NWN2: Thoughts?

[schild]

http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=7592798&publicUserId=5380367

People write reviews for people that are already interested in the game? Are you fucking kidding?

What is this? Amateur hour? You write reviews to inform the uninformed. God. Damnit.

Agreed, it's the fucking gong show over there at least on this topic. Quit now. Pretend NWN2 never launched and move on.

Seriously, between them and Joystiq, gaming journalism has become a 3 ring fucking circus.

[squirrel]

(think proc-based rogue assassin in SB if you played that)

I played a proc/mage assassin (when procs were based on INT). Best rpg class ever. 

Sounds interesting though.

Yeah, i had several MA's but they were bolt based, did a dex/int rogue proc assassin that became my fav char ever heh - crazy fun class.

The NWN lock is not quite as fun but if you get 2 decent proc based weapons (flaming mace from the swamp cave is easy at lvl 4 and another) and use Hideous Blow which adds an eldritch blast proc to your next melee attack it can be fun. Still a hassle as you have to essentially attack twice in some cases but I'm finding it reduces the more BS D&D stuff (resting, saving rolls - enemy's can't save against warlock eldritch 'touch' attacks) to a manageable level and allows a more streamlined game.

[stray]

Yeah, i had several MA's but they were bolt based, did a dex/int rogue proc assassin that became my fav char ever heh - crazy fun class.

My MA was bolt based too. I just equipped him with proc daggers. All I had to do was be in was melee attack mode when I opened up a fight, and the procs would still hit from range.

The best lowest level daggers with procs only required like 40% in dagger training...Which high intel assassins had close to anyways. The actual damage of the proc was based off of INT. At high levels on a mage, they hit as hard as your frost bolts. So in essense, it was like having extra frost bolt attacks in between your actual frost bolt attacks. It was even more crazy if you were lucky enough to get vampiric daggers (health drain -> transfer).

Natually, it was nurfed.

[squirrel]

Yeah, i had several MA's but they were bolt based, did a dex/int rogue proc assassin that became my fav char ever heh - crazy fun class.

My MA was bolt based too. I just equipped him with proc daggers. All I had to do was be in was melee attack mode when I opened up a fight, and the procs would still hit from range.

The best lowest level daggers with procs only required like 40% in dagger training...Which high intel assassins had close to anyways. The actual damage of the proc was based off of INT. At high levels on a mage, they hit as hard as your frost bolts. So in essense, it was like having extra frost bolt attacks in between your actual frost bolt attacks. It was even more crazy if you were lucky enough to get vampiric daggers (health drain -> transfer).

Natually, it was nurfed.

Heh too funny - my second MA essentially inspired my rogue proc one for those reasons. A few trains in poison, I had UD hunter on my MA and my procs were insane. By the time i got my rogue based pure proccer to 60 it was nurfed, but ya fun playstyle. Used shadow daggers for the free bonus on weap skill.

[stray]

I could never play a hybrid dex/int assassin like you did though. In my hand, they were complete gimps. But yet, there was this guy on my server (Garcia Vega) who kicked my ass all the time, no matter what character I was playing. He was a birdman rogue assassin, specced to bolt and used daggers up close.

[stray]

Heh...

I know I said I hate how spellcasting has worked out, but....

Lightning.

Always liked lightning based characters. What's a good way to go about it? Are Clerics the only ones who have access to those type of spells?

[squirrel]

Heh...

I know I said I hate how spellcasting has worked out, but....

Lightning.

Always liked lightning based characters. What's a good way to go about it? Are Clerics the only ones who have access to those type of spells?

Nope but based on what I know of your tastes now they're probably the best for you. Good melee, items, and killer spells. Clerics in D&D 3.5 are widely considered to be UBAH but whatever, it's a SP game...

[Morfiend]

Man, all I know is that melee messes. A lot. Seems like I spend half of each fight just watching them swing and miss, and then all of a sudden, hit hit hit hit hit, and some one dies. I think they might have a few bugs in their random number generator. Also, is is just me or is this game a LOT harder than the last one? Im level 8 warrior now, and I get my ass kicked all the time.

