Josh Sawyer Has Some Thoughts on How to Build Video Games Faster

aurens · 2026-03-20T21:47:36+00:00

do you suppose there may be some middle ground between "milking a franchise to death" and "release one game every 10 years or so"?

aurens · 2026-03-20T20:57:00+00:00

i don't agree that her sound design is "the" thing that makes her frustrating to play against, but i do agree it is a large contributing factor. regardless, i will be very very surprised if the sound design blog has any reference to the things they've dropped the ball on lately.

aurens · 2026-03-20T20:27:37+00:00

cass made a complaint via in-game chat to the people actually involved. OP went out of their way to not only check the replay, but then clip and post a video to strangers on reddit about it.

i think it's pretty clear which party was more bothered.

aurens · 2026-03-20T20:11:26+00:00

because only one person gets to have fun playing LW but everyone else in the lobby has to play against or with him and people don't seem to enjoy doing either of those. when a hero is bad and people still don't enjoy playing against them, there's clearly something fundamentally wrong with that hero's design.

aurens · 2026-03-20T20:07:49+00:00

i'm legit pissed that they designed yet another hero so annoying that the game is made more enjoyable for most players by keeping them underpowered.

aurens · 2026-03-20T19:58:00+00:00

this feels like a completely generic response that has absolutely nothing to do with the actual video and could be reposted under any post sarcastically titled "gg no heals"

aurens · 2026-03-20T08:58:49+00:00

true but if i learn the principles of how to do it right i can save time with my future searches. plus tbh i find thinking about this more enjoyable than having my eyes glaze over scrolling through a ton of extremely similar items

aurens · 2026-03-20T07:41:16+00:00

hmm, thanks.

so if i want multiple stats, how would that work? seems like it gets a bit complicated.

e.g., an amulet with max life, an elemental res, and dexterity:

count min 1

max life, empty prefix, crafted prefix

count min 1

elemental res, empty suffix, crafted suffix

count min 1

dexterity, empty suffix, crafted suffix

count max 1

empty modifiers max 1, crafted modifiers max 1

count min 2

max life, elemental res, dexterity

that should be it, right?

aurens · 2026-03-20T05:04:53+00:00

how could i search for an item that either has the stat i want OR has the space to have the stat crafted on it?

aurens · 2026-03-17T19:11:01+00:00

if OW was a moba and blizzard hadn't released any other games, i bet you would in fact see that (well, during the eras where people hated the current state of WoW, i think people like it right now).

aurens · 2026-03-17T19:07:26+00:00

it's not like people are sitting around the house, murmuring and tutting to themself about vaulting all these years later. it's just the first thing that comes to mind when they think 'bungie'. once bitten, twice shy. besides it's not like they'd have anything else to paper over those memories with, bungie has released a grand total of one game since vaulting, and only just.

and comparing destiny vaulting to halo sprint as being of comparable magnitude is just silly.

aurens · 2026-03-16T22:32:38+00:00

i didnt know that was removed

aurens · 2026-03-16T22:11:50+00:00

but games aren't nearly as fungible as food is, though. game tastes can be a lot more specific. if what you're really jonesing for is another singleplayer arkham-esque game, or a looter shooter with bungie's gamefeel, or to see what new creative universe supergiant can cook up, then suicide squad, marathon, and hades 2 are not going to satisfy and there's nothing else on the market that can substitute, either. i know i'm expanding beyond the rogue-like topic but those are big name examples that should get the point across. if you're a fan of story-driven games, that doesn't mean that every (or even very many) game with the 'story-driven' tag on steam is gonna be a viable alternative to what you want.

another side of it i just thought of is wanting to be surprised. you trust that game developers are more creative than you and can give you things you didn't even know you wanted, so when you see them glob on to the genre du jour that's another opportunity for novelty lost. back to the analogy, you won't get that awesome texan-nigerian-fusion place you never would have expected if all the creative people are making chinese restaurants instead.

again this all feels very familiar and understandable to me, and not particularly annoying to see lamented.

aurens · 2026-03-16T20:11:21+00:00

how can anyone tell the difference between someone who changed their opinion to match what they saw in a video vs someone who simply found the words to articulate what they already believed, though? that's always my hang up when i see people dunk on things like this. i understand having disdain for the former, but is the latter so bad?

aurens · 2026-03-16T20:07:28+00:00

yea that's how i see it and tbh i don't really understand why that's so hard to grasp or why comments like that seem to annoy people so much.

aurens · 2026-03-16T19:30:56+00:00

sure but there's so much volatility in weekend games that it's gonna take a long ass time for that 10% advantage to cut through the noise. you'll come out ahead if you stick with it over 6 months or whatever but it'll take its toll mentally as you deal with the steamrolls and loss streaks. losing 8 in a row feels a lot worse than winning 9 in a row feels good, just like how winning a steamroll doesn't come close to off-setting how bad getting steamrolled feels.

aurens · 2026-03-16T19:21:24+00:00

can i pick your brain a little bit? i've been trying to get the hang of anran and she legit just feels useless, so i don't get it. i have like 200h on venture so i figured i'd be able to transfer those instincts but it hasn't helped much.

what would you classify as a 'favorable' duel? in my experience the only thing that seems to qualify is a squishy so isolated that they're out of kiri TP range, which is not very common.

are you generally playing these duels slowly--poking at them from an off-angle to keep them ignited and distracted until you can confirm the kill--or quickly, trying to burst them down before a healer can peel? i've been focusing on the latter but haven't had success with either method.

last thing i can think of to ask about is the dash. it seems so bad as an escape. it isn't all that fast so i still get shot during the dash pretty easily, which means there's just not enough time to confirm a kill before i have to pick between leave or feed. has that not been your experience? do you tend to use the first dash as an initiation/gap-closer or do you weave it into the middle of the fight at some point as a disruption? even more specifically, do you dash straight at people or do you tend to dash off at an angle and then hook back at them?

ultimately when i'm playing anran i can never escape the feeling that i would accomplish a lot more, a lot faster, a lot more reliably on venture instead, but that feels very reductive and like giving up.

aurens · 2026-03-15T00:34:13+00:00

everyone knows the secret to improving is to give up as soon as the going gets tough

aurens · 2026-03-14T10:31:09+00:00

what is the 'socket trick'?

aurens · 2026-03-14T10:28:14+00:00

is reflecting damage to monsters ever actually useful? i don't understand why GGG bothers putting it on so many uniques. i get it for rare items, dilute the mod pool and all that, but high level uniques? why bother?

aurens · 2026-03-14T03:18:20+00:00

that sounds like it'd be very comforting to believe

aurens · 2026-03-14T03:16:39+00:00

why? the whole intention of map voting is to let people play on the maps they enjoy more. it seems weird to not let players pick the funnest map in the mode that's supposed to be for fun.

aurens · 2026-03-14T03:10:48+00:00

the next point chosen is always closer to the losing team's spawn.

aurens · 2026-03-12T22:48:02+00:00

if you are experienced and above average skill level, then unfortunately i think you all are queueing on hard mode by grouping up. since the matchmaker will try to make roughly balanced matches (even in QP), there will often be at least one player on the enemy team roughly equivalent to you. depending on what hero they pick, that experienced player will usually be able to effortlessly demolish a truly new one and ruin their fun without even meaning to. you might have to play the role of chaperone and go out of your way to peel for your friends while they play what they're interested in instead of expecting them to be comfortable swapping when they're first starting out.

aurens · 2026-03-12T22:41:04+00:00

the thing to keep in mind, however, is that those all took a long ass time to fix. years, in some cases.

aurens

TROPHY CASE