Showing, not telling and other concerns

[Sodomy]

At this point, it's so ingrained into a player to reload whenever something bad happens to a character that they're not even going to stick around to see the consequences and find out that it's more fun to keep playing.

There's an element of that - which is why a game would need to introduce the player to the failure-is-interesting mindset gradually. You'd need to include a load of small-but-interesting failures to before anything large.

And why don't you think that the player would reload on these?

for an example, of the people who have replayed Fallout, how many of them do you think have ironmanned it?

That's no argument, since Fallout wasn't designed according to the methods I'm advocating. For a start, unavoidable death isn't that uncommon in Fallout - you can easily die through bad luck, even if well prepared. That's not a failure that allows the player to continue - it ends the game, and forces a reload or restart

There is NO unavoidable death in Fallout, since all combat (except maybe a rat or two) is avoidable.

Also, Fallout isn't that different from most games in the success/failure sense. Success generally opens doors, and failure generally closes them (not always, but that's still the trend).

On further thought, is it really necessary for every failure to open doors as well as close them? It doesn't work that way in the real world, and for "every silver cloud to have a lining" would feel contrived. Could it not be construed as interesting gameplay to work through setbacks to still achieve a goal? For a very basic example, consider character death in ToEE. There's no silver lining to it- it costs you gold and XP, and doesn't help in any way. Yet, playing in Ironman, where characters die from time to time is more interesting than loading on character death- because the additional challenges that character deaths introduce (especially in the early game, where the 250 gold needed for reviving is a significant amount, and your cleric doesn't have the restore spell for quickly recovering most lost XP) make the game more interesting and meaningful. It's more interesting to play a game which is a challenge due to closed doors that have to be worked through than a game where everything falls right into a player's lap.

Going even further in this direction, is punishing the player even a bad thing? Again, using the ToEE ironman example, my first attempt at a ToEE ironman ended with me dying in the CN opening vignette (I only wish I was making this up). My next attempt ended with the spiders in the Deklo Grove killing me. The next several attempts ended with an unceremonious death in the moathouse. Playing the same content time and time again could be construed as "punishing the player"- yet, this punishment added a lot more tension- and thus, entertainment value- when I was fighting a dangerous boss in the late game, such as Balor or Herzou. Wiping out Zuggtmoy in one round was a lot more fullfilling in context of previous failures, and with the threat of what would happen if I failed.

 

[Hory]

On the subject of loading, I would suggest this system: allow loading whenever the player dies (and the game is over), but don't allow loading after each non-game-ending choice made. It would make the choices a lot more valuable and the experience more realistic.
Now, one problem would now be if the player makes a choice that leads him to a battle he can't survive. That's why the choice made has to have predictable consequences - which a sane player would avoid. And even if he makes a big wrong choice, there should still be at least an additional way to take it back, or to avoid losing the game.

Example:
Player: I don't give a damn about your threats, emperor.
Emperor: Fool, I could have you killed right here and now.
(The emperor gestures at four of his elite guards.)
[Big mistake] Player: You are a worthless worm hiding behind your servants.
(The guards attack and the player is pwned.)
(The player loads the game right before the battle - he can't load before his choices.)
[Chance to survive] (The player initiates dialog again while the guards are approaching.)
[Choice 1] Player: (Pretending to stutter) STOP... the witch - one of your servants - she has cursed me... she has twisted my tounge so that I will anger you with words. I... I have important information about spies in your empire. (etc)
(The emperor stops his guards and lets you rest for a bit. You have a chance to escape his castle and do so, but when he realises what you have done, he sends mercenaries after you.)
[Choice 2 - Stupid] Player: Hey, I was only joking!
(The player is still attacked.)

The "stupid" choice has negative consequences, but they're not game-ending, and actually make the story deeper and the experience more realistic. Why would the player be afraid of any NPC he meets, if he knows he can reload untill he stumbles upon the correct choice?

 

[Hory]

There is NO unavoidable death in Fallout, since all combat (except maybe a rat or two) is avoidable.

How about when you enter the military base, and at the end of the only corridor forward there are 3 super-mutants, one of which firest at you with a rocket launcher?

 

[Klaz]

You can sneak past them or talk them into not attacking, IIRC

 

[Hory]

Well, they attacked me as soon as that area had finished loading.

 

[Sodomy]

Lockpick the door with an electronic lockpick while wearing a purple robe, or steal the disk with the code from off the SM guard. This won't set off the alarms, and you'll be free to walk in without getting attacked by the SMs, as long as you keep the robe on and don't do anything stupid.

 

[Hory]

Nice... I was expecting that there'd be a way .

 

[Sodomy]

Basically, what aggros those three is the alarm going off. The alarm goes off if, when outside of the complex or inside of it, you're in combat for more than 3 turns, you're spotted while not wearing the robes, or if you don't set the nuke to silent-detonate. So, if you can get in without combat, or if you can end any combat within 3 turns, those guys won't be hostile as long as you're wearing the robes.

 

[galsiah]

And why don't you think that the player would reload on these?

Because they're too small to be worth the time/effort, and the player doesn't expect either to lose anything significant (in character terms), or significant content (in player terms). Presumably you don't reload every time you miss in combat, every time an enemy gets away without your getting its XP/loot, every time you trigger a trap, every time you take a wrong turn.... You'd need to start with the small stuff, and endeavour to make every outcome interesting from the ground up.
This is already done frequently in most games for the "take a wrong turn" failure - by creating a rich environment with a lot of interest happening down every path. If you fail to go the "right" way, you don't reload, because there's something interesting down the other path too. This simply needs to be applied to abstract paths as well as physical ones.
Of course most of the smaller consequences will seem pretty trivial in themselves - since they are. That's ok though: their role is to change the mindset of the player - not to be wonderful features in their own right.

