NWN NWN 2 MotB & NWN Swordflight, Decadence and Retardation

[Darth Canoli]

NWN 2 MotB

This time, i didn't try to play NWN 2 original campaign before playing Mask of the Betrayer, Obsidian's supposed masterpiece ...

The beginning
Starting a character at level 18 is always terrible because you didn't get used to the spells, there's a reason most games makes you start at level 1.
Of course, you could play the OC first but the terrible combat and trying to manage your party will worn you out real quick.
So either you use cheat engine and a x2 speedhack and combat is too fast or you don't and everything else is too slow.
Both options sucks.
I'm not a Baldur's Gate fanboy (on the contrary) but BG did it way better.

You start the mod in a cave, the story bits are interesting, you're joined by a mage and her familiar and later a djinn, i believe.

I really don't get how people can stomach the combat, after the 5th earth spirit, i had enough already.

It's a game for storyfags you either play on easy with 50 STR / DEX / CON or you just don't.
And even with godly stats, i don't get why going to the hassle of playing it.

So, after that wonderful experience, i thought i'd play PoR i spotted on Nexus but somehow, i found a link toward Lilura 's blog and what do you know, i read it for the first time.
There i read NWN 2 is shit but NWN 1 is amazing and Swordflight is golden ...

Having played and for some reason even enjoyed (i think) NWN OC back in the days when i wasn't aware good cRPG existed, i took a leap and installed NWN and swordflight.

NWN Swordflight

Quicker this time...
It's not bad at first, well written and all but...
- Retarded side quests you HAVE to solve, four of them, before the story goes on.
- After some tribulations, in a cave, you get X times the same 2 spiders ambushing your bard henchwoman, it gets old really quick
- Swordspiders to take on with a level 3 character ...

The story is interesting but it seems linear (i didn't stick around to check)

TL DR
Terrible encounter design for both.
Nothing can save both RTwP engines, the combat just sucks.
Games for storyfags only.
Uninstalling feels great though, so there's that...

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

I tried playing it. Wanted to skip the horrible combat entirely, set my stats to 50. But everyone had all these protective spells, so every time I'd have to wait them out and spam "heal party" cheat button. Every encounter took 5 minutes. I couldn't stomach it, deleted it after half an hour.

 

[Nano]

I suck at RPGs and even I didn't think MotB was that hard. I think you're just not very good at this game.

 

[Lambach]

I suck at RPGs and even I didn't think MotB was that hard.

It's not. Epic Levels completely break the game. You have to be an absolute lobotomite to find MotB even remotely challenging. There are maybe 2-3 optional encounters that could give you trouble if you tackle them too early or you intentionally gimp your party, but that's it. You get so much overpowered gear that you can throw a few buffs right after you rest and then just left-click to win. Unlike the BG series, spellcasters are woefully inept and dumb in NWN2 (plus, they don't get pre-buffs, Contingencies etc.) and non-spellcasters are largely pushovers.

 

[Roguey]

People who don't understand D&D struggling to play it, terrible thing.

 

[purupuru]

I do agree that motb combat is bad, but only in the sense that it's super easy and hence boring. You soon get to the point where you just cut through everything with your free +8 weapons and high level spells. With so many strong buffs and magic items with blanket immunity you don't even need to care what the enemy is doing.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

MotB wasn't hard. The only minor challenge was if you played as an evil mage with a caster oriented party. The need for rest to replenish spells could get a little dicey with that spirit hunger bar. I remember deliberately leaving some enemies in select areas to devour later.

 

[Volourn]

"Retarded side quests you HAVE to solve"

Whines about 'retards' doesn't even know what a side quest. Clearly they weren't SIDE quests if you HAVE to do them.


IDIOT.

 

[luj1]

Swordflight is a masterpiece, MOTB is skippable

 

[Mastermind]

NWN OC is overbashed, the problem with NWN is how boring the engine and gameplay is + dumbing down to 1 character. The OC is fine for what it is.

 

[rogueknight333]

Wow, a Codex thread dedicated to declaring my work "decadence and retardation." It almost makes me feel like an actual professional Game Dev. I am honored.

