What PoE can learn from Wasteland 2 release? (faults and lessons to learn)

[archangel979]

 

You can't fully stop save-scumming, but you can make it a poor use of time. There's also possibilities to deal with certain kinds of save-scumming, especially those that deal with RNG.

 

Save-scumming is not problem as itself, but it can become problem if using save-scumming is most efficient or in worst case necessary way to play the game, then one could argue that there is something wrong in how game mechanics are designed, especially how rewards and punishments are designed.

 

In WL2 it is not necessary, main quest cannot be stopped by a random roll (outside of combat :D). Edited October 5, 2014 by archangel979

[PrimeJunta]

If a game rewards savegame abuse, I abuse savegames. I'm like most humans: I respond to incentives.

 

In WL2 for example I savescum locks and traps. That's the most efficient way to play.

 

The game would be better if it didn't allow it, e.g. by having a fixed random seed for these checks.

[Quetzalcoatl]

No, you want to savescum.

 

As a matter of fact, I don't. I generally impose restrictions on myself (also for things like resting). But that doesn't change my argument that players have no responsibility to do the same. If savescumming, or any other gameplay mechanics, yields rewards, it's perfectly fine to exploit it (and I occasionally indulge in it myself).

Edited October 5, 2014 by Quetzalcoatl

[Elerond]

 

 

You can't fully stop save-scumming, but you can make it a poor use of time. There's also possibilities to deal with certain kinds of save-scumming, especially those that deal with RNG.

 

Save-scumming is not problem as itself, but it can become problem if using save-scumming is most efficient or in worst case necessary way to play the game, then one could argue that there is something wrong in how game mechanics are designed, especially how rewards and punishments are designed.

 

In WL2 it is not necessary, main quest cannot be stopped by a random roll (outside of combat :D).

 

 

It is not necessary, but in many cases it is most efficient way to play the game, because of high reward for successes and heavy punishment for failures design ideology that game uses. But save scumming is not necessary problem in WL2, as game is designed so that players can save-scum if they want, meaning that it's feature that designer of the game were fully aware of and decided to included it any way, so it is intended feature that is purposefully included in the game, so its existence is problematic only if it makes game feel less fun to play, which is thing that depends on individual that you ask about it.

[prodigydancer]

Graphics DO matter. When asked people will tell you that they don't, but in the end they will have an impression of a "cheap" game.

I think a post-apocalyptic world should be reasonably ugly. So WL2 graphics is nearly perfect for the setting. Though of course it wouldn't work for PoE or any fantasy game. The only people who got the impression of a cheap game are dumb kids who we can safely ignore because they were never intended to be WL2 target audience.

 

The actual reason why WL2 got such low ratings is that it's not exactly like Fallout (X-COM, JA2), i.e. not a carbon copy of another game it has nothing to do with. This yielded it a ton of "red" rating on Metacritic. Yes, people are that stupid. And I predict that PoE won't get a high rating either. For precisely the same reason - it's not exactly like BG2 or IWD. Now don't bother telling me something like "hey, I like PoE and I'll give it a 10." For every you there's a guy who will rate it 0/10. You'll see how it works.

 

So this is the problem with creating spiritual successor games. And It's not really a problem because it doesn't stop you from making an awesome game (WL2 is awesome IMO). It just prevents you from getting high ratings.

Edited October 5, 2014 by prodigydancer

[Sarakash]

 

 

1. I am not talking about min/maxing everthing. I am talking about Assault Rifles outperform any other weapon in the game, especially at later stages, where you are able to use bursts with 100 % accuracy all the time.

2. From what i ve seen so far, the attribute system in PoE looks promising.

3. There are doors / containers you need to open in order to progress in the main story line. Some of them have medium difficulty even with the highest skill available so you are forced to save scumm, even if you don´t want to.

1. And that is still OK if you can also finish the game without everyone using ARs.

3. No there are no such doors/containers. Everything can be passed in multiple ways.

 

I would say that shooting twice per turn with end game sniper rifles using head shot with 100% accuracy is much more effective than using end game assault rifles with burst, as sniper can single shot most of the enemies quite far away.

 

 

Best Sniper Rifle does aprox. 190 Damage with Headshot, depending on difficulty for 9 AP, you cannot shot it twice.AR deals aprox. 260 Damage with Burst and Headshot for 9 AP.

