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Is it bad design to allow a player to create a nonviable character? (Age of Decadence)

Do you think it's bad design to allow players to create failed builds?

  • Yes

    Votes: 54 23.0%
  • No

    Votes: 181 77.0%

  • Total voters
    235
  • Poll closed .

Alexios

Augur
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Joined
Feb 18, 2014
Messages
444
I don't get why people keep invoking AoD. The game is extremely easy to restart as there isn't an elongated introductory sequence. You'll also find out pretty fast if your build isn't viable. This is a bit more of a problem in Underrail, for example, since you have to go through a somewhat tedious sequence of introductory quests when you start a new game.
 

Kyl Von Kull

The Night Tripper
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
"just guess what weapons will be available and when"

please never design a game
because it takes a genius to consider that regular handguns would be more common than energy weapons
you probably specialize in whips in D&D then get upset most weapons are longswords and daggers

Also, the game starts you off with a 10mm pistol. If you read the manual, there’s a little walkthrough of the rat cave at the beginning and it tells you you’ll start with that pistol. It takes two seconds to restart if you didn’t tag small guns. And it’s not like the game gives you no way to course correct if you decide you want to use all of these guns. You can boost your small guns skill to the 90s with (IIRC infinite) guns n’ bullets magazines in The Hub library.
 

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
5,624
You are viewing character building separately from the core game. Which is idiotic, you can't just randomly pick parts of a game and declare them as unrelated.

Oh I'm sorry, I thought we were talking about computer role-playing games. You know, the tabletop game where the DM takes your character into account.

You claim that you don't want a "push to win" button - but builds that always work out are exactly that, automatically winning at character building.

That's the problem with your line of thinking. You think "character building" is a game in itself. It isn't. It is the first step before actually playing the game. And that's why you go and say retarded shit like

What you want has exactly 0 difference from requesting a "story mode", or an auto-win for combat.

when I never, ever, implied anything like it. And then you go on an elaborate with retarded stuff like

"With a shitty combat strategy, you are guaranteed to fail, and you won't be able to do anything about it other than restarting the entire encounter. That's bad game design."

and then put it in my mouth

That's an obviously retarded statement, and exactly what you are saying

like so. No, those aren't my words, those are yours. Own up to the retarded shit you are saying (or better yet, stop posting altogether because you seem unable to actually use my own words and thus resort to uncalled for and shitty analogies). I'm talking about character building, not combat, not quests. The only challenge that should even be remotely considered for character building is "what do I ACTUALLY want to play as?". That's it. That's all the challenge that is needed: the challenge of deciding what do you want to play as for the next 10-30 hours.

Why would ever want to design a game where you hand out character creation to the player and think "make the right decision... or die, muahahaha"? It's stupid, and it doesn't make you look smart: it makes your game look like ass, the worst kind of lack of balance ever, enough to make Josh Sawyer cut his arms open in shame. If I were to make a game, you could create any kind of character you wanted, and it is by my skill as a game developer that I will succeed or fail (no push to win button here, sadly) in making my game as complex as possible to tailor to every possible combination the player can think of. You won't be able to do every quest, but it doesn't matter as long as you have enough content available to you as to make you go "this developer did think of everything", as opposed to unironic, generic push to win button games like Skyrim where you can do everything with any character because the developer didn't bother to think of anything: they just made the game too easy so anyone could complete it.

You don't agree with me? That's fine, just say so and move on. But insisting on "push to win button" (as you are) is retarded, as you are the only one in this conversation who is remotely asking for a button of sorts: the "push to lose" button that are gimmicky builds. Of Vault Dweller I expected no different since he actually went with poor design and made a whole game out of it, and of course a forum that can't tell good design from bad design praises his game, so he has a reason to hold his ground: at least he makes money out of his misguided idea of what good game design is.
 
