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And for those Martial Arts Techniques and Martial Arts Charms which have nothing to do with the Martial Arts Skill? Including fancy magic fighting styles which don't demand that you invest in punching skill were played up as a thing. A_Raving_Loon fucked around with this message at 23:57 on Nov 15, 2013 |
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Nov 15, 2013 23:42
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A_Raving_Loon posted:An for those Martial Arts Techniques and Martial Arts Charms which have nothing to do with the Martial Arts Skill? Once you introduce nerds to the idea that a particular category of things is rife with special cases, they're positively eager to demonstrate their nerdy superiority by memorizing all the exceptions. If we had three or four skills that were as unusual in structure as MA, I'd worry; as it is we're fine.
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Nov 15, 2013 23:47
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 Well, unnecessary breast-shirts that would probably need to be taped on during the cosplay seem to be a trend. Art-wise, I say there's both much better and much worse than the average quality of their stuff with respect to women in comics. Here we've got an oddly pointless breast ridge and bedroom eyes. Would be more forgivable if she were killing something with the bow on the cover art instead of being just, well, posed:  Dear god, someone tell his line artist to stop making pointless breast ridges for the colorist to have to deal with.  This one is, at least, not any more ridiculously dressed than the male characters, but her donk is featured pretty prominently.  Now, this, on the other hand, demonstrates exactly the skillset needed to draw a badass Exalted woman. Zub (and the actual line artist and colorist) can do it if they try. I would play this character today. 
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Nov 15, 2013 23:52
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The impression is itself misleading about Exalted, though, because it implies that everyone is automatically and instinctively making puppet hands motions when they fight each other, whereas in fact martial arts are esoteric spiritual disciplines requiring specific initiation and investment (as represented by charms and merits that DON'T appear on every character sheet) that most people DON'T practice. Like, an Unarmed skill that's augmented with Martial Arts merits (which can similarly augment melee, archery, etc) is actually much more indicative of the Exalted setting. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 23:56 on Nov 15, 2013 |
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Nov 15, 2013 23:52
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Wait those were supposed to be sword-wings? 'scuse me while I go laugh really hard because they look way more ridiculous as wings instead of just floating weapons Magneto-style. But comic tie-in art really doesn't worry me any. I highly doubt I'll be reading the comics anyway. Hell, I'm just happy we got a kinda generic art piece to go along with the non-update of the week. I really had been wondering what happened to Plague of Hats, but Evil Hat has done some really amazing stuff and if that's where he went I wish him the best and can't wait to see what he does next. We do appreciate the point of contact Stephenls, and you've been pretty mature about things even when there's disagreements. Rather have you here than Holden, even if you're only an editor. 
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Nov 15, 2013 23:59
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Stephenls posted:(Zub does Skullkickers, I think; what do the women look like in that one? And how are they written? I admit I've never looked at Skullkickers.) I rather like Skullkickers quite a bit. You can read the first two story arcs at least for free at Keenspot, though it's really not written for the webcomic format. The main female character, Kusia, has been played for mild cheesecake at times, but Zub's never been problematic that I can think of. Also it's about a cowboy and a dwarf being about as literal fantasy murderhobos you can get and is pretty hilarious and if you like murderhobos you should read it. Vadoc posted:He's also doing the new Samurai Jack comics. He also does the writing on the Pathfinder comics, which I haven't read past the first issue, and has also done a lot of work for shiftylook.com.
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Nov 16, 2013 00:00
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Ferrinus posted:The impression is itself misleading about Exalted, though, because it implies that everyone is automatically and instinctively making puppet hands motions when they fight each other, whereas in fact martial arts are esoteric spiritual disciplines requiring specific initiation and investment (as represented by charms and merits that DON'T appear on every character sheet) that most people DON'T practice. Honestly I thought the thing that Exalted should do is make fighting two skills: 1. Killing people close up 2. Killing people from far away. You could subsume Dodge into Athletics to deal with that issue there. As for the skills that got freed up (since you've reduced the directly fighting skills from six to two)? I don't know. I'd maybe split Craft into separate skills instead of a skill with fifty different subskills to expand that, or something, to keep the 25 symmetry. I don't know what skills you'd give the Dawns to compensate for it, but it's a thought. As a bonus, because being good at all mortal forms of fighting is so cheap, it means that the default state of any Exalt is going to be 'good at fighting with any weapon in a mundane fashion'. "Martial Arts Styles"/Charms would then be nWoD-style Merits and generic Charms anyone can learn with some exceptions, which means the thing can be expanded to more charmsets and weirder conceptual ideas. I mean, you can now have a generic Charm tree for sword-smithing in Craft, or one for singing in Presence, or one for jurisprudence in Bureaucracy, or whatever.
