In all my years of playing the "horribly unbalanced" versions of the game, I never once thought it was unbalanced. High level wizards decimated everyone else, and that seemed perfectly fair. And I'm not saying that because I played wizards. I never played a wizard. I figure they deserve it, they needed the most XP, had the lowest HP, etc. You'd be lucky if your party's wizard survived to level 2, much less 20. But now with 4e, I greatly appreciate the balance.
I never felt outclassed either and I've never played a wizard. My guy was always doing plenty of awesome stuff and we have plenty of different challenges to take on. Viva entertainment!
I'm on a journey of enlightenment, learning and self-improvement. A journey towards mastery. A journey that will never end.
If you challenge me, prepare to be challenged. If you have something to offer as a fellow student, I will accept it. If you call yourself a master, prepare to be humbled. If you seek me, look to the path. I will be traveling it. #SuperDungeonMasterIITurbo
Yamagi seems to be single handedly convinced he can carry on an edition war because someone said that 3E is less than perfect (it's less than perfect. And pathfailure fixes nothing).
That's the thing. They worked so hard to make a balanced game that SEEMED so balanced that they forgot that people like powerful stuff that seems broken. People gobble that up.
Some people enjoy this. Me, I say if you like it, revel in the brokenness. Mage: The Awakening and Exalted are both gloriously, spectacularly unbalanced and ridiculous. Both systems have their flaws and merits.
D&D was playing by the rules that half the players were spectacularly unbalanced, and half the players were playing fair. My experience is that in long-term groups that bred house rules and resentment, and my session prep time grew as system mastery increased.
But the point here is that you're overgeneralizing to fuel your goddamn edition war.
I don't see Yagami edition warring really, and Pathfinder did give the fighter more options, and the wizard some super-low level spells that he could rely on even when he was out of other stuff, which were both things 4e did, and those were fixes in both cases.
Yamagi seems to be single handedly convinced he can carry on an edition war because someone said that 3E is less than perfect (it's less than perfect. And pathfailure fixes nothing).
That's the thing. They worked so hard to make a balanced game that SEEMED so balanced that they forgot that people like powerful stuff that seems broken. People gobble that up.
Some people enjoy this. Me, I say if you like it, revel in the brokenness. Mage: The Awakening and Exalted are both gloriously, spectacularly unbalanced and ridiculous. Both systems have their flaws and merits.
D&D was playing by the rules that half the players were spectacularly unbalanced, and half the players were playing fair. My experience is that in long-term groups that bred house rules and resentment, and my session prep time grew as system mastery increased.
But the point here is that you're overgeneralizing to fuel your goddamn edition war.
3E was flawed. Get over it.
All editions are flawed. And I was speaking fo AD&D and 3.5.
I get it, you want to fight about editions. Good for you.
In fact, you're the one that has been doing nothing but attacking other editions. Hot button issue with you or something? I stopped playing 3.5 and switched to Mutants & Masterminds because of the system break-down at higher levels. I don't champion 3.5. Like many games it requires heavy moderation to make work.
However, ALSO like many games, scrubs love to yell "BROKEN!" at the top of their lungs...but the funny part is, that doesn't even matter in a non PvP game.
Let me guess, you would cry foul if someone beat you in Street Fighter by throwing 40 fireballs and doing nothing else, yes? (serious question by the way)
"Broken" doesn't matter to me in a tabletop game...because the "broken" portion being discussed is at a point when the challenge fo combat is trivially easy for the most part anyways (or, at best, it's throwing chainsaws at each other and seeing who flinches first) and so the game has to either take a different tack (my previous statements about the PC challenges changing to match their capability) or, start over with new characters at the levels where the math is solid...or make good enough house rules that things don't break. Since the first one requires really solid DMing with players that want to develop their characters in non-combat ways (though with combat still present) and the third one requires good design ability to keep things still progressing, the second is usually the best option for people. It is what it is.
I got over the flaws in games A LONG time ago. Clearly you, however, have not.
Do you want to know why I didn't play 4E? It didn't do what I needed it to do as well as Mutants & Masterminds did at the time.
