Are we having a discussion here, or are you going to repeat the same things and ignore my arguments?
We'll have our discussion as soon as your arguments stop missing the point.
If any failure that requires meta-knowledge is “random”, then race games, platformers, strategy games, FPS and almost every other genre in existence will be poorly designed because they all require meta-knowledge.
Yes, shit design is not exclusive to cRPGs.
No, it's still shit.
The mastery of a system requires failing, because you obviously can’t know a priori what will be the effects of a particular build in every context.
That is so obvious that I’m embarrass to try to convince someone of this
Yes, it's always embarrassing when you flail so hard that you miss the part where this other person has never actually disagreed with you on this particular point.
The point you’re missing is that it is not the build system that should be mastered, but simply gameplay mechanics - mastering how to play given build rather than memorizing what build to make via trial and error.
You make any build and then you fail and you fail and you fail and you fail. Then you master the mechanics or at least your build. Your failures are your own, not your build's.
Each build has legitimate ways to be played. You're not searching for good builds or good playstyles. You are learning how available builds map onto viable tactics. That's the *point* of cRPGs - the build, along with other player decisions have the power to transform the game. You are not just in for the ride, you have the power to make your own narrative, even if it's limited.
Since player is, at least on the first playthrough, necessarily ignorant of many of your mechanical minutiae, including finer aspects of character building, it's only fair to treat builds as legitimate ways to play the game and player's choice of a build as simply player's declaration of the character they want to play and thus the way they want to play the game - in this case if a build doesn't work, then allowing it is misleading.
Let me get this straight: If players can’t make a successful build without dying many times, then developers shouldn’t require them to die many times. Character builds should express players’ preferences and they should be respected. By that logic, if you can’t make a successful hand on the first time you play poker, bad hands shouldn’t be allowed in the game, because the way you deal your hand should express your preferences and they should be respected. If you can win a game of chess on your first game, then bad movies shouldn’t be allowed in a game of chess, because any player move express a player preference and should be respected.
Apples, oranges.
Short, contentless, abstract, competitive multiplayer game with full information (the last at least in case of Chess) VS a lengthy, content-based, concrete, non-competitive, singleplayer game relying on information hiding.
It's the same calibre of just plain not getting it as trying to play PnP camapaign as if it was a Chess game - with GM usign everything at his disposal to TPK the party.
That should be more than enough to bury your whole line of reasoning to the benefit of all parties involved, but - you know what? - I can still play your retarded little game on your retarded little terms and win - two points:
- The 'atom' of gameplay and, correspondingly, of learning in your competitive games is the whole game. In cRPGs it's basically the period between reloads. We can be sure of that because there are exceptions to this rule - roguelikes. Funny how, despite your clueless assertions of how savescumming and metagaming are the epitome of monocled challenge, those games go out of their way to preclude both - or maybe you'll next argue that roguelikes are casul crap as opposed to hardcore savescumming? (disgonbgud)
- Notice the 'information hiding' part. In Chess you know everything there is to know. You are not going to get jumped by a hidden queen or surprised by the way knight moves. There is no way to blame failure or anyone but yourself. In cRPG you know only as much as you are told, and you can't be told enough to make an informed decision during chargen, because that would spoil the whole game. The way to make an inevitably uninformed decision fair is removing failure.
That must be the most asinine thing I ever heard on the whole fuck internet, and that is saying something.
Make it 'wrote' and I'll be inclined to agree.
I already explained this before, but since you insist on ignoring the point, I will repeat: Character building is not just a fixed moment at the beginning of the game, but if it is done properly, it will encompass every single gameplay element. Leveling up, considering whether your THC* will be good enough to beat your opponent
*Tetrahydrocannabinol.
whether you should use a fast attack, how many APs you should use (...) or what type of consumables you should buy in order to beat fight
See my response a few quote-blocks above. If you're not smart enough to figure which one is relevant, then this discussion isn't getting anywhere anyway.
whether you will succeed or not in a skill or stat check
If you unconditionally (with player having no way to mitigate failure) hinge the whole game on a single stat check you're also guilty of shit design.
