Progression Systems - How Good Games Avoid Skinner Boxes - Extra Credits
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- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
- Progression systems in games are far too often designed as Skinner boxes: psychological traps that feed us carefully measured rewards to create habit-forming activity loops. Skinner boxes are not rewarding in themselves, but progression systems can be, and they should be used to create a better game experience. Building in choices that allow the player to select their own build (and optimize it) lets the player think ahead and makes progression a part of the game experience in itself.
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2:12 You also need a backtracking system to prevent spec anxiety, when people like me are afraid to spend any stat point before fully understanding what works best.
Yup, and i actually never feel that i understand, so i don't spend them at all
A quick thing about WoW-styled talent-trees versus the linear progression of other RPGs:
The downside of using talent-based systems is that, while it creates more player choices, the community will inevitably find the most mathematically powerful combination of talents and proceed to call that package the one-true-combination. In the worst scenarios, this can lead to elitism and harassment of players who differ from this formula. A linear progression of talents, while carrying its own baggage, does avoid this issue.
It could be interested to hear a discussion about the merits of each!
+Jonathan Herzog
the counter to this phenomenon can also be wildly controversial, such as re-ballancing large sections of game-play, nerfing entire gameplay styles, or rendering old techninques moot by simply pumping out ever stronger gear and stronger enemies.
one way of doing it right can be the use of expansions, as long as they apply to certain sections of play without rendering a player obsolete, where they already are. But then a dev risks problems with expansions or dlc. done right, expansions are generally few, and hopefully don't split the playerbase. done wrong, too many little dlcs for too a high a price, or the worst of them all, paid dlc expansions in a subscription based setting. free large expansions in a subcription based setting can be considered perfectly fair if done right, such as how Eve Online works (as much as i hate the game).
free expansions in a non subscription environment may be considered the least profitable, but one look at Team Fortress 2, and it's totally possible to have a vibrant, free game, with premium content, no split player base when it comes to fundamental play, and tons of free/pay if you want expansions. this is the game where you can sell $100 digital hats (i just sold a 50 USD hat a couple days ago), its a model that is wildly successful for valve. and by wildy, I mean kids printing money levels of insane profit, as TF2 has been the proving grounds for Steam innovations, and boy are they both profitable.
They both have the same issue, just that with WoW you actually have a choice and so it is more fun.
Jonathan Herzog There's no guarantee that there is an objective most-powerful build. I don't play WoW, but League of Legends looks to me to have a similar system (Masteries). In that, there's enough of a range of options that most characters have at least a little wiggle-room in how you set up masteries without one definite best. That might also be because of how almost everything about the game depends on the other nine players - WoW is mostly PvE, right?
Jonathan Herzog I think I remember another extra credits episode where that makes the skill tree a calculation rather than a meaningful choice, and learning how to differentiate the two can benefit developers.
Jonathan Herzog And that's why WoW axed the talent trees in favor of talent rows every 15 levels or so instead a couple years ago, doing their best to ensure none of the talents are inherently superior. They seem to be trying to add in an alternative progression path with the new weapons in Legion, though they're likewise smart enough to treat it like the draenor perks in that by max level you'll have everything, its simply a matter of what you personally want to focus on getting first this time instead of a random roll.
I love how the artists can even make a Warhammer 40k space marine look cute.
Peter Molina jessicadunn.deviantart.com/art/Tyranid-Ripper-plushy-407970576
Already done. I think.
Yossi Lipton archive.4plebs.org/boards/tg/image/1377/21/1377217020035.png
It really does keep coming back to that age-old problem in games: giving your player meaningful choices to make. If the player lacks agency (or at least the illusion of agency), they're not going to enjoy the experience in the same way. If you give the player too much agency right away, however, you'll scare many players off. The power of meaningful choices in a game is what allows games like Terraria to thrive (go anywhere, do anything!), and simultaneously is what becomes those very same games' biggest problems (where do I go, what do I do?).
I like the way that some Minecraft mods will redo survival minecraft to have better pacing through a progression system. Just seeing all the different ways that they achieve this is exciting because some mods will change crafting recipies, others will change or add mechanics, some even use maps to control what resources the player gets and when.
Some of my favorite progression systems in modded Minecraft are the Regrowth modpack from the FTB Launcher and the Better Than Wolves mod.
This makes me think of how the most recent Fire Emblem titles tie their progression system to the characters very well. Classes and weapons are all something personalized by each individual person playing the game, and we often feel *closer* to our units because of how we progress them, to the extent of sometimes choosing the progression that feels more in character as opposed to the one that makes the most battle strategy sense.
Idk if linear progression systems in jRPGs are a bad thing, I wouldn't want a skill tree for every character in Persona 3, I get just as much diversity by picking which party members come with me.