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Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
5,624
"just guess what weapons will be available and when"

please never design a game
because it takes a genius to consider that regular handguns would be more common than energy weapons

...meaning it doesn't take a genius to understand that one skill is inherently far more useful than the other, meaning the balance is garbage, meaning the game is poorly designed.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
"just guess what weapons will be available and when"

please never design a game
because it takes a genius to consider that regular handguns would be more common than energy weapons

...meaning it doesn't take a genius to understand that one skill is inherently far more useful than the other, meaning the balance is garbage, meaning the game is poorly designed.
Oh no a singleplayer game isn't 100% balanced that means it's complete garbage! Every game must be completely homogenized and balanced like an esport or it's trash, no fun allowed!
Nobody should ever be allowed to experiment or make suboptimal builds, everything should be completely identical. Energy pistols should be just as common(and be statistically identical) as regular pistols because "muh balance"
The idea that some skills might be tailored to more experienced players escapes the mind of balancefags
 

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
5,624
Oh no a singleplayer game isn't 100% balanced that means it's complete garbage!

Dear lord, if you think asking for Energy Weapons to be remotely as useful as Small Guns (that is, any useful at all considering you can only find it much later in the game) is asking for "100% balance", then you have no idea what the word "balance" even means.

Let me give you a hint: it's not designing the game like a fucking idiot. That balance guy people constantly rant about was smart enough to add a Laser pistol to Doc Mitchell's house. What a travesty, someone report him to the Codex Hardcore police!
 

glass blackbird

Learned
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Joined
Apr 9, 2015
Messages
664
PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015
All I know is that when VTMB suddenly becomes all combat all the time after 20 hours of being dialog and social skill focused, and was marketed on those skills being a viable way to build your character, I think that's bad. If there's going to be a hard failstate late in the game there should be indications so you can build toward it or at least intimate its existence, imo
 

Q

Augur
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Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
199
Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Torment: Tides of Numenera Divinity: Original Sin 2
Depends on the type of the game.
It's common trait of not-so-big CYOA-like. But less common in bigger fuller RPGs.
I would think about it like a dialogue maze, when you click through it and come to a dead end and start over again until you make it.
Better if it has some rewind like in Japanese visual novels.
But if you have to replay like 90 hours of open world game after not savescumming one skill point enough on path-critical skillcheck and have no option for you to continue - it's kinda lame.
In an RPG, you can usually go questing and return later more strong and more skilled. Or try some not perfect approach with worse results on your ending.
But if it's just a dead end - more like in adventure game - I think it's bad design (unless the authors wanted this exact result, but still).
 

aeroaeko

Learned
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Oct 19, 2018
Messages
159
If I get more than 5 hours into a game and find out I can't finish it with that build, I'm uninstalling. No exceptions.
 

thesheeep

Arcane
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Codex 2012 Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Codex USB, 2014 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
You think "character building" is a game in itself. It isn't. It is the first step before actually playing the game.
This is so awesome, I want to mount it on a wall and keep it forever, to point at and laugh whenever I see your nick somewhere :lol:

I can imagine a discussion between a DM and you:
DM: "Okay... that's an interesting character. I like the backstory and you clearly put a lot of thought in his motivations. However, you forgot to put any points into combat skills. Except all the dodge feats."
Sigourn: "I don't want this character to fight. He is a pacifist and couldn't hurt a fly."
DM: "We're playing DnD."
Sigourn: "But you are the DM. Isn't it your job to find a place for me and make sure whatever I come up with I can play."
DM: "Uhm... not really, no. I'm not here for your personal amusement only. Again, we're playing DnD, a combat focused ruleset in which you simply fight a lot. That's why it doesn't have many rules besides combat."
Sigourn: "I can see that you are not taking this seriously. I will look for another group. Goodbye."
DM: *Wtf?!*

Sorry man, but you're just a little snowflake who wants a computer game to take care of all your special needs so that you can be whoever you want to be. OH, sorry, whoever the game "implies" you can be. Totally not the same thing.
Meanwhile, I'm a gamer who likes to be challenged, not asking for handouts like you, so naturally I want all parts of a game to challenge me in one way or another.

