Editorial Gamasutra: DPS and the Decline of Complexity in RPGs

[hiver]

If combat is the sole focus of the game then doesn't it stand to reason that combat should be deeper and more interesting in those games? I understand what you're getting at - every class needs to be combat-oriented so you need to have a constant measure of damage - but that's not really directly related. DPS is a way of standardizing combat damage mechanics and that has little to do with how story-driven or combat-driven a game is.

Nice polemic

Maybe i should have worded my reply to be more specific...

Let me try again.

If the combat is the sole focus of the game - than thats the problem. Thats why you loose complexity.
Its a sort of original underlying reason for loss of complexity.
DPS or any other modern mechanic is just an attempt to patch (or, put a new paint over) one of the unintended, unexpected negative consequences of it.

Another important feature is reliance on strict binary solutions to everything. Either you win the combat completely or you die-loose. Either you solve the quest - or you dont. Sometimes that means you wont be able to progress any further in the whole game.
Re-load, re-load, re-load until you make it.
There is no gradation to any of it and there is no failure that would lead you into different gameplay. Pass a skill check or - not: the end.
Succeed or fail - completely. Then re-load.

This is, of course, present in the combat too. Combat which is by large margin, the majority of gameplay.
There is no non-lethal way of solving it. (i dont mean stealth games non-lethality or DX non lethal gameplay - and Thief and DX were loved because they had some real complexity, although ... restricted in different ways, within constraints of their genres.
But they did allow the player to affect situations in different ways, by gradients rather than binary complete success - complete failure switches, or they tried to do, to some extent each).
You cant do anything like making the enemy run away or surrender. Talk individual NPCs out of it - god forbid.
Nor can you retreat (then maybe reposition, try another angle, affect the outcome through environment, or whatever would seem appropriate for a particular situation... etc.), yourself, either.
If you are somehow allowed to retreat than it means nothing. Nothing special happen because you retreated - it makes no difference, there is no consequences or changes because of it.
Interaction with the environment is scarce and simplified extremely, if there at all, too. Despite upgrading the graphics into so called 3-D.
You can re-load and try again.

Every combat encounter is the same in this. Cosmetics of it can vary - but not that.

You can try to balance your classes and invent new mechanics, new graphics, throw in healing items, unlimited sleeping, remove passage of time, add health regeneration, ability to slow down time at will, new weapons, new magic spells, new powahs, and whatnot, to make it interesting to play through once, first time. But doesnt really make things less linear. You can balance, add and change skills until you go blind but what does it achieve if all you use them for is combat and extreme binary switches?




-
So, that would be that. In short. Of course, there are games that try to actually make some real complexity, to some extent, and those are the ones who folks around here like the most.
(DX had some, Fallouts had some, and several others to different extents and by different manners, ways, tricks, etc. etc.)

Naturally some other games are liked because of combat or story alone - im not talking about that.

 

[Infinitron]

One thing sea didn't mention is the "number inflation" aspect of DPS. DPS wasn't necessary when you were always inflicting the same familiar ranges of damage. 1d6, 1d8, 2d4, 1d10.

But when the numbers go crazy, you need someone to do the math for you. DPS here is really more of a symptom than a cause.

 

[sea]

The argument that the use of DPS has as one of its "goals" the abolition of to hit chance I found specially retarded. Removing chance to hit has fuck all to do with it, it's mainly about visual feedback as games became more action-y and detailed (think how retarded missing in Morrowind looked) AND design choice to make hit chance governed by the player instead of the RNG.

There are very, very few DPS-driven games which have any to-hit mechanic, at least in my experience. The main reason for this, aside from those I mentioned in the article, has to do with the fact that DPS represents a constant damage output that does not significantly deviate - throwing misses into there would significantly affect the DPS number and therefore would kind of render the whole concept obsolete.