4:45... The real life personality of healers in MMO's is so incredibly volatile towards their teammates though xD
It's probably from seeing one too many tanks jump into seas of enemies
I really like how you connect each episode's topic or theme to a previous video, it really helps explain things and expand on what your original idea is all about.
I love the way you say comfortable @2:56. Too many people say "comf-ter-ble"
A video on how to not make grinding suck? One of my new favorite episodes :D
I actually have a comment about something specific you brought up: the idea that a progression system can be used to teach the players over time specific elements of the game. This can work, but it NEEDS to have each item clearly laid out and the advantages of using it clearly spelled out. I have played game after game where a mechanic either isn't properly explained, or the advantages of using it are never clearly laid out to me (usually because I find what I was already doing more efficient or easier to do), only to hit a brick wall later in progression when those skills become %100 necessary to progress. I honestly cannot state this aspect strongly enough, as I find it happens most frequently in the MMO space you noted, but also it a lot of more action-oriented games . This is especially true when you unlock a new ability and they seem to feel you'll be so enamored with it that you'll just start using it all the time and learn it, where-as I tend to ignore any new abilities after learning how it functions because I have already become comfortable with the methods I already have and find this new wrinkle needlessly complicates things beyond my ability to keep track of. It really should be said that in addition to there being time to learn it, there need to be ways the game teaches you said ability is not just necessary, but important to spend the time to put into your kit.
'' If the most efficient way to progress turns out to be the least interesting thing to do - ehh you don't want that ''
runescape players: Delet dis
pokemon too lol
Examples?
@@klyxes leveling up a ratata, magikarp, any pokemon that is underleveled
Most AAA games
I found them through extra history and I fell instantly in love with the channel and seeing how I love games mythology and I want to get a PhD in history this is an amazing channel for me
I think a good example of the Progression System is from the Persona or Pokemon Series. While characters do learn set skills at set levels, you can customize which set of skills they have access too.
The Souls series is one of the best examples for great progression system design. "Grinding" doesn't feel gimmicky, because there's always a risk in looping through a grinding cycle. Progression only actually happens after you've defeated a really difficult boss or survived through a difficult dungeon by the teeth of your skin while carrying souls enough for a few levelups. Even levelling up attributes feel so good, because they unlock certain advantages that otherwise the game would not allow (i.e. a high strength weapon or a good spell). At least in my opinion, games should be taking notes from this game, more than any other RPG in the market.
I think one of the best examples of intuitive use of grinding is found in the Pokemon Series, specifically with IVs. If you want to build the best team, you think it out and use the best Pokemon for each job, depending on what stat you're looking to max.
Plus, you get a big reward - your Pokemon can be MUCH more effective in battle. Plus, the main parts of the game don't require this, and you can slowly familiarize and understand it as you look into the post-game and possibly competitive play.
I think a good example where it's done well is Tales of Vesperia.
Of course you are rewarded in typical JRPG fasion where all the characters gain a set number of stats and skills in a linear order as you level up, but there is also the weapon skill system that allows players to actively pick their abilities and learn new artes and spells after they have used a weapon for x number of battles.
Even if ultimately you can't learn or even equip each skill in one run, you have to strategize how you are going to handle each character in order to learn all the skills and artes possible so you can maximize the character by the end-game.
You are getting the benefits of a pre-determined JRPG level up that allows the developers to keep the pace regardless of the players choices, but it gives the players the level of agency a Western RPG tends to have and can allow players to bypass the characters innate weaknesses by giving them more movement and stat allocation options.
Medic: I shall slay all who dare oppose me and spill their blood upon the altar to the dark one who puts the quaver in your heart.
Knight: *blinks*
Medic: Where did you think those hit points came from? I don't heal anybody, I just move damage from you to those orphans tied up in my trunk
Knight: *picks up honorable profession, like thievery*
You *can* write a character like a different class, and that can be interesting. A good example is Usopp from One Piece. In game terms he's a versatile "sniper" class that's adept at secondary DPS, buff/debuff, crowd control, and mezzing. However, he wants to be a Warrior, something he's just no good at. Much of his character arc is about accepting his actual talents and how the crew needs them.
So I guess you are right in broad strokes, I'd just add an addendum that "You can, if repeated failure is part of their story."
2:20 good players will often use this to their advantage by planning out paths where they will go for a build more centered toward the early game, then respec once they have the right resources to make their late game build work.
+Extra Credits The biggest problem with progression systems is that 95% or better of the "progression" options offered are considered sub-par, unacceptable or gimp by the player community while one setup is generally accepted as optimal. Therefore even though the developer may think they are offering a very rich and complex progression tree, the reality to the players is that the majority of those "options" may as well not even exist.
