If you design an activity that is complex enough to allow very inventive, cunning, or skilled players to dominate that aspect of the game, should that complexity be capped off with unrealistic artificial limitations? POWER = PLAYER_SKILL x EFFECT If PLAYER_SKILL is an unknown that can reach any height relative to the human player's intellect or effectiveness, should POWER be limited after this computation? Almost all games seem to do it. I understand why - balance, but I don't agree with it. I'm curious to see other opinions.

First, what is PLAYER_SKILL?

If it's a stat you attain by gathering items / buying upgrades / etc. then you might want to limit it in some way to keep the game balanced. You don't have to put a hard limit on it though - maybe just make it sort of logarithmic so that the after a certain point getting more skill has very little effect, even though it's not nothing.

If skill is referring to the player's ability to make tactical decisions, outmaneuver, etc. through the controller, then you shouldn't limit anything based on this (except maybe match players intelligently to balance the game).

If there's only one way to play (or do the best) it ceases to be a game. You're just running your players through the motions at that point.

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Original post by JohnJ First, what is PLAYER_SKILL?

How clever, intelligent, or instinctful you are, as the player. How well you perform at gameplay with the tools you've been provided.

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If it's a stat you attain by gathering items / buying upgrades / etc.

Stats and items would be part of EFFECT. Things that are controlled by the game and the designer. PLAYER_SKILL would be multiplied with those elements to grant power over the game world. Many games limit that power.

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If skill is referring to the player's ability to make tactical decisions, outmaneuver, etc. through the controller, then you shouldn't limit anything based on this (except maybe match players intelligently to balance the game).

That's exactly what I was asking.

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Original post by Telastyn If there's only one way to play (or do the best) it ceases to be a game. You're just running your players through the motions at that point.

I'm not just referring to the entire game world. I'm referring to small, individual situations as well. Having the capacity to completely shut down the challenge with cleverness, but having the game prevent you from doing so to maintain balance, by enforcing unrealistic limitations.

That balance is only there for one thing. To help the player enjoy themselves. If you allow them to overpower some part of the game using your own rules in some clever or inventive way, I believe they will have fun doing it, and that limitations that feel like last-minute design decisions will just anger them.

What if some large mystery could be unraveled in a few seconds with a genius mind? Should you force that person to go through the motions of pretending to solve it by finding clues?

What if the player is brave enough to go straight into the dangerous mountain areas to find the most powerful items? Should you throw up an invisible boundary to force them to level up a few times first?

Why artificially limit the player's progress?

The only issue is then the genius tells everyone and everyone thinks they're just awesome and does it that way... and few will enjoy the design that was given to it in the first place. But if you take a route like, say, Super Metroid for example (sorry I'm not so up to date on modern games), where if you go really fast and conquer the game because you're that good, you would get to see your hero in some skimpy cartoon clothes. If you take your time though, you get a chance to grab more power-ups etc. and enjoy some of the design done to the game. It was win-win and you had incentive to go either route.

Also, in the super-powerful item scenerio, I know a lot of games, instead of making an invisible barrier, just make the enemies, say, so difficult for you that early in the game, that there is no way for you to get that awesome powerful item. No unrealistic limitations... and it doesn't matter what the PLAYER_SKILL is, because don't forget that EFFECT is equally important in your equation.

In essence, I think there are other solutions besides destroying the suspension of disbelief. If they some how manage to get that powerful item, maybe they deserve it? (Or they put in a cheat code... in which case who cares if they got it or not...)

Cheers
-Scott

Balance is there to ensure that the player who mastered a certain technique or aspect of the game CAN actually be matched or beaten by another player with equal or greater mastery of an effective counter-technique.

As long as the value of skill goes both ways in as equal measure as possible, than that -is- balance. It will just be a more difficult game to master, not an unbalanced one.

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Original post by popsoftheyear Also, in the super-powerful item scenerio, I know a lot of games, instead of making an invisible barrier, just make the enemies, say, so difficult for you that early in the game, that there is no way for you to get that awesome powerful item.

If the game gives the player interesting abilities, it's usually very possible to slip beyound the character's skill level limitations to reach things that are beyound their level, regardless of the challenge put forth. It's actually because of this fact that most games impose artificial limitations.

