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Transient People posted:Rather, I think what people are arguing for is some combat parity, that's all. To use an extremely silly and yet appropriate example, I honestly wouldn't mind if the Exalted combat engine worked like Touhou - everybody, from puny humans to people who warp reality and casually change the rules of the world, can engage in magic shooty battles with relative parity instead of the former group being unpersoned by the latter ones. Of course there's still going to be differences in power and skill, but not the gap that you'd expect there to be. Just replace 'magic shooty battles' with 'magic Kung Fu battles' and you're set for a concept of the combat engine. Well, there's only a handful of puny humans and they're all by far people who are uniquely talented/powerful or possessing a special ability that lets them be just as powerful.
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Jul 7, 2014 02:21
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Argas posted:Well, there's only a handful of puny humans and they're all by far people who are uniquely talented/powerful or possessing a special ability that lets them be just as powerful. It still applies, though. You've also got the fairies, who are literally the mooks of the universe, and yet at least one of them has gone up and challenged much stronger characters to the point they had to take a break for the day afterward. Can you imagine a version of Exalted where that was a thing? A Heroic Mortal taking on a major splat's Exalt and fighting them to the KO or close enough?
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Jul 7, 2014 02:44
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Transient People posted:It still applies, though. You've also got the fairies, who are literally the mooks of the universe, and yet at least one of them has gone up and challenged much stronger characters to the point they had to take a break for the day afterward. Can you imagine a version of Exalted where that was a thing? A Heroic Mortal taking on a major splat's Exalt and fighting them to the KO or close enough? It's definitely a nice thought for that to be possible but I'm not seeing it as long as Exalted goes for having lots of rules rather than a fluffier narrative-driven game.
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Jul 7, 2014 03:04
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Exalted, due to the nature of absolute-hits and perfect-defenses, and excessive lethality, has long been a game of extreme combat disparity. The problem of Nerdo and Strongman is like a thought exercise I play with my friends when we talk about game design. It's a game that holds up anime swordfights as a thing worthy of systemic gravity and scads of rules, but which only a small portion of the characters gets to engage with without accidentally exploding. "The GM can balance combat to be exciting for everybody" is a common response and an extremely unsatisfying one.
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Jul 7, 2014 03:05
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And you know, if the disparity is large enough, they can't do so in a satisfying way. I once had a player (in a different system) complain about all the attacks I threw in which completely ignored their force field, and then I pointed out to them that anything capable of getting through their force field without completely ignoring it (that I built according to the rules) would instantly kill any other character in the group it hit. Players will notice GMs having to build encounters oddly.
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Jul 7, 2014 03:14
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Wait, with the momentum system being what it is, isn't it entirely possible that like social charms could be used as a part of combat? Or is that too crazy?
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Jul 7, 2014 03:22
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This is a question that may be beyond the scope of just Exalted but is there any actual serious benefit to designing a game where player-character capability is siloed off into designated areas of expertise and/or incompetence? Like, from as far back as I can remember when I first got into the roleplaying hobby I've read articles and discussions where people have extolled the virtues of every player being the [WHATEVER] guy but in practice all this ever seems to accomplish is establishing a metagame marching order ("Okay, we need someone to talk at the king, you're up Bard, we'll just wait until you're done.") and, when it comes to combat which most RPGs tacitly consider a full-party endeavor, puts the burden of additional work on the GM's shoulders to balance things out in order to simultaneously challenge The Combat Guy while not instagibbing The Lore Guy or whatever. Is there some benefit I'm not seeing in allowing players to say "not only do I not want to engage with this aspect of gameplay but I insist on being able to make a character who cannot meaningfully engage in this aspect of gameplay just in case?" Kai Tave fucked around with this message at 03:26 on Jul 7, 2014 |
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Jul 7, 2014 03:23
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Mexcillent posted:Wait, with the momentum system being what it is, isn't it entirely possible that like social charms could be used as a part of combat? There's a Lore Charm where you extemporaneously invent a mind-bending riddle and ask it of one of your enemies. If they don't match or beat your Lore roll they immediately cede 4 initiative to you.
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Jul 7, 2014 03:24
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Lore also lets you summon behemoths, though they aren't under your direct control. And if Supernal abilities work the way that it has been posited, you can do that from Essence 1.
