Just 2 people have worked on balance so far... 5 in the future...?

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Echothesis#7320 wrote:

Otherwise they would've wasted extra time rolling back "bad" parts and stitching "good" parts together, producing new bugs in the process.

I'm quite guilty of this. I can't help myself.

I'll be working on something. Fix the problem then be like... Well while I'm here having synergy with this and that would open up a lot more cool options. Then by the end I've hooked new thing into the main Hitlayer and Damage pipeline. Kinda dangerous things to edit on the fly.

To be fair. Most the time it works out but sometimes I end up chasing bugs =D

I feel like that's just something that happens when your passionate about your project.
I always want to add more.

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Orbaal#0435 wrote:

Gamedesigners dont code.
That might be true for extremely small projects but not on a professional level.

Gamedesigners come up with concepts and then translate those concepts into formulas which real coders then implement. Afterwards its all about spreadsheets and getting the numbers right.

There is no coding involved at any stage - unless using excel-formulas counts as coding these days.

Large projects have toolset provided by engine team for all other teams involved (though no idea if poe has one, nothing about this project is usual lol). For example D3 and D4 use lua for combat skills and quests, and game designers (or their juniors) do interact with toolset when working on balance (coding on lua).

Bethesda publishes their toolset for nearly all their games, and you have to do coding (scripting) in there for any serious work.

This leads to love-hate relationship between designers and engine coders:) Because the former have no idea how engine works and happily create mechanics that overtax the engine, especially when power creep goes on for years and years.

And latter are forced to compensate for the ideas designers come up with, fighting uphill battle of keeping engine in line with modern technology (adding new renderer options is the most notable part).

However the opposite examples exist also. I know a large WoW-style project with 15 year history by now (similar to poe in this case, with old engine they patch). This project has 1 (one) designer doing all work on balance, even though they keep telling their players its "several people". That heroic guy also works via home-crafted toolset, not via excel formulas. Balance job definitely involves coding, even if it is not low-level C++ engine patches.

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Echothesis#7320 wrote:

This leads to love-hate relationship between designers and engine coders:) Because the former have no idea how engine works and happily create mechanics that overtax the engine

Exactly, which is why designers never get to code.
Not really. They may get to switch around some numbers or parameters or script a little bit - thats a fair point.

However, they will never get to code anything from scratch nor work on anything the coders dont want them to touch. For good reason.


If there is anyone on the team I dont want to touch anything important as far as code is concerned, its designers and artists.
They will screw it up eventually and its going to cost a lot to fix it.


You are basically saying the exact same thing. Its just that I dont consider tasks well below junior coder level as coding while you do.
Thats pretty much the only difference. Other than that we do agree I think.

A good game designing should know how to do a little bit of everything. They hardly have to be the best but that knowledge helps communicate your intentions to the team. Also helps with pacing.

The PoE2 delay for it's launch was classic poor communication between networking and the lead having no idea what that entails. Server/Client communication isn't the on same level.

Point being. If you find that golden egg designer who knows a little of everything.
Things are much more likely to run smoothly.

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Echothesis#7320 wrote:

Large projects have toolset provided by engine team for all other teams involved (though no idea if poe has one, nothing about this project is usual lol). For example D3 and D4 use lua for combat skills and quests, and game designers (or their juniors) do interact with toolset when working on balance (coding on lua).

There's been showcases in the past of what they can do on the fly. They can directly edit and simulate skills for example. It can be assumed they have many more nifty tools that help them simulate and experiment with the skill system. It only makes sense ^^

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Xzorn#7046 wrote:

...
Point being. If you find that golden egg designer who knows a little of everything.
Things are much more likely to run smoothly.

It is not that rare of an egg, if you take a good coder and teach them a bit of gamedesign. Like not allowing one skill blast a screen away in 1 click, while other skill needs 4 cast rotation and a parry to to 10 times less damage:) Or not allowing party of N loot raise way beyond N solo maps loot. Or not force hardcore experience on players who had explicitly chosen softcore.

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Echothesis#7320 wrote:

It is not that rare of an egg, if you take a good coder and teach them a bit of gamedesign. Like not allowing one skill blast a screen away in 1 click, while other skill needs 4 cast rotation and a parry to to 10 times less damage:) Or not allowing party of N loot raise way beyond N solo maps loot. Or not force hardcore experience on players who had explicitly chosen softcore.

For me that more feels like common sense. I've mention before on these forums about how they've changed skills by +/- 100%. That's insane to me. If they use a formula they should never be more than 15% off. Maybe 25% if they introduce a new mechanic. But halved and doubled?

Back in the day it was more common but these days I've not really seen many designers who can concept, code, model, VFX, sound, etc. It's out there I'm sure but most specialize for obvious reasons. I just think that Designer 1st with a jack of trades under their belt is incredibly handy.

I know it's easy to believe in unicorns and sweet houses [Removed by Support]. There's true dangers in design by committee.

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vexorian#9572 wrote:

I know it's easy to believe in unicorns and sweet houses [Removed by Support]. There's true dangers in design by committee.

[Removed by Support]. In poe2, no one understands why GGG makes a change, much less what changes they will make next patch. Half the game is a slog designed for complex skill rotations (and for carefully doing boss mechanics). The other half is oneshotting mass of mobs before they oneshot you (and skipping boss mechanics with dps). If you don't overjuice the shit out of content (and make character build to match), you won't get enough loot to trade.

My current hypothesis is that GGG tries to appease their target nolifer audience more by bombarding normal players with unexpected challenges like sanctum trials, map loss, exp loss, no loot if playing "normally", excessive grind loops on endgame bosses, etc. Because the game never tells you about what will be required of you soon, you have to know it in advance from... somewhere. But again I may be wrong, no one really knows the goal of this project.

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Echothesis#7320 wrote:

Because the game never tells you about what will be required of you soon, you have to know it in advance from... somewhere. But again I may be wrong, no one really knows the goal of this project.

Glad you qualify that by admitting it's possible you're wrong, because why should the game tell you in advance what mechanics to look out for or what type of damage bosses do beforehand? Where's the fun in knowing everything in advance? Where's the learning curve that lets you see an improvement in your gameplay?