How To Remedy Problematic Behavior

[@Hjorth87]

2:50 I understand that you mean something functionally wrong. But I just love the mental picture of some piece of art being so bad or wrong or crime against humanity that it makes the program go "Nope!" and crash in protest.

[@ComissarYarrick]

Oh no, someone loaded modern art into the game.... ;)

[@Pangloss6413]

“Are we cool yet?”

[@infinitivez]

My first professional project in, I was that problematic monkey with a wrench. I think the best thing they did for me, was to take me aside and have a talk about the team expectations, my role, what I was hired to do, and when and where that feedback *would have been* appropriate. Letting me know it's alright to share my discomfort about a particular part of the game, but knowing we had a job to do, and it needed to be done THIS way, even if I disagreed with it. Bottom line, we're making a game FOR someone else, not me. And being a programmer, who's contracted to do a specific job, will mean doing things you don't necessarily agree with, and that's alright.

[@JustDaveIsFine]

The 'making a different game' is a significant challenge in the indie space. You have very limited resources and your design needs to be so incredibly focused... And everyone seems to think their idea is the next Minecraft tucked away in their back pocket. Thanks for this Tim, I am going to try this out.

[@jameswbii]

I just want to reiterate the damage that an unaddressed problematic team member can do to the team. It's a stress multiplier, it's a drag on productivity, it erodes confidence in your leadership, it absolutely will cause your high performing team members to leave or start phoning it in - the list goes on.

[@CrimsonFang501]

So true, at my longest running jobs I've had at least 1 problematic co-worker that increased my work load to make up for them not pulling their weight and eventually I just dreaded going into work and stopped trying so hard till they were gone or I left.

[@MythrilZenith]

The real difficult part comes when the problematic employee is also REALLY GOOD at what they do, but their constant differences in team vision end up creating a situation where you start wondering which is the worse evil - a person who can barely do the job but is willing to work with the team vision and culture, or a person who can do the job very well but just doesn't fit in and constantly argues about everything. It's these reasons why people who are maybe even the best for the job don't get the job through the interview process - something about them draws red flags for how working with them would be. And in a creative project like a game, it might not even be anything inherently bad about their behavior, they just might not be making the same game.

[@JstBringIt]

In my line of work I’d rather the person that does an acceptable job but means well and has no behaviour issues then the far better worker but a headache to deal with or behaviour issues come up semi regularly.

[@jonathansaindon788]

Absolutely, and it’s easier for an “ok” developper to get better than Making an annoying 10x developper get less annoying.

[@Sparqz101]

Had a coworker who just would not test his code. I was on a client site in a different country deploying and testing while he would trickle out builds over the course of hours. This eventually turned into days of getting a build, deploying it and it blowing up in a fun new way. He just would not put the work in to make sure it functioned correctly. Things got down to the wire and on the last possible day just hours before my flight I finally got something that worked “well enough”. Deployed, did as much testing as I could and then right to the airport. Came to find out a few weeks later he’d been secretly working two other remote jobs and wasn’t prioritizing the stuff I was actively deploying in the field with the client!

[@pedrorittner7258]

One "fun" add-on: the impact of a problematic employee tends to increase proportionally to their level within the company hierarchy (in my company we use the term "blast radius"). To your point, it's definitely possible that a problematic junior employee can ruin a team, but a problematic staff engineer can ruin an entire functional group depending on the behavior.

[@CainOnGames]

You’re right. The blast radius increases with their level in the company, and the probability of remedying their behavior decreases with their level.

[@vikrantpulipati1451]

Sorry if this is an ignorant question, but what do u mean by "functional group"?

[@SlyFoxFo]

I think they just mean a group that functions as it should. A problematic team member can ruin a team that functions correctly.

[@m0d.]

@@CainOnGames I'm not a game dev, but I am a product manager. Your videos are really helpful in lending new perspectives and many of your case examples are very relatable. Thanks Mr. Cain.

[@kaptainkommando6568]

@@vikrantpulipati1451 Functional groups are teams that are comprised of their function like "Art team", "development team", "Quality Assurance team", "Marketing team", "3D modeling team", "Animation team", etc. Sometimes these teams have pods called "cross-functional teams" which borrow members from each functional team to finish large items that require dedicated cross functional teams.

[@2HeadedHero]

In the corpo world PIPs are often a death sentence for your career under an employer and a valid reason to look for another job. It's basically a way to lay off employees without paying UI. This is widespread practice in the USA.

[@SilverionX]

I think we've all met people problematic behavior before and unless you can get away from them, you're gonna have to talk to them sooner or later. Communication is king.

