39 réponses à ce sujet

[kamalpoe]

It was taking over this thread, and it really should have it's own thread.

So, continuing from there...

nimzar wrote...
There is actually a pretty good video on youtube... let me see if I can find it.

That's a video I disagree with. He basically boils it down to choice meaning deciding between two things that are equal and have either no game effect, or equal game effect. Bad game designer, no cookie.

This means customizing how the player looks is a choice. As is pickup up two equivalent items. But that's not choice, that's illusionary choice, like choosing between "Yes", and "Yes, of course" when asked if you will accept a quest. If it doesn't affect the game at all, it's illusionary choice. It can still be fun, but it's not choice.

Defeating the bad guy is apparently a "problem" solved by getting the best dps weapons and best armor. In fact any means of scorekeeping removes choice in facor of problem according to the video. So forget non min-maxing. No one does that. We all go for max dps and armor. No non-optimal builds!

Anyway, he boils choice down so far that if it doesn't change the ending, it's not a choice. No wonder games are 99% problems to him.

I sentence him to a game of naked poverty BG.

[nicethugbert]

Good call. kamalpoe. Let me repeat where I left off in the other thread. Failure/Success need not be binary. It could be fuzzy.



If the PC fails then they can look for allies or mercenaries to help them succeed. Their new partners may have a corrupting influence. The PC may not notice the distinction in his zeal to succeed. So he may acquire his mark yet be excommunicated for the methods he took on advisement or terms from his allies in his quest to succeed. Many interesting possibilities.



Having said that, I suspect that the above is a problem according to the video in question. But, I don't see the utility in the video's POV. It's too simple to provide guidance. I didn't need the video to come up with my idea and it doesn't help me improve on it.



What's more, the video casts choice as the slippery slope to complexity. But clearly, problems can be complex too.



What I find interesting about the video is that I often get the impression that game programmers think in such simplistic terms and the result is that they fail to see many possibilities.

[dunniteowl]

I see failure as a series of bends in the river of time. Perhaps eddies and currents are more apropos.

Example: You assume a quest. This quest is to get to Town H. and impress upon the local leaders there how important it is to join the fight against Evil Arch Villain Prime. While you are on the way there, you are jumped by a faction of EAVPs minions. If you defeat the minions, all is well with the world and your quest continues. If you barely defeat the minions, then take too much time to heal up and prepare, maybe you don't make it into town on time.

Oops, now the EAVP Minions have done one of two things: They have captured and/or pillaged the town and now no more recruits to help join the fight against. Other option is; Now you have to find a way to free the town. Dang things could have gone so much easier if you'd just invested in better survival, stealth and spot skills, but there it is.

Let's take it a step further. You're on your way and you have this fight and at the end of the battle, you loot bodies (I mean come on, you know you're really looking to trade up for some better weapons and armor) and in so doing, you find a map and a note about a treasure these creeps were on their way to getting before meeting up with you.

Road Trip! And so you go galavanting off in search of this treasure, taking valuable time away from reaching the town. On the upside, the treasure indicated might have the potential to destroy EAVP all by itself. Still, you gotta flip a coin. Go for treasure or go to town to convince them to join the crusade against EAVP? Choose.

To me, those are choices and choices that have an effect on the outcome of the game in a meaningful way. You do have a bit more work ahead of you, to be sure, but not so much more that you couldn't go, "Sure, let's do it!" You set it up so that the time it takes to get the treasure gurantees that you won't reach the town in time and maybe, worst case scenario, the town agrees to fight for the EAVP in return for being allowed to 'live out their days' in relative peace. Maybe the Duke's daughter and several important local children are now held captive by the EAVP minions somewhere and so they fight for EAVP in hopes of keeping their childrens' heads firmly attached to their torsos.

In any case, you got the treasure, but at what cost?

In the alternative, you go to the town and convince them to join your effort to destroy EAVP. Now, when you go looking for the treasure, turns out some other group has obviously beaten you to the punch. Rumors of a new weapon being used by the minions of EAVP indicate it's a weapon of some might that could turn the tide in favor of a complete win for the EAVP. This is bad; very bad.

Now your job changes and you have to do all in your power to stop the EAVP and capture or destroy the treasured item that is turning the tide of the war.

