Before we can really dig into complexity and depth, it’s
important to know what we’re talking about. Complexity, when boiled down to its
essence, is the idea of how many “rules,” or things you have to know to play
the game. Depth is the possibility space enabled by the game’s rules, or how
many meaningful choices can you make playing the game?
A game like Tic-Tac-Toe has both low complexity (the rules
are extremely simple), and low depth. The possible moves afforded by the game
are extremely low, and frankly an eight year old can master the game pretty
quickly. Compare that to the canonical example of the game “Go” as a game with low
complexity, but enormous depth. The entire ruleset is small enough that you can
learn how to play Go in 5 minutes, but to master the game can take many
hundreds of hours of play.
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| Go (picture stolen from Wikipedia) |
An example of the other end of the spectrum would be The Legend of Zelda series. The game is
pretty complex when you consider the number of tools like the boomerang, bombs,
bow and arrow, potions, magic, bottles, and so on, as well as the concepts of
health, magic power, inventory space, and then all of the enemies, bosses, temples,
etc. And yet, there is generally only one way to solve each temple, and one way
to kill each boss. A lot of complexity, but a small possibility space.
Game designers actually have a name for the idea of
low-complexity, high-depth ruleset, which is to say such a game would be “elegant.”
But the interesting thing about that concept is that it’s all relative. It’s
quite possible to have a complex game with a much greater possibility space.
Think of StarCraft, which is
definitely a lot more complicated than Go, but has an immense depth, as
evidenced by that fact that 10 years after the game was released, people were
still demonstrating new strategies, counters, and tactics. So perhaps a better
definition for elegance would be a high ratio of depth to complexity.
Elegance is often considered the Holy Grail, or the Theory of everything,
of game design. But why is that? The thing to keep in mind is that complexity
unto itself is neither bad nor good. There are plenty of games out there that
are extremely complex but still are absolutely a blast to play, like the Civilization series. There’s something
to be said about the joy of wrapping your head around a giant rule space and managing
to make something of it. And like the StarCraft
example before, just because a game has a complicated ruleset doesn’t mean that
said game isn’t elegant.
However, complexity brings with it a number of issues with
it that make game design more difficult than it often should or needs to be.
The first problem is a restricting ruleset. Just because
something is complicated doesn’t mean it gives rise to a large possibility
space. A trivial example would be you have to race from point A to point B, but
you can only turn left or move forward. More rules, but now you’re restricted
in what you can do, so therefore your possibility space is smaller. Now, you
can introduce more rules like that to make the problem more interesting to
solve immediately, but you’re trading immediate difficulties for long-term depth.
A restricting ruleset, like anything else in design, isn’t inherently bad or
good. But the issue is that the more rules you have, and the more they
intersect, the more likely you’re going to accidentally introduce rules which
restrict the possibility space in a way you didn’t foresee and is undesirable.
Which leads into the second problem, which is obfuscation.
Just because you have complexity doesn’t mean you have depth, and even worse,
the complexity may be disguising something trivial as depth. The perfect
example of this would be the talent trees in World of Warcraft circa Wrath
of the Lich King. As you leveled, you got points to put into the trees, but
as there were very few truly mutually exclusive choices, and a few traps that
you’d be silly to put points into, it wasn’t really that deep of a system. When
you looked at all the possibilities after discarding the traps, it was a really
small number of talent trees per class specialization. However, because it was
presented in a complex way, it quite successfully hid the fact that it was complex
without really adding anything substantial to gameplay. If 99% of your players
make the same choice, then the choice isn’t meaningful and therefore is false
depth.
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| Phenomenal cosmic complexity, itty bitty possibility space. |
The third problem with complexity is it inherently breeds inaccessibility.
The more complicated your game, the steeper and longer the learning curve your
game will have. While many folks have the patience and desire to learn a
complex ruleset like the kind you can find in a game like Galactic Civilizations II, so many more people do not. So by
reducing complexity you increase accessibility, and with it broaden the pool of
players with the ability and want to learn your game, which is just good
business.
