KickStarter Knights of the Chalice 2 Thread - Augury of Chaos

[Zetor]

I also dislike pre-battle buffing. W8 did it almost right: there were always-on buff spells that encouraged the use of certain character types, but they weren't really I WIN buttons. The weakest point was probably the use of Soul Shield / Element Shield spells -- they were so powerful that against caster enemies that your casters (or bard for SS) were basically forced to open every battle with them, or you'd risk getting half your party gibbed right away.

 

[Grunker]

Always-On buffs are great. One NWN2's good systemic choices was making Bards into Aura buffers of a sort.

 

[DraQ]

An interesting implementation of pre-buffing in a mana/spellpoint would be upkeep cost implemented not as ongoing resource consumption, but as binding certain amount of this resource and making it unavailable until buff is dispelled.
So for example, as a caster you could set up a great number of simultaneous buffs, but this would leave you with no ability to actually cast anything. Dispelling could also represent a cost of some sort, be it temporary volnerability or an opportunity cost (making it an actual action).

 

[Grunker]

An interesting implementation of pre-buffing in a mana/spellpoint would be upkeep cost implemented not as ongoing resource consumption, but as binding certain amount of this resource and making it unavailable until buff is dispelled.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Age:_Origins <----- has your suggested system implemented word for word. Activating buffs cuts into your total mana pool, deactivating raises the cap again.

I personally didn't like that system. It did fix those problems, but it also meant that you had two choose between passive, always-on abilities and using cool actives. Which meant that casters could becomes static buff machines with poor ranged attacks or actually contribute with tactical choices in the fight. Or a combination, but with the generally low pools of Origins, that was pretty bad. Unless you utilized the Alchemy skill and had an eternal amount of potions thusly making the capped pools null and void. Maybe instead have two pools; one for buffs so you have to decide between buffs, and one for actives. I dunno. I liked the attempt DA:O made, I just didn't like the choice between passive and active abilities.

Or just have buff "slots" or something like that.

EDIT: Wait, aren't you one of the guys in the P:E thread always raging about DA:O being like an MMO? Pretty dumb if you don't even know its basic systems. Forgive me if I mistook you for someone else.

 

[DraQ]

I personally didn't like that system. It did fix those problems, but it also meant that you had two choose between passive, always-on abilities and using cool actives. Which meant that casters could becomes static buff machines with poor ranged attacks or actually contribute with tactical choices in the fight. Or a combination, but with the generally low pools of Origins, that was pretty bad.

I think it depends on how essential both buffs and active magic are situationally.

EDIT: Wait, aren't you one of the guys in the P:E thread always raging about DA:O being like an MMO? Pretty dumb if you don't even know its basic systems. Forgive me if I mistook you for someone else.

Probably not, because I never played any DA, due to it looking like typical recycled bioware hurpadurp.

I could've been raging about parts I knew (like I tend to rage about cooldowns wherever they show up), or in jest, but not in general.

 

[TigerKnee]

Incursion Roguelike did "buffs cut into your MP pool" and if I'm not wrong, stacking too many buffs makes your MP "bleed" even more which was the creator's way of trying to combat the runaway self-buffing cleric.

Out of the RPGs I've played, I definitely preferred no pre-buffing. It gets tedious in certain Gold Box modules casting all your buff spells every fight especially since you have to cast them individually instead of just hitting a single button macro to get it all done and indeed the trade-off of action economy in-battle is more interesting.

As far as KoTC goes, I think mostly some of the very early low level buffs are made extremely questionable because of this (such as Bless), but after that it works out a lot better. Which then brings me back to "how do you make low level buffs worth casting without making them OP" then but I don't have any answers to that.

 

[Koschey]

KoTC allowed some pre-buffing. For example Mage Armor can be cast out of combat. But then again, general purpose stuff with a duration of 'almost forever' is something you would want to cast immediately after resting, not moments before your wizard gets an axe smashed into their face. I'm fine with pre-buffing to that extent.

The low level buffs were nice in situations without access to a fireplace, like the early orc stockade. You don't want to burn through all your powerful spells in smaller fights, but sometimes could still use a small edge over the enemy.

 

[KazikluBey]

BG2 modder Simon Compton's game The Broken Hourglass was to have a mana reserve system for buffs as well, where even magical equipment reserved mana, so instead of the game telling you you can only wear 2 rings (small penis, can only fit 2 cock rings?) it was instead a trade-off with other magical equipment and spells.

 

[tuluse]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Age:_Origins <----- has your suggested system implemented word for word. Activating buffs cuts into your total mana pool, deactivating raises the cap again.

I personally didn't like that system. It did fix those problems, but it also meant that you had two choose between passive, always-on abilities and using cool actives. Which meant that casters could becomes static buff machines with poor ranged attacks or actually contribute with tactical choices in the fight. Or a combination, but with the generally low pools of Origins, that was pretty bad. Unless you utilized the Alchemy skill and had an eternal amount of potions thusly making the capped pools null and void. Maybe instead have two pools; one for buffs so you have to decide between buffs, and one for actives. I dunno. I liked the attempt DA:O made, I just didn't like the choice between passive and active abilities.

Or just have buff "slots" or something like that.

EDIT: Wait, aren't you one of the guys in the P:E thread always raging about DA:O being like an MMO? Pretty dumb if you don't even know its basic systems. Forgive me if I mistook you for someone else.