There is NO unavoidable death in Fallout, since all combat (except maybe a rat or two) is avoidable.

That's just nonsense. Random encounters for one.
I mean "unavoidable" for a player playing for the first time under typical conditions - not a psychic who's read the walkthroughs, knows the areas where different random bad-guys crop up, uses a character who's great at combat yet avoids it like the plague etc. etc.
A first-time player who picks some reasonable-sounding character build without external information always stands a high chance of finding himself in an unavoidable death situation at some point. [Not "unavoidable" with a walkthrough and in retrospect]

On further thought, is it really necessary for every failure to open doors as well as close them?

They must "open doors" to interesting gameplay and challenges. That doesn't have to mean making anything easier, or "opening doors" for the character. Interesting content and gameplay is the essential. Character benefits are optional.

Could it not be construed as interesting gameplay to work through setbacks to still achieve a goal?

Sure - so long as the setback really opens up interesting new challenges, rather than being a case of "You fell down the pit - you now have a 1 hour walk back to the entrance".

For a very basic example, consider character death in ToEE. There's no silver lining to it- it costs you gold and XP, and doesn't help in any way. Yet, playing in Ironman, where characters die from time to time is more interesting than loading on character death- because the additional challenges that character deaths introduce (especially in the early game, where the 250 gold needed for reviving is a significant amount, and your cleric doesn't have the restore spell for quickly recovering most lost XP) make the game more interesting and meaningful.

I haven't played ToEE, but that sounds reasonable. It doesn't sound particularly interesting either way though. Success (i.e. not dying) doesn't have any particularly interesting consequence - you just get to continue. Failure (i.e. dying) doesn't either - it just means a bit of XP and gold, with the broadly the same continuation. In a game with resurrection, death means little more than getting hit hard and seeing your enemy run away (delay+lost loot+lost XP). It's dull, and it's not opening doors to new gameplay any more than getting hit in combat does - it just makes things a little more challenging.

Resurrection is tacky in any case, but if it is included, it's an option to throw in some interest and variety. Having a quick-fix spell to recover and gain most XP takes the tackiness that much further. Many D&D fans might be used to a tacky, trivial, temporary approach to death, but that doesn't make it any less tacky. (oh, and it's tacky)

It's more interesting to play a game which is a challenge due to closed doors that have to be worked through than a game where everything falls right into a player's lap.

Please learn to distinguish between the player and the character:
Doors to gameplay are opened for the player.
Entertainment falls into the player's lap.
Horrible things might happen to the character.

Also, realize that there isn't an "everything" to fall into the character's lap. Stuff happens - some of it will be welcome, and some not. It's impossible for everything to go right at once, since many possibilities will be mutually exclusive, and some will be "right" only from some perspectives. Those things which do fall into the character's lap are unlikely to be the things he was aiming to achieve (if he really failed, rather than intentionally "failed") - they'll just be other factors relating to other issues, possibly requiring some change of plan/outlook to be turned to the player's advantage. Most often they'd be opportunities to pursue that task or another task in different ways due to changes in the strategic situation brought on by the "failure", or its consequences.

Going even further in this direction, is punishing the player even a bad thing?

Yes. End of story.
You just need to have a clear understanding of what it means to "punish the player".

Again, using the ToEE ironman example... Playing the same content time and time again could be construed as "punishing the player"- yet, this punishment added a lot more tension- and thus, entertainment value

First, if it entertained you more overall, you weren't punished. Offering the choice to go ironman isn't punishing anyone who doesn't want to do that. It'd be real punishment only if every player were forced into playing ironman. The goal is to entertain players - not to have them grinning with glee all the time. If you were more entertained by that repetition and the threat of it, that's great.

However, this is where you need to assess [Feature which achieves X] against [Other ways to achieve X]. Looking at a feature, thinking "The game is probably better with it than without it", then concluding that it's a good idea, is a bit daft.

In this case, are there better ways to achieve tension than by threatening the player with hours-of-the-same-shit if he fails? I'd say that there are - pretty much any alternative is preferable. That's about as elegant a solution as getting punched in the mouth on failing - only not nearly as fast/exciting.
Again, although I'm not a great fan of this try-fail-try-fail-try-fail-succeed approach to gameplay, it has its place. Is that place in an RPG? Perhaps in a Rogue-like or similar, but I'm not that interested in those. In an RPG with a rich, involving, reactive world, it makes sense to play to those strengths - i.e. don't reduce the gameplay approach to the level of Pacman.

 

[Sodomy]

And why don't you think that the player would reload on these?

Because they're too small to be worth the time/effort, and the player doesn't expect either to lose anything significant (in character terms), or significant content (in player terms). Presumably you don't reload every time you miss in combat, every time an enemy gets away without your getting its XP/loot, every time you trigger a trap, every time you take a wrong turn.... You'd need to start with the small stuff, and endeavour to make every outcome interesting from the ground up.
This is already done frequently in most games for the "take a wrong turn" failure - by creating a rich environment with a lot of interest happening down every path. If you fail to go the "right" way, you don't reload, because there's something interesting down the other path too. This simply needs to be applied to abstract paths as well as physical ones.
Of course most of the smaller consequences will seem pretty trivial in themselves - since they are. That's ok though: their role is to change the mindset of the player - not to be wonderful features in their own right.

