>>44222046
>First, The guy says "balance" comes at the expense of "variety" (and vice versa). Then he asserts that variety is superior to balance.
> That actually defeats any sort of variety you might have had and the rest of the inferior choices become just "vendor trash."

Yeaah man, I hate that shit too

>play WoW
>comes the talent revamp
>boohooo we had 71 points to spread around and now only six
>absolutely ignoring that there at best was five free points out of those because all the rest were shoved into the only one true build for the spec; and the leftover five provided variety equal to only ONE out of six new talent choices.

>>44222046
Something I'll say for Balance vs. Variety. I can see where he's coming from, in that the more weapons and numbers you add, the harder it is to make all of those numbers even.

Instead, if you're going to be adding a wide variety of options, you need to make them less numerical. The trade-off between options needs to fall outside of pure DPS calculations and be something that's harder to judge.

>>44222834
This options should be balanced but should feel different.

>>44222853
It's more that making options inherently different makes them easier to balance.

If you're trying to make a bunch of 2-handed melee weapons, and the only difference is 1d12 vs 2d6, it's not going to be a very hard decision. If instead, you give a warhammer an ability to knock people backwards, and a greatsword an ability to circle around someone or close distance faster, it's harder to gauge which is going to be better since they're not concrete numbers.

There are situations where knocking someone backwards is great and can win you a battle, and there's other times its useless. Sometimes you'll really need to get past someone, and the greatsword's extra movement will be just what you need.

Having those sorts of benefits makes balance easier, since it doesn't have to be perfectly mathematically equal.

>>44222889
This.

With something like guns, it's even easier - not only could you tell them how powerful a gun is, but they have to take into account range and the size of a magazine or clip. The six-shooter may be powerful, but they may take the weaker pistol with a 10-round magazine because they know they'll need the shots.

If you look at D&D or Pathfinder, certain weapons are easier to crit on (a 19-20 instead of a 20), or do more damage on a crit (a x3 or x4 instead of a x2). I don't think people take such things into account as much as straight damage, because that's more random, but it does make you think and add variety to rows of 1d6s and 1d8s.

>>44222918
Ammo is a good example, especially depending on how action-intensive reloading is.

Crit-rate is less-so, since it's still something that you can calculate out and find out the average damage.

>>44222046
>game designers (or GMs in our case) should practice a degree of calculated arrogance and treat the players/PCs and the game rules as guests in your home

Full retard.

Without an audience, there is no story. There is no game. There's just your magical realm that nobody cares about.

>>44222046
>That actually defeats any sort of variety you might have had and the rest of the inferior choices become just "vendor trash."
I would disagree with that.

If you spend a lot of time with balance, you wind up with a lot of items that just feel roughly the same. Or have the same sort of theme, pulling from a list of standardized damage formulas to make it balanced. For instance, if the dagger does 2 attacks for 4 damage each, the longsword does 8 damage per attack, and the greatsword does 12 damage but attacks at 75% speed, then its all the same thing. If you limit the amount of balancing you do, sure, you wind up with vendor trash, but only because you're creating a greater variety between the items you find. Longsword A is objectively superior to Spear B, but that's because the creators made Longsword A have interesting abilities and effects that are a little bit insane.

>So there needs to be an amount of compromise between you and the players, because it's not all about your personal magical realm, you need to pay mind to catering to each player's taste otherwise people are going to lose interest.

I would personally disagree with that. When I play games, I play it because I want to play in other people's worlds. I am bound by their rules, their civilizations, and their setting. I would much rather have a DM present me THEIR setting and let me play around in that as opposed to the DM trying to cowtow to me and try to appease me. After all, ultimately, the DM is a player too. He's not getting paid for this shit, he's here to have fun too.

>>44223024
>For instance, if the dagger does 2 attacks for 4 damage each, the longsword does 8 damage per attack, and the greatsword does 12 damage but attacks at 75% speed, then its all the same thing.

Not quite. Granted, they all amount to the same numbers, but when we have to consider how those weapons might interact with other game effects, we see that a weapon list like that shines in certain circumstances. For example: A spell will double weapon damage for one attack - this means the longsword or greatsword are better in that situation. A magical barrier will absorb all the damage from the first attack - so then the dagger becomes superior in that situation because the first attack "pops the bubble". This is what I meant by more balanced lists introducing more interesting combat by making you calculate the most optimum choice in each situation.

