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[NJW2000]

Plus then things get a lot easier because I can just give abilities and attacks hard numbers rather than saying "Oh that attack seems to have drained a...moderately large amount of faith!"

This could be solved pretty easily by assigning stock phrases to different ranges and hiding the exact numbers. Not that I mind knowing exactly how much faith, I have, of course. The problem just has a pretty easy fix.

Seems kind of pointless. I mean, how long will it be till someone does a teensy bit of algebra and PW might as well be giving numerical values anyway? Not long at all.

Unless known and slight uncertainty was part of the fun, though why that would be worth doing I have no idea.

[piecewise]

Yeah, seems best all in all, helps prevent accidents or unwanted corruption from bad wording or interpretations. Balancing said numbers might be a right pain in the ass though.

Balancing is a pain in the ass in general.

Plus then things get a lot easier because I can just give abilities and attacks hard numbers rather than saying "Oh that attack seems to have drained a...moderately large amount of faith!"

This could be solved pretty easily by assigning stock phrases to different ranges and hiding the exact numbers. Not that I mind knowing exactly how much faith, I have, of course. The problem just has a pretty easy fix.

Yeah, but I see no real reason to.  Someone knowing they're running on 3/100 Faith is gonna be lot more tense than me saying "You are very low on faith"

[Radio Controlled]

Random (mechanics related, read at own risk!) idea occurred to me yesterday: instead of having each special faith using attack be it's own separated thing, maybe make it so that effects can be combined into new moves.

For example, say you have a holy spear. Normally (for the sake of the example here) you roll dex to see where/how well you hit, and str for the damage.But, when you buy the weapon you get three (perhaps rolled out of a list of possible effects so it isn't the same for everyone) 'faith modifiers' you can apply to an attack:
- Truesight (costs 4 faithpoints): attack gets heavy bonus to aim, allowing to hit specific parts or get in between chinks of armor. Damage is rolled for as normal.
- Whirlwind (7 faith): you get several quick attacks in 1 turn, but each attack is rolled for normally.
- Longshot (1 faithpoint per meter): spear magically extends without growing very heavy or unbalanced, for long range strikes.

So then, people could also combine effects. Eg combine the 1st and 3rd to get a 'Truesight Longshot Strike' attack (maybe add a little extra faith needed for each effect you add to an attack, eg an extra 10% faith needed based on the combined faith of the 2 effects) with which you can poke out an eye at 20m with uncanny precision.

Then when you level up, you unlock (an) extra effect(s) for you to mix and match with. This way, people can combine things in unusual ways (especially if multiple items can have their effects combined) to create unique signature attacks.

[Parisbre56]

Have you considered doing game-y things to create paths for people?

For example, there is an electrified door locked with a keycard or something similar blocking the players' path. Now the players could just brute force it open, but that would take some time, have a chance of hurting them and probably trigger an alarm/immune response. So the players could follow the electrical lines to find a transformer they could quietly shut down to get rid of the electrification. Or they could hunt one of the yellow keycard demons so that they can use it to unlock the door. Or simply look for alternate paths, like going through the rooftops or the sewers.

Depending on how far you want to go with it, you could do the game-y thing where, if someone tries to approach an area without the necessary level, you can ensure people have the proper "level" to access an area by forcing them (or at least heavily suggesting to them) to have a detour through another easier area and complete it first, so that they can gain the necessary levels.


There could also be a fast travel system, quite similar to what you have in the Deep Infirmary. People finding tram stations they could go back to from other tram stations, or something like that. Maybe standard Doom teleporters, maybe something related to blood flow, you know more about the theme of the city and what would fit best.


Also, I've had an idea for an exploration-based RTD where the last tribe of humans are living underground, at the lowest levels beneath a gigantic machine. The machine is like a living thing, expanding, decaying, repairing and defending itself. And as the machine slowly dies, so does the home of the last tribe, since it partially depends on the material it provides for its survival. So a small group of people is exiled (the city's best, people the men in power want to get rid off or both) into the tunnels surrounding the village and into the alien bowels of the machine, told not to return until they have found something worthy, something that could save the last tribe, whatever that could be.

I'll probably never get to run it due to time constraints, so if you're interested, I can shoot you a PM with what little concept notes I have for its monsters, challenges and environments. For example, the two things I describe above (fast travel and creating paths) are things I had planned for that game. Maybe there will be something that inspires you there.

[syvarris]

Yeah, seems best all in all, helps prevent accidents or unwanted corruption from bad wording or interpretations. Balancing said numbers might be a right pain in the ass though.

