Interview Leonard Boyarsky Mega-Interview at PCGamesN

[Zeriel]

The REAL Sawyerization would be to just make Dwarves less bad at magic.

Maybe there's a solution along those lines, though? Like giving Dwarves some serious spellcasting penalty that also has an interesting tradeoff (also for spellcasting)?

So, +1% damage, -1% accuracy?

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Garfield Thelonius Remington the Third, sir if a fantastic character. You shut the hell up Roguey

A lot of them had depth in Arcanum in one form or another. In fact, it was more often than not that they had some depth.
For example, the Dark Elf and her interactions with others, such as the Dwarf King. Magnus and the Dwarf King once they find the hidden peoples, and Magnus's own rise to power and influence as lord of the iron clan and eventual king should the old one die.

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

Their builds didn't need "fixing" because the content is tuned around their jack-of-all-trades stats.

Sadly I think we both know that concept "jack-of-all-trades" doesn't work in games with VERY similar to D&D mechanic. Because in any D&D party there should be guy who distract enemies by suffering under damage on frontline ( tank), guys who actually hurt enemies (DPS), that guy who heals tank and improve damage for DPS (support). If everyone in team would try to do the same thing - party dies. And in result stats decide who will doing which things, because stats influence on damage/health and etc. And Since in PoE exist many battles which can't be avoided - party with weak builds would have trouble. Maybe I getting something wrong, but this how I see problem with plot companions.

I played it years ago and I don't even remember this guy. I'm sure he could have had a story with lore and choices with any race other than elf that isn't overtly tech-inclined.

He was born without affinity to technology in traditional dwarf’s clan, which means he can't find place among his own people since everybody among dwarves working and working preferable with technology - this automatically making him average miner for rest of his life, since nobody would trust to technological arts in hands of giftless dwarf. Being afraid of mockery from other dwarves, he decided that he have affinity to magic and that he need to fulfil his life purpose as magician. He need teacher, but since gates of Tulla (city of mages) almost impossible find in deadly desert and can be are open before "chosen one" (guy which special letter or if leader was warned by Jorian about guest's arriving) only - only way for him is finding elf from Qintarra, as magician teacher. He was able to find only one tutor which agreed to teach dwarf, but he was tricked in signing awful contract and he was binded to be apprentice for rest of his life...Or life of his teacher, because contract would be active until elf's death. After signing contract Jormund realized horrific truth - his teacher is an asshole, this is reason why elf was free from any apprentice. Everyone in city know what kind of character this asshole, so when tutor died Jormund was automatically jailed as only suspect in murder since "no elf would kill another elf" and because guards was sure that Jormund decided to avenge mockery and torture. Thing is - elf was asshole not only towards dwarf, there was elf man and woman (Sharpe and Ivory) who was in love, but Wrath was so jealous and toxic, he even decided to kill himself in attempt to move blame on Sharpe. In result we have a choice.

Maybe I am exaggerating and it was not really deep, but there no reason to cut functional at all.


Roguey stop being racist! #dwarflivesmatter Roguey, not all games should have stereotypes from D&D, get over it. For serious, why all games should be look like copy of one?

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

Im joking relax

I am sorry if I sounded rough, I was not angry at that point. To be fair in game exist masochism build: halfling mage thief archer, which wearing power armor machined plate mail and buff himself with spell for being able to shoot from magical bow. This character would have really HARD times in game.

 

[azimuth]

Most people don't use companions for their gameplay mechanics, Roguey. I know this could be hard to understand for an actual autist like yourself, but they're mostly a vehicle for story beats in games like these.

The vast majority of Arcanum followers don't have any dialogue or story attached to them outside of recruiting. Virgil and romances like Raven are exceptions.

Yes, Arcanum is a minefield of trying to figure out which followers had any dev time spent on them. You play for hours with the gnawing feeling that a given party member might not have dialogue at all anywhere in the game. On the other end of the spectrum, even key followers like Arronax would join your party in a buggy state, where he had 55 unspent character points, zero items, was classified as a "human" (he's an elf), and despite being one of the most powerful magic users ever, he would never cast a single spell. Instead, he would exclusively punch all enemies and usually die repeatedly.

Sometimes people forget how badly managed Troika games were. We liked them because of their vision, but they were totally incompetent at actually delivering. Vast amounts of content was buggy or incomplete, cut halfway through or mangled in implementation, and usually the core gameplay was utter trash and irredeemably unbalanced. Most tech characters and especially gunslingers have a hell of a time completing the game without grinding and usually get stuck at the Black Mountain Mines, which is a stupidly designed map full of both trivially weak (am I too high level??) and absurdly strong (am I too low level??) monsters.

