Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2: Capt. Asshole Island

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2: Capt. Asshole Island

Dick Burglar: Mar 6, 2006

rope kid can we please have a bird companion as a ranger PC option instead of having it be NPC-specific? Even if it's a different bird. Don't need to allow us to use her special subclass either. I just like bird pets for rangers.

# ? Sep 3, 2017 21:36

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# ? Apr 20, 2024 01:39

Fair Bear Maiden: Jun 17, 2013

rope kid posted:

The changes are mostly for viability.

I'm a bit confused because I was making a general comment about my personal preferences insofar as balance is concerned for PoE2, not changes to the multiclassing mechanics compared to what was announced, but that's good to know. I apologize if I expressed myself in a confused manner.

# ? Sep 3, 2017 22:03

bongwizzard: May 19, 2005; Then one day I meet a man,
He came to me and said,
"Hard work good and hard work fine,
but first take care of head"; Grimey Drawer

Is Battle Brother is generally considered a good tactical combat game? I want to say I read a bunch of bad reviews when first came out but I might be thinking of something else. The graphics don't wow me, I generally feel if I'm not going to get a little animated dude I'd rather just have virtual cardboard chits, but I'm trying to broaden my horizons a little.

# ? Sep 3, 2017 22:06

User: May 3, 2002; by FactsAreUseless; Nap Ghost

Obsessing over "balance" in a single player game is kind of silly. Every class should have a purpose, and every class should be fun (for at least a decent chunk of players). Multi-classing makes this way harder, since usually the result is you either get, say, a fighter/wizard who is bad at fighting and bad at magic, or a situation like 2nd edition dual classing. I'm intrigued to see how Deadfire handles this.

Yes, some players have a psychographic profile that essentially demands they play whatever the global optimum character is, and yes they should be designed for. However they're not the only players of the game.

I'm curious, does Obsidian do any kind of market research along these lines? Obviously different people play your games for different reasons.

Edit: One idea that's inspired by pulp literature is to have something like the aforementioned fighter/mage, but his abilities are basically limited to how he kits out. Does he put on full plate, gauntlets, and wear a sword? Well then his ability to use his magic is going to be highly restricted. Is he going out wearing light clothing and carrying a grimoire and 20 pound of material components? Well he might know how to ride a destrier and fight with a zweihander in full plate, but he's not going to win any duels against an armored knight while wearing a tunic.

Edit edit: Fritz Leiber's Gray Mouser is a fun example of a "multi-class" mage/thief from pulp literature.

Edit edit edit: Carrying capacity limiting abilities could be a "talent" system :hist101:

User fucked around with this message at 22:27 on Sep 3, 2017

# ? Sep 3, 2017 22:11

Lt. Danger: Dec 22, 2006; jolly good chaps we sure showed the hun

User posted:

Obsessing over "balance" in a single player game is kind of silly. Every class should have a purpose, and every class should be fun (for at least a decent chunk of players). Multi-classing makes this way harder, since usually the result is you either get, say, a fighter/wizard who is bad at fighting and bad at magic, or a situation like 2nd edition dual classing. I'm intrigued to see how Deadfire handles this.

This is what balance is concerned with, though?

# ? Sep 3, 2017 22:13

User: May 3, 2002; by FactsAreUseless; Nap Ghost

Lt. Danger posted:

This is what balance is concerned with, though?

That's not the definition I use in my head. I think of something more like Starcraft balance. But if that's what you mean then we agree using your definition.

# ? Sep 3, 2017 22:18

GreatGreen: Jul 3, 2007; That's not what gaslighting means you hyperbolic dipshit.

I love casters in RPGs, and it's oddly specific, but I always find I judge the completeness of RPG class systems based on mages. Specifically, can I make a fully-featured and complete Necromancer (corpse and demon summoning + exclusively dots and debuff spell usage) and how many [Element] mages can I make that are viable using their theme element for 80-90% of their casting.

