My View on Min-Maxing

Sgtslow · June 2017

What I'm trying to say is that min-maxing is pointless in a Tabletop Game making a really strong Character only means that GM will have to spawn a God with Bullsh*t Abilities to kill you. Also your a Party sure be around the same power, and it not really nice to treat your Party as meat shields/cannon fodder sure you might be unkillable, or deal a sh*t of damage, but your just making the rest of your Party struggle in combat. Min-maxing is something you do when your trying win a The Game, but what you should try to do is enjoy the Game, the way that Urealms and other Tabletop game are meant to be played. Honesty I'll rather spend 500 gold to get an Entourage than get Legendary Spell Scroll any day. I should mention that I really hate scaling the difficulty upwards. However I am ok with scaling the difficulty downwards, as long as the campaign is a fun experience for my Players.

What is your view on min-maxing?
Edit: Please understand that I'm not trying to be a Dick.

Gterra2 · June 2017

Mid-maxing makes the Gm's job a lot harder especially if the campaign isnt supposed to be difficult. In my opinion I will allow a player to mid-max if I tell them that the campaign itself is a hard campaign, otherwise I would discourage that behavior and ask that the player do something else at CC. If the player does not want to listen to you and gets hostile, its your house, do what you want to their character or kick em out, get somebody else.

If you want to prevent this, go through the decks, take out all the thick fur raiment and buff banners and other op stuff from the decks before players log in.

knguy · June 2017

I'm not a fan of people who try to make the best combat character or figure out all the loopholes, and I don't like seeing any of the Legendaries in general, but saying "well, I'll just spawn something that's also overpowered!" is less than ideal, especially when you consider how that impacts the other players.

Whenever there is an opportunity, find good ways to reduce how dangerous the characters are in the campaign without using bullshit methods. For example, if Tania Grayson is in your campaign, utilize Death Rolls. If you get a Brawler Berserker combo, prepare to have enemies that can Freeze that motherfucker. If they're immune, the boss knows how to Super Freeze too! If you recognize how powerful a certain character is, it's almost certain the Foes will recognize that power as well and realize they must deal with it immediately.

If it has to come down to it though, there's nothing wrong with saying stuff like "I won't allow it," especially when it is to prevent loopholes or grossly overpowered characters.

Blaidd_Golau_ · June 2017

I am fine if my party min maxes, as I am all for powerful characters, so that if we see them again, the party can have a tough boss battle or something along those lines. I personally would be a role-playing/insane character (in, making my character a neo-Roamin character), but if my party min maxes then they can do that. Sure it makes the campaign more difficult for the party, but you could instead do things like targeting the powerful character or something, and if everyone has the same ability in how strong they are, then simply ramp up the campaign difficulty.

Javo · June 2017

I personaly agree with something Rob has said in the past, it is far more fun to create a fun role play character than to create a hard to kill character. A large chunk of the game is that fear of death and the thrill of pulling off the incredible, not doing preconcieved combos which are the only thing the character does. A good example of this is justin's character from this most recent campain, which had a large nuke, but he tried not to use it because that wasn't his character. Anyway, this is my thoughts on min-maxing characters

sofakinggood · June 2017

Its fine if the entire group does it so that the gm doesnt accidentaly fucc over the other players who actually want to rp in an attempt to make combat challenging

robodog4 · June 2017

Hold on, is it actually called mid-maxing? I always heard the guys call it min-maxing.

CookiesEmily · June 2017

@robodog4 It's Min-maxing, not Mid-maxing. https://www.giantbomb.com/min-maxing/3015-128/

robodog4 · June 2017

@CookiesAndMil_
Ah, I see.

OldFredBear · June 2017

Usually I'd tell people not to minmax since of course the campaign isn't made for that, I understand moments where it's an accident since I know that one player just likes to have alot of spells since it allows them to do a wider range of stuff rather than just spam something like a fireball every round.

It also keeps the party at the same level so that the one person is constantly doing everything when there was most likely a better way to deal with them.
Only time I allow it if it's a combat heavy campaign which i'm doing, since for those yes, you're going to be fighting some strong stuff and alot of them most likely.

But from player experiences, sometimes I've done stuff where it looks like I have, but it was an accident and I just wanted to do it because it's based on my character.

Simona · June 2017

I dont mind minmaxing as long as the people roleplay a character that is like that, give it a reason and motivation why they strive for power and etc, and not threat it like a videogame where you press buttons and make combos.Which can be fun, but not in a tabletop or even a post-to-post forum roleplay setting.

For example if they roleplay a really big and famous man, or a leader of sort. Or maybe even a tactical genius. Then sure those character can totally min max.

Sigpiru · June 2017

I myself find it really fun to make characters which explores loopholes and game mechanics to become ridiculously overpowered and game breaking- I find it very funny and hilarious some of the stuff you can make by combining balanced cards in unique ways.

I wouldn't play any of these characters however- the most I'd go is have them in my campaigns when I'm the GM, and have the players have to find clever ways to defeat them- or give them an Achilles heel.

