WTF is wrong with Obsidian?

[Elerond]

To be fair, both Obsidian and Paizo implied that there would be a Pathfinder CRPG down the line after the tablet game.

 

Of course we haven't heard anything about it since then...

 

As they mentioned that Paizo don't publish the card game, I had to wonder if Paizo plans to publish that CRPG that they hint about or do they hope that Obsidian finds somebody else to publish it and they work only in role of the license holder.

[Flouride]

I enjoy Armored Warfare, though it's not exactly what I would want about 100 of Obsidian employess to be working on, instead of numerous new cRPG IP's. But I get it from the business point of view. Without it, they would have had to fire ****loads of people, not to mention it has allowed them to grow. And if it's as succesful as WoT it will help them fund their own IP's in the future.

 

Personally I'm anxious to hear about the PoE expansion packs and that unannounced project they are working on.

[Fardragon]

Tank MMOs and mobile card games. Looks like Obsidian has decided to try making money instead of interesting games.

[Luridis]

 

student majoring in Computer Science, a game hobbyist and an amateur game developer.

 

Emphasis mine... And that says it all right there.

 

Crowd funding is still funding, and thus has a bottom. I'll also note that some of the problems we experience are likely due to the Unity engine. In my personal experience playing games made on the engine, I would say that increased complexity makes the engine progressively more flaky. Sure, its fine for something like angry birds, but end up with anything like a massive script library of functions and/or objects and it shows weakness. I suspect this might be due to its massively cross platform design, trying to create essentially the same experience everywhere.

 

The bottom line OP is that you still haven't figured out how the world works. When you do, you'll see that the system around you is driven by greed and it sucks. And, in the end, you'll end up doing the best you can within that system like everyone else, unless you get lucky.

[Luridis]

I know that most of you know this, but I will reiterate...

 

Making games is hard. Making complex RPGs is even harder. Take it from a person that has worked on a few different styles of games, these sprawling RPGs are insanely complex in comparison. Systems are weaved into a bunch of other systems and even the tiniest change can cause a wave of instability throughout the game.

 

The thing that lots of people forget is that a game is a special piece of software. What I mean is that we can plan out a game completely - all of the design, art, programming, audio, etc. - and it can be executed perfectly... and the game may still be horrible. Proper planning and designing are essential in making great games, but it won't get you there alone. Lots of our ideas sound great on paper, but in practice they fall flat. Making great games require myriad adjustments and changes.

 

Sometimes these changes are minor and don't require adjustments to a previously implemented system. Those are the best kind of changes. Other times you need to make sweeping changes to a system that have long term, rippling repercussions. We try to avoid those types of changes, but sometimes it is the only way to make something fun. As a real world example, there were some classes in PoE that went through some pretty drastic changes from their original designs. This happened because, once we started using the classes in an actual game environment, we found they weren't as fun or useful as we wanted. We could have left the original designs in place (and maybe it would have given us a more polished experience), but it might have made a game that wasn't as fun.

 

All of this isn't to say that the project's management team is without blame. Far from it. None of these decisions are made in a vacuum and for every planned feature we change, we should be taking it out of something else - either a time buffer or another feature (or, if you are lucky, you can get more budget/time). That means if we want to revamp one of our classes, the responsible thing to do would be to see how much it will cost (in resources and time) to implement these changes and pull that from something else. It is a constant push and pull and I will be the first to admit that I can always do better in this department.

 

Overall, I was very pleased with what we accomplished on the limited budget and resources. Nowadays games of this size have budgets anywhere from three to ten times what our team was working with.

 

The important thing is to take the lessons learned from PoE and move it forward into our future projects. Much easier said than done, though.

 

I don't think a lot of people realize... RPG mechanics are a spider web and that making a change anywhere on that web causes all of the other parts of the web to change position slightly. Changing a class's armor value can cause healers to become OP, or UP. Change a group buff and suddenly and entire class of monsters are too weak to be considered threatening.

 

I'm not a game dev, but I suspect creating balance is one of the hardest parts of your job and involves lots of spreadsheets.

[Fardragon]

 

I know that most of you know this, but I will reiterate...

 

Making games is hard. Making complex RPGs is even harder. Take it from a person that has worked on a few different styles of games, these sprawling RPGs are insanely complex in comparison. Systems are weaved into a bunch of other systems and even the tiniest change can cause a wave of instability throughout the game.

 

The thing that lots of people forget is that a game is a special piece of software. What I mean is that we can plan out a game completely - all of the design, art, programming, audio, etc. - and it can be executed perfectly... and the game may still be horrible. Proper planning and designing are essential in making great games, but it won't get you there alone. Lots of our ideas sound great on paper, but in practice they fall flat. Making great games require myriad adjustments and changes.