Is it too soon to know if viable full Necromancers and/or fire/ice mages will be possible?

edit: ^^^ since this is a single player non-competitive game, can't all the subclasses be identified and then simply granted an offense/defense multiplier or something to bring them as close to parity as they need to be? I mean, to me the whole point of having a class system should be less about choosing your viability and more about choosing the theme of your character.

GreatGreen fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Sep 3, 2017

# ? Sep 3, 2017 22:18

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

bongwizzard posted:

Is Battle Brother is generally considered a good tactical combat game? I want to say I read a bunch of bad reviews when first came out but I might be thinking of something else. The graphics don't wow me, I generally feel if I'm not going to get a little animated dude I'd rather just have virtual cardboard chits, but I'm trying to broaden my horizons a little.

It's a pretty good game but very indy -- basically a computerized board game. I put a guide up on steam that should give you a good idea of the gameplay:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=902880552

# ? Sep 3, 2017 22:22

Lt. Danger: Dec 22, 2006; jolly good chaps we sure showed the hun

User posted:

That's not the definition I use in my head. I think of something more like Starcraft balance. But if that's what you mean then we agree using your definition.

I think it's also what Starcraft balance is concerned with as well, if you swap out the specific terminology - do all units feel equally effective at their role, are they fun to play with, do ill-conceived system mechanics like multi-classing/economy macro end up hindering gameplay, etc. Which makes sense, since Starcraft and Pillars are both "strategy" games at heart.

# ? Sep 3, 2017 23:27

doingitwrong: Jul 27, 2013

I think Diablo is a better comparison that StarCraft. StarCraft is concerned with having every race be equally effective and using a Rock Paper Scissors type loop to give players ways to keep each other in check. Diablo is about giving you a set of useful tools with no class obviously much better than the others, but also with the general idea that some of the fun is looking for 'broken' builds (or team comps) that allow your team to just devastate the enemy.

If the Necromancer class were 10x more powerful than the others, blizzard would do something about it, but if all the classes are within a band of one another, then it's all good.

There's probably another factor that you want in Pillars, which is preventing parties from getting so out of hand power wise, that the game stops being fun or challenging towards the end. Diablo handles that by offering incredible scaling, but I imagine PoE will instead focus on capping power.

# ? Sep 3, 2017 23:39

bongwizzard: May 19, 2005; Then one day I meet a man,
He came to me and said,
"Hard work good and hard work fine,
but first take care of head"; Grimey Drawer

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

It's a pretty good game but very indy -- basically a computerized board game. I put a guide up on steam that should give you a good idea of the gameplay:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=902880552

You are a very useful fellow! Thanks!

# ? Sep 3, 2017 23:44

Anno: May 10, 2017; I'm going to drown! For no reason at all!

I think Josh's pinned tweet is his treatise on balance in cRPGs for a reason. For anyone who has missed it:

https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/161302725596/balance-in-single-player-crpgs posted:

Someone on twitter asked me this question and I think it�s worth answering in a longer form than twitter allows. I�ve already answered this question in brief and in video form at various points, but I think it�s important to address here:

quote:
Something that bothered me from PoE was the constant updating to classes and races to balance them. Did you guys worry about this>
In Baldur�s Gate I or II or even the Icewind Dale series? I mean really who cares if one class is OP or Race or Hybrid class? >>
You guys are making a single-player RPG not an MMO or game with a online multiplayer component.

Variants of this question are common in single-player CRPG circles. The implication is that balance is important in an MMO/multiplayer environment but it is not important (or so much less important that it doesn�t merit addressing in patches) in a single-player CRPG. I would like to repudiate this in two general ways: 1) I will argue that overall balance is important and valuable for players in single-player CRPGs 2) I will argue that individual CRPG players and CRPG communities overall do not present consistent objections to tuning and this undermines the general complaint. It is not the responsibility of individuals or communities to be consistent in their feedback, but it is the job of the designer to design, which means considering the needs of the audience by listening to and interpreting feedback on a broader scale.

