Editorial Josh Sawyer Explains: How to Balance an RPG

[Infinitron]

Just catching up on this thread and I guess I have to admire your energy Infinitron. I may not agree with half of your arguments but the battles you've fought across multiple threads, your insistence that Josh and Obsidian have got every single design decision correct and the sheer effort involved... well it surely deserves some sort of commendation beyond any incoming Doritos.

So when will the Obsidian fanboy tag be awarded? Is the design still being finalised?

Fanboy tags are typically awarded to posters who fanboy for/are obsessed with a single developer or game. My interests are broader than that.

If that would be true, Roguey already got one. I'm still butthurt that I received one, but Roguey didn't, yet she is far worse than me in terms of fanboying.

I agree with you. Roguey does deserve a tag, although something more customized than fanboy would be more appropriate. "Sawyer Cultist" or "Cult of Sawyer" or something. If anybody wants to volunteer to create one, feel free.

 

[bonescraper]

J_C On the bright side, you have the most unique avatar, so it evens out.

 

[J_C]

J_C On the bright side, you have the most unique avatar, so it evens out.

Actually it had grown on me, so yeah, I like it. :D

 

[FeelTheRads]

Actually it had grown on me, so yeah, I like it.

Don't know if that was intentional, but quite funny.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

I'm not sure where you disagree with me? The attributes are still designed to help all classes, so none of this would hurt anybody's viability. Dumping them might make an "edgy" character that's sort of hard to handle but it would never cripple it.

Yeah, might have misread your post but the point I'm trying to make is that as things are now the "All stat builds/combinations are viable!" comes from stats having such a negligable effect on character's combat performance which is the worst way possible to achieve that goal.

If you don't need to adapt your playing style for different builds then what good are they for? Whether I'm going to do 5 more melee damage in a game which has bloated weapon damage and enemy HP is barely gonna register on my radar.

Maxing or dumping any stat should carry far more weight than it does now.

 

[Curious_Tongue]

I will. The way Power Armor worked in the First 2 Fallouts was much better than in New Vegas.

"Ah yes I like how every character regardless of their initial character concept winds up with hardened or advanced power armor and how this makes you invincible to virtually everything except unlucky crits that are just as likely to one-shot you at full health even with 10 endurance, this is good,"--what grognards actually believe

Power armour was the reward for a side quest in Fallout 1 and New Vegas (I can't remember If it was part of the MQ in F2).

You could just not get it if you didn't want it.

 

[Volrath]

Lovin' the grog tears itt.

Plenty more where that came from you-know-where.

Come on, take it to the next level. People aren't even talking about the actual beta gameplay anymore anyway. They're whining about the core design.

The core design is what turned the beta into the piece of shit that it is today. It's pretty fucking important.

 

[Applypoison]

There should be a good conceptual/aesthetic reason as well as a good mechanical reason.

On the topic of functionality in a RPG, this much I would think most would agree on.

On a very basic level, If you see a tree (object) in a game, that tree should serve another purpose than just immersion/roleplaying. It should be functional to the player, somehow. It should serve a purpose other than being there or making the world look detailed. If you can talk with the tree, that conversation should result in something which meaningfully impacts the gameplay.

That's philosophically what game balance is; making sure each aspect of the game is equally outstanding, and making sure every element serves multiple major purposes. It's pretty much impossible but the closer you get to it, the better the game tends to be.

 

[Infinitron]

Heh. That may be too subtle for some.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

The apparent problem with, say, the attributes in PoE, is that in the name of making them all useful (and therefore making different builds viable), their effects have been neutered to a point where they simply don't matter very much.

Thing is, I don't think the viability of builds would be affected in any way if the effect of each attribute point was doubled or quadrupled right now. They'd all still be valuable to every character and every class. It's how they're designed.

That might or might not upset balance in some way (perhaps making some spell or other do too much damage, for instance) but that wouldn't be hurting viability - it would be hurting difficulty.

I don't think this is what (some) people are really upset about, although they are conflating it with the real reasons they're upset.

That's a purely academic distinction between "build viability" and "balance", I think. You can basically take any system, and buff all builds across the board until the worst ones become viable, but that just replaces one problem with another. I do think this is preferable to builds not actually making any difference, but then you're basically hoping that your core gameplay is engaging enough despite serious systemic imbalance - as is the case for a lot of the Codex' beloved RPGs.

 

[Infinitron]

The apparent problem with, say, the attributes in PoE, is that in the name of making them all useful (and therefore making different builds viable), their effects have been neutered to a point where they simply don't matter very much.

