Forum Droppings From JE Sawyer

Killzig · Post by **Killzig** » Mon Aug 04, 2003 7:48 pm

[ -> N/A]

JE Sawyer starts off the day talking about vacuum tubes in this <A href="http://forums.interplay.com/viewtopic.p ... 0&start=30" target=_blank>thread</A>:

<blockquote>

I think you're assuming that. Despite what a FO developer may have stated previously, the way in which robots in the Glow and elsewhere respond to Pulse Grenades indicates that they have integrated circuits in them (EMPs don't have much of an effect on vacuum tubes).

However, there are a lot of reasons to use vacuum tubes even if you have developed IC technology. One of the major ones has already been stated: EMPs don't have much of an effect on vacuum tubes. If you're living in a world that's threatened by nuclear holocaust, a lot of people are going to favor making electronic devices with VTs with the slogan, "IT'LL SURVIVE THE BLAST!"</blockquote>

Uh huh. He continues on to discuss why he feels the need to muck with the SPECIAL system in this <a href="http://forums.interplay.com/viewtopic.p ... &start=165" target=_blank>thread</a>:

<blockquote>

I am concerned with all aspects of game design. Most of the questions on this board have revolved around the SPECIAL rule system. If you ask me to look at an equation that reads "2 + 2 = 7" and have me validate it, I'm not going to do it. When my mind works out the math and the practical game effects of something and the common feedback on that subject reinforces my conclusion, it's hard to avoid it and feel like I'm actually doing my job.

Gifted is a really poorly balanced trait. It doesn't compare with any of the other traits in Fallout or Fallout 2. A large number of people have stated that they barely even consider taking any trait other than Gifted, and that they usually play through the game with Gifted unless they "feel bad" about it. That seems like something that should be addressed.

It's my job to insure that people other than ultra power gamers can have a reasonable chance of success when playing our games.

It's interesting when I read commentary about the difficulty of IWD2 vs. IWD, BG, BG2, et al -- because the grouping of responses is far more uniform for IWD2 than the others. The people who complained the most about IWD2 were the powergamers -- not so much because it was hard, but beause it wasn't as easy. The original IWD was easy if you powergamed, and very difficult if you did not.

I had an IWD tester swear up and down that the battle with the Idol in Lower Dorn's Deep was, and I quote, "Impossible." This word was used specifically to describe a battle that K-Pak and I rolled through with little effort. Why? Because we abused 2nd Ed.'s rules to make monstrously powerful, ultra-buffed characters that annihilated everything. The tester in question did not know all of the secret tricks and tips to victory that we did. As a result, he was frustrated out of his mind and loathed that entire section of the game.

Though 2nd Ed. supporters will dispute it, 3E is generally less difficult to abuse than 2nd Ed. This is not to say that 3E cannot be abused -- it certainly can be -- but it generally takes a lot more work and produces a smaller margin of advantage over a "standard" character. Haste doesn't double your attacks, it just adds one. All ability score bonuses don't stack. Secondary and tertiary attacks don't have the same chance to hit as a primary attack. Ability score bonuses advance at a regular rate, every two points. Altogether, this produces a range of benefits and drawbacks that is more predictable and yes, more balanced. Not all players are ultra-keen system analysts. In fact, most of them are not. Unbalanced systems punish the inexperienced heavily and favor powergamers and system analysts to the point where the powergamers breeze on through.

When people say, "focus on the fun", sometimes they seem to forget that they aren't the only people playing this game. Have you ever watched someone who is unfamiliar with AD&D/D&D play an Infinity Engine game other than Torment? It is a sad, sad experience. It's like watching a chess novice play against a brutal opponent who repeatedly crushes them in four to twelve moves, never explains how they were beaten, and jumps up on the table, kicking all the pieces off when checkmate is inevitably reached. Do you think that person is having fun? That's the person who tags Doctor, Gambling, and Outdoorsman with Skilled and Jinxed as traits. Is it their fault that they chose those skills and traits, or is it my fault as a designer for making them suck so badly compared to other skills and traits?

EDIT: Tell you what: you and slowtrain and another person of your choosing can make a party of six 10th level AD&D/D&D characters to go against a party of six AD&D/D&D characters created by me, Sammael, and Karzack. I have a feeling that your definition of "fun" may quickly move away from the necessary inclusion of easily abused rules.</blockquote>



All in all, a very slow news day. Thanks to <A href="http://www.nma-fallout.com" target=_blank>NMA</a> for passing this along.

swordinstone · Post by **swordinstone** » Mon Aug 04, 2003 8:00 pm

It's my job to insure that people other than ultra power gamers can have a reasonable chance of success when playing our games.

ok....

The people who complained the most about IWD2 were the powergamers -- not so much because it was hard, but beause it wasn't as easy.

so... why would power gamers complain?

