Sneaking

Gawd, what were they thinking with the painfully slow sneaking in ToEE? Sure, it makes sense that sneaking would be slow in RL, but it doesn't have any game-play implications, does it? It's not as though it matters how much time goes by. No, it just takes all the fun out of using sneak (unless you've got a LOT more patience than I do). I guess I'll just ignore that action, as much as possible.

This is really my kind of game, but I've got to wonder at a number of things implemented really, really poorly. Even though I've just started, I already hate the radial menu. And the formations stink - at least, not being able to hold down the mouse button to orient them correctly. And now, my first attempt to use my ranger/rogue's sneaking skills. Maybe I'll get used to some of these after awhile, but it seems to be a very flawed game, even with the mod.

Well, that's why I waited so long to buy it, I guess. It's still fun, but I think that's because I so love turn-based, party-based combat.

 

Sneaking lets you hide and move silently. If there was no slow down, you would have it turned on all the time, right? You have to choose when to turn it on and which characters go scouting ahead. I usually try to send out 2 or 3 scouts, if I have them, in different directions to save time.

 

WCG,

Sneaking is essential for scoping out the territory. Do not ignore sneaking for your rogue or ranger. It also allows you to get close enough to steal items right from under an enemy's nose. Sneaking is suppose to be slow because you are trying to avoid detection while moving.

 

Also, sneaking should be slow in the game since it often involves delicate work, requiring a little better control. You wouldn't want to "run" through your victim and get discovered, would you?

 

I know that sneaking is "supposed" to be slow. Obviously, you WOULD move slower when sneaking. But this is a game, and it's a game where there doesn't seem to be much reason for demonstrating that slowness. After all, our characters move far more quickly than is realistic on the world map. But I don't think that any of use would like to wait for hours or days for the party to get somewhere, would we?

Frankly, it's just no fun. In fact, it's so painfully slow that I hate to use it. OK, Basil the Timid has a point that you might leave it turned on all the time, otherwise. But other games have done this much better (generally, by having the sneaking fail often enough that it simply WON'T stay on all the time). No, for gameplay purposes, I think this was a poor design decision.

And what can I say about the radial menus? It was a nice idea, but it's slow and awkward in practice (at least for me). IMHO, Knights of the Chalice does the same basic thing much better. In fact, I've been more impressed with Knights of the Chalice all the time, though it's apparently only a one-man operation. I can't directly compare it with ToEE, but I can compare ToEE to games like Baldur's Gate and such. I much prefer the turn-based combat in ToEE, but not many of the other features (and certainly not the bugs).

Don't get me wrong, it's still fun. But I'm such a big, big fan of turn-based, party-based RPGs that I'm willing to overlook a lot of flaws.

 

You can assign hotkeys to avoid using the radial menu.

Bugs? What bugs? Seriously, 5.5.0 has squashed most of them. You wouldn't be one of those guys playing Vanilla, would you?

 

Good idea. I'll have to figure that out, I suppose.

No, I'm playing the mod. But I've only just started, and I've already seen bugs. First, my game kept crashing to desktop. It turned out I shouldn't have saved the game in the introductory shop, at least not after buying arrows. Then I just got blank answers from that spy in the castle area.

I can't complain, because I found the answers to both of them here. And everything else has worked fine. It's been a lot of fun, too. But for just starting, two bugs like that seemed to be plenty, considering how old the game is and how much work has been spent patching it.

 

A LOT of work has been done fixing the bugs. The starting shop is new, so it does have a few problems which will be fixed shortly. Jayfie was changed in this mod and that is why a problem cropped up.

Check the readme files that came with the mod and learn about how many things have been fixed over the years.

 

Oh, I don't doubt that any. I'd always heard the game was really buggy, which is why I didn't buy it when it was first released. I was pretty disgusted when it kept crashing to desktop at first, but that was easily solved, and the rest of the game has been fine.

I had a poor start, but things have been pretty good since then. I'm just thankful for all the volunteers who worked on it, since you don't see many turn-based, party-based RPGs these days.