Goblin Squad Member
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I think judging people from their looks is bad policy, game or otherwise, therefore I cannot condone encouraging it, much less making systems just for that (and that doesn't even take into account my personal distaste for the proposed system).
No one is asking to be able to look at a character, and be able to tell what their stats are and which skills they have. With the current game plan people can't lie about their appearance. This game has offline training, so even when we are not in game our characters are 'training' Depending on what they are training, their looks get slowly adjusted.
I should be able to look at someone and what they are wearing, and get a ballpark of how heavy and fast they will be hitting, and a general reading of their health and defenses. A 'squishy' character should look squishy, and a 'tanky' looking character should look like a tank. And I should be able to tell this with a quick glance.
People should have some good control over how they look, but they should then be able to see what happens to that character when they bulk up, slim down, tone out, or just get fat as they are playing the game.
If were going to start bringing the real world into this discussion, I have a base look to my body, it changes depending on my lifestyle.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think judging people from their looks is bad policy, game or otherwise, therefore I cannot condone encouraging it, much less making systems just for that (and that doesn't even take into account my personal distaste for the proposed system).No one is asking to be able to look at a character, and be able to tell what their stats are and which skills they have. With the current game plan people can't lie about their appearance. This game has offline training, so even when we are not in game our characters are 'training' Depending on what they are training, their looks get slowly adjusted.
I should be able to look at someone and what they are wearing, and get a ballpark of how heavy and fast they will be hitting, and a general reading of their health and defenses. A 'squishy' character should look squishy, and a 'tanky' looking character should look like a tank. And I should be able to tell this with a quick glance.
People should have some good control over how they look, but they should then be able to see what happens to that character when they bulk up, slim down, tone out, or just get fat as they are playing the game.
If were going to start bringing the real world into this discussion, I have a base look to my body, it changes depending on my lifestyle.
But what DarkLightHitomi is saying (from personal experience it seems) that is UNREALISTIC. It's wrong, it's just stereotyping.
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Goblin Squad Member
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What Forencith and I are asking for (I believe I understand his intent), and trying to make abundantly clear, is that we want a system that isn't UNREALISTIC.
If you look at Gandhi and Arnold Schwarzenegger, you KNOW Arnold is stronger than Gandhi. There is no question.
I specifically used this incredibly extreme example to show that in this case, Gandhi cannot have the 'highest strength' available, and Arnold cannot have the 'lowest strength' available. Gandhi may be stronger than you think, and Arnold may weaker than you think.
I threw Bruce Lee into the mix because although he doesn't look like Arnold, he has incredible strength. In my example, you see that I said that a character at max strength should be able to look like Arnold or Bruce Lee. I also said that a character that looks like Bruce Lee and a character that looks like Gandhi could have the same strength; Gandhi could even have more!
I specifically used the extreme examples of Gandhi vs. Arnold Schwarzenegger to demonstrate that all I would like is to limit sliders only slightly, only in extreme cases. I want this to avoid the incredibly unrealistic thing that some people will do for laughs (because it's funny how unrealistic it is): Make a character of the highest strength with the skinniest model. If you have achieved the pinnacle of strength, you cannot be the pinnacle of skinniness.
If you start your character looking like Gandhi, then decide that you want to focus only on strength and strength-based melee combat in order to achieve the pinnacle of success in such, your Gandhi will get a little more meat on his bones. If you built your character looking like Gandhi with some more meat on his bones, he might not change at all. If you are anywhere in between Arnold and Gandhi, your character likely would not change.
I think this is important: Your character may not change at all, even slightly, if you either:
don't utilize the extreme ends of the sliders, or
if you don't focus on achieving the pinnacle of a given attribute.
Avoiding either case means you won't undergo a change. I don't see this affecting most people; it only means that if you go for an extreme, you can't look like the extreme opposite.
It seems that Valkenr maybe wants something a little bit more than what Forencith and I are currently asking for. I would like having such clear visual queues, but due to the responses in this threads, I am willing to compromise that (cool) idea to the point where:
I don't KNOW anything about a moderately-built character, and
the only thing I KNOW when I see Gandhi walking around is that he doesn't have maximum strength.
I can appreciate the desire to be able to build your character how you wish. I find the desire to build your max-strength character to look like Gandhi, silly. I just want to preserve a little realism.