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Jul 7, 2014 03:29
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Yeah, like if you're smart you do a "combat" effectiveness charm tree in as many different skills as possible. Which it kind of sounds like they've done, at least judging by the Sail and Lore charms being discussed here. E: whats this supernal talk? Mexcillent fucked around with this message at 03:47 on Jul 7, 2014 |
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Jul 7, 2014 03:35
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Kai Tave posted:This is a question that may be beyond the scope of just Exalted but is there any actual serious benefit to designing a game where player-character capability is siloed off into designated areas of expertise and/or incompetence? It's called the Decker problem for a reason, although I think it's arguable that there's a certain amount of player satisfaction involved. If you want to make a guy whose good at fighting, it would be kind of disheartening if the guy who made a face is just as good at it as you are. However, that just means you shouldn't design games where being able to contribute to combat means the same thing for everyone. Compare and contrast D&D editions, for instance. 3.X had the problem where combat tended to boil down to hitting people with a weapon. A Cleric who buffed himself to high heaven is doing the same thing as a Fighter (except better). There's not a lot of tactical choice or anything; the optimal strategy for both of those classes is to walk up to their enemy and do as much damage as possible, which is a flat matter of math. 4E, on the other hand, does very well by carving out distinct niches for different classes. A Fighter stands on the front lines, smacks people, and makes sure that nobody smacks his party. A Cleric heals and buffs his party, even with his attacks. A Rogue picks a single enemy and kills the poo poo out of them. A Wizard kills crowds of mooks and lays down area spells that let him control the battlefield. All of these classes contribute to combat, but they do so in distinct ways that don't muscle in on each other's area of specialization. So that's how Exalted should probably work. Everyone should be able to bring something to a fight (physical or social), but that doesn't need to take the form of a daiklaive.
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Jul 7, 2014 03:57
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Mexcillent posted:Yeah, like if you're smart you do a "combat" effectiveness charm tree in as many different skills as possible. Which it kind of sounds like they've done, at least judging by the Sail and Lore charms being discussed here. You pick one (I think?) ability that you are Supernal at. You don't have to meet the Essence minimums to learn those Charms. (You do need to meet the ability minimums.)
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Jul 7, 2014 04:15
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Prism posted:You pick one (I think?) ability that you are Supernal at. You don't have to meet the Essence minimums to learn those Charms. (You do need to meet the ability minimums.) Cot drat
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Jul 7, 2014 04:34
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Ferrinus posted:You could make the Feathered Serpent empire populated chiefly by humans, and instead put beastmen into one of the more typically generic "civilized" cultures. Lookshy, fortress of the hedgehog-men. For those who don't get the reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsr4ffsI9D0
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Jul 7, 2014 04:51
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Hey, can someone PM me the leaked playtest rules? Haven't been able to find them on the internet yet, and I'm interested enough by what's been discussed in this thread to want to know more.
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Jul 7, 2014 04:55
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AdjectiveNoun posted:Hey, can someone PM me the leaked playtest rules? Haven't been able to find them on the internet yet, and I'm interested enough by what's been discussed in this thread to want to know more. If you can't find them on the internet, you are barely trying. There's a link on the first post of every Exalted General thread on 4chan's /tg/ board.
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Jul 7, 2014 06:25
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I don't think choosing to take NO combat charms is a good idea for this game, at all. But the essence 1 charms have been from what I've seen, more than capable of making you decent at whatever school of fight-man you'd like to be. If you take melee as a supernal and buy nothing but melee charms you're kind of asking to be poo poo at everything else, and everything else is going to take up a lot more of your time unless you're running something that is specifically combat heavy.
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Jul 7, 2014 09:16
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Dammit Who? posted:I would bet that any kind of formalized recognition of other people as being real and separate from oneself, whether through custom or hospitality or honor codes for dueling, would help to defend against the physical encroachment of the Wyld. Per Graceful Wicked Masques, a raksha had to have Staff/Conviction 5 in order to successfully comprehend the needs and wants of others, and a more "average" raksha of Staff/Conviction 2 would just baaaarely be able to understand that they weren't literally alone in a landscape of solipsistic phantoms. Ah! There's an Essence 5 Bureaucracy Charm in the playtest leak where your character implements procedural reforms to an organization that are so elegant they keep the Wyld and shadowlands from encroaching within the organization's area of influence.
