ncguthwulf

Oh, one thing that I hated in world design: incomprehensibly powerful npcs. I remember Ultima Online, my character got to the point where I could solo almost any monster in the game, even dragon types. But a guard could teleport to me and 1 shot me in town. That was a clear mechanic to enforce rules, but it made no sense. Please dont have idiotic power imbalances in power. Makes for a break in immersion.

To those that thing it is needless or needlessly complex: I am kind of tired of playing games that are simply stats competitions on a painted background. Trees, rocks, mud, sand, ice, water, at best are only obstacles my model has to go around instead of being interactive. I don't want it to be as in depth or critical as Xcom. Hard Cover in Xcom was a 40% penalty to attacker to hit chance. That is nuts. But in a rpg, class based system, some sort of modification to the combat from the environment would be cool. Higher ground for archers, using cover, fireballs into a group of enemies in scrub brush... awesome.

Alex has a good point. One might think that instead of trying to create simulation to focus on micro encounters that promote immersion. Kind of like the arrow in the knee fiasco. It was clever to have some dialogue built into your random encounters with otherwise worthless npcs. But when the 14th soldier tells you he was an adventurer until he took an arrow in the knee, it becomes a joke. The nice thing about a narrative game is that you can create areas that are not revisited (without another play through). Within these pocket encounters you can devote a bit of time to making the NPCs that are not critical to the story still have some minor speech or interaction.

Fighter -taunt -durable -pbaoe (point bank area of effect, aka whirlwind) -zone of control (somehow making it difficult for enemies to walk right past them and smack the mage) -debuff the enemy: disarm, stun, knockdown Rogue -stealth -flanking attacks (the idea of getting a bonus to hit someone that isn't attacking them) -debuff the enemy: bleed and weakness -traps and bombs -strong versus unarmoured opponents. (mages) -dual wield for increased melee damage Wizard -damage -ranged damage -area of effect damage - debuff the enemy: paralysis, snare, slow, blind, sleep, knockdown, penalty to hit -brittle Cleric -heal -durable -buff the party -reasonable melee damage -weak magical damage *** each of the classes should have 3 - 5 clickable abilities that require thought and tactics in addition to larger more limited abilities, like once per day stuff. wizards should have the most abilities but be the most brittle. fighters might have the fewest clickable abilities but they should have some so it becomes more than just attack enemy, watch as they deal and absorb damage.

I think the key thing to think about when talking about classes is the idea of creating an artificial need for teamwork. Classes unrealistically limit what a player can do. Have you ever wondered why your Dex 18 figher never learns to sneak without multiclassing? It should be a relatively easy thing to do. Yet, in the system of the game sneak is not made available to the fighter and as a result the fighter must rely on the rogue for scouting. The limit is artificial and valuable. A good way to think about it is chess pieces. The knight and the bishop and the rook are different classes with different abilities. When used together they create interesting strategies. The queen would be a "broken overpowered" class in this analogy. The pawns and king, "underpowered". Based on that premise, a well designed class system creates a set of archetypes that synergize well. That is to say that a party composed of a fighter, mage, rogue and cleric in a well designed class system is more fun to play because of how the strengths and weaknesses of the classes interplay with the challenges of the game.

Night fighting, I dont think it is worth arguing. I think delivering attacks at night is harder. Swamp stuff: Perhaps nothing stupid like being in a GIANT swamp map where the mechanical effect is that you spend 3 minutes travelling the map instead of 1.5. That is dumb. But having patches of the map have certain environmental factors might be nice. So on a map we could have some deep swampy areas and some level ground. Players that choose to scout the map with a stealth character might discover there are some outlaws that use predominantly melee weapons. That player may decide to set up on the opposite side of a deep swamp patch in order to get extra attacks on the melee types as they try to close. Fire: Give people the choice... rush through the fire and take damage but get close to your foe faster or go around. Buildings Collapse: Obviously not an instant kill. You might have a character with near supernatural stength wearing plate... a flimsy wooden ceiling falling on his head is going to suck but not kill him (represented by taking damage). But I would love to have a fight go down in an alley, see some scaffolding and time my fireball to cause the scaffolding to fall on the approaching enemy. Cover would be harder, but possible. I don't think it should be nearly as pivotal as in XCOM:EU. I am thinking more like creating zones. If your character is within X distance of a tree, perhaps a small bonus to AC vs ranged. The whole idea of the hit bonuses and AC style system is that the characters are actively attacking and defending in ways that are not explicitly a result of player input. So if I (in real time) see a bunch of archers and run my mage to a tree then it should be assumed the mage will duck behind the tree to avoid arrows.

