Interview Chris Avellone is still pretty mad about Obsidian

[Lurker King]

Sawyer was also popular here, before he was trashed for PoE combat. And making it real-time wasn't even his decision.

No, he was trashed for promoting the belief that traditional cRPGs were wrong in allowing players to make mistakes and bad builds, and for saying in the most arrogant manner that he, the hotshot, got it right. He deserves all the heat and then some.

Here. Some quotes:

"Trash" or "trap" options are a time-honored tradition in RPGs, both tabletop and computer. Trash options are choices that are intentionally designed to be bad, or that don't get enough attention during development and testing to actually be viable in the game.

It is now 2014 and, friends, I am here to tell you that trash options are bullshit.

You are right, Josh. Every option must be good, because players can't be allowed to use bad items. Of course, if every option is equally good, no option is really good. So this time-honored tradition in RPGs is justified after all.

The most important high-level goal with any choice the player makes is that they feel good. We want players to feel that their choices fit their character concept and are ultimately up to the challenge.

Meaning "we don't want players to make any mistakes, they must feel good all the time, because they must be treated as special snowflakes". Popamole design 101.

If this is a "veteran of the industry", I don't want to imagine what a newbie looks like.

 

[Infinitron]

>November 2016
>still posting anti-Sawyer strawman arguments

 

[Lurker King]

>November 2016
>still shilling in the hopes of getting a job in the game industry

 

[Roguey]

Of course, if every option is equally good, no option is really good.

Good thing this doesn't describe Pillars of Eternity at all.

 

[FeelTheRads]

>November 2016
>still posting anti-Sawyer strawman arguments

Sorry, shilltron, Sawyer's dumbfuckery is timeless.

I know it's hard to understand why he's actually a fraud and shit designer, after all he talks so nicely about how every player must feel good, how can this be bad, but in the end the truth is he's just a fraud and shit designer.

 

[Infinitron]

>November 2016
>still posting anti-Sawyer strawman arguments

Sorry, shilltron, Sawyer's dumbfuckery is timeless.

I know it's hard to understand why he's actually a fraud and shit designer, after all he talks so nicely about how every player must feel good, how can this be bad, but in the end the truth is he's just a fraud and shit designer.

This isn't a shill thing anymore, you've even got Excidiums saying Sawyer righted the ship with White March. In reality he's pretty competent, but it might take a few years for the Codex's edgiest people to notice.

 

[FeelTheRads]

In reality

Which one?

In the actual reality, he was and will always be a fraud.

And nope, sorry, I don't care enough to bother with his boring and shit design to actually play Turd March. I'm sure it's the best RPG ever, the most and only balanced game in existence etc etc, but I'll just skip it, thanks.

 

[Lurker King]

This isn't a shill thing anymore, you've even got Excidiums saying Sawyer righted the ship with White March.

How would you know? Since when Excidium is ultimate authority about what is good or bad in gaming? You even played the damn game? The last time you just tried to defend PoE from every criticism and tried to censor Roxxor’s review without even playing it. But let’s pretend for the sake of argument that you actually care about cRPGs, that your Steam account showed that you are always playing them and that you can even discuss abstract arguments about mechanics. There are two main complaints against Sawyer’s philosophy:

First, it tries to make the character system a mere appendix to the player’s whims. The idea is that every choice of character should be supported by the character system, even if violates common sense and makes a careful selection of attributes pointless. Do you want to make a muscled wizard? No problems. We got you covered. Do you want to use grease to knock down a flying dragon? No problems, you can do that. Your choice of skills should be always useful, because you are special and we want to make you happy.

Second, when Sawyer started to talk about how stupid it is to provide wrong choices, you knew that the game would be boring. If no option is a loser, no option is a winner. But if no option is a winner, where is the point of playing a dam game that is nothing but the attempt to surpass challenges? cRPGs, like most games, rewards competitiveness and inventiveness. Trying to make every gamer feeling positive about himself, no matter how stupid their choices are, goes against the very experience that cRPGs should provide. Of course, since they had to implement a lot of classes and spells when they were copying BG, you can’t seriously expect that every choice will be equally good. Nevertheless, Sawyer tried his best to guarantee that despite the difference between the available choices dumb players would still be rewarded.