In general, I'm very tired of how hack n slash D&D games are being compared to fallout. D&D has it own set of established rules, that have some similarities to fallout, but over all I would say they are 2 totally different systems.

Whatever he decides to do to SPECIAL, i sure as hell hope he tests it, by playing a PnP version of his system.

edit:

That's the person who tags Doctor, Gambling, and Outdoorsman with Skilled and Jinxed as traits. Is it their fault that they chose those skills and traits, or is it my fault as a designer for making them suck so badly compared to other skills and traits?

Why, yes it is! Try reading some desriptions and thinking it through with some COMMON FUCKIN SENSE! Why are most games coming out now a days dumbed down for the thinking impaired?

If that DnD 3E game ever gets arranged, mind counting me in? I've got some nasty Dwarf Fighter/Rouge love waiting for those morons.

SuperH · Post by **SuperH** » Mon Aug 04, 2003 9:15 pm

It wouldn't be their fault for picking traits that they don't know will have a bad effect on the game. It's still the designers fault, but not for the reasons J.E. mentioned, it's as Killzig said, you need to design everything you put into the game to fit. Well.

As for the Vacuum tubes, he's right, if there were a nuclear war right this moment that blanketed the globe, only the transistors buried deep in shielded places would survive the emp radiation. Vacuum tubes are unnafected by it, so, what little vacuum tube technology is around today would still work. I think you'd suddenly see a lot more people playing classic rock than word processing. Not to mention, with society pretty much ruined, it's still a huge step, but not quite as huge as the one required to produce transistors, to make new vacuum tubes.

And rule balancing aside, the rest of his post, concerning the "power-gamer" as he calls it, is pretty much on the money. All this talk about how dual wielded weapons don't really have a place because small guns is already a viable option demonstrates that quite well. A new player, or one who never bothered to find out which particular perks you needed to fire a gauss pistol four times in a turn (or the prerequisites for those perks) will obviously not be able to use a small gun throughout Fallout 2. Same goes for Fallout one. He's balancing the game for the casual player here, which is, despite all the bitching that'll be done about it, only good sense. It's really easy math, and it's the same reason he's including real time and all the other things hated oh so dearly on this forum...

Killzig · Post by **Killzig** » Mon Aug 04, 2003 9:30 pm

Reading more from JE I think that's exactly what he's going for but it certainly doesn't read that way. I think we're definitely looking at a nerfing of Gifted though.

swordinstone · Post by **swordinstone** » Mon Aug 04, 2003 9:35 pm

nerfing gifted doesnt bother me so much, I pretty much took it evertime. What they should do, is make some others, or rework the existing ones.

Temaperacl · Post by **Temaperacl** » Mon Aug 04, 2003 9:41 pm

SuperH wrote:It wouldn't be their fault for picking traits that they don't know will have a bad effect on the game. It's still the designers fault, but not for the reasons J.E. mentioned, it's as Killzig said, you need to design everything you put into the game to fit. Well.

The skill choices may be the designer's fault, since they didn't include the functionality in the game for those skills to be all that useful. On the other hand, what is the person expecting when they pick those skills? As for the traits, any problems are the fault of the player- the pros and cons of the traits are layed out, and it is up to the player to determine if the benifits outweigh the consequences. If the player doesn't want to figure that out, then it is their own fault if they have problems, not the designers. There are character designs that are going to work much better than others and this is the way it should be (No supporting argument given- I'm too lazy.).

Spazmo · Post by **Spazmo** » Mon Aug 04, 2003 9:49 pm

On the subject of vacuum tubes, I don't believe there were any integrated circuits anywhere. Some computers were destroyed because they dropped nuclear bombs on them. Add to that looters and other side effects and you get destroyed equipment and vacuum tubes.

Killzig · Post by **Killzig** » Mon Aug 04, 2003 9:51 pm

Furthermore if you're the type of idiot who would tag the outdoorsman skill how have you survived to this stage in life?!

swordinstone · Post by **swordinstone** » Mon Aug 04, 2003 9:52 pm

by avoiding all those random monster encounters of course!

N · Post by N » Mon Aug 04, 2003 10:06 pm

Temaperacl -- my thoughts exactly.

SuperH · Post by **SuperH** » Mon Aug 04, 2003 10:20 pm

If you'd never played the game before though, how would you be able to tell which skills would have the most important effect on the game? For all any of us knew the first time we started up Fallout, outdoorsman might have been neccesary to surviving on the worldmap. To be living in the wasteland for real, having a high outdoorsman skill would be neccesary, in order to find all the food you need etc. It's not their fault they didn't see directly along the path that the developers envisioned.

Jed · Post by **Jed** » Mon Aug 04, 2003 10:41 pm

I've got a solution: instead of dumbing down the rules, how about include a fuckin' manual.