Fighter is my favourite when it is done well. Give me powers to click on and have some strategy built into the game and I am sold. Make "tanking" a sometimes thing, but a thing. Make the fighter moderate dps and the other classes brittle but higher dps. Make the level race and class important, dont make the fighter the sum of her gear. I dont want to finish a quest, get a nice sword and suddenly be 30% better.

Do you guys want to have to think about things like: At night, your characters that don't have night vision suffer a -1 to hit, -2 for ranged. In swamps, everyone is moving at half rate. On ice, chance to fall if you move faster than half move. On sand, 25% move penalty, etc. Certain spells don't work indoors, others get bonuses in tight conditions. Fireballs light objects on fire, cause walls and stuff to collapse. Additionally, the area of affect of a fireball is altered by objects. The idea of taking cover has merit. Environmental hazards, bullrushing someone over the side of a cliff or into a big fire has an affect. Certain races and classes get bonuses or penalties based on night/day, nature/city/subterranean environs, vs certain monster types, maybe even during seasons. Cover, does hiding behind a rock give you bonus AC vs the crossbowman? Or does it make no difference where you archer is standing in relation to theirs? Range, short, medium and long range with associated bonuses and penalties. Because I know I do. I hate it when I am fighting on a map and I position my archer partially behind a tree and it makes no difference to the enemy archers chance to hit me. I hate it when I use a knock back effect and there is some invisible wall (the zone boundary) that prevents me from sending the enemy sailing off a bridge. I want to be able to have my warrior duck behind a wall, fireball the enemy force, then have him emerge and go back to melee. As opposed to merely having to worry about him being within or outside the static radius of the spell.

As long as the elf chicks are skinny with big boobs and wearing almost no clothing have angular faces and big ears and cat like eyes and my nerd gag reflex is going off like crazy. I think a lot of settings don't take the time to think about what a long lived race would actually be like. Imagine we had people walking around that were alive 300 years ago. It would change our understanding of history. Want to know what the wild west was like? Ask bob, he was only 120 or so around then. So either take into account the impact of a long lived race or make their lifespans moderate. I like my elves to be fae like. Part of the seelie and unseelie court. Light and dark. I like my elves to be very specifically mystical in one way... so if they are attuned to nature, then go all out. Make them blend with he trees, have nature magic, etc. I dont like my elves to be magic generalists. Example: Crappy Elf Design Long lived magic people. +1 dex +1 spell penetration Prof with bows and swords regardless of class Fun Elf Design Seelie Elf +1 dex during the day -1 con at night +1 to stealth in natural environments +1 to attack in natural environments -1 to attack in subterranean environments X, Y and Z nature spells cost less mana to cast Unseelie Elf +1 dex at night -1 con during the day +1 to stealth in subterranean environments +1 to attack in subterranean environments -1 to attack in natural environments X, Y and Z darkness spells cost less mana to cast

Classic example of poorly phrased questions. It should be: I want an anthropomorphic animal race option in my game: a) Strongly Agree b) Agree c) Neutral d) Disagree e) Strongly Disagree I should not be forced to play a human in a fantasy setting: a) Strongly Agree b) Agree c) Neutral d) Disagree e) Strongly Disagree

