Update #58: Crafting with Tim Cain!

[pl1982]

I, for one, am glad that durability has been removed. I have never felt that it really adds much more to an RPG than boring mundane maintenance. It serves no purpose other than to irritate in my opinion. Glad it’s not in PE. Some might argue that durability is more "realistic"; to that I have two responses: firstly: I just don't care about "uber realism" (this is a fantasy RPG after all, I don't actually want it to be super realistic because...well reality is mostly mundane and boring crap); secondly: I don't think that in a world where magic exists and especially with the situation of magical equipment that durability would even exist on said equipment; i.e. magic equipment would not degrade in durability, but normal non-magical equipment could degrade; so you can justify the absence of durability in the game (i.e. make it more "realistic") by simply stating that magic prevents magical equipment from degrading in durability. Though of course this does not justify normal equipment not having durability, so for this there are two solutions: 1: the game designers implement a durability degradation for all normal non-magical equipment (you don't even need to make any repair/crafting skills for it, just make items degrade slowly over time to satisfy those that crave "moar realism") and 2: just ignore the stupid irritating mechanic and use your damn imagination. I prefer option 2, so I am glad that Mr. Sawyer and crew made this decision. Thank you.

[Cthulchulain]

I will not mourn the demise of the durability system in its current form. "No effect except points going down and a limited malus at 0" doesn't have a major impact on gameplay other than mandating strongly encouraging periodic maintenance.

 

That said, I think there's a lot of potential for an expanded system (if there are resources for developing it), in which the consequences of weapon damage are much more severe. The suggestion has already been raised that gear should be able to break under specific conditions. There's lots that can be played with here -- one could have a spectrum of possible breakages, from "loose grip --> poorer accuracy/damage" to "cracked haft --> larger chance of later breakage" to "weapon broken --> completely unusable". On non-hardcore modes, one could keep all weapons permanently repairable to avoid reload.

 

Where might crafting relate to this? Probably mostly in mitigation -- you can carry out field repairs of different standards with enough ability. Maybe for certain thresholds, you could also diminish the likelihood of breakage (personal equipment only). Rationale: you know the signs of impending damage and can fix them preemptively. But one could also reasonably tie it to related skills. A seasoned swordsman knows how to care for his weapons (if not necessarily repair them). As I gained experience as a fencer, I knew what were signs of a potential weapon break (serious bend in weapon) and could do limited corrective work (warm up the blad and straighten), but had to expend additional effort to learn to take apart and rebuild a weapon from scratch.

 

What does this imply? You have to occasionally repair equipment, but if the occurrence is low-ish, it's not a matter of repair all every time you're in town or resting, but fixing stuff that is genuinely broken. Some tuning needed so it's not a chore, or so rare that it's not worthwhile taking crafting, hence the minor effects that necessitate a modicum of skill. But the dramatic consequences can be much greater -- you're pounding the fire elemental into the dirt, when your fighter's cold-enchanted weapon splinters! With that advantage negated, can you still triumph?

 

There's even more. One imagines that powerfully enchanted weapons should be more resistant to wear than regular ones. High level adventurers with exquisite gear don't want to be actively making the repairs that low level ones do. But catastrophic damage could still result. One could use this as a chance for weapon improvements that would otherwise be barred. Your basic +1 fire damage enchantment has no place on Excalibur. But if you have a powerful gem of true-seeing and the shards of Narsil, reforge the weapon to be a deadly-accurate blade.

 

OK, so why have more than one repairman/gearmaker? Skill synergies! Why should the archer ranger who invests in crafting be just as good as handling polearms and plate as he is at keeping his bow in top condition? But he's probably better at that than repairing the pages of a tattered grimoire. Hey presto -- one skill, but with class differentiation. It's already been mentioned that there would have been ability/skill requirements for crafting certain items, so this could be integrated into all aspects of crafting. I have to wonder what happens in the way of restrictions on what parties can craft if the Crafting skill disappears entirely, so perhaps this could make it more multi-PC viable.

