Quote:Wether or not you have to be inside the ship at night doesn't really matter since you still have as many days as you want to explore.

Quote:It's not what he says, it's what he MEANS, and that's what he meant! No one here was ever talking about the 30 day timer.

Quote:Having to be back by nightfall didn't bother me much...

Quote:Then we all agree with eachother, I was talking about the day to night timer since my first post in this thread.

Quote:Then we all agree with eachother, I was talking about the day to night timer since my first post in this thread.

OB1 are you honestly telling me that gameplayers never try to do things in a game that are outside the boundries of the game? you never tried to get an upgrade before you were supposed to get it or venture in to an area by using clipping to squeeze in? You never heard of a thing called a gameshark which markets itself as "A way to do things in video games you could never do before"? How can you make statements like that?

And if "No one" will try to use the essense of time to manipulate their gameplay then why is the option there to go directly to sunset or restart the day without saving? Your entire opinion is flawed. When we play a good video game, we want more; and we do whatever we can to get more out of it.

lazy Wrote:....what?

You buy a game... you beat it. You liked it! You play it again... you try to find new things.

Are we not trying to use all our brain cells again? You cutie

DJ Wrote:Since when is trying to explore even though there's a timer involved considered "cheating"?

Quote:ABF, you already know my opinion on most of that, so no need to add any more.

Quote:That last thing, the thing about games that prevent you from going back when you reach the end, I just wanted to add I TOTALLY agree with you. Metroid 3, or Super Metroid, or whatever you feel like calling it (I tend to call it one when I'm feeling lonely, the other when feeling hungry, and both on days that end in "I'm going to sleep now, nah actually I'll stay up to watch that cool thing on the Science channel", has that very flaw. It's the ONE thing wrong with that game. Oh sure, gives ya an excuse and motivation to start a brand new game and all, but you know, I do enjoy being able to go back to the "cleared" area with all the cool powers I already have and just wreck up the joint with more ammunition than god while maybe finding some item I missed before. *uses wind scar that was just unlocked at random terrain in way that is sure to baffle scientists years later, or would if a nuclear winter wasn't being generated in the process* Oh and, generally I like having a punctuation mark in a game, even though I don't consider that the point where I am "through" or anything, it's nice to have a point where the game won't let you save any more. Generally, that's JUST before the final boss, and generally games are generous enough to let you go back and do whatever you want. Some though, such as Knights of the Old Rebublic and Metroid 3, despite being good for the most part, have this ONE flaw that makes ya want to say "but I WANT to be able to go back to that level 1 garden slug and unleash "Psychotramatic stress disorder" on it, causing 99999 damage points, which is a very large number and impressive to look at.

Quote:Anyway, the math aside, it's still all based on probability. It's not having to solve equtations that's a problem. KOTOR for example did all the equations for you and you never had to do any of the math yourself (I love science, but I really do not enjoy math, well not the actual DOING of the math, though I enjoy complicated math principles and rules). It would basically just tell you, as you put it above, how much damage the weapon could potentially do. Rolling 2 four sided really IS better odds than a single 8 sided. I'd always pick that anyway, and it generally was evenly distributed between 2 and 8, never really gathering up on either side of it.

Quote:Sorry ABF, but playing with probabilities is utterly boring to me and in the end when chance is the supreme factor, I don't decide things. Yes, as you said, and I pointed out above, when you get significantly stronger, you WILL win more often because the 20 variable just isn't as significant a change, but to be forced to play a long way into a game just to defeat one of the key parts of the system just isn't enjoyable to me. Chance is not fun for me at all, and I've always despised elements that are random rather than controlled by me. When I win early on, I never feel like I earned it, just that I was lucky.

Quote:Now, I understand this was apparently originally a board game, and as such die were involved, but honestly I don't care. The fact is, I just don't enjoy it. Games of chance are fine I suppose when I'm in the mood for just random chance to take part, but I'm always fully aware that if I win, it's not because of anything I did. When playing an RPG, I don't want that sort of feeling. I want the satisfaction of knowing I and I alone was responsible for the victory, or my defeat should that be the case, so I know that I can actually do something different to win, or that my strategies were in fact good. A little probability adds some spice indeed, but probability shouldn't be set in stone, and it shouldn't have as major an effect on the battle. For example, having a weapon that is super strong but has an inherent 40% hit rate I can deal with. It's that the hit rate is ALSO calculated into some huge unchangeble variable that will have a MAJOR effect on the battle's outcome no matter how I play it that's the problem. I don't even mind when there are a FEW moves that are totally chance related. Having some move like "roulette" that instantly kills a totally random character, including the one who cast the spell, is fine.

Quote:I guess it's hard to explain, but basically it's like I said above. A LITTLE probability can add some "spice" to the game, but when a game completely depends on probability, it just gets annoying. I mean, the number of times I just reset for the first part of KOTOR after dying in a battle, even though I had a very nice level and some good equipment and abilities and such, and then I suddenly just TOTALLY kill the enemy without them standing a chance, was just too much. It ALSO frustrated me in conversations where I was "perseuading" people. Again, later on the stats got so high that the 20 variable didn't really matter as MOST of the time I would succeed, but when it's about 50/50, it's just annoying. I like to know that it's set in stone so that I know if it's totally impossible or completely doable, not know that I have a chance so I end up resetting over and over again until it works.

