How do YOU play: reloads? SCS? etc.
Ygramul
Member Posts: 1,059
Baldur's Gate is a rare game that is balanced so that it is possible, but very difficult, to play a no-reloads game through the entire saga. Tell us YOUR favorite play style.
- How do YOU play: reloads? SCS? etc.108 votes
- Power Word: Reload all the way - (will reload even for missed saves or lost loot)18.52%
- Reload only when things go south - (won't go back to temple to revive NPC)41.67%
- Minimal Reloads - (reload only when charname dies)23.15%
- No-Reloads - (dead is dead! time to re-roll)2.78%
- No-Reloads with SCS AI - (why, yes, I do autopause to just about everything)7.41%
- Worse... - (75 stats; insane difficulty; no pause while your cat jumps on your lap etc.)0.93%
- Just show me the results... or I'll reload at ya!5.56%
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Comments
With one singular exception of that one TOB party, which "reloads" your encounter after realizing that you are too hard for their level. (Singularly best self-referential humor in all CRPG history that one!)
Certain zones you'll have to ask yourself it it's worth the risk, and once in a while when you do something very hard and daring early on and succeeded you'll feel awesome. It's like when i went after Bassilus on level 1-2 to get his hammer, with SCS it was a very hard fight and one unlucky saving throw and it would have been over. But i managed with a shit ton of luck to beat him, and then i got my reward which was the hammer +2. To have a hammer like this at such an early point in a SCS No-reload is awesome and a game changer.
I love it and couldn't play without it.
I remember hauling back three dead party members (and what I can carry of their loot) back to Beregost along with that +2 hammer, wandering to myself if it was wise. (That early on in the game, resurrection costs can break your bank.)
Close calls *define* no-reload runs.
I've had a recent game where Safana saved the day with a kiss while 5 party members (including charname) were incapacitated:
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/32248/scs-no-reload-adventures-flamebreath-and-a-kiss
Some time ago I would reload for a failed save, I wanted everyone to survive every fights. But now I generally play minimal-reload, because I'm too lazy to redo the fight each time something go wrong and because it feels (obviously) more realistic. When a pary member die, you feel like it's a sad event.
I'm starting to play no-reload since a few weeks and I'm loving it, it really is some kind of new experience and it is a lot of fun. And I'm starting to think this is how the game was meant to be played.
No reload can be fun, but I sort of got tired of it after trying it once. It's the same with soloing for me. I want the banter and I get attached to my CHARNAME's.
I also play minimal reload with SCS when I use a party (only because of BG1NPC project), seems more like "Human Assassin babysitting 5 other adventurers so far".
I was also thinking of adding the Item Randomizer to the fray... I'm bored of going with a Long Sword with all my BG1 PCs.
Feel the cold stare of JONES!
If I clearly screw up, I reload.
1) "Casual" : Games in which I'm experimenting with a particular PC/party line-up concept and/or tactical challenge idea, and I only have brief periods of playing time that I can squeeze in here and there. I have SCS installed for these. For SCS I use all the general AI components (smarter mages and clerics, enemies use potions, calls for help, improved monsters, etc.), but only a handful of the "improved ___ [fights]," since SCS often 'roids up those boss encounters too greatly for me to actually enjoy. I have found that even without those improved battles installed, the enemies still use spells higher than level 5 according their level (which are not available to the party). I do have the 'enemies pre-buff' selected, since that's a fair match-up. But that's about the sweet spot for me, since I often use non-powergame classes and party line-ups. For these games I reload at will. The main reason for that is that I want to enjoy a particular NPC lineup without constantly having to resurrect the slain NPCs, much less the high chance of the PC dying as well. For these games I use meta-game knowledge, might resort to cheese tactics (only if all else is failing, though), Ctrl+J to get around more easily, will CLUA a bag of holding for a small party, etc.
2)"Deep Immersion" : During breaks from school I return my roleplay-intensive, journaled game where I'm roleplaying all the party members, and flipping cards or rolling dice to determine some outcomes by chance. For that playstyle I use minimal reload (protagonist death or technical glitch/game engine limitation only), and I do not have SCS installed. Here I roleplay such that the characters have only knowledge that one could reasonably expect them to possess of that world. Therefore the party acquires far less loot and powerful items than they would in game where meta-game knowledge is used. I don't really know at the outset which NPCs will be encountered and who will join the party (i.e., it may not even be a balanced party much less a powerful one). I will use the CLUA console only to make certain roleplayed events possible. Also, I become rather attached to the characters and develop relationships between them. I almost get as much from that as the thrill of combat. There are developing plotlines within the overall narrative that gets seriously interrupted if someone dies. This style of play is more about story and the unpredictability within it from the roleplaying and card flips/die rolls. Now as mentioned, I do not reload if a NPC dies; so that definitely increases the tension dramatically. But having SCS installed for a game like this would result in too many fatalities, and then much disruption to the flow of the story.
As regards SCS, it gets a little heady for me to play no-reload. I would guess that my tactical skill level is moderate judging from what I read of some other players' prowess. I admit that I get impatient with BG2's chess style of spell volleying. There's a fair bit of minutia to master at higher levels of play, and that almost starts to feel work-like to me. I'll be honest that I have only made a cursory study of the spell routines that SCS and BG2 mages cast, and I have devoted little time of my own to experimentation with sequencers and contingencies. I mean, I know one just pauses a lot and reads the feedback bar for the spells the enemies are casting, and then counters accordingly. I'm going to have to start doing that for the "casual" style of play when I eventually get to BG2EE. But none of that would be appropriate (for me) when playing the "deep immersion" style that I use.
I've had two characters beat BG1 with, but I'm sure that I missed out on a ton of banters that should have been possible for the parties that I had. As the EE versions stand, you basically only get the select and happy banters. Others just fire don't fire near enough to get all of them. Some might argue that this is a strong replay point that the games offer, but I certainly feel differently. I also used the jump to cursor cheat in Durlog's Tower both times, so missed out on something there, too.
Once I complete the trilogy with a game that I'm satisfied with, I'll consider fanfiction mods and further challenging myself.
I butchered some of my scripts so certain quests and events can't even use raise dead... Raise dead spells just fizzle. You play alot differently when everyone only has one chance.
Anyway, this strategy does come with a penalty: encounters become progressively easier than I suspect they should be and sometimes, I do something with the expectation of reloading, only to find I don't have a quicksave or autosave close enough to my current position to help. As a result, I reload a saved game from HOURS or even DAYS back (realtime), causing me to have to redo the whole quest(s) and encounters all over again. It can be quite frustrating in its own right.
I find item randomization in Infinity Engine games make no sense as far as the game and story goes, though it would certainly add a different strategy to every andventure (IWD has loot tables on certain fights, but they are still fixed to one of 3 or 4 items). I think SCS is a legitimate tool for making the game harder without just tweaking numbers. But core difficulty feels right to me in almost all these games.