 

[Lacrymas]

NWN Swordflight
Quicker this time...
It's not bad at first, well written and all but...
- Retarded side quests you HAVE to solve, four of them, before the story goes on.
- After some tribulations, in a cave, you get X times the same 2 spiders ambushing your bard henchwoman, it gets old really quick
- Swordspiders to take on with a level 3 character ...

The story is interesting but it seems linear (i didn't stick around to check)

If you have to finish them, they aren't side quests, are they? Swordflight doesn't have a problem with repeated encounters, like at all, so no idea where you are getting that from. Unless your metric for too much is more than once? There's a (gameplay) reason those spiders are there, you just had to go on a bit further.

 

[Popiel]

Wow, a Codex thread dedicated to declaring my work "decadence and retardation." It almost makes me feel like an actual professional Game Dev. I am honored.

You're already more accomplished than many professional devs rogueknight333, so, you know, it's a given.

 

[JarlFrank]

Nothing can save both RTwP engines, the combat just sucks.

That's the problem.

I think Swordflight has some absolutely excellent encounters, but single-character RTwP D&D where you don't have direct control over your companions is just boring and frustrating and I get zero enjoyment out of it.

 

[JarlFrank]

NWN OC is overbashed, the problem with NWN is how boring the engine and gameplay is + dumbing down to 1 character. The OC is fine for what it is.

Sadly NWN's engine and gameplay are so horrendously terrible that they make even the best content (like Swordflight) not very enjoyable to play through.

I maintain my position of NWN being the worst RPG ever made in the history of RPGs.

 

[luj1]

My 2 cents...

While I will always prefer TB (cleaner system), RTwP doesn't auto translate to decline, nor does TB auto translate to incline. You have shit TB games and excellent RTwP games

NwN may be fugly as fuck, blocky and look desolate (trademark of the era), but it had a ton of charm for a 3D game

Character building is second to none, superbly ported ruleset. And this is the pink elephant in the room

Aurora is an underrated gem and a terrific toolset, it's powerful and easy and flexible. I think that's obvious by the amount of user-made content over the years (decades)

The music was excellent, the art was excellent

The UI is excellent

The OC is railroady but gets way too much hate. You have plenty of peripeteia, interesting characters, optional content, good writing, changes of scenery. For me SoU > OC > HotU

In my view NwN 1 is underrated, NwN 2 is overrated. It had none of the charm of its sequel. Swordflight and a handful of other modules were probably the best thing that came out of the whole franchise. I, with my 20+ years of CRPG experience, put my signature under rogueknight and Swordflight.

 

[JarlFrank]

I would like NWN1 if it had full party control.

But until modders manage to implement that, it's just a nope from me.

 

[Lacrymas]

Beamdog should've implemented full party control, but that's not what we got, is it. That said, I'm not against NWN's one character control thing, so it's kind of whatever for me even if I would've preferred full party control.

 

[Volourn]

NWN combat is bestest combat. PERIOD.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

what we got

Is precisely bubkes.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Sadly NWN's engine and gameplay are so horrendously terrible that they make even the best content (like Swordflight) not very enjoyable to play through.

I maintain my position of NWN being the worst RPG ever made in the history of RPGs.

To be fair, depending on what we call cRPG, i don't think it's the worst one, i despise RT blobbers far more and i'm not even talking about the bottom of the barrel action walking simulators and the absolute fuck ups like Numenera.

While I will always prefer TB (cleaner system), RTwP doesn't auto translate to decline, nor does TB auto translate to incline. You have shit TB games and excellent RTwP games

NwN may be fugly as fuck, blocky and look desolate (trademark of the era), but it had a ton of charm for a 3D game

Character building is second to none, superbly ported ruleset. And this is the pink elephant in the room

Aurora is an underrated gem and a terrific toolset, it's powerful and easy and flexible. I think that's obvious by the amount of user-made content over the years (decades)

The music was excellent, the art was excellent

The UI is excellent

I agree with most of that, except everything that's decent with a RTwP engine would be great with a ToEE/KotC engine.


