Section8 said:
I'm not saying it's a great RPG setup, I'm saying that it seems like the best compromise to me for a hybrid FPS/RPG. Since the player's own dexterity/reflexes are being used for finer details, then I think it makes sense to be making broader strokes with the RPG elements.
Perhaps - but only if it helps. There's no need to go for broad RPG categorizations just to give the RPG elements more impact.
As for the impact of player skill, part of it is simplifying the design, to aid gameworld designers in creating more focused scenarios...
Perhaps this works better in practice, but in theory I don't like this outlook. It comes at level design from a very prescriptive angle: it's useful for the designer to have a clear, simple idea of the PC's capabilities when he's crafting challenges tailored to those specific possibilities.
I'd much rather have the game designer come up with great character and world systems providing many interesting possibilities. Ideally, level designers should be able to focus on creating interesting scenarios (not solutions) - safe in the knowledge that the player will find some combination of strategies to win through.
Consider the design of an RTS campaign scenario. A bad designer will probably think of a scenario, come up with some wonderfully cool ways to win it, then force the player into adopting one of these "cool" strategies. A good designer will think of a scenario, provide interesting combinations of challenges, but allow the player to solve things in his own way.
So long as the basic gameplay systems are good enough, the second method produces much more interesting, replayable levels.
If an RTS level designer needed to be clear on exact unit stats in the building of a certain scenario, it'd be a fairly safe bet that he was building a rigid scenario. If he were building a versatile scenario that empowered the player with a diverse set of options, he wouldn't need to be clear on exact stats - the gist would be fine.
Perhaps it's harder to create open, interesting, player-driven RPG(hybrid) challenges, but that's the direction I'd like to see explored. Deus Ex aimed at this with its notion of """emergent""" gameplay. It's a bit much to call it emergent, but any attempt to get away from designer-defined solutions is to be applauded.
So, while I agree that a bit of discrete, broad clarity helps designers in many contexts, I'm not wild about those contexts. I'd rather see situations where slight differences in skill were always potentially important, since a small difference could combine with many other factors to create new solutions. [in theory, at least]
...and part of it is denying the player opportunities to exceed their character ability.
I agree that there can be an issue with encouraging dull gameplay (e.g. extreme player patience + character ineptitude = horribly slow success). However, I object to the premise of your point: in a Deus Ex-like game, player skill is part of what
defines PC ability. A player can't possibly exceed their character's ability, since a character's ability is not defined in isolation from the player.
Again, I'd say that this lack of complete separation of player and character is an essential property of any FP/RT game - RPG or otherwise. Trying to maintain the idea of an independent character in this context doesn't make much sense IMO.
...but Deus Ex affords more lenience to the patient player. Accuracy becomes more of a time sink than anything else, and gameplay becomes less a product of the character choices the player has made, and more of a resource management exercise. Do I have an abundance of pistols and pistol ammo? If yes, what precludes me from just hailing wayward lead until my opponents die?
Perhaps this is true some of the time (clearly not always). I'd say that the fault lies with the world system, rather than the character system though. It might be fine to reward patience in lining up a single shot - but once the player starts missing with multiple bullets, the shit ought to hit the fan.
Admittedly, a more natural means of prohibition could be achieved, but what's ultimately more frustrating to the player? Not being able to use a weapon, or being able to use one that constantly misses?
It's interesting the way you phrase that: "one that constantly misses".
It highlights the way the mechanic comes across to the player - not as some natural, PC/world-centric difficulty, but rather as an artificial property of the object being used. The player doesn't get the feel of amateur pistol use. He gets the feeling of competent use of a horribly broken weapon.
This is frustrating because:
Trying to use something that's broken is frustrating.
The player knows that the weapon isn't broken in the game world.
It's a naturally frustrating situation made incoherent by an implementation that feels wrong. Incoherent frustration is the worst possible kind. [I'd guess that exactly the same mechanic would be less frustrating if the player was told he was using a broken gun, rather than being of low skill - in that case missing a single shot by 30 degrees would be credible.]
I think things would be much improved if the lack of skill made the weapon harder to use (recoil, fire rate, reload rate...), rather than fairly simple to use, but with randomized results. The most frustrating aspect of repeated missing is the nonsense - not the missing.
And as always, there's the whole notion that character skill lessens the challenge of most activities.
Sure - it should change the character of the challenge, not eliminate it. In a sense this is already true even in Deus Ex - most individual challenges are small parts of a whole. Killing the guard might be trivial, but doing it twice in quick succession without being spotted by a third is probably not. High skill can make that setup a challenge worth attempting.
A boolean "can_use" doesn't walk this slippery slope, since it basically entails - "Can the player participate in the challenge?" You're giving the player the option of what avenues are available to test their player skill...
True, but there's much less possibility for interesting skill/ability/circumstance combinations in that case. Again, it's very prescriptive. It lends itself to setting up series of atomic challenges, rather than challenge combinations which admit as many approaches as there are (player)character types. I'd rather have each challenge on a sliding scale of difficulty, but with the potential to influence that difficulty indirectly by using other skills.