 

[Infinitron]

Well, it is in fact possible to take missing into account in a DPS calculation (missing = 0 damage attack)

 

[flushfire]

Game of Thrones had all three; Damage types (not very significant though), DPS and hit chance. Sadly character stats/skills has nothing to do with anything else besides combat which isn't that great itself TBH but it has potential (movement in combat is extremely frustrating) And the fucking terribad FOV. Anyway just throwing this one out there.

 

[Excidium]

The argument that the use of DPS has as one of its "goals" the abolition of to hit chance I found specially retarded. Removing chance to hit has fuck all to do with it, it's mainly about visual feedback as games became more action-y and detailed (think how retarded missing in Morrowind looked) AND design choice to make hit chance governed by the player instead of the RNG.

There are very, very few DPS-driven games which have any to-hit mechanic, at least in my experience. The main reason for this, aside from those I mentioned in the article, has to do with the fact that DPS represents a constant damage output that does not significantly deviate - throwing misses into there would significantly affect the DPS number and therefore would kind of render the whole concept obsolete.

Not really. Example: almost every goddamn MMO. Damage per second doesn't exclude misses, critical hits, resists, dodge, parry, all that stuff.

I learned the term out of combat parsers used in wow to analyze perfomance.

 

[Johannes]

What the fuck is this shit? You have DPS because you want to compare how much damage this or that deals over time, and time is measured in seconds in a RT game. Measuring how much damage you make per turn, versus this or that opponent, is more intricate exactly how?

DPS is not a fucking game mechanic or gameplay concept. The things you complain about (lack of damage modifiers and miss chances, homogenosity in builds and loot...) have hardly anything to do with multiplying some numbers to conclude the average damage output, and showing that number in a games' UI.

 

[Excidium]

Exactly.

In other words, Eric 'sea' Schwarz has no idea what he's talking about. Might as well write an article about how green and red colored arrows are killing video games.

 

[felipepepe]

DPS is not a fucking game mechanic or gameplay concept. The things you complain about (lack of damage modifiers and miss chances, homogenosity in builds and loot...) have hardly anything to do with multiplying some numbers to conclude the average damage output, and showing that number in a games' UI.

It's the combination of everything... DPS is mostly used in MMO and multiplayer games, like D3 and Torchlight, and they end up being the only standard for measuring efficiency...

I played WoW until Cataclysm, and it was clear how DPS metters affected behaviour. People would rather take damage or fuck mechanics than lose on the DPS race... they would choose classes and raid groups based only on DPS ratings... in return, that makes developers leave aside insteresting mechanics and abilites, focusing only on different ways to generate DPS. It's the dumbest possible munchkin, controlled by a ultra-speciallized characters focused on a single number.

WoW solidified the DPS/Tank/Healer combo and we lost every non-healer class with this. No one would nowadays play a Time Mage, Bard or similar classes unless they also did Healing or DPS... players simply can't apreciate non-meansurable skills anymore, they only understand "120 DPS", not "teleported 3 characters to better position and silenced 2 mages"...

 

[Excidium]

RIP Shadow Priests.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

I can't think of a TB game where a damage per turn number was ever used, but if there was the exact same problem would come into play. DPS is used because its nice to have one number that measures offensive capability. But if its the only number you care about when measuring offensive capability, anything that it doesn't really measure that well, like different damage types, becomes irrelevant.

For DPS to be a meaningful figure to the player, it has to be a number that will generally hold over the course of an encounter. Which leads games to be designed so that in any encounter you will launch enough attacks to be pretty close to the average. So the results of any particular attack in that encounter are kind of irrelevant, since any misses or criticals will be even each other out later on. A game where you are dealing with these factors independently will be designed so that the results of particular attacks will be more important.

 

[sea]

Not really. Example: almost every goddamn MMO. Damage per second doesn't exclude misses, critical hits, resists, dodge, parry, all that stuff.

I can think of almost no MMOs or even modern RPGs where those significantly matter. Those sorts of things tend to only influence the player, not enemies. Which also means we can throw in asymmetrical rulesets designed to allow players to mow down trash mobs as well!

