Goblin Squad Member
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There are a lot of ideas being thrown around here, and there is one point of clarification that would start allowing us to focus and refine our suggestions and thoughts:
How much influence will the Pathfinder IP have on the game, outside of a overflowing box of shiny lore and some ability names?
To be more specific, will things like the tabletop dice and spell-use mechanics or spell effects appear in the game at any capacity? Or will PFO be creating a brand new set of mechanics and abilities.
The only nudge we get in any direction is in the third blog post, where a general feel of incompatibility is given when discussing "Bringing Pathfinder to the Virtual World" and when talking about attributes no longer being tied to 'throws' but 'resistances' instead.
This board is split between discussions on new mechanics, and mechanics derived from the rule-books. I would like a definitive quote that cancels out one or the other. Even if it's to a small extent, like a list of mechanics we won't be seeing cross-over. The game is already getting over-hyped and expectations are being set pretty high for the level of freedom in the sandbox and how much it will resemble their beloved tabletop game. It would be nice to shoot down some of these discussions so they don't grow out of proportion and cause too much disappointment if or when they do get shot down.
The more you let us come up with ideas, the more in-depth they get, and the more attached we get to them. I had some strong feelings that BioWare wasn't going to come along and make another generic MMO, but they did, and now the game isn't as enjoyable, because my expectations where so high to begin with. Kill the speculation now before it gets out of control.
Good point.
While this is currently my favorite board to visit for a number of reasons (incredible ratio of like minded people, intelligent discussion that often has me reconsidering things and a very friendly atmosphere), there are a lot of posts that discuss features and ideas so deeply that by the third page I find a whole system has been designed to accurately represent the drawbacks of removing ones armor to use the outhouse.
There are clearly a lot of smart and creative people here with good intentions, but at some point we're discussing some mythological dream MMO rather than Pathfinder.
Also Valkenr, we're going to have to do something about our names. Like a winner take all Jarts death match - I keep thinking I've made a new post.
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Goblin Squad Member
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3.5 Private Sanctuary has a podcast interview with Mr Dancey wherein he discusses this and other details somewhat obliquely. My take from the posts, podcasts and responses are that very very little mechanical overflow will take place.
Simply put, what works as a turn based abstraction of our heroes romping around in our imaginations simply won't be applicable to a rendered 3D environ. Take one of the basic assumptions of the tabletop game: Facing (the lack thereof specifically). In the tabletop game, your character is assumed to more or less know whats going on around him/her/it at all times regardless of almost any condition (4 Ogre Barbarians attempting to smash your face while your buddy 100 feet away deals with a lonely goblin; No Problem, you can even advise him tactics). In a rendered environment where your avatar is facing a given direction based purely on the simulation of space and the dependence on a virtual camera following you around, there can be no abstraction. A player will either a) notice, or b) be too distracted to care.
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Goblin Squad Member
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3.5 Private Sanctuary has a podcast interview with Mr Dancey wherein he discusses this and other details somewhat obliquely. My take from the posts, podcasts and responses are that very very little mechanical overflow will take place.
Simply put, what works as a turn based abstraction of our heroes romping around in our imaginations simply won't be applicable to a rendered 3D environ. Take one of the basic assumptions of the tabletop game: Facing (the lack thereof specifically). In the tabletop game, your character is assumed to more or less know whats going on around him/her/it at all times regardless of almost any condition (4 Ogre Barbarians attempting to smash your face while your buddy 100 feet away deals with a lonely goblin; No Problem, you can even advise him tactics). In a rendered environment where your avatar is facing a given direction based purely on the simulation of space and the dependence on a virtual camera following you around, there can be no abstraction. A player will either a) notice, or b) be too distracted to care.
+1 how on earth did I not know about this podcat (linked for those who don't feel like googling) It's about 1 hour and 5 minutes in when he starts talking about not attempting to mimic the P&P rules
Chief Technical Officer
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Pathfinder Online will not be published under the OGL, and so we don't have free access to everything in Wizards of the Coast's SRD. Now, US intellectual properties law says that game mechanics are not copyrightable—only the specific *expression* of those mechanics is—so that *doesn't* mean we have to avoid the basic concepts—just a fairly small subset of things that are uniquely "D&D". However, even some of the basic concepts that we *could* use simply don't work as well in an MMO as they do on the tabletop, so we won't necessarily even use everything that we *can* use.
