Let's Party Like It's 2015: Josh Sawyer Balance Discussion

[vivec]

Making all builds viable in traditional CRPGs is not necessarily bad.

However, bad decisions in character creation should absolutely be punished. Bad builds should obviously be in for a struggle,

Does not compute. That latter quote is what I meant by punishing.

 

[Infinitron]

Making all builds viable in traditional CRPGs is not necessarily bad.

However, bad decisions in character creation should absolutely be punished. Bad builds should obviously be in for a struggle,

Does not compute. That latter quote is what I meant by punishing.

The question is what you mean by "struggle". Does struggling require you to perform rote, unfun tasks and use exploits? Kiting? Running back and forth to town to rest?

Or does it mean you can play like a normal character is supposed to, but generally put out less damage, get hit harder and consequently you might fail to kill the game's toughest non-critical path enemies?

 

[Fairfax]

Making all builds viable in traditional CRPGs is not necessarily bad.

However, bad decisions in character creation should absolutely be punished. Bad builds should obviously be in for a struggle,

Does not compute. That latter quote is what I meant by punishing.

Right, but my point is that viability only means you can finish the game with it, and that's not necessarily bad in a CRPG.

 

[vivec]

Making all builds viable in traditional CRPGs is not necessarily bad.

However, bad decisions in character creation should absolutely be punished. Bad builds should obviously be in for a struggle,

Does not compute. That latter quote is what I meant by punishing.

The question is what you mean by "struggle". Does struggling require you to perform rote, unfun tasks and use exploits? Kiting? Running back and forth to town to rest?

Or does it mean you can play like a normal character is supposed to, but generally put out less damage, get hit harder and consequently you might fail to kill the game's absolute toughest non-critical path enemies?

Of course not. These are "degenerate" things. A Unfortunately, the points you note are not addressed all the same way (As I see it) so let me try and do that one by one/many:

perform rote, unfun tasks

I think of this as a general problem in storytelling. We want to hear stories of great deeds and mighty feats. So, no, of course, these rote tasks (collecting trash loot, fighting trash mobs) need to be swept under the rug in a cRPG. If you are talking about "buffing up" and "reloading the crossbow" you are missing the point. A game that allows you to "buff up" a lot is *badly designed*. All magic needs to be constrained to feel magical. Otherwise, it is mundane. This problem is exacerbated by having too many combat encounters. Most cRPGs are victims to this. When you are facing a lot of these trash encounters which do not add difficulty but just wear you down even interesting magic becomes "rote". Hence, the idea is not to get rid of buffing up, but getting rid of trash mobs and making buffing somehow scarce and meaningful: not +1 to hit for 4 seconds.

use exploits? Kiting?

I am surprised we are even talking about this. This is not a mechanics issue but a *tactic*. There is nothing wrong with kiting especially with a build built to accomplish kiting. If is a *bug* i.e. due to AI issues, fix AI. Don't make kiting impossible. That would be stupid.

Running back and forth to town to rest?

Take a guess how one deals with this in PnP.

 

[Infinitron]

Haha nice attempt at changing the subject. Who said anything about trash mobs, buffing or preventing kiting?

The point is that in creating suboptimal characters, one man's "viable but you need to struggle" is another man's "this is bullshit and effectively the same as non-viable". Glad to hear you fall on the side of non-bullshit.

 

[DeepOcean]

To me balance is important but the moment to moment gameplay is much, much more, if you want to balance your fireball to make it less like the go to spell of 9 in 10 mages, that is laudable but you need to do this on a way that don't ruin the more subjective aspect of the combat like how impactful the spells feel, if your idea is to make your fireball a wimpy fire fart that almost do no damage on a very small area, sorry you were an idiot, the end of all combat is how it feels while played not on theory, balance is on the service of the feel of the combat not the other way around.

