PrimeJunta

Why would a gelatinous cube even have attributes?

At first glance I prefer these stats to the prototype Josh presented earlier. They seem more intuitive, assuming that Concentration is something you really want to have, no matter which class you are. (Looking good otherwise too.) Edit: not sure about Pallegina. Sounds like somebody's Sardinian grand-aunt. Edit edit: artwork is full of win.

Not games in general. Just certain recurring features in many games. Also don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed most of the games being discussed here tremendously, but I've enjoyed them despite these features, not because of them. Here's one that doesn't do this: Total War. That series is mechanically relatively complex, and it's often taken me several tries to get a proper campaign started (I usually play on Hard). I have quite enjoyed that process, because I've felt that I'm learning the rules, not memorizing counters to "canned" challenges.

Occasional reloading certainly is. You do slip up sometimes and there should be consequences for that. However, there are CERTAINLY encounters designed for repeated reloading. That's what the tired and threadbare "boss fight" trope is traditionally all about.

Not the same thing. Metagaming is "I know there's a spellcaster around the next corner with buffs A, B, and C, who's going to open up with attacks X, Y, and Z, so I need to prepare counters a, b, c, x, y, and z." Or "I know the best magic weapon in the game is a two-handed sword, so I'll specialize in that." Or "I know that the following scene will get interrupted by a sudden attack of powerful undead, so I'll prepare my anti-undead spells." And so on.

Uh... ok, I guess? I agree, most of the classic cRPG's are mechanically awful and way too reliant on "save frequently and in different slots."

"Feeble." "Dishonest." You're a real charmer, Stun. <plonk>

I don't enjoy challenges built for reloading in any games. A challenge that's designed to kill you until you memorize the right moves is just lazy design masquerading as difficulty. It doesn't reward skill, insight, or creativity, only persistence. I think so many games are like this purely for historical reasons. Arcade games had to have an exponentially ramping-up difficulty curve to keep people pushing in the quarters, and this carried over to computer games where it no longer made sense. Now we're just used to it and expect it, and some of us even think they're somehow superior gamers for having a higher-than-average tolerance for frustration.

@Stun, thank you for the clarification. We clearly value very different things in games. It says something about the IE games that both of us found much to enjoy in them nevertheless.

Success or failure in BG2 was heavily, heavily based on metagaming, though. Most of the tougher encounters could not be beaten unless you knew what was coming. The same applied to character generation and development to a significant extent. Do you think that was a good thing?

@Stun are you arguing that AD&D style character mechanics that easily yield squibs, which severely detracts from the enjoyability of the first, say, three play-throughs, is a good thing because it makes play-throughs 15 thru 20 more enjoyable? If so, I find that a very bizarre position to take.

I've DM'ed D&D from the original boxed set to 3.5e, son. That's about 27 years straight. These were all new when I bought them. If you don't want to criticize D&D, by all means don't, but I don't think it's your place to dictate to the rest of us what we're allowed to discuss or no.

There's preparation, and then there's mechanically casting the same buffs over and over again, allowing for occasional variation for "oh, undead, Death Ward, oh, fire elementals, Protection from Fire." Unfortunately D&D is mostly the latter. That's not fun, it's just tedious.

Hm. If it really is that difficult, then I think modders would be better advised to write new content in existing environments. Not sure how much I'd enjoy playing something set in a generic, pre-provided wilderness area.

@Metabot, what are your thoughts on sandbox games? The Elder Scrolls and Fallout series, Arcanum etc. attempt something like this. Some even go some way towards succeeding. There are always trade-offs, of course, but there is a special magic to them when it works out. (Looking forward to The Wild Hunt actually. I like it that there's a series like The Witcher which trades off variety in character concepts to get more personal storytelling and more focused gameplay challenges. Wouldn't want all games to be like that of course.)

@Stun, I hate to break this to you, but no IE game is as bad as PS:T when it comes to having "the right build." If you don't pump WIS and hit some (rather high) thresholds in CHA and INT, you're just not going to have a very good time. It's even more constraining than most other IE games. The fact that the game intentionally subverted AD&D 2e by making the pump stats the opposite of what you'd expect doesn't change the fundamental problem. You're every bit as locked-in as in any other IE game -- and much more so than in most. BG2 for example at least allows a range of enjoyable builds, even if most of them are casters. I'm a huge PS:T fanboy, but structurally it's closer to a linear adventure game where you either solve problems and get rewards or don't, than a wRPG where you define your character and meet challenges using a variety of ways.

@Osvir, why do you figure creating environment maps is going to be so hard that you'd want Obsidian to provide templates? I figure that if they've got a production pipeline going which can churn them out efficiently enough to build a seriously big game in this kind of schedule, it can't be so hard that skilled and dedicated modders couldn't do it.

By the way, I totes get the appeal of "spreadsheet gaming," i.e., figuring out how to make a power build. That was a big part of IE games. However it is a part I'd be willing to ditch if I got more room for different character concepts in exchange. Put another way, given a choice between "What is the best cleric build?" and "What is the best way to play a fast, dextrous, and intelligent cleric?", I'd rather have the latter.

How, specifically, would you accomplish that?

@Stun, that's true for tabletop gaming. Totally not true for computer games.

It's not muscle fiber, it's what you're able to do with it. I'm pretty sure this guy could've put most of us in intensive care even at that point. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q16RBQ3BQIU He died a week later.

:me raises hand: It's happened to me a couple of times. The last time was NWN2 I think. There's that one part in the main quest where you're dropped solo in the middle of a bunch of elite vampires, with no prior warning. IIRC I was playing a drow, working my way towards arcane trickster. Had low CON, a 2-level handicap from the race, and neither high enough stealth nor enough magic to beat the vicious little things. I suppose it's conceivable that I could have save-scummed my way through that, but that's not my idea of fun.

This is IMO exactly the problem with D&D: that there are primary stats for each class. That makes the stats largely redundant. Why even have stats if the only viable fighter is one that pumps STR, DEX, and CON (in this order) and dumps CHA, WIS, and INT (in this order?) Why not just get rid of the stats altogether and always make fighters strong, tough, and fast? Or, put another way, if you have stats, why not make them useful for all classes, and make the system so that it supports viable smart fighters, wise wizards, and fast clerics?

Zowie. You must really, really, REALLY enjoy grinding.

Of course not. You could design a system where characters would just be good in different ways. An encounter that's easy for one is hard for another, and vice versa. Conversely, if you have a system where most builds suck, that means there's that much less variety between good builds, which is what counts. Base D&D in any of its editions is really bad in this way actually. Most of the charcter-building variety is illusionary, really. There's really only one way to build a good fighter, rogue, cleric, or wizard. This is why you end up with the ginormous bloat of prestige classes and various variant classes. They wouldn't be necessary if the base mechanics let you build, say, an intelligent fighter or a wise wizard, without ending up with something that's totally gimped. And while with all the extensions you've got a ginormous variety of classes and prestige classes to choose from, in any one of them you're still pretty much locked into the way it was designed. There's not a whole lot of freedom within them. Of course, some enjoy the challenge of figuring out the right build for each class. I would prefer a system that gave me more freedom to design the character like I want, instead of trying to reverse-engineer the designer's template.