In my opinion, the division 2 balances the progression pretty well, and on the search of trying to maximize and optimize your build, it pushes you to try new things, going to places and activities you normally wouldn't. Its quite interesting for a light-in-lore, online focus game.
Personally I like everything to be accessible from the start, though, it does not mean it have to be free.
One system I really like is the one in Only War (a table-top role playing game set in the 40k universe).
When it comes to video games, the system in Verdun with unlock token, and now level limitation (and a good starting amount of tokens), I really like that (also the squad level system).
I think random generations are the best way to spice up progression pyramids
Brad JackRabbit agreed.
I disagree. Although it probably depends on single player vs. multiplayer. In singleplayer its totaly fine, but multiplayers always have a competitive component and it sucks to "loose" a competition to bad RNG. Its the reason League and many other more competitive games get rid of RNG wherever possible.
Random generation doesn't always mean unrewarding. Multiplayer is always focused on reward, fair random generation gives the unluckier people more of a chance in my mind.
dota has ten times more rng than league, but no one is whining about it. players don't think 200% critical damage as reliable buff, rather the 33% more efficiency.
dota has ten times more rng than league, but no one is whining about it. players don't think 200% critical damage as reliable buff, rather the 33% more efficiency.
The current WoW talent system is completely different (and better) than what was presented in this video. Years out of date, take a look at how it works now Dan. No longer playing the game myself, but you can really appreciate their most recent approach.
Kind of reminds me of the progression in Fallout: New Vegas, and how, depending on what attributes you levelled up, you could actually open dialogue options in the story (and I'm referring to attributes outside the speech skill). That, I think, was a nice way of making progression engaged within the narrative of the story, and even give a sense of accomplishment.
1:17 OH NO YOU DIDN'T! DO NOT MESS WITH MY JRPGS TOO!!!!!!!!!!! :(
Edit: Just to go into more detail, I am NOT an MMO player, I do NOT like games like Dark Souls, Fallout, Mass Effect, and many western RPGs. I do not like crunching numbers since I'm not good at min-maxing, and whenever I die in a game, I am questioning on whether or not I lost to the boss/enemy, or if I lost to the misallocation of stats. If I were to play a game where min-maxing is part of the game, I'd be the type of player who would write down a build online and copy it exactly. I feel that alot of those games take it too far in my opinion. I'm not against choosing between abilities and the like since my reaction to most of those situations is "oooh, I like the sound of that ability" or something along those lines. I like it when thats as far as it takes it, or even it could give you preset abilities and focus on the battles themselves. Thats where the other side of the coin of this lies to me is the strategy involved in using the abilities that you chose or the game gives you to beat the enemy. The types of games with min-maxing are the games I'm less likely to play.
Love your videos. I have a suggestion though. When you provide an example of a game using a system, concept, mechanic, etc, I would like to know more detail into how so. In this video, you used "Dawn of War" as an example of how it uses the progression system to form connections with the player and their units and whatnot but I would like to know HOW. Unfortunately I do not know every game's design nor do I feel like I must research the example game to get a clear image of the concept you are trying to comvey
Watching this video made me think about City of Heroes, and how the progression system worked there. The limits in how many powers you could chose meant that you could spend ages thinking about how to pick them for the best synergies for the best builds, to the point that there were fan-made "Respec Planner" tools.
The wide range of powers available let us do a lot to define a character's personality through their powers; were they an aloof mastermind, letting their minions do all the fighting? Or did they do some blasting of their own, alongside those minions. Did a defender shield their allies directly? Or did they knock their foes off their feet to keep them from even attacking?
We watched you in my history class today about the Punic Wars!
I took a pike from the forgotten shore to the destiny loot cave before it was patched and taped down the trigger on my controller for about 24 hours there was so much loot by the end of it The cave was literally overflowing with loot to the point where the enemies would push their way out of the loot just to spawn.
As far as directly rewarding players for playing in the most fun way: _BioShock 2_'s video camera. It was designed to give higher scores for more interesting kills and penalize them for being repetitive. A bit bluntly direct in how it tackled the problem, I suppose, but it encouraged me to get creative, which was the whole point of the game's wide variety of weapons and plasmids in the first place. I've seen some Let's Plays of the first game where the player would just pick one combat style, stick with it the whole game, and then whine that the combat is boring and repetitive. You can choose to criticize them for "playing it wrong", or you can tweak your mechanics to nudge them in the right direction. Seriously, 2K Marin does not get enough credit for the work they did on that game.
