Making games simpler

[Jasede]

But DR, the point of rogue-likes is that you learn a tiny bit each time you die. You're not SUPPOSED to win them for like 400 hours of play. You're supposed to find out what you read up in these spoilers little by little, by experimentation.

That's what makes them fun! Don't play them just to win, but learn to enjoy the time and experiences you'll have on the road there. Because if you don't, well, you won't win. If you just read up a guide and all the spoilers, you haven't accomplished much. Maybe you'll find some instant gratification, but the fellow who found everything out by experience and trial and error will have had a lot of more fun with the game than you.

 

[Damned Registrations]

The number of people who have finished a roguelike without ever having help from anyone else probably numbers well under a hundred. Using Nethack as an example, you might figure out a strategy to get to the castle, then bite the dust on medusa. Fair enough. Reflection gets you further. Then you run into Juiblex. He rapes you dead because you didn't know to carry a cockatrice corpse with you, or that you could use a wand of digging. Oh sure, you knew that silver weapons hurt demons, but not how much. You don't know how to acquire a specific artifact by offerings, let alone that you can wish for them with perfect accuracy as long as you haven't found more than one. This of course assumes that by some miracle, you realized that increasing your luck (And HOW to increase your luck) to max and always carrying a blessed luckstone is the equivalent of being 13 levels higher and wearing an extra set of heavily enchanted dragon scale, otherwise you'd never even make it to the castle short of just digging a hole straight down. Assuming, by miracle of miracles, or OCD levels of note taking over the course of a year, you manage to collect the 3 required artifacts and get to the bottom level, AND find the proper square, AND you have candles and you make it through the hell of the Rodney haunted trip back up (Whom you'll never realize increases in power with every death) you pop up to the surface, only to find yourself in the planes. Oops, didn't bring a crystal ball. DEAD. Oops, didn't bring my oilskin cloak. DEAD. Oops, didn't know how famine worked. DEAD. Oops, only brought 2 rods of teleport instead of 5. DEAD.

And each time you die, getting to a point that has any purpose requires not only a few hours of interesting gameplay, but a few more hours of mind numbingly boring gameplay shuffling your potion stash around to perform alchemy so you have enough HP to not drop dead to the first angel to look your way, and painstakingly enchanting all your armor to +5 or more, and raising your stats to 18 across the board, and raising your luck, and getting crowned, and getting resists, etc. ad nauseum. Those are all neat in the short term, but in the long run, having to stop and prep my character for 3 hours between hell and minetown using repetitive simple tricks is boring enough that I end up killing myself out of boredom.

 

[Kraszu]

Memorising rules is boring to me, and finding the one I need is tedious, there is no challenge to it or depth. (I don't consider having to play game again becouse you didn't know something a challenge but a tedious work). It is probably matter of personality type I am INTP. I like system whit simple rules that allows for allot of depth like math. Not many rules whit almost no depth like multi classing in DnD it just looks to me like it was put together whit no direction or good reasoning behind it, rather then as deep. This work whit that, you can't use x whit y, spell a counters effect of b, and there is huge number of those rules that add nothing it requires knowledge not inteligence.

 

[Azael]

Complexity for the sake of complexity is not good design. I'd rather play a game with an elegant, well balanced, character system than one that's bloated and full of useless skills (like the RoA games, although they are still excellent for other reasons). The caveat of course being that the elegant system still offers many different styles of play and several options through the game. This is not the same as the Toddlers approach to games where most skills are equally worthless because all challenge is scaled towards your character anyway.

 

[DraQ]

The whole point regarding roguelikes hangs on insufficient information given to the player, rather than the complexity itself. Therefore it autofails, as it's a critique of learn-by-dying, not the complexity itself.

Complexity for the sake of complexity is not good design.

Complexity for the sake of awesomeness, however, is.

 

[Ammar]

Hmm? If anything the DnD game will be much harder to master, simply because of the added complexity.

:shock:

Yes, try telling that a Go master who has played the game for decades.

Anyway, chess is inherently flawed. Given two perfect players that both play, well, perfectly, the white/starting player will always win the game. That's bad game design.

No such thing has been proven. If anything the suspicion is that a perfect game will lead to Remis, but that has not been proven either.

 

[fastpunk]

Factor in the PERKS, the skills and the attributes and Fallout was one of the more complex(not 'complicated' though) CRPGs ever released. It is NOT a '4-attribute + 10 skills' game by any stretch.

You forgot the traits. Anyway, SPECIAL is extremely easy to understand what element does what plus it's very well organized. This just gives it a lean, straightforward feeling. Maybe 'simple' is indeed a wrong word for it, though it certainly feels simple. And when compared to D&D 3.5 for example it really feels simple.

 

[Alex]

(...snip)
So what do you guys feel about simplifying games?

