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Too Many Hit points and magic items?
rendalyn
Member Posts: 42 Arc User
In the Gamescom vids I've seen there are way too many hit points and magic items. Attacking for 1032 points of damage! Where do you get the dice for that! I guess you could have a 10d100 longsword b:chuckle Maybe I missed something, is this 4E rules?
And the loot is crazy! I saw a dude get 10 magical items after defeating 30 insignificant enemies. This is taking away from the game experience, not adding to it. I want to earn my magic items thru risk reward, not sift thru 1000's of different magical items.
Or is this the 4E treasure tables?
Or is it because its a demo and there showing loot?
I thought everyone who created this game were pen and paper players?
Why is D&D becoming like everyone else. So depressing.
I hope that we can be a voice on these forums to change this in the game.
Please let your voice be heard if you share my opinion.
And the loot is crazy! I saw a dude get 10 magical items after defeating 30 insignificant enemies. This is taking away from the game experience, not adding to it. I want to earn my magic items thru risk reward, not sift thru 1000's of different magical items.
Or is this the 4E treasure tables?
Or is it because its a demo and there showing loot?
I thought everyone who created this game were pen and paper players?
Why is D&D becoming like everyone else. So depressing.
I hope that we can be a voice on these forums to change this in the game.
Please let your voice be heard if you share my opinion.
Post edited by rendalyn on
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That said, I agree with the magic items statement you made. But also as you said this could have just been about demoing.
The numbers have been inflated, but it fits a video game more. Consider how many powers you use in a pnp game per encounter. Then consider how many times you hit the monster as an average in an MMO game to feel satisfied that the monster is down. That can be a reason to inflate the numbers.
Bigger numbers are more appealing, denote more power, show progression.
I expect (from what I have seen), that loot works more like WOW than DDO:
Items possess stats like +sta, +str (rather than just armour and little bonuses)
Lots of numbers= more appeal
Colours (white, green, blue, purple etc) denote power, and are also appealing
Appeal=satisfaction/want=addiction
but I play one on the forums...
:P
But it is a very limiting system, because there's only so much you can do when the numbers are small.
You cannot differentiate between the continuous damage of fire, the quick stings of a wasp swarm, or the relatively slow slams from conjured tentacles, because you cannot do much else than 5-10 damage per turn.
You cannot implement minor increases/decreases in stats either, and you especially can't use percentages most of the time. You cannot have a spell that decreases armor by 5% or an enchantment that increases damage by 7%, because until you get to high levels you're dealing with 8 AC and damage of the magnitude of 1d4+1... Thus, pnp resorts to flat stats, which is not a good thing balance-wise. For example, in 3e lategame, base weapon stats mean nothing and it's all about the enchantments in them - unenchanted kamas will only do 1-4 damage per hit, which is nothing compaired to the 20+ a fighter could do with a greatsword. But it doesn't matter, because once you enchant both with +1d6 elemental damage, dual kamas decimate anything due to the simple fact that you can get up to 18 attacks per round with them, which means 18d6 elemental damage. At that point, enen trying to do sneak attacks, criticals or cause bleeds is pointless, because everything's overwhelmed by the flat elemental damage. A balance issue that would be fixed if the elementa enchantment could be applied in a "+50% of base damage as elemental" form. But you can't do that with the original pnp numbers - if you roll a 3 then what, you'd do 1,5 fire damage?
Higher numbers are the way to go when the player is not the one doing all the boring calculations. In computer games, you can just shove the job to your CPU and relax.
The one thing that they'd better keep intact from pnp numbers is the power-relation between high and low levels, unlike a lot of MMORPGs, where you get 10 times the health and 5 times the damage within just a few levels, in D&D a lv30 player is still within sight of a lv10 player.
Well, aside from those 80 AC, 18 attacks per round, +9d6 elemental damage per hit, lv30 svirfneblins b:laugh
I figure that to be the case. Still don't like it though.
Although it seems to me that the computer should be the only one understanding the exact mechanics of damage. The weapon or spell's visual/aural/tactile effect should be how the user gauges their damage.
I don't expect to get a magic item on every quest, but I also don't want to collect random pieces of garbage so I can put a magic item together later, unless it is a very special magic item that will make me all powerful. It's always a tradeoff I suppose.