Yes, Balance is Important in Single-Player CRPGs

I think it�s easy enough to make the first point through reductio ad absurdum: why not give AD&D fighters 1d4 hit points per level, a worse THAC0 than wizards, and worse saving throws than any other class? Obviously it�s because playing them would feel terrible. Why don�t we give all of the enemies attacks that do 1-3 damage, a quarter of the hit points of the PCs, and rock-bottom defenses? Because playing through that would feel boring for anyone who had the slightest interest in combat content and systems.

Some may say, �Hey, no one is arguing that balance isn�t important at all,� but in fact that is what many people directly say or suggest. Maybe they don�t really mean it (which I will get to later), but that is often what comes up. If we can agree that some degree of balance is important, then there�s no point in suggesting anything to the contrary and we�re really just debating to what degree is balance important and worth a) design consideration pre-launch and b) patching.

In my view, balance in a single-player CRPG is important to the extent that it allows players making different character and gear choices to be viable through the content of the game. It is always important to remember that system design (including class, race, ability/spell, and item design) is one part of the equation. Content makes up the other big part (setting aside UI/UX for purposes of this discussion).

When our area and system designers build encounters, they have to be built around an understanding of party capabilities: their overall statistics, their available gear, their consumable items, and their various abilities. In a traditional D&D-style CRPG, this spectrum of possibility gets wider and wider the higher the levels get and the more gear becomes available to the player. The less balanced individual choices are from level to level and item to item, the more difficult it is for area designers to design content that works for a spectrum of choices.

It Was Actually a Problem in the Infinity Engine Games

One of the questions was, �Did you guys worry about this in� even the Icewind Dale series?� Well, no. I certainly didn�t worry about it in the original Icewind Dale. I assumed everyone who picked up the game was as conversant as me in AD&D 2nd Ed/Forgotten Realms rules and lore, had played hundreds of hours of it in tabletop with similarly aggressive psychogamers, and had weathered fair but diabolically brutal DMs whose scenarios demanded quick thinking and ruthless min-maxing tactics.

You might not believe the number of Black Isle QA testers (and developers) who yelled or cried in anger, virtually or in person, about how difficult some of the IWD scenarios were. One in particular was the Idol/priest fight in Lower Dorn�s Deep. I had a tester hootin� and hollerin� about how it was �impossible�, how he had tried to beat it for two hours and couldn�t make any progress. It was a scenario that I and my office mate (Kihan Pak) both beat on the first try. On Heart of Winter, Burial Isle practically split QA in half. One half thought it was a cakewalk. The others acted like they were being forced to dive into a swimming pool full of razor blades.The dividing factor was system mastery. AD&D 2nd Edition (and 3E) are systems with a boatload of trap choices, inherently bad builds, garbage spells/feats, and generally inferior options. They�re not presented as inferior options to the player. They�re presented as options� that turn out to be implicitly awful even in the best circumstances. To the next part of the question, �I mean really who cares if one class is OP or Race or Hybrid class?� The answer is, �The person being brutalized by content designed for the OP classes/races because they picked the �bad� option.�

The broader that spectrum of choices is for players, the more difficult it is to design content that will be at a similar level of challenge for those players given any given combination of choices within that spectrum. And to restate what I wrote before, the balance is mostly important to the extent that viability, i.e., the ability to get through the content, is supported. BG, BG2, IWD, and IWD2 often failed that test. Once viability is addressed, I�m not particularly concerned about balance.

Tuning Down High-Powered Outliers

The exceptions are abilities and items that are so incredibly powerful across the board that it�s almost impossible to make any content challenging with them in play. If we design content to be challenging with those abilities/items in mind, any players who lack those abilities and items will effectively be crit path blocked. Their game has either ended or become so incredibly difficult that it�s no longer enjoyable. And if we don�t design content with the overpowered abilities and items in mind, any player who coincidentally or intentionally uses those items effectively no longer has any challenge going through the game. It becomes an unlabeled Easy difficulty slider rendering all other options/choices irrelevant.

