|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
THERE...a friend of mine convinced me to try it out again, and i did. Session lasted for six or so hours and it was quite fun. Combat was dynamic and there was even a little roleplay. It is a good system, especially combat-wise. Now, here are my, unbiased opinions about it:
1. It has an MMO feel, a slight one, but still it has it. Nothing wrong with that. It kidna suits the game
2. The combat is dynamic and fast and fun.
3. I am sorry all you 4E lovers/defenders out there, but it does not feel like D&D. At all. It is a great game, but it is not D&D in the sense of what D&D was for the past 36 or some years.
4. Roleplay was there, but it was not that backed up with mechanics...nor were non-combat skills. Maybe i am just used to having a lot more covered with mechanics, but it bothered me.
5. It's easy to learn, i'll give it that, but i actualy think that the learning curve is a bit steeper if you want to achieve system mastery then with say Pathfinder.
That is all. I will not bash on 4th edition again, but i will not defend it either. All i can say to all other 4E haters...it's pointless to hate it...if you don't like it, don't play it.
It's like Trek vs. Wars. I don't get that one. I watch both and enjoy both.
I may play it rarely, but my opinion of 4th edition as a system has improved.
I played 4E and had fun
I'll have to put you onto my ignore list now.
Just kidding.
Maybe.
I can't really comment on 1-3, but for 4 and 5...
4) Think old school. I know, I know, 4e, not old school, etc, etc. The thing is though, it really is as far as roleplaying goes. What you can do is not limited by your character sheet. In 3e there was/is a big rush to codify everything. In 4e, what's codified is, broadly speaking, "being a heroic fantasy adventurer." Wanna say your guy is a weaponsmith or a dancer? Go for it! My monk is a dancer and I didn't have to spend cross-class points on perform: dance to do it ;p
RP in 4e is overall a lot more freeform, especially with powers. My monk doesn't use Masterful Spiral, he ducks low to the ground and delivers a series of kicks to everyone around him. Or his knives flash out as he spins around to catch everyone nearby off guard. Or etc, etc. More then ever before describing what you're doing is important.
RA Salvatore mentioned that in 1e/0e, what you needed most was a creative DM, and in 4e, what you need most is creative players. I agree entirely. The game lives and dies on player creativity, so don't be afraid to bring stuff to it!
5) I've found that 4e in general rewards / requires less charops then 3e does. It can be a bit harder, since you have to examine powers and feats and combos and all that, but for the most part you can go in completely unoptimized and still generally do good stuff and have a blast. Just make your primary stats high and remember that hitting is harder (so buff that up a bit!) and you should be good.
Did someone just say something?
Oh, it was you, Hama! For a moment I overlooked it.
And for the record: I think the LOTR films hold up pretty well in comparison to the books. Some parts are weird, and move away from the books, but they did quite good.
Great films, and definitely LotR.
Might want to compare it to The Stand. Too much important things changed.
But that film was horrible. Even if there never was a book, the film would be inadequate. So not a good analogy, either.
|
For a lot of us, including me, it was about how WotC handled the transition: P.R. and customer service (please notice the past tense). Already upset -- justifiably -- anything ugly we saw about their product was just magnified.
I remember being really bumed out that I wouldn't be buying WotC's new version because I would refuse to support any product they produced. (And I had been quite vocal on the Boards about it.)
And I remember being incredibly relieved -- and even happy -- when the free intro was put on their website and I knew I wouldn't enjoy their system.
It was like what, from Aug to Nov, four months from the announcement to the time we got a free look at the new system? And that whole time I was upset because I would refuse to get the new game when it came out. Then relieved when I finally saw it and knew that I wouldn't really want to play it anyway.
It is my belief that anyone that states 4E mimics a MMO/video game, goes into that experience with the thought in the back of their mind. And to be fair, if I was to make the same comment, it would easily apply to Pathfinder, GURPS, or other RPGs that are not freeform, and instead has an initiative system, combat rules, etc. My first experience with 4E was to state is was based on the 3.5/4E miniatures game, or magic the gathering, because of all the movement effects, and conditions only lasting until the next turn.
