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PrimeJunta

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Everything posted by PrimeJunta

  1. PrimeJunta
    I have no comment on the specific system you're proposing, but I do think that some differences in weapons, beyond brute damage, should go in. I like the armor penetration mechanic that has been presented so far, and reach might also be useful. However, I think the law of diminishing returns sets in pretty quickly as you start piling on more stuff. No comment on the specifics of your post; whether they're workable or not depends on how they hang together. My spontaneous reaction is that it looks overcomplicated; it ought to be possible to get more or less the same result more intuitively and with fewer variables. I also like what I've heard about the combat mechanics so far. They seem to have it well in hand.
  2. PrimeJunta
    Now that I'll grant you. The little simulationist in me winces whenever charged by a passing bear. But it would be pretty tedious to actually have to trek, in-game, as long as you do in a real wilderness before getting anywhere. And each other. From the orc's POV, humans are just another pesky goblinoid race. Assuming the races had some ecological differences that would give them an edge in different circumstances, I don't see why they couldn't coexist for a quite a while. If you're positing magic, why not posit a protector deity for each of the races, willing to intervene if it's faced with extinction? Plenty of reasons why those deities would prefer to fight each other by proxy through the mortal races, rather than face to face. Maybe they inhabit different realms. Maybe they're immortal. Maybe they're family and have a spell put on them by the Overgod stating that if one of them kills another, the world will end. I guess what I'm sayin' is, I don't find it particularly difficult to invent somewhat consistent in-lore explanations for the diversity of fantasy races in a fantasy world.
  3. PrimeJunta
    I would expect the game to have changeable key mappings. So bind "pause" to Ctrl-Alt-Del. Problem solved.
  4. PrimeJunta
    In human history, settled farmers displaced roving hunter-gatherers just about everywhere the two came into contact. So if roving hunter-gatherers were able to effectively exterminate Pleistocene megafauna, and settled farmers were strong enough to displace (and eventually effectively exterminate, when there was no more wilderness to run to) hunter-gatherers, then why would settled farmers not be strong enough to displace Pleistocene megafauna should the two have come into contact? I also don't see a huge difficulty with megafauna coexisting with settled farmers for a significant period of time -- say, several thousand years --, given the right conditions. It would be sufficient to displace them, but as long as there's virgin wilderness for them to be displaced into, they wouldn't necessarily go extinct. At the very least, I think a human settlement could make itself enough of a nuisance to a dragon-sized predator that it would prefer to go after easier prey.
  5. PrimeJunta
    I'm a big supporter of believable ecologies, even in fantasy games. However there are better ways to do this than just make everything bigger (although you can if you want to, and goblins farming giant botflies is a pretty good idea actually). But a giant orb spider could just be eating birds and bats instead of flies and moths, so there's no need for giant insects to go with it. I'm willing to overlook the problem of how it breathes. It also doesn't follow that having big scary beasts would have made civilization impossible; after all humans evolved in a world where the beasts were pretty bleeping big and scary. It's likely that our ancestors even hunted most of the biggest and scariest into extinction. Maybe they do that to giant spiders. Perhaps the venom is a prized commodity. Maybe that's weeded out the aggressive ones from their gene pool and left the rest either timid or way out in the wilderness.
  6. PrimeJunta
    "Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals," Page 271 and on.
  7. PrimeJunta
    A party-based cRPG should not be twitch-based. Limiting pause would make it just that. Resounding NO on that suggestion from moi.
  8. PrimeJunta
    This implies a linear area progression. One of the nice things about e.g. the Fallouts and BG2 was that the early to mid-game was not linear; all areas were accessible from the get-go. This means that the dev can't know how powerful the party is when they first enter an area. I for one prefer Fallout-type worlds to, say, Witcher type worlds, and would be a bit disappointed if P:E ended up linear.