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Nov 16, 2013 00:06
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I rather like Skullkickers quite a bit. You can read the first two story arcs at least for free at Keenspot, though it's really not written for the webcomic format. The main female character, Kusia, has been played for mild cheesecake at times, but Zub's never been problematic that I can think of. Well, there you go. That's what you can expect from the Exalted tie-in comic. Not the end of the world.
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Nov 16, 2013 00:07
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Stephenls posted:Well, there you go. That's what you can expect from the Exalted tie-in comic. Not the end of the world. Less hospitality-induced cannibalism and dragging corpses around on chariots than I would prefer, going by that description.
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Nov 16, 2013 00:13
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BryanChavez posted:Less hospitality-induced cannibalism and dragging corpses around on chariots than I would prefer, going by that description. What I'm getting from this thread is that Skullkickers is what I should be reading to fill the gaping void left in my heart by the cancellation of the "They're orphan zombies!" D&D comic.
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Nov 16, 2013 00:17
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Stephenls posted:Once you introduce nerds to the idea that a particular category of things is rife with special cases, they're positively eager to demonstrate their nerdy superiority by memorizing all the exceptions. If we had three or four skills that were as unusual in structure as MA, I'd worry; as it is we're fine. It's kind of rich for you to claim that the problem here lies entirely with those loving nerds when at the same time it's obsessive gamer system mastery you're counting on to overcome the confusion in the first place, and making stuff like Shining Point itself a "special case" is pointlessly restrictive. Martial arts based purely on gunplay or fencing or whatever make perfect sense and we're absolutely going to see more of them roll out as the game unfolds - the system core shouldn't create the idea that a martial art that doesn't use punching is some kind of aberration rather than a perfectly natural extension of the basic concept. The sentences "This Martial Art doesn't use Martial Arts" and "These non-Martial Arts charms require Martial Arts" aren't confusing to me because I've long since grown used to putting up with Exalted's bullshit, but I'm pretty sure you want to attract not only new players but new players who want to be able to pick up and play a game without spending hours studying and internalizing its many counterintuitive game-mechanical nuances. You're the editor! This is way worse than "Silver-Voiced", because at least that doesn't create the exact opposite impression it's supposed to. Just put a section on the character sheet labeled "Martial Arts" next to the one labeled "Sorcery".
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Nov 16, 2013 00:47
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Stephenls posted:Once you introduce nerds to the idea that a particular category of things is rife with special cases, they're positively eager to demonstrate their nerdy superiority by memorizing all the exceptions. If we had three or four skills that were as unusual in structure as MA, I'd worry; as it is we're fine. No, don't feed the System Mastery geeks. Even if it didn't enable their addiction, now the rest of us have to suffer them.
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Nov 16, 2013 00:50
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Ferrinus posted:It's kind of rich for you to claim that the problem here lies entirely with those loving nerds when at the same time it's obsessive gamer system mastery you're counting on to overcome the confusion in the first place, and making stuff like Shining Point itself a "special case" is pointlessly restrictive. Martial arts based purely on gunplay or fencing or whatever make perfect sense and we're absolutely going to see more of them roll out as the game unfolds - the system core shouldn't create the idea that a martial art that doesn't use punching is some kind of aberration rather than a perfectly natural extension of the basic concept. If I gave the impression of having a problem with "those loving nerds," I apologize.
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Nov 16, 2013 00:57
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Stephenls posted:If I gave the impression of having a problem with "those loving nerds," I apologize. The problem does lie with those god drat nerds. If they had actual thoughts, standards, etc. instead of being a diffuse nonsentient haze that churned out identically irrelevant complaints regardless of what you did or wrote, then maybe you'd have some incentive to prioritize clarity and accurate setting representation over second edition (Second edition! The bad one! Am I crazy? Am I the ONLY one seeing this?! You people are going to bat for a unique element of the edition of the game you've specifically repudiated!) legacy mechanics.
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Nov 16, 2013 01:04
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Stephenls, I value you as a thread participant, and I want you to stay. Regarding the following criticism, please remember that you did ask.Stephenls posted:Am I really doing so badly? Also I think it's a bad idea to take things personally if there are any other possible interpretations. It's a recipe for getting a toxic community like you've got over on the WW forums. Stephenls posted:If I gave the impression of having a problem with "those loving nerds," I apologize. You're acting like he's offended by your word choice, and ignoring his point about the larger and far less personal issue of Martial, Martial, Martial Arts. The fact that people like me are taking time out of my busy day to think and talk about YOUR GODDAMN GAME should really be enough validation. You don't need to go fishing for more. That said, compared to Holden, you are way better at not taking things personally. Also you haven't been banned, so you're clearly doing okay in the eyes of those who matter.