But I agree it does not offer the same level of detail in some aspects, in reference to Pathfinder. I actually play Pathfinder, and it still bugs me that it is built on the 3.5 chasis, and all the fiddly bits you can play with. If GURPS was a class based system, where choices were locked in, it would be easier to play than 3.5, except for the realism added into vehicles, or technology. But I like GURPS too for seperate reasons.
It has been stated before on one of the 4E threads from a person that works at WOTC (can't remember the name), that the design focus for 4E is somewhere between 1e and 3.5. With that in mind, and the changes they made to classes and powers, I can understand it is not the direction you want D&D to go. But after playing it, I hope that is the direction they will continue, but keep the flexibility in the system in regards classes and powers, while bringing in more flavor from previous editions. Expanding on rituals, and areas like crafting would be very easy to address.
Basically, the game is was you make of it, and I have more problems finding immersive story lines via a campaign, verus dwelling on what I may not like in reference to Pathfinder, 4E, or GURPS. Just remember to bring a salt shaker to the table.
Glad you had a good time.
Now have you tried Earthdawn?
3. I am sorry all you 4E lovers/defenders out there, but it does not feel like D&D. At all. It is a great game, but it is not D&D in the sense of what D&D was for the past 36 or some years.
You don't need to apologize to us for your opinion. Keep in mind that no matter how hard you apologize, if your opinion seems silly, it will still seem silly even after you apologize for it.
I'm not going to bother arguing with this stuff, since you didn't actually say anything concrete. The game feels like an MMO, it doesn't feel like D&D, it didn't feel like there was as much mechanical support for roleplaying, and it felt like the learning curve was steeper.
I'm often struck by how many criticisms of 4e are predicated upon feel, rather than, y'know, any actual trait of the game.
Also, why isn't this in the 4e subforum?
I always think it is funny when they say an RPG feels like an MMO. MMOs (and MUDs before them) were designed to feel like RPGs.
I've played a lot of RPGs over the years. Many have vastly different mechanics. If you create a character and adventure it feels like an RPG to me.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
MMOs (and MUDs before them) were designed to feel like RPGs.
I don't think they succeeded. I don't play MMOs for various reasons, but from what I hear from friends who do play, it doesn't seem to be that close.
In RPGs, you don't see a group of adventurers going into a dungeon, but then never bump into them, because they have their own version of the dungeon.
You don't usually have some quests you do every day.
You don't have tournaments where your party fights other parties.
You don't have a guy join your group, get assigned to keep track to party loot, and then, just before you start divvying up the stuff, he takes his sheet, takes the party loot sheet, and runs out of your house, laughing at you.
At least, these things never happens in our games :P
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
THERE...a friend of mine convinced me to try it out again, and i did. Session lasted for six or so hours and it was quite fun.
Pics or it didn't happen.
You did not actually have fun. You only simulated the feeling of fun. It has been scientifically proven that playing D&D 4e cannot be actual fun. It has also been scientifically proven that 3e fun was wrongbadfun, so don't bother trying Pathfinder either, it won't be the kind of fun you're supposed to be having.
|
|
THERE...a friend of mine convinced me to try it out again, and i did. Session lasted for six or so hours and it was quite fun.Pics or it didn't happen.
We don't take pics during sessions...
You did not actually have fun. You only simulated the feeling of fun. It has been scientifically proven that playing D&D 4e cannot be actual fun. It has also been scientifically proven that 3e fun was wrongbadfun, so don't bother trying Pathfinder either, it won't be the kind of fun you're supposed to be having.
An AD&D player if i'm not mistaken...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I aprove of this thread. Har Har!
I always think it is funny when they say an RPG feels like an MMO. MMOs (and MUDs before them) were designed to feel like RPGs.
I've been saying this since 4E came out and people were using the MMO / Video Game thing as an insult. I really dont see it as an insult I just see it as things coming around full circle really.
Welp.
Welp.
Quotin' myself here.
|
3. I am sorry all you 4E lovers/defenders out there, but it does not feel like D&D. At all. It is a great game, but it is not D&D in the sense of what D&D was for the past 36 or some years.
