Eternity Josh Sawyer reflects on his failures with Pillars of Eternity

[almondblight]

BG was made for a market the devs loved.

They turned a turn based system into a RTwP monstrosity because in 1998 the RTS market was hot while the TB RPG market lagged. IIRC, they even dumbed down the AI because they thought it'd be too difficult for the players.

There's plenty of legit criticisms of PoE, but most of the stuff that gets posted seems to be powergamers who are pissed that they have to put work into finding the "awesome button."

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

they even dumbed down the AI because they thought it'd be too difficult for the players.

Haven't heard that one.

 

[almondblight]

Haven't heard that one.

Here you go:

And the funny thing is when we initially built the AI, it was too smart, it just tore the party apart. You’d get down to the bottom of the Nashkel Mines and you’d run into those Kobold commandos and they would target your spellcaster and boom, one turn down your spellcaster is dead, turn two the cleric’s dead… And it just destroyed the party and we were like: ‘Oh wow okay, let’s dial it back!’,” he laughs.

This quote is also revealing:

“I think at the time we were really heavily influenced by Warcraft, we were playing a lot of it and it felt really good,” Oster starts explaining. “But when you threw a party in with the second edition D&D rules it turned into a hairball so fast, things were happening so quickly you couldn’t really control it. And we got talking about it and the feeling was that by going strictly turn-based it would just slow the gameplay down too much.

 

[the mole]

poe isn't balanced

checkmate

 

[Desiderius]

You’re right you know. Ironically ended up the opposite of what Soyer intended. He finally gave up and learned to love the popamole.

Many such cases. Design based around providing and requiring a variety of powerful approaches beats trying to Bergeron everyone into the same level of suck.

 

[luj1]

poe isn't balanced

From a perspective of class and race balance.

In a sense of player balance (stat growth, exp gains) it was horrible and unfun.

 

[Grunker]

trying to Bergeron everyone into the same level of suck.

Thought it was only the shitposters and ultragrogs who still spread that strawman. Sawyerism ≠ making everything equal. Sawyerism = making all system assets and builds useful. Whether he succeeded or not, and whether the philosophy is a good approach or not (I think it's one approach but certainly not the approach by any means and I think he horribly misjudged that imbalance was sometimes a necessary cost for complexity), that's what his declared goal was. He never minded some things being more powerful than other things.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Going on a -1% patching spree right after POE2 release kinda suggests he did mind.

 

[Grunker]

Going on a -1% patching spree right after POE2 release kinda suggests he did mind.

There is a difference between minding something being too powerful and minding something being more powerful than another thing. Even the MOBAs the grogs love to compare Sawyer's philosophy to have the expressed design philosophy that a champion must not dominate/have unjustifiable winrates. The goal is expressedly not to equalize all system assets and have all champions have 50% winrate.

And those games are designed with a much stricter, much less flexible balancing philosophy than both PoEs.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

I'm not sure who those grogs are, but we are talking about single player crpgs that were supposed to be like games from the nineties, only better. Sperging out a nerfbat patch as soon as the game comes out and people notice some items are actually having a huge impact this time kinda tells me what it tells me.

 

[Butter]

Soul Blade/Assassin was by far the most powerful build in 1.0 Deadfire. They saw something like 40% of players using it because you could one-shot the final boss (partly caused by bad difficulty tuning). I don't think Sawyer destroyed that build because it was too fun. I think his concept of fun excludes killing things quickly, because he wants fights where you have to blow a lot of resources (hence making everything per encounter so you'd have no excuse not to blow everything). Quick kills mean you're not exploring the breadth of your character's toolset.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Sawyerism = making all system assets and builds useful

the problem is that he tried to make them all useful in combat, not all useful overall
not sure why this needs explained, but not all classes should be equally useful in combat

 

[Desiderius]

I’m sympathetic to @Grunker’s philosophy but the proof is in the pudding. That giant hole in the middle of the penetration curve is Bergeronism pure and simple, as is the removal, instead of the much-needed streamlining, of prebuffing.

The MOBA/NASCAR approach is as you correctly note distinct from Soyer’s but still suffers from some of the bloodlessness that the PoEs do, and for similar reasons.

Soyer’s philosophy is sounder but his execution fell into some of the same traps.