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Nov 16, 2013 03:31
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Dodge Charms posted:Stephenls, I value you as a thread participant, and I want you to stay. Regarding the following criticism, please remember that you did ask. But mostly as a joke. Stephenls fucked around with this message at 04:22 on Nov 16, 2013 |
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Nov 16, 2013 04:19
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Dodge Charms posted:You're acting like he's offended by your word choice, and ignoring his point about the larger and far less personal issue of Martial, Martial, Martial Arts. Okay so I was about to link to that youtube video and when I quoted your post I noticed that you had linked the exact video I was planning to use. Good to know we have the same awful sense of humor. Also, whatever we may think of what's going on with the game, I feel like Stephen does deserve some acknowledgement for continuing to attempt to deliver good relations to a forum that has not once failed to jump down his throat about every word he's said (and to head of smartasses, yes, I know it's probably closer to 75%), and also for trying to find out how he can do a better job at said public relations. I think that shows a real concern for the fanbase, that reaching out to different communities. That said, I think the show of concern for the fanbase that we all NEED is some kind of response to the feedback we give. What previews we've been given, we've responded to with significant fervor, and that has not been shown to have significant effect, and I believe that is a major part of the ill will festering in this thread. We are customers, and our continued business is cultivated by feeling that the product (in this case, the entire Exalted line) will serve our needs better the more time and money we invest in it. We need to feel that. I'd like to swoop in and offer some miraculous suggestion as to how this can be accomplished without A: capitulating to every demand thrown up by the masses or B: tossing out enough mechanics previews that by the time the game comes out, there's nothing new to read in it (although FATE Core managed, I suppose...how do they make money with a currently-F2P game that can be played with standard dice and some notecards, again? EDIT - I mean, it's an awesome game, but it's just so much more...free than basically any other "big" RPG out there). But I don't have that sort of suggestion. I can only exhort the dev team to improve their response to the player base. The excitement has died off. Some of it will come back when the game is actually released, but in the stagnation, the New Edition Smell has already faded too much to be a selling point. The game needs some kind of good press other than "new". It needs it desperately. I think I lost my train of thought. I'm tired, and I really want to see Exalted have a bright future, and the only thing I can think to do for that is talk condescendingly to some goons and one of the devs. So, for want of something else to do, that's what I'm doing. Or maybe we could all just geek out about the Exalted characters we hope to make when 3e comes out. I think all records of such discussion were torched and cast to the pit when the last thread erupted into an unholy shitstorm. I'd volunteer to go first but 
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Nov 16, 2013 04:20
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I think the single most basic problem you (general Exalted you) have PR-wise is that there is zero delineation of any sort between when someone is acting as a Dude and when someone is acting as an Exalted Writer. If anyone involved in Exalted talks to the community, they should make it clear what hat they're wearing when they do so. If someone doesn't want to bang their head against a wall for days at a time, they should slap a disclaimer into their sig saying that everything they post is purely their own personal opinion. Like, I think the Exalted fanbase in general is pretty drat devoted. You (still general) don't need to go above and beyond the call of duty in talking to everyone, you just need to avoid actively pissing more than a few people off. MJ12 posted:Honestly I thought the thing that Exalted should do is make fighting two skills: I think you can pretty much cut it down to fifteen, three per Caste. Having 25 skills just for the sake of having 25 skills is stupid, and Exalted has some serious skill imbalance. Melee/Martial Arts, Archery/Thrown, and War for Dawns. Presence/Performance, Integrity, and Resistance/Survival for Zeniths. Medicine, Lore/Occult, and Craft for Twilights. Stealth/Larceny, Awareness/Investigation, and Athletics/Dodge for Nights. Bureaucracy, Socialize, and Ride/Sail for Eclipse. I would just cut Linguistics entirely; learning new languages works better as a Merit and written social rolls should key off the same Skills as they would do in person.
