The most extreme example of this is Witcher 2 where the whole chapter plays differently in the middle of the game, based on a single choice. But on the other hand users that replay the game are greatly rewarded by getting the better context of the whole storyline and a lot of new content to play with on replay.
The downside is, that of you play twice you see that the branching paths don’t make much sense - aka. There are a lot of changes to the narrative that aren’t a result of your actions. So while it works for replayability, I am not fun of it as: 1) it doesn’t work as choice & consequence 2) narrative has major plot holes if you play the game the 2nd time, so the narrative gets worse with the knowledge of the two paths, not better. So to me Witcher2 is a great example of a bad implementation of a major branching path.
@@wormerine8029 I don't know about number 2 so much because the content revolves around Geralt's involvement. If Geralt doesn't do the elves chapter 2, then the Scoia'tael leader doesn't establish a state of fantasy people at the end of act 3. Because he wasn't there. The big set pieces of the game still happen with or without Geralt's involvement as the PC is just a force multiplier on what will get passed off into the world state. Which is why there's more of a disconnect not in The Witcher 2, but in The Witcher 3 with moving the world states over between the games. And there's also the Dandelion of it all, since all the written and item descriptions of the game are all told through his perspective, despite not really being there most of the time.
I think that it is a step forward from what Tim's said, as it isn't really a content as a reward, as you have to finish act 1 and go into act 2. so it's more of a *content lock-up* based on your choice. It's similar in some games, where you know you have time to do 2 missions, but have 3-4 to choose from (I don't recall exactly whether this was in x-com, an rts or some indie game). Wondering what would Tim say about this example in particular, as it kinda refers to what he's said about budget restrictions, as in you can easily feel in act 3 that it should have been bigger.
I like how in Tyranny how you have completly different paths based on choices you make. Or how in Alpha Protocol, story and levels are reshuffled giving completly unique experiences in different playthroughs.
As a drawback, both of these games are considered "short" RPGs, but then if you do not replay these RPGs you are playing them "wrong". I replayed both dozen times without losing interest, always feeling fresh due to above. If there is only some better way to communicate to players that getting to the ending does not mean you "finished" the game, and there are more stories to explore.
Alpha Protocol is an awful example of this. They just have what is essentially a level select option at a certain part. You know what game does this better? Crash Bandicoot 2. The changes in AP are incredibly minor.
@@SyndicateOperative The difference between playing AP as a complete sociopath and playing AP as a relatively nice secret agent with the best intentions is enormous in terms of how the playthroughs feel as you get deeper, but on a mechanical level it's not that large, sure.
This is why it's crazy to me Larian put so much content in BG3 the average player will never see. I am happy some studios are doing it though, makes replays so much better.
Tbf all of BG3 hidden content are small bite sized content while the core content is mostly the same. Larian learned well how to implement large, complicated games that are (mostly) satisfying. If only they can fix their ending levels lol.
@@SenkaZver I don't think "small bite sized" is the right word for the 'hidden' content. Pretty much anything that leads to Legendary Items is fairly extensive and completely missable. Even the lore drops tied to some of these is ridiculously huge. And there's a big chance you waltz right past all of it on your first playthrough.
What I enjoy the most is being rewarded for finding secret places or almost inaccessible parts of the game. Morrowind had some interesting places like that, like temples under the sea, cave entries between rocks, dead bodies with nice artifacts,...
one of my favorite example of procedural generation is the Spiderwebs for Toystory 4. Instead of hand making spiderwebs they created a program to replicate spiders making webs. now I wouldn't create a whole dungeon with procedural generation, but simulating the effects that living things have on the world like moss or vines growing on the walls, errosion effects. Those all are great things to use procedural generation for, generating a process not a world.
I love proc gen like that! Our magic missiles in Temple of Elemental Evil are procedural too. They fly out from the caster in a random direction and then curve towards the target.
@@CainOnGames I remember a good 20 minute GDC talk by David Rosen of Wolfire games about the animation in their game, Overgrowth. He explained how they used just about 13 or so key frames in total for all the animation of the 3D player character. Everything else was interpolation, inverse kinematics and springy physics for the limbs. I remember it looking way better than it had any right to.
A game that does this well is Rimworld. Every colony I start in that game is completely different every time. The procedural gen in that game keeps it fun and varied because it is done so well. They also implement a procedural quest system and it is pretty cool but after 500 hours of play I do spot the repetition in their setup. To be fair its a rather long time of me playing the game tho.
Cyberpunk is a good example because you are forced to do the bad endings if you don't do the major side quests. But if you do the side quests you get soooo much more content at the end of the game with all the different endings
This is the thing that I found it interesting he never mentioned. If you aren't careful the bonus content can drive players down specific paths because that's where the most content/the best content is.
Most Fromsoftware games rewards you with content like that way. Most players will not find some dungeons or paths on Elden Ring. The community has a factor on that "value" on hide content becouse the ones who find them are gonna be vocal about that.
the price you pay for this in ER is a ton of re-used bosses, which are arguably the main focus of souls games. And its easy to see why, the big multi stage boss fights take a lot of resources to create, so they're going to save those for mandatory content
All of those dungeons aren't worth finding because they're copy pasted dungeons, with the exact same one of three layouts, same enemies and traps, and the same one of three bosses. And the rewards are rarely worthwhile. Not a good example.
Bloodborne also did an ok job with Chalice Dungeons for procedural generation (at least used it to an extent if I understand correctly). Not my favorite thing on the game, but felt like value added.
@@SenkaZver i missed out on the entire consecrated snowfield and huge part of volcano manor on my first playtrough. They are quite unique and memorable experiences.
Good example but it feels like this came at a high cost since player actions still are highly restricted in Elden Ring. There's not much you can do yourself, so I don't care, and I didn't, when I know that I will be able to do the just the same thing with this new content. Same room, different wall paper. So if the hidden content were new abilities that I could incorporate in my gameplay and experiment around with that makes the gameplay less restrictied, I would like that more than another area I play the same.
Would be fascinated to know more about the cut companions of Outer Worlds, but 100% aware of a previous upload's statement that questions about Outer Worlds can't always fly right now due to the relevance with Outer Worlds 2. What I *will* say is that out of the cut content the public already knows about, there's one case where I think we all know which NPC would've been funniest to take along, in that a few months ago Carrie Patel mentioned a cut resolution to the confrontation with Chairman Rockwell based in a now-cut email from Rockwell's terminal that showed how he had weekly dominatrix/dominator appointments with a Moon Man impersonator (meaning that if the player was wearing a moon helmet they could take advantage of knowing such), and I think we all know which shopkeeper would've added the most to that scene.
maybe this is wishful thinking, but I'd love to see the mid 2000 destructibles make a return. Having walls fall apart realistically via PhysX or Havok just makes the world more believeable. Modern GPUs should be crazy fast at this =(
I recommend trying Jagged Alliance 3, it came out last year and it's got some pretty cool tactical destruction mechanics in it. I enjoy blowing holes in the floors beneath enemies and watching them fall through so they lose a nice chunk of HP and then I can finish them off.
Tim put out a short the other day about an MMO called Stars Reach that aims to make a fully manipulatable environment. it uses AI-powered cellular automata, which raises questions about the processing load but.... the lead dev worked on Ultima Online's original "masterpiece" ecosystem. it'll be interesting to see if he's learned to compensate for player greed this time.
Hey, Tim. Thanks for the video response. It does answer my question! At the end, the regular answer: money. I think procedural generation, especially now with generative AI, might become very good. It could also be used as a force multiplier for hand-made content: "computer, make me a quest like this" then edit and polish by hand on top of the AI-generated "skeleton". Some praiseworthy hand-made content makers imho: Larian, have made a lot of edge cases in BG3. Elder Scrools games have a lot of content for evil characters (e.g. Dark Brotherhood & daedric quests), which I love considering most games will mostly remove content for playing evil. Edit: adding content for failure would be a great remedy for the urge to savescum, though balooning content quantity.
Also, something that could remove a bit of the urge to savescum is to add content for failure. Though at some point indeed procedural generation (or massive team) would be needed. Content: the ultimate carrot 🥕 😅
The content-for-failure part is in my opinion the biggest different between Baldur's Gate 3 and live DnD. Failing in regular DnD is as fun as succeeding, because the content will always adapt, but in BG3 you mostly just miss out on content.
@@AnotherDuck indeed! Failure in BG3 made my FOMO levels go off the charts! It made me save scum a lot since so much of BG3's interesting content is hidden behind lucky rolls. I'd much prefer if content was tied to choices (instead of luck). Sidenote: I liked that in Starfield there is a whole faction questline that only becomes available if you manage to get arrested. Would be nice to have more of this.
Hi Tim, I'd like to see you talk about how you decide to make information available to the player. By that I mean underlying system information, such as stats, bonuses, formulas, dicerolls, checks, outcomes and so on. A game that reveals too little information can make the player feel like they're unable to make informed gameplay choices, but on the other hand, games revealing too much information run the risk of "solving" themselves and encouraging players to over-optimize. Both of these have frustrated me in the past - sometimes both in the same game. Would love to hear your thoughts on this.
