Can you not accuse me of ignoring things when I disagree with you? Go with the idea that I view it differently, not that I am ignoring factors at play. It would make this interaction nicer.
Also, I ask again, please use spoiler's to limit the space large posts take up. Thank you.
Redacted. Best left for later.
Also, I ask again, please use spoiler's to limit the space large posts take up. Thank you.
@Beemann Onto more interesting things.
Going forward, what I would like to talk about is two things.
1: The different ways to approach customization. Do you realize we have barely even touched on what I think is the right and wrong way to create a customization system? That seems like it would be important if we are trying to say why we think it's good or bad. I'd like to point out how many systems have a ton of numerical bloat or granularity (minor stat differences or a wide variance in numerical value) and how that is what can turn a small selection of modular choices (all that is truly required for custom builds) into a monster of excessive complexity to balance.
2: The potential value that a modular customization system brings to a small studio's required goal of efficiently reaching a minimum viable product capable of achieving financial success.
Ember's core gameplay loop is heavily defined by the relationship created by dynamic content and the war. I'll break that down. (note: firefall barely scratched the surface of how that was meant to work)
Make no mistake, there is no way to avoid players seeing everything there is to see, doing everything there is to do, at some point. The more stuff you can put in the game the longer that will take but it will always be limited. There will always be the need for new stuff. What dynamic content does is take the same amount of stuff(number of variables), and then moves them around into more possible combinations than static content would.
Dynamic content is build on a set of modular pieces. By using modular pieces it raises the number of potential encounter scenario's exponentially compared to static content. That extends the amount of new factors one has to account for as well increases the unpredictability of when/how they will arise compared to static content. This is it's value.
Now add to that, this is happening in a sci fi-actiony version of a simulated War. War, in this case, is a reference to there being a larger, fully relevant, conflict the player is involved in. For one thing the utilization of player-built-bases and player-built-vehicles increases the moment to moment variety. But even more than that it means that, where many PVE games place you in the thematic setting of a war, the battles will ultimately be fixed scenerio's.
In most PVE games failure to stop the enemy from building a tank manufacturing plant doesn't actually result in their being more tanks in the game world. You just do the mission over until you do stop the manufacturing plant from being built. Some games offer a few different outcomes but for the most part there is a lack of changing consequences based on the players victory or failure conditions. The most common exception to that would be the RTS genre. If you fail to take out a particular manufacturing plant the battle doesn't simply end, you now deal with more tanks on the field. That is the an example of a dynamic war.
You see, playing as a character in a Massive planetary wargame is a lot like being on foot in the middle of an active RTS. This is one of the things that will set it apart from most games right out of the gate.
It is in that setting that the great movement and sharply tuned shooting will thrive.
All tied together by a resource based economy built to connect the fighters to the territory itself. That's all interesting stuff and we haven't even talked about whether it would have character/class customization yet.
Now a point about "nooby traps" and "learning curves".
Progression systems exist for a few reasons. Two primary reasons are to extend the life of the game and to give the player time to learn. I want to focus on the latter.
If there are a wide variety of options that a player can play with they arent all given at once. That would be overwhelming. But for the long term player, additional gameplay options to access can be nice. So we need to differentiate between what customization is, and what creates nooby traps.
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Customization happening during or before the match is the ENTIRE point:
Is it now? So then, if this is an important distinction to the matter at hand, youre saying that customization and counter builds are fine with you as long as they happen AFTER the battle starts? Right?
Well in a persistent open world full of dynamically generated war, a player can disengage from the fight, swap builds, then go back to battle: does that count as "pre-mission" or "mid-mission"? Do you put that in the same category of "mid-battle" like a dota clone because you can go back to base for items/gear but the fight still rages on? Again, playing as a character in a Massive planetary wargame is a lot like being on foot in the middle of an RTS. The battle is on and constant, reprieves are more like the calm between enemy waves, the only question is whether you are in the fight or on the sidelines at any given time.
Also, would Ember count as a game with moment to moment customization, a game with long term customization,or both? If you can freely go and swap between multiple builds and loadouts, utilizing everything you have unlocked, then what would either of those systems offer that Ember does not?
Does all that seem like needless categorization? lol. Thing is, you either stand by the blanket stance that "customization limits choice" or you acknowledge that customization being good or bad for choice depends on how it is executed. The whole pre-mission and mid-mission distinction get's pretty muddy in a persistent world at war.
The existence of mechanics is ultimately a result of the non-existence of other mechanics, unless you have infinite resources.
This is true. The problem, however, is that you are speaking as though a customization system is simply more work without any tangible benefit to the efficiency of reaching a minimum viable product capable of achieving financial success. That is very much in contention.