[squirrel]

Man, all I know is that melee messes. A lot. Seems like I spend half of each fight just watching them swing and miss, and then all of a sudden, hit hit hit hit hit, and some one dies. I think they might have a few bugs in their random number generator. Also, is is just me or is this game a LOT harder than the last one? Im level 8 warrior now, and I get my ass kicked all the time.

In my experience so far you have to be really conscious of your Base Attack Bonus and what attribute modifies your attack roll. For instance in the melee warlock I was talking about above I have the feat Weapon Finesse which makes the character use the dex modifier for to hit and then i use the +4 dex buff to get a +5 mod. Otherwise I miss constantly. The game seems a little stringent on the attck mod benefits...

[Riggswolfe]

Man, all I know is that melee messes. A lot. Seems like I spend half of each fight just watching them swing and miss, and then all of a sudden, hit hit hit hit hit, and some one dies. I think they might have a few bugs in their random number generator. Also, is is just me or is this game a LOT harder than the last one? Im level 8 warrior now, and I get my ass kicked all the time.

In my experience so far you have to be really conscious of your Base Attack Bonus and what attribute modifies your attack roll. For instance in the melee warlock I was talking about above I have the feat Weapon Finesse which makes the character use the dex modifier for to hit and then i use the +4 dex buff to get a +5 mod. Otherwise I miss constantly. The game seems a little stringent on the attck mod benefits...

Alot of it is the number rolling. If you watch the rolls you'll have a string of really low rolls like less than 5, then it'll change.

Also, the combat is somewhat harder. I find I have to be aware of my party alot. The rogue sucks unless I control her myself and maneuver her into backstab position. (Basically, get her behind a character one of your other characters is fighting.)

Also, my druid kept shapeshifting in fights, so I went to behavior and made the following changes:

Turned off item use
Turned off feat/class ability use
Set her to cast spells without worrying about conserving (since you can rest almost anywhere.)

Now she is a spell casting mother and my fights are about 10x easier.

[Furiously]

Since I no longer "own" NWN2, I decided to give Stormreach a try.

After 2 days of playing, I think Stormreach is a better game.

[Kitsune]

Since I no longer "own" NWN2, I decided to give Stormreach a try.

After 2 days of playing, I think Stormreach is a better game.

Oh, ouch.  That's just... mean.

[raydeen]

I'm forcing myself to play it smart with this one. I'm not touching it until it hits Platinum or Diamond. I'm sick of buying the same damn game at least twice just to get 'the bargain'. Either all the expansions in one box or $9.99 in the oldies bin.

[geldonyetich]

Stormreach has more short term fun, but NWN2 has a better overall scope.  On the other hand, Stormreach has smaller system requirements, which can make it enjoyable if (like me) you're still trapped with an AGP slot.

My second character (mostly taken to better differentiate my online and offline experience) is geared to be an Eldritch Knight.   The NWN implementation of this prestigue class is considerably buffed over what I read on free D20 resources, with light armor and high base to hit allowances where the EK in the D20 resources seems to have no real advantage other than a free feat at level 1 and d6 hitpoints.  In the end, a 10 Wizard/10 Eldritch Knight has the capacity to cast the full array of Wizard spells as a 19th level Wizard and has more hitpoints and better BTH to boot - pretty hardcore.  I'm not yet sure if the light armor on an Eldritch Knight interferes with arcane spell casts (it wouldn't for a Bard) although I wager with improved mage armor I'm probably better off not bothering with light armor at all (unless perhaps it gets dispelled). 

Funny enough, at level 5 Wizard before I've even had a chance to take Eldritch Knight levels, I'm already a pretty good meleer thanks to spell enhancements.  I've a natural +2 strength mod, and after throwing Bull Strength I'm getting a +8 to hit - better than a fighter of the same level, although they'd probably get a second attack/round.  With my Improved Mage Armor (plus whatever other mods are applying) I've got 18 AC.  There's a number of defensive wizard spells that make it hard for mobs to hit me (Ghostly Visage) or when they do hit me makes them regret it (Death Armor).  When I absolutely need to hit, True Strike lets me make one attack with a +20 to hit mod, and when I'm dealing with excessive amounts of foes there's the option to throw a fireball.

The main down side I see with this character is just that it's so awkward to throw spells in NWN2.  Offline it's easy enough thanks to the pause feature, but online it's a real PITA.

