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.
Well I guess the problem is solved then (unless someone wants to jump in).
Back to the topic : I think druid spellbooks need buff, because I don't want to see shamans being complete crap.
Now imagine that there is a new game from a scratch (d&d game perhaps) - would you be against balancing stuff in this situation?
Possibly! Clearly I would rather not have the game brokenly unbalanced, but pursuing balance as the key measure of a games success is how you end up with 4th Edition D&D, and a feeling that none of your decisions really matter, as they will all produce the same effect. I love the wildly erratic xp curves of 1st and 2nd edition AD&D, rather than the steady power curve of 3rd edition onwards. I love the fact that it takes effort to turn a 1st level mage into a character that can hold their own in the party, before becoming a late-game powerhouse. I love the fact that different gaming styles are all supported, even if not all equally effective. That unevenness is part of the texture of a fun *replayable* gaming experience, very different to the constraints of a competitive multi-player game.
As I said, that does not mean that balance goes out the window. I also really enjoyed the smooth xp curve of 3rd edition, but it was a different experience - balance is important in the sense that the game should not degenerate into simply mashing the one 'win' button until the game ends, but no more than that.
I will add that the wider the variety of options available to a game, the less the absolute balance matters. If I have 100 options, and 3 are overpowered, most are roughly on a par, and 7-10 are clearly underwhelming - that is a GOOD THING, as long as the 7-10 are not boring.
If I have, say, only 3-9 main classes, with only 2 or 3 choices to make as I go through the leveling process, then balance matters a lot more, or else the variety is rather meaningless when only one option makes sense each time. Modern games skew more towards a smaller number of balanced options, I would like to see more of the wilder games with an overwhelming variety of less clearly balanced options to explore - but only as a complement to the well-tuned-and-balanced gamed.
My sorrow is that we have lost variety in the industry, but it is not solved by giving up on the good things we have learned while getting here - just complementing them.
My sorrow is that we have lost variety in the industry, but it is not solved by giving up on the good things we have learned while getting here - just complementing them.
Money makes the world go around, and that clearly involves generating lots of generic, bland garbage. And bland sells because it calls out to the inexperienced buyer who is more comfortable with three safe, meaningless choices than with a hundred complex, confusing ones.
All we can do to combat it is create our own better games, or support the creation of such.
Now imagine that there is a new game from a scratch (d&d game perhaps) - would you be against balancing stuff in this situation?
If I may highjack the question proposed to Adul:
I wouldn't, because there's no such thing as a perfect translation of P&P rules to a videogame - you have to make at least a few adjustments and it wasn't any different with the BG series. However, I would argue that these adjustments were already made by Bioware, and that was the version of the game that garnered a fanbase big enough to warrant an Enhanced Edition.
Sure, you could use that argument to oppose the very idea of an EE, claiming that there's no need to touch a game that everybody loves. But I propose a more nuanced point of view:
There are enhancements that I don't think anyone can argue against: supporting modern resolutions, multi-core processors and newer OSes, bringing the games to the touchscreen era, that's all great and IMHO enough to justify the existence of the EEs.
But this is inevitably followed by messing around with the game content.
First, in the form of bugfixes, which are also welcome - it only becomes controversial when it deals with things that open up exploits that players like to abuse to the point of integrating that into their style of playing. Pretty much like how these boards caught on fire after Beamdog eliminated the old trick of pausing a BG2 game before the first cutscene so you'd keep your equipment from BG1.
Then, there's introducing new content. It seems like a logical step to take - people have been modding in new stuff for years and I guess they'd be disappointed if Beamdog came around with financial resources and access to the source code and *didn't* put anything new in there. But that's when the water starts to get murky, because it's not only about the quality of the new content itself - but how it's integrated into the game. Is it in line with the old content? Does it respect the source material? Does it integrate seamlessly? In the case of BG:EE, I think the new NPCs fail in some of these aspects, but that's a discussion for some other time.