Arcanum had maintenance costs for on going spells too

 

[Dorateen]

Pre-buffing in Might & Magic Legacy has come in handy.

 

[GhostBadger]

Reading this buff discussion is giving me magic system fatigue. Everyone should go play some JA and chill.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Let me try to encapsulate my feelings on Pierre, his games and his personality.

I want to be a very high tier Kickstarter donor for KoTC2

I want to special tier reward to be watching him publicly flogged for being so fucking singularly obtuse.

 

[GlutenBurger]

Has anybody read his treatise on economics? Does it pursue an ideology that the use of any sort of middleman in sales is fundamentally unsound? I get the impression he wishes to prove such an ideology true in practice, even when practice is proving it wrong.

I'd like to see a debate between Pierre and that guy who ran a Kickstarter to get his webcomics into print and ended up refusing to fulfill pledges, instead burning copies of the printed paperbacks in defiance of hateful capitalism. Somebody needs to Kickstart one.

 

[Zetor]

What we need is a kickstarter to put Pierre, Cleve and Serek Dmart in a free-for-all cage fight.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Has anybody read his treatise on economics? Does it pursue an ideology that the use of any sort of middleman in sales is fundamentally unsound? I get the impression he wishes to prove such an ideology true in practice, even when practice is proving it wrong.

I'd like to see a debate between Pierre and that guy who ran a Kickstarter to get his webcomics into print and ended up refusing to fulfill pledges, instead burning copies of the printed paperbacks in defiance of hateful capitalism. Somebody needs to Kickstart one.

i recognize that his beliefs are not mine and so comments such as mine don't carry weight with him. I have tried to encourage him to go the steam or KS or GoG route but nothing seems to get through.

I don't really want him flogged either but his actions fly in the face of his politics. If money is not his goal (success), why sell something in the first place and yet refuse to adopt methods that would bring greater success? in that sense, he is being obtuse. he is tactical TB combat Rain Man. 246... 246 toothpicks.

 

[GlutenBurger]

Serek Dmart

That guy's still active? I haven't heard him mentioned for years. I'm going to have to run a search and do some catching up.

He'd be a good match for Cleve, but I don't think Pierre is quite in the same league as those two.

 

[Zetor]

Be sure to check what the Good Doctor Derek has done recently after the introduction of the tag system on Steam (and player reviews on his game, for that matter).

 

[Copper]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Age:_Origins <----- has your suggested system implemented word for word. Activating buffs cuts into your total mana pool, deactivating raises the cap again.

I personally didn't like that system. It did fix those problems, but it also meant that you had two choose between passive, always-on abilities and using cool actives. Which meant that casters could becomes static buff machines with poor ranged attacks or actually contribute with tactical choices in the fight. Or a combination, but with the generally low pools of Origins, that was pretty bad. Unless you utilized the Alchemy skill and had an eternal amount of potions thusly making the capped pools null and void. Maybe instead have two pools; one for buffs so you have to decide between buffs, and one for actives. I dunno. I liked the attempt DA:O made, I just didn't like the choice between passive and active abilities.

Or just have buff "slots" or something like that.

EDIT: Wait, aren't you one of the guys in the P:E thread always raging about DA:O being like an MMO? Pretty dumb if you don't even know its basic systems. Forgive me if I mistook you for someone else.

Arcanum had maintenance costs for on going spells too

Also both Mage WoD systems had good mechanics (in theory, obviously the whole system is subject to exploit) to limit buffs, especially the more creative, powerful Paradox generating buffs, which could backfire soon. Awakening specifically limits your amount of active maintained spells to your power stat, although being able to affect groups comes naturally with increasing your Spheres. A houserule limiting casters to stat bonus amount of buffs maintained could alleviate some of the issues, but still neglects any real penalty to pre-buffing. (EDIT - talking about d20 type systems in the last sentence, not WoD)

 

[Angthoron]

Be sure to check what the Good Doctor Derek has done recently after the introduction of the tag system on Steam (and player reviews on his game, for that matter).

Wow, that's some amazing stuff. Good ol' Derek - still remember his BC3000 rampages.

 

[Koschey]

Apparently negotiations are over and the deal with GOG fell through, though Steam might still come:
http://www.heroicfantasygames.com/Forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=496&p=4311#p4310

Thank you for the kind words Wened. The GoG thing flopped, not too sure why, I think they were expecting more marketing involvement from me than I can provide for the moment (not because of any requirement on price. I'm fine with a low price). Steam is still in the plans of course, but again, I need a good video for that. It's a tonne of work just to go through all past saved games, pick up good places to record, record videos, assemble them, edit them, add text and add music. And of course that would only be the first step since the game would need to be approved and then I would need to get the game to work with their framework. So I'm definitely not going to make any promise on when it will appear there.

 

[Infinitron]

More "marketing involvement"? What the heck does that mean. I'd ask JudasIscariot but "Sorry bro, NDA".

 

[Mortmal]

More marketing involvment like not hiding updates in a private forum maybe.

 

[Regvard]

He probably refused to leave his basement to sign the papers.

 

[Gord]

Or to hand over a few screenshots, since only he should be allowed to decide when someone can look at them.

 

[felipepepe]

:insert joke about Pierre not liking money:

BTW, he did another update about KotC 2 on his private forum... I don't even know why he bothers, the entire private forum has like 50 posts, and each update thread gets like 60 views each...