In those cases, I advocate reducing the power of the abilities/items so players don�t trip over �Hey I guess I win� options and our testers can still use them in playthroughs and give meaningful feedback. There is one salient example I can think of: sniper rifles in Fallout: New Vegas. In Fallout 3, Bethesda had given sniper rifles a x5 crit rate modifier. Keep in mind that any attack from stealth (e.g. shooting an unaware target with a sniper rifle from long range) is automatically a crit. The x5 multiplier made even standard/close range combat shots have an incredibly high chance of critting. I didn�t notice that sniper rifles had that multiplier and it didn�t come up in testing prior to release. In release, players noticed it quickly and sniper rifles became the de facto way to handle most encounters. Why use a 12.7mm SMG or hunting pistol when any shot from a sniper rifle was likely to crit and do 90+ damage?

In one of the first patches, I reduced the crit rate multiplier to x2. There was initially a lot of complaining about it, as there always is when anything is tuned down, no matter how overpowered, but the sniper rifle retained its role and continues to be used in that role. It�s a sniper rifle. It�s good at sniping. It doesn�t need to be great at close range.

Inconsistent Player Feedback

There is one trend about player feedback regarding tuning that�s hard to argue against: communities generally complain about tuning anything down but applaud (or at least do not complain about) tuning things up. I can tune up 10 things in a patch and detune one thing and will hear far more feedback about the one thing that was detuned, no matter how marginal or necessary that detuning was. If there�s negative feedback about tuning something up, it�s usually because players feel it needs to be tuned up more.

In Patch 3.03 for Pillars of Eternity, Matt Sheets and I tuned up seven rogue abilities, five barbarian abilities, and a variety of other spells and abilities. Players generally seemed to like this, though some wished the rogue abilities had been tuned up more.

In Patch 3.04, the soulbound dagger The Unlabored Blade had a bug fixed where its 10% Firebug proc was never firing. Two weeks later, Patch 3.05 reduced the 10% proc to 3%. This was a change I had requested for 3.04 but it had been overlooked. I requested the change because daggers have a fast attack rate and that dagger has a +20% attack rate enchantment. Which set of changes do you think I heard more feedback about? If you guessed the marginal drop in proc rate on the soulbound item that had only worked properly for two weeks, you�d be right. The rogue and barbarian changes affect far more players and more significantly, but �loss� (even if imagined for most players) weighs more heavily.

Despite having a reputation for only detuning, I tuned many more abilities and items up in PoE patches (and in F:NV patches, as well as the JSawyer mod) than down. Players remember the losses more than the gains, but both are a necessary part of the tuning process.I could abstain from tuning, but I don�t think most players would benefit from that. Players remember early Diablo 3 tuning as particularly bad, but the game at launch (especially the economy and itemization) was poorly balanced, as Travis Day elaborated on in his 2017 GDC talk. In the long term, Diablo 3's economy and itemization today are much better than they were at launch and I believe most players benefit from and appreciate that. Even if you effectively never played D3 as a multiplayer game, you still benefit from that.

I don�t expect players or communities to be consistent in their feedback, but as the director and, in many cases, the lone system designer, I have to make decisions on more than just the volume of feedback on any particular topic. Changes that make bad options better are almost universally good. Changes that make overpowered options worse are often still a good idea if I believe more players will benefit from the change. I didn�t hesitate to reduce the Petrified damage bonus from x4 to x2 in Pillars of Eternity because that affliction was far and away the best way to deal with difficult encounters, either through the Gaze of the Adragan spell or trap.

I Will Tune Again

Just to make this clear, while there will always be a point where I stop tuning a particular game, I�m never going to stop using patches as an opportunity to balance items, abilities, classes, encounters, enemies, etc. I�ve been house-ruling and tuning games since I noticed trap options and OP garbage in 2nd Edition AD&D in middle school. I re-wrote 5th Edition Ars Magica�s certamen system because it�s a cool idea that�s really uninteresting in play. I re-wrote Pathfinder/3.X�s armor system because, as many players have noted, it doesn�t actually provide many interesting options.

If I think players will benefit from adjusting the rules or the content and there�s an opportunity to make those changes, I�m going to do it. I certainly don�t expect players to like all of the changes I make, but if you object to the idea of post-launch balancing, you should probably never play any of the games I direct. I�m always going to tune them, if possible.

Thanks for reading.

