Game News Wasteland 2 Kickstarter Update #28: Progress Report, Weapon Design

[Irenaeus]

And that kind of shitty itemisation is what I'm against. No game - especially a party-based one - needs to have different but equal tiers of gear for every weapon skills. It's illogical, stupid and catering to mouth-breathing simpletons and MMO crowd.

Do games need to have skills that are literally useless for large parts of the game without warning the player in anyway about them?

Yes.

I guess the more accurate question would be: Should those "mostly useless" skills be implemented in vital (or even semi-vital) roles?

Well, then no. I'm all for some complementary of even superflous skills, it adds to the flavour of the game. But vital roles (combat?) should be composed of mostly useful skills.

 

[tuluse]

Shrek, my problem is not with people criticizing Sawyer or his ideas, I've done so myself. My problem is with the anti-Sawyer brigade being really annoying. Like this thread is about Wasteland 2, Sawyer has nothing to do with it, and in they come saying all the ideas he's had and ever will have are terrible.

We will see. Right now he has AGAIN changed this recently. Which points towards his obvious inexperience with designing game mechanics.

To borrow a technique from Roguey:

Nothing replaces iteration. Nothing. There’s no amount of pre-planning in the world that will make up for iteration time. It’s all about getting the game in and working, so you can start iterating and making it better.

InXile is just smart enough not to tell us all the things they're trying.

 

[Lancehead]

Armor/weapons, I don't think we've seen the final system for this yet. I think there are good ideas mixed with bad so far (like armor causing damage reduction instead of increasing chance to miss seems like a good idea).

We will see. Right now he has AGAIN changed this recently. Which points towards his obvious inexperience with designing game mechanics.

No, it shows your inexperience with design process. You don't finalise something like that without extensive playtesting and iteration.

 

[Lancehead]

Armor/weapons, I don't think we've seen the final system for this yet. I think there are good ideas mixed with bad so far (like armor causing damage reduction instead of increasing chance to miss seems like a good idea).

We will see. Right now he has AGAIN changed this recently. Which points towards his obvious inexperience with designing game mechanics.

No, it shows your inexperience with design process. You don't finalise something like that without extensive playtesting and iteration.

To answer you more clearly:

Cooldowns, health regen are KNOWN to be bad in RTwP. To still go after them is stupid and wasteful.

Uh, the quote is talking about armour/weapons.

 

[Brother None]

InXile is just smart enough not to tell us all the things they're trying.

It's a difference in approach, I don't think it's about "smarts".

But it is true that especially early in there's a ton of ideas flying about that get picked up and dropped by iteration and meetings, and there's some that you just can't know if you'll put them into the final game until you test and tweak them. There's some parts of the Wasteland 2 combat and weapon progression system that touch on a lot of things said in this thread but the design team is pretty leery of Molyneuxing things; talking about design elements that won't make it in, especially some that look brilliant on paper but once you implement it, it just doesn't work (this is a very common thing in the game industry).

Anyway sorry to interject. Please return to the Team Sawyer and Team Not-Sawyer debate. Will we have T-shirts made?

PS: I honestly don't know who Sawyer's antagonist is in this debate. Bizarro Sawyer?

 

[GarfunkeL]

I'm not an expert and it's been a while (never) since I've fired a few rounds from my trusty AKSU-47, so I'll take your word for it.

Design-wise, you can either exclude stereotype-breaking weapons or allow skills or items' crossover when using them.

Well, that's a problem because AKSU isn't anything special, which is why I brought it up. Certain souped-up SMGs and almost every assault rifle are just inherently so much better than a handgun, that trying to make handguns just as viable throughout the game is both counter-intuitive and simply unrealistic.

I'm not claiming that EVERY choice must be equally viable and rewarding, I'm saying that telling the player that his skill has suddenly stopped working tends to be a bad design choice. I certainly didn't like when my suave and persuasive Toreador discovered that he can't talk his way through Bloodlines.

