However, this discussion helped me attain the metagame knowledge I need to avoid it (until my character is powerful enough to handle it.) In that sense, it's no different than other metagame knowledge like trap avoidance or buffing for an upcoming fight.
The only meta knowledge you need to avoid it is knowledge of how to use the load game function.
Clearly it's a minority opinion, so I won't belabor the point, but I would point out that one of the most popular threads on this forum (over half-a-million views) is about "No Reload" playthroughs. Maybe it's not your cup-of-tea, but it's a popular playstyle!
We've been over this repeatedly. If the game is too challenging for you under your self imposed rule set, then that speaks to a flaw in your self imposed rules, not a flaw in the game.
Nuzlocking is a very popular playstyle in the pokemon games, but it would be bizarre to complain that Pokemon as a whole is too harsh and unforgiving, because particular encounters are problematic in a Nuzlock run. These fail states are not supposed to be as big a deal as that. Getting waylaid by enemies you're not prepared for is supposed to set you back ten seconds, not ten hours.
hardcore viability is absolutely a valid and well-recognized parameter in video-game design. if you have to reload to avoid a game-over random event, that' s universally seen as an amateurish flaw. imagine if it was super mario and of 10 times when you jump onto tube, 9 times the game would continue, but 1 time you're instantly dead&done.
hardcore viability is absolutely a valid and well-recognized parameter in video-game design. if you have to reload to avoid a game-over random event, that' s universally seen as an amateurish flaw. imagine if it was super mario and of 10 times when you jump onto tube, 9 times the game would continue, but 1 time you're instantly dead&done.
More like the bonus rounds in Super Mario World. After you beat a level, you will sometimes get to play a game of chance, that sometimes can have some minor rewards but sets you back nothing if you "lose".
"hardcore" also doesn't mean "This incredibly specific self imposed rule set fans came up with after the game was released"
Look up the Green Demon challenge in Super Mario 64 for example. It's incredibly difficult and unfair, but that's hardly a slight on the game's design.
A largely open world RPG is also not comparable to a linear platformer.
You can explore most of the world as a Level 1 character, but it must by necessity offer content for Level 6 characters, or else most of the content would be worthless as you leveled up.
So there are going to be encounters that you're not prepared for. You'll come back to them later.
hardcore viability is absolutely a valid and well-recognized parameter in video-game design. if you have to reload to avoid a game-over random event, that' s universally seen as an amateurish flaw. imagine if it was super mario and of 10 times when you jump onto tube, 9 times the game would continue, but 1 time you're instantly dead&done.
More like the bonus rounds in Super Mario World. After you beat a level, you will sometimes get to play a game of chance, that sometimes can have some minor rewards but sets you back nothing if you "lose".
"hardcore" also doesn't mean "This incredibly specific self imposed rule set fans came up with after the game was released"
Look up the Green Demon challenge in Super Mario 64 for example. It's incredibly difficult and unfair, but that's hardly a slight on the game's design.
A largely open world RPG is also not comparable to a linear platformer.
You can explore most of the world as a Level 1 character, but it must by necessity offer content for Level 6 characters, or else most of the content would be worthless as you leveled up.
So there are going to be encounters that you're not prepared for. You'll come back to them later.
how can you come back to defeat a random encounter? that clearly doesn't make sense.
also that kind of choice of what to do in an open world and risking that it will be too hard does not apply here because this is an obstacle in the linear portion of the game that you randomly have to to through while you're low level. it's not a choice you make, so there's no point in returning either to gain that sense of setting things right and feeling of progress.
I'm gonna make it my "playstyle" to fight everything as a naked wizard who never uses any spells or items, and if I die then I have to skip a meal in real life.
Why didn't the developers consider my nutritional needs when designing these encounters?
hardcore viability is absolutely a valid and well-recognized parameter in video-game design. if you have to reload to avoid a game-over random event, that' s universally seen as an amateurish flaw. imagine if it was super mario and of 10 times when you jump onto tube, 9 times the game would continue, but 1 time you're instantly dead&done.
But, if that flaw is due to a user-created edit, can you really blame Nintendo for bad game design?
In this case, a player is doing no-reload runs *with SCS*. If the encounter is survivable in an unmodded game, but perhaps not with SCS, is that really a problem with the base game?
hardcore viability is absolutely a valid and well-recognized parameter in video-game design. if you have to reload to avoid a game-over random event, that' s universally seen as an amateurish flaw. imagine if it was super mario and of 10 times when you jump onto tube, 9 times the game would continue, but 1 time you're instantly dead&done.
But, if that flaw is due to a user-created edit, can you really blame Nintendo for bad game design?
