Development Info Tim Cain at Reboot Develop 2017 - Building a Better RPG: Seven Mistakes to Avoid

[Jedi Master Radek]

I disagree. I don't see how playing with a pre-generated character is the same as watching the game. You still play the game, you just made a safe choice at the start. Not much different from choosing a difficulty level.

Maybe if you go for easier difficulties mothers, then you get a set of pregenerated stats and appearance customization?Then you are ready to go. If you for more hard difficulties, you get a proper character creation?

 

[Lurker King]

Maybe if you go for easier difficulties mothers, then you get a set of pregenerated stats and appearance customization?Then you are ready to go. If you for more hard difficulties, you get a proper character creation?

Sure you guys understand that these compromises won't stop. You can't just set pregenerated stats and customization, you also need mindless combat, inexistent failures in skill checks, absence of resource management. There is no middle ground between a good game and a casual game.

 

[DraQ]

Watching the video right now (skipped the ramblings at the beginning).
So far:

1. Fuck, no. Fallout's stat sheet was great UI. Fallout's inventory was another matter, but character screen left no real room for improvement. Arcanum's was pretty crap, admittedl, but still not comparable to, for example, modern Behesda's UIs.
   
2. Numbers are only meaningless when you cannot map them clearly onto anything (this, BTW, is why a lot of unbounded or not clearly bounded scales are awful - HPs, damage, not bounded stats, etc.). If you can say that, for example, a healthy, adult human has strength between 1 and 10, then value of strength attribute gains clear meaning - as it did in FO where it was even labelled from "v. bad' to "heroic" - those are understandable labels, it seems?
   
3. The idea with geometric shapes seems to be to constrain distribution, so my question is "why?". Basically it reduces a system with 6 four-valued primary attributes to a system with two six valued ones (totaling only 36 builds!). I can see some merit in preventing blatant minmaxing, but it still seems to be a bad deal. Also, you do have "this many points to spend", except now you also have additional rules telling you how you are allowed to spend them. IF you find out this 36 builds are actually all worthwhile (compared with many possible point-buy distributions) and IF you have a good reason for balancing stats in sub-groups of up to 3 (so no, for example, characters with bad mental but strong physical across the board), then it might be an idea worth pursuing, otherwise you have just wrecked an awful amount of potential player choice so that you could play with triangles. And if it's just limiting distribution you want, let player roll for stats without allowing them to reassign individual points (only move roll results around, maybe even not all of them), maybe add some limited point-buy on top of that AND/OR filter the result if the sum falls too far from average.
4. Hit, miss, miss, miss sequence is obviously better because it has the enemy spend more time in damaged state (and be more prone to being killed) - so what? The point of a game is that things don't always go the way you'd like, same with the point of randomness. Also, there are good and intuitive ways to implement first shot hitting better, for example the way I detailed or the way with accuracy temporarily degrading during movement or shooting (like in DeusEx or STALKER), without butchering the very core of RNG.
   
5. Critting: ...or you can increase crit (and hit) modifiers with increasing relevant stats but also force player into situations where the negative modifiers are correspondingly increased - for example your expert marksman actually needs to snipe someone from half a mile away, your expert swordsman may find himself in an encounter with another expert swordsman (due to not being an expert marksman and/or not sniping him from half a mile away), so guaranteed crits against regular guy turn into small chance against guy who parries really well. At the same time, if you encounter a bunch of low level thugs - crit, crit, crit, over, before any of them even manages to fail morale check and run away while shitting themselves profusely. Speaking of psychologically unrewarding things, HP bloat is just that and damage bloat is meaningless without corresponding HP inflation.
6. Putting character skills into stuff indirectly affecting accuracy (in an actiony game) is smart, but if all the aiming is devoid of that (as Tim proposes), then either the character doesn't need to be a good marksman for actual sniping (because skills only matter when shooting repeatedly), or sniping is unsatisfactory because you need to snipe a guy in the face repeatedly for him to go down, which is even more shit and unsatisfactory than missing a dead center shot - DPS being in any way relevant is a mark of failed game design. If anything reticle wander is insufficient for adequate character skill shooting because it can be overcome albeit with tedium (and tedium is bad) - you need to put crosshair roughly over the target and squeeze when the reticle wanders across the spot you want to hit. What you'd need is something like minimal (the less perceptible the better) delay between key press and firing during which you could jerk the aim randomly (realistic, BTW) - increase in skill would reduce both the delay and the magnitude of jerking.

