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MICRO VS. MACRO CUSTOMIZATION
Posts
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
LockeZ
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CloseCharacter customization is a major component in many RPGs. You can give your characters armor with different special effects, different resistances, higher pdef or higher mdef or higher secondary stats. You can give them weapons that deal elemental damage, that deal less damage but improve their magic, that randomly inflict status effects, that work from the back row, that improve in power when the character's HP is lower. In most games you can customize, at least to some extent, which spells and skills your characters know. In many games you can spent talent points or use some other similar mechanic to give passive bonuses to the character.
But you usually don't have fine-tuned control. You might get one weapon that does normal damage, and one that does 60% as much damage, is dark elemental, and has a 10% chance to inflict blind. Where are the in-between options? To give you the most customization, you would be able to also get one that does 80% as much damage and is dark-elemental, one that does 80% as much damage and inflicts blind, one that does 90% as much damage and inflicts blind half as often, one that does 70% as much damage and inflicts blind half as often while doing dark damage... More to the point, these wouldn't be different weapons, each with their own set of effects. Effects wouldn't come in a set. You would simply be able to choose individual effects.
This would offer the player the most options, no?
Yet offering players fine-tuned customization is extremely rare, even in games that pride themselves on their depth of customization, like Etrian Odyssey and Shin Megami Tensei. Effects come in sets. Always in sets. To get this talent, you have to take the three above it. To get paralyze immunity, you have to wear the bracelet that's weak to holy. To get the area healing spell, you have to use the priest class, which comes with six other spells and a whole set of stat mods and equipment restrictions. If you want a different set of effects than what the game offers, you're out of luck! You're forced to take skills and effects that you don't plan on using or don't like in order to get the ones you really want.
The question is, does this kind of limitation add depth or remove it? If you go to one extreme, you simply have the player choosing from a small set of wholly prebuilt characters, a la FF4 Advance, with no other customization available. At that point the game essentially has no customization at all, removing an entire key aspect of gameplay. But this creates a much tighter balance between experienced and inexperienced players, putting them on close to the same playing field, and allowing your game's difficulty level to be more appropriate. If you go to the other extreme, the player can literally align their stats and powers any way imaginable. But this inherently creates a ridiculously deep gap in power between people who build themselves optimally and those who are trying things out or who don't put much thought into their build, and as a result the game is either absurdly easy for people who enjoy customization or absurdly hard for people who don't (or both).
Which do you guys prefer, as players when playing a game? Do you think most other players feel differently than yourself? Do you prefer a middle ground? If so, how close to one side or the other?
But you usually don't have fine-tuned control. You might get one weapon that does normal damage, and one that does 60% as much damage, is dark elemental, and has a 10% chance to inflict blind. Where are the in-between options? To give you the most customization, you would be able to also get one that does 80% as much damage and is dark-elemental, one that does 80% as much damage and inflicts blind, one that does 90% as much damage and inflicts blind half as often, one that does 70% as much damage and inflicts blind half as often while doing dark damage... More to the point, these wouldn't be different weapons, each with their own set of effects. Effects wouldn't come in a set. You would simply be able to choose individual effects.
This would offer the player the most options, no?
Yet offering players fine-tuned customization is extremely rare, even in games that pride themselves on their depth of customization, like Etrian Odyssey and Shin Megami Tensei. Effects come in sets. Always in sets. To get this talent, you have to take the three above it. To get paralyze immunity, you have to wear the bracelet that's weak to holy. To get the area healing spell, you have to use the priest class, which comes with six other spells and a whole set of stat mods and equipment restrictions. If you want a different set of effects than what the game offers, you're out of luck! You're forced to take skills and effects that you don't plan on using or don't like in order to get the ones you really want.
