Stream lined vs. Dumbed Down
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Personally, I think its streamlined if you agree with the design choice. Its dumbed down if you don't. Case in point, the mass effect inventory system. I loved it, it gave lots of choices in stats, and a little bit of rpg feel to picking out your gear. However, others *hated* it with a fiery passion. To one camp its dumbed down, and the other its streamlined.
So, in effect what I am suggesting is steamlined/dumbed down mean exactly the same thing, they just tell the audience what camp your in.
So, in effect what I am suggesting is steamlined/dumbed down mean exactly the same thing, they just tell the audience what camp your in.
Stream-lining a game in my opinion is when you take away needless complexity but maintaining depth. I would say that LoL is a great example of this. I have played a lot of DoTA 2 and LoL and LoL tends to keep all their items, champions, and abilities less complex then DoTA 2 does. They both have about the same amount of Depth though. DoTA 2 can be quite complicated, especially when it comes to understanding the ins and outs of the abilities. Some of them are just overly complex and the complexity they add to the game doesn't bring that much in terms of interesting new tactics or ways to play. LoL tends to focus more on core mechanics and the simplest way of representing them.
Some people have also pointed to Mass Effect 1 and 2 for this which is another great example. The guns in ME1 are many and varied. Understanding all the stats and upgrades and mechanics of it all can be fairly mind numbing. But in ME2 it's all rather simple. You have 2-3 choices for each weapon and weapon upgrades are permanent and apply to all weapons of that type. The weapons and their upgrades are scattered throughout and each weapon has a distinct feel to it. In ME1 you could spend hours fiddling with your weapons to get a minor change that you probably won't even notice. In ME2 you can spend a few minutes deciding which gun fits which situation and using it. ME1 has lots of complexity with little depth, ME2 has little complexity with much more depth.
Some people have also pointed to Mass Effect 1 and 2 for this which is another great example. The guns in ME1 are many and varied. Understanding all the stats and upgrades and mechanics of it all can be fairly mind numbing. But in ME2 it's all rather simple. You have 2-3 choices for each weapon and weapon upgrades are permanent and apply to all weapons of that type. The weapons and their upgrades are scattered throughout and each weapon has a distinct feel to it. In ME1 you could spend hours fiddling with your weapons to get a minor change that you probably won't even notice. In ME2 you can spend a few minutes deciding which gun fits which situation and using it. ME1 has lots of complexity with little depth, ME2 has little complexity with much more depth.
This is all very true and I think the X series is a particularly useful example of both the needs for and the potential dangers of streamlining.Mid Boss said:
X3:AP has an incredible amount of game in it. You could happily play it solidly for a year doing nothing more than identifying supply & demand whilst building and running stations without getting involved in combat or buying garried up ships. By the same token you could do nothing but cruise around with a fleet of capital ships wrecking shit in the warzones.
I had a conversation with my flat mate who was saying X was too hard to get into and that he couldn't even get his head around how to fly to different stations in a sector.
"It's really very simple" I said. "You just bring up your sector map, you've got two maps you see, and you do that by pressing the '.' key. You can do it by clicking on the maps icon and choosing the sector map from the sub-menu but personally I find that unwieldly." Flat mate nods but his eyes are starting to glaze so I think I'd better cut to the chase; "okay so once you're in the sector map view you can see all the different objects in sensor range which is indicated by the circle. Now you can choose which station you want to target from the menu by highlighting it and pressing 't'. Once you've done that you just go back to the main view by pressing escape and then press 'shift+a' to set your auto-pilot and then engage the Singularity Time Engine Time Acceslerator with the 'j' key. Easy as pie!"
Flat mate was frowning at all this so I figured I decide to elaborate on some points to clear up any ambiguity. "It's worth noting that you'll only see objects that you've had in sensor range at some point in the past. The sector view is a 2 dimension view of a 3 dimensional space and whilst most stations are based within a few kilometers of the eliptic plane sometimes you need to check... wait, where are you going?"
"I'm going to play Burnout Paradise."
Diffferent games appeal to different people. Elaborate, one could even say 'dad', games like the X series typically appeal to people who love to get lost in the details. Often attempts to reduce the busywork, and there is a lot of busywork in the above example, can get rid of aspects that some players actively enjoy. Ironically the flat mate in question once made a similar case for the dangers of too much automoation in minecraft; if you're automatically quarrying ores, automatically gaining limitless energy from vast solar power plants and automatically turning those ores into items then what is left to actually do?
