Failure in gaming.. or the lack of it.
- Thread starter Manji187
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I'm pretty sure almost everyone here has probably come up with this idea before.Manji187 said:
It would be great though. It would make a game more like a pen-and-paper RPG.
Ala the awful True Crime: Streets of LA?Manji187 said:
All that happened was that you didn't find out the full story if you were diverted onto a "failure" path - which meant, you guessed it, you went back to retry the previous missions so you could continue along the full story path.
Personally I'd love to see this, I mean it'd spice war games up if they kept going despite you dieing. (I.E. you die and you see your self dead, but the game doesn't start the mission over it loads another mission another day, with you as the replacement to your dead self)
First thing that popped in my mind when I read the OP.zauxz said:
I'm such a fanboy for that game!!! I know, fanboys bad but I don't care.
Well the truth is this part doesn't really change the whole story, just a midsection and not by as much as, I believe, the OP would expect. But it's still a step in the right direction. Also there's another point where you're "scripted" to get caught, but you can:
- Surrender as soon as they say they're trying to catch you
- Kill the person who's trying to arrest you and run
- Go down fighting
Eventually you WILL get caught because they just overwhelm you with assault bots, but the fact is there's about 30 mins of gameplay between the first point where you can surrender and the point where they overwhelm you. Plus, in that extra game time you can take down a main character which changes a future encounter.
... and the reason I'm a fanboy is because almost no other game has done this since then and it's almost been 10 years! Instead of moving on beyond choices like that we just went back to full linearity like nothing happened.
It's been done before to an extent. Some games like Cross Edge include a bad ending as the default and require a lot of work to get a good "truth end" resolution. Then there are games like Silent Hill that have various degrees of "bad" and usually one good or at least not totally bad ending. Then you have games like Dead Rising that require quite a bit of work and timing to get a good ending, and have various degress of "failed" usually ending with the hero dying or never being heard from again if you don't do things perfectly.
The thing is people play games for escapism, so games with generally terrible endings wind up being panned. Think back to games where people have said "well the ending ruined the whole thing for me" and there you go.
The thing is people play games for escapism, so games with generally terrible endings wind up being panned. Think back to games where people have said "well the ending ruined the whole thing for me" and there you go.
Mmm that would be very cool. I had a PS1 game which I forget the name of...a space fighter pilot thing, where you could continue if you lost a battle, and the game would be altered.Furburt said:
Unfortunately that's the only one I've encountered...
Eartseige 2 does not give you the option to retry missions. If you fail, you hope that the defeat didn't cost you the war and move on to the next one.
Alien Front Online (Dreamcast) also had this feature. The game's campaign mode had branching sets of missions. For every 3 missions that you beat, you gained access to 2 different paths - one that went higher on the campaign tree, and one that went lower (if you failed or died on any of the 3 missions, you would only get the lower path). The higher you ended up on the campaign tree at the end, the better the ending you got.
Yes, it was possible to die in every mission you played and get an ending, it would just be a "mankind is completely screwed, have a nice day" (or "the army just completely rocked your shit" if you played as the Aliens) You could also retry missions, so you wouldn't have to play the whole game over again if you wanted to see a different ending.
Yes, it was possible to die in every mission you played and get an ending, it would just be a "mankind is completely screwed, have a nice day" (or "the army just completely rocked your shit" if you played as the Aliens) You could also retry missions, so you wouldn't have to play the whole game over again if you wanted to see a different ending.
Ah another one:
In Freespace 2 there were linked missions where if you failed an objective in one (like destroying a capital ship) you had more trouble in a later mission (said cap. ship joins the battle).
I specifically remember the Sathanas, where you had to destroy it's beam cannons in one mission and had very little time to do it. A later mission was substantially easier if you manage to destroy all of them and very hard if you don't manage to destroy any.
Again, not exactly a different story line from failure, but getting there.
Here's something funny. A lot of the games mentioned are almost 10 years old, or older.
