Simple Idea for Game Balance

[two]

I have been reviewing...a little... AD&D rules and have noticed a significant departure between how resting (sleeping) is implemented in BGII and how it is "supposed" to work in AD&D version 1, 2, or 3 for that matter.

One of the easiest, most logical, and fairest ways I can think of for Bioware to toughen up the game a little (thinking of TOB) would be for them to have more restrictive sleeping rules. This is kind of a no-brainer. For example sleeping in the middle of a dungeon for 3+ days -- idiotic. Sleeping outside of a room containing 10 monsters -- ridiculous. You think they would poke their heads out after a few hours or days...if they could open the door but that's another issue.

AD&D makes it clear that for spell-casters to memorize their full complement of spells, they must have peace&quiet for meditiation, etc. usually exceeding simply sleeping 8 hours in a stinky dungeon. Particularly for high level (5+) spells. If Bioware simply threw in more random monsters during "resting" it would help SOME, if they disabled resting in certain dungeons or levels, it would be even more sensible. Or you only learned a certain percentage of your spells when resting in hostile territory, etc.

As it stands, spell-casters have unlimited spells. They really DO. You can shoot your proverbial wab every battle if you want (every dungeon room), then rest, go on to the next, etc. I have played BGII a number of times and never ONCE was in any danger of "running out of spells." At worst you can just retreat out of visual range, sleep, go back. There is absolutly NO penalty for being slow and sleeping a lot, that I have ever come across.

That's why I'm also confused about why anyone would want to be a specialist mage...I mean spells are cheap, free, unlimited with frequent resting... why give up a spell type for a lousy extra spell per level?

Sorcerers, having magic in their blood as it were, may have it easier sleeping in dangerous surroundings... making them even more powerful, since they don't have to memorize spells at all...interesting.


Anyone else out there for toughning up sleeping rules?

[Red Inquisition]

I'm all for it. Having mages & priests only memorize a pecentage of spells while sleeping in dungeon is a good idea. Plus more random encounters would make the game much more replayable. Now you can memorize where most of the little bastards are going to be an you can be more prepaired.

[koz-ivan]

i think you hit it right on the head, for all the talk of improving AI, changing the sleeping rules would do much more to make the game harder.

i have not played pnp in quite some time but i remeber the memorization / meditation times for spells as being a lot longer than just 8 hrs of sleep.

and again i must agree some of the places you can rest is just plain silly, the only place where i really had a hard time w/ resting was firkraggs's dungeon, and even then it was possible, being woken up was more of a annoyance than a real threat.
wouldn't it be great if there was golem patrols, (or some other tough creature) waking sleeping adventures? undead would be good for that also...

[Kovi]

Good idea. But then they have to prevent items with unlimited charges.
I also like the idea of intelligent monsters who are able to open the door. And I would even more like to see intelligent enemies, who detect the party and shut/lock the door mage. No more run away and wait for the spells to wear off.

[aperry]

I think the problem is, that if you pick apart everything, everything will be wrong for the most part. Consider this: if you are in a dungeon and you get the crap kicked out of you, and you are out of spells what do you do. If you leave the dungeon and come back, does it make sense that you could walk right back down to where you finished last. No, if you really want to stay true, the duengeon should be even harder. this is because the patrols will run back and tell the master of the dungeon that someone has been looting and killing all the inhabitants and will will reinforce, put out more patrolls, and protect himself better. So if you can't beet the dungeon now and when you come back it is reinforced then you are stuck. (Just spurning conversation here).

I do not think that anyone got through the game with out getting killed more then several times fighting big battels, i barley got lucky to beat irenicus the first time, but had plenty of trouble with other battles. So the game was plenty tough, and most people had to come up with semi cheats. Like getting killed by a lich and then reloading and laying down 5-10 ten traps so when he popped up he got killed. For that matter then they should put stricter rules on dying, and when you can save a game, or how many reloads you can do. Then they would have to make the monsters easier because people would complain that it was to hard not to get killed.

I do agree with you though that some places are silly to rest, and if you rest in a place where you have not killed all the monsters then it should be tougher to get a full nights sleep without getting woken up. I am all for a change, i just feel if you make one change, you have to make them all.

[two]

Well I don't agree that if you change one thing you have to change everything. What, in fact, are you talking about? If something is easy to fix (resting rules) why not just do it even if other rules (reloading after dying) are not changed? If you insist on all-or-nothing, you will end up with nothing let me assure you.

I really have no clue where you are coming from here... It seems like you want us to just accept BGII as it is instead of suggesting modest improvements (as oppposed to a total overhaul). Anyway, regarding your other comments --

As for a dungeon you are "stuck" in after using all your spells -- and not being able to sleep in it...ah, I can only DREAM. Sounds great. And one that gets harder if you leave and then come back -- wonderful! Yes, let's make the player PLAN where exactly to use that fireball or projected image, and where it will be overkill. Wouldn't it be great if you killed the last baddie in a nasty sleep-less dungeon with your last lightning bolt spell after hoarding it through 5 gnarly battles? Cool.