Playing through Terraria again for the first time in a while, I find myself noticing that they take a nice hybrid approach. If you want to progress, you can either dig and explore, upgrading your pick, fight gradually increasing difficulty bosses (Well I say gradually but there's kind of a big spike after Wall of Flesh) farm mobs for rare drops (either direct or through crafting) or saving up to buy some of them from the vendors. (Everyone remembers their first minishark)
I'd just like to point out that one of the primary drives for me to reach a high level early on, was to go back to the early areas to trash the mobs there. so, yeah. :)
Pokémon might seem like it’s just basic stat boosts, but EVs are a neat mechanic that means that fighting certain ‘mons gives more of certain stats depending on their EV yield.
I actually think Shadow of Mordor did progression really well (if you don't count the pre-order bonus runes). Every ability is spaced just far enough from the next that you spend enough time getting to grips with it before getting something else, and the enemy difficulty scales so really the game doesn't get any harder, it just gets more complex. Then the Bright Lord DLC takes the last of those abilities, brand, and turns it up a notch, making that the focus of the DLC (since Celebrimbor has less health and less showy combat talents)
I actually find that the best example of a good progression, is Half Life 2. The Valve-ian technique of making the entire game a tutorial does ease this somewhat but the game gradually but consistently offers new enemies, vehicles, and weapons (often together) in a way that challenges players to shift their techniques and understanding of the game. This curated progression is actually pretty common among shooters but Half Life does it with particular skill. Even Portal 1 manages it with just two portals and a missile launcher that isn't under your control.
Terria has a really good progression system, they use bosses as stoping points usually which buff other areas of the game. since you can fight bosses whenever they're unclocked which takes no grinding at all, you will probably get killed unless you're very good allowing you to progress equal to your skill. And even when your grinding for resources you don't know what's gonna happen you could run into a unique miniboss find a rare chest ect. you can also build to make farms so you don't have to grind as much rewarding smarter players and giving players more time to build. which is also linked into progression via NPC happiness. for example, the mechanic allows you t make more advanced farms and is happier in the snow biome so you build in the snow biome for that npc.
Extra Credits: mentions a healing character and personalities
My brain: thinks of the medic from TF2 where his personality is literally a mad scientist
When saying "WOW let's you respec for a fee" you have to specify if its real money (like in Dungeon Fighter Online) or fake in-game money (like Borderlands).
So I was gonna click the annotation to the Skinner Box video but RUclips removed annotations so now I get to use the search bar. yay. thanks youtube for removing features.
Well personally I don't like mmorpgs, but I like other tittles that have mmorpg elements like borderlands. I have to say that there are two systems that I like a lot, the typical evolution tree and the element combination, the only game in that I have seen this is dark delusion for psx, in that game you could mix a trap with an element, so if you mix the pushing wall with the fire element, you get a flame thrower in the wall, if you mix the boulder with the ice element you get a snow ball, and if you mix the vase with the slave element (there were weird elements), you got a slave mask that allowed you to control the enemy
Best fighting game I've ever found, has good progression, Dragon Ball Xenoverse. Just got it from a physical target store for $20, (cheaper than GameStop used, and this was new). Each race and sex determines specific bonuses. Lots, I do mean lots of skills, all of which can fundamentally change your style of gameplay. Level up grants points that are spendable in increasing HP total, KI total (power points), Stamina total (dodges, and some abilities use this), KI attack damage, Basic attack damage, KI blast type attacks, strike type attacks, and some I have forgotten.
It rewards you for knowing your skills, using them at the right time, reacting well, positioning well, and being proactive. I prefer the close range, give it all you got till the last breath style. There are armors that look cool, plenty of abilities, items that when equipped grant interesting abilities. As a Saiyan, my character has better attack power, less health. The lower my health, the more attack power I gain. I took an equippable ,'z soul' that grants me massive attack damage when near death. Essentially, when on my last leg, it becomes an all or nothing suicide barrage that chunks.
Abilities and such are unlocked through missions.
Good progression, not too grindy, fights are challenging because there is so much fucking depth to the game.
Great presentation value! Subscribed.
Awesome sonic figure of 8 legs drawing!
I wish teachers and colleges would structure their classes and curriculums more this way.
One sec does a great job with this mechanic for me on a personal experience is Borderlands every character is quite diverse and ability and what they contribute to the team boiling to must be my favorite but if you don't like how you carry this point input it has made them you can reconfigure take care that you don't like well you can't even like adding appointment next night and just added on to fill it in some some of the trees can interlock with each other and not separate streets getting the right of bility allows you to have these trees merge with each other to make your self a stronger combated
I think a dramatically better example of good progression is Dark Soul leveling up. In WoW the talent trees were almost completely useless. There were hardly any real choices, and eventually everyone just uses cookie cutter builds. They were regarded as so silly they removed them completely in recent expansions. Now you just pick among a few abilities or passives.
