Interview Project Eternity Interview @ Irontower

[Infinitron]

I'm not talking specifically about PE though, I've already said my piece on that:

At the same time, once you've split the skill-pools (which is a horrible, horrible idea) and you're doing a party-based RPG (which makes split skill-pools even worse) you'll inevitably cover a broad selection of skills, and if speech is there then few players will opt not to tag it on at least one character, which is almost like not having it in there in the first place.

I mean, it still cheapens the secondary skills, but if it's a dungeon romp with some fluff I guess it wouldn't matter anyway.

Well, to me, in 3E, "skills" aren't really "skills" in the sense commonly thought of here. They're more like character specializations. You aren't likely to drastically modify them during a character's lifetime, other than linearly improving them. So how exactly the points are divided doesn't really matter.

 

[Roguey]

Ignore allegations of trash combat - I don't know what that is about. Avoid this game on account of trash combat only if you disliked the amount of combat in BG2 and Wizardry 8. It has less trashfights than both these games.

Not BG2. My killcount at the end of BG2: Roughly 1000. After ToB: Roughly 2000. After DA:O with only Shale DLC: Roughly 2000. They could have cut that number in half (or a little more than half) and it'd be a better game for it.

The writer simply didn't have the skill to pull of the level of seriousness he wanted to.

DA:O had multiple writers, blaming everything on Dave is just silly. He doesn't have carte blanche. He's recently written a series of articles about the writing process at Bioware.

My problem with Sawyer is his insistence that all skills be equally useful and equally useful throughout the game. I think that leads to homogenous design that feels very bland. Like in Fallout: NV, too many doors were openable by lock picking or hacking. It made them feel like the same skill. The fact that all weapons skills were equally viable also made choosing one type feel like a cosmetic choice rather than a gameplay choice, and killed a sense of character progression.

New Vegas also had many places that exclusively used either hacking or lockpicking. Doubling up on some was a quick way to make both feel useful. Melee/unarmed, guns/energy weapons, and explosives all have different and distinct playstyles. The problem is that melee/unarmed and guns/energy were redundant; he's stated that if he ever gets another crack at Fallout he'll merge those skills so you'll have three viable-but-different ways of killing things.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Funny thing. Wizards were one of the few saving graces of the IE games.

 

[Grunker]

My killcounts

Wow. Mine are almost exactly reversed.

DA:O had multiple writers, blaming everything on Dave is just silly. He doesn't have carte blanche. He's recently written a series of articles about the writing process at Bioware.

I wasn't really blaming anything on any one. Whoever is to blame - writers or process - it fell short.

 

[hiver]

Someone tell VaultDweller to do a followup and extract more juicy info about this dialogue business particulars.

 

[Azrael the cat]

coughDX:HRcough....

Or DX original. DX original had no social skills whatsoever, and yet used dialogue to good (if cosmetic) effect.

 

[suejak]

Is it cosmetic if you're making choices through the dialogue?

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

I don't "admit" it, but I certainly agree. Dragon Age would have been much better if injury kits were rare. It would have made their health system great. So yeah, as I point out to Infinitron, I see potential in P:E's health mechanics.

Dragon Age's health system, as you call it, was retarded. The availability of injury kits has little to do with it. Why would I care about a -2 Cunning penalty (broken skull injury) with my warrior? In a game with such bloated stats? Heck, I wouldn't even care on my rogue, how could you tell the difference between 40 cunning and 38 cunning anyway?

it's one of the few things where Dragon Age 2 genuinely improved upon DA1 by making injuries cost 10% of your health pool, making an injury serious bizness you want to deal with asap. Of course they've also invented an elaborate loot-algorithm that always made sure you had about ~5 injury potions in your possession.

 

[Grunker]

I don't "admit" it, but I certainly agree. Dragon Age would have been much better if injury kits were rare. It would have made their health system great. So yeah, as I point out to Infinitron, I see potential in P:E's health mechanics.

Dragon Age's health system, as you call it, was retarded. The availability of injury kits has little to do with it. Why would I care about a -2 Cunning penalty (broken skull injury) with my warrior? In a game with such bloated stats? Heck, I wouldn't even care on my rogue, how could you tell the difference between 40 cunning and 38 cunning anyway?

I certainly agree the values were too small, but that doesn't make the system itself bad (it was actually more or less a carbon copy of Drakensang's, more or less), it just means they used they wrong values (just like injury kits was too plentiful).

it's one of the few things where Dragon Age 2 genuinely improved upon DA1 by making injuries cost 10% of your health pool, making an injury serious bizness you want to deal with asap. Of course they've also invented an elaborate loot-algorithm that always made sure you had about ~5 injury potions in your possession.

