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Feldschlacht IV
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CloseLong term challenges aren't fundamentally frustrating, it just requires planning and strategy. It's fine if its not your thing, but a game developer shouldn't avoid making that kind of game on account of it not being your thing; they have to find their audience.
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
I agree with what Rya is saying to a certain extent. If you've committed to a character build but realize that your stat/ability point/whatever distribution doesn't work well with your current situation, especially one that you didn't see coming, it doesn't seem fair that you have to lie in the bed you made. On the other hand, you can't use the bad design argument if you make poor decisions and neglect obviously useful stats/abilities. If you put no points into Strength, then you don't get to complain that enemies don't take any damage from your attacks.
Allowing full free respecs of stats has too much potential for horribly unbalanced builds that can destroy the challenge. Imagine if everyone in your party had 9999 for Strength and 1 point for everything else. Oof.
The fact that players can suck at a game isn't inherently a fault of the game itself, and learning and knowing what each stat does is part of getting good at the game. Because of this, the inability to respec stats and ability points can't simply be considered a poor design decision.
Allowing full free respecs of stats has too much potential for horribly unbalanced builds that can destroy the challenge. Imagine if everyone in your party had 9999 for Strength and 1 point for everything else. Oof.
The fact that players can suck at a game isn't inherently a fault of the game itself, and learning and knowing what each stat does is part of getting good at the game. Because of this, the inability to respec stats and ability points can't simply be considered a poor design decision.
author=Red
. If you've committed to a character build but realize that your stat/ability point/whatever distribution doesn't work well with your current situation, especially one that you didn't see coming, it doesn't seem fair that you have to lie in the bed you made.
Yes, but very few good games are guilty of this. There's not a lot of games that completely paint the player into a corner with no recourse; but on the other hand, players making dumb decisions is something that can be costly. A player making a CHAIN of REALLY DUMB decisions that makes the game hard as shit or even near unbeatable isn't the games fault either if it's intuitive.
Some games even allow respeccing within certain parameters or make it a certain cost (like an expensive, rare potion or something). You can give your players room to experiment, make mistakes, and subvert things without sacrificing challenge and consequence, even severe ones. You hit the nail on the head with the rest of your post though, games have rules by design, and if a game lays out its expectations and the player doesn't follow them, it's not reasonable for the player to be mad at the game for sucking at it.
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
Totally agree with you, Feld. I'm just saying that expecting players to know when a completely new and different scenario requiring stats you haven't needed until then is going to show up is unfair. Just because few games have messed up in this fashion doesn't change that it's bad design.
author=Feldschlacht IV
Some games even allow respeccing within certain parameters or make it a certain cost (like an expensive, rare potion or something). You can give your players room to experiment, make mistakes, and subvert things without sacrificing challenge and consequence, even severe ones.
I mentioned a super rare respec item that the player also gets for free in the tutorial. I can vouch that this works very well. It was given to the player explicitly as a way out. If he needs more than one way out, they respec item isn't extinct, just rare. If a player needs two ways out then either the mechanics weren't explained properly or this game might be too challenging for the player. Sad, but it happens.
As for an unexpected scenario being unfair, I dunno. If it's done right then you won't absolutely 100% need a completely specific build to do the thing you need to do to progress. It may prevent you from finding a specific treasure but you can usually come back for it later. Bonus good design points if you subtly forecast to the player what he may need for the next area. If the player learns that the next area is the Mage Tower, then it's their own fault if they go "well, no use for a mage there. Sorry, pointy hat dude. You sit out." and then miss stuff. If you're going to a swamp, invest in poison prevention/healing. If you're going under da sea, you might wanna teach your mage some lightning magic and lay off that fire upgrade.
RyaReisender
200
What about all the game series I mentioned on the previous page? They definitely allow you to make bad choices without having anyone ingame telling you it's a bad choice.
I'd go so far and say there is hardly any game that gives you class build choices and does make 100% sure you can't mess up (assuming you don't intentionally try to make a bad build).
Hell... most of those games even have at least some wrong skill descriptions...
Well, that's what discussions are for, no? Everybody states his opinion. I'm old enough to realize that my opinion isn't the absolute truth, still I want game developers to make games I like, so I'll have to fight for it.
Besides, I enjoy discussions like this.
I'd go so far and say there is hardly any game that gives you class build choices and does make 100% sure you can't mess up (assuming you don't intentionally try to make a bad build).
Hell... most of those games even have at least some wrong skill descriptions...
It's fine if its not your thing, but a game developer shouldn't avoid making that kind of game on account of it not being your thing; they have to find their audience.