Hopefully this clears up some of the misconception. I thought my other post was pretty clear, but people were still posting worries accompanied by examples of moderate cases. I am trying to agree with you there ;)
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Keep in mind that attributes, feats, skills, etc. will not work exactly the way they work in the PnP, so I'm just using the attribute of 'strength' as a placeholder for whatever makes sense. We really don't know very much about this at this point.
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Goblin Squad Member
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What Forencith and I are asking for (I believe I understand his intent), and trying to make abundantly clear, is that we want a system that isn't UNREALISTIC.
If you look at Gandhi and Arnold Schwarzenegger, you KNOW Arnold is stronger than Gandhi. There is no question.
I specifically used this incredibly extreme example to show that in this case, Gandhi cannot have the 'highest strength' available, and Arnold cannot have the 'lowest strength' available. Gandhi may be stronger than you think, and Arnold may weaker than you think.
I threw Bruce Lee into the mix because although he doesn't look like Arnold, he has incredible strength. In my example, you see that I said that a character at max strength should be able to look like Arnold or Bruce Lee. I also said that a character that looks like Bruce Lee and a character that looks like Gandhi could have the same strength; Gandhi could even have more!
I specifically used the extreme examples of Gandhi vs. Arnold Schwarzenegger to demonstrate that all I would like is to limit sliders only slightly, only in extreme cases. I want this to avoid the incredibly unrealistic thing that some people will do for laughs (because it's funny how unrealistic it is): Make a character of the highest strength with the skinniest model. If you have achieved the pinnacle of strength, you cannot be the pinnacle of skinniness.
If you start your character looking like Gandhi, then decide that you want to focus only on strength and strength-based melee combat in order to achieve the pinnacle of success in such, your Gandhi will get a little more meat on his bones. If you built your character looking like Gandhi with some more meat on his bones, he might not change at all. If you are anywhere in between Arnold and Gandhi, your character likely would not change.
I think this is important: Your character may not change at all, even slightly, if you either:
don't utilize the extreme ends of the sliders, or
if you don't focus on achieving the...
I still don't think it works very well, because those stats are representative of something and always oversimplified.
Maybe gandhi's strength just represents his ability to exploit weaknesses and his pinpoint accuracy and leverage with a staff rather than his ability with brute force.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well, I am a huge fan of a consistent and logical world (with reasonable causality) as opposed to realism for realisms sake. However, our ideas of reality are drawn from our understandings of the consistency and logic of the world.
What I am actually asking for is for the consequences of ones decisions and state of being to have some effect on an avatars visage. I am not asking for this as a means of stereotyping or pigeonholing people...I want visual ques that represent all the things we are able to perceive in RL...that makes RL so much richer, for the sole goal of making the virtual world more rich. If it were possible to have my computer replicate pheromones, smells, voices, and all the other identifying features real people have, then I would be arguing to let everyone look like whatever they want....and just have those things logically bound to stats. Since they are not in game, I still want those clues albeit in the only way we have possible, visually via the avatar.
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Goblin Squad Member
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But that's the point- one one who spends their time in the gym shaping their body can look strong but be nowhere near as strong as they look- it happens. Someone who knows their own capabilities, even a scrawny person, can use their strength more effectively essentially making them stronger without the extra mass.
So what you are asking for is in fact a stereotype if "bigger muscles means they're stronger", but it doesn't.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yes, I am asking for some stereotypes to be used to communicate information about that character. I want a high-STR character to have an above average muscle tone/mass. I want a high-DEX character to have a smooth rolling gait and perhaps some distinctive static actions. Likewise, perhaps high-IQ characters, when not being actively controlled by their characters make bend down and appear to sample the ground/wall. Etc...I see nothing wrong with this.
Speaking of which, I would have no problem compromising with these static emotes. Let you look like what you want (although I much prefer characters only have options available that are reasonable for their "stats"), and give me what I want through these static emotes. As I said, I am open to other solutions, I had not yet thought of any.
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Goblin Squad Member
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And we're saying we don't want stereotypes. If you want THAT sort of system, I'd want about 30 extra stats to work with to get those nuances represented, instead we have a few broad brushstroke stats and I don't want the nuances and creator's intent lost to broad characterisations.
