Reload a game and the game world changes

[Davaris]

I was watching a TV show with a time travel theme and they explained time travel as, the universe splitting into a slightly different reality, each time you go back and change something.

So I thought what if you did this in a computer game, as a minor penalty or bonus for re-loading?

You could inform the player if they reload, there will be a random change in the game world, to encourage them to accept whatever failure they have just had and keep on playing.

A stat on a creature somewhere in the game could change, someone could become wealthier or poorer, a personality could change, relations between two factions could change for better or worse, a quest variable could be altered and so on.

 

[shihonage]

Maybe if you make this happen only if the reload takes place too soon after previous reload.

Also, only superficial things could be affected (like spawning a new monster), otherwise game breakage is inevitable.

 

[Erzherzog]

Wouldn't there be even more saving/reloading when people search for the best situation or is the idea that they will find the change far down the road?

If it's the latter than how will the player notice and care?

 

[DraQ]

If anything, I'd focus on negative changes, like some particularly juicy random lewt player would otherwise find disappearing. This would be most applicable to large open worlds, where this would not be a permanent setback or game braking occurrence, but still something player would wish to avoid.

It's hard to come up with any idea involving non-randomized content or anything that isn't a dungeon crawl.

 

[Alex]

This type of mechanic strikes me to be much more appropriate when supported by the game's story, like the way save, load and restart work in Slouching Towards Bedlam or the character death works in Planescape. I mean, sure, you can use this just as a way of avoiding save scumming. But this feels kind of cheap to me. For example, if instead of implementing random changes on your game, you implemented the load function as a kind of time travel, and had the exact effects depend not only on randomness, but also the circumstances of the time travel, I think you would have something more interesting.

It's hard to come up with any idea involving non-randomized content or anything that isn't a dungeon crawl.

I know I repeat myself on this topic every couple of months, but are you aware of Chris Crawford's work on the Storytron story engine? You don't even need anything that advanced to be truthful, just a game where the story is dependent on a large range of values. A good reputation system with maybe a couple of attributes (like fear, respect, distrust, etc) and a few special story qualifiers to give more importance to quest solutions and voilá, you have a story heavy RPG where each load may mean that your former best friend hates you because you ended up killing his sister. Of course, actually making the game respond well to each and every possible values is the hard part.

 

[Dire Roach]

Too much work. An easier mechanic would be to make your character age by a certain amount of time every time you reload. The more you reload, the more physically weak your character becomes until you reach the point where you can't even walk anymore and you die.

 

[Excommunicator]

I think it is a good idea, but you will need the negative event to hang over the player's head and also be significant enough to "overrule" the consequences of the event that made them want to load to begin with.

It couldn't be vague or small or completely random; you need to use it as a form of negatively reinforced punishment, and this requires you to set out a number of guidelines beforehand and showing the player potential consequences of loading, just like teaching a child. Changing the stat of an enemy or making an NPC poor would not suffice because the player probably wouldn't have noticed those things being different in the first place, and they will probably have no measurable effect on the PC anyway.

You should tie it to something omnipresent and inherent to the setting and it will most likely exist abstractly but still has to be easy to understand. Supernatural elements would be the easiest and cheapest way (in terms of time and effort) to achieve a believable explanation for such a thing. Even giving a crude explanation of the fabric of the cosmos being an ever changing tapestry, but then tying that change to the instance of player-loading - this doesn't make sense in a non-game context but it is something that a player can and will easily accept as a rule of the game if you make it clear. Show the player the consequences of loading early in the game with a simple example and then gradually ramp up the volatility of the cosmos the further they get (explained naturally through the plot/characters). If the player becomes witness to things that made his game more challenging - although never impossibly so - then he will naturally use that in his future considerations of loading.

Once you have a rule module implemented like this, you could incorporate all manner of consequences from storms that make future passage difficult, making the PC more vulnerable to magic in certain places (temporarily or otherwise), opening portals with more enemies further down the road, or allowing an enemy wizard to transport himself away from where the PC might expect him to be. The key being that the player becomes aware of the potential consequences before they load the game so that they are not just taking a complete "pot luck" when they do load, as that would encourage taking a chance and that is not what you want here.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with also implementing possible positive results of loading, and then tying those positive consequences to the possibility of being reversed with further loading can make this motivation even stronger.

 

[mondblut]

Fate: Gates of Dawn had something like that. Before you reloaded for the first time, monsters were very nerfed, as a tutorial mode of sorts. Beyond that, if you reload too many times in too short a timespan, a shitload of monsters spawns near you.

 

[shihonage]

Too much work. An easier mechanic would be to make your character age by a certain amount of time every time you reload. The more you reload, the more physically weak your character becomes until you reach the point where you can't even walk anymore and you die.

This made me crack up for some reason.

 

[Derek Larp]

Hmm. Still might be abused though. Like re-loading until the world is how you want it or something.