In short, this topic is complicated enough that answering the question with specific details isn't really possible. But what you really need to know is this: Pathfinder Online will seek to capture the general feel of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, but it will *not* be an electronic adaptation of the tabletop RPG rules. (Neither will it be a "testing ground" for a future edition of the Pathfinder RPG, as some have speculated—it's a different game and it has different requirements.)
You are correct that many folks on these boards are getting mired down in the concept of adapting mechanics from the RPG. When we talk about features, the community trying to evaluate them in terms of specific RPG rules is, more often than not, likely to be limiting and counterproductive.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't think the mmo can mimic many of the mechanics from the pnp version. DDO did a fairly decent job of it but ended up with people able to get 50+ armor class pretty quickly.
The crafting system alone would be a nightmare to accurately cross over unless you're ok with it taking hours to make one potion.
Pathfinder did a good job of making casters effective but if it was adapted to an mmo they would be extremely gimped.
Too many scenarios to list really. Feats alone would have dozens of examples of abilties that wouldn't fit in an mmo.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I read over Vic’s post and I am really glad they are taking this position. Where I truly enjoy playing PFRPG, I don’t want GW to feel like they need to translate the PFRPG ruleset to PFO. As it’s been said more than once, it just doesn’t translate all that well.
I want GW to take steps that they feel that are best for the game, even if it isn’t in the Pathfinder ruleset. I feel that being in Golarian (River Kingdoms) will be enough as is to have the feeling of Pathfinder. Although I am sure there will be other elements that show through as well.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I can understand that the mechanics don't translate well, but what got me interested in PFO is the fact that it's Pathfinder, and Paizo has always done right by me. I'm trusting that this won't be another WoW clone, or a clone of any existing MMO. In my head I'm hoping the game will be a cross between DDO and EVE, but I realize that this might not be possible, either.
Several games have been based around DnD in the past, and a lot of those have worked well, and a few haven't worked at all. Dungeons and Dragons Tactics for the PSP was one of the worst games I've ever played because it was tied too closely to the ruleset. DDO started fantastic, but didn't scale well at later levels when a high CON and equipment were more important than your actual feat and enhancement choices. Baldur's Gate was a great adaptation, but wouldn't translate well to an MMO. Ditto with NWN. Something like Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance was a great translation to a console game, that retained the feel of 3rd edition without actually following the ruleset too closely. The RA Salvatore based Lord of the Rings rip off, though, was painful to play.
Basically I want to recognize the Pathfinder ruleset without it actually needing to be followed. If we can train in familiar skills, despite the mechanism used for that training, I'll be happy. If the weapons, monsters, and spells are familiar, I'm not too concerned with how they're implemented. As long as I'm slaying goblins and fleeing from ogres, I'll be satisfied... you know, as long as those goblins are savagely comical and the ogres still look like a cross between The Hills Have Eyes and Deliverance.
I would personally prefer if the HP / Hit Dice, BAB, and AC system were still somewhat implemented with little adjustment. I hate the inflated hit points in WoW, and Armor as DR more so than actually preventing damage. As such, I do hope that there will be some random variable "dice rolling" mechanic in the game, as that's really something iconic that shouldn't be discarded.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I can understand that the mechanics don't translate well, but what got me interested in PFO is the fact that it's Pathfinder, and Paizo has always done right by me. I'm trusting that this won't be another WoW clone, or a clone of any existing MMO. In my head I'm hoping the game will be a cross between DDO and EVE, but I realize that this might not be possible, either.
I would say for the most part, the game will be far closer to eve, but fairly distant from DDO. The biggest thing I see as likely to not be implimented would probably be things like BAB, HP etc... Namely due to balancing PVP and a lack of actual levels, and more importantly, no cap. Trying to keep a fair match between a capstoned wizard, and a doublecapstoned wiz/barbarain, and not having the 2nd one be guaranteed to beat the first.