# ? Sep 4, 2017 00:26

Subjunctive: Sep 12, 2006; ✨sparkle and shine✨

One problem with the PoE patches is that, as I recall, there wasn't a way to respec. So you go from "I am the awesome Fireball dude" to "I am no longer the awesome fireball dude and it's not as much fun" without having a way to stop being the fireball dude other than starting over. (Or, as a friend of mine did, learning how to edit the spells back and turning off updates.)

I think you can have meaningful balance patches, but you should give players a way to react and rebuild their character mechanically.

# ? Sep 4, 2017 00:46

Scorchy: Jul 15, 2006; Smug Statement: Elementary, my dear meatbag.

Respeccing was added in a patch

# ? Sep 4, 2017 00:48

Subjunctive: Sep 12, 2006; ✨sparkle and shine✨

Ah, ok. It wasn't there when I checked, or I couldn't find it, but it's been a while.

# ? Sep 4, 2017 00:49

Air Skwirl: May 13, 2007; Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed shitposting.

Subjunctive posted:

Ah, ok. It wasn't there when I checked, or I couldn't find it, but it's been a while.

It was added in one of the early patches, you can do it at any inn you can hire NPCs, or at the castle you get in the first act. And I think "being the fireball dude" is still a valid class option.

# ? Sep 4, 2017 01:25

Subjunctive: Sep 12, 2006; ✨sparkle and shine✨

I might not have still been playing, looks like it was August. Still, that is good to hear! Yay them!

# ? Sep 4, 2017 01:27

rope kid: Feb 3, 2001; Warte nur! Balde
Ruhest du auch.

User posted:

Multi-classing makes this way harder, since usually the result is you either get, say, a fighter/wizard who is bad at fighting and bad at magic, or a situation like 2nd edition dual classing. I'm intrigued to see how Deadfire handles this.

The more general the effects of multiclassing are, the easier it is to predict the trade-offs and design/build for them. A MC fighter/wizard in 2nd Edition was actually pretty good for the most part because the mechanics just split the XP in half and the way the XP tables scaled meant you were probably going to be 1-2 levels lower than a comparable single-classed character. A MC fighter/wizard in 3E with an even class/level split was much worse off because the traditional caster classes weren't trailing by 15-20%, but by 50%, which is why prestige classes like the Eldritch Knight and Mystic Thaumaturge were more-or-less required to be viable.

Personally, I don't think approaching it from the equipment angle works well. In part, this is because post-2nd Ed. AD&D's mechanics don't consistently present "heavy" weapons or "heavy" armor as fundamentally superior to their lighter counterparts. You could, but in so doing you are implicitly suggesting that using anything but the equipment in those categories is mechanically inferior. The lightly-armored swashbuckler in leather with a rapier becomes an entertaining concept/roleplaying choice, not something you can realistically keep pace with in combat because the system's mechanics make plate armor and a great sword better in most circumstances.

E.g. The Complete Fighter's Handbook for 2nd Ed. introduced the Swashbuckler kit. You specialized in stiletto, main-gauche, and rapier; got a whopping +2 bonus to AC when in light armor (i.e. leather or lighter) or no armor; and a bonus to interactions with the opposite sex. But ultimately you were a bad fighter, mechanically. +2 to AC could't make up for the fact that leather's base 8 is in competition with plate's base 3, field plate's base 2, and full plate's base 1. Being able to gain +1 to Parry with a basket hilt was in competition with a two-handed sword doing 1d10/3d6 damage. You could contrive situations where the heavily armored fighter with a massive weapon got into trouble, but it was just that: a contrivance.

Once you moved to 3E, heavy armor no longer had the sense of being strictly superior. It had inherent movement penalties, inherent max Dex bonuses, etc. If you had a high Dex and no arcane caster classes, going with chain shirt was the de facto good choice. If you had low Dex, heavy armor. And medium armor was pretty much ignored. You could say, "Ah, but isn't it good that light armor is now more viable for fighting classes?" Sure, but heavy armor proficiencies are things that cost resources and heavy armor is a thing that arcane casters have penalties to use, implying that there's something inherently valuable about them -- when in reality, most classes have one or two optimal types of armor they can wear based on their classes and stats (i.e. Strength and Dex).