Well, that's what discussions are for, no? Everybody states his opinion. I'm old enough to realize that my opinion isn't the absolute truth, still I want game developers to make games I like, so I'll have to fight for it.
Besides, I enjoy discussions like this.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Well, yeah, figuring out which combinations of choices are going to work well is basically what being good at an RPG is. Building your characters and planning our your long-term strategy is a huge chunk of the genre's primary gameplay; it wouldn't make sense if every option were equally viable and there were no way to do better or worse at it.
However, the nature of this type of gameplay is that you often can't tell how well you did until hours later, at which point reverting to an earlier save would be excrutiatingly painful even if you still had that save. And most modern games don't even let you do that - they autosave every time you make a choice, so you'd have to start the whole game over.
As a result the player does need a way to redo their long-term choices while still making them feel like long-term choices. I think this is usually a good role for grinding. Games that make everyone grind just to continue playing are often hated, but I think grinding as a way to redo your choices makes perfect sense. It neatly circumvents the need to reload from earlier in the game, so the player doesn't feel like they're losing progress, but it still feels like a very strong incentive to get stuff right the first time. This works especially well if mandatory battles and boss fights give players most of their XP and AP and gold. Never having to grind basically becomes the reward for doing well at the game.
However, the nature of this type of gameplay is that you often can't tell how well you did until hours later, at which point reverting to an earlier save would be excrutiatingly painful even if you still had that save. And most modern games don't even let you do that - they autosave every time you make a choice, so you'd have to start the whole game over.
As a result the player does need a way to redo their long-term choices while still making them feel like long-term choices. I think this is usually a good role for grinding. Games that make everyone grind just to continue playing are often hated, but I think grinding as a way to redo your choices makes perfect sense. It neatly circumvents the need to reload from earlier in the game, so the player doesn't feel like they're losing progress, but it still feels like a very strong incentive to get stuff right the first time. This works especially well if mandatory battles and boss fights give players most of their XP and AP and gold. Never having to grind basically becomes the reward for doing well at the game.
RyaReisender
200
Well, yeah, figuring out which combinations of choices are going to work well is basically what being good at an RPG is. Building your characters and planning our your long-term strategy is a huge chunk of the genre's primary gameplay;
That only applies to a certain sub-genre. There are plenty of RPGs where you don't have to decide for a build, so I certainly wouldn't call it primary gameplay.
It's also not gameplay I personally enjoy. I want to fight and explore and not browse menus. I have a hard time considering this as gameplay at all honestly. If anything it's a necessary evil.
It wouldn't make sense if every option were equally viable and there were no way to do better or worse at it.
Depends on target audience. Yeah, if you only want to target hardcore players that make a science out of studying all the possible options and spend more time planning their builds than with anything else, then you might not want to make all choices viable.
I'd claim that the majority of all gamers wouldn't want that. Not everyone is as extreme as me, but even of those that enjoy having the choice between different builds many still don't want to read guides before playing or would quit the game if the ended up with a bad build rather than restarting and think it's a fun challenge to figure out one with which the game can be cleared.
However, the nature of this type of gameplay is that you often can't tell how well you did until hours later, at which point reverting to an earlier save would be excrutiatingly painful even if you still had that save. And most modern games don't even let you do that - they autosave every time you make a choice, so you'd have to start the whole game over.
Exactly. That's a big problem RPGs that give you the choice. And only really very few players enjoy this.
But I think you should take another look at the "all choices are good" system. It's not really bad by default to give players a choice of which regardless of the decision the result is equally good. On the contrary, I think this is something every dev should strive for even if it's impossible to reach perfection.
This does not qualify as challenge but it is something players can enjoy.
This already starts when playing Pen&Paper. If you (as DM) give players choices and one is much better than the other, the group doesn't think long about it. They take the better choice. But if you give them two choices and both have good and bad points, it gets them to discuss what to do next, which in the end makes them having more fun playing.
Having choices of different quality results is often horrible. Take for example the Banner Saga. You would have an event like "You encounter a camp. What do you want to do? 1) Visit it or 2) Ignore it" and in the Banner Saga it usually is so that one choice is the best but you can't tell at all which one. Sometimes there might be an ambush so ignoring the camp would be the best choice. But sometimes you can find valueable resources. This doesn't depend on player skill at all, it's just a coin toss, unless you are so meta that you think about "What would have the developer put here?".
Counter example: Breath of Death VII. This one has a level up system where each level up you get to decide between two things. It clearly explains what each of the two choices do. Both choices give different benefits but all are equally useful. This allows to decide for your builds but the decision is so easy each level that you won't need to consult any guide.
