Development Info Josh Sawyer on Utility and Balance in Game Design

[Arkadin]

Josh's words, when he says that the choices should be meaningful, make me feel a little better.

However, his whole philosophy on Fallout weapon skills, as Brother None referenced, has always bothered me, and that leaves me still skeptical. I like a lot of what he did with FNV, but man he just made the character building less interesting than it was in Fallout 1/2, just based on the weapons alone. They did a great job making a lot of the other skills relevant, but the choices in weapon skill allocation became LESS meaningful.

Also, that whole idea to split combat and non combat skills is worrisome and seems rather pointless. If this were a single character game then maybe I could understand, considering how much content of games--and certainly a BG IWD style game--is based on combat. But this is a party based game, so your group of characters will encompass a wider range of abilities, and you'll be able to make up for some of your weaknesses, if you want to, in recruiting or party creation (which I realize in PE does not happen at the beginning of the game, IIRC) It just makes me worry that, particularly as this is a class-based game, there won't be as much variety for your single character once you have class and race selected. It just seems like unneeded hand-holding and watering down of role-playing, trying to fix something that isn't broken.

 

[LeStryfe79]

Nah, Cain and Sawyer will figure it out. They have to. This is their Grimoire.

 

[St. Toxic]

So, ok, we got useless skills abound rite? The player creates his character, distributes some points and off he goes.
Oh holy fuckballs, he discovers within 15-30 minutes, I put all my skills in stupid shit. Apparently Murder, Rape and Pillage: The RPG isn't all about pottery.
He's at a crossroads; either he can

, he can restart the game and make more viable choices or he can become a game-dev with a grudge and 'solve the problem' by mashing shit together, cutting down the character's various abilities to bare-bone essentials and similar ham-handed attempts of catering to spergs like himself. C&C at its finest.

Here are some counter-arguments that might work:

• False representation. What if the dev makes one skill absolutely viable and necessary at the start, and only lets the player figure out that it won't get him through the end-game?

Well, he's either an idiot or a genius. Call Mr Wolf and either give the player enough EXP to re-spec into a more viable build before the blow-out, or grab a shovel and start digging out a viable path. Doesn't really have to be a big shovel, just throw some followers his way; damage control on this one isn't particularly complicated. I'd personally just leave it is and call it a hard lesson in life, like anyone who wasted time on making Raw weapons in DS.

• What about less librul skill-systems, like skill-trees and classes? The bad choices you make at character creation will stay with you to the bitter end and could really cut into your enjoyment of the game.

Blame the skill-system, that's what you get with this 'natural affinities' linear progression nonsense. Start calling up the developer in the early hours of the day and whispering threats into his ear. You probably won't have to, though, as these mangled skill-systems are in place to balance character creation anyway and usually with some success. I mean, there's always the UP class/tree and the OP class/tree but seldom do we have the pleasure of knowing the full-on unintended DERPADERP class, unless the game gets shoved out the door before play-testing.

• Where does the enjoyment stem from in a hit/miss minefield skill-system like the one proposed?

Ouch, tough one. Where does the individually unique emotional state of joy originate when presented with a non-intuitive system that poses an additional challenge? If you have to ask, it probably doesn't. I mean, for me it's like a hand of poker; removing the random element by making each hand equally viable, moving the challenge to simply placing the cards in the right order, takes away from the element of guesswork and blank-slate strategizing normally involved and makes the process boring and repetitive a lot faster. By the time you've played a few hands, especially in a scripted game of poker, your ability to predict the next winning play makes winning or losing a more detached and unemotional process. Part of what keeps a game, a relatively simple construct when seen from a design perspective, interesting is its ability to surprise you. That includes penalizing choices that might seem good at the onset, like playing a three of a kind, but end up kicking you in the balls, when you're trying to beat a full house.

Josh's words, when he says that the choices should be meaningful, make me feel a little better.

I wouldn't expect more options in what direction you take your characters, though. That extra content doesn't spontaneously generate itself out of a skill-system rehash, though it would certainly be nice if it did. I take it to mean less choices overall.

 

[Rivmusique]

As long it doesn't just make all the skills achieve the same goal, it is fine. Like if you come across a locked door you need to get around for a quest and no one in your party has lock picking (why would this happen?) but you have read ancient poetry, you shouldn't just find a poem in the box next to the door that tells you a secret passage will be revealed if you read the poem right next to the door. Some quests should still be locked off if you aren't built to complete it. Do not want Oblivions becoming archmage as a full fighter because you used a few scrolls (though you could also just become a godlike mage by leveling minor skills, but that was a whole other broken part of that game).

