The Evolution Of Flaws

[@DistilledDonut]

Woke up this morning with a pain in my side, and it turns out it was a kidney stone. I have no idea how you put up with that for a month. Props to you, Mr. Cain!

[@CainOnGames]

I am so sorry you have to deal with that. Good luck!

[@DistilledDonut]

​@@CainOnGamesThank you!

[@NorbertFalcoVentura]

I personally never tought any of the flaws i got in the game were much "worth" it. Maybe if there was a way to "overcome" the flaw? Like there's a way to push through the debuff until you get some sort of strong boost. Or maybe this "evolution" could depend in the way you choose to deal with the flaw, either "therapy shocking" your way through the enemies or conditions that game you the flaw in the first place would eventually grant you a "hardened" boost (maybe even a boost that benefits you directly against these) while avoiding said enemies or conditions would give you some sort of boost in another direction. Thus giving the flaw system a kind of story arch for your character (you start as a white canvas in the world -> you get hurt by it -> you overcome it somehow -> you become stronger by it while keeping your scars, the proof of what you've gone through). I've thought about the flaw system ever since i saw it in the trailers, i found it really interesting but once i was hands on with it, it felt that it was not worth the trouble entirely, so i kept trying to think of way that would make it so that i would want to play with it more without becoming another way to making my character just stronger or a constant debuff i give myself purely for roleplay purposes (though i'm sure people love doing that, and honestly maybe i would too in a different execution?).

[@OMentertainment]

The day we learned Tim is a GURPS min-maxer

[@MythrilZenith]

The traits of Darkest Dungeon are an interesting exploration of this concept as well - your adventurers can become flawed or gifted in ways that can impact them both specifically and generally, as well as helping or hurting the party. An adventurer who is insatiably curious will jump to observe any unique doodads even if they are obviously harmful or if one of your other adventurers should be the one to investigate it. An adventurer with certain phobias might be terrible to take into the cove, but may have basically no problems in the crypt. Additionally, while traits could come and go and be replaced by others randomly, the longest standing traits could get locked in, becoming far more expensive to remove and never being randomly replaced. It was an interesting system that really fed into the dark, miserable and randomly reactive nature of the game.

[@souluss]

The only problem is that they were too gameable in DD. A team of Warriors of Light felt strong, while providing almost no fluff nor constraints. Quirks like compulsiveness were great concept. I hope someone reiterates on this sytem with some more care.

[@coupdeforce]

I consider traits in the original Fallout games to be really similar to flaws, even though they're a combined penalty and bonus. The backgrounds in Arcanum were also a great way to make it possible for characters to have flaws. I still enjoy making my own backgrounds that have even more severe penalties in exchange for even better bonuses. Great flaws are usually the result of something good that has either intended or unintended consequences. There are also a lot of bad things that can happen to someone that have silver linings. Like Fawkes in Fallout 3 was a mutant, but he was able to save everyone because that made him immune to radiation.

[@CainOnGames]

You are absolutely right. I should have mentioned traits in Fallout and backgrounds in Arcanum, since they are flaws bundled with bonuses. In fact, after making this video, I was going through my high school D&D notes and found my list of "malevolent and beneficial effects for players" that I made back in 1979! I will make a video on those, as well as other mods I made to AD&D.

[@coupdeforce]

@@CainOnGames It's great because the backgrounds in Arcanum are such a fun evolution of the traits in Fallout. It's always amazing to hear about how something evolved from things you started thinking about with D&D. The planning involved with D&D always sounds a lot more fun to me than actually playing D&D. It's really interesting how that seemed to develop your ability to plan computer games, which are more accessible to a lot more people. The games themselves also make the fun aspects of character planning from D&D accessible to a lot more people. A lot of games use D&D rules and let you pick your attributes in the beginning, but don't give consequential options for the character's background or let you mentally plan the future of the character from the creation screen. But in Arcanum you can really have a lot of fun thinking about the game before you technically "start" the game. That's the amazing thing about how things evolved from what you thought about with D&D. When you're having fun planning the character, you're already playing the game without realizing it.

[@HMBreno]

You often talk about the significance of how player agency should influence the game world. The Flaws mechanic is a fantastic concept because it reverses this cause-and-effect relationship: the game world affects the player in interesting and funny ways! This opens up a lot of role-playing opportunities, depending on one's playstyle and build. Very well implemented.

