Goblin Squad Member
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I don't expect to choose which color of shingles I want on the blacksmith in the settlement, but that doesn't make PFO any less a sandbox for me. I think that PFO is a 'kingdom-builder' sandbox above all else; one in which you can build kingdoms and compete over resources. Other sandboxes focus on other areas of player-created persistence, such as 'house-builder' sandboxes (Second Life), 'crafting sandboxes' (A Tale in the Desert, Salem), etc.
I think PFO is going to be very graphically spartan at EE and even Open Enrollment. We have already been told not to expect interiors for many buildings... rather than clicking on a glowing forge in the blacksmith, we're going to click on the door and be greeted by an interface. The art team will create the interior at a later date.
It seems clear that the plan is to make a playable game with the budget they have, and then add all the functionality that players expect and hope for in a game after release. Things like custom decorations, sitting in chairs, etc. With how strongly many here feel about character customization, I predict that that system will get fleshed out early on.
Also, very much enjoyed Aunt Tony's limerick. The transition in the third line was masterful.
Such flattery will get you tea and biscuits. Do you think I should have put "friend" in quotes in the last line, or would that have made it too obvious / risque?
What's a limerick without some dirty humor?
When EvE launched in Europe it initially captured few players, which was good! These players struggled with the game because it ws deep and complex and no walkthrough were available. The PvP aspect of the game was played down.
After that the community grew steadily and EvE became a success.
When the same EvE launched in Asia it was a horrible "everyone for himself" PvP gankfest galore and thus failed.
It was the same game, why did it succeed and fail at the same time?
Tragedy of the commons. I don't think a game company has nearly enough control over a player community to be able to guarantee it won't be toxic. I do think there's a strong correlation between population size and toxicity, but there's a difference between correlation and causation.
Second... I see what you mean about the lack of mark. However, I think I know why things are being done as they are: Limitations due to limited development resources, and scale. By scale, I mean that it's a game for tens or hundreds of thousands of players that is supposed to last for years. Imagine a minecraft server that is five years old with tens of thousands of players... you'd end up with areas completely cluttered with crap.
And then you'd see a new class of entrepreneurs emerge: those who profit by using the "crap" or cleaning it up. That is, if PFO's economic framework is open enough to allow / reward emergent behavior.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Do you think I should have put "friend" in quotes in the last line...?
Oh, I think you're meaning was clear. I still can't get over how masterful that transition was. Building him up talking about getting into bed and him being "ready", but it turns out he's only "ready" to turn out the lights and go to sleep. Very evocative.
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Goblin Squad Member
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(Quotes showing dungeons have plenty of loot). What did Randomwalker mean?
Gear =/= loot
In WoW you need to go into specific dungeons to kill specific bosses to get speficic BOP gear that you cannot buy, craft or farm anywhere else.
In PFO someone has to kill those bosses and get the loot so that someone else can craft the item so that you can get it. There's no need for you personally to repeatedly farm the same dungeon until you get lucky. There is plenty of motivation (rare loot) to explore dungeons, or even to pay someone else to do it, but that is different motivation from "I need healer and tank to help farm boss X until he drops the BOP purple sandals of righteousness".
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Goblin Squad Member
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I agree with Nihimon, Aunt Tony's limerick is masterfully written, expressing the sort of depth you would expect from poetry, yet so much more than you would expect from a typical limerick, yet STILL keeping in the limerick tradition of being scandalous and raunchy.
@Randomwalker For whatever reason, I couldn't help laugh at "Purple Sandals of Righteousness." Best faux WoW item I've seen on this forums yet.
I'm not sure the distinction between loot and gear is one of kind, only one of degree. And it remains to be seen whether it will even be possible to remain competitive as a crafter without personally going to fetch yon loot. The overhead aside (as if that wouldn't be enough), what of the time resources required to gain crafting skill / do the crafting itself? Will a player be reasonably able to be both a prolific crafter and a busy adventurer? Many devs think it's desirable to encourage or enforce a separation between them.
Aunt Tony, in bubbles and boas,
With shoes that if ships would shame Noah's,
Ensorcelled her way
To make night the day
While pulling from Greeks ancient togas.
Ah, I see you've already prowled my ancient little Flickr I linked. I remember linking it, I just don't remember where.
Geeez, guys, I can't make so much tea and biscuits on spur of the moment's notice. What am I to say? Sorry for the low resolution? Please ignore the old beat up pans?
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Goblin Squad Member
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And it remains to be seen whether it will even be possible to remain competitive as a crafter without personally going to fetch yon loot.
I'm fairly certain there's a direct quote from Ryan saying that PFO will fully support "pure" Crafters who do nothing but Craft and never leave town, but I'm having trouble finding it.
If you read the "Some Assembly Required" section of Butchers, Bakers and Candlestick Makers, you'll see there's nothing there to suggest Crafters will have to also be Adventurers.
I could be wrong, but I don't expect there to be any No-Trade items in PFO at all.
I'm fairly certain there's a direct quote from Ryan saying that PFO will fully support "pure" Crafters who do nothing but Craft and never leave town, but I'm having trouble finding it.
If you read the "Some Assembly Required" section of Butchers, Bakers and Candlestick Makers, you'll see there's nothing there to suggest Crafters will have to also be Adventurers.
