No deaths, no reloads

two · Post by **two** » Mon Jul 09, 2001 9:47 am

I have not been reading the boards, wary of spoilers, but this is my impression so far of TOB:

ITS REALLY REALLY REALLY SUCKY!!!

Don't you love going to a embattled city as a world-weary, heroic, level 20-40 character and being forced to:
Rescue some schmuck from a prison,
Return a spell book to a mage??!!,
Battle through very very familiar sewers vs. low level wimps?

I mean -- I have saved the world, right? A few times already...and you want me to RETURN A SPELL BOOK TO YOU???

You are asking a guy immune to normal weapons, heroic status, etc. to do the equivalent of scratching your posterior? I don't think so.

The writing, in other words, makes it very difficult to role play. I mean, nobody else seems to realize i'm heroic!

Also -- my god! IS IT POSSIBLE TO DIE in TOB??? How easy can this game get??? Somebody needs to tell Bioware that there is no difference between fighting ONE monster that can't hit you, vs. fighting 100 that can't hit you. You don't get hurt either way. I could NOT believe how LAME the sewer battle was. I mean, as a Bard, with not the best AC in the game, it's trivially easy to get -18 or so (0 from improved armor, -4 dex, -1 helm of balduron, -1 bard gloves, -1 Cernd's cloak, -1 earth control, -2 gaax. That's -10 BASE.

Add a few Blur's, which last forever, or a greater evasion and you are an unhitteable -18 or better. Given that you already have stoneskin with a lot of skins...this is absurd. How the hell are these wimpy monsters going to hit me?

Even a lame rogue's saving throws are safely negative before even a blur is cast, after you don't have a worry in the world.

And I'm playing at about 35% of my full stength! Sheesh. I don't know the math but as a fighter I expect could easily have -15 or so base, maybe better if he uses a shield. What is a monk/swashbuckler at? God.

LAME. I really don't know HOW to die in this "expansion." The entire palace was ridiculous. One spell trap lasted the whole way through, I just improved haste and melee'ed the whole thing to bits. The scarlet ninja-to seemed to always do poison damage to the spell casters, and nobody else could hit me so that was the only "danger".

This has got to be the most linear boring plot ever. Go to place, then pocket plane. Go to other place, then pocket plane. Hard to fit in all the yawns!

I went to some place with undead, a temple or such, what a bore. Again, nothing can hit or damage me much. I talked with something about a heart, then went to another place where wimpy fire giants things missed me regularly. (about 15 minuts max). I then went into this cave thing, was surrounded by fire giant types, and took about 8 rounds to kill them all with Crom F. Boring, some damage at least so I redid stoneskin. That was good for another group of baddies, then I rested some and continued on. Good lord, I had more fun in Irenicus' prison! I'm getting +5 weapons for almost no danger!

Sigh. And don't anyone DARE say "if its too easy dude, why dont' you simply stop doing X" where X is something entirely reasonable. I'm already rushing through it, using only a small percentage of my abilities. I don't feel like handicapping myself just to make up for idiotic game designers! I just don't get it, Watcher's Keep was MUCH harder and that even was reasonable. I'm not even using all my abilities, no time trap, I hardly ever cast an offensive spell anymore ever. I'm still using CromF and Scarlet Ninja-to.

What, do I have to walk around with no armor to make it a challenge??? Or stop using all second level spells (blur, mirror image on occasion)? Yeah, watch out of those imbalancing second level spells.

Disgusted. Really not worth $25. If the next lame dungeon/area is not tough I'm not sure I will finish. Please somebody tell me it WILL get more difficult, ok? Please?

What did I waste my time getting my Bard ready for?

I can't imagine how simple TOB must be for a standard party of 3-4. Talk about overkill!

koz-ivan · Post by **koz-ivan** » Mon Jul 09, 2001 9:58 am

imo you've beaten the easiest two bosses, expect things to get a little more interesting.

and if thats not enough go get some improved ai patches, from baulderdash.

also bear in mind that by going solo you change the dynamic of the game, adding 5 other char's does not mean it's all of a sudden 6 times easier.

the game is a bit on the easy side vs bg1 where every encounter can lead to sudden death, but thats a function of your level, you are an incredibly powerful char (or party for us weenies who don't solo) there shouldn't be much to really challenge us.

two · Post by **two** » Mon Jul 09, 2001 10:11 am

Originally posted by koz-ivan:
imo you've beaten the easiest two bosses, expect things to get a little more interesting.

and if thats not enough go get some improved ai patches, from baulderdash.

also bear in mind that by going solo you change the dynamic of the game, adding 5 other char's does not mean it's all of a sudden 6 times easier.

the game is a bit on the easy side vs bg1 where every encounter can lead to sudden death, but thats a function of your level, you are an incredibly powerful char (or party for us weenies who don't solo) there shouldn't be much to really challenge us.