>I would personally disagree with that. When I play games, I play it because I want to play in other people's worlds. I am bound by their rules, their civilizations, and their setting. I would much rather have a DM present me THEIR setting and let me play around in that as opposed to the DM trying to cowtow to me and try to appease me. After all, ultimately, the DM is a player too. He's not getting paid for this shit, he's here to have fun too.

You enjoy what you enjoy and I'm okay with that. Different strokes for different folks. However, whenever I listen to people talk to me about their previous games, I have RARELY ever heard about how cool a GM's magical realm was. I mainly hear about all the cool shit the player's character did within that realm.

My own personal story regarding this example happened at a convention. The GM had a very elaborate, well-thought out supernatural world for us to adventure in. Unfortunately, that adventure essentially amounted to a guided tour of his magical realm, and our interaction with it was mainly limited to a shopping trip. It was obvious all but one player was bored to tears.

>>44222046
Amazing how badly you failed to understand what he said, then.
First, he straight-up said that balance and variety don't necessarily each come at the expense of the other -- though they often do in VIDEOGAMES because you only have so much time and resources to dedicate. He then says that variety in CERTAIN VIDEOGAMES was overall better than balance because the games they were emulating had that same emphasis and that helped make them great.

And oh my fucking god, he's talking about designing a VIDEOGAME when he says that the player is a guest in your game -- because guess what? Videogames aren't on-the-fly collaborations like tabletop games are since they are built and then sold as complete.

And stop calling everything magical realm, I do not think that term means what you think it means.

>>44222998
Except he said no such thing about tabletop, OP is just a moron. That is how it basically HAS to work with a videogame, though, because the designer can't work with the audience as they make and play the game.

>>44223747
Okay fine, have it your way faggot. Let's disregard anything he says about game design as having anything to do with the tabletop.

That makes him a mondo-faggot when it comes to video game design then, and we should all pray and sacrifice bunnies to dark gods that this neckbeard ever has any say on modern computer RPG design beyond donating to a Kickstarter.

>>44223759
Except OP blatantly stated that he was just applying what this guy said to tabletop games and acknowledged it was primarily about video games.

>>44223747
I think you're being silly.

Video games and tabletop share more than you seem to be willing to grant them, especially if things like premade adventures come into the discussion.

>>44223024
>Or have the same sort of theme, pulling from a list of standardized damage formulas to make it balanced. For instance, if the dagger does 2 attacks for 4 damage each, the longsword does 8 damage per attack, and the greatsword does 12 damage but attacks at 75% speed, then its all the same thing.

Like this guy said, >>44223122
They're not exact, and often the difference can wind up being quite dramatic if the game is built around the distinction between the weapons.

Like the classic 2d6 Greatsword and 1d12 Greataxe comparison, what may initially have been just a relatively minor consideration and distinction has effectively made Greataxes an absolute rarity while Greatswords are one of the most common weapons.

Which leads me to a hard question.

Should a designer make more popular options stronger, or should they make less popular options stronger?

When deciding whether the greatsword or the greataxe should be the 2d6 and which should be the 1d12, should a designer try to encourage people to use the less popular (greataxe) option in order to facilitate diversity at the table? Or, should they just pick their favorites to be stronger, and end up either consciously or inadvertently bottlenecking the types of characters one might see at the table?

These are the sort of threads that make me think there's still some hope for /tg/.

>>44226804
I think this is an egg-chicken argument. The greatsword owns a lot of its populatiry due to being 2d6 instead of like the greataxe. Some players pick a weapon since they prefer its flavour, to players who simply flock towards the best.
Think about it, if you made the greataxe better, suddently there's far less people using the sword, and this will soon affect your NPCs too, since you need them to be a proper challange.

I personally see that the more popular options should have more general uses, while the less popular ones could be more specialised in certain fields. For instance, you could use the sword's wider and faster movements to make two foes coming from the same direction have a harder time approaching, something which can be useful in many situations. Meanwhile, the axe could be used to gain momentum and strike with a lot of force and precision if you had enough room to prepare such attack, far less reliable, but more threatening when properly made.

You see, as said above, you should consider two types of players, those who just go with what works, and those who try doing unusual things, and from experience I can say the former just tend to go for the more common weapons anyway, so you'll not be alienating anyone. This same thing goes for spells, tools and the like.

