Josh Sawyer on the "naked ranged characters" issue

[Marceror]

Yeah, I'm just surprised that he was talking like 33% PoE, 66% 4E. Reference 4E if you need to, but why not circle that quickly back to PoE? Not a big deal. Just found it a bit curious.

[Karkarov]

Yeah, I'm just surprised that he was talking like 33% PoE, 66% 4E. Reference 4E if you need to, but why not circle that quickly back to PoE? Not a big deal. Just found it a bit curious.

He is just trying to explain it in terms people might be more familiar with.  No one outside of Obsidian REALLY knows all the details about Eternity's combat and mechanics yet, anyone with 20 bucks and the desire can learn everything about the 4th Ed D&D rules, and I don't think it is unfair to assume most backers on the the forums would be passably familiar with them.

[Uomoz]

I love this decision. 4th edition is crazy good for videogame implementations, and I mastered *all* editions for years. The combat in 4th is the best.

Edited September 6, 2014 by Uomoz

[GreyFox]

I love this decision. 4th edition is crazy good for videogame implementations, and I mastered *all* editions for years. The combat in 4th is the best.

 

No it isn't and the lack of sales back that up...there is a reason they dumped it with the swiftness...it's terrible.

 

I once thought it'd make a good video game implementation and this game has completely reversed my decision. Although it won't be an actual version of 4E. 

 

Thank god for their partnership with Paizo.

[Ondb]

I love this decision. 4th edition is crazy good for videogame implementations, and I mastered *all* editions for years. The combat in 4th is the best.

 

I disagree. 4th edition is the worst system for any videogame with party.

[Sensuki]

Have you actually played the beta Infinitron?

 

I'll just leave this with you. Teleporting Spiders

Infinitron has the beta, but on the Codex he takes part in the defense of the game systems of the Kickstarters without actually having played the game, or much of the game. Some of the stuff he says is pretty fair, but some of it lacks perspective due to that fact.

Edited September 6, 2014 by Sensuki

[IndiraLightfoot]

 

I love this decision. 4th edition is crazy good for videogame implementations, and I mastered *all* editions for years. The combat in 4th is the best.

 

I disagree. 4th edition is the worst system for any videogame with party.

 

I'll mention but one game in this context: Daggerdale.

[Uomoz]

 

I love this decision. 4th edition is crazy good for videogame implementations, and I mastered *all* editions for years. The combat in 4th is the best.

 

No it isn't and the lack of sales back that up...there is a reason they dumped it with the swiftness...it's terrible.

 

I once thought it'd make a good video game implementation and this game has completely reversed my decision. Although it won't be an actual version of 4E. 

 

Thank god for their partnership with Paizo.

 

 

Lucky for me that you pointed out so many reasons why I was wrong! Nice!

[PrimeJunta]

4e might've made for a good MMO. 

 

That is all.

[Sensuki]

Some stuff in 4E was good. It is good for video games. I did not enjoy playing it as much as I did 2E or 3E. The HP bloat was pretty bad as well, but I reduced HP to 75% for all creatures when I DM'd a few games in 2009.

[Sarex]

4e might've made for a good MMO. 

 

That is all.

 

Did they not take inspiration from MMOs to appeal to the younger audience?

[GreyFox]

 

4e might've made for a good MMO. 

 

That is all.

 

Did they not take inspiration from MMOs to appeal to the younger audience?

 

 

Copy cat world really....WoW had such success everyone figured they would be able to get a piece of the pie...most failed miserably...4E included.

[Uomoz]

I'm obviously not referring to  direct port. One does not simply port a tabletop into a videogame. But the core ideas (healing independence/tactical resource + daily/encounter/at-will powers) is very much present in PoE. It's undeniable that 4th ed is the Dnd system that influenced this game the most. 

 

EDIT: a lot of the people that talk **** about the 4th simply haven't played it or are way too anchored to older versions to really appreciate the amazing combat system they put up. The main issue with 4th is the sheer focus on combat rules compared to role rules. That said me and all my group (up to 10 players) completely agree that the 4th edition combats were BY FAR the best we've had in our long DnD career. Combat enjoyment is on a whole new level compared to 3rd simplicity (move-baseattack-pass).

