Eternity Josh Sawyer reflects on his failures with Pillars of Eternity

[S.torch]

can be reverse-engineered and theorycrafted easily enough with pencil and paper and maybe a calculator.

Thats because the rules are clear and well designed, so the player has agency to master the game with his own ability. It doesn't mean that the game or the rules are not complex.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

It's not a true argument either, IMO. Even if a game completely implements all rules as written(none of them have, and only a few even attempted to): Many rules are either difficult to interpret or have multiple interpretations, and many rules are very unpopular and often flat out ignored by DMs.
e.g., PFK is missing many, many things from Pathfinder, and many of the things implemented aren't implemented correctly(and some not at all after digging through the decompiled source.) As a recent example, there was a discussion in the Pathfinder thread that pointed out the strategy of using cloudkill works just because delay poison isn't implemented properly and therefore makes it ridiculously OP. The reason for delay poison being implemented improperly could have been entirely because the developers read it wrong due to a confusing wording of the rules.

With PoE, at least you know what you're getting when you read the rules instead of a "hm, I don't know if this is actually implemented/works as intended/works at all"

 

[Roguey]

Thats because the rules are clear and well designed, so the player has agency to master the game with his own ability. It doesn't mean that the game or the rules are not complex.

I wouldn't say they're completely well designed. but I never said it wasn't complex.

Sawyer and also the Dragon Age system designers he used to criticize-so-much-despite-never-playing-any-of-their-games have this peculiar approach to systems where they believe since ~the computer~ is keeping track of calculations that means they can go wild and create systems that are difficult for individuals to figure out completely. Their justification is that you don't need to thoroughly master all the underlying math to play the game, but there is clearly a subset of people who want to, and D&D, Pathfinder, and other OGL games cater to this want. PoE turning its back on this desire was a mistake.

 

[user]

I wouldn't use Pillars of Eternity as an example of "eliminating complexity." If anything, he made it more/too complex.

Sawyer:

When it comes to specific mechanics of how like attack resolution happens, how armor works, all that crap, I’m much more—calling it crap is really good in an interview—I’m much more practical about that. I don’t want to use convoluted stuff because the older rules were convoluted. I’d rather make unified mechanics that when you learn them they’re consistent across the board, easier to learn, easier to understand as they scale over the course of the game, because that’s—a lot of the things I felt—when I was working on the Infinity Engine games the things that would bum me out would be seeing—we’d see this on our boards too, people talking about how they or their relatives or their friends would try to play these games, they’re very enthusiastic, they like the idea, and the rules were an obstacle. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to learn the rules, but there are so many of them, they’re so specific, they’re so convoluted, and trying to make more unified mechanics

Pcworld

That's more or less what he was saying in many of his interviews at the time. He wanted to build on the DnD mechanics and improve them by taking the elements that made them great and make them more straightforward. There is nothing wrong with this notion, as long as you actually keep everything that made them great in the first place. Anyway, he did try to make them more straightforward, starting from simple things like how skill checks work (leaving out the randomness factor), or not retaining many similar spells that achieve the same result but are differentiated by different enemy checks/hit dice and durations in DnD, going all the way up to how hit resolution works for attacks and spells and unified them.

This is certainly nowhere near toddhoward-level of oversimplification but still, to me at least, some of the elements that made these mechanics interesting were lost in the process. Now, whether they did a good job with documentation or not, that's another story.

I think this is related to the notion that games are supposed to be "experiences" rather than challenges or worlds. They're crafted for smooth, inoffensive enjoyment. Challenge becomes a spice used sparingly; just enough to keep the player engaged, but never enough to frustrate them, because the point is for them to "experience" the game, not play it, not commit to engaging with it.

From what I can tell, this experiential notion of game design is simply accepted among developers.

Well, it is a fine line between engagement, boredom and frustration. Needless complexity is something that should be avoided, but most follow the "UX doctrine" of lean design and forget that some degree of complexity offers practical value to the game and is what defined games in the first place. Imagine someone taking Poker and reducing its turns, winning combinations, or rng factor to make it easier to navigate and remember so that it's more accessible..

 

[Trashos]

Complexity will attract some people (whether they are enough is a different matter) if it is actually rewarding to master, and it will attract nobody if it is not rewarding. When mastering complex rules is pointless due to the low difficulty of the challenge ahead, as it was BY DESIGN in PoE, the ruleset itself is pointless.

I mean, this should be obvious. But it somehow escaped Sawyer.

 

[Roguey]

That's more or less what he was saying in many of his interviews at the time. He wanted to build on the DnD mechanics and improve them by taking the elements that made them great and make them more straightforward. There is nothing wrong with this notion, as long as you actually keep everything that made them great in the first place. Anyway, he did try to make them more straightforward, starting from simple things like how skill checks work (leaving out the randomness factor), or not retaining many similar spells that achieve the same result but are differentiated by different enemy checks/hit dice and durations in DnD, going all the way up to how hit resolution works for attacks and spells and unified them.

This is certainly nowhere near toddhoward-level of oversimplification but still, to me at least, some of the elements that made these mechanics interesting were lost in the process. Now, whether they did a good job with documentation or not, that's another story.

