Development Info Josh Sawyer on Utility and Balance in Game Design

[Delterius]

You are trying to connect PnP to cRPGs. I would call upon mondblut to explain to you, that it is NOT a PnP system in a computer game that is evaluating how good are you at "roleplaying". If you actually think about it, bards and rogues have no business in a game where combat is inevitable. I hope that people who profess roleplaying make their bard characters run away or suffer the undying pangs of their hypocritical opinions.

Not the bards and rogues I could create in those Infinity Engine games, making use of their abilities, both in combat and otherwise, was roleplaying.

Do disregard the 'how?' question, I misread the quote you responded to.

So essentially you are admitting that IE engine games create their own ideas of Bards and Rogues that have any no "realistic" significance out of the computer game.

What does that tell you about computer games?

It should tell you NOT to take roleplaying seriously when playing it. A computer game is essentially a rigid scaffold; you are only allowed to do things the rules of the game-designer. Within those rules if one is retarded enough to think that they have the freedom to do ANYTHING they want, they should be punished for not understanding this simple fact: It is NOT a PnP!

No, the Infinity Engine games do not create their own ideas of Bards and Rogues, which I assume are implemented similarly to the source of the game's rules, but those seem misaligned with your preconceived notion of reality.

You assume that a 'Bard' and a 'Rogue' aren't combat apt, though its pretty clear that the game's rules tell you otherwise. Bards and Rogues are, clearly, very much useful additions to any party, even in combat - wether or not they are as useful as another Mage or Fighter is another discussion, but they do fight differently and serve other functions, despite their worse THAC0 or less advanced spellcasting.

A 'Bard' as in 'someone who can sing and dance' isn't what a 'Bard' is in the IE games, likewise a 'Rogue' isn't merely a pickpocketeer. Those are both combat-trained individuals, though their skillsets are more ambitious and, thus, they have less time to devote to the art of lowering their THAC0 and increasing their Hitpoints.

And, yes, the ideas of rogue and bard, as presented by the game's mechanics, probably have little to no relation with reality. Considering that magic doesn't exist in RL, that in the IE games a untrained archer can't hit his own friends and the amount of abstraction around the thief's iconic abilities (search for traps, etc). This same logic also applies to most everything in the game rules.

I don't believe that the developer foreseeing every possible choice in his game necessarily denies the freedom of choice. I believe in both emergent gameplay and story* and, as such, roleplaying and larping in CRPGs is a effort to, within the gameworld's contraints, enjoy a customizable experience. The difference between roleplaying and larping would be that 'roleplaying' is fully in concert with the gameworld's mechanics, while 'larping' isn't. Larping would be doing something to support a character concept in spite or without the necessity of the gameworld's mechanics.

*which can only be verified in combat, as the IE games are combat-centric

Thus, choosing the thief class in the IE games, followed by the realization just how powerful he is and isn't in combat, can lead to both 'roleplaying' (using the thief's abilities, unique or otherwise) or 'larping' (acting on the idea that a thief isn't good at all in combat and keeping him fron it, as you suggested).

By the way, I am not trying to connect PnP and CRPGs. I never even played PnP before.

 

[Captain Shrek]

Wow.

Your idea of Roleplaying is doing exactly what the implementation is allowing you to do.

Thank god you explained it so early. Otherwise I would been forced to write a long essay to explain what it is.

 

[Delterius]

Wow.

Your idea of Roleplaying is doing exactly what the implementation is allowing you to do.

Thank god you explained it so early. Otherwise I would been forced to write a long essay to explain what it is.

Pretty much, yes, since I don't think there's any game outside the gameworld's rules and features. Though I dislike the use of the word 'exactly', which might imply that a good rpg could get away with making only cosmetic choices or only allowing one way to solve problems.

 

[Captain Shrek]

Pretty much, yes, since I don't think there's any game outside the gameworld's rules and features. Though I contend the use of the word 'exactly', which might imply that a good rpg could get away with making only cosmetic choices or only allowing one way to solve problems.

Fine.

I will engage you.

I don't think the word cosmetic is used accurately enough to capture the C&C in computer games. But before going there first establish my wants.

I consider that the content of the game should justify the money (e.g. Morrowind, BG, Deus Ex).

Finally if you are bent upon having the Class system, the class should have impact on both the story and the combat separately.

