Mearls just tried his best, it says it here:

[K]

I'd argue that AD&D fighters were actually more interesting than even 3e. Magic items did a lot more and were far more interesting and low level spellcasting sucked super hard at low levels.

I mean, the Vorpal Sword was crazy. Frostbrands put out fires. Sun Blades exploded into daylight and blew up vampires. Maces of Disruption auto-killed powerful undead. Holy Swords made Paladins immune to enemy magic.

All of those came online around the time spellcasting took off, but it was hard to argue with the guy who might be able to statically auto-kill one of anything once a turn.

Hell, potions used to do things in combat that were actually important and they were only the most commons magic items that made regular fighters into minor spellcasters. I won't get into the fact that Rings of Elemental Command just used to be a thing that people used rather than sold for another +1.

[Daztur]

If you run TSR-D&D correctly, combat for fighter types is a LOT less boring than in 3ed since while you're making the same basic "I attack it" decision:
A. Rounds go a LOT faster so you spend less time with your thumb up your butt than in 3ed. So the ratio of decisions in combat : time tends to be higher.
B. You can more around more freely, which opens up more decisions (where should I move?) rather than just keeping your feet planted and full attacking.
C. You'll often have some henchmen/hirelings to order about.
D. Having initiative determined after declaration of options creates some tactical complications.
E. Especially in games other than 2ed (where monsters got more HPs in general), wacking things with your sword is a half-way decent way of winning a combat when compared to making it fail a saving throw, so at least your "I attack it" does something useful.

TSR-D&D looks like a mashed together mess of disconnected mechanics (largely because it is) but it often pragmatically works better than more consistent designs at basic things like not having combat take forever and class balance than later editions. It has its own issues aplenty, but it covers the basics pretty well.

[Koumei]

Oh, right. I see how that's a good comparison then.

[hogarth]

If it's just repetition that you're finding bad, that's a poor argument.

AD&D was widely successful where fighter types did nothing but say "I attack it" over and over again. 4E fighter types have actually several times the options they had in 1E/2E. [..] That [W] damage plus a one turn status condition or push was actually more than you were ever doing in AD&D.

Keeping track of a bunch of 1 turn status conditions and who you have "marked" and how many daily + encounter powers you have left is tedious, though. So you have all of the 1E/2E fun of rolling 1d20 and saying "I hit it with my sword", with the additional anti-fun of filling out a tax return (metaphorically speaking).

[tzor]

No. It's supposed to be a roleplaying game divided into two parts: Combat challenges and Skill Challenges.

Well it was SUPPOSED to be a system with two forms of concurrent resolution, combat challenges and skill challenges. They were SUPPOSED to work together at the same time.

It is important to remember that combat so dominated 3E that no one can really remember what the game was like before that. Combat was only one portion of the 1E AD&D game. A significant number of spells were designed for the non combat portions of the game.

The "parts" of the game were generally


Town crap (yes getting supplies was oddly interesting at the time)

Wilderness exploration crap (we are lost again)

Dungeon exploration crap (I'm sure there is a secret room over here)

Combat / Negotiation (what do you mean we have to talk to this thing)

Treasure finding (the real reason for the ranger, not to track the monster, but to track the dead monster back to his treasure lair)

Treasure counting / determination

Going back to town and partying

[Josh_Kablack]

Keeping track of a bunch of 1 turn status conditions and who you have "marked" and how many daily + encounter powers you have left is tedious, though. So you have all of the 1E/2E fun of rolling 1d20 and saying "I hit it with my sword", with the additional anti-fun of filling out a tax return (metaphorically speaking).

I have been a paid tax preparer, and that comparison is unfair. You only have to fill out a tax return once a year. Heck even if you're gainfully self-employed, you only worry about estimated payments quarterly. That's a lot less frequently than every combat round with "start of your next turn", "end of your next turn", "start of target's next turn" or "save ends, so no sooner than end of target's next turn" differentiation.

[Swordslinger]

People don't use them because they are shit. Not because they aren't half the game as sold. Skill Challenges are supposed to be the entire game outside combat. There are two kinds of encounters in the whole game. The fact that one of them does not work doesn't make it "not a big deal" because people avoid using that half. It makes it a really fucking big deal, because people avoid using that half of the game.

You can still make skill checks in 4E, just not use skill challenges. So thievery to disarm a trap or pick a lock is still doable. It's just the extended skill challenge that's gone, which really, is a very edge case anyway.