Another flaw of Sawyer's is that he'll say one thing but his actual execution of what he claims he's doing will be the opposite (e.g. "I'm not trying to achieve perfect balance" followed by obsessing over minutiae)

 

[rusty_shackleford]

D&D's mechanics are — by design — simple and easy to understand. It is the Fortnite of RPGs. People who care about mechanics in pnp RPGs are not playing D&D. There are many, many RPGs out there with complex rulesets(that, for obvious reasons, are not popular), but D&D is not one of them.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

DnD rules are indeed simple, but they can be hard to learn if you are new to cRPGs and never played the actual PnP game. DnD games for some reason never included any sort of tutotial on the ruleset. The only tutorials that are there teach you just how to use the interface. If you want people to get the rules, just teach them.

"This is your attack bonus, it makes you hit more often. Please attack this creature. This is your attack roll, it's affected by a roll of a 20 sided dice and such and such bonuses. See, how you are missing all the time. Now attack bonus of your character been increased. Please attack this creature again. See how now you actually able to hit it?"

RPGs are not much more complicated compared to some other games. The difference is that the other games actually bother to teach you the rules, and don't overwhelm you with important choices when you're just starting the game.

Take POE for example. You need to select your character class (before knowing what classes do), your race (before knowing what races do), distribute a bunch of stats (before knowing how the combat system looks like), chose some spells (without actually experiencing how spell casting works) and some bonus feat (not sure on that one). Now compare it do Dark Souls, which is massively popular among normies everywhere. You start the game, select a preset that looks somewhat appealing to you and you're off. In you don't anything about RPGs creating a Wizard in POE is pretty daunting, in DS you just select the wizard guy. You can make all the important decisions after you know how to play the game.

 

[MRY]

To be honest, part of the problem is a long ridiculous tradition in Western RPGs of having preset characters that suck. Maybe that tradition has come to an end, but I got wise to absurd premade parties that had fighters with 15 strength or whatever, and having thus been trained, now don't trust any preset or autoleveling.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

RPGs are not much more complicated compared to some other games. The difference is that the other games actually bother to teach you the rules, and don't overwhelm you with important choices when you're just starting the game.

Take POE for example. You need to select your character class (before knowing what classes do), your race (before knowing what races do), distribute a bunch of stats (before knowing how the combat system looks like), chose some spells (without actually experiencing how spell casting works) and some bonus feat (not sure on that one). Now compare it do Dark Souls, which is massively popular among normies everywhere. You start the game, select a preset that looks somewhat appealing to you and you're off. In you don't anything about RPGs creating a Wizard in POE is pretty daunting, in DS you just select the wizard guy. You can make all the important decisions after you know how to play the game.

Dark Souls isn't even considered an RPG by many here though. Most of the games that let you just jump in either aren't RPGs, or are on the very edge(e.g., twitcher 3)
I haven't played it for a while, but I remember DOS2 character creation being very quick — could partially explain its wide appeal.

Another thought: are classless systems inherently easier for new players to get into? Class-based systems frontload heavy decisions on the player, whereas classless ones generally have you slowly moving towards the character you want and picking defining skills/abilities/whatever much later in the game when you have a better understanding.
I think a lot of the recent RPG 'hits' have been classless, might just be a coincidence however

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

RPGs are not much more complicated compared to some other games. The difference is that the other games actually bother to teach you the rules, and don't overwhelm you with important choices when you're just starting the game.

Take POE for example. You need to select your character class (before knowing what classes do), your race (before knowing what races do), distribute a bunch of stats (before knowing how the combat system looks like), chose some spells (without actually experiencing how spell casting works) and some bonus feat (not sure on that one). Now compare it do Dark Souls, which is massively popular among normies everywhere. You start the game, select a preset that looks somewhat appealing to you and you're off. In you don't anything about RPGs creating a Wizard in POE is pretty daunting, in DS you just select the wizard guy. You can make all the important decisions after you know how to play the game.

Dark Souls isn't even considered an RPG by many here though. Most of the games that let you just jump in either aren't RPGs, or are on the very edge(e.g., twitcher 3)
I haven't played it for a while, but I remember DOS2 character creation being very quick — could partially explain its wide appeal.

Another thought: are classless systems inherently easier for new players to get into? Class-based systems frontload heavy decisions on the player, whereas classless ones generally have you slowly moving towards the character you want and picking defining skills/abilities/whatever much later in the game when you have a better understanding.
I think a lot of the recent RPG 'hits' have been classless, might just be a coincidence however

Yes, in general the games that make you start fresh are usually action-RPG hybrids like Gothic or Deus Ex.
Classless systems should be simpler for a new players especially if the game is not expecting them to develop the character too much before the game starts, but there are exceptions. It's much harder to create a good character in Fallout 1 and 2 for than a fighter-type in a DnD based game, since there's just so much stuff to select.
For me the hardest part in character creation, that should be pushed a bit later into the game is stat/skill allocation. It's not that hard to decide whatever I want to roll a wizard or a warrior, but deciding whatever I to put everything into STR or save some points to boos my condition require knowing a game a bit better.