Speaking purely from a design stand-point, I can see what many of the goals of the system (4E) were and the game gives a really good initial impression regarding balance. One issue with this is that in a game setting, many people don't want the appearance of balance. They want to feel like they are discovering powerful things. This is why things like "builds" are so popular in MMOs...they allow people access to "secret tech" (otherwise known as "lore") that lets them acquire something closer to system mastery. In a game environment, even a PvE one, people generally do not want to feel they are doing exactly as well as everyone else...they like to feel they are excelling. When the game goes to far to give these paths to players you can run into the issue where the players feel like the game is playing itself and that there is no challenge to their decision making. This is similar to the "false challenge" that overly balanced encounters can provide. At that point, the challenge of the encounters has to become figuring out the strategic quality of any given situation. Depending on the players this means thta these optimal strategies could be discovered quite quickly...which can require constantly new strategic challenges.
Again, that design methodology (strategic optimization) is not necessarily a bad thing. However, it's almost-necessary growing complexity and compounding means that strategic situations can become VERY unwieldly. As they grow more unwieldly, you run into the situation that in an RPG it is difficult to justify identical situations of the same strategic composition when they are that complicated. This is the crux of situations in MMOs like very powerful epic bosses...their danger is the strategic optimization required to defeat them. People will meet this challenge again and again to maximize their performance to be rewarded with loot. In a tabletop, repeating such challenges is not always narratively viable...it might not make sense. Hence, players might not get a chance to test and excel in a strategically optimized situation because they'll only get one GO at that particular situation.
I could go further into detail about 3E or 4E if you like and where they fail & succeed...but somehow, I feel like you're just going to attack me again about "edition warring" because you seem to have some deep seated issues about the whole thing. Frankly, you love reading intention into pretty much everything I write. Could you just make it funny next time and escalate it in the normal online manner of saying I support fascism or something?
I'm on a journey of enlightenment, learning and self-improvement. A journey towards mastery. A journey that will never end.
If you challenge me, prepare to be challenged. If you have something to offer as a fellow student, I will accept it. If you call yourself a master, prepare to be humbled. If you seek me, look to the path. I will be traveling it. #SuperDungeonMasterIITurbo
YagamiFire, your support for fascism is troubling, but fortunately off-topic for the thread, so we can just drop it for now until someone starts a fascism thread.
However, in earlier posts it really did sound like you were strongly condemning 4th edition. It wasn't just GreyICE reading it that way. Personally, I don't feel competent to compare/contrast the editions since 4th is the only one I've played.
And how did 4E do with unified mechanics? Hrmm...yeah
See, Yamagi, this isn't a system criticism. I can ask you "how well did Mutants and Masterminds do with the approach you described? Worse than 4E? Yeah."
What does that say about Mutants and Masterminds as a system? Nothing. It tells everyone exactly nothing. It was just starting an edition war to distract from a point you did not appreciate. You can try and cover it up all you like, but unless you're willing to take the position that the only arbiter of how quality a system is is the system's popularity (a standard that would leave Mutants and Masterminds in the dust) then your statement was a non sequiter designed only to attack 4E.
As for what 4E did that was so good, it focused heavily on narrative play and telling a compelling and intricate story over dungeon crawling and trying to have nitpicky rules for everything. A good portion of D&D's crowds always did enjoy the nitpicky rules, and that (combined with a distinct disdain for simulationism) combined to drive them away. As for newer players, 4E produced some of the most horrific modules for them that you could ever imagine, and anyone who played one of the modules as an "introduction to D&D" came away with the impression that "this game is pretty crap" (the module was pretty crap, but when it's your only experience with the game...). Combine that with 4E releasing at least a year too early, and thus quite a few things never being as refined as they wanted them to be (MM1 was junk, Skill Challenges in DMG were the seed of a great system but as presented were junk).
As for the appearance that decisions don't matter, I assure you in 4E decisions are more complex and matter more than in any previous edition. They are simply decisions made during the heat of battle, to define the flow of battle, not decisions made while scribbling on a character sheet that tell you how every battle from now until your next level up will play out. Some people have trouble with that, it's true. It means there's a lot more risk of winning and losing based on bad decisions, and the right decision isn't always obvious. Some don't like that level of responsibility and potential lethality.
YagamiFire, your support for fascism is troubling, but fortunately off-topic for the thread, so we can just drop it for now until someone starts a fascism thread.
However, in earlier posts it really did sound like you were strongly condemning 4th edition. It wasn't just GreyICE reading it that way. Personally, I don't feel competent to compare/contrast the editions since 4th is the only one I've played.
That's because the criticism could be leveled. So I did. 4E is worth criticizing.
All editions are worth criticizing. The proof is in the pudding...4E HAD unified mechanics but then added on non-unified mechanics. Why? Because as-designed, the unified mechanics weren't overly supportable.