If your idea of balance enhances the feels of combat, then you are on the right track, if it involves killing the feel of the combat you are fucking shit. Game design on theory is something, it is only valid when the player actually touches and feel the systems, it is alot more subjective. People sometimes accuse Sawyer of being an walking computer with Excel installed on his memory, I don't know the guy so I can't say this but what people actually are trying to say is that there is a huge subjective component to combat that may enter on direct conflict with certain attempts of balancing. Sawyer on all his talks let the impression that he is a very analytical designer so people don't feel that confident he is aware of how the players interact with the combat is much more important than how objectively balanced the skills and characters mathematically are.

Not that subjective joy and balance are mutually exclusive, actually both can interact to make a better game but on an ironic twist, you need to balance this very well. I still remember the first time I thrown a fireball on PoE, it was so fucking awful, same with alot of CC spells that were complete awful, maybe for some Obsidian designer the way the spells were looked perfect on theory but when you actually play...

 

[Chris Avelltwo]

I won't put balance before fun in a video game.
Then I would totally miss the point of what a video game is.

Balance isn't an end, but it is a means to an end. If you make a pizza do you say "I won't put dough before toppings"? In a pizza the crust is the most boring thing, but its also something you can't do without. Toppings are a lot more fun, but if they aren't on a crust then you don't have a pizza -- just a pile of crap burnt onto a pizza pan. And so it is with video game design. Having a cool idea for a sword or a spell or whatever isn't going to mean much if it is horribly underpowered to the point no one uses it, or horribly overpowered to the point it breaks the game.

Fallout 3 is full of great examples of terrible and unbalanced game design. Something that comes to mind is the Chinese Stealth Suit in FO3. It is like wearing a permanent stealth boy that is permanently active all the time and makes you invisible to everything. Sounds cool, right? Well, if you enjoy going around with that OP shotgun in the game and one shot killing everything from stealth with sneak attack criticals from each of the 6 pellets of the shotgun, then I guess that would be fun to you, but where's the challenge? To a lot of people that gets boring.

FNV is a far better game not just because of the infinitely better writing, but because of the gameplay improvements and balance Josh Sawyer brought. He nerfed the shit out of countless things, and went even further with his unofficial mod. With his hardcore mode and his mod, the game comes close to having some semblance of challenge that FO3 never had. Stimpacks heal gradually over time instead of instantly and are more scarce; Base carrying capacity is reduced to 80 pounds so you can no longer carry around 5,000 pounds of gear on your back; food, water and sleep are requirements to live; etc. Things are still far from perfect, but considering he only 18 months to do everything and the limitations of the shitty Gamebryo engine it is pretty impressive what he did compared to the unbalanced mess that Todd Howard made.

Todd Howard designs his games putting "fun" first, and completely ignore balance. Obviously that is cool for a lot of people since those games sell millions of copies, but not everyone thinks getting OP power armor right at the start of the game or having immortal companions is such a great idea. POE doesn't have "fun" things like Fatman launchers, game breaking permanent stealth suits, invincible companions, OP perks, hotkeyable insta-heal stimpaks, or other junk game mechanics, but it is a far better game in my eyes. It certainly will never sell as much, but that in and of itself is a poor indicator of quality.

 

[vivec]

FNV is a far better game not just because of the infinitely better writing, but because of the gameplay improvements and balance Josh Sawyer brought.

lolno.

NV is good solely due to writing and quest design. The engine and the combat is as shitty as ever. Don't trick yourself by the correlation.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Balance isn't an end, but it is a means to an end. If you make a pizza do you say "I won't put dough before toppings"? In a pizza the crust is the most boring thing, but its also something you can't do without. Toppings are a lot more fun, but if they aren't on a crust then you don't have a pizza -- just a pile of crap burnt onto a pizza pan. And so it is with video game design. Having a cool idea for a sword or a spell or whatever isn't going to mean much if it is horribly underpowered to the point no one uses it, or horribly overpowered to the point it breaks the game.

Fallout 3 is full of great examples of terrible and unbalanced game design. Something that comes to mind is the Chinese Stealth Suit in FO3. It is like wearing a permanent stealth boy that is permanently active all the time and makes you invisible to everything. Sounds cool, right? Well, if you enjoy going around with that OP shotgun in the game and one shot killing everything from stealth with sneak attack criticals from each of the 6 pellets of the shotgun, then I guess that would be fun to you, but where's the challenge? To a lot of people that gets boring.

