NWN2 Minor Nitpick with Encounter Setup

On my occasional blog, I posted a note of mild irritation about the way in which some of the encounters are set up. Since my blog was the way you kind folks lured me here in the first place, I thought some of you might be interested.

http://pats-quinade.livejournal.com/27766.html

Good stuff Patrick, I agree with you. However, there are several other AI issues etc which I consider far worse. Wait till you set up for a strategic combat, only to have a cut scene destroy it!! Then it spawns a horde right on top of you!! If that's professional, give me the amatures everyday!!

Hah. I've had that happen a few times, too. Heck, one of my biggest complaints about KotOR, in fact, was being a Scoundrel/Consular and getting ready to sneak up to the Mandalorian Captain on Dantooine. I was absolutely sure I couldn't take him in a fair fight, so I was sneaking up for the mother of all sneak attacks. My party was back a ways away, well out of reach.

And of course, as I got close... cutscene. I drop out of stealth and walk in for a meaningless conversation ("So you're the Jedi who's caused so much trouble. This should teach you a lesson!"), and then I get my butt handed to me because, well, no sneak attack, and my followers are half a mile away.

I will do everything in my power to make that NOT happen in one of my levels. MAN, that ticked me off. I almost prefer the simplicity of Jade, where you don't HAVE stealth, so at least you don't try to set that stuff up.

# # #

I don't think that the encounter triggers are the worst issues in NWN2 -- I think that the UI and AI issues trump those -- but AI and UI issues are programmer things a lot of the time, things that the designers don't have a whole lot of say about, or they HAVE that say, and that say gets ignored. Encounter triggers, though? That's easy. >I< can do encounter triggers. If I can look at something and say, "I personally could have executed that more effectively," about a particular design issue, that's pretty bad. Unless it involves the proper use of adverbs, I shouldn't be able to say that very often.

How about the 'writer' problem in the game then, when they can't remember the name of the first noble killed in NWN. You know, the cut scene one. Somewhere I think they decided to change the name of the char, but forgot to change the name in all the dialogue. While I can't remember his exact name, some chars refer to him as Lord Green and others as Lord Smith. (or similar). That's sloppy work!!

Hehe, I play the same way as you play Patrick, and I have had to deal with ninja-orcs, ninja-ogres and even ninja-zombies

While I understand the cutscene thing (1-hit kill sneak attacking a baddy who desperately wants to give you some plot-information can mess up a game) the spawn point thing is annoying, and what I hate the most is that I work hard to keep my squishies in the back and my tanks in the front, only to get attacked leaving what was an empty room when I entered

Sorcha Ravenlock said:

...and what I hate the most is that I work hard to keep my squishies in the back and my tanks in the front, only to get attacked leaving what was an empty room when I entered

Click to expand...

Happened to me yesterday. I almost jumped out of my shoes when that monster that shouldn't be there attacked my nearly dead sorcerer...

I just finished hacking through the dungeon of ninja orcs. These orcs are so sneaky that sometimes I kill a roomful of them, then walk to the door on the other side of the room, then open that door, and wham! All the orcs in the room spawn again, because some genius designer decided to put two separate triggers around that room instead of just one, and didn't bother to do the "Hey, make sure that Room 4A only spawns once!"

Click to expand...

Hehe ... that is so true.

When I see a fork in the path I check left and right a bit to see where they are going, and ultimately try to explore *every* inch of things. The amount of 'ghost spawning' (to use a FPS term) in NWN2 was surprising, and now upon reading your comments it makes more sense due to my play style.

Yep, I play the same way as well!!