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Should Beamdog intentionally introduce new exploits into the EEs?

Something that's been floating around in my head. It seems there are two main camps that crop up whenever Beamdog patches a behavior that has been around for a long time.

Camp #1: "exploits are unintended and bad and the developer is fully within its rights to correct them"
Camp #2: "exploits don't hurt anyone and correcting them reduces the number of ways one can choose to play the game, and ultimately makes the game less fun. Fun is a more important goal than strict adherence to the rules."

If one wanted to get more specific, there seem to be two more hybrid camps that fall somewhere between those.
Camp #3: "Some exploits cannot be avoided by the player, such as MMM setting your APR to five. These should be patched. Others are strictly up to the player, such as bard song stacking. These should be left."
Camp #4: "There is nothing wrong with patching exploits in theory, but *BEAMDOG* should not be patching exploits because they are not the *ORIGINAL* developer. They are the caretakers of the IE games, but not the owners, and they should respect the state the actual owners left the game in as much as possible.

Now, I tend to be in Camp #1. Game developers absolutely tell you how you should and shouldn't play their games, and that's fine. The original games shipped with exploits that the original developers corrected, and I have no reason to believe that the ones they left were because they approved of those exploits and not because, say, they didn't have the money to support continued patches.

But as a user-of-exploits, I'm also sympathetic to Camp #2 and #3. I love Feeblemind. I love Feebleminding blue-circle NPCs until it sticks for all manner of reasons, (to facilitate their murder, to allow me to pickpocket and steal with impunity, to avoid fights or conversations, or just because I feel like it). If "failed Feebleminds don't cause a neutral NPC to go hostile" ever gets patched, I'll be sad to see it go, because that's one less way for me to enjoy the game.

But this raises a question for me. If I'm in camp #2 or #3, isn't the logical endpoint of my position the belief that Beamdog should be intentionally introducing *new* exploits, provided that they're completely avoidable for those who don't want to take advantage?

Should Beamdog make it so that invisibility stacks and if you cast it twice, you become invisible to creatures who could otherwise see through invisibility? And a third casting would make it so that the invisibility is undispellable, and a fourth casting would make it so that aggressive action no longer breaks invisibility?

After all, it'd be completely optional if a player wanted to cast Invisibility four times to enter God Mode. It would just give players another way to enjoy the game if they wanted it, and they'd be free to ignore it if it felt too cheesy for them.

Should Beamdog make it so if you pause the game and trigger a Greater Whirlwind and a Wand of Lightning before unpausing you wind up with 60 attacks per round? Should Beamdog make it so if a Cleric uses rat form from the Cloak of Sewers, not only can he still use Turn Undead, but Turn Undead will actually work against all enemies, whether undead or not? Having a rat-formed Cleric run through the lair of the Unseeing Eye chunking Beholders would certainly give us another way to play, (and I'd argue it's still less cheesy than the Shield of the Balduran).

Should Beamdog not only reinstate all of the stacking behavior from vanilla BG, (Hardiness stacks with itself, Armor of Faith stacks with itself, Blur stacks with itself, etc.), but even introduce new stacking behavior? Make Fireshields stack, poison weapon stack, etc.

Should Beamdog change things back so that not only could you wear character-specific items that should be disallowed, (Monks wearing Firecam's Full Plate, Fighter/Mages casting spells in Corthala Family Armor), but actually go through and randomly / arbitrarily change the flags on other items so that they're usable by the "wrong" classes, (Clerics using Fire Tooth throwing dagger, say, or Jahiera inexplicably being able to equip the Scarlet Ninja-To)?

Or even do away with all flags entirely and just leave things up to player discretion whether they want to use "disallowed" items or not, (perhaps put this as an option in the menu so new players don't accidentally equip their kensai with armor without realizing they shouldn't be able to)?

I don't mean to suggest there's a "right" answer or a "wrong" answer to any of these questions. Like I said, I'm in Camp #1, and the fact that I answer "no" to these questions is a big reason why, (otherwise I'd be more in Camp #3 to protect my beloved Feeblecheese).