Not quite what I'm after. What I want to know is what, if anything, besides the time invested, is the opportunity cost of pursuing crafting vs. adventuring. To put it another way, if you want to be a competitive crafter, will you have to give up adventuring altogether and vice versa?
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Goblin Squad Member
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What I want to know is what, if anything, besides the time invested, is the opportunity cost of pursuing crafting vs. adventuring.
I expect it to be very much like the opportunity cost of developing as a Paladin vs. a Wizard, but that's just my expectations. Despite what people say now (after a very bizarre turn of events), I really don't have any special knowledge; I've just been paying a lot of attention to these boards for over a year now.
I expect it to be very much like the opportunity cost of developing as a Paladin vs. a Wizard
Aren't there supposed to be special "capstone" awards to reward you for pursuing one "path" exclusively until you hit its cap?
I think it'll be like developing a single role character vs. developing a duel role character. The single role guy will skill up quicker, but the duel role guy will still get there, it will just take longer.
The Capstone system was replaced by the Dedication system, that gives you bonuses if all of your slotted skills are from a single class.
"Slotted" skills...? So you can accumulate a broad range of skills but must choose which to have equipped at any given time? What determines the frequency/cost of changing this selection?
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Goblin Squad Member
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The Capstone system was replaced by the Dedication system, that gives you bonuses if all of your slotted skills are from a single class."Slotted" skills...? So you can accumulate a broad range of skills but must choose which to have equipped at any given time? What determines the frequency/cost of changing this selection?
Right, and unknown... but it was said (not by Ryan this time but I believe Stephen) that swapping out skill slots isn't the sort of thing to commonly do in combat.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Aunt Tony, read A Three-Headed Hydra for a much more thorough discussion of slotting abilities.
You can find a complete list of all the Goblinworks Blogs, and a brief description of each, in my Guild Recruitment & Helpful Links list.
There's another list in The Seventh Veil's Wiki that probably loads more quickly, but it looks like Valkenr hasn't updated it in a couple of weeks.
A Three-Headed Hydra
Only two slots for utility spells... welp, looks like I won't be playing PFO.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A Three-Headed HydraOnly two slots for utility spells... welp, looks like I won't be playing PFO.
Don't confuse utility slots with utility spells. If your spellbook has several utility spells in it, when you activate the spellbook those will replace weapon slots.
Refresh Slots
Most combat abilities that are not tied to weapons are Refresh abilities, and they're placed in slots 7–10. These are things like spells, rage abilities, etc. If a character has a spellbook equipped, it can go into one of these slots; activating the spellbook turns all weapon slots into spell slots determined by the spellbook. Wizards will have to find and equip different spellbooks to get access to different spells, with some books being more valuable or rare than others.
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Goblin Squad Member
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And it remains to be seen whether it will even be possible to remain competitive as a crafter without personally going to fetch yon loot.I'm fairly certain there's a direct quote from Ryan saying that PFO will fully support "pure" Crafters who do nothing but Craft and never leave town, but I'm having trouble finding it.
If you read the "Some Assembly Required" section of Butchers, Bakers and Candlestick Makers, you'll see there's nothing there to suggest Crafters will have to also be Adventurers.
I could be wrong, but I don't expect there to be any No-Trade items in PFO at all.
Maybe this is the quote....
"Some solo players won't even leave town. They'll become masters of crafting and market warfare, using their canny ability to time swings in prices and to identify opportunities for arbitrage to make their fortune. These spreadsheet warriors will be ready to pounce on the pricing mistakes of their less focused competitors, and can be the secret to success for the forces engaged in territorial warfare. (Or their downfall—a canny merchant never forgets a previous slight or betrayal.)"
Found it at LFG! (Looking for Group!) under Han Shot First—Playing Solo on 15 Feb 2012.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Hardin Steele, thanks very much. Not only for finding that link for us, but for helping to burst this silly bubble that's been blown up around me :)
Here's the link: LFG! (Looking for Group!).
Quick, everyone! We must explain this strange abnormality before it derails our Nihimonology!
...okay, Hardin must be Nihimon. Case closed.
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Don't confuse utility slots with utility spells. If your spellbook has several utility spells in it, when you activate the spellbook those will replace weapon slots.
What could go in those utility slots that aren't spells? Do you mean "spell-like abilities" as in the case of the Paladin's Detect Evil which I think was the example given?
Refresh Slots
Most combat abilities that are not tied to weapons are Refresh abilities, and they're placed in slots 7–10. These are things like spells, rage abilities, etc. If a character has a spellbook equipped, it can go into one of these slots; activating the spellbook turns all weapon slots into spell slots determined by the spellbook. Wizards will have to find and equip different spellbooks to get access to different spells, with some books being more valuable or rare than others.
This is also worrisome. Essentially the only benefit of playing a spellcaster -- their versatility -- is being reduced to just a gimmicky, often ranged, weapon. Nothing infuriates me more than highly limited "spellbooks" in a game. Oh, look, I can choose between three different palettes for my "do damage" spell. It comes in electric or icy blue and just plain red. How exciting!
I remember when spells could do things, important things, besides just dealing damage. And I'm definitely on the edge of flat out refusing to play any RPGs that don't offer utility powers. I can play Quake3Live if I want some "point weapon, deal damage" gameplay. RPGs are not shooters. And I deeply resent the trend of various shallow dev corps hijacking the term "RPG" just to steal my money with what amounts to nothing more than a bait and switch.
