Development Info Josh Sawyer on Utility and Balance in Game Design

[Captain Shrek]

Modern players cannot into resource management and want to spam their awsum abilities during every fight which is why they also rest after every encounter (I was shocked to recently find out that this is how a lot of people played IE games). Sawyer considers that 'degenerate gameplay' and so now we have this whole cool-down and grimoire switching bullshit to prevent it. I still think my 'graying out the rest button' solution is better, more elegant and butthurt inducing but whatevs.

Exactly. That is encounter design.

Basically NOT allowing you to rest within areas and designing these areas so that at the beginning of every long haul you are given enough resources (And bonuses based on how you did the previous encounter/s) to be able to win.

That's actually basically what you're going to get in Project Eternity. Dungeons will still need to be designed so that you don't run out of health going through them if you play well enough. You (most likely) won't be able to rest in them.

You just have stamina as an additional per-battle tactical resource that also needs to be conserved.

Health = strategic resource
Stamina = tactical resource

Uhoh cooldowns.

 

[Hormalakh]

I'm starting to think that we all agree on the same shit. Just different implementations. Some of us are "traditionalists" and some of us are "innovationists." I think innovation is good, but it's risky as fuck and can ruin an otherwise good experience. Traditionalists have seen their shit work for them in the past and are risk-averse to changing what worked. Innovationists see the degenerate gameplays and want to fix the games for the modern gamers. Traditionalists say fuck the modern gamer.

 

[Infinitron]

Modern players cannot into resource management and want to spam their awsum abilities during every fight which is why they also rest after every encounter (I was shocked to recently find out that this is how a lot of people played IE games). Sawyer considers that 'degenerate gameplay' and so now we have this whole cool-down and grimoire switching bullshit to prevent it. I still think my 'graying out the rest button' solution is better, more elegant and butthurt inducing but whatevs.

Exactly. That is encounter design.

Basically NOT allowing you to rest within areas and designing these areas so that at the beginning of every long haul you are given enough resources (And bonuses based on how you did the previous encounter/s) to be able to win.

That's actually basically what you're going to get in Project Eternity. Dungeons will still need to be designed so that you don't run out of health going through them if you play well enough. You (most likely) won't be able to rest in them.

You just have stamina as an additional per-battle tactical resource that also needs to be conserved.

Health = strategic resource
Stamina = tactical resource

Uhoh cooldowns.

Yes, cooldowns on tactical resources, no cooldowns on strategic resources. You still need to conserve both. That actually means MORE work for the player to do than in the Infinity Engine games, not less work.

 

[Harold]

Exactly. That is encounter design.

Basically NOT allowing you to rest within areas and designing these areas so that at the beginning of every long haul you are given enough resources (And bonuses based on how you did the previous encounter/s) to be able to win.

Hopefully, we can still have some of that if they have some intelligently placed spell tomes in areas, though I stilll think the whole idea with switching tomes is convoluted as fuck.

 

[Captain Shrek]

You are really deluded on this.

How is cooldowns on tactical resource even justifiable in a real time game? Wouldn't you, you know just kite the enemy of something? This is irrevocably like MMO mechanics, except perhaps without healing spells/potions.

But I agree this will have to be tested.

 

[Infinitron]

How is cooldowns on tactical resource even justifiable in a real time game? Wouldn't you, you know just kite the enemy of something? This is irrevocably like MMO mechanics, except perhaps without healing spells/potions.

I agree, kiting could be a problem as far as spell cooldowns go. But stamina I asume doesn't regenerate during combat, or at least only very slowly.

 

[Harold]

^ Not to mention that the only strategic resource you have to manage now is your health instead of health + spells/uses per day of special abilities.

 

[Hormalakh]

Josh said he liked the idea of a tactical retreat to rest until stamina recharges and to get back into the fight. The monsters better fucking regen too.

 

[Captain Shrek]

But stamina I asume doesn't regenerate during combat, or at least only very slowly.

Which is another issue actually:

Think about it.

You just need ONE nkuer spell party member and there is NO way that you are not going to use that first. because you know that you won't have a chance to use it again in the combat. Which means essentially a repetitive tactics.

 

[Mrowak]

BTW, I am considering giving Star Trail another spin. There were some nice RoA advice threads on the 'Dex but I can't find them. Mayhap you have some links good sir?

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/halp-jasedes-realms-of-arkania-thread.53856/
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/playing-roa-1-2.16218/
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/starting-roa-blade-of-destiny-or-star-trail.22530/
http://www.angelfire.com/hero/tjekanefir/arkania.htm
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/the-joy-of-star-trail.22485/

Of course nothing is ever going to be 100% useless, so let's not act like it is.