Well, there is attacking things with a sword and attacking things with a bow (roughly equivalent to the two at-wills that 4e characters get), but yes. Fighters in AD&D are boring. But they are still less boring than fighters in 4e, because monsters fall over dead when you hit them.

Okay, you're changing the definition of boring here. Before you're talking about boring as "tactically uninteresting", because you're complaining about spamming the same action.

Now you've changed boring to mean "lacking in excitement". And that's a separate topic. While yes, it's true that any game that ramps up the randomness becomes more exciting, it doesn't necessarily always make it a better game. Craps is a very exciting game, if you just want thrills, but it's tactically boring. Chess is a lot more mentally stimulating but it has nowhere near the excitement level.

And that doesn't even get into the forced sit-out factor that tends to go hand and hand with higher risk RPGs.

[Username17]

Okay, you're changing the definition of boring here. Before you're talking about boring as "tactically uninteresting", because you're complaining about spamming the same action.

Now you've changed boring to mean "lacking in excitement".

Uh... that is probably the most stupid fucking thing that anyone who isn't Shadzar has ever said. Boring is boring. Taking the same action six times in a row against the same enemy is boring. It doesn't matter whether there were some kind of tactical decisions to be made up to that point, the actual act of grinding through the same action declaration six times in a row is fucking boring. That is not a change in definitions of boredom. That's the normal definition of boredom. If you spend half an hour waiting around declaring the same thing over and over again with no immediately visible effects without getting bored... are you on meth?

-Username17

[Ice9]

Hypothetically, if the decision process that led to that move was really deep and exciting, a cat and mouse game where you tried to bluff and counter-bluff your next move - then repeating the same move wouldn't be boring.

In practice, I've very seldom seen this, and most cases of repetition are just boring grinding. In which case less is definitely more.

[hogarth]

Taking the same action six times in a row against the same enemy is boring.

Not necessarily. Clickfest games like Diablo sell plenty of copies.

It doesn't matter whether there were some kind of tactical decisions to be made up to that point, the actual act of grinding through the same action declaration six times in a row is fucking boring. [..] If you spend half an hour waiting around declaring the same thing over and over again with no immediately visible effects without getting bored...

This gets to the crux of the issue: If your only feedback over the course of a 20-30 minute fight is to say "I hit it with my sword", that's boring.

[Kaelik]

Taking the same action six times in a row against the same enemy is boring.

Not necessarily. Clickfest games like Diablo sell plenty of copies.

Clicking is not the same action just because you are clicking.

in Diablo 2, you either don't click the same enemy six times, because you kill them before that, or you don't use the same skill 6 times in a row on that enemy, or you are a Necromancer, in which case it's your own fault.

[Koumei]

For Sorceress, some fights became... well, not click-fests, but repetetive. Repetetive but dangerous, such as King Slug for a Butt where it's "Set up Town Portal, activate firestep, RUN RUN RUN, ping with the ice spell that freezes enemies solid (temporarily slows him a little) every now and then, REMEMBER TO QUAFF MANA AND STAMINA POTIONS, RUN RUN RUN" until you're out of juice, then jump through the portal, stock up quickly, and repeat.

Screwing up at any point here (except the stocking up bit, where if you're too slow he regenerates) can be instant-death for you. Which means it is not monotonous or boring until you actually do die, where the "Fuuuuuuuuuuck, that was a few minutes wasted, now to try AGAIN" kicks in. There were a few bosses where, if they caught you once, you exploded in one hit, and that kept the slow grind exciting because you're playing cat and mouse.

Yes, I hated the game, but I can still say it wasn't *boring* with the way those things worked. I understand that if I had played Paladin, even boss fights are "Aura that improves damage or attack speed -> Charge and use Zeal -> Win in under a second or get gibbed!"

I'm pretty sure no edition of D&D does this, where the PCs are slowly plinking at enemies and scrambling for cover while the enemy throws out a SoD every round (and that would be pretty terrible, honestly, especially if they're actual Death effects with "Roll a new character again!" and not just "You're Stunned, hope your allies can pull through").

But 3E has given us bags of HP where, if you only go around smacking things for damage (and not ass-loads ala That Charge Build or Scorching Ray Metamagic Shenanigans or whatever), it takes for-fucking-ever and is boring (solution: play a different character type), and then 4E continued this tradition by removing every other option (solution: play a different game). So yeah, "Keep doing the same thing over and over" IS boring if you're not on meth. And that has become more of a possibility in 3E, and basically became a certainty in 4E, so you can happily call the combat boring.