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Jul 7, 2014 09:47
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Ferrinus posted:He can, though. He can just, talk to NPCs. At most he might have to make a few rolls in the course of normal conversation. Conversation is mechanized to a far lesser degree than combat is, and participating in conversation with other characters is not the same thing as successfully altering those characters' behavior with social rolls. I wonder if it'd be a solution to make 'missing' also useful in its own way. Like, for example, in a war RPG, the noncombat character might be total poo poo in shooting guns but if he's firing that AK-47 wildly the fighty commando type can use it to flank the other guys and murder them much more easily. That'd probably require a very different combat system designed from the ground up for things like setup attacks and combo actions to be constantly meaningful, and I understand why they wouldn't do this for a game that's supposed to ostensibly still be Exalted and a White Wolf game. I'm analogizing this to social where the Dawn talking to NPCs can be considered 'missing' by not making many rolls, but is still creating meaningful progress by elaborating on what the PCs want to do and maybe even making arguments that the ST goes "yeah that's a good argument, he accepts that, you don't need to roll to convince them."
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Jul 7, 2014 11:17
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Ferrinus posted:I don't really think it can be resolved without vastly simplifying the combat system and integrating it with all the other systems. Like, if we were playing a game in which I make a Strength + Melee roll to kill you but you make a Charisma + Presence roll to talk me down and the rolls are directly compared to see where each of our characters stands after the exchange, then you could actually have a game in which swordmasters and hippies team up and go on adventures. Legend of Wulin had this and it was pretty good. It worked on the premise that in Wuxia since pretty much everything is a martial art there's no reason why the guy who does flower arranging and dispenses folksy wisdom can't use that to fight people, or people who make pointed comments about the weakness of flower pots while smashing them with their forehead can't use that as the main thrust of a discussion. So there was just one system and it worked for everything, while still having enough fiddly bits that you could be notably different to each other and have tricks in your own arena that let you beat the less dedicated, but not completely destroy them. But we're stuck with the Storyteller system, which is pretty ancient as game systems go and never worked that well for any game except the oppressive urban occult games where you're meant to be kind of bad at everything and hopelessly out of your depth to boot. And it's still bloated as gently caress even for that. Stallion Cabana posted:Regardless of that my end statement is the same. You can play a pacifist in 2E and have fun, and you can do that in 3E too, and I don't think there's anything particularly hard about it unless you have specific ideas about the system that it can't match up for. Why does a person not interacting with the combat system as a noncombatant mean the system has failed but doesn't mean that in reverse? You can have fun in any system, no matter how bad though. I can play a Pacifist in Dark Heresy have fun, but that doesn't mean the system is on my side with this terrible decision. Fans fucked around with this message at 14:28 on Jul 7, 2014 |
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Jul 7, 2014 14:23
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MJ12 posted:I wonder if it'd be a solution to make 'missing' also useful in its own way. Like, for example, in a war RPG, the noncombat character might be total poo poo in shooting guns but if he's firing that AK-47 wildly the fighty commando type can use it to flank the other guys and murder them much more easily. That'd probably require a very different combat system designed from the ground up for things like setup attacks and combo actions to be constantly meaningful, and I understand why they wouldn't do this for a game that's supposed to ostensibly still be Exalted and a White Wolf game. I'm analogizing this to social where the Dawn talking to NPCs can be considered 'missing' by not making many rolls, but is still creating meaningful progress by elaborating on what the PCs want to do and maybe even making arguments that the ST goes "yeah that's a good argument, he accepts that, you don't need to roll to convince them." Someone's Defense drops by 1 each time they're attacked, only resetting on their own turn, so technically an Essence 5 Dawn dueling an Essence 5 Dusk benefits from an Essence 1 Eclipse flailing uselessly at the Dusk. This isn't exactly a solution in and of itself, of course.
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Jul 7, 2014 16:40
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Ferrinus posted:Someone's Defense drops by 1 each time they're attacked, only resetting on their own turn, so technically an Essence 5 Dawn dueling an Essence 5 Dusk benefits from an Essence 1 Eclipse flailing uselessly at the Dusk. This isn't exactly a solution in and of itself, of course.
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Jul 7, 2014 16:58
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I could see War charms that let you turn your own Circle in to an extension of your killing power - not exactly a battlegroup, but that lets them be more effective at bolstering you.
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Jul 7, 2014 17:03
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Nessus posted:"I, the radiant sword of the dawn, and my little friend, Decoy!" BMX Bandit? Is that you?
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Jul 7, 2014 17:56
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Exalted was delayed for another year again, 
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Jul 8, 2014 03:28
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NutritiousSnack posted:Exalted was delayed for another year again, What? Elaborate. I don't really follow the KS.
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Jul 8, 2014 03:36
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And I'll bet you dollars to donuts they are not going to do the Right Thing and open up the beta rules to all backers. . .
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Jul 8, 2014 03:38
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NutritiousSnack posted:Exalted was delayed for another year again, Holy poo poo, really? Where did you hear that? I can't see any mention on the onyx path forums or the kickstarter...