RoA 1: Ride skill, Drive skill are not used at all. Probably others too.

 

[sea]

I'm a firm believer in the idea that one shouldn't be able to experience everything a game has to offer in one go and that games should be designed so that they can be played multiple times and still be interesting after the first playthrough. If somebody chose Energy Weapons for their first playthrough and find that crippling, they should restart with another character instead of bitching and moaning. I played my first playthrough of Fallout with Big Guns as mid- and late-game guns, and it was a pain in the ass compared to choosing Energy Weapons, but I soldiered on. In the end, the problem is that players want to be coddled and not be told that their decisions and/or abilities are inadequate anymore. To those people I say: Tough tits! Deal with it or get the fuck back to your Call of Duty!

So basically I can make any game as shitty as I want to (i.e. Inquisitor), with terrible balance, boring gameplay, huge inverse difficulty curves, etc. etc. and it's all forgiven because it's the player's fault for not "soldiering on"? How convenient.

Also, "knowing something will be useful/not useful" is not the same as being able to experience all elements of a game in one play-through.

You misunderstood what I was saying. I was saying that the game should provide information about what skill does what before the player gets to chose it, during gameplay. If that skill was acquired during character creation, right at the start, see point 1.

Knowing what something does in advance is not the same thing as knowing that it will be useful or not. What is "acceptable" for understanding what abilities are worth taking and when in a game? Do I have to play seven times to be able to say "this game sucks"?

Let's say I'm playing Super Mario World. I start a level and find a certain power-up immediately in a non-random drop. Then, I play the entire level and find the power-up is completely useless; in fact, taking it is a hindrance to me, even though the rest of the game has established that if it hands you a power-up on a silver platter, you will probably need it.

Is that my fault as a player because the designer set up a mechanic and then did not take proper advantage of it? Or is there a section in the manual that says "warning: designers may mislead you and break the conventions they set, thus causing you to lose game progress in unpredictable ways"?

 

[Shadenuat]

I do not like Sawyer's view on design on an absolute level, and I find his examples kinda hit&miss, because they are taken out of their context. An option of Aboleth as a favorite enemy in D&D does not hurt the system, because players know what they would play and you can (or rather, should) give them an intro of where exactly they are going and what characters will suit the campaign. If we are playing the module "Orc Invasion in Kingdom of Derp", a player would do well to create a ranger military spy from elven forests who has orcs as favorite enemy and has a reason to be at that place and that time. This is common sense and roleplaying ethics, if player pays no attention to his build, or DM does't let player to take the spotlight when his skills should allow him to, in both of these examples people play one-way street. And as Hormalakh said, there is rarely a skill in CRPG which is completely and utterly useless.

From that point of view, a system with two skill pools does't actually seem to change the problem of their usefulness - this is not a solution, this is a crutch, because with two pools designer can still create suboptimal skills without thinking of how they will be balanced or implemented in the game, as he can always wave a hand and say "well, you have your combat skills, you can beat everything with combat". I find it perfectly fair one can't win Fallout solely on Gambling skill, but with right picks and skill combinations, Gambling can break the game, as you can outgun everyone by spending money on weapons and armor for yourself or your companions. I also hold strong belief that in a postapocalyptic world of bloodthirsty raiders, radiation-gone crazy robots and mutants one cannot, and should not, survive with Diplomacy only, just as talking down a few random schmucks who want your wallet is rarely a possibility even in relatively safe "real world". Figuring out a skill set to survive in game world seems like a problem worth solving for a player, no?

But "rogue" thing is one I dislike the most. You see, some people prefer combat, some people prefer social roleplaying. Some are fine to suck in combat a little, some see no trouble to say "Well, my 16 years old daughter of herbalist hides until combat ends" and go make some tea, while others indeed can feel miserable because they do not understand the system and want to play something else. So I've heard, some believe that making every class combat-competent is a good thing in 4th edition. Although what's the point, if most people who do not like combat I played with just don't like it even if they win? They will still avoid combat just because their characters would do so.
But in CRPG noone will feel useless, because you command six characters and I never ever will understand why one or two of them can't suck in combat but be competent in everything else. I had no trouble with my diplomats in Fallout and Arcanum taking almost no action in combat, I had my companions for that. And after combat, a healer-companion could patch them up and we're going for next encounter. What is exactly wrong with that? Why can't I have a social-oriented characters? They are not human, they will not shout at me cause I don't give 'em enough spotlight.