If I get more than 5 hours into a game and find out I can't finish it with that build, I'm uninstalling. No exceptions.
Honestly, that's understandable. Five hours is a long time and would in most games mean you get to repeat those five hours, which is annoying as hell. I'd probably do the same.
However, which game would make you end up in that situation after such a long time? And without the possibility to rectify your shitty build, too, by starting to invest points into better skills, or even respec?
I could only imagine a class-based system in which one class is so utterly terrible as to make the game impossible with it. I doubt that ever happened.
 
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SionIV

Cipher
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Joined
Aug 28, 2015
Messages
590
There are a lot of people who are bad at games. I've met a lot of people who have had similar complaints, and 80-90% of the time, it came down to them just being shit at the game.
 

Bohrain

Liturgist
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norf
My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit.
Being able to do non-viable builds isn't bad per se. It's a problem if there are both unviable character options and the developer does a poor job of communicating what isn't viable in the system.
 

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
5,624
This is so awesome, I want to mount it on a wall and keep it forever, to point at and laugh whenever I see your nick somewhere :lol:

I wish I could say the same, but my walls aren't big enough for me to mount your entire comments.

I can imagine a discussion between a DM and you

This is why you are retarded. There are no DMs in cRPGs that orient you in character building. Probably because you think it's "too casual".

Also, I'm sorry but did you just imply New Vegas is a bad RPG because it lets you skip combat altogether? Is that really the ground you want to die on?

Meanwhile, I'm a gamer

Between your edgyness, lack of intelligence and nonsensical arguments, you look the part.
 

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
5,624
Fallout should've just let you unlock certain skills later on in the game, like Wasteland did.

I still don't understand why Energy Weapons warrant a completely separate skill, what's so special about them? This is something Sawyer should have fixed in New Vegas.
 

SionIV

Cipher
Patron
Joined
Aug 28, 2015
Messages
590
Baldur's Gate is badly designed. My Fighter with 9 in Strength, and 3 in Constitution and Dexterity isn't viable. Why did they let me create such a character!?

:negative:
 

Tehdagah

Arcane
Joined
Feb 27, 2012
Messages
9,236
It's a very common problem in MMOs.

With freedom of choice (i.e. a skill-based system that doesn't hold your hand the way class-based systems do) comes the freedom to make mistakes.
Depends on what one means by mistake.
I recall an old drama on the Interplay forums. Someone bought was Fallout, got all excited about exploring the post-apocalyptic world and made a character specializing in outdoorsmanship, barter, and stealth. Naturally, he didn't enjoy the experience. Was it the developers' fault for not ensuring that any randomly-picked skills would allow him to beat the game? He seemed to think so because the skills were there and he was free to pick them ignoring the other, more useful skills.
How was he supposed to know what skills were "more useful"?
 
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flyingjohn

Arcane
Joined
May 14, 2012
Messages
2,945
I urge anybody who choose no to play centauri alliance without a faq for more then 10 hours.

Also i am kinda amazed the op choose bloodlines.The entire second chapter has unavoidable fights that should teach you to invest in combat.And the first chapter doesn't last more then a hour or two anyway.
 

Zed

Codex Staff
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Staff Member
Joined
Oct 21, 2002
Messages
17,068
Codex USB, 2014
I don't think it would hurt a game if it communicated something along the lines of "oh. wow. you only picked really bad skills. are you sure?"

or maybe recommend some base archetypes to give the player some idea of what types of builds are viable.

but allowing retardo-builds is good imo. it's fun to find out what kind of weird shit may or may not actually beat a game.
 

