WRPG builds
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No. I play my character. I don't want to just download some minmax build off the internet, I want to play MY character, that's the whole point. I will sometimes check to see if the style(2 handed, board and sword, dual wielding, ect.) is completely gimped, like archery was in DA:O, or dual wielding was in Skyrim, but I absolutely refuse to actually look up full builds. I want the character to be mine.
I spend a few hours playing the game on a class I would guess I'd like to get the feel of the game, and then do massive research. I frequently reset my first playthrough of WRPGs for this reason.
I play it by ear. Sure, they aren't the best builds, but I made my choice in point allocation and I'll stand by it, dammnit!
I dislike DA:O and its stat building, like how you need to choose almost all of the stats anyway. For a warrior, you need Strength (1st Skill) then Constitution (2nd Skill) then you need lots of willpower (3rd Skill) but the game requires you to put points into Dexterity if you are a sword/shield warrior (get up to 26 points to be effective) then you need points in cunning if you want to roleplay a persuasive and charming character. Thats 5/6 skills you need to put points into if you want to play as a sword/shield warrior and actually roleplay.evilthecat said:
This is why I love being late to the party when it comes to getting games. Borderlands in particular has been really iffy with it's ingame instructions on where things are (At one point it tells you there is a item to pick up in a building when it's actually in a car outside a good 10 feet away) and the wiki is a major help.KingHodor said:
On the flip side, I keep spoiling things and feel like I really should just get through one game without resorting to guides or wikis. Then I end up realising I could've made one of the missions in Deus Ex a whole lot easier if I'd actually gone and met Zeke after I spared him.
Also, this is why I think Skyrim has THE best system in any RPG to date. You start will all skills at next to nothing and it ranks up what you use. The only downside to it is you can quickly snowball one or two skills ahead of the others, so your Archery-heavy character can get into real trouble when your forced into Melee situtations.
I think in a good WRPG, and I mean a Good WRPG, you should be able to look at the options you are given, and decide, "Okay, how do I want to complete this? Sneak in the back? Charge headlong into the front? Talk to the guy and persuade him?" and than, based upon the build of your character you decide what is the best option (sneaky rogue, sneak in; Heavy armored warrior, go in the front).
A game where you have to build your character a specific way in order to complete the game does not sound fun to me, and doesnt really seem like that much of a WRPG.
A game where you have to build your character a specific way in order to complete the game does not sound fun to me, and doesnt really seem like that much of a WRPG.
I laughed and I laughed hard. The fact that they've removed trap options doesn't mean that the balance isn't all over the place. Yes, the balance is all over the place. And there is the "world levels with you" bit from Oblivion. It's slightly smoothed out but it's there. After I decided to train a bit in the city, I shot up in levels too fast and due to not having proper equipment, fighting stuff became a pain in the ass for a while. Also helped by the fact that the poisons and scrolls I had with me were now useless. Levels don't feel organic and natural - they come off very fast in the beginning, and a while later, you have to boringly grind to get them. Skyrim's system is nowhere near "THE best" and as further evidence I can point out that it's not point buy or even come close to what that offers.Idocreating said:
In terms of how it interacts with the game world around it, yes it does have problems. I ended up massive undergeared when I tried to spam my Smithing up with iron Daggers. Levelled up lots, but because I had no money or gold I had no gear to match the level up and had a tougher time of it.DoPo said:
What I like about it is that there's really no feeling of screwing up your build. There's no upper limit of skills. If you suddenly want to change from a sneak archer type to a mage, you can, because the enemy scaling isn't active everywhere and there's still plenty of weak enemies to grind the weaker skills on. I just like how the choices being made isn't in some Excel Sheet but made through your gameplay choices.
Depends on the game. Offline, I tend towards a God Build. I end up being God anyway, so I don't fight it anymore.
Online, I tend to be more of a Warrior.
Online, I tend to be more of a Warrior.
Well, the way players actually interact with the game is still 100% Excel sheet, just with a really awkward interface. You figure out what you want to be good at, and you increase skills and select gear accordingly. Unlike other (better) RPG systems, the interface for actually increasing the skills you want to increase is performing grindy repetitive actions. A standard RPG would let you do fun things (killing stuff, completing quests, getting loot) which would give you XP and allow you to just select the skills you want to increase.Idocreating said:
Incidentally, the reason why I find the whole "but the consumers can't handle real RPGs!" perception that developers apparently have hilarious is because if they can handle the awkward and grindy TES system, they can handle basically anything.
I always wing it.
In MMOs my first character is also really randomly built, just to see if i can come up with something awesome. Usually i dont, though, but by then i'll have learned enough of the game to create a new character that's exactly what i want it to be.
In MMOs my first character is also really randomly built, just to see if i can come up with something awesome. Usually i dont, though, but by then i'll have learned enough of the game to create a new character that's exactly what i want it to be.
Though in other RPG's you get better at skills not by neccessarily making any actual use of them. In Skyrim, I'd get better at reading books by, reading books.Kahunaburger said:
In Fallout: New Vegas, I get better at reading books by killing things, completing challenges and doing quests. I need to fix a machine but have no knowledge about repair. 6 hours of shooting Deathclaws and some rescued prisoners later and I'm a wizz-kid genius at fixing things.