Then we finally get to the most "extreme" type of change, which is rebalancing and readjusting stuff. These are much harder to justify. These are aspects of the game that aren't in any way "broken". Unbalanced, perhaps, but not broken as they're intended by the developer. And one could argue that just because they can change it doesn't mean they should, even if they have some good ideas.
To make things more complicated, you also have to differentiate between the type of change: it's one thing to change the UI. It's another to change how a certain class or kit or spell works.
Me, I tend to favor UI changes because for me, it's just another way of making the games a better experience on modern computers. But when it comes to rules, I'm a if-it-aint-broke-dont-fix-it kind of guy.
And even so, when it comes to nerfing the Poison Weapon ability in low levels, for example I'm in favor as long as it doesn't affect the way it works when a character reaches BG2 levels. And that's because if we're going to discuss the sanctity of BG1's content, the EE should probably have been A LOT more conservative. But they've decided to bring everything to the BG2 engine (and then improve upon that engine), which is good, but comes with the price of messing up Bioware intent on every level since the game was simply not made with the features of BG2's engine in mind.
So I think it's no use arguing with Beamdog trying to fix the mess introduced by porting the whole game to a new engine. As sad as it is to admit, we've reached a point that if you want a "pure" BG1 experience you're better off playing the original (which I do, from time to time).
EDIT: oh god I wrote a wall of text no one will read it
I think the classes are fine more or less, though I won't comment confidently on that as I haven't played a great many of them.
But the games... oh I wish they'd done some things differently. Rather than balancing the classes, why not just balance the game encounters? Almost all of the vital and plot driving encounters are against high level mages, giving the game over to classes that are adept at taking on mages specifically.
Varying the high level ultra-enemies, or throwing more mixed parties of high level enemies at the player (such as another 6 person party just like your own) would be on my list of changes.
Those who say 'no beamdog should no rebalance original content'.
What about random encounter difficulty scaling? - a la more or upgraded random spawns based on the difficulty setting.
What about scripted encounter difficulty scaling? - a la AI upgrades based on difficulty.
This poll could have used some options, because, as a player, i wouldn't really like massive changes to existing classes/rules, i consider the non-scaled random spawns almost like a bug.
@Avenger_teambg I get that those would be a great improvement for a lot of people (possibly including myself, from time to time), but I still say either leave them to mods, or, even better, make them toggleable from the options menu.
I've thought about it a bit more. Maybe for some changes there could be some kind of an announcement with a poll about players' thoughts on it, before something is included into a patch (even a beta of it). So that there wouldn't be a "changing without reason/without request/without asking" argument.
I've thought about it a bit more. Maybe for some changes there could be some kind of an announcement with a poll about players' thoughts on it, before something is included into a patch (even a beta of it). So that there wouldn't be a "changing without reason/without request/without asking" argument.
There always will be arguments, because people like different things. A lot of new stuff also got options, exactly for this reason - yet some people write they don't like them - even though they can easily turn them off. The beta is kinda the same as 'asking', but with a working prototype. It is easier to see something in work and probably just getting used to it, than seeing its description once and forming a half-educated opinion.
@bob_veng uhm, i'm not the man behind the wheel, i'm more like just a cog in the gear for the wheel
I've thought about it a bit more. Maybe for some changes there could be some kind of an announcement with a poll about players' thoughts on it, before something is included into a patch (even a beta of it). So that there wouldn't be a "changing without reason/without request/without asking" argument.
There always will be arguments, because people like different things. A lot of new stuff also got options, exactly for this reason - yet some people write they don't like them - even though they can easily turn them off. The beta is kinda the same as 'asking', but with a working prototype. It is easier to see something in work and probably just getting used to it, than seeing its description once and forming a half-educated opinion.
Yes and no. If some things are introduced only as late as in the beta, it means hours of work have already been put into it, and if the community begins to demand changes in the new behavior, it means additional hours of work should again be put into it.
i consider the non-scaled random spawns almost like a bug.
Beamdog tendency to consider original features as bugs and "fix them" it's what ruined the (enhanced) games for me and it is one of the main reasons why I still prefer the original games.