Complexity brings with it a load of issues, and it is
possible to create rulesets that are simple but provide an immense possibility
space, hence why many game designers believe that elegant design is the best design.
Accessible, obvious at first glance but full of nuance and possibility, easy to
learn but difficult to master, and so on. Complexity isn’t bad, but complexity
for its own sake can actively harm your game. It’s a tough balance to achieve.
So when we apply that to what the developers are trying to
do with paring down the number of abilities on our action bars, we have a game
that is extremely complex, and each class within the game is their own sub-game,
pitted against bosses which each have slightly different rulesets each. Add to
that things like buffs, consumables, interacting with other players in your
group or raid, professions, quests, etc. not to mention the fact that combat is
in real-time rather than turn-based, and you have a game that is quite
inaccessible, but not necessarily that deep, either.
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| Randomly found a UI image on the Internet. This is not the face of an accessible game. |
To use an example, Hunter’s Mark. Ignoring
the iconic aspect to the ability, in PvE it really only increases the damage of
Hunters against the target, and it’s auto-applied by a number of your
abilities, so you aren’t really thinking about it. It’s an ability that adds unnecessary
complexity but absolutely no depth, so it’s ripe for the chopping block and the
5% damage boost just baked into the class. But if you’re a player digging
through abilities, it’s something that you notice in your spellbook, and have
to think about on the fly. Nothing substantial about your rotation changes with
its removal.
At the end of the day, Blizzard’s developers are trying to
increase accessibility and depth, and reduce complexity. On the surface it
looks like they’re “dumbing the game down,” but if the things that are being
removed or changed had little to no actual consequences to playing the game
itself, then are they really dumbing it down, or are they just cleaning up the
cruft that’s accumulated over the years and making things a little clearer? And
why wouldn’t that be a good thing?
And if all of that was tl;dr, then go watch this video. They do a pretty good job of explaining the concepts:
#GoodDesign, #WoW, #DesignExperiments, #WarlordsOfDraenor
A few concerns:
ReplyDelete"Just because you have complexity doesn’t mean you have depth, and even worse, the complexity may be disguising something trivial as depth."
Why is false (or disguised) depth naturally worse? If obfuscation is such a concern then why don't more games post their exact formulas within the game itself?
"However, because it was presented in a complex way, it quite successfully hid the fact that it was complex without really adding anything substantial to gameplay."
Aren't things like the names of stats, in a way, obfuscating or at least blurring their purpose? Why have +strength when you can have +physical damage, etc.? Does calling it strength add anything to gameplay?
"If 99% of your players make the same choice, then the choice isn’t meaningful and therefore is false depth."
How about levels? If 100% of players reach max level, then what was the point of levels in the first place? To create a sense of progression? The difference from any one level to another often seems meaningless. Why the pomp and circumstance to add false depth?
"So by reducing complexity you increase accessibility, and with it broaden the pool of players with the ability and want to learn your game, which is just good business."
I have a lot of trouble with '... which is just good business'. Are we discussing game design as an art, science, or way to make money? 'Hey George R. R. Martin, let's not bother with so many characters, it's bad business.'
I think it's inclusion in this post muddies the water and undercuts the discussion of game design from the standpoint of elegance.
"It’s a tough balance to achieve"
Quoting for emphasis (and resounding agreement).
"At the end of the day, Blizzard’s developers are trying to increase accessibility and depth, and reduce complexity."
I would never argue that what Blizzard is doing is 'dumbing down the game'. Simplification is not dumbification. Often, less choice means more meaningful decisions.
"Why is false (or disguised) depth naturally worse? If obfuscation is such a concern then why don't more games post their exact formulas within the game itself?"
Delete~ You're conflating complexity with depth. I don't need to understand the precise formula for turning Strength into Damage, I just need to understand the approximate relationship (which is to say, more Strength is more damage), which as an aside why Armor Penetration was a terrible stat. It had the strangest reverse breakpoints which REQUIRED intimate knowledge of the guts of the system. Depth is about being able to make choices. Understanding the precise formula for Strength to Damage isn't required to make your decisions.