 

Sometimes these changes are minor and don't require adjustments to a previously implemented system. Those are the best kind of changes. Other times you need to make sweeping changes to a system that have long term, rippling repercussions. We try to avoid those types of changes, but sometimes it is the only way to make something fun. As a real world example, there were some classes in PoE that went through some pretty drastic changes from their original designs. This happened because, once we started using the classes in an actual game environment, we found they weren't as fun or useful as we wanted. We could have left the original designs in place (and maybe it would have given us a more polished experience), but it might have made a game that wasn't as fun.

 

All of this isn't to say that the project's management team is without blame. Far from it. None of these decisions are made in a vacuum and for every planned feature we change, we should be taking it out of something else - either a time buffer or another feature (or, if you are lucky, you can get more budget/time). That means if we want to revamp one of our classes, the responsible thing to do would be to see how much it will cost (in resources and time) to implement these changes and pull that from something else. It is a constant push and pull and I will be the first to admit that I can always do better in this department.

 

Overall, I was very pleased with what we accomplished on the limited budget and resources. Nowadays games of this size have budgets anywhere from three to ten times what our team was working with.

 

The important thing is to take the lessons learned from PoE and move it forward into our future projects. Much easier said than done, though.

 

I don't think a lot of people realize... RPG mechanics are a spider web and that making a change anywhere on that web causes all of the other parts of the web to change position slightly. Changing a class's armor value can cause healers to become OP, or UP. Change a group buff and suddenly and entire class of monsters are too weak to be considered threatening.

 

I'm not a game dev, but I suspect creating balance is one of the hardest parts of your job and involves lots of spreadsheets.

 

That's why it's a good idea to use an existing ruleset, rather than try to create one from scratch.

 

But the thing about "balance" is it a much more recent concept than the RPG. It didn't really become a big deal until the 90s. RPGs had got along perfectly well without it for 20 years.

[Elerond]

 

 

I know that most of you know this, but I will reiterate...

 

Making games is hard. Making complex RPGs is even harder. Take it from a person that has worked on a few different styles of games, these sprawling RPGs are insanely complex in comparison. Systems are weaved into a bunch of other systems and even the tiniest change can cause a wave of instability throughout the game.

 

The thing that lots of people forget is that a game is a special piece of software. What I mean is that we can plan out a game completely - all of the design, art, programming, audio, etc. - and it can be executed perfectly... and the game may still be horrible. Proper planning and designing are essential in making great games, but it won't get you there alone. Lots of our ideas sound great on paper, but in practice they fall flat. Making great games require myriad adjustments and changes.

 

Sometimes these changes are minor and don't require adjustments to a previously implemented system. Those are the best kind of changes. Other times you need to make sweeping changes to a system that have long term, rippling repercussions. We try to avoid those types of changes, but sometimes it is the only way to make something fun. As a real world example, there were some classes in PoE that went through some pretty drastic changes from their original designs. This happened because, once we started using the classes in an actual game environment, we found they weren't as fun or useful as we wanted. We could have left the original designs in place (and maybe it would have given us a more polished experience), but it might have made a game that wasn't as fun.

 

All of this isn't to say that the project's management team is without blame. Far from it. None of these decisions are made in a vacuum and for every planned feature we change, we should be taking it out of something else - either a time buffer or another feature (or, if you are lucky, you can get more budget/time). That means if we want to revamp one of our classes, the responsible thing to do would be to see how much it will cost (in resources and time) to implement these changes and pull that from something else. It is a constant push and pull and I will be the first to admit that I can always do better in this department.

 

Overall, I was very pleased with what we accomplished on the limited budget and resources. Nowadays games of this size have budgets anywhere from three to ten times what our team was working with.

 

The important thing is to take the lessons learned from PoE and move it forward into our future projects. Much easier said than done, though.

 

I don't think a lot of people realize... RPG mechanics are a spider web and that making a change anywhere on that web causes all of the other parts of the web to change position slightly. Changing a class's armor value can cause healers to become OP, or UP. Change a group buff and suddenly and entire class of monsters are too weak to be considered threatening.

 

I'm not a game dev, but I suspect creating balance is one of the hardest parts of your job and involves lots of spreadsheets.

 

That's why it's a good idea to use an existing ruleset, rather than try to create one from scratch.

 

But the thing about "balance" is it a much more recent concept than the RPG. It didn't really become a big deal until the 90s. RPGs had got along perfectly well without it for 20 years.

 

 

Balance has been there from beginning of RPGs. People just don't understand what it actually means.

[majestic]

That's why it's a good idea to use an existing ruleset, rather than try to create one from scratch.

 

But the thing about "balance" is it a much more recent concept than the RPG. It didn't really become a big deal until the 90s. RPGs had got along perfectly well without it for 20 years.