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Jul 8, 2014 03:41
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Mendrian posted:What? Elaborate. Check out the Monday Meetings thread on the Onyx Path forum. I literally don't understand how this is possible, I get pushing it back to September for Second Phase playesting but it's loving ridiculous now.
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Jul 8, 2014 03:42
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NutritiousSnack posted:Exalted was delayed for another year again, Frankly: good. The leaked playtest is cool but it needs a lot of polish and there are a few things in it I'd like to see overhauled almost in entirety. I'm happy to wait for a better game. EDIT: Hire me, Bli$$ard
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Jul 8, 2014 03:43
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Ferrinus posted:Frankly: good. The leaked playtest is cool but it needs a lot of polish and there are a few things in it I'd like to see overhauled almost in entirety. I'm happy to wait for a better game. I dunno. I mean like, I'm glad they aren't going to release a half-assed thing but at the same time it's never going to be perfect. I'm sorta scared that they're pushing back the date in response to the playtest blowback, which tells me that it isn't the response that they wanted. I don't want a developer that's immune to playtest feedback, but at the same time, they aren't going to release a perfect game either. At a certain point, it is what it is.
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Jul 8, 2014 03:46
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Ah, but have you considered that the game is the game? ... Ultimately, it comes down to this: if Exalted never comes out, it can never disappoint us.
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Jul 8, 2014 03:50
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NutritiousSnack posted:Check out the Monday Meetings thread on the Onyx Path forum. I literally don't understand how this is possible, I get pushing it back to September for Second Phase playesting but it's loving ridiculous now. Not seeing it, got a direct link?
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Jul 8, 2014 03:52
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Ferrinus posted:Frankly: good. The leaked playtest is cool but it needs a lot of polish and there are a few things in it I'd like to see overhauled almost in entirety. I'm happy to wait for a better game. It doesn't need a year worth of "polishing" again. DnD 5e tried this and there was only so much they could polish that turd, and 3e is actually good.
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Jul 8, 2014 03:55
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Mendrian posted:I dunno. I mean like, I'm glad they aren't going to release a half-assed thing but at the same time it's never going to be perfect. I'm sorta scared that they're pushing back the date in response to the playtest blowback, which tells me that it isn't the response that they wanted. I don't want a developer that's immune to playtest feedback, but at the same time, they aren't going to release a perfect game either. At a certain point, it is what it is. I just wish they'd open up the playtest and really let us get a look at it. Only take feedback from their chosen players, sure, but putting it out in public makes for a lot more eyes and hands to find the problems. I mean, hell, if the leak is contributing at all to delaying the game, shouldn't that be a hint that more openness would be better? EDIT: We already paid for the game, guys, it's not like we're going to not buy it! Kenlon fucked around with this message at 04:05 on Jul 8, 2014 |
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Jul 8, 2014 03:56
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Ferrinus posted:Ah, but have you considered that the game is the game? True. What I mean is - they aren't ever (hopefully) going to boil the game back down to base principles and start over again. They can keep iterating on the Charm sets, keep tweaking the math, keep moving around the points - but once you find yourself in a phase of neverending editing, you have to ask what it is you're trying to achieve. I don't think Exalted is there yet but I have to wonder how they decided to push it back a whole year. ...if that is indeed what's happening.
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Jul 8, 2014 04:01
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I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to learn that 3e has been delayed another year. However I also can't seem to find any evidence that it has.
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Jul 8, 2014 04:01
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NutritiousSnack posted:It doesn't need a year worth of "polishing" again. DnD 5e tried this and there was only so much they could polish that turd, and 3e is actually good. 5e is actually quite polished - I would say it largely accomplishes what it sets out to do, it's just that what it sets out to do is bad. The leaked playtest had more rough edges than you can sand off in a couple months' time, especially if you're aiming for the kind of thorough internal consistency that characterizes most White Wolf games. I can't actually find any direct reference to a years' delay either though so are you pranking us or what? Like, don't get me wrong, you totally got me if so, but still.
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Jul 8, 2014 04:05
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Ferrinus posted:I can't actually find any direct reference to a years' delay either though so are you pranking us or what? Like, don't get me wrong, you totally got me if so, but still. Yeah, I don't see anything of the sort from a quick glance. Maybe I'm blind.
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Jul 8, 2014 04:22
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Is it just an instance of 'the game will be released a year after they estimated in the kickstarter'? i.e. October 2014?
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Jul 8, 2014 04:28
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