The question is, does this kind of limitation add depth or remove it? If you go to one extreme, you simply have the player choosing from a small set of wholly prebuilt characters, a la FF4 Advance, with no other customization available. At that point the game essentially has no customization at all, removing an entire key aspect of gameplay. But this creates a much tighter balance between experienced and inexperienced players, putting them on close to the same playing field, and allowing your game's difficulty level to be more appropriate. If you go to the other extreme, the player can literally align their stats and powers any way imaginable. But this inherently creates a ridiculously deep gap in power between people who build themselves optimally and those who are trying things out or who don't put much thought into their build, and as a result the game is either absurdly easy for people who enjoy customization or absurdly hard for people who don't (or both).
Which do you guys prefer, as players when playing a game? Do you think most other players feel differently than yourself? Do you prefer a middle ground? If so, how close to one side or the other?
I find that in a lot of games with a very high level of customization, there is an optimal build that all characters should match (or try to match if there are enough restrictions). When there is an optimal build, customization becomes a very easy puzzle to solve: make everyone identical. Not only does that create the gap in power between those who love to customize and those who don't like you mentioned, it actually ruins a key point of customization: making the characters yours.
On the other hand, I like it when equipment is a choice and not just a series of plot-dependent stat boosts. So I guess I'm on the middle ground, though I prefer having a small number of big choices (like your 100% damage weapon versus your 60% damage + dark element + blind weapon) to a large number of small choices.
On the other hand, I like it when equipment is a choice and not just a series of plot-dependent stat boosts. So I guess I'm on the middle ground, though I prefer having a small number of big choices (like your 100% damage weapon versus your 60% damage + dark element + blind weapon) to a large number of small choices.
Levin
8
This is actually a topic I've been running through my head the other month when planning for my game. I know there are different things for different people, but I prefer something in the middle ground.
When games have it so you earn points to spend in stats when you level up, on top of a bunch of equipment that are the same but with minor tweaks in bonuses it offers, that's when I think it goes a bit far. It becomes too confusing on what you should aim for, what the optimal set at different points in the game are, and sometimes you don't know what other options are out there. This seems to be commonly done with western RPGs (to my knowledge), where they have Cotton Cloak of Vitality and Cotton Cloak of Power. But they drop so randomly.
Then on the other hand, I hate it when characters are already cookie-cutter on roles, and there is no way to change them at all. You go from Bronze Sword > Iron Sword > etc. Where there are minor special equipment that give special bonuses, but they become outdated too fast stat wise and are useless to use beyond certain points.
My middle ground was stripping any special effects from equip (well, I dropped the normal equipment menu, but won't go into that). Now equipment is for stats (different equipment for different stat builds), but for those special effects they become traits that you can set. You can only set a certain amount of traits at one time, but this lets you keep that "Darkness Damage". To balance this, you'll have to figure out different tiers of the trait and their potency. 50% SPD bonus would be broken if you could have it all times. Then the only thing left would figure out how you want the characters to learn those traits in a balanced way. So that all the characters had a chance at learning the same traits.
So pretty much, I prefer to keep customizable effects and stats apart.
When games have it so you earn points to spend in stats when you level up, on top of a bunch of equipment that are the same but with minor tweaks in bonuses it offers, that's when I think it goes a bit far. It becomes too confusing on what you should aim for, what the optimal set at different points in the game are, and sometimes you don't know what other options are out there. This seems to be commonly done with western RPGs (to my knowledge), where they have Cotton Cloak of Vitality and Cotton Cloak of Power. But they drop so randomly.
Then on the other hand, I hate it when characters are already cookie-cutter on roles, and there is no way to change them at all. You go from Bronze Sword > Iron Sword > etc. Where there are minor special equipment that give special bonuses, but they become outdated too fast stat wise and are useless to use beyond certain points.
My middle ground was stripping any special effects from equip (well, I dropped the normal equipment menu, but won't go into that). Now equipment is for stats (different equipment for different stat builds), but for those special effects they become traits that you can set. You can only set a certain amount of traits at one time, but this lets you keep that "Darkness Damage". To balance this, you'll have to figure out different tiers of the trait and their potency. 50% SPD bonus would be broken if you could have it all times. Then the only thing left would figure out how you want the characters to learn those traits in a balanced way. So that all the characters had a chance at learning the same traits.