  9. PrimeJunta
    I contend that you are wrong, and degenerate player behavior is always indicative of a design flaw in the game. It may not be possible to completely eliminate it in a more-than-trivial game system, but it is very possible to push it to the margins. Consider NetHack played on a server. It is possible to play degenerately, but the ways are either relatively low-impact (e.g. start-scumming), extremely labor-intensive (pudding farming), or so late-game that you've basically won the game anyway by the point you're able to do it (Death farming). By far the most enjoyable ways to play the game do not involve degenerate tactics, and the game, in general, does not reward such attempts -- i.e., there are enjoyable and "legit" ways to get the same results quicker. On the contrary, I contend that "attempting to manage the behavior of players" is implicit in the very definition of game design. An well-designed game manipulates the player into doing enjoyable things. A poorly-designed game manipulates the player into doing repetitive, unenjoyable chores. Therefore, degenerate play is always indicative of a design flaw. You're approaching this from the wrong direction. It would probably be pointless to try to design out exploits that are deeply embedded in an existing system -- for example, any attempt at making AD&D 2e un-exploitable is probably doomed to failure. However, when designing a new game, the decision to put in any mechanic should always be accompanied with questioning, "Is this mechanic or feature exploitable for degenerate gaming? If so, how could we change it to avoid that? If we can't, does the mechanic really add so much enjoyment that it's worth paying the price in exploitability?"
  10. PrimeJunta
    Critical hit?
  11. PrimeJunta
    Sadly, you're mistaken about that. Dig through some of the "Armor and weapons suggestions" threads, and you'll find some lamentably deluded people arguing in favor of moar spiky bits for the sake of looking badass.
  12. PrimeJunta
    But that's not what the update said. (boldface mine) What I'm confused about is the apparent contradition beteween the second and last sentences. Thinking about it more, though, I think I get it. Is the idea that armor has two properties, damage threshold and damage reduction, and weapons have three properties, weapon damage, threshold negation, and reduction negation, so that full damage is applied if it beats (damage threshold - threshold negation), otherwise weapon damage is reduced by (damage reduction - reduction negation)? So slashy things would have high weapon damage but low threshold negation and reduction negation, stabby things would have low weapon damage and reduction negation but high threshold negation, and crushy things would have medium weapon damage, low threshold negation, but high reduction negation. This would make crushy things best against heavy armor, since nothing can overcome their damage threshold but crushy things are best at getting some damage through anyway, stabby things best against medium armor since they would get through the threshold for full damage while crushy and slashy things would get the reduction applied, and slashy things best against no/light armor since they have the highest weapon damage and would have no damage threshold to worry about. If this is the way it's supposed to work, I say Yay! Makes sense, both in terms of verisimilitude and game balance.
  13. PrimeJunta
    @Monte Carlo -- yup, heroic logic FTW. I'm just (mildly) concerned that piercing weapons will fall between the cracks as it were, mechanically, and I was wondering how the P:E gang was intending to justify their existence. Put another way, suppose I have a maul, a claymore, and an estoc. According to the update, the maul does most damage through armor, the claymore does most damage against no armor, and both the maul and the claymore have higher base damage than the estoc. So when would I want to pick up the estoc instead of the maul or the claymore?
  14. PrimeJunta
    Great update. I'm confused about a detail regarding damage types. You say that slashing is highest base damage, piercing negates a certain amount of armor damage threshold, but crushing is best against armor. Right. So slash against unarmored opponents, crush against heavily armored ones. Makes sense. My question is, when would piercing be the preferred damage type? Against medium armor? How would the maths work for this?
  15. PrimeJunta
    Designing a game that assumes that every player will replay it is not, imo, good design. Which isn't to say I don't personally like replaying a lot of games or don't want games to have aspects to encourage replays. Just that I don't think that should be a requirement to feeling like I enjoyed the game/the game played fair. I agree. But I feel very strongly that a cRPG that lets you get everything on one playthrough is lacking. It removes one of the things that, for me, make the appeal of the genre -- choices and consequences. Choosing something implies not choosing something else; otherwise it's a phony choice. What you don't get defines what you do get.
  16. PrimeJunta
    I'm sure it's possible. I worked with a company that did 3D modeling software some, oh, 20 years ago or so, and they had ways to do this already then. Dunno exactly what the algorithm was, but it worked really nicely. It took a few seconds to render the image (at a high resolution too), then you could zip lights around it in real time. The hardware was state of the art for the time (Silicon Graphics), but your phone has more processing power in it than those did, never mind a computer.
  17. PrimeJunta
    I love sword canes as much as the next guy, but they sound a bit too top-hat-and-monocle for this period, methinks.
  18. PrimeJunta
    I like your idea of tying it in with the reputation system. Run away enough and you get the perk "Cautious" which makes people point and laugh at you. Never run away and get the perk "Boneheaded" which makes people cross the street when they see you approaching.