[Riggswolfe]

Funny enough, at level 5 Wizard before I've even had a chance to take Eldritch Knight levels, I'm already a pretty good meleer thanks to spell enhancements.  I've a natural +2 strength mod, and after throwing Bull Strength I'm getting a +8 to hit - better than a fighter of the same level, although they'd probably get a second attack/round. 

[pnpnerd]

A fighter gets a second attack at level 6. The easy way to remember, is to subtract 5 from the characters lowest base to-hit. If you have a 1 left over you get another attack. So, a fighter, who adds +1 to his base to hit each level, gets a second attack at level 6. With base attack bonuses of +6/+1
[/pnpnerd]

[Nija]

And you stuck it out with a Bard, right?

You told me about your build already, but how exactly do you play your build? I wanted my guy to be a typical ranged/chanting/casting/buffing bard (and then move into Harper later).....But this game seems to want main characters to be on the frontlines. There doesn't seem to be any way around that.

I can almost recommend this game if you want to be on the frontlines though. Feels like KoToR. Kinda.

Sorry I didn't get back with this. I've been playing my druid/monk build and I got kinda stuck. I goofed in a few spots making this character, so it's not quite as powerful as I envisioned.

Anyways, back to the Bard. I could have made a ranged bard, but this time I did a 2h/plate wearing monster. I'm not too far with him, only 2 bard levels and 4 fighter levels, but great cleave + greatsword feats with a basic +1 greatsword I have a BAB of 5 with +11 attack bonus. Crits in the mid 30s, normal hits for about 15ish. It'll crit about 25% of the time it looks like, and when you're fighting the groups of monsters that you do in this game, with great cleave that's a crit pretty much every other round.

Good saves, so/so HP, good front line guy. You get tons of skill points as well so you can keep up your conversation skills. It's almost a new game playing this character compared to the druid, as I can talk my way out of so many situations (and it'll reward you the experience you'd have gotten otherwise by killing all the monsters) it moves so much quicker.

[Morfiend]

Man, all I know is that melee messes. A lot. Seems like I spend half of each fight just watching them swing and miss, and then all of a sudden, hit hit hit hit hit, and some one dies. I think they might have a few bugs in their random number generator. Also, is is just me or is this game a LOT harder than the last one? Im level 8 warrior now, and I get my ass kicked all the time.

In my experience so far you have to be really conscious of your Base Attack Bonus and what attribute modifies your attack roll. For instance in the melee warlock I was talking about above I have the feat Weapon Finesse which makes the character use the dex modifier for to hit and then i use the +4 dex buff to get a +5 mod. Otherwise I miss constantly. The game seems a little stringent on the attck mod benefits...

Yeah, thats what I found playing my Paladin, he just wasnt cutting it. So I restarted and did a duel wield warrior, with all the good stuff. I think by level 8 I have like +13/+7 +9, to my attack or some thing, and I still miss a lot.




*Very Mild Spoiler below*

The Thugs in the warehouse and in the level merchant house just fucking destroy me. There is no way these guys should be this tough. I managed to beat both levels, but only by buffing the shit out of my party with tons of potions. But I think I have now bought up all the potions in Neverwinter, and im not sure what Im going to do for the next level.

[El Gallo]

I found the game getting a lot tougher around lvl 7-8.  Once I got 9 and my casters got the "stoneskin" spell, I WTFPWN everything.  It's almost like godmode.  On the downside, you look like you've been bukkaked by a gaggle of cement mixers.  I gotta find a way to turn off that graphic.

Act 1 is long.  How long are the rest of the acts, comparatively?  I'm up to lvl 11, so I imagine the levelling slows down quite a bit.

The story remains "OK" but I hate HATE HATE the "influence" system.  I hated it in KotOR II and I hate it more here.  Is there some way to bump up my influence through the console?

[Riggswolfe]

*Very Mild Spoiler below*
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The Thugs in the warehouse and in the level merchant house just fucking destroy me. There is no way these guys should be this tough. I managed to beat both levels, but only by buffing the shit out of my party with tons of potions. But I think I have now bought up all the potions in Neverwinter, and im not sure what Im going to do for the next level.

I had alot of trouble with this too. I think this is the level where you have to start being aware of tactics. Once I a) did my druid tweaks mentioned further up and b) had my rogue start using the wands I'd accumulated I blew through these two areas fairly easily. The biggest help was taking the druid from dire-badger mode to uber spellcaster mode.