[@boinguss]

in a vacuum, pips can be fine. i think the problem is to me is that the industry has shown time and time again that a TON of mid level managers (activision comes to mind) cannot be trusted with that sort of weapon to use against their employees.

[@dwightgodding686]

The last bit about poor management of problem employees reminded me of the Army. Soldiers can tolerate almost anything, but when their leadership is screwing up on a regular basis, morale tanks, and people stop reenlisting. One of the ways this happens is when problem soldiers, who can't do the job or who cause problems that get everyone in trouble, are not dealt with properly, with their supervisors either ignoring the issue or using disproportionate measures to correct it. Those are usually the leaders who will screw over a good soldier when they need something, and that's when a lot of good people will leave the service.

[@Postal0311]

So much I wanna say. But the biggest thing that I am so glad you talked about was how unpunished bad behavior kills moral of other people.

[@felixp535]

When a team member shows up with a "big new" idea like removing all ammo, the first thing I ask is: "Why? What problem are you trying to solve? Would that solution create even more problems? Are there other ways to fix the problem? Is the problem actually that bad that we need to spend that much time to fix it?". I often agree with the issue that is being brought up, but not with the solution they are suggesting.

[@Hjorth87]

I love listening to these nuggets of wisdom. I'm not in the gaming industry, but I hold a somewhat senior role in a team in technical surveying, so general team lead stuff is very useful.

[@zaphodbond]

Yeah I work in non tech companies that have an IT department and I am in a leadership role and can also apply many of Tim's advises; knowing how to deal with coworkers and navigate the politics of multiple departments that sometimes have completely different goals is an essential skill in the corporate world and very similar from one industry to another.

[@rrrrthats4rs]

Hearing the story about how you handled the ammo change suggestion in a holistic fashion & went through the muck to get that employee's POV back on track is probably the main thing that Feargus or whoever would put in a video titled "Why I threw everything and the kitchen sink at getting Tim Cain to lead a team for us again"

[@rrrrthats4rs]

But as far as "I'm not gonna say what game this was on" I'm pretty sure you either told that exact story yesterday with the name of the game attached, or I just happened to have seen it yesterday by sheer coincidence on autoplay.

[@MichaelOcherz]

I'm a (non-US) employment lawyer - we tend to encourage use of PIPs only where there is a specific metric in respect of which someone is measurably performing worse than their peers, and part of them needs to be focused training. Obviously that's not always possible - but e.g. the 'ammo' case you mention, we'd tend to say it's a misconduct issue which needs a disciplinary more than it needs a PIP.

[@alexanderwalter4504]

Commiting some changes into the repo without proper checking, is something we are all guilty of at some point :D

[@CainOnGames]

Yup. I've done it. I'm not proud of it, but I've done it.

[@DMetcalfe94]

This has got me thinking a lot about poor or problematic work practices. I’m thinking less of behaviour that routinely upsets the flow of development, and more about work practices that are perhaps inefficient and unreliable that can slow development down and even frustrate the team. I only make a distinction between the two because I feel behaviour is rooted in the individual, but poor work practices could be systemic or arise from a company environment that lacks specific supports for an individual. Speaking a little bit from experience here, but while I worked at EA I sometimes found myself struggling to complete my work on time, yet it wasn’t for a lack of effort or interest in the game. There was a fair share of miscommunication and tech troubles that, coupled with the fact that I was a junior, made for an overwhelming and difficult experience at times. Not playing devil’s advocate 😂 I think everything mentioned in this video is valid, however I do think there’s another topic of poor work practices in here that hinder development in a similar way, yet stem from a bit of a different place!

[@scroogeydoogeedoo]

i post almost this same exact comment on every one of your videos daily, but its true each time - I love your videos Tim and I'm so glad you post and that I found your channel! I hope you continue making them as long as you want to! I have a "suspicion" your videos help and are enjoyed by SO many people, not to mention your future audience

[@ashuggtube]

This wasn't the kind of problematic behaviour I was expecting! Very good to hear, though. But then at 12:29 - BANG! You were suddenly talking directly to my own work experience. Problematic employees not being handled is a real problem. I have almost resigned from a job because of another team member (who was being "gently managed with kindness", shall we say) whose dissatisfaction just radiated outwards and soured everything around them. Thankfully they quit first, but it was a close thing.

[@umartdagnir]

Tim: "I won't name the game" People watching this channel regularly: "We will pretend we don't know what this game is".

[@First_Lst]

I just came off a large project as a software engineer where I played more of a role of a business analyst. It was not my strong suit especially when the business users were not putting in the effort they should have. It was really demoralizing as it seemed I wasn’t keeping up bc payroll and accounting terms and logic was very foreign to me.

[@CainOnGames]

Business was not my strong suit either.

[@hexthehardcorecasual]

"I think we should get rid of ammo." "Why?"