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Goblin Squad Member
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But that's the point- one one who spends their time in the gym shaping their body can look strong but be nowhere near as strong as they look- it happens. Someone who knows their own capabilities, even a scrawny person, can use their strength more effectively essentially making them stronger without the extra mass.
Yes, I made both those points.
So what you are asking for is in fact a stereotype if "bigger muscles means they're stronger", but it doesn't.
I clearly stated what I am asking for. This is not it. This is what you keep trying to say I'm saying. I specifically used extreme examples because that is all that I am asking this be applied to:
I specifically used the extreme examples of Gandhi vs. Arnold Schwarzenegger to demonstrate that all I would like is to limit sliders only slightly, only in extreme cases. I want this to avoid the incredibly unrealistic thing that some people will do for laughs (because it's funny how unrealistic it is): Make a character of the highest strength with the skinniest model. If you have achieved the pinnacle of strength, you cannot be the pinnacle of skinniness.
You say that 'Strength' can mean many different things, including "pinpoint accuracy," "leverage," etc. I agree. That is why Gandhi can still have high strength, and he can still be an effective melee combatant. That is why he can still look like Gandhi and be stronger than somebody that looks like Bruce Lee.
But, assuming Gandhi and Arnold have equal accuracy/leverage/whatever, Arnold has more of the 'Strength' attribute than Gandhi does, since brute force is also a part of 'Strength'.
Gandhi can only keep up with those with bigger muscles to a point. If Gandhi is the pinnacle of strength in everything but brute force,... there IS a guy that is better or equal to Gandhi in all 'Strength' categories, and he can only get there with bigger muscle mass.
EDIT: I'm just going to edit this in here because obviously, I am failing to communicate clearly.
I don't want your muscles to grow every time you gain 'melee proficiency'.
What I want: If you have NO muscles, AND you achieve the highest level of 'strength', you will grow some baby biceps. Really, if you are 'as strong as they get, with none being stronger' you should at least have the arm mass of an amateur female high-school gymnast.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Forencith
Sorry if I misrepresented you, thanks for clearing that up.
I'd be on-board with you and Valk because I think those ideas would be really cool to have, but I backed off it because I don't care too much either way and there are some that really don't want it. Since I don't care, I abstain from that.
The thing I am really passionate about, is maintaining at least a minimum, non-invasive realism (only ruling out silly extremes).
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't really see the point of designing a system around extremes, unless you're putting in unlockable options all the way through. Most people would choose to make Gandhi in that sort of role anyway. It also depends on the character design, sometimes I go for less muscle mass just because the larger options just don't look any good.
If you start offending the aesthetic sense of the creator of the character, you start causing potential trouble for the game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Right, I think you should be able to choose your muscle mass.
You could not, however, have the muscle mass of Arnold Schwarzenegger with 1 strength, and you could not have the muscle mass of Gandhi with 18 strength. The 'brute force' component of the attribute 'Strength' means that it just isn't possible.
I imagine allowing ALL body options for anybody within 6-12 strength. Like yours and DLH's examples show, it makes sense: Gandhi could be quite strong, and Arnold could be quite weak. I'd still hate to see Gandhis running around that were stronger than the Arnolds (frankly, I think 'brute force' is a bigger part of fantasy-world and real-life 'strength' than you might), but I'm willing to give up my preference to give more freedom to the characters' creators, since it's something they see every day, and me only when they run into view.
Only at the extremes do you start 'locking out' options of the opposite extreme. This is to preserve realism.
If we can agree that there is reason to at least restrict the extreme cases, then I'm satisfied ;)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Right, I think you should be able to choose your muscle mass.
You could not, however, have the muscle mass of Arnold Schwarzenegger with 1 strength, and you could not have the muscle mass of Gandhi with 18 strength. The 'brute force' component of the attribute 'Strength' means that it just isn't possible.
I imagine allowing ALL body options for anybody within 6-12 strength. Like yours and DLH's examples show, it makes sense: Gandhi could be quite strong, and Arnold could be quite weak. I'd still hate to see Gandhis running around that were stronger than the Arnolds (frankly, I think 'brute force' is a bigger part of fantasy-world and real-life 'strength' than you might), but I'm willing to give up my preference to give more freedom to the characters' creators, since it's something they see every day, and me only when they run into view.
Only at the extremes do you start 'locking out' options of the opposite extreme. This is to preserve realism.
