[Spoilers] Where's the (good, usable) loot?
Abel
Member Posts: 785
Common to most RPGs: leveling and looting. I get why we can't get the first one, seing how SoD has to fit in the limited timeline between BG1 & 2. But SoD pushes the frustration even further depriving us of a decent selection of good loot.
I counted approximatively 30 usable new items. What I mean by usable? I mean able to replace the items I already gathered in BG1 (mostly from Beregost, Ulgoth's Beard, Baldur's Gate and Durlag's Tower).
Most new items have fancy but underwhelming abilities.
The new trend for weapons seems to be +% chance to criticals, generally +5%. In that case, 1 more out of 20 attacks will be a critical. Eh, I'd rather have a flat bonus, which looks less cool but fares better! Who relies on critical hits anyway?
Another example of weapons that look nice on paper (maybe not even) but are unusable: the void weapons. So, these cancel all Strength bonuses to hit and damage while offering a chance to reduce target Strength. Thing is, who would use these (Longsword and Hammer) but Fighters with high Strength. Now, they could be used against bosses but the Strength penalty can be saved against! A level 12 Archer can do this with no save and no penalty but the short duration of Called Shot.
These are just notable examples but the majority of new items either don't match the power of those found in BG1 (never thought I'd say that) or provide unnoticeable upgrades.
In BG1, every magical item you found was a major upgrade. In BG2, there was a host of items, many of them great. I'm playing SoD with the LoD difficulty and while I get the IWD HoF experience (or what's rather a bugged port of it, called Nightmare mode), I'm not getting 1/10th of the XP or items rewards of it.
Apparently, in SoD, defeating a Lich (the Coldhearth one) is a small feat! The reward for this challenge? An Ashideena with penalties that does bonus damage against... Good Clerics?! I'm not asking for a Ring of Gaxx, but jeez, it's infuriating to get taunted that way by designers. SoD really falls short in that matter in comparison with other IE games.
What's the other trend with new items? They're afflicted by insane class and character limitations. So, now there's not only a low chance to get appropriate rewards for your efforts, even if it's any good, it's likely you simply won't be able to use it.
Just look at how many items are exclusive to the new uneffective Goblin Shaman. I counted 12, which is more than 10% of the advertised 100 new items.
There are, let's be honest, some very good weapons: new Flails and Morningstars, Longswords, Two Handed Swords, Shields (though I don't use those having Mirror Image and Stoneskin). But I wished we had seen more of weapons like the Biter, Tongue of Acid, Spell Breaker, the Hydra. Those are powerful enough to be desirable, yet not game breaking (who would think of 'balance' when it comes to IE games anyway?).
The trinket and clothing part also fares better with notable items like Amulet of Protection +2, the Hats. Still, not enough to sustain our interest, if it weren't for the story.
I counted approximatively 30 usable new items. What I mean by usable? I mean able to replace the items I already gathered in BG1 (mostly from Beregost, Ulgoth's Beard, Baldur's Gate and Durlag's Tower).
Most new items have fancy but underwhelming abilities.
The new trend for weapons seems to be +% chance to criticals, generally +5%. In that case, 1 more out of 20 attacks will be a critical. Eh, I'd rather have a flat bonus, which looks less cool but fares better! Who relies on critical hits anyway?
Another example of weapons that look nice on paper (maybe not even) but are unusable: the void weapons. So, these cancel all Strength bonuses to hit and damage while offering a chance to reduce target Strength. Thing is, who would use these (Longsword and Hammer) but Fighters with high Strength. Now, they could be used against bosses but the Strength penalty can be saved against! A level 12 Archer can do this with no save and no penalty but the short duration of Called Shot.
These are just notable examples but the majority of new items either don't match the power of those found in BG1 (never thought I'd say that) or provide unnoticeable upgrades.
In BG1, every magical item you found was a major upgrade. In BG2, there was a host of items, many of them great. I'm playing SoD with the LoD difficulty and while I get the IWD HoF experience (or what's rather a bugged port of it, called Nightmare mode), I'm not getting 1/10th of the XP or items rewards of it.
Apparently, in SoD, defeating a Lich (the Coldhearth one) is a small feat! The reward for this challenge? An Ashideena with penalties that does bonus damage against... Good Clerics?! I'm not asking for a Ring of Gaxx, but jeez, it's infuriating to get taunted that way by designers. SoD really falls short in that matter in comparison with other IE games.
What's the other trend with new items? They're afflicted by insane class and character limitations. So, now there's not only a low chance to get appropriate rewards for your efforts, even if it's any good, it's likely you simply won't be able to use it.
Just look at how many items are exclusive to the new uneffective Goblin Shaman. I counted 12, which is more than 10% of the advertised 100 new items.
There are, let's be honest, some very good weapons: new Flails and Morningstars, Longswords, Two Handed Swords, Shields (though I don't use those having Mirror Image and Stoneskin). But I wished we had seen more of weapons like the Biter, Tongue of Acid, Spell Breaker, the Hydra. Those are powerful enough to be desirable, yet not game breaking (who would think of 'balance' when it comes to IE games anyway?).
The trinket and clothing part also fares better with notable items like Amulet of Protection +2, the Hats. Still, not enough to sustain our interest, if it weren't for the story.
