75 réponses à ce sujet

[painofdungeoneternal]

The thing is i'd be pretty upset if the devs decided to implement timestop instead of that list of functions that kaedrin requested, or the half dozen engine bugs they fixed. I would have given up on NWN2 if the dev's did not fix the critical issues that really made the game unworkable. They focused on what they should have and listened to us in the community, and we who participated in the bug testing, using the toolset, and reporting bugs to the devs, well with all that happened, timestop ( or any spell ) is just not really that important. There is this assumption they cut something, when they decided to focus on something more important which had numerous threads.



The devs should focus on fixing things we CANNOT do ourselves. If a spell like timestop is on the vault it really does not matter if the player installs it or a module maker does it for them, it's really done and waiting for you. I don't have sympathy for folks who refuse to use community content when even the devs are using community content. ( tonyk, rpgplayer1, grinning fool, and those ossian folks ). What matters is if we have the most options at the end of the week from all sources.



I mean if i had one thing to ask the developers to implement it would not be timestop. I can set that up in less than an hour. I would ask them for a settail function, and the other getter and setter functions which i overheard were partially done in 1.24 which would allow implementing spells like alter self, horseback riding, item modification, etc. I have a list of about a hundred items all of which would provide much more value. ( how about fixing uncanny dodge )

[nicethugbert]

My favorite NWN1 server, World of Amon, probably didn't taste very well, assuming you could swallow it. But, it was a lot of module in only 13.3MB, of course, it used CEP and CTP so it was a bit bigger than that. But, so were a lot of PWs.

In only 13.3MB, it is packed with years of fun, loads of dialog and custom content, without the PRC.

They used that primitive spell interrupt file thingy. I forgot what it's called, spell override or something like that. It's that file where you can put custom scripts for your spells that get's run when the spell is called. You usually use a switch to route to the appropriate code in this file. There are some functions you put in the spell scripts to interface the whole thing. The Devs put those functions in all their spells just in case someone wants to use this special file.

Well that simple cludge was used to marvelous effect in World of Amon. For instance, instead of getting rid of Harm, which your typical oh so wise balance gurus want to get rid of, they modified it to work differently on bosses. One boss had 10,000HP(yeah, they thought out of the box on that server). But, once you shaved a certain amount of HP off of it, it was vulnerable to harm.

Similar thing could be done to Time Stop, but, only if you don't have a knee jerk reaction to get rid of parts of the game every time a precious monster dies. You could give a boss immunity to slow spell then make time stop effect it like slow for instance. It could get a save, maybe a chance it'll backfire and act as haste instead.  A number of things can be done, if you use some imagination instead of a hatchet.

To bad the Devs never did something like that. It would have been entertaining to discover your spells not working as expected. Your party might even get clues about this in advance. It seems the sort of thing an adventurer would care to research.

Balance is too clinical. It's no fun.

Modifié par nicethugbert, 25 février 2011 - 06:34 .

[metatheurgist]

This highlights the differences between PnP and cRPG, and the pitfalls in making single player RPGs from PnP rules. NWN is based on DnD. DnD is a multi player RPG. While it would be possible for everyone in the group to play Clerics, that gets kind of boring. While not every class needs to be equal, it'd be nice if the Fighter could get his sword out of his sheath before everything got toasted by meteors, flaming rain or falling comets.

[painofdungeoneternal]

nicethugbert wrote...
They used that primitive spell interrupt file thingy. I forgot what it's called, spell override or something like that. It's that file where you can put custom scripts for your spells that get's run when the spell is called. You usually use a switch to route to the appropriate code in this file. There are some functions you put in the spell scripts to interface the whole thing. The Devs put those functions in all their spells just in case someone wants to use this special file.

a spell hook, i use it all the time

Well that simple cludge was used to marvelous effect in World of Amon. For instance, instead of getting rid of Harm, which your typical oh so wise balance gurus want to get rid of, they modified it to work differently on bosses. One boss had 10,000HP(yeah, they thought out of the box on that server). But, once you shaved a certain amount of HP off of it, it was vulnerable to harm.

Similar thing could be done to Time Stop, but, only if you don't have a knee jerk reaction to get rid of parts of the game every time a precious monster dies. You could give a boss immunity to slow spell then make time stop effect it like slow for instance. It could get a save, maybe a chance it'll backfire and act as haste instead.  A number of things can be done, if you use some imagination instead of a hatchet.

You are describing balancing, and then you say it's a hatchet.

If there is a problem with a feature, you can either delete it, or you can balance it with an opposite feature.

I think you define balancing as something way different than i do, you hear me say balance and then you get upset and assume i am using a hatchet. I don't hatchet the game, i adjust, i tweak, i never nerf or remove, i always fix imbalance by empowering something else soas to "balance" the heaviness of the original feature which was causing an issue.

Remember that the word "balance" means to take two things and make them work together to equalize. It is a word which shouts being reasonable, not just doing things out of hand. Balancing is not done by removing things someone does not like. I mean i do have timestop in my folder of things to do, but i won't be making it available until it works like PNP and i have a few spells which let some players ignore it completely. I am not intentionally removing timestop, it's just being done AFTER a lot of other things and when i get a spell working i like doing it as part of a group of related spells that interelate with each other. ( there are a lot more fun spells than time stop to implement first )

Modifié par painofdungeoneternal, 25 février 2011 - 07:40 .

[avado]

nicethugbert wrote...

My favorite NWN1 server, World of Amon, probably didn't taste very well, assuming you could swallow it. But, it was a lot of module in only 13.3MB, of course, it used CEP and CTP so it was a bit bigger than that. But, so were a lot of PWs.

Ah, AMON!  That was an interesting server, to say the least.  When I played there (musta been 2005 or 2006), they had 3 servers you could log too and it would save your position on each, BUT, your inventory would be the same on all 3!  For those who LOVED to hunt for treasures, it was such a sweet thing to just relog and be at the store! 

That is also where I picked up the silence trick... i cannot remember the dudes name..  but there was some dragon that had Heal as a spell and would cast like 4 epic spells Hellball at you!  LOL 

I did have a lv 40 cleric/pm/bard there, but I never really got into the whole lv 40 island thing.  I didnt like that the items couldnt be transfered.  And that was a HARD area!  LOL  I thought that, just the normal monsters in the lv 40 area had like 5000 hp each (I thought that the upper end was 50,000 hp on a monster, but what do I know). 

