Do Interesting Decisions Create Interesting Games? Breaking Down Sid Meier
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- Опубликовано: 15 сен 2024
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Apologies for any small audio hiccups in the video, I've been unde the weather lately and that made editing a bit of a challenge.
There's a very old quote from the creator of Civilization, Sid Meier "A good game is a series of interesting decisions" and despite how popular this quote is, an "interesting decision" is a pretty hard idea to break down.
It's time for The Architect to reboot history and go back to the basics of strategic games in figure out what an interesting decision is, how they can be best used, or whether we need them at all.
You Saw:
Civilization 6- 2016
Xcom- Enemy Unknown- 2012
Kingdom Rush Frontiers- 2013
Destiny 2- 2017
Gwent: Thronebreaker- 2018
Maple Story 2- 2018
Pokemon Ultra Moon- 2017
Far Cry 5- 2018
Armello- 2015
Slay The Spire- 2017
Path of Exil- 2013
Final Fantasy 10- 2001
Shovel Knight- 2014
Into the Breach- 2018
Transistor- 2014
Magic the gathering: Arena- 2018
Prismata- 2018
Return of the Obra Din-2018
Titan Souls- 2015
Rayman Legends- 2013
Interesting decisions/links:
Sid Meier's GDC talk: • Sid Meier's Interestin...
Great Errant Signal video on Far Cry 5: • Far Cry 5 and the Art ...
The dangerous myth of Civiliazation: www.rockpapers...
I think people think that having 20 skill points to spend will result in 20 decisions. But really you only make one decision, "what kind of strategy will I go for?" and then followed by some calculations
Exactly! might as well make it one choice that actually feels nice to make!
@@ArchitectofGames but would you prefer gaining nothing for 10 hours and gain 3000hp, or gain 30 hp every 6 minutes?
shorter term rewards may not be a big decision, but they are generally more useful. More often than not you are planning a build in advance, and the decisions you do after that are based on what gear is better right now instead of which skill point you pick (even though getting a legendary with a big buff to a skill you currently aren't using might make you want to side step from your plan for a bit to get the skill).
@@satibel leveling in mmos is basically a moot point, it serves no purpose as the vast majority of the game happens after reaching the level cap. Why not let people just start at max level and build the character the way they want to?
@@calebpratt4268 basically leveling is the tutorial to get you familiarized with the game/your character with gradually increasing challenge and complexity, and often means you can't just tackle the last boss on a fresh new character, some mmos do allow you to level up faster newer characters, either with straight exp boosts, leveling gear, or simply game knowledge.
But a lot of them make a max level pass a paid feature, because they can sell it without really impacting the game negatively.
Imo, leveling is often where a lot of interesting decisions that you don't get to make later happen, like whether to farm or rush through, what gear to pickup etc... If you are really into a game, and you level up multiple characters, you can know what resistance to get when (for example keeping random fire resistance gear when a fire boss is coming etc...)
a new player that gets a game and gets thrown a thousand of skills and mechanics to choose from will probably be a bit overwhelmed, rogue-like/lite often have that, but they can work without needing a lot of players, whereas MMOs need a good playerbase to function correctly most of the time, and driving new players off will impact that (and thus the money they make).
@@ArchitectofGames Because the granularity of twenty points to distribute allows the player every possible distribution of those resources that no one dev team would find. It IS one choice, that uses a complex interface to not leave out anyone's desire.
In a fallout game do you really think it will SAVE effort to say five into lockpick to get to the harder locks, seven to guns to meet a perk prereq, and everything else repair? Now every possible variation of that scenario someone could desire?
In Yugioh you also have interesting decisions. You can play Danger Dark World and win on first turn, or play anything else and lose.
I do really enjoy upgrades in games that consistently have a visual component to it. Not only does it make the game feel more responsive to your actions in general, but it's also a way to differentiaite playthroughs from each other too - in the above tower defense example, a late stage of the game will very quickly become a reflection of the player's personality and way of doing things, just from the sight of the towers and upgrades they pick.
Me, "One or two barracks. Then ARCHERS AND/OR ARTILLERY EVERYWHERE. MOSTLY ARCHERS."
I'm more of a cannon and ice player in most tower defense games. (group the enemies with slow and AOE them down.)
Choices should make a player feel like he or she is in control, have a significant actual and perceived impact on the gameplay, and are rewarding or punishing. The more immediate the better.
I like how overlord does it: you get more spikes and darker armour as you progress towards max corruption, your outfit changes as you upgrade it and your minions equip hats to reflect on the areas you've beaten, culminating in a spiky (or shiny) overlord in fancy armour with a glowy weapon and a horde of minions in cool hats.
overlord 2 removes the visual aspect in regards to alignment sadly but keeps the armour and adds champion hats to minions to reflect milestones like bosses and locations beaten.
Bioshock was great at this
I've always felt that Sid's advice were meant for competitive games and games with heavy customization of sorts, since decision making is taken to a much higher degree in those titles. Also, it's an advice that feels really at home when it comes to cardboard games, wonder if Sid perceives games in that manner.
I've been meaning to do a video on tabletop games, there's some really interesting stuff along exactly these lines I want to talk about, thanks for the reminder!
2:16 Get your mind out of the gutter.
Literally enters a sewer.
Nice!
I'm weirdly proud of that visual joke, glad you liked it!
I was gunna write a "tl;dr" but this video deserves every minute of your time and discuses the nuances of the question very well
Out of these three, I believe impact is the most important for creating interesting gameplay. After all, If it doesn't impact how you play, it doesn't really matter. Also worth noting that consequences can be positive as well, and synergies are the stacking of said consequences.
My favorite magic the gathering combo from back in the day came from having to deal with opponents who played white decks and built up Health Points into the hundreds. I got around this by building a vampire deck. Your HP is my HP. My favorite combo was a card that simply did damage equal to half the hp of the targeted player. The second part was a card that simply stated that whatever damage I had just done, I did again. I recognize that you have 500 HP, so let me just take half of that. And then the other half. Next.