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Comments
I like the class, race and alignment restrictions on the SoD items though.
There is lots of stuff that falls into catagories not covered in BG1: e.g. Headwear for mages and bards, specialist monk items, etc.
In retrospect I think I would just prefer that these types of items were ported into BG2 and ToB and many of the overpowered items in those games removed. Sacrilege, I know, and part of the point of ToB is to be an epic final adventure. But I greatly prefer low powered settings and character levels with unique item abilities rather than +5 +1 fire +1 ice +1 acid +1 electricity +1 energy drain +1 stahp
By the way I love that little goblin shaman ^^ (she wasn't really meant to enter melee or be targeted at by mobs, thus her stuffs felt a little weird).
With all these new stuffs and try running in core rules using the advance AI, everything is pretty relaxing for a change xD. If you like a real challenge try LoB without importing (I am guessing who can get pass the first dungeon without burning up all the gold ^_^).
Would you put it on a F/M and then just treat the character as a fighter? Does the 50% MR compensate for basically having a lower leveled fighter without the benefits of spellcasting?
The thing that does suck in SoD is the shops: there's nothing there worth buying. You get an awful lot of money but there's nothing to spend it on.
I finished the campaign and my opinion hasn't changed much.
@rapsam2003 asks me to define 'good'. As I said, a good item can replace one you already have. It's always good if you have none in the considered category or if you need an additional one. Otherwise, there's no need for it: it's not usable. I think anyone will agree on this.
The problem with SoD is that the rate of replacement is low (it barely reached 1/3 for my party equiped items) and the improvement too marginal.
The main exemple of that are weapons. By the end of BG1, +2 weapons were the norm and you would get some +3 ones too. SoD is mostly a step backward with the most common enchantment being +2 (or +2 and 1/2 to be fair) when +3 should have been the standard and not the exception (which is also why the final battle gets inapropriately difficult).
So, while SoD does give us some very good (though not great) items that I mentioned in my original post, it doesn't deliver good enough selection of Scimitars, Crossbows, Belts, Gauntlets, Boots, Cloaks. And for all items, it would have been better raising the bar at +3 instead of sticking to a timid +2,5.
Weirdly, some of the best items are additional copies of BG1 ones (Ring of Protection +2, Ring of Free Action, Boots of Speed). Magical Armors as usual don't cut it since they prevent Protection items. Though there's a wonderful variety of Shields, those don't do damage.
Where SoD excels though as @Fardragon said is in filling unoccupied niches like Darts, Headgear and Amulets. The biggest success is Bludgeoning 1H weapons. Martyr's Morningstar in association with Glimmer of Hope, Cloverleaf and Ring of Purity will do wonders in LoB.
Unfortunately, that is not enough to please the, admitedly, 'powergamer' and completist I am. This is why I would not start the game from scratch or close as @Bubbles and @Iroumen suggested even though we agree that would make all items very valuable. Likewise @Artemius_I, I don't pick uneffective classes like Stalker that would need godlike items to do a 1/10 of what multiclassed Mages can do. I sure like a challenge, but with LoB on, that would just be masochism!
You can't be serious when you say BG2 has a high amount of junk items. Athkatla only just blows you with items of exceptional quality, most of them being available from the start in the Adventurers' Mart or in the Copper Coronet. Not only that, but highly difficult challenges will give you extraordinary rewards: Celestial Fury, Staff of the Magi and of course Crom Faeyr amongst others.
I talked about Liches in my original post. I may as well talk about Dragons. In SoD the LoB Green Dragon is accompanied by two Young Dragons (and Great Wyverns) having both the same breath attack. It can't be evaded nor its damage mitigated and kills most of your characters instantly. Yet, what you get when you cheese your way out of this encounter is: gold (useless) and scales for a AC4 Armor or a Shield. Well, I can tell you that I had more trouble beating this Dragon than all the other ones in BG2. Yet those all gave substantial loot when defeated.
But it's just another example of why an item/loot revision is needed. I never used one but I got to say for the first time I would welcome it.
Right. And if you complete BG and the first SoD dungeon with Ajantis, Yeslick, Kivan etc. with the best items equipped, they are all gone for good.
Explanation: RP. Substituon: none Solution: strip your party members naked to keep the best gear. Endresult:
RPBut are you're saying that if we got the best items in BG1 then we don't need better items in SoD? Well, then why do we need additional levels even?
See, this is the issue I was raising in my original post: leveling and looting. And since the first aspect is almost non existent (compare it to the rates of both BG1 and BG2), BD should have raised the mean power of all items. Why? To give a sense of progress. As things are, we're in a progression stasis between BG1 and BG2. This conservative approach is hurting a kind of gameplay I described (full completion and optimisation). Neither BG1 nor BG2 would feel like SoD in that regard.
It's sad because there was opportunity for better enjoyment there given the initial reset of BG2.
Your opposition between two subgenres is irrelevant. I could ask you just the same why you play RPGs instead of reading novels if all you care about is the story. No point.
You keep talking about the 'story' while I'm talking about something else (see, again, thread title and previous posts). I don't want to debate about what's a RPG or about how we are supposed to play one. This is just pointless.
So, really I don't know what else to say since we're comparing and talking about different things.