 

[Infinitron]

Oh holy fuckballs, he discovers within 15-30 minutes, I put all my skills in stupid shit.

Well, according to Josh, this kind of shit commonly happens to people after 15-30 hours.

Because at first the game is easy and lenient enough that you can get by even with the shitty choices, until the difficulty curve reaches a point where they bite you in the ass.

 

[St. Toxic]

Well, according to Josh, this kind of shit commonly happens to people after 15-30 hours.

Because at first the game is easy and lenient enough that you can get by even with the shitty choices, until the difficulty curve reaches a point where they bite you in the ass.

Sounds like bad fucking design being blamed on skill-systems. Maybe remove the 15-30 hours of hand-holding? I mean, unless the story needs you to be an all-powerful half-deity from GO, you should be getting your ass kicked the moment you step off the boat.

Some quests should still be locked off if you aren't built to complete it

I certainly hope so. But shouldn't some combat encounters (they're like, y'know, these violent skirmishes where people get raped and murdered) be 'locked off' on the same grounds?

 

[Castanova]

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.

You're going too extreme into idealism with this. You're basing your idealism on Fallout which was NOT a party-based RPG (in the sense that P:E is). Let's say the game makes rogues important outside of combat but shit at combat itself. How do you balance combat for different approaches? How do you balance combat so that it's challenging both for someone who brings along 6 Grandmaster Fighters and also challenging for the player who brings 3 Grandmaster Fighters, a Diplomat, a Thief, and a Gambler?

You could scale the encounters based on how combat-focused the party is which, I assume we're all in agreement on this, would be total shit.

You could NOT balance it, in which case the combat encounters will be satisfying for only a minority of players who happen to pick parties for which the combat was balanced.

You could provide alternative options to circumvent the combat entirely... which, again, is only satisfying for a minority of players.

You could provide ways for these non-combat characters to affect each combat encounter positively. Like, the Thief could steal all their swords which makes it easier for your limited supply of actual fighters to win the fight. But this kind of design is actually shit too because then EVERY combat encounter must include ALL options for EVERY possible character. Which means your RPG is crap, once again.

You could split combat skills from non-combat skills. ........ Hmmmmmmmm.

 

[Moribund]

And then it comes down to why use skill based system at all? If the guy who chooses "he can become a game-dev with a grudge and 'solve the problem' by mashing shit together, cutting down the character's various abilities to bare-bone essentials and similar ham-handed attempts of catering to spergs like himself." is serious about it cut that shit out.

There weren't any skills in ADnD. You leveled up you got what everyone else got AND YOU LIKED IT.

It's like a mummer's show of pretend gaming. We're gonna have a bunch of stupid skills, doesn't really matter what you pick. You also get rewarded for dying. You don't even have to think about the game at all, just hit the A button space bar until combat is over.

So he wants to make a console game on PC even though he doesn't have to, awesome plan.

 

[Infinitron]

Sounds like bad fucking design being blamed on skill-systems. Maybe remove the 15-30 hours of hand-holding? I mean, unless the story needs you to be an all-powerful half-deity from GO, you should be getting your ass kicked the moment you step off the boat.

Unfortunately that's too much to expect in this...Age of Decadence.

 

[St. Toxic]

You could NOT balance it, in which case the combat encounters will be satisfying for only a minority of players who happen to pick parties for which the combat was balanced.

You could provide alternative options to circumvent the combat entirely... which, again, is only satisfying for a minority of players.

A bit of this, a bit of that. If you don't want to put in options to circumvent the combat, because it's only appealing to some players, that's fine (in the same sense that it's fine removing abilities which only appeal to some players). But if every party absolutely needs a number of combat-oriented characters, because your progression in the game relies primarily on being able to smash faces, then err... what's the problem again? A minority of players will pick the party-combinations that allow them to progress through the game? What's the majority going to do, shit themselves and jump in front of a moving vehicle?

Unfortunately that's too much to expect in this...Age of Decadence.

I like the pun, but you aren't seriously suggesting that we should excuse bad design goals with "Hay, shit is fucked up. Just roll with it." ?

And then it comes down to why use skill based system at all?