Taking a wrong turn somewhere isn't really any failure. It could easily be "righted" by a player without quicksave by simply turning around and walking back onto the path.

That's just nonsense. Random encounters for one.

What do you think the outdoorsman skill is for?

I mean "unavoidable" for a player playing for the first time under typical conditions - not a psychic who's read the walkthroughs, knows the areas where different random bad-guys crop up, uses a character who's great at combat yet avoids it like the plague etc. etc.
A first-time player who picks some reasonable-sounding character build without external information always stands a high chance of finding himself in an unavoidable death situation at some point. [Not "unavoidable" with a walkthrough and in retrospect]

Yes, hence why I specified "multiple playthroughs".

What's wrong with a character who is good at combat not necessarily being a belligerent asshole? In the real world, do people who are, say, trained in martial arts, go out of their way looking for fights, just because they are good at fighting? No, because there are consequences and risks associated with that behavior. Why, in an RPG, should there not be risks and consequences associated with something that a character is good at doing?

They must "open doors" to interesting gameplay and challenges. That doesn't have to mean making anything easier, or "opening doors" for the character. Interesting content and gameplay is the essential. Character benefits are optional.

Ah, ok- I thought you meant that they had to open doors for the characters.

Resurrection is tacky in any case, but if it is included, it's an option to throw in some interest and variety. Having a quick-fix spell to recover and gain most XP takes the tackiness that much further. Many D&D fans might be used to a tacky, trivial, temporary approach to death, but that doesn't make it any less tacky. (oh, and it's tacky)

Even with the spell to regain most XP (which doesn't come until near the end of the game), XP loss from dying is still a big deal, since it's close to an entire level's worth of XP. Without the spell, a character who dies at about level 7 would no longer be viable, since they would likely never level up again (in ToEE, they'd go back to a level 1-ish amount of XP).

Also, realize that there isn't an "everything" to fall into the character's lap. Stuff happens - some of it will be welcome, and some not. It's impossible for everything to go right at once, since many possibilities will be mutually exclusive, and some will be "right" only from some perspectives. Those things which do fall into the character's lap are unlikely to be the things he was aiming to achieve (if he really failed, rather than intentionally "failed") - they'll just be other factors relating to other issues, possibly requiring some change of plan/outlook to be turned to the player's advantage. Most often they'd be opportunities to pursue that task or another task in different ways due to changes in the strategic situation brought on by the "failure", or its consequences.

It's completely possible for "everything" to go right if nothing has happened to prevent completion of the goals that the player had for the character. If there is never any sort of setback in the persuing of those goals, the game will be SHIT BORING. Save/reload allows there to be no setback except for that which is previously scripted into the game's "linear story", which is really no setback at all if there's no way around it.

understanding of what it means to "punish the player".

So, is it punishing the player to do something that is against their short-term entertainment value in favor of their long-term entertainment value? In the ToEE example, I didn't exactly enjoy playing Hommlet five times, but that bit of non-entertainment made the entertaining sections far more entertaining, partially out of the fear of playing Hommlet for the sixth time. Would this be considered "punishment"?

However, this is where you need to assess [Feature which achieves X] against [Other ways to achieve X]. Looking at a feature, thinking "The game is probably better with it than without it", then concluding that it's a good idea, is a bit daft.

In this case, are there better ways to achieve tension than by threatening the player with hours-of-the-same-shit if he fails? I'd say that there are - pretty much any alternative is preferable. That's about as elegant a solution as getting punched in the mouth on failing - only not nearly as fast/exciting.
Again, although I'm not a great fan of this try-fail-try-fail-try-fail-succeed approach to gameplay, it has its place. Is that place in an RPG? Perhaps in a Rogue-like or similar, but I'm not that interested in those. In an RPG with a rich, involving, reactive world, it makes sense to play to those strengths - i.e. don't reduce the gameplay approach to the level of Pacman.

I'd agree that there better ways of achieving it (namely, randomization of content like a roguelike, or at least, perhaps, randomization of start state), but those aren't likely to happen under the current CRPG model.

Also, the goal is to get the player playing through those minor failures (i.e., one character dies, a quest is failed and a faction pissed off, etc), not to make the game so hard that they never get past the first town. Realistically, "starting all over" should only happen a few times in the case of non-procedurally generated content, and, hopefully, there are more choices to be made in that content than the amount of restarts that will be made throughout the game.

 

[galsiah]

Taking a wrong turn somewhere isn't really any failure. It could easily be "righted" by a player without quicksave by simply turning around and walking back onto the path.

It's simply a failure with no significant negative consequences (usually) - I never implied otherwise. It's these low level, insignificant failures which need to be used to condition the player from the start. Really significant failures can't be used, since it's already too late at that stage.

What do you think the outdoorsman skill is for?

What's your point here? The initial issue is that Fallout is a game where many players will frequently need to reload after death quite often. At some point such players will be in an unavoidable death situation (quite often right at the start of a combat).
That it's possible with the right knowledge and the right character build to be fairly sure of not getting into those situations, is irrelevant. My point was about how Fallout plays - not how it could be played by players with perfect knowledge and a non-violent, risk-averse outlook.