So pretty much, I prefer to keep customizable effects and stats apart.
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
author=Levin
You go from Bronze Sword > Iron Sword > etc. Where there are minor special equipment that give special bonuses, but they become outdated too fast stat wise and are useless to use beyond certain points.
If you think this is a significant problem, one solution is to make it so at every stage of upgrades, you can get the same special bonuses. But, as you said, this results in the Iron Sword of Frost Damage, Bronze Sword of Frost Damage, Iron Sword of Intellect, Bronze Sword of Intellect, etc. The end result is that the optimal set never really changes over the course of the game. But I don't like that. I like the game to change as it goes on, forcing the player to adapt and find new strategies continuously. So I think in my upcoming game I'll give a fair number of options at a time, but not redo the same ones.
At the end of the game, though, I probably will give tons of different options - for the final boss, the hardest enemy in the game, I think the player should have to put more work into figuring out their build, and should feel like they're as powerful as they can possibly be. Aside from making sense balance-wise, this helps to make the boss feel as important and climactic as possible.
Shinan
4314
I like the micro-customization found in some tactical games. Where you have a weapon and as you use it you gain "familiarity" with it. That way when you later find a "better" weapon while looting a body or similar there's the tradeoff between getting a more powerful weapon and leaving a weapon that you're familiar with (familiarity meaning more criticals and whatnot).
In games with limited weapons or weapon groups there's also the macro-aspect of leveling up weapons (weapon groups so sword and spear are different groups and you level them up differently but picking up any sword will have the sword level and not different levels between bronze sword and iron sword. You know what I mean). Building a character that will pass up certain weapons because he doesn't have those bonus perks that goes with it. (in this case the leveling up would be smaller bonuses. So that a good spear might beat out a crappy sword temporarily even if you've only leveled in swords)
To add to the familiarity and weapon leveling I also sort of like it when weapons degrade and eventually break. Putting an incentive to change weapons when weapon strength isn't that different all the time. The problem with degrading is of course that players are less likely to use their backup sword of awesome if they're afraid it might become useless. It's the dilemma with "awesome expendables" (like megalixirs).
I guess I am somewhere in the middle ground. I like the small bonuses "familiarity" might give and I like leveling up weapon groups (even if it is soemthing like putting skill points into "melee" in Fallout. That's a kind of weapon leveling). The customization of particular weapons is a bit more difficult because often it means going to a weapon smith to upgrade your weapon for money but the "awesome expendable" rule means that if I upgrade a weapon and then later find a more awesome one I've wasted money. Even if I have countless amounts of money to spend and it wouldn't hurt one bit... I guess this is a highly personal problem and not really something that you have to think about too much generally.
In games with limited weapons or weapon groups there's also the macro-aspect of leveling up weapons (weapon groups so sword and spear are different groups and you level them up differently but picking up any sword will have the sword level and not different levels between bronze sword and iron sword. You know what I mean). Building a character that will pass up certain weapons because he doesn't have those bonus perks that goes with it. (in this case the leveling up would be smaller bonuses. So that a good spear might beat out a crappy sword temporarily even if you've only leveled in swords)
To add to the familiarity and weapon leveling I also sort of like it when weapons degrade and eventually break. Putting an incentive to change weapons when weapon strength isn't that different all the time. The problem with degrading is of course that players are less likely to use their backup sword of awesome if they're afraid it might become useless. It's the dilemma with "awesome expendables" (like megalixirs).
I guess I am somewhere in the middle ground. I like the small bonuses "familiarity" might give and I like leveling up weapon groups (even if it is soemthing like putting skill points into "melee" in Fallout. That's a kind of weapon leveling). The customization of particular weapons is a bit more difficult because often it means going to a weapon smith to upgrade your weapon for money but the "awesome expendable" rule means that if I upgrade a weapon and then later find a more awesome one I've wasted money. Even if I have countless amounts of money to spend and it wouldn't hurt one bit... I guess this is a highly personal problem and not really something that you have to think about too much generally.