Another main reason is that despite all the changes in the engine, externalisations, etc. the original games are still more customisable than the enhanced editions and this is very relevant to the current topic because customisability allows players to change things themselves, as they see fit, instead having changes shoved down their throats whether they like it or not.
I've thought about it a bit more. Maybe for some changes there could be some kind of an announcement with a poll about players' thoughts on it, before something is included into a patch (even a beta of it). So that there wouldn't be a "changing without reason/without request/without asking" argument.
There always will be arguments, because people like different things. A lot of new stuff also got options, exactly for this reason - yet some people write they don't like them - even though they can easily turn them off. The beta is kinda the same as 'asking', but with a working prototype. It is easier to see something in work and probably just getting used to it, than seeing its description once and forming a half-educated opinion.
Yes and no. If some things are introduced only as late as in the beta, it means hours of work have already been put into it, and if the community begins to demand changes in the new behavior, it means additional hours of work should again be put into it.
Both strategies take hours of work before players get any input. This way (hopefully) players actually get to see the change in action before they make up their minds about whether or not they hate it.
Lately, my concern is that a lot of players may be judging the change sight-unseen. There's no trial period in-game, it's just "Nope, it's different, therefore I don't like it." Which is a fine position to take, but it's not nearly as helpful in iterating design.
think about the new players. they're less vocal then these ossified replayers ( ) and are equally deserving of a good game. think about the generations to come...
It's true, some players will reject the new designs instantly, without even trying them in-game. This, while not ideal, does give you useful feedback, in my opinion. It shows you which of the new UI designs are the ones that are most rejected by a part of the community based purely on how they look in screenshots. If you are willing to take it as such, I think that is good feedback.
I was talking about balance changes, not UI changes. It's easier to see that you don't like the way a UI screen looks without having to touch it (although using it gives you better insight into why you don't like it). When it comes to mechanics, though, it's harder to intuit what feels good or bad about the change until you experience it for yourself.*
That's not to say that there isn't valuable feedback to be gleaned from just looking at the ability's description, but it's nowhere near as fruitful as booting up the game and trying it out.
EDIT: * unless it's a mechanic you use on a regular basis. If, for example, you use Magic Missile every day, you have an instinctive understanding of what will change if we modify the spell to suddenly deal 1d6 damage per missile instead of 1d4+1, or give it a saving throw to negate each missile's damage. It's less easy to intuit that difference if you've only used the spell once.
I think by now you understand my objections about the vanilla balance changes inside and out, so I will abstain from proselytizing this time.
I totally understand your position, and I appreciate it. I do think it's worth noting that about 50% of the responses to this poll have been at least on the fence about this particular issue. So for the people who are on the fence, I would hope that they'd try things out before passing judgment. But I guess that's true of anything in life.
On a personal level, I don't know that I agree with the idea that we should be in the business of making balance changes to vanilla mechanics (which is to say, I wouldn't want to necessarily make the call that we should go through every class and redesign them for balance).
Power Word: Rant. (Causes all people within the area of effect to be stunned and confused for 2 turns)
I get the impression that it's not a popular opinion, but I think Beamdog should rebalance and restructure the game a lot. The reason I didn't vote "Yes" is because it said
Yes, Beamdog should rebalance old classes, monsters and abilities that are too strong or too weak.
