This game cheats--and encourages you to do so.
GammaPhase
Member Posts: 27
Yes, old game is old. I'm betting this has come up before, but I feel like ranting. So I shall do so.
We enter a few areas to the west/south of Beregost, looking for half-ogres and bandits--since we now have a ranger named Kivan who is looking for bandits and we promised to help, and a guy at one of the taverns mentioned the half-ogres and asked us to hunt them down.
Being a Lawful Stupid Paladin, I heartily agree to hunt them down and smite them with my 2-hander.
We come across what looks like a scantily clad female just standing there. Being the friendly, helpful types we are, we walk up to have a chat and see if she needs help.
You are dead if you talk to her.
Dead.
There is no warning about this possibility, there is no combat you can win to get out of it. In fact, no matter what you pick in the conversation, she kisses you and you get the game over hand rising up into the air to smack you in the face.
After several reloads testing this, I even detected evil on her in case that was a possible warning. No surprise here: she doesn't even show up as evil.
Bioware. What the hell, guys? Let's look at this like a multiple choice question for fun.
1. It's game over if you talk to a woman standing in the woods. What lesson did you learn, oh omnipresent authority figure?
A. Never talk to anyone else in the game. Might as well stop playing right now.
B. Save before every single conversation. I don't think that's happening.
C. Die and reload many, many times until you're sick of doing it.
D. Cheat your levels or something so you can still complete the game without worrying about this crap.
I figured that was so incredibly stupid, that at least the game would let you leave the area to explore other areas. If you continue walking south--guess what? No matter how slowly you walk, you will run into either ANOTHER killer dryad/nymp/whatever they are (these don't talk, they just target your character and kill you in 1-2 hits), or a nice clump of enemies that will quickly give you a game over screen.
The only way out of this area (since you can't fast travel unless you walk off the edge of the map) is to backtrack to where you entered. There might be another way out if you want to bother walking around and reloading all the time to find it.
Time for another multiple choice question!
2. It's game over if you just explore the world, since none of it is blocked off and there is no warning whatsoever that "they will kill you dead" enemies are present. What did you learn, slave driver?
A. Quick save after literally walking every few steps on the map. This means: Mouse click, Q, mouse click, Q, every few seconds, for the rest of the game.
B. Stop exploring completely, which means you'll never finish the game. Play something else.
C. Die. Reload. Repeat this until you've had enough.
D. Cheat so you can continue playing and retain sanity.
I'm no stranger to difficulty, in fact I like it. I've used mods in other games to make things harder. But this isn't an issue with difficulty--you're being actively punished for talking to people and exploring the map. I call that cheating.
The game cheats. So I'm going to as well.
What's the other option: sit there with a walkthrough? That's not playing the game, that's watching a "let's play" except you're doing all the work with no accomplishment. What else... read up on a wiki or something about the dangers of each area? Not much better than using a guide.
There you go: A completely pointless rant on a game that's now.. 22 years old or so. Released in 1998! The late 90's, right before we panicked about Y2K. Remember that?
We enter a few areas to the west/south of Beregost, looking for half-ogres and bandits--since we now have a ranger named Kivan who is looking for bandits and we promised to help, and a guy at one of the taverns mentioned the half-ogres and asked us to hunt them down.
Being a Lawful Stupid Paladin, I heartily agree to hunt them down and smite them with my 2-hander.
We come across what looks like a scantily clad female just standing there. Being the friendly, helpful types we are, we walk up to have a chat and see if she needs help.
You are dead if you talk to her.
Dead.
There is no warning about this possibility, there is no combat you can win to get out of it. In fact, no matter what you pick in the conversation, she kisses you and you get the game over hand rising up into the air to smack you in the face.
After several reloads testing this, I even detected evil on her in case that was a possible warning. No surprise here: she doesn't even show up as evil.
Bioware. What the hell, guys? Let's look at this like a multiple choice question for fun.
1. It's game over if you talk to a woman standing in the woods. What lesson did you learn, oh omnipresent authority figure?