In each case, you experience a little kind of failure, because you just can't be in both places at the same time and time is against you. You have to make choices and hope that the one you make is the one that makes the difference and allows a small measure of redemption later for the failures you had to accept to make the success you did.

That's the sort of balancing act that I'd definitely like to see more of. It's also the sort of plot related thing I do my best to work into the stories I develop. The world is not static and in an interactive medium such as an RPG (even an cRPG) doing your best to take this into account when possible will, in my opinion, increase replayability, create a deeper and more meaningful game experience. This is done by forcing the players to think about their choices and let them know that grabbing one apple off the first tree means you'll probably not catch the apple or two that fall off another tree at the same time.

Oh, and I watched the video. Slightly interesting but doesn't really tell you anything important about what sort of methods to use. I also don't agree the Problem Solving vs Choice is all there is to it. From my perspective, having a choice to make (with no clear answer) is about how you percieve (or get others to view same) making choices to solve problems.

In my example: Which is better? Get the treasure (most likely a Weapon of Magical Power) and screw the town (most likely) ; or, go to the town, fulfill your original mission, thus missing out on the treasture (most likely) but gaining valuable allies in your fight against the EAVP? In this case, you're hoping to find a path that aids you in your mission, but as both can aid you and each can result in a perception of failure on the other hand that might hinder your overall chances of success, it's a choice. But, until the player finds out the consequences of the choice they make, it may seem like a simple romp to go do one, then the other, only to find out that time and circumstance can play a pivotal role in the game's outcome (or at least for a portion of the story line) and no matter which way you go, there is a plus and a minus attached to the advancing of the story in one direction or the other.

I think that a lot of game programming is about looking at things in a success=reward and fail=punishment/reload, try again, thinking. It's dealt with as a complete and separate series of mini zero sum games where only one winning outcome is possible, no matter what the options in dialog or combat are.

We have the power of scripting to do so much more. We have the options of conversation and skills checks, making use of either or branches (and they don't really have to be all that complicated to be honest) to determine what quests and options are now closed and which are now open, based on your choices, success in combat, travel and conversation, etc.

There should almost always be more than one way to skin a cat, plot and story wise.



best regards,

dunniteowl

[Lugaid of the Red Stripes]

How does failure make a player feel?

In talking about Legacy of WPM, DNO talked about how he got a thrill out of failing because it forced him to fall back, regroup, and try to figure out some other solution to the problem. If the player just reloads and does the same thing, hoping for a better run of luck, then they don't get that thrill.

Failure can also be used to give a heightened sense of realism, as people fail all the time in the real world, even heroes. Nothing builds character like losing a battle you needed to win.

A third way to use failure is as tragedy, finding the sublime in defeat.



As for choice, some choices are proactive and other reactive. With proactive choices the player is in control, they initiate everything, they advance when they want to advance, and generally use the game as a means for doing whatever they want to do. Wanna kill a dragon? Reload, re-equip, grind all you want, the choice of strategy is up to you. With reactive choice, something happens in the game that is outside of the player's control, and all they can do is react to the new development by choosing between whatever limited options are available to them right at that moment. Got a Dragon in your way? Do you fight and kill it, or do you run away in defeat?

The ironic thing is, players always say they what the former, proactive kind of choice, where they get to do whatever they want with their game, but it's the second kind of choice, the reactive kind, that makes for a more thrilling experience. The irony comes in as you take choices away from the player, the remaining choices become more meaningful. What if that Dragon is just too strong, and you have to run away? Making the inevitable choice to retreat, to accept defeat and failure, can be much more powerful emotionally than chalking up another kill.

[nimzar]

 Admittedly the argument in the video may be taken a bit too far. But the idea that games tend to be designed in a way that (at least from a metagame standpoint) there is a clear "RIGHT" and "WRONG" answer. Dunniteowl's (btw, I oscillate between pronouncing that Duh-night-owl and done-it-a(u)ll) example in my mind at least is the kind of scenario that could be called a "choice" in the video.
In the previous thread a point came up (after we got way off the topic Low Magic) was that getting the player to accept a non-scripted failure (or trade-off in the terms of dunniteowl's example). This is extremely difficult and as mentioned this carries over to the heavily scripted examples. 
Players (myself included sometimes) don't like suboptimal results. I watched a friend of mine playing DA:O he would often save before major dialogue and replay until he was satisfied with the reputation results. He would fail at a certain point in the reputation mini-game and would reload... sometimes several times (I occasionaly reloaded for dialogue in DA:O (and other Bioware games)... though usually if the response I chose was not taken the way I meant it (e.g. when I mistake the "standoffish" response as a "cautious" response)).

