EasyRaider, the narrower your definition of your target audience, the easier it is to please your players.

If your definition is too broad, it would be impractical to add enough customisation options to cater to everyone within that group. You may as well provide a game construction kit instead.

Catering to minor variations within a tightly defined group is a good idea though.

Another point to consider is that many of the features that players say they dislike actually make the game more interesting and/or challenging. For example, many players dislike dying, but if you've ever played a "shooter" game with an infinite lives or permanent invincibility cheat enabled, you'll know how quickly it becomes monotonous.

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Original post by Ranger Meldon It's not a matter of, "will people not buy my game if I don't do this?" but instead a matter of "how many more people will LOVE my game because I do this?" "How much farther might I raise the bar on the genre if I do this?" "How much less will I feel like I'm churning out yet another cookie-cutter abomination of a game, and feel more like I'm making a labor of love?" After all, if your heart's not into the prospect of devoting your very life to creating a labor of love, why in the world are you creating game software in the first place? Go program e-commerce or bank software. Those are both about as artful as a club to the head. And I say these things not just to you, Wavinator, but to any other programmer reading this, as a warning: you shouldn't be programming games if you don't love what you do, and want to make it better every day. The industry is becoming more flooded all the time with passionless (or worse yet, impassioned but bereft of tenacity or talent) idiots with CS degrees who should be monkey-coding or mopping floors, not making art. (..) I realize that the art of programming is all about balancing competing desires. However, some things should never be compromised. Quality over quantity is one of them. And if this means taking more development time, figuring out Newtonian physics for yourself, and/or making customizable items, then so be it.

... But isn't your stance to a degree precisely what you call to avoid, just a sentence earlier? You say you want 'quality over quantity' and then immediately go around and demand "this and this and this and that and $50k physics systems all wrapped in one game, and i don't give a damn how long it's going to take you to code all that" You translate the demand for "quality" into demand for "quantity" of features, at the end of the day wanting "all" *and* everything of that 'all' to be "the best".

Furthermore, to equal skipping on some features with "it can't be then labour of love and may you burn in hell for churning out such half-made crap" ... it feels rather... thoughtless and shallow. For all we know, the game might be lacking some features *because* the author put their heart into it, into the parts they found most important and contributing to end shape of their creation. (be it AI, story, game system, simulation quality, visual quality, whatever) Like you said up there, "the art of programming is all about balancing competing desires". Maybe, contrary to what you seem to think, they loved their game *enough* to give up on some features in order to give extra attention to what they considered far more important..?

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Original post by EasyRaider Here's another bad element which applies to games in general: grave, obvious mismatches between story/scripting and gameplay. In scripted sequences, people may get killed from getting their throats slit, yet during gameplay, it's more often than not impossible to kill with a single cut, even if the opponent is unconscious. I can understand that single hit kills are often avoided for gameplay concerns, but when they occur anyway at specific, predetermined points, I really feel cheated. In KotOR, it gets downright ridiculous. Thermal detonators are talked about like they are mini-nukes, capable of obliterating anyone within a sizeable area. But later on, you can have them explode right at your feet for only 15% HP damage. Another example (not RPG) is Red Alert: You get to see some really cool, somewhat realistic video clips, but actual gameplay is totally different. I would have liked the game better if it didn't have those action clips to remind me of just how limited and unrealistic the game is.

A VERY good point. I have always noticed this when it happens in games, and shake my head in stoic amusement every time. We need to stop doing stuff like this in games. Don't show something in a cutscene (pre-rendered or in-game) that can't be done by the player during gameplay. You couldn't do a better job of breaking immersion and creating a feeling of drab scriptedness if you tried! In other words, if you're using cut-scenes for explanatory transition, they should not be cooler than your game.

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Original post by Ranger Meldon Quote: Original post by Wysardry For example, allowing magic users to carry as much as fighters may well destroy the balance of the system, as the restriction should be there for a reason. That's exactly the problem, though -- do we really know that it would destroy the balance? How do we know that the only reason this type of stupid thing was done in the first place was not just because somebody thought it would be more realistic, or perhaps because somebody wasn't thinking at all?

We know this kind of things from how other people's games turn out. In this particular example, i can't recall the name of MMO in question, but it allowed the mages to have 'magic armour' which was as effective as heavy armour of the fighters... but in addition to it, the mages had both long range and splash damage that was actually higher than damage a fighter could deal.

End result? In short time, everyone and their dog was playing a mage, because being anything *but* mage meant being cannon fodder. You don't really get a sign of imbalance more clear than this ;s

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Original post by sergeant_x The classic pnp sci-fi RPG, Traveller, had no experience system, no levels, and no built in mechanic for character 'advancement'. It was by far my favorite RPG and provided years of great play. When I look back, one the biggest reasons the play was so worthwhile was because of the different tone and attitude of the players when 'hero-building' wasn't the point of the game. Players took pride in the accomplishments and experiences of their characters. They had successes, failures, and took an active part in the story.

I'm curious how a game like that worked, and how such a thing could be translated into FPS RPG terms. Care to elaborate and extrapolate?