A. Never talk to anyone else in the game. Might as well stop playing right now.
B. Save before every single conversation. I don't think that's happening.
C. Die and reload many, many times until you're sick of doing it.
D. Cheat your levels or something so you can still complete the game without worrying about this crap.
I figured that was so incredibly stupid, that at least the game would let you leave the area to explore other areas. If you continue walking south--guess what? No matter how slowly you walk, you will run into either ANOTHER killer dryad/nymp/whatever they are (these don't talk, they just target your character and kill you in 1-2 hits), or a nice clump of enemies that will quickly give you a game over screen.
The only way out of this area (since you can't fast travel unless you walk off the edge of the map) is to backtrack to where you entered. There might be another way out if you want to bother walking around and reloading all the time to find it.
Time for another multiple choice question!
2. It's game over if you just explore the world, since none of it is blocked off and there is no warning whatsoever that "they will kill you dead" enemies are present. What did you learn, slave driver?
A. Quick save after literally walking every few steps on the map. This means: Mouse click, Q, mouse click, Q, every few seconds, for the rest of the game.
B. Stop exploring completely, which means you'll never finish the game. Play something else.
C. Die. Reload. Repeat this until you've had enough.
D. Cheat so you can continue playing and retain sanity.
I'm no stranger to difficulty, in fact I like it. I've used mods in other games to make things harder. But this isn't an issue with difficulty--you're being actively punished for talking to people and exploring the map. I call that cheating.
The game cheats. So I'm going to as well.
What's the other option: sit there with a walkthrough? That's not playing the game, that's watching a "let's play" except you're doing all the work with no accomplishment. What else... read up on a wiki or something about the dangers of each area? Not much better than using a guide.
There you go: A completely pointless rant on a game that's now.. 22 years old or so. Released in 1998! The late 90's, right before we panicked about Y2K. Remember that?
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Comments
It may not be for your tastes, and that's OK. I think it probably would appeal to the type of gamer who enjoys games like Dark Souls though; it's a throw-back to an era of brutally hard and unforgiving games until you finally learn the system and how to make it work for you.
That said, "Save early, save often, and save in multiple slots" are wise words that you should always heed in RPGs, no matter the developer or genre.
But it's a bad encounter, because you can't refuse. There is little to be said in defense of this, but it is also the only one of the kind.
For all the rest, there are encounters that are too hard for you at the start, but those are usually signaled either by the game world - stone statues for Basilisk, notes in the text box when you first enter the area or even a movie with a Wyvern. Or the manual. This isn't the game cheating.
EDIT: it is also a bad encounter because there is no logical reason a Nereid would be able to cast Raise Dead.
You must either be talking about the original game or an earlier version of the Enhanced Edition. The 2.5 patch fixed it so that Shoal the Nereid's kiss isn't insta death any longer. It only
If you continue with that encounter, you will also know why she isn't evil.
Besides, you grew up in sheltered Candlekeep. If Tarnesh hasn't taught you to be wary of strangers, she definitely does
I'll have to look a little more closely for these warnings being mentioned. If it's the only save or die in the game, then maybe it's not too harsh.
But yes. AD&D rules don't translate well into game engines. 4 hitpoints for a Mage! Sneeze at him and the guy's down for the count. Meanwhile, if you start as your standard fighter, you can probably take a few sneezes and an elbow. The reason this kind of tomfoolery is alright at the table is you had a DM (if he wasn't chaotic evil himself) who could cushion the blow by fudging a roll here and there, or give you a direct warning that a choice could be fatal.
This was true since the days of SSI and the gold box series.
I'm not sure about save early, save often, and save in multiple slots.
How about: cheat early, cheat often, and cheat in multiple ways!
On the other hand however, the game is a learning curve and if the Tarnesh encounter at the FAI hasn't taught you to save before every encounter then.......
Generally speaking I think BG1 in particular shows up the big problem of trying to adapt the tabletop game to video, namely (as has been mentioned earlier) the lack of a DM (sadistic or otherwise).
Hang on, are you talking about the guy that ambushes you on the stairs at the Friendly Arms? That was over in, what was it, two rounds or something. The town guard and my Paladin hurt him pretty bad, he never stood a chance. If I recall we sent his chunks flying all over the place before he did anything. No reloading there. Was that supposed to be a tough fight?