I'm not saying that the player should be able to drop robots and heavy armor dudes with a starting gun. Again, not an expert, but surely guns like Colt Python and Anaconda are good enough to get the job done?

I could have sworn that's what you wrote before. I definitely agree with you that Bloodlines dropped the ball with its ending and only a total moron would be against that sort of viability of skills. The three pronged approach of combat, stealth and diplomacy solving every quest in a game should be the minimum industry standard.

And sure, some ridiculous handguns have been manufactured to use extremely powerful cartridges and have quite a bit of stopping power - but they STILL lose out to rifles in the end. Whether they could pierce power armour is a debate for someone with more nerd credits than me :D

Let me bring up an example from JA2 that hopefully settles this and illustrates a nice way of solving this sort of problems. By mid-game, your team will most likely be equipped with SMGs and rifles. I would still equip Fox with pistols, even though they are inferior in almost every aspect. Why? Because it's a party-based game. Fox doesn't need to dish out excellent damage, since she's still a good medic. Furthermore, since she's ambidextrous, the game mechanics support utilizing her in certain situations since they makes pistols very quick to aim and fire, and with two guns she can deal respectable damage at close-range. For other situations, the rest of the party will support her. For a non-medic, non-ambidextrous character, utilizing pistols at that point would be stupid. But for her, it works.

That's the sort of mechanics I would like to see in Wasteland 2 and not simplistic Tier 1 Pistol, Tier 1 Rifle, Tier 1 RPG, Tier 1 grenade and so on and so forth. I don't want to see a laser pistol that's equal to a 9mm semi-automatic - since why would anyone make such a weapon? I also don't want to see Magical Revolver of Slaying that's equal to a .50cal Barrett in the name of BALANCE! Now I think that my initial concern was unfounded, since Brother None cleared up the issue.

Do games need to have skills that are literally useless for large parts of the game without warning the player in any way about them?

I don't think I advocated anything like that. I already stated that the Energy weapons skill in F1/F2 was superfluous. But investing in it in character creation did not cripple your character for the game and claiming otherwise is simply hyperbole. Not every combat skill needs to be carefully balanced to be equally viable and powerful throughout the game.

 

[tuluse]

I don't think I advocated anything like that. I already stated that the Energy weapons skill in F1/F2 was superfluous. But investing in it in character creation did not cripple your character for the game and claiming otherwise is simply hyperbole. Not every combat skill needs to be carefully balanced to be equally viable and powerful throughout the game.

Well, I agree with you. So take that.

The only problems with Fallout's combat skills are:
Throwing is basically pointless. They should have just used strength or agility checks.
Big guns and energy weapons are skills that cannot be used until quite a ways into the game.

Also, your energy weapon example lacks creativity. What about something like this: A broken laser pistol. The focusing lense is scratched and causes the beam to be less powerful and deflects it slightly making it harder to aim. It could even be worse than the 10mm pistol because it would at least let players use the skill they invested in.

 

[t]

Actually, even unarmed works. One combat tag is basically all you need. Of course not throwing...

Wait are you saying Fallout combat skills were equally viable?!?!?

That's an interesting point. How many useless skills does a game need to have in order not to be called decline?

 

[GarfunkeL]

Well, I agree with you so take that.

Choose your weapons then, good sir, swords or pistols, we shall settle this at dawn!

The only problems with Fallout's combat skills are:
Throwing is basically pointless. They should have just used strength or agility checks.

Grenades are useful early-to-mid game but yeah, there is a big risk that if your skill is low, the 'nades go anywhere but where you wanted.

Big guns and energy weapons are skills that cannot be used until quite a ways into the game.

Not a problem, in my book.

Also, you're energy weapon example lacks creativity. What about something like this: A broken laser pistol. The focusing lense is scratched and causes the beam to be less powerful and deflects it slightly making it harder to aim. It could even be worse than the 10mm pistol because it would at least let players use the skill they invested in.