 

[Darkzone]

"Sadly", I didn't buy Planescape modules chronologically, Dead Gods was pretty hard to find at reasonable price (the prices of any Planescape thing have skyrocketed since...), so it was years after having everything else (even the Torment and Blood Wars Trilogy novels).
I didn't dislike Faction War at first, even finding it interesting as possible way to begin a turnover in Sigil, but was saddened to see it was considered canon, ending the status quo "for good". It wasn't perfect so to me as a module it was good, but not good enough to crush all the Sigil meanings.
I agree with you on RtToEE, but I have to admit that I would have loved to play a Great Modron March campaign, I found the module funny, but had no way to judge it gameplay-wise and to compare to both other modules.

Sometimes we can really only judge things afterwards and in an special context and technically "Faction Wars" ended Planescape.

Haven't played W2 nor DOS yet, I can't say that I loved PoE, but I found it a decent try to introduce that world, IF, and there's a big IF: IF you remove all the backer content. That was a serious letdown, it could have been so much more if the souls were taken seriously by Obsidian writers and not backers. The way Deadfire will have backer content too isn't promising at all. During the crowfdunding campaign, I backed a vision, trusting Obsidian. Having a name in the credits? Ok. But not for the childish "I was there. It's MY game now, look at what I did in it, I'm a officialy-Obsidian-writer-contractor-wanabee". Sure, a few had written decent contents, but the most... At least, Obsidian should have made a contest, as a DLC (so people playing the game would have the choice to include it or not), but not as pledges. The most fatal error of crowdfunding and of PoE.
Well, in the end I can't blame Tim Cain to consider his audience as babies trying to understand very basic things.

We get what we deserve or make through our deeds. PoE has a good beginning and W2 on the other is constantly mediocre with a bit better at Los Angeles.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Anything sounds better than geometric shapes for character creation then, supposedly, "complex" character system, which I'm sure wouldn't be the case.

Take the Geneforge series for example, which is really quite close in style to Fallout or Arcanum. In the first 3 games you can distribute points in character creation, but you're not forced to. Then in the last 2, you just choose your class and you'll distribute the points later as needed, a change probably caused by similar complaints about "difficult" character creation or simply by Vogel's ideas, I don't know. Regardless, the change for me didn't matter much, as I did the same thing in the first 3 games too.
It's a simple, elegant solution that still allows everyone to play all of the game and if the game has a start that's at least somewhat representative of the whole game then you shouldn't have issues with you how you developed your character.

There will always be exceptions, as said, who'd find something too difficult even in putting in points in skills as you need them, but really, fuck those people.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Maybe if you go for easier difficulties mothers, then you get a set of pregenerated stats and appearance customization?Then you are ready to go. If you for more hard difficulties, you get a proper character creation?

Sure you guys understand that these compromises won't stop. You can't just set pregenerated stats and customization, you also need mindless combat, inexistent failures in skill checks, absence of resource management. There is no middle ground between a good game and a casual game.

Those easier modes could also work as a storymode. Casuals won't know what will hit them.

 

[Lurker King]

Those easier modes could also work as a storymode. Casuals won't know what will hit them.

Then they will choose to play in other modes and bash the game for being too hard.

 

[l3loodAngel]

Don't denigrate the achievements of great developers because of the shit they made after they were no longer great.

Nobody is denigrating their achievements; we are denigrating the developers themselves.

I did not denigrate achievements, but the sudden influx of garbage from old school devs with good project funding does raise questions about their abilities and if they got the credit they deserved. Does it not?

 

[mondblut]

in the era of oversaturation of content it's a perfectly valid strategy to settle for whom you remember from the simpler times than it is to struggle to catch up with all the innovators

it's statistically more probable to get satisfied this way that it is to get so by picking a random piece of content produced by Some Guy

The list of satisfying products made after 2000 by those we remember from the simpler times:


















...

Your probability chart is way off.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Those easier modes could also work as a storymode. Casuals won't know what will hit them.

Then they will choose to play in other modes and bash the game for being too hard.

Name them appropriately, like super extra hardcore for grognards or tactical mode for your granny or only unwashed virgin nerds apply here.
Or just subtly ask players about their experience with RPGs and assign the difficulty level based on that.

 

[mondblut]

WTF... Arcanum problem was the character development? has this man completely lost it?

Arcanum character development was indeed shit though. "Here's a point, you can spend it to improve a stat, OR increase a skill, OR learn a spell", wtf?

Separate pools or bust

 

[l3loodAngel]

Those easier modes could also work as a storymode. Casuals won't know what will hit them.

Then they will choose to play in other modes and bash the game for being too hard.