To steal a quote from ProfessorCirno in another thread:
"The new D&D is too rule intensive. It's relegated the Dungeon Master to being an entertainer rather than master of the game. It's done away with the archetypes, focused on nothing but combat and character power, lost the group cooperative aspect, bastardized the class-based system, and resembles a comic-book superheroes game more than a fantasy RPG where a player can play any alignment desired, not just lawful good. "
-Gary Gygax, 2004
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I don't understand.
That's because awesome logic is beyond the minds of mere mortals.
Props to the OP for being fair minded.
To steal a quote from ProfessorCirno in another thread:
"The new D&D is too rule intensive. It's relegated the Dungeon Master to being an entertainer rather than master of the game. It's done away with the archetypes, focused on nothing but combat and character power, lost the group cooperative aspect, bastardized the class-based system, and resembles a comic-book superheroes game more than a fantasy RPG where a player can play any alignment desired, not just lawful good. "
-Gary Gygax, 2004
Of course that would be a critique of 3.0/3.5 given the time frame, not 4.0.
Iv'e played a lot of both and I actually like both 3.5 and 4.0 but for very different reasons. 3.5 seemed like the first version where folks with a strong sense of rules design had a go, and 4.0 feels like a version where they took complete control. It's a well designed game system.
- After 2 years of 4.0, what I like best is the way they handle monsters. Its great, fast, easy, and the monsters are interesting to fight.
- They also did stacking right, establishing clear rules for it and discipline in using them.
- I like healing surges... there are reasons to not like it, but I do. Also the power curve in 4E is really good compared to 3.5. First level characters start fun, and high level characters are not generally game breaking mega-monsters. The game scales more linearly with more powerful attacks rather than degenerating into 12 actions per turn and such nonsense.
Where 3.5/pathfinder is way better
- Characters are fun to make and feel more unique. You just have way more options and ways to express yourself in the game framework.
- Combat is faster... its still a bit slow for my taste... but 4.0 combats can be glacial.
- Spells. They are just more fun. I like the idea behind rituals in 4.0 but casters are just not as fun and flavorful.
- Look and Feel 4.0 is so refined it just feels too mechanical. The flavor is too generic and slick so its just not much fun to read the books.
- Magic items. 4.0 neuters a lot of the fun here in the name of balance and mechanical purity. It just goes to far making them generic and the result is a lot of meh...
--- I'm really hoping the next gen of either or both games takes lessons from 4Es wins and losses and we continue to make D&D better (whatever name it goes under).
Of course that would be a critique of 3.0/3.5 given the time frame, not 4.0.
Why do you think I - and hypothetically he - bolded the date? ;p
Rarely does the system have anything to do with the enjoyment of any game, especially as a one shot.
How it faires in the long term is different. 4E does really well for low levels.
I have friends that played 4E for a long time, that are coming over to Pathfinder now. It seems like Wizards is alienating their fan base with too many changes and tweaks, too fast.
How it faires in the long term is different. 4E does really well for low levels.
Seems like an unusual statement and I suspect most 4E players would say that the system runs best between 5th and 20th. At low levels you have few powers and there is a tendency to have combats where one is constantly using their at wills, this changes as the levels rise and the number of options open up to the players.
There is also the element that 4E reverses the D&D trope of low levels being very hard and the game getting easier as you level up. Instead low levels are comparatively easier because of the number of hps on hand and how potent it is to trigger a power that gives hps.
As you level up that element drops off and the ratio of hps to damage gets much tighter so that resource use in terms of things like healing must be much more carefully considered. Furthermore, while you get more powers the balance of the system actually makes the players weaker even though it appears that they are getting stronger - while they have more abilities and they are more potent the system is balanced to compensate.