>>44223822
>>44226080
Well, the problem is really that what he's really talking about are single player games.

Doesn't even matter if they're computer games or tabletop games, the big difference is how many people are playing in the same game.

The more people, the more balance matters, because funnily enough, it kind of sucks when someone who knows the game better than you can, often without malicious intent, make a character who can do everything your chracter can do, only better.

>>44223122
>Not quite. Granted, they all amount to the same numbers, but when we have to consider how those weapons might interact with other game effects, we see that a weapon list like that shines in certain circumstances. For example: A spell will double weapon damage for one attack - this means the longsword or greatsword are better in that situation. A magical barrier will absorb all the damage from the first attack - so then the dagger becomes superior in that situation because the first attack "pops the bubble". This is what I meant by more balanced lists introducing more interesting combat by making you calculate the most optimum choice in each situation.

Not quite to your note quite. While its true that weapons like that will have some variety if you combine them with other spell effects, that doesn't really make your weapons themselves any less varied than before. Which is what the main problem was.

Also, any increase to weapon damage output will favor the high speed weapon over the low speed weapons.

1 knife = 2x per round x2 damage = 2 times the chance to crit.

So on the outside, it looks like they're still the same damage over 3 rounds, which is the knife does 6 attacks for 8 damage each, the longsword does 3 attacks for 16 damage each, and the greatsword does 2 attacks for 24 each, which all winds up being 48 damage, you still have the knife doing 6 attacks which means it has twice as much of a chance to land a critical hit than the longsword which is statistically doing the same damage.

And really, they're all the same boring weapon when you get right down to that.

>I have RARELY ever heard about how cool a GM's magical realm was. I mainly hear about all the cool shit the player's character did within that realm.
I rarely talk about it myself, but I still enjoy it vastly more than when the DM sits down with me and asks me what I want in the world. No, DM, I want YOUR world, not another rendition of OUR world.

>>44222046
>Then he asserts that variety is superior to balance.
Anyone that has looked at game development over the last 30 years, and how those games actually worked in play, knows better. Fucking Gygax realized back in the 80's that internal game balance is essential to a good game.

>>44222918
>If you look at D&D or Pathfinder, certain weapons are easier to crit on (a 19-20 instead of a 20), or do more damage on a crit (a x3 or x4 instead of a x2). I don't think people take such things into account as much as straight damage, because that's more random, but it does make you think and add variety to rows of 1d6s and 1d8s.
However, you are ignoring how in 3.pf, there are clearly superior weapons for each type based on dice, crit rating, reach, special abilities, ability synergy, and price.

>They're not exact, and often the difference can wind up being quite dramatic if the game is built around the distinction between the weapons.
The distinction isn't THAT dramatic if you adjust the speed to account for it. I mean, even pointing out everything I said here: >>44228548, The crits aren't going to come out THAT often, and even adjusting the attacks, they wind up doing the same amount of damage no matter what, which makes them all kind of boring. But they sure are BALANCED!

>Should a designer make more popular options stronger, or should they make less popular options stronger?
I disagree with >>44228068 about the popularity of the greatsword being due to 2d6. I think it is popular with 4chan and other powergamers in general because of the statistical averages, but with most people I've sat down and talked to in general don't sit there and think about the mathematical likely hood of getting the most advantageous damage output of a weapon. They pick up the greatsword because they like the idea of a dude holding a huge ass sword, which is rather prominent in a lot of myths and lore.

Therefore, to answer your question, I think you should make the less popular options stronger. You're going to have people who are going to pick up the great sword more often than the great axe just by nature of what they are. If you want to diversify weapon choice more, you give the axe the better statistics. People who don't care will swing away with their axe, and the people who look into that will naturally pick up a weapon that might not have been picked up otherwise.

It would also have the unintended benefit of outing who among you are the power gamers. "Oh, Frank showed up with a Dex build and a pair of scissors in each hands. This guy DEFINITELY is a power gamer".

>>44228786
>I think it is popular with 4chan and other powergamers in general because of the statistical averages, but with most people I've sat down and talked to in general don't sit there and think about the mathematical likely hood of getting the most advantageous damage output of a weapon. They pick up the greatsword because they like the idea of a dude holding a huge ass sword, which is rather prominent in a lot of myths and lore.

I agree on this, and it also follows with a lot of other design decisions in D&D. Greatswords were popular, hence why they were given the better stats.

