8th May 2004, 1:14 PM
Quote:I wouldn't say it's FAR more accurate to have the occasional success. If you have a flea battle a train, the flea will never ever win ever. If you have a guy with a machine gun battle a guy with a sword, the guy with the gun will ALWAYS win, every single frickin' time. However, I don't really pay attention to these things.
He'd lose if the guy with the sword started next to him, or if he had astonishingly bad aim or something... :D
It's like the 'Phalanx Destroys a Battleship' thing that you are describing, it seems. That is, the flaw where once in a while in Civilization I a Phalanx would win when a Battleship attacked it... Civ 2 dealt with that by adding firepower. But I don't see how that directly relates to this... unlike those cases, as I've said, this is D&D. While differences between levels are quite noticable, it isn't SO much that it's impossible to concieve of how a lower level person could ever win. I'd say the opposite, actually... and it should be that way -- hard, but possible if done well, to win against a superior opponent.
Quote:Look, just to make it clear, I DID enjoy Neverwinter Nights and KOTOR. I really had a fun time. I just have a few issues with some aspects of the game. Now, honestly I don't see why it's a big deal to you that I have these problems. I'll never understand why you have such issues with Majora's Mask, but I just said "to each their own" and left it at that. Perhaps you should do the same here.
NWN is, by all accounts, a poor excuse for a D&D game and seems to be highly criticized for having an awful single player campaign... so unless you've played the supposedly better expansions, I wouldn't take that (game) to mean a whole lot... :)
Quote:Regarding the party thing, I really wasn't talking about henchmen. I thought you really did mean you can't have a party at all outside henchmen, and so I was reminding you of other human members who you have to talk to and develop battle strats with yourself, which plays EXACTLY like D&D actually doesn't it?
But then why do you make a difference between henchmen and other PCs controlled by others? Oh, sure, there are differences, but... neither group is controlled by you. That's the point.
Quote:Oh by the way, about Japanese RPG stats, YES, they ARE going to be exactly the same, not randomly generated, at each level. If you write down the stats when your character is level 10, start over, and get BACK to level 10, they will be EXACTLY the same. It's not improbable because the stats aren't randomly generated. They are all programmed in very specifically from the start and a set in stone increase is then programmed in. Maybe they'll program each and every level specifically, or maybe it'll be a formula, but the formula won't use any random numbers, likely just "increase HP by 10% of current hp each level" or something else like that. If the starting HP is fixed, then each proceeding level's HP, with a formula like the one I gave, will ALSO be fixed in place. There ARE exceptions of course. While in FF6, Relm's stats can be perfectly predicted once you learn them, in FF4, the stats really are somewhat random. It's rather annoying too, because sometimes a few stats will actually go DOWN a bit on level up.
See, when I read that, I think 'that's too bad'... always being the same is NOT a good thing! I'd rather have an element of chance. That is, when it's explained. As I said, I always get the impression from Japanese RPGs that they're not telling me everything... that some stuff seems 'hidden' or hard to figure out. I don't like that. Oh, sure, I can't calculate how much damage I'm supposed to be doing on average in my head, but I love that they tell you the whole formula. Console RPGs seem designed to not tell you everything you want to know... I like more clarity. And as for dice, it's a bit annoying when you don't get as much HP as you wish you did, but I accept that too... I mean, it'd hardly be realistic to have everyone who looks similar (eg. same class) to always gain the same amount of health per level!
And as I said D&D has more things to worry about than just one party of heroes in one game, like is true in a console title.
Oh, and as you say, when console RPGs have random factors they are, as I've said many times, under-explained as a rule. You admit that at least...
I just played through the FFVIII demo for PC. Ignoring the pitifully low-res 2d backgrounds (incredibly ugly on a PC!), it sure doesn't seem to ME like the game gives you any reason why you do the particular amount of damage you do! You don't always do the same damage with the same attack against the same enemy, you know... how do you explain that?
Quote:I don't HATE them at all. You are being too sensitive. I'm listing my complaints about one issue. D&D is not a perfect world and I just take issues with a few aspects of it. I know they are core aspects, but oh well, just let it be.
My favorite board game is probably Hero Quest... fun fantasy/"rpg" board game I've had for a long time. And it, like most of the good boardgames I've played, uses dice... complaining about that is just stupid, I think.
Menubased combat I've already discussed. As for MM, hmm... the heart of the matter is probably simply that I like to take games slowly and that game doesn't allow for that.