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"How Game Designers Protect Players From Themselves"

Blaine

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The compulsion to use the strongest and most effective weapon available isn't really a "bad" compulsion. It's a compulsion built into the primal instinct. "Speak softly and carry a big stick" is a thoroughly modern invention and arrived long after the dawn of agriculture.

You're absolutely right, though: Both ends of that spectrum are far from ideal from a gameplay standpoint. Instead of ludicrously and very artificially forcing the weapons to break after three or four swings, perhaps each should actually be useful in specific contexts and/or against specific enemies. I haven't played the game, but from what I've seen of gameplay videos, for the most part non-boss enemies are interchangeable in the sense that all of the weapons work fairly well on any of them pretty much universally. Yeah, you need a cliff if you want to blow an enemy off with the leaf thing, but there are plenty of cliffs and plenty of enemies you can do it to.

That, or the weapons should be fun and interesting enough to use that you shouldn't NEED to make them break after a ridiculously small number of uses, because people will use them anyway for fun and entertainment. It's not like Zelda is a hardcore franchise, so fun is the operant term here.

Personally, I tend to feel that trying to brute-force players not to be lazy and cheesy in their approach to playing your game only ends up undermining the game. Case in point: Pillars of Eternity's camping supplies gayness. I actually didn't need to be babysat, thanks. I kept resting to an absolute minimum when playing the original IE games just to see how far I could go without resorting to a reset button; that, and I always imagined I was "wasting time," even though of course it didn't matter at all in reality.

The problem is that retards and retarded gaming "journalists" will play the game on Easy, rest every 2 seconds, and then complain that the game is too easy. Therefore the monocled must suffer in order to cater to the lowest common denominator, because the LCD can't be expected to possess any self-discipline whatsoever, nor the sense to use a feature over which the player has a lot of control sparingly and judiciously.
 
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Jaedar

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Project: Eternity Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pathfinder: Kingmaker
I think botw could have kept the weapons as they are now, but had a special unbreakable sword you could upgrade as you went along. The fear of running out of good weapons is actually pretty justified, a lot of the tougher enemies have a lot of health and don't drop particularly good weapons. And if you actually found yourself having used up all your good weapons, you'd have to go back to easier areas to start building a stockpile from the very start again. You need "tier 2" weapons to have a good time beating encounters that give you "tier 3" weapons.

Probably, something like having weapons give up a piece of ore after breaking, and needing x pieces of said ore to upgrade the permanent weapon would be a good mechanic (with higher upgrades requiring ores from stronger weapons). It would incentivize breaking your fancier weapons and prevent any chance of having to start your collection over from scratch.
 

TheHeroOfTime

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What's your solution/alternative?

I've never played a X-Com game, but based on my experience with turn based strategy games... I think the could have offered rewards for beating the fights in less of X number of turns for example. Like in Shining force: Resurrection of the black dragon. Instead of punishing the player for playing one style, reward him for not playing like that. It's what the author of the video says btw. Also, the characters in Shining force raised depending of their inclusion and performance in the battlefield, so if you want to improve a certain character you are also determined to use them (Even if he is extremely weak without any real value to the fight) and to change your battleplan. That game was a bit hard though, a game where you will want to have a powerful and varied team to be ready against any foe. I guess the encounter design helps a lot in that regard.
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I highly doubt the existence the compulsion of saving weapons in BOTW. Basically because the game drops you weapons almost everywhere, and strong weapons become to be more prominent when the Crimson moon progreses through the game, making the respawing enemies wear powerful weapons. Also there's places like Hyrule castle where you can find powerful weapons, if you manage to enter in. And Lynels and white enemies also drop very strong weapons. All of this without considering that the player can raise the number of weapon inventory slots, and can use potions to raise his damage to taka advantage of the weapons. The only situations where you can find yourself without weapons are situations like fighting a Lynel with rusty weapons and brooms. And I don't think there's need to be an explanation about why you can't kill one of the most powerful enemies with those tools.

Every time I read complains about the system is because the person in question doesn't want to get his weapon broken, and that complain always comes in company of the hipothetical inclusion of a repair system. They just simply want a system like in the Witcher 3, where weapons gets surpassed with others very frenquently getting obsolete and can be repaired when they gets damaged, allowing to use them forever. They don't want a system where each weapons are meant to being used in each situation. Where two handed weapons are used to snatch enemy's shields, where spears are used to get jockeys off of their horses, and where powerful weapons are meant to be used again powerful enemies, while the weak ones are meant to be used to dispatch the weak ones.

That's why I like BOTW so much. It really rewards your "skill" and experience in the game.
 

Tehdagah

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:deadtroll:

I knew it. I fucking knew it. Fucking youtube comments man.