But to answer your question, false depth is naturally worse because it's easy to master once you've grasped the ruleset. There's no game there, and therefore no thought required. For a game that you don't care about maintaining a playerbase for an extended period of time, or a game you don't care about replayability, then the point is largely moot, I suppose. But you want your game to be played, right? Especially if you're an MMO, you want players to be engaged, and giving them systems that aren't engaging won't hold them for long.
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"Aren't things like the names of stats, in a way, obfuscating or at least blurring their purpose? Why have +strength when you can have +physical damage, etc.? Does calling it strength add anything to gameplay?"
~You touch on this later, but, while connected, your ruleset and your flavor are not precisely the same. Granted, by giving things unfamiliar names, you ARE increasing complexity. If I called it Breddlebod instead of Strength, you have one more thing to keep track of, and therefore higher complexity. Strength is a good flavor name, because you can get out of it that more of it would increase your physical prowess, a real-world analogue that your players don't need to think too hard. Interestingly, genres often introduce new terminology and then it becomes part of the genre itself, such as the terms "proc" or "mob", which mean nothing outside of gaming, but have very specific and, to MMO gamers, familiar meanings.
"How about levels? If 100% of players reach max level, then what was the point of levels in the first place? To create a sense of progression? The difference from any one level to another often seems meaningless. Why the pomp and circumstance to add false depth?"
Delete~ Excellent question, and one I've been asking myself about MMOs in particular for a while, but for different reasons. MMOs present two games in one: the leveling game, and the end game, and there isn't really much the same between them. A traditional trapping of the genre, perhaps, so that's why devs make MMOs with levels? If you go read up my blog post about leveling systems (http://talarian.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-zing-when-you-ding-leveling-and.html), you'll see that I prefer the ones that aren't straight-up levels, that require choices, like FFX's sphere grid (the Expert one is fun!), or Path of Exile's passive skill tree.
But I don't have an answer to you other than it's an easy way to express character progression. At this point one might consider ye olde levels as lazy design.
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"I have a lot of trouble with '... which is just good business'. Are we discussing game design as an art, science, or way to make money? 'Hey George R. R. Martin, let's not bother with so many characters, it's bad business.'"
~ All three. Why do they have to be mutually exclusive? There's art for art's sake, but there's tonnes of fantastic art done for money. The Sistine Chapel is a perfect example of that. Game developers want to make games, but many also want to sell them. But when you look at a game like Civilization, it's very much not accessible. It's absolutely fantastic, and that's okay, but would more people be turned off by that complexity versus potential customers if some of the rules were made clearer or simplified.
HOWEVER, there is a big element that I think is entirely missed by this discussion: how something feels to the player.
ReplyDeleteI think elegance is a novel notion but it doesn't really apply to RPGs. The entire genre is built on top of innately inelegant systems that can't be completely changed without reducing the genre's natural charm.
I enjoy some level of false depth. I agree 100% that talents didn't add anything from a numbers perspective, but I honestly enjoyed the feeling of progression I got getting a talent point each level. Yes, often those points added a net zero increase in my characters viability but they constantly reinforced the notion that I was achieving my way toward a goal (x level so I can get y talent which does something really cool).
Furthermore, I think "ignoring the iconic aspect" is a bit of a problem for me. Hunter's Mark definitely sucks from an active gameplay perspective but that's why we change things. Once upon a time, it was the bane of my rogue in battlegrounds! Of course many years of making it more and more an always-on, passive thing diminished it. Does it deserve the axe for that though?
As you said, there is an equilibrium to be had here. Even in vanilla and TBC, my rogue didn't use Gouge or Blind very often in PvE. Yet, when someone died and their CC target escaped, many times those abilities saved us from wipes because I was prepared to use them if needed.
That's what we risk losing when we continuously streamline MMOs for vague things like 'accessibility'. The more efficient rotations become and the tinier the hotbars, the less opportunity we have for players to stand out during gameplay with the fringe elements of their class.