Eh, PW's go-to balancing strategy seems to be "Fuck it, I know they'll break the game anyway so I won't waste my time with balance".  At best, he has other people do the balancing.  If he does go that route though, I'll happily volunteer--I'm good at breaking systems, so I should be pretty good at patching holes!

There could also be a fast travel system, quite similar to what you have in the Deep Infirmary. People finding tram stations they could go back to from other tram stations, or something like that. Maybe standard Doom teleporters, maybe something related to blood flow, you know more about the theme of the city and what would fit best.

Oh, I do like the fast travel idea.  Perhaps Oro might have large sewer-river things, which function similarly to veins, and we can craft makeshift boats from certain things.  Maybe riding on the riverveins costs Faith, as it is corrupt fluid.  Maybe only outgoing riverveins are dilute enough to ride on without significant corruption, so fasttravel only functions as an escape.  Alternatively, you could do it the opposite way, so we can ride a rivervein into a dangerous area, but not out--That way, it's easy to send yourself too far in and get trapped.

Maybe the riverveins would start out with some sort of filters which'll kill you if you try to go through, but we could destroy or disable the filters, which unlocks fast travel through that particular section of the rivervein.  Since the bloodflow would also be unfiltered then, perhaps this would have a weakening effect on the surroundings.

Hmm.  The immunebots would likely use the riverveins for transport, which would mean riding on the rivervein is the worst possible situation during an immune response.  That would make fasttravel function as a reward for stealthy missions--If you mess up and stimulate an immune response, you're forced to take the long way out.

[Ozarck]

My usual method of rebalancing is a) if the imbalance is within the party, I look to enhance the weaker members' abilities and give them something to do that the stronger ones cannot, and to avoid sending them on missions whic hare simple slugfests for the mighty, and b) if the balance is between the world and the players, I create world beings or situations that take advantage of the strengths of the mighty, or their unsuspecting weaknesses.

Team can overpower any reasonable physical threat with their magics? time for magic opponents. a single player can go toe to toe with a colossus? time to send in hordes of small beings to swarm the mighty and eat them from the inside. someone is mighty enough to alter reality? once reality is altered, they must deal with the consequences, both externally and internally. perhaps even constantly pouring power into their change, or sacrificing themselves or their power for that change to be effective.

Part of the trick is simply to not allow your characters to get too overpowered in the first place. Make advancements slower than the players want. Otherwise you become the authors of Superman, contemplating killing him because he is so hard to write for. This is how you get a Doomsday, people. No one wants a Doomsday. So don't let them break it to begin with.

[Radio Controlled]

Eh, PW's go-to balancing strategy seems to be "Fuck it, I know they'll break the game anyway so I won't waste my time with balance".  At best, he has other people do the balancing.  If he does go that route though, I'll happily volunteer--I'm good at breaking systems, so I should be pretty good at patching holes!

Breaking things is much, much easier than fixing things so they're balanced and robust. Believe me, I've been on both sides of that equation in ER.

Also, I thought pw's idea of a 'fast travel' were the forward bases we could set up so we wouldn't have to start from 0 every time? Though fast travel between locations could be handy either way.

My usual method of rebalancing is a) if the imbalance is within the party, I look to enhance the weaker members' abilities and give them something to do that the stronger ones cannot, and to avoid sending them on missions whic hare simple slugfests for the mighty, and b) if the balance is between the world and the players, I create world beings or situations that take advantage of the strengths of the mighty, or their unsuspecting weaknesses.

Team can overpower any reasonable physical threat with their magics? time for magic opponents. a single player can go toe to toe with a colossus? time to send in hordes of small beings to swarm the mighty and eat them from the inside. someone is mighty enough to alter reality? once reality is altered, they must deal with the consequences, both externally and internally. perhaps even constantly pouring power into their change, or sacrificing themselves or their power for that change to be effective.

Part of the trick is simply to not allow your characters to get too overpowered in the first place. Make advancements slower than the players want. Otherwise you become the authors of Superman, contemplating killing him because he is so hard to write for. This is how you get a Doomsday, people. No one wants a Doomsday. So don't let them break it to begin with.

Some very good points. However, I dunno if these will be as easily applicable in ORO as they could be in your game. For example, the whole point of this game seems to be a combat-oriented 'slugfest'. Sure, there might be other approaches sometimes or side-activities, but overall fighting demons from dusk till dawn seems like it'll be the meat of the game. Throwing opponents that counter a parties/characters strengths is a given though, I'd be surprised if pw wouldn't try to do that (and it fits with the whole 'evolving immune system' thing).

Not allowing people to get too OP, and making them retire if they do, has been a core concern for pw from the start. How to do that specifically though might not be very straightforward. For example, how fast should people level? What kind of payout allows for a smooth advancing in power, without going so slow people feel like they aren't really progressing? And how to allow enough flexibility so people who play it smart can see their efforts rewarded accordingly, without creating enormous power gaps? It's all not entirely straighforward, is my point (not that you really said it was, mind).

