Power Gaming - still viable?
Sharguild
Member Posts: 186
Assuredly I have no intention of dissing the style of play elected by folks but I can't help but feel perplexed when I see folk still asking for advice on how best to "uber-party" the game.
Yeah, that statement alone is condescending I suppose but I just wished to take an opportunity to point out a few things if I may;
1) You can't use all the gear in one play-through: I've actually seen posts of people quite distraught because they may have put a point in a particular weapon use only to find that if they had selected another ( by virtue of new goody found) they would be SO MUCH happier. What they may then miss out on is just how much fun they will discover now focusing their NPC's (or PC's) build focused on the choice they've made.
2) You can't take everyone with you: "If only I had leveled up Billy instead of Tammy!" Again, perhaps playing to the strengths of the individuals you have selected, instead of concerning yourself with what you perceive having missed out on, you will grow fond affection for that party member.
3) I should have picked a better class/score PC: Well, before you relegate that particular PC to the scrap heap, are you playing to their advantages? Most PCs are staggeringly powerful by means of the enhancements almost any class selected is provided. In comparison to the NPCs, they would be hard pressed to actually "suck". Again, it depends on the desire of the individual to determine if what they have selected can be "fun". And "fun" of course, is the most personal attribute of this or any game. If ya ain't gettiing any, then yer doin' it wrong. But, is your character viable and can he/she be fun? Those that have played the game more often then they have filed income tax returns, long ago discovered that a flawed character can be far more interesting (i.e. challenging) than an uber 18 godling-in-training, regardless of the story-line. which leads to ....
4) Oh my goodness, my stats so suck: No, they don't. Having an 18 in the majority of your PC's stats in fact, I would suggest, eliminates a lot of fun from some encounters. There is an enormous variety of potions, spells, potions, gear, potions and potions by which you are able to adjust your stats to meet difficult encounters. If there was a prize for the person who accumulated the most amount of unused potions at the end of the game, I would have had it on my mantle many years ago. (I think Elminster or Sarevok57 has one though, but hey, they didn't even use healing potions).
5) My spell selections suck!: Well, you can remedy that easy enough, there is no real shortage and though Sorcerer's commit more than Mages, playing to the strengths of those spells selected will come with usage. Almost every spell in the game can be put to good use, some better than others of course and when you find out the type of caster you have created is best suited to a particular routine, stick with it.
6) I should have picked swords not axes!: Back to point 1. Hard to think of a game that has more gear available to select than this one. Well, no, your game does not self destruct upon completion and you are entitled to play it more than once. Principal reason why they have so much gear available in the first place. Like any game, they WANT you to play it more than once and in doing so, make different selections. Some of us in fact wonder at this point if there is a penalty ( other than impact on sanity) for playing it over 10 / 20 / 30 / 100 times. yeah, BGAnonymous should be a thing....
7) Why can't I steam-roll with my Uber-Party?: Well the game is by no means a cake-walk and if you play above "core-rules" setting, you are gonna get bit. Perhaps a lot. This I suppose also reflects what we want from a game. If you seek a challenge, you assuredly came to the right game. For the un-iniated, it can be quite cruel. Probably no more so than some other games but assuredly more so than most. RPGs by nature are quite unforgiving for inept or half-measured indulgence. They require dedication and research to complete, whereas other type games I suggest, simply require participation to complete effectively. This game has a legacy because of it's complexity, it is not Angry Birds.
Well, this may seem to some a lecture, so be it but it is intended to address frequent posts I have monitored as of late from folk just recently discovering the game. Others, far more dedicated than I may find other suggestions to consider. I invite their assistance. I respect your opinions whole-heartedly.
m2c
Yeah, that statement alone is condescending I suppose but I just wished to take an opportunity to point out a few things if I may;
1) You can't use all the gear in one play-through: I've actually seen posts of people quite distraught because they may have put a point in a particular weapon use only to find that if they had selected another ( by virtue of new goody found) they would be SO MUCH happier. What they may then miss out on is just how much fun they will discover now focusing their NPC's (or PC's) build focused on the choice they've made.