[forgottenlor]

Whether you read the polls or this thread it is really clear that durability was extremely divisive. The only other update which seemed to annoy people as much was the prototype UI. I'm personally neutral on both issues. However, it is clear to me that unsatisfied people are the vast minority on most updates and threads. So I'm glad that crafting has been kept (if not as a skill) and durability removed. I'm also happy that this has been done because there was some doubt about the mechanic among the designers themselves, and not just from pressure from the community. I also wish people could disagree without being abusive and calling other posters names. Just because someone has a different opinion or taste in a game, it doesn't mean it has less value.

[Baudolino05]

 

 

Second, durability can (eventually) work in a game with a single character, but there's virtually no scenario where it doesn't become an annoyance when you have to manage a whole party of fully equipped characters, and the only alternative to having it as an annoying process, is to automatize it a lot, which is going to make it even more pointless and not enjoyable. Just a purposeless money sink.

 

 

 

 

I can think at least one scenario; repairing items is an automatized but time consuming feature, Cause you have to pay your men for their time, item consumption becomes a source of interesting choices (Jagged Alliance), 

That being said, I won't regret durability as it was explained in the last update.  

 

 

 

Games like Gothic 2 or Risen, on the other hand, didn't have durability or repair and yet managed the economy far better than any Infinity Engine game ever had.

In Risen, for instance, you start a game considering 200 coins like a valuable sum, maybe even out of your reach at first, but completely achievable... And you end the game somewhat more rich but still considering those 200 coins a valuable sum (even if easier to gather in the end game).

It's more about how you balance loot, rewards and prices than about putting an arbitrary money sink just for the sake of it.

 

 

 

Agree.

Edited July 6, 2013 by Baudolino05

[Tuco Benedicto]

 

Complete misunderstanding. The problem wasn't that you didn't need multiple crafters... it was that multiple crafters did absolutely nothing for anyone.

 

Which is another complete non-issue. A blatant case of solution in search of a problem.

[Hassat Hunter]

I've grown up mostly with RPGs that had durability (Morrowind, Fallout, Arcanum... IE games came later).

Morrowind had no item degradation/durability. So, what?

[Lephys]

Which is another complete non-issue. A blatant case of solution in search of a problem.

Yeah, it's obviously not an issue any longer.

 

You act as though they put this in a complete, finalized game, THEN patched it out or something. It was an issue for consideration, which is why it got considered, and now it has been dropped.

 

If you saw someone carrying around an umbrella on a cloudy day when it happened to not rain, would you say "Lolz... that umbrella's just a solution in search of a problem! The rain is a complete non-issue!"?

[Fearabbit]

Bhazor, have we been playing the same Arcanum? I did have 6 party members whose items needed maintenance. And yes, in Arcanum that was annoying, but only because there wasn't a simple menu for it. (Which would've been easy. Show all items that are held by the party, but filter out the ones that don't have durability and the ones that are at 100%, offer the option to mark the ones that should be repaired and have a "Repair All" button with the gold cost for that next to it.)

 

Durability wouldn't have been the issue people make it out to be. "I'll be constantly thinking about it!", "It will completely ruin the fun!"... funny to see hardcore roleplayers whine about this while constantly fearing that the gameplay will be "dumbed down for casual players" in areas that are important to them. Well congratulations, you've just dumbed down the weapons and armor system because you thought a mechanic that a kind-of-casual RPG player like me enjoyed was too hardcore for you.

 

Morrowind had no item degradation/durability. So, what?

 

Yes it did. 

Edited July 6, 2013 by Fearabbit

[Lostbrain]

I'm cleary unhappy with the mind's change of the team. If durability is a pain in a game focused on action (Hn'S like Diablo), it could be an interesting parameter in a cRPG, who could influence our gaiming ways.

 

Same thing about specific crafting skills, who can totaly change the player's team.

 

With this mind's change, It seems that the game became combat focalised, and I hope I'm wrong, I don't want to Obsidian make a Dragon Age 2 copy, but a Baldur's Gate/ Planescape Torment/ Icewind Dale mix, like they wanted to.

[Chrononaut]

 

Absolutely ridiculous way to design a game. Whiny bitches on a forum which in no way constitute a majority of KS backers or cRPG players in general can make designers change something because they think it's "annoying" or "tedious".

