Cain on Games - Tim Cain's new YouTube channel

[Orud]

The like/dislike ratio is always going to tell a better story than comments.

Unfortunately not. Something as simple as a 'like' or 'dislike' button is too much of a bother for most people, unless they're passionate about it. While there have been plenty of studies about this, there are also a few easy anecdotes;

• Twitter posts with millions of views, but only several thousands of likes.
• Youtube videos with millions of views but only several ten-thousand likes/dislikes, and even less comments.

The problem is that the way we perceive these crowds of people, the ones that don't give a shit, makes their unlikeable or unsocial behavior invisible to the part of our monkey brain that helps to ignore that. When we see a raving lunatic in the middle of a crowd, our brains are engineered to (generally) detect the most outlying social abnormalities and ignore him. With a message that's presented front and center of you and has even only half a dozen likes, your brain reacts differently.

 

[Infinitron]

Promising topic:

I talk about the pros and cons of making RPG characters based on classes versus making them based on skills.

 

[Butter]

Tim thinks Tyranny is a class-based game. Even the people who worked on that game don't remember it.

 

[Roguey]

Tim prefers class based for multiplayer and party-based games and skill-based for single-character games. Largely agree with this assessment, though the D:OS games did reasonably well as skill-based. Games like Jagged Alliance 2 and the Wastelands also did fine as party-based skill-based games, but they don't involve casting spells and the like.

 

[StrongBelwas]

Blame Chad Moore for Black Mountain golems and anything else from that area that haunts your dreams
Tim likes weapon durability, pushed for it in Outer Worlds even when some developers wanted it dropped (Along with ammo )
Felt they were too generous in TOW and they should have gone for something more like NuFallouts where you can only repair with a similar type of weapon. At the very least weapon parts should not have dropped on their own and only been something you get from breaking apart weapons or shops.
Every feature frustrates some players, trying to make a game with no feature that frustrates any player is a lost cause.
Breath of the Wild is an example of extreme weapon durability done well in a game with very positive sales and receptions even with the complaints some people had about it.

 

[Butter]

You should probably fire the people on your team arguing to remove ammo.

Oh wait, Pillars of Eternity doesn't have ammo. Fire Sawyer!

 

[Roguey]

Inconvenience features should only be present if they make the game more enjoyable to play. Durability in Fallout 3/NV feels appropriate because they add a systemic reason for the Repair skill to exist rather than just relying on a handful of scripted checks.

I don't believe "provides more balance" is a good reason to add an inconvenience feature. Sawyer tried to use that as an argument for having weapon durability in PoE and thankfully got talked down.

Breath of the Wild is an example of weapon durability done well even with the complaints some people had about it.

BotW's durability sucks because it means that there's no reward for exploration, there's nothing to get attached to. It's a system that encourages you not to engage with enemies while traveling or explore, though there's admittedly a lot of hours to sink in even without doing those things.

I think it works fine in Kingdom Come Deliverance because the goal of that game is to be a cinematic Medieval Life Sim. The inconveniences are part of the intended experience. Most games don't go all out on trying to be Life Sims.

You should probably fire the people on your team arguing to remove ammo.

Oh wait, Pillars of Eternity doesn't have ammo. Fire Sawyer!

I like special arrows, but ammo management in the IE games was just a lot of busywork that didn't make the game more enjoyable to play. Bioware and Owlcat also recognized this.

 

[Alienman]

I like special arrows, but ammo management in the IE games was just a lot of busywork that didn't make the game more enjoyable to play. Bioware and Owlcat also recognized this.

I like ammo management since it sometimes forces your ranged characters into melee. Making them actually use their close-quarters weapons for once. However, it doesn't happen in the BG enchanted editions because of the increased stack.

 

[Roguey]

I like ammo management since it sometimes forces your ranged characters into melee. Making them actually use their close-quarters weapons for once. However, it doesn't happen in the BG enchanted editions because of the increased stack.

Doesn't necessarily happen in the original games as long as you fill up everyone's ammo slots with more to spare and frequently restock.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

"We need durability mechanic, because we need a money sink" is such a non reflective take. If money sink is not fun to sink money in, then it should not be included. Durability mechanic usually is a busywork the game punishes the player for forgetting to do. If there is are no good alternative money sinks in the game, then the number of monetary rewards the game throws at the player should be reduced.

 

[Jacov]

I for one enjoy durability mechanics in RPGs. They enhance the resource management part of the game which is important to RPG experience IMO.
Durability is not a cure for shitty economy, obviously, but it still can be a good balancing tool if done right.

I remember item durability in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. mods (such as Anomaly). That shit is on another level. Every armor and weapon has durability for individual parts, each requires a different set of tools to repair/maintain. Some can't be repaired if dropped below certain percent, and it adds more stress to an already stressful life in the Zone. If you found some cool piece of gear and want to repair it, you have to actively explore the game world in search for parts. The whole system is autistic, but I think it's a good example of a durability mechanic that is not just about numbers — it forces player to engage with the world and other systems.

 

[Harthwain]

"We need durability mechanic, because we need a money sink" is such a non reflective take. If money sink is not fun to sink money in, then it should not be included. Durability mechanic usually is a busywork the game punishes the player for forgetting to do. If there is are no good alternative money sinks in the game, then the number of monetary rewards the game throws at the player should be reduced.

I am against durability, but weapon maintenance could work. For example, your weapon has a random chance to jam if not kept in proper order. You could buy maintenance kits to simulate keeping your weapon clean to reduce that chance to as low as possible. Other consumables can also work as money sinks (food, bandages, pills to clean water sources, etc.).