Easy now, no one said non-shit design was going to be easy.
all these actions are nothing more than a natural extension of the same type of calculus you make in character building. First, you distribute some points to the stats and skills of your character, and then you nurture it as the game progress and your previous choices will decide whether you move on or not.
Guesswork is not calculus and playing the game only to see if you'll need to restart it is not good gameplay.
Of course not, because cRPGs can encompass many different elements from other genres, or maybe there are other genres are stealing stuff from cRPGs?
cRPGs have obviously invented crafting. Before cRPGs people had to rub shit all over their skin to keep warm because they didn't know how to craft clothes or shelter. Ask any archeologist to confirm this factual information.
What matter is whether these things depends of character building and skill/stat points allocation. They do. So you are wrong.
See that response I've mentioned a moment ago, that you are probably not smart enough to find.
The difference is that you can’t choose then and because you can’t choose then, your success in these games doesn’t depend on your choices of stat and skill distributions, but your choices after these previous configurations.
As it should be. Doesn't make any of those genres casul.
No, the epitome of good challenge is never suffering from unforeseen events, because special snowflakes like you don’t want to die. The epitome of challenge is popamole games.
...because for mentally impaired special snowflakes like you every event is unforeseen.
I mean do you even object permanency?
Random events should still be evitable (if a lightning can randomly kill you, consider not standing in the open during thunderstorm) or possible to mitigate (if you randomly have a McGuffin stolen, you should be able to track it down and reclaim it).
At worst you have a legitimate conflict between gameplay and simulation - but what does chargen simulate?
If it's natural development of a random fuck, then you'll need to first roll not to get miscarried, then to not have serious birth defects, then to not die of various causes before you even reach adulthood. Hardcore as fuck.
OTOH if it's development of a character suitable for given adventure, there is no more reason for it to account for abortive builds than there is to account for abortive pregnancies.
On one hand, these things are always expected in the game world. A room filled with beholders is expected in a dungeon. So you can’t complaint that this was a poorly designed challenge. But if you want your party to know beforehand that you had beholders in that room, because this would be shameless popamole handholding.
Only if you hand it to the player on a silver platter.
A good (if easy-sh) example of foreshadowing would be those unexpected statues in wilderness map in BG1 (of all games).
A natural way to foreshadow is scouting ahead, or scrying, etc.
If the trap was never activated, you shouldn’t be able to see it.
But I could still be able to expect it, test for it and prepare for it. Good cRPGs give you multitude of options from which you can try to fashion a solution to the problem ahead - such as expecting lethal traps.
In fact, I don’t believe that this types of tips makes such a difference. Suppose you see a bunch of bodies, you have zero points in traps and low perception. You step right into it and die.
And why would I step into it? Even with low perception I can see the bodies and can make out any obvious causes of death or lack of them if they were non-obvious (of course things like scavengers can do a lot to mislead the player). I know the approximate area of danger and possible kind of it. From there I can try to avoid it entirely, trigger it from distance (summons, standard issue 10' pole) to expend it or study it, apply appropriate protections, backtrack and hire help with appropriate skillset, raise and question one of the dead, manipulate environment to block it and so on. Some of those methods are broadly applicable, some require specific skills, others confer specific risks or costs - the point is that there are many of them and a build won't be capable of blocking them all.
I'm not going to just step into it unless I'm suicidal.
I’m sure that you will still consider this a poorly designed challenge. But it’s your fault that your character didn’t have high perception or the proper skills.
No, it's your fault that your mechanics is shit and doesn't cover options that are obvious even by Bethesda's standards.
Translation: “This game doesn’t reward any sort of reflex or interactions that we would expect from an ACTION GAME. cRPGs doesn’t provide player agency, because your choices are governed by stats and skill points”.
Yes, cPRGs are all about choices that aren't choices and stats replacing challenge.
Ideal cRPG consists of a chargen followed by a screensaver.
That is because you are wrongly equating player agency in cRPGs with player agency in action games. You want to destroy everything that puts cRPGs apart from the rest, because you don’t like cRPGs, even though you think you do.
And you want a chargen followed by a screensaver.