Sure, 90% of the time, you may never need x, y, z abilities or you will almost always stack buffs a, b, and c at once. But 10% of the time you defy the odds and have a chance to be the hero.
I want a MMO where just doing your job (role + rotation) is the minimum expected of you, not the maximum.
"HOWEVER, there is a big element that I think is entirely missed by this discussion: how something feels to the player.
DeleteI think elegance is a novel notion but it doesn't really apply to RPGs. The entire genre is built on top of innately inelegant systems that can't be completely changed without reducing the genre's natural charm. "
~I actually agree with you here, largely. As I meantioned, complexity isn't *bad*. Complexity for the sake of complexity is not necessarily good, either. If you're designing a game, you shouldn't just add a system because that's the way it's always done, or you think more complex is good. It should have a purpose. Stat systems serve a purpose: character progression, and to different extent depending on the game, choice about how you play your character. Levels are incredibly simplistic. I argue they could use a little complexifying.
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"I enjoy some level of false depth. I agree 100% that talents didn't add anything from a numbers perspective, but I honestly enjoyed the feeling of progression I got getting a talent point each level. Yes, often those points added a net zero increase in my characters viability but they constantly reinforced the notion that I was achieving my way toward a goal (x level so I can get y talent which does something really cool)."
~I also agree with this to the extent that it was awesome to get a choice of *something* each level, even if it didn't amount to much overall, but that's a problem with the current leveling system as a vestige of the old game, not with the talent trees getting revamped themselves. Yes, they left a hole, but just because they left a hole didn't mean they shouldn't revamp the system into something better in the long run.
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"Furthermore, I think "ignoring the iconic aspect" is a bit of a problem for me. Hunter's Mark definitely sucks from an active gameplay perspective but that's why we change things. Once upon a time, it was the bane of my rogue in battlegrounds! Of course many years of making it more and more an always-on, passive thing diminished it. Does it deserve the axe for that though?"
~Yes. Or it should be changed. Maybe get rid of the damage boost, and just turn it into an anti-stealth mechanic. Give it a clear purpose rather than some weird almalgamation of ideas that apparently already got effectively streamlined out. Right now it's pretty well entirely vestigal and adds literally nothing to the game as is. Hell, give Hunters a minor glyph that puts the Hunter's Mark on their target when they use certain abilities if folks want the iconic aspect.
"That's what we risk losing when we continuously streamline MMOs for vague things like 'accessibility'. The more efficient rotations become and the tinier the hotbars, the less opportunity we have for players to stand out during gameplay with the fringe elements of their class."
Delete~Accessibility is not a vague concept at all. I don't get into defining it above, but it's basically a combination of how easy is it to acquire information about how to play the game, and how easy is it to learn the game. Bad UI and terrible tooltips make it hard to acquire the correct information, and too many complex systems make the game too hard to learn. It is a quantifiable measure via user studies and player feedback.
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To answer your other question, sure. Having those extra buttons to do neat things during combat like stuns, CC, clutch saves, etc. are good. Excellent things for people to use when they've mastered the basics of their class. They're entirely separate from your primary rotation (and Blizzard frankly could give better guidance as to what're rotational abilites and what are utility). And I wouldn't argue removing those either. Make sure it's obvious what they are, make sure people know they are fringe elements they can ignore until they get a grasp of the rest of their play, and introduce them later or have them available. Blizzard's not arguing about removing those either, just trimming down some of the redundant abilities to give them more room to balance the rest of the game.
I talk about complexity and depth, but honestly they aren't the ONLY reasons for what Blizzard's doing, just one of the primary reasons that they've professed. But things like the healing game getting entirely silly and out of hand because of an arms race between cooldowns and boss abilities are also good reasons as well.
"I want a MMO where just doing your job (role + rotation) is the minimum expected of you, not the maximum."
~ Absolutely! And nobody's arguing against that. :)
Fair enough to everything else, and I'll just respond to your question about mutual exclusivity on the art, science, business front:
DeleteI don't believe they have to be mutually exclusive. They are, after all, just labels.
