Prenote: I copied this from wordpad so some linebreaks had to be corrected and there might not enough line spaces for clearness so I am thankful if any one who might feel disturbed by that helps me to improve the structure to be better readable. Philosphic core: Humans follow their motivations/wishes and sooner or later while they persue them, they are confronted with an obstacle/hindrance to those motivations. To overcome those obstacle, there are two possible path to take, either to change oneself until you are no longer affected anymore by the hindrance or to change the hindrance until it is no longer a hindrance to you.(The only other way out is to give up on your desire/motivation--> buddhism XD) The second possibility is the way that leads to fighting, whereas fighting now can be understood as a struggle for the control needed to change the obstacle/opponent. Consequences:multiple ways A system of experience for killing in itself creates inflexibility as their is only one state (death) to achieve your motivation (in this case experience and drops). Instead, if for example we use a Game system that rather focusses on survival , regarding fights this means living trough an encounter, their are several states that can be counted as success: Removing the enemies ability to attack( paralyzing the body, putting the enemy into chains/restrictions etc). Taking away the enemies motivation to fight ( aquire high advantage against your opponent like weakening him sealing away his powers, transferring yourself into a powerful state, you could soothe your opponent or destroy his "reason to fight" etc). Gain full or partial control over your enemies action(taken him prisoner or using mind control etc). Removing his ability to follow you in order to flee( blinding your opponent,entangling him or slowing him down or speeding yourself up by some means etc). multiple motivations Supporting multiple motivations means creating the basis for a diversity of skills. For example: Someone who wants to travel and see the world mainly needs skill to avoid detection(hidding, invisibility) from monsters, to calm them down and to disengage flee from combat effectively, this supports skills that grants you movement speed or escape options like transforming temporarily into a bird and such gaining the ability of flight for a short period of time, even simple thinks like climbing trees or swimming gain a function within the game. Someone wants to play Pokemon, wants to create a collection of animals, a zoo, then he would need skills to defeat animals without killing them,skills for capturing them , taming them or restricting them and skills that prevent the opponent from fleeing battle. Someone wants to live in a really dangerous area(the hermit of the demonic woods XD) then he needs skill like soothing beast, preventing his home to be attacked(barrier like skills), maybe skills that improve the relationship, communication with certain species(although this should be largely influenced by player behaviour), skills that show his superior strength to enemies(a fear aura like skill, with multiple uses), skills that allow him to reach safe spaces or travel safe routes(although this also apllies to travelers). Someone who likes challenging fights or hunts certain resources bounties might need tracking skills and skills to measure, seek the opponents power and also skills like the fear aura to avoid weak encounters. Fighting in detail:Transcience for dynamic, Continuity for meaning Control is something which not always lasts eternally, it can appear and disappear in seconds, representing what is called the flow of battle changing situations, occuring opportunities. Such the control aquired in a battle can be crudely be divided into continuous(for the duration of battle) and temporary effects, whereas continous effects can be looked on as achievements in the direction of changing the opponent into an desired state, temporary effects rather represent preparations and opportunities to achieve continuous effects. Lets look on how these effects are handled and how the could be handled within current games for better understanding: In Games with only minimal healing during a fight, hp plays the role of the ultimate measurment of continuos achievement, however many of these Games lack to implement sufficient temporary effects such that success and duration of combat easily becomes predictable(which makes fighting boring) just by measuring the damage of the first hits done to a monster. Things that can be done to implement temporary effects are for example: Active defending ( see Renwolfs topic ). Perfoming a combat moves will shift you into a certain stance, which will have advantages and disadvantages and will determine what moves you can currently use( there might also be non attacking moves just to switch to certain stances). Different status effects for persons, objects and areas(stuns,rage, spell circles,muddy ground etc). Adding one or two new values like stamina or balance and managing them as temporary effects(gain and loss during combat). Games that are dominated by healing in best case create a dynamical situation between managing the delivering of damage and the restoration of hp, however they also have their weak points the worst is that they do not fare well with long duration fights as partial achievements(decreasing of hp but not causing death) tend to easily dissappear within long terms, which can become quite frustating. Of course this assumes that they enemy is also able to heal himself, if this is not the case ,asymmetric healing like I prefer to call it this avoids one but leads to another problem, as this does not thrive well with one on one or equal number fights. The enemy seems more dull and less tactical when his hp are static compared to you and such is less challenging to defeat, this problems however does not occur when fighting asymmetric numbers as the enemies usually have no time to regenerate (which explains why tons of non regenerating undeads are still an interesting fight in diablo2). The worst case of this is what I call the pot (<-potion) empire when potions allow instantious and plentiful restoration of hp,(you do not die as long you have potions) this generally prevents regenerative abilities to be useful as well as making surviving a matter of money rather than skill, this is also the reason why modern exspecially PvP games recently give time counters to potions. Examples of solutions To solve the above problems the most popular approach is to make a hybrid system, by finding the precious balance between continuous and temporary nature of hp, this approach also allows to make the tendency into one or the other direction an option of charachter creation and playing style.(vitality and regen stats, regenerative abilities etc). However there are also some different solutions to the problem, one for example to is use two different kind of damage normal damage for a temporary effect and for a continous effect, damage that reduces the maximum hp and probably should be somewhat proportional to the normal damage for a . (something similar is done in the game 9dragons although the wrong way if you ask me). A similar concept of splitting instead of balacing can also be used for stamina, which in many cases fullfills a continous role while cooldown timers perform the temporary task,instead stamina can have suffcient regeneration so that it rathers behave like action points, while simultaneously using stamina also wears down the maximum stamina or causes a certain effect of reduced damage, attack speed, reduced stats (fatigue). Personally I prefer a system where having stamina below a certain percentage value(of your original maximum hp) causes the percentage difference to affect the stats and at the same time, stamina use decreases the maximum hp, that way you not only have to think about using a skill that will leave you "weakened" you also have to plan long term as continous use of high stamina will wear down your maximum hp and such reduce the capacity you have before usage starts to affect your stats. ( 100%(capacity) - 50%(current % of you full max hp) = 50% , 80%(capacity) - 50%(current % of you full max hp) = 30% Additionally these dual systems allow for interesting perks, like one character who has no temporary hp only maximum hp( a zombie counterbalanced with no regen), another one that even during a fight can regenerate sufficient amounts of max hp , a third one who has no continous effect only the temporary. (the same can apply fo stamina or other values) P.S.: I hope you enjoyed what you read and that my claims seeem solid to you :) [Edited by - Wush on January 19, 2007 6:20:05 PM]