Yes, hence why I specified "multiple playthroughs".

Which still isn't relevant: Fallout was not designed along the lines I'm describing, so it's not relevant as any kind of example of what players would/wouldn't do if a game were so designed.

Even so, a player replaying Fallout can easily run into an unavoidable death situation. Of course it might be the result of a choice he made earlier, but so what? Hardly anyone starts out by tagging outdoorsman, so almost everyone might die through no fault of their own. That's the point - that for many players, death can be unavoidable after only a few reasonable decisions. This is not a game designed as I'm describing.
You can still call that "avoidable" if you like, but then what point are you making?

Why, in an RPG, should there not be risks and consequences associated with something that a character is good at doing?

Death followed by forced reload is a non-risk followed by no consequence. It has consequences only for the player (too often in the form of frustration). For the character it has no consequences, since it never happened after the reload. It therefore has very few medium/long term consequences for the player either.

Even with the spell to regain most XP (which doesn't come until near the end of the game), XP loss from dying is still a big deal, since it's close to an entire level's worth of XP. Without the spell, a character who dies at about level 7 would no longer be viable, since they would likely never level up again (in ToEE, they'd go back to a level 1-ish amount of XP).

Sure. It might be a big deal - but it's a big, dull, largely pointless deal. Since the spell is essentially there to paint over the cracks of shit high-level balance, I don't think it should be seen as a benefit. Again, don't compare ToEE with spell to ToEE without spell - compare it to what it could have been with a less dull/tacky system in the first place.
Then again, ToEE really isn't the type of game I'm thinking about (from what I know of it). It's basically a dungeon-hack (right?), so has little place in this discussion - or at least it's not the type of game I'm addressing with my points. If Roguelikey games want to be prett Pacmanesqe, that's fine.

It's completely possible for "everything" to go right if nothing has happened to prevent completion of the goals that the player had for the character.

For a start, that's very unlikely in general - the player will have a whole raft of goals for his character with wildly varying priorities. When he fails to achieve something significant, it's practically certain that some goals will be negatively impacted.
If you don't consider such lower-level goals, then I think you're on thin ice in saying that "everything" can go right. If a task is eventually completed after five abortive attempts at different methods, most people wouldn't say that everything went right.

In any case, when did I ever say that this would be the case? I allowed for it to be possible in some cases that the original goal would still be completable - perhaps by other means. I never suggested that this be the case all the time (in fact that's clearly impossible for player-selected goals).

If there is never any sort of setback in the persuing of those goals, the game will be SHIT BORING.

Who suggested no setbacks? I'm not even suggesting that the goals always remain completable. I'm certainly not suggesting an absence of setbacks.

Save/reload allows there to be no setback except for that which is previously scripted into the game's "linear story", which is really no setback at all if there's no way around it.

And? That's only an issue if the player constantly save-reloads. Much of this discussion has been about solutions to that issue. Restricted save systems are an ugly hack to cure the symptoms, and do nothing to address the underlying issues (i.e. that certain paths through your game suck).

So, is it punishing the player to do something that is against their short-term entertainment value in favor of their long-term entertainment value?

It certainly can't be clearly called punishment in that case. This gets rather close to philosophy. This is the only justification for any such "punishment" though - that it increases overall entertainment value.

In the ToEE example, I didn't exactly enjoy playing Hommlet five times, but that bit of non-entertainment made the entertaining sections far more entertaining, partially out of the fear of playing Hommlet for the sixth time. Would this be considered "punishment"?

Probably not, but again, don't compare the experience with Hommlet to the experience without it. Compare the experience with it to the experience with an improved version - could it have been done better to increase both immediate and long-term entertainment?
I haven't played the game, but I'd guess the answer is yes.

...but those aren't likely to happen under the current CRPG model.

Of course most improvements aren't likely if things stay as they are - that's what makes them improvements. A game which is based around repetition of the same content had better include ways to make that content dynamic/fresh for each repetition. Not doing that is just lame - current CRPG model or not.

Also, the goal is to get the player playing through those minor failures...

Sure, but again, the way to do that is to get the player to want to play through them - not by taking away his ability to do anything else. Do the first, and you know you have a great game; do the second, and your very-probably-broken game will be nicely propped up by ugly crutches.
Of course the first is harder to do - it's something to aim for. Restricted save systems might sometimes be a viable option, but only as a last resort. Designing one in from the start amounts to saying "Many paths through my game will be shit enough that no-one wants to walk them.", before you've even started. That's pretty defeatist.

 

[Sodomy]

From the sounds of it, it seems that I haven't been clear in articulating my point. So, another example, this time from PS:T.

Take the quest where you have to retrieve the "keys to the heart" of that construct in the Brothel of Slating Intellectual Lusts. Say that you decided to just kill the dude for them. Upon walking outside of the Sensate hall, you'd be attacked by the Harmonium, and your reputation with them would be effected. Most players would probably reload at this point.

This "failure" in no way effects the character's future abilities at achieving his goals. From the player's perspective, this would actually create MORE entertainment value, as there are a few interesting gameplay moments that can only happen if the Harmonium is pissed at you (for instance, there's one chick walking around the Clerk's Ward with a Harmonium guard; talking to her in this situation is more interesting than talking to her if the Harmonium likes you). And, furthermore, it's not like the player has to worry about dying in combat, since it's PS:T. So, why would the average player reload? Simple- it's been ingrained into them. Between game manuals that encourage players to save often, games where it's practically a necessity, and the simple availability of it, it's turned into a habit to reload whenever anything bad happens to the character.

