Gatt9
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Posts posted by Gatt9
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I've said it before and I'll say it again. Gary Gygax's single worst contribution to the RPG hobby was the invention/inclusion of a rigid alignment system. It's reductive, it hinders organic character growth or change in the course of a game (talking PnP here) and it's mostly just nonsense.
It defines the Character's overall personality, allows the DM to design his campaigns without having to try to account for every possible variation, and defines roleplaying expectations.
Without it, you have a Character personality that is largely ad-libbed, inconsistent, and often ends up with the Character being an Avatar for the Player's personality rather than the Character being seperate. It largely starts entering LARPs land where the Player is the Character, rather than the two entities being seperate.
Further, it's hell for the DM, since he has no reasonable expectation of how any given event will play out, since now all actions are completely arbitrary. A Paladin can pee on an altar, because there's nothing that defines the Character's personality as an individual who would never do such a thing. Campaigns themselves rapidly become ad-libbed since the DM constantly has to deal with the random actions of players.
Finally, the system does readily permit alignment shifts over the course of a game, and includes rules for how to handle such events.
Alternative systems, such as Reputation systems, are plagued by far worse problems than a Alignment system. Since now you attach values to actions, you end up with utterly ridiculous situations, such as a town's hero suddenly killing nearly everyone and ending up with an neutral reputation. Or worse, the "Pay a fee to commit a crime" scenario, where you identify someone who has something you want, find a reputation sink in the town, kill the person and then go donate your reputation back up.
At it's very best, long term, all Reputation systems do is attach numeric values to the Alignment system. Someone who actually creates a personality for their character, and follows the personality, ends up falling solidly into one of the Alignment brackets.
TBH, the only thing I've ever seen a Reputation system, or any other Alignment alternative do is facilitate people's desire to take arbitrary action and avoid consequences.
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I agree with the OP but to a certain extent. There should be powerful enemies with upper scale statistics appropriate to their levels. However, it should not be scripted nor should they be unkillable. However, it may be their resistances and HP is so high that it's impossible for the PC even at their maximum level cap to defeat these enemies.
However, if future events empower the PC and his companions - e.g. finding a powerful artifact or absorbing the essence of a fallen god (in future expansions), I see no reason why the PC cannot return and whoop the little green dragon's ass
I'm going to have to disagree.
As a videogame, we've decades of conditioning that nothing is impossible. Implementing such a thing would have people spending hours trying to win, and then getting really mad and putting up a huge stink.
In a PnP game, you know the score, the DM can and probably will kill you (Sometimes repeatedly depending on the DM), in a video game there's no way to communicate to the Player that this is a bad idea.
And it'll become exponentially worse once someone finds an exploit and actually does kill it and there's no real reward for it.
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This thread has descended into, and forgive my bluntness, a load of bollocks. At least the stuff about classes has.
The developers have made it clear that they are talking about classes-as-archetypes. Look at the Ciphers and Chanters before mewling about "it's like WoW classes." FFS.
Within these classes I am sure you will be able to do a great deal that bends the classic take on these classes. Until you learn a bit more about that, why not talk about stuff that has some sort of basis in reality? Rather than project your own distorted fanservice POV on it?
You seem to completely misunderstand my posts. I never implied that they'll play like wow or that there will be no flexibility. I just stated that they are lifted from DnD. Which by the way is completely unnecessary because the dnd class system (especially in 3rd edition) is deeply flawed. I also stated that it would be better if that saying that hey had to do this because it's the only choice is false as many RPGs (including 4th edition of Dnd) successfully implemented a different system. Rambling about projecting doesn't automatically refute my post and is also unnecessary.
EDIT: Cyphers are psions and chanters are the only new class. Meanwhile the rest are the same as in another very flawed system which worries me.
I'm going to have to go ahead and call this trolling at this point.
1. You will not find any classes that haven't been implemented in D&D systems. D&D is so extensive at this point that anything you can think of has had some iteration in D&D through the years. The number of spells and magic items alone are so huge that WOTC released around a dozen books trying to catalogue them all with 2nd edition. Never mind the various classes, kits, prestige classes, etc that've been created in supplements and issues of Dragon.