The only thing MMOs do that kind of makes a difference is crits, which means that you have lower DPS but then higher damage 1/10 times to make up for it. But, when you have a game where every enemy takes, say, a pre-calculated 10 attacks to take down, whether you do that in 10 attacks with roughly equal damage or 10 attacks with varying damage doesn't really matter.

What the fuck is this shit? You have DPS because you want to compare how much damage this or that deals over time, and time is measured in seconds in a RT game. Measuring how much damage you make per turn, versus this or that opponent, is more intricate exactly how?

DPS is not a fucking game mechanic or gameplay concept. The things you complain about (lack of damage modifiers and miss chances, homogenosity in builds and loot...) have hardly anything to do with multiplying some numbers to conclude the average damage output, and showing that number in a games' UI.

DPS is a mechanic when it is treated as one. The DPS as a mere average of your effectiveness is rarely seen anymore in games, and developers instead treat DPS as the be-all, end-all stat. Many MMOs scale just about everything around DPS, including offensive and defensive abilities. It becomes a race to the bottom where even if a game has a lot of important stats, DPS takes over them all and almost all design decisions are made with DPS in mind.

 

[Excidium]

I can think of almost no MMOs or even modern RPGs where those significantly matter.

Here's a p. obscure example for you: World of Warcraft.

The only thing MMOs do that kind of makes a difference is crits, which means that you have lower DPS but then higher damage 1/10 times to make up for it.

What the fuck? I'm trying to understand the logic here. The crit chance would be reflected in your DPS.

 

[felipepepe]

I can think of almost no MMOs or even modern RPGs where those significantly matter.

Here's a p. obscure example for you: World of Warcraft.

To be fair, stuff like hit, critical, dodge and the likes have been MASSIVELY streamlined in WoW... managing character equipment = reforge your itens to get X in hit, Y in crit and focus everything else in you main stat. The end.

 

[Wyrmlord]

DPS is the consequence of games being real-time. In ye olden days all that mattered was Damage Per Turn.

Wasn't it more of a multiple of Damage per Attack and Attacks per Round - both of which could vary?

This also relate's to what sea complains about lack of variety. Monks had slightly weaker attacks (in damage and rolls), but they got way more attacks per round. In BG2 (pre-ToB), most warrior classes could get 4 or 5 attacks per round only in Improved Haste mode, while a monk could get that by default.

Another example of genuine variety in old games - you could give up speed for better attacks or attacks for more speed. The latter was more useful when you had to leap at an enemy wizard and interrupt his spell no matter what.

And like sea said, it was also compelling how your blunt-weapon specializing party member could be devastating against ice golems but worthless against trolls.

 

[Excidium]

I can think of almost no MMOs or even modern RPGs where those significantly matter.

Here's a p. obscure example for you: World of Warcraft.

To be fair, stuff like hit, critical, dodge and the likes have been MASSIVELY streamlined in WoW... managing character equipment = reforge your itens to get X in hit, Y in crit and focus everything else in you main stat. The end.

By now I'd think the only thing that matters to people is GEAR SCORE.

 

[zeitgeist]

Another important feature is reliance on strict binary solutions to everything. Either you win the combat completely or you die-loose. Either you solve the quest - or you dont. Sometimes that means you wont be able to progress any further in the whole game.
Re-load, re-load, re-load until you make it.
There is no gradation to any of it and there is no failure that would lead you into different gameplay. Pass a skill check or - not: the end.
Succeed or fail - completely. Then re-load.

And this is why there should be as much complexity as possible to everything. All game systems. Even when it doesn't appear to make immediate sense. The more complexity there is, and the more systems there are, either running in parallel or interconnected, the less binary the solutions are. A very simple example would be: if you "win" a combat, but either expend or gain a specific type of resource/ability, it changes the next combat or non-combat encounter and the way you'll have to play it.

