OwlCat approach to balance. They are 100% right!

[Kyl Von Kull]

Wrath is a BBW RPG.

 

[mondblut]

Is Wrath playable yet? I am nearing the finish of Kingmaker.

 

[FriendlyMerchant]

Is Wrath playable yet? I am nearing the finish of Kingmaker.

It's playable. But it's just a spastic mess compared to KM.

 

[True Ukrainian]

Keep in mind this is the developer that implements stuff like poison giant berserker treant owlbears to artificially inflate the difficulty of fighting trash mobs.

 

[Cryomancer]

Honestly I wish that OwlCat put the WoTR races and new subclasses into Kingmaker. Elemental specialist, Cruoromancer(blood necromancer), blood fur arcanist, phantasmal mage for the members of the (gnome merchant guild). This classes would be great in kingmaker.

 

[DeepOcean]

All Epic levels in RPG games end being shit and Wrath is no exception. Just end the game before the cancer start.

 

[Haplo]

Is Wrath playable yet? I am nearing the finish of Kingmaker.

Kinda? Mounted Combat still needs some work. Plenty of bugs left, but most things work.

 

[Reinhardt]

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.

Yeah, just like outer worlds. Nigga, u wot. Fun is completely alien concept to obsidian. Thay can take dumb but fun shit like dungeon siege and make it dumb and boring.

Honestly I wish that OwlCat put the WoTR races and new subclasses into Kingmaker. Elemental specialist, Cruoromancer(blood necromancer), blood fur arcanist, phantasmal mage for the members of the (gnome merchant guild). This classes would be great in kingmaker.

"i like kangmaker more than bloated mess of wrath of the trannies. i wish kangmaker was more like wrath of the trannies". Victor gonna vic...

 

[mondblut]

Is Wrath playable yet? I am nearing the finish of Kingmaker.

Kinda? Mounted Combat still needs some work. Plenty of bugs left, but most things work.

Eh, then probably not. I am not gonna touch a game until they stop patching and milking it for DLCs. Will wait untl they announce Pathfinder: Even More Woke Adventure Path, then.

 

[Cryomancer]

"i like kangmaker more than bloated mess of wrath of the trannies. i wish kangmaker was more like wrath of the trannies".

This classes aren't bloat. Many mods like call of the wild adds this races and classes and are quite popular. I'm not advocating for endless mythic enemy spam and mythic level in kingmaker.

All Epic levels in RPG games end being shit

Mask of the betrayer disagrees.

Now, if MotB would be better not being so epic, that is another discussion.

 

[Humbaba]

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.

Ok wait so are we against balance in here or not?

 

[NJClaw]

Ok wait so are we against balance in here or not?

Look around you, boy.

We're against EVERYTHING.

 

[Humbaba]

Ok wait so are we against balance in here or not?

Look around you, boy.

We're against EVERYTHING.

This changes everything.

 

[Morgoth]

"much more important than balance is fun" (1:43:06)
"balance is a tool to archive fun, is never a end goal"

Has Joscha Sauer the Chief Unfun Officer already addled your cumbrains so much to think of this as a revolutionary statement?

 

[Roguey]

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.

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...h-feargus-and-mca.108791/page-11#post-4565142

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...to-the-new-thread.75947/page-492#post-2444136

 

[DeepOcean]

Mask of the betrayer disagrees.

Mask of betrayer is a storyfag game and the last boss is a simp that became a magical herpes that was making you eat people souls, so it avoided the worst excesses of epicz levels. Every time I hear: now you gonna kill godlike dragons/gods/demon lords, I zone out hard.

 

[Fedora Master]

Mask of the betrayer disagrees.

Mask of betrayer is a storyfag game and the last boss is a simp that became a magical herpes that was making you eat people souls, so it avoided the worst excesses of epicz levels. Every time I hear: now you gonna kill godlike dragons/gods/demon lords, I zone out hard.

Ironically, in Wrath you're fighting babaus at level 3 and Very Angry Mythical Bodybuilder Babaus at level 20.

 

[LannTheStupid]

Is Wrath playable yet?

No, and it will never be.

Kingmaker is not playable, either.

P.S.: Babaus are eternal.

