JJDrakken wrote...
So would you rather them have like 10% of the hitpoints they do now, but make them extremely hard to hit & have damage reduction spells on top of them?
JJ
Kileyan wrote...
JrayM16 wrote...
You know, a lot of people say that the stats aren't that complicated, but let me tell you this. I had a friend who bought Origins and stopped after about 10-15 minutes cause he just didn't wanna deal with the stats. ANd he was a pretty hardcore gamer. Loves games, play them all the time.
There is some credence to Bioware's claims.
True, but how far do you lower the bar to attact that friend?
My friend abandoned pc's 10 years ago, he only has a cheap laptop to do keep up with facebook and download free music and movies via illegal ways.
He hates any game that lasts more than 15 hours, any game that has level up choices or more than one activated skill. He played the entire game of Mass Effect 1 as a biotic but wouldn't use the skills because he thought they should be auto used. The only reason he upgraded him armor and weapons via inventory is i did it for him. I kid you not, he played the entire game with a pistol, and complained the game was stupid, too hard and too long.
He is a hardcore gamer, he is exceptionally good at platformers, and shooters. That doesn't mean every game should be made to attact him.
Do we really want games to be designed to attact that sort of player? Seriously, I don't want to play a game that is designed to attract someone who, within 15 minutes was overwhelmed by spending 3 stat points and one talent point.
C'mon, think hard about what that game would be, if it was designed to essentially attact someone who has zero interest in rpgs?
Why design a game like that, I could ask where is my base bulding, resource gathering and army units building. I want Dragon Ages the real time strategy game! I only half kid, I think that or even an ME spin off into another genre would be kind of cool
AbsolutGrndZer0 wrote...
Kileyan wrote...
JrayM16 wrote...
You know, a lot of people say that the stats aren't that complicated, but let me tell you this. I had a friend who bought Origins and stopped after about 10-15 minutes cause he just didn't wanna deal with the stats. ANd he was a pretty hardcore gamer. Loves games, play them all the time.
There is some credence to Bioware's claims.
True, but how far do you lower the bar to attact that friend?
My friend abandoned pc's 10 years ago, he only has a cheap laptop to do keep up with facebook and download free music and movies via illegal ways.
He hates any game that lasts more than 15 hours, any game that has level up choices or more than one activated skill. He played the entire game of Mass Effect 1 as a biotic but wouldn't use the skills because he thought they should be auto used. The only reason he upgraded him armor and weapons via inventory is i did it for him. I kid you not, he played the entire game with a pistol, and complained the game was stupid, too hard and too long.
He is a hardcore gamer, he is exceptionally good at platformers, and shooters. That doesn't mean every game should be made to attact him.
Do we really want games to be designed to attact that sort of player? Seriously, I don't want to play a game that is designed to attract someone who, within 15 minutes was overwhelmed by spending 3 stat points and one talent point.
C'mon, think hard about what that game would be, if it was designed to essentially attact someone who has zero interest in rpgs?
Why design a game like that, I could ask where is my base bulding, resource gathering and army units building. I want Dragon Ages the real time strategy game! I only half kid, I think that or even an ME spin off into another genre would be kind of cool
Great post, I agree completely. I know it's daunting when Bioware sees that people didn't finish DAO, but you do have to look at WHY. If it's like your friend here, then nothing they do short of making a non-RPG is going to attract your friend.
Riloux wrote...
I don't like using the word troll, but I suspect you are confused. I don't think you like RPGs at all. RPGs are about tactical long-winded combat, not mindless button mashing resulting in one shots. You say you like FPS games; I think you should stick to those.
Dorian the Monk of Sune wrote...
False. Fun we cant debate. I had much more fun in BG but thats me. There was so much removed from the Infinity Engine.
Day and Night cycles, ability to steal from and kill civies
(don’t tell me about pick pocketing), 6 person parties, ability to bash chest,
death of party members, encumbrance, individual inventories. Ability to skirmish without enemy health replinshing and it didnt have level scaling so that Winter Wolf you fought at 2nd level was a different experiance at 5th.
I agree with a lot of what you said here, but I disagree with this bit. As an exxample I'd offer The Dark Heart of Uukrul, a CRPG from 1991 or so (I just looked it up - 1989), wherein party members could die, and resurrection magic was unreliable, so the game required that you replace dead party members with new ones. And there was an infinite supply of adventurers you could hire when necessary.AlanC9 wrote...
Death of party members is only tolerable in a setting that allows for resurrection, which breaks too many things about the world unless you're willing to go all the way to an OOTS world where everyone knows that resurrection is common and takes that into account.
And while this is true, I would suggest that this structure itself is part of the problem.As for no level scaling -- that really wouldn't work well with DAO's structure. And stuff in BG2 was often scaled, though somewhat less obviously than in DAO.
Not in general. They don't fit well into every game, but there are certainly games where it only adds to the fun and variation. I like day/night cycles in open-world games.AlanC9 wrote...
Dorian the Monk of Sune wrote...
False. Fun we cant debate. I had much more fun in BG but thats me. There was so much removed from the Infinity Engine.
