Grand_Commander13

You know, he's probably right, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

Apparently it's too easy. Except I don't remember Baldur's Gate or Baldur's Gate 2 being any harder. Maybe it's the fact that Dragon Age doesn't use a system where your mage is the only really useful member of the party? Or maybe they're down on regenerating health and mana, because why let the player get their health and spells back after every fight when real hardcore games let you rest to get your... Wait...

That always throws me off, too. I see why they did it, but the portrait slowly filling up with red feels like it's your character's lifeblood slipping away.

No, Bryy's point is that multiplayer doesn't detract from the singleplayer experience. He keeps hammering at it with every post, insisting that if you budget X dollars for singleplayer and Y dollars for multiplayer, it's because you only ever wanted to spend X dollars on the singleplayer experience and not because you needed multiplayer, multiplayer costs Y dollars, and you only had X+Y dollars in your budget. He also keeps acting like I'm some kind of singleplayer chauvinist, as though I don't have a great amount of hours invested in all sorts of multiplayer games. I think what sets him off about that, though, is the fact that very few people will ever use the multiplayer functionality in the game, and those that do use it won't get enough benefit out of it to justify the necessary reduction of the singleplayer game's budget.

Because, Bryy, in your argument, multiplayer doesn't detract from singleplayer if the singleplayer is unchanged. I'm arguing that the idea that the singleplayer will be unchanged by time and effort being devoted to multiplayer is absurd. Seriously, the levels of sophistry you're willing to stoop to are amazing. Why are you trying to argue that the addition of multiplayer doesn't impact the singleplayer experience when it obviously does?

Yes Bryy, multiplayer costs money even if it's in the original design document. Are you trying to tell me that the hypothetical game could not have possibly benefited from an additional five hundred man-hours in singleplayer? That everything the designers thought would be cool was already in there, and they're like "well, we can release it singleplayer-only in July, or multiplayer-enabled in August, but we can't think of any more ways make singleplayer any better, so there's no point in releasing it in August without multiplayer"? No. That's not how projects work. There's always something more you want. If you hire the netcode guy, you don't have the money for more player portraits, or you have to trim voice overs, or you cut a wilderness area entirely since you can't hire an additional mapper so have to tighten up.

So what you're saying, Bryy, is that if they had the budget to do what they wanted to anyway, and nothing else to add to it to make it better, then multiplayer wouldn't have detracted from the singleplayer experience? I mean, that's highly conditional. Is there any reason to suspect this is relevant? That Obsidian ran out of things to spend money on?

I'm not following you, Byss. What about, say, full voiceover? I think we can all agree that that would have resulted in a negative impact to the singleplayer experience even if it was in the original design document. Multiplayer may not be as expensive, but the budget to include it has to come from somewhere, and it's to give a very small amount of fans a small increase to their enjoyment.

Yeah, in the same exact way any resource is drawn away from any other portion of development. Yeah, I thought it was obvious too, but he asked.

You've had this question answered several times. Maybe go read one of those replies again. Also, since when is grognard an insult? In the tabletop community, people refer to themselves as grognards.

You know, I find myself thinking about playing a monk an awful lot... Might not be a bad place to start. Cipher sounds really interesting too, though. I guess I'll just have to see, but as the beta approaches the choice is becoming easier.

It would affect singleplayer in that resources would have to be drawn away for multiplayer, which is something that very few players will use and of those that use it few would be disappointed with the game even if it were singleplayer only.

I have read the thread, to the point where I realize that pointing out how other games do objective experience just fine is constantly ignored in favor of Chicken Little "but but but the combat is meaningless!" stammering, and largely pointless. I only persist out of pettiness, so I can be on-record as being correct when nobody cares about your Worst Possible Thing.

Bad idea. The beta is to sort out bug and balance issues. It would be far better to wait until a week or two before release and give them a copy of the finished game.

I can't offer up a citation for what the future holds, I can just say "other games have done this" for why it will be fine, and "people can whine about anything" for why there will still be a few grumblers despite it not affecting the large majority of players' enjoyment. Sure, there will always be That Guy who thinks that since even mulitplayer-only shooters have switched over to doping the player with experience points every time he gets a kill that it's mandatory to enjoy a game, but shooters were just as compelling before this was added. Not only will the grinders have the extra loot rewards from exploration making combat feel meaningful, but if I had to make a guess the exploration itself will feel cool and rewarding.

Yeah. You'll note that you can't loot armor anymore in Fallout 2; I can only imagine that all of the wealth you could get from the armor was part of the reason for that.

It won't turn out to be a bad decision. There might be a few people who complain about it, but most people will enjoy the game, and even enjoy the fact that they don't have to seek out and destroy all enemies on the map just because they want experience points. The system has been used in other games before, and works just fine.

Of course the player is being rewarded for their kills. They talk constantly about all of the cool stuff they've put on the map for people who want to explore it. Well, those monsters are what's in between you and the loot you can find by exploring the map.

Huh. I just assumed that that was a result of big head mode being activated.

I don't see what's wrong with not getting experience for fighting enemies. This way we're thinking like an adventurer would: how can I get what I want while risking my neck the least? If you want to know why you'd fight anything but those on the critical path, I'd strongly suspect that there are things to find if you explore the maps, so doing the extra fights will still be pointful.

I don't think a bulk system is in the cards. It would be comparatively far easier to disable the sale of most gear, and reduce prices of purchasable things to compensate if necessary.

The lack of basic expenses as a money sink only covers part of it: in RPGs the money faucet of loot tends to be turned on full blast. I've said it before, but it's way better just to not give the players the huge amounts of items to resell in the first place. I like the idea that what the enemy uses is what they drop, but you should only pick their basic gear up if you want to use it yourself. Any potions or scrolls they might have been carrying should be fair game too, obviously. It just becomes a gameplay problem when a player can freely convert a lot of weak stuff into a few excellent items. Realistically, there just shouldn't be a market for all of the gear a player will accumulate on a dungeon crawl.

I didn't spot that. Looked like his magic missile-tier stuff, for instance, wasn't resetting after a fight.

Yeah, a much stronger showing. I'm not so worried about difficulty now that I see how much more effective the player can be. To be honest though, I really wish the magic system could have gotten past the per-rest limitation on spellcasters. I know he had to rest a lot just to keep his health up, but he was also throwing a lot of spells to speed things along. I guess it's just the Baldur's Gate tribute slipping in, but I never liked that part of the D&D magic system. It's nice to see the pet system in action though. I was afraid that the backer pet would be something that stuck out like a sore thumb and therefore I'd never use, but if they integrated it into the game (spider pets... Now everyone has to go get the spider pet) then it's just cool.

You know, just from watching that stream I think some rebalancing might be in order before the beta starts. I mean, was that really on easy? That was a throwaway fight, so unless the wood beetles did just that much damage then the game is going to give me a lot of trouble.