However, within the framework of this post, I felt the mention didn't fit. To me, there is a dangerous line of thinking in gaming, but especially amongst MMO fans when it comes to mixing business and quality. An infinitely more profitable, more accessible MMO genre doesn't necessarily mean better or more meaningful experiences.
It's not that I hate 'accessibility' but at some point I have to worry about no longer being the target audience. I felt like, in a way, you were setting up an ideal definition (or at least ideal goal) for a game and then conflating that at least partially with a game that promotes accessibility.
Clearly not the case after having read your responses, but that was my initial feeling.
I do agree that accessibility is important. Even all-powerful hardcore me (ha!) gets turned off by convolution, obfuscation, and needlessness. At the same time, Blizzard has been on this track for a really long time and the game has radically evolved away from elements that I enjoyed most (I'm a PvE CC guy, for one).
While we need accessibility, I also believe in having a fairly firm idea of your target audience and sticking to their interests as best you can. Blizzard's audience is so huge though that a lot of the smaller, inbetween people like me have gotten lost over time.
Blargh, I should elaborate on my Civilization comment. It's a sound business plan to have a focused niche game like Civilization, but if you want to cast a broader net and bring in more customers over an extended period of time, accessibility becomes extremely important.
DeleteWas Dark Souls a great game? Yes! It sold 2 million copies, a critical success for an RPG. Which also is nowhere near the sales that Final Fantasy VII brought in, by nearly a factor of 5. Civilization itself as a franchise, let alone a specific game in said franchise, has about 8 million units sold according to Amazon's blurb.
But in the end, most video game companies are doing it for the money, and even if you were a billionaire and just doing it for kicks, you still want people to play your game, which is still business, even if you give it away for free.
Agreed on the target audience point. Blizzard's has widened their's so much that people are definitely falling through the holes in the net, to continue with my fishing metaphor.
DeleteTHIS IS HOW I AM FORCED TO GET AROUND YOUR CHARACTER LIMIT!
ReplyDeleteSeriously. Blogger sadly doesn't seem to have any way to override that :( I've hit it myself in responses before.
DeleteIt's cool. It forced me cut a lot of fat until I decided to give up and just do two posts!
DeleteDear lord, I just responded to your two with 4 O.o Apparently my prose needs less complexity and more depth XD
DeleteInteresting post. Came here linked from Murf's site.
ReplyDeleteI like the nuance in your post, but many people try to reduce things to rules. Complexity = bad, depth = good. As you point out, this isn't the case. But, this is especially complicated when you talk about MMOs with the social elements.
Let's look at WoW's talent trees. The big problem with them was theorycrafters came up with the "best" and people stuck to that because they didn't want to face the shame of making a "poor" decision. So, most people just looked up the "theorycrafter approved" builds and stuck to those. This was a community issue, not directly a game design flaw IMHO.
During the TBC era, I played a feral druid that could swap easily between cat and bear with a gear swap. My raiding guild loved me, because I could do DPS and then swap to an off-tank when necessary. Was I going to do world-class DPS or MT the high end bosses with my build? No, but it suited my playstyle and my guild at the time. My build was unorthodox to the theorycrafters, but it worked well for me because I had a level of mastery over the system and understood my own play style.
Players also want a sense of identity and customization. Playing an MMORPG with a character just like everyone else is boring; I want to be unique! But, people also want to fit in and not be shunned for their choices. For game designers, we have to balance these to our audience.
Personally, I saw the loss of the talent trees as a negative for WoW. But, I suspect I'm not in the target audience for the game anymore. I get my system mastery thrills from DDO these days, a game with a lot of complexity and depth in character creation.
Thanks for the comment, and the compliment! I think complexity is just another tool in the designer's toolbox. When used judiciously, it can greatly enhance your game. But like, say, C++, it is so powerful that it is easy to use poorly, and you end up blowing off your leg, figuratively.