Drop Gifted if you must, JE, but SPECIAL is pretty much fine as it is. Leave it alone.

Temaperacl · Post by **Temaperacl** » Mon Aug 04, 2003 11:22 pm

SuperH wrote:If you'd never played the game before though, how would you be able to tell which skills would have the most important effect on the game? For all any of us knew the first time we started up Fallout, outdoorsman might have been neccesary to surviving on the worldmap. To be living in the wasteland for real, having a high outdoorsman skill would be neccesary, in order to find all the food you need etc. It's not their fault they didn't see directly along the path that the developers envisioned.

And it is for this reason that I stated "The skill choices may be the designer's fault, since they didn't include the functionality in the game for those skills to be all that useful. ". In Fallout 1, an argument could be made that the utility this skill wasn't described well enough or implemented well enough by the developers- in other words, that the problems (in gameplay) of picking that skill were the developer's fault. On the other hand, I think this argument fails in Fallout 2, where the use of the skill was outlined much more clearly in game terms.

Fallout 2 Manual wrote:Outdoorsman - This is used mostly on the World Map. It will determine if you can avoid a random encounter. It is also used to determine how far away from a critter you start a random encounter, along with your character's Perception statistic. The Outdoorsman skill may also be used in specific encounters. Outdoorsman is never used actively.

Here, the uses for outdoorsman are fairly clearly outlined, and if a player chooses it, then the benefits and consequences of that choice are the player's responsibility.

Evil Natured Robot · Post by **Evil Natured Robot** » Tue Aug 05, 2003 12:56 am

The point JE makes about SPECIAL is a valid one. While it's true you ought to read the skill descriptions and think your character through, it's hard to argue that without previous knowledge, Outdoorsman is an intuitive tag selection. Even based on the description they give it in the manual, one would think it would factor in more than it does. You're an idiot if you're playing FO or FO2 right now for the third time or more and tagging Outdoorsman, but I don't think you can say the same for the first-time player.

Of course, the manual could always include an additional sentence at the end of the description telling you that the tag or trait is of no real value whatsoever and you're wasting your time with it. Which begs the question, "why the hell'd they put it in the game?" JE is trying to make the game more playable for a broader audience so it won't be entirely aimed at Fallout fan geeks like us who spend way too much of our time debating this and that on message boards. Sure, that may mean the game becomes diluted, but it also might make SPECIAL better. It's fine to disagree with what he's doing (I'm not a fan of dumbing-down the guns), but give him a chance and listen to his points at least.

Which brings me to a side note. There was a long thread earlier about "Why Sawyer hates us." Killzig, you've done a lot of work for the Fallout community and I appreciate it, but this news post was a good example of the vitriol that he was talking about. The title's a giveaway, and when he actually has a point that you can't argue with, he gets a dismissive "uh huh." I know we're concerned about the future of the series, I think FOBOS deserves all the hate we can bring it based on what we've seen, and I too was let down by FOT.

Before assuming that he can't make a good Fallout sequel because he didn't design the first two, we ought to at first give Sawyer a chance and see how the game shapes up. By barraging him with all the fallout fan angst at the start, we're not helping him one bit. Moreover, we're not helping ourselves by ripping him to shreds at every chance. I don't waste my time talking in person with people that feel they have to shout me down. If JE gets so sick of people shouting at him on DAC and NMA, the only people he's going to listen to are the mouth-breathers on the BIS forum. We have to be careful not to shut ourselves, the hardcore fans, out of the development of the game.

Rayt · Post by **Rayt** » Tue Aug 05, 2003 2:21 am

The first time I played Fallout I picked Doctor, Science and Repair as my tag skills and Fast Shot and something else, which I forgot. My reasoning was that I played a independant fixer, who made up for his lack in combat specialty with the quickshot perk and the ability to heal himself after a fight. Anyway, I barely got to Junktown and stopped playing out of pure frustration of having a worthless character.

After a year or so I tried it again with a character focused on combat which worked fine. Ever since I never picked the tags and perks I chose the first time again, because they suck. I don't know if this is the designer's fault. I hope so, mainly because I like to think of myself as being smart.

Killzig · Post by **Killzig** » Tue Aug 05, 2003 2:28 am

Rayt, I edited your post the trait is called "Fast Shot" ... Anyways, yea. I agree, you should be able to pick up a handy way of defending yourself / making your way with that set of skills.

By then you should have had at least one NPC. The AI for npcs was pretty craptacular and they were pretty much cannon fodder.

To make your character viable they would of had to have better AI and stronger NPCs. More automated combat systems and/or less dungeon type environments (caves, and whatnot)...

Doctor would have kept your npcs happy and healthy.