 

As said, I don´t want a mere cosmetical change if you choose one or another, what I want is uniqueness. Divinity:OS did this well in my opionion. Compare Two-Handed strenght based to dual-wield dexterity based. Both are able to dish out lots amounts of damage with unique advantages and disadvantages.

 

Ok, granted, I ran into that situation because I´d chosen a particual path in that questline which is, unfurtunatly, still bugged, even after the last patch. So this point of mine is somewhat unfair, because it may have never been intended.

[archangel979]

If a game rewards savegame abuse, I abuse savegames. I'm like most humans: I respond to incentives.

 

In WL2 for example I savescum locks and traps. That's the most efficient way to play.

 

The game would be better if it didn't allow it, e.g. by having a fixed random seed for these checks.

And that is your choice. Devs said they didn't want on purpose to remove people choices.

My choice is to not savescum. Devs let both of us play as we want.

 

What you people ask for is same as asking for only one difficulty in the game and then you complained that because there is easy difficulty you are forced to play on easy because that is most efficient.

 

So tell me, do you play on Easy and if you don't why? It is after all most efficient way to play and the game does not make it hard to play on easy?

Edited October 5, 2014 by archangel979

[Elerond]

Difficulty level is different from game mechanics in that way that it changes how rules and mechanics in game work and so creating different challenge for the player

 

Players can challenge themselves by deciding not to use certain mechanics or rules that developers are given them, but that has little to do with developers letting players to do what they want and more that developers didn't offer enough challenge modes for players.

 

Selecting higher or lower difficulty level isn't as itself way to play game in more or less efficiently, but it can change what is most efficient or lest efficient way play the game. And in my opinion player electing not to use some mechanics in the game don't make original design better even if it makes game more enjoyable for the player. 

[archangel979]

You can tell yourself that but it is no different.

Edited October 5, 2014 by archangel979

[PrimeJunta]

And that is your choice. Devs said they didn't want on purpose to remove people choices.

My choice is to not savescum. Devs let both of us play as we want.

 

What you people ask for is same as asking for only one difficulty in the game and then you complained that because there is easy difficulty you are forced to play on easy because that is most efficient.

 

So tell me, do you play on Easy and if you don't why? It is after all most efficient way to play and the game does not make it hard to play on easy?

Not at all. Difficulty settings change the rules of the game. Playing on Easy is not more efficient than playing on Hard, because you're not playing the same game. I'm all for difficulty settings.

 

I'm also all for self-imposed limitations, but designing the game around them is dumb. Putting in a mechanic that's easily circumvented with another mechanic is dumb: you might as well not have put in the mechanic in the first place, rather than assume that your players are stupid or so larpy that they won't make use of the obvious hole.

Edited October 5, 2014 by PrimeJunta

[Cantousent]

I have never understood arguments that revolve around player restraint.  If your argument is that players are at fault for using a glaring exploit and so the fault lies in the player rather than the design team, you're nuts.  I *do* agree with Elrond that the save system is actually more of a feature. ...And I don't mean it in the Troika fanboy way of saying that an obvious bug is actually a feature.  It seems pretty clear to me that the designers knew a hefty number of players would save before all manner of skill checks.  I do it regularly myself on some games simply because it can be so easy, I don't care about bragging rights, and I can always play on ironman mode if I want to.  At least, that's for games that have iron man mode.  What I do think is sad is when folks use saving and reloading constantly and then complain the game is too easy.  If you have to reload twenty times to do something, that's probably not so easy.

[archangel979]

I have never understood arguments that revolve around player restraint.  If your argument is that players are at fault for using a glaring exploit and so the fault lies in the player rather than the design team, you're nuts.  I *do* agree with Elrond that the save system is actually more of a feature. ...And I don't mean it in the Troika fanboy way of saying that an obvious bug is actually a feature.  It seems pretty clear to me that the designers knew a hefty number of players would save before all manner of skill checks.  I do it regularly myself on some games simply because it can be so easy, I don't care about bragging rights, and I can always play on ironman mode if I want to.  At least, that's for games that have iron man mode.  What I do think is sad is when folks use saving and reloading constantly and then complain the game is too easy.  If you have to reload twenty times to do something, that's probably not so easy.

They also knew a good number of players would want to play on Easy so they included that as well. Allowing savescuming was design choice just like having 4 difficulties is a design choice. Savescuming reduces the difficulty of the game and as such is not much different then difficulty sliders.

