What the heck went wrong with Baldur's Gate 1?

[HuManBing]

This is interesting. I played Baldur's Gate 2 and liked it pretty well. I even finished the game and its add-on, Throne of Bhaal. (Well, not quite finished Throne of Bhaal... I can't beat the last badguy.)

I've also played Planescape Torment and Icewind Dale. I enjoyed all of them.

Then I put in Baldur's Gate 1 and played it.

Or at least, tried to play it.

I can't believe the difficulty curve in this game! I know you start off at level 1, but most of the enemies are incredibly hard compared to your group. The first bottleneck in the game for me was going to the Friendly Arm Inn and getting killed - repeatedly - by Tarnesh the mage. He could cast magic missile with three missiles per spell, which means he must be level 5 at least! Even with a party of 1st level characters that pretty much results in a TPK.

Later levels have a wide variety of monsters that pop up with no regard for your level or your equipment (which is unforgivable in a game released in 1998, fully 12 years after Ultima IV managed to scale the difficulty of its encounters to your party's strength). Want to go to this farm map? Ankhegs and TPK. Maybe this forest map? Mercenaries and TPK. Maybe I'll just go to this town like the game has been telling me to and rest in the inn... no, wait, assassin and TPK again.

I would like to propose a motion. This house believes that Baldur's Gate 1 sucks ass through a straw. This house also believes that BG2, PS:T, and IWD were all excellent games. Hence, this house deduces "WTF".

[Snake]

I guess I'll have to try BG2 and not 1 lol.

Thanks for the info. Been meaning to try out a new gme anyway.

[Drinnik Shoehorn]

This is interesting. I played Baldur's Gate 2 and liked it pretty well. I even finished the game and its add-on, Throne of Bhaal. (Well, not quite finished Throne of Bhaal... I can't beat the last badguy.)

I've also played Planescape Torment and Icewind Dale. I enjoyed all of them.

Then I put in Baldur's Gate 1 and played it.

Or at least, tried to play it.

I can't believe the difficulty curve in this game! I know you start off at level 1, but most of the enemies are incredibly hard compared to your group. The first bottleneck in the game for me was going to the Friendly Arm Inn and getting killed - repeatedly - by Tarnesh the mage. He could cast magic missile with three missiles per spell, which means he must be level 5 at least! Even with a party of 1st level characters that pretty much results in a TPK.

Later levels have a wide variety of monsters that pop up with no regard for your level or your equipment (which is unforgivable in a game released in 1998, fully 12 years after Ultima IV managed to scale the difficulty of its encounters to your party's strength). Want to go to this farm map? Ankhegs and TPK. Maybe this forest map? Mercenaries and TPK. Maybe I'll just go to this town like the game has been telling me to and rest in the inn... no, wait, assassin and TPK again.

I would like to propose a motion. This house believes that Baldur's Gate 1 sucks ass through a straw. This house also believes that BG2, PS:T, and IWD were all excellent games. Hence, this house deduces "WTF".

The secret is to do all the quests in Candlekeep first, then go gibberling hunting, kill the ogre south of the Friendly Arm and then go to the Inn.

[alhoon]

To be sincere I found BG1 easier than BG2. I didn't play Throne of Bhaal as I don't like Epic level gaming. BG1 is realistic BTW.
If you, a weakling go against better and tougher guys, you'll get your butt handed to you in a plate and be forced to eat it.

I had a TPK in BG1 a few times but nothing too frustrating. I had less TPKs in BG2, but BG1 in general was easier for me.


NOTE: In BG1, I chose multiplayer and made 3 chars, instead of 1. Made a great difference.

[Dion of the Fraternity]

If anyone replies "because it's not Gothic enough," I'll have his head.

[Spiteful Crow]

Because it's not Gothic enough.

[Coan]

I finished BG1 with a mage.



I had Leshrac's Minor Drain as my 1 spell. I remember hunting gibberlings for a long time before progressing. BG1 is a great game but when you get to the final boss here's a hint: Monster Summoning Wands and plenty of them.

[Snake]

Because it's not Gothic enough.

Oh Snap.

[HuManBing]

A note on game design.

A lot of XP-based games have a flaw, and it's particularly notable in computer RPGs because there is no live DM to work these out. The flaw is: XP hunting.

This is especially bad in Final Fantasy and the Pokemon series, where encounters happen automatically or unavoidably and basically function like Browser Pop Ups. All due respect to Japanese RPGs, but their entire culture of number crunching trawling-for-encounters-to-raise-XP frankly goes against everything I've been acclimatized to do in western RPGs.

From this background, it may not surprise you that I categorically refuse to trawl for XP. Any game that requires you to do so through its difficulty design is, in my opinion, already mildly flawed. Any game that requires you to do so through a pop-up style unavoidable encounters system is, in my opinion, heavily flawed and it's time to put the game down altogether.

(And yes, I did finish Pokemon Yellow on the Game Boy. This was less an issue of enjoying the game so much as having an upset girlfriend who couldn't finish it herself.)