Two things.

The link doesn't work.

Also, you want to be very, very careful disrupting player control of their character.

I think you base too much of your explanations on conventional RPGs. RPGs did that because it was easy to implement and easy to play. There is no philosophic motivated design approach. There is only the implementation of bottlenecks and laziness in changing designs. Since computers are more powerful, just go ahead and write your version and make it fun. You can't really tell whether something is fun until you play it.

One thing you might want to keep in mind, is to limit the deadtime in a game. In some games, there is no potion and no cure ability unless you are the healer character. The consequence is that a warrior character would fight and sit to wait for regeneration. This introduces deadtime.

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FunPack

I think that the point of playing a game is to have fun. For a targeted audience, suppose you can catagorize the fun factors and call it the FunPack, then you should design the game such that the experience of playing at any moment is an element in the FunPack.

Simply put, if your player has a FunPack consists of only fighting, then you need to minimize the time when the player is forbiddened to fight. For example, if you player is injured and your gameplay dictates that continue fighting only worsen the situation, then your gameplay has an element outside the FunPack. For those players you need to implement a gameplay that allows the player to be motivated to continue fighting even if injured.

In my game, the main character is a fighter with a partner. With just fighting as a pair in the FunPack, I made the character heal through fighting. The design is this: when he fights, his partner will combo with his attacks. When the partner's attack lands, her technique gauge charges. When that gauge is charged to a certain amount, she heals the fighter.

So if you want to heal, then you _need_to_ keep on fighting. Which is good because fighting is in the FunPack.

A related comment is that of all status, I hate slowness and sleep most. Because I want action, and being slow or being asleep are not in the FunPack. But there are times where the player loses control:

1. When the character is hit, the character is pushed back. So there is a brief moment when the character cannot attack. I don't mind this because the enemies are not standing still anyway.

2. When you have just made a punch, you cannot move. I don't mind this because part of fighting is to decide when to punch.

I didn't implement entangle. But I want to. The way I plan to make entangle fun (from the perspective of fighting), is that once you are entangled, there is a moving weakpoint around you, such that once your parnter attack it, you are free. So you fight with your partner in order to get out. Things are still in the FunPack.