In effect at low levels you are many hits away from going down and if you use healing you will once again be many hits away from going down. Further more its hard to make bad tactical choices when you have relatively few choices to make and are mostly using an at will. As you get out of the lower levels damage is such that you are now only a few hits away from going down, healing in general only gets you back to being a few hits from going down meanwhile you have many more options but its important to use those options intelligently - bad choices or consistent bad luck when using your more potent options means that the encounter will go sour in a hurry.
|
|
Of course that would be a critique of 3.0/3.5 given the time frame, not 4.0.To steal a quote from ProfessorCirno in another thread:
"The new D&D is too rule intensive. It's relegated the Dungeon Master to being an entertainer rather than master of the game. It's done away with the archetypes, focused on nothing but combat and character power, lost the group cooperative aspect, bastardized the class-based system, and resembles a comic-book superheroes game more than a fantasy RPG where a player can play any alignment desired, not just lawful good. "
-Gary Gygax, 2004
Which was the point. A lot of posters here like to pretend that the change from 3.X to 4E was completely unprecedented, while ignoring the fact that the change from 2E to 3E pretty much threw out the bathwater, the baby, and the crib. If 4E isn't "true" D&D, then neither is 3.X, and by extension, Pathfinder.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I agree with the OP. 4th ed is a great game. Just not a great roleplaying game. A great tactical mini game is what it is.
Or you can use it for non-combat or combat light adventures.
Fundamentally the skill system itself has become the major way the players interact with the world outside of combat. To compare and contrast consider the earlier edition wizard or cleric utility spells. These are often defined as role-playing. Sure they where but it was a manner of interacting with the adventure that only the spell casters could participate in. What has happened here is that many of these utility type spells and their effects on the game have been pulled from the wizard or clerics spell repertoire and moved to the group as a whole as part and parcel of the skill system.
The skill system remains at the core of how 4E players handle non combat obstacles, with the exception of puzzles, for all levels of play at least until one approaches epic level. Note also that this applies only to obstacles - in many cases the scene involves an NPC whose goals or agenda is not at cross purposes with the PCs, in such a situation your down to pure role playing, no dice rolling needed.
During the last part of Paizo's run with Dungeon there where some excellent low level murder mystery type adventures. There have been a handful of good mystery type adventures in all editions of D&D however a defining characteristic of this has almost always been that they where very low in level. This is required because, once the cleric and wizard, gained some levels the answers to such mysteries became a matter of the wizard or cleric memorizing spells and then using those spells in an intelligent manner to answer the questions posed by the adventure. While this can be a very fun way to play the game its strengths are only highlighted if you have one or two players and they are both spell casters. If there are more players in the party then long periods of planning and discussion that do not include them are likely to cause a problem in that the spotlight has now, for too long, focused on some of the players without meaningfully including others.
Another example of such use of utility spells in older editions was party mobility (things like mass flight or party teleports) or use of such utility spells to control the emotions or behavior of the NPCs.
All of this is, by and large, either gone, of limited use or potency, or only comes online at very high levels (Oracle - which is a ritual that allows the players to contact a God and ask questions is 21st level for example).
What is important here is the amount of adventure design space that this opens up. You can now design adventures that are higher level mysteries or intrigues or otherwise not combat focused. So an adventure about finding out who killed the Kings favorite mistress, and why (The DM might want to complicate things by throwing in a noisy Queen who must be kept in the dark about the existence of such a mistress) is something the whole group engages in and its the subject, potentially, for a significant series of sessions. By moving the investigation of this outside of something that could be answered primary with magic and into something that was handled in individual encounters by the whole party using the players reasoning and skills we open up design space for intriguing non combat adventures.
Consider also that the limited nature of the mobility magic on tap for the wizard and cleric means that adventures about going places (maybe they need to do a B&E to recover critical information etc.) become much easier for the DM to design and now must be overcome by the ingenuity of the players and their combined skill suite.
There is now more potential for the journey to be the adventure. If the players want to get to the other side of Mount Doom they need to either climb it, go under it or maybe find a pack of Griffons and convince them to carry them over it - their magic is not powerful enough to get the group to the other side by casting a spell (unless the DM wants that to happen...then there is a convenient air ship tied up nearby).
