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LatwPIAT posted:It certainly helps that when a computer game crashes we blame the developers but when a tabletop game crashes and burns we can blame the players for it. The players not so much as the GM/DM. "Your DM can take care of it" boils my blood.
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May 27, 2022 20:14
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Then again, I don't think any TTRPG has ever crashed and burned because there's too much stuff in the players' inventories (this is a known bug in Dark Sun: Wake of the Ravager, and the intended solution was "get rid of some of your stuff so the game engine can properly put doors in.")
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May 27, 2022 20:18
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No but some of them "crash" ( the DM gives up) when there are too many rats "on screen"
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May 27, 2022 20:20
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Hel posted:No but some of them "crash" ( the DM gives up) when there are too many rats "on screen" Ah, D&D Next's famous 36d20 rats!
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May 27, 2022 20:21
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I remember a Facebook game with a dungeon where enemies in one room could only be hurt with magic, and enemies in another room could only be hurt with weapons. This was terrible encounter design. Everyone runs out of their limited abilities quickly, and then each fight has half the party slinging their Level 1 attacks over and over while the other half does nothing at all. And if you didn't bring a party that was balanced between magics and martials, you're screwed. Plenty of people got on the game's message board to yell that it's a unique challenge, you're just not good enough at strategy, etc. But that game was based on D&D 4e.
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May 27, 2022 20:23
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LatwPIAT posted:It certainly helps that when a computer game crashes we blame the developers but when a tabletop game crashes and burns we can blame the players for it.
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May 27, 2022 20:29
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Absurd Alhazred posted:The players not so much as the GM/DM. "Your DM can take care of it" boils my blood. 
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May 27, 2022 20:30
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gradenko_2000 posted:I mean I guess you could say that blockbuster games can be badly designed if you assign a value judgement on loot systems and dopamine hooks as bad (which you totally can, no shade on actually doing that). I guess my point is that there is a lot of thought / design / engineering into the games: that the design is made in service of profit maximization is where the wheels come off, but I stand by the broader point made earlier that this does result in the creation of "a body of institutional knowledge that produces games with a high floor of technical competency" hyphz posted:Game design doesn’t sell games. Plenty of high selling video games are terrible designs.
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May 27, 2022 20:40
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Splicer posted:Counterpoint: Stellaris
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May 27, 2022 20:51
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Improbable Lobster posted:This post wasn't defining well designed games as games that maximize profit. It's asinine to suggest it was or that games that maximize profit are the best designed games just because you use a nonsensical definition of design, you bloviating boot-licker. He didn't say best, he was just talking about gradenko_2000 posted:the creation of "a body of institutional knowledge that produces games with a high floor of technical competency" and under that definition of "good design," games built to maximize profit absolutely qualify. Also, maybe you could stand to cut down on the unnecessary hostility? Did Gradenko kill your dog or something?
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May 27, 2022 20:55
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Halloween Jack posted:I remember a Facebook game with a dungeon where enemies in one room could only be hurt with magic, and enemies in another room could only be hurt with weapons. This was terrible encounter design. Everyone runs out of their limited abilities quickly, and then each fight has half the party slinging their Level 1 attacks over and over while the other half does nothing at all. And if you didn't bring a party that was balanced between magics and martials, you're screwed. Plenty of people got on the game's message board to yell that it's a unique challenge, you're just not good enough at strategy, etc. Yeah that sounds like 4e run by someone that hates 4e and wanted to bring back some of that 3.5 "charm" because elemental resistances in general are pretty scarce on monster stat blocks, and immunity to magic and/or non-magical BPS is basically nonexistent. Even the Beholder's infamous anti-magic eye doesn't have a different effect on magical and non-magical characters, and instead disables encounter/daily powers which should have roughly the same effect on basically any PC, magical or otherwise. Back on the subject of game design talk, I will say anecdotally it's a lot more common in RPGs for people to put the fiction of the game ahead of actually being a good and fun game. Stuff from D&D players like "it is only realistic that the character who can reshape reality with their mind is just inherently better than the one holding a sharp stick."  You'll hear people retreat behind the cover of "The game should have both simple and complex classes for different types of players," but it doesn't explain why the simple ones are always significantly worse at a functional level, or why neither complex non-magical classes or simple magical classes exist. When 4e tried to give every class a role to be good at, people complained it was "too much like a video game" for actually trying to be a functional game. For some reason, there's a fairly sizeable subset of tabletop players that deeply resent being made aware their game is actually a game, and are therefore opposed to any design choices that exist for the sake of having a good game if it takes them out of their imagined, simulationist fiction.
