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

[l3loodAngel]

What? Those are the numbers of Codexers on my Steam friends list who own those games, moran

This was more in a response to your cucking RADS post, which was above. And yeah you are The CUCK, cause you know friends are a good indicator...

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

I also bought Skyrim when it was on sale for like 5 bucks. Haven't installed it yet tho. I hope the industry doesn't think I'm an Elder Scrolls fan now.

 

[Severian Silk]

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".

I think Cain was just trolling white supremacists.

 

[l3loodAngel]

I also bought Skyrim when it was on sale for like 5 bucks. Haven't installed it yet tho. I hope the industry doesn't think I'm an Elder Scrolls fan now.

Everyone who gathers metrics and stats (google, FB and other engines) would think exactly that. You vote with your money, if you don't like a product it's not on your list.

 

[l3loodAngel]

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".

I think Cain was just trolling white supremacists.

I think he just lost it. First it was his talent and later he will loose everything else. Age and etc.

 

[an Administrator]

I'm fairly sure it is man-maide process

Never hire a man-maid

 

[Haplo]

But Fallout was full of trap builds, most sensible RPG character types are borderline useless in Fallout and will make you struggle through the game. Sure finishing it will be possible but it will be frustrating.
-Dumb musclehead - will loose out on exp rewards due to low intelligence, and struggle in combat because of low agility
-Handyman with lot of technical skills - almost totally useless
-Stealthy thief/assassin type - most of his skills will never be useful for anything, but won't be as bad in combat due to high agility alone
-Brainy scientist using futuristic weapons - his science skills will almost never be useful and he won't get energy weapons until very late in the game
Sure most of this builds can be made functional but only by making them more similar to the nimble, smart gunslinger-diplomat which is the dominant character archetype. Notice that the problem of trap builds can be solved without dumbing down the game as evidenced by many of the titles released later. For example in Underrail most of the above archetypes would be perfectly fine.
This is a difference between allowing bad builds and providing players with trap-options.

The only trap in Fallout was not going high Agility.

-Brainy scientist using futuristic weapons - his science skills will almost never be useful and he won't get energy weapons until very late in the game

This triggers me. Why do you assume that a greenhorn wimp from an isolated vault/backwater village should have access to advanced military weaponry?
It was actually perfect design, that energy weapons were rare, valuable and only available late. I hate how F3/FNV equalized energy weapons with ballistics, barring a few perks, destroying any uniqueness and charm they have had.

 

[Western]

He's experimenting with creating a completely numberless character system that uses geometric shapes to visualize attributes.

Some people tried hiding the numbers in the 90s to make RPGs more "accessible," it didn't work and is just annoying.

he says the player's first attack against an enemy should always hit even if his overall hit percentage is the same

Those who want a more classical experience from Obsidian will have to look towards Pillars of Eternity II.

Where's your messiah now, Codex?

Summarises the thread pretty well

 

[ArchAngel]

I am kind of late to this party but better late than never.
After this info my hype for Tim's next game went under 0. Now I can probably forget about Obsidian existing, they don't plan to release any good games in near future.

 

[Jasede]

Maybe now you guys will swallow the bitter pill that these faggots will never make a good RPG again. So tired of assholes defending Pillows of Somnolescence and Waste of Time Land 2 and that horrible Borement: Numa Nougat.

But no, this time it'll work. He's gonna deliver this time. Real communism has never been tried.

The truth is, if we want RPGs we want to play we have to make them ourselves. And who better then us? We practically studied this trash for decades.

As for Cain, I didn't know AIDS affects the brain. Remind me to get tested regularly.

 

[Infinitron]

Maybe now you guys will swallow the bitter pill that these faggots will never make a good RPG again. So tired of assholes defending Pillows of Somnolescence and Waste of Time Land 2 and that horrible Borement: Numa Nougat.

This is a multiplatform Unreal Engine game. It's Obsidian's next AAA game. It's not meant to scratch the itch that those games were trying to. It's not going to be crowdfunded.

I guess once you go Kickstarter, people start getting entitled

 

[Black]

And who better then us? We practically studied this trash for decades.

And yet we still can't define RPGs.

 

[Jasede]

Well, that's an NP-hard problem.

