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codexer

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Everything posted by codexer

  1. codexer
    My main personal point is that I want multiple save slots. I certainly don't think anyone, on either 'side', has suggested that you can't save at all or something. But multiple save slots/files ... where I can choose to save in this slot, play for an hour, then choose to put the next save in a new slot, creating a new file. There are numerous reasons why I like/prefer multiple save files, and most of them have little to do with wanting to "cheat" the game/combat all the time, every 5 minutes or whatever. Anyway, that is what I want, and that is what I've had the impression that the 'anti-save-scumming' folk do not want. Thus, we will never see eye to eye. If I'm wrong on this, please correct me. We just want to limit saving a bit more. It's certainly possible to do that without restricting to only one save-slot.
  2. codexer
    This is an amazingly ignorant argument. Never in my life have I heard of a DM letting their players "reload" and replay an event. Saving is simply not something that is part of the pen and paper-experience of roleplaying. Period. Also. I would ask of you to stop using the term "save-scumming" when it doesn't apply. Save-scumming is when you prevent the game from deleting your save. fair enough, I had never heard the term until this thread and I'm sorry, but saving is a part of the roleplaying experience. replaying content isn't and getting 2nd chances isn't, but its not at all uncommon for people to stop in the middle of something and continue later. Saving is a natural part of it, yes. However, no one is suggesting that we remove it. The first post in this thread made sure to add the caveat that a save&quit-function was part of the suggestion. It's very frustrating to see so many people post in this thread without having grasped this; it really makes you wonder if there's a point in engaging here.
  3. codexer
    This is an amazingly ignorant argument. Never in my life have I heard of a DM letting their players "reload" and replay an event. Saving is simply not something that is part of the pen and paper-experience of roleplaying. Period. Also. I would ask of you to stop using the term "save-scumming" when it doesn't apply. Save-scumming is when you prevent the game from deleting your save.
  4. codexer
    Sylvius: would you also enjoy the freedom to decide your character statistics freely? Would it bother you if the game got too hard or too easy as a consequence?
  5. codexer
    I think there are diminished effect of attrition when saving is allowed anywhere. Let me describe an example: Suppose your party cleared three fights since the last save. They did so without resorting to use of any "dailies", but you've sustained some damage to your party members and you're not in your best shape. You generally like to not use any of the dailies for non-boss battles. Now before you can proceed to the next level of the dungeon you will have to beat one more encounter and you're pretty sure it's not the boss. Also, you don't think you'll be able to rest in this dungeon. With no save possibility you have to make the strategically important decision to try and fight this battle without dailies but in so risk die or, instead, blow some dailies and come out a guaranteed victor. With a save functions you can just reload until you manage the encounter without wasting dailies.
  6. codexer
    For an example: in fallout you could save on your own turn in combat. This could be used to win any fight by saving at the beginning of your turn and reloading until you had a good couple of attacks. You could also save at the end of the turn and reload if the enemy got any good blows in. This was a winning strategy of course - and a trivially easy one. The save mechanic wasn't quite lax enough in the IE-games so as to make combat trivial but it certainly made it a lot easier. You would never have to fail disarming a trap or fail at a pick-pocket attempt in those games either.
  7. codexer
    This is the important point. The save mechanic is not something that's "outside" of the gameplay; it's something that's integral to how the game is played and thus its design impacts everything else. With a lax saving mechanic all games, regardless of other difficulty settings, end up trivial.
  8. codexer
    I don't think anyone suggesting the removal of the "save&exit"-function. Such a function should always exist and it should allow you to quit at any time, but if you continue again the save-file is deleted. Savescumming is not exploiting the save-function to get a desirable result; that's just called saving and reloading. Savescumming is when you circumvent the deletion of a save-files from a continue: http://www.urbandict...rm=savescumming
  9. codexer
    What old games, could you be more specific? all of the IE games if I remember correctly. IWD, PS:T etc. Most cRPG's actually. they just don't lead to an enjoyable experience when forced to repeat content. You couldn't save in combat so as far as I'm concerned there were limitations on saving.
