Combat in Baldur's gate is squad based & tacical. It is essential (and fun imo) to micro-manage everything using the pause function. If you go into a tough battle and expect the game to do it all for you....well....you'll get your ass handed to you. You have to know what tatics and spells to use in different situations and against different enemies. The tactical combat is a big part of the fun of the game for me. When you get your party through a tough battle alive there is a real sense of achievement. When you come up against a tough fight you may have to reload a few times before you figure out how to win; especially as a beginner. Look in your spell books; you may have a spell that neutralises your enemy. Root around in your inventory; you may have a potion or a wand or some artifact that will turn the tide of battle in your favour. If you cant get into micro-managing your party and enjoying the challenge of relatively complex squad-based tactical combat, you probably wont get into the game....which would be a shame.
Turn on easy-mode. Use cheats and get through the story at a more acceptable pace. :P I don't give a flippin' fudge about the game-play in Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torement, or Icewind Dale. Granted there's strategy, but this game is slow as fudge. More often than not, you pause more than twice within a second. :P C'mon.
For the sake of pacing, I max all stats to 25 on all characters. Give all characters 5 attack rounds, and +5 weapons and armor. I just select all and zerg the enemy, watching out for my party's health and cheat heal them when necessary :P
Why do I even play it? The story is awesome to me, while the gameplay isn't :P
Of course, the cheats aren't out yet for BG: EE, so I'll wait with playing it.
Baldur's Gate is actually a turn-based game that has a simulated "realtime" mode. It's pretty hard to play the game in realtime mode without pausing frequently. You can also (at least in the original version; I'm still waiting for the iOS or MacOS port of this one) go into settings and use the autopause features to make it more explicitly turn-like. I generally like to pause on trap found, party member killed, enemy encountered, and spell cast, but you can also pause at the end of every turn.
The AI was never very useful: your party members end up being even dumber than your enemies, and because of the D&D spell system, you can't just let an AI script run your spellcasters: you need to use spells strategically, as your best spells often need to be conserved for when you really, really need them, and creative use of spells is an important factor. Same thing goes for potions and wands. It's not like games such as Dragon Age where magic is just another weapon you equip and attack repeatedly with.
The reason why the micro-managing exists is because Baldur's Gate is a game that tries really really really hard to be a video game port of D&D. If you've ever played or seen someone play D&D, you'll realize that each person is responsible for directing what they are doing at ANY given moment. That's why the game gives you that power, so it's not automated, it's all calculated and planned so characters do what YOU want them to do.
This exactly: this is a deliberate design decision; while later BG inspired games got more sophisticated with AI behavior and such, this game was really meant to be played manually with scripts thrown in just to give you options. It's classic BG gameplay. That doesn't mean everyone will like it, or that it's bad, or good, just that's how it is.
I agree the scripts are simplistic, I would disagree they're useless. For easy fights scripts work fine. I do something of a hybrid, I pause to command certain characters at key moments and just let it work in realtime otherwise.
I tend to use focus fire tactics as well, that tends to get everyone doing similar things to one target, makes it faster and easier.
He said he doesn't want challenge, just a story. It's not like he's bragging about his characters being that powerful. More power to him if he's having fun.
None, but challenge and fun are two different things.
I don't find any value is spending time enduring something I find extremely slow and boring. Like I said: I like the writing and the story. It's superb, but the gameplay is just tedious to me. No offense meant to people who enjoy it, but it's not for me. Though multiplayer is fun.
But when I want challenge in games, I play instant skill based games like Tekken/Soul Calibur/Street Fighter X Tekken, or DOTA. There's a lot of strategy, but at the same time it's fast and instant. The gameplay is smooth. The graphics are colorful and shiny. The combat sounds are epic. A blast feels like a blast.
To a new player, this is a mess, much like the BG ruleset lol, but an experienced player can see there are many intricate details at play here. The winning team here did a lot of things right. "Isn't that video just a pile of explosions?" Yes, but they werere deliberate and thought out explosions. Both teams were ready here, waiting in ambush for each other. The heroes and villains entered the fight at specific moments. All heroes and villains have 4 different skills each, but those skills are loud and exciting. It's noticable when you do something.