@Wai: nice theory with the FunPack. However, once the player has mastered the FunPack, what's left? Also, how about variety, e.g. multiple FunPacks? :)

@Wush: try adding some bold headlines here and there, that describe what the paragraphs are about, and fix the link (which now linkifies half of your post :)). Right now it's a lot of text, not broken up by any headline, which makes it difficult to scan and that discourages reading.

Beige:
"Also, you want to be very, very careful disrupting player control of their character."

Do you mean the situation created when a player for example loses the ability to attack? If thats the case you should remember this is something which does not occur in the middle of battle, it whats marks the end of a battle.If the enemy continues to slash on you he either has chosen the wrong way to reach his motivation or he should have choosen soemthing liek a one hit kill spell, ability that can only be completed if the target does not attack anything
during the long casting/preparation time.

Wai:
"I think you base too much of your explanations on conventional RPGs.
RPGs did that because it was easy to implement and easy to play.
There is no philosophic motivated design approach. There is only the implementation of bottlenecks and laziness in changing designs.
Since computers are more powerful, just go ahead and write your version and make it fun. You can't really tell whether something is fun until you play it."

I am not sure to what points of my post you are referring when you talk about "conventional" RPGs and stuff used cause it was "easy" to implement, although
I admit my examples are pretty much based around rpgs. Oh and that there is no philosophic motivated design approach is also not correct, besides the usefullness of models as a rough orientation, games are forms of realities that are drvien by humans, so understanding reality and the pschology of humans is essential for creating artificial forms of reality and at the same time appeal to the human mind.
Also I did not try to determine whats fun, in fact playing originated as a way of training, preparation and fine tuning for animals in their childhood,
as intelligence developed playing became more important and abundant for adult animals,it is even speculated that the development of our creative and flexible
thinking is highly related to the preservation of childlike properties during our whole lifetime, so as it can not be determined beforehand which aspects of existance you are confronted with in life, you can not determine what preparations you have to take and such it can not be totally predefined whats fun to play.
However we can understand trough this, why we often enjoy games we feel are challenging our abilities adn under this premise I just tried to provide analysis on creating a challenging system.
(note: In your terms I first start with a undefined fun pack and then go more in detail for a funpack including fighting)

Captain P:
Will work on that if I find time and find out what commands exactly have to be used for quotes, bold letters etc in this forum.

Quote:

Captain P: Will work on that if I find time and find out what commands exactly have to be used for quotes, bold letters etc in this forum.

Plain html will do, but BBcode also works.

Ok hope this gives some pep into the text and maybe one or the other will be motivated to give some detailed and maybe even creatively productive posts,

Re: Captain P

A player cannot master the FunPack. When the player masters the FunPack, he is no longer a targeted player. In the previous post, the topic wasn't about building the elements in a FunPack. It was about eliminating elements that are not in the FunPack. For example, if variety (in a certain context) is an element in the FunPack, then you should minimize situations that are not varied (within the context).

Re: Wush

I was confused about the purpose of your original post. On one hand you seemed to be proposing a new way of looking at game design, on the other hand, the examples you gave is how games are written. For instance:

Quote:

A system of experience for killing in itself creates inflexibility as their is only one state (death) to achieve your motivation (in this case experience and drops). Instead, if for example we use a Game system that rather focuses on survival , regarding fights this means living trough an encounter, their are several states that can be counted as success.

There is no 'instead, if for example', because this is how quests and games are designed. I am speaking of 'design' in the sense that one can complete writing a game without designing parts or all of it. It is the same as saying how one can write a story from begining to end without designing the story. There is a difference between applying gameplay modes than designing gameplay modes.

A design requires design goals and the conscious decisions to achieve the goals.

A philosophic design approach is an approach that makes design decisions based on a set of philosophy (as oppose to popularity, familiarity, or the ease of implementation).

In this regard, I disagree slightly that the philosophic core of a design is challenge. I would argue that the philosophic core of a game design is not to design a challenge, but a fun experience.

Something that is challenging can be either dull or fun. Something fun to play isn't necessarily challenging. I think that the philosophic core of game design is to lead the player's emotion. Making a game challenging is one way to lead a certain target player's emotion.

Snake and Ladder is a game in which the outcome is dictated solely by dice. Is 'challenge' a typical word to describe the features of the game?

The Snake and Ladder game is typically fun when the players interact and react emotionally to the (randomly generated) situations. Which is the more prominent feature of Snake and Ladder? The challenge to get to the last square, or the emotion responses of the players.