In this case, a player is doing no-reload runs *with SCS*. If the encounter is survivable in an unmodded game, but perhaps not with SCS, is that really a problem with the base game?
no it's not. however the encounter can hardly said to be survivable even without SCS, under most reasonable circumstances in the early game
It's unlikely that a novice to the game will want to play no-reload, so the possibility of dying is not a great problem for them. For those more experienced players that do wish to play no-reload there's also no problem - as using meta-knowledge it's easy to avoid any chance of a bandit ambush, whether using SCS or not.
I really think this is all a storm in a teacup. Just to check I ran a couple of characters through from c/keep to Nashkel (playing on Core rules).
Just to be clear the OP mentioned Chapter 1 specifically, which is from c/keep to either of the three "Nashkel" areas. The request was also for the developers to remove the ambush (not for a mod), so we are talking about a brand new, out of the box, unmodded game.
The first run was with a high level charname from a save game - I stripped him of all his armour and weapons and dumped him into the prologue:
After c/keep he dropped Imoen, went to pick up the kit dropped in Gorion's fight (but didn't equip any of it), walked back south to the path and exited west to the next map. He talked to Elminster then headed due north for the FAI (running away from one gibberling in the process).
From the FAI area (he didn't go into the inn because this was purely a test run) he headed due south, and south again to Beregost (no encounters along the way - just heading due south the whole time).
From Beregost he headed due south again, and again until he bumped in the ogrillons which he easily ran away from. Then came the time for the final transition to the Nashkel map. Of course he walked into the ten bandit ambush, and promptly walked away from it, arriving in Nashkel having taken 21 HP of damage (whilst wearing no armour whatsoever).
Realising that a low level character wouldn't have 21HP I then rolled a new charname and went with the first roll (75), bought him some splint mail in c/keep and sent him off to repeat the process:
Exactly the same result except that I could not get the bandits to spawn on my level 1 character, however many times I rested or travelled to a different area.
So in conclusion: There is only one ten bandit ambush in Chapter 1, at the final transition to Nashkel. By that time you will have defeated (at the very least) Tarnesh and two Ogrillons. If however your party is still level 1 then the bandits won't spawn - so what's the problem?
I've stumbled into that encounter many times on low levels before and it mostly makes me facepalm. Mostly I can make it out alive but sometimes especially on some characters it really feels like traveling is roll-a-dice not to die which I don't think is good design.
Then again all the other random encounters except maybe the cloackwood ones are kinda pointless because they are so easily run away from that there's nothing to them except losing half a minute of your time. So little exp too that it's pointless to stay, at least the bandits give you scalps to sell early game and the spiders and ettercaps are kinda worth the exp (and just facing them instead of running into a web trap).
The basilisk is absolutely the worst one out there because it almost literally is a death sentence encounter. That one I've honestly ran into just once in my last maybe dozen of games, just my last one actually. I had all but forgotten that it's even possible.
Also, I wouldn't use the term "hardcore viability" in a game that was not designed for hardcore gameplay to begin with. I think the easiest thing would be to simply change some of the bandits to not have bows or just reduce their numbers a little but it's very likely not going to be changed anywhere and that's fine for me too.
@dunbar Not quite. I've hit that ambush traveling from the ambush map to the crossroads just south of FAI. In fact, that's usually where I see it when it happens. Imoen and charname at level 1 are absolutely possible to encounter it.
@ThacoBell Is that on core difficulty? I've never (in god knows how many play throughs) been ambushed there.
Core and normal. Its not super common, as I don't even see that particular ambush on every playthrough. I'm pretty sure it can trigger anywhere on the road between FAI and Nashkel. Maybe one map to the left or right, but I'm not as sure on that one.
It's unlikely that a novice to the game will want to play no-reload, so the possibility of dying is not a great problem for them.
new players really dislike when they die unfairly. it makes people not want to play the game anymore
I accept that some new players may not like it, particularly as the standard for game design has changed since BG1 came out to make staying alive generally easier. However, we're talking about BG1 and whether the bandit ambush stands out as a particular problem in that context. I don't believe it does. There are multiple encounters that can kill you if you're not prepared for them - for instance Silke, Tarnesh and ankhegs are all more lethal for a beginning party than the bandits if you don't know what you're doing. Travel further afield and you will of course run into greater dangers still.
The bandits can occur anywhere on the road from FAI to Nashkel and in addition you also get them north of the FAI. They don't occur on any travels not on those routes.
I accept that some new players may not like it, particularly as the standard for game design has changed since BG1 came out to make staying alive generally easier. However, we're talking about BG1 and whether the bandit ambush stands out as a particular problem in that context.
