Development Info Tim Cain at Reboot Develop 2017 - Building a Better RPG: Seven Mistakes to Avoid

[Gangrelrumbler]

He correctly identified the problem with character creation - it can be overwhelming at first, especially to players who are new to the genre but his answer is totally retarded. The problem was already solved years ago, by simply removing character creation from the game, and just let the player develop he's char after he's familiar with the basic game systems. Gothic did it and is loved both by average gamers and Codexers alike. Sure it takes away a lot of charm from the game but is better then gutting your entire stat system. I mean seriously? Numbers are too complicated for his target audience? Is he making a game for people too dumb to play Pokemon or Diablo? Because they are one of the best selling game franchises and they do use numbers.

 

[Ruzen]

About the "charts instead of numbers" discussion: I think he only meant as a visual representation preference. BUT in the end, everything is a mathematical equation. It's pointless for It to be a chart, graph or in basic form number.

 

[DavidBVal]

WTF... Arcanum problem was the character development? has this man completely lost it?

Character creation, not character development.

Yes, he says creation, but then goes on about simple, numberless systems, and about how numbers ruin the fun. I think the message is clear here.

Truth is, most good RPGs will require a dedicated player to restart and create a new character after he figures out the system. There's nothing that can replace actual experience about how a system works. I think Arcanum is not the worst in that regard, considering most builds are playable and you only have to assign a handful of points, it won't truly decide everything. Also you will quickly test combat and see what works and what doesn't (compared for instance to D:OS, in which you assign tons of points for several levels, with barely any combat to actually test and understand what those improvements bring you).

Also, people don't hate numbers. "normies" never stop talking about horsepower, gas prices, discounts, taxes, baseball stats... what people hate is being forced to make lots of choices they don't understand, or being forced into reading when they want to be playing.

 

[DraQ]

No, the system has mistakes and pitfalls but the shared pool is great. You can choose between short-term, quickly visible effects, or more long term investments that do little for you when you raise them but unlock the most powerful spells/schematics if you persevere (INT, WP). Nothing prevents you from spreading evenly the points if you want to do that. Pretend you got one point for each and spend them every 3 levels, if you want to forsake the flexibility given to you.

Shared pool is awful because it forces player to make decision based on information they don't have.

Fallout's charsheet was good because it was a simple transaprent interface between you and your build. You had clearly labelled buttons that manipulated clearly labelled concepts displayed to you as clearly labelled numbers. Since the mapping between intuitive concepts and manipulated values was so transparent you didn't even need to grasp the underlying math.

Arcanum's charsheet OTOH forces the player to play an obtuse guessing game of ranking unlike concepts relative to each other based on obfuscated rules.

Fuck this shit.

 

[DraQ]

WTF... Arcanum problem was the character development? has this man completely lost it?

Character creation, not character development.

Yes, he says creation, but then goes on about simple, numberless systems, and about how numbers ruin the fun. I think the message is clear here.

Truth is, most good RPGs will require a dedicated player to restart and create a new character after he figures out the system. There's nothing that can replace actual experience about how a system works. I think Arcanum is not the worst in that regard, considering most builds are playable and you only have to assign a handful of points, it won't truly decide everything. Also you will quickly test combat and see what works and what doesn't (compared for instance to D:OS, in which you assign tons of points for several levels, with barely any combat to actually test and understand what those improvements bring you).

Most RPGs will make many players *want* to do that, but only shit ones may *require* that.

 

[Lurker King]

This game will be much worse than Pillars. I can't wait to see the butthurt. Every cycle of decline is worst than the last. PoE is worse than BG2, T:ToN is worse than PS:T, etc.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

When you level up, all the skills that the designer think are the minimum for the player to survive on their archetype he chosen are marked on bright flashing neon blue colour with a big (WARNING: SELECT THIS SKILL OR YOU WILL DIE) so the retards can't miss the skills they are supposed to invest at minimum for the classes they chosen. After all this, if the retard player still managed to ignore all your warnings, just say for him to fuck himself.

I have the feeling, that all this talk is just excuses and more excuses for dumbdown and going on Bethesda footsteps and make a shitty action game that plays RPG dress up because the money is on action games.

I think auto level up would be more appropriate.
But I agree very much with an idea. You can have a complex RPG which will offer an easy route for casuals and custom building for gamers.

 

[Quillon]

This game will be much worse than Pillars. I can't wait to see the butthurt. Every cycle of decline is worst than the last. PoE is worse than BG2, T:ToN is worse than PS:T, etc.

This game will be in a different league than Pillars. But its possible codex will compare it to VTMB or even NV and crush it nonetheless.