Alternatively we can get into something more action packed here - like a race across the city to catch the fleeing 'person of interest' (or maybe its a race through a crowded city with a prize purse and other teams). While your players have some mobility powers that will play here they are limited in nature...and maybe more importantly - range (if the thing they need to get over is more then usually around 40' feet they are going to have to actually climb it) - your group as a whole is mostly glued to the ground. This opens up design space for all sorts of interesting obstacles within that chase or any other encounter involving movement or obstacles. Maybe they are fleeing - mass teleport as a ritual takes to long to be a quick exit - the scene must be resolved by the players actually making a break for it and using a combination of their movement powers and their skills to get through the obstacles that stand in the way.
If you think that some key NPCs have some of the answers you seek you now have to ask them, or black mail them or save their lost lover or some such to get them to co-operate. Taking over their mind with magic is not an option that is usually on the table. A whole significant part of the adventure for the entire group now can revolve around getting such information from an NPC that for whatever reason is not willing to simply cough it up.
When they are 14th level design a political intrigue adventure - they can't crack it using magic, they'll need to interact with your cast of weird and wacky (and possibly creepy - or funny) NPCs the old fashion way - by talking to them.
My whole point is there are a ton of very interesting non-combat focused adventures that have been completely opened up by the limitations built into 4Es magic system and by the fact that most of how the players interact with these elements have been moved to the skill system or to a pure role playing context.
Look a little closer at the Skill System and you should notice that each class generally comes with training (and is therefore quite good, or at least passable) in a physical type skill, a knowledge type skill and a social type skill. Its not perfect and its a little muddled once we really start bringing in the whole array of classes, but its still more or less true. This means that in any given skill based encounter usually some significant number of players can get in on the action. This works really well when your designing your non-combat adventure because everyone gets to participate. This is a key part of the design that makes all characters both good in and out of combat. Its important to note that 4E does not really have a 'face' class. There is no one character who - by design - is just better then everyone else when the swords remain in their sheathes. Non-combat adventure is not the part of the adventure where the Bard gets to shine...everyone is supposed to be able to shine during some parts of the non-combat adventure. This allows you to spend more time out of combat - you need less of it to appease your players just designed to kill stuff. Since they get their social skills automatically with their class and should be just as good as any other class in such circumstances there is every opportunity for them to have fun.
It says something about the system that it is easier to get your Goddess to raise you from the dead then it is to get her to answer a simple question. A little disconcerting maybe but its good game design. Gods that answer questions closes off good adventure design space...coming back from the dead, not so much.
|
MMOs (and MUDs before them) were designed to feel like RPGs.I don't think they succeeded. I don't play MMOs for various reasons, but from what I hear from friends who do play, it doesn't seem to be that close.
In RPGs, you don't see a group of adventurers going into a dungeon, but then never bump into them, because they have their own version of the dungeon.
You don't usually have some quests you do every day.
You don't have tournaments where your party fights other parties.
You don't have a guy join your group, get assigned to keep track to party loot, and then, just before you start divvying up the stuff, he takes his sheet, takes the party loot sheet, and runs out of your house, laughing at you.
At least, these things never happens in our games :P
Well, these things don't happen in 4e either, so where does this leave us?
I'm always a bit confused by the "It feels like an MMO" comment. I played WoW for years, and playing D&D (4e or otherwise) feels like playing D&D (sitting in a room with a bunch of friends) and playing an MMO feels like playing an MMO (sitting at a computer, maybe in voice contact but probably not, probably with a bunch of random mannerless a!&#@&+~s off the internet who I would cross the road to piss on while they lay dying). See, that's a completely different experience to me.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
THERE...a friend of mine convinced me to try it out again, and i did. Session lasted for six or so hours and it was quite fun. Combat was dynamic and there was even a little roleplay. It is a good system, especially combat-wise.
Kudos! An open mind is a wonderful thing.
Blah blah blah!
This has all happened before, and this will all happen again.
4E can be fun, but it is not like other editions of D&D. 3.x may have been different from 2nd ed, but it didn't change the basic roles of the classes. Fighters still dealt damage, Rogues were still the sneaks, clerics still healed, and wizards, if they could survive long enough, were still demigods in training. Some classes were still better at combat than others, and the same was true for noncombat. The flavor was still there, even if some of the mechanics were dramatically different.