2. 3rd edition D&D is widely regarded as a huge turning point for the property, having evolved the AD&D system to account for new levels of customization.
3. 4th edition didn't succeed at anything. Even it's own players will readily admit that it's character/class implementation is deeply flawed, and you can find these admissions on WOTC's and EnWorld's boards quite readily.
So basically you threw up a strawman, because it's impossible to find any class that D&D hasn't covered (Especially in the Fantasy area), and then you tried to touch off another edition war by claiming "3rd edition sucks, 4th edition rules". You even contradict yourself by calling Ciphers(Psionics) and Chanters(Bards) new, when all that's demonstrably different right now is the letters in the name.
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As much as I hate facebook, there's nothing wrong with getting extra game content for pressing a mouse button.
Plus, the whole goal is to bring the project to the attention of even more people, which could bring *alot* more content in the form of more pledges. Honestly, there's really no downside on this IMO.
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In the last thread about honoring the Obsidian Order, I noticed something interesting.
40% of the people who voted were under $50. Around 25% were under $35. Several thousand of us are more than $140 already according to the kickstarter page, so it's going to end up generating alot of ill will when people who donated a fraction of the money get increased recognition beyond what they got.
The whole Obsidian Order thing is fun and all, but trying to take it further is just going to raise the ire of the people who donated generously when it becomes increasingly apparent that a sizeable chunk of the Obsidian Order is still under the retail cost of a game. I'd strongly recommend talking about grandfathering in everyone at the $100+ tiers first, since those people are already tossing in more than the cost of a retail game.
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The initial goal of 1.1 million was going to be a pretty lean game I'd reckon.
Even if they reach $3m this is still a small game (as noted by others) and one well within Obsidian's capabilities.
damn, you guys have been pissing on my campfire a lot lately...between this, people withdrawing due to the cooldown debacle and some lunatic "hoping" for a solid 8 hour gaming experience I'm starting to feel like I was the only cat expecting a game the length and breadth of the IE classics. Those were no shorter than at least 40 hours, way more if you took the time, explored and read the lore.
Actually, I think they said they expect to be able to get pretty close to IWD/BG1 length.
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4th edition never took off as a product, and wasn't going to. It used the Bethesda approach "We don't need you nasty old fans, we're going to change everything and we'll have 10x as many new fans!". Predictably, it didn't go so well.
I think you are confused. This is what happened with 2nd ED. Upset fans, ones who never went back to D&D, TSR burrying...
no, no, wait - that was 3rd. WotC buys TSR, changes the game horribly, D&D fans not happy and never come back...
no, wait, it was 4th...
no,no, wait... it's 5th.
This happens each addition. New company or not.
I find it extremely funny, the 3E fans, who say how WotC ruined it with 4. The same company. Which, in it's previous edition, drastically changed the game.
Just admit - you like 3E. You didn't want it to change from that.
Everything else is hyperbolic "my team vs. there team" nonsense.
I should have known better than to get into this "discussion." It's as bad as most other topics on here, like Vancian.
I'm so tired of the snide comments and insults. Carry on the 4E bashing to your hearts content.
You've got alot of problems in there.
First, I liked 1st edition. I liked 2nd edition. I liked 3rd edition. I wasn't about to touch 4th edition.
Second, 4th edition didn't do well. You're welcome to be unhappy about that, but no matter how much you attack me, it still didn't do well.
Third, you illustrate exactly what I meant when I said WOTC let the 4th edition fans attack anyone who didn't like it. A whole bunch of handwaving, a few personal attacks, but nothing to refute what I said other than "You're wrong because you liked an edition other than 4th!".
We're talking about 4th edition, not Merin. If you're so invested in the 4th edition of D&D that you view statements about it as statements about yourself, then you *really* need to take some time and think about things. No one has said a word about you, all that was said was that 4th edition did not do well.