FNV is a far better game not just because of the infinitely better writing, but because of the gameplay improvements and balance Josh Sawyer brought. He nerfed the shit out of countless things, and went even further with his unofficial mod. With his hardcore mode and his mod, the game comes close to having some semblance of challenge that FO3 never had. Stimpacks heal gradually over time instead of instantly and are more scarce; Base carrying capacity is reduced to 80 pounds so you can no longer carry around 5,000 pounds of gear on your back; food, water and sleep are requirements to live; etc. Things are still far from perfect, but considering he only 18 months to do everything and the limitations of the shitty Gamebryo engine it is pretty impressive what he did compared to the unbalanced mess that Todd Howard made.

Todd Howard designs his games putting "fun" first, and completely ignore balance. Obviously that is cool for a lot of people since those games sell millions of copies, but not everyone thinks getting OP power armor right at the start of the game or having immortal companions is such a great idea. POE doesn't have "fun" things like Fatman launchers, game breaking permanent stealth suits, invincible companions, OP perks, hotkeyable insta-heal stimpaks, or other junk game mechanics, but it is a far better game in my eyes. It certainly will never sell as much, but that in and of itself is a poor indicator of quality.

The original fallout were never hard, they were simple aim for the head turn based rpgs that were fun because of the setting and the gruesome gore animations.

Fallout 3 was unbalanced compared to what?

 

[Sigourn]

Fallout 3 was unbalanced compared to what?

You don't need to compare Fallout 3 to anything to know V.A.T.S. being essentially God mode (90% Damage Resistance plus a Perk that refills your AP when you kill an enemy) is unbalanced as fuck.

 

[Kem0sabe]

You don't need to compare Fallout 3 to anything to know V.A.T.S. being essentially God mode (90% Damage Resistance plus a Perk that refills your AP when you kill an enemy) is unbalanced as fuck.

My point is, that rpg combat is mostly unbalanced, highly exploitable and not a factor for enjoying the game or not... Because 99% of rpgs have unbalanced combat.

What was the last crpg you played that was truly balanced and challenging?

 

[Sigourn]

My point is, that rpg combat is mostly unbalanced, highly exploitable and not a factor for enjoying the game or not... Because 99% of rpgs have unbalanced combat.

What was the last crpg you played that was truly balanced and challenging?

Depends on your definition of "balance". If by "balance" you mean "the game is balanced even if you try to break it", then my answer is "none".

On the other hand, if by "balance" you mean "the game is balanced as long as you don't actively try to break it", then my answer is modded New Vegas, Gothic and Wasteland 2. In Wasteland 2 in particular all my different characters were fairly useful for their own reason. My Sniper character was as valuable to my as my healer, or my melee fighters.

Morrowind is an example of an unbalanced game: even without trying I kept breaking it, so I stopped playing vanilla and installed BTB's Game Improvements right away.

 

[Chris Avelltwo]

My point is, that rpg combat is mostly unbalanced, highly exploitable and not a factor for enjoying the game or not... Because 99% of rpgs have unbalanced combat.

I'n Roguey's signature you can find a quote by a great man that is a perfect response:

(regarding crpg rulesets) "Pretty much all games get it wrong."
"Honestly, I think it's really sad that RPGs essentially get a pass on having fundamentally junk core gameplay. And yes, I do consider combat to be a core gameplay element of most RPGs."

The fact that most RPG's have unbalanced junk gameplay isn't a secret, but that doesn't mean it is okay or that we should accept that. At least there is one developer who stands in our corner and is trying to do things right. All the other RPG developers are just in it for "fun", or money (or both).

What was the last crpg you played that was truly balanced and challenging?

POE on the higher difficulties is both balanced and challenging. Very, very, very few people have managed to grab the ultimate achievement for it.

 

[Lacrymas]

POE on the higher difficulties is both balanced and challenging. Very, very, very few people have managed to grab the ultimate achievement for it.

What is the "ultimate achievement"?

 

[Popiel]

What is the "ultimate achievement"?