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May 27, 2022 21:06
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lightrook posted:Yeah that sounds like 4e run by someone that hates 4e and wanted to bring back some of that 3.5 "charm" because elemental resistances in general are pretty scarce on monster stat blocks, and immunity to magic and/or non-magical BPS is basically nonexistent. Even the Beholder's infamous anti-magic eye doesn't have a different effect on magical and non-magical characters, and instead disables encounter/daily powers which should have roughly the same effect on basically any PC, magical or otherwise. A well-designed game shouldn't take you out of whatever your goal is.
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May 27, 2022 21:24
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Falstaff posted:He didn't say best, he was just talking about He is asinine (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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May 27, 2022 21:33
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lightrook posted:When 4e tried to give every class a role to be good at, people complained it was "too much like a video game" for actually trying to be a functional game. As a person who thinks that all editions of D&D are pretty dumb in different ways, I think a lot of people are just awful at expressing their issues with something when they can be more subtle and complex, so as a result you get lots of "video-game bad" from the general user-base. My complaints about both D&D 4e and PF2e are similar in nature to complaints about hacking mini-games in every immersive sim; too much focus in the wrong place. Older editions of d20 games have always had way too much combat focus in the rules while anything else was just "I don't know, roll a d20 against a DC I guess", and then these newer versions decided to lean even harder into the combat and polish the hell out of it while not really touching the other stuff at all. They didn't make the non-combat stuff worse obviously, but the relative disparity has still grown, and looking through all your at-will/encounter/daily powers in 4e or through your class feats in PF2e gives you almost nothing but effects that hurt, un-hurt, or help-hurt people. If you're not the best at examining and critiquing game design, you could easily have the exact same issues above and find yourself describing it as "it's too much like a video-game".
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May 27, 2022 21:57
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Improbable Lobster posted:He is asinine gradenko is one of the most insightful and well-informed people on this entire subforum like i don't even agree with him on this particular point and he's still making an infinitely more valuable contribution than whatever the gently caress you're going for here
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May 27, 2022 22:02
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Also Call of Duty, although it fluctuates from year to year on some level, is an incredibly designed game. Like there's a reason it got as popular as it did. The gameplay is *usually* good, tight and fun to play. It would be foolish to not look at like the game design of Call of Duty when designing your own shooter or video game in general. Even if you are going for something completely different. Just like If I was making a co-op/team pvp game now there is no world where I wouldn't steal the ping system from Apex, even if I think the prices that Apex charges for things as a part of it's monetization is(was, I honestly haven't looked recently) garbage. And a general distaste for FOMO things, like battle passes. The multiplayer and progression systems they started to put around the core game to keep people playing and to monetize it suck and are largely terrible. But lumping it all in and going call of duty bad seems like not a great way to approach game design. Dexo fucked around with this message at 22:36 on May 27, 2022 |
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May 27, 2022 22:33
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Call of Duty is one of the most influential series to completely re-think FPS gameplay around the limitations of controllers (vs., like, the original Halo where they basically just made something with the sensibilities of Unreal Tournament and expected people to keep up) which makes it incredibly good / savvy design within those limitations... but that's like praising D&D 5E for being the best D&D it possibly could without upsetting the grogs. the limitations are the problem!