I'll give you the spellmaking, (personally, I wound up creating a mod with higher-damage concentration spells because that suited my playstyle) but not the rest. Deciding what my character was like in Oblivion was like filling out a job application. If I want a sneaky guy who's good with a bow and knows how to brew all the best poisons in Oblivion, I have to either read through all the class descriptions that might be relevant and find the closest fit, or go through the trouble of selecting major and minor skills, stats, and all that rigamarole. If I want to play exactly the same character in Skyrim, I sneak around a lot, take potshots at baddies with my bow, and use the many plants I find to brew new and exciting murder aids, and the game figures out what I was going for. It also gives you the option for a proper character arc: in a particularly memorable example, my second character was a sneaky assassin sent to Skyrim to take down Ulfric and end the rebellion. After "helping" take down a giant outside Whiterun, he was invited to join the Companions and found himself growing fond of their way of doing things. This meant abandoning sneaking for stand-up fights, eventually mastering one-handed weapons, destruction spells, and heavy armor. In Oblivion, I would have had to either stick to sneaking or roll a new character because the question the fixed-class system leaves you asking isn't "how would my guy handle this situation?" but "which approach uses the skills I decided I liked best back when I started the game and which I now need to level up?"Benpasko said:
EDIT: just to be clear, there are some things in Skyrim that were dumbed down, especially the whole "quest-essential NPCs are immortal" thing. I didn't want to back the Empire because of the whole Talos thing (and that unpleasantness back at Helgen), but I still thought Ulfric was a racist ass, so I decided to go to his palace and pay him a beating. Then I found out he was immortal because I hadn't completed the civil war questline. Fuck that.
A gambit that has counters as time goes on, including those that the games force on you.DrOswald said:
Like flying over the target area and dropping a grenade, or using explosives to clear a path behind an encroached position.
And just because you can do it to them, doesn't mean the enemy can't do it to you. I've had the enemy lob shit at me in urban environments only to double back into cover/hiding before I could reliably trace them. (XCOM 2 has an almost perverse fetish for this tactic)
That extra layer of complexity did in fact add depth because I was ALLOWED to think outside the box. It also added tension when the AI could do it to you.
FACT:
You MUST trade time units for:
1) Accuracy, 2) Defense, or 3) Speed/Positioning
Figuring out how to fine tune how much you need to do of each in any given situation is part of the challenge.
Assuming your agent doesn't just outclass the enemy, you must risk something in order to win.
Do you risk defense for an upfront firing position so you can unload with semi or full auto?
Do you risk offense to kite them away from another agent into your turf?
Or do you hedge your bets and try to tie them up in a firefight where you poptart around as described?
None of these are the dominant strategy.
There is a counter for each one, and a time where each one counters another strategy.
I've used all of those in XCOM 1-3 and have been rewarded and punished where appropriate.
"Poptarting" leaves you vulnerable to rushes and flanking, since you will generally only have enough time for one or two good attacks, before having to double back to cover. The "melee enemies" in the series are very good at countering this, actually, especially Poppers and Brainsuckers in 3 who give no fucks about your cover game.
Therefore, "You don't have to make a tactical decision" is complete bunk.
Going the other way, because of the limitations in Enemy Unknown, you COULD trade cover for a better firing angle, but you would have to be pretty foolish/desperate to ever do so since:
1) Overwatch Is King (you get to keep your cover AND fire, you can even do this by creeping up and moving)
2) If the enemy can shoot at you from their cover, you can shoot at them from yours (or reach them if Assault, which is their job). This is literally the ONLY TIME you should ever attack outside of Overwatch, because if the enemy doesn't move, Overwatch does nothing.
By not being able to move after firing, they've made the best strategy, BY FUCKING FAR, to slow crawl with an Overwatch Curtain so you preserve equal parts Offense, Defense, and Mobility.
If it had direct counters, I'd be willing to forgive that, but unfortunately, Overwatch just offers far too many benefits when you're limited in this way.
For one, it's the only way you can attack enemies on their free turn upon discovery.
For another, since the enemy prefers moving around, they tend to leave themselves open to Overwatch attacks constantly.
Once I figured this out, Enemy Unknown became less tense and more tedious because barring gimmick missions (like Rescue), there was never any reason to deviate from this strategy.
I didn't bother using explosives as much after that, since instead of eliminating their cover, I could always rely on them to break cover. Failing that, I could backpedal my Overwatch curtain to prior terrain, forcing them to move up and take even more reaction fire.
Hypothetically, they could pull the same gambit on the player...except the game gives you Assaults for cheating the system.
(lightning reflexes ho!)
The only "challenge" came from enemies that spammed explosives, and there's nothing you can really do about that except to not bunch up your units.
This would hold true if didn't cost Time Units to move back to cover and if distance didn't matter for accuracy (it matters quite a lot for most weapons). Moving closer and/or kneeling gives you better accuracy but both cost Time Units. Furthermore, Aimed Shots aren't as time efficient as Semi-auto or Full-Auto at the optimal range (and the other reason poptarting is more a delaying tactic than anything).
So saying "where you are when you fire is much less important" is largely bunk.
In XCOM 1-3.
Weight can penalizes Time Units if it exceeds an agent's strength. Armor was quite heavy until end game tech.
Heavy weapons were just that: heavy, bulky and often had limited ammo.
Grenades weren't as heavy, but stacking them was riskier because an explosion or fire could cook them off.
Every decision you make in outfitting your agents matters just as much since weapon/equipment roles are just as well defined. So no, Enemy Unknown didn't make equipping agents more meaningful. In terms of depth, Enemy Unknown and the classic series are quite on par with each other.
You just don't have to manage ammo counts and such in Enemy Unknown (which I've stated as a plus before).
Can be, but that only occurs when said fidelity is misused or not used to its fullest.