, and while I think things should be rebalanced, there could still be a difference in power to allow people to intentionally build weak characters, and such(as someone already said). No offense to people who think nothing should change, but the original Baldur's Gate will never change and I can play it whenever I want. The reason I bought the Enchanced Edition(s) is because it contains changes for the better(mostly). I agree that making things optional when possible is both nice because it allows people to play how they want, which is more fun(which is the point) and also kind of PnP-ish(to my limited n00bish knowledge), but at the same time adding on/off switches for every single thing, bug-testing all combinations and making contents that plays well with different options sounds pretty time-consuming.. Although I wish Beamdog would address the following: - Cheese-removal(Things that would never fly in PnP) - Remove game-mechanic-changing difficulty settings(I think people who want the game to be easier should be given more powerful characters instead of changing the game mechanics) - Tavern drink system modification(Instead of getting near-useless hints, use money to buy tavern-exclusive quests?) - Make meta-gaming as difficult as possible(use random seed set at start of game to determine what items are where, random encounters, etc.) - No-reload support(Delete save-game on death) - Improved graphics(Use same models but make it more detailed) - Better UI(which seems to be one of the goals with SoD) - Improve dialog/story for sub-par quests(likely to piss some people off, so quite difficult I guess) - Add more wisdom/charisma/etc check-related peaceful resolutions to various encounters. - (and a lot more, but I have ranted enough and it's almost 1 AM)
Those who say 'no beamdog should no rebalance original content'.
What about random encounter difficulty scaling? - a la more or upgraded random spawns based on the difficulty setting.
What about scripted encounter difficulty scaling? - a la AI upgrades based on difficulty.
This poll could have used some options, because, as a player, i wouldn't really like massive changes to existing classes/rules, i consider the non-scaled random spawns almost like a bug.
I think that this has been a great discussion so far and that probably a better poll can now be formulated. or several polls that address balance...
i guess we can debate a bit how the questions and options should be written, and i or someone else can make the threads
for example:
Poll no. 1, about difficulty-slider-dependent additional enemies like in SoD (i think that they can really do this) 1. I WANT IT: choice of added enemies should be more unpredictable/hardcore 2. I WANT IT: choice of added enemies should be more conservative 3. I WANT IT: mix of options 1 & 2 4. I WANT IT: specifics don't matter to me 5. I WANT IT: under a specific condition which hasn't been covered in the poll 6. I DON'T WANT IT / i don't know whether i want it or not / i oppose adding this feature
Poll no. 2, about level-scaling of random encounters, which is not difficulty-slider-dependent (i think they can do this too) NOTE: the options below are all about random encounters exclusively
1. SUPPORT: round-the-clock + consistent - level scaling always applies and applies equally; after a while you stop encountering kobolds altogether
2. SUPPORT: round-the-clock + diffuse - always applies but enemy toughness is randomized within a range so you may meet both weaker and tougher enemies than in option 1. (also kobolds bye bye)
3. SUPPORT: intermittent + consistent - randomly turned on/off for each encounter, but it always applies equally when it does; a chance always remains that you will encounter kobolds; encounters will be either mostly easy (as current ones are) or level-matched
4. SUPPORT: intermittent + diffuse - applies randomly both in terms of 'when?' and 'how much?'; encounter difficulty is wide-ranging
5. SUPPORT: only under condition that the scaling encounters have a story element and that the increasing danger can in such a way be rationalized (for example: progressively more skilled bounty hunters look for you as you become more notorious for dispatching their colleagues and you learn this by them being identied as bounty hunters and/or by reading a letter etc.)
6. SUPPORT: specifics don't matter to me / bob_veng is a giant ass
7. OPPOSE
Poll no. 3, about level-scaling of respawning enemies ... (same logic applies as in poll no. 2)
Poll no. 4, about global/general level-scaling (in regards to all encounters including unique ones; this is not very topical because i don't think the devs are interested)
Poll no. 5, kits, Poll no. 6, items... - pointless questions because that's what 50% of discussions on the forums are already about
I tend to agree with the, “it’s a slippery slope” way of thinking when it comes to Beamdog continuing to make changes to the vanilla game. Sure, I wouldn't mind if they changed some things that would suit me personally. But the truth is, the more freedom that they have to make changes, the more chance there is that they will make some that I will not personally enjoy.
Though I am very grateful to Beamdog for bringing this game up to date, fixing bugs and making it compatible with new computers, not to mention readily available to a whole new generation of players, I can’t say that I have been 100% pleased with every change that was made. Along with all the positive things that have been done, there have already been some changes that I don’t personally agree with. But then this was inevitable.
Thus far, I have just chucked all that up to the fact that no matter who is making the changes, peoples own personal perspectives and preferences are bound to influence what changes are made. It can’t be helped. This is true whether changes are made by modders or Beamdog.