It is similar in that regard to 3E's over-versatility. One of 3E's design goals was to have the 1-20 levels of a character be very versatile in what you were able to take with some built in limiters to balance that out. It failed pretty miserably in that regard. It was bad design work from the word GO.
Just as 4E suffers from an over-reliance on strategic optimization in a medium where repeated attempts at the same strategic scenario are going to be limited (by narrative constraints), 3E suffered from being unable to balance, in any way, it's open-ended build ability. It had a static cost (downsides to multi-classing) versus a non-static pay-off (ever more classes offering ever more ways to get strong combinations). That is poor design work. It has its head in the right place for wide-angle player appeal but it is poorly implemented. I mean, just look at Wizard as a class versus ANY prestige class with full wizard spell progression. Poor design work.
I can understand your point. I do strongly condemn many of the choices and methodologies employed in 4th Edition...I also strongly condemn many of the choices and methodologies employed in 3rd Edition.
Always have. Always will. Because there's major problems that are evident so it's easy.
I'm on a journey of enlightenment, learning and self-improvement. A journey towards mastery. A journey that will never end.
If you challenge me, prepare to be challenged. If you have something to offer as a fellow student, I will accept it. If you call yourself a master, prepare to be humbled. If you seek me, look to the path. I will be traveling it. #SuperDungeonMasterIITurbo
This is a game, people. We're not talking politics or religion here. The game is fun. This forum isn't. I feel bad for Wizards. They're screwed. Next will never satisfy the people like they're hoping it will.
..."window.parent.tinyMCE.get('post_content').onLoad.dispatch();" contenteditable="true" />See, Yamagi, this isn't a system criticism.
Nope. That IS a system criticism. I can criticize 4E all day and can, personally speaking, do so quite academically if you'd like. I went into a bit in some previous posts.
I can ask you "how well did Mutants and Masterminds do with the approach you described? Worse than 4E? Yeah."
What does that say about Mutants and Masterminds as a system? Nothing. It tells everyone exactly nothing. It was just starting an edition war to distract from a point you did not appreciate. You can try and cover it up all you like, but unless you're willing to take the position that the only arbiter of how quality a system is is the system's popularity (a standard that would leave Mutants and Masterminds in the dust) then your statement was a non sequiter designed only to attack 4E.
I can gladly expand on anything I say...in fact, I have in several posts. The "balance" of 4E did not serve a net "gain" because "balance" in a game, in and of itself, does not necessarily provide any sort of benefit. It is a derived value.
As far as Mutants & Masterminds, yes it beat the living hell out of 4E in regards to what I needed at the time as a player. That is not a criticism of 4E so much as it is a fact. You can debate that 4E was better for what I needed, but you'll find that argument to be QUITE silly and you'll be quite easily proveably wrong. Might not stop you though so feel free.
As for what 4E did that was so good, it focused heavily on narrative play and telling a compelling and intricate story over dungeon crawling and trying to have nitpicky rules for everything. A good portion of D&D's crowds always did enjoy the nitpicky rules, and that (combined with a distinct disdain for simulationism) combined to drive them away.
Nothing about a system focuses on telling a compelling and intricate story. That is in the hands of the DM. You are right though that it dropped a lot of the rules bloat that occured in 3rd Ed. Definitely a good route to go too as the rules-lite approach served AD&D far better than the increasing complexity of 3rd Ed served itself. What you see there is a rubber-band effect of design when design takes into consideration TOO MUCH input from players. It is the equivalent of "reflex nerfing" characters or strategies in games that seem powerful but that thorough play has not been done upon. For instance, in AD&D you had bad DMs that could not be consistent with their rulings or be clear with them or even have the brains to make them in the first place. This lead to the players getting up in arms and demanding THE SYSTEM handle all of that. So you got 3rd Ed with a million rules to cover every possible scenario they could think of so that playesr would be able to refer to these rules in the absence of a competent DM. However, that is not a good design aesthetic because too many rules becomes cumbersome unless something is managing them in the background...since this puts MORE on the DMs plate it becomes problematic and the rules have to be referenced a zillion times unless your DM has a good head for that stuff and can either remember it or fairly arbitrate it (which you'll notice is the same skill set that eliminated issues with AD&D).
That then rubber-banded back with the players saying "Too many rules! Just side with us in most situations! We don't need a rule for everything! We want balance!"...unfortunately, balance is not that great a thing when that is your over-arching design goal which it most definitely was for 4th Ed..in fact, a recent interview even states how they went overboard with it. Similarly, going very rules lite on a lot of stuff can run into the same problems that AD&D had with bad DMs. Similarly, it bloats all the rules into one category (combat) which then bloats that portion of the game...which is why combat becomes such a long affair in 4th Ed. It is a design necessity. Since the "game" portion of the system is so heavily tied mechanically into combat and little else, that portion of the game becomes very robust. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? No, but mileage will vary.