How do you kill this tendency? As the above example shows, doing it by changing your game design is unlikely, as it's hard to come up with a more benign atmosphere when it comes to failure than PS:T. The only way you're going to do it is by yanking the ability to do it out from under the player, and get them accoustomed to NOT using save/reload.

 

[Lumpy]

The Harmonium swarming you and trying to kill you over and over isn't exactly a fun gameplay element. How about being arrested and participating in a trial, or convincing them that attacking you is futile. Just killing hundreds of Mercykillers sucks.

 

[galsiah]

PS:T...How do you kill this tendency? As the above example shows, doing it by changing your game design is unlikely, as it's hard to come up with a more benign atmosphere when it comes to failure than PS:T...

It doesn't really show anything. Again, you're talking about a potentially significant failure. PS:T still isn't designed to make failure really interesting all of the time - occasionally, perhaps, but since the player won't know which cases are which, it's still rational to reload. It doesn't attempt to get the player into the failure-is-interesting mindset with small failures either. As for the benign environment, it's still quite possible to get companions killed (and no, not everyone does find the resurrection ability at the start - or ever).

Of course it'd be hard to change player behaviour in this area - which is why you'd need to be totally committed to it. You say that many manuals encourage frequent saving. Where's the section in the PS:T manual emphasizing that all paths are supported, and failure is frequently more interesting than success? It isn't there (and shouldn't be, because most of the time it's not true).

Again, I'd point out that preventing all reloads is not the goal - the goal is to offer the player a choice between two positive (in entertainment terms) paths, both of which he'd like to explore. The design is good when the player wants to continue in almost every case, and possibly also wants to reload in some cases. If he does end up reloading, it should be because he's torn between two entertaining outcomes.

It's not helpful to view things in black-and-white either. Do the design changes that are present in PS:T prevent every player from ever wanting to reload? Of course not. Do they prevent some players from wanting to reload some of the time? Clearly they do.
It's a step in the right direction that doesn't go far enough.

You can't make your point using an existing game until you find one that achieves what I'm advocating (or at the very least, aims to achieve it). Of course I can't be totally certain that it'd work either - only that it's something to aim for. What I can be certain of is that limiting saves (for all players) is a shit solution that ought to motivate those concerned with the issues to look for a better one.

The only way you're going to do it is by yanking the ability to do it out from under the player, and get them accoustomed to NOT using save/reload.

This does not achieve my goal, so it's not the "only way...to do it" - it doesn't "do it". Eradicating save-reload was never the issue. So long as players want to continue through "failure", the problem is solved. If they sometimes still reload, that's great - it's very possibly the most entertaining course for them in those cases.

Limiting saves is a draconian one-size-fits-all-players, one-size-fits-all-situations, system - a large part of what makes it shit.

 

[Sodomy]

It doesn't attempt to get the player into the failure-is-interesting mindset with small failures either.

Except, it does. Amarysee/Nodd, the dude who needs his fork to get out of the inn, the "trap portal" in Ragpicker's Square, arguably taking the box from Mar (it's easily arguable that taking that box would be construed as a failure), aggroing the gathering dust bar (while the combat itself may not be particularly interesting, the dustmen's response to strangling the guy is, given their beliefs), attempting to pin the guy's hand when coming out of the crypts if one re-enters them, etc. Loads of small failures with no need to reload.

As for the benign environment, it's still quite possible to get companions killed (and no, not everyone does find the resurrection ability at the start - or ever).

So, do we have to design games around the stupid people now? It's this sort of pandering to the casual gamer which results in things like Oblivion.

Of course it'd be hard to change player behaviour in this area - which is why you'd need to be totally committed to it. You say that many manuals encourage frequent saving. Where's the section in the PS:T manual emphasizing that all paths are supported, and failure is frequently more interesting than success? It isn't there (and shouldn't be, because most of the time it's not true).

It's never stated explicitly, but the manual sure does seem to dwell on the fact that the character has nothing to fear from combat, and that there's no way in hell that combat will lead to a game over (although this isn't strictly true at the very end of the game, it's close enough). It's rather contradictory for them to dwell on this fact, and then NOT encourage playing with few saves, isn't it?

On another note, Daggerfall, a game I'd never try playing without abundant saves, is the only one I know of with a clause encouraging people not to reload on failure.

You can't make your point using an existing game until you find one that achieves what I'm advocating (or at the very least, aims to achieve it). Of course I can't be totally certain that it'd work either - only that it's something to aim for. What I can be certain of is that limiting saves (for all players) is a shit solution that ought to motivate those concerned with the issues to look for a better one.

I can be certain that the solution wouldn't. Sorry, but if people are going to lean on their quickload keys in fucking PS:T, a game where it's damn near impossible to lose, and where many failures lead to something more interesting than "wake up at mortuary", nothing will stop them.

This does not achieve my goal, so it's not the "only way...to do it" - it doesn't "do it". Eradicating save-reload was never the issue. So long as players want to continue through "failure", the problem is solved. If they sometimes still reload, that's great - it's very possibly the most entertaining course for them in those cases.

Limiting saves is a draconian one-size-fits-all-players, one-size-fits-all-situations, system - a large part of what makes it shit.

The average player will NEVER want to continue through failure if they can help it. Limiting saves makes them no longer able to help it.

