Making games simpler

[Burning Bridges]

Bringing NWN as an example is completely misleading. Of course NWN interface is completely fucked up, and surely an example of quantity over quality. But the real problem these days is not abundance of features but not being given options at all or having the game play itself.

 

[Kraszu]

I consider complexity that I want as choosing between meaningful choices, planing your way through the game. I don't consider reading rules to be a complexity that I care about. So that is the difference between simplifying, and dumbing down for me.

 

[Xi]

I've got a great idea guys! Can't tell you anything about it, but it will be a revolution and make me a billionaire! I'm going to call it pong and it will be everything today's gamer needs!

We should make an ultra complex version of pong where the movement of your "cursor" on the screen is determined by the variety of skills/stats/abilities your cursor has developed. Maybe you're clumsy and slow because you have low Dexterity and Speed, so the cursor moves like a fucking retard as it chases the dot. But not all is lost because your cursor levels up as it wins matches and you get to distribute points into skills/stats and complex cursor designs. Skills like "Taunt" to fuck up the other cursor, "Cheat dot" that allows you to put a favorable bouncing dot into the game so long as you pass a cheat check, or maybe even a "Bloody Cursor" ability that allows you to hit the dot back to the other cursor at such a speed that it explodes making your dot win. Man that would add flavor!

 

[Korgan]

I've got a great idea guys! Can't tell you anything about it, but it will be a revolution and make me a billionaire! I'm going to call it pong and it will be everything today's gamer needs!

We should make an ultra complex version of pong where the movement of your "cursor" on the screen is determined by the variety of skills/stats/abilities your cursor has developed. Maybe you're clumsy and slow because you have low Dexterity and Speed, so the cursor moves like a fucking retard as it chases the dot. But not all is lost because your cursor levels up as it wins matches and you get to distribute points into skills/stats and complex cursor designs. Skills like "Taunt" to fuck up the other cursor, "Cheat dot" that allows you to put a favorable bouncing dot into the game so long as you pass a cheat check, or maybe even a "Bloody Cursor" ability that allows you to hit the dot back to the other cursor at such a speed that it explodes making your dot win. Man that would add flavor!

Fukken awesome. Also, the OP is a huge faggot who sucks Todd's cock.

 

[sportforredneck]

The biggest appeal of Wizardry 8 is just how many lovely numbers and stats there are; like in Arcanum where, when you level up, you can distribute 1 point in, like, 50 different ways.

Yes. I'm also one of those failures who love stats and such in his games. Thus it's disappointing that everyone is trying to move away from stats because it's "unrealistic."

 

[Imbecile]

Right, so what would be better. A game with:

50 different skills, all balanced and useful.

100 different skills, 25 of which are balanced and useful?

 

[Xi]

The fewer stats/skills/abilities/etc in a game the less connected I am with a specific character. This is especially true when replaying a game. Character uniqueness comes from quantity not quality in this case, and makes for a great counter-argument when people bring up these lame, "lets remove shit and simplify" arguments. So basically, I'm with Jasede on this one, though 200 skills my be stretching it, I'm going with 190.

 

[obediah]

I consider complexity that I want as choosing between meaningful choices, planing your way through the game. I don't consider reading rules to be a complexity that I care about. So that is the difference between simplifying, and dumbing down for me.

In order to plan your way through a game intelligently, you need to understand the rules of the game. A C&C game without rules is just a Hentai game without tits. Simple rules, will at best get you a simple game ( at least for a single player narrative game). Complex rules don't ensure a deep game, but you won't get a deep game without them.

After that it's personal preference. Four pages on starvation and dehydration rules probably aren't meaningful to you, but are bonerific to others. Separate intimidate and persuade skills may be meaningful to you, but to some the added complexity over a talk skill buys them nothing.

 

[Kraszu]

So according to this thread, Might and Magic World of Xeenis is a next-gen title whithout stats, done by Todd.

 

[Kraszu]

I consider complexity that I want as choosing between meaningful choices, planing your way through the game. I don't consider reading rules to be a complexity that I care about. So that is the difference between simplifying, and dumbing down for me.

In order to plan your way through a game intelligently, you need to understand the rules of the game. A C&C game without rules is just a Hentai game without tits. Simple rules, will at best get you a simple game ( at least for a single player narrative game). Complex rules don't ensure a deep game, but you won't get a deep game without them.