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Nov 16, 2013 04:48
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Stephenls posted:Once you introduce nerds to the idea that a particular category of things is rife with special cases, they're positively eager to demonstrate their nerdy superiority by memorizing all the exceptions. If we had three or four skills that were as unusual in structure as MA, I'd worry; as it is we're fine. For certain values of 'fine', perhaps. If you have a skill called Martial Arts, then Martial Arts Techniques/Charms become linked to that one skill to the exclusion of others. Any Martial Art using some other base skill will be an exception, in the minds of players and in the minds of freelancers who join the writing team later. Think I'm exaggerating? Look at the rest of the system. Specifically, look at other skill oriented Charms: Dodge Charms use the Dodge skill. Athletics Charms use the Athletics skill. Bureaucracy Charms use the Bureaucracy skill. And so on and so forth all the way down the line. Unless you are radically changing how Charm trees work in 3e, players will assume and expect Martial Arts Charms to be linked to the Martial Arts skill. This misses an opportunity to make Exalted better. Instead of looking at Martial Arts as "kung fu", approach it from another angle. Martial arts as "the Arts of War". They already are something that is available cross splat, and can be learned by mortals under certain circumstances. Some are organized teachings, with Sifus and ranks and Dojos and such, but they don't have to be. If you make the unarmed combat skill into Brawl or just call it Hand-to-Hand, it opens up tons of options. Sword styles? Are Martial Arts using the Melee skill (and with a weapon restriction). Traditional punch face Martial Arts? Martial arts using the Brawl skill. Zen Archery? Martial Arts, using Archery. But because you've decoupled them from a single skill, you have a ton of options for further arts that are suddenly thematically viable. An Exorcist Martial Art? Have a handful of skills using Brawl for punching, and have ghost destroying/demon banishing charms keyed off of Occult. A Martial Art taught only inside the Realm Legions? Athletics charms to allow marching further and faster, Resistance charms for dealing with adverse conditions, War charms augmenting combat skills when working in formation. A Martial Art used by hunters in the eastern wilds? Awareness charms aiding tracking, Stealth charms for camouflage, Archery or Thrown charms affecting striking from ambush. I understand the desire to have the skill name not sound as crude as 'Brawl', but that really isn't a good reason for making things confusing and inconsistent.
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Nov 16, 2013 05:25
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Tulul posted:I think you can pretty much cut it down to fifteen, three per Caste. Having 25 skills just for the sake of having 25 skills is stupid, and Exalted has some serious skill imbalance. The 15 skill idea isn't bad, actually. Although the idea with 25 skills but only 3 really combat-relevant ones (close fighting, ranged fighting, athletics & dodge) means that at minimal investment everyone is good enough at fighting that they can deal with low-level opposition. I don't actually mind skill 'imbalance', as long as it's intentional and thematic. If martial arts (in the sense of "any form of combat") is really easy to learn and cost-efficient, it means that an optimized character will be good at all forms of combat. Is this thematic y/n? If yes, go for it. Balance is great, but sometimes a game that is unbalanced the right way can be very interesting, as long as everyone writing the game is aware of this imbalance and what part of the setting/themes of the game it emphasizes.
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Nov 16, 2013 05:26
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And, just to digress for a bit, I wanted to say something about how SA has responded to dev posts as compared to places like the WW forums. We know you guys can do good rules, and good fluff. The reason you heard backlash on the Abyssal stuff, and the reason people have been complaining about things like the BP/XP split and the lack of information actually come from the same place. You can do better. And we know it. Ink Monkeys kept Exalted alive when it should have been dead, and we're all here posting because we like the game and want it to be better. So when you come out with a charm preview full of very questionable things, we're going to call you on it. When there's mechanical issues, we're going to make noise about it. And it won't be particularly deferential, since that's not something that really happens here, but it will be honest and will usually try to contain ideas on how to make things better. As I recall, the first posts commenting on the Abyssal Charms were more along the lines of "this could be done way better by making it about obsession, not rape", rather than the firestorm the thread later became. We want to help make Exalted better. If you open up and give out details about the system, you'll get tons of feedback from us (and other players) that could help. Hell, limit it only to people who backed the kickstarter and have already paid for a pdf or physical copy, if you want, but please, please stop shrugging off the useful playtest info we could be giving!
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Nov 16, 2013 05:52
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Stephenls posted:I agree with John and Holden that having Martial Arts on the character sheet provides a better impression of what the game is about than Brawl, but value the minor clarity increase more than that impression. John and Holden value the impression over the minor clarity increase. I can't fault them for that decision because it really is a very minor clarity increase; this poo poo is not going to be as confusing as people worry. I don't understand this logic. Wouldn't that lead you to rename Melee into Medieval Swordplay, Thrown into Ninja Stars and Archery into Legolasity, and then create special systems for each? It isn't consistent with the rest of the skills, which are broad areas of competence rather than genre hooks. And in any case, most of what the Martial Arts skill and its flashy Charmsets accomplished is to make the other three fighting abilities seem drab and generic, as far as my group was concerned. Martial Arts aside, could you tell us why Holden and John decided to stick with the same ability and attribute spreads? That's one of the big design decisions that sticks out for me. As people have pointed out in the previous posts, it makes a lot of sense to condense the abilities down to 15 or 20, and Wits and Appearance are kind of weird and superfluous. I hope this wasn't about preserving the Sidereal poem structure. Lymond fucked around with this message at 07:20 on Nov 16, 2013 |
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Nov 16, 2013 06:52
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Lymond posted:I don't understand this logic. Wouldn't that lead you to rename Melee into Medieval Swordplay, Thrown into Ninja Stars and Archery into Legolasity, and then create special systems for each? It isn't consistent with the rest of the skills, which are broad areas of competence rather than genre hooks. And in any case, most of what the Martial Arts skill and its flashy Charmsets accomplished is to make the other three fighting abilities seem drab and generic, as far as my group was concerned. Because the alternatives they prototyped produced results they didn't like, basically.
