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[Pooya]

gamasutra

Obsidian's J.E. Sawyer talk at GDC Europe, I selected parts of it here, great read, a lot more on the site.

Five Hard Lessons
1.) Mechanical chaos -- "randomization as a means to resolve a gameplay conflict" -- is "very frustrating to players," said Sawyer.

Contemporary games which offer FPS-like interfaces still rely on randomized accuracy, which drives players nuts. His own company's Alpha Protocol is one example of this. "No actual human being likes this! You really struggle to get to the point of competence in the game," said Sawyer.

When it comes to randomized lockpicking/hacking/speech/crafting etc., "All it causes is this: 'Yay! I'm gonna reload the game!' There's nothing to prevent me from reloading. Any of these checks where there's something important on the line... It just results in degenerate gameplay behavior."


In short, with this sort of gameplay, gamers have bad experiences "not because they did anything wrong, but the game capriciously decided you fail."

Mass Effect changed its combat from 1 to 2: "Most of the weapons feel a lot better, and what they did was make it feel like a more traditional shooter in many ways," said Sawyer. 


2.) What you perceive in a game is ultimately what matters the most -- Mass Effect had tons of weapons but they were barely differentiated. They had incremental stat differences only.

"What's the chance that a 5 percent difference is going to make you take the enemy down in one fewer hit? If it takes me four shots, but the fourth shot killed him a little more, that doesn't mean anything to me," Sawyer said.

In Alpha Protocol, "The player could get abilities to upgrade their stealth but often they couldn't see the effects in the game," he said. It was widely considered to have a broken stealth system. "It was a cool idea but certain aspects of it didn't feel good because it didn't feedback to the player."

[.......]


3.) Strategic failures feel really bad -- In an extreme example, he mentioned that The Bard's Tale, a 1980s classic, required you to have a bard in your party to progress past a certain point -- something that was not telegraphed by anything but the game's title.

More relevantly, Icewind Dale and Temple of Elemental Evil required the player to create entire parties at the adventure's outset. "The games were tuned for D&D veterans. There are tons of ways you can make strategic errors. There are tons of ways you can make bad parties. What happens is 20 to 30 hours into the game, you can't go any further."

"Yes, the player made the error but we placed a high demand on them," Sawyer said.

In Fallout 1 and 3, specializing in "big guns" was not that useful, as there were few such weapons and they didn't show up early in the game -- neither of which the player could know at the point of character creation. "In Fallout New Vegas, we got rid of the big guns skill and pushed those guns into other gun categories."

"We kept the idea, we wanted the experience, but we didn't want them to have to deal with the weird system," he said.

"I don't see a compelling reason to not" let players re-spec characters that aren't suited to the gameplay design in an RPG, he also added.

4.) Player vs character is a false dichotomy -- "In every game you are expected as a player to use the resources available to you. A player very consciously makes decisions on how to build their character, so really it's about what do you ask the player to do over the course of a game," he said. "You have to be cognizant of what you're demanding of people."

Some games expect the player to manage too many options at once, and often developers argue that this is "dumbing down" the game to reduce them. However, he said, "This isn't about whether an RPG gamer can play twitch gameplay, it's about if a player is asked to manage a lot of stuff you shouldn't ask them to."

"Mental awareness and their ability to engage what's in the game," is something developers need to better pay attention to, said Sawyer.

5.) Summing up the importance of strong gameplay,

[.........]

Never create gameplay mechanics simply because that's "just the way that RPGs are," he cautioned. "If we ignore the lessons that those games [in other genres] teach us then we're really limiting our audience's ability to have fun," he concluded.

this is a slide from his presentation, more here.

 

[GhaleonQ]

I was surprised I liked that so much when I saw it. As long as you're limiting it to a certain line of role-playing games (the user-friendly, mass-market blockbuster, which he makes pretty clear), those were great.

 

[diffusionx]

#6: you don't really need to finish your game before release

 

[Kintaro]

I have love for Obsidian, but did he talk about the importance of bug testing? Because they don't seem to give a flying shit about it. lol

 

[More Fun To Compute]

If strategic failures don't feel bad then strategic successes don't feel good. Two sides of the same coin. Is it true that failures in great action games don't feel bad?

The sorts of strategic problems he is talking about are where the player doesn't have the necessary information. Sometimes that can just be poor documentation, like not explaining to a newbie what a decent balanced party in D&D is like. Other times it can be a special class of problem to solve where there is no way of knowing what the right choice is but you can still make a terrible choice. But this sort of problem doesn't have any place in a fully scripted narrative game where you can look up the answer on google. Only in a more simulation heavy sort of game.

 

[ampere]

The biggest one is to make sure that bugs don't prevent the player from completing the main quest.