This is really not acceptable in my opinion.

If there is nothing to "really challenge us" the game designers have fallen asleep on the job. Not to mention the fact that too easy=way boring.

Nope, not worth $25 for this! oh well.

Lews Therin · Post by **Lews Therin** » Mon Jul 09, 2001 10:46 am

Originally posted by two:
ITS REALLY REALLY REALLY SUCKY!!!

Also -- my god! IS IT POSSIBLE TO DIE in TOB??? How easy can this game get??? Somebody needs to tell Bioware that there is no difference between fighting ONE monster that can't hit you, vs. fighting 100 that can't hit you. You don't get hurt either way. I could NOT believe how LAME the sewer battle was. I mean, as a Bard, with not the best AC in the game, it's trivially easy to get -18 or so (0 from improved armor, -4 dex, -1 helm of balduron, -1 bard gloves, -1 Cernd's cloak, -1 earth control, -2 gaax. That's -10 BASE.

Add a few Blur's, which last forever, or a greater evasion and you are an unhitteable -18 or better. Given that you already have stoneskin with a lot of skins...this is absurd. How the hell are these wimpy monsters going to hit me?

Even a lame rogue's saving throws are safely negative before even a blur is cast, after you don't have a worry in the world.

And I'm playing at about 35% of my full stength! Sheesh. I don't know the math but as a fighter I expect could easily have -15 or so base, maybe better if he uses a shield. What is a monk/swashbuckler at? God.

LAME. I really don't know HOW to die in this "expansion." The entire palace was ridiculous. One spell trap lasted the whole way through, I just improved haste and melee'ed the whole thing to bits. The scarlet ninja-to seemed to always do poison damage to the spell casters, and nobody else could hit me so that was the only "danger".

This has got to be the most linear boring plot ever. Go to place, then pocket plane. Go to other place, then pocket plane. Hard to fit in all the yawns!

I went to some place with undead, a temple or such, what a bore. Again, nothing can hit or damage me much. I talked with something about a heart, then went to another place where wimpy fire giants things missed me regularly. (about 15 minuts max). I then went into this cave thing, was surrounded by fire giant types, and took about 8 rounds to kill them all with Crom F. Boring, some damage at least so I redid stoneskin. That was good for another group of baddies, then I rested some and continued on. Good lord, I had more fun in Irenicus' prison! I'm getting +5 weapons for almost no danger!

Sigh. And don't anyone DARE say "if its too easy dude, why dont' you simply stop doing X" where X is something entirely reasonable. I'm already rushing through it, using only a small percentage of my abilities. I don't feel like handicapping myself just to make up for idiotic game designers! I just don't get it, Watcher's Keep was MUCH harder and that even was reasonable. I'm not even using all my abilities, no time trap, I hardly ever cast an offensive spell anymore ever. I'm still using CromF and Scarlet Ninja-to.

What, do I have to walk around with no armor to make it a challenge??? Or stop using all second level spells (blur, mirror image on occasion)? Yeah, watch out of those imbalancing second level spells.

Disgusted. Really not worth $25. If the next lame dungeon/area is not tough I'm not sure I will finish. Please somebody tell me it WILL get more difficult, ok? Please?

What did I waste my time getting my Bard ready for?

I can't imagine how simple TOB must be for a standard party of 3-4. Talk about overkill!

You're probably just too familiar with SoA and know where all the best stuff is. I'm having a lot of fun play ToB, but my two fighters have -5 and -6 AC and neither uses shields (one uses two-handed swords and the other dual-wields). My cleric has the best AC at -10, but no Ironskins, Blurr, or Stoneskins.

What I would recommend you do to make ToB interesting, is start a new game in ToB. That way you wouldn't start out with all the stuff you gathered in SoA, and you would only have 2500000 experience.

Myself I'm really enjoying the whole epic feel to the game. A level 25 fighter should be able to take out dozens of lesser opponents, and there are enough high level battles to challenge (at least me).

koz-ivan · Post by **koz-ivan** » Mon Jul 09, 2001 10:56 am

two, before you pass judgement on the game, finish it.

believe it or not but there are fights that i think are pretty neat & challenging, you beat a few of the weenie bosses.

two · Post by **two** » Mon Jul 09, 2001 11:46 am

Originally posted by koz-ivan:
two, before you pass judgement on the game, finish it.

believe it or not but there are fights that i think are pretty neat & challenging, you beat a few of the weenie bosses.

