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[bossrush]

Decisions, Decisions...

Whenever I’m talking about any of the underlying design elements of games (especially when it comes to systems), “interesting decisions” and “meaningful decisions” are terms I tend to throw around fairly frequently – and I’m sure at times they seem almost indistinguishable. I use them both almost exclusively in a positive context, often to justify a change or decision I’m making or proposing (for example, changing Fire Emblem’s Rock-Paper-Scissors system into something more tangible would provide players with more interesting decisions, since the pros and cons of each weapon type would interact more freely with context).

However, I’ve recently read an interesting article – “The Danger of Interesting Decisions” by Dan Felder – that both works to illustrate the pitfalls of such a broad design principal and introduces a safer alternative in “Satisfying Decisions,” or decisions that have no ambiguity in the positive nature or “correctness” of their outcome. I may be wildly misinterpreting the driving message of this article, although perhaps I may just fall into the “narrow psychographic” of players/designers who put a high amount of value in decisions with non-obvious answers. Regardless, I think it’s important to both take a moment to talk about decisions in general, as well as say my piece on the value of those whose purpose is to be interesting and meaningful, as well as those simply meant to be satisfying.

SATISFYING DECISIONS

Satisfying Decisions are probably the easiest to define – as the player, you make a decision that undoubtedly was the “best” one, often being put in a position to make this decision as a reward for previous good decision-making (or skillful execution of inputs, etc.) or simply because the game is rewarding the player frequently in a small way. In this case, think of executing an enemy with Darius’s ult in League of Legends, or dodging an attack at the last moment to trigger Witch Time in Bayonetta.

In the first case, this “Satisfying Decision” is playing an integral role in the “Reward” element of the Encourage-Enable-Reward nature of his kit, so by earning the position of being near a low-health enemy marked by several bleed stacks, you get to make the no-brainer decision of bringing down your index finger on that R button with righteous satisfaction and watching as your foe gets removed from the fight and your ult’s cooldown resets, ready for another use. This decision would instead become “interesting” if it did not reset and you had to choose your target wisely.

Likewise, in Bayonetta, you’re never going to be challenged with the decision of “do I want to get hit or do I want to dodge,” or “do I want to do a dodge that doesn’t have the right timing to give me Witch Time” – no, you go for that Witch Time whenever you can, and then get to make the interesting decision of how to best use that precious moment of full combat freedom. And you know what? Both of these feel really, really good. But only being faced with easy decisions is by no means the best or only way to let the player feel good (outside purely execution-based games like Super Meat Boy or any given rhythm game), so maybe we might want to think about introducing something to balance them out.

INTERESTING DECISIONS

Interesting Decisions are those that challenge the player to choose between two seemingly equal options, each with distinct outcomes based on the circumstance – one of which might be right while the other is wrong, or more optimal while the other is less optimal.

Take, for example, knocking down a tough monster in Monster Hunter while you are near death. Here, you have an obvious “wrong” answer (do nothing, or take some other action that would clearly harm you or take you further away from your goal), as well as a few answers that will yield different but positive outcomes – in this case, taking the short opportunity to either use your most powerful attacks on the vulnerable monster, or roll away from danger and drink a potion to allow yourself to indulge in greedier combos or make more wrong decisions down the line. Since dropping to 0 health multiple times and failing to deal enough damage to the monster before the time limit is up are both lose conditions here, both of these options seem good, but which one is the best?

With a good (ie. not needlessly convoluted) interesting decision, it all depends on the player’s ability to analyze their current situation and plan ahead based on its potential outcome(s). So in this case, drinking would be the most optimal option if the monster in question has an attack that can reliably hit the player (whether due to their build and strategy or them not yet knowing how to anticipate and avoid it), whereas going in for the damage would be the most optimal option if doing so is the only way to break an out-of-reach part that poses a risk while unbroken, or if the player’s weapon relies heavily on large openings for its damage output (ie. Greatsword/Hammer/Gunlance). Usually, many of these interesting decisions pepper the moment-to-moment gameplay of Action/Hunting games and Fighting games alike, as players must decide how close or far they should be to their opponent or which combo or attack to go for on the fly, with these decisions relying largely on how well the player can read the situation.

MEANINGFUL DECISIONS

Meaningful Decisions are those that have a tangible weight to them, but rather than existing as right or wrong, or on a spectrum of optimization, they simply change how the player is able to interact with the game and approach its many challenges and decisions. The core of a meaningful decision is that “meaning” – the decision you’re making needs to have an outcome that means something, that changes the way you think about what you’re doing.

The importance of meaningful decisions is the most noticeable in their absence – perhaps you’ve played a PvP game whose characters are negligible in their differences, or one that offers a complex customization subsystem yet only one viable “build” for each of its characters, classes, etc. Or, take for example League of Legends’ current “Rune” system, where players are able to slap on tiny granules of raw stats that are applied to their champion of choice at the start of the game. Choosing between +1 Attack Damage and +1% Critical Chance doesn’t feel very meaningful, and even with some of the more distinctive Keystone Masteries, you’ll often find yourself in a situation where the champion you’ve chosen to play simply gets way more value out of one than the others. The illusion of choice is often what’s left after a failed implementation of meaningful decisions.  