The town guard didn't start helping out until the EEs. It used to just be the party vs Tarnesh. This fight is traditionally hellish for Gorion's Ward if they're not a Warrior.
Yes, it's very tough for an unprepared party. A coin flip really. Tarnesh can cast Mirror Image, making it harder to hit him, and a single of his three magic missile spells can kill most level 1 characters. He can also cast Horror, which can affect your entire party if they approach the entrance together. Of course you can cast Remove Fear in advance (cleric spell) if you have it, but that would be the same kind of metagaming required to deal with Shoal the Nereid that you seem to be unfond of. Unless you previously scouted him I guess. It may be that your character and the guard managed to interrupt some of Tarnesh's spells, but considering the low casting times of those spells, yes, you were lucky in accomplishing that.
I swear the guard stood right next to me and swung his sword. Perhaps I just imagined it then, I don't have the enhanced version of either game. Guess I must have gotten lucky with a critical hit or something, right after the conversation he exploded in chunks. That part I do remember clearly.
I thought for sure there would be more attacks in the inn or something. I was worried about losing Imoen so I had her stay well back while I walked around all the NPC's to see if they'd attack.
Forgot about something else I noticed. Tried resting outside while traveling, and we got ambushed something like 6 times in a row. It was ridiculous. So that was either bad luck or the random encounter rates are a little on the high side.
I can only second that the Tarnesh encounter was a coin flip. If you made the save against the opening horror spell you had him - if not it was power word reload...
Shoal the nereid was a one time wtf moment as well. There where numerous encounters like those - they where especially tricky in days of old (in the beginning of the century where internet walkthroughs was not a thing). I still have a really crappy book/guide I bought on Amazon that offered zero help (it was written after a first time run and focused more on the narrative than actually combat and encounters).
Today you can download Haeravons brilliant guide, and the EE has bend some of the encounters to being less of hassle - but still.
So the games are frustrating... and a lot of fun. If they could be done without reloading the first time, they wouldn’t have appeal after 10 plays? The game makes up for the odd curveballs with smooth access to many save games slots, auto saves and quick saves
And do remember the game can even be played on story mode. I played my first run through IWD:ee on story mode and read Haeravons guide on the side... And I am not even embarrassed to say so. The games aren’t PnP and they don’t forgive your mistakes for narrative reasons. But some practice makes all the difference.
So yes, the games are frustrating, and thankfully so - I still think highly of them after playing them more than 15 years. Not bad for a cheating game.
Edited the post so it made more sense
This really is not like a Tabletop session, where the goal is to Collaboratively Tell A Story. Your opponent is the game itself.
Just to be clear, I don't advocate cheating and don't cheat in games myself. The original pointless rant was just that, a tongue firmly in cheek look at how difficult games used to be. I don't play modern games, but I've seen a few here and there on youtube. Talk about pointless, it's a simple stroll through a bunch of movies. I'd rant about that too, but that would probably be as pointless as the games themselves.
The idea of accomplishment in games has changed drastically since the days when we stood in front of machines and dropped quarters in them. Smoke, lit up by the neon lighting, hung in layers around the machines while (typically) heavy metal or the FM top 40 rolled out all around you.
Difficulty naturally increased as the game sped up or threw harder challenges at you--you didn't have a choice! (The owner could set dip switches on the machines to change the difficulty, but rarely was this actually done as far as I know. The owner of our local shop, Dave Zell, never did so--although he was cool enough to put Cyberball on freeplay for us after he closed up while he did the books).
In that era, there was only the High Score. Your initials on that list was your achievement, and announcement to the world (or at least to that particular arcade) that you were a member of the Winner's circle. There was no "immersion" or story to be enjoyed, what a ridiculous concept. You made it to the next screen, or it was Game Over.
When Dragon's Lair landed, it really confused us. Watching beautiful animation while you made precise, repetitive moves. Beating the game wasn't about endurance any more--it was about memorization. If you knew the patterns, normal and reversed, you could beat it every single time. At 50 cents a play, it was more fun watching some other guy try to beat it than actually playing it yourself! That's how we learned, watching each other screw up and trying a different move.
That and Space Ace might just be the first real example of so-called "quick time events."
