Development Info Josh Sawyer on Utility and Balance in Game Design

[Hormalakh]

A lot of the examples being given are also strawmen. No game designer ever puts in a skill and makes absolutely NO use out of it. These skills have variable uses. Even the medicine/doctor skill. They have limited uses, yes, but they still can be used. They might not be used throughout the game, but there will be a time that if you have that skill you do use it. It might not be very effective, but there is still a discernible effect that skill makes in the game. Min-maxers won't use it, but LARPers will.

So, no strawmen please. The whole BG1 katana thing is a strawman. The actual devs who made the game didn't put in katanas as skill precisely because there were no katanas.

 

[Infinitron]

It's just an example. You know very well that there are things in RPGs where in retrospect everybody says "lol that was useless shit". Even if it wasn't literally 100% useless.

 

[Hormalakh]

It's just an example. You know very well that there are things in RPGs where in retrospect everybody says "lol that was useless shit". Even if it wasn't literally 100% useless.

Of course nothing is ever going to be 100% useless, so let's not act like it is.

Once again, my words have nuance. I don't disagree with him in his assessment of skills. But I'm afraid he might be taking the wrong approaches - I can't be sure. He has a knack for seeing problems in games. But I think a lot of people are worried about the solutions he's coming up with. Limiting skill sets is not the solution. Coming up with more content to make skills relevant might be. Maybe the latter IS his approach, I can't tell.

 

[Captain Shrek]

It's just an example. You know very well that there are things in RPGs where in retrospect everybody says "lol that was useless shit". Even if it wasn't literally 100% useless.

Well. that is not exactly a gray area, right? I mean look at it this way: In F:NV IT IS RETARDED to invest in Chr because it does not affect any dialogue option where there is speech skill involved. Granted there are Feats and Special Dialogues that NECESSARILY Chr based. But they are so few and have so little impact on the gameplay compared to other skills that it becomes moot.

The real criticism here is that the redundancy and less than fluff use of the potential CHR. Of course the few instances it is used is not sufficient to justify its existence since those few instances do not justify the punishment of investing in it. That is balance.

 

[Mastermind]

Yes. It actually doesn't matter what he's on about, clowndowns or regenerating stamina (it's not health regen!) for me it all sounds like cop-outs to justifiy the streamlining they'll employ to make the game more welcoming. YMMV.

How do cooldowns make the game more welcoming? How is splitting up health into health and stamina streamlining? It sounds more like you're taking things you don't like, can't really explain why you don't like them and you just group them together as "streamlining" (for the record I'm not generally fond of cooldowns).

 

[Hormalakh]

Captain Shrek Right. and so what you say about TS and RS becomes relevant. Do we increase TOTAL STRATEGIES while keeping RATIO OF STRATEGIES the same, or do we just jack up ratio of strategies to be around 1? I don't think increasing RS is the right answer.

We don't get rid of Charisma, we just make more content for charisma. Or adjust the quests to make a few more use charisma.

 

[Infinitron]

Once again, my words have nuance. I don't disagree with him in his assessment of skills. But I'm afraid he might be taking the wrong approaches - I can't be sure. He has a knack for seeing problems in games. But I think a lot of people are worried about the solutions he's coming up with. Limiting skill sets is not the solution. Coming up with more content to make skills relevant might be. Maybe the latter IS his approach, I can't tell.

Here's the thing about Josh - he sees himself first and foremost as a systems designer, not as a "content creator". Coming up with the content is the job of Avellone, Ziets, etc.

But it's true that in this kind of RPG, the design is heavily dependent on the quantity and quality of the content that makes use of it. To a great extent the two need to be developed side-by-side.

 

[Captain Shrek]

Captain Shrek Right. and so what you say about TS and RS becomes relevant. Do we increase TOTAL STRATEGIES while keeping RATIO OF STRATEGIES the same, or do we just jack up ratio of strategies to be around 1? I don't think increasing RS is the right answer.