That isn't to say there is no mechanism for allowing HP boosts, IMO it will most likely fall to the skill system. IE a non attached to class/archtype (but possibly attached to Con and Str) skill that can be trained.
Now of course there are no official statements, in fact we have no vague idea of anything about skills, HP etc...
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Goblin Squad Member
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I just don't want a system where characters have thousands of hit points and every swing of the sword is an auto-hit if it's in range. Base things off of percentage of success based on two opposing skills (some sort of attack and some sort of defense). Obviously attack will go up over time as two years after launch I'd hate for my character to have issues fighting a band of goblins. My problem would be if those goblins auto hit me while I was within their melee range and did the same damage to me as to a first level character, except now I've got 2,000 times more hps and so don't notice it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There is some discussion on the 3.5 Private Sanctuary's Know Direction (33) podcast concerning hit point totals, and how the Ryan's approach might be framed. Its a good podcast to listen to in general, from some time ago (well before the kickstarter).
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Goblin Squad Member
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I just don't want a system where characters have thousands of hit points and every swing of the sword is an auto-hit if it's in range. Base things off of percentage of success based on two opposing skills (some sort of attack and some sort of defense). Obviously attack will go up over time as two years after launch I'd hate for my character to have issues fighting a band of goblins. My problem would be if those goblins auto hit me while I was within their melee range and did the same damage to me as to a first level character, except now I've got 2,000 times more hps and so don't notice it.
PFO will likely be based off of more MMO style numbers simply because of speed of the game involved, but not necessarily as outlandish as a lot of games have become. Let's take a look at some reasons why.
Speed of Play issues:
A level 1 fighter swings a blade once every 6 seconds in the PFRPG pen and paper game. What else does a fighter do? He swings a blade every 6 seconds. That's not very compelling gameplay in a video game setting.
Of course, a fighter can also use trips, bull-rushes, grapples, sunders, and a variety of other useful things. Every 6 seconds.
So, for the sake of gameplay, let's take that attack speed and slice it in half. So, an attack every 3 seconds. For an auto-attack, that's still fairly slow on games like WoW (that swing speed is usually reserved for the slower, hard-hitting two-handed weapons). If you're playing more of a press a button to do anything type game (like SW:TOR), it's extremely slow. So, let's half the time again.
Now we're running at 1.5 seconds per attack. That also means that you're killing things in 1/4 of the time that it would have happened in a pen and paper game. If you want to make fights last longer, well then you've got to increase hit-points to match the increased damage output to find a good middle-ground for what feels good to the player.
This is why things don't and often can't translate well going from one medium to the other. It's not a matter of saying, "The original rules be damned, we're going to do things like an MMO." It's more a case of, "Well, we're playing this via a different medium and as such we need to adjust things appropriately for that medium." If you had a trading card game based on Pathfinder, I'm pretty sure that the rules would have to change appropriately for the medium you were playing with.
Hit mechanics:
As for "auto-hit", things aren't auto-hit in most MMOs. They require the build up of various stats, just like in Pathfinder. The reason people have a perception of just automatically hitting something within range in an MMO is because you are able to build up your stats to a point where you can actually do it. It requires needing to get the right gear and balance those stats against the ones that add more power. But, then, even if you do hit, you then go against the various types of damage reduction your opponent has. Glancing hits, blocked hits, and parries are also taken into account and, of course, there is a stat designed to get rid of those as well. Most of the end-game of various theme-park MMOs is built around the accumulation and balance of these types of stats. If you're someone whose job it is to get hit, you've got stats that help you counter your opponent. Parry, dodge, shield, absorption, armor, etc.
If you compare that with 3.x OGL, you've got +hit type stat. It's called your base attack bonus. There are other ways to increase this via strength, dexterity, spells, feats, class abilities, and gear. It's not that much different except that the number of stats to track in 3.x is lesser and often overlap with other things. If you had to manually track all of your stats for an MMO character, you'd likely go a bit batty and wear through the paper with all of the erasing and re-writing.