Honestly, I think 'interesting decisions' can be applied to far more broadly than you suggest at the end of the video, but one needs to be wary of the type and extent of decisions that are being made. What an interesting decision is can also change based on the game genre, though not a lot from the basic framework. This is probably why its thought of as such a widespread 'holy grail' in game design; For most types of games, some form of 'interesting decision' promotes player agency and engagement. The extent and formulation of these decisions may change, but whenever creating a choice for the player, it is usually important to make it an interesting one.
12:50: I'd argue that even fast-paced games are based around interesting decisions. Granted, those decisions tend to be more about trying to figure out what actions will let you progress towards your goal without dying rather than progressing plots and plans, but it's still an interesting decision-and one that separates a game like DMC or Street Fighter from a dull button-masher.
Timothy McLean B- right. do I shoot the guy on the left or throw a grenade to flush the guy on the right out of cover? do I flank or do I scramble for the health kit? do I explore this cave for loot or preserve my ammo? shooters have just as many meaningful decisions as any strategy game
It was somewhat irritating that he didn't really explore the "rule" outside of the ones that come to mind fastest - character upgrades and strategy game decisions. Every press of a button is a decision!
I'd say that rhythm games would serve as a better counterpoint; there's barely any decision beyond the trivial "if I don't time my button presses right I'd lose my score/combo". Yes some like Guitar Hero feature Star Powers that require players to decide when's the best time to use them, but that's not part of the core rhythm gameplay itself
each game should be designed with a specific vision and finds what works best for it. Your words are goals, man, let's hope, they will be heared by designers and critics alike
I think I would add that the choice involves customizing how you approach and interact with the game. Magic the Gathering is classic for this, as a black deck interacts with different parts of the game, like the graveyard, than blue, which might let you interact with phasing or your library. Good games with interesting choices have great repeatability not just because you get to see a different story, but because the way you play changes with your new choices
The magic the gathering colour pie is legit one of the best bits of game design of all time, it's so clever how much interaction depth they squeeze into those colours.
Makes me sad that you described Transistor as frequently forgotten, as it's my second favorite game with Bastion right below and Dark Souls just above it. The synergy and experimentation alongside the "death" mechanic that forces you to change your playstyle and the time stopping action RPG fighting makes it have one of my favorite gameplay systems of all time. The story and world are quite immersive, and anyone can see the aesthetic qualities to its visual and sound designs. Highly recommend it for anyone who hasn't played it.
I tried it but got stuck on the first level because I wasn't able to move in a traditional manner (or at all).
Perhaps something to do with the tutorial? Who knows.
12:35 far cry isn't just about self-empowerment and discovery, there's a whole slew of decision-making by giving the player the freedom to choose how to engage with the enemy, and with what tools to use, etc. so like you said, devs should be giving players *meaningful* choices that contribute to the experience they're curating, and the slapped-on RPG elements definitely are a detraction
It just seems like you're equating decision-making to selecting options, skill-trees, etc. where in reality most games are driven with their respective way of giving players decisions, as without the player's decisions the game wouldn't be able to continue. e.g. in platformers the player needs to decide their path, commit to a long jump; in shooters decide to engage or fallback, etc.
they can even happen outside of the actual gameplay itself, like navigating the menu. e.g. in Halo choosing which campaign level and which difficulty, mario party choosing which map and which opponents to face. As long as the player has the feeling of agency, enough data to make an informed decision, and are shown the impacts of the decisions that they make, I would agree with the statement that interesting decisions *do* create an interesting game
I would argue the definition of 'interesting' I think. It's something that I think fits pretty readily in platformer/adventure type games really well.
In my mind, something as simple as 'should I jump here' is a decision, and depending on the game, it gets kind of progressively more interesting.
In Mario Sunshine, when you need to dodge an oncoming projectile, you have a lot of choices. Walk, jump, side jump/flip, use a nozzle to destroy it, and sometimes more depending on if you have something like yoshi at the time.
That level of choice to me, makes that small decision interesting.
And then it feels pretty good when you succeed, because you feel you've made some small strategy that worked out.
It's a small thing for sure, but I find I enjoy games a lot more if my options are open in that way, making even small choices feel impactful
It's like 5 am, I have no idea if this made sense
Also, as long you dont piss off Gandhi everything is OK.
Phyrexian mana was the best. :)
Impact is also important because it helps inform your decisions; when there’s a big change in how things play out from one choice, you can tell more easily if it was a good one, or if you need to change your approach.
Compare that to lots of little choices, where you won’t know if your choices will pay off until you’ve already had to invest a lot of effort and in-game resources that you may have to spend a ton of time to get back, if you can at all.
5:55 i played a lot of RTS when i was younger (WC3, AOM, AOE...), and the only one i remember upgrading troops were age of mytology because they changed the skin of the units
Yeah! Age of Mythology was great at that (and was also pretty awesome anyway)
I think first off we disagree on our definition of the term "decision", perhaps it would have been to start the video asking "what constitutes a decision", as I think you're using a rather narrow view on what it means to "have made a decision", not all decisions are about some overarching strategy, at 12:56 I see quite a bit of decision making going on, fast paced, on the spot decisions, but decisions none the less.
This plays in very much in bullet hell games and roguelikes, where you constantly need to decide if, say, chasing a specific enemy to kill it is worth potentially moving into a dangerous position.
Interestingly, I only see one decision - to kill the dudes. Every other part of that interaction I would deem to simply be calculations rather than decisions: choosing the most efficient way to follow through on the decision with a definitive, correct answer.
At best you could say that there were up to three decisions - kill the guys or not, shoot them in the head or not, stop trying to shoot them in the head or not.
fishworshipper That's just not true though. If it's a combat only game like many roguelike or bullet hell games are then there is no choice in whether you fight them or not. You have to do it. It's the point of the game. The decisions are either what upgrades you choose if available in the game in an rpg sub system way or the split-second choices you make actually playing the game itself. Now obviously that's not what the video is talking about but it doesn't mean that those aren't decisions.