 

[agris]

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...h-feargus-and-mca.108791/page-11#post-4565142

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...to-the-new-thread.75947/page-492#post-2444136

There you go Delterius - not exactly glowing praise, it is? This is his attitude, well-summarized by the man himself, and is classic Taylorist-Obsidian in action:

Even though I had those problems with BG2, my job as a lead designer and project director is not to create content that appeals specifically to my tastes. Obviously I would have a difficult time making a game that I *disliked*, but I have (and continue to) push for elements I feel that players will ultimately enjoy even if I'm not super thrilled about it. That's my job.

Feel free to dig up whatever material you were referencing that made you think he liked BG1/2, I'd look at it. From our discussion, I can't tell if you're just a shit slinger or are actually trying to arrive at some understanding here. If you just want to sling more shit, do us both a favor and don't reply.

 

[Delterius]

agris Once again, 'this is something i dislike in BG2' is not proof of anything. What the fuck does it matter if he thinks that maybe Imoen shouldn't have been so central to the plot of BG2? Old BioWare hated Imoen and only brought her back because of the fanbase. Who cares is Sawyer used to think that maybe Athkatla could have been less content dense? Seriously one of the quotes is 'damn it seems BG1 never implemented a class feature that I thought was online, shit sucks'. Yeah that's fucking garbage and you'd have to be insane to think otherwise.

You're approaching this as a cultist and it shows. Roguey linked some of the more lukewarm takes from Sawyer and you take it as proof that the guy has a pathological vendetta against a game you like. Nothing short of exactly the same game as BG2 is enough. After all it's Scripture and not something one changes willy nilly.

There's a lot of things that I would change in BG2. I can't play that game without at least 20 mods installed. The average person seems to use at least 50 just for bug fixing. Doesn't mean there's a secret conspiracy against BG2.

 

[FreeKaner]

We are also talking about Sawyer that when testing IWD2 was only one of the few people to even understand the systems and be able to play on a harder difficulty level among the designers.

 

[agris]

You're approaching this as a cultist and it shows. Roguey linked some of the more lukewarm takes from Sawyer and you take it as proof that the guy has a pathological vendetta against a game you like. Nothing short of exactly the same game as BG2 is enough. After all it's Scripture and not something one changes willy nilly.

It's been a while since I engaged with someone who constantly seeks to shape my statements into something they aren't. Let's look at what I said, eh?

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.

Gee, that doesn't sound at all like what you're saying. Now lets look at what you've been saying.

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

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.

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

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

'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.

So let's reflect on the above: I said he didn't like them, and provided some quotes indicating he doesn't really like them. You interpreted this as some sort of hyper-negativity, and are relying on restating what I said in increasingly hyperbolic terms to setup a shadow to box against. Further, you can't even be bothered to find any material to support what you're saying as you twist my words.

But I'm approaching this like a cultist, huh? Sure buddy.

 

[Delterius]

and provided some quotes that prove Sawyer hates Baldur's Gate

Let's go through your evidence in order, shall we?

Many of their introductions didn't sit well with me and I felt that there were too many who didn't have an equal amount of development given to them.

Not a controversal statement. BG1 had 25 companions. BG2 had 17 if you count Sarevok. Players at the time created an infinite number of mods dedicated to giving those characters a little more depth. Secondly, development focus has only become more narrow in the years since then and that's for the better. There wouldn't have been a Mask of the Betrayer if Baldur's Gate Scripture mandated 20 generic fuckwads with no emotional stakes on the story. Even Deadfire, which introduced the concept of 'sidekicks', had 7 main companions and 6 sidekicks of specialized content. Does not prove that Sawyer secretly hates Baldur's Gate.

Being required to find/save Imoen - I didn't like it then and I still don't. I wouldn't make the player rescue an NPC with whom he or she may or may not have a positive relationship.

Not a controversial statement in slightest. A lot of players hated this back then, especially given the imposition of a canon party on the player. Some people pointed out back then that, to be fair, BG2 gave you dialogue options that allowed you to say that you didn't care about Imoen. That's fair. But nobody cared to quote Scripture and say: Gaider 1:13 One Must Write The Sequel's First Act Around The Pink Dumbass You Ditched In Beregost. Does not prove that Sawyer hates Baldur's Gate.