Here's hoping the "utility slots" can be used for things like a Hooded Lantern in your off hand, or a bag of caltrops or of course a grappling hook.
... looks like I won't be playing PFO.I'm skeptical of that :)
I am half joking, but half not. PFO is still very early in the design / development phase of production, and there's good ideas being claimed for it.
But there's also bad ones.
I was not thrilled with this decision either. It's much too far toward the "video game" end of the "video game / simulation" spectrum for my tastes.
Exactly. I question how sandboxy a game can be when focused almost exclusively on combat and item crafting. EVE is not really a sandbox at all. And this worries me a great deal indeed.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Plenty of opportunities for Hardin to get Nihimoned (it happens often). I was just recently reading through that section. Lucky only, I can assure you. (And most of you are better at getting the url links to work...I stink at it.)
(Edited to test this link) This is a link to The Kingdom of Heaven trailer on YouTube.
Cool! It works! And this sort of huge battle would be very cool too!
(Also corrected the spelling of my own name...doh!)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Plenty of opportunities for Herdin to get Nihimoned (it happens often). I was just recently reading through that section. Lucky only, I can assure you. (And most of you are better at getting the url links to work...I stink at it.
To make url links that work, use the following format, just change the Parens () to brackets []. For example, if I were to link to google, I would use the following:
(url=http://www.google.com)This is a link to google.(/url)
Transferred to the correct brackets, it looks like this:
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Goblin Squad Member
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I too would be highly disappointed if there was restrictions placed on magic. I find the ability to sleep/grease/control/dominate/firewall etc. a battlefield much more satisfying than seeing how many of the same fireballs i can fire in a minute.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Pathfinder PnP often finds ways to restrict characters from performing the 'room, rest' cycle of NWN. Why can't PFO put arbitrary restrictions on "You cannot regain refreshes in this area."
There's a lot of details to work out, but making some resources very scarce is an important part of making them valuable. If the cleric has to sit for a few seconds to regain mana and cast Mass Heal again, it has a different meaning than if the cleric cannot use Mass Heal sustainably.
Personally, I've always liked the "Recharge Magic" proposal found in Unearthed Arcana.
Removes the necessity of the 15-minute workday, allows spellcasters to always be able to do what they created the character to do (cast spells), and yet provides an even higher resolution of control on spells (so that GMs can limit the use of a specific spell if they wish without limiting anything else)!
Essentially, cooldowns. Which almost all modern MMOs use (including MOBAs...).
I am opposed to the "rest" system seen in DDO because it unfairly limits spellcasters. If there was a Fatigue system implemented in DDO, that would be fair -- but as it is, when spellcasters are the only ones with limited ammo... it makes me not want to play the game at all.
Find a solution that allows players to do the thing they designed their character to do without punishing them for it with boring downtime, disproportionate expenses or tedious mechanics I have to keep track of. I would hope the rest of the party doesn't appreciate having to stand around tapping their foot waiting for the casters to regain spells just because of the decades-old legacy folly of blankety blank blanking Vancian Magic.
In Warhammer Quest, each dungeon tile is randomly selected as the party moves forwards. In the soon to be released iOS version, the devs at Rodeo have a rest mechanic but the longer you're in the room the greater the chance of an "ambush" by eg giant spiders etc. So there's 2 key things about a dungeon itself:
1) Random dungeons
2) Rest to respite but don't over cook it or you'll be ambushed, which drives your party on. (eg too many ambushes and you'll run low on healing options). I think magic-users could fit into this delicate balance nicely?
Concerning the group:
1) Each char is different
2) Group dynamics should be very important ie specialisms needed for cross-party support and interaction and different experience.
2) Group dynamics should be very important ie specialisms needed for cross-party support and interaction and different experience.
There is no group dynamic if one member of the group is crushed under arbitrary and draconian rules inherited from a legacy of 30+ year old game design. Vancian Magic was a plot device for a story -- it does not a good game mechanic make. 30 years ago was pre- Stone Age in the realm of game design!
Understanding the difference between stories and games is absolutely fundamental to game design.
What the tabletop can get away with (due to that situation actually being more of a storytelling experience than a game), a multiplayer CRPG cannot.
By all means, group dynamics does want for differentiated player roles and mechanics -- but if those mechanics are not
1. satisfying for each player
2. balanced objectively
3. balanced subjectively
and
4. easily maintained and updated by the game's developers, given the context of a hyper-complex system of interconnected parts updated frequently over the course of potentially a decade...
the game will be an embarrassing failure. The video game RPG world needs to move on from D&D mechanics. D&D literally is the WORST thing to have ever happened to CRPGs, nevermind that it was the progenitor. There is a fundamental difference in kind between the setting of a tabletop game group and any kind of video game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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2) Group dynamics should be very important ie specialisms needed for cross-party support and interaction and different experience.There is no group dynamic if one member of the group is crushed under arbitrary and draconian rules inherited from a legacy of 30+ year old game design. Vancian Magic was a plot device for a story -- it does not a good game mechanic make. 30 years ago was pre- Stone Age in the realm of game design!
Understanding the difference between stories and games is absolutely fundamental to game design.
What the tabletop can get away with (due to that situation actually being more of a storytelling experience than a game), a multiplayer CRPG cannot.