I'm all for it!

[aperry]

First of all, i said in my message that i am only trying to spurn conversation here and make this thread deeper.

Where i am coming from is this, making a change to sleeping is not an easy fix, because it makes to the other inconsistencies i mentiond stand out more. Your opinion was that the game is unbalanced and that changing the sleeping inconsistency will help fix this. I am agreeing with you in the sence that it does not make sence you can sleep anywhere. But in the end, that change by itself does not change anything. People will just leave, sleep somewhere safe and come back, and continue. Or they will just reload 10 extra times untill they can win a battle and save some spells. So in my opinion, the only way for this change to make a real difference, would be to also change the things i mentioned. because it would make it harder to find semi cheats and skirt the change.

I am definatley not disagreeing with you, just having conversation with you fine people. I think that the game is already overbalanced towards the computer side, seeing as almost all of us had to reload 100 times, just to beat it. Or maybe that is because, it is easier to reload then be cautious and role-play....

[koz-ivan]

senator lore -> you bring up some good points.

the "tired & beat up party" would be pretty much screwed if a few iron golems stormed into camp & that would force more reloads at which point roleplay goes out the window...
i.e. you would know exactly what was behind door #2 and plan accordingly.

but i think the you can rest anywhere is fataly flawed, my first time through the game i kept a bunch of healing potions & 2 healers in my party (w/ most spells being healing) but now that i've played a few times my clerics & druids memorize mostly attack spells, (since i can always rest)
and w/ the 9th lv spells...

what could challenge an arch-mage, if after every fight they rest, recharge their sequencers, spell trigger, & chain contigency, then rest again...

and if the monsters could withstand that what would they to to a "lowly" fighter?

and i'd rather not see armys of magic immune creatures to resore the balance.

[aperry]

What if you could not sleep on a dungeon level until you cleaned it, or not sleep at all, necause there is a 100% Chance that a patrol would catch you sleeping and finish you off anyways. Also what if you could not save or reload until the level was done or you left the dungeon. If the consiquence for leaving is that the dungeon would get tougher or atleast be re-stocked with bad guys, then you would have to plan better and start the dungeon over at the very lest. This would take care of the sleeping problem and at the same time force people to Role-Play more instead of excepting re-loads anyways. You can have the strictest rules on sleeping, and they mean nothing if you can just reload.

That is why i think this is a major overhaul and not a simple fix. Because if you made the changes i said, then you would have to rework the dungeon areas to make them more balanced, so that players could actually beat them. Just some thoughts....

[Calzier]

Resting is an option - if you want to play more 'realistically', don't just sit and rest when ever you need to regain spells - keep battling until you feel you are in a situation where the game should let you rest. Play on with the tired, beat-up party if thats the way you want to play it (something I did in the underdark - forgot to rest in the drow city, and had two nasty fight with v. few spells available.

[Craig]

only be able to sleep at certain times(12 noon no cant sleep 6pm+ok)and other one were you would haver to load way b4 losing thing(not fair but its incentive to go on like it is)or closing,locking cant open untill finishr dungeon doors?

[Red Inquisition]

If you were to leave a dungeon and come back their may be more patrols out but would not those patrols have less creatures in them due to the fact that you have killed some of their numbers. I think that you could have certain areas in the dungeons to sleep. Like in a secret room the the creatures do not know about. If you were to leave the dongeon and come back there should also be more traps set and roaming creatures but not necessarily more creatures.

[koz-ivan]

what i'd like to see is instead of having a whole levels of a dungeon safe to rest in having a few safe rooms stashed about.

ssi used this technique in most of the gold box games, curse of a azure bonds, pools of darkness ect ect...

the safe resting areas could be a hidden room, forgotten storeroom, or a room w/ a door that can be secured from the inside.
now these rooms can be spaced far enough apart to reduce / eliminate cheese tactics w/o making the game impossible.

and in a completely diff direction, i really like the battles that take place w/ innocents in the line of fire.

there was a few city battles that i'd have to completly change my tactics cause i'd catch too many shopkeepers w/ area effect spells & my rep would go down the drain & the whole city would be after me...

[GrimReaper]

I personally like everything how it is now. You can rest when you want, where you want. You can save at any time, anywhere. You people complain about things that you yourself can fix if you want to play like that, but you talk as if you want to enforce your rules on everyone. I say that if you don't want to sleep after every battle then don't. Challenge yourself but don't worry about what other people do. If somebody else uses the so-called "cheese tactics" then so be it. It's their own decision. Almost everything you've mentioned can be fixed simply by a decision on your part. If somebody else wants to play differently because they think it is more fun, then so be it.

[aperry]

I don't think two's fix was to force anything on anyone. He wanted more of a consequence on sleeping, i.e a bigger chance of being supprised when you are asleep. That is not going to hurt you, it is going to make the game more challenging.

The rest, is people having conversation, not complaining, grow up. People can discuss how to make the game more interesting or more role-play freindly.