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May 27, 2022 22:40
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Vanguard Warden posted:As a person who thinks that all editions of D&D are pretty dumb in different ways, I think a lot of people are just awful at expressing their issues with something when they can be more subtle and complex, so as a result you get lots of "video-game bad" from the general user-base. I feel like this is misguided in Pathfinder 2e's case because your skill feats are where your abilities for other modes of play come from. Like, some classes do have stuff for exploration or downtime modes but yes, by and large your class is your combat/encounter identity and that's a clear design objective.
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May 27, 2022 22:41
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Call of Duty is one of the most influential series to completely re-think FPS gameplay around the limitations of controllers (vs., like, the original Halo where they basically just made something with the sensibilities of Unreal Tournament and expected people to keep up) which makes it incredibly good / savvy design within those limitations... but that's like praising D&D 5E for being the best D&D it possibly could without upsetting the grogs. the limitations are the problem! Why are the limitations a "problem"? There are always limitations.
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May 27, 2022 22:42
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Why are the limitations a "problem"? There are always limitations. It's a question of which limitations you're operating under, and why. Anyways, to try and focus on the part of this that's a relevant analogy and not just an opportunity for me to complain about a different genre whose contemporary direction frustrates me a lot: the point is that "good design" is never objective or value-neutral in the first place. As far as objectivity goes, at best you can maybe talk about how specific implementations do or don't achieve a particular goal, but even that's hard to quantify and often dependent on assumptions about the player/audience that aren't inherent to the game. (And would be even more so in TTRPGs as compared to video games.)
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May 27, 2022 22:46
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Absurd Alhazred posted:The players not so much as the GM/DM. "Your DM can take care of it" boils my blood. Using "player" to refer to both the player who's the GM and the players who have PCs, here. Improbable Lobster posted:This post wasn't defining well designed games as games that maximize profit. It's asinine to suggest it was or that games that maximize profit are the best designed games just because you use a nonsensical definition of design, you bloviating boot-licker. Addictive dopamine hooks are a design that requires a level of competency in design to know how to design something that is rewarding and how to intergrate it into gameplay loops. That skill and knowledge of game design and how it interacts with human psychology is used to ignoble ends, but it's still there. Making a workable gameplay loop in the first place is a skill sorely lacking from a lot of TTRPG design. And that's pitting computer game design used for naked exploitation against TTRPG design. The 'addictive' gameplay loops of games like League of Legends, whatever the latest CoD multiplayer is, the one-more-turn phenomenon in turn-based empire management games, are all competently designed and often finely tuned through to be experienced as fun and rewarding in a way that will make the game sell well. For all its flaws, Call of Duty is pretty good at making tons of teenagers on X-Box Live come back to its arcade multiplayer matches, day after day, week after week. And TTRPG design is just overall bad at knowing how to even start trying at doing that.
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May 27, 2022 22:49
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Call of Duty is one of the most influential series to completely re-think FPS gameplay around the limitations of controllers (vs., like, the original Halo where they basically just made something with the sensibilities of Unreal Tournament and expected people to keep up) which makes it incredibly good / savvy design within those limitations... but that's like praising D&D 5E for being the best D&D it possibly could without upsetting the grogs. the limitations are the problem! Dog Controllers aren't going anywhere, Video Game Consoles still exist, and hell people are now playing shooters on controllers on the PC. That Analogy is a bad one. As like the core design principles of Call of Duty are solid as gently caress. Where call of duty falters is generally the stuff they layer over it, and if that is any good or bad for that year. It doesn't need to be an all or nothing thing, some parts of some things can be smart and well designed, while other parts can be poo poo and/or exploitative(and that exploitative part can either be well done to the point where so people are at the least having fun while being exploited, or executed poorly where more people fall off and the people who stay are always angry).
