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OwlCat approach to balance. They are 100% right!

Mortmal

Arcane
Joined
Jun 15, 2009
Messages
9,158
The things owlcat are doing right is not balance , they are not even touching that, its nowhere near a real rpg . The only strategic choices you make are when building character, usually if you want to have a chill rtwp session a mix of fighter magic hybrid with absurd stats you send buffed on autoatack vs the absurdly bloated enemies. No depth at all , most often no positioning , a braindead AI , no evolution since 2000 games.
The things owlcat are doing great are the classic artstyle atmosphere, music , technically very good, but above it all the power trip. It fllatters the ego and thats why its so popular here to the point they even forgive the wokenesss.
 

Totktospit

Educated
Joined
Feb 18, 2022
Messages
101
Location
Moscow
Frankly speaking, all this faggotry with dump-stats began before Dr. Sawyer contributions to equilibriology. Wizards of the Coast started to attach various combat abilities to attributes like Charisma or Wisdom. So Paladines have to be somewhat charismatic. Intentions behind these innovations are clear, but retarted nevertheless, because guys decided that everything should be about combat. More specifically about melting faces with awesome powers (because it is not necessary to explain how actual charisma can help in combat without introducing bullshit powers). Of course such crap make all stats suuuper abstract. Dr. Sawyer just decided to finish that noble quest for something. 3ed, 3.5ed and Pathfinder already have inside seeds of "balance".
 

FriendlyMerchant

Guest
Frankly speaking, all this faggotry with dump-stats began before Dr. Sawyer contributions to equilibriology. Wizards of the Coast started to attach various combat abilities to attributes like Charisma or Wisdom. So Paladines have to be somewhat charismatic. Intentions behind these innovations are clear, but retarted nevertheless, because guys decided that everything should be about combat. More specifically about melting faces with awesome powers (because it is not necessary to explain how actual charisma can help in combat without introducing bullshit powers). Of course such crap make all stats suuuper abstract. Dr. Sawyer just decided to finish that noble quest for something. 3ed, 3.5ed and Pathfinder already have inside seeds of "balance".
WotC wanted to turn D&D into MTG the rpg.
 

Totktospit

Educated
Joined
Feb 18, 2022
Messages
101
Location
Moscow
Frankly speaking, all this faggotry with dump-stats began before Dr. Sawyer contributions to equilibriology. Wizards of the Coast started to attach various combat abilities to attributes like Charisma or Wisdom. So Paladines have to be somewhat charismatic. Intentions behind these innovations are clear, but retarted nevertheless, because guys decided that everything should be about combat. More specifically about melting faces with awesome powers (because it is not necessary to explain how actual charisma can help in combat without introducing bullshit powers). Of course such crap make all stats suuuper abstract. Dr. Sawyer just decided to finish that noble quest for something. 3ed, 3.5ed and Pathfinder already have inside seeds of "balance".
WotC wanted to turn D&D into MTG the rpg.
Of course, with the goal to sell miniatures, battle-maps, ground etc. But how can we praise decision to be based on something with such intent and so eagerly bash Sawyer at the same time? That is beyound my understanding.
 

FriendlyMerchant

Guest
Of course, with the goal to sell miniatures, battle-maps, ground etc. But how can we praise decision to be based on something with such intent and so eagerly bash Sawyer at the same time? That is beyound my understanding.
Because Sawyer is the balanceman.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,660
But even in Sawyer's fallout, Charisma was pretty much a dump stat.

For most builds, yes. For people who want to play a speech boy character who lets their companions do the fighting, it's worthwhile, similar to how it works in Fallout 2 where it allows you to build up a team to do your fighting for you. In the original Fallout, it's not really necessary and the difference between a high charisma speech boy character and a low charisma speech boy character comes down to a few dialogue reactions.
 

FreeKaner

Prophet of the Dumpsterfire
Joined
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Messages
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Devlet-i ʿAlīye-i ʿErdogānīye
When people are talking about how balance ruins fun, what they are in reality talking about how streamlining ruins fun. Latter is also what Sawyer does, with a religious zeal that it is to detriment of balance even. When your game is a combination of trap choices and faceroll builds that is not fun. A well-balanced game doesn't mean lower character power or options, it just means that you don't have things that lets you effortlessly push through the game and with your only input was knowing the avoid the trap choices.
 
