Cain on Games - Tim Cain's new YouTube channel

[Geomancer86]

He skipped a day, strange.

 

[Wesp5]

He skipped a day, strange.

He lately announced he will not do videos on the weekends anymore.

 

[Geomancer86]

He skipped a day, strange.

He lately announced he will not do videos on the weekends anymore.

Thank you, I have been skipping the last couple of weeks or so, Tim Fatigue is setting.

 

[Infinitron]

I talk about the decades-long process by which flaws eventually made it into one of my games.

Yes, yes, I know what you're thinking.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Tim: bro look at all these cool deep combat mechanics we introduced in The Outer Worlds
Players: charge pulse rifle, fire, charge pulse rifle, fire, do the same thing for the rest of the game with pulse rifle type 2 and pulse rifle type 3

 

[0sacred]

Failing/completing quests should give you flaws/perks more often. It's a pet peeve of mine that the game doesn't track your achievements and failures more closely. It would also be cool if the gameworld reacted more strongly, but giving out perks and flaws is easier to do. It's also a way to reduce degenerate quest hoarding.

 

[Modron]

Failing/completing quests should give you flaws/perks more often. It's a pet peeve of mine that the game doesn't track your achievements and failures more closely. It would also be cool if the gameworld reacted more strongly, but giving out perks and flaws is easier to do. It's also a way to reduce degenerate quest hoarding.

The only game I can think of that did this with any regularity is the Game of Thrones RPG, it gave you small improvement perks for accomplishments like striking down a bunch of wildlings in a combat encounter you can't win, handed a number out based on your choices, completing a few quests, and other occasions I cannot recall.

 

[Infinitron]

I talk about one of my favorite mementos, my T. Ray original drawing of me in the Vault Boy style.

 

[StrongBelwas]

Love/hate relationship with focus group testing
Wasn't really a thing in the 80s, almost always publisher organized focus groups. Cain wonders if the publisher doesn't even know their own opinion of the game.
Likes that they are recorded, gives him a way to see them when they become frustrated or angry with aspects of the game such as UI, which can be used to instruct the team.
Feedback on people being annoyed by NPCs or confused by the narrative.
Likes the heat maps that log the player's position whenever events happen in the game. Was very helpful during Carbine because they noticed a player managed to get to a place that was only supposed to be accessed by flight or NPC assistance, so they could fix it beforehand.
Using heat maps to track deaths can let you see somewhere a level designer might have dropped a much larger foe (And possibly keep it there if you add enough warning.)
Despite that, he hates focus groups because most of the audience has no idea why they (dis)like something. They may claim they can explain why they love or hate something, but their explanation seems to be totally disconnected from how they actually play it.
People will spread their feelings about some aspects of the game to unrelated aspects (i.e they dislike the combat, so now they complain about everything else)
Focus groups can get contradictory feedback from other groups or themselves (They complain about being handheld, then they complain when there is no quest marker.) Some people are just negative, other people are too polite and only talk about what they like and you have to read between the lines for what they dislike.
On a personal level, he makes his games for himself. Focus grouping overuse turns the game into design by committee, and it feels less personal.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Focus groups are shit. That's used for crappy corporate stuff, where nobody has any passion for what they do. Artistic stuff (like games) should be driven by personal passion and insanity. Sure, sometimes it will be utter shit and fail to sell, but if Michaelangelo, Da Vinci, and Ron Jeremy didn't use focus groups, neither should vidya game developers.

 

[StrongBelwas]

A boss is a place where the designer can have the player demonstrate they have learnt the game.
Didn't really want to use bosses in Outer Worlds.
A boss is unique because it is specially placed and designed, ideally with lots of warning ahead of time. Preparation on the part of the player is possible beforehand.
For balancing player characters that didn't bring in combat skills (Outside of simply avoiding the fight entirely), for stealth characters, you can have ways for them to prepare the encounter such as a special locked area that can weaken the boss or give them special gear. For dialogue based characters, you could have dialogue options to weaken the boss or persuade NPCs to follow you to help fight.
Leadership skill in Outer Worlds was one method for speech characters to handle boss fights easier.
Bosses can have smaller monsters to benefit players with area of effect abilities.
Bosses can go through stages that make players adapt.
In ToEE, Zuggtmoy's various options when they surrender was one way to make the fight more interesting.
Environmental hazards can be added to the fight as it goes on, also giving a benefit to player characters that upgraded movement options.
Post-boss, you can have NPC's react to equipment the player looted from the boss (One example of this was in Arcanum, where armor reaction was implemented with the intention to use it with bosses ) or have the world mention it was killed, such as with reputation or titles.

