Nope, not at all. Should it? Should a class being less popular and more of a unique experience to play bar me from playing it? Must it really be on the Berserker/Kensai power level to even exist? Should all classes and kits be up there as well? I know a few that might get an overhaul soon, then.
There can never be choice without (some degree of) balance.
Assume you can choose from these three rewards: 1. $1 2. $100 3. $10000
You have "choice" of three, but in reality you will always choose 3, because it is obviously stupid to not do so. There is no choice when there is clearly the "right" answer.
Now if we spice up the options a bit:
1. $100 instantly 2. $150 over 3 months 3. $200, but you have to wait 6 months for it
Now the choices are balanced (albeit not perfectly) and now you have "actual" option to choose between three, because you don't have very strong incentive to choose one over another. The balance can be further tweaked by looking at the statistics then changing the numbers if they are too high or low.
If I broke the balance and say, make the third option $10000 instead of $200 you go back to situation where everyone chooses 3. Balance is tantamount to having a meaningful options.
In video games it applies the same way, and balance becomes more and more important as it becomes harder. In easier games you can choose crappy things because anything will beat the game regardless of choice, but as it becomes harder you are eventually forced to pick certain class/talent/comp that might not align with your style, because the game will be too difficult if not plain impossible to beat. This problem is even worse in multiplayer games where many others will not be tolerant of you picking "wrong" choices over optimization.
Now if it comes to things being homogenized for balance it is a different issue, but you don't always need to sacrifice diversity for the sake of numeric balance (sometimes it is inevitable though).
Nope, not at all. Should it? Should a class being less popular and more of a unique experience to play bar me from playing it? Must it really be on the Berserker/Kensai power level to even exist? Should all classes and kits be up there as well? I know a few that might get an overhaul soon, then.
it's not as if we can rate popularity like this: multiclass - extremely popular (score = 99) kensai - very popular (85) zerker - pretty popular (73) wizard slayer - moderately popular (51)
it's rather: multiclass - extremely popular (score = 99) kensai - very popular (85) zerker - pretty popular (73) wizard slayer - *almost no one ever plays him* (uhhhm 3, maybe?)
The wizard slayer is too unbalanced to be considered playable by most people. They don't want to hamper themselves intentionally because it's a perverted idea to most. The public generally wants a balanced, "normal" playing experience. They can roleplay just fine their optimized or so-so characters, why do they have to go the weirdo route?
does this really tell you *nothing*?
What good is it that he sucks so hard? Wouldn't you also play him if he was at least an "okay" kit, like for example the (inferior to sorcerer but perfectly functional) Dragon Disciple? What good do you really get out of this exclusivity, "i'm having a unique experience" thing? Sorry, but you're not thinking critically when you say that.
An experientialist hippie attitude does *not* make the game inherently more fun, you must realize that.
"I don't want to go to Venice on vacation, even though i've never been there. Instead I want to go to Dover, Ohio because I want to experience the uniqueness of having a vacation there". Does that make Dover, Ohio a good tourist destination? Does that mean that if you had had a vacation in Venice you wouldn't have had an equally good or better time?
D&D, by design, is wonderfully unbalanced. Take a look at the xp curves, just for a start. There was clearly an attempt to bring more balance with a single xp curve from 3rd Edition onwards, but there is still the vert different but complementary nature of the fundamental classes (which was balanced to oblivion and back in 4th Ed, and not a popular choice).
Does that mean you throw balance out the window? No - wildly unbalanced games are no fun. Does that mean you need to prop up the classes/races that continually poll as the weakest? Only if they truly are unplayable. Some players like the challenge, don't take it away from them. Others like the flavor, and are prepared to pay the cost of a harder play through for a distinct experience. Others will simply choose not to play them, but are not missing out too badly, as long as there is a rich variety of other (stronger) options that appeal.
Baldur's Gate is in something of a sweet-spot for D&D complexity/balance, and SoD is likely to be right at the heart of it, with the xp curve at the point where most classes have caught up, but not truly excelled to the point you can stand alone.
So to some extent, BeamDog should not interfere and rebalance the game - but we already want to make exceptions for the extensions they add to the game (even when those extensions are porting Bioware features back to the first game).