I also love the *idea* of it. That's one of the pillar of tabletop rpg, as players you write your own story and the gamemaster provide reality check, friction, and content. Unfortunately, computers can't do that yet to that level, so that's one very rare time when I both understand and agree with publishers: you have to maximize your production with your budget. Especially, when major content is deliberately cut off as a consequence of a choice. Say red to the npc, content is open, say blue major content is cut forever. If done right (and that's a *huge* if, for example Wasteland 2 blundered that to no end) it can tickle the rpg-player in me, but it will sting the customer in me who paid a lot of money for that game. On top of that, even if done right... it's never *really* done "right": because on tabletop you have infinite freedom to try novel approaches, while on computer everything has to be programmed for. So there's a good chance as a player after a few minutes you'll find half a dozen thing that logically you could try or should work to bypass the gate on that content, but because it's a computer game and you can only do so much... you're forced to accept it. And let's not even talk about when content is cut-off because of bugs. I much prefer major content stay open, but present itself differently. Maybe in new village/map everyone hates you, and will require lots of work to just open basic dialogues, maybe people there present to you topics or quests or clues that are very different based on previous choices, hell maybe everyone is dead and you have to dig into what's left. But at least there is "something". Undiscovered content is something else entirely. The game doesn't cut it off based on choice, it's always there, but you have to find it. More of a grey area. Indeed, procedural generation is one way to tackle that. It has a bad rep, mostly because players have seen or remember bad proc gen, often done on the cheap, sometimes done as a way to replace/save something that wasn't coming together after alpha. But there is a brighter side to that coin: simulation. Instead of presenting it as proc gen, it could be developed and presented as a simulated world, simulated economy, simulated ecology, simulated wars, and so on. Now the work has to be done, world simulation isn't simple or cheap (albeit a *severely* under-served market), but it would allow for reactivity, agency, basically for free (or very cheap) once it's done. That's why to some rpg players, games likes X4 or Crusader Kings 3 or dwarf Fortress feel almost a better roleplay sandbox than a lot of crpg. As a side note, replay-ability is often used as a pretext or excuse for cutting off content, I strongly disagree. The industry telemetry has shown the average completion rate for games is around 30% I believe? It's probably less than that for crpg, which are longer and more complex. And that's just completion (getting to the end credits), the % of people who replay the game is very very low. I'm not saying to ignore those, they are way to design and code quests and events, write dialogues, design narrative and characters, that is barely more expensive and allow for a better experience in replayability. And the road not taken has value in itself. But the extreme in either end of that spectrum is, imo, bad.
I'm one of the players who never liked randomly generated loot, because to me it feels as cheap as fast food. I don't care if this sword does 5% more fire damage, let's me fly and spawns a sheep - give me unique stuff with weight in the world:) Also, one of the reasons I never finished Mass Effect, is because I couldn't decide what content to cut, not just in that game, but through out the rest of the trilogy. Nice gimmick, but at least make the choice not as morally grey.
What you described is exactly how Larian approaches their games, it’s what makes them so loved, unique and successful. But they’re able to do this because they’re an independent self publishing studio
To me, the literal definition of “content as a reward “ is Disco Elysium the Final Cut It is so extremely responsive to player choice and rewards you and punishes you for your choices. The game makes you feel and has so much to offer. I think it’s a master class in game development even if the story behind the game is absolutely insane.
You can experience nearly everything in a single playthrough in Disco Elysium. The only differences are the ending, and whether or not you want your tie to talk.
@@SyndicateOperative Not true. Depending on the skills you take, the pop-ups are different, the dialogues are completely different. Then there are the political vision quests...
@@SyndicateOperative I don't think it's possible to get 10 into every stat since the beginning of the game, and lots of the best dialogues are hidden behind that.
I like the middle of the road solution of making maps look different for different classes or equipment choices. You did this in vampire with the nosferatu, loved that! I don't remember the game, but i remember one game where, maps would be very different if you played a ranged character versus melee or sneaky, and the game then reused maps rather heavily, but it was cool because you would fight through it first, then it would become a "town" map, then maybe a stealth map etc. What was decorations during melee would become cover during stealth/ranged and really change the tactics and dynamics of the map.
I love procedural generation. I think my favorite is when you have an artist create a bunch of hand-crafted set pieces and then those are combined together in different permutations so it still has the feeling of being new every time without feeling sterile.
the thing is that most of the players aren't completionists and by a large margin, so they won't see the whole body of content you put into your production whether it's locked out or not. in fact what you're saying about "wasted" dev budget applies to any reactivity and branching. like even with the rudimentary mass effect like approach 2-3 options per dialogue are 100-200% too much since many players will only see one of those.
First I want to say that I really enjoy your videos in general. Thank you for this channel. I want to add another perspective to the part about cost/benefit for the companies (when you mentioned 80% + 20% + 20% + 20% becoming excess cost). For story-based games, especially high quality production ones from very big and business-centric studios, I feel that the the exact opposite is true. They usually use this to cut costs, and to be able to sell the game as a much longer and bigger experience. Most gamers nowadays value "game time" VS "actual quality and uniqueness". People judge a game's price by the playtime hours that it allegedly provides. So the big studios spend just enough for 80+20+20+20 content (140%) but have it marketed and sold as 80+20 + 80+20 + 80+20, or in other words, 300%.. And a lot of players fall for it. "You get THREE ADVENTURES". "It's like 3 games in one". "High replayability" and so on. In reality players need to repeat/endure the very same game again and again only to be able to check out the small differences. It is almost similar to watching some anime that abuse displaying too many "flashback scenes" every chapter, only to add a few minutes of fresh content in between. Cheaper to produce, "but you get a lot of chapters to watch". What do you think? Especially for story-based games I feel that way.
That's extremely helpful for dungeon masters where you can prepare simple tools to generate stuff that fits the story on the fly. Need unique potion? Click. Quest? Bang. Companion? Honk.
I know a place where content as a reward is alive and kicking. I play a lot of Doom community made maps. The content is: player fighting demons. The pool of possible rewards is not that big: health items, armor items, ammo items, powerups. But sometimes you find a secret and a mapper put a secret fight inside of it alongside with other "item" rewards. Sometimes its even "gimmick" fight where some unusual thinking is required. Content as a reward in its purest form: you fight demons, find a secret, get more demons to fight 🙂 On procedural generation: it might seem like an easy way to pad the game and I feel like "modern games" use it just as that - easy padding. But as Tim said: good procedural generation is hard to achieve and will require much more time to develop (and test!!!) when compared to static content.
Weird West was a fun combination of a Fallout type reactive world mixed with procedural generation of random events based on your choices. The only issue is because everything is random it kind of means nothing. The game becomes more about the player vs the system than the player vs the content. Oh hey, every time I capture someone alive they track me down within an hour for revenge. Why am I doing this again if it makes me harder for me twice? If certain prewritten characters did the same it would reflect some message the developers are making about how certain characters can be trusted and others can't etc. You could still achieve that with a much more deep system but how far can developers afford to go before it's cheaper to just write out preset content?
i see somebody mentioned but the Witcher 2 entire middle game is totally different and i liked every single second of them in both of my playthrough and everything was hand made with voice acted not randomly generated, it was a ballsy move to do that, one of my best gaming experience ever i also like when the ending of a game is different and not just different slides, for example the first STALKER game has the "real" ending and many fake endings based on your choice with bonus content (fighting outside the Chernobyl Reactor) i absolutely like those
It's fine, so long as it's a great game in concept and there's enough "off the beaten path content" to warrant a fresh playthrough. Otherwise I wouldn't devote much time to those things, although I do agree they're preferable regardless of the cost.
Content as a reward is everywhere. Call of duty has it with its battle pass. I'll admit I haven't played in like 2 years but 3 years ago I bought a weapon skin for a gun that changed the bullets impact so that I could spray pink stuff on someone's screen. In game modes with a longer time to kill that really helped. I literally blinded their screens. They complained it got removed from the game and changed. Every time companies do something that ever so slightly gives you an advantage even though it's "cosmetic" they're giving you content as a reward. Content as a reward is the only reward. A cosmetic reward that changes how I look is still new content but I will go through those things fast. XP for a level means that cumulatively several rewards give me the thing that allows me to do new content...
A great example of this are card games like eldrith horror, or digital card games such as cultists simulator. Cards are basically a way to randomize or procedurally create events and characters. I think it could be fun to explore for sure, and it is definitely more challenging to design a game, at least in terms of game mechanics and game logic.
Thanks for regularly being my morning commute and continued source of inspiration for trying to do this as a career. Even in this tough job market, people like you keep me trying. Thank you!
Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight was the first game I know of which had a different outcome of the game, depending on your choice (light side / dark side). After a certain point in the game, you are basically logged into that choice. The maps stay the same, the boss fights varied a bit (Yun instead of Sariss). Also the cutscenes. I really loved that game, but mainly because I liked Star Wars, stories and graphical design way more than the gameplay. To me, this game was a childhood highlight and with so little resources the decision felt very deep. The problem with the illusion of choice but no consequences can be seen with the late Telltales games. People did not like that much.
The game that did that random encounter bit best has always been Fallout 3 for me. You activate a Robot Factory and encounter more of them, the wasteland survival guide had people who read it pop up, being good or evil had people hunting you pop up, killing X, etc, etc. It's one of the things Fo3 did better then NV. Skyrims generated quests are also infamous and sometimes neat, people had less issue with them in Fallout 4 if I recall, it also had random Legionaries.
I know many players respond well to "content as reward" and play the game like completionists because of it - but if its an RPG I really like I will actually start doing the opposite, I will be okay missing content on one playthrough to save it for another character - and I'll use that content as a way to guide my roleplay. I think when the player sees all the branching paths and starts wondering "but what do I miss by choosing this?" or "what kind of character would say that dialogue option" or whatever... that's when the restartitis kicks in and you start coming up with new character ideas! Baldur's Gate 3 did a fantastic job of this, having entire pathways and maps and characters and even companions that were entirely optional - makes every run different!
I usually am not that excited about procedural generation because I find that it got used poorly by some other gave devs but the Wayward Realms seems to have a plan to make this really interesting. I backed the game back in June and can't wait to get my hands on the Early Access.
When I saw the title, I thought this video was discussing the trade-offs of "rewards," urging creators not to rely solely on rewards to keep players engaged. Instead, it suggested using design techniques to make players view the gameplay itself as a "reward." This encourages them to engage in actions for reasons other than monetary gain or other stuff. like, they might slay ten ogres not for the money, but to access a hidden elven archway behind those ogres-just to see what’s inside. I thought this was a great approach! However, after watching the video, I must admit I was a bit surprised to find I had strayed too far from the core message.
I would love to see a video about how art departments (including level design, assets, measurements, animation, etc.) and technical departments (such as level programming, gameplay programming, etc.) coordinate with each other.
One idea I've had in mind, somewhat related, is randomly assembling quests or campaigns etc using fully authored "chunks". So each playthrough is unique and varied, but if you play through the game often enough you WILL see everything. It means you can play the game the way you like, and you don't have to explore character builds you don't enjoy, in order to see the rest of the content.