DeleteHowever, I disagree with your assertion that the talents were a "community" issue, rather than a design issue. Game design directly influences your community. People playing are gamers, meaning they will attempt to game any system you throw at them. Add to that the power of crowd sourcing, and you have a recipe for the very rapid deconstruction of your game, hence why depth is more important than complexity for a game like an MMO.
Put another way, jerks in random matchmaker dungeons. The game threw together a pile of disparate people with different goals and skill sets and expect them to work together to complete a challenge. Is it a "community" issue when people are assholes, or should the game designers build tools to help the community make itself better?
I believe writing off anything as an external issue to your game isn't a good way to go about designing games. Designers have the power to make things better, and they should use it--carefully, mind you.
You and Murf both brought up the target audience point, and I think that's a really important distinction. There is definitely a place and an audience for complexity, as clearly demonstrated by your comments if I weren't also a fan of complexity myself. Go is fun and all, but I love having to deconstruct complex rule sets and figure out how they interact. But as far as WoW itself is concerned, the target demographic is most likely geared more towards elegant systems: easy for people to pick up, but still not shedding ALL of the complexity.
Thanks for the ideas, good to think about them on my end!
I've been designing MMOs for long enough that I remember when Raph Koster's ideas for how to improve community were seen as "playing with an antfarm" or "sociology experiments gone wrong". Yes, you can shape community through game design, but the community is its own thing and doesn't necessarily like it when you try to shape it too much.
DeleteBut, community issues are separate from game design issues. Take your example of random grouping. I proposed a solution on my own blog (http://psychochild.org/?p=1239), and the focus was on how to make the social aspects work better. Most of the attempted solutions, particularly in WoW, have been game design changes that have resulted in the group content becoming easier. I think allowing players to more easily find other players they like playing with is the better solution because it's more community-focused.
As for talent trees, yes there will be gaming. But, let's be honest, most of the time this gaming was only really required at the very cutting edge of raiding or PvP content. As a druid, did it really matter much if your Wrath spell was 0.5 seconds faster vs. doing 5% more damage over time when you were just out questing or doing normal dungeons? Not really. What should have mattered is what fits your playstyle better. Do you want to cast more spells while standing in place, or do you want to thrown on a DoT/HoT and shift to another form to do more damage? But, I'm sure someone in a high end guild calculated that the former gave a X% better DPS result under optimal raiding scenarios and thus the "sanctioned raiding" Balance build had to be that. Even if in reality, the latter ability was much better for your playstyle. (This focus on ideal situations, of course, lead to mediocre players trying to do max DPS under those ideal conditions, which leads to people dying early, "But look how much DPS I did those 30 seconds I was alive!")
Not to say the talent tree system was perfect. It did have some needless complexity in that you had to dedicate 5 points to a lot of talents before they were even useful. This meant that you really had less decisions to make than it seemed (which goes exactly to your post above), and each individual level's improvements were often insignificant. ("Woo! My wrath spell casting time went from 1.5 seconds to 1.4!!!!!" said no Druid ever with honest enthusiasm.)
As for WoW in particular, I think most of the change they make at this point are to cater to the audience they think they can attract and retain. I suspect most of the people who like complexity have long grown bored of the game. So, they cater to the audience they still have, and that audience is probably a lot less hard-core than I am.
That's an interesting post of yours, thanks for the pointer. Good read! However, I think we're arguing for the same thing, just disagreeing on the terminology. Social systems like your "pip" system are still part of the game, so therefore it's still game design. Perhaps it's own little sub-category, but given pretty well all online games have "community" as a category to solve for, I still argue it's game design.
DeleteBut I agree with you 100% on your part. I think making group content easier is the lazy solution. It clearly works, but I believe you are absolutely correct where you point out it would be better to make it easier to match like-minded players.
As to your talents point, again, I agree with you. Except that wasn't the reality of WoW's talent trees. You had garbage talents for your playstyle (PvP, PvP), and you had good talents. You put the points in your good talents and called it a day. Granted, that's a problem with how Blizzard implemented those talents and not necessarily the death knell of talent trees in general.