How bizarre is it that we started off by paying for each time you wanted to play the game (25 cents a game, later it was 50 cents and 25 to continue on most machines), to later buying the entire game up front and playing it all you wanted, to now: People are paying monthly fees to play games with their friends, and some of those you can't play at all unless you're online.
Ah well! Fond memories to be sure. Baldur's Gate is a testament to a confusing time in game development, where "roleplaying" and hard as nails play congealed into something bizarre, but ultimately time-consuming and satisfying.
I restarted because I couldn't get out of an area, and this is what went down at the Friendly Arms. Hah, I knew I wasn't imagining things. So I'm wondering who told you the guards didn't help until the enhanced version?
Exactly 0: you are unconscious and out for the fight.
<0, but >-10: you are bleeding to death, losing one more HP each round until bandaged by a party member
<=-10: you are dead.
By now I *do* know how to avoid my mages hitting by a stray arrow, but I think that would have been a solid improvement. It still places you at some chance of dying to critical hits but it gives you some leeway at low levels.
Are these encounters "fair"? No, they aren't, but then, AD&D wasn't always "fair". Also, there is an element of wisdom required of players. I remember a campaign I played in college where the DM decided to "up the challenge" because our party had gotten a bit too arrogant. We ignored the rather obvious warnings (crypt, at night, deep tunnel, etc.) and ran into vampires for the first time. Up til then, it had been mostly low-level creatures that, while difficult, were generally defeated with a bit of effort. The vampires took our level 3 party and had lunch.
From that perspective, Tarnesh is, IMHO, much more "unfair" than Shoal the Nereid, because he comes incredibly early on and is probably the first "real" fight. Your last instructions from Gorion are to seek out the Friendly Arm Inn to meet with your (potential) new companions only to have this jackwagon attack you on the stairs. Most players will be level 1, their mages will have a whopping 2 level 1 spells, etc. Even finding Evermemory will barely help - and that's only if you know to look for it.
Shoal, on the other hand, is in the middle of the wilderness. By now, you should have figured out that the wilderness is not terribly safe. The further from the road you get, the worse it gets. That was your warning. (Although, somewhat ironically, staying off the road is the safest way to get to Nashkel)
Mirror Image was supposed to be a very powerful mage defense. Now it's quite weak, I would say next to useless. The game rolls a chance for the actual mage to be hit, which happens a very high percentage of the time, interrupting spells, especially when there are multiple attackers.
Yes, it was nerfed. Yes, it was also necessary.
Umm, yes??
Also yes?? xD
I unironically do both. But then I'm a freak who suffers from major video-game-related FOMO and pretty much always save/reload a few times when taking up a conversation so I can decide which conversational route I "set in stone" in my play-through.
I also don't like losing health in stupid situations that I could have avoided, because I don't like abusing the 8-hour rest by doing it after every two encounters, so... I abuse the load/save instead. :P
I guess I prefer to use the meta-game to perfect the in-universe events, as I find that more immersive. I should try one of those no-reload runs one day though.
This is literally how I play through all the IE games.
That often reminds me of another series of RPGs from around that era: "Gothic" (don't know if many people outside of germany/europe even know these games, but for me they were my absolute favorite games for a whole lot of years). Not really DnD-related or anything, but quite similar in that regard. In these games you were also pretty much free to explore most of the world right from the start, but if you stray too far from the beaten paths or sometimes just make a wrong move you're very quickly in some serious trouble. Meet an Orc Warrior or some black troll in the forest at level 1? Sure, might try to take them down, but you won't stand a chance, so it's run or die. Badmouth the wrong guy in the mercenary camp? Bad idea, you go down in seconds... so there's a lot of such small "no-go-areas" scattered all over the place where you'll either get surprised and scared away or just downright chunked for a lot of game time and you'll need lots and lots of level-ups and way better equipment before it's really advised to visit these places and stand a fighting chance.
In fact, this whole wilderness exploration thing is in my opinion the one single thing where BG1 is far ahead of BG2. Sure, D'Arnise Hold and the Temple Ruins and Windspear Hills are awesome, but one or two additional hands full of BG1-style minor, not-necessarily-quest related wilderness areas in between those packed with some random encounters and enemies and (yeah, sometimes unpleasant!) surprises is the one thing I really miss there...