Editorial RPG Codex Report: PAX East 2015, or How Chris Avellone Called the Codex Unprofessional

[Infinitron]

So not every build will be perfect, or the same as others, but it will be playable.
He basically reduced the possibility of creating builds that are completely useless. He did not make every build "the same". You can still make less then optimal build but that wont mean the game will become unplayable.
And its pretty clear to me that attributes will not have such a strong role in the whole gameplay since equipment and skills and talents will further allow players to make their builds work despite less then optimal Attributes choices.

I haven't analysed every single last detail of POE systems like some people, but I always thought this was the point. Frothing at the mouth going OMG SAWYER WANTS TO MAKE EVERY CHARACTER JUST AS POWERFUL AS ANOTHER just fails basic reading comprehension. Now, to what extent different builds become 'effectively same' or optimised builds become not much better than shitty builds, I'll see when I can actually play through the full game and not a mid-level mostly pre-built party.

I've said this with regards to Might, but the 'what should attributes be called' shit has just ballooned all out of proportion. It's like a bunch of morons holding a 2 year research project figuring out whether tomatoes should be stocked with vegetables or fruits in the local supermarket at Bumfuck Nowhere. Sure it's not entirely meaningless, it matters what you call attributes and which attributes affect what, but geez. To me the biggest yardstick was always, does this setup let me build the character I want? Does it have too many dump stats, or get rid of choices too much? Does it offer interesting tradeoffs, etc? I like the idea that the duration of your abilities can be modified globally, for example - that is a fairly unique modifier that you don't normally find in CRPG systems, and offers a new way to think about character builds.

By the way, Obsidian has a new community manager, Mikey Dowling - who plans to go around answering questions a bit more (though I think Obs devs have been around a fair bit since POE KS). Hasn't really got going yet. I don't suspect he'll come to the Codex, but you never know...

The problem is that some Codexers are so used to RPGs with shit-easy and simplistic combat that "no non-viable builds" and "game is trivially easy and you can never fail" have become synonymous in their minds

 

[hiver]

So not every build will be perfect, or the same as others, but it will be playable.
He basically reduced the possibility of creating builds that are completely useless. He did not make every build "the same". You can still make less then optimal build but that wont mean the game will become unplayable.
And its pretty clear to me that attributes will not have such a strong role in the whole gameplay since equipment and skills and talents will further allow players to make their builds work despite less then optimal Attributes choices.

I haven't analysed every single last detail of POE systems like some people, but I always thought this was the point. Frothing at the mouth going OMG SAWYER WANTS TO MAKE EVERY CHARACTER JUST AS POWERFUL AS ANOTHER just fails basic reading comprehension. Now, to what extent different builds become 'effectively same' or optimised builds become not much better than shitty builds, I'll see when I can actually play through the full game and not a mid-level mostly pre-built party.

That idiotic knee jerk schizophrenic reaction was debunked over and over and over. But you cant talk sense to cretins, and due to nature of the internet forums, you can win these argument on one page, while on the next the new set of imbeciles will just start screaming the same old sht and then that pulls everyone along with them into same stupid crap. - check my thread about 3d printing for the latest example.

Same as it happens on OBS forums. - all my threads there.
Because "mods" are hypocrites or asslickers and nobody really gives a fuck.
Its a distorted convoluted double speak system top to bottom. And it cannot produce any other results.

I've said this with regards to Might, but the 'what should attributes be called' shit has just ballooned all out of proportion. It's like a bunch of morons holding a 2 year research project figuring out whether tomatoes should be stocked with vegetables or fruits in the local supermarket at Bumfuck Nowhere. Sure it's not entirely meaningless, it matters what you call attributes and which attributes affect what, but geez. To me the biggest yardstick was always, does this setup let me build the character I want? Does it have too many dump stats, or get rid of choices too much? Does it offer interesting tradeoffs, etc? I like the idea that the duration of your abilities can be modified globally, for example - that is a fairly unique modifier that you don't normally find in CRPG systems, and offers a new way to think about character builds.

It may be balooned out of proportion but the fact is that the attributes and their names are a part of the setting and world building. And therefore they affect internal coherence of the game.

And as I have already said, calling something "Might" and then having it affect ranged damage does not make any sense whatsoever and it creates a fourth wall break on the very basic integral level.
That cannot be considered a good thing. Especially since according to Sawyer such measure were designed into the game to satisfy some hypothetical target audience that has nothing whatsoever with backers of the game, or in fact are not fans or players of this kind of a game - but rather dumb mass market "casuals" who cant think for themselves at all.

