Why do we have to have our games tell us no?

[Vegosiux]

And when exactly did I disagree with that? I disagree with throwing balance off a cliff for the sake of having diversity, not putting a straitjacket that promotes THE ONE TRUE WAY?®©. It's not a binary choice between these, you yourself said as much but why did you still assume it?

Here's the part I kind of indirectly addressed:

I think it's more of an issue of balance. I think it's more or less universally agreed that games are not movies. As games, they should have the element of playing them - so there is set of rules and a challenge. When there is no challenge and everything you do would end up in a success, say, combat or stealth, then what does your choice matter? The act of "playing" turns into a choose your own adventure book movie. Heck, even the books have losing conditions and consequences of choice...well, mostly, that is. Anyway, if option A and B don't matter, what then?

Looks binary to me. And your choice matters in regard to what kind of a character you are. It might affect your future interactions with NPCs.

Another thing I notice, and I'll just keep going on here, even if it does not specifically apply to your post;

Seems to me sometimes there's this assumption that your choice has to show meaning right away. Back to your example, why does it have to matter now? I can choose combat or stealth, succeed the mission either way, but half the game down the road I might get locked out of a mission, or get a different side mission, based on what I chose. If I picked stealth, I get a mail asking me for "a small favor, and make it look like an accident", if I picked guns blazing, I get approached by an arms dealer who wouldn't mind if a specific someone suffered an accident while testing this new prototype blow-them-upper.

I mean, take Alpha Protocol, you can go to Taiwan, Russia or Italy when you're out of Saudi Arabia and it's reasonable to expect that by the end, you'll have to have done all three, so the jump-the-gun reaction would be "Well, what does it matter what order I do them into then? There's no meaning to my choice!" Well, turns out you'll have a vastly different array of options, depending. So instead of the game telling you "No, you can't do it this way", it simply goes "Remember a while ago when you made that particular choice? Well this is the result of that one."

So in other words, immediate success or failure should be the least important factors when determining the meaning of a choice you make. And if you're talking long-term success or failure, well, there's no consensus on what that means.

 

[debtcollector]

Well, when I played Dishonored, I tried to do an all-stealth, no-killing run. Couldn't do it. I would get caught, backed into a corner, killed. Over and over. And then I realized: there is absolutely no mechanic stopping you from being an unstoppable killer in that game. Put all your runes into non-lethal skills and you can still murder scores of soldiers with a sword and teleport to safety.
For one thing, this mechanic defeats the point of the whole "play your own way" thing the game was shooting for: If you allocate all your points to stealth abilities, head-on combat should be unviable. That's a choice you make for your character's growth that the game should recognize.
But, as for the overarching problem you describe, I have to disagree with you. If a game allows you to join every guild, that seems overpowered. And, even if you choose to only join one, you become aware that you are playing the game in a way the devs didn't mean for it to be played. Regarding stealth, if a guy sees you and chases you, the "life-or-death" pursuit over the rooftops or whatever feels hollow when you know you could just wheel about and throatstab him into oblivion. The act of willfully limiting your experiences breaks immersion, I find.

 

[Azwrath]

There are so many people who say it is ridiculous that you can join the thieves guild and then turn around and do the Companions. Now I agree this is stupid, but you should still be able to do it. Why? because not everyone cares and if you care you should just not do that, I don't let my warriors join the dark brotherhood.

You might not understand the whole problem with the guilds in Skyrim. I mostly RP in Skyrim now but the guild thing still annoys me. Why? Well i think its perfectly resonable that a warrior can join the Dark Brotherhood if he can kill in cold blood or the Collage if he knows how to cast Flame or Spark. BUT (as you can see its a big but) the moment my warrior who only casts flame can become the Archmage (who should arguably be the best mage in the Collage) then i start having a problem. It makes the world feel fake and the game bland, i mean self-restraint can only take you so far.

I bought a game not a box containing 2 sticks and a note saying "Add imagination for a great experience." A game is a system defined by rules where you must use persoanl strategy and tools given by the system to achieve a goal. If the rules are missing the the whole thing falls appart and the game stops being fun.

One of the things they could have done is put in place a certain skill requirement for advancing in a guild like lets say casting a master spell in order to become Archmage. That would have made you feel like you deserve or earned that promotion.

There's also the problem that if you ignore 3 out of the 4 guilds there is very little content left in the game but that is a totally different matter.