But I think answering "yes" to any or all of these is a totally reasonable position for a Camp #2 / Camp #3 player to take, and it's interesting to me that I haven't ever seen anyone else advocating for Beamdog to introduce *more* exploits. Because that seems like a perfectly logical endpoint.

If you consider yourself a camp #2 / camp #3 player, would you be in favor of Beamdog intentionally introducing new exploits? Why or why not?
OlvynChuruSkatanJuliusBorisovlolien

Comments

  • DrakeICNDrakeICN Member Posts: 623
    You are way over analyzing. Exploiting exploits is not a playing style, it is akin to cheat codes. Thus patch them. If you want them to stay in, hide them behind cheat codes, so there is no confusion. End of story.

    (If the exploit is enough of an exploit for anyone to give a damn. And of course, assuming the exploit can be patched. The "talk to unfriendly creature before turning unfriendly" is probably very difficult to patch.)
    ArctodusThacoBell
  • WesboiWesboi Member Posts: 403
    They actually have to release patches first. How long have mobile bg and IWDEE customers have had to and still are waiting.
  • Grond0Grond0 Member Posts: 7,305
    I would have thought a player looking for exploits already has plenty of options, e.g. mods, console, game difficulty, abusing saves. I would expect the developer to concentrate on making the game internally consistent and bug-free before introducing lots more opportunities for glitches to arise.
    ArctodusThacoBellCrevsDaakAerakar
  • AasimAasim Member Posts: 591
    I'd be happy if they fixed the damn spider web tangle shots....
  • SomeSortSomeSort Member Posts: 859
    DrakeICN said:

    You are way over analyzing. Exploiting exploits is not a playing style, it is akin to cheat codes. Thus patch them. If you want them to stay in, hide them behind cheat codes, so there is no confusion. End of story.

    (If the exploit is enough of an exploit for anyone to give a damn. And of course, assuming the exploit can be patched. The "talk to unfriendly creature before turning unfriendly" is probably very difficult to patch.)

    This is very much a Camp #1 response. I know that Camp #1 types are going to be in favor of eliminating all exploits and avoiding any new ones. I was curious how a Camp #2 or Camp #3 player might feel about it, instead.

    I also disagree that exploiting exploits is not a playing style. I'm halfway through a game where I'm roleplaying that Imoen is the only Bhaalspawn and she's just having a psychotic break, looking at the results of her tainted blood and attributing them to an imaginary Charname that only she can see.

    For this run, Charname is a Jester who does nothing but sing his bard song while invisible-- something that is possible only through the use of an exploit that was patched in version 2.0, but since I'm still on 1.3 I can still take advantage of.

    Now, maybe you think this isn't a "playing style", it's just me using cheat codes. I like to think of it as a fun experiment in emergent storytelling. Agree or disagree, there's really no argument that the entire run would have been impossible had my game been updated to version 2.0.

    (I'm fine with the idea to hide them behind cheat codes, though I think at that point a Camp #2 or Camp #3 person might argue that so long as the mechanism of the exploit was completely optional and impossible to trigger by chance, what does it matter if you put it behind a cheat code or not? If someone wants to do it, they'll do it. If someone doesn't, they won't.)
  • SkatanSkatan Member, Moderator Posts: 5,352
    I'm in Camp #1,5.. On the one hand many exploits are unintended glitches that can completely ruin the experience (MMM APR bug). On the other hand, the same exploit can instead increase it for others (like you and your feeblecheese or my new favorite; throwing dagger +APR in melee). I tend to not use exploits so much so I am leaning towards #1 but also respect those who are in camp #2 and #3.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 0
    edited May 2017
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  • FlashburnFlashburn Member Posts: 1,847
    Its not really an exploit if its added intentionally.
    semiticgoddesslolien
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    Exploits are good if they are fun. Exploits are bad if they ruin things.

