Stream lined vs. Dumbed Down

[KazeAizen]

Ok its pretty much right there in the title. I came across an interesting conundrum the other day while talking to my friend. We were both playing League of Legends but he also plays DoTA 2. He insists that DoTA 2 is infinitely better and that even though he enjoys League he says its "dumb downed" after which I offered that it wasn't dumbed down but rather stream lined. Also while I have never played an Elder Scrolls game I understand that there was a similar argument that that Skyrim had a bunch of features removed that were in Oblivion thus making it more user friendly but apparently at the same time dumbing the game down.

When did we reach the point that these two terms have almost become synonymous. I offer that a game that is stream lined is a game that is made more accessible to new comers while still maintaining a good level of depth to be found by experienced players while dumbing down makes it more accessible but sacrifices depth in game play. So am I more or less asking if I am right or my friend is right? Yeah. Still, and this is especially for Elder Scrolls, LoL and DoTA players, I want your opinions on if these games are actually dumbed down versions or if they are as I call it stream lined. Also list some examples of games that might actually qualify as dumbed downed versions of previous iterations or stream lined versions of previous installments.

 

[MrSir231]

I think the Elder Scrolls Skyrim is definitely the most streamlined of the series. While it is fun, I sincerely hope that future Elder Scroll games aren't even more streamlined. I wouldn't necessarily call it dumbed down though. To me a dumbed down version would give you even less RPG like options. Never played the other two, so no opinion there.

 

[votemarvel]

A lot of it depends on the tastes of a person to whether they think it is streamlined or dumbed down.

One of my friends and I had a similar conversation about Mass Effect 2 compared to the original. I fell into the dumbed down side and he the stream-lined.

It essentially came down to I like games with lots of stats for me to pour over. He far prefers that stuff in the background

 

[Qvar]

If they remove features, I would definitely say it's dumbed down (unless they were dumb features to begin with, ofc). If those features are made clearer and useless clicks and proceses removed, then it's streamlined.

 

[Zhukov]

It's rare for me to encounter a game that I consider genuinely dumbed down.

When everyone else is screaming that term, I'm usually thinking, "Oh thank God, they've cut out all that flabby bullshit from the last game."

 

[Benpasko]

I think the Elder Scrolls Skyrim is definitely the most streamlined of the series. While it is fun, I sincerely hope that future Elder Scroll games aren't even more streamlined. I wouldn't necessarily call it dumbed down though. To me a dumbed down version would give you even less RPG like options. Never played the other two, so no opinion there.

It is dumbed down, by your standards and mine. They removed spellmaking and the stats system, go play Oblivion.

And if you don't think LoL is dumbed down, OP, you must have recently started playing. They've been dumbing that game down since S1. They killed Shaco, Teemo, and Heimer because they were 'anti-fun,' because people didn't want to learn how to deal with them. Whenever something shows up and people don't understand it, they nerf it into the ground instead of letting people learn to deal with it. I'd call that dumbing down. And I'm not uninformed on this, I played for 3 years, platinum elo. Started pre-s1, and fell in love. The direction the game has gone in is a damned shame.

 

[Maximum Bert]

I would say streamlined is when they make it easier to access all necessary information or cut needless complexity that adds nothing except tedium to the game or was complex for complexities sake.

Dumbed down is removing of features and complexity that did add something (significant) to the game.

 

[Pink Gregory]

'Dumbed Down' implies a certain egotistical exaggeration of one's actual intelligence, rather than taste - which is ultimately independent of intelligence.

Streamlining can go badly, but 'dumbing down' is a misnomer.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

I would say streamlined is when they make it easier to access all necessary information or cut needless complexity that adds nothing except tedium to the game or was complex for complexities sake.

Dumbed down is removing of features and complexity that did add something (significant) to the game.

I would back this definition wholeheartedly. It's spot in in defining the net result of both.

Streamlined is a thing I wish they would do to the Far Cry 3 menus, Witcher 2 inventories and so on. A tangled mess with multiple pages and layers that feels needlessly complex.

Dumbed down is what happened between Morrowind -> Oblivion -> Skyrim. Different weapon classes were removed in favour of broader categories. An entire class of armour was removed and the number of wearable pieces lowered. The number of spells and spell schools was also significantly reduced. Character creation was appearance only and all stats were removed as well. The major/minor skills and star sign were also removed. The net result of the dumbing down was that every character could be anything, change at any point and had little unique about it.

