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[Broseph Stalin]

Yes, that^^ exactly, make it something beneficial to the player, not an active hindrance to their progress.  "Help me so I can help you", not "Help me, now fuck off"

Here's another simple fact about the game, it costs far less in resources and is much easier simply due to world design to just wander down to Rivet city on your own, and through regular conversation be pointed in Madison's direction.  Hell, that's exactly what happened to me on my first playthrough.

On my first playthrough I stumbled directly into tranquility lane. Without context it was really fucking weird.

Agreed - if you already know where to go, you don't need ThreeDog to tell you
That's actually cool design, in my opinion.  If an experienced player wants to skip the quest, or any player wants to just search the entire waste on their own, they can ignore the trail of hints.

I suppose that repairing the transmitter in order to learn a clue from broadcasts is a good idea.  But there's nothing inherently dickish about asking for payment for vital information, particularly when the NPC is themselves desperate for help.

Would it be better if ThreeDog gave you the information immediately, but made you promise to come back and repair the transmitter at your leisure?  Or is that still dickish?

That would be better. The big thing is that he is denying you important information to retain power over you, that's a LOT more antagonistic than the game paints it as.

[NullForceOmega]

It isn't vital information!  At this point no one in the entire region knows that James has figured out how to make the purifier work, all anyone involved at this junction knows is that there is a young guy/girl here who is looking for their father because they're scared and lost.  There is no 'vital' anything at stake, they have no concept that the information they hold has any impact beyond 'kid finding parent'.  Caveat: James did claim that he figured it out to Madison, but left without giving her any kind of details.

Here, here's something massively better for the Threedog mission:

Threedog tells you that James came through the station on the way to Rivet City (Player currently has enough information to proceed) but that was a while ago and James may have moved on as he was very agitated when he came through here.  Threedog proposes that if you can help him fix the antenna he'll call up Rivet city and find out what happened to James.  Player may agree or leave, if the player agrees Threedog immediately asks the Paladins present at the station if they can help out in any way, they hand over a store of ammo and stimpacks, one offers to sell a couple stealthboys at a low price, player is given directions to the museum and informed of where to take the antenna.  Bonus point add a speech check to get information from the paladins about the monument garrison, and allow the player to request some extra help (ammo, stimpacks) from them.  Result:  The player proceeds from Threedog directly to the purifier with minimal loss of resources so the battle with the supermutants there is a bit less taxing, and the subsequent hike across all of creation is more manageable.

[MCreeper]

Necro? Necro.

A bit of a narrow one. Got back into LoL, surprisingly still not shit. But, shit, why it's so hard to find a co-player with just a bit of common decency and sanity in there? How to NOT make a lasting playing partner: the guide.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

1. If your team won the match by far, you may invite two best payers and immidiately start a match - maybe they will win you another one for free. If you do this, you likely don't need any of the following.
2. Never say which positions you prefer in general and for this match in particular - just who cares about that?
3. If you are being actively forced not to do 2, at least not say which champions that would be - the fuck can go into your profile and see himself.
4. And in general, just start a match as fast as possible, whenever possible, no jawing - repeatedly if need be.
5. If you no longer want to play with someone, you don't say anything to them, and don't remove them from the list - no, you purposefully quit the game without a word whenever they show up.

Mind, i never invite anyone myself, it's always others inviting me. And in about 80% cases they follow "the guide" to the letter. It's not like the game is a imageboard look-alike cesspit like Dota 2 seems to be, concentration of active insufferable wretches in a match rarely raises above fine 20%. But it all goes to shit whenever a co-op is involved. I'm not asking for great teamplay, nobody haves that, but can you all show just a bit of common sense? In more than a year total of playing LoL, i met about four fine and consistent co-opers (one was fine, but played about once per week), we got to voice chat with only one. The rest is described above.

[amjh]

I hate the idea that you're supposed to use "meta builds" for every complex RPG. If I wanted to pick from a handful of static options, I'd play a game with a strict class system. Copying a build instead of making your own often means skipping 50%-100% of the gameplay. Most games where it applies have people saying that you're playing wrong if you're not copying a meta build and telling new players they should never experiment.

[notquitethere]

Yeah I hate that too. Same with deck builders.

[scriver]

If don't even know what a meta build means.

[Kagus]

I can agree with that for everything that allows more-or-less forgiving reskills and that don't contain too many dead-end places to sink points.

I can speak from experience saying that playing a game where you put a great number of points into something that sounded cool but doesn't actually work as advertised/doesn't scale accordingly with the investment -and you can't get that investment back because you've used up your one reskill or it requires more than double the materials you've seen over the entire course of the game so far- can mean being stuck in a position where you're unable to progress and would have to start over from scratch with an entirely new character and go through everything over again in the hopes that you did a better job next time.