By all means, group dynamics does want for differentiated player roles and mechanics -- but if those mechanics are not
1. satisfying for each player
2. balanced objectively
3. balanced subjectivelyand
4. easily maintained and updated by the game's developers, given the context of a hyper-complex system of interconnected parts updated frequently over the course of potentially a decade...
the game will be an embarrassing failure. The video game RPG world needs to move on from D&D mechanics. D&D literally is the WORST thing to have ever happened to CRPGs, nevermind that it was the progenitor. There is a fundamental difference in kind between the setting of a tabletop game group and any kind of video game.
Agree the danger of eg heal-bot for one char in a dungeon might cause problems because it's least popular etc if mandatory.
But I'm thinking along the lines of for dungeons, limited number of adventurers in a party can enter (or at least a range of):
If each char can swap 3 weapon sets in combat, has a carrying capacity and space to haul back loot, then if there are idk 6-8 adventurers. This is their combined scope of skills.
What I'd like to see dungeons do is have an much much wider scope than this of dangers eg maybe only 2 wizards of sufficient level in the group and only one of them has cold attacks, which is just enough to get past one part of a dungeon. Or a Rogue can go in the advance and detect traps . While an impassable wall requires another character to turn into a rat and crawl through and press a lever etc etc.
Ok, the last ideas are a bit specific, but I like the idea of a party using the aggregate of skills available to advance through the dungeon. Sometimes perfect match, other times not so good and rarely too bad?
Secondly, some sort of "challenges/puzzles" that require a leader, a spotter etc etc that requires some real team-work combinations, maybe does not have to be set in stone roles, but a bit more cooperation.
I know plenty of themepark raid dungeons are way too exact and scale up the party all doing the right things together (there's a funny youtube or two vid of this somewhere: Some irate guy shouting orders!), but I like the idea of each group making decisions eg:
1/ PvE (mobs) eg cold-based magic req.
2/PvE (environmental) eg water section
3/ Hauling capacity & extraction
4/ PvP spec'd in case...
5/ path-finder, trap-spotter etc
As well as the general mix of what players can take with them to a dungeon. Also not sure all dungeons should always be solvable or at least to variable degrees of profit depending on the party's match?
All these add contextual decisions, as opposed to simply combat skill and stat advantages and routine.
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Agree the danger of eg heal-bot for one char in a dungeon might cause problems because it's least popular etc if mandatory.
Requiring specific player abilities (like cold spells or polymorph) to progress is bad. What if you can't find someone with that ability to join your party? Sorry! You can't do this dungeon!
In general, "you must be this tall to ride this ride" takes decision-making away from players -- and that's the definition of bad game design. You want to allow players' decisions to be what drives action, you want their decisions to be what decides success or failure, you want players to feel that sense of agency. If the "game" is simply a matter of having the correct combination of abilities available in the party, then it's not a game. It's an obfuscated novel.
Now, the way to go about, for example, dungeon design in a way that is healthy and good, is to reward players to varying degrees based on how closely aligned their gameplay decisions are with what you (the designer) intended as healthy for your game (multiplayer games have to deal with a radically different set of "healthy behavior" than single-player games, and MMOs are really just super-scale multiplayer games. There isn't a difference of kind between them in this sense).
This is in sharp contrast to the aforementioned philosophy of putting insurmountable "road blocks" in the way of a player party that can only be unlocked with a boolean comparison to their range of abilities. That is, "Do you have X skill? Yes? Then you can go. No? Then leave, you can't get past this point".
For example, maybe you did put a lever behind that wall, and the Druid could Wild Shape into a rat to run through and trigger it, but the mage could also cast Far Hand to do the same thing. This is a much better way to design the scene -- though still not too far in the "everyone can do everything" direction. Ideally, you'd want as wide a range of "viable" or "possible" parties as you can get so that you can have a reward available for any given set of players who wants to engage with your game.
After all, what are players playing your game for if they can't succeed at it? Players want and expect to succeed based on their own agency, and it's up to the game designer to satisfy that desire within the framework of the game systems he's designing.
Give the warriors some cold-enchanted weapons so that the party doesn't absolutely have to have a mage along. Maybe your artistic license wants mages to make that part of the dungeon much easier -- and that's fine. But this has to be recognized as "magnitude" rather than "kind". That is, a mage would be nice to have along, and the majority of wise adventuring parties will seek to diversify their "repertoire" as a group, but a mage should not be required. See?
At the table, magical healing is far from necessary -- it's definitely nice to have, but healing is not the only thing a Cleric can do, and a Cleric that restricts himself only to performing the tasks of healing is a waste of space on your party roster. At the table, a shrewd and resourceful adventuring party is made up of adventurers who are at least able to take care of themselves if they have to. Will they function better as a group? Of course! But they aren't absolutely helpless if (gods forbid!!) they're split up. Of course, at the table, there's a great deal of freedom in character design -- and the misconceptions of players and the DM alike can lead to situations that would be capital B bad for someone's experience.
Video games are necessarily more rigidly defined experiences. There is little or no opportunity for human intervention (or "fudging") to remedy an unforeseen situation that would be unsatisfying for players.
No video game that we can realistically design and publish right now will ever hit the shelves in a state of perfect ideal game design. But GW should seek to minimize the extent to which a player feels incapable of accomplishing whatever he so desires within the framework of PFO's systems. The degree of success a player finds within PFO should be very much decided by that player's strategic and tactical decisions.