[Riggswolfe]

The story remains "OK" but I hate HATE HATE the "influence" system.  I hated it in KotOR II and I hate it more here.  Is there some way to bump up my influence through the console?

I love it. Why do you dislike it so much?

[Morfiend]

This is pretty awesome. Two reviews. The first is from Gamedaily.com, and has more ass kissing than I can stand. The second one was from 1up.com and was pulled from their site. The more I play, the more I have to agree with the second review.

http://pc.gamedaily.com/game/review/?gameid=3511&id=1396

Im just quoting the summery.

The original Neverwinter Nights is so immersive that it continues to attract new fans to this day, but the time for a true sequel has arrived and thankfully, Neverwinter Nights 2 delivers. This extremely enjoyable action RPG contains fabulous visuals, plenty of options, and incredible gameplay. Neverwinter Nights 2 is truly one of the most epic adventures found on a PC, and it should be purchased without hesitation.

The below review was the one pulled from 1up, so Im quoting the whole thing.

This review appears in the January issue of Games For Windows: The Official Magazine.

----

As everything-the-original-did -- and more -- follow-ups go, Neverwinter Nights 2 deserves a banner&something like "mission accomplished." Think the sequel to Jurassic Park, where Spielberg's all "You want more dinosaurs? I'll show you more dinosaurs..." As a contemporary CRPG, on the other hand, NWN2 leaves a lot to be desired, and that's too bad, because these are the guys who brought us Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale 2...and therefore they are the guys I'm least inclined to take issue with.

But issues exist, and defining them is really no more complex than saying, "Hello D&D superchrome, buh-bye storytelling and character development (you know, those things you're supposed to "immerse" yourself in)." The idea seems to be that we're meant to rah-rah about a superabundance of feats, spells, races, prestige (advanced) classes, and math-equation tickers full of the usual "I attack you with a +4 sword of --" booooooring. Fine, sure, dandy...but when is a "role" not a "role"? Simple: when it's a rule to a fault.

Ever loyal bites
I'm cruising for a bruising (don't I know it), but NWN2 is a splash of cold water to the face: A revelatory, polarizing experience that -- in the wake of newer, better alternatives -- makes you question the very notion of "RPG by numbers." It foists Wizards of the Coast's latest v3.5 D&D system (a molehill that's become a mountain at this point) onto your hard drive with stunning fidelity, then tacks on dozens of artificial-looking areas vaguely linked by forget-table plot points you check off like grocery to-do's.

Sure, the interface is sleeker with context-sensitive menus and a smart little bar that lets you more intuitively toggle modes like "power attack" and "stealth," but with all the added rule-shuffling, NWN2 seems like it's working twice as hard to accomplish half as much. Worse -- and blame this on games like Oblivion -- NWN2's levels feel pint-sized: Peewee zones inhabited by pull-string NPCs with no existence to speak of beyond their little playpens. Wander and you'll wonder why the forests, towns, and dungeons are like movie lots with lay-about monsters waiting patiently for you to trip their arbitrary triggers. As if the pencil and paper "module" approach were a virtue that computers -- by now demonstrably capable of simulating entire worlds with considerably more depth -- should emulate. It's like we're supposed to park half our brain in feature mania and the rest in nostalgic slush, and somehow call bingo.

The dungeons feel especially stale, so linear and inorganic they might as well be graph-paper lifts filled with room after room of pop-up bogeymen (Doom put them in closets; NWN2 just makes the closets bigger). Maybe you'd rather chat with the dumb NPCs that speak and sound like extras in a bad Saturday morning cartoon? Oh, boy -- there's the portrait "plus" sign! Time to shuffle another party member (improved to four simultaneous) through the level-up grinder, which you can click "recommend" to zip past...but then, what's the point?

Rule-playing game
In all fairness, it's not entirely developer Obsidian's fault. D&D certainly puts the "rule" in role-playing, and a madcap base of D&D aficionados is no doubt ready to string me up for suggesting that faithful is here tantamount to folly (to these people, I say: "Go for it, NWN2's all you've ever wanted and more"). Call me crazy -- I guess I'm just finally weary of being led around on a pencil-and-paper leash and batting numbers around a glorified three-dimensional spreadsheet in a computer translation that should have synthesized, not forklifted.