There's plenty of things in the game that are totally unfair towards you, like stumbling into Mutamin's garden for the first time. Have fun figuring that one out if you don't know anything about it. Especially if you lead a formation where you walk up front so you never know why you died. It even has a built in solution in there with Ghorax but it's so unintuitive because he walks slower than you I think in the original BG1 you didn't even get XP for Ghoraxes kills. Actually I don't know if you still do because I try control freaking him but I think once when my micromanaging failed he killed one and I got EXP for it anyway so at least that's better.
My biggest in storymode regard would be Tazoks chest. That's definitely not cool on today's standards. You need to open that thing to proceed with the story and it's trapped with a strong lighting bolt in a confined area. If you don't immediately quicksave after the fight and you just go open the storychest, welcome to quite probably doing it again. Most story traps can be tanked with a fighter up front but that thing is a storychest trap and it hurts like hell and likely comes around for round 2.
Maybe you don't have a thief or one that can detect it. That would certainly make a lot of new players go in screw this mode. There are multiple workarounds. Some of them, if memory serves even found in the camp although not sure if they are in unlocked containers or if there are any that would 100 % make you survive the bolt. I've never looked that thoroughly into that because I know it's there. Making you go look for possible scraps in random containers or maybe even leave for days ingame time looking for something that might work is definitely not ok in my books in todays standards.
But even that is just so fringe case because this game throws you against weird stuff all the time. Remember your first Tarnesh fight? Back in the day that took me probably 20 reloads to get lucky because I just kept trying to brute force it until it works. There are better solutions but they are definitely not obvious on the first go. Same thing with the chest if you can't disable it. Same thing with the bandit encounters if once you are aware that they are there and you need to find some solution to deal with them. There are a ton of finer points in this game that will cause you to die unless you already know it's there or are constantly preparing for the worst before everything. I think the latter was the aim with the trap design, basilisks, the sirines, the hostile groups you run into with various compositions and yeah, the random encounters too. The problem is that you can't prepare for it all at once and then you end up dying anyway but that's fine becuase overcoming the maps is kinda where BG1's charm lies IMO.
p.s. The worst thing would be Shoal killing you for talking to her but that's fixed in EE. p.p.s. Goddamn I've never been to a forum that has so complicated quoting. Or at least complicated looking. Hope I got it right.
does the game warn you not to travel at night? i think this is a little problematic because a reasonable player might think that night is a little safer, believing you're less likely to be spotted and waylaid
It would be cool if beamdog solved this issue by adding a 'get drunk and hear rumours' entry in the Wintrop inn, warning about travelling between x and y o'clock at night.
hardcore viability is absolutely a valid and well-recognized parameter in video-game design. if you have to reload to avoid a game-over random event, that' s universally seen as an amateurish flaw. imagine if it was super mario and of 10 times when you jump onto tube, 9 times the game would continue, but 1 time you're instantly dead&done.
But, if that flaw is due to a user-created edit, can you really blame Nintendo for bad game design?
In this case, a player is doing no-reload runs *with SCS*. If the encounter is survivable in an unmodded game, but perhaps not with SCS, is that really a problem with the base game?
no it's not. however the encounter can hardly said to be survivable even without SCS, under most reasonable circumstances in the early game
I've handled it just fine with CHARNAME and Imoen at level 1. And it's entirely possible to have a 4-person party before you get that encounter (Imoen, Monty, and Xzar). Both Monty and Imoen have Oil of Speed, which can help tip the balance.
Now, for a solo no-reload level-1 mage with SCS installed, yeah, this is gonna be a nasty fight. But, you can't blame that on the game designers. They didn't make the AI that hard, and they made three companions available.
The ambush area in question is ar6100, which can spawn the 10-bandit ambush between 8pm and midnight. ar6100 is pretty much the ambush area for traveling along the main road and the area itself has a north-south cobbled path. It's used as the ambush area starting in the north with Wyrm's Crossing, the ankheg farm/Ajantis' area, FAI, area south of FAI, Lion's Way (where Gorion gets ambushed), Beregost, south of Beregost, and north of Nashkel. Ambushes occur roughly 5% for each area traveled.
Yours is surely an unpopular opinion , considering that most oldschool BG fans absolutely love those hard encounters tjat simply pop up before level 1 dudes.
new players really dislike when they die unfairly. it makes people not want to play the game anymore
Even so, new players will lose no more than few minutes of gameplay (game autosaves after leaving location). Hardly a reason to abandon the game. I think that ogre with Masculinity/Feminity Girdle is more dangerous for 1st level characters - or even wolf in first location. It can two-shot Imoen. I fail to see how that ambush is less fair than, let's say, that can summon mustard jelly at you right after Nashkell, or Doomguard from archeologic site.
Besides the jellymage all of those are melee combatants. The difference in all of those are that you can run away from those encounters (except maybe the jelly without getting attacked a bit from range depending on where you approached from) where as the point against the bandit encounter is that you spawn in the middle of them and they keep shooting at you with bows making it very hard to escape.
Sure, but it's easier than outrun basilisk gaze, and definitely possible. Normal players won't be really affected by that encounter, and no-reload players must accept the risk. I think this is the point of no-reload, right?
I'm not really arguing that each way or the other. Just saying that that's a bit like comparing apples and oranges. Actually the random encounter with a basilisk is the closest thing in the game I think you can compare it to but that is much, much worse than the bandits.
I don't really think you can compare the 10 bandit encounter with the doom guard at the archeological site, Silke, Mutamin's Garden etc.. Part of the game is to explore and figure out which areas are dangerous and which are safe at various levels, and what tactics are effective against different opponents. You don't need to deal with any of those encounters until you are ready to handle them. The trapped chest in Tazok's tent is something you are warned about by one of the bandits in another tent in the camp, and if you choose to play the game without a thief, well you can't really complain that you can't deal with the trap. Even the basilisk random encounter doesn't compare because you don't have to visit the areas at all where that encounter can occur.
The bandit random encounter is very different because, to all practical intents and purposes, you *have* to travel the roads where that encounter can occur. I'm not convinced that a party of 4 (charname, Imoen, Monty and Xzar) have a realistic chance of survival if you run into the bandits before the FAI. Depending upon class, only charname might have half decent AC and hitpoints, and the other 3 won't be much use in a fight. Sure you can just hit reload but if that is the solution then arguably it would be better for the encounter to never occur, at least not until you reach the FAI or Beregost.
It may well be a limitation of the game engine that the random encounter tables can't be changed partway through the game, in which case it is reasonable that there are small chances of running into encounters that are deadly for a level 1 character, as the other option is to make the random encounters on the main road always be something trivial.
They warn about the trap now? I'll be honest and admit I didn't read that guys text in EE but in the original I could swear he said something along the lines of "no traps, I swear!". If that line was changed for EE then my bad. There are probably other changed conversations that I've tunnelvisioned through (would actually be interested in a list of them if something like that is available).
I still do think that the basilisk encounter is the closest comparison simply because they are both random encounters, even if you don't have to go near that area. Possible death via traveling.
Comments
Nuzlocking is a very popular playstyle in the pokemon games, but it would be bizarre to complain that Pokemon as a whole is too harsh and unforgiving, because particular encounters are problematic in a Nuzlock run. These fail states are not supposed to be as big a deal as that. Getting waylaid by enemies you're not prepared for is supposed to set you back ten seconds, not ten hours.
Look up the Green Demon challenge in Super Mario 64 for example. It's incredibly difficult and unfair, but that's hardly a slight on the game's design.
You can explore most of the world as a Level 1 character, but it must by necessity offer content for Level 6 characters, or else most of the content would be worthless as you leveled up.
So there are going to be encounters that you're not prepared for. You'll come back to them later.
also that kind of choice of what to do in an open world and risking that it will be too hard does not apply here because this is an obstacle in the linear portion of the game that you randomly have to to through while you're low level. it's not a choice you make, so there's no point in returning either to gain that sense of setting things right and feeling of progress.
Why didn't the developers consider my nutritional needs when designing these encounters?
In this case, a player is doing no-reload runs *with SCS*. If the encounter is survivable in an unmodded game, but perhaps not with SCS, is that really a problem with the base game?
Just to be clear the OP mentioned Chapter 1 specifically, which is from c/keep to either of the three "Nashkel" areas. The request was also for the developers to remove the ambush (not for a mod), so we are talking about a brand new, out of the box, unmodded game.
The first run was with a high level charname from a save game - I stripped him of all his armour and weapons and dumped him into the prologue:
After c/keep he dropped Imoen, went to pick up the kit dropped in Gorion's fight (but didn't equip any of it), walked back south to the path and exited west to the next map. He talked to Elminster then headed due north for the FAI (running away from one gibberling in the process).
From the FAI area (he didn't go into the inn because this was purely a test run) he headed due south, and south again to Beregost (no encounters along the way - just heading due south the whole time).
From Beregost he headed due south again, and again until he bumped in the ogrillons which he easily ran away from. Then came the time for the final transition to the Nashkel map. Of course he walked into the ten bandit ambush, and promptly walked away from it, arriving in Nashkel having taken 21 HP of damage (whilst wearing no armour whatsoever).