While I admit that XP trawling is a workable solution in BG1 and BG2, I don't accept that it replaces good design. To beat Tarnesh, I was essentially screwed. I was playing as a Cleric with 8 hp, meaning a single CL5 magic missile from him would kill me. And the nearest good-aligned NPCs were in the tavern behind him. It sure would have been nice to get those before meeting this unavoidable encounter.

Either way, I made it past Tarnesh but encountered many more unusually-high CL monsters in the area. The farm area to the north features Ankhegs, without warning or any sort of story background, and a TPK even with five characters at long range (acid spittle) is common. The forest areas alternate between having kobolds and gibberlings (which aren't a problem) and having heavily armored Elite Talon Guards armed with Arrows of Frost in groups who move as fast as you do (which are a problem).

I made it as far as the Nashkell mines before giving up. The mines themselves were interesting - they sent kobolds against us, which we beat easily at range, but I was getting into the plot and story. Then I tried resting in the mines, and each rest attempt was unusually lethal, even for this game. (And this is already comparing it to resting or just travelling between overland areas, where you can face a random swarm of gibberlings and half-ogres with no regard for your party's level or strength.)

After my party was killed off in the mines, I uninstalled the game. Maybe if I were younger, didn't have a day job, and wasn't currently in law school, I'd have more patience. As it is, this game isn't fun - just frustrating.

In retrospect, this may have been tainted by my experience playing the later games first. In BG2, your characters were higher level and they had a much greater margin of flexibility before they were really in danger of dying. The encounters in BG2 that routinely killed me off were quite rare and they were challenging enough so that I really viewed them as an exercise in strategy and group tactics. (Kangaxx is one example, the Rogue Stone lich is another.) Even if I died many times fighting them, I was fascinated by their power and kept thinking up ways to bypass it.

But there's something just plain irritating about exploring an area and taking damage in a random encounter, and then being unable to either Rest and heal OR to withdraw and go back to town, without some element of completely random monster encounters to screw up your party yet further.

A real live DM wouldn't get away with this sort of cackhanded manipulation of his players. Sure, punish a gaming group for being overconfident or foolhardy or willfully refusing to follow plotline clues... but don't punish them with an EL 5 encounter for a group of five 2nd-level characters just because some internal dice roll tells you so.

I'm spoiled by good live DMs and face to face gaming. This game lacks any sense of scaling or flexibility. Upon playing it, I'm amazed there was ever a Baldur's Gate 2 made.

[Drinnik Shoehorn]

You can't treat games like Baldur's Gate like a table-top game, in my opinion. You have to grind and get the XP anyway you can. It's all part and parcel of playing on a PC.

You can't think in character like "Montaron and Xarr are evil, therefore my good PC wouldn't travel with them." You have to think, "Monty and Xarr will help me kill the guy and get his stuff," and let them travel with you. Dump them when you get Khalid and Jaheriah.

Also, for fun and games, get Minsc, rescue Dynaheir THEN get Edwin in your party. Hilarity will ensue. Though if you want to keep Edwin and Minsc, get Dynaheir killed.

After all, Edwin is the best mage and Minsc the best warrior in the game.

[HuManBing]

You can't treat games like Baldur's Gate like a table-top game, in my opinion. You have to grind and get the XP anyway you can. It's all part and parcel of playing on a PC.

You can't think in character like "Montaron and Xarr are evil, therefore my good PC wouldn't travel with them." You have to think, "Monty and Xarr will help me kill the guy and get his stuff," and let them travel with you. Dump them when you get Khalid and Jaheriah.

You are absolutely right. This sort of roll-play vs. role-play problem will crop up (by necessity) much more in computer games than in tabletop RPGs, simply because computers aren't as smart as human DMs.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed BG2 and Icewind Dale and Planescape Torment. I'm just very, very surprised to find out how abjectly unenjoyable BG1 was.

[Drinnik Shoehorn]

You can't treat games like Baldur's Gate like a table-top game, in my opinion. You have to grind and get the XP anyway you can. It's all part and parcel of playing on a PC.

You can't think in character like "Montaron and Xarr are evil, therefore my good PC wouldn't travel with them." You have to think, "Monty and Xarr will help me kill the guy and get his stuff," and let them travel with you. Dump them when you get Khalid and Jaheriah.

You are absolutely right. This sort of roll-play vs. role-play problem will crop up (by necessity) much more in computer games than in tabletop RPGs, simply because computers aren't as smart as human DMs.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed BG2 and Icewind Dale and Planescape Torment. I'm just very, very surprised to find out how abjectly unenjoyable BG1 was.

I think it had a steep difficulty curve. Areas like Cloakwood and the Bandit Camp are difficult enough.

And the mines at Nashkal? Don't take a level one party down their, get to level 2 or 3 first.

[Snake]

Alright I'm a little confused with this game. Should I try to play the PC games or the PS2 version? And what are the differences between those versions?

[HuManBing]

The "Dark Alliance" games on video game consoles is quite different from the PC games. I would suggest playing both.

You probably should play BG1 first before you play any of the sequels. In my experience, the flexibility of the sequels spoiled the rigidness of the prequel for me, to the point I couldn't play it past the first few levels.

[Snake]

Ah ok, so the PC has one and two followed by the PS2 one which is like the third more or less?