Like a lot of people here have said, adding extra traits to a game seems a bit silly. Why have 7 weapon skills, when they all work the same? Why have 3 or 4 types of swords when they are mechanically the same? Why have a carpenter skill when it adds nothing to the game?

However, there are two factors that should be considered. First, that some of this "bloat" might have a point. If something is (almost) useless ruleswise, it might still have a point given the game setting or mood. For example, a game might have 3 types of sword, that are mechanically equal. Each type is crafted by a different culture.

If we simply removed 2 of the swords, the cultural differences would be (just a little tiny bit, but still) diminished in the game. Making the swords different in the mechanics as well might also be impractical. For example, the designer doesn't want to make it seem like the crafting of a culture is better than that of another, and making fine enough changes that would keep the balance might require a more complex combat system than he wants to put in the game. Speaking of game elements not represented in the rules...

That's the difference between "imagining" a role vs. the game "computing" it based on your actions..

The roleplaying in Oblivion is mainly imagined.

True, but "imagining" is a tool to game creators too.. Let's take Ultima 4 for instance. It had a nice, quite simple system for judging the player's actions and determining his virtues. Even though the system was simple, some who played the game felt it was much more than what it was. It was as if the game was really responding to their actions, even though the truth was that only a few actions were judged.

Using the player imagination to make the game seem deeper is very much a trick. Like using a mirror to make a room seem bigger than what it really is. But it is still important part of the game. Heck if the player isn't imagining at least the parts that are simulated in the game, then all that remains is a few rules used to increase some abstract numbers. By the way, I think that the problem with oblivion was, using the mirror in the room analogy, that it was a 3 by 3 room with a painting of a mirror.

The second point about needless complex system is that I think most people in this thread are looking at the problem the wrong way. Suppose a game with 200 hundred skills, where 100 of them are useless. My first guess would be that the people doing the game ran out of time before they could make the other skills useful. Another possibility would be that the game implements an already defined system, and the adventure it portrays didn't have all possible traits in its scope.

So, I think that a much more important question than "Should we cut unnecessary traits from the game?" is "How do we make these various traits useful and different in the game?".

Also, on the points:

(...snip) A "bloated" system would be D&D(specifically OD&D/AD&D) and not because the number of skills/spells and such but because the system unnecessarily employs several 'mini-systems' that confuse and often detract from the game as a whole. JUst plain lacking elegance and consistency.

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

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

It is worth mentioning that rpgs aren't abstract games. Simple rules are certainly nice, and can help make the game easier. But what may seem like needless complex in a game when looking only at the rules may actually make the game more enjoyable because the rules are reflecting an element of the game world.

Let's take magic in gurps as an example. Magic in the new gurps edition can be represented in two forms: as "powers" and as "skills" (there are others, but they are not useful for this example). While almost any special ability a character may posses is usually represented as a power, the default way to represent magic is still as skills.

Why not make magic just another power? Why have such a needless complex system in the game? Because, the skill system better represents learning something, and that is the way many players want to portray their characters, as someone who studies spells. I think most GMs would be ok to use powers to represent something the character learned, instead of something inherent. Yet, the skill system represents it better.[/b]

 

[elander_]

That's correct but i still feel that some games have unnecessary stat options that amount to little gain. You don't add features just for depth alone in a crpg but when you add those features it's important that they feel useful and meaningful and many features that exist in NWN and RoA seam to be there just to show lots of stats and add little value to the game. Jagged Alliance 2 is a great example of a game that shows a lot and let's you do an amazing number of things with few stats.

 

[The_scorpion]

But ja2 also has a lot of stats that don't do anything or do things that are almost never noticed by the casual player...

also making the player think that there were only "few" stats is important. Players would be trying to calculate the outcome of specific actions if they knew all of the stats involved. That would be quite detrimental to a seemingly simple gameplay.

rather than an accurate answer why your character can't recruit RPC xy, you'll get general advice like "use a guy with higher leadership" when asking even experienced ja2 players. Even if leadership is not the deciding stat in that case.

 

[DraQ]

Why have 7 weapon skills, when they all work the same?

Axes are blunt.

If something is (almost) useless ruleswise, it might still have a point given the game setting or mood.

It is worth mentioning that rpgs aren't abstract games. Simple rules are certainly nice, and can help make the game easier. But what may seem like needless complex in a game when looking only at the rules may actually make the game more enjoyable because the rules are reflecting an element of the game world.

Precisely.

 

[Kraszu]

Why have 7 weapon skills, when they all work the same?

Axes are blunt.

If something is (almost) useless ruleswise, it might still have a point given the game setting or mood.

It is worth mentioning that rpgs aren't abstract games. Simple rules are certainly nice, and can help make the game easier. But what may seem like needless complex in a game when looking only at the rules may actually make the game more enjoyable because the rules are reflecting an element of the game world.