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Nov 16, 2013 06:56
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Stephenls posted:Am I really doing so badly? No, you take criticism well, even for stuff that you don't have a personal hand in. Lunar chat from a few weeks ago was great. You will never be forgiven for not giving us a Bureaucracy preview about overworked Sidereals during the Kickstarter, however. Plague of Hats leaving the team is incredibly unfortunate. He's kind of awesome. I was selling the idea of the 3e DB and Sidereal hardbacks to others based on him being a writer with a good head for what's mechanically wrong with 2e so, uh, drat. Kenlon posted:If you have a skill called Martial Arts, then Martial Arts Techniques/Charms become linked to that one skill to the exclusion of others. Any Martial Art using some other base skill will be an exception, in the minds of players and in the minds of freelancers who join the writing team later. Think I'm exaggerating? Look at the rest of the system. Specifically, look at other skill oriented Charms: Dodge Charms use the Dodge skill. Athletics Charms use the Athletics skill. Bureaucracy Charms use the Bureaucracy skill. And so on and so forth all the way down the line. Unless you are radically changing how Charm trees work in 3e, players will assume and expect Martial Arts Charms to be linked to the Martial Arts skill. This is how we house-ruled 2e Martial Arts, which oft stole from every other skill in the game such that you could replicate a third of the effects from all the other Charm trees with just MA. We renamed the Ability for unarmed fighting to Brawl, and then said Martial Arts Charms were a catch-all for thematic Charm trees built from multiple abilities and proceeded to flip pre-reqs to match the correct Ability. I think we've kept the form-weapon stuff, except you need both Brawl/Melee to learn relevant Charms for styles that have access to form-weapons; it's baked into the prereqs, so you don't need fancy rules (unarmed attacks with a sword, etc) for it anymore. In theory it opened up space for crazy poo poo like Linquistics/Craft Arts trees for supernatural ikebana flower-arranging to convey beautiful expressions. We haven't done anything with it, but it's a really cool side effect.
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Nov 16, 2013 07:09
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Lymond posted:I don't understand this logic. Wouldn't that lead you to rename Melee into Medieval Swordplay, Thrown into Ninja Stars and Archery into Legolasity, and then create special systems for each? It isn't consistent with the rest of the skills, which are broad areas of competence rather than genre hooks. And in any case, most of what the Martial Arts skill and its flashy Charmsets accomplished is to make the other three fighting abilities seem drab and generic, as far as my group was concerned. Actually, if you wanted to communicate maximum setting information and genre expectation, you'd rename Brawl to... Brawl. (I favor "Unarmed" as the bland, functional name for the ability you kick people with) When you run into random bandits and they try to punch you, they aren't using martial arts, they're just punching you. In Exalted, martial arts isn't the thing that everyone does at all times because they live in the wuxia universe, it's an esoteric discipline practiced by few. That's why if you're actually a martial artist, you have Techniques and Charms representing your knowledge of the martial arts. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 07:44 on Nov 16, 2013 |
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Nov 16, 2013 07:21
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I'm not working for Evil Hat, it just turns out I really like Fate. The only thing remotely like working on RPGs on my plate is that Nobilis layout I still haven't finished, assuming Rand and Lea haven't gotten fed up and found someone else. I tried to be The Exalted PR Guy. I certainly won't pretend I'm some amazing community outreach wizard, but I think I might have had the best combination of time, enthusiasm, restraint and gregariousness out of everyone on the team. Online, anyway. But I sort of took a break from that, after all the video and PDF editing and writing the actual book chaos of the Kickstarter, which conveniently coincided with some of the worst of the Abyssal shitstorm. The first thing I did going back into Exalted For All mode was an honest-to-god real life meetup. This was a big deal because I am not that kind of guy. A good half hour of my hour-and-a-half at the FLGS was having a heartrending conversation with a lady who was incredibly polite even though she was pretty upset and disappointed. Almost all my answers were "I'm pretty sure" or "I don't think" or "I hope not." The most concrete answer I could give her was "the published books will almost certainly be just great." That didn't really satisfy her or me. I fumed for a month and then quit. As much as I thought it was just some dumb, one-off gently caress up, I had no enthusiasm left in me for Exalted, not even as a fan. I don't hold any malice toward John and Holden over it, but I'm still a bit angry. I had poured a lot of love and energy into Exalted for almost a decade, and they helped to kill that. Holden's recent groggy post about the latest art teaser somehow makes me feel better about the whole