If we can agree that there is reason to at least restrict the extreme cases, then I'm satisfied ;)
I don't thin there is a reason, but I don't think it would be very common anyway. Most people will choose traits in the medium range anyway. That goes for both stats and appearance.
No one has stats in the lowest extremes because it is too disadvantageous. Lol
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yeah, like I said, I don't really know ANYTHING about stats in the PnP. More to the point, though, we know very little about stats in the MMO ;)
I DO know, however, that in SW:TOR, a disproportionate number of people chose to be either 'the skinniest' or 'the fattest' they could make their characters, even though the models were pretty ridiculous. In fact, a buddy and I did it when we made alts to play together. We just wanted to look silly next to eachother all the time.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yeah, like I said, I don't really know ANYTHING about stats in the PnP. More to the point, though, we know very little about stats in the MMO ;)
I DO know, however, that in SW:TOR, a disproportionate number of people chose to be either 'the skinniest' or 'the fattest' they could make their characters, even though the models were pretty ridiculous. In fact, a buddy and I did it when we made alts to play together. We just wanted to look silly next to eachother all the time.
Bad example :p the force means your stats don't reflect your abilities at ALL. And if you're not a force user it takes no extra strength to fire a blaster :p
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Goblin Squad Member
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Bad example :p the force means your stats don't reflect your abilities at ALL. And if you're not a force user it takes no extra strength to fire a blaster :pYeah, like I said, I don't really know ANYTHING about stats in the PnP. More to the point, though, we know very little about stats in the MMO ;)
I DO know, however, that in SW:TOR, a disproportionate number of people chose to be either 'the skinniest' or 'the fattest' they could make their characters, even though the models were pretty ridiculous. In fact, a buddy and I did it when we made alts to play together. We just wanted to look silly next to eachother all the time.
The example is perfectly acceptable; I'm not arguing for stats to affect appearance in that game, after all ;)
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Kakafica perhaps I am wrong but to me it seems as if your desires are way less impactfull then what the others are asking for. They want to be able to make judgements based on looks, and that is bad and wrong. They can claim whatever they like but it is not realistic in any way.
I look squishy, but I have never lost in unarmed matches, but they want to force me to look unsquishy if I make a melee character.
As for preventing the extreme cases, as you suggest, I have less of a problem with it, but I still don't want it, as this is a game, it is meant to be enjoyed and making funny characters is part of that fun.
My friends and I once made the 7 deadly sins as characters on DCU, because they were funny characters to make, we played them a while before moving back to our mains.
Really, what is so important to prevent us from having fun with the game? The entire point is to have fun after all.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@DLH: There was a new member of staff at one of my places of work once: He was a big guy with a beard (also a kiwi) and I sat facing away from him, but out of the corner of my eye I could see him walking. He walked in socks around the floor and also for a big guy walked lightly and very softly. I asked him: "I bet you've studied a martial arts?" and he said: "Yes, how did you know?" Because for a big guy he moved very balanced. He could have been a dancer or fitness instructor (he was also) but you understand, that's not judging anyone: That's seeing indications for what someone might have been training in. :)
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Stereotypes develop from common patterns, that doesn't mean they are common enough to be reliable for important judgements, nor that no one can fall outside the patterns. That is my point, that it is not an /accurate/ judgement.
People have seen me and felt absolutly sure that I was easily defeatable, and today they remain unhappy with being proven wrong. Actually pretty much everyone thinks I could be beaten easily.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@DLH if your half as good as you claim to be there will be obvious visual signs of your skill. A person has to know what they are looking at to spot them, but they are there. I have never been wrong in assessing a persons skill in unarmed combat, but that probably comes from me being good enough in the martial arts that my university's Self-Defense club came to me and asked me to teach for them.
Things like leverage skill and knowledge of anatomy go a long way to amplifying strength in a fight, but physics does place limits on how much a person can get out of those. Eventually, brute force can produce enough power to overcome good leverage. Eventually, a person does reach enough skill that they aren't going to be able to get more out of leverage and must improve muscle mass.
