Casual gamers can go to hell. Developers of many great games ruined their series for casual gamers sake.
Attitudes like that actually hold the gaming industry back.
I disagree. Making games cookie cutter so it appeals to wider range of ages and casuals to make more money is the reason that market is full of trash.
Anyway, role play and lore is overrated, money from random casuals not.
I really wish people would read the comments before posting. Nobody here is advocating for making the game "cookie-cutter," or otherwise dumbing it down. We would just like some of the core information from the manual to find it's way into the game (through any number of possible means).
Right now - with no direct presentation of the manuals and no loading screen tips - BG2:EE provides new players with LESS information than you got when you first played this game. That's not the fault of the developers, but there's no reason it can't be remedied in some way.
Take chill pill your misdirected annoyance is just as silly as noobs who complain about BG being hard. The kids now grew up on oblivion skyrim etc where you have markers for most quests and thinking is not really required.
Regarding making the game easier, I made a full crowd control / resistance lowering / mage defense stripping specced sorcerer with only a few crucial damage spells that turned out to be one of the best characters I made for easily rendering enemies helpless, or softening up enemy mages to easy ownage.
But where is the fun in simply telling people how to make that build? Why cant play through the game multiple times themselves to figure out different builds, characters and spell layouts?
Also if people are so incapable as to even be able to download an online manual, or google for what thaco is, and are only crying for in game compendiums because looking things up on google is beyond their mental capabilities, what makes you think they are going to benefit from new tutorial videos, of which there are already hundreds of available on youtube?
Catering to such people is exactly what ruins these kinds of games. Next if overhaul did plan a BG3, they'd more than likely end up just like bioware / EA and turn everything about the previous games o shit because they listened to too many casual scrubs.
I seriously cant believe the number of morons in this thread or in general that are trying to play this game.
The manual is downloadable in PDF format. It has been for like the last decade. The thing is massive and would be far too expensive to print and ship to you if you merely buy a downloadable version of the game. But if you know enough about how to buy a downloadable version of the game, how can you not understand how to search for and download the manual?
Also there are plenty of wikis and websites explaining how this games mechanics work without giving away spoilers. You don't understand thaco? How about googlng for it and reading it yourself? One great resource is a site called 'Mikes RPG place' which has a full compendium on just about everything in the game, and the only way to spoil it is if you purposefully click on the walkthrough section, but its not like you inferior brainless simians could possess the attention span or intellect to sit through and read such a detailed walkthrough in the first place, so you have no valid reason to complain.
What exactly is wrong with you that you need every little thing explaining to you ingame when all you have to do is alt tab, or alt enter and minimize and click on your internet browser and look things up if you need to?
Also from a role play perspective, do you honestly think that an adventurer in the forgotten realms studied and read a handbook about every single monster in the world of faerun? No, they went out there and adventured, and discovered such things for the first time, and gained valuable experience for each encounter they beat.
This game has never been accessible to simians that severely lack any amount of mental capacity, and if you actually thing that the infinity engine could possibly handle an in gam compendium, you have likely been smoking things that hate further degraded your already none existent intelligence attribute.
And how exactly does one hit alt-tab on their iPad, pray tell? In order to play this game on the go, I guess mobile players will just have to download the PDFs and a reader app and constantly switch back and forth? Because that's a normal mobile gaming experience.
I guess every thread has to have it's contrarian, but it seems like you're only interested in *your* gaming experience and not in improving it for others who MIGHT JUST download this game casually via app store or steam deal, not knowing a damn thing about it.
You keep whining in this thread about how you've been accused of claiming intellectual superiority, yet you open your post by calling everyone a moron. Maybe I AM a dunce, because it's really, really hard for me to understand how a thread about better conveying game mechanics to new players is somehow an affront to your gaming experience. Every single suggestion in this thread has been prefaced with the word "optional" - as in, you don't have to use it if you don't want to. There is absolutely no reason why including a feature for others that you won't even have to *look* at should be controversial.
And before you start building straw-men about "teaching players how to create great builds instead of learning how to do it themselves," no one is suggesting that. Scroll up (middle mouse), read the posts, and respond to what people are ACTUALLY proposing.
