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by Mischief Maker 04/25/2014, 2:09pm PDT |
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Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:
What's your take on hiring existing characters (Jagged Alliance, Ultima 6, Shadowrun Returns) verus the ability to make your own? The game becomes a bit more "generic" if you're making up all your own characters, but you get more control that way.
Hiring existing characters harms the gameplay in favor of story. You lose the ability to custom build a team to take on the challenges that await. What's more, you put the player in a screwy position with regards to balance.
Blackguards suffers from both problems. You have unheard-of complexity at your disposal for creating the main character, but when the game serves up new party members, their precious AP points have been distributed into "realistic" but inefficient configurations. From this point forward you can customize further, but none of the characters are going to be the well-oiled machine of your main. Worse, the game adds party members in a slow dribble over the course of the game. You get an archer near the end of chapter 1, and I was kicking myself for finishing side quests prior to unlocking her because of all the XP she missed out on.
Now here's an original thought, what if you had prewritten characters who joined your team, but at the moment they joined, the game opened up a character creation screen? You keep all the plot and party crosstalk, but do nothing to harm the gameplay.
Weapon Stats -
- Some manual that gives you all the stats of all the weapons in the game.
- The ability to see the min and max damage of a weapon when you obtain it.
- Never list this info.
Give all info. The Dark Spire is an irritating game because the shop at the start sells a variety of weapons, but the relatively cheap Estoc is flat out superior to the super expensive Katana. The difficulty is geared high in that game as it is, why fuck the player on top of it?
Enemy Characteristics -
- Ultima III, for instance, gave you almost a complete beastiary. How much fun comes from exploring to where you are finding new enemies?
Philosophically, what is your opinion about rules that make terrible stats fun as great ones? So if you have an 18 in strength, sure, combat is fine, but if you have a 4, perhaps the game is making fun of what a weakling a certain character is.
This means that "average" stats are really the worst to have. Is this a problem?
ICJ
Honestly, D&D's conceit that you roll 3D6 for your attributes, and if you don't have enough to get the prestige class you wanted you just deal, is stupid. I don't even see how that's fun. The only reason for dice in a PnP RPG is to resolve disputes quickly and inpartially so it doesn't degenerate into a "I shooted you!" "No you didn't!" mess.
Just how necessary is all this for a singleplayer computer game?
And stop a moment and ask yourself, "If I asked a player if he'd rather play the character who's badass, or the character who sucks, which would 99% choose on their first go?" |
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Ohhhhhhhhhh boy by Ice Cream Jonsey 01/28/2014, 9:40pm PST 
The whole game is embarrassing, the spiders in the well are probably the peak by jeep 01/28/2014, 10:20pm PST
The whole game is embarrassing, the spiders in the well are probably the peak by John Gulp 01/29/2014, 6:32am PST
Is enemy level autoscaling the worst design possible? by Entropy Stew 01/29/2014, 9:04am PST
It felt like a lazy design choice by people who should know better. For unknown by RetroRomper 01/29/2014, 10:06am PST
No scaling in the full version by Lurker 410942 04/20/2014, 8:44pm PDT
Kinda wish there was some now by Lurker 410942 04/23/2014, 5:00am PDT
I'll never understand why developers insist on ruining perfectly good... by Jerry Whorebach 04/23/2014, 2:16pm PDT
I think this problem may speak to a perversion of the core concept. by Jerry Whorebach 04/23/2014, 6:38pm PDT
What's your ideal save system then? by Lurker 410942 05/28/2014, 5:31am PDT
This is like asking what my ideal health system is! by Jerry Whorebach 05/28/2014, 4:18pm PDT
I feel like you have a wealth of information regarding successful RPGs by Ice Cream Jonsey 04/24/2014, 7:39am PDT
Fuck it, some questions for Jerry. by Ice Cream Jonsey 04/24/2014, 3:58pm PDT
I don't think you should be taking RPG advice from a guy who doesn't play them. by Jerry Whorebach 04/24/2014, 9:06pm PDT
Re: I don't think you should be taking RPG advice by jeep 04/24/2014, 11:32pm PDT
I should've brought up Capcom vs. SNK instead of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 by Jerry Whorebach 05/27/2014, 4:41pm PDT
Re: Fuck it, some questions for Jerry. by Mischief Maker 04/25/2014, 2:09pm PDT
I'll understand if you don't want to argue RPGs with a shutin, but I have to try by Jerry Whorebach 04/25/2014, 4:46pm PDT
Characters are just classes with personalities. Think of Team Fortress 2. NT by Jerry Whorebach 04/25/2014, 4:55pm PDT
These replies have all been great. Still processing it all. Thanks, everyone. NT by Ice Cream Jonsey 04/25/2014, 5:47pm PDT
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