 

[0sacred]

Tim likes durability because it makes people swap weapons frequently, even though that is something that leads to bloated inventories and fucked up carrying capacity and players carrying a whole arsenal of weapons. It needs to die in a fire IMO. How many weapons did Aragorn use? Exactly.

Tim even thinks it's a great money sink Because paying to have my sword repaired after killing 20 bandits is fun?

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Properly employed, logistics enhance exploration, whether via encumbrance and its effects, inventory limitations in terms of weight/volume/spaces, food/hunger, water/thirst, sleep/fatigue/stamina, equipment deterioration & repair, a day/night cycle, or lighting and the impact of darkness. Not every CRPG needs every one of these, but these mechanics are generally easier to emulate in the medium of a computer, relative to pen-and-paper RPGs where they quickly become computationally ponderous.

 

[Wesp5]

In my experience logistics are often used to make short games feel longer. This goes from inventory tetris to breaking weapons, you spend more time with this than actually playing the game!

 

[ds]

Properly employed, logistics enhance exploration, whether via encumbrance and its effects, inventory limitations in terms of weight/volume/spaces, food/hunger, water/thirst, sleep/fatigue/stamina, equipment deterioration & repair

"Properly employed" is doing quite a bit of heavy lifting here. If its just mindless busywork and you are always have enough resources to maintain your gear then it doesn't really add anything. I think most games fall into that. It's also annoying if items no longer stack once slightly damaged/used, making your inventory into a disorderly mess. Forcing the player to switch weapons by constantly breaking them form even the slightest use also is somewhat of an admission that you can't your weapons interesting enough - better to give the player a reason to switch by choice due to weapons actually being different and useful in different situations.

a day/night cycle, or lighting and the impact of darkness.

These are not like the others, the only common thing is that its a repeating cycle. Sure, if implemented badly and you can just chuck a potion each dawn/dusk to negate the effects then it's boring. But unlike damaged weapons or hunger, day/night cycles have much more potential to affect *how* you play rather than just forcing to waste time on repetitive "minigames".

In my experience logistics are often used to make short games feel longer. This goes from inventory tetris to breaking weapons, you spend more time with this than actually playing the game!

Admittedly it *is* mostly padding but I usually like inventory tetris more than spreadsheet inventories. It can be fun to organize your inventory so that you can actually find things later and differently sized and shaped items (even if the size is abstracted) do feel better than just a list of items. I guess it just depends on how it's implemented, how many items you are spammed with and personal preferences.

 

[Infinitron]

It might be possible to flesh out the concept of weapon durability to create viable alternative playstyles. Eg, in addition to the standard RPG playstyle of picking the best all-around weapon and keeping it in good shape, there could be a build that leans deliberately on weapon fungibility.

Or what if there was a limit on item durability, such that over time it would degrade beyond your ability to repair it? I can't recall it now, but I'm pretty sure I played a game where each time you repaired an item, its max durability dropped.

 

[Infinitron]

Anyway:

I answer a lot of questions in one video, including my most inspirational setting, company food catering, the difference between AA and AAA games, making better boss encounters, thoughts on save scumming, and thoughts on asset reuse.

 

[Butter]

Or what if there was a limit on item durability, such that over time it would degrade beyond your ability to repair it? I can't recall it now, but I'm pretty sure I played a game where each time you repaired an item, its max durability dropped.

Brigand: Oaxaca does this.

TLoZ: Majora's Mask has a sword upgrade called the Razor Sword. It deals extra damage, but after 100 uses it reverts to the ordinary Kokiri Sword. If you complete a quest chain, you can upgrade the Razor Sword to the Gilded Sword, which deals even more damage and will never lose its sharpness. This is a limited kind of weapon durability that I think people could generally get behind. Your weapon never falls apart or becomes useless, but it can lose a bonus if not maintained.

 

[Roguey]

"I'm completely unconcerned with save scumming" - Tim Cain

Sawyer seething.

 

[Wesp5]

Or what if there was a limit on item durability, such that over time it would degrade beyond your ability to repair it?

I think durability is kind of ridiculous. Most games play out over a few days, why should weapons like swords or firearms degrade enough in that time so they would break? A self-made wooden stick maybe, but a professional weapon, no!

 

[ds]

Or what if there was a limit on item durability, such that over time it would degrade beyond your ability to repair it? I can't recall it now, but I'm pretty sure I played a game where each time you repaired an item, its max durability dropped.

Brigand: Oaxaca does this.

Arx Fatalis does as well if your object knowledge skill below 100. The NPC smith also won't degrade the max durability.

Not an RPG, but Dying Light also restricts the number of times you can repair weapons. Doesn't really make it more interesting.

 

[Alienman]

Or what if there was a limit on item durability, such that over time it would degrade beyond your ability to repair it?

I think durability is kind of ridiculous. Most games play out over a few days, why should weapons like swords or firearms degrade enough in that time so they would break? A self-made wooden stick maybe, but a professional weapon, no!

Maybe not durability, as a percentage, but having a weapon shatter would be cool. I mean, think of the amount of fighting you do in every average RPG.

 

[Spukrian]

I can't recall it now, but I'm pretty sure I played a game where each time you repaired an item, its max durability dropped.

I remember that game, it's called Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura.

 

[SpaceWizardz]

Or what if there was a limit on item durability, such that over time it would degrade beyond your ability to repair it? I can't recall it now, but I'm pretty sure I played a game where each time you repaired an item, its max durability dropped.

Dying Light.
Unrelated but I quite liked how KCD handled durability with it feeding into the Charisma stat where if you simultaneously had expensive gear and kept it well-maintained you could use it to pass speech checks as well as just having a ton of ambient dialogue reactivity where NPCs would treat you as nobility rather than a stinky peasant boy. Item maintenance was still a money sink but it felt rewarding rather than tedious.