To look at these sorts of decisions done right, consider character moveset builds in Darkest Dungeon (which I am contractually obliged to mention once per article): giving the Jester its 4 music-based support moves or its 4 sickle-based damaging moves doesn’t make it better or worse at what it does, because “what it does” depends on how you choose to use it. Beyond that, this has even more meat to it once you realize you can mix and match these two distinctive movesets to further tailor its output to your needs. The decision of how you build this character is “meaningful” because, while not inherently “satisfying” (or particularly “challenging” – this is where choosing which of those 4 moves to spend your Jester’s single turn per round comes in), it changes the way you think about using that character in a significant way.

THE ANATOMY OF A DECISION

So now that we’ve got the Big Three out of the way, let’s look at the only card game I know enough about to use as an example: Hearthstone. While a lot of its appeal is surely due to its more approachable tone and ties to a monstrously popular franchise, its competitive scene has taken root due to a health dose of satisfying, interesting, and meaningful decisions.

For those who haven’t played, the premise is simple: choose a character, build a deck, and use that deck to beat your opponent’s character before their deck beats yours.

The satisfying decisions here are obvious - for example, if you have a minion on the board and your opponent doesn’t, you can use it to attack them at no cost beyond that minion’s one action per turn, depleting your opponent’s health and bringing you closer to victory. A clearly “right” decision, usually punctuated by a cheeky battle cry and a satisfying crunch. 

The interesting decisions are usually what put you in a position to make the satisfying ones. Do you use that minion to attack another enemy’s minion and potentially remove it from play (sometimes at the cost of your own minion), or do you go straight for their character’s face? Do you put down three more minions for a potential burst of damage next turn, or do you play it safe in case your opponent has an AoE spell up their sleeve? Do you summon a 2/2 Slime, or gain an empty Mana Crystal? Sometimes you might not find out whether you made the right decision even after the match is over, yet this is often what keeps each new match as engaging as the last.

The meaningful decisions, then, are done almost entirely outside of any match. Do you build a safe and balanced deck? One that prioritized board control? Perhaps bank on powering up and summoning the terrifying C’Thun? Do you play that deck with a Priest that can keep minions topped off with their Lesser Heal, or a Hunter who can keep up the pressure with liberal use of Steady Shot? Do you take advantage of the Hunter’s unique trap-like Secret cards, unleash their menagerie of ferocious beasts, or keep a quiver full of their flexible offensive Spell cards?

...Of course, all of these decisions have their extremes. Only trying to satisfy the player without challenging them or allowing them to explore diverse options can result in a popcorn-like game that feels more like a toy (many mobile game apps fall into this). As expressed in “The Danger of Interesting Decisions,” simply trying to tie up the player with endless crossroads of nail-biting ambiguity can lead to the kind of frustration that will only drive them away, rather than engage them. And even providing equal-but-different options in excess can lead to a paralysis of indecision that stops the player from engaging with the game entirely. With those dangers in mind, I do ultimately think that a healthy ecosystem involving all these types of decisions is what makes for the most engaging and rewarding gameplay experiences…And of course, those are the ones I want to design!

[justgotimaginary]

Oh, by the way...

That dungeon I was making is finally done! Well…It’s actually been done for about a week now, but I forgot to put it up here!

I’m not sure if I’ll be doing more of these specifically, but I think it’s safe to say that you might be seeing more of these kinds of smaller projects in the future. 

Check out the full thing here!

[bossrush]

Game Design Article Index

Since I want to make a habit of writing these (and god knows I have a lot more I want to write about), I figured it would be best to have a place I could keep them all organized! 

Do Schoolyard Games Belong on the Battlefield? A quick look at how something as simple as Fire Emblem’s weapon triangle can be improved to create greater strategic depth while retaining its core purpose.

Hearth and Home pt. 1 If you play video games, you’re probably familiar with a hub or two - why does the player always find themself going back to them, and what do they do for the game?

Hearth and Home pt. 2A, 2B, 2C, 2D (coming soon) Now that we know the why, what about the how? Here, we explore some of the many tools games have used or could use to get the player to return to the hub - as well as the pros and cons of these tools, and how they may influence the game’s overall tone.

Decisions, Decisions I say stuff like “interesting decisions” and “meaningful decisions” a lot, but what do they mean, exactly? In the face of “satisfying decisions” that can make the player feel good without asking too many questions, I try to justify the existence of the other two, and outline the importance of all three in creating engaging gameplay experiences.  

Waste Not, Want Not (coming soon) Tired of growing out of the cool new armor you just got an hour ago? Is an inventory full of obsolete consumables weighing you down? Here, we’ll take a look at what I like to call “design waste” - figuring out why it’s not great, and how games of all types can make the most of what they’ve got. 

[bossrush]

Hearth and Home pt 2C: “There And Back And There Again”

Previously, we’ve looked at a good mix of different ways to get the player to head back to town, home base, the spawn fountain, or wherever they go when things need to slow down for a bit. While pacing is important no matter what kind of game you’re looking at, maybe it’s time for the way we think of pacing to take a...change of pace. 

The Reward: So far, all we’ve been learning about is how to beat the player down and make them go crawling home, so how about a more positive alternative? Instead of the stick, let’s use the carrot - rather than returning to a hub to mend wounds and stock up on supplies, doing so to cash in on the fruits of one’s labors. This can be as simple as returning to quest-givers to hand over 20 bear asses and sell all the extra weapons clogging up your inventory, or as nuanced as retrieving and plucking your Pikmin after a fruitful hunt, to something like leveling up with all of your stored EXP after a good night’s sleep in Final Fantasy XV. 

