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5 months ago ::
Dec 18, 2012 - 2:13PM
#31
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Date Joined:
Sep 20, 2004
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Lokiare posting a useless poll? Never...
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5 months ago ::
Dec 18, 2012 - 2:47PM
#32
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Lokiare posting a useless poll? Never...
Cyber-Dave trolling a Lokiare thread? Never...
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5 months ago ::
Dec 18, 2012 - 2:59PM
#33
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Date Joined:
May 17, 2009
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When I see these threads, I think I get more amusement from the hoops Lokiare has to jump through to get people to actually answer what he's asking, rather than answering "would you buy a half-finished game?" than anything else.
I feel for you, bro.
Seriously, though, you should check out the PbP Haven. You might also like Real Adventures, IF you're cool. | Knights of W.T.F.- Silver Spur Winner | |
4enclave, a place where 4e fans can talk 4e in peace.
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5 months ago ::
Dec 18, 2012 - 3:28PM
#34
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This is the same reason why I won't playtest 13th Age: I don't pay to play unless what I have is a finished product in my hand, or I'm paying for something else that's finished alongside it. I don't care if I'd get a "free" copy of the finished product later, I'm not "buying" the work-in-progress.
However, I am VERY devoted to seein DDN make it from work-in-progress to something I like, and something almost all players will like, and I like the direction they've taken some things, while other things may be either steps in the right direction or thrown out there to test what the limit of "right" is. We're only seeing half the story here, Lokiare.
A great man once said "If WotC put out boxes full of free money there'd still be people complaining about how it's folded." – Boraxe
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5 months ago ::
Dec 18, 2012 - 5:26PM
#35
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Date Joined:
Oct 17, 2007
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Only reading through the packet (I cannot find players for the playtest anymore) I was thinking to myself: that could have worked as an advancement over 3rd in 2008. But then 4E happenend and now it seems to me like there is still a long way to go. But YVMV of course.
Yeah, it feels a bit like getting a portable CD player to upgrade from a walkman when there are iPods around already...
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5 months ago ::
Dec 18, 2012 - 5:28PM
#36
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Not yet, but it's gotten closer to my threshold.
Why Mechanics-Alignment Integration is Bad
Show
so why even play a fighter if you can play the paladin the exact same way behaviorally and get added power to boot. "Paladin" is about accepting better game-enhancing mechanics at the price of more rigid in game behavior.
Really? So it goes something like this?
Fighter: "I want to be a paladin."
NPC: "Really?"
Fighter: "Yes."
NPC: "Very well." Starts reading from a holy book while still in-character "Do you accept having to choose and stick to the lawful good alignment, eventhough neither of us actually knows that it exists or what it is?"
Fighter: "I do."
NPC: "Do you reject good game balance because you accidentally rolled a high Charisma?"
Fighter: "What?"
NPC: "I don't know what it means either."
Fighter: "Oh. Umm, ok I do."
NPC: "In the name of all that is metagamey and broken, accept these better game enhancing mechanics."
Fighter: "These what?"
NPC: "Just get out there and try to fulfill a million different people's notion of good while not violating and part of any of them."
So the system is designed such that every single hit needs to be described to avoid confusion? Here's a scenario. The players are nudists, everybody in the world are nudists, it's not weird, it's totally normal in this land. They are naked and they fight drakes taking damage throughout, but healing up with surges. Later they meet the guy who raised the drakes.
Part 1: I didn't describe any of the hits. What does he see?
Part 2: Lets say I described the drakes as biting the players, yet they healed up. What does he see?
D20 Modern Toon PC Race.
Mecha Pilot's Skill Challenge Emporium.
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5 months ago ::
Dec 18, 2012 - 5:34PM
#37
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No, I've already got the packet! 
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5 months ago ::
Dec 20, 2012 - 9:09PM
#38
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Date Joined:
Oct 11, 2009
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I love where they're going with class and spell design and balance, I love the emphasis on speed of play, and even to some extent, simplicity at the table (not the simplicity in character creation or a PC's very limited list of abilities). But I really dislike the current presentation of high level play. I don't think it will make for interesting encounters, although I think it will do well to make exploration or RP interesting.
But I wouldn't buy it, and won't if the current trend continues. The bounded accuracy and flat math just kills it for me. I like the idea of slower scaling, but I think this is too far, both with bonuses, and with class options. To me, a 20th level PC feels like he/she should be a 10th level PC. If they bumped up the scaling just a bit, and were willing to slightly increase the options for high level PCs, I'd be on board a lot more.
Basically if you break the game down into tiers, the current game is a great way to make an entire game based on the heroic tier. But most of my campaigns really hit their stride in the paragon and epic tiers, and it doesn't look like Next will do a good job of supporting that.
Most campaigns, across the player base, don't even reach the "Paragon" tier (I remember reading that the highest most people play to is around 8th level); so, the game's initial release should focus on the "Heroic" tier. That is the foundation for any higher tier to be built on.
Are you saying that, even if you refuse to buy the game that is focused on heroic tier at release, you wouldn't buy it a year or two later, even if it has released support for paragon and epic tiers that has been lauded by the masses?