Science and Repair to work on those angry waroid bots that you find in old military facilities. Who knows by the end of the game you could be Dr. Who with an army of Dahleks!

Megatron · Post by **Megatron** » Tue Aug 05, 2003 2:39 am

or fix teh rocket so it blows up oil rig ^-^

OnTheBounce · Post by **OnTheBounce** » Tue Aug 05, 2003 2:39 am

Killzig wrote:Science and Repair to work on those angry waroid bots that you find in old military facilities. Who knows by the end of the game you could be Dr. Who with an army of Dahleks!

Reprogramming of 'bots was definitely a sinful omission! The only 'bot available as a follower in either game really wasn't worth all of the trouble. Having a reprogrammed brainbot or two along, not worrying too much since you could always repair or replace them if necessary would have been a definite edge for the tek-no-lo-gee-kuh-ly inclined character.

While setting the "pest control" settings in the Mil Base was a decent touch in FO, it would have been much nicer to have taken a couple w/you to help keep other pests away from you out in the Wasteland.

Of course, the townfolk might view w/a bit of suspicion...

OTB

Post by **DarkUnderlord** » Tue Aug 05, 2003 3:29 am

SuperH wrote:All this talk about how dual wielded weapons don't really have a place because small guns is already a viable option demonstrates that quite well. A new player, or one who never bothered to find out which particular perks you needed to fire a gauss pistol four times in a turn (or the prerequisites for those perks) will obviously not be able to use a small gun throughout Fallout 2.

Tell me the stat requirements to obtain the Sniper perk and the Slayer off the top of your head, without checking the manual. I can't. When I first played Fallout, I'm pretty sure I went through the manual looking at the perks and what I could get with what. Fallout needs that pre-design session before you start, so you can aim for what you want and get it.

Now I'm fairly certain JE is making duel wield a perk. How is a casual player which apparently doesn't read the manual, going to get duel wield without planning for it? All that happens is JE's creating a new perk, which some people are going to be completely clueless about and ignore anyway. Funnily enough, that seems to be the thing people are complaining about with FO and FO2.

Add to this the fact that ALL GUNS ARE NOW CONTROLLED BY ONE SKILL and you simply don't need it. Anyone with a firearms skill (and most players will tag it I'm sure) will be able to use the bestest weapons in the game without many problems. Perks will only add that "extra helping hand" to deal with enemies more quickly.

SuperH wrote:Same goes for Fallout one. He's balancing the game for the casual player here, which is, despite all the bitching that'll be done about it, only good sense. It's really easy math, and it's the same reason he's including real time and all the other things hated oh so dearly on this forum...

The argument that making a game for the casual player is okay doesn't sit with me. Are games like Civilization (which, if you're a new player, requires a pretty intensive manual reading session before you even start) going the way of the dodo? What about things like Starcraft? What, just because some retard can't figure out that marines are easily slaughtered, we're suddenly going to remove some of the more advanced units in the game, take out some of the variety and dumb it down, and all this just for poor little Johnny?

Let them make their games for retards. Diablo II handles that quite nicely for the "mindless combat hack 'n slash". But for God's sake, leave us more intelligent gamers with something to wrap our minds around.

SuperH · Post by **SuperH** » Tue Aug 05, 2003 4:18 am

DarkUnderlord wrote:When I first played Fallout, I'm pretty sure I went through the manual looking at the perks and what I could get with what. Fallout needs that pre-design session before you start, so you can aim for what you want and get it.

Which makes you fit into J.E.'s idea of a "power player". Someone who thinks everything in the game through to maximize their experience, utilizing extra-game knowledge to make an extraordinary character. He doesn't want the game to be geared towards that sort of person.

He also mentioned before several times on the Iply boards, that to dual wield you won't have to have any special perks, you'll need the perks to dual wield well. That's not really too hard to figure out how to use, at least I don't see him making them really obscure and hard to find perks.

DarkUnderlord wrote:The argument that making a game for the casual player is okay doesn't sit with me. Are games like Civilization (which, if you're a new player, requires a pretty intensive manual reading session before you even start) going the way of the dodo? What about things like Starcraft? What, just because some retard can't figure out that marines are easily slaughtered, we're suddenly going to remove some of the more advanced units in the game, take out some of the variety and dumb it down, and all this just for poor little Johnny?

It's not done for poor little Johnny - it's done for poor little Interplay. This will, unarguably, and without a doubt be one of the last if not the last Interplay game every made if it only sells to a niche audience. They're cashing in the license to appeal to all the hardcore fans, and they're also "dumbing it down" to appeal to everyone else. They need money and they need it bad, that's what I meant by "simple math". It might not sit well with anyone, but they really, really have no choice and that's why you can't blame them.

Duck and Cover

Forum Droppings From JE Sawyer

Forum Droppings From JE Sawyer

Yes my brothah!