Of course, there's always the risk of all these gameplay elements becoming largely irrelevant in the big picture (the critique of 1.13 as little more than a way too exploitable sandbox is an example). But then again, similar arguments can be applied against pretty much any game so overall a more complex game is still superior.

 

[Excidium]

"More complex systems" isn't a solution to anything. Binary results is a design choice. You just completely succeed/fail the check because the developers didn't want to write a dozen different outcomes.

 

[Johannes]

I can't think of a TB game where a damage per turn number was ever used, but if there was the exact same problem would come into play. DPS is used because its nice to have one number that measures offensive capability..

Uh, I calculate "damage per turn" numbers constantly when playing TB games, at least approximations of that. Because yes, it's nice to have a base number to measure offensive capability, even when it doesn't tell everything about the characters overall offensive capacity.

But if its the only number you care about when measuring offensive capability, anything that it doesn't really measure that well, like different damage types, becomes irrelevant.

For DPS to be a meaningful figure to the player, it has to be a number that will generally hold over the course of an encounter. Which leads games to be designed so that in any encounter you will launch enough attacks to be pretty close to the average. So the results of any particular attack in that encounter are kind of irrelevant, since any misses or criticals will be even each other out later on. A game where you are dealing with these factors independently will be designed so that the results of particular attacks will be more important.

But it's not (usually) the only number you care about so yeah.

DPS is the consequence of games being real-time. In ye olden days all that mattered was Damage Per Turn.

Wasn't it more of a multiple of Damage per Attack and Attacks per Round - both of which could vary?

This also relate's to what sea complains about lack of variety. Monks had slightly weaker attacks (in damage and rolls), but they got way more attacks per round. In BG2 (pre-ToB), most warrior classes could get 4 or 5 attacks per round only in Improved Haste mode, while a monk could get that by default.

Another example of genuine variety in old games - you could give up speed for better attacks or attacks for more speed. The latter was more useful when you had to leap at an enemy wizard and interrupt his spell no matter what.

And like sea said, it was also compelling how your blunt-weapon specializing party member could be devastating against ice golems but worthless against trolls.

But these things are not lost when you start doing DPS measurements, are they? One character has more rapid attacks, another has a powerful blow with longer cooldown. Moving can easily be mutually exclusive with attacking.



sea, your article and arguments are bad because there's really no causality between "DPS" and the things you complain about. It's akin to complaining about this or that thing in racing games, and blaming the mph meter displayed on the screen as the root of this whatever evil. "Goals of DPS", really? It just sounds so shitty it's not funny, whatever point you might've had gets lost cause this terminology makes you appear so clueless.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Johannes, I think sea would have made his point more nicely, if it was titled, "The sameness of everything in today's RPGs", since he talks about how there is no more of a real difference between a barbarian, a rogue, or a warrior as they are all simply about dealing more of the same kind of physical damage.

 

[sea]

sea, your article and arguments are bad because there's really no causality between "DPS" and the things you complain about. It's akin to complaining about this or that thing in racing games, and blaming the mph meter displayed on the screen as the root of this whatever evil. "Goals of DPS", really? It just sounds so shitty it's not funny, whatever point you might've had gets lost cause this terminology makes you appear so clueless.

I never said there was direct causality. I said that the games that feature DPS tend towards certain design decisions which in my opinion simplify gameplay. The reasons for selecting DPS over other systems are manifold and I tried to cover them, as well as the impact those choices have in given contexts. I freely said that there was not a direct causal relationship in the article itself. I suppose you didn't read it closely enough, but it was right there in the conclusion.