thing. I guess it validates my action, because clearly I'm not leaving due to just one mistake I can't get over. I'm also not so sure about that whole "let's be the industry exception in our art" thing anymore, either. I don't expect it to reach Exlated 2 levels of cheesecake, but I would not be surprised by a pretty standard showing of bikini witches. As much as it sounded like it in Skype, I don't think I was ever actually on the same page as John and Holden when it came to that. Unless things have changed drastically, which could certainly happen, I think the core system for Exalted 3 is mostly pretty good. You all know about what level of rules-i-ness to expect, and as long as you're down with that it should be a fun system. John came up with some really cool solutions on what to do about perfect defenses. Martial Arts x 3 and Bureaucracy and all, it should be at least an above-average game of its type. EDIT: Oh, I should also stress that Eric Minton is a goddamn wizard at writing setting stuff, and he's there, too. That should make the book worth it on its own. That in mind, it's not really the kind of system I care to use anymore. But this was my attitude even before Shards.  If I had been developer things would've been changed and simplified more drastically.  Calde posted:Plague of Hats leaving the team is incredibly unfortunate. He's kind of awesome. I was selling the idea of the 3e DB and Sidereal hardbacks to others based on him being a writer with a good head for what's mechanically wrong with 2e so, uh, drat. Well, it's not like Holden and Vance quit too. Also, thanks for the compliment! That Old Tree fucked around with this message at 08:45 on Nov 16, 2013 |
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Nov 16, 2013 08:11
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Plague of Hats posted:I'm not working for Evil Hat, it just turns out I really like Fate. The only thing remotely like working on RPGs on my plate is that Nobilis layout I still haven't finished, assuming Rand and Lea haven't gotten fed up and found someone else. Right, that was it! Why did I confuse that for Evil Hat?
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Nov 16, 2013 08:17
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MJ12 posted:The 15 skill idea isn't bad, actually. Although the idea with 25 skills but only 3 really combat-relevant ones (close fighting, ranged fighting, athletics & dodge) means that at minimal investment everyone is good enough at fighting that they can deal with low-level opposition. I don't actually mind skill 'imbalance', as long as it's intentional and thematic. If martial arts (in the sense of "any form of combat") is really easy to learn and cost-efficient, it means that an optimized character will be good at all forms of combat. Is this thematic y/n? If yes, go for it. Calde posted:This is how we house-ruled 2e Martial Arts, which oft stole from every other skill in the game such that you could replicate a third of the effects from all the other Charm trees with just MA. We renamed the Ability for unarmed fighting to Brawl, and then said Martial Arts Charms were a catch-all for thematic Charm trees built from multiple abilities and proceeded to flip pre-reqs to match the correct Ability. I think we've kept the form-weapon stuff, except you need both Brawl/Melee to learn relevant Charms for styles that have access to form-weapons; it's baked into the prereqs, so you don't need fancy rules (unarmed attacks with a sword, etc) for it anymore. Honestly, at this point that's probably the only take on multiple combat skills and MA that I'd be happy with. I'll probably be satisfied with whatever Ex3 delivers, just rather disappointed that they didn't change as much as they could've, seeing as a lot of 2E's problems was that they could only build on top of existing problems. Crazy Linguistics or Craft MA isn't really a problem in my eyes. They just need to note that MA styles are about combat and conflict, and the reason you don't see many styles with unusual roots is because it's more difficult to take something crazy and make a MA out of it. And then include such a weird style in Scroll of the Monk.
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Nov 16, 2013 08:23
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Stephenls posted:Right, that was it! Why did I confuse that for Evil Hat? Both scenarios are virtually indistinguishable in the amount of finished Nobilis products they produce. That Old Tree fucked around with this message at 08:45 on Nov 16, 2013 |
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Nov 16, 2013 08:40
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Plague of Hats posted:I'm also not so sure about that whole "let's be the industry exception in our art" thing anymore, either. I don't expect it to reach Exlated 2 levels of cheesecake, but I would not be surprised by a pretty standard showing of bikini witches. As much as it sounded like it in Skype, I don't think I was ever actually on the same page as John and Holden when it came to that. See, this is the part that gets to me the most because they could've gone the route of "let's not do what all those other people are doing*", but instead they went "skeevy anime creepers are, like, half our drat fan base. Time to feed them." * Except for all those people who've finally gotten their poo poo together after seeing the writing on the wall.