 

[NecroLord]

A boss is a place where the designer can have the player demonstrate they have learnt the game.
Didn't really want to use bosses in Outer Worlds.
A boss is unique because it is specially placed and designed, ideally with lots of warning ahead of time. Preparation on the part of the player is possible beforehand.
For balancing player characters that didn't bring in combat skills, for stealth characters, you can have ways for them to prepare the encounter such as a special locked area that can weaken the boss or give them special gear. For dialogue based characters, you could have dialogue options to weaken the boss or persuade NPCs to follow you to help fight.
Leadership skill in Outer Worlds was one method for speech characters to handle boss fights easier.
Bosses can have smaller monsters to benefit players with area of effect abilities.
Bosses can go through stages that make players adapt.
In ToEE, Zuggtmoy's various options when they surrender was one way to make the fight more interesting.
Environmental hazards can be added to the fight as it goes on, also giving a benefit to player characters that upgraded movement options.
Post-boss, you can have NPCs react to equipment the player looted from the boss or have the world mention it was killed.

Or you can just talk the main boss out of his evil plans:
Fallout 1 - The Master
Arcanum - Kerghan.

 

[Roguey]

Funny thing about Zuggtmoy is that if you agree to parley but don't agree to her surrender, she just refills back to full health so you would have been better off not talking to her at all.

Or you can just talk the main boss out of his evil plans:
Fallout 1 - The Master
Arcanum - Kerghan.

Outer Worlds as well. Never saw that boss fight.

 

[NecroLord]

Funny thing about Zuggtmoy is that if you agree to parley but don't agree to her surrender, she just refills back to full health so you would have been better off not talking to her at all.

Or you can just talk the main boss out of his evil plans:
Fallout 1 - The Master
Arcanum - Kerghan.

Outer Worlds as well. Never saw that boss fight.

There's also the Balor in the Fire Node...
If it were a true Balor with its proper stats from the 3.5 rulebook, it would've quickly ended your party's run and result in a TPK.
Even without its stats and abilities, the Balor is still strong and the fight is still tough.

 

[Bohrain]

Regarding flaws, the Outer Worlds implementation wasn't really interesting. If I recall correctly the bonuses were usually just some flat bonus to damage or movespeed if you meet a condition. Cain's issue with flaws on character creation is that you have to be aware what your character concept will be, but isn't that true anyway? Every system I can think of makes you do the most playstyle or build defining choices in character creation. And the magic of flaws is always thinking of how you are going to circumvent the particular disadvantages, which again is easier to do when you are deciding it when making your other build relevant choices. Getting a flaw later on the game is usually forced on you, because it doesn't really make much sense to hamper yourself on your own volition. And having a permanent injury or whatever is usually either part of the risks you are willing to take, or just plain irritating.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Funny thing about Zuggtmoy is that if you agree to parley but don't agree to her surrender, she just refills back to full health so you would have been better off not talking to her at all.

Or you can just talk the main boss out of his evil plans:
Fallout 1 - The Master
Arcanum - Kerghan.

Outer Worlds as well. Never saw that boss fight.

In Outer Worlds, the final boss is the desire to uninstall.

 

[Butter]

Tim zeroed in on flaws and ignored the more interesting part of his 5 DEX Cleric anecdote. It would be really cool if your characters were assigned (maybe randomly from a pool) a personal quest based on how you built them. The overall narrative of the game could be the same, but now your Fighter who only rolled a 15 STR wants to defeat a frost giant to prove that he's tougher than he looks.

 

[StrongBelwas]

