Cain on Games - Tim Cain's new YouTube channel

[__scribbles__]

I talk about the kind of quest markers I prefer to use in my games, something that has changed over the years.

 

[StrongBelwas]

Cain has gone between all the various forms of quest markers in his games. Sums them up as no quest markers, area radius quest markers, and a quest marker that is exactly on the item/creature you are after.
Basically every form of quest marker (no marker, area marker, arrow right on what you're looking for) will get someone upset, whether they want something more specific, or something less specific. Can't please everyone.
Why not make it an option, possibly merging it with the difficulty setting? Cain has worked with game developers who hate when you have any option at all that changes the mechanics, and think you should just make up your mind. Sound, visual, accessibility, fine perhaps. Difficulty settings should just be for making combat harder/easier, and not because the developer was indecisive about their quest interface. Also, Cain has seen players complain about quest markers even when you can turn them off.
If you decide to have no quest markers, people will just look everything up online. Unless the location is randomized , they'll just check the web and go over there.
If he had to pick one today, based on his history, he would go with area markers. With the size of the area being something that can be based on the quest. If someone is designing a quest that involved monsters in a dungeon, they could put the marker on the floor with the monsters, the entrance of the dungeon, or the valley that the dungeon is in.
He's worked on games that let you do fancy quest area shapes, but he thinks just a circle where you decide the radius works fine. If you make the radius tight enough, it functions the same as games with quest markers with exact location, a wide radius can be just what the NPC described to the player.
He would support multiple markers for one quest. If you need to find an item that could be in 1 of 5 dungeons, mark the 5 dungeons, or having to kill 5 bandits and having the markers disappear as they die. He's seen enough good quest designs that needed multiple markers, make sure you support it even if a radius works fine for most quests.
Would suggest any quest defaults to one small circular radius, that can be added to or increased in size by the quest designer, and is flexible enough to be changed throughout development depending on what you decide to do specifically.

 

[Roguey]

Ultimately depends on who the audience for the game is. Mass market RPG meant to sell millions? Quest compass. Hardcore RPGs for 10-100,000 core gamers? No quest compass.

 

[Alienman]

Game for zoomers? No quests, but a cosmetic store.

 

[NecroLord]

I do not approve of quest markers.
Leave it the way Morrowind did.
You have major areas - cities, other landmarks, ruins, etc, there is no need for quest markers, just use your journal for directions.

 

[Roguey]

there is no need for quest markers, just use your journal for directions.

As Tim says, loads of people get really mad when the game doesn't show them where they need to go. It's been an expected feature since Oblivion from 2006.

Of course that didn't stop Elden Ring from saying "fuck you, no quest markers, just a regular compass" and still selling millions, but Tim also asserts that everyone annoyed by this just looks at a map online when this happens.

 

[Butter]

there is no need for quest markers, just use your journal for directions.

As Tim says, loads of people get really mad when the game doesn't show them where they need to go. It's been an expected feature since Oblivion from 2006.

Of course that didn't stop Elden Ring from saying "fuck you, no quest markers, just a regular compass" and still selling millions, but Tim also asserts that everyone annoyed by this just looks at a map online when this happens.

Moral of the story is you don't have to pander to casuals. If it's a good game, they'll still buy it and your review scores won't suffer. Casuals will always look up guides and hints, because they want to consume the game and move on, not get stuck on something mildly challenging or potentially miss a secret.

 

[Modron]

As Tim says, loads of people get really mad when the game doesn't show them where they need to go. It's been an expected feature since Oblivion from 2006.

Yeah just look at all the codexers who cried about no map in Underrail until Styg finally gave into their demands.

 

[Roguey]

Moral of the story is you don't have to pander to casuals. If it's a good game, they'll still buy it and your review scores won't suffer. Casuals will always look up guides and hints, because they want to consume the game and move on, not get stuck on something mildly challenging or potentially miss a secret.

I think From gets a pass from critics because of the bottom-up wave of acclaim creating Fear of Missing Out. There are certainly a loud number of them who are constantly complaining about how their games need an easy difficulty so their jobs can be easier. And then there are the envious western devs:

 

[Butter]

Moral of the story is you don't have to pander to casuals. If it's a good game, they'll still buy it and your review scores won't suffer. Casuals will always look up guides and hints, because they want to consume the game and move on, not get stuck on something mildly challenging or potentially miss a secret.

I think From gets a pass from critics because of the bottom-up wave of acclaim creating Fear of Missing Out. There are certainly a loud number of them who are constantly complaining about how their games need an easy difficulty so their jobs can be easier. And then there are the envious western devs:

I meant user review scores. Critic review scores are of course completely worthless. On the off chance that they aren't being paid to give a 9.5/10, the average critic's scoring system seems to be a byzantine combination of:

1. Does this game feature "accessibility options"? (in other words, is it braindead easy?)
2. Does this game feature lots of gay people and black people?
3. Does this game have good graphics and lots of cinematics?
4. Is the game relatively stable/bug-free?

