Anatomy of a Failed Design: Role Protection.

Murtak · Post by **Murtak** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 11:59 am

MartinHarper wrote:I didn't hear the term "DPR" until 4th edition came along.

I have seen the term used in Everquest tanking discussions, where it was used to determine how much tanking and healing was needed to guard against high/max damage rounds. There used to be quite a few encounters where average damage (DPS) was quite low, but the odd full quad + flurry + double proc (DPR) ripped through all but the best equipped tanks without allowing time for healing.

With the low impact fights of 4th edition that distinction seems moot though - if a maximum damage round won't one-shot you, average damage over time is all that's left to measure.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 12:51 pm

I thought that discussion was about Maximum Burst Damage. I agree that I've never heard people talking about DPR until 4e came out. And even then it was just by MMO fanboys who were making a "clever" pun about how the game didn't have any time units smaller than the round.

4e is just a game of DPS. You can mitigate enemy DPS or you can enhance your team's DPS. That's really all you can do. Which means that I can't really see the existence of more than 3 roles (High DPS, High Damage Prevention, and Mixed).

-Username17

Murtak · Post by **Murtak** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 1:02 pm

It got refined into "damage per round" to account for genuine one-round kills (where there is no chance whatsoever to save the tank) and two-round kills (where, generally, you have to already be casting before the damage occurs to have your heal land in time).

Maximum Burst DPS is actually completely irrelevant as a measure of deadliness, what matters is the minimum time needed to drop the tank. The two are of course related but there are quite a few encounters where even max DPS is pretty tame, but you still see your tank exploding while 10 healers look on helplessly.

That said though: Yep, from what I see 4E really looks like Everquest did from Kunark through Luclin (Expansions 1 through 3) except:
- There is no way to force creatures to attack a dedicated tank.
- There is no pulling.
- There is no respawn.

Funny, until now I never realized that. I used to think of these points as limitations, but they really made the game much more fun. Or rather, instead of an offense/defense slider you have an additional aggro slider and about 20 utility powers to sprinkle over the classes.

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 1:19 pm

The whole concept of an MMOG tank doesn't work as soon as your enemies are not mechanically forced to attack the taunter, i.e. as soon as they can use their brains.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 1:21 pm

Fuchs wrote:The whole concept of an MMOG tank doesn't work as soon as your enemies are not mechanically forced to attack the taunter, i.e. as soon as they can use their brains.

And of course, they tried to implement taunts, but didn't make them work well enough for enemies to care, so they'll just act intelligently anyways. Which immediately causes the game to break and TPKs to get spammed, as stat contests break the moment the other side also becomes smart.

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 1:30 pm

And all that just because they never got that there is a difference between fighting computer controlled mobs (aka PvE) and player controlled characters (aka PvP), and that trying to turn the DM into a computer is not catering to the strengths of D&D and pen and paper games.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 1:46 pm

Fuchs wrote:And all that just because they never got that there is a difference between fighting computer controlled mobs (aka PvE) and player controlled characters (aka PvP), and that trying to turn the DM into a computer is not catering to the strengths of D&D and pen and paper games.

Precisely why 4.0 Fails. The computer logic also applies to all the random bullshit like +1 to one stat for 1 round that you're actually expected to care about but that computers can easily track. Not to mention all the abilities intentionally made counterintuitive, aka the Evil Eye problem.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 2:02 pm

Sometimes, I wonder if they knew they were making a bad game.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 2:10 pm

Psychic Robot wrote:Sometimes, I wonder if they knew they were making a bad game.

Two words for you. Mike Mearls.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 2:13 pm

Perhaps he lies awake at night before crying himself to sleep.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 2:26 pm

Psychic Robot wrote:Perhaps he lies awake at night before crying himself to sleep.

He uses Paizil Logic. Bad is good. He sleeps soundly at night.

...Did he actually work on Paizo by the way?

Also, where is your sig quote from?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 2:30 pm

There is room for a low maneuverability high defense position in many varieties of actual battles. It just requires that there be some genuine positions on the battlefield that actually matter. If you don't have baggage trains, higher ground, flags, and fortifications that really make a difference when they are captured, then having a set of hoplites is just puzzling.

D&D 4e made all squares inherently pretty even. If our dwarven paladin goes and camps in the middle of the room he has grabbed off an area that is basically worth exactly the same amount as any other area he happened to be standing in. For the slow guy in heavy armor to effect any meaningful effect on the battlefield, there has to be a reason for enemies to come to him. In the days of the Might of Rome, it was because the Triari were purposefully parked onto areas that enemies felt they needed to capture. In the days of lazy Final Fantasy XI programmers, it's because the enemies are dominated by hate accumulation mechanics.