It's a good point (I've tried making it before). Why even have skills? Just leave it entirely in the player's capable hands and tell a good story, if you have one, and provide a nice challenge with some puzzles and tactics. No need to butcher a skill-system to do that, and people on the Dex would still call it an rpg because, apparently, the genre is "beyond definition".

 

[Moribund]

I thought that was what we had KS for but I guess it's so they can do all the same stupid shit but make way more money from it.

 

[Infinitron]

Okay, Josh has responded to my comment: http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer/q/403090463432669271

Melnorme
You didn't address the "party-based" part of my question, though. _Should_ players even care how well any individual character in the party performs compared to another as long as the party as a whole manages to perform its tasks adequately?

Melnorme
Also, FYI, the reason I write "balance" in quotes is because I'm not sure the definition of balance you're thinking of is the same one most people think of when they read the word "balance". Balance of what? Power? Usefulness? Choose your words carefully.

JESawyer
Yes, they should still care because if there are weird imbalances in the party that are assumed to be solved with a "correct" party composition, that implicitly suggests "incorrect" party compositions. It's pretty common in D&D groups to "need" a healer.

JESawyer
Arguably in BG2 there are places where you absolutely need an arcane spellcaster. I think that limits potential party compositions and is not a benefit to the player.

JESawyer
I think we should move away from class designs that shove classes into a niche that have little/no overlap with other classes and then make content that effectively demands you have a character of class x/y/z to move forward.

JESawyer
From my perspective, it's actually not important if the player doesn't care about individual class balance. But I'm the designer, not the player. I can't see any benefit for myself or players for me to *not* consider balance and utility in their design.

 

[Mrowak]

Well, according to Josh, this kind of shit commonly happens to people after 15-30 hours.

Because at first the game is easy and lenient enough that you can get by even with the shitty choices, until the difficulty curve reaches a point where they bite you in the ass.

Sounds like bad fucking design being blamed on skill-systems. Maybe remove the 15-30 hours of hand-holding? I mean, unless the story needs you to be an all-powerful half-deity from GO, you should be getting your ass kicked the moment you step off the boat.

So how about getting rid of useless shit that brings little to none benefits to the player? I mean, what's the fucking point of it being there? To troll the player for some random reason? Cut it down to all that's necessery and we end up with a variety of meaningful options which are useful to everyone, but only in certain circumstances.

Some quests should still be locked off if you aren't built to complete it

I certainly hope so. But shouldn't some combat encounters (they're like, y'know, these violent skirmishes where people get raped and murdered) be 'locked off' on the same grounds?

Why not? Maybe not locked off but unwinable. Not every fight must be to the death. There can be different objectives to an encounter and just surviving it can be an achievement. Only those that have the right build/prepared themselves accordingly for the encounter can prevail, the rest should feel lucky to see another day. C&C.

 

[Mrowak]

JESawyer
I think we should move away from class designs that shove classes into a niche that have little/no overlap with other classes and then make content that effectively demands you have a character of class x/y/z to move forward.

Now that's a fucking Overlap between classes? So what's the point of the classes in the first place? By definition they are supposed to be different, and some feats of one class should not be achieveable to another.

 

[Infinitron]

JESawyer
I think we should move away from class designs that shove classes into a niche that have little/no overlap with other classes and then make content that effectively demands you have a character of class x/y/z to move forward.

Now that's a fucking Overlap between classes? So what's the point of the classes in the first place? By definition they are supposed to be different, and some feats of one class should not be achieveable to another.

Keep on refreshing that question. I am pressing him on this.

Obviously though the classes wouldn't literally share the exact same abilities. They would just have overlapping high-level functionalities.

 

[Brotherman Bill]

He's at a crossroads; either he can

, he can restart the game and make more viable choices

What an enriching and essential RPG experience that is! Certainly, if this aspect of RPGs were removed we would lose so much ahrpegeness!

You guys do realize that you are all arguing in favour of grind right? You fags are essentially saying that you should play and restart the game a couple times just to find out which skills are useless. To me, this is no better - probably worse actually - than being required to walk through the fields of infinite respawn and butcher 264 hobgoblins to meet the requirements to hold the hammer of doom that is required to reach next area.

 

[St. Toxic]

So how about getting rid of useless shit that brings little to none benefits to the player?