There is a reason that this game has endured so long, in spite of it’s age. I’d hate for it to become so “refined” that it starts to no longer feel like the masterpiece that I have always thought of it as.
I feel that Beamdog has made enough changes to what was the vanilla game. I whole heartedly thank them for what they have done, but I feel that it is enough. Let the modders go wild from here and let the players pick and choose how they customize their games through mods.
sometimes changes call for more changes, especially when you add stuff. since they went the path of adding things, they should be ready to do what has to be done in order to serve the whole the best. but it's not a slippery slope, it's a pretty exact thing i believe.
I believe that things should only be made more difficult through modding, after all, most of the game in only easy because we're either too experienced or powergaming with kensai/mages and carsomy wielding rogues. Making mods such as SCS official would probably frustrate new players. In my opinion they should focus on more sidequests and scenarios, and make them optional.
Comments
Back to the topic : I think druid spellbooks need buff, because I don't want to see shamans being complete crap.
As I said, that does not mean that balance goes out the window. I also really enjoyed the smooth xp curve of 3rd edition, but it was a different experience - balance is important in the sense that the game should not degenerate into simply mashing the one 'win' button until the game ends, but no more than that.
I will add that the wider the variety of options available to a game, the less the absolute balance matters. If I have 100 options, and 3 are overpowered, most are roughly on a par, and 7-10 are clearly underwhelming - that is a GOOD THING, as long as the 7-10 are not boring.
If I have, say, only 3-9 main classes, with only 2 or 3 choices to make as I go through the leveling process, then balance matters a lot more, or else the variety is rather meaningless when only one option makes sense each time. Modern games skew more towards a smaller number of balanced options, I would like to see more of the wilder games with an overwhelming variety of less clearly balanced options to explore - but only as a complement to the well-tuned-and-balanced gamed.
My sorrow is that we have lost variety in the industry, but it is not solved by giving up on the good things we have learned while getting here - just complementing them.
All we can do to combat it is create our own better games, or support the creation of such.
I wouldn't, because there's no such thing as a perfect translation of P&P rules to a videogame - you have to make at least a few adjustments and it wasn't any different with the BG series. However, I would argue that these adjustments were already made by Bioware, and that was the version of the game that garnered a fanbase big enough to warrant an Enhanced Edition.
Sure, you could use that argument to oppose the very idea of an EE, claiming that there's no need to touch a game that everybody loves. But I propose a more nuanced point of view:
There are enhancements that I don't think anyone can argue against: supporting modern resolutions, multi-core processors and newer OSes, bringing the games to the touchscreen era, that's all great and IMHO enough to justify the existence of the EEs.
But this is inevitably followed by messing around with the game content.
First, in the form of bugfixes, which are also welcome - it only becomes controversial when it deals with things that open up exploits that players like to abuse to the point of integrating that into their style of playing. Pretty much like how these boards caught on fire after Beamdog eliminated the old trick of pausing a BG2 game before the first cutscene so you'd keep your equipment from BG1.
Then, there's introducing new content. It seems like a logical step to take - people have been modding in new stuff for years and I guess they'd be disappointed if Beamdog came around with financial resources and access to the source code and *didn't* put anything new in there. But that's when the water starts to get murky, because it's not only about the quality of the new content itself - but how it's integrated into the game. Is it in line with the old content? Does it respect the source material? Does it integrate seamlessly? In the case of BG:EE, I think the new NPCs fail in some of these aspects, but that's a discussion for some other time.
Then we finally get to the most "extreme" type of change, which is rebalancing and readjusting stuff. These are much harder to justify. These are aspects of the game that aren't in any way "broken". Unbalanced, perhaps, but not broken as they're intended by the developer. And one could argue that just because they can change it doesn't mean they should, even if they have some good ideas.
To make things more complicated, you also have to differentiate between the type of change: it's one thing to change the UI. It's another to change how a certain class or kit or spell works.
