The Gaming Den

http://forums.white-wolf.com/default.as ... ts&t=56305

Heh, I'm surprised.

I don't expect this to be an improvement on any way, shape or form because, you know, this is White Wolf, but the sheer resillence of the brand and specially of this game line is impressive.

I take it the setting is still going to be the same shit people raged about in the earlier threads, i.e. Solars (& divine right) > you?

I've heard that Jon Chung is working on the rules, and he generally seems to have a grip on mechanical issues. Ultimately, though, the Exalted system is just a fucking mess; short of a massive re-write by someone other than White Wolf, any improvements will be minor at best.

Gnosticism Is A Hoot wrote:I've heard that Jon Chung is working on the rules, and he generally seems to have a grip on mechanical issues. Ultimately, though, the Exalted system is just a fucking mess; short of a massive re-write by someone other than White Wolf, any improvements will be minor at best.

Having Jon Chung in is a good sign. Calling it 2.5 is a bad sign, because motherfucker needs some heavy-duty rebuilding, not a new paint job.

I'd consider giving Exalted another look if:

A.) They get rid of that stupid stunting system or at least severely curtail it.

B.) They fix the Char-Gen stat imbalance.

C.) They tamp down on multiple attack abuse.

D.) They make combat so that it doesn't need to have Perfect Defenses in order for the game not to explode into first-round iajutsus.

E.) They get rid of the ideas of Skills Providing Charm Trees or at least combine the more spotty Charms together so if I actually take a Riding Charm I get a whole package of awesome.

F.) They balance the gap of power between Solars and Everyone and make non-mook Dragonborn more powerful.

G.) They provide an abundance of enemies that can challenge a decently-optimized Solar party right out of the gate.

H.) Social combat either gets fixed or removed. I have no idea how to fix it, I'll just understand if it gets taken out of the game altogether.

I.) They implement a tactical positioning system at least as deep as Shadowrun's. Not holding my breath.

J.) Backgrounds are altered to become more sane.

K.) The amount of dice that you roll to do things gets cut waaaay the fuck back. Either just reduce the average dicepool or allow people to buy hits at a 1:1 correspondence. Holy fucking shit this needs to be done. The fact that no one seriously considers doing this is clear evidence that Exalted is only run on IRC and MU*s.

That doesn't even scratch the surface of gameplay problems that Exalted needs to solve, but at least 7 out of 11 of those things being fixed would be enough for me to give the system a serious look again.

That's an incredibly tall order, I know, and I don't think anyone on these boards is up to the task of doing that. I mean, shit, once you do all that you pretty much have a new game as it is.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:I'd consider giving Exalted another look if:
K.) The amount of dice that you roll to do things gets cut waaaay the fuck back. Either just reduce the average dicepool or allow people to buy hits at a 1:1 correspondence. Holy fucking shit this needs to be done. The fact that no one seriously considers doing this is clear evidence that Exalted is only run on IRC and MU*s.

You know, way way back in first ed playtest days, there was some brief discussion of using Abberant's Mega-Attribute system or something close to avoid the 14 die pool starting combat chars would have and the 80 die super combo in the base book

Josh_Kablack wrote:Abberant's Mega-Attribute system or something close to avoid the 14 die pool starting combat chars would have and the 80 die super combo in the base book

"In addition to normal attributes such as Dexterity, Manipulation and Wits, novas have what are called Mega-Attributes. Scores in such attributes may be added as dice every time a character makes a roll using the linked mundane attribute, but Mega-Attributes are much more powerful. Every success rolled using mega attribute dice count as 2 normal successes, and rolling a 10 counts as 3 successes. Alternatively, the scores in a Mega-Attribute may be used to reduce the difficulty on a one for one basis, though never below needing one success. The player can choose each turn which way to use his Mega-Attribute, and can even split the points between the two ways."

That?

Yeah, that.

Gnosticism Is A Hoot wrote:I've heard that Jon Chung is working on the rules, and he generally seems to have a grip on mechanical issues. Ultimately, though, the Exalted system is just a fucking mess; short of a massive re-write by someone other than White Wolf, any improvements will be minor at best.

I have little doubt that Jon Chung can make Exalted's system concept work, or at least mostly work.

The problem is, said system concept fucking sucks. He needs to invent a whole new combat paradigm (to replace what essentialy is a straightforward stats contest, with wild spikes of offense, that require something like PD to exist, built into nearly the very core of it), and even if he can, I can't believe he will be allowed to.

Also, Jon Chung, IIRC, is a firm believer in Solars > you. So, if you can't stomach both Solars and either variety of nega-Solars, you shouldn't expect good news.

Oh, and to follow a good example... What will make myself reconsider Exalted. My list is relatively short:

1)Cut the number of Charms down by at least 50%, preferably 2/3rds or so.
1.1)Make every single Charm a big deal.
1.2)All Charms should be grouped strictly by function, no diving through five trees if you want to be good at something due to fluff bullshit.
1.3)This is because Charm overcomplexity is a huge deal-breaker for me. There are only so many distinct powers one can process and remember. Particularly as a GM.

