Bard's Tale IV - Spotlight #2 - Combat

BoboTheMighty · August 23, 2018

Reminds me of Loren the Amazon princess for some reason.

Winterfart · August 23, 2018

Fantasm said:
Oh, and spell damage is based on Strength, which means that your high-STR mage does more melee damage than your high-CON fighter.

I don't understand how a game designer can think this is a good idea.
Like in Pillars of Eternity where my gunner had to be super strong do to damage with his pistols. That's really not immersive…

Fantasm said:
And since your opportunity points (ie, action points) for each round are spread among your entire party, your mage and rogue use all your action points to do damage, while your fighter LITERALLY just stands there as a meat shield and takes damage.

Ok, that's enough for me.
InXile already tarnished my memories of Planescape: Torment with their boring post card of a game named Numenera, they won't have one more euro from me…
Well except if Wasteland 3 is as decent as W2 was :thinking:

Thanks for your feedback.

Kordanor · August 23, 2018

Fantasm said:
So out of your massive pool of 12(!) spells (eventually…you start with like 3), you can only have 1-2 spells available to use at any one time.

You can select 4.

And you start each battle with 0 spell points and have to build them up each round

You can actually skill something that you start with some points right away.

Oh, and spell damage is based on Strength, which means that your high-STR mage does more melee damage than your high-CON fighter.

Strength= Power. It's not physical strength. Pillars of Eternity uses the same word to describe power. Misleading at first, yes. But once you see that wands increase strength you understand it, which is in the first 2 hours of gameplay

And since your opportunity points (ie, action points) for each round are spread among your entire party, your mage and rogue use all your action points to do damage, while your fighter LITERALLY just stands there as a meat shield and takes damage.

Your mage uses mana, he might not need to use action points. Also there are abilities which don't use neither action points nor mana.

All damage and defense values are constant, so there is no variance in action results. This makes combat feel more like a puzzle, where you're trying to calculate the most efficient way of doing damage to get a 35-HP mob down to 0.

There are still critical values. But besides of that I like that the outcome of a fight is not completely random. That would be horrible.

And what happens over time is, you soon find the optimal sequence of actions for your characters to take to systematically take down mobs, and pretty soon you find yourself doing the same thing over and over again every combat.

Unlikely as the enemy composition is different every time and because of the strict resource management, a very different order of skills might be efficient. Actually that is pretty different to the standard crawler, even MMX 10 as you did the same every turn in these games.

Oh, and I could only afford to buy one really good item with decent stats, because gold is sparse and there are no random encounters available anywhere to farm.

I am thankful for having no grind.

Copper Coin · August 24, 2018

Correction: Pillars uses the attribute 'might' to influence all damage. Not strength.

Kordanor · August 24, 2018

Silver Coin said:
Correction: Pillars uses the attribute 'might' to influence all damage. Not strength.

Ah, alright. Guess that's better than strength but still something "in between"

Winterfart · August 24, 2018

Silver Coin said:
Correction: Pillars uses the attribute 'might' to influence all damage. Not strength.

It still stupid that the "might" stat influence the damages made by projectile weapons. Does my character is frowning his eyebrows very hard to make bullets more lethal or what? :lol:

Also stupid that the same stats is used to calculate both melee damages (physical STR) and magical damages (mental STR).
It's just bad design.

I sometimes fear that the art of making good RPG systems is lost. Then I go watch Iron Tower updates about their games and I'm reassured.

Copper Coin · August 24, 2018

You're right that it doesn't make logical sense, but I consider it more fun than the alternative of having three individual attributes that affect damage for each weapon type. Sometimes fun trumps realism.

Also reality check: older RPG systems were generally pretty bad when it came to attributes. Most funneled you into min/maxing certain attributes depending on your build, whereas most newer RPG systems balance attributes so their useful across all builds.

Kordanor · August 24, 2018

I don't see why this is bad design. It's just combining 3 attributes which basically have zero useful distinction in these games into one.

In a game like Realms of Arkania it makes sense to have separate values, as you can basically have something between 14-18, and your maximum value you can ever reach is something like 21 I think.

But most computer games go like:
Mage:
Strength: 17
Intelligence: 170
Dexterity: 13

Ranger:
Strength: 12
Intelligence: 13
Dexterity: 171

Warrior:
Strength: 169
Intelligence: 12
Dexterity: 11

So in these games attributes are pretty much worthless. They leave zero actual choice as the two other attributes are useless. In addition the "unused" attributes don't reflect anything. If your Warrior is able to breach a door with a value of 150, that means that the Mage with str 17 shouldn't be able to even hold a rod made from plastic. And don't even think about how stupid the non-mage classes are.

In the end it's merging these attributes into one. Not a bad game design. Not incredibly clever either. It's just not making any difference.