In 4E, armor and weapon choices ossified even more. IME, if you were in hide armor at 6th level, you'd be in hide armor at 16th. You were just picking what type of hide armor you wanted to be in, which feels pretty boring, IMO.

All of this is to say that you can't really have these things both ways. Either certain classifications or armor and weapons are designed to be fundamentally better than others or they aren't. If they are, you can design MC mechanics around limiting access to them, but those categories are always the optimal categories and selecting anything else is inherently bad unless you're restricted. If the weapons and armor are designed to have situational or build-specific trade-offs and not to be inherently superior/inferior, limiting access to categories only works if the restrictions are extremely tight, i.e. more is excluded than included. Otherwise you just build for the equipment you can use, which is designed to be on-par with what you can't use, and you have access to enough choices to adapt to any situation you come across.

Subjunctive posted:

Ah, ok. It wasn't there when I checked, or I couldn't find it, but it's been a while.

It was added in the 2.0 patch in August of 2015, which coincided with the release of The White March, Pt. I.

# ? Sep 4, 2017 01:57

Subjunctive: Sep 12, 2006; ✨sparkle and shine✨

rope kid posted:

It was added in the 2.0 patch in August of 2015, which coincided with the release of The White March, Pt. I.

Will Deadfire allow respecs out of the gate?

# ? Sep 4, 2017 02:00

rope kid: Feb 3, 2001; Warte nur! Balde
Ruhest du auch.

Yes, though the costs increase much more as you gain levels.

# ? Sep 4, 2017 02:01

Subjunctive: Sep 12, 2006; ✨sparkle and shine✨

Excellent!

# ? Sep 4, 2017 02:02

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

Wait, when did we get three subclasses each instead of two? That's awesome.

# ? Sep 4, 2017 02:14

Empress Brosephine: Mar 31, 2012; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

This game is super overwhelming at times but loving it; that said is there a way to edit a AI routine atleast on consoles? My priest won't stop running in to hit poo poo and all I want is him to heal etc

# ? Sep 4, 2017 02:19

Clever Spambot: Sep 16, 2009; You've lost that lovin' feeling,
Now it's gone...gone...GONE....

Its a dirty method but just giving him a ranged weapon will atleast make him keep his distance.

# ? Sep 4, 2017 02:26

SoggyBobcat: Oct 2, 2013

Rope kid since your posting here right now is the bug where traps are applying their Accuracy bonus/penalty twice ever going to be fixed? I know PoE is basically finished but it would be nice if this was fixed.

# ? Sep 4, 2017 02:35

bongwizzard: May 19, 2005; Then one day I meet a man,
He came to me and said,
"Hard work good and hard work fine,
but first take care of head"; Grimey Drawer

rope kid posted:

the heavily armored fighter with a massive weapon got into trouble, but it was just that: a contrivance.

See, I entirely disagree. What you call a contrivance I call the essential nature of a tabletop role-playing game; A living breathing DM is sitting there to react to all the off-the-wall stuff players insist on doing. For a video game sure you're never going to get that level of reactivity so systems need to be designed differently, which is why I don't think much about the design of what makes a good collaborative tabletop game translates over super well to what makes a good single player video game. I think they are fundamentally different beasts.

# ? Sep 4, 2017 02:45

doingitwrong: Jul 27, 2013

bongwizzard posted:

See, I entirely disagree. What you call a contrivance I call the essential nature of a tabletop role-playing game; A living breathing DM is sitting there to react to all the off-the-wall stuff players insist on doing.

I don't think a fighter wearing heavy amor and massive weapons should count as 'off-the-wall stuff' the players do that the DM has to account for. That's one of those situations that should be well handled by the basic game.