Because being able to read a manual makes someone elitist. Ok.
I disagree with having tutorial videos, there are thousands of lets play videos of this game on youtube already that any new player can look up.
No, but deriding everyone who might struggle with BG 2, and imply that they are stupid, is elitist.
Let's Plays have the same problem as walkthroughs. Spoilers! This is an RPG, the story is half the game. If I was stuck on say the Demon Knight in Durlag's Tower... how do I check a LP or walkthrough without being sure I won't spoiler the Aec'Letec surprise when I get back to Ulgoth's Beard? Or more specifically the assassins about to ambush me the second I return. The only solution I can see is asking on forums... but not everyone is gonna find this forum, and not everyone is going to bother investing so much effort to learn to play a game.
Do tell me where I made any reference to Intelligence. So you don't want any spoilers, but you want your hand held through the game? What's the difference?
Fact of the matter is this game is meant to be hard, and everyone playing it for the first time is supposed to struggle, why exactly are you trying to spoil that?
"Oh right wait, those are also the grown men that 11 year old me would have absolutely slaughtered in a game of chess."
I don't 'want my hand held' through the game. I want the game to have more ingame information that I can access so I can learn about the game without resorting to spoiler risky LPs or Walkthroughs. Why is that so difficult to understand?!
For example, in Civ 5, I never wanted to be told a specific build/research order, but it was useful to be able to find out that, in order to build a quarry to mine marble, I need to research Masonry. In BG 2 beginners are left to seek external assistance or blunder around trial-and-error, and since the game is so complex, it is not often clear what to do, or what made the difference even if you won a battle.
I won that battle, but at the end, had little idea how. A bestiary entry about a Lesser Demon Lord would have been useful.
Fact, lots of kids are better at these kinds of games than adults, and yes they would easily beat you at them.
I also doubt that anyone over the age of 30 remembers everything that 11-16 year olds have to learn at school. While the brain is still developing, kids are at their most creative and imaginative ability and can easily grasp new concepts and ideas like those in complex games, this is exactly how kids manage to play games like this without having any problem.
I've already seen all these same complaints over on the Path of Exile forums. That game is even more unforgiving with no in game help or tutorials. What all the casuals and noobs end up doing is copying the builds and gameplay off streamers and youtube videos because they cant figure out basic mechanics or learn how to play themselves.
And whatever happened to playing games blindly and enjoying them because they were difficult? Oh wait that's right, none of todays games have any difficulty, they are all simple cookie cutter garbage which is what creates the kind of people that complain about such an old game like BG2 being too hard.
It amazes me how this relatively benign topic could actually generate 'controversy'. It seems to me as if some people just had a knee-jerk reaction and assumed we want to dumb down the game in order to make it more appealing for the mass market, where the 'casual gamer' is too impatient to understand anything that requires a bit of reading, logic and thinking. This is ironic given that it appears they also did not make any effort to understand what @Ayiekie@Purudaya and I are saying, and too impatient to try.
Let me make it clear. I DO NOT want the game made easier or simpler. I just want there to be more information available within the game. I actually did spend some time to read the manuals that came with the GoG downloads for BG 1 and BG2 (I think they are the same as the paper copies u wudda got in the original box sets), but they really don't give you information beyond the bare basics that you get from tutorial. I had to search online to read about THAC0, AC, a Magic guide.
Because there is no ingame bestiary, I used a AD&D PnP 2nd Edition bestiary to read about creatures I had never seen before, because how else am I supposed to know that 'Metallic Dragons are good, Mundane coloured ones are evil' in the D&D world? Frankly, is a bit ridiculous that a game as awesome as Baldur's Gate is so unfriendly for a beginner to pick up. I put in the time and effort, and enjoyed the learning experience immensely, but I am probably in a small minority of young people who'd bother when there are much 'flashier' games out there where I can ogle hot photo-realistic girls and blow things up in exquisite detail.
I am absolutely opposed to dumbing down games. I enjoy solving puzzles, overcoming challenges and beating personal goals. In Diablo 3 I was typically opposed to the endless nerfing that made it more accessible to casual gamers, but destroyed the competitive aspect of the game at the top end. However, the BG games don't even give you a chance. You need information and feedback in order to learn and the game currently just doesn't provide that.