 

Coming up Next on Project: Eternity - Reading what NPC's have to say and your quest journal is "not fun", quest compass inbound.

 

Hopefully they'll be something left of the character system before the game ships, before all the features get voted out by morons.

Whoa bro calm down lmao.

 

No, I just find it thoroughly uncomfortable how OE seem to take "fan" input and pressure so seriously. As if some overly active forum-members with an agenda can influence a game which many, many more will have to end up playing. I think a better way would just be to not ask for any backer input, but just make the game based on the specifications outlined in the Kickstarter pitch, and then say "here, download game" when it's done.

Edited July 6, 2013 by Chrononaut

[Hassat Hunter]

Yes it did. 

I don't really want to reinstall it to see who misremembers here :/

With this mind's change, It seems that the game became combat focalised, and I hope I'm wrong, I don't want to Obsidian make a Dragon Age 2 copy, but a Baldur's Gate/ Planescape Torment/ Icewind Dale mix, like they wanted to.

Considering the most games that use degredation are MMORPGs and action RPG's (who need a moneysink to cope with their unlimited respawning money fountains) I am actually more assured now there's more based towards non-combat than combat.

Odd how that works, eh?

 

EDIT:

@ Chrononaut; Then they might as well go full publisher instead of using Kickstarter. I'd rather not have another IE-prodegy murdered off like BioWare did...

Edited July 6, 2013 by Hassat Hunter

[Lucidbro]

Absolutely ridiculous way to design a game. Whiny bitches on a forum which in no way constitute a majority of KS backers or cRPG players in general can make designers change something because they think it's "annoying" or "tedious".

 

Coming up Next on Project: Eternity - Reading what NPC's have to say and your quest journal is "not fun", quest compass inbound.

 

Hopefully they'll be something left of the character system before the game ships, before all the features get voted out by morons.

 

Yeah, I really feel cheated. I feel like the project that was supposed to be the "last hope" of crpgs has already been tarnished by casual gamers, just like every other game out there. I just had to make an account to state this. I haven't been to forums or kept up to date with the feedback, I just gave Obsidian my money and had faith that they'd nail this game. So it's really disappointing that they're listening to the loudest group without having a real idea as to what the backers really want.

 

For the first time I'm getting that pessimistic feeling about this game that I've had for so many years now about the gaming industry. At the very least look towards adding the durability mechanic on the more challenging difficulty levels. 

[MacArthur]

The disappearance of the crafting skill, as it was proposed, seems like a good thing to me. If you can benefit from it at the max level with only one charcater having it mastered, then it's not balanced enough compared to the other skills. It's a fair and reasonable point. It would have made the skill a chore that you dump on one character at the beginning of the game, then never think about for the remaining game. No interesting tactical choice to come with it : no point in having it.

 

On the other side, the end of all forms of durability systems is a little disappointing for micromanaging nuts case, like myself and others . I perfectly respect those that don't care and don't like this kind of feature, but there seems to have a reasonable size of people that would like and use this kind of thing. The only way to content both side would be to have a special difficulty mode which activate them. Hardcore mode, or whatever it's called. Though, I suppose that the problem for the team would be to redefine all the economy of the game with each mode. What's the view at the moment on hardcore mode ?

[Bhazor]

 

With this mind's change, It seems that the game became combat focalised, and I hope I'm wrong, I don't want to Obsidian make a Dragon Age 2 copy, but a Baldur's Gate/ Planescape Torment/ Icewind Dale mix, like they wanted to.

 

The IE games* were all almost entirely combat focused. There is actually far more scope for alternate/non violent paths in Dragon Age than there ever was in the IE games*.

 

*except PS:T

[Sannom]

Morrowind had no item degradation/durability. So, what?

Oh yes it did, it's the only Elder's Scrolls I've ever played, and I distinctly remembers a 'Repair' option at shops and the possibility to repair one's equipment with hammers.

 

So it's really disappointing that they're listening to the loudest group without having a real idea as to what the backers really want.