2)If a decent tactical system is impossible, at least add enough paint job to the system to dilute combat's nature as a straightforward stat contest. Introduce bad conditions worth using or something.
2.1)Turtle battles have to go, one way or another. Make it easier to run away, than to pursue, if you want low character mortality - taking longer to kill does not really mean being harder to kill.

3)Soften power tiers. I.e., mortals should be worth giving a fuck about from more than sentimental standpoint, non-extra Dragonbloods should be able to at least put a fight and Celestials should be good enough to seriously consider having one of them instead of another Solar, depending on what you want or need to do.

4)Write a decent and big monster manual.

5)Stop substituting EXP > 9000 for decent builds in NPCs you want to be tough.

EDIT:

6)And make combat substantially faster, particularly at high power. I'm not fast at these rolling and counting tasks. And fighting one not really that strong bad guy for 2 hours is just not acceptable.

7)Would have mentioned cutting down the number of dice, but we got around that by counting every 2 dice past 10/11 as one success, so, while desirable, lack of this is not a deal-breaker.

I can say one thing though - the amount of cocksucking in the thread linked by OP is pretty amazing. I guess between this forum and 4chan I've started to forget what the atmosphere on WW forums is like, but goddamn, can people at least wait to see the finished product before they praise it?

@FatR

The last one isn't surprising, given that WW has been bleeding players like crazy, only the sycophants are left.

Charm spoliers!

http://forums.white-wolf.com/default.as ... ts&t=56374

If I'm going to play in (or start) a new Exalted game....it needs to be about 20% cooler.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:I'd consider giving Exalted another look if:

A.) They get rid of that stupid stunting system or at least severely curtail it.

May I ask, why you don't like it so much (I have certain objections on my own, but they are relatively low on the severity scale)?

Gx1080 wrote:Charm spoliers!

http://forums.white-wolf.com/default.as ... ts&t=56374

Phrases like "It's pretty deep into Abyssal Investigation" pretty much confirm that the general Charm structure will remain unchanged.

Another question, if I may, this time to everyone.

Does anyone else here hate perfect defences as they are currently "implemented" in principle, not for the tedium they create? Because I do. Not only no one knows or can explain what PDs that defend against a single attack (as opposed to lasting a set amount of time) are in the in-setting terms, timed absolute intouchability is a pretty bullshit power. I don't see how it adds anything good to the game (save for making Exalted rate higher in vs. contests than they deserve), or, heck, just add anything to it, instead of removing. No, "it was needed to fight elder gods" explanation doesn't fly. If elder gods were, well, gods, they would have made so that you were never born the instant you tried to challenge them, or at least made sure that you will be plastered with infinite instant kill attacks each second for eternity; if they can't do that, then you're reducing their omnipotence to give Exalted a chance; if you're reducing their omnipotence to give Exalted a chance, you don't need to have perfect effects to beat them.

As far as I can tell the combat setup of Exalted is basically a couple of interlocking systems that are very binary. Damage is so damn high that light armor might as well not exist and even heavy armor does not do much. On the other hand, if you actually focus on it you can get enormous amounts of soak and be functionally immune to basic damaging effects. Of course you always develop of a death combo of doom that powers right through it - but this combo will be overkill against anyone not stacking stamina through the roof, and outright useless against perfect defenses. Against those you want flurries of individually threating attacks, so you can run them out of motes. Since you actually can generate double-digit numbers of attacks there is no way to this won't run you of motes, hence you also want something to interrupt flurries.

It's like rock-paper-scissors, really. Flurrybreakers beat superflurries beat perfects beat massive damage beats massive soak beats regular attacks ... And that's not even getting into shaping attacks, crippling effects, surprise attacks and hardness, which are binary effects from the get-go.

As a combat character you ideally want a flurry of doom, a massive damage attack, a crippling or shaping attack, a perfect defense, a perfect soak, a flurry negater and perhaps also a high DV and soak. Sounds balanced, right? A little bit of everything? Heck, excluding some of the broken stuff it might actually be balanced. But every individual fight is a check of binary effects. And any fight against someone who covered all the bases boils down to mote attrition, with both sides spamming basic flurries, perfect defenses and flurry interrupters. You can't even choose to ramp intensity up a notch and burn both sides' motes faster.

Combat without at least a perfect and a flurry breaker is pretty onesided. At best you burn 20 motes per turn and desperately try to flee. At worst you explode from taking a 40 damage hit and expecting full plate and max starting stamina to actually let you take a hit.

I believe the combat system may be salvageable and have hopes for 2.5, but the current setup is a mess. Perfects are part of the problem, but the wild variety in damage, soak, accuracy and defense values is the root of the issue. Heck, considering starting DVs for combat characters are anywhere from 5 to 15, with soak varying even more wildly I am impressed the game holds up as well as it does.

FatR wrote: May I ask, why you don't like it so much (I have certain objections on my own, but they are relatively low on the severity scale)?