Now we're talking. I wouldn't have an issue with something like that.

 

[Roguey]

Jesus wept, have you ever read/watched a piece of sci-fi? Played a game with sci-fi influences? Laser/Plasma weapons are ALWAYS better than regular firearms. Even if our imaginary retard-player has never seen Star Wars or read Henlein, he has played DOOM or UFO: Enemy Unknown before Fallout and thus learned that laser beats chemical projectiles.

Those are assumptions you can't make, and one shouldn't make games where that kind of outside knowledge is required. Fallout is not a simulation of Star Wars, Henlein, Doom, or Xcom. Since this is a game, energy weapons can be as powerful or as weak or as plentiful or as rare as the designers want them to be.

It was a fantastic experience in F1 when I found the first laser pistol in Necropolis but couldn't use it properly since I hadn't placed many points into it. I actually had to risk running very close to a Supermutant at the Water Shed to hit him - but once I did, ooh yeah bloody mess.

You could still have this experience in Fallout if energy weapons were governed by a single gun skill--have EWs be incredibly inaccurate without extremely high investment in the skill (something over 100).

 

[GarfunkeL]

Those are assumptions you can't make, and one shouldn't make games where that kind of outside knowledge is required. Fallout is not a simulation of Star Wars, Henlein, Doom, or Xcom. Since this is a game, energy weapons can be as powerful or as weak or as plentiful or as rare as the designers want them to be.

Nobody lives in a vacuum. These sort of assumptions are made by everyone on a daily basis. Expecting otherwise is a waste of time. In all of popular culture, zappers and blasters > regular weapons. Thus it stands to reason for a player that Energy Weapons in F1 are both uncommon and powerful. It's the player's fault of being stupid and inflexible if he invests everything into them and is then unable to cope. Furthermore, as stated before, it's entirely possible to finish F1 whilst tagging the most useless skills.

 

[Infinitron]

Again, the debate on whether the assumption of Energy Weapons being rare is a reasonable one is missing the point.

The only question that should matter is, "Is this a good design? Is this an interesting design? Does it add anything to the game? Is it better than other designs?"

If you care about quality of gameplay, and not just about achieving some foolish notion of verisimilitude (in a post-apocalyptic world with mutants and robots, lol), then the answer is clearly NO.

 

[GarfunkeL]

And thus we return full circle back to my previous post: where to draw the line between acceptable verisimilitude and unnecessary simulationism, as you so aptly put it.

 

[Roguey]

Nobody lives in a vacuum. These sort of assumptions are made by everyone on a daily basis. Expecting otherwise is a waste of time.

How is it a waste of time?

In all of popular culture, zappers and blasters > regular weapons.

Not in Fallout 3 and New Vegas.

Thus it stands to reason for a player that Energy Weapons in F1 are both uncommon and powerful.

Apparently others did not make the same assumption you made.

It's the player's fault of being stupid and inflexible if he invests everything into them and is then unable to cope.

It's the designers' fault for allowing one to tag and put points into a skill that won't get used for the majority of the game. This kind of thing would never happen in a tabletop game unless the GM was some sort of bastard.

Furthermore, as stated before, it's entirely possible to finish F1 whilst tagging the most useless skills.

Josh has seen otherwise:

I have been making RPGs for 13 years. During that time, I have directly watched literally hundreds of people play these games and indirectly heard many more describe their experiences. I've seen expert players, moderately-experienced players, and people who are new to RPGs. It brings me only misery to see someone stop playing a game because they slowly realize they made an irrevocable strategic mistake due to their own ignorance, lack of experience, or even careless reading of a description.

 

[Infinitron]

And thus we return full circle back to my previous post: where to draw the line between acceptable verisimilitude and unnecessary simulationism, as you so aptly put it.

It's not like the line hasn't been moved before.

