I like that idea about waiting for the player to be ready for a mission before requiring them to complete it. It''s an excellent way to govern game progression, as long as there''s a human moderator to control it.

Is there a way to make it viable in an electronic game? Nothing is immediately apparent. You could set level requirements, like only making a certain class of mission available to level 18 and above players, or else set prerequisites on equipment or past achievements. You could even try to base it on a reputation system, where you only get jobs if the NPC assigning them deems you trustworthy. All of these would give it a sort of Mario 64 feel. You collect 25 stars, and then you can get through the big door.

I''d rather have more options available to the player, so that if he thinks he''s got what it takes, he can take a crack at a more advanced task with greater rewards and more danger of failure. Leave it up to the player to decide what he''s good enough to do, and then he can hardly gripe when he doesn''t cut the mustard.

I hate to bring up Escape Velocity again, but it''s a good example of what I have in mind. In EV, every spaceport has a mission computer and many have bars. You go to the mission computer for jobs like courier missions and cargo runs and passenger transports, and if your ship has the capacity and the fuel to go the distance, and the armament to survive the various dangers, then you take the job and head out. Or you can go to the bar, and depending on your fame, or record, your alliances and random luck, people may approach you with jobs. These can be anything from a special shipment of lumber to running escort for freighters to landing a team of space commando revolutionaries on a government installation. If you think you can hack it, you go for it, and if not, you refuse.

In an RPG, this sort of thing could take place in towns or taverns. You could get mercenary work defending merchants, or you could respond to want-ads about favors to be done, you could catch stray dogs, or spend a little money to train with the local swordmaster. On occasion, something major would happen, like a war or something, and the local government would offer a reward for helping to resolve it. Depending on your skills you could get involved as a spy or a soldier or a diplomat.

This design works well in the persistent-universe type of game, but for an FF-style game, which is generally plat-driven and carefully structured around critical events and FMV cut-scenes, far less flexibility is allowed. There are things that only your character must do, and that your character must be at a certain strength level to complete. If that''s the way the game is built, then that''s the way it has to be played, and everything else is just a chance to get more appropriate gear and higher levels with which to take on the next linear step in the story. You don''t expect Threshkar the Demon King to bide his time while YOU gain strength, do you? Of course not. The job will appear when all the jobs that come before it are completed, and will stay there until you finish it. It''s actually something of a design flaw in FF-type games, if you ask me, but lately I''ve been getting more interested in the free-range RPG format. It might just be a phase I''m going through.

quote: Original post by Iron Chef Carnage
I like that idea about waiting for the player to be ready for a mission before requiring them to complete it. It''s an excellent way to govern game progression, as long as there''s a human moderator to control it.

Actually I was aiming a little further than just not requiring the player to attempt a mission before they''re ready - unless there''s a time limit, you can ignore offered missions in current RPGs. I had in mind not making the mission visible until the character(s) reached a certain threshhold - level or value of a particular stat... whatever you''re using to judge capability.

That way, in FF games, for example, rather than having each cut scene setting up the next plot section trigger as soon as you complete the previous section''s key event, have it wait until you''ve completed the previous section, and reached a certain level - particularly those times in the plot where you''ve just defeated a boss, only to discover that there''s another level of evil lurking behind...

If you really want players to be able to take up high challenge missions (not suitable for FF games, where it can be mathematically impossible to win certain fights at a given character level) then you should indicate somehow that these are missions for which failure is the most likely outcome. Particularly if you make it so that failure is not game-crippling (maybe just game-maiming ) so the player can afford to try and fail. In that case, you''d add a layer to the game - not everything has to be set up so that the player wins by design; some quests can just be too hard for them, making the player have to choose which quests to undertake - provided you offer enough information that the player can make an informed choice, you add a new type of decision making.

I can''t see how that could be implemented. Short of putting a little statue of Donald Duck next to the door with a sign that says "You must be THIS tough to ride the Onyx Dragon", what you''re basically espousing is common sense. Don''t do things in the game that would be ridiculously stupid in ral life.