Alien Front Online (2001)
Deus Ex (2000)
Freespace 2 (1999)
Earthsiege 2 (1995)
The other games mentioned are ArmA II and Stalker (might have missed some). There's like an 8 year gap in there. That can't be right. Who's up to doing some research into the matter and see if there's games in all (most) years that have these kinds of failure choices?
In Freespace 2 there were linked missions where if you failed an objective in one (like destroying a capital ship) you had more trouble in a later mission (said cap. ship joins the battle).
I specifically remember the Sathanas, where you had to destroy it's beam cannons in one mission and had very little time to do it. A later mission was substantially easier if you manage to destroy all of them and very hard if you don't manage to destroy any.
Again, not exactly a different story line from failure, but getting there.
That sounds awesome!Duck Sandwich said:
Here's something funny. A lot of the games mentioned are almost 10 years old, or older.
Alien Front Online (2001)
Deus Ex (2000)
Freespace 2 (1999)
Earthsiege 2 (1995)
The other games mentioned are ArmA II and Stalker (might have missed some). There's like an 8 year gap in there. That can't be right. Who's up to doing some research into the matter and see if there's games in all (most) years that have these kinds of failure choices?
WARNING! SPOILER!achilleas.k said:First thing that popped in my mind when I read the OP.zauxz said:
I'm such a fanboy for that game!!! I know, fanboys bad but I don't care.
Well the truth is this part doesn't really change the whole story, just a midsection and not by as much as, I believe, the OP would expect. But it's still a step in the right direction. Also there's another point where you're "scripted" to get caught, but you can:
- Surrender as soon as they say they're trying to catch you
- Kill the person who's trying to arrest you and run
- Go down fighting
Eventually you WILL get caught because they just overwhelm you with assault bots, but the fact is there's about 30 mins of gameplay between the first point where you can surrender and the point where they overwhelm you. Plus, in that extra game time you can take down a main character which changes a future encounter.
... and the reason I'm a fanboy is because almost no other game has done this since then and it's almost been 10 years! Instead of moving on beyond choices like that we just went back to full linearity like nothing happened.
Yeah, but your action then decides whether Paul lives or dies
That's game over.Fire Daemon said:
OT: treating a failure as an alternative way to complete a quest/mission is excellent.
Origin (RIP) did this with the missions in Wing Commander.
The potential for this feature is ramping up the difficulty without scaring away weaker players. The incentive for doing things right would be the succes story. Combine with a gutter failure story for losers and you also get replay value.
From what I can remember reading, Heavy Rain will allow you to kill one of the four main protagonists and continue the story with one of the others untill and 'apparently' you can get a different ending depending on who, if anyone, you let die.
I have also read that the lead dev's favourite ending is one where you let all the characters die.
I have also read that the lead dev's favourite ending is one where you let all the characters die.
This is similar to my idea for making QTE more acceptable. If you fail at them, different things happen other than instant death. Perhaps a different cut scene, or even a whole different story path? We have in-game decisions that can do this, I don't see why not.
Not necessarily. Bioware does this with conversations. I'm pretty sure you only experience around 60% (or even less) of the available conversations in each playthrough in most Bioware games. They didn't think of the cost of recording all that when most players may never see/hear it all. It's not the same, but I can think of ways around designing a large area that will probably go unused, like you're suggesting.Reuq said:
It could be quite easy really. If you fail you cannot change it on that save and there is only one save allowed per character.
After the failure you have a round-the-houses method of fixing it.
What i really hate is the dark-side argument.
You know, like when Malak is all "Join me" and you just think: 'yeah, sure. I'll get my cool face mask back and eventually surplant you' but oh no, the game can't do that.
It's like every game with choice you're really playing a version of Highlander.
"There can be only one."
After the failure you have a round-the-houses method of fixing it.
What i really hate is the dark-side argument.
You know, like when Malak is all "Join me" and you just think: 'yeah, sure. I'll get my cool face mask back and eventually surplant you' but oh no, the game can't do that.
It's like every game with choice you're really playing a version of Highlander.
"There can be only one."