Literally achievement called The Ultimate - doing everything without any companions, on hardest difficulty and on ironmode. Not only the main plots themselves, but all the bounties, dragons, archmages and so on. And yes it is crazily challenging. As far as I know only doable with a paladin, and that takes hundreds of hours of preparation.

Spoiler

Or clever cheats and save editing.

 

[Sentinel]

POE on the higher difficulties is both balanced and challenging. Very, very, very few people have managed to grab the ultimate achievement for it.

What is the "ultimate achievement"?

- Solo run
- Path of the Damned
- Trial of Iron
- Complete Pillars of Eternity AND The White March
- Kill all Dragons
- Do all bounties
- Kill both Archmages

 

[Chris Avelltwo]

What is the "ultimate achievement"?

Literally achievement called The Ultimate - doing everything without any companions, on hardest difficulty and on ironmode. Not only the main plots themselves, but all the bounties, dragons, archmages and so on. And yes it is crazily challenging. As far as I know only doable with a paladin, and that takes hundreds of hours of preparation.

Spoiler

Or clever cheats and save editing.

I think someone also did it with a Wizard, but yeah... that achievement is like the CRPG equivalent of climbing Mt. Everest without the help of Sherpas. Only the bravest and most hardcore would even attempt such a thing.

 

[GloomFrost]

POE on the higher difficulties is both balanced and challenging. Very, very, very few people have managed to grab the ultimate achievement for it.

What is the "ultimate achievement"?

- Solo run
- Path of the Damned
- Trial of Iron
- Complete Pillars of Eternity AND The White March
- Kill all Dragons
- Do all bounties
- Kill both Archmages

I doubt that even Josh Sawyer could manage that.

 

[Popiel]

I think someone also did it with a Wizard, but yeah... that achievement is like the CRPG equivalent of climbing Mt. Everest without the help of Sherpas. Only the bravest and most hardcore would even attempt such a thing.

As a wizard? Sounds impossible. The Ultimate is just insanely hard, I think there are literally a handful of people with it. Moreso, I don't believe any of these folks did it genuinely, that is that they didn't save-scum.

 

[Quillon]

I doubt that even Josh Sawyer could manage that.

Just cos he's designing it doesn't mean he's an awesome player. He prolly can't and he wouldn't even attempt it.

 

[Popiel]

Just cos he's designing it doesn't mean he's an awesome player. He prolly can't and he wouldn't even attempt it.

I doubt Sawyer could take on dragons in Mowrghek Îen on Path of the Damned (believe me that was a hard encounter, and I had a team). For The Ultimate you have to kill them alone. This is insane.

 

[GloomFrost]

I doubt that even Josh Sawyer could manage that.

Just cos he's designing it doesn't mean he's an awesome player. He prolly can't and he wouldn't even attempt it.

Yeah you are right. I still remember when Avellone tried playing Arcanum, Jesus was it paiful to watch!

 

[Popiel]

Still, now that we know the builds of guys who achieved The Ultimate it's more of a matter of time and patience, not smarts, so Sawyer could just... you know... look it up. If he ever would feel like being The Ultimate.

 

[Chris Avelltwo]

I think someone also did it with a Wizard, but yeah... that achievement is like the CRPG equivalent of climbing Mt. Everest without the help of Sherpas. Only the bravest and most hardcore would even attempt such a thing.

As a wizard? Sounds impossible. The Ultimate is just insanely hard, I think there are literally a handful of people with it. Moreso, I don't believe any of these folks did it genuinely, that is that they didn't save-scum.

Here's a video of it being done with a Paladin. And here's a reddit link about someone doing it with a wizard.

Paladins, Chanters, and Wizards are probably the easiest classes to do this with. Other classes will be a lot harder, or maybe even impossible. Melee classes that have no other choice but to get in close are probably the most screwed with this achievement, but who knows...

 

[Lambach]

I doubt Sawyer could take on dragons in Mowrghek Îen on Path of the Damned (believe me that was a hard encounter, and I had a team).

Managed to do it on my first try on PotD. Thanks Eder for being nigh unkillable, Kana for having an endless supply of healing magic and my Cipher for having an endless supply of unblockable Raw damage.