Cain on Games - Tim Cain's new YouTube channel

[Russia is over. The end.]

Elden Ring is an RPG now?

Foul tarnished, unfit to appreciate the best RPG of 2022.

 

[gurugeorge]

To be fair, he is talking about "of the 21st century."

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

He also is talking about specific things the games do. He doesn’t just bring up Skyrim and say Skyrim in general is good. The one thing he brings up Skyrim for is something even people that hate the game seem to agree is something Bethesda does well... or at least was something they used to do well.

 

[Wesp5]

He also is talking about specific things the games do. He doesn’t just bring up Skyrim and say Skyrim in general is good.

Speaking of Skyrim, while playing The Outer Worlds DLC, the ugly lifeless NPCs remind me very much of Skyrim !

 

[__scribbles__]

I talk about my thoughts on video game piracy.

 

[Roguey]

"People I know who have pirated games wouldn't have bought them anyway."

Color wheels excluded the colorblind, good job, anti-pirates.

Cain supports the game preservation aspects of piracy.

Tim's two biggest issues in the game industry: 1) too many hands in the pie when it comes to who gets paid 2) lack of incentives for individual employees to be loyal to a company

Tim believes the reason why writing is trash in current games is because all the best writers write screenplays where they can get royalties, but from my perspective, current film/tv/games are all trash.

 

[Cyberarmy]

"People I know who have pirated games wouldn't have bought them anyway."

There was no way to buy legit, legal games in Turkey till early 2000's. Only some major releases and you have to be lucky to get it before stocks are finished.
I was only able to buy most games in my Europe travels, I was one of the lucky ones.

 

[NecroLord]

I talk about my thoughts on video game piracy.

Har, har, har!
Honestly, is piracy really all that bad?
When does it legitimately become a major issue?
Because, with the current vile practices of this rotten, soulless industry, those motherfuckers are literally begging people to pirate their shit.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

1. World of Warcraft,
2. Elden Ring,
3. Skyrim,
4. Fallout: New Vegas,
5. Baldur's Gate 3.

Runner ups:
1. Bloodlines,
2. Half-Life 2,
3. Vampire Survivors.

That's a woefully disappointing list no matter the standards. I'd wager most journos would do better and would probably try to include at least one actually decent, less mainstream crpg even if they didn't really play it. Also HL2 lol.

 

[mindx2]

Tim loved "feelies" as well! He's spot on about how it enhanced the fun of the game and added to the sense of discovery in the world you were about to embark in. I miss reaching into the box for those cloth maps and what other treasures might be contained within...

 

[NecroLord]

1. World of Warcraft,
2. Elden Ring,
3. Skyrim,
4. Fallout: New Vegas,
5. Baldur's Gate 3.

Runner ups:
1. Bloodlines,
2. Half-Life 2,
3. Vampire Survivors.

That's a woefully disappointing list no matter the standards. I'd wager most journos would do better and would probably try to include at least one actually decent, less mainstream crpg even if they didn't really play it. Also HL2 lol.

Honestly, this shit could be considered outright trolling.
C'mon, he couldn't be serious...


Could he?

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

"People I know who have pirated games wouldn't have bought them anyway."

I buy games that have online aspects that interest me. For instance, all I bought all Dark Souls because of online. I loved Disco, but I didn't buy it - no rational reason.

Also, royalties are a very good point. Piracy is only morally theft when the developers keep getting paid. Otherwise, you're "stealing" from those who are themselves thieves of their employees' labor (owners/investors), so they deserve nothing.

t. Socialist POV.

 

[Viata]

Any list to learn about RPG development that doesn't include Knights of the Chalice is shit. Simple as that. It's not even my favorite game, but a must for anyone that wants to learn about RPG development. That one and any one of the old Spiderweb Software games. But alas, they are not triple A so people like Tim Cain don't play such low level games. God knows the horrors that happens to his mind if he has to play these kind of games.

 

[NecroLord]

God knows the horrors that happens to his mind if he has to play these kind of games.

It cures his gayness, perhaps?

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Tim loved "feelies" as well! He's spot on about how it enhanced the fun of the game and added to the sense of discovery in the world you were about to embark in. I miss reaching into the box for those cloth maps and what other treasures might be contained within...