Why not just have classes with automatic skill-distribution and some weapon focus (optional)? At least then you could balance between secondary skills and combat affinity in a way that makes every choice a viable strategy, but nonetheless a strategy with pros and cons. It's not like it actually matters which of your characters gets what 'moderately useful' secondary skill, outside of a LARP perspective, and it'll make balancing a lot easier. Any char-building strat would rely on your party's composition of characters rather than fake choices at the level screen.

I mean, what's the fucking point of it being there? To troll the player for some random reason? Cut it down to all that's necessery and we end up with a variety of meaningful options which are useful to everyone, but only in certain circumstances.

Number of different or unexpected circumstances dwindles with every cut.

Why not? Maybe not locked off but unwinable. Not every fight must be to the death. There can be different objectives to an encounter and just surviving it can be an achievement. Only those that have the right build/prepared themselves accordingly for the encounter can prevail, the rest should feel lucky to see another day. C&C.

This'll certainly be hard with every character generally viable in every combat encounter. I think this adds to the conundrum:

I think we should move away from class designs that shove classes into a niche that have little/no overlap with other classes and then make content that effectively demands you have a character of class x/y/z to move forward.

Here the potential of failure seems to stem from the players inability to react appropriately to the encounter, not inappropriate (for the particular context) build-related choices.

You fags are essentially saying that you should play and restart the game a couple times just to find out which skills are useless. To me, this is no better - probably worse actually - than being required to walk through the fields of infinite respawn and butcher 264 hobgoblins to meet the requirements to hold the hammer of doom that is required to reach next area.

Do you ever replay your favorite games to try out different things? Ever fail at a challenge and try again? I mean, I figure you just discard any piece of software that doesn't give you instant satisfaction, but maybe I'm reading too much into it. I'm spoiled with experience of friends who just get bored if a game is too hard.

 

[Brotherman Bill]

Overlap between classes? So what's the point of the classes in the first place?

He doesn't say there should be total overlap, just some overlap. You get a different bundle for each class.

 

[Mrowak]

JESawyer
I think we should move away from class designs that shove classes into a niche that have little/no overlap with other classes and then make content that effectively demands you have a character of class x/y/z to move forward.

Now that's a fucking Overlap between classes? So what's the point of the classes in the first place? By definition they are supposed to be different, and some feats of one class should not be achieveable to another.

Keep on refreshing that question. I am pressing him on this.

Obviously though the classes wouldn't literally share the exact same abilities. They would just have overlapping high-level functionalities.

That doesn't change much. So what that a mage has Finger of Death that deals 1000 damage and Warrior Omnislash that deals 1000 damage? The only difference would be graphical effect. Performing different functions is the entire point of classes.

 

[Infinitron]

That doesn't change much. So what that a mage has Finger of Death that deals 1000 damage and Warrior Omnislash that deals 1000 damage? The only difference would be graphical effect. Performing different functions is the entire point of classes.

Hopefully "damage bursts" and other spell-like abilities are not the kind of shared functionality he has in mind. Rather, more basic stuff like stamina regeneration and other utility functions.

 

[Delterius]

This'll certainly be hard with every character generally viable in every combat encounter.

Not that this isn't a important thing to bring up, but I don't think this is actually Sawyer's intent. Having every skill being a decent investment doesn't mean that every skill can solve every problem and much less that every character/party composition is going to be able to solve every problem*. We don't even know if every skill is for solving problems and encounters, you can have something like Survival in SoZ: almost always useful, but not game-changing or life-saving.

*Though its likely to come close, but not because every skill is useful, rather because of the segregation between combat and non-combat skills - depending on the number of non-combat competence a character can achieve (how diverse and effective his skill set is, say, depending on how many 'skill points' you can spend) you might easily be able to compose a party that'll be able to take advantage of every opportunity that appears. Not necessarily a bad thing, since there can still be a lot of content and said choices are already pretty good, but it might hurt replayability.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

JESawyer
Arguably in BG2 there are places where you absolutely need an arcane spellcaster. I think that limits potential party compositions and is not a benefit to the player.

Sorry but this is simply not true, having a spellcaster makes things easier in BG2, once you know the ins and outs of the magic system in BG2 they're the most powerful class but at no point is having a mage absolutely crucial.

JESawyer

I think we should move away from class designs that shove classes into a niche that have little/no overlap with other classes and then make content that effectively demands you have a character of class x/y/z to move forward.

So if there's a an ancient vault with a very complex locking mechanism and if the player happens to have a party consisting solely of fighters and clerics he should still be able to get through it somehow because we don't want content to be locked away if by chance player has a disdain for thieves (or things they're useless or whatever) and never brings one.