After that it's personal preference. Four pages on starvation and dehydration rules probably aren't meaningful to you, but are bonerific to others. Separate intimidate and persuade skills may be meaningful to you, but to some the added complexity over a talk skill buys them nothing.

Well but having intimidate and persuade skill is something that everybody can see in chart, and understand instantly, you can't say the same about four pages on starvation and dehydration rules.

Is for example a DnD magic system actually deep? It sure has allot of rules spells but do they actually add anything to combat/interaction in gameworld? Even Gothic have more spells that you can use to done things differently shape changing spells self explanatory you know what creature can do how it moves, how strong it is, some creatures could be not attacked by some others, you get part f the information just by observing environment, that could interest into reading a book about creature that form you want to use in some way, fluid, simpler (in terms of rules) and giving many choices. - in Gothic it wasn't soadvenced but why it can't be?

I don't want stats to be removed, made them as simple as long as they give depth but not simpler.

 

[sportforredneck]

50 different skills, all balanced and useful.

100 different skills, 25 of which are balanced and useful?

Well isn't that kind of a cheap example? I mean, people should want skills to be useful, so they should choose the first one, I would. I'd probably be able to dig on a game with 100 stats all balanced and useful though. The problem would probably be figuring out the that many skills. So it's really more important to me if they had a purpose, if they did something for your character.

 

[RGE]

I like simplicity, if only so that the game's AI can understand what the hell the PC is doing, and respond in an appropriate manner. Complexity could then be built together by the player and the computer playing games with each other.

 

[Imbecile]

50 different skills, all balanced and useful.

100 different skills, 25 of which are balanced and useful?

Well isn't that kind of a cheap example? I mean, people should want skills to be useful, so they should choose the first one, I would. I'd probably be able to dig on a game with 100 stats all balanced and useful though. The problem would probably be figuring out the that many skills. So it's really more important to me if they had a purpose, if they did something for your character.

I dont think so. Of course players would prefer more useful skills, thats good common sense. I guess maybe it simply comes down to whether useless skills actually add anything.

(so 50 useful skills, vs 50 useful skills and 50 useless skills). Personally I still see useless skills as poor design. Sure you can flesh your character out by giving him those unusable lumberjack and cross-dressing skills, but at the end of the day you are LARPing just as much as any Oblivion fanboy.

 

[Raapys]

If those last 50 skills were indeed completely useful, then yes.

However, skills are usually never *completely* useless, though. So it's more like 50 useful skills vs. 50 useful skills and 50 marginally useful skills.

Anyway, this is strongly related to why I dislike modern MMORPGs character development systems. They're way too simple. Anarchy Online and Star Wars Galaxies( before the WoW-conversion ) are examples of games with excellent and interesting character development systems. Games like Age of Conan and World of Warcraft are examples of the opposite.

 

[DraQ]

I like simplicity, if only so that the game's AI can understand what the hell the PC is doing, and respond in an appropriate manner.

You mean that Oblivion wasn't simple enough? :shock:

 

[Burning Bridges]

Right, so what would be better. A game with:

50 different skills, all balanced and useful.

100 different skills, 25 of which are balanced and useful?

Numbers are completely irrelevant. It only matters if they work convincingly, and of course, if the interface is confused and cluttered (NWN).

In the end all good rpgs, have skills built around an underlying system, which would make most skills in a bad design superfluous.

So I go with a lot of skills any day, but they have to make sense.

Same goes with items. I like a lot of items but it kills a game if they are imbal and meaningless (NWN again).

 

[Ammar]

More skills just mean something if they actually do something - Ultima 5 was a RPG with nice tactical combat and did not have many stats. They don't need to be balanced or something like that - just do something. Even if it's just in one or two places in the game.

 

[Jabbapop]

which is better guyz, 50 pennies or five dimes? CHOOSE WISELY (and give me ur reasons.)

 

[obediah]

I consider complexity that I want as choosing between meaningful choices, planing your way through the game. I don't consider reading rules to be a complexity that I care about. So that is the difference between simplifying, and dumbing down for me.

In order to plan your way through a game intelligently, you need to understand the rules of the game. A C&C game without rules is just a Hentai game without tits. Simple rules, will at best get you a simple game ( at least for a single player narrative game). Complex rules don't ensure a deep game, but you won't get a deep game without them.