I think this is usually a good role for grinding.
Only if grinding is fun (and possible, many WRPGs actually have limited amounts of resources you can get).
Also the true problem with making it cost something is that you strongly punish players that want to try around different builds to find one they like.
Some MMORPGs actually addressed this issue already. You have for example some MMORPG offering free unlimited resets, but only to a certain level. This allows you to try around a bit and find a build you like.
Other MMORPGs offer a reset item in the cash shop, but with the twist that when you use it, you can reset your build as often as you want within a certain time frame.
Maybe those are solutions your are looking for?
I really like LockeZ's argument above.
Again, since I just played through it, in Final Fantasy III, the player is given a bunch of situations in which one job has a significant advantage over other jobs.
For example, some dungeons must be completed while the party is shrunken, and can only use magic, heavily suggesting that the player switch to a magic-centerd job. One boss nearly requires the player to choose the Dragoon job in order to aboid a powerful attack by jumping (which the boss also happens to be weak against). Enemies in a certain cave will divide unless struck by a type of sword that only a certain job can use.
I feel like this kind of structuring was meant to introduce players to the versatility of a job system, since, back in the early nineties when it first came out, no one had ever experienced it before. Class-switching games do not seem to do this any longer, but instead, leave the player with multiple options to go through a certain section of a game. When Final Fantasy III was remastered for the Nintendo DS, it received a second look at this rigid structure, and the hard requirements for some of the do-or-die sections were eased. The only downside of making a game more open like this, is that it is extremely time-consuming for the developer to make multiple "correct" paths, and also have the gameplay be balanced. So, you could have a magic-weak boss vs. a powerful magic-using class, or some kind of engineer class working on deciphering a control panel in the background of the boss fight as it's happening, and, you would have to code both of those things, which isn't always feasible.
One way to start, though, would be to think about how some major gameplay elements in the game are split up. For example, magic and physical attacks. That's two "paths" to focus on right there. On realizing something's not working, is there a way for the player to move from the "wrong" path to the "right" path, right in the middle of a battle? How many options is a developer willing to code?
Again, since I just played through it, in Final Fantasy III, the player is given a bunch of situations in which one job has a significant advantage over other jobs.
For example, some dungeons must be completed while the party is shrunken, and can only use magic, heavily suggesting that the player switch to a magic-centerd job. One boss nearly requires the player to choose the Dragoon job in order to aboid a powerful attack by jumping (which the boss also happens to be weak against). Enemies in a certain cave will divide unless struck by a type of sword that only a certain job can use.
I feel like this kind of structuring was meant to introduce players to the versatility of a job system, since, back in the early nineties when it first came out, no one had ever experienced it before. Class-switching games do not seem to do this any longer, but instead, leave the player with multiple options to go through a certain section of a game. When Final Fantasy III was remastered for the Nintendo DS, it received a second look at this rigid structure, and the hard requirements for some of the do-or-die sections were eased. The only downside of making a game more open like this, is that it is extremely time-consuming for the developer to make multiple "correct" paths, and also have the gameplay be balanced. So, you could have a magic-weak boss vs. a powerful magic-using class, or some kind of engineer class working on deciphering a control panel in the background of the boss fight as it's happening, and, you would have to code both of those things, which isn't always feasible.
One way to start, though, would be to think about how some major gameplay elements in the game are split up. For example, magic and physical attacks. That's two "paths" to focus on right there. On realizing something's not working, is there a way for the player to move from the "wrong" path to the "right" path, right in the middle of a battle? How many options is a developer willing to code?
I agree with grinding as a way to make up for poor choices. I myself am not all that fond of it and a game needs a wild awesome combat system and even a fun encounter system to make me want to do it. But I've still done it. I accept it as a price I have to pay for going "oh, this class's outfit looks cute! I'll job switch to this even if it will make her a liability in this part of the game!"
An example of when it's the game's fault for being poorly designed = Cross Edge. The end boss absorbs Dark element attacks. So the first time I fought it only one person in my party was doing any real damage since all my best combos were, you guessed it, dark. Strong against would've been ok since it's made pretty clear that darkness is his thing, but absorbing is a totally different matter. Seriously wish I had a respec item at that point.
An example of when it's the game's fault for being poorly designed = Cross Edge. The end boss absorbs Dark element attacks. So the first time I fought it only one person in my party was doing any real damage since all my best combos were, you guessed it, dark. Strong against would've been ok since it's made pretty clear that darkness is his thing, but absorbing is a totally different matter. Seriously wish I had a respec item at that point.