@@Jhakaro Bullethells are like platformers. The desicion is: Die or not. Any place that's not death is safe. That's not a decision.
fishworshipper well take enter the gungeon for example let’s say you are playing the convict and also have the plasma pistol as well as her starting gear. Depending on the room you might wanna close in and use the shotgun and knock the enemies off ledges for fast instant kills or you may wanna hide behind a wall charge up the plasma pistol then fire at a enemy then hide back behind the wall. Do you have a piercing weapon and do you put yourself in position to use the piercing which may put you in danger but save ammo. Do you use a blank when you are surrounded in a non boss room and are pretty sure you will take damage or do you save it to increase your chance of getting a master round or try to save it to find a secret room.
I think that choices in games even within skill trees should just be that "Choices"... as in if you choose option A you lock option B (and vise versa) so many games just keep it open... that you can still choose both.
I think its perfectly fine that if you have an option between +x% dmg or +x% attackspeed that you can get either of the 2 and not both. And based on HOW you play one of those is more appealing to you than the other... whether its playing to your strength or countering a weakness... Which is in my opinion makes more impact than being able to just pick both of em... which ruins the decision making....
Great video Adam.
Only thing I don't agree with is Civ being a good example. In reality decisions in Civ, unlike Endless Legend or Stellaris, are pretty boring and uninteresting.
The leader speciality usually is a buff and doesn't really change playstyle. There aren't really choices of what you research, only when you research. A lot of decisions just don't have a lot of impact, whereas most in the other two titles do.
That's a really good point, and one I wanted to make but it ended up feeling a bit redundant. I totally agree that civ is getting a bit long in the tooth these days, but it's important to look at the foundations it set up for other, better, games to improve upon later!
@@ArchitectofGames definitely agree and I definitely think what Civ did for 4X and choices in general is undeniable important
This mostly feels like a problem in the recent civ games.
I think one of Sid Meier's better games for interesting decisions was Alpha Centauri. The factions (which were all well fleshed out and different) had a big impact on how you approached the game.
Then, there was the civic/ethic/government system, where each choice had drawbacks. Like, choosing the economic bonus of "Free Market" came with a huge unrest and pollution penalty. Or where choosing to focus on research would make you an easier target to spies.
I suspect part of the reasoning for choosing Civilization as an example is the relationship with the source of the quote - it's Sid Meier's magnum opus, so it demonstrates a lot of the design fundamentals that he considers critical when designing games. Thus, when deconstructing what Sid's quote means, it's the obvious choice for analysis.
Other games have done it better, certainly. But by their very nature, they're not inherently exemplars of what Sid Meier's quote meant. They are, at best (for the purposes of analyzing the quote) examples of how other designers have interpreted it.
XCOM, however, is a great example of interesting decisions. I was playing XCOM 2 again today. 170 hours in a single player game - even with mods, that's not common for me.
That Impact gag at 9:06 is fantastic
I really wonder how many of his top-tier patreon patrons only donate because they know their names sound funny.
On the subject of the actual video, I think the Sid quote is a great example of the ways that someone can get away with a limited perspective. Sid is great at making games with interesting decisions, so he has been successful at making games despite the fact that he mistakenly pidgeonholes the entire medium. What I would say is that a good game doesn't have boring decisions. It either doesn't focus on decisions, or else it makes them interesting.
Nah, civ is all about how many panteons can you found until you fail the click or the game crashes xD
1:09 Ubisoft's newest game summarized in one sentence
While it may not be as useful to conceiving an action game, the "interesting choice approach" is still applicable to a high adrenaline, short term gameplay focused game. Say in a fast shooter, the choice of strafing left or right to avoid bullets, throwing a grenade, reloading or keep shooting are all interesting choices relying on synergy and visual cues if the system is well made. This is why people complain about overpowered melee attacks in shooters, because the game doesn't fulfill criteria 1.
Good point for most puzzlers, as well as rythm games and other games relying on flawless execution rather than expressive gameplay.
I absolutely love your videos. There’s one thing to be said about the graphical and logic aspect of games, which can be learned. Your insight about what makes games actual games is priceless
Great vid man, civ and gwent are the only games I put hundreds of hours into without even realising !
Gwent is a great card game, and i normally don't play card games.
The same could be said for gambling games that fuel addiction. Personally I'm quite weary of games that feel too much like a skinner box that try to soothe the player into "you're doing and feeling good, nothing else matters".
Good video as always, I'd like to give a great example of a game that gives out interesting decisions. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 does a great job with this in the way it handles the arts (the main way of dealing damage) and gear.
During combat while standing still you use auto attacks which charge up your arts, which are not just used for damage but also apply a variety of effects. What is great about the way weapons are used in the game is that each weapon type has unique arts with unique effects and both the weapons type and the weapon itself determine what kind of strategy you should implore with that weapon. But each party member can switch between 3 weapons in combat, allowing for more options, changes in strategy, and additional synergies. I can't put into one comment the sheer depth this has both in and out of combat.
I also love the way gear is handled in 2, in most games gear upgrades your stats, so it's basically just another form of leveling up. This isn't particularly interesting and is, in my eyes, just another way to force the player to grind. In some cases you can add more interesting effects, but more often than not, it's better to choose stats over interesting effects. This is not the case at all with Xenoblade Chronicles 2.
Each piece of gear is more like a unique effect applied to that party member. Some of the effects are the generic stat upgrades, but the only time these are most useful is in the case of trying to make a dodge-tank character, and even then you really only want one to buff your evasion/agility. Each party member can carry two (three in New Game+). This allows you to add a variety of interesting effects that change up the moment to moment strategy in combat. One example is an effect that boosts your damage every time you switch weapons up to 200%. This is more potent than a stat upgrade, but working it into your strategy requires a lot of thought, because using the wrong weapon at the wrong time can spell death. Plus even if you are dealing massive damage that isn't always a good thing, because dealing too much can cause you to take the agro from your tank and lead to your death. And that is one of the less interesting examples of gear. I highly recommend playing Xenoblade 1 and 2, some of the most interesting/satisfying combat I've seen in a game, especially in the case of 2.
I always loved the ffx sphere grid. A bit constricting but it does give you real choices to make your characters turn into the types of characters you want them to. And take kimari for instance, at the center of the grid capable of going in any direction and becoming any type you want him to be. That's choice. Then look at the ffxiii system and it's just "Hold down this button to get a bit stronger"
Not even sure this is very relevant but I feel like I have to vent about it. xD
Recently I have gotten really tired with games like Assassin's Creed Odessey that force the player to do loads of quests to level up.