As for items, a lot of the stuff seen are not "major items" but XP, gold, and (possibly, too small on my screen to see) a lot of consumable or very minor junk items. Only big enemies and end stage enemies drop any significant loot, and see above on the change of dynamic from book to MMO.
So, as long as it's understood it's an homage or inspiration to an MMO-based game on the PnP version, and not go all fundamental purist on the PnP game (which I have played in all versions for almost 34 years now) it should be OK.
"We've been working with these guys [WotC] to make sure that we're hand-in-hand with the essence of D&D. Not necessarily... I mean yes, technically we're 4th edition but... that we're trying to distill the best of everything that's D&D to make a digital game."
So, while it is technically 4th edition, it is not strictly 4th edition as that would be an almost impossible feat for an MMO. Single player, maybe much easier.
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Where do they get this pyschological thing. It becomes grinding, and everyone hates that. As far as i see it, I'm not even interested in my character progression because there is no noticeable difference from an armor class 200 to 230, or 1000 to 1062 HP. In my opinion it doesnt show progression at all, and Im not pumped up about my leveling. It just becomes another number that doesnt mean very much because we cant comprehend those numbers until you make them small and significant.
I knew it was somewhat based off of 4E but Im not familiar with the 4E rule set.
So in 9 minutes of gameplay there were:
2 Greaves of Maldeen
2 vicious daggers
3 scrolls of raise the dead
2 hoods of alertness
1 Guanlet of Cleaving
1 casque of tactics
and two items left behind, not to mention a few potions of healing.
All Im saying is the physocological addiction wears off and it becomes grinding, because your not even excited to find treasure any more, and the story lines and roleplaying take the hit because you just want to find that blue item.
too much stimulation= grind
I know I need to play the game first, before solidifying these judgements.
Anyway, Please hit me with your opinions and feedback.
What exactly is the difference when compairing 200/230 AC instead of 20/23? Or 1000/1063 HP instead of 100/106? It's the same percentage increase and in both cases it's equally significant. Except that with the extra 0 the progression is smoother and there are more gameplay options available. Like I said before: there are a whole world of things that simply are not possible to implement without those extra zeros in the stats - poisons and potions of varying potencies, multiple variations and power levels of DoT and debuffs, ability to use percentages where needed etc.
Also, lots of drops are not too much stimulation. Not by a long shot. After a few minutes, the non-useful item drops do not even register to the player's mind.
Lastly, you do not know what the term grind means. Grind is a repeating, dull activity, done for the sole purpose of an ultimate goal. It has nothing to do with what you're talking about.
The damages in MMO are very precise. Also the levels get extended, number of average hits etc. too become more etc. so if you want to have max HP of 100 for lvl 40 mob, you will need damages like 5.667, 3.456 etc. to make the fight go on longer.
As it is convinient to just deal with 5667, 3456 etc. you have high hp. It doesn't make you grind more or something. It is just an attempt to make the calculations look more friendly by removing decimal.
But I can say the items obtained except for the raise scrolls (again see demo) could seem normal for an MMO doing a paragon D&D demo.
1.Ok Ill concede the point of the zeros. Because I dont understand programming and translating the rules. But this was done in every other D&D game before like Baldurs gate, icewind dale, neverwinter nights etc.
So is it not able to translate the regular numbers because of the speed of attacks in NWO? If you could take the time to explain it would be helpful.
2.Thats what I mean by too much stimulation. After a few minutes the items dont even register to the players mind. Maybe stimulation is not the correct word.
3.I appreciate your passion as I am passionate as well, but this third comment is a bit degrading. I think you could have found a more constructive way to tell me this. Tell me if I'm wrong but i thought I explained grinding exactly as you did.
So as truth said before, I am a purist and I hold D&D rules in the highest regard. I guess Im like the old man who doesnt want change. Flippity Flu
But I still dont want to sift thru thousands of magic items. Ahh forget this post even happened.b:surrender
1) BG, NWN etc were practically turn-based games. It was essentially pure D&D, aside from the fact that you could move around irrespective of turns, and a couple skills and feats were changed around to suit the game better. And it worked fine there, but turn-based mechanics do not suit a game that is trying to be real-time, period. It just limits the potential.
