Josh Sawyer Q&A Thread

[Roguey]

I find it difficult to believe that a person could sleepwallk through BG 1 and 2 and find the PoEs on normal difficulty incredibly daunting.

 

[Riddler]

I find it difficult to believe that a person could sleepwallk through BG 1 and 2 and find the PoEs on normal difficulty incredibly daunting.

Perhaps he has immense issues with pathfinding so that engagement in PoE completely filters him?

Otherwise I don't know what to say, both pillars games are incredibly easy on normal and don't even have hard counters which you might not understand. You can hit everything with your one hammer and win.

 

[Bulo]

That's a commenter after my own heart

 

[Gahbreeil]

PoE had to be daunting to the person because he didn't know the TTRPG. I mean, I found myself a tad daunted when I returned to my old save after a year and didn't know which skills do what. In Hack & Slash mode (No pausing, no skills) I managed to almost clear an entire dungeon level in one go but failed.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I find it difficult to believe that a person could sleepwallk through BG 1 and 2 and find the PoEs on normal difficulty incredibly daunting.

I find it difficult to believe that wasn't a series of long shitposts designed to mess with Sawyer's head. Funny, but cruel.

 

[Quillon]

 

[Butter]

Let me guess. The Kickstarter backers forced him to include manual saves in Pillars.

 

[Odoryuk]

Unfathomably based

 

[dutchwench]

Back when Pillars was only known as Project Eternity, the legendary Japanese game designer Itagaki, best known for the brutally difficult Ninja Gaiden games, came to visit Obsidian's office to give their game a try. After spending a few hours playing it, he raged and broke the keyboard, then ran up to Sawyer and started debating how difficult games should really be, only to leave in tears. It was only after the entirety of Obsidian trapped Sawyer in the janitor's closet to add things like manual saves and remove mechanics like the wind influencing your bow's ballistics & the salty air around the sea corroding your sword 0.00003% faster than usual did Pillars of Eternity finally become a game you can beat without being mentally broken.

 

[Roguey]

Let me guess. The Kickstarter backers forced him to include manual saves in Pillars.

It was brought up, and his preference is for save points and shutdown saves, but being able to save anywhere has been an expected feature by most PC gamers since the 90s.

I think in an RPG there's a lot of monotonous crap you potentially have to redo if you're forced to rely on autosaving/savepoints.

 

[Haba]

I think in an RPG there's a lot of monotonous crap you potentially have to redo if you're forced to rely on autosaving/savepoints.

I dunno, how about making games that don't have a lot of monotonous crap? Just a thought?

 

[Gargaune]

Whenever the thread gets bumped, I think to myself "Oh, no, what did he do now..."

 

[Roguey]

I think in an RPG there's a lot of monotonous crap you potentially have to redo if you're forced to rely on autosaving/savepoints.

I dunno, how about making games that don't have a lot of monotonous crap? Just a thought?

Not going to happen in games with dialogue trees, inventory, and character management.

 

[Artyoan]

I've been saying this for a while. Good on Sawyer for it.

 

[rojay]

I think in an RPG there's a lot of monotonous crap you potentially have to redo if you're forced to rely on autosaving/savepoints.

I dunno, how about making games that don't have a lot of monotonous crap? Just a thought?

It's only monotonous when you have to do it multiple times because you keep losing a fight. I mean, that's the idea, anyway. If it's monotonous the first time you experience it, the game sucks.

 

[Cohesion]

Unfathomably based

Based only in roguelikes with permadeath like, duh, Rogue or Tome, ADOM, Diablo hardcore, etc.

 

[ropetight]

Unfathomably based

Based only in roguelikes with permadeath like, duh, Rogue or Tome, ADOM, Diablo hardcore, etc.

Games that use just checkpoints are more player focused than average storyfag cRPG's.
Josh has to ask himself how many players would play his games without manual saves.
Long dialogues and lore diarrhea you save after to not have to look at them again...
Imagine watching them again and again if the combat is poorly "balanced"[sic].

 

[Infinitron]

Pentiment doesn't have manual saves FYI.

 

[ropetight]

Why would interactive picture book need manual saves?

 

[Baron Dupek]

You don't insert bookmark after reading every page?

 

[ropetight]

In picture books - no.

 

[Roguey]

Why would interactive picture book need manual saves?

Sounds like it makes "I want to test out all these options and see which ones I want to go with" a pain.

I suppose the benefit is that it better hides that nothing in Pentiment matters.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

He is correct, as usual. Saving should only be allowed upon exiting the game.

 

[Bulo]

I like to create game saves (with chapter-like names) after finishing any sort of complex or time-consuming situation, especially if I don't want to do it again. If, when I die, you force me to repeat something gruelling, you're punishing me by wasting my time. It doesn't increase the stakes or somehow help the structure of the game, it just stresses the player, and stretches his patience. It's not unlike FromSoft boss run-backs, that is to say, bad game design. You could eliminate this issue by creating regular auto-saves, but then you aren't doing much to prevent save-scumming — so why bother? Instead, accept that some people are going to play your game the ‘wrong’ way, and MAKE A BLOODY GAME JOSH

 

[damager]

I think it's the manual reloading that causes save scumming right?

If you can only reload on death you would really have to go through hoops to save scum. You could do it, but you could also save scum with shutdown saves.