 

You just choose to see it differently just because there is no button that says "Savescuming: Yes?". But the game does not limit you at all from setting the difficulty to Easy at any time, it is purely player choice to not set it on Easy. So also choose to not savescum if you are looking for more difficulty.

[Cantousent]

I think we're violently agreeing on just about everything *except* that I don't think folks who don't like the feature (allowing people to abuse the save system) are at fault.  They might or might not be wrong, but it's an argument about a feature, which means it is in the lap of the design team.  The designers could have made it harder to take advantage of the save system, but they didn't.  Frankly, I don't think it's really a problem.  Sometimes I just leave the lock or whatever.  Sometimes, I'll keep going after it.  ...And that *is* my choice.  ...But, then again, I think WL2 is a rockin' good game.

 

EDIT:  What a different one 'don't' makes.

Edited October 5, 2014 by Cantousent

[PrimeJunta]

 Allowing savescuming was design choice just like having 4 difficulties is a design choice.

 

Indeed, except that it's a bad design choice, unlike having 4 difficulties.

[archangel979]

 

Allowing savescuming was design choice just like having 4 difficulties is a design choice.

 

Indeed, except that it's a bad design choice, unlike having 4 difficulties.

 

Says you. I say differently. What now?

[Azrael Ultima]

They also knew a good number of players would want to play on Easy so they included that as well. Allowing savescuming was design choice just like having 4 difficulties is a design choice. Savescuming reduces the difficulty of the game and as such is not much different then difficulty sliders.

A choice implies that it was deliberate. It seems more likely that it is simply a result of the mechanical design.

 

I doubt there are many developers that sat down for a meeting to discuss how they can implement save scumming in their game.

[Lephys]

Having a "just click this button and you win the game" difficulty would be a design choice, too. Doesn't make it a reasonable one.

 

The other thing is:

 

Luck is a fickle thing. Sometimes, the problem is really just that it wasn't the smartest move to make a particular thing luck-based to begin with.

 

"You're the most competent person at this skill in the history of this ruleset. Ohhhhh, you hit the .000003% chance that your character suffered an unprecedented seizure while he was trying to perform a simple task! Don't reload and try again, though, because this .000003% chance of seizure was a design choice, 8D!"

 

That's one of my favorite things about the gist of Attack Resolution in PoE. Sure, it doesn't necessarily simulate real life. But, if you're twice as good at aiming as that guy is at dodging/deflecting, you aren't going to just miss 7 times in a row.

 

I'll just say this... If I were the DM in a PnP game session, and someone was trying to overcome some obstacle, I'd come up with some interesting dynamic outcomes for the chances to represent. Picking a lock, for example. "You pick the lock, but it makes a bunch of noise as it slips from your grasp and clangs against the metal door." Or "You pick the lock, but it takes you an hour, instead of 5 minutes, because you weren't a badass." Or "You just don't manage to pick it."

 

Critical failures are significantly less interesting and more just-plain annoying in a cRPG environment. In a DM'd environment, jamming a lock can add tremendously to a situation. In a cRPG, it's basically just "you can't open that door anymore." Also, in a DM'd environment, the DM is constantly adjusting things like that. Roll a d100? Well, what are the ranges going to be, and what will each represent? There's no constant "Oh, you have a 1% chance to jam the lock forever."

 

That, and, it'd be MUCH more interesting to be able to jam a lock, and that mean you'd have to get past the locked thing via some other means (blow the door down or something, attracting a lot of attention, or possibly wounding your party in the blast, or damaging something on the other side of the door, etc.), than just "Lolz! You had a chance to screw yourself, and you did!"

 

Hard chances for everything just don't really transition well into a cRPG. Chance is great, but it's not the end-all-be-all to decide everything. You don't want to turn all character development choices into "improve this, and there's just a better chance it'll actually matter than before, instead of some kind of definite improvement to anything."

[archangel979]

 

They also knew a good number of players would want to play on Easy so they included that as well. Allowing savescuming was design choice just like having 4 difficulties is a design choice. Savescuming reduces the difficulty of the game and as such is not much different then difficulty sliders.

A choice implies that it was deliberate. It seems more likely that it is simply a result of the mechanical design.

 

I doubt there are many developers that sat down for a meeting to discuss how they can implement save scumming in their game.