And how does that even make sense? Does something change the past if you load? Or is it like Worf in that one TNG episode where he switches between different parallel realities?

I´m not saying this is a stupid idea, but I´m not convinced it´s worth the effort. Savers gonna save.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

In my last game I made a forced iron man mode but people didn't like it because I forgot to balance my game for that mode and I didn't think that people may not like doing the same linear starting dungeon again and again. I think making game fun in iron man mode would be too much work so I invented that weird thing that would punish players for not playing how I want them to play.

Hmm...

 

[Excommunicator]

It is a matter of the kind of game the designers want. Most games wouldn't benefit from the work investment, but that is irrelevant when this is a theoretical discussion about a theoretical game.

Changing the past? You are right that doesn't make sense. Don't know why you were talking.

 

[Derek Larp]

Hmm I meant the Time Travel Theme Parallel Splitting Quantum Reality Universe thing as an ingame explanation for the mechanic, not the mechanic itself.

And I´m still not convinced punishing players for saving (or rather reloading) is a good idea.

 

[SCO]

I suspect divine divinity 1 did this. The loot you find the first time always seems quite acceptable, like it's scaled to midrange of your progress always. If you reload, the loot always seems to have its range increased, so you mostly get worse loot than you had the first time. Ofcourse if you are ADD inflicted, you can guarantee stupendous loot if you reload a lot with the mouse in the right place. I admit i did it (hangs head in shame).

 

[DraQ]

It's hard to come up with any idea involving non-randomized content or anything that isn't a dungeon crawl.

I know I repeat myself on this topic every couple of months, but are you aware of Chris Crawford's work on the Storytron story engine? You don't even need anything that advanced to be truthful, just a game where the story is dependent on a large range of values. A good reputation system with maybe a couple of attributes (like fear, respect, distrust, etc) and a few special story qualifiers to give more importance to quest solutions and voilá, you have a story heavy RPG where each load may mean that your former best friend hates you because you ended up killing his sister. Of course, actually making the game respond well to each and every possible values is the hard part.

Haven't heard of storytron, but making this kind of arbitrary changes in an RPG where player actively co-creates story and character would suck.
Some sort of "fail for fail" mechanics would be better.

As for in-game explanation of such mechanics, it might be nice, but not really necessary, given that it's there merely to counteract "cheat fate" mechanics that is already there and usually doesn't really come with in-game justification.

 

[Phelot]

I'd say if loot or monster spawns are determined by a random seed, then after maybe three reloads the game should just stick with whatever the last seed was no matter how many times the player reloads.

I recall JA2 doing this. I'm ashamed to admit that it seems like reloading a bunch of times to see if a shot misses one of my mercs (or does less damage) eventually gets to a point were it ALWAYS hits and ALWAYS causes about the same damage. Not sure if this can be confirmed, but whatever, lesson learned.

So, lets say you keep reloading after killing a foe to see what loot you get.
1st time you get a ring
2nd time you get a belt
3rd time you get gold
every other time after that you get the same amount of gold.

 

[spectre]

I recall JA2 doing this. I'm ashamed to admit that it seems like reloading a bunch of times to see if a shot misses one of my mercs (or does less damage) eventually gets to a point were it ALWAYS hits and ALWAYS causes about the same damage. Not sure if this can be confirmed, but whatever, lesson learned.

It's because of the random seed, the game generates some numbers, say 9,21, 99, 45, then applies them to checks. So, if you do stuff in the same order, the results will be identical.
Civ 4 did the same and this basically is the best way to reduce save/load abuse.

Imo, if you want to discourage stuff positive reinforcement works better than negative (not to mention, it's a fucking game), let's look at Sacred for a second here, if you play (actually play, ie. kill stuffies) the game for long, no relading, no dying etc. you get a bonus to finding magical items.

More on topic:

So I thought what if you did this in a computer game, as a minor penalty or bonus for re-loading?

You could inform the player if they reload, there will be a random change in the game world, to encourage them to accept whatever failure they have just had and keep on playing.

It would come pretty naturally in a randomly generated game, as long as the whole world is not generated at the very beginning. When you reload, just generate a new random seed, et volia (see some roguelikes, you'd have to save scum, which is cheating and spoils the fun).

 

[zenbitz]

Also, only superficial things could be affected (like spawning a new monster), otherwise game breakage is inevitable.

I think you could do it if you designed it in from the beginning.

Think of the gameworld state as a set of modules that are tightly connected internally, and loosely connected between each other. Actually in lots of old school RPGs the different "areas" or "towns" don't really interact at all... So if you pick a small area to scramble/randomize, it should be stable if designed properly . Even if you bork up a whole "location" it won't necessarily break the game if the interactions are well-defined between other areas.

Of course, you would have to protect the parts of the game that determine "winning" or whatever.

 

[shihonage]

On abstract planning levels, everything works as intended.

 

[Johannes]

In BG1, random mobs were regenerated on every loading iirc.