That server was fun, but I never played there long enough to get the full jist of it. 

Oh, and sorry for the nwn reference wrt silence spell.  I forgot this was nwn2 forum! 

[M. Rieder]

If anyone is unsatisfied with the power of the Wizard, download Kaedrin's. There are some really good ones in there. Pale master gets fixed too and becomes viable, as most of you probably already know.

[Matheau]

I actually looked up what Time Stop is supposed to be used for in the PnP game, and within the context of NWN, Ethereal Jaunt and Etherealness both do Time Stop's actual function better than it does. True, technically everything isn't standing still, but that is really irrelevant against the AI. The whole "you can't effect anything other than yourself in any way" stipulation not in NWN is what really made it a gamebreaker. Granted, in a PnP game, I can see where that is the better spell, but those situations just don't pop up in NWN.



Yes, you could use delayed attack spells and hope the duration works out right, but Time Stop has a random duration which makes that strategy unpredictable. In addition, a DM would have an easy time screwing up anyone that built their character around that if they really wanted to do so. It's a lot less viable strategy when you are also playing in a game where spells per day have to stretch a lot further and an intelligent DM than an unrestricted version of the spell, with a known duration, against an AI DM, in a system where recovering spells per day is trivial.

[nicethugbert]

painofdungeoneternal wrote...

nicethugbert wrote...
They used that primitive spell interrupt file thingy. I forgot what it's called, spell override or something like that. It's that file where you can put custom scripts for your spells that get's run when the spell is called. You usually use a switch to route to the appropriate code in this file. There are some functions you put in the spell scripts to interface the whole thing. The Devs put those functions in all their spells just in case someone wants to use this special file.

a spell hook, i use it all the time

Well that simple cludge was used to marvelous effect in World of Amon. For instance, instead of getting rid of Harm, which your typical oh so wise balance gurus want to get rid of, they modified it to work differently on bosses. One boss had 10,000HP(yeah, they thought out of the box on that server). But, once you shaved a certain amount of HP off of it, it was vulnerable to harm.

Similar thing could be done to Time Stop, but, only if you don't have a knee jerk reaction to get rid of parts of the game every time a precious monster dies. You could give a boss immunity to slow spell then make time stop effect it like slow for instance. It could get a save, maybe a chance it'll backfire and act as haste instead.  A number of things can be done, if you use some imagination instead of a hatchet.

You are describing balancing, and then you say it's a hatchet.

If there is a problem with a feature, you can either delete it, or you can balance it with an opposite feature.

I think you define balancing as something way different than i do, you hear me say balance and then you get upset and assume i am using a hatchet. I don't hatchet the game, i adjust, i tweak, i never nerf or remove, i always fix imbalance by empowering something else soas to "balance" the heaviness of the original feature which was causing an issue.

Remember that the word "balance" means to take two things and make them work together to equalize. It is a word which shouts being reasonable, not just doing things out of hand. Balancing is not done by removing things someone does not like. I mean i do have timestop in my folder of things to do, but i won't be making it available until it works like PNP and i have a few spells which let some players ignore it completely. I am not intentionally removing timestop, it's just being done AFTER a lot of other things and when i get a spell working i like doing it as part of a group of related spells that interelate with each other. ( there are a lot more fun spells than time stop to implement first )

No, the hatchet I am referring to is the removal of things instead of making them work.  People who want to remove time stop are weilding a hatchet.

Modifié par nicethugbert, 25 février 2011 - 11:39 .

[painofdungeoneternal]

nicethugbert wrote...

painofdungeoneternal wrote...

nicethugbert wrote...
They used that primitive spell interrupt file thingy. I forgot what it's called, spell override or something like that. It's that file where you can put custom scripts for your spells that get's run when the spell is called. You usually use a switch to route to the appropriate code in this file. There are some functions you put in the spell scripts to interface the whole thing. The Devs put those functions in all their spells just in case someone wants to use this special file.

a spell hook, i use it all the time

Well that simple cludge was used to marvelous effect in World of Amon. For instance, instead of getting rid of Harm, which your typical oh so wise balance gurus want to get rid of, they modified it to work differently on bosses. One boss had 10,000HP(yeah, they thought out of the box on that server). But, once you shaved a certain amount of HP off of it, it was vulnerable to harm.

Similar thing could be done to Time Stop, but, only if you don't have a knee jerk reaction to get rid of parts of the game every time a precious monster dies. You could give a boss immunity to slow spell then make time stop effect it like slow for instance. It could get a save, maybe a chance it'll backfire and act as haste instead.  A number of things can be done, if you use some imagination instead of a hatchet.

You are describing balancing, and then you say it's a hatchet.

If there is a problem with a feature, you can either delete it, or you can balance it with an opposite feature.

I think you define balancing as something way different than i do, you hear me say balance and then you get upset and assume i am using a hatchet. I don't hatchet the game, i adjust, i tweak, i never nerf or remove, i always fix imbalance by empowering something else soas to "balance" the heaviness of the original feature which was causing an issue.

Remember that the word "balance" means to take two things and make them work together to equalize. It is a word which shouts being reasonable, not just doing things out of hand. Balancing is not done by removing things someone does not like. I mean i do have timestop in my folder of things to do, but i won't be making it available until it works like PNP and i have a few spells which let some players ignore it completely. I am not intentionally removing timestop, it's just being done AFTER a lot of other things and when i get a spell working i like doing it as part of a group of related spells that interelate with each other. ( there are a lot more fun spells than time stop to implement first )

No, the hatchet I am referring to is the removal of things instead of making them work.  People who want to remove time stop are weilding a hatchet.

Who removed timestop?