'80% of players won't see it' may well be the perception, but that is perhaps better framed as '80% won't see it... the first time, but once they know it's there, you are perhaps doubling or tripling engagement with the game as players deliberately try to unlock that content'. If there is an incentive on the Publisher level to have people play your game multiple times so you can sell additional content after release, then the value of 'Content As Reward' as described cannot be understated. Knowing that there's a door you can't open creates FOMO and if you want a person to keep playing, that's exactly what you want - provided there's actually a way to open said door and it isn't a red herring! The game has to be designed towards re-playability for gating content to be 'worth it', but it's one of the reasons that games like Disco Elysium stand out so much from the crowd and why Paradox Games has such an avid fanbase willing to fork out for a billion DLCs. I don't think procedural generation is necessary for this to remain part of modern games (it is still a niche thing and requires technological advancement to break out of that niche, just ask the developers of No Man's Sky), but it has to be decided upon early in development exactly how much branching in content pathways will exist and the game has to be coded in a way that allows the extra variance to added with the least disruption possible.
My experience with procedurally generated content has been mostly with RPGs that use a "tower" or dungeon as their main gameplay area. I would be open to more games that had procedurally generated missions as a sort of way to grind experience or materials, and then curated or hand-crafted portions of the game to advance the story or something. Just imagine if a game like Cyberpunk 2077 which has 99% of the buildings in the city currently inaccessible (they are just environment) actually had access to those buildings. The building floors could procedurally generated with NPCs or enemies and loot. Definitely would need some design thought to integrate into the living world properly.
Hi Tim! I just wanna mention best (imo) procedural generation: Path of Exile Maps, items and even content you encounter. And you can affect what you will see! That's one of best systems I have ever encountered and I always recommend this game.
One good example of this is in Dragon Age Origins. There are 6 background stories you can play at the beginning of the game. Your origin story is determined by the class and race you pick and there is substantial content(some of them upwards of 2-3 hours) in each of them, and you won't see the content in the other 5 unless you make a new character and replay the game. And your background not only give you a different beginning content, but it also affects the content of some plots and subplots and each origin story has unique items available to them. If you start as circle mage for instance, a good portion of the main questline further in the game play very differently.
Witcher 2 comes to mind, as your final choice at the end of Act 1 determines the entirety of the content of Act 2. That game has 133% content, using your math ;) As to generating content, outside of survival games, Daggerfall is probably the most pertinent game to talk about when it comes to this issue. I personally disliked it for the extreme repetitiveness of the quests (go to this dungeon, kill someone or find something, come back to quest giver), and it didn't matter what the quest was about. I could be finding a missing husband who turns out to have turned into a werewolf and be forced to tragically end his life and inform the wife of the events, or I could be delivering a sealed package to someone and be attacked by the Thieves Guild on my journey, it all just felt the same.
Something that I think you should have mentioned is how micropayments relate to this topic. Many developers are now putting content behind paywalls instead of discovering the content via achievement/skill. As the pressure to add micropayments increase, more and more content is sealed behind a paywall.
Great video! Some of my favorite examples are the games Shenmue and Jazzpunk. Shenmue has a wild amount of extra content that is there simply to provide the immersive experience to those willing to explore. Have any of you ever played it?
I think fromsoftware is a master of this. They hide a big ass areas, bosses etc that you can only access if you use a specific gesture at a specific location. Most players would never see the content
I think a reasonable response to the concern that a lot of players aren't going to see it is that a lot of players aren't going to finish the game either, so if the content is accessible early enough it could actually be seen by more people than the end game content. (And as someone who is generally time-limited, I'd much prefer shorter but richer games anyway.)
Seeing content being locked out as good or bad is subjective. Having something really cool be locked out because of something you did without realizing could suck, but it could also be seen as a reason to replay (or save scum, no judgement). Replay value, I believe, is the difference between a good RPG and a great RPG.
Was there really any content locked behind it though? With law bringer there is that one guy in the Arlington cemetery and that's it besides more caps and karma
@@mateusz73 True, it's not 20% more game like Tim talks about in his example. But they are repeatable quests that unlock only after selecting the perks. So, in the ballpark.
New Vegas would be a better example, the reputation system can lock you out of any content tied to a faction and you’re always guaranteed to piss off at least one of the major factions.
I think the counter argument for "80% of players will never see this", is that it is a minority of players who set the tone of the opinion for your game, which is what really matters. Reviewers and influencers are the ones who will make or break the "success" of your game. People will buy based on their opinions. Reviewers are more likely than any casual gamer to commit to multiple playthroughs and characters to find all the side content and variations in the storyline.
I have played Total War Medieval 2, more than any other game. I have gone around the world, conquering every country, so I can play as that country. It was amazing for me, but I get that from the developers standpoint I got all this enjoyment for $20, so now they add those new factions as DLC. I don’t play their games as much, but they get more money from me.
I 100% the fear behind of making a good chunk of a game easy to miss, but at the same time does the player need to play EVERY part of a game? In the Fromsoft souls-like games, most of them have a giant area that’s locked away behind a few key items. You miss a letter that was on a desk in a hidden location, you’ll miss out a giant vampire castle. I can see why some people might find it really annoying but I kinda love it. Not only it makes the world feel bigger but it’s make the area feel special where you have to do this little ritual to access this special location. Especially in comparison where every other location you can just walk to. Obscuring content can make more interesting if done right.
Btw. Tim have you seen Shadows of Doubt? It’s a really interesting and largely well done way of using procedural quests I think. It’s maybe not where I’d like it to be just yet, but it’s good enough to show the merits of the concept and what it COULD be 😊
I think the problem of procedural generation is when it lays out some dominoes for only the player to trigger. The player will pick up on the pattern and ignore the variations, making the experience appear repetitive. Now what if... if you had two systems working against each other and the player just happens to be there. That makes the situations dynamic. The player now has to adapt to the new circumstance, creating emergent gameplay.
I always liked coming across two randomly generated NPC groups fighting. One thing that would be fun is if dungeons sometimes had another NPC going through it, so you would find some creatures already dead and traps already sprung. If you encounter the NPC, you don't have to fight them...but they do have all the loot from those creatures...
Baldur's Gate 3 in a nutshell. I love this stuff too although there is no way I will ever see all of the content in that game. I don't mind procedural generation if it is done well. That Trials of Tav mod for BG3 is pretty fun. Bloodborne (from the makers of Elden Ring) had procedurally generated dungeons that were a nice addition.
6:12 But isn't this why we have so many folks who are saying that "Old games are way better" since we have secrets in game being discovered decades later? We have secrets and elements of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night that are being discovered 25 years after release. We have elements of Final Fantasy VII being found after two decades. I think that removing this for budget concerns leaves little room for exploration in your game.
This is often done poorly in games with morality systems. Probably around 70% of the time the reward for being evil is immidiate resource and less content. This somtimes isnt a problem when the resource is content exclusive in some way, but often times it isnt ( i think of how they added the good versioon of the ending evil sword in fable 1) I think it comes down to what you are saying with only a certain amount of players seeing the content, because from my research, roughly 20%-30% of players play evil playthroughs. This actually leads to a potentialy interesting question for you Tim: "What moral responsibility do you think game designers have designing reward systems for games? For example if you have a mission that ends in genocide do you have a moral obligation to limit the gameplay reward?"
In Ultima 7 you can't do anything wrong without being threatened, either by the guardian or your team. But you can't get a good equipment without stealing or trespassing private properties.
This! This is one of my main gripes: games mostly railroad players to being good by locking you out of content for playing evil. An ideal game for me would be a short-branchy-tree rather than a tall-but-thin tree.
I think morality systems are just generally done poorly. Too many of them are too black and white, and if they aren't there are weird and arbitrary reasons for one choice belonging to one side or the other. And most of the time you have to commit to one side entirely or just not get either reward, which makes it a single choice at the start and the rest just follows.
I see that Witcher 2 has already been mentioned in the comments, but I also want to mention my favourite example: Dragon Age Origins. That game has six(or seven, kinda) different prologues depending on your race or class if you're a mage. The city elf origin is also radically different if you're male or female. And the different origins are very effective at changing the feel of a playthrough despite most of it being the same content.
I've always loved proc-gen. Right now, I'm making a tactical rogue-lite. So far I am only generating a world map and levels; but I will generate the loot and characters too. I recommend Tales of Maj'Eyal and Caves of Qud to any other lovers of proc-gen out there!
I've always liked procedurally generated dungeons, so long as the procedure generates enough variations that I can't predict the layout. Noita is a good example, because although every playthrough is identical every playthough feels 100% different - even if I replay the same seed. I forget the game, but every level was procedurally generated and every level was the same: fork with 2 choices, 1 leads to a dead end with treasure chest, the other continues into the dungeon, repeat until I encounter a 3 fork: 1 leads to treasure, 1 to rest/save point, 1 to continue the dungeon, that was the mid-mark, keep going with the 2 choices, fight the boss.
Yea not even AI, just procedural generation is the way to go. It takes a lot of setup, but the payoff is more than worth it. As a solo dev, proc. gen. is the only way to make the game I want, and as a programmer, I'm excited by the chance to try it. I'm studying procedural terrain generation right now (marching cubes are fun), alongside building my own engine off of Vulkan. I'll have ample opportunities to test my skills and see how I can implement it.
The strange thing about that argument is that there's already a major part of the game that most player will never see - the ending. People almost never finish games, persiod. It seems to me that by that logic there's less personpower lost on an alternative exclusive choice that happens early on than anything that happens at the end of the game.
I prefer OR rather than XOR content. But good XOR content can be fun. Example of OR content would be Skyrim and faction choice. You can join from 0 to all guilds. You do have to pick a side of civil war IIRC. Good XOR example would be witcher series. Dragon Age origins would be an example from the video where a lot of people will miss out if they don't try out different orgins.