The backers are the loudest group.

 

As for the durability mechanic, I'm not really sad to see it go. It felt like something that was tacked-on to make the Crafting skill useful for more than one character, and I don't really like that, it should be a system that exists by and for itself.

 

With this mind's change, It seems that the game became combat focalised, and I hope I'm wrong, I don't want to Obsidian make a Dragon Age 2 copy, but a Baldur's Gate/ Planescape Torment/ Icewind Dale mix, like they wanted to.

How can you come to that conclusion? The durability system was only there to make the give the Crafting skill a systemic use in combat, how does the removal of that means that the game will be more combat-focused? Edited July 6, 2013 by Sannom

[LordCrash]

A few points of clarification:

 

* "Crafting" is one skill, but the crafting system uses multiple skills.  I.e., the crafting system does not rely on the existence of the Crafting skill.

* Other than reaching the edge of a map to access the world map, there is no fast-travel in PE.  That said, we will likely avoid the IWD-style 5-level dungeons without semi-regular shortcuts back to the surface (N.B.: this does not mean Skyrim-style loops).

* Most items do take up space in personal inventories!  The party Stash is unlimited, but the Pack (made of personal inventories) is not.  Crafting items (and quest items) always go into (and come out of) the Stash.  We are doing this specifically to address common complaints about crafting items cluttering the inventory.  Since crafting is typically done at camps or other non-combat locations, allowing the items to come out of the Stash doesn't seem to create any problems.

 

As I posted on SA, Crafting (the skill) and its associated subsystems (like durability) were the elements I felt least confident about in our skill system.  I strongly believe that choices within an array should give the player reasonably balanced benefits.  Because certain fundamental skills (like Stealth) can clearly benefit from multiple party members taking them and can contribute to party effectiveness in combat, I believe that other skills should do the same in their own way -- enough to make all of them appealing choices on multiple party members.  This also has the benefit of making the uses of skills much higher-frequency than the individual uses that depend on designer content (e.g. unlocking doors or gaining a dialogue/quest option).

 

As an example, Medicine in its various Fallout forms contributes to the efficacy of stimpaks.  There are many other places were Medicine can be used in quests and dialogue, but it has high-frequency use with stimpaks (in or between combats).  It's a benefit that can apply to any character who has the skill, even if a character with a higher rating in a party may be "the guy" to perform the high-difficulty actions.

 

With all of the skills other than Crafting (specifically), those high-frequency benefits/uses were easy to come by.  Crafting presented some difficulties and, as I wrote previously, I was concerned about the lack of systemic drains in the economy.  Many people have mentioned a lot of potential uses for wealth.  Most of them are great ideas and ones that we plan to use, but the vast majority of them are not systemic, rather content-dependent or scripted instances (e.g. bribes).  However, it is clear from discussions here and elsewhere that the long-term balance of the economy is not a concern for most players who voiced their opinions -- and almost certainly not in the endgame.

 

Based on discussions on the forums and conversations I had with people on the team, we will be doing the following:

 

* Removing durability as a mechanic on items.

* Removing the Crafting skill (specifically).  The crafting system and its associated mechanics will remain, as-is.

 

Ultimately, solving skill imbalance and endgame wealth abundance problems is not worth what players perceive as uninteresting and unenjoyable gameplay.  I can still solve the skill imbalance problems by removing the problem skill.  As for endgame wealth abundance, we will continue to create places for you to use wealth in the economy: unique items, the stronghold, optional quest/dialogue gates, etc.  Ultimately, if those options go unused, I'll have to trust that the majority of players won't be significantly troubled by an excess of wealth in the late game.

 

Thanks for all of your feedback.

 

So you pull off a Bioware stunt now? Leaving your vision (or Tim Cain's vision) because some mouthy people claim what the game should be like? Why not doing a proper voting on the topic?

 

I'm pretty disappointed now how this turned out.....

[Lucidbro]

 

The backers are the loudest group.

 

As for the durability mechanic, I'm not really sad to see it go. It felt like something that was tacked-on to make the Crafting skill useful for more than one character, and I don't really like that, it should be a system that exists by and for itself.