Good!

I'm glad I was just scraping the bottom of the bad-guy barrel.

I'll try to keep up enough interest to finish, thanks for writing with the info.

Meerlight · Post by **Meerlight** » Mon Jul 09, 2001 12:25 pm

Before you go on saying this game sucks and everything...... I'm just going to say..... I don't think you can beat ToB. Soon there are going to be some really LONG fights with TONS of enemies that have really low THACO. So it will get more challenging.

two · Post by **two** » Mon Jul 09, 2001 12:33 pm

Originally posted by Meerlight:
Before you go on saying this game sucks and everything...... I'm just going to say..... I don't think you can beat ToB. Soon there are going to be some really LONG fights with TONS of enemies that have really low THACO. So it will get more challenging.

Cool!

Kyle Marksteiner · Post by **Kyle Marksteiner** » Mon Jul 09, 2001 4:04 pm

hey, I had a question, you said you beat Demi-gorgon with spike traps- but after you attacked him? How'd that work, since he was already aggro? Did you set them in one corner or what?

MAn, I feel like a loser, I must confess, yon firegiants gave me some trouble. AC average is around -8 for each party member, and they seemed to hit me 90% of the time.

ReignsOfPower · Post by **ReignsOfPower** » Mon Jul 09, 2001 4:21 pm

@Two.

I had this same problem. I dispatch Demogorgon and Draconis in one shot.

Try increasing the Difficulty in the game. Believe me, when monsters start doing double damage, things get though hardcore.

Scott · Post by **Scott** » Tue Jul 10, 2001 12:39 am

I doubt you'll survive all of ToB

There are some extremely hard battles with some particular circumstances that make them considerably more difficult than the others you have faced so far.

Tharan · Post by **Tharan** » Tue Jul 10, 2001 6:38 am

I dont know, but my opinion about ToB being awesome has very quickly faided.
I beat the game in about 2 days if not less!!! I thought having cool magic weapons would be nice, but for the love of GOD you dont get magic weapons you get ARTIFACTS or something. To get a 2h sword +5 I had to kill couple of damn golems!!!!!! WTF?!!?!?!
How many piece pipes did the designers smoke before making the game?!
There is nothing and I mean nothing challenging about the game!!!
What huntress party!? PUSHOVER
Draconis? PUSHOVER
Balthasar!?!? Don't make me laugh!!!
Demogorgon?! That bastard stood no chance!
Sendai? Please all you do is true sight and keep a freaking tank to take out the drow!
GOD DAMN IT!!! I spent $30 Dollars !
Bottom line is, that Bioware had an awesome game going with BG1 and Sword Coast, then SoA was nice, but then they F*cked it up!! I am very very dissapointed!
And yes guys I did put difficutly up and still nothing! Too easy and no I am not cheating or powergaming.

Sorry to burst your bubble two, but I think you'll breaze through the game easy.

Also I think BG1 and Tales of the Sword coast was one of the best games I played. In that game you worked your ass off to get anything good, unlike ToB.

Maybe I am going a bit overboard but it's just my opinion I like to play a game where I have little bit of challenge not just a character that can destroy anything in couple of hits.
I give the game an F! no no I give it a Z damn it.

No I will go and cry in the corner for spending $30 dollars and when I feel better I will try to make a wussy character and try to play with the worst party in the game, maybe that will work............waaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

two · Post by **two** » Tue Jul 10, 2001 10:22 am

I'm very worried at this point.

I played a little further. I got this necklace thing, master harper's something. +3 to AC. !!

Ok what is going on?

I have improved bladesinger (ac0) and the following typical, normal, everyday stuff (except perhaps the ring of gaax):

Ring of Gaax -2
Ring of earth control -1
18 dex -4
helm of balduran or ioun stone -1
amulet -3
bard gloves -1
robe of Cerd -1

Yup, that's BASE AC -13!!!

Gee whiz guys.

And I suspect there will be a better robe coming up soon...

With ONE blur I'm at -16, with blur and greater evasion -21. -21 is good enough so that you can sit in the middle of 6 fire giants and not worry. Of course, throw in a few blur's and it's -25 and below.

I killed some undead lady after getting some hearts. I ran away from her shambling mound things, then whacked them one by one. They did take a while to die but didn't hit me hardly ever.

Then I went to some other place like a caravan screen and about 25 people attacked me. I zoned in so I didn't have any spells up. Stoneskin is instant though. Then I ran to an edge. Cast blur next round, put up a spell trap from the Staff of ArchMagi. After that I cast another blur and just whacked until I got a moment to cast imp. haste. Then it was all over. Took a while but the arrows couldn't even hit me, or if they did stoneskin never was breached. Yawn. Got some sword +4 the Answer? I never asked a question. Whatever.