~Ranger Meldon~ M.M. .:

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Original post by tolaris Quote: Original post by Wysardry For example, allowing magic users to carry as much as fighters may well destroy the balance of the system, as the restriction should be there for a reason.

Ok, where in what Wysardry says do you see any mention of magic armor or splash damage, etc? My comment was in direct response to the question of encumberance, not armor, spells, or anything else. If you're going to disagree with me, fine, I have been proven wrong many times, but please at least make sure it directly relates to what I was talking about. Thanks.

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Original post by tolaris End result? In short time, everyone and their dog was playing a mage, because being anything *but* mage meant being cannon fodder. You don't really get a sign of imbalance more clear than this ;s

Another good example of not fully reading what you're responding to. What did I say at the very end of my post to Wysardry? "It would be different if you decided that mage characters need to be able to wear more armor and have twice as many HP as fighters." Jeez. What surprises me is that I've read your comments on other threads and I liked them. Just please read all of what I say before you decide to disagree with it.

~Ranger Meldon~ M.M. .:

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Original post by Ranger Meldon Quote: Original post by sergeant_x The classic pnp sci-fi RPG, Traveller, had no experience system, no levels, and no built in mechanic for character 'advancement'. It was by far my favorite RPG and provided years of great play. When I look back, one the biggest reasons the play was so worthwhile was because of the different tone and attitude of the players when 'hero-building' wasn't the point of the game. Players took pride in the accomplishments and experiences of their characters. They had successes, failures, and took an active part in the story. I'm curious how a game like that worked, and how such a thing could be translated into FPS RPG terms. Care to elaborate and extrapolate? ~Ranger Meldon~ M.M. .:

It worked pretty much like any RPG. It wasn't remarkable in many other ways, except for maybe the chargen which featured a sort of mini-game that generated a background as characters were created. Other than that, it was just like any roleplaying game except that it didn't dangle the carrot of character skill/power advancement to keep players artificially interested. It's surprising, but only in retrospect, how much it didn't really matter to the players.

They took jobs, worked to buy and/or run a ship, did salvage missions or outright crime, in general the usual RPG fare, just without the power-up treadmill. If power-ups did exist it was in the form of better equipment and expanded opportunities but it was always story driven. I should also mention that the rulebook did include the possibility for increasing education and training, assuming you could find an in-game opportunity for such, but that was part of the campaign development, rather than a default mechanic of the game (and was seldom used by players since it tended to interfere with adventuring).

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Original post by Ranger Meldon Ok, where in what Wysardry says do you see any mention of magic armor or splash damage, etc? My comment was in direct response to the question of encumberance, not armor, spells, or anything else. If you're going to disagree with me, fine, I have been proven wrong many times, but please at least make sure it directly relates to what I was talking about. Thanks.

"We know this kind of things from how other people's games turn out."

This was the part of reply, which was directly related to your question... but then perhaps i took your question "do we really know that it would destroy the balance?" in more general manner than it was actually asked. (as question of 'how do we know if [whatever] would be bad for balance') I wasn't exactly disagreeing with you there on the particular issue of encumberance, simply trying to provide a possible answer ^^

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Original post by Wysardry EasyRaider, the narrower your definition of your target audience, the easier it is to please your players.

And the fewer players you please.

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Original post by Wysardry If your definition is too broad, it would be impractical to add enough customisation options to cater to everyone within that group. You may as well provide a game construction kit instead.

Very true, not to mention trying to please everyone ends up pleasing no one as well as they could have been pleased. However, what about just writing a game that you and your friends love to play, making it the best that you can, and using knowledge of what players in general don't like or want as a guideline?

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Catering to minor variations within a tightly defined group is a good idea though.

Agreed. Adding features within a narrow preference range would eliminate some headache. I just hesitate to think that exclusively, for fear that some really awesome or innovative features could be left out. I know, I just need to deal with it. :) Nobody, and hence no game, is ever going to be perfect.

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Another point to consider is that many of the features that players say they dislike actually make the game more interesting and/or challenging. For example, many players dislike dying, but if you've ever played a "shooter" game with an infinite lives or permanent invincibility cheat enabled, you'll know how quickly it becomes monotonous.

This is a very good point, and one that is fundamental enough that I think we overlook it a lot. We must not forget that just because a player bitches about something doesn't mean it's not making the game better. But extreme discretion must be used to be able to tell the difference. Losing player-base = !good.

~Ranger Meldon~ M.M. .:

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Original post by tolaris "We know this kind of things from how other people's games turn out." This was the part of reply, which was directly related to your question... but then perhaps i took your question "do we really know that it would destroy the balance?" in more general manner than it was actually asked. (as question of 'how do we know if [whatever] would be bad for balance') I wasn't exactly disagreeing with you there on the particular issue of encumberance, simply trying to provide a possible answer ^^

Oh... ok. That's cool. I can see where you might have thought that from what I said. But yes, I was being very specific in that instance. Sorry for the confusion. You do bring up a good point in general, though, about how we need to always remember the proven failures of other games, no matter how well-intentioned their features were. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, etc.

~Ranger Meldon~ M.M. .: