Kate Welch, game designer at Wizards of the Coast, will play Baldurs Gate: Enhanced Edition on Twitch tomorrow at 3pm PST in her new show - Welch's Game Juice!
Join Kate to have fun with DnD and Baldur's Gate (and if you miss our streams)!
You can see in the first video why the change to automatically pre-select spells in character creation is a bad idea. She don't understand that they can be unselected and that she can choose new ones.
IMO you should let the player choose what they want and the Pick for Me button is there in case they don't know/don't care what to select. This is why I restore this behavior in my UI (with an improved Pick for Me).
I understand that she don't want to be stuck on a fight, but Story Mode is way too easy. You should not one shot every enemy or take no damage at all. It removes all the fun. Also it should not change your Strength or Hit points (you can see that she don't understand why she have 10/6 HP). The rules are already hard to understand, don't confuse players with pointless change. The character is already invincible, I don't see the point of changing the stats.
Story Mode is nice for newcomer but if it's too easy, they will never learn how to play or miss that they do something wrong (like when she was caught stealing and instakills the guards).
Though I think the addition of story mode is a nice option to help new players get a feel for the game, or perhaps get through a section of it that they are finding just to frustrating for their current skill level, I agree that it doesn’t allow for a true understanding of the world or gameplay.
It didn’t occur to me, until now, that Kate might be intending to remain in story mode for her entire play-through. I’m afraid that I would soon become bored with watching her continued efforts, if this were the case. For me, much of the fun is watching how a new player chooses to take on the games challenges.
I personally love the easier settings, but full on story mode goes too far, for me. Without the potential of having to witness that dreaded death hand disintegrating before me, I would soon be bored to tears.
Similar to how Legacy of Bhaal mode has a confirmation popup explaining what exactly the player is in for, can Story Mode have a confirmation popup explaining "In this mode, you cannot be killed and certain bonuses are in effect: {list of bonuses}. Are you sure you want to play on Story Mode?"
Also I'm surprised Kate is so busy being a murderhobo that she missed Imoen leaving due to villainy. You'd think her time as a tabletop player would kick in and say "hey, maybe murder everyone isn't the best way to win friends and influence people" (though she's going to have a kickass time with some of the more... colorful party members)
I honestly found this pretty cringeworthy to watch and gave up relatively early into the first episode.
She is entirely clueless on how to play the game! That in and of itself is not a bad thing. However, being on an official WotC channel, she is basically promoting the game. Except, because of some seriously unfortunate decisions on her end, the game is being promoted in a very bad light.
It would have helped a lot if there was someone there with more experience on the game to point out the most glaring issues.
For example, early into the game, she's surprised that she can carry 1600lb worth of gear. Naturally, that's a crazy silly amount of gear to be able to carry, and if someone watching the stream has never played EE before, they may be thinking "Huh what? In EE you can basically carry infinite stuff? Well, that's lame and a good reason to stick to classic." Had there been someone around to point out that that was only the case for Story Mode, it would be entirely different.
Also, she looks a lot at the camera and asks the users questions... But then doesn't sit around to read chat and goes to do stuff on her own. Now, being an official channel, the chat was probably really big (I wasn't sure as I watched the Youtube version), and it'd be hard to do on herself, but she had someone sitting besides her that could check out some of the highlights.
Overall, had this been someone doing a personal playthrough, it would've been fine. But as an official WotC stream, it is highly cringeworthy.
There's three post-theft states - Full Success (you get the item and don't get banned from the store), Partial Success (you get the item but still got caught - this also summons guards who are there to enforce the law), and Failure (you don't get the item and get caught/guards called).
Guards will automatically come by and hunt you if you have a reputation lower than 4 in highly populated areas. You can check your reputation on the Character Screen. For some reason it's under Skills. Getting caught stealing, killing innocents or guards, and certain story-related choices will lower your reputation appropriately, while 80% of quests will improve it (as will donating at temples, see below).
Outside of guards, NPCs that turn hostile after dialog don't normally count as Innocent. There are exceptions to this, but they're usually obviously a Bad Idea to attack (though since you're playing on Story Mode, it's hard to tell)
Just because they're hostile doesn't make them an asshole - a large part of why you're getting harassed by the Flaming Fist is because you killed guards in Candlekeep after getting caught stealing.
And you can end the unrelenting assault of the guards by going to and donating at a temple - there's one east of Beregost that does not summon guards, so it's good for fixing a reputation of 1. Each donation can only ever change your reputation by 1 (so donating one chunk of 10,000 is less effective than donating four chunks of 2,500), and how much you need to donate to change your reputation changes based on how extreme your reputation is - it costs more to go from 1 to 2 than to go from 11 to 12, and likewise more to go from 16 to 17 than to go from 15 to 16.
Game Designer at WotC says "I started playing at fourth edition and I know nothing about the previous ones".
That makes me sad. Especially knowing that WotC calls the shots over BG/IWD: games based on the 2nd Edition ruleset.
Really? Unless you want to have only older people it is clear that some of the employees will not have experienced the beginnings of AD&D. And it is hardly as if she is the only game developer at WotC. I think it is good that they have some younger people with fresher perspectives working there, and not only the veterans.
Game Designer at WotC says "I started playing at fourth edition and I know nothing about the previous ones".
That makes me sad. Especially knowing that WotC calls the shots over BG/IWD: games based on the 2nd Edition ruleset.
Really? Unless you want to have only older people it is clear that some of the employees will not have experienced the beginnings of AD&D. And it is hardly as if she is the only game developer at WotC. I think it is good that they have some younger people with fresher perspectives working there, and not only the veterans.
1) The books are still there. She would only need to want to read them.
2) I'm thirty and fully aware of the AD&D rules and settings (at least FR, Ravenloft and Mystara). Don't need to be exactly old for it.
Ignorance =/= fresh perspective. I'm appalled that someone who won't bother learning about the foundations of D&D can land a job developing new D&D products.
But Baldur's Gate (and related games) is not a perfectly faithful representation of the AD&D rules/experience. So really it's like asking an Astrophysicist to enjoy using a rocket that runs on Aristotelian physics (rather than the more familiar and more recent Newtonian physics)
Her BG2 run is way more interesting since she turned it up to core rules and is actually learning to manage combat. I never even wanted to watch the BG1 run when I found out it was being done in story mode and was a "murder everyone" run. I kind of wish she had done BG1 this way.
The BG2 run looks like it will be fun and entertaining, and also a better promotion of the game. They must have decided to listen to feedback.
JuliusBorisov
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Here's the YouTube video of the first stream:
Thank you for posting the youtube version. I could not figure out how to pause the other one and did not have time to finish it in one go.
I love watching “first timers”, especially when they say that they intend to include a bit of role play in their run.
I enjoyed the first video very much. She has a bubbly personality and seems genuinely excited and engaged with the game.
On this side of the screen, I found myself pleading with her to pick a ranged weapon to begin with. Sadly, my advice went unheeded. Poor dear.
This cracked me up!
After the… unfortunate events in Candlekeep…
“The tavern is called the Friendly Arm. So, here’s the plan. We’re just not going to murder everyone we talk to.”
Rofl! Such a bloodthirsty little lass.
Though I think the addition of story mode is a nice option to help new players get a feel for the game, or perhaps get through a section of it that they are finding just to frustrating for their current skill level, I agree that it doesn’t allow for a true understanding of the world or gameplay.
It didn’t occur to me, until now, that Kate might be intending to remain in story mode for her entire play-through. I’m afraid that I would soon become bored with watching her continued efforts, if this were the case. For me, much of the fun is watching how a new player chooses to take on the games challenges.
I personally love the easier settings, but full on story mode goes too far, for me. Without the potential of having to witness that dreaded death hand disintegrating before me, I would soon be bored to tears.
Also I'm surprised Kate is so busy being a murderhobo that she missed Imoen leaving due to villainy. You'd think her time as a tabletop player would kick in and say "hey, maybe murder everyone isn't the best way to win friends and influence people" (though she's going to have a kickass time with some of the more... colorful party members)
lol
There's three post-theft states - Full Success (you get the item and don't get banned from the store), Partial Success (you get the item but still got caught - this also summons guards who are there to enforce the law), and Failure (you don't get the item and get caught/guards called).
Guards will automatically come by and hunt you if you have a reputation lower than 4 in highly populated areas. You can check your reputation on the Character Screen. For some reason it's under Skills. Getting caught stealing, killing innocents or guards, and certain story-related choices will lower your reputation appropriately, while 80% of quests will improve it (as will donating at temples, see below).
Outside of guards, NPCs that turn hostile after dialog don't normally count as Innocent. There are exceptions to this, but they're usually obviously a Bad Idea to attack (though since you're playing on Story Mode, it's hard to tell)
Just because they're hostile doesn't make them an asshole - a large part of why you're getting harassed by the Flaming Fist is because you killed guards in Candlekeep after getting caught stealing.
And you can end the unrelenting assault of the guards by going to and donating at a temple - there's one east of Beregost that does not summon guards, so it's good for fixing a reputation of 1. Each donation can only ever change your reputation by 1 (so donating one chunk of 10,000 is less effective than donating four chunks of 2,500), and how much you need to donate to change your reputation changes based on how extreme your reputation is - it costs more to go from 1 to 2 than to go from 11 to 12, and likewise more to go from 16 to 17 than to go from 15 to 16.
That makes me sad. Especially knowing that WotC calls the shots over BG/IWD: games based on the 2nd Edition ruleset.
Really? Unless you want to have only older people it is clear that some of the employees will not have experienced the beginnings of AD&D. And it is hardly as if she is the only game developer at WotC. I think it is good that they have some younger people with fresher perspectives working there, and not only the veterans.
1) The books are still there. She would only need to want to read them.
2) I'm thirty and fully aware of the AD&D rules and settings (at least FR, Ravenloft and Mystara). Don't need to be exactly old for it.
The BG2 run looks like it will be fun and entertaining, and also a better promotion of the game. They must have decided to listen to feedback.