Then there is matching flavor to the kit. It is kind of embarrassing that the monk is a better wizard-slayer than the fighter kit specifically tasked with doing so - indeed IIUC, the kit is so focussed they are more restricted in the items they can use than the ascetic monk! Balancing the magic resistance here, for example, makes a lot of sense for the flavor.
So I want BeamDog to be comfortable with their free hand to change and balance what is needed to make the game fun - just don't nerf my favorite toys or bland out the weaker kits in order to make them more 'competitive'
"I don't want to go to Venice on vacation, even though i've never been there. Instead I want to go to Dover, Ohio because I want to experience the uniqueness of having a vacation there".
I think what you guys are missing is that in a single player role-playing game, the player choosing to have more power is not equivalent to the player choosing a better experience. Going back to the Extra Credits video, if you regard the question "What kind of character should I play?" as a calculation, you're doing it wrong.
Scratch that, you're not even doing it wrong, you're doing what you think the best way to play the game is. And that's fine. Me, I'm the person who likes to play more challenging and less challenging character types both. I do play even the extremes, and at some point that did include the old wizard slayer kit. And I had fun with it. I know that's difficult to grasp, but believe me, I did.
What you're doing when you're saying that character classes should be rebalanced to make them more meaningful choices for you, is you're asserting that these weaker or stronger classes are not already meaningful choices for someone else. And that's wrong. When you give the wizard slayer a higher percentage spell failure effect, you make it a more viable choice for you, and a less interesting choice for me.
This will sound harsh, so embrace yourself. When you regard your own balance ideals as the objectively best way of doing things, you're engaging in the authoritarian exercise of disregarding everyone else's preferences and experience.
E.g. "What you like is wrong. You should like what I like."
they're meaningful choices for a not-meaningful subset of player base. making them a meaningful choice for everyone wouldn't impact you adversely, you would still have an equal amount of good time playing a more functional wizard slayer. if you want a terrible wizard slayer you can always give him poor attributes.
edit: i mean, you can always go to Venice, and spend time at the harbor, lol
making them a meaningful choice for everyone wouldn't impact you adversely, you would still have an equal amount of good time playing a more functional wizard slayer.
I'm sure you know me, my likes, and my playing habits better than I do.
you're meaningful as an indivual. you're a great guy and i love you, all but your arguments are too self-centered. you seem unable to look at the game as something on it's own. something outside your experience. everything you currently prefer can also be had if some things were more polished. the character creation system allows for qurky playthroughs such as roleplaying an untalented character.
Contrarily, I think I am the one who is looking at the greater picture.
When you start making parts of the game to appeal to a larger percentage of players, you're pandering. Making a single pandering change is, of course, not the end of the world, and these changes don't cause much harm individually. But they set a wrong precedent. Follow the line of thinking you laid out there to its logical conclusion, and you'll get to the much-discussed issue of why a lot of modern RPG series are deteriorating over time.
As much as that is a slippery slope argument, it's not at all an unrealistic one. It's been happening for decades and it's happening all over the place. If you think Beamdog is better and they won't go there, that's fine, you're entitled to your opinion. But I see these changes as dangerous first steps in a very wrong direction. If they stop right here, everything is going to be OK. But they're currently mid-stride.
making the game more enjoyable isn't pandering. lowering the artistic standards and compromising on your vision and ambition for commercial reasons is what pandering means. It was not a part of the maker's vision that there would be this dumb kit that's supposed to sound great on paper, especially to newcomers ("i'm going to go the smart route and gear myself against the mages because i think mages might be pretty nasty") and in practice it does. not. slay. wizards. or do anything distinctively useful.
It can be treated as an upgrade to the kit because people weren't aware of the ranged attack option so they weren't using it. A change could have gone in the direction of disabling this (a change in one direction or another was certainly warranted) which would effectively keep him the same as he was.
edit: and i think that wizard slayer is much better now. it's become a nice kit to play.
I'm curious. Several posters here seem to have statistics on "most players" / "big part of the playerbase". Where can I find these statistics? Sounds like interesting reading. I'm sure you're not just judging it on forum posts, since those make up a negligible % of any game's playerbase.