This kind of training we've all received (from games designed in a way where there is an "optimal" response) bleeds over in more heavily scripted choices where (as in the example) one might try to "number-crunch" the advantage each option gives. And unless the rewards for each course of action are very well balanced then from a metagame perspective there is an "optimal" choice. Basically from my previous training in videogaming i would probably perceive the treasure as providing the most tangible advantage in the fight against EAVP (this possibly is a result of limits of AI where a weapon is more beneficial to a player than bot allies). 

[Gilradthegreat]

One point I didn't make about the above point however (I was reluctant because of the off-topicness) is that it IS possible to train players to simply roll with the punches, and to do it in an elegant way. If anybody has access to The Orange Box, I highly suggest you play through Portal with the developer commentary on, you get a real insight on the kind of things that developers think about when they're trying to subtly get the player to do something.

An example of basic game mechanic training (in this case, bridge + lever = something falling):

-You have a bridge across an expanse of nothingness, and a large lever on the entry side of the bridge. There is a Yuan-ti on the bridge.
-Player pulls the lever, the bridge opens up and the Yuan-ti falls to its doom. The player gets some XP to denote a job well done. This scenario can crop up a couple more times throughout the dungeon if you feel the point should really be driven home.
-Much later on in the dungeon, the player runs across another bridge-and-lever, this one longer with no Yuan-ti on it. Depending on if the module is high-control or low-control, you could add a barrel with ranged weapons and ammunition disguised amongst the loot. About Three quarters through the bridge, you get a cutscene depicting a large group of Yuan-ti on the other side. Putting two and two together, the player has enough information to come to the conclusion the best approach is to agitate the group with a ranged weapon until the whole group is on the bridge, then pull the lever.
-In other words, the player was able to come up with the optimal strategy with NO trial and error, and while he or she was likely instinctively quick-saving like there was no tomorrow, this entire scenario could be played out on a first run-through without reloading once.
-It should also be noted that, without the earlier training session, the player would have certainly spent much more time trying to divine what the heck the lever-and-long-bridge combination is supposed to really do... Is my game bugged and an event didn't trigger? Did I accidentally kill the bridge dwellers? Am I supposed apply a quest item to the equation?
-Just to drive the point home, after the dungeon climax and on the way out, the player runs across a third bridge. This time the lever sits right there on the middle of the bridge. Guaranteed, the player is going to quick-save before pulling that lever, and have a nice little laugh as he falls to his death. "I should have known better..."

Modifié par Gilradthegreat, 26 août 2010 - 10:35 .

[Shallina]

What that guy says is basically how most bioware game were made until now. Your choice only change the epilog.



I can only think of guildwars or some MMO where you can have really different path depending on your decision.

[kamalpoe]

Is an alternate way to complete a quest givng the players a choice? The video argues no because there is assuredly a solution that produces more xp or gold or whatever for the player. Even DNO's EAVP situation is a "problem" in this line of thinking (see the video's talk on Little Sisters for why they think that way).
 
In the video the choice is when the apple and the orange are both worth 5 gp. That's not a choice but a false choice, the options do something identical, your choice does not matter.

What he fails to get to is player interest. It's a big "duh" because he doesn't talk about any rpgs (To me wow is entertainment not a game, as there is both no end and no way to win, "Oh look, I've killed the endboss, for the tenth time...").

If a player interested in the non-optimal by game measures like gold/xp/loot, then they can make a choice. The player derives a value from their decision that is not reflected in game terms. If they forgo getting the Sword of Awesome because it means they can keep an otherwise useless npc alive, that's a choice, maybe it's "I'm Lawful Good and can't let an innocent die!". Branching the story gives choice even if it leads back to the same problem, though the video disagrees with this. Sure you may get less loot for one branch, but maybe that branch is just simply more interesting for the player at their keyboard.