Edited September 6, 2014 by Uomoz

[Endrosz]

Sorry. I'm a huge fan of player skill, but I'm also a big fan of dice rolls and PnP. In fact, it's very entertaining in a CRPG as well. I'm not that fond of totally reliable outcomes, I want uncertainties, crits, and critical misses, fumbles, mixed with damage results varied through dice rolls, that's how dorky I am.

 

Player skill and randomness are in direct opposition to another in game design. Chess has only one random part, who opens the game, and even that little piece of randomness has a huge impact on the game, everyone knows that who's familiar with chess. And that's why chess players play multiple matches with sides switched every match, to minimize that randomness and maximize skill.

 

You can love both, no one can take that away from you, but in every game you design, you have to decide what do you want more, skill or randomness, because growing one shrinks the other. This is not an opinion, this is a fact, there have been several books on the subject before I was even born.

 

Edit: I'm an avid board/card game fan, and I love casual games with a funny theme, strong player interaction and lots of randomness. Those are great party games, I can entertain my non-gamer family members and friends with them. Stuff like Liar's Dice and Pass the Pigs. Then, when I'm with my geek friends, we play long and complex skill games like Tigris and Euphrates and Power Grid. So I could say that I love both, too, but I also understand that you can't have both as a major factor at the same time.

Edited September 6, 2014 by Endrosz

[GreyFox]

I'm obviously not referring to  direct port. One does not simply port a tabletop into a videogame. But the core ideas (healing independence/tactical resource + daily/encounter/at-will powers) is very much present in PoE. It's undeniable that 4th ed is the Dnd system that influenced this game the most. 

 

I don't think anyone is denying that this game has a lot of 4E influence it's that most people just dislike 4E and question why they went with it....well maybe not the people who know why 

[Uomoz]

 

I'm obviously not referring to  direct port. One does not simply port a tabletop into a videogame. But the core ideas (healing independence/tactical resource + daily/encounter/at-will powers) is very much present in PoE. It's undeniable that 4th ed is the Dnd system that influenced this game the most. 

 

I don't think anyone is denying that this game has a lot of 4E influence it's that most people just dislike 4E and question why they went with it....well maybe not the people who know why 

 

 

It's safe to assume that me and Sawyer share the same ideas about DnD editions then.

[Iucounu]

 Player skill and randomness are in direct opposition to another in game design. Chess has only one random part, who opens the game, and even that little piece of randomness has a huge impact on the game, everyone knows that who's familiar with chess. And that's why chess players play multiple matches with sides switched every match, to minimize that randomness and maximize skill.

I think it's more a matter of preventing save scumming again when it comes to single-player games. For a disciplined player it can involve player skill to take the randomness into account in one's actions, create a backup plan if one action fails, and play generally more cautious and minimize risks. 

[PrimeJunta]

4e combat is better than 3e combat... if you play with figurines on a grid with battlefield features also on it. If you're pure PnP, with combat done purely by description, it stinks. AD&D and 3e OTOH work just as well that way as on a grid.

 

The main problem of 4e is that it fails as a role-playing game. The previous editions are mechanically rubbish, but at least they do support role-playing, and especially 3e even lets you create character concepts somewhat flexibly with the multiclassing rules, if you're not too concerned about minmaxing. If you drop most of the arbitrary requirements for prestige classes and feats, it allows a quite a bit of player freedom, making it almost serviceable. But for PnP groups who are in it primarily for the roleplaying 4e is an abject failure.

[Matt516]

 

You're missing a pretty important part of the equation here, though: Incoming damage.

 

By virtue of being a tank, that character will generally take on more enemies. More enemies means more incoming damage. The DT will affect every single one of those incoming attacks, whereas an attack speed increase will only affect that character's damage output. I think you will quickly find that greater DT avoids a hell of a lot more damage to the tank, than an increase in attack speed will affect damage output.

