Development Info Josh Sawyer on Utility and Balance in Game Design

[Gozma]

You could just make a system where you do a lot of reactive character building to shit that appears in the game instead of laying out the foundation for 99% of the build at level 1 when you are at maximum ignorance. Hell, you could just randomly throw dice for level 1 so you can get right into the game...

CIRCLE IS COMPLETE

 

[DraQ]

It may just as well imply incredibly complex and flexible character system.

If your list of skills is long enough, then the character will likely have points in many of them even while staying focused, which means they will be unlikely to gimp themselves with unsalvageable skill selection.

Sounds different from your "No bad builds allowed." decree. Likely or unlikely, suppose, like you did for Fallout, that we're primarily investing into the non-combat non-diplomacy non-stealth side of the spectrum. Either we'll be able to beat the game by Climbing, Swimming and Ancient Literature or the long list gets shorter with the lack of any situational skills.

As for the breadth of character, if you can't balance for different breadths, then you can always try to constrain characters to fixed number of skills at given level of specialization (the way the older TES games have done it).

And if your limited specs only get you part of the way and you need to respec? It's hardly surprising that you'd suggest a design formula that actually demonstratively breaks characters because of lack of content.

See the highlighted part.

If you conserve the character vs list breadth ratio then extending the list twofold will give us about 6 tags.

Selecting six shitty or auxiliary skills is much harder than three, not to mention that if your system doesn't have as many purely auxiliary/flavour/joke skills you will have to take at least one useful one.

In Morrowind, for instance, it's literally impossible* to make a broken build, because they are not enough purely auxiliary skills to go around.

*) Apart from magicka limitation, but this depends on signs, races and base magicka multiplier, not the skill system, and apart from some skills being too useful or buggy, but that's the issue of sloppy implementation. In terms of skillset and the roles of individual skills it's foolproof.

If skills are flexible and problem solving free-form, then there will be a way of utilizing nearly any combination of skills to your advantage in any situation, even though it may be very non-obvious and difficult for player to come up with.

This wouldn't be skill-system reliant, though, this would be game content reliant.

Tactics, my friend, tactics. You have a variety of tools at your disposal, you have rich environment providing many natively mechanical (as in not specifically scripted) opportunities to use those skills, you try to devise combinations of actions using available tools that solve your problem.

I have already given you an example in the form of hostage rescue through use of unusually low level illusion, sneak and alchemy.

But this is content, not skill-system.

How the fuck do you want to consider skill system and content independently of each other?

Is skill for operating electrically powered portable gatling gun good? Depends.

In something like Fallout - probably.
In faux medieval fantasy RPG or nursing simulator? - not so much.

Depends on nothing but fucking content you expect to find in your game.
If you want ancient Latin skill in a game that won't feature any Latin speaking people, or Latin texts, then feel free to just fucking LARP it if you can't help yourself.
It's not relevant to the gameplay and doesn't need to be covered by gameplay system.

As a rule of thumb, depending on gameplay synergies, you'll want a character being small slice of your skill list if there are virtually no synergies, but if there are many, you'll want considerbly greater breadth - extreme case: assuming all skills synergize with each other, will give you the most variety of builds that play very differently for characters with as much as 0.5 coverage of your skill spectrum.

Are we talking about producing new skills? Like, if I invest in Daggers and Lassoing I'll unlock Tailoring? You did say gameplay synergies, so I'm guessing no. Are we talking about tasks that require a certain skill reacting to all skills across the board? Like, he's lock-picking a chest with half the required skill, but he also knows Tinkering so the lock opens. It's just a crutch for an obviously lacking skill-system. Or are we talking about the combination of skills to complete a certain quest-line, like stealth-lockpick/pickpocket-piemaking? Sort of like how RPG's generally work?

No, we are talking about potential for using skills together in ways that may not even be explicitly intended.

For example, if you can summon some creature using skill A and buff it using skill B, then playing character that has both skills will be qualitatively different from playing characters with only one of them.

