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grassy gnoll
Aug 27, 2006

The pawsting business is tough work.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

Given that most games I join are dead in a month or two, I think it's great!

On an unrelated note, could I get a better description on what the enemy mech is doing? Or at least a roll regarding that?

The thing that guy was doing to the power tower? Now he's going to do it to HQ. The Thing is something to avoid, so I would suggest you move him off HQ or focus down on him. I'm not sure there's a specific skill test that would be relevant here.

The Deleter posted:

So this fight doesn't seem very balanced. If the enemy can disengage without using an action then we have no real way of locking them down other than engaging them over and over. And my poo poo rolls don't help.

This is true! I intentionally set out to put the hurt to you guys, because honestly, I don't really feel like any of the previous combats have been a threat up until now. So these assholes are straight up min-maxed.

I'm honestly a little surprised you guys spaced yourselves out like you did and that you're not really focusing down a particular target.

Not that I am blameless here. I think this would be a lot more entertaining as a fight if it were A) quicker and B) there were more things to do, and those are both on me. I apologize for this fight kind of sucking out loud, but unless you all have truly disastrous luck, but for what it's worth I don't think it'll be going much longer.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

Not really even that. Engaging does nothing in that case presuming they're all using the same model, but no idea if that's the case. But if it is, it prevents me from trying to block to stop the one I'm fighting short of somehow annihilating it. Suppressing doesn't work either in that case. The system can't be crippled because it's internal, so maiming areas has no effect, which feels a bit silly after maiming both the legs and torso, but there you have it. So there's not much to be done tactically other than just trying to throw as much damage as possible at them, as far as I can tell.

Which brings me to this part. I've noticed we're all kind of stumbling over parts of BCG, and I'm wondering if this is because it's a new system full of a lot of moving parts, or if we're just collectively barking up the wrong tree. Do you guys want to keep going with BGC, go back to Atomic Robo, or try yet another system with all the pain that'll entail? If we stick with BCG, what mechanically-speaking can we improve on so this is a good experience for everybody? Like, is it worth using the half of the rules dedicated to pilot-scale stuff, since we haven't used any of that so far?

The Deleter posted:

gnoll, we've been missing the free attacks from the Duelist Model. When they come up, should I roll for those or would it be easier for you to do it?

I think it might be wiser if you did it, because I will probably forget. Again.

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K Prime
Nov 4, 2009

I'm enjoying the system- just a few kinks to be worked out, I think. The real problem imo is that it is definitely a system where you can cripple yourself with the wrong optimization and I think a couple of us have. I'm good, but I think a couple of y'all have straight not used all your points, or have split builds that aren't really getting used properly.

Unrelately, when I get home I'm gonna check something. I think I might have a way to keep Hannah up, or barring that if I can reach her, bring her back up, depending on GM ruling. I may be able to soak some of that damage for her, or, if you're good with it Gnoll, use Jury Rig to get her back on her feet.

grassy gnoll
Aug 27, 2006

The pawsting business is tough work.
Respecing after this fight is entirely fine by me, if that'll help things.

Taking the hit for Hannah as an interrupt is fine. I would ask for at least a little story information on how Rabah knows how to do field repairs on an eldritch abomination masquerading as a mecha, but if you've got the idea, don't be afraid to roll with it.

The Deleter
May 22, 2010
I'm garbage at optimization so when I respect, any help with my build would be appreciated. :)

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
There was the unwritten question where out not we can respec with Battle Century Z as it is, as well.

Waffleman_
Jan 20, 2011


I don't wanna I don't wanna I don't wanna I don't wanna!!!

I finally remembered to post!

God this battle has been going on for a while though

K Prime
Nov 4, 2009

Nope, can't save Hannah - too far away.

However, it's time to declare my secret equipment, seeing as we've hit T5...

Extending Blade
Radiant Fist
Overbooster
uhhhh...something else later I guess (10)


Let's see if I can turn the tide.

K Prime fucked around with this message at 03:06 on May 28, 2016

bahamut
Jan 5, 2004

Curses from all directions!
I might not be able to do anything now, but I am thrilled at the flurry of thread activity that our dire situation has wrought!

grassy gnoll
Aug 27, 2006

The pawsting business is tough work.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

There was the unwritten question where out not we can respec with Battle Century Z as it is, as well.

I keep forgetting that's out. Let me read over the srd this afternoon, but provisionally yes.