So yeah, by this metric From games shouldn't be getting 97s. It's likely that fear of the unwashed masses drives a lot of the critical praise.

 

[NecroLord]

Moral of the story is you don't have to pander to casuals. If it's a good game, they'll still buy it and your review scores won't suffer. Casuals will always look up guides and hints, because they want to consume the game and move on, not get stuck on something mildly challenging or potentially miss a secret.

I think From gets a pass from critics because of the bottom-up wave of acclaim creating Fear of Missing Out. There are certainly a loud number of them who are constantly complaining about how their games need an easy difficulty so their jobs can be easier. And then there are the envious western devs:

I meant user review scores. Critic review scores are of course completely worthless. On the off chance that they aren't being paid to give a 9.5/10, the average critic's scoring system seems to be a byzantine combination of:

1. Does this game feature "accessibility options"? (in other words, is it braindead easy?)
2. Does this game feature lots of gay people and black people?
3. Does this game have good graphics and lots of cinematics?
4. Is the game relatively stable/bug-free?

So yeah, by this metric From games shouldn't be getting 97s. It's likely that fear of the unwashed masses drives a lot of the critical praise.

From has legions of faithful players and fans.
I am of the opinion that many of them are obnoxious and insufferably arrogant, thinking that FromSoftware are some kind of artists and philosophers and nothing can compete against them, while many others are quite friendly, open and eager to learn all there is about the lore, tactics, enemy movements, and so on.

 

[__scribbles__]

I talk about the design and development process that goes into a feature as seemingly straightforward as damage numbers in combat.

 

[NecroLord]

"You were critically hit for no damage."

 

[Alienman]

"You were critically hit for no damage."

That's an ego hit. It might not do damage to the flesh, but it hits deep emotionally.

 

[ciox]

Did people really notice that those floating damage numbers moved differently depending on damage type?

I guess it does work as an obscure little trick for colorblind people to use in that situation, but you also have Underrail just putting icons next to the damage numbers so that it's really obvious what happened.

 

[StrongBelwas]

Damage numbers are frequently overlooked, particularly in Cain's older games, it was often left as a small concern.
First time Cain really thought about damage numbers seriously as a mechanic was at WildStar and revisited in the Outer Worlds.
Cain still plays to this game with poorly implemented damage numbers. He'll do 12+4 damage, but the poor rendering of the damage numbers makes it look like 124. You can eliminate a lot of headaches by just sitting back and coming up with a good design
Cain says you need the artist, the system designer, UX designer, sound designer, and a programmer to implement it to all get together and figure out how damage is applied, be it ranged/melee attacks or hazards.
On several of Cain's game they decided to combine motion/font size/color/ direction. Font size is based on damage amount. You could also make it so critical hit is always big font and grazes get small font. Could look weird if critical are always defined as a multiple of the attack and the player rolls a really low damage amount.
Color and motion were based on damage type, Cain likes combining them because it means you don't have to account for colorblindness, also if an attack does two kinds of damage types, the motion will separate the numbers from each other, thus avoiding the 12+4 issue Cain mentioned above.
Fire would whaft up, electricity would zig zag, acid would drip off, physical damage was white and would just go off in a direction. Would be good when the player was hit by a burst attack and looked cool seeing the numbers fly off.
For Outer Worlds and Wildstar put together teams just like he described plus a specific producer to coordinate all of it. Would try and seat the team together, on both teams the UX designer and the artist often sat down to figure it out. Try to reduce need to wait for weekly meeting.
It's a big part of combat giving feedback on what you're doing without the player having to look down at a text console, but most people don't really think about it.

 

[__scribbles__]

I talk about making good factions for RPGs, using examples from Fallout. I specifically talk about DESIGNING good factions, not WRITING them, since I am not qualified to talk about the latter.

 

[StrongBelwas]

Using Fallout as an example because it's his oldest game and there shouldn't be any spoilers (Was surprised that china nuking America was considered a spoiler.)
Factions shouldn't be monolithic entities where everyone in them feels and thinks the same things. The super mutants and the brotherhood of steel both had characters that were pretty distinct from the standard grunts.
Cain is sick of narrative designers that think that sarcasm is the first and best way to make a character, if Cain played a game that didn't have any sarcastic characters he'd be happy. It's too easy, if you're thinking of a character and they're main trait is sarcasm, think again. Cain has rejected several characters on games he has worked on because they already had too many sarcastic characters. Plenty of alternatives, you could have smart characters, you could have (very) dumb characters, you could have very violent characters or passive characters. Gives fun opportunities for dialogue skill based player characters. A good faction has room for all kind of characters. They should also have realistic goals the player can understand, such as the mutants appearing to just random attacks but the player learns the raids are trying to find prime humans that didn't receive a lot of radiation. This also explains the difference between the dumber mutants and the Lieutenant. Likewise, the Brotherhood of Steel is trying to preserve technology, and their attacks are explained by trying to keep technology out of the wrong hands (Anyone but theirs.)
Why do you need to make the factions like this? It's realistic, if you care about that (Cain doesn't, but he put it in the list because some people care.) Cain cares about the factions are able to be used to support the story, if they have characters with lots of goals, you have reasons for the player to get involved with the story. It also means that if factions have different characters, different player builds can be supported. If the faction has tough character, combat characters get an interesting fight (Super Mutants and Brotherhood are both very tough to fight.) Speech characters also get interesting options, such as with the smart mutants, or the Cathedral. And for sneak characters, both of those factions are rich and have large maps to sneak and steal through.
Also supports players. Some players want sarcastic NPCs (That's fine, just not too many), some players want mean NPCs.
Big factions with varied characters should also mean no matter what kind of character the player makes it shouldn't be too obvious which faction they should support.
One of Cain's favorite things about New Vegas is that he couldn't out figure out which faction to support, so he made a save and played through it with every faction. Blew up the brotherhood of steel outpost once, felt bad about it but wanted to see what would happen.
TL;DR Make as many different factions as you can with very different faction members.

