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IT'S ALL ABOUT DEM MIND GAMES
Posts
Feldschlacht IV
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CloseRecently I've been thinking less about the 'by the book', obvious facets of game design, and more on the 'under the water' aspects, namely, the psychological processes of enjoying a game and what makes players tick. To do this, I've been thinking less from a game designer aspect and more to a game player aspect. More specifically, I've been trying to get into the mindset of someone who's never even thought about game design, and just plays games for fun; which for most of us, those very same people are going to hopefully be the majority of our audience. So anyway, I'm realizing that a lot of why people enjoy games are namely little and sometimes big things that either purposefully or not, we're tricked into thinking. And we enjoy them! Namely;
-The 'stuck boss' phenomenon. People dislike games that are too easy, and they dislike games that are too unforgiving, so what is it about a game that that has that one boss that suddenly stonewalls your progress? I've noticed that many people will quit right away at the sign of a game being really, really hard from jump street, but almost no one quits a game when a boss suddenly comes outta nowhere and puts your balls in a vice. I think some of the most memorable 'can't get past this boss' bosses are when; the player has already invested a significant amount of time into the game (I'VE ALREADY BEEN PLAYING THIS GAME FOR LIKE 20 HOURS I AIN'T QUITTIN' NAW SON FUCK DAT"), or right in the middle/before an important plot twist, and you're pretty much emotionally blackmailed into beating it. And you do! And you enjoy it! Interesting, yeah? Legend of Legaia is a great example of this.
-'Gameplay which is compelling but not'. So I was playing Romancing Saga the other day, right? And I was doing a bunch of miscellaneous side quests, just getting gold, equipment, and dicking around. One day I played for about five hours straight, and sometime into I realized I wasn't even really paying attention to what I was doing half the time. I spend most of the random battles browsing the internet or listening to music, I half paid attention to wandering around the towns, and I meandered from dungeon to dungeon. I kinda realized that I spent the last few hours doing nothing but investing in getting pimp ass equipment and class level ups for my characters, simply for the sake of doing the exact same thing for another five hours. And I did. I know I basically described 'grinding', but it's something that people love to hate! Grinding is boring when its boring, but when its not, I like to call it 'spending hours upon hours pimping out my party members'.
-Games that are boring but you keep on playing them. This is sort of 50/50 because some games are known for having a slow start but end up being fantastic, and other games pretty much just suck the whole way through (and it's only known to those of us who actually play the entire game expecting it to get better when it doesn't). This isn't limited to games, it also applies to movies and books. What exactly is the reason for this? What keeps a game just bearable enough to keep people playing until some light in the sky comes?
-The entire phenomenon of an RPG being about putting virtual stuff on a virtual dude to make numbers go up, to produce bigger numbers to make sure that other guys numbers don't reduce your numbers to 0. This is the beauty of it all.
I dunno guys! I'm not sure where I was going with this topic but maybe you guys can help it take off! Can you guys think of ways that games get in your head and compel you to play them, and what crafty ways can you apply that game design to your games? Let's talk about it!
-The 'stuck boss' phenomenon. People dislike games that are too easy, and they dislike games that are too unforgiving, so what is it about a game that that has that one boss that suddenly stonewalls your progress? I've noticed that many people will quit right away at the sign of a game being really, really hard from jump street, but almost no one quits a game when a boss suddenly comes outta nowhere and puts your balls in a vice. I think some of the most memorable 'can't get past this boss' bosses are when; the player has already invested a significant amount of time into the game (I'VE ALREADY BEEN PLAYING THIS GAME FOR LIKE 20 HOURS I AIN'T QUITTIN' NAW SON FUCK DAT"), or right in the middle/before an important plot twist, and you're pretty much emotionally blackmailed into beating it. And you do! And you enjoy it! Interesting, yeah? Legend of Legaia is a great example of this.
-'Gameplay which is compelling but not'. So I was playing Romancing Saga the other day, right? And I was doing a bunch of miscellaneous side quests, just getting gold, equipment, and dicking around. One day I played for about five hours straight, and sometime into I realized I wasn't even really paying attention to what I was doing half the time. I spend most of the random battles browsing the internet or listening to music, I half paid attention to wandering around the towns, and I meandered from dungeon to dungeon. I kinda realized that I spent the last few hours doing nothing but investing in getting pimp ass equipment and class level ups for my characters, simply for the sake of doing the exact same thing for another five hours. And I did. I know I basically described 'grinding', but it's something that people love to hate! Grinding is boring when its boring, but when its not, I like to call it 'spending hours upon hours pimping out my party members'.
