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Development Info Josh Sawyer on the Evolution of RPG Reputation Mechanics

Infinitron

I post news
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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Tags: Baldur's Gate; Darklands; Disco Elysium; Fallout; Fallout 2; Fallout: New Vegas; Josh Sawyer; Obsidian Entertainment; Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire

Even before GDC 2020 was cancelled due to the coronavirus epidemic, Josh Sawyer had decided to boycott the event due to his increasing dissatisfaction with its speaker compensation and pricing model. From now on, he plans to speak directly to the masses and record a new talk every year about a design topic he finds interesting. His talk today was about RPG reputation mechanics, a topic he decided to address after experiencing the wonders of Disco Elysium. It begins with a historical overview of RPG reputation systems, from Darklands through Fallout 1 & 2, Baldur's Gate and Fallout: New Vegas. But the main event here is Pillars of Eternity II vs Disco Elysium.

Josh is clearly still upset about the failure of Deadfire's topic-based companion relationship system, which he says led to a combinatorial explosion in terms of the amount of work the writers had to do and could have easily been replaced with something simpler. It compares unfavorably with Disco Elysium's two reputation-like mechanics: the skill check modifiers you can acquire based on previous actions and the famous Thought Cabinet. Josh seems to be particularly fond of the former mechanic, viewing it as a way to avoid the excessive scope of an actual reputation score while still preserving some of its systemic abstraction. The Thought Cabinet is good because much of its reactivity is internal to the player character and thus easier to design, but it'd be hard to imitate without being accused of ripping the game off.



The lesson Josh has learned is that one must always remember that reputation mechanics are abstractions, and there's no point in designing an abstraction that becomes more complex than the underlying thing it's trying to model. It seems that he's concluded that the traditional Obsidian reputation system has reached a dead-end, and that it's time to step back a bit and experiment with mechanics that hew closer to standard scripted choice & consequence.
 

Goldschmidt

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1) Joshua Eric Sawyer has a Jewish Girlfirend. Clear Zionist influence ehre.

Is Sawyer jewish or are you just spamming random bullshit?

You do know that only nationalistic jews will be zionist? I am sure there is quite a huge group who don't give two fucks about Israel. I honestly don't care about jews anymore (although they stole my name).
 

Diggfinger

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Watching this live was such an experience...was so star-struck throughout I could barely type my questions in teh chat :oops:


Plus was cool seeing Dr. Infini and Fluent Doggy Dogg reppin' Da Codex :salute::cool:
 

Infinitron

I post news
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Messages
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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Watching this live was such an experience...was so star-struck throughout I could barely type my questions in teh chat :oops:


Plus was cool seeing Dr. Infini and Fluent Doggy Dogg reppin' Da Codex :salute::cool:

I don't think that guy was actually Fluent. :P
 

Doma

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FNV biatch

FNV had horrible gameplay. How can anyone with decent taste admire that puke-inducing real time bethesda shooter trash gameplay?

Only story faggotry and CnC carried it through.

Also a broken clock is also right twice a day etc.

It is cute, but you try a bit too hard. Tone it down a bit if you want people to actually bite.
 

luj1

You're all shills
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Why in the world are his opinions on anything given coverage here?

The front page was pretty much sold to Obsidian around that time Codex was commissioned to do a "retrospective" of PoE (prior to PoE 2 launch). For example whenever there is a former Obsidian employee on a podcast like MattChat it gets an instant news post (like Kevin Saudners and Annie VanderMeer recently). It's quite obvious really
 

Diggfinger

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Why in the world are his opinions on anything given coverage here?

The front page was pretty much sold to Obsidian around that time Codex was commissioned to do a "retrospective" of PoE (prior to PoE 2 launch). For example whenever there is a former Obsidian employee on a podcast like MattChat it gets an instant news post (like Kevin Saudners and Annie VanderMeer recently). It's quite obvious really
PoE 1 introspective is what eventually made me play it...now i'm 90H in on Path of the Damned and nearing end-game (just want to finish White March Pt.2 before) :love:

Much luv to Grunker for that one :brodex:
 

NJClaw

OoOoOoOoOoh
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Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture
I'm Josh Sawyer. I am a game designer and a game director. And I started at Black Isle Studios in 1999 where I worked, most notably, on Icewind Dale 1 as a junior designer and then was the lead designer on Icewind dale 2 and some cancelled stuff that does not really matter.
It matters to me, Josh. IT MATTERS TO ME.
 

Dr Schultz

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FNV biatch
FNV had horrible gameplay. How can anyone with decent taste admire that puke-inducing real time bethesda shooter trash gameplay?

No one can. But I could safely say the same for FO I and II: How can anyone with decent taste admire that parady of a serious Turn-Based combat system (or that sleep inducing stealth mechanic)?

If I had to judge an RPG whose primary goal is giving players options for the quality of its combat-system, I would easly conclude that all RPGs out there suck (even Age of Decadence, Underrail and ATOM if you are about to name drop them).

I'm kind of resigned to have lots of mediocre (or even outright bad) mechanics in games that allow me to play my way (the way my character is built for). And this is precisely the case of FO: NV or Outer Worlds.

It's about sacrificing the effectivness of a specific purpose tool for the flexibility of a general purpose one.
 
Last edited:
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What a timing, was tasked with devising a reputation system earlier this week. Very informative video and Sawyer seems to be quite likeable (who knew), especially when he talks about Deadfire failures, holy balls that rep system is just a nightmare from a dev perspective. On other hand DE skill check mechanics are indeed quite brilliant, didn't think too much about it while playing, but in retrospect it's an elegant solution to a pretty complex problem.