I want them to design the game from the ground up, without being rushed into any part of the design process; and it only makes sense to finish the lower tier before finishing the upper tiers. I'm not saying that the lower tiers can be designed without the upper tiers in mind, certain things need to be planned across the tiers; but you can't focus on the upper tiers until the lower tier designing is complete.
That being said, I, personally, would not have a problem with the initial release being heroic tier only.
NO!
Next is getting farther away from anything resembling a product I'd purchase. The Dev Team talked a good game at Gen Con, but nearly every pack takes huge steps backwards in my opinion. (There are steps forward here and there, but even some of those get changed for the negative in the next pack.)
I've spent more hours than I can count testing and providing VERY in-depth feedback to WotC, and little to none of it appears to be sinking in. And I'm not alone in my feedback views based on forum watching. Not always in the majority, but not a vocal minority either.
A quick glance at the latest packet is almost enough to make me want to stop investing my time. I'll eventually get around to absorbing the changes, but at first glance nothing I saw gave me any hope for real improvments.
Please keep in mind that the people that post on these forums, even the vocal majority here, is a small minority of the overall player base. The surveys, and even the on-line article comment sections, see a far broader spectrum of people responding to them than these forums do.
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5 months ago ::
Dec 20, 2012 - 9:54PM
#39
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Resembles is a bit too vague.
I like some of the directions this is going, but it is far from polished or finished and 11-20 are obviously in their infancy.
So, if we mean resembles in that we can barely figure out what to do with some characters after lev 10... no.
Also, I'm still eating through everything, but I'm not quite seeing the modularity I would like.
Also, I haven't seen any finished art yet...
I have an answer for you, it may even be the truth.
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5 months ago ::
Dec 21, 2012 - 2:59AM
#40
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Date Joined:
Aug 18, 2007
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I love where they're going with class and spell design and balance, I love the emphasis on speed of play, and even to some extent, simplicity at the table (not the simplicity in character creation or a PC's very limited list of abilities). But I really dislike the current presentation of high level play. I don't think it will make for interesting encounters, although I think it will do well to make exploration or RP interesting.
But I wouldn't buy it, and won't if the current trend continues. The bounded accuracy and flat math just kills it for me. I like the idea of slower scaling, but I think this is too far, both with bonuses, and with class options. To me, a 20th level PC feels like he/she should be a 10th level PC. If they bumped up the scaling just a bit, and were willing to slightly increase the options for high level PCs, I'd be on board a lot more.
Basically if you break the game down into tiers, the current game is a great way to make an entire game based on the heroic tier. But most of my campaigns really hit their stride in the paragon and epic tiers, and it doesn't look like Next will do a good job of supporting that.
Most campaigns, across the player base, don't even reach the "Paragon" tier (I remember reading that the highest most people play to is around 8th level); so, the game's initial release should focus on the "Heroic" tier. That is the foundation for any higher tier to be built on.
Are you saying that, even if you refuse to buy the game that is focused on heroic tier at release, you wouldn't buy it a year or two later, even if it has released support for paragon and epic tiers that has been lauded by the masses?
I want them to design the game from the ground up, without being rushed into any part of the design process; and it only makes sense to finish the lower tier before finishing the upper tiers. I'm not saying that the lower tiers can be designed without the upper tiers in mind, certain things need to be planned across the tiers; but you can't focus on the upper tiers until the lower tier designing is complete.
That being said, I, personally, would not have a problem with the initial release being heroic tier only.
I do believe that the vast majority of players do play in the heroic tier, it makes sense since most players will start at level 1 and go from there (especially casual players), and I believe that around 8th is where most of them end, because the campaign is getting a little long in the tooth at that point. But, I don't necessarily agree that the numbers taken from the character builder or even the surveys they've used so far are a particularly good representation of what players actually desire. The character builder is really only a good look at what kind of PCs people who use it are making, but not table play or what people who don't use it are doing. Survey's about levels in previous editions are substantially affected by how poorly the last to editions supported high level play. Survey's could be very accurate and useful in determining what sort of adventures (the tiers) people want to play, but so far I haven't seen one that focused on what people want to play, just what they have played. Regardless of how accurate the idea is that most players only care about the heroic tier or strongly prefer it, I still think it is vital that the game's engine work well through every level of play. It's one of those things you mention that need to be designed to work early on, and for my purposes, there's some pretty huge issues with that, especially from a math perspective. So would I buy it if it only supported the heroic tier? Absolutely not, because it would not support my campaigns. Furthermore, 4E & 3E both did great in the heroic tiere, and even now I don't think Next is better than either in the heroic tier, again because the math is a little weak (at low levels, bonuses are so small that it is the d20 and not a PC's design or "skills" that matters). If they did later release support for the higher tiers later on, again, it would have to be an improvement over 4E or 3E. With how cludgy those systems were at high level, this should be easy, but again, Next's math doesn't seem to be particularly suited to those levels. If that remains the case it will be difficult to make things work once the Core Engine and math have been finalized. I agree that they should spend more time and support on the heroic tier. But, first, they need the core math to work at all levels they intend to support. Otherwise, we will have yet another editions where high level play gets left behind because it was so cludgy.
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