[two]

Originally posted by Sentor Lore:
<STRONG>First of all, i said in my message that i am only trying to spurn conversation here and make this thread deeper.

Where i am coming from is this, making a change to sleeping is not an easy fix, because it makes to the other inconsistencies i mentiond stand out more. Your opinion was that the game is unbalanced and that changing the sleeping inconsistency will help fix this. I am agreeing with you in the sence that it does not make sence you can sleep anywhere. But in the end, that change by itself does not change anything. People will just leave, sleep somewhere safe and come back, and continue. Or they will just reload 10 extra times untill they can win a battle and save some spells. So in my opinion, the only way for this change to make a real difference, would be to also change the things i mentioned. because it would make it harder to find semi cheats and skirt the change.

I am definatley not disagreeing with you, just having conversation with you fine people. I think that the game is already overbalanced towards the computer side, seeing as almost all of us had to reload 100 times, just to beat it. Or maybe that is because, it is easier to reload then be cautious and role-play....</STRONG>

Sorry I got a little carried away I guess... thanks for contributing to the thread...anyway some remarks concerning your comments... As for BGII being overbalanced to the computer side, I don't think this is true at all. I came to BGII without playing BGI, without playing a computer game in years, and after 1 battle with goblins in the prison I realized you could rest to recuperate HP's and spells, with no obvious penalty. So I rested all the time. I also didn't have much trouble with battles after using Web+Web+X where X is stinking cloud, or fireball, or an area effect spell. In fact my first game I quit 50% through because it was too easy; I was yawning through the battles. ( I did not take on Kangaxx or anything, I did not even know about him, just normal "getting to the end of the game" battles). This is not to say I'm a great player, I consider myself average at best; it's just BGII makes things very easy if you take advantage of a few obvious shortcomings. By the way, from other posts I have made in past, others have said the same thing about their first time playing, so I know i'm not alone.

As for changing resting rules but not changing anything else...true to some extent. If you disallow resting in a dungeon but your characters can go back to town, sleep in an Inn, then return to the dungeon you have not gained much. However it's easy enough (cf. the Astral Prison) to make a "dungeon" that you cannot retreat from. If you could not sleep at all in the Astral Prison series of rooms, that would be GREAT fun, more challenge, etc. Or make a simple time trigger on a quest, i.e. do it in 5 hours or you lost x.p's. You sleep, you lose out. Etc. Once resting rules are firmed up, there are any number of easy things you can do to remove "cheesy" resting.

I LIKE the idea of safe rooms! That way you might be forced to get strategic with spells through an entire level of a big dungeon...but then get the reward of sleeping in a hidden room. Interseting.

By the way -- SOMETHING has to be done. When you are running around with level 20+ characters casting Time Stop and ShapeChange and whatever else, you HAVE to force them to not cast spells willy-nilly i.e. cast/sleep/cast/sleep/cast. A level 9 spell should be a big deal, not simply a reward for some shut-eye. Otherwise...gosh, I can't really imagine what sort of dungeon would withstand a party of 6 25th level characters that are always fresh and bursting forth with magic.

[evermoor]

Rest should be possible anywhere really, BUT in this case not for the entire party and no spells are memorised(someone has to keep watch...and it's just too tense to concentrate) of course in Inns and such areas everyone could rest AND memorise spells. Alternatively NPC party members could wander off if you rest too much( Get lost etc. "Thought i heard something over there" etc. and return later after you've cleared the dungeon...how annoying would that be!! ) Then game should auto-save when you rest...and at no other time......
I.E: Get rid of the quick save altogether.

When your facing at least an HOUR of gameplay down the tube Suddenly those 8 unmber hulks look more menacing don't they ?



O.K. O.K. Not everyone would like this (powergamer types...tchh) but it could be a feature of the Difficulty setting couldn't it?

[koz-ivan]

By the way -- SOMETHING has to be done. When you are running around with level 20+ characters casting Time Stop and ShapeChange and whatever else, you HAVE to force them to not cast spells willy-nilly i.e. cast/sleep/cast/sleep/cast. A level 9 spell should be a big deal, not simply a reward for some shut-eye. Otherwise...gosh, I can't really imagine what sort of dungeon would withstand a party of 6 25th level characters that are always fresh and bursting forth with magic.

bingo. my big fear of ToB is that i may have to "over rest" if the designers just amp up the monsters rather than explore all options of creating a challenging game.

[Bruce Lee]

Í think maybe you should be more surprised when you are awoken by enemies. As it is I often get a spell and some arrows off before they do anything. Should have some penalties when you have just woken up.

[Loredweller]

IMHO, it was already solved right enough in BG1. There you might be awoken by sneak attack anywhere save inn, and in some places it was definitely hard to get rest. I do not understand why in BG2 we should even search for places with some probability somebody or something might on occasion disturb our sleep. It might be only some programming difficulties or i cannot understand it at all.
L.

[ 05-03-2001: Message edited by: Loredweller ]