After that it's personal preference. Four pages on starvation and dehydration rules probably aren't meaningful to you, but are bonerific to others. Separate intimidate and persuade skills may be meaningful to you, but to some the added complexity over a talk skill buys them nothing.

Well but having intimidate and persuade skill is something that everybody can see in chart, and understand instantly, you can't say the same about four pages on starvation and dehydration rules.

Is it really that simple? If I want to seduce someone is it intimidation or persuade? What about trick someone? Is intimidation physical or mental? Will it be based on strength? or intelligence? or depend on the situation? Is either skill affected by my equipment? Are the checks for success challenged? and if so what aspect of the victim is used? As a designer, you either think these things through and have complicated rules, or you decide your target audience doesn't care about that stuff and *gasp* dumb it down.

Is for example a DnD magic system actually deep? It sure has allot of rules spells but do they actually add anything to combat/interaction in gameworld? Even Gothic have more spells that you can use to done things differently shape changing spells self explanatory you know what creature can do how it moves, how strong it is, some creatures could be not attacked by some others, you get part f the information just by observing environment, that could interest into reading a book about creature that form you want to use in some way, fluid, simpler (in terms of rules) and giving many choices. - in Gothic it wasn't soadvenced but why it can't be?

Back when I played DnD it was shallow, but very very big. The rules didn't have depth, and weren't elegant enough for deep strategies to emerge.

I don't want stats to be removed, made them as simple as long as they give depth but not simpler.

Depth is not a boolean flag. You don't just develop stats until a light comes on and you get to stick "Deep Gameplay" on the box. No matter how much depth you want, there are people that consider it dumbed down and simple, and others that consider it too complicated.

To go back to your D&D example, I'm not a big fan of complexity that doesn't add depth. Adding 200 variations of fireball to your game with different levels, damages, range, and aoe doesn't provide much depth, but adds a lot of book keeping complexity. Using MP's and having a single spell where the user can alter the parameters each casting would be a way to maintain the depth, with a lower complexity cost.

On the other hand, adding 200 unique spells that interact with every aspect of the game - physics, ai, damage, equipment, travel, passage of time, etc... That adds a buttload of complexity and depth.

 

[mondblut]

By which I do not mean dumbing down, btw.

No, you do.

 

[Kraszu]

Is it really that simple? If I want to seduce someone is it intimidation or persuade? What about trick someone? Is intimidation physical or mental? Will it be based on strength? or intelligence? or depend on the situation? Is either skill affected by my equipment? Are the checks for success challenged? and if so what aspect of the victim is used? As a designer, you either think these things through and have complicated rules, or you decide your target audience doesn't care about that stuff and *gasp* dumb it down.

Short description can cover what each is, and by what it is influenced. To make decision you should have aces to that information.

Depth is not a boolean flag. You don't just develop stats until a light comes on and you get to stick "Deep Gameplay" on the box. No matter how much depth you want, there are people that consider it dumbed down and simple, and others that consider it too complicated.

I am against complexity whithout depth, other then that it is matter of balancing priorities you had set for the game. There are also things that adds allot of complexity, and little depth, and those that can add allot of depth whit little complexity. Same depth or bigger can be archive whit littler complexity like in magic example, few rune rules that you can combine in many diferent ways, having many diferent effects whit few rules.

 

[elander_]

The game of Go only has a handful of rules and is at least as deep as chess. You can play chess for a lifetime and still learn new tactics, yet learning chess rules can be explained with one page of text. Compare this to learning how to play a DnD game.

Knowing what game rules add depth to a game and what only adds redundancy is a problem that has been studied by game designers and even mathematicians and is one of the things that makes game design fascinating.

 

[Kraszu]

Math in itself is great example of few rules, and allot of depth, other then few axioms, some symbols everything else is a walkthrough.

 

[DraQ]

The game of Go only has a handful of rules and is at least as deep as chess.

Except go is an abstract game existing on its own, while cRPGs and most other computer games are simulations trying to mimic some events, real or imaginary,

 

[elander_]

Yes it is. Mathematics can be seen as a game of patterns. There is a field of mathematics that studies common games also. One of these guys was the creator of MagicTheGathering games.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Garfield

The game of Go only has a handful of rules and is at least as deep as chess.

Except go is an abstract game existing on its own, while cRPGs and most other computer games are simulations trying to mimic some events, real or imaginary,

So what? The theory that applies to one also applies to the other.