For example you can raise a skeleton using necromancy and make it heed your commands. You can also cast protective spell shielding one human sized target from fire using certain other school of magic. You're faced by a corridor lined by both flame and arrow firing traps and need to retrieve a non-flammable item. Even if you can't disable traps with your skillset, dodge them, teleport to the item, levitate it telkinetically back to you, or levitate over the trigger plates yourself, you can buff your skeletal servant with fire resistance (it cares little for arrows lodged between it ribs or even piercing its skull as long as it doesn't jeopardize its integrity) and send it to retrieve item. You wouldn't be able to if you didn't have both skills.

Or, back to my bandit camp, if character's magic skill is not useful as anything but short term distraction at its level (making illusionary noise, knocking an item over with TK, lighting a bush) and alchemy skill alone fails as well (weak curative and regenerative potions and mild, disabling orally ingested poisons), the character having both can still successfully infiltrate bandit camp by using temporary distraction to set up long term advantage in form of mass indigestion.

We were talking in a context. In Fallout neither first aid, doctor nor outdoorsman can be used to progress through main quest.

I'm afraid you're just plain wrong. The main quest begins with you leaving the vault, and consists of triggering events that aren't necessarily linked to any particular skill. If you want specific skill-checks, it raises the question whether or not combat skills can be used in order to progress.

It doesn't have to be specific skill-checks, but if at some point of critical path the alternative is combat or using mechanics to bypass combat, then abilities that help in neither can't be used to progress through main quest, unless the combat is easy enough to be essentially skill-less.

Followers can be a buffer of sorts here, but outdoorsman only helps you on travel screen, while there don't seem to be many medical opportunities along the way.

If I tag those three skills I am expected to use them as axis of my character, so either the game fails by providing unsupported builds, or it fails by allowing you to progress ignoring your build.

Wrong. You tag the skills you want to cap or get a boost in as early as possible, and that's it. All characters know all skills to different degrees, and there is no rule stating which skills are out of bounds for your build.

Tag mechanics doubling the amount of points you put into skill says otherwise. For just buffing skills of choice to begin with merely distributing points would be sufficient.

Either make it so that you can only tag the skills that get high starting values based on your SPECIAL, make you tag more skills than you have shitty/purely auxiliary skills in your skill list, or some combination of both.

But why? Limiting skill choice to stat affinity does nothing other than ensure you'll get the most out of your skill-points, at the cost of freedom. Three tags is almost too much as it is, two would probably be a better option.

Sense? Why should an IN 1 retard be able to advance in science at all, let alone 2x faster than hitting shit with a stick anyway?

Also, make adjustment to the number and breadth of individual skills - why the fuck are doctor and first aid separate?

They do different things?

How can you be a fucking doctor without knowing first aid? Yes, they do different things - first aid does simple things, doctor does complex things. They should be tiers of the same skill, not separate skills.

how exactly is firing laser pistol different from firing a regular one, but similar to firing laser rifle?

No recoil.

Gunpowder powered firearms have varying recoil, bullet drop or travel time can be insignificant at short ranges and most important part of operation boils to sighting in, aiming and squeezing the trigger trying to keep it steady.

If anything, skills should be separate based on operation - direct fire, indirect fire, burst, single, gunpowder based, rocket, laser and so on - how is firing a gatling cannon similar to firing a flamethrower, and how is any of them similar to rocket launcher?

You can't have it both ways - either you separate based on principle of operation or weight class. Ok, you can also make it a tree or treat both divisions as orthogonal, but not divide half of your weapons based on this half on that.

I think it makes perfect sense that you, and probably your character, find medical skills overall a surprising disappointment. Heck, everyone in the vault probably thought they'd be a big success, but the outside world has had quite a number of years to compensate for a dangerous, hostile environment.

By producing magitek-level universal medicaments despite being unable to produce proper roofs?

And, hang on a second here, you can reasonably expect to find high-end, military grade overkill weapons early? In the fucking wasteland?

You know how it's '50s future where everyone and their grandma has a raygun? I might just as well expect conventional arms to be rare relics of the past, while rayguns not exactly common, but they were presumably common before the nukes fell.

No you can't. You can't expect your first ever lvl 1 character to beat the game, and you can't expect that your random skill selection will be the most useful. You can't expect that the game will accommodate for your particular lvl 1 build.

Then I can expect that the game won't force me to commit to that build by tagging skills with meaty 2x increase rate.

Too entitled for you?

DraQ saying there's no value in research and that practice doesn't make perfect, how quaint.