  10. codexer
    What old games, could you be more specific?
  11. codexer
    So let me get this straight. Y'all who're against limiting saving want the ability to save in combat and dialogue? Or do you want a limited saving at just certain times, like for example outside of combat and dialogue? For you in the first camp. I hope you realize that the combat can be portioned up into a series of random rolls of which you can come out on top in each case? In fact, playing optimally will be doing just that. This is obviously very bad design because the game becomes deterministic; the enemy will fail and you will succeed. Playing optimally will be tedious but valid inside the constraints of the game, i.e. without cheating. If you're in the second camp then you've chosen some rules and limits to how and when saving should be allowed. Why are these limits and rules the right ones? Is it these rules that create the best RPG-experiance? Is the possibility to save before disarming a trap a good thing? I would say no. I would say that what we try to emulate with these games is the pen&paper RPG-experiance, and in it there is no save function at all. I don't like ironman as a default though. Because of game bugs and computer mishaps it's too much on the line to only have one save-file. I propose something that's in between. Not so often that you can exploit it, but often enough that you don't have to worry about losing every will to play the game when you have to reload. I propose something like a save every 30 min, in practice that might be two times per level of a dungeon.
  12. codexer
    This is a silly argument. If you think it's boring to play overly cautious then stop doing it! You're basically admitting here that the game-mechanic of limited saving is forcing the player to become better at the game. This is a good thing. Repetition is simply the punishment for playing bad. That's about the point when you lower the difficulty a bit~ Having limitations on savings makes the game harder because it requires that you play more consistently. It's a degree of difficulty that can't just be likened to increasing how much HP and damage the enemies do; it's another "dimension" of difficulty. I'm totally in the camp of something that's in between pure Ironman and free-saving.
  13. codexer
    what have they said that makes you think that? I haven't read anything that leads me to believe we will have limited spell choices. I'm not being condescending. I really would like to know. We have the JS quote: "Knock and its old friends spider climb and invisibility are part of a classic family of spells that made rogue and thief players say, "Hey, why do I exist?" I don't believe their inclusion in pre-4E editions of D&D and AD&D was a great thing." In conjunction with how TC described the classes in the twelfth update:
  14. codexer
    I'm not worried about cooldowns. I'm worried about spell selections and spell lists in general. Will they be as rich as the IE-games? I see no indication thereof, rather I see traces of the opinion that big chunks of the arcane spells of D&D are going out the window so as to not make wizard highly customizable and also prevent them from stepping on other classes toes. I guess I want omnipotence in high level wizards. My fear is that on a white board in the OE:HQ the following thing has been written out: Fighters - Tank/DPS Rogue - DPS/utility Priest - heal/buff Mage - DPS/controll ranger - dualwielding / panther pet etc. PE:online (too soon to kickstart?)
  15. codexer
    On balance Let S be the set of all possible spells in Project: Eternity. Let x be a character and let Bx be the set of spells available for that character. Assuming a cooldown mechanic, let Bxcd be the (multi) set of spells currently chosen to be on continual refreshing via a cooldown. In this situation we have that Bxcd is a subset of Bx, which, in turn, is a subset of S. I want to investigate under which circumstances this series of inclusions is part of a balanced game. The set which most directly determines the power of x is Bxcd, and it is clear that this set must be limited for the power of x not to be too great. We can achieve this bound on Bxcd by different restrictions; restrictions from which different game-mechanics crystallize. We can have that Bx is small and no restriction is put on how Bxcd relate to Bx. This situation resembles how a sorcerer worked in 3.xE D&D if you put cooldown time to zero. We can have that Bx is large and severely restrict how Bxcd is picked. This situation resembles how wizards worked in old D&D if you put cooldown time to zero. (Alternatively we can have something in between; medium size Bx and some restrictions on how Bxcd is picked.) A further, most unfortunate, way to resolve this is to have S be a very limited set in itself. Another thing that contributes to the power x is under which circumstances Bxcd can be changed. If change is allowed after every battle or rest then it is clearly more powerful than if you're only able to replace spells in town (maybe even at a fee) or if you're not even allowed to change at all; where the spell selection is determined as your character advances in level. Besides balance I think for Project eternity to be a good game with the depth of say the classical IE-games the set S has to be large. For it to be tactical, the number of spells cast must be relatively small but in exchange the spells must have a great effect. And for it to be strategical, freedom in planning must be left for the player in how to choose Bxcd. As far as I know, this has only been achieved in Vancians systems (I dont think cooldowns are the antitheses of Vancian magic; but they're more or less superfluous in that setting). Among the things I hope not to see in P:E are mages who are specced to cast only evocation spells or only conjuration spells (because that means lack of freedom in the planning). Or even worse that half the spells in the game are direct damage spells like in DA:O (because that would mean that S is probably essentially small).