Ratio should not be 1!!! it should be really small so that even if there are a lot of winning strategies, there are kind of hidden in a mass of losing ones. So that the challenge is identifying them.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

I get the impression he's using clowndowns and stamina regen to prevent rest spamming and potion spamming, also low health high stamina will still get you killed so I don't have a problem with it.

Prevent rest-spamming? Like Dragon Age, removing the need to rest entirely? Wanna take a bet that the game will spam plenty of potions or something similar at you taking care of the pesky HP/stamina business? Again: cop-outs. I've heard it all before from BioWare.

variety of solutions part - I got the impression he was referring specifically to the way you had to cast breach and/or secret word to dispel enemy mages' protections in BG2 and if you were out of those spells you would've had a much tougher time.

As you've mentioned, it was in no way required to even use these spells in BG2 (but helpful), so the entire point is moot.

Granted, you could stll beat the mage, but I can see from his pov how that seems like pointless frustration for the average player.

So we're balancing the game around the mythical average player, which I assume, is the idiot who shows up at the Obsidian forum complaining that his lvl25 rogue (with an AC of 23, a great display of understanding the game^^) can't win the fights in MotB even on easy, announcing he'll never buy an Obsidian game again. (true story) That's what I meant with devoid of combat challenge. The thing is, if no specific action is required (beyond taking healing potions) and you can win in a variety of ways, in the end it means you can do whatever the fuck you want and still prevail. Which incidentally precisely describes previous Obsidian games' encounter design (Kotor 2 , NWN2) where all you had to do was making use of the OP equipment, put the right spells into the spellbook and let the game play itself.
I bet Eternity will be even worse.

cannot argue with your ACTUAL problem statement, but I reckon as long as I set my combat challenge expectations somewhere slightly above IWD2 and waaaay below SCSII I won't end up being disappoint.

He, IWD2 had some p. awesome encounters. That would be nice, but nothing I hear from Sawyer inspires any hope in that regard.

 

[Infinitron]

Prevent rest-spamming? Like Dragon Age, removing the need to rest entirely? Wanna take a bet that the game will spam plenty of potions or something similar at you taking care of the pesky HP/stamina business? Again: cop-outs. I've heard it all before from BioWare.

You haven't been paying attention. Project Eternity will have no potions and no healing spells.

 

[Pelvis Knot]

BTW, I am considering giving Star Trail another spin. There were some nice RoA advice threads on the 'Dex but I can't find them. Mayhap you have some links good sir?

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/halp-jasedes-realms-of-arkania-thread.53856/
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/playing-roa-1-2.16218/
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/starting-roa-blade-of-destiny-or-star-trail.22530/
http://www.angelfire.com/hero/tjekanefir/arkania.htm
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/the-joy-of-star-trail.22485/

Of course nothing is ever going to be 100% useless, so let's not act like it is.

RoA 1: Ride skill, Drive skill are not used at all. Probably others too.

 

[Hormalakh]

It seems like IWD2-type content is relegated to the "hardcores only" crowd. We'll be having two easy modes: easy and normal. And the rest of us "retards" can move on over to hardcore.

 

[skuphundaku]

And I'm saying that the way it was done in Fallout and Arcanum is better than what Sawyer is proposing here. The player should be allowed to make, if not even tricked into making, wrong choices so that the choices he makes have meaning and long term consequences. Otherwise, you're just sliding towards Bioware-style choices, whether you want to admit it or not.

So what constitutes "meaningful choice and long term consequences"? Is it "shit, I just wasted 30 fucking hours because the game suddenly became a combat grind at the end and my diplomacy skills are now useless"? Great fucking game design.

No, the game shouldn't provide valid solutions for all player choices. The player should be thought ( by carrot or, if necessarily, stick ) that making choices is serious business and, if he fucks up, he'll suffer.

Because that's what games are all about: making the player suffer. Did you work on Bad Rats, by any chance?

Because the constant "you are awesone player!!!!111" moments in modern games are so much better, right? I see nothing wrong with what you quoted, for sure not warranted to post a retard emoticon.