Precisely.

Useless rules for better LARP.

also making the player think that there were only "few" stats is important. Players would be trying to calculate the outcome of specific actions if they knew all of the stats involved. That would be quite detrimental to a seemingly simple gameplay.

No, knowing how statistics works lets you plan character, and that is fun.

 

[elander_]

But ja2 also has a lot of stats that don't do anything or do things that are almost never noticed by the casual player...

That's not what i think. Every stat in that game has a strong reason to be there be it gameplay, combat style or to accurately simulate gun fights. That's what makes it so good. Being capable to do more with less is good for any crpg and JA2 is capable of creating great game experiences with just a few stats.

Besides simulating a gun fight scenario better than any other game i know it's also a deep game that rewards you for using elaborate combat tactics, with your team mates. I was able to take Alma using stealth tactics and with split teams attacking from different sides while the enemy had much better weapons than i had, with Dragunov sniper riffles against hunting riffles and stuff like that.

 

[Topher]

Anyway, chess is inherently flawed. Given two perfect players that both play, well, perfectly, the white/starting player will always win the game. That's bad game design.

Do you even play Chess? That is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard.

 

[Raapys]

Anyway, chess is inherently flawed. Given two perfect players that both play, well, perfectly, the white/starting player will always win the game. That's bad game design.

Do you even play Chess? That is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard.

Then you must be surrounded by some very smart people.

Read around a bit. Here you can see one explanation.

I also seem to remember one of the chess grandmasters saying something like 'When I play as white I win because I am white, when I play as black I win because I play better than the other guy'.

 

[Kraszu]

So in perfect soccer game team that start would not win? Even if not that would be only becouse of random factor. Chess were not calculated for over 500 years, there is no perfect strategy to broke the game yet. Seem like rather decent design to me. Team that get first goal change they game strategy, but I am not really into soccer so I am not sure. You could easy solve that problem in chess both player play once whit white and second time whit black, if it is 1-1 then you toss the coin that would make it more like games whit random factor impossible to predict not really more complex.

Random factor create on the spot planing, but when math is to complex you have to refer to on the spot planing also. Just becouse in theory making perfect strategy for soccer may not be possible it does not mean that the game is more complex for the person that play it.

 

[sportforredneck]

Why have 7 weapon skills, when they all work the same?

Axes are blunt.

But axes work differently than clubs, how can they both be blunt? One smashes, the other can cleave.

 

[Ammar]

Anyway, chess is inherently flawed. Given two perfect players that both play, well, perfectly, the white/starting player will always win the game. That's bad game design.

Do you even play Chess? That is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard.

Then you must be surrounded by some very smart people.

Read around a bit. Here you can see one explanation.

I also seem to remember one of the chess grandmasters saying something like 'When I play as white I win because I am white, when I play as black I win because I play better than the other guy'.

Are you unable to read? At the site you've linked to, it's plainly stated that it's yet unknown who wins in a perfect game of chess.

 

[The_scorpion]

But ja2 also has a lot of stats that don't do anything or do things that are almost never noticed by the casual player...

That's not what i think. Every stat in that game has a strong reason to be there be it gameplay, combat style or to accurately simulate gun fights. That's what makes it so good. Being capable to do more with less is good for any crpg and JA2 is capable of creating great game experiences with just a few stats.

Besides simulating a gun fight scenario better than any other game i know it's also a deep game that rewards you for using elaborate combat tactics, with your team mates. I was able to take Alma using stealth tactics and with split teams attacking from different sides while the enemy had much better weapons than i had, with Dragunov sniper riffles against hunting riffles and stuff like that.

oh, i'm not doubting the excellence of ja2's combat. It's pretty much unrivalled in that IMHO

just what you say about the *few* stats seems wrong

examples: (all of these are just from prof.dat, i don't even take scripts into account)

scientific 0-100 appears to be doing nothing

appearance, refinement, hated nationality, sexist, racist, attitude either don't do anything or don't have a noticable impact on the game (well they correspond to rare random comments sometimes, sometimes they don't)

among the about 10 personality traits, 2-3 actually have a somewhat noteworthy influence on the gameplay. Yet a casual player won't even notice they're there (except for psycho and forgetful which one can hardly help noticing)

then, all the MERC-NPC approach values as well as the NPC reacts upon interaction values are of vital importance to quest interaction, yet it is not even visible in the game

(and that's even prior to the actual npc scripting)

in short, ja2 is a lot more compley then what you'd think, but a very big lot of it is moved to the background/ hidden in order to allow the player to follow a simple and accesible playing style.

and that's what i say is vital for the game. Those stats that are visible should be options that actually have some meaning through player input, while the entire rest can be hidden to not make the game unneccesarily complicated. That's not dumbing it down, the game is as deep as always, it is just the player's shallow mind is skipped and his imagination is what tries to figure things. and imagination is many times deeper than consciousness

it would be awful if players would start to calculate their chances to get the right kind of quest response according to their characters's NPC approach effectiveness values in relation to the effect on npc's modifiers and the random numbers in between of that. That would be like a mathematical or virtual representation of a dialogue tree... that'd be boring

 

[Topher]

Yeah, the site you linked isn't proof that white always wins, it gives one man's search for a theory that *might* be possible with a more advanced computer capable of calculating the almost infinite move possibilities in a single game of chess.