Trial and error isn't exactly research, and I would rather play my game without consulting wiki.
Practice also isn't exactly why I'm playing a game - if the game keeps effectively throwing me back to chargen screen because I guessed a bad build, forcing me to experience the same fucking content over and over again, then it goes in the trashcan. I'm not interested in guessing games, I'm interested in games where I make critical decisions (those that can effectively cripple me for the rest of the game or force a restart) based on sufficient information I'm given and my ability to use this information.
I want to explore systems and content, not developers whims.

On a second or third playthrough I may sperg my build to eleven (or go for some zany flavour build), but one playthrough is pretty much all you, as a designer, can take for granted. Everything past that point is extra.

Not sarcastic, stupid.

Multiplayer games rarely make your mistakes trail after you for multiple hours. Multiplayer games also don't force you to experience the same fucking content again and again as part of the necessary learning on those mistakes.

Wrong, that's pretty much what mp games are all about.

Next time you will tell me Go involves experiencing the same content over and over because it's only black stones, white stones and a piece of plank.

Even fairly low level of proficiency should be sufficient to thoroughly fuck an unproficient combatant up. Even relatively high level of proficiency shouldn't give you much chance against master.

In perfect agreement there. Now, suppose you're going against an "unproficient" combatant with a total of X invested into combat skill Y. Now, suppose you've invested 3X, how will the difference manifest?

Won't? Because either way you will have him on his ass in three seconds flat?

It's like expecting that if a person with repair skill at 1% is capable of identifying a loose screw, then tightening it up in about 15s, the person with repair at 100% will tighten the same screw in 0.15s.


If your skill is very low or very high relative to the problem then it falls below or above cutoff level, meaning that changing it has no effect.
Being an expert engineer doesn't make tighten screws super fast or super well, being able to apply band-aid doesn't make you any more likely to perform brain surgery than a person that can't.

Are you implying that 3 combat skills at 30% should be the norm for any average encounter, while optional encounters mean 100% in 1 skill?

No, I imply that with 3 skills at 30% you either attempt to solve a 100% problem via some alternative means or fucking run from it, while with one skill at 100% but remaining two at 0% you do the same with problem requiring skills you do not have.

Naturally there won't be any real problem for a master swordsman to handle any average encounter

What if this encounter just happens to be a golem? Or mundane bear? Or two guys with aimed crossbows?

 

[hiver]

DraQ and St.Toxic are among few people around here that usually force me to increase amounts of synapses engaged in thinking and writing my replies. It is appreciated. I like it.

In attempt to lower the quoting quota going on here, as it pertains to my side of the argument, Ill say that i hope my last reply clarifies discordant misunderstanding that is very often a part of this discussion.


While one side considers the weak skills a part of enjoyment of playing. As in figuring out the system and finding ways to sidestep these proverbial wrenches in our proverbial gameplay wheels - which brings them a sense of accomplishment of winning over "unfair conditions".
Fighting against and beating the system. This leads them to assume that the other side, my side - just wants to have it easy.

Which isnt true at all.


I find greater enjoyment in gameplay that provides difficulty by itself. By clever design of encounters and quests. Rather then by just overcoming more or less unintended consequences of mistakes in design, or consequences of lack of time, money and resources in development. (Fallouts)
If there are unfair conditions - i expect those to arise from the story, from the choices i made, from the setting and coherence of the world.
Not from devs failing to create enough content so several skills end up being almost useless, despite commons sense and logic of the setting.

As I said above, i prefer and enjoy playing the game. Instead of just beating it, since that just means ending the game.
It is nice to "win" and end the game in that way, of course. To get to the end, to solve the big problem, to see the whole story. But i play to play first and foremost.

And if the game is providing me with a choice of many skills - all equally represented in char gen - then i expect these skills will all have a significant use. I expect there will be content enough for each of them, so i can use those i choose in ways that seem reasonable.
In amounts one would expect logically in the setting as it is created and presented.
No need for there to be the same amount of use, per se. But the difference should not be very big.

In Fallouts, the combat takes by far the biggest part of gameplay. The amount of XP, the amount of quests, the amount of equipment and amount of C&C which can be affected by or is needed for combat tops all other skills by a large margin.
Second to combat in usefulness and amount of content is speech skill and dialogue choices.
Then the rest fall off rapidly.