 

[galsiah]

Except, it does.... Loads of small failures with no need to reload.

None of which most players will experience the first time through. Those are welcome as features in themselves, but to educate the player you need to make certain that he's failing often in interesting ways right from the start. To be a conditioning tool it can't just occasionally happen to some players.
It's not a question of tweaking current quests/gameplay to be more failure friendly - you'd have to construct the game from the ground up making early interesting failure a priority.

Again, it's not black-and-white - PS:T does this a bit more than some games, and gets better results than such games in terms of players wanting to continue through failure. There's still no real emphasis on player conditioning in PS:T though - interesting failures are there because they're considered inherently beneficial features (which of course they are).

So, do we have to design games around the stupid people now?

I'm not sure what point you are making here. If you're implying that not getting the resurrection ability is "stupid", then you're being daft - it's a reasonable consequence of not taking a mine-this-NPC-for-all-possible-content approach to talking with Deionarra.

If you're not saying that, then you're simply wrong in your earlier statement that it's "hard to come up with a more benign atmosphere". It isn't. Companion death in PS:T isn't benign, and isn't interesting. If you're assuming that everyone must get the resurrection ability, then you're suggesting that the game doesn't support the possibility of not getting that ability - that's shit design. If the balance only works well when everyone gets the ability, it should be unavoidable. If it can be reasonably missed, game balance shouldn't depend on it.

Of course you can suggest that a benign environment isn't necessary for the game to be good/great/effective..., - in which case, do stop suggesting that it's benign.

It's never stated explicitly, but the manual sure does seem to dwell on the fact that the character has nothing to fear from combat...

In combat sure - ignoring companions. There's nothing in the manual about there being no risk (to the player) from failure outside combat - since there is. Failure is still usually the less interesting option. Certainly there are examples where you can argue which is the most interesting course, but in general, success gets the player a more entertaining game.

On another note, Daggerfall, a game I'd never try playing without abundant saves, is the only one I know of with a clause encouraging people not to reload on failure.

Interesting - though I don't think it makes sense to encourage that unless you back it up with interesting failures. Encouraging it with a kind of ironman mentality isn't reasonable for most players. I haven't played Daggerfall, but if it's anything like Morrowind, then I'd imagine that failure is usually clear-cut, and rarely gets you much.

I can be certain that the solution wouldn't. Sorry, but if people are going to lean on their quickload keys in fucking PS:T, a game where it's damn near impossible to lose, and where many failures lead to something more interesting than "wake up at mortuary", nothing will stop them.

That's no argument, since it's not a question of losing, or of occasionally supported failure - it's about the player's expectation of content and entertainment overall. In PS:T you can sometimes get an interesting situation on failure, but often you get a dull dead-end. Success is more interesting more often, so many players will play the percentages by reloading.
If failure is supported 80% as well as success, it still makes sense to reload. You need an example of a game where it's supported at least 100% as well as success to have an argument. I'm pretty sure no such RPG exists (looking outside the genre might perhaps be instructive). Of course that doesn't make you necessarily wrong. It simply means that you can argue it either way until there's clear evidence on one side.

The failure of current games to achieve this is no evidence in cases where they weren't even trying to achieve it - i.e. in most games, and probably all RPGs.

The average player will NEVER want to continue through failure if they can help it.

Does putting it in capitals without evidence make you more correct?
In any case, one assumption there is that these situations would be categorized by players as clear unambiguous "failures". Part of the issue is the mindset that there's a "correct" oucome, an "incorrect" outcome, and that the "correct" one is preferable. In many cases the solution will be to stop the player thinking of outcomes as being failures - certainly in any absolute sense, and preferable in a personal sense too.

Also, given that failure is not supported to the extent of success in most current games, it's not clear from any evidence that it's failure itself that is disliked, rather than its implications for entertainment. It's only "obvious" that players don't like failure because failure usually ends up sucking. If failure didn't end up sucking, and it was rarely clear in any absolute sense that certain outcomes were "failures", it'd be a lot less obvious that the average player won't continue.

Look at sports games for an example from the mass market. Vanishingly few players will play a league and reload every time they lose a game. They play through the losses since that's a more entertaining path. They do this even though those a clear failures. The idea that this could never apply to RPGs "just because" seems a little daft. [it's not a direct parallel in every sense, but "Do average players continue past failures in some cases?" Answer: absolutely.]

 

[Lumpy]

Except, it does. Amarysee/Nodd, the dude who needs his fork to get out of the inn, the "trap portal" in Ragpicker's Square, arguably taking the box from Mar (it's easily arguable that taking that box would be construed as a failure), aggroing the gathering dust bar (while the combat itself may not be particularly interesting, the dustmen's response to strangling the guy is, given their beliefs), attempting to pin the guy's hand when coming out of the crypts if one re-enters them, etc. Loads of small failures with no need to reload.
The average player will NEVER want to continue through failure if they can help it. Limiting saves makes them no longer able to help it.

If those are examples of failure, I'm pretty sure that many players just played along with them. Maybe not the dustman bar - again, stupid consequence - but the box, the trapped shack, the amarysse thing, etc., probably most people didn't reload.

 

[Sodomy]

None of which most players will experience the first time through. Those are welcome as features in themselves, but to educate the player you need to make certain that he's failing often in interesting ways right from the start. To be a conditioning tool it can't just occasionally happen to some players.
It's not a question of tweaking current quests/gameplay to be more failure friendly - you'd have to construct the game from the ground up making early interesting failure a priority.