It's amazing someone as super-intelligent and superior as you appears unable to read the rules of the forum, Mungri. Obviously a sad defect in your otherwise supreme intelligence, along with all the spelling mistakes you made.
Take chill pill your misdirected annoyance is just as silly as noobs who complain about BG being hard. The kids now grew up on oblivion skyrim etc where you have markers for most quests and thinking is not really required.
And YOU kids grew up on kiddy pap like Baldur's Gate, where you get a journal and an automap, where you can just reroll your stats constantly, and where there's a hard drive save system so it's not just "lose two hours of playtime" every time you die. You make me sick, you simians! I am also a simian, of course, being a hairless ape like all other members of homo sapiens, but because of my superior evolved brain I was able to play games without all that pathetic handholding your spineless generation of de-evolved troglodytes did, so, really, I probably deserve to be in at least a different genus than anybody born after 1980, if not an entire new superorder.
If you look at my OP, this is probably one of the least controversial threads in General Discussion right now. It's basically the white bread of forum posts.
And yet now we're having to respond to hyperbolic statements and personal attacks. I think some people just like umbrage for the sake of umbrage, no matter what the topic or context.
So, with that out of the way, I hope the devs might've gotten at least one good idea out of the thread so far. Any others?
Hmm. I see posters who want to call other people names... why, exactly? Ego?
And I see posters with actually helpful suggestions about how to make BG accessible to a wider market of gamers.
A lot of the posts here in the "helpful" category strike me as extremely insightful. At first, I also felt kind of angry at that reviewer for trashing a beloved game based on , basically, "I played for five minutes, and I kept getting killed, I don't understand this, it must be a terrible game, I'll never play this again, it beat me, wah, wah, wah."
My friend, @Heindrich1988, got me to reflect a bit on that gut reaction, and to see the issue in a whole new light with his very insightful initial responsive post.
I think what grates on the nerves about the reviewer and causes an extreme, angry, emotional reaction, is how quickly he gave up, apparently without ever giving the game a fair chance. If you play a D&D game, but you know nothing about D&D, it seems that you should expect some trouble, and that you might actually need to *learn* a bit about D&D in order to be successful.
However, I think the idea of an in-game tips, bestiary, and rules catalogue is a fantastic idea. Why *can't* you have a tool-tip available, at character creation, for example, that lets you know for each stat point "+0", "+1", "+2", etc, to melee hit, melee damage, ranged hit, chance to learn spell, spells learnable in spell book per level, divine bonus spells, AC, lore, NPC dialogue reaction, %store prices, etc.
I don't see how a new non D&D player could possibly know that there is no difference in any stat from 10 to 15. Why should they have to invest hours in a bad character to figure that out? (Which is still very hard, for any in-game info available.)
As for the "read the manual" shibboleth, manuals are a relic of the past. Very few present day gamers under 30 years of age are going to be willing to invest time in a game that requires them to spend hours studying, as though for an exam, out of a book, before they can even begin to play successfully.
So, I am starting to see that it comes down to, "Do you want to feel like you're part of an elite?", or, "Do you want BG:EE to be successful financially?" I don't think we can have both.
I've already seen all these same complaints over on the Path of Exile forums. That game is even more unforgiving with no in game help or tutorials. What all the casuals and noobs end up doing is copying the builds and gameplay off streamers and youtube videos because they cant figure out basic mechanics or learn how to play themselves.
There. There's that streak of elitism that ruins online communities. It was one of the things that pushed me away from Path of Exile, and I'm sorry to see you've brought it here. You know what's wrong with gamers? It's not "casuals" and "noobs"; it's this elitist attitude. I've seen you trying to act superior to random people here despite having zero idea what you're talking about. Spare us your condescension. Copying gameplay and builds off better players is how you improve your own skills, and there's no shame in doing so.
Catering to "casuals" and "noobs" is not a bad thing. It's a good thing. The more new players you can get interested in your game, the better. It helps the community grow. If you want to cater to "skilled" players, then add depth to your game. Raise the skill cap. Don't just make it hard to get into. Difficulty through obscurity is not how you make a game challenging.