-Games that are boring but you keep on playing them. This is sort of 50/50 because some games are known for having a slow start but end up being fantastic, and other games pretty much just suck the whole way through (and it's only known to those of us who actually play the entire game expecting it to get better when it doesn't). This isn't limited to games, it also applies to movies and books. What exactly is the reason for this? What keeps a game just bearable enough to keep people playing until some light in the sky comes?
-The entire phenomenon of an RPG being about putting virtual stuff on a virtual dude to make numbers go up, to produce bigger numbers to make sure that other guys numbers don't reduce your numbers to 0. This is the beauty of it all.
I dunno guys! I'm not sure where I was going with this topic but maybe you guys can help it take off! Can you guys think of ways that games get in your head and compel you to play them, and what crafty ways can you apply that game design to your games? Let's talk about it!
Shinan
4314
I'm not sure I really agree with the first one. Yes it's true that if a boss suddenly is difficult I won't quit outright. But I won't enjoy it. I'm most likely annoyed by the one difficult passage in a game that otherwise had a fairly nice challenge level. Most of the time when encountering this kind of thing though it's a place where I didn't figure out the right thing to do (so in subsequent playthroughs it will be easier). But even then I'm most likely more annoyed than actually enjoying it.
There's the idea of "small goals" which ties in to grinding really. In strategy games I think this is called "one more turn". The idea is that every turn there's something you want done or something you're building towards (a conquest, a level, a piece of equipment) but before you actually reach that goal another goal pops up so when you finish what you first thought was the "one more turn" another "one more turn"-causing thing has turned up.
There's the idea of "small goals" which ties in to grinding really. In strategy games I think this is called "one more turn". The idea is that every turn there's something you want done or something you're building towards (a conquest, a level, a piece of equipment) but before you actually reach that goal another goal pops up so when you finish what you first thought was the "one more turn" another "one more turn"-causing thing has turned up.
ariedonus
41
Because I don't know a whole lot about the specifics and semantics of game design, I have always used this perspective. For me, it's pretty effective and is also why I like a lot of feedback from all sorts and kinds. It's always good to get comments from someone who is more concerned about whether or not they're bored instead of how everything is specifically designed.
As for any RPG Mind Tricks...I can't think of any in particular at the moment. I think I will get back to you on that. :]
As for any RPG Mind Tricks...I can't think of any in particular at the moment. I think I will get back to you on that. :]
post=152474
I'm not sure I really agree with the first one. Yes it's true that if a boss suddenly is difficult I won't quit outright. But I won't enjoy it. I'm most likely annoyed by the one difficult passage in a game that otherwise had a fairly nice challenge level. Most of the time when encountering this kind of thing though it's a place where I didn't figure out the right thing to do (so in subsequent playthroughs it will be easier). But even then I'm most likely more annoyed than actually enjoying it.
I admit that this is a subjective thing. I enjoy the occasional hard as shit boss that comes out of nowhere. The sudden shift from the routine way I usually dispatch foes to having to challenge my mind to draft up every strategy conceivable is an extremely satisfying catharsis. Not to mention there's nothing quite like feeling like a fuckin' G when you finally do beat that boss.
Fist
34
Damn, I never really knew that in order to make players keep playing your games, you need to use MINDTRICKS to keep them interested..
I have a long way to go in order to master my craft..
I have a long way to go in order to master my craft..
post=152485
Damn, I never really knew that in order to make players keep playing your games, you need to use MINDTRICKS to keep them interested..
Need?
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
If a game has a lot of potential for grind, there are two options for me:
1) I will despise it utterly. A thousand curses will erupt from my thousand mouths, dooming it to a black eternity. I will become Loki, harbinger of doom, and the pain of all the universe's souls burning for eternity in Gehenna will pale in comparison to the rage that courses through my pulsing veins.
2) I will put up with it, because something about the prospect of collecting items and performing achievements and building my characters has hooked me. It is possible for these aspects of a game to be done so well that I will put up with any amount of boring grind - this is most common in MMORPGs, but there are plenty of console games that pull it off as well. However, I have yet to figure out the game design secrets that make these types of character building and completionism so interesting, and I've seen way too many cases where the designers tried and miserably failed. And even in the best-case scenario, it doesn't make the grind itself enjoyable - it just makes it bearable. I would vastly prefer that every battle be unique and engaging and fun, while still having this mechanic.