Or, in some cases, you didn't pick the innocuous skill that happens to have a lot of content tied specifically to it, and without that stepping stone to get further you'll miss out on large portions of the game because you didn't know better.


Trust me, I'm absolutely in agreement with the idea that you should be able to do your own thing and not just slavishly emulate "The Build" because it's what works best... But I do understand and appreciate the instances where the game design wasn't thought through that well and you'd do best to have some guidance in what's needed to get the most out of it.

[Iduno]

I can agree with that for everything that allows more-or-less forgiving reskills and that don't contain too many dead-end places to sink points.

I can speak from experience saying that playing a game where you put a great number of points into something that sounded cool but doesn't actually work as advertised/doesn't scale accordingly with the investment -and you can't get that investment back because you've used up your one reskill or it requires more than double the materials you've seen over the entire course of the game so far- can mean being stuck in a position where you're unable to progress and would have to start over from scratch with an entirely new character and go through everything over again in the hopes that you did a better job next time.

Or, in some cases, you didn't pick the innocuous skill that happens to have a lot of content tied specifically to it, and without that stepping stone to get further you'll miss out on large portions of the game because you didn't know better.


Trust me, I'm absolutely in agreement with the idea that you should be able to do your own thing and not just slavishly emulate "The Build" because it's what works best... But I do understand and appreciate the instances where the game design wasn't thought through that well and you'd do best to have some guidance in what's needed to get the most out of it.

Good. At least someone around here can articulate what I was thinking.

My main issue with Gloomhaven (it's still a great game, but...) is that your future abilities are sometimes treated as secrets. Then you level up and get a potentially amazing card that is only good if you made a seemingly-inferior decision earlier to set it up. Or any game that gives "a bonus" or "a large/small bonus" to doing a thing. So it's going to improve my unknown odds of success by an unknown percent or amount. Fan-fucking-tastic.

[Robsoie]

Ah "The build" , the most annoying thing in most rpg.
It reminds me of when i first played Neverwinter Nights, my goal was to run something like a ninja, basically a "hide then stealth kill" type of character.
While NWN does not have a ninja class, it had Rogue then the Assassin prestige class when meeting the requirement as Rogue felt ninja enough to me.

Rogue then Assassin sounded the most logical to me, but at the time i never looked into "The Build" to have an actual working assassin for the game setting, because an Assassin built from Rogue then Assassin lead to your special death attack bein useless against anything that is considered a boss or an undead (they're nearly all immune to the paralysis effect ), the backstab is useless against half of the game enemies (they're all variant of undeads anyways all immune to backstab too) , the poison, well it's not going to win you any fight against anything that is not low level (and undead do not care anyways)

At least the sneaking worked to avoid being seen, unless you encountered a scripted enemy that automatically knows you're there, and ghosting whole maps gave you no xp, so you were going to be underleveled after a while against those scripted enemies, without mentionning that past mid-game every enemies have some way of using a true seeing effect, allowing them to see anything hiding

[Rolan7]

It's annoying how much of that applies to pen-and-paper DND as well, but I guess that's different - wait no, that's totally relevant.  It's something that can be worked out with other players and the GM, but DND is filled with "trap" choices even if you don't go for the cheesy exploits.  Going into detail (or edition) would invite a derail but I think it's an uncontroversial claim.

Edit:  Though TBH it can be fun?  Some of the most enjoyment I've gotten out of console or tabletop RPGs has been painstakingly planning a character's levelups to match a concept, while remaining at the necessary power level.  Or just going HAM and trying to break the game.  Mechanics can be fun too, though it certainly breaks immersion in a sense (not so much if you're used to it, I think).

[Iduno]

Ah "The build" , the most annoying thing in most rpg.
It reminds me of when i first played Neverwinter Nights, my goal was to run something like a ninja, basically a "hide then stealth kill" type of character.
While NWN does not have a ninja class, it had Rogue then the Assassin prestige class when meeting the requirement as Rogue felt ninja enough to me.

Rogue then Assassin sounded the most logical to me, but at the time i never looked into "The Build" to have an actual working assassin for the game setting, because an Assassin built from Rogue then Assassin lead to your special death attack bein useless against anything that is considered a boss or an undead (they're nearly all immune to the paralysis effect ), the backstab is useless against half of the game enemies (they're all variant of undeads anyways all immune to backstab too) , the poison, well it's not going to win you any fight against anything that is not low level (and undead do not care anyways)

At least the sneaking worked to avoid being seen, unless you encountered a scripted enemy that automatically knows you're there, and ghosting whole maps gave you no xp, so you were going to be underleveled after a while against those scripted enemies, without mentionning that past mid-game every enemies have some way of using a true seeing effect, allowing them to see anything hiding

Also, you miss half of the time, because your damage is expected to be higher with your ability to backstab. Fighters can't have anything nice, but rogues have to suck. You do get the ability to steal, but you'll have to save-scum because letting you succeed would make you too good, and also you can't spend the extra money because equipment available is based on how far you've gotten. Rogues really get the short end of the stick in RPGs, but they're joke/challenge characters in CRPGs.