Agreed, if you hate timed events, you are a massive faggot.

It's always the "I DON'T WANT TO FEEL PRESSURE WHILE PLAYING WAAAAAAAA" excuse as well.
The funny part is that most people bitching about time limits in games like Dead Rising 1 or Fallout 1 never actually tried to explore the world at their own pace until time was about to run out, and see for themselves how much free time they actually have. Just the mere prospect of being able to get a bad ending for being 2slow is a heart-gripping sensation for people who probably procrastinated many school projects up to one week before the deadline and don't seem to be able to realize that time management is also applicable to video games. Anyone who has played Pathologic should know how retarded it is to bitch about overarching time limits as inherently flawed.
Time limit in a sandbox game like Dead Rising is stupid and should be optional.

Also, the comparison with school projects makes no sense because school projects are boring.
 

Durandal

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:deadtroll:

I knew it. I fucking knew it. Fucking youtube comments man.

Agreed, if you hate timed events, you are a massive faggot.

It's always the "I DON'T WANT TO FEEL PRESSURE WHILE PLAYING WAAAAAAAA" excuse as well.
The funny part is that most people bitching about time limits in games like Dead Rising 1 or Fallout 1 never actually tried to explore the world at their own pace until time was about to run out, and see for themselves how much free time they actually have. Just the mere prospect of being able to get a bad ending for being 2slow is a heart-gripping sensation for people who probably procrastinated many school projects up to one week before the deadline and don't seem to be able to realize that time management is also applicable to video games. Anyone who has played Pathologic should know how retarded it is to bitch about overarching time limits as inherently flawed.
Time limit in a sandbox game like Dead Rising is stupid and should be optional.
You can't just take a game designed around its time limit and make it optional much like you can't have an easy mode in Dark Souls. Well, you can, but when everything in the game from pacing to structure is built around its difficulty or time limit, simplifying or nullifying the aforementioned won't execute the challenge and experience as intended, making some parts of the game feel disjointed or pointless because you aren't playing it as intended to begin with. The only way to get the concept of time limits across without any blowback seems to be to make it clear from the outset that you can't do everything within the given timespan and have to choose what to do, like in Pathologic or Persona.

To me this whole aversion on time limits seems like one of those weird stances which treats some design decisions as inherently shit based mostly on muh feels. Like that you should always be able to savescum, that arenas are shit by design, that mechs should always be customizable, that weapon degradation systems are shit if degradation applies on the short-term, and that boss rush games are gay for not having stages. It's unnecessary criticism aimed at developers who eventually give in to the casual masses for daring to do something out of left field, efforts which are eventually thrown into a radioactive waste barrel labeled "DON'T EVEN BOTHER IF YOU VALUE POTENTIAL PROFIT". There's arguments to be made on the poor implementation of those crazy ideas, but I don't believe that's always really the case People should put in enough effort to convey their feelings of unease into arguments as to why shit shouldn't be the way it is so future designers may see and learn from it, else it's pure carelessness at display.
 

TheHeroOfTime

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Even Majora's Mask gives you plenty of time. There is an owl statue in front of every dungeon. That means, after doing the prep work to gain access to a dungeon, you can always go back to day 1 and teleport directly to the dungeon entrance. With the inverted Song of Time a 3-day cycle will last over 2.5 hours real time. If you can't beat a Zelda dungeon in 2.5 hours, you might be retarded.

Curious fact: The possibility of saving in owl statues were added in the western versions of the game. In the japanese version the only way of saving was using the Song of time.

Majora's mask doesn't gives you plenty of time. Actually it gives you infinite time. Since the instant where Link recovers the ocarina, the player has the posibility of using the time as he wants. Also, he can use the inverted song to slow down. From the story point of view and from the gameplay, the player can abuse the time has he wants to save Termina, and to do the sidequest with the rhythm that he wants. The only thing that leaves you to loose in that game is your incompetence. Even in the 3DS version, where you can savescum, the risk of loosing progress is there. But the tools to take advantage of the time limit are more numerous. The true Hero of time experience.
 

Iznaliu

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I think botw could have kept the weapons as they are now, but had a special unbreakable sword you could upgrade as you went along.

People would just use it unless it is totally outclassed by regular weapons, where they would ignore it.
 
Self-Ejected

IncendiaryDevice

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:deadtroll:

I knew it. I fucking knew it. Fucking youtube comments man.

Agreed, if you hate timed events, you are a massive faggot.