Crystalgate
694
I don't care about the number of options, I only care about the number of viable options. Trim away all obviously subpar options and what's left is what counts.
Include at most as many options as you're capable of handling. More options can actually make things less strategic. If one skill obsoletes three others, you just made a net loss of two skills. The same goes for equipment and any other aspect you may customize.
However, I prefer a variation when it comes to customization. I want there to at least be a question of what equipment I should give my characters. Even if you have a knight type character who's role is to both have good physical defense and deal good physical damage, that doesn't mean only one type of weapon and armor has to be viable at any point of the game. Other than that though, I have nothing against characters with predetermined roles. I don't mind being able to design my own roles either. The beauty of playing different games is that you get different experiences.
Include at most as many options as you're capable of handling. More options can actually make things less strategic. If one skill obsoletes three others, you just made a net loss of two skills. The same goes for equipment and any other aspect you may customize.
However, I prefer a variation when it comes to customization. I want there to at least be a question of what equipment I should give my characters. Even if you have a knight type character who's role is to both have good physical defense and deal good physical damage, that doesn't mean only one type of weapon and armor has to be viable at any point of the game. Other than that though, I have nothing against characters with predetermined roles. I don't mind being able to design my own roles either. The beauty of playing different games is that you get different experiences.
I am in agreement with CommieDog - when you give such fine-grained customization options, what comes out of it is an "optimal build" (or, depending on the game "optimal builds for each class"). And then all this customization becomes rather meaningless. Sometimes, if the makers are careful, there are a handful optimal or near-optimal builds for each class. So in the end there is no meaningful choices for the player to make (if they want to be the best, that is).
The other problem is that when presented with a bajillion choices from the get go, coupled with an unfamiliarity with the game, there is a high chance of "screwing up" the build and starting down a non-optimal (or even downright terrible!) path.(Some games account for this, and allow you to redistribute your points at a later time in the game).
I am a big fan of fewer but more significant choices.
The other problem is that when presented with a bajillion choices from the get go, coupled with an unfamiliarity with the game, there is a high chance of "screwing up" the build and starting down a non-optimal (or even downright terrible!) path.(Some games account for this, and allow you to redistribute your points at a later time in the game).
I am a big fan of fewer but more significant choices.
Drakonais
2787
author=Crystalgate
If one skill obsoletes three others, you just made a net loss of two skills.
I've always believed this, and this is a very good way of putting it. I try my best to have almost every skill in the game be useful for the duration. Very rarely will I design a skill simply to hit harder than another.
My latest project has leveling skills. As Shinan mentioned, if you have a class with highly-leveled skills, you could say you have a "familiarity" with it and might think twice before switching from a role you've built up.
I'd say just because a character accepts a priest class and the advantages/disadvantages of that choice, there are always ways to customize. Give the class several robes or staves to choose from. Let the user assign two classes to one actor and your choices multiply. Various ways to reach whatever happy medium you want in your game.
I'm actually very interested in the reactions in this thread.
Absolutely. The original post mixes complaints together in a strange way, IMO. Why is it inherently bad that some customization comes with a second set of advantages and restrictions on top of it? That's all part of the interlacing of that game's strategy. Even in a situation where you're only being offered a list of preconstructed classes, as is the case in a vast majority of class-changing games or skill-tree setups, you're still given enough freedom of choice that you don't even necessarily realize you aren't 'customizing' anything on a micro-level.