I'd wager that most players would experience at least a few of those on a first playthrough. Mar and the trapped shack would be near certainties.

I'm not sure what point you are making here. If you're implying that not getting the resurrection ability is "stupid", then you're being daft - it's a reasonable consequence of not taking a mine-this-NPC-for-all-possible-content approach to talking with Deionarra.

Any player who is attempting to get the most entertainment value and is enjoying the dialogue writing (which I'd imagine is most anyone likely to enjoy PS:T) would want to mine that NPC for all possible content if trying to maximise their entertainment value. It also makes sense from an RP perspective, since this chick seems to know something about you, and so you should probably find out as much about yourself as you can from her.

If you're assuming that everyone must get the resurrection ability, then you're suggesting that the game doesn't support the possibility of not getting that ability - that's shit design. If the balance only works well when everyone gets the ability, it should be unavoidable. If it can be reasonably missed, game balance shouldn't depend on it.

It can't be "reasonably missed"; it can only be missed by people who are too impatient to engage in a dialogue, and those are people who probably shouldn't be playing PS:T in the first place.

In combat sure - ignoring companions. There's nothing in the manual about there being no risk (to the player) from failure outside combat - since there is. Failure is still usually the less interesting option. Certainly there are examples where you can argue which is the most interesting course, but in general, success gets the player a more entertaining game.

I know of one spot in the game where there's a failure outside of combat that acts as a real problem where the player isn't explicitly warned "if you do this, you'll be fucked" (and that would be Marissa stoning you). The only other major failure outside of combat that can fuck you over is becoming the Silent King, but you're explicitly told that doing that would end your game, so it's the player's own fault if that happens.

Interesting - though I don't think it makes sense to encourage that unless you back it up with interesting failures. Encouraging it with a kind of ironman mentality isn't reasonable for most players. I haven't played Daggerfall, but if it's anything like Morrowind, then I'd imagine that failure is usually clear-cut, and rarely gets you much.

There are a few more interesting failures that can get the player something, although very little for the character. For instance, if you're arrested, you go to trial and have the oppertunity to defend yourseld. But yeah, most failures are of the "you have been pwnt by a daedra lord and are dead" type.

That's no argument, since it's not a question of losing, or of occasionally supported failure - it's about the player's expectation of content and entertainment overall. In PS:T you can sometimes get an interesting situation on failure, but often you get a dull dead-end. Success is more interesting more often, so many players will play the percentages by reloading.

Never in PS:T does a failure set the player back by more time than they would spend looking at the loading screen (except in those three situations where they can get a game over). The most content that it EVER locks out is the ability to join a faction, which is nothing more than "who can I buy uber-loot from" (and honestly, that fight may be just as interesting as joining the dustman faction, as if you're talking to everyone in the dustman bar, you've probably already done damn near everything that joining the faction would entail). So I don't see why a player would ever reload, unless you think that looking at the loading screen is more interesting than playing the game.

Does putting it in capitals without evidence make you more correct?

Yes Also MAKING IT BOLD, ITALIC, AND UNDERLINED helps :D

In any case, one assumption there is that these situations would be categorized by players as clear unambiguous "failures". Part of the issue is the mindset that there's a "correct" oucome, an "incorrect" outcome, and that the "correct" one is preferable. In many cases the solution will be to stop the player thinking of outcomes as being failures - certainly in any absolute sense, and preferable in a personal sense too.

I don't know if that's a good thing. If you're hired to steal the artifact of uberness, and you fail to steal the artifact of uberness, that's a pretty clear failure if you wanted to stay loyal to your employer. I don't see why that shouldn't be regarded as a failure.

Look at sports games for an example from the mass market. Vanishingly few players will play a league and reload every time they lose a game. They play through the losses since that's a more entertaining path. They do this even though those a clear failures. The idea that this could never apply to RPGs "just because" seems a little daft. [it's not a direct parallel in every sense, but "Do average players continue past failures in some cases?" Answer: absolutely.]

Also, they play through their losses because they'd probably never finish a league if they didn't. Hell, back when I had Bases Loaded 3 as a kid, even NOT reloading after every loss, I never finished a league.

If those are examples of failure, I'm pretty sure that many players just played along with them. Maybe not the dustman bar - again, stupid consequence - but the box, the trapped shack, the amarysse thing, etc., probably most people didn't reload.

How is the dustman bar a stupid consequence? Also, given the number of people I've seen reccomending "saving before you talk to anyone, and reloading if the result isn't optimal", I strongly doubt that they played through the trapped shack, and if it weren't for the XP reward, I don't think they'd play through Mar's box, either.

 

[galsiah]

I'd wager that most players would experience at least a few of those on a first playthrough. Mar and the trapped shack would be near certainties.

That's no good - they need to experience many such situations with certainty near the start of the first playthrough. Having an idea that not reloading might have been reasonable on finishing the game is not the goal - it's to encourage the player to *know* that reloading isn't more entertaining right from the start.

Any player who is attempting to get the most entertainment value and is enjoying the dialogue writing (which I'd imagine is most anyone likely to enjoy PS:T) would want to mine that NPC for all possible content if trying to maximise their entertainment value.

The entire attitude of "mining" is very gamist, and hardly in a roleplaying mindset.

It also makes sense from an RP perspective, since this chick seems to know something about you, and so you should probably find out as much about yourself as you can from her.