:facepalm: Way to miss the point.

A question to you: how exactly selecting the skills the game wants you to select, without you being able to tell how useful it is makes you awesome/shit player? It's the question of blind luck or metagaming. No real gameplay is involved. So how about we actually introduce skills that are useful in some circumstances and then let the player pick the ones that will help him solve given problem. That's what it is about - usefulness of tools (skills) at your disposal in appropriate contexts.

Every other approach leads to linear nonsense.

There are two ways:
1. The old-school way: read the fucking manual. Oh, wait! Manuals are a fucking joke nowadays, and a big reason for that is that very few were still reading them, now with fratboys being the main gaming demographic.
2. The game itself could provide the player, during gameplay, with information about what does what, but that means an extra layer of complexity, and designers seem more interested in finely balancing everything (in order to make everything DPS-ready I suppose) than adding useful gameplay elements.

 

[Harold]

It's just an example. You know very well that there are things in RPGs where in retrospect everybody says "lol that was useless shit". Even if it wasn't literally 100% useless.

Well. that is not exactly a gray area, right? I mean look at it this way: In F:NV IT IS RETARDED to invest in Chr because it does not affect any dialogue option where there is speech skill involved. Granted there are Feats and Special Dialogues that NECESSARILY Chr based. But they are so few and have so little impact on the gameplay compared to other skills that it becomes moot.

The real criticism here is that the redundancy and less than fluff use of the potential CHR. Of course the few instances it is used is not sufficient to justify its existence since those few instances do not justify the punishment of investing in it. That is balance.

High CHA in FoNV makes the already tough companions almnost immortals (the higher the stat, the higher their nerve i.e damage output and damage resistance), which is exactly what a diplomat character would want since, having his other stats lower, he'd be suckier in combat. That is balance

Spoiler

It's ok Roguey, you don't have to thank me

 

[sea]

There are two ways:
1. The old-school way: read the fucking manual. Oh, wait! Manuals are a fucking joke nowadays, and a big reason for that is that very few were still reading them, now with fratboys being the main gaming demographic.
2. The game itself could provide the player, during gameplay, with information about what does what, but that means an extra layer of complexity, and designers seem more interested in finely balancing everything (in order to make everything DPS-ready I suppose) than adding useful gameplay elements.

1. How is reading the manual supposed to let me divine that I won't get Energy Weapons until the late game? How does it tell me that guns in Arcanum are less powerful than melee combat?
2. By the time you can actually experiment with things, the choices have usually already been made. And that certainly doesn't help situations where certain skills/items/etc. become more or less useful as the game goes on.

 

[Captain Shrek]

High CHA in FoNV makes the already tough companions almnost immortals (the higher the stat, the higher their nerve i.e damage output and damage resistance), which is exactly what a diplomat character would want since, having his other stats lower, he'd be suckier in combat. That is balance

Hmm. Now THAT I can understand.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Prevent rest-spamming? Like Dragon Age, removing the need to rest entirely? Wanna take a bet that the game will spam plenty of potions or something similar at you taking care of the pesky HP/stamina business? Again: cop-outs. I've heard it all before from BioWare.

You haven't been paying attention. Project Eternity will have no potions and no healing spells.

Yeah, I didn't hear that yet. But, I don't believe it, anyway. If not potions, there will be another way to conveniently regain your health, says I. Place your bets now.

 

[skuphundaku]

Once again, my words have nuance. I don't disagree with him in his assessment of skills. But I'm afraid he might be taking the wrong approaches - I can't be sure. He has a knack for seeing problems in games. But I think a lot of people are worried about the solutions he's coming up with. Limiting skill sets is not the solution. Coming up with more content to make skills relevant might be. Maybe the latter IS his approach, I can't tell.

Here's the thing about Josh - he sees himself first and foremost as a systems designer, not as a "content creator". Coming up with the content is the job of Avellone, Ziets, etc.