[@ThaetusZain]

the ammo thing reminds me of a jrpg game that was remade a few years back. They changed how the ammo worked and the healer became one of my primary attackers through a lot final quarter of the game.

[@Wehe-v8d]

Hmm, I don't think many design directors would agree that bringing up ideas late is a problem behavior. This opinion is definitely a bit of a blast from the past. I don't mean new is better necessarily (nor do I mean new is worse - just not making that comparison). I have put much effort in the last decade trying to reign in design iteration several months before RTM, and there is always tremendous resistance. I've heard lots of clever rebuttals to the suggestion that it's time to set some things in stone, like "a game with bugs [due to late systems changes] is not ideal, but you know what's worse? A bad game". To not become the problem employee myself, I have largely stopped trying.

[@Merlinmast]

A lot of this translates to other fields. Being in management is a tough balance of helping your team be the best it can be while addressing the problems as described here. Most of the time if you're a good supervisor, you WANT employees to turn around. It's just better business sense: they are already trained and acclimated, bringing on a new employee is costly. Not to count that if you have any humanity, it's not fun to tear people down, even in a professional and constructive manner. But Tim really hits home the best ways to do it and PIPs exist because they help with this process.

[@zinnmannstudio]

So cute, seeing your dog just waddle through the room in the reflections behind you.

[@CainOnGames]

She’s usually around me. Often during recording, she’s asleep under the desk

[@stuartmorley6894]

On the references point I worked in a setting where because of previous issues with bullying (not from me obviously) we weren't allowed to issue negative references. It meant that if an employee was bad the minimum we could do was say what their work was like (without mentioning problem areas), their sickness record and performance scores. In theory this was supposed to remove the subjective that could be manipulated by unscrupulous managers. In practice if that was all that was given as a reference then the people looking to employ them immediately became suspicious because their reference was too small. If it had nothing positive in it then it was taken as their being nothing positive at all. While the problem definitely needed tackling, the solution just created a new set of problems.

[@tboon9399]

I firmly believe in performance reviews. Personally I prefer quarterlies in that it is effective at identifying areas for improvement and areas to sustain. It steers rhe employee on the right track and for them gives them ammo to support grievances if they disagree with the annual review. It's a highly underappreciated system and one I value as both a subordinate and team lead.

[@memeslich]

Tim with his beating stick remedies a lot of problems.

[@jekw23]

Oh god….estimates. An ongoing issue just getting people to actually commit to something. Acceptance criteria and definitions of done really need to be in place. That’s not the worst behaviour though. Some devs I’ve had to remove despite good technical ability. Real disruption wrecks your progress and demoralises others in the team. My only regret is in not removing disruptive people earlier. One wrong team member can destroy everything.

[@lhfirex]

I wonder if there's ever been an idea that was so good it forced a little pause to fit it into a game Tim's worked on. It'd be cool to find out if there was and see how well it went over with players.

[@CainOnGames]

The ending of Fallout. It was changed and required a cinematic, dialogs, and a scene outside the vault door to be created

[@johnharder3334]

Imagine getting a hold of a mid game gun early without an ammo count. Just walk through most of the game. Not to mention the mayhem it does to the action economy.

[@CainOnGames]

Given enough time (and therefore money), the game could have been redesigned to have ammo-less guns. Probably any game could be. But a better way would be to design a game like that from the beginning.

[@ZiggyMeister]

@@CainOnGames you mentioned in a previous video this happened with The Outer Worlds 😎

[@Deathoutofhell]

Really nice video again Tim! I wish it would have had a bit more thoughts on how to act, if problematic people are (supposed to be) on your level of employment. Always looking forward for more informative and entertaining videos :)

[@aNerdNamedJames]

When thinking on past experiences with this, it feels reasonable to ask -- what are the best ways to gauge for when behaviour reaches a point that it actually is better someone no longer be on the team?

[@CainOnGames]

That is a very subjective decision, because it boils down to whether the person is impeding the game's development more than contributing to it. Both their lead and the game director would have to discuss such a decision...and sometimes it is not possible to remove someone. Either because there is no replacement available or because there is no other team to put them on.

[@PatGunn]

I hope usually there's a less drastic way to turn an employment around

[@Wehe-v8d]

Just imagine if that person was removed from the team. Would everyone breathe a sigh of relief? Sometimes that's how you know. I remember when my team let go one person who would challenge everything. And then in 1 week we did more work than we did in previous months. There was a sense of ease as well. It's an extreme scenario, but illustrative.

[@docweidner]

Reminds me of Dark Age of Camelot which is still pottering along. I played it for several years before we adopted our older son. I started playing again a few years ago after watching Mythic Quest with now adult son and my Scout no longer needs ammo for his bow. They made it more caster like.

