Josh Sawyer on dealing with grognards

[Stun]

I guess I'm a WoW fan, even though it has been years since I played it.  I just wanted to point out that the multi specialized class system of PoE that you seem to favor is far more similar to the WoW design than it is to the IE games.

I don't favor it. It's what has me worried.

[AGX-17]

I'll caveat that. VO can only set the scene well when it's done as part of a greater scene. Characters interacting with the background, pacing about, and reacting expressively and not with 5 stock animations. I'm not sure why RPGs fail at this, but I suspect part of it a pacing issue with the way choosing dialogue works as well as just how much dialogue and cutscenes they have to do. They have to cut back and it ends up looking like the Star Wars prequels. Sitting, standing, walking, shot/reverse shot.

 

An inexpressive Shepard sitting on a crate while the camera cuts between him and Garrus who is flailing at buttons that don't do anything isn't contributing much to mood for me. It's nice to hear about reach and flexibility in voice, but the body language is completely dead.

An inexpressive Shepard sitting on a crate while the camera cuts between them and Garrus who is flailing at buttons that don't do anything? Sounds awfully familiar.... Can't quite.... put a finger on it.

 

Although, from a purely fictional standpoint, you're probably supposed to believe that mashing buttons is the only way to make spaceguns on spaceships work right while they're not being fired. Sort of like how you're supposed to believe there was a coherent three-act structure to the Mass Effect series.

 

 

 

Edited April 2, 2014 by AGX-17

[Lephys]

Yep. The biggest problem with modern games is that they try too hard to appeal to the widest audience possible, and most of the time they treat that audience as stupid.

Yeah... it also sort of undermines the cohesiveness of their design. It reminds me of trying to pick a color to paint something.

 

"Well, we could go with blue, but some people don't like blue. We could go with orange, but some people don't like orange. Let's just go with ALL THE COLORS, TOGETHER!" Then they end up with a muddy grey, and wonder what went wrong. "We should've gotten all the people with each individual color as their favorite! Why didn't we?!"

[AGX-17]

 

Yep. The biggest problem with modern games is that they try too hard to appeal to the widest audience possible, and most of the time they treat that audience as stupid.

Yeah... it also sort of undermines the cohesiveness of their design. It reminds me of trying to pick a color to paint something.

 

"Well, we could go with blue, but some people don't like blue. We could go with orange, but some people don't like orange. Let's just go with ALL THE COLORS, TOGETHER!" Then they end up with a muddy grey, and wonder what went wrong. "We should've gotten all the people with each individual color as their favorite! Why didn't we?!"

 

To appeal to the widest audience possible, one must inherently appeal to a stupid audience. A bomb is far more effective at widespread devastation (i.e. sales) than a rifle, after all.

Edited April 2, 2014 by AGX-17

[Lephys]

To appeal to the widest audience possible, one must inherently appeal to a stupid audience. A bomb is far more effective at widespread devastation (i.e. sales) than a rifle, after all.

True, but that's based on a pretty heavy assumption that stuff that no one else (the "non-dumb" people) likes is the ONLY thing that the "dumb" people like.

 

To me, it seems a lot more similar to the use of a bomb to take out a bunch of computers, instead of an EMP. Thus, taking out a bunch of stuff you didn't want to take out, as well.

 

The other problem is... you can keep on assuming this is the right way to go so long as no one really puts forth a full effort making a "smarter" product. The masses tailor themselves to the lowest common denominator, too. It's like tabloids: People want to read them because they've got all the "important" celebrity news that people want to know about, but that's news that people want to know about because people want to read them. Literally anything could be a story, and you could still sell those magazines to the same people.

 

Britney comes out of her house in a bikini? "BRITNEY IN BIKINI! WHAT WAS SHE THINKING?!" Britney leaves her house in regular clothing? "BRITNEY WEARS BUM CLOTHES!" An elegant evening gown? "CHECK OUT BRITNEY'S HOT NEW LOOK!"

 

It doesn't matter. The story is the very fact that Britney exists and you get to read about anything at all that she's doing.

 

Basically, a movie can have action and explosions in it, and STILL have lots more to it that neither appeals to nor deters the "dumb" masses. It's like a kids movie: The best kids movies are the ones that their parents can enjoy, too, because there's a lot of stuff in them that goes over the kids' heads, but the kids still get their animated animals and fun-venture and such. When you make a kids movie that's JUST dancing shapes and colors, all day, and ONLY appeals to the child, the parent goes crazy and becomes sick of it, because adult minds don't want to just hear from dancing shapes and colors all day.

 

Just because more people bought Angry Birds than Baldur's Gate doesn't mean all games should be like Angry Birds. There are a number of reasons Angry Birds is so popular. Most people just don't want to take the time to actually evaluate all the factors at play before making such a decision on what their product should be like. Thus, the design is just as lazy as the designer assumes the majority of the populous to be.

[anameforobsidian]

VO has far more significant effects than scene setting.  A lot of VO makes it much, much harder to revise material and create alternate options.  I would rather have a Baldur's Gate dialogue with 6 options and no VO than an ME one with three options and constant VO. 