2) You can't take everyone with you: "If only I had leveled up Billy instead of Tammy!" Again, perhaps playing to the strengths of the individuals you have selected, instead of concerning yourself with what you perceive having missed out on, you will grow fond affection for that party member.
3) I should have picked a better class/score PC: Well, before you relegate that particular PC to the scrap heap, are you playing to their advantages? Most PCs are staggeringly powerful by means of the enhancements almost any class selected is provided. In comparison to the NPCs, they would be hard pressed to actually "suck". Again, it depends on the desire of the individual to determine if what they have selected can be "fun". And "fun" of course, is the most personal attribute of this or any game. If ya ain't gettiing any, then yer doin' it wrong. But, is your character viable and can he/she be fun? Those that have played the game more often then they have filed income tax returns, long ago discovered that a flawed character can be far more interesting (i.e. challenging) than an uber 18 godling-in-training, regardless of the story-line. which leads to ....
4) Oh my goodness, my stats so suck: No, they don't. Having an 18 in the majority of your PC's stats in fact, I would suggest, eliminates a lot of fun from some encounters. There is an enormous variety of potions, spells, potions, gear, potions and potions by which you are able to adjust your stats to meet difficult encounters. If there was a prize for the person who accumulated the most amount of unused potions at the end of the game, I would have had it on my mantle many years ago. (I think Elminster or Sarevok57 has one though, but hey, they didn't even use healing potions).
5) My spell selections suck!: Well, you can remedy that easy enough, there is no real shortage and though Sorcerer's commit more than Mages, playing to the strengths of those spells selected will come with usage. Almost every spell in the game can be put to good use, some better than others of course and when you find out the type of caster you have created is best suited to a particular routine, stick with it.
6) I should have picked swords not axes!: Back to point 1. Hard to think of a game that has more gear available to select than this one. Well, no, your game does not self destruct upon completion and you are entitled to play it more than once. Principal reason why they have so much gear available in the first place. Like any game, they WANT you to play it more than once and in doing so, make different selections. Some of us in fact wonder at this point if there is a penalty ( other than impact on sanity) for playing it over 10 / 20 / 30 / 100 times. yeah, BGAnonymous should be a thing....
7) Why can't I steam-roll with my Uber-Party?: Well the game is by no means a cake-walk and if you play above "core-rules" setting, you are gonna get bit. Perhaps a lot. This I suppose also reflects what we want from a game. If you seek a challenge, you assuredly came to the right game. For the un-iniated, it can be quite cruel. Probably no more so than some other games but assuredly more so than most. RPGs by nature are quite unforgiving for inept or half-measured indulgence. They require dedication and research to complete, whereas other type games I suggest, simply require participation to complete effectively. This game has a legacy because of it's complexity, it is not Angry Birds.
Well, this may seem to some a lecture, so be it but it is intended to address frequent posts I have monitored as of late from folk just recently discovering the game. Others, far more dedicated than I may find other suggestions to consider. I invite their assistance. I respect your opinions whole-heartedly.
m2c
3
Comments
I can't speak for other "powergamers" and I am not sure I fit the category, but when I decide to make a "power-run" (meaning I don't care about roleplay etc...), I simply say "Let's make a *insert a class and a race* solo/restricted party/... and see what I can make out of it with SCS and LoB" for example. I do not seek absolute optimization, I seek optimization within set conditions and I enjoy that. I can understand, however, that this might not sound appealing to everyone, and I do enjoy roleplay runs without too much optimization as well.
The aim of the these two types of run are different -one of them is a challenge, the other an immersion -, and both are stimulating.
No real powergamer tells people what they SHOULD do. Only what they COULD do. The choice, ultimately, is and always has been to the individual player. All powergamers are trying to do when they "educate" in retelling their strategies is to present options. There are many of those, and they change based on many factors. No one in their right mind would even consider making absolute judgments in the style of "you HAVE to have every stat at 18 or you SUCK". That's ridiculous to even suggest. But stating things like "your character will perform better in combat when stat X is at 18" is very different from that. Often that is misconstrued, but make no mistake: it's just a presentation of facts, as objectively as possible with a game that has so many subjective variables attached to it. What you DO with those facts is another thing entirely, and 100% up to the individual player. No one is saying you can't have fun with a 5 STR Fighter. No one is saying you would have more fun with a 25 STR Fighter. All they're saying is that a 25 STR Fighter will do better than a 5 STR one - and what you do with that information is up to you.