However, when your goal is not to make a strict D&D adaptation, but a good D&D game, then you should change these numbers to accomodate the different needs of the medium at hand. Especially when we're talking MMORPGs, there are 2 big issues with the D&D ruleset: a) It is unbalanced and b) the progression is too fast. Therefore, numbers have to be tweaked (see the elemental enchantments and precentage uses I talked about before) and the leveling has to be extended. Now, you can't just make it twenty times as long to go from level to level, you will just make your playerbase die of boredom. Thus, they have to put multiple smaller levels in between, and divide the stat increases in between them. And 2 hp per level does not feel right - so they multiply all stats and make it 50 or something. Not to mention 0.2 strength per level...
Finally, it adds varietyto the game. What if your daggers as an assasin did 20% less direct damagethan your fellow assasin, but inflicted bleeding? What If you wanted a pair of daggers that did a bit less damage but, due to their shape, had more chances to score a critical hit? All thse options are not possible with the original ruleset, and that hurts charactrer customisation a lot. It is quite frankly boring to have all daggers, or any weapon type for that matter, be EXACTLY the same. The only thing that even came close to that was gear materials, but again, the only materials that even mattered were zalantar and mithril, because everything else gave negligible bonuses that more often than not didn't even stack with what you already had.
2) Well, it's only right that, when fighting a horde of orcs, goblins or whatever, you'll end up looting a ton of gear, most of which will be trash. It only makes sense. It's much better than the way NWN and DA went, where everyone's weapons suddenly dissapeared when they died, except humans that, for whatever reason, often dropped their full gear on death.
And of course non-rare items do not register anymore in the player's mind. That's why finding treasure, that is actual treasure and not some rusty broken sword or something, remains just as exciting as if all that trash hadn't dropped.
3) Well, sorry if you found that degrading, it was not my intention, but I was simply pointing out that what you were talking about bared no relation whatsoever to the term "grind". You are saying that having a ton of vendortrash drop leads to grind. Grind has nothing to do with the vendor trash that drops off normal enemies - it's about how hard it is to level up, how much leveling content there is in the game to prevent you from having to just grind mobs, and how difficult it is to get the weapon you want to drop. If the regular enemies drop trash items or not that has no effect on grind, it's just a more creative way for enemies to drop money, instead of just dropping a pile of gold when you kill them. The difficulty of getting a rare item is exactly the same, and more often than not you'll not have to grind for it - gear in MMOs almost always drops from predetermined bosses at predetermined instances or places on the map. With a chance of dropping some other rare item you don't want ofc. THERE is where you have to look for grind: Do all the items I want drop withing 2-3 runs? Do I have to repeat it a dozen times? Do I have to keep grinding a certain boss for a 1% chance to get what I want? Whether or not you get a few vendortrash along the way or not doesn't matter, the amount of grinding stays exactly the same.
Also, why are any of the items you mentioned necessarily magical? Aside from the few scrolls and potions ofc, that are available en masse in any D&D game anyway. An item can have added abilities due to unique design and craftsmanship as well, and in any case, mages and enchanted items are not that uncommon in Faerun...
Not that I like seeing the huge numbers. With them advertising action combat and all, they should just get rid of them and have players look at their healthbars, just like most action games do. Perhaps an option to turn off feedback #s?
2. Just because there's a lot of loot dropping, doesn't mean all/any of it is of great value. Not that I like that kind of loot system, but it works quite well in most games (Amalur, for example).
In PnP (3.5 here, but you get the idea), a level 1 rogue makes maybe 10 attacks per 10 rounds. 10 rounds = 1 minute. In NWO's real-time combat, 10 attacks would take maybe 5 seconds. So see, with a direct adaptation, everything would die 10 times faster than the intended DnD speed, and even faster than if you played the same encounter in PnP since there's no slow deliberation in action combat. And playing a game where everything dies a second or two after you meet it would feel really boring.