# ? Sep 4, 2017 02:50

Captain Oblivious: Oct 12, 2007; I'm not like other posters

bongwizzard posted:

See, I entirely disagree. What you call a contrivance I call the essential nature of a tabletop role-playing game; A living breathing DM is sitting there to react to all the off-the-wall stuff players insist on doing. For a video game sure you're never going to get that level of reactivity so systems need to be designed differently, which is why I don't think much about the design of what makes a good collaborative tabletop game translates over super well to what makes a good single player video game. I think they are fundamentally different beasts.

It is not the essential nature of tabletop gaming that the DM has to go out of their way to engineer situations where the Swashbuckler is worth having next to the plate+greatsword fighter. It's just a trap choice plain and simple. Much like how non caster level classes in 3E might as well not exist.

# ? Sep 4, 2017 02:53

frajaq: Jan 30, 2009; #acolyte GM of 2014

bongwizzard posted:

See, I entirely disagree. What you call a contrivance I call the essential nature of a tabletop role-playing game; A living breathing DM is sitting there to react to all the off-the-wall stuff players insist on doing. For a video game sure you're never going to get that level of reactivity so systems need to be designed differently, which is why I don't think much about the design of what makes a good collaborative tabletop game translates over super well to what makes a good single player video game. I think they are fundamentally different beasts.

If a DM does that regarding a Fighter of all things playing optimally he's a douchebag

# ? Sep 4, 2017 02:54

bongwizzard: May 19, 2005; Then one day I meet a man,
He came to me and said,
"Hard work good and hard work fine,
but first take care of head"; Grimey Drawer

frajaq posted:

If a DM does that regarding a Fighter of all things playing optimally he's a douchebag

Someone who insist on playing a collaborative game "optimally" is actually probably a douche bag as well.

# ? Sep 4, 2017 03:01

frajaq: Jan 30, 2009; #acolyte GM of 2014

bongwizzard posted:

Someone who insist on playing a collaborative game "optimally" is actually probably a douche bag as well.

poo poo, better pick Swashbuckler or some other sub-class to be more flavorful in this collaborative game, oh wait the alternate options are terrible, now I feel useless in the party and no longer am having fun in this game

# ? Sep 4, 2017 03:08

bongwizzard: May 19, 2005; Then one day I meet a man,
He came to me and said,
"Hard work good and hard work fine,
but first take care of head"; Grimey Drawer

frajaq posted:

poo poo, better pick Swashbuckler or some other sub-class to be more flavorful in this collaborative game, oh wait the alternate options are terrible, now I feel useless in the party and no longer am having fun in this game

I mean maybe my table top experiences were atypical, but literally every single time before we started a new game/campaign we would sit down and discuss what kind/style/favor of story we wanted to play and all made our characters sort of accordingly. Even more shockingly, if someone was really not having a ton of fun with the character they made we would do a record scratch rewind and let them
tweak poo poo until they were having fun. Is this seriously not how most groups would play?

# ? Sep 4, 2017 03:12

rope kid: Feb 3, 2001; Warte nur! Balde
Ruhest du auch.

That is how most groups play IME, but being (effectively) forced to remake a character because the fundamental concept isn't viable isn't particularly fun. Yes, GMs and groups should allow it, but it's certainly nice when the mechanics aren't full of traps/mechanically bad concepts.

A few years ago, I played in a 3.5 game where someone wanted to play a charismatic talky fighter. Not a paladin. A fighter. The character was bad at talking and bad at fighting, full stop. Later, that player dropped out and I made a noble/marshal who was insanely good at talking, pretty good at fighting, and granted a bunch of bonuses to allies around her. The difference between us was that I knew 3.5 very well and the other player didn't. Powergaming the system didn't make me role-play the character any less than the other player. I was just role-playing a character who could mechanically bulldoze the old character in every way.

# ? Sep 4, 2017 03:38

Subjunctive: Sep 12, 2006; ✨sparkle and shine✨

bongwizzard posted:

Someone who insist on playing a collaborative game "optimally" is actually probably a douche bag as well.

You say "optimally", I say "having some narrative agency so the wizard doesn't do everything".