DS leveling up on the other hand not only provides a ton of decisions but also improves replayability. You might find a rare drop weapon and then you have to make the choice of whether or not to put in the stats necessary to equip it. Or you might find a particular spell that you want to use. You can replay the game as a mage, dex weapon user, hybrids, etc. You can do fun challenges like minimum HP builds. You might put points in DEX just to use a particular weapon before you get your long-term weapon later in the game that might not even require DEX. Or you might force yourself to use a puny dagger for most of the game while you build stats for a weapon that requires points in INT later in the game.
Heh, the "tacked-on" jigsaw puzzle piece won't even fit with any of the existing pieces.
Strategy RPGs made by Nippon Ichi have major issues with grinding that, I feel, is the biggest reason they remain niche. They appeal very well to people who love to get near-endless growth the more time they spend at these games (in the Disgaea games, you can create characters literally tens of thousands of times stronger than what is needed for the end bosses), but getting there is pretty much walking the Silk Road. It DOES usually have a reset system though, where your character begins with higher stats than the last time they reset (or when the game began if it's the first reset).
Oh yeah, I should mention that huge grinding IS required to get through the story portion of the game. You may be at Level 16 or so, and then all of a sudden, every enemy is at Level 35. You then have to find ways to acquire experience, or use other techniques to boost your team's stats, before you even stand a chance (unless you're very, very good at the game, but that's for seasoned players and not the first-time player). This literally takes at least an hour, sometimes several.
Series like Pokémon have opponents scaled a lot more properly for where you should be if you just played through the game normally, and series like Shin Megami Tensei create other ways to induce challenge other than grinding.
Lastly, I find it highly amusing that there's a Splatoon remix during the credits. That's a game that creates all sorts of psychological tricks, some of them interesting and some of them I'd rather not see, but that's a whole different can of worms.
Have any of you ever played a game where you don't unlock abilities or anything new? "Oh nice I got stronger. Wait, why are my enemies tougher than usual?"
Not sure if mentioned in the video, but Deus Ex games have some of the best progression systems, especially Human Revolution where unlocking new abilities as you progress has a pretty profound effect on the gameplay, instead of being relatively minor stat buffs. Dishonored's not quite as good imo (mostly the random element of the bone charms, which makes planning a build and play style less reliable).
aresdotexe The problem with Human Revolution was how many points you got, specially if you were trying to roleplay as a certain type. I was strictly a stealth character so I refused to put any points into combat abilities or damage resistances, but I got so many points that by the end I had a lot of the hacking upgrades as well and finished with a few points never being spent.
TheBlackCloakedMan Right, But even with that problem it's still better than most.
I would love a game where the white mage was the most agressive violent character by proxy. Just sitting at the back shouting "Kick 'im in the voonerables!" whilst shielding their allies and stuff.
best advice listen to your casuals who pay the bills>hardcore always.
choose whatever progression they deem is fun.
FFXI's progression used to be just perfect. Level progression was rather straightforward and kinda grindy, but the actual progress in there, as in every other MMO, really, was item oriented. But it wasn't just a lame gear treadmill like WoW is, instead, useful items were spread out across an enormous amount of content, at any level range; the level cap was 75, but there were level 20 head pieces that could be useful all the way to 70 (provided you put the time to obtain them), or a pair of level 34 gloves that were not super easy to obtain, but were second to best in slot at level 75 for those who could equip them; the game was dotted with such examples, and it didn't require to grind your ass off for everything once you were at the level cap, but instead you could steadily work for your stuff even while you were still just leveling up. What that did for the game was add TONS of gear choices and different options for varied situations, add a large variety of things to do before you hit the level cap besides just level grind, and add amazing longevity to a lot of the game's content. Because of this horizontal progression, content wasn't discarded and treated as obsolete in a matter of 3 to 6 months the way WoW and its plethora of clones do. And all of that was done in such a way that the game didn't really feel like too bad a grind, even though new content was not added all that regularly at all because, even with old content, you still had tons of options to choose from all over the place. It was genius.
But even that game succumbed to the same crap every MMO dev has been doing for a decade now and scrapped it's perfect balance of horizontal progression and content in favor of the WoW model... and FF14 does the exact same thing now as well. They've all become a soulless gear treadmill, offering nothing but a crazy steep vertical progression curve where the only thing that matters is grinding out the latest piece of content and nothing more, making the game feel mind-numbingly monotonous. Sad stuff.
