4e is too complex.

Porrage · Post by **Porrage** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 1:51 am

FrankTrollman wrote:
Skill challenges work, but I don't use them because I hate how they work.
That's an interesting philosophical question: the fact that they were released with a specific set of design goals and advertised features and massivle failed to reach any of them... does that mean that they don't work or does that mean that they don't work the way they were supposed to?

-Username17

It means that WotC doesn't work the way they say they will.

D&Di anyone? D&Di=never-ending let-downs

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 2:59 am

No, skill challenges TOTALLY work.

Aktariel · Post by **Aktariel** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 3:31 am

Honesty, 4e to me feels really dumb. It feels like they tried to spoon feed me my RPGs. Simple, uncomplicated, etc, and yet they still managed to fuck it up.

It feels (subjectively) like playing WoW on paper. Except that WoW is getting close to being balanced, and kinda works, and 4e has bad math. And failed to meet its design goals. Etc.

I liked 3e because it was kinda complicated. Made me have to use my brain more.

Not, "Attack. Attack. Attack. Healing Surge. Attack."

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 3:36 am

I did say I had WoW already, and didn't need it again.

Personally, to get me to buy something, it has to surpass the prior product. Not just 'has new players'. New players will play anything that is 'new'.

-Crissa

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 3:58 am

Porrage wrote: Yes, the rules work. You just don't like them.

No, really, they don't work. They're barely functional at levels 1 and 2. The math seriously breaks down and implodes past that point.

This thread is a bit more opinion, but there are plenty of others breaking down the math, the facts and the rules at length. Short version is: every single subsystem in 4e fails at one level or another.

3e has a lot of problems and breaks down at high levels. 4e breaks down pretty much altogether around level 3. Lower with solo and elite monsters. It is really a sequel that is inferior to every edition that preceded it.

And frankly some of its advertising points are insulting, because those are some of the worst areas of absolute FAIL. They pushed the level 21-30 shit pretty hard, but those levels are barely sketched in and the game grinds to a complete fucking halt because the numbers just don't work any more. A far cry from 'extending the sweet spot' all the way to the end.

Porrage · Post by **Porrage** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 4:13 am

Voss wrote:
No, really, they don't work. They're barely functional at levels 1 and 2. The math seriously breaks down and implodes past that point.

This thread is a bit more opinion, but there are plenty of others breaking down the math, the facts and the rules at length. Short version is: every single subsystem in 4e fails at one level or another.

3e has a lot of problems and breaks down at high levels. 4e breaks down pretty much altogether around level 3. Lower with solo and elite monsters. It is really a sequel that is inferior to every edition that preceded it.

And frankly some of its advertising points are insulting, because those are some of the worst areas of absolute FAIL. They pushed the level 21-30 shit pretty hard, but those levels are barely sketched in and the game grinds to a complete fucking halt because the numbers just don't work any more. A far cry from 'extending the sweet spot' all the way to the end.

yeah. I started browsing around to look at some of the other threads, and looking at the broken math of skill challenges and some of the other 4e things.....

I can't believe I'm saying it, but its actually broken.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 4:47 am

Good, good. Soon you will be putty in our hands...

Fippy_Darkpaw · Post by **Fippy_Darkpaw** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 4:49 am

Voss wrote:Because the RP part of the game is gone

Crissa wrote:I might as well be playing WoW.

Porrage wrote:It means that WotC doesn't work the way they say they will. D&Di anyone? D&Di=never-ending let-downs

Aktariel wrote:Honesty, 4e to me feels really dumb. It feels like they tried to spoon feed me my RPGs. Simple, uncomplicated, etc, and yet they still managed to fuck it up.

It feels (subjectively) like playing WoW on paper. Except that WoW is getting close to being balanced, and kinda works, and 4e has bad math. And failed to meet its design goals. Etc.

Crissa wrote:I did say I had WoW already, and didn't need it again.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 4:52 am

4e really is more like Guild Wars. Except Guild Wars has shinier graphics.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 5:02 am

Yes, we have said it a lot.

Why?

Because it's worth repeating. I'll even say it again right now:

Edit: Actually, I take the "Worth Repeating" bit back.

The fact that many people have independently made the observation that DnD 4e is very like a MMORPG, such as World of Warcraft, strongly indicates that the complexity of tabletops games is now being changed to the simplicity of an MMORPG. Which most of us here don't like very much.

Personally, I've seen some interesting evidence/coincidences that lead to me being suspicious that 4e is so simple because it'd be easy to make into a stable MMORPG. So in case I'm right, I told you so. And if I'm wrong, well, I've been wrong before.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 5:32 am

Simplicity is the wrong word. Final Fantasy XI is actually quite complicated. The word we are looking for is inflexibility. 4e is made out of systems that are ridiculously rigid and systems that don't exist at all. If you want to leave the rails at all, you have to make things up off the top of your head.

