decado

I've heard people complain about having too much gold in every game I worked on. Until the end of F:NV when we introduced (entirely optional) GRA unique weapons that cost a fortune. Then people complained that the items cost too much. I certainly don't mean to tell you guys your business here, but it seems like you are just going to have a pick a system and let the chips fall. Someone is going to whine, no doubt about it. But this is probably not a deal breaker for anyone, either. I strongly feel that a lot of this turmoil is growing pains. We have seen tremendous advances throughout the years in CRPG systems. But unfortunately, the one system that seems to have been forgotten is the economy. Without fail, almost every CRPG I've played has suffered from a broken/gimped/exploitable economy. The basic assumptions of non-MMO RPG economies have not changed since my first games of Phantasie and the Bard's Tale. It is probably too late for this but the two best economies I ever played with in a game were found in Quest for Glory 1 (which was a highly restrictive but also a highly reactive economy) and Betrayal at Krondor. In both cases even mundane items had value, money was appropriately allocated to the player, and there were effective storytelling elements that took that money out of the player's pocket in an equitable way. That's how an economy should function, in my view. It all comes down to the scarcity of money. Is grinding for cash going to be possible in P:E? It was not really possible in BGII (just as an example) because grinding was pretty much non-existent. There is an upper cap on the limit of gold you can earn in that game, plus or minus a few thousands depending on how lucky you get. But as far as the numbers go, there is a limit of how much money you can earn where, if there is no hard cap, there is a point beyond which your income slows to a trickle. On the other hand the Elderscrolls games, going at least back to Morrowind, allow for the endless accumulation of money as long as everything is respawning. That's why their economies are so busted, and eventually so boring to play with. If P:E has a hard cap (or close to it) of how much money you can earn, then it is matter of figuring out how much you "want" the player to have at the end of the game; or better yet, figuring out what percentage of income should go to certain areas. As in, "By the end of the game the player will have spent 50% of their income on their strong hold, 20% on gameplay objectives, 10% on consumables and the rest on weapons/armor/bribes/what have you." The bottom line is, though, that it must be a PLANNED ECONOMY. I know this feels like taking control out of the player's hands, or making a game that is too scripted. But if you don't do this, the economy will be a mess. Anyways this is a long ass post. I think the devs should do two things: put a cap on the amount of gold I can earn, and work backwards from there. Then, give my expenses weight and heft. Make them feel real, and important. Make potions worth spending the money on; make durability worth spending the money on; make bribes or quest objectives feel like real decisions if I have to choose whether to fight or pay my out of a jam. I have confidence that you guys can do all of this ****, by the way.

but I don't think this is such a big issue. I don't like it in any game to be honest. I just didn't think it was as big of a chore in a game with one controllable character. I don't like item degradation in general. I didn't like it in Arcanum and I didn't like it in Dragon Age: Origins. Uhhh. . . . DA:O didn't have a durability stat for weapons.

I'd like a sincere answer to this question, though I know not all of you are of the same mind: what do you want to spend (in-game) money on? I want to spend it on 1) Good items 2) Consumables 3) Repairs 4) General upkeep Frankly, I don't understand people who have a problem with buying unique or nice items. As long as they are appropriately priced, how is buying them somehow a derogatory exercise? Spending your hard earned cash on stuff represents a significant investment. A lot of people may cringe at this reference, but Dragon Age did a great job at balancing awesome found weapons and awesome bought weapons (until the expansions came by and ruined everything, because they were dumb about it. But whatever.) It's possible, and it can be a great part of the game. Finally, I want to spend my money to complete game objectives. Several people have mentioned BGII as a great example, and I think this idea tends to get lost in the mix. I feel like money is always treated as some meta-gamed system that exists -- in many ways, at least -- outside the mechanics of the game itself. Spending money to complete game objectives is a really nice way to 1) highlight the value of money and 2) keep it from deflating the economy.

I agree! I'm hoping the durability mechanic grows more important with the increase in difficulty level. I wouldn't mind it being ignorable at lower levels of difficulty, but more important if I was playing a harder game.