Yep, didn't really matter that injuries were worse... Don't get why they spent time programming injuries at all in those games when it was just a matter of opening your inventory.

 

[Lord Andre]

Very nice interview.

Josh's response to the first questions shows that he is indeed a douche bag - still holding a grudge from when people bashed his kooldown idea and the health-regen fagotry. Other than that, I like the direction he wants to take the game in.

It worries me though that he is a balance freak. In BG2+TOB there came a time when you could pimp up your mage with Robe of Vecna and Power Amulet, cast Time Stop and Improved Alacrity than proceed to unload your fucking spell book. When the Time Stop ended, you could sit back and watch the storm of ass-rapery that you had unleashed on the poor bastards that crossed you. Sawyer wants to take that away and give me balance. FUCK BALANCE ! FUCK IT ALL !

 

[Infinitron]

On speech checks: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/62...-iron-tower-studio/page__st__100#entry1288404

Speech as a skill is the thing that I think produces the most quasi-/metagaming. Attribute/ability score checks tend to not produce the same problem since you can often be more egalitarian about what attributes are checked and how often. With a Speech skill (or equivalent), its whole raison d'être is to gain advantage in conversation. That's not true even for stats like Charisma or Intelligence in D&D.

 

[Haba]

It worries me though that he is a balance freak. In BG2+TOB there came a time when you could pimp up your mage with Robe of Vecna and Power Amulet, cast Time Stop and Improved Alacrity than proceed to unload your fucking spell book. When the Time Stop ended, you could sit back and watch the storm of ass-rapery that you had unleashed on the poor bastards that crossed you. Sawyer wants to take that away and give me balance. FUCK BALANCE ! FUCK IT ALL !

If you want to break the game, why not just cheat your way into it?

 

[Grunker]

On speech checks: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/62...-iron-tower-studio/page__st__100#entry1288404

Speech as a skill is the thing that I think produces the most quasi-/metagaming. Attribute/ability score checks tend to not produce the same problem since you can often be more egalitarian about what attributes are checked and how often. With a Speech skill (or equivalent), its whole raison d'être is to gain advantage in conversation. That's not true even for stats like Charisma or Intelligence in D&D.

I can work with that.

 

[Lord Andre]

If you want to break the game, why not just cheat your way into it?

It's not about breaking the game, it's about finding ways to do it. That's the challenge. And if an opportunity for sheer badassery presents itself along the way, why not enjoy it ?

Perfect balance is MMO cretinism. Bland, insipid, boring. I want some spice in my RPGs.

 

[Haba]

Balance does not exclude moments of "badassery". The biggest "imbalance" in BG's case was that once you found a good routine, you'd practically repeat it ad nauseam. And then for some less sensible builds the "challenge" forced you to cheese every endgame encounter instead of providing a viable approach to it.

 

[Lord Andre]

Balance does not exclude moments of "badassery". The biggest "imbalance" in BG's case was that once you found a good routine, you'd practically repeat it ad nauseam. And then for some less sensible builds the "challenge" forced you to cheese every endgame encounter instead of providing a viable approach to it.

Balance or Inbalance has nothing to do with applying the same tactic over and over. It's an encounter design issue. And it is my opinion that BG2 had good encounter design. I had about 5 or 6 good routines that I would use ad nauseam depending on the encounter. I can't think of one RPG where every encounter needs a new aproach, "balanced" or otherwise.

 

[Anac'raxus]

On speech checks: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/62...-iron-tower-studio/page__st__100#entry1288404

Speech as a skill is the thing that I think produces the most quasi-/metagaming. Attribute/ability score checks tend to not produce the same problem since you can often be more egalitarian about what attributes are checked and how often. With a Speech skill (or equivalent), its whole raison d'être is to gain advantage in conversation. That's not true even for stats like Charisma or Intelligence in D&D.

I can work with that.

Actually, I'd be content without a speech skill if they still had some stat checks for charisma or some diplomatic perks. I'd be more than content if they checked lots of different stats, be they skills or perks or abilities or whatever, while still leaving a niche for diplomatic builds.

 

[Grunker]

I like the thought of not building a diplomatic character, but instead being able to resolve things diplomatically in some conversations (because of skill and stats that were related to that conversation) but not being able to in others (becuase you lacked the skills and stats relevant there). Sort of like what New Vegas would have been without a Speech skill.

