What do you dislike the most about any infinity engine game?

[seal cub clubbing club]

im curious, dispite loving all the games i have massive trouble with magic combat in all its forms, and it gets much more importand in later entries.

So whats something you guys dont like about any of the games? something that holds you back from playing or replaying parts of them becouse of a certain system, NPC or puzzle or what have you?

[Hopper]

I don't like how the BG games are built around having to reload when you first play them. The first time you encounter a new spell like Horror, Death Spell, Imprisonment, etc, you're probably gonna have to reload. The first time you encounter a new enemy like Basilisks, Vampires, Illithids, etc, you're probably gonna have to Power Word: Reload.

It's like a DM at a tabletop game randomly saying "Haha! You're dead!" before you have a chance to do anything.

[Wicket W. Warrick]

The thing that I dislike the most is the findind trap system, you don't kow when and where the traps are searched. One step and stop, one step and stop. Really boring. Actually it is better to advance and face the consequences.

Also random encounter whilt trafering are really annoying. The fact that they are after an autosave make them totally useless.

[Sstavix]

I come from a tabletop RPG background, and my earliest experience with computer role-playing games were "Pool of Radiance," "The Bard's Tale," "Ultima" and other turn-based games. To me, tabletop = turn based. It's what I expect.

So, to me, the weakest part of the Infinity Engine is that it is not turn-based. I often find that combat turns into a chaotic, confusing mess under the system. When I learned that Icewind Dale was lighter on story and emphasized more on action and combat it actually tuned me off.

I originally got "Planescape: Torment" and quickly fell in love with the story and the setting. I never could get a handle of the combat, though. Now that I've played through the Enhanced Editions of Baldur's Gate, I plan to go back to PS:T to see if I can get through it. But it certainly isn't the combat elements that make me want to return.

[itsu]

For me, in BG (I never played any other games with the Infinity engine)

1) I hate..HATE...the fact spells have an effective radius (15 feet, 30 feet etc.) and you just have to guess the extent of the radius, which often means your mage get's stuck in the middle of the magtic effect he/she just cast or some of your party members, because you misjudge the distance. Also, to make it worse, it doesn't follow logic because if we take a companion as being 5 feet in height, shall we say, so at a guess 15 feet would be approx 3 lengths of a char. Nope...15 feet equates more to 10 lengths of a char, so in reality it is more like 45-50 feet.

2) There is no vertical movement, none at all. Not even climbing over a 2 foot rock. You have to go round it.

3) No cover or concealment. If someone is shooting arrows at me, and there is a cart in front of me or a tree, I expect the arrow to not hit me as easily as if I was in the open.

4) No season/month related weather.

5) ai pathing for your party members is pretty awful...

6) No mounts, or specifically horses. since there are stables and horse noises on certain maps????

7) Not enough role playing choices. I want to role play a good char, but sometimes it forces me into seemingly evil choices? i.e. Prism. I want to get the gems off him without killing him. No way to do it...unless maybe you have a thief with good pick-pocketing skills. But why would a party run by a good character have a good thief in it? Defeats the purpose since thievery is evil. The end result is Prism gets killed in cold blood. So backwards...

There are others but it would be nitpicking....

[Hopper]

Wasabi lähetti viestin:

1) I hate..HATE...the fact spells have an effective radius (15 feet, 30 feet etc.) and you just have to guess the extent of the radius, which often means your mage get's stuck in the middle of the magtic effect he/she just cast or some of your party members, because you misjudge the distance. Also, to make it worse, it doesn't follow logic because if we take a companion as being 5 feet in height, shall we say, so at a guess 15 feet would be approx 3 lengths of a char. Nope...15 feet equates more to 10 lengths of a char, so in reality it is more like 45-50 feet.