The main campaign should not have a timer. But individual components should. Example: I can take as much time as I want to find the door to the overrun dwarven ruin. But once I am there, the almost dead dwarf at the door tells me I have 24 hours before the whole place comes down because of some magical doohicky. Now the pressure is on and I have to in there and do whatever I need to do without unlimited rest and healing breaks. For side quests, I think time should modify some of them. I have a tough time believing that a kidnapped child is going to be just fine and dandy with the trolls while I tour the countryside for a month. It destroys immersion. But if I find a rumour about a once buried temple rising from the swamp, OK, I feel like I can go there tonight or in 3 weeks. Additionally, I think time as a restriction should be used within quests to make them more difficult. Lets imagine a pursuit type of scenario. You are chasing the villain across the countryside, hoping to catch them before they get to home base. If you choose to rest and heal up too often they will get too much of a lead. But if you forced march for 24 hours you get some sort of combat debuff because your guys are tired. In summary: ~ Allow exploration by dividing the main story into time sensitive chunks without the whole thing being time sensitive. ~ When the story demands it, build in a time limit and make it known in the quest log. ~ Don't over do it. Less than 25% of the game should be time trials. ~ Make time change stories, decided to attack the vampire stronghold at night, gonna be harder, decided to rest and heal up so your enemy is able to contact his allies, there will be more of them, decided to force march for 36 hours to get somewhere before the enemy, debuff for fatigue BUT you get to set up inside the castle and play defence instead of siege it.

Day/Night/Time mechanics. The first thing that comes to mind is "what value does this add to the gaming experience?" Are these complex travel and day/night systems annoying and detract from the game or do they make the story richer? Day vs Night If handled properly this could add depth to the game. At night your team's archer sucks unless he is a nocturnal type race (drow?). Certain villains might be more powerful (vampires). Travel Time Again, if handled properly this could add a real sense of urgency to the game. A merchant's son is kidnapped by outlaws led by a vampire. You can assault their base immediately, and at night, in the hopes of saving him before the vampire eats him. Or you can wait until daylight when the vampire is weaker but you risk losing the kid and only being able to bring retributive justice to the villains.

What is really funny about this is that it actually seriously affects the community. Go and look at the XCom forums. There is a massive amount of poison being flung between people who claim to have beaten "Impossible Ironman" with zero countries/soldiers lost. People are calling for videos, flaming each other and so on. All because there is a mode of the game that is harder and people want to brag about their achievement. How this game is designed should take the community in mind. If you foster a good community you will get support, modders, fanboys that travel the internetverse singing the praise of the game. Very valuable. If however, the game modes are poorly designed and poorly implemented people will react poorly. If the Xcom designers had known how serious people were going to take clearing Impossible Ironman they could have created a system to prevent save scumming and avoided a lot of anguish.

JFSOCC - I am not sure why you would do that when they have a non iron man mode? But even if there is some reason for the extra work, I don't want the game designers to waste time trying to counter that "cheat". Even if there is a achievement or other thing you get for beating it on Ironman. Then again, they could make it so the saved games go on a cloud and you can't manipulate them (as easily). But then in order to play ironman you would need to be online. I minor issue nowadays but an issue.

I think what is ridiculous is taking a pen and paper system and porting it over without examining the strengths and weaknesses of the medium. For pen and paper, you are right, memorization systems are great because it requires minor amounts of work for the people playing the game. What I am hoping for is that extra tactical layer. I want to make decisions outside of battle, based on intelligence, that affect the coming battle and be rewarded for good choices and punished for bad ones. Example (bear with me, I am playing a lot of xcom): Council missions have you squaring off against Thin Men. Thin Men spit poison. Titan Armour makes you immune to poison. In my council missions I put my psy-assault character in a suit of titan armour (vs psy-armour) because it is situationally appropriate. The reward being that I never get poison spammed by my foes and it is ok to kill a thin man in a tile directly next to my character (run and gun assault type). Take that example and translate it to a fantasy rpg and what are the decisions you MUST make before a fight and not during? Memorization is the obvious one. If your warrior has a flaming sword and a flaming club they can switch between them based on skeletons vs zombies (resistance to edge vs blunt) during the battle. But if you are going into a graveyard against the undead and you take all charming/fear based magic (classically weak vs the undead) you suffer. That doesnt mean, however, that the system has to be exactly like DnD. You could have a system where your character has a certain number of spell slots and a certain amount of mana. So of their 12 spells they can memorize only 6 and based on their mana pool they can cast those 6 X number of times. Then as you level up you can make meaningful choices like the ability to memorize another spell OR have more mana. Etc. But dont take away the tactical layer outside of combat that affects combat. It is one of the things that makes an RPG great. Especially if the story is designed in a way that players who take the time to talk to npcs, read the lore books, explore their environment gain intelligence on their foes and then make good decisions.

