In order to evolve, games need to devlop more mechanics that don't involve combat

[Erttheking]

I love violent video games as much as the next person, heck I still get giddy at the thought of me and my friends all kicking ass side by side, but I can't help but feel like sometimes gaming is trapped within certain confines. If I had to guess, I'd say a good 70-80% of games involved you fighting in some way. Whether its shooting them in halo, jumping on their heads in Mario, or ordering other men to die for you in Civilization V, most games have combat in some way or form. Even games where it feels like it conflicts with the intended goal, like L.A. Noire, which mainly focuses on being a detective, has rather shoehorned in combat. Gaming could benefit greatly by having more mechanics that don't fall back on combat.

Papers Please, one of the most well liked indie games of the past couple years, barely had any combat. The little combat there was made up 1% of it at most, and it instead focused heavily on simulating the life of a paper pusher, and it did it very well. Dues Ex Human Revolution had a large combat focus, but it also included a conversation system that was very well done, forcing you to think over what to say in heated arguments was a very novel and very well done situation. Civ V, for it's possible centuries long wars, can have hours upon hours of gameplay dedicated to just building up the infrastructure of your country. Already we are seeing so many good ideas in already existing games that could be explored in their own games to create amazing situations.

Do you agree with me? Disagree with me? Can you think of any games that showed interesting non-combat mechanics? Any games that managed to be completely combat free and do it well?

 

[Barbas]

I agree. I think combat only really needs to be so engaging and there is a limit to how much it can contribute to a game. I've always enjoyed writing more. Conversations like the one you have with The Master in Fallout are still quoted today for how memorable they are. Fallout had functional combat with visceral feedback, but the writing was a great deal more beneficial to the overall experience. It even made the combat scenes funnier or surprised you with unexpected tidbits while you were wandering through town, like "I was going to say 'moo'!"

 

[SnakeTrousers]

Agree completely. I'd love to see more games focused around freedom of movement. Apply the flight physics of Journey, for instance, to something a bit larger in scope and I'd be all over it.

 

[krazykidd]

What do you mean?

We got sports games
We got puzzle games
We got visual novels (games)
We got music games
Fitness games.
Card games.
Kareoke games.
We got educational games
We got simulation games
Point and click interactive games.

We got tons and tons of games with little to no violence in it. What more do you wan

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I totally agree. I'm tried of killing things in every game. The RPG genre is the one place where combat doesn't even need to there at all yet almost every RPG has you spending more time fighting enemies more than anything else. Role-playing is to take the role of literally anyone and most fucking roles don't require killing hoards of enemies. Hell, you're usually fighting the same enemies in the same time period with the same weapons/magic in your standard fantasy RPG where it's always the same fantasy over and over again. Fantasy is ANYTHING but real-life yet it's almost always set in a medieval setting.

 

[zedcavalry]

If we go by the John Bain definition of a "game" being something with an "expressed or implied failure state", then yeah, I absolutely agree that combat just isn't flexible enough to evolve much further. We're at a stage where companies and developers are aware of what works, and what doesn't - and because of this, they're scared to try anything new. Combat has become an almost cookie cutter formula in their respective genres.

That's not to say that combat in video games is bad. Provided that it used used and implemented properly, it can be integral to the experience. But if we want innovation to occur in the industry, then we need to develop other aspects of gaming, in order to flesh them out as much as combat has been.

With that being said, if we take the distinction between combat and violence, then there have been a few games which allows combat to take a backseat. For example, Telltale's The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us prioritize story and depth, as opposed to violence. Each piece of dialogue you choose holds an awful lot of impact, and the decisions you make creates the emotion, not the combat. As SnakeTrousers said above, Journey did a wonderful job at taking a game which, in theory, should have been a snoozefest, and transformed it into a short, sweet and emotion experience.

If we allow combat to take a backseat in future games, then we can focus on evolving other aspects - writing, art style, dialogue, genre etc.

 

[Bad Jim]

How about moving combat beyond just giving the player a bunch of cool toys and a legion of generic bad guys to use them on? How about a bit of tactical depth?

 

[Lilani]

Do you agree with me? Disagree with me? Can you think of any games that showed interesting non-combat mechanics? Any games that managed to be completely combat free and do it well?

Games like this have existed forever, and in abundance: Oregon Trail, Bubble Bobble, Professor Layton, Phoenix Wright, DDR, driving games, Sim City, THE Sims, Harvest Moon, Thomas Was Alone...yeah there are fewer of these games than there are of games with combat, but I don't think there is anything happening that is preventing games as a medium from evolving. There are plenty of games which have and continue to not use combat mechanics.

 

[Racecarlock]

Well then buy a game that doesn't heavily involve combat. Unless you're mainly focused on the AAA industry, it shouldn't be that hard. Have you tried the sims? Or thomas was alone? Or the stanley parable? Or portal? Or echo bazaar? Or any management game? Then go get one of those and give it a try.