> I think you should make the less popular options stronger. You're going to have people who are going to pick up the great sword more often than the great axe just by nature of what they are. If you want to diversify weapon choice more, you give the axe the better statistics. People who don't care will swing away with their axe, and the people who look into that will naturally pick up a weapon that might not have been picked up otherwise.

I disagree with this though, because it's kind of like a "preference tax", where the people who choose what they like end up having to pay more for it. If anything, it would actually encourage power gaming, rather than discourage it, since people will have less of an incentive to choose what they like.

>>44228786
Was meant to be a reply to >>44226804

>>44229551
>since people will have less of an incentive to choose what they like.
The incentive will be the item that they like. People are going to play with longswords and greatswords no matter what just because of the mythological power behind them. Even in game, most of the legendary artifacts and cool weapons are longswords or greatswords.

Though, personally, I prefer Dragon Quest's weapon system. Each weapon has its own thing that it does in battle.

For those who don't know, enemies in Dragon Quest will show up in groups. For instance, if you have 3 slimes and a raven show up for battle, it COULD be divided as 3 groups
1 group of 2 slimes
1 group of 1 Raven
1 group of 1 slime.

A sword will attack a single enemy out of a group
A whip will attack a whole group from left to right, doing less and less damage with each attack
A boomerang will attack ALL enemies doing less and less damage from left to right.

And then other weapons have other advantages. Spears are single target, but ignore more defense rating allowing you to get past metal defenses and whatnot, etc.

THAT is weapon variety. Dragon Quest is the only game I have where I will intentionally carry extra weapons on my characters just to have the advantage switch up in combat.

>>44222918
At low level maybe, but in DnD 3.X and Pathfinder, the higher you get in level the more important crit range becomes and the less important damage becomes, especially once you have access to Keen Blade

>>44229795
>People are going to play with longswords and greatswords no matter what just because of the mythological power behind them.

I'd like to test this hypothesis, but I can't think of a single game where swords are not the premiere weapon, outside of gun-focused games.

>>44231455
Bit of a gun-focused game, but one example would be a game I used to play called GunZ: The Duel. Free korean third-person arena shooter that allowed for swords. There were hundreds of people picking up swords to utilize for glitching and "K-Style" or "Butterflying", but ultimately, the style is actually inferior to a guy with a machine gun or shotgun. Not that they would ever admit it, though.

Another example is, oddly enough, Pokémon. In competitive, there's really only about 20 or so Pokémon that are considered "top tier" or "good" in the meta, but people will always fashion teams out of their favorites even if it means overcoming hardships.

>>44232093
As you mention Pokemon: a newer trend in organized play is drafting teams from across different, though adjacent tiers, so that everyone will have one or two top-tier mons at a time

It still shows that typing, choosing the right movepool and the right timing for switches can consistently beat the numerical advantage that higher tier mons have.

Applied to the discussion here it shows how important quality over quantity can be, even if it is just more complicated rock-paper-scissors. Also some creativity often helps to make a choice that is subpar at a first glance actually viable, if no other alternatives are given.

>>44222768
>Implying it changed anything

Not only did they utterly gut a complex system in turn for something absolutely pathetic in terms of choice and utility, you still end up just picking the talents that are effective instead of the ones you want because being effective is the only way to play the game in anything other than random pugs.

>>44232093
>Another example is, oddly enough, Pokémon. In competitive, there's really only about 20 or so Pokémon that are considered "top tier" or "good" in the meta, but people will always fashion teams out of their favorites even if it means overcoming hardships.

The counter to that example is Magic, where people are free to have their favorite cards, just as long as they don't even think about bringing them to a tournament. Even in casual groups, there's almost always that one guy who will choose the strongest cards in the best archtype, with little to no concern about whether he likes the art or name, or really anything about the card.

I guess it might have to do with the degree of abstraction. A pokemon is a little less abstract than a Magic card. You catch it or hatch it, and you train and raise it, and even at the most there's only six in your team. With magic cards, while pulling the cards in a pack might have given them meaning, it's impractical to try and get a playset of the cards you need in any way aside from purchasing them as singles, and with 60 in a deck, it's very easy just to treat them like cogs in a machine.

The parts of a character kind of fall into one realm and the other. Their main weapon might be more like a pokemon, but what spells they prepare might fall in the way of magic cards.