[Edited by - Wai on January 19, 2007 7:58:22 PM]

Quote:

There is no 'instead, if for example', because this is how quests and games are designed.

That in itself is the problem, games are not designed that way cause its the best, but because its the most commonly known and experienced way.
My intention with the 'instead, if for example' part was to show that there are
a variety of other ways to approach design and fighting instead of focussing on achievement trough killing.

My most prominent example for this is survival, if for example the player is part of a community that tries to survive in a hostile environment, this gives a lot of potential for player driven quests additionally the focus of fights shifts to self protection(instead of plain murder of cute creatures ^^).

For example if your mission is get 10 of stuff A, you will go to the location
where A is and on the way there will be alot of creatures that might attack you, aswell you might have to manage some difficulties in terrain(maybe implement some jump and run featurs?), so you can choose to avoid fighting, can fight until the enemy flees or use some moves that will immobilize etc the enemy so you can continue on your way, mosts quest will not encourage senseless slaughter and those who require killing will be more on the line of getting food and making warm mantles,protecting the settlement(this bears large potential for persistent worlds).

Another Quest scenario is that of escorting a trading wagon or making a travel group to reach next town the players stick together getting a feeling of community while defending against a hostile environment, consitsing of wild animals bandits etc.

And while you do that you will train your skills by doing and by "surviving" encounters(this can be done for example by granting eperience if you are able to get in and out of a certain radius surrounding a monster or by granting experience for beeing near a monster (that way you can exp even for sneaking around an animal and other non aggressive means, and you partially directly apply the exp to the abilities you use while next to them)

Well for those who enjoy fighting, build an Arena( a simple ring of flat ground
thats marked somehow so that special rules can be apllied to the area is sufficent) and enjoy yourself in your freetime performing duels fighting against trained animals and sparring with people that work as your master/trainer/teacher(I think there arwe some games out there where you can get pupil of someone).
By giving sparring options that allow for example one player to get handicaps, limit his power and using a system of fight that involves player abilities,
strategic choices ,reaction, quickthinking,character creation concepts etc instead of just character abilities, one is able to have entertaining fights
without having to search for monsters at the end of the world.
Additionally you interact with other people, and its less discouraging to involve yourself in PvP( I always get a feeling like my levels not got enough,
I have not enough experience and my reactions are to slow, so I fear to blunder
and generally avoid PvP, in spite og my interest for it )
A sparring system might remove hesitation, allowing to have a friendly and
easy match and get the feeling for doing stuff.

Quote:

I would argue that the philosophic core of a game design is not to design a challenge, but a fun experience.

The philosophic core in my opinion is the world view your design is based on,
fun is what we would call the goal of design, also I might assure you I merely
meant that challenge is a very successful way of producing fun as it fits quite well the way the human mind has developed to work.

Quote:

The Snake and Ladder game is typically fun when the players interact and react emotionally to the (randomly generated) situations. Which is the more prominent feature of Snake and Ladder? The challenge to get to the last square, or the emotion responses of the players.

I do not understand challenge as the goal of a certain game, it also does not mean to make a game exspecially difficult its rather the capacity to involve your mind into activity, learning something, experiencing something, trying to solve a problem or just taken in as much sensory or emotional information as you can.
Hmm maybe its better to focus on the stimulation itself, instead of the challenge that crates it?

[Edited by - Wush on January 20, 2007 2:03:47 AM]

The Snake and Ladder game has certain features that makes it fun. It doesn't matter whether we find the game fun. But we should be able to describe and explain each element that makes the Snake and Ladder game fun (for those that find it fun).

A feature of the Snake and Ladder (S&L) game is that although the outcome is solely determined by dice roll, you can see the snakes and the ladders before you roll the dice. When you play you may think like this:

"Gosh! There are so many snakes ahead!"
"Oh! I want to get to that ladder, that will kick ass!"

In S&L, you don't have any control to your performance, but the knowledge of the danger and rewards gives you anticipation. In terms of my previous post, S&L is leading the player's emotion by using anticipation.

A philosophic design approach is a method of making design decisions.

Suppose anticipation is the only source that makes S&L fun, and suppose I propose this 'improvement':

"Let's hide all the snakes and ladders on the board, since they are so hard to draw. Let's just code the effects as a player lands on the square."

Then the philosophic approach would say, "This is a bad proposal because it takes away anticipation, which is the emotional lead of the game. If you take away anticipation, you change the target player."