 

What are you saying exactly? That the people arguing against the durability system represent the whole of Project Eternity backers? In case you misunderstood me, what I'm saying is that not everyone is constantly giving feedback or even paying attention to it, and that that groups wishes may get trampled on by the vocal minority without them ever getting a chance to realize what's happening. As has already happened.

And I say minority but who knows, I'm a dying species, might be there's just a few guys who think like I do. But I do feel cheated nonetheless. I have no idea how many pages of whatever thread Obsidian might have gotten complaints about this, but can you really implement that into design without effectively gauging how big the displeased audience is in relation. Something as rudimentary as a poll would at least give you a sense of the scale. Now it's just "we saw a few negative posts, lets scrap it".

I gave my money to Obsidian, and I have great faith in Sawyer and his vision for what a RPG should be. And now that faith is taken into another direction. If I wished for a game designed by some random forumite, i'd have given him that money instead. This is not a decision you can just half-ass, and go by feel basis.

[Tuco Benedicto]

So you pull off a Bioware stunt now? Leaving your vision (or Tim Cain's vision) because some mouthy people claim what the game should be like? Why not doing a proper voting on the topic?

I'm pretty disappointed now how this turned out.....

 

 

What about at least making an effort to read the last pages instead of making ridiculous claims that were already addressed by Sawyer himself?

 

Also: you may not be familiar with this idea, but design is a iterative process, there's not such a thing as a "vision" that goes untouched and unaltered through the whole development.

Sometime you come out with a concept that sounds cool and interesting, but then you test it/argue about it and you realize it just doesn't work as well as you thought at first.

Edited July 6, 2013 by Tuco Benedicto

[Sensuki]

So you pull off a Bioware stunt now? Leaving your vision (or Tim Cain's vision) because some mouthy people claim what the game should be like? Why not doing a proper voting on the topic?

 

I'm pretty disappointed now how this turned out.....

Yeah a bit of a swing and a miss there buddy

 

He wasn't sold on the mechanic in the first place.

[LordCrash]

 

So you pull off a Bioware stunt now? Leaving your vision (or Tim Cain's vision) because some mouthy people claim what the game should be like? Why not doing a proper voting on the topic?

I'm pretty disappointed now how this turned out.....

 

 

What about at least making an effort to read the last pages instead of making ridiculous claims that were already addressed by Sawyer himself?

 

Also: you may not be familiar with this idea, but design is a iterative process, there's not such a thing as a "vision" that goes untouched and unaltered through the whole development.

Sometime you come out with a concept that sounds cool and interesting, but then you test it/argue about it and you realize it just doesn't work as well as you thought at first.

 

 

Maybe you should communicate some ideas if you are quite sure about them. It's weird to see a kickstarter update which is pretty worthless now because most of the stuff has been changed only days after the publication. "Listening to the backers" doesn't mean listening to the mouthiest backers.....that has nothing to do with iteration.

 

So how did they noticed that the idea is not so good? They thought for weeks to implement it and then decided a turn-around in two days....and I read Sawyer's reply. I just don't agree with it. If you want to listen to fan feedback how about making some real "trend investigation" instead of claiming that there were many complains about the features. And after all I thought Project Eternity would be a team effort and not a "Josh Sawyer one man show"....

[LordCrash]

 

So you pull off a Bioware stunt now? Leaving your vision (or Tim Cain's vision) because some mouthy people claim what the game should be like? Why not doing a proper voting on the topic?

 

I'm pretty disappointed now how this turned out.....

Yeah a bit of a swing and a miss there buddy

 

He wasn't sold on the mechanic in the first place.

 

 

Yeah, but what was the purpose of the update in that case? Are they (Tim and Josh and whoever) not able to clear that in the group BEFORE they go public? It seems like Sawyer only wanted a "backing" for his opinion.....in that case he should have had the guts to talk about the systems and his stance on it himself like "hey guys, we talked about a system in the group and we want to hear your opinion on the topic"......instead he sent Tim to make an update about it withouth mentioning his own doubts.....that's just lame, sorry.

