Harebrained Schemes - New Kickstarter Game

What does the word "harebrained" mean ?
Invented by a hare ?

They've definitely been a fine example in Kickstarting Done Right, so they are certainly well entitled to take another crack at it---especially now given the tremendously better spot/momentum they've got going off the heels of the Director's Cut.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

What does the word "harebrained" mean ?
Invented by a hare ?

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It's an old-fashioned expression, meaning with the brain of a hare (rabbit), dumb and flighty. At least they got it right, and didn't call themselves "hairbrained".

Archangel said:

I don't really care. The turn based combat is not the best part of Dragonfall anyways.

They could as easily make it a RTwP game but with lots of active abilities and spells from the turn based version. Most of the abilities already work on cooldowns, and that can easily be used for RTwP.

And maybe that engine could be made to run a turn based combat system as well.

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RtwP and a party means awful, awful combat. RTwP has ruined so many games that could have been good or playable otherwise.

The only game I have played that has an active and involved RTwP system and a party is Arklash Legacy (sp?). That game's combat was extremely well done for a RTwP. You didn't even have to fight party member's AIs.

But that game is definitely the exception to the rule in an otherwise perfect example of God-awful combat from every other rtwp and party game I have ever played.

And what is so great on Arklash Legacy RTwP and so wrong on other RTwP combats (Baldurs Gate series?)? Im curious…

All the IE games had click and forget combat. It wasn't active combat. No input was required by the user except in rare encounters like the dragon in BG2 (or a troll needing fire or whatever). I don't want to watch combat, I want to participate in it.

The combat of the IE games was so God-awful I was never even able to complete the ones I liked, such as PS:T. The combat was just that bad. Kotor, NWN, same deal, but at least they tried to add in a button or two you could click during combat, but the combat was so easy and repetitive anyone that built a semi-competent party was at the click and forget stage. When combat is that bad there is no reason to waste time pretending user input matters when you can just click and forget and go take a piss or look at a website or think about boobs for a minute or so until the horribleness was over.

Arklash legacy requires constant user input. Click and forget means you are dead. And since the combat and abilities were well thought out and implemented combat was fun instead of a chore you had to get through to enjoy the good parts af the game. The combat is a good part of the game.

If people actually enjoy the IE game's combat, I really have no reply. If someone enjoys eating shit for some odd reason, trying to reason with them isn't going to do anything. Bad is bad is bad, and shit is shit. Its obvious to anyone who is looking, and doesn't mean the game itself is bad. I really enjoyed the non-combat parts of PST. I loved darklands dispite it's combat. I really enjoyed Drakensang 2 dispite it's combat, etc. I also enjoyed Lionheart a good amount.

I am sorry, but millions of people that played and enjoyed IE games don't agree with you.
Not only was BG2 combat enjoyable but it is still superior to anything done before and after it.

Archangel said:

I am sorry, but millions of people that played and enjoyed IE games don't agree with you.
Not only was BG2 combat enjoyable but it is still superior to anything done before and after it.

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Sure, can you tell me how so? It's tactical depth and overabundance of strategic decision making such as click on an enemy and watch your party kill them all? Maybe I'm missing something but the endless hordes of enemies plus click and forget don't make good.

I agree with millions playing and loving BG2, but I find it hard to believe the combat was the big hook, and not everything else the game had to offer.

I definitely could be wrong. Have you ever heard of tyranny of the masses or tyranny of the center? Teenage girls (with awful taste in music) have had a stranglehold on various markets for decades, such as music, etc. We knows for certain they have shit taste and there are millions of them that enjoy complete and utter garbage nonsense like Harry potter, Twilight, Hunger Games, etc. And because these are big ticket items it bleeds out to the rest of society like Brittany Spears, etc, and people who would not usually be interested in little girl shit become fans of it. Tyranny of the masses.