 

[Rattja]

Choice is a funny thing, as it is a paradox.

More choice is better then none.
But more choice is not better then some.
- Barry Schwartz

I want to ask you a question though.

If you knew, that if you typed in a special series of numbers into any ATM, it would give you money, and it was legal to do so. Would you choose not to do it?

 

[Seventh Actuality]

In good game design, you sit down and play the game as comes naturally without having to self-impose shit to preserve the authentic experience. That's the designer's job, not the player's. It's every player's instinct to go with whatever is most effective, that's a baseline assumption, and if doing this breaks the game in some way then it's a design failure.

 

[DoPo]

I think it's more of an issue of balance. I think it's more or less universally agreed that games are not movies. As games, they should have the element of playing them - so there is set of rules and a challenge. When there is no challenge and everything you do would end up in a success, say, combat or stealth, then what does your choice matter? The act of "playing" turns into a choose your own adventure book movie. Heck, even the books have losing conditions and consequences of choice...well, mostly, that is. Anyway, if option A and B don't matter, what then?

Looks binary to me. And your choice matters in regard to what kind of a character you are. It might affect your future interactions with NPCs.

It's just an example and I used it because 1. saves the post from sounding too dry and hypothetical in nature 2. it was also connecting my post to OP's by following on one of the things he said. An example is not a be all and end all of a situation, it's a simplification meant to illustrate a point. Spending few paragraphs about how a the simplification actually has exceptions doesn't contribute much to a point and just makes the post again dry and boring to read. When writing, it is my assumption that readers know an example is not going to be 100% summation of reality and they'll take it as just a situation that shows what I want to say but other variations of it may not be the same.

I hope I don't need to add this disclaimer to every post I make. It sounds ridiculous and it looks ridiculous. There is a certain baseline of writing stuff that we must take for granted, otherwise every post would need to define everything. And that's not what communication is trying to do - ease interaction between people, not make it harder.

Another thing I notice, and I'll just keep going on here, even if it does not specifically apply to your post;

Seems to me sometimes there's this assumption that your choice has to show meaning right away. Back to your example, why does it have to matter now? I can choose combat or stealth, succeed the mission either way, but half the game down the road I might get locked out of a mission, or get a different side mission, based on what I chose.

Yes, this doesn't apply to me because I never went too deep into it. And here is why - this is a choice. If your actions influence future events, then - yes, it makes sense to have a lot of freedom now, in exchange of consequences later. I don't factor in time delay before the result. Neither have I ever said so. But if there is no "later" and/or there are no long term consequences, the choice is still meaningless. It turns into just story of the form

"And our protagonist ____ into the room, then ____ the guards, and ____ up the stairs. There he faced the villain and defeated him with ____"

You just have to pick between few alternatives for each blank space (e.g., sneaked/distracted/climbed/cunning or burst/killed/ran/his gun or burst/sneaked/ran/cunning). And this particular thing I addressed before.

 

[Azwrath]

I want to ask you a question though.

If you knew, that if you typed in a special series of numbers into any ATM, it would give you money, and it was legal to do so. Would you choose not to do it?

Of course i would. But if i could do that then wouldn't everyone be able to do it? Meaning everyone would have as much money as me which in turn would devalue currency so much that i would just be getting useless pieces of plastic or paper?

 

[Adeptus Aspartem]

For me the problem with open world games like Skyrim is, that i try to challange the game. And if there are options to just simply break the game like a kitkat bar, then i lose interest in the game.

I consider that lazy game design. Not caring about balance and then say: "Well, just don't use it then" is completly stupid. What if i really like to tinker around with the spell creation system but everytime i make something i like i break the game and take every challange out of it?
That's not cool. I want to use the tools the developpers give me and have a awesome game when i use them. If they're not balanced this cannot be achieved.

Also a reason why i never used bow's in Skyrim. Not because i didnt like them, it felt cheap. I wanted to make a sneaky bow(wo)man, but once i saw how my friend plows through the game without any challenge i threw the idea into the bin.
Basically this "bad design" costed me a few hours of not-played game play, because i didn't try out that specific character.

 

[Auron]

All you're saying can be averted by choice, giving freedom to the player is the best option, it's your choice if you want to not make any sense at all.

No, it isn't, and no, it doesn't. I know it's common practice here, but please, avoid putting words in people's mouths. There are enough opinions going around without you making mine up for me.