# ? Sep 4, 2017 03:43

frajaq: Jan 30, 2009; #acolyte GM of 2014

bongwizzard posted:

I mean maybe my table top experiences were atypical, but literally every single time before we started a new game/campaign we would sit down and discuss what kind/style/favor of story we wanted to play and all made our characters sort of accordingly. Even more shockingly, if someone was really not having a ton of fun with the character they made we would do a record scratch rewind and let them
tweak poo poo until they were having fun. Is this seriously not how most groups would play?

so what's the problem with a heavily armored fighter with a massive weapon again? if by coincidence that's the best way to play a fighter the DM needs to create contrivance for that player out of obligation?

# ? Sep 4, 2017 03:47

bongwizzard: May 19, 2005; Then one day I meet a man,
He came to me and said,
"Hard work good and hard work fine,
but first take care of head"; Grimey Drawer

Sure, but what I don't understand about your anecdote, it's like why did no one tell this guy that there was a character class that fit his idea vastly better? Again, it's a collaborative game, I would think if one player had a more advanced level of system mastery they would share that info with everyone else.

I mean obviously unless you're just doing freeform improvisational storytelling, a reasonably tight rules set is a great thing to have, but I don't understand the huge emphasis people put on system designed/system mastery for what is essentially a bunch of people telling a story together about killing a dragon and taking it's stuff. Video games are obviously very different, there is not a DM there to react to things and keep the game moving in a fun direction, rules be damned if need be.

# ? Sep 4, 2017 03:49

rope kid: Feb 3, 2001; Warte nur! Balde
Ruhest du auch.

We did, and that combination of classes didn't fit his character concept, which was a poor nobody who learned how to fight and got by on his wits and charm. Paladin didn't fit, noble really didn't fit, and marshal didn't fit at all. He wanted to be a fighter and 3E/3.5 gives fighters a bunch of hit points, BAB, and feats but basically kicks them in the groin, skill-wise. Unless you're playing a 3E Swashbuckler (which we already had), Int and Cha are dump stats, you get 2 skill points per level, and most conversation skills are cross-class.

The reason why the numbers actually matter is because the GM/DM needs to design content for the range of characters. If some players have incredible system mastery and others don't, it creates problems sooner or later.

E: The gulf between the old character and new one was so vast that the old character could roll a 20 and the new could roll a 1 on a Diplomacy check and she'd still have a better total. The GM can't realistically design obstacles for that unless they're dynamically adjusting everything, which players catch on to.

rope kid fucked around with this message at 03:58 on Sep 4, 2017

# ? Sep 4, 2017 03:56

bongwizzard: May 19, 2005; Then one day I meet a man,
He came to me and said,
"Hard work good and hard work fine,
but first take care of head"; Grimey Drawer

rope kid posted:

We did, and that combination of classes didn't fit his character concept, which was a poor nobody who learned how to fight and got by on his wits and charm. Paladin didn't fit, noble really didn't fit, and marshal didn't fit at all. He wanted to be a fighter

Well then that guy was either an idiot or someone with no imagination, just play the class that mechanically fits your idea and call it whatever you want?

Edit: oh God, it's this line of thinking that start you down the path of story games and anime dating sims, isn't it?

# ? Sep 4, 2017 03:59

Air Skwirl: May 13, 2007; Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed shitposting.

bongwizzard posted:

Well then that guy was either an idiot or someone with no imagination, just play the class that mechanically fits your idea and call it whatever you want?

Edit: oh God, it's this line of thinking that start you down the path of story games and anime dating sims, isn't it?

You're going to be dating a pigeon in a year. (In a videogame, not real life).

# ? Sep 4, 2017 04:02

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# ? Apr 20, 2024 01:39

bongwizzard: May 19, 2005; Then one day I meet a man,
He came to me and said,
"Hard work good and hard work fine,
but first take care of head"; Grimey Drawer

Skwirl posted:

You're going to be dating a pigeon in a year. (In a videogame, not real life).

Sure it starts with video games, but where does it end?

I'm gonna start mixing a few Advanced Squad Leader chits in my breakfast cereal every morning, just to keep my grog levels higher.

# ? Sep 4, 2017 04:11

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2: Capt. Asshole Island

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