The Pros: A good balance of punishment and reward is what helps games remain challenging without becoming painful (or fun without becoming monotonous), so it can pay off to have something as central as returning to town be something a player does after succeeding, rather than a place they only limp back to after failing hard. Often, a mix of the two is a great middle ground - such as returning to base after a tough teamfight to heal up and cash in on all your gold in DotA or League of Legends.

The Cons: Separating rewards from the tasks that yield them can sometimes take the fun out of completing them (like having to wait the day after Christmas to open your presents). It’s generally a good idea to offset this drawback by splitting rewards between the now and the later - killing the boss could still net a level or two’s worth of EXP (and the talent points to go with it) even if the quest reward’s a few minutes away, and offing that Bulborb has the immediate effect of making that area safer to navigate. 

The Consequence: Contrast to something like Mortality, The Reward can help turn returning to town into a high moment to counterbalance the low moments of getting worn down in the dungeon. This could be something as simple as a celebration for a job well done with a town singing your praises for defeating that nasty dragon...Or it could give the player a physical place in the world they want to give their all to protect, or avenge - for example, the Souls series has a habit of introducing NPCs who can quickly become more of a personal nemesis than the final boss, due to their habit of waltzing into that game’s hub and slaughtering everyone in it.

The Wardrobe: Sometimes returning to town isn’t solely a necessity, and sometimes a change of pace can be simply offering the player an opportunity to change how they play. Introducing The Wardrobe: when the game’s hub gives the player a place where they can change things up a bit. Sometimes this can be purely superficial, acting as a literal wardrobe where the player can change their appearance (a major function of the player’s house in the GTA series). Other times, this may provide players with a way to change how they approach the game’s challenges, such as switching up your 6-’mon team in  Pokémon or modifying your Talent build in WoW. 

The Pros: Variety is the spice of life, and giving players a way to shake things up (even superficially) can help break the monotony and keep the game fresh. In the case of more gameplay-affecting changes, this also allows for a wider variety of accessible playstyles without breaking the game - you’re still free to catch ‘em all, but you’ll only ever be able to face the Elite Four with a team of six. 

The Cons: Letting players change something about their in-game experience is rarely a bad thing, but locking these features to hub areas is often a necessary evil. Especially considering things like class changes or changing out talents mid-dungeon can feel a lot less game-breaking than, say, carrying around an entire shop with you, keeping these things out of the dungeon can feel arbitrary (and arbitrary restrictions can feel annoying). A simple way to ease this pain is to split the difference, keeping larger changes town-exclusive but letting the player make smaller changes (such as switching equipment, especially in games with in-dungeon loot) on the go. 

The Consequence: The Wardrobe does one thing and does it well: create scope. Whether you’re a master of the pocket monsters with dozens of team comps at the ready, a bold adventurer with a colorful cast of friends who will only accompany you three at a time, or simply someone with an outfit for every occasion, this pacing tool gives players a way to interact with a wide number of options without blowing the rest of the game out of proportion. In terms of setting tone, this is among the most flexible, with a range between picking a cuter hat because it’s Monday and you love yourself, and figuring out which four unfortunate souls will be the least likely to die halfway through the Warrens.  

[bossrush]

Hearth and Home pt 2B: “Vicious Cycles”

As a continuation of my previous post, here we’ll adventure a bit further from traditional RPG systems and take a look at some more lightly-used or uncommon methods of giving players a reason to leave the dungeon and rest up for a bit. Although, as is the nature of this series, we’ll likely return to more familiar systems before too long! 

Mortality: While we may be familiar with our character’s HP as a value that lets us know whether or not they’re dead, this isn’t all that close to a realistic representation of combat (munching on a granola bar won’t fix that gash in your leg). This can be perfectly fine - video games are supposed to be more fun than real life, after all - but there’s value to being able to represent the more permanent toll that combat can have. Some simpler methods could be having attacks both “damage” a character (reducing current HP) and “wound” them (reducing max HP, which can’t be easily restored out of town) by varying amounts, or incurring accumulating debuffs that represent lasting physical damage (such as diseases and negative quirks in Darkest Dungeon, which can only be removed in the Sanitarium). Another alternative could be to have mortal damage be represented by HP that can’t be restored in combat, but with direct damage to it being mitigated by physical Armor or by dodging/bracing for attacks through use of a combat resource like Stamina.

The Pros: When it comes to getting the player to come limping home, this is about as reliable as it gets. By separating a character’s longevity from their ability to suffer blows, HP-restoring effects are allowed to be much less restrained due to their waning relative effectiveness over the course of a dungeon crawl. Also, forcing players to have a dedicated healer (or pack healing items/spells on solo adventures) becomes less of a necessity, which can give players a bit more freedom of customization.

The Cons: Nothing can harsh the buzz of knocking on the boss’s door quite like having to do so with a broken arm and a mangled party. This is actually the inverse of one of Endurance’s problems, where instead of bosses not being affected much by the standard encounters before it, any end-of-dungeon encounter can be beyond painful based on the number of fights before it - regardless of how generous the Boss Fountain may be.