It just was never implemented in NWN2 to begin with. ( and they could not use the code from NWN1 since it did not follow the new 3.5 rules )

[nicethugbert]

painofdungeoneternal wrote...

nicethugbert wrote...

painofdungeoneternal wrote...

nicethugbert wrote...
They used that primitive spell interrupt file thingy. I forgot what it's called, spell override or something like that. It's that file where you can put custom scripts for your spells that get's run when the spell is called. You usually use a switch to route to the appropriate code in this file. There are some functions you put in the spell scripts to interface the whole thing. The Devs put those functions in all their spells just in case someone wants to use this special file.

a spell hook, i use it all the time

Well that simple cludge was used to marvelous effect in World of Amon. For instance, instead of getting rid of Harm, which your typical oh so wise balance gurus want to get rid of, they modified it to work differently on bosses. One boss had 10,000HP(yeah, they thought out of the box on that server). But, once you shaved a certain amount of HP off of it, it was vulnerable to harm.

Similar thing could be done to Time Stop, but, only if you don't have a knee jerk reaction to get rid of parts of the game every time a precious monster dies. You could give a boss immunity to slow spell then make time stop effect it like slow for instance. It could get a save, maybe a chance it'll backfire and act as haste instead.  A number of things can be done, if you use some imagination instead of a hatchet.

You are describing balancing, and then you say it's a hatchet.

If there is a problem with a feature, you can either delete it, or you can balance it with an opposite feature.

I think you define balancing as something way different than i do, you hear me say balance and then you get upset and assume i am using a hatchet. I don't hatchet the game, i adjust, i tweak, i never nerf or remove, i always fix imbalance by empowering something else soas to "balance" the heaviness of the original feature which was causing an issue.

Remember that the word "balance" means to take two things and make them work together to equalize. It is a word which shouts being reasonable, not just doing things out of hand. Balancing is not done by removing things someone does not like. I mean i do have timestop in my folder of things to do, but i won't be making it available until it works like PNP and i have a few spells which let some players ignore it completely. I am not intentionally removing timestop, it's just being done AFTER a lot of other things and when i get a spell working i like doing it as part of a group of related spells that interelate with each other. ( there are a lot more fun spells than time stop to implement first )

No, the hatchet I am referring to is the removal of things instead of making them work.  People who want to remove time stop are weilding a hatchet.

Who removed timestop?

It just was never implemented in NWN2 to begin with. ( and they could not use the code from NWN1 since it did not follow the new 3.5 rules )

The Devs removed Time Stop.  It was part of NWN, which NWN2 inherited.  The Devs gave their interpretation to 3.5ed spells, but not Time Stop.  That they elected to cut.

[The Fred]

Also guys, the super-quote chains aren't helping. I don't want to read the same things five times.

Just a heads-up.

[dunniteowl]

You know, TheFred, I was thinking the very same thing.

dno

[rakh-talazar]

dunniteowl wrote...

Honestly, the comparison of PnP to cRPG is ludicrous. Not for any other reason than the developers over the years have strayed from making a game that replicates the PnP experience in terms of time it takes to level, richness of opportunity to use skills and abilities in non-combat ways, and in the ability to really determine unique ways to do things.<br />
In this regard, cRPGs now level in hours what it would take, as Matheau describes "...for someone that spent 6 months of gaming sessions..." to achieve these insanely powerful levels of ability for casters.<br />
Additionally, I design module adventures (mostly PnP, but am learning to convert to cRPG) and I had heard all the horror tales of AD&D1st to 2nd, then D&D 3.0, to D&D 3.5 and how casters have been consistently nerfed in the official PHBs over that course of time. As it so happens, I have all those (with the exception of 3.0) and so I made a comparison.<br />
If anything, casters haven't been nerfed directly. They actually come out with more spells per day and more methods to use them overall compared to earlier editions. They now have feats and skills that they gain (and with INT being a prime stat of casters, they tend to get more skill points than anyone else to spend gaining them per level) in a faster succession rate than any other class with Rogues running a close second. They have access to things that allow them to cast while Silenced, Held or Paralyzed *(Meta Magic Feats) and they have newer, even more powerful spells since those days.<br />
Time Stop was poorly implemented in NWN and I was personally glad for it's removal. It seriously unbalanced the game. IGMS was another game changer that, by all rights should have been better implemented, however, in lieu of fixing it, removal was a sane course of action.<br />
We talk about nerfing things and making it harder for casters, but honestly the changes that have come have made them much, MUCH more powerful than ever before. Only problem: D&D is in a class Arms Race. This Arms Race has caused things to occur like Every class Levels at the same number of experience points. Every class has to have "Killer Awesome Skills and Feats" useable RIGHT NOW! Every class has to have something else beyond the last thing. It's all about getting more and more and more and MORE!<br />
So fighters are pretty kick butt now, even at lower levels and it's hard to deal with them. Thieves get such powerful sneak and backstab opportunities that it's nearly ridiculous. Bards can be turned into the amazing double Ginzu Knife with a lute to boot. There's just no end to this mad dash for MORE POWER!<br />
IN that light, casters might not be seen as getting as much in that way, but you have to bear in mind, the Caster is the reason that all these other classes are in the arms race in the first place. Everyone thinks their character should be "balanced" with a caster of the same level. <br />
The last generation of players, both PnP and cRPG, have clearly got the largest amount of blame for this. However it's not their fault directly. We have seen D&D in cRPGs change from a slow paced, exciting series of adventures that left you biting your nails during an encounter, wondering if you were going to see the end screen, "The monsters have defeated your party! The monsters rejoice!" to now a situation whereby, more often than not, losing an encounter is a mere annoyance that provokes a saved game reload, or all your party members miraculously get back up and you hit the rest button and five seconds later you're ready to rock and roll. Again.<br />
Now, with cRPGs it has become an Arms Race of Instant Gratification and perception of "I Should Be Totally Invincible!" Casters are not nerfed. If anything, the entire game has been nerfed with overpowered characters, skills, feats, classes and mixing of classes, spells, items, weapons and so much magic that the hoards of several ancient dragons would pale in comparison.<br />
I think, and of course this only this one person's humble opinion, that the best thing that could happen to D&D right now is a sort of "Back to Basics" mentality where the adventure and the story is the thing, and the realization that the meager limits of the characters and their ability to persevere over the long haul is exactly what really makes this game worth playing.<br />
You want fast levelling and high combat action? Go play WoW, or Call of Duty. You want a deep story, involved NPC interaction and an epic length (not epic levels) saga that you'll remember fondly for years? That's what, to me, D&D was and should be all about -- always.<br />
Monopoly is stil the same game it always was and people still enjoy that. Why can't we be satisfied with adding to this game without having to completely change it's nature into a PvP concept where more is always better and more power is the penultimate search in your character stats?<br />
dunniteowl

Your criticisms of modern cRPGs seem to be as follows:

1. Length - your assumption seems to be that it's only legitimate to throw around world-altering spells if you've been building up to it for six months.

