TimCain

We actually tried that at first. But with all of the back and forth people did on the world map, no one noticed a difference between a 6 or 7 Luck. You got all of the encounters if you kept playing long enough. So we switched back to thresholds. This is why I said in my talk that critical hits should adjust damage and not chance. People notice when their critical hit damage goes up 10%, but they don't notice when they critically hit 10% more frequently. Mathematically they are the same in terms of DPS, but psychologically they are completely different.

I wrote my response quickly, Quillon, so I will go into more detail. First, sure, a line is a shape, and it can be up-down or side-side in orientation. But I would rather invent more stats and make triangles or squares. When bonuses are applied to a shape, all of the stats get the bonus. So just like what you said, GREAT-OK-OK becomes LEGENDARY-GOOD-GOOD. And here's why the shape and its values are better than numbers. In Fallout, stats went from 1 to 10. This makes you think that each number is an increment better or worse than the one after or before. But that wasn't true. A 3 Intelligence is much worse than a 4, compared with how bad a 4 was to a 5, because dumb dialog kicked in at 3. Similarly, a 6 Luck was better than a 5, but a 7 Luck was way better than a 6, because that was the threshold for certain random encounters to become possible. In other words, numbers imply a smooth gradient from low to high, where having 4 or 5 distinct values does not imply that they are linear in any way. They act like thresholds. You expect something new when your Luck goes from OK to Good,a nd from Good to Great, and not just your crit chances to go up a little for each one. Here's another reason I like shapes better than numbers. Instead of giving you points to spend, and perhaps some additional constraints about not being able to lower too many stats to 1 (because maybe a character with stats of 10 10 1 1 1 1 1 is just not viable), shapes have their constraints built into their geometry. You cannot point all the vertices of a triangle up. And humans have evolved to handle visual comparisons more easily than numerical ones. I'm not saying this idea of shape-based stats is ground-breaking or revolutionary. It's just a different way of thinking about the issue of character creation and stats. I am sure I would allow an interested player to "look under the hood", so to speak, to see the numbers corresponding to the stats. But many players won't care about that, and most shouldn't have to. It's all part of the "play how you want" philosophy.

Hey Tim, I'm curious about the character creation idea with geometric figures you were talking about. What is your view on the point of locking physical and mental stats together, wich would leave one unable to create a purely physically or purely mentally focused character? That was just one example way of grouping them. Instead of mental and physical stats, you could also group stats by power (strength, intelligence) or speed (agility, wits) or resistance (endurance, willpower). You could have squares instead of triangles if you want more stats in each group, and if you have more than two groupings, the groupings themselves can be arranged in a meaningful way (i.e., with three groupings, one group could be the most important and another the least, and bonuses assigned accordingly). This geometric way of representing stats allows more ideas to be expressed than just numerical superiority. p.s. Sorry for the delay in answering. I returned to work from a conference in Croatia, posted here, then left for another conference in Australia two days later.

I think I need to clear up a misunderstanding. I never said in my talk that I disliked complex systems, just the presentation of such systems in the first few minutes of the game, i.e. character creation. I am all for complex rule systems, but I want to reduce the learning curve to understand them. If you already understand them, then you can jump right into them after character creation.

Hi Cutter! Let's take these questions one at a time. I wrote the intro to Fallout, including the "War never changes" lines. Another writer had written an intro, but it had never been edited by any lead and my associate producer was going to the recording studio the next morning to tape Mr. Perlman and wasn't sure what to do. So I wrote a new intro and told him to record both, and we would decide later which one sounded better. BTW, one of the big lessons I learned on Fallout was that some lines read well on paper but don't sound good when you hear them (and vice versa). It's hard to tell for some lines until you hear them spoken. I don't know who managed to get Mr. Perlman involved, but he was a great narrator. He managed to sound decisive and sad at the same time. And while I have no information about Fallout 4 or any Obsidian involvement, I am personally excited about the idea of a new Fallout game being announced. I get to play these new Fallouts as a fan, and so I am excited while at the same time I have no idea what they are planning to do. And sorry for the delay in answering you. I've been busy with patch issues for Eternity. Tim.