[@Hjorth87]

Dealing with partly done work feels like a bigger time sink than doing it one self. Because if one had done it themself, one had their routine, and one knows what how and why. When fixing someone else's lapsus one need to first figure out what works and what doesn't, and then afterwards figuring out the fix.. Its tough, but its necessary when building a team around you, especially if you were the firstmover in that particular area.

[@mellit6630]

Good morning, Tim. Thank you for another great video!

[@scroogeydoogeedoo]

hi Tim, this topic made me think of a very related one (but skip it if it seems to similar!) I'm wondering, have you ever dealt with employees or team members who have lied either to cover up mistakes or for some other unclear reason? How have you dealt with it or how would you ideally approach the situation? I'm not talking about just that you think someone is lying, but ones that are blantant and have concrete evidence to show it. I won't be disappointed if you don't answer this one but add it to the backlog for topics if you find it interesting! ❤

[@Maelferis]

PIPs work only if the person actually acknowledges your opinion, respects it and is willing to put effort into fixing things they agree are indeed an issue with them. If all those things click the PIP can be successful. I was actually mentoring a guy a few years back and now he's one of the most valuable members of the team. But to be fair, that's a rare success story. Most of them lead to the dissolution of working relationship.

[@ilmarinen79]

Beware of the "princess type" who secretly think they own the studio. I think most notice in time where the "ideas" are really coming from.

[@Wulfiebaby]

Going forward, ranged weapons should only have limited ammo if: 1) it's a special, powerful type of ammunition 2) ranged weapons are quite powerful in general, and therefore, must remain only a sometimes food 3) ammo management is implemented well and integral to the gameplay (a la survival horror) Obviously, you can't chop it halfway through production without inviting a slew of bugs, but ammo is usually plentiful enough that the gameplay focus is more about accuracy, trigger discipline and not having to reload at the wrong time. Ammo count is usually just tedious. Empty a few shots into a guy, walk over him to pick up a magazine to refill your 1-4 bullets, repeat until credits.

[@stormveil]

I do remember games with no ammo weapons. Sometimes they would have 'cool down', sometimes a 'health' metre basically and they just stop working or get worse over time (rationalised as weapon wear and tear). Other times balanced in other ways like useless against some enemies or armour. Some games had selective no ammo and attached them to a vehicle or literally to the ground and the player couldn't move them around or past certain points. But yes the whole game had to be designed around those ideas. Tho multiple times, I saw devs give up on the idea for the sequel and just give everything ammo! So maybe that says something.

[@LT.SeaGull]

I think generally there’s a roughly equal distribution of problematic individuals throughout all layers of a team or studio or whatever sort of cell you work within. But if you think of it like a tree, different parts hold different levels of importance or impact over others. A bad leaf can go by completely unnoticed. Some people make entire careers out of being unnoticed dead leaves. But a bad main branch or even a bad trunk is disastrous for the tree. Just a thought

[@HYRULE10]

Any thoughts on dealing with people who have problematic behavior due to burnout or external factors? Like, when you're on a team and the environment for learning, space to grow and experiment, and a high degree of trust is exhibited by everyone on the team but one person who informs you that they're burnt out and they know they're not giving their best. What can you even do with that besides give support and time to the person so they can recover? How long can you let someone try to put themselves together before you have to put another nail into their coffin because of how things reflect in their work over time?

[@CainOnGames]

You can move tasks to other team members, just as you would if someone was out sick or taking a vacation. How long you can do this depends on, you guessed it, money. A big company can absorb a low performing employees longer than a small company that depends on completed milestones to be paid.

[@HeinerGunnar]

I do find it funny that Tim didn't even mention the game with his example of "guns shouldn't use ammo" when just two days ago in his Idea Battle vid he did mention that someone during the development of Outer Worlds made that suggestion

[@deade633]

Love the vids Tim, very recognisable

[@Alphidius]

Unfortunately, PIPS are places where employees usually go into before getting laid off or quit.

[@JACKXK]

I have seen both situations happen -- where people get put on a PIP as part of the process of firing them, and where a PIP is a genuine attempt by management to help an employee improve. Unfortunately the employee has to assume the former because the manager is ALWAYS going to say it is the latter. As an employee is wiser to just stop doing the job entirely and look for a new job.

[@Odisseia-hh2td]

0:44 Skyrim reference! :D

[@jonbigcawk]

best way to combat bad behavior- consequences.

[@felicianofrontado3134]

What do you think of Valve's game development structure ? It seems like they don't hire managers but instead use committees.

[@LordZoth6292]

12:35 I've worked in kitchens, hard labor, and sales and this issue reaches across all professions. Thank you Tim for taking your time out of your day to make these silly videos!