 

Class balance is swapping over from multiplayer games where it is somewhat necessary, and there only mostly due to PVP scales becoming ever smaller and honestly I don't really understand why it is necessary in single player games. All of the Infinity Engine games are a jumbled mess when it comes to class balance and people stll loved them and, well, they still play them to this day. They were popular enough to spawn enhanced editions and ports to other platforms.

 

Yet, for some reason, we can't have a patch for Pillars of Eternity without it fiddling with some class element, and I'm not talking about removing obvious bugs like retaliation stacking with the fire godlike + barbarian AoE damage bonus or chants that say 20% increase but in reality double it. No, I'm talking about things like bringing down the nerfbat to ancient memories so hard you're glad you can respec Kana.

Edited June 14, 2015 by majestic

[Fardragon]

 

 

 

I know that most of you know this, but I will reiterate...

 

Making games is hard. Making complex RPGs is even harder. Take it from a person that has worked on a few different styles of games, these sprawling RPGs are insanely complex in comparison. Systems are weaved into a bunch of other systems and even the tiniest change can cause a wave of instability throughout the game.

 

The thing that lots of people forget is that a game is a special piece of software. What I mean is that we can plan out a game completely - all of the design, art, programming, audio, etc. - and it can be executed perfectly... and the game may still be horrible. Proper planning and designing are essential in making great games, but it won't get you there alone. Lots of our ideas sound great on paper, but in practice they fall flat. Making great games require myriad adjustments and changes.

 

Sometimes these changes are minor and don't require adjustments to a previously implemented system. Those are the best kind of changes. Other times you need to make sweeping changes to a system that have long term, rippling repercussions. We try to avoid those types of changes, but sometimes it is the only way to make something fun. As a real world example, there were some classes in PoE that went through some pretty drastic changes from their original designs. This happened because, once we started using the classes in an actual game environment, we found they weren't as fun or useful as we wanted. We could have left the original designs in place (and maybe it would have given us a more polished experience), but it might have made a game that wasn't as fun.

 

All of this isn't to say that the project's management team is without blame. Far from it. None of these decisions are made in a vacuum and for every planned feature we change, we should be taking it out of something else - either a time buffer or another feature (or, if you are lucky, you can get more budget/time). That means if we want to revamp one of our classes, the responsible thing to do would be to see how much it will cost (in resources and time) to implement these changes and pull that from something else. It is a constant push and pull and I will be the first to admit that I can always do better in this department.

 

Overall, I was very pleased with what we accomplished on the limited budget and resources. Nowadays games of this size have budgets anywhere from three to ten times what our team was working with.

 

The important thing is to take the lessons learned from PoE and move it forward into our future projects. Much easier said than done, though.

 

I don't think a lot of people realize... RPG mechanics are a spider web and that making a change anywhere on that web causes all of the other parts of the web to change position slightly. Changing a class's armor value can cause healers to become OP, or UP. Change a group buff and suddenly and entire class of monsters are too weak to be considered threatening.

 

I'm not a game dev, but I suspect creating balance is one of the hardest parts of your job and involves lots of spreadsheets.

 

That's why it's a good idea to use an existing ruleset, rather than try to create one from scratch.

 

But the thing about "balance" is it a much more recent concept than the RPG. It didn't really become a big deal until the 90s. RPGs had got along perfectly well without it for 20 years.

 

 

Balance has been there from beginning of RPGs. People just don't understand what it actually means.

 

As someone who has been playing RPGs since 1979, I can tell you that simply isn't true.

 

 

This is what I played:

 

AD&D 1st edition: no class balance, no attempt at class balance.

 

Traveller: RNG character generation could give you a 22 year old Scout with Pilot-1, or a 48 year olds space marine with Plasma Weapons-5, Demolitions-3, Leadership-3 and Vac Suit-1. 

 

FASA Star Trek: Similar to Traveller, RNG character generation took you through your previous career, giving you a character ranging from super-spock to redshirt.

 

Golden Heroes: RNG character generation could give you Superman or Hawkeye.

 

 

Balance WASN'T EVEN MENTIONED in the 80s. It started to be discussed in the 90s, but it didn't become an all powerful god until MMOs became popular.

Edited June 14, 2015 by Fardragon

[Elerond]

 

 

 

 

I know that most of you know this, but I will reiterate...

 

Making games is hard. Making complex RPGs is even harder. Take it from a person that has worked on a few different styles of games, these sprawling RPGs are insanely complex in comparison. Systems are weaved into a bunch of other systems and even the tiniest change can cause a wave of instability throughout the game.

 

The thing that lots of people forget is that a game is a special piece of software. What I mean is that we can plan out a game completely - all of the design, art, programming, audio, etc. - and it can be executed perfectly... and the game may still be horrible. Proper planning and designing are essential in making great games, but it won't get you there alone. Lots of our ideas sound great on paper, but in practice they fall flat. Making great games require myriad adjustments and changes.