As far as I can tell, you'd be better off just sticking to those parts and making things up out of whole cloth and not even referencing the books. Literally the best parts of 4th edition are just Magical Teaparty. I could just play magical teaparty. Sometimes I do.

-Username17

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 5:56 am

FrankTrollman wrote:Simplicity is the wrong word. Final Fantasy XI is actually quite complicated. The word we are looking for is inflexibility. 4e is made out of systems that are ridiculously rigid and systems that don't exist at all. If you want to leave the rails at all, you have to make things up off the top of your head.

As far as I can tell, you'd be better off just sticking to those parts and making things up out of whole cloth and not even referencing the books. Literally the best parts of 4th edition are just Magical Teaparty. I could just play magical teaparty. Sometimes I do.

Yeah pretty much, though the magic teaparty part allows alot of flexibility and creativity.

4E did one thing right and that's that it concentrated mostly on the players and less on straitjacketing the DM. The main priority of the rules is to make sure the PCs are playing characters of equivalent power. Everything after that is secondary.

4E gives you guidelines for what monsters should be doing, the damage level, the attack bonuses and so on. And you can go from there. That's actually not bad. I mean, 3Es system of monster design wasn't anything special. It was basically magic teaparty with a bunch of red tape. You still completely arbitrarily picked abilities and ability scores, you just had to get all your documents stamped to come up with a BaB and base saves for some reason. It didn't guarantee it would make a more balanced creature, no infact the 4E guidelines generate more balanced monsters.

3.5 monster abilities are magic teaparty as are 4E monsters, the only real difference is NPCs, but since the 3.5 classes aren't balanced that doesn't even help.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 5:57 am

FrankTrollman wrote:Simplicity is the wrong word. Final Fantasy XI is actually quite complicated. The word we are looking for is inflexibility. 4e is made out of systems that are ridiculously rigid and systems that don't exist at all. If you want to leave the rails at all, you have to make things up off the top of your head.

As far as I can tell, you'd be better off just sticking to those parts and making things up out of whole cloth and not even referencing the books. Literally the best parts of 4th edition are just Magical Teaparty. I could just play magical teaparty. Sometimes I do.

Yeah pretty much, though the magic teaparty part allows alot of flexibility and creativity.

4E did one thing right and that's that it concentrated mostly on the players and less on straitjacketing the DM. The main priority of the rules is to make sure the PCs are playing characters of equivalent power. Everything after that is secondary.

4E gives you guidelines for what monsters should be doing, the damage level, the attack bonuses and so on. And you can go from there. That's actually not bad. I mean, 3Es system of monster design wasn't anything special. It was basically magic teaparty with a bunch of red tape. You still completely arbitrarily picked abilities and ability scores, you just had to get all your documents stamped to come up with a BaB and base saves for some reason. It didn't guarantee it would make a more balanced creature, no infact the 4E guidelines generate more balanced monsters.

3.5 monster abilities are magic teaparty as are 4E monsters, the only real difference is NPCs, but since the 3.5 classes aren't balanced that doesn't even help.

Ravengm · Post by **Ravengm** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 6:57 am

Porrage wrote:Do you think that the game designers intentionally said "The dm can fix that"?

Yes, actually. Most skills, and any monster you want to make are basically DM fiat through and through.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 7:55 am

4E gives you guidelines for what monsters should be doing, the damage level, the attack bonuses and so on.

What's the 'and so on'? 'Cause honestly, aside from attack bonuses, I missed it. Admittedly, I don't own a copy, and won't steal one. So I'm limited in reference... Gotta wait until a friend comes over or vice-versa.

-Crissa

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 8:28 am

OK, so flippy darkpaw is the name of some bullshit nothing NPC from bullshit EverQuest.

So forgive me if I DON'T find criticism of the WoW angle from some rube sufficiently on MMO crack to name himself after a mob as a valid dismissal of the point.

And it is both an obvious and strong point, which is why you see it everywhere.

The WoW influence in 4e is undeniable, and clearly a design goal, it is also an influence that sticks in the craw of countless gamers who either despise WoW or simply despise cheap rip offs of it.

As such expect it to be repeated for the entire life span of 4e because its a line of attack that is full of enough teeth to actually drive players from the table. People want to keep their WoW out of their D&D that much

The "it's getting like a CRPG" attack was strong against 3e and it wasn't even a fraction as well based. There is so much obvious WoW in 4e that the D&D brand may NEVER live down the WoW comparison criticism, 5e certainly won't.

And that is where the actions of whoever gave the "lets make it all WoW" direction really betrayed the hobby. Because we really didn't need them to weaken our brand and strengthen Blizzards extra double derivative bullshit.

Hell, they've even opened themselves up now to blizzard franchising a WoW rpg and crushing the pitiful WOTC attempt with an officially sanctioned and better designed alternative. (Yes I know WoW has published an RPG already, but that was in the d20 days and also before the more successful model set by the card game...)