 

[luj1]

They want the legendary mass market.

This is were the problems begin to appear.

 

[Galdred]

To be honest, part of the problem is a long ridiculous tradition in Western RPGs of having preset characters that suck. Maybe that tradition has come to an end, but I got wise to absurd premade parties that had fighters with 15 strength or whatever, and having thus been trained, now don't trust any preset or autoleveling.

That complain also works against 99% of recruitable companions.
Ishar was far from any definition of great, but some of its companions had stats that exceeded the maximum allowed. That made them way more memorable to me that characters with a "deep backstory" (which is not helped by them usually requiring you to be their psy...).

 

[Lacrymas]

To be honest, part of the problem is a long ridiculous tradition in Western RPGs of having preset characters that suck. Maybe that tradition has come to an end, but I got wise to absurd premade parties that had fighters with 15 strength or whatever, and having thus been trained, now don't trust any preset or autoleveling.

The whole problem with 15 STR fighters is that you were supposed to roll stats and then choose a class based on the result. When you do it that way, the whole system makes a looooooooot more sense. When you have like 15 in STR, 14 DEX, 18 CON, 10 INT, 12 WIS, and 10 CHA, you are gonna go with a Fighter. I don't know when this system got perverted to 18/18/18/min/min/min, but it causes no end of problems.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

To be honest, part of the problem is a long ridiculous tradition in Western RPGs of having preset characters that suck. Maybe that tradition has come to an end, but I got wise to absurd premade parties that had fighters with 15 strength or whatever, and having thus been trained, now don't trust any preset or autoleveling.

The whole problem with 15 STR fighters is that you were supposed to roll stats and then choose a class based on the result. When you do it that way, the whole system makes a looooooooot more sense. When you have like 15 in STR, 14 DEX, 18 CON, 10 INT, 12 WIS, and 10 CHA, you are gonna go with a Fighter. I don't know when this system got perverted to 18/18/18/min/min/min, but it causes no end of problems.

Rolling for stats in a video game is a bit silly though.

 

[Lacrymas]

It's almost as if this system wasn't made for video games. You do roll for stats in the old M&M games, but it was kinda pointless because you could roll infinitely and choose whatever class you want either way. Maybe the whole stats thing should be reevaluated.

 

[Efe]

something like this would work: let players choose between premade pools of dice and let them assign however they want..
so if they want 18, they go with 18-13-11-10-10-8 but if they choose 16 they get a more balanced 16-16-12-12-10-8 and 14 being same for all so the more homogeneous the dice, the more dice total you get.

 

[Prime Junta]

I don't know when this system got perverted to 18/18/18/min/min/min

AD&D 2 at the latest. It introduced ”official” ways to minmax. IIRC AD&D 1 still had the trad system but can’t recall for certain.

 

[Atchodas]

Any kind of restrictions on your character attributes are retarded and shouldn't exist, rolling for attributes and then committing for 150 hours play trough is fucking insane nobody has time to waste on that if im gonna play trough the game once or twice I want to play the character I want to play and not some random good at nothing average Joe, this goes for companions too, devs should give them proper combat stats or let player adjust them trough course of the game

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

I probably will get a lot of hate for this, but how about giving players some amount of points at start to distribute and then during course of game and let them improve stats after level up (not all level ups, only on some levels or make choose between abilities and stat point), because lets face it - "roll stat" system was designed for table top were DM is able to improvise a bit to make every adventure different and interesting even for not optimized character.
In CRPG, there is no DM, only merciless bastard AI that will create situations where not min maxed builds will be punished and classes that depend on more than 1 stat (paladin as expample) will either suffer through game or people will abuse system to roll "ideal" character. You cannot bargain with computer, at least not until true AI will be invented, so rolling for stats looks like casino mini game than interesting thing.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Any kind of restrictions on your character attributes are retarded and shouldn't exist.

Eh, (lore backed) racial ones are alright since they bring another level of depth by creating synergies between race and class selection given your possible race-based attribute spreads.

 

[Atchodas]

Eh, (lore backed) racial ones are alright since they bring another level of depth by creating synergies between race and class selection given your possible race-based attribute spreads.

oh definitely you should get additional attributes according to your race but that's just a choice you make when you decide what character you want to play im totally fine with elfs being more agile and perceptive than dwarfs who are sturdier in exchange, but I see this as a bonus for choosing a race that fits your characters archetype

 

[TigerKnee]

I probably will get a lot of hate for this, but how about giving players some amount of points at start to distribute and then during course of game and let them improve stats after level up (not all level ups, only on some levels or make choose between abilities and stat point)

You just described point-buy D&D from 3E onwards

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

You just described point-buy D&D from 3E onwards

Wait D&D allow you to imrove attributes after level up?
Because I don't remember if it's true at all.

 

[biggestboss]

It's almost as if this system wasn't made for video games. You do roll for stats in the old M&M games, but it was kinda pointless because you could roll infinitely and choose whatever class you want either way. Maybe the whole stats thing should be reevaluated.

Shapes