 

Sometimes these changes are minor and don't require adjustments to a previously implemented system. Those are the best kind of changes. Other times you need to make sweeping changes to a system that have long term, rippling repercussions. We try to avoid those types of changes, but sometimes it is the only way to make something fun. As a real world example, there were some classes in PoE that went through some pretty drastic changes from their original designs. This happened because, once we started using the classes in an actual game environment, we found they weren't as fun or useful as we wanted. We could have left the original designs in place (and maybe it would have given us a more polished experience), but it might have made a game that wasn't as fun.

 

All of this isn't to say that the project's management team is without blame. Far from it. None of these decisions are made in a vacuum and for every planned feature we change, we should be taking it out of something else - either a time buffer or another feature (or, if you are lucky, you can get more budget/time). That means if we want to revamp one of our classes, the responsible thing to do would be to see how much it will cost (in resources and time) to implement these changes and pull that from something else. It is a constant push and pull and I will be the first to admit that I can always do better in this department.

 

Overall, I was very pleased with what we accomplished on the limited budget and resources. Nowadays games of this size have budgets anywhere from three to ten times what our team was working with.

 

The important thing is to take the lessons learned from PoE and move it forward into our future projects. Much easier said than done, though.

 

I don't think a lot of people realize... RPG mechanics are a spider web and that making a change anywhere on that web causes all of the other parts of the web to change position slightly. Changing a class's armor value can cause healers to become OP, or UP. Change a group buff and suddenly and entire class of monsters are too weak to be considered threatening.

 

I'm not a game dev, but I suspect creating balance is one of the hardest parts of your job and involves lots of spreadsheets.

 

That's why it's a good idea to use an existing ruleset, rather than try to create one from scratch.

 

But the thing about "balance" is it a much more recent concept than the RPG. It didn't really become a big deal until the 90s. RPGs had got along perfectly well without it for 20 years.

 

 

Balance has been there from beginning of RPGs. People just don't understand what it actually means.

 

As someone who has been playing RPGs since 1979, I can tell you that simply isn't true.

 

 

This is what I played:

 

AD&D 1st edition: no class balance, no attempt at class balance.

 

Traveller: RNG character generation could give you a 22 year old Scout with Pilot-1, or a 48 year olds space marine with Plasma Weapons-5, Demolitions-3, Leadership-3 and Vac Suit-1. 

 

FASA Star Trek: Similar to Traveller, RNG character generation took you through your previous career, giving you a character ranging from super-spock to redshirt.

 

Golden Heroes: RNG character generation could give you Superman or Hawkeye.

 

 

Balance WASN'T EVEN MENTIONED in the 80s. It started to be discussed in the 90s, but it didn't become an all powerful god until MMOs became popular.

 

 

I have played RPGs from beginning (EDIT: Or at least near beginning) and I know for certain that balance has been part of them from beginning, it is just that people don't know what it actually means, which seems to be the case with you.

Edited June 14, 2015 by Elerond

[Gnostic]

 

 

 

 

 

I know that most of you know this, but I will reiterate...

 

Making games is hard. Making complex RPGs is even harder. Take it from a person that has worked on a few different styles of games, these sprawling RPGs are insanely complex in comparison. Systems are weaved into a bunch of other systems and even the tiniest change can cause a wave of instability throughout the game.

 

The thing that lots of people forget is that a game is a special piece of software. What I mean is that we can plan out a game completely - all of the design, art, programming, audio, etc. - and it can be executed perfectly... and the game may still be horrible. Proper planning and designing are essential in making great games, but it won't get you there alone. Lots of our ideas sound great on paper, but in practice they fall flat. Making great games require myriad adjustments and changes.

 

Sometimes these changes are minor and don't require adjustments to a previously implemented system. Those are the best kind of changes. Other times you need to make sweeping changes to a system that have long term, rippling repercussions. We try to avoid those types of changes, but sometimes it is the only way to make something fun. As a real world example, there were some classes in PoE that went through some pretty drastic changes from their original designs. This happened because, once we started using the classes in an actual game environment, we found they weren't as fun or useful as we wanted. We could have left the original designs in place (and maybe it would have given us a more polished experience), but it might have made a game that wasn't as fun.

 

All of this isn't to say that the project's management team is without blame. Far from it. None of these decisions are made in a vacuum and for every planned feature we change, we should be taking it out of something else - either a time buffer or another feature (or, if you are lucky, you can get more budget/time). That means if we want to revamp one of our classes, the responsible thing to do would be to see how much it will cost (in resources and time) to implement these changes and pull that from something else. It is a constant push and pull and I will be the first to admit that I can always do better in this department.

 

Overall, I was very pleased with what we accomplished on the limited budget and resources. Nowadays games of this size have budgets anywhere from three to ten times what our team was working with.