I understand your point, but an imaginary badass isn't any less imaginary because you put X months of work into him. The longer a story takes to tell, the less coherent it becomes. Poe thought that the optimum length for a story was half an hour, because, if it took any longer, the reader would have forgotten the beginning. Judged by this standard, computer games are too long to function as a storytelling medium, not too short. If it takes you six months to level to 17, you'll have completely forgotten your character's motivation other than that level 9 spells look cool.

Also, that's an awful lot of grinding without much visible reward. Can you really expect any company to offer six months' worth of really good, original content for $60? No? Then say hello to Fetch Quest City, where delivering letters is such a complicated concept that it completely escapes the locals. I'd rather have a game that levels me to universe-destroying badass in six hours if those six hours are full of interesting, well-thought-out quests I've never seen before.

It'sthe clash between the time and money constraints on modern game development and this kind of longer-is-better attitude that got us such highlights of RPG design as the endless your-princess-is-in-another-castle gameplay of NWN2 chapter 1. 'Fifty hours!' is still a selling point, and the result is games padded out with pointless filler.

2. Difficulty. You seem to think that a good game is a hard game, and that giving the players fewer tools to deal with their problems will make the overall experience more interesting.

The problem with this philosophy is that difficulty is not a good thing in itself - it is only good insofar as it makes the end reward more satisfying. A tense fight where every spell is used and you're down to your last party member is exciting. A fight that's tense because you don't want to have to use your best spells or to walk alllllllllll the way back to town to resurrect a dead party member is just annoying. There is a reason why no modern RPG makes you do these things, and the reason is that players should be going 'Oh no, I might lose!'  and not 'Oh no, I might have to waste a lot of time and/or be weakened for some hypothetical future battle!'

Also, I'm not convinced that older RPGs were actually more difficult. In Baldur's Gate 2, the average encounter

-could not kill off any of your party members (you couldn't resurrect them all the time)
-could not force you to use your most powerful abilities (or you would need to back out of the dungeon and find someplace to rest in case a boss was around the corner)
-could not damage your characters too badly (you might run out of healing spells)

In contrast, the structure of games like Dragon Age lets every fight go down to the wire if the developers so choose. As a general rule, they choose not to, not because there was anything structurally harder about old-school RPGs but because an overly difficult campaign undermines storytelling - you don't want to have to play out the same epic fight 15 times.

Also, as a final note, I think that's the first time I've ever seen 'slow-paced' used as a term of praise.

[I_Raps]

rakh-talazar wrote...

Your criticisms of modern cRPGs seem to be as follows:

1. Length - your assumption seems to be that it's only legitimate to throw around world-altering spells if you've been building up to it for six months.

...

2. Difficulty. You seem to think that a good game is a hard game, and that giving the players fewer tools to deal with their problems will make the overall experience more interesting.

...

I agree with both of these points, though I don't agree that losing over-powered game-breakers i.e "nerfing" is a bad thing.

But I particularly had to jump in to hop up and down in agreement with your point 2 wrt ridiculous "difficulty" measures.  I do not want to spend my limited gameplay time dragging bodies - either dead or exhausted - around.  I have a saved game of "The Maimed God's Saga" sitting unfinished since Sept. in my folder.  I recall trekking to an outlaw camp, fighting through some horrific encounter only to be faced with entering a tent for more combat with only a handful of hitpoints, a dead companion and no spells;  instead, I dutifully trudged back to the estate my PC was residing at to perform my rituals at the only operational shrine in a whole continent of pagans (in a town, by the way, where no one had mastered the art of "healing kit");  walked back for a total of six area loads, and went in the tent -  I'll say no more except that that was the last time I looked at that mod.

Similarly, I started a recent mod a week or so ago, ran into a giant ant with damage resistance - me and my party of level 2s with no hit points or spells left - a guaranteed two or more dead needing Raise Dead scrolls and a few paltry hundred gold pieces to my name.  That mod simply got scrubbed.

[dunniteowl]

The majority of my responses are nested within your portion of this double quoted reply.  Almost to the end.

rakh-talazar wrote...

dunniteowl wrote...

Honestly, the comparison of PnP to cRPG is ludicrous. Not for any other reason than the developers over the years have strayed from making a game that replicates the PnP experience in terms of time it takes to level, richness of opportunity to use skills and abilities in non-combat ways, and in the ability to really determine unique ways to do things

In this regard, cRPGs now level in hours what it would take, as Matheau describes "...for someone that spent 6 months of gaming sessions..." to achieve these insanely powerful levels of ability for casters.

Additionally, I design module adventures (mostly PnP, but am learning to convert to cRPG) and I had heard all the horror tales of AD&D1st to 2nd, then D&D 3.0, to D&D 3.5 and how casters have been consistently nerfed in the official PHBs over that course of time. As it so happens, I have all those (with the exception of 3.0) and so I made a comparison

If anything, casters haven't been nerfed directly. They actually come out with more spells per day and more methods to use them overall compared to earlier editions. They now have feats and skills that they gain (and with INT being a prime stat of casters, they tend to get more skill points than anyone else to spend gaining them per level) in a faster succession rate than any other class with Rogues running a close second. They have access to things that allow them to cast while Silenced, Held or Paralyzed *(Meta Magic Feats) and they have newer, even more powerful spells since those days.

Time Stop was poorly implemented in NWN and I was personally glad for it's removal. It seriously unbalanced the game. IGMS was another game changer that, by all rights should have been better implemented, however, in lieu of fixing it, removal was a sane course of action.

We talk about nerfing things and making it harder for casters, but honestly the changes that have come have made them much, MUCH more powerful than ever before. Only problem: D&D is in a class Arms Race. This Arms Race has caused things to occur like Every class Levels at the same number of experience points. Every class has to have "Killer Awesome Skills and Feats" useable RIGHT NOW! Every class has to have something else beyond the last thing. It's all about getting more and more and more and MORE!