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May 27, 2022 22:55
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Dexo posted:Dog Controllers aren't going anywhere, Video Game Consoles still exist, and hell people are now playing shooters on controllers on the PC. this response is a perfect example of why it's a good analogy lol
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May 27, 2022 22:57
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like i'm not gonna lie, half the reason I like Traditional Games is because there's an unusually high degree of consensus on how TTRPGs ought to work here and it's one that i mostly agree with but it is just a consensus. it should be held no less strongly or fiercely for that, but that's an argument for owning your position, not acting like you don't have one or that anything you say makes sense without that as a foundation
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May 27, 2022 23:00
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CoD honestly has done things similar to the making a game for the "Grogs"(Boots on the Ground), when people complained about things in games that they felt weren't "Call of Duty" enough. After I believe Advanced Warfare(which I loved but lol). But like the basic core of the game is still solid. Even if it's not something that you particularly like as far as a shooter style. If you want to make the argument that the progression systems and things that CoD implemented to success ended up spreading throughout the industry and making a ton of games worse, then by god I'm right there agreeing with you. But I just fundamentally disagree with the idea that the gameplay design of CoD is bad.
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May 27, 2022 23:00
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:this response is a perfect example of why it's a good analogy lol Tuxedo Catfish posted:like i'm not gonna lie, half the reason I like Traditional Games is because there's an unusually high degree of consensus on how TTRPGs ought to work here and it's one that i mostly agree with I really don't understand the analogy still.
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May 27, 2022 23:03
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Dexo posted:If you want to make the argument that the progression systems and things that CoD implemented to success ended up spreading throughout the industry and making a ton of games worse, then by god I'm right there agreeing with you. But I just fundamentally disagree with the idea that the gameplay design of CoD is bad. it tremendously devalues tracking aim and somewhat devalues snap aim in relation to positioning and map awareness, and i consider this an unforgivable sin for an FPS but this isn't really an attempt to convince you. it's not even, in this particular case, me saying that Call of Duty should change, although i do kinda resent the degree to which that type of design became the new orthodoxy outside of few a PC-exclusive indie games. it's just me saying that none of this is beyond dispute. there's no such thing as "good design" absent a goal and that goal is always going to be subjective and essentially arbitrary. it might occasionally cross the line between aesthetics and morality (e.g. "this knowingly exploits people with gambling addictions" probably isn't just a question of taste any more) but that's just a different, even more strongly held kind of subjective belief Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 23:08 on May 27, 2022 |
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May 27, 2022 23:05
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for what I'm saying, for that analogy to make since 5e would have to be a solid and fun to play core game with just some other exploitative nonsense happening to taint it. 5e is just a poorly designed d20 system. There are d20 systems I think are better or well designed. But also, if you don't like the things that generally come with d20 systems you probably won't like even the well designed d20 systems. But that doesn't mean that within the constraint of something being a specific system or style that I don't like that it isn't well designed. Just means I don't like it. Which is fair, but is still just my opinion.
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May 27, 2022 23:09
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:
Okay, that I generally agree with.
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May 27, 2022 23:11
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Dexo posted:for what I'm saying, for that analogy to make since 5e would have to be a solid and fun to play core game with just some other exploitative nonsense happening to taint it. Lots of people think 5E is fun. I think they're insane, have their priorities completely out of whack, and some of them might even change their minds but for external factors like market dominance, convenience, sunk cost fallacy, having friends who play it, etc. But that's exactly the same as what we're talking about 
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May 27, 2022 23:12
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or put another way: probably the shittiest rhetorical move that I personally am sometimes guilty of (due to exhaustion/frustration, but that's an excuse, not a justification) is pretending people don't have agency in this and that, to someone, "this is what my friends play" isn't just genuinely the most important value a game can have to them or if that's too meta and not actually a property of the game itself, then, like, "really enjoys the way d20s feel to roll" or "is the world's biggest fan of Faerun and no other system has the same amount of mechanical scaffolding for running games in that setting" or "actively likes that wizards are both more complex and more powerful than fighters" Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 23:23 on May 27, 2022 |
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May 27, 2022 23:16
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I would say, I made the mistake of saying fun there. I've had fun with Garbage, You are speaking to like the one person in the world who had fun loving around in Anthem(when everything else in the game was pushing me away, I enjoyed how the mech felt to fly and blow mooks up.) I have fun playing 5e, as it's something I play and run a game in weekly with some people. I don't think it's particularly well designed. Things can be fun without being "Good™". Things that are "Good™" can be not very fun to me to play/run.