While his theory works for his, very simple, Count-20 game and similar situations do exist in a game of chess, where one player can force his opponents moves or whichever player moves first is at the disadvantage, they exist as a small chain of moves within the larger game and that cannot be duplicated over the entire course of the entire game. There is no single opening move that can lead to a chain of moves resulting in a guaranteed win.

The theory, which isn't even his, holds true for games like Tic-Tac-Toe due the limited options during play. I even heard a rumor that Checkers had been broken but I haven't seen proof yet.

Chess cannot be broken and yes I do know some very smart people. Just because his friends hold Ph.D.'s doesn't make their every theory or though correct.

 

[DraQ]

Useless rules for better LARP.

*saves against strawman*

Why have 7 weapon skills, when they all work the same?

Axes are blunt.

But axes work differently than clubs, how can they both be blunt? One smashes, the other can cleave.

SILENCE! TODD SAYS SO!!!1

 

[Imbecile]

I agree with Imbecile

 

[elander_]

Those stats that are visible should be options that actually have some meaning through player input, while the entire rest can be hidden to not make the game unneccesarily complicated. That's not dumbing it down, the game is as deep as always, it is just the player's shallow mind is skipped and his imagination is what tries to figure things. and imagination is many times deeper than consciousness

When i mentioned stats i was talking about those stats you are supposed to know and that appear on your character sheet. Anyway i think what i said about the visible stats apply to JA2.

In games like NWN where we have an entire characters system ported from PnPs to a computer RPG i don't think it works very well and it would be a better idea if some of those stats were hidden like you mentioned and only those that have some visible impact in the game and are interesting to tweak should be shown.

 

[Raapys]

Yeah, the site you linked isn't proof that white always wins, it gives one man's search for a theory that *might* be possible with a more advanced computer capable of calculating the almost infinite move possibilities in a single game of chess.

While his theory works for his, very simple, Count-20 game and similar situations do exist in a game of chess, where one player can force his opponents moves or whichever player moves first is at the disadvantage, they exist as a small chain of moves within the larger game and that cannot be duplicated over the entire course of the entire game. There is no single opening move that can lead to a chain of moves resulting in a guaranteed win.

The theory, which isn't even his, holds true for games like Tic-Tac-Toe due the limited options during play. I even heard a rumor that Checkers had been broken but I haven't seen proof yet.

Chess cannot be broken and yes I do know some very smart people. Just because his friends hold Ph.D.'s doesn't make their every theory or though correct.

Like you said, the theory isn't his, it's a very well-known 'chess problem', I just linked his site since it gives you a fair idea of what all of this is about. In all likelihood the reason we haven't seen a 'perfect tactic' yet is because most programmers stopped bothering to improve chess AI when it managed to beat the world champion.

There's also a problem with the fact that the total number of possible board configurations in chess is something along the lines of 10^120, which is many times more than the total number of atoms in the universe( which is something like 10^75 I think? ). As you can imagine, this would take quite a bit of computational power and memory to solve.

And yes, Checkers has actually been completely solved. In this game, perfect play by both sides leads to a draw. Have a look here and here. However, Checkers only has 500 billion'ish possible board positions, which is nothing compared to chess.

If it makes it easier, just think about chess as a more advanced version of those other games. Alot harder to solve, because of the different abilities of the several unit types and such, but far from impossible.

 

[PorkaMorka]

JA2 also has a ton of complexity in equipment, more than most games. So you can customize your chars heavily with their equipment, despite the fact that there are a limited number of stats and skills. So while you may not spend hours tweaking your char build, you will spend a long time tweaking your gear and seperating your guys into snipers, machine gunners, heavy weapons guys and assaulters.

Also, JA2 is a not a true RPG, it's a strategy (or tactical) rpg. You can control up to 18 mercs and the tactical combat is the best around. So it doesn't really need too much complexity in skills and stats. Most RPGs don't offer combat as good as JA2 so they need to make up for it in some other area like character building.

Silent Storm, while not as much of a classic as JA2, wasn't harmed by having a more complex character building system, but in that game you could only control 6 guys not 18.