Ranged damage of any kind should have been affected by Intellect and Perception. When it comes to wizards and other classes using such weapons and skills. Which would fit and which would be instinctively understandable even to complete morons.
Thats in addition to effects Int and Perception have on other types of classes as they do now.

Crude basic example: make a very intelligent fighter with low might = he does more criticals-status effects in combat and has higher will saves and whatever else, but does less damage per hit.
make a very Mighty wizard at expense of Int = You get a wizard with really powerful spells who tends to miss or fumble spells more, and spells have smaller area of effect,etc.

This instantly makes sense to everyone. There is no need to explain any of it at all even to the dumbest. In fact it would be crystal clear to everyone just from playing the game.

By the way, Obsidian has a new community manager, Mikey Dowling - who plans to go around answering questions a bit more (though I think Obs devs have been around a fair bit since POE KS). Hasn't really got going yet. I don't suspect he'll come to the Codex, but you never know...

Did he do anything that would require such drastic measures?
What did he do to you? hmm?

What answers could a community manager give me? More double speak PR? Im not that audience man.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

Hey hiver remember when you went away for awhile? That was p. sweet.

 

[Ninjerk]

 

[Tigranes]

Sure, it affects the internal coherence of the game. Sure, there's something weird and a bit silly about calling it 'might' when it affects bow damage. I don't disagree. I just think a lot of Codexers have been repeating it for a thousand pages and at this point they've lobotomised themselves with their own slogans.

A small point: I don't really see how that particular decision is about imagining some mass audience, though. Maybe part of the idea was that he doesn't want idiots who don't read the manual to put 80 points in Might then cry their wizard sucks after 30 hours. OK. But I think equally important was catering to grognards who complain when they realise there is zero reason to ever pump certain stats, making for repetitive gameplay. (Indeed, a similar thing happened with 3E, when intelligence was tied to skills points - it still didn't make sense to have 18 INT fighters, but at least putting points in INT had enough benefits to be worth considering - it only affected Will saves in AD&D, right? Fuzzy memory.)

I just think this is more a symptom of having a beta out and having months and months and months to talk about it before playing the game. When you hear someone talk on Youtube about Might, that encourages people to speculate on and on about whether that 'seems' intuitive or not. If we didn't know anything about it and just played the game on release, the conversation might have turned out differently.

The Mikey stuff is for the discussion few pages back about devs posting, etc. If devs go back to their old 'never post anywhere' mode after POE release, he might be a good way to ask questions.

 

[hiver]

Its never a good way to talk to community manager about anything. Their purpose is not to talk about and discuss matters honestly but to spray more double speak PR around.
And i really dont need to know anything else. The game will be out soon and we will see what its like.

As for designing for specific audiences... Sawyer said it himself in this very Mindx interview. He was talking about my critique of engagement specifically but its kind of clear that didnt stop at just one feature.
And he split the audience into audience he designed these features for and "grognards". Which is fundamentally wrong approach to design, if we are viewing it from an idealistic PoV.
You should design the game to be the best possible game, not for or against any audience.

As for screaming retards taking over and distorting the discussion... thats the result of how forums are handled on the internets. As i posited above already.You reap what you sow and all that.

 

[Kattze]

All heil mindx2 a bro amongst bros!

 

[Outlander]

So, uh... where's Chris Avellone? Didn't he get his password from DU or what?

 

[kazgar]

So, uh... where's Chris Avellone? Didn't he get his password from DU or what?

Too busy posting with his hiver account.

 

[Grotesque]

Its not my animation. - projecting eh?

it really needs a big mouth to slurp all that up while its spinning.

wow... you really think I was speaking literally?

Anyway, if I had a penny for each time you are using "projecting" on this forum, in my benevolence I would even pay for your psychiatric treatment.

 

[hiver]

wow... you really think I was speaking literally?

Oh no, i have this special consideration for your fucking posts where i think and think and think whether you are thinking something you said or not.

Anyway, if I had a penny for each time you are using "projecting" on this forum, in my benevolence I would even pay for your psychiatric treatment.

Gleh, gleh bleehhh... if i had a penny bleeh bleehhh...

its because you are all doing it constantly.


-
thats all you get from me before i drink my first coffee in the morning, btw.

 

[Darkzone]

Tim: I love turn-based games. This actually goes back to something Chris was saying, when I worked on South Park… right when I arrived there it was a real-time game and one of the things I was asked was to make it turn-based. It’s easy to turn real-time systems into turn-based ones, so I’m just throwing that out there [as he looks towards the other team members].

As i told you over a year ago at the T:ToN discussion and now you have heard it from Tim himself.

Nice interview mindx2 , it looks like you had a lot of fun.