Eh not exactly.  *snip*

 

I think you're still not seeing exactly what he's saying. Yes, a character in heavy armor gets a ton less actions (33% less, to be precise) than a naked character. The point is that the effectiveness of DT scales with the number of attacks you receive. So if you're fighting 5 guys, and each of them is attacking you once every 3 seconds, that's 50 times in 30 seconds that your DT procs. If your DT is 10, that's 500 damage prevented. Versus only 5 actions lost by you (15 for unarmored in 30 seconds - 10 for heavy armored assuming not dual-wielding). Which is (ballparking here) about 75 damage lost (assuming 15 damage average on a hit).

 

The effectiveness of DT scales with the number of enemies you're fighting, while the penalty scales linearly since you can only actively attack one enemy at a time. So if a character is going to take a lot of hits from a lot of different targets, higher DT is insanely beneficial in terms of preventing damage. My numbers are really rough, but hopefully they demonstrate the point - if you're engaging 1 guy at one time, then yeah you get more damage from being unarmored than you prevent with high DT. But if you're engaging 5 guys... you can only hit one guy at a time, but they can all hit you. That DT acts on every attack. Which is why (even though it needs some tweaks) the armor system does at least incentivize armor for tanks.

Edited September 6, 2014 by Matt516

[forgottenlor]

4e combat is better than 3e combat... if you play with figurines on a grid with battlefield features also on it. If you're pure PnP, with combat done purely by description, it stinks. AD&D and 3e OTOH work just as well that way as on a grid.

 

The main problem of 4e is that it fails as a role-playing game. The previous editions are mechanically rubbish, but at least they do support role-playing, and especially 3e even lets you create character concepts somewhat flexibly with the multiclassing rules, if you're not too concerned about minmaxing. If you drop most of the arbitrary requirements for prestige classes and feats, it allows a quite a bit of player freedom, making it almost serviceable. But for PnP groups who are in it primarily for the roleplaying 4e is an abject failure.

This was my experience as well. I ran 4th edition about a year before switching to Pathfinder. Noone complained about the combat mechanics. Rather it was people complaining that there was no more straightforward and simple class, like the fighter. There was no more super complex class like the mage. Everything was more or less the same. Skills and their use seemed more watered down. Balance is fine and good, but not at the cost of character and atmosphere.

[Sensuki]

Those were my feelings too. The unified everything made it soo boring.

[Sedrefilos]

 

Yep. It's all about the AI baby

 

And when those ranged characters start getting hit, your tanks soaking up all the damage and shortening your adventuring day will become less of a problem as well.

And Encounter Design.

 

They should check out D:OS for that. Best encounter design ever, imo.

[Stun]

None saw that coming! I want my money back, I was planning a 5 character naked + 1 party in beetleville. Sawyer, such a party pooper.

Aah, but he's not a party pooper. He has re-iterated the fact that Nude archery is within the spirit of the game. lol

 

 

Anyway, the proposed AI adjustments make sense, and I hope it's not too much of a hassle putting them in. The only problem I have is with this one:

AIs should prefer... targets with low Stamina

No. I'm not a big fan of ESP-based AI. The enemy shouldn't know how much stamina a character has. Edited September 6, 2014 by Stun

[Marceror]

 

 

I love this decision. 4th edition is crazy good for videogame implementations, and I mastered *all* editions for years. The combat in 4th is the best.

 

 

I disagree. 4th edition is the worst system for any videogame with party.

I'll mention but one game in this context: Daggerdale.

I knew that one as a loser the moment it was announced.

[Karkarov]

4e might've made for a good MMO. 

 

That is all.

That's cause 4th edition is heavily based on MMO mechanics.  PS:  This was already done, it is called Neverwinter.  Even funnier info?  It uses the exact same mechanics the company that makes Neverwinter already used.... in two other mmo's.  Funny enough one was Champions Online, which is based on Champions, a different pen and paper RPG system.