So fighters are pretty kick butt now, even at lower levels and it's hard to deal with them. Thieves get such powerful sneak and backstab opportunities that it's nearly ridiculous. Bards can be turned into the amazing double Ginzu Knife with a lute to boot. There's just no end to this mad dash for MORE POWER!

IN that light, casters might not be seen as getting as much in that way, but you have to bear in mind, the Caster is the reason that all these other classes are in the arms race in the first place. Everyone thinks their character should be "balanced" with a caster of the same level. 

The last generation of players, both PnP and cRPG, have clearly got the largest amount of blame for this. However it's not their fault directly. We have seen D&D in cRPGs change from a slow paced, exciting series of adventures that left you biting your nails during an encounter, wondering if you were going to see the end screen, "The monsters have defeated your party! The monsters rejoice!" to now a situation whereby, more often than not, losing an encounter is a mere annoyance that provokes a saved game reload, or all your party members miraculously get back up and you hit the rest button and five seconds later you're ready to rock and roll. Again.

Now, with cRPGs it has become an Arms Race of Instant Gratification and perception of "I Should Be Totally Invincible!" Casters are not nerfed. If anything, the entire game has been nerfed with overpowered characters, skills, feats, classes and mixing of classes, spells, items, weapons and so much magic that the hoards of several ancient dragons would pale in comparison.

I think, and of course this only this one person's humble opinion, that the best thing that could happen to D&D right now is a sort of "Back to Basics" mentality where the adventure and the story is the thing, and the realization that the meager limits of the characters and their ability to persevere over the long haul is exactly what really makes this game worth playing.

You want fast levelling and high combat action? Go play WoW, or Call of Duty. You want a deep story, involved NPC interaction and an epic length (not epic levels) saga that you'll remember fondly for years? That's what, to me, D&D was and should be all about -- always.

Monopoly is stil the same game it always was and people still enjoy that. Why can't we be satisfied with adding to this game without having to completely change it's nature into a PvP concept where more is always better and more power is the penultimate search in your character stats?

dunniteowl

Your criticisms of modern cRPGs seem to be as follows:

1. Length - your assumption seems to be that it's only legitimate to throw around world-altering spells if you've been building up to it for six months.'

Actually, this is your assumption.  You could possibly infer I might feel that way, but I don't assume you do.  Truth is, if you design a module (and PnP does this often) for 8th-12th, then the spells, powers and encounters should be appropriate to that module.  No grinding required.

I understand your point, but an imaginary badass isn't any less imaginary because you put X months of work into him. The longer a story takes to tell, the less coherent it becomes. Poe thought that the optimum length for a story was half an hour, because, if it took any longer, the reader would have forgotten the beginning. Judged by this standard, computer games are too long to function as a storytelling medium, not too short. If it takes you six months to level to 17, you'll have completely forgotten your character's motivation other than that level 9 spells look cool.

That's patently absurd.  Regardless of what Poe thought, he was obviously mistaken.  Using his standard, we couldn't have school classes lasting longer than half an hour and it would take even longer to get to the 12th grade, because you would then have a lot more "grinding" there in order not to forget the lessons learned in the past 2 hours.  How long do you think Basic Math would take to grasp up to the point where Algebra kicks in in half an hour at a time sessions?  English Grammar?  History?  Forget about it!

The point is that giving someone the ability to level a character from 1st -- 30th in a single player experience that lasts, what 40 hours, let's say, means you go up a level every hour or so.  And believe me, in that hour and 2 minutes per level, there's a crapload of grinding anyway.  So that's really sort of a moot point.  More more more.  Again.

Realistically, people who have little to no experience with D&D can't even get used to the powers, skills and abilities of that level in slightly more than an hour.  Going by your Poe assessment, by the time they finish level 2, they won't even remember what level 1 was like.  

Clearly this is absurd logic to be using to refute the concept of longer playing games (because it's clear that folks complain if they don't get 40+ hour games and there's a fairly large block of folks that whinge on about a game if it's got less than 80+ hours as being too short.)

Also, that's an awful lot of grinding without much visible reward. Can you really expect any company to offer six months' worth of really good, original content for $60? No? Then say hello to Fetch Quest City, where delivering letters is such a complicated concept that it completely escapes the locals. I'd rather have a game that levels me to universe-destroying badass in six hours if those six hours are full of interesting, well-thought-out quests I've never seen before.

See my comment above about grinding.  And who said anything about making a computer game take 6 months of playing time?  The point made was that the time it takes in sessions playing PnP is realized over a longer period of time, making a direct comparison to PnP advancement and powers vs cRPGs ludicrous. 

The problem lies not in offering this all-expenses-paid adventure from Noob to Uber Pwnzer of the Realms in a single offering.  This isn't "The Price is Right," we don't need a package deal.  And there is an awful lot of grinding already, as I stated, and there's not much in the way of tangible results other than all the Phat Lewt that's spread around like an easter egg hunt for 5 year olds, chock full of pretty shinies and sweet candy prizes in plain sight.

Now I'll grant, that's a stilted view of the situation, though I'd wager it's relatively accurate, based on watching video games develop since video games have been around.  A level 1-20 adventure is going to grind away at you anyway.  It can't be helped.  Why put your customers through all that, even at an accelerated pace?  For that matter, why put your devleopment team through all that?

It's not because Poe was right and we can't remember.  It's because the marketeers are pushing the envelope of catering to the instant gratification crowd.   All that treasure, the easy encounters, the rapid advancement of levels to the point that by the time you're at level 5, you still haven't got a really good lock on level 2 spells (which you get at level 2 and 3) and the tactics and powers of your melee characters haven't even been fully explored by the time you have another cool power or attack that makes the previous ones moot.  Moot to the point where forgetting them is actually the way it's designed, because now they're completely useless.

Intangible results are much longer lasting.  How about the feeling of accomplishment when you master your two spells, and you've figured out how to position the wizard and rogue properly so that they can provide fire support to your Fighter or Ranger or Paladin, while the Cleric is used to sway the course of the outcome by either casting offensive spells or defensive spells and provding the occasional (and not so occasional) melee support role?  How about the feeling of success when your caster properly casts Sleep on the lower level minions and allows the rogue to dispatch them in short order, leaving the harder opponents for your Fighter and Priest characters?