Take chill pill your misdirected annoyance is just as silly as noobs who complain about BG being hard. The kids now grew up on oblivion skyrim etc where you have markers for most quests and thinking is not really required.
And YOU kids grew up on kiddy pap like Baldur's Gate, where you get a journal and an automap, where you can just reroll your stats constantly, and where there's a hard drive save system so it's not just "lose two hours of playtime" every time you die. You make me sick, you simians! I am also a simian, of course, being a hairless ape like all other members of homo sapiens, but because of my superior evolved brain I was able to play games without all that pathetic handholding your spineless generation of de-evolved troglodytes did, so, really, I probably deserve to be in at least a different genus than anybody born after 1980, if not an entire new superorder.
Wow, like some people have no idea about who Edwin is, or that I was merely quoting / roleplaying him.
Go ahead and ban me then or whatever, this thread was already full of crap without the posts I made, much like the 2/5 troll review that the OP is drawing his opinions from.
A game doesn't need to be noob friendly to be financially successful, proven point is both Path of Exile and Project Eternity, each of which raised millions of $ in funding purely from players looking for actual challenging games.
This is a remake of a game that was already hugely financially successful, despite it apparently being 'unfriendly to new players'. Casual gamers that cant figure out how to play games without having their hands held from start are absolutely not what make games successful, rather they are exactly what ruins these kind of games.
Wow, like some people have no idea about who Edwin is, or that I was merely quoting / roleplaying him.
Go ahead and ban me then or whatever, this thread was already full of crap without the posts I made, much like the 2/5 troll review that the OP is drawing his opinions from.
Ok cool. So, you're done then?
Back on topic: what are some features that some of you would like to see implemented to make this game more accessible without sacrificing difficulty/challenge?
Ideas so far:
An in-game bestiary, accessible via journal/options
Optional pop-up tutorials to inform players about mechanics like level drain and weapon immunities
In depth "how to play" videos that get into the intricacies of THAC0 and Magic
A playable tutorial
An in-game version of the Manuals that can be accessed via the UI
To the devs, does any of this look like it might be helpful/feasible? @Dee mentioned an interest in adding new videos, but it would be really neat if we could see some features beyond that as well. Is improving accessibility a development priority, or is BG2:EE already bringing in lots of new players?
EDIT: Updating the OP with people's suggestions as they come in
There should be nothing added to the game to make it easier, you can just use google to get all the help you need.
Or you should play BG1EE and get smashed into goo by an ogre before attempting BG2.
Another thing you can do is go into the options and turn the difficulty slider further left. There is an easier setting already in the game if you find normal difficulty too hard.
There also appears to already be an ingame tutorial that I never noticed and you didn't either, click on that and play it.
I think step by step high level mave vs mage tutorial battle would be nice that goes through dispels protection, resistance lowering etc
Yes! That! ^^
Also I think I saw it mentioned in another thread. But showing blast markers for AoE effects would be a nice option to have, to toggle on and off, or be related to difficulty. It's kinda hard to estimate ft in a computer game world, especially as most of the world uses metric system. lol
Although by experience I have more or less mastered it, and will not use it any more, it would have been nice to check the size of the blast radius of a fireball before I use it the first time and one-shot my party.
Oh also you know how there's loads of 'History of the...' books in the game. It would be really cool if as you find them, you fill up an encylopedia of the lore of the game. This would be particularly useful where books come in multiple parts, and you don't always find them in the right order. I am a bit of a lore geek, but I don't wanna be carrying inventories full of books, and I'd prefer to do my reading in logical order
Like how in Diablo 3, each time you meet a monster for the first time, the game adds a journal entry describing it, with commentary by Deckard Cain and/or some famous explorer whose name I have forgotten.
Hmm, I think rather than giving a tutorial on how to dispel mage protections there should be more feedback about what defensive spells are blocking your attacks so players can figure it out for themselves. If the enemy mage has a bunch of protections it's hard to figure out which one you need to dispel first because you don't see any results until most of them have been taken down.