Thing is, I don't think the viability of builds would be affected in any way if the effect of each attribute point was doubled or quadrupled right now. They'd all still be valuable to every character and every class. It's how they're designed.

That might or might not upset balance in some way (perhaps making some spell or other do too much damage, for instance) but that wouldn't be hurting viability - it would be hurting difficulty.

I don't think this is what (some) people are really upset about, although they are conflating it with the real reasons they're upset.

That's a purely academic distinction between "build viability" and "balance", I think. You can basically take any system, and buff all builds across the board until the worst ones become viable, but that just replaces one problem with another. I do think this is preferable to builds not actually making any difference, but then you're basically hoping that your core gameplay is engaging enough despite serious systemic imbalance - as is the case for a lot of the Codex' beloved RPGs.

It's a balance issue that's fairly easy to solve, though. If your beefed up attributes made some weapon or tactic or whatever too effective, then find a way to nerf it.

My point is, there are two separate issues here:

1) Attributes are truly valuable to all classes and all characters, and not just in the half-assed/auxiliary way they can be in D&D ("If your fighter dumps Wis he'll have worse will saves!"). Some people don't like this. THIS principle is what makes it so that all attribute builds are viable.

2) The attributes don't have a powerful enough effect on characters. Which makes it so that characters with wildly different attribute builds can play too similarly to each other. In theory, this has little to do with the actual viability of those characters, since, as mentioned in 1), those attributes are useful no matter what.

 

[tuluse]

That's a purely academic distinction between "build viability" and "balance", I think. You can basically take any system, and buff all builds across the board until the worst ones become viable, but that just replaces one problem with another. I do think this is preferable to builds not actually making any difference, but then you're basically hoping that your core gameplay is engaging enough despite serious systemic imbalance - as is the case for a lot of the Codex' beloved RPGs.

I don't know. Imagine if in the IE games, you weren't allowed to dump the most important attribute for each class.

If you picked wizard, the game automatically forced you into 18 INT, likewise STR for figther, and so forth.

Would like the lack of making "bad" fighters and wizards make the game worse in any appreciable way?

 

[J_C]

Actually it had grown on me, so yeah, I like it.

Don't know if that was intentional, but quite funny.

I just realized that. It was unintentional.

 

[Roguey]

A tag would be redundant with my sig but hey whatevs.

Funny, except Obsidian has pulled a "switcheroo". Or rather Sawyer did.
Hey, we're making a game like those you liked.
Hey, we're not actually making a game like those you liked, because those games sucked. HAHAHA.

Hmm nope.

Whether you prefer turn-based or real-time combat, we were clear for the duration of the KS campaign and all of development that PoE would use a RTwP combat system and that it would not fundamentally differ much from BG/IWD. The places where it does differ (e.g. not using rounds, different attack/defense system, Stamina/Health, few to no save or die effects, few to no hard counters) were noted either during the KS campaign or early in development. There are certainly plenty of things to discuss improving or changing, but the basics are not among them.

Furthermore

how's the criticism of the beta lining up with what you expected it to be criticised for? Any surprises?

I have to catch a flight soon, but nothing major so far, no. The vast majority of the issues people are reporting are things we knew about and were either in the process of fixing or knew we had to fix but didn't have time to address before Gamescom.

Things are going as planned.

On the other hand you seem to have some weird desire to play a genre you don't like while dreaming for a day when a knight in shiny armor will turn all that genre into something you like. Call it masochism, or call it retardation, but it's there.

It's a genre with potential, I want to see that potential blossom.

 

[Ninjerk]

J_C On the bright side, you have the most unique avatar, so it evens out.

Actually it had grown on me, so yeah, I like it. :D

Guess it's about time to take it away, then.

 

[HiddenX]

Some parties are worse, some parties are better.
Finding characters that work good together is major fun for me.
Trying to win with a non optimal (exotic mix) party can be fun too.
(Try JA 2 with with an "eastern block party" -> great fun.)

Making everything equal for casual gamers is boring.

If you suck at party building you should fail after 40h and start over (*)

So I don't agree with J.E. Sawyer.


(*) maybe read the manual next time

 

[Zeriel]

I don't know. Imagine if in the IE games, you weren't allowed to dump the most important attribute for each class.

If you picked wizard, the game automatically forced you into 18 INT, likewise STR for figther, and so forth.

Would like the lack of making "bad" fighters and wizards make the game worse in any appreciable way?

Considering multiclassing/dualclassing was a thing in D&D, yeah. You basically remove any ability to have a hybrid character.

PoE solves this "problem" by making most characters interchangeable, so hybrid classes either aren't desirable, or (depending on your point of view) every class is a hybrid/multi-classed character.

