Josh Sawyer Q&A Thread

[ciox]

SEIKO PROSPEX is the character I ran when Underrail added Time Magic so I won't throw a stone this time.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Quillon]

 

[luj1]

Please Infinitron... help me stay relevant... *gasped Soyer while using soy latte for rectal enema*

 

[Major_Blackhart]

He's such a fucking loser. Only a loser and resentful cunt of a man can have everything yet blame everyone else for his failures.

 

[NecroLord]

Anybody asked him whether or not he will finally transition because he is uncomfortable as a white male?

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Roguey]

Peculiar question to ask given how New Vegas, PoE, and Deadfire do things. Pretty obvious which method he prefers.

 

[Peachcurl]

Then what about probabilistic checks, but with costs for failing?

 

[luj1]

I bet Infinitron could construct a calendar of different flavors of Soyer's farts based on time of the year

 

[luj1]

Pretty obvious which method he prefers.

He prefers to find ways to please everybody for maximum accessibility, resulting in bland and unfun game systems. Of course on Twatter Soyer has his mouth full of game design advice (trying to keep himself relevant) but we all saw what happened when he was a system lead.

 

[Sordid MCA/Prosper Hybryd]

Then what about probabilistic checks, but with costs for failing?

would incentivize savescumming

 

[Peachcurl]

Then what about probabilistic checks, but with costs for failing?

would incentivize savescumming

so do flat checks that can't be postponed / are not transparent beforehand

 

[DicLupa]

I'm not against dice rolls for common actions - stuff that makes up the majority of combat or regular traversal applications (climbing/swimming), but I gotta admit that they really piss me off in 'chokepoint' situations. You have a high Speech skill and want to convince some warlord not to raze a town of innocents. This should seem easy enough to pass, but woops you rolled a stinker and now the peasants are being boiled. If this is something I would have cleared 9 out of 10 times, then I'm just going to reload. If reloading a save isn't possible, I'm just going to be pissed off. There's something that feels arbitrary over having such a big consequence over something so 'random', even if it's just a narrative one.

Basically, dice rolls are fine if there's room for recovery. Variability is good. I don't mind missing shots in XCOM because I can recover with movement options or other abilities, and failures like that can play into the dynamics of a fun gameplay system. If a guy gets forced into a position where he can't recover, then that was poor planning on my end. But this is pretty much absent from linear branching choices that rest on Persuasion/Charisma checks. Maybe if the game had some iterative process of persuasion that required multiple checks, this could feel more 'fair', but I think that makes the gamification of conversations more obvious.

I don't know how to avoid the '59=bust,60=bingo' problem. Maybe those are better off as a set of secondary skills ranked 1 to 5 just so all the meaningless cruft in between is done away with. Until we have NPCs that can pass a Turing test and player inputs that can realistically simulate persuasion and charisma, this is always going be fudged one way or another. And if that's the case, I'll opt for less frustration.

 

[Bulo]

I don't know how to avoid the '59=bust,60=bingo' problem

Compress the scale? 0-10 rather than 0-100. VTMB does this

 

[DicLupa]

I don't know how to avoid the '59=bust,60=bingo' problem

Compress the scale? 0-10 rather than 0-100. VTMB does this

Yeah, and that was my following suggestion to a degrre. I was quite fine with VTMB's comparative compression. Every skill increase felt meaningful due to its 'chunking'.

I was thinking more how it's a dilemma for games with more granular 0-100 skill systems, and the compulsion to unite everything under them. A +2 to Firearms or Melee skills may feel minor but present. WTF is +2 to speech accomplishing, if anything? Moving it to a secondary skillset with less ranks may be the way to go. One issue with doing that though is that you may already be inadvertently flagging to players that these skills aren't as 'important' if they're separated like that.

I think the Shadowrun games had a good idea with their 'speech styles'. You already know that by selecting certain speech skills, other doors will be closed to you. But is very much dependent on the designer to ensure those options are represented throughout the game.

 

[NotSweeper]

Anybody asked him whether or not he will finally transition because he is uncomfortable as a white male?

Sawyer's non-transition is one of those things that continually perplex me.

• Commiefornia mind virus
• Low testosterone
• Game designer
• Autistic (focus on perfect balance™)
• German
• Cyclist

Spoiler

The man looks like someone's grandmother for fuck's sake.

 

[luj1]

give it time bro

 

[NecroLord]

Anybody asked him whether or not he will finally transition because he is uncomfortable as a white male?

Sawyer's non-transition is one of those things that continually perplex me.

• Commiefornia mind virus
• Low testosterone
• Game designer
• Autistic (focus on perfect balance™)
• German
• Cyclist

Spoiler

The man looks like someone's grandmother for fuck's sake.

He has greek ancestry, I think?
Or just german?

 

[NotSweeper]

 

[Cohesion]

9 years from this to grandma? What kind of sorcery is this?

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

9 years from this to grandma? What kind of sorcery is this?

California is a strange place. I'm pretty sure it's actually located in the Eye of Terror, and it's perceived presence in the United States is some sort of elaborate prank by Tzeentch.

 

[Tenebris]

Is Josh going to be okay?

 

[Infinitron]

Rare Q&A response video:

A short answer to someone's question about how to approach balancing abilities (or weapons, in the examples I give) in a game prior to receiving feedback from players.

 

[Diggfinger]

So,

unbeknownst to many a Coedexer, Fallout: New Vegas, was not only based off of J. Sawyer's most eminent burrito recipes;

An rare look into the man's personal journals...

Noooo indeed, some serious thought went into balancing weapons/damage output. This was primarily done in the actual real-time game setting, rather than through simulation or assumptions using charts etc.
Josh did, however, used the spreadsheet below up until March 2010 to have a basic direction for guns' damage vs threshold values.

For more info click the video below