 

[Gylfi.Fenriz.Conquests]

Hi everyone.
So the problem is streamlining. Take away the difficulties, because most of the difficulties are considered an obstacle to "pure" pleasure.

so what is pure pleasure? I can answer it for adventures. They thought Sierra games were too harsh, primitive, there's death and score from arcades, and so on. So Lucasfilm took out the edges and we had straighter games but still with good puzzles. And so they are today. It's Fine, they're simpler games but still good because puzzles ARE challenging, they compensate the simplification by concentrating challenge in the main element of the genre. And so a genre is super-focused in its essence.

Rpg's ofc have no puzzles (well Fallout and Deus ex did, but those were, again, primitive times, where hybridizing was acceptable), so i guess all there's left is, what? Is it action? Is it story choices? The pleasure of killing? can they answer it please? How can they take out, again, the unnecessary edges and focus challenge on the RPG's main essential element, if nobody knows what that is, Because infact nobody clearly ever defined the genre?

i mean, you can dissect a body trusting you can keep the soul but what if there isn't one?

 

[Davaris]

The truth is, if we want RPGs we want to play we have to make them ourselves. And who better then us? We practically studied this trash for decades.

And its not that hard these days as long as you make it top down and waste no effort on graphics.

 

[Lurker King]

And who better then us? We practically studied this trash for decades.

And yet we still think that TW3 is incline.

Fixed.

 

[Severian Silk]

Maybe Cain is making a Demon Souls-like?

 

[Lurker King]

the problem with the genre is that many developers shy away from producing enjoyable combat romps and dismiss them as low-tier entertainment, padding such games with convoluted plot-faggotry even in projects where removing the plot wouldn't diminish the quality in any shape or forms

Oh, for the love of… this “is the storyfags” fault narrative again. Let’s be realistic.

(1) Most developers don’t know how to develop a proper combat system because it’s so damn hard. If they have difficulties implementing a licensed D&D, imagine making their own.

(2) Because most developers don’t know how to develop a proper combat system, and because most games labelled as cRPGs nowadays are simplistic action games with fluffy character building, most cRPG players didn’t learn how to master a proper combat system.

(3) People who doesn’t know how to develop a proper combat system will be naturally inclined to think that they are not fun, but even if he does or can appreciate an engrossing character building, he has strong incentives to streamline everything because that is what most players want.

(4) The “is the storyfags’ fault” narrative confuses correlation with causality because it ignores that 99% of cRPGs enamored by storyfags have tons of combat. This suggests that the problem lies elsewhere, namely, (1)-(3).

 

[Roguey]

Always remember that when the Codex interview brought up the lousy encounter design in ToEE, Tim said the problem was actually only with the writing.

ToEE seems to be a very polarizing game. Some claim it has the best and most faithful implementation of turn- and party-based combat in a CRPG, while others harshly criticize the game’s content and encounter design. What were your goals with ToEE, and to what extent do you feel you succeeded in them? Is there a design decision implemented in the game that you could call your least favorite one?

My goal was to recreate the Temple of Elemental Evil module in a 3.5 game engine, and at that, I think we succeeded. But like I said, I wish we had created our own source material. The engine was so good, and I think we re-created the 3.5 rules and tabletop experience very faithfully. That was not the problem with that game. The storyline, characters and dialog that I wrote were simply not up to the level that Troika had set with Arcanum.

 

[Gylfi.Fenriz.Conquests]

alright, so rpg is part combat, part story, part char growth, each influencing the others.

and we know the problem is they're simplifying all these, instead of making them challenging. In a way there's less chance to really interact with them.

again we're left with nothing.

that's it, then. Point is they don't let players interact with the elements of their games. Again in a way they're going toward being books. Game writers want to become novel writers, or movie directors?

and if yes, is that because graphics got so good they tend toward cinema?

 

[Lhynn]

Theorycrafting IS exploring hte game. I've always considered exploration gameplay, including the dead ends. There seems to be a divide here. What causes it I don't know. Some players CAN'T tolerate dead ends. Whether it's trying to figure out how a skill works or judging its value or exploring a mine and coming up empty handed, some people have no patience for that.

Theres no challenge in theorycrafting tho.

So the bottom line getting rid of numbers won't solve the problem if the system itself is still difficult.

Its not supposed to, because that isnt a problem.

If players are hitting dead ends or wondering how it works or having their patience tested, the results will be the same as before.