Day and Night cycles, ability to steal from and kill civies
(don’t tell me about pick pocketing), 6 person parties, ability to bash chest,
death of party members, encumbrance, individual inventories. Ability to skirmish without enemy health replinshing and it didnt have level scaling so that Winter Wolf you fought at 2nd level was a different experiance at 5th.
Yep, and a lot of these are things that I thought ought to be removed.
Day/night cycles ruin pacing.
Skirmishing without enemy health replenishing is a kind of AI exploit, isn't it? I suppose there are enemies who can't do anything about this sort of tactic even if they understood it, though.
I wouldn't mind seeing encumbrance and individual inventories back, though since I don't like inventory-based gameplay in the first place this probably wouldn't be worth the zots with the amount of items I'd want in the game.
I think the NWN inventory is the best one I've seen in a CRPG, and in a party-based game I think we should have to outfit each character separately to avoid the nonsensical situations where you have one health potion and you can choose to let either of two characters who are nowhere near each other drink it, even though there's no credible way to pass it between them.termokanden wrote...
Encumbrance and individual inventories? If it's anything like the Fallout 3 and NV systems NO THANKS! That almost single-handedly ruined thosed games for me
Sylvius the Mad wrote...
I think the NWN inventory is the best one I've seen in a CRPG, and in a party-based game I think we should have to outfit each character separately to avoid the nonsensical situations where you have one health potion and you can choose to let either of two characters who are nowhere near each other drink it, even though there's no credible way to pass it between them.termokanden wrote...
Encumbrance and individual inventories? If it's anything like the Fallout 3 and NV systems NO THANKS! That almost single-handedly ruined thosed games for me
Modifié par Hexadecimal, 03 mars 2011 - 07:23 .
I'd also like to point out the well-implemented pack animals in Dungeon Siege. Like NWN, DS used a grid inventory system (which I very much like), but there were also pack animals.Rawgrim wrote...
Check out the inventory of Might and Magic 6-8, if you like the nwn inventory. Its even better.
That can also be a fun thing to do. My favourite DAO character was a Rogue who didn't learn any combat skills, and even carried a shield (thus preventing him from using any weapon talents). He was terrific. He thought he was smart, and he was, though not in any practical way, so I put all of his stat points in Cunning but he didn't learn Lethality so Cunning had zero combat benefit.Hexadecimal wrote...
I understand the people getting intimidated by the stat system, I sure did, but I suffered through and ended up mucking up most of my builds. (fail mage, fail tank, fail rogue)
Sylvius the Mad wrote...
I think the NWN inventory is the best one I've seen in a CRPG, and in a party-based game I think we should have to outfit each character separately to avoid the nonsensical situations where you have one health potion and you can choose to let either of two characters who are nowhere near each other drink it, even though there's no credible way to pass it between them.
the_one_54321 wrote...
Final Fantasy The Four Heroes of Lite actually has individual character inventories. And they are very limited. It makes managing the whole inventory system thing a challenge unto itself.
I'm still trying to reconcile my own opinion of it. I haven't finished the game yet.BobSmith101 wrote...
I could never understand that game. On the one hand it looks like it should be an entry level RPG and on the other it's the hardest FF game released in years.the_one_54321 wrote...
Final Fantasy The Four Heroes of Lite actually has individual character inventories. And they are very limited. It makes managing the whole inventory system thing a challenge unto itself.
the_one_54321 wrote...
I'm still trying to reconcile my own opinion of it. I haven't finished the game yet.BobSmith101 wrote...
I could never understand that game. On the one hand it looks like it should be an entry level RPG and on the other it's the hardest FF game released in years.the_one_54321 wrote...
Final Fantasy The Four Heroes of Lite actually has individual character inventories. And they are very limited. It makes managing the whole inventory system thing a challenge unto itself.
Mordaedil wrote...
I find it hard to play DS games. They feel like they are in their own dimension. I can't play it like I could GBA and it's not as powerful or neat as a console at home, so it ends up collecting dust. I have yet to beat any game I own for the DS, actually. Curious.
Modifié par BobSmith101, 03 mars 2011 - 07:49 .
Sylvius the Mad wrote...
I agree with a lot of what you said here, but I disagree with this bit. As an exxample I'd offer The Dark Heart of Uukrul, a CRPG from 1991 or so (I just looked it up - 1989), wherein party members could die, and resurrection magic was unreliable, so the game required that you replace dead party members with new ones. And there was an infinite supply of adventurers you could hire when necessary.
Party member death can work (I also see no reason to limit it jus to companions - I'd like to see the party contrinue on after the death of the PC, but that would require they let non-PC party members act as spokesman, which they don't seem to want to do despite me asking for it in every single game).
termokanden wrote...
Not in general. They don't fit well into every game, but there are certainly games where it only adds to the fun and variation. I like day/night cycles in open-world games.