I wonder if you could have the same effect using reordering or repurposing... like put the dungeons that are being missed due to plotline selections as secret areas on the map (possibly with monsters and gear leveled up or down). Maybe even have a set of repurposable dungeons to use in hard-to-find secrets (with the hope that statistically the player will find a set number on average, and you'd have a stop gap measure if they find too many). Hopefully the repurposing can be done in a way that won't feel too generic?
The formula for most games today seems to be dribble out bits of content to distract from lack of gameplay. You are just walking around waiting for content which comes at irregular intervals.
Question: Doesn’t proper procedural systems also cost a ton to develop and (crucially) test? Obviously when “infinite content” is pitched against “limited content” it will win every time, but in reality you can only do so many *cough* “radiant” *cough* quests, before it feels like a grey slog, so limiting its usage may be a good idea… or? To be clear I’m not against procedural as a concept. But when it’s not reined in (or poorly executed/tested) it just ends up detracting from the experience - for me.
5:30 thats one of the reasons that i think AI generated stuff will come in handy, i dont know if you have heard of a mod for skyrim called Herika its a npc with integration to chat gpt and AI speech that can respond to stimuli (conversations, stuff that is happening, enemies...) and it is awesome
Anyone remembers Vanguard Bandits from PS 1 era? It was smartly done to contain 3 completely different scenarios while reusing maps and other graphical assets. The variance came in the encounter design itself and dialogues.
Maybe procedural generation is just being done poorly but like at least for rare weapons like you mentioned in the case of fallout 4, they felt repetitive, tedious, and common with the only rare weapons which actually seemed neat in that game being the handcrafted ones like the weapon that shot cannon or bowling balls and other stuff like that, with the procedural legendary weapons system not being engaging I dont think
I'm 100% on board with using AI in video games. It will open so many doors and honestly I'm stoked to see what will come of it. The only thing I'm cautious about is using the AI to replace actual people. AI is a tool, and it can achieve great things, it's not a way to get out of paying a real person though. Can't wait to have full on conversations with NPCs instead of being given 4 dialog choices.
Hi Tim. This comment is unrelated to this video. Would you like sometime share your thoughts about video game immersion? My hypothesis is that game world should have consistent laws and rules. Then there are players, NPCs and every object, graphics, physics system etc. which operate according to these rules, and that makes game immersive. There can be added depth or fidelity as much as game developer want to craft but there is also sweet spot because immersion fails if something look like it can be done or should happened, but it doesn't work. I'm not sure about my hypothesis but most immersive games I know seems to work like that. Idea to that topic came from when I saw that there are a lot of game projects now where game developers use Playstation 1 aesthetics. I don't think that it is purely graphical style or cost saving style, it can be also method to make everything so coarse that immersion breaking things doesn't happen easily. That topic can also can get into interesting situations. Like "I like light sources to cast shadows". Then there may be immersion break if hostile NPC doesn't spot player from shadow that is visible around corner, because game only test line of sight to player. Do you have insights about that topic or tricks of working ways to improve immersion?
On the one hand...I am wired as a completioninst, so "content as a reward" kind of bugs me. On the other hand, I _HATE_ when I'm playing a good character, and the game saddles me with an evil companion I can't get rid of that really clashes with my vibes the whole time. I feel like the right balance is one where the "reward" content is stuff that people will enjoy if they're the types to naturally take the actions that attain those rewards, and won't miss it if they're not. That said, I feel like the producers/publishers angle could be helped if it was sold more as ways to increase the playtime by way of replay value. Like, it feels like instead of adding _real_ reasons to replay, they just add annoying grind-ey things (which...yes...often includes procedural generation if it's done poorly). If you had to replay in order to get content that you were locked out of the first time, and it was different enough to be interesting, that'd be a great way to extend the play time _and_ would review better than adding grind, or dumb time-gating, or other mechanics that seem so common lately. If there ever is a non-sterile/grind-ey procedural generation for side-content you come across, would love to hear about it. As with many things, finding bad examples is easy, finding good ones is hard, so hints and tips always appreciated.
Being able to kill a companion in a game is always such a highlight when it does happen too! Such a set piece with so much drama and all it costs is "the player shoots another character". Mass Effect teased you with this a few times, it's so cool that Baldur's Gate 3 went all the way with it.
Choices that lock you out of content is more realistic though. I think the idea is that if you like replayingt a game, it's good. If you only want to play a game once then it feels like you got tricked and the developers are hding stuff from you. I prefer a replayable game where it feels like the characters are as realistic as possible. There should be permanent changes to a world based on consequences of your choices. The key to making good games like this is making them low budget. My view is people play these games for story primarily. They want to feel like they are interacting with real people and those people will act differently enough that your whole experience is different in replays.
this makes me think of a few indie games I've played where a large amount of effort is put into "post-game" content, which can sometimes feel like a whole game on top of the game. I understand why this would be monetarily infeasible for the exact same reasons that you mentioned in this video, but I'm curious to know what your thoughts are on post-game content generally from a design perspective; what do you feel is important to consider (besides monetary and time resources) when deciding whether a game should have a definite end and that's it, a definite end but some amount of post-game content, or open-ended where the player makes their own goal? sorry if this ends up coming across as many questions at once, and thanks for this interesting video as always!
I don't think you necessarily need that much more content added to the game in regards to assets, or voice acting. Maybe in performance capture if your game uses that. Definitely in story (as in: written text). You probably would if you wanted something epic and bombastic, but if it's just in terms of approaches to get somewhere or somewhere else... But on procedural generation... That could be cool, although I think it would still add a lot in development costs compared to a "normal" game. I kind of would like to see a game where spoken dialog is also generated. As long as the voice actors who quite literally own their voices are compensated, I think it's fine. They did that with Susan Bennett and Siri...
Starfield is a great example of the opposite of what you said. Its planets and POIs are procedurally generated copypasted and boring, while the game also has very rigid quests and basically nothing worthwhile you can miss.
Comment and a question When I think of content as a reward I think of content that rewards general actions and keeps them going for the rest of the game. This is often done through cutscenes, and this philosophy is what Chris Seavor did for Conker's Bad Fur Day, and I used the idea for my game that I just released. You see, while I like story in a game, I'm not a big RPG player, and don't typically play games to get invested as a part of a story like one does with a TTRPG, like being an actual character that I created, and I noticed most of the games you've made/like have that as a key part of it. What's your feelings on more linear games, like Half-Life, that treat the whole experience as closer to watching a film? As in: You play the game, typically get what you need from one playthrough, and then the experience is done and it may or may not be super replayable. Thanks so much, I really enjoy hearing your thoughts on the channel!
This explains to me the difference between Morrowind and Skyrim. Morrowind, you could only become guildmaster of one guild. Skyrim, you can be leader of everything at the same time. Morrowind being cheaper makes more sense to have limited content for each character. Skyrim was expensive, probably couldn't sell having gated content
Something I notice as a player, is that games that offer bigger pieces of content per choice, tend to offer less choices (duh!). I see an act of making a choice to be THE gameplay feature of an cRPG, so I prefer games that offer a lot of choices that react with smaller variables, over games that offer fewer big choices of which consequences we play through for a longer period of time. That’s one of the reasons I prefer Pillars over Tyranny - while I thought initial set up of Tyranny was really cool, I felt like as player I had 4 (?) linear progression paths I could choose for the majority of the game. I just found it less rewarding than a feel constant choice and effect of PoEs. I prefer to make my way through a quest in a unique way, rather than have smaller in scope unique quest… though I think ideally a game could utilise both effectively.
The procedural missions in Assassins Creed Oddysey were the worst part of the game. Meaningless short fetch or kill quests with no consequences, story development or character. I fear that the push for more and more content combined with developments in procedural generation is going to lead us down a path of long, tedious, soul-less games.
It's very difficult to get a publisher to pay for content that X percent will never see. Right off the bat 20% of people probably don't spend more than the first level on a game. And the more branching you have you can get into the single digit percentage who even see it. I'm not saying it's impossible it's just hard to have a publisher with that kind of vision. Posting before even watching because i guarantee this is the answer.
I'm not a fan of procedural generation. It can be good in small doses ( like for by design endless "bounty board" type quests ), but as a basis for player experience, it ( at least so far, maaaaybe it be better in future ) always ends either souless, repetetive or both.
So cost is definitely going to be an issue... Except an indi dev made Baldur's Gate 3. Larian wasn't exactly floating in money, and they made one of the most expansive games, with HUGE swaths of content locked behind player agency and choice. If an Indi dev, without the cash to drop a AAA studio would have can do it, I don't really see cost as an excuse in modern gaming.
The existence of an opportunity cost is what makes choices interesting. I want content I won't see if I only play once. I want to see how my digital little friends act when they become my digital little enemies because this run I'll play different
@@yourstruly5013 What do I need to imagine? They made a masterpiece that focuses on what makes DnD what it is. That is what they needed to do. I wouldn't want a linear BG3 game, because that is not what DnD is.
The most extreme example of this is Witcher 2 where the whole chapter plays differently in the middle of the game, based on a single choice. But on the other hand users that replay the game are greatly rewarded by getting the better context of the whole storyline and a lot of new content to play with on replay.
Everyone comes together to play the rather wonky/messy final act, though...
The downside is, that of you play twice you see that the branching paths don’t make much sense - aka. There are a lot of changes to the narrative that aren’t a result of your actions. So while it works for replayability, I am not fun of it as:
1) it doesn’t work as choice & consequence
2) narrative has major plot holes if you play the game the 2nd time, so the narrative gets worse with the knowledge of the two paths, not better.
So to me Witcher2 is a great example of a bad implementation of a major branching path.
@@wormerine8029 I don't know about number 2 so much because the content revolves around Geralt's involvement. If Geralt doesn't do the elves chapter 2, then the Scoia'tael leader doesn't establish a state of fantasy people at the end of act 3. Because he wasn't there. The big set pieces of the game still happen with or without Geralt's involvement as the PC is just a force multiplier on what will get passed off into the world state.
Which is why there's more of a disconnect not in The Witcher 2, but in The Witcher 3 with moving the world states over between the games. And there's also the Dandelion of it all, since all the written and item descriptions of the game are all told through his perspective, despite not really being there most of the time.