You know, that's a bit more frustrating than the occasional attack missing due to random luck.

Spoiler

fucking kotor2

 

[Syraxith]

Absolutely right.

edit: this is a slide from his presentation, more here.

 

[clashfan]

Are they still working on the rumored Wheel of Time game?

 

[subversus]

FUCK YES, I WAS WAITING FOR THIS

 

[subversus]

hahaha, I read this.

TRU rpg fans won't be pleased.

 

[Dennis]

"I don't see a compelling reason to not let players re-spec characters that aren't suited to the gameplay design in an RPG"

Oh well, Obsidian had a good run.

 

[Patapwn]

#1. Look at what Bioware is doing

 

[WanderingWind]

hahaha, I read this.

TRU rpg fans won't be pleased.

I'm one of the TrueRPG Defense Force founders. I see nothing wrong with what he said.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

hahaha, I read this.

TRU rpg fans won't be pleased.

There is nothing fundamentally wrong or inspiring in what he is saying here. Sort of like the gameplay in Obsidian's games.

 

[subversus]

There is nothing fundamentally wrong or inspiring in what he is saying here. Sort of like the gameplay in Obsidian's games.

it's nothing like gameplay in most Obsidian's games. They are still heavily influenced by stats and dice rolls included shooting.

he basically said that bad stats ruin fun a player can have.

 

[Orayn]

#5 resonates with me. RPGs, no matter where they're from, carry a ton of mechanical baggage. Hell, I know people who think that it's more important to check as many boxes as possible than to actually put together a mechanically sound game. "IT'S NOT A ARR PEE GEE!" is one of the most pointless, arbitrary complaints anyone could make against a game.

 

[Kurtofan]

Oh well, Obsidian had a good run.

What's wrong with that?I'm sure you can do it with the console on PC anyway.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

it's nothing like gameplay in most Obsidian's games. They are still heavily influenced by stats and dice rolls included shooting.

he basically said that bad stats ruin fun a player can have.

Not having dice rolls wouldn't have saved Alpha Protocol.

 

[subversus]

#5 resonates with me. RPGs, no matter where they're from, carry a ton of mechanical baggage. Hell, I know people who think that it's more important to check as many boxes as possible than to actually put together a mechanically sound game. "IT'S NOT A ARR PEE GEE!" is one of the most pointless, arbitrary complaints anyone could make against a game.

this will end well

Spoiler

Not sure if I agree

Not having dice rolls wouldn't have saved Alpha Protocol.

I don't agree

 

[WanderingWind]

#5 resonates with me. RPGs, no matter where they're from, carry a ton of mechanical baggage. Hell, I know people who think that it's more important to check as many boxes as possible than to actually put together a mechanically sound game. "IT'S NOT A ARR PEE GEE!" is one of the most pointless, arbitrary complaints anyone could make against a game.

How is it "arbitrary" to call a game with no role playing elements in it not a role playing game?

 

[Fuu]

Interesting points, it's definitely important to know how some concepts will resonate with players at large. Some things sound good on paper but when executed, not so much. I definitely agree with the randomization part, a lot of times it doesn't amount to much.

 

[subversus]

How is it "arbitrary" to call a game with no role playing elements in it not a role playing game?

hehe, I see that you read the full article.

I think Sawyer is moving into another territory as a game designer.

 

[EmCeeGramr]

#1. Look at what Bioware is doing

And then do the opposite.

 

[Orayn]

How is it "arbitrary" to call a game with no role playing elements in it not a role playing game?

I'm saying that the way people classify RPGs is arbitrary, because the genre is a big nebulous cloud of design elements.

On one hand, you've got games like Diablo that feature what would usually be considered staples of the RPG genre in terms of combat, equipment and the like, but don't usually focus on the player's role in the game's narrative.
On the other, you have Mass Effect 2, which tries to make the player's decisions and role in the storyline a selling point, but sloughs off more traditional RPG elements in the areas of combat and character customization.

So the question becomes about which approaches to gameplay and story you consider vital parts of the RPG genre, and which you don't. Most people have their own mental list of what makes a "true RPG," and those lists vary wildly.

 

[Derrick01]

Absolutely right.

edit: this is a slide from his presentation, more here.

Yup it's my #1 most hated thing in any wrpg, old or new. It sucks not being able to hit anything until you max out accuracy or something like that, and then not ever missing because it's maxed out.

I also agree that AP not having dice rolls wouldn't have fixed all of its problems. I liked the game a lot but pretty much everything on the combat side needed to be re-worked. By the end of the game I could sprint around invisible for almost a full minute, taking every guard out with a takedown.

 

[cartman414]

hahaha, I read this.

TRU rpg fans won't be pleased.

TRU rpg fans?