But it's true that in this kind of RPG, the design is heavily dependent on the quantity and quality of the content that makes use of it. To a great extent the two need to be developed side-by-side.

He should cut it out with all this "systems designer" bullshit. If he wants to call himself a systems designer, he should study systems theory and get an engineering degree. If he doesn't have the intellectual capacity or the patience to do that, he should stop calling himself a systems designer.

 

[Hormalakh]

Honestly, some decisions have to be made without all the information in front of you. If you want to make every decision with all the information, then you're looking to solve math problems. What you then have is min-maxers having everything placed in front of them.

Let's take this to the logical extreme. Let's say in the manual you have a precise count of all the monsters in the game, with damage and every other important stat. Then when you pick racial enemy, you just have some accountant figure out the numbers for you: you see if there are more dragons or demons, which hits for more, and then you pick the best one. Because, otherwise it's "metagaming" right?

Sometimes its better to have less information given to the players and they have to make decisions based on what they already know. This needs a balance.

 

[LeStryfe79]

Stop listening to him then.

This is the key to understanding Grunker. Don't like what you're seeing/hearing?

Stop watching/listening! (buy anyway ofc)

You know it's true dude. Just sayin.

 

[Hormalakh]

He should cut it out with all this "systems designer" bullshit. If he wants to call himself a systems designer, he should study systems theory and get an engineering degree. If he doesn't have the intellectual capacity or the patience to do that, he should stop calling himself a systems designer.

It does irritate those of us who do have an engineering degree...

 

[Harold]

VentilatorOfDoom

Like Infinitron pointed out, there are no healing potions, you can only heal stamina through spells but that doesn't help you much (you still die if your health is low and your health does NOT regenerate). You're right about those previous Obs games but Sawyer didn't do system design on them. He did, however, do so for IWD2 which gives me some hope.

Captain Shrek

I still haven't understood this Rest spamming and Save scumming argument.

Modern players cannot into resource management and want to spam their awsum abilities during every fight which is why they also rest after every encounter (I was shocked to recently find out that this is how a lot of people played IE games). Sawyer considers that 'degenerate gameplay' and so now we have this whole cool-down and grimoire switching bullshit to prevent it. I still think my 'graying out the rest button' solution is better, more elegant and butthurt inducing but whatevs.

 

[Mrowak]

And I'm saying that the way it was done in Fallout and Arcanum is better than what Sawyer is proposing here. The player should be allowed to make, if not even tricked into making, wrong choices so that the choices he makes have meaning and long term consequences. Otherwise, you're just sliding towards Bioware-style choices, whether you want to admit it or not.

So what constitutes "meaningful choice and long term consequences"? Is it "shit, I just wasted 30 fucking hours because the game suddenly became a combat grind at the end and my diplomacy skills are now useless"? Great fucking game design.

No, the game shouldn't provide valid solutions for all player choices. The player should be thought ( by carrot or, if necessarily, stick ) that making choices is serious business and, if he fucks up, he'll suffer.

Because that's what games are all about: making the player suffer. Did you work on Bad Rats, by any chance?

Because the constant "you are awesone player!!!!111" moments in modern games are so much better, right? I see nothing wrong with what you quoted, for sure not warranted to post a retard emoticon.

:facepalm: Way to miss the point.

A question to you: how exactly selecting the skills the game wants you to select, without you being able to tell how useful it is makes you awesome/shit player? It's the question of blind luck or metagaming. No real gameplay is involved. So how about we actually introduce skills that are useful in some circumstances and then let the player pick the ones that will help him solve given problem. That's what it is about - usefulness of tools (skills) at your disposal in appropriate contexts.

Every other approach leads to linear nonsense.

There are two ways:
1. The old-school way: read the fucking manual. Oh, wait! Manuals are a fucking joke nowadays, and a big reason for that is that very few were still reading them, now with fratboys being the main gaming demographic.

Then read the fucking manual to ROA or Fallout. We will see how much it will help you. It will say - every skill is useful. Muhahaha.