Many of the other skills literally do not have any bigger role then being auxiliary or complimentary skills - in the game.

Therefore i see no reason why they shouldn't be called complimentary or auxiliary.
Its nothing more than calling things what they are.

The only other possible solutions are:
- To build much more content - which often isnt possible for many reasons.
- To simply remove many skills completely, which lowers the overall quality and range of the game Role Playing - and usually pushes it more towards action-adventure-exploration kind of RPG.
And we have enough of those anyway.


On the other hand - if you present some skills as complimentary or auxiliary : you get to keep all of the skills, you wont be tricking the players or backstabbing them, and you could also throw in more skills - possibly, that otherwise would be cut, due to development costs and issues.
The only thing this removes is that "gaming the system" clutch.
Only not completely.

Since many skills wont be exactly the same in value, nor would they all have same amounts of content.
You would still need to learn which are more valuable, which fit your type of character build more - and which you can combine by your own inventiveness to overcome obstacles and solve problems in different ways.



Of course, better planning and thinking about providing as much content for skills during pre-production stages should always be included, regardless of this.
But - if you dont have enough money, people and time do create that much content, as most of us would fantasize about, then going for "complimentary" skills seems like the simplest, most effective and best solution - for a true RPG.

 

[EG]

Chaos and obscurity verses consistency, transparency, and balance.

Therefore i see no reason why they shouldn't be called complimentary or auxiliary.

That is reasonable.

 

[St. Toxic]

Well, imagine that you thought about it, picked a right skill for that purpose - and the game fucks you up because there is no fucking content in which you can apply that skill - in the way you would reasonably expect to be.

But if it turns out there is no content - ergo no gameplay for that skill - you cannot perform any action at all with it.
Or very little - so much that it isnt sufficient to play through the game using those skills.

I still see it as a non-issue. Suppose you've really specialized in the "wrong" skills, which is either an added challenge to your play-through or genuinely game-breaking. So what? It won't take you hours to figure it out or to compensate for it unless the game specifically leads you on only to let you down. Though, as I've said before, that would actually be pretty cool.

The solution I've presented before is to have a few pre-made builds with nothing but the most viable choices selected available at the start -- partly for inspiration and to provide a guideline and partly as an alternative to lazy slackers. Once they're comfortable with the game, or have an inkling into how it all works, there's the choice to experiment with any non-viable flavor skills they might desire, but, as always, building your own character should not be a risk-free affair.

Though to be honest, I don't know. I've just never seen a game that actually does what you describe, where a handful of seemingly useful starting skills actually end up doing absolutely nothing and leave you dead in the water. Plenty of games with skills that are underpowered and, for the most part, obviously so from their descriptions in chargen, but never full-on useless. When it comes down to it I'm not entirely sure how I'd feel about it. Inherently I do support tricking the player into picking shit that he'll regret, but that's mainly once they're in the game.

I can deal with having a tougher time in the game - just fine. If it makes sense.

Say, like going unarmed in Fallout. Its a challenge, especially at the start - and it makes sense in the setting.
Later on you get some nifty perks, new, better moves and status effects and there are quests you can do in different way - if you have the skill for it.
Thats balance. (although it would be better if there was more quests where that skill would provide different solutions - regardless of how tough and hard it may be)


You take another underpowered skill - like throwing (about which everyone complained to no end) and combine the two with pretty good results.
Thats also balance.

Only, not a balance that just makes unarmed or throwing completely overpowered so those skills are artificially made the same as any else.

Fair enough, though I always thought unarmed was more viable early in the game and trailed off towards the later stages. And, I agree.

But that means there would be enough gameplay-content for combat skills. Harder - yes - but you could still play the game, you have your own gameplay content - which makes sense in the setting.

I was thinking along the lines of 'combat when diplomacy fails'. Of course, diplomacy would fail primarily as the result of investing into combat-skills, but that is as may be.

Im against circumstances where such a game would give you combat skills - but it turns out you can do fuck all with them .

To some extent I feel about it the same way I feel about invincible characters. Y'know, the ones you have no reason to kill and somehow tie into the main quest to such a degree that killing them would break the game. Or, even, break some entertainment industry taboo, like it is with kids. Considering you get nothing out of being able to kill these characters, other than perhaps some satisfaction if they're particularly annoying, there's no game-related reason to argue for the possibility of their demise, but even so it cuts into my enjoyment of the game and takes away something from the experience.