    If an exploit is difficult to find, difficult to pull off, has a limited effect, has drawbacks, and only applies in certain circumstances, then it won't break the game. It's just a cool thing you can do.

    Case in point: the spider gnome trick. I didn't discover the trick until years after I first started playing the game. Performing the trick requires multiple steps, only certain classes can do it, and it's not useful for every fight in the game.

    (Unless you're Jan, in which case it can do almost anything, but the trick is no longer possible in BG2:EE)

    But if an exploit is easy to find, easy to pull off, scales infinitely, has no drawbacks, and applies everywhere, then it breaks the game, because you can do everything with that one exploit alone. It reduces effective gameplay to one strategy.

    A good example would be if you could indefinitely talk-block everyone in the game, even hostile critters. If you could, then it would render all other strategies obsolete, because that one exploit would always be the strongest option. The only way to keep the game challenging would be to avoid using it.
    CrevsDaakGrond0AstroBryGuy
  • SomeSortSomeSort Member Posts: 859

    (And btw the idea that you can try to feeblemind someone without it counting as a hostile act is ridiculous, and should be changed. That spell is almost as bad as straight-up murdering someone. But Charm Person, on the other hand, should not be a hostile act.)

    From a balance perspective, there's no question that Feebleminding blue circle NPCs is pretty broken.

    From a "flavor" standpoint, Feeblemind's utility against blue-circle NPCs is one of the key differentiators of the spell. If you do away with that, you might as well rename it to "Finger of Braindeath", since it's basically just Finger of Death with no damage on failed save.

    From a mechanical justification standpoint, I think it makes sense depending on how you're abstracting a "save vs. spells". Is this an active thing that people are doing, or is it a passive trait of theirs? If it's the former, then after a successful save they would be all "oh hey, someone's trying to cast a spell on me, let's go aggro." If it's the latter, though, then they'd kind of just stand around and say "Oh, is that wizard casting a spell? I wonder what he's casting. I don't see anything happening. Is he looking in my dir... *feebleminded*."

    (And given the nature of Feeblemind, I don't know that bystanders would necessarily notice when it's successful.)
  • Grond0Grond0 Member Posts: 7,305
    In an unmodded game blindness is pretty much the same death sentence as feeblemind to the vast majority of those affected. That doesn't have the saving throw penalty, but is available at level 1 to make encounters with BG1 characters that start neutral (like Silke or Tarnesh) easy.
  • moody_magemoody_mage Member Posts: 2,054
    @Grond0 said:

    In an unmodded game blindness is pretty much the same death sentence as feeblemind to the vast majority of those affected. That doesn't have the saving throw penalty, but is available at level 1 to make encounters with BG1 characters that start neutral (like Silke or Tarnesh) easy.

    Except actually chasing them down with your level 1 dart flinging sorcerer is a PITA now as they blindly Benny Hill across the entire map, causing you to potentially provoke additional spawns.
  • The user and all related content has been deleted.
    lolienThacoBell
  • AmmarAmmar Member Posts: 1,295
    I am firmly in what you call Camp #3. I do not really want them to introduce new exploits on purpose.

    I want the old exploits that you do not end up using unintentionally to stay there because they give the game character in some cases make it more fun. However, if the devs find out that they introduced an exploit by mistake, and it turns out players will not use it unintentionally and it also fun - leave it in.
  • SomeSortSomeSort Member Posts: 859

    SomeSort said:


    If it's the latter, though, then they'd kind of just stand around and say "Oh, is that wizard casting a spell? I wonder what he's casting. I don't see anything happening. Is he looking in my dir... *feebleminded*."

    (And given the nature of Feeblemind, I don't know that bystanders would necessarily notice when it's successful.)

    It's bystanders that I'm principally thinking of. A guard sees you making hand movements and muttering arcane phrases, then this buddy turns into a wordless drooling idiot. In a world where magic is spammed as much as it is in BG/F.R... people would figure out what happened almost 100% of the time.