Style of dialogue - I prefer naturalistic -- some would say "dry" -- dialogue. BG2's characters are much more expressive.

A neutral statement. 'I prefer if dialogue is more dry' is a statement of preference. It's in the words being used. Turns out that whatever Sawyer's preferences in terms of dialogue the people behind Pillars of Eternity could have used an editor. But that is on the incompetence of the team rather than some statement of proof that Sawyer secretly hated Baldur's Gate. The Icewind Dale games certainly feel more dry and I have no complaints there. Neverwinter Nights 2's main campaign was very ExPpReSsIvE and I wanted to gut everyone involved every time Neeshka opened her mouth. Does not prove that Sawyer secretly hates Baldur's Gate.

Being flooded with quests in Athkatla - To be honest, I don't think is a controversial opinion! BG2 has a crazy amount of quests, which is great, but the density in Athkatla was a little too crazy.

Frankly I think it was controversial. The happy medium of quest density is probably somewhere between Defiance Bay and Athkatla, which I think is what Neketaka did in Pillars 2. But ultimately I think most people just like the insanity of BG2's content density. Nonetheless, none of it matters because here we have Sawyer saying that an aspect of BG2 is great. And that's him being critical of the game. Does not prove that Sawyer secretly hates Baldur's Gate.

when BG first came out i took xan instead of dynaheir for a while because i was going to do that siren area and i figured xan's elven + enchanter bonuses vs. sleep and charm would make it a walk in the park. lol joke's on me none of the specialist save bonuses or racial bonuses outside of ability score mods were implemented. owned.
jokes on you, you played that and said "Wow, this is a bad game with a lot of features which actually do nothing, I want to make games just like it for the rest of my career"
actually i said, "i would have implemented all of the racial and specialist bonuses!!!" and then ~ 2 yrs later i worked on icewind dale and did.

You'd have to be a lunatic to think this is a statement of hatred towards the game. The guy says he was faced with a bug in BG1, that it did not deter him, and that the experience just made him want to do better in Icewind Dale. It's a bug. Those are not good things. BG1 was filled with them. There's 20 year bloodlines of mods entirely dedicated to fixing bugs like these. Does not prove that Sawyer secretly hates Baldur's Gate.

Now, would you like some help in finding an actually controversial opinion of Sawyer's? Here's a freebie from my memory. The good old 'Hard and Soft Counters' controversy. Sawyer stated back then that he felt the rules/encounter design ended up creating a 'Puzzle driven gameplay experience'. And, I mean, that's not untrue. One acquires Petrification Immunity to kill the Basilisks. They just do. There's no tacticool gameplay involved. It just so happens that a lot of people liked that sort of thing. I liked that sort of thing as well. It gave beasts a lot of teeth. Well, to make things worse is that casting off this sort of 'puzzle driven gameplay' would also be an attack against 'epic mage duels'. After all one memorizes the right type of dispel for the right type of mage protection they are trying to kill. Or they bring an Inquisitor with them. There's no tacticool decision here, only mastery of the metagame.

Sawyer called The Right Dispel and The Right Protection Spell 'hard counters' and he envisioned a system driven by 'soft counters' instead. The result was that PoE1 at release was too soft on the player about which attacks could actually connect. People disliked that and as a result PoE1's numbers were retooled and 'Hard Counters' were put in the game. I could forgive you for never forgiving Sawyer if your enjoyment of BG2 rested on mage duels. But someone driven by hate does not change their mind on player feedback. They just don't.

 

[agris]

Even though I had those problems with BG2, my job as a lead designer and project director is not to create content that appeals specifically to my tastes. Obviously I would have a difficult time making a game that I *disliked*, but I have (and continue to) push for elements I feel that players will ultimately enjoy even if I'm not super thrilled about it. That's my job.

He is saying that BG2 did not appeal to his taste. i.e. he did not like it.

 

[Roguey]

Yeah I linked to the wrong post somehow, I meant to link to https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...urn-based-combat.123213/page-138#post-5913642 which specifically had

I really disliked most of the CNPCs, I really disliked being forced to go find Imoen, I really disliked the style of dialogue, and I really disliked being flooded with a million quests by every shmoe on the streets of Athkatla. Basically, there wasn't a whole lot I did like about it.