Must have: 6-8 party members

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Re: Must have: 6-8 party members

Postby SkeleTony » Wed Oct 30, 2013 1:43 pm

BlueSalamander wrote:It's too late to change it for KotC, but I agree with the philosophy of allowing the player to decide how many characters he wants to start a module with (one to six or even eight).


This is good news. As I have explained before, 4 or less party members does not work for me. It leads to every character being mostly the same (or if a single PC it leads to either 'Uber characters' who can do everything or a lot of 'Wow it would be nice if I could do SOMETHING!' situations) with the only variance being that some abilities are a bit better and some worse for characters. I prefer 8 or more party members but I can live with 6. For me Helherron, Natuk, Nahlakh, Wizardry 8 are the best in terms of full party RPGs.
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Re: Must have: 6-8 party members

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Re: Must have: 6-8 party members

Postby Zero » Tue Apr 01, 2014 3:33 am

I completely agree with Skeletony! Having wandered in vast wildernesses since Proudfoot moved on....smaller parties don't lead to as exciting gameplay! The maps, battles, and, challenges should be greater for games with larger parties- that is a good thing. KoTC1 made some hard choices in choosing characters, but, it wasn't fun in that respect. 6-8 PC, 1-2 NPC...grand battles...it worked for Goldbox, POWS/Natuk, ToEE (even Bard's Tale, Ultima), etc. Well, just my one cent's worth, that's all. At the end of the day, a great game is priority number one.
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Re: Must have: 6-8 party members

Postby Natsu » Tue Apr 29, 2014 10:09 am

Back in my own thread 2 years after I created it. Love that. I thought I'd post again to share some things.

At first, I think every gamer who played Goldbox went through the feel-it-out phase. I created every class, because I had no idea what a ranger or cleric was, and I wanted to see what they can do. In comparison, I've played a number of browser-based TBS games now, and guess what? There are dozens of heroes -- with different abilities -- to choose from, and so strategic players try them all~ out. We leave nothing untried, even if we fail. It's an addiction. We may run the same combination of characters several times just to nail down that feel of how good it actually is.

And what motivates us to even begin that phase is the challenge phase. The game actually destroys our entire party every chance it gets, forcing us to learn something new. Other gamers simply give up, because they're not "high enough level" to beat the challenges. But we intrinsically believe that the game's challenge is designed on purpose to prepare us to take on bigger challenges. There is a sense of reward and accomplishment. The casual gamer will never experience this, because they are not in the least motivated to learn strategic~ combat~.

My experience with these gamers can also point out some things that might help you, or anyone interested in marketing a TBS-RPG, know your customers better. My (goat) tank/healer combo in one of these games consecutively killed 15 enemy players -- without healing in between battles -- of my same "power level" without even slowing down. These kids were stunned and impressed. They had just been on the receiving end of a Goldbox team, after months of pumping up characters that did not have the same long-term potential as a 50% damage reduction tank and an AoE healer. In these games, a few players pay cash to be powered up to be free from the effort of devising any strategy to beat a bigger opponent. Some people literally pay not to think, and those are the fat cows the rest of us love to build a strike team to beat. That's win. But creating a pile of them and being visibly ready to do it all over again without even resting...that's VICTORY THROUGH TECHNOLOGICAL SUPERIORITY.

In summary, expect strategic players to tinker with your units to the point of finding every opportunity to exploit. The more choices in units and classes they have, the more fun it is. Challenge must exist to motivate the player to try his or her best. Otherwise, only casual players will ever spend the time. Finally, let there be tank. Let thine tank have one goat, one shield, and a hefty 50% damage reduction modifier. God did not create tank to be alone. It is not good. Let thy tank embrace a partner tank. They will be fruitful and multiply damage-per-second of thine party without themselves even dealing damage. Moreso with healer. On the third round they will all rise again in fulfillment of the instruction manual. And thy killcount will have no end. Forever and ever.
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