[Tuco Benedicto]

 

 

 It's weird to see a kickstarter update which is pretty worthless now because most of the stuff has been changed only days after the publication. "Listening to the backers" doesn't mean listening to the mouthiest backers.....that has nothing to do with iteration.

 

So how did they noticed that the idea is not so good? They thought for weeks to implement it and then decided a turn-around in two days....and I read Sawyer's reply. I just don't agree with it. If you want to listen to fan feedback how about making some real "trend investigation" instead of claiming that there were many complains about the features. And after all I thought Project Eternity would be a team effort and not a "Josh Sawyer one man show"....

 

As far as I'm concerned it was "worthless" from the start, not just now that they changed it, because durability in a *party*-based game is a bloody stupid idea that doesn't add anything beside an unwanted hindrance in the form of a pointless money sink.

 

Ditching it they didn't "miss a chance for greatness", they just avoided a baffling waste time.

But I would almost like to read a supporter of this idea capable of convincing me that durability would improve a RPG of this kind to any extent, because that would be quite an achievement.

 

So far reading this thread that didn't happen. And let me stress that I don't just disagree with the idea in general, I'm even more fiercely against those supposed "issues" it was supposed to address, because 1) they aren't actual issues. 2) what this mechanic would introduce as a trade-off is far worse.

Edited July 6, 2013 by Tuco Benedicto

[IndiraLightfoot]

LordCrash: While I agree that this particular update was packaged as pretty much a closed deal, I see no need to bad mouth the devs and speculating about their work process. I think a decent analogy would be an academic or a team of academics working on a short paper with the goal of one day submitting it to some prestigious journal for publication. They have a set of ideas that they think will fly. Then, they sit around a table and come up with a structure for presenting that idea in a brief format: the article. Before they would even consider sending it off to that prestigious journal, with its hard scientific and quality criteria, including peer reviews, any responsible group of academics would let others read their draft and get as many comments on it as possible. Some of them may be trusted colleagues, but also strangers to them that can give them different a perspective on things.

 

These academics are rarely in need of polls or opinion statistics per se, but they are very much in need of various opinions on their presentation of the subject matter, qualified and sometimes non-qualified. This is not design by committee. Thanks to KS and Obsidian's partly open creative process, we get to mouth our opinions, because they want us to. They have explicitly told us so.

 

Hence, in this case, the ideas didn't fly that well. The devs (the group of academics) realize that they need to adjust or have a new take on their set of ideas before going through this process again and come up with a new draft for this article: reiteration!

A better analogy, however, for this is rather a dissertation. Then a lot of things get ditched because they don't fly well. Also, kill your darlings is a must and all that jazz.

 

I fear your disappointment shines through. All this has been done in good order, it's just as it should be, and I am looking forward to several more of these hotly debated updates. The amount of fun is priceless!

[Monte Carlo]

I like Lord Crash and when he is upset it makes me sad.

 

Cheer up Crash, it's only durability!

[rjshae]

 

Based on discussions on the forums and conversations I had with people on the team, we will be doing the following:

 

* Removing durability as a mechanic on items.

* Removing the Crafting skill (specifically).  The crafting system and its associated mechanics will remain, as-is.

 

Ultimately, solving skill imbalance and endgame wealth abundance problems is not worth what players perceive as uninteresting and unenjoyable gameplay.  I can still solve the skill imbalance problems by removing the problem skill.  As for endgame wealth abundance, we will continue to create places for you to use wealth in the economy: unique items, the stronghold, optional quest/dialogue gates, etc.  Ultimately, if those options go unused, I'll have to trust that the majority of players won't be significantly troubled by an excess of wealth in the late game.

 

Thanks for all of your feedback.

 

Here's a suggestion:

 

Although durability as it applies to the party has been removed, it could still be applied to enemy gear. When collecting loot, it would add flavor and realism to have some portion of it be badly worn and damaged. If the party finds a particularly nice item that is in poor shape, then a visit to a smithy would get it fixed. Bingo, you get the same result of encouraging interaction with an artisan. Those who don't want to deal with such maintenance can just sell the damaged gear at a lower price.