Cain on Games - Tim Cain's new YouTube channel

[Roguey]

Tim liked them, but Leonard didn't care for the costume and set design decisions of the upcoming Fallout show. Tim hopes Fallout will be good, but he's concerned and bracing for all the liberties it'll likely take given the zeitgeist of recent adapations (Foundation, Rings of Power, Wheel of Time, Witcher, Halo). I imagine it'll probably be as cringe-worthy as the Wasteland pilot script Fargo posted last year.

Tim's a bit late to the party on the games and art subject. Some games are art, some are just entertainment, same as any other medium.

 

[Goral]

I talk about how random encounters worked in Arcanum, which used a very different system than the one in Fallout, which I described in this video: • Fallout Random Encounters

 

[PapaPetro]

Tim's a bit late to the party on the games and art subject. Some games are art, some are just entertainment, same as any other medium.

A lot of people confuse Art and Meta-Art.
Bad Art (which could be literally anything/nothing) is the latter: it's the things that apophatically describe what the thing you're describing is by what it's not in context (thru Negation)*. So we can describe Art by things that aren't Artistic and the notlike (though there can be plenty of overlap like you mentioned e.g. artistic games, comics, tv shows, etc.). "Bad Art" exists so that we know what Art actually means to us throughout time (the definition and our understanding of it (and what it's not) gets more refined over time).
You don't want to fall into a Nominalist gotcha-trap where everything is arbitrarily "Art" or like with Tim here who waffles on his own definition (the "I know it when I see it"-types).


*Sorry if you have to reread this again

 

[Roguey]

Why optimization is so difficult despite being easier on paper than it was in the past:

 

[toucanplay]

A couple of points Tim here resonate with my own experience in programming (although not in the games industry).

• I've noticed an unfortunate trend in my own field that's like what he had to say about less experienced devs not digging into the assembly code. People will say "you don't have to know the details of XYZ", or are willing to trust black box packages/libraries/models and skipping reading the source documentation/papers/simpler versions.
• Companies never allocate enough time to code optimization/iteration/clean-up/documentation/etc. even if this saves time and money later. As soon as a project meets the minimum threshold for viability, it gets pushed out and you're put on something else. That might be fine for the short term, but it's guaranteed to cause problems later.

It's actually terrifying how much coding know-how/skill will be lost in the coming decades.

 

[StrongBelwas]

Deterministic vs Random Skill Checks? Big Teams vs Small Teams? First Person vs. Isometric? Complex vs. Simple Mechanics? The answer to all of these is 'it depends'.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Alienman]

Thank God, I was expecting a human in a suit, like that guy from New York.

 

[Roguey]

Tim says he will never go back to randomized skill checks. Save scummers ruined it for everyone.

 

[toucanplay]

Tim says he will never go back to randomized skill checks. Save scummers ruined it for everyone.

Are we sure it's that, and not all those times people argued with him over randomness?

Going back through some of Tim's prior videos, I found one issue I disagree with him about: his preference for RPGs where you make one character as your avatar in the game world, with the idea being that it encourages replaying the game to have a different experience. I agree, in theory, but those games have to be "worth" playing through another time.

Not only are there all those other games to play, or other things you could be doing, but a lot of times the game itself can be a problem. If you've played a game before, it can be easier to get through stuff that challenged you the first time. On the other hand, you know all the things about it that bothered you, either because it's objectively bad design, or because it's personally aggravating.

One example for me is Tunic: it's not an RPG, but it's a game I really wanted to like. Except interact and roll are assigned to the same button, and those features can't be separated via remapping. You might think it killing me in one early boss fight was why I hate this, but it's not. It's rolling like an idiot every time I try climbing a ladder, because I press the button before the context can switch. I'm not in danger of dying or losing progress, but whenever I think about the game, it's all I can think about because it's such a stupid, unnecessary problem for the game to have.

An example from an RPG is Pillars 2. One incredibly small thing that aggravates me about this game is that you can get a ring that's supposed to stop you getting drunk, but it's flat-out useless in a drinking competition you come across later. I've tried playing this game multiple times, and every time I come across the ring or the drinking competition, it bothers me again.

 

[scytheavatar]

Tim says he will never go back to randomized skill checks. Save scummers ruined it for everyone.

I mean, can you argue with him? Like what exactly does randomized skill checks add compared to fix skill checks?

 

[Butter]

Tim says he will never go back to randomized skill checks. Save scummers ruined it for everyone.

I mean, can you argue with him? Like what exactly does randomized skill checks add compared to fix skill checks?

Uncertainty. The possibility that you might have to try something different when plan A falls through.

 

[Roguey]

Uncertainty. The possibility that you might have to try something different when plan A falls through.

As Cain (and Sawyer) noted, most people just reload until they succeed.

I mean, can you argue with him? Like what exactly does randomized skill checks add compared to fix skill checks?

The ability to succeed on every check with a generalist character by reloading every time you fail.

 

[Butter]

As Cain (and Sawyer) noted, most people just reload until they succeed.

Correct, which is why those mechanics don't belong together. Players will optimize the fun out of a game, and the designer has to account for that. %-based skill checks work in a game with limited saves.

 

[Infinitron]

I answer questions about Arcanum's AI and how it works.

 

[Roguey]

I imagine most people didn't mess around with dragging bodies because that's really only applicable if you're killing innocent people in towns. In a combat area, none of that matters.

 

[Wesp5]

I imagine most people didn't mess around with dragging bodies because that's really only applicable if you're killing innocent people in towns. In a combat area, none of that matters.

Troika had also planned this feature for Bloodlines, we found a context icon for it, but it was never implemented because it really wasn't needed there as well.

 

[Infinitron]

I talk about the pros and cons of larger team sizes.

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

Games shouldn't be designed for faggots who save scum. Even if most people do it the game should have an intention of how they think the game should be and not serve diapers to babies.

 

[kyosuke]

Uncertainty. The possibility that you might have to try something different when plan A falls through.

As Cain (and Sawyer) noted, most people just reload until they succeed.

I mean, can you argue with him? Like what exactly does randomized skill checks add compared to fix skill checks?

The ability to succeed on every check with a generalist character by reloading every time you fail.

If they're so hung up about succeeding in every check, might as well just cheat and max out those skills.
Save the time and clicks.

 

[PapaPetro]

Uncertainty. The possibility that you might have to try something different when plan A falls through.

As Cain (and Sawyer) noted, most people just reload until they succeed.

I mean, can you argue with him? Like what exactly does randomized skill checks add compared to fix skill checks?

The ability to succeed on every check with a generalist character by reloading every time you fail.

If they're so hung up about succeeding in every check, might as well just cheat and max out those skills.
Save the time and clicks.

Maybe by make failing suck less as an experience for the player?
He always brings up how how fun it is playing a low intelligence character is in Fallout and Arcanum, so apply the same design principle to "Save or Suck" skill rolls.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Infinitron]

I talk about the best habits I have developed to be successful at programming.

 

[Diggfinger]

+1 new shirt count Roguey

 

[Harthwain]

Uncertainty. The possibility that you might have to try something different when plan A falls through.

As Cain (and Sawyer) noted, most people just reload until they succeed.

I mean, can you argue with him? Like what exactly does randomized skill checks add compared to fix skill checks?

The ability to succeed on every check with a generalist character by reloading every time you fail.

If they're so hung up about succeeding in every check, might as well just cheat and max out those skills.
Save the time and clicks.

Maybe by make failing suck less as an experience for the player?
He always brings up how how fun it is playing a low intelligence character is in Fallout and Arcanum, so apply the same design principle to "Save or Suck" skill rolls.

Disco Elysium already did this and it worked.