It's always the "I DON'T WANT TO FEEL PRESSURE WHILE PLAYING WAAAAAAAA" excuse as well.
The funny part is that most people bitching about time limits in games like Dead Rising 1 or Fallout 1 never actually tried to explore the world at their own pace until time was about to run out, and see for themselves how much free time they actually have. Just the mere prospect of being able to get a bad ending for being 2slow is a heart-gripping sensation for people who probably procrastinated many school projects up to one week before the deadline and don't seem to be able to realize that time management is also applicable to video games. Anyone who has played Pathologic should know how retarded it is to bitch about overarching time limits as inherently flawed.
Time limit in a sandbox game like Dead Rising is stupid and should be optional.

Also, the comparison with school projects makes no sense because school projects are boring.

Haha, I was reading through the thread and this point jumped straight up at me as well.

Dude's comparing video games with homework and calling people retarded if they don't treat games as homework LOL, wot a larf-a-minute guy.

It's simple, people don't like time limits for the entire game because most RPGs last for 60+ hours. There's a gigantic difference between 'losing' a timed event and losing your entire game at the last minute. If the game offers you 'ample' time to do everything (or most everything) with room to spare then why have you even got a time limit.

Regarding degrading equipment, I agree with other posters, it just turns your weapons into consumables, and what do a heck of a lot of people do with consumables in RPGs? They just store them up until they definitely need them, ie: either the last boss of the game or never. You can add flavour to weapons by having regular upgrades in stats, regular changes of benefits (ice sword vs dire demons, fire sword vs ice demons etc) or have actual consumables you apply to your sword temporarily, such as in Bloodborne. Further to what Blaine said, it's just human nature to be upset when something you like breaks, try it for yourself right now, go drop your coffee cup after you've had three coffees out of it. It's just abstracting unpleasantness for reasons that are unnecessarily gamey.
 

Nirvash

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Jan 20, 2017
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You'll not waste that fire sword that you obtained in a shrine just to kill a bunch a stalfos. You will save it, and use it to fight strong enemies like the white ones or the Lynels.
The manner in which Breath of the Wild tried to prevent one bad player compulsion ended up creating another. Weapons were so fragile that many players were too afraid to actually use them, hoarding them throughout the entirety of the game.

UvLLojW.png

Wait, you guys don't hoard all the best items for absolute maximun efficiency, to the point to almost NEVER actually use them?

Really?
 
Joined
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It's simple, people don't like time limits for the entire game because most RPGs last for 60+ hours. There's a gigantic difference between 'losing' a timed event and losing your entire game at the last minute. If the game offers you 'ample' time to do everything (or most everything) with room to spare then why have you even got a time limit.

I get the feeling that few of the people who so strenuously object to time limits have actually played a game to the point where they were in an unwinnable state. I think most of them are against the idea that they even could potentially reach an unwinnable state.

Also it's not so cut and simple as "Game gives you enough time to do everything, so why have time limits?". Take Fallout. More than enough time to do everything, but visiting different settlements takes way more time than running around in settlements. If you play dumb and just do one quest at a time running all over the place without thinking, you'll probably run out of time. This way Fallout incentivizes the kind of planning that you'd expect in a post-apocalyptic scenario, where travel is supposed to be meaningful, planned out, and potentially dangerous rather than completely inconsequential a la Oblivion.
 
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Wait, you guys don't hoard all the best items for absolute maximun efficiency, to the point to almost NEVER actually use them?

Really?

What I did was keep a fire sword solely for utilitarian purposes, like lighting a torch/wood because since it can last forever if you don't hit anything. A hammer to smash rocks since blowing them up just scatters the loot everywhere. A boomerang weapon, which I never used after I got the master sword, because it's laser beam. One magic wand that I never used. Something wooden to light shit up. The rest was high weapons that I only used on the bosses and ganon, and three or four slots for shit that I used for trash that didn't die to bombs. I didn't really use bows often because why should you when they can break and you have infinite bombs?
 
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IncendiaryDevice

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I wonder how many of the people complaining about time limits/breakable weapons have actually tried just jumping into a game without gamefaqs open on the side? I swear the glorification of 100% completion even on the first go is kinda at fault here. Fallout is a fantastic game, and the timer is there more to make the main quest actually engaging, more open world games should look at that, imagine TES if they actually gave you a bit of urgency on the main quest, not that it would fix all the problems they have, but that could help make the experience a bit more coherent. BOTW has breakable weapons, but it showers you with them throughout and many are effective in certain situations (fire beats ice, don't use metal vs electric, ancient beats those guardian fuckers), so it's apparent when you should use which weapon.
 
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That's not planning, that's post-game experience.

No, it isn't. You can get a quest to go to another location and not immediately go there.

How would you know beforehand which quests would be viable in the time-frame and which wouldn't?