The Consequence: With systems like these, combat becomes less about steamrolling baddies during a dungeon romp and more about fighting for survival. Each battle becomes less about keeping that HP bar full and more about having to struggle on with broken bones and open wounds. Returning to town becomes an opportunity to seek medical attention, rather than to nap all one’s cares away. In short, this is a good way to go if you want combat to become either a brutal reality, or something players may even want to avoid when possible.

The Roundabout: So far, we’ve been working off of two basic premises: 1) A dungeon (or its equivalent) is something separate from town (or its equivalent), and is something the player can enter and complete, and 2) The dungeon needs to wear the player down so it can’t be easily be completed in one go, to preserve its challenge. With these in mind, The Roundabout, then, is a way to stretch out dungeons while allowing players to tackle them bit by bit. A common method for this is the distribution of save points, which, once reached/activated, can be teleported to from the beginning of the dungeon. More impressive, however, are the physical shortcuts presented in the Souls series (and Nioh, its recent contemporary), where levels are designed to wind around themselves in natural ways - allowing players to open up paths to earlier areas once they reach certain points (such as ladders that can be kicked down and doors that can only be opened from one side). 

The Pros: As mentioned before, this is an excellent way to provide massive levels for the player to conquer, without requiring them to marathon the entire thing in one go before facing the boss. This is especially useful in more difficult games where the player may die or be sent back more often, as it allows for smaller moments of victory as players reach certain thresholds and establish a footing for themselves in an ongoing uphill battle.

The Cons: The Roundabout is not so much a reason to head back to town as much as it is something that makes doing so more tempting, so it’s highly reliant on both how useful the game’s hubs are and how effective its challenges are at making the player return to them. 

The Consequence: While it takes a bit of extra work to do well, The Roundabout is an excellent tool for making a world feel big without making it feel TOO big. By presenting physical shortcuts to the player, navigating the world can feel more natural (Dark Souls with its lack of fast travel and abundance of shortcuts is one of the best examples) and give more meaning to the physical space the player’s character occupies. Not as big of a tone-setter as the other methods, but you shouldn’t underestimate the power of keeping the player grounded!

[bossrush]

Hearth and Home pt 2A: “Maybe A Little Rest For The Weary”

So now that we understand the true value behind a good old-fashioned rest stop, I suppose the next question is...How do we get there? Towns and Inns and the restaurants of Sotenbori are great to have, but we’re going to need a reason to stop by and stay a while first.

Here, we’ll explore a few cool ways to wear the player (or their party) down, each with their own gameplay consequences and effect on the game’s tone.

The Grind: This is pretty much the prevailing way to wear any RPG protagonist down and send them back to town. With random encounters, rooms packed with enemies, status-afflicting traps, or whatever the game’s tools of the trade are, having each moment spent in a dungeon or zone slowly chip away at the player’s resources can turn a return to town into an eventuality. As long as there’s some way to reliably damage the player and any restorative items/spells/etc. are limited, even the toughest adventurer is going to be sent packing sooner or later (provided they aren’t overleveled). While this most often works by constantly depleting HP with enemy attacks and such, having skill/spell/ability use be tied to MP or any other resource that does not naturally regenerate is a way to avoid relying solely on an HP tax.

The Pros: While it’s as basic as it gets, this is probably the easiest to tune without feeling too game-y. The rate at which enemies wear away at players of the average level for that area can be adjusted through the enemies themselves (individual enemy strength, random encounter rate, etc.), and in games with customizable characters/parties, it can provide a straightforward optimization game, as players try to maximize their staying power by building around the enemies they’re facing. 

The Cons: Considering it’s such an RPG staple, it can get a little bit stale! Aside from typically being possible to buy one’s way around this system (stocking up on potions and such in town), heavy-handed methods of combat limitation such as a quickly dwindling MP pool can make certain parts of the combat system feel bad to use.

The Consequence: Nothing too tone-setting here, as it’s more often than not dependent on the systems surrounding it - such as how easy it is to acquire restorative items or how punishing enemy encounters are (see: the difference between Pokemon and Shin Megami Tensei). 

Endurance: While a bit similar to The Grind, this method uses a resource separate from the main combat system as a way to limit the player’s stay in various areas. This can be something that gradually builds up (like Stress in Darkest Dungeon, or Radiation in the Fallout series), which can’t be reduced through combat (or which can be reduced in limited amounts or at some other cost). This could also be something that’s gradually reduced, such as in Pillars of Eternity - where each member of the player’s party has Health in-combat that is depleted through damage and takes them out of the fight once depleted, and a much larger pool of Endurance that refills its respective Health pool out of combat. Other possible examples could include: Hunger meters, limited Supplies that are depleted over time, Morale that can only be replenished by resting.

The Pros: By not rooting players’ staying power solely to their primary combat resources, combat is allowed to be a little more unrestrained - with skills no longer tied to a finite resource, indulging in a Firaga stops being something that feels like it’ll bite you in the ass 12 encounters from now. Also, other systems can be implemented to balance fights on an encounter-by-encounter basis, rather than having each fight be easier due to their longer-lasting effects. 

The Cons: By separating the player’s “dungeon timer” from their raw effectiveness in each battle, the apparent effects of combat skill may feel like they don’t affect staying power as much. This may also force boss encounters to be less drastically more difficult than the standard enemy encounters due to the player’s power being more closely balanced towards the standard group of enemies (whereas with The Grind, fighting through 20 random encounters and facing off against a dungeon’s boss may incur the same resource cost).