 

The important thing is to take the lessons learned from PoE and move it forward into our future projects. Much easier said than done, though.

 

I don't think a lot of people realize... RPG mechanics are a spider web and that making a change anywhere on that web causes all of the other parts of the web to change position slightly. Changing a class's armor value can cause healers to become OP, or UP. Change a group buff and suddenly and entire class of monsters are too weak to be considered threatening.

 

I'm not a game dev, but I suspect creating balance is one of the hardest parts of your job and involves lots of spreadsheets.

 

That's why it's a good idea to use an existing ruleset, rather than try to create one from scratch.

 

But the thing about "balance" is it a much more recent concept than the RPG. It didn't really become a big deal until the 90s. RPGs had got along perfectly well without it for 20 years.

 

 

Balance has been there from beginning of RPGs. People just don't understand what it actually means.

 

As someone who has been playing RPGs since 1979, I can tell you that simply isn't true.

 

 

This is what I played:

 

AD&D 1st edition: no class balance, no attempt at class balance.

 

Traveller: RNG character generation could give you a 22 year old Scout with Pilot-1, or a 48 year olds space marine with Plasma Weapons-5, Demolitions-3, Leadership-3 and Vac Suit-1. 

 

FASA Star Trek: Similar to Traveller, RNG character generation took you through your previous career, giving you a character ranging from super-spock to redshirt.

 

Golden Heroes: RNG character generation could give you Superman or Hawkeye.

 

 

Balance WASN'T EVEN MENTIONED in the 80s. It started to be discussed in the 90s, but it didn't become an all powerful god until MMOs became popular.

 

 

I have played RPGs from beginning (EDIT: Or at least near beginning) and I know for certain that balance has been part of them from beginning, it is just that people don't know what it actually means, which seems to be the case with you.

 

 

The margin for error in balancing Single Player is very high as opposed to multiplayer.

 

Rather than balance, it is more like different style of playing.

 

Why would I care the mage have a instant kill spell if I am not competing against anyone? Why should I care the paladin invincible skill last too long if no one use him but me? In the name of FUN I can throw balance into the wind and make my OP as overpower as possible.

 

The only balance will be to balance the characters and enemies so the player will not be bored with push over battles.

[Fardragon]

 

 

 

 

 

 

I know that most of you know this, but I will reiterate...

 

Making games is hard. Making complex RPGs is even harder. Take it from a person that has worked on a few different styles of games, these sprawling RPGs are insanely complex in comparison. Systems are weaved into a bunch of other systems and even the tiniest change can cause a wave of instability throughout the game.

 

The thing that lots of people forget is that a game is a special piece of software. What I mean is that we can plan out a game completely - all of the design, art, programming, audio, etc. - and it can be executed perfectly... and the game may still be horrible. Proper planning and designing are essential in making great games, but it won't get you there alone. Lots of our ideas sound great on paper, but in practice they fall flat. Making great games require myriad adjustments and changes.

 

Sometimes these changes are minor and don't require adjustments to a previously implemented system. Those are the best kind of changes. Other times you need to make sweeping changes to a system that have long term, rippling repercussions. We try to avoid those types of changes, but sometimes it is the only way to make something fun. As a real world example, there were some classes in PoE that went through some pretty drastic changes from their original designs. This happened because, once we started using the classes in an actual game environment, we found they weren't as fun or useful as we wanted. We could have left the original designs in place (and maybe it would have given us a more polished experience), but it might have made a game that wasn't as fun.

 

All of this isn't to say that the project's management team is without blame. Far from it. None of these decisions are made in a vacuum and for every planned feature we change, we should be taking it out of something else - either a time buffer or another feature (or, if you are lucky, you can get more budget/time). That means if we want to revamp one of our classes, the responsible thing to do would be to see how much it will cost (in resources and time) to implement these changes and pull that from something else. It is a constant push and pull and I will be the first to admit that I can always do better in this department.

 

Overall, I was very pleased with what we accomplished on the limited budget and resources. Nowadays games of this size have budgets anywhere from three to ten times what our team was working with.

 

The important thing is to take the lessons learned from PoE and move it forward into our future projects. Much easier said than done, though.

 

I don't think a lot of people realize... RPG mechanics are a spider web and that making a change anywhere on that web causes all of the other parts of the web to change position slightly. Changing a class's armor value can cause healers to become OP, or UP. Change a group buff and suddenly and entire class of monsters are too weak to be considered threatening.

 

I'm not a game dev, but I suspect creating balance is one of the hardest parts of your job and involves lots of spreadsheets.

 

That's why it's a good idea to use an existing ruleset, rather than try to create one from scratch.

 

But the thing about "balance" is it a much more recent concept than the RPG. It didn't really become a big deal until the 90s. RPGs had got along perfectly well without it for 20 years.