You focus way too much on the leveling curve in this video, but really, progression in MMOs is not dictated by how you level up at all, especially with how much the leveling process has been trivialized; you can get to the level cap in a week in a modern MMO, without even trying. Actual progression in these games is done through itemization. And it is WoW, the game you kept referencing here, that absolutely ruined that core concept of the genre by trivializing it and reducing it to "this item is newer and has a higher item level, period."
My problem with progression systems is that every damn game has one nowadays, devs/pubs have become lazy in thinking about ways of adding longevity, much of the problem is that challenge and difficulty aren't being fully utilised as part of a game designers tool box because it's considered "bad game design" to put up skill blocks that force the player to become competent to progress in the game.
It's the main reason I'm turning to retro games more and more this gen, I just want to play the damn and and have fun mastering it and not XP grind.
It's worth noting that WoW doesn't have talent trees in this fashion anymore, which makes the first couple of references to it a little sad.
Can you do a video about using audio and visual elements to make small (mobile) games fun?
I prefer the JRPG model.
By late-/end-game I just wanna be a somewhat godly being tanking almost everything, one-shoting a whole bunch of folks and wasting my wits only on my peers.
All this character customization and stuff really never got to me.
I'd love if you guys talked about subscription based mmo's
So did yall ever play City of Heroes/Villains? I'd like to hear your take on it's progression system. I think it's unique approach to character and power types was ahead of it's time.
I find the best progression systems are meta progression systems. A system that makes the player better at the game rather than making the character better inside the game without effecting the player much.
For some reason, I suddenly want to see an MMO based around chemistry
your time to challenge chart is backwards and I'm frustrated by it, liked the video though.
I've never played WOW, but in my experience, anyone who was taking character builds seriously in a game was probably following an easily Google able character guide. It's what I do every time I try a new champion in LOL, and judging by the extremely similar builds I see other people using my champions have, it's the right decision.
What JRPGs have you played where progression boils down to leveling up and static stat increases? I mean, I play JRPGs above all else and I always notice the several layers of customisability and decision making
Splatoon End Credits!!!! YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME!
5:05 Ok, those pauldrons need to be at least twice as large.
0:58 I love that game...
Extra Credits : Hey Umm Pls Its Part To Be Creative
The Russian Badger : Lord Death Of Murder Mountain
0:59 Was that just.. oh boy
i agree with the satement about the jrpg grinding but it works in some games like pokemon but it is like you said worked in as content
Like I've said on a couple of your videos FIRE EMBLEM (especially 4-10).
I love fire emblem but really hate how much the RNG influences your progression. To the point where when I feel like powergaming I use the RNG hack to spike certain units especially in the early game
Monster hunter has a TON of grinding but since the game is just intense and epic boss fights and near nothing else grinding in a series like that is not only fun but literally the point of the game
I love Final Fantasy XIV to pieces, but it has probably one of the dullest progression systems around. Does the loot have bigger numbers? Wear it. Did you level up? Here's a new ability. Do you need a specific ability from another job? Well, I guess you'll have to level up that job as well. Very straightforward, and I love being able to play any class, but man is that progression system unimaginative. At least the progression story is fantastic!
0:58 : I've flipped the switch to off.
so would the middle ground be a skill point system?
See, I've always been one who wishes that MMO's would allow for more RP stuff, since half the time they feel like team battle royale games with mass amounts of zerg. Which is why my MMO will have lots and lots of Skyrim like skills, in the sense of 'do this more and you get better', meaning that casual players can still have a good time playing through whatever, but the more RPers/Video game LARPers will get ahead faster because they are doing more things outside the realms of crafting and combat. A balance that rewards those who do more.
Can you make a video about glitches in games?
The White Mage from Bravely Default was all about torturing her victims as much as she wanted before healing them up before they died and just doing it some more.
There are plenty of atypical characters who (In my opinion) are a lot more fun than the standard. The medic from TF2 is another obvious one.
I think Talent trees aren't the best. I think making characters with pre-determined classes and such is better. Like how Vivi in FFIX is a Black Mage, he can't use summons. On the other hand, I feel some choice should be there. Like in FFIX they had it so you have to equip armor to learn abilities and you could choose what magics or abilities you wanted to grind for. Or letting you decide what stats you want to invest in at levels, instead of letting the system choose, ala the Souls series.
Hey speaking of grinding, are we gonna see any more "Dan Sucks at Dark Douls" any time soon?
Skill trees are nice, but while they cause players to interact with the game, I feel like simultaneously they can easily break the immersion of a game. It is hard to remain in the game world when you are making decisions about growth in ways that are extremely gamey. Looking through skill trees, especially the ones which require you to look far in advance, are distracting from the narrative and mechanics which the player is currently experiencing. If the act of managing a skill tree does not synergize with the play experience, then this is a real problem. If the designer does not consider when the player will need to customize, they can easily undermine the game's other elements.