In order to afford things in the game you either have to spend real money on Zen and then sell that Zen in the game for Refined Dilithium. Or, you have to grind only a hand-ful of daily missions, over and over, on each character and then transfer that Dilithium to the character that wants to buy something. The only Missions that reward unrefined dilithium, which there are only a handful of, are daily missions. Regular Missions do not reward Dilithium. You can gain small portions of Dilithium through the DOFF system, however this is so small that I have rarely ever gained over 3,000 Unrefined Dilithium from a day's worth of DOFF assignments.
So, basically, if I want to reach my maximum amount of Refined Dilithium per day, I have to repeat the following on each character, every day, just to afford one or two things for ONE character:
1) History 102: Alpha Quadrant Midterm - 480 D
2) Aiding the Deferi - 1440 D
3) Rescue Deferi Captives - 480 D
4) Sh'mar - Distress Signal - 480 D
5) Traelus System - Satellite Repair - 480 D
6) Explore Strange New Worlds - 1440 D
7) Chart the B'Tran Cluster (Vice Admiral - Daily) - 1440 D
Doing these is the most enjoyable (as annoying as it is as a whole) and quickest way to reach my cap on each character, usually after the dilithium gained from any DOFF assignments available. Doing the other few daily missions seems to take longer and are less enjoyable, especially the annoying Mining one, plus I prefer space combat/gameplay in STO.
So for my Fed Chars (I only have one KDF toon), on one fed character, I do 1 through 7. Then I repeat that on my 2nd fed character, then again on my 3rd fed character. By that time, I am bored from the repetition and still am unable to afford much of anything worth-while. It is this repetition and grinding of Dilithium that is killing my enjoyment of STO. Anything else I do in STO, if it doesn't reward dilithium, feels like a waste of time and is therefore not enjoyable because I am not making any progress to my dilithium goal(s).
On top of that, they took out the free ship at VA level, so once you get to max level and can get the top tier ship, you HAVE to spend dilithium or Zen on the last tier of ships, which cost a couple hundred thousand refined dilithium. To afford something that costs 200,000 Refined Dilithium, without spending Zen, I would need to grind these missions (maybe one or two more even) to reach the 8,000 cap, each day, for about 9 days, on 3 characters each day. That is TOO much grind for ONE item for ONE character.
There are too many things that cost refined dilithium and not enough differentiating ways to gain it, unless you spend real money to buy it outright. This is what annoys me the most, the thought that this grind is left this way intentionally to make people more apt to buy Zen and then buy Dilithium rather than grinding it. I want to play the game to advance and spend my money on things that give me enjoyment, not spend money on things that are needed to help me advance and better my character.
The one good thing I must point out though, in this slew of negativity, is that the leveling to level cap is quite enjoyable and not a grind at all. It is once you get to level cap that the grind really starts to become noticable and the amount of things that cost dilithium become more noticeable. So new players usually do not have a sense of this and are usually in disagreement with the feeling of grind in STO, until they have been sitting at level cap for a few months.
I hope that Neverwinter does not have any sort of daily grind system like STO's Dilithium System. I hope they stay true to their words and keep the Cash Shop as fluff and convenience only items. When the game becomes pay to win or even pay to advance, like STO has become for me, I will be furious and greatly disappointed to say the least.
So, for me, this is my definition of Boring and Repetitive Grinding.
I hope this post made sense, battling the onset of a migraine right now.
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Now we have to spend dil ALSO on starbases if we guild, and the F2P Player gets awfully hosed on this....and if we want another character slot, we gotta pay CP/Zen or pay dil for that or just 1 char fed and 1 char Klingon....which is enough while I have to plunk 800K dil just for a ship for one char.....
So if this is starting as F2P this is what NOT to do in NWO, as due to the StarBase costs tacked onto the other costs.
(And I have decided to take a grind break from STO and it's Cryptic's fault for having a system that asks me to grind 36 days to get one ship.)
Rarity and the "lottery" addiction.
The best loot is the most rare; eventually everyone at end game will have similar equipment (blue level) but only a few will have the best. Because the only way to get it is chance based (in pve drops), everyone fights over it, and the very fact that it is somewhat random is addiction enducing.
All these psychological tricks have been starting to come into games like this past 10-15 years. What makes things addictive, what causes long term dedication to the game etc.