Hmm, I think rather than giving a tutorial on how to dispel mage protections there should be more feedback about what defensive spells are blocking your attacks so players can figure it out for themselves. If the enemy mage has a bunch of protections it's hard to figure out which one you need to dispel first because you don't see any results until most of them have been taken down.
Something like, "Chromatic Orb Blocked by Spell Deflection" in the text log, maybe?
2) Energy Blades (faster if cast before the battle) > Improved alacrity (optional) > Time Stop > Spellstrike > Breach > unload energy blades on enemy mage (waaay better with a sorcerer than a mage).
3) Additional help after time stop ends from an Archer with GWW activated.
If the enemy mage doesn't drop dead in under 3 seconds, you did something wrong, read the above steps again and follow them more closely.
As for the post above, never try to engage an enemy mage without first stripping their defenses, or you're just gonna have a hard time. At the earlier levels keep spell thrust and breach ready.
Hmm, I think rather than giving a tutorial on how to dispel mage protections there should be more feedback about what defensive spells are blocking your attacks so players can figure it out for themselves. If the enemy mage has a bunch of protections it's hard to figure out which one you need to dispel first because you don't see any results until most of them have been taken down.
Something like, "Chromatic Orb Blocked by Spell Deflection" in the text log, maybe?
Yep. And when you successfully break a protection something descriptive like "Spell Trap dispelled" rather than "Dispel effects" would help a lot.
Hmm, I think rather than giving a tutorial on how to dispel mage protections there should be more feedback about what defensive spells are blocking your attacks so players can figure it out for themselves. If the enemy mage has a bunch of protections it's hard to figure out which one you need to dispel first because you don't see any results until most of them have been taken down.
Something like, "Chromatic Orb Blocked by Spell Deflection" in the text log, maybe?
Yep. And when you successfully break a protection something descriptive like "Spell Trap dispelled" rather than "Dispel effects" would help a lot.
Makes sense from a RP perspective - these are things the mage would actually know, not have to guess at.
You don't have to guess, surely you can see the enemy mage surrounded in what looks like 'I probabaly shouldn't cast spells at, or attack that until I've removed its defenses'.
And casting a chromatic orb right at the start of a battle is bad, it works much better as a finisher spell towards the end of a fight when you can take the gamble on its huge save penalty. Otherwise you should be opening your casting with defense stripping, buffing or greater malison / glitterdust to soften up the enemies.
You don't have to guess, surely you can see the enemy mage surrounded in what looks like 'I probabaly shouldn't cast spells at, or attack that until I've removed its defenses'.
And casting a chromatic orb right at the start of a battle is bad, it works much better as a finisher spell towards the end of a fight when you can take the gamble on its huge save penalty. Otherwise you should be opening your casting with defense stripping, buffing or greater malison / glitterdust to soften up the enemies.
Dude, can you please let it go? You know full well that mages are often surrounded by multiple effects and players might not know what they just dispelled when one of them blips out. We're not seeking your 1337 advice on how to play the game; chromatic orb was given as a random low-level spell to illustrate a suggested mechanic.
You know this, and you're trolling. You've already been warned and this is really getting old.
Comments
Right now - with no direct presentation of the manuals and no loading screen tips - BG2:EE provides new players with LESS information than you got when you first played this game. That's not the fault of the developers, but there's no reason it can't be remedied in some way.
But where is the fun in simply telling people how to make that build? Why cant play through the game multiple times themselves to figure out different builds, characters and spell layouts?
Also if people are so incapable as to even be able to download an online manual, or google for what thaco is, and are only crying for in game compendiums because looking things up on google is beyond their mental capabilities, what makes you think they are going to benefit from new tutorial videos, of which there are already hundreds of available on youtube?
Catering to such people is exactly what ruins these kinds of games. Next if overhaul did plan a BG3, they'd more than likely end up just like bioware / EA and turn everything about the previous games o shit because they listened to too many casual scrubs.
I guess every thread has to have it's contrarian, but it seems like you're only interested in *your* gaming experience and not in improving it for others who MIGHT JUST download this game casually via app store or steam deal, not knowing a damn thing about it.