Crystalgate
694
I think a big question is how much of an actual build you want to encourage. Taking some final fantasy games as an example, FF V, VII and VIII are not so much about builds as the games simple throwing you a lot of cool stuff for you to take advantage of. Out of those three, FF V is the one that the most encourage you to figure out actual concepts for your characters and is also the one where changing build is the hardest. Even so, it's still fairly painless to do and you're actually expecting to change builds trough the playtrough.
Dark Souls (I have played no FF game that is focused on a single character) is more about having an actual character build and using what works for it. Looking at the Final Fantasy series again, the first one does not let you create your own builds, but it allows you to create your own party setup. Those games do not allow you to change your mind later on and you're expected to stick with your idea.
There's a reason to why those games are set up as they are.
Let's start with Final Fantasy VII. There's one support materia you can get that when paired with a magic materia makes you attack as well every time you cast a spell of that materia. Now, if we pretend that FF VII's balance isn't a complete train-wreck, you want a character with both good attack and magic to take advantage of that support materia. So, give them one spell materia, but not many more since they lower your attack and instead increase your magic with a magic+ materia or two. That gives you good a magic stat while still retaining most of your attack. However, if that attack when casting a spell option instead existed in a game based on builds, chance is all of the player's characters would either have high attack/low magic or opposite, meaning nobody can take good advantage of that option.
If your customization is about throwing the player a lot of cool stuff that they are expected to incorporate as they go, then I don't think it's even a question, make undoing choices simple.
For Dark Souls and the first Final Fantasy, allowing the players to easily change builds or party setup means that they don't have to learn the ups and down of their choices and to make best use of them, they can just change to a setup which has its up whenever their current setup encounters a down. More importantly, it can also sap the fun out of trying to master a choice instead of playing a malleable character/party, even if doing so would otherwise be more fun.
Personally, I think that Dark Souls would have been harmed by making it easy to switch build while Final Fantasy would not. In Dark Souls, I'm having a fun time building my character and the different builds plays significantly differently as well. However, Final Fantasy (based on the GBA remake) has every battle feel kinda sameish. I don't think an attack oriented party differs that much from a magic oriented party in terms of how you overcome your challenges other than that one is likely to be flat out easier to use than the other. So, playing again with a different setup don't makes that much of a difference.
Is your game set up so that every reasonable choice works and that they play rather differently? The more this holds true for your game, the more likely it is that you want to make it hard or even impossible to undo choices.
Dark Souls (I have played no FF game that is focused on a single character) is more about having an actual character build and using what works for it. Looking at the Final Fantasy series again, the first one does not let you create your own builds, but it allows you to create your own party setup. Those games do not allow you to change your mind later on and you're expected to stick with your idea.
There's a reason to why those games are set up as they are.
Let's start with Final Fantasy VII. There's one support materia you can get that when paired with a magic materia makes you attack as well every time you cast a spell of that materia. Now, if we pretend that FF VII's balance isn't a complete train-wreck, you want a character with both good attack and magic to take advantage of that support materia. So, give them one spell materia, but not many more since they lower your attack and instead increase your magic with a magic+ materia or two. That gives you good a magic stat while still retaining most of your attack. However, if that attack when casting a spell option instead existed in a game based on builds, chance is all of the player's characters would either have high attack/low magic or opposite, meaning nobody can take good advantage of that option.
If your customization is about throwing the player a lot of cool stuff that they are expected to incorporate as they go, then I don't think it's even a question, make undoing choices simple.
For Dark Souls and the first Final Fantasy, allowing the players to easily change builds or party setup means that they don't have to learn the ups and down of their choices and to make best use of them, they can just change to a setup which has its up whenever their current setup encounters a down. More importantly, it can also sap the fun out of trying to master a choice instead of playing a malleable character/party, even if doing so would otherwise be more fun.
Personally, I think that Dark Souls would have been harmed by making it easy to switch build while Final Fantasy would not. In Dark Souls, I'm having a fun time building my character and the different builds plays significantly differently as well. However, Final Fantasy (based on the GBA remake) has every battle feel kinda sameish. I don't think an attack oriented party differs that much from a magic oriented party in terms of how you overcome your challenges other than that one is likely to be flat out easier to use than the other. So, playing again with a different setup don't makes that much of a difference.
Is your game set up so that every reasonable choice works and that they play rather differently? The more this holds true for your game, the more likely it is that you want to make it hard or even impossible to undo choices.
^ This is good.