 

One of developers from InXile forums (Sea):

If you want to save-scum and feel spending the time at loading screens is worth it, that's fine. If you want to accept random outcomes and boost your skills to levels that ensure better success, that's also fine. And if you want to develop or use a mod to make those random odds flat success/failure thresholds, to make the random seed fixed, etc. then you're welcome.

https://forums.inxile-entertainment.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=9758&p=128998#p128820

[Lephys]

A choice implies that it was deliberate. It seems more likely that it is simply a result of the mechanical design.

 

I doubt there are many developers that sat down for a meeting to discuss how they can implement save scumming in their game.

This. By the very nature of the ability to save the state of your game whenever/wherever, you are allowed to re-do things for different outcomes. Doesn't mean that the "rules of the game" are "just reload whenever you want a different outcome! 8D!"

 

Even if that WAS the intention, it would STILL be terrible design, because the game's basically saying "we want you to always be able to get the optimal outcome on anything, but we want you to have to go through a bunch of random, redundant reloads until you actually get it! 8D!" That would be the most convoluted/inefficient design ever.

 

You might as well just make Wizards cast a spell at random. And you'd have to reload and try again to get the spell you actually wanted, saving in between each success. Oodles of fun.

[archangel979]

 

A choice implies that it was deliberate. It seems more likely that it is simply a result of the mechanical design.

 

I doubt there are many developers that sat down for a meeting to discuss how they can implement save scumming in their game.

This. By the very nature of the ability to save the state of your game whenever/wherever, you are allowed to re-do things for different outcomes. Doesn't mean that the "rules of the game" are "just reload whenever you want a different outcome! 8D!"

 

Even if that WAS the intention, it would STILL be terrible design, because the game's basically saying "we want you to always be able to get the optimal outcome on anything, but we want you to have to go through a bunch of random, redundant reloads until you actually get it! 8D!" That would be the most convoluted/inefficient design ever.

 

You might as well just make Wizards cast a spell at random. And you'd have to reload and try again to get the spell you actually wanted, saving in between each success. Oodles of fun.

 

Most games support save scuming in one way or another and build their game around it. Any game that has hard bosses where you have to learn its move before you can beat him are games that support savescuming. The Devs expect players to load previous save and go at it again and again until they succeed.

And this has been going on since the games existed. Even Pacman was a savescumming game where it was expected that you would be trying same levels again and again but load game was the start not wherever player wanted.

So when you are complaining about bad design you are complaining about who knows how many games. Shadowrun Returns had a kind of anti savescum save system where you could only save game at start of the mission and people went berserk because of it and accused the devs of being bad and not having real save system.

[archangel979]

As for WL2, people that complain more often than not just want to succeed at all rolls. Complaining about savescumming is actually a complaint about it taking so much time to always succeed. The threshold system is just such a system for people that want to always succeed. Same for all those minigames for unlocking and such (I don't remember last time I failed one of those in a game).

 

The WL2 RNG is meant to be failed on occasion with the penalty being needing to waste time savescumming or giving up and continuing with a failure (oh damn, how will poor player's Ego survive that...). You just don't understand that and you think its purpose is to always succeed like those other games.

[Lephys]

Most games support save scuming in one way or another and build their game around it. Any game that has hard bosses where you have to learn its move before you can beat him are games that support savescuming. The Devs expect players to load previous save and go at it again and again until they succeed.

Not the same thing at all. If you die, for example, then decide to load a save instead of making a whole new game, that's not save-scumming. That's just called "loading." That's kind of the purpose of the system. You're also not circumventing anything. You can't make a game that allows someone to replay it while retaining no meta knowledge of anything that's going to occur in the second playthrough. You could learn how to more easily beat a boss, then just finish the whole game, start a new one, and beat him more easily the second time. You never had to reload, and you haven't circumvented anything at all. You still had to beat the boss.

 

There may be other culprits, but chance is the main one I can think of. The entire purpose of chance, as opposed to a definite outcome, is to have the chance of different outcomes, no matter what you do (at some point -- you can usually minimize/maximize risks by tackling a check with a higher stat/skill rating instead of a lower one, but chance's purpose is still to provide a chance that something happens as opposed to something else, instead of a single outcome). The entire purpose of save-scumming is to trash all the outcomes you don't want until you get the one you do want.

 

It's self-defeating. You can't want both of those things to occur at the same time and retain sanity. You can't WANT to be able to break off a lockpick in a lock, but simultaneously want to always successfully pick every lock.