Do Troika designers really have a special role in 2017? Any indie today can release a too-ambitious game that doesn't deliver and requires modders to try to finish everything they couldn't.

 

[Zeriel]

Most people don't use companions for their gameplay mechanics, Roguey. I know this could be hard to understand for an actual autist like yourself, but they're mostly a vehicle for story beats in games like these.

The vast majority of Arcanum followers don't have any dialogue or story attached to them outside of recruiting. Virgil and romances like Raven are exceptions.

Yes, Arcanum is a minefield of trying to figure out which followers had any dev time spent on them. You play for hours with the gnawing feeling that a given party member might not have dialogue at all anywhere in the game. On the other end of the spectrum, even key followers like Arronax would join your party in a buggy state, where he had 55 unspent character points, zero items, was classified as a "human" (he's an elf), and despite being one of the most powerful magic users ever, he would never cast a single spell. Instead, he would exclusively punch all enemies and usually die repeatedly.

Sometimes people forget how badly managed Troika games were. We liked them because of their vision, but they were totally incompetent at actually delivering. Vast amounts of content was buggy or incomplete, cut halfway through or mangled in implementation, and usually the core gameplay was utter trash and irredeemably unbalanced. Most tech characters and especially gunslingers have a hell of a time completing the game without grinding and usually get stuck at the Black Mountain Mines, which is a stupidly designed map full of both trivially weak (am I too high level??) and absurdly strong (am I too low level??) monsters.

Do Troika designers really have a special role in 2017? Any indie today can release a too-ambitious game that doesn't deliver and requires modders to try to finish everything they couldn't.

There's a distinction between games that are brilliant but have obvious flaws, and games that are just piles of shit. It's that difference that makes people want to mod those brilliant but flawed games in the first place. Comparing Troika's output to "indies" is ridiculous for exactly this reason. Name me a single Steam shovelware indie that has even a tenth of Arcanum's raw potential.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

What good is a companion if no one ever uses him?

Most people don't use companions for their gameplay mechanics, Roguey.

Most people probably just pick up the characters they like best if they have a choice, which takes into account how they play and their personality. And from what I've seen, people seem more willing to tolerate strong but boring followers than the opposite.

I know this could be hard to understand for an actual autist like yourself, but they're mostly a vehicle for story beats in games like these.

Probably better to make them NPCs, then. The Suikoden games give you 108 party members for story reasons, but they're mostly just left to rot in headquarters as soon as their contribution to the story is over with.

 

[i.Razor]

Again. Great interview.

 

[azimuth]

I think there are hundreds of games out there with "potential." In the 90s we didn't have indie games with the production quality of a professional studio, and the only thing that made Troika games special was that they were professional games backed by a major publisher that tried to recreate a P&P experience. They stood out for that reason alone, and that's why some people became enamoured with them (although the games were financial failures).

Today, you have hundreds of games that try to do this, and many of them are much more successful. But there are so many of them, they don't get as much exposure and they all blend together.

 

[Roguey]

(although the games were financial failures).

They weren't, but they didn't make head-turning mega-profits either.

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

What good is a companion if no one ever uses him?

Most people don't use companions for their gameplay mechanics, Roguey.

Most people probably just pick up the characters they like best if they have a choice, which takes into account how they play and their personality. And from what I've seen, people seem more willing to tolerate strong but boring followers than the opposite.

I know this could be hard to understand for an actual autist like yourself, but they're mostly a vehicle for story beats in games like these.

Probably better to make them NPCs, then. The Suikoden games give you 108 party members for story reasons, but they're mostly just left to rot in headquarters as soon as their contribution to the story is over with.

Or maybe just leave to player decision what to do with followers? Seriously, you decided for other people what would be better for them, even if big amount of followers not make any problem for you. You know, you can refuse to make them your followers. Yes, it is so easy. Gaming can give much more freedom than book or movie, but people tend to continue wishing to restrict games in such things that not make any sense. Also Arcanum you can play more than once and you can pick different companions every walkthrough and it would be not always "powerhouse".

 

[HeatEXTEND]

Leonard Boyarsky Mega-Interview

Axie
I agree. This bit is especially disturbing and a total decline:

If you're a Dwarf, you immediately get penalised if you try to use magic, vice versa with Elves and technology. Which made [it possible to make] non-viable characters, but we were like 'oh it's so cool, people will love playing this!'. If we went back and did it now, we [could] say it was a racial thing [where] Dwarves are not able to use magic [and] cut out some of those things that were not viable builds, save ourselves a lot of headaches and still pretty much have the same game. Just things you realise in hindsight.

