New spells too OP?
Djimmy
Member Posts: 749
Do you think battles are a lot easier with the imported spells from BG series(Time Stop, Wish, PfMW etc...)? Should IWD:EE be balanced out with a "balance patch"? What do you think?
- New spells too OP?56 votes
- Yes, the new spells are far too OP. Remove them!1.79%
- Yes, the new spells are far too OP in the current environment of the game. Keep them but make the battles harder.25.00%
- If you find them to be OP, don't use them. I only use Time Stop as a "pause" button anyways.25.00%
- Not even close to OP. Don't change anything.23.21%
- The new spells are underpowered. Buff them.1.79%
- Other23.21%
1
Comments
In IWD *you* are the powerful one for a change, at least in the sense that you do things that not a lot of enemies can or will do. Maybe it's just me but even though physical damage is often superior from a powergaming perspective I always associate high level spell-casting with power and control.
Time Stop is super overrated anyway, why would I want to cut down on damage output from the rest of the party?
It would be indeed great to have a mod and/or official enhancing the AI in IWDEE, so I second @CrevsDaak 's and @Lord_Tansheron 's votes.
Without such enhancing, I wouldn't play IWDEE if I want to get hard circumstances and difficult encounters. I play IWDEE when I want to feel the atmosphere, to listen to its music, to enjoy druidic and bardic abilities. If I want difficult fights and thinking AI, I play BG with the SCS mod.
I'm playing a four-member party with a sorcerer for the arcane caster. He just got his first 8th level spell, near the end of Trials of the Luremaster. Before moving to Heart of Winter, I had the main campaign finished up through Lower Dorn's Deep, ready to open the last seal to start the end game there.
My sorcerer may get a ninth level spell before the final battle, but just barely, and the game is already almost over anyway.
So, I think discussing whether 9th level spells are OP only applies to solo players, or I guess HoF players.
It does apply to me whether the other new spells from levels one-seven are OP. Mostly I would say no. I get an advantage as a sorcerer because I can choose the spells I want and not be dependent on scrolls, which does make the game easier, since I think the original devs tried to control your arcane spellbook repertoire by their scroll placement, and that control is gone with the addition of the sorcerer class.
I think the addition of kits for all classes is more overpowering to IWD than the spell lists. IWD:EE is definitely at least somewhat (maybe a lot) easier than the original because of the addition of kits, but I still like it better than the original.
I don't think the base game needs to be changed, but for people who are used to and prefer to play BG with SCS, what they really need to be happy is an SCS for Icewind Dale.
The only thing TS has going for it is defense. Enemies don't fight back, so you can take out dangerous targets before they can do anything. That, of course, hardly ever applies in IWD because there are no dangerous targets that you couldn't handle otherwise (like sticking an Archer onto a mage to interrupt-lock them). In terms of offensive power though, TS is very often just horribly inefficient (though not necessarily ineffective).
Time stop essentially allows your mage to cast 3 spells simultaneously, when he would otherwise only be casting one. How could this possibly be bad (aside from the one drawback I mentioned before)? Yeah, it makes the fight seem longer for you, the player, but unless you're some high profile lawyer or something and your time is extremely valuable, it makes no difference whatsoever.
It originally referred to all players of all classes having a fair chance to win a pvp (player vs. player) match, with no class having a skill, ability, or build possibility that could instantly overwhelm other classes.
In a single player game, "balance" now refers to level-appropriate challenge matched to the content.
They didn't use the word "balance" if I recall, but, all the old TSR D&D modules used say at the top of the cover "For 4-6 players levels 1-3", or "For 3-6 players levels 4-6", and such. Using today's jargon, you could say, "The module 'Keep on the Borderlands' is balanced for levels one to three."
As it is used in this thread, I believe the OP means "Do the new spells in IWD:EE create a power "imbalance" between the player and the content, causing an inappropriately unchallenging and boring ease of winning combats?"
In all gaming contexts, once people start talking about "balance", you can expect a lot of arguing, sometimes heated, because the issue of appropriate level of challenge for a game is highly subjective.
Granted, it becomes a matter of definition for time (and I would say personally that space bar use does in fact impact efficiency), but I think that rounds are the best compromise to settle on as essentially all in-game combat events are measured by it. I'm not sure I understand. Just look at the scenario: Party A does not use TS and just goes and kills the enemies in X seconds. Party B does use TS, the mage casts spells and whatnot, then all the enemies are dead after X+Y seconds. How is that comparison flawed? And isn't it irrelevant whether you value your own time more or less than someone else? I mean sure maybe you don't care if it takes you longer and that's cool, but how is that any less subjective of an argument than the other way round? I don't ascribe value to the time, I just measure it. Value is for you to figure out, if you don't care that it takes longer that's 100% okay with me - but just because you choose to or choose not to value time doesn't make it irrelevant to the argument.