Yeah, okay. I should have qualified that a wound penalty system doesn't work in a heroic game (such as 99% of cRPGs I've ever encountered). It works fine if you're looking for something a bit more realistic, however. Unfortunately, I've spent way too much of my time playing heroic games (getting my gaming group to play anything other than 2E or 3.X D&D is nigh impossible...) and I tend to forget that running away is actually an option.Maria Caliban wrote...
The problem is that whether a system 'works' depends on how you feel about it and if it meets your goals.Vaeliorin wrote...
Yes. But I'm also saying that a lot of the mechanics that people want to get rid of also work, and it bothers me that people want to get rid of them.
Of course, I also see people campaigning to keep or enlarge on systems that don't work at all, which I don't really get.
You said wound penalties create a cycle of death. How is that a bad thing if you have a game where there are non-combat solutions and combat itself is meant to be deadly?
That's not broken. It works exactly as it's meant to. There's also little in-combat healing and no reloading an old save in World of Darkness. When my character gets three feet of steel shoved into her gut, my thought is not "-10hp, 320hp left" but "Oh sh*t! I need to get out of here!"
Now, that's probably not what BioWare wants its gamers to experience. I can deal with that, though I think it's unfortunate. It's a perfectly fine mechanic, however, and you rarely see people who say they love RPG mechanics and hate how unrealistic and anime DA II appears to be ask for.
I'm familiar with DM's who did it like that, having played PnP for close to two decades now. I hated it, particularly since there are classes I don't enjoy playing (for example, I have never and will never play a pure wizard in a D&D-based game). Instead of playing the character I wanted to play, I was forced to play a character that matched the stats I rolled. I'm sorry, but there's no way I'm ever going to enjoy playing a character with an intelligence of 4 and a constitution of 7. I did once play a character with a wisdom of 3, which was fun...until the character got himself killed from doing something that someone with a wisdom of 10 probably wouldn't have.Yrkoon wrote...
Hmm... I'd have to think on that some more, but at first thought, I'm not sure I agree. What makes dice rolling so perfect for Role Playing (at least in games like D&D) is that it represents fate or chance or "act of god" or whatever you want to call it. And Good Stories, Unique stories are made from that.Vaeliorin wrote...
Regardless, dice rolling is a poor means of determining stats (and HP) because it causes serious imbalances between characters, making encounter balance difficult to impossible, and makes players who rolled poorly unhappy when their characters can't compete with those who rolled very well.
Let me explain. In traditional, Pen & Paper you didn't sit down and say: "ok, I'm gonna roll myself a Strength-based Barbarian!". No, what you did is you rolled the dice for all your stats, and then when you were done, those stats would determine what class your character can be. So, for example if you rolled up a character with 6 strength, 10 dexterity and 18 Intelligence, you are not going to be a fighter, or a rogue or even a monk. You're gonna be a mage. A bookworm type. Now I don't know about you, but letting the fates decide what my character is... and then me doing my best to role play that character, and striving to make him an overachiever and a hero is what I loved most about the entire system.
I would argue that it's in the spirit of those who enjoy the game part as much as the role-playing part.A point buy system kinda takes some of that away. With point buy, your characters can now be just like thousands of other player characters, all starting off the same, with exactly the same number of HPs, and all having maxed out their primary stat to 18 so that their character does exactly the same damage as everyone else's. So what you end up with is a " everything is fair" factory designed to mass produce generic, cookie cutter Characters. Gone completely is that wonderful element of chance.
And that's not the spirit of classic Role Playing. It's something else. It's what happens when Role Playing meets computers.
Modifié par Vaeliorin, 03 mars 2011 - 08:07 .
Sylvius the Mad wrote...
I think the NWN inventory is the best one I've seen in a CRPG, and in a party-based game I think we should have to outfit each character separately to avoid the nonsensical situations where you have one health potion and you can choose to let either of two characters who are nowhere near each other drink it, even though there's no credible way to pass it between them.termokanden wrote...
Encumbrance and individual inventories? If it's anything like the Fallout 3 and NV systems NO THANKS! That almost single-handedly ruined thosed games for me
In Uukrul, even a full party wipe wasn't a game over event. Eventually some scavenger would haul a corpse back to a temple and one of you would get resurrected. And that one party member would then get to hire a brand new group.AlanC9 wrote...
For this to work with Bio's companion-intensive style, you'd have to have a relatively large number or companions and maybe a less lethal combat system than DAOs. And I'm not certain most players wouldn't treat any companion death as a fail state anyway.
This is one of the reasons I think a shallower power curve makes for a better game. It solves all manner of design problems.IIRC BG did not scale, but I've never really tried to verify this. It didn't really need to, since there really wan't a very large level range for when a party would hit any of the critical path encounters. It's an advantage of only having 7 or so levels in the whole game, I think.
Since when do people not run away in D&D games?Vaeliorin wrote...
Yeah, okay. I should have qualified that a wound penalty system doesn't work in a heroic game (such as 99% of cRPGs I've ever encountered). It works fine if you're looking for something a bit more realistic, however. Unfortunately, I've spent way too much of my time playing heroic games (getting my gaming group to play anything other than 2E or 3.X D&D is nigh impossible...) and I tend to forget that running away is actually an option.
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