I'd say it has content as _punishment._ Everyone remembers ODRIIIN, right?
I think that it is a step forward from what Tim's said, as it isn't really a content as a reward, as you have to finish act 1 and go into act 2. so it's more of a *content lock-up* based on your choice. It's similar in some games, where you know you have time to do 2 missions, but have 3-4 to choose from (I don't recall exactly whether this was in x-com, an rts or some indie game). Wondering what would Tim say about this example in particular, as it kinda refers to what he's said about budget restrictions, as in you can easily feel in act 3 that it should have been bigger.
When devs aren't afraid of the player potentially missing content, you know the world is richer for it.
I like how in Tyranny how you have completly different paths based on choices you make.
Or how in Alpha Protocol, story and levels are reshuffled giving completly unique experiences in different playthroughs.
As a drawback, both of these games are considered "short" RPGs, but then if you do not replay these RPGs you are playing them "wrong". I replayed both dozen times without losing interest, always feeling fresh due to above. If there is only some better way to communicate to players that getting to the ending does not mean you "finished" the game, and there are more stories to explore.
Alpha Protocol is an awful example of this. They just have what is essentially a level select option at a certain part. You know what game does this better? Crash Bandicoot 2.
The changes in AP are incredibly minor.
@@SyndicateOperative The difference between playing AP as a complete sociopath and playing AP as a relatively nice secret agent with the best intentions is enormous in terms of how the playthroughs feel as you get deeper, but on a mechanical level it's not that large, sure.
Love Alpha Protocol.
This is why it's crazy to me Larian put so much content in BG3 the average player will never see. I am happy some studios are doing it though, makes replays so much better.
A certain over-the-top musical number comes to mind. Such a treat.
Tbf all of BG3 hidden content are small bite sized content while the core content is mostly the same.
Larian learned well how to implement large, complicated games that are (mostly) satisfying. If only they can fix their ending levels lol.
@@SenkaZverthe missable/optional content added together in bg3 is longer than many entire videogames.
@@SenkaZver I don't think "small bite sized" is the right word for the 'hidden' content. Pretty much anything that leads to Legendary Items is fairly extensive and completely missable. Even the lore drops tied to some of these is ridiculously huge.
And there's a big chance you waltz right past all of it on your first playthrough.
What I enjoy the most is being rewarded for finding secret places or almost inaccessible parts of the game. Morrowind had some interesting places like that, like temples under the sea, cave entries between rocks, dead bodies with nice artifacts,...
one of my favorite example of procedural generation is the Spiderwebs for Toystory 4. Instead of hand making spiderwebs they created a program to replicate spiders making webs. now I wouldn't create a whole dungeon with procedural generation, but simulating the effects that living things have on the world like moss or vines growing on the walls, errosion effects. Those all are great things to use procedural generation for, generating a process not a world.
I love proc gen like that! Our magic missiles in Temple of Elemental Evil are procedural too. They fly out from the caster in a random direction and then curve towards the target.
@@CainOnGames I remember a good 20 minute GDC talk by David Rosen of Wolfire games about the animation in their game, Overgrowth. He explained how they used just about 13 or so key frames in total for all the animation of the 3D player character. Everything else was interpolation, inverse kinematics and springy physics for the limbs. I remember it looking way better than it had any right to.
A game that does this well is Rimworld. Every colony I start in that game is completely different every time. The procedural gen in that game keeps it fun and varied because it is done so well. They also implement a procedural quest system and it is pretty cool but after 500 hours of play I do spot the repetition in their setup. To be fair its a rather long time of me playing the game tho.
Cyberpunk is a good example because you are forced to do the bad endings if you don't do the major side quests. But if you do the side quests you get soooo much more content at the end of the game with all the different endings
This is the thing that I found it interesting he never mentioned. If you aren't careful the bonus content can drive players down specific paths because that's where the most content/the best content is.
Most Fromsoftware games rewards you with content like that way. Most players will not find some dungeons or paths on Elden Ring. The community has a factor on that "value" on hide content becouse the ones who find them are gonna be vocal about that.
the price you pay for this in ER is a ton of re-used bosses, which are arguably the main focus of souls games. And its easy to see why, the big multi stage boss fights take a lot of resources to create, so they're going to save those for mandatory content
All of those dungeons aren't worth finding because they're copy pasted dungeons, with the exact same one of three layouts, same enemies and traps, and the same one of three bosses. And the rewards are rarely worthwhile.
Not a good example.
Bloodborne also did an ok job with Chalice Dungeons for procedural generation (at least used it to an extent if I understand correctly). Not my favorite thing on the game, but felt like value added.
@@SenkaZver i missed out on the entire consecrated snowfield and huge part of volcano manor on my first playtrough. They are quite unique and memorable experiences.
Good example but it feels like this came at a high cost since player actions still are highly restricted in Elden Ring. There's not much you can do yourself, so I don't care, and I didn't, when I know that I will be able to do the just the same thing with this new content. Same room, different wall paper.
So if the hidden content were new abilities that I could incorporate in my gameplay and experiment around with that makes the gameplay less restrictied, I would like that more than another area I play the same.
Would be fascinated to know more about the cut companions of Outer Worlds, but 100% aware of a previous upload's statement that questions about Outer Worlds can't always fly right now due to the relevance with Outer Worlds 2.
What I *will* say is that out of the cut content the public already knows about, there's one case where I think we all know which NPC would've been funniest to take along, in that a few months ago Carrie Patel mentioned a cut resolution to the confrontation with Chairman Rockwell based in a now-cut email from Rockwell's terminal that showed how he had weekly dominatrix/dominator appointments with a Moon Man impersonator (meaning that if the player was wearing a moon helmet they could take advantage of knowing such), and I think we all know which shopkeeper would've added the most to that scene.
maybe this is wishful thinking, but I'd love to see the mid 2000 destructibles make a return. Having walls fall apart realistically via PhysX or Havok just makes the world more believeable. Modern GPUs should be crazy fast at this =(
I recommend trying Jagged Alliance 3, it came out last year and it's got some pretty cool tactical destruction mechanics in it. I enjoy blowing holes in the floors beneath enemies and watching them fall through so they lose a nice chunk of HP and then I can finish them off.
Tim put out a short the other day about an MMO called Stars Reach that aims to make a fully manipulatable environment. it uses AI-powered cellular automata, which raises questions about the processing load but.... the lead dev worked on Ultima Online's original "masterpiece" ecosystem. it'll be interesting to see if he's learned to compensate for player greed this time.
Hey, Tim. Thanks for the video response. It does answer my question! At the end, the regular answer: money. I think procedural generation, especially now with generative AI, might become very good. It could also be used as a force multiplier for hand-made content: "computer, make me a quest like this" then edit and polish by hand on top of the AI-generated "skeleton".
Some praiseworthy hand-made content makers imho: Larian, have made a lot of edge cases in BG3. Elder Scrools games have a lot of content for evil characters (e.g. Dark Brotherhood & daedric quests), which I love considering most games will mostly remove content for playing evil.
Edit: adding content for failure would be a great remedy for the urge to savescum, though balooning content quantity.
Also, something that could remove a bit of the urge to savescum is to add content for failure. Though at some point indeed procedural generation (or massive team) would be needed.
Content: the ultimate carrot 🥕 😅
The content-for-failure part is in my opinion the biggest different between Baldur's Gate 3 and live DnD. Failing in regular DnD is as fun as succeeding, because the content will always adapt, but in BG3 you mostly just miss out on content.
@@AnotherDuck indeed! Failure in BG3 made my FOMO levels go off the charts! It made me save scum a lot since so much of BG3's interesting content is hidden behind lucky rolls. I'd much prefer if content was tied to choices (instead of luck).
Sidenote: I liked that in Starfield there is a whole faction questline that only becomes available if you manage to get arrested. Would be nice to have more of this.
@@UlissesSampaio Interesting side note. Once I'm done with BG3, Starfield is next on the list.
@@AnotherDuck note thought that Starfield as a whole was a bit underwhelming imo...
Hi Tim, I'd like to see you talk about how you decide to make information available to the player. By that I mean underlying system information, such as stats, bonuses, formulas, dicerolls, checks, outcomes and so on. A game that reveals too little information can make the player feel like they're unable to make informed gameplay choices, but on the other hand, games revealing too much information run the risk of "solving" themselves and encouraging players to over-optimize. Both of these have frustrated me in the past - sometimes both in the same game. Would love to hear your thoughts on this.
I also love the *idea* of it. That's one of the pillar of tabletop rpg, as players you write your own story and the gamemaster provide reality check, friction, and content. Unfortunately, computers can't do that yet to that level, so that's one very rare time when I both understand and agree with publishers: you have to maximize your production with your budget.
Especially, when major content is deliberately cut off as a consequence of a choice. Say red to the npc, content is open, say blue major content is cut forever. If done right (and that's a *huge* if, for example Wasteland 2 blundered that to no end) it can tickle the rpg-player in me, but it will sting the customer in me who paid a lot of money for that game. On top of that, even if done right... it's never *really* done "right": because on tabletop you have infinite freedom to try novel approaches, while on computer everything has to be programmed for. So there's a good chance as a player after a few minutes you'll find half a dozen thing that logically you could try or should work to bypass the gate on that content, but because it's a computer game and you can only do so much... you're forced to accept it. And let's not even talk about when content is cut-off because of bugs.
I much prefer major content stay open, but present itself differently. Maybe in new village/map everyone hates you, and will require lots of work to just open basic dialogues, maybe people there present to you topics or quests or clues that are very different based on previous choices, hell maybe everyone is dead and you have to dig into what's left. But at least there is "something".
Undiscovered content is something else entirely. The game doesn't cut it off based on choice, it's always there, but you have to find it. More of a grey area.
Indeed, procedural generation is one way to tackle that. It has a bad rep, mostly because players have seen or remember bad proc gen, often done on the cheap, sometimes done as a way to replace/save something that wasn't coming together after alpha.