 

[__scribbles__]

I tell the story of the photo of me wearing a wig and holding an Oscar statuette. The photo was taken in early 2004.

 

[Viata]

Sounds like he got bored of all those game design videos.

 

[__scribbles__]

I talk about enemy progression and basic techniques to put together more difficult enemy encounters.

 

[__scribbles__]

I talk about enemy progression and basic techniques to put together more difficult enemy encounters.

Since StrongBelwas doesn't seem to be up to doing the summaries anymore, I may as well try my hand at one considering that this is a topic I'm actually fairly interested in.

Cain starts out by addressing a comment asking him to talk about "enemy scaling". He then differentiates enemy scaling and enemy progression:
-Enemy scaling is essentially level scaling. Your numbers get bigger and your gear gets better, enemies follow suit. He isn't a fan of this type as he feels that it's illogical for e.g. a bandit to still be a bandit when they could retire off of selling their equipment.
-Enemy progression is a creature or group of creatures naturally getting harder as the player grows in strength without artificially increasing numbers.
Enemy progression consists of two main factors: the number of enemies and variety in enemies. Variety can mean variety in individuals - individual creatures do more things - and variety in groups - where there are different types of creatures.
Cain uses an example with bandits to showcase enemy progression. The first encounter with a bandit is just one single bandit, the second is against a couple of bandits with different tactics and equipment, the third is against a few more bandits with different equipment or support in the form of attack dogs. He uses this example to illustrate a "bandit encounter" getting harder and harder by increasing the number of enemies and what capabilities those enemies have.
Increasing the number of enemies is easy, so Cain talks more about variety, specifically attack variation. You can give enemies different types of attacks - melee units, ranged units, etc. Ranged units with area of effect attacks seem to be a personal favorite as they can hit multiple targets as well as around cover. Another way of increasing attack variation is simply by giving the enemies better gear, but within reason - no bandits wearing Glass armor.
Another way of forcing attack variety is by giving enemies limited use weapons, for example a rocket launcher with only one rocket, or a gun that takes a long time to reload that forces the enemies to switch to a faster weapon thus requiring the player switch up their tactics mid-fight. Attack variation can also be introduced by different movement speeds - enemies that sprint, jump, hover above the player and use ranged fire(with the caveat that there needs to be a way for melee-only characters to bring them down).
Various other methods are adding enemies mid-fight through for example a summoning spell, environmental elements such as traps or cover, and adding attacks that change the environment such as setting things on fire through fire-breathing or acid spitting.

So, to summarize - enemy progression is defined by the number of enemies you throw at the player, and how varied those enemies are - both in how they attack, move, or change the battlefield around them, and which types they are - mixed melee and range, enemies from two different factions attacking you at once, or enemies requiring certain items. For the last one, he uses an example of a wizard who can summon undead that the player needs holy water or cleric spells to put down.
Cain concludes by saying that he thinks this is a better way of doing combat progression rather than just pumping up stats and giving all the enemies ridiculously good gear.

TL;DR: Enemy progression is more engaging when done with numerous enemies with varied roles and abilites than when done by just increasing numbers.

 

[Tyranicon]

1. World of Warcraft,
2. Elden Ring,
3. Skyrim,
4. Fallout: New Vegas,
5. Baldur's Gate 3.

Runner ups:
1. Bloodlines,
2. Half-Life 2,
3. Vampire Survivors.

I just recently caught this video in my recommends and

You know what, RPG dev has always been tremendous decline, I'm just going to make actual fucking porn. This industry is stupid as fuck.

 

[Gandalf]

I've just found out that Redaxium 2 got a super duper Tim Cain udpate:

-Change: Added a Barkeeper named "Cain" and renamed a Shopkeeper
to "Tim" in Prospercanius.

 

[__scribbles__]

I talk about how to pick the right project for you, based on your team size, team strengths, and budget.

p.s. the sound is bad in this video, because I bought a boom arm and placed the microphone facing away from me in cardioid mode. This will be fixed in tomorrow’s video. I wonder how many people will mention the bad sound in comments without reading this video’s description.