And now I will explain why everything I wrote is completely pointless and why I don't actually care about that in P:E. Well that's because P:E is supposedly an Infinity-engine successor, which means it's a game based on combat and about combat; that's the reason there are classes, which in most of games out there are too, just about combat and combat roles. It's not a simulation-based world, thus I don't care.
(But if, IF Sawyer would defend the same system in a simulation-like world by trying to partially shoehorn every character in combat skills, in a game where picking a set of skills to beat it in a unique way is the point, I'd call bullshit).

1. How is reading the manual supposed to let me divine that I won't get Energy Weapons until the late game?

You are in a bombed world where everything is shit and people fight with spears. Take a hint?

 

[Harold]

Josh said he liked the idea of a tactical retreat to rest until stamina recharges and to get back into the fight. The monsters better fucking regen too.

If he said that then I take back every good thing I said about him. What's to stop your degenerate players from 'tactically retreating' and thus winning every battle because all of their cooldowns regened Sawyer?

 

[Infinitron]

You just need ONE nkuer spell party member and there is NO way that you are not going to use that first. because you know that you won't have a chance to use it again in the combat. Which means essentially a repetitive tactics.

"Nuker"? Well, a "nuke" spell would probably a be a "strategic" spell without a cooldown. You'd need to rest to get it back.

But even so, that actually isn't so different from what happens when people rest between every combat in an IE game. Cast Horrid Wilting in every fight!

 

[skuphundaku]

1. The old-school way: read the fucking manual. Oh, wait! Manuals are a fucking joke nowadays, and a big reason for that is that very few were still reading them, now with fratboys being the main gaming demographic.

Then read the fucking manual to ROA or Fallout. We will see how much it will help you. It will say - every skill is useful. Muhahaha.

I haven't played RoA, but everything is useful in Fallout, especially in Fallout 2. The fact that various skills have various degrees of usefullness doesn't detract from the fact that they are all useful and that, unless you're brain damaged, the chances of creating an unplayable character are pretty slim.

2. The game itself could provide the player, during gameplay, with information about what does what, but that means an extra layer of complexity, and designers seem more interested in finely balancing everything (in order to make everything DPS-ready I suppose) than adding useful gameplay elements.

This is not only welcome, but it is basically required. Otherwise you won't be able to fine-tune various builds to the challenges

But you shouldn't fine-tune various builds to the challenges. It is quite normal that some builds will be weaker against some challenges and stronger against others. I would find it weird if it were otherwise.

Look bro. I am not saying every build should be viable for every quest in the game - a surgeon should suck at diplomacy, a diplomat at engineering, a warrior at reading ancient texts and a wizard at survival skills. They should not succeed at what they were not prepared to face. There shouldn't be any magical "backdoor" whereby every quest can be solved by every class/build. But all classes, all skills should have a wide range of uses in the game. Because that's what gameplay in RPGs is about using *what you have* to your advantage, and not fitting into arbitrary pattern.

I don't agree that all skills should have a wide range of uses. The way Fallout 1/2 did it was pretty good. It would be excellent to add some more uses for non-combat skills, but unless you're ready to go the Age of Decadence way and fully control all choices and consequences, thus allowing both multiple combat and multiple non-combat solutions, you'll always have the combat skills be applicable in a wider array of circumstances than non-combat skills.

Because it is not fun at all to create a diplomat, only to learn diplomacy is shit past certain stage (hello Lionheart). Or that you can put 10 levels worth of points into swimming only to have 2 swimming checks in the entire game (hello ROA). There is no logic here, no preparation, just blind luck and metagaming. You are not even playing the game, you are just fulfilling sets of arbitrary conditions you have no control over.

Lionheart is a deeply flawed game. Stop referring to it because it is quite an anomaly. It could be easily split into two separate games: Lionheard: Barcelona (the demo), which is awesome, and Lionheart: The Horrible Grind (the rest), which should be considered a crime against humanity. And that stems from a development clusterfuck that would make Alpha Protocol seem like smooth sailing.

 

[Gozma]

I'd rather design some mechanical way of making it impossible to overinvest in stuff in character building rather than trying to make every option equally good and useful top-down

 

[Infinitron]

^ Not to mention that the only strategic resource you have to manage now is your health instead of health + spells/uses per day of special abilities.

Wrong, we'll have those too. Not all spells are on a cooldown, only lower-level ones.