  19. PrimeJunta
    That's what replays are for. The first time around there's a lot you don't know. What the toughest fights are like and which weapons, skills, and party builds are most effective in them. What the outcome of particular story choices you make is. What's around the next corner. That's what makes the whole exercise worthwhile. Games that let you have everything on a single playthrough are much less satisfying than ones with built-in limiters. These are the ones you end up replaying, that give you a different experience every time. So the first time around you won't even know that there's the Uranium Necktie and the Wet String in the last shop you'll encounter, and you'll only have amassed a quarter-mil worth of barterable treasure. As long as the rest of the game is still beatable with a reasonable amount of frustration, that's all good. Next time around you'll be saving up for them. And the next time after that, for the other thing. Wanting to get everything NAOW! is a big reason cRPG's have gone downhill for the past 10-15 years.
  20. PrimeJunta
    Yes, that would be silly. However, having a Uranium Necktie of Complete Protection (1,000,000 ZM) and a Wet String of Instantly Lethal Damage (also 1,000,000 ZM) available for purchase, but only 1,500,000 ZM worth of other treasure in the game would be interesting, because it would mean that you'd have to decide which one you want, even if you'd wrung every last ZM out of the game. Then maybe pick the other one on your next playthrough. That's what's cool about scarcity. It makes choices meaningful. If you always get everything (and a pony) it gets boring.
  21. PrimeJunta
    Very simple. It's not "having fun playing in your own way." It's playing in a way that's not fun only because the game system rewards you for playing that way. That's the problem with all degenerate mechanics, whether we're talking savegame abuse, grinding, farming, or whatever. A well-designed game should not reward such gameplay. An exploitable level scaling mechanic that makes the game easier by avoiding becoming more powerful is a variant of this. It rewards degenerate gaming. Therefore it should be avoided. It would be doubly Not Fun in a game like P:E where you get all or most of your experience by completing things rather than killing things, since it would reward people for avoiding content. All it would do is make speed runs easier. This would be Not Fun, because in order to be Fun, a speed run has to be a special challenge, not the easiest way to play a game.
  22. PrimeJunta
    The devs -- especially JE Sawyer -- have discussed degenerate gaming at length and on multiple occasions. They do want to make it a design goal to make a game that discourages it. I agree with them. Degenerate gaming is symptomatic of a design flaw. Why? Because degenerate tactics are not fun. They're repetitive, compulsive behavior. It's characterized by Skinner box mechanics: pull a lever and sometimes -- but not always -- a pellet comes out. It's quite easy to design a Skinner box that traps people. Some do it on purpose, in order to squeeze as much money out of you as possible (slot machines, MMO's). Degenerate behavior in cRPG's is accidental and benefits no-one, not the player, not the maker of the game. It's just an accidental trap that captures the player and makes him waste his time stuck in a loop. Therefore, a game should be designed in a way that does not promote degenerate gaming, as far as it's feasible or possible. It may not be possible to completely eliminate it, but it is certainly possible to push it to the margins. I hope the P:E team succeeds in their effort to marginalize it.
  23. PrimeJunta
    Yah, I think the big problem with cRPG economies these days is plain ol' inflation. Epic out the wazoo. Things are way more interesting with scarcity. I wanna be an adventurer, not a pack mule.
  24. PrimeJunta
    I feel that it would be a good deal of work to properly implement a dual-wielding system, but it could contribute greatly to the depth and tactical options in the game. And I still don't like the simple "hit twice as often with penalties" mechanic that we usually end up with. I'd rather not see it in at all. Put another way, if it's not worth doing well, it's not worth doing at all.
  25. PrimeJunta
    In before the "level scaling is of the devil" crowd. I'll say this much: BG2 did level-scaling well. It was so subtle you almost didn't notice it, but it was there, just enough to make things the mid-game palatable, where you did stuff in pretty much any ol' order. (And even so, if you stumbled into the Firkraag quest first thing, as I did on my first attempts, you would be in for a bad time.) It did it not by making goblins tougher, but by changing the composition of enemy groups. That IMO is the only way and only situation where level-scaling is useful. If you have a long mid-game that can (technically) be played in any order, having no level-scaling will either railroad you into one particular order in which case you might as well make it linear (if you make some quests lower-level than others), or reverse the difficulty curve, which makes for frustration early on and boredom later. It would be even better if there's some in-game rationale for the mid-game quest difficulty ramping up regardless of the order in which you do them. Or if they presented such a broad range of different types of challenges that combat difficulty would be only one component, in which case it'd be OK that the fights are tougher to start with and easier at the end.
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