You can enable an AOE radius display in the Baldur.LUA file.
SetPrivateProfileString('Game Options','Show AOE','1')

[seal cub clubbing club]

@Hopper can completely understand, some encounters just cant be beaten at the stage your on

@Wicket W. Warrick another good one, it almost makes rogues a requirement instead of a choise

@Sstavix yea icewind dale 2 has more roleplay moments then icewind dale 1 but its still not many. i turned planescapes combat from insane too easy once i got passed the alley segment, the mobs had just more hp/attack then me too brute force the combat

@Wasabi
1, yea i just started using the fireball spell on my current playthrough, i now know what all the memes are about :P

2, perhaps some rope would have been a good addition ;)

3, yea ive heard archers are pretty OP becouse of that, i wonder if cover would turn the game into xcom? lel

4, yea some more weather effects like the thunderstorm would make it pretty survivaly

5, i find the enemy pathing even weirder, as they adjust when they are chasing you too the place you are going, not the place where you are

6, would be intresting too make it a safe fast travel option you can get from a town ^^

7, well it is pretty hard too balance your games options around the moral compass of a player youve never met but i have those moments too sometimes lol

@hopper thx man

[itsu]

Hopper lähetti viestin:

Wasabi lähetti viestin:

1) I hate..HATE...the fact spells have an effective radius (15 feet, 30 feet etc.) and you just have to guess the extent of the radius, which often means your mage get's stuck in the middle of the magtic effect he/she just cast or some of your party members, because you misjudge the distance. Also, to make it worse, it doesn't follow logic because if we take a companion as being 5 feet in height, shall we say, so at a guess 15 feet would be approx 3 lengths of a char. Nope...15 feet equates more to 10 lengths of a char, so in reality it is more like 45-50 feet.

You can enable an AOE radius display in the Baldur.LUA file.
SetPrivateProfileString('Game Options','Show AOE','1')

Would this be considered...."cheating" though?

[Hopper]

I'm not sure... I don't use it anyways because it's quite ugly and kills immersion.

[itsu]

Hopper lähetti viestin:

I'm not sure... I don't use it anyways because it's quite ugly and kills immersion.

Actually there's no need. I made a note to count roughly how much the radius is and in game is correct. If you take into account chars will be roughly 5 foot....the radius of spells with 15 foot are in fact roughly 3 times the length from the centre. So they did it to scale...much easier to calculate now..

[Nooneyouknow]

Bioware's awful critical hit and helmet system is the biggest issue I have with the system.

[Psychotic_Frog]

The pathfinding is my biggest gripe with the engine, even with nodes maxed in the settings. Both when moving around, and trying to enter doors.

[Teratus]

Honestly don't know.. I really like these kinds of games.

That said since some newer games have come about in the same style I do have some preferences for their newer mechanics compared to older games like BG.

One of the biggest ones being Spell/Skill use in games like Pillars of Eternity.
In older games like BG you have X amount of spells per rest and you need to rest to recover them.

In Pillars you get a much smaller capacity of equipped spells and skills but they recharge between fights which is just more fun to me.

I don't feel punished or like a wasted a spell in Pillars as much but at the same time i'm also more cautious about what skills I use and when since I do have a more limited amount on hand at any given time.

In BG I can find myself avoiding using spells and skills entirely to "save them for later" which normally ends up with me wasting them more often lol

[Sstavix]

Teratus lähetti viestin:

One of the biggest ones being Spell/Skill use in games like Pillars of Eternity.
In older games like BG you have X amount of spells per rest and you need to rest to recover them.

...

In BG I can find myself avoiding using spells and skills entirely to "save them for later" which normally ends up with me wasting them more often lol

Believe it or not, this has little to do with the Infinity game engine and more with the tabletop rules that they attempted to adapt. That was the way it was with 2nd Edition rules, especially at low levels. Mages would use their lone Magic Missile spell, and then be pretty much useless in combat until the party had a chance to rest again.

This was improved in later editions, at least. In more modern rulesets, mages gain access to certain spells that they can case an unlimited number of times per day. They may not be impressive spells (e.g. a ranged touch attack that only does 1d4 cold damage), but at least they have options other than sitting around the table, waiting for combat to end.

[seal cub clubbing club]

@Teratus i feel that

@Sstavix yea, now too be fair i like limited resources, but it could have been expended upon. like being able too craft a potion that restores spell slots ^^

[Phruis]

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