Thanks Infinitron

:love:
 

laclongquan

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FNV biatch
FNV had horrible gameplay. How can anyone with decent taste admire that puke-inducing real time bethesda shooter trash gameplay?

No one can. But I could safely say the same for FO I and II: How can anyone with decent taste admire that parady of a serious Turn-Based combat system (or that sleep inducing stealth mechanic)?

If I had to judge an RPG whose primary goal is giving players options for the quality of its combat-system, I would easly conclude that all RPGs out there suck (even Age of Decadence, Underrail and ATOM if you are about to name drop them).

I'm kind of resigned to have lots of mediocre (or even outright bad) mechanics in games that allow me to play my way (the way my character is built for). And this is precisely the case of FO: NV or Outer Worlds.

It's about sacrificing the effectivness of a specific purpose tool for the flexibility of a general purpose one.

Fuck all of you! I myself has pretty decent taste which mean simply too fucking niche for you peasants. Codexers are mostly bad at tactic game, so dont think you are good unless you can prove yourself.

As for real time shooter? You can avoid most of it with chems and liberal use of VATS, the which pause the game flow admirably for you to breathe, take a look at situation, and devise proper steps. Accept them as tactical tool the game give you, make use of them, and dont whine that you cant play real time shooter. I am NOT a realtimeshooter myself, but I can still play this game all year long.

If you are bad at games, know it and dont show your weakness. FFS!
 

Dr Schultz

Augur
Joined
Dec 21, 2013
Messages
492
FNV biatch
FNV had horrible gameplay. How can anyone with decent taste admire that puke-inducing real time bethesda shooter trash gameplay?

No one can. But I could safely say the same for FO I and II: How can anyone with decent taste admire that parady of a serious Turn-Based combat system (or that sleep inducing stealth mechanic)?

If I had to judge an RPG whose primary goal is giving players options for the quality of its combat-system, I would easly conclude that all RPGs out there suck (even Age of Decadence, Underrail and ATOM if you are about to name drop them).

I'm kind of resigned to have lots of mediocre (or even outright bad) mechanics in games that allow me to play my way (the way my character is built for). And this is precisely the case of FO: NV or Outer Worlds.

It's about sacrificing the effectivness of a specific purpose tool for the flexibility of a general purpose one.

Fuck all of you! I myself has pretty decent taste which mean simply too fucking niche for you peasants. Codexers are mostly bad at tactic game, so dont think you are good unless you can prove yourself.

As for real time shooter? You can avoid most of it with chems and liberal use of VATS, the which pause the game flow admirably for you to breathe, take a look at situation, and devise proper steps. Accept them as tactical tool the game give you, make use of them, and dont whine that you cant play real time shooter. I am NOT a realtimeshooter myself, but I can still play this game all year long.

If you are bad at games, know it and dont show your weakness. FFS!
A) I'm probably better at playing and judging tactical games than RPGs. No, forget about "probably", I'm definitely better...
B) I didn't make myself clear enough with my previous post, but I was actually trying to defend FO: NV. Specifically, my argument was: You gotta be really naif if you expect good shooting mechanics in FO: NV and the same goes with the original Fallout(s) and their tactical combat system.
C) the strengths of these games are others. Namely the amount of options they provide, the number of character builds they allow, the different playstyles they support, all the choices with real consequences they have.

In short, You don't play Fallout for the combat. You play Fallout because is a game where you can actually play a role chosen by yourself.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Dr Schultz

Augur
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Dec 21, 2013
Messages
492
I'd take Fallout 1&2's TB combat over Bethshitda's FPS action gameplay that's forced upon New Vegas any day.

Me too. But only because I'd pick a tactical game over an FPS any day. Not because Fallout I & II combat compares better to Jagged Alliance than Fallout: NV combat to Half-Life. Probably it's the opposite...
 
Last edited:
Joined
Oct 19, 2010
Messages
3,524
Why in the world are his opinions on anything given coverage here?

The front page was pretty much sold to Obsidian around that time Codex was commissioned to do a "retrospective" of PoE (prior to PoE 2 launch). For example whenever there is a former Obsidian employee on a podcast like MattChat it gets an instant news post (like Kevin Saudners and Annie VanderMeer recently). It's quite obvious really

While I 100% agree about the heavy bias towards Obsidian content, in-depth discussion videos like this are nonetheless deserving of a newspost.
 

Major_Blackhart

Codexia Lord Sodom
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Well, we'll see what Josh's wunderknabe status is in the new Microsoft world. TOW is apparently a financial success, and not due to anything from Josh.

Now, I'm fucking biased. I don't like Josh. He comes off as pretentious and has a weird desire to redesign everything and mark it as his innovation. I don't like many of his design decisions. Hell, I'm not sure I like any, but I'd have to see specifically what are his vs. Fergies, etc. I think a lot of his desire to balance everything is autistic and he has no idea what fun in a game is, be it challenge or just plowing through everything.

I would love to see Josh make a complete 180 and basically change his views on balance vs fun, etc. He won't however, and so I'd like for now to see his shining star fade significantly. I think right now he spends too much time in front of cameras and interviewers, etc. and not enough time actually developing and managing dev teams. I have given a lot of devs benefit of the doubt, and there is brand loyalty and blah blah. But at the end of the day it still boils down to 'what have you done for me lately?' And what has he done for us lately?
 

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