Joined
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Messages
2,095
Location
DFW, Texas
And all of them are on the same server. I wonder when / if someone from larger sites recognizes - again - that freedom of speech is, apparently, useful for productive discussions.
It's never going to happen. Instead, new websites are getting made, and users will migrate to them, much like how MySpace users migrated to Facebook back in the day. Then, when the new sites grow to monopolistic proportions, their owners will ego trip and ban speech and users to drive them to a new batch of websites. It is the eternal cycle of the internet that began with BBS and IRC. Hopefully there will be less social and political destabilization next time around, as normies will be able to reference their own memories of what is happening today, as opposed to having to lookup something as arcane as IRC or LiveJournal.

The things owlcat are doing great are the classic artstyle
:what:
 

Fedora Master

Arcane
Patron
Edgy
Joined
Jun 28, 2017
Messages
27,828
Reminder that Lann spastically defended Wrath before he even played it.
Reminder that the only people defending Wrath are Slavgoblins and autistic buildfags.
 

Cryomancer

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
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Messages
14,477
Location
Frostfell
most often no positioning , a braindead AI , no evolution since 2000 games

Yep. I agree. The AI of their enemies is trash. Compare to KoTC1(or 2), a game made by a single dude. I will never forget when I casted a fire wall spell, the skeleton pushed my cleric towards my fire wall, knocked her down and pinned down her down in my own fire wall. A mindless undead in KoTC act smarter than the ancient lich cyclops and ancient archfey in kingmaker.

If OwlCat makes rise of the runelords next, they MUST hire Pierre to make the "runelord" AI.

"Choice" between facerolling the game or actively crippling yourself is not "fun".

Play Gothic 1 as a mage which is way harder than as a templar/guard/mercenary and see how the game is fun despite all challenges.
 

Rinslin Merwind

Erudite
Joined
Nov 4, 2017
Messages
1,274
Location
Sea of Eventualities
Play Gothic 1 as a mage which is way harder than as a templar/guard/mercenary and see how the game is fun despite all challenges.
Are you using Gothic 1 as some sort of "get out of argument" card? Get real arguments motherfucker or stop trash forum with your meaningless topics.

I will never forget when I casted a fire wall spell, the skeleton pushed my cleric towards my fire wall, knocked her down and pinned down her down in my own fire wall. A mindless undead in KoTC act smarter than the ancient lich cyclops and ancient archfey in kingmaker.
I can't believe that I defend OwlCat and their fucking shitty AI, but mindless undead shouldn't act like that. Your average Skeleton isn't capable of complicated independent thinking (let alone identifying spells) due to lack brains or even complete soul. Average Skeleton is mindless automaton, abiding to commands of master (solved with silence spell). I have no problem with enemies using advanced tactics, but it should be sapient enemies or at least they should roll for Intelligence. Or you embraced Larian's stance on skeleton romances?
 

Reinhardt

Arcane
Joined
Sep 4, 2015
Messages
29,252
but mindless undead shouldn't act like that.
Agree. It breaks immersion much stronger than all this shit Victor rants in bg3 thread, like killing dragon with barrels. Reminded me my modded BB playthrough -
So zombies. They all have nine lives, so you need to deliver 2 finishing blows each time they rise(yes - reanimated zombies have nine lives again), some have battleforge - i can understand this. But then some wounded zombie used rotation to break contact and retreat to second line. I was like WAT?! That's not how zombies work.
I can understand, for example, why legion fight the way it fights, considering their lore, but you don't just give mindless rotting corpses active tacticool abilities when they never had it before! It really breaks the immersion!
That's my main problem with mods and modders. I personally consider it worse than animu girls mods.
 

Cryomancer

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
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Messages
14,477
Location
Frostfell
I have no problem with enemies using advanced tactics, but it should be sapient enemies or at least they should roll for Intelligence. Or you embraced Larian's stance on skeleton romances?

I agree. My point was just that if a single dude managed to create a good AI, OwlCAt should be able to do the same.

I'm not asking for a "Deep Blue" AI in bestial animals with 2/3 INT. Ideally we should have tiers
  1. Mindless - Eg - Skeleton and Zombie. Mindless walk into dead zones
  2. Bestial - Eg - Flank but can't identify spells or do complex tactics, will only try to avoid obvious "death zones"
  3. Tactical - Eg - A mercenary band leader. Will use formations, flank, focus on casters and so on
  4. Genious - Eg - Will have a lot of strategies to counter most PC strategies, dispel buffs and so on. Eg - Lich.
Wearing dress

In Gothic, mages can use wathever they wanna. In fact, dark mages in G3 use the same armor of regular soldiers of his desert tribe.

Are you using Gothic 1 as some sort of "get out of argument" card?

is an example. A build can be a bit more difficulty and yet not be "i can't complete the game".
 