For me, on the opposite end of the spectrum, is my taste in movies. My wife loves complete shit like the movies Les Mesribales (sp?) and Phantom of the Opera. That shit is unwatchable, and most sane people will never see them because they are so God-awful. Critics love em though. Critics hated 300. My wife hated Guardians of the Galaxy, and I absolutely loved it. I enjoy most of the big block busters. I have superb taste when it comes to crpgs and crpg combat, chardev, and chargen. According to people with "suberb" tastes in movies I have shit taste. You are as to me when it comes to movies to crpgs. We all can't have superb taste in everything.

That Arkash Legacy, only tactics there are movement tactics. You need to move your character out of the way of enemy area attacks. The rest is plain MMO ability use which comes down to rotating cooldowns. That is not very tactical.

BG1 has so many different enemies that have totally different abilities and take a different approach to do in as little load games as possible (your goal should be to load as little as possible).

BG1 takes less tactics than BG2, but only if you savescum a lot. With enough savescumming you can do any encounter by waiting for RNG gods to smile your way.
Or you can use 100s of options BG1 offers: Spells of all kinds, kiting, potions, wands, even some more abusive tactics like exiting and entering buildings to fuck up enemy casters.

BG2 is even crazier in this approach. Most encounters have enemies immune to couple of stuff you can throw at them. You need to figure that out and adapt. Mid battle enemy mages will be casting defensive spells that again make certain attacks useless and again you need to adapt. That is tactics, not only if you need to manually move your guys out of the way of enemy AoE (which btw you can do in BG games: you send one guy ahead to scout, when he uncovers a group of enemies, you see how many are melee and those will charge towards you guy, you take another guy at the back, cast fireball on area of your scouting guy and move that scouting guy back so he manages to exit blast radius and only enemy melee get blown up; you can do this with even more effect if you have a Thief in group with good Stealth skill or use Invisibility spell/potions).

Only reason why you think BG games have bad tactics is because you don't understand it and don't care to. You rather play games with easy to understand tactics and call that "better".

Your superb taste part and shitting on harry potter fans is hilarious as you are exactly that person. You are promoting stupid, lack of though modern rpgs made for mass audience (the same that likes shit like harry potter or twilight or even 300 (it was a fun movie but overall not much better than harry potter, just for different audience).

Or, in BG 1 and 2 you could click on one enemy in a group and wait patiently until combat was over. Adding pretend and unnecessary tactics and strategy into a game that did not require them does not make it strategic or tactical.

Arklash Legacy requires you to line up many abilities (aoe and healing abilities), etc. The whole combat you are involved. It isn't click and forget, which both BGs are. Your saying the metagame isn't to save and reload. That is ridiculous. I know 300 and Gardians of the Galaxy is drivel, but it is my kind of drivel. I know Harry Potter is awful, because one of my kids loves that shit and I have to watch those fucking movies all the time. She made me read one of those books and it was torture.

I want to gouge out my eyes and deep fry them and eat them when I watch those pieces of shit movies.

Bubbles said:

Or, in BG 1 and 2 you could click on one enemy in a group and wait patiently until combat was over. Adding pretend and unnecessary tactics and strategy into a game that did not require them does not make it strategic or tactical.

Arklash Legacy requires you to line up many abilities (aoe and healing abilities), etc. The whole combat you are involved. It isn't click and forget, which both BGs are. Your saying the metagame isn't to save and reload. That is ridiculous. I know 300 and Gardians of the Galaxy is drivel, but it is my kind of drivel. I know Harry Potter is awful, because one of my kids loves that shit and I have to watch those fucking movies all the time. She made me read one of those books and it was torture.

I want to gouge out my eyes and deep fry them and eat them when I watch those pieces of shit movies.

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How much did you play Bg1 and on what difficulty?
How often did you die with your click and forget tactics? I bet you never managed to kill a single Basilisk using that tactic. Even with save scumming.

Also, there is no way you finished Bg2 using only click and forget.

Lining up skill shots with abilities in a SP games is no better than click and forget as it involves no real decision making. It is just a more complicated click and forget.