Well, you can happily call it boring if you don't play it. If you do play it, you're not going to be happy about it.

[ishy]

d2 doesn't work like that at all.
Stamina potions are worthless after lvl ~7.
Paladins have really good survivability. And necromancers use the most abilities of any char in the game.
Though I only play it in hardcore so if you died you'd need a new char. So ymmv I guess.

[Koumei]

This was in 2001 so A) my memory is fuzzy at best, and B) this is before ten years of patches and updates and crap.

Seriously, as a Fire/Ice specced Sorceress, that's all I could do to not get insta-gibbed by Duriel. And it looked pretty similar for the Blacksmith of Hell, although occasionally you could sort of get him on the other side of a magma pool and he might get confused for a bit. It was against him that I utilised the best tactic in the entire game: uninstall it and play something better.

Which is also what I recommend for 4E.

And fine, you can remove the "or die" part to the Paladin thing. Aura + Zeal or whatever = win everything forever in a couple of seconds.

...come to think of it, is there a single game (vidya or tabletop) out there where you can just do the Lina Inverse thing and happily Fireball enemies as an actual winning tactic?

[CapnTthePirateG]

This was in 2001 so A) my memory is fuzzy at best, and B) this is before ten years of patches and updates and crap.

Seriously, as a Fire/Ice specced Sorceress, that's all I could do to not get insta-gibbed by Duriel. And it looked pretty similar for the Blacksmith of Hell, although occasionally you could sort of get him on the other side of a magma pool and he might get confused for a bit. It was against him that I utilised the best tactic in the entire game: uninstall it and play something better.

Which is also what I recommend for 4E.

And fine, you can remove the "or die" part to the Paladin thing. Aura + Zeal or whatever = win everything forever in a couple of seconds.

...come to think of it, is there a single game (vidya or tabletop) out there where you can just do the Lina Inverse thing and happily Fireball enemies as an actual winning tactic?

Maybe Final Fantasy? It seems that that's only a winning tactic when you have no other options. Keep in mind your fireball caster (in the old ffs) usually didn't pack buff spells, but has instead status effects that don't work on things you cared about, ever. Berserk, Haste, Protect, and Shell are all white mage spells.

[K]

Taking the same action six times in a row against the same enemy is boring.

Not necessarily. Clickfest games like Diablo sell plenty of copies.

Clicking is not the same action just because you are clicking.

in Diablo 2, you either don't click the same enemy six times, because you kill them before that, or you don't use the same skill 6 times in a row on that enemy, or you are a Necromancer, in which case it's your own fault.

Why all the hate for the D2 Necromancer? I used to solo all the bosses on hardcore and had no problem clearing stacks of enemies, so I don't even know why people think they weren't good.

But back on topic, real-time games can just be clickfests because they are real-time. Actual decision-making is so fast that you don't get bored.

Turn-based games need depth because you can be expected to take some time each turn.

[Maxus]

This was in 2001 so A) my memory is fuzzy at best, and B) this is before ten years of patches and updates and crap.

Seriously, as a Fire/Ice specced Sorceress, that's all I could do to not get insta-gibbed by Duriel. And it looked pretty similar for the Blacksmith of Hell, although occasionally you could sort of get him on the other side of a magma pool and he might get confused for a bit. It was against him that I utilised the best tactic in the entire game: uninstall it and play something better.

Which is also what I recommend for 4E.

And fine, you can remove the "or die" part to the Paladin thing. Aura + Zeal or whatever = win everything forever in a couple of seconds.

...come to think of it, is there a single game (vidya or tabletop) out there where you can just do the Lina Inverse thing and happily Fireball enemies as an actual winning tactic?

Maybe Final Fantasy? It seems that that's only a winning tactic when you have no other options. Keep in mind your fireball caster (in the old ffs) usually didn't pack buff spells, but has instead status effects that don't work on things you cared about, ever. Berserk, Haste, Protect, and Shell are all white mage spells.

Dark souls has fireballing junk work out well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRfzSdhgNuk

[RobbyPants]

...come to think of it, is there a single game (vidya or tabletop) out there where you can just do the Lina Inverse thing and happily Fireball enemies as an actual winning tactic?

Hack-Slash-Crawl, which is basically a crude Flash Diablo clone.

The two tricks to making that game easy are:

1) Abuse the fact that the game pauses when targeting (and pressing a spell's hot key puts you in target mode), and

2) only draw agro from one guy at a time, if possible.