The player agency in cRPGs resolves around civic or combat choices that are governed by allocation of skills and stats.
Player's choices are, by definition, governed by player's choice.
Skills and stats can at best limit available options and change their outcomes - as do all the other circumstances.
However, you think that character building is boring
Quite the opposite, I find it very interesting.
And it's more interesting to discover what you can make with a given build than merely whether it sucks or not.
that players shouldn’t be able to make bad builds, and players shouldn’t suffer from poor allocation of skill points, etc. If we follow this type of thinking while designing a cRPG, then we don’t have any more player agency left.
"Allocate points this way to die" is not player agency in any reasonable meaning of this phrase.
That is the awesome button mentality. The critical path should be accessible to all builds that are good enough.
See above.
But that is because you are assuming that a game world should be a theme park to pander the player’s ego.
How is being a moron rewarding? You obviously have more experience in this area, so maybe I'm missing something.
You want to artificially guarantee that everyone should be well-endowed because you are assuming that the inequalities that results from player’s intelligence in character building is a bad thing by default and shouldn’t allowed. This makes stat and skills completely pointless.
Inequalities that result from player's intelligence only matter if this intelligence is in subnormal range. If you aren't genuinely retarded then making a smart wizard doesn't feel like much of an achievement - it's bloody obvious. So is exploiting loopholes in build system itself. At this point the only thing that still makes the difference is meta-knowledge, AKA having played the game already or read the wiki - the latter being less of a waste of time. Removing these advantages can only help the gameplay. Just being intelligent doesn't make you a psychic (and I'm saying it even though I expected ISIS even back when Bush invaded Iraq).
Because (1) you are assuming that a good system ensures that every build is equally effective (hints: egalitarian prejudices); (2) you don’t care about the challenge involved in making effective builds; (3) you don’t care whether build egalitarianism will discourage gifted players from trying more effective or inovating combinations; (4) you ignore that in complex systems some solutions will be more effective than others; (5) you don’t like cRPGs, character building, etc. To sum up: because you are assuming all the wrong things because you hate cRPGs or you are confusing cRPGs with action games.
1. That's smart use of resources. You make a system so that the builds it supports are diverse, yet effective.
2. There is no challenge in that until subsequent playthroughs, usually not even then (at least as far as SP is concerned).
3. Quite the contrary, it makes non-standard builds less likely to be miserable failures and thus more interesting.
4. That might be inevitable but it doesn't invalidate striving for such a system as preferable direction. OTOH you ignore that complex systems make it more difficult to eliminate all effective solutions for given build.
5. You hate cRPGs or you are confusing cRPGs with screensavers.
By that logic a race track in a race game and the game world in super Mario should be random? Are you going to bite the bullet and accept this absurd conclusion? LOL. Be my guest.
Roguelikes.
Of course he is going to use his own intelligence to make the best builds
Not builds. Again, cRPG is not a screensaver.
because we have severe technological limitations.
That's not technological limitation, it's inherent to the medium.
Let’s remove cities from cRPGs then, because real cities having thousands of citizens
Daggerfall.
and while we are at, let’s remove inventories, because players have a whole storage shed in their asses
I have discussed the benefits of less abstract inventory systems in depth at some point.
Both are genuine technical limitations that can and should be overcome.
Not being able to make intelligent player stupid is not.
I think I'm having a clearer image of what it's at stake. cRPGs are incredibly hard to make, because they encompass different complex systems. Half a dozen understood the combat part of it and the challenge that makes cRPGs tick, but they abandoned game design a long time ago. Others understood the civil part of it, but never understood the importance of challenge. They were popamoles who knew how to provide C&C, but without the punishing part. They took the helms of game design and the result is that character building is useless as an appendix. Now we have a bunch of shallow games that provide the illusion of character building, have shitty combat system, inexistent resource management, pander to player’s ego all the time.
It is a given when the whole history of the genre is cargo cults based on cargo cults.
That's what happens when you can't meaningfully advance the genre because you don't understand it and can't tell its defining traits from limitations to overcome but try to make it "more appealing". It's like plastic surgery performed by a random fuck with a butter knife.
