Original post by MossStone I have a life, and can only really play games for a couple of hours a night. Between play sessions I have more important things to think about than trying to remember what NPC X said about NPC Y. Having a map item that I need to check instead of having a mini-map is pointless, as if I have a map then you're not really adding much by hiding it away. Reminders and guidance are good, but I don't want to trek back to the quest giver every time I need to do something. An in game journal that has a quest list and rough directions is a great addition that takes some of the chore out of RPGs.
I do admit that the quest markers shouldn't be more specific than the original quest as said by the quest giver. If a quest says that an NPC is in a general area, the area should be highlighted, not the NPC. If a quest says that an item is in a box in the bedroom of Tom's house, then I should only have Tom's house highlighted if I've been told where Tom's house is. Once I know where it is, Tom's house should be highlighted and a journal entry should say "I was told to look in the bedroom for a box". This way I get the fun of exploring the location, but none of the pointless wandering around lost.
I'm getting really tired of these "I don't have time" arguments. If I do my job correctly, you will not get lost 40 times before finding the objective. I'm not going to be a jerk and make things painfully difficult to find. The point of removing a glowing compass telling you where to go is to prevent players playing the game at a meta level. They stop thinking about what they're doing and/or who they're doing it for. They just know to follow the glowing compass and do something at the end. Again, I'd still have guides such as quest journals and whatnot. Egads, how did you ever survive playing the old Final Fantasy games? The mini-map was a WORLD map, and there were no compasses for quests. Please stop throwing these arguments at me, and stop assuming that the ONLY alternative to a quest compass is some kind of hunt in the dark without a light. If games are really so terrible without all these mechanisms, why do you like RPGs?
Amateurs practice until they do it right.Professionals practice until they never do it wrong.
Egads, how did you ever survive playing the old Final Fantasy games?
Because they're linear as !@#% and you only have like one area you could possibly go to at a time anyway ;)
The issue isn't that it's either compass or endless searching in the dark. The issues is more that you either have good directions, making things easier to find, or bad directions, leading to searching in the dark. In the former case, the compass doesn't really make things easier or kill exploration. It's just a nice thing to remind the player what they're doing. in the latter case, the quest compass renders it playable.
My original point is that quest compasses don't really affect much, because they don't, and if you actually CAN come up with reasons -- real reasons. Examples, and things in practice. Not theoretical hair splitting -- why they make the game less fun I'd love to hear it.
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The downside here is that such mechanics are what welcomed in the casual gaming crowd.
Seriously, look. If game devs incorporate handholdy, dumbed down features to get their games to be funner for a larger audience, then that means they're making a lot of people happy and providing them with fun. Why would I complain about that?
Original post by MrMorley If we're discussing MMO systems, I have to say I like the Phantasy Star Online/Universe. way Drop-in and drop-out teams of players, it forces co-operation, teamwork and spontaneous socialisation. Or you can password the group and solo-play, your choice.
I found on Xbox and Xbox 360 (voice chat is a big plus), back in the day at least it made for quite fun play and an added an actually enjoyable social element, since most people had voice chat and weren't too annoying XD Of course this only really works with relatively linear gameplay.
And ya-know, MMOs and Single-player are vastly different: MMOs have more of a social element, whilst single-player tends to be more about the story. Of course some MMOs lately especially try to mix story and social with....varying success.
Back to that removing numbers idea, I wonder how effective fuzzy logic for description generation could be implemented...
Weight: Light Minimum Damage: Very Weak Maximum Damage: Very Strong. Enchant: Deals weak fire damage when striking.
Good point.
I think that to make the idea work with the loot, random generation would not work. You would have to design every piece of equipment in a unique way and make them very distinctive from each other. 100 types of sword with small differences from each other which show absolutely nowhere isnt a very appealing concept.
Then you would have find a way to provide all the info the player needs to decide which kind of sword he will use.
Focus on the obvious would be a solution. Ex: Bows hit at distance, close they sux HARD, good aim => better chance to hit and more damage, no need to tell all that. IF you have a number of bows variety you will need to provide info on them.
Maybe there is a away to make a random system work well with this, but I think its very hard to design. Every weapon and item will require carefull planning.
Original post by MrMorley Back to that removing numbers idea, I wonder how effective fuzzy logic for description generation could be implemented...
Weight: Light Minimum Damage: Very Weak Maximum Damage: Very Strong. Enchant: Deals weak fire damage when striking.