[Hassat Hunter]

Grognards should be a monster in PoE so Sawyer can do an update about dealing with them.

 

And we probably should give each character after creating a big manual how to defeat them, including stats, all ways to effectively kill them, and a full list of all grognards in the game.

This way no one can ever be sucker-punched by those *****es!

 

Except for people not reading the book of course. Hmmm, how to solve that. Auto-open the book. Force them to quit only after scrolling to the bottom?

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

 

And we probably should give each character after creating a big manual how to defeat them, including stats, all ways to effectively kill them, and a full list of all grognards in the game.

That is a bit of a strange suggestion.

[Hassat Hunter]

Not if you read the other topic about this newspost...

[Tamerlane]

Installing PoE will actually delete your GOG account and replace your current installations (and backup installers) of any Black Isle or Troika game with World of Warcraft. If you log in, you will find a premade character resembling Josh Sawyer with the screenname "casual_lyfe". You will look away from your screen and realize you are now a baby. Like, a literal baby. All televisions in all the houses of all the world will turn on and simultaneously broadcast a news report of a two-headed calf born in Israel with a birthmark that reads "4e".

Edited April 3, 2014 by Tamerlane

[Lephys]

And we probably should give each character after creating a big manual how to defeat them, including stats, all ways to effectively kill them, and a full list of all grognards in the game.

This way no one can ever be sucker-punched by those *****es!

Methinks you're thinking that a "GM suckerpunch" is simply a situation in which a player happens to not-know something, for whatever reason. And/or that, if the game doesn't make it so that you can't ever be ignorant to anything, it's producing suckerpunches.

Edited April 3, 2014 by Lephys

[Hassat Hunter]

Well, I don't... I'm just going off the conversation in the other thread.

 

"Random basilisk... sucker punch!"

"Enemy requiring magic weapon!... sucker punch!"

"Enemy requiring specific damage type... sucker punch!"

 

And I'm just facepalming all along and make fun of it, while disagreeing

[Fluff]

Well, I don't... I'm just going off the conversation in the other thread.

 

"Random basilisk... sucker punch!"

"Enemy requiring magic weapon!... sucker punch!"

"Enemy requiring specific damage type... sucker punch!"

 

And I'm just facepalming all along and make fun of it, while disagreeing

 

Yeah, this bothers me a lot. I also don't really like that it isn't instantly attributed to being a "grognard" either. I'm only just about to turn 21..so IE games and the like are all nearly as old as I am, there is absolutely no nostalgia in them for me, rose tinted glasses, found memories of things of the past, etc because I didn't start playing any of them until I was around 15.. so only 6 years ago.

 

I WANT strategic enemies because it's wait for it.. strategic (shocker). You can have things like enemies that are resistant/weak to certain magic types for example without it breaking the game as a "gotcha" moment. If only one character can use the one skill to kill that one enemy necessary to advance the plot I would agree, that's stupid sucker punch material.

HOWEVER, just because there's an enemy encounter that can be plowed with a magic weapon and you don't have it for whatever reason, as long as you can still progress (just with a little more effort needed) that's not a sucker punch.. that's fair. If you want it to be easier, go back and get the skill,item,weapon,whatever to make it easier and if you don't care put up with the slighty harder challenge.. nothing wrong with that type of game play in my opinion.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Well, I don't... I'm just going off the conversation in the other thread.

 

"Random basilisk... sucker punch!"

"Enemy requiring magic weapon!... sucker punch!"

"Enemy requiring specific damage type... sucker punch!"

 

And I'm just facepalming all along and make fun of it, while disagreeing

I really don't hope any of that counts as sucker punches, coz I expect such stuff to be part of a good CRPG! As long as I can escape or perhaps get a hint or two, most of that sounds like strategy and gameplay to me.

[Karkarov]

Well, I don't... I'm just going off the conversation in the other thread.

 

"Random basilisk... sucker punch!"

"Enemy requiring magic weapon!... sucker punch!"

"Enemy requiring specific damage type... sucker punch!"

 

And I'm just facepalming all along and make fun of it, while disagreeing

A sucker punch is going into an old crypt to slay a zombie infestation, opening a door to one of the rooms, and finding yourself face to face with three mind flayers.  What the hell are three mind flayers doing in an undead infested crypt?  Why was I sent to kill zombies when the damn far worse illithids have moved in?  Why were they placed in such a way that not only was I given false expectations about what to expect in the dungeon (I expected just undead, no prior evidence to suggest there would be anything else) but as soon as I open the door they see me and combat is on cause they are staring at the door?

 

Unless you are insanely paranoid and just pre cast mind protection spells ALL THE TIME you have no way of being ready for that fight when you first encounter it.  The guy who opened the door is probably dead outright, you may not have the spells you need to counter them even memorized, if you opened the door with your rogue well forget about stealth cause they will see him open the door as they are staring at it, and even if you do have the spells ready they still get to likely go first due to surprise so you may not live to cast them anyway.

 

That is a DM Sucker Punch.  An encounter specifically designed for the party to get nailed and have no reasonable expectation of being ready for it.