If we take it to the absolute extreme, what if the rules that defined the graphics, the physics, the very system of the game were removed? You've have the most freedom. You also wouldn't have a playing field.

You can make a game which is all about freedom. ie, Minecraft's various creative modes, G-Mod, etc, where the game is working as much as a level editor and content creator. And I'd like it if those tools were available for all games. Because those can be fun experiences.

But maximising freedom in such a dogmatic way doesn't actually lead to more fun. Sometimes, restrictions are good, and they make things good. I'm not saying you shouldn't be able to cheat, or mod it, or do anything of the sort: You should be able to go nuts with your software. But on a design side, making rules and restrictions is how you make the game. Gravity? A constraint on the movement of the player. Tangibility? A constraint. Vulnerability? A constraint. By carefully crafting rules and mechanics, you can create more directed fun. And, depending on how you do it, you can create various different scenarios. You could go for a strict structured approach like a CoD game, where the rules are simple, and don't interact with each other much. You could go for an emergent system, like Dwarf Fortress or the Sims, or a simulation like Simcity, where the rules interact with each other to create new and interesting aspects of play.

I'm not saying you shouldn't be able to turn the rules off, but there's much to be said for putting them there in the first place, because that's half the design. Hence the soccer analogy. You can have a lot of fun with a bunch of people, a ball, some nets and a field. You can have a lot of fun playing soccer. Both of these are perfectly valid. Crying "Freedom" apart from being a ridiculous adherence to a pointless ideal doesn't say anything even slightly meaningful.

Oh no I think it's meaningful, you're free to choose if you're going for a serious character you want to play or maximize play, some people for unfathomable reasons I cannot tell you have fun by powergaming and optimizing everything to a scale the game loses all challenge and then complain to developers that it should have been impossibly hard, which in turn would break the game for the guy who just wanted to roll a Mage with no extremely overpowered combinations. These guys study games and break them down into builds, I don't see the logic in that outside of competitive multiplayer games. I'm not arguing against balance or even lack of rules but significant amount of freedom to conduct the story of your own character in a sandbox game(and any game that gives me options.) is paramount to the experience.

I only joined the Mage's Guild for example, sadly enough there wasn't enough choice or I'd have murdered the entire Dark Brotherhood(they just respawned was pretty sad.) when they tried to induce me into it so I'd advocate for even more player freedom not the contrary in any way.

I'm not saying you can't have bad rules. I think they gave freedom in the wrong areas in Skyrim, and took it away in worse ones. You can join all the factions, which is stupid, and you can't kill many NPCs, which is also stupid (And before someone mentions the dragon attacks, please learn some boolean first. It would take me two seconds to show you how to make a tag for whether a character can be killed by a random attack when the player is away. This is not an issue).

I'd like more freedom in being able to customise my armour, climb walls and levitate, and kill any NPC. I'd like less freedom in faction choices, etc, because they hurt the narrative, and minimise the players freedom to make meaningful choices (Which is another point: Giving freedom in one place can hurt it in another). And what you think are good and bad rules etc are entirely up to you, and you can say you like or dislike whichever you please. I'm not going to have that conversation. There's nothing contradictory about this, because I don't say that one dogmatic assertion "Freedom" "Rules" is the only valid one. They both have their place.

I'm just answering the OP: That's why games tell us no. Because otherwise when you jump, you never fall. Sometimes "No" is a mechanic.[/quote]

Choices are only as meaningful as you want in a game like Skyrim, sadly it's not setup like Fallout(true fallout not bethesda's.) where your actions actually changed the world by the end of the game and it was all in the epilogue. More of that would be interesting but you don't have to restrict the player further to make it work. We actually somewhat agree on most points apparently. My main point is for something like Deus Ex or Hitman, the freedom to solve the situations however you want is more interesting than being restricted by tight rules that make you artificially fail whenever there's a problem in your execution instead of just having to deal with the problems you created.

 

[templar1138a]

While I'm okay with being able to invest in run-and-gun and stealth skills (more like a commando than an assassin), I definitely prefer some aspects of games to be limiting. For example, in Skyrim, one of the things I disliked in vanilla was fast travel. Sure, I don't HAVE to use it, but the temptation to do so and save time is too damn strong to resist. So I downloaded a mod that shuts it off. Is it annoying? Occasionally, especially if I have to go back to the same location over and over.