But players shouldn't be punished without regard to what decisions they make. Weak success or lack of success is already perceived by players as "punishment", and serves as motivation and feedback for their future decisions.
What I mean is that a player shouldn't feel jealous of someone who made different decisions. Not quantitatively better decisions, just qualitatively different ones.
Mages shouldn't feel hobbled with arbitrarily complicated and restrictive resource management that they don't see anyone else having to deal with. Warriors shouldn't feel useless by comparison to the Masters-Of-All spellbook-wielders because they were only given the ability to swing a sword. Priests shouldn't feel as though doing anything besides healing is a waste of their resources. Sneakers shouldn't feel obsoleted by any of the others.
Rock-Paper-Scissors is very difficult to balance, and is -- by definition -- always imbalanced from the perspective of an individual player. All RPS-based systems' main design challenge is to minimize the frustration that individual players feel since they are in a constant state of fundamentally unsatisfying gameplay.
In Rock Paper Scissors, the system as a whole is balanced. And this is fine for games in which the player controls a complete system of rocks, papers and scissors (like strategy games). That is, the players are all equivalent to each other, and the game is about their decision-making in how to utilize their rock/paper/scissor units.
But in an MMOrpg where each player has to choose whether they will be a Rock, a Paper or a Scissor for the rest of the game... That player's decision doesn't matter, even if the game as a whole is perfectly balanced, it's still absolutely terrible game design. Rocks will always win over Scissors, and they'll always lose to Paper. The Rock's decisions are meaningless. It isn't a game.
Developers often misunderstand this key concept since they are considering the entire game as a whole more often than they are considering the experience from an individual's point of view. World of Warcraft is a famous example which ran into huge problems, and most (all?) MOBAs are the embodiment of this bad design.
PvE games have a different version of this conundrum based around players being jealous of someone else's performance. PvP games, though, bring this problem into very sharp focus as the relationship between one's self and any other player is immediately obvious with either implacable defeat or easy victory.
GW necessarily must avoid a design which makes each player into what's known as a Poor Predictable Rock. Being specialized within a group's dynamics does not have to mean that you're playing a "PPR", but that's often what does hit the store shelves because developers are lazy, incompetent, poorly funded, rushed or all the above.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Bah, I'm so lazy atm. I'm wording my meaning really badly.
What I mean is:
Party A = 6 players = each player has x flexibility (ie 3 weapon sets) = Total Flexibility of party A = "1,000"
Finds a dungeon, perhaps dependent on the skill of finding dungeons and this itself sets some of the dungeon - ie gives some feelers for what to expect to the players to think about.
Once they choose a dungeon: Dungeon B calculates a suitable match to Party A based off what they're doing and generates a dungeon with a wider flexibility of possible encounters than the party A = "1,000" ; let's say "10,000" - so the party can still do this dungeon B but there is some randomness that makes their "fit" for the dungeon variable: Sometimes a bit of luck and they can 100% best fit for that party's selection of players other times this dips down. Eg cold-based and they did not bring this option - so they can still over come this but need more skill and will suffer more for it.
Etc. Really quick sketch.
I find that every dungeon has players working out optimal builds to be very linear. This randomness gives players a range of experiences and evaluations and maybe they got something wrong and took more damage than they could have so bail on further progress - or weighing up the chances think: They have earnt X out of the dungeon from idk 75% completion/explored, time to bail if X is suitable return on the risk they evaluated of that dungeon instance.
etc. The key take-home: "You can't plan for every contingency" and sometimes deciding to back-track is the best decision if you're in a dungeon and playing things fine.
The key is the dungeons being made of modules that can randomly be put together and randomly added mob types and trap types and reward types and change of distribution of these and number of etc.
Right.
A degree of randomness which affects the difficulty (not the possibility) of a given scene is what "mechanics" are all about.
PFO may have a lot less reliance on PvE content than even we suspect at this point. Hopefully players will be given the ability to create and design PvE content -- NWN2 for example. Or EQ2's player-made dungeons for another.
Except evolved and polished, of course.
I am extremely disappointed that the Neverwinter Online MMO is such a disaster.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A degree of randomness which affects the difficulty (not the possibility) of a given scene is what "mechanics" are all about.
Yes^, sorry AT, I've been doing testing all day, so not at all coherent at the moment. :)
The great thing if PFO do variable/randomly generated dungeons that calc. the party's "make-up" (ie potential flexibility) and assigns variable challenge, it keeps players guessing how "hard" the dungeon is: 1st encounter might be a real killer and then a walk in the park... you just don't know as well as different combinations keeping players assessing and reacting.
Also surely this design is MUCH more economical PvE content? Eg roguelike games go this cheaper route for a reason! Hopefully it also messes with people's plan's to optimally farm content also. :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Agree the danger of eg heal-bot for one char in a dungeon might cause problems because it's least popular etc if mandatory.Requiring specific player abilities (like cold spells or polymorph) to progress is bad. What if you can't find someone with that ability to join your party? Sorry! You can't do this dungeon!
Everyone has to win everytime without requirments and there should be no need for anyone else, right Tony? That is your idea of good game design? Sorry, but no.
Also surely this design is MUCH more economical PvE content? Eg roguelike games go this cheaper route for a reason! Hopefully it also messes with people's plan's to optimally farm content also. :)
Oh lordy, if PFO's PvE content is handled as a rogue-like I will, I dunno, I'll be ecstatic. I'll need some napkins to deal with the drooling.