I would say that Wasteland is very well managed. I don't mind so much about the lack of updates. But it's Brian Fargo for eff's sake, he's been doing it for a long time so I have to believe he knows what's up. P:E is very well managed, I would think. No major catastrophes, etc. I think some people had their expectations a little too high, to be honest. Kickstarting games is an experiment at this point, so patience is a virtue. Nobody was going to get it right on the first try. The Double Fine guys were upfront about their screw up -- they kept getting more money money, so they kept adding ****. They got excited, and ran themselves off the cliff. Personally, I would take a conservative approach but I'm not them. I feel like the P:E and Wasteland guys were all reasonable in their stretch goals, but I guess we'll see.

I tend to not use crafting in most games as it is usually boring and unnecessary. I never touched it in NWN, NWN2 or even Dragon Age, except for making the occasional poultice. But that was only in the beginning, when they were rare. By end game I was swimming in healing potions, and gold was practically disposable. I think the effectiveness of crafting is going to depend, in large part, on how well the economy is balanced. And this is something most CRPGs get horribly wrong and have for a long time. We've made tremendous strides in designed combat systems, game mechanics, graphics, sound, etc. But in most games I'm still trading in spare swords like I was doing 25 years ago in the Bard's Tale. So I hope this crafting mechanic is built with the larger economy in mind. I have no problem with durability, and actually I wish they would make it a little more hardcore than what Mr. Cain described in the update. As a way to keep inflation down it is excellent. But again, this only makes sense in the context of a functioning economy.

If the argument becomes "I like degenerate gameplay because it is fun!" then there is really nothing else to say, as "It is fun!" is simply a matter of taste. So then we're left with arguments over taste and/or sense. So let's get down to it, then. If you give me two games, one that allows rest-spamming and min-maxing and one that doesn't. I will prefer the one that doesn't. I mean, isn't this the philosophy behind hardcore modes, Heart of Iron, etc? I couldn't lay claim to owning a working brain if, while on the one hand demanding the ability to rest spam, I play the game in hardcore mode. I mean, what the hell? That makes no sense. So if the argument really comes down to taste, I think Obsidian (and every other game developer making good CRPGs) is firmly on the winning side. I'm betting that far more people want to see the genre refined, and want to see new and worthwhile game mechanics replace older ones that maybe didn't work so well, than do people who want to rest spam because it is fun.

Sure. But I'm willing to trust their judgement. After all, every author can only write/paint/draw/create what they can envision, and produce the best work they can. It has always been the case that author and critic might not see eye-to-eye on a particular work, but thems the breaks as they say.

Yeah, but only to a point. Attacks by monsters when trying to rest were usually (though not always) just an annoyance. And if you were really ready to die you could save beforehand and, if interrupted, try again. The same thing happened in Morrowind -- attacks while resting were usually nothing more than an annoyance. They added no depth or challenge to the game. It seems like a better idea to avoid the situation entirely and build a system that is less open to abuse/spamming. At least, that's what I would want to do as a designer. Why go through the hassle of creating challenges if they are so easily surmounted by metagaming the game? ETA: I'm not picking on NWN, here, though they were the first to spring to mind. BGII's resting system was also pretty cheesy. In fact, the resting system in all the IE games was pretty silly, essentially relics left over from the conversion of paper to computer.