 

 

Balance has been there from beginning of RPGs. People just don't understand what it actually means.

 

As someone who has been playing RPGs since 1979, I can tell you that simply isn't true.

 

 

This is what I played:

 

AD&D 1st edition: no class balance, no attempt at class balance.

 

Traveller: RNG character generation could give you a 22 year old Scout with Pilot-1, or a 48 year olds space marine with Plasma Weapons-5, Demolitions-3, Leadership-3 and Vac Suit-1. 

 

FASA Star Trek: Similar to Traveller, RNG character generation took you through your previous career, giving you a character ranging from super-spock to redshirt.

 

Golden Heroes: RNG character generation could give you Superman or Hawkeye.

 

 

Balance WASN'T EVEN MENTIONED in the 80s. It started to be discussed in the 90s, but it didn't become an all powerful god until MMOs became popular.

 

 

I have played RPGs from beginning (EDIT: Or at least near beginning) and I know for certain that balance has been part of them from beginning, it is just that people don't know what it actually means, which seems to be the case with you.

 

 

The margin for error in balancing Single Player is very high as opposed to multiplayer.

 

Rather than balance, it is more like different style of playing.

 

Why would I care the mage have a instant kill spell if I am not competing against anyone? Why should I care the paladin invincible skill last too long if no one use him but me? In the name of FUN I can throw balance into the wind and make my OP as overpower as possible.

 

The only balance will be to balance the characters and enemies so the player will not be bored with push over battles.

 

I don't remember there being any single player RPGs in the 1980s (unless you include Fighting Fantasy gamebooks).

[Fardragon]

 

 

 

 

 

I know that most of you know this, but I will reiterate...

 

Making games is hard. Making complex RPGs is even harder. Take it from a person that has worked on a few different styles of games, these sprawling RPGs are insanely complex in comparison. Systems are weaved into a bunch of other systems and even the tiniest change can cause a wave of instability throughout the game.

 

The thing that lots of people forget is that a game is a special piece of software. What I mean is that we can plan out a game completely - all of the design, art, programming, audio, etc. - and it can be executed perfectly... and the game may still be horrible. Proper planning and designing are essential in making great games, but it won't get you there alone. Lots of our ideas sound great on paper, but in practice they fall flat. Making great games require myriad adjustments and changes.

 

Sometimes these changes are minor and don't require adjustments to a previously implemented system. Those are the best kind of changes. Other times you need to make sweeping changes to a system that have long term, rippling repercussions. We try to avoid those types of changes, but sometimes it is the only way to make something fun. As a real world example, there were some classes in PoE that went through some pretty drastic changes from their original designs. This happened because, once we started using the classes in an actual game environment, we found they weren't as fun or useful as we wanted. We could have left the original designs in place (and maybe it would have given us a more polished experience), but it might have made a game that wasn't as fun.

 

All of this isn't to say that the project's management team is without blame. Far from it. None of these decisions are made in a vacuum and for every planned feature we change, we should be taking it out of something else - either a time buffer or another feature (or, if you are lucky, you can get more budget/time). That means if we want to revamp one of our classes, the responsible thing to do would be to see how much it will cost (in resources and time) to implement these changes and pull that from something else. It is a constant push and pull and I will be the first to admit that I can always do better in this department.

 

Overall, I was very pleased with what we accomplished on the limited budget and resources. Nowadays games of this size have budgets anywhere from three to ten times what our team was working with.

 

The important thing is to take the lessons learned from PoE and move it forward into our future projects. Much easier said than done, though.

 

I don't think a lot of people realize... RPG mechanics are a spider web and that making a change anywhere on that web causes all of the other parts of the web to change position slightly. Changing a class's armor value can cause healers to become OP, or UP. Change a group buff and suddenly and entire class of monsters are too weak to be considered threatening.

 

I'm not a game dev, but I suspect creating balance is one of the hardest parts of your job and involves lots of spreadsheets.

 

That's why it's a good idea to use an existing ruleset, rather than try to create one from scratch.

 

But the thing about "balance" is it a much more recent concept than the RPG. It didn't really become a big deal until the 90s. RPGs had got along perfectly well without it for 20 years.

 

 

Balance has been there from beginning of RPGs. People just don't understand what it actually means.

 

As someone who has been playing RPGs since 1979, I can tell you that simply isn't true.

 

 

This is what I played:

 

AD&D 1st edition: no class balance, no attempt at class balance.

 

Traveller: RNG character generation could give you a 22 year old Scout with Pilot-1, or a 48 year olds space marine with Plasma Weapons-5, Demolitions-3, Leadership-3 and Vac Suit-1. 

 

FASA Star Trek: Similar to Traveller, RNG character generation took you through your previous career, giving you a character ranging from super-spock to redshirt.

 

Golden Heroes: RNG character generation could give you Superman or Hawkeye.