And at the end of the day, even if one is dedicated to try to make a balanced system, actually assigning the numbers will be a tough exercise if you want different playstyles to be equally viable and want to prevent obviously superior/inferior options. Espcaially since things might not always pan out as you thought (eg ability x might prove to not be half as effective as you thought, so now the high faith cost it got means it's all but useless).

[Ozarck]

I thought pw said that the main thing was getting quickly through into the depths and taking out the heart, and that much of the game involved a)not confronting everything, b) careful balancing between faith and corruption, and c) a limited amount of resources and forward bases allowed (mening that careful chices in course of action / direction of travel). Slugfest seemed like a no no, since fighting everythign was a sure way to alert the city and get the PCs crushed.

1) determine the likely number of players.
2) determine the likely amount of character turnover
3) determine the number of missions for the main story line
4) determine the maximum number of side missions / rabbit trails / secondary bases.
5) determine the desired power balance for the end game, including numbers of characters at that power level.
6) chart power progression per mission based on that.

a) if people get too powerful too quick, set them aside a while for cooldown/ramp up faith loss
b) if people are dying too often, increase early character level progression
c) I suppose "defend the supply line" would be a way to get secondary characters involved. logistics is super important for military action, after all.
d) if crafted weapons / armor / equipment becomes too powerful, increase it's faith drain.

[NJW2000]

I thought that if people got too powerful too quick, they would become demonic bosses for us to fight.

Wonder where the power/motivation to keep building a normal-ish city comes from, not a more efficient hive or a more effective megatank.
Perhaps something to do with some sort of anti-faith: the very perversion of keeping a full city populated entirely by mosters that would slay anyone who could use the city properly sustains the power that keeps the city functioning. Something similar to the "belief=power" trope - sort of the corruption of massive investment of human time, work and thought in a place.

[Radio Controlled]

Maybe slugfest wasn't the perfect word, but it still seems like it'll be a combat, or at the very least action oriented, game. There will no doubt be different playstyles to pursue, but even so every char can reasonably expect to have to fight from time to time.

And yes, that's a good list of considerations you made there (one which you might want to copy somewhere, pw), though I do wonder how well pw would be able to predict/go through with some of those (remember the whole 'ER was gonna be an easy game with short missions for small teams' thing? Or how some seriously unbalanced tinker projects could've been greenlighted if not for other people pointing out the possible problems?). Keeping in mind that eg. some rts games, who have a whole team of analysts and hundreds to thousands of matches to analyse, keep having balance patches for years to come, with parts of the community either crying bloody murder (if their favorite thing got nerfed) or singing evangelical praise (if their stuff got buffed or their enemies nerfedbatted) with every damn patch, it might be next to impossible to get the balance perfectly right (though I'd personally be happy with a system that's just not too broken).

[Ozarck]

That ultimately is every GM's bruden - keeping the game in balance, providing an interesting story or interesting framework for characters' stories, and not getting bogged down in the details of it all.

NJW is somewhat right in that characters that get too powerful can become powerful monsters, but there is the risk of having the character become that powerful while retaining a comfortable faith cushion, which is why I suggested the faith drain modification idea - tweak how quickly they become demonic.

Of course, over the long run, punishing "good" players for success is bad, and having characters who are weak due to their players constantly getting there characters in trouble should be taken into account as well. "Oh, player a has lost one character and built on that experience to fashion an interesting character who is holding her team together, and player b is on his sixth Leroy Jenkins, crying 'nerf naow'? Poor, poor Leroy, looks like he'll be on his seventh soon."

As for game bloat, well, either decide early that there will be a hard cap, either in missions, bases, number of characters, days weeks and years, or number of players, and stick with it, or go with the flow, and if things get a little derailed but everyone is enjoying it, let it be. Sometimes our creations take on a life of their own. the trick is to manage the growth so it doesn't become cancerous.

faith amulets. In the base camp, or even outside the city altogether, let a PC "pray" over a given number of faith amulets for use on missions. "Pray" over ten low power, one shot ones, or two high power, reusable ones, or one semi-permanent one with a specific effect.

[Nunzillor]

Leroys and bad players unite against the oppressive influence of the competent!

[Hapah]

I enjoy hard numbers, and typically don't see the point in hiding them for the sake of hiding them.

[piecewise]

There's an oddity in combining functionality with magic. These furnaces are what we uses to melt our metal. These furnaces run on fire demon spit.

[Hapah]

So we need some sort of demon-forged fire spit Super Soaker?