But if there's nothing to guard, and nothing to force enemies to attack your guard, then having a well guarded character is pointless.

-Username17

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 2:37 pm

Setting up choke points the meat shields could hold worked decently in DDO, and would probably work well in dungeons too.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 2:40 pm

Roy wrote:
Psychic Robot wrote:Perhaps he lies awake at night before crying himself to sleep.
He uses Paizil Logic. Bad is good. He sleeps soundly at night.

...Did he actually work on Paizo by the way?

http://paizo.com/people/MikeMearls/posts&sort=2

This is all I could find.

Also, where is your sig quote from?

The quote is from /tg/. I laughed aloud when I read it.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 3:36 pm

The Faces of Evil is a part of Age of Worms, which is a Paizo adventure path...

So in other words, yes, and that explains a lot.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 4:55 pm

FrankTrollman wrote: 4e is just a game of DPS. You can mitigate enemy DPS or you can enhance your team's DPS. That's really all you can do. Which means that I can't really see the existence of more than 3 roles (High DPS, High Damage Prevention, and Mixed).

And basically you're looking at a few roles:
-Single Target assassin
-Horde killer
-Horde defender
-stunlocker
-Healer
-Balanced

Though that's still more roles than 3.5 had, which was pretty much just:
-Single Target assassin
-Horde killer

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 5:13 pm

Depends on how you see the game. Coming from a Shadowrun background, I am used to considering infiltration and facework/information gathering as as important if not more than combat, which widens the roles, or at least the scope of the game.

Tsuzua · Post by **Tsuzua** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 5:32 pm

Fuchs wrote:The whole concept of an MMOG tank doesn't work as soon as your enemies are not mechanically forced to attack the taunter, i.e. as soon as they can use their brains.

I've seen a few characters come close to a MMOG tank in a game. None in D&D 3rd or 4th to be fair, but I've seen it happen in HERO system (Champions) games. Typically the way it works is that the character is able to put a debuff onto the target that's basically lose, but that can removed by attacking the debuffer.

The most common way is using grab and halving the enemy's DCV (basically AC), letting the rest of the team do highly damage headshots or adding combat skill levels into straight damage (how bad having your DCV halved depends on the relative combat values or CV in the game typically the higher the CV the worse it is). It's usually not that hard to get out of a grab in Hero, but usually costs an attack action. You can also attack the grabber without much of a penalty so you can try to KO the grabber. It's not quite a taunt, but it's close.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 5:54 pm

Fuchs wrote:Depends on how you see the game. Coming from a Shadowrun background, I am used to considering infiltration and facework/information gathering as as important if not more than combat, which widens the roles, or at least the scope of the game.

Yeah, if noncombat and combat avoidance is a big part of the game, then you can add in more roles. Shadowrun also gets more roles out of its metagames (hacking and astral space). So while combat is basically rocket launcher tag, everyone still has their own specialty.

In D&D, it's more or less just about combat.

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 6:03 pm

Only if you play it like that. I can safely say that combat is not the biggest part of my D&D games.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 6:18 pm

Fuchs wrote:Only if you play it like that. I can safely say that combat is not the biggest part of my D&D games.

If a game system has 30 pages on combat and combat accessories, and 3 pages on everything else, then that game system is about combat. Individual games may not be, but the system bias is clear.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 7:09 pm

Except, Angel, that's why many roleplayers don't find fault in 4e. Because they're essentially not playing the game that's written in the book, even if the story is the same.

-Crissa

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 7:15 pm

IOW, angel, stop ROLLplaying and start ROLEplaying you fucking minmax munchkin.

Why do you hate America?

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 7:18 pm

I find "roleplaying fault" in 4E since the system that is there is so un-immersive.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 7:38 pm

Fuchs wrote:I find "roleplaying fault" in 4E since the system that is there is so un-immersive.

This too.

D&D has about as much to do with roleplaying as Diablo 2. Which is to say, it's named a roleplaying game, and might be called such in conversation, but the rules do basically nothing for roleplay. If it's mentioned at all, it just tells you to Tea Party it... which you can do for anything, therefore it isn't a distinguishing factor. Further, if it does try to make 'roleplay rules' the rules are such a joke that playing with them is like using a video game's idea of roleplaying, at best so that you are better off just not doing that.

See 3.5 Diplomacy rules and especially 4.Fail Skill Challenge rules for examples of this last bit.

However, just like D2 the game rules are focused on killing things and taking their stuff, such that even if you didn't want to do that, it's either that, Tea Party, or nothing. Therefore if you are playing D&D, you are killing things and taking their stuff. You're also having anywhere from no to many Tea Party interludes where you do other things.

Also RC: You have that backwards.