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PrimeJunta

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Everything posted by PrimeJunta

  1. Back in pre-Unreal Engine days, 2.5D was used to mean an engine like DOOM's, Wolfenstein's, Duke Nukem 3D's, or Marathon's. They cut a few corners with the arithmetic, which meant that the vertical axis was restricted: when you pointed the camera up or down (if the engine allowed it at all, DOOM and Wolfenstein didn't), verticals remained perfectly vertical on the screen, without perspective distortion. Like so: Compare -- here the verticals are perspective-distorted as they would in a photo of the same space in real life:
  2. But I wouldn't! Going over what I said, I can understand why you got that impression. In actual fact I can't recall a single instance of really bad gameplay mechanics stopping me from playing a game that had exceptional story and structure (PS:T is a case in point -- I wouldn't have been able to play it at all without a strategy guide, but it's nevertheless one of my all-time favorite games). This doesn't mean I don't care about gameplay. Of course I do. I would have enjoyed PS:T more if it had a workable rogue option with content you'd encounter only playing as a rogue; at the very least, I would've replayed it. What strikes me as weird about your position is that you appear to be making a virtue of the weaknesses of these games -- BG2 and PS:T are shining examples of really crappy game design in some areas, and these appear to be precisely the areas that you want to see replicated in P:E. But perhaps I'm misunderstanding you like you're clearly misunderstanding me. So that's why I'd prefer they just did it one way and did it right, and focused on putting lots of in-game options instead. Put another way, I think it's rather unlikely that someone would not play a game just because he's not able to switch off friendly fire, or whatever. Strikes me as unlikely. I certainly wouldn't. I honestly don't care if friendly fire is in or not, nor any individual gameplay feature. I do care that whatever is in there hangs together well, is coherent, understandable, internally consistent and consistent with the lore of the gameworld, and not a total PITA to manage. Other than that, I'm cool with or without friendly fire, TB or RTwP, frequent dying, not dying at all, or anything in between. Edit: If they approach this by making a nice, balanced system and then allowing some back-door to switch things on or off or, for example, mod it, by all means. Just as long as they make it clear how they intend it to be played, and leave potentially unbalancing options with a big disclaimer "proceed at your own risk."
  3. Then how come mainstream games are usually designed with the minimum of metagame options? Hell, Angry Birds doesn't even have difficulty levels. While we cannot doubt that gameplay options take time to implement and balance, we can very well doubt that more options will make the game appeal to "a broader audience". Will any RPG fans skip over this game because you can't turn off friendly fire, if it has a gripping story and solid mechanics? I'd say no. Apparently they would. That's a bit of a funny way to bolster your point, since I'm the one arguing for fewer metagame options here. In other words, either you're not understanding a word of what I'm saying, or you're intentionally distorting it. Either way, this conversation is starting to feel like a waste of time. :out:
  4. Is that so? In what way or ways, specifically? Correct. Wrong. Correct. However, I'm fairly confident that it will meet my expectations. Exactly! It makes no sense at all! I would be a very silly person indeed if I thought what you think I think. I won't! Yeah, I would prefer the developers spending time on stuff I like rather than stuff I don't care about. Shocking, isn't it?
  5. Of course not, silly. But I would prefer that the devs focus their resources on in-game options rather than metagame options, even if that means the metagame features do some things contrary to my personal preferences. And if it turned out that the devs' vision was drastically different from my expectations, then yeah, I'd rather not play the game at all. How about you? Would you prefer a game with a metric fluckton of toggles in the "Options" screen, but with wildly out-of-balance gameplay, with some classes either grossly overpowered or borderline unplayable, depending on how you set those toggles? What indeed.
  6. Um....duh It would prevent us from saving and reloading to get the best result. Uh, optional. As in, something you can switch on or off. If you don't want it, switch it off, and save/reload to your heart's content. Also, no offense, but you might want to go over this thread because most of what you're saying has already been addressed. Hormalakh even pointed out that the whole point is moot, since the functional equivalent is already in -- just play in Ironman mode and save-scum (in the roguelike sense, i.e., back up that single save.)
