @mumumomo‌ for the run, especially on an iPad. Looking forward to the next progress update.

mumumomo

After dying very stupidly on a winter wolf, i restarted the run.

I am now level 6 in chapter 3 with most of the critical equipment (greenstone amulet, wand of sleep).
The run was slightly different (beregost fetch quests, greywolf (took hours of kiting) -> wand of sleep -> landrin's spiders -> shortbow+1 -> cloud peaks, gnoll fortress, brage using the wand of sleep -> back to the north for umberlee priestess and greenstone amulet -> sneak through nashkel mines -> killed mulahey with heavy buffing (potion of freedom, greenstone amulet -> revenant with scroll of prot from undead -> nimbul using the shield amulet).

Nothing difficult so far. The lack of pausing is not even noticeable since i do mostly kiting/sleeping.

mumumomo

Chapter 3 is now complete. Nearly died in the main tent (i always underestimate them)
The lack of inventory access was detrimental for the first time since i was poisonned by hakt (despite having a -8 or so thaco against missile and a save vs poison of 6...).

Toward cloakwood now

mumumomo

I am now level 9 in chapter 6.
Nothing difficult since the bandit camp.
I did bassilus (greenstone amu, potion of free action), grabbed the tome of con from the lighthouse cave (killed the golems with kiting) and went through cloakwood without fighting at all.

I killed the group at the entrance of the mines with 2 traps, the necklace of missile and a few arrows. With boots of speed kiting becomes much more easy.
I sneaked away through the mines and killed davaevorn with my usual dual magic blocking potions.

In baldur i did a few quests (scar quests and the tomes) with no issue at all.
The group at the top of the iron throne fell easily to detonation arrows.

I expect no issue at all for the rest of the game and should finish it today.

mumumomo

Sarevok is dead.

The end game was actually much harder that what i am used to, in good part due to the no-pause.

After sneaking my way through the catacombs and coming back to baldur's gate, i took 2x magic resist potions for 100 MR, 1 potion of defense (-8 ac) and 1 oil of speed. With that i can usually finish the game within the duration of the magic resistance potions.
The thing is due to targetting issues (hasted dopplegangers are extremely difficult to target without pausing), the duchal palace took much longer than expected. It was also more complicated since i openned by mistake a cabinet in the palace which turned all the guards (but thankfully not the dukes) hostile.

With all that delay, my magic res potions worn out at the exact moment in the maze when i passed over the lightning bolt traps. That nearly killed me...

For the final fight, once angelo remove magic was passed, i used invisibility to rebuff safely (when invisible i authorize myself to open the inventory) using the same cocktail as above and then proceeded to kill tazok, angelo and semaj one by one.
But once again it took longer than expected and due to bad luck and overconfidence (i started the fight with only 10 potions of health left) i had no more potions of health, and no more invisibility charges (potion or ring) at the end of the fight. Sarevok on near death and me with 20 hp remaining.
Thankfully, i killed him with my last backstab and passed level 10 doing so

Overall, in bgee, not pausing has very limited impact with a swashbuckler. Iexpect it to be the same for any fighter of thief type. Casters would probably be different.

I now will see how it works in bg2.

jackjack

I have a feeling it will be… different.

mumumomo

Yeah i also think so.
Bgee is a short game, skippable for the most parts and on which kiting (which is anyway a real time tactic mostly) works perfectly.
It's not the same in bg2

GreenWarlock

Congrats on making it through the first game anyway. Out of curiosity, was this close to a no-reload run, or not even in the ballpark? Did play-without-pause give you a relatively quick time to complete the game (by wall-clock, not game clock) or did all that kiting add up to a slower game?