Non-viable characters are a must in a good RPG and often, with enough intelligence and creativity these non-viable builds are viable and very fun to play. Having more options is always a plus, the fact that only 1% of gamers will appreciate it is another matter. The reason why games such as Fallout, Arcanum or Age of Decadence have cult status is because they have so many hidden paths/options that make them very replayable and with each playthrough you discover something new. If they're going to change that (and judging by what Tim and Leo say they surely will) I doubt their new game will be anything interesting.

BTW, has anyone else heard a rumor that this new game will be about Mars colonists?

oh...

 

[Infinitron]

BTW, has anyone else heard a rumor that this new game will be about Mars colonists?

No. Where did you hear this? Are you thinking about this game: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...lony-management-sim-from-tropico-devs.115139/

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Seriously, you decided for other people what would be better for them

I'm not deciding anything...? If you mean an hypothetical game, If I'm the developer then I kind of have to make those decisions.

You know, you can refuse to make them your followers. Yes, it is so easy.

the point of my post is that I think useless followers are better off as NPCs, so I'm aware of that

 

[Black Angel]

This can be smoothed over with writing. Maybe he was banned from Tulla or failed to solve their puzzle or whatever.

But there is already someone who's banned from Tulla, a guy who's a reference to Fallout 1's Vault Dweller because he was completely out-of-touch with magic and exposed too much to technology for a long time.

The vast majority of Arcanum followers don't have any dialogue or story attached to them outside of recruiting. Virgil and romances like Raven are exceptions.

Aside from the aforementioned Jormund, Virgil, and Raven;

1. Sogg Mead Mug, okay not much story or dialogue whatsoever, but you can always ask him for the tavern/inn in towns
2. Jayna Stiles, haven't tried recruiting this one but from what I see she's a healer for tech-character*
3. Magnus, LOTS of dialogue and story, with an overarching quest related to him that's not immediately obvious
4. Gar, you need to pass Persuasion check and then hear his story about being born a human that looked like an orc*
5. Dog (Worthless Mutt), somewhat obviously a reference to Dogmeat but instead of preventing someone from entering their own house, this time the dog is being kicked to death by a gnome
6. Geoffrey Tarellond-Ashe, a necromancer whom you can help with getting an item that caused the dead to rise in Ashbury's Cemetery. Won't join unless you're evil.*
7. Dante, former servant to the King of Dernholm. You can mention that you're doing a task for the king and he will help you, then after you're done you can convince the king to accept him back to his service*
8. Vollinger, a member of Molochean Hand whose motive can be said that he's either curious what's so important about you being the sole survivor of blimp crash or is looking for the right time to kill you, unless you convince MH's leader to stop pursuing you*
9. Chukka, personal bodyguard of Gilbert Bates who told you his story of nearly getting assassinated and was saved by the half-ogre*
10. Waromon, a Bedokaan who will not join you unless you resolve the conflict regarding poachers through deep conversation with Bedokaan's chief. In this case, the chief spoke for Waromon, and obviously Waromon will not join you unless the chief REALLY trust you.*
11. Torian Kel, an Undead who ask you to retrieve dragon's blood so he can regain his body, and then went on to tell you his story.*
12. Perriman Smythe, a mage of Tulla who's (iirc) on a quest to gather information of outside world, first encountered after he finished a business with Willoughsby.*
13. Z'an Al'urin, a Dark Elf who's question her kin's motive, and will join you if you're being honest with her*
14. Sebastian, a guy tasked with Willoughsby with cleansing the Boil.*
15. Tollo Underhill, a halfling prisoner of Dernholm's Pit.*
16. Weldo Rubin, a halfling adventurer who you can find at the Gate to the (Vendigroth) Waste.*
17. Loghaire Thunder-Stone, King of the Dwarves. If you ask his son about the Shape and Stone, you can have deep conversation to convince him to return to his throne. After he joins you, he can have conversations with Magnus once you solve the quest about Iron Clan
18. Franklin Payne, iirc a monster-hunter of some sort because the sheriff of Caladon mentioned that about him when you're doing quest to solve murder in the city. Will join if you mention to him that you're going to Thanatos*
19. And finally the four beings who were banished to the Void aside from Kerghan. ALL of them have story and dialogue, of which I even laughed because they actually doesn't seem so bad.**

*This companion I haven't recruited but I've done quests enough to know about them or read up on them on the wikia.
**I only recruited Arronax

So, looking at the list, from my experience only #1, #2, #5, #9, #10, #14, #15, #16, and #18 doesn't have much story and dialogue to them because I only recruited #1 and #5, while the rest because I haven't recruited them BUT I encountered them and know enough about them, with only #15 and #18 that I haven't really encountered. And all of this, before taking into consideration the fact that you can ask each individual companion some questions on either what you should be doing or what do they know of a place when you're there.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

This can be smoothed over with writing. Maybe he was banned from Tulla or failed to solve their puzzle or whatever.