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Nov 16, 2013 09:09
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Ithle01 posted:See, this is the part that gets to me the most because they could've gone the route of "let's not do what all those other people are doing*", but instead they went "skeevy anime creepers are, like, half our drat fan base. Time to feed them." I'm not aware of any such agenda. The feeding creepers thing, I mean. That's not a thing we consciously decided to do. You can observe that our set of examples so far are not setting a sterling record but please don't assert it to conscious effort.
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Nov 16, 2013 10:42
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I'm not sure whether "our art direction only coincidentally happens to evoke deliberate pandering towards creepy losers" is all that much better, really. You asked if you were doing all that badly here, Stephen? In terms of not getting banned and talking about holding people down and sticking it in you're doing a bang-up job, top marks, but this right here is a trend of yours I've noticed throughout this thread where your replies seem really, really focused on one particular tree instead of the forest. Someone wants to know why Martial Arts is being handled in a very counterintuitive-sounding fashion and you ignore all of that to address an unimportant quip about nerds. Someone questions the art direction's tendency to veer into skeezy territory rather than avoid it and you reply only to tell everybody to make sure and attribute it to incompetence rather than malice, like that's the real heart of the matter. I mean gently caress it, talking up Exalted on a forum isn't your job or anything, you can respond to whatever however you want, but it really does feel like you're basically ignoring the points people actually want addressed in their posts.
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Nov 16, 2013 11:11
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Kai Tave posted:I'm not sure whether "our art direction only coincidentally happens to evoke deliberate pandering towards creepy losers" is all that much better, really. Basically I think when the book hits it's going to be obvious that we're not trying to pander to fans of skeevy bullshit. We've had all of, what, five art previews of female characters so far, if I'm counting right? Perfect Soul, Prince Diamond, and Novia Claro from the sigs, the one we just got which was a preview of a cover element from the tie-in comic, and Bathony, a five-minute sketch of a signature character for a book due in about five years and composed with minimal art direction and notice by Melissa Uran suffering a migraine and carpel tunnel. Even if you assume the tie-in comic counts (I don't), that's just five pictures, one of which is a very very rough draft. My goal here, PR-wise, is not to defend the preview material we've show (because it's not a very effective representative art sample, and that's on us and there's no defense for failure) -- it's to prevent "Everybody knows Exalted 3e has deliberately skeevy art direction" from becoming an established Internet fact. Likewise, I'm not engaging with people who want to talk me into changing the way Martial Arts works because that's not a thing that's going to happen here. Sorry, Ferrinus! My real goal is just to prevent this thread from becoming an "Everybody knows Exalted 3e is terrible and made by idiots, now let's laugh at how terrible they are" echo chamber, which it was a couple of pages back. I mean, I can't convince people the book is going to be great. Nor would I want to! That would be an unwise and premature decision for people to come to! Only the book will be able to convince people the book is great. But I figure I can prevent people from convincing themselves and each other that it's going to be terrible. EDIT: I think some of the disconnect here is that people assume I want them to love Ex3 already, so they find it off-putting when I ignore complaints. That's not me thinking the complaints are unworthy of addressing; that's me not having an objection to that complaint at this time. Stephenls fucked around with this message at 11:52 on Nov 16, 2013 |
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Nov 16, 2013 11:38
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Realistically I don't think anyone here expects our feedback...or any feedback...to change anything in Exalted 3E. The overriding feeling I've gotten from things since the Kickstarter is that Ex3 is going to be whatever Holden and John want it to be and if you like it great and if you don't tough poo poo. Speaking personally, whether or not anything is changeable doesn't prevent things from being explained in more than vague terms and "when the book comes out all will be revealed." The absolute reluctance on the part of anyone involved to delve into any substantive previews or designer notes doesn't leave people with a lot to do beside speculate. If you really want to prevent this thread from being an echo chamber maybe that would be one way to go about it? All the "only the book will be able to convince people that the game is going to be good" is kinda not really true, and this whole approach looks even sillier in light of the new Demon kickstarter which is previewing all sorts of poo poo. The thing about stuff like the Bathony piece is, yeah, I get it, it was done in five minutes by an artist who wasn't feeling well, it's a very technically impressive piece, but at the end of the day Holden or John or whoever it was behind the wheel that day was the one to go "Yeah, this is what I want to show everyone to get the psyched about Ex3." I mean, you say you aren't going to try and defend this latest art preview because "it's not a very effective representative art sample, and that's on us and there's no defense for failure," but if that's all true then how come stuff like that seems to keep happening? (In fairness, the Bathony piece on its own wasn't overtly terrible so much as Holden's attempt to explain why the bikini armor was a very important part of Bathony's character.) If you want to convince people to not unfairly harsh on this new edition, vague assertions that "the book will explain all" and "you aren't seeing the whole picture" don't strike me as incredibly effective uses of your time.