Keep in mind the same phase will be called different names company to company.
Test rooms are first, individual levels/stages/rooms that are designed to test features in isolation. Combat test rooms with weapons and options to disable AI, stealth test rooms with places to crouch or lockpick, dialogue test room to see how close to have to get to someone to activate dialogue or what dialogue between multiple NPCs would be like. Exploration test rooms to determine the maximum possible movement of the player. A level designer wants to know how high the player can jump, he can just hop into the exploration test room and figure it out.
Next stage is prototyping, designed to put features together and test them. Greybox or unfinished art is used.
A beautiful corner is done to show the team and publisher what the game should look like what it ships, and demonstrate the artists are able to deliver the vision the concept art gives. Very small area, usually not playable. Usually done right after prototype but sometimes at the same time. Very literally a corner, as you turn 180 degrees around and you see the art ends. Outer World's beautiful corner was a water treatment plant, with a ship flying by the windows.
Vertical Slice is one area of the game taken to completion. A full demonstration of what the game should play like, at least within the realms of that section.
Outer World's vertical slice was Roseway, the town, and the ship, but lacked crafting and you couldn't go into the ship. Also lacking fast travel and couldn't switch companions. Everything else was done to completion, including VO(This is sometimes left out of the vertical slice, but the TOW team included it.) As such, the team had Roseway completed for over a year before release.
Cain hasn't heard of the next one being given the same name from other companies that often but the next one in his practice is Horizontal Slice, where all areas of playable, but they may not be content/art complete. Done to see how the levels connect to each other, and see if they forgot to create a way for builds to access important areas. Also lets you get a rough determination of play time.
Also let's you determine if there is any potential issues in the order of quests or areas the player goes in, important not to make any assumptions about what player has or hasn't done when you start a discussion with a NPC.
Alpha stage is when all the areas are in, and all of the content is now in. But it may be unbalanced, buggy, and possibly missing small amounts of small content (i.e all the crafting stations are in, but some of the recipes or resources aren't implemented.)
Beta stage is when all content is implemented, nothing more gets added. Time for fixing bugs, balancing tweaks. optimization.
Patches after release

TL;DR : test room ---->prototype -------->beautiful corner--------> vertical slice --------> horizontal slice --------> alpha --------> beta --------> ship --------> patch/DLC

 

[NecroLord]

Keep in mind the same phase will be called different names company to company.
Test rooms are first, individual levels/stages/rooms that are designed to test features in isolation. Combat test rooms with weapons and options to disable AI, stealth test rooms with places to crouch or lockpick, dialogue test room to see how close to have to get to someone to activate dialogue or what dialogue between multiple NPCs would be like. Exploration test rooms to determine the maximum possible movement of the player. A level designer wants to know how high the player can jump, he can just hop into the exploration test room and figure it out.
Next stage is prototyping, designed to put features together and test them. Greybox or unfinished art is used.
A beautiful corner is done to show the team and publisher what the game should look like what it ships, and demonstrate the artists are able to deliver the vision the concept art gives. Very small area, usually not playable. Usually done right after prototype but sometimes at the same time. Very literally a corner, as you turn 180 degrees around and you see the art ends. Outer World's beautiful corner was a water treatment plant, with a ship flying by the windows.
Vertical Slice is one area of the game taken to completion. A full demonstration of what the game should play like, at least within the realms of that section.
Outer World's vertical slice was Roseway, the town, and the ship, but lacked crafting and you couldn't go into the ship. Also lacking fast travel and couldn't switch companions. Everything else was done to completion, including VO(This is sometimes left out of the vertical slice, but the TOW team included it.) As such, the team had Roseway completed for over a year before release.
Cain hasn't heard of the next one being given the same name from other companies that often but the next one in his practice is Horizontal Slice, where all areas of playable, but they may not be content/art complete. Done to see how the levels connect to each other, and see if they forgot to create a way for builds to access important areas. Also lets you get a rough determination of play time.
Also let's you determine if there is any potential issues in the order of quests or areas the player goes in, important not to make any assumptions about what player has or hasn't done when you start a discussion with a NPC.
Alpha stage is when all the areas are in, and all of the content is now in. But it may be unbalanced, buggy, and possibly missing small amounts of small content (i.e all the crafting stations are in, but some of the recipes or resources aren't implemented.)
Beta stage is when all content is implemented, nothing more gets added. Time for fixing bugs, balancing tweaks. optimization.
Patches after release

TL;DR : test room ---->prototype -------->beautiful corner--------> vertical slice --------> horizontal slice --------> alpha --------> beta --------> ship --------> patch/DLC

You make The Outer Worlds seem more complex and elaborate than it actually is...

 

[Roguey]

Wonder if this was inspired by The Chinese Room's use of "post-alpha" in their trailers.

 

[Geomancer86]

Usually alpha meant internal and beta meant external. The state of completition of those depends on the developer.

If you have a beta in continuous development/feedback cycle, and charge for that, you can call it early access.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

So at which stage they messed up the geometric shapes?

 

[Infinitron]

I wanted to share my five favorite D&D miniatures from my brother's collection.

 

[Nano]

Just think. Whenever he's chatting away in one of his videos, there's a very good chance he has his husband's seed swimming around inside his asshole.

 

[whydoibother]

Just think. Whenever he's chatting away in one of his videos, there's a very good chance he has his husband's seed swimming around inside his asshole.

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