I'm going to update when we reach all pilots acting until the end of this fight, just to push through it.

ARB, the twins are still at max health, right?

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
Yeah, nobody's attacked them. I generally only list traits in poses once they've been reduced.

(Also, I meant to declare Reactive Booster as usual, for +4 to defense.)

K Prime
Nov 4, 2009

WAIT

I CAN SAVE HANNAH

I spend a Genre Point on Not So Fast, forcing that roll against Hannah to be rerolled with 2 Disadvantages.

Edited it in into my actions.

PS: We have 6 default genre powers. use 'em. love 'em. I was a fool to forget.

K Prime fucked around with this message at 22:17 on May 28, 2016

The Deleter
May 22, 2010
THE GENRE POWERS KING

BAH GAWD

But seriously I keep forgetting to use those.

grassy gnoll
Aug 27, 2006

The pawsting business is tough work.
Okay, hold on. I wrote the update using the original actions.

grassy gnoll
Aug 27, 2006

The pawsting business is tough work.
Okay. Rerolled inflicts 5 less damage. Hannah lives.

If Hannah isn't dead, she can't kill both of the enemy mecha on her. #2 attacks her instead of retreating. That's worse.

So... you want to keep that GP?

K Prime
Nov 4, 2009

quick, someone else interfere with that one!

(If nobody does I'll hang on to it).

K Prime fucked around with this message at 01:16 on May 29, 2016

grassy gnoll
Aug 27, 2006

The pawsting business is tough work.
For the record, Hannah is the one pilot with a case history of coming back from the dead, y'know.

The Deleter
May 22, 2010
Okay, I have like 10 minutes left at work and nothing much to do so I'll give my impressions of the system.

Everything to do with the pilots is utterly superfluous. It's really, really hard to make a system where a pilot's stats tie into your mecha's abilities - trust me, I tried - but this game doesn't make an effort. The chances of a pilot's ability scores ever factoring into something seems extremely remote beyond rolling to chat or persuade or whatever, which seems like it'd come up often in a game themed around Evangelion but, well, hasn't. The combat rules for pilots also seem like they're entirely useless, given that I can't recall any mecha shows where pilots were frequently in live fire situations. You could easily just do the pilot stuff as freeform roleplay with some light resolution mechanics.

Why is there a whole category of attacks that only pilots can use? Same for superpowers/miracles.

The ability scores for the mecha feel really weird. Some of them derive into other things and then others don't. You just roll straight Might, but then your Guard has +5 to your actual defence. You use straight Energy, but threshold folds into the weird HP system. It makes it very hard to tell how strong I am in a given area.

The dice feels like swingy bullshit but that might be because I'm getting screwed real bad. I have to say that stacking advantage feels bad because you can still roll like poo poo and do nothing even with tension at +5 and 3 dice.

Melee is a mistake. My build is an attempt to be a DND 4E fighter that ties people up in Melee, but the way the system works makes it really hard. The most basic problem is that, unless you get Duelist Model, walking out of a Duel is risk free. You don't suffer any chance to get hit, no consequence other than losing an action, and you can do it over and over. You also have to succeed the roll to engage in the first place, because getting in someone's face and making them focus on you as a giant robot is apparently luck based. So Duels are a bad idea. The features I'd want to make my idea work are all tied to Genre Powers, which I have a limited supply of. The options for stacking advantage in melee feel really sparse. And then nobody can interfere with the duel except with assault rifles, which I guess is really Gundam-esque but doesn't fit my idea for my playstyle, which is on me I guess.

Genre Powers don't go far enough. Their effects don't feel very dramatic. I like the idea of limited power useage, but only if they're really strong. They're kind of not.

Overall this doesn't feel like a very “mecha” game. It feels like a poor tactical wargame with really kinda lovely options.

I guess this is a long-winded way of saying I’m really cheesed off by the fact that I’ve just been taken down from half health to nothing by enemies that are too strong and are punishing me for having an unoptimised build, after chasing them around a featureless map for five turns because the rules don’t let me execute my gameplan very well. To the point where, if Franklin is about to die right now, I would rather kill him and drop out to find a game that was better at being tactical or being mecha, because it doesn't feel like either.

I hope that none of this seems out of line. If anyone has solutions to these, or wants to tell me to gently caress off, I'll gladly listen.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
Well, I get the division between mecha and pilots is intentional. The thing is Evangelion - at least as conventionally structured - mostly has pilots facing social scenarios between mecha scenarios. Battle Century G presumes a sort of double procedural game, where you have things to take care of in both modes.