The Consequence: The most important consequence here is a humanizing one. With something like Sanity or Hunger or anything else that naturally wears away at the player and their party over time (especially if it can’t be efficiently counter-acted through combat), they stop being Hi-Potion fueled killing machines, and become instead people with limitations and needs. The tone of this can change from game-to-game: Darkest Dungeon’s “Sanity” resource illustrates some of the mortal burden of adventuring (especially with regards to certain events, like bearing witness to abstract horrors or watching your tank get crit for half their HP). The Banner Saga’s “Morale” and “Supplies” intertwine to paint a picture of an army of individuals that need to eat and sleep like the rest of us. Stamina in mobile games represents the vices of the freemium market and how willing some people are to hold gameplay hostage. 

Since each of these is going on a bit longer than I anticipated (and I have a handful more of these), I’ll cut this off here and continue in a separate post!

[bossrush]

Hearth and Home pt. 1: “But Why Do I Have To Leave The Dungeon?”

So whether you play fantasy RPGs, Sci-Fi Platformers, or whatever is cool these days, you’ve probably been to a hub or two. Some place you stop by between missions, after levels, or at the end of a particularly grueling boss battle. No matter what, you always find yourself back at the Firelink Shrine, Dalaran, or some cheery little town a minute or two away from whatever Zubat-infested cave you’re trying to muscle through.

The first few times, you might just be going about your business - stocking up on consumables, resting at the inn, making some new gear...Then the thought hits you: “What’s the deal? Why do I keep coming back here?”

Some games are a bit more subtle about it, giving you limited inventory space or wearing your party down with random encounters in the middle of a puzzle dungeon. Others give your gear durability that seems to plummet the moment you look away. Either way, their purpose is the same: to pull you away from your adventure and get you to stop at the last threshold you crossed.

Sounds kinda lame, doesn’t it? You just spent the last 20 minutes tearing through goblins, raking in dough, and getting sick loot, and now it seems like the game is intent on tearing you away from the fun and making you do boring stuff like sleep or shop (or, god forbid, pay a dwarf 45g to fix your stupid sword). What gives?!

The first part of that, of course, is just setting the mood. Adventuring can’t just all be fun and games, right? Your party gets tired, your pack gets lighter (or heavier, if you’re playing Diablo), maybe your healer is starting to go a little nuts...At the end of the day, we’re all just people (or gnomes, or robots), and we can’t just go on and on forever.

Depending on the game, this might help set the tone. Your party just got back from fighting the upper half of a giant mutant pig king, and pushing them further without a good day or two to drink heavily or pray to their gods may send them toppling over the brink. You and the other teenagers joining you on your grand adventure just beat the super evil Dark General’s third-in-command and just need a good night’s rest at the local inn to sleep off thousands of HP’s worth of fancy particle effects. Your ragtag group of hardened and pragmatic adventurers just killed ghosts all day and need some time to resupply and rest up before they do it again tomorrow, because that’s what they’re getting paid to do.

While it often goes hand-in-hand with the tone-setting aspect (if it’s a good game), there’s also another side to it...Pacing.

Imagine, if you will, there was a little button you could press whenever you wanted (out of combat, of course), that would immediately restore you and your party to full health, restock all your consumables, and so on. Would that make the game easier? Not really (or at least not by much), if you think about it...All this button does, essentially, is save you the time you’d spend going to town and doing whatever it is you need to do, and slogging through challenges you’ve already bested. But what happens to the game then?

All that time spent resting and in transit is now fully available to you, allowing you to park yourself square in Derelict Castle #28 and kill droves of hapless Dire Skeleton Archers, soaking in all that EXP, getting all those rare drops...Except, not really. 

Games are paced the way they are for a reason (the Elite Four wouldn’t be the same if all that awaited you on Victory Road was a handful of Geodude encounters and a single Ace Trainer), and so to maintain that pacing, skeletons are suddenly awarding a fraction of their EXP, the Super Cool Bone Sword Of Slaying’s drop rate is in the decimals, and all you’re left with is a big slog without travel or R&R to break up the monotony. Not to mention, now that you never have to beat your way through the earlier floors populated by weaker enemies, you never really get a good chance to see how much stronger you’ve become. 

So in a way, it’s because of these little hubs that each adventure gets to be so juicy and rewarding, right? So next time you decide to take a load off after making it halfway through the Evil Hell Gauntlet that’s standing in the way between you and the third sacred plot orb, consider thanking the innkeep. It’s the little things! 

(Part 2 is probably going to be about different ways to get players to leave the dungeon that aren’t fucking weapon durability)

[bossrush]

Do Schoolyard Games Belong on the Battlefield?

In the Fire Emblem series, the Weapon Triangle has long since been established - Sword beats Axe, Axe beats Spear, Spear beats Sword...for reasons. While its similarity to the popular fighting-game predecessor “Rock Paper Scissors” may seem to make it more easily approachable, such an arbitrary system only makes the tactics in this series more abstract. Considering it’s 2017 and nobody is still sure why Paper beats Rock, it might not be the paragon of readable design. 