Difference in level concepts:
The other thing you have in most MMOs is level. Your level in a lot of games increases your ability to survive much more than it does in something like PFRPG. World of Warcraft adjusts your ability to be hit based on the difference you have in levels. It is virtually impossible for a fully geared level 1 to even touch a naked max level character in WoW. It's pretty hard to do it even when the level gap is reduced to only 5 levels. Big bad evil guys sitting in dungeons for you and 24 of your friends to attack sit at 3 levels above the player.
PFO really doesn't have "levels" from what we've seen at this extremely early point in time. You're going to be slowly earning "merit badges" and after you've acquired a certain number, you'll be considered to have gained a level... ish. Again, not sure how it's going to be setup, but from what I can tell, it's more of a view of how you've built your character and less how powerful your character is.
Progression measured differently:
All of these mechanics work the way they do simply because they were designed to do so. The point of World of Warcraft is to accumulate gear to beat more dungeons to accumulate gear to beat more dungeons to accumulate gear... ad infinitum. There must be better gear in order to make that cycle work and the better gear provides better stats. Every expansion makes the massive stats you had last time virtually worthless in comparison to the new things you can get and therefore, you must acquire more gear. This is often referred to as things like "Gear Inflation" and is something that the theme park MMOs are starting to run into issues with even within their own systems. They're scaling into extremely high numbers and have actually started looking at mathematical models of gear progression that might bring things back into a manageable line while still keeping their overall game design.
Take in contrast, the point of Pathfinder Online (and this is paraphrased and likely overly simplified) is to acquire materials to build more stuff which unlocks the ability to get more materials to build more stuff to acquire more materials... ad infinitum. At no point in there is the requirement to make mountainous tiers of gear which must be climbed forever. The gear can therefore be fairly limited in scope overall with additional power coming from wondrous items, wands, scrolls, etc which must be resupplied by the acquisition of more materials. Buildings to create things will likely have upkeep costs of some sort and even harvesting materials require other materials to be used.
The end of things:
I've now completely forgotten where I was going with things, so I'll just cut it off here. Pen and paper is very different from MMO games, but the differences really come down to _WHICH_ type of MMO game you're comparing them to. Each has their own point and each has their own method to keep you spending $14.99 a month in order to do so.
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Goblin Squad Member
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To the developers: Thank you, for making Pathfinder Online a game which will not try to mimic the table top version. I enjoy the table top game, and am currently in a campaign; However, it is far better to create this game with the intent of keeping the ‘feel’ of the table top game without requiring the mechanics.
I would also like for the developers to not try to mimic other MMOs. It is great to use a similar concept, but too many of the MMOs feel like the same thing over-and-over.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Gregg: I understand what you're saying, though a lot of it was explaining things without getting to a point. I understand the game isn't going to follow the PnP ruleset, and neither do I want it to. But in my personal opinion, I think part of the feel of the PnP ruleset is the attack and damage mechanism. And since this game wants to convey a feeling of living within Golarion, I think it's important they keep the feel of this mechanism within the game.
Yes, combat in the game is going to be vastly sped up compared to tabletop combat, but who wants to spend a minute bashing on a single foe, cycling through abilities? That's not the feel of the tabletop game. Most combats in the tabletop game last a few short rounds, 18-24 seconds of actual "game" time.
I think the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic had a good interpretation of the d20 system. A lot of combat is circling, pacing, feinting, etc. An attack in the tabletop game that results in a hit, might be a combination of strikes, three of which are turned aside or fail to penetrate the foes armor, the fourth one landing home and dealing damage, all within that 6 second round. To me it'd be a lot more exciting to anticipate a hit, and wonder how much damage I'm going to do, and whether it'll be enough to floor my foe, than knowing I am going to auto-hit, and knowing exactly the range of damage I'll be doing, so any given combat is a forgone conclusion. If my DPS is this, and my opponent's is this, and our respective HPs are these, then I'll always win. Where's the excitement in that? And that's the way a lot of MMOs play these days.
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With the influx of new readers, as with Ryans PvP post, I think this topic should come back to the light for a bit.
Please Carefully read Vic's post.
WHO DARES TO DISTURB MY FOUR MONTH SLUMBER!?!