 

[DavidBVal]

No, the system has mistakes and pitfalls but the shared pool is great. You can choose between short-term, quickly visible effects, or more long term investments that do little for you when you raise them but unlock the most powerful spells/schematics if you persevere (INT, WP). Nothing prevents you from spreading evenly the points if you want to do that. Pretend you got one point for each and spend them every 3 levels, if you want to forsake the flexibility given to you.

Shared pool is awful because it forces player to make decision based on information they don't have.
.

Yes, assigning the initial points feels as an uninformed choice but how is that different from having separated pools? Are multiple pools automatically more informative? Seriously, it is just 4 points, you wanna make a melee? raise a bit your STR, one in melee, one in dodge. Wanna be a smart talky guy? obvious choices too, a bit of CHA, persuassion. A mage? a few points at mental stats and there's a spell called harm, intuitive enough. Spell descriptions even list required WP. Of course I know the game well now so I am very biased but Arcanum feels as easy to grasp for me, compared to most RPGs of a similar complexity.

By the time you are level 7-8, which is about 5% of the game, you understand perfectly what each choice implies, don't you? and you still have almost all the 64 points ahead of you to use into whatever build you want to go for, even if you assigned a few "wrongly". "Perfectionists" like most of us will probably restart anyways, but Arcanum doesn't require at all that you do, you can throw away the first 10 points and still reach the late spells, max ther elevant stats, etc.

 

[Roguey]

This game will be much worse than Pillars. I can't wait to see the butthurt. Every cycle of decline is worst than the last. PoE is worse than BG2, T:ToN is worse than PS:T, etc.

What if it has good writing and C&C? Witcher 3 was voted the best RPG of the last five years after all.

 

[an Administrator]

What's with this trend of making CRPGs for people who don't like CRPGs.

Shekels

 

[Beastro]

Mistake #1 - Steep Learning Curves: Tim thinks character creation in Fallout, Arcanum and other RPGs was too complex. He's experimenting with creating a completely numberless character system that uses geometric shapes to visualize attributes.

It is not the numbers, but rather the game's logic that is hard to figure out. Even if you know all of the information about stats, and understand what they do, there is a chance that a part of them is practically useless. I'd say they should spent time making sure that all skills are necessary, rather than simplifying the character creation window. And Bloodlines already has the auto level up option for retards.

Wtf can't people be allowed to fail in games anymore?

 

[Excidium II]

Mistake #1 - Steep Learning Curves: Tim thinks character creation in Fallout, Arcanum and other RPGs was too complex. He's experimenting with creating a completely numberless character system that uses geometric shapes to visualize attributes.

It is not the numbers, but rather the game's logic that is hard to figure out. Even if you know all of the information about stats, and understand what they do, there is a chance that a part of them is practically useless. I'd say they should spent time making sure that all skills are necessary, rather than simplifying the character creation window. And Bloodlines already has the auto level up option for retards.

Wtf can't people be allowed to fail in games anymore?

Half the skills being just a cosmetic number on the char screen sure is a fun challenge to overcome.

 

[DavidBVal]

All character creation choices should be equally good.

 

[Beastro]

I like when some games hide numbers (Nahlakh, King of Dragon Pass)
I dislike when some games shove numbers in my face at inappropriate moments* (Morrowind, Crusader Kings 2)

And that's all games I do like.

#IStandWithTim

Spoiler

(* diplomacy in Morrowind and any CYOA decision in CK2)

CK2? Numbers?

It's about the least numbers heavy Pdox game made....

 

[Excidium II]

This game will be much worse than Pillars. I can't wait to see the butthurt. Every cycle of decline is worst than the last. PoE is worse than BG2, T:ToN is worse than PS:T, etc.

What if it has good writing and C&C?

What's left @ Obsidian sure is gonna impress in that department.

 

[Latelistener]

Mistake #1 - Steep Learning Curves: Tim thinks character creation in Fallout, Arcanum and other RPGs was too complex. He's experimenting with creating a completely numberless character system that uses geometric shapes to visualize attributes.

It is not the numbers, but rather the game's logic that is hard to figure out. Even if you know all of the information about stats, and understand what they do, there is a chance that a part of them is practically useless. I'd say they should spent time making sure that all skills are necessary, rather than simplifying the character creation window. And Bloodlines already has the auto level up option for retards.

Wtf can't people be allowed to fail in games anymore?

"Every build should be playable" and "every skill should be useful" are kinda different things.

 

[Excidium II]

If it's useless why the fuck is it in the game? This is the kind of thing that showed how CRPGs are designed backwards.

 

[DraQ]

No, the system has mistakes and pitfalls but the shared pool is great. You can choose between short-term, quickly visible effects, or more long term investments that do little for you when you raise them but unlock the most powerful spells/schematics if you persevere (INT, WP). Nothing prevents you from spreading evenly the points if you want to do that. Pretend you got one point for each and spend them every 3 levels, if you want to forsake the flexibility given to you.