Name them appropriately, like super extra hardcore for grognards or tactical mode for your granny or only unwashed virgin nerds apply here.
Or just subtly ask players about their experience with RPGs and assign the difficulty level based on that.

Yeah we need customer education department. ASAP! Like such shit would ever work...

 

[Alex]

First MCA, now Cain... it appears the only former BIS dev who want to make proper rpgs is Sawyer now.

After MCA and Tim Cain got seduced by the Dark Side, now Sawyer is the Codex's last hope.
What a twist.

"Sawyer" is a really weird way to spell Cleve.

 

[J_C]

First MCA, now Cain... it appears the only former BIS dev who want to make proper rpgs is Sawyer now.

After MCA and Tim Cain got seduced by the Dark Side, now Sawyer is the Codex's last hope.
What a twist.

"Sawyer" is a really weird way to spell Cleve.

Only if you want to play only one game every 3 decades.

 

[mondblut]

Since I'm not sure people understood what I meant by my description, here are Tim's slides of his geometric shape attribute visualization idea:

It's not "replace each number with a different shape".

"Acknowledges this user's agenda"

 

[DraQ]

Deaf ears and all, but..

In theory, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. I mean if you ever day-dreamed of being say, a wizard when you were young, i bet you didn't 'pause' your fantasy every 10 minutes, did you?
"O.K., now i will add one point to my intellect and 'save' me". "I will have level 3 fireballs usable now!".
No; you just.. larped it in your head, something continuous, organic, with some basis on your current reality (verisimilar). Maybe you imagined of having found an artifact or equipment, maybe coming upon or stealing a grimoire, absorbing another's soul/powers and so on.

You also didn't imagine you were spinning triangles.

The only differences that matter are:

1. Which system has more expressive power (allows you to express more character concepts)?
   
2. Which system does better job at filtering out inherently broken or otherwise unfitting builds.

In terms of 1. 36 possible stat combinations generated by spinning triangles are pretty fucking dire, so unless spinning triangles work some heavy miracles in terms of 2., they are not even worth considering.
Also, since good RPG system should be PC/NPC agnostic, this puts a hamper on what kinds of NPCs you may have in game.

So in terms of actual RPing, i don't see a problem with this. Again, theoretically. Just because we're used to number crunchers doesn't mean they are the way to go about this.

As long as you're working with computers this is the only way.
The numbers are going to be crunched anyway, so even if use some different, more convenient abstraction you need to understand the math under the hood (or at least have someone write you a library) and understand the implications of particular system you intend to use.
It doesn't matter what parts of your system (if any) you expose to the players.

This is my main beef with game designers. They often seem to be running around like headless chickens parroting some particular buzzword or another, without ever stopping to consider what doing something this particular way will mean to their game.
And that affects practically everyone (has Swen gotten over his "item fever" fever, BTW?).

Dudes, WTF?

Why don't you, for any ideas you may have, grab a coleague/innocent bystander/rubber duck and explain to them first how your new clever idea can mangle a game beyond repair or recognition (not "if" - it *can*) and then why it won't happen in your particular case. Be specific.

Or, as he mentions, being able to hit most enemies despite your thac0 without dumbing anything down. Hit and 'win' don't have to be synonymous. Maybe you will need a higher skillset, maybe better equipment, maybe both; for some enemies. In a non-scaled, hand-placed NPCs RPG, i don't see what the problem is if you have some/most NPCs "hittable". You can hit them, yes; doen't mean you can defeat them.

For certain hits a hit without win implies HP inflation.
HP inflation is bad and yields boring and bad gameplay.

 

[DavidBVal]

WTF... Arcanum problem was the character development? has this man completely lost it?

Arcanum character development was indeed shit though. "Here's a point, you can spend it to improve a stat, OR increase a skill, OR learn a spell", wtf?

Separate pools or bust

No, the system has mistakes and pitfalls but the shared pool is great. You can choose between short-term, quickly visible effects, or more long term investments that do little for you when you raise them but unlock the most powerful spells/schematics if you persevere (INT, WP). Nothing prevents you from spreading evenly the points if you want to do that. Pretend you got one point for each and spend them every 3 levels, if you want to forsake the flexibility given to you.

 

[Lurker King]

I did not denigrate achievements, but the sudden influx of garbage from old school devs with good project funding does raise questions about their abilities and if they got the credit they deserved. Does it not?

Agreed. Ideally, we should track who was responsible for each feature we like in each classic. Good luck trying to uncover the truth about that. Development process is obscure and most celebrety devs tend to steal all the credit for themselves. If we don't even know who made what in Underrail, imagine FO.