 

[Yopaz]

If a game is so hard to understand you'll have to confront an external source for a tutorial gets simplified enough to make it a learning process then I'd call that streamlined rather than dumbed down.

If a game simply drops the complex stuff rather than easing you into them then I'd say that's dumbed down.

I got a very optimistic outlook on it I guess. Both are kinda dumbed down when you consider it...

 

[Carpenter]

The term "dumbed down" to describe a sequel that isn't exactly the same as the last game is nothing short of childish.

People said SA was "dumbed down" because it had a big map but left out the store robbing feature, the ability to go inside of shops without a loading screen, and the colorful landscape of Vice city.

People said GTA 4 was "dumbed down" because it didn't have parachutes, tanks, a big map, and it had better graphics which means it's worse (apparently)

GTA 5, well I'm sure you heard all of those complaints recently. Yeah suddenly GTA 4 was great and now the new one is the dumbed down one.

It's how this community works. The escapist community is notorious for it's contrarion philosophy being pushed to a point of complete inversion.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

It's rare for me to encounter a game that I consider genuinely dumbed down.

When everyone else is screaming that term, I'm usually thinking, "Oh thank God, they've cut out all that flabby bullshit from the last game."

Ah, thank you! A voice of reason I can agree with... I hear the "dumbed down" term all the damn time but a lot of the crap removed from "dumbed down" games is extraneous weight that doesn't add anything useful to the game. More options does not equal a better game.

 

[The Jovian]

The way I define "stream-lined" is that a game maintains at least some of the original's depth and complexity but makes it easier to get into by removing the pointless uninteresting bits, i.e. XCOM ('94) to XCOM (2012), or System Shock 2 ('99) to BioShock (2007). Dumbing down is where all of the depth is gone, i.e. Masters of Orion II to III, or Command & Conquer 3 to 4 (a.k.a. item #1245564434 on the list of reasons why EA should take a titan missile up the @$$).

 

[LetalisK]

The way I define "stream-lined" is that a game maintains at least some of the original's depth and complexity but makes it easier to get into by removing the pointless uninteresting bits, i.e. XCOM ('94) to XCOM (2012), or System Shock 2 ('99) to BioShock (2007). Dumbing down is where all of the depth is gone, i.e. Masters of Orion II to III, or Command & Conquer 3 to 4 (a.k.a. item #1245564434 on the list of reasons why EA should take a titan missile up the @$$).

Funny thing though, uninteresting bits will inevitably be valued by a small but extremely loud and squeaky minority that mistake busy work for complexity. Thus, the line blurs further.

 

[Mutie]

If they remove features, I would definitely say it's dumbed down (unless they were dumb features to begin with, ofc). If those features are made clearer and useless clicks and proceses removed, then it's streamlined.

Just wanted to say that I greatly appreciate your avatar!

OT: I wouldn't say the Skyrim was dumbed down... there's still a lot of depth to the leveling and build systems which can be very heavily researched and planned, whilst still catering to the "I hit it with my axe" players. As for LoL and DotA, I play LoL but have been pestered to play the other before. Honestly, I'm just playing it to spent time with my mates online and for love of the innumerable (albeit highly chauvinistically portrayed) characters.

 

[darkorion69]

I have extensively played League of Legends and the Elder Scroll series since the original Elder Scrolls: Arena. I have not had the pleasure of trying DoTA 2 unfortunately. I think the terms dumbing down and streamlining represent a question of value on two fronts. Firstly, is it good or bad to reduce the complexity of a gaming franchise to widen the potential fan base? Secondly, is it a disservice to current players when their cherished complexity is discarded to curry the favor of potentially new fans? Put simply does the pursuit of streamlining for a potentially widened fan base take priority over preserving the complexity that makes the present player base feel that they are still a concern?

That being said you were asking for specifics in regard to LoL and Skyrim in particular. As I have not played DoTA 2 I will not say much about LoL here. I loved Skyrim even though I feel strongly that it is dumbed down in comparison to previous Elder Scrolls games. I was slightly put off by having to ignore what I felt was the potentially condescending idea that today?s new gamers are less able to appreciate and enjoy complexity than yesterday?s gamers. Although this fact saddens me a little, this dumbing down was viewed unconsciously by a very picky friend of mine (he buys only 1 or 2 games in any given year) as a needed streamlining to pique his interest in the Elder Scrolls series.