 

[Captain Shrek]

I like the thought of not building a diplomatic character, but instead being able to resolve things diplomatically in some conversations (because of skill and stats that were related to that conversation) but not being able to in others (becuase you lacked the skills and stats relevant there). Sort of like what New Vegas would have been without a Speech skill.

I think you will be able to do both IF the skills are not limited by stats (Assuming they exist in the world of cooldowns without being item dependent).

 

[Anac'raxus]

I like the thought of not building a diplomatic character, but instead being able to resolve things diplomatically in some conversations (because of skill and stats that were related to that conversation) but not being able to in others (becuase you lacked the skills and stats relevant there). Sort of like what New Vegas would have been without a Speech skill.

I just like playing diplomat builds. I even pumped charisma in BG2.

I don't want overpowered diplomacy where you can win quest experience by just passing a stat check, though. Something that saves minor time and resources would be enough. A way to meet faction leaders without having to bribe their guards if your rep with the faction isn't already high... something like that.

I don't object to making reputation and knowledge learned in game more important than character stats in dialogues, but dust-binning pregame diplomat builds goes to far, IMO.

 

[hiver]

coughDX:HRcough....

Or DX original. DX original had no social skills whatsoever, and yet used dialogue to good (if cosmetic) effect.

- yeah well, if the dialogue is merely cosmetic then that is the opposite of what we would like to achieve, and also opposite of what sawyer talks about. (just sayin)

As mentioning HR i of course do not mean its presentation, but mechanics and reliance on individual differences in a much more diverse manner then usual dialogue trees we like provide.
It is the best example of another approach - that actually worked. Works.
In an isometric game, you could easily replace the 3d visual clues of expressions and body language DXHR used - and go with the same clues described in text - based on players character builds.

Like, who would mind that anyway, around here - and a written description can be much deeper than any visual clue, yet as revealing in a nuanced way as you like, or as good writer can write it.

The extra positive angle to this system is that it works better if you use it sparingly - much as talking heads did, while its much lighter on resources - which gives you more room to create deeper dialogues, while for usual "everyday" conservation in the game - expositions about setting, lore and other such stuff you can just use the normal dialogue trees system.

 

[Castanova]

I disagree. Not that a soldier can't be charismatic, naturally, which is a reasonable compromise between skill allocation. But dedicating your life to the pursuit of a single power or ability surely results in some neglect of other, equally viable, but less interesting, potential traits and skills.

I don't agree in the case of most social skills. Combat skills are things that people practice -- good fighters would practice these things heavily -- and combat skills are also extremely easy to measure. But social skills are not something that people typically practice to the same extent and (maybe even BECAUSE) they are nearly impossible to measure accurately. It makes sense to me that a Grandmaster of combat with a Greatsword while wearing Heavy Armor would be unlikely to also be a Grandmaster of Long-range Bow & Arrow sniping. Just being a Grandmaster of one of those probably requires a 100,000 hours of practice or something and there are only so many hours in the day. There's nobody who spends 100,000 hours practicing how to be Intimidating.

The effect it has on your performance, your ability to deal with the problems with which you are presented? The more tools in your toolkit, the less meaningful the choice when choosing between which tool to use -- it becomes more of a cosmetic choice.

You never have to make that choice, though. You never have to say, "Gee, this guy is attacking me with a giant sword. Should I dodge that attack? Or should I Intimidate that attack?" The only choice is before combat even begins. So, basically, by having a shared pool, you're making a binary choice. Do I want to play a CYOA? Or do I want to play a combat RPG? That's not an interesting or fun choice.

Other than that, [Intelligence] there's no reason why a successful speech-check has to rely entirely on the skill, and not strain the player's wits.

Not only is there no reason a speech-check has to rely entirely on the skill... the speech check must in fact NOT rely entirely on the skill if you want the social aspect to be innately fun. As you said, to make a social skill implementation fun it must strain the player's wits. It's not possible to strain a player's wits with dialog skill checks.

 

[St. Toxic]

snip

I get the feeling you only read the bits that you quoted. Instead of me repeating myself, let's just say we're looking at the same picture from different perspectives.

 

[felipepepe]

snip

I get the feeling you only read the bits that you quoted. Instead of me repeating myself, let's just say we're looking at the same picture from different perspectives.

Post-Modernism, on my Codex!!?

 

[Roguey]

It worries me though that he is a balance freak. In BG2+TOB

Um that was a high level campaign. Even Sawyer acknowledges that it's totally impossible to balance a game with a lot of customization when the levels are that high. Given enough expansions/sequels, you'll get what you want.