Josh said he liked the idea of a tactical retreat to rest until stamina recharges and to get back into the fight. The monsters better fucking regen too.

Source? Also, what is a "tactical retreat". You can retreat from battle and rest/heal in any game.

 

[Captain Shrek]

I'd rather design some mechanical way of making it impossible to overinvest in stuff in character building rather than trying to make every option equally good and useful top-down

Why not both?

That is what is probably the best way to design a RP game. Horizontal focus instead of vertical focus. Make the purchasing of Vertical growth with extremely diminishing returns in terms of investment. I am asking for "equally good options" because that gives me replayability i.e. more value per money.

 

[Infinitron]

I'd rather design some mechanical way of making it impossible to overinvest in stuff in character building rather than trying to make every option equally good and useful top-down

Can you give an example? I'm thinking of the way your skills are hard-capped by your level in D&D 3E, as well as your class (class skills and cross-class skills)

 

[Hormalakh]

TheAberration: You said that HP will be divided into Health and Stamina and that Stamina will regenerate on its own quickly. Does that mean it'll regenerate on its own even in combat?
JESawyer: We'll have to see, but possibly. I like the idea of making a tactical retreat specifically to rest for a few seconds.

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/11iox8/we_are_chris_avellone_tim_cain_and_josh_sawyer/ near the bottom.

edit: I wonder how Roguey does this fucking source shit. How does s/he know evreything that he says? Is Roguey per chance Sawyer? Does s/he have an organized file with all his quotes?

 

[skuphundaku]

I'm a firm believer in the idea that one shouldn't be able to experience everything a game has to offer in one go and that games should be designed so that they can be played multiple times and still be interesting after the first playthrough. If somebody chose Energy Weapons for their first playthrough and find that crippling, they should restart with another character instead of bitching and moaning. I played my first playthrough of Fallout with Big Guns as mid- and late-game guns, and it was a pain in the ass compared to choosing Energy Weapons, but I soldiered on. In the end, the problem is that players want to be coddled and not be told that their decisions and/or abilities are inadequate anymore. To those people I say: Tough tits! Deal with it or get the fuck back to your Call of Duty!

So basically I can make any game as shitty as I want to (i.e. Inquisitor), with terrible balance, boring gameplay, huge inverse difficulty curves, etc. etc. and it's all forgiven because it's the player's fault for not "soldiering on"? How convenient.

I disagree with this "balance uber alles" approach to game design. It's a waste of resources for the sole purpose of not hurting the retarded players' self esteem.

You misunderstood what I was saying. I was saying that the game should provide information about what skill does what before the player gets to chose it, during gameplay. If that skill was acquired during character creation, right at the start, see point 1.

Knowing what something does in advance is not the same thing as knowing that it will be useful or not. What is "acceptable" for understanding what abilities are worth taking and when in a game? Do I have to play seven times to be able to say "this game sucks"?

Not all games should be enjoyable, or even playable, by everybody. You, and Sawyer for that matter, seem to think that all games should be playable by everybody and enjoyable by almost everybody. Unfortunately, the sad result of this is that games designed with these goals in mind end up playable by everybody and enjoyable by few (or, at least, few with a triple digit IQ).

Let's say I'm playing Super Mario World. I start a level and find a certain power-up immediately in a non-random drop. Then, I play the entire level and find the power-up is completely useless; in fact, taking it is a hindrance to me, even though the rest of the game has established that if it hands you a power-up on a silver platter, you will probably need it.

Is that my fault as a player because the designer set up a mechanic and then did not take proper advantage of it? Or is there a section in the manual that says "warning: designers may mislead you and break the conventions they set, thus causing you to lose game progress in unpredictable ways"?

Strawman much? Super Mario is an entirely different type of game, so it's not comparable to, say, Fallout. A mechanic that could work in Fallout in order to make the player think twice before making a choice can't necessarily work in a game which is based on player twitch skills.

 

[Infinitron]

TheAberration: You said that HP will be divided into Health and Stamina and that Stamina will regenerate on its own quickly. Does that mean it'll regenerate on its own even in combat?
JESawyer: We'll have to see, but possibly. I like the idea of making a tactical retreat specifically to rest for a few seconds.

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/11iox8/we_are_chris_avellone_tim_cain_and_josh_sawyer/ near the bottom.

I see. I'm more concerned about the regeneration during combat, actually. I wonder if he's made up his mind about that.

Retreating is no big thing, you should be able to do that.

The big question is whether the game's systems are going to be symmetric. That is, will monsters have stamina that regenerates too.