Infact, I think its really acceptable to make an overpowered character as long as you focus on role-play, so have them "be too scared to use their ultimate combo" or "have a habit of tripping over and casting polymorph on themselves" etc...

Again, as most people have said. Don't play to win, play to have fun

MMMMMrMike · June 2017

I personally love to make a character that has as much power and can be as ridiculous as possible.

BUT I have a rule that the more powerful the character is, the more I have to RP a reason to not use said power. In the case of strong combos of abilities, I play a character who goes by their gut and doesn't think when fighting resulting in far from optimal play.

If I have one thing that is too strong, like say curse of medusa (which can be a mess in the wrong hands), I make it more of a curse or unstable power with a horrible incident in the characters past to limit it.

Too much HP? Play someone who is selfless or courageous to a fault (unaware/stupid works well in the case of black boars). Don't use your anytimes to save yourself and only use them to help a party member unless obvious death is coming.

It helps establish a backstory on the fly during character creation while, so long as you don't fault in your resolve to RP, keeping the party ready for most things that may come your way.

FullPrice · June 2017

I always try to only get abilities and / or items and / or passives that make sense with the cornerstone, or the attribute, or the character i have in mind.

I often won't even look at my stamina or damage till the end.

CasualCow · June 2017

Okay that Bullsh*t Boss ability is Bullshit and super funny lol

knguy · June 2017

While hardcore min-maxing definitely isn't the best style for URealms, that doesn't mean you want to create a character without regard for Stamina or the damage of your Abilities, especially in the spirit of the adventure. Like if someone makes a dude and they're like "sup everyone I'm a Keen with 38 Stamina and no strong abilities!" and I'll just respond with "you're going to die halfway into the campaign."

Nothing wrong with jumping on a clear opportunity to make your character awesome, as we've seen in the past you don't always have to go through combat guns blazing, you can just start off with the small stuff and bring out the crazy combos once your party really needs them.

Sangui · June 2017

You talking about min-maxing? The phrase refers to minimizing certain capabilities in order to maximize effectiveness in other areas.

Generally, there's nothing wrong with building strong characters, but I think that it should be made clear to players that making a fun, coherent character to roleplay with is more important. If they're super good at one thing and it's sort of breaking things, then you as the GM should find ways to pick on their weak spots in order to balance things out (but for goodness' sake, don't be malicious or vengeful about it).

Blast_burn · June 2017

as somebody who learned how to rp with min-maxers, i can say that while those campaigns can be fum, it's usually much more enjoyable to just make a character and base abilities and what not on that. min maxing can work, but everybody has to do it, or those that won't will feel useless, unless they're good at rping. the gm also needs to know how to deal with it as well, otherwise it's too easy and not as engaging.

Sgtslow · June 2017

@CookiesAndMil_ My Bad

Sgtslow · June 2017

@knguy I should mention that I really hate scaling the difficulty upwards. However I am ok with scaling the difficulty downwards, as long as the campaign is a fun experience for my Players.

KaeawynShifter · June 2017

I've got this one player who - at no fault of his own - always makes characters that are OP as &^%$, he doesn't try to minmax, but he ends up with these nigh-unkillable characters. basically in the territory of 'Uh, okay Kaeawyn, I'll just take out these three enemies with my first action, and then these three with my second action!' and it usually works. What I've ended up doing for him and all other minmaxed characters is just saying 'look, I know that he's an amazing character, but can you tone it down a little? The rest of the party isn't having much fun.' and if they don't... nerf them. Originally the system with that 6-KOs a turn character had mana, so I said 'fine, I understand that he's built to be a reliable mage but...' and then cut his mana in half, as well as cutting in half the mana of all mages, because they were OP already. Don't be afraid to throw permanent debilitations at your players if it makes them less OP. Have a character like The Wall (That crazy 2112 stamina character)? You can apply a debuff to them in the first encounter that prevents ALL healing, including out of combat healing. Than you just have to have the rest of the enemies have big attacks, like pyroblasts, all of the pyroblasts.

SugarSmear · June 2017

I'm no fan of min-maxing, but I'm okay with overpowered characters. The thing is that they need to justify why they are as powerful as they are. I remember in one of the early Behind The Scenes videos Rob mentioned that he did not just want to make up NPCs that were on the level of Virgo Sunsword, he wanted them to develop organically from player characters performing amazing feats.

KaeawynShifter · June 2017

@robodog4 @CookiesAndMil_ Just read through the whole post, and I'd like to inform you that Mid-maxing is a thing, it's basically low-key min-maxing. So instead of taking that pyroblast, you instead say 'hmm, I think that would be a bit crazy' and take blizzard or arcane beam instead, or you decide to take pyroblast but not fireball, so it's still op, but now you can actually play at the level of everyone else.

Gent · June 2017

I'm perfectly fine with min-maxing. Rob intentionally made it so powerful characters could spring out from the decks. As long as the player still plays to a character and doesn't just treat combat like a video game it should be fine.

My View on Min-Maxing

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