But there were pretty well no mutually exclusive decisions besides which was you primary tree, so you'd never end up with the Wrath situation you outlined; you'd end up with Wrath doing both 5% extra damage and casting 0.5 seconds faster, and instead drop the talent that made Entangling Roots instant kinda deal.
Thanks, glad you liked my post.
DeleteI categorize community design as separate from the rest of the game design (which I should probably call "gameplay design"), because it's is unique to MMOs. Issues like combat balance and if the gameplay choices are sufficiently interesting are issues for any game. But, single-player games mostly don't have to worry about things like how players interact when grouped with other random people.
As for the talent trees, I guess we had different experiences. I saw people rely heavily on what was deemed the best, and experimentation was risky from a social point of view. Most people didn't do much experimentation, especially when respeccing was a VERY expensive action, and so they often just used whatever build was posted on ElitistJerks, etc. What was considered "good" wasn't really an absolute statement, more of what was generally accepted as being "the best" by the theorycrafters.
Anyway, great blog. Guess I have another one to add to the RSS reader. :)
Very interesting post. I'll just throw this thought into the pot...
ReplyDeleteOftentimes I am not looking for the maximum depth. There are lots of times when I want to chill without expending a lot of mental effort. If I have to expend zero (or very little) the game will be boring. If I have to expend too much, it might be fascinating but overtaxing and not what I am in the mood for.
Games probably need to provide options within them that match what you're up for on any given session.
Even with that, there's a place for games of differing depths that you can play depending on what you're looking for that day.
I'm a decent chessplayer and strangely I can play chess in ways that are both
much more or much less demanding than an MMO. I can play fast games of chess on semi-autopilot when I wouldn't have the mental energy for an MMO. But I can also play chess in a way that requires far more intense thought than an MMO ever does.
I like to have games on tap that are of different styles, different paces, different session lengths, and different depths.
If it's easy to learn, but hard to master, then it should be easy to do something akin to how you play chess. Basically, an elegant design should allow for precisely your dual style of play.
DeleteDepth really only says how deep you can play. It doesn't account for shallower playstyles. That's left to complexity. The more complex the game, the more thought *must* go into it to actually play. Less complex games allow you to just futz around without putting too much thought behind it.
It's hard to just jump into a game like WoW, because if you want to run a dungeon you still need to ensure your keybinds are in place, and your talents are set, your gear is okay, you remember your rotation, etc. Jumping into a game of chess requires a simple board setup and knowing the rules to 6 pieces. And that's the effect of complexity.
"I like to have games on tap that are of different styles, different paces, different session lengths, and different depths."
Delete~ +1. I admit to sometimes even just zoning out to stupid iPad games on occasion.
Just saw an interesting comment on the YouTube vid you included. Someone asked whether chess has high or low depth, because "... to me, (key phrase) each game feels the same experientially so I rate it as low in depth."
ReplyDeletePossibly this hits on the difference between people who love and get a thing, and people who find that same thing boring. i.e. How much can they distinguish about what's going on, and therefore how much do they experience one set of happenings as different from another? I suspect it goes for playing games, watching sports, reading books etc.
Chess is considered high depth by many designers if I recall correctly (not as high as Go, mind you).
DeleteBut I like the way you think here. I've run into this for Electronica music, actually. Many people just go, "oh, that's techno." But I can listen to it and determine is it Trance? Eurodance? Drum and Bass? And so on. So I think you're onto something here.
I would have thought it a no-brainer that chess is high-depth. But it's interesting to hear the perspective of someone who doesn't.
DeleteIt's defining it as "experiential" that makes the difference. Mathematically chess has enormous depth, because of the vast combinatorial possibilities. But if all the possibilities seem much of a muchness to someone, they won't feel that way. (Personally that's my own reaction to Go I have to say.)
I suspect we are missing some other concepts here that would unpack depth into different elements.
There have to be reasons why Go has not taken off in the West at all, while even chess remains a fairly minority interest compared to games with much less potential depth.