Healing surges are an exmple of a clear improvement. Would you rather potion spam? Or a cooldown timer on your healing potion slots, like DA does it?Surges are a per-day resource, that allow for dangerous fights, that deplete a resource, without making that resource as silly as potions, wands, and CLW spells, that just get hurled around and render the whole thing kinda pointless. When you're out of surges, you're **** out of luck.
While the mechanic may have had good intentions, the implementation was immersion breaking at best. For decades Players had been trained to equate HP's to Health, and reduced HP's to wounds through myriad RPG/CRPG systems. The Healing Surge mechanic just made people think Characters were just healing themselves, which just draws impossible mental images.
To many, Healing Surges were a great deal more silly than potions, wands, or Clerical spells. It also ended up turning the Cleric into a Mage that can use weapons, as they then end up duplicating functionality. The role of a healer differentiates them from Mages, without it, they're just underpowered Mages with a few more buffs.
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They keep repeating the April 2014 release date so I'm sure they are confident they can reach that. Plus, Sawyer has said in several interviews that people should not view the money raised by each stretch goal as having a "1 to 1" relationship with what is being added. Even if they reach $3m this is still a small game (as noted by others) and one well within Obsidian's capabilities.
To be honest, my biggest concern with PE is not that they will have to delay the game, its that something will happen at Obsidian that will endanger the project. If they suddenly get a big project from a major publisher, that could impact how much time guys like Avellone and Sawery can spend on this. And the flip side is what happens if they don't have anything lined up after South Park ships - can they keep the studio going.
I wouldn't worry too much about that. I'd be surprised if Obsidian would work with Bethesda again, and I'd be even more surprised if they worked with EA. I suspect we'll see Obsidian go independent here shortly. Which makes me a very happy panda, because I think these guys are creative geniuses being hamstrung by Publishers.
Edit:
Although, the wildcard is...I wouldn't rule out Hasbro starting to shop around for experienced Dev's to do a D&D game based on 5th edition. Obsidian would definitely be on their shortlist, and we already know Hasbro wants a digital presence.
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That said, I don't think we'll be getting experience for kills ?
Wait.... I thought I read something about this too.... somewhere. Anyone have a cite? Or maybe it was just an idea Josh was tossing around?
It was a vaguely worded comment about non-combat skills, that was later clarified. Xp/kill is present.
I voted static xp, sliding scale levels achieves the same effect, so this is squaring the complexity, with no real benefit.
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^ It's tanking. 5th Ed has come around with indecent haste.
It's not tanking in the sense you mean.
For one, the company as a whole made several really bad calls. One, they ended their skirmish game support for their mini's. I never played the skirmish game, but they cut out half the reason for getting the figures. Two, they introduced stupid products like the pre-printed power cards (which, yes, looked cool, but if you ever tried to use them you'll realize quickly why they aren't useful) and very expensive dice sets. Three, they killed their magazines and placed them behind a pay-wall - that paywall, DDI, being the biggest mistake of all. Four, they left a HUGE opening with OGL for hard-core 3E fans to not have to try to adjust to 4E - ergo, Pathfinder for the 4E haters.
All of those blunders ended up "coinciding with" (I'm not saying caused, but it's certainly possible they did cause) some shake-ups in the people in charge. Different designers get in charge, they have different visions. Look at DA:O to DA2 for a prime example. Different people in charge have different design ideas.
WotC was doing fine, sales wise, with 4E. Yes, Pathfinder grew to out sell it at times - but if you look at those times, 4E hadn't released books for a long time and therefore a big glut was open for new Pathfinder books to continue excitement. But the misstep of Essentials (not a tragic misstep, but a wholly unnecessary one) was followed by a driving desire (and this was absolutely wrongheaded) to "win back" 3E fans.
Actually, it was always doing really bad. WOTC just didn't want to publicly admit it. You could find very knowledgeable insiders who would go on record, on the net, as saying 4th edition was not doing well. But my favorite one was the European store that went to the forums to beg WOTC to look into a EU distributer who'd been on backorder for 6 months, 6 months with no product at a major distributer, and no one even noticed.
