• Announcements

    • Robin

      Welcome!   03/05/2016

      Welcome, everyone, to the new 910CMX Community Forums. I'm still working on getting them running, so things may change.  If you're a 910 Comic creator and need your forum recreated, let me know and I'll get on it right away.  I'll do my best to make this new place as fun as the last one!
Sign in to follow this  
mlooney

NP Saturday, Mar 28, 2020

Recommended Posts

9 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Yes, but original Traveller has that (almost?) unique feature where you can die while rolling up your character.

Not just original Traveller, but all version.  Of course it's an optional rule in Mongoose Traveller.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
52 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:
7 hours ago, mlooney said:

While D&D experience point system has it's flaws,  you really don't get into skill grinding.  It's assumed that you get better with skills as you increase in over all levels.  This differs from Traveller, in that you almost never increase your skills in play, as it doesn't have a leveling system at all.  You can raise your skill level by spending months in training.  It's widely assumed that that is what most people do while in Jump space, given that there isn't much else to do.

Yes, but original Traveller has that (almost?) unique feature where you can die while rolling up your character.

Technically, yes, but you can just as well say that in Traveller, the game started before you finished rolling up your character.

(I didn't played Traveller, but looked at how that works, someone argued that way and it seems to make sense.)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
26 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Technically, yes, but you can just as well say that in Traveller, the game started before you finished rolling up your character.

(I didn't played Traveller, but looked at how that works, someone argued that way and it seems to make sense.)

There is no question that character generation is part of the traveller game experience. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, Darth Fluffy said:

original Traveller has that (almost?) unique feature where you can die while rolling up your character.

Not just a game feature
How about an incident from what we might call Real history?

Charles II, the last Habsburg ruler of the Spanish Empire, was described as a man who died of poison two hundred years before he was born due to his inbred heritage

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
14 hours ago, hkmaly said:

If the enemies don't scale, sure you can overgrid and one-shot everything, but if you overgrid you get what you wanted - that is, less fun gameplay. If they do scale, it means someone must've though about what exactly they scale with, and that means the game is much harder to balance ... and let's face it, balancing usually means removing more interesting abilities because those tend to be harder to balance.

Of course, you can get similar result if you make impossible to grid. If there is limited number of opportunities to get better, it means that it either needs to be very carefully balanced - or that people will be forced to read walkthrough to find out how are they expected to level to make the game work.

I wouldn't say that overgrinding makes for less fun gameplay; rather you're putting in more time in order to have less challenge - sort of a very slow way to turn on "easy mode". Also, with the right game and the right mind-set, grinding itself can be fun (usually in a meditative sort of way in the games I'm thinking of).

As for "make it impossible to grind", I was thinking of something similar myself: if the designers want the enemies to always be roughly the same relative strength compared to the player, why have a leveling system at all? Plenty of games get by without one. I mean I suppose there's a small thrill to seeing a number increase, but for me it mostly only applies if the number actually means something; I've always found the true appeal of gaining levels is seeing how much stronger I've become relative to enemies that used to give me trouble.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
16 hours ago, ChronosCat said:
On 3/30/2020 at 0:39 AM, hkmaly said:

If the enemies don't scale, sure you can overgrid and one-shot everything, but if you overgrid you get what you wanted - that is, less fun gameplay. If they do scale, it means someone must've though about what exactly they scale with, and that means the game is much harder to balance ... and let's face it, balancing usually means removing more interesting abilities because those tend to be harder to balance.

I wouldn't say that overgrinding makes for less fun gameplay; rather you're putting in more time in order to have less challenge - sort of a very slow way to turn on "easy mode". Also, with the right game and the right mind-set, grinding itself can be fun (usually in a meditative sort of way in the games I'm thinking of).

Both the grinding itself and the playing with too little challenge is usually boring. That said, grinding can be sort of meditative in some games, or simply fun enough if you spread it over long enough time, and the point when the challenge is too low to be fun is individual ... so yes, it's not absolute.

16 hours ago, ChronosCat said:
On 3/30/2020 at 0:39 AM, hkmaly said:

Of course, you can get similar result if you make impossible to grid. If there is limited number of opportunities to get better, it means that it either needs to be very carefully balanced - or that people will be forced to read walkthrough to find out how are they expected to level to make the game work.

 

As for "make it impossible to grind", I was thinking of something similar myself: if the designers want the enemies to always be roughly the same relative strength compared to the player, why have a leveling system at all? Plenty of games get by without one. I mean I suppose there's a small thrill to seeing a number increase, but for me it mostly only applies if the number actually means something; I've always found the true appeal of gaining levels is seeing how much stronger I've become relative to enemies that used to give me trouble.

There is nothing small on the thrill to seeing a number increase, and players may miss that the increase is just illusion, especially if your abilities gets more flashy on bigger levels.

But yes, in this sense having a leveling system which don't really allow to get better is cheating.

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this