Winterfart · August 24, 2018

Silver Coin said:
Most funneled you into min/maxing certain attributes depending on your build, whereas most newer RPG systems balance attributes so their useful across all builds.

Yeah and I actually thinks that's a terrible idea.

Copper Coin · August 24, 2018

Having all attributes be useful makes you think harder about your distribution.

Having useless attributes and false choices, like most crappy RPG systems back in the day, undermines the need for their existence at all. Attributes become trivial as a result.

Winterfart · August 24, 2018

Kordanor said:
So in these games attributes are pretty much worthless. They leave zero actual choice as the two other attributes are useless.

Wich is more realistic.
A mage don't need to be strong and a warrior don't need to be cerebral.
Who cares is some classes will always dump some particular stats? It doesn't harms the game and the immersion is safe.

They just invented the Might stat in PoE because Sawyer is obsessed with perfect balance. Only problem is: perfect balance has no taste and gives no fun. Especially in a solo game.

But I liked PoE, despite its boring main story and idiotic mechanics, so I'll stop there with the bashing (still, I'm glad Sawyer took a break).

Winterfart · August 24, 2018

Silver Coin said:
Having all attributes be useful makes you think harder about your distribution.

You would think that but no. As Sawyer said himself, you can distribute your points as you want "it doesn't make any difference because there's no bad choices".
Wich means there's no good choices either.
It's perfect balance.
It's lame…

Copper Coin · August 24, 2018

Winterfart said:
Who cares is some class will always dump some particular stats? It doesn't arms the game and the immersion is safe.

The problem with the min/max heavy RPGs isn't that you could dump stats, but that there were no consequences for doing so. PoE aside, there's something lame about a game that funnels you into a single efficient build by giving you false choices.

perfect balance has no taste and gives no fun. Especially in a solo game.

Balanced systems are good. They promote more thought and consideration into your build. Unbalanced systems do the opposite, which is why they are lame.

Copper Coin · August 24, 2018

Winterfart said:
there's no bad choices".
Wich means there's no good choices either.
It's perfect balance.
It's lame…

That's how it should be. Attributes should define your characters strengths and weaknesses. Not be some gamey mechanic that you exploit to be as efficient as possible.

If you dump an attribute to max another, you should suffer equally as much as you gain. That makes it a real choice, unlike the false ones of older RPG systems.

Winterfart · August 24, 2018

Silver Coin said:
That's how it should be. Attributes should define your characters strengths and weaknesses. Not be some gamey mechanic that you exploit to be as efficient as possible.

Both system define your character strenght and weakness and both are gamey.
Except the one you likes is illogical, unrealistic and break immersion. And more importantly tasteless.

Kordanor · August 24, 2018

Winterfart said:
Both system define your character strenght and weakness and both are gamey.
Except the one you likes is illogical, unrealistic and break immersion. And more importantly tasteless.

I could say the same to the one you prefer.

So let's just leave it at that.

Copper Coin · August 24, 2018

Winterfart said:
Both system define your character strenght and weakness and both are gamey.
Except the one you likes is illogical, unrealistic and break immersion.

A balanced system is not as gamey as an unbalanced system, because it's less prone to the cheesiness of min/maxing and powergaming.

I don't understand your realism argument. For starters, the existence of attributes to begin with is unrealistic and immersion breaking. In real life, people aren't defined by a series of numeric variables. Second of all, I'd argue that it's more unrealistic to be able to dump an important attribute like strength and not face any consequences.

And once again, why even have attributes if there are false choices in how you distribute them? It makes them seem pointless and redundant, and therefore lame.

Copper Coin · August 24, 2018

Winterfart said:
Both system define your character strenght and weakness and both are gamey.

One more thing. Your favored system doesn't define the characters strengths and weaknesses. In min/max heavy systems like D&D, there is no significant consequence for dumping strength on a mage or intelligence on a warrior. It's an undoubtedly strong move to do so, and an undoubtedly weak move to do otherwise.

Winterfart · August 24, 2018

I already responded to all those points in my comments above.

I've no intention to repeat myself again and again, over an internet forum, about something so frivolous.
I don't have new arguments to add and it seems you don't either.

This mini-debate is dead. See you at the next one. :handshake:

Copper Coin · August 24, 2018

Okay, fair enough. I'll just conclude by saying that I don't like RPGs that encourage you to dump stats for efficiency, because to me that isn't roleplaying. Roleplaying isn't about gaming a system to have the best character, but being able to create any sort of character and have a different yet equal set of tools to succeed within the confines of the scenario.

That is infinitely more fun to me than a game like D&D where there's only false choices, and once you understand how to make the best builds, character creation becomes trivial.

Bard's Tale IV - Spotlight #2 - Combat

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