'_'
-deity- seems to be unconcerned.
"Hmmm..."
'_'
-deity- seems to be unconcerned.
"Why isn't it working? Oh, I see, let's try..."
'O'
"*I* hereby punish thee, puny mortal"
Everyone has to win everytime without requirments and there should be no need for anyone else, right Tony? That is your idea of good game design? Sorry, but no.
It's not MY idea, and you're hardly in a position to tell me "no" with that attitude.
This is completely aside from the straw man you created. I said it is desirable for players to be able to accomplish their goals. I said that player choices should determine the degree of reward -- or lack of reward. I said that player choices should not be punished more than they are by the previous statement.
I am a bit disturbed by your hostility, I confess, so I might recommend a remedial course in reading comprehension for any having difficulties with the previous paragraph.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Everyone has to win everytime without requirments and there should be no need for anyone else, right Tony? That is your idea of good game design? Sorry, but no.Agree the danger of eg heal-bot for one char in a dungeon might cause problems because it's least popular etc if mandatory.Requiring specific player abilities (like cold spells or polymorph) to progress is bad. What if you can't find someone with that ability to join your party? Sorry! You can't do this dungeon!
I think that that's really bad in a Themepark (see: the first iteration of Naxxramas in WoW), where you want as many people to see the dungeon as possible, but I don't think it's necessarily terrible for PFO.
So you can't explore a corridor that probably leads to one of the bosses in the dungeon; so what? Go explore rest of the dungeon. Maybe somebody that can get you through that door will become available, but maybe not.
I think it might even be desirable in PFO. There seem to be many people on these boards that hope to have viable utility spells and abilities. This would make the inclusion of a utility-based character in your party a good choice. It also will encourage players to pick up a few utility abilities. Players can decide how PvE-ready they are.
We already know that there will be keywords such as "Silver" and "Blunt" which will affect the damage multiplier for monsters like lycanthropes and skeletons. I agree with you in that I hope that these modifiers won't be necessary (except maybe if your party isn't versatile at all, and has all physical damage with no "Silver..." you aren't going to be able to do enough damage to beat the lycanthropes). I hope you can still cause damage, but your life will be easier with the keyword.
The extreme is quite undesirable, but some inclusion of it can add flavor. Your second post leads me to believe that maybe you agree with this.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...Requiring specific player abilities (like cold spells or polymorph) to progress is bad.
Is there a sound argument supporting your bald assertion? Not needing someone skilled in picking locks to open what is locked sounds inadvisable. Not needing someone skilled in magic in order to cast a spell sounds inadvisable. Not needing someone who is stealthy to reconnoiter a dangerous location seems inadvisable. Saying everyone should be able to do everything is absurd and unbelievable, and saying it is 'bad' to require specific player abilities to progress is equally absurd.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It's not MY idea, and you're hardly in a position to tell me "no" with that attitude.
Tony your subjective evaluation of my attitude is only your subjective evaluation and has little insight I assure you.
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This is completely aside from the straw man you created.
No strawman was created. You said:
Requiring specific player abilities (like cold spells or polymorph) to progress is bad.
That means ability requirements for accomplishing a goal is in your estimation 'bad', and it is a very short step to 'Everyone gets to win', as if to be a good game nobody can fail and everyone 'wins'.
I said it is desirable for players to be able to accomplish their goals. I said that player choices should determine the degree of reward -- or lack of reward. I said that player choices should not be punished more than they are by the previous statement.
And every game of peewee softball has to end in a tie so that the players neither win or lose, there is no real choice because choices do not affect the outcome beyond guaging how intensely they win, as a matter of degree: nobody can be allowed to simply 'lose'. It is 'good' for everyone to accomplish their goals is equivalent to saying 'everyone 'wins' they just gain more or less, and nobody 'loses' they just don't gain as much, rendering all choices equivalent.
I am a bit disturbed by your hostility, I confess, so I might recommend a remedial course in reading comprehension for any having difficulties with the previous paragraph.
Any hostility you think you have detected in what I am saying is wholly of your own manufacture, Tony. I am not hostile toward you, I disagree with your estimation of 'bad' design.
That means ability requirements for accomplishing a goal is in your estimation 'bad', and it is a very short step to 'Everyone gets to win', as if to be a good game nobody can fail and everyone 'wins'.
That's exactly right. PFO is a business venture. It's in their interest, and it's in the players' interest, for PFO to be successful.
To do that, they need to avoid pissing people off.
The best way to do that? Not introduce masochistic elements to the gameplay. People have plenty of frustration with real life, they don't really want it in their escapist fantasy entertainment.
Not winning as much as someone else is already perceived by the player to be a pretty harsh punishment, why compound that sensation by harming the player as well? The player's perceptions are the only thing that matters.
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Goblin Squad Member
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| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
That means ability requirements for accomplishing a goal is in your estimation 'bad', and it is a very short step to 'Everyone gets to win', as if to be a good game nobody can fail and everyone 'wins'.That's exactly right. PFO is a business venture. It's in their interest, and it's in the players' interest, for PFO to be successful.
To do that, they need to avoid pissing people off.
The best way to do that? Not introduce masochistic elements to the gameplay. People have plenty of frustration with real life, they don't really want it in their escapist fantasy entertainment.
Not winning as much as someone else is already perceived by the player to be a pretty harsh punishment, why compound that sensation by harming the player as well? The player's perceptions are the only thing that matters.