So, if I'm playing my imaginary diplomacy rpg and my character is in negotiations with some obnoxious assclown, I'd feel a bit constrained if I, for no apparent reason, couldn't smack him across the face for damage governed by my unarmed skill, and instead had no other choice than to grovel and beg and talk the fucker down. Naturally, I can't expect the game to accommodate for any action that I might dream up, especially creating a separate path for my character just because he couldn't play ball, but I'd at least appreciate the most obvious options to be there even if they end with my character getting gangraped in prison having achieved nothing of value.

I can finish it - but i cannot play it. Because there is no or very little content for that set of skills.
So i either have to use other skills or skip to the end - and game over.

And what is that to me?
I can also deinstal the game and finish it that way.
I can also do a speed run to Navaro and make myself overpowered in first few levels - whats the point?

Come now, Hiver, you can't be serious in comparing the choice of picking an underpowered/underdeveloped skill as your main bread and butter and 'finishing the game by uninstalling'. So you can't repair the Master and win the game that way, and there isn't as much skill-specific content for you as there would be had you gone for a different build -- that's all true. But, you're still able to finish the actual game without making too many concessions or deviations from your build and you'll certainly have a different experience in the game than someone going for a more traditional set-up.

I'm sorry, but to me it just doesn't make sense to expect every ability to carry you through the game. Then again, I'm sure I've played games where Fishing is a skill in the same list as all the rest, with all it determines being whether or not you'll catch a fish, and somehow that never struck me as odd or unbalanced. If I want to catch a stinking fish now and again that does fuck all, well tough shit, guess I'll have to give up an important quest or two.

Its not about finishing the game - its about playing it. Enjoying the content, figuring out how to overcome adversity and so on. And you cannot do that if the balance is fucked up to such an extent.

I don't know about that. Where one player might breeze through with all his phat gunz skills, you'll have to crawl through and look for solutions more in tune with your character's abilities or lack thereof, so in that sense there's more 'unique' game-play for you.

Im saying that mistakes and development problems should not be presented as some sort of ... difficulty curve that only the master race can overcome.

So, someone playing a broken and unfinished build and beating the game with it should be ostracized, huh? I'd certainly find it more entertaining to watch that play-through than some standard, balanced run-of-the-mill type bullshit.

Im talking about balance of content - not mathematical balance of skill mechanics.

Which mean providing appropriate content for the skills. Not making any skill capable of getting that singular content that is there - which MMOs do.

But that's exactly what I was talking about. How mmo-quests give you a choice of, say, Axe - Sword - Hammer as your reward to appease all weapons classes, and how the gear is split up into tiers for each class so that they'll stay competitive in the same level range. We've seen plenty of that making its way into singleplayer games, because it's so much simpler to guarantee an equal experience when your game is less like a world where anything can happen and more like a vending machine. For my part, I think this recent (well, not really) trend in games design is part of the reason that these balance arguments are cropping up in the first place.

I would rather have really difficult quests, gameplay requiring tactics and knowledge of the tools you have at your disposal and conditions of the gameworld.

Rather then retardedly making things difficult by simply not providing weapons for combat skills that are in the game.
And with it all content and gameplay you could have with them.

Imagine if in AoD you choose spears and there isnt any other then bronze?
Or you struggle through half of the game increasing lore (or any other diplomatic skill) only to find out you cannot do anything with it?

Wouldnt that make you go ?

I'd probably and reroll before I'd done half the game, but then again I've played a few rogue-likes before where random gen just gives you shit all the way until you die, so who knows? AoD seems like one of those games, like for instance Bloodlines, where it's hard to over-invest into a single skill purely on unsubstantiated expectations. So if I rolled spears or lore at chargen and once in the game found absolutely no uses for them, I'd keep my initial investment and spec into other things as the game progressed, and with 0 rage to follow.

Lets take a look at combat in AOD. Its difficult as fuck, right? No end to simplistic complaints by retards. Yet the game is giving you every tool you need to overcome that difficulty.
First fight with the Assassin is a problem. But you can still opt out of it without loosing anything.
And if you study the rules and dont rush in into things you can figure it out.