With a boolean system, each individual challenge will always be impossible/achievable solely on its own merits. Larger challenge combinations might be possible, but an individual challenge is relatively trivial. With multi-valued/continuous skills, any atomic challenge can be a complex composite challenge for some characters (who need every indirect advantage they can get), while a simple means-to-an-end for others.
I think that the merits of a continuous system lie in challenge combinations. If you have a simple series of atomic challenges, a boolean system makes more sense - but that's not what I'd want.
...rather than some indistinct mutant hybrid that has a chaotic non-challenge at one end of the spectrum, and a predictable non-challenge at the other.
I think that's fine, so long as the "chaotic" challenge makes good sense, is rarely isolated, and relatively uncommon - and the predictable non-challenge becomes an important part of a higher-level challenge only made possible by the fluency of the non-challenge (preferably the "non-challenge" should be a challenge given the pressures of the higher level challenge).
As a game mechanic, Deus Ex's stat system got on my bad side. In order to keep from frustrating the player, most of the character choices were tepid and barely defined. Untrained in explosives? Nevermind. It's not like LAMs are hard to disable anyway! Not a trained sniper? Who cares?! You still have a sniper rifle that you can use, and the enemy is too far away to hit you while you spend 10 minutes lining up a shot!
Agreed.
I don't think this is an essential property of that kind of system though. In most cases it's a consequence of a forgiving world (at least on non-Realistic difficulty).
Perhaps the versatility/uniformity of the Deus Ex PC was in anticipation of a single play-through only?? If you're fairly sure most players won't play more than once, does it make sense to invest heavily in inter-character differentiation? Of course you can argue that the other way: with significant character variety, many more players would have been inclined to play through more than once.
I think that's pretty hard once you go to town with an essentially linear story. Not that I'm a fan of linear stories.
...then generally the lowest skill level is still serviceable. From there, a significant change is difficult, because ideally, you don't want the highest skill level to destroy the challenge. So, you end up with a spectrum between workable and challenging. Hardly leaps and bounds.
Right - but again, you're looking at each challenge as atomic. It's fine for a low skill choice to be almost useless 90% of the time, so long as an odd combination of factors can create an interesting 10%. It's fine for a very high skill to be easy (and simple+quick) in most contexts, so long as it can be a useful tool in attacking other challenges - both as a component in higher level challenges, and as support in otherwise very difficult atomic challenges.
It makes sense to keep the constraints clear if only to better enable a focused design.
If you mean "focused" as in "tailored for specific skill sets", that's not what I want to see. I'd rather have an abundance of interrelated challenges of various difficulties than a series of well considered obstacles. I really don't think that the constraints should need to be clear.
Scissors-Paper-Rock would be diminished by extrapolation (Are the scissors blunt? Is the paper wet? Is the paper big enough to encompass the entire rock? Does the rock have protruding spikes that will pierce the paper? Etc.)
Would it be? If these were included as well-defined, considered rules? It might lose it's instant appeal for young children, but I wouldn't say it'd be diminished exactly - just changed. [[In any case, it's not a great example in computing terms, since if there's entertainment in S-P-R, it's psychological - not inherent in the rules themselves. When it's translated to computer, e.g. in strategy games, it's almost invariably extrapolated - and rightly so.]]
If the designer can know instead of assume then his work becomes more informed.
And more predictable/prescriptive/linear.
My point isn't that he should assume - it's that he shouldn't need either to know or to assume. Ideally he should be able to come up with interesting challenges, and know that solutions will exist - without necessarily being able to think of any.
Of course, I believe the most appropriate approach to take is enabling of further options, rather than merely say, decreasing the margin of error.
Sure - but the second can easily lead to the first. The important point is that either should provide gameplay options.
For instance, I much prefer:
0 - can't use a pistol
1 - can use a pistol
2 - can reload without being stationary
...over...
0 - can use pistol inaccurately, slow to reload
1 - can use pistol with average accuracy and average reload speed
2 - can use pistol with deadly accuracy and reload with lighting speed
I think it's difficult to say either way in isolation. The one thing I'd definitely say is that it's undesirable for the player's focus to be on his abilities as an end in themselves. So long as gains in either system provide an interesting array of gameplay options, it's unimportant whether they grant wholly new abilities, or simply alter present ones.
I'd still be inclined to prefer inaccuracy over complete inability. I don't think missing even needs to be frustrating in general - but it must make sense if that's to be avoided.
I think one of the main benefits of discrete systems can be in the elegance (and utility) of precise balance / equivalence - e.g. in Diplomacy, Chess, Go etc. As soon as you include player skill in an activity, you've lost this. Another advantage is the possibility for precise planning/calculation/analysis. Again, you don't get this in FP/RT (usually).
Having said all this, I am aware of my own prejudices: I.e. Continuous = GOOD; Discrete = EVIL.
There should probably be a balance between the two, rather than a holy crusade one way or the other.
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