It's not fun to have your exploration halted because you happened to go to a place that is too high level for no reason that makes sense and it's not fun to explore when you have to do it just to level up. It's also not fun to level up when it just means you get bigger numbers and can fight the same enemies as before but they have bigger numbers too so the fights feel the same anyway.
What happened to progression and exploration that makes sense in the game world? Games in which you actually progress and develop your character in interesting ways.
Games that make you feel the increase in power as you take on bigger and more powerful enemies, like going from fighting wolves to trolls to dragons. Not just the same enemies with bigger numbers. Games that didn't even need to show enemy levels because it made sense.
Fallout New Vegas comes to mind and I really miss games like it now.
Are you playing these types of games right now and wanting something different.
This is because AAA games become a profitable business. The business is not about trolls and dragons it's about numbers.
I haven't played AC Odissey but im playing Origins (nothing too different)
I give you reverse examples
do you remember oblivion with that autolevel system where you could (and its way easier) finish the whole story as a level one character?
maybe im wrong but in fallout 4 (and i think 3 and NV did the same) when you level up but you encounter harder versions of regular enemies with better guns and armor. How is that so different?
I guess that dragon age did a good job, you really needed to level the shit out to kill a dragon
i actualy have a similar problem with the witcher 3. the unleveld world forces you too explore at a veary specific speed. to prevent this, a leveld world with a wide span of difficulty settings should be used
My problem with TW3 and espacially Divinity Original Sin2. Great games but the progression is not really organic
Thank you for posting this video, it's helped me so much with reworking my game ideas :)
No problem, happy to help!
A Raycevick video and Adam Miller video in the same week
This is a good week
I think it's much easier to get at the meat of the point that Sid is making by analyzing the counterfactual. Most of the board and card games used to introduce children to the concept are completely devoid of decisions to make, interesting or otherwise. Compare Candy Land or Chutes and Ladders to chess or go. Compare war to poker or even go fish. When you play a game of Candy Land, the outcome is determined from the moment the cards are shuffled. The "player" has no agency in the outcome: there are no decisions that could be made or any actions taken to affect the outcome. It's the equivalent of betting on a coin flip. There's a reason why people stop playing Candy Land when they grow up, while people can and have built entire careers playing go and chess.
Everspace's visual upgrades are great, and although the sequel is excellent I am sad it doesn't have them.
The first game is a space-sim roguelike, and after each run you can spend credits to buy various perks (ranging from extra health to reducing the chance of the only friendly faction reporting any time you attack the).
For the main stat buffs, every few levels of the upgrade gives a neat visual change to your ship (and the game says so in the preview text), and I think it's a really neat system. Each ship has its own set of upgrades and visual changes too, which is also neat.
The second game is a looter-shooter, so it swapped out that system for unlockable cosmetics (and having way more types of ships available). It's neat, I guess - but I still prefer the visual upgrades from the first one.
Also, credits can be used during a run to buy resources & upgrades, repair your ship, etc, - so you've got that element of choice you mentioned earlier, which I think is cool. They also don't carry over after each run (which the game makes explicitly clear), so you don't have that slight nagging feeling of "I shouldn't buy this repair I really need because I could use those couple hundred credits to buy an upgrade after 15 runs".
Your videos are so interesting. Keep on going, I'm watching you from France and I love your way of thinking, structuring and sharing your idead with us !
Great vid, I really like how you answer questions in your vids with a clear thought structure. One could make diagrams of your videos. Also I don't know why everyone is so harsh for civ in coments. It's a game with some flaws but the systems are interesting. Yes in the lategame you offten snowball if get a good headstart, but then the decisions surounding the begining are often the most captivating... it's sorta a problem of strategic games in general.
Exactly, the earlygame is when all the most important decisions get made, and it's hard to shake things up once the status quo is established and your empire is already up and running.
Bloons tower defence does interesting decisions; each tower has 3 upgrade paths, you can only chose 2 per tower and from those 2 only one path for the third, fourth and fifth upgrades. so you might want a super monkey with alot of range and plasma that has alot of penetration, but then you're losing out on having him be able to detect camo bloons, for example
Bloons is hands down the best mobile game for people who like strategy
@@trevonhood297 Have you tried Siralim 3?
Good take, I appreciate that you talk about how it applies mostly to strategy games and not all games. And not even all strategy games (though tbh the way we use the term is really bad) games like Total War and Wargame are way more about the moment to moment decisions, where while you do make decisions you also have to think fast and spot opportunities (and we should call the tactical games instead). It's a type of design that suits grand strategy and 4X games where the outcome of every decision is clear and obvious.
Choices should make a player feel like he or she is in control, have a significant actual and perceived impact on the gameplay, and are rewarding or punishing. The more immediate the better.
Today, I found our Maple Story 2 exists
I had to pause the video to write this, but I was thinking to myself "I could've sworn I've seen him play PoE at the end of a video before, I really hope he talks about it at some point", then you did literally as I finished the thought, I was not disappointed.
Love me some PoE!
Here's an interesting example: World of Warcraft. Between its release in 2004 up through its third expansion in 2011, the game had something called "talent trees". Every level, you got a talent point, and you could spend it on a few choices that opened up as time went on. A few choices were "interesting", meaning they gave you a new ability or totally shook something up, but most just increased some effect by 5% per rank. But then, in 2012, the game's fourth expansion changed everything. Every *fifteen* levels, you got a choice between one of three powerful abilities. Sounds way more interesting, right?
Well, not quite. Even when all three choices were balanced and had multiple uses, there was something unsatisfying about it. The problem wasn't just that we got that choice only once every fifteen levels, but that the choices were a little *too* big. That's one of the reasons people are so interested in playing "Classic" WoW when it comes out -- the choices might be less interesting according to this metric, but the progression feels more valuable.
I haven't played Far Cry 5. I don't know how good or bad it is. But its statistical progression system feels more like the talent trees of old WoW -- and that's okay.