To me there are two independent parts of the (RP) computer game that are desirable in terms of entertainment:

1) A story that I can change through my actions.
2) A combat design that is tactically challenging without being repetitive and bloats.

I would like to point out early on that in this thread and the video itself there is a huge confusion and blatant mixing of this issue (i.e. that combat design and C&C are different) which is making any fruitful discussion impossible. let me first explain to you what I mean by C&C.

I would say that Choice and Consequence are the story branching that may or may not alter the ending of the game (convergent branches) but introduces enough exclusive content per story choice so that the game can not be "completed" in one go.

The class system (DOES NOT NECESSARILY but admittedly) can and should favorably influence C&C, affecting the availability of the story choices. This is how I believe the class system should influence C&C: by selecting class you guarantee that he has a set of skills that open up certain paths that provide exclusive content (thus tying fundamentally the content to the skill and not to the class). In a party based game you would have a combination of classes that would open a set of such contents that encompass a "fair" amount. If there are lets say, 10 classes, this can not be accomplished successfully since it means too much efforts producing the game. This restriction on developer's resources implies overlap on classes.

This is all being discussed in complete disregard to the combat mechanics BTW.

I do not believe that the way you design the combat mechanics should have a radical effect on the C&C. Quality of combat mechanics can not be compromised by C&C (these as I said earlier are exclusive).

Should every class have the same mechanics for combat?

NO. That is up to the designer. Does he want to make all classes capable of unique combat? If he does not, he is essentially calling on overlap modified by the access to the skills that he makes available to each class. This is sensible since it forces the payer to choose a non-homogeneous party that is equally capable of engaging in battles and talking their way out of SOME situations and SOME traps (for more emphasis play AOD and Underrail). This is another challenge and a part of the game, to understand how to create a balanced party. To fail at this should be seen as a part of the learning curve and not an outright part of some fallacy of the design. This is only of course true if you want to make games for intelligent players. if your target audience is jennifer Helper you need the instawin nuking spells and cooldowns and regenerating health. This is the criticism that may of users are making; that the game design principles as espoused by Josh Sawyer seem to be focused on reducing the challenge in the game. I can understand removing unwieldy features such are unnecessary skills or poorly designed quests (NWN2). Nobody I am hoping is debating that.

 

[Delterius]

Pretty much, yes, since I don't think there's any game outside the gameworld's rules and features. Though I contend the use of the word 'exactly', which might imply that a good rpg could get away with making only cosmetic choices or only allowing one way to solve problems.

Fine.

I will engage you.
(...)
This is sensible since it forces the payer to choose a non-homogeneous party that is equally capable of engaging in battles and talking their way out of SOME situations and SOME traps (for more emphasis play AOD and Underrail). This is another challenge and a part of the game, to understand how to create a balanced party. To fail at this should be seen as a part of the learning curve and not an outright part of some fallacy of the design. This is only of course true if you want to make games for intelligent players. if your target audience is jennifer Helper you need the instawin nuking spells and cooldowns and regenerating health. This is the criticism that may of users are making; that the game design principles as espoused by Josh Sawyer seem to be focused on reducing the challenge in the game. I can understand removing unwieldy features such are unnecessary skills or poorly designed quests (NWN2). Nobody I am hoping is debating that.

Engage? Semantic nitpicking* aside, I can agree with everything you wrote. Which, I suppose, mean I just went on a tangent (roleplaying larping bla bla bla) that has no bearing on the discussion.

Except for the bolded part... maybe I misunderstood the video but I think he meant exactly what you said on the underlined portions. I don't even think they have the time to make a longish game where most/all encounters can be solved by both combat and a multitude of skills. I'm even skeptical they'll be able to make every skill useful for some encounters over the course of the entire game.

* I like the idea of 'emergent story', illustrated by how exactly you choose/manage to resolve a combat encounter as being part of the game's 'overall story' (meaning that encounter design has a bearing on the entire game's storytelling: say, a final boss that is too easy makes for a boring story in retrospect) - but this 'emergent story' can only complement what most people call 'story' (meaning that a good RPG should have both a lot of C&C and a very versatile/creative combat system) and what you'd like to see branched, otherwise I'd start calling action and strategy games RPGs and no one sane would do that. Oh there's another tangent.

 

[almondblight]

The game's most interesting moments come when the player is forced to face the challenges of the wasteland with a sub-optimal character, because he hasn't yet learned how to maximize his performance. That can lead to some tense moments, probably more tense than anything you'll ever get in a more "balanced" game.