The first couple of times I played this game(when I was young and my knees didn't make a cracking sound when I stand up), I sucked, but I wanted to play it better, I tried to play it better, and eventually, I did play it better.
So (like a lot of people here) I discovered that, by playing the reroll minigame until my eyes fall out, using metagame knowledge to fireball strategic locations and cheesing the living shit out of a beholder lair with a overpowered shield, I could own this game. And while it's fun to get better and better, at some point, the better you get, the less fun it is, in a way.
So then, (like @Lord_Tansheron says) I started imposing restrictions on myself. This raises the difficulty level which prevents you from steamrolling at an unrealistic pace, but also, if the restriction is roleplaying-related in nature, it even adds to immersion.
However, within those restrictions(which may include roleplaying-related restrictions like "he would never do this/use this", etc.") I intend to play the game as best I can.
I don't know if that falls under what the OP calls powergaming, but I like playing like that.
And although I have "graduated" "pure powergaming" many years ago and now consider it boring and unimmersive, it would be unfair of me to critize people who hasn't "graduated" it, or who never intends to "graduate" Xavier's School for Gifted Powergaming Youngsters because they enjoy it.
So while I understand the OP's points of why "pure powergaming" is boring and agree with most of them, I don't think there's anything wrong with liking it.
Sometimes I'm interested in those discussions, and sometimes I roll my eyes in disinterest and click on another thread. In BG I enjoy role-playing and the challenge of untwinked characters more than powergaming, while in some other games, such as Titan Quest, I enjoy going for some optimization (which is almost mandatory in the various Diablo-clone games, unless you enjoy dying over and over).
I don't feel any need to write any long essays arguing why BG powergamers ought to stop having fun with what they're having fun with and try my way instead, on account of my way being the best way. "The best way" is a completely subjective issue, and arguments about it are kind of pointless and even disingenuous, unless the people in the argument actually have fun with arguing for its own sake. I guess some people do.
As others have said powergaming is a style of play and it is mostly about how best to optimize power and defeat the game. There are extreme powergamers that want the best or most optimized character and using the best weapons; the best order for quests and their endless pursuit for max xp -- "if the game allows it that makes it legal" as a favorite saying and as such there is no abuse of the game (which is of course not true). Then we have the extreme role-players on the other side, that play to their character and alignment and how they envision them as said character - these role-players would "ask" how would this character feel about this situation and then decide based on that decision.
I imagine most of us fall somewhere in between the two extremes to some extent since you don't actually want to die in the first dungeon. How much you limit your power/role-playing is of course up to you but underlying playing a rpg/game is the fact that you want to beat the monster and make it to the next level at the very least.
Of course if you have done one extreme/pure powergaming run I have to wonder why bother doing it again unless you are checking to see how each class plays out when fully optimized (and possibly using all the cheese and exploits in the game.)
I think the thing that bothers me most about power gaming at times is the need to use metagaming, exploits and cheese in the game. How many hours do you spend re-rolling the best stats (assuming you don't just use keeper to save time); how much exploits or cheese do you use to win a battle? Do you cast cloud kill and close a door, trap an area when monsters that are blue circled, know where monsters are going to spawn and trap or surround him, pre-buff and pre-select spells before a major battle (although you should not really know what is behind the next door unless it is way obvious), use fog of war to limit monsters or attack without any real retaliation, rest in an area with blue circled monsters, leaving an area when enemy mages start casting so their spells run out, potion/weapon/item swapping during battle, steal everything in the game using potion of master thievery for unlimited gold etc......
In the end how you play is up to you since you are playing for your own entertainment.
Regardless, AFAIK it's the die-hard RPers who are an endangered species.
Hardcore RPers are extremely rare in every gaming community I've ever been in, perhaps because few people have the time and dedication to pull it off. Maybe it's also because in many cases, power gaming is also the lazy man's approach.
The only hard battles in BG2 are magic users that throw up "protection from everything and then some" and battles devolve into top trumps spellcasting, etc etc
I prefer BG to ID, but I'm also not a powergamer.