I mean... For the Wizard Slayer, I wouldn't pin its lack of use on its weakness per se. It's the fact that they can't use items that's frustrating, as well as lack of high numbers like monks, that keep them unpicked. It's never going to be a balance issue with them as much as a fun issue, I think, since it's fun to have your main character use all sorts of gear, like the Spider figurine, various rings with effects, and so on and so forth. I would argue that it WAS actually balanced in terms of actual power in the past: keeping a Lich from casting in just a few hits, even though you're hitting stone skins? A Berserker can't do that, though he can keep himself (and only himself!) safer vs the Lich. Sure, the WS give up effectiveness in non-caster battles, but it's a tradeoff and a fair one considering how freakishly dangerous casters are. In a power sense, it's a meaningful choice, even if it might not be a FUN one, cuz CHARNAME gotta have that bling.
For the heck of it, I might as well address the other two "weak" kits: Beastmaster and Shapeshifter. Beast master gives up on all melee weapon choices besides clubs and staves, and the ability to wear metal armor, and in exchange gets a small HP advantage (familiar,) and when he gets spells, the ability to conjure an entire freaking army. Considering level 1-3 Druid spells are ordinarily really useless by that level with the exception of level 3 stuff like Summon Insects and Miscast Magic... It's a choice. You end up playing with stealth and ranged weapons while your animals take aggro, which is something neither Stalkers nor Archers nor Rangers can do.
Shapeshifter: OK, here... The main problem isn't so much the weakness of Shapeshifter but the relative power and choices of the Avenger. Shapeshifter's schtick is supposed to be being able to double as a moderately OK fighter when his spells aren't useful, but the Avenger kind of does the same thing with 6 additional spells to boot. At higher levels, the balance does reform with the Greater Werewolf form eclipsing the Avenger forms for the most part, but having to wait til level 14... But the kit's not nearly as bad as the groupthink would have you believe. If nothing else, you're still playing a Druid with no drawbacks besides lack of animal forms which are... timesavers at best.
So. Um. What I'm trying to say is that there's already a certain balance between the kits already, even if there's no good way to enforce that between classes, since spells kind of upset the balance by a ton but there's not too much we can do about that IMO without reworking the entire spell system. I, for one, don't see a pressing reason to attempt to balance these kits further. And for the ones I DO (Inquisitor,) I use SCS to remove it, but I wouldn't force that decision onto anyone else.
Wait until you see the next version of the ability. It's not nearly as much of a nerf as it seems, at least at higher levels.
As long as poison stacking is restored for higher levels (let's say level 16+), and nothing else is changed about the way it functions on those levels, I'll be happy. As I said, I don't care if it's a buff or nerf or whatever, I dislike the attempt to rebalance vanilla behavior.
But even the most casual people still do maths to some degrees. They will at least read the descriptions before choosing what classes to play.
If (as an extreme example) wizard slayers had -6 to all stats and deal 75% less damage (all of which are said in description) would you still play?
If you like wizard slayers because they suck, well, good for you. But not for others who actually want their favourite kit viable. In fact I have never seen anyone in any game asking for nerfs to their class so that they are below others. You are clearly a minority and game design should not cater to such.
"You are clearly a minority and game design should not cater to such."
Now there's a sweeping statement if ever there was.
If there is a minority who enjoy playing a "nerfed" class within a game that offers many choices, why ever not? Should the majority always demand that every class suits them?
I always play the same class because I enjoy it, I've never even considered a WS, However, years down the line I might just want to play BG differently, completely differently. Kind of in a masochistic, frustrating, "throw the PC out the window" way because my cat died or I broke up with somebody. If a game can manage to provide that as well as all the normal sane choices, why on earth not?
"You are clearly a minority and game design should not cater to such."
Now there's a sweeping statement if ever there was.
If there is a minority who enjoy playing a "nerfed" class within a game that offers many choices, why ever not? Should the majority always demand that every class suits them?