    If I'm DM, and I know that the game is incapable of distinguishing between blue-circle onlookers and blue-circle victims, I think the only sensible thing is to default to "this spell aggros everyone."
    I think an ideal world would have aggro based on factors such as proximity, size of crowds, relationship with person, etc. Tarnor would probably notice if you Feebleminded his crew, but I doubt a tavern patron would notice if you feebleminded the person one table over, and I'm unsure a guard would notice you feebleminding a guard at another post. (It's not like they *literally* start drooling, they mostly just stand around doing nothing. And guard duty usually involves a lot of standing around doing nothing.)

    At the end of the day, it's cheesy and exploity and I don't really blame Beamdog if they decide to change behavior, (though I think this is less a "bug" and more an instance of "there were two possible design directions, both of which have drawbacks, and the original devs chose one when with the benefit of hindsight they probably should have chosen the other").

    And as I said, current behavior at least goes a long way towards distinguishing it from Finger of Death and Polymorph Other.
  • SomeSortSomeSort Member Posts: 859
    Ammar said:

    I am firmly in what you call Camp #3. I do not really want them to introduce new exploits on purpose.

    I want the old exploits that you do not end up using unintentionally to stay there because they give the game character in some cases make it more fun. However, if the devs find out that they introduced an exploit by mistake, and it turns out players will not use it unintentionally and it also fun - leave it in.

    One would think that an exploit that was specifically designed would be more likely to meet the "won't be used unintentionally" and "fun" criteria than an exploit that arose accidentally, no? What is it about the fact that it was an accident that makes unintentional exploits more worthy?
  • AmmarAmmar Member Posts: 1,295
    SomeSort said:

    Ammar said:

    I am firmly in what you call Camp #3. I do not really want them to introduce new exploits on purpose.

    I want the old exploits that you do not end up using unintentionally to stay there because they give the game character in some cases make it more fun. However, if the devs find out that they introduced an exploit by mistake, and it turns out players will not use it unintentionally and it also fun - leave it in.

    One would think that an exploit that was specifically designed would be more likely to meet the "won't be used unintentionally" and "fun" criteria than an exploit that arose accidentally, no? What is it about the fact that it was an accident that makes unintentional exploits more worthy?
    What you say might well be correct, but developer time is limited and I would not like them to spend it to come up with lots of cool, undocumented exploits. Which is also part of the reason why I do not want them to fix the original, "harmless" (because triggered almost only intentionally) exploits.
    lolien
  • SomeSortSomeSort Member Posts: 859
    Ammar said:

    SomeSort said:

    Ammar said:

    I am firmly in what you call Camp #3. I do not really want them to introduce new exploits on purpose.

    I want the old exploits that you do not end up using unintentionally to stay there because they give the game character in some cases make it more fun. However, if the devs find out that they introduced an exploit by mistake, and it turns out players will not use it unintentionally and it also fun - leave it in.

    One would think that an exploit that was specifically designed would be more likely to meet the "won't be used unintentionally" and "fun" criteria than an exploit that arose accidentally, no? What is it about the fact that it was an accident that makes unintentional exploits more worthy?
    What you say might well be correct, but developer time is limited and I would not like them to spend it to come up with lots of cool, undocumented exploits. Which is also part of the reason why I do not want them to fix the original, "harmless" (because triggered almost only intentionally) exploits.
    Thanks! Developer time as a limited resource is a really good argument that I hadn't considered. Accidental exploits by definition have a development time of zero.

  • Grond0Grond0 Member Posts: 7,305

    @Grond0 said:

    In an unmodded game blindness is pretty much the same death sentence as feeblemind to the vast majority of those affected. That doesn't have the saving throw penalty, but is available at level 1 to make encounters with BG1 characters that start neutral (like Silke or Tarnesh) easy.