Why? I've never understood why this term was so controversial. All game design is an attempt to remove/avoid degenerate game play. Otherwise we'd still be playing solitaire. Obsidian seems to be taking steps to remove cheesy, useless mechanics (read: degenerate gameplay) from their project, and I cannot imagine how this is a bad thing. Further, the term was never issued as an indictment against players. Sawyer made it pretty clear that degenerate gameplay was a symptom (not a cause!) of a larger problem, which was problematic design. So I ask, what exactly is wrong with getting rid of problematic design? Again, isn't that what the very essence of designing a game is all about? If the competition were to design problematic games we'd all be playing Calvinball. I'm not picking on you, I just quoted this because you used the phrase. Because I disagree with Sawyer's(and many others') vision about these things being poorly designed. I like them. For those people having some characters better than others and classes completely different from one another is unacceptable, resting after every battle is wrong, hoarding loot and micro-managing a limited inventory is bothersome, having unpredictable trial and error encounters is just game breaking and gods forbid quicksaving after every two steps and then reloading until you get things right or roll some lucky dice in a tight spot is heretical. I agree with some of this, but I think maybe you are considering things as "degenerate gameplay" when they may not be. For example, I do not think that any Obsidian game devs believe some trial and error, or some unpredictability, are game-breakers that need to get engineered out of the experience. I also don't think we can look at this stuff in a vacuum. Resting after every battle is a great example, so let's go with that. There is nothing inherently wrong with a mechanic that requires you to rest after every battle. Resting qua resting is fine, in whichever way it has to occur. The problem arises, I think, when the resting intersects the other game mechanics and produces an undesirable outcome. This is particularly notable in games like DnD where your resources like spells are directly tied to resting. The magic system was designed -- from the ground up -- to operate on scarcity and prior planning. You were supposed to memorize your spells and use them carefully. But the resting system in NWN2 completely defeated the scarcity controls that were built into the DnD magic system. Since there was no limit on resting, there was no reason to be strategic in your spell casting. The problem occurred when the pen and paper design was applied verbatim to the CRPG platform, and I don't blame anyone for it. But it is a problem. To use an analogy, let's say that instead of spells being the scarce resource, it is arrows for your Ranger. In our game, the designer's original intent was for Rangers to have a limited amount of arrows, take a specific load-out of arrows with him/her when leaving town, and strategically using those arrows to accomplish game objectives. Now let's say they allowed you refill your arrows without having to go into town by pressing the "R" button so long as no enemies are around. We have now completely destroyed the scarcity value of the arrows, and there is no reason to use them strategically (only tactically, so you don't run out during a fight). Obviously, there is a problem with this system, since it undermines another one of the games systems already in place, a system that is integral to the gameplay as a whole. You may say that you like being able to refill your arrows whenever you want, and I can't disagree with you since that's just a matter of taste. But I can point out that this system is flawed, that it is needlessly counter-productive and robs the game of a huge chunk of it's strategic appeal. That's degenerate gameplay. I don't doubt that people like certain aspects of it. But as a designer, I want to make the tightest, most perfectly designed game I can make. Which means getting rid of things that don't make sense, or things that make the player game the system in order to get ahead. Getting rid of that stuff isn't about making the game "accessible" so much as it is about making it sensible. I'm going to be lame and quote myself because I can't edit this post for some reason, but I wanted to add something. @ quechn The things you like about the old system are in many ways still there. After all, what are "per use" abilities if not those abilities you get back by pressing "R" at the end of every combat, anyways? They just took the button press out of it. And to continue the analogy with DnD, "per rest" abilities are basically charges for your wands/staffs, or perhaps usable scrolls that you can only buy in temples. They are resources that cannot be replenished out in the field. Whether you replenish them at a campfire or in town is really immaterial, what matters is that they are limited by scarcity so you have to use them carefully. So really, I don't think much is changing except that some abilities/spells/whatevers are being managed in a different way, and perhaps with some meaningless button-presses being removed from the equation. I'm perfectly happy with that.

