Impressions

[Type6]

I played for a couple of hours tonight. I thought I'd post a bit about my impressions of the game. Let me start first by saying that I know it's a one man project and I really respect what you did and how true you were to the 3.5 system. I can also imagine how difficult and time consuming it is to work on a game like that. It's a very fun very enjoyable game. But there are a few things that really bother me


Enemy AI. This is the one thing that bothers me the most. All the enemies react the same. step I: attack wizard, step II: attack wizard, step III: attack wizard... I understand intelligent creatures make better decisions and priorities and they should. But things like centipedes should be driven by instinct and possibly attack the nearest enemy or the one it perceives as the biggest threat.
Sometimes enemies will go to great lengths to get at the wizard like provoking several AOOs and dieing in the process. There should be several AI profiles and the enemies should act according to them. A beast fights differently then an orc then a dragon. I don't know how things look on the programing side of things, but simply changing the priorities of various enemies would make a huge difference.

Inability to rest for really long periods of time at certain points. The game gets really harsh on player resources. The way I see it there's only a few ways a player can get around it. Either make much stronger characters (several 18s) which I didn't want to do, I prefer random rolls. Know in advance what you are about to face, meaning you had to have finished the game or read a walkthrough. Or Save/Load the game after every single combat if and only if the combat went perfectly and drained little or no resources. It seems you didn't want to make the game to easy, but all it really does is force the player to revert to an older savegame and play the area all over again. I did read on the forums that crafting is a must and people rely a lot on craftable items in low resource situations, but personally I don't think a player should have to depend on that to progress through the game. It should add to it, but not make it a requirement.

Party blocking each other. The PCs should be able to move through each other in combat. It feels really limiting especially in tight spaces it's also related to the random nature of PC positions at the beginning of combat. You never seem to know exactly who will be where when combat starts except perhaps the leader. It's a huge disadvantage in combat.

Buffs. Not being able to buff outside of combat. I don't know why this is so. I think this is pretty standard procedure in the pencil and paper version for a lot of parties. I do miss it in the game.

Visible NPC stats. This is a pretty big one in my opinion. Being able to see the complete stats for every NPC you encounter including current HP and even their inventory really detracts from combat. There's no surprise when you know exactly what you're facing. I guess a solution would be to "simply not look at them", but I really can't help it if it's right there, staring me in the face.

I know it looks like I'm really ripping on the game, but honestly the only reason I'm doing it is because I've grown to like it. In fact I've never done this before. If certain aspects of a game bother me enough to not want to play it I uninstall it and never look back.

The fact that I keep playing it despite my complaining speaks for it's self.

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Enemy AI. This is the one thing that bothers me the most. All the enemies react the same. step I: attack wizard, step II: attack wizard, step III: attack wizard... I understand intelligent creatures make better decisions and priorities and they should. But things like centipedes should be driven by instinct and possibly attack the nearest enemy or the one it perceives as the biggest threat.
Sometimes enemies will go to great lengths to get at the wizard like provoking several AOOs and dieing in the process. There should be several AI profiles and the enemies should act according to them. A beast fights differently then an orc then a dragon. I don't know how things look on the programing side of things, but simply changing the priorities of various enemies would make a huge difference.

True. Will probably be different in the next game. For the time being you could:
- take several wizards into your party, the enemy can't focus then
- roll up your wizard with 18 DEX, craft dex gloves, mithral leather armor and cloak of displacement for your wizard asap, it gets much better then

Inability to rest for really long periods of time at certain points. The game gets really harsh on player resources. The way I see it there's only a few ways a player can get around it. Either make much stronger characters (several 18s) which I didn't want to do, I prefer random rolls. Know in advance what you are about to face, meaning you had to have finished the game or read a walkthrough. Or Save/Load the game after every single combat if and only if the combat went perfectly and drained little or no resources. It seems you didn't want to make the game to easy, but all it really does is force the player to revert to an older savegame and play the area all over again. I did read on the forums that crafting is a must and people rely a lot on craftable items in low resource situations, but personally I don't think a player should have to depend on that to progress through the game. It should add to it, but not make it a requirement.

1) there's actually only one area where you can't rest for a long period of time, the Orc Fortress, ok maybe the Mountain Pass too.
2) It kinda adds to the challenge and is definitely better than to be able to rest anywhere, massively nuke the enemy, rest up, massively nuke the next enemy, rest up etc.
3) Wizards have scribe scroll so you can't possibly run out of spells, unless you have no XP/gold to spare which isn't very likely, take Scribe Scroll for the cleric too to be able to heal up with scrolls if absolutely necessary
4) crafting isn't a requirement, but it does help a lot

Party blocking each other. The PCs should be able to move through each other in combat. It feels really limiting especially in tight spaces it's also related to the random nature of PC positions at the beginning of combat. You never seem to know exactly who will be where when combat starts except perhaps the leader. It's a huge disadvantage in combat.

True, has been mentioned several times already. Wouldn't be surprised if KotC2 will do it that way.

Buffs. Not being able to buff outside of combat. I don't know why this is so. I think this is pretty standard procedure in the pencil and paper version for a lot of parties. I do miss it in the game.

Reasons:
1) casting ten buffs on all party members after each rest is tedious
2) combat should happen on equal terms, so either your party is buffed and the enemy too, or no one is buffed, how much challenge would it be if your party starts every combat with saving throw/AC buffs up, stoneskinned, improved invisible, protection from all elements, death ward etc?

Visible NPC stats. This is a pretty big one in my opinion. Being able to see the complete stats for every NPC you encounter including current HP and even their inventory really detracts from combat. There's no surprise when you know exactly what you're facing. I guess a solution would be to "simply not look at them", but I really can't help it if it's right there, staring me in the face.

Is not very realistic but fits in well with the tactical nature of the game. All info is there for you to determine the best course of action.

[BlueSalamander]

Thank you for your post, Type6. I can't add much to what VoD has said already. Agreed that PCs should be able to move through each other in combat (at half speed, according to the rules) and that their starting position should not be random. Agreed that low-intelligence monsters should attack nearest, or whoever struck them last. A special setting for normal-intelligence monsters to concentrate on non-spellcasters or divine casters would be nice too.
In KotC, the AI also looks at who's got the lowest Hit Points and Armor Class, aside from who's a wizard. But then again, most of the time the PC with the lowest HP is the wizard. Still, sometimes you will see a monster switch targets if a PC other than the wizard becomes low on HP. It does look at the number of attacks of opportunity that are going to be triggered but usually accepts triggering a single one.