Me, I tend to favor UI changes because for me, it's just another way of making the games a better experience on modern computers. But when it comes to rules, I'm a if-it-aint-broke-dont-fix-it kind of guy.
And even so, when it comes to nerfing the Poison Weapon ability in low levels, for example I'm in favor as long as it doesn't affect the way it works when a character reaches BG2 levels. And that's because if we're going to discuss the sanctity of BG1's content, the EE should probably have been A LOT more conservative. But they've decided to bring everything to the BG2 engine (and then improve upon that engine), which is good, but comes with the price of messing up Bioware intent on every level since the game was simply not made with the features of BG2's engine in mind.
So I think it's no use arguing with Beamdog trying to fix the mess introduced by porting the whole game to a new engine. As sad as it is to admit, we've reached a point that if you want a "pure" BG1 experience you're better off playing the original (which I do, from time to time).
EDIT: oh god I wrote a wall of text no one will read it
I like giant walls of text, obviously. I've been known to produce them from time to time.
But the games... oh I wish they'd done some things differently. Rather than balancing the classes, why not just balance the game encounters? Almost all of the vital and plot driving encounters are against high level mages, giving the game over to classes that are adept at taking on mages specifically.
Varying the high level ultra-enemies, or throwing more mixed parties of high level enemies at the player (such as another 6 person party just like your own) would be on my list of changes.
What about random encounter difficulty scaling? - a la more or upgraded random spawns based on the difficulty setting.
What about scripted encounter difficulty scaling? - a la AI upgrades based on difficulty.
This poll could have used some options, because, as a player, i wouldn't really like massive changes to existing classes/rules, i consider the non-scaled random spawns almost like a bug.
Can see these forums being swarmed with threads of complaints, claims of entire childhoods being destroyed because of some change or other.
srsly do it. integrate it into the difficulty slider like you logically did in SoD and no one will have a right to complain.
@bob_veng uhm, i'm not the man behind the wheel, i'm more like just a cog in the gear for the wheel
Another main reason is that despite all the changes in the engine, externalisations, etc. the original games are still more customisable than the enhanced editions and this is very relevant to the current topic because customisability allows players to change things themselves, as they see fit, instead having changes shoved down their throats whether they like it or not.
Lately, my concern is that a lot of players may be judging the change sight-unseen. There's no trial period in-game, it's just "Nope, it's different, therefore I don't like it." Which is a fine position to take, but it's not nearly as helpful in iterating design.
That's not to say that there isn't valuable feedback to be gleaned from just looking at the ability's description, but it's nowhere near as fruitful as booting up the game and trying it out.
EDIT: * unless it's a mechanic you use on a regular basis. If, for example, you use Magic Missile every day, you have an instinctive understanding of what will change if we modify the spell to suddenly deal 1d6 damage per missile instead of 1d4+1, or give it a saving throw to negate each missile's damage. It's less easy to intuit that difference if you've only used the spell once.
On a personal level, I don't know that I agree with the idea that we should be in the business of making balance changes to vanilla mechanics (which is to say, I wouldn't want to necessarily make the call that we should go through every class and redesign them for balance).
(Causes all people within the area of effect to be stunned and confused for 2 turns)
I get the impression that it's not a popular opinion, but I think Beamdog should rebalance and restructure the game a lot. The reason I didn't vote "Yes" is because it said , and while I think things should be rebalanced, there could still be a difference in power to allow people to intentionally build weak characters, and such(as someone already said). No offense to people who think nothing should change, but the original Baldur's Gate will never change and I can play it whenever I want. The reason I bought the Enchanced Edition(s) is because it contains changes for the better(mostly). I agree that making things optional when possible is both nice because it allows people to play how they want, which is more fun(which is the point) and also kind of PnP-ish(to my limited n00bish knowledge), but at the same time adding on/off switches for every single thing, bug-testing all combinations and making contents that plays well with different options sounds pretty time-consuming..