You keep whining in this thread about how you've been accused of claiming intellectual superiority, yet you open your post by calling everyone a moron. Maybe I AM a dunce, because it's really, really hard for me to understand how a thread about better conveying game mechanics to new players is somehow an affront to your gaming experience. Every single suggestion in this thread has been prefaced with the word "optional" - as in, you don't have to use it if you don't want to. There is absolutely no reason why including a feature for others that you won't even have to *look* at should be controversial.
And before you start building straw-men about "teaching players how to create great builds instead of learning how to do it themselves," no one is suggesting that. Scroll up (middle mouse), read the posts, and respond to what people are ACTUALLY proposing.
Fact, lots of kids are better at these kinds of games than adults, and yes they would easily beat you at them.
I also doubt that anyone over the age of 30 remembers everything that 11-16 year olds have to learn at school. While the brain is still developing, kids are at their most creative and imaginative ability and can easily grasp new concepts and ideas like those in complex games, this is exactly how kids manage to play games like this without having any problem.
I've already seen all these same complaints over on the Path of Exile forums. That game is even more unforgiving with no in game help or tutorials. What all the casuals and noobs end up doing is copying the builds and gameplay off streamers and youtube videos because they cant figure out basic mechanics or learn how to play themselves.
And whatever happened to playing games blindly and enjoying them because they were difficult? Oh wait that's right, none of todays games have any difficulty, they are all simple cookie cutter garbage which is what creates the kind of people that complain about such an old game like BG2 being too hard.
Let me make it clear. I DO NOT want the game made easier or simpler. I just want there to be more information available within the game. I actually did spend some time to read the manuals that came with the GoG downloads for BG 1 and BG2 (I think they are the same as the paper copies u wudda got in the original box sets), but they really don't give you information beyond the bare basics that you get from tutorial. I had to search online to read about THAC0, AC, a Magic guide.
Because there is no ingame bestiary, I used a AD&D PnP 2nd Edition bestiary to read about creatures I had never seen before, because how else am I supposed to know that 'Metallic Dragons are good, Mundane coloured ones are evil' in the D&D world? Frankly, is a bit ridiculous that a game as awesome as Baldur's Gate is so unfriendly for a beginner to pick up. I put in the time and effort, and enjoyed the learning experience immensely, but I am probably in a small minority of young people who'd bother when there are much 'flashier' games out there where I can ogle hot photo-realistic girls and blow things up in exquisite detail.
I am absolutely opposed to dumbing down games. I enjoy solving puzzles, overcoming challenges and beating personal goals. In Diablo 3 I was typically opposed to the endless nerfing that made it more accessible to casual gamers, but destroyed the competitive aspect of the game at the top end. However, the BG games don't even give you a chance. You need information and feedback in order to learn and the game currently just doesn't provide that.
And get off my lawn!
If you look at my OP, this is probably one of the least controversial threads in General Discussion right now. It's basically the white bread of forum posts.
And yet now we're having to respond to hyperbolic statements and personal attacks. I think some people just like umbrage for the sake of umbrage, no matter what the topic or context.
So, with that out of the way, I hope the devs might've gotten at least one good idea out of the thread so far. Any others?
And I see posters with actually helpful suggestions about how to make BG accessible to a wider market of gamers.
A lot of the posts here in the "helpful" category strike me as extremely insightful. At first, I also felt kind of angry at that reviewer for trashing a beloved game based on , basically, "I played for five minutes, and I kept getting killed, I don't understand this, it must be a terrible game, I'll never play this again, it beat me, wah, wah, wah."
My friend, @Heindrich1988, got me to reflect a bit on that gut reaction, and to see the issue in a whole new light with his very insightful initial responsive post.
I think what grates on the nerves about the reviewer and causes an extreme, angry, emotional reaction, is how quickly he gave up, apparently without ever giving the game a fair chance. If you play a D&D game, but you know nothing about D&D, it seems that you should expect some trouble, and that you might actually need to *learn* a bit about D&D in order to be successful.
However, I think the idea of an in-game tips, bestiary, and rules catalogue is a fantastic idea. Why *can't* you have a tool-tip available, at character creation, for example, that lets you know for each stat point "+0", "+1", "+2", etc, to melee hit, melee damage, ranged hit, chance to learn spell, spells learnable in spell book per level, divine bonus spells, AC, lore, NPC dialogue reaction, %store prices, etc.