Thats the balance i want to see.

I thought it was pretty brutal and random actually, but I liked it.

For being underpowered and having a hard time over most of the game - you get the only magical weapon in the game.

Thats balance - in my book.

I didn't say it was any good though. Might as well be shit.

No it isnt - see above.

Too many bricks, not enough cement.

 

[hiver]

I didn't say it was any good though. Might as well be shit.

I know, thats not the issue at all. It is possible it would open a special path or have influence on NPCs or... many other things then just having high damage.

Come now, Hiver, you can't be serious in comparing the choice of picking an underpowered/underdeveloped skill as your main bread and butter and 'finishing the game by uninstalling'. So you can't repair the Master and win the game that way, and there isn't as much skill-specific content for you as there would be had you gone for a different build -- that's all true. But, you're still able to finish the actual game without making too many concessions or deviations from your build and you'll certainly have a different experience in the game than someone going for a more traditional set-up.

I was just using an extreme example to say i dont care for finishing the game as much as playing it with the build i would prefer.

Bigger problem for me is not being able to play the way i want.

But that's exactly what I was talking about. How mmo-quests give you a choice of, say, Axe - Sword - Hammer as your reward to appease all weapons classes, and how the gear is split up into tiers for each class so that they'll stay competitive in the same level range.

Thats irrelevant to me - because whatever weapon i choose - i still do the same god damn things in the game. Because MMOs have only one kind of content.
I can reroll all the possible builds and i would be just repeating same content, same combat, same fetch quests over and over.

I'm sorry, but to me it just doesn't make sense to expect every ability to carry you through the game.

See, thats the dissonance here. I dont want an ability to carry me.
I want to carry myself, through my character - and i cannot if there is not enough content for something that poses as a regular skill.

Fair enough, though I always thought unarmed was more viable early in the game and trailed off towards the later stages. And, I agree.

Well, yes. Thats why throwing grenades onto enemies in late game works so nicely coupled with then running in and beating the living hell out of them.

Though to be honest, I don't know. I've just never seen a game that actually does what you describe, where a handful of seemingly useful starting skills actually end up doing absolutely nothing and leave you dead in the water.

They do in terms of me playing the way i would prefer to play.
Say for example i dont take combat or speech in fallout.

There simply isnt enough xp around to do or achieve anything worthwhile, and there is no opportunities to use other skills to enable me to play the game the way i would want.
I might be able to finish it... maybe... but i would see/experience only like .... 10% of the content.
While all the time one expects to find reasonable uses for those skills since they fit with the setting.

 

[EG]

Hiver, you're ultimately going to default to how the developer wants you to play, rather than how you want to play. There's no way around it, outside of procedural generation and default definitions for actions on game entities. o_O But I'm getting the impression I'm missing something overall.

 

[hiver]

Im not bloody talking about playing whatever i want. I am bloody talking playing with the tools i have been provided. Within the rules, within the setting, within the game.

I thought at least fucking that was clear enough in previous posts.

 

[Carrion]

From the WL2 video thread:

The original answer is gone but this one references it: ""Some players absolutely do not care about making noise or alerting enemies, so they would happily blast away at every other door hinge/lock with a combat shotgun."

So what? There will always be "some players" who don't care about something. What I can't understand is letting those players dictate your design. You can also still have locks that you can't open with a shotgun or explosives.

Many people don't care about making noise or alerting enemies and would just happily blast away at every other enemy with a combat shotgun, but Sawyer still chose to put the Sneak skill into his game. Why? If you decided to really invest points into Sneak, Lockpick would probably be the single best skill to complement that, and I would pick it every time. The only explanation I can think of is that for some reason Sawyer doesn't want one skill to become dependent on another, like making Lockpick an attractive choice only if you're already playing a sneaky character. Or who knows, maybe Sneak is just supposed to be a Critical Hit generator and I've been playing the game wrong this whole time. His train of thought just seems completely alien to me. Enlighten me.

This is not true for New Vegas. Lots of good stuff behind locked containers. Nothing you need to finish the game but obviously that would be terrible.