These are intangible measures of a person's ability to know they are learning how to use their skills, spells and powers effectively.  Not because it's easy to do, but because it takes some thought, some strategy and some mental preparedness by knowing the effective capability of each character and how they synergize as a team of chartacters acting in concert.  I don't care how many enemies of whatever level you can mow down, as long as you feel you've bested what amounts to either superior odds or superior ability, you'll have that reward, even if you don't reap a ton of +3 items from the boss character.  Sometimes success is a much more gratifying reward than the treasure.

Unless Poe was right, and we've already forgotten how useful Sleep, Stinking Cloud and Magic Missile were those awfully long 2 hours ago.

It's the clash between the time and money constraints on modern game development and this kind of longer-is-better attitude that got us such highlights of RPG design as the endless your-princess-is-in-another-castle gameplay of NWN2 chapter 1. 'Fifty hours!' is still a selling point, and the result is games padded out with pointless filler.

This is, in my view, ass backwards.  The issue is that the fight for cash (yours and mine and everyone else's) is being waged by marketeers who think that fast, instant and more more more, is what sells.  It doesn't matter if the game is designed well or poorly, the marketing is going to hype the number of hours to play, the number of monsters to greet and defeat, the spells at your disposal, the weapons and items that you can find, carry and use, but the story?  Hah!  Pointless filler is becoming the norm and it's not based on good storytelling.  And neither is rapid advancement through 20, 30, 40, or 50 levels.

It's like telling someone that, because McDonald's sells more hamburgers than any other two competitors that it means their burgers are better.  It sounds logical, until you think about how so many people out there really don't care about quality over getting something right away or cheaply.  And this is exemplified in pretty much every aspect of our society and it's all about sales, not quality.  Plus, it's cheaper than just about every other competitor out there.  Now that's a quality burger. 

Games are really not that different on the whole regarding the mentality of trying to do more sales with less time, development and quality built in at the start.  It's not the same as hamburgers, but the mentality is right up there with it.

If you take the time to really examine the issues at heart, you'll see more clearly what I am saying and not interpose any assumptions you think I am making that are not already clearly stated in print.

2. Difficulty. You seem to think that a good game is a hard game, and that giving the players fewer tools to deal with their problems will make the overall experience more interesting.

Easy to learn, difficult to master.  I never said the game had to be hard to learn or hard to play.  I never said they should have less.  I have said that it's gotten out of control.  I dare you to passably refute that point instead of reading into it what you think I want in a game.  Show me where more = a better playing experience overall via the simple addition of more stuff.  

After all, it was you who brought up the half hour and we forget point.  By your logic and using Poe as a standard, we should be playing video tiddly winks or Yahtzee, because that's short enough for our diminished mental capacity and attention spans to play.  I'm not drinking that potion, thank you.

That said, games that are easy to master and easy to "beat," are short-lived love affairs of the gamer heart.  Tetris is easy to play, hard to master.  Folks get addicted to it.  The Sims is super easy -- there's not even a real story to it -- it's a blockbuster.  Sidescrolling shooters are easy to learn, easier to beat and that's why there are so many of them, to give you something else to look at while you memorize moves, levels and repetitive actions.  And I submit it's not that there is more stuff.  It's just that there is more there to it than meets the eye.

While D&D has a boat-load of rules, options, spells etc., it can be learned in it's basics relatively easily.  As you play your character and learn it's abilities (which takes more than half an hour and 20 combat encounters that you can waltz right through), you start to gain an appreciation for the deeper ability to choose different and still successful courses of action -- even if all you're talking about is combat encounters.  But you cannot master those nuances, those options if each level takes only an hour and 2 minutes of your time.  Not gonna happen.

I think D&D appeals to a specific type of player.  A player who prefers to be more tactical over twitchy.  A player who thinks and ponders issues, even when they are moving quickly.  I said in another thread, the primary RPG demographic is that of a person who prefers something more mentally challenging than how many opponents you can kill per second (and I admit this is changing, but again, we're looking at a change in the marketing that's pushing another market segment into this type of gaming -- resulting in repeated and regularly scheduled hues and cries about the developers dumbing the games down for the masses.) 

And, once again, we're looking at an issue of some group being told this is the game for them by offering to change what was once a more mentally challenging experience to one that is more realtime, more twitchy and less based on how well you know your character as opposed to how many spells, items, powers, weapons, amors and attacks you get per second.

What's really being offered in all that?  More, more, more.  Not an engaging and deep plot or story, not memorable characters (and there are exceptions) and not more involved paths to success.  Just more stuff to pawn the NPCs and villains faster faster faster, because all their market surveying shows that the single player gamer plays a game once and then moves on.  Why worry about high quality?  Why worry about keeping true to the roots of the game from which it's developed?  Hey, it made a profit, lets do more of that!

It has nothing to do with what I think about game length, level pacing or actual story and adventuring when it comes right down to it.  My complaint is based on observations over time.

The OP complains that casters were nerfed and this just isn't so.  The truth is that all characters have been given more powers, more skills, more spells, more items and more weapons to the point where player skill is less important than the Kewl Gear and Spell Buffs you can hang on your 'toon' (a phrase that I personally find slightly derisive of playing RPGs in the first place as a Role Playing Game where a role might actually be played.)

Like I said, it has turned into a class Arms Race.  It's got nothing to do with great story, length of game time, difficulty of picking up on the nuances of the game, etc.  It is what it is, and beyond my personal points of view that come with it, I beg you to refute the central point I made -- more is being added in terms of instant gratification of the player and less is being given to story, plot or development of a character beyond adding equipment, weapons, spells and powers that have the effect of making a character harder to kill and easier to whomp on the bad guys, all other things being equal.

In fact, you make some of the same points, boring story, grinding to get to a specific point in the plot.  These are what have become casualties of adding more crap to the game.  You have to have pointless filler in between the levels, because you've made it about the gear, the acquisition of powers, spells, weapons, items, and not about the story.  The story is becoming less and less important, because it's more about rising from Level 1 to 20 (or 30 or 40) in X amount of hours.  And to do that, you are forced into combat after combat after combat so you can level your toon in an hour a 2 minutes per level.  How do you concieveably advance a plot that paces the character level in so short a time and have it be remotely 'believeable?'

