RPG balancing wisdom from an Obsidian veteran

- Obsidian's Josh Sawyer With Pillars of Eternity soon to release, Obsidian is throwing back the veil on its RPG development process. In a new post on Kotaku, Obsidian game designer Josh Sawyer explains the company's approach to game design and balance. Pillars of Eternity is the developer's stab at regaining the glories of classic RPGs such as Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate. "The reason we tweak or adjust anything isn't simply to achieve a mythic 'perfect balance' as a goal in its own right, but to make something balanced enough that the player's experience with that content is satisfying," Sawyer writes. In the post, he offers a peek at the entire process the studio uses, from initial paper theory through implementation and testing, with an emphasis on how the designers tweak and tune the game's RPG mechanics. It's worth a read, so follow this link if you're interested.