So basically, the video is wrong because the game writing is simply bad enough that players don't care, the problems are much more fun than the choices. Looking around the game industry, is it any surpise the author thinks there's hardly any choice in games? It's not, because linearity means no choice, and most game writing just isn't good enough to get the player to choose.

[dunniteowl]

Which is the premise of my remark on the video. When it all sums out, every choice you make is a problem to be solved. Otherwise it's not worth any mental or moral effort in the first place and we'd be reduced to living in caves and using pointy sticks to try to get dinner.

Everything, no matter how complex, simple, ethical, moral or factorial, is a problem of choice. There are not just problems and choices there are problems that require of you to either choose or accept. If there is really no choice, then it's really not a problem, other than emotionally or intellectually railing at the lack of options.
Then again, the bad guy grabs your wife, husband, child, bestest friend or brand new love interest and threatens *(quite believeably, mind) their life if you do not comply with their wishes.

Now that's a problem. It is also a choice with a very (or is it) clear optimal outcome. If you don't comply, the other person is dead. Every problem has a solution or multiple solutions and we all, no matter how we examine a situation, do our best to see the most optimal outcome in our selection of options.

In some cases (watch "The Usual Suspects" and pay attention to the story of Keyser Söze) what most would view as a 'sub-optimal' choice is exactly the choice someone would make for reasons of their own. In this sense, a person threatened with the death of someone to coerce them to do something under those conditions, that person might solutioneer the idea that:

• A) Person has Loved One under threat of death to get me to do X
• Person obviously has no compunction regarding killing.
• C) Person cannot be trusted. because they use human life as bargaining chip for control.
• D) Let Person kill Loved One and then Kill Person. End of story, no longer a dilemma, problem solved.

But what does that end up doing, story wise? For me, everything is some sort of problem/solution equation and the way the problem is solved is the choice made. 4+2=? is a simple problem with only one correct solution. E=Mc2, is a problem with variables to the solution and can be restated to create a large number of more complex problems with variables to apply to the solution using the constants as a sort of 'mental placeholder' for what the operating conditions are.

Getting the apple over the orange due to price is one thing, but what if, I mean just what if, you'd really prefer an orange? Then, the problem is, do I have enough money for the more expensive orange and what does that do to my overall financial picture regarding what my next financial action might be? Or you might opt to not give a flying fig and decide you're having an orange and that's that.

It's always going to be a conditional situation to figure out the 'best' solution. We're just basically wired that way and it is reflected to a very large degree in our simplistic game play mechanics that cater to this instant gratification of action to defineable resolution. The world is a bit messier, in that, oftentimes, we just don't have the necessary skills, motivation, intelligence, information, time or desire to view all the possible outcomes and attempt to optimize our actions.

Sometimes, people do exactly the last thing they should do in a situation. Not because they don't know any better, but because, in that moment, they just don't care for the optimal situation, they want to hit something or someone, they want to say what they really feel or just walk away from a situation and not get involved.

In a game, this is not so easy to do. It has to be covered for and to still allow the story to progress. I suppose, in terms of training for success/fail matrices, you could always allow the player to choose, "Do whatever you want, just leave me out of it," and then simply end the game with an epilogue that details the destruction of all anyone ever held dear with the added guilt driven incentive to actually engage in playing with, "All because you just didn't want to get involved. Was it worth the extra 3 years of living to avoid the responsibility?"

You have to be able to present a situation that calls into question the moral and ethical fiber of not only the character, but the player as well. You cannot do this if every choice is nothing more than simple number crunching for XP, Gold, Loot. You have to force the player to choose between two choices that present, in each case, a less then satisfactory win/loss balance sheet in the eyes of the character and then let them try to solve that to the best of their ability.

It's like Batman being forced to choose between saving Robin or the Commisioner's daughter. You can't do both (of course, he somehow does manage it, that's why he's a super hero, right?) and so you have to choose between two unpleasant outcomes, neither of which will let you sleep well at night from that point on. And, of course, the option to do nothing other than to watch events unfold and let both choices slip from your grasp should also be there.

As the song says, "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."

As programmers and game designers, the logic of training to program and work with computers can really get in the way of just winging it and sort of logically 'what iffing' your way through a situation without actually trying to solve it by simple A+B=C thinking. You what if the character is mad? You what if the character isn't easily manipulated? You what if the character doesn't have a moral compass in the first place? Or that it's pointing East and you expect North?