4th edition never took off as a product, and wasn't going to. It used the Bethesda approach "We don't need you nasty old fans, we're going to change everything and we'll have 10x as many new fans!". Predictably, it didn't go so well.
WOTC had only one option, and that was to walk away from 4th edition. Every other choice meant burying D&D. WOTC took careful steps to hide this, such as making their forums openly hostile to non-4th edition fans, and then warning non-4th edition fans if they posted responded. But if you ventured outside of the WOTC ecosystem, it was obvious that 4th edition was toxic.
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@alanschu:
Why is it that you believe I am referring to you personally? I assume you are referring to my statement: "They will probably make a lot more money on a system that younger players and modern game players are used to and seem to enjoy."
If you wish to argue against this statement then please go ahead and do so. It seems clear to me that kooldown kombat is definitely an easier system for younger and more casual players to get into. Pretty much every major publisher would seem to agree with me. By "younger" I mean "younger". I am not referring to any particular age group. You are aware that 14 year olds play computer games too, right? Admittedly they are more likely to play console games, but some play computer games as well. I think it will be easier for, say, a 10 year old to get into a cRPG with the kind of combat mechanics being proposed here than the ones in the original IE games or god forbid something like ToEE or the Realms of Arkania etc. That is not intended as an insult. I was once 10 years old as well and was playing computer games like Zork or Super Star Trek or whatever. We obviously didn't have such fancy games. I'm sure I would have enjoyed them. Especially if I had never tried anything else. But, yes, I do think a simpler system with less micromanagement and more action will have a greater appeal to younger gamers. Publishers seem to be making a lot of money based on that very assumption.
I'm going to be very blunt. Your entire premise is based on assumptions that are wrong.
Your first major assumption is that Publishers have any idea what they're doing, and that they do it for valid reasons. This is not true. Publishers make decisions based on how well games did, or to be more specific in the case of niche games, how well a single game did. The Adventure Game genre is a great example, it is dead not because Adventure games couldn't sell, but because Grim Fandango did not sell. One single game did not sell, and the Industry declared the entire genre was dead.
They do this because they're not interested in making Quality games, they're interested in money, because business people who greenlight projects that sell 10 million units get bigger bonuses than business people who greenlight projects that sell 5 million units. So the people in charge of what we're playing are basing decisions purely on what's most likely to get them the biggest bonus.
This is the same premise that got us "Turn based games can't be made anymore", and the recent "The only game worth making today is [Call of Duty]" uttered by EA, Ubisoft, and Capcom (Syndicate, X-com FPS, Resident Evil 6).
So your evidence is faulty, because the source's rationalization has no real logic behind it other than "I want the same bonus the COD guys got!".
Your next major issue is "Publishers are making alot of money", they really aren't. If you go look at the NPD results for the last 3 years, you'll find that the market has been shrinking, and in 2012 it's starting to shrink at catastrophic rates.
You might want to take some time to read this article...
http://www.theverge.com/gaming/2012/7/2/3125866/the-state-of-games-state-of-aaa/in/2910504
Publishers have been surviving by either copying what someone else did, or by rehashing the same couple of games over and over. Not by making well informed decisions. Further, Publishers don't make money by selling games people think are really fun to play, they make money by misleading customers.
Publishers do everything possible to make a game look better than it is at release, railroad customers into preorders, and make it look like it's wildly popular. They intentionally misrepresent their game prior to release. They use Review Embargoes to keep negative reviews off the net until after release, and if your score is high enough you're allowed to break the embargo. They rip content out of the main game as preorder DLC. They have shills talking up the game prior to release. For one major release, one "Respected" company banned everyone who was negative on the eve of E3 for ridiculous reasons such as "Posts that contain rhetorical questions". Even their demo's are fabricated, RPS did a piece after this year's E3 about how all the games were being shown on PC's, not the much lower powered consoles. They do everything in their power to sell copies before anyone actually has any idea what the game is really like.