If we travelled back in time to the early 90s, I'm sure many of the CRPG players we met would be aghast to learn that a game that didn't require you to regularly eat and sleep was being held up as one of the epitomes of the genre.

 

[tuluse]

Furthermore, as stated before, it's entirely possible to finish F1 whilst tagging the most useless skills.

Josh has seen otherwise:

I have been making RPGs for 13 years. During that time, I have directly watched literally hundreds of people play these games and indirectly heard many more describe their experiences. I've seen expert players, moderately-experienced players, and people who are new to RPGs. It brings me only misery to see someone stop playing a game because they slowly realize they made an irrevocable strategic mistake due to their own ignorance, lack of experience, or even careless reading of a description.

That doesn't prove it's impossible just that people gave up. It is possible to beat Fallout with useless skills tagged. Tim Cain talked about this and how they had to set certain skill checks to 1 in order to allow it, but it is there. Now, if you tagged Outdoorsman, Gambling, and First Aid, it's probably not going to be a fun game, but it is possible to beat Fallout.

 

[Roguey]

That doesn't prove it's impossible just that people gave up. It is possible to beat Fallout with useless skills tagged. Tim Cain talked about this and how they had to set certain skill checks to 1 in order to allow it, but it is there. Now, if you tagged Outdoorsman, Gambling, and First Aid, it's probably not going to be a fun game, but it is possible to beat Fallout.

That it's possible doesn't mean much if they've been discouraged to the point where they no longer enjoy it and refuse to play any longer. More Josh:

I could take some sort of grumpy tough-guy attitude and say "Well, tough shit," but I don't think that's beneficial to me or the player.

This is because I have a fundamental disagreement about weapon progression and skills regarding energy weapons with you, namely that a skill should be useful from start to finish in a game.

Until I hear a compelling argument about how players benefit from this more than they suffer from it, it's pretty much a dead issue for me.

Most of the rest of your comments seem to be inline with what I wrote: reduce the number of weapons, push EWs to the endgame. There don't need to be two separate skills to do that.

 

[tuluse]

That it's possible doesn't mean much if they've been discouraged to the point where they no longer enjoy it and refuse to play any longer.

possible means possible, not enjoyable

This is because I have a fundamental disagreement about weapon progression and skills regarding energy weapons with you, namely that a skill should be useful from start to finish in a game.

Until I hear a compelling argument about how players benefit from this more than they suffer from it, it's pretty much a dead issue for me.

Most of the rest of your comments seem to be inline with what I wrote: reduce the number of weapons, push EWs to the endgame. There don't need to be two separate skills to do that.

As I said earlier having skills on your character sheet that you can't use until later in the game gives a sense of anticipation.

Letting new players put points into energy weapons or tag it with no warning is bad design, but I don't think the existence of the skill is bad design.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Josh has seen otherwise:

I have been making RPGs for 13 years. During that time, I have directly watched literally hundreds of people play these games and indirectly heard many more describe their experiences. I've seen expert players, moderately-experienced players, and people who are new to RPGs. It brings me only misery to see someone stop playing a game because they slowly realize they made an irrevocable strategic mistake due to their own ignorance, lack of experience, or even careless reading of a description.

I really couldn't care less about these sort of people, if they even exist. What sort of player gives up after one irrevocable strategic mistake, instead of coping with it or starting a new game? I'll tell you what: casual console kids.

Now Sawyer might have needed to pander to them when Obsidian hoped to sell as many units as possible, but such is not the case with the Kickstarted games.

It's not like the line hasn't been moved before.

If we travelled back in time to the early 90s, I'm sure many of the CRPG players we met would be aghast to learn that a game that didn't require you to regularly eat and sleep was being held up as one of the epitomes of the genre.

And were RPGs better off since then?