I don't have any real complaints about how New Vegas did this (except for the skill magazines, fantasy clothing, completely pointless minigames and the formulaic 0-25-50-75-100 thresholds that actually encouraged metagaming, but those issues are not directly related to this), but even in NV you were able to open quite many locks using your Science skill. How is that mechanically different from blowing up a lock with a shotgun? Hacking doesn't even require any kind of a resource and it often gives you access to other information as well, so it's actually the superior choice in these cases.

 

[Roguey]

So what? There will always be "some players" who don't care about something. What I can't understand is letting those players dictate your design. You can also still have locks that you can't open with a shotgun or explosives.

They still get to opt out of a skill and benefit from many of the same rewards as someone who would put points into it.

Many people don't care about making noise or alerting enemies and would just happily blast away at every other enemy with a combat shotgun, but Sawyer still chose to put the Sneak skill into his game. Why? If you decided to really invest points into Sneak, Lockpick would probably be the single best skill to complement that, and I would pick it every time. The only explanation I can think of is that for some reason Sawyer doesn't want one skill to become dependent on another, like making Lockpick an attractive choice only if you're already playing a sneaky character. Or who knows, maybe Sneak is just supposed to be a Critical Hit generator and I've been playing the game wrong this whole time. His train of thought just seems completely alien to me. Enlighten me.

Sneak is great for crits yes, it also determines your stealing success, allows you to keep holdout weapons, and is a prerequisite for perks that allow you to instakill people in their sleep and do more damage with guns or unarmed/melee (and particularly useful with robotics expert). People can choose whether or not to use it to avoid combat or aid it. He has nothing against supporting different playstyles.

I don't have any real complaints about how New Vegas did this (except for the skill magazines, fantasy clothing, completely pointless minigames and the formulaic 0-25-50-75-100 thresholds that actually encouraged metagaming, but those issues are not directly related to this), but even in NV you were able to open quite many locks using your Science skill. How is that mechanically different from blowing up a lock with a shotgun? Hacking doesn't even require any kind of a resource and it often gives you access to other information as well, so it's actually the superior choice in these cases.

There are about 30 hackable terminals in the whole of New Vegas, even fewer when paired up with a lock, and over 100 locks. They both require putting points into a skill.

 

[Rivmusique]

So what? There will always be "some players" who don't care about something. What I can't understand is letting those players dictate your design. You can also still have locks that you can't open with a shotgun or explosives.

They still get to opt out of a skill and benefit from many of the same rewards as someone who would put points into it.

But do you really think that there couldn't be a way to implement a useful/worth investing in lockpicking skill in a game that has the option to bash/shoot open locks using attributes/skills that benefit a character in combat? Just to avoid the ridiculousness of coming across a chest the party can not pick, shrugging their shoulders and walking away. It isn't something that really bothers me to be honest, but it seems insane to say "it can not be done". Maybe if you added "on this games budget, we believe resources are better spent elsewhere".

 

[Arkeus]

But do you really think that there couldn't be a way to implement a useful/worth investing in lockpicking skill in a game that has the option to bash/shoot open locks using attributes/skills that benefit a character in combat? Just to avoid the ridiculousness of coming across a chest the party can not pick, shrugging their shoulders and walking away. ".

That's a good thing, though. If you CHOOSE to not be able to do something, then that things being impossible (or at least ridiculously costly) is totally normal. People are basically whining because they don't want to invest in a skill but still want to be able to use that skill.

 

[Roguey]

But do you really think that there couldn't be a way to implement a useful/worth investing in lockpicking skill in a game that has the option to bash/shoot open locks using attributes/skills that benefit a character in combat? Just to avoid the ridiculousness of coming across a chest the party can not pick, shrugging their shoulders and walking away. It isn't something that really bothers me to be honest, but it seems insane to say "it can not be done". Maybe if you added "on this games budget, we believe resources are better spent elsewhere".

It makes the lockpicking skill less useful and that's bad. Not a question of resources.

Relevant recent J-Saw quote:

If there's one thing seeing the last year of kickstarters and greenlights should have taught anyone, it's that there's a reason why design positions are prestigious, high paying jobs. It's (fucking) hard.

It's not hard, really. It's just complicated. Plenty of people have good ideas that work well enough on their own in the absence of the rest of the game. Professional (or accomplished amateur) designers just (hopefully) have the experience to see trouble coming. I think two of the worst things you can do as a designer are to not think in the context of the game as a whole and to not think in the context of the project as a whole. It's not quite as bad, but still pretty bad, to pay more attention to what players say instead of what they do.