The entire Publisher model is based on a house of cards built upon misinformation, and greed, at the expense of customers. So using that as the basis of any arguement is going to get you in enourmous trouble. Publishers aren't selling games because of cooldowns, or any other mechanic, they're selling games because until this past year, there was no other option if you wanted to play games, and because they do their level-best to misrepresent the product before you can actually learn what you're buying.
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I would love to see Intelligent undead. Many of the undead are designed around being intelligent and incredibly dangerous to PC's. Sadly, CRPG's treat them as (Borrowing from above) "High level skeletons".
Of course, alot of the problem is that pretty much every critter in a CRPG is treated as just a battle. I can't think of a single occasion where I've had critters in a CRPG actually do something other than attack me head on.
It's been so long since I've played those games that I don't remember. I think there's been a Dracolich somewhere before.
There has. It was either Curse of the Azure Bonds, or Warriors of the Eternal Sun (Sega Genesis). I don't remember which one it was.
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I don't think your two factions are really that mutually exclusive. I like the games BioWare makes, but I still like the old IE style games and recognize the advantages that they have. I also love Obsidian's writing style and frankly, the idea of having a bunch of geeked up Obsidianites that are passionate about making the game that they want to make without any restrictions seems very much like a game I would enjoy.
Very well said Alan.
The two "Factions" are not mutually exclusive unless you're essentially a radical member of one of them. I started gaming on the Atari 2600, I was playing AD&D at 8 years old. I think Fallout 2 was the pinnacle of CRPG's, followed closely by Planescape.
I also loved KotoR, Mass Effect 1, and Dragon Age Origins. I enjoy Diablo.
Give me my choice, and I'll always choose Turn Based. But RT or RTwP systems, implemented because they make a better game (And not a marketing bullet point) are equally fine with me.
TBH, the only reason there's really an issue at all is because Publishers refuse to support anything other than what will appeal to 15 year olds. People are fighting because every title becomes precious when there are so few titles released, and even fewer that aren't being converted to Gears of War or Call of Duty. If there was actual diversity in the market, this would be a non-issue to all but a few, as it was nearly 15 years ago.
Anyways, Alan's right. The two factions are far more comingled than they are divided.
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Not trying to be mean, but I think the inclusion of it in game is enough. The whole concept already punishes those of us who pledged as high as we could on Day 1, and apparently I'm pledged higher than a good portion of those who've joined. So, to be honest, this is really becoming a little bit offensive to those of us who gave generously IMO. (No, I didn't vote, I'm not that rude!)
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The developers should not be designing around the behaviors of some subset of Players. Just because some Players might Reload doesn't mean that it should limit design. It's an extremely slippery slope, that ultimately leads us to the conclusion that there should never be failures because some players might reload. We should never miss, never do anything less than full damage, never be hit, we should never have bad paths in a conversation tree, etc.
If some people choose to God-mode a game, then simply let them. Don't design around them and leave good mechanics on the table, or implement debatable mechanics just because it solves the issue of Reloading.
Similiarly, Resting. Some people cannot stand to have their party in anything less than 100% state. The issue isn't Resting, it's how some people play. There's no reason to design around that, because it gets us right back on a slippery slope and leads us to regenerating health for everyone.
Design shouldn't be around a subset of Players exploiting a single player game. That's why we've never seen something like the Deck of Many Things, because some people are going to reload. So we lose out on a potentially fun experience. Design around a great idea, redesign around one that could be improved, but never design around some subset's need to God-mode.
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Poll is biased.
Fails to differentiate between some obviously different combat systems (DAO and DA2), includes MMORPG's in a question about single player games, and fails to have a single turn-based example (Such as Fallout).
The last set of questions demonstrate obvious bias in their phrasing as well, note the first and last options clearly indicate "This is better!" while the middle option is phrased to make it sound neutral towards "Modern" styles.