But there is a brighter side to that coin: simulation. Instead of presenting it as proc gen, it could be developed and presented as a simulated world, simulated economy, simulated ecology, simulated wars, and so on. Now the work has to be done, world simulation isn't simple or cheap (albeit a *severely* under-served market), but it would allow for reactivity, agency, basically for free (or very cheap) once it's done. That's why to some rpg players, games likes X4 or Crusader Kings 3 or dwarf Fortress feel almost a better roleplay sandbox than a lot of crpg.
As a side note, replay-ability is often used as a pretext or excuse for cutting off content, I strongly disagree. The industry telemetry has shown the average completion rate for games is around 30% I believe? It's probably less than that for crpg, which are longer and more complex. And that's just completion (getting to the end credits), the % of people who replay the game is very very low. I'm not saying to ignore those, they are way to design and code quests and events, write dialogues, design narrative and characters, that is barely more expensive and allow for a better experience in replayability. And the road not taken has value in itself. But the extreme in either end of that spectrum is, imo, bad.
I'm one of the players who never liked randomly generated loot, because to me it feels as cheap as fast food. I don't care if this sword does 5% more fire damage, let's me fly and spawns a sheep - give me unique stuff with weight in the world:)
Also, one of the reasons I never finished Mass Effect, is because I couldn't decide what content to cut, not just in that game, but through out the rest of the trilogy. Nice gimmick, but at least make the choice not as morally grey.
What you described is exactly how Larian approaches their games, it’s what makes them so loved, unique and successful. But they’re able to do this because they’re an independent self publishing studio
To me, the literal definition of “content as a reward “ is Disco Elysium the Final Cut
It is so extremely responsive to player choice and rewards you and punishes you for your choices. The game makes you feel and has so much to offer. I think it’s a master class in game development even if the story behind the game is absolutely insane.
You can experience nearly everything in a single playthrough in Disco Elysium. The only differences are the ending, and whether or not you want your tie to talk.
@@SyndicateOperative Not true. Depending on the skills you take, the pop-ups are different, the dialogues are completely different. Then there are the political vision quests...
@@SyndicateOperative I don't think it's possible to get 10 into every stat since the beginning of the game, and lots of the best dialogues are hidden behind that.
I like the middle of the road solution of making maps look different for different classes or equipment choices. You did this in vampire with the nosferatu, loved that!
I don't remember the game, but i remember one game where, maps would be very different if you played a ranged character versus melee or sneaky, and the game then reused maps rather heavily, but it was cool because you would fight through it first, then it would become a "town" map, then maybe a stealth map etc. What was decorations during melee would become cover during stealth/ranged and really change the tactics and dynamics of the map.
I love procedural generation. I think my favorite is when you have an artist create a bunch of hand-crafted set pieces and then those are combined together in different permutations so it still has the feeling of being new every time without feeling sterile.
the thing is that most of the players aren't completionists and by a large margin, so they won't see the whole body of content you put into your production whether it's locked out or not.
in fact what you're saying about "wasted" dev budget applies to any reactivity and branching. like even with the rudimentary mass effect like approach 2-3 options per dialogue are 100-200% too much since many players will only see one of those.
Agreed. Thus I think it would be awesome to reward every playstyle and even Failure somewhat evenly (but as Tim explained: costs money).
First I want to say that I really enjoy your videos in general. Thank you for this channel.
I want to add another perspective to the part about cost/benefit for the companies (when you mentioned 80% + 20% + 20% + 20% becoming excess cost).
For story-based games, especially high quality production ones from very big and business-centric studios, I feel that the the exact opposite is true.
They usually use this to cut costs, and to be able to sell the game as a much longer and bigger experience.
Most gamers nowadays value "game time" VS "actual quality and uniqueness". People judge a game's price by the playtime hours that it allegedly provides.
So the big studios spend just enough for 80+20+20+20 content (140%) but have it marketed and sold as 80+20 + 80+20 + 80+20, or in other words, 300%.. And a lot of players fall for it.
"You get THREE ADVENTURES". "It's like 3 games in one". "High replayability" and so on.
In reality players need to repeat/endure the very same game again and again only to be able to check out the small differences.
It is almost similar to watching some anime that abuse displaying too many "flashback scenes" every chapter, only to add a few minutes of fresh content in between. Cheaper to produce, "but you get a lot of chapters to watch".
What do you think? Especially for story-based games I feel that way.
That's extremely helpful for dungeon masters where you can prepare simple tools to generate stuff that fits the story on the fly. Need unique potion? Click. Quest? Bang. Companion? Honk.
I know a place where content as a reward is alive and kicking.
I play a lot of Doom community made maps. The content is: player fighting demons. The pool of possible rewards is not that big: health items, armor items, ammo items, powerups. But sometimes you find a secret and a mapper put a secret fight inside of it alongside with other "item" rewards. Sometimes its even "gimmick" fight where some unusual thinking is required.
Content as a reward in its purest form: you fight demons, find a secret, get more demons to fight 🙂
On procedural generation:
it might seem like an easy way to pad the game and I feel like "modern games" use it just as that - easy padding. But as Tim said: good procedural generation is hard to achieve and will require much more time to develop (and test!!!) when compared to static content.
Weird West was a fun combination of a Fallout type reactive world mixed with procedural generation of random events based on your choices. The only issue is because everything is random it kind of means nothing. The game becomes more about the player vs the system than the player vs the content. Oh hey, every time I capture someone alive they track me down within an hour for revenge. Why am I doing this again if it makes me harder for me twice? If certain prewritten characters did the same it would reflect some message the developers are making about how certain characters can be trusted and others can't etc. You could still achieve that with a much more deep system but how far can developers afford to go before it's cheaper to just write out preset content?
Ahh, another person that has heard about this. I posted a link to the technical talk about the systems. Its really cool
i see somebody mentioned but the Witcher 2 entire middle game is totally different and i liked every single second of them in both of my playthrough and everything was hand made with voice acted not randomly generated, it was a ballsy move to do that, one of my best gaming experience ever
i also like when the ending of a game is different and not just different slides, for example the first STALKER game has the "real" ending and many fake endings based on your choice with bonus content (fighting outside the Chernobyl Reactor) i absolutely like those
It's fine, so long as it's a great game in concept and there's enough "off the beaten path content" to warrant a fresh playthrough. Otherwise I wouldn't devote much time to those things, although I do agree they're preferable regardless of the cost.
tim cain talks about why traditional rpgs aren’t made anymore
Content as a reward is everywhere. Call of duty has it with its battle pass. I'll admit I haven't played in like 2 years but 3 years ago I bought a weapon skin for a gun that changed the bullets impact so that I could spray pink stuff on someone's screen. In game modes with a longer time to kill that really helped. I literally blinded their screens. They complained it got removed from the game and changed. Every time companies do something that ever so slightly gives you an advantage even though it's "cosmetic" they're giving you content as a reward. Content as a reward is the only reward. A cosmetic reward that changes how I look is still new content but I will go through those things fast. XP for a level means that cumulatively several rewards give me the thing that allows me to do new content...
A great example of this are card games like eldrith horror, or digital card games such as cultists simulator. Cards are basically a way to randomize or procedurally create events and characters. I think it could be fun to explore for sure, and it is definitely more challenging to design a game, at least in terms of game mechanics and game logic.
Thanks for regularly being my morning commute and continued source of inspiration for trying to do this as a career. Even in this tough job market, people like you keep me trying. Thank you!
Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight was the first game I know of which had a different outcome of the game, depending on your choice (light side / dark side).
After a certain point in the game, you are basically logged into that choice. The maps stay the same, the boss fights varied a bit (Yun instead of Sariss).
Also the cutscenes. I really loved that game, but mainly because I liked Star Wars, stories and graphical design way more than the gameplay.
To me, this game was a childhood highlight and with so little resources the decision felt very deep.
The problem with the illusion of choice but no consequences can be seen with the late Telltales games. People did not like that much.
The game that did that random encounter bit best has always been Fallout 3 for me. You activate a Robot Factory and encounter more of them, the wasteland survival guide had people who read it pop up, being good or evil had people hunting you pop up, killing X, etc, etc. It's one of the things Fo3 did better then NV. Skyrims generated quests are also infamous and sometimes neat, people had less issue with them in Fallout 4 if I recall, it also had random Legionaries.
I know many players respond well to "content as reward" and play the game like completionists because of it - but if its an RPG I really like I will actually start doing the opposite, I will be okay missing content on one playthrough to save it for another character - and I'll use that content as a way to guide my roleplay. I think when the player sees all the branching paths and starts wondering "but what do I miss by choosing this?" or "what kind of character would say that dialogue option" or whatever... that's when the restartitis kicks in and you start coming up with new character ideas! Baldur's Gate 3 did a fantastic job of this, having entire pathways and maps and characters and even companions that were entirely optional - makes every run different!
Great vid! I'm working on a game that touches on all of this! :D Fingers crossed, it works. ;)
I usually am not that excited about procedural generation because I find that it got used poorly by some other gave devs but the Wayward Realms seems to have a plan to make this really interesting. I backed the game back in June and can't wait to get my hands on the Early Access.
When I saw the title, I thought this video was discussing the trade-offs of "rewards," urging creators not to rely solely on rewards to keep players engaged. Instead, it suggested using design techniques to make players view the gameplay itself as a "reward." This encourages them to engage in actions for reasons other than monetary gain or other stuff. like, they might slay ten ogres not for the money, but to access a hidden elven archway behind those ogres-just to see what’s inside. I thought this was a great approach!
However, after watching the video, I must admit I was a bit surprised to find I had strayed too far from the core message.
I would love to see a video about how art departments (including level design, assets, measurements, animation, etc.) and technical departments (such as level programming, gameplay programming, etc.) coordinate with each other.
This is why AAA RPGs are generally stagnating and why Baldur's Gate 3 has become such a phenomenon.
One idea I've had in mind, somewhat related, is randomly assembling quests or campaigns etc using fully authored "chunks". So each playthrough is unique and varied, but if you play through the game often enough you WILL see everything. It means you can play the game the way you like, and you don't have to explore character builds you don't enjoy, in order to see the rest of the content.