  7. Of course not. I would simply not play that game. For example, I didn't finish Arcanum, Gothic 3, or Oblivion, and didn't even buy Skyrim for that precise reason. I didn't care for what they were trying to do. Nor does it offend me the least bit that lots and lots of people do like them. I certainly don't. However, I do care about my single-player experience. When I crack open a new game and look at the settings, I have no clue how they may affect the game balance. If I can throw the entire class system out of whack by unchecking a single checkbox -- "friendly fire," say -- then, in my opinion, the devs have screwed up. Don't get me wrong, I love options as much as the next guy -- but I prefer my options to be in-game rather than metagame. Options I like: * Class options: fighter/ranger/rogue/paladin/cipher/sorcerer/wizard/monk/cleric/barbarian/kensai/elementalist/necromancer/demonologist/theurge/duelist/scout/... * Character build options: attack/defense/buff/debuff/damage/... * Story options: favor this faction/that faction/the other faction/take this path/that path/the other path/save these guys/those guys/the other guys... * Solution options: fight your way in/sneak your way in/teleport your way in/find a way through the sewers to get in/bribe your way in/bluff your way in I'm much less interested in metagame options, even for things that cater to my personal foibles (e.g. ironman mode or other ways of making savegame abuse more difficult). Put another way, during the kickstarter, I got much more excited about the Cipher class, the stronghold, the Endless Paths, and the Big Big City than Ironman and those other modes that I can't even remember for now. Put another way, for me, the gameplay is the vessel that holds the actual game. I've enjoyed NetHack's mechanics just as much as those in The Witcher 2. I really don't give a **** about the specifics as long as it's well done, well balanced, and carries the story. Most importantly, I'd much, much rather see the devs put their effort into balancing out and refining a system that has lots and lots of choice in-game, even if it means reducing the metagame options. (And yes, Virginia, it does -- metagame options that affect gameplay elements do directly impact the effort needed to get the in-game options in balance. It is a real trade-off.) Of course not, silly. But just because BG2 had a poorly balanced class system, does it mean every other game has to have one too? (Yeah, I played a kensai/mage. Whee!)
  8. I've certainly been thinking of a hard toggle all along. Making it switchable mid-game would dilute the effectiveness a great deal. Same as being able to change difficulty level on the fly. I don't like that much either.
  9. Really? I thought that was common knowledge. If you have a tendency to eat too much candy, it's way easier not to buy a bag than to stop halfway through. Us humans work that way. Maybe it's different in Poland.
  10. For the same reason a giant 'win!' button in the middle of the screen is a bad idea.
  11. Call me old-fashioned, but I think it's the devs' job to balance the game, not the player's.
  12. That sort of thing can really screw up the game balance though. Area-effect things would become massively more powerful, which would make character builds that are good at them massively overpowered compared to other character builds. In my opinion, that is not a Good Thing.
  13. Options cost more than you might expect, though. They tend to interact in unexpected ways and add overhead to testing, especially if they affect mechanics (e.g. AI, difficulty). Having lots of options also makes it especially important to pick good defaults. In practice, adding options also tends to add bugs, balancing problems, and general instability. That's why I hope the devs are very conservative about which options to add.
  14. I think Hormalakh's idea of genuine save-scumming in ironman mode will get the job done for me just fine, actually. So I'm actually pretty happy with the way the game's shaping up!
  15. Nope, I don't enjoy it. It becomes a compulsive activity, something I have no control over. Similar to someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder who runs home fifteen times to check that he locked the front door before finally being able to leave, and then spends the entire vacation worrying that he really locked it. Games that reward backtracking through frequent save/reload trigger this type of behavior in me, and I don't enjoy it. I agree, it's not healthy to do this. That's why I try to avoid games that do trigger this, and since I've already paid for P:E, I am hoping it's not one of them. And since Hormalakh started a topic about it, I'm weighing in. You, of course, are just as free to state your preferences, and the devs are free to ignore both of us. Grand, isn't it?
  16. Oh, I can and do abuse it. I told you, willpower is my dump stat. If I get nervous, I start saving every five seconds. I also easily flip into "optimization mode" where I abuse savegames until I get the result I want, whether it's about fights, locks, or conversations. This jolts me out of the game and ruins my enjoyment. For example, I just replayed Fallout. The manual actually tells you to save before attempting anything interesting. That makes skill checks almost meaningless. I found myself just saving every time I attempted to repair/science/lockpick something, and reloading until it worked. I never, ever just continued if I perma-failed on somehting. And yes, it did significantly detract from my enjoyment. If I had more willpower, I wouldn't do this. Hell, if I had more willpower I would stop playing games past the point I stopped enjoying them, but I don't, and I do. I do a lot of stuff I know is bad for me simply because I don't have the willpower not to. That's why I like crutches like permadeath without the possibility of savegame abuse, like NetHack on somebody else's server, and which is why a combination of ironman and a difficulty level low enough to make dying rare sounds good to me. And which is why I suggested an optional, adjustable savegame timeout for P:E, combined with mechanics that don't result in frequent dying {which already appears to be in anyway}. Once more, I really don't care how you (ab)use your savegames - I just have preferences of my own regarding game design. Specifically, for the reasons cited above, I have a strong preference for games that do not reward constant saving and reloading. Sadly, I don't much care for most genres where this is not a problem; I find linear shooters and adventure games boring, for example. Nah, Finnish stubbornness. But since it's clearly getting in the way of the discussion, I'll yield and switch to "savegame abuse" from now on.