Poll author is also operating under the incorrect assumption that "Modern" is in any way new, it isn't, most "Modern CRPG's" are genre shifts and contain combat found in other genres, or they're even more stale than the game the author considers "Old". Skyrim comes to mind, it's the epitome of stale, it hasn't changed in 15 years.
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Zero level scaling forces the player to follow a set path, the problem with that is people like freedom of choice.
Except zero scaling does not force the player to follow a set path.
It might cause some paths to become very easy if you do them later, and it might cause some paths to be very challenging if you do them sooner. Or, even better, some paths might be harder or easier depending on your party-makeup if you meet them earlier or later.
Or, and this is the real prize, a shallower overall power curve in the game allows no scaling and player freedom, since the power difference from the minor enemies and more powerful enemies is smaller.
There should be encounters which, should you meet them too early, kill you easily. There should also be encounters which, once your character has developed, are trivial to defeat. And those trivial encounters shouldn't just vanish because you're stronger. City guards should be a fixed level. Bandits should be a fixed level. Wild dogs should be a fixed level. If I fight Ogres, and learn that I can kill them by doing 15-25 damage, then the next time I meet ordinary Ogres again that should still be true, even if I now do 45-60 damage per attack.
You just saved me 10 minutes of typing Sylvius!
The only thing I would add is: Level scaling removes Character Progression. Since the Character now remains static in relation to the world, Character Progression becomes irrelevant. In extremes, you get Oblivion, where you could be the greatest warrior in the land at level 2, and could even beat the final boss if you could get to him. Gaining a level is pointless if you don't actually gain in power in comparison to everything else.
IMO, Level scaling is the worst thing that's come out of this generation of consoles, it's a truely horrible mechanic present only so the Developers don't have to be bothered with doing the work of designing a logical and compelling world. It's a way for them to avoid having to do experience projections to tweak the game areas to fine tune difficulty. As with anything, it has a price, and the price for level scaling is steep.
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I've had an idea for a thread. It's simple, but might be fun. It could even be useful to Obsidian, giving them an insight into what people have loved about RPG's.
So what's your best RPG memory? Could be PnP, CRPG, even LARPs. Could be happy, angry, something that drew out emotions. Doesn't matter, just an experience you think of fondly.
Here's one of mine...
I would have to say my favorite memory was the mechanics in The Bard's Tale 2. Specifically, two of them...
1. One of the best examples of character progression I'd ever seen, the Mages. In The Bard's Tale, there's 4-5 classes of Mage, you select one, and once you reach a certain level you can switch to another class. Ultimately, at very high levels, you have access to spells from all 4-5 classes. It really felt like I had choices in how my Character developed, like I had something to strive for other than "Just another level".
2. Magic items. Magic Items in The Bard's Tale didn't tell you what they did. Additionally, Mana didn't regenerate in the darkness. So I'm wandering around in the depths of a dungeon (Fanskar's fortress), lost, with no mana left, and a Fighter with almost no health. Suddenly, something clicks in my head, and I realize my Mage suddenly has Mana! I had equipped a Mage Staff, and just suddenly realized it had the unadvertised ability of regenerating mana! I actually managed to get out of that one alive.
For the PnP guys...
We had just discovered D&D (The D&D that existed during the 80's, think Red Box). We played for weeks, and eventually found a "Wheel of fortune". My friends and I then spent the rest of the night daring each other to take "Just one more spin" and betting on the outcome that the Player spinning would experience. We ended up with near-useless characters by the end of the night, but it was alot of fun taking the chance of spinning one more time.
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We're circling around an issue much more basic that needs to be discussed before it's really worthwhile to even try to have these higher level discussions.
Group 1: "I believe my Mage should be active at all times in combat, and he should be using Magic to attack, not a physicial weapon.
Group 2: "I believe my Mage should be something that turns the tide in battle through comparitively large effects, but is limited in the number of times he can do it".
Group 2a: As above but, "I'm not a fan of being unable to choose my spell on the spot, but rather guessing what I'll want ahead of time" (Mana)
This is what the arguement boils down to. People whose issue is "Rest spamming" fall into group 1. People whose issue is Reloading are in either Group 1 or Group 2a. Vancian people are in Group 2.