Rather than moving around a bunch of soldiers with weapons and their associated fighting styles, the combat system almost becomes chess-like in its obscurity, where every unit becomes more like a footnote in a rulebook, rather than something with its own qualities and consequence. Now, Fire Emblem has a lot of moving parts (and has only added more over time), with flying units, three different kinds of ranged weapons, and all sorts of weapon variants that add additional effects or even reverse the Weapon Triangle…But for now, let’s start with those three weapons: Sword, Axe, and Spear.

Since this is a system based around real things with physical properties (everyone is familiar with what a sword is and what it does), it might be best to start with how the system seems to be justified. Just like how Fire burns Grass and Water extinguishes Fire in Pokémon, I’ve always used this mnemonic: Sword’s finesse beats the Axe’s brute strength, Axe’s brute strength beats the Spear’s reach, and Spear’s reach beats the Sword’s finesse. Even playing something like Nioh (with a real-time, Souls-esque version of the triangle), these sorts of qualities and interactions arise and inform the player’s decisions. So in Fire Emblem, a turn-based game where the main combat involves moving into attack range and trading blows in 1-on-1 bouts, how could the qualities of these weapons manifest and create a more natural, tangible version of the Weapon Triangle?

Sword: The Sword’s maneuverability and finesse could be represented by having half of its attack always be dealt as a riposte at the end of each bout (meaning two ripostes in fights they don’t initiate), with all Sword ripostes receiving a damage boost. If this is something around +50% riposting power, an initiating attack that deals 12 damage would instead deal 6 + 9 damage, whereas a defending attack would deal 9 + 9 damage.

Axe: The Axe’s brute strength and clumsiness could be represented by it granting 50% resistance to initiating attacks while boosting the power of its own initiating attacks by 25% - using the weapon’s heft as a means to defend before its retaliating swing leaves it open, and being able to use its full weight when taking the initiative.

Spear: The Spear’s reach and safety could be represented by an increase to riposte resistance for the rest of a bout after it attacks, so if this is something like +50% riposte resistance, a 12-damage initiating attack would be unaffected, but the same attack as a defending riposte would only deal 6 damage.

Just a bit of math to show how this all evens out...

Sword -> Spear = 6 + 5 dealt, 12 taken (-1 advantage)

Spear -> Axe = 6 dealt, 6 taken (+0 advantage) 

Axe -> Sword = 15 dealt, 9 + 9 taken (-3 advantage)

Spear -> Sword = 12 dealt, 5 + 5 taken (+2 advantage) 

Axe -> Spear = 15 dealt, 12 taken (+3 advantage)

Sword -> Axe = 3 + 9 dealt, 12 taken (+0 advantage) 

Sword -> Spear, Spear -> Sword (Sword-1 Spear+2, Spear total 3 adv)

Spear -> Axe, Axe -> Spear (Spear+0, Axe+3, Axe total 3 adv)

Axe -> Sword, Sword -> Axe (Axe-3, Sword+0, Sword total 3 adv)

(Note - I had to go through a few quick iterations of this since I first started Axe with 25% defense vs. initiation + 25% initiating power to keep it totaled even with the two other +50% boosts, although that ended up too low, but boosting it to 50%/50% was too high as well. Turns out being uneven is the best answer! Also, in the case of a Sword getting to do a bonus Speed Advantage attack, both attacks would occur in the initiating attack, with their second halves both being dealt as a riposte, rather than one half initiating and three halves riposte.) 

While this might mean that players won’t be as free to use their own internal justifications to help memorize a preset array of type advantages, the resulting system is not only one that can allow for a much richer assortment of interactions between mechanics, but one that allows players to organically learn its rules.

Rather than being told and having to memorize a new flavor of Rock Paper Scissors, they can realize on their own that the Sword’s ability to always riposte in a trade is handy for bypassing the Axe’s initial block (and its double ripostes punish the Axe’s no-guard initiations), that the Axe’s heavy initiating attack and defending block allow it to come out on top in any trade with a Spear, and that the Spear’s resistance to ripostes allows it to safely initiate against the Sword.

[bossrush]

From now on, even though I’m not working on any big projects I’m at liberty to discuss, I’m going to try to post here a bit more often. I’ve been spending a lot of my free time lately going through games I’ve played and LPs I’ve watched to do some fun and no-strings mechanics and systems studies, so I think I’ll try to post some of the things I learn here every day!

[bossrush]

UPDATE

Hey guys! Things have been pretty quiet here, mainly for two reasons: I’ve been working 7am to 11pm six days a week for the past 5 weeks at a cool summer camp where I get to teach kids how to make video games, and outside of that, I’ve been using whatever free time I’ve scavenged to work on an MMO design thesis that has gotten way out of hand!

I had typed up a few paragraphs going over some of the surface-level details, but Tumblr decided to crash 20 minutes into it, and since it’s getting late, this version is going to be a lot shorter. 

I’ve been playing MMOs (MMORPGs, specifically) for a while, and I’ve invested at least a few dozen hours into some of the more prominent ones - WoW, FFXIV, and GW/2 to name a few (although Wakfu and Wildstar have recently been getting a bit more attention from me lately, and I’ve also checked out some of the Nexon titles for research purposes). Overall, there are a few recurring gripes I have about games in the genre, and “solving” these problems with paper systems seemed like a constructive way to vent about it. Doing big design projects seems to be how I deal with that kind of stuff!