Yes muscle mass can mean nothing. The very large muscles we associate with body builders tend to be nothing more than cells over inflated with water. A muscle that is actually strong tends to be much smoother and toned, one some big guys these can be pretty big lacking in distinction. On smaller people strong muscles trend much more towards Bruce Lee. In reality a small person that trains hard and works to be better at hand to hand fighting will start to develop muscles that look more like Bruce Lee. A realistic character that starts out looking like Ghandi cannot develop hand to hand combat skill and not start building muscle mass unless we are we are talking about magical kungfu that draws most of its power from supernatural sources rather than anything realistic.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As for preventing the extreme cases, as you suggest, I have less of a problem with it, but I still don't want it, as this is a game, it is meant to be enjoyed and making funny characters is part of that fun.
My friends and I once made the 7 deadly sins as characters on DCU, because they were funny characters to make, we played them a while before moving back to our mains.
Really, what is so important to prevent us from having fun with the game? The entire point is to have fun after all.
You're right, I am making the point that there is at least some reason to change some characters in some extreme cases.
In PFO, we already know you won't be able to have characters named "skinnydewd," "momsnatcher," or "greed" "wroth" "lust" etc. Making funny characters is not a part of the fun of PFO. PFO has a lot more emphasis on realism in the sandbox and roleplaying genuine characters in a virtual community than other games, including DCU, SW:TOR, and WoW.
I am hoping these limitations on silliness be extended to more of the game from the simple naming policy in order to encourage genuine, engaging roleplay behavior.
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Athere are two kinds of realism, the reality we perceive here on earth, and the continuity kind of realism.
If rocks float, then it's "realistic" to sit on a floating rock and have it sink just bit under your weight, but it's not "realistic" to have the rock rise when you put your weight on it.
@Kakafika
We didn't use those names, we looked up synonyms that actually sounded good and used those. But I understand if they want to avoid the silliness, like I said I have less of a problem with the extremes and such.
Mostly I am advocating against two things,
1, having my character change looks throughout gameplay (equipment not included, since I choose what to wear)
2, making a system where it's practical (and thus encouraged) to judge PCs by what you see.
@Hark
You can train to look for small indications, but these are educated guesses, not absolute facts. Also being trained (or just unusually perceptive enough) to see these things is uncommon, and we are dealing with commonalities.
How many of these players have the ability and knowledge to guess such things with reasonable accuracy? How many of them would fool or at least be difficult for a trained person?
Since making judgements by looks is a bad policy in reality, we really shouldn't encourage it.
Besides, I win through intelligence and foreplanning NLP, rather then str or dex. I would give myself a 9 str and perhaps a 12 dex, not really anything special, just how would you see my training when I haven't had any formal or normal training after 6 years old, until the military?
I am self trained, and not to use moves and countermoves, nor to move carefully or gracefully. My biggest talent is NLP, and my ability to recover from near any setback. I program reflexes ahead of time to deal with what I foresee as possible occurances, this is how I win, but I don't see how that would express itself to your eyes.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well for one it would express itself as not even relevant to a strength discussion.
What you have going on is you are smart enough to overcome an untrained opponent and exploit a very common weakness in amateur trained fighter. That weakness is the inability to adapt to unorthodox techniques. black belts fall victim to this problem all the time. Overcoming this weakness is when one can start to be described as having a certain degree of mastery.
I'll spare you the critique of how worthless MAC are in a real world fight.
Edit: I'll come back later and and explain how judging a person based on appearances is perfectly acceptable and accurate because it is grounded in reality.
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No matter how accurate a trained person could get (not that I'll believe it to be higher then 97% and I doubt that high) most people are untrained and if they implement the ability to judge based on looks, it will be to the level of these untrained folks, aka, a hefty muscular guy for str, a tall wiry guy for dex, etc.
If they include it at all, it is unlikely to be anywhere near realistic as untrained people wouldn't even be able to tell. The commonly known stereotypes are not even remotely viable, but they are the things most players will be looking for.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Since making judgements by looks is a bad policy in reality...
You keep claiming this...I guess I don't see this as the truism you do. All we have is sensory input to make judgements...and judging by the size of our visual cortex in relation to the other sensory processing centers...we as humans are specialized in using our vision. So, are you claiming we should not be making judgements at all? If so, should we just abandon any semblance of meaningful behaviour since we are not allowed to make conclusions about our environments?
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The only thing you can truly judge an individual on is merit (in this case defined as, the decisions they make, the actions they take, and the ability with which they perform those actions) vision tells us a lot but there is a difference between judging someone as happy because they smile, and judging someone as a good fighter because of beefy muscles.
