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www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViU5xr0dBMQ


So I watched the interview on YouTube...

@Trevor Kid: Please use a better microphone and not the one built into your laptop. Also please talk slower. You were really hard to understand.


@Mike / Jeremy:

One thing I was frustrated about was that you designers kept giggling how "easy it is to change the math of the game".

This statement is bogus.

Sure... if you have the proper linked excelsheet it is really easy to change a few base numbers and the program does the rest. However it's obviously a very hard task to find the "right" numbers. Otherwise you'd have set them to proper values already.

The December version of the game made fights more interesting. But the amount of damage the monsters do is still so high that you can't survive them without proper damage reduction and healing countermeasures (parry, a cleric in the party, kiting, running away)

Obviously the math is "not right yet". So please stop laughing about it how "easy it would be to change it".
Do it then!



Also to whoever uploads this to YouTube: Please add the broadcast dates to the video title so the proper one can be found more easily later. And thanks for creating a G+ event this time. This helped a lot with time planning.

What they mean is that Math is objective, and crunching numbers is absolute. They can calculate all day and never break a sweat. Changing numbers isn't always easy, it's just not as hard as some of their other tasks.

What is hard is getting the feel of the game right. Feel is entirely subjective and differs from person to person. This is where things get sticky. Knowing that Fighters need to deal X damage is the easy part. Finding a way to deliver that in an interesting, and engaging manner is the hard part.

Remember that the math is really only the base level of the game. It's the core foundation, but it's also the most "basic" level of the game. Getting into the aesthetics of play and the feel of the experience is a much more cerebral activity for everyone involved :P

Jan 16, 2013 -- 3:33PM, Jenks wrote:

Remember that the math is really only the base level of the game. It's the core foundation, but it's also the most "basic" level of the game. Getting into the aesthetics of play and the feel of the experience is a much more cerebral activity for everyone involved :P

Unfortunately the math and logic behind the mechanics are what ultimately determine a great deal of the aesthetics. Sure, there are approximations you can pick from for different distributions, but they are objectively wrong if they believe changing the math without changing the feel and function of game mechanics is easy.

Its my opinion that they don't fully understand the math of the game and how it interacts, they don't understand basic statistics or they wouldn't be making the mistakes they are now...

I agree with them on the math point, actually. It's dreadfully easy to change numbers around, the asthetic doesn't necessarily care what the math does and you can design a game like this conceptually from the ground up without thinking about the math at all. They're usually called campaign settings at that point.

As for getting the numbers right, yeah that's harder. I didn't really take what they were saying about changing the math to mean that getting it right was easy, I just took it to mean that they were really comfortable with changing stuff 'cause the worst thing that would happen is they change it back. At least by trying they've seen what's what.

I agree with most of what they said, and this vid made me very hopeful for the first time in a wwhile.


Math is easy to change and can be change 20-50 times in 2 months, getting it right is just keep pushing till it works.


I wonder what class is comeing at winter fantasy, and what the totaly new class is.


I hope we see bladsinger/swordmage/magus type class, I hope we see warlord soonish.


I also love the weapon idea, all weapon mastry classes gain more w's and can give them up for extra attacks but not against the same target.           

Jan 17, 2013 -- 7:57AM, GMforPowergamers wrote:

I wonder what class is comeing at winter fantasy, and what the totaly new class is.

I think it will be Druid or Paladin, as they are both mentioned in the Magic Item doc, and I think the totally new class will be the Dragon-Boy-Sorcerer-Thingy they brought out a packet or two back.

Jan 16, 2013 -- 3:26PM, Cypher2009 wrote:

Do it then!

Missing the point.  Changing the numbers is easy, yes, but it also doesn't matter at this stage.  They're going much more for general feel than tuned numbers, and rightly so.

Of course, it'd help if the math is close, but the level of fine balancing that some people want is not practical, nor even desirable.  It's wasted work if they later change or remove a feature that you insisted they spend a lot of time on fine tuning.

Funny that Jeremy is a bit of a history buff, if he is that anal about longsword vs long sword.... imagine how he feels about Chainmail and Studded Leather

Could we potentially maybe see equipment cleaned up in DDN ? lol  I doubt it ....but still interesting to note that those who think like that are not alone.

Jan 17, 2013 -- 11:18AM, Mand12 wrote:

Of course, it'd help if the math is close, but the level of fine balancing that some people want is not practical, nor even desirable.  It's wasted work if they later change or remove a feature that you insisted they spend a lot of time on fine tuning.

I actually agree with what you're saying here, but I think often what makes people not like the "feel" of a power or feature isn't just that it wasn't presented right but whether or not they get the math even close to what they intended. The math is the implementation, so if the power sucks it's probably because the designers chose math that didn't match their expectations. Designers who have trouble with that sort of thing aren't going to be able to just change numbers later. At the moment it's hard to tell what "feels right" because none of the game math currently synchs and so we have no consistant benchmarks for how this game is supposed to play. We can't even use history as a reliable guideline for what defines D&D because different editions have had radically different playstyles even over the own spans.

Jan 17, 2013 -- 7:57AM, GMforPowergamers wrote:

I wonder what class is comeing at winter fantasy, and what the totaly new class is.

part of me hopes it is a re design of the warlord under a new name,having a alternative to the martial healing as it was in 4th edition becouse many players of older edtition don't seem to like the idea of martial healing.

Jan 17, 2013 -- 1:48PM, edwin_su wrote:

Jan 17, 2013 -- 7:57AM, GMforPowergamers wrote:

I wonder what class is comeing at winter fantasy, and what the totaly new class is.

part of me hopes it is a re design of the warlord under a new name,having a alternative to the martial healing as it was in 4th edition becouse many players of older edtition don't seem to like the idea of martial healing.

 I don't think its the problem of non magical healing but more the way it was implemented in 4th ed. Healing surges were to abundent and felt to gamey. I've used them in other games but you only get 1 not 10 or 14.

Jan 17, 2013 -- 1:48PM, edwin_su wrote:

Jan 17, 2013 -- 7:57AM, GMforPowergamers wrote:

I wonder what class is comeing at winter fantasy, and what the totaly new class is.

part of me hopes it is a re design of the warlord under a new name,having a alternative to the martial healing as it was in 4th edition becouse many players of older edtition don't seem to like the idea of martial healing.

I figure out a short while ago (just at the holidays) what I really want is a non magic Int and/or Wis based class. Warlord was fine, and I loved it becuse it was what I was looking for, but there are other options.