How about moving combat beyond just giving the player a bunch of cool toys and a legion of generic bad guys to use them on? How about a bit of tactical depth?

You mean like xcom? Or Xcom enemy unknown? Or Rainbow 6? Or metal gear? Or Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter? Or shogun 2? Or age of empires? Or civilization? Or the entire RTS and Turn based strategy genre?

Maybe if you guys stopped focusing exclusively on first and third person shooters all the time, you'd see the rest of the games industry. And I know you're doing that because this topic and that post exists.

 

[DementedSheep]

There a ton of point and click adventure games which tend to be puzzle based and story heavy which might be what you are looking for. Don't take this the wrong way but you might want to check out the causal/ mobile games market since many, possibly most don't involve combat and despite the bad rap they get not all of them are brain dead and easy (and plenty of core games are).

 

[Erttheking]

Well then buy a game that doesn't heavily involve combat. Unless you're mainly focused on the AAA industry, it shouldn't be that hard. Have you tried the sims? Or thomas was alone? Or the stanley parable? Or portal? Or echo bazaar? Or any management game? Then go get one of those and give it a try.

How about moving combat beyond just giving the player a bunch of cool toys and a legion of generic bad guys to use them on? How about a bit of tactical depth?

You mean like xcom? Or Xcom enemy unknown? Or Rainbow 6? Or metal gear? Or Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter? Or shogun 2? Or age of empires? Or civilization? Or the entire RTS and Turn based strategy genre?

Maybe if you guys stopped focusing exclusively on first and third person shooters all the time, you'd see the rest of the games industry. And I know you're doing that because this topic and that post exists.

Do you agree with me? Disagree with me? Can you think of any games that showed interesting non-combat mechanics? Any games that managed to be completely combat free and do it well?

Games like this have existed forever, and in abundance: Oregon Trail, Bubble Bobble, Professor Layton, Phoenix Wright, DDR, driving games, Sim City, THE Sims, Harvest Moon, Thomas Was Alone...yeah there are fewer of these games than there are of games with combat, but I don't think there is anything happening that is preventing games as a medium from evolving. There are plenty of games which have and continue to not use combat mechanics.

I'm not saying that games like that don't exist, (I've played half of those games. I mean geez, cut me a little slack) I'm saying I feel like they're not getting very good representation overall in the industry. I mean they feel royally outnumbered.

 

[AlouetteSK]

I'm not saying that games like that don't exist, (I've played half of those games. I mean geez, cut me a little slack) I'm saying I feel like they're not getting very good representation overall in the industry. I mean they feel royally outnumbered.

MeThinks that's because AAA publishers point the spotlight on this genre. Because the "dudebro" demographic is the easiest to reach through advertisement on the action-packed shooter.
That being said. There are a lot of genres that don't involve violence inflicted on another that can still be competitive. Other posters have already listed some.

Reason why combat mechanics are featured or shoehorned, in my opinion, is so that you still have the option to do so. Biggest example I can point you to is Mirror's Edge. There is hand to hand as well as gun combat, but it's very clunky. You have the option to do so, but the game encourages you to run more efficiently.

 

[Rayce Archer]

I like games with combat, but that also have fun mechanics beyond that. One of my favorite parts of Deus Ex: Human Revolution was the conversations/debates- the way your body language reflects who's dominating the interaction, deciding when to be aggressive and when to be accommodating, it was really immersive and finally

Spoiler

out-debating the anti-augmentation weenie in front of his own confused cronies

was an awesome moment.

 

[communist gamer]

wait what? There is a bunch of genres that have almost no combat what so ever. You have sports games where there is no combat (well ya some do, but not so many) there are puzzle games and point and click games which for the most part have no combat what so ever. Amnesia pretty much created a type of survival horror where your only means of defense is running away or hiding (we had a buttload of those lately, two amnesia, outlast, daylight, FNAF etc.) There are simulator games which have no combat. Strategy games like tropico or democracy 3 have little to no combat, in fact in civilization V only one of the FIVE ways to win is connected with combat, and if you play your cards right you may go through out the whole game with maybe 4-5 wars (when i play wars tend to start when im in the late game like the industrial era or even the atomic era) We even start to count visual novels as games, things such as the wolf among us or that walking dead do not have much combat. Shit even in RPGs like Planescape: torment you can go through the whole game with just a few places where you -need- to fight, opting instead to talk or sneak your way through. So no, i dont see your point, in fact i think we need more violence in video games, and that is the exact reason im waiting for hotline maiami 2


edit: forgot to add something. If you look past the AAA games (which, surprisingly do not make up most of the market) you will find tons of games, and i mean tons which do not focus on combat, or where the are other options then just "kill this mofo with this BFG or BFS". Games are fine the way they are and evolving, each genera by itself. Saying we want less violence in video games is like saying "we want more spicy things" what spicy things? you want more spicy food? maybe a spicy souse or spicy ice-cream? Or maybe you want more spice girls merchandise? If what you mean is you want more AAA titles that are not combat oriented then i can agree with you but video games is just too broad a term

 

[briankoontz]

61% of mainstream games released in 2013 featured killing as a primary form of gameplay, and that doesn't include games with non-lethal fighting. This is a much higher rate than any other mainstream artistic industry.