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May 27, 2022 23:20
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Things can be fun to utilize without having been designed well for how they're used, maybe?
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May 27, 2022 23:21
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i agree that there's something different being communicated between "i like it" and "i think it's good," and i've definitely had a good time with trash in all kinds of different media, but i think that discussion is mostly perpendicular to this one e: another wrinkle is that I don't think 5E (or most editions of D&D, maybe even 4E at certain points in its development) had a particularly coherent design goal at all, which gets back to what i was saying about how i'd rather have a lovely game (e.g. one whose ludic goals i dislike, but which are passionately held) than one that's just trying to be minimally tolerable to everyone. the aesthetic / moral distinction crops up here again of course, racism or w/e is still much worse than artistic cowardice, but the funny thing about living in America is that "corporate slop desperately trying to say nothing except to quietly echo the status quo" and "morally reprehensible" often overlap and i get lots of opportunities to hate stuff for both reasons at once 
Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 23:31 on May 27, 2022 |
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May 27, 2022 23:22
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Arivia posted:I feel like this is misguided in Pathfinder 2e's case because your skill feats are where your abilities for other modes of play come from. Like, some classes do have stuff for exploration or downtime modes but yes, by and large your class is your combat/encounter identity and that's a clear design objective. The skill feats that are a single generic pool shared by everyone regardless of class, some skills of which only have like 6 feats total and some of them are as unimpactful as "you pick a lock in 1 action instead of 2", and as you said they've literally split the game into 'modes' between combat, exploration, and downtime. When you're staring down the problem of "people only care about combat in our game, so they never take non-combat feats over combat feats" and your solution is to just split things off into separate pools or 'mini-game' modes entirely, you are giving up on the original problem to address the symptom.
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May 27, 2022 23:30
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I don’t see it that way at all, but more as designing a system that can accommodate a wider breadth of styles of play with intention and balance. Unlike 5e.
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May 27, 2022 23:35
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Bottom Liner posted:Unlike 5e. I mean if your only goal is to be better than 5e, you're not setting your expectations very high.
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May 27, 2022 23:44
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:i agree that there's something different being communicated between "i like it" and "i think it's good," and i've definitely had a good time with trash in all kinds of different media, but i think that discussion is mostly perpendicular to this one this is, as always, the core issue when talking about the lack of professionalization or rigor or whatever in trpgs, right? there is the infrastructure to acknowledge when a game is objectively bad, as a game, at accomplishing its stated goals, and people who still like it will either be willing to own up to liking a bad game or visibly go against a clear consensus. there is no such thing in trpgs, there is no broad and immediately visible general grasp of whether a trpg is good or not, and the functional monopoly on the market is held by a game that, by "does this accomplish what it wants to do" standards, is pretty bad. but the wall here is the subjectivity of the form; as above, bugs in the system cannot be so easily blamed on the system to the casual observer, so the game skates by. it isn't an issue of scale either, held back by the social interaction and planning aspects that make it hard to get into trpgs as readily, because board games have those and it's also pretty easy to see that when a bad board game comes out, it gets assessed as bad by a broader consensus of board game players. the weak point here is the same as the strongest point in the form--the freedom of interpretation it gives you. in my head it's almost an unsolveable problem because of that.
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May 28, 2022 00:21
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yeah, you can't completely collapse "literacy" and "preference" into one category; you have to be at least dimly aware that form matters to have an opinion on form, one that isn't just a confused defensive response to something you identify with and TTRPGs kind of struggle with that, I think partly because the field is so small and so monopolized, and partly because four out of five people encounter the game through an intermediary who is actively making adjustments for their sake
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May 28, 2022 00:31
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Vanguard Warden posted:I mean if your only goal is to be better than 5e, you're not setting your expectations very high. That wasn’t the point I made or anywhere close to it.
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May 28, 2022 00:53
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