Sensuki
Arcane
Games are not their systems.
Indeed. IMO the content in games is the most important, but content can be definitely a lot better or a lot worse depending on the game systems and how the content makes use of those systems.
Games are not their systems.
Okay, then give examples. Since there are supposedly so many ways, this should be easy.
Wrong, that's just a statement Sawyer made and you believe without question. And as an additional point, it doesn't matter who good people in general are at games, just the skill of the people who actually play and buy games matter.
Just start with Sawyer's core ideas, which were a) no useless builds, b) distinctions between classes - which implicitly includes different playstyles.
From a single value, avoid deriving multiple values in different subsystems. When you do this, you have created a complex balancing problem for yourself. The classic example of this is the ability score system in pretty much all editions of (Advanced) Dungeons & Dragons. Ability scores affect skills, the use of class abilities (e.g. a paladin's lay on hands), and various class-neutral statistics (hit point bonus from Con, AC bonus from Dex). Every time you adjust one of these skills, abilities, or statistics, you affect the value of the stat that has an input into them. Logically, any time you adjust inputs into the value from which these other values are derived, you affect the expected range of the derived values. The fewer things a single value affects, the easier balance will be for you.
Arcanum, super model background. You're bad at fighting, bad at talking, but hey your beauty's sky high. Guess what, beauty's a dump stat. Choosing this background makes the game harder for no real benefit.
Chris Avellone's let's play. Guy puts all his points into talking, then keeps picking fights.
Games are not their systems.
Nope, supermodel background doesn't prevent you from being good at talking. You can even play a supermodel that is somewhat good at fighting by focusing on fats weapons like rapiers.
Also, if you are hellbent on playing a supermodel who can do nothing but look good, why shouldn't the game be somewhat harder as a result?
If Avellone makes a character who is good at talking but never actually utilizes that advantage, then Arcanum's character system is hardly at fault.
Super model lowers your intelligence to the point where you get the dumb dialogues as well as strength.
Because it's your character concept. However, it's one the game content doesn't support.
Chris has been developing and playing RPGs for something close to 20 years, and he makes these kinds of mistakes. Now imagine the average player.
Not much strength is needed to become an effective fighter if you go for speed.
somewhat harder game /= character concept not supported
Or you just recruit the dog and make combat trivial.
He has been writing for RPGs for close to 20 years. Also, don't pretend that games like Arcanum are such a complicated "science" that only a select view can play them well. Sport management games are often way more complicated then rpgs and still have a huge following.
Eventually DR/health demands having high strength if you go melee.
As I said, there's no real benefit to having high beauty, it's purely cosmetic. Additionally, while a good player can complete a role playing game with a bad build, a bad player will find it impossible.
People who play sports games go in already knowing the rules.
Well, higher initial reactions form npcs. In some few cases that might be helpful. Not much, but what would you expect should high beauty do anyway?
I said sport management games. Games where you have to run a soccer/football/ice hockey/whatever team. just because one watches such games for hours every day doesn't mean he has much of an idea how to effectively manage a sports team. And to be honest, as longs as rpgs don't do strange stuff most people have a rough idea how things work.
If high beauty meant that humanoid enemies don't attack you unless you attack them first because they're too enamored, it'd be a stat worth considering, but alas, it doesn't do that.
You go in knowing what the content's going to be like though. And there you go again with "most people." Most people are the examples described in http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...-to-the-new-thread.75947/page-88#post-2281253 http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/is-bethesda-inclined.96429/page-2#post-3687924 and http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...vellone-arcanum-lp.80476/page-22#post-2591482
These are a few select anecdotes from large-scale data-gathering projects. Those are indeed descriptions of the typical RPG gamer.These are a few selected examples. There is no reason to suspect this behavior is indicative of normal people. You (and probably Sawyer, since these are all examples selected by him) make the mistake of trying to generalize the behavior of a large group by looking at a few examples of extreme behavior.
PoE has better grafics than Arcanum at least. It's totally impossible to avoid dry heaving and wondering where are the artists that worked on Fallout when you launch Arcanum.
These are a few select anecdotes from large-scale data-gathering projects. Those are indeed descriptions of the typical RPG gamer.
So, yeah, they now know exactly how meat-headed RPG players are as a group.
And they still successfully sell games like Dark Souls, Original Sin, Wasteland 2.
plus a complex character system which has tremendous impact on the gameplay.Personal observations from large-scale data gathering projects.
a) action combat
b) check out these chieves, the majority of the people who play it just fuck around in the first act http://steamcommunity.com/stats/230230/achievements
c) been out for over a year and Pillars of Eternity's already outsold it despite being released six months after it
plus a complex character system which has tremendous impact on the gameplay.
Your point?
Still successful enough to merit a revised goty edition and console ports.
Nah.
Most people who have played it didn't bother mastering the system.
And the least well-received of the big Kickstarter RPGs. Google autocomplete gives me "Wasteland 2 is hard/is toaster repair worth it/is bad."
Wrong. How your stats are distributed has a direct impact on the damage you do with specific weapons, how hard it is to stagger you, your amount of stamina, how much equipment weight you can have and still dodge fast, if and how well you can use magic/miracles and so on. Depending on that, the game plays quite differently. If this is not a tremendous impact on gameplay, I don't know what is.
One might as well say that people rather spend time in the early game where the systems of Original Sin really shine instead of the latter parts which are not as fun.
Google autocomplete for POE gives me "Pillars of Eternity is hard/amazing/overrated." Should I now claim POE received a mixed reception based on google auotcomplete alone?
Fallout combat wasn't great but it was fun, POEs was neither.
Your attributes-as-skills idea is a non-starter with Josh.
Hard games are bad."Wasteland 2 is hard/is toaster repair worth it/is bad."