[@VladimirGolev]

The best thing about flaw in fallout was that we found it with my brother by ourselves. There was no internet in the area in 90s and no much of video game magazines etc. and when one of us created a character just for fun tough guy build and found it changed the dialogs was such a great moment.

[@photograhy]

Discovered this channel last night, having a blast! Another fun watch, ty

[@sodapopinksi667]

This explains why i gravitate towards undead/vampire characters with big restrictions. Debuff in light, can't use regular healing, can't eat regular food etc.

[@brianviktor8212]

I am working on a space exploration/combat game. I too thought about some way to implement "flaws" and the opposite as a player uses a ship, a crew for a longer time. I thought about things like the ship taking critical damage at some module, which may rarely have a permanent negative effect. Like engines (no matter which ones are installed into that particular ship) will occasionally not work when hit in combat. Or the hull having -10% armor. Or the primary weapon requiring 20% more energy. On the other side I wanted to give something positive in return - somehow - which are bound to the ship. I don't know how yet, but it was meant to end up 1:1 in terms of positive vs negative permanent effects. The goal was that ships develop individual characteristics over time, and become unique as they are more and more "used." They are meant to be interesting, unique and unpredictable. You are right that the player should have some influence on what should actually happen though, and not be completely random.

[@denniswillman7575]

Robophobia is the best flaw my "Outer Worlds" character ever had. Always pictured her reaction to robots being equivalent to the way Indiana Jones reacts to snakes. :)

[@DHGCH]

Very glad I found your channel, thank you for sharing wealth of knowledge.

[@77Arcturus]

I love the disadvantage system in THE ELDER SCROLLS II DAGGERFALL when creating a new character which made them feel real instead of some ultimate all powerful being. It was a great way to balance things out while still having cool perks like constant rejuvenating health or only having it under certain conditions or being blocked from it like in holy settings. Flaws and limitations are also what drew me in right away with tabletop gaming when i started playing BATTLETECH with its weapon ranges where there were penalties or advantages depending on range and environmental conditions such as different degrees of cover or being less effective due to combat damage. Classical war games like NAPOLEON AT WATERLOO also thrived on advantages and disadvantages depending on ones decisions. All of this is one of the major things that make games come to life to me and makes me curious and inspired to investigate how things work under the hood even with the programming with things like Quake C++ back in the 1990's and modding in the ELDER SCROLLS and the more recent first person FALLOUT games. Thanks for the always thought provoking videos flowing with positive commonsense ☕

[@GypsumGeneration]

Tim my weekends aren't the same without your uploads!

[@0ia]

For me, I think he's gone from advice to "Entertaidvice" or whatever combination of entertainment+advice one can muster. The stories are fun.

[@zaccaustin]

Robophobia influenced my whole first playthrough. I got it pretty early on, i think in Gilded Vale, and because of that flaw it never made sense to me to try to activate SAM. In fact my character wouldn't even walk in that part of the Unreliable. I loved it. So when I did my second playthrough I had this entire companion that I had never interacted with. It was amazing.

[@SlyI42]

7:05 "go me" 😂 this is so silly, but yeah I really love achievements. It's fun to collect them, they give a sense of progression and completion, but they also can mean you did something cool.

[@MedlingKids]

I really liked this system in the outer worlds, where it felt more responsive to how you interact with the game. Although I really liked the outer worlds, I would really like to see it done in a game with a more serious/less comedic tone as well though, as I feel like it would mean more in a world where the stakes were higher!

[@deathsheadknight2137]

or a game that doesn't feel like it's entirely populated by caricatures of corporate bureaucrats.

[@gordo6908]

narratively and mechanically relevant achievements is a pretty interesting way to express flaws. wonder what other games have leveraged that system similarly

[@Mordrevious]

Flaws definitely add a lot of personality to a character when done right. I'm currently in a tabletop gaming group and my player character has a low combat/dexterity stat in a group of people who are mostly good at fighting or magic. I decided at the start that the reason my character had such a bad stat is cause he's got severe injuries to his hands that have given him terrible manual dexterity and it's been a ton of fun roleplaying that in casual or combat situations.