Shared pool is awful because it forces player to make decision based on information they don't have.
.

Yes, assigning the initial points feels as an uninformed choice but how is that different from having separated pools? Are multiple pools automatically more informative?

Of course. They don't force you try to rank general and specific concepts against each other.
You know what kind of character you want to make, you know what are your pools for innate and learned abilities and you know the pool of potential additional quirks you may want to have.

Once you decided that you want a gifted, smart, science-y kind of guy you were done without having to decide whether he should be more smart or sciencey
- and what would it even be supposed to mean? If I wanted to larp Michael Jordan I would have to decide if my character is going to be more tall or more black?

Mistake #1 - Steep Learning Curves: Tim thinks character creation in Fallout, Arcanum and other RPGs was too complex. He's experimenting with creating a completely numberless character system that uses geometric shapes to visualize attributes.

It is not the numbers, but rather the game's logic that is hard to figure out. Even if you know all of the information about stats, and understand what they do, there is a chance that a part of them is practically useless. I'd say they should spent time making sure that all skills are necessary, rather than simplifying the character creation window. And Bloodlines already has the auto level up option for retards.

Wtf can't people be allowed to fail in games anymore?

"Every build should be playable" and "every skill should be useful" are kinda different things.

If you can ensure that in your system then every build should be playable.

Trap builds serve no purpose. They serve no purpose to the advanced players (who can instantly spot problems with a build and avoid it). They certainly serve no purpose to the noobs. So what are they? Something noobs can fail with? Noobs are plenty good at failing even without that.

 

[Kalin]

Just a reminder that Arcanum actually had auto-leveling schemes for retards, plenty of character types available.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Well, again we get to the "what is useless" question and the old problem of the skills in Fallout.

I'd say Science for example is not useless, if you can do some things that otherwise you couldn't without putting points in it.
Some would say that it's useless if you can't finish the game with a build focused on science and there aren't science checks at every corner.

I'd say they should spent time making sure that all skills are necessary

I'm assuming you meant usable not necessary. It's quite absurd to want all skills to be necessary.

 

[Excidium II]

Well, again we get to the "what is useless" question and the old problem of the skills in Fallout.

I'd say Science for example is not useless, if you can do some things that otherwise you couldn't without putting points in it.
Some would say that it's useless if you can't finish the game with a science build and there aren't science checks at every corner.

I'd say they should spent time making sure that all skills are necessary

I'm assuming you meant usable not necessary. It's quite absurd to want all skills to be necessary.

It should be impactful in some way. Like I want this skill because it's actually useful and not because it will give me a handful of different text strings on a replay where I can afford to assist borderline useless skills with metagame knowledge.

 

[l3loodAngel]

This game will be much worse than Pillars. I can't wait to see the butthurt. Every cycle of decline is worst than the last. PoE is worse than BG2, T:ToN is worse than PS:T, etc.

What if it has good writing and C&C? Witcher 3 was voted the best RPG of the last five years after all.

I have a Yuge desire that those retards would just pack their bags and leave muh codex.

 

[Aenra]

DraQ blah blah blah why the long post?

i) you appear to know what i imagined; amazing! When half your argument is based on what you think -i- was imagining or wasn't... or even worse, what i should be imagining.. seriously dude?

ii) no one advocates for a game without some background system of measuring and comparing/contrasting. I don't appreciate strawman arguments, nor seeing my ideas twisted into something more convenient for another to disprove. Don't do this with grown ups please; or at least, not with me. Doesn't work.
There can be more verisimilar, organic ways to depict character growth or development. Outside the starting stats page and the +1s and -2s. You are free to condemn them all, but spare me the theories. Most especially when said theories (which you picked on purpose) derive FROM a stats page startup system ^^

There is no one way in this. You've picked your side and all well and good. Now please broaden your scope and come to terms with the fact that there could be other ways. In addition to what we know mind you; no one said to the exclusion of what's come before.
Am willing to wait now and condemn later; apparently you're not. See how simple that is?

 

[FeelTheRads]

Metagame knowledge shouldn't be considered when designing a game/system, though. And it's something that unfortunately too many consider.

Also, what kind of impact? I'd say that if you get some extra xp or can solve some quests you couldn't otherwise, or even just as alternative solutions then it's enough. It offers more build options and I think it's rewarding enough when you get to use these "underused" skills.
Unlike say, stuff like NV where there's some lock or computer thrown around in the wasteland every 10 meters just to make that skill supposedly useful but instead turning it into a fucking boring routine and looking stupid in the process as well.

you could dump utility skills altogether in favour of some handcrafted minigames