Comparing DPS to MPH is a poor choice because DPS is a simplification of other combat mechanics, both in essence (one number vs. a range of numbers) and in terms of what design choices it encourages (all spells influenced by DPS, lack of significance in weapon variety, etc.). MPH is an absolute fixed value. Moreover as racing games tend towards simulation, MPH has less effect on actual game design decisions because the goal is realism and those properties that may be contingent on it are fixed. The only time MPH really influences any sort of game design is when you are dealing with completely fictional vehicles (such as in a kart racer), but in that case the MPH value is incidental; most racing games, realistic or no, tend to play with their sense of speed in various ways (see Burnout etc.) such that the MPH designation really has no direct relationship to real MPH outside the game world. Damage, by contrast, is already an abstraction and we can easily compare DPS to other ways of expressing damage, whether it's damage ranges, die rolls, etc., and these numbers tend to have far more influence on the rest of the gameplay.

 

[Gozma]

I always thought a big problem was the time/space slop of MMOs that meant they had to be incredibly tolerant of lag and rubber banding and client/server agreement and all that shit. If you had an action game with tight mechanics like a fighter or shmup or RTS MMO architecture would shit all over itself. Having players performing maintenance on the tank/healer/DPS differential equation with a few telegraphed discipline checks for raiders is the most you can ask of it. Then MMOs become hegemonic and fucking why

Note: I do not read sea articles

 

[hiver]

Binary results is a design choice. You just completely succeed/fail the check because the developers didn't want to write a dozen different outcomes.

Good mouning.

Another important feature is reliance on strict binary solutions to everything. Either you win the combat completely or you die-loose. Either you solve the quest - or you dont. Sometimes that means you wont be able to progress any further in the whole game.
Re-load, re-load, re-load until you make it.
There is no gradation to any of it and there is no failure that would lead you into different gameplay. Pass a skill check or - not: the end.
Succeed or fail - completely. Then re-load.

And this is why there should be as much complexity as possible to everything. All game systems. Even when it doesn't appear to make immediate sense. The more complexity there is, and the more systems there are, either running in parallel or interconnected, the less binary the solutions are. A very simple example would be: if you "win" a combat, but either expend or gain a specific type of resource/ability, it changes the next combat or non-combat encounter and the way you'll have to play it.

Of course, there's always the risk of all these gameplay elements becoming largely irrelevant in the big picture (the critique of 1.13 as little more than a way too exploitable sandbox is an example). But then again, similar arguments can be applied against pretty much any game so overall a more complex game is still superior.

Any extreme is not good. Almost everything you blow over, do too much off, tends to become bad in different ways. Sandbox that is too exploitable is one that doesnt respect limitations.

There needs to be a measure. Settings themselves usually present a set of broader limitations, or boundaries. Like do you have magic, or dont, particular historic era features, economics, technologies available, steam or sails, horses or teleporting, weapons, politics, races etc.
And can setup limitations to those features it has. Magic could also be something very difficult and rare, instead of disney fireworks.

Then the situations themselves can limit specific classes. If you could make mistakes that would lead to different problems, but not to "game over" - you can use that to limit the whole thing to more reasonable levels, besides enabling other classes to deal with the situation in different ways.
Instead of just enabling everything at all times, it would be better to enable only specific things that can reasonably be expected in some situation. Close and open paths, in a way that makes sense.

Depending on events and quests but also on the location itself.
We cant even climb onto a shack or a log cabin or a tree, even fences and knee high stones are insurmountable. Useless.
Nature and weather are there just to have something to look at.
Let alone whole skills, dialogue, lore... well, pretty much everything that isnt combat is affected.

Plus, If you allow more interaction and gameplay options for other things than combat, then you can save on other things that combat focused design spends inordinate resource on.
A simple example, there is no more need to overemphasize various magic or combat feats and abilities into godlike epic fantastical fireworks.
Or, like you suggested, resources would actually matter, whatever they are.
And you can make combat itself a much more pricey affair. Like Age of Decadence does, in some ways.

No more good side mass slaughters and then getting the best ending, or simple reversal into "evil" mass slaughter that nets the best ending - free for all fest.
Like KOTOR was, or any other game that lets you play like "evil" but you do the same shit as the good guy did.
- Or at least no mass slaughters for the entirety of the game. Some righteous mass slaughter when given at the right moment can be most satisfactory experience. Or very poignant. Important. Which isnt the case with combat focused games where you do that all the time.