thesheeep

Arcane
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Tampere, Finland
Codex 2012 Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Codex USB, 2014 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I can imagine a discussion between a DM and you
This is why you are retarded. There are no DMs in cRPGs that orient you in character building.
There aren't? Really? Why, thanks for telling me.
It's also horrible that there are no other things, like forums, YouTube or the internet in general that could fulfill this orientation role so that you may learn about a system before creating a character in it (if one so desires, some like to jump right in).
Or, and I know this is a shocker, what about playing the game and learning the system, improving the build as you go along?
No, no, you are right. It is just too much to ask of players to use what remains between their ears. They shouldn't be bothered with that. And while we are at removing that part of the challenge, we should also remove the rest of it, maybe make something like "health" optional, so people can play through Sekiro in peace. After all, I just want to play a super strong samurai - and a game shouldn't get in the way of whatever I want!

Also, I'm sorry but did you just imply New Vegas is a bad RPG because it lets you skip combat altogether? Is that really the ground you want to die on?
What are you talking about? Last time I played, New Vegas had no button that let me skip combat. How would that even work?
But even if it had that, how is this relevant?
What does "letting a player skip combat" have to do with "allowing a player to make bad builds"? I'm not against the option of not having to create a character, something like auto-creation (I think Pillars had that?) and auto-levelup. As long as the option to do it yourself, and to fail at it, is still present.

Between your edgyness, lack of intelligence and nonsensical arguments, you look the part.
Ey, who you're calling ugly?!
 

Ventidius

Arbiter
Joined
Jul 8, 2017
Messages
552
It is not bad to allow a player to create bad characters, more customization is always good, and allowing you to exercise more agency in character customization also makes successful character/party building more satisfying, while also introducing higher stakes by removing the sense of a safety net.

That does not mean that it is necessarily bad design to allow the player to beat the game with suboptimal builds. However, a game should at least punish such builds, with the punishment being proportional to how badly built the character/party is. It should definitely be noticeably harder to beat a game with a bad build. Indeed, this can even be a harsher outcome for the player, since in some cases a difficult mid-game and/or late-game can actually be more grueling than simply starting over with a bettter build, making the hard fail state actually the more merciful option. What matters is that there is a substantial difference in efficiency between the many tiers of build quality.

Speaking of said tiers, a game is better designed the more of such tiers exist. A game where only shitty and OP builds exist is worse than a game where shitty, bad, mediocre, good, and OP builds exist.

Furthermore, a game could be considered badly designed if it doesn't allow suboptimal builds to succeed, but only given certain qualifications:

-That the game is insufficiently clear in its manual/tutorial/tooltips/etc. on the issue of what builds could reasonably be expected to succeed. Punishing the player for bad character customization is fine, punishing him for not being a psychic - as a user above put it - or a metagamer is not.

-The game is content heavy, allows the player to make considerable progress, and only punishes him late in the campaign. Late campaign punishment is fine in short games that are light either in ovrerall content or in the amount of content that the player is expected to see in a campaign. More content heavy games can maybe get away with mid-game punishment, but even then only for truly shitty builds, not merely suboptimal ones.

The viability of hard fail states as a design element really depends on overall campaign structure. It makes little sense in Wizardry-style dungeon crawlers, for example.

Finally, there is the issue of player skill or ingenuity making up for character building competence. I would agree that allowing player mastery of one of an RPG's subsystems (such as combat) to make a difference is a good thing. After all, do we really want RPGs where combat is little more than a glorified auto-resolve based on stats? Probably not.

It's nice to have a tactical dimension, for example, in turn-based RPGs, and in order to have it actually be interesting, it cannot be taken over completely by character building. In order words, it should not be sufficient for the player to have a strong character or party to win, he also needs to be able to deal with the subsystems adequately.

However, RPGs should ultimately be dominated by the aspect of character building. It is the most important element and the one that does the most to define them and set them apart. It doesn't have to be 90% character building, 10% everything else, but the former element should have more importance to success/efficiency in completing the campaign than any of the other elements (combat, exploration, itemization, quests, dialogues, etc.) individually, though not necessarily combined.
 
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