However, most of the time, I quite enjoy it, especially in tandem with a mod that adds hunger, thirst, and a need for sleep. It felt more like I was on an actual adventure. Traversing the wilderness and fighting off or running from enemies (another mod turned off level scaling), and it was really satisfying to come around a corner and find a village with an inn at the end of the day (another mod turned off location icons on the compass). It's that sense of adventure which got me hooked on Morrowind back in the day. The only fast travel that existed in that had to be paid for.

When you get right down to it, I'm an Explorer gamer (see my displayed badges), so fast travel can really cheapen the experience for me. Do I want it to stop being used altogether? No. But I do want the ability to completely shut it off, or else I'll be too tempted to metagame.

Off-topic: Whichever brand supposedly whitens as well as $500 professional treatments can kiss my ass.

 

[Shdwrnr]

I think a really good middle ground would be to allow whatever game breaking, OP, option to exist but to also implement a series of achievements based on not using them. You can breeze through Deus Ex: Human Revolution for example, but if you're after the Pacifist and/or Foxiest of the Hounds achievements, it's going to be much more challenging. Something that came to me while playing Far Cry 3 (a game I found not very challenging at all) was that I would have liked an achievement where you don't progress your Tatau; a concept of him doing what he has to do to save his friends while at the same time rejecting the island entirely.

Point is, I think there is room for cheat codes, console commands, OP weapons, etc. You can balance them just by adding the achievements for incentive.

 

[Warachia]

All you're saying can be averted by choice, giving freedom to the player is the best option, it's your choice if you want to not make any sense at all. I only joined the Mage's Guild for example, sadly enough there wasn't enough choice or I'd have murdered the entire Dark Brotherhood(they just respawned was pretty sad.) when they tried to induce me into it so I'd advocate for even more player freedom not the contrary in any way.

Then shouldn't I have the choice to not have that? For example, have all that stuff unlocked on easy, but on medium there's more restrictions better suiting the game.
Giving freedom to the player is not the best option, how scary would Silent Hill be if you had fun combat? Actually that happened already, it was fun but not scary at all, and because they gave you that freedom the game changed genres, you can't have freedom and be survival horror, because then there's always a way out, and some games are more fun when you can work with the game to do cool things, as opposed to having everything where it feels like a cheat, people like to work towards getting something, the more out of reach it is, the more satisfied people are when they finally get it.

 

[zerragonoss]

"The design of most products is about making things as easy as possible. When you're designing a lamp, the goal is to make the lamp simple to turn on and off. Game (and puzzle) design is unique in that the goal of the design is to actually make the thing harder to do." -Mark Rosewater Magic the Gathering Head Designer

Their are several major problems with your argument. Note I am talking about actual unbalanced parts of the game not exploits such as alchemy enchanting loop. Those may be consider design oversights, but are not intended the way getting a skill to max or using an overpowered attack is.

1) what if the part of the game that is imbalanced is something that is actually fun? I love crafting in games the game get significantly less fun if I am not partaking in this part that I love, but it breaks the rest of the game if I do, hence its damming either way.

2) what about the people just playing the game the first time without reading any wikis or the like they have no idea that something is crazy over powered and they just think the game is bad, or the portion of the game that it breaks is they would probably never think to just not use it and this covers most people who play a game its important to remember that we here on the escapist are a minority of gamers.

3) As mentioned in the quote I put at the top, the point of a game in many respects is to work against the system to "game" it. Self crated restrictions are fun but feeling like they are required is not, and can detract form the experience.

4) many games are not set up for simply removing a part. Like in the whole fast travel, and checkpoints argument with Skyrim many people would be happy just to turn them off, or not use them if viable alternatives existed. such as a way to increase movement speed more throughout the game so it fells like your going though an area faster every time to crate a felling of growth, instead of just felling like you wasting time do the same thing over and over when you could just skip it instead.

 

[Rattja]

I want to ask you a question though.

If you knew, that if you typed in a special series of numbers into any ATM, it would give you money, and it was legal to do so. Would you choose not to do it?

Of course i would. But if i could do that then wouldn't everyone be able to do it? Meaning everyone would have as much money as me which in turn would devalue currency so much that i would just be getting useless pieces of plastic or paper?

That.... was kinda the point I was trying to make.
1. You would do it.
2. It would brake the system.

Change the ATM to a glitch, and the system to a game, and there ya go. That's why a game has to say no.