4E, for better or worse, changed that layout, and in the process, completely changed the feel of the game. No longer were wizards all powerful; in fact, they were barely distinguishable from fighters when 4E first came out. Clerics fared a bit better, but still took a major beating. I think the drastic change in mechanics could have been overlooked easier if it weren't for that complete nerfing of magic users and magic in general. For everyone who despises the in balance that magic has created in all the D&D systems leading up to 4E, 5 more accepted it as simply being part of the system. Not everyone loved it, but a lot of people did, and most of the others accepted that it was a defining element of D&D. Rituals, in concept, are really good at keeping that feeling, but just don't have the immediate punch or value that spells do. For them to work, you really have to know what is coming up, as most of them take a long time to prepare and cast.
For a lot of people who would have been perfectly willing to accept some changes to the overall magic system, 4E's approach simply went too far and stripped what remained of any of the pre existing flavor. Removing all the troublesome spells may have made the DM's job of creating encounters easier, but it also removed a lot of the cool things that players, even those who refused to play anything but a fighter, really enjoyed messing around with at least occasionally. This is not meant as a bash, simply an observation. You can do a lot of cool stuff in 4E, but you have to get the DM to go along with it first, as well as get the DM to describe the scene well enough to know what is a realistic possibility; in earlier editions, those who really enjoyed such things had a much clearer route to pulling them off without needing 15 minutes of exposition from the DM.
4E can be fun, but it is not like other editions of D&D. 3.x may have been different from 2nd ed, but it didn't change the basic roles of the classes.
And 4e did?
4E can be fun, but it is not like other editions of D&D. 3.x may have been different from 2nd ed, but it didn't change the basic roles of the classes.And 4e did?
Read the rest of the post regarding magic. There are massive differences in the fundamental role magic plays between 4E and the earlier systems. Both the cleric and the wizard underwent drastic changes.
|
|
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I note that ShinHakkaider's frothing attack on Scott Betts has had seven people so far flag it as a favorite. Is this the level to which Paizo has sunk? Even if you don't like Scott's posts on 4e, a personal attack on the man is in your favorites? I'm disgusted that the people on this site have sunk to this.
I note that ShinHakkaider's frothing attack on Scott Betts has had seven people so far flag it as a favorite. Is this the level to which Paizo has sunk? Even if you don't like Scott's posts on 4e, a personal attack on the man is in your favorites? I'm disgusted that the people on this site have sunk to this.
I tend to ignore that particular feature in general. Most uses of it that I have seen tend to be more counter productive than not.
I concur - it is disgusting. On any other forum, that post would be flagged as personal attack by the mods, rather than pegged as a favourite by other posters. Things have been going this way for a long time, and it makes me sad.
I note that ShinHakkaider's frothing attack on Scott Betts has had seven people so far flag it as a favorite. Is this the level to which Paizo has sunk? Even if you don't like Scott's posts on 4e, a personal attack on the man is in your favorites? I'm disgusted that the people on this site have sunk to this.
Let's not blame all of Paizo. Remember, there's a very easy way to see which members of the community have decided to support personal attacks against someone they disagree with.
I note that ShinHakkaider's frothing attack on Scott Betts has had seven people so far flag it as a favorite. Is this the level to which Paizo has sunk? Even if you don't like Scott's posts on 4e, a personal attack on the man is in your favorites? I'm disgusted that the people on this site have sunk to this.
I know for a fact (cuz Gary told me at PaizoCon) that there is a reason that it is called favorite and not like or a +1. Favorites are good for keeping track of a post, so you can go back and look at it later, for example.
EDIT: In fact I favorited it to remember where it was to come back and see Scott's response.
|
I note that ShinHakkaider's frothing attack on Scott Betts has had seven people so far flag it as a favorite. Is this the level to which Paizo has sunk? Even if you don't like Scott's posts on 4e, a personal attack on the man is in your favorites? I'm disgusted that the people on this site have sunk to this.
Pretty much agree and seconded. Almost make me ashamed of being a gamer and part of the community sometimes. Espcially when double standards are infull force.