Watching behaviour is not the same as watching how muscly they are.
If someone swings a sword with great skill, then we can say they are skilled at using swords. We can't say someone is skilled at melee because they are fit and have toned muscle (perhaps they are gymnists or sports players, or they just get good exercise)
Watching action unfold vs watching appearence. That is the difference.
We should judge our environment by watching how it changes and how the things in it behave.
Edit: BTW, it isn't our visual cortex, they figured out a few years that if you deprive someone of sight that same part of the brain within hours is being used for the other senses, and makes the change back just as quickly. I watched the discovery channel show about the experiment they did by putting on a permanent blindfold on some people for a week.
Therefore it is not a proccessor for sight, it is a proccessor for our understanding of the world around us.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would be satisfied with 4 body sliders: height, muscles, slim/fat and skin color.
For head I'd make 4(5) sliders: height, girth, face, hair + facial hair for some races.
Then maybe tattoos(body and face) and jewelry.
The sliders should be so that you could not go out of proportion and they'd be race specific.
And lots and lots of different options for each slider. :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'd just like to see the same options you get in PnP Pathfinder. Height, weight, eye color, hair color, skin color...and age. All race specific of course.
Also, of course, because it's an MMO and I can't just draw my character myself, a large variety of hair styles and some method of different facial appearances.
In regards to the hair styles, I'd like to see all hair styles be available for both genders. It's just something that annoys me when I'm trying to make a male character and I can't get a decent pony tail.
Some other interesting possibilities would be the option to select your phenotype. Some options for deformities would also be neat.
For tattoos and jewelery, both of those have the potential to be magical. Character creation could have a few mundane options for those at character creation, but I'd put the majority of them available to obtain during the course of the game.
For clothing, once again like PnP, you'd get one free standard outfit at character creation, the rest you can purchase and obtain in-game. Some might grant mechanical benefits, not just be for looks.
Armor, of course, you'd obtain over the course of the game, and what you wear is what it looks like you're wearing.
There should be plenty of vanity items and accessories available in-game, especially since they all have the potential to be magical wondrous items. As such, having them as charisma restricted options at character creation would be silly.
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We have magic! So please don't limit the color choices to just natural colors.
In addition to Vancent's list,
The ability to control basic body shapes, this bothered me in Mass Effect, the head was the only thing different. Allow options for faces but realize that it isn't often I get to see another's face in detail enough to recognize them, instead I what I have to go by for recognition is body shape and clothes. Clothes can change quite often, so body type should have enough options that mixing in the height would make most people recogonizable.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If stats don't change as you progress, it sounds like your no evolving as you progress, which does not sound realistic.I think that Ryan is trying to separate what we think of as "stats" into Attributes and Abilities as separate things. At least, it helps me to think of it that way :)
From my reading of what Ryan said we should call them Aptitudes rather than Attributes.
If you have higher than normal strength aptitude you will do better at strength using skills than a normal person would. A high Intelligence aptitude you would learn faster. A High Dex person would take naturally to gymnastics where a low dex apptitude person would have more trouble with gymnastics.
Makes a lot of sense where we aren't trapped in one class and would have to branch out of our first archetype eventually.
So if I balance my aptitudes more than I would intending a Wizard class it might take me longer than if I maxed Int, but I would not necessarily suffer the limitations I would in PnP regrding the level of spell I could conceivably cast.
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Goblin Squad Member
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At some threat there was some talk of character appearance changing according to skills/merit badges it acquires.
I tested EVE today for the first time and the character face and body customization was a little bit too much for me, even though it was in a way ingenious and the effort put in to it is awesome.
I don't think that level of customization will be avaible.Right now they are only going with;
CORE RACES ONLY,
CORE BASE CLASSES ONLY.So Unless your willing to pledge over $10K+ or more correct 100K+,
I don't think they'll have that number of races and classes before or at release.I think the extra options you want will be Micro transactions,
and not the eye patch or sun tan.That's 7 races and 11 classes.
The 7 races need to be available by launch (preferably beta). Within 24 hours of launch there will be multi page petition threads for Tieflings and Drow. After that expect the clamour to begin for a couple monstrous races (goblins/gnoll) and one of the bizzaros (tengu?). The Snirfveblin and Duergar are pretty popular too.