That five-of-10 is actually a hedge, by the way. For D&D fans who want to play an amazingly thorough PC translation of the system they're carting around in book form, it's proba-bly closer an eight or nine. But if, like me, you want less "rules for rule's sake" and more depth and beauty to your simulated game worlds, you can certainly find more exciting prospects. Part of the reason we call them "the good old days" and think fondly of games past is that it's always easier to love what we don't have to play anymore.

[schild]

Hey, neat, the original 1up review.

[geldonyetich]

That 1Up review reads a little truer to my feelings, but when I try to boil it down to what it's saying it basically says, "I wanted a more immersive feeling game."  It's a fair request, but there's more to potential focuses to gaming than immersion.  Considering that NWN2 is more immersive than the original NWN, I can see this as being a classic, "The developers added something, but didn't make it their primary focus, so reviewers that got hooked on it found it lacking."

[But I'm not really trying to defend NWN2 either.  It runs like crap on my somewhat outdated AMD 3000 w/ Radeon 9800 Pro system (about 2 years out of date) and the first part of Act I feels very stereotypical.  I hear the story gets really interesting as you get further into it, but that's yet to be something I can verify.  Thus far, I've pulled more enjoyment out of Phantasy Star Universe, perhaps specifically because it's not yet-another-DnD game.]

[Morfiend]

Honestly, I would much rather read pulled 1up review than the blatant brown nosing of the Gamedaily review. Perfect this game is not, not by any means.

[Morfiend]

That 1Up review reads a little truer to my feelings, but when I try to boil it down to what it's saying it basically says, "I wanted a more immersive feeling game."  It's a fair request, but there's more to potential focuses to gaming than immersion.  Considering that NWN2 is more immersive than the original NWN, I can see this as being a classic, "The developers added something, but didn't make it their primary focus, so reviewers that got hooked on it found it lacking."

I think the guy from the 1up review has some valid complaints. The levels are horribly small, and ARE basically static. The NPC has no life what so ever, shops dont close with time of day. There are quite a few bugs and glitches. They had a very sloppy launch.

I feel his complaints have merit. Yeah, some of it boils down to, I dont like D&D computer games, but the game could have been much more polished and smooth. The level design is crap also.

[geldonyetich]

The score is hard to assign because the game is two parts: The engine/scenario designer and the included campaign.  When the developer complains about lifeless NPCs, shops that don't close wth the time of day, inorganic areas, and small areas, those look to be design choices of the included campaign rather than NWN2 itself.  There are parts of the game where NPCs are acting pretty lifely (see how much of that you can spot at the game's introductory fair) and some areas it felt were pretty organic (like the lizard caves in Act I).  The maps can be reasonably huge, but the developers applied a bit of KISS and split them up into exploration areas.  KISS is a good idea, there's no solid design reason to penalize a game for having small areas.  Thus, there's a lot of evidence that players could potentially design scenarios that included NPCs that include more of what the reviewer didn't feel there was enough of in the main campaign.

The bugs, sloppy launch, and performance issues are definate problems the game could have lived without.  I wonder if I should hold it against them considering the included updater (you know, now that it actually works) and the history with the original NWN being well updated after release. 

The game feels crappy and awkward at times, especially consideirng my outdated system runs it at a pretty blowful frame rate.   Plus, I'm not a super fan of butchered-to-real-time D20 mechanics.  However, I hestitate to say the game itself is so lacking in merit as to score at or below average.  There's a lot of less elaborate games that attempted to achieve less or ran worse than that and they picked up better scores.

[sinij]

I purchased NWN2 and after about 4 hours of play I can say I enjoying it. NWN1 graphics got in a way of enjoying game, regardless of how good content was. This is mostly solved in NWN2. Only dislikes I have with it so far are design choices for the interface.

[Morfiend]

I guess a lot of that would fall under how you give out scores. Not to nitpick, but my friend and I run in to this all the time. I like to rate stuff 1-10, and use most of the numbers. He likes to rate stuff 1-10, but use the school grading system where anything below 7 is downright horrible. I save 1-3 as downright horrible. Then you have other review methods that rate 1-10, but only use the very top. In say diving, a 9.1 is horrible and a 9.8 great.