I always play the same class because I enjoy it, I've never even considered a WS, However, years down the line I might just want to play BG differently, completely differently. Kind of in a masochistic, frustrating, "throw the PC out the window" way because my cat died or I broke up with somebody. If a game can manage to provide that as well as all the normal sane choices, why on earth not?
If your fun hinges on playing an underpowered character, then devs should, and rightfully, ignore your stance.
I am not saying you are wrong or bad, but that doesn't mean designers should listen to you.
Perhaps the designer's cat died or their partner dumped them and their design reflects that?
You are being very dogmatic. Why on earth shouldn't a game as big as BG, not cater for both?
Because it by its nature inherently cannot be catered to both parties. If one party wants balance while other wants the opposite there is no compromise.
I don't get the no compromise thing. BG has always had fairly balanced parts as well as incredibly overpowered and underpowered parts. Can't you just use those spells/classes/abilities that fits into your range of what you're comfortable with? Must everything be changed to be in that range, always?
I don't get the no compromise thing. BG has always had fairly balanced parts as well as incredibly overpowered and underpowered parts. Can't you just use those spells/classes/abilities that fits into your range of what you're comfortable with? Must everything be changed to be in that range, always?
And you are here asserting your own stance and expect others to "deal with it". Compromise means that either side gives up certain portions of their stance to reach agreement, and what you just said doesn't contain any of it.
And I am talking about designing in general, not specifically rebalancing baldur's gate. I am against bg rebalancing because it is really old game and changinf stuff will do more harm than good.
I don't get the no compromise thing. BG has always had fairly balanced parts as well as incredibly overpowered and underpowered parts. Can't you just use those spells/classes/abilities that fits into your range of what you're comfortable with? Must everything be changed to be in that range, always?
And you are here asserting your own stance and expect others to "deal with it". Compromise means that either side gives up certain portions of their stance to reach agreement, and what you just said doesn't contain any of it.
What I'm saying is that BG is already a fine compromise of balanced and unbalanced parts.
Whether I'm okay with Beamdog changing things around in the vanilla game is another matter entirely, and it's mostly about my desire to have the game be conserved the way it was conceived. I'm willing to admit I'm not particularly inclined to compromise there.
I don't get the no compromise thing. BG has always had fairly balanced parts as well as incredibly overpowered and underpowered parts. Can't you just use those spells/classes/abilities that fits into your range of what you're comfortable with? Must everything be changed to be in that range, always?
And you are here asserting your own stance and expect others to "deal with it". Compromise means that either side gives up certain portions of their stance to reach agreement, and what you just said doesn't contain any of it.
What I'm saying is that BG is already a fine compromise of balanced and unbalanced parts.
Whether I'm okay with Beamdog changing things around in the vanilla game is another matter entirely, and it's mostly about my desire to have the game be conserved the way it was conceived. I'm willing to admit I'm not particularly inclined to compromise there.
Well I guess we are talking about different things here. I am fine with things staying as it is in bg, things are pretty reasonably balanced yes and I have no wish to radically change game that is almost 20 years old.
Now imagine that there is a new game from a scratch (d&d game perhaps) - would you be against balancing stuff in this situation?
Now imagine that there is a new game from a scratch (d&d game perhaps) - would you be against balancing stuff in this situation?
No, as a general rule of thumb I'm OK with developers doing with their games as they please, of course. The EEs are just a special case IMO because of the whole "artistic heritage" thing and how these games changed ownership and development status over the years.
Comments
Assume you can choose from these three rewards:
1. $1
2. $100
3. $10000
You have "choice" of three, but in reality you will always choose 3, because it is obviously stupid to not do so. There is no choice when there is clearly the "right" answer.
Now if we spice up the options a bit:
1. $100 instantly
2. $150 over 3 months
3. $200, but you have to wait 6 months for it
Now the choices are balanced (albeit not perfectly) and now you have "actual" option to choose between three, because you don't have very strong incentive to choose one over another. The balance can be further tweaked by looking at the statistics then changing the numbers if they are too high or low.
If I broke the balance and say, make the third option $10000 instead of $200 you go back to situation where everyone chooses 3. Balance is tantamount to having a meaningful options.