For example, if an epic cut scene just happened and I'm about to fight a boss, if I feel like I will need to adjust my skills, then all the suspense and build up from the cut scene will be interrupted by my tinkering.
Also, skill trees can be an encumbrance on players if they feel they have too many options to choose from. This can cause them to artificially slow down the parts of the game as they consult guides and calculate. Plus, if they feel the skill tree is the primary means to accomplishing tasks, they might begin to view the game less as a story, and more like a puzzle. That might not be appropriate for every game.
Ultimately, I just wanted to point out that skill trees require a lot more design etiquette than other possible solutions to players not going through content too quickly. If you are considering using them, it is important to think about how the player's interaction with them will affect the pace and perception of your game.
Using WoW as an example is sort of bugging me.
Because WoW, since Wrath, has watered-down the talent trees until they might as well just be a straight grind to max level.
"We shouldn't be putting in these systems just simply because everything has a progression system these days or we need it to disguise lackluster gameplay. We should use them because it will add to the game itself."
Looking at you ARK.
Talent Trees in WoW are not what they were cracked up to be, to be honest.
There were, theoretically, thousands of different ways you could build your character, HOWEVER, less than two dozen were actually effective in any sense of the word. That's choices for the sake of choices, when 99% of the playerbase crunched the numbers and came up with builds, and you simply looked up said builds on thottbot, ZAM, wowwiki, etc. There'd be 5-10 "acceptable" builds for each character, because everything else was just underperforming by a large margin.
Then you'd just click what the guide/build tells you to click. If you were a warrior, first thing you'd ask yourself is "Prot, Arms, or Fury?" and then you wanted Prot, you'd look up a list of acceptable Prot builds (I remember there being, at max, 2 or 3) and one might have been an AoE-heavy build, and one a single-target tanking build.
No real "choice" there, because 99% of all of the possible talent combinations produced a build that would not perform well whatsoever. There were too many "Must-Haves". For example, if you were doing Prot and you did not take the talent that decreases incoming critical hits, you were a horrible tank and you would die fast. Or, if you didn't take something like Revenge, you missed out on one of your better tanking abilities. Or perhaps, Hammer of the Righteous. But these talents oftentimes *required* talents above them, so first you ask yourself "OK, I need Shockwave... so I also need the one above it, and the one above that, and the one above that...." so you end up spending 75% of your talent points to get that one talent that is absolutely required anyways.
That's why Blizzard (wisely so!) changed the Talent System in Mists of Pandaria. Now, every 15 levels, you get a choice of 3 talents that share a similar theme. Paladin Level 15 talents are movement based. Do you want a permanent +10% movement speed boost? Or do you want a 5-15% movement speed boost depending on current Holy Power? Or do you want a 20% movement speed boost with a 20 second duration and 2 minute cooldown?
THOSE are actual choices.
Nice use of the Two Whales Diner scene-… or at least one of them 😋
Go Life is Strange!
I wander where would the mario and luigi RPG series fall in this.
no comments lemme display one for ya!
yeah cause of extra credits i started to play world of warcraft...im not playing it 10 hours a day im playing it 1-4 hours a day...I HAVE ALOT OF WORK OK!
Any idea when the Dark Souls playthough is starting up again?
Honestly, as someone who played WoW for about 3 1/2 years during some of it's better periods, I disagree that talent trees provide a sense of progression. Maybe it is because I've had to deal with min-maxxers for way too long, maybe it is because I know most people in MMOs love skipping quest text, cutscenes, and typically skip thinking by just looking up "leveling guides" and guides for pretty much everything besides wiping their own ass, but honestly I think FFXIV does "progression" a lot better. Yes, it very JRPGish with the leveling system, but between the class quests and the fact the story centers around you more so than being in a pawn in other characters' stories make the process feel rather fulfilling and as long as you do a few side quests along the way (which are rarely out of way), you will rarely run into any blocks (since certain main scenario quests do require a certain level, whether because it is a dungeon, new area, etc).
That being said, where FFXIV fails at horribly as do most MMOs is that the grind for secondary classes (characters in other games) can be unbearable since you don't have main quests to help make the amount of EXP needed between levels manageable and your best option is typically just running the highest one/two dungeons a few times and if you are playing a DPS class, do Leves (repeatable quests) or FATEs (essentially global quest-ish areas that pop up in all regions) while waiting in queue. WoW does it better with the heirloom armor but the fact you have to start a character from scratch, while it makes sense in the Warcraft lore and the fact that all races can't be all classes (last I checked that still applies), it still a pain in the ass compared to just changing gear sets to swiftly move between leveling and endgame content.
woah somebody remembers 0:59
Why... How... How did a thing that is rumbling in my head for about a year now exactly nailed that lesson long ago?