But there is already someone who's banned from Tulla, a guy who's a reference to Fallout 1's Vault Dweller because he was completely out-of-touch with magic and exposed too much to technology for a long time.

The vast majority of Arcanum followers don't have any dialogue or story attached to them outside of recruiting. Virgil and romances like Raven are exceptions.

Aside from the aforementioned Jormund, Virgil, and Raven;

1. Sogg Mead Mug, okay not much story or dialogue whatsoever, but you can always ask him for the tavern/inn in towns
2. Jayna Stiles, haven't tried recruiting this one but from what I see she's a healer for tech-character*
3. Magnus, LOTS of dialogue and story, with an overarching quest related to him that's not immediately obvious
4. Gar, you need to pass Persuasion check and then hear his story about being born a human that looked like an orc*
5. Dog (Worthless Mutt), somewhat obviously a reference to Dogmeat but instead of preventing someone from entering their own house, this time the dog is being kicked to death by a gnome
6. Geoffrey Tarellond-Ashe, a necromancer whom you can help with getting an item that caused the dead to rise in Ashbury's Cemetery. Won't join unless you're evil.*
7. Dante, former servant to the King of Dernholm. You can mention that you're doing a task for the king and he will help you, then after you're done you can convince the king to accept him back to his service*
8. Vollinger, a member of Molochean Hand whose motive can be said that he's either curious what's so important about you being the sole survivor of blimp crash or is looking for the right time to kill you, unless you convince MH's leader to stop pursuing you*
9. Chukka, personal bodyguard of Gilbert Bates who told you his story of nearly getting assassinated and was saved by the half-ogre*
10. Waromon, a Bedokaan who will not join you unless you resolve the conflict regarding poachers through deep conversation with Bedokaan's chief. In this case, the chief spoke for Waromon, and obviously Waromon will not join you unless the chief REALLY trust you.*
11. Torian Kel, an Undead who ask you to retrieve dragon's blood so he can regain his body, and then went on to tell you his story.*
12. Perriman Smythe, a mage of Tulla who's (iirc) on a quest to gather information of outside world, first encountered after he finished a business with Willoughsby.*
13. Z'an Al'urin, a Dark Elf who's question her kin's motive, and will join you if you're being honest with her*
14. Sebastian, a guy tasked with Willoughsby with cleansing the Boil.*
15. Tollo Underhill, a halfling prisoner of Dernholm's Pit.*
16. Weldo Rubin, a halfling adventurer who you can find at the Gate to the (Vendigroth) Waste.*
17. Loghaire Thunder-Stone, King of the Dwarves. If you ask his son about the Shape and Stone, you can have deep conversation to convince him to return to his throne. After he joins you, he can have conversations with Magnus once you solve the quest about Iron Clan
18. Franklin Payne, iirc a monster-hunter of some sort because the sheriff of Caladon mentioned that about him when you're doing quest to solve murder in the city. Will join if you mention to him that you're going to Thanatos*
19. And finally the four beings who were banished to the Void aside from Kerghan. ALL of them have story and dialogue, of which I even laughed because they actually doesn't seem so bad.**

*This companion I haven't recruited but I've done quests enough to know about them or read up on them on the wikia.
**I only recruited Arronax

So, looking at the list, from my experience only #1, #2, #5, #9, #10, #14, #15, #16, and #18 doesn't have much story and dialogue to them because I only recruited #1 and #5, while the rest because I haven't recruited them BUT I encountered them and know enough about them, with only #15 and #18 that I haven't really encountered. And all of this, before taking into consideration the fact that you can ask each individual companion some questions on either what you should be doing or what do they know of a place when you're there.

Holy fuck, I can’t believe I only played this twice. Multiverse edition time!

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Torian Kel has magnificent story to him as well with awesome background info.
He mentions his mistress, an elfin or half-elfin woman that surely must be dead by now, whom he saw the day he went to battle at Kree with his ancestral sword.

Magnificently written character. Plus my persuasion was always so high that he would never turn against me.

 

[FeelTheRads]

The REAL Sawyerization would be to just make Dwarves less bad at magic.