Am presently doing boring stuff in a western-style town, beat up some monks, have not yet gone into their monestary to beat them ALL up yet though. I can't imagine that will be difficult, my death save is negative, they won't be able to hit me, etc. etc.

Please somebody tell me I'm not yet at a tough fight? Please? I want to keep hoping for a challenge.

BTW somebody asked about my spiking demigorgon. No I spiked him after I did a lot of experiments, I did not spike first then wake him up. It's very very easy to run away from demigorgon, he's slow. You run downstairs, have PLENTY of time to set traps. Sometimes he does not even follow you down. In fact it's quite possible to spike, rest, spike, rest, spike etc. if you are super nervous. You run back through the portal to rest (ignoring demiG) the rest, go back through portal (irgnoring demiG) back downstairs, etc. whatever. Then just lure him down and whack he's dead.

Sadly -- I'm not hopeful.

HOW CLOSE AM I TO A TOUGH FIGHT?

Tharan · Post by **Tharan** » Tue Jul 10, 2001 10:45 am

Sorry to burst your bubble my good friend two, but THERE IS NOT GOD DAMN HARD FIGHT IN THE GAME YOU CAN CREATE A F*CKING 9 ALL STATS CHARACTER AND WALTS THROUGH THE DAMN GAME.
*deep breath*
anyways, if you are killed its because of an accident or you just left the game on and went to eat. If you have not fought sendai or Abzigail yet, don't listen to anyone you will piss on them and they will die. So don't worry there is no hard fight in the game.... boring YES! Good: NO!

ok I feel sad again, I am going to go cry in the corner again......waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Lews Therin · Post by **Lews Therin** » Tue Jul 10, 2001 10:47 am

I've been following a thread on usenet that makes just the opposite point: that ToB is too hard for most players. One of the problems I'm sure that the developers have is challenging the advanced players and not making it so tough that the average player can't complete the game. If we made the game hard enough to challenge Two, then I'm sure most of us would give up on the game before completing it. For example we would have to face dozens of opponents with thac0 -15 and AC -12, or some such, all at the same time. I'm sorry to hear that Two is bored and feels ripped-off, but I'm glad that the game isn't any harder. I hate having to reload after twenty minutes of battling because someone killed my PC.

koz-ivan · Post by **koz-ivan** » Tue Jul 10, 2001 11:57 am

two, you might as well stop now. what's the point? you've crowned yourself king bard, and as i tried to explain earlier the solo char has a totally different set of capabilities vs a party, in all of my games i've never seen an a/c that low, b/c you have to spread some of those items around, if i had equiped my whole party w/ gaxx, earth control, sewers + helm o' bald.
thats -5 each! + regeneration, thaco bonus, immunity to poison ect. ect. then you add insult to injury w/ a multiple casting of blur? did it ever strike you as odd that it stacks? how blurry can you get? after a while wouldn't you look like some huge acid dripped fractal pattern that completely fills the room?

you have an a/c of -21 do you expect to take damage? each strike has a 5% chance of hitting you, 1 in 20 now add five stoneskins 1 in 100. add in mirror image and it's what 1 in 500? or higher?

at that point the game has to be easy 'cause it would be lethal to any char with an a/c in the range of -5 to -10 (which is still pertty damn low by almost any standard)

and if the game is not fun why play? just to see it through, don't you get enough grief / stress from real life?

mikeheitz · Post by **mikeheitz** » Tue Jul 10, 2001 12:04 pm

I agree wit Koz-Ivan... I am not a power gamer. I enjoy playing RPG's, but if ToB were much harder, I'd have given up already. I have read a lot of message boards on a lot of games I never finished, and I swear... one of these days I'll finish both Fallout games! And Planescape!!!

What the heck am I talking about?... oh yeah... It's hard enough. But remember how easily the Terminator strolled through all those movies obliterating everything in site??? That's Two with his Uber-Bard. I have a full party, and I shed a tear when someone dies! It took me 5 tries to beat the Drow in ToB, and I still lost Korgan!

So, Two... When you gonna write a Book on how to play these games???

Xyx · Post by **Xyx** » Tue Jul 10, 2001 1:11 pm

It would have been easy for the designers to include a difficulty setting that got you tougher fights without having enemies do cheaty double damage. In fact, they bragged about how nice Watcher's Keep would be because it took the party's level into account when spawning monsters.