Huh? I was going to post that you were misunderstood. Now I am not so sure that I can. When I play games, I play for the challenge. Some I win, some I lose. I do want the challenge though.
It seemed to me that you were stating (in a nutshell) that you thought this game would be best served by designing it's PVE encounters with a "many options to defeat encounter" outlook rather than an "only one way past here design". Was I misunderstanding you?
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Goblin Squad Member
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| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
That means ability requirements for accomplishing a goal is in your estimation 'bad', and it is a very short step to 'Everyone gets to win', as if to be a good game nobody can fail and everyone 'wins'.That's exactly right. PFO is a business venture. It's in their interest, and it's in the players' interest, for PFO to be successful.
To do that, they need to avoid pissing people off.
The best way to do that? Not introduce masochistic elements to the gameplay. People have plenty of frustration with real life, they don't really want it in their escapist fantasy entertainment.
Not winning as much as someone else is already perceived by the player to be a pretty harsh punishment, why compound that sensation by harming the player as well? The player's perceptions are the only thing that matters.
There is a significant difference between a game and entertainment. In games someone wins, and as corollary someone loses.
I don't think GW wants to produce a work of music where everyone wins and nobody loses. If you make a good game you are providing an arena in which there are winners and losers.
What you are proposing is not a game at all, but entertainment. What you decry as 'bad' game design is actually good game design. Bad music design, yes.
Every good story has conflict. Conflict resolved requires at least one winner and one loser, though the loser may gain something else, something unexpected. That is what the plot of every tale is all about. Every game has competition in which there are winners and losers. If you describe a fictional setting in which there are no winners and no losers you are not describing a game, nor are you describing a good tale.
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Goblin Squad Member
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PFO is a business venture. It's in their interest, and it's in the players' interest, for PFO to be successful.
To do that, they need to avoid pissing people off.
I agree that it is in my best interest for PFO to be successful. However, it will be impossible to not piss someone off no matter what you do. These threads are certainly an example of that.
People have plenty of frustration with real life, they don't really want it in their escapist fantasy entertainment.
This I disagree with this a lot. I find frustration in real life when I have expectations that my best efforts will succeed, but they don't. Most of the time I do not know all the facts to make my best effort my best effort. It is at best "the best effort knowing what I know". In life I can not know enough to always assure that my best effort will be enough. My life sucks when I resent that I don't get what I want.
In PFO I want to have the chance to say "Wow, that didn't go well! What can I do to have a better shot at that?" PFO, unlike life, has a "How To Manual", namely the written rules. This makes getting better by knowing more possible. I am sure that I will forget something that will kill my character, probably a lot of times. I don't feel frustrated by that. It is an opportunity to become more skilled through the experience of getting killed. Not like life at all.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm very much in favor of not requiring a rigid "class" mix (that's in quotation marks as I realize PFO is to be a classless system) for successful dungeon crawls. Sure, it may be easier with the ideal mix of roles and abilities, but being shut out because you don't happen to have anyone with, say, cold abilities isn't challenging - it's frustrating for no good reason.
During pre-expansion WoW, I did numerous five-person instances with wildly varying pickup groups. Sometimes, our only "healer" was the hunter healing her pet, or the tank was the warlock's voidwalker. Those were edge-of-disaster runs because we had people and pets filling roles they weren't optimized for, but they were both challenging and fun to do, as they required a lot of sideways thinking, and finding new uses for abilities. I'd rather see GoblinWorks go this route than place barriers specifically designed to permanently thwart a less-than-optimal group.
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Goblin Squad Member
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That means ability requirements for accomplishing a goal is in your estimation 'bad', and it is a very short step to 'Everyone gets to win', as if to be a good game nobody can fail and everyone 'wins'.That's exactly right. PFO is a business venture. It's in their interest, and it's in the players' interest, for PFO to be successful.
To do that, they need to avoid pissing people off.
The best way to do that? Not introduce masochistic elements to the gameplay. People have plenty of frustration with real life, they don't really want it in their escapist fantasy entertainment.
Not winning as much as someone else is already perceived by the player to be a pretty harsh punishment, why compound that sensation by harming the player as well? The player's perceptions are the only thing that matters.
This is all true and why set-in-stone roles such as healer in HT combat causes problems if a role is less interactive. In soccer this would be for a "kick around" goalie. Common interaction in a park: "Hey bro, your turn in goal next!" "But I'm so bad in goal." "So's everybody else." :)
But what I'm thinking is dungeons should have variables proportionally higher and partly based on the group engaged in exploring the dungeon: So it's the net set of skills that is needed: Some runs one player may as well be dead wood (in extremis; law of averages would be more equitable), but that's the spread bet of taking a mix of skills and not knowing what the dungeon has in store.
Something like: If you know what is in the dungeon before you set foot in it, something is wrong with the dungeon?!
Huh? I was going to post that you were misunderstood. Now I am not so sure that I can. When I play games, I play for the challenge. Some I win, some I lose. I do want the challenge though.
It seemed to me that you were stating (in a nutshell) that you thought this game would be best served by designing it's PVE encounters with a "many options to defeat encounter" outlook rather than an "only one way past here design". Was I misunderstanding you?
No, that's exactly correct.