The core classes are one of the biggest things that make Pathfinder, Pathfinder. It's really not Pathfinder without witches and gunslingers, just DnD.
I want all of this in the game before I want cumulative suntans. This stuff is essential to the Pathfinder brand. Pathfinder is called 3.75 for a reason. It's the free for all of the races and classes that make it 3.75.
You want the all;
the base classes(11 Core + 8 Advanced + 3 Alts = 22 total)
the ARG races (7 core + 16 featured + 14 uncommon = 37 total)
the PrCs (10 core + 68 other paizo PrCs = 78 PrCs total)Well guess what, I'm a game Dev Grad, and I've talked with people who were in the game industry.
You can't have it all period.
The triangle of (Features/Content vs Time vs Money) is a hard beast that all game companies know of.
You give to one you take from the others, and time and money are the least flexible ones.
So if you want more content either quality will drop for everything or it'll take more time and or money.So guess what, everyone will have to live with what is given.
They can petition all they want, but they will have to be patient.
wait, so GW said that there will be an actual class system in the game? I figured that since its a sandbox MMO there won't be any classes, at least in the traditional sense.
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At some threat there was some talk of character appearance changing according to skills/merit badges it acquires.
I tested EVE today for the first time and the character face and body customization was a little bit too much for me, even though it was in a way ingenious and the effort put in to it is awesome.
This is why I suggest a "simple" and "advanced" tab for character appearence. Those who get overwhelmed by the options can stick to the simple tab which would cycle through presets for each catagory, while those who want the control can go through the higher detailed advanced options and sub-catagories.
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If stats don't change as you progress, it sounds like your no evolving as you progress, which does not sound realistic.I think that Ryan is trying to separate what we think of as "stats" into Attributes and Abilities as separate things. At least, it helps me to think of it that way :)From my reading of what Ryan said we should call them Aptitudes rather than Attributes.
If you have higher than normal strength aptitude you will do better at strength using skills than a normal person would. A high Intelligence aptitude you would learn faster. A High Dex person would take naturally to gymnastics where a low dex apptitude person would have more trouble with gymnastics.
Makes a lot of sense where we aren't trapped in one class and would have to branch out of our first archetype eventually.
So if I balance my aptitudes more than I would intending a Wizard class it might take me longer than if I maxed Int, but I would not necessarily suffer the limitations I would in PnP regrding the level of spell I could conceivably cast.
The real question is how they will handle things that used to be modified by the ability scores, such as carry capacity, dex bonus to AC and ranged atks, etc.
Particularly, also whether the stats and/or ability score replacements will be increasable as one gains experience. Aka, can I improve my strength score so my to hit and carry capacity increase?
My current understanding is that they will seperate this out into a bazillion different things, so that increaseing carry capacity is completly standalone and affects nothing else. I REALLY hope that is not the case.
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Goblin Squad Member
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... I suggest a "simple" and "advanced" tab for character appearence. Those who get overwhelmed by the options can stick to the simple tab which would cycle through presets for each catagory, while those who want the control can go through the higher detailed advanced options and sub-catagories.
I really like this idea. I love it when a solution allows people to play the way they want to, rather than forcing everyone to use the same thing.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Without reading the whole thread, I will add my 2 copper...
My wife and I play MMO games together, and often convince our table top gaming group to get into a game with us. For me it is all game play, but for my wife, the character customization screen is one of the most important things that needs to be done right. In SWG, she played an Image Designer, and came up with cool looks. Consequently, we always looked awesome. You could see my Zabrak running across the spaceport, and know it was me. Short, thin, pale skin, black top knot hair, and a blue face tattoo. I was pretty unique in the grand scheme, and I really like that.
Bottom line, looking cool is an intrinsic part of actually being cool. Don't skimp on customization.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As others have mentioned, LoTRO's system is fantastic. At level 10 players look very different from one another. Guild Wars 2 with its fantastic dye system and vast avatar customization is also to be strived for. A system that combines the customization strengths of these two games would be ideal. I'd be happy with a Lotro modeled system.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Wow, I didn't find either of those systems particularly impressive lol. Neither was BADm they both gave you some decent choice, but I was underwhelmed with both.
Like so many systems they end up giving you a bunch of choices that look almost identical to their other choices, or only a few that you like, so you end up choosing the same ones.
I do find it interesting how much tastes can vary when t comes to customisation. A veritable minefield.