 

[Syl]

All this discussion could be thrown out the window if RPGs had a way to reassign abilities. Yes, I'm talking about respec, but respec done right, i.e. a forgetting(?) mechanism. Not a full respec where you either pay money or ask a trainer to forget everything and reassign everything, but a way to slowly correct the uneducated choices of new players.

I'm using this in my pnp campaigns and it works wonders. With a simple rule that balances it whatever the system: every time the player is offered something (a skill point, a feat, etc...), I allow him to reassign the same amount. Think about it, it is not overpowered in any way and it saved many campaigns.

 

[Spectacle]

Those are assumptions you can't make, and one shouldn't make games where that kind of outside knowledge is required. Fallout is not a simulation of Star Wars, Henlein, Doom, or Xcom. Since this is a game, energy weapons can be as powerful or as weak or as plentiful or as rare as the designers want them to be.

Nobody lives in a vacuum. These sort of assumptions are made by everyone on a daily basis. Expecting otherwise is a waste of time. In all of popular culture, zappers and blasters > regular weapons. Thus it stands to reason for a player that Energy Weapons in F1 are both uncommon and powerful. It's the player's fault of being stupid and inflexible if he invests everything into them and is then unable to cope. Furthermore, as stated before, it's entirely possible to finish F1 whilst tagging the most useless skills.

It does not stand to reason that energy weapons should be uncommon, to the contrary you'd think that if they're better than regular guns they would have largely replaced them, so that most weapons you find should be energy weapons with the occasional antique gun showing up.

I've never liked the small guns/energy weapons split in Fallout. In what way does it take a different skill to use a laser pistol from a regular pistol? In both cases you point the weapon at the target and press the trigger...

 

[Infinitron]

GarfunkeL
For the last time: Stop telling us why having a late game skill like Energy Weapons isn't that bad. Start telling us why it's good.

tuluse is the only one who has come up with an answer to that - the sense of anticipation - and he agrees that it was poorly implemented in Fallout.

 

[Jestai]

Well, it wasn't optimal in Fallout obviously.

The idea is to give choices to the player. You have your early game combat skill (let's say "Pistols") which is good and all, but enemies are starting to use even cooler and stronger weapons (because they use the "Assaut Rifle" skill). Do you keep on improving your weaker but still quite effective "Pistols" skill, thinking that high accuracy and critical strikes will be enough? Do you start putting points in the "Assault Rifle" mastery, thinking you're investing for an easier late game at the expense of a hard time for a few levels (good but not top notch "Pistols" skill, hardly usable yet "Assault Rifle" skill")? It forces you to think about the way to play, to change your tactics and to plan ahead. You know, like a RPG should.

I remind you of the alternative: the game itself tells you that you're gonna have weapons tiers and that you can mindlessly max one (or two, who cares) skill per character without giving it another thought. Some skills are gonna be better than others according to situations, but all are going to be equally balanced all game long. You decide in the character screen "THIS GUY IS GOING TO BE A GUNSLINGER" and indeed, he's going to be a gunslinger all game long.

Some people may prefer the second choice, but I think the first one has more to offer. Anyway, this debate is a bit abstract since i'm pretty sure both systems can be very good if they're done right.

 

[Infinitron]

The idea is to give choices to the player. You have your early game combat skill (let's say "Pistols") which is good and all, but enemies are starting to use even cooler and stronger weapons (because they use the "Assaut Rifle" skill). Do you keep on improving your weaker but still quite effective "Pistols" skill, thinking that high accuracy and critical strikes will be enough? Do you start putting points in the "Assault Rifle" mastery, thinking you're investing for an easier late game at the expense of a hard time for a few levels (good but not top notch "Pistols" skill, hardly usable yet "Assault Rifle" skill")? It forces you to think about the way to play, to change your tactics and to plan ahead. You know, like a RPG should.

That's fine, as long as those enemies with assault rifles don't show up too late. In Fallout 2 you only have melee weapons at first, until you find that first gun.

Fallout 1 should have had an energy weapon equivalent of the pipe rifle.