 

 

Balance WASN'T EVEN MENTIONED in the 80s. It started to be discussed in the 90s, but it didn't become an all powerful god until MMOs became popular.

 

 

I have played RPGs from beginning (EDIT: Or at least near beginning) and I know for certain that balance has been part of them from beginning, it is just that people don't know what it actually means, which seems to be the case with you.

 

Sure.

 

If you define "balance" as the person who brings the beers and pizza, it has been there since the beginning... 

[Gorth]

Rogue Trader (WH40K predecessor) - Balance is when your dice aren't loaded.

[Gnostic]

 

The margin for error in balancing Single Player is very high as opposed to multiplayer.

 

Rather than balance, it is more like different style of playing.

 

Why would I care the mage have a instant kill spell if I am not competing against anyone? Why should I care the paladin invincible skill last too long if no one use him but me? In the name of FUN I can throw balance into the wind and make my OP as overpower as possible.

 

The only balance will be to balance the characters and enemies so the player will not be bored with push over battles.

 

I don't remember there being any single player RPGs in the 1980s (unless you include Fighting Fantasy gamebooks).

 

 

I remember I cannot 1 hit kill anyone, be invincible, have infinate money unless I cheat. So there is a little balance. Just not so prominent until PvP multi player is introduced.

[Fardragon]

 

 

The margin for error in balancing Single Player is very high as opposed to multiplayer.

 

Rather than balance, it is more like different style of playing.

 

Why would I care the mage have a instant kill spell if I am not competing against anyone? Why should I care the paladin invincible skill last too long if no one use him but me? In the name of FUN I can throw balance into the wind and make my OP as overpower as possible.

 

The only balance will be to balance the characters and enemies so the player will not be bored with push over battles.

 

I don't remember there being any single player RPGs in the 1980s (unless you include Fighting Fantasy gamebooks).

 

 

I remember I cannot 1 hit kill anyone, be invincible, have infinate money unless I cheat. So there is a little balance. Just not so prominent until PvP multi player is introduced.

 

AD&D First edition? You certainly could have 1 hit kills and be invincible. Golden Heroes, you could have those and infinite money too (via an Advantageous Background).

 

But I was talking about role playing, not PvP (AKA pissing contests for adolescent boys), an abomination that wasn't designed into games in the 1980s.

[Elerond]

 

 

 

 

 

 

I know that most of you know this, but I will reiterate...

 

Making games is hard. Making complex RPGs is even harder. Take it from a person that has worked on a few different styles of games, these sprawling RPGs are insanely complex in comparison. Systems are weaved into a bunch of other systems and even the tiniest change can cause a wave of instability throughout the game.

 

The thing that lots of people forget is that a game is a special piece of software. What I mean is that we can plan out a game completely - all of the design, art, programming, audio, etc. - and it can be executed perfectly... and the game may still be horrible. Proper planning and designing are essential in making great games, but it won't get you there alone. Lots of our ideas sound great on paper, but in practice they fall flat. Making great games require myriad adjustments and changes.

 

Sometimes these changes are minor and don't require adjustments to a previously implemented system. Those are the best kind of changes. Other times you need to make sweeping changes to a system that have long term, rippling repercussions. We try to avoid those types of changes, but sometimes it is the only way to make something fun. As a real world example, there were some classes in PoE that went through some pretty drastic changes from their original designs. This happened because, once we started using the classes in an actual game environment, we found they weren't as fun or useful as we wanted. We could have left the original designs in place (and maybe it would have given us a more polished experience), but it might have made a game that wasn't as fun.

 

All of this isn't to say that the project's management team is without blame. Far from it. None of these decisions are made in a vacuum and for every planned feature we change, we should be taking it out of something else - either a time buffer or another feature (or, if you are lucky, you can get more budget/time). That means if we want to revamp one of our classes, the responsible thing to do would be to see how much it will cost (in resources and time) to implement these changes and pull that from something else. It is a constant push and pull and I will be the first to admit that I can always do better in this department.

 

Overall, I was very pleased with what we accomplished on the limited budget and resources. Nowadays games of this size have budgets anywhere from three to ten times what our team was working with.

 

The important thing is to take the lessons learned from PoE and move it forward into our future projects. Much easier said than done, though.

 

I don't think a lot of people realize... RPG mechanics are a spider web and that making a change anywhere on that web causes all of the other parts of the web to change position slightly. Changing a class's armor value can cause healers to become OP, or UP. Change a group buff and suddenly and entire class of monsters are too weak to be considered threatening.

 

I'm not a game dev, but I suspect creating balance is one of the hardest parts of your job and involves lots of spreadsheets.

 

That's why it's a good idea to use an existing ruleset, rather than try to create one from scratch.