 

[EG]

So, by being able to bash a lock (or container) that cannot be lockpicked, lockpick somehow becomes diminished in usefulness

Very interesting.

 

[Lancehead]

No, it doesn't make much sense. If you can bash containers that can't be lockpicked, why can't you bash the ones that can be lockpicked?

 

[Volourn]

Because some things just cna't be broken with pure physical bashing. If that's all it took, there'd be no use for vaults or safes in the real world. L0LZ

 

[Lancehead]

Yes, but you can't keep them mutually exclusive. A lot of the locks that can be lockpicked can also be bashed open. So instead of lockpicking being the main utility skill for opening things, it becomes a special use skill.

 

[Volourn]

It's called fukkin' options based on character. Just like in many situations where you get to choose if you want to KILL your way through or TALK your way through. While tyhis option should be there for the majority of situations sometiems you won't get this option. ie You will (well... should never) get the option to use 'rat diplomacy' (barring magical PST type rats heh) on unintelligent aggresive monsters like bullettes or umber hulks. Just like it would not (or should not) be prudent to guns/swords abalzing in the middle of the kingdon's capital city since that should lead to you being killed en massde or at the very least lose access to many many things.

USE COMMON SENSE.

I thought OPTIONS were a good thing in a RPG? I thought multiuple ways to complete/do something was one of the things that made Fo so fukkin' awesome... LMFAO

 

[Lancehead]

I've read the thread. I'm also not looking at things in a vacuum. When you have tasks that have multiple solutions (yes, with different consequences), and you have multiple such tasks in the game, the combination of skills, abilities, and their uses inevitably makes certain skills useless. Since lockpicking typically has only one use, which is lockpicking, it'd be one of the first to become obsolete.

 

[Excommunicator]

If there's one thing seeing the last year of kickstarters and greenlights should have taught anyone, it's that there's a reason why design positions are prestigious, high paying jobs. It's (fucking) hard.

It's not hard, really. It's just complicated. Plenty of people have good ideas that work well enough on their own in the absence of the rest of the game. Professional (or accomplished amateur) designers just (hopefully) have the experience to see trouble coming. I think two of the worst things you can do as a designer are to not think in the context of the game as a whole and to not think in the context of the project as a whole. It's not quite as bad, but still pretty bad, to pay more attention to what players say instead of what they do.

Yeah, because design consists of coming up with random ideas that have no context, doesn't it? That's just called daydreaming.

 

[Lancehead]

Nothing makes skills useless other than bad design.

Yes, if lockpicking can have multiple uses other than picking locks, it'd work. Otherwise, it should just be removed from the system.

 

[Grunker]

If there's one thing seeing the last year of kickstarters and greenlights should have taught anyone, it's that there's a reason why design positions are prestigious, high paying jobs. It's (fucking) hard.

It's not hard, really. It's just complicated. Plenty of people have good ideas that work well enough on their own in the absence of the rest of the game. Professional (or accomplished amateur) designers just (hopefully) have the experience to see trouble coming. I think two of the worst things you can do as a designer are to not think in the context of the game as a whole and to not think in the context of the project as a whole. It's not quite as bad, but still pretty bad, to pay more attention to what players say instead of what they do.

Yeah, because design consists of coming up with random ideas that have no context, isn't it? That's just called daydreaming.

Haven't you understood Saywer yet at this point Excommunicator? He's standing on the shoulders of giants, pouring shit into their faces.

 

[EG]

Nothing makes skills useless other than bad design.

Yes, if lockpicking can have multiple uses other than picking locks, it'd work. Otherwise, it should just be removed from the system.

Alright.

We'll remove every skill that doesn't have a generalized use. o_O

 

[Lancehead]

No, that wasn't my point. It should be removed because it's useless.

 

[Lancehead]

No, that wasn't my point. It should be removed because it's useless.

IT IS FUCKING USELESS BECAUSE THE GAME DESIGNER DID NOT MAKE IT USEFUL.

Use does not fall out of the sky. It has to be put into the game.

Can you read?

Yes, if lockpicking can have multiple uses other than picking locks, it'd work.