The problem with this philosophy (is that this is not my philosophy: dno) is that difficulty is not a good thing in itself - it is only good insofar as it makes the end reward more satisfying. A tense fight where every spell is used and you're down to your last party member is exciting. A fight that's tense because you don't want to have to use your best spells or to walk alllllllllll the way back to town to resurrect a dead party member is just annoying. There is a reason why no modern RPG makes you do these things, and the reason is that players should be going 'Oh no, I might lose!'  and not 'Oh no, I might have to waste a lot of time and/or be weakened for some hypothetical future battle!'

and in general, I am in agreement with the technical aspects of your points.  Though they had nothing to do with my originally quoted post.

Also, I'm not convinced that older RPGs were actually more difficult. In Baldur's Gate 2, the average encounter

-could not kill off any of your party members (you couldn't resurrect them all the time)
-could not force you to use your most powerful abilities (or you would need to back out of the dungeon and find someplace to rest in case a boss was around the corner)
-could not damage your characters too badly (you might run out of healing spells)

In contrast, the structure of games like Dragon Age lets every fight go down to the wire if the developers so choose. As a general rule, they choose not to, not because there was anything structurally harder about old-school RPGs but because an overly difficult campaign undermines storytelling - you don't want to have to play out the same epic fight 15 times.

Also, as a final note, I think that's the first time I've ever seen 'slow-paced' used as a term of praise.

I will not quote within the last section.  My philosophy is, from your references, not clear to you.  My points, however, have not been refuted in any sensible manner I can address.  Baldur's Gate 2?  Are you kidding me?  While a lot of folks hold up Baldur's Gate as the pinnacle of RPGs, my experiences go a tad further back and believe me, while I enjoyed Baldur's Gate, it was not nearly so hard to master as was Pool of Radiance through Pools of Darkness from SSI in the Gold Box series.  It wasn't as hard to play as was Wizardry through Wizardry III.  It wasn't as engaging to me story wise as Bard's Tale and Bard's Tale II. 

And I would please invite you to direct me to the part of my posts where I said the words, "Slow paced is really better, IMO" such that you could say that I praised slow pace?  Pacing is not fast levelling or fast combat slowed down to be a slow pace.  The NWN2 OC is slow paced by my estimation, because there are way too many pointless combat encounters which do not advance the plot or story in any effective manner.  Even though, you can level a character in less than an hour in many cases (because the combat XP just BAM! adds up horrendously fast <-- See, I said fast, but I am claiming the module as a whole is slow paced.  Conundrum!) the pacing of the story is slow.  This is what makes you lose sight of the central plot. 

Your points about grinding, having a badass character and having a tense battle that makes you grit your teeth are all well mentioned.  However, I never thought the point of playing an RPG was to be able to brag about how fast you "beat" the campaign on super HardCore Mode, or how easy it was with your Toon being invincible, or how much treasure and loot and how many kills you had under your belt, or that you got to level 20 before the third chapter in the game.  These are things we read often in the forums from a class of gamer.

No worries, that's a playstyle that is certainly viable and obviously gives them something of value.  But you can get that in any First Person Shooter, Racing Game, Combat Simulation or Unreal/Half-Life/Quake deathmatch *(and soon in Crysis 2 as well.)  An RPG in that sense is a Rocket Propelled Grenade and has nothing to do with playing a role per se, or playing a role playing game.  It's not that it's wrong, or can't be done, but it bespeaks a different sort of mindset than the prototypical Role Playing Gamer.  And I welcome them.

And all that said, the fast leveling, the more more more of items, weapons, skills, treasure and multiple combat encounters abounding -- the overall pace of the game is slow, grinding and relatively boring for the most part with moments of actual story taking place in spite of itself.  I couldn't play past chapter 1.  I just couldn't 'connect' with the story and I grew ever tired of the combat.  If I wanted that much in the way of combat, I'll play Call of Duty or Crysis, or Half Life or something.  The pacing of the story, not the game, was just too maddeningly SLOW.

Balance has everything to do with pacing.  NWN2 is balanced for a faster pace and quicker levels and for all that, it's fine.  But the action outpaces the story and this, IMO, is a Bad Thing.

However, I challenge you to make a case for casters actually being nerfed.  I ask you to refute that there isn't a continuing drive to have more, more, more as I opined.  I encourage and invite you to show me that this isn't the case.

In the meantime, please be assured I make no assumptions I don't explicity print.  I write what I write in length to avoid having you (or anyone) to have to "read between the lines" to infer what I might really mean.  I mean what I say, when I say it, in print or verbally.  I invite you to re-read and rethink my points with that in mind.

Very engaging post, by the way.  Thanks for the thoughts.

best regards,
dunniteowl

Modifié par dunniteowl, 27 février 2011 - 06:17 .

[Blue_dodo]

most oft the problems, eg actual bugs and pnp spells have been fixed in the spell fixes mod

my problem is warlocks, particulerly hellfire warlocks 1 con damage per enemy ?! what were they thinking ?!!

also there is an alternate rule set were hellfire warlocks go over 3 levels

[Arkalezth]

Kaedrin is going to fix the CON damage for his next update (or was it for the current one?). Either way, I think they'll lose 1 CON for blast, regardless of the number of enemies.

[rakh-talazar]

DNO, I seem to have annoyed you. That was not my intention and I apologize.

I'll try to address the content of your post later.

[dunniteowl]

No, I am not annoyed. I don't know how long you've been a member of the NWN2 scene, but if you've been around a while, you should know that I do my best to as thoroughly respond as I can. I thought your post was pretty good, really, I just don't think you realize that I don't put very much if anything between the lines. I prefer to comment and post on what others actually print and hope that all others will credit me the same.

I enjoyed many of your points, they just didn't address the specific topic, nor do I think your conclusions about my "intent" were very accurate. That said, I think, in large part, we probably agree on quite a few more things than you realize. We may not draw the same overall conclusions or even enjoy the same playing style, however I got the impression that the story means something to you to the point where you felt compelled to respond.