I'm seriously considering following in Kensai Ryu's footsteps to make smarter AI scripts for the enemies (though not any time real soon... I haven't even seen ToB myself). No cheating, raising stats or giving them additional abilities, just smarter use of what they have (and maybe some stuff like not standing around in Cloudkills). Any takers?

two · Post by **two** » Tue Jul 10, 2001 1:13 pm

Originally posted by koz-ivan:
two, you might as well stop now. what's the point? you've crowned yourself king bard, and as i tried to explain earlier the solo char has a totally different set of capabilities vs a party, in all of my games i've never seen an a/c that low, b/c you have to spread some of those items around, if i had equiped my whole party w/ gaxx, earth control, sewers + helm o' bald.
thats -5 each! + regeneration, thaco bonus, immunity to poison ect. ect. then you add insult to injury w/ a multiple casting of blur? did it ever strike you as odd that it stacks? how blurry can you get? after a while wouldn't you look like some huge acid dripped fractal pattern that completely fills the room?

you have an a/c of -21 do you expect to take damage? each strike has a 5% chance of hitting you, 1 in 20 now add five stoneskins 1 in 100. add in mirror image and it's what 1 in 500? or higher?

at that point the game has to be easy 'cause it would be lethal to any char with an a/c in the range of -5 to -10 (which is still pertty damn low by almost any standard)

and if the game is not fun why play? just to see it through, don't you get enough grief / stress from real life?

Huh?

I play the game (TOB) because I like SOA a lot. SOA is a great game, despite certain reservations I have about it. I had high hopes for TOB obviously. It is becoming NOT fun you are right very rapidly, and I'm not sure I will finish.

I have no clue why your AC is so bad. Decent armor wearable by a fighter type is AC-1 or AC-2. Add 18 dex from your stats, augmented or not, or from the gauntlets of dex, you get -6. Add a shield of your choice and it's safely over -10. That's without any extras, like helm of B, ioun stones, special weapons, girdles, etc. etc. there is plenty of AC -1 or -2 armor around, lots of good shields, etc etc. And some characters, like barbarians, can take a lot of punishment even when they are hit due to resistances, etc.

I don't feel at all bad about multiple castings of blur. In Watcher's Keep a number of enemy mages did this AGAINST me. Turn-about is fair play. Also blur stacked in SOA, if Bioware didn't want it to stack they would have not made it stack in TOB. And, of course, not scripted it for mages.

Am I NOT supposed to use a second level mage spell? or mirror image? I already did this "handicap thyself" experiment in SOA, running a beastmaster on insane difficulty. It is possible to play, but such hamstringing is a little absurb, and not -- I think -- really that fun. It's like drinking seawater, it won't kill you but does leave a bad taste in the mouth.

I still don't understand your orignial point, either. You are saying with a party of 5 people, it's HARDER than a solo because you have to split up the best equipment? Why is this pray tell? It's quite obvious you can simply "duplicate" a soloer -- give one character all the best stuff (like your own guy, or even an NPC) and have him/her do 80% of all the fighting. Everybody else is backup/prep/staying out of the way. Anyway there is plenty of great gear "left over" after you heap it up on one preferred character.

?? Am I wrong? I mean, I could have the exact same Bard character, with the same equipment, in a party of 6. Throw in a Sorcerer with robe of vecna, a cleric, a barbarian, a monk, etc. If it's easy on my own my god, imagine if I could count on some backup spellcasting, or the monk/barbarian to mop up any spillover from the major Bard assault. Boggles the mind.

Also I'm not really "stealing" much from another characters, the gloves and amulet are bard-specific, as is the AC0 chaimail (or for fighter-mages). Trade the helm of balduron for a ioun stone, use cloak of sewers for Cernd's cloak, etc. I imagine with a little care you could get your Bard at AC-13 and another fighter type at AC-13 or better (Defender of easthaven, shield, dex bonus, AC-2 armor is -12 right there).

Whatever. Play however you like. I'm really just saying that if you use the tools given to you, (and not even in the most efficient manner), the game is (so far) not very challenging or fun.

Tharan · Post by **Tharan** » Tue Jul 10, 2001 1:43 pm

I agree with two, i am not a powergamer and when I beat the game with my whole party of 6. Everyone had at least -6 or highter, actually only my mage had a -6.(Imoen) And I did not want to play with her, I neglected her all the damn time. My tanks had a good -10 and everyone else -8 or maybe even higher. Sorry man even if you try not to powergame in ToB, it will force you. Cause all the items it dishes out I mean damn!
But hey two finish the game, hehehe you still got some more "hard" ahahahahaha battles to go. LOL.