What about their mega dungeon? Take for example Durlag's Tower, it had plenty of very nasty traps so it was wise to bring a thief, does Sawyer philosophy dictate that their mega dungeon shouldn't have deadly traps (because it has to be balanced for parties without a thief) ? What's the whole point of having a thief then? Furthermore, JS also apparently feels that thieves are too weak and combat and should be able to handle their own more effectively in a melee scrap so I guess the thief will end up being some nimble, ninja version of a fighter and no game content will be inaccessible if you don't have one.

This is what I'm mainly afraid of, too much overlap between classes and they'll all start to feel the same, classes having little to no overlap with other classes is what distinguishes them and makes a playthrough with each of the classes a vastly different and unique experience.

 

[hiver]

by mashing shit together, cutting down the character's various abilities to bare-bone essentials and similar ham-handed attempts of catering to spergs like himself. C&C at its finest.

he never said anything about any of that shit.

I fact, he said exactly the opposite. He wants to have more character abilities and he wants to create content in which they can be actually useful. Over the whole game.
More abilities (skills) and more content.

I take it to mean less choices overall.

Why the fuck would you take it that way when everything he said is the opposite of that?

For fuck sake...

Overlap between classes? So what's the point of the classes in the first place?

Didnt you argue for synergy a a few posts ago? What the fuck is wrong with you all?


He fucking said :

shove classes into a niche that have little/no overlap with other classes

Not - make them all the same.

overlap = fucking synergy!

 

[Infinitron]

Melnorme
Re: "Correct" party compositions. See, thing is, that was kind of a part of the core D&D experience for a lot of people. Assembling the crew, like in a heist flick. Gotta have the healer, the mage, the tough guy. You'd carefully "hire" for each position.
smile

JESawyer
What about what I'm suggesting would stop you from making/building that party?
smile

Melnorme
Presumably, your balancing of the classes would change them in such a way that the familiar dynamic of the classical D&D party would be irrevocably altered. Everybody would be sort of healer-ish, everybody would be sort of fighter-ish, etc. No diversity.
smile

JESawyer
Not if drawing outside of traditional lines is an optional activity. Want to build a wizard who wears no armor and stands in the back with noodle arms while the huge full plate fighter pounds on dudes' faces and the rogue scoots around backstabbing? Cool
smile

Melnorme
Moreover, you might wish to consider that the traditional distinct classes had a sort of elegant simplicity to them. You've no doubt seen how every first-time player goes and rolls up his first Human Fighter. And not a Half-Elf Fighter/Mage/Thief.
smile

Melnorme
I might be getting a bit theoretical here since this is hardly an issue for me, but the traditional classes also had a secondary function, serving as a kind of additional difficulty setting. Fighters were for the beginners, mages were for experts.
smile

JESawyer
Nothing will prevent you from building a simple, straightforward, low-maintenance fighter (if you want to) in PE.
smile

Melnorme
Oh, I don't doubt that. But of course that leads to the question of whether this great freedom and flexibility in character development will inevitably lead to poorly balanced combat encounters and other content. The most important type of balance.

JESawyer
Inevitably? Come on.

 

[Mrowak]

Why not? Maybe not locked off but unwinable. Not every fight must be to the death. There can be different objectives to an encounter and just surviving it can be an achievement. Only those that have the right build/prepared themselves accordingly for the encounter can prevail, the rest should feel lucky to see another day. C&C.

This'll certainly be hard with every character generally viable in every combat encounter. I think this adds to the conundrum:

Nah, no one's arguing for every build to be viable for every encounter. However, all builds should be viable for something - e.g. maybe not necassarily fighting your way through hordes of monsters swarming en masse, but being good at sniping huge creatures, being an awesome, charismatic commander that leads legions to battle but hardly managing on your own, etc.

As in real life, you don't fight the fights you cannot win - you pick those you stand a fair chance, and hope for the best in the rest. A failure should be embeded in RPG design. You simply cannot succeed at everything... but you can try.

Do you ever replay your favorite games to try out different things? Ever fail at a challenge and try again? I mean, I figure you just discard any piece of software that doesn't give you instant satisfaction, but maybe I'm reading too much into it. I'm spoiled with experience of friends who just get bored if a game is too hard.

It is one thing when I fail due to my own ineptitude at making strategic decisions. It is different when you fail because you cannot into clairvoyance.