Maybe there's a solution along those lines, though? Like giving Dwarves some serious spellcasting penalty that also has an interesting tradeoff (also for spellcasting)?

Yeah, maybe.

Or maybe, and bear with me on this, you could fuck off.

 

[Diggfinger]

Tim [Cain, now co-Game Director at Obsidian]

 

[Jasede]

I like the way dwarves worked in Arcanum. It didn't keep me from making magic dwarves for fun. If anything, it encouraged me to figure out just how to make it work.

 

[Daedalos]

So I didn't read through all dis.

Can somebody summarize what's the deal with Boayarsky and Cain? Are they making fallout 4? Sci-fi game? Post-apoc? Or something different?

Is there reason to be excited? I DEMAND ANSWERS

 

[Roguey]

So I didn't read through all dis.

Can somebody summarize what's the deal with Boayarsky and Cain? Are they making fallout 4? Sci-fi game? Post-apoc? Or something different?

Is there reason to be excited? I DEMAND ANSWERS

They're making a multi-platform action RPG using a shapes-based character system a child can figure out, but they promise lots of role playing and humor.

 

[Quillon]

So I didn't read through all dis.

Can somebody summarize what's the deal with Boayarsky and Cain? Are they making fallout 4? Sci-fi game? Post-apoc? Or something different?

Is there reason to be excited? I DEMAND ANSWERS

Its just another spin-off to Beth's Fallout, it will be called Fallout: New California and take place in LA. Tim describes it as a post post-apocalyptic game.

 

[FreeKaner]

Their builds didn't need "fixing" because the content is tuned around their jack-of-all-trades stats.

Sadly I think we both know that concept "jack-of-all-trades" doesn't work in games with VERY similar to D&D mechanic. Because in any D&D party there should be guy who distract enemies by suffering under damage on frontline ( tank), guys who actually hurt enemies (DPS), that guy who heals tank and improve damage for DPS (support). If everyone in team would try to do the same thing - party dies. And in result stats decide who will doing which things, because stats influence on damage/health and etc. And Since in PoE exist many battles which can't be avoided - party with weak builds would have trouble. Maybe I getting something wrong, but this how I see problem with plot companions.

Tank and spank hasn't been necessary in PoE since its earlier 1.0 inception. What's necessary is a working party composition, sure frontline with healer backing it up with damage in the back can work, but so does a party which is heavy on burst damage and C&C that does alpha strike to win encounters quickly. Or a party which focuses on buffs & debuffs in conjunction to raise level of defensibility of party and win through attrition. There are others but you get the point. If you of course try to make an all damage party and don't have the damage to overwhelm the encounter, it won't work. People focus too much on what people think what Sawyer thinks (I.E downtuned equity balance) and not what he most often does (try to reduce the gap between viable and optimal, as well as trying to make it hard to have any one individual character that is not viable). Still it's a game with a party and party composition will matter regardless, even in a game completely about tactics, the element of strategy will be there as long as there is character building, progression and team composition. Especially in games like isometric RPGs where those are extensive.

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

Their builds didn't need "fixing" because the content is tuned around their jack-of-all-trades stats.

Sadly I think we both know that concept "jack-of-all-trades" doesn't work in games with VERY similar to D&D mechanic. Because in any D&D party there should be guy who distract enemies by suffering under damage on frontline ( tank), guys who actually hurt enemies (DPS), that guy who heals tank and improve damage for DPS (support). If everyone in team would try to do the same thing - party dies. And in result stats decide who will doing which things, because stats influence on damage/health and etc. And Since in PoE exist many battles which can't be avoided - party with weak builds would have trouble. Maybe I getting something wrong, but this how I see problem with plot companions.

Tank and spank hasn't been necessary in PoE since its earlier 1.0 inception. What's necessary is a working party composition, sure frontline with healer backing it up with damage in the back can work, but so does a party which is heavy on burst damage and C&C that does alpha strike to win encounters quickly. Or a party which focuses on buffs & debuffs in conjunction to raise level of defensibility of party and win through attrition. There are others but you get the point. If you of course try to make an all damage party and don't have the damage to overwhelm the encounter, it won't work. People focus too much on what people think what Sawyer thinks (I.E downtuned equity balance) and not what he most often does (try to reduce the gap between viable and optimal, as well as trying to make it hard to have any one individual character that is not viable). Still it's a game with a party and party composition will matter regardless, even in a game completely about tactics, the element of strategy will be there as long as there is character building, progression and team composition. Especially in games like isometric RPGs where those are extensive.

Oh, yes. I get your point. Thanks for explanation.