The way the mecha design rules sit could be clearer. The main issue is just that how useful your mecha attributes are is highly dependent on your build - it's possible to invest a lot into Energy, Systems, or Speed and have exceedingly little to do with them - and that isn't made clear. I mean, I puzzled it out, but Might, Guard, and Threshold are your basic win stats and have a lot to do with how successful you are. The various systems vary wildly in efficacy on your build as a result. There's a decent amount of system mastery involved, and finding the right balance of spending of attributes vs. systems is tough. I think I found it, but I think some folks overspent on systems, which runs into the trouble of redundancy.

The systems lean mecha towards being specialized, which makes sense for an RPG party but ends up being weird in Evangelion, where mecha are generally generic save for what weapons they bear. I think adding in BCZ will help, as it has some more generalized options for systems.

How dice work is a little obfuscated, but basically if you get more than one or two advantages, you should probably convert them to flat +2s on your roll. In fact, if you're just going on averages, any advantage over the first should be converted to a flat +2. (Granted, the game should just do this for you, but it doesn't point it out in the SRD.) In general, it may feel swingy, but at the same time getting advantage once or twice should reliably give you big rolls. The big swinginess comes, of course, when you don't have advantage...

In general, I really like the genre powers, but I wish there was more reliability to them; it's possible to use some and get a null result if your dice are bad, as I just dealt with. Overall they are varied and there are a lot of them, though, and the generic ones cover a lot of bases - but it does make it easy to forget those basic options.

As far as Duels go- no, it's not random whether or not they start. When you Engage, you get to make an attack, but you move into and start a Duel whether or not it hits. Getting out of a Duel requires them to Disengage - which takes their full action, which is definitely a penalty. Unless the one Disengaging is faster, a dedicated duelist can just re-Engage and attack them again, which means the escapee just effectively wasted their action. If you have the Duelist Model, you even get a free attack when they Disengage and an advantage on melee attacks, which is huge (it's like getting a +3 on your Might). Duelist Model is ridiculously good if you're dedicating yourself to melee. Slippery Chassis counters that entirely, unfortunately, which is what we were just dealing with.

In general I think BCG is really well thought out, but it's a system that's heavily reliant on system mastery, which is a big potential issue compared to something like FATE, where it's hard to do anything too disastrously. (Though, bear in mind the twins had a much, much more dominant build in FATE, so YMMV.)

The Deleter
May 22, 2010

Alien Rope Burn posted:

As far as Duels go- no, it's not random whether or not they start. When you Engage, you get to make an attack, but you move into and start a Duel whether or not it hits. Getting out of a Duel requires them to Disengage - which takes their full action, which is definitely a penalty. Unless the one Disengaging is faster, a dedicated duelist can just re-Engage and attack them again, which means the escapee just effectively wasted their action. If you have the Duelist Model, you even get a free attack when they Disengage and an advantage on melee attacks, which is huge (it's like getting a +3 on your Might). Duelist Model is ridiculously good if you're dedicating yourself to melee. Slippery Chassis counters that entirely, unfortunately, which is what we were just dealing with.
Re-engaging over and over isn't fun. Playing tag with an enemy isn't fun, and if I don't roll well on my attacks then I could be doing that for a long time. If I engage someone I expect to stick to them. If the enemy doesn't get their action but I have to keep chasing them, the result is effectively nil. The fact that you have to spend points to make engaging worth anything and then the enemy can have skills to entirely negate that is pretty much the opposite of "well thought out." It's called trap choices.

I won't argue on the system mastery, as this is the first time I've played with the system. I just wish I knew this beforehand, as this battle has been really frustrating for me.

The Deleter fucked around with this message at 19:21 on Jun 2, 2016

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
In general enemies shouldn't be repeatedly disengaging with you willy-nilly. Unless they're significantly faster than you, they're just setting themselves up for a free attack (or two, if you have Duelist Model). It's not a trap option: it may not have the effect you're looking for, but an enemy shouldn't Disengage unless they have some tactical advantage they're setting up, because it's a bad choice to make on its own.

The Deleter
May 22, 2010
It doesn't matter what should be happening. In this last fight the enemies were were disengaging repeatedly, and it didn't help that we forgot the bonus attacks from Duelist Mode. I really doubt they'd have made a difference. The effect I wanted was to keep enemies in a Duel because they'd be punished for trying to leave, and it didn't happen.