And then, instead of a simple skills result and convo box, you offer the opening and closing of choices based on selectable state of mind options.

Yeah, it's harder work to script all that in. And now you, as a designer are faced with a problem in the form of choice. Do you do the extra work or just go with the number crunching? Do you provide choices that require the character to take a step back and go, "Hmm, what do I do here? What do I do? Nothing I do looks like it's going to net me the big "W" here, so what's the least repugnant choice?" Do you provide options that do, indeed, change the potential outcome of, if not the entire story, at least a good portion of a story arc? Or do you simply offer equipment options, weapons choices and monster killing problems, that no matter how you slice them and which class or race or gender you play, end up exactly the same?

Is that a problem or a choice or is it both? How do you feel about that? You get to those kinds of questions and those kinds of issues and then, then you're making some progress about how to design your adventures.

So in closing, choices are always a problem. Problems do not always have a choice to make. Sometimes, even the optimal choice is unpleasant. It isn't about what you name a situation, it's about how you get someone to deal with it and it's consequences that really make all the difference.

dunniteowl

Modifié par dunniteowl, 26 août 2010 - 05:04 .

[Vaalyah]

I read all so far (wooooooh, I am tired :-D you wrote too much, guys!) and I have a question.

Sure, what Dunniteowl says is true but... in a game you, for sure, have in front of you a finished number of pre-decided actions.

Decided by the authors. So, let's say the authors let you choose between help the villain in order to save the loved one or refuse to help the bad guy and see the loved one getting killed. Ok, so, 2 options. But I would like the 3rd one: pretend to accept the villain threat and then sneak inside to kill him and save the loved one.

Of course, if the game has not whatever option in the world, it can't provide the full effect Dunniteowl is trying to achieve so... having 2 options, and whatever you choose you will still loose (in the first, your dignity and your ethic, in the second the loved one), isn't just frustrating for a player? Games, unfortunately, don't come with infinite possibilities, so it is just a question of intrinsic "limits" that we can't do whatever we want...

So you have to come to terms with the possibility of a game...

Don't know if what I've just said is clear o_O

[The Fred]

To come back where I left off, my point was not so much about whether failure should be binary or involve choice or whatever (valid concerns though they are) but that that failure needn't be final - i.e. it needn't be *complete* failure (I think perhaps this is what NTB was getting at by non-binary failure). If you have some extra option, failure ceases to be a reach-for-the-reload scenario.



As to what kamalpoe's saying about false choice, while this is good (at least when it's well-disguised - in Dark Waters, for example, that were a lot of badly-disguised "false choice" conversation options which was one of my main dislikes of an otherwise good series), I'd agree it's not really a choice. However, there's a distinction between two choices which give the same reward, and two choices which lead to two different paths which ultimately give the same rewards, because though mathematically they're the same, in the latter the player gets different experiences. This doesn't have to be in an RPG sense - it might be chosing to do a stealth mission over a hack-and-slash one, for example.

[nicethugbert]

That's right, Kamalpoe. The video has a bias towards quantitative measures. It does not address story telling or qualitative results and would undermine them if that is all the developer focused on. What the video proposes is a simple narrow tool in a toolkit to be used in turn.

[BigfootNZ]

Gilradthegreat wrote...

-Much later on in the dungeon, the player runs across another bridge-and-lever, this one longer with no Yuan-ti on it. Depending on if the module is high-control or low-control, you could add a barrel with ranged weapons and ammunition disguised amongst the loot. About Three quarters through the bridge, you get a cutscene depicting a large group of Yuan-ti on the other side. Putting two and two together, the player has enough information to come to the conclusion the best approach is to agitate the group with a ranged weapon until the whole group is on the bridge, then pull the lever.

Why of WHY is it that I would have it that there are no Yuan-ti present on the otherside and as the player walks over the bridge with his party... a badly wounded Yuan-ti whos in stealth suddenly limps out  behind them and pulls the lever... sending the pary plumeting... Karma, its a female dog (unless they spot him and kill him before he gets to it.

Doesnt mean the players party dies from the fall however, and it gives a bit of light relief, NPC's can learn too cant they? and I cant see a player not appreciating the Irony (yes its not really Irony)  ...

Vaalyah wrote...