The core of these gripes started out as the way combat systems (and combat in general) have been handled in MMOs, but instead of just redesigning existing systems - which I’ve done already - I’ve decided to answer it with a system of my own, designed from scratch as a way to minimize these recurring problems while capitalizing on some of the excellent things that have come from these systems.

It started out as just a class-based combat thesis, which addressed my gripe about MMO class systems seemingly having to decide between feeling unique while filling a generic function or feeling generic while fulfilling a unique role (as well as other issues, such as over-reliance on RNG procs for engagement or the whole Too Many Damn Buttons scenario), but as I started playing MMOs more to help get into the right mindset, I stumbled into more and more things to gripe about.

So what started with classes eventually expanded into two encounter design scenarios (since these classes couldn’t exist in a void), which then leaked into things like overworld progression/mob/encounter/narrative design, then the empty cycle of the endless gear grind (and my personal vendetta with “trash” items and non-scaling content), then the issue of crafting classes feeling unfulfilling cropped up, and playable races being pretty safe or boring most of the time...and long story short, I’ve just decided to get it all off my chest at once and design an entire theoretical MMO. I’ll be doing illustrations and all, too, but I think it might be best if those come last!

I’ll be periodically updating with vague details regarding my progress, as well as meaty posts outlining the mindset behind a lot of what I’m doing, but for now I think I’ll just establish the order I’ll be doing things in: 

1. Class-Based Combat

2. Dungeon and Raid Encounter Design

3. Overworld Progression and Encounter Design

4. Gear System and Progression Design

5. Optimizing For Interactivity

There’s probably a number of things I’m missing, but for now, expect to eventually hear me ramble on about these things in an order that’s probably close to the one outlined above! This’ll certainly take a lot of time, but since I’ll be officially off-duty for at least a month or two after next week (unless my career decides to make the first move), I’ll have all the time I need. This is really just a fun project for me to blow off some steam and have fun thinking about pressing buttons, and I’m mainly making these posts for my own reference, but feel free to follow along and tell me what you think!

[bossrush]

To any of you guys who play MMOs...

What do you look for in a playable character race? What would be the perfect race to you, or one you’d like to see?

[bossrush]

Hey guys, I made a video game! 

I’ll be updating this sucker at least once a month, hopefully (depending on how busy my classes are next quarter), either just to mess around with mechanics or address player feedback.

Feel like giving it a shot? Just head on over to the StarCraft 2 Arcade and search “Grub Assault” - it’s pretty hard to miss!

[bossrush]

Grub Evo Devlog 3-1-2016 (part 5)

Overview:

-Resources are now dropped by dying critters, which the player character can eat by walking over, granting them a set amount of that resource (used for evolving and unlocking abilities) -The player can now morph into different evolutions, spending a set amount of whatever resource it requires

Two of my other major recent victories, I’ve finally gotten the resource system all set up, and fixed the weird bug where the actor that creates the evolution egg would cause it to wildly shift in size mid-morph, which looked absolutely awful even if the actual morph ability worked fine (there was also a problem with all of the actors associated with the morphed unit - including that belonging to the unit itself - would change size during the morph, leading to strange disproportion between the unit’s intended size and the size of its various visual effects). 

The resources, as you can see here, are Acid, Meat, and Brain, which come in varying serving sizes, are dropped by critters appropriate to that size, and give a set amount of their given resource based on portion. So, for example, Brute Workers would drop small chunks of Meat which give a small amount of that resource, Brute Soldiers would drop medium amounts, and Brute Alphas would drop the largest amount. Hope you’ve saved your appetite!

As for evolution, it’s pretty simple - once you have enough of a certain resource, that resource’s evolution will become available on the player’s command card (where the rest of their Abilities and useful tooltips are). Once you have enough resources for the evolution you want, it’s as easy as pressing the button, getting cozy inside your egg, and hatching into something new and cool! Be careful, though, since once you start evolving, there’s no going back...

[bossrush]

Grub Evo Devlog 3-1-2016 (part 4)

Overview:

-Everyone has more player-friendly life bars now! The player character has a fancy border around theirs, while non-player characters (not including Guardians and Sharpshooters) have their relative power displayed through their life bar length/

Not a super impressive update on its own, but I’ve also finally gotten new and improved life bars up and running! 

This took a while to actually figure out and implement, but the result is something I feel is pretty crucial to the game. You see, one of the main issues people had when playing the game was how difficult it was to gauge the relative power level of different units (I planned on using size as the primary metric for this, but that only worked for maybe half of people on its own), and one of the others was that some people had difficulty discerning between the player’s units and the enemy’s. 

To address the player character identification problem, I hooked them up with a fancy new life bar that comes in two flavors: one for the regular units (which I like a bit more as far aesthetics go), and one for units that get shields (which aren’t supported by the first kind - you just kind of get this empty block at the end of the life bar, making it look like they’ve got less health than they actually do). The black bar underneath the green health portion of the life bar is the progress bar, which fills up with grey while the unit is progressing through a channel or evolving. 

As for power level and allegiance, I’ve stuck with the default life bars for all non-player units, so you can judge their relative strength based on how many bars of health they have, and whether they’re your buddies or your enemies based on whether they’re red or green. 

If I end up having the player’s unit selection-locked (meaning they’re selected 100% of the time) and have some sort of camera follow button, I may end up giving the other units some fancy bars too, but for now, they’ll have to settle with what they’ve got!