Why? I've never understood why this term was so controversial. All game design is an attempt to remove/avoid degenerate game play. Otherwise we'd still be playing solitaire. Obsidian seems to be taking steps to remove cheesy, useless mechanics (read: degenerate gameplay) from their project, and I cannot imagine how this is a bad thing. Further, the term was never issued as an indictment against players. Sawyer made it pretty clear that degenerate gameplay was a symptom (not a cause!) of a larger problem, which was problematic design. So I ask, what exactly is wrong with getting rid of problematic design? Again, isn't that what the very essence of designing a game is all about? If the competition were to design problematic games we'd all be playing Calvinball. I'm not picking on you, I just quoted this because you used the phrase. Because I disagree with Sawyer's(and many others') vision about these things being poorly designed. I like them. For those people having some characters better than others and classes completely different from one another is unacceptable, resting after every battle is wrong, hoarding loot and micro-managing a limited inventory is bothersome, having unpredictable trial and error encounters is just game breaking and gods forbid quicksaving after every two steps and then reloading until you get things right or roll some lucky dice in a tight spot is heretical. I agree with some of this, but I think maybe you are considering things as "degenerate gameplay" when they may not be. For example, I do not think that any Obsidian game devs believe some trial and error, or some unpredictability, are game-breakers that need to get engineered out of the experience. I also don't think we can look at this stuff in a vacuum. Resting after every battle is a great example, so let's go with that. There is nothing inherently wrong with a mechanic that requires you to rest after every battle. Resting qua resting is fine, in whichever way it has to occur. The problem arises, I think, when the resting intersects the other game mechanics and produces an undesirable outcome. This is particularly notable in games like DnD where your resources like spells are directly tied to resting. The magic system was designed -- from the ground up -- to operate on scarcity and prior planning. You were supposed to memorize your spells and use them carefully. But the resting system in NWN2 completely defeated the scarcity controls that were built into the DnD magic system. Since there was no limit on resting, there was no reason to be strategic in your spell casting. The problem occurred when the pen and paper design was applied verbatim to the CRPG platform, and I don't blame anyone for it. But it is a problem. To use an analogy, let's say that instead of spells being the scarce resource, it is arrows for your Ranger. In our game, the designer's original intent was for Rangers to have a limited amount of arrows, take a specific load-out of arrows with him/her when leaving town, and strategically using those arrows to accomplish game objectives. Now let's say they allowed you refill your arrows without having to go into town by pressing the "R" button so long as no enemies are around. We have now completely destroyed the scarcity value of the arrows, and there is no reason to use them strategically (only tactically, so you don't run out during a fight). Obviously, there is a problem with this system, since it undermines another one of the games systems already in place, a system that is integral to the gameplay as a whole. You may say that you like being able to refill your arrows whenever you want, and I can't disagree with you since that's just a matter of taste. But I can point out that this system is flawed, that it is needlessly counter-productive and robs the game of a huge chunk of it's strategic appeal. That's degenerate gameplay. I don't doubt that people like certain aspects of it. But as a designer, I want to make the tightest, most perfectly designed game I can make. Which means getting rid of things that don't make sense, or things that make the player game the system in order to get ahead. Getting rid of that stuff isn't about making the game "accessible" so much as it is about making it sensible.

From a technical point of view, the term "degenerate" is used frequently in disciplines like technical writing and (I would imagine, though I am no expert) Information Technology. I've encountered the term a lot when talking/writing about systems, whether they are actual or conceptual. To label a system as "degenerate" means it breaks down (degenerates) or fails to fulfill its stated design goals. When you have a "degenerate interface" in a mobile application, for example, it means your interface is requiring people to compensate for your broken system because it was poorly designed. It is interesting that you mention this, though, because I often though that the people who were flipping their lids over the term were maybe misunderstanding it.

Why? I've never understood why this term was so controversial. All game design is an attempt to remove/avoid degenerate game play. Otherwise we'd still be playing solitaire. Obsidian seems to be taking steps to remove cheesy, useless mechanics (read: degenerate gameplay) from their project, and I cannot imagine how this is a bad thing. Further, the term was never issued as an indictment against players. Sawyer made it pretty clear that degenerate gameplay was a symptom (not a cause!) of a larger problem, which was problematic design. So I ask, what exactly is wrong with getting rid of problematic design? Again, isn't that what the very essence of designing a game is all about? If the competition were to design problematic games we'd all be playing Calvinball. I'm not picking on you, I just quoted this because you used the phrase.

I've actually been thinking about this since the Kickstarting craze began, but I wonder how developers balance the demands and expectations of the gamer who has paid up front with the reality of actually making the game and needing to make decisions about what to keep, what to cut, and every other damn thing you have to worry about. I'm sure some backers feel they are "owed" a certain game.

This is just pre-game complaining, in my view. It happens with every game, Kickstarted or not. Following this will be the post-game complaining, followed by post-post-game complaining. Then the nostalgia phase.

Yeah, I would like to know this as well. As far as I can remember, and just using BGII as an example, there was never a point in the game where I felt like I could rush in and be stupid, especially if playing it on "Core Rules" or higher. There were easy fights of course, but they were never a trend. I felt the game scaled quite well, difficulty-wise. If Obsidian is using BGII as a model for difficulty, I would be perfectly happy.

My (only!) concern with such a small number of characters is related to replayability. One of the things I liked best about BG2 was starting over with a new PC and figuring out which NPCs I would have to take to properly balance the party. Having a large pool to draw from made those decisions interesting and engaging. If there are only 8 or 9 NPCs to choose from with a party of six, I feel like I will run out of companions pretty quickly. Maybe I'm overstating it, though.