Decided by the
authors. So, let's say the authors let you choose between help the
villain in order to save the loved one or refuse to help the bad guy and
see the loved one getting killed. Ok, so, 2 options. But I would like
the 3rd one: pretend to accept the villain threat and then sneak inside
to kill him and save the loved one.

Theres always a third option... Ive always gone by the 'rule of three'... two is always far to black and white.

Modifié par BigfootNZ, 26 août 2010 - 11:12 .

[dunniteowl]

I agree with more than an either/or set of options, but for now and for the sake of clarity in this discussion, I do my best to keep it simple. I write enough as it is without confusing the situation with more than showing two clear options that are, in and of themselves, neither fully appealing, satsifying or end-all be-all.

The idea I am presenting is that in these examples, they are something you wouldn't normally see in most roleplaying games; and they are story centric. Moral dilemmas, ethical conundrums and 'fuzzy' choices in that there is no clear cut answer to the situation. All choice in a game that, by it's nature, has to be somewhat preplanned (unless you want TES: Morrowind or Oblivion) so that the story can be told. As there is, in many to most cases, no Live DM present during play, unexpected turns by the Player can break immersion in the game, because you can only account for so much.

So, when planning events, I do my best to take into account what I feel might be a semi-realistic response in some situations and provide several options when possible to answer a situation. And don't forget, in this discussion, we already admit that there are moments when something has to happen and the player has no choice, really. And that's okay if it's done in a believeable and non-immersion breaking manner.

An example of this is (immersion breaking imho) walking into a dungeon and the door slides closed and locks behind you. No going back. What a rip. At least prep me with, "This place is pretty old and decrepit. It looks like it's kind of unstable." Then, when you enter that last big hallway, you take a few steps and the doorway crumbles due to the door no longer supporting the load above it. Cave in! That I can buy (if not done to excess,) but this whole sliding door, you can't go back stuff is pretty obviously a not so subtle way of ensuring you complete the dungeon.

Other things can be done to make something look like a failure of an action, that simply leads to a different (as far as the player is concerned, anyway) point of adventure.

If you can allow 3-5 choices, you are probably hitting someone's limit of choice matrix for calculating the potential for a 'successful' outcome. You just have to keep training the player that there are going to be times when, no matter what they do or choose, the results are not clear cut, totally satisfactory, and (most importantly) not a cause to start over. There have to be immediate and longer term rewards for any set of choices that have no clear or ready answer.

That's my take on it, anyway. Then again, I am somewhat neutral evil for all the pleasantness I exude. I like to design as 'realistically' as possible when it comes to situations and their potential for outcome.

Now if I could only maintain focus and be uninterrupted long enough to really put my current favorite pet project together. Meanwhile, I hope that any of my ramblings help spark an idea or generate greater discussion. That's as good as a module release in my book.

dunniteowl

Modifié par dunniteowl, 27 août 2010 - 01:13 .

[kamalpoe]

I just added into my campaign the option to surrender to the guards at one point. If the player does they get a dialog that they spend the next twenty years in prison and it ends the module.

Player Choice! 

[Haplose]

kamalpoe wrote...

I just added into my campaign the option to surrender to the guards at one point. If the player does they get a dialog that they spend the next twenty years in prison and it ends the module.

Player Choice! 

How about a jailbreak in this scenario?
Maybe the entire valuable equipment lost.... But maybe a chance to rob the guard captain or guvernor and get their equipment.. which could be very different from what you had so far... not necessarily much worse, not better, but different.

And then fugitive....

Modifié par Haplose, 27 août 2010 - 06:42 .

[Gilradthegreat]

BigfootNZ wrote...

Why of WHY is it that I would have it that there are no Yuan-ti present on the otherside and as the player walks over the bridge with his party... a badly wounded Yuan-ti whos in stealth suddenly limps out  behind them and pulls the lever... sending the pary plumeting... Karma, its a female dog (unless they spot him and kill him before he gets to it.

Doesnt mean the players party dies from the fall however, and it gives a bit of light relief, NPC's can learn too cant they? and I cant see a player not appreciating the Irony (yes its not really Irony)  ...

Even a situation like that can be expanded upon to create a more interesting scenario: In a previous dungeon, you're on a bridge fighting a troll. The bridge breaks, all party members plus one troll fall into a pit, and the fight continues. You climb up the stairs, pass through a door, and try to construct some way to get across in an unrelated game mechanic.