'80% of players won't see it' may well be the perception, but that is perhaps better framed as '80% won't see it... the first time, but once they know it's there, you are perhaps doubling or tripling engagement with the game as players deliberately try to unlock that content'. If there is an incentive on the Publisher level to have people play your game multiple times so you can sell additional content after release, then the value of 'Content As Reward' as described cannot be understated. Knowing that there's a door you can't open creates FOMO and if you want a person to keep playing, that's exactly what you want - provided there's actually a way to open said door and it isn't a red herring!
The game has to be designed towards re-playability for gating content to be 'worth it', but it's one of the reasons that games like Disco Elysium stand out so much from the crowd and why Paradox Games has such an avid fanbase willing to fork out for a billion DLCs.
I don't think procedural generation is necessary for this to remain part of modern games (it is still a niche thing and requires technological advancement to break out of that niche, just ask the developers of No Man's Sky), but it has to be decided upon early in development exactly how much branching in content pathways will exist and the game has to be coded in a way that allows the extra variance to added with the least disruption possible.
My experience with procedurally generated content has been mostly with RPGs that use a "tower" or dungeon as their main gameplay area. I would be open to more games that had procedurally generated missions as a sort of way to grind experience or materials, and then curated or hand-crafted portions of the game to advance the story or something.
Just imagine if a game like Cyberpunk 2077 which has 99% of the buildings in the city currently inaccessible (they are just environment) actually had access to those buildings. The building floors could procedurally generated with NPCs or enemies and loot. Definitely would need some design thought to integrate into the living world properly.
Hi Tim!
I just wanna mention best (imo) procedural generation:
Path of Exile
Maps, items and even content you encounter.
And you can affect what you will see! That's one of best systems I have ever encountered and I always recommend this game.
The "unseen" content gives you a reaosn to replay....
One good example of this is in Dragon Age Origins. There are 6 background stories you can play at the beginning of the game. Your origin story is determined by the class and race you pick and there is substantial content(some of them upwards of 2-3 hours) in each of them, and you won't see the content in the other 5 unless you make a new character and replay the game. And your background not only give you a different beginning content, but it also affects the content of some plots and subplots and each origin story has unique items available to them. If you start as circle mage for instance, a good portion of the main questline further in the game play very differently.
Witcher 2 comes to mind, as your final choice at the end of Act 1 determines the entirety of the content of Act 2. That game has 133% content, using your math ;)
As to generating content, outside of survival games, Daggerfall is probably the most pertinent game to talk about when it comes to this issue. I personally disliked it for the extreme repetitiveness of the quests (go to this dungeon, kill someone or find something, come back to quest giver), and it didn't matter what the quest was about. I could be finding a missing husband who turns out to have turned into a werewolf and be forced to tragically end his life and inform the wife of the events, or I could be delivering a sealed package to someone and be attacked by the Thieves Guild on my journey, it all just felt the same.
Something that I think you should have mentioned is how micropayments relate to this topic. Many developers are now putting content behind paywalls instead of discovering the content via achievement/skill. As the pressure to add micropayments increase, more and more content is sealed behind a paywall.
For me this is is a reason why I buy a game? A significant amount of Skyrim and fallout have been adding content to my experience.
Great video! Some of my favorite examples are the games Shenmue and Jazzpunk.
Shenmue has a wild amount of extra content that is there simply to provide the immersive experience to those willing to explore. Have any of you ever played it?
I think fromsoftware is a master of this. They hide a big ass areas, bosses etc that you can only access if you use a specific gesture at a specific location. Most players would never see the content
"and a little threatening" only to the hacks.
I think a reasonable response to the concern that a lot of players aren't going to see it is that a lot of players aren't going to finish the game either, so if the content is accessible early enough it could actually be seen by more people than the end game content. (And as someone who is generally time-limited, I'd much prefer shorter but richer games anyway.)
Hi Tim, it's everyone... Thank you for your continued videos! They are awesome!
I love this channel and your opinions on games! Thanks for sharing them.
Seeing content being locked out as good or bad is subjective. Having something really cool be locked out because of something you did without realizing could suck, but it could also be seen as a reason to replay (or save scum, no judgement). Replay value, I believe, is the difference between a good RPG and a great RPG.
Starfield was clearly going the procgen route but at aome point panicked and hired modders to make static instances for all the "dungeons".
Tim's gonna love The Wayward Realms
Fallout 3 did this with the Lawbringer and Contract Killer perks. Always thought that was very cool.
Was there really any content locked behind it though? With law bringer there is that one guy in the Arlington cemetery and that's it besides more caps and karma
@@mateusz73 True, it's not 20% more game like Tim talks about in his example. But they are repeatable quests that unlock only after selecting the perks. So, in the ballpark.
New Vegas would be a better example, the reputation system can lock you out of any content tied to a faction and you’re always guaranteed to piss off at least one of the major factions.
I know I keep harping on this but Steambot Chronicles did this really well depending on your choices you get totally different acts in the game.
I think the counter argument for "80% of players will never see this", is that it is a minority of players who set the tone of the opinion for your game, which is what really matters. Reviewers and influencers are the ones who will make or break the "success" of your game. People will buy based on their opinions. Reviewers are more likely than any casual gamer to commit to multiple playthroughs and characters to find all the side content and variations in the storyline.
Gameplaywise - Remnant series are the best at that, IMHO.
Storywise - Disco Elysium.
I have played Total War Medieval 2, more than any other game. I have gone around the world, conquering every country, so I can play as that country. It was amazing for me, but I get that from the developers standpoint I got all this enjoyment for $20, so now they add those new factions as DLC. I don’t play their games as much, but they get more money from me.
I 100% the fear behind of making a good chunk of a game easy to miss, but at the same time does the player need to play EVERY part of a game? In the Fromsoft souls-like games, most of them have a giant area that’s locked away behind a few key items. You miss a letter that was on a desk in a hidden location, you’ll miss out a giant vampire castle. I can see why some people might find it really annoying but I kinda love it. Not only it makes the world feel bigger but it’s make the area feel special where you have to do this little ritual to access this special location. Especially in comparison where every other location you can just walk to. Obscuring content can make more interesting if done right.
Btw. Tim have you seen Shadows of Doubt? It’s a really interesting and largely well done way of using procedural quests I think.
It’s maybe not where I’d like it to be just yet, but it’s good enough to show the merits of the concept and what it COULD be 😊
I think the problem of procedural generation is when it lays out some dominoes for only the player to trigger. The player will pick up on the pattern and ignore the variations, making the experience appear repetitive. Now what if... if you had two systems working against each other and the player just happens to be there. That makes the situations dynamic. The player now has to adapt to the new circumstance, creating emergent gameplay.
I always liked coming across two randomly generated NPC groups fighting. One thing that would be fun is if dungeons sometimes had another NPC going through it, so you would find some creatures already dead and traps already sprung. If you encounter the NPC, you don't have to fight them...but they do have all the loot from those creatures...
Baldur's Gate 3 in a nutshell. I love this stuff too although there is no way I will ever see all of the content in that game. I don't mind procedural generation if it is done well. That Trials of Tav mod for BG3 is pretty fun. Bloodborne (from the makers of Elden Ring) had procedurally generated dungeons that were a nice addition.
6:12 But isn't this why we have so many folks who are saying that "Old games are way better" since we have secrets in game being discovered decades later? We have secrets and elements of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night that are being discovered 25 years after release. We have elements of Final Fantasy VII being found after two decades. I think that removing this for budget concerns leaves little room for exploration in your game.
This is often done poorly in games with morality systems. Probably around 70% of the time the reward for being evil is immidiate resource and less content. This somtimes isnt a problem when the resource is content exclusive in some way, but often times it isnt ( i think of how they added the good versioon of the ending evil sword in fable 1)
I think it comes down to what you are saying with only a certain amount of players seeing the content, because from my research, roughly 20%-30% of players play evil playthroughs.
This actually leads to a potentialy interesting question for you Tim:
"What moral responsibility do you think game designers have designing reward systems for games? For example if you have a mission that ends in genocide do you have a moral obligation to limit the gameplay reward?"
In Ultima 7 you can't do anything wrong without being threatened, either by the guardian or your team. But you can't get a good equipment without stealing or trespassing private properties.
This! This is one of my main gripes: games mostly railroad players to being good by locking you out of content for playing evil. An ideal game for me would be a short-branchy-tree rather than a tall-but-thin tree.
I think morality systems are just generally done poorly. Too many of them are too black and white, and if they aren't there are weird and arbitrary reasons for one choice belonging to one side or the other. And most of the time you have to commit to one side entirely or just not get either reward, which makes it a single choice at the start and the rest just follows.
I see that Witcher 2 has already been mentioned in the comments, but I also want to mention my favourite example: Dragon Age Origins. That game has six(or seven, kinda) different prologues depending on your race or class if you're a mage.
The city elf origin is also radically different if you're male or female.
And the different origins are very effective at changing the feel of a playthrough despite most of it being the same content.
I've always loved proc-gen. Right now, I'm making a tactical rogue-lite. So far I am only generating a world map and levels; but I will generate the loot and characters too. I recommend Tales of Maj'Eyal and Caves of Qud to any other lovers of proc-gen out there!
The haligtree from elden ring is a good example
I've always liked procedurally generated dungeons, so long as the procedure generates enough variations that I can't predict the layout. Noita is a good example, because although every playthrough is identical every playthough feels 100% different - even if I replay the same seed.
I forget the game, but every level was procedurally generated and every level was the same: fork with 2 choices, 1 leads to a dead end with treasure chest, the other continues into the dungeon, repeat until I encounter a 3 fork: 1 leads to treasure, 1 to rest/save point, 1 to continue the dungeon, that was the mid-mark, keep going with the 2 choices, fight the boss.
This content is my reward.
Tim is truly a river to his people!
Yea not even AI, just procedural generation is the way to go. It takes a lot of setup, but the payoff is more than worth it.
As a solo dev, proc. gen. is the only way to make the game I want, and as a programmer, I'm excited by the chance to try it.
I'm studying procedural terrain generation right now (marching cubes are fun), alongside building my own engine off of Vulkan. I'll have ample opportunities to test my skills and see how I can implement it.