 

[Mrowak]

1. The old-school way: read the fucking manual. Oh, wait! Manuals are a fucking joke nowadays, and a big reason for that is that very few were still reading them, now with fratboys being the main gaming demographic.

Then read the fucking manual to ROA or Fallout. We will see how much it will help you. It will say - every skill is useful. Muhahaha.

I haven't played RoA, but everything is useful in Fallout, especially in Fallout 2. The fact that various skills have various degrees of usefullness doesn't detract from the fact that they are all useful and that, unless you're brain damaged, the chances of creating an unplayable character are pretty slim.

2. The game itself could provide the player, during gameplay, with information about what does what, but that means an extra layer of complexity, and designers seem more interested in finely balancing everything (in order to make everything DPS-ready I suppose) than adding useful gameplay elements.

This is not only welcome, but it is basically required. Otherwise you won't be able to fine-tune various builds to the challenges

But you shouldn't fine-tune various builds to the challenges. It is quite normal that some builds will be weaker against some challenges and stronger against others. I would find it weird if it were otherwise.

Ok, so I think you are agreeing with me, but you are on a different wavelength. Of course all builds should be weaker against some challenges and stronger against others. Otherwise builds would be pointless. Hell, I even advocate introducing challenges impossible for certain builds. However, all the builds/classes should have *something* (and when I write "something" I mean a lot) to do in the gameworld. The situation whereby some skills, classes are useful very sparingly (Josh's example: Rogues are only good at opening locks, and that's it) is a bad game design. All players/characters should have something to do - this is the basic tenet of PnP and it applies to cRPGs as well,

This is the key to assymetrical balance. Do not make characters that excel at the same role. Instead make characters that are good at different roles AND provide opportunities for all those roles.

Look bro. I am not saying every build should be viable for every quest in the game - a surgeon should suck at diplomacy, a diplomat at engineering, a warrior at reading ancient texts and a wizard at survival skills. They should not succeed at what they were not prepared to face. There shouldn't be any magical "backdoor" whereby every quest can be solved by every class/build. But all classes, all skills should have a wide range of uses in the game. Because that's what gameplay in RPGs is about using *what you have* to your advantage, and not fitting into arbitrary pattern.

I don't agree that all skills should have a wide range of uses. The way Fallout 1/2 did it was pretty good. It would be excellent to add some more uses for non-combat skills, but unless you're ready to go the Age of Decadence way and fully control all choices and consequences, thus allowing both multiple combat and multiple non-combat solutions, you'll always have the combat skills be applicable in a wider array of circumstances than non-combat skills.

Not only they should have a wide range of uses - skills ought to synergize with each other. This is what RPGs are about - player using a wide variety of skills in a wide variety of contexts.

One more thing. I find this statement of yours to be funny:

I'm a firm believer in the idea that one shouldn't be able to experience everything a game has to offer in one go and that games should be designed so that they can be played multiple times and still be interesting after the first playthrough.

You see, the approach of assymmetrical balance I advocate reinforces exactly this statement. There are many builds which have a wide selection of uses depending on various circumstances. If you have certain build then it will be good at the given role, but not any other, hence creating C&C, replayability and all sorts of other stuff.

Your claim that the player should "suck it up" and learn to pick the right skills through metagaming undermines it. It's rote-learning the right pattern in order to succeed.

 

[skuphundaku]

The situation whereby some skills, classes are useful very sparingly (Josh's example: Rogues are only good at opening locks, and that's it) is a bad game design.

But the rougue/thief has very important things to do outside of combat: picking locks, picking pockets, detecting traps. Even if rogues are shit in combat, their abilities make them indispensable. If you want to call it bad design because they can't fight for shit, that's your choice, but I think that you're wrong. Also, it's not like rogues can not engage in combat, so they're a complete liability. They're just very bad at it. Making them badasses for no other reason than so that they're more useful in combat is ridiculous. Want more combat-capable characters? Create a fighter/thief or replace that thief with a fighter altogether. Making a hash of everything just so that nobody is completely useless in any situation is a bad choice.

Not only they should have a wide range of uses - skills ought to synergize with each other. This is what RPGs are about - player using a wide variety of skills in a wide variety of contexts.

This should be nice, if anybody would implement it.

 

[St. Toxic]

Some skills should be completely useless most of the time or the game-world loses its edge. The design philosophy of either making a skill important to the game-play or removing it all together is nothing but lazy streamlining. Take some inspiration from reality u guise, some skills just aren't worth their weight in catshit but they're still skills.