(FYI: Love New Vegas. Best example of choices impacting the ending of a game as it provides an epiilogue for a lot of the people you meet along the course of the game)
That's a side issue - the main question is that if the game's core mechanic is a leveling system, does the leveling system play well? In Fallout games, it does. In Elder Scrolls games, it doesn't.Idocreating said:
TES games make a head-fake at simulationism, but who, IRL, becomes the best smith the world has ever known by making a couple hundred knives? When you think about the real-life equivalent of the systems in question, TES is no more realistic or intuitive than an RPG that gives you XP for succeeding at goals. When you think about whether the systems in question make the games they're in less fun or more fun, there's no question that a system that rewards the player for playing the fun part of the game is better than a system that rewards the player for performing repetitive actions.
roughly this, if there is something inherently bad/useless or super OP in a specific game, I'll glance over some FAQ or forum to find that before starting, otherwise I tend to just go about how I want to, regardless of min/maxing stat's to perfection.Mortai Gravesend said:
I do see what you mean. But, I not really implying that you have to have it a certain way to complete the game. I'm just rather anal about some things. For example say I invested a lot of points or whatever to an ability I end up not ever using, I feel those points could of went to something better to improve my character. It probably won't make too much difference in the long run, but for the anal like me it can get on my nerves.WanderingFool said:
I usually play on Normal, or sometimes Hard if there's an Easy/Normal/Hard/Extra-super-hard split. I don't often run into problems of bad stat allocation or ability selection because of it. It makes the games a LOT more fun since I can play what I want to play instead of what's good. (For example, I got sick of hearing Zevrhan in DA:O go "that chest looks tough to open, let me give it a try" over and over, so I dropped all of stat points into thievery until I could open any lock. Because I was on a low-ish difficulty, my combat experience didn't really suffer from it.)
God I hate stat point allocation in mmo's. It never takes long for people to figure out the handful of best builds. And from that point on everyone will just use guides to get those builds. Or they'll wing it, realize their character is gimped after wasting hours and hours, and restart with a guide after all.
So what's the point? Making characters unique? Hardly, because eventualy everyone refers to the same handful of good builds. Unless ofcourse you think having characters be various degrees of borked is a good way of introducing variety.
No, in the end you only achieve 2 things.
1) Frustration. Mostly from people who tried to wing it and ended up having to start a new character.
2) Crazy builds. If you make it possible for a warrior to put all his points into intelligence, people will inevitably try that. And sometimes one of those crazy builds actually turns out to be pretty good. So someone writes a guide and soon it becomes a common build.
This was one of the many things WoW got very, very right IMO. Just have stat points be allocated automatically in a way that makes sense for the class!
But in single player RPG's? Nah, I just wing it. Who cares if my character will never have the perfect stats? As long as I can beat the game I don't care.
So what's the point? Making characters unique? Hardly, because eventualy everyone refers to the same handful of good builds. Unless ofcourse you think having characters be various degrees of borked is a good way of introducing variety.
No, in the end you only achieve 2 things.
1) Frustration. Mostly from people who tried to wing it and ended up having to start a new character.
2) Crazy builds. If you make it possible for a warrior to put all his points into intelligence, people will inevitably try that. And sometimes one of those crazy builds actually turns out to be pretty good. So someone writes a guide and soon it becomes a common build.
This was one of the many things WoW got very, very right IMO. Just have stat points be allocated automatically in a way that makes sense for the class!
But in single player RPG's? Nah, I just wing it. Who cares if my character will never have the perfect stats? As long as I can beat the game I don't care.
Funnily, I really liked DA:O as a game. I think it's an absolute blast, but I totally agree with you in that a lot of things are just badly explained.JaceValm said:
See, interestingly, I actually think you're meant to be taking a highish dexterity as a shield warrior. Heck, I found it was more the other way around in that you only want enough strength to be wearing the best armour you can find and pump the rest into dexterity. The reason being, dexterity increases your defence score which makes you harder to hit and improves your overall damage mitigation.
Cunning is another weird stat. I remember when I started playing rogue (my favourite class in the dragon age series) and I figured I'd need loads of dexterity. It makes sense right? Dexterity is the big thing for rogues ever since D&D. Well, wrong.. half a playthrough in and I suddenly realized I should have been pumping just about every point I had into cunning because there's nothing dexterity can do which cunning can't do better.
I love that game for it's story and it's combat system, but numbers are so screwed up. A two handed warrior can out-tank a shield user any day. There's one particular spell (mana clash) which is effectively equivalent to turning the difficulty level down all by itself. Half the mage specialities focus on physically hitting things, which wouldn't be bad but they're not even compatible. There's one ability (arrow of slaying) which calculates its damage based on the difference in level between you in the enemy, and not in a nice linear curve, but using completely random numbers picked out of nowhere. It just.. doesn't make sense.
Everyone said the game was really hard. I'm pretty sure most of that is just because it's just really, really unintuitive.