Game Designer here, what you're mostly describing is 1/3 of an interesting decision. You talk mostly about outcome delta. Consequences, impact, synergies all pay into an outcome delta. But there is more to it. You also need costs and you need missing information. Maybe research a little about these two topics too, to complete the picture. :)
Throwing it out there, while I agree that decisions should have a consequence. Most RPGs take out those consequences, i.e. look at Skyrim as an example. Birthsigns had a downside and were locked in when you chose them, they had consequences to the perks and benefits you were given. Though some players disliked this system because there are some people who don't like consequences for their choices and actions. There is a type of player who complains about this. So what we have is the tight rope we walk when video games want to broaden their audience.
1+ for having Scarborough fair as soundtrack :)
That little bit about Prismata made my day, incredible game
You make some of the most thought-proving videos on gaming I've seen.
Tbh Odyssey actually gives you useful skills, mixed with passive buffs. Those "active skills" can change how you play alot, but aren't necessary which is good. The choices are a bit shallow but, can change how other characters interact with you quite a bit at times. I think they've taken a good step in the right direction with it but there could be more to it.
I could take a look at DOOM 2016 and declare a that "a good game is a sequence of engaging challenges", and it's pretty much just as valid advice as Meier's often-quoted words.
From the large scale of an entire level, to the split-second decision making in a firefight, at every point in that game, you will have an obstacle that needs to be removed.
I feel like there are 2 major components to a game: a mechanical and a strategic component, and the degree to which these are in a game puts them on a spectrum, from grand strategy and logistical games (all about working out numbers, approaches, and long-term goals) to fighters and shooters (almost pure expressions of reflexes, coordination, and how well you press what buttons).
A good game on the one end of the spectrum will feature interesting decisions, which engage you intellectually and make you think about the flow of the game.
A good game on the other end will feature engaging challenges, which push your reflexes, observational ability, hand-eye coordination, and overall more physical skills of gaming.
I've recently gotten darksouls, and although it is an amazing game, the controlls are rather poorly optimised. for the worst offender, look at jumping. If the button is A (default on switch, which is what I play it on), then by default you need to hold the a button to run, then release and quickly press it again to jump. This is increadibly counter intuitive, so much so that an hour into the game I still didn't know how to jump. Also on the obtuse side are kicking and jump attacking. Jump attack could be solved with a dedicated jump button, and then kicking makes sense as parry+light attack.
Then, you can also condence both parry and block, and light and heavy attacks, with tap being parry/light attack, then hold being block/heavy attack, depending on the button. This would still make kick be tapping two things at once, but it is far easier to tap buttons simutaniously than it is to flick the stick up and tap a button. This leaves one button open, which I would probably make "turn charecter with camera" so that it is possible to actualy aim bows and stuff.
Maplestory (the original) used to be a really intuitive game. You could accidentally make an unplayable character if you didnt level up with thought put into it. But over the years it got increasingly streamlined.
Yes.. i am one of those sad souls who still drones on about a time when maplestory was run by wizet and there were only 3 servers with only one and a half hubworlds (orbis wasnt complete yet, nath would come eventually)
*to back up my arguement that maple USED to be intuitive: because leveling up was both impactful and heavily laced with decision making, a whole community of making off stat characters were born and it was FUN
I never got to play the original maple story myself, but I know a lot of people who miss the so called glory days of that game.
not intending to say your argument is wrong, but I don't think you are using this word correctly.
in·tu·i·tive
adjective
using or based on what one feels to be true even without conscious reasoning; instinctive.
Great video, subtle suggestion: I just started animating a game for high school, and we've been working on getting a definitive art and animation style, so I think a great video could be about the design and animation of a game. Idk do what you want, thanks go giving me ideas and elements for our game
No problem, I've always meant to do a video on animation but as you can see from my editing I know nothing about artistic design! I'd recommend checking out Dan Root here on youtube if you want some videos like this about games animation though, he's great!
Maybe he was talking about the decisions made by the developers, like: what if Mario could possess his enemies or what if there was a RPG where you can kill every NPC or spare every NPC
"chao" is a casual way of saying "goodbye" in spanish, pretty fitting for the last word in the video
I see a lot of people hate on AC valhalla lately, but it actually really nails the skill system in my opinion, you have a really big skill tree but most of it is hidden until you level up more, and youre working towards really cool skills
Not sure it you did, but I think you should make a video about games which teach people real-life skills, even if not in an usable way. For example, the wand-crafting from the game Noita makes it very useful for teaching kids some concepts from programming, and simulator games (for agricultural vehicles, trucks, or cars) can teach people to use vehicles or equipment which might not be as fun or as safe to learn in real life without first learning the in-game versions.
"yes and no...thats a decision you'll have to make for yourself" always a great answer
Another game that does this quite well is Kingdom Hearts (or, rather, the entire series). The “skills” you equip all alter your basic combo, grant you new abilities or buff some of them, encouraging you to use them more often, at the cost of AP/skill points. There are no direct upgrades to your stats and all of the skills influence how you play or view the game.
But civ is basically linear with only minor differences in optimization? Rush military and get military
Rush science and get military
Rush economy and get military
Rush diplomacy and get military
Every game plays out more or less the same since every strat gives the same benifits through a different vector
Yeah, civ has it's fair share of problems, as I've already talked about on the channel, but I think underneath that there's some really smart ideas that deserve praise!
For PvP - yes, since military is the easiest way to counter an opponent. Really, going and destroying a couple of your opponent's cities is much easier, than taking his citystates, converting him in another religion (if he has his own), or anything else I cannot think about at the moment.
For PvE you may build just a minimum of units to protect yourself in case of sudden agression and then go for anything you wish - you woldn't face a lot of agro, probably.
I mean, I still think Civilization has some of what Adam was describing. How heavily do you follow your over-arching strategy that you defined in the early game if nice opportunities crop up that require you to briefly move away from your strategy? Or do you continue to stick to your overall strategy if your civilization is at risk when you do?
It's by no means a perfect game in that regard, but different overall strategies and building practices will all have drawbacks and advantages which impact playstyle. I think it works well enough for Adam's points.