[@NakushitaNamida]

13:16 say hello to the dggo that we see in the reflection :D

[@FelipeMendez]

I recently read doom guy by john romero and (by his telling) there was a similar case in ion storm with one of the execs, Tod or Tom I think his name is, made a whole team quit

[@Odisseia-hh2td]

Btw, I had a coworker who would behave like a defense lawyer for his ideas. That person would debate for hours to get them in and even, once in a while, would ignore the group decision and do his thing anyway. The big issue was that management would not step in and thus the team had no power to just veto them quickly. Thus, huge amounts of team energy would go wasted.

[@BorisTreukhov]

It depends, I once was in situation where I was that bady guy who proposes things, but in my POV not like in the video - I tried to speed up development, the architecture was cumbersome, there was favouritism into solutions of one guy whom I did not perceive like a sr developer(he was literally a mid-level on previous project) at all, he read the book Clean Architecture and was not applying it correctly, basically program structure was anti single-responsibility-principle mess and when someone needed to implement a feature he had to change the same files and we were constantly dead-locked by peer-reviewing each other's changes on the same files. I should add that the code of that favourited guy was reviewed first and others had to constantly redo everything to reflect the changes and to do this at the evenings. And that guy was pissed off by my critique, he was simply commenting my code with helpful comments "Nothing works/This is buggy" without any specification. And of course I was to blame for sabotaging team velocity, so sometimes things just don't work and it's more political/favouritism stuff.

[@Odisseia-hh2td]

@@BorisTreukhov from the info you are giving, it sounds again like a management issue. The best folks can do when a same-level co-worker has some problematic behavior is call it out, but management is responsible for taking action (or not) on it if the issue persists.

[@discographetti]

These tactics (like PIPs) do get weaponized against the marginalized a lot. They may work for passing employees who fit the norms, but i’ve seen a lot of trans folks wellbeing destroyed by a manager who didn’t want to do anything about it and PIPed then maliciously with unattainable goals. It would be nice to see a video on how a junior employee can deal with problematic senior staff.

[@635574]

There have been things in warframe(as its a live game has many updates) that are done in protest and later fixed, and sometimes not even that. Rivens are a secial mod that scale based on disposition for each weapon and it often happens the new weapons arrive with default higher than the expeceted 1.0, which I suspect someone is doing or allowing on purpose.

[@realbillyb]

Hi, you’ve talked a lot about the inspiration video games take from tabletop games, but I was wondering what is your take on prototyping a video game design as a tabletop system first? What are pros/cons of doing so?

[@CainOnGames]

It’s a great way to get started quickly and, if you have a team, to get them on the same page right away. However, many ttRPG rules do not translate well into a computer game. Anything that needs a human DM to interpret or to detail will require the devs to do that themselves.

[@realbillyb]

@@CainOnGamesThanks for the reply!

[@SyndicateOperative]

As a side note, if you're ever interested in a fairly unique take on translating a campaign to a computer game... "Steve Jackson's Sorcery!" does it really well. I've never seen anything quite like it.

[@miguelinop]

Those PIPs remind me of the "SMART" goals in some companies

[@hiddenstones3345]

That so true. It happen a lot of time at work.

[@SlyOleksa]

Thank you for your videos. I have stopped hoarding in games.

[@KeiNovak]

haha I think I watched another one of your videos explaining something that brought up this exact 'no ammo' story just two or three days ago

[@FluffySylveonBoi]

The person doing all the pips is a Pip-Boy.

[@deltapi8859]

The situation with the employee who quit, because a "critical feature was blocked by a junior" sounds extremely odd to me. Why couldn't the senior who is so great pair program with them? What kind of power did the junior hold to not allow anyone to work with them? So either the junior was a bully (which doesn't make sense when talking about juniors) or the management/work culture is one indifference or weird social dynamics. Either way for them to simply quit instead of choosing to have another developer "co-author" a work to me sounds rather narcissistic. Maybe the Junior was a completely toxic person only out their to raise the rank quickly and actively blocks the senior or the rest of the team. But to me this sounds like everyone is just a little bit too concerned about who gets the SOLE credit for some feature. I consider this to be toxic as well. I get it, when we become better we often want some respect and freedom etc, but that freedom and recognition should not be to the detriment of teamwork, since I can't believer a Junior fights the Senior to not pair program with them.

[@ares12351]

Love these videos, thank you

[@NeoLifeless]

I enjoyed the design situation explanation, I did get really excited about your first examples of behavior, as I deal with them from a team lead position. I have a couple members take forever or turn in non or barely functional code. The person taking forever is the most senior below me, and I have juniors run circles around them for example. Would you be able to dig into how you handle slow or poor work form team members as a peer and leader?