Yeah man the OP came outta nowhere lol. Hey guys I here there's going to be an Auction House in Diablo III, what do I have to do to wrap that up? Let me know in advance.

I bought BL2 a few weeks ago but damned if I just couldn't get into it. I was disappointed I didn't like it more.

I'm sorta late to this party, but here goes nothing . . . It seems to me the best way to tackle the issue is a combination of areas zoned for resting (or at least areas where you specifically can't rest) and resource management. I know a lot of people balk at resource management, but I don't get why. I mean, all RPGs are essentially resource management engines in some regard -- some moreso than others, sure, but it's always there. The suggested use of rations or tents is met with the objection that "Well all I have to do is carry a ton of rations!" But this isn't necessarily true, as there are several ways around this problem. You could make them weigh a certain amount, making them uneconomical to overload yourself with. Or even easier, simply put a hard cap on how many rations you can carry per person. This allows you to replenish your rations while adventuring (if you happen to find any) without letting you game the system by carrying an unrealistic amount of food. A properly balanced economy could also help defend against this kind of resource hoarding. Let rations expire, and attach a reasonable cost to them. It seems obvious that there needs to be some kind of limit on resting, otherwise many of the game's other mechanics fail to make any sense. I think most people realize that respawning enemies is a silly idea as it seems needlessly punitive and completely unrealistic (even within the bounds of the slightly fantastic). The other way to tackle this is to limit the ability to relearn per-rest abilities to once in a 24 hour period. Rest all you want, but you won't get your ability back until tomorrow. Another way to do it is to put a cap on how much can be recovered/relearned when resting in a dungeon as opposed to wilderness or an inn, sort of Betrayal at Krondor style. Resting at an inn restores everything to 100%, resting in the wilderness gets you to 85% and resting in a stinky, damp dungeon gets you to 75%. That way, there is an actual incentive to use inns, and an actual disincentive to being lazy and stupid when charging into a dungeon a long way from home. Which, again, is fairly realistic to begin with. Tack on a simple resource like rations and you have a balanced solution that rewards smart planning.

I dunno, it just seemed too over the top for me. I feel like riding on dragons is a gimmick for 13 year olds. I didn't even want Dawnguard but I really wanted to see how they handled the werewolf expansion stuff. Plus, it was on sale on Steam. I'm not disappointed with it, but if I had paid full price for it I might have been. I'm getting really tired of Bethesda's vampire nonsense, it's vampire this and vampire that. For chrissake they tried to put vampires in Fallout 3. Enough already with the vampires! I was hoping they'd include some kind of ranger/woodsman type quest line or faction, since they have never really done that. Maybe in TES:VI?

Let's see . . . I have a notoriously short attention span when it comes to gaming, to the point where I will just stop mid-playthrough and switch to something else. Right now I'm alternating between Skyrim (I finally caved in an bought Dawnguard and Hearthfire, I will not buy Dragonborn), NWN2, Crysis, Duel of Champions, ME3 multiplayer and the occasional bit of DA:O.

Exactly. The BSA are free to discriminate all they want. They just have to be willing to withstand the heat. Apparently they were not able to.

Good point, I don't know to be honest. Maybe a combination? That's a valid point, what about the rights of those churches that are prepared to marry gay couples but legally can't. Very good point actually Churches can marry whoever they want. Churches conduct marriages between gay couples all the time. From the legal point of view, the only thing that determines whether or not you are married is your marriage license, which is a document you get from the state. If you get married in a church, but you never get a marriage license, you are not considered married as far as the state is concerned (though there are ways around this, like having a common-law partner, etc). But the bottom line is, there is nothing stopping churches from performing marriages of any kind.

No Im not, but that's because I don't feel anyone's sexuality should be forced on another group and Im pretty sure someone somewhere is already drafting up a lawsuit against <insert church that wont marry you>. Regarding homosexuality? I don't care who sticks which sexual organ into which orifice, as long as everyone is consenting. No such lawsuit will ever be worth the paper it is printed on. Private groups like religions and churches can discriminate against whoever they want, for whatever reason they want. Nobody will be able to sue a Catholic Church for failing to marry a gay couple in much the same way that they can't sue the Catholic Church for failing to make women priests. They're a private organization and they can do whatever the hell they want.