[@FiftyTifty]

Roleplay is what makes it. My favourite RP experience along with D&D style dice battles, was in Conan Exiles. Playing an old blind, crippled, unintelligent Minotaur that can't speak nor understand speech. Lost every fight, and writing it out was so damn fun.

[@szandra9725]

I remember when we used to play tabletop games as kids my alltime favourite character was an extremely dumb, very ugly half-orc warrior. Before that we all wanted to create characters with the best possible stats but they had no rememberable personality. This ugly dumb warrior brought so much fun into our games when my teammates carefully devised clever strategies and my character accidentally fumbled them. Flaws could be RolePlaying aspects in a game related to npc conversations. They don't necessarily have to mean a huge difference in combat mechanics. If the writers wrote different lines for these flaws in conversation that would be incredibly fun.

[@tomaszjachimczak]

Hi Tim, another great little foray into an interesting topic that is making me think about mechanics and systems in wonderful ways. I was listening to Game Dev Caution P2 yesterday, and you commented on "There's an Indie Warehouse just over there" a few times, and I was wondering if you would perhaps one day expand on that. Have you ever considered going down an independent path with a game studio? Why, or why not? I've been working on a game for about two years now (No links, I remember your comments about sharing work in development) and while there's a lot of challenges working on something of your own - I also decided to write the entire game engine from scratch - it's also been bringing me a lot of satisfaction which I am not entirely sure I would get if I was working to someone else's schedule, scope and the like. As I am nearing an MVP state where the game is playable, I'm starting to seriously think about the benefits a marketing budget would provide, but surely it's more than just money?

[@LandBark]

I played ToW, I always play on the highest difficulty to get the most flaws. On my last play though, KILL EVERYONE RUN, had a chance to get Guilt-Ridden flaw but sadly I didn't pick it. I really liked berserker reputation perk from Fallout. Flaws were great idea for ToW but sadly I have one gripe with it. We can get various fobias with different monsters or weaknesses to elements. I wish that our arch-nemesis Sophia Akande would equip The Labyrinth with various traps or encounters based on our fobias (like bunch of Raptidons If we had Raptiphobia). That would be a real gauntlet. I do hope ToW2 would bring back and expand flaws, I do wish that compulsive liar flaw would be part of the course (with system to track player lies to later reveal them).

[@TimvanderLeeuw]

I think the game Kingdom Come: Deliverance also has some nice implementation of flaws, or negative perks. Some are permanent parts of your character that you can pick at points in the game. Some are based of things you do, like drinking alcohol will degrade your vision and some other stats but can give you a somewhat higher speech skill for as long as the effects of alcohol last. Of course the game is not quite an RPG, you play a predetermined character with given looks and story, but you can develop the skills of the character the way you like including picking up the negative perks.

[@Faithreaver]

It would be really interesting to hear more details about this systems. I was designing, but still can’t grasp the full picture of a similar system where the game tracks player actions but manifest the outcome through your companions, that can notice your flaws and strengths and reflect on them, something like approve/disapprove system but with more depth and not binary. I wonder why studios don’t use these kind of systems for procedural flow and difficulty adjustments like Left4Dead is basically did decades ago.

[@chralexNET]

I think the Crusader Kings series implemented this pretty well, if you haven't you should try Crusader Kings II or III. You can when creating a custom character choose your own flawed traits which gives you points to choose other things such as attributes and good traits, and throughout the entire game there are all sorts of possibilities of gaining good and bad traits (flaws).

[@chralexNET]

This is even one of the main selling points in their Crusader Kings 2 trailer on Steam.

[@DarkBloodbane]

Interesting Tim. I thought you're talking about flaws only but you also talked about judging system.

[@MrOmega-cz9yo]

When Tim spoke about achievements, it reminded me of the old City of Heroes game. They had a whole subsystem of achievements. There must have been 50 or more of them. Ah, the good old days... 😄

[@v44n7]

Amazing video like Always Tim. One question for you. We always hear nowadays how we need more "quality of life features" In MMORPGs (mostly, but there are exceptions in other communities) because player have grown old and they don't have much time to sit around like the good old days outside a raid dungeon to find a party to do such dungeon. I always believe this argument to be completely wrong and I am in a personal quest of showing those people wrong (I started game development 8 months ago). But I want to hear your opinion. It the argument valid? have gamers "grown old" for such life of quality features like raid matchmaking which throws everyone on rail coaster wheel or there is still place of old school features like chat trade or finding parties outside a dungeon even if makes you loose hours of playime talking and making friend to people.