[@cristianejade]

Tim, would it be possible for you to talk about the budget and estimations for the project?

[@kaptainkommando6568]

Hey Tim, thanks for discussing problematic team members. If you were developing a team for a game, how would you build out a team? I know you got lucky with the troika crew (Leonard and Jason), but if you didn't have the dream team, how would you go about sourcing for things you need (like music, art or programming help). Where do you network? A lot of indies these days start with a solo project, form their patreon, then contract people for specific items. This seems especially difficult when avoiding publishing. Personally am not a fan of publishing since many times AAA publishers will add strings to the game for the funding (such as microtransactions or censorship) that can ruin the vision for the game. Are there any tips you have for building a core team and then adding what you need, when you need it? Thanks Tim!

[@CainOnGames]

Hmm, I haven't built a team in almost 15 years, since I either wasn't a director or I had team members assigned to me. So give those disclaimers, I will try to put together a video on team building.

[@kaptainkommando6568]

@@CainOnGames Absolutely! Even your take on how you would approach it if you had to today would be very valuable! Thanks Tim!

[@IRefuseToUseThisStupidFeature]

In business we used to talk a lot about thr effects of toxic employees and toxic work environments and how to handle them. I mean 'toxic' as in the HR sense that causes spiralling or spreading negativity, and bad behaviour, not the modern social 'toxic' used as an insult to attack people who maybe you disagree with. Ironically the later people name-calling are typically the kind of counter productive personalities who start the underside behaviours like cliques, back-biting, refusing to work with co-workers, sabotaging the workflow, etc. The things people do if you sit idle and let it snowball... It's terrible.

[@ghostridergunship]

I know there are still issues with time estimating, but I wonder if there are communication and operational frameworks that can help mitigate bad delays? Kind of like how you mentioned with that example of sitting down and talking with someone who wanted a feature what exactly they want quoted and how long coding that should take. If teams are trained and graded in a framework like that, it might help. If this exists already, like a Six Sigma kind of thing for developers, what is it called?

[@Blurns]

I don't understand why anyone would want to make guns not use ammo, especially if there's no in-game reason why they wouldn't.

[@FatherAlduin]

Thank you for the answer, even if the topic may be a bit unwholesome. On an entirely different subject, have you considered potentially making a discord server for more, idk, "informal" discussion? Completely understandable if you would prefer not to, I simply feel there just a lot of discussions that could be had that youtube is not entirely conducive for, if that makes sense!

[@CainOnGames]

I don’t think I could commit to regular Discord discussion times. The best part of the KZbin channel is I can record videos and answer questions when I’m free. It’s unscheduled.

[@FatherAlduin]

@CainOnGames Was more so advocating for it specifically because it is a good place for random unscheduled discussions in my belief, but that's completely fair

[@635574]

​@@FatherAlduin there are a lot of things that can be done on discord if you know how. Do you want like specific chats for each discussion or what?

[@timmygilbert4102]

I have witnessed that so many time 😂 the u shape of development when people doubt the game directions because we are at the bottom of the U, then a game unexpectedly comes and validate the direction spectacularly (assassin's Creed's high profile mode) and now we aren't original anymore, therefore need to be even less original and give up rhe investment on the move system established 😂

[@BrainsAndBeats_]

Hey Tim. I’ve been wondering: how much (if any) input do game directors have on marketing their games? I study psychology, so I’d assume you’d want to create a specific type of intrigue or feeling when first showing off a new world when making an RPG. It would make sense to instill curiosity while showing off what the game plays like without giving away too much.

[@VaunaKiller]

Tim says "not gonna say which game or who suggested that", proceeds to tell the story about Outer Worlds and idea of "guns w/o ammo" that he mentioned before 😄😜 edit: good video, one thing to add is not afraid to hurt someones feelings, when addressing these types of behaviors. From personal experience, it does not "feel good" to tell a person they are making a trouble, but it has to be done.

[@DarthJarJar_542]

Ave, true to TimCain

[@Stukov961]

Follow up question: how do you deal with these kind of problematic behaviours in someone *above* you?

[@lampoon9871]

What about the “why don’t you just…” people. You’re doing your thing and a guy that doesn’t work in your field or role is like “why don’t you just X, Y, Z” when you express that you’re having a hard time.

[@wesss9353]

Hey uncle Tim, you have a Y2K story?

[@FalloutTributeMusic]

To Remedy Problmatic Behavior has never been my strong part xD Like how you go indepth here

[@alinawithaface]

How do you realistically measure your own performance? I don't get a lot of feedback on my work, so sometimes it feels like a no news is good news situation, but I can't help but feel like I'm stagnating or doing something wrong or doing the wrong things altogether.