 

But the thing about "balance" is it a much more recent concept than the RPG. It didn't really become a big deal until the 90s. RPGs had got along perfectly well without it for 20 years.

 

 

Balance has been there from beginning of RPGs. People just don't understand what it actually means.

 

As someone who has been playing RPGs since 1979, I can tell you that simply isn't true.

 

 

This is what I played:

 

AD&D 1st edition: no class balance, no attempt at class balance.

 

Traveller: RNG character generation could give you a 22 year old Scout with Pilot-1, or a 48 year olds space marine with Plasma Weapons-5, Demolitions-3, Leadership-3 and Vac Suit-1. 

 

FASA Star Trek: Similar to Traveller, RNG character generation took you through your previous career, giving you a character ranging from super-spock to redshirt.

 

Golden Heroes: RNG character generation could give you Superman or Hawkeye.

 

 

Balance WASN'T EVEN MENTIONED in the 80s. It started to be discussed in the 90s, but it didn't become an all powerful god until MMOs became popular.

 

 

I have played RPGs from beginning (EDIT: Or at least near beginning) and I know for certain that balance has been part of them from beginning, it is just that people don't know what it actually means, which seems to be the case with you.

 

Sure.

 

If you define "balance" as the person who brings the beers and pizza, it has been there since the beginning... 

 

 

Game balance, class balance, over powered classes, skill, abilities, weapons, etc. are term that are used from beginning. And every class based rpg has class balance designed in them, because classes always have roles that they are meant to fulfill, things which they are strong and things that they are weak. It was just that in those first rpgs designers sometimes intentionally but often unintentionally make some classes much better than other, which was sometimes problematic especially when they started to make crpgs from those systems, as it made designing games difficult, which lead to design practices that focus on more evenly balanced class balance, because it makes life of level and system designers easier. This focusing on making class balance more even seems to be what people these days call "balance", which is in my opinion misleading, because it gives picture that designers didn't try to balance classes in past, which is untrue, but in P&P rpgs even class balance isn't that important because there is dungeon master whose job is to make game entertaining and challenging to all the players. But in CRPGs there is no DM, which means level and system designers need before hand make game such that it is entertaining, challenging and passable to all the class options that they give player, because otherwise they just do poor job.

 

But anyway "balance" has been there from beginning, even if greater focus on making it even maybe more recent addition to design principals.

[Fardragon]

Strawman much? Only one of the RPGs I mentioned had classes. Traveller, FASA Star Trek and Golden Heroes where all classless systems.

 

In Traveller especially, it was quite possible to create a character who could do everything, or a character who could do nothing.

Edited June 15, 2015 by Fardragon

[Elerond]

Strawman much? Only one of the RPGs I mentioned had classes. Traveller, FASA Star Trek and Golden Heroes where all classless systems.

 

In Traveller especially, it was quite possible to create a character who could do everything, or a character who could do nothing.

 

I take class balance as example because that is the one aspect that which PoE focused most in balance. In classless systems there is no class balance because there is no classes, so they don't work as good examples when you compare how they are balanced to PoE or any class based RPG.

 

But in classless systems you also find lots of balancing mechanics that try to prevent game become boring, of course lots of systems have failings on this part in their mechanics.

 

For example couple of my favorite RPGs are RuneQuest and Rolemaster which both use classless systems that allows characters to learn everything and become even more powerful than gods if GM don't restrict players with mechanics put in the rules. But as those games has those things in their rules that GM can use to slow down character progression, which allows even years long campaigns where player characters don't become so powerful that it makes playing dull or even need for more and more and more epic adventures. So you only need to look rules and think and you probably find out what kind balancing mechanics game's designers have put in there, of course some games are better than others in this aspect, but that don't mean that their designers didn't think how game mechanics are in balance with each other at least to some extent. 

 

P.S. I would not accuse one of strawmanning when you in same post give false representation of that one's argument yourself 

Edited June 15, 2015 by Elerond

[Fardragon]

All I can conclude is you have never played played any of the RPGs I have mentioned.

 

Really, they have no "balancing mechanics". None Nada Zilch.

Edited June 15, 2015 by Fardragon

[majestic]

I don't remember there being any single player RPGs in the 1980s (unless you include Fighting Fantasy gamebooks).

 

 

Not sure if I misunderstood what you were trying to say but the Ultima series started in '81 and they were definitely single player cRPGs. Hopelessly primitive by today's standards of course, but single player cRPGs nonetheless.

[Fardragon]

 

I don't remember there being any single player RPGs in the 1980s (unless you include Fighting Fantasy gamebooks).

 

 

Not sure if I misunderstood what you were trying to say but the Ultima series started in '81 and they were definitely single player cRPGs. Hopelessly primitive by today's standards of course, but single player cRPGs nonetheless.

 

Don't think it was available in the UK. Don't think it would have run on my ZX-81 anyway!