[@StavrosNikolaou]

Thank you Tim! Excellent video as usual! Do you have other ideas of dynamic character development like flaws that are similarly based on gameplay decisions that you always wanted to implement but never found the right form or game and that you can actually share? You have in the past mentioned skill failure as a gate to leveling said skill but I wonder if you have other flaw-like aspects you have been thinking about. Have a great day! :)

[@georgeweissmann9095]

I thought flaws were an interesting mechanic that really enhanced player reactivity, but they could be better implemented with more attention to game balance. I think players are inherently averse to accepting disadvantages when presented with the choice, and the promise of a perk reward in TOW was rarely enough to entice me to take a flaw. These disadvantages were frequently multiplied by the context in which they were presented. For example, I was offered the Mantiphobia flaw on Monarch because I'd been fighting lots of mantisaurs, but I declined it because I knew that I was going to have to continue to fight lots of mantisaurs and I didn't want to be at a disadvantage for the rest of my time there. What I cared about far more than perks were my skills; even though a bonus to carry weight or health was very useful, it was never as useful as being able to pass the skill check to pick that lock or persuade that NPC. If flaws offered skill bonuses instead of perks, I'd be far more inclined to take them. I can see this system being easily abused, so maybe these bonuses could be fairly small (~5 points), or only be available for a limited time after fighting certain enemies. In either case, seeing a tangible increase to my skills would definitely convince me to accept disadvantages in other areas.

[@Jwlar]

That was my issue with them. 1 perk point wasn't a good enough trade-off for me to commit. I think either it shouldn't have been a choice, which while harsh, would make the flaw feel more integral to the character. OR, give a greater reward. Even 2 perk points would've been enough to persuade me. If they went the 'no choice' route, perhaps add a doctor in game that can fix the flaw for a high fee. That way the frustrated players at least have a way of removing them.

[@RockR277]

Interesting to hear about where the idea grew from. I honestly barely made use of it in my playthroughs of The Outer Worlds. Part of that, I think, is because of how they're presented. Like, "ok something happened here's this decision you have to make about it right now you can't think about it and make a more informed decision later". Another part of it is, honestly, I don't remember there being a whole lotta perks worth taking a debuff for. The idea of the flaws themselves having both a positive and negative sounds like it would've made the decision both more interesting and enticing, and it's a shame to hear that you guys just ran out of time on it.

[@kolardgreene3096]

Great video! I've been playing a lot of your games lately and the additional insight makes me appreciate them more. Something I find interesting in them is the ease of menu navigation, especially through right-click submenus in Fallout and Temple. I don't see many games these days using mouse functionality that way and I mostly see radial menus in console-focused titles but not CRPGs. Any thoughts as to why that is or any thoughts on RPG menu systems in general?

[@thescatologistcopromancer3936]

I remember White Wolf had some interesting flaws. I used the system to be wheelchair-bound with a guardian angel

[@aNerdNamedJames]

As alike as they are, I still feel like I've seen comparatively more love heaped on "dumb builds" than on "flaws", and I can't help but wonder why that is.

[@Bullzi009]

Please keep up the outer worlds videos!! I’d love if you talked more (in detail) on some cut content (like bigger monarch, connected Terra 2, etc.)

[@zoes7434]

Ian had a flaw, and so I'll always remember his name...

[@neuroflare]

Hey Tim, have you ever read the comic Knights of the DInner Table? Your want to dive deep into flaws really reminded me of those. The premise is the a skilled GM, 3 power gamers, a genuine RPer, and every dumb trope you can find in the tabletop scene.

[@abigchair]

I loved this insight!

[@calebhearn1526]

I took Robophobia in Outer Worlds because I truly hate robots and thought it was super funny. I forgot I had this flaw, and the dialogue options when I finally fixed SAM were one of the funniest things I've seen in recent games.

[@pieflies]

I agree the type safety argument is nonsense. Generally you’re adding more pain by adding the ORM than you are saving in any type assistance.