[@DamianReloaded]

What about toxicity? I've quit a few times due to work environments where most interactions had nothing to do with the work being done. I believe that toxicity in a company flows from above

[@CainOnGames]

Toxicity takes many forms, and I guarantee that it does not always flow from above.

[@DamianReloaded]

@@CainOnGames In a way, if the toxicity is evident and is never removed, it becomes a company policy. By toxicity here I mean people effin around with people who are doing actual work and don't mess with anybody. Asking employees to "grow a thicker skin" is not the right way to address toxicity in the workplace regardless of what Elon may think. In my personal case my skin is so thick that the entire company bounces off of me. I don't take BS from anybody. ^_^

[@Odisseia-hh2td]

​@CainOnGames yes, it might start at the bottom, but it's the job of management to handle problematic employees. Can't expect employees to handle same-level or above toxic coworkers since they simply don't have the authority to do so. So *persistent* issues should be blamed on leadership.

[@brianviktor8212]

About the topic ammo: I personally am torn about it. On one side I like having infinite ammo. On the other side I find the concept of having a degree of preparation like ammo interesting, which may run out over extended periods of time. The former allows the player to not having to worry about it, not having to do the busywork of replenishing it, or having to return to some base. The latter has a lot of benefits: It's a money sink, it promotes using different weapons, it makes the player not waste shots. For my space combat/exploration game I intend to have ammo, but more sophisticated. My point is not to make it a money sink, but to promote the aspect of preparation, equipment setup and the ability to be in deep space. Ammo is stored as a resource bar implying a limited capacity, weapons can have multiple ammo types, replicators allow ammo to be slowly regenerated, ammo can be switched in combat with a cooldown. All of these are also based on ship stats/attributes - meaning all of those can be improved/are subject to variance.

[@CainOnGames]

Ammo-using and ammo-less guns are both good ideas, but this choice has to made early in a game's development...not two-thirds of the way through.

[@brianviktor8212]

​@@CainOnGames Of course. In your case I wouldn't have talked with that person for 2 hours about this though. All he had to know is that his idea would cause too much change too late in the development process, and it wasn't even a good idea in itself (aka purely positive), just an alteration to existing, already implemented ideas. Meaning it would have been a lot of work with no obvious benefit. At best it could have made the game a little better. High effort -> low benefit with a risk. In order for an idea to be *considered* at that point, it should better be very good and not be too hard to implement.

[@CainOnGames]

@@brianviktor8212 I considered the two hours well spent in that I wouldn't have to discuss the topic again. If there was an attempt to do so, no one could claim I hadn't listened to him thoroughly already. And I learned a nice phrase from a company lawyer: "asked and answered".

[@SWTbabyrays]

@@CainOnGames Do you have any company lawyer stories that shifted the direction of a worked on project or made dealing with teams dysfunctional?

[@CainOnGames]

@@SWTbabyrays Nothing directly to do with lawyers, but in my upcoming video on the development of The Temple Of Elemental Evil, I do talk about how Troika had to remove a lot of pre-approved content for legal concerns.

[@agploo77]

I've been thinking about the choice between skills improving when you use them and spending skill points to better your skills in an RPG. Rewarding the use of skills obviously will prompt the player to choose certain options because it will improve the skill associated with that, like always picking the fight option because they want to improve their fighting. But wouldn't a player who spends their points on fighting also always pick that? I don't think this really is a question, I'd just really like to hear your take on these two systems.

[@CainOnGames]

I think the improvement system makes the player feel obligated to use those skills, where the spending system gives the player an option to use them with no effect if they don't.

[@635574]

If you wanna be extra genius make a hybrid, not just have XP of different kinds, but also general xp derived from all activities or just the main xp sources that can be used to improve the attributes.

[@hugoflsilva]

Thank you for the inside, as someone how works as a lead coder in the games industry I do see these issues happening, and it is good to have another perspective on it, I have another question that might also be interesting to know your opinion on, over the last 7 years I notice that decision-making in AAA companies is only made on a director level, this means that anyone below or at lead level have almost no input on game decisions, I think this is something that leads people on the team, like you said to "want to make another game", do you see this happen as well, any thoughts on it?

[@LTPottenger]

Bingo. No one becomes a game dev to make my little pony FPS but likely your entire career will be garbage you don't care about.

[@hexcrystalmeth2433]

If your boss, hypothetically, let's just call him Fargo, asks you for the specific name of the person who caused a game-crashing bug that delayed the projected release date of a future post-apocalyptic game (which would later become my obsession), and you steadfastly refuse to give this information, who in your opinion has the worst work-related 'problematic behavior'? a) The boss's pedantic insistence on knowing whodunit b) The head dev refusing to give info to his boss to avoid what he feels is an unnecessary witch hunt c) The game dev who caused a typo and is probably oblivious to the havoc he inadvertently caused.