If this arguement is to progress, we need to resolve this first. The arguement is how people perceive Mages should play, and without resolving that discussion, it's really pointless to keep trying to have any other higher level discussion on implementation.
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Cooldowns introduce a number of major problems...
-First, and foremost, they break the Mage character. The intent of the Mage character is that while he is weak, and his damage is less frequent than a Warrior, his damage is tide-turning. A single spell can change the entire course of a battle. Cooldowns break that, since now the mage can fire off spells at will, without any need to worry about resources, his damage must be reduced and he can no longer sway the tide of battle. The alternative is to let him retain his power, in which case you get Dragon Age Origins. Everyone stands around and watches while the mage casts a spell or two and kills everything.
-Second, the fundamental reason for the switch to cooldowns, "Rest-spamming or reloading", is flawed. It's removing a perfectly functioning system because some subset of players are not willing to use their spells judiciously. This is a Player problem, not a game mechanics problem. Too many times concessions are made because some subset of player abuse a system to bypass RPG mechanics. First it was Character death, then random ability rolls, now it's magic resources. If some portion of the people choose to ignore the checks and balances in RPG's, that's their problem, it doesn't mean the RPG system has a problem.
-Third, it introduces something that takes the Player out of the game. Instead of keeping the Player's focus on what's happening in the game, it makes the Player pay more attention to the UI. The player ceases to be fully invested in combat, and becomes partially invested in watching a GUI element.
-Fourth, it's a fundamentally broken system. It always boils down to "What spell has the most damage for the shortest cooldown, and what spell can be cast during that cooldown", resulting in a system that pretty much always consists of casting the spell 2-3 spells over and over exclusively. It introduces Time as the primary resource, and relegates Damage to the secondary resource. Spells cease to be about what's the most appropriate, or even what's cool, and becomes all about "What has the shortest cooldowns".
IMO, this is a very bad design decision.
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I feel the lack of defined stretch goals is really hurting the kickstarter. I think they could have a lot more money. Stretch goals incentivize upgrading pledges, and new pledges at higher levels. At this point, we already know all of the stretch goals that are present will be hit, so why pledge more than the minimum?
Strong stretch goals also tend to cause wealthy people to kick in late in the run at high tiers. Dead State had people kick in 2 of the highest tiers in the last few minutes just to reach an extremely close stretch goal. Wasteland 2 overcame the mid-kickstart slump by announcing Avellone. Planetary Annihilation was consistent because of it's roadmap of compelling stretch goals.
IMO, Obsidian is limiting their own success right now. IMO, they should have goals mapped out to 3 million at least.
Because Obsidian is already successful. Your last bit makes no sense at all. Some people are misunderstanding the Kickstarter goal; "get as much money as possible no matter what" is not the purpose, nor is the juvenile "we need to beat X project and look at how much Y project made."
"Get enough money to make a business proposal happen" is the purpose. Obsidian may actually feel that the current funding covers all their intended content and then some, so any subsequent bonuses must be weighed carefully to avoid introducing burdensome and unnecessary feature creep or painting themselves into a corner with a promise that may not work out in development.
A good example are mod tools. Obsidian is aware of the desire for such tools and would rather wait a year into development (U12) before committing to that or not; this has to do with a lot of behind-the-scenes balancing against content and funds and other variables the players simply do not know. Because the folks at Obsidian has way more game development experience than, well, everyone here, I must trust their judgment on that matter.
I have no doubt that Obsidian will advertise more stretch goals soon, but thinking that the Kickstarter's current state is somehow a failure is rather silly.
If you're going to quote me, at least read what I wrote. I think you'll find that the word "Failure" doesn't appear anywhere in my post. I think you'll find that the message in my post is that they could be "More successful", which is completely different from "Failure".
I also suspect you're overestimating how much can be achieved with 1.1 million.