[@gargamellenoir8460]

It was very fun, but it was a bit of a dick move to make robophobia apply to SAM. I mean the dialog itself was hilarious but in the end the guides tend to warn people not to take robophobia because there is a lot of robots and they won't be able to play with one party member. That's not a positive result.

[@Anubis1101]

I think of ideas using a metaphor for building a house You've got a plot of land? Even flattened out the land a bit, maybe put some effort in and built out the foundation? Congrats. You can't live in that house, because it hasn't been built yet. Sure, you can't build a good house without a solid foundation, but so long as all you've got is a foundation, your fancy plot of land is little more than a waste of space. You have to follow through, get the house to a marketable state, before anyone will want to live in it. Likewise, follow through on your idea and get it to a point where someone can see its value for themselves. Otherwise, it's not doing you much good.

[@xXBigNosXx]

Slowly keeping track of all the things Tim mentions they ran out of time for The Outer Worlds to compare to The Outer Worlds 2...

[@broski365]

It's not a flaw if all it does is provide benefits. in the WoW, that is similar to a race skill or a passive ability.. it should include negatives for every positive buff

[@fredrik3880]

It is a cool idea

[@wormerine8029]

Hi Tim, I must say, I didn’t connect much with Flaw system. I like it in concept, but didn’t find it particularly impactful. For one, I don’t remember noticing an effect of the flaw after picking it. But also I didn’t really feel flaws have been responding to my unique play style. Most of the stuff Zia have been running into was damage related (you took damage from x) which didn’t really feel deliberate. With so much combat in OW, those didn’t really feel like they were tailor made to my character. However, with a bit more production value for flaws effects, and perhaps triggers being more player driven (if OW2 permits for more systemic player expression) it could be a neat system.

[@RyanWeeks000]

I just played outer worlds for the first time this past weekend. love it. was intrigued by the flaw system, but never accepted any of them. I'm flawless.

[@exharkhun5605]

I really like the concept but I find I'm really bad at dumping stats, I can't stand seeing minuses. I always end up middle/maxed. Some stats high but not max and some stats in the middle, too low to be really useful and having to shore those up with points that are better spent elsewhere. Flaws would be useful to correct those builds but they would have to be presented a bit more subtle than a -2 to this and a +2 to that.

[@lockekosta9014]

Why didn't you make flaws mandatory? I find it an odd system to make optional. Maybe at lower difficulties but at hard+ I feel like it shouldn't have been. Would you have maybe made them mandatory if you had time to create the unique perk system to go with them?

[@GeomancerHT]

In terms of game design sounds like you are penalizing a player for something they are bad at, not something that modern gamedev would encourage, is that the case?

[@LDiCesare]

I was playing NetHack when I started watching your video. (Yeah, ok, I'm still playing NetHack - I just YASDed). You say achievements started in early 2000s but I think conducts had been in NetHack for quite a time? I can't remember when I first played NetHack but I remember atheist, zen and whatnot were achievable at the time. Some conducts (atheist) were easy to code but some (vegan) look awfully complex to check for. By the way, I never understood in the New Worlds that taking a flaw would bring an advantage (free perk). I think it may not have been well explained if that's the case. Or, well, I just found the perks not interesting enough to offset the flaw?

[@NEKASABA]

Speaking of dumb dialogue why is it optional voluntary dumbness on player's part? Shouldn't it affect all dialogue like being a Malkavian in Bloodlines? I understand it would be a way more expensive feature if it effected all dialogue but why is this obviously flawed design is OK to be part of so many Obsidian RPGs? Where as I don't see any other attribute arbitrarily choosing to effect only 5%(?) of its usages. At least getting low int dialogue from the concussion flaw brings some sense to this case but still it being optional/voluntary dumbness makes no sense; either dumb option should be the only option when it kicks in or players should choose among multiple and only the "dumb" options imo.

[@renaigh]

the best Flaws are when You as a player are naturally incapable of a certain action. The Flaws of The Outer Worlds never felt like an actual weakness with meaningful effects.

[@GiacomoVaccari]

First

[@backslashzero]

Second 🥈

[@TrueNeutralEvGenius]

Banal and unoriginal ideas are worthless, everyone has them, realization is far more harder and important part, however, the authentic and original ideas (even relative) are priceless and far more harder part than even hard part of realization of banal ideas.