I guess what I have come up with is that I must accept that the dumbing down of games has been rebranded as streamlining as a positive spin marketing tactic. As this has proven to be an effective marketing tactic recently, I think I must accept that my negative view of this phenomenon is pragmatically irrelevant. New fans are what the investors want and older fans are often thought of as already standing in line for the next installment. It is a little depressing but I will continue to enjoy games no matter how dumbed down?err streamlined they become

 

[fix-the-spade]

I offer that a game that is stream lined is a game that is made more accessible to new comers while still maintaining a good level of depth to be found by experienced players

That is the idea, but very rarely the outcome.

For example, Crysis.

Crysis 2's suit controls are brilliant, mapping stealth, speed, strength and armour onto quick buttons and doing away with the power wheel. It makes the suit much faster and more intuitive to play than the power wheel from the original, which encouraged reliance on one power at a time rather than rapidly chaining abilities in combat.

That's streamlining, taking the existing features and repackage them to be more intuitive.

It's not feature cutting, removing features is dumbing down, it's removing things to consider. In Crysis 2's case everything but the Nano suit was dumbed right down. Massive open environments, gone (with the brief exception of the battle of Central Station and the finale, but even those are tiny compared to the original). Alien 'non infantry' opponents, gone, replaced with three base types that may as well be called Brute, Elite and Hunter. Boss battles, gone, Pingers sort of count, but compared to the Hunters/Nano troopers/Battleship of the original they're tiny and easy, just fling ammunition till they drop. Playable aircraft and boats also gone. Zero Gravity sections? Complex AI? Interactive environments? Nope.

You can apply this to Mass Effect, Call of Duty, Ghost Recon, Elder Scrolls, a whole bunch of sequelised games. Cutting stuff is just lazy development, rather than improve content or mechanics to make them work better, just rip it out and call it 'streamlined' or 'accessible' because that sounds better than 'less game,'

I mostly agree with your friend by the way.

 

[HavoK 09]

IMO

Stream lined: Removed features that didnt work quite well or barely afected the game or reimplemented them in a way they are easier to use and thus actually affect the game

Dumbed down: Removed features just to make the game easier and thus atracting a larger audience

 

[Vigormortis]

snip

League of Legends isn't a "streamlined" version of Dota. Streamlining implies the removal of superfluous features that weren't working and/or optimizing features that were originally cumbersome. Neither of these things applies to League.[footnote]Yes, even in the face of such features as denying, lane-pulling, and jungle stacking. Despite what many League players say, these are not just "bugs" that haven't been removed from Dota. They are genuine gameplay mechanics. Some may have started as bugs, but the players and the game designers quickly saw the variety of emergent gameplay they created and therefore thought to leave them in. This happens far more often in game design, across genres and the industry, than many people realize.[/footnote]

That said, I wouldn't call it "dumbed down" either. For one, "dumbed down" sounds unnecessarily derogatory. For another, it implies that a games features have been overly simplified so as to be as broadly appealing and easy to grasp as possible.

This too does not necessarily apply to League. Given the simplicity you see in many games today, League is not really what I'd consider "dumbed down". Not even remotely.

Even so, League is most assuredly more simplified and more gameplay-mechanic sparse than Dota. This, however, doesn't mean the game is more accessible. Despite, again, what many League players will insist.[footnote]Let's be honest. League and Dota2 have similar, extraordinarily steep learning curves. Neither is really more "accessible" than the other in this sense. They both require a certain level of dedication to become proficient at. However, their accessibility in terms of content is another matter. But, that's for another conversation.[/footnote] It just means it's easier to play in casual sense. As in: it takes less planning, strategy, and in some cases less concentrated skill to overcome an opposing team.

This is not a bad thing, of course. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Nor does it imply there's a distinct lack of strategic complexity to League. Anyone that asserts as much is not only being needlessly insulting but is also just simply wrong. (and a jerk) Same goes for anyone that insists that League is "dumbed down".

But, don't fool yourself into thinking it's simply "streamlined" either.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

It really depends on what we're talking about here, as it can vary wildly from game to game.

I think 'X-Com: Enemy Unknown" contains good examples of both. For example, they basically completely got rid of the old X-Com's inventory system, so one could argue that they were "dumbing it down" there.

On the other hand, it also meant that you no longer had to double-check to make sure all your guys had ammo and weapons on them before you deployed them. I'd call this "streamlining", because to me the idea of these guys (who are supposed to be elite Soldiers) just forgetting to bring their weapons or ammo on a mission was just incredibly stupid, and unnecessary micromanagement.