[bossrush]

Grub Evo Devlog 3-1-2016 (part 3)

Overview:

-Guardian’s Passive Trait - Guardian’s Seal: Launches a projectile at any of their enemies that get too close to the Sharpshooter; greatly reduces attackspeed and movespeed on impact -Guardian’s Ability - Psi Barrier: After a brief channel, envelops the Guardian with a barrier that temporarily reduces all incoming damage

While the Shapshooter has gotten a bit of attention on here, I haven’t really explained what makes the Guardian tick quite yet. As the one thing (or four things) standing between you and their fragile backline, they have a few tricks in their arsenal to allow them to keep themselves and their allies standing!

Their Passive Trait, “Guardian’s Seal,” is what stop the player from just moseying on up the the Sharpshooter and going to town. Whenever the player or any of their fellow Grunts get a little too close to their backline, all nearby Guardians will fire off a projectile that greatly reduces attackspeed and movespeed on contact. 

Their Ability, “Psi Barrier,” has the same 3-second channel that the Sharpshooter’s Kill Shot Ability does, and if allowed to complete, encases them in a resilient psionic shell that reduces all the damage they take by a percentage for a decent chunk of time. Casting it does briefly stop them from attacking, so they typically only use it when they’re being focused down by the player or any Grunts that have been alive for a bit too long. 

[bossrush]

Grub Evo Devlog 3-1-2016 (part 2)

Overview:

-Shellhead’s 1st Ability - Threat Display: The Shellhead gestures menacingly at the target unit, forcing them to attack it for the next few seconds -Bulkhead’s 1st Ability - Overpowering Roar: The Bulkhead lets out a roar, drawing the attention of all nearby enemies and forcing them to attack it for the next few seconds -Commander’s 2nd Ability - Focus Fire: The Commander causes all nearby Grunts to perform a focused attack against a single enemy, dealing a portion of their maximum health with each projectile

I’ve been neglecting these for a while, due to a common mechanic between them that was causing me more than a few problems!

All three of these Abilities were initially meant to involve an effect that would force one unit to attack another - we’ll start with the simplest one, the Shellhead’s “Threat Display” Ability. This ability allows the Shellhead to force a single enemy unit to attack it for a few seconds, which is especially useful against enemy Guardians, as it allows the Grunt it was attacking to break out its more powerful long-range attacks. The Bulkhead’s “Overpowering Roar” Ability is similar to this, but rather than affecting a single target, it draws the attention of all nearby enemies - if used with good positioning, this could potentially affect the entire enemy frontline!

The main problem with these two Abilities stemmed from the nature of the primary enemy units. While I meant for them to always stay at the overall same location (previously done with Leash range, meaning they’d always return to a set point if they moved more than a set distance away from it), the effects involving forcing them to attack things (done by forcing their player to issue an attack command), their leash point would be reset to their current point whenever the effect would end. This means that patient players would be able to move enemies to the opposite end of the map, and while that sounds like it could be fun, it would kind of break the game! The fix to this one was simple in nature: by removing the Guardians’ and Sharpshooters’ ability to move, they could be forced to attack whoever I wanted them to without messing up their formation. 

Next up is the Commander’s second Ability, “Focus Fire.” As seen in the video I posted earlier, it was meant to force all nearby Grunts to attack a specific enemy, although this ultimately ended up causing them to stop moving towards the enemy base after that row of enemies was defeated, and it generally felt pretty underwhelming as an Ability (since these Grunts were still being attacked by Guardians in 99% of use cases, they’d just be doing slightly less pitiful damage to a single Guardian, who would heal it off before the next wave came). I killed two birds with one stone, however, and ultimately ended up with a much cooler Ability - now Focus Fire causes all Grunts near the target to fire a huge wad of the spines they shoot with their Passive Trait at them, dealing a decent chunk of their maximum health as damage. After softening up someone with the Commander’s Attacks and Viscous Deluge, this thing really packs a punch!

[bossrush]

Grub Evo Devlog 3-1-2016 (part 1)

Overview:

-Grunts now drop bits of biomass, which heal the player charcter (which has no natural health regeneration) when walked over -Grunts now periodically spawn from the player’s base, and will travel towards the enemy base, stopping only to attack whatever is in front of them or die

I’ve been neglecting this blog for a while, so I’ll be doing a few updates today just to keep the size of each post in check. I’ll try to keep it somewhat organized, so bear with me!

After all of this talk of evolutions, allies, and enemies, I suppose it’s about time to introduce one of the major parts of the main gameplay loop - the Grunt Scraps. When Grunts die (as they inevitably will, constantly, en masse), they leave behind one last gift for the player: a bit of their biomass, which can be collected by walking over to provide a short but oh-so-necessary heal. You see, between close scrapes with enemy fortifications and slugfests with the monsters in the jungle, the Grub and its evolutions will eventually start running out of steam, and with no innate health regeneration, you gotta get your heals when you can! It’s also a handy way to stop the player from just grinding things out in the wilderness and help out their buddies every so often (or just test their new powers on some aliens). 

I’ve also finally implemented the Grunt’s periodic spawn. Every so often (currently 20 seconds), a gaggle of Grunts will be hatched at the player’s base, and immediately start making their way up to the enemy base, attacking anything on their way. These waves are what the player must work with in order to break through enemy formations, whether that’s using them as disposable meat shields or their primary offensive force.