There are a lot of problems with this, but one is just how lazy it encourages developers to be. Modeling a gun, modeling a bullet, animating a new corpse. Stuff that's been done millions of times before in games. That doesn't require dialogue, it doesn't require player thought beyond the strategic interests of maximizing lethality and minimizing damage taken and resources used. It doesn't even require a context - guns, bullets, and new corpses can exist anywhere, at any time in the modern age, and if it takes place before then the guns and bullets are replaced with swords.

Great games can be made about killing, just like great books and movies can be made about killing, and many have been. But the reason there are relatively few books or movies about killing is that humanity and the world we live in has a tremendous variety to it, and killing is just ONE human activity, and not a very common one in most people's lives.

When a writer sets out to write a screenplay, he chooses from thousands of basic themes, and then takes that theme in one or a few of millions of possible directions. The result is something original and (sometimes) precisely what the writer wants to say. Because it's original it's *interesting* and the viewer sees something he's never seen before and sometimes is enlightened by the experience.

Everyone knows that's not what happens in the game industry. Developers don't start with the full range of human expression and experience. They've grown up on killing games, they've made killing games in the past, publishers WANT them to make killing games because they think that's what the market wants and they know how to market it, so that's what they keep making.

And then gamers convince themselves that's what they want, after being told for decades that's what they want. It's called being weak minded, like the beer industry marketing to a demographic which sits on the couch ogling near-naked women with a beer in hand which didn't exist (in nearly such numbers) prior to a sustained marketing campaign that told them that's just who they are.

There's a reason "Bro" culture is a recent phenomenon, and it has nothing to do with some recent trend in human nature. It has to do with recent marketing strategies.

Don't be a fucking tool. Don't let the game industry define what you want a game to be.

 

[xvxpskowro]

The RPG genre is the one place where combat doesn't even need to there at all yet almost every RPG has you spending more time fighting enemies more than anything else.

 

[Ninjamedic]

Games like this have existed forever, and in abundance: Oregon Trail, Bubble Bobble, Professor Layton, Phoenix Wright, DDR, driving games, Sim City, THE Sims, Harvest Moon, Thomas Was Alone...yeah there are fewer of these games than there are of games with combat, but I don't think there is anything happening that is preventing games as a medium from evolving. There are plenty of games which have and continue to not use combat mechanics.

I have to second this. Non-Combative games have existed since the start of the medium, while they may not be the focus at all at the moment (Though the casual market begs to differ on that point) it doesn't mean the medium is being held back.

Computer Games, apart from lowering their insane budgets to allow for actual design again, don't need to do anything. If there is enough of a demand for non-combat games, someone will capitalise on it. Just look at Gone Home, Amnesia or any of the recent adventure titles. Hell even the TWINE titles are showing that we do have these ideas around.

Hell you've already named titles that don't focus on combat or leave it out. And they aren't exactly fringe titles now are they?

 

[Lilani]

I'm not saying that games like that don't exist, (I've played half of those games. I mean geez, cut me a little slack) I'm saying I feel like they're not getting very good representation overall in the industry. I mean they feel royally outnumbered.

Well, action movies dominate Hollywood these days. That's just what comes with an industry that's out to make money. Formulas that are known to attract big bucks will always come out in spades. I think if anything it's now easier for games not centered around combat to come out. From Steam greenlight to kickstarters, indie developers who have different ideas that aren't getting picked up by major publishers have more ways than ever to get their games off the ground and to the masses. If you're having trouble finding games these days that aren't centered around killing or combat, I'm afraid you just aren't looking hard enough. Yes they're still outnumbered, but that's the way with any popular media. Name five comic book series' that aren't about superheroes. Name five summer blockbusters that don't involve fighting. Name five young adult novels or films without a romantic subplot. Some tropes just stick because marketing demands it.

 

[Nazulu]

That's not really evolving, that's just focusing on other interests, and if you want them to add these different flavour's together then that will require more talent, which then requires more money. Many games try to have all these different features, but they mostly come out poorly. I usually don't agree with what people call great writing or interesting mechanics.

No, if we want the game industry to evolve then we needs devs to have more freedom to be creative and time to actually finish ambitious projects. Something a lot of big publishers are strictly against.

 

[Nieroshai]

With the market as BIG as it is, games with deep interactivity being outnumbered shouldn't matter unless you really expect to stumble from title to title trying to find them. Demographics exist, and are catered to, for a reason. You, as the consumer, have the power of choice.