Melee casters I think if they make them interesting then I will play them. The problem is when they make a melee caster just a warrior with different visuals. Lets say a good warrior has a sword that deals 10 points of damage and can take 50 points of damage before he dies. If they design a mage that after buffing can deal about 10 points of damage and can mitigate 40 and soak 10 points of damage before he dies then what they have created is a warrior with different visuals. Unintersting. BUT if they make the melee mage a strong controller type (example, touch ranged paralysis or knockdown spells) with good maneuverability (blink, haste) then they could really feel and act differently. ------------ One of the posters before me highlighted a point about mages vs warriors in these games. I think because of rest mechanics and healing mechanics they have a good point. Your berserker with a 2 handed sword and 150 hit points can go in there swinging and dealing tons of damage. And at the end of the fight, even if he is at 10 hp, you can just rest and next battle back in there. In addition, the warrior types typically deal a steady stream of good reliable damage. The mages tend to have flashy type effects that dont deal continuous reliable damage. They also die if they get hit by a stiff breeze. That is not the type of mage I want to see in melee.

I like memorization (or a similar mechanic) because it adds a tactical layer. Imagine you have to face a vampire. And because you took the time to talk to npcs you also learn that she often summons fire elementals. Your mage character has great fire spells, which wont work against the elementals, as well as great ice spells, which have reduced or no effect on the undead, as well as buffs that protect the party from vampiric charming and fear type magic. BUT, the mage can only take 2 out of the 3 of those. So, do they go for the raw damage? Do they focus on the elementals and buff the warrior who will fight the vamp? I enjoy this type of pre-fight planning (coupled with an ironman type mode where you cant just reload and change your mem if you got it wrong).

Things I like: Moderate progression in combat effectiveness. Storied items. Story or situation specific bonus. Attribute bonuses that are not strictly hit and damage (bonus dmg vs undead and resistance to fear but still a +1 weapon) Things I don't like: The arms race that trivializes weapons, especially when mathematically it is just better to use the +5 dmg sword with +1d6 fire damage over every storied item, even say the holy sword for paladin.

Did you just compare nicotene addiction to be an being unable to force yourself to accept consequences in a video game? If not reloading a save in a video game makes you feel physical reactions akin to being a smoker who quits cold turkey you need to get yourself put in a hospital. No, really. If it doesn't then you need to grow up and stop making comparisons between two things that are so different they aren't even in the same universe. I just cant bring myself to face my terrible, terrible, video game addiction. I was able to shake the heroine habit after a few days but not reloading video games after choosing the wrong dialogue option is so much harder. I mean, the consequences are so minuscule that I can't bring myself not to do it. With the heroine, when I would disappear onto the street for months at a time, my family would flip out and cry. I figured I should probably stop. But with the video games no one suffers. So I just cant seem to stop myself. That's why I need the game developers to do it for me.

What's this "should"? According to whom? For what purpose? If you actually LIKE to play the game by letting the chips fall where they may, then you don't have to RESIST doing so. So what you're asking for is the ability to select a mode that FORCES you to play in a way that, by your own admission, you DON'T enjoy? Fine, whatever. It never ceases to amaze me how people invent reasons for themselves to feel guilt about things and then expect somebody else to come along and fix it. You should probably explain this wonderful insight to people who would LIKE to quit smoking but seem to be unable to RESIST doing so. And being a bit of a masochist, what I actually LIKE is having a game designer FORCE me to play the game in way that makes it appear that I DON'T enjoy it, but I do. I really REALLY do.

One attempted suing. But it went nowhere because I didn't leave a mark and the police refused to arrest me. In fact the guy got charged because he punched a girl in the face (she went to the hospital) which started the whole thing. But I digress. I like your idea of flexibility except that I want this to be a party based game despite only having the ability to create 1 character. Basically I want the restrictions of certain classes, the lack of flexibility because then I will rely on my team mates... and I especially enjoy this if I don't even like the personality of the npc but have to use them anyways. Creating roles, even in the earliest tabletop RPG games, is an artificial way of forcing a team to cooperate.