I see, you're proposing that vast combinatorial possibilities doesn't necessarily create *meaningful* depth, and meaningful depth may be subjective. Interesting thought.
DeleteAs a player not a designer I find this level of analysis, particularly when couched in open discussion between designers and players, as is the current vogue, enervating and ultimately destructive. I strongly prefer hidden, masked, even intentionally misleading systems that cannot easily be unpicked. I value the way such systems create rumors, beliefs, superstitions and urban legends within the community that plays the game. Indeed I would contend that it's these things which turn an agglomeration of strangers into a community in the first place.
ReplyDeleteI like to be confused, even mystified, by entertainment. I like novels that finish leaving you feel you know less about the characters than you did when you began, I like movies that start and end somewhere in the middle, I like long tv series where it seems the plot is being made up as it goes along. In MMOs I like not having a clear purpose for my character or a clear understanding of the world he or she inhabits.
When I began playing MMOs fifteen years ago, that's what they were like and that, in my opinion, is the special sauce that's been lost, the magic rose-tinted light of yesteryear that everyone's searching for - we just didn't know as much as we do now. That's also why we all jumped on the three-monther bus - it's the only way to have that feeling back, the one where everything is big and confusing and you don't understand what to do.
Of course, as MMOs become more and more similar one to another and to other gaming genres and media as well, and as we become more experienced in playing them, and as designers seek to be more open and communicative with their audience, so it becomes harder and harder to replicate that experience of not knowing what the hell is happening but loving every second.
I suspect that for future MMOs, just as happens in almost all art, culture and entertainment, the vast majority of the time the really interesting, compelling stuff will come from people who are just getting started and haven't had time to learn what they shouldn't be doing. At the moment the entire industry seems to be in the death-grip of highly established, experienced professionals and business people increasingly concerned about targeting specific demographics. It may be great for polish but it's hardly a recipe either for iconoclastic innovation or intense immersion.
Very interesting viewpoint, Bhagpuss. Given the kinds of things you like, which is to say inscrutable systems, then I'd agree that these kinds of conversations go directly against your preferences. I don't share those preferences, but it doesn't make your viewpoint any less valid.
DeleteBut that's the rub, right? Like in my conversation with Psychochild above, when you have an interconnected playerbase like in an MMO, you have crowdsourced the ability to break down any "inscrutable" systems incredibly quickly, and then the community demands that the average player be up on those discoveries in grouped play, disallowing you the luxury of discovery if you also want to participate in non-solo activities.
Now, single-player games also suffer this problem to a lesser extent, but because they're single-player, you can easily just ignore any such information and play on your own terms.
You mention the idea of jumping into an MMO trying to find the magic rose-tinted light of yesteryear, and I think that people will never truly rediscover that. Many gaming skills are transitive, and there's a common language across games, and a stronger common language across a given genre (which you point out) that prevents that. Once you begin to understand how the genre or games work, you can never have that feeling back again in its purest form.
"I suspect that for future MMOs, just as happens in almost all art, culture and entertainment, the vast majority of the time the really interesting, compelling stuff will come from people who are just getting started and haven't had time to learn what they shouldn't be doing. At the moment the entire industry seems to be in the death-grip of highly established, experienced professionals and business people increasingly concerned about targeting specific demographics. It may be great for polish but it's hardly a recipe either for iconoclastic innovation or intense immersion."
Delete~ This, however, I disagree completely with. Yes, having a fresh perspective can definitely bring something new to the table, but I suspect that the real issue is AAA budget risk aversion, not that current designers are incapable of making really interesting, compelling stuff.
Game companies and publishers invest hundreds of millions of dollars into games, and therefore to ensure they get their money's worth, they often will put the kibosh on anything risky, experimental, or new. Or if they allow for experimental, it would be in tiny iterations, not interesting leaps.
In fact, you'll notice more and more industry professionals breaking off from the big names and starting their own indie game companies to get around that restriction. Unfortunately, for games as complicated and large as an MMO, indie companies just don't have the budget to develop something like that, hence why we'll likely only see the businessmen running the show in this genre.