And after this video, I'm now trying to apply the logic used to Rimworld and Rule the Waves to see where they do well at enforcing interesting decisions and where they do poorly.
i think i remember that video but im still salty i paid however much it was for CIV 6 when its just civ 5 but worse and with less content so ill take any opportunity i can to complain
@@John-bb4zm Yeah, Civ 6 is shit. Not sure if the DLCs improve that, but 5 just feels better.
Hey man, just watched your 2017 narrative video and this, and just wanted to congrats on how much your videos have improved.
Great job man😎
Amazing video but you really shouldn't put footage of a final boss in a video with no warning (6:59), It might piss people off
You could be right there. We'll have to see, shovel knight has been out for ages but people might still get upset.
I did think to myself "wow spoilers"
But I ain't mad
SWR24 never played the game myself but do have some amount of interest. Seeing a final boss like that for a few seconds with no context and not even being told it’s a final boss seems fine to me
@@tiloco21
Exactly, I haven't played Shovel Knight, so for me it was just one random bossfight.
Without context, spoilers fail to be spoilers. Ironically, the thing that spoiled me was this comment. Luckily i like them and that looked cool, what game is it?
This video basically lays my problems out with new MMORPGs. If you are protected too hard from making bad decisions, the world feels dead.
I thought this video would be about dialogue choices in games and how they effect the story and characters in them.
What about Borderlands, especially 2 and PS? On a quick glance the skill trees for the characters look pretty much the same as the Far Cry 5 skill tree. In actuality, it has several different characters with entirely different special abilities and skill trees, which all are desinged to provide a number of builds all once again leading to very different playstyles even with the same character.
It also resembles the PoE example in function; you go through nodes to get to more significant bonuses, just combine the small "get +1 of x" nodes of PoE to a single node which you can reinvest to upgrade 5 times in total or leave at 1 for a small bonus but faster access to other nodes.
In my opinion it's pretty well done that in all of the Borderlands games, the first playthrough at least is entirely doable no matter if you play a melee assassin, a sniper, an explosive spammer, a healer, a regeneration tank, a dual wielding gunner, special ability machine or a shotgun-wielding high-school dropout who's so inaccurate that shots change directions mid-air and still hit seven people
Borderlands (and sequels) are fun games, but I don't think they involve as much interesting decisions as say, PoE, Grim Dawn, or many other similar games.
Borderlands allows for easy (and cheap) respec of skill points, so you don't feel like you are making a real decision in using skill points. Then, no matter your build, when you get a cool gun, you start using it. In fact, the interesting decisions in BL is "which" cool guns you want to use.
In PoE, Grim Dawn and other similar ARPG, the skill tree is generally permanent or so expensive to respec that it is sometime better to start a new character instead. Then you have the fact that your skill/stat points distribution directly affect the items/spells/etc you can use. It comes down to "Do I want this cool ability, which will force me to use specific items? Or do I choose more stats and get to use a item with another cool ability?"
I think the most important factor for an "interesting decision" is the consequences of said decision. If you can easily revert or change a previous decision, it is not "interesting" anymore.
@@fnors2 you are correct, I totally forgot the respec mechanic. My bad. I don't entirely agree on the guns though; yes, you will be using just the most awesome ones in general but many builds limit the kind of gun that works in synergy but makes the gun perform a lot better than without your build. Most prominent example of this would be the aforementioned Anarchy build on Gaige that makes you so inaccurate that you pretty much only hit anything when shooting a shotgun straight in their face. As long as your anarchy is up, almost all other guns are rendered unusable, but with the ricochet from ground and bounce from hit enemies perks, shotguns with a high pellet count can hit several enemies with each pellet and have enough damage to oneshot basic enemies. This also means that the "most awesome" shotguns to me, the Torgue explosive ones, are subpar because of their low pellet count and slow flight speed.
In general though, I'm still impressed by the amount of different playstyles they've managed to cram in the games especially since the skill trees aren't that big
I always find it interesting when the discussion of decisions in games comes up. On one hand, I recognize that choices can make for very interesting gameplay, but on the other hand, I usually prefer games where the choices are either not present or are more of choosing a priority. As an example, in many ubisoft games, the choice of where you put your skillpoints is usually not a real choice. By getting further in the game (or grinding if you want something earlier), you can get every single upgrade in the game. As a counterpoint, in a game like Path of Exile, it takes an effectively infinite amount of runs through the game to see all of the combinations of upgrades. I think the reason why I prefer games with fewer choices comes down to one primary factor. I value completion very highly in games, so when I see a choice where I have to play through the game another time to see the result, I usually am not very happy. I will enjoy playing the game the first time, but subsequent times are usually the same game for the majority of the time, with small changes here and there.
This all only somewhat applies to story-related choices, but you can probably see how the wording and effect might change. The only main difference with this type of choice is that it usually also makes at least one of the story routes less well written, since the focus was either taken away from the 'main' route or the character has to be a blank enough slate to fit both of the stories.
A game like path of exile is fundamentally different from something like your ubisoft example. Something like assassin's creed can certainly be played through more than once but i would hazard a guess that not many people play through it many times. It, and games like it, are something you go and spend 50 hours playing and call it a game. Hopefully one you look back on with fond memories.
Path of exile on the other hand is designed to have you play it again and again and again. You are not supposed to play it with one character to "the end" and say well that was a fun 50 (or 500) hours of gameplay, onto the next game. It's designed so that you either come back for a month every league(3 months or so) for another several hundred hours or just never leave. Much more like a traditional MMO but with seasons and set in an ARPG style.
The two styles are very different and one may not appeal to everyone but that is totally ok.
That's a good point. I used those examples because they were mentioned in the video. Perhaps some better examples would be many MMOs (World of Warcraft, Maple Story 2, etc.) when compared with TERA. In most MMOs that I have played, you have to pick and choose which skills or talents you wish to have. Most of them have some option to respec, which alleviates most of the issues, but they still tend to make that cost enough to be tedious at best to try out the options. In TERA (and somewhat Guild Wars 2 and probably others), you get all of your skills by maximum level. You do have glyphs that you can change out to adjust your build, but these tend to be small changes, and you can change them at nearly any time for free.