If the player is hitting dead ends, wondering how it works or to a lesser extent having their patience tested, then he is playing an actual game.

 

[Lurker King]

The original point was that RPGs have a problem with streamlining what they expect the players to do, as opposed to adventure games - the LucasArts model was for a long time prevalent in the industry and nowadays there are very few games in the vain of the Sierra model, which is indeed fuzzier and less focused on what the LucasArts model perceives as the absolute essence of adventure gaming - namely puzzles, being far removed from notions of danger and reflexes in favour of intellectual challenge

I don’t know if you are right about LucasArts model, but lets’ suppose that for the sake of argument. There are many reasons why the distillation of the essence of adventure games is easily achievable:

(1) First, you don’t need to play other adventure games to get acquainted with a new adventure game, but you need to play other cRPGs, or at least have a notion of what is character building, to get into a cRPG.

(2) The puzzle elements of an adventure game are easily presentable, the use of skills and stats in cRPGs are widespread in a bigger game world; build combinations are not always intuitive, etc.

This explains why adventure game puzzles have a low entry bar, but complex character building is a high entry bar.

I don’t think that the perception most developers have about cRPGs is fuzzy. Rather, I think they are either incompetent because the systems are more complicated, or desperate to attract more players by streamlining them, or because they are knowingly making superficial action games and labelling them as cRPGs – see posts above about avoiding competition.

It seems to me that cRPGs should provide a variety of choices to surpass obstacles in the form of combat, exploration, dialogues, etc. (choice and consequences), and these choices are restricted by abstract models that represent attribute and skills (character building).

Some players are resented about recent cRPGs focus on narrative and dialogue because these games have fluffy character building and bad combat. But this is correlation, not causation. The problem is not the increasing importance attributed to these game elements, but the lack of importance attributed to character building, which govern every gameplay element, including choices and combat. This explains the paradox that some combat centric games seem to be more genuine cRPGs than games that have more focus on consequences or are more reactive.

The reason why character building is increasingly fluffy is that (1) most developers don’t know how to make a proper character building, (2) most players don’t expect this (or don’t enjoy this) because they used to play superficial action games labelled as cRPGs, which puts more pressure on developers to streamline everything, etc.

Storyfags that don’t understand character building are not alone. They have the illustrious company of “cRPG” players that think that Diablo is the essence of cRPGs. Instead of teaching new players how the joy of mastering character building, we are streamlining everything. It is like labelling checkers as chess, because most people hate chess and most developers are bad chess players. Now, let's put geometric shapes, because numbers are so intimidating, and forget about the math of character building while focusing on psychology.

 

[Lurker King]

but simplifying the system in favour of the tyranny of the narrative does not appear to be the healthiest solution to me, certainly not as healthy as letting the genre split in two

But that is my point. There is no such thing as “simplifying the system in favour of the tyranny of the narrative”. Rather, the problem is the belief that we can "simplify the system because systems don't matter", i.e., people that don’t understand why the systems are so important to gameplay in the first place. You can have both a combat centric cRPG and a narrative cRPG, and both suck if you don’t give a damn about character building. The idea itself that you can role-play without proper skills, or that you can make tons of choices without failures speaks volumes about this mindset. The problem is not so much the focus on narrative, but the infantile idea that you can have meaningful gameplay without meaningful character building. They are transforming cRPGs (combat centric or not) in escapist ego pandering of the worst kind, because we live in a society of spoiled entitled individuals that have no moral fiber or notion of accountability.

 

[Sentinel]

Yeah keep putting the public faces of game developers on a pedestal.

D:OS 2's shaping up to be a fine compromise between mass market appeal and the classic RPG experience. Going to sell a million units, maybe more (unless the fatigue is real, gosh I hope not).

DOS2 is shaping up to be as shit as the first one.

 

[Lurker King]

But the same could be said about combat centric games, which includes most cRPGs. The design in which the players are passively experiencing the exploration without the danger of failing in combat was the catalyst behind bloating the exploration to ungodly MMO proportions, for it was a safe field to expand and as inclusive as they go. Again is not about the narrative focus, but about the prevailing mindset. I understand this emphasis on narrayive makes players more annoyed though, and in a sense is considerably worse. You are forced to read, or at least to know by indifferent means, the amount of pretentious pseudo-intellectual drivel of artsy developers.