 

The design of the game was for the lock to not be mandatory to pick. The boss IS mandatory to fight. That's another significant difference. If you jam the lock, some bit of content is simply excluded from your playthrough. If you don't beat a boss, you either don't proceed past that point in the narrative, and/or you die and don't even continue playing the game (without reloading or starting a new game, which is really just "reloading" from as far back as you possible can).

[archangel979]

No, it is same. The difference is that game devs know players will savescum and they expect them too. So they design fights that will take advantage of that while players don't feel like the fights are too tough. BG2: ToB was made similarly, most enemies had immunities and abilities that you could not find out about before you fought it. So you died and tried again and again. The game was built around save scumming.

 

On the other side, Xcom could be finished on Classic(or Normal) Ironman without needing to know in advance all enemy strengths. Just by your conservative ways of playing you could deal with all new enemies and still continue without needing to savescum to finish the game.

Edited October 5, 2014 by archangel979

[Lephys]

As for WL2, people that complain more often than not just want to succeed at all rolls. Complaining about savescumming is actually a complaint about it taking so much time to always succeed. The threshold system is just such a system for people that want to always succeed. Same for all those minigames for unlocking and such (I don't remember last time I failed one of those in a game).

For one thing, that kind of supports my point. If it's "supposed" to allow you to always succeed, why should it take so long when there are easier options for allowing that without requiring redundant play? And if it's not, then why is the system set up to allow it?

 

Secondly, why do you put points into, say, lockpicking, for your character? Because you want him to pick locks, right? As opposed to not-picking locks. Thus, if you put 73 points into lockpicking, you expect to pick a lot of locks. What if you want to pick ALL the locks in a game? Not just arbitrarily. You want to build your character to be able to do that. Well, you max out Lockpicking, and still, you just randomly fail at some locks. Because. One playthrough, you could get lucky and pick every single lock successfully. Another playthrough, you could fail at 20 locks and jam them. What good does that do to the whole game's design? Why does the game give you the option to decide to make a character that picks locks, as opposed to a character who doesn't (0 or really-low lockpicking skill value), THEN just make your success random anyway?

 

What if it did combat like that? "Oh, you have the best armor in the game, and the best weapons and everything, and you've maxed out your combat skills. Roll for combat victory. OHHHH it landed on 3. I'm sorry, but you lost." Wouldn't that be silly?

 

So, really, how crazy is it to use thresholds? If the game's going to ask "what do you want your character to do," shouldn't it provide (at least at some point -- maybe you have a chance to fail until you reach a certain threshold?) an option for your character to actually DO that, and not just a "what do you want your character to fail a lot less at?"?

 

Again, this is one thing I love about PoE's Attack Resolution. You can ALWAYS do better or worse with any given attack roll, but if you're good enough, you can't just FAIL (miss), and if you're bad enough, you can't just randomly critically hit something.

 

I'm not bashing chance. I'm saying that it doesn't cover everything that's intended. Just because you want chance to be a factor doesn't mean you want it to rule the world.

Edited October 5, 2014 by Lephys

[Lephys]

No, it is same. The difference is that game devs know players will savescum and they expect them too. So they design fights that will take advantage of that while players don't feel like the fights are too tough. BG2: ToB was made similarly, most enemies had immunities and abilities that you could not find out about before you fought it. So you died and tried again and again. The game was built around save scumming.

Yeah, and that's a terrible way to build a game. That's like playing checkers with someone who doesn't know the rules of checkers. Nothing is gained by doing that, because no one's even "figuring" anything out. They're just "learning" the rules. If that dragon fights you and casts "everyone within 20 feet is dead," then you just learn "Oh, well obviously if I don't want to die, I don't stand within 20 feet of the dragon, or don't let him cast that." You didn't puzzle anything out. You just observed.

 

Someone who goes outside when it's raining doesn't suddenly figure out how to repel rain. They knew an umbrella did the trick. They just didn't know it was going to rain.

 

Anyway, it's STILL not the same, because you can retry one of those fights 73 times, and until you actually do something differently, you aren't going to win. If I keep rushing the kill-within-20-feet dragon, it's never just going to randomly not have that spell anymore, and result in my party just all living and winning the fight.

 

Having a chance-governed roll that determines an outcome, and reloading to get a different one is completely different. You can't DO anything to make the roll land on "SUCCESS!", or to not-land on "FAILURE!". And, again, the entire purpose of chance is negated by circumventing it, because the chance that you will eventually succeed if you roll enough times is greater than zero. You're turning chance into non-chance. Again, a simple toggle option would work way better, if that was the intent.