In reality he's pretty competent, but it might take a few years for the Codex's edgiest people to notice

He is pretty competent about designing maps, I will give him that.

 

[felipepepe]

For the record, I'm still butthurt about PoE.

 

[an Administrator]

Yet another PoE thread

 

[Irenaeus]

>November 2016
>still shilling in the hopes of getting a job in the game industry

I don't think that's what's he's doing. I've been here for 4 years and if that was his plan, it should have come through at some point... Right?

 

[commie]

Second, when Sawyer started to talk about how stupid it is to provide wrong choices, you knew that the game would be boring. If no option is a loser, no option is a winner. But if no option is a winner, where is the point of playing a dam game that is nothing but the attempt to surpass challenges? cRPGs, like most games, rewards competitiveness and inventiveness. Trying to make every gamer feeling positive about himself, no matter how stupid their choices are, goes against the very experience that cRPGs should provide. Of course, since they had to implement a lot of classes and spells when they were copying BG, you can’t seriously expect that every choice will be equally good. Nevertheless, Sawyer tried his best to guarantee that despite the difference between the available choices dumb players would still be rewarded.

Depends on what you mean by 'wrong choices' All classes should be viable otherwise why even have them?Making joke classes that lead to a dead end is shit game design. What is needed is perhaps a punishment for shitty distribution of skills etc. when leveling(such as putting skills into might as a wizard) making the player work with the ROLE he picked rather than the Bethesda "I can max everything out no matter what I pick" which truly is shit design. Also certain classes could require more precise control in order to get the most out of, such as those advanced ones you can find in Wizardry and Jap blobbers.

All options should be viable, though some should be more or less optimal or 'easy'. None should be inherently a dead end, though of course if someone makes a non-balanced party and/or puts their points into skills without thinking as to how the character is supposed to play and how the player intends to use them then by all means that is a legitimate 'dead end' which can make progression brutally hard or even impossible. Though in that case it's not due to some inherent deliberate 'trap' on the path of the designer as the system is fully transparent and only the end user is to blame.

 

[duanth123]

MCA made a couple of really good games once.

Bethesda made a couple of really good games once.

Why is one of the Jesus and the other, Satan?

Codex's very own Anti-Life Equation

 

[commie]

Why on Earth can't anyone make a Skyrim-type game with TB combat, sort of like Wizardry 8? If Avellone or anyone else can pull that off, I'd play it.

They already did:

 

[Delterius]

MCA made a couple of really good games once.

Bethesda made a couple of really good games once.

Why is one of the Jesus and the other, Satan?

MCA is a person. He`s incline until proven otherwise. Bethesda is a company. They fired their MCAs.

 

[Prime Junta]

First, it tries to make the character system a mere appendix to the player’s whims. The idea is that every choice of character should be supported by the character system, even if violates common sense and makes a careful selection of attributes pointless. Do you want to make a muscled wizard? No problems. We got you covered. Do you want to use grease to knock down a flying dragon? No problems, you can do that. Your choice of skills should be always useful, because you are special and we want to make you happy.

:me fails Will save:

(1) "Every choice of character should be supported by the character system" does not "make a careful selection of attributes pointless." On the contrary: a careful selection of attributes is a very important part of making the character concept you have in mind work. A ranged alpha-striking paladin built around Flames of Devotion will have a very different stat distribution than a front-line tanky support paladin. A frontline muscle wizard will have a very different stat distribution and spell selection than a back-row glass cannon wizard. And so on.

(2) You can't actually use Slicken to knock down a flying dragon, damn thing will have Immunity: Ground.

(You are right about skill choice though, that should always feel useful. They should give you different experiences though. Who felt happy about picking Outdoorsman rather than Lockpicking in Fallout?)

 

[CyberWhale]

Why are you even bothering?

 

[Excidium II]

Those are the people that repeated the PoE is too balanced meme even in the 1.0 state. Kinda pointless to argue.

(You are right about skill choice though, that should always feel useful. They should give you different experiences though. Who felt happy about picking Outdoorsman rather than Lockpicking in Fallout?)

You can just punch doors or use a crowbar. Outdoorsman will give special encounters and make travelling less of a pain.