Although I wish Beamdog would address the following:
- Cheese-removal(Things that would never fly in PnP)
- Remove game-mechanic-changing difficulty settings(I think people who want the game to be easier should be given more powerful characters instead of changing the game mechanics)
- Tavern drink system modification(Instead of getting near-useless hints, use money to buy tavern-exclusive quests?)
- Make meta-gaming as difficult as possible(use random seed set at start of game to determine what items are where, random encounters, etc.)
- No-reload support(Delete save-game on death)
- Improved graphics(Use same models but make it more detailed)
- Better UI(which seems to be one of the goals with SoD)
- Improve dialog/story for sub-par quests(likely to piss some people off, so quite difficult I guess)
- Add more wisdom/charisma/etc check-related peaceful resolutions to various encounters.
- (and a lot more, but I have ranted enough and it's almost 1 AM)
(EDIT: and also in reference to this thread: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/48544/mob-scaling-yes-or-no/p1)
I think that this has been a great discussion so far and that probably a better poll can now be formulated. or several polls that address balance...
i guess we can debate a bit how the questions and options should be written, and i or someone else can make the threads
for example:
Poll no. 1, about difficulty-slider-dependent additional enemies like in SoD (i think that they can really do this)
1. I WANT IT: choice of added enemies should be more unpredictable/hardcore
2. I WANT IT: choice of added enemies should be more conservative
3. I WANT IT: mix of options 1 & 2
4. I WANT IT: specifics don't matter to me
5. I WANT IT: under a specific condition which hasn't been covered in the poll
6. I DON'T WANT IT / i don't know whether i want it or not / i oppose adding this feature
Poll no. 2, about level-scaling of random encounters, which is not difficulty-slider-dependent (i think they can do this too)
NOTE: the options below are all about random encounters exclusively
1. SUPPORT: round-the-clock + consistent
- level scaling always applies and applies equally; after a while you stop encountering kobolds altogether
2. SUPPORT: round-the-clock + diffuse
- always applies but enemy toughness is randomized within a range so you may meet both weaker and tougher enemies than in option 1. (also kobolds bye bye)
3. SUPPORT: intermittent + consistent
- randomly turned on/off for each encounter, but it always applies equally when it does; a chance always remains that you will encounter kobolds; encounters will be either mostly easy (as current ones are) or level-matched
4. SUPPORT: intermittent + diffuse
- applies randomly both in terms of 'when?' and 'how much?'; encounter difficulty is wide-ranging
5. SUPPORT: only under condition that the scaling encounters have a story element and that the increasing danger can in such a way be rationalized (for example: progressively more skilled bounty hunters look for you as you become more notorious for dispatching their colleagues and you learn this by them being identied as bounty hunters and/or by reading a letter etc.)
6. SUPPORT: specifics don't matter to me / bob_veng is a giant ass
7. OPPOSE
Poll no. 3, about level-scaling of respawning enemies
... (same logic applies as in poll no. 2)
Poll no. 4, about global/general level-scaling (in regards to all encounters including unique ones; this is not very topical because i don't think the devs are interested)
Poll no. 5, kits, Poll no. 6, items... - pointless questions because that's what 50% of discussions on the forums are already about
Though I am very grateful to Beamdog for bringing this game up to date, fixing bugs and making it compatible with new computers, not to mention readily available to a whole new generation of players, I can’t say that I have been 100% pleased with every change that was made. Along with all the positive things that have been done, there have already been some changes that I don’t personally agree with. But then this was inevitable.
Thus far, I have just chucked all that up to the fact that no matter who is making the changes, peoples own personal perspectives and preferences are bound to influence what changes are made. It can’t be helped. This is true whether changes are made by modders or Beamdog.
There is a reason that this game has endured so long, in spite of it’s age. I’d hate for it to become so “refined” that it starts to no longer feel like the masterpiece that I have always thought of it as.
I feel that Beamdog has made enough changes to what was the vanilla game. I whole heartedly thank them for what they have done, but I feel that it is enough. Let the modders go wild from here and let the players pick and choose how they customize their games through mods.
In my opinion they should focus on more sidequests and scenarios, and make them optional.