1) I will despise it utterly. A thousand curses will erupt from my thousand mouths, dooming it to a black eternity. I will become Loki, harbinger of doom, and the pain of all the universe's souls burning for eternity in Gehenna will pale in comparison to the rage that courses through my pulsing veins.
2) I will put up with it, because something about the prospect of collecting items and performing achievements and building my characters has hooked me. It is possible for these aspects of a game to be done so well that I will put up with any amount of boring grind - this is most common in MMORPGs, but there are plenty of console games that pull it off as well. However, I have yet to figure out the game design secrets that make these types of character building and completionism so interesting, and I've seen way too many cases where the designers tried and miserably failed. And even in the best-case scenario, it doesn't make the grind itself enjoyable - it just makes it bearable. I would vastly prefer that every battle be unique and engaging and fun, while still having this mechanic.
Shinan
4314
Another grind mind game to consider is the optional grinding. I found that I enjoy (for a given value of enjoy) the optional grinding a lot more than any sort of forced grinding. I think this is what Feldschlacht is saying in the original post. My example is Mass Effect. I don't know what it is about that game but I go around the universe exploring planets and killing bad guys in identical research facilities. Not because I have to (I most definitely don't have to since there's a clear main mission to go on) but because...
Yeah. Why? Probably something like the Romancing Saga thing. Equipment, exploration, levels. "One more turn/sidemission/planet".
One of the more recent mindgames (and more obvious ones) that is very popular right now is the Achievements mindgame. Like, "one more turn" it also ties in with the grinding (What doesn't?). Adding achievements to a game greatly increases the mindgame factor. Of course the player may be aware of this mindgame factor in this case (because it's fairly obvious and it's been talked about) but it's also a sweet carrot. You can get dings for the most outrageous things and some of them increase the lifespan of a game. Especially a more sandboxy or open strategy game achievements can make you go for goals you didn't know existed. And once you've done NEARLY everything you see that list and think "man. If I had two more achievements I would have 50. And that's only ten away from the full set of 60..."
Yeah. Why? Probably something like the Romancing Saga thing. Equipment, exploration, levels. "One more turn/sidemission/planet".
One of the more recent mindgames (and more obvious ones) that is very popular right now is the Achievements mindgame. Like, "one more turn" it also ties in with the grinding (What doesn't?). Adding achievements to a game greatly increases the mindgame factor. Of course the player may be aware of this mindgame factor in this case (because it's fairly obvious and it's been talked about) but it's also a sweet carrot. You can get dings for the most outrageous things and some of them increase the lifespan of a game. Especially a more sandboxy or open strategy game achievements can make you go for goals you didn't know existed. And once you've done NEARLY everything you see that list and think "man. If I had two more achievements I would have 50. And that's only ten away from the full set of 60..."
Yeaster
6164
-Games that are boring but you keep on playing them. This is sort of 50/50 because some games are known for having a slow start but end up being fantastic
Persona 2
and other games pretty much just suck the whole way through (and it's only known to those of us who actually play the entire game expecting it to get better when it doesn't).
Rule of Rose x.x
Can you guys think of ways that games get in your head and compel you to play them, and what crafty ways can you apply that game design to your games? Let's talk about it!
For me to keep playing, the game just needs to have cool and entertaining characters and beatable battles, or the potential to have cool and entertaining characters. I've played some games in which the characters were *almost* interesting, but never quite reached their potential (FF12), and others that started off painfully slow and "basic", but then became awesome and stayed that way for the entire game (Shadow Hearts 2).
I don't really ask for much. I'm easy to please and I won't just give up on a game if it introduced one thing I didn't like (without giving it the chance to see how it's handled, first).
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
I strongly dislike the ability to optionally make yourself retardedly strong via grind. Grind is insanely boring, and the only reason you'd ever do it is to make yourself stronger than your supposed to be. This is a mental compulsion - we want to be stronger, it's how our brain works. There are goals with rewards, so we want to do them, no matter how boring they are. But, the fact is, if you're stronger than you're supposed to be, the game is a lot less fun. All the challenge disappears, replaced by grind. It's lose-lose, and makes the game less fun in every way, but we do it anyway because that's how we're wired.
Keep in mind Locke, this topic is more than grinding, man. It's one an example of what I was trying to talk about.
Saga series. Enemies and bosses adjust to how strong you are.