The thing is, it doesn't take a huge leap of the imagination to figure out that gambling isn't going to be as useful as weapon skills. There's other stuff that you figure out after a couple of hours into the game - Tycho, Ian, and Dogmeat can handle any situation until you get energy weapons, science and medic aren't needed because of the amount of books and stimpacks you'll find, etc. Once you figure out the system in Fallout, your choice during character creation is to use useful or useless skills. Someone might want to create a subpar character for the challenge, but you can do that by not investing skill points (and if you're like me, you probably had a lot of unused skill points anyway). But the Fallout was screwed up in a number of ways. Put ten points into strength? Hah, no power armor strength bonuses for you.

Roguey is right that a system like this might as well be randomized - hell, it's better when it's randomized. Sometimes you're screwed when you start a game of Armageddon Empires, but it's interesting to try to figure your way out of each unique situation. Roguelikes don't get stale when you play them over and over again because each game is unique - and the parts that aren't (ADOM healer quest) get stale fast.

 

[Johannes]

Roguelikes don't get stale when you play them over and over again because each game is unique - and the parts that don't (ADOM healer quest) get stale fast.

I think the healer quest only gets stale because it just is boring to begin with. It's a nice thing to figure out that you have to lure the carpenter to Jharod, but actually doing it is not interesting.

Compare to other parts of the game that are fixed - fighting Nonnak, Darkforge, Temples, D:50, Keethrax, Tomb of High Kings, Water Cave... These are interesting because there's good fights to be had, and they're difficult enough that you have to plan on when and how you'll tackle them.

 

[tuluse]

ITT people vastly overrate the difficulty of the BG series and PS:T

 

[Moribund]

They are too hard we MUST make them easy for Adam. Sawyer can save us from this madness.

 

[almondblight]

I think the healer quest only gets stale because it just is boring to begin with. It's a nice thing to figure out that you have to lure the carpenter to Jharod, but actually doing it is not interesting.

Compare to other parts of the game that are fixed - fighting Nonnak, Darkforge, Temples, D:50, Keethrax, Tomb of High Kings, Water Cave... These are interesting because there's good fights to be had, and they're difficult enough that you have to plan on when and how you'll tackle them.

True, it comes down to whether or not something becomes repetitive and mindless. Chess remains interesting because the amount of different variations means that most people are unable to know the best move for a certain configuration, which leads to challenge and gameplay. If a certain move or configuration is always optimal, then strategy in a game is neutered, just as it would be if the best move in a chess game was always rook to queen bishop's 4.

 

[Roguey]

They are too hard we MUST make them easy for Adam. Sawyer can save us from this madness.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...d=17931&perpage=40&pagenumber=7#post410566046

verybad posted:

So, are you going to go back to IWD2 level of challenge in Project Eternity? Because that would be awesome.

On the higher levels of difficulty, very much so.

Where that starts exactly is delightfully vague. "Higher levels" could mean normal with expert (okay, likely not) or hard by itself or hard with expert or path of the damned or path of the damned with expert. I doubt they even know at this time. At least it's nice to know I was right about Brennecke Mode.

 

[Moribund]

To me the problem is, it won't affect just difficulty but complexity. If something is as complex as DnD, many people won't get it right away no matter how easy you make it you will stillf ail. To remove that failure potential you have to remove that complexity.

I don't think DnD is the pinnacle of RPG systems but at the same time when we get new ones usually they are about ten times simpler. In other words you can't serve two masters or you fail them both.

 

[Hormalakh]

They are too hard we MUST make them easy for Adam. Sawyer can save us from this madness.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...d=17931&perpage=40&pagenumber=7#post410566046

verybad posted:

So, are you going to go back to IWD2 level of challenge in Project Eternity? Because that would be awesome.

On the higher levels of difficulty, very much so.

Where that starts exactly is delightfully vague. "Higher levels" could mean normal with expert (okay, likely not) or hard by itself or hard with expert or path of the damned or path of the damned with expert. I doubt they even know at this time. At least it's nice to know I was right about Brennecke Mode.

And with this perfect quote, I am satisfied. Sawyer, do whatever. Make it challenging. I'll play your game.

 

[Infinitron]

Hormalakh mood swing cycle - COMPLETE!

 

[Excidium]

Normal is the new Easy indeed.

 

[Captain Shrek]

Normal is the new Easy indeed.