They literally use things like Pavlov's dog, the mouse in the maze, the pidgeon with the button for food, conditioned behaviour and response etc as tools/reference. I am not kidding, might sound a little far fetched/conspiratorial at first but it's actually happening (when I was studying games at Uni we had several people come in to talk to us about it from the industry).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_ctJqjlrHA
For instance in wow originally dailies where there because you need gold for repairs and such and only way to gain gold was grinding mobs for hours, dailies where great then could do a few and get enough gold for cover costs in about 5 mins. Then they started adding to it, giving faction gains and more and more , which in turn offer rewards from vendors once enough was gained and it became a grind itself taking up to hours. Do not go that way.
I must admit, it does slightly worry me about the stats on items. If you inflate the stats too much you will end up making the starting stats not important. If you have 100`s of a said state a different of 1 to 4 to begin with means little. So I am not sure how they are dealing with that. Maybe instead of high stats have a multiple of base stat? though that eventually might be too large a difference with very high mutliples.
Hopeful however they do it will involve base stats making them reasobnnably important.
How does 4e deal with it is i similar to other editions?
Mind it all depends on whether we can assign stats or not.
As a person familiar with DnD, the core rules are firmly imbedded in my cranium. On pen and paper, small numbers are easy. large numbers are more difficult, and everyone wants the +6 holy avenger sword. At least that was the thing back then.. Magic items were rare, and getting them made you feel awesome, cuz you worked for that..
In comes the world of online.. and all this stuff that makes you feel good using pen and paper, did not translate well.. it just isnt as fun. Killing something, and something dropping, even if it is dumb and useless, is still something, and i get ocd on loots... lol.. When you are just imagining the game, looting doesnt become an issue, as it is when you have an actual pixelated thing you just downed, and then you want something. you just won... where is the reward? In my imagination i can happily kill thousands of orcs with no loots. but if i kill thousands in a video game, and there is no loot, i aint playin anymore.
Now about numbers.. in my imagination, 1d6 plus bonus is fine. Online, 1d6 plus bonus is probably gonna be like 9.. and that makes me feel sad. lol
Now, a fun observation. i got my wife to turn on DDO, and to me, it was a walk in the park.. because i know the rules.. for her, it was a nightmare of learning and HAMSTER up.. and being confused nearly the whole time. But she got very excited every time the chest popped up, and the cool shinies started, and the sound of success was heard.. which is another topic concernng people beginning in DnD...
All in all, i have to say, the bigger numbers will satisfy far more people than smaller numbers, and having loot drop, even if it is junk, is better than grinding through tons of kills and getting nothing. Im sure i just didnt really say anything more than what was already said, but hey. here it is.
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Yep, I agree, which means if I were in charge, half the people will want to run me out of the forums, and the other half will want to worship me as the next B.F. Skinner incarnate (that psychiatrist who was discussing the slot machines and positive reinforcement with the Operant Conditioning shown earlier with the pigeons.)
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Your post is a bit disheartening, I did not read all of it but I think I get the gist. What you are saying is that STO et al. are forcing players to do things they do not want to do so that the players are able to play how they would like to play? This does not sound like good business sense to me...
Even the devs have to eat of course and since NWO is F2P the monies have to flow somehow...
Welcome to Massive Multiplayer Online games, either RPGs or with RPG elements. Where grinding is always part of the game. From WoW to STO and from LoL to Tribes... hell, from Skyrim to Dark Souls if we wanna talk single-player RPGs even. In some it's better, in some it's worse, but anywhere you put skill trees and levels, grind will always follow. Except for games like NWN and ME, not because they found a magic trick or anything but because there was nothing to grind left after you cleared each area.
Best way to make things not feel grindy is to reward for whatever you do in the game, then by able to use that reward for what you want. Normally this would be gold and buy things, but maybe for special stuff have a universal tokens you get from dungeons, crafting, leveling, exploring (maybe?), creating foundry content and so on, then can use for which ever special stuff thats in game.
Only things that are cosmetic should be shop bought, these I would count as graphics (skins, looks such as armor looks or mount looks) and maybe such things like portals, things not needed or giving the player power and not required, but likely would be bought.