An additional or alternative training scene could be an enemy with a key item crosses the bridge and it crumbles and falls. You then climb down the stairs to the pit, and instead of finding him in the middle of where he should have landed, you fight him in the hallway leading to the pit. Going to the middle of the pit afterwards you see a puddle of blood and empty healing bottles.

Now, the player is armed with enough context to be able to avoid falling down from the wounded yuan-ti, or at least having the feeling that he should have seen it coming.

So now we have a series of four bridges: the lever training bridge, the yuan-ti revenge bridge, the yuan-ti group bridge, and the self-drop bridge.

On the third bridge, with the addition of the "things that fall survive" mechanic, we can also make all levers bashable. If the player does not bash the lever on this bridge, then perhaps in the boss battle, suddenly a bunch of wounded yuan-ti run in and help out.

I just love armchair game design

[The Fred]

On a more general level, I approve of the idea of "training" the player, however... certainly giving them clues early on which mean they can face a situation with a little help, but without it being spoonfed to them obviously.



In terms of failing, I don't see why you can't train the player to fail - perhaps you do need to start with a quest where the player has very little option, if any, but to fail. This might not be all that fun for the player, but it might get it into their head that failing isn't always a big deal. Then work in quests where a "failure" gives some instant result. If you go right for something where failing one quest opens something up later on, people might just reach for the reload button without ever realising.



Yes, we might be going against years of ingrained training here, but I don't think it can't be done.

[dunniteowl]

Actually, 'training' the player about failure shouldn't be that tricky. Think about it. An RPG adventure is sort of like a 'book' or 'movie' come to life. How many movies and books are out there where, in the first act, or hell, in some cases, pretty much throughout the entire story, the principle character runs through a series of not-quite-successful encounters with the villains? A lot.

The thing here is to encourage, through use of story mechanics, that this isn't the end of the story and certainly not a cause for terrible concern.

The villain kills a valued member of the team (should be an NPC, though, ) and gets away, laughing maniacally (or not.) One of the times for a small, but telling, cutscene comes.
A companion interjects something like, "I can't believe poor so and so is really gone. S/He will be missed. [a pause] We must find [Villain's name] and exact our revenge. [NPCs name] must be avenged for this perfidy."
BAM! You have a real reason to go track the SOB down now. One of the most understandable, too. You're going to get even with that jack.

Then, as the character interacts with the story encounters, you can just keep dangling the principle villain who deserves your undivided attention out there like a carrot on a stick, propelling the players ever further down the path of vengeance. It doesn't hurt the story that this also happens to be an instrumental thing to stopping the evil and nefarious plans the villain has for regional domination -- or as simple as forcing the person s/he desires to marry them and solidify a land grab, title, etc.

You don't want to be too overt about controlling the player during play, but if you're going to (which isn't that uncommon in the first place, right? After all, we're talking about the illusion of player control in this topic) then at least make the reason to propel the player through these series of hoops something they can emotionally connect with. Vengeance for a friend, justice (sometimes hard to tell apart) and the safety of all they hold dear, all tied up in a single evil package. At the risk of sounding somewhat Presidential: NEAT!

This sort of thinking and the idea of presenting a series of 'less-than-satisfactory' choices that manage to propel the player through a series of otherwise unobtainable adventure options, should be the sort of methodology to story design in an interactive medium that can serve to quite literally change the way players look at games like this.

Then again, considering the things I am attempting to get going (re: Plan9 at the Citadel) and the way I look at the world around me, maybe I'm just a bit of a nutjob. I may be crazy, but it may be just crazy enough to work!

dunniteowl

Modifié par dunniteowl, 27 août 2010 - 02:15 .

[Vaalyah]

Maybe I am going to express the voice of stupidity but... are we sure the player would like the idea of loosing and loosing and loosing till the final battle?

I mean, I would soon get discouraged and also bored... I don't think I would have the curiosity to go straight to the end of a game where I am just a complete looser...

One of the best things of BG2 was that once you believe you are at the victory point (going to the isle to find Imoen), it is just the moment when you loose your soul... and not a victory point, but just the most lower point for your character. But even if that was a failure, your PC starts from that point and improve... I think that a continuous series of failure would not be enjoyable at all, moreover, from where the "happy ending" when you defeat the villain should arise?

