OwlCat approach to balance. They are 100% right!

[Rinslin Merwind]

The sad part about WoTC strategy is that it works. People demand all these supplements and additions. Despite the fact that most of bought books never used in actual play.

Well, I am maybe wrong, but WoTC themselves a bit restrained in this sense, there only (to my knowledge) 2 big ass books with shitload additional classes/subclasses, not 1 book per class/subclass as in 3.5e. Ofc there adventure books with two-three non-essential subclasses, but it's minor stuff. Ofc I can be wrong.

 

[Delterius]

ITT people complaining about "stat bloat" in an epic level adventure.

There's stat bloat and there's 'actually you're supposed to ignore most character options and pick these mandatory feats in this particular order since that bypasses enemy immunities and let's you one shot everything'. Therein lies the problem with Wrath and all the useless classes, archetypes and powers it adds.

There's a mythic feat that gives you a +1 to ac. And its description has the gall to say 'wow man you are so quick you are impossible to hit'. This shit is ridiculous lmao.

 

[Totktospit]

The sad part about WoTC strategy is that it works. People demand all these supplements and additions. Despite the fact that most of bought books never used in actual play.

Well, I am maybe wrong, but WoTC themselves a bit restrained in this sense, there only (to my knowledge) 2 big ass books with shitload additional classes/subclasses, not 1 book per class/subclass as in 3.5e. Ofc there adventure books with two-three non-essential subclasses, but it's minor stuff. Ofc I can be wrong.

Well, time will show. Each edition of d&d started with the goal to make things more slim, and each eventually finished pretty fat. Maybe 5ed will be different, but I doubt. The problem is business model. Table top roleplaying games are shitty product from the business perspective. You have 2-3 books, ok DM and friends and can play for years. Not really profitable. So stat-porn is the natural development of the system from financial perspective.

 

[luj1]

When people are talking about how balance ruins fun, what they are in reality talking about how streamlining ruins fun. Latter is also what Sawyer does, with a religious zeal that it is to detriment of balance even. When your game is a combination of trap choices and faceroll builds that is not fun. A well-balanced game doesn't mean lower character power or options, it just means that you don't have things that lets you effortlessly push through the game and with your only input was knowing the avoid the trap choices.

PoE wasnt balanced at all, ironically enough

The reason it wasnt fun is cause of stuff like Endurance (disrupts the normal flow of combat), per encounter abilities (makes every fight the same), microscopic +0.03% stat growth (no sense of growth) and mobs that give 0xp (punishing the player)

streamlining and accessibility are Soyer's sins, not balance

 

[agris]

He also disliked the source IE games (BG1/2) used to sell PoE to us via nostalgia, making him a bad faith interpreter of those games and what made them click. Sensuki got the disconnect between the Kickstarter sales pitch and what was developed, fought to correct it, and was ignored because their principal designer didn’t care. They weren’t good games, and he could do better… he thought.

 

[Totktospit]

When people are talking about how balance ruins fun, what they are in reality talking about how streamlining ruins fun. Latter is also what Sawyer does, with a religious zeal that it is to detriment of balance even. When your game is a combination of trap choices and faceroll builds that is not fun. A well-balanced game doesn't mean lower character power or options, it just means that you don't have things that lets you effortlessly push through the game and with your only input was knowing the avoid the trap choices.

PoE wasnt balanced at all, ironically enough

The reason it wasnt fun is cause of stuff like Endurance (disrupts the normal flow of combat), per encounter abilities (makes every fight the same), microscopic +0.03% stat growth (no sense of growth) and mobs that give 0xp (punishing the player)

streamlining and accessibility are Soyer's sins, not balance

Microscopic state growth is his understanding of the balance. The idea is that all characters of the same class and level are more or less the same. He believes, that it allows to play interesting characters like blind samurai, disabled wizard or other shit. Noble cause. The only problem is that the freaking game stayed the same, and if blind samurai is more or less the same as ordinary fighter then you are not playing the blind samurai (because what so special about character in that case). So the solution defeats its purpose.

 

[Delterius]

He also disliked the source IE games (BG1/2)

He literally says that BG2 is the premier experience in this type of game.

 

[agris]

He also disliked the source IE games (BG1/2)

He literally says that BG2 is the premier experience in this type of game.

Meaningless statement without the context that he doesn’t like it and doesn’t understand what made it click.

It’s like me saying that Skyrim is a market leader in RPG games. Does that mean I like Skyrim and understand at the level required to capture its essence in a derivative product? Absolutely not, it’s a simple recognition of its position in culture and business.

 

[Delterius]

He also disliked the source IE games (BG1/2)

He literally says that BG2 is the premier experience in this type of game.

Meaningless statement

Nonsense. You've accused someone of hating a game. In reality they've gone on record recommending that people play the game as it is the golden standard of the subgenre. Your reading of the situation is kinda schizoid ngl.

 

[Cryomancer]

The skyrim example is interesting cuz we are getting a skyrim clone from Obsidian. Avowed if not plagued by balance cultism can be a fun game.

 

[luj1]

Therein lies the problem with Wrath and all the useless classes, archetypes and powers it adds.

yes

Wraith is praised for its classes and building, but half of those (or more than half) are pointless bloat

most (sub)classes feel extremely samey in Pathfinder and you don't really feel the difference when playing

 

[agris]

He also disliked the source IE games (BG1/2)

He literally says that BG2 is the premier experience in this type of game.

Meaningless statement

You've accused someone of hating a game. In reality they've gone on record recommending that game as the golden standard of the subgenre. Your reading of the situation is full on schizoid I gotta say.