EDIT: Tp be clear, I'm not throwing shade on Gnoll, because they've made it clear that the fight did not go the way they assumed it would. My point is that my character was built to do a job, and through a combination of the system and mistakes, they did not do that role. That loving sucks and I'm not happy about it, and your defence of "it shouldn't happen" doesn't hold water because it just happened and I had a poo poo fight where I did nothing, and the solution is to wait for everyone else to post so I can get a chance to respec my character and try and figure out what I'm doing wrong, which I don't know how because I don't have or want the system mastery to do it.

The Deleter fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Jun 2, 2016

grassy gnoll
Aug 27, 2006

The pawsting business is tough work.
Nah, those are all legit criticisms. A big part of it is that ~I don't know what I'm doing~, but that's nothing new to anyone who's played in my games.

Slippery Chassis was definitely a mistake, and it straight up cripples a huge portion of the mechanics. At best, that should have been a genre power escape move, not an always-on ability.

If anyone else wants to weigh in on the mechanics, now is most assuredly the time. It's okay to not like a game system! Nobody here has any personal stake in the matter.

Waffleman_
Jan 20, 2011


I don't wanna I don't wanna I don't wanna I don't wanna!!!

Yeah, I'm just not feeling the system. A lot for me to keep track of that I keep forgetting to keep track of. I'm doing so bad here because I lost track of how much EXP I had and felt like it was less of a hassle to just do nothing.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

The Deleter posted:

It doesn't matter what should be happening. In this last fight the enemies were were disengaging repeatedly, and it didn't help that we forgot the bonus attacks from Duelist Mode. I really doubt they'd have made a difference. The effect I wanted was to keep enemies in a Duel because they'd be punished for trying to leave, and it didn't happen.

Well, if they all had Slippery Chassis, they don't need to Disengage to walk away from a duel, they just... can use normal movement, unfortunately. :( And it won't trigger Duelist Model's bonus attacks because they don't (technically) ever have to use the Disengage action.

Which on its own, I don't think is a huge issue, since the point value of the two advantages evens out, but when every enemy in a given encounter has it, it's definitely going to frustrate those who picked up Duelist Mode. When our goal is to stop the enemy and we literally don't have the capability to do so (short of foreseeing this and just alpha striking with genre powers and hoping to get lucky), there's a big issue here.

Of course, we've had to sit on The Beast through every fight we've been in AFAIK, which is crummy, but the way it's designed it's not advantageous unless you take big damage, so Unit-02 has just... had 20 points sitting around. But that's something I'd be looking at if we do a rebuild.

K Prime
Nov 4, 2009

I do not want to switch to a less crunchy system. Most of the problems we're having are related to people not engaging with BCG's crunch and that's fine and all, but at this point I've kinda fallen in love with the crunch and I really don't want to go back to something more loosey-goosey. At least, no more FATE. I'm pretty 100% done with FATE as a system right now.

bahamut
Jan 5, 2004

Curses from all directions!
Foremost, in BCG I'm spending 10CP from Exp to buy the cloning resurrection thing all legit like.

That said, any of my system woes have largely been my fault. As, in the 11th hour, as KPrime pointed out, using a genre power to mitigate a lot of that crazy damage earlier in the fight might have been a pretty good plan. Should have thought of it, didn't, sucks to be me. It's not the system's fault, it's mine.

I share The Deleter's resentment of really swingy dice, but this might also be impacted by my own design bias. It's also not a problem unique to BCG.

The system isn't without it's own fault, mind. ARB's brilliant use of (I think it was) a Crippling keyword to avoid potential negative consequences in an earlier fight was great, but probably also an option because of a small a design oversight. If it wasn't, then it and a couple other combat-relevant game aspects are definitely more valuable when selecting compared to others.

The complication of an unfortunately scarce Zachol is probably also a balance/mechanical factor.

Gnoll, having felt all the previous challenges thus far hadn't satisfactorily created the sort of tense uncertain battle-environment so desired, has certainly created one this time. Mechanics being neither here or there, I find it easy to draw potential parallels between our current situation and similar events from Evangelion itself: a flash-forward to unexpected victory, with questions left as to how it was pulled off? Or a sound thrashing, except with an opportunity to regroup, and having learned from the observations of the first showdown, have another (ideally more successful) go at things?