Starcraft 2 has much more such tactics if you think they are superior, why are you even wasting time with Arkash Legacy?!

When in BG1 enemy Mage casts Mirror Image you can:
1. Cast Magic Missile at him
2. Attack with everyone using physical attacks and hope for the best
3. Cast Dispel Magic
4. Cast AoE spell near the mage that will ignore the mirror image and deal damage directly
5. Run away with everyone and come back once spell wears off.
6. Cast Invisibility on group and do whatever
7. Use Illusion dispelling spells or abilities.

That is one example, BG games have 100 such. And that is only vs spells. Now all kinds of creatures have all kinds of abilities and each ask your to make tactical decisions on how to fight them (and often strategic ones). BG games are still most complex cRPG out there.

Archangel said:

How much did you play Bg1 and on what difficulty?
How often did you die with your click and forget tactics? I bet you never managed to kill a single Basilisk using that tactic. Even with save scumming.

Also, there is no way you finished Bg2 using only click and forget.

Lining up skill shots with abilities in a SP games is no better than click and forget as it involves no real decision making. It is just a more complicated click and forget.

Starcraft 2 has much more such tactics if you think they are superior, why are you even wasting time with Arkash Legacy?!

When in BG1 enemy Mage casts Mirror Image you can:
1. Cast Magic Missile at him
2. Attack with everyone using physical attacks and hope for the best
3. Cast Dispel Magic
4. Cast AoE spell near the mage that will ignore the mirror image and deal damage directly
5. Run away with everyone and come back once spell wears off.
6. Cast Invisibility on group and do whatever
7. Use Illusion dispelling spells or abilities.

That is one example, BG games have 100 such. And that is only vs spells. Now all kinds of creatures have all kinds of abilities and each ask your to make tactical decisions on how to fight them (and often strategic ones). BG games are still most complex cRPG out there.

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2. Attack with everyone using physical attacks and hope for the best

Yes, this makes up 90% of the combat.

Most complex other than combat maybe. Why would I play a game that has God-awful combat on a higher difficulty unless I am a masochist? If you don't like shit that is mainly awful filler content playing it on harder difficulty just compounds the issue.

I know for a fact in BG1 (and the rest of the IE games, and Kotor, and NWN, and DA) you can click and forget because that is how I played the games barring some boss or unique encounters. Combat is not active. You can make it active but your result is the same as click and forgetting, unlike in Arklash Legacy, which requires you to participate.

You are saying a game (or games) that certainly can be played on click and forget mode on normal difficulty are strategic and tactical if you don't save. It is a ridiculous argument.

You can keep on thinking so, as I don't give a fuck. You can think two plus two equals 55 if you want. I don't give a fuck about that either. I've played a million games with stragetic and tactical combat, and I know that the vast majority of the combat in the IE games can be click and forget. Saving has nothing to do with it. It is about game mechanics and what you can do with no user input that makes the game have active or inactive combat.

Its not like the games didn't sell well dispite having God-awful combat, or set a precedent for all games being released after it having God-awful combat. A lot of games with active combat have God-awful combat as well, like most Jrpgs, DA:I, etc. I don't think many people play DA:I because the combat is mind-blowing and pure awesome.

So you have fun making things up and I'll move on as well. We'll agree to disagree.

Bubbles said:

Or, in BG 1 and 2 you could click on one enemy in a group and wait patiently until combat was over.

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What are you talking about? Its pure nonsense. It sounds to me like you play only first map in BG1 (when your hero is alone) and probably on low difficulty. So you know nothing about combat system. What you wrote is sure death in many fights.

Did you ever tried to… ?
- change targets and weapons when needed in the course of the fight
- use some tactics (bows, spells…) against enemy mages
- use quick slot item
- use spells
- use AoE spell on right spot
- combine immunities with AoE spells
- position your heroes to avoid AoE effects
…
These are just my random memories of gameplay. Archangel already make some good examples too.