I don't see how a new non D&D player could possibly know that there is no difference in any stat from 10 to 15. Why should they have to invest hours in a bad character to figure that out? (Which is still very hard, for any in-game info available.)
As for the "read the manual" shibboleth, manuals are a relic of the past. Very few present day gamers under 30 years of age are going to be willing to invest time in a game that requires them to spend hours studying, as though for an exam, out of a book, before they can even begin to play successfully.
So, I am starting to see that it comes down to, "Do you want to feel like you're part of an elite?", or, "Do you want BG:EE to be successful financially?" I don't think we can have both.
Catering to "casuals" and "noobs" is not a bad thing. It's a good thing. The more new players you can get interested in your game, the better. It helps the community grow. If you want to cater to "skilled" players, then add depth to your game. Raise the skill cap. Don't just make it hard to get into. Difficulty through obscurity is not how you make a game challenging.
Secondly, like what homo novus or something?
Go ahead and ban me then or whatever, this thread was already full of crap without the posts I made, much like the 2/5 troll review that the OP is drawing his opinions from.
This is a remake of a game that was already hugely financially successful, despite it apparently being 'unfriendly to new players'. Casual gamers that cant figure out how to play games without having their hands held from start are absolutely not what make games successful, rather they are exactly what ruins these kind of games.
Back on topic: what are some features that some of you would like to see implemented to make this game more accessible without sacrificing difficulty/challenge?
Ideas so far:
An in-game bestiary, accessible via journal/options
Optional pop-up tutorials to inform players about mechanics like level drain and weapon immunities
In depth "how to play" videos that get into the intricacies of THAC0 and Magic
A playable tutorial
An in-game version of the Manuals that can be accessed via the UI
To the devs, does any of this look like it might be helpful/feasible? @Dee mentioned an interest in adding new videos, but it would be really neat if we could see some features beyond that as well. Is improving accessibility a development priority, or is BG2:EE already bringing in lots of new players?
EDIT: Updating the OP with people's suggestions as they come in
Or you should play BG1EE and get smashed into goo by an ogre before attempting BG2.
Another thing you can do is go into the options and turn the difficulty slider further left. There is an easier setting already in the game if you find normal difficulty too hard.
There also appears to already be an ingame tutorial that I never noticed and you didn't either, click on that and play it.
Also I think I saw it mentioned in another thread. But showing blast markers for AoE effects would be a nice option to have, to toggle on and off, or be related to difficulty. It's kinda hard to estimate ft in a computer game world, especially as most of the world uses metric system. lol
Although by experience I have more or less mastered it, and will not use it any more, it would have been nice to check the size of the blast radius of a fireball before I use it the first time and one-shot my party.
Oh also you know how there's loads of 'History of the...' books in the game. It would be really cool if as you find them, you fill up an encylopedia of the lore of the game. This would be particularly useful where books come in multiple parts, and you don't always find them in the right order. I am a bit of a lore geek, but I don't wanna be carrying inventories full of books, and I'd prefer to do my reading in logical order
Like how in Diablo 3, each time you meet a monster for the first time, the game adds a journal entry describing it, with commentary by Deckard Cain and/or some famous explorer whose name I have forgotten.
2) Energy Blades (faster if cast before the battle) > Improved alacrity (optional) > Time Stop > Spellstrike > Breach > unload energy blades on enemy mage (waaay better with a sorcerer than a mage).
3) Additional help after time stop ends from an Archer with GWW activated.
If the enemy mage doesn't drop dead in under 3 seconds, you did something wrong, read the above steps again and follow them more closely.
As for the post above, never try to engage an enemy mage without first stripping their defenses, or you're just gonna have a hard time. At the earlier levels keep spell thrust and breach ready.
And casting a chromatic orb right at the start of a battle is bad, it works much better as a finisher spell towards the end of a fight when you can take the gamble on its huge save penalty. Otherwise you should be opening your casting with defense stripping, buffing or greater malison / glitterdust to soften up the enemies.
You know this, and you're trolling. You've already been warned and this is really getting old.