  16. codexer
    So what's the source this is taken from?
  17. codexer
    Well, I guess you have to choose; either you meta-game or you "role-play"~
  18. codexer
    The real disadvantages if casting is done on mana or on cooldown and all spells are available at all the time is that the spell list has to be small, otherwise the game won't be balanced.
  19. codexer
    Sorry can you expand on this mechanic. What exactly is it that makes magic points regenerate? How is it different from a mana system (where mana regenerate over (in game) time)?
  20. codexer
    I'll just quote myself from another thread: My point is simply that IF there are a lot of spells (some specialized, other general - as in D&D) in a game then there has to be a restriction on which spells are available at a certain time. This restriction is exactly what spell preparation is about. If you don't require preparation - or restriction - of which spells are available then you want fewer spells. It's, however, true that it can turn into meta-gaming when you reload and memorize a particular set of spell just to beat an encounter. Personally, I think the problem is in the save function, and not the magic system. Admittedly, you could tinker and tweak this restriction function so that it's less exploitable; for example by having a trainer in town that let you retrain your spells and abilities into a another subset. Alternatively the spell restriction could be irreversible - as in forced upon you when you level. That makes the magic system a lot like how sorcerers worked in D&D.
  21. codexer
    In D&D there were hundreds of spells. Suppose now that P:E chooses to have the richness of D&D in the spell department. How could cooldowns in that case work? Either each spell would have its own cooldown or the caster would be forced to make some choice on a subset of spells to have on cooldown. The first is clearly unbalanced, as the caster would have far too many choices (the enemy uses "spell shield" - cast breach. The enemy is immune to fire - cast cone of cold etc). The second is just another form of a Vancian system, with it's inherent oh-so-bad-metagamy strategizing. A system with mana could be critiqued in the same manner; if all spells are available then it's unbalanced and if not then a choice has to be made on which spells to have available, i.e. Vancian. The conclusion is simply that a large number of spells implies a Vancian magic system. A fortiori, anyone who suggest a system with cooldown or mana and no preparations simply wants there to be few spells available.
  22. codexer
    I'm not the kind of player who likes to play dress up the pc with awesome armor and cool weapons. I just want there to be different weapons with different functions, something like AoD perhaps; dagger class weapons are fast but do little damage, hammers are heavier and have a chance to knock down, spears have reach, axes penetrate shields etc.
  23. codexer
    Level scaling and experience caps. Silly humour, like pop-cultural references. Time wasted on customizable character appearance. Cut-scenes. Free movement in melee, i.e. lack of opportunity attacks. Unrealistic armor with huge shoulder pads. Unrealistic carrying capacities. No friendly fire on AoE's. . . . I could probably spend an hour listing all the things I don't want in PE.
  24. codexer
    Tale: It's been my impression that the decision to use a class-based system wasn't actually Cains (Sawyers, prob), so why ask him this question? And don't you think there is an obvious answer to the question? You have classes because it's easier to balance the game if you can make sure that some character builds are impossible.
  25. codexer
    I will join the choir and say that I want a large well-designed "dungeon" with inner logic and difficult encounters that is stand-alone from the the main game quest. I'd have no problem if this retracted from the main quest, as I personally think the main quest should be a minority of the game.
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