FFX is a good example. The Sphere Grid is criticized for ultimately making all characters identical, but it DID offer some choices along the way. Completely ignore that it invalidates those choices after a large number of play hours - focus on the point: Wakka could break off down Auron's Path reasonably early or keep on his own path. Just because those paths are both laid out linearly doesn't mean you're not choosing how to direct Wakka's progression. Until the grid implodes on itself after a couple hundred hours of gameplay (read: too much of my life spent on FFX), that's enough to make customizing interesting for me!
author=Drakonais
I'd say just because a character accepts a priest class and the advantages/disadvantages of that choice, there are always ways to customize. Give the class several robes or staves to choose from. Let the user assign two classes to one actor and your choices multiply. Various ways to reach whatever happy medium you want in your game.
Absolutely. The original post mixes complaints together in a strange way, IMO. Why is it inherently bad that some customization comes with a second set of advantages and restrictions on top of it? That's all part of the interlacing of that game's strategy. Even in a situation where you're only being offered a list of preconstructed classes, as is the case in a vast majority of class-changing games or skill-tree setups, you're still given enough freedom of choice that you don't even necessarily realize you aren't 'customizing' anything on a micro-level.
FFX is a good example. The Sphere Grid is criticized for ultimately making all characters identical, but it DID offer some choices along the way. Completely ignore that it invalidates those choices after a large number of play hours - focus on the point: Wakka could break off down Auron's Path reasonably early or keep on his own path. Just because those paths are both laid out linearly doesn't mean you're not choosing how to direct Wakka's progression. Until the grid implodes on itself after a couple hundred hours of gameplay (read: too much of my life spent on FFX), that's enough to make customizing interesting for me!
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
author=kentona
Sometimes, if the makers are careful, there are a handful optimal or near-optimal builds for each class. So in the end there is no meaningful choices for the player to make (if they want to be the best, that is).
I disagree that just because one option isn't strictly better than another in every way, that the choice isn't meaningful. This is pretty much the basic idea of customization - give the player multiple choices that aren't strictly better than one-another, and let them pick the one that most suits their play style, or that they enjoy the most, or that they think is most likely to be useful in the upcoming stages, or whatever.
So are you saying you don't see the point of customization? I know one guy who can't enjoy RPGs at all unless they have tons of customization, that's his biggest criteria for playing the game. From your post it sounds like you think some basic equipment customization is good enough, which I'm sure a lot of gamers would disagree with.
author=Versalia
FFX is a good example. The Sphere Grid is criticized for ultimately making all characters identical, but it DID offer some choices along the way.
FFX is actually a really good example of micro-customization. You individually choose every ability, every stat gain. You can get dozens of possible effects in any combination on your equipment. This is pretty much exactly what I meant by micro customization.
author=Versalia
The original post mixes complaints together in a strange way, IMO.
Yeah, it's true. This is because in the original post I basically tried to highlight both sides of a series of discussions I've had with another developer over AIM. I was not necessarily implying in the original post that micro-customization is better or worse. If you want my own personal opinion, I'm not really sure what it is yet. I'm leaning towards probably including a solid amount of both types of customization, but that's honestly less because I think it's the best idea and more because I can't come up with a good answer.
What I was saying that there is almost always one option that is strictly better than another in every way, and therefore the choice is meaningless (because people will "choose" the better option).
EDIT:
You need to read the entire paragraph:
"when you give such fine-grained customization options, what comes out of it is an "optimal build" (or, depending on the game "optimal builds for each class"). And then all this customization becomes rather meaningless."
EDIT:
You need to read the entire paragraph:
"when you give such fine-grained customization options, what comes out of it is an "optimal build" (or, depending on the game "optimal builds for each class"). And then all this customization becomes rather meaningless."
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, if you have options that are strictly better than others available at the same point in the game, you're doing customization entirely wrong. Are you saying you think one method is more likely to cause this problem than the other, or just that you think any real customization in a video game is an impossible ideal?
author=kentona
What I was saying that there is almost always one option that is strictly better than another in every way, and therefore the choice is meaningless (because people will "choose" the better option).
