Interview Josh Sawyer Pillars of Eternity Post-Release Interview at Gamasutra

[tuluse]

Nice dodge FeelTheRads

What do any of the points you've made have to do with "MMO" design?

 

[Ulrox]

Or, if you'd prefer, list your favorite games, and I'll be happy to show you the balance considerations that went into the design. You still don't seem to be grasping the concept of balance in the first place, as I suspected, so kindly learn what the term means before you try to use it in your arguments.

Power armor in fallout 1-2, Maxxing endurance, int, and strenght in fallout 1-2,
inquisitor's mage kensais in baldur's gate 2,
The vault dweller in Fallout 3 or every main charecter in Bethesda games since Oblivion,
Brujah in vampire the masquerade bloodlines,
Druids in Pillers of Eternity,
Chris Avellone,
Any class in Knights of the old republic 1,
Priests in might and magic 6.

 

[Grinning Reaper]

Or, if you'd prefer, list your favorite games, and I'll be happy to show you the balance considerations that went into the design. You still don't seem to be grasping the concept of balance in the first place, as I suspected, so kindly learn what the term means before you try to use it in your arguments.

Power armor in fallout 1-2, Maxxing endurance, int, and strenght in fallout 1-2,
inquisitor's mage kensais in baldur's gate 2,
The vault dweller in Fallout 3 or every main charecter in Bethesda games since Oblivion,
Brujah in vampire the masquerade bloodlines,
Druids in Pillers of Eternity,
Chris Avellone,
Any class in Knights of the old republic 1,
Priests in might and magic 6.

This is how balance works in single player games: everything is related to everything else so that the system makes sense. Now, I haven't played Fallout 3 (or any Bethesda games really) or KoToR, but it's pretty clear that you're asking where balance comes into play, considering these seemingly imbalanced aspects. The fact that the things you mentioned are the most powerful things in the game does not inherently make them imbalanced. Power armor, though very strong, still relates to other armors. In fact, the most powerful examples showcase the point of balancing very well. When they relate appropriately to the rest of the game, they make sense. As they begin to move further away from that (harm in Arcanum), they become more apparently problematic. So, there's no good reason to look at 'harm' and say, that's great game design right there, because the fact that it went too far, its imbalance, is a poor design decision.

These games all took balance heavily into account during the design process, your examples prove that by their relation to the *norm* in those games (the fact that a norm exists shows that the game is balanced). Let's imagine that some post-release patches are being put out for Fallout: the more powerful power armor gets, the more ridiculous it becomes as it trivializes game difficulty by allowing you to roflstomp everything and then invalidates itself due to that. It has to be balanced against the other items in the game to even make sense as an option, because the game won't be fun if it makes you completely invincible and so the item won't be used, and if it's totally useless compared to other armors then it also won't get used for that reason. Creating an item, spell, class, etc. that will never be used because it wasn't balanced properly one way or the other is poor game design.

Chris Avellone, for example, is terrible game design: way too overpowered.

 

[Rake]

Chris Avellone, for example, is terrible game design: way too overpowered.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

MCA is OP indeed, especially compared to Sawyer.

 

[Rake]

MCA is OP indeed, especially compared to Sawyer.

Sawyer is a trap build.
But Obsidian had the solution. Nerf MCA by removing 3/4 of his characters' content. Now he is just slightly better than the rest of the team.

 

[AngryEddy]

I have no idea what people really expected.

Story wise, how about something a little darker than female Atheist Jesus.

 

[DeepOcean]

Chris Avellone, for example, is terrible game design: way too overpowered.

MCA fuck yeah!

 

[Volrath]

its not shit b/c obsidian, its shit because its bsb

Still less bsb then Wasteland 2 though

Prettier for sure

I had more FUN with it

Can't believe how much my perception changed over the years. I now truly think Pillows is one of the worst games I've ever played.

 

[Irenaeus]

You were just infected with negativity.