In video games it applies the same way, and balance becomes more and more important as it becomes harder. In easier games you can choose crappy things because anything will beat the game regardless of choice, but as it becomes harder you are eventually forced to pick certain class/talent/comp that might not align with your style, because the game will be too difficult if not plain impossible to beat. This problem is even worse in multiplayer games where many others will not be tolerant of you picking "wrong" choices over optimization.
Now if it comes to things being homogenized for balance it is a different issue, but you don't always need to sacrifice diversity for the sake of numeric balance (sometimes it is inevitable though).
TLDR : There can be no choice without balance.
multiclass - extremely popular (score = 99)
kensai - very popular (85)
zerker - pretty popular (73)
wizard slayer - moderately popular (51)
it's rather:
multiclass - extremely popular (score = 99)
kensai - very popular (85)
zerker - pretty popular (73)
wizard slayer - *almost no one ever plays him* (uhhhm 3, maybe?)
The wizard slayer is too unbalanced to be considered playable by most people. They don't want to hamper themselves intentionally because it's a perverted idea to most. The public generally wants a balanced, "normal" playing experience. They can roleplay just fine their optimized or so-so characters, why do they have to go the weirdo route?
does this really tell you *nothing*?
What good is it that he sucks so hard? Wouldn't you also play him if he was at least an "okay" kit, like for example the (inferior to sorcerer but perfectly functional) Dragon Disciple? What good do you really get out of this exclusivity, "i'm having a unique experience" thing? Sorry, but you're not thinking critically when you say that.
An experientialist hippie attitude does *not* make the game inherently more fun, you must realize that.
"I don't want to go to Venice on vacation, even though i've never been there. Instead I want to go to Dover, Ohio because I want to experience the uniqueness of having a vacation there". Does that make Dover, Ohio a good tourist destination? Does that mean that if you had had a vacation in Venice you wouldn't have had an equally good or better time?
Does that mean you throw balance out the window? No - wildly unbalanced games are no fun.
Does that mean you need to prop up the classes/races that continually poll as the weakest? Only if they truly are unplayable. Some players like the challenge, don't take it away from them. Others like the flavor, and are prepared to pay the cost of a harder play through for a distinct experience. Others will simply choose not to play them, but are not missing out too badly, as long as there is a rich variety of other (stronger) options that appeal.
Baldur's Gate is in something of a sweet-spot for D&D complexity/balance, and SoD is likely to be right at the heart of it, with the xp curve at the point where most classes have caught up, but not truly excelled to the point you can stand alone.
So to some extent, BeamDog should not interfere and rebalance the game - but we already want to make exceptions for the extensions they add to the game (even when those extensions are porting Bioware features back to the first game).
Then there is matching flavor to the kit. It is kind of embarrassing that the monk is a better wizard-slayer than the fighter kit specifically tasked with doing so - indeed IIUC, the kit is so focussed they are more restricted in the items they can use than the ascetic monk! Balancing the magic resistance here, for example, makes a lot of sense for the flavor.
So I want BeamDog to be comfortable with their free hand to change and balance what is needed to make the game fun - just don't nerf my favorite toys
Scratch that, you're not even doing it wrong, you're doing what you think the best way to play the game is. And that's fine. Me, I'm the person who likes to play more challenging and less challenging character types both. I do play even the extremes, and at some point that did include the old wizard slayer kit. And I had fun with it. I know that's difficult to grasp, but believe me, I did.
What you're doing when you're saying that character classes should be rebalanced to make them more meaningful choices for you, is you're asserting that these weaker or stronger classes are not already meaningful choices for someone else. And that's wrong. When you give the wizard slayer a higher percentage spell failure effect, you make it a more viable choice for you, and a less interesting choice for me.
This will sound harsh, so embrace yourself. When you regard your own balance ideals as the objectively best way of doing things, you're engaging in the authoritarian exercise of disregarding everyone else's preferences and experience.
E.g. "What you like is wrong. You should like what I like."
edit: i mean, you can always go to Venice, and spend time at the harbor, lol
everything you currently prefer can also be had if some things were more polished. the character creation system allows for qurky playthroughs such as roleplaying an untalented character.