 

[Grunker]

Penetration is just bad design, not an expression of the balance philosophy

 

[Grunker]

Though I do agree with you (that was my bracket) that some of PoE's shortcomings have to do with Sawyer's failure to contain the practical balancing to the tenets of his own ideas. My biggest gripe with Deadfire especially is that the system feels too cramped during combat

 

[Wulfric Pinewood]

Maybe im too easy on crpgs but PoE I & II were both nice games, with large area to explore, nice lore and fine audio-video. They had flaws but in general i found them to be nice to play, still looking for Avowed too.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Penetration is just bad design, not an expression of the balance philosophy

Sengoku Rance would like a word with you.

 

[Haplo]

Soul Blade/Assassin was by far the most powerful build in 1.0 Deadfire. They saw something like 40% of players using it because you could one-shot the final boss (partly caused by bad difficulty tuning). I don't think Sawyer destroyed that build because it was too fun. I think his concept of fun excludes killing things quickly, because he wants fights where you have to blow a lot of resources (hence making everything per encounter so you'd have no excuse not to blow everything). Quick kills mean you're not exploring the breadth of your character's toolset.

I don't think Assassin class was nerfed. Soulblade Soul Annihilation was - rightfully so, I'd add. The damage on that thing was FAR out of what any other class could achieve AND could be propagated in AOE with the right weapon. It's still reasonably powerful, but nowhere near the broken ability it once was.

 

[Desiderius]

Penetration is just bad design, not an expression of the balance philosophy

C'mon man, it's bad because the curve is flat there and it's flat there because bad kind of balense. There is no other explanation.

 

[Desiderius]

Sawyerism = making all system assets and builds useful

the problem is that he tried to make them all useful in combat, not all useful overall
not sure why this needs explained, but not all classes should be equally useful in combat

That’s one way to do it but not really realistic in an IE inspired game. The way OwlcatFinder does it with every class having a kind of combat/foe at which it excels and part of the design challenge involving party composition (which is why you have more companions than slots and they all gain EXP even while on the bench) is a more elegant approach.

 

[Grunker]

Penetration is just bad design, not an expression of the balance philosophy

C'mon man, it's bad because the curve is flat there and it's flat there because bad kind of balense. There is no other explanation.

It's not the flat curve, it's the fact that the system is entirely binary. I don't think that's for balancing reasons. Surely it's just as easy if not easier to balance a progressive system.

Maybe we're talking past each other, but I don't see what penetration has to do with balance. In fact it seems like a completely pants-on-head system from a balance perspective.

 

[Grunker]

not all classes should be equally useful in combat

you're big on arbitrary and dogmatic rules of design, aren't you

ironically i feel his dogmatic approach was ultimately sawyer's biggest failure

 

[mediocrepoet]

not all classes should be equally useful in combat

you're big on arbitrary and dogmatic rules of design, aren't you

ironically i feel his dogmatic approach was ultimately sawyer's biggest failure

I think this depends on what you're trying to accomplish. Since POE was trying to pay homage to the Infinity Engine games, I'd say that classes having differing value in and out of combat is pretty much a hallmark in those games and pre-4E D&D-like games in general.

For instance, there's nothing heretical per se about making all characters equally combat viable, but it's hard to get something that's going to feel like Lord of the Rings if Frodo, Pippin, and Merry can kick as much ass as Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli in a straight up fight. It's just a different sort of story/game and a completely different experience.

EDIT: Similarly, do you think that Dandelion should fight monsters as well as Geralt?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

not all classes should be equally useful in combat

you're big on arbitrary and dogmatic rules of design, aren't you

ironically i feel his dogmatic approach was ultimately sawyer's biggest failure

Yes, clearly fighters and bards should be equal in combat situations. This is good design and definitely not a completely retarded idea.

 

[Riddler]

trying to Bergeron everyone into the same level of suck.

Thought it was only the shitposters and ultragrogs who still spread that strawman. Sawyerism ≠ making everything equal. Sawyerism = making all system assets and builds useful. Whether he succeeded or not, and whether the philosophy is a good approach or not (I think it's one approach but certainly not the approach by any means and I think he horribly misjudged that imbalance was sometimes a necessary cost for complexity), that's what his declared goal was. He never minded some things being more powerful than other things.

And it's that retarded design philosophy that has turned Dota into a horribly unfun game that has collapsed in popularity.

"All Heroes are played! What a diverse and we'll balanced game!!!!" All the while ignoring that every match now plays the same.