Maybe even a decent graphics would be enough, instead of next gen ultra mega engine. Like New Vegas shit engine. Or PE and Wasteland2 using Unity... stuff like that.

 

[Johannes]

sea, your article and arguments are bad because there's really no causality between "DPS" and the things you complain about. It's akin to complaining about this or that thing in racing games, and blaming the mph meter displayed on the screen as the root of this whatever evil. "Goals of DPS", really? It just sounds so shitty it's not funny, whatever point you might've had gets lost cause this terminology makes you appear so clueless.

I never said there was direct causality. I said that the games that feature DPS tend towards certain design decisions which in my opinion simplify gameplay. The reasons for selecting DPS over other systems are manifold and I tried to cover them, as well as the impact those choices have in given contexts. I freely said that there was not a direct causal relationship in the article itself. I suppose you didn't read it closely enough, but it was right there in the conclusion.

Comparing DPS to MPH is a poor choice because DPS is a simplification of other combat mechanics, both in essence (one number vs. a range of numbers) and in terms of what design choices it encourages (all spells influenced by DPS, lack of significance in weapon variety, etc.). MPH is an absolute fixed value. Moreover as racing games tend towards simulation, MPH has less effect on actual game design decisions because the goal is realism and those properties that may be contingent on it are fixed. The only time MPH really influences any sort of game design is when you are dealing with completely fictional vehicles (such as in a kart racer), but in that case the MPH value is incidental; most racing games, realistic or no, tend to play with their sense of speed in various ways (see Burnout etc.) such that the MPH designation really has no direct relationship to real MPH outside the game world. Damage, by contrast, is already an abstraction and we can easily compare DPS to other ways of expressing damage, whether it's damage ranges, die rolls, etc., and these numbers tend to have far more influence on the rest of the gameplay.

Games with DPS = games with seconds. Oh, and damage. It's really not something you'd mindfully choose to include in your game.

 

[Juggie]

Seriously? DPS is bad "mechanic"? DPS is nothing more than an informative number calculated from a couple of other numbers and should be displayed in games to save you time when comparing items/skills/whatever.

As for your points:
1. DPS has nothing to do with damage types.
2. This is completely untrue, you can implement shitloads of other mechanics while still providing some basic DPS info.
3. How exactly is this bad? As long as you don't sacrifice diversity for balance, then it's a good thing.
4. Completely untrue. When calculating DPS values you should always consider mechanics like chance to hit, crit chance, crit damage, etc. Therefore I can't see how this mechanic is in any conflict with DPS.
5. This has more to do with stable DPS vs. burst damage and I don't really understand what problem are you trying to point out here. In PvP environment you can't have too much burst without means of countering it as it results in quick player deaths and not much of a PvP is left. In PvE games (singleplayer, cooperative ones) bursts still lead to quick deaths and in games with limited pool of characters this will most likely lead to high frequency of saving/loading which is retarded design. On the other hand having a very stable DPS (fighters in IE games) and having encounters designed around HP bloat and attrition is retarded design as well.

You should realize what DPS is, because to me it seems like you're criticizing single player games for taking wrong inspirations from MMO(RPGs). Also it's interesting that for example World of Warcraft (you seem to bitch so much about) has much better hit chance system than any other computer game I've ever played. It also implements damage types at similar level as other damage type systems, has tons of other combat mechanics like crits, randomly triggered abilities on attacks, buffs/debuffs applied, etc. It uses DPS, damage per cast, damage per cast time, damage per resource and other informative values for quick comparison between items, skills or characters. This by no means imply that the system is in any way constrained by DPS, it uses DPS to balance things (which is sort of important in MMOs). And saying that DPS is the reason of decline of complexity in RPGs couldn't be further from the truth. Calculating and displaying DPS value should be (and often is) a result of having system that is too complex to do the calculations by players.