 

[DraQ]

"I enjoy role playing but I don't enjoy having to fiddle around with a bunch of numbers to play a game with role playing" is a fair enough opinion to have.

The tabletop version of this gave us stuff like storyteller/storytelling and New Men Era.

But that simply means that the game has to do the numbers and communicate clearly what they mean - which it should be doing anyway beacuse:

1. Computer.
2. Chances are that if you can't explain what your numbers are doing, you don't know it yourself and your system is an incoherent mess.

It doesn't mean that you should attempt to reinvent the numbers themselves.

 

[Gecos]

So streamlining, simplification and such. Anathema to the Codex but it may very well prove to be the "millions" best seller Obsidian is hoping for. Cater to the casual masses...

 

[DeepOcean]

One of the big reasons many players didn't like selecting premade characters on older RPGs, even when it was the best choice for them, was because all the aspects of the character were pre made, the looks, name and class, and you had to go through the whole character creation process anyway if you wanted to customize them what defeated their purpose. Many mainstream tards want to create their own characters, they just don't want to work hard at it.

This could be simply resolved without all those gimmicks and dumbdown, sorry Tim. If the lazy player wants to start the game quick without wasting time on the character creation screen, divide the character creation on two parts. On the first part, the player can customize the looks of his character and when it is ready, he just needs to select which pre made class template he will choose without showing any numbers or skills. Just an screen where the player can select, fighter, barbarian, cleric, mage and druid jumping right afterwards on the game. Those are names, functions and archetypes that are easy to understand even to complete tards. Don't make classes that are hard for the lazy players to understand and quickly visualize their role.

On this class selection screen, you have an option at the bottom, named "customize details" with a huge: "Warning: this isn't recommended for a first time player, we recommend you to select a class for a better experience.". So lo and behold, the lazy players would get the memo and stick with their classes templates while the non-retards would choose to customize the details.

When you level up, all the skills that the designer think are the minimum for the player to survive on their archetype he chosen are marked on bright flashing neon blue colour with a big (WARNING: SELECT THIS SKILL OR YOU WILL DIE) so the retards can't miss the skills they are supposed to invest at minimum for the classes they chosen. After all this, if the retard player still managed to ignore all your warnings, just say for him to fuck himself.

I have the feeling, that all this talk is just excuses and more excuses for dumbdown and going on Bethesda footsteps and make a shitty action game that plays RPG dress up because the money is on action games.

 

[DraQ]

1. There are no stats.
6. Skill are determined by usage.

Segmentation fault

 

[DraQ]

One of the big reasons many players didn't like selecting premade characters on older RPGs, even when it was the best choice for them, was because all the aspects of the character were pre made, the looks, name and class, and you had to go through the whole character creation process anyway if you wanted to customize them what defeated their purpose. Many mainstream tards want to create their own characters, they just don't want to work hard at it.

This could be simply resolved without all those gimmicks and dumbdown, sorry Tim. If the lazy player wants to start the game quick without wasting time on the character creation screen, divide the character creation on two parts. On the first part, the player can customize the looks of his character and when it is ready, he just needs to select which pre made class template he will choose without showing any numbers or skills. Just an screen where the player can select, fighter, barbarian, cleric, mage and druid jumping right afterwards on the game. Those are names, functions and archetypes that are easy to understand even to complete tards. Don't make classes that are hard for the lazy players to understand and quickly visualize their role.

On this class selection screen, you have an option at the bottom, named "customize details" with a huge: "Warning: this isn't recommended for a first time player, we recommend you to select a class for a better experience.". So lo and behold, the lazy players would get the memo and stick with their classes templates while the non-retards would choose to customize the details.

When you level up, all the skills that the designer think are the minimum for the player to survive on their archetype he chosen are marked on bright flashing neon blue colour with a big (WARNING: SELECT THIS SKILL OR YOU WILL DIE) so the retards can't miss the skills they are supposed to invest at minimum for the classes they chosen. After all this, if the retard player still managed to ignore all your warnings, just say for him to fuck himself.

I have the feeling, that all this talk is just excuses and more excuses for dumbdown and going on Bethesda footsteps and make a shitty action game that plays RPG dress up because the money is on action games.

So Daggerfall has had all the answers all along?

 

[Infinitron]

WTF... Arcanum problem was the character development? has this man completely lost it?

Character creation, not character development.

 

[Ruzen]

WTF... Arcanum problem was the character development? has this man completely lost it?

I don't believe he said that. He said Arcanum's Char UI was the problem.