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- Jan 28, 2011
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Let's define a FAIL STATE in a CRPG. When the player has irrevocably messed up his game, and he must load a saved game and try again, we say that he has reached a fail state.
What is FAIL STATE INFLATION? Let's look at an example. In a traditional party-based CRPG, the fail state is generally a total party kill. When your entire party is dead, you must reload. However, many players expand this fail state beyond its original design. For instance, they might decide, on their own accord, that even a single dead party member is a failure that necessitates reloading. They won't keep on playing and try to tough it out after this happens.
In short, fail state inflation is the phenomenon of players expanding the game's fail state beyond what the game designer defined.
Fail state inflaters see themselves as hardcore perfectionists. They're placing additional challenges upon themselves, after all. They accept nothing less than the best, and they'll reload again and again until they get the results they want. They often accuse those who criticize their playstyle of having short attention spans and no patience (which puts those people in the same category as decline popamole consoletards).
Critics of fail state inflation see it as a form of "degenerate" gameplay behavior. To them, there's nothing monocled about cheesy reload spamming and an utter refusal to contend with a large percentage of the game's possibility space. They reason that the more you inflate the fail state of a game you're playing, the more you're railroading yourself along one single optimal path through the game, in which your characters gradually become laughably overpowered simply due to never having failed at anything they did.
Critics of fail state inflation are divided among themselves in the solutions they propose for this phenomenon.
Some preach the virtues of the "Iron Man" gameplay style, in which saving and reloading are minimized or eliminated. To them, it is the player's responsibility to abstain from using features beyond what the game designer intended, should he choose to do so.
Others believe that combating fail state inflation is the designer's responsibility, not the player's. They propose that CRPG design incorporate features that actively discourage fail state inflation. For example, by making those situations which are commonly perceived as failures by fail state inflaters less punishing, thus making them less likely to be perceived as such. "Gamist" CRPG designers such as Josh Sawyer fall in this camp.
Their opponents, both in the "Iron Man" camp and the fail state inflater camp, contend that this method of combating fail state inflation dumbs down games. Indeed, one can claim that by making situations such as death of a party member less punishing, one is simply doing to the game what fail state inflaters do to it anyway - railroading the player through an optimal, failure-less path.
What do you think? Personally, I believe that the game design-based approach towards combating fail state inflation has merit, even if it comes at the cost of "taking the edge" off of certain situations. I think there's a middle path between completely eliminating all consequences to player failure, consoletard popamole-style, and making those consequences so punishing that gameplay degenerates into a series of reloads for a large number of players. I think it's a game design philosophy that deserves a chance, alongside the more traditional ones.
What is FAIL STATE INFLATION? Let's look at an example. In a traditional party-based CRPG, the fail state is generally a total party kill. When your entire party is dead, you must reload. However, many players expand this fail state beyond its original design. For instance, they might decide, on their own accord, that even a single dead party member is a failure that necessitates reloading. They won't keep on playing and try to tough it out after this happens.
In short, fail state inflation is the phenomenon of players expanding the game's fail state beyond what the game designer defined.
Fail state inflaters see themselves as hardcore perfectionists. They're placing additional challenges upon themselves, after all. They accept nothing less than the best, and they'll reload again and again until they get the results they want. They often accuse those who criticize their playstyle of having short attention spans and no patience (which puts those people in the same category as decline popamole consoletards).
Critics of fail state inflation see it as a form of "degenerate" gameplay behavior. To them, there's nothing monocled about cheesy reload spamming and an utter refusal to contend with a large percentage of the game's possibility space. They reason that the more you inflate the fail state of a game you're playing, the more you're railroading yourself along one single optimal path through the game, in which your characters gradually become laughably overpowered simply due to never having failed at anything they did.
Critics of fail state inflation are divided among themselves in the solutions they propose for this phenomenon.
Some preach the virtues of the "Iron Man" gameplay style, in which saving and reloading are minimized or eliminated. To them, it is the player's responsibility to abstain from using features beyond what the game designer intended, should he choose to do so.
Others believe that combating fail state inflation is the designer's responsibility, not the player's. They propose that CRPG design incorporate features that actively discourage fail state inflation. For example, by making those situations which are commonly perceived as failures by fail state inflaters less punishing, thus making them less likely to be perceived as such. "Gamist" CRPG designers such as Josh Sawyer fall in this camp.
Their opponents, both in the "Iron Man" camp and the fail state inflater camp, contend that this method of combating fail state inflation dumbs down games. Indeed, one can claim that by making situations such as death of a party member less punishing, one is simply doing to the game what fail state inflaters do to it anyway - railroading the player through an optimal, failure-less path.
What do you think? Personally, I believe that the game design-based approach towards combating fail state inflation has merit, even if it comes at the cost of "taking the edge" off of certain situations. I think there's a middle path between completely eliminating all consequences to player failure, consoletard popamole-style, and making those consequences so punishing that gameplay degenerates into a series of reloads for a large number of players. I think it's a game design philosophy that deserves a chance, alongside the more traditional ones.