If the villain and his minions are always a step ahead me, why in the end, I can defeat them all??? they should be a step ahead also at the end of the game... shouldn't they?



hope I was able to express decently my (confused) thoughts

[The Fred]

I think the idea is not that the player should fail often or that they should have to fail, but that they should be able to fail, at least some of the time in certain quests, without prompting a reload - i.e. failure should not (always) result in loss of the game or in a loss of something without any gain (e.g. treasure vs no treasure is bad, treasure vs minor quest granting less but different treasure might work).

[Vaalyah]

Ah ok, in this sense I think it could be an interesting option!

[dunniteowl]

Right Vaalyah. In this sense, failing to get the main villain is not losing the battle, possibly it's the battle that allows the villain to escape. You win the battle, lose a dear or important friend/character and it's not satisfying enough. You have now the motivation to track down the villain, no matter what, maybe, and, depending on your actions, maybe going after the villain to the exclusion of other quests isn't the best idea, or leads to situations that cause you to sort of 'miss out' on some opportunity (due to your focus on one goal only) and then maybe require of the character to take a different track to complete the missions they must in order to make sure that the more important objective (like saving the kingdom, or rescuing the imprisoned people, say) is something that must still be paid attention while going for the throat of the bad guy.

It's really not about losing, losing, losing. It's about setting conditions that, even when you come out successful, make you realize that there might have been another way to do it, but it still wouldn't come out all roses. Succeeding at one thing means, in these cases, having to sacrifice or miss out on other things.

Currently most game design allows you to do mission after mission after mission and there is absolutely no consequences to taking your time or doing them in whatever order. The conditions of completing these queests do not change. That's the idea here. You should have to take into account how long you take to get to a mission once assigned. You should be able to do it your way, but recognize that going off in direction F may mean that completing Mission A is not going to be possible in the same way it would have been had you just done the job right away.

In many games, if you do not do the mission in a certain way, it's a complete and utter failure and you HAVE to reload and win the battle, or encounter has to be completed a specific way only before the game can progress.

When it's like that, doesn't it make more sense to offer the player a moment where your mission is not done the way it was hoped, and instead of reloading the game and starting from the last save point, one of your companions looks over at you and says, "Well, what now? We're obviously not going to catch the villain and the town has fallen because we didn't make it in time. What can we do now?"

Which sort of failure is actually easier to deal with? Reload, reload, reload until you complete the mission the designer's way, or be allowed to move forward and now have a slightly different mission because you failed to succeed completely at the last one?

Personally, I would prefer to be able to press forward and see where it takes me.

dunniteowl

[Vaalyah]

But if we can't do all the quest, we would have other problems... I buy a game, and we all know how short are some games, like 70€ for 20 hours of playing time. If in those 20 hours I can't accomplished each quest, in the end I have played 10-15 hours. I don't want to loose the opportunity to do half of the game for these reasons... plus I think I'll start crying like a desperate if a friend NPC would get killed (I know, I have some big problems :-D )

[dunniteowl]

True enough, maybe, Vaalyah. However, this sort of story line path changing doesn't mean you won't spend that amount of time playing. Yet, let's say it does shorten the overall story by a bit. I'd bet that, even so, a 20 hour game might drop to 18 hours. Sooner or later that game does have to come to some sort of end.

Here's the kicker. If the story did make you emotionally connect during the game, would you remember that more or less than if you got your 20+ hours of gameplay from your first run-through?

I'm guessing it would have a deeper, more lasting impression on you. Plus, you'd be more inclined to play again, wondering, "What if I didn't go off and adventure over here? Would I then make this quest turn out very differently?" And then, using this idea, you'd find out that, "Yes, yes you do have a different outcome, even in the same overall story." Now when you finish a 2nd time, you might see where things come out the same and things are different and you'd start going, "What else can I do that would make the game a different experience for me?"

And sooner or later, on your 4th or 5th play through the game, you're going to realize, "Hey, I've been playing this thing for like what, 150 hours?!?" And you're still having a good time. That's money/hour value in gaming.

It's worth looking into. However, until this sort of idea really catches on, it's going to be up to Community Module Makers to show others this path.

dunniteowl