Make no mistake, there is no way to avoid players seeing everything there is to see, doing everything there is to do, at some point. The more stuff you can put in the game the longer that will take but it will always be limited. There will always be the need for new stuff. What dynamic content does is take the same amount of stuff(number of variables), and then moves them around into more possible combinations than static content would.
Dynamic content is build on a set of modular pieces. By using modular pieces it raises the number of potential encounter scenario's exponentially compared to static content. That extends the amount of new factors one has to account for as well increases the unpredictability of when/how they will arise compared to static content. This is it's value.
Now add to that, this is happening in a sci fi-actiony version of a simulated War. War, in this case, is a reference to there being a larger, fully relevant, conflict the player is involved in. For one thing the utilization of player-built-bases and player-built-vehicles increases the moment to moment variety. But even more than that it means that, where many PVE games place you in the thematic setting of a war, the battles will ultimately be fixed scenerio's.
In most PVE games failure to stop the enemy from building a tank manufacturing plant doesn't actually result in their being more tanks in the game world. You just do the mission over until you do stop the manufacturing plant from being built. Some games offer a few different outcomes but for the most part there is a lack of changing consequences based on the players victory or failure conditions. The most common exception to that would be the RTS genre. If you fail to take out a particular manufacturing plant the battle doesn't simply end, you now deal with more tanks on the field. That is the an example of a dynamic war.
You see, playing as a character in a Massive planetary wargame is a lot like being on foot in the middle of an active RTS. This is one of the things that will set it apart from most games right out of the gate.
It is in that setting that the great movement and sharply tuned shooting will thrive.
All tied together by a resource based economy built to connect the fighters to the territory itself. That's all interesting stuff and we haven't even talked about whether it would have character/class customization yet.
Now a point about "nooby traps" and "learning curves".
Progression systems exist for a few reasons. Two primary reasons are to extend the life of the game and to give the player time to learn. I want to focus on the latter.
If there are a wide variety of options that a player can play with they arent all given at once. That would be overwhelming. But for the long term player, additional gameplay options to access can be nice. So we need to differentiate between what customization is, and what creates nooby traps.
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Customization happening during or before the match is the ENTIRE point:
Is it now? So then, if this is an important distinction to the matter at hand, youre saying that customization and counter builds are fine with you as long as they happen AFTER the battle starts? Right?
Well in a persistent open world full of dynamically generated war, a player can disengage from the fight, swap builds, then go back to battle: does that count as "pre-mission" or "mid-mission"? Do you put that in the same category of "mid-battle" like a dota clone because you can go back to base for items/gear but the fight still rages on? Again, playing as a character in a Massive planetary wargame is a lot like being on foot in the middle of an RTS. The battle is on and constant, reprieves are more like the calm between enemy waves, the only question is whether you are in the fight or on the sidelines at any given time.
Also, would Ember count as a game with moment to moment customization, a game with long term customization,or both? If you can freely go and swap between multiple builds and loadouts, utilizing everything you have unlocked, then what would either of those systems offer that Ember does not?
Does all that seem like needless categorization? lol. Thing is, you either stand by the blanket stance that "customization limits choice" or you acknowledge that customization being good or bad for choice depends on how it is executed. The whole pre-mission and mid-mission distinction get's pretty muddy in a persistent world at war.
The existence of mechanics is ultimately a result of the non-existence of other mechanics, unless you have infinite resources.
This is true. The problem, however, is that you are speaking as though a customization system is simply more work without any tangible benefit to the efficiency of reaching a minimum viable product capable of achieving financial success. That is very much in contention.
Going forward, what I would like to talk about is two things.
1: The different ways to approach customization. Do you realize we have barely even touched on what I think is the right and wrong way to create a customization system? That seems like it would be important if we are trying to say why we think it's good or bad. I'd like to point out how many systems have a ton of numerical bloat or granularity (minor stat differences or a wide variance in numerical value) and how that is what can turn a small selection of modular choices (all that is truly required for custom builds) into a monster of excessive complexity to balance.
2: The potential value that a modular customization system brings to a small studio's required goal of efficiently reaching a minimum viable product capable of achieving financial success.
Likes:
Pandagnome
So you're saying that-
" Simply put, there are plenty of highly successful games that have rather meaty customization ",-What I actually said.
Is the same message as-
"Ember should use a mechanic solely based on its existence in successful titles.",-what you claim I tried to say.
It's not the same. My stance is that a thing being used successfully in multiple places means that thing CAN work. Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with that stance, whether or not that same particular thing should be applied to any specific game is still another matter.
I understand the mechanically illustrative aspect but I thought you'd also referenced success in certain points. So you didn't point out Dota's long lasting success as an example? I must be mistaken on that part. Pardon me.
No, I said customization might be PART of the reason for certain games success, and that I believe it is in the case of several games.