Back to Swordflight

I mustered the strength to complete Swordflight part 1.
For some reason, when i took back an early save, i got half the enemies in the spider's cave...
Past the statue's puzzle, some fights are a real pain, better to stock on restoration potions, which are extremely expensive but there's not much to buy anyway.
Using 4 buff potions before every other fight isn't my idea of fun.

Loaded Swordflight 2, feels way better already, seems like it's not linear anymore and optional quests are optional (but i might be wrong).

 

[Lawntoilet]

Swordflight is a masterpiece, MOTB is skippable

Swordflight is a better game if you are not a storyfag (although it's still got pretty good writing), MotB is a must-play for storyfags though.

Loaded Swordflight 2, feels way better already, seems like it's not linear anymore and optional quests are optional (but i might be wrong).

Chapter 1 is an excellent 3.5e dungeon crawl but Chapter 2 is a better CRPG in general.

 

[rogueknight333]

I can see how NWN might be despised by someone for whom turn-based systems and/or full party control is a must-have, but I always found the basic games systems to be quite good compared to other single-character focused RPGs, of which there are many.

Beamdog should've implemented full party control, but that's not what we got, is it. That said, I'm not against NWN's one character control thing, so it's kind of whatever for me even if I would've preferred full party control.

Whether or not someone should have implemented FPC, I certainly don't think Beamdog should have. Such a massive reworking of NWN gameplay would be a very difficult and delicate operation (assuming it is possible at all), and given the bugs they have introduced with far simpler changes I shudder to contemplate what sort of monstrosity Beamdog might have unleashed on the world if they had attempted such a thing.

...Loaded Swordflight 2, feels way better already, seems like it's not linear anymore and optional quests are optional (but i might be wrong).

The consensus of most players of Swordflight does seem to be that Ch. 2 is much the best of the series (Naturally I think they are all great but I am not exactly objective). Keep in mind that I did design the series in the expectation that it would be played by people who were at least somewhat experienced NWN players (whether through other module series or NWN Persistent Worlds) with more knowledge of NWN-specific tactics and builds than a newcomer, or someone who only played the OCs years ago, would have. Someone who lacks such experience is most likely going to struggle often with the combat. Of course it helps to have general knowledge of 3E D&D, but NWN's implentation of those rules does have a few quirks of its own. In any case, I appreciate you making the effort to try out and provide feedback on the series even if it is not really your cup of tea.

 

[Darth Canoli]

The consensus of most players of Swordflight does seem to be that Ch. 2 is much the best of the series (Naturally I think they are all great but I am not exactly objective). Keep in mind that I did design the series in the expectation that it would be played by people who were at least somewhat experienced NWN players (whether through other module series or NWN Persistent Worlds) with more knowledge of NWN-specific tactics and builds than a newcomer, or someone who only played the OCs years ago, would have. Someone who lacks such experience is most likely going to struggle often with the combat. Of course it helps to have general knowledge of 3E D&D, but NWN's implentation of those rules does have a few quirks of its own. In any case, I appreciate you making the effort to try out and provide feedback on the series even if it is not really your cup of tea.

I didn't know the mod designer was reading the Codex.
So, hi, for what it's worth, i played swordflight with a retarded build i thought would be fun without knowing i would be limited to 3 classes, my last and only NWN run took place more than 10 years ago and i don't usually multiclass much.

So, for what it's worth, I get why players like Swordflight 2, it could have been epic with a good encounter design if it was made with ToEE's engine or it it was remade with KotC 2 module editor.
I'm playing the second one with a decent build now (Fighter/Weapon Master for now).

I get NWN system and modules are munchkins paradise so i get the approach as well.

I'm not too far in but it seems really hard to get any henchmen, let alone a permanent one.

It's interesting so far but it's really starting to look like a Russian Fallout mod with a single player and no companions...

I suck at RPGs and even I didn't think MotB was that hard. I think you're just not very good at this game.

The first area just sucks and the fact you start "naked" doesn't help, might be slightly better with an imported character.
It didn't seem hard, just a mix of tedious and boring.

 

[jac8awol]

No. Swordflight is good coz it's hard.