Well, time to put it on paper then, cuz' I sense a really good idea right there. Gotta go.
Thanks for giving me incentive to go get WoW on Steam!
Nevermind, no hooded mage.
Nevermind again, I might just rotate frequently between characters.
woo splatoon end music x3
Thank you good sir . This is a great video .
i am partial to the linear progression of most JRPG's. i don't like building my own character because it is too easy to mess up and get screwed.
energy systems are the worst gaming mechanic to have ever been invented.
Joseph Dodds agree
they are literally just the devs trying to make people pay more.
Joseph Dodds in a way, they are the worst, but atleast it gives you a "save spot" so you wont be attacked all the time ex: COC, Royal Revolt 2
Macky Rayne probably a moot point considering how long ago this comment was but I think the person who posted this might be talking about those energy systems that either prevent you from playing after a certain amount of time such as those gotchopon style games (I think that's what they're called) or those systems that reduce the amount of experience you gain if you dont subscribe or pay for a booster of some kind. The rest area styles that give you a boost instead are a little better (long as they actually give a boost and dont create the illusion of a boost).
Absolutely
Actually a party consisting of a war hardened cynical and aggressive healer, and a young , idealistic, naive and well trained knight who never saw real combat though, and hence is reluctant to fight, THAT would make for a very interesting game I think.
So 95% of my overwatch games?
Hear me out
I played a sort of dnd but digital game with characters who were exactly like this
That could be interesting.
This is also a great idea for a dnd game
Tf2 medic
If you really want to be good in a MMO, you don't brainstorm, sadly. You just copy a optimal, universally agreed list from the web and roll with it. No decisions at all.
Crimson Syndrome Its rather disappointing that people often do this... especially when these builds are often actually pretty bad, with only the few people who make unique builds finding this out, then often keeping said builds secret.
Crimson Syndrome Actually. very few MMO's i've played follow that rule. In fact, almost none of the ones i have play have followed that rule. Literally the only MMO's that follow that kind of rule are ones like World of Warcraft. MMO's can be very flexible, and many that i've played don't have any kind of "ideal build"
Besides that, the very idea of the "ideal build" is plain stupid and boring because it severely restricts what one can do with ones character, which is why i will NEVER play by an "ideal build", ever.
+Crimson Syndrome You can also look up the solutions to an adventure game if what you want is to solve it in optimal time, instead of enjoying it. But that's something you choose to do, not something the game forces you to do. And just because the consensus is that a certain build is optimal doesn't mean that it actually is, especially for you and your specific playstyle. It's a cop-out.
I miss being able to play with talent builds in World of Warcraft. It was fun. The new simplified talent system is still just as prone to the "optimal build" problem as the older complex one, except it's no fun at all to play with.
When I talk to people about WoW these days, the word "fun" doesn't seem to pop up very often.
Arioch IV Firstly, adventure game analogy don't quite catch the point, because single-player games are devoid of competition.
Competition is the main factor, which makes people to go for optimal (or at least believed to be optimal) builds. They lead to better success percentage and for a lot of people Winning = Fun. Simply, winning is being seen as more fun than doing your own thing. That's why meta decks exist in CCG's like MTG or Hearthstone and optimal builds exist in MMO's.
Problem is... how do design around that in a competitive game? Building ABSOLUTELY BALANCED game is impossible, and gamers will find out about the optimal way to win no matter what you do.
It is probably human nature to value domination over others more than fun and relaxation. In my opinion that is why most popular games (FPS'es and MOBA's) are ultra-competitive.
Crimson Syndrome It's true, but not entirely. Back when I still played WoW, during Wrath, I had only ever played a hunter. I had a couple other classes that I had leveled through recruit a friend who were languishing in outlands. I got bored and decided to level my shaman. Up to this point she had been enhancement, but I realized that I was gearing all wrong. I wasn't big on melee, so I spent time respeccing to elemental, when a friend pinged me and asked if I wanted to DPS Utgard Keep. The character was only 62 or something, so I replied that I wouldn't be able to hit anything, and it would be a waste of time. He then, without missing a beat says "okay, then heal."
I sat there looking at the resto tree, having no idea how to heal, and came up with a spec. That run was painful, but it started my love affair with healing, and ultimately, I discovered that the spec I came up with on my own was the optimal resto build.
While you can certainly just copypasta what the theory crafters tell you is the best, you can still get a level of satisfaction from doing it yourself. It's all about your own priorities in playing. For some people, deciding what build to go with is uninteresting, but they want to get a good one, so they can copy a proven spec and do what they enjoy doing in the game, rather than taking time to do what they don't enjoy.