Realising that a low level character wouldn't have 21HP I then rolled a new charname and went with the first roll (75), bought him some splint mail in c/keep and sent him off to repeat the process:
Exactly the same result except that I could not get the bandits to spawn on my level 1 character, however many times I rested or travelled to a different area.
So in conclusion: There is only one ten bandit ambush in Chapter 1, at the final transition to Nashkel. By that time you will have defeated (at the very least) Tarnesh and two Ogrillons. If however your party is still level 1 then the bandits won't spawn - so what's the problem?
Then again all the other random encounters except maybe the cloackwood ones are kinda pointless because they are so easily run away from that there's nothing to them except losing half a minute of your time. So little exp too that it's pointless to stay, at least the bandits give you scalps to sell early game and the spiders and ettercaps are kinda worth the exp (and just facing them instead of running into a web trap).
The basilisk is absolutely the worst one out there because it almost literally is a death sentence encounter. That one I've honestly ran into just once in my last maybe dozen of games, just my last one actually. I had all but forgotten that it's even possible.
Also, I wouldn't use the term "hardcore viability" in a game that was not designed for hardcore gameplay to begin with. I think the easiest thing would be to simply change some of the bandits to not have bows or just reduce their numbers a little but it's very likely not going to be changed anywhere and that's fine for me too.
The bandits can occur anywhere on the road from FAI to Nashkel and in addition you also get them north of the FAI. They don't occur on any travels not on those routes.
My biggest in storymode regard would be Tazoks chest. That's definitely not cool on today's standards. You need to open that thing to proceed with the story and it's trapped with a strong lighting bolt in a confined area. If you don't immediately quicksave after the fight and you just go open the storychest, welcome to quite probably doing it again. Most story traps can be tanked with a fighter up front but that thing is a storychest trap and it hurts like hell and likely comes around for round 2.
Maybe you don't have a thief or one that can detect it. That would certainly make a lot of new players go in screw this mode. There are multiple workarounds. Some of them, if memory serves even found in the camp although not sure if they are in unlocked containers or if there are any that would 100 % make you survive the bolt. I've never looked that thoroughly into that because I know it's there. Making you go look for possible scraps in random containers or maybe even leave for days ingame time looking for something that might work is definitely not ok in my books in todays standards.
But even that is just so fringe case because this game throws you against weird stuff all the time. Remember your first Tarnesh fight? Back in the day that took me probably 20 reloads to get lucky because I just kept trying to brute force it until it works. There are better solutions but they are definitely not obvious on the first go. Same thing with the chest if you can't disable it. Same thing with the bandit encounters if once you are aware that they are there and you need to find some solution to deal with them. There are a ton of finer points in this game that will cause you to die unless you already know it's there or are constantly preparing for the worst before everything. I think the latter was the aim with the trap design, basilisks, the sirines, the hostile groups you run into with various compositions and yeah, the random encounters too. The problem is that you can't prepare for it all at once and then you end up dying anyway but that's fine becuase overcoming the maps is kinda where BG1's charm lies IMO.
p.s. The worst thing would be Shoal killing you for talking to her but that's fixed in EE.
p.p.s. Goddamn I've never been to a forum that has so complicated quoting. Or at least complicated looking. Hope I got it right.
Now, for a solo no-reload level-1 mage with SCS installed, yeah, this is gonna be a nasty fight. But, you can't blame that on the game designers. They didn't make the AI that hard, and they made three companions available.
Even so, new players will lose no more than few minutes of gameplay (game autosaves after leaving location). Hardly a reason to abandon the game. I think that ogre with Masculinity/Feminity Girdle is more dangerous for 1st level characters - or even wolf in first location. It can two-shot Imoen.
I fail to see how that ambush is less fair than, let's say, that can summon mustard jelly at you right after Nashkell, or Doomguard from archeologic site.
The bandit random encounter is very different because, to all practical intents and purposes, you *have* to travel the roads where that encounter can occur. I'm not convinced that a party of 4 (charname, Imoen, Monty and Xzar) have a realistic chance of survival if you run into the bandits before the FAI. Depending upon class, only charname might have half decent AC and hitpoints, and the other 3 won't be much use in a fight. Sure you can just hit reload but if that is the solution then arguably it would be better for the encounter to never occur, at least not until you reach the FAI or Beregost.
It may well be a limitation of the game engine that the random encounter tables can't be changed partway through the game, in which case it is reasonable that there are small chances of running into encounters that are deadly for a level 1 character, as the other option is to make the random encounters on the main road always be something trivial.
I still do think that the basilisk encounter is the closest comparison simply because they are both random encounters, even if you don't have to go near that area. Possible death via traveling.