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I feel the lack of defined stretch goals is really hurting the kickstarter. I think they could have a lot more money. Stretch goals incentivize upgrading pledges, and new pledges at higher levels. At this point, we already know all of the stretch goals that are present will be hit, so why pledge more than the minimum?
Strong stretch goals also tend to cause wealthy people to kick in late in the run at high tiers. Dead State had people kick in 2 of the highest tiers in the last few minutes just to reach an extremely close stretch goal. Wasteland 2 overcame the mid-kickstart slump by announcing Avellone. Planetary Annihilation was consistent because of it's roadmap of compelling stretch goals.
IMO, Obsidian is limiting their own success right now. IMO, they should have goals mapped out to 3 million at least.
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The vancian system is pretty rubbish for cRPG's. It seems to encourage rest-spamming, reloading and powergaming.
So do the other systems.
-Cooldowns: Figure out the optimal order to fire off spells in, such that the cooldowns never prevent you from ceasing fire.
Mana based: Do the math to figure out which spells deliver the most damage per mana point.
Reloading is a strawman arguement. Every system is vulnerable to it. If you choose the wrong spells to cast in a cooldown system, or a mana system, you'll be reloading there too.
Every system is vulnerable to metagaming, this is a Player problem, not a mechanic problem.
I still think its bad, I can understand from a 'gameplay' perspective how it can be a very tactical thing when in a PnP setting and they're is just more information to go around on that kind of stuff. But it generally falls flat for me in cRPG's and, from that, I start to look at why its even there and there is no reason beyond it being a game rule. Feel free to find a DnD description of why the magic works like that in any of the worlds. Frankly I'd love to read an actual reasoning of it from a non-game rule perspective for once.It's there because it generates game balance in a way no other system is able. The Mage is *extremely* powerful in contrast to a Warrior, and if there isn't some limitation upon him, he'll dominate the game. Cooldowns and Mana based systems bypass this balance, You can see a ready example of this with Dragon Age Origins, as soon as the mage is able to cast his AOE combos and spells, the whole party stands around watching as the Mage just handles every encounter with 2 spells.
The alternative must be to downgrade his spells until they're the equivalent of a Warrior's sword swing or an Archer's arrow. At that point, he's effectively almost all of his positive benefits, if he's only doing the damage of a Warrior, then you might as well just have another Warrior and gain the increased HP's and defense.
This thread really illustrates why the limitations of the Vancian system are necessary, because so many people here clearly exploit the system to the best of their ability as soon as a DM isn't present to stop them from sleeping every 10 minutes.
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Vancian casting is perfect. It rewards planning and foresight, qualities a wizard ought to possess. It also fosters versatility.
It rewards metagaming and reloading. And how on earth does it foster versatility, when each day you're forced to pick the spells you're not going to use that day?
Because the way to approach the system is to pick a balanced set of spells that should carry you over the course of several encounters, and use them judiciously. Not trying to have your wizard casting spells at the same speed your fighter is swinging his sword. If you didn't use the spells that day, it's because you chose the wrong spells, and you should be adjusting your strategy.
It's not like we're talking PnP AD&D where there's dozens to hundreds of possibilities. In a CRPG you generally have very few choices. In a PnP game, spells like divinations, utility spells (Levitation, magic mouth, tenser's floating disk, etc), they're all useful. In a CRPG, they have no practical application. So really, all you're doing is choosing combat spells. Which is *alot* easier to predict what will be useful and what won't.
Further, you act as though cooldowns are somehow immune to metagaming and reloading, which they're not. If you make the wrong choices in a Cooldown system, you're still going to be metagaming and reloading.
Optional Collectables?
in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
Posted
Honestly?
I think The Elder Scrolls games waste fantastic amounts of time and money rendering every single fork and paintbrush so that it can be collected, when the actual gameplay desperately needs redesign.
That said, collectables can be interesting if they serve a purpose (Lore or otherwise) in game. A mage collecting artifacts that once completed ultimately give him a new spell, or open a new quest is great.
But rendering mundane things just for the sake of rendering them is a waste.