Now with 5th, I suspect they are going to try to strike a balance...however, what they SHOULDN'T do is listen overly to the fans. It is one of those things that SOUNDs nice and fluffy, but isn't overly useful. (I'm gonna generalize here so bear with me) Fans do not understand design. Fans do not understand mechanics. Fans do not care about business success. Fans, rarely, even know what discrete qualities they actually like in a thing. Especially when that thing is recent and fresh in their minds. Instead, what they need to do is focus on making a good, solid game with good, solid design aesthetics...good, solid system mechanics...and a good, solid way to explain it all ESPECIALLY to DMs because it is the skillset of a DM that makes or breaks a table. No system repeat NO SYSTEM will ever adequately compensate for a DM that is not prepared for or capable of running that system. For a good example, just look back at what recently happened in football...the players weren't any worse, but those games were BAD (from what I understand) because the refs weren't capable of running the game. They lacked the skillset.
As for newer players, 4E produced some of the most horrific modules for them that you could ever imagine, and anyone who played one of the modules as an "introduction to D&D" came away with the impression that "this game is pretty crap" (the module was pretty crap, but when it's your only experience with the game...). Combine that with 4E releasing at least a year too early, and thus quite a few things never being as refined as they wanted them to be (MM1 was junk, Skill Challenges in DMG were the seed of a great system but as presented were junk).
Agreed. And this is the worst sort of failing you can have. Street Fighter 4 didn't have to be a technical masterpiece...it just had to be fun as hell at the introductory level to respark a generations interest in fighting games. It did. That was the big, primary goal of it's design...to recapture the original FIRE of fighting games. It did. Was it 100% technically sound? Nope. Did that matter? Nah. Is it a good game? Yup. Is it perfect? Nope. Did they STRIVE for complete balance out of the gate? Nope.
So again, we are back to the point that if 4E had done a better job of preparing its DMs peoples first experiences would have been better because the modules were "crap"...and "crap" is multiplied by the value of X where X = crappiness of DM. So any bad DMs just made it that much worse. This is a problem every edition has had, but the symptoms keep getting treated instead of the problem. Hopefully 5th will move towards fixing that...I am not holding my breath though.
As for the appearance that decisions don't matter, I assure you in 4E decisions are more complex and matter more than in any previous edition. They are simply decisions made during the heat of battle, to define the flow of battle, not decisions made while scribbling on a character sheet that tell you how every battle from now until your next level up will play out. Some people have trouble with that, it's true. It means there's a lot more risk of winning and losing based on bad decisions, and the right decision isn't always obvious. Some don't like that level of responsibility and potential lethality.
That does reinforce my statement that 4E is more about strategic optimization...which also ties into my points about the potential pitfalls and failings of strategic optimization as a game design conceit. Thank you for supporting me.
I'm on a journey of enlightenment, learning and self-improvement. A journey towards mastery. A journey that will never end.
If you challenge me, prepare to be challenged. If you have something to offer as a fellow student, I will accept it. If you call yourself a master, prepare to be humbled. If you seek me, look to the path. I will be traveling it. #SuperDungeonMasterIITurbo
This is a game, people. We're not talking politics or religion here. The game is fun. This forum isn't. I feel bad for Wizards. They're screwed. Next will never satisfy the people like they're hoping it will.
It could. It really could. However, the people would have to be open to it. That's less on Wizards and more on the people they're preaching too. In some ways, they might be better served doing the fighting game route...take a long haiatus, let a new generation come up and present everything fresh to them. Businesses aren't big on waiting 15 years though...even if it IS leading them to continually tainting their well water.
As far as the forum, yeah it's pretty bad. I could make this forum a lot better if more people followed my lead...could make it far more helpful too. But, again, that relies on people being happy to get what they're asking for. Thankfully, some people align with my thinking so that gives me plenty of reason to stick around.
I'm on a journey of enlightenment, learning and self-improvement. A journey towards mastery. A journey that will never end.
If you challenge me, prepare to be challenged. If you have something to offer as a fellow student, I will accept it. If you call yourself a master, prepare to be humbled. If you seek me, look to the path. I will be traveling it. #SuperDungeonMasterIITurbo