My own personal score for NWN2 would be around a 7. Its a fun game, that is hampered by issues and has some bad design choices. This is all talking about the singleplayer campaign, cause thats all we have as of now. I do enjoy playing the game, but there are quite a lot of things that I feel should have been done better.

[squirrel]

I'd also put it at a 6-7/10. That said, I purchased it as much for the toolkit and future mod potential as for the developer campaign. I am however enjoying it, now that I have a character that suits my playstyle.

I totally agree with the criticisms based on the AI, the performance and the story/content. Complaints about the D&D ruleset fall on deaf ears however, Oblivion has already shipped and is good if that's more to someone's liking.

I am enjoying working on my own module and I like the toolset a lot compared to v. 1.0.

[Fabricated]

Looks like Penny Arcade took notice.

Anyway, I don't really care. I had this game preordered a while back and I'm still getting it. They patch out the bugs for the most part and I'll be happy. NWN wasn't exactly a model of stability or speed either when it dropped so I'm not entirely surprised NWN2 was a botch on release. Also, the fuck cares if shops don't close at night anyway? Like someone isn't going to write a mod that does just that.

User made content is the reason I'm getting NWN2. Elegia Eternum and Excrucio Eternum (along with the rest of the mods the same guy made) more than justified all of my NWN expansion purchases and I didn't get more than 2 hours into either of the actual expansion campaigns. If that guy remakes Elegia/Excrucio Eternum or continues the series NWN2 is worth twice the money to me.

[Nija]

I can't wait to see the 180s pulled by you guys who are bitching about "immersion" will do when you're deciding if you want to build a temple of tyr or a monastery inside your castle walls.

The campaign nwn2 ships with is easily 40 hours worth of content.

[palmer_eldritch]

I'm really enjoying it. The things you do and the way you deal with NPCs can come back to haunt you later. They may or may not come to your defence when it really matters. You can build a stronghold and get them to work for you. There are lots of strange little quests as well as the obvious ones to go kill stuff. You can make magic armour and weapons. It has an interesting storyline, nice cutscenes and it's huge.

[stray]

Damn, Clerics are crazy. I'm playing an underlvled Aasimar, without any means to identify loot (so I'm still using that newb +1 club I got from my hometown).

Anyways, I just got to the bandit camp, and my party members dropped almost instantly. I ended up taking the whole camp on by myself.

Then....After I spoke to the refugees, there's that other respawn of bandits. My party dropped instantly again. But my Cleric wiped out like 10 dudes by himself.

Domains are Air and Magic, with focus in Evocation so far (but only one useful evoc spell). No lightning as of yet, so I'm just depending on gimp melee, Magic armor, and cleric buffs.

[Xilren's Twin]

Damn, Clerics are crazy. I'm playing an underlvled Aasimar, without any means to identify loot (so I'm still using that newb +1 club I got from my hometown)....Domains are Air and Magic, with focus in Evocation so far (but only one useful evoc spell). No lightning as of yet, so I'm just depending on gimp melee, Magic armor, and cleric buffs.

Heh, yep.  I'm playing a elf cleric with Magic and Strength domains.  Sword weilding, plate wearing bull's strength, armor buffs, plus Melf's Acid Arrow and summon spells and healing.  Frontline all the way.  I am playing "lightside" first time through, which is occasionally annoying but at least you can see the paths do exist either way.

This feel much more like BG2, especially if you go puppet mode on your party members. Now thinking of ditching the druid for the sorceress....

[FatuousTwat]

It lags so much indoors that it's unplayable for me, and thats after I turned off everything (shadows, reflective water, etc and everything I could in the .ini). My comp is a piece of shit, but I could play Oblivion with it with most things turned down, and this game looks worse (I've seen screenshots of the game with most setting on high, and it didn't look much better than KotOR).

So I decided to look on the NWN 2 Technical Support (Self-Help) forum and this is what I found.

I'm disappointed, as NWN 1 is one of my favorite games of all time (at least the multiplayer part), and I was looking forward to playing again. I hope someday, someone can again release a not bugged as hell RPG.

Edit - I just wanted to say, the gameplay was fun for the 1/2 hour to an hour I was able to play. As I said before I can't really play indoors so as soon as I got to the swamp ruins I had to quit.