Besides, having options is what allows it to be a game in the first place. Otherwise it's just a boring movie. And these days, I would argue that "boring movie" is a tautology.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm hopeful that Dungeons will be something that you only expect to clear with a full raid, and any size and combination of characters can group up to get something out of them.
YES! The extent of what adventurers can sequester out of their runs, is exactly the enjoyable decision-making long and short game of it.
They may get to a situation where they have some returns and decide how much more they want with each new danger encountered being the normal range of where they are at. I think the devs might in the background varying the frequency of resources also that can come into a dungeon equally, so players can learn the odds of X level of challenge after Y time/progress in dungeon = odds of further value of rewards possible to gain, is not worked out or is easier to work out with less dungeon remaining to be explored *though again extent of dungeons could also be variable if randomly generated without giving players a full map until it's explored!* :)
Keep throwing curve-balls at players, but between their preparation and skill (& experience with the variables and types of dungeons (eg rocky area more likely type of resource etc) as a team and decision on cost/reward (+ actually fun mobs and environments and mix of) = fun.
There is a significant difference between a game and entertainment. In games someone wins, and as corollary someone loses.
Only in some games. Not all of them. Not all games are "zero sum". Just like the economy "in real life" is not a zero sum game -- someone profiting does not necessarily mean that someone else has to lose or pay anything.
I don't think GW wants to produce a work of music where everyone wins and nobody loses. If you make a good game you are providing an arena in which there are winners and losers.
That's just incorrect. It's a perception caused by a warped worldview that's quite beyond the scope of this thread to deconstruct, though. Suffice to say that the field of game design, as a segment of human knowledge and a discipline of study, has advanced radically in the last few decades.
Every good story has conflict. Conflict resolved requires at least one winner and one loser, though the loser may gain something else, something unexpected. That is what the plot of every tale is all about. Every game has competition in which there are winners and losers. If you describe a fictional setting in which there are no winners and no losers you are not describing a game, nor are you describing a good tale.
A story and a game are fundamentally different things.
A game might tell a story, it might include and contain a story, but the game is not even at all similar to what a story is.
A game involves participants with agency governed by a system of rules, interacting with some goal. A game's goal may or may not be one in which a player gains by another's loss, it may or may not be the goal of uncovering a story, the goal of a game is defined by its designers and could be just about anything so long as the designer can define it, either implicitly or explicitly. The players are not even necessarily aware of what the goal is. All multiplayer games involve the interaction of players with each other, no matter how tenuously, but this does not imply that all multiplayer games or that all games in general are PvP -- and even furthermore, it doesn't imply that even PvP games always involve one player gaining by the another's loss. There can be non-PvP elements for players in a PvP game to engage with cooperatively. Even the purest competition does not necessarily require such "predator-prey" dynamics as the competition is only a measure of achievement. He who achieves most, wins. This doesn't necessarily mean that "he who achieves most must do so by harming the others" unless you'd go so far as to declare that simply by being "the winner" and excluding others from being "the winner" that the winner has harmed others by dint of denial. Which seems a bit of a pedantic stretch to me. But competition isn't the only form of multiplayer game. Collaboration is another form.
A story is a static recording. It does not involve interaction in the sense of a two-way exchange. It is not dynamic. It doesn't respond. A story would be music or a novel: the concept of "winning" is inapplicable because there is no goal and there is no system by which an audience might engage with the story other than to passively experience it. You can't "win at music", that's right.
So the saying that every good story has conflict is simply not a useful axiom for game design. Just as "two points make a line" is inapplicable to reality because there is in fact no such thing as either a point or a line. Those ideas are nothing but constructs of the imagination useful for philosophy (mathematics) but they don't actually exist. Perhaps some games rely heavily on the appeal of storytelling elements to engage with players, but that isn't what makes them games. Puzzle games, for example, don't necessarily have conflict in the story sense of the term. Many puzzle games are just pure interaction with a player who precipitates reward for himself through that interaction.
If you can't understand the difference between, for example, watching a movie and being a player in a game, you are fundamentally unfit to do game design or have an opinion about it. Doesn't mean you can't enjoy experiencing games, though.
This I disagree with this a lot. I find frustration in real life when I have expectations that my best efforts will succeed, but they don't. Most of the time I do not know all the facts to make my best effort my best effort. It is at best "the best effort knowing what I know". In life I can not know enough to always assure that my best effort will be enough. My life sucks when I resent that I don't get what I want.
In PFO I want to have the chance to say "Wow, that didn't go well! What can I do to have a better shot at that?" PFO, unlike life, has a "How To Manual", namely the written rules. This makes getting better by knowing more possible. I am sure that I will forget something that will kill my character, probably a lot of times. I don't feel frustrated by that. It is an opportunity to become more skilled through the experience of getting killed. Not like life at all.
It's because PFO is unlike life that you are able to avoid the experience of frustration. Your viewpoint toward a setback in PFO is not what I meant by "frustration". A "gameplay frustration" would be the situation in which you discover that, no matter what you learn, no matter what you do, no matter what the future may bring, you cannot overcome "this" obstacle. That's not the same thing as being forced to retreat and develop a better strategy for next time. So I think you'll find that you and I have very similar outlooks in this matter after all.
Something like: If you know what is in the dungeon before you set foot in it, something is wrong with the dungeon?!
Knowing that you absolutely must have an X, a Y and a Z class to deal with the dungeon is definitely a form of "knowing what is in the dungeon".