My point is this; if Baldur's Gate had more quicker and fluent combat, I might have cared enough to play it properly. :P However, to me, the strength of Baldur's Gate lies in the setting, the companions, and the writing. The gameplay itself is just a tedious mess keeping me away from the interesting bits. So is the writing alone worth 20 bucks? F*** yeah. :P
EDIT: Again, my preference isn't for everyone. If you like Baldur's Gate, then that's awesome. I can be happy for others, of course. I only brought this up because OP seems to feel similar to me about the micromanaging not being exciting to us for some reason. There's just not a feeling that we get enough back for the time and energy we invest into something.
Comments
When you come up against a tough fight you may have to reload a few times before you figure out how to win; especially as a beginner. Look in your spell books; you may have a spell that neutralises your enemy. Root around in your inventory; you may have a potion or a wand or some artifact that will turn the tide of battle in your favour.
If you cant get into micro-managing your party and enjoying the challenge of relatively complex squad-based tactical combat, you probably wont get into the game....which would be a shame.
STEP 2 : read the manual
Turn on easy-mode. Use cheats and get through the story at a more acceptable pace. :P I don't give a flippin' fudge about the game-play in Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torement, or Icewind Dale. Granted there's strategy, but this game is slow as fudge. More often than not, you pause more than twice within a second. :P C'mon.
For the sake of pacing, I max all stats to 25 on all characters. Give all characters 5 attack rounds, and +5 weapons and armor. I just select all and zerg the enemy, watching out for my party's health and cheat heal them when necessary :P
Why do I even play it? The story is awesome to me, while the gameplay isn't :P
Of course, the cheats aren't out yet for BG: EE, so I'll wait with playing it.
The AI was never very useful: your party members end up being even dumber than your enemies, and because of the D&D spell system, you can't just let an AI script run your spellcasters: you need to use spells strategically, as your best spells often need to be conserved for when you really, really need them, and creative use of spells is an important factor. Same thing goes for potions and wands. It's not like games such as Dragon Age where magic is just another weapon you equip and attack repeatedly with.
I agree the scripts are simplistic, I would disagree they're useless. For easy fights scripts work fine. I do something of a hybrid, I pause to command certain characters at key moments and just let it work in realtime otherwise.
I tend to use focus fire tactics as well, that tends to get everyone doing similar things to one target, makes it faster and easier. He said he doesn't want challenge, just a story. It's not like he's bragging about his characters being that powerful. More power to him if he's having fun.
I don't find any value is spending time enduring something I find extremely slow and boring. Like I said: I like the writing and the story. It's superb, but the gameplay is just tedious to me. No offense meant to people who enjoy it, but it's not for me. Though multiplayer is fun.
But when I want challenge in games, I play instant skill based games like Tekken/Soul Calibur/Street Fighter X Tekken, or DOTA. There's a lot of strategy, but at the same time it's fast and instant. The gameplay is smooth. The graphics are colorful and shiny. The combat sounds are epic. A blast feels like a blast.
Watch 20 seconds.
To a new player, this is a mess, much like the BG ruleset lol, but an experienced player can see there are many intricate details at play here. The winning team here did a lot of things right. "Isn't that video just a pile of explosions?" Yes, but they werere deliberate and thought out explosions. Both teams were ready here, waiting in ambush for each other. The heroes and villains entered the fight at specific moments. All heroes and villains have 4 different skills each, but those skills are loud and exciting. It's noticable when you do something.
My point is this; if Baldur's Gate had more quicker and fluent combat, I might have cared enough to play it properly. :P However, to me, the strength of Baldur's Gate lies in the setting, the companions, and the writing. The gameplay itself is just a tedious mess keeping me away from the interesting bits. So is the writing alone worth 20 bucks? F*** yeah. :P
EDIT: Again, my preference isn't for everyone. If you like Baldur's Gate, then that's awesome.
"The gameplay itself is just a tedious mess"
no....the gameplay is different to the games you prefer.
you sure you're not on the wrong forum?