 

[Hormalakh]

Hormalakh mood swing cycle - COMPLETE!

I was always only concerned with difficulty. In terms of mechanics, I've heard the arguments from both sides. I've made up my mind. This isn't D&D, it's a new system. Fuck whoever says we need/don't need skills, etc. At this point, I'm tired of arguing about tactics/strategy/etc. I've come down to the point where I just want a difficult RPG game with tactical elements. I can't really be made to care much more at this point. Maybe it's incline, maybe it's decline. I'll wait to see what he does and go from there.

Tired of the couch quarterbacking as it were.

 

[Delterius]

Normal is the new Easy indeed.

Well... there are worse ways to expand your market.

 

[Hormalakh]

Here's something for you guys to feed on. From the Obsidian site:

We're not attempting a mythical perfect balance. We're attempting to make all of your options potentially appealing both before you play and after you've done a playthrough.

I'd say it's difficult to avoid a significant difference in the number of times any given option can be applied during a game, so a certain amount of "impact scaling" has to be considered. If there are 100 locks and only 10 ancient poems, designers should probably try to make the impact of those 10 ancient poems (readable only through the Read Ancient Poetry skill, naturally) proportionally larger. You can't really quantify that difference in any objective way, but I think you can account for it in your scenarios.

That said, I do think there's probably a minimum density you want to hit, especially in any game where a lot of content is optional or can be played in any order. If you only have 5 Ancient Poetry checks in such a game, there's a really good chance a player could miss the majority of of them.

You can also have options cost disproportionate amounts of points, as suggested in the OP. Personally, I am not in favor of this. I would rather have the design team discuss the implementation considerations of each skill, how dense the application of those skills should be, what the benefit/payoff for using the skill should be, and then build the content to support a more-or-less egalitarian application of those skills. This allows us to keep the "buy rate" of those player resources uniform.

In the case of marginal skills like D&D's Use Rope, the evolution of the skill in 4E and Pathfinder was not to contrive applications of Use Rope, but to distribute the benefits of that skill into other skills and checks (which, in turn, made those skills marginally more useful).

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/62993-skills-and-balance-in-pe/#entry1291275

 

[Lancehead]

You can also have options cost disproportionate amounts of points, as suggested in the OP. Personally, I am not in favor of this.

Isn't this approach already applied in a sense, by separating combat and non-combat abilities?

Of course, it's different pools, but you're in effect designing content with separate considerations.

 

[Hormalakh]

It's a combat RPG - everyone fights - it's more of a required skill. Whereas I see his implementation of any other skill "optional" for that class. You don't have to pick lockpick or ancient poetry. But you have to be able to fight.

I think his point was that within the optional skill pool, he favors equal cost for proportional rewards among all skills.

You're not wrong, but that wasn't his point.

 

[Mangoose]

I don't see anything wrong with skills costing different point values depending on the amount of content. It might be a bit awkward but it could be balanced.

 

[Hormalakh]

I don't see anything wrong with skills costing different point values depending on the amount of content. It might be a bit awkward but it could be balanced.

I think he's doing the right thing by just picking one "balancing" mechanism to deal with it: that being the content/value balance. More content, less value. If he starts placing several balancing mechanics in place, i.e content/value and content/cost, then it becomes much more difficult to balance and can even work to break his "balance" goal.

That gives me an idea though....

 

[Lancehead]

I see Sawyer's point, but I don't think it makes much difference for content design if skills in a single category cost different amounts. It probably makes it more difficult for system design, though. It also might cause confusion for the player. Building skill trees is one approach to consider that is sort of roundabout way of disproportionate amount of points.

 

[Hormalakh]

Well they could use different costs/skill to distinguish between levels of skill. That is to say, someone who invests heavily in one skill, will pay higher points as skill level increases. Both Fallout and Arcanum did this in their own way and to good effect. Fallout allowed the costs of a skill to cost double after any skill hit 100%, whereas Arcanum would cost heavily in attributes to gt Master-level skills.

I don't remember there being any good reason in Fallout to go past 100% in any skill, but the Master-level skills in Arcanum unlocked special content: the master-level quests. That was a worthwhile investment in a skill (instead of becoming a jack of all trades) to train to become a master in a skill. And the content was fun (master-level quests were usually interesting).

That's one way of using both mechanics to solve two different problems. I asked him about it, let's see if he responds.