For another comparison, look at Bioshock 1 and 2. For this comparison, I will be assuming that only the good route is an option (it's the one I usually choose anyway). By the end of the first game, you can get all of the tonics and plasmids to their max level. I don't remember if there were a few health or eve upgrades left, but those felt effectively meaningless to get. By contrast in the second game, I had quite a few tonics and plasmid upgrades that I was unable to buy. You can also see this in the Power to the People stations. Bioshock 1 lets you upgrade every weapon if you manage to find the stations, while Bioshock 2 will leave you with a few upgrades not received. For all of these comparisons, I end up getting to the 'end' of the game and feeling like it isn't done. To actually complete it though, would require me to fully play through the game at least one more time. With the MMO examples, the big choices like which class to play can have this same problem, but usually the gameplay for each different class is unique enough to not feel like the same game again.
Keith Burgun (On youtube) had some interesting things to say about this Sid Meier quote* in relation to strategy games, or, I guess, any game with proper strategic arcs. I always took the 'series'' part of this quote for granted, the video (Iirc, maybe just a section of it) looks at that part specifically.
12:01 Coincidentally, that's also the only place on RUclips I ever ran into Prismata, feels great to see them getting noticed after all!
I think you got it wrong on the quote. I might be wrong their, but it seems to me that the original quote was "GAMEPLAY is a succession of interesting decisions." And gameplay doesn't necessarily means "good game" although a good game will usually have good gameplay.
All the sources I can find say "a good game" or something to that effect, now you've got me paranoid about being wrong!
@@ArchitectofGames Okay, so, after looking, it looks like the original was simply "A game is a series of meaningful choices." (Here is a wikiquote link, but there are other sources : en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sid_Meier) So, I guess, we both got it slightly wrong...
@@lhumanoideerrantdesinterne8598 Ah, I've seen that version around for sure. Like I say, the quote is around 30 years old now, so I don't think anyone's going to be able to remember the right version!
I think for great examples of interesting decisions to be made in games, game developers should look at all the tabletop games that are on the market now. There are so many modern tabletop games that are nothing but constant interesting and meaningful decisions throughout each playthrough.
I think the Persona games have a good choice system, choosing which character's social link you focus on makes your personas for that arcana stronger and you can also choose to visit a dungeon to grind but then you don't get to work on a social link that day.
you always make such well thought out and fantastic videos!
That FC5 soundtrack tho...top 5 of all time.
In a high-action game, "interesting decisions" are as simple and immediate as the game. Deciding whether to circle around a house or climb up to the roof with a ladder is an interesting choice. Choosing to rush the enemy with the only sort of shotgun in the game, or whether to hang back and snipe with the only sort of rifle in the game is an interesting choice. Simply choosing to go left or right is an interesting choice.
I think a other who is good has everything you talked about is Etrian Odyssey series:
1-It has consequences: Picking that one ATK up instead of Defence Buff might be a bad idea for your team.
2-It is impactful: The game is weak on this one but i think map making is the impactful part of it. Seeing the map being done and defeating huge bosses is the a great satisfaction.
3-It has Synergy: The game is hard and you feel good when you finally find that one broken combo. (Shogun-Warrior Might and Blitz goes very well together)
I think one thing missing from this definition is that at least some of impact decisions need multiple viable options. One problem almost every strategy game faces is that a meta forms and players feel like they don't really have choices other than win or lose. An example of this is the religious victory which, while i disagree, many players feel is so difficult in multiplayer games without conquest that its really not a separate win condition. While the choice of doing a religious victory has consequences and is impact, its not in a good way as the consequence is you lose. While obviously every decision in the game can't be viable as it'd make the game too easy (where point 3 shows up) the decisions that define how you play the game need to be balanced enough that both are viable choices at some point.
Adam, I'd love to see your take on another famous game design quote: "Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game" from Soren Johnson: www.designer-notes.com/?p=369
Yes. The Day Z mod for Arma II when it was only played by Arma nerds had interesting decisions 9/10 times you ran across another player. The Day Z mod for Arma II when it became super popular had no decision when you met another player 9/10 times, they were gonna try to kill you for your stuff even if it was a stick and a soup can. The former was an interesting experience, the same game with success was not.
As much as I LOVE farcry 5 I agree with you.
Yay new video! Love your content!
All in a day's work, citizen.
I don't get it. What's the difference between having big consequences and having a big impact? Any decision that has a big impact automatically has the consequence that you can not choose the other decision, right?
This War Of Mine would be a good example to talk about decisions making and how they affect the player.
Bruh I can’t believe transistor is more forgotten but I guess next to their other games it could be I still love it to death tho
Scaling attributes up while another one attribute is reduced can have a more interesting impact to the leveling choice. Like you would pay a long lasting sacrifice for small advantage in achieving your actual game.
And yet, investing stat points is a lot of fun and I wouldn't call a game that has them worse than one without.
Yeah, Kind of explains to me why games without strategic decisions such as "walking simulators" are very uninteresting to me. Even shooters and stuff I don't really like. Strategy games (including RPGs) are where it's at and this summarizes the appeal of them.
Happy to have helped!
"Walking simulators" are basically visual novels. Books have literally no reader interaction, but I'm sure you enjoy reading them.
@@General12th Well I enjoy reading a book much more than reading a game. Making a game like a book or a movie wastes most of the unique strengths the medium has.
Super Mario Bros is a good game. I don’t recall any decisions that would qualify as ‘interesting’
I was just playing far cry 5 so the background music of this video was really fucking with my head lol
Another in civ 6 is the political system. Every civ has its likes or dislikes. Like Norway likes big navy's or china likes to have a lot of wonders. And this makes a lot of interesting choices like production choices, Norway likes big navy's and Egypt likes big land armies. You can only produce units so quickly so you have conflict of what to build. Another is opposite points of views. Alexander loves war but Ghandi hates it so you decide who to support. Finnaly are choices that disadvantage you like china who wants wonders. But wonders give you bounces that help you so you choose between china or wonders.
Giving the player interesting decisions doesn't make a game good. But the game actually responding to your decisions does.
Or to put it differently, having interesting decisions, many of which are just consistantly wrong, will lead to frustration.
For example Fallout 4
FO4 has a very interesting progression system, and gives many options to play with. All of which have immediate and impactful consequences.
However, the game is setup in a way, to only support one way to play it.