 

[Alex]

Haven't heard of storytron, but making this kind of arbitrary changes in an RPG where player actively co-creates story and character would suck.
Some sort of "fail for fail" mechanics would be better.

Oh, I see! Sorry, I understood you as having a problem seeing how the values in a story oriented game could be randomized in first place. By the way, I am not sure what you mean by "fail for fail".

That said, I think it could work well with a story-driven rpg if it is integrated with the story. For example, imagine the game is permanently in iron-man, in that you can stop the game and continue later, but not reload it (like most roguelikes). However, some in game element might allow you to go back in time to places you "memorized" (doesn't matter what, a time machine, a magic spell, whatever). However, the going back in time mechanic is not "free". There is an element of risk associated with it, in that going back in time will always change things you might not wish changed.

Then you set the game's story so that you really can't "win" if you don't reload at least a little. Finally, and I think this is the crucial part for the mechanic to be enjoyable, the changes must be so that they don't outright destroy the cause you time traveled in first time, but either put it in risk or add risk to something else you care about. I mean, this is the essence of time travel stories, isn't it? By the way, I realize this is far away from the initial idea of simply punishing reloads, and it certainly can't be applied to all RPGs. But I thought maybe people would want to discuss about using it on an actual time travel rpg.

As for in-game explanation of such mechanics, it might be nice, but not really necessary, given that it's there merely to counteract "cheat fate" mechanics that is already there and usually doesn't really come with in-game justification.

I know where you are coming from, but there is something about penalizing the player in game for meta game behavior that just doesn't seems right to me. Strangely enough, I think I would be more ok with this if the consequence was borderline metagame as well. For example, if this changed some abstract attribute like Karma or luck, I think I wouldn't mind it as much.

 

[DraQ]

Haven't heard of storytron, but making this kind of arbitrary changes in an RPG where player actively co-creates story and character would suck.
Some sort of "fail for fail" mechanics would be better.

Oh, I see! Sorry, I understood you as having a problem seeing how the values in a story oriented game could be randomized in first place. By the way, I am not sure what you mean by "fail for fail".

By reloading the game you're presumably escaping some sort of broadly defined failure. The game would remember reload count, and force failures somewhere else, preferably somewhere where it won't break the game (or kill the player), but will prevent player from achieving something desirable. This should not violate internal logic of the gameworld any more than the act of reloading does, for example a sidequest might have a specific failure route that would be plausible in gameworld, but only activated by reloading. The failure spot in this case would be randomized on reload, then set in stone. Other kinds of failure would be removing nearest piece of randomized loot game determines as interesting to the player, or autofailing some roll game judges as important. Mechanisms of evaluating those are open to discussion. Combat rolls and anything possibly resulting in PCs death should be exempt, as it would effectively force subsequent reloads.

That said, I think it could work well with a story-driven rpg if it is integrated with the story. For example, imagine the game is permanently in iron-man, in that you can stop the game and continue later, but not reload it (like most roguelikes). However, some in game element might allow you to go back in time to places you "memorized" (doesn't matter what, a time machine, a magic spell, whatever). However, the going back in time mechanic is not "free". There is an element of risk associated with it, in that going back in time will always change things you might not wish changed.

Then you set the game's story so that you really can't "win" if you don't reload at least a little. Finally, and I think this is the crucial part for the mechanic to be enjoyable, the changes must be so that they don't outright destroy the cause you time traveled in first time, but either put it in risk or add risk to something else you care about. I mean, this is the essence of time travel stories, isn't it? By the way, I realize this is far away from the initial idea of simply punishing reloads, and it certainly can't be applied to all RPGs. But I thought maybe people would want to discuss about using it on an actual time travel rpg.

Might be interesting in proper context, but not really while debating it in vacuum.

I know where you are coming from, but there is something about penalizing the player in game for meta game behavior that just doesn't seems right to me.

But as long as it isn't detectable in-game (as in outside of metagame), it is not metagame. Player stacks odds in his favour by abusing save&reload, the game shifts them back. You can interpret it as the RNG claiming back what was his all along.

Of course, positive reinforcement is possible as well and those ideas aren't mutually exclusive, but this would require stacking the mechanics slightly against the player by default, so that it balances out if he minimizes reloading. Might be psychologically more effective thanks to being less butthurt inducing.

 

[Kz3r0]

Punishing saving is retarded, unless you are aiming for making PCs tge same as consoles, save-point, limited saves etc.
About the time travel theme, sounds interesting, but I can't see how it can be done aside some kind of interactive novel with a lot of branches.

 

[DraQ]

Punishing saving is retarded, unless you are aiming for making PCs tge same as consoles, save-point, limited saves etc.

Not punishing saving.
Not even punishing loading.
Punishing reloading.
Specifically.

 

[Kz3r0]

Just implement an Ironman difficulty level of some sort, permadeath and the like.