 

[StrongBelwas]

The team size ,budget, and time is pretty much everything you need to know to figure out what projects to take on.
The more features you have, the richer the game, but the more time it takes. More skills, more traits, they will begin to interact with each other, which will raise questions.
Doing fewer features can also work, but you have to make them work and be front and center. If you're gonna do parkour, make sure parkour is super important, places you can't get to without it, places where some enemies can't get to you if you parkour (And some special enemies that can get there to be scary.) If you put in physics, make sure to lean into it with weapons that and use it and implement lots of explosives, or include limb removal.
Once you know how many features you can do, pick features that count.
Take a look at what your team is good at, and base your features on that. If you have many writers, make a story focused game, if you have a lot of artists, make a very interesting visual focused game, like maybe an adventure game or puzzle game.
Tim made different engines for Fallout in the first months of him working solo on it, a 3D one, a second one that was a voxel engine that did a great job with water and elevation, but not so good with creatures and buildings. The third one was a sprite engine. Looking at those engines, and the team members he could probably get, he went with the sprite engine. 3D may have been the future, but going with 3D at that point would have been a huge mistake. Looking at the voxel engine, did not think Fallout would be a game about water and elevation, it needed lots of buildings and NPCs.
If someone is funding you, they probably have a lot of decision making. The main decision about what the game will be was often not up to Cain because he was not the one funding it. He could lean on them and influence thigs like choice and consequences , but it wasn't his call. If you are fortunate enough to have a funder without an idea in mind or you're going indie, see who on the team has the strongest vision and good communication team. If someone has a good vision but can't communicate it, they might as well have no vision. If you have a guy who is good at talking but no real ideas of his own, you're probably going to be stuck with him having you constantly playing catch up on other people's games by inserting stuff he saw them do instead of doing your own thing.
Team members often sway the choices being made, people know what they're good at and will come to you about it. They can't do art in a particular style, but they are very good at designing some creatures. If one of your team members does rather rigid animations, maybe do something with robots instead of animals like snakes. If someone on the team has a lot of experience playing your genre of choice, they can give advice on what features players want.
Especially if you are being funded, people want to know the hook, the thing that gets it attention. Cain personally doesn't think they are 100% needed, but they often come from someone on the team who feels very strongly for a particular feature. Much easier to market the game with one, answer journalist questions, show them a bit of gameplay with it. Never hurts to have one.

 

[NecroLord]

1. World of Warcraft,
2. Elden Ring,
3. Skyrim,
4. Fallout: New Vegas,
5. Baldur's Gate 3.

Runner ups:
1. Bloodlines,
2. Half-Life 2,
3. Vampire Survivors.

I just recently caught this video in my recommends and

View attachment 45712

You know what, RPG dev has always been tremendous decline, I'm just going to make actual fucking porn. This industry is stupid as fuck.

Yeah, I've been wondering as well if he was being dead serious.
I guess he was...

 

[Squid]

He also is talking about specific things the games do. He doesn’t just bring up Skyrim and say Skyrim in general is good. The one thing he brings up Skyrim for is something even people that hate the game seem to agree is something Bethesda does well... or at least was something they used to do well.

Like clockwork in how most are upset or laughing at that list while not bothering to understand what Tim was saying (or why he's saying it). He's not going to pick AD&D or 3.5 iteration #3,572 that doesn't seem to be doing anything particularly new, no matter how good it is. And also, it's Youtube, how can anyone think he's going to talk about the most "grognard" indie title when he's talking to potentially a very wide/diverse audience which most of them know him as the "Fallout" guy?

And I doubt he's thinking "Oh you said you'd want to make an RPG so you must mean exactly <insert your username here>'s definition of what constitutes a RPG instead of the normal, overly broad term we see these days."

Any list to learn about RPG development that doesn't include Knights of the Chalice is shit.

What about playing this game do you think he'd see something from and be able to say to others "try what they're trying here?" I haven't played it and genuinely want to know the answer.

But alas, they are not triple A so people like Tim Cain don't play such low level games. God knows the horrors that happens to his mind if he has to play these kind of games.

Why do you word it like he's stuck up and would refuse to consider playing these games?