Hypothetical Situation: You just squeezed past an enemy that was so tough you barely survived that battle, and only beat him thanks to a lucky critical hit one turn before his Death Beam of Pain and Horror charged up all the way. There''s a hollow thud, and the door behind his corpse swings wide. He made some cryptic comments about "protecting my master" when he stood in front of that door. I suspect that there''s something back there that was sufficiently badass for this guy to work for it.

Should the game designer be faulted if you are dumb enough to drag your crippled ass through that door and into the jaws of certain death? Of course not. Likewise, if you''re stomping through a castle, and having to run from certain enemies because you aren''t strong enough to beat them without losing a lot of blood in the process, what would possess you to think that you can defeat the master of them all? If I''m dumb enough to approach a boss in a level that I''m having trouble just staying alive in, I can''t really expect to whup him in one try, can I?

But what of the "surprise boss fights", wherein a big bad guy jumps out at an innocuous (non-throne room, non-treasure hoard, non-mystical portal, non-convenient exit) location and you''re thrust into a fight that you weren''t really prepared for? Well, them''s the breaks, kid. Cope, or die. Just because you''re clever enough to maintain your health at exactly the level that will allow you to defeat the random enemies without wasting heal potions doesn''t mean you''re entitled to beat the dungeon.

If you really get angry and blame game designers when you find yourself outmatched by a guy who decorates his house with the shields, skulls and souls of heroes, then you probably shouldn''t play video games. Or gin rummy, for that matter. ("For the love of CRAP! Where was that jack three turns ago?! And don''t you DARE tell me you''re collecting fours. I swear to God I''ll...")

I guess I''m just suggesting that, rather than having 15 different NPCs in town, each offering a quest to all comers, have the NPCs decide whether or not to offer their quest to the player - "Come back when you''ve learned how to use that sword of yours". If the player can only go on the (relatively) high level quests by badgering the NPC until they give in and tell them how to access them, then it''s the player''s fault for forcing the issue when his character ends up smeared across the walls of the first room of the dungeon...

If NPCs offer quests willy-nilly, and going off to rescue a little girl''s kitten from a tree can get you ambushed by a horde of level 10000 demon kings, then it''s the game designer''s fault for not giving the player enough information to make sensible choices.

In Final Fantasy VIII, on my first game, I was wandering innocently around the Esthar region when I got attacked by a Marlboro - Game Over, from an unadvertised, unpredictable encounter that was tougher by far than any boss fight in the game to that point (unless you''re prepared for it, the Bad Breath attack effectively ends the game). Now, whenever I play FF VIII, I make a point of junctioning status defence to guard against Marlboros specifically (beserk first, with confuse second), even though that leaves me vulnerable to the more common status attacks of other monsters in the area. In that situation, there was no way for me to anticipate the nature of the Marlboro''s attack - and, while, with hindsight, there are good reasons to defend against beserk status, the same arguments also apply to the death and stone statuses (in fact more forcefully since a beserk party can still win the fight while dead and stone ones are instant game over) so, in pratice, there was no way to anticipate dying from a random encounter at that point. I consider that to be at least questionable game design - though admittedly, FF veterans would probably have been prepared to cope since Marlboros are one of the persistent elements in the series.

And, yes, decisions on which quests to take should be made with common sense, but even then, you need to provide the player with some way of judging which quests are unachievable - and some indication that they''re unachievable at this point by design rather than what I would tend to assume at present, which is that all quests offered are intended to be achievable, and the designers misjudged the level of my party at this stage in the game.

quote: I''d prefer a uniquely different *way* of defeating opponents rather than what you described.

Explain, please.

P.S. Ooh! I know!! We could drop little colored blocks on our enemies'' heads and call the game something like "Final Tetris!" The most original game ever! (just kidding... really!)

I''m always interested in unique approaches to conflict resolution. If there''s a new way to get something done, it''s always worthwhile to investigate it. I''m a fairly violent person, so I have a hard time coming up with non-destructive solutions, but I sure like to read about them.