    Except actually chasing them down with your level 1 dart flinging sorcerer is a PITA now as they blindly Benny Hill across the entire map, causing you to potentially provoke additional spawns.
    @Ammar I did specify an unmodded game. If you have SCS installed I agree some blinded victims will be a pain to chase down, although even with that by no means everything will run around when blinded.
  • AmmarAmmar Member Posts: 1,295
    Grond0 said:

    @Grond0 said:

    In an unmodded game blindness is pretty much the same death sentence as feeblemind to the vast majority of those affected. That doesn't have the saving throw penalty, but is available at level 1 to make encounters with BG1 characters that start neutral (like Silke or Tarnesh) easy.

    Except actually chasing them down with your level 1 dart flinging sorcerer is a PITA now as they blindly Benny Hill across the entire map, causing you to potentially provoke additional spawns.
    @Ammar I did specify an unmodded game. If you have SCS installed I agree some blinded victims will be a pain to chase down, although even with that by no means everything will run around when blinded.
    You are adressing the wrong person. Though if you want my opinion I did never have much trouble killing blinded enemies with SCS.
  • SomeSortSomeSort Member Posts: 859
    Grond0 said:

    @Grond0 said:

    In an unmodded game blindness is pretty much the same death sentence as feeblemind to the vast majority of those affected. That doesn't have the saving throw penalty, but is available at level 1 to make encounters with BG1 characters that start neutral (like Silke or Tarnesh) easy.

    Except actually chasing them down with your level 1 dart flinging sorcerer is a PITA now as they blindly Benny Hill across the entire map, causing you to potentially provoke additional spawns.
    I did specify an unmodded game. If you have SCS installed I agree some blinded victims will be a pain to chase down, although even with that by no means everything will run around when blinded.
    Enemies running while blinded is a feature of unmodded BG1 as of patch 1.3.
    https://steamcommunity.com/app/228280/discussions/2/368542585862403732/
    "- Non-friendly NPCs that are Blinded will no longer stand still; they will wander aimlessly until they are close enough to see someone worth attacking"
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,714
    SomeSort said:

    Grond0 said:

    @Grond0 said:

    In an unmodded game blindness is pretty much the same death sentence as feeblemind to the vast majority of those affected. That doesn't have the saving throw penalty, but is available at level 1 to make encounters with BG1 characters that start neutral (like Silke or Tarnesh) easy.

    Except actually chasing them down with your level 1 dart flinging sorcerer is a PITA now as they blindly Benny Hill across the entire map, causing you to potentially provoke additional spawns.
    I did specify an unmodded game. If you have SCS installed I agree some blinded victims will be a pain to chase down, although even with that by no means everything will run around when blinded.
    Enemies running while blinded is a feature of unmodded BG1 as of patch 1.3.
    https://steamcommunity.com/app/228280/discussions/2/368542585862403732/
    "- Non-friendly NPCs that are Blinded will no longer stand still; they will wander aimlessly until they are close enough to see someone worth attacking"
    It was later changed back as that behavior caused AI script issues. So now in an unmodded game blind enemies stand still.

    https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/723016/#Comment_723016
    elminsterlolien
  • Grond0Grond0 Member Posts: 7,305
    Apologies @Ammar - the earlier response was intended for @moody_mage (though I'd forgotten that some people would still be using old versions of EE anyway ;)).
  • SomeSortSomeSort Member Posts: 859

    It was later changed back as that behavior caused AI script issues. So now in an unmodded game blind enemies stand still.

    https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/723016/#Comment_723016

    It was later changed back for PC/Mac versions of the game, at least. ;)
  • GreenWarlockGreenWarlock Member Posts: 1,354
    Patched back, but only on those platforms that have access to the 2.x series of patches ;)
  • The user and all related content has been deleted.
    semiticgoddesslolien
  • moody_magemoody_mage Member Posts: 2,054
    @Grond0 said:

    Apologies Ammar - the earlier response was intended for @moody_mage (though I'd forgotten that some people would still be using old versions of EE anyway ;)).

    Ah cool, it's been a while since my sorcerer solo game, nice to know this has been removed.

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