 

[DeepOcean]

The interview with Obsidian didn't have much new but Mind2x and his investigative powers paid off with the information on the two expansions. I'm kinda disappointed, two expansions to Pillars of Eternity (if the game is good) is nice and all but where is my turn based RPG made on some innovative fantasy setting by Tim Cain? Where?

 

[Sensuki]

Two expansions and a sequel



People change projects though.

Tim's not in a critical role on Pillars, he could easily swap projects if he wanted to.

 

[hiver]

And this is how it ends, suddenly and brutally. After having seen the riches, the fame, the VIP crowds Doritos and mountain dew fountains of PR youth, mindx thread is just discarded, thrown away like an old rag to shrivel and die in the gutter of codex news.

Spoiler

:rofl: - its a joke ffs...

 

[Bubbles]

We should have a rotation where the most popular threads of yesteryear are randomly pinned on slow news days.

 

[crawlkill]

You "I FUCKING HATE THIS SHITHOLE THAT I'VE FREQUENTED FOR YEARS" types are really weird. Surely there's a reason you're here and not a "healthier" community?

This is legit the most focused place to see the kind of RPG news I'm into, and I'm a flawed human being who likes to argue with people I strongly disagree with. And it's a venue for criticizing those things I don't like with at least a modicum of hope that anyone reading what I say will have some idea what I'm talking about. It's not that weird.

I love RPGCodex's front page. It's exposed me to lots of things I'd otherwise never have heard of. I have no interest in sifting through Reddit or less focused newsfeeds to pick up on these things. I didn't come to these forums until many years after I'd used the Codex as a news source. Coming back is a vaguely addictive behavior.

It's addictive because I'm quite happy to complain about things I dislike, but often when I read threads about mainstream games that do legit deserve serious, passionate criticism (looking at you, fucking Inquisition), much of the thread is just people bragging about, like I said before, how they'll NEVER PLAY IT and then a few pages later about how they PIRATED IT, all of which was prefaced by their talking about how terrible it was knowing nothing about it for weeks on end.

I don't hate the Codex, but I do hate its most boringly, generically angry element, and while that may not be the large part of the Codex by volume of text, it definitely is by volume of posts. To say nothing of the repulsively antifaggot antifeminist streak the community constantly evinces, which, y'know, newsflash, the rest of the world is real sick of. The air here is too toxic for any kind of rebreather. I come here because I'm disappointed, too, and want to say so, but so much of the community never seeks to have a point beyond being angry that their niche hobby isn't the same as it used to be.

That said, if you have healthier communities to suggest, I'd be happier to hear about them. I've really never looked.

 

[Ninjerk]

I can never get over how not-deep the shallow end of pools are. Sometimes I think if I just swam deeper I'd find what I want, but I just decide to get out of the pool instead.

 

[tuluse]

If you play video games and you're not generically angry, you are probably doing it wrong.

 

[Modron]

It's addictive because I'm quite happy to complain about things I dislike, but often when I read threads about mainstream games that do legit deserve serious, passionate criticism (looking at you, fucking Inquisition), much of the thread is just people bragging about, like I said before, how they'll NEVER PLAY IT and then a few pages later about how they PIRATED IT, all of which was prefaced by their talking about how terrible it was knowing nothing about it for weeks on end.

Well there has definitely been some of this in the past, I think Inquisition is a prime example of game people generally will never bother to play, Konjad not withstanding. From what parts of RK47's videos demonstrated I can say many of us have probably seen more than enough of that game. I never bothered with the second game in the series but it's something I might pickup down the road after I finish my steam/gog backlog (aka long after my heart has exploded).

That said, if you have healthier communities to suggest, I'd be happier to hear about them. I've really never looked.

Ps do we still watchwitz?

 

[SCO]

It's not a sin to trashtalk a game that is filled with obvious MMO filler.

Problem those are all the new games (almost).

 

[Apexeon]

Tim: I love turn-based games. This actually goes back to something Chris was saying, when I worked on South Park… right when I arrived there it was a real-time game and one of the things I was asked was to make it turn-based. It’s easy to turn real-time systems into turn-based ones, so I’m just throwing that out there [as he looks towards the other team members].

 

[mindx2]

And this is how it ends, suddenly and brutally. After having seen the riches, the fame, the VIP crowds Doritos and mountain dew fountains of PR youth, mindx thread is just discarded, thrown away like an old rag to shrivel and die in the gutter of codex news.

Alas, my Codex fame was but a fleeting moment in my life.... Warhol was right after all...

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

Warhol was right after all...

15 pages of fame...

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Warhol was right after all...

15 pages of fame...

Sounds like a solid name for a drama movie. Would watch.