Warden said:
And I don't know why are you against changing some rules - after all they have already changed some when implementing D&D in a PC game (among which there were balance changes).
I think your premise is wrong, but unfortunately I think it's shared by a lot of developers, Obsidian included.
The rules system is well established, explained at length in manuals, and easily available for free online. It is not like the average video game where the player has to stumble around blindly & figure out how shit works through trial, a lot of errors, and a whole hell of a lot of guessing.
So when other games, especially those with opaque & counter-intuitive rules systems that aren't explained anywhere at all, can get away with killing the less-sharp players with extreme prejudice, why the hell shouldn't players expect the same of a D&D game?
The "oh noes, don't punish teh poor fool for being a tard" design philosophy of Oblivion infamy isn't fun for anyone.
The "Shit, some of the players don't wanna play clerics, whatever shall we do!?" is far better solved by supplying the PC with the companions s/he needs to kick ass, than by supplying bland, AI-free RT combat and nerfed monster-fodder henchmen that in a balanced game (in the rules-sense) wouldn't last past the first initiv roll.
Or is it simply that it has escaped you that part of the fun of playing a game, is that victory isn't guaranteed?
I can easily imagine what a nightmare it must be to try to balance a D&D based game to be beatable by the top 100 most self-sabotaged parties. What I can't understand is why you'd want to. Nobody expects to be able to beat Diablo 2's Hell on hardcore with a character that hasn't used a single skill or ability point.
And no, it can't be about trying to please people who doesn't want to play D&D-based dungeon crawls & therefore prioritizes different aspects of character development. It can't, because you can't please people who don't want combat, by throwing fuck-ton upon fuck-ton of piss-easy, mindless combat at them. If you want to please the anti-crawlers & wannabe-diplomats (unless they're wannabe zerg diplomats, perhaps), you need to give them something else instead of combat.
All of which sort of gets me to the point; don't fuck with a rules system when the rules system is independent of the game. Nobody wants to play Chess against their computer, only to find out it's fucking monopoly. There's no better way to disappoint a customer than to promise him one thing and sell him something else entirely, and that's fucking especially true of rules systems people have played for years, have a rock solid grasp of, and have developed all sorts of tactics, play styles and odd quirks for. Having the better part of a pineapple rammed up your ass while you're napping is probably a more welcome surprise.
There's one change that could fix the combat though, one that particular rules system allows for: switch from combat-/kill-based xp, to task-based xp.
It won't help people who don't know the rules and will resist any attempt at finding out the rules, but again: it should be possible to lose. Personally, I think it should be far easier to lose than win, but then, I'm not in favour of letting blind people compete for OL gold in ski-shooting either.
The alternative, I think, is to write up a couple of hundred variations of "Well done" and "my hero", stick them in a nice GUI, and feed the player one every time s/he manages to click a mouse button.
- No, I'm not actually ranting at you, just at the idea that every insane idea should be rewarded. And you're right about the AI. It's a joke. TonyK's is a joke too, just not as bad as the original. And yes, I'm sure it's really fucking hard to make an RT AI capable of handling a D&D monster, let alone varied groups with varied capacities and levels of coordination. I'm pretty sure I couldn't do it, and I'm guessing I'll outclass any AI for at least a few more years.
*sobs* I want my fucking TB combat. Give it back!