Draco_Argentum · Post by **Draco_Argentum** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 10:03 am

Porrage wrote:I've offered solutions to the broken rules, and no one wants to take them. If you have a problem with the rules, which is only your opinion, you have all the power in the world to change them.

Stop right there Oberoni Fallacy. We don't take kindly to your type round these parts.

No really, if you're going to use the Oberoni Fallacy and accuse of of having no proof of maths not working bugger off. Psychic Robot is right, we do need dissent or we'll descend into group-think and blowing each other's e-peens. What we don't need is illogical dissent. I note you retracted the skill challenge claim after you actually bothered to hunt the maths down. Try learning about the Oberoni Fallacy and you'll see why you solutions don't make us believe that 4e is great.

Random Casualty is making some valid points. 3.x monster generation was arbitrary like 4e but with more rules to pretend you weren't just ass pulling some stuff. Thats a reasonable statement . At least 4e tells you what numbers you should have rather than making you calculate a number then add some arbitrary numbers to it.

Social skills would be better like Exalted. The enemy's stats set the difficulty of convincing them. I'm sure the maths can be cracked wide open but conceptually having actual stats for talking is the only way to have social skills not be a farce.

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 12:34 pm

Tut, tut now Draco. Porrage has seemed to realize that we're not just a bunch of rabid dogs full of nothing but rage and fangs.

We also have math and really good stories.

Heck, we often insist that the math has to allow for really good stories. That way anyone using the same math can achieve at least as interesting stories.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 4:15 pm

RandomCasualty2 wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:Simplicity is the wrong word. Final Fantasy XI is actually quite complicated. The word we are looking for is inflexibility. 4e is made out of systems that are ridiculously rigid and systems that don't exist at all. If you want to leave the rails at all, you have to make things up off the top of your head.

As far as I can tell, you'd be better off just sticking to those parts and making things up out of whole cloth and not even referencing the books. Literally the best parts of 4th edition are just Magical Teaparty. I could just play magical teaparty. Sometimes I do.
Yeah pretty much, though the magic teaparty part allows alot of flexibility and creativity.

4E did one thing right and that's that it concentrated mostly on the players and less on straitjacketing the DM. The main priority of the rules is to make sure the PCs are playing characters of equivalent power. Everything after that is secondary.

Actually, the main priority of the rules is to make designing future products really, really easy. The DM happens to benefit slightly from that.

The players actually lose, because 'equivalent power' has been translated to mean, 'doing minor variations of the same thing', and anything else simply can't be done.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 5:00 pm

PhoneLobster wrote:OK, so flippy darkpaw is the name of some bullshit nothing NPC from bullshit EverQuest.

She's still right about the broken record..

Tydanosaurus · Post by **Tydanosaurus** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 5:24 pm

CatharzGodfoot wrote:
PhoneLobster wrote:OK, so flippy darkpaw is the name of some bullshit nothing NPC from bullshit EverQuest.
She's still right about the broken record..

It's not like we made the record. We just play it.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 6:05 pm

Voss wrote:
Actually, the main priority of the rules is to make designing future products really, really easy. The DM happens to benefit slightly from that.

The players actually lose, because 'equivalent power' has been translated to mean, 'doing minor variations of the same thing', and anything else simply can't be done.

I'd actually be happier with doing minor variations of the same thing as opposed to "the wizard is god and your fighter can't do shit."

I mean, that's what 3.5 was. The casters got ALL the options and the warriors got shit. The best warriors happened to be a fighter/mage, which was just sad.

MartinHarper · Post by **MartinHarper** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 6:39 pm

Crissa wrote:What's the 'and so on'? 'Cause honestly, aside from attack bonuses, I missed it. Admittedly, I don't own a copy, and won't steal one. So I'm limited in reference... Gotta wait until a friend comes over or vice-versa.

Types of attack, attack bonus, damage, hit points, defences, and ability scores. Also, the stuff that solos and elites need to have to break the math in the right way.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 7:09 pm

RandomCasualty2 wrote:
Voss wrote:
Actually, the main priority of the rules is to make designing future products really, really easy. The DM happens to benefit slightly from that.

The players actually lose, because 'equivalent power' has been translated to mean, 'doing minor variations of the same thing', and anything else simply can't be done.
I'd actually be happier with doing minor variations of the same thing as opposed to "the wizard is god and your fighter can't do shit."

But in the other thread, you waved away a lot of the 3e options as minor variations that don't count. So it seems a little inconsistent to settle for 'lack of options'.

I mean, that's what 3.5 was. The casters got ALL the options and the warriors got shit. The best warriors happened to be a fighter/mage, which was just sad.

None of which excuses the flaws of 4e.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 8:08 pm

Look, could someone give me a page number for the 'and so on' so I can look it up?

-Crissa