Hat's off to you. There are hundreds out there that read and never respond. So thanks for that. And enjoy your game, however it represents for you.

best regards,
dunniteowl

[Blue_dodo]

I hope he does there is one out but it is old and I really do not wish to go through all the trouble just to up date the spells, I'll just deal with it for now.

[Haplose]

rakh-talazar wrote...
1. Length - your assumption seems to be that it's only legitimate to throw around world-altering spells if you've been building up to it for six months.

I understand your point, but an imaginary badass isn't any less imaginary because you put X months of work into him. The longer a story takes to tell, the less coherent it becomes. Poe thought that the optimum length for a story was half an hour, because, if it took any longer, the reader would have forgotten the beginning. Judged by this standard, computer games are too long to function as a storytelling medium, not too short. If it takes you six months to level to 17, you'll have completely forgotten your character's motivation other than that level 9 spells look cool.

Also, that's an awful lot of grinding without much visible reward. Can you really expect any company to offer six months' worth of really good, original content for $60? No? Then say hello to Fetch Quest City, where delivering letters is such a complicated concept that it completely escapes the locals. I'd rather have a game that levels me to universe-destroying badass in six hours if those six hours are full of interesting, well-thought-out quests I've never seen before.

Well, like DNO already clarified, six months concerned a classic pen and paper campaign. I suppose for such a campaign only 6 months to reach level 9 spells might in fact be generous.

NWN2 has tools that allow you to experience something slightly similar within it's engine though. Dungeon Master supervised campaign on scheduled meetings. Or a bit more loose, but still very nice and more flexible, especially in regard to play time, Persistant World servers.

I'm not sure what the standards on individual servers are, but I imagine for more role-playing focused ones half a year to reach level 17 might be realistic. Might be faster on some, might also be much slower on some. Haven't played much online in NWN2, but my experience with NWN1 was that it took me a year of mostly everyday play to reach the top levels (and I was one of the very few players on that server who got so far with a single character).

If you actually role-play then no, you won't forget your motivation, regardless of how long it takes to get to those high levels. In fact your charcter may start out as merely a sketch that gains new details and layers as his life advances. A book that is waiting to be written... As the time progresses you flesh him out more and more, events unfolding may shape him, make him... or break him... You won't ever forget that motivation, as he lives by it. It may change over the course of time - but if he's a dynamic character - all the better.

Also as long as there is a creative staff of live active DMs (ones that haven't "burned-out" yet) quest quality will never be compromised. As these quests are reactive and respond to player actions, even simple quest will be better then most of the even more sophisticated single player quests. Of course always "having a quest" is usually the privilidge of DM-ed campaigns only. On a PW you will spend a lot of time without a DM running a quest for you. But there are other players to RP with. To team up, explore, take on challenges together, etc.

Modifié par Haplose, 28 février 2011 - 09:10 .

[Mr Ordinary]

I must admit, I was disappointed with the loss of Time Stop. I don't really see why it is so much different than any of the "Hold <whatever>" spells, except it allows no save and ignores spell resistance. Those are easily rectified.

As for it's use in PW situations, that would be easily overcome by granting it an AoE and so treating it as a very powerful "Hold Everything" spell within that radius.

Regards the question of 'balance', balance for who? Is it the job of the DM, or builder, to make it a 'fair world' for everyone? Or is it their job to allow the character class the player(s) want to use, to be utilised to it's fullest?

Who is meant to be the one having fun?

Modifié par Mr Ordinary, 03 mars 2011 - 03:59 .

[painofdungeoneternal]

Perhaps they didn't do it because its a spell they could not do like in NWN1, how it would have to be using 3.5 rules would be seen as nerfed, and since it needed some complicated rule changes to fit into 3.5 rules it was a lot more work than other things. Per the terms of how they had to do NWN2 it HAS to follow 3.5 rules, with exceptions where it is allowed to follow 4.0 rules, which for all intents and purposes made using timestop without investment of time and energy into it impossible.

I know what it's like to do a lot of features. I do focus on things which do affect balance. But there are unlimited numbers of things i can add, neglecting a feature is more a matter of just not having enough time to do everything, and those things which i do happen to do end up being more important than those i don't. Frankly i don't do things that focus on theoretical balance, i focus on areas which obviously are imbalanced and which have people complaining about, about things players ARE complaining about which have root causes. When you hear complaint after complaint about a certain class being overpowered, and other classes that are weak, its wise to add features to the weak class and not just keep adding things to the strong one. I mean when is that spirit shaman and rogue going to get some love.

When asked what top 3 features you'd add to the engine, what things would you choose. I personally would fix some of the remaining bugs, some issues with rogues uncanny dodge, perhaps fix parry so it actually works, and i think there are a lot of complaints about invisibility, or perhaps fixing the camera, or skywings engine changes to fix bugs being put into the official game. This is focusing on one spell like it's all by itself and nothing else is going on, when this is not the situation. Take a look thru the top 3 features and bugs, time stop just is not something people brought up. Note that if we can implement it ourselves in a day, that is one day of work the devs could have focused on things hidden in the engine.

( not that this matters since the lawsuit derailed all this, but if they do start asking, bring up time stop, if enough folks request it to be fixed, the devs would work on it, the issue is every time it came up, once folks understood the 3.5 changes to the spell it just did not seem that useful anymore )

Modifié par painofdungeoneternal, 04 mars 2011 - 04:25 .

[nicethugbert]

So, it's time stop or all those other things? Wow, screw time stop. I'll take all those other things including the NWN1 functions used to code NWN1 time stop.

[painofdungeoneternal]

The functions used to code timestop are there. Getting it working as it was in NWN1 is very easy, scripts are even still there. So it's not either or, it's vault and community provided timestop or those other things -- but that assumes you let yourself download reerons fine work and the 3 or 4 spells that did not make it from NWN1, or if you want it done like it should be in PNP the PRC project has it done pretty close to either 3.0 or 3.5 rules. They could not get something like that approved since WOTC decreed NWN2 has to follow 3.5 PNP rules to an extent.

Modifié par painofdungeoneternal, 04 mars 2011 - 05:25 .