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Nov 16, 2013 12:02
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More broadly it's just not interesting to talk about how great something is without actually showing us the thing - like the craft solution you mentioned earlier. What's the point in telling us it was illuminating and mind-blowing or whatever if we don't get to see it?
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Nov 16, 2013 12:49
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Stephenls posted:EDIT: I think some of the disconnect here is that people assume I want them to love Ex3 already, so they find it off-putting when I ignore complaints. That's not me thinking the complaints are unworthy of addressing; that's me not having an objection to that complaint at this time. No, we're frustrated because we're seeing you make some of the same mistakes as 2e all over again, and for no good reason. Onyx Path is obviously not averse to sharing information about other products, and as can been seen from various other successful RPG kickstarters, getting player feedback - and listening to it - can greatly improve products. Sticking your fingers in your ears and saying "lalalalalalala I can't hear you" when people are trying to offer constructive, reasonable ideas is not winning you any support. Kai Tave posted:Realistically I don't think anyone here expects our feedback...or any feedback...to change anything in Exalted 3E. The overriding feeling I've gotten from things since the Kickstarter is that Ex3 is going to be whatever Holden and John want it to be and if you like it great and if you don't tough poo poo. Sadly, that's about where I'm at too. I'm reminded of Verant back in the day - remember all the dumb things in Everquest that were justified by "The Vision"? I feel old now. Kenlon fucked around with this message at 14:27 on Nov 16, 2013 |
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Nov 16, 2013 14:24
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Stephenls posted:Basically I think when the book hits it's going to be obvious that we're not trying to pander to fans of skeevy bullshit. We've had all of, what, five art previews of female characters so far, if I'm counting right? Perfect Soul, Prince Diamond, and Novia Claro from the sigs Prince Diamond is not a female character.
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Nov 16, 2013 14:47
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I guess the big problem Stephen is that you are trying to be the PR guy for Exalted, which basically entails trying to clean up after Holden and John's messes. What Exalted really needs is a marketing guy that the developers would actually listen to. I guess what my problem is is that it really feels like Ex3 is basically a glorified fan project. And that wouldn't be a problem if that's what they had advertised, but they didn't. This was advertised as an official tabletop industries development. That implies a sort of professional and mature attitude as shown by other WW and OPP developments, which is not what has been occurring. Basically, I'm not happy that I was conned in to contributing to a fan project. I would likely have still contributed if I had known, but not nearly as much.
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Nov 16, 2013 14:57
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Stephenls posted:Basically I think when the book hits it's going to be obvious that we're not trying to pander to fans of skeevy bullshit. We've had all of, what, five art previews of female characters so far, if I'm counting right? Perfect Soul, Prince Diamond, and Novia Claro from the sigs, the one we just got which was a preview of a cover element from the tie-in comic, and Bathony, a five-minute sketch of a signature character for a book due in about five years and composed with minimal art direction and notice by Melissa Uran suffering a migraine and carpel tunnel. Even if you assume the tie-in comic counts (I don't), that's just five pictures, one of which is a very very rough draft. My goal here, PR-wise, is not to defend the preview material we've show (because it's not a very effective representative art sample, and that's on us and there's no defense for failure) -- it's to prevent "Everybody knows Exalted 3e has deliberately skeevy art direction" from becoming an established Internet fact. You have to keep in mind the historical context that you are working with. Exalted has a long and sordid history of creepy bullshit. So, when people see sexist stuff they tie it into that historical context, and assume the status quo of exalted having a petina of skeevy poo poo they have to deal with has remained unchanged.
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Nov 16, 2013 15:10
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Argas posted:Crazy Linguistics or Craft MA isn't really a problem in my eyes. They just need to note that MA styles are about combat and conflict, and the reason you don't see many styles with unusual roots is because it's more difficult to take something crazy and make a MA out of it. And then include such a weird style in Scroll of the Monk. Takings lessons learned through esoteric hobbies and applying them to the art of barehanded murder is like, Martial Arts Lore 101, and should definitely be supported. What Clade was getting at with what you quoted though, was having MA-like sets of splat-agnostic charms that represent similar special styles and secret arts for non-combat skills.
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Nov 16, 2013 15:11
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