I don't mind grinding, though, personally.
But, the fact is, if you're stronger than you're supposed to be, the game is a lot less fun. All the challenge disappears, replaced by grind. It's lose-lose, and makes the game less fun in every way, but we do it anyway because that's how we're wired.
Saga series. Enemies and bosses adjust to how strong you are.
I don't mind grinding, though, personally.
LightningLord2
230
I don't think players would do something unfun to make the game unfun - that's why grinding is made so tedious in first place. I view it as an emergency option if you don't have the skill (or screwed up your resources) to overcome an opponent. The difficult boss is usually the mark where the game becomes a challenge. Or it requires a simple strategic trick to overcome him (like an obscure status effect or a different playstyle).
Another thing: What is it called when the game uses literal fake difficulty aka "This looks really hard to do, but it's actually quite easy"?
Another thing: What is it called when the game uses literal fake difficulty aka "This looks really hard to do, but it's actually quite easy"?
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
I dunno, I know more people than not who refuse to ever be at suboptimal power. If the power is available, then we want it, because it's power. We don't consciously do it to make the game unfun - our intuition says that the point of the game is to overcome the challenges, and to overcome challenges we need power, so we should collect power. But the end result is usually - not always, as your example of the SaGa series shows, but almost always - that the battles themselves no longer involve any sort of tactics or challenge once we have obtained all the power possible. They become too easy, and no longer keep us on the edge of our seats.
Part of the reason you don't mind grinding is because we as humans enjoy doing things for a reward. But the other part of the reason you don't mind grinding is, most likely, because you haven't played many RPGs that grant the same type of reward structure but without the grind. The rewards for the work are what you want - that's the mind game that you need to try to utilize. The work being incredibly repetitive is not something that helps your game out.
Most of the other ideas in the OP are equally annoying. Poorly thought out difficulty curves, grinding, and uncompelling gameplay are the three most intolerable ways to kill an RPG. They're not mind games in themselves - they're blatantly negative things, but mind games can make the player look past them.
Part of the reason you don't mind grinding is because we as humans enjoy doing things for a reward. But the other part of the reason you don't mind grinding is, most likely, because you haven't played many RPGs that grant the same type of reward structure but without the grind. The rewards for the work are what you want - that's the mind game that you need to try to utilize. The work being incredibly repetitive is not something that helps your game out.
Most of the other ideas in the OP are equally annoying. Poorly thought out difficulty curves, grinding, and uncompelling gameplay are the three most intolerable ways to kill an RPG. They're not mind games in themselves - they're blatantly negative things, but mind games can make the player look past them.
A suddenly difficult boss that forces the player to change his strategy and explore his options is blatantly negative?
I don't think grinding is an inherently bad thing, either. HAVING to grind, maybe. But the option? Nah.
I don't think grinding is an inherently bad thing, either. HAVING to grind, maybe. But the option? Nah.
Lennon
88
I think what I'd like to see more of is your first point. I can't even remember the last time I felt satisfaction because I beat something in a game, seriously. It seems everyone nowadays, even big corporations are too worried about the fact that something might be kind of challenging, and they just make everything piss easy. I end up having to switch on hard mode on the first playthrough, or having to make my own special rules to increase the difficulty.
I find it really sad that this is becoming the norm, because it stops me from having fun when I'm playing a game. I beat a boss or something, and instead of going "FUCK YES" I just go "Okay." It really freaking bothers me.
I find it really sad that this is becoming the norm, because it stops me from having fun when I'm playing a game. I beat a boss or something, and instead of going "FUCK YES" I just go "Okay." It really freaking bothers me.
post=152520
I strongly dislike the ability to optionally make yourself retardedly strong via grind. Grind is insanely boring, and the only reason you'd ever do it is to make yourself stronger than your supposed to be. This is a mental compulsion - we want to be stronger, it's how our brain works. There are goals with rewards, so we want to do them, no matter how boring they are. But, the fact is, if you're stronger than you're supposed to be, the game is a lot less fun. All the challenge disappears, replaced by grind. It's lose-lose, and makes the game less fun in every way, but we do it anyway because that's how we're wired.
Really? I actually like grinding to make myself a bit stronger. For me the option to do that is almost a requirement. I would probably be really turned off from a game that didn't allow you to grind. First time when I played FFT I thought there weren't any repeatable battles so I ditched it and didn't come back to it for months.
Strategy: Die.