From one perspective, yes. From other perspectives, it can frequently make sense to get a general picture of a situation before engaging in deep conversation with any one NPC - both in terms of good sense, and since that way any important decision can be made on better information.
Talking to Deionarra happens before the player knows anything. It's a reasonable approach to postpone in-depth conversation until he knows something about the general situation.

It can't be "reasonably missed"

I missed it (until I read about it somewhere), so it can. I like to get a general impression of an area before getting into in-depth discussion. I also dislike the mine-all-NPCs-for-everything-they're-worth approach to playing. If I say something or ask a question, it's because I want to say it, or want to ask that question - not simply because the option is there. All too often this becomes a non-decision because [Question about X] extremely rarely has any downside - for a gamist, there's rarely any reason not to ask about absolutely everything.

it can only be missed by people who are too impatient to engage in a dialogue, and those are people who probably shouldn't be playing PS:T in the first place.

Bollocks - that's pretty deep in the dialogue with Deionarra. It's possible to talk to her for some time without hitting it. With a cautious approach, rather than a data-mining approach, it can be missed.

I don't enjoy playing with a data-mining outlook, so I missed it. I'm certainly not the only one.

I know of one spot in the game where there's a failure outside of combat that acts as a real problem...

You are still talking about the *character*, and I'm talking about the *player*. Failing is often just less entertaining, since it more often closes content/gameplay off than opens it up. It doesn't have to cost the character hp/gold/xp/time/... to cut off content from the player.

Never in PS:T does a failure set the player back by more time than they would spend looking at the loading screen (except in those three situations where they can get a game over). The most content that it EVER locks out is the ability to join a faction...

So you're saying that the "most" that's ever cut off is a significant amount of content? That's still enough to be offputting if it leads to less content overall - even if it's only by, say, 10%.
In any case, how much content is cut off isn't the only issue - also how much content the player expects to be cut off. The player needs to be made aware from the start that failing is fully supported. He isn't in PS:T.

I don't know if that's a good thing. If you're hired to steal the artifact of uberness, and you fail to steal the artifact of uberness, that's a pretty clear failure if you wanted to stay loyal to your employer. I don't see why that shouldn't be regarded as a failure.

It shouldn't be a failure in absolute terms: the failure of the employer to acquire the artifact of uberness should have consequences of benefit to some characters/factions in the game. That stops it from being an absolute failure. It's only a personal failure for the player if he's really committed to his employer - if not, it's an opportunity to turn failure into success by letting his employer's rivals know that he scuppered their plans.
As soon as this option is there, and is clear to the player, the player knows that the *game* doesn't regard it as a "failure", and so will have reasonable expectations of support and content for this outcome.

Also, they play through their losses because they'd probably never finish a league if they didn't. Hell, back when I had Bases Loaded 3 as a kid, even NOT reloading after every loss, I never finished a league.

Sure - so the point is that the overriding factor is long-term entertainment expectations, not immediate success/failure.

 

[John Yossarian]

I agree with galsiah that since it hasn't been truly tried you can't conclusively show that the "conditioning" approach would fail. However, I do think the odds of it failing would keep anyone from trying. Unless galsiah or some other Codexer makes such game, I think it's asking a little too much from the devs. Putting in some interesting, coherent content for the failures is hard enough, let alone supporting them 100%, which is what's required for the conditioning to work. And on top of that, they would have to reverse years of RPG trends deeply ingrained in players' minds.

If it's ever done, it will most likely be using a limited save feature ( hopefully not delayed/hidden consequences for failures though), with only some content after failures. It might not be as good as regular saving and 100% supported failures plus players who trust their game will support these, but it's better than nothing I guess. As long as devs don't forget what the saving system was for in the first place and start using it as a crutch like galsiah says, it's at least a step in the right direction ( IMO, forcing the player to stick to his outcomes is better than making him choose between reloading or experiencing less content). Plus it might slowly improve and maybe one day it will be as good as galsiah says.

 

[RGE]

You Are Banana Fran - GAS IT UP!: a Choose Your Own Adventure where you can afford to fail, and where the best outcome for the character is the worst one for the player (or so I think anyway).

As I'm primarily an explorer, and not an achiever, builder or socialiser, I'd be willing to let my character suffer in order to see if I can experience some new content. Currently my character in Arcanum suffers from a gypsy blood curse that could easily have been avoided by siding with the right fortune teller. Or by reloading after the bad outcome. But just on the off chance that having the curse might give some interesting option later on, I decided to stick with it. Though this is my second time through the game, and in the first playthrough I certainly strived to complete every quest rather than botch them, and as far as I know, success only meant good things, and failure never opened up any interesting content.

But it would be fun if it did. At least the first few times. What if the PC gets caught and thrown into jail quite often? How long is it going to be fun to escape prison? I can see how being punished for crimes might be necessary in order to gain the trust of criminals, which may indeed open up more interesting gameplay. Which would be missed by players who reload whenever they get caught. Just by hiding content behind a few failures the game might convince a player to suffer through any failure, just in case it might pay off later. Though I suppose that most players would indeed not stand for having their character fail when they could succeed. Achievers probably wouldn't, unless they knew that their character would benefit from such failure. Or unless they're trying to achieve something beyond/besides boosting their character.

 

[Claw]

Haha, that was a fast success! It seems in this adventure, whatever choice is presented as most sensible is actually wrong.

Interesting stuff over there.