The game offers a variety of stealth perks, from better sneaking, to becoming undetectable under water. Paired with perks, that let you flee more efficiently. That creates a set of skills, that promise interesting stealth gameplay.
The game also allows to get a wide variety of social perks, from vendor bonuses, to bonuses for your companion, to even the ability to pacify animal and human agressors...
Which promises you a lot of interesting choices to deal with things, without conflict...
Yet the games content actually never gives you the option to use these skills.
There is not a single story quest, that can be done stealthily, by avoiding enemys. Or by pacifying them. All story missions demand you to kill, even if you would want to use your charisma skills to solve the issue.
You have to go in, kill an army of underlings to then confront the boss, to then kill him.
No way to talk it out, no way to use stealth for anything else but to get critical hits.
This ultimately means, that you will allways end up in situations, that your high level character can not deal with, just because you wanted to play the game in a way, the game offers superficially, but doesn't actually support content wise.
Not to mention, that these "player confronts boss" situations are allways scripted in a way, that make stealth gameplay impossible, even if you want to use it to kill.
And being given decisions, that ultimately are wrong, because the game doesn't support them is worse, than not having any decisions in the first place.
Great video! Thanks for sharing.
Good video, but you seem to have missed the benefit, or ignored for the sake of brevity and focus of the video, behind small static bonuses such as (+2% Damage). While these small incremental bonuses don't feel like they're effecting choice they do improve player agency as well as give the player a sense of growth especially if they're able to go back to earlier areas and one-shot a previously tanky enemy. And If you want to see how much 2% change can effect players emotionally, just look at the comment section of a MOBA patch.
The problem exists when there are only small changes. Path of Exile for instance has literally hundreds of small stat nodes. But while small nodes may occasionally provide benefits (slight boost to wear an item for instance), it's mostly the fact that you're working to bigger build-defining nodes. You look at it and go "only 2 more nodes to go!". If the tree were a giant list and things like strength were just added with a [+] button it would be boring. it's the visual style of the passive tree that makes even small decisions interesting.
@@thakillman7 That isn't a problem. Katamari damacy is such a game where you only see marginal increase in power over the course of a level. As you decide what to roll up you gain mass and can roll larger and larger things until previous threats, like a cat wandering around the toy room, eventually becomes another thing you can add to your pile. You never really "change" the way you play but are always striving to get more swol. And having those larger threats gives you a sensation of growth and empowerment.
I thought the takeaway from that quote was that a series of uninteresting decisions lead to a terrible game.
Life is a series of decisions
I would say that, at least for me, civ 6 is lacking because it doesn't force you to use any real synergies. You can just use more or less the same strategy every playthrough and you will only be doing very slightly worse than if you addapted. I always go for some early conquest, then wait for decent ships and destroy everyone with my navy. This lets you win with whatever civ you play. Even if you play on immortal it works 90% of the time, so Ive just never felt encouraged to try to addapt to my specific situation making the exact same choices each game.
The Fear-al Carrot
HAHAHAHAHA What a great nickname!
The other issue with things like skill trees is it is much harder to balance the difficulty curve of the game
I finally know what obra dinn was missing for me, I wanted to know what the impact of what I did was going to have... and I couldn't find set of decisions that I could make which was unique to the way I played, instead it felt restrective. No I don't hate linear games, Uncharted is one of my favs but at least it is completely clear that it is not giving you any freedom. Obra Dinn felt more like I was in an Assasins creed insta kill wall all the time.
0:50 That game used to be my life
Games about decisions won't be interesting unless they have interesting decisions. This is almost a truism. It follows that a game about exploring might be interesting if the exploration is interesting, even if the decisions are not. A game developer has to figure out what they want the game to focus on, and then optimize for interest in those areas.
What's interesting to me is that commandments one and two are the same thing, except that one is an actual characteristic of the decision and two is about how the decision is presented. Games aren't just vehicles for mechanics, or all the successful strategy games would be abstract. Presentation stacks on top of everything else any game offers, binds things together, and sometimes bails out unworthy titles. But I don't think I'd say that the presentation of a decision is what makes it interesting unless the decision is *about* presentation (do I want my city to have grey roads or red roads?).
I'd like to go one step deeper for a similar but more-encompassing trio of commandments:
1. Decisions must be good or bad
2. Decisions must be gradable by the player
3. Decisions must have a skill curve
I think synergy is a great way to provide a skill-curve to decisions, because it makes it harder to tell immediately which decision is best without increasing the number of individual options. Do you take the sword of 10 damage or the sword of 12 damage? Easy. Do you take the sword of 10 damage +2 xp per kill or the sword of 12 damage? Not so easy.
(by the way, at 0:40 "desicion" should be spelled "decision")
I recall playing Fallen Order, and at first I thought some degree of RPG elements would be cool (different lightsaber designs, a skill tree, etc), but the skill tree is just a bland and rather unnecessary level-up mechanic, which could be replaced with a static level-up system granting bonuses instead (or cut entirely and balance accordingly). The lightsaber designs are dissapointing too. As you've adressed recently in your video on swordplay, the combat in Fallen Order doesn't feel satisfying, and the choice of weaponry follows suit. You start with the single blade (good for dueling), later repair the blade to be double-bladed (good for crowds), and later still make a new sword which can "split". However, it never feels like a choice to go for a specific style. You duel with one blade, mow down crowds with two, and when you get the splittable blade, you get a neat, but impractical transformation attack, which isn't just hard to land, but leaves you stuck in the bad choice of the two configurations.
When I learned of the skill tree, I thought there'd be some degree of different play styles, but every playthrough has the same style of dissapointing saber combat supported by sporadic force powers.
Good games, like the ps4 spider-man also have this issue. The skill tree doesn't help diversify playthroughs. At least this game has a crafting system with the resources being tokens earned in optional encounters (like collectibles, timed challenges, hideout brawls, etc.), but the skill tree barely contributes to playstyle.
At least the witcher 3 had a good system, allowing you to diversify playthroughs based on a preference for swordplay, magic, or alchemy, with focused blademasters unable to grossly overdose on mutagens or spam empowered signs.
They should seriously stop copy-pasting skill trees into games that don't need them.