I'll grant that XCOM 1-3 didn't make full use of its depth. The required skill ceiling was hampered largely due to limitations in its AI (having playing against other human opponents via faction hacks, those games have a much higher skill ceiling than it seems on the surface).
But I refuse to accept that as justification for not trying to improve on fidelity and instead round everything down for broader appeal.
Enemy Unknown adds nothing to depth because it mathematically, objectively, can't. You can claim that each decision is more meaningful in comparison, but it's bunk and requires glossing over a lot of what you actually can do in XCOM 1-3.
The ceiling was lowered because they basically rounded all the mechanics down to fit a console controller scheme. XCOM was dumbed down so it could be sold to console gamers.
Enemy Unknown is a GOOD GAME, but it can only offer an estimation of the depth that came before and no more. Of course, "depth" doesn't sell so much today so why the hell do I even bother?
I've spend some time modding and doing exercize with game engines and of course I've played lots of games,both "hardcore" and "dumbed down" and whatever.
My conclusion is that there are 2 different kinds of complexity in video games: The Good One,and The Bad One.
Not all complexity is bad.
Lets start with the bad one. The bad one is when it is noticable by the player and gets on his way of enjoying the game.
For example too much complexion on the game's menus is Bad Complexity,the same for controls complexity.
A game must be made so the player understands how the game works and what he has to do fast and easily.Understanding what I have to do shouldn't be the challenge of the game.The challenge should be mastering its mechanics and technics,and performing them well.
Example: Eve online is a very complicated game,and it has a huge tutorial with on-screen wall-of-texts that can take even more than an hour for a player to read them all and finally pass the tutorial to be able to do anything in the game,even move. That kind of complexity is bad,because its 'IN YOUR FACE'. The huge time that the player has to stay inactive just for getting to know how the game works,acts negatively as many players who would like to try this game out quit it before even starting to really playing it,because they get overwhelmed by the prequisits they have to pass before playing.
If the game teached the player while the player was playing,so the complexity was less 'in your face',perhaps more players would get into it. But If I wanted to spent hours reading texts,I'd be opening school books again.
The Good Complexity is the one that takes places behind the scenes,the one not that noticable by the player.
Such kind of complexity is for example a complex AI,which can react to various situation,or a complex set of game mechanics that while on programming its complicated,it is given less complicated to the player.
Example: When in Elder Scrolls 3 Morrowind you become a member of a guild,this alters the behavior some people have towards you. Not visible to the player,there is a hidden chart that adds and removes like/hate points,so if you visit a rival guild as a member of that guild,the members of that rival guild won't like you as much as if you were a member of their guild.
This kind of complexity is "hidden" behind the player's eyes,and the player percieves this as a natural thing happening because of his actions. That's Good Complexity because it adds depth to the game,and thus it makes it easier for its world to be believable so players can get immersed in it.
My conclusion is that there are 2 different kinds of complexity in video games: The Good One,and The Bad One.
Not all complexity is bad.
Lets start with the bad one. The bad one is when it is noticable by the player and gets on his way of enjoying the game.
For example too much complexion on the game's menus is Bad Complexity,the same for controls complexity.
A game must be made so the player understands how the game works and what he has to do fast and easily.Understanding what I have to do shouldn't be the challenge of the game.The challenge should be mastering its mechanics and technics,and performing them well.
Example: Eve online is a very complicated game,and it has a huge tutorial with on-screen wall-of-texts that can take even more than an hour for a player to read them all and finally pass the tutorial to be able to do anything in the game,even move. That kind of complexity is bad,because its 'IN YOUR FACE'. The huge time that the player has to stay inactive just for getting to know how the game works,acts negatively as many players who would like to try this game out quit it before even starting to really playing it,because they get overwhelmed by the prequisits they have to pass before playing.
If the game teached the player while the player was playing,so the complexity was less 'in your face',perhaps more players would get into it. But If I wanted to spent hours reading texts,I'd be opening school books again.
The Good Complexity is the one that takes places behind the scenes,the one not that noticable by the player.
Such kind of complexity is for example a complex AI,which can react to various situation,or a complex set of game mechanics that while on programming its complicated,it is given less complicated to the player.
Example: When in Elder Scrolls 3 Morrowind you become a member of a guild,this alters the behavior some people have towards you. Not visible to the player,there is a hidden chart that adds and removes like/hate points,so if you visit a rival guild as a member of that guild,the members of that rival guild won't like you as much as if you were a member of their guild.
This kind of complexity is "hidden" behind the player's eyes,and the player percieves this as a natural thing happening because of his actions. That's Good Complexity because it adds depth to the game,and thus it makes it easier for its world to be believable so players can get immersed in it.
When they make a game easier it's dumbed down: when they remove unneeded features that bogged things that did nothing but slow things down for no reason it's streamlining.
With Mass Effect it's neither: the first game was an RPG with some shooter elements, 2 and 3 are shooters with a story, it changed genres completely (though I enjoyed all of them.)
With Mass Effect it's neither: the first game was an RPG with some shooter elements, 2 and 3 are shooters with a story, it changed genres completely (though I enjoyed all of them.)