The stunting system actually works pretty okay for PbP or IRC, it's a pain in the fucking ass when doing it face-to-face.

I like narrative pontification as much as the next person, but it's significantly less cool when spoken by your friend with cheeto dust on his neckbeard than staring at a baby blue message boar. Furthermore, it's a lot more taxing on both the time and nerves to constantly stunt face-to-face. And considering how bonkers the rewards for stunting are (Willpower? Seriously?) it becomes a mandatory thing. Also what makes it stupid is that it's GM-dependent, meaning that if the GM just doesn't like your prose style or the generic special effects (he thinks that martial arts with flamepistols are dumb) you get shafted.

Stunting is awful because it turns an intrinsic reward (the joy of storytelling) into an arbitrarily-assigned external reward of potentially great payoff. If you want to suck the fun out of an activity stunting is a great example on how to do that.

There are two main problems with Stunting:

1) How it ties into the resource pools. If it was just a bonus die here and there, that would be something you'd take or leave as the mood took you. Since it is literally the recharge button on your life-and-death mana bar, those who don't stunt lose and die, and what should be a joy becomes a hassle.

2) How many times? One can in theory stunt each attack in a 7-attack flurry and then each defense against however many attacks are heading your way and oh my god make it stop

Throwing out immediate small bonuses to reward player engagement is a good idea. But the implementation as seen in Exalted is terribad.

Murtak wrote:As far as I can tell the combat setup of Exalted is basically a couple of interlocking systems that are very binary.

You got it right, except that you very rarely actually need a big damage combo, because there are exremely few opponents who won't go down quickly from just swinging your BFS, perhaps backed by a large flurry combo, at them, while not also being generally much more powerful than you and having better perfect defences than you. In 1E you had some use for big attacks, to either alpha strike people you caught with their pants down, or to try penetrating stacked defences, in 2E... not really.

FatR wrote:

Murtak wrote:As far as I can tell the combat setup of Exalted is basically a couple of interlocking systems that are very binary.

You got it right, except that you very rarely actually need a big damage combo, because there are exremely few opponents who won't go down quickly from just swinging your BFS, perhaps backed by a large flurry combo, at them

Of course they go down from regular hits. They do because they have no soak, which they don't have because ultradamage outstrips soak, crippling/shaping ignores it and ping still does damage through it. And ping in turn is needed because you want both unarmored knife fighters and knights in the same game.

it's binary situations all the way down. Hence layered defenses - hit enough checkboxes so that you can safely ignore the rest. It just so happens that the easiest way to get there for most characters is perfect dodge, flurry interrupter, perfect soak, perfect awareness, shaping negater. Not much get through that and it is fairly mote effective. You could also go with massive soak, ping negation, crippling negation, shaping negation and massive damage, except that is much harder to get and works with much fewer archetypes.

Page 4 of the thread, with questions and answers!

http://forums.white-wolf.com/default.as ... =56305&p=4

CycloneJoker wrote:
Will it still be possible for a player to get by in his defense by just spamming perfect defenses against every attack, suffering minimal penalty for doing so?

No. Perfect spam is no longer the most efficient defense possible.

You got rid of UFIO? Because that's the only thing that keeps the maxim of the best defense is a good offense from being true.

UF/IO's still there, same as always.

2.5 is going to be core system errata.

Fallen Races are something I'd love to get my claws into, but they sorta fall pretty far back in the priority queue.

Exalted Combat feels like it has fundamentally the same problem as NWoD Combat: it is fucking boring and there are very few meaningful decisions to be made during it. Now, Exalted Combat is a lot better than NWoD combat because there are resources that you spend to power your attacks and defenses. In fact, there are three: your motish power points, your willpower, and your time segments. And that should make for an interesting game. But it doesn't.

And I think it doesn't because there isn't actually any real RPS decisions to be made at the table. If you had to guess when someone was going to flurry to do your flurry-breaker or you had to guess when your opponent was going to use his unblockable death spiral to use your perfect dodge or whatever, it could be pretty cool. As is, it's RPS where each person gets to throw their hand out after seeing what the last guy selected. That is boring as shit.

-Username17

Gx1080 wrote:Page 4 of the thread, with questions and answers!

Well, this doesn't sound very promising.

To elaborate, you can never fix Exalted 2E by making just a core rules tweak. The perfect spam is a symptom, not a disease. The disease is normal RNG being completely fucked, so, for starters, you need to go to the entirely different and massively simplified level of combat, where motes/WP serve as your lifebar, to avoid sudden character deaths. I don't think that they can un-fuck RNG that easily (although, judging by the previous post, they change charms for all the splats, so there is still hope). The best that is humanly possible is to get back to some form of 1E paradigm, where your static defenses are set so high, that even highest spikes of offense have trouble penetrating them, and routine attacks never hit (i.e., making some improved variation of the form of combat they call "2/7 filter" there default, rather than a high-EXP theoretical option). Granted, 1E was somewhat better than 2E, but it still was bad.