I haven't even looked at the basics BCZ yet, and my time for myself recently and for the immediate future is decidedly short, else I'd like to, that I could have an opinion there. I'd yield to someone more in the know, and I'm certainly not opposed to making the effort if we wanted to move to it.

Probably because I am less adept at getting into games, I still look upon FATE with fondness and haven't suffered/enjoyed the burnout, but I definitely wouldn't want to subject anyone to an undesired system. I'd love to homebrew something suitable up; but the aforementioned time factor, even my own personal projects are taking ages to plug away at.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
In general I like BCG, but I think it suffers a bit in that there's no way to "go loud" and do the kind of ridiculous nonsense Evangelions pull in the series. You can approximate it, but they don't have the sort of plot device elements they have in the series, for better or worse.

The Deleter
May 22, 2010
BCG has come closest to what I want out of a mecha game, but its flaws have become really apparent to me in this last fight and I think it's not all that great. Waffleman brought up the exp system as another problem - I really hate that kind of bean-counting, especially when every point is so valuable.

I don't want to switch back, not because I dislike FATE but because it would probably gently caress everyone up having to redo character sheets again. I'd just like to know exactly what I'm doing wrong.

The Deleter fucked around with this message at 07:52 on Jun 3, 2016

K Prime
Nov 4, 2009

Once we finish this fight I would be happy to do a rundown of character sheets, explain where my build is going, and suggest alternatives/reworks to make concepts work for other people.

grassy gnoll
Aug 27, 2006

The pawsting business is tough work.
I'm in agreement that going back to a FATE game is not really what I want. I can add +4 to things all day long, but that doesn't make it fun.

Here is a thought. Put aside concerns about buying yet another game - would Strike! work for you guys? Too fiddly? Not fiddly enough?

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
Well, one of the things about Evangelion vs. RPGs is that unlike some series, the Evangelions are on a basic level more or less the same and are only really differentiated by their loadout, whereas RPGs love to have specific roles for characters. I'd prefer BCG to strike because BCG only really has implied roles, where Strike! is profoundly role-based. I'm not sure how some classes (Necromancer? The Buddies? Summoner?) would map in Evangelion without starting to stray very heavily from the anime (which isn't necessarily bad, but we'd be going off in a rather alternate direction).

The Deleter
May 22, 2010
I'd rather stay with this system for a while, despite all the whining I just did about it. :v:

grassy gnoll
Aug 27, 2006

The pawsting business is tough work.
Fair enough. It just kills me the closest we've come to a good Eva RPG is still AdEva.

"Good."

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
AdEva gives me hives just thinking about it.

grassy gnoll
Aug 27, 2006

The pawsting business is tough work.
Sorry, folks. I had a ton of unscheduled overtime, helping a friend move, and then my birthday party happen on concurrent days.

Zachol, I have no idea if you're still with us. Let me know if you are.

K, you did kill that last mecha, but the other two got away.

zachol
Feb 13, 2009

Once per turn, you can Tribute 1 WATER monster you control (except this card) to Special Summon 1 WATER monster from your hand. The monster Special Summoned by this effect is destroyed if "Raging Eria" is removed from your side of the field.
Sorry for not being around. Shittiest month ever and today I realized it's not going to get better.
I'm going to have to officially withdraw because as fun as the game has been (and it seriously has been fun for me, despite my low participation) I can't promise my posts will get more consistent and even before this last month they were unacceptable.

I guess my one comment on the rules is I wish I had pushed for a more explicit custom situation as a "commander." The system just isn't designed for what I tried to get it to do and I was left with essentially one mildly effective thing to spam.

In terms of Jenny, I think I've conveyed this but the only person she actually cared about was Hannah (her Hannah, this Hannah). Clones aren't really the same.
If you want to keep her around, the NPC voice/personality shift can be explained by all that trauma. Otherwise, thinking she's about to be sacked and seeing her surrogate daughter die, she probably went to be one with the tang.

Thanks all.

grassy gnoll
Aug 27, 2006

The pawsting business is tough work.
Hey, no worries. I hope life starts to suck a little less soon.

Thanks for playing, zachol.

K Prime
Nov 4, 2009

For the record, Rabah is being incredibly hypocritical here and that's the joke.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
Any issues with one or both of the twins following up on the sound of gunfire? A little confused as to exactly how much mayhem is going on.

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grassy gnoll
Aug 27, 2006

The pawsting business is tough work.
If Pax is down in the hangars, she probably can't hear anything. Noah could jump in, though.

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