Lennon
I think what I'd like to see more of is your first point. I can't even remember the last time I felt satisfaction because I beat something in a game, seriously. It seems everyone nowadays, even big corporations are too worried about the fact that something might be kind of challenging, and they just make everything piss easy. I end up having to switch on hard mode on the first playthrough, or having to make my own special rules to increase the difficulty.
I find it really sad that this is becoming the norm, because it stops me from having fun when I'm playing a game. I beat a boss or something, and instead of going "FUCK YES" I just go "Okay." It really freaking bothers me.
This is because of
1) Balancing for all ages! Example: FF6 is such an easy game you can beat it by passing your controller to your dog as a chew toy. But when I first played it lil' me actually...... died in the game! More than once! Games are more often than not made to appeal to a wider audience and one safe approach to this appeal is to err on the side of being easy.
This is also why difficulty levels are nice.
2) Developers can't balance worth shit first try.
Also on mind games: may have been posted before but whatever
Pladough
163
Loot whoring makes everything fun! It's probably the best reward system for having monotonous and difficult game play.
post=152473
-'Gameplay which is compelling but not'. So I was playing Romancing Saga the other day, right? And I was doing a bunch of miscellaneous side quests, just getting gold, equipment, and dicking around. One day I played for about five hours straight, and sometime into I realized I wasn't even really paying attention to what I was doing half the time. I spend most of the random battles browsing the internet or listening to music, I half paid attention to wandering around the towns, and I meandered from dungeon to dungeon. I kinda realized that I spent the last few hours doing nothing but investing in getting pimp ass equipment and class level ups for my characters, simply for the sake of doing the exact same thing for another five hours. And I did. I know I basically described 'grinding', but it's something that people love to hate! Grinding is boring when its boring, but when its not, I like to call it 'spending hours upon hours pimping out my party members'.
this paragraph in particular stuck out at me. i am something of an atypical player in this sense, i suppose, but i love grinding. consciously, even. i make the conscious decision to grind, and find it highly enjoyable. the reward of busting out two or three levels on a couple of my pokemon just running around in the grass- the excitement of finally being high enough level to equip my pimped higher-ranked equipment i've had for the last 10 levels and haven't been able to use in that MMO that i play occasionally- the rush i get from WASTING a boss in a final fantasy title when i've taken the time to severely overlevel myself doing random crap... i get off on all of that hugely. i want to say it appeals to the completionist in me- getting to unnaturally high levels is like finding that last fucking skultula in Ocarina of Time- completely unnecessary to just enjoy the game casually, but really really rewarding. to me at least. in the pokemon games, it takes me forever to get a playthrough of whatever the latest formulaic main storyline is in because i'm spending all my time between gyms/towns grinding like crazy. not because i need to, not to achieve any real goal, not to beat the next doods or whatever- because i enjoy it. i guess it could be that in some cases, i'm subconsciously adding 'challenge' or longevity to an otherwise easy/short game. i encountered a scenario like that when playing the (extremely under-rated and highly entertaining!) GBA Medabots titles- i went through those games and got every single medapart for my little robot dudes. took me fucking forever- the gameplay clock that displays on the save screen is maxed out. i literally played the game for longer than it could count.
moral of this long, rambly, directionless paragraph: grinding/monotony isn't always a bad thing! some of us really like it! that said, i like grinding best when i don't have to do it. i love it most when it's a self-imposed challenge. balance in any genre of game is tricky business, but as has been said before, i'd tend to err on the side of making things a bit on the easy side. if you're determined to make a hard game, strive for that kind of hard that's present in the Castlevania series- that 'oh fuck you' level of hard that's just easy enough that you can gradually make progress, but just infuriating enough that it keeps you playing after every senseless death because you know you can do this shit mang fuck it.
on a kind of similar note, i'd like to sidebar mention EXTREME GRIND-LIKE EXPLORABILITY as seen in the DQ series/Hero's Realm/games that emulate the DQ series. does every chest and night stand need stuff in it? do you like going through and trying to fine-toothed-comb your way through every nook and cranny of every insignificant house in every town? i certainly do, but i find i don't like it when there's tonnes of shit everywhere. then it just gets a little pointless and i feel like a dick for taking all of these peasant's worldly possessions. magical acorn hidden in that chest that's a little puzzling to get to in the back of a house? totally awesome. tease chest hidden high above me somewhere? awesome. three dressers in one room that all give me 4gp or a miscellaneous useless herb? not awesome.