 

[Alienman]

His disregard for nuance when it comes to factions might explain why the organizations felt so one note in Outer Worlds.

 

[NecroLord]

Using Fallout as an example because it's his oldest game and there shouldn't be any spoilers (Was surprised that china nuking America was considered a spoiler.)
Factions shouldn't be monolithic entities where everyone in them feels and thinks the same things. The super mutants and the brotherhood of steel both had characters that were pretty distinct from the standard grunts.
Cain is sick of narrative designers that think that sarcasm is the first and best way to make a character, if Cain played a game that didn't have any sarcastic characters he'd be happy. It's too easy, if you're thinking of a character and they're main trait is sarcasm, think again. Cain has rejected several characters on games he has worked on because they already had too many sarcastic characters. Plenty of alternatives, you could have smart characters, you could have (very) dumb characters, you could have very violent characters or passive characters. Gives fun opportunities for dialogue skill based player characters. A good faction has room for all kind of characters. They should also have realistic goals the player can understand, such as the mutants appearing to just random attacks but the player learns the raids are trying to find prime humans that didn't receive a lot of radiation. This also explains the difference between the dumber mutants and the Lieutenant. Likewise, the Brotherhood of Steel is trying to preserve technology, and their attacks are explained by trying to keep technology out of the wrong hands (Anyone but theirs.)
Why do you need to make the factions like this? It's realistic, if you care about that (Cain doesn't, but he put it in the list because some people care.) Cain cares about the factions are able to be used to support the story, if they have characters with lots of goals, you have reasons for the player to get involved with the story. It also means that if factions have different characters, different player builds can be supported. If the faction has tough character, combat characters get an interesting fight (Super Mutants and Brotherhood are both very tough to fight.) Speech characters also get interesting options, such as with the smart mutants, or the Cathedral. And for sneak characters, both of those factions are rich and have large maps to sneak and steal through.
Also supports players. Some players want sarcastic NPCs (That's fine, just not too many), some players want mean NPCs.
Big factions with varied characters should also mean no matter what kind of character the player makes it shouldn't be too obvious which faction they should support.
One of Cain's favorite things about New Vegas is that he couldn't out figure out which faction to support, so he made a save and played through it with every faction. Blew up the brotherhood of steel outpost once, felt bad about it but wanted to see what would happen.
TL;DR Make as many different factions as you can with very different faction members.

I like how the Brotherhood just didn't give a shit about what the Vault Dweller did, despite you being an Initiate. One would expect them to train you and have you perform duties for them, but the Wasteland is the best teacher, right?
They let you go on your merry way even in endgame.
Wonder what happened to the Power Armor? Would've been interesting to leave the Power Armor as inheritance to his descendant, namely the Chosen One in Fallout 2, huh?

 

[user]

Moral of the story is you don't have to pander to casuals. If it's a good game, they'll still buy it and your review scores won't suffer. Casuals will always look up guides and hints, because they want to consume the game and move on, not get stuck on something mildly challenging or potentially miss a secret.

I think From gets a pass from critics because of the bottom-up wave of acclaim creating Fear of Missing Out. There are certainly a loud number of them who are constantly complaining about how their games need an easy difficulty so their jobs can be easier. And then there are the envious western devs:

Kehkehkeh I remember that, and they weren't the only ones being salty about something they simply fail to understand. Should they even work the industry?

 

[Vyvian]

Horizon Forbidden Bore guy talking about quest design. Peak comedy.

 

[Moink]

I think the sarcasm thing is less an "easy to write" problem and more a problem with people not being sincere when it comes to writing things nowadays, everything has to be tinged with irony.

 

[Alienman]

I think the sarcasm thing is less an "easy to write" problem and more a problem with people not being sincere when it comes to writing things nowadays, everything has to be tinged with irony.

Marvel writing.

 

[__scribbles__]

I talk about being proactive at work and why this is so important.