[@CainOnGames]

I believe my video on why I left Fallout 2 provides my answer: kzbin.info/www/bejne/i3jJknaOetpjqqc BTW, the game dev in option C knew about the delay (and the repercussions) the bug had caused.

[@Orange_Swirl]

What a loaded question.

[@hexcrystalmeth2433]

​@@CainOnGames Thanks so much for entertaining my silliness. I watched that video already, amongst others related to the issue, but I never realised the dev knew the butterfly affect happening in the background.

[@SoundboundOfficial]

The "as a peer" part hasn't really been addressed though.

[@dominikdalek]

What do you do when your managers are the problem though? :D I've seen cases in and outside of gamedev where leadership was making different game every other week and it was impossible to catch up with them.

[@CainOnGames]

If your manager has a boss, go to them. You don't even have to say anything about the manager, just express concern on the rapidly changing specs and target. Concrete examples of such changes and their negative effects would help your case.

[@ashnur]

so, basically, either you do what you are being told, or I will call HR. could've been a shorter video

[@w_3ird0h]

Hi Tim, it’s us, everyone. 😊

[@ColonelRPG]

It's true though, I said that The Outer Worlds shouldn't have ammo when I played the finished version. It would have been better for it.

[@PatGunn]

Nah, it's really weird to have guns with infinite ammo. Doesn't fit most worlds, bad gameplay

[@ColonelRPG]

@@PatGunn Ammo is effectively infinite anyway because it's absolutely everywhere and super cheap, and it's by far the least interesting kind of loot to get. On top of that, there is no special ammo for overpowered weapons, so it's not like ammo in Doom, for example, where it actually serves as a balancing tool.

[@ViViVex]

Good morning Tim 🙂

[@UltraWatzen]

Friday I will be a Master!

[@H0VA]

Problematic behavior is in eye of beholder in some of these cases.

[@simonstrane]

Are you a moderator on KZbin, Tim? Can you ban people? How do you deal with online buffoons?

[@CainOnGames]

I usually ignore them, and they go away. Creating channel memberships was another solution. People rarely pay money just to be snarky

[@simonstrane]

@@CainOnGames I just want to say I took a screenshot of your comment and will treasure it forever and always like a water chip. Thank you, my hero.

[@PseudoNym13]

Yes I’ve crashed games with bad and poorly implemented art.

[@could951]

we got time saying porn before gta 6

[@renaigh]

I think the abuses of authority throughout the Industry are far more problematic than someone who may disagree with your personal vision for a game.

[@SyndicateOperative]

You'd be wrong. Conflicting visions and a lack of reconciliation can cripple motivation - motivation being the root of people creating good products in a timely fashion. Make no mistake, coding is an art just as much as music and requires an appropriate mindset to actually get good work done. An example from me would be when myself and another developer had a single disagreement: It was about the inclusion of the ability to sheathe weapons. I insisted that it was necessary for social AI mechanics in the game, including social stealth, whereas the other guy insisted it would just increase art & coding time, and said only the combat mattered. That disagreement essentially ended up destroying the project because we were making two different games - I was making a RPG with combat, and he was making a pure hack & slash.

[@faeflesh]

@@SyndicateOperativeabuse of authority leads to situations like blizzard being riddled with SA cases conflicting visions might lead to no game… are you really saying that the lack of a video game is the more problematic situation out of those two options?

[@jones81381]

@@SyndicateOperativeyeah no. Having a bad game or no game finished is way better than a toxic environment, sexual assault, and general workplace abuse, etc. Honestly I’d rather never get another new game if it means that kind of crap stops.

[@EfanGamez]

I agree with this, though for me, it may be a generational barrier, because to me problematic means racism, homophobia, transphobia, SH, and more. Yes, by definition, it was the things Mr. Cain specified (btw if you're reading this, you're an inspiration!), but the more widespread and serious problems that exist within the industry seems to be those. It's gotten better from what I've heard, but there's long way to go. It is up to management to come up with co-operative pay models, incentives, job security, paid vacations, and benefits when being in a position in power. If those are not present, we cannot expect people to put their best work in. It's just not gonna happen at the scale desired. However, if those things DO exist in-house, then yes, there might be talks about restructuring their role or even termination.

[@stevesan]

Y’all, chill. I don’t think Tim is saying abuses of authority are less important. He’s just talking about what he knows best, and perhaps what has been discussed less recently.

[@Anton-iu2rd]

Hi Tim!

[@hansolo989]

Spanking works (as my parents would say)