EDIT:
You need to read the entire paragraph:
"when you give such fine-grained customization options, what comes out of it is an "optimal build" (or, depending on the game "optimal builds for each class"). And then all this customization becomes rather meaningless."
There is no real choice... we are just cogs in a machine //_.
author=LockeZYeah, pretty much 'yes' on both counts (that fine-grained customization is much more prone to the 'there-is-really-only-one-optimal-build' issue and that in practice, trying to make a balanced 'real' customization system in a game is a near-impossible ideal.)
Well, if you have options that are strictly better than others available at the same point in the game, you're doing customization entirely wrong. Are you saying you think one method is more likely to cause this problem than the other, or just that you think any real customization in a video game is an impossible ideal?
What I see happening a lot in game with lots of customization/skill trees/whatever, is that after a while certain classes/builds/techs (the "optimal" ones) get nerfed in a patch. And then the process starts again and a new "optimal" build is discovered. (Sometimes, if the developers are lucky and perservere, they eventually get to a point where the builds are balanced and all equally optimal and in-tune with the difficulty of the game.)
Shinan
4314
On the other hand the "optimal build" really only matters in multiplayer games. As long as no build is so broken that the game becomes unplayable builds that are "nearly equal" are good enough.
And especially with RPGs they have a history of not being overly game-balanced in favour of giving players lots of options. Sometimes this means that builds clearly are imbalanced. (Bards being shit in D&D, guns being shit in Arcanum, etc) But one of those hardcore RPGers will make a suboptimal build just because they want to play a gunslinging bard.
Of course in online games that are competitive in any shape or form balance is key.
And especially with RPGs they have a history of not being overly game-balanced in favour of giving players lots of options. Sometimes this means that builds clearly are imbalanced. (Bards being shit in D&D, guns being shit in Arcanum, etc) But one of those hardcore RPGers will make a suboptimal build just because they want to play a gunslinging bard.
Of course in online games that are competitive in any shape or form balance is key.
Luckily, Diablo II: LOD is one of those games where the developers have incessantly rebalanced and rejiggered the game so that there are more than 1 optimal build.
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 would say that balancing your game so that all the options are equal is, well, ultra-fundamental RTP design. The fact that there are commercial RPGs that fail miserably at it doesn't change the fact that it's not extremely important and necessary! It's hard to think of a more basic and fundamental skill in designing RPGs. I would certainly not label it as advanced by any means, and most definitely not dependant on "luck".
Balance is almost synonymous with gameplay. If your game lacks balance, the player has no real choices. If the player has no real choices, it's not really interactive. If it's not really interactive, it's not really a game. Neglecting balance is not an option!
I fully admit that if you play my older games, though, there's not a lot of great balance going on outside of battle. I focused on giving lots of equally useful options during battle instead, and didn't include much customization outside of battle beyond choosing your party members and your accessories. But balancing battle skills and balancing customizable builds are similar skills in a lot of ways. If you can manage to give a character two skills that are both useful, then you can probably manage to give the character two builds that are both useful. Especially if you're using micro customization, and the only difference between those two "builds" is a single skill!
Balance is almost synonymous with gameplay. If your game lacks balance, the player has no real choices. If the player has no real choices, it's not really interactive. If it's not really interactive, it's not really a game. Neglecting balance is not an option!
I fully admit that if you play my older games, though, there's not a lot of great balance going on outside of battle. I focused on giving lots of equally useful options during battle instead, and didn't include much customization outside of battle beyond choosing your party members and your accessories. But balancing battle skills and balancing customizable builds are similar skills in a lot of ways. If you can manage to give a character two skills that are both useful, then you can probably manage to give the character two builds that are both useful. Especially if you're using micro customization, and the only difference between those two "builds" is a single skill!
Pokemaniac
3559
So are you saying that if I invest all of my fighter's skill points into magic I should end up with a balanced character? :| Of course not every build in an RPG will be equal. While having equal builds gives the player options, it also gives them no reason to explore other builds once they find one they're comfortable with.