Are you paid to uphold this particular brand of fiction? How do you interpret a factual statement that is objectively true as anything other than simple statement of truth? It doesn’t mean he likes, has an affinity for or understands those games.

do you contend that he liked the BG series? I just don’t get what you’re going for. If I said that Nazi Germany was the most advanced industrial nation of the mid-20th century, does that make me a Nazi sympathizer?

I cannot follow your line of argument.

 

[Delterius]

I cannot follow your line of argument.

'BG2 is great you should play it. in fact its the premiere experience.'

'actually he hates bg2 and secretly plots for its destruction'

 

[agris]

I cannot follow your line of argument.

'BG2 is great you should play it. in fact its the premiere experience.'

'actually he hates bg2 and secretly plots for its destruction'

Ok show us where he says that.

That is not what you started this discussion saying, btw.

edit:

He literally says that BG2 is the premier experience in this type of game.

Figure out what you’re trying to say before you say it, please.

 

[Delterius]

Figure out what you’re trying to say before you say it, please.

I said what happened ages ago. Someone in some panel asked Sawyer about a game of the Pillars type to play and he recommended BG2. He considered it the gold standard, or the premiere experience, or whatever.

It turns out that most people in real life don't have personal vendettas against normie games like Skyrim or Baldur's Gate.

 

[agris]

Figure out what you’re trying to say before you say it, please.

I said what happened ages ago. Someone in some panel asked Sawyer about a game of the Pillars type to play and he recommended BG2. He considered it the gold standard, or the premiere experience, or whatever.

It turns out that most people in real life don't have personal vendettas against normie games like Skyrim or Baldur's Gate.

I see, you’re just misinformed. Go to the POE pre-release thread, he doesn’t like BG1/2. Whatever pablum he said that you’re interpreting as praise, isn’t. It’s a simple statement of these games’ place in culture, not his personal opinion of them.

edit: sorry I’m not providing a source, I lived through this and am not going to run it to ground again. You may find Roguey helpful if he remembers.

 

[Delterius]

It’s not his personal opinion of them.

'It's a great game and I recommend it' sounds pretty personal to me. And I dunno. There's always things to dislike in a game, even the ones you happen to like. I am not the biggest fan of BG1 for an example. I guess that makes me part of the conspiracy to bring it down.

I don't know what happened in those poe threads of yours but I think you guys may need therapy.

 

[agris]

The point is he was part of selling spiritual successors to games he didn’t like and apparently didn’t understand. The contemporaneous record of his statements supports this, sorry it bothers you so much.

 

[Delterius]

The point is he was part of selling spiritual successors to games he didn’t like

Oh you're right. I was misremembering things. The conversation went along the lines of 'My name is Josh Sawyer and I recommend BG2. In fact I consider it better than the IE games I worked in. Not because I like it or anything. I hate BG2 and it is my life's calling to spit on it's grave, but don't tell Sensuki'.

 

[Drowed]

Here, I will say it without fear: AD&D's class restrictions were boring. I always thought so, regardless of the contortionist justifications used then, and even today. Not for nothing have I always preferred Gurps or other classless systems (like Trevas, FATE, and even Shadowrun, kinda). If you are going to have a class, I don't see much point in restricting it to a race unless the restriction is literally dependent on a racial physical attribute(s). Tail attack would make no sense with humans or other equivalent races, obviously.

Not that I'm particularly defending OwlCat's design or anything like that, but I could never see AD&D as the gold standard. That said, I never really liked Baldur's Gate that much, so obviously I'm not the target audience. Not ironically, I had more fun with Pathfinder: Kingmaker, even with all the game's problems after the bug infestation has been controlled.

 

[agris]

The point is he was part of selling spiritual successors to games he didn’t like

Oh you're right. I was misremembering things. The conversation went along the lines of 'My name is Josh Sawyer and I recommend BG2. In fact I consider it better than the IE games I worked in. Not because I like it or anything. In fact I hate BG2 and it is my life's calling to spit on it's grave, but don't tell Sensuki'.

If I dig up the quotes to show he didn’t like them, would it sway you?

 

[Delterius]

The point is he was part of selling spiritual successors to games he didn’t like

Oh you're right. I was misremembering things. The conversation went along the lines of 'My name is Josh Sawyer and I recommend BG2. In fact I consider it better than the IE games I worked in. Not because I like it or anything. In fact I hate BG2 and it is my life's calling to spit on it's grave, but don't tell Sensuki'.

If I dig up the quotes to show he didn’t like them, would it sway you?

As long as it's not 'this is something I think is bad in BG2 and why I'll change it - Sawyer circa 2013', sure feel free to comb through multiple 1000 page threads of 'why engagement killed my dog', 'there's too much shit going on', 'save scumming is a national treasure', 'the graphics are nice at least', 'why not getting exp for each kill is the worst thing of all time', 'there's not enough shit going on', and 'sawyer hates hard counters: a 17,000 word essay on the importance of the basilisk nest in BG1'. A bit of nostalgia is nice from time to time.

 

[Roguey]

Wraith is praised for its classes and building, but half of those (or more than half) are pointless bloat

It's not pointless when one of the tenets of Ivory Tower Game Design is intentionally including (or not excluding) outright bad options so powerbuilders can feel good about not taking them.

 

[agris]

It’s not hard to find, just a bit time consuming. I can relate to your position if you honestly believe he liked those games.

 

[Delterius]

Wraith is praised for its classes and building, but half of those (or more than half) are pointless bloat

It's not pointless when one of the tenets of Ivory Tower Game Design is intentionally including (or not excluding) outright bad options so powerbuilders can feel good about not taking them.

Interesting to imagine that Wrath could be less buggy at release if they didn't waste time implementing interesting options such as Arcanist But Worse, Wizard Who Trades Spells For Worthless Bombs, and Barbarian But They Don't Suck Now. Get it? Because the last one is a subversion of the running joke.