 

[Paul_cz]

Chris is working for Bethesda on Prey 2. Of course he is not gonna go bash their work publicly.

 

[Morkar Left]

First, it tries to make the character system a mere appendix to the player’s whims. The idea is that every choice of character should be supported by the character system, even if violates common sense and makes a careful selection of attributes pointless. Do you want to make a muscled wizard? No problems. We got you covered. Do you want to use grease to knock down a flying dragon? No problems, you can do that. Your choice of skills should be always useful, because you are special and we want to make you happy.

:me fails Will save:

(1) "Every choice of character should be supported by the character system" does not "make a careful selection of attributes pointless." On the contrary: a careful selection of attributes is a very important part of making the character concept you have in mind work. A ranged alpha-striking paladin built around Flames of Devotion will have a very different stat distribution than a front-line tanky support paladin. A frontline muscle wizard will have a very different stat distribution and spell selection than a back-row glass cannon wizard. And so on.

(2) You can't actually use Slicken to knock down a flying dragon, damn thing will have Immunity: Ground.

(You are right about skill choice though, that should always feel useful. They should give you different experiences though. Who felt happy about picking Outdoorsman rather than Lockpicking in Fallout?)

A lot of these changes were only made after people complained a lot about it and demonstrated that it was bad design before (no immunities etc.)

 

[FeelTheRads]

On the contrary: a careful selection of attributes is a very important part of making the character concept you have in mind work.

What you're actually saying is: if you push the buttons put in front of you, you will succeed.
That is what happens when "Every choice of character should be supported by the character system"

A frontline muscle wizard will have a very different stat distribution and spell selection than a back-row glass cannon wizard. And so on.

Yes, you pushed the buttons in a different order. Hurray, very fun.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

MCA made a couple of really good games once.

Bethesda made a couple of really good games once.

Why is one of the Jesus and the other, Satan?

Person vs company as already mentioned. The far bigger reason of course is none of the games Bethesda ever made is even in the same ballpark as PST (I'd also say KOTOR 2 but I'm in a minority in that regard).

Also, there's still the at this point a very faint hope that MCA will still shine again, I'm sure he still has many great ideas floating around in his head but realizing them is gonna require the right circumstances and a large effort on his part (it's not gonna happen if he remains freelancer, designing/writing bits and pieces of other people's games). Bethesduh on the other hand since Oblivion has been the gaming equivalent of McDonalds and that's not going to change given their massive success with dumb console hiking simulators like Oblivion and Skyrim.

 

[Excidium II]

Chris is working for Bethesda on Prey 2. Of course he is not gonna go bash their work publicly.

He's just freelancing. Don't think that affects his opinion and is not the first time he praises their stuff. Tim Cain loves Beth Fallouts too.

 

[Excidium II]

On the contrary: a careful selection of attributes is a very important part of making the character concept you have in mind work.

What you're actually saying is: if you push the buttons put in front of you, you will succeed.
That is what happens when "Every choice of character should be supported by the character system"

A frontline muscle wizard will have a very different stat distribution and spell selection than a back-row glass cannon wizard. And so on.

Yes, you pushed the buttons in a different order. Hurray, very fun.

What he's saying is that different builds benefit from pumping different stats.

 

[Fairfax]

>November 2016
>still posting anti-Sawyer strawman arguments

Sorry, shilltron, Sawyer's dumbfuckery is timeless.

I know it's hard to understand why he's actually a fraud and shit designer, after all he talks so nicely about how every player must feel good, how can this be bad, but in the end the truth is he's just a fraud and shit designer.

This isn't a shill thing anymore, you've even got Excidiums saying Sawyer righted the ship with White March. In reality he's pretty competent, but it might take a few years for the Codex's edgiest people to notice.

I don't think PoE was a bad game, but that doesn't mean he was competent, specially with the resources and co-workers he had available.
What is competent even supposed to mean in this case? If it means delivering what was promised in the KS campaign, he failed.

MCA made a couple of really good games once.

Bethesda made a couple of really good games once.

Why is one of the Jesus and the other, Satan?

MCA is a person. He`s incline until proven otherwise. Bethesda is a company. They fired their MCAs.

Don't bother, Prime Cunta is completely retarded.