Reinhardt

Arcane
Joined
Sep 4, 2015
Messages
29,252
Genious - Eg - Will have a lot of strategies to counter most PC strategies, dispel buffs and so on. Eg - Lich.
That's your main problem, Victor, genius won't fight some band of murderhobos. Again you can't get past pew-pew confrontation.
 

Cryomancer

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Jul 11, 2019
Messages
14,477
Location
Frostfell
genius won't fight some band of murderhobos

In Kingmaker, you spend years in game time being just pawn of "genious" ancient powers and you need to weaken the Lantern King a lot before having a fighting chance. If things like ancient liches, eldest fey, demon lords and so on should be out of grasp from mortals or not, it is another discussion. My point is that if the PC fight then, they should be at least like Sodalis in NWN1. A quite interesting fight.
 

Gradenmayer

Learned
Joined
Jul 21, 2019
Messages
612
I just hope that they never go PF2e Imo if Paizo forces 2e on then, they should pick any retroclone(mainly AS&SH and LoTFP), or adapt GURPS or any white wolf RPG. PF2e has all problems that plagues 5E with all problems that plagues 4E.

Owlcat are a bunch of globohomo fags that make bloated buggy software.

I wonder if the wokeshit would end if they abandoned Pathfinder.
The tranny and lesbian orc were from the original tabletop adventure book. It's not something Owlcat came up with by themselves. So no, if they abandoned it, nothing would change.
 

Cryomancer

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Jul 11, 2019
Messages
14,477
Location
Frostfell
ITT people complaining about "stat bloat" in an epic level adventure.

Because it is bloated even for a epic level adventure.

Mephistopheles in NWN1:HotU : After a entire chapter attempting to find his true name in hell, you face him and he uses really nasty abilities. Teleport, summon hordes of enemies, dispel your buffs(...)
Mephistopheles in PF:WoTR : A random enemy that appears from nowhere in my mythic quest and dies in two rounds in core difficulty.
 

Humbaba

Arcane
Joined
Aug 12, 2021
Messages
2,939
Location
SADAT HQ
ITT people complaining about "stat bloat" in an epic level adventure.

Because it is bloated even for a epic level adventure.

Mephistopheles in NWN1:HotU : After a entire chapter attempting to find his true name in hell, you face him and he uses really nasty abilities. Teleport, summon hordes of enemies, dispel your buffs(...)
Mephistopheles in PF:WoTR : A random enemy that appears from nowhere in my mythic quest and dies in two rounds in core difficulty.

That's got to do with AI scripting, not bloat.
 

Rinslin Merwind

Erudite
Joined
Nov 4, 2017
Messages
1,274
Location
Sea of Eventualities
Owlcat may understand how balance changes take the fun out of games but too bad they cannot seem to understand the dangers of bloat.
Bloat in their games is fault of both OwlCat themselves and Paizo.
Paizo at fault, because they decided to copy a shitty strategy from WoTC: more book sales for god of book sales. Tons of shitty classes with shitty subclasses, majority of them look like authors deigned classless system with intent to combine some elements of such system later in "classes" (aka mess from abilities and bonuses) for selling books for gullible spreadsheet nerds to buy.
OwlCat at fault because they took such system for their games and thought: "Hmm how we gonna solve it's flaws? Oh, I know, numbers go brrr And brr they go for players and enemies".

And oh, boy, numbers do indeed go brr, holy shit. I haven't played WoTR yet, but had chance to read about stat numbers of enemies and it feels like MMO tier shit.
 

Totktospit

Educated
Joined
Feb 18, 2022
Messages
101
Location
Moscow
Owlcat may understand how balance changes take the fun out of games but too bad they cannot seem to understand the dangers of bloat.
Bloat in their games is fault of both OwlCat themselves and Paizo.
Paizo at fault, because they decided to copy a shitty strategy from WoTC: more book sales for god of book sales. Tons of shitty classes with shitty subclasses, majority of them look like authors deigned classless system with intent to combine some elements of such system later in "classes" (aka mess from abilities and bonuses) for selling books for gullible spreadsheet nerds to buy.
OwlCat at fault because they took such system for their games and thought: "Hmm how we gonna solve it's flaws? Oh, I know, numbers go brrr And brr they go for players and enemies".

And oh, boy, numbers do indeed go brr, holy shit. I haven't played WoTR yet, but had chance to read about stat numbers of enemies and it feels like MMO tier shit.
The sad part about WoTC strategy is that it works. People demand all these supplements and additions. Despite the fact that most of bought books never used in actual play.
 

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