It's annoying how much of that applies to pen-and-paper DND as well, but I guess that's different - wait no, that's totally relevant.  It's something that can be worked out with other players and the GM, but DND is filled with "trap" choices even if you don't go for the cheesy exploits.  Going into detail (or edition) would invite a derail but I think it's an uncontroversial claim.

Edit:  Though TBH it can be fun?  Some of the most enjoyment I've gotten out of console or tabletop RPGs has been painstakingly planning a character's levelups to match a concept, while remaining at the necessary power level.  Or just going HAM and trying to break the game.  Mechanics can be fun too, though it certainly breaks immersion in a sense (not so much if you're used to it, I think).

Yeah. I wouldn't mind a game of (maybe 3.x) D&D where everyone was overpowered. It's not a well-balanced game, but as long as everyone is about the same power-level, it could be entertaining.

[Sergius]

Ah "The build" , the most annoying thing in most rpg.
It reminds me of when i first played Neverwinter Nights, my goal was to run something like a ninja, basically a "hide then stealth kill" type of character.
While NWN does not have a ninja class, it had Rogue then the Assassin prestige class when meeting the requirement as Rogue felt ninja enough to me.

Rogue then Assassin sounded the most logical to me, but at the time i never looked into "The Build" to have an actual working assassin for the game setting, because an Assassin built from Rogue then Assassin lead to your special death attack bein useless against anything that is considered a boss or an undead (they're nearly all immune to the paralysis effect ), the backstab is useless against half of the game enemies (they're all variant of undeads anyways all immune to backstab too) , the poison, well it's not going to win you any fight against anything that is not low level (and undead do not care anyways)

At least the sneaking worked to avoid being seen, unless you encountered a scripted enemy that automatically knows you're there, and ghosting whole maps gave you no xp, so you were going to be underleveled after a while against those scripted enemies, without mentionning that past mid-game every enemies have some way of using a true seeing effect, allowing them to see anything hiding

When I first played NWN (and I had played other AD&D computer games before) I thought it would be a brilliant idea to play a Sorcerer that also was able to use armor and weapons (Fighter probably), and to be able to cast in armor, I started learning all the spells with the Metamagic that allowed it, or something. It was the worst thing ever and I had to start over after 5 or 6 levels because my spells weren't worth casting at all, either too weak from casting them "Still" or whatever, or just failed 80% of the time because of the armor, so I ended up just trying to brain everything with a sword with a really awful bonus to hit.

[Kagus]

Yeah. I wouldn't mind a game of (maybe 3.x) D&D where everyone was overpowered. It's not a well-balanced game, but as long as everyone is about the same power-level, it could be entertaining.

7 Deadly Sins (or other anime of choice): The Game?

When I first played NWN (and I had played other AD&D computer games before) I thought it would be a brilliant idea to play a Sorcerer that also was able to use armor and weapons (Fighter probably), and to be able to cast in armor, I started learning all the spells with the Metamagic that allowed it, or something. It was the worst thing ever and I had to start over after 5 or 6 levels because my spells weren't worth casting at all, either too weak from casting them "Still" or whatever, or just failed 80% of the time because of the armor, so I ended up just trying to brain everything with a sword with a really awful bonus to hit.

My usual build for NWN involved dumping every skillpoint conceivable into Parry, and then not using the Parry special combat mode... Because I really really wanted to see the cool animations with the sparks flying and whatever, but I had no idea that Parry Mode was a thing.

Ahh, I also remember my horrifying abomination of a character that I made because I wanted someone who caught arrows with his shield...

So, naturally, I created a fighter that mostly pumped feats and skillpoints into Monk stuff so that he could build up to the Deflect Arrows feat... Which, of course, doesn't actually use the shield at all.

[Telgin]

Playing Banjo-Tooie and DK64 recently really taught me this and I ranted about it back then too, but it feels weird to run into modern games that just waste my time.

For example: Them's Fightin' Herds.

Maybe this isn't a problem later on, but I just got to the part where I have to fight Velvet.  I won't comment on how blatantly unfair this fight is, especially at this stage of the game, but what sucks is that when you lose to her you can't just retry the fight.  Instead, you get sent back a few scenes and have to sit through an agonizing amount of dialog to try again, with no way to skip it.  It makes losing to her infuriating.  Unnecessarily so.

[nenjin]

Yeah, kind of amazing that in this day and age some developers refuse to put in a some flag that just skips the goddamn cinematic / speech.