Elwro said:
Regarding your comment here on the Codex, Vogel wrote this on his blog in the comments thread;
http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2011/05/ ... 6263442609 :
"It is clear that this feedback only comes from a few seconds of play, followed by a guess. If you actually played the game, you would know that, if this system can be criticized for anything, it's for abilities taking too little endurance. "
Oh, huh. Totally missed that. He knows I did a preview based on 30 hours of gameplay. I did a full playthrough and then some more for the review, which sticks to pretty much the same conclusions.
He seems to misunderstand what I'm saying though. If I use abilities with the same regularity as I did for his previous titles I will run out. What's more, what's the point of the system as he describes it? Why even have fatigue that doesn't regenerate but is designed not to run out? And all the trash combat is designed so I can easily win without using any skills. I'm a careful player, not wanting to be caught unawares, so of course I hoard vitality, because it is valuable, while HP is worthless. He's a game designer, how can he not see that if you offer HP regeneration but no VI regeneration, you are encouraging players to sacrifice the former and thus drag out boring trash combat?
It sucks that he's mad at me though. He doesn't seem to remember handing us beta access to do a preview and then posting on that preview on his website, based on his "only a few seconds" comment. Weird. Sucks that my review will piss him off but it is what it is, not the first time a developed pretends criticism of his title is "not even based in anything resembling reality".
Still, it's valuable feedback since it makes me realize I need to phrase it very precisely. The basic logic is this: trash combat doesn't require items/skills, even on harder difficulties (this might not be true for torment difficulty later in the game, as I played most of that on hard/normal). HP is valueless while items and skills are valuable. Hence, the system encourages you to draw out trash combat and sacrifice HP. This is boring. As I put it in the review (currently, it's all still up to editing since the head editor hasn't look at it yet):
The decision not to regenerate vitality only serves a purpose if it leads to a difficult long-term battle against attrition, rather than encourage the player to keep trash combat as boring as he/she can.
Jay said:
When can we expect your review, Brother?
It was done a few days ago. It's sitting there in our to-be-published list while we cycle through several articles GameBanshee has ready to go. Head editor still has to go through it. A few days, I'd guess.
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