 

[Alrus]

There goes my dream of an infinity engine-like game from obsidian :/

 

[Durante]

I like games with complex mechanics and incremental upgrades where you can make strategic errors. I also thought Alpha Protocol's stealth system was great.

But I see where he is coming from.

 

[rollingstart]

TRU rpg fans?

Toys R Us RPG fans

 

[StoppedInTracks]

The ToEE and Icewind Dale part make me so sad... so anything that was "complex and hardcore" back in the day is unacceptable nowadays?

What are we? Movie industry?

 

[Massa]

The ToEE and Icewind Dale part make me so sad... so anything that was "complex and hardcore" back in the day is unacceptable nowadays?

What are we? Movie industry?

It's totally acceptable, just not if you're a studio the size of Obsidian making multi-million dollar games.

 

[inky]

#1. Look at what Bioware is doing

Bioware does not make RPGs anymore =/

Also: http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/i-B2C3Rr8/0/L/i-B2C3Rr8-L.jpg

 

[Labadal]

Thank you very much for this thread. Lovely stuff.

 

[Of All Trades]

The ToEE and Icewind Dale part make me so sad... so anything that was "complex and hardcore" back in the day is unacceptable nowadays?

What are we? Movie industry?

Complex and hardcore for the sake of being complex and hardcore is generally bad because it's extremely hard to design a game that doesn't punish players for making bad choices that they couldn't foresee that is simultaneously not broken due to some instawin trait. FONV has this issue in some cases, which is why there are items scattered about that give you a skill boost equivalent to two full levels; without those a player trying to actually role-play could be locked out of their role because there's no reason to think that certain choices will suddenly require dedicated leveling, and even with them it still results in quickloading to get the desired result.

Even the most open CRPG will still be far more confined than a tabletop RPG where a DM can just bend the rules on the fly to accommodate a role. CRPGs mimic this through the inclusion of minigames where numbers act as modifiers to player abilities, rather than character abilities.

 

[Deleted member 81567]

#6: you don't really need to finish your game before release

Pretty much.

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

I love how they said don't do it just cause.

 

[Ushojax]

Here's a lesson for you Obsidian. Don't start making a game if you can't be bothered to finish developing it.

 

[GhaleonEB]

Absolutely right.

edit: this is a slide from his presentation, more here.

This is from Mass Effect 1, right? I played the game for 15 minutes and returned it because of the disconnect between on screen action and what happened under the hood to decide the actual effects of gunfire. Awful, and the point is spot on.

 

[Deleted member 47027]

This is from Mass Effect 1, right? I played the game for 15 minutes and returned it because of the disconnect between on screen action and what happened under the hood to decide the actual effects of gunfire. Awful, and the point is spot on.

Nope, Alpha Protocol. But it applies.

 

[Durante]

I always knew that I'm not an actual human being.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

Alpha Protocol was good ideas wrapped in an outer layer of terrible gameplay. Glad to see they've learned some lessons, but I was hoping i'd see "#6, don't make the PC port have fucking awful controls for hacking and lockpicking".

 

[raphier]

This is from Mass Effect 1, right? I played the game for 15 minutes and returned it because of the disconnect between on screen action and what happened under the hood to decide the actual effects of gunfire. Awful, and the point is spot on.

fucking really? *rolls eyes*

 

[Dennis]

TRU rpg fans?

Two Worlds II, Risen and Ultima rpg fans

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

fucking really? *rolls eyes*

This is why guns in RPGs are a sticky wicket. A sword or frying pan you can roll for. But how do you do calculations for something that is supposed to shoot 100 rounds a minute?

 

[Chinner]

fucking really? *rolls eyes*

yeah its true. i remember reading his post when Halo 3 came out. i wouldn't bother yourself about it i mean he thinks halo had a good story lol.

 

[MaddenNFL64]

This is from Mass Effect 1, right? I played the game for 15 minutes and returned it because of the disconnect between on screen action and what happened under the hood to decide the actual effects of gunfire. Awful, and the point is spot on.

That's Alpha Protocol, but you're right, it applies to Mass Effect too. ME2 took that stuff away.

 

[Confidence Man]

Guess I'm not a human being. As a superior, more evolved form of the species I understand the distinction between the abilities of a character and my own, and the correlation between that character's abilities as expressed by numerical attributes and what happens on the screen.

 

[Weenerz]

Did they happen to mention why they decided to have the save system in Dungeon Siege 3 default to local storage, even it supports steam cloud saving? I lost an 11 hour save and I do not have the motivation to finish it.

 

[Chinner]

And then do the opposite.

good post good post.

 

[MMaRsu]

Absolutely right.

edit: this is a slide from his presentation, more here.

Did you just spoil Alpha Protocol for me? For real yo?