When you start making parts of the game to appeal to a larger percentage of players, you're pandering. Making a single pandering change is, of course, not the end of the world, and these changes don't cause much harm individually. But they set a wrong precedent. Follow the line of thinking you laid out there to its logical conclusion, and you'll get to the much-discussed issue of why a lot of modern RPG series are deteriorating over time.
As much as that is a slippery slope argument, it's not at all an unrealistic one. It's been happening for decades and it's happening all over the place. If you think Beamdog is better and they won't go there, that's fine, you're entitled to your opinion. But I see these changes as dangerous first steps in a very wrong direction. If they stop right here, everything is going to be OK. But they're currently mid-stride.
It was not a part of the maker's vision that there would be this dumb kit that's supposed to sound great on paper, especially to newcomers ("i'm going to go the smart route and gear myself against the mages because i think mages might be pretty nasty") and in practice it does. not. slay. wizards. or do anything distinctively useful.
edit: and i think that wizard slayer is much better now. it's become a nice kit to play.
Most of what I said still applies to the assassin nerf, though. As it happens, I'm also miffed about that.
But that's all I wanted to clarify. Keep the discussion going!
For the heck of it, I might as well address the other two "weak" kits: Beastmaster and Shapeshifter. Beast master gives up on all melee weapon choices besides clubs and staves, and the ability to wear metal armor, and in exchange gets a small HP advantage (familiar,) and when he gets spells, the ability to conjure an entire freaking army. Considering level 1-3 Druid spells are ordinarily really useless by that level with the exception of level 3 stuff like Summon Insects and Miscast Magic... It's a choice. You end up playing with stealth and ranged weapons while your animals take aggro, which is something neither Stalkers nor Archers nor Rangers can do.
Shapeshifter: OK, here... The main problem isn't so much the weakness of Shapeshifter but the relative power and choices of the Avenger. Shapeshifter's schtick is supposed to be being able to double as a moderately OK fighter when his spells aren't useful, but the Avenger kind of does the same thing with 6 additional spells to boot. At higher levels, the balance does reform with the Greater Werewolf form eclipsing the Avenger forms for the most part, but having to wait til level 14... But the kit's not nearly as bad as the groupthink would have you believe. If nothing else, you're still playing a Druid with no drawbacks besides lack of animal forms which are... timesavers at best.
So. Um. What I'm trying to say is that there's already a certain balance between the kits already, even if there's no good way to enforce that between classes, since spells kind of upset the balance by a ton but there's not too much we can do about that IMO without reworking the entire spell system. I, for one, don't see a pressing reason to attempt to balance these kits further. And for the ones I DO (Inquisitor,) I use SCS to remove it, but I wouldn't force that decision onto anyone else.
If (as an extreme example) wizard slayers had -6 to all stats and deal 75% less damage (all of which are said in description) would you still play?
If you like wizard slayers because they suck, well, good for you. But not for others who actually want their favourite kit viable. In fact I have never seen anyone in any game asking for nerfs to their class so that they are below others. You are clearly a minority and game design should not cater to such.
Now there's a sweeping statement if ever there was.
If there is a minority who enjoy playing a "nerfed" class within a game that offers many choices, why ever not?
Should the majority always demand that every class suits them?
I always play the same class because I enjoy it, I've never even considered a WS, However, years down the line I might just want to play BG differently, completely differently. Kind of in a masochistic, frustrating, "throw the PC out the window" way because my cat died or I broke up with somebody. If a game can manage to provide that as well as all the normal sane choices, why on earth not?
I am not saying you are wrong or bad, but that doesn't mean designers should listen to you.
Perhaps the designer's cat died or their partner dumped them and their design reflects that?
You are being very dogmatic.
Why on earth shouldn't a game as big as BG, not cater for both?
Whether I'm okay with Beamdog changing things around in the vanilla game is another matter entirely, and it's mostly about my desire to have the game be conserved the way it was conceived. I'm willing to admit I'm not particularly inclined to compromise there.
Now imagine that there is a new game from a scratch (d&d game perhaps) - would you be against balancing stuff in this situation?