  17. NetHack. On a server you don't own. Where you can't save-scum. Procedurally generated roguelikes aside, I can't think of a cRPG where this was done really well. There are some that managed it better than average in places, or well in some ways. For example, both Witchers: they had delayed consequences, which effectively discouraged save-scumming {yes, I'm continuing to use the term, so there Sharp_One} in dialogs and such. Or, naturally, Planescape: Torment's creative (and not at all universally applicable) solution to work around permadeath. Both had their own problems in other areas which effectively canceled out their strengths, at least for me, and I save-scummed just as badly with them as with, say, the original Fallouts with their massively lethal criticals that pretty much forced you to save often or just lose your entire session on one bad die roll. I think that these cheap "lives" are so deeply built into our assumptions of what makes a cRPG "hard" or "easy" that a game that really, genuinely doesn't encourage you to save-scum would have to be designed that way from the ground up, including the world, the story, and the mechanics. For example, imagine a cRPG set in a world where only nobles carry lethal weapons, and their behavior is governed by a strict code of honor, and where murderers are apprehended and hanged. Violence and combat might be common. There would be ritualized combat such as duels and jousts between nobles, carefully set up so that there would be winners and losers but the risk of death would be low. There would be brawls and muggings leaving the loser bruised and bloodied but (usually) not dead or maimed. Losing a fight would have consequences; sometimes what you'd expect, sometimes unexpected, always interesting. And then there would be truly climactic fights. The ones where it's for real. Not light dueling swords with the first to draw blood declared the winner, or jousting in heavy armor with lances designed to shatter, but to the death with the best weapons and armor you could find. That would have to be for some pretty damn good reason, too, to risk it all. This would be a very different game than the usual kind that leaves you (figuratively and sometimes literally) standing astride a mountain of corpses. Would it be fun? It could be. Or not. It all depends on how well it's done, just like with any game. Will P:E be that game? Unlikely. Would I even want P:E to be that game...?
  18. It shouldn't. On the other hand, what difference would an optional, settable save-timeout for the benefit of those of us totally lacking in willpower make to you?
  19. As far as I can tell, its usage has shifted since roguelikes became a niche of a niche. Do you have a better term to suggest for abuse of save/reload, now that you've established your old-skool geek creds?
  20. I've tried ADOM and Angband, but the only ones I've really gotten into are rogue (the original) and Nethack. I've ascended with most of the classes on that one. (Not that the class even makes much difference by the time you're past the castle.) Also Dwarf Fortress, if that counts. I do enjoy that type of gameplay; however I'm not sure I'd like it in a game where the content isn't procedurally generated. I'll certainly give P:E's Iron Man mode a try; in fact I might start with a combination of Iron Man/Easy, assuming a usual frequency of dying at Normal difficulty. My problem with most games is that when I get tense I start save-scumming, which jolts me out of it. With many of them the level of difficulty assumes that you have a relatively recent save to come back to anyway. Few things are as annoying as racing through stuff you've just played through just to be able to continue. I'd rather take that "punishment" as a five-minute timeout. Wouldn't want to force it on anyone though.
  21. I wouldn't mind an optional timeout on save. Terrible save-scummer here, and it hurts my enjoyment. Even better, I'd like a game that doesn't reward save-scumming, with no constant dying, and delayed consequences.
  22. I certainly would... if I actually had to do that in-game. You rarely poop in-game either, though, and it would be just as easy to let the game handle the chores while you, the player, make the decisions. For example. Have a bivouack with the mules showing up there, let you prepare a couple of different loadouts, switch between with them with a few clicks, but only in camp. Alternatively, have a pack mule follow you when out and about, but only into areas where a pack mule could believably enter (i.e., not underground, indoors, or into areas that require climbing etc.). In that case allow switching loadouts the same way whenever not in combat. If applicable (e.g. day/night cycle, buff timeout, encounter risk etc.), have the game keep track of how much time it takes to switch loadouts.
  23. Only if it has cute friendly anthropomorphic animal races. As romantic options.
  24. OK, fair enough. FWIW, I run my PnP D&D game(s) with this assumption, and we've found it both workable and interesting.
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