It's similar to how in MH games you have a range of weapons to choose from and constantly upgrade them, and also build your armor to enhance your choice (with different addons being more or less useful for certain weapons). It guides your play and makes you focus and work with your limitations which is encouraging and fun. You can still swap, but it requires a lot of resources (nevermind practice time) to rebuild with different types. Being able to do so on the fly would harm the experience, in fact.
It's similar to how in MH games you have a range of weapons to choose from and constantly upgrade them, and also build your armor to enhance your choice (with different addons being more or less useful for certain weapons). It guides your play and makes you focus and work with your limitations which is encouraging and fun. You can still swap, but it requires a lot of resources (nevermind practice time) to rebuild with different types. Being able to do so on the fly would harm the experience, in fact.
I play a very casual tankgirl statsim game called Panzer Waltz, which has a bazillion different styles to play it. But one very common way is to have one team of 6 units that you focus on, then a 2nd team of 6 that picks up if your first team gets knocked out, and so on and so forth. Basically, your A Team will get all the top gear and levels. By the time you reach Team F they're practically useless.
But the way the game is made you're strongly encouraged to have a vast array of viable tankgirls for any map. Terrain plays a massive role in performance. Terrain penalties can be overcome with certain types of engines and chassis, but each tankgirl is limited to what engines and chassis they can equip. Range and ammo type is also an issue and changing ammo mid-mission is expensive as hell. It'd be much easier to just swap your team.
Now that we've cleared that up- There's a lot of debate over which is better, improving your A Team so that they can just power through the penalties or pouring all the resources into having 18+ tankgirls powerful enough to mix and match to build teams to handle any map. The odds that you'll have the resources for this is extremely low. So what option does a player have if they're unable to beat a map due to terrain penalties, range and enemy configurations? Grind on lower maps? Sure but it takes time. Swap out the units most hindering you? Sure, but that's time and resources to get the replacement unit up to snuff.
How about cannibalism? Yeah, you can sacrifice one tankgirl to another for a huge EXP boost. Since the type of player who would be interested in something like Panzer Waltz will generally have a "collect them all" mentality, this works as a massive sacrifice. Sure, some players just don't care. Tankgirls are used for battle, Lifestyle missions (sending them on everything from dance parties to dysentery training for a huge reward on a long real-time delay) and as prerequisites for making new tankgirls in R&D. So to somebody who's just playing it to make 1 or 2 powerful teams it's not a problem. Once a tankgirl has outlived her R&D usefulness, is no longer used in battle and is inferior to others in lifestyle missions, she can be cannibalised without regret.
But to those who are building a collection, the sacrifice to overcome poor team customization decisions and poor versatility planning is huge. Re-making the sacrificed tankgirl in R&D is resource-intensive and getting them as a mission, shop or BWMG reward is entirely up to the game's RNG and you've got better luck getting jello out of a UFO catcher.
But the way the game is made you're strongly encouraged to have a vast array of viable tankgirls for any map. Terrain plays a massive role in performance. Terrain penalties can be overcome with certain types of engines and chassis, but each tankgirl is limited to what engines and chassis they can equip. Range and ammo type is also an issue and changing ammo mid-mission is expensive as hell. It'd be much easier to just swap your team.
Now that we've cleared that up- There's a lot of debate over which is better, improving your A Team so that they can just power through the penalties or pouring all the resources into having 18+ tankgirls powerful enough to mix and match to build teams to handle any map. The odds that you'll have the resources for this is extremely low. So what option does a player have if they're unable to beat a map due to terrain penalties, range and enemy configurations? Grind on lower maps? Sure but it takes time. Swap out the units most hindering you? Sure, but that's time and resources to get the replacement unit up to snuff.
How about cannibalism? Yeah, you can sacrifice one tankgirl to another for a huge EXP boost. Since the type of player who would be interested in something like Panzer Waltz will generally have a "collect them all" mentality, this works as a massive sacrifice. Sure, some players just don't care. Tankgirls are used for battle, Lifestyle missions (sending them on everything from dance parties to dysentery training for a huge reward on a long real-time delay) and as prerequisites for making new tankgirls in R&D. So to somebody who's just playing it to make 1 or 2 powerful teams it's not a problem. Once a tankgirl has outlived her R&D usefulness, is no longer used in battle and is inferior to others in lifestyle missions, she can be cannibalised without regret.
But to those who are building a collection, the sacrifice to overcome poor team customization decisions and poor versatility planning is huge. Re-making the sacrificed tankgirl in R&D is resource-intensive and getting them as a mission, shop or BWMG reward is entirely up to the game's RNG and you've got better luck getting jello out of a UFO catcher.
