Bought it today… and I’m not really liking it. I’ve gotten as far as killing the orcs in chapter 1 (where the druids are) and so far not liking it much. I’ve liked the other games like this except Baldur’s gate 1, but I’m not sure if it’s me not quite getting the third edition rules or just getting a bit sick of the whole combat thing.
Does it get better or is it prettier more of the same?
I don’t really want to return it since I’ve already returned Morrowind this month, but if it doesn’t get better after a marathon session tonight I’m gonna swap it for Mafia.
I think it gets uch better when your spellcaster’s start getting some better mojo and the fighter types get enough hit pints to take a few swings. About level 5, the game really kicked into overtime for me.
Of course, there is the infamous Fellwood stage and the Dragon’s eye section. Both were truly terrible. The combat is good for both, but the designers effectively left no useful clue as to how to proceed. By the time you get there you’ll need a walkthrough, I suspect.
For a small spoiler:
Use Wilderness Lore to get through the Fellwood. Dragon’s Eye just sucks, see s a more conprehensive work, and don’t buy the strategy guide. They always suck.
Howcome? I haven’t even looked at a strategy guide since I discovered the wonder of the internet.
I wound up returning IWD2. I dunno, I just couldn’t get my head around 3E rules. It’s all good though, Mafia is mucho fun. If I never see polygonal sex again though I will die happy. You’ll understand if you ever play it :).
The original Icewind Dale was supposed to be more of a standard dungeon crawl, with most of the emphasis on the combat. I had a little bit of tough time with it. I played it twice - the first time the final battle took quite some time.
(Sidetrack gripe: I’m really sick of RPGs that are just gearing up for a big final battle. There ARE other ways to end a game, most of which are far more satisfying than just becoming strong enough to hit the bad guy with a big enough stick.)
The second time I was playing “Heart of Winter” and found its battle to be incredibly difficult.
Now I’m playing IWD2 and I’m liking it okay, but again the emphasis is on combat - and lots of it.
Unfortunately, the designers have fallen into teh trap of, “If fighting ONE troll is fun, then obviously fighting a dozen is TWELVE TIMES AS FUN!” There’s a lot of battles (I just got out of the Fellwood stage) that are based on quantity more than anything else. And there’s a lot of “Here’s a zillion spiders to fight. And now that you’re done - SURPRISE! - here’s a zillion more!”
Still, I’m enjoying it enough. I thought about changing the difficulty on the combat and making it easier, not because it’s too hard, but just because honestly, combat isn’t the main thing I’m into. But I haven’t done that yet.
If it’s D&D and not Neverwinter Nights, I don’t think I’m gonna like it.
(Honestly, I have Baldur’s Gate (never got far) and Icewind Dale (got even less far) and Baldur’s Gate II (barely started) and I don’t think I can go back to that engine and that game style. I’ve been spoiled.
I liked NWN okay, but really got annoyed with the awful awful NPC implimentation. I could have sworn this game came out less than ten years ago. The idea that I can’t control my NPCs at all except to give them vague orders they ignore, can’t outfit them, can’t have them carry anything, etc, is so bizarre to me. Why even bother? I stuck with a barbarian the whole time and just let him fight. Eventually he wasn’t much good to me, so I just never brought him back.
I also wasn’t overly crazy about the little wheel interface, but I got used to it after a while.
One more thing about IWD2 - honestly, the thing in the game that’s giving me the most fits and frustrating me is the path-searching. Trying to get your party through a door is a nightmare. It hasn’t been this bad since the original Baldur’s Gate. I tried increasing the number of nodes or whatever in the options but nothing has changed - they still take the most circuitous route they can find to go from point A to point B. Last night in a crucial battle I had no magic support because My druid and wizard decided to go sightseeing instead of moving up five feet to cast spells.