Although not finished yet, the design path for my game is headed this way. I thought however that some of the attributes should have real numbers when it makes sense. Plus some more attributes. example:
Weight: 4.8 kg Weight feel: Light Material: Steel Material fragility: low Edge: Very sharp Weapon reach: 1.2 meters Minimum Damage: Srong Maximum Damage: Very Strong Enchant: Deals weak fire damage when striking Current durability: almost broken
Weight would influence the attack speed and damage. fragility would tell the maximum durability value. edge would influence damage. weapon reach is the actual physical weapon's range. now would it make sense to remove the "maximum and minimum damage" values, or would that make guessing for the player too complicated?
I don't see why you can't have the features for people who just want to play the game and a special mode which turns off all the overhead maps and things for the masochists who enjoy that stuff.
You could even implement it in game by having a character who you can choose to tag along who'll keep track of quests and stuff for you. If the player doesn't want to have someone reading the map and saying "It's this way!" then they can just tell them to FOAD in the tavern in scene 1.
"If I do my job correctly, you will not get lost 40 times before finding the objective."
If had just a few pennies for every time I'd had pain in my life because some other developer somewhere didn't do their job correctly then I wouldn't need to pay my mortgage by getting up and dragging my lazy ass into the office every day...
As others have said, you'd need to provide other clues for how good you, your opponent or your weapon are.
One solution is to provide an extensive training ground, like a fortress full of willing sparring partners ranging from raw recruits to master swordsmen. Then let the player figure out through NPCs or books how dangerous an enemy is and do practice fights against the corresponding opponent in the fortress. This info on how dangerous creatures are is kept in an XCOM/Civ-like encyclopedia.
Example: It's common knowledge (i.e. it's in the player's encyclopedia from the start) that a trained guardsman can defeat a goblin in single combat. Now the player can judge his skill against goblins safely by sparring against "trained guardsmen" NPCs. By speaking to one of the guards he finds out that a master swordsman defeated five goblins single-handedly. Coincidentally, there happens to be a master swordsman available for sparring.
I am so much in agreement with this post that I initially thought I wrote it but subsequently forgot about it!
#1) I agree. I have always preferred the concreteness of a computer RPG, but ended up liking tabletop RPG's better because tabletop games have some elements that computer games lack. Namely; quests involving more than just "go to the blinking dot and kill whatever you find there". A mystery that needs a bit of actual sleuth work is so much more fun. Like other posters said, this doesn't mean the player has to inspect every rock just to solve the quest. The idea of an auto-journal is a good one. Baldur's Gate did this quite well. The quest journal was written from the perspective of the character and was appended every time the player discovered additional information on the quest. Instead of "QUEST 1: Go find the shaman to recieve 20 xp" the entries were more along the lines of
"Febtober 32nd, 1190 AG: I met a crotchety old man today that begged me to find an important shaman for him. He mentioned the shaman lives in the Octorck province. Perhaps the townsfolk there will know more. "Febtober 33th, 1190 AG: Arrived in Octorck today. Townsfolk acted friendly enough until we asked about the shaman. As soon as we mentioned him, everybody would act afraid, glance toward the mayor's house and say they didn't know anything. Odd..."
Guild Wars and WoW both do the hand-holding thing and I quickly got bored with both games. I never even bothered to read the quest description, I just clicked "accept quest" as fast as I could and started moving toward the red dot. It was fun for a while but I got bored so quickly because, ultimately, all the quests were the same; accept quest, go to red dot, kill monster, return. If it comes down to making a game that hundreds of casual gamers will like for a month, then get bored, vs making a game that tens of less-casual gamers will love for a lifetime, I'm going with the smaller audience, personally. Then again, profit is more of a side-effect than a motivator for me.
A "casual mode" could be incorporated that allowed all the hand-holding options to be available, and some prestigious status for the players opting for the "hardcore mode". A poster asked what would stop a player from finishing the quests in casual mode, then doing them again in hardcore mode once they know exactly what to do. I have a solution to this that I think works well: Randomize small details of the quest based on the player's instantiation. the first time the player performs the quest, they learn the secret password to the thieve's guild is "Nightflower", but with a new character playing through the same quest, the player will find that the password is not "Nightflower" this time. The basic quest outline is still the same, but the player can't just skip critical steps just because they've done the quest before. They still have to solve the mystery, because the smaller details are changed up.
#2) I agree. Lots of content. Some mysteriously unexplained ruins or dungeons here and there, maybe some massive event as an umbrella explanation for several similar ruins, But generally lots of lush environments with their own depth to explore. The drawback is the time it takes to generate all that, but you can always start small, and add content when you have a good framework and more team members.
#3) I agree. All the technical details, number ranges, percentage effects, etc. don't need to be shown all the time, but I think that information should be available if the player WANTS to see all that. Maybe all those specific monster stats are only available if you are an expert in the "monster lore" skill. I think the stats should be generally hidden, but available somehow if the player chooses to delve into that much tedious detail.