In BG2 the effective part tends to matter more, for the dispelling/debuffing you mentioned and also for defensive use. In IWD however enemies are far less protected and far less dangerous, and the main issue is simply damage output (thanks to how HoF works). That places most of the relevant part of the fight into the efficiency category, which is where TS is not exactly stellar.
I think TS is a very good example of why you need to carefully evaluate your options. It's flashy and seems so obviously powerful, but once you start doing the math behind it you realize that very often you'd just have finished the fight twice over already had you not used TS. But not always
You seem to be obsessed with how fast you can win a battle in real time, as if you just set a stop watch beside you while you play and measure how much damage you can output while the watch is running. If that's how you like to play the game, doing high damage with minimal interruptions, and you find it interesting and fun to try to maximize this, that's cool. However, it's not a meaningful way to objectively look at how strong something is within the game. That is to say, how will this spell affect my chances of winning the fight?
Think of what it would be like if the spell lasted for 30 rounds instead of just 3. By your standard it wouldn't be a very good spell since it takes a long time and no one else is doing damage. But if you think about how much the spell helps you win a battle, it would be ridiculously powerful being able to cast your whole spell book while no one else can do anything.
What it all comes down to is this. Time stop allows your mage to cast 3 spells in 1 round, with the side effect of all active spell buffs/debuffs being reduced in duration by 3 rounds. This is objectively very powerful in regard to helping you win the fight.
Does that answer your question? I hope so, we're starting to completely derail this thread, lol.
Your argument only has merit in scenarios where the DEFENSIVE properties of TS come into play (what I filed under "effective" above). If you are in danger of dying because there is some big blue meanie running around flinging rays of doom (happens a lot in BG2) then you can use TS to dispatch the critter safely. You'll do less damage than you would with your party, but that's okay because losing party members would probably be even less damage.
However, that scenario basically just doesn't happen in IWD (and is rare even in SCS BG2). The fights are just long grueling meat grinders where you get assaulted by 20 piles of 200+ HP at a time. It's trivial to defend against them, and all you care about past a certain point (namely the beginning of the game) is how quickly you get through these monster HP walls. TS does very little for that, in fact it prolongs the process even further. You say it's objectively very powerful, but that is only true if you rig the argument to COMPLETELY disregard the time component. I don't know how you can call it objective if you do that, perhaps you could explain? What is objective about an argument where you disregard a component solely because you personally do not place value on it? Isn't that the exact opposite of objective?
I'm not sure I understand. Just look at the scenario: Party A does not use TS and just goes and kills the enemies in X seconds. Party B does use TS, the mage casts spells and whatnot, then all the enemies are dead after X+Y seconds. How is that comparison flawed?
I think that X will be shorter after using TS. so (Xnew+Y) could be < X
Everything dies incredibly quickly and easily to buffed multiclassed Fighters.
So now they'll die incredibly quickly while Time Stopped? That doesn't change the difficulty much
Although just to answer your question, I didn't just say that it was objectively powerful. My point was that if the criteria for the power of a spell is how much it affects your chances of winning a fight, then time stop is objectively powerful in that regard. That's it. Yeah, it's not necessary, the game is easy enough without it, and a most of the time it will just slow you down. But it is still very powerful. If you want to include more criteria for measuring the "power" of a spell that's fine, we'll have different conclusions.
Sure, it's great to have situation saving spells but I think there are other options that don't take up such a coveted spell slot.
Maybe I'm just bad at this game but I found myself frequently challenged in every play through (though I still haven't finished the game due to wanting to keep the multiplayer blind run intact but we're up to the (first?) Lich in Dorns Deep just pass the first badge so hopefully finish soon.
I'm afraid this topic is now hopelessly derailed and mixed up, especially considering that it was posted as a poll about the effect of *all* new spells on the balance of IWD.
I would suggest that some moderator come around and clean out the "Time Stop" posts, and to start a new topic for that. Otherwise, @DJimmy 's intent in creating the thread seems to be lost. Unless, of course, he himself comes around and says "Oh no, no problem, go ahead and talk about Time Stop, because that's exactly what I intended here."
But thanks for trying to take me seriously. I've long ago given up the possibility of finding 'Balance' in the force... erm... I mean in these types of games. there are way to many different ways of doing things and someone is always coming up with new 'unbalanced' things to do. I just find it funny when someone posts "Balance". But to each their own.
In this sense it is similar to BGEE. Sorcerers gain access to spells the game did not intend the player to have until reaching Baldur's Gate, if they intended them at all.