Quote:Odd way of armor working. In every game I played before a d20 based game, armor determined the defense stat (which was used to calculate how much damage you took), but armor is purely for determining hits and misses here.

Quote:Neverwinter, using 3.5 rules, has an interesting system. It's actually very much like FF1. You can learn every single spell in the game, but you have to "equip" them, and there are limited slots for that. Each and every single spell has it's own individual MP, and that MP cost is determined by it's spell "level". So, it's kinda like FF1 in that regard, only with a similar MP system to FF8. Like you said, you "rest" in order to recover HP and get some magic back. Thing is, as far as I can tell, the only punishment for "resting" is that you are vulnerable. No matter, that's probably enough, it's just boring to rest, hence why I like stocking up on potions and ether.

Quote:As far as critical hits, it's the NORMAL way of doing critical hits. Multiply whatever damage the attack would have done by 2. Some weapons in a few games did it a little differently, like one weapon that did 4x damage on a critical.

Quote:Then again, I think that's one of the main differences between d20 and Japanese RPGs. d20 uses a bunch of whole numbers and nothing but. However, the average Japanese RPG uses percentages for just about everything. So, rather than something like "defense is 18, so you have to get a 19 or higher in order to hit", it's more like "evasion is 10%" (that's dodge rate, defense, as it SHOULD be , is how much damage you take, not the chance of damage), which means if you have 100% accuracy, you will hit 90% of the time. Again, this still puts some chance in there, but it doesn't make itself so very apparent.

Quote:Here's the thing. When, as you have put it, I miss as much as I hit, I feel very put off. A slight adjustment in chance and I've hit every time, or another slight adjustment of pure chance and I've missed every time. Sure, the AVERAGE means I'll do as my stats say I should more often than not, but a single battle won't hit that average perfectly, and if there's only a few, none of the battles may be near that average.

Quote:Anyway, I never really had a problem with anything else that d20 does. Not sure why you would bring it up. Really, everything else about the system is pretty fun, like the ability to customize a character as it develops rather than juse at the start. Multiclassing is fun too.

Quote:As you said, you haven't played a 3rd edition game yet, so I'll explain some things to you about that now from my own experience. Yes, you can upgrade your stats, your BASE stats, on level up, without using items or equipment. Not EVERY level gives you a stat increase, like in Japanese RPGs. Generally, you'll level up and depending on the level, you'll get whatever you are supposed to get for it. For example, you may get the chance to learn a new feat or two, or increase various special abilities like Persuasion. WITH that, is the occasional chance to boost your base stats themselves. On some levels, you get 1 or 2 points you can use to boost a base stat permanently. Now, I assume in D&D, it's a random roll to determine where these points go, but in Neverwinter Nights, just like in assigning the starting stats on a character, you are allowed to pick and choose yourself. I am SO glad for that because, again, I like to be in control. Yes, it IS a control issue .

Quote:KOTOR, so you know, uses MP, well it's FP actually (Force Points). All the spells you have are permanently learned. Force power regenerates over time.

Quote:Let me explain what I meant about "defeating a key part of the system". What I mean is that when you get to really high levels, the stat numbers are also really high. As such, a variable of 20 doesn't matter nearly as much as it did when you had a lower level and lower stats. At higher levels, you'll still do massive damage, and a change of 20 in that attack won't really matter at all. Essentially, I'd just like it if the lower levels depended as much on pure stats as the higher levels. Chance is still there of course, and at the higher levels I really don't even mind that much, but it's not the determining factor. Yes, if things ALWAYS hit exactly where the average SHOULD be, my stats would be the primary thing, but on those lower levels, VERY often I'll get my arse handed to me JUST as often as I hand arse over to the enemy, the SAME enemy in fact. It's THAT sort of thing that drives me nuts. Thing is, the only way to get around it is to get my level significantly higher than the enemy's at that point in the game, and that means FIGHTING them over and over, and in that case it also means reloading my old game over and over.

Quote:Yeah, the enemies tend to be given some sucky moves and some super awesome moves, and then they use the sucky moves most of the time. In the case of really old Japanese RPGs, like FF1, it goes PURELY on a cycle, and it'll always go in order from move to move on the list. In the case of current day RPGs of that style, they tend to be random, but then you start noticing patterns that are JUST consistent enough to make you wonder if there's some simple AI deciding what moves to make... Anyway, a lot of them DO use randomness, and yes I do prefer when some AI is used to determine what move to perform at a time. Still, that'll leave a chunk of the moves they tend to give the baddies completely unused. That just means they'll put more work into the moves and the AI though doesn' it?

Quote:Anyway, it all comes down to taste. I do enjoy those kinds of RPGs, don't get me wrong, it's just that I hate how near the start victory is very often an issue of randomness when you come up to anything of moderate difficulty. Think of it like how you can't stand random encounters. I respect that opinion because I see your point there for example, it's just something I personally never had a problem with.