I remind you of the alternative: the game itself tells you that you're gonna have weapons tiers and that you can mindlessly max one (or two, who cares) skill per character without giving it another thought. Some skills are gonna be better than others according to situations, but all are going to be equally balanced all game long. You decide in the character screen "THIS GUY IS GOING TO BE A GUNSLINGER" and indeed, he's going to be a gunslinger all game long.

I don't see anything wrong with that. Like you said, in some situations being a gunslinger will be more difficult, so it's not a trivial choice. You could also try to create a multiskilled character who can use several weapons.

 

[Roguey]

I really couldn't care less about these sort of people, if they even exist. What sort of player gives up after one irrevocable strategic mistake, instead of coping with it or starting a new game? I'll tell you what: casual console kids.

Who were playing a PC RPG for some reason.

Now Sawyer might have needed to pander to them when Obsidian hoped to sell as many units as possible, but such is not the case with the Kickstarted games.

Not in his opinion.

A lot of people are not great at games. I don't mean they are terrible at them, but they aren't great. They may or may not realize this, but when you get right down to it and see them sit down at a game and start to play, they do pretty well but some stuff just slips by. In RPGs, often that error is a strategic one that you don't immediately get stung by. The poison bites you 10, 20, 30 hours down the road.

I don't know what sort of person you're picturing in your head, but from comments that a lot of people make, I get the feeling you see a moron, a person who doesn't really like games, who isn't enthusiastic about them in the same way that you are. In some cases, this is true. But I've seen hundreds of volunteer and professional testers come and go. Most of them are actually pretty intelligent. They like or love games. They like or love RPGs and have played a bunch of them. They're still not terrific at them. They miss a bunch of things and they make a bunch of mistakes.

Even among hardcore PC RPG fans, there is a wide spectrum of skill, experience, and preference. When I started at Black Isle, I designed a bunch of fights in IWD that only a handful of veteran BG testers could get through. Memorably, I saw a QA tester blow a fuse because a fight in Lower Dorn's Deep was "impossible". When I showed him how I got through it, I started off by having my casters go through six rounds of buffs. "What are you doing?" he asked. "Uh... buffing my party?" This seemed normal to me. DUH YEAH BUFF YOUR PARTY TO HELL AND BACK LOCK AND LOAD PAY ATTENTION FFFFFFFFFF. Despite his high experience with RPGs and Baldur's Gate, he just... never thought of it. The problem was that the entire fight was balanced around a party that was optimally built and lit up like a Christmas tree from stacked buffs.

That's a combat example, but it really applies across the board: conversation details, reputation loss/gain, etc. Some players really do play as hard as they say they will. They stoically accept the consequences of companion death, of a dialogue node they carelessly picked 8 hours ago, of an Ironman combat that is going down the drain. For those players, the ability to turn off the "in case you missed it..." features is important. I get that and would like to support it as much as we can.

But again, just to be clear, a lot of actual players actually need these things. I'm not saying this because players come up to me and say, "Josh, I need this." I'm saying this because I'll talk to a tester (volunteer or pro) with a ton of RPG experience and later watch him or her play remotely. Or I'll pop open a Let's Play on YouTube from an enthusiastic player and watch how things turn out. Sometimes they ace it, sometimes they don't. Either way, what I see on that monitor doesn't lie.

As I said earlier having skills on your character sheet that you can't use until later in the game gives a sense of anticipation.

Letting new players put points into energy weapons or tag it with no warning is bad design, but I don't think the existence of the skill is bad design.

Wasteland 2 does have a dedicated energy weapons skill. And I imagine, like the first one, they'lll be completely superior to their regular gun counterparts. However, an important distinction to make between Fallout and Wasteland is that in Wasteland you could not put points into energy weapons during character creation. It was a skill you unlocked in the world itself. I hope they have enough cognizance to preserve this aspect instead of copying the mistakes of Fallout.