You don't, but you don't need to. You group quests together and do them together rather than running out of your way every time you get something.

e.g., when Junktown is put on your map when you are in Shady Sands, you don't need to go there immediately because it's so far away. You finish your Shady Sands business and then go there with everything finished, well-leveled to handle Junktown. Similarly while Junktown/The Hub/Necropolis are all sort of near each other, when you get the quest from the Brotherhood to go to the Glow, you can figure out that the Glow is really far away and supposed to be dangerous, so you know to prepare yourself first and get fully loaded with equipment so that you don't have to go there, figure out that you can't finish it, go back, then go again, wasting months of time.

It all boils down to getting a list of tasks (quests) and grouping them such that your travel time is minimized. This is a basic skill you need for completing daily tasks around town in the real world, it doesn't require magical foresight.
 

Alienman

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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex Year of the Donut Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
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:deadtroll:

I knew it. I fucking knew it. Fucking youtube comments man.

Agreed, if you hate timed events, you are a massive faggot.

It's always the "I DON'T WANT TO FEEL PRESSURE WHILE PLAYING WAAAAAAAA" excuse as well.
The funny part is that most people bitching about time limits in games like Dead Rising 1 or Fallout 1 never actually tried to explore the world at their own pace until time was about to run out, and see for themselves how much free time they actually have. Just the mere prospect of being able to get a bad ending for being 2slow is a heart-gripping sensation for people who probably procrastinated many school projects up to one week before the deadline and don't seem to be able to realize that time management is also applicable to video games. Anyone who has played Pathologic should know how retarded it is to bitch about overarching time limits as inherently flawed.
Time limit in a sandbox game like Dead Rising is stupid and should be optional.

Also, the comparison with school projects makes no sense because school projects are boring.

Dead Rising was designed around the time-limit and not something you just can turn off. You could if you wish fail the main mission and just go around to goof-off.
 

Beastro

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Too much of what's being talked about ITT is due to front ended perfectionism even if divorced from a desire for completeness, especially the time limit. I know, I suffer/ed from it and passed on buying Majora's Mask back in the day due to the timer, but never had trouble with Fallout 1. I was aware of it going in, knew the first things would what be effected by it and wanted to finish before those got hit, but at the end shrugged my shoulders and felt I'd done good enough on my first play through.

Oddly or not, I don't have that issue with actually playing and failing games and often find the most enjoyment I get is putting myself into hard situations and working until my unorthodox methods or arbitrary goals succeed.

With that said fighting that habit is something I've been making a concerted effort in dealing with since I recognize it's arisen due to the way my entire is as well as how things have played out in my life beyond my control that have only emphasized the urge to prepare.

I'm remind of the game that built itself perfectly around a time limit and that's Starflight. Going into it blind it's a long game and you'll eventually run out of time, but you can easily catch up with your progress which turns the pattern of the game into the joy of trial and error as you take notes and relax knowing that most likely this play through you'd not going to win. The only downside to the way it's built is that a walk through completely ruins that experience as you blow through the game that can leave you feeling like the game is small and shallow.
 

Kraszu

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Scores are pretty sloppy mechanism, if the game is supposed to be played in a specific way, then it should be required to succeed at finishing the game, or at least make it easier.

And yeah failing few quests, or not doing few quest isn't a big deal, it is often better just to accept that. This is also a big appeal of rouglikes because you are expected to fail, and learn from it, also you can't save, and load so you have to take risk vs reward seriously. I think that the big problem is that people expect some things from say open world rpg, and instead of being open minded when sometimes works differently, they automatically assume that it is bad, because the most popular game wasn't like that.

This reminds the complains about Zelda:Botw getting high scores just because it is Zelda. And I agree but the scores were still right to be so high, if unknown studio would make Zelda:Botw it wouldn't be revived as well, but because it is Zelda people gave it a chance, and were looking for good in the gameplay, instead of assuming that it is bad just because it does exploration differently (well because it had exploration really, following an arrow, and marks that lead to "interesting" stuff isn't really exploration, finding stuff is part of real exploration). People were still complaining about weapon breaking but even there it wasn't seen as game breaking, and some did like that system (that is fine, and it makes you play in more interesting way imo).
 

Durandal

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Scores are pretty sloppy mechanism, if the game is supposed to be played in a specific way, then it should be required to succeed at finishing the game, or at least make it easier.
That is what scoring systems are for. Usually achieving score thresholds rewards you with bonus lives. Usually games with a score system are difficult enough for pure survival that going for scores and bonus extends is tantamount to survival.
 
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Not all games that have a score system do the extra lives at x points though, the super mario games don't, they just count combo jumps/kills, and 1-ups. The points are entirely meaningless in that series. For that matter hack&slash games have score system which gives you a cash bonus for getting the highest rank, some of them let you just replay missions letting you grind for cash.
 

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