 

[redmoretrout]

If you are not competing against other players in the game, then yes I agree with the TC. If I find a game to be not very challenging I have no problem inventing my own challenges to make the game more interesting. Refusing to use silenced weapons in Metal Gear for example.

That said I have never been a fan of exploitive game mechanics and can not recall any that have ever been removed or changed that I miss.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

Here's the thing about choice, I don't mind having a semi game breaking experience if I freaking worked for it.

If I spent hours upon hours in Disgaea's weapon world and I came out at level 9999 and about to go on my second mission... Yeah, I'm good with that. Because whatever I do from that point on, I earned. Anyone who's played Disgaea knows how punishing the Item World can be. How you can lose that one specialist that could have made all the difference. How random Geopanels can wreck even the most Ubercharacter.

I fought for my Majin and Angels. I got the strongest version of this sword, found and duplicate, and used that original sword to make the Dupe even stronger. I researched and tested every conceivable party option to maintain my level of success, and for added difficulty, striven to keep everyone alive so I can get the mega happy ending. Every choice I made came with a limitation that I could choose to overcome... But the challenge presented to make made every action and decision from that point on matter. If I failed once, I lost it all. Even if I just loaded up another save, the Item world is random. No guarantee I would be presented with the same options as my failed run.

If my world is random and diffcult, I don't mind choices. I don't mind being able to be every class there is. Just as long as there is a chance for failure and I missed whatever opportunity. I can get mad at that, and it's in my right. But then I can sate myself in knowing that my victories prior and forward are earned and justified. And that with the random world, I might have a chance at redemption or even better rewards. Those are the game worlds I like.

Given the very nature of an mmo, that's impossible. It has to be the same for everyone. So the thrill is lessened. Being uber in those worlds just mean you followed one path that everyone can. And then the 'variety' of the game is lost. If you want to clean up in PvP, you have to roll a High Elf BattleMage Archer. Their dps is insane! Then you need to get these weapons and these skills.

Then what's the point? We all have the same. And we can all get the same. It's just a matter of who does it first. After that, it's who has the best connection so they can get the shot off first.

 

[Frotality]

it is not the player's job to give a game challenge and strategic limitations. it is not the player's job to find out what is imbalanced and avoid it. building a game must take into consideration the psychological effect of certain options or lack thereof, and this is the developers job, not the player's. essentially, a game saying "no" does so for a specific reason that more often than not positively contributes to the rest of the game. you might want to stealth kill your way through the entire game and make a complete mockery of combat, but the developer is supposed to limit stealth in such a way that keeps it balanced and most importantly fun.

you play a game to relax and enjoy what it has to offer, not to further work yourself formulating and designing your own fair and balanced gameplay AND THEN relax and enjoy it. because that aint my job, its the game's.

 

[Auron]

Regular players who don't try to game the system rarely find the imbalances you guys are repeatedly talking about. At least in my experience. Reminds me of when I played BG 2 with a friend a long time ago. And he asked me why I wasn't using the inquisitor kit for my paladin, proven to be statistically superior. Why would i use it? I didn't want an inquisitor.

snip

Funnily enough if silent hill had more options I might have been interested. An on rails horror game has different pacing and execution than a sandbox or a stealth game. Perhaps one of the reasons I generally dislike it.

 

[Woiminkle]

I'm in the choices but with consequences camp. And sometimes the consequence of a choice should be a "no" in order for it to have an impact. For example the Archmage of the College of Winterhold should for the sake of immersion be a powerful and by extension famous position, and that should preclude the possibility of the current holder of the office from being a successful anonymous assassin or thief at the same time.

The most dissapointing thing about Skyrim for me is how little the world reacts to me and what I've done. I think that stems from the desire to make it possible to do everything with one character, an idea I'm not opposed to necessarily but in Skyrim was poorly implemented. Fine make it possible to join every guild but perhaps not at the same time as you are still with another. Maybe leaving a guild could carry a cost like that guild will be hostile to you from then on. There are plenty of ways you can make it plausible for one character to do it all in a fantasy setting and keep it immersive. So in a world like Skyrim the "no" doesn't even have to be permanent.

I'm not as bothered about the enchanting and crafting thing being OP since in an RPG fantasy I do eventually want to get to the stage where I am an OP earth shattering bad ass, isn't that kinda the point of leveling up? I just think in Skyrim they made it it too easy to get to that point, if they somehow made you work a bit more for it and still threw in some legendary beasties that could still hand you your ass at the higher levels it would feel a bit more satisfying.