Little tangent: multiclassing/dual-classing was most interesting to me in D&D not as a mechanical thing or exploit, but because it often mirrored the growth of characters in a story sense. Some guy would start picking pockets just because he wanted to or because it was part of a quest, and would organically grow into being not just a wizard or a warrior but also a rogue.

 

[tuluse]

Considering multiclassing/dualclassing was a thing in D&D, yeah. You basically remove any ability to have a hybrid character.

PoE solves this "problem" by making most characters interchangeable, so hybrid classes either aren't desirable, or (depending on your point of view) every class is a hybrid/multi-classed character.

Uh, how does having 18 in one attribute prevent multi/dual classing?

 

[Zeriel]

Considering multiclassing/dualclassing was a thing in D&D, yeah. You basically remove any ability to have a hybrid character.

PoE solves this "problem" by making most characters interchangeable, so hybrid classes either aren't desirable, or (depending on your point of view) every class is a hybrid/multi-classed character.

Uh, how does having 18 in one attribute prevent multi/dual classing?

It doesn't explicitly, but customizing stats is a big part of meeting requirements for classes and their abilities. If you pile all your stats into one archetype by default, it's hard to perform the duties of another archetype.

More generally, are we really on the Codex now arguing that customization is a bad thing?

 

[tuluse]

It doesn't explicitly, but customizing stats is a big part of meeting requirements for classes and their abilities. If you pile all your stats into one archetype by default, it's hard to perform the duties of another archetype.

More generally, are we really on the Codex now arguing that customization is a bad thing?

You're arguing something I didn't advocate. Please respond to the actual post I made instead of building a strawman.

 

[Zeriel]

It doesn't explicitly, but customizing stats is a big part of meeting requirements for classes and their abilities. If you pile all your stats into one archetype by default, it's hard to perform the duties of another archetype.

More generally, are we really on the Codex now arguing that customization is a bad thing?

You're arguing something I didn't advocate. Please respond to the actual post I made instead of building a strawman.

You were trying to argue that nothing would really be lost by making every fighter and every mage automatically dump 18 into their main stat, yeah? Or did you edit your post since then?

Not seeing how this is a strawman.

 

[tuluse]

You were trying to argue that nothing would really be lost by making every fighter and every mage automatically dump 18 into their main stat, yeah? Or did you edit your post since then?

Not seeing how this is a strawman.

Not a strawman, but just factually incorrect:

Considering multiclassing/dualclassing was a thing in D&D, yeah. You basically remove any ability to have a hybrid character.

Strawman:

f you pile all your stats into one archetype by default, it's hard to perform the duties of another archetype.

 

[Zeriel]

Oh god can we not do the "lol I didn't post what I actually posted thing", please?

You said there would be no appreciable difference if every archetype were forced to put 18 points into their main stat. I pointed out there was this thing called multiclassing in 2E D&D. Reminder: putting points into stats comes at a cost of other points in other stats. If you are a multiclassed fighter/wizard, maxing Strength means you can't put as many points into Intelligence, which means you don't get as many spells per day/spells learnable, etc etc on and on. Not rocket science here.

You can argue that you don't really care about what is lost in abandoning this flexibility, but you can't argue nothing is lost, because something sure as hell is.

This is probably going to be my last post on the subject if we are going to keep going down the strawman road.

 

[tuluse]

You said there would be no appreciable difference if every archetype were forced to put 18 points into their main stat. I pointed out there was this thing called multiclassing in 2E D&D. Reminder: putting points into stats comes at a cost of other points in other stats. If you are a multiclassed fighter/wizard, maxing Strength means you can't put as many points into Intelligence, which means you don't get as many spells per day/spells learnable, etc etc on and on. Not rocket science here.

You're acting like IE characters had 18,10,10,10,10,10 as their attributes. Most characters I made had 3 18s or close enough to it. All your arguments are about some mythical game that didn't actually exist. In actual IE games, each character could have an 18 and have plenty of points left to make any multi class you wanted.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

yeah a 'gimpy' or 'sub-optimal' one... i guess it depends on the importance you place into the effectiveness of your secondary abilities etc. That will vary by user. If I can try to boil it down a bit, 3+ point stat differences should make a significant difference in the performance of abilities that rely on them.

Sawyer discussed a few ways the game mitigates the impact and effect of character stat disparity such as the example of low int mages casting equally potent spells with shorter duration or smaller AOE. If there is an overriding approach which normalizes characters, there is concern that the result is a genericized experience and far less uniqueness to play-throughs or approaches.