 

In contrast your "random basilisk" argument doesn't hold because even when you could run into one of them in the overworld in BG there would always be some hint.  A npc would warn you about them in the area, you would see stone statues scattered around, there might even be a sign saying "danger" or whatever.  The only other times you encountered them was when you were already reasonably leveled and in an area that would lead you to expect almost anything.  Like Irenicus's lair, or some part of the Underdark.

 

That said could a "random basilisk" be a sucker punch?  Yes.  Depending on how it is used in the game.  Bear in mind I sucker punched a D&D party many times with things like 1 HD goblins and kobolds.  You will be surprised how much damage you can do with 20 goblins simply charging down a hallway that is 3 feet wide when the walls are covered in acidic slime.

Edited April 3, 2014 by Karkarov

[Hassat Hunter]

Bear in mind I sucker punched a D&D party many times

And was it fun for all, or did they disallow you to DM ever again.

 

The answer may reveal much

[Karkarov]

 

Bear in mind I sucker punched a D&D party many times

And was it fun for all, or did they disallow you to DM ever again.

 

The answer may reveal much

 

I only did it in situations where they were supposed to lose anyway or the effects would not be permanent.  The worst case time I did it to them I actually played it off as a shared dream sequence because my the end I had not only killed them, but some of them would have been trapped in extra dimensional space, some of them their family got killed, one guys whole town burned down, etc etc.  So yeah they probably would have been miffed that time had I not written it off as a hallucination caused by a local glut of sudden Feyr population.

[Lephys]

Well, I don't... I'm just going off the conversation in the other thread.

 

"Random basilisk... sucker punch!"

"Enemy requiring magic weapon!... sucker punch!"

"Enemy requiring specific damage type... sucker punch!"

 

And I'm just facepalming all along and make fun of it, while disagreeing

My bad. Fair enough. 8P

 

I will just say that I do think that the best approach for such things is "this fight is going to be really, really tough if you don't know/figure out how to handle this creature," instead of "you're all going to totally, absolutely die in 3 seconds if you don't figure out how to handle this creature."

 

In general... Those few ridiculously tough fights could be like that. In fact, when you get to those, I think that probably makes a lot of sense. The thing should be pretty tough even when you're "doing it right," so that added "you're doing it wrong" penalty should probably amount to death.

 

But, yeah, I definitely don't think "this thing casts 'mass petrify' in the first 3 seconds of battle and you all basically die if you didn't know to protect yourselves from it" isn't nearly as effective as "this thing will petrify someone, and there's not really any way to fix it quickly once it happens, so they're out of commission, leaving you a man short to fight this fight." Just for example. I'm not trying to say "that's how an actual foe works in a certain game" or anything. It's just a hypothetical, for the extremes.

 

That being said -- and this probably needs to go into the suggestions thread -- I've just thought that it might be interesting if more extreme status ailments (like petrification) were "healable," but not instantly. What if they required a channeled spell to undo? *shrug*. Just a thought...

Edited April 3, 2014 by Lephys

[Hassat Hunter]

@ Karkarov;

How about an option that the loading screen (from savegame, not area) would instead of useful tips display one of the many randomly selected ways of how this was all DM generated hogwash.

"It was all a dream, this really happened..."

"In the last minute, a timebubble sucked up the last remaining party member, who was now able to inform his team and prepare better..."

"Your wizards future spell had effect... now you know what NOT to do!"

"Meanwhile, in OUR dimension..."

"Fortunately, those were just your evil twin counterparts. Now the real heroes enter the fray!"

 

Etc. etc. etc.

[Karkarov]

@ Karkarov;

How about an option that the loading screen (from savegame, not area) would instead of useful tips display one of the many randomly selected ways of how this was all DM generated hogwash.

"It was all a dream, this really happened..."

"In the last minute, a timebubble sucked up the last remaining party member, who was now able to inform his team and prepare better..."

"Your wizards future spell had effect... now you know what NOT to do!"

"Meanwhile, in OUR dimension..."

"Fortunately, those were just your evil twin counterparts. Now the real heroes enter the fray!"

 

Etc. etc. etc.

Haha I think it would be better if they just say "Helpful Hint: Remember even if our encounter design is total crap and completely unbalanced you can always save scum!"

[Lephys]

Haha I think it would be better if they just say "Helpful Hint: Remember even if our encounter design is total crap and completely unbalanced you can always save scum!"

Microsoft Office paperclip appears.

 

"You seem to be having trouble not getting your arse-handed to you. Have you tried trial and error?"

[Failion]

Reading text and dialogue is entertaining if it isn't concentrated and predictable. Like only party members have a lot of stuff to say or those npcs in "X" building or these lore collectables. 

[Lord Gorchnik]

He has really hit a nail here as I find myself continously now-a-days just mashing "X" or enter on my controller/keyboard to get through the dialogue because it's just so drull.  I love me some jRPGs but my God you can tell sometimes that the localizers had to be sitting there thinking, "what were the original writers thinking" as they translate it.

[Bryy]

Haha I think it would be better if they just say "Helpful Hint: Remember even if our encounter design is total crap and completely unbalanced you can always save scum!"

 

Friggin' Ice Trolls in IWD2...

[Tauron]

Okej, now I know what grognard is.