#4) Flexible stories and well-written stories are difficult to get in the same room together, but I think it IS possible to get them to mate in captivity. Games with story are good, but I find it irritating when my character has no sway on anything that is going on in the story. IMHO any time the player can effect change on the story/environment, however small, it delivers huge satisfaction.
#5) I agree with this one as well, but I also agree with one of the other posters (too lazy to check who it was) when they said it would be kind of annoying to have to wait for the shops to open if they arrived in the town at nighttime. But, like TheBuzzSaw said: It is not a simple task. I think the dynamics of a changing environment could be tweaked to minimize irritation. On the other hand, In RL if I arrived at GameStop a few hours before it opened I would most certainly NOT run around in circles until the owner unlocked the doors. I would go do something productive nearby and come back when the shop opened. I know this isn't Real Life we're talking about, but maybe part of the challenge of the game is good time management. If you had some opportunities closed off during nighttime, other opportunities should open up at night so the player has plenty to do no matter what time it is.
[Edited by - medicinesoup on June 18, 2010 6:18:26 PM]
Original post by Katie You could even implement it in game by having a character who you can choose to tag along who'll keep track of quests and stuff for you. If the player doesn't want to have someone reading the map and saying "It's this way!" then they can just tell them to FOAD in the tavern in scene 1.
Or in a more modern setting, how about an in-story computer that keeps track of everything? In fact, I'm thinking of making an UQM mod that dose just that.
I trust exceptions about as far as I can throw them.
Thanks to everyone for the fantastic responses. I am going to treasure this thread forever. :)
I would like to offer some follow-up on my original statements.
#1 -- hand-holding mechanics depend on the game -- In Borderlands, I run up to a bounty board, sweep up a dozen quests, follow the quest diamond, and kill whatever I find. In this game, I don't care one bit about the lore behind each quest. They are excuses to visit location X, kill more baddies, possibly fight an epic boss, and score tons of loot and XP. As a result, the quest diamond is a must because Borderlands does nothing to evoke that sense of exploration or discovery.
However, in a game like Zelda, Final Fantasy, Ultima, etc. there is some rewarding aspect to actually knowing the landscape and recognizing names/towns. If a side quest falls between the cracks, it's no big deal. I want to aim for THIS side of things.
#2 -- exploration must be meaningful -- Again, the extra territory does not need to be relevant to the core storyline, but I agree with everyone who stated that big empty worlds are stupid. Exploring should be fun and exciting. I love finding extra caves in Final Fantasy games because they have this feeling of "this was put here on purpose" and "there is definitely something worthwhile in here". In contrast, I am not a fan of Diablo II's extra caves because they are arbitrary and useless. There is a shiny chest at the end that generates slightly better random loot than the others, but such shiny chests are found along the way anyway. There is nothing special at all about the extra cave.
I want extra locations to be epic on their own! Fight to the top of a huge mountain and find a sword in the stone! Dig to the bottom of a cave and find a person there with an epic side quest!
#3 -- technical details need to be streamlined -- I worded my original statement very poorly. As a result, everyone thought I meant remove all numbers from the game. So, I need to clarify what I meant. Technical information needs to be kept in the right place. I completely agree that the player should always be able to look at equipment and see its exact effect in gameplay. That's half the fun! On the other hand, I am merely suggesting that other details be tucked away until called upon. For instance, in Diablo II, mousing over your red or blue orb shows exact numbers, but in the heat of combat, you see only what you need to see: your orbs depleting and the enemy's health meter depleting.
#4 -- the story can be linear, but the solutions should not be -- It obviously takes a ton of time to come up with 500 plot forks and have them all somehow meet up at the end (or have them result in 500 unique endings). I'm not suggesting that the story be totally bendable. However, in pushing the story along, it helps that the player has some say in how that happens. I'm speaking from a very abstract position, so it's difficult to elaborate. I suppose a good example is where the player can conquer a certain quest in 3 ways: combat, stealth, or diplomacy. The story still moves forward just as it was before, but the player has certain freedoms to affect the flow.
#5 -- encourage the player to stay aware -- Again, making a living world can be very time-consuming. The day/night mechanic was just one idea (that many people seem to dislike). The idea with a living world is simply to keep the player vigilant. I'm not suggesting that we pull the rug out from underneath the player (abruptly make the town burn down or something like that); I am merely proposing that the player maintain of sense of ongoing discovery. If something interesting/unique can happen once in a while based on whatever criteria, the player feels more involved and excited to look around.
Amateurs practice until they do it right.Professionals practice until they never do it wrong.