I think there are probably 2 main philosophies when designing the classes: Holistic balance The game is designed to be beatable by each class in different ways. The fighter, who perhaps has next to zero social skills, has the ability to beat up everyone between him and victory. The rogue, who perhaps isnt as strong in combat, may be able to steal extra gold to have better equipment, sneak past stronger foes and maybe trick people into fighting her battles. The wizard might have to avoid certain physical challenges but can circumvent them via magic. I think everyone gets the idea. This type of design will lead to certain classes just being better than others in combat because straight up combat is not the only way to progress in the game. Class balance The classes are balanced against each other in order to be relatively equal in combat and social settings. Then it doesnt matter which class you choose because each of them will have their own methods of dealing with combat challenges and social challenges. Each system has it's merits and flaws. I think the first system allows for greater storytelling. For example, in the first method, you could write the story where your primary character never needs to directly shed a drop of blood. Unlikely with a 15 level dungeon, but possible. Whereas with the second system you can ensure that the brawny fighter gets social encounters as well as combat encounters because 25% of his class, and all classes, are focused on social skills. My preference is to have the class balance system. I enjoy fighting, I want my character to be a badazz. And I want a chunk of my character points to be dedicated to non combat skills and abilities. If I have 100 character points I would likely use all 100 on combat skills. If I have 100 combat points and 100 social points to spend on skills from respective categories I will be happier.

I have to reluctantly agree about bugs, especially very minor ones that cause huge problems (quest item disappearing from inventory). What about a single save system? So every time you save you overwrite but it does allow you to go back some... Not sure if it would work. My main reasoning is that I need a way to trick myself into not reloading when something goes wrong. It also adds suspense.

I have seen many arguments about ironman mode and save scumming, etc. I want to have ironman mode in this game because it will help me to avoid reloading games when I should be paying the price for my decisions. Too often, if an auto save at the beginning of the level is available I will reload it because I really messed up and dont want the character to die or face the music. I dont think ironman mode and clever programming should be dedicated to countering save scumming. If people want to get some sort of ironman accomplishment by End Process save scumming / save game back up system, whatever. No big deal. I just want two options: 1) standard auto save system that allows me to reload, perhaps for my first play through while getting to know the game. 2) ironman mode for when I am ready to really give it a go with no easy way to reload a game. This gives me a real nervous, edge of my seat feeling when making big choices in the game because I know they are final, at least for that character's story.

/Rant I have been a bouncer for 7 years. I have been in over 50 fights. I am a rogue in those fights. If I get behind someone I can choke them out in under 6 seconds. From the front I am not as good. My best friend, who is 300 lbs, is a tank. He taunts people, makes funny faces, spits at people and basically gets them to fight him so I can get behind them. We both play MMOs and laugh hysterically when people fall for tricks we use in video games in real life. I really hate it when people try to say that game mechanics are nothing like real life when they can be. But mostly I hate it because mechanics are there to divide up the multitude of tactical decisions that make up a fight into a system that requires strategy and thought and risk and is therefore fun. /End Rant As far as rogues are concerned, I think the game designers should divide them up into their combat roles and their role playing roles. I think it is a system design flaw to say that a fighter is 100% awesome in a fight and a rogue is 80% awesome but the other 20% is made up for by their ability to bluff the barkeep into giving up information that leads to a treasure. Make sure that your rogue is 100% awesome in fights, in their own way, and 100% awesome in RP in their own way. Examples: Rogue can sneak and deliver a knock out or stun attack, think sap, making them awesome in certain kinds of fights. They are also really good at bluffing and cheating, so in certain social settings, they excel. A Paladin can debuff evil enemies and deliver magical damage to undead and are pretty good fighters in plate mail. A Paladin can also inspire people to cooperate with them out of a sense of moral or religious righteousness, making them awesome in certain social settings. When designing the classes, make the sapping and sneak attacking as good as the magical undead smiting and plate mail wearing. And when designing the story, make it so that both the lying and cheating social aspect is as fun and leads to as much story as the righteous inspiration.