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No unrealistic limitations... and it doesn't matter what the PLAYER_SKILL is, because don't forget that EFFECT is equally important in your equation.

There's a big difference. Limiting EFFECT will limit everyone. Not just those that are really effective with it. If EFFECT is balanced for everyone, and everyone is expected to be slightly dumb, then very intelligent players will dominate. The artificial limitation is there to prevent that sort of thing. To allow unskilled players to have power, while preventing very skilled players from completely destroying the opposition.

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If they some how manage to get that powerful item, maybe they deserve it?

I completely agree with this philosophy.

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If they some how manage to get that powerful item, maybe they deserve it?

From another point of view, if they somehow do manage to get that powerful item, maybe they should be challenged further (and on a greater level of difficulty) to use it, keep it, or just prevent it from consuming their petty character's soul?

In reality, power of any sort is not a gift or reward, just an advantage with usually quite high maintenance cost (in one way or another). There is no reason why games should have it otherwise - it certainly doesn't have any positive effects that I can see.

Besides, players who achieve such demanding and difficult tasks are usually those who want to be challenged. Allowing them to dominate thanks (for the most part) to some powerful item they deserved would likely just make it boring for them.

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Original post by Talin Quote: If they some how manage to get that powerful item, maybe they deserve it? From another point of view, if they somehow do manage to get that powerful item, maybe they should be challenged further (and on a greater level of difficulty) to use it, keep it, or just prevent it from consuming their petty character's soul?

They may have already been challenged further. It's a simple conclusion. If you give the player useful, realistic, unrestricted abilities, then the challenge is irrelevant. It can always be beaten.

The only way to absolutely stop it is to use artificial limitations. Typical arcade-like restrictions that people have gotten accustomed to.

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Besides, players who achieve such demanding and difficult tasks are usually those who want to be challenged. Allowing them to dominate thanks (for the most part) to some powerful item they deserved would likely just make it boring for them.

I love challenges, but I don't agree that having power is boring. Especially if it's the result of facing such challenges, and is short term. As a player, if I become inventive or daring during a specific situation/mission, and end up pouncing all of the bad guys in that location without breaking a sweat, that's not a bad thing for me.

If I fight against bad guys with death rays and kill them with my knife, why shouldn't I be able to pick up one of those death rays and win the day with it?

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What if some large mystery could be unraveled in a few seconds with a genius mind? Should you force that person to go through the motions of pretending to solve it by finding clues?

Definitely not!

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What if the player is brave enough to go straight into the dangerous mountain areas to find the most powerful items? Should you throw up an invisible boundary to force them to level up a few times first?

Definitely not!

Limiting the extent of the player's skill in a game would be possibly the worst thing you could do to a game, IMO. It would take away all the incentive to become skilled at the game. I would even go so far as to say a large part of why people play games is because they like to challenge themselves for the rewards they get when they improve their skills. Taking away the reward of being skilled in a game takes away the reward of playing the game, and puts it at a level where the interactivity that sets it apart from a movie, for example, is useless.

I think the reason many games impose artificial limitations is not because they want to do this - in fact it's quite the opposite; most game developers today understand that less limits make more interactive and exciting gameplay. Artificial limitations are added usually due to the technical difficulties of properly implementing a game engine capable of no limitations.

For example, most game engines are still built to a work with essentially linear progressions of storyline, achievements, etc. A non-linear game engine that lets the player do everything without artificial limitations is very difficult to achieve properly, but ultimately the resulting game is much more enjoyable (which explains the trend toward more open-ended games, rather than the traditional "on-rails" games of the past).

On the topic of gameplay balance, it's always a good idea to implement some kind of system that tries to match the player's skills and provide a fun challenge, but again, it's not easy to do this without imposing artificial limitations.

But no matter how difficult, I think avoiding artificial limitations is always very rewarding in the end, because your game will be so much more fun to play. It makes the player feel much more "in" the game - where their own choices and skills really do make a difference, and the world is really responding to the player's actions, rather than the player responding to what their character "should" be doing according to the plot/mission.