In practice, you find a monster, murder it before it has time to take more than two steps, rinse, and repeat. There are a few things to complicate this, but I found that forcing myself to be patient was the best defense of all.

And to bring this back to topic, aside from trying to get a specific achievement, it is boring as hell.

[hogarth]

Taking the same action six times in a row against the same enemy is boring.

Not necessarily. Clickfest games like Diablo sell plenty of copies.

Clicking is not the same action just because you are clicking.

in Diablo 2, you either don't click the same enemy six times, because you kill them before that, or you don't use the same skill 6 times in a row on that enemy, or you are a Necromancer, in which case it's your own fault.

I've never played Diablo 2, but in Diablo 1 I sure as hell shot arrows (or fire bolts or whatever) at a mob of wimpy enemies more than 6 times in a row.

[Josh_Kablack]

...come to think of it, is there a single game (vidya or tabletop) out there where you can just do the Lina Inverse thing and happily Fireball enemies as an actual winning tactic?

Wizardry I from back in 1979. Mahalito was the reason to have a mage. (unless you knew the cheat code to pimp your Bishop and get into the locked classes that got mage spells). Likewise, a bunch of the early Wizardry spin off CRPGs had punk-rock damage spells. (early entries in the Bards Tale, Ultima, and Might and Magic series, and possibly leading to up to the "bosses are immune to status effects", but AoE damage kills minion groups of the FF series).

Also see the Street Fighter series of arcade games.

[Lokathor]

...come to think of it, is there a single game (vidya or tabletop) out there where you can just do the Lina Inverse thing and happily Fireball enemies as an actual winning tactic?

Final Fantasy 6. If you're not double casting Ultima every turn, you better damn well have a good explanation for why not or you're a sucker.

Skyrim allows you to do this, with the right build (since dual-cast spells will stunlock a target).

Diablo 2 obviously lets you do this as a Sorc (in the current patch: Cast Blizzard, run about for the 2 second cooldown, loop).

[CatharzGodfoot]

A fireball sorceress is quite doable in D2. With all of the synergies, you're looking at more than 5k damage a fireball, and you can shoot them off at the fastest cast rate. You need a way to overcome immunities (D2 has a terrible overspecialization problem), but you can do that with a combination of the runeword that gives you a Conviction aura and some fire gems.

That said, I haven't played the game in years, so YMMV.

[Swordslinger]

Uh... that is probably the most stupid fucking thing that anyone who isn't Shadzar has ever said. Boring is boring. Taking the same action six times in a row against the same enemy is boring.

Untrue. There are different kinds of boring. People can very well get into casino games like roulette where all they do is bet on red simply because there's a rush from the potential of losing or winning money. D&D can potentially work the same way with your character's life on the line. People who want a strategy game of course are going to call roulette boring.

Chess is a much slower game and also much deeper, but it doesn't have that instant excitement that roulette gives people. It takes a while to finish that game, especially against evenly matched players. People who want fast excitement will inevitably call chess boring.

As far as if spamming the same action over and over is boring from an excitement point of view, as was stated, Diablo is a very popular series and that pretty much entails repeating the same 2 actions. Attack and drink a potion. It takes 30+ attack clicks to take out a boss in Diablo and people are fine with that. Now I can realize if you personally don't like the game because it's not deep enough, but to make blanket statements for people that aren't you is rather arrogant.

Clearly, based on the sales, people do enjoy games like that. That's not my opinion, that's a fact.

[Doom]

It's also a question of market, though. Roulette was big many decades ago, but it's fallen to videogame-ish slots. Most casinos have a few roulette wheels...and thousands of slot machines.

Space Invaders was top of the world, but no game like that has any chance in today's market. Even Diablo, great for its day, was stomped by Diablo II/Battlenet, in turn stomped by WoW.

So, yeah, people liked those old games way back when, but those days are past, and people know there's something better, or at least should be. Saying people liked "I attack" games a decade ago might be true, but it's not helpful for identifying what people want now.

[Lokathor]

Guys, Diablo is not at all DnD. What I mean is that spamming moves in Diablo doesn't make you sit through the dice rolls and math of doing the same move each time, it's all done by computer. It looks flashy while it's going on. There are big giant health and mana meters to manage along with your location (since you can dodge spells and stuff) and current special technique (spell/skill/aura/etc).

If people had to compute Diablo by hand and/or in their head, they would not at all want a clickfest, and they would quite possibly spit at you for suggesting it.