Its pretty clear from your comments that you dont know combat from BG saga at all. To say that in this this combat didnt require tactics is laughable. Problem is in your prejudices and lack of experience.

Bubbles said:

You can think two plus two equals 55 if you want. I don't give a fuck about that either. I've played a million games with stragetic and tactical combat, and I know that the vast majority of the combat in the IE games can be click and forget.

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Ah, so you have your prejudices about majority of IE games. I wonder if you actually played BG at all or you just apply your way of "thinking" on this IE saga too.
But the answer probably wont change much because as I see it… your little experience with combat you already dislike is not much different to your possible complete lack of experience.

Well, you certainly set me straight, cowboy! I guess being able to click on a potion is high strategy! Weeeee.

Being able to micromanage a game with click and forget combat when I get the same result from clicking on one bad guy and waiting and watching while my party fights them with the same exact result equals high strategy. 90% of the fights can be click and forget. Same is in NWN and Kotor. Saying otherwise is incorrect as I did just that in all of them.

Ah, so you have your prejudices about majority of IE games. I wonder if you actually played BG at all or you just apply your way of "thinking" on this IE saga too.
But the answer probably wont change much because as I see it… your little experience with combat you already dislike is not much different to your possible complete lack of experience.

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I own and played all EI games when they came out and I have bought them again on GOG. I even bought BG1:EE. Sucky combat is sucky combat. I am not pre-judging them as I played them all to at least 50% to about 75% completion (though I never finished any). I don't finish most games that have the endless hordes of easy enemy model, unless the combat is fun and engaging, which is never the case in RTw/P.

I own all the UFO games with rtw/p and enjoyed them to a point (when the crap combat became tedious). I own both drakensags, etc.

I only play rpgs or games with heavy rpg elements (I can't play more than an hour of games like Bioshock or Dishonored). I know good combat, and I know crap combat, and the IE games have super craptastic combat. Pure garbage, made for monkeys and not people that want to participate in strategic or tactical combat. Click and forget crap. Utter and complete shit. The rest of the game besides combat and chardev are great, but it is hard to find games with worse combat than the IE games. Lots of games have worse chardev though, but not by much.

I assume they won't have to spend funds on developing an engine this time so hopefully they'll continue to flesh out the mechanics. I enjoyed the game enough to pledge again.

Bubbles said:

2. Attack with everyone using physical attacks and hope for the best

Yes, this makes up 90% of the combat.

Most complex other than combat maybe. Why would I play a game that has God-awful combat on a higher difficulty unless I am a masochist? If you don't like shit that is mainly awful filler content playing it on harder difficulty just compounds the issue.

I know for a fact in BG1 (and the rest of the IE games, and Kotor, and NWN, and DA) you can click and forget because that is how I played the games barring some boss or unique encounters. Combat is not active. You can make it active but your result is the same as click and forgetting, unlike in Arklash Legacy, which requires you to participate.

You are saying a game (or games) that certainly can be played on click and forget mode on normal difficulty are strategic and tactical if you don't save. It is a ridiculous argument.

You can keep on thinking so, as I don't give a fuck. You can think two plus two equals 55 if you want. I don't give a fuck about that either. I've played a million games with stragetic and tactical combat, and I know that the vast majority of the combat in the IE games can be click and forget. Saving has nothing to do with it. It is about game mechanics and what you can do with no user input that makes the game have active or inactive combat.

Its not like the games didn't sell well dispite having God-awful combat, or set a precedent for all games being released after it having God-awful combat. A lot of games with active combat have God-awful combat as well, like most Jrpgs, DA:I, etc. I don't think many people play DA:I because the combat is mind-blowing and pure awesome.

So you have fun making things up and I'll move on as well. We'll agree to disagree.

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No, we can only agree that you don't have a clue what you are talking about and are just shitposting now. You are not worth my time anymore. Have a nice life.

If you say so, cowboy.