2. The game itself could provide the player, during gameplay, with information about what does what, but that means an extra layer of complexity, and designers seem more interested in finely balancing everything (in order to make everything DPS-ready I suppose) than adding useful gameplay elements.

This is not only welcome, but it is basically required. Otherwise you won't be able to fine-tune various builds to the challenges

Look bro. I am not saying every build should be viable for every quest in the game - a surgeon should suck at diplomacy, a diplomat at engineering, a warrior at reading ancient texts and a wizard at survival skills. They should not succeed at what they were not prepared to face. There shouldn't be any magical "backdoor" whereby every quest can be solved by every class/build. But all classes, all skills should have a wide range of uses in the game. Because that's what gameplay in RPGs is about using *what you have* to your advantage, and not fitting into arbitrary pattern.

Because it is not fun at all to create a diplomat, only to learn diplomacy is shit past certain stage (hello Lionheart). Or that you can put 10 levels worth of points into swimming only to have 2 swimming checks in the entire game (hello ROA). There is no logic here, no preparation, just blind luck and metagaming. You are not even playing the game, you are just fulfilling sets of arbitrary conditions you have no control over.

Sure when the game telegraphs to you "you are going to fight DRAGONS" and you expect you will manage without proper spells and fire protection gear you should be punished, because you have yourself to blame.

However, when it turns out that against common sense Doctor and First Aid are shit in postapocalyptic wasteland for some random reason, then there's certainly something wrong with the gameplay design.

 

[skuphundaku]

There are two ways:
1. The old-school way: read the fucking manual. Oh, wait! Manuals are a fucking joke nowadays, and a big reason for that is that very few were still reading them, now with fratboys being the main gaming demographic.
2. The game itself could provide the player, during gameplay, with information about what does what, but that means an extra layer of complexity, and designers seem more interested in finely balancing everything (in order to make everything DPS-ready I suppose) than adding useful gameplay elements.

1. How is reading the manual supposed to let me divine that I won't get Energy Weapons until the late game? How does it tell me that guns in Arcanum are less powerful than melee combat?

I'm a firm believer in the idea that one shouldn't be able to experience everything a game has to offer in one go and that games should be designed so that they can be played multiple times and still be interesting after the first playthrough. If somebody chose Energy Weapons for their first playthrough and find that crippling, they should restart with another character instead of bitching and moaning. I played my first playthrough of Fallout with Big Guns as mid- and late-game guns, and it was a pain in the ass compared to choosing Energy Weapons, but I soldiered on. In the end, the problem is that players want to be coddled and not be told that their decisions and/or abilities are inadequate anymore. To those people I say: Tough tits! Deal with it or get the fuck back to your Call of Duty!

2. By the time you can actually experiment with things, the choices have usually already been made. And that certainly doesn't help situations where certain skills/items/etc. become more or less useful as the game goes on.

You misunderstood what I was saying. I was saying that the game should provide information about what skill does what before the player gets to chose it, during gameplay. If that skill was acquired during character creation, right at the start, see point 1.

 

[Infinitron]

Modern players cannot into resource management and want to spam their awsum abilities during every fight which is why they also rest after every encounter (I was shocked to recently find out that this is how a lot of people played IE games). Sawyer considers that 'degenerate gameplay' and so now we have this whole cool-down and grimoire switching bullshit to prevent it. I still think my 'graying out the rest button' solution is better, more elegant and butthurt inducing but whatevs.

Exactly. That is encounter design.

Basically NOT allowing you to rest within areas and designing these areas so that at the beginning of every long haul you are given enough resources (And bonuses based on how you did the previous encounter/s) to be able to win.

That's actually basically what you're going to get in Project Eternity. Dungeons will still need to be designed so that you don't run out of health going through them if you play well enough. You (most likely) won't be able to rest in them.

You just have stamina as an additional per-battle tactical resource that also needs to be conserved.

Health = strategic resource
Stamina = tactical resource