That is such an important distinction.
Look, I said multiple successes show that a mechanic CAN work. I didn't say it proves it to be the only, best, strongest, or ideal mechanic. I mean, are you really saying that a feature found in many successful titles CAN'T work?
Let's be real here. How would you properly collect evidence that any particular mechanic was a weaker or a stronger aspect of a game? Player bases opinions are hard to go by, often there are as many people saying they like a feature as there are those who say they dislike it. History of the feature is tricky to go by, considering that just about every mechanic has been seen in more failures than successes. Outside of edge cases, it's usually a mixed bag of information. So what evidence do we really have left to go on? It comes down to our personal take on what factors it was we think combined to make any particular game work for people. Unless you're honestly going to tell me that there is no value in trying to learn from successful games....I'm going to keep looking to them for advice.
Warframe: I feel that following up on you with the example of warframe was a mistake. I hoped it wold give us a central example to talk about but I think the outcome was something very different. This conversation continues to be too much about the minutia of warframe as opposed to some overall concepts. There is much about the game that you and I disagree on, plus much about the game I find extremely flawed (too much numerical bloat that makes balancing it's options exponentially harder for little gain) which we never quite get to. So nevermind that game as an example.
Seriously I'm done talking about all of the above. If you bring it back up I'm just going to not respond. Please just let all that go. I'd like to get back to having a beneficial discussion.
" Simply put, there are plenty of highly successful games that have rather meaty customization ",-What I actually said.
Is the same message as-
"Ember should use a mechanic solely based on its existence in successful titles.",-what you claim I tried to say.
It's not the same. My stance is that a thing being used successfully in multiple places means that thing CAN work. Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with that stance, whether or not that same particular thing should be applied to any specific game is still another matter.
I understand the mechanically illustrative aspect but I thought you'd also referenced success in certain points. So you didn't point out Dota's long lasting success as an example? I must be mistaken on that part. Pardon me.
No, I said customization might be PART of the reason for certain games success, and that I believe it is in the case of several games.
That is such an important distinction.
Look, I said multiple successes show that a mechanic CAN work. I didn't say it proves it to be the only, best, strongest, or ideal mechanic. I mean, are you really saying that a feature found in many successful titles CAN'T work?
Let's be real here. How would you properly collect evidence that any particular mechanic was a weaker or a stronger aspect of a game? Player bases opinions are hard to go by, often there are as many people saying they like a feature as there are those who say they dislike it. History of the feature is tricky to go by, considering that just about every mechanic has been seen in more failures than successes. Outside of edge cases, it's usually a mixed bag of information. So what evidence do we really have left to go on? It comes down to our personal take on what factors it was we think combined to make any particular game work for people. Unless you're honestly going to tell me that there is no value in trying to learn from successful games....I'm going to keep looking to them for advice.
Warframe: I feel that following up on you with the example of warframe was a mistake. I hoped it wold give us a central example to talk about but I think the outcome was something very different. This conversation continues to be too much about the minutia of warframe as opposed to some overall concepts. There is much about the game that you and I disagree on, plus much about the game I find extremely flawed (too much numerical bloat that makes balancing it's options exponentially harder for little gain) which we never quite get to. So nevermind that game as an example.
Seriously I'm done talking about all of the above. If you bring it back up I'm just going to not respond. Please just let all that go. I'd like to get back to having a beneficial discussion.
That is inaccurate. My example was built on the idea of someone who did, in fact, have the full optimal loadout. But only for one particular frame. That distinction is very important because it drives the discussion into questions of...
Hold on. There is a larger disconnect here.
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That's not even right. hmmm. I'm at a loss for words here. I have tried to clear up the confusion on why I was using other games as examples multiple times now. I don't know what else to say.
I guess I'll try this-
Hold on. There is a larger disconnect here.
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That's not even right. hmmm. I'm at a loss for words here. I have tried to clear up the confusion on why I was using other games as examples multiple times now. I don't know what else to say.
I guess I'll try this-
I never tried to say that. You accused me of it repeatedly, I told you that wasn't the case repeatedly. Learning something from other games is not the same as trying to transplant things between games. We learn from other games because, as you said yourself, games arent made in a vacuum. Certainly you only apply what lessens that fit and even then you don't literally just copy stuff. It's just examples to learn from.
A bunch of games doing something successfully does, more or less, prove that a concept CAN work.
Which is why I had no problem when you did it here-
That doesn't mean it will work in every game or that we should try to copy it here.
It's just an example, an illustration. One thing to look at to learn something from.
A bunch of games doing something successfully does, more or less, prove that a concept CAN work.
Which is why I had no problem when you did it here-
That doesn't mean it will work in every game or that we should try to copy it here.
It's just an example, an illustration. One thing to look at to learn something from.