The strange thing about that argument is that there's already a major part of the game that most player will never see - the ending. People almost never finish games, persiod. It seems to me that by that logic there's less personpower lost on an alternative exclusive choice that happens early on than anything that happens at the end of the game.
I prefer OR rather than XOR content. But good XOR content can be fun. Example of OR content would be Skyrim and faction choice. You can join from 0 to all guilds. You do have to pick a side of civil war IIRC. Good XOR example would be witcher series. Dragon Age origins would be an example from the video where a lot of people will miss out if they don't try out different orgins.
I wonder if you could have the same effect using reordering or repurposing... like put the dungeons that are being missed due to plotline selections as secret areas on the map (possibly with monsters and gear leveled up or down). Maybe even have a set of repurposable dungeons to use in hard-to-find secrets (with the hope that statistically the player will find a set number on average, and you'd have a stop gap measure if they find too many). Hopefully the repurposing can be done in a way that won't feel too generic?
4:55 Kitty had a perfect timin on the sound effec for the "money" moment =D
The formula for most games today seems to be dribble out bits of content to distract from lack of gameplay. You are just walking around waiting for content which comes at irregular intervals.
"Abandon hope all ye who enter here."
Question:
Doesn’t proper procedural systems also cost a ton to develop and (crucially) test? Obviously when “infinite content” is pitched against “limited content” it will win every time, but in reality you can only do so many *cough* “radiant” *cough* quests, before it feels like a grey slog, so limiting its usage may be a good idea… or?
To be clear I’m not against procedural as a concept. But when it’s not reined in (or poorly executed/tested) it just ends up detracting from the experience - for me.
5:30 thats one of the reasons that i think AI generated stuff will come in handy, i dont know if you have heard of a mod for skyrim called Herika its a npc with integration to chat gpt and AI speech that can respond to stimuli (conversations, stuff that is happening, enemies...) and it is awesome
Anyone remembers Vanguard Bandits from PS 1 era? It was smartly done to contain 3 completely different scenarios while reusing maps and other graphical assets. The variance came in the encounter design itself and dialogues.
Maybe procedural generation is just being done poorly but like at least for rare weapons like you mentioned in the case of fallout 4, they felt repetitive, tedious, and common with the only rare weapons which actually seemed neat in that game being the handcrafted ones like the weapon that shot cannon or bowling balls and other stuff like that, with the procedural legendary weapons system not being engaging I dont think
I'm 100% on board with using AI in video games. It will open so many doors and honestly I'm stoked to see what will come of it. The only thing I'm cautious about is using the AI to replace actual people. AI is a tool, and it can achieve great things, it's not a way to get out of paying a real person though. Can't wait to have full on conversations with NPCs instead of being given 4 dialog choices.
Hi Tim. This comment is unrelated to this video. Would you like sometime share your thoughts about video game immersion?
My hypothesis is that game world should have consistent laws and rules. Then there are players, NPCs and every object, graphics, physics system etc. which operate according to these rules, and that makes game immersive. There can be added depth or fidelity as much as game developer want to craft but there is also sweet spot because immersion fails if something look like it can be done or should happened, but it doesn't work. I'm not sure about my hypothesis but most immersive games I know seems to work like that.
Idea to that topic came from when I saw that there are a lot of game projects now where game developers use Playstation 1 aesthetics. I don't think that it is purely graphical style or cost saving style, it can be also method to make everything so coarse that immersion breaking things doesn't happen easily.
That topic can also can get into interesting situations. Like "I like light sources to cast shadows". Then there may be immersion break if hostile NPC doesn't spot player from shadow that is visible around corner, because game only test line of sight to player.
Do you have insights about that topic or tricks of working ways to improve immersion?
On the one hand...I am wired as a completioninst, so "content as a reward" kind of bugs me. On the other hand, I _HATE_ when I'm playing a good character, and the game saddles me with an evil companion I can't get rid of that really clashes with my vibes the whole time. I feel like the right balance is one where the "reward" content is stuff that people will enjoy if they're the types to naturally take the actions that attain those rewards, and won't miss it if they're not.
That said, I feel like the producers/publishers angle could be helped if it was sold more as ways to increase the playtime by way of replay value. Like, it feels like instead of adding _real_ reasons to replay, they just add annoying grind-ey things (which...yes...often includes procedural generation if it's done poorly). If you had to replay in order to get content that you were locked out of the first time, and it was different enough to be interesting, that'd be a great way to extend the play time _and_ would review better than adding grind, or dumb time-gating, or other mechanics that seem so common lately.
If there ever is a non-sterile/grind-ey procedural generation for side-content you come across, would love to hear about it. As with many things, finding bad examples is easy, finding good ones is hard, so hints and tips always appreciated.
Being able to kill a companion in a game is always such a highlight when it does happen too! Such a set piece with so much drama and all it costs is "the player shoots another character". Mass Effect teased you with this a few times, it's so cool that Baldur's Gate 3 went all the way with it.
Choices that lock you out of content is more realistic though. I think the idea is that if you like replayingt a game, it's good. If you only want to play a game once then it feels like you got tricked and the developers are hding stuff from you. I prefer a replayable game where it feels like the characters are as realistic as possible. There should be permanent changes to a world based on consequences of your choices. The key to making good games like this is making them low budget. My view is people play these games for story primarily. They want to feel like they are interacting with real people and those people will act differently enough that your whole experience is different in replays.
this makes me think of a few indie games I've played where a large amount of effort is put into "post-game" content, which can sometimes feel like a whole game on top of the game. I understand why this would be monetarily infeasible for the exact same reasons that you mentioned in this video, but I'm curious to know what your thoughts are on post-game content generally from a design perspective; what do you feel is important to consider (besides monetary and time resources) when deciding whether a game should have a definite end and that's it, a definite end but some amount of post-game content, or open-ended where the player makes their own goal? sorry if this ends up coming across as many questions at once, and thanks for this interesting video as always!
I don't think you necessarily need that much more content added to the game in regards to assets, or voice acting. Maybe in performance capture if your game uses that. Definitely in story (as in: written text). You probably would if you wanted something epic and bombastic, but if it's just in terms of approaches to get somewhere or somewhere else...
But on procedural generation... That could be cool, although I think it would still add a lot in development costs compared to a "normal" game. I kind of would like to see a game where spoken dialog is also generated. As long as the voice actors who quite literally own their voices are compensated, I think it's fine. They did that with Susan Bennett and Siri...
Starfield is a great example of the opposite of what you said.
Its planets and POIs are procedurally generated copypasted and boring, while the game also has very rigid quests and basically nothing worthwhile you can miss.
I think Light No Fire is attempting to be the game you're describing. We'll see if it can deliver.
Comment and a question
When I think of content as a reward I think of content that rewards general actions and keeps them going for the rest of the game.
This is often done through cutscenes, and this philosophy is what Chris Seavor did for Conker's Bad Fur Day, and I used the idea for my game that I just released.
You see, while I like story in a game, I'm not a big RPG player, and don't typically play games to get invested as a part of a story like one does with a TTRPG, like being an actual character that I created, and I noticed most of the games you've made/like have that as a key part of it. What's your feelings on more linear games, like Half-Life, that treat the whole experience as closer to watching a film? As in: You play the game, typically get what you need from one playthrough, and then the experience is done and it may or may not be super replayable.
Thanks so much, I really enjoy hearing your thoughts on the channel!
This explains to me the difference between Morrowind and Skyrim. Morrowind, you could only become guildmaster of one guild. Skyrim, you can be leader of everything at the same time.
Morrowind being cheaper makes more sense to have limited content for each character. Skyrim was expensive, probably couldn't sell having gated content
Something I notice as a player, is that games that offer bigger pieces of content per choice, tend to offer less choices (duh!). I see an act of making a choice to be THE gameplay feature of an cRPG, so I prefer games that offer a lot of choices that react with smaller variables, over games that offer fewer big choices of which consequences we play through for a longer period of time.
That’s one of the reasons I prefer Pillars over Tyranny - while I thought initial set up of Tyranny was really cool, I felt like as player I had 4 (?) linear progression paths I could choose for the majority of the game. I just found it less rewarding than a feel constant choice and effect of PoEs. I prefer to make my way through a quest in a unique way, rather than have smaller in scope unique quest… though I think ideally a game could utilise both effectively.
The procedural missions in Assassins Creed Oddysey were the worst part of the game. Meaningless short fetch or kill quests with no consequences, story development or character. I fear that the push for more and more content combined with developments in procedural generation is going to lead us down a path of long, tedious, soul-less games.
It's very difficult to get a publisher to pay for content that X percent will never see. Right off the bat 20% of people probably don't spend more than the first level on a game. And the more branching you have you can get into the single digit percentage who even see it. I'm not saying it's impossible it's just hard to have a publisher with that kind of vision. Posting before even watching because i guarantee this is the answer.
I'm not a fan of procedural generation. It can be good in small doses ( like for by design endless "bounty board" type quests ), but as a basis for player experience, it ( at least so far, maaaaybe it be better in future ) always ends either souless, repetetive or both.
So cost is definitely going to be an issue...
Except an indi dev made Baldur's Gate 3. Larian wasn't exactly floating in money, and they made one of the most expansive games, with HUGE swaths of content locked behind player agency and choice. If an Indi dev, without the cash to drop a AAA studio would have can do it, I don't really see cost as an excuse in modern gaming.
The existence of an opportunity cost is what makes choices interesting. I want content I won't see if I only play once. I want to see how my digital little friends act when they become my digital little enemies because this run I'll play different
Exactly, it's like BG3. And they did it despite the cost, so I don't see why other devs can't even make half the game BG3 is.
@@shawnwolf5961 Now imagine what could they have made if they focused on a linear story alone.
@@yourstruly5013 What do I need to imagine? They made a masterpiece that